₦airaland Forum

An Ikeja High Court on Tuesday remanded a staff of Union Bank Plc, Danasabe Ibrahim, and three others in prison, for allegedly defrauding the bank of N2.05 billion.
The 47-year-old banker was arraigned alongside Salihu Mahmoud, 34; Friday Isaiah, 33; and Samuel Azaaior, 30, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo, ordered that the accused persons be remanded in Kirikiri Prison after the arraignment.
They are to remain in prison, pending the hearing of their bail applications fixed for November 26.
Mr. Ibrahim gave his address as Union Bank Plc, Jos Market Branch in Plateau; while Mr. Mahmoud lives at No. 339, Borno Way, Alagomeji, Yaba, Lagos.
Messrs Isaiah and Azaaior live at Fuduna and Rukabu areas of Jos, respectively.
The accused persons are facing a three-count charge of conspiracy to defraud, unauthorised access to computer and unauthorised modification of computer data.
The EFCC Counsel, Kayode Oni, alleged that the accused persons had conspired with others (still at large) to commit the offences on January 9.
Mr. Oni alleged that they had fraudulently transferred N2.05 billion from the General Ledger Account of the Jos Branch of Union Bank by hacking into the bank’s data base, known as Flexcube.
He also alleged that the money was transferred to Union Bank Plc accounts of Gona Bureau de Change and Dankawa Bureau de Change, domiciled in Marina and Moloney Street, Lagos.
According to him, other accounts credited with the money are Godswill Great Commodity Services, domiciled in Union Bank, Akure and ZHG Services Ltd., Abuja Branch.
Mr. Oni said their offences contravened Sections 323, 385 and 387 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.
Conspiracy to defraud is punishable with a minimum of seven years imprisonment, if the accused are convicted.
The four accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charges.

http://premiumtimesng.com/news/149932-banker-three-others-docked-allegedly-defrauding-bank-n2-billion.html

Bodies of flash flood victims lie on the ground as villagers look for their missing relatives after Typhoon, Philippines

Dallas Zoo officials said the lions had roughhoused before, but they'd never been violent with each other.

A female lion was named Johari and recently turned 5.

Officials at a zoo in the US state of Texas are investigating why a male lion attacked and killed a lioness in full view of visitors.

The male seized five-year-old Johari by the neck on Sunday at the Dallas Zoo - an autopsy found she died from neck wounds and haemorrhaging.

Zoo officials said the lions had lived together peacefully for years.

They said they had no idea why the male had turned on Johari, but that they have no plans to euthanize him.

Video taken by a zoo visitor showed the apparently calm male lion with its jaws clamped around the female's neck.

Continue reading the main story
“
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In my 35 years as a veterinarian in zoos, I've never seen this happen”

Lynn Kramer
Dallas Zoo
"Everyone thought they were playing at first but then they could see that she was struggling," witness Jim Harvey told local news station WFAA.

'Very rare occurrence'
Security personnel closed the exhibit to the public and the male was removed.

The remaining four lions appeared unaffected by the incident, said officials.

"Johari was a remarkable animal, as are all of our lions" said Lynn Kramer, vice-president of animal operations and welfare at the zoo, in a statement.

"This is a very rare and unfortunate occurrence. In my 35 years as a veterinarian in zoos, I've never seen this happen."

The statement said Johari, known as Jo-Jo, was a staff favourite who was "sweet and loving with her sisters, and often could be found grooming them".

Mr Kramer told WFAA that male lions do sometimes kill other males in the wild, and sometimes cubs, but that attacking a female was extremely rare.

The chances of such an attack happening again were "very remote", said Mr Kramer.

However, the zoo has said it will keep its two males lion apart from the surviving two female while they try to establish what happened, and would "absolutely not" euthanize the killer.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24997004

A Florida man acquitted of murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager has been arrested on charges he pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend.

George Zimmerman, 30, has been jailed in Seminole County, Florida.

