₦airaland Forum

MightyThor: I have this to say to a Governor being involved in state business dealing CONFLICT OF INTEREST recall the recent case of Prof. Bart Nnaji, the past Minster of power. He had to resign his appointment when one of the preferred bidder was linked to him. Even if the process is free aned fair, you can not be a judge in your own case. Even these various lotteries even state as one of their condition "if you are related to a worker of the firm, that make you ineligible for the draw." So even if the Governor has genuine interest to develop the state, what he can do is enforce the local policy encouraging local content participation and not to directly be involved. lets face facts he has he power to influence policies or Government agencies that could make or break company operations, we are humans their is no way he will not be tempted to skew things to favor his firm. So i think the law in this instance is more about avoiding temptation.

Governor can have companies but their companies should not be involved directly in contracts in the Governor's sphere of influence.

And yes one is innocent until proven guilty, recall that that has already been done. His girl friend and i think his wife also was convicted, even Ibori himself reached a plea bargain to serve a lesser term. I think this current case is about other properties that was not in the original plea bargain he reached with the crown prosecutors. Even by his being in jail alone says he has been found guilty of fraud, just the extent of the fraud is what is being debated in court.

Chevron and Shell are not state owned companies, doing legitimate business with them is not conflict of interest in any way. The case of bart nnaji is different because he was part of government and his company was bidding for government asset without him declaring that he has interest in the company.

A governor can bid and should bid for legitimate contracts outside his sphere of influence and execute the contract instead of allocating public funds to himself.

Like you said, they have found him guilty of crime already, what is so difficult in bringing those evidence they used in findin him guilty to court to prosecute the confiscation.

Hope you are aware that it is already established that the documents relied upon to jail him has been established to have been forged and backdated

MightyThor: Yes i fully agree with you that sitting Governor get contract from firms operation in his domain, with this he can get huge profits if those contracts were on a regular bases, as was the case of Ibori's houseboats and the Chevron/Shell contract saga. however that does not make it right or legal, don't forget these companies follow due bidding and tender process before awarding contracts. And these process are supposed to be fair and with out biased.

If in this Ibori's case with Chevron were his house boat was being used on contract, why then did Chevron try to extract it self from the invitation by the crown prosecution to appear before it to explain the nature and term of that contract it entered with one of ibori's firm?

These governors get contract and the likes that fetch them huge revenue but using your office or position to enrich yourself is also a punishable offence and fraud under the law. Both himself and the company awarding such lop-sided contracts can be prosecuted for fraud.

Ibori was taken to court for fraud and the facts are his assets declaration difference is a major reason for him to be in court so if wants to be freed he should provide evidence that he got all those funds and properties though legit means, the prosecution presented evidence gotten through the EFCC, it may be circumstantial evidence at best, never the less Ibori still needs to prove his innocence to the court, since they deemed it necessary to hear the suit filed against him after the preliminary hearings.

You seem to conclude that a sitting governor can not be involved in legitimate business with an oil company, you are so wrong.

If i were to be a governor today, I can get a company that is into a service normally provided by foreign companies, as a nigerian I will authomatically get the contract if my cost is at par with the foreign companies previously providing the service due to the local content law. It will be very legitimate and I do not need to influence it with the powers of the office of Governor.

You talk as if it is Illegal for Ibori to supply house boat to chevron, am not aware of a law that bars public servants from having interest in other companies, to me the interest should be declared and those companies should not be given any preferential treatment. A sitting governor has a better chance of attracting bank loans or partnership deals while in office, he could channel such avenues into providing services that are required while competing equally with others providing same service. I rather have a politician providing legitimate service and making profit from it than divert state funds to his account.

And finally you are getting it wrong, Ibori does not need to prove that he got his money rightly, it is not for an accused to prove he his innocent, it is for the prosecution to prove that an accused is guilty. Thats because an accused is adjudged innocent until proven otherwise. Like I said the news media has been filled over the years with tales of monumental fraud commited by Ibori, why not just bring the evidence of such tales to court to show that he actually stole from the state, that shouldn't be too difficult.

ensure you take overdose of drugs for your malaria

MightyThor: Ibori continued: “The prosecution has always claimed that I defrauded Delta State of huge sums of money, I am content to say that in this case that we have been witnessing for the last three weeks, the evidence should speak for itself and it should be crystal clear to anyone except the most biased observers that there has been a huge and substantial gap between the prosecution's sensational claims and the hard evidence required to back up those claims, the sort of evidence that is backed by verifiable facts, instead of nothing but unjustifiable quotes in the news outlets.”

What other evidence is the lawyer talking about? the man declared 10 Naira before entering office and at the end of his 8yrs tenure he had 300,000 Naira? Is he a money-doubler? what business did he do to gain such huge profit in the time span? if he can not prove the authenticity that his wealth was legally acquired then there would be no need for his properties to be seized in the first place.

