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chemashie: How serious are you on this? I asked the question cos u made me source for PKS sometime only for you to back out in d last minute. I have a reliable partner in benue who can do this.
If you are serious call 08034018955, if not, don‘t bother @ all.

thanks for your interest, however i neva entered into agreements with you on pks, i only made enquiries and your price ws not competitive too. Pks from port Harcourt Cost less than yours, and the transport to portharcourt port was also cheaper than your own.
I only need agents based in Benue state only not partners.
Thanks

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The decision to send troops to Mali is a welcome development. The situation in Northern Mali must be resolved quickly and militarily. The islamist in Mali must be defeated in a brutal and bloody way to serves as an example to Boko Haram and their cohorts who profits through violence.

Militant islam must not be allowed to have stronghold in any part of West Africa as it threatens regional peace and development.

We must support ECOWAS to end the reign of terror and impunity in Mali for the good of everyone.

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Suddenly if you loved Nigeria and wanted the unity of the Country, you would be a suspect as one of those looking for money to steal. Many of us have never stole a kobo, held any political office or benefited from government contract and have no intention of getting into any of those unscrupulous businesses. Yet those that are calling for the disintegration by their grotesque actions and deeds have more to lose when this dying patient on its last breath finally dies.


Business must play their part to rescue the Country. There is no other market as big as Nigeria in Africa where these agitators of breakup can sell their cattle, their backyard oil they farm, sell nuts, gari, cocoa or coal. The population of Nigeria has not even been harnessed to half of its potential compared to China or USA. Yet we divide ourselves into mini states trying to create independence. If you think foreign visa is hard to get, wait until our hatred breaks up Nigeria.

There has never been a threat to the unity of Nigeria since the civil war as we have today with Boko Haram that is destroying the North and bent on breaking the Country. What is surprising is how we have survived so far after the civil war, civil unrest in Niger Delta and self-destructive force of foreign influence. Some years ago it was impunity that gave us home grown Operation-Wet-E. It eventually led to military takeover to restore hope and cleanse. We are yet to recover.

It is difficult to point to one catalyst as the final blow that will catapult the Country into pieces. It could be the rate money is being stolen voraciously, Boko Haram, MEND or a revolt against all these. The Country will just stop dead like a big heart attack. No country that anyone can imagine has taken so much from its citizens and still survives. It has never been this bad, even Abacha was defeated by remote control. Who dare pull the trigger on still “faceless” enemies?

How did we get here? When the creation of states started from the West to Midwest, people were looking forward to opportunity to determine their own destiny. Those that warned us of irreversible downturn then, ironically gained from creation of Mid-West as UPN later won the State. The rolling stone created states in the East and the North and has never stopped. Yet, we are asking for more to be created for looters. We have too many fingers in the honey pot.

Therefore, there should be no surprises that over seventy percent of the Country’s revenue is spent on salaries for administrators. Most educated administrators and savvy business men and women know you do not spend more than fifteen percent on administration. But when every village wants a state and a local council, we should not be surprised that all revenue derived from a single source of foreign income is spent on remuneration, breakup minus accountability.

On top of that are born crooks whose only mission as long as they remain Nigerians is to run the well dry. Gone are the days when only certain people from certain part of the Country can become the head of state. So we would expect the part that has been neglected and cheated out of revenue to be the most prudent leader in history. Obviously, it is not where the leader comes from, all our leaders are born by the same crooks and spend like pappy drunken sailor.

We cannot blame those asking for the breakup, since we see no end in sight to the massive looting in the Country. A country that has no law has no sin. The primary enforcer of our laws is the responsibility of the Police Force. But what we have as police, are being corrupted by those that are expected to lead them. This writer has praised the present Inspector General for now by ending road blocks. But it takes more than one person and one action, it takes a community.

Businesses must also revolt, not just because of lack of infrastructure but because it cost too much to bribe those in power. By the time you think of your profit, how long it takes to get it, what you have to invest in capital and the immediate deposit of bribes into foreign bank accounts, you must be getting tired of the aggravation. It is true that if you can hold your noise, Nigeria is the best place in the world for profit. But for how long before the Country breaks up?

Can you imagine a politician that does not know his right hand from his left demanding ninety or more percent of your first contract as a sign of good faith to get more contracts? There are so many unknown risks involved even in the face of guarantee. You may get caught with shoddy execution of the contract, the politician may be exposed and cabinet or President may change. If you are exposed, the numbers of people you have to bribe are unlimited from probe to court.

The rational of the contract givers, mainly politicians and their cronies, is that - we selected you to implement contracts with whatever is left after you bribed us. So take it or leave it, there are others waiting for their opportunities. If you have no choice, rather than starve to death, you become the manager of their companies or partners in crime. They really prefer foreigners that will make transfer of their loot easier or a Nigerian based outside in case the Country breaks up.

Dangote, Odetola and others, must put bribe takers and givers are on notice that they may be under surveillance camera with marked money if it is in cash; or under the watch of British and American intelligence for electronic transfer. It is getting tough these days to get that money out. But never underestimate looters’ determination; if there is a Nigerian, there is a way. It is getting easier to steal the money from Nigeria, but harder spending it overseas on surveillance.

Never underestimate a Nigerian crook though. It does not make a difference if the money is marked or not, as long as it is good money everything will disappear into the unknown. There are some tactics that may work in other countries that will never work in Nigeria. Even the video can be denied as tampered with. We are talking about our Country where Ibori won all the way to the Supreme Court. If Niger Delta was a country, it would have gone bankrupt.

