₦airaland Forum

МММ was a Russian company that perpetrated one of the world's largest Ponzi schemes of all time, in the 1990s. By different estimates from 5 to 40 million people lost up to $10 billion. The exact figures are not known even to the founders. In 2011, MMM re-opened as "MMM Global" with up to 110 subsidiaries per country, it became widely popular in various African countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya.



Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMM_(Ponzi_scheme_company)

darknetcom:
all this organisations should leave africa...

we dont need them..

Seriously

The criticism follows Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s charges in December that the UN and private agencies are deliberately exaggerating a massive humanitarian crisis.


Maiduguri, Nigeria: Aid agencies including United Nations Children’s Fund is a United Nation (UNICEF) are profiting from funds meant to help refugees from Boko Haram’s Islamic uprising and should leave Nigeria, the governor of the country’s embattled northeastern state of Borno said.

The criticism follows Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari’s charges in December that the United Nations (UN) and private agencies are deliberately exaggerating a massive humanitarian crisis to boost funding.

For months, children and others have been dying of starvation in Borno. The UN launched an appeal in December for $1 billion (Dh3.6 billion), warning that 5.1 million people face starvation and tens of thousands of children will die this year without critically needed aid.

“We have become a cash cow” with people profiting “from the agony of our people,” Gov. Kashim Shettima told legislators and journalists on Tuesday night in Maiduguri, Borno’s capital. “People that are really ready to work are very much welcome here. But people that are here only to use us to make money may as well leave. We don’t need them, since they are only here to use us to make money.”

He said only eight of 126 registered agencies were doing “good work,” including the UN World Food Programme and Population Fund, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Organisation for Migration, the Norwegian Refugee Council and the Danish Refugee Council.

Shettima accused UNICEF of misusing funds by buying bulletproof vehicles. Such a vehicle saved lives in July when Boko Haram attacked a military-escorted humanitarian convoy, wounding a UNICEF worker, two other aid workers and two soldiers.

“They will construct five toilets in Gwoza and fly in helicopters more than seven times to inspect the toilets,” Shettima said.

While the government was focusing on resettling refugees and reconstruction, aid agencies are concentrating on refugee camps, he said. Aid agencies have warned against hasty resettling of refugees in towns and villages still vulnerable to attack by Boko Haram.

There was no immediate comment from any of the aid agencies on the allegations. Aid agencies have not commented in the past on such criticism, for fear of further antagonising government officials and jeopardising their work.

Tensions between government and aid agencies, and between the agencies themselves, have increased, with agencies accusing the government of trying to hide the extent of the crisis and allegations that government agents and soldiers are stealing food aid.

Doctors Without Borders said last week that it has stepped outside its traditional medical role to distribute food because people are “in desperate need” and other organisations are not stepping up.

Aid agencies have warned that the crisis is of near-famine proportions and that many more people could die in addition to the 20,000-plus killed in the seven-year uprising that has driven 2.6 million people from their homes and spread across Nigeria’s borders.

Source: https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/nigerian-governor-aid-agencies-misusing.html

For all the negative publicity, many parts of the country, especially Lagos, could and should serve as exemplars for religious tolerance

A trip is often defined by its surprises, so here are my biggest revelations from six days in Lagos, Nigeria.

Most of all, I found Lagos to be much safer than advertised. It is frequently described as one of the most dangerous cities on Earth. Many people told me I was crazy to go there and some Nigerian expats warned me I might not get out of the airport alive.

The reality is that I walked around freely and in many parts of the town. I didn’t try to go everywhere or at all hours, and I may have been lucky. Yet, not once did I feel threatened and I strongly suspect that a trip to Lagos is safer than a trip to Rio de Janeiro, a major tourist destination. (In my first trip to Rio, I was attacked by children with pointed sticks. In my second, I found myself caught in a gunfight between drug lords). Many Lagos residents credit the advent of closed-circuit television cameras for their safety improvements.

So if you’re an experienced traveller and tempted to visit Africa’s largest and arguably most dynamic city, don’t let safety concerns be a deal killer.
The surprises mount.

For all the negative publicity, many parts of Nigeria, especially Lagos, could and should serve as exemplars for religious tolerance.

The reports of Boko Haram and terror-killings are well-known and they reflect the interlocking and sometimes deadly combinations of regional, religious, sectarian and ethnic identities in the country, not to mention extreme inequalities of income and opportunity. Yet, Nigeria has about 180 million people and is larger than Texas. The violence is the most frequently reported story in the West, but the underlying reality is far more complex and shows positive features.

