dube4peace: SSS is an independent security organization, the only Nigeria agency who is not under supervision of any ministry's, charged with responsibilities of protective duties of top government officials. It was reliably gardered that even as the current serving chief of army staff is using SSS as immediate security guard as requested by the law, minister of interior Dambazau rejected the service of SSS. Not everyone who wear suit is an SSS, those who love to appear like DSS also do so. The source confirmed that despite the fact that the position of that pistol is opposite to SSS pistol position, the action of cleaning shoe in public is anti SSS. He confirmed that no SSS officer is working with Dambazau. That he most be an army personnel. God bless Nigeria
If someone had imported poisoned goods, then a lot of people will be dead in the coming days.... crazy stuff.
northvietnam: I thought seized goods is kinda harmful to human health ....
and also not up to grade commodity .
why dash them out..??
why not burn them cs they are sub standard.??
but if IDP. an use then its good enough for consumption ..
Not necessarily. Substandard and harmful goods are not the only goods that are seized. Harmless goods could also be seized because the importer failed to pay customs duty or smuggled it through illegal routes.
A batman (or batwoman) is a soldier or airman assigned to a commissioned officer as a personal servant. Before the advent of motorized transport, an officer's batman was also in charge of the officer's "bat-horse" that carried the pack saddle with his officer's kit during a campaign.
The U.K. English term is derived from the obsolete bat, meaning "pack saddle" (from French bât, from Old French bast, from Late Latin bastum), and man.
Duties
A batman's duties often include:
▪ acting as a "runner" to convey orders from the officer to subordinates
▪ maintaining the officer's uniform and personal equipment as a valet
▪ driving the officer's vehicle, sometimes under combat conditions
▪ acting as the officer's bodyguard in combat
▪ digging the officer's foxhole in combat, giving the officer time to direct his unit[1]
▪ other miscellaneous tasks the officer does not have time or inclination to do
The action of serving as a batman was referred to as "batting". In armies where officers typically came from the upper class, it was not unusual for a former batman to follow the officer into later civilian life as a domestic servant.
naptu2: NECOM House/Net Building was commissioned by the Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters (the defacto Vice President) Major General Shehu Musa Yar'Adua in 1978. It was the tallest building in West Africa at the time.
The building was owned by NET/NECOM. Telecommunication services were provided by two government departments at that time. The first was the Post and Telecoms Department (P&T) which provided domestic telecommunications services and the other was the Nigerian External Telecommunications Department (NET or NECOM).
Net Building was often used by the NTA and foreign tv stations (and also by the Nigerian government) as a symbol of Nigeria. The US had the Statue of Liberty, London had Big Ben, Paris had the Eiffel Tower, Egypt had the Pyramids, Moscow had the Kremlin and Nigeria/Lagos had Net Building.
The building could be seen from most parts of the main city (Lagos Island, Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Yaba, Surulere, etc). It had a powerful revolving light, almost like a lighthouse, that illuminated many parts of the city at night (especially when there was a power outage) and you could also easily see its red beacon.
Then the building caught fire in 1983. I was actually very close to it on that day. I was on Broad Street and I heard the sirens, but I didn't know that anything unusual was happening. Most banks had their headquarters on Broad Street, the CBN headquarters was also on Broad Street and there were also quite a few ministries there, so it wasn't unusual to hear lots of sirens from bullion vans and minister's motorcades in the course of the day. My sister was close to the Federal Fire Service headquarters on Campbell Street and she could see the fire trucks leaving the station, so she knew that there was a major fire, but it wasn't until our driver showed up in the evening that we knew that there was a fire at Net Building. He said that the police had cordoned off Marina Street, part of Broad Street and Cable Street, so we had to go through Tokunboh Street and Igbosere Road to get to Ikoyi. You could see the smoke all the way from Ikoyi.
President Shagari stopped by to see the burning building on his way to the airport. The crowd that had gathered to see the fire threw stones at him and his motorcade.
I wanted to watch the Network News (which was at 8 o'clock back then), but I was so tired that I slept off. I watched the abridged version at 11 o'clock and it was terrible. Some people (including a pregnant woman) jumped down to their deaths while trying to avoid the fire. The building was thoroughly burnt. My sister wondered why the fire service didn't use a life net to rescue people (she had obviously watched too many episodes of Fire House. A life net would not have saved people jumping from such a great height).
