₦airaland Forum

Claus:
Look back through the post to see where the very instance of the word slander occurred.

I love this response.

@Beaf

Your excerpt does not explain anything.  The US president has within his powers to bar anyone from coming to the United States even for reasons he might not wish to disclose to anyone.  In this case, the President exercised the powers of his office, and he can claim to have done so judiciously without being questioned by anyone or running risk of subverting due process.

In our own Lamido's scenario, a man gets LOCKED up for insulting a "bigger man". . . his freedom of movement within his own country denied, I can't even believe you compare the two.  In the US, people insult the president and the governors in the open without being scared of harassment by law enforcement agents, most probably because that's a country where people know that office holders are not meant to be worshiped

Anyone knows the whereabout of this chic?

confirmed information will be well rewarded in both cash and kind

Recently, the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) urged President Goodluck Jonathan to cut down the cost of running the machinery of government. It specifically advised the President to merge some of the federal ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

It is hardly contestable that this newspaper has not only been in the forefront of denouncing the atrocious cost of governance, but has shouted itself hoarse on a major cause of stagnation of the country. Therefore, it is exulting that the government owned advisory body, composed of eminent
Nigerian citizens, has latched onto the crusade, carrying it to the doorstep of the President.

Indeed, it remains stupefying what ends the 29 ministries of President Goodluck Jonathan are to serve: Foreign Affairs; Finance; Defence; Justice; Interior; Agriculture; Commerce and Industry; Labour and Productivity; Health; Lands, Housing and Urban Development; Transport; Power; Education; Aviation; Information and Communications; Mines and Steel; Niger Delta; Petroleum; Environment; Culture and Tourism; Police Affairs; Science and Technology; Special Duties; Youth Development; Women Affairs; National Planning; Sports; Works; and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Nigeria, of course, envies the developed countries of the world and, indeed, has a plan to join them by the year 2020. Regrettably however, she has refused to learn from their frugality in public finance management. The United States of America, for instance, with a population of 308 million (2010 census), Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $14.256 trillion and Per Capital Income of $47,701, has a Federal Cabinet of 22 members. It is most instructive that the U.S. has just 15 ministries. But Nigeria, with a population of 152 million (2010 estimate), Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $341.572 billion and Per Capital Income of $2,249, has a bloated Federal Cabinet of 42 members!

What is more, whereas the U.S. Congress consists of 100-member Senate and 435-member House of Representatives, the National Assembly in Nigeria has 109 members in the Senate and 360 members in the House of Representatives! Why would the U.S., the model of our presidential democracy, have a Vice President that doubles as the Senate President while Nigeria, a very poor country, has a separate Senate President that feeds fat on the Federation Account?

The emoluments of Nigerian public office holders are equally mind-boggling. For instance, whereas an American senator earns $174,000 yearly, a Nigerian Senator is believed to receive about $1.7 million (N240 million) a year and a member of the House of Representatives receives about $1.45 million (N203.8 million). Even more numbing is the fact that whereas Section 70 of the 1999 Constitution stipulates that “A member of the Senate or of the House of Representatives shall receive such salary and other allowances as the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) may determine,” the national legislators allocate to themselves such allowances that suit their wishes.

We can draw more sobering lessons from contemporaries in the 60s – India and Malaysia – that have left the Third World and are now close to the First World. They regard financial prudence as an article of faith and do not reward their conscientious and committed legislators with such sickening remunerations.

Most regrettable is the fact that not a single item in the recent constitutional amendments touched on ameliorating the untold sufferings of Nigerians through reduction in the cost of maintaining the current governments – federal, state and local. The large number of ghost workers and idle hands in all ministries, departments and agencies of government and the innumerable political office holders continue to scupper any efforts geared towards revamping the economy of this nation.

