Lalasticla FP ooo.

Great man. Legend!

Hmmm. God will make a way. Do we still have a fire service in this country?

zhukafa:
For where? Motorist would just create another track road beside the collapsed one, and the funny thing there is that the same government officials would join them and follow the track road.

Hahaha

Lalasticlala front page ASAP!

Right move

Seun, lalasticla you see what you guys have caused? Tribalist folks

Buhari and Obasanjo: Birds of a feather. Smh

Blame it on tyrant Buhari and the incompetent Kemi Adeosun. Nigeria's economy is in doldrums.

Great man. Shame on the incompetent tyrant presently masquerading as president in Aso Rock.

.

Shame on President Buhari, the worst president black Africa has ever had.

Former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Charles Soludo has stated that the 2016 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari was almost the same as the one presented by his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan.

According to Soludo, the present budget was a carbon copy of the one by Jonathan’s government, adding that defeating old bad ideas could be better that initiating new ones.

He said this while speaking at the 13th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja on Thursday.

“The present budget is more of the same to the previous ones. Mr. Vice President [Prof. Yemi Osinbajo], If you scale your budget on the scale of GDP, it is almost the same with the previous government.

“It has a historic 37% deficit as we never had it before. The truth is that you are borrowing 37% with only 30 per cent on capital project,” Prof. Soludo stressed.

I thought they said GEJ was clueless? So you mean the timid Kemi and the illiterate Buhari could not sit down and draft a simple budget? One of the most basic responsibilities of any administration?

Lalasticlala

The Counter Coup

The idea of an Ibo take-over of the country gradually gained more and more credence and led to further unrest in an already disgruntled army, On July 29, 1966 Northern soldiers staged counter-coup, killing Ironsi, and about 400 Ibo officers. Colonel Yakubu Gowon, announced as new head of the government, immediately restored the federal structure yielding to the demands of the Northern politicians.

Many members of the Ibo elite who had occupied prominent positions coder Ironsi viewed this new coup as a re-establishment of Northern authoritarian control over Nigeria. They and the progressive Yorubas and others who had joined with them had not been able freely to compete for: power under the old regime. Now, their high hopes for reconstruction and modernization after the Ironsi coup were suddenlydashed by a counter-coup scarcely half a year later, These frustrations were transformed into deep hatred and fear by the ruthless slaughter of hundreds of Ibos living in the North and of Ibo officers in the army,
Many Ibos fled to the Eastern Region convinced that only secession would afford them security as well as the opportunity to develop a politically coherent and economically vibrant nation. Half-formed notions about secession were transformed into grim determination after a veritable pogrom erupted in the North in September 1966, resulting in the slaughter of from 5,000 to 30,000 Ibos and other Easterners, depending upon the reports one reads. Nigerians claim that this massacre followed the killing of hundreds of Northerners resident in the East. Biafran supporters argue it was caused by Northern anger over a decision to break up the North into several smaller states, made by a constitutional conference arranged by General Gowon.

In any case, this mass slaughter left a deep scar on the Ibo people. Ibo leaders called for the return of all Ibos to their ancestral homeland and began serious preparations for secession.

A January 1967 conference of leaders from all regions failed to produce lasting agreement on decentralization of the country. At that point, civil servants, teachers, newspaper reporters, university students and military officers—all disillusioned with the results of Independence—further galvanized public opinion for secession.

A definite step was taken in March when the Government of the Eastern Region announced that all revenues collected on behalf of the Federal Government would be paid to the Treasury of the Eastern Region.

The Federal Government, it was alleged, had refused to pay the salaries of refugee civil servants forced to flee their areas of employment, and the East now had some 2 million refugees whose displacement from other parts of Nigeria was “irreversible.” Moreover, the Federal Government, it was alleged had refused to pay the East its statutory share of revenues for months.

Faced with virtual secession, Colonel Gowon finally attempted to deal with grievances about Northern domination and also to appeal to minorities throughout Nigeria. He proposed that the Northern Region be broken up into six states, the East into three, and the West into two. The new states would coincide, to a large extent, with natural ethnic divisions. Notably, the East would be divided in such a way that the oil reserves would be located in states without an Ibo majority.

The Cause

The idea of a democratic Nigeria had proven to be a myth. Vast numbers of people were disenchanted with the results of independence and the widespread corruption among politicians. Elements among the South, the students, the southern intelligentsia, and the army officer corps were particularly disaffected.