For instance, the city of Lagos is in many regards a marvel of religious tolerance. Nigeria is about 50 per cent Muslim and 40 per cent Christian and the area surrounding Lagos is also highly mixed in terms of religion. That may sound like a recipe for trouble, but in matters of religion, Lagos is almost entirely peaceful. Religious intermarriage is common and usually not problematic, as is the case in many (not all) other parts of Nigeria as well. Many top Nigerian politicians have married outside their religion, kept two separate religions in the family and enjoyed continued political success.

Consider the scale and speed of this achievement. Lagos, with a population of about 20 million, is larger than many countries. It is the most commercially-oriented part of Nigeria and it grew so large only in the last few decades, as it attracted entrepreneurially minded people from many parts of Nigeria and other African countries. By one estimate, 85 new residents arrive every hour. That may sound chaotic, but in essence, Nigeria has in a few decades created an almost entirely new, country-sized city built on the ideals and practice of religious tolerance. The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, is a Muslim who was supported in his election by many Christian leaders, on the grounds that he would fight corruption more effectively. His running mate served as a Pentecostal pastor.

The recent history of Nigeria, Lagos in particular, is also a counterweight to some recent western political trends. Many westerners today fear resurgent nationalism, as illustrated by the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump as the president of the United States.

In Nigeria, nationalism is largely a progressive force, bringing the country together and allowing nation-building and infrastructure development. However imperfect or backward these processes may be — Nigeria has at least 270 distinct ethnic groups and 370 languages — in Nigeria, one is rooting for nationalism to succeed. And it’s in Lagos, the country’s largest and most important window to the outside world, where the understanding of the importance of a common and stable national identity has made such progress.

Many westerners used to consider much of Africa backward in this regard, but they are learning again that national cohesion isn’t always so easy. Perhaps the political spectrum in many western countries can realign itself in a direction analogous to some features of Nigeria, to ally liberalism and nationalism once again.

Source: https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/nigeria-could-teach-west-few-useful.html

Nigerian minister announced the move Wednesday after meeting with Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi

Abuja: Taiwan accused China of interference after the Nigerian government ordered the island to move its trade mission from the capital Abuja to Lagos.


Nigerian Minister of Foreign Affairs Geoffrey Onyeama announced the move on Wednesday after meeting with Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, China’s official Xinhua News Agency said. Onyeama said Taiwan would stop enjoying privileges because it wasn’t a country recognised under international law, Xinhua said. During the talks, Onyeama also reaffirmed his country’s commitment to the “One-China” policy.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry protested the decision in a statement on Thursday. “The foreign ministry strongly protests and condemns the unreasonable, rude and outrageous act of political hype carried out by the Nigerian government in complying with mainland China’s political goals,” the ministry said.

China has shown a willingness to use its growing economic and military might to put pressure on Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, which swept the more Beijing-friendly Kuomintang from power last year. The move comes less than a month after the tiny West African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe broke off ties with Taiwan and established formal relations with China, leaving the self-ruled island with just 21 diplomatic partners.

The Communist Party considers the self-governed island a province and has criticised President Tsai Ing-wen’s refusal to accept that both sides belong to “One China,” its precondition for ties. China had refrained from actively wooing away any of Taiwan’s diplomatic partners during the eight-year tenure of Tsai’s predecessor, Ma Ying-jeou, who advocated increased ties with the world’s second-largest economy.

Tsai is wrapping up a weeklong Central American tour, in which she has been shoring up relations with her dwindling roster of diplomatic friends. The Nigerian move suggests she also might need to be concerned about Taiwan’s business interests in countries that lack formal ties to Taipei.

Nigeria has been seeking Chinese support after a slump in oil prices pushed the African nation to the brink of its first full-year recession since 1991. The two countries have been discussing various deals spanning oil production to infrastructure, with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari returning from a visit to Beijing in April with promises for $6 billion (Dh2 billion) of loans.

Wang told Buhari on Wednesday that China “appreciates that the Nigerian side made good on its pledge to implement the One-China principle, and carried out concrete and decisive measures to clear political obstacles to the development of bilateral relations.”

Source: https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/taiwan-protests-nigeria-order-to-move.html

Jammeh’s political party lodged a legal case on his behalf last month aimed at annulling his December 1 election defeat to opponent Adama Barrow, and triggering new elections


Banjul, Gambia: The Gambia’s chief Supreme Court justice dealt a blow to President Yahya Jammeh’s legal challenge against the result of December’s election on Tuesday, saying it would not be heard for several months.