We remember with nostalgia the giant strides witnessed in the three regions of Nigeria at the dawn of independence, when less than one-third of public revenues was expended on recurrent expenditure by the regions. Specifically, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first Premier of Western Nigeria, in his valedictory speech on May 22, 1959, spoke with felicity on the ability of its administration to keep the recurrent expenditure at 26.7 per cent!
We welcome the timely advice of the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) and urge President Jonathan to move with deliberate speed to reduce, comprehensively and drastically, the current prohibitive cost of governance. In this connection, we call for the amendments of relevant sections of the constitution that could constitute a bottleneck to the campaign on moderate machinery of governance.

http://www.independentngonline.com/dailyindependent/Article.aspx?id=27945

spyder880:
Latest update, a bomb just bursted at the square, chukwumerije could be see running away, followed by hundreds of delegates!

are you for real or is this a malicious rumor?

A Texas man imprisoned 30 years ago on rape and robbery charges had his conviction overturned on Tuesday after DNA evidence exonerated him.

Dallas County Judge Don Adams overturned Cornelius Dupree Jr.’s conviction Tuesday, clearing his name officially.

"It's a joy to be free," Dupree, 51, said outside court.

Dupree has served more years in a Texas prison for a crime he did not commit than anyone else in the state who was later exonerated by DNA evidence. Only two other people exonerated by DNA have spent more time in prison in the entire country, the Innocence Project said. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted prisoners because of DNA testing since 2001, more than any other state.

Dupree told CNN after becoming a free man that he had "mixed emotions" about the hearing considering how long he had been incarcerated.

"I must admit there is a bit of anger, but there is also joy, and the joy overrides the anger," he told CNN. "I'm just so overwhelmed with the joy of being free."

The judge's decision followed comments from Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins, who said the DNA testing shows Dupree "did not commit this crime."

Dupree is trying not to be too angry, despite having 30 years of his life taken away.

"I think that could have happened to anyone," he told CNN. "It's just unfortunate that it happened to me. The system needs to be corrected somehow."

That system he refers to includes Dallas specifically, where a record 21 people have been exonerated on DNA evidence, and Texas as a whole.

"Cornelius Dupree spent the prime of his life behind bars because of mistaken identification that probably would have been avoided if the best practices now used in Dallas had been employed,” Barry Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project, said in a press release. "Let us never forget that, as in the heartbreaking case of Cornelius Dupree, a staggering 75% of wrongful convictions of people later cleared by DNA evidence resulted from misidentifications.”


Dupree was paroled six months ago after DNA tests results came back. He was declared innocent on Monday, the Innocence Project said.

Dupree was accused of being one of two men who forced a 26-year-old woman and another male into a car at gunpoint in 1979, forcing them to drive the car and robbing them in the process, according to court documents. The two men also were accused of raping the female, court documents said.

The female initially identified Dupree from a photo line-up, but the male was unable to do so, according to court documents. At trial, however, both victims said Dupree and his co-defendant Anthony Massingill were the ones who committed the crime. They were convicted, and Dupree was sentenced to 75 years. Massingill, who is also serving time for a separate rape charge, is expected to also have his conviction set aside, the Innocence Project said.

Dupree has been fighting for his innocence since the day he was arrested, and for years following his conviction claiming he was mistakenly identified as the suspect. The Court of Criminal Appeals turned him down three times.

“Mistaken identification has always plagued the criminal justice system, but great strides have been made in the last three decades to understand the problem and come up with fixes like those being considered by the state Legislature that help minimize wrongful convictions,” Morrison said in a press release. “We hope state lawmakers take note of the terrible miscarriage of justice suffered by Cornelius. When the wrong person is convicted of a crime, the real perpetrator goes free, harming everyone.”

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/04/innocent-man-jailed-since-1979-likely-to-be-freed/

[quote author=aloy/emeka link=topic=577575.msg7444555#msg7444555 date=1293894813]Tell that to those who lost their loved ones, limbs, eyes and other valuables of some sort. Did we demand for trial in the case of osisikankwu?.[/quote]You are still being judged by emotions, rightfully so, but be that as it may, we ought to be guarded by reason. Their is still a constitution with lay down procedures of dealing with such high hardened crimes.