The Coup

In January 1966 a number of young army officers—primarily Ibo—attempted to overthrow the Federal Government. In the process they killed Prime Minister Balewa, Northern Premier Sir: Ahmadu Bello (also the Sardauna of Sokoto—Islam’s highest religious leader in Nigeria), and a number of Northern army officers. Rumors had it that Army Commander Maj.-Gen. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi—also as Ibo--was involved in the coup.

The Ironsi Takeover

In any case, a rump Cabinet invited Ironsi to head a provisional military government. Ironsi “accepted” and two days later the leader of the coup, Major Chukwama Nzeogwu pledged his loyalty to Ironsi. provided there would be no reprisals against him and his followers,.

The January coup and the Ironsi take-over were widely supported throughout Nigeria by youth groups, trade unions, businessmen, and even some Northerners. Most young and progressive elements hoped and expected that the new military government would stop corruption and would institute those reforms necessary to unify the country and organize its economy on terms of national rather than regional needs.

Immediately following the coup, the Nigerian student association in the United States met in International House in New York and sent a message of congratulations to the new leaders.

At the outset, General Ironsi faced a major dilemma. Could he and should he punish the instigators of the coup for assassinating the Federal Prime Minister, and the Premiers of the Western and Northern Regions?

He had to bear in mind especially that the latter had been Islam’s revered religious leader and was generally acknowledged to be the power behind the Prime Minister himself.

The Northern rank-and-file of the army were bitterly resentful over these murders, as well as the death of many Northern officers. However if Ironsi punished the young officers who had staged the coup, he would probably alienate the Ibo officers who formed about one-third of his officer corps, plus the whole southern intelligenstia who were fed up with the conservative, Northern-dominated and corrupt Federal Government.

Ironsi chose instead to attempt to heal the rifts in the army and country by instituting badly needed reforms. In May 1966, as part of this program, he abolished the Federal structure of government. But this proved his undoing. Many politicians and bureaucrats with vested interests in a Nigeria divided into regions vigorously opposed this move.

They chose to see it as a bald attempt to consolidate Nigeria under Ibo domination. To support their suspicions, they pointed to the fact that almost all the officers who staged the coup leading to the Ironsi government were Ibos. Further, the politicians and officers killed in the coup were almost all from the North arid West, while Ibo officials were left untouched.

Following the Ironsi take-over, ousted Hausa-Fulani bureaucrats, politicians and religious leaders, began to focus upon Ibos living in the North as responsible for all the problems that were beginning to face the North—from rising prices to the declining power of the Northern Region in the Federal Government. Two days after the Ironsi proclamation of a unified governmental structure, these elements organized riots in several Northern cities resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Ibos and the forced exodus of thousands of others. This massacre fed upon the long-standing resentment of Ibos based upon their rapid accumulation of wealth and education.

This our current president reminds me of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Mobutu Sese Seko and Idi Amin.

The Igbo-hating, anti-democracy fuhrer is at it again

SLIDEwaxie:
Dude, are u gonna be masturbatin over a praise from a mad woman?

She's now a mad woman because she doesn't support you.

APCs machinery is disintegrating by the day. There's trouble in paradise. Buhari is turning out to be a massive failure.

From the look of things, this man is turning out to be the worst thing that has ever happened to Nigeria and I see him speeding up its breakup instead of working to secure its unity. Imagine denigrating the entire Igbo race on a televised broadcast to the whole world. Imagine giving flimsy reasons to justify his flouting of court orders. This man is not out to govern. He's out to settle scores.

His Holiness needs to sanction that man. He's mixing so much politics with religion and that's not good for the health of the religious messages he dishes out.

Japan fixed this quake-damaged road in just 6 days! How long do you think it will take the Nigerian federal government?

Cc: Lalasticlala

Saint Mother Teresa of Kolkata
Lalasticlala

Pope Francis recognises second Mother Teresa 'miracle'



Pope Francis has recognised a second miracle attributed to Mother Teresa, clearing the way for the Roman Catholic nun to be made a saint next year.

The miracle involved the healing of a Brazilian man with several brain tumours in 2008, the Vatican said.

Mother Teresa died in 1997 and was beatified - the first step towards sainthood - in 2003.

