I read about Okite rituals in Saturday Punch. This may not apply to the named individuals but it seems some people can easily lose their lives doing things like that. Obviously, most won't give their families prior information if they choose to tow that path so no one will know where to find them.
beerfraud: A human rights activist, Comrade Osita Obi, has cried out over the spate of missing people in Anambra State.
The activist, who addressed a press conference in Awka, said it is becoming almost normal for people to mysteriously disappear in Anambra with no trace, while life continues as if nothing has happened.
He said that, besides persons who have fallen victim to kidnappers and were never found, there have been three prominent individuals in the state who have remained missing, and nothing is being done to trace them.
He mentioned prominent businessman Mr. Benjamin Ezemma, House of Assembly member Hon. Justice Azuka, and candidate of the Labour Party in the Anambra 2021 governorship election Mr. Obiora Agbasimalo, all of whom went missing at various times and have not been seen since.
Obi said, “I am more concerned about the sudden disappearance of Mr. Benjamin Ezemma, who is also the Vice Chairman of Dubai Estate and also known as Big Ben. He disappeared on November 12 and has not been seen since then.
“We are here to encourage the government to find Ben Ezemma. It is Ben today, it may be any one of us tomorrow. We know that the government has the capacity to find this man. What is the federal government doing about this?
“We all did SIM registration, NIN registration, and others. What is the use of such data that we left with the federal government? Can’t they use it to find missing people like Ben?
“We are urging the police, DSS, NSA, and other security agencies to find this man. We are expecting that the authorities would have swung into action without waiting for people like us to report the incident to them.
“Let these security agencies use the facilities available to them to track down his kidnappers. Even if it entails monitoring the call log of Ben through his service providers, we can use it to know the kind of person Ben was, what he has been into, and who he has been having dealings with.”
The activist revealed that some people who are suspected to have had dealings with the missing businessman have been dragged to court. He begged journalists to show interest in the matter and report it to the world so that it would not be swept under the carpet.
While expressing happiness about the level of commitment the Department of State Services (DSS) in Anambra State has shown in the matter, he condemned the state police command for what he called glaring incompetence.
Dubai Estate... The very young founder's profile was featured on this Website sometime in 2023. Mmmm... So, his VC has been missing since November 2024. Unfortunately, he's probably dead by now because those vicious Anambra kidnappers who are under the influence of hard drugs as well kill people even after hefty ransoms have been paid.
Great100000: Some streets in Chicago have changed under Donald Trump’s immigration policies, as communities retreat into the shadows amid intensified ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids targeting undocumented immigrants.
In Little Village, a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood on the city’s south side, streets that were once lively now look empty.
Locals told Sky News that fewer people are venturing outside due to fear of being caught up in the crackdown.
The initial focus, officials say, is on targeting migrant criminals, but there is also concern over ‘collateral arrests,’ where undocumented immigrants not initially targeted could be detained. As a result, even those with legal status are exercising caution.
One resident, Steve, shared his fears for his mother, who came from Mexico years ago without proper documentation.
“She crossed the border over here to get a better life for us when we were born, to get education and all. She’s scared to go out there, that she might get picked up,” he told Sky News.
At a local community center that provides support to migrants, staff have ramped up security measures.
A gate at the entrance now remains closed, and workers begin their day by surveying the streets for immigration officers. A notice on the front door advises migrants on what to do if ICE arrives.
Inside the center, Oliber, a Venezuelan migrant working legally in the U.S. with a valid work permit, described how fear has altered his daily life.
“I feel scared,” he said. “I go out feeling frightened. I don’t go out now like I used to. I used to go out every day until night-time, I’d work at any time, but now I can’t go out anywhere.”
That's a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois. It's expected because of the high rate of illegal immigration or undocumented immigrants among the Hispanics in the United States.
Dogalmighty17: Give a fool a hammer and everything looks like a nail. The World Street Journal, a paper that actually supported Trump in his second run for the presidency has come out to call Trump's tariffs the dumbest economic decision in over 50 years.
Trump's professor at Wharton, called Donald Trump the dumbest student he ever had. It is obvious.
It must be remembered that the USMCA trade deal Trump just abandoned was the very deal he negotiated during his first term! He got Canada and Mexico onboard that agreement. Now he is tearing up the same agreement he authored.
If Trump is not careful, he may trigger a recession in the global economy. Watch what happens as stock markets open tomorrow to see just how scared the markets are about this . Trump thinks that foreign countries pay the tariffs. But anyone with basic knowledge of economics knows that the cost of the tariffs is borne by the final consumer in this case, American citizens. Trump's tariffs are a tax on the American consumer.
This will stifle demand, dislodge supply chains and force multiple companies to close. Trump's first tariffs against China saw China jettison US sourced Soybeans for other markets in Brazil and Argentina. Trump had to bail out US soyabean farmers with 25 billions US dollars but yet some farms closed down and some farmers committed suicide.
There is no upside to these tariffs. It will only lead the US into economic dire straits. Trump is and idiot.
Impressive. Congratulations to the young student Saheed Niyi Azeez. If he positions himself properly within the Tech space, he'll soon be able to attract some investors and get catapulted into the league of young folks such as Olumide Soyombo of Voltron Capital and Tope Awotona.