How right does it sound that a country summarily executed 92 individuals without trials? what does that make us?

Interesting how Nigerians want people to be summarily executed without trials, why can't we hold on with our emotions, we aren't savages yet

interesting!

we are collecting signatures for a petition to be forwarded to media houses in the beginning of next year. Our aim is to get as much as 5000 people to co sign this document before the second week of january, a copy is also to be forwarded to the House of Rep.

Let's be a part of a change

attached is a pdf sample.

sign a petition here

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41656.html

sign a petition here

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41656.html

sign a petition here

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41656.html

Miss EZ:
Shock that is a good one, i just signed it. Please everyone go ahead and sign this petition and share the link on FB or where ever so that people can also sign it. We need all the support we can get

Thanks, pls note that i have changed the link to a much more reliable web address, i will appreciate it if you could resign the petition.

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41656.html

sign a petition here

http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41656.html

common guys, you can do more than just viewing without commenting!

If the producers filed a copyright claim on their content, then You tube is obliged to cancel those videos!

I am worried, and rightfully so, about recent series of bombing events that has been witnessed in various places in Nigeria since October 1. The most recent of the Bombing attacks, perpetuated by a fundamental Islamic sect left tens of people dead and a lot more seriously injured, what is more disturbing is that no real culprit has been brought to book, all Nigerians get to feed on are empty promises by the Federal government, perhaps  the Federal government might just be too busy tidying its final strategies ahead of the 2011 election.  The house hasn't helped matters as well, that leaves us with the question, who shall we turn to? how many more home towns, villages, cities shall be bombed before the federal government start taking up a forward looking approach to resolve these problems? How many more people will have to die before the NASS start discussing about employing proactive strategies to stem this killings in the bud? What is the value of a Nigerian life?

I am calling for a cyber protest from all concerned citizens, this might not accomplish much at the beginning, but it will ensure to drive home the point that Nigerians are not going to keep quiet over these matters, we are simply tired of going round in cycles and feed on regular empty government promises, just in March, many were gruesomely murdered, and the true culprits were never apprehended.

We could start our Cyber protest by agreeing on a set date and time, and we all bombard the president's page on facebook with the same message,   and same words.  Flooding the President's page this way is likely to draw attention from many other media outlets.  Further to that, we could plan other Cyber protest by flooding media houses and the senate with petitions.

It wouldn't require too much sacrifice on our part, I am not saying it will bring about lasting change, but we could give it a try still, we just can never tell, perhaps someone might listen to us, it high time we stopped lamenting on nairaland, we need to get involved in the change.

Its illogical to adopt zoning in a democratic setting.

If democracy is the government by the people, isn't it then expected that people should have the power and choice to make informed decisions on which part of the country their president comes from.

Besides, if the assumption that zoning is entrenched in the PDP's constitution is true, why should this have a reverberated effect on the rest of the country?

The ACN party seems to have progressed without embracing a foolish zoning culture, why should the rest of us aim otherwise?

Nigeria’s budget announced on Dec. 15 slashed money allocated to parliament for its operations next year to 111.2 billion naira ($718 million) from 156 billion naira in 2010, Punch reported.

About 108 billion naira is for recurrent expenditure, while 3.21 billion naira is for investment, according to a breakdown provided in the Lagos-based newspaper.

Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, said last month that lawmakers are responsible for a quarter of the government’s recurrent expenditure, a statement that parliament demanded he retract.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-17/nigeria-reduces-parliament-s-2011-spending-punch-reports.html

chei violent, you harsh o

Why do people now say Wasiu Ayinde is the King of Fuji? is he better than Sikiru Ayinde or just more popular?

