₦airaland Forum

ABUJA—Rising from their meeting yesterday, Niger Delta ex-militants have vowed to defend the mandate of President Goodluck Jonathan with their blood should the emerging crisis from the Northern part of the country threaten the President’s victory at the polls.

The Niger Delta ex-militant leaders were quick to warn: “We want all Nigerians and the international community to understand that if a Niger Deltan cannot be accepted to legitimately govern Nigeria despite our contribution to the economic well-being of the country, we shall not allow a non-Niger Deltan to rule over our resources.”

The militants, numbering 24, rose from their meeting, condemning “in very strong terms, the post election violence being perpetrated and sponsored in parts of northern Nigeria by disgruntled politicians and crises-profiteers.

“We regard the outbreak of violent protests as uncalled for, barbaric and very retrogressive. But we dare assert that this sponsored violence does not in any way mirror or reflect the inner feelings of overwhelming majority of the northern masses.

“The northern masses, just like their brothers and sisters in the South, particularly the Niger Delta, are victims of years of misrule under the same persons orchestrating the post-election violence across the north.”

In a communique entitled: “We Shall Defend Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s Mandate With the last drop of our blood,” the militants called on the “long suffering northern masses to resist the negative, selfish and self-serving antics of the political jobbers who are behind the political violence across the north.

We urge the northern masses to challenge these crises profiteers to withdraw their sons and daughters from their expensive schools abroad to join the riots that they are instigating.”

The communiqué reads:
“We, the leaders, former Generals and Commanders of defunct combatant camps and groups in the Niger Delta met today, Monday 18th April 2011 where we extensively deliberated on crucial national issues, especially the outcome of the presidential elections held last weekend and resolve as follows:

“1. To Congratulate the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Atahiru Jega for successfully conducting what has gone down in history as the fairest and freest presidential election in the history of Nigeria. We however urge him to speedily declare the formal final result of the presidential election which is already well known to all Nigerians

“2. We congratulate His Excellency, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan GCFR, for being the first sitting President of Nigeria to have conducted a transparently free, fair and credible election even while he stood the risk of losing at the polls. We note that it is the first time a sitting President has fully funded the Independent National Electoral Commission without interfering whatsoever in the commission’s affairs.

“3. We also congratulate Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for winning, most resoundingly, last Saturday’s Presidential election. We are urging those who lost at the presidential polls to accept the result which indeed is the verdict of the people of our great country they themselves aspired to govern. They must also accept the verdict of God who alone bestows leadership on who He deems fit. God Almighty has chosen Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan as Nigeria’s leader for the next four years and this fact must be respected by all

“4. We condemn in very strong terms, the post election violence being perpetrated and sponsored in parts of northern Nigeria by disgruntled politicians and crises_profiteers. We regard the outbreak of violent protests as uncalled_for, barbaric and very retrogressive. But we dare assert that this sponsored violence does not in any way mirror or reflect the inner feelings of overwhelming majority of the northern masses. The northern masses, just like their brothers and sisters in the south, particularly the Niger Delta, are victims of years of misrule under the same persons orchestrating the post_election violence across the north.

Because the northern masses share similar deprivation as their southern compatriots, they thronged voting centres in their respective wards last Saturday to vote for change, to vote for a fresh and better start, they voted for Dr. Jonathan who we all know is all too poised to pave the way for a better future for our great country

“5. We call on the long suffering northern masses to resist the negative, selfish and self_serving antics of the political jobbers who are behind the political violence across the north. We urge the northern masses to challenge these crises profiteers to withdraw their sons and daughters from their expensive schools abroad to join the riots that they are instigating

“6. We urge our brothers and sisters in the south, especially Niger Deltans to see what is happening in the North as merely bait or trap to join the fray. We must resist this temptation even when we have the capacity and capability to retaliate violence in any form or shape. Instead of succumbing to this temptation, we wish to thank all Nigerians for the national mandate they have given our dear brother, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. We note that because of the overwhelming support of Nigerians irrespective of region, tribe, tongue, religion, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has become the product of the freest and fairest election in Nigeria.

“7. We affirm that we shall not retaliate any violence targeted at us, at least for now. We are however calling on the international community as well as all men and women of good conscience to promptly prevail on this political jobbers who are stoking the embers of war across the north to sheath swords given that the consequences of their action would most likely endanger the unity of this country. We are proud to say that since independence, the people of the Niger Delta have nurtured and nourished Nigeria with our God_given natural and human resources.

