₦airaland Forum

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While Nigerians continue to wallow in abject poverty, the number one banker, Godwin Emefiele who should be managing her wealth has suddenly found a new love of wasting the nation’s money recklessly.

This is coming barely six months after he mounted the saddle of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as its Governor. At a time when the Naira is gradually devalued in the international market, the top banker has used the collective wealth of the people to purchase mind boggling properties; the type never seen in the history of the financial institution.

These properties we gathered from very reliable sources are for the Deputy Governors and Directors who are already living in eye popping mansions at the expense of the poor voters. The governor, who took office on June 3, from Sarah Alade, who acted as the CBN Governor following the illegal suspension of the former Governor, Sanusi Lamido Lamido on the allegation of financial recklessness may just have been engaged in more of what Sanusi Lamido was accused of and suspended for in just few months at the helm of affairs of the country’s apex bank.

Insider sources who got uncomfortable with his Emefiele itchy finger confided in this reporter that billions of Naira have been removed from the coffers of the CBN just to rebuild the official residence of the governor located on Missouri Street, Maitama, Abuja, while several other billions vanished into thin air all in the name of acquiring new properties that are never needed for the Deputy Governors and Directors.

Surprisingly, the Governor’s properties gulping the nations billions was built just in 2009 by immediate past Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who was tired of wasting money for hotel accommodation or rented mansions. Despite staying in these luxurious mansions free, Emefiele still pockets home a princely sum of N400 million as accommodation when he resumed office.

The CBN boss who is believed to live a life of waste and affluence we gathered was not comfortable with the one built by Sanusi, and decided to buy adjoining properties to the existing mansion which is estimated to be N500 million. Not done with that, he signed away billions to demolish the parts he doesn’t like and rebuild

The properties bought by Emefiele we can report is owned by one Abubakar Aliyu who is behind the purchase of NITEL properties in the FCT. This property seller was a major contractor to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and also owns A.A Oil Limited.

Four houses with three of it located in the rich hub of Maitama were also bought by the governor and billions havce been pumped in to renovate them all for the enjoyment of the Deputy Governors, while 10 units of houses purchased for the Directors of the bank at Wuse II, Abuja are also nearing completion.

The very reliable sources revealed that the Director’s apartment at Wuse was bought at the huge sum of N1.7 billion which is a total of N17 billion. In a clear case of daylight corporate fraud, the purchased properties were advertised to the public for N520 million per unit, before the Governor did abracadabra to the rest billions.

One of the source stated that it is not clear what resulted to the sharp increase of a unit of the houses from N520 million to N1.7 billion.

Efforts to get CBN officials to respond to our findings proved abortive as mails sent to the Media Relations Unit and the Anti-Corruption unit of the Bank failed to yield any result.

http://newsrescue.com/17-billion-fraud-cbn-governor-spends-nigerias-money-needless-mansions-photos-included/#axzz3PUoyjYzL

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[b]According to the London-based Independent newspaper, a joint investigation by the City of London’s Overseas Anti-Corruption Unit (OACU) and their counterparts in Norway, Okokrim, examined how the former warships, including missile-torpedo boats (MTBs), ended up under the control of a former Niger Delta militant who now runs privatised national security contracts worth millions of dollars that have been authorised by the Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan.

Detectives from the OACU arrested a man in his early 40s at his home in Alfreton, Derbyshire, and a man in his late 50s at an address in East Molesey, Surrey.

The two are alleged to have made payments to a Norwegian civil servant totalling more than $150,000.
The money, in two separate transactions, is alleged to have been paid directly into the official’s personal bank account. The cash is alleged to have helped secure the sale of the decommissioned Norwegian Navy ships by disguising the eventual destination of the warships.[/b]

Under Norway’s ethical foreign policy rules, the direct sale of the decommissioned warships to a private Nigerian company regarded as effectively running the country’s outsourced national coast guard, could have proved difficult.