Mr Zimmerman was charged with felony aggravated assault, battery, domestic violence and criminal mischief, a sheriff's office spokesman said.

In July, a jury cleared Mr Zimmerman of the February 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, 17.

Since then, Mr Zimmerman has had other brushes with police, including an incident in October when he was briefly detained following a domestic disturbance at the home of his estranged wife, Shellie.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Seminole County sheriff's department said Mr Zimmerman was arrested on Monday morning and confined to a single-person 64 sq ft (6 sq metre) cell - standard treatment for "high-profile" defendants.

About 12:30 local time (17:30 GMT), sheriff's deputies responded to an emergency call at a house in Apopka, Florida.

Mr Zimmerman's girlfriend said they had argued, and he had broken a glass table in the living room, then retrieved a shotgun and pointed it at her. He then pushed her out the front door and barricaded himself inside, police said.

She was not injured, police said.

The sheriff's office spokesman said investigators believed Mr Zimmerman and his girlfriend had lived together since August and had been arguing about breaking up.

He said Mr Zimmerman was not armed when police arrived and did not resist arrest.

Mr Zimmerman's acquittal of second-degree murder over the killing of Martin sparked a fierce debate about racial profiling and gun culture in the US.

Mr Zimmerman shot dead the teenager, who was unarmed and walking at night toward his father's house. He said the boy had attacked him.

Following the verdict, protest marches were staged across the US including San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington and Atlanta.

US President Barack Obama said the incident was a "tragedy" which should prompt national soul-searching.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-24995459

Scientist should find a way of dislodging this super typhoons with a nuclear bomb before it hits the land... *wierd thought*

The death toll and material damage estimates are expected to rise sharply as rescue workers and soldiers reach areas cut off by the massive storm.

Haiyan moved towards Vietnam after battering the Philippines on Friday

The dead lie in floodwaters after the typhoon devastated the city of Tacloban. On Saturday, Philippine troops began to retrieve bodies strewn in areas devastated by the typhoon.

A resident passes victims' bodies on the street in Tacloban, a city in Leyte province.

A woman mourns in front of her husband's dead body in a street of Tacloban.

The storm approaches the Philippines in this satellite image taken November 7 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. With sustained winds of 315 kph (195 mph) and gusts as strong as 380 kph (235 mph), Haiyan's wind strength makes it equivalent to an exceptionally strong Category 5 hurricane.

Bodies of victims lie along a road in Tacloban.

People cover their noses to block the smell of bodies in Tacloban.

A body lies amid the devastation in Tacloban.

People ride past destruction in the coastal city of Tacloban. Many badly hit cities and islands were cut off, making it difficult to estimate the number of casualties early on.

U.S. military personnel load relief goods for victims of Typhoon Haiyan at a military base in Manila on November 11.

Aerial photo shows houses flattened by Typhoon Haiyan in the town of Guiuan in Samar province, central Philippines on November 11.

One of the most powerful storms recorded killed at least 10,000 people in the central Philippines, a senior police official said on Sunday, with huge waves sweeping away entire coastal villages and devastating the region's main city.

Super typhoon Haiyan destroyed about 70 to 80 percent of the area in its path as it tore through Leyte province on Friday, said chief superintendent Elmer Soria, a regional police director.

Most of the deaths appear to have been caused by surging sea water strewn with debris that many described as similar to a tsunami, leveling houses and drowning hundreds of people in one of the worst natural disasters to hit the typhoon-prone Southeast Asian nation.

The national government and disaster agency have not confirmed the latest estimate of deaths, a sharp increase from initial estimates on Saturday of at least 1,000 killed.

"We had a meeting last night with the governor and the other officials. The governor said, based on their estimate, 10,000 died," Soria told Reuters. "The devastation is so big."

Witnesses and officials described chaotic scenes in Leyte's capital, Tacloban, a coastal city of 220,000 about 580 km (360 miles) southeast of Manila, with hundreds of bodies piled on the sides of roads and pinned under wrecked houses.

