₦airaland Forum

Tanker burning at Lagos Ibadan Express way, en route to Lagos before Redeemed.

If you’re driving on that route, best be careful.

Fire fighters, assistance needed.

Tanker burning at Lagos Ibadan Express way, en route to Lagos before Redeemed.

If you’re driving on that route, best be careful.

Fire fighters, assistance needed. pic.twitter.com/yu025FS6Q3

— Jojo Amiegbe Young (@JojoAmiegbe) October 18, 2019

onyedikachukwue:
James Eze shame on you

onyedikachukwue:
Shameless lots . Show us obiano’s projects.

figoperch:
Can you snap in front of Tracy Hotel? Just 1 min walk from where u are. That is the dirt zone

onyedikachukwue:
I need a job

igbodefendercom:
If your indigenous name is Ogochukwu and you say you are not Igbo...

globemoney:
Look at this clown, a non Anambra person telling me I'm not igbo, on an Anambra thread? We have severally told you that you are not welcome, I can't understant this trying too hard to belong. You can NEVER be from Anambra state and you can never be more Anambra than us. Thats something you must always accept!

VAQAXY:
Cjrane listen to your brother with self worth and dignity. He has worth unlike you that's a miscreant lol



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ypqf9SqNeY

Omoyele Sowore is the publisher of New York-based Sahara Reporters, known for its hard-hitting reporting that is keeping Nigeria’s government officias, individuals and corporations on their toes. Recently, Mr. Sowore suddenly walked into our newsroom in Abuja. Our reporters sat down with him for an interview during which he spoke about his work and the political cum economic situation in his country.

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PT: We are glad to have you here, we will just be asking you a few questions. Now just tell us briefly how Sahara Reporters operate?

Sowore: Well, I started off first as a news website about 7 years ago basically collecting information from citizens, processing them and publishing them and distributing them through our media platforms across the globe. In the last three years, it has escalated and upgraded to become a complete multimedia outlet that has an online TV and now an online radio platform and of course the important thing to mention is that it is surrounded by Internet users. PT:


Now, 7 years down the line, will you say you have achieved the original vision. How far have you come?

Sowore: To be fair to myself and everybody who has worked with me on this platform, in my estimation I have far exceeded my expectations of these platforms. I just wanted to set up a website that I could use in communicating with Nigerians, Africans and the rest of the world about happenings in sub-saharan Africa and doing so from the safety of the United States of America. I was expecting on an average, on a daily basis, of 200 or 300 people reading us and feeding back to us in giving informations but after 7 years, it’s gone way beyond that expectation. But in terms of the fulfilment of the mission, yes the site has covered a good distance but I think there’s still a few more to be done.

PT: You publish very damning reports, how are you able to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues?


Sowore: Our first mission is to make information available to people in a way they can use as they want. That mission has been fulfilled. The second aspect of our mission is to speak truth to power. And the third aspect of it, in some cases and in most cases, is to damn the consequences for as long as the people who need to benefit from it get it, they can use it. They can take it to run and that can help them redefine their power because in a lot of ways I think for a lot of people, I think the kind of information we provide and the way we provide them is their only way of fighting back the myriad of problems they are confronted with by government. The last part of your question is about safety. Our mission is also to help ensure that citizens can turn the trajectory of fear against oppression, that people should no longer be afraid of people who are doing evil or who are stealing their commonwealth, people who are robbing them, people who are denying them their fundamental future, they should be the ones that should be afraid and that would mean by saying we are turning around the trajectory of fear. As for how we feel safe or unsafe, I think somebody has to do what we do and when you do it, it’s not hard to understand that they come with consequences. It’s a very dangerous job as you know. All over the world, the business of telling the truth always come with consequences and a lot of safety issues but what we’ve also not done is to put the safety pin on ourselves so we do whatever we can to stay safe. But our primary or major concern is not safety, it is the delivery of our mission.


PT: How did you just walk into Premium Times? We were in shock! How did you just get here without being arrested?

Sowore: First and foremost, I’m not a criminal and I’ve said that many times. I navigate my way through the country as much as I can so I travel as much as its permissible to help me get to where I need to get to. I won’t disclose the rest of how I got here but I’m here and that’s the most importan thing and I can pretty much go anywhere I want. I take my freedom very seriously, especially the freedom of movement.


PT: That leads us to the next question. Do you consider yourself a free Nigerian in Nigeria?