Alhaji Chief (Dr.) Sikiru Ayinde Ololade Olayinka Balogun (Barrister) is dead. He died this morning at St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London after a brief illness

May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace ,Amen

Read more: http://www./2010/12/sikiru-ayinde-barrister-is-dead.html#ixzz18HFAiwmS

Nigerians, haba, always having one bad thing or the other to say about the government, na wa o.

Isn't it obvious that the speaker was explicitly quoted out of context? and you all are so gullible to fall for rubbish Journalism?

@OP

Jomo Gbomo

violent:
Sanusi for President!

can i get an Amen?

If anything, Nigeria should adopt a Jury system in its Judiciary.

A sound Judicial system that can be trusted is the initial foundations of Democracy!

and what's this old man gon do? me self dey laugh jor

You must be one of Fashola's unpaid groupies, i think i touched a nerve when i mentioned the contract thingy, sorry dear no amount of bowing, scraping and arse kissing will get you a govt contract.

You sound really pissed man that makes me laugh, most times dull people hide under the covers of feigning annoyance, you talk about govt contract? hehe, are you kidding me? I am balling man , i don't need any those.

Fashola is not to blame for what went before however he is now the governor of the state and is therefore responsible for prioritising his workload.
As stu.pid and backward as you are you still cannot see that there is such a thing as prioritisation of tasks, where in the world apart from hell hole nigeria does a governor of a state receive commendation  for planting flowers at road junctions when the state he governs is a filthy, crime ridden , overcrowded slum.  I know you are not used to living in a civilised, clean well organised environment that is why you can not understand what i am talking about. You obviously feel very much at home living on top of a pile of garbage in a rat infested neighbourhood with putrid open drains filled with raw sewage.

I imagine you are too dull   to realize that fashola didn't actually do the planting, it was done by the ministry of environmental and cultural affairs you muppet!  
Isn't it ironical that you don't see the need for flower planting and beautification and yet you complain about lagos being filthy? are you thinking at all?  

Again i will drum it into your empty head, road safety, fire rescue services etc should not be the priority of a governor who is running a disaster zone like lagos -  those are minor services which can more adequately be administered by lower level govt departments, they should not be placed at the top of a state governor's to do list.
During IBB's regime we had the federal road safety corp which was operating quite well under wole soyinkas' administration, why would  a state governor take on such a low level task when he has more pressing things to be getting on with.

Again i will drum it into your ears dumbito, road safety is the priority of every government, its outright daft to think otherwise.

and did you just say Lagos is a disaster zone? based on what? you keep spewing trash without actually substantiating any of them, earlier on you mentioned unemployment issues in lagos, and then you realized after my post what a slowpoke you have been, i am not surprised you ve decided not to mention that again.

You talk about iq when you are clearly mentally retarded.  Fashola is doing his best at what? -"addressing" unemployment issues - does that even sound like an intelligent statement in your ears, fool "addressing" - why is he still "addressing" these problems - when is he going to stop addressing them and start actually implementing actual policies to alleviate these problems?

I fail to realize the sense you are trying to make with this post, address the issue, in lay terms means " doing something practical about a certain subject",  which brings me to question if you ever had any form of formal education to have brought up such failed logic.

Again your limited understanding and ability to comprehend the english language prompts you to resort to the use of the word "blame" fool let me say it again - no one is blaming fashola - what we are saying however is that he is now the governor of lagos state and is therefore now RESPONSIBLE for coming up with policies to tackle the major problems afflicting ordinary lagosians.

and how is this related to the subject matter ?

Timid lowlifes like yourself can't beleive that it is possible for a politican to be held to account let alone a fraudulent and corrupt one like Fashola

you can't even spell believe and i am the one with English problems? dude!!!!

oooops! this is elating, i wonder why this is not on the front page.

so those are the militants, they look pretty harmless. more evidence to nail Okah down forever.