Secondly this matter of Delta state not cooperating with the crown prosecution is just disheartening, if we are genuinely fighting corruption then the AG's office should be following this matter closely and provide all the needed assistance, but this being Nigeria, we'll rather throw Ibori a lavish party and prayer session.

Please they should just conclude the trial and Jail time there as a Nigerian Court, in my view, lacks the competence to handle this matter freely and fairly.

It is the duty of the prosecution to prove its case. It is not for an accused to prove that he is innocent. Justice does not work that way.

It is all over the news that ibori defrauded his state massively, wherever they got that information from why don't they bring it to court.

A governor of a Niger delta state does not need to steal to be very rich within his tenure. Do you really think any oil company will refuse to give oil contracts to a sitting nd governor? And the governor can simply ensure that all his allocated contracts are executed fully and pocket the massive profits that come with oil contracts

[quote author=wisdom-w]Dis is de very reason y ℓ̊ ve bin traveling 2 Ghana wit Q-link motorcycle[/quote]I avoid motorcycle like a plague.
When my friend bought a power bike I removed 20yrs from his life expectancy and I told him.

Why don't the british admit for once that they made a mistake in the amalgamation.

Even marriages built on mutual love breakdown and the couples go for divorce, not to talk of a forced and abusive marriage.

Anyway the british know that a divided Nigeria will be more prosperous as each unit will sit down and seriously plan her development knowing there is no one else to blame for her failure. The greatness of the breakup units is what the british are afraid of, there will be no more dumping ground for british goods in a prosperous region.

Giant of Africa indeed, where some people slaughter others up close like rams.

Please we want to live in peace, breakup the nation, if some one with his cows come from bornu to kill another person in Ibadan, it will be treated as external aggression and well responded to

idupaul: .

TurboProp is actually a Jet engine

Its a jet engine with an airscrew attached in place of the jet propulsion system. Best for short distances and cheaper to maintain, but the advantages evaporates when used for longer distances

mej67: Thanks Engr Musiwa for sharing. The (engineering) english is most appreciated

Compared to me, musiwa is a new kid on nairaland. By the way it's not engineering english, it's mobile english. My hand held has a mind of its own.

It took us about 70mins to get to benin. I was too relieved when we landed, then I got the last shocker, only 3 of the 7 passengers stopped at benin, the other 4 were going to abuja, which airline in the whole world flies 300km offroute to drop off 3 passengers? And why use an aircraft powered by a turboprop engine to fly long route to abuja. That's why jet propulsion was invented.

While leaving the plane, I caught the eyes of the 2 air hostesses, there were no words exchanged but the look of resignation was all over them. They must have been used to 1st time passengers not repeating the mistake of flying with them. Without saying a word, they knew they will never be seeing me again.

One thing was certain to me, Associated Airlines was struggling, and obviously failing. But why will anyone struggle in the aviation industry where most airlines are only one crash away from bankrupcy?

So when the plane crashed, one question that keep nagging at me was "why did the regulators of the airline industry not ground that airline long before now".
Some have put forward many reasons why the plane crashed, but one thing am sure of is that our regulators don't know their jobs.

Am sure if the chanchangi airline that creaked in 2003 and I swore never to use again crashes tomorrow, there will be many reasons put forward as to why it crashed, but the regulators will never admit that the plane should have been grounded long ago.

The aircraft looked rather old, is it really old or am just spoilt, flying only the best airlines locally and internationally. Well it was time for me to fly regular plane like regular Nigerian folks, so I reasoned as I climbed into the aircraft.
But sitting down in the aircraft and looking around me I couldn't help but notice that the plane is old, way too old for my liking.

Looking around I saw that there were other 4 persengers sitted, what type of airline flies with only 5 persengers I reasoned. It soon occurred to me that the airline was not in a hurry to leave, they where actually waiting for more persengers, that was another 1st for me, an aircraft waiting for persengers beyond the take off time, or rather its a second for me. I once had a klm flight from amsterdam to lagos wait for me for about 15 mins. I had entered the wrong train at Delft and when i realised what was happening I was in deep shit. Getting down at the next train station and getting the next train to schipol meant i can never meet up with the flight time. Putting a call to the airline, they were able to pass me on to the pilot, I don't know what happened but the pilot promised to wait for me. And he waited and till today thats one one of the reasons why I think Klm first.

But in this case it was obvious that the associated airline was just buying time to see if any other passenger will show up. Well, 2 other passengers did show up after what seemed like 30 mins of waiting and we were soon on our way. The takeoff was smooth, but immediately we were airborne, the aircraft was creaking like a rickety lorry, the first and last time I heard such kind of creak from an aircraft was in 2003. That was a chanchangi flight from phc to lagos. That aircraft still remind me of a mammywagon.