The city and nearby villages as far as one kilometer from shore were flooded by the storm surge, leaving floating bodies and roads choked with debris from fallen trees, tangled power lines and flattened homes. TV footage showed children clinging to rooftops for their lives.

Many internet users urged prayers for survivors in the largely Roman Catholic nation on social media sites such as Twitter.

"From a helicopter, you can see the extent of devastation. From the shore and moving a kilometer inland, there are no structures standing. It was like a tsunami," said Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas, who had been in Tacloban since before the typhoon struck the city.

"I don't know how to describe what I saw. It's horrific."

Mila Ward, an Australian citizen and Filipino by birth who was in Leyte on vacation visiting her family, said she saw hundreds of bodies on the streets.

"They were covered with blankets, plastic. There were children and women," she said.

Six people were killed and dozens wounded during heavy winds and storms in central Vietnam as Haiyan approached the coast, state media reported, even though it had weakened substantially since hitting the Philippines with winds gusts of up to 275 kph (170 mph).

LOOTERS TAKE WHAT THEY CAN

Vietnam authorities have moved 883,000 people in 11 central provinces to safe zones, according to the government's website. Despite weakening, the storm is likely to cause heavy rains, flooding, strong winds and mudslides as it makes its way north in the South China Sea.

Looters rampaged through several stores in Tacloban, witnesses said, taking whatever they could find as rescuers' efforts to deliver food and water were hampered by severed roads and communications.

"They are taking everything, even appliances like TV sets. These will be traded later on for food," said Tecson John Lim, the Tacloban city administrator.

"We don't have enough manpower. We have 2,000 employees but only about 100 are reporting for work. Everyone is attending to their families."

Lim said city officials had so far only collected 300-400 bodies, but believed the death toll in the city alone could be 10,000.

International aid agencies said relief efforts in the Philippines are stretched thin after a 7.2 magnitude quake in central Bohol province last month and displacement caused by a conflict with Muslim rebels in southern Zamboanga province.

The World Food Programme said it was airlifting 40 tons of high energy biscuits, enough to feed 120,000 people for a day, as well as emergency supplies and telecommunications equipment.

Tacloban city airport was all but destroyed as seawaters swept through the city, shattering the glass of the airport tower, leveling the terminal and overturning nearby vehicles.

A Reuters reporter saw five bodies inside a chapel near the airport, placed on pews.

Airport manager Efren Nagrama, 47, said water levels rose up to four meters (13 feet).

"It was like a tsunami. We escaped through the windows and I held on to a pole for about an hour as rain, seawater and wind swept through the airport," he said. "Some of my staff survived by clinging to trees. I prayed hard all throughout until the water subsided."

The airport in the hard-hit province of Leyte was "washed out" and only military cargo planes have been able to land on the runway, said Energy Secretary Jericho Petilla, a former governor of the eastern province.

"We don't have an airport there now," he told a Manila radio interview. "Sometimes I don't know what we will do. The damage is overwhelming."

"There are a lot of dead bodies. We haven't counted them yet. We are too busy to count," Red Cross chairman Richard Gordon said on Saturday. "We are managing the dead bodies, we don't want them scattered there."

Meanwhile, more than 450,000 military personnel have been mobilized in Vietnam, which was bracing itself for the arrival of Typhoon Haiyan on Sunday.

Thousands of boats and rescue vehicles were being put on standby, mainly in central provinces, newspaper Tuoi Tre reported Saturday.

Some 20,000 families were being evacuated in several districts in Da Nang city, with the operation expected to end by 7 p.m. (1200 GMT). More than 200,000 people were being moved out of nearby Quang Ngai province.

All schools in Quang Nam and Binh Dinh provinces have been closed, the newspaper said.

"This is the strongest typhoon in history over the East Sea," said Bui Minh Tang, director of the Central Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting Center.