Jammeh’s political party lodged a legal case on his behalf last month aimed at annulling his December 1 election defeat to opponent Adama Barrow, and triggering new elections.
“We can only hear this matter when we have a full bench of the Supreme Court,” Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle said, adding that the extra judges needed to hear the case were not available and could arrive only in May or November.

The Gambia relies on foreign judges, notably from Nigeria, to staff its courts due to a lack of trained professionals in the tiny West African state.

Fagbenle is the panel’s only sitting judge, as the Supreme Court has lain dormant since May 2015.
The chief justice added that he would prefer the country to resolve its political deadlock through the mediation under way by a group of West African leaders, who are attempting to persuade Jammeh to respect the constitution and step aside.

“This is why alternative dispute resolution is important,” he said. “We are now only left with the ECOWAS [Economic Community Of West African States] mediation initiative and the inter-party committee set up by government to resolve the dispute.”

The inter-party committee is a United Nations-backed body aimed at resolving arguments between different Gambian political parties.

But Jammeh has made clear he will not go until his complaint is heard.

On December 20 he was broadcast on state television saying “unless the Court decides the case, there will be no inauguration on the 19 January. And let me see what ECOWAS and those big powers behind them can do.”

The leaders from the ECOWAS regional grouping led by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari will return to The Gambia for the second time this week since the election to attempt to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis.

They were due to arrive on Wednesday but the trip was delayed until Friday, Buhari’s spokesman said, because Jammeh had asked for more time.

“Delay notwithstanding, the mandate of the ECOWAS will be accomplished,” Garba Shehu said.
Nigeria’s foreign minister said on Monday the use of force remained an option if there was no movement in the situation. “Violence should be avoided but nothing is ruled out,” Geoffrey Onyeama said.

Meanwhile an ex-minister and high-profile defector from Jammeh’s government declared his support for Barrow, and said the Supreme Court case was an attempt to “subvert the express will of the Gambian electorate.”

Former information and communication minister Sheriff Bojang fled to neighbouring Senegal on Monday after resigning.

Bojang said his conscience had overwhelmed him after Jammeh declared he would not step down at the end of his mandate.

As minister for two years he was Jammeh’s mouthpiece for explaining the actions of the regime, including arbitrary detentions, activists’ deaths in custody and a crackdown on opposition protests.
“It is never too late to do the right thing,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “It is my considered opinion and stance that the results of the December 1st election represent a true reflection of the sovereign will of the Gambian people.”

On Tuesday night Jammeh sacked his minister of youth and sport, a statement carried on national television said, without providing reasons for the dismissal.

Source:https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/gambia-election-ruling-delayed-for.html

Suppose you had just purchased all the necessary materials to build a house, hired workers to do all the labor, and now find yourself with a fully-built house. Labor and materials have been evenly exchanged for money. The workers have traded their labor for financial compensation, and the materials were also traded for the appropriate amount of money. Nothing has been gained or lost. But, isn’t this house now worth more assembled than the cost of all the materials and labor it took to build it put together? Indeed it is so, for you have just created money.

Now, let’s suppose you worked for 10 hours at a job which pays you $10 per hour. Your employer then gives you a paycheck for $100 minus taxes. So, you made money. But, did you create money? No, you just made an even exchange for it; you traded your labor for an equivalent amount of money.
In the first case, where you built a house, you made money. In the second case, where you worked at a job, you also made money. But in the first case, you made the money by creating it. In the second case, you didn’t create anything.

All too often, people today focus only on making money. They don’t care, or they don’t know to care, about how they make it. But it doesn’t matter how financially ignorant people become, the laws that govern money don’t change. And, the first law of money is: If you want more wealth, you have to create money.

You know you have created money when you have created value. Let’s use the first scenario as an example. Think of the money you created as your reward for providing jobs for all the workers who built your house and for putting all those raw materials to good use.

When you create value, money begins to gravitate towards you. When you obtain money without creating value, it will repel away from you. So, you will find that when you work for money, the money you get will quickly be gone. But when you create it, it will stay with you.

It’s easy to find a job and work for money. It takes substantially more effort to develop the skill of creating value. This article is written for those who are willing to make the effort.


Source larryshotspot..com.ng

As you all know that Android is one of the popular mobile OS at this moment. Android Market is already loaded with 300,000+ Apps and Games for over 300 Android Devices. It gets millions of downloads per day. How about giving your reader an android app for your blog. This way, they can keep track of blog updates from their android powered smartphones and devices.

On the other side, WordPress is the #1 Blogging platform used by millions of bloggers. Creating an Android App of your blog isn’t hard and it’s easy, too. Let’s see how you can create an Android app of your blog with a plugin.