OneOnland: After creating 2 million GPT tokens, this UNILAG student has built an AI text-to-speech model with Nigerian accent
Azeez Saheed YarnGPT founder In November 2024, when I asked Saheed Azeez how difficult it was to create Naijaweb — a dataset of 230 million GPT-2 tokens based on Nairaland — he brushed it off as something simple. "It's just web scraping," he said.
However, in my latest conversation with him, his new passion project seems to have pushed him further. He calls it YarnGPT, a text-to-speech AI model that can read text aloud in a Nigerian accent.
In a world where AI can generate lifelike voices in seconds, a text-to-speech model with a Nigerian accent might not seem groundbreaking at first. But when you consider two things, it becomes a big deal.
First, Azeez is a Nigerian university student with limited resources. Second, developing a model that accurately captures the nuances of a Nigerian accent is technically challenging.
From tokenising audio to the many mathematical concepts Azeez referenced while explaining the process, it was clear that this wasn’t a simple task. Even Azeez, in his usual fashion, didn’t downplay the effort involved.
"It was quite tasking, especially gathering the data needed to make this happen."
How YarnGPT was created Inspired by naijaweb, Azeez was eager to build something new. "The amount of conversations and interest people had in Naijaweb was a great motivation. Imagine getting featured on Techpoint Africa; it motivated me to do this."
He was also motivated by failure. Before starting YarnGPT, he had applied for a job at a Nigerian AI company but didn’t perform as well in the interview as he had expected.
YarnGPT became the project that would help him improve his skills and increase his chances of securing such roles in the future.
Building an AI model that sounds Nigerian required gathering a vast amount of Nigerian voices.
"I used some movies that were available online. I extracted their audio and subtitles."
Nollywood produces over 2,500 movies a year, and with many filmmakers uploading their work to YouTube, it seemed like Azeez had plenty of data to work with. But in reality, he had almost none.
"The problem with building in Nigeria is data. Replicating what has been built overseas isn’t that hard, but data always gets in the way."
While there are thousands of movies for him to choose from the audio wasn't up to the standard he wanted, and their subtitles were inaccurate. To compensate, Azeez turned to Hugging Face, an open-source platform for machine learning and data science. He combined the audio from Nigerian movies with high-quality datasets from Hugging Face to train his model.
The next step was training the AI model, but without access to his own GPU, he had to rely on cloud computing services like Google Colab. This cost him $50 (₦80,000) — a significant amount for a university student. Unfortunately, it was a waste.
"The model I built wasn’t working well, and the $50 cloud credit was burnt just like that. It was painful for me."
Determined to find another way, he discovered Oute AI, a platform that had developed a text-to-speech model in an autoregressive manner.
"The way the model works is, you give it a piece of text, and it predicts one word at a time. It takes that word, adds it back to the text, then predicts the next one — kind of like how ChatGPT completes sentences. That’s what makes it autoregressive."
While I found the autoregressive framework difficult to understand, Azeez pointed out that it simply gave him better results.
Biodun556: AFD extols progress on Lagos transport interchange hubs project The Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA) has begun stakeholders’ engagement meetings as a precursor to scoping activities for the proposed Lagos Rail Mass Transit (LRMT) Purple Line project.
A team of officials from LAMATA, yesterday, visited Ikeja and Agege local councils, as well as Ojodu Local Council Development Area (LCDA) to initiate discussions with local stakeholders.
Council officials, during the visit, expressed their support for the project. Chairman of Ikeja Local Council, Dr Balogun Mojeed, affirmed his commitment to the project, emphasising its potential to improve the lives of Lagos residents and contribute to the city’s development as a smart city.
In Agege, Rasheed Adaranijo, who represented the council chairman, Kola Egunjobi, assured the LAMATA team of the council’s readiness to support the initiative.
Similarly, David Odunmbaku of Ojodu LCDA commended the governor for undertaking such impactful projects, highlighting the long-awaited need for an intermodal transport system in Lagos.
MEANWHILE, the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) has expressed satisfaction with the progress of transport interchange projects in Lagos State, funded by state government and the AFD.
A team, led by the Country Director, Xavier Muron, recently conducted an on-the-spot assessment of the two interchange hub projects at Marina and Mile 2, giving the new project lead, Anne Chaussavoine, a firsthand look at the advancements in Lagos transport infrastructure.
Chaussavoine expressed optimism about the project’s progress and its potential to positively impact the lives of Lagos residents. The outgoing team lead, David Margonsztern, also lauded the project’s progress, stating his intention to return and witness the realisation of the envisioned integrated multimodal transport system.
That Green Line rail project on the Lekki Peninsula axis would be the ultimate game changer in mass transit... in addition to the proposed Purple Line project. It's gonna be a sum total of "one brick at a time" and "one step at a time."
idrezee: The phone you are using to type this shiiii is it a Muslim that made it? Why are you using something invented by a Kafirun.
Why are you driving and flying in a car/plane invented by Kafiruns. Why did you not stop your education at ilekwu why goto a school invented by Kafiruns.
Why are you using the Kafiruns’ calendar January-December and working with it.
This is 2025 go and learn more about your religion or shut uuuup and stop embarrassing I and other Muslims. Go and learn about Islam, stop bedeviling this religion and making Christians think we are all like you.