With a general election in Nigeria scheduled for February, both the Norwegian Ministry of Defence and the country’s foreign affairs departments in Oslo, were likely to have asked for a lengthy political assessment of the export deal if the destination of the vessels had been fully known.

It is understood that the Norwegian authorities assumed their former naval MTBs, post-sale, would be converted to unarmed vessels and operate under European laws.

In addition to the two arrests in England, a business address in Surrey was also searched by the OACU with computer equipment and documents seized.
The UK police have not named the company involved, stating only that it was involved in “international risk management for the maritime industry”.

However authorities in Norway have said the arrested men are connected to a UK firm called CAS Global, which is headquartered in Walton-on-Thames, Surrey. The firm described itself as specialising in “maritime services”.
CAS also has registered offices in Nigeria’s largest city, Lagos, in Tema in Ghana, and in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown.
Police in Norway have arrested a third man in Tonsberg on the country’s south west coast.

DCI Danny Medlycott, head of the OACU, said the operation was a “great example” of how his unit was working closely with other international enforcement partners “to combat bribery and corruption.”

Although the OACU have been involved in 150 corruption and bribery operations since it was established in 2006, its most high-profile success is Operation Cent, which resulted in the convictions of those involved in producing and selling fake “substance detectors”.
The “useless” devices, which had a £3m annual turnover, were sold around the world and marketed as capable of finding explosives. The trial judge said the scam investigated by the OACU had “damaged the reputation of British trade abroad”.

The former Norwegian missile torpedo boats are now part of a private fleet under the control of Tompolo. He was a militia leader in the 2009 Niger Delta insurgency that fought the Nigerian army and destroyed oil installations in widespread protests against corruption and mismanagement in the region’s high-value oil industry.

Since the uprising and following Jonathan’s first election victory in 2011, Tompolo’s security firm, Global West Vessels Specialist (GWVS), has won lucrative state contracts that have been criticised in some quarters as undermining the authority of the Nigerian Navy.

Okokrim – Norway’s National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime – were tasked with investigating how the sale of the vessels was fast-tracked to a UK-registered company but ended up in the fleet owned by Tompolo, who is a close political ally of the Nigerian president.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/two-britons-arrested-over-bribe-involving-gunboats-sold-to-tompolo/199755/

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[b]Excerpts from the full translation of Shekau's speech by PremiumTimes reads:

“We thank God for making us enter Baga and Doro-Baga in victory. We have today declared Baga as part of our territory and one of our operational base”.

“Jonathan you are in trouble. All governors of Nigeria are in trouble. All these war equipment that you see being displayed in the screen are gotten from Baga and Doro. Your army kept deceiving the world that you can’t fight us because you have no arms. Liars! You have all that it takes; you are just coward soldiers. You forgot that it is God that arms. Is it not amazing that we, who started with sticks and machetes, are today the biggest headache to the almighty Nigerian soldiers? What a shame!!

"Jonathan is it not shameful that now even your supporters are insulting and causing (sic) you? This should be a sermon to the world that you should not trust in humans. Any one that trusts a man will end up regretting. This is just the beginning of the killings; what you’ve just witnessed is a tip of the iceberg; more deaths are coming. This will mark the end of politics and democracy in Nigeria. This is to confirm to you that we carried out the Baga massacre, and we are going to do more".

“Nigerians are busy with politics, hailing Buhari! Buhari, Jonathan! Jonathan! Do you think the two of them are spared? Do you think even Buhari is a good Muslim? Buhari is not a Muslim as far as we are concerned – He is nothing but an infidel and our enemy".[/b]


http://newsrescue.com/see-video-massive-stockpile-weapons-boko-haram-got-jonathan-baga/#ixzz3PUpcnIBL

chukwudi44:
LWKMD if this is what APC are hoping on to nullify GEJ's victory at the courts. You are on a long thing

GEJ is not winning. I was referring to state elections. Accept my apologies for misleading you to build a bubble.