And since 1960, a section of this country has consistently produced either the President or Head of State of our nation and the people of Niger Delta, the goose that lay the golden eggs, have consistently backed the north and continued to water the seed of unity and development of the country. We are piqued that for once, an eminently qualified Niger Deltan has won the freest and fairest presidential election in Nigeria and some crises_profiteers in the north are sponsoring violent protests. It is so sad and regrettable.

“8. We are solidly behind the Nigerian mandate given Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and we shall join the teeming populace of Nigerians to defend the mandate with the last drop of our blood. On this score, we are calling all ethnic nationalities in the south of this country to temporarily return home for communal consultations as we await keenly the direction things will go in Nigeria in the next 48 hours. Similarly we have directed all our Generals and commanders to retreat to their communities and points and await further instructions in the next 48 hours.

“9. We are also calling on the National Security Adviser and all security agencies to secure the lives and properties of all northerners and southerners alike in all parts of the country so as to avoid the escalation of the post_election crisis. We wish to remind them that it is their responsibility to stop those who hide under whatever guise to perpetrate criminality. Indeed we know for sure that if the ugly events playing out across the north had happened in the Niger Delta, the nation’s security agencies would have brought to bear the full weight of the law, including even the declaration of a state of emergency.

“10. We commensurate with the families of the victims of the dastardly political violence in some parts of the North. We console those who have lost loved ones and heard_earned property and pray that the Good Lord who aided the emergence of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as the popularly elected President of Nigeria will replenish their loses in record time.

“11. Very importantly, we want all Nigerians and the international community to understand that if a Niger Deltan cannot be accepted to legitimately govern Nigeria despite our contribution to the economic well_being of the country, we shall not allow a non_Niger Deltan to rule over our resources.
Signed:
· Chief Government Ekpemupolo (a.k.a. Gen. Tompolo)
· Chief Ateke Tom
· Alhaji Asari Dokubo
· Chief Bibopre Ajube (a.k.a. Shoot At Sight)
· General Ezekiel Akpasibewei
· Farah Dagogo
· Africa Ukparasia
· Paul Ezizi (a.k.a.Comdr. Ogunbos)
· Pastor Reuben Wilson
· Joshua Macaiver
· Ferdinand Amaibi (a.k.a. Busta rymes)
· Tamunegiyeifori Proby (a.k.a. Egbele)
· Kenneth Opusinji (kula Community)
· Kile Selky Torughedi (a.k.a. Gen.Young Shall Grow)
· Bonny Gawei
· Aboy Muturu
· Hendrick Opukeme
· Paul Bebenimibo
· Chief Dennis Otuaro
· Gomoh Ekiyou
· Saibakumo A.E
· Wilson Gbaire
· Andabafa Opunamah
· Soboma Jackrich

For and on behalf of all former Generals and Commanders of defunct combatant camps and groups in the Niger Delta”.



http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/04/we%E2%80%99ll-defend-jonathan%E2%80%99s-mandate-to-the-end-n-delta-ex-militants-vow/

Nigeria El Classico Today, UP GEJ

western world are putting extremist in power without due process , we will see the outcome in few years to come, where is africa sovereignty.

I'm watching as Umpire, maybe someone need to judge who is right or wrong, cos i don't want to be bias.

I'm from Malaysia doing my ACCA program, this advert is fictitious .
Reason
1)Pusat Bahasa Atlantik Sdn Bhd is a company name and this company name is not registered to take international student, it is probably set up to scam people.

2) Malaysia ticket one way is around 150k, visa and processing fee is 1000 naira in abuja, but before i left in 2008, i did non-appearance due to my connection in the embassy and it is 120000 naira then, and i have not do it for anyone since i get it because this place is meant for those that has money to survive.

3)If you are to come with student visa and you will process it yourself, you will pay a deposit of at least around $500 to your institution for your approval to be out, so add this up with flight ticket, 200000 is too cheap to process Malaysia visa plus ticket.

Conclusion: This is a scam, but only those desperate can fall for it because all Malaysian schools are oline and they reply you within 48 working hrs if you email them, you must go their web first and not any fictitious agents.

@ Kushe.

What is your area of specialization in financial sector, i'm doing some course to get qualify soon, and i have been thinking of moving to UK for training.