Islam is a complete way of life and most of the bad and terrible sides you see today were translated that to suit their selfish way. It is in the Quran in Suratul Fil (the elephant) God didn’t tell anyone to fight for him when the people of the elephant came to destroy His holy house, AbdulMutalib told those who almost fought to defend the house to “let God fight for Himself” and God defended that house. Anyone you see killlling people in the name of fighting for Allah is practicing a different Islam but unfortunately the number of these type of people is so plenty in the world that we now see their ways as Islamic ways.
The above is a very succinct response to that insidious post on page one. It shows your "higher state of awareness of life" despite your belief.
However, the insidious moniker you responded to is definitely NOT a Muslim but a troll. Look at the moniker's profile details, location, and his past posts to get a hang of what I'm saying here. There are many of these "fake NL monikers" and "bored incels" on this discussion forum (and other online platforms such as FB, X, YouTube, etc), who simply go about derailing threads and posting highly inciting messages and disinformation online in order to trigger religious and ethnic wars as revealed in the famous 2022 investigative documentary video of the "BBC Global Disinformation Team"which exposed live videos of the criminal male and female ipob members and leaders in Europe CLEARLY ordering the beheadings, murder or assassinations of specific people in the East of Nigeria which were carried out within weeks and these criminals hired thousands of members as part of paid troll farms located and operating from specific countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, such as Finland, Italy, UK, South, Africa, Nigeria, North America, etc.This criminal secessionist gang bought thousands of laptops, phones, and Internet data for these "paid troll farms" as revealed in the "BBC Global Disinformation" investigative documentary (which can still be viewed online) to use for spreading mass disinformation in order to destabilize Nigeria and trigger violence through fake online videos and posts and this is what has been playing out on this same Website. The disruption of the ipob cells and others using this Website to spread propaganda is a task that has to be done.
Former Senate President Bukola Saraki has congratulated his son, Seni, on his victory at the 67th Grammy Awards.
Seni earned his first Grammy for his contribution to the Bob Marley: One Love soundtrack, which won Best Reggae Album.
In a post on X, Saraki expressed his joy at seeing his son’s passion recognised on a global stage, adding that he is “super proud” of him.
“Congratulations, Seni, on winning your first Grammy last night for your work on the Bob Marley: One Love soundtrack, which took home the award for Best Reggae Album!” he wrote.
“Seeing you pour your heart into your passion and having it recognised on the global stage is an indescribable joy. Well done! We are super proud of you!”
Reacting to the win, Seni expressed gratitude to all the artists and producers who contributed to the project’s success, including Nigeria’s Wizkid and Bloody Civilian.
“I appreciate all the amazing artistes, producers and engineers who were brave enough to take on this project because it is about Bob Marley’s legacy,” he said.
“I appreciate them for taking on the songs, reinterpreting them, and doing it their own way. Artists like Bloody Civilian, Wizkid, Daniel Caesar, and Jessie Reyez.”
Bob Marley: One Love is a biographical film depicting the life of the reggae icon, exploring how he overcame adversity and the journey behind his revolutionary music.
This is not Seni’s first major industry recognition. In 2023, the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever soundtrack, a project he worked on as a music consultant, earned four Grammy nominations.
A graduate of the London School of Economics and Political Science, Seni is the CEO of The Native, a Lagos-based music magazine he co-founded with Teni ‘Teezee’ Zaccheaus in 2016. The publication celebrates music, style, and art while championing African sounds and culture.
That's highly impressive. Congratulations to his entire team who worked on the music project as well.
The fact that 'Seni (Olaseni) Saraki graduated from the prestigious and highly competitive London School of Economics and Political Science (where many of the influential top guns in global politics, business, academics, and more attended) speaks to the depth of his intelligence and creativity.
Congratulations to 'Seni, his paternal Saraki family and his maternal aristocratic Ojora family of Lagos State on the reinterpretation of the iconic Bob Marley's "One Love" soundtrack which got the 67th Grammy Award for the Best Raggae Album.
Rebuker: Be Careful with Your Words: A Lady’s Shocking Experience with the Police.
A lady recently shared a shocking experience on her social media about how a simple misunderstanding got her arrested and detained.
According to her, she went to the pharmacy to buy medication for her husband, who wasn’t feeling well. After purchasing the items, she stepped outside and made a phone call to inform him. She told him, "I got the drugs. I got two drugs for you. When you take them, you’ll feel better."
Unbeknownst to her, people around overheard the word "drugs" and immediately became suspicious. She didn't think anything of it until the police arrived.
They stopped her and demanded, "Where are the drugs?"
Confused, she asked, "What drugs?"
The officers insisted, and she showed them what she had bought—a hay fever tablet and pain relief medication. But they didn’t believe her. She tried to explain, saying, "Oh, drugs? I meant this." The officers responded, "Medication?" and she quickly corrected herself, "Oh yes, I meant medication."
Unfortunately, her clarification didn’t help. She was taken to the police station, detained, and questioned. In her own words, "They asked me questions, questions." She called her husband to explain, telling him, "Something happened. I went to get medication, and they said I can't go home da da da da because of what I said."
She explained that she had spoken loudly on the phone earlier because she was excited to have found the medication, as there were very few places to buy it. But the police weren’t satisfied. Before releasing her, they conducted a midnight search of her house.