The leaders of our youths cannot sit idle and blame the generation before them for messing up the Country when Bankole and Lawan were deeply involved in corruption. It was a breath of fresh air to see relatively young men and women as leaders only to be disappointed by their greed surpassing that of their fathers. How can Nigeria unite and grow small and big business within to provide jobs for youths in this culture of corrupt environment?

culled from: http://saharareporters.com/article/breakup-nigeria-and-be-poorer-deadlocked

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Thanks for all your response. I will be getting back to you all. Many thanks

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Geopolitics is the social science theory that analyzes the relationships between politics and geographical territories. It provides an understanding of the links between political power and economic, demographic and geographical factors. When predictions are made about what might happen in foreign affairs, or in the political dynamics of nations at a future time, geopolitics is the primary tool used for such analyses. The suggestion by foreign security agencies that Nigeria could disintegrate by 2015 is based on geopolitical analyses.

Politics in Nigeria is an ethnic and regional affair. In other words, Nigerian politics fits neatly into the geopolitical model. This has always been the case since the first Republic when three regional parties dominated Nigerian politics. Since 1999, a de facto six (6) regional geopolitical structure has defined the political space in Nigeria. Currently, all the major political parties use geopolitical zoning principles to select candidates for elections, and to allocate offices and positions.

In Nigeria’s zero sum political system in which winners-take-all, and patronage flows from the top downwards, the top geopolitical prize is the Presidency.

Geopolitical considerations require that the political actors who represent the political interests of the cleavage centers (the six geopolitical zones) will actively cultivate strategies that assure that they have dominance over the structures of power. The most successful of these strategies - dominant strategies as they are called – will become the major plays that will be used by political cleavage centers as they struggle for power.

The dominant geopolitical strategy of the 4th republic has been the use of ethnic militias to capture power centrally. That strategy has been remarkably successful. It ensured that a Yoruba President emerged in 1999, and led directly to the emergence of a minority Vice President from the South-South region in 2007.
The June 12 struggle was partly a philosophical debate about the role and nature of democracy in Nigeria, and partly a geopolitical struggle for relevance by the Yoruba.

The response of the Babangida and Abacha juntas to the crisis that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections underscored the recognition of the geopolitical implications of that conflict. Abiola’s certain victory would have certainly advanced Nigerian democracy, and it would have been a clear geopolitical boon for the Yoruba. To douse the geopolitical urgency of the June 12 crisis for the Yoruba, Babangida installed Ernest Shonekan, a Yoruba of the same Egba extraction as Abiola, as head of the Interim Transition Government. When Abacha eased out Shonekan’s transition government a few months later, it was Oladipo Diya, another Yoruba man from Abiola’s Ogun State, that he selected as his deputy.

In time, the philosophical debate about democracy and its place in Nigeria, which was initiated by the June 12 crisis, fizzled out but its geopolitical essence was retained. The June 12 movement soon came to be seen increasingly as a Yoruba Struggle. The OPC was formed in 1997, as the June 12 struggle progressively devolved to its geopolitical essence. The emergence of groups like Afenifere and the OPC represented the crystallization of the most extreme geopolitical aspects of the June 12 struggle. It was clear that the Yoruba geopolitical struggle would not cease until the egregious wrongs done to the Yoruba by the annulment of June 12, 1993 were righted by the emergence of a Yoruba man as the legitimate President of Nigeria. As the 1999 transition to democracy dawned, the threat of secession by the Yoruba, and the emergence of the O’dua People’s Congress (OPC) militia as a paramilitary outfit that could give muscle to those separatist aspirations compelled the Northern elite and the major political parties to unanimously agree on the exclusive adoption of Yoruba candidates for the Presidency.

It can be argued that without the OPC and the threat that it posed to the unity of the Nigerian nation, Olusegun Obasanjo could never have become President in 1999.

The North’s attempt at taming the geopolitical implications of a Yoruba Presidency was to opt for a “balanced” South Westerner, who could be used to rule by proxy and relied upon to facilitate the transfer of power to the north. Obasanjo, a Yoruba man whose handling of the 1979 elections had demonstrated his capacity for acting beyond the confines of tribal and regional geopolitics, was a reasonable choice for the North to settle upon.

Within a few months of Obasanjo’s swearing in, it had become crystal clear that the expectation of the Northern elite that they would rule by proxy through Obasanjo had been a huge miscalculation. Obasanjo’s immediate actions in office emasculated the North politically. The sweep of all military officers that had held political office between 1985 and 1999 disproportionally affected the North since that region had held a dominance of power and privilege in the Nigerian military. Obasanjo’s increasing appointment of Northern minorities and Christians to positions typically reserved for “core Northerners” caused the reemergence of rifts between the so called “core North”, minority Northerners, Christian Northerners and the Middle Belt zone. The notion of a monolithic North was increasingly being exposed as a fallacy.

The North was losing out politically and it needed to stem the tide. The response of the Northern political elite was swift. Sectarian separatism via the adoption of political sharia, a limited form of secession, was their tool of choice. In January 2000, Zamfara made the first move towards political Sharia, and by 2002, the twelve (12) Northernmost States in Nigeria had instituted Sharia law in varying degrees. Thousands were killed in the ethnic and sectarian conflicts that ensued. As a geopolitical tool, political sharia worked wonders. Obasanjo’s government took less drastic actions that threatened the North, and the region was ‘carried along’ more by the OBJ regime.