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President Goodluck Jonathan has deployed the jets in the presidential fleet for campaigns, while almost all state governors have been using the resources of their states for the February general elections, SUNDAY PUNCH’s investigations have shown.

A few weeks ago, political parties signed a code of conduct, which states that the use of government resources for political campaigns is unlawful. The Code is a document prepared by the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2013.

A part of the code of conduct states, “All political parties shall separate party business from government business. No political party shall use state vehicles or other public resources for any electioneering campaigns or any other party business.”

But contrary to the code of conduct, since Jonathan commenced his campaigns across Nigeria, virtually all the 11 jets in the presidential fleet have been used for one campaign trip or the other.

The Presidential Air Fleet include two Falcon 7X jets, two Falcon 900 jets, Gulfstream 550, one Boeing 737 BBJ (Nigerian Air Force 001 or Eagle One), and Gulfstream IVSP. Others are one Gulfstream V, Cessna Citation 2 aircraft and Hawker Siddley 125-800 jet.

The PAF is about the third largest domestic airline in the country, coming behind Arik Air, which has over 21 aircraft, and Aero Contractors, with about 12 planes.

Senior officials at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja told one of our correspondents on Friday that the brand of airplane and the number used by the President to any state depended on the size of the airport in the state, the number of persons in his entourage, as well as “other factors best known to the Presidency.”

The Presidency on Saturday however said there was nothing stopping Jonathan from using all the paraphernalia of his office while going round the country to seek votes.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, said this in an interview with SUNDAY PUNCH.

Okupe said there was nowhere in the world were incumbents are stopped from using their official cars while going on campaign trips.

Okupe said, “I am not aware of such code of conduct. You can check anywhere in the world. I watched Obama’s campaign, was he going around in taxis or private cars? When the governor of Lagos State was seeking re-election, was he going for campaigns in private cars?

“A sitting President has all paraphernalia of office anywhere he goes. The same applies to governors. They are not ordinary citizens, so when you are contesting against them, you know you are contesting against an institution. There is nothing you can do about that.

“I don’t think that code of conduct exists. So they want the President to be going about in one Peugeot 505 to seek votes? What about policemen? Are they not government officials? Are they not supposed to follow him because he is campaigning?

“It simply does not make sense. If INEC had such a document, let them publish it for us to see.”

State governors are also not left out of using state vehicles and resources to campaign.

In Kwara, Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed; his deputy, Mr. Peter Kisira; and a former governor of the state, who is currently the Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Dr. Bukola Saraki, as well as their retinue of aides have been campaigning with government vehicles.

Sources informed one of our correspondents that bills for party members’ mobilisation and logistics for the campaign were allegedly footed by the state government.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Kwara State Governor on Media and Communication, Dr. Muyideen Akorede, however said the state government was aware of INEC regulations prohibiting state governments from sponsoring campaigns.

Akorede said, “The APC is responsible for campaigns and all associated expenses. The flag off was funded by the party from members’ contributions, as well as donations by aspirants, their supporters and other party members. It is not true that the Ahmed administration funded the APC campaign.”

Similarly, the PDP-controlled government in Cross River has been campaigning for all the party’s candidates at all levels using government-owned vehicles. Some government vehicles have been seen in different parts of the state spotting the stickers of PDP candidates.

A top government official who preferred anonymity said, “If you think they will not use government funds to run campaigns, then you must be joking. You do not expect a governor or even the president to appear at campaign venues with private securities and personal vehicles when they are in control of the resources. It happens even in the United States.”

The Chief Press Secretary to Governor Liyel Imoke, Mr. Christian Ita, told SUNDAY PUNCH that the governor would not drop his official designation because of campaigns.

Ita said, “This debate had been on for quite some time now. The governor cannot afford not to be governor because of political campaigns.”