A committee was set up to investigate the fire and one of its findings was that it was impossible for the fire service to contain the fire and rescue people because they did not have a snorkel (aerial platform). There was no snorkel in the whole country at that time. The committee recommended that the government should buy a snorkel for the fire service.
It took more than a decade for the reconstruction work on Net Building to be completed. Foreign tv stations, including the BBC and CNN often showed the building, with its blackened out mid section, in their reports about Nigeria. It was an embarrasment. The restoration work wasn't completed until the late 1990s.
The government bought a snorkel for the Federal Fire Service. It was kept at its headquarters on Campbell Street. I often saw the firefighters training with the snorkel in the 1980s. There's a tower at the Federal Fire Service Headquarters and the firefighters would practice rescuing people from the tower with the aid of the snorkel.
However the snorkel soon broke down and it was still not functioning when Nepa Building on Awolowo Road caught fire on Saturday April 21st 1990 (the eve of the Orkar Coup). The firefighters at the Awolowo Road Fire Station said that there was another snorkel at the State House (Dodan Barracks) Fire Station on Ribadu Road, but the firefighters there refused to deploy it without permission from the President.
I met an architect in the 1980s who was an alumni of my school. He said that they were planning to build a building on the Marina that would be taller than "your beloved Net Building". That building became the Union Bank Building. Net Building is taller than Union Bank Building if you include the huge telecommunications mast at the top of Net Building, but Union Bank Building is taller if you exclude Net Building's mast. The first thing that Union Bank's management did when the building was completed was to buy a snorkel. There was a fire at one of those tall buildings on Broad Street in the early 2000s and the Lagos State Fire Service were virtually helpless and couldn't stop the fire. However, the Union Bank Fire Service deployed their snorkel and were able to stop the fire and save the building. The Managing Director of the company that owned the building showered praises on Union Bank and couldn't stop thanking them when he was interviewed on the news.
The Tinubu Government came to power in 1999 and decided to equip the emergency services. They bought brand new vehicles and bullet proof vests for the RRS (Marwa had bought old second hand vehicles for Operation Sweep) and I was really impressed with the new ambulance service (LASAMBUS, the first readily available public ambulance service in Nigeria), but I was totally shocked by what they did to the fire service (I had often complained that there weren't enough fire trucks, stations and hydrants in Lagos).
The Tinubu Administration bought lots of Green Goddesses for the fire service. Green Goddesses?? Surely we could do much better.
Green Goddesses are fire trucks that were used by the British Army and Auxiliary Fire Service in World War 2 and the Cold War. Most of these trucks were made in the 1940s and '50s. They were used whenever the regular fire services were overwhelmed or when they went on strike (eg the Fire Brigade strike of the late 1990s and the 2002 strike). The British public realised (during the 2002 strike) that these vehicles were ancient and put pressure on the government to replace them. These were the vehicles that the Lagos State Government bought.
Then came the Fashola Administration. They changed the philosophy of the Lagos State Security Trust Fund. They adopted a needs based strategy (rather than having the government just buying what they wanted to buy). The emergency services would give the Security Trust Fund a list of what they require. They would then defend their demands before the board of the trust fund before the trust fund would procure the items required. This was because it was realised that officers and men of the emergency services were the experts in their fields and they knew what they needed better than anyone else.
It was at this time that many snorkels were bought for the Lagos State Fire Service (for the first time), many new fire stations were built and fire hydrants were installed across the state.
Eberex: When I was a kid, I sometimes follow my dad to his work place at marina. I always look forward to seeing this building, and back then I can say I fell in love with it. I called it NET. Can't remember where I heard that from but anyway, this post brought back good old memories
@ bold. The building was owned by the Nigerian External Communications Department (NET or NECOM).
Two agencies were responsible for telecommunications services in Nigeria before 1985: -
Posts and Telegraphs (later Posts and Telecommunications) Department (P&T) was responsible for domestic telecommunications services.
Nigerian External Telecommunications Department was responsible for international telecommunications services (between Nigeria and the rest of the world).
The telecommunications department was merged with NET in 1985 to form Nitel, while the Posts Department was transformed into Nipost.
I was on Broad Street on the day Net Building (NECOM House) caught fire in 1983. What a day that was.
Net Building was promoted as a symbol of Nigeria in the late 1970s/early '80s. New York has the Statue of Liberty, London has Big Ben, Moscow has the Kremlin, Paris has the Eiffel Tower, Egypt has the pyramids and Lagos has Net Building.