After finally being let go, she was on her way home when she received a video from her husband showing the mess the police had left behind. She lamented, "Guys, I swear, this Nigerian English is just putting me into trouble because the fact that I called medication 'drugs' was the problem, and I didn't know."
She went on to say, "It's not the first time I've said English wrongly, which I feel that's what we say in Nigeria. So why should I be bothered? But this one got me in a big mess."
She concluded by warning others, "Let's be careful with this Nigerian English before it takes us to prison!"
Her experience is a reminder that language differences can sometimes lead to unexpected trouble. What is normal in one country may have a completely different meaning elsewhere.
Dogalmighty17: Give a fool a hammer and everything looks like a nail. The World Street Journal, a paper that actually supported Trump in his second run for the presidency has come out to call Trump's tariffs the dumbest economic decision in over 50 years.
Trump's professor at Wharton, called Donald Trump the dumbest student he ever had. It is obvious.
It must be remembered that the USMCA trade deal Trump just abandoned was the very deal he negotiated during his first term! He got Canada and Mexico onboard that agreement. Now he is tearing up the same agreement he authored.
If Trump is not careful, he may trigger a recession in the global economy. Watch what happens as stock markets open tomorrow to see just how scared the markets are about this. Trump thinks that foreign countries pay the tariffs. But anyone with basic knowledge of economics knows that the cost of the tariffs is borne by the final consumer in this case, American citizens. Trump's tariffs are a tax on the American consumer.
This will stifle demand, dislodge supply chains and force multiple companies to close. Trump's first tariffs against China saw China jettison US sourced Soybeans for other markets in Brazil and Argentina. Trump had to bail out US soyabean farmers with 25 billions US dollars but yet some farms closed down and some farmers committed suicide.
There is no upside to these tariffs. It will only lead the US into economic dire straits. Trump is an idiot.
Editorialtimes: A media aide to the Delta State Governor, Ossai Ovie Success, has publicly criticised Sound City Radio and Television over what he described as inappropriate dressing by one of its female presenters.
Ossai, who serves as the Senior Special Assistant on Media, took to social media to express his disappointment after photos of the presenter wearing a revealing outfit surfaced online.
His post quickly sparked conversations online, with many weighing in on the role of professionalism in media dressing. While some agreed that media outfits should uphold certain standards, others argued that fashion is a personal choice and should not define a professional’s competence.
So far, Sound City Radio has not responded to the criticism, but the incident has reignited the debate on dress codes in the Nigerian media industry and how organizations navigate the balance between self-expression and workplace ethics.
The female presenter was probably working in the studio late in the night and so she had to dress down like that. In the day time, it would be an anathema to dress like that with her revealing boobs spilling right out of the sides of her dress.
But, I agree these "peeping boobs" can be a distraction in the workplace for some men, so, she has to be guarded in her dress sense next time. With this story, I expect the Sound City Radio presenter would get more interests from the opposite sex if she ain't already taken.
Rebuker: How I Raised £15,450 in Few Months in the UK.
In an insightful interview conducted by Precious Ubani, a UK-based Nigerian lady shared how she raised £15,450 within a few months after arriving in the UK. She explained that when she first came to the UK, she had to learn various tasks, including cleaning, grass cutting, and even working as a carer. Despite being new to the country, she took on these jobs without hesitation and gradually began building a steady income.
She revealed that within just three months of arriving, she had already started earning, and it wasn’t long before people began reaching out to her for similar services. Reflecting on the work she did, she mentioned that while some might feel embarrassed to do these menial jobs, she was never ashamed as long as she was earning. She was proud of her hustle and didn’t let societal perceptions hold her back.
The lady shared that these jobs allowed her to make a substantial amount of money, earning £15,450 in less than a year. She encouraged others, particularly those coming from Nigeria or similar backgrounds, to stay humble and persistent. “Even if you were a president back home, when you come here, you have to humble yourself to achieve your goals,” she said, stressing the importance of perseverance and hard work.
Summary: A Nigerian woman in the UK shared her journey of adapting to life in the country, where she learned various jobs like cleaning, grass cutting, and caregiving to support herself. Despite the nature of the work, she was proud to hustle and earned 15,450 pounds within a few months. She encouraged others to remain humble and determined, regardless of their background, to achieve success. Her story highlights the power of hard work and humility in overcoming challenges and achieving financial stability.
Great100000: China will impose tariffs of 15 percent on imports of coal and LNG from the US in retaliation for 10 percent levies on Chinese goods.
China will impose tariffs of 15 percent on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States in retaliation for Washington’s 10 percent levies on Chinese goods.
China’s Ministry of Finance also announced on Tuesday that there would be 10 percent tariffs on imports from the US of crude oil, agricultural machinery, large-displacement vehicles and pick-up trucks.
The new measures were in response to the “unilateral tariff hike” by the US, it said, adding that Washington’s decision “seriously violates World Trade Organization rules, does nothing to resolve its own problems, and disrupts normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States”.
Beijing’s tariffs, which come into force on February 10, were announced shortly after US President Donald Trump said he would hold a call with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in the next 24 hours.
On Saturday, Trump announced sweeping measures against its top trade partners, including Canada and Mexico, with goods from China facing an additional 10 percent tariff on top of the duties they already endure.
Trump said the measures aimed to punish countries for failing to halt flows of undocumented migrants and drugs, including fentanyl, into the US.