Go to Feed.nu Website and register an account there.
Login there and enter your Feed settings.
Go to Feed.nu WordPress plugin page and download it.
Install the Plugin and then activate it from the WP dashboard.
Now, In your WP dashboard, click on Android and then choose your Android App Language, Appearance and then hit the Generate APK.

That’s it. Your Android App is ready to download. You can use this App on your device as well as submit it to the Android Marketplace. To submit it to the marketplace, head over to Android Marketplace Publish page and give the required details there.
Do leave your comments about this WP plugin in the comments below !

This is a guest post by Mahesh. If you would like to write for us, do check out

Elkay3:
The countless innocent lives that were lost? Does that count too?

War is not Good bruh, but he's still better than other past presidents

mKc9ET:
Legalization of ikpo ntu/nack hammer (gay)

Are you sure its Obama himself, or Americans themselves?

KANO, Nigeria: Nigeria has recently trumpeted a major victory in its battle against Boko Haram, claiming that its army has routed the jihadists from their forest bastion, but the war against them is far from over.
After years of devastating battles and a recent surge in attacks, the fear in Nigeria is that Boko Haram will simply decamp from the Sambisa forest enclave to other areas nearby.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced on Christmas Eve that a months-long campaign had led to the “final crushing of Boko Haram terrorists in their last enclave in Sambisa Forest”.
The Nigerian military said troops were chasing fleeing Boko Haram militants, claiming that the fight against the jihadists was in its final stages.

But on Thursday, Boko Haram’s elusive leader Abubakar Shekau appeared in a video to dispute the government’s claim.

“We are safe. We have not been flushed out of anywhere,” Shekau said in the 25-minute video, flanked by masked armed fighters.
As access to the conflict zones is heavily restricted, claims from both sides cannot be independently verified.

According to a military source who asked not to be named, Boko Haram jihadists have been “tremendously weakened and are trying to avoid confrontation ... by hiding in some obscure
locations”.

Islamists routed from Sambisa have reportedly fled to areas on the edge of the forest, islets on Lake Chad as well as villages on the Cameroon border.

“They were sighted in large numbers in ... the Kala-Balge area,” said a vigilante helping in the fight, referring to a region near Cameroon.

The head of the fishermen’s union in Borno state, the epicentre of Boko Haram’s seven-year insurgency, said some fighters had regrouped on the Lake Chad, which straddles Nigeria, Niger,
Cameroon and Chad.

It provides the jihadists with a “convenient sanctuary”, with its 400 islets covered with dense vegetation that makes aerial detection and ground operations dangerous, Abubakar Gamandi said.
“The islets are between one and two square kilometres and the fresh water and abundant fish in the lake make them habitable,” said Gamandi, who has fished in the Lake Chad for 40 years.

Abu Musab Al Barnawi, the leader of a Boko Haram faction recognised by Daesh, has already been living on the lake since his group split from Shekau’s leadership in August, residents and vigilantes say.

Should Shekau and his troops move there, it is unclear whether the two rival factions will end up battling each other.

Cameroonian troops have intensified their operations along their nation’s frontier with Nigeria, where fleeing Boko Haram fighters have also sought refuge, according to a vigilante in the Nigerian border town of Banki.

“Cameroon has upped security along the border which has forced fleeing Boko Haram (fighters) to head to Kala-Balge, where Nigerian troops are deploying”, said the vigilante, who did not want to give his name.

“Kala-Balge may be the next battleground,” said Umar Ari, a local trader.
According to Yan St-Pierre, an expert on jihadist groups, cooperation between West African governments fighting Boko Haram has “vastly improved since September.”

However, “the army’s biggest problem is to secure the areas it recaptures from Boko Haram,” he added, referring to a spike in suicide and other guerrilla-style attacks unleashed since the jihadists began to lose ground.

Even though the Nigerian authorities have claimed several times that the end of Boko Haram was imminent, the conflict has merely continued to shift and “the army remains far from gaining the upper hand.”

How Shekau escaped from Sambisa remains a mystery.

He “might have escaped in the intense battle to take over Camp Zero,” an army source told AFP, referring to the last jihadist bastion in Sambisa Forest to fall to Nigerian troops.

He has since been spotted in Pulka village near Gwoza on the Cameroonian border — and is currently believed to be hiding in a forest in Kala-Balge, a security source said.

Shekau’s fighters are believed to have taken with them scores of Chibok girls held since 2014, as well as Nigerian army hostages, to use them as human shields.

Despite the odds, Nigerian troops remain defiant.