This aircraft creaked and hissed as we crawled to Benin.
That was the part that got me most worried, the the aircraft simply crawled. It was like the aircraft is going to stall and drop off the sky at any moment. The flight was way too slow.

Among professionals it is a well known fact that all accidents are caused and can be avoided.
So also is the crash of the Associated Airline aircraft that happened last week.

I could have easily been one of the statistics of those that got involved in the Associated airline crash, not this recent crash though but one that could have happened 2 yrs ago.

It was December 4th 2011, I had completed my business in Lagos and was looking forward to my flight to Port Harcourt by Aero contractors later in the day. But my plans were about to be changed abrutely early that morning. By 6 am I got a call, there has been a road traffic accident involving the truck taking the goods I came to Lagos port to clear to Port Harcourt. In an incoherent voice the truck mate had told me that they had an accident somewhere close to benin and that the driver is injured and has been arrested by the police.

Several questions raced through my head, how could a truck that was loaded last night and was supposed to leave Lagos that morning end up in an accident in Benin that same morning.
How serious is the driver's injury, what about my goods worth tens of million on the truck, why did the police arrest an injured driver instead of taking him to the hospital, more and more questions raced through my head. Compounded by the fact that after the 1st phone call from the truck mate, no calls was going through to the driver or his mate.

With so many unanswered questions I decided to head to the Lagos MM2 airport to get on the next available flight to Benin. On getting to the airport, all aero contractors flight tickets were already sold for that morning flight. The next flight to benin is in the evening, I was determined to get to benin that morning, thats when someone suggested Associated Airlines,

My 1st question was "what airlne was that". I could pride myself of being aware of majority of the airlines in Nigeria but prior to that date I had never heard of Associated airline. I turned the name round in my head as I walked to the counter someone pointed to me to go and buy the ticket.

At the end I simply rationalised that it must be one of the cargo airlines operating in the country, hence am not aware of it.

I got to their counter, wondering why I have never noticed the counter prevoiusly. A young lady answered my query, yes they have sits available on their flight to benin that is due to leave within the hour. I quickly brought out my blackberry and did a google search on associated airline nigeria if I could get a little information on the airline, nothing of value turned up. With that I was forced to make a decision with no information to act on. Well, I still needed to get to benin in a hurry, so I decided to buy the ticket. Within a few minutes we were called to board. Thats when I met the 1st shock. As I walked towards the aircraft, the nearer I got to it the more aware I became that the aircraft is rather small, small aircrafts tend to be very bumpy during flights. Then the next shock

Nothing. If i need anything there are hundreds of countries I can import it from.

[quote author=tee_la_cruz]May Allah be praised[/quote]which of the allah are you praising, the one that sent Boko haram to kill the harmless students? or the one that saved the boy from being killed.

If you render your services free how to you keep your company afloat.

Am interested in setting up a farm that will be keeping cattle, could contact you for assistance but I need to know what you charge for and what is free.

Richogroup: IF YOU ARE SUPPLYING US BONES AT OUR BONE COLLECTING SITES AT AGEGE AND OKOTA SITES WE PAY #10000 PER TON.BUT IF WE COME TO YOUR LOCATION TO BUY.WE PAY #5000 PER TON.WE ALSO BUY BIG SIZE COW HORN AT #80000 PER TON. CHIEF RICH NNOLI 08167260929

Is it fresh bones or burnt bones?

How much do these ones want, 1 trillion or 2 trillion?

What is NANS waiting for before they call out all students on indefinite strike?
They can request that their degree certificates should be given to them in yr one. The students can be using the certificates to hustle each time nasu, ASUU, bsuu, csuu and dsuu decide to go on non ending turn by turn strike.

Toktee: Retar.d,people like you deserved to be locked away in the zoo.

You need to sue your mum for giving birth to you instead of getting an abortion. She should have saved you the agony of moving around with cotton wool in your scull in place of a brain.

You know their are other options to end your miserable life, you can take rat poison to end your misery instead of insulting people online.

The lecturers should use the strike period wisely. They can go into farming or petty trading and see if they can make 20,000 naira profit monthly.

lazy lots who wants 3 trillion naira

What is the weight of each carton, can we see a picture?

ochukoccna: When Pastor Tunde Bakare (God bless his soul)gave a prohesy after Buhari lost the elections, that GEJ's destiny was to BANKRUPT and BALKANISE Nigeria,I personally thought it was sour grapes from losing the elections
Fast forward 30 months and Nigeria is precariously perched on a precipice financially and inter-ethnically
Anyone who understands the celestial dynamics of power will know Goodluck will carry his 'luck' away from Aso Rock and Nigeria soon
His weak nature shines even in darkness
Jimmy Carter,Shagari Shehu and Ernest Shonekan are examples that readily spring to mind
Its just a matter of time

You are missing the point. Nigeria made a reciept of over 1 trillion naira in one month. That is more than enough to meet the budgetted expenditure. The crying governors even attest to the fact that the amount the country made was more than what was projected. So the issue of bankrupcy does not arise.