However, on Monday, he suspended his threat of tariffs on Mexico and Canada, agreeing to a 30-day pause in return for concessions on border and crime enforcement with the neighbouring countries.
“China’s retaliatory tariffs are a calibrated response rather than an outright escalation,” Julien Chaisse, professor at City University of Hong Kong specialising in international economic law, said.
“The measures demonstrate Beijing’s willingness to impose economic costs on Washington while maintaining flexibility for negotiation. “The choice of a February 10 start date appears strategic. It allows time for a possible discussion between Trump and Xi which is creating space for last-minute diplomacy before the measures take effect. If talks between the two take place in the coming days, there is room for adjustments, partial exemptions or reciprocal gestures that could prevent a further spiral in trade tensions.
“That said, much will depend on Washington’s interpretation of these measures. If the US views them as a calibrated step leaving room for negotiation, this could set the stage for discussions rather than further escalation. However, if Trump sees this as a direct challenge, his administration could respond with additional trade restrictions. This would intensify the conflict.”
During his first term in 2018, Trump initiated a brutal two-year trade war with China over its massive US trade surplus, with tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods upending global supply chains and damaging the world economy.
To end that trade war, China agreed in 2020 to spend an extra $200bn a year on US goods, but the plan was derailed by the COVID pandemic and its annual trade deficit widened to $361bn, according to Chinese customs data released last month.
Trump warned he might increase tariffs on China further unless Beijing stemmed the flow of fentanyl, a deadly opioid, into the US.
China has called fentanyl a US problem and said it would challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization and take other countermeasures, but also left the door open for talks.
These knee-jerk reactions from the Trump administration are already having negative effects on the stock markets where volatile swings are occuring. The unintended consequences of the trade wars would be more inflation for the global economy and the disruptions in the global supply chains.
It's just history repeating itself right now and Trump had better backup from further hurting the global economy while trying to boost that of the United States which do not follow sound economics. It's a case of a raging bull in a China shop scenario we have here. Period.
Bwanasaraw: Incidence like this happens in Auchi- Ekpoma axis regularly, I don't know why the press just ignore that area.
Between June & December last year, over 70 young people where kidnapped and killed for ritual in Auchi but the press was silent.
In Ekpoma, Irrua, Ubiaja, Ewoyimi etc.. Kidnapping is now a daily occurrence, sometimes they go from house to house in the day to kidnap. Those travelling to attend Marriage or Burial ceremony in that area are kidnapped and killed for ritual. They don't even call for ransom again.
Gosh! The epicenters of these criminal incidents you are talking about here are Auchi and Esanland in Edo State. Are you sure about this and have the media agencies in Edo State been reporting some of these concerns? NO doubt, the kidnappers are indigenous to that area based off of the relentless kidnappings
I recall going through some Police and intelligence crime statistics (the vicious armed robberies and kidnappings in Ondo State back in the 2010s) and what caught my attention was that interstate armed robbers from Delta State and some from the South East, Edo and Kogi States were responsible for those crimes in the state capital and along the highways leading to Edo and Kogi States.
Small drones with surveillance and attack capabilities have to be urgently deployed right in that geographical areas of Ondo State and the Auchi-Ekpoma road to surreptitiously monitor events and the death penalty has to be enforced by the Governor of Edo State and other States ASAP. Anybody who cannot sign the death warrant has NO business being a Governor. These drones aren't too expensive and do the job of aerial surveillance effectively.
treesun: By Farooq A. Kperogi Although 2025 has only just begun, the Machiavellian maneuvers and the increasingly tensile, high-decibel political shrieks being emitted by politicians about the 2027 election might lead one to believe that the election will take place next year.
Of all the political realignments that are forming preparatory to the 2027 election, it’s the unity in political adversity between former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and former Governor Nasir El-Rufai that strikes me as the most intriguing.
El-Rufai feels understandably betrayed by his humiliating exclusion from the Bola Tinubu administration whose ascent to power he helped to facilitate with uncommon vim and vigor. Nonetheless, he is protesting his betrayal by making common cause with Atiku Abubakar whom he had serially stabbed in the back more treacherously than Tinubu has thrown him under the bus.
It is akin, in a way, to a soldier who, after leading a fierce battle to enthrone a king, finds himself cast out of the palace. Wounded and seething, he seeks refuge in the camp of an old mentor and ally whom he once betrayed in the heat of war, hoping that their shared resentment for the new ruler will be enough to overlook past treacheries.
Recall that El-Rufai consistently disclaimed any debt to Atiku Abubakar in his political rise even when leaked US Embassy cables quoted him as telling US Embassy officials that Atiku is the single most important reason he made an “accidental” detour to public service. Worse still, he was the lynchpin in President Olusegun Obasanjo’s all-out, no-holds-barred, scorched-earth decimation of Atiku’s presidential aspirations.
As I pointed out in my August 12, 2023, column titled “El-Rufai’s Betrayal and Akpabio’s Buffoonery,” it was El-Rufai who carried Obasanjo’s messages to Western embassies saying Atiku must never be allowed to be president.
“On September 21, 2006, for instance, El-Rufai met with the U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and the UK High Commissioner ‘under instruction’ from President Obasanjo to inform them of and seek their blessing to deny Atiku Abubakar the chance to succeed Obasanjo,” I wrote and characterized El-Rufai’s volte face as “a wild change of loyalties.”
