EreluRoz:
He's our own, he's asiwaju's boy. Can't you see he avoids Obi like a plague?

He will still come back home to our party. Let's give him time

Please stick to the romance section. Anything else is way bigger than you can ever comprehend.

Evilblackman:
Tweet by @chudemedia

https://twitter.com/ChudeMedia/status/1568552035154288640?s=20&t=tCzS5EmJKLjfY6j68-kGnw

OBI is coming!

Soludo the solution.

Anambra people do not know how lucky they are to have such quality candidates like Soludo and Maduka running for governor.

Kai! American chic wan do Mallam something. Mallam forgot he wasn't in Nigeria where his influence and power can bury anybody.

He has got 2 options. Pay up or be ready for his dirty linen to be washed in public. Shikena.

Quite unfortunate!

I think his government has outlived its usefulness. He should never have gotten a second term.

His positives was to sanitize the system to an extent and invest in infrastructure. After 4 yrs of that all the other factors like energizing the economy and policies required to boost it in the 21st century are what is required. Unfortunately, it is evident that this is beyond his ability.

I sorry for Nigeria.

olaboy33:
I understand Buhari is constantly abusing Human Rights of which I'm in no support of.

But what baffles me here is if these US senators have Nigeria as part of their jurisprudence or maybe they don't have relevent issues to America to discuss in their congress.

Enough of these playing of big brother when they do even worse and cover it up in the name of America.

Nigeria is no kid for Pete's sake, we can handle our affairs. China and Turkey is there for them to raise concern over.

As long as you keep going to them to beg for aid, beg for support on issues and beg for them to sell weapons to you, they will keep interfering in your domestic issues. The question is can Nigeria stop begging them for anything? You and I know the answer is a capital NO.

So please quit complaining and focus on the issue here, which is the human rights abuse and disobedience to court rulings.

@OP

We have recently seen all these sorts of awards being dished around to individuals like a town crier announcing in the village square and hence I have got a few pertinent questions to ask:

1) Who funds these awards?
2) What is the basis for determining these awards?
3) Who are those on the panel of those who determine who the awards go to?
4) What is the pedigree of these so called organizations/bodies/foundations who issue these awards?

If as a reporter you cannot give us answers to these questions in your reporting of these awards, then we will have no choice but to conclude and declare that you are nothing but a paid image launderer. This comment is just to give you the benefit of doubt because you and I (infact we all) know what this is all about. Any 5 year old can tell what this award crap is all about.

What surprises me is that there are actually people who fall for these kinds of BS. I won't even go into the talk of the Nairaland mod who pushes it to front page. That's a discussion for another day.

Nigeria is really in a dilemma

Ishilove:
I didn't read that epistle up there. Fact is politicians are all the same and after Buhari, I can never allow myself be fooled by appearances and lofty words, EVER AGAIN.

My own is let him come and clear the refuse heaps that is now that idiot Ambode's legacy, as well as finish up Lagos-Abeokuta expressway that the aforementioned idiot scattered. Shikena. After that he can go fvck himself up the ass with a 10ft pole.

Mscheeeew.

Eponyeeboz:
The OP is a thief and a criminal. Criminals like him pay heavy fines and end up in jail.

The day I knew he has nothing in his head was when he said Uber takes longer routes. The ignorant clown didn't know that Uber uses Google maps to calculate the fastest distance based on traffic factors to your destination and not the shortest route.

Say no to plagiarism and dumb thieves.

That's the typical Nigerian blogger. No originality in what they do. Look at all the others in the celebrity section. They just follow celebrities on social media and take whatever they see (even pics) and post on their blogs. Shamefully enough Nairaland encourages them by pushing all they do to its frontpage.

Nigerian bloggers don't seem to understand that if you really want to grow, you have to think big, think international, apply international best practices, no plagiarism. It might be hard to do, but you can build it gradually into the culture of your business and it will differentiate you from the rest and it will pay you dividends on the long run.

Pataricatering:
which Catholic Church has been renowned historically for fighting injustice ? Go and read up on activities of the Catholic Church in Rwanda and Germany when genocide was happening to the Jews and the Tutsi! Have they not for decades covered up abuse of young Boys in their churches ? Abeg ! This is a reasonable call though !