I don't know what nigeria parent think when JEGA is taking their ripe products to be slaughter, INEC job should be optional and not compulsory for NYSC, if the parent have made their stand known, i believe 100% of parent in the SW will withdraw their kids from this deadly service.

still planning to visit America next year, i need to see myself before i believe .

@Dell_net
I think most till aspiring moving there, they are returning with something and not nothing.

Hey poster.

I'm a nigerian and i don't which to insult anyone so i will be timid in my tone. Look at the picture very well and compare the envelope and the souvenir, we can see that this is put together for conspiracy, a man with a souvenir walking and the cash photo is not a related issue.

2. The car parked outside does not related that this events happens same day, so sahara reporter can bridge it together as they like.

3. If there would be a political bribe at presidency level, it will be through usd or mint currency and not that type of dirty currency.

4. Everybody can report via his phone on what we see on election, bribing 0.00000000000001 % of nigeria journalist will not change the game.

5. If there is a sahara reporter among those that collected the bribe, let them come out with evidence and withhold the identity of their staff. i think literate nigerians know about technology and photoshop etc.

I don't know why they want to come back when things are tough for them, they should have work till everything is good before coming back to africa, so if it is difficult in africa now, maybe they will be thinking of heaven or MARS.

No Place Like Home.

The American dream is not all it is cut out to be and some Africans are turning their backs on life in the US.

Frustrated by tough economic times in the United States, Sammy Maina is packed, ready and waiting to return to Kenya.

"I'm fed up and finished with the US," declares Mr Maina, 33, owner of a prepaid calling card firm, Myaatel, and a money transfer company, Doubles Xpress, that caters for African immigrants.

But with money scarce because of the recession, fewer and fewer immigrants can afford to purchase his international phone cards or pay to use his money transfer services.

"People here don't have money any more," complains Mr Maina, who says the "American Dream" of a big house, flashy car and piles of money was unrealistic.

Instead he found long hours, little pay and limited joy.

Life in America is so demanding, says Mr Maina, that it has cost several of his African friends their marriages and even led some to commit suicide.

"It is very difficult right now and so many people are packing and going back to Kenya in big, big numbers."

'Little Senegal'
There are an estimated one million Africans in the US.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

You are very unlikely to find Africans who have settled in the US giving up the insurance policy of a green card or US citizenship to completely transfer their lives back to Africa”

Kathleen Newland
Migration Policy Institute
According to the homeland security department, 130,000 Africans migrate legally to the US each year.

It is impossible to say how many returnees there are, as the evidence is anecdotal but representatives of African community associations in New York, Atlanta and Boston all say they know of large numbers of expatriates making plans to leave the US.

The reason: they cannot find jobs and have become desperate about their future here.

New York's Association of Senegalese in America has been inundated with requests from expatriates who have lost their jobs, are facing homelessness, and who want financial help to return home.

Dame Sy, a volunteer with the association, says members donate money to buy aeroplane tickets to send home Senegalese who are down on their luck in New York.

"We just sent one home in January and before that we sent between 12 and 15 last year," explains Mr Sy. "Everyday, people are talking about it."

At the association's offices in the "Little Senegal" section of Harlem, in New York, I was introduced to a 41-year-old illegal immigrant called Ndoum.

She has been having a very difficult time in the US, she says, and would happily go home to Dakar if she could find the money for a plane ticket.

Before the recession it was possible for an undocumented immigrant like her to find a menial job in a factory. Unable now to find work, and in constant fear of being seized by immigration police, Ndoum does not know what to do.

"I tell people: 'Don't come to the US now'," she says tearfully.

'Sweet Liberia'
Kenyan Irene Onyango is a 37-year-old nurse living in Delaware, near Washington DC. Her income sometimes barely covers her bills. She is also concerned that working a 16-hour day is damaging her health.


"Africans in the US will leave in record numbers." predicts pastor Shadrach Deline
When she goes to Kenya on holiday, her friends refuse to let her pay for anything because they say she has to slave to earn her money in the US.

Now that the Kenyan constitution has been amended to allow dual citizenship, Ms Onyango says she can go home and not worry that should she need to return to the US one day, she will be stopped.

"Believe me," she says, "the next plane that goes to Jomo Kenyatta airport will have me on it."

But migration expert Kathleen Newland, a director of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington DC, says what Ms Onyango and other Africans resident in the US are doing when they return to Africa, is not reverse migration.

Ms Newland says this is better described as "the formation of transnational populations" - people who keep a foot on two continents.