Where is Beaf in the picture?

eko o ni baje jo, o baje ti! even loju awon olote , o baje ti

Your preoccupation is with the red cross, search and rescue first aid and road safety, you are not preoccupied with the dilapidated lagos slums , high unemployment, overcrowding, open sewers overflowing with putrid filth, police brutality no those are unimportant to you the thing that top your list of priorities is to see that the red cross, search and rescue, fire emergency and road safety are operational.  Isnt this a classic case of misplaced priorities, no wonder these nigerian politicians continue to run rings around you lot over there.

what kind of dolt are you? overcrowding and fashola is to blame for that? how about this, let's blame him for divorce cases too. 
If you had any iota of sense, you should know that the government under Fashola is doing the best to address unemployment issues.  you are so quick to right off those public services listed as less priority without thinking of thousands of Lagosians that are employed by those services or do you think the Lagos state road maintenance agency and many others are manned by robots? To even think you just mentioned that road safety and fire emergency are misplaced priorities classifies you as a really really dumb person!

I find it surprising that anyone with an IQ supposedly above 24  will blame a state government for a problem which is largely national, common sense will tell even the dullest person that people will continue to migrate to Lagos state from every cardinal zones to take up every available employment positions, and no matter what the efforts of the state government are, there will always be a shortage of opportunity. 

It's amazing how fast you type and how slow you think, you talk about dilapidated Lagos slums and you don't think of the government's effort to clear up Oshodi, Ajegunle, Yaba, etc etc . . .I am sure you have absolutely no idea of the services rendered by the Lagos state waste maintenance authority. . .the lots of you internet dullards living in the UK are so quick to cast stones and expect a government to fix a problem of over 40 years within 4 years.   You talk about clearing slums without taking into consideration how practical it is to relocate people from one place to another in a state that is already carrying more than its intended capacity. I find it difficult to believe that people can ever be this foolísh.

Again because you are a sycophant with very low standards who refuses to hold your leaders to account you beleive that everyone else should be like you.  The fact that Sowore did not adopt a sycophantic tone of voice when speaking to your royal highness fashola should indicate to you that he refuses to jump on the bandwagon of professional arse licking which is the favourite past time of people like yourself.

What an ediot ! Is there anywhere in the western world that interviews are conducted in such crude manner? one would think the fact that you claim to live in the UK would have exposed you to civilized methods of journalism.  The governor spent close to ten minutes to answer Sowore's questions and the dude still went on to stalk him after the interview, screaming like a child whose mummy didn't like him very much.

No lagos was and still is a no go area for anyone who likes living in a clean, well planned, crime free environment  not everyone gets excited about a governor planting flowers at road junctions and building one or two roads in affluent neighbourhoods.
Surely Fashola's priority should be tackling lagos's more pressing problems such as high unemployment, crime, poor housing and unsanitary living conditions.

Oh yes, there are places in Lagos that are clean, well planned and crime free, what kind of transformation are you expecting under four years? have you considered the socio economic implications of rapid environmental changes? what? you want him to build sound government housing estates for those living in slums, construct massive infrastructures, pay civil service salaries, fund technology initiatives etc etc, at what cost?

There are slums even in the finest places of the western world, and developing an already overfilled state is a gradual slow process, that is what the lots of you [i]i[/i]diots expecting an overnight miracle will never understand.

If you don't get excited about planting flowers, i suggest you enroll in a program that will bring you forward to reality, governments of every sane world is embracing a green initiative program to ensure that the environment is aesthetically desirable and pleasant to live in.

Why dont you list for me tangible and constructive projects that have been implemented by fashola which benefit ordinary lagosians instead of rambling on incoherently.You have no standards that is why the building of a few roads in affluent neighbourhoods of lagos state have got you genuflecting at fashola's feet.

here's an advise, why don't you go and die, and save the world some space.  who cares if you are too dáft or purposefully too blind to see the efforts of the current government? you are just one of the many whose opinion gives little meaning anyways.