Of course, it’s a banal fact of Third World life that betrayal is the lifeblood of partisan politics. So, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about El-Rufai’s duplicity. In any case, El-Rufai had also ridiculed Muhammadu Buhari as a bigot who was “serially unelectable” but later embraced him and even became the single most important reason why Buhari decided to run for president again, according to Buhari himself.
Yet, although Atiku must have developed a thick skin to perfidy (I am sure he, too, has stabbed quite a few people in the back in the course of his political career), I can’t help but wonder what goes on in his mind when he strategizes with El-Rufai toward the political containment of their common foe now.
Does he see El-Rufai as a repentant traitor seeking redemption, or merely as a desperate, scorned man whose newfound friendship is actuated by opportunistic political self-preservation rather than conviction?
Atiku must feel like sharing a meal with a man who once poisoned his drink. He will probably watch his hands closely and weigh his every word, knowing that today’s ally could easily be tomorrow’s betrayer.
Nevertheless, in the ruthless calculus of politics, perhaps Atiku understands that some alliances, however uneasy, are dictated not by trust, but by the urgency of a common enemy.
This sentiment underpins the rumored subterranean rapprochement between Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso. Although they appear to be at loggerheads, there are credible hints that Abdullahi Ganduje’s recent appointment to the chairmanship of the board of the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria is a calculated first step to strategically ease him out of the chairmanship of the APC, which is said to be the irreducible minimum for Kwankwaso’s alliance with Tinubu.
A Tinubu-Kwankwaso alliance is projected to be a formidable checkmate for the emerging Atiku-El-Rufai coalition.
However, in all the alliances and re-alliances that are being formed and reformed and the boundaries of friendship and betrayal that are being negotiated and renegotiated, one thing has been remarkably missing: how to reverse the progressively worsening plight of common people.
The condition of poor people who are vulnerable to the whirlingly blinding vagaries of market forces is the cornerstone of my public intellection. This sprouts from my own experiential brushes with poverty growing up. Although I have escaped my past condition, I have not lost, and won’t ever lose, my empathy for the poor.
None of the people strategizing about taking over or retaining power in 2027 spares a thought for the seemingly irreversible death spiral that cruel neoliberal economics has visited on the masses of economically disinherited Nigerians. That worries me deeply.
It is obvious that even so-called opposition politicians don’t have an alternative template for husbanding the economy. That’s why their criticism of the present torment has been muted at best. They all believe the state should be rolled back from the quotidian life of everyday folk and that governments have no responsibility to assist citizens to live decent, dignified lives.
This style of government frees people in power from the responsibility to be accountable to the people and the license to jettison the unwritten social contract they signed with the people.
They all want a country where, as I pointed out in the past, the economy will “grow” even if that causes the people to growl. “After the economy has ‘grown’ but the people still groan, where is the growth?” I wrote in my June 24, 2023.
That is precisely what is happening in Argentina, which is pursuing similar inhumane market-centric policies as Tinubu. Argentina’s populist rightwing president is getting plaudits for “growing” the economy while the people are growling in anguish.
He is being celebrated for achieving a budget surplus at the expense of deep deficits in people’s quality of life, at the cost of a recessionary economy that has plunged more than half of the country into extreme poverty. The Western press is also praising Tinubu’s “reforms.”
No politician, to my knowledge, is talking about a more compassionate, people-centered approach to managing the economy. Unfortunately, the people don’t seem to care. Maybe that’s why the politicians don’t care, either.
Or perhaps it’s the other way around: the politicians stopped caring first, numbing the people into apathy through years of airy promises and performative concern. When hardship becomes routine and disappointment a certainty, cynicism replaces hope, and survival takes precedence over ideals.
In such a climate, politics becomes a spectacle rather than a means of change, and the people, resigned to their fate, watch passively, expecting nothing and receiving exactly that.
Betrand Russell could very well be describing Nigeria’s situation when he wrote 1923 that “A very large percentage of English-speaking people really believe that the ills from which they suffer would be cured if a certain political party were in power. That is a reason for the swing of the pendulum.
“A man votes for one party and remains miserable; he concludes that it was the other party that was to bring the millennium. By the time he is disenchanted with all parties, he is an old man on the verge of death; his sons retain the belief of his youth, and the see-saw goes on.” https://www.farooqkperogi.com/2025/02/as-foes-and-friends-unite-against-tinubu.html
bigpicture001: Add 15k and buy CTVL .. u won't regret it... We have used it for 17years now... It's indian made with 4cups of various sizes... it's multiple on grinding.. ND has two grinder...
Na u go tire hand over to ur marrying daughter....
OLAADEGBU: Nigerian Constitution Allows Muslims In South-West States To Set Up Shariah Panels — Sultan-led JNI
The Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) has stated that the Nigerian Constitution allows the establishment of Sharia panels in southwestern region of the country.
JNI, being led by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammad Sa'ad Abubakar, noted that Section 275 of the 1999 Constitution grants states the authority to establish Sharia courts, and by extension, Shariah panels.
The group argued that this provision enables Muslims in the Southwest to set up such panels, which would handle civil cases involving Muslims.
This was stated in a press statement issued by JNI Secretary General, Professor Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, in a statement in Kaduna State.