You have mentioned just a few instances of where the Catholic Church failed to do what is right. However, like he said, there are hundreds of instances where the Catholic Church has stood up for the oppressed. A good example is Nigeria. From the days of military rule till date, the Catholic Church has stood on the side of the people and spoken truth to power.

There are lots of other instances in Europe and North America. So he is absolutely right in saying the Catholic Church has a history, a rich one infact, of standing up for the people against negative vices and governments. So this call by the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria is very typical and in line with their mandate to be shepherds of the people.

Back to the current situation in Nigeria. I keep wondering what gives this government and its supporters the feeling that they are making progress and everything is well despite the feelings on ground. Is it the large crowds of people who gather to see Buhari every where he goes to in the core north? Or is there something else we don't know? Even those of us outside Nigeria can feel the mode of the nation, let alone people who are supposed to be running the country.

It is most unfortunate.

UCH is indeed a death trap. I lost a relation there years ago. If I find the time, I will write my story.

Love that stories like this (and the late Irish priest) of people giving their all through service in education are reaching front page.

If you have more of such stories please bring forward let's honour the true heros in an already broken country like Nigeria.

Such stories will also probably displace some of the senseless and unworthy stories that seem to litter nairaland of recent.

Nice!

Lol, some people will not be happy with this piece.

Banker that earns less than N2.5m pa is that one a banker or a bank worker.

Oh! Maybe it is a microfinance bank.

This is so annoying!

For goodness sake, why do we still open grazing in Nigeria in 2018?

Statsocial:
Lalasticlala

We need to realise that until Northern Nigeria gets enlightened and properly educated then we are going no where as a Nation. You can sit down in South West Or South East and be making mockery of the North's illiteracy and severely poor education but realise that they are the ones with the highest votes in any election, realise that by virtue of quota they must get federal jobs even if unqualified, they send more than half of our legislators to NASS. They constitute a large chunk of the Executive portfolio and appointments. If they are not educated enough to demand good governance or exposed enough to see how incompetent our leaders are in comparison to other nations then there is no way we can get out of the horrid situation we are in this country...

Any nation that must thrive must have citizens that are very impatient with poor and mediocre leadership. Citizens that can easily flip their support. Citizens that can put their elected officials on their toes. Unfortunately only Lagosians can still partly boast of these attributes. But Northern Nigerian is generally worse off than the South-the North is too Religious, Tribal, loyal, patient and mediocre. All attributes that emanates from a lack of exposure and proper education which unfortunately encourages the worst of society to reach out for public service.....and these is the only reason you have fools like Yerima(a pedophile) would have ever served in office.

Isn't that why a part of Nigeria wants to go its own way? They have complained for such a long time that the North is pulling the country backwards yet no one seems to be listening. It's also obvious that if you have a problem and do not recognize it and make an effort to solve it, there is nothing anyone else can do for you.

He remains the only African to have ever won the World Footballer of the Year award.

Infact the only man alive to have won African Footballer, European Footballer and World Footballer of the Year titles in the same year

He remains the only African to have ever won the World Footballer of the Year award.

Infact the only man alive to have won African Footballer, European Footballer and World Footballer of the Year titles in the same year.

The guy is no Football Legend please!

Astonishing!

Annoying!!

Depressing!!!

Kola Aluko is a big name in Nigeria’s oil industry, but in the United States, to the extent he’s known at all, it’s because of his connections in the entertainment business. The 47-year-old magnate once supposedly courted Naomi Campbell, celebrated a birthday with Leonardo DiCaprio, and rented a yacht to JAY-Z and Beyoncé for her birthday in 2013.
He may have loved the headlines then, but no longer.

Kolawole Akanni Aluko, who now appears to be in hiding, is targeted in two major lawsuits. One has been leveled at him by the U.S. government, which is aiming to auction his $80 million yacht and his $50.9 million One57 penthouse in New York City. The other is brought by the Nigerian government, which intends to recover $1.76 billion from him and his close associate Olajide Omokore.

The suit lodged by the U.S. Justice Department's Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative claims the full-floor penthouse apartment on Manhattan’s Billionaire’s Row and the yacht which Aluko reportedly rented to JAY-Z and Beyoncé for $900,000 a week, were bought with proceeds from a crooked deal the two businessmen worked out with Nigeria’s then-petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, for lucrative oil contracts.

Both lawsuits claim that Aluko and Omokore conspired with others to pay bribes to Alison-Madueke in return for contracts from a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp to shell companies owned by both men.