"I think you are very unlikely to find Africans who have settled in the US giving up the insurance policy of a green card or US citizenship to completely transfer their lives back to Africa," Ms Newland says.

What transnational people like Ms Onyango will do, she adds, is divide their lives between two places.

Continue reading the main story
Focus on Africa

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"What it does tell us about Africa is there is a lot more hope and optimism about the economic prospects," she says.

Liberian singer and pastor Shadrach Deline is one of several African expatriates in the US to recently release a song expressing a longing for Africa.

In Tomorrow I Am Going Home, Deline, a pastor of the Nation of Christ Believers' Fellowship Center in Atlanta, Georgia, sings he has "sweated hard" in the US. Now it is time for him to "sell his house, sell his car, sell his boat" and go home to "sweet, sweet Liberia".

In the video, Deline removes his Western-style three-piece suit and puts on an African robed garment.

Deline says the song's message resonates with African expatriates because no matter how comfortable an exile they enjoy, an African will always yearn for home.

"There will come a time," he says "when Africans will not even bother coming to the US because life will be so beautiful back in Africa. There will be no need to ever leave."

Leslie Goffe is a freelance journalist based in New York


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12810828

you can only have one best friend, your wife/husband.

many poster said mother, that is majority but to me is my dad, what faces someone turn back to someone else and in all my life my dad has done a lot and i don't need to say much, he is my all in all after God.
I remembered when i want to save his mobile number on my phone and i was wondering what name to use to store his number, i just save with BEST.

tpiah!:
let's cut the melodrama.

showing up for an interview [or whatever] in a wedding gown shows a lack of many basic thought processes, adaptability and skills which would normally be required for specific positions.

leaving the venue of your wedding [whether before or after], getting to the interview, then letting the officials there know it was your wedding day, is what would cut some slack with me as an interviewer, not asking me to celebrate halloween so early in the year.

just saying!! if una like make una hire am- e no concern me.

if she needs a promotion later on and comes in during labour to have the baby on your desk, that's also fine by me!!

i no know how una dey do una stuff for naija o!!

This is not interview but test base on timing and demand more than supply.

Ribadu can not even win in Lagos, he is been fooled, I just pity his running mate for going with a potential loser.

'' What of Malam Nuhu Ribadu?

If ACN has any chances of winning the presidential election, Ribadu won’t be the candidate, Tinubu himself would be. That is number one. Let us now assume that the presidency was zoned to the North, if there are chances of them winning, Tinubu would have been the vice president. That is number two. Number three, their accord with CPC broke down because Buhari refused Tinubu as his running mate because that would mean a Muslim-Muslim ticket and Nigeria is not for that kind of thing now.

But they ended up having Muslim-Muslim ticket.

You could see that the other man is hiding his Muslim name. He is not proud of his Muslim name. They have even failed from the start.''


http://www.tribune.com.ng/sat/index.php/interview/3645-lautech-i-stand-on-agreement-between-me-oyinlola-alao-akala.html

if this story is true, and as you have mentioned village, it should be from the east where they sell their daughter.

If you divorce her base on her unfaithfulness, and you did not marry except she is dead. That is the rule.

The Star visits the family and village of Mohamed Bouazizi, a poor fruit seller who set himself on fire to protest against official harassment. The incident triggered a revolution in Tunisia and also sparked off protests against autocratic governments in several Arab countries.

IT was early Friday, just before 8am. After picking olives from a farm, Manuobya looked in on her 26-year-old son Mohamed Bouazizi, who was still asleep and something stirred inside her.

“I felt a kind of love and affection that I never felt before. I said to myself: ‘Mohamed, you are so tired. May God give you a car and another job,’” she tells Sunday Star during an interview at her home in a village near Sidi Bouzid.

Just the night before, Manuobya recounts, Mohamed Bouazizi, who sold fruits from a push cart, was talking about working harder to earn enough to buy a pick-up truck which would make it easier for him to transport his produce. And that night, he gave his mother quite a lot of cash.

“He told me: ‘You know, mother, I’ve never got so much money as I have this week.’


Painful reminder: Manuobya caressing a giant poster of her late son Mohamed Bouazizi who has become a hero in his country and the Arab world.
“He told his sister Leila: ‘If you succeed in school, I will pay for your education.’

“He said to his brothers: ‘If you do well, I will buy you what you want,’” Manuobya relates, looking both sad and proud at the same time as she talks about Mohamed Bouazizi.