President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Senate President Bukola Saraki, Speaker Yakubu Dogara and Chief Justice Mahmud Mohamed at the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Day wreath laying ceremony. [img]http://pbs.twimg.com/media/CYxk9YUWkAAdCEO.jpg:small[/img]
azpekuliar: @OP, naptu2 ..I would like you to produce the Orkar coup broadcast. That's one coup I wish had'nt failed.
Happy Armed Forces remembrance day
"Fellow Nigerian Citizens,
On behalf of the patriotic and well-meaning peoples of the Middle Belt and the southern parts of this country, I , Major Gideon Orkar, wish to happily inform you of the successful ousting of the dictatorial, corrupt, drug baronish, evil man, deceitful, homo-sexually-centered, prodigalistic, un-patriotic administration of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. We have equally commenced their trials for unabated corruption, mismanagement of national economy, the murders of Dele Giwa, Major-General Mamman Vatsa, with other officers as there was no attempted coup but mere intentions that were yet to materialise and other human rights violations.
The National Guard already in its formative stage is disbanded with immediate effect. Decrees Number 2 and 46 are hereby abrogated. We wish to emphasise that this is not just another coup but a well conceived, planned and executed revolution for the marginalised, oppressed and enslaved peoples of the Middle Belt and the south with a view to freeing ourselves and children yet unborn from eternal slavery and colonisation by a clique of this country.
Our history is replete with numerous and uncontrollable instances of callous and insensitive dominatory repressive intrigues by those who think it is their birthright to dominate till eternity the political and economic privileges of this great country to the exclusion of the people of the Middle Belt and the south.
They have almost succeeded in subjugating the Middle Belt and making them voiceless and now extending same to the south.
It is our unflinching belief that this quest for domination, oppression and marginalisation is against the wish of God and therefore, must be resisted with the vehemence.
Anything that has a beginning must have an end. It will also suffice here to state that all Nigerians without skeleton in their cupboards need not to be afraid of this change. However, those with skeleton in their cupboards have all reasons to fear, because the time of reckoning has come.
For the avoidance of doubt, we wish to state the three primary reasons why we have decided to oust the satanic Babangida administration. The reasons are as follows:
(a) To stop Babangida's desire to cunningly, install himself as Nigeria's life president at all costs and by so doing, slowpoke the progress of this country for life. In order to be able to achieve this undesirable goals of his, he has evidently started destroying those groups and sections he perceived as being able to question his desires.
Examples of groups already neutralised, pitched against one another or completely destroyed are:
(1) The Sokoto caliphate by installing an unwanted Sultan to cause division within the hitherto strong Sokoto caliphate.
(2) The destruction of the peoples of Plateau State, especially the Lantang people, as a balancing force in the body politics of this country.
(3) The buying of the press by generous monetary favours and the usage of State Security Service, SSS, as a tool of terror.
(4) The intent to cow the students by the promulgation of the draconian decree Number 47.
(5) The cowing of the university teaching and non-teaching staff by an intended massive purge, using the 150 million dollar loan as the necessitating factor.
(6) Deliberately withholding funds to the armed forces to make them ineffective and also crowning his diabolical scheme through the intended retrenchment of more than half of the members of the armed forces.
Other pointers that give credence to his desire to become a life president against the wishes of the people are:
(1) His appointment of himself as a minister of defence, his putting under his direct control the SSS, his deliberate manipulation of the transition programme, his introduction of inconceivable, unrealistic and impossible political options, his recent fraternisation with other African leaders that have installed themselves as life presidents and his dogged determination to create a secret force called the national guard, independent of the armed forces and the police which will be answerable to himself alone, both operationally and administratively.
It is our strong view that this kind of dictatorial desire of Babangida is unacceptable to Nigerians of the 1990's, and, therefore, must be resisted by all.
(b) Another major reason for the change is the need to stop intrigues, domination and internal colonisation of the Nigerian state by the so-called chosen few. This, in our view, has been and is still responsible for 90 percent of the problems of Nigerians. This indeed has been the major clog in our wheel of progress.
This clique has an unabated penchant for domination and unrivalled fostering of mediocrity and outright detest for accountability, all put together have been our undoing as a nation.
This will ever remain our threat if not checked immediately. It is strongly believed that without the intrigues perpetrated by this clique and misrule, Nigeria will have in all ways achieved developmental virtues comparable to those in Korea, Taiwan, Brazil, India, and even Japan.