Despite a lack of qualifications, the companies they set up allegedly received more than $1.5 billion through the sale of crude oil, and often performed no visible services at all in an oil swap arrangement that saw Nigeria use middlemen to sell crude in exchange for refined products. Throughout the period Alison-Madueke served as minister, over 352 million barrels of oil worth about $35 billion (PDF) is estimated to have been channeled into oil swap deals.

According to an affidavit sworn at Nigeria’s Federal High Court by Isaac Kehinde Oginni, a lawyer in the Ministry of Justice, Aluko embarked on a spending spree and acquiring assets in Britain, Canada, the United States, and Switzerland with proceeds from the fraud.
In addition to the One57 penthouse, Aluko allegedly bought properties in the U.S. at 1049 Fifth Avenue, New York; 1948 & 1952 Tolls Avenue, Santa Barbara, California; and several in Los Angeles, including 815 Cima Del Mundo; 755 Sarbonne Road; and 952 North Alpine Drive.
In the United Kingdom, court papers say Aluko bought a house in Grove End Road, London NW. In the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Nigerian allegedly bought a house at 4100 Let Revenge, Dubai. He is equally accused of buying a property at Collina D’oro Montagnola in Switzerland, and a piece of land in Mont Tremblant, Canada. Back home, prosecutors say he bought the expensive Avenue Towers in Lagos.
Aluko, it appears, likes to travel in quite extraordinary style. In addition to the Dutch-built super-yacht Galactica Star, launched only weeks before he bought it, the Nigerian businessman allegedly spent stolen funds on 58 exotic cars, expensive watches, and private jets including a Bombardier Global Express S5-GMG and a Bombardier Global 6000 9H-OPE, according to the Nigerian affidavit.
But that billionaire bling is being stripped away from him now.

His mansion in the UAE is about to be seized by Nigeria, which signed a pact with the Gulf nation last year on for extradition and “mutual assistance on criminal and commercial matters,” meaning the recovery and repatriation of stolen wealth.
Aluko is also on the verge of losing his 6,240-square-foot condo on the 79th floor of 157 West 57th St.. The penthouse owed $61,000 to the city in back taxes as of July 1. To make things worse for him, the bank that loaned him $35.3 million to buy the pad is trying to force a sale in what could become the city’s biggest foreclosure ever.

According to court papers in the U.S., the Luxembourg-based Banque Havilland, which issued the mortgage on the penthouse, seeks to collect what it’s owed in addition to interest. But the planned July 19 auction reportedly was halted after a debt collecting firm, Campion Maverick Inc., filed a suit at a federal court in Florida seeking to force the owner of the apartment, Earnshaw Associates Ltd and One57 79 Inc., into bankruptcy. Campion Maverick said it wanted to recover $83.1 million in unpaid debt for gasoline and jet fuel from the owners.In 2012, Aluko had signed a debt-settlement agreement with the company. The debt was guaranteed in 2015 by Earnshaw Associates Ltd, a shell company said to have been set up by Aluko, and currently listed as the sole shareholder Apartment 79 at One57.
Things might not have gone so badly for Aluko had he listened to his benefactor.

U.S. court documents revealed that Oil Minister Alison-Madueke tried to warn him and Omokore against spending lavishly, particularly on the Galactica Star. “If you want to hire a yacht, you lease it for two weeks or whatever,” the then-minister told Aluko in a recorded conversation. “You don’t go and sink funds into it at this time when the Nigerian oil and gas sector is under all kinds of watch.”

But, as a promotional video for yacht-builder Heesen puts it, “Most people let their dreams be dreams, but others go all out to turn them into reality.” And Aluko was going all out.

Like world-famous wheelers, dealers, and playboys before him, including the late Adnan “The Pirate”  Khashoggi and now-President Donald Trump, Aluko appears to have imagined a big boat would help him hang out with the big boys of international celebrity. The 213-foot luxury vessel registered in the Cayman Islands included a very high-end galley, a private helipad, an outdoor jacuzzi, and a number of bars and dining areas.

A Daily Mail dispatch from 2015 referred to Aluko’s yacht as “so exclusive” that “you need to be on first-name terms with its multi-millionaire owner to have the run of it.” The implication was that both JAY-Z and Beyoncé—who sailed on the luxury vessel through the Mediterranean—may have had a cordial relationship with the Nigerian. The yacht had hosted Beyoncé’s 32nd birthday in 2013, and at the time it was used for the event, it had not been registered as a vessel for hire. E-Online reported afterwards that JAY-Z and Beyoncé “likely pulled some insider strings to gain access” to the vessel.