The geopolitical stakes were further raised when the Naaba led, Northern dominated, National Assembly attempted to impeach Obasanjo in 2002/2003 on the pretext of his government’s handling of the onshore-offshore dichotomy issue. What many do not realize was the role that geopolitics also played in preventing Obasanjo’s impeachment. The National Assembly only dropped its plans to impeach Obasanjo and pave the way for Atiku’s takeover of the Presidency when Afenifere under Pa Abraham Adesanya’s leadership threatened to precipitate a constitutional crisis if Obasanjo was removed from office. The behind the scenes maneuverings that took place during this period are worth recounting.

The geopolitical arrangements that followed the 1999 elections allocated the Presidency to the South West, the Vice Presidency to the North East, the Senate Presidency to the South East and the Speakership of the House of Representatives to the North West. When the first speaker of the House, Salisu Buhari was impeached, his deputy, Chibudom Nwuche was passed over for Ghali Naaba, another Northerner, in accordance with the extant geopolitical compromise. A similar scenario played out in the Senate. When Evans Enwerem was impeached, his deputy Haruna Abubakar was passed over, and the South Eastern Senator Chuba Okadigbo became Senate President. Following Okadigbo’s impeachment, another South Eastern Senator Pius Anyim became Senate President. All of these arrangements were extra-constitutional.

Afenifere’s geopolitical threat was simple: if Obasanjo was impeached, the Yoruba would request a special election, limited only to candidates from the Southwest region, to produce Obasanjo’s replacement – in accordance with the geopolitical compromise of 1999, and in line with the precedents that had been set in the Senate and the House of Representatives. The impeachment plot quickly unraveled when it became clear that it could not possibly yield the desired outcome.

By the time of Obasanjo’s departure in 2007, the pendulum of power had swung back to the North. The Traditional geopolitical considerations in Nigeria would have ensured that Yaradua’s deputy would be a person of Igbo extraction. However, between 1999 and 2007, the geopolitical dynamics of Southern Nigeria had been radically altered by the emergence of MEND and other allied South-South militant groups.

The Egbesu emerged as one of several militant youth groups that played key roles during the Ijaw-Itshekiri-Urhobo crisis. The major political actors in the South South region saw the potential that some of these groups offered not just for the harassment and intimidation of opponents, but for enhancing the geopolitical relevance of the South South. Governors like Peter Odili, James Ibori and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha courted, financed and aided these groups. In time, the militancy of the Egbesu and other South South militant groups began to stray beyond the local politics of the South-South States and were more strategically directed towards geopolitical questions of resource control. The end result was that within the eight years from 1999 to 2007, the disparate groups had fused into MEND, and their activities had resulted in the ascendancy of the South South, and in particular the Ijaw nation, as a major center in Nigerian geopolitics. The Niger Delta crisis was essentially a geopolitically induced conflict, and its resolution required the inclusion of the South South in the center stage of Nigerian politics. Without MEND, Goodluck Jonathan would not have been Yaradua’s Vice President. Without Jonathan’s stint as Yaradua’s deputy and his eventual elevation to the Presidency following Yaradua’s death, he would not be President of Nigeria today.

Boko Haram began life in Borno State in 2002 as a religious group that enjoyed the patronage of Governor Ali Modu Sheriff until their parting of ways in 2009. It is on record that Modu Sheriff appointed Alhaji Buju Foi, an influential Boko Haram member and financier as the Borno State Commissioner for Religious Affairs in 2007.

Despite the increasing militancy of the sect in Borno and Yobe States from its establishment in 2002, most Nigerians had never heard of Boko Haram until the events of July 2009 when the Nigerian Security Agencies engaged Boko Haram in a full blown assault in Maiduguri. In that tragic incident the Nigerian State facilitated the extra Judicial killing of hundreds of Boko Haram members. The dead included Muhammad Yusuf, the sect’s leader. The events of July 2009, led to the nationalization of the Boko Haram conflict.

Much like Egbesu and MEND before it, Boko Haram has evolved to become a major geopolitical tool. The Northern political elite have come to see the value of Boko Haram for driving forward their geopolitical strategies for political relevance. In the same way that the OPC and MEND paved the way for Obasanjo and Jonathan to win the Presidency, those who seek to make geopolitical hay out of the Boko Haram crisis except that it will lead to significant political benefits for the North. The not too subtle message is that Nigeria will be made ungovernable if power and privilege does not devolve back to the North.

The silence of Northern political leaders in condemning the actions of Boko Haram is a clear signal of their tacit endorsement of the sect and its destabilizing actions. Again, this is not surprising. For geopolitical reasons, mainstream Yoruba and Ijaw political leaders did not openly condemn the OPC or MEND either. There are however some significant issues with the use of Boko Haram as a geopolitical tool. Unlike MEND and OPC, Boko Haram’s message is not purely geopolitical. The sect is first and foremost a religious fundamentalist organization and that fact makes it ineffective as an effective geopolitical tool.

The North has never lacked the ability to present Presidential candidates on the platform of major parties. It has failed to find a way to guarantee that a Northern Presidential candidate emerges on the platform of the PDP, the only party which despite its many faults can make any claims to being a truly national party, and therefore most likely to produce Nigeria’s President. The Boko Haram crisis is in effect an attempt to influence the politics of the PDP, and through that the political dynamics of the Nigerian nation.

The risk for the North is that the sectarian colorations of Boko Haram will come to frame that region’s geopolitical aspirations. The association of Northern geopolitical aspirations with the random maiming and killing of civilians, the calls for the expulsion of Southerners and Northern Christians is damaging the North politically. Soon, it might make the Presidency of Nigeria all but impossible for a Northerner to attain.