The group said: “The undue resistance, inflammatory rhetoric, and outright distortion of facts by certain groups opposing these panels are deeply concerning and least expected from a people that claim to be tolerant.
“The 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) guarantees the religious freedoms of all citizens, including Muslims. Specifically, sections 38 and 275-279 provide for the establishment and operation of Shari’a courts for civil matters where applicable."
Professor Khalid said the Sharia arbitration panels “do not infringe on the rights of non-Muslims but merely offer a voluntary alternative dispute resolution mechanism for Muslims who choose to settle personal matters such as marriage, inheritance, and family disputes according to Islamic law.
“For the discerning mind, Islam has very interesting and enriching inheritance codes that have remained inalienable to Muslims’ lives. It is, therefore, mischievous and deceptive to suggest that these panels aim to ‘impose’ Shari’a on non-Muslims.
“The panels are strictly for Muslims, adjudicating only cases where both parties consent, a practice that exists in various pluralistic societies worldwide.”
He recalled that Shari’a adjudication is not new to the South West, adding, “Historically, Yoruba Muslims have settled civil disputes through customary Islamic mechanisms, predating colonial rule, and even under British rule, Native Courts recognised Shari’a-based adjudication in predominantly Muslim communities.”
He called on those leading the campaign of misinformation to stop the misrepresentation, unwarranted hostility and distortion of empirical facts by instilling fear in the populace against Shari’a panels to desist from their divisive agenda.
The Muslims (led by JNI and others Islamic bodies from Yorubaland) are CLEARLY to BLAME here for NOT explaining things in very SIMPLE terms to other non-Muslim folks about the differences between a Sharia Arbitration Panel and the highly infamous Sharia Courts (which involve the implementation of full-blown sharia laws such as beheadings, amputations, etc), like you find in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc. Just like Islamic non-interest banking and Sukuk that many non-Muslims worldwide are now benefitting from which initially caused suspicions and uproars, Sharia Arbitration Panels look harmless and have existed even in a cosmopolitan state such as Lagos State for years.
Regardless, Sharia Arbitration Panels for the settlement of family issues and inheritance laws for Muslims is OK to me and should not pose a problem for the Yoruba folks who are indigenous to the states of the South West and North Central of Nigeria. Whatever the Yoruba Muslim Ummah does must be properly explained in the media and not laced with insults targeted at other Yorubas like one Ibadan-based Muslim Nairalander was doing last week on a thread. Many trolls who are non-Yorubas also seized on this Sharia Panel situation to post doomsday scenarios and make inflammatory posts to derail threads and taunt the Yorubas over this issue. What causes suspicions worldwide is the fanatical, full-blown Sharia Courts judgements and the forcible imposition of Islam on others which should be kept at bay. Period.
seunmsg: Governor Adeleke should be held solely responsible for the breakdown of law and order in Esa oke. He’s the one trying to impose an illegal king on an ancestral land belonging to the people of Esa-Oke. He’s doing this nonsense as a result of his political disagreement with Hon. Wole Oke from Esa Oke.
Sadly, he’s using state security outfits to kill and maim innocent people. The deaths recorded in Esa Oke today is unnecessary, unacceptable, and totally condemnable. There will be consequences for this on Election Day.
khalling2008: They called themselves Omoluabi, who could not face fulani headers, but they can kill themselves because of the land. Omoluabi my foot. Can Omoluabi kill themselves because of land issues? Is either one is Omoluabi while the other is Omo ale? Which one is Omoluabi? Let's ask Ifa or Oromiyan or oduduwa, Ifa Oromiyan asoro dayo, let's hear you, the Orisha allele of Yoruba, the land of idol worshipers.
The above a highly inciting and asinine post from you! You took a relatively isolated case of intercommunal dispute to gleefully make a lot of hate speech and incitement targeted at an entire ethnic group of over 70 million people worldwide on this thread. This will NOT be tolerated again because you have relentlessly BROKEN the NL rules in many of your posts and shows that you're a paid online troll and agent of ipob that the BBC Global Disinformation Team exposed in their 2022 documentary for the deliberate spread of online fake news and massive disinformation in order to destabilize Nigeria by stirring up ethnic violence among Nigerians.
WriterNig: 🍁 Canadians have canceled trips south of the border, banned U.S. alcohol and other products and even booed at sporting events after 🇺🇸 U.S President Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on most of Canada's goods on Saturday.
Though Trump had pledged to put tariffs on Canada and Mexico before taking office, the perceived act of economic warfare on a country that is so close to the United States culturally and geographically still came as a shock to many Canadians. "It feels like Trump wants to restructure the world order," Drew Dilkens, mayor of the Canadian border city of Windsor, said in an interview. "He's willing to start with his closest ally… If he's willing to do this to Canada, what's he willing to do to everybody else?"
Dilkens said about C$400 million ($272 million) in trade crosses the Ambassador Bridge linking Detroit and Windsor every day. For his 240,000-person community, the fallout from Trump's tariffs will be immediate. He hopes residents will support local wineries and distilleries.
Calgary resident Ken Lima-Coelho said the tariff news spurred a surge of Canadian pride in his household. His 19-year-old son is now making plans to sew a small Canadian flag to his backpack for an upcoming trip to Europe, while his daughter spent Saturday night making an inventory of Canadian food products in the family's kitchen.