That report was supported by one of the world's largest luxury yacht charter resources.  
“Galactica Star is not officially listed for charter by any of the leading Yacht Charter Brokerage houses in the world, or it would be listed on this site,” YachtCharterFleet, an independent luxury yacht charter guide for privately crewed yacht vacations, said then. “Either they know the owners of the yacht and have been allowed to use the yacht for the week, or it is a private yacht which is available for select charters on a very limited basis.”

Beyoncé’s 32nd birthday was just one of many events that surrounded Aluko in 2013. His friendship with super-model Campbell stronger (at least in the press) and they started to be seen in public together. He also developed a relationship with DiCaprio, at whose star-studded birthday bash he allegedly spent $1.5 million dollars on Champagne.

That was nearly four years ago. Now, Aluko is on the lam.

He has been declared a wanted fugitive by Nigerian authorities. The U.K. is also reportedly on the lookout for him. He hasn’t been seen in public for months, although there are reports he cruised in his Galactica Star to the Bahamas for Ja Rule's disastrous Fyre Festival in April. The yacht has now been listed as “out of range,” by MarineTraffic, a community-based project, which provides real-time information on the movements of ships and the current location of ships in harbors and ports. The vessel was last tracked in the Caribbean on May 3.

So perhaps Aluko can live his dream a little longer, until the dozen or so members of the crew demand to be paid, or he runs out of gas money.


http://www.msn.com/en-ca/money/markets/the-crooked-playboy-who-courted-naomi-campbell-threw-a-birthday-bash-for-dicaprio-and-rented-a-yacht-to-beyonc%C3%A9/ar-AAoEeYk?li=AA54rW&ocid=spartanntp

Amazing!

GavelSlam:
Finally ibori can claim making a pound honestly.

I totally agree with you.

jawjaw1:
Convicted fraudster and former Nigerian state governor James Ibori

My sweetest part of this article

Convicted fraudster and former Nigerian state governor James Ibori has been awarded £1 ($1.30) for being unlawfully detained for 42 hours in the UK.
Ibori was jailed in the UK for fraud totalling nearly £50m in 2012.
He was due to be released on 20 December but instead was held in immigration detention.
After he was released he launched his claim against the Home Secretary Amber Rudd for damages for false imprisonment and breach of his rights.

On Monday Mrs Justice Cheema-Grubb said the home secretary had been "wrong throughout her dealings with Mr Ibori over the weeks leading to his release" and that he had been unlawfully detained.
However, she rejected Ibori's claim for £4,000 in damages. Instead she awarded "nominal damages" of £1.
The judge also said that the decision to keep him in immigration detention was probably because of millions of pounds the authorities have still not recovered from him.
A Home Office email, published in the court judgement, recommended to keep him in immigration detention to buy time to work out how to recover at least £57m.
"The best course of action at present is to place him in immigration detention and review the position in February or when we know more about the confiscation process", it said.
On 21 December a High Court judge ordered his immediate release from prison. Ibori eventually left the UK in February.

Who is James Ibori?
James Ibori went from petty thief to Nigerian state governor to convicted money launderer. He came to the UK in the 1980s and worked as a cashier at a DIY store in London.
He was convicted in 1991 of stealing from the store but then returned to Nigeria and got involved in politics.
When he ran for Delta State governor he lied about his date of birth to hide his UK conviction - which would have prevented him standing for office.
He became governor in 1999 and soon began taking money from state coffers.
The British police began to take an interest in Ibori again in 2005 after they came across a purchase order for a private jet, made through his solicitor in London.
He evaded capture in Nigeria after a mob of supporters attacked police, but was arrested in Dubai in 2010 and was extradited to the UK.


Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-40012427

Its good to see that the Lagos State Government is doing this particularly because it has lots of waterways within the state.

Two things though come to my mind when reading this story:

1) I hope the government and the LAWSA have also incorporated the use of biological control to deal with the water hyacinth because these machines might end up being over worked and breakdown.

2) Those machines don't look complex to build and maintain. I hope the govt has a plan to fabricate the parts and eventually build theirs instead of having to rely on importing every bit of those machines when the need arises.