Forcing a Northerner to the Presidential ticket of the PDP is one thing, getting votes from across Nigeria to guarantee that candidate’s electoral victory is another.

Buhari was forced to adopt a Southern Christian running mate to allay concerns that he was a religious fundamentalist. Without the Southern vote, and devoid of Northern Christian support, no candidate can win the Nigerian Presidency. As the Boko Haram crisis spirals forward, Northern Christians and the Middle Belt will be firmly pushed towards a geopolitical reality that will increasingly favor collaboration with the South.
The prognosis for Nigeria is grim. Geopolitical considerations suggest that the Boko Haram crisis will continue until at least 2015. Its effective resolution will not occur until a Northern Presidential candidate emerges on the platform of the PDP and goes on to win the Nigerian Presidency. The prospect that a Northern President will emerge on the platform of the PDP is slim because Goodluck Jonathan wants a second term, and the odds are skewed in favor of the incumbent. The likelihood that a Northern Presidential candidate will receive Southern and Northern Christian support is fading.

Any path to the Presidency that harms Goodluck Jonathan while elevating his Northern deputy to the Presidency has the potential to lead to the immediate disintegration of Nigeria, or at the least the secession of the Niger Delta region. Without the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s political center is unattractive and the status quo will fight another Civil War if necessary to prevent the possibility of the Niger Delta’s exit from Nigeria.

In the meantime, the rapidly evolving nature of the Boko Haram conflict is alarming. Christian Youth in Jos and Kaduna have begun reprisal attacks in response to the actions of Boko Haram. This suggests that the ordinary folks in these communities have come to believe that Boko Haram is indeed a geopolitical tool of the Northern agenda. It also implies that they believe that agenda excludes Northern Christians and Southerners. As the conflict persists through 2015, and the government continues to fail to contain the crisis, the random reprisal attacks will become more organized. Geopolitics will require that the sectarian nature of the Boko Haram crisis will birth a Northern Christian alternative to Boko Haram. This will be driven not so much by the desire for national relevance by Christian Northerners, but as a means for addressing what they will increasingly perceive as an existential threat.

Unless urgent actions are taken by the Government to tackle the Boko Haram crisis, the path to 2015 will be a dangerous one for the Nigerian nation and its people. The stakes for Nigeria are too high. The geopolitical angle to Boko Haram must be immediately defused. The prosecution of Senator Ali Ndume and other political actors so far implicated in the crisis should be swift, public and comprehensive. Vice President Sambo should also publicly address Ndume’s allegation that he (Sambo) was aware of Ndume’s engagements with Boko Haram. The stakes should also be raised for the sponsors of the violence. It takes millions of Naira to source rifles and explosives, support tens of thousands of followers and to coordinate attacks across cities and states. Boko Haram is a city dwelling sect. The Nigerian security agencies must do more to find Boko Haram’s financiers, and to penetrate and neutralize the network. To save Nigeria, Jonathan must remember that his oath is not to the PDP but to the Nigerian people.
culled from:http://saharareporters.com/column/boko-haram-will-damage-north-politically-possibly-disintegrate-nigeria

The recent scale up of violence by the terrorist group Boko Haram portends danger for the stability of the north. The faultline among christians and muslims is clearly now drawn.
The entire scenario is now leading to major crisis situation and genocide is already in the offing.
I call on Northern leaders, elements and clerics to work very hard to redress the situation. The best way we can progress in this situation is to entrench equity, justice and fairness to all.
If nothing is done to redress the evil situation on ground. I foresee a north left behind in all facet and the children yet unborn will say woe betide you the present generation.

The commercial way our churches are being run is not christ like. What baffles me most are the foolish followers that willingly and gullibly pass on thier hard earned money ibn the name of reaping elusive blessings.
Pastors of new generation churches are turning our faith into a mockery. May God judge them accordingly...
Sometimes i ask, what will jesus do if he were here now...?

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OBJ’S moonlight tales
By Eric Osagie (ericosagie@sunnewsonline.com)
Monday, April 09, 2012
I confess: I like him. Chief Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo. I am in love with OBJ, the comedian. Truth is, if he wasn’t a soldier and politician, he would certainly have had a soaring career in the comic business. You can ask those who have encountered him in his elements.They surely can attest to the veracity of the above characterization: OBJ leaves you breathless whenever he is engaged in his antics! But the trouble is: OBJ often overacts; many times finding it difficult to distinguish his audiences and the subject of discourse. Everything must be reduced to a joke at every time on every occasion. That constitutes the hubris of the actor or comic who finds himself overacting and ‘over joking.’

That was what happened last week when the former president decided to treat Nigerians to tales by moonlight, drawing his materials from what happened in broad day light! He told stories that would ordinarily have made us reel in laughter; stories that Ali Baba and other top comedians would have found ingenious. But, instead of laughter, OBJ’s pre-Easter jokes provoked incredulity and outrage in us. He made us wonder what kind of man he was; what kind of man was our president for eight years, and before then, military head of state for three years. He made us begin to doubt if OBJ is a man or spirit or rather if we had not all along been dealing with a phantom. Is this man real? What does he think of us: numbskulls, a people suffering amnesia, delusion or simply, mumu people?