Evidence, therefore, this cancerous dominance has as a factor constituted by a major and unpardonable clog in the wheel of progress of the Nigerian state. (Sic) It is suffice to mention a few distasteful intrigues engineered by this group of Nigerians in recent past. These are:
(1) The shabby and dishonourable treatment meted on the longest serving Nigerian general in the person of General Domkat Bali, who in actual fact had given credibility to the Babangida administration.
(2) The wholesale hijacking of Babangida's administration by the all powerful clique.
(3) The disgraceful and inexplicable removal of Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe, Professor Tam David-West, Mr. Aret Adams and so on from office.
(4) The now-pervasive and on-going retrenchment of Middle Belt and southerners from public offices and their instant replacement by the favoured class and their stooges.
(5) The deliberate disruption of the educational culture and retarding its place to suit the favoured class to the detriment of other educational minded parts of this country.
(6) The deliberate impoverishment of the peoples from the Middle Belt and the south, making them working ghosts and feeding on the formulae of 0-1-1- or 0-0-0 while the aristocratic class and their stooges are living in absolute affluence on a daily basis without working for it.
(7) Other countless examples of the exploitative, oppressive, dirty games of intrigues of its class, where people and stooges that can best be described by the fact that even though they contribute very little economically to the well being of Nigeria, they have over the years served and presided over the supposedly national wealth derived in the main from the Middle Belt and the southern part of this country, while the people from these parts of the country have been completely deprived from benefiting from the resources given to them by God.
(c) The third reason for the change is the need to lay a strong egalitarian foundation for the real democratic take off of the Nigerian state or states as the circumstances may dictate.
In the light of all the above and in recognition of the negativeness of the aforementioned aristocratic factor, the overall progress of the Nigerian state a temporary decision to excise the following states namely, Sokoto, Borno, Katsina, Kano and Bauchi states from the Federal Republic of Nigeria comes into effect immediately until the following conditions are met.
The conditions to be met to necessitate the re-absorption of the aforementioned states are as following:
(i) To install the rightful heir to the Sultanate, Alhaji Maccido, who is the people's choice.
(ii) To send a delegation led by the real and recognised Sultan Alhaji Maccido to the federal government to vouch that the feudalistic and aristocratic quest for domination and operation will be a thing of the past and will never be practised in any part of the Nigeria state.
By the same token, all citizens of the five states already mentioned are temporarily suspended from all public and private offices in Middle Belt and southern parts of this country until the mentioned conditions above are met.
They are also required to move back to their various states within one week from today. They will, however, be allowed to return and joint the Federal Republic of Nigeria when the stipulated conditions are met.
In the same vein, all citizens of the Middle Belt and the south are required to come back to their various states pending when the so-called all-in-all Nigerians meet the conditions that will ensure a united Nigeria. A word is enough for the wise.
This exercise will not be complete without purging corrupt public officials and recovering their ill-gotten wealth, since the days of the oil boom till date. Even in these hard times, when Nigerians are dying from hunger, trekking many miles to work for lack of transportation, a few other Nigerians with complete impunity are living in unbelievable affluence both inside and outside the country.
We are extremely determined to recover all ill-gotten wealth back to the public treasury for the use of the masses of our people. You are all advised to remain calm as there is no cause for alarm. We are fully in control of the situation as directed by God. All airports, seaports and borders are closed forthwith.
The former Armed Forces Ruling Council is now disbanded and replaced with National Ruling Council to be chaired by the head of state with other members being a civilian vice-head of state, service chiefs, inspector general of police, one representative each from NLC, NUJ, NBA, and NANS.
A curfew is hereby imposed from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. until further notice. All members of the armed forces and the police forces are hereby confined to their respective barracks.
All unlawful and criminal acts by those attempting to cause chaos will be ruthlessly crushed. Be warned as we are prepared at all costs to defend the new order.
All radio stations are hereby advised to hook on permanently to the national network programme until further notice.
Long live all true patriots of this great country of ours. May God and Allah through his bountiful mercies bless us all."
Isaac Fadoyebo was a Nigerian soldier that fought against the Japanese in Burma in World War 2. His unit was ambushed while moving in the Kaladan River Valley and Fadoyebo was badly injured. He was rescued by Burmese villagers who hid them from the Japanese for 10 months.