“We are closing in on Shekau and his remaining commanders,” said a military officer speaking on condition of anonymity.

“It is just a matter of time before we get him, dead or alive.”


https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/war-not-over-after-boko-haram-ousted.html

No one is perfect, just think what Donald Trump would do? he is being controlled by some people, my mouth is sealed

As Barack Obama prepares to leave office on January 20, here are nine things his presidency may be remembered for



1) Making history

If historians were to write only one thing about Barack Hussein Obama, they would likely note that - 143 years after slavery was abolished - a young Illinois senator became the first black president of the United States.
Obama, just 47 at his 2009 inauguration, harnessed magisterial oratory to rally a diverse electoral coalition behind a message of "hope and change."
In office, Obama sometimes struggled to turn that poetry into the prose of governance. Racial tensions - underscored by police shootings of unarmed black men and conspiracy theories about his birthplace - persisted.
But the very fact of his election confirmed monumental changes in American society.

2) Too big to fail
Obama's first term in office was dominated by economic freefall.
A real estate crisis spawned a financial meltdown that torpedoed Wall Street banks and lenders, and was metastasizing into an economic crisis of global proportions.
Outgoing president George W. Bush and the Federal Reserve had kicked off the government's first panicked efforts at containment, but Obama faced down ideological opposition to large fiscal stimulus, extending government spending by $831 billion and providing ballast to the economy.
As he leaves office, the political and social aftershocks of that financial cataclysm are still being felt, but the economy has added jobs for 75 straight months.


3) Justice has been done'
"Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden."
With those words on May 2, 2011, Obama exorcised the anger and frustration of millions of Americans - that the most powerful country on earth could not hold the man accountable for the 9/11 attacks.
The risky special forces operation was also illustrative of Obama's controversial drone-and-raid approach to counterterrorism. As he leaves office, Al-Qaeda offshoots and affiliates remain potent, but their leadership in Afghanistan and Pakistan has been decimated.

4) Legislative toil
"It's one of the few regrets of my presidency - that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better," Obama said in his final State of the Union address.
From the moment Obama was elected, Republics in Congress vowed to oppose him tooth and nail.
Efforts to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay and enact gun controls - even after the massacre of young students at Sandy Hook, the emotional nadir of his presidency - would fall victim to partisan rancor.

5) A deal with a half-life
For more than two decades, the United States had rolled out sanctions and covert actions to prevent arch foe Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Obama tried a different tack, engaging in secret talks with the Islamic Republic.
That gambit ultimately yielded a deal that saw Iran halt its sprint toward a nuclear weapon, in return for substantial sanctions relief and a dollop of international legitimacy.
The pact would strain US relations with Iran's enemies Israel and Saudi Arabia, but prevented a nuclear arms race in the Middle East and defused tensions between Iran and the United States that have simmered since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

6) No turnabout on Syria
No international crisis tested Obama's foreign policy or his high bar for US military intervention like Syria.
Even when Bashar al-Assad defied Obama's red line on chemical weapons use and killed countless thousands of civilians - along with Russian and Iranian forces - the man who came to office on an anti-war ticket rejected calls to step in.
Syria will likely be in crisis for years to come.
Critics will long argue about whether Obama's policy was sensible and to what degree his decision damaged America's reputation, allowed the Islamic State group to grow, fueled an immigration flow that destabilized Europe and allowed Russia and Iran to extend influence in the region.

7) Change the climate
After the climate skepticism of Bush, Obama's eight years in office resulted in a tidal wave of environmental legislation, protecting marine ecosystems, curbing carbon emissions and boosting renewable energy.
In a bid to engrain environmentalism into America's body politic, Obama hiked Alaskan glaciers, snorkeled at Midway Island and rushed through ratification of the Paris Climate Accord.
But Obama's environmental agenda is likely to come under sustained assault from his successor, putting the durability of that legacy into question.

A very big deal
Democrats had tried and failed for decades to provide Americans with universal health care. Obama wasn't quite able to do that but he extended insurance coverage to tens of millions of citizens who previously had none.
Republicans decried the "Obamacare" plan as socialism incarnate, at one point claiming it would even create "death panels." But they failed to stop it from passing. They may yet have a crack at repealing it under Donald Trump's watch.