Now, what did OBJ say? Speaking on Network Africa, a Channels TV programme, the former president was asked to shed light on his infamous attempt to subvert the constitution through a dubious third term agenda. Instead of confessing and apologizing to the entire nation for that ill-fated plot to play God, OBJ, like the proverbial Ostrich, chose to deny himself and deny what was obvious. He said he never wanted third term. He never told anybody to pursue third term on his behalf. And if he had truly wanted it, he would have got it anyway because there is nothing he asked God to do for him that He never granted!
Many Nigerians who watched the televised programme and read about it in the newspapers have been asking themselves if they saw or heard aright; if it was truly OBJ talking. How could a man be denying what was so obvious? How do you tell an old man he is telling lies? I am lost for words. Many Nigerians also are, especially those who were in the forefront of the anti-third term battle.

If OBJ never wanted third term, so on whose behest were the promoters fighting? Who would have been the ultimate beneficiary if the plot had sailed through? Who was the unseen hand behind the monstrous funding of the project? How come no one stopped them? How come OBJ never for once dissociated himself and the presidency from the plot? How come it is only when it failed and many years after, OBJ is now telling us he never wanted third term?
So, if OBJ, as he claims, never wanted third term, why did he become so ruthless with opponents and perceived opponents of his third term agenda? Why did he engage in a roforofo fight with his then deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, virtually stripping him off all functions and reducing him to a figure head vice-president?

Can the former president tell his countrymen why he fell out with his erstwhile friend and comrade, Gen.Yakubu Danjuma and why he withdrew his oil licence, OPL 246? In an exclusive interview with Daily Sun, Danjuma had revealed to Nigerians how OBJ wanted his support for the third term and why he declined to be part of the charade. I can still hear his voice as he thundered during that interview held at his Asokoro residence: “ We did not fight the civil war and build this nation for one man. As a matter of fact, what Obasanjo is fighting for is a fourth term, not third. He was head of state in 1979, that was his first term; second term was 1999; third term was 2003. What he wants by attempting to amend the constitution is fourth term. I urge the National Assembly to kick it out when it comes before them.” True to his admonition, the third term bill, masqueraded as constitution amendment, was roundly trounced at the National Assembly.

Is Obasanjo then saying that people like Danjuma didn’t know what they were doing fighting what didn’t exist? And if he never wanted third term, why then was he so crossed with his friend and ally, a man who had assisted him twice to become head of state and president in 1979 and 1999, respectively?
So, he never really wanted third term? What then was the genesis of his trouble with the outspoken former governor of Abia state, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, a man he had once publicly declared ‘action governor?’ Why did he come down so heavily on the man and his business empire before dragging him to the EFCC? Was his major ‘sin’ not because of his unyielding opposition to third term? What happened to Hallmark bank, Southgate bank and Slok Air? Was it not in a desperate bid to clip the wings and break the will power of the promoters of the business concerns because they were opposed to his elongation plot that they were clamped on?

Did the then emperor not instruct the then minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai to find a way of ‘squeezing’ Kalu’s interests in Abuja because the ‘man has become too stubborn’. El-Rufai, a man of strong character, told me he refused to carry out all of Obasanjo’s machinations against Kalu, one of the arrowheads against the sit-tight plot, because it wasn’t the right thing to do.

He never wanted third term? Could the former president tell the world who opened the nation’s vaults for the naira and dollar rain that flooded the National Assembly during the fierce struggle for third term? Who doled out N70m and N50m to senators and rep members respectively? I was in Abuja during that dark era of our history and I personally led a team of reporters to where legislators were struggling with their bags of Ghana -Must -Go in the dead of the night.
Holed in my car, I saw some of our law makers struggling with their loot which we dutifully reported in Daily Sun? So, who was responsible for that show of shame? If OBJ didn’t do it, why didn’t he, as a self-professed anti-corruption crusader, order an inquiry into the acts of perfidy?

....David-West and Jonathan’s church-gate!
When news broke that President Goodluck Jonathan (or rather his Otuoke village, as his spokesman, Reuben Abati says) had admitted receiving a church gift from an Italian construction company, my mind immediately raced to former Petroleum minister, Professor Tam David-West, a social critic and renowned academic.
Once upon a time, West was accused by the military regime of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida of drinking tea and accepting a wristwatch gift from a foreign company which had business dealings with Nigeria. For drinking that expensive tea and accepting a wristwatch gift , a military tribunal was set up to try and sentence him. He promptly bagged a life! The professor spent over 11months in inhuman and degrading conditions in Barma prison Maiduguri and the maximum security prison, Lagos.
The Supreme Court later absolved him of any wrong doing. David-West was cleared of the corruption charges hung on his neck by the Babangida government which wanted to nail him at all cost for reasons best known to it.

Over 20 years later, a sitting president has agreed that he indeed solicited the assistance of a foreign construction company in the construction /renovation (or whatever) of his community church. Contrary to our code of conduct for public officers which forbids the solicitation or acceptance of gifts of any kind from contractors to government, the president and his handlers say they find nothing wrong in the act. How can the donation of a small church be construed as a bribe? A bribe, small or big, is a bribe, holler the opposition. And the matter rages like bush fire in harmattan.

The matter is quite simple: the president erred. It is possible he didn’t think of the consequences of his action when he jokingly asked Gritto to assist in the church project. In this part of the world, a gift or dash is an acceptable way of doing business even though it is patently illegal. Government officials randomly get all sorts of gifts to ‘wet the ground.’ This invariably shoots up the cost of doing business. That’s what is called corruption. Those who donated or renovated the church obviously sought to compromise President Jonathan. Why didn’t they build a church for him when he was not president? How many churches have they built in other parts of the country as part of their corporate social responsibility? Are they now a missionary group or pure business concern?

Let the president have the humility to admit his wrongdoing and apologize to the nation, with a promise never again to engage in such compromising act. That’s more sensible than trying to argue through the criticisms or make light of the matter. A nation is governed by laws not arbitrariness or the whims and caprices of one man no matter his status.