The question you need to ask is why is the total sum made by the nation not shared the way the governors want it. there can be several good reasons for it, so no need jumping over bad reasons.

for one, there are budgetory reasons. If the budget was based on a given sum and we made more than the sum budgeted for, the FG can keep the balance in the SWF. It is not mandatory to blow away every kobo made today without saving for the future.

The FG might also be deducting at source states government debts. OBJ did it on several ocassions.
The FG might be deducting at source state government contributions to ongoing state commitments.

So until the FG tell us what is going on, do not think there is no reason for giving the states less than what they are asking for.

kingjoe: these governors crying blue murder are the same that have refused to give local government thiers.in my state 100 million is allocated for my local government but the governor will only give the chairman 35 million.u see how painfull it is .

It is called "Do what I say, not what I do"

Let me answer for the FG. The nation is broke. Now state Govs go back to your states and use what you have been given.

We have calculated it and what the governors have been given is more than enough to cater for the legitimate business of the states.

So in the short term, suspend looting of your state funds. Concentrate on the legitimate business of government for now, when situation improves and there is more money, you can re-commence looting of your state funds.

No one can convince me for example that 14billion naira is not enough for Amaechi to cater for the legitimate business of Rivers State in one month, afterall we can't see any magnificent capital project going on in Rivers State as at today.

Signed
Coordinating and anti corruption of Minister our your nation.

gramci: Where is Gbawe?

He is in hiding. He is seriously thinking how to spin this

Let me not say anything here before they decide to focus on me.

They used forged documents to nail Ibori, if I say anything now, they can simply forge documents showing that i own NNPC and as such responsible for the subsidy scam.

Fashola is the best !

I wish all those useless politicians can emulate our hardworking, resourseful and progressive Fashola.

Is it easy to generate 47.35MW of electricity? You people should praise our dear Fashola.

Lets put what he has done in simple mathematics so that the enemies of progress can see in clear terms what achievement we are talking about here.

These plants when completed in 1 year's time will generate a whole 47.35MW of Electricity
Lagos needs 10, 000 MW what of Electricity as at today.

47.32/10,000 *100% = 0.4735% of the requirement of Lagos. So these power plant will provide about 0.5% of the power requirement of lagos. Not a bad achievement by any measure, we only have 99.5% more to go.

Another good achievement is the speed at which the projects will be completed. Just one year.

If it takes only one year to complete 47.35MW project, at this rate, lets calculate how long it will take to complete projects that will generate the required 10,000 MW. Well that will be

10,000/47.35*1= 211 years

So in Two Hundred and Eleven yrs (211) only we would have been able to generate 10,000MW. Fashola is truely a wonderful legend.

Please tell all your governors to emulate Fashola, we will solve our power problems in only 211 yrs

Yeye dey smell

Depends on who he defeats.

If he defeats someone like Buhari, who sees no issues in inciting people to violence, then there will be violence in the north.

But if it is a featherweight like Ribadu, no issues, they will grumble and quickly settle down to looting their state allocation just as they have been doing and make more noise so that they can not miss the opportunity of grabing Federal power in 2019 and the gain attendant federal looting capability it will bring.

Believe me, the Northern politicians are very scared of the country breaking apart and will never do anything that will break up the country.
They don't want to do anything to will put a stop to their free oil money

What do you expect from a miniature chico woman.

She must have simply squeezed herself under the steering when she saw the container falling

[quote author=Anyi.]So now that BPE has nothing more to sell in this country, they're sinking to this low level.
News Flash for them-this ain't North Korea, this is a free country[/quote]too much lies online. There is no absolute freedom anyway, post trash online in the us, you get sued big time. Make a google search for terrorist materials, the feds will pay you a visit.

Good job.
These poor people don't know when they are needed. Nonsense.

Okada riders should go into hiding, election is still 2yrs away. When election season comes we will allow them to ride and campaign for us, we can even give them a little leeway during our first tenure. But during 2nd tenure, they shouldn't dare bring out their ugly bikes and hungry looking faces to the street.

Our democracy is govt by the rich for the rich.

When those you trust team up with your enemies behind your back, your fate is sealed, only God can save you.

Ibori's lawyer forged documents to get him jailed. What conspiracy can be greater than that?

Anyway whatever they say, Ibori remains the best governor delta state has ever had in it's 22yrs of existence.

They must have teamed up and tricked him into pleading guilty to a lesser charge of money laundry with a promise of a light sentence, only to slam a 13yrs jail term on him.

It is good Ibori has decided to avoid their kangaroo confiscation hearing. Let them impound his 9million pounds assets and feel big about it