9) Meet the neighbours
Obama's trip to Cuba may be remembered in the same way as Richard Nixon's visit to China, but in truth it was the capstone of a much broader effort to improve US relations with Latin America.
Resurgent left wing populists in the region had rekindled past memories of "yanqui imperialism" - US-led coups, death squads and heavy-handed intervention.
Barely 100 days after Obama took office, he told regional leaders at a Summit of the Americas that the United States had changed. The approach was to deny leaders like Hugo Chavez any excuses for sideshow anti-Americanism.
He shook Chavez's hand, met Nicaraguan firebrand Daniel Ortega and visited the tomb of a popular Salvadoran priest killed by US-linked death squads.
Obama alluded to "mistakes" in a coup that installed dictator Augusto Pinochet in Chile, released documents about involvement in Argentina's dirty war and, of course, visited Havana.

Source:https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/nine-things-obama-will-be-remembered-for.html

LAGOS, Nigeria: West African leaders will make a decision on Saturday on how to resolve Gambia’s electoral crisis and its longtime leader’s refusal to accept defeat in elections, Nigeria’s presidential spokesman said on Friday. A military intervention led by Senegal could be in the offing.

“One way or the other, a decision will be taken,” spokesman Garba Shehu said. Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari heads a committee named by the Economic Committee of West African States to resolve the crisis.

The regional bloc has threatened to send troops led by neighbouring Senegal if President Yahya Jammeh does not step down on Jananuary 19, when his mandate ends. Shehu said a decision will be made on Saturday when West African leaders meet for the inauguration of Ghana’s new president. It will be the fourth time a Ghanaian president has peacefully stepped aside to make way for a newly elected leader, after the country suffered more than a decade of military dictatorship.

In Gambia, President Yahya Jammeh initially conceded defeat in the December 1 vote then later demanded a new election. The United Nations, the United States, the European Union and others have united in criticising him.

The West African bloc has pledged to protect Gambia’s President-elect Adama Barrow, who has said he fears for his life under a Jammeh administration accused of gross human rights violations including arbitrary detentions and deaths in custody of political opponents.

The president of Gambia’s electoral commission fled the country this week. Human rights groups said on Friday political opponents are being detained and some have received death threats. Critics say thousands of Gambians have fled abroad to escape persecution and an untold number of political dissidents have been jailed and some killed.

Jammeh seized power in a bloodless coup in 1994 in the country of 1.9 million people known for its beaches.

https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/west-africa-will-act-on-gambia-election.html

Bouaki: Ivory Coast’s mutinous soldiers withdrew from the streets of the second city, Bouake, on
Sunday after the president announced a deal on their demands for bonuses, pay rises, housing and faster promotion.

“There has been no firing since Saturday night,” a correspondent in Bouake said. “Traffic has resumed this morning and the shops have reopened.”

The world’s top cocoa producer was rocked by two days of unrest after soldiers seized control of
Bouake’s streets early on Friday, firing rocket-launchers and terrifying residents, in a mutiny that spread to other cities including the economic capital, Abidjan.

In Abidjan — a bustling seaport that is home to the presidency and parliament — national television reported that shots had been fired at the eastern Akouedo barracks on Saturday morning.

On Sunday, Abidjan’s central Plateau area where several government offices and leading businesses are located, was calm.

“Life is back to normal,” a resident said.

The same was true for the northern city of Korhogo and Man in the west. A Man resident, who identified himself as Jean, said: “The soldiers have returned to their barracks.”

On Saturday evening President Alassane Ouattara announced an agreement had been reached. In a brief televised address he said it took into account “the demands relating to bonuses and improving the living conditions of soldiers”.

“Having given my agreement, I ask all soldiers to go back to their barracks to allow decisions to be carried out calmly,” he added, without giving any details of the accord.

The soldiers had detained Defence Minister Alain Richard Donwahi on Saturday for two hours in a tense standoff over their demands, firing Kalashnikovs and heavy arms around the home of a senior local official where Donwahi was meeting with the soldiers’ representatives.

‘Fed up’

Shortly after Donwahi’s release, troops lifted the barricades that had blocked entry to Bouake and the automatic rifle fire that had rattled all through the previous night and into Saturday fell silent.

Bouake was the capital of a rebellion that erupted in 2002 in a failed attempt to oust then president Laurent Gbagbo.

Twelve years later, a similar dispute over pay by rebels-turned-soldiers erupted in Bouake, which
spread to Abidjan and briefly brought the country to a standstill.

The government had then agreed to a deal that provided amnesty for the mutineers and a financial
settlement.

A Bouake resident said on Sunday he had had enough.

“We no longer want this situation in Bouake,” said Adama Coulibaly, a teacher. “We are tired of these actions of the soldiers. I can’t wait for President Ouattara to find a definitive solution to their problems.”

Ivory Coast was seen a haven of peace and stability in troubled West Africa until the 2002 rebellion, which sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

Rebel forces then had backed Ouattara, the current president who took office in April 2011 after a bloody post-electoral showdown with Gbagbo that left 3,000 people dead.