Her son, she remembers, was in such good spirits that Thursday night.

And he was teasing, playing and laughing with his eight-year-old half-brother Ziyad a lot more than usual before they went to sleep.

Manuobya says she even ticked them off for making “so much noise” for fear it might disturb the neighbours.

Before he went to bed, Mohamed Bouazizi told his mother of his plans for the next few days.


Where it all started: A view of the Government building in Sidi Bouzid where Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec 17.
He said he was getting nicer fruits and would work on Friday and Saturday, and rest on Sunday to go to Sfax (a town in Tunisia) to see his elder brother Salem.

But a few hours later, things changed forever for Mohamed Bouazizi, his family and Tunisia.

On that fateful Friday of Dec 17, after Mohamed Bouazizi had woken up, dressed and gone to his usual spot in the small of town of Sidi Bouzid to sell fruits from his cart, a municipal inspector, Faida Hamdi, and her three aides came after him.

Manuobya says Mohamed Bouazizi was the happy sort but the “police and the government always want money from him and won’t let him do his job”.

“They say he is selling fruits illegally. They want a rasuah (bribe) from him, so he is always fighting to do his job,” Manoubya elaborates.

When Mohamed Bouazizi refused to pay the bribe, Faida and her aides tried to seize the fruits. He then phoned his uncle, who is also his stepfather, for help.

But this angered the municipal officers even more.

“Faida told him that she would leave the other fruit sellers alone but not him and that she would come after him every day.

“She grabbed the fruits but when she wanted to remove the weighing scales, Mohamed Bouazizi wouldn’t let her because the scales were not his.

“That was when Faiza slapped him on the face, spat at him and said terrible things about his dead father,” relates Manuobya, who heard details of the incident from eye witnesses, including her son’s friends.

She believes the public humiliation – being slapped and spat on by a woman who also insulted his late father – was too much for her son to bear.

“He was so shocked and utterly humiliated. It was so shameful and, to him, a loss of dignity.”

When Mohamed Bouazizi, who wanted to seek justice, knocked on the municipal office door, the people there would not entertain him.

“Nobody would listen,” his grief-stricken mother says.

That was when Mohamed Bouazizi made his desperate and last cry for help.

He drenched himself with petrol and then lit himself up – right in front of the government building.

People rushed to douse the flames with their jackets, and someone even grabbed a fire hydrant but found it empty.

It was too late. Within seconds, Mohamed Bouazizi was charred but still alive. And that was how his stepfather Omar found him.

“I couldn’t recognise him because he was totally burnt. Then he uttered the Kalimah Shahadah (a Muslim declaration of faith).

“And I knew from the voice that it was Mohamed Bouazizi. Those were the last words he spoke,” says Omar, adding that both of them were supposed to have gone for Friday prayers that day.

Mohamed Bouazizi was rushed from one hospital to another because they could not treat the severe burns. He lived on for another 18 days and died on Jan 4.

By this time, news of what had happened to the poor fruit seller who just wanted to make a living spread through Tunisia like wildfire. His town, Sidi Bouzid, was the first to rise up.

Noha Farah left her children at home and went to the government building every day to protest and shout for change and for the president to quit.

She says she knew Mohamed Bouazizi personally.

“I always bought fruits from him. He was a very nice person. I cried when I saw what had happened,” she shares.

Through Facebook and Twitter, word spread and the protests grew all over Tunisia, shocking the world.

Here was Tunisia– an educated, moderate and stable country.

Yet its people, fed up with poverty, unemployment and a rotten corrupt system, spontaneously rose up to kick out their leader of 23 years, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

They wanted to reform their government which made it tough for people like Mohamed Bouazizi to make a living.

And soon, the Tunisian revolution caught on in other Arab countries.

Egypt managed to chuck out its strongman Hosni Mubarak who ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years.

Libya is still in the process of trying to oust its leader of 41 years, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The spark for change has also been lit in Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia. And although Manuobya wishes every night that Mohamed Bouazizi’s death is just a bad dream because she misses him dreadfully, she believes what he did was for a greater good.

“It is unbelievable what has happened. I thank God that things are better for all of Tunisia. I’m happy that He has opened the door for a lot of Arab countries. Freedom is a good thing,” she adds.

Manuobya followed the events in Egypt closely until Mubarak fell and her focus now is on what is happening in neighbouring Libya.

She wants the “evil” Gaddafi who has killed too many of his people to be replaced.

“God help Libya,” she says.