"It can be compared with other strongest storms on the earth such as typhoons Andrew and Katrina in the U.S., and typhoon Nargis in Myanmar," Tuoi Tre quoted the official as saying.

Caroline Mills, a British travel writer who lives near Hoi An a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a popular tourism destination in Quang Nam province said evacuations had already started in her village.

"Most of our village has nowhere to go, so will stay," she said.

"The government has opened some schools for villagers with nowhere else to go to take shelter. They have also told everyone that they only need to go away for one night."

Haiyan is expected to make landfall in the central provinces of Vietnam early Sunday as a category 1 or 2 typhoon, according to the United Nation's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. It is expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm on Sunday morning.

The storm entered the South China Sea after crossing the Philippines.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-typhoon-philippines-20131109,0,3679286.story

The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related Offences Commission, ICPC, said it has broken the ring of land racketeers in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The agency said it seized 61 houses, plots of land and several bank accounts belonging to a top official of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSDC, an agency whose many officials were involved in the fraud.
The Chairman of the Commission, Ekpo Nta, told the House of Representatives Ad-Hoc Committee probing alleged fraud in the land swap, allocations and racketeering in the Nigerian capital that the seizures included 45 plots of land at different locations within Abuja, a duplex, and several bank accounts used by the syndicate for the illegal transactions.
Mr. Nta said the 61 houses confiscated from the civil defense official consisted of 40 Nos. three bedroom flats; 20Nos. two bedroom flats and a duplex, adding that the Commission wrote officially to the appropriate government land authorities to verify the status of the seized property and publication made in national dailies to warn members of the public to avoid their falling victims of the illegal deals.
The Chairman said the agency had embarked on the investigation following a formal complaint from the Commandant General of the NSCDC,
Ade Abolurin, who demanded for an investigation into allegations that some officials of the Corps were involved in illegal land sales to unsuspecting members of the Public in the name of the agency under a non-existing Housing Estate Scheme in Abuja and Nassarawa State.
Following the report, a special squad constituted by the commission was immediately directed to unravel the identities of the perpetrators.
“In the course of the investigations, we established that six different companies were used in the scam,” the Chairman of the anti-graft agency said.
”We froze the bank accounts of certain officers and the companies used. We seized several properties, including 61 houses, 45 plots of land and a duplex traced to some of the officers.
“Interestingly, the 61 houses made up of 40 units of three bedroom flats, 20 units of two-bedroom flats and a duplex were seized from a single officer.”
The ICPC boss said a company, Danime Nigeria Limited, through which the NSCDC officials carried out the illegal deals, was not among the six other companies that were investigated, promising to commence another round of investigation on it based on the new information.
He stated that all the interrogated officers had been released on administrative bail, except one who was on the run, adding that investigation had revealed that the affected officers used the NSCD’s Co-operative Society to swindle the members of the public who thought it was a genuine transaction since it involved the name of the Corps.
The transactions were said to have taken place within the premises of the FCT Command of the Corps located at Gudu district, with the officers always wearing NSDC uniform during such illegal transactions to convince their victims of the genuineness of the transactions.
On whether the NSDC as an organization was culpable in the scam, the Chairman said investigations so far showed that the its Commandant General knew nothing about the deal until it got wind of the development, which he promptly reported to the ICPC for an independent investigation.
On possible compensation for the 186 victims of the scam, the ICPC Chairman said that was beyond the powers of the Commission to decide, pointing out that the final decision rested on the court.
“Ours is to arrest, investigate and prosecute. But as we speak, we have established abuse of office against some of the officers investigated. It is the court that will now decide their fate. But the law recognizes the interest of procurer,” he said.

http://premiumtimesng.com/news/149260-abuja-land-fraud-icpc-seizes-61-houses-plots-one-civil-defence-official.html

The unmanned SR-72 will use an engine that combines a turbine and a ramjet to reach its top speed of Mach 6 - about 3,600mph (5,800km/h).

Like its predecessor, the SR-72 will be designed for high-altitude surveillance but might also be fitted with weapons to strike targets.