Gbagbo was arrested and turned over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where his trial began in January last year for crimes against humanity.

Source: https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/life-is-back-to-normal-in-ivory-coast.html

Grace Mugabe has emerged as one of the main actors in the manoeuvring to succeed Robert Mugabe

Masvingo, Zimbabwe: The first lady of Zimbabwe’s display of power was unspoken, though clear, during the governing party’s annual congress, as she focused her speech on new party regalia featuring a teacup-shaped image of her country.

“We all drink from the teacup,” Grace Mugabe, the first lady, said, explaining she had designed the regalia herself.

Not surprisingly, the next morning in Masvingo, the small town in southern Zimbabwe where the congress of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, President Robert Mugabe’s party, was held recently, nearly all officials wore clothes adorned with Grace Mugabe’s teacup design.

Grace Mugabe, 51, known mostly for her lavish overseas shopping trips until she entered politics two years ago — has emerged as one of the main actors in the manoeuvring to succeed Robert Mugabe, which has engulfed Zimbabwe in the last year, as the president’s decline presages the end of an era.
She is, to many people, the real power behind the throne, vowing to keep her husband in office until his death while she consolidates support. She told supporters recently that she was “already the president”.

The signs of Grace Mugabe’s growing stature are unmistakable. On stage at the party congress, she sat closest to her husband, who, a couple of months shy of 93, dozed through most speeches. Party leaders invariably praised her.

Robert Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state and the only leader Zimbabwe has known since its independence in 1980, was selected as his party’s candidate in the 2018 presidential election. He would be 94 by then.

The first lady is reported to head one of the two competing factions inside ZANU-PF. But is she its leader, or just a useful puppet for veteran survivors of Zimbabwean politics? After her husband dies, will she hop on a plane for Dubai or elsewhere in Asia, where she and her children have established homes?

If she succeeds in grabbing power, it would most likely be a continuation of her husband’s government. Changes critical to reviving Zimbabwe’s economy are thought politically impossible under Robert Mugabe and would remain so under Grace Mugabe, whose legitimacy derives from her husband’s legacy.

Source:https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/in-zimbabwe-first-lady-exerts-her-power.html

Barely a week into 2017, the year’s first celebrity feud has arrived.
A decade ago, Chris Brown and Soulja Boy were just two young rappers climbing the charts, Soulja with his breakout hit Crank Dat and Brown with With You and Kiss Kiss. Ten years later, with a handful of celebrity feuds under each of their belts, the two singer/rappers are taking aim at one another.

Starting with a string of social media insults, Chris Brown and Soulja Boy’s war of the words inspired champion boxer Floyd Mayweather to organize a pay-per-view match against the two artists, supposedly scheduled for March.

Here’s how the feud devolved.

Soulja likes Karrueche’s pic
Is anyone surprised that this started on Instagram? According to a string of NSFW tweets, Brown saw that Soulja liked a post of his ex, Karrueche Tran, and called him with some fighting words.
“The difference between me and Chris is I shot a (expletive) before. And he hit a woman before. We not the same,” he wrote in one inflammatory tweet.


Breezy picks a fight
Surprising no one, Brown was serious about that fight. His boxer friend Adrien Broner posted a string of Instagrams of Brown challenging his opponent to a celebrity boxing match, claiming Soulja is “continuously calling him on Facetime” and asking Broner to “set up the gym.”

Karrueche and Chris trade words
Naturally, things devolved between Karrueche and her rapper ex in dueling Instagram posts, also NSFW.

“I been chillen...working...eating my veggies...hitting these squats and minding my own business and that’s exactly how I want to keep it,” she wrote in the since-deleted, very relatable text post.
Brown was less forgiving in his all-caps missive against his ex, where he claimed he’s responsible for her success and the reason she has friends, some of whom he slept with. Nice.
All the while, the two rappers continued posting NSFW clips and tweets threatening each other, with Soulja bringing Brown’s daughter Royalty into the mix. "Happy New Year! Royalty is 2 and has 5 times more money than Soulja Boy already. I'd be mad too,” he wrote in one post.


Karreuche Tran in April 2016.Karreuche Tran in April 2016. (Photo: Bryan Steffy, Getty Images for Wynn Las Vegas)

Soulja gets robbed?
Well, that took a turn. Soulja offered to meet Brown in Compton for a street fight, and he made good on his word, going live on Instagram from the streets with a group of guys surrounding him, challenging him to come fight.
Things escalated when one of the group members pushed Soulja, with another one picking up his phone. Did he get robbed? Was it staged? Will this ever end?