If David-West could be so hounded for an offence he never committed, what do we make of the open ‘confession’ of the president that he actually asked for and got a Church gift? In a country with respect for rule of law and values, the president would today be filled with penitence over his acts of indiscretion and naivety in the Otuoke church-gate, while David-West would be celebrated as an upright public officer who was wrongly accused and punished but vindicated by the highest court in the land! But then, this is Nigeria.

Boko Haram: FG probes sabotage of peace talks
• Kabiru Sokoto to be arraigned
From CHUKS AKUNNA, Abuja
Monday, April 09, 2012
The Federal Government is investigating how Presidency officials leaked to the media details of the activities of the Dr. Datti Ahmed panel set up to negotiate with Boko Haram. The probe comes amidst a disclosure by a high ranking official of the State Security Service (SSS) (names withheld) that the agency is set to arraign the re-arrested alleged mastermind of the 2011 Christmas Day bombing of St. Theresa’s Catholic Church, Madalla, Niger State, Kabiru Umar (alias Kabiru Sokoto).

Ahmed, who is President, Supreme Council for Sharia in Nigeria, had on March 18 withdrawn from the presidential panel hours after some media ran a story that he was involved in peace talks with leader of the sect, Abubakar Shekau.
Ahmed had cited media reports on aspects of his peace talks with Shekau, saying he was no longer comfortable continuing with the talks.

A source in the Presidency told Daily Sun that President Goodluck Jonathan was particularly disturbed by the sabotage of the Ahmed panel. The leakage had been traced to a certain presidential aide said to be related to a media executive, the source added.

Shekau had personally nominated Ahmed and four other Muslim leaders as representatives of the federal government to dialogue with, and had reportedly threatened to pull out if any aspect of the “secret talks” leaked to the media.
“In fact, Sheik Ahmed had listed certain conditions before accepting to serve as the chief mediator. One of the conditions was that the activities of the panel would be top secret, so as to gain the confidence of Shekau, who does not hide his distrust for government,” a source told Daily Sun.

“Once the story leaked, it was certain distrust had set in. Dr. Ahmed had no choice than to quit. The most painful aspect is that the chief suspect is one principal aide we had thought could be trusted considering his age and experience. How wrong!,” he lamented. In a statement announcing his exit, Ahmed said: “This development has embarrassed us very much and has created strong doubts in our minds about the sincerity of the government’s side in our discussion, as the discussion is supposed to be very confidential to achieve any success.

“In view of this unfortunate and unhelpful development, we have no option but to withdraw from these early discussions,” he had added. Security sources told Daily Sun that the SSS had been interogating Kabiru since he was re-arrested on February 10, in Taraba State, after a messy escape from police custody in Madalla a month earlier.
“From all indications, we have finished using (interrogating) him. There is nothing more we think we can get from him. What is left is to produce him in court and this will be in the next few weeks,” the official told Daily Sun.

The official disclosed that the service was taking its time in docking Sokoto to avoid the kind of “embarrassment” the arraignment of Senator Ndume caused the service. “In the Ndume case, it is now obvious we put the cart before the horse. Better put, we jumped the gun. We rushed to the Press a little too early and the embarrasing result is that the man (Ndume) has even applied to the court to quash the charges against him,” he added.

culled from: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2012/apr/09/national-09-04-2012-004.html

Chairman, Poultry Farmers Association of Nigeria, Mr. John Olateru, expresses concern about low egg consumption and illegal importation of frozen chicken, among other issues. He spoke with AKINWALE ABOLUWADE

What are the challenges facing your association?

The challenges we are facing right now are in three folds. The first one is the issue of raw materials that we use as feeds, which constitute over 70 per cent of the composition of the feeds. The raw materials, I am talking about, are maize and soya beans. The second challenge has to do with egg. The low consumption pattern of egg in the country is disturbing. Nigerians are not consuming egg the way we suppose to. The third one is the massive importation of chicken. This is to the detriment of local industry. Those are the three major challenges. And the worse of all, some of the companies that used our eggs before for the manufacturing of baby food have stopped using them. They are now using imported powdered eggs. This is at the expense of local production.

What is responsible for this?

The problem is in two folds. The bulk of it is as a result of inconsistency in government policy. The second is the laxity on the part of government agencies. An example is Customs not doing what they are supposed to do diligently in terms of keeping the borders. In the area of importation, all over the world there is regulation. In advanced world, they look at what the construction patterns are, what the volume of local production is and they use that to decide if at all they need to import just to augment what they produce locally. There is nowhere in the industrialised world that they open up their borders at the expense of local companies. This is what is happening in this country. And, there is the need for enlightenment of the people on the importance of egg consumption on daily basis to our people. The poultry farmers association alone cannot do it because we don’t have the wherewithals; we need the support of government to help us change people’s mindset on the consumption of egg, which is the cheapest source of protein.

You are already complaining about low egg consumption in the country. With the right attitude to egg consumption, does the association have the capacity for local consumption?