A neighbour, Alfiyah, tells how women, including strangers, drop by to visit Manuobya from time to time and offer words of comfort because they know how painful it is to lose a child.

“The women say ‘thank you for your son and for changing Tunisia’. The situation in Tunisia is still not all that we have hoped for but it is still early days yet,” she adds.

Noha Farah, however, feels something is still missing.

“We are happy but our happiness will not be complete until the Libyan revolution ends and the people there are also free,” she says.

Overnight, Mohamed Bouazizi has become a hero in his town, country and the Arab world.

Muhammad Han Zuli, 31, who speaks flawless English and lives in Sidi Bouzid, has tremendous respect for the fruit seller who triggered off a revolution.

“He gave us the best things in the world – freedom and democracy.”





http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/13/nation/8240636&sec=nation

In a country where officials have little concern for the rights of citizens, there was nothing extraordinary about humiliating a young man trying to sell fruit and vegetables to support his family.

Yet when Mohamed Bouazizi poured inflammable liquid over his body and set himself alight outside the local municipal office, his act of protest cemented a revolt that would ultimately end President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali's 23-year-rule.

Local police officers had been picking on Bouazizi for years, ever since he was a child. For his family, there is some comfort that their personal loss has had such stunning political consequences.

"I don't want Mohamed's death to be wasted," Menobia Bouazizi, his mother, said. "Mohamed was the key to this revolt."

Simple, troubled life

Mohamed Bouazizi was 10 years old when he became the main provider for his family, selling fresh produce in the local market. He stayed in high school long enough to sit his baccalaureate exam, but did not graduate. (He never attended university, contrary to what many news organisations have reported).

Bouazizi's father died when he was three years old. His elder brother lives away from the family, in Sfax. Though his mother remarried, her second husband suffers from poor health and is unable to find regular work.

IN VIDEO

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin profiles the man whose suicide launched a revolution

"He didn't expect to study, because we didn't have the money," his mother said.

At age of 19, Mohamed halted his studies in order to work fulltime, to help offer his five younger siblings the chance to stay in school.

"My sister was the one in university and he would pay for her," Samya Bouazizi, one of his sisters, said. "And I am still a student and he would spend money on me."

He applied to join the army, but was refused, as were other successive job applications. With his family dependant on him, there were few options other than to continue going to market.

By all accounts, Bouazizi, just 26 when he died earlier this month, was honest and hardworking. Every day, he would take his wooden cart to the supermarket and load it would fruit and vegetables. Then he would walk it more than two kilometres to the local souk.

Police abuse

And nearly everyday, he was bullied by local police officers.

"Since he was a child, they were mistreating him. He was used to it," Hajlaoui Jaafer, a close friend of Bouazizi, said. "I saw him humiliated."

The body of the man who started a revolution now lies in a simple grave, surrounded by olive trees, cactuses and blossoming almond trees.

The abuse took many forms. Mostly, it was the type of petty bureaucratic tyranny that many in the region know all too well. Police would confiscate his scales and his produce, or fine him for running a stall without a permit.

Six months before his attempted suicide, police sent a fine for 400 dinars ($280) to his house – the equivalent of two months of earnings.

The harassment finally became too much for the young man on December 17.

That morning, it became physical. A policewoman confronted him on the way to market. She returned to take his scales from him, but Bouazizi refused to hand them over. They swore at each other, the policewoman slapped him and, with the help of her colleagues, forced him to the ground.

The officers took away his produce and his scale.

Publically humiliated, Bouazizi tried to seek recourse. He went to the local municipality building and demanded to a meeting with an official.

He was told it would not be possible and that the official was in a meeting.

"It's the type of lie we're used to hearing," said his friend.

Protest of last resort

With no official wiling to hear his grievances, the young man brought paint fuel, returned to the street outside the building, and set himself on fire.

For Mohamed's mother, her son's suicide was motivated not by poverty but because he had been humiliated.

"It got to him deep inside, it hurt his pride," she said, referring to the police's harassment of her son.

The uprising that followed came quick and fast. From Sidi Bouzid it spread to Kasserine, Thala, Menzel Bouzaiene. Tunisians of every age, class and profession joined the revolution.

In the beginning, however, the outrage was intensely personal.

"What really gave fire to the revolution was that Mohamed was a very well-known and popular man. He would give free fruit and vegetables to very poor families," Jaafer said.