She won the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the poor in the slums of the Indian city of Kolkata (Calcutta).

"The Holy Father has authorised the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to proclaim the decree concerning the miracle attributed to the intercession of blessed Mother Teresa," the Vatican said on Friday.

She is expected to be canonised in Rome in September.
Sister Christie, a spokesperson for the Missionaries of Charity Mother Teresa founded in 1950, told the BBC that they were delighted by the news.

"Obviously all of us at the Missionaries of Charity are extremely happy. But we do not have any plans to celebrate this announcement as yet," she said.



The Missionaries of Charity now has more than 4,500 nuns worldwide and is headquartered at the Mother House in central Kolkata.

In the city, the charity runs 19 homes - for women, orphans and the aged - where thousands of destitute people live. It also runs a school for street children, an Aids hospice and a leper colony.

Though the order's "service to the poorest of poor" has generated much appreciation worldwide, it's not without controversies.

The most recent controversy involves shutting down of its adoption centres in India.

The charity said it was forced to close the centres because India's new adoption laws, allowing single, divorced and separated couples to adopt, went against its religious views.

Profile of Mother Teresa

Beatification by the Catholic Church requires one miracle, while the process of becoming recognised as a saint requires proof of at least two miracles.

Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003 after Pope John Paul II accepted as authentic a miracle attributed to her.

He judged that the curing of an Indian woman suffering from an abdominal tumour was the result of the supernatural intervention of the late Mother Teresa - a claim challenged by Indian rationalists.

'Saint of the gutter'

There are few details about the recovery of the Brazilian man, whose life the Vatican says was saved in the second miracle.

His identity has not been disclosed to maintain the discretion needed for the investigation, the Catholic New Agency has said.

It says he was unexpectedly cured from brain tumours in 2008 after his priest prayed for Mother Teresa's intervention with God.



Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in Skopje, now Macedonia, then the Ottoman Empire, in 1910. Her family were ethnic Albanians, and devout Catholics.

She dedicated her life to caring for impoverished and sick people in Kolkata.

Known as the "saint of the gutter", she earned worldwide acclaim for her efforts.

Her critics, however, accused her of peddling a hardline Catholicism, mixing with dictators and accepting funds from them for her charity.

Her supporters justified the funding, saying it did not matter where the money came from as long as it was used to help the poor.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-35129463

Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has urged the Federal Government to employ more diplomacy in handling the agitation for the Republic of Biafra.

Soyinka said statements like “Nigeria is indivisible”, “This won’t happen under my watch,” “Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable” would not help matters.

The Nobel laureate spoke in an interview on Channels Television programme, Channels Books’ Club.

Agitation for the Republic of Biafra gained more traction recently following the arrest of Director of outlawed Biafra Radio, Nnamdi Kanu.

The protesters had taken over the Niger Bridge, Onitsha, Anambra State blocking traffic and it took the intervention of security agents before they could be dislodged, leaving some persons dead in its wake.

Soyinka asked President Muhammadu Buhari to approach the agitation in a more diplomatic way, pointing out that he had said earlier that Biafra cannot be defeated.

According to him, ”Once an idea has taken off, you may defeat those behind it in a war but that does not mean the end of the idea.”

But he lamented that he had been misunderstood at the time.

He said the attitude of the government should be to sit down with the those leading the renewed agitation and ask: “What can we do to make the Igbo feel part of the country, what can we do to make them to feel that they belong and not alienated.

“This is what we are ready to push for in the overall governance content of the country. It is not to be carrying on that this will not happen under my watch; Nigeria is indivisible, Nigeria’s unity is non-negotiable, he stated”

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/biafra-soyinka-calls-for-diplomacy/

The folly and vanity of rulers has often been memorialised in cities that were supposed to be glorious but fell horribly short, condemning those forced to live there to gaze wistfully at the larger, more interesting cities. Here's a quick tour of some of the world's most poorly conceived capitals.


Abuja, Nigeria

Nigeria contains more than 250 ethnic groups, many with a history of conflict so it's not surprising there was a movement towards an independent capital. But in 1975 the Nigerian Government chose a town smack-bang in the middle of the country, and decided to evict the entire Gwari population. The evictions continue to this day: the regional government forces locals to move by the thousands to the outskirts of Abuja. This attempt to avoid a descent into the overcrowding and chaos of the former capital, Lagos, has also succeeded in purging the city of what was a rich cultural heritage.