We are producing more than is presently required. Initially, we thought that our brothers from the North were the ones consuming the bulk of the eggs being produced because they usually come down to Oyo and other neighbouring states to buy and move up north. People from the North actually buy more than 50 per cent of our total production. But the security challenges in the North leading to the declaration of state of emergency did not help matters. This affects egg transportation across the neighbouring countries through the north because the problem affects the major routes through which eggs are exported. We now realise that egg is transported as far as Central Africa Republic and Mali. So, in terms of local production capacity, we are producing more than enough. People are also pulling out of poultry business because the cost of production is very high. This boils down to the government agencies because if the value chain that the current Minister of

Agriculture is talking about is actually operated the way it was conceived, we believe that maize and soya beans would be available at competitive price and at par with what obtains all over the world. If we can do that the production cost will reduce and a lot of people can be encouraged. Poultry business is lucrative if we can bring the cost of input down by mass production of soya beans and maize. We will be able to bridge arbitrary increases of price of maize and soya beans. At the end of the day, we will have low cost of input. If we can be getting maize at the cost of N40,000 per tonne and we can get soya beans around N55,000 per tone, I can assure you that the cost of producing frozen chicken will be so low that many Nigerians will be able to consume it. A lot of Nigerians are not employed, even if there is going to be a short gap measure within a matter of six months or one year, Nigeria will be a big exporter of eggs and chicken.

Considering our population, what is responsible for low consumption of egg? Is it that people prefer fish and beef to egg?

Our medical doctors are not helping the matter. Unfortunately, they tell the people that once you are 40 and above, you should stay away from protein. This is complete wrong information and we are talking with them now. If you ask a well experienced human nutritionist, he will tell you egg contains everything that human beings need and it is the best source of protein and people are wrongly informed. You cannot compare egg, which contains all the vitamins and protein an individual needs (about 40 grammes of protein per egg) with beef or cow skin. For instance, a piece of cow skin cannot go for less than N50 and that is even more expensive than the cost of an egg. And come to think of it cow skin has zero nutritional value.

Now you can get egg for N30, with this you don’t need to take vitamins drugs. We find out that the doctors are discouraging the people from eating egg because they believe Nigerians don’t do exercise, that is a wrong thing. If people are not exercising, the best thing to do is to encourage them to exercise. If you tell parents not to eat egg anymore at a particular age, how will you convince such parents to make egg available for their children? It is what the parents consume that they give to their children. And if you care to know, egg is very good for the children’s brain formation. The consumption pattern is low in Nigeria and that is wrong. In India today, they have changed their mental reasoning about consumption of egg. Their national government came to their aid through public enlightenment programme. Today, India is the largest producer of egg in the whole world. They were in the 30th position 15 years ago. They have moved up despite the fact that some of their religions were against egg. Now, they know the value of egg and that raised their standard of living as well as health status. We, as an association, don’t have the resources to embark on the egg awareness campaign but the government does. We have appealed to governments at various levels to help. I can tell you that the World Health Organisation recommended that an individual should be having 70 grammes of animal protein per day. In Nigeria, we are consuming less than 14 grammes per day where in one egg you have 40 grammes of animal protein.

You talked about illegal importation of frozen chicken, why is it so difficult to end the illegal trade?

Last year alone, the Republic of Benin imported 130,000 metric tonnes of frozen chicken. From our investigation and the data we are able to get, 90 per cent of that were smuggled into the country. There is no country anywhere in the world that will fold its arms and allow a neighbouring country to be wrecking its economy. The worst thing is that through this illegal deal, they break the cold chain of the chicken. When you break the cold chain, the status of the product is reduced. That is why they use the chemical used in preserving corpses to preserve the frozen chicken. In spite of this, you see some of the chicken already decomposed and our people still buy. Our people don’t know the implication of this. The chemical used in preserving the chicken can cause cancer. Cancer is building gradually and it takes time to develop. Apart from the Customs, NAFDAC is there to monitor activities of illegal importers of products. In the wee hours, you see truckload of frozen chicken being illegally imported into Nigeria from Republic of Benin. They have their major distribution points at Ijora. All the government agencies are pretending as if nothing happens.

I can tell you we can feed our people and help the Federal Government in generating employment. We have the potential. All we need is to do the right thing.

What is the factor that makes maize and soya beans very scarce?

Federal Government is having reservoir all over the country but go in there you will find no maize because there is low production of maize. That is a clear cut indication for you to know that what we are producing is not enough. And when the supply is low while demand is high you know what will happen. The price will go up. The same thing goes for soya beans and in this country, you don’t have any data. No one anywhere can give you the data of total volume of soya beans and maize that we produce. Soya beans and maize are majorly used for livestock feeds and they are also being used by the manufacturing industries. We suggest mass production of maize and soya to cut down the production cost of eggs and chicken.

culled from :http://www.punchng.com/business/agric-economy/northerners-consume-50-of-eggs-produced-in-nigeria-•-some-smugglers-of-frozen-chicken-preserve-them-with-chemical-used-in-preserving-corpses/

Finally, the hundreds of students stranded at the University of Abuja, unable to graduate several years after completing their courses of study, now know their fate. The federal government on Tuesday wielded the big stick against the management of the university when it ordered the immediate suspension of four of its contentious programmes - medicine, veterinary medicine, engineering and agriculture.

Why it took this long for government to respond to the outcry from parents who had invested much in their children without seeing an end result; students who in all innocence saw the courses in the Unified Tertiary Matriculations Examination (UTME) and applied; and concerned stakeholders who have since been crying foul, is something to ponder? Was the government asleep when medical students protested severally and the media was awash with the story? Again, another avenue presented itself through the visitation panels to federal universities, yet government showed no inclination to suspend the programmes when the white paper report was released.

In any case, how are the poor students going to be compensated for the extra years they have put in the university for no fault of theirs but for a poor management decision by the former Vice Chancellor, Professor NuhuYaqub, to establish arbitrarily all four faculties in a day sometime in 2005, without consultation with the National Universities Commission. It was further complicated by the current Vice Chancellor, Professor James Adelabu, who refused to take decisive steps on how to tackle the problem but was always quick at any given opportunity to point out that it was his predecessor’s mistake.

The Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Ahmed Rufa’i, on Tuesday stole the shine from the federal government’s Committee on the Needs Assessment of Nigerian Universities (CNANU) which had just briefed the media that 13 out of the 21 teams sent by the main committee to verify information submitted by vice-chancellors had submitted their preliminary reports. Ironically, it was the preliminary report from the University of Abuja team and to hazard a guess, non-verbal reports from the Chairman of CNANU, Professor Mahmood Yakubu who visited the university, that prompted her to act. Again, why did it have to take this committee to make the scales to fall off her eyes is worth finding out. It could again be because the team was led by none other than her Special Assistant Professor Sagir Abbas.

Prof Ruqayyatu’s reason for suspending the university’s programmes was not any different from what stakeholders, even the NUC which is the regulatory body, had advised at the time the crisis was at its peak in 2009.

Her words: “Consequently, in order to protect the quality of our university education system, Federal Ministry of Education hereby directs that the four programmes: medicine, veterinary medicine, engineering and agriculture medicine, veterinary medicine, engineering and agriculture are suspended forthwith while all new admissions into these programmes remain suspended.”

She went further to direct that, “JAMB and NUC should work out modalities for redistributing the students already admitted into the four programmes to other universities where these programmes have full accreditation. Alternatively, the University of Abuja should absorb the affected students into interrelated degree programmes that have already been accredited in the university.”

It should not be surprising to the university management that this happened even though the vice-chancellor, Professor Adelabu, seemed lackadaisical when the needs assessment committee visited last week. After touring the main campus and the emotions of journalists had risen after meeting eye to eye with the injustice meted out to students, his reply to a simple question, “What is the fate of these students?” couldn’t have been more nonchalant.

“We are putting everything in place so that we can call for accreditation. You cannot give time of graduation when you have buildings under construction,” he said.

It is important to recap what the committee saw which may have put the university management in the bad books of the Federal Government. First, one would expect that University of Abuja, being very close to the seat of power, to be a model for other universities, but this is far from it. Instead, the 22-year-old university is expanding at a snail’s pace to the detriment of its students and the nation.

Or how do you explain the absence of a functional library in a university which ought to be research driven? How do you explain a university without an ICT centre for students? The only computer I saw was in the vice-chancellors office; he had a big desktop on his table. How do you also explain the presence of plastic chairs and tables in a university for students use? Then even with ongoing construction on many of the buildings, the structures are poorly done, according to expert assessment.

In the faculty of engineering where there are 35 lecturers catering for 400 students, some of the students were graduated illegally when the course was yet to be accredited. From what we saw, the course was far from getting the attention of NUC because the workshop is nothing different from what you would find in a poorly equipped technical college. In the faculty of veterinary medicine, students who ought to have spent five years for a course are now in their eighth year because they cannot graduate and one of the requirements which could aid accreditation is a Veterinary Teaching Hospital Complex. A taskforce has only just submitted the proposed drawing to council and its cost implications, knowing the bureaucratic process and politics attached to such projects it might take a long time to actualise. Again, there are 35 lecturers in the faculty for about 100 students.

If the federal government had been more proactive in the management of its tertiary institutions, perhaps the state of decay which currently exists could have been averted. This needs assessment committee, is the reason why the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) sheathed its swords for now. Government has agreed it would pump more funds into our universities but it says it wants to know what it is funding. In the past, funding was of generic nature; universities just got money and spent it on what they felt were their needs. This time, government is sort of saying, let us first know the state of these universities, identify their specific and peculiar problems and then find how we can solve them.

As much as this principle is noble, one foresees the outcome not turning out in the favour of ASUU. Already, the reports coming from some of the teams are indicating that the improved funding the union has continuously cried about may just be a symptom of the real problem.

Major issues raised in the preliminary reports have nothing to do with funding, like disregard on the part of management to manage resources prudently, administrative ineptitude and non-adherence to carrying capacity policy.

These visits cast a new light on the problems in our universities. ASUU has over time identified funding as the major challenge, but it is beyond that. For example, in the University of Abuja, was it government that asked them to establish four programmes illegally? Is it also government that should come and maintain the structures? Are poorly executed contracts also the fault of government?

But the universities must be commended for heeding to the advice of the committee which specifically said it did not want window dressing and just wanted the universities to present themselves “in their unclothedness” to borrow an expression from the CNANU Chairman, Professor Mahmmod Yakubu.

At least there is something government has done right with its intervention in universities through the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TET Fund). Without their high impact projects, the universities would have been worse off. In both the University of Abuja and Nasarawa State University which the committee visited, TET Fund projects were the most impressive. There is also funding for academic development of staff which has seen many lecturers leaving the shores of this country to improve themselves. Why this is not telling on the quality of graduates churned out of our universities, though, is a matter for another day.

culled from: http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=159030:finally-a-decision-on-university-of-abuja&catid=13:education&Itemid=31

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so northerners are knowingly committing these crimes. One day it shall be an eye 4 eye. Very soon people from the south will make it tit 4 tat. Useless people

i have watched with rapt attention the unfolding scenario in the socio political landscape of nigeria. The recent post election violence perpetrated by the hausa/fulani has led credence for the call by respected leaders for a sng to decide our conditions for co-existence. Nigerians must wake up today and take a stand on this terrorist called hausa/fulani, we must ostracise this fellows and allow form a sharia republic. Woe to britain.

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