Tunisian president paid a visit to Bouazizi in hospital [AFP]
It took Ben Ali nearly two weeks to visit Mohamed Bouazizi's bedside at the hospital in Ben Arous. For many observers, the official photo of the president looking down on the bandaged young man had a different symbolism from what Ben Ali had probably intended.

Menobia Bouazizi said the former president was wrong not to meet with her son sooner, and that when Ben Ali finally did reach out to her family, it was too late - both to save her son, and to save his presidency.

He received members of the Bouazizi family in his offices, but for Menobia Bouazizi, the meeting rang hollow.

"The invite to the presidential palace came very late," she said. "We are sure that the president only made the invitation to try to derail the revolution."

"I went there as a mother and a citizen to ask for justice for my son."

"The president promised he would do everything he could to save our son, even to have him sent to France for treatment."

The president never delivered on his promises to her family, Menobia Bouazizi said.

Contagious uprising

But by the time Menobia Bouazizi's son died of his burns on January 4, the uprising had already spread across Tunisia.

Fedya Hamdi, the last police officer to antagonise the street vendor, has since fled the town. She was reportedly dismissed, but her exact whereabouts are unknown.

Meanwhile, the body of the man who started a revolution now lies in a simple grave outside Sidi Bouzid, surrounded by olive trees, cactuses and blossoming almond trees.

He is sorely missed by his family, whose modest house is now one of the busiest in Sidi Bouzid, with a steady flow of journalists who have only just discovered the town where it all began.

"He was very sincere," Basma Bouazizi, his shy 16-year-old sister, said. "We are like soulless bodies since he left."

"We consider him to be a martyr," Mahmoud Ghozlani, a local member of the Progressive Democratic Party (PDP), said in an interview metres away from the spot where the street vendor set himself on fire.

Proof itself of the progress made in four short weeks: such an interview with an opposition activist on the streets of Sidi Bouzid would not have been possible until the day Bouazizi inspired the revolt.

Part One of a two-part series. See also: How the people of Sidi Bouzid launched a revolution.




http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201111684242518839.html

Watching events in Tunisia over the past few days, I have been increasingly reminded of an event in 1989: the fall of the Romanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu. Is the Tunisian dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, about to meet a similar fate?

After 22 years in power, Ceausescu's end came suddenly and somewhat unexpectedly. It began when the government harassed an ethnic Hungarian priest over something he had said. Demonstrations broke out but the priest was soon forgotten: they rapidly turned into generalised protests against the Ceausescu regime. The Romanian public, to put it mildly, had had enough.

The riots and demonstrations that have swept through Tunisia during the past 10 days also began with a small incident. Twenty-six-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi, living in the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid, had a university degree but no work. To earn some money he took to selling fruit and vegetables in the street without a licence. When the authorities stopped him and confiscated his produce, he was so angry that he set himself on fire.

Rioting followed and security forces sealed off the town. On Wednesday, another jobless young man in Sidi Bouzid climbed an electricity pole, shouted "no for misery, no for unemployment", then touched the wires and electrocuted himself.

On Friday, rioters in Menzel Bouzaiene set fire to police cars, a railway locomotive, the local headquarters of the ruling party and a police station. After being attacked with Molotov cocktails, the police shot back, killing a teenage protester.

By Saturday, the protests had reached the capital, Tunis – and a second demonstration took place there yesterday.

Reporting of these events has been sparse, to say the least. The Tunisian press, of course, is strictly controlled and international news organisations have shown little interest: the "not many dead" syndrome, perhaps. But in the context of Tunisia they are momentous events. It's a police state, after all, where riots and demonstrations don't normally happen – and certainly not simultaneously in towns and cities up and down the country.

So, what we are seeing, firstly, is the failure of a system constructed by the regime over many years to prevent people from organising, communicating and agitating.

Secondly, we are seeing relatively large numbers of people casting off their fear of the regime. Despite the very real risk of arrest and torture, they are refusing to be intimidated.

Finally, we are seeing the breakdown of a long-standing devil's compact where, in return for submitting to life under a dictatorship, people's economic and welfare needs are supposedly taken care of by the state.

Officially, unemployment levels in Tunisia are around 13% though in reality they may be higher – especially among university graduates. According to one recent study, 25% of male graduates and 44% of female graduates in Sidi Bouzid are without jobs. In effect, they are victims of an educational system that has succeeded in providing them with qualifications that can't be used and expectations that can't be met.