Lockheed said the aircraft should be operational by 2030.

Jet engines
The SR-72 is being developed at Lockheed Martin's Skunk Works R& centre in California that designed and built the original Blackbird.

That aircraft first flew in 1964 and was a mainstay of US Air Force spying and surveillance work until 1998. It typically flew at altitudes of 24,000m (80,000ft) and could reach speeds of Mach 3.

In a blogpost about the SR-72, Lockheed Martin said the aircraft would operate at similar altitudes but would fly far faster. At Mach 6 the plane could travel the 3,500 miles (5,500km) from New York to London in less than an hour.

While spy satellites can photograph enemy territory, the relatively long time it takes for them to be moved to a new orbit so they pass over a target can limit their usefulness.

By contrast, wrote Lockheed Martin, the SR-72 "would be so fast, an adversary would have no time to react or hide".

For the SR-72, Lockheed Martin is drawing on work done on the Falcon HTV-2 hypersonic technology vehicle. This is a test-bed for the futuristic technologies needed to support safe hypersonic flight and cope with the extreme conditions encountered by any object flying at such a speed.

For instance, on one test flight of the HTV-2, the aircraft hit a top speed of Mach 20 and its flight surfaces reached 1,927C (3,500F).

To reach Mach 6, the SR-72 will use an engine that acts like a normal jet turbine until speeds of Mach 3 are reached but which then operates like a ramjet to accelerate beyond that.

"Speed is the next aviation advancement to counter emerging threats in the next several decades," said Brad Leland, Lockheed Martin's hypersonic programme manager on the blog. "The technology would be a game-changer in theatre, similar to how stealth is changing the battlespace today

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24803511

The governor’s spokesperson confirmed the death.
The Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly, Haruna Tsokwa, is dead.
Mr. Tsokwa’s age is unknown at this time.
He died of an undisclosed ailment this morning at the Federal Medical Centre, Jalingo, the Taraba state capital.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that Mr. Tsokwa took ill last Thursday and was rushed to hospital.
Kefas Sule, spokesperson Acting Governor Garba Umar confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that Mr. Tsokwa had passed on.
“He died this morning, after just a bried illness,” he said.
Mr. Sule however declined to provide further details, saying the government would await the outcome of reports from the speakers’ doctors before making any further pronouncement on the matter.
There were speculations by some of the late speaker’s supporters that Mr. Tsokwa was poisoned, but they could not substantiate the claim. PREMIUM TIMES could also not independently verify the claim.
The late speaker had been a staunch supporter of the Deputy Governor, who is also the acting governor, Umar Garba in the ongoing battle for the control of the state.
He escaped unhurt but some policemen in his convoy sustained various degrees of gunshot wounds during an exchange of fire between them and their attackers.
Mr. Tsokwa attended Federal University of Technology, Yola, and Government Secondary School, Ibbi, for his university and secondary education.
More details later…


http://premiumtimesng.com/news/147765-breaking-taraba-speaker-confirmed-dead.html

Where is Shehu Sani?

The leader of the Islamic sect, the Taliban, Hakimullah Masuud has been killed in a drone strike

details later.

Source: BBC.COM.

Rescue workers in Niger say they have found the bodies of 92 people who died of thirst after their vehicles broke down as they tried to cross the Sahara.

Rescue worker Almoustapha Alhacen said the corpses were in a severe state of decomposition and had been partly eaten, probably by jackals.

Those found are thought to be migrant workers and their families. Most were women and children.

Niger lies on a major migrant route between sub-Saharan Africa and Europe.

But among those who make it across the desert, many end up working in North African countries.

'It was horrible'
According to Mr Alhacen, one of the vehicles that the migrants were travelling in broke down some time after they left Arlit at the end of September or beginning of October.

Security officials said the second vehicle broke down as it was on its way back to Arlit to get spare parts.

It appears that some of the group set out on foot, including up to 10 people who made it back to Arlit and raised the alarm, he said.