Soulja’s mom and Brown’s lawyer get involved
Fast forward to Wednesday, when Soulja appeared to back down from his claims, posting a video apologizing for his erratic behavior and claiming he just received news his mom was in the hospital.
If that wasn’t enough of a wake-up call, Brown’s attorney, Mark Geragos, also got involved, threatening to file a lawsuit against Soulja.
"I'm not sure who you are but please confirm to the world that you will accept the defamation lawsuit I will file against you,” he wrote on Twitter.

I'm not sure who you are but please confirm to the world that you will accept the defamation lawsuit I will file against you. #teambreezyhttps:///BzsnK9v0Lu
— Mark Geragos (@markgeragos) January 4, 2017

Floyd Mayweather enters the ring.
Not so fast. Soulja had a change of heart about his apology, calling on his friend Mayweather to train him to challenge Brown in "the biggest fight of the century."
Mayweather and Soulja both posted a flyer for the event.


The match may be for charity — but there's nothing charitable about this beef stretching two more months.

Source https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/chris-brown-vs-soulja-boy-timeline-of.html

It’s no secret that Eminem is a fan of Kendrick Lamar. He went so far as to call the younger rapper’s major label debut a “masterpiece,” but a new story has surfaced of the Rap God testing Compton’s good kid before giving him a badge of honor.Eminem Once Tested Kendrick Lamar To Make Sure He Didn't Use Ghostwriters

In talking with the Zach Sang Show, Ed Sheeran of all people has the scoop on what went down when K.Dot met Slim Shady before Em said Lamar “raps to be the best rapper in the world.”

“I heard a very cool story about Eminem and Kendrick Lamar,” he says. “Eminem wanted, he heard that Kendrick Lamar was the best rapper and he invited him to the studio to get him on a song. He arrived and Kendrick came with all his mates and Eminem said, ‘I just want you in the studio, just you on your own. And then my engineer is gonna come in and then record you doing it. But your mates aren’t allowed in.'”

Kendrick complied, “wrote a sick verse” and everyone gathered around to see what the TDE rapper was truly capable of. And Cornrow Kenny nabbed an appearance on “Love Game” off The Marshall Mathers LP 2.

“Eminem said that he did it to test Kendrick because he thought he had a ghostwriter,” Sheeran continues. “He then realized that he didn’t, and then claimed he was the best, which is kinda cool I think.”
How did popstar Ed Sheeran get this gem for the Hip Hop history books? Rick Rubin, of course. The music mogul handled production for the singer’s X album. After working with Eminem on The Marshall Mathers LP 2, Rubin called the Detroit legend “maybe the best rapper of any MC.” Kendrick and Rubin just recently met for the first time and had a very insightful conversation that included the TDE rapper crediting Eminem for his lyricism, before they hit the studio.
Listen to Ed Sheeran telling a story of Eminem testing Kendrick Lamar below at the 7:50 mark.

https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2017/01/eminem-once-tested-kendrick-lamar-to.html

It depends on God blessing

The two leading Nigerian artistes have had 63 awards between them in the past six years.




Wizkid
Total – 30 awards
2010 - Dynamix All Youths Awards.
2011 - The Headies, MTV Europe Music Awards, Dynamix All Youths Awards, MOBO Awards, City People Entertainment Awards.
2012 – Nigeria Entertainment Awards (x2), The Headies (x2), BET Awards.
2013 – City People Entertainment Awards, Ghana Music Awards, 4Syte TV Music Video Awards.
2014 – 2014 Channel O Music Video Awards, Nigeria Entertainment Awards.
2015 – The Headies (x2), Nigeria Entertainment Awards (x2).
2016 – MOBO Awards, African Pride Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards (x3), Ghana Music Awards.

Davido
Total – 33 awards
2011 - Dynamix All Youths Awards (x2)
2012 – Kora Awards, The Headies, Channel O Music Awards, Nigeria Music Video Awards, Nigeria Entertainment Awards (x3).
2013 – The Headies (x2), Nigeria Entertainment Awards.
2014 – African Muzik Magazine Awards (x2), BET Awards, MTV Africa Music Awards, Nigeria Music Video Awards, Ghana Music Awards, City People Entertainment Awards (x3), Ben TV Awards.
2015 – MTV Africa Awards. Nigeria Entertainment Awards, African Muzik Magazine Awards, Peace Achievers Awards.

SOURCE :https://larryshotspot..com.ng/2016/11/comparison-of-awards-won-by.html?m=1