A British journalist called Barnaby Philips, who had been the BBC's Nigeria correspondent and later worked for Al-Jazeera, made a documentary about Fadoyebo's exploits. He was able to track down the Burmese family that hid Isaac Fadoyebo and deliver a letter of gratitude from Isaac Fadoyebo to them. The documentary, called Burma Boy was shown in 2012. This is the documentary.
Page last updated at 23:32 GMT, Friday, 14 August 2009 00:32 UK
British documentary makers Robin Forestier-Walker and Oliver Owen have been tracing Nigerians who fought against the Japanese in Burma during World War II.
On VJ Day, the anniversary of victory over Japan, they tell the veterans' story.
Mohammed was just 16 when he was pressed into British military service in northern Nigeria against his will.
Now, almost 70 years on, the old war veteran claims he hid his true identity from the recruiting officer.
It was as Private African Banana that he went on to travel 6,300 miles (10,100km) to the jungles of Burma in the Royal West African Frontier Force.
And he has been known as African Banana ever since.
The contribution of West Africans was played down in official versions of the Allied war in Asia, and until now, few have had an opportunity to tell their tale.
In fact, only two in 10 of the soldiers who fought in Burma were white.
The role of Indians and Gurkhas is known. But when Allied commander General William Slim thanked his 14th army at the end of the campaign, he did not even mention the Africans.
Jungle warfare
Nigerians made up more than half of the total force of 90,000 West African soldiers deployed to South East Asia after 1943 as part of the British Army's 81st and 82nd (West Africa) Divisions.
Although the Burma campaign ended 64 years ago, many remain bitter that their contribution was never adequately recognised.
They were central to the push to clear Japanese forces out of the jungle and mountain ranges of Burma, from where they threatened British India.
This was achieved through a gruelling campaign of jungle marches, battles and ambushes, in which supplies were delivered entirely by air.
Usman Katsina remembers it well.
"Everything that was meant to be used - your food, your clothes, everything - was given to you and you were required to carry it, on your head and back. Some even died from exhaustion, from travelling long distances, with a heavy load," he says.
Some of those who earned the coveted Burma Star had already fought against Mussolini's forces in East Africa.
West Africans also joined special Chindit units under the command of General Orde Wingate.
The Chindits fought deep inside Japanese-held territory to disrupt lines of communication.
Their enemy was an extremely dangerous opponent. Japanese soldiers were trained well in the art of jungle warfare, where the first rule was concealment.
It was a skill the Nigerian troops had to learn too.
"The Japanese in the jungle were just like snakes - they hid before you could see them, it was very hard," recalls 97-year-old Hassan Sokoto.
'Lack of recognition'
Umaru Yola fought in the 4th Battalion, Nigeria Regiment. He described how he was hit in the head with a piece of shrapnel that left him with a hole in his skull.
"I didn't die, so God must have decided to give me a long life," he says.
African recruits served as drivers, artillerymen, engineers, medics and clerks, as well as infantrymen and carriers.
Officer positions were reserved for white expatriates from Britain and other parts of the empire, with only one notable exception: Lieutenant Seth Anthony from the Gold Coast was the British Army's first African officer.
Despite the hierarchy, the war in Burma played some part in breaking down the race barriers of the era.
"Initially I saw the white man as someone better than me. But after the war, I considered him an equal," recalls former infantryman Dauda Kafanchan.
In post-war Nigeria, the colonial government gave some veterans land to begin new lives as farmers. The project was also a scheme to reduce their potential impact as a new political force.
"We wanted work. But what could we do? We were under colonial rule and we couldn't change anything," said veteran Dangombe, who found himself without prospects at the war's end.
Nigerian soldiers who chose to continue their military careers went on to form the core of independent Nigeria's national army, which retains the 81st and 82nd Divisions to this day.
Private Banana later served as a peacekeeper in the Congo and Chad. And he returned to the frontline alongside many of his former comrades in Nigeria's bloody 1967-1970 civil war.
But many of his former comrades feel the British abandoned their responsibilities to their former servicemen.
Although they were paid off for their service, some claim they were promised allowances which were never paid, despite their repeated efforts over the years.
And it is not only the money - some veterans are still bitter over what they see as a lack of recognition.
"We were supposed to get Long Service and British Empire Medals" says Dangombe.
Today we remember our fallen Heroes, Nigeria remembers you We salute you Your courage we adore that Nigeria may be one Strong, United, Sovereign state Nigeria remembers you
Politics › Re: Dambazau Turns SSS Officer To Shoe Shinner (Video) by naptu2: 9:12pm On Jan 17, 2016