"There's nothing I can do about this quagmire that we now find ourselves in politically with the regime next door," Lima-Coelho said. "But I can change which toothpaste I buy... and that gives us something to do while hopefully our political and business leaders sort this out."
Trump slapped a 25% import tariff on all Canadian goods, except energy products, which will carry a levy of 10% while entering the United States.
Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately announced retaliatory tariffs on C$155 billion ($107 billion) of U.S. goods. Those on C$30 billion will take effect on Tuesday, the same day as most of Trump's tariffs, and duties on the remaining C$125 billion in 21 days, Trudeau said.
Trudeau also encouraged Canadians to buy local and vacation in Canada, a sentiment echoed by many local officials. Ontario Premier Doug Ford ordered American-made liquor to be off the shelves of the provincially controlled Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the only alcohol wholesaler in Canada's most populous province, by Tuesday.
"Every year, LCBO sells nearly $1 billion worth of American wine, beer, spirits and seltzers. Not anymore," Ford wrote on X.
After attending church in Winnipeg, Loraine MacKenzie Shepherd said her grocery shopping habits will change, and she hoped to support Mexican products as well as Canadian.
"There will be job losses in this country... we know that's going to happen," she said. "We need to find ways to be in solidarity with others who will be suffering the brunt of some irrational ire."
In Ottawa on Saturday night, Canadians reacted more angrily at a hockey game: booing the U.S. national anthem before the Ottawa Senators played the Minnesota Wild.
TV footage showed basketball fans booing the anthem again on Sunday before the Toronto Raptors played the LA Clippers.
A nigerian poacher was arrested at the IBB golf club abuja, after he was caught killing a crocodile on the golf club, the man claimed to be ill, but was well enough to kill a crocodile.
LMAO...
He said: "I NO well o, Jezuz o."
That croc killer came fully prepared with a relatively new electric shock device to commit that crime of trespassing on the golf course with the aim of killing a croc for the meat and leather.
Cousin9999: Bringing local food isn't some massive crime. Some things are allowed, while others will have to be thrown away because of health and crop risks. They probably just cleaned out her bag and let her pass through.
koning: In my case, my partner discovered the maggots when she was about to cook the goat meat. They were parboiled in Nigeria, but still had maggots on arrival.
Luckily for me the bag was never opened outside MMA, Lagos. I just follow "Nothing to declare" check out.
These sorts of things are supposed to be dessicated and flown out by air freight to Europe or America if they are permitted to be brought in. Over 30 hours is such a long time to put bush meat in a nylon and then in the suitcase with all the heat generated in the cargo hold.
Rebuker: A traveler passing through O'Hare International Airport was caught in a shocking moment when a customs dog alerted officials to something suspicious in her luggage—only for them to discover meat infested with maggots.
Although the incident occurred on May 30, 2024, an American woman recently reposted the clip on X (formerly Twitter), reigniting online discussions and humorous reactions. The video shows a beagle sniffing out a suitcase, prompting customs agents to inspect the bag. Upon opening it, they found ziplocked bags of meat crawling with live maggots.
A customs officer, seen sorting through two suitcases beside the luggage conveyor belt, reacts in shock as she uncovers the contraband. Multiple bags of meat, along with writhing maggots, are clearly visible.
Briana Mary, who shared the video, claimed the meat was "raw African bushmeat" that had been sitting in the suitcase for over 30 hours following a flight from Africa, with a layover in Amsterdam. She questioned, "How did this make it through two different airports to reach O'Hare?"
In the video’s caption, [b]she wrote: "The hound had alerted to the baggage before it even hit the conveyor belt—it went absolutely nuts. As soon as the luggage hit the belt, the dog started ripping at the plastic wrap."
Following the incident, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was reportedly contacted. Bushmeat is illegal to bring into the U.S. due to the potential health risks it poses.
In a statement to Newsweek, the CDC explained, "Multiple federal agencies prohibit the importation of bushmeat and other meats. CDC prohibits bushmeat if it appears to be from a CDC-regulated animal (one that can transmit disease to humans) or if it cannot be identified." The agency clarified that, in this case, the meat seemed to come from a non-CDC-regulated animal, so U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) handled the situation.
Bushmeat refers to raw or minimally processed meat from wild animals—such as antelope or primates—found in certain regions of the world. It may carry significant disease risks.[/b]
Interestingly, many Americans who saw the video were unfamiliar with the term bushmeat, leading to a mix of amusing and misinformed reactions. Some assumed it exclusively referred to monkey meat, with one user humorously stating, "It's monkey meat." This sparked further debate, as many people wrongly concluded that all Africans consume monkey meat.
This kind of misinformation highlights the importance of awareness when traveling. Africans, particularly Nigerians, must be mindful of what is and isn’t permitted in foreign countries to avoid situations where misleading narratives can arise.
During the active years of the Dutch Boers and British Colonial rule in SA, there was a lot of illegal land confiscation from indigenous Africans and these large tracts of lands were illegally given out to the White minority folks just like what happened in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). So, if there's need to redistribute lands trough the Expropriation Act for the public good, then that would be in order in South Africa.
Politics › Re: Activist Raises Alarm Over Spate Of Missing People In Anambra by Konquest: 5:13pm On Feb 05, 2025