It was reported on Monday that five bodies had been found.

On Wednesday, volunteers and soldiers working in searing heat found other corpses about 10km (six miles) from the Algerian border.

Mr Alhacen told the BBC's Hausa service the bodies of 52 children, 33 women and seven men had since been buried.

He said that it was most likely that the people were from Niger, judging by their dress and how the women's hair was braided.

Korans and tablets used by children at madrassas [Islamic school] were found amongst the belongings, said Mr Alhacen.

Speaking from Arlit, a centre for uranium mining north of Agadez, Mr Alhacen said he had experienced the worst day of his life when he found the bodies.

"The corpses were decomposed; it was horrible," he said.

Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

My guess is that the children were madrassa [Islamic school] children, being taken to Algeria to work”

Almoustapha Alhacen
Rescue worker
"We found bodies across a wide area. We had no idea what to expect because we didn't know how many people had been in the vehicles."

They were given Muslim burials where they were found, Mr Alhacen said.

''What was shocking was that they were small. There was a dead woman holding her baby," he added.

Given that so many of those found were teenagers, Mr Alhacen said it was possible they were on their way to low-paid jobs in neighbouring Algeria.

"My guess is that the children were madrassa children, being taken to Algeria to work. That is the only explanation that I and others can find for such a large number of children having travelled together,'' Mr Alhacen said.

About 80,000 migrants cross the Sahara desert through Niger, according to John Ging, director of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

"They are basically economic migrants. They are in search of work. They are so impoverished that they have to make these hazardous journeys," he told the BBC's Newsday programme.

Niger is one of the world's poorest countries and frequently suffers from drought and food crises.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24753100

A South African man found guilty of the rape and brutal murder of a 17-year-old girl has been sentenced to two life terms in prison by a court near Cape Town.

State prosecutors had requested this sentence - without parole - for 21-year-old Johannes Kana.

Anene Booysen died in February, hours after she was mutilated in a case that caused national outrage.

South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.

'Shocking and inhumane'
The BBC's Nomsa Maseko at the court in Swellendam, 220km (136 miles) from Cape Town, says Kana's uncle clapped his hands and laughed as the judge announced the sentence.

"This is a joke," he said, adding that the system was unjust.

Many of those attending the trial feel justice has been served, our correspondent says.

But some in the community have raised questions about whether Kana was the only person involved in the attack as Ms Booysen told police before she died that there were several assailants, our reporter says.

She was left for dead at a construction site near her house in Bredasdorp and later died in a Cape Town hospital after she had been raped and disembowelled.

At the time President Jacob Zuma described the attack as "shocking, cruel and most inhumane".

He called for courts to impose the "harshest sentences" for sexual crimes.

During the trial, doctors who treated Ms Booysen described her horrific injuries - one said they were the worst injuries she had ever seen.

Just before she died, she said in hospital that five or six men had been involved in the attack.

But state prosecutors say that at the time she was intoxicated, in pain and under heavy medication so she may have been confused.

Three suspects were initially arrested but only Kana stood trial.

He confessed to raping Ms Booysen but denied killing her.

Meanwhile, charges against four of five men accused of kidnapping, raping and killing two young girls in Diepsloot, a shanty town north of Johannesburg, were withdrawn at the Pretoria Magistrate's Court on Friday.

The state prosecutor said evidence showed the men were not in Diepsloot at the time of the crime last month.

A fifth man remains in custody and the case was postponed until 27 November to allow for further investigation.

Last year, South African police figures show that 64,000 incidents of rape were reported last year.

Police say that a child is raped every three minutes in the country.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24768817

.

The dark strip in the center indicates the best locations for viewing the eclipse. Here, the Moon moves centrally in front of the Sun.

The eclipse is also visible in the areas that are shaded red, but less of the Sun's disk is obscured. The fainter the red shading the less of the Sun's disk is covered during the eclipse.