In Kaduna, the administration of Governor Mukhtar Yero is also using state resources to promote the members of the ruling PDP.

Yero at different fora boasted that the government would deploy both material and human resources to trounce the main challenger, a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory and the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Nasir el-Rufai.

Yero, at the flag-off of his 2015 governorship campaign, rode in his official Mercedes Benz E Class 350. He has also toured the 23 local government areas of the state with the same vehicle.

Aside from fuelling and maintaining the vehicles, SUNDAY PUNCH gathered that most of the campaign vehicles, especially those acquired for the Kaduna State chapter of the Goodluck/Sambo 2015 Presidential Campaign Organisation were procured with state funds.

A competent government source said, “Recently, about 30 vehicles were procured for the purpose of campaigning for the Jonathan/Sambo presidency. These vehicles are fully financed by the state government under the guise of donation from political associates.”

Also in Ogun State, since Governor Ibikunle Amosun, kicked off his governorship re-election campaign tours two weeks ago, his official Toyota Sports Utility Vehicle and about five other SUVs, including Toyota Hilux vans and other official vehicles, were in the governor’s convoy to Ijebu Igbo, Remo North, Imekon Afon, Ewekoro and Ijebu North East Local Government Areas.

The State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Yusuph Olaniyonu, however said the only official vehicles on the campaign train were those of the governor and that of the security agents.

He said, “Whoever is saying the governor is using the state resources to campaign should come and prove that. The governor uses his official vehicle and all the other ones you are seeing in the convoy are the ones bought by the campaign committee of the party, and they are appropriately branded and APC boldly written on them.

“The other vehicles that join the campaign train are that of security agents. And I don’t know any operational rule that says the security personnel assigned to the governor should use other vehicles.

“Again, there are vehicles that belong to friends of the governor and those of individual candidates. Those of the candidates are branded in their names. So what are they talking about?”

Same is happening in Rivers State where the All Progressives Congress is the ruling party. Our correspondent reports that luxury buses belonging to the state government are being used during campaigns.

A party chieftain who pleaded anonymity described the funding of campaign rallies as an “expensive venture.” He explained that it would be difficult for any candidate to win without government ‘support.’ Efforts to reach the Chief of Staff, Government House, Mr. Tony Okocha, to speak on the allegation failed as he said he he was attending a rally of the party and promised to call back. He failed to do this.

Similarly, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mr. Godswill Akpabio, does not pretend that he is supporting the state Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, in every way he can.

The governor has boasted that if an incumbent governor does not support any aspirant during elections, such aspirant is bound to be defeated.

Twenty-two aggrieved PDP governorship aspirants in the state had alleged that the governor spent N1.2bn to secure delegates’ votes for Emmanuel.

One of the delegates in the PDP governorship primary said, “Apart from making government vehicles and buildings available for the campaign, the governor has been spending a lot of money to ensure that his candidate wins.”

The APC on Saturday denied allegations that it was using government vehicles to campaign in states under its control.

National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Lai Mohammed, said this in a telephone interview with SUNDAY PUNCH.

He explained that he was not aware of any breach of the Independent National Electoral Commission Code of Conduct.

Mohammed said, “I am not aware of any breach by our party. I am not aware that any of our governors is using official vehicles for campaign.

“We only hope that the law applies to all parties including Mr. President and the ruling party, we hope he will not use the Presidential jet on his campaign train.”

Lawyers Kick
Some lawyers have condemned the use of public resources by elected public officers for electioneering campaigns.

One of them, Mr. Jiti Ogunye, said the trend was “a consolidation of the absurdity and aberration that have remained with us for some time.”

He said it was the same act of absurdity that had played out when the head of the National Orientation Agency accepted an appointment into the campaign committee of President Goodluck Jonathan.

Ogunye said, “If public officers would not mind to be appointed to serve on a campaign committee of a candidate in an election, why will elected officers not see public resources at their disposal as a fair game?

