₦airaland Forum

Clemzy16: It's funny when Nigeria lose and It's normal but when they win It's termed as match-fixing. Same thing happened in the match between Nig Vs Arg. Are they trying to say Nigeria can't win those countries in world football. I also belive the game between Nigeria Vs Catalonia would as been term as match-fixing if we had won. BTW, why would Nigeria buy a warm-up match?! FIFA should get a life.

You've said it all. Nothing else to add.

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2002 peugeot 806
Automatic transmission
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used in Europe
rugged and perfect for commercial transportation.

Dealing With The El-Rufai Nuisance By Moses Ochonu
Posted: August 17, 2011 - 16:21

Nasir El Rufai
Former FCT Minister, Nasir El-Rufai, is at it again. He knows how to get the nation’s attention and how to use damning moments of scrutiny to his advantage and as a way to add luster to his controversial image. He also knows how to profit from our national proclivity to forget, our culture of amnesia. Unfortunately for the ex-minister, not everyone has this national disease of forgetting.

El-Rufai struck again recently. He declared spectacularly that, as the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the clearinghouse of the government’s massive privatization exercise, he received and rebuffed pressure from ex-president Obasanjo and his deputy, Abubakar Atiku.  El-Rufai claimed that the duo approached him to influence the sales of strategic national assets to their preferred bidders and he retorted that due process was sacred. Even more sensational is his claim that he rejected gratification offered him by Globacom chairman, Mike Adenuga and punished a subordinate who helped himself to the offer and later told him about it.

Even by the standards of a nation desensitized to corruption scandals, these are earth-shattering revelations, even if they conform to and confirm what Nigerian’s already believe about the privatization process. Understandably, El-Rufai is basking in these self-serving revelations and in the controversy that it has stirred among Nigerians. Until and unless those indicted by his testimony refute these claims, El-Rufai will milk this episode as he did previous revelations to his public relations advantage.

In the wake of his testimony, the former minister has issued a press release designed to distance himself even more emphatically from the rot of the BPE, a rot so deep that the national assembly committee investigating it may have to extent its work.

But the revelations raise as many questions as they purport to answer about El-Rufai’s stint in government. They are also remarkable for their willful silences as they are for their loud revelations. El-Rufai claims that only one of the many privatization deals he oversaw was poor. Conveniently, he would not tell us which one. We know why. It is because that poor deal is still the most scandalous privatization deal ever executed in Nigerian history. It’s the sale of NITEL to a fraudulent, fly-by-night consortium called PENTASCOPE.

PENTASCOPE, a scandalized nation would learn later, was a hastily formed asset-grabbing front whose central address was traced to an empty warehouse in the Netherlands! We would also learn to our horror when the deal unraveled that the contract papers for the sale was written in Dutch!! All told, Nigeria lost close to N40 Billion on that transaction. Some argue with good reason that the failed transaction, which saw NITEL stripped of its valuable assets by the PENTASCOPE predators, doomed the company to date. NITEL is still a cesspool. Burdened by a mountain of debt, it hemorrhages money and is unable to sustain itself. It has become a drain on the public purse.  Because PENTASCOPE and subsequent private managers stripped the company bare, it now has few, if any, suitors willing to pay reasonable money for it.

For those like me who look beyond the sensation of the moment, there is the question of why it took El-Rufai so long to unleash these revelations. There is also the question of whether he would have volunteered this information if he had not been summoned to testify before the senate committee. Then there is the question of why he stayed on in the position of BPE Director General, and became a loyal member of the inner circle of a president who was trying to corruptly snag choice national assets through the BPE. Knowing as he did that Obasanjo was a hypocritical, corrupt leader who mouthed anti-corruption rhetoric by day and engaged in graft by night with attempts to corrupt due process, why did El-Rufai graduate from an Obasanjo appointee to one of the most fanatical defenders of the former president’s integrity?

I recall a particularly telling newspaper interview conducted with El-Rufai and his Obasanjo political family friend, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. In it the former minister labored so hard to defend Obasanjo against widely circulating allegations of corruption and against ubiquitous and documented evidence of the latter’s corruption. Such evidence included the Transcorp shares; the presidential library scandal; the PTDF largesse; Andy Ubah’s smuggled dollar purchases for Obasanjo’s farms; the revelation that a formerly bankrupt Obasanjo farms now made N30 Million a month, etc. When all else failed and the interviewer, Sam Omatseye, I think, persisted in calling attention to the hollowness of El-Rufai’s defense of Obasanjo’s integrity and to the publicly available evidence of the latter’s corruption, the former minister, in exasperation, claimed that when Obasanjo came to power in 1999, he had only N20, 000 in his bank account. This was supposed to dispel all the chatter that Obasanjo was corrupt in his personal capacity and was also an enabler of corruption—financial and electoral. The poor defender that he was, El-Rufai was oblivious to the fact that that revelation constituted the most damning evidence yet of the monumental corruption of his principal and benefactor. It dramatized the miraculous financial transformation of Obasanjo, a transformation impossible on the strength of legitimate presidential earnings and perks.