Where to see the eclipse
Continents seeing at least a partial eclipse:
Parts of Europe
Parts of Asia
Africa
Parts of North America
Parts of South America
Pacific
Atlantic
Indian Ocean
Total eclipse visible in...
Locations near the shadow's path:

Gulu, Uganda
Partial eclipse visible in...
Hamilton, Bermuda
New York, New York, U.S.A.
Freetown, Sierra Leone
Monrovia, Liberia
Accra, Ghana
Lagos, Nigeria
São Tomé, Sao Tome and Principe
Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Port-Gentil, Gabon
Libreville, Gabon
Yaoundé, Cameroon
Brazzaville, Congo
Kinshasa, Congo Dem.Rep.
Bangui, Central African Republic
Juba, South Sudan
Kigali, Rwanda
Kampala, Uganda
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Nairobi, Kenya
Mogadishu, Somalia

http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2013-november-3

The new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) has suffered setback as one of its major sponsors, Niger State governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu, says he is pulling out because he was no longer comfortable with the group.
A source close to the governor told our correspondent yesterday that his principal opted to pull out of the group quietly to avoid raising dust. He said Governor Aliyu is backing down to save his political career and ease his bid to anoint a successor with the least opposition from the party.
“His Excellency is not comfortable with the direction the new PDP is taking especially in his state where any tiny slip would deprive him of the control of the party’s political machinery. He would be required to set up a new party structure and leave the formidable structure the PDP already has in place for others to use,” the source said.
Governor Aliyu, he said, became worried over the way in no time his predecessor Abulkadir Kure and Prof. Jerry Gana placed themselves in strategic positions to take over the PDP structure in the state.
The governor’s volte face, it was learnt, was also as a result of pressure from friends and political associates who have been asking him to return to the PDP, promising to ensure that the President supports him in the choice of a successor.
The source said since Governor Aliyu joined the group of seven governors to form the nPDP, he had received three powerful emissaries from the Presidency and the PDP, all pleading with him to disown the group and return to the Bamanga Tukur led PDP.
The source hinted that one of the delegations was led by the PDP Board of Trustees chairman, Tony Anenih; another by High Chief Raymond Dokpesi and yet another by Ben Bruce.
“They all pleaded with him to return to the PDP saying as a doctorate degree holder, he should view things differently from his other colleagues in the new PDP,” the source said.
For some time the Niger State governor has been withdrawing from the activities of the G-7 governors and was conspicuously absent at the meeting of the governors on Sunday though he was in the country.
When contacted Press Secretary to the Niger governor Danladi Ndayebo, failed to confirm or deny the story, but said whatever problem that exists within the new PDP is an internal one and that efforts are being made towards reconciling all members.
Chairman of the new PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje did not pick his call when our correspondent tried to reach him and did not reply a text message sent to him seeking his comment on the development.
National publicity secretary of the new PDP Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, also could not be reached as his lines were not available. National publicity secretary of the PDP Chief Olisa Metuh could also not be reached for his comment as his lines were also not available.
The new PDP was formed by seven serving PDP governors who came to be referred to as the G-7. They are the Kano State governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Jigawa State governor Sule Lamido, Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako, Sokoto State Governor Aliyu Wamakko, Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed, Rivers State Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Niger State Governor Babangida Aliyu.
The group’s problem with the PDP came to the open when the seven governors and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar staged a walk-out at the August 31 special convention of the party in Abuja in which many members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) that resigned were re-elected into office.
Gov. Aliyu had been part of the meeting of the G-7 with President Goodluck Jonathan and other leaders of the party who had tabled a number of demands before the President as a precondition for reconciliation with the party’s leadership.
None of the demands which include the removal of the national chairman Bamanga Tukur is seen to have been made as the meetings have not been conclusive. The last one was put off due to demands by the nPDP leadership for a postponement to allow its members perform the Muslim annual Hajj.

source: http://dailytrust.info/index.php/top-stories/8723-gov-aliyu-pulls-out-of-new-pdp