The regime also seems to have overdone its trumpeting of Tunisia's economic progress. If those claims are true, people ask, what happened to the money? One answer they give is that it has gone into the pockets of the Ben Ali family and their associates.

"The First Lady," Dr Larbi Sadiki of Exeter university wrote the other day, "is almost the Philippines' Imelda Marcos incarnate. But instead of shoes, Madame Leila collects villas, real estate and bank accounts". Then there's the president's son-in-law and possible successor, Mohamed Sakhr el-Matri whose OTT lifestyle and business interests were eloquently described, courtesy of WikiLeaks, by the US ambassador.

The defining moment in the Romanian revolution came when President Ceausescu and his wife held a rally – televised live – to drum up support. But instead of cheering as they had always done before, the crowd booed and heckled. Visibly stunned, the Ceausescus disappeared inside the building and the whole country knew their game was up.

President Ben Ali has so far avoided that mistake and continues to be extolled by the official media. But there was a telling straw in the wind when his Constitutional Democratic Rally party called a meeting in Sidi Bouzid last week. "The meeting, which was supposed to deliver a strong political message and calm things down, was feeble," one journalist was quoted as saying. In the event, very few party members turned up

The regime's claim that (unspecified) sinister forces lie behind the riots and demonstrations also sounds half-hearted. By hastily finding $15m (£10m) in economic aid for Sidi Bouzid it has, after all, acknowledged that the protesters have a point.

The crucial question is what members of the security forces, members of the ruling party and government officials – all those who have helped to keep the Ben Ali show on the road for the past 23 years – really think. How many of them have family members among the unemployed? And, more important, how many really believe Ben Ali is the man to lead the country out of its problems?

Most Arab regimes rely on patronage networks to keep themselves in power but Ben Ali's support base looks comparatively small and increasingly fragile, as the US ambassador noted last year in one of the WikiLeaks documents. He described a regime that has lost touch with the people, a regime that tolerates no advice or criticism and whose corruption has become so blatant that "even average Tunisians are now keenly aware of it".

Ben Ali may try to cling on, but his regime now has a fin de siècle air about it. He came to power in 1987 by declaring President Bourguiba unfit for office. It's probably just a matter of time before someone else delivers that same message to Ben Ali.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/28/tunisia-ben-ali

I have been reading a lot of post on nairaland for revolution, it is a good thinking but i have not see anyone that can start the revolution because they are all citing Tunisia, Egypt and Libya as Example, may be you can read about the beginning of revolution in middles east then see where we can start.

Read about the uy called Mohamed Bouazizi and let us not fooling ourselves with let start revolution.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/28/tunisia-ben-ali

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/01/201111684242518839.html

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/13/nation/8240636&sec=nation

I'm afraid if the child belongs to this man, african woman with their bas.tar.d kids.

People should appreciates it that Lagos can be on the list.
How many cities do we have in the world? more than 10000, so if Lagos is 137 livable is not meant that Lagos is listed as baddest city to live.

The most stupid comment i saw here is about poll, who is fooling who? the north will just use this election to start war and they will loose i can see clearly and all of us know that without rigging, GEJ will win, then killing of innocent may follow.

If jonathan win the north will call it rigging, because they can't want again than to use any means to get back to power.
What have they done in 38 yrs in power, poverty and darkness, when is new nigerian will emerge, we should not be talking of electricity, water and good road now, we should have done all this back decades ago.

If you like criticize me, i don't care, you can only know GEJ when he get his mandate, he is looking for mandate from you and he will reply you with dividend, take it or leave he need to dine with devil and God to win the election, we know the devil, but God is with him to defeat the devil of Nigerian politics.

Such acts is frequent among Igbo, not new to us again.

we need to ascertain the cost per one card and the cost per one in bulk, so there would be price reduction and discount advantage, so on average 40 or less shoulbd be reasonable price.

The cost of producing one atm chip card should be similar to the cost of one voters card with all the security features.

@OP.

That is how nigerian babes and their nigerian bf do know, they masterminded dating scam on fb now simply cos they know we like marrying someone back home.
Be careful, the girl might want to play along to love you for the fact that you are in a better position to change her situation around, the girl and his bf are playing you.

My guy in Ireland has similar experience, be careful.

Buying it from China is not a bad idea because i have been to China and saw their mass transit, no auto firm in Nigeria can do it, but my fear is just that if they will really produce what they use for their mass transit for us in terms of quality, without that it is not a bad ideas.