Sowore: No! And I don’t think that there are Nigerians in the majority who live in Nigeria who feel free. Part of the reasons why I take the risk that I take, if you want to call it a risk, is to share in the pain, in the difficulty, in the bondage that you can be in a country where you want and love to be but not free to. I’m not the only one who is not free in Nigeria, a lot of Nigerians are not free. As I’m speaking to you today, more than 2oo females who undertook secondary education in Borno state have been held hostage by a non-state actor like Boko Haram — just a ragtag group of militants. Those ones are not free, their parents are not free. There is a sense of siege even where you are today so freedom is relative and I’m saying that nobody can claim to be free in this country for as long as this country is in bondage and is being run as an open prison.


PT: What do you think should be done? What does Nigeria and its people need to do to make the majority of its citizens to be free?

Sowore: They have to decide to be free and that has to be psychological. I am psychologically free but I’m not physically free because I cannot move as freely as I should. And then they have to decide collectively to be physically free but that’s where there’s a lot of work because people have to take away the shackles of fear. They have to stop being afraid of those in power, they have to confront them and demand that they leave so they can be free especially those who have been holding back their freedom. And talking about freedom, you are talking about a wide range of freedom. It’s not just the freedom to move but the freedom to worship, the freedom to go to school, the freedom to give and have opportunity, the freedom to hope in a country of one’s birth.


PT: You have been very critical of successive administrations. What’s your impression of the Goodluck Jonathan administration?

Sowore: In an order of successive administrations in my lifetime I think this would be the worst in terms of delivery of services, in terms of organisation, in terms of even the style of governance, in terms of transparency, in terms of economic management and of course in terms of security. So this is the worst government in my lifetime that I have seen. You would say maybe Abacha was worse but you can understand Abacha was a military dictator. Nobody voted for him. He just hijacked power and he did whatever he wanted with it. But even within that framework as you can see, the Abacha regime is actually better than the Jonathan regime and I’m sorry to say this because you could almost feel that this country was more secure during those days. The value of the naira under Abacha’s regime was higher than the value of the naira under Jonathan regime, in fact it’s double that rate now. There were perhaps even better roads, in some cases better schools, in some cases better opportunities.


PT: So you are saying even within the framework of the Abacha regime…

SoworeCuts in) By the time you look at the entire corruption that Abacha perpetrated in his five years in power I guess, we are looking at 10billion dollars. Jonathan’s people stole at least 20 billion in less than 3 years from just sales of crude oil alone. If you add that to what the oil marketers or importers stole, which was 6.8 billion dollars, so you are looking already at 28 billion dollars stolen under Jonathan’s regime which is three times more than what Abacha stole during his regime. I’m not making this comparison saying that Nigerians deserve any of these leaders from Babangida to Abacha and the rest of them. I condemned successive administrations but it’s important to state that in clarifying my position as to which government is worse. This is my own statistical definition of how bad things have gone.


PT: But this government is building the airport road in Abuja. Did you not pass through the airport road? They also say they are creating jobs. Will you ever say anything good about the Jonathan registration?

Sowore: There is a difference between what the government says its doing and what we know the government is doing. For example, they claim to have created 1.5 million jobs and we have been asking for the last two months for them to provide us the sector of the economy or society where those jobs were created and nobody can give us answers. If the U.S says they have 240,000 jobs, they can tell you how many of them were from the hospitality business, academics, road construction. All of the sectors that we count, nobody can provide those sectors for you. The airport road you are talking about was awarded under Yar’adua so it’s not Jonathan that awarded the airport road that you are talking about. It’s possible that he attempted to construct such roads but none of those roads I see today exist to my understanding. They said a few months ago that they had turned around the power sector by privatising the power sector. As we speak today, you and I know that they have only invested more money in buying more darkness for the Nigerian people.

Aso Rock cabal shops for Osinbajo’s replacement •Popular South West pastor tops list
•VP may face corruption allegation

From within Aso Rock, words got out on Friday that the powerful cabal around President Muhammadu Buhari has concluded on forcing embattled Vice President Yemi Osinbajo out of office.

Despite the fog of uncertainty surrounding the fate of Osinbajo, nothing concrete is yet be traced to the president regarding the future of his deputy with whom he had shared a warm relationship since their joint victory in 2015.

But the president’s men are said to be unrelenting in their pursuit of an agenda reportedly aimed at abruptly ending Osinbajo’s presidential sojourn.


Amidst all these, the vice president, on Friday, in Ekiti State, accused insiders whom he described as fifth columnists of working against the interest of the government.

In weeks ahead, one major battle Osinbajo may have to fight is preventing corruption tar from leeching on him as allegations of corrupt handling of government agencies under him may soon hit the airwaves.