As a result, the Nigerian capital's major tourist attraction is a 400m-high rock, which goes some way towards justifying Lonely Planet's assessment that "there really isn't much to do in Abuja". (The city was still outraged, however, when it was beaten by Glasgow in the bid for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.)


Brasília, Brazil

The architect of this planned city in the middle of Brazil thought his design resembled a beautiful butterfly. Most people think it looks more like an aeroplane. But whatever Brasília looks like, it's a classic illustration of the problems of planned capitals. Its builders achieved an extraordinary transformation of a desert site, but character has proved harder to come by.

Although its iconic modernist buildings — some by Oscar Niemeyer — have won the city a World Heritage listing, Brasília offers little to those who aren't architecture buffs. There is the usual assortment of public institutions and a large artificial lake, but none of the excitement that draws so many to the rest of Brazil. Despite the best efforts of planners, you simply can't designate an area for "buzz".


Islamabad, Pakistan

This city was founded in the 1960s because the then President, Ayub Khan, felt the country was too focused on Karachi (it is the tendency of all genuinely interesting capitals to dominate their nations). The city is cleaner and greener than anywhere else in Pakistan, and there is some pleasant modernist architecture, but the rigid central plan forgot to include any of the liveliness that attracts visitors to the subcontinent, instead aiming for the prettified (and sterile) aesthetic, typical of many planned capitals.

This lifelessness is most evident in the decision not to bother with suburb names and instead to divide the city into alphanumeric sectors. Most diplomats are housed in sectors E-6 to E-18, for instance, while the major hospital is in G-8.


Ottawa, Canada

Like Canberra, Ottawa arose from a political compromise. When it was chosen in 1857, it was the only settlement of any size on the border between the French- and English-speaking territories. But the choice seemed so arbitrary that a legend arose that Queen Victoria had chosen it by sticking a hairpin into a map.

Though Ottawa has many highbrow institutions, such as the National Gallery and Arts Centre, its name is a synonym in Canada for "boring" — as you'd expect in a city where most people work for the Federal Government. Worse still, Ottawa's second-largest employer is the high-tech sector, which helps explain why "O-town" (a nickname that may be a score out of 10 rather than an abbreviation) is not exactly known for its nightlife. But what can you expect from a city that decided to call its busiest downtown sector "Centretown"?


Nay Pyi Daw, Myanmar (Burma)

Two years ago, Myanmar's bureaucrats were suddenly told they were relocating from Yangon (Rangoon) to a brand new capital, Nay Pyi Daw — and with 24 hours' notice. It's not clear why the generals moved the capital; speculation ranges from fears of a seaborne invasion of Yangon, to the advice of Senior General Than Shwe's soothsayers. It's located in a mountainous central region, in thick malaria-infested jungle; the city's only residents are public servants and the military who are housed in bland, identical apartment blocks.

Much basic infrastructure is still missing — you can only get there on a military aircraft or by spending nine hours on the train from Yangon. There are no international flights or mobile phone networks either. The capital's major claim to fame is that, unlike the rest of Myanmar, it gets electricity 24 hours a day. If that doesn't thrill you, then it's not worth visiting the city that's name, ironically, means "abode of kings".

The leader of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, Chief Ralph Uwazuruike, has in a surprise move, announced a new name, Biafra Independent Movement, BIM, for the group.
Chief Uwazuruike, made the announcement Sunday while addressing the press in Owerri, also said that he was irked by the bad corporate image some dissidents of MASSOB, was attracting to the group.

“The change in name became absolutely necessary because of the sad introduction of violence by the disgruntled dissidents and this is at variance with the non-violence stance of MASSOB over the years”, Uwazuruike said.

He said that real loyalists of MASSOB feel ashamed to be associated with violence, promising that they will restructure MASSOB to make it the youth wing of the Biafra Independent Movement.

While saying that there is vicarious liability in civil law, Chief Uwazuruike equally recalled how he recruited Nnamdi Kanu in 1989, to head Radio Biafra.

“I recruited Nnamdi Kanu in 1989, when I established Radio Biafra and appointed him the director of the establishment. He started preaching hatred and brainwashing the youths. MASSOB sacked him”, Uwazuruike recalled.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/biafra-uwazuruike-renames-massob/