“The practice is improper and it is prohibited not only by code of conduct for political parties but also public officers. It is condemnable; it confers undue advantage on those occupying office.”

Another lawyer, Mr. Fred Agbaje, said the act was a reflection of the culture of impunity that had dominated the country.

He said, “But for the culture of impunity that is cascading our political landscape and which, regrettably, has become public policy, why will anybody use facilities that is maintained by public purse for his campaigns?

“The act violates Sections 92 and 100(2) of the Electoral Act because public resources cannot be used for election expenses.”

Another lawyer, Mr. Malachy Ugwummadu, said the violation of the code of conduct and the Electoral Act had also extended to the use of public funds.

Ugwummadu said the act deprived the opposition parties the level playing field they deserved.

Parties responsible for compliance —Jega
The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Attahiru Jega, however, stated that it was the responsibility of political parties to ensure compliance with the code of conduct.

His Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kayode Idowu, referred SUNDAY PUNCH to Section 3 (17) of the code which states, “All political parties shall discourage their members in government from using their power of incumbency to the disadvantage of other parties or their candidates during campaigns.”

Section 10(4) also states: “Any dispute which cannot be resolved between parties shall be reported to the IPAC which shall give it a fair and expeditious hearing/s. The IPAC is empowered to recommend to INEC appropriate sanctions on erring political parties. This is without prejudice to the right of parties and their candidates or agents to pursue other legal actions.

http://www.punchng.com/news/jonathan-defies-inec-deploys-presidential-jets-for-campaigns/

DDeliverer:
Nonsense..

Have you heard of flawless victory before??

GEJ will win each of the south eastern state convincingly well..

Can I shock you? GEJ will also win in kano, kastina and kaduna...Don't 4get I said so..

Comedian

derrick333:
After umahia u wnt him2go to aba2? Den leta u will ask him to com2 arochukwu,øbenyi etc ,cus NA abia state him wan finish his campaign

Going by your logic, GEJ has visited Onitsha hence should not stopover in Awka in his Anambra State campaign rounds.

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President Jonathan was in Umuahia yesterday for his campaign flag off in Abia State but refused to campaign in Aba.

Angry youths in Aba expected the president to visit Aba to see what their governor did to Aba peoples.

Angry youths had gathered stones and pure water to throw at their governor, T. A. Orji, their PDP candidate of the state 2015.

Aba is the main commercial city and the heart beat of Abia State, the heart of Igbo-land and the historic city of one of the largest ever Nigerian riots against colonial rule, the 25,000 women, Aba riot of 1929 that humiliated the colonialists.

NewsRescue gathered that the last time the governorship candidate of PDP, its senators and Federal House. Reps members were in Aba, they were stoned and met with pelted water sachets. This happened in December at Aba stadium on the last day of Aba Marathon race.

The Aba youths and Abia strongly reject the candidate of PDP imposed to them by Gov’ T.A. Orji.
They have decided to vote PDP Out in the February election.

Many have declared that they have decided to vote for Buhari as man of the people for coming to Aba to campaign and the candidate they believe will listen to the people.

It can be recollected that general Buhari was crowned by the Enyi of Aba as the Ogbuagu 1 of Aba, Chief in Aba last week during his campaign there where he spoke to massive crowds.

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Aba youths and many other groups in the state have endorsed General Buhari.

It is shocking that despite president Jonathan’s claims to be affiliated to Igbos. he did not come to the heart of
Igbo (Aba) to Campaign.

Some say their late leader Ojukwu was taken to Aba to show to Aba people his body not to Umuahia.

Some youth interviewed by NewsRescue said, “Jonathan please forget our votes, you are not part of us. We need CHANGE! BUHARI.”

President Jonathan slept in Umuahia to move to Imo state today.

http://newsrescue.com/president-jonathan-visits-abia-state-umuahia-afraid-campaign-aba/#ixzz3P6I2Bk2a