To a devastating effect, the administration has employed the anti-corruption campaign to uproot perceived enemies within the government.

Apart from Walter Onnoghen who was sacked from office as the Chief Justice of Nigeria for alleged failure to declare five domiciliary accounts belonging to him in his asset declaration form, the immediate past Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita was also relieved of her position on Thursday over an alleged corruption probe.

Aftermath her open clash with the powerful Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, at the exco chamber in the Villa over the controversial return to office of fugitive Abdulrasheed Maina of the infamous Pensiongate, many within the system were counting days for her before being sent packing.


It was also predicted that allegations of corruption would be used in getting rid of her.

Both predictions came to pass and were accurate.

Maina, a former chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Pension, who fled the country and was declared wanted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was smuggled back into the country and into the civil service in October 2017, triggering a national outcry.


On camera, an incensed Oyo-Ita was seen wagging her fingers in the face of an equally angry Kyari. Both eventually made up before the camera.

With the sack of a former Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), Lawal Daura, Kyari is believed to be the face of the presidency cabal, though two other powerful figures (names withheld) not in government are also said to call major shots.

Search for replacement

Beyond the drama of the past week within the presidency, which has seen Osinbajo in the eye of the storm regarding his continued relevance in the administration’s second term in office, Saturday Tribune was informed by a well-placed Villa source that names were already coming up as possible replacement for the vice president.

Topping the list of those being considered is said to be a popular pastor for what is deemed an appropriate replacement and balancing.

Osinbajo, aside from being a Christian, is a pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and an ally of the denomination’s influential general overseer, Pastor Enoch Adeboye.

Although other names are reportedly being bandied as his possible replacement, the said pastor appears to fulfill all the requirements, being also a Christian, a popular pastor and equally from the south-western part of the country like the vice president.

It was further learnt that those who want to see the back of Osinbajo are considering two major exit strategies: either his forceful resignation or impeachment through the National Assembly.

A source around the vice president said his in-house traducers are already seeing him to be toast with the conviction that it may not be too difficult forcing him to resign when brought under pressure.

Osinbajo’s lack of meaningful political structure outside of Senator Bola Tinubu’s is likely emboldening those seeking to rid the presidency of him.

The vice president’s major sin for which he has reportedly not been forgiven, according to an insider source, is beyond the actions taken when the president was hospitalised in the United Kingdom.


As the acting president, Osinbajo saw to the Senate confirmation of Justice Walter Onnoghen as the nation’s substantive Chief Justice, though Buhari eventually got rid of him through a controversial suspension following an alleged failure to declare all his assets as required by the law.

Onnoghen, the first southern Christian CJN in over 28 years of northern domination, was replaced with Justice Mohammed Tanko.

Osinbajo also got the controversial erstwhile Director General of the SSS, Daura, fired following a siege to the National Assembly.


The then acting president publicly said he consulted the then ailing president before making the decisions.

Daura has been seen around the seat of power since Buhari assumed full duties.

However, the public denial of the much-despised Ruga policy of the Buhari administration by Osinbajo, following a national outcry, is said to have been the deal breaker for the presidency cabal.

The back-and-forth between the vice president’s office and the Myetti Allah over Ruga and the insistence by the former that Ruga isn’t the same as the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) against the position of the latter further mobilised national and international outcry against the policy.

Buhari’s administration later succumbed to the global condemnation and scrapped the idea, which was aimed at having strictly Fulani settlements in local governments across the country.

The cabal, according to information available to Saturday Tribune, is holding Osinbajo responsible for the unnatural death of the Ruga agenda, believed to have been packaged by the administration to favour the Fulani stock of the president.

Despite the decision by nearly all northern governors to buy into NLTP as against Ruga and with Osinbajo being actively involved, the party is reportedly considered over for him in the current power project, hence the resolve, according to available information, to kick him out.

A political associate of Osinbajo told Saturday Tribune he didn’t see any big deal in the alleged raw deal coming the way of the number two man.

When asked if he had discussed the current realities with the vice president, he said he could only volunteer an opinion when asked.

Osinbajo has been variously accused of sidelining many of his associates while only relating closely with those who are of the Redeemed church.

kampari:
I know I should be minding my business but this one pass minding your business.

astrodome:
You are a fake Abia man lolz

astrodome:
lease, when you catch this lone Abia drug pusher kill him. He is a disgrace to Igbos, just like 21 on death row in Indonesia, 50 in Malay and 77 in USA, all from Anambra.
ou are a fake Abia man lolz