So, here is a man, whom by his recent testimony, knew that Obasanjo was a corrupt bully trying to pressure him into favoring his front consortium in the privatization of a juicy national asset. Yet, a few years later, having made his way to the top of Obasanjo’s government, El-Rufai set aside the moral objection to Obasanjo’s corruption that he now claims he felt and appointed himself defender-in-chief of the personal integrity of the same merchant of corruption. And we are supposed to applaud him for his revelations regarding what transpired in that period!

El-Rufai’s defense of Obasanjo’s failed, corrupt presidency continued into the Yar’Adua administration. When the House committee on power revealed that Obasanjo’s government spent between 10 and 18 Billion dollars on the power sector and gave us less power than we had, El-Rufai was the most vocal defender of the regime’s profligate investments in the power sector. He argued farcically that the amount spent on the sector was not $10 Billion or $20 Billion but $5 Billion, as if spending $5 billion dollars on fraudulent contracts and misappropriated allocations to produce more darkness was an honorable proposition deserving praise!

This duplicity should not come as a surprise to perceptive Nigerians. It fits seamlessly into a familiar pattern. In fact, while we are on this subject, this may be the time to do a fairly comprehensive exploration of El-Rufai’s history of making spectacular claims that indict former allies and partners in crime after the fact.

Only recently, the former minister, told us that he had met James Ibori several times in detention in Dubai to recruit him into the effort to get Muhammadu Buhari elected. Realizing that this was a damning information that would spotlight his duplicity and opportunism, the former minister threw in what looked like a tangential aside: that Nuhu Ribadu was a friend of Ibori’s and that the two used to meet in the house of Andy Ubah. Totally unconnected to the subject of his scandalous visits to Ibori, El-Rufai threw that red meat out to deflect attention from himself, to deflect the backlash that he knew would follow his courtship of Ibori. Predictably, the outrage that followed ricocheted to the man El-Rufai always calls his brother and friend, Ribadu.

El-Rufai will throw anyone under the proverbial bus to look good or look less bad. Lost in the debate that followed these revelations is the question of what El-Rufai, a self-proclaimed clean guy, was doing consulting the filthy Ibori in his detention or why he was asking political advice from a man who rose to political prominence through the vilest combination of corruption, violence, betrayal, and anything-goes political tactics? In focusing on the juicy tangential detail of Ribadu’s friendship with Ibori and the meetings the two allegedly held in Andy Ubah’s home, we forgot to interrogate El-Rufai on why he would uphold Ibori as a political asset worth consulting on the strategies of electoral success. He got away then by playing on our appetite for sensational tit-bits and our concurrent disdain for the big canvass.

El-Rufai has gotten away with more insults on our nation than perhaps any politician in Nigeria’s recent history. He finds a way to have it both ways. When he is an insider in the establishment he basks and profits from it. When he is displaced from government, he manages to reestablish himself as an anti-establishment insurgent political activist.  His duplicity, opportunism, and willingness to betray benefactors, co-conspirators, and accomplices, as well as his infinite elasticity on matters of morality and principle enable him to construct and maintain this deception. But more than his tricks, we let him do it. Like hungry dogs, we latch onto every red meat he throws at us and forget the fact of his own complicity in what he pontificates on.

In the aftermath of the 2007 elections, El-Rufai told us arrogantly and unabashedly that he and his fellow Obasanjo “boys” imposed Yar’Adua on Nigeria, ensuring that other aspirants were neutralized and that the nomination process was effectively rigged to produce the desired outcome. That desperate act of democratic subversion unleashed one of Nigeria’s worst election rigging sprees, a rigging orgy so thorough even the beneficiary admitted that his mandate was tainted.

That imposition started the disastrous Yar’Adua absentee presidency that in turn inaugurated Jonathan’s reign, whose pain we now endure. In spite of El-Rufai’s imprint on these high national crimes, some of us let him off when he tried to exonerate himself from the 2007 electoral heist, declaring laughably that he thwarted rigging in the FCT and so had nothing to answer for. Even if that were true, which is not the case, where is his contrition for helping to distort and subvert the democratic process for candidate selection? Because some of us let him off he was able to successfully make some populist noises from exile and later from home.

El-Rufai has a knack for claiming that he was at the scene of most of the egregious national crimes of the last twelve years but that he is not a criminal and did not partake in any of them. It is the political equivalent of claiming that you smoke but you don’t inhale. It is a game he plays with ruthless efficiency, relying on our thirst for political sensation. When the former minister was first nominated for a ministerial position he loudly accused the duo of Senators Jonathan Zwingina and Ibrahim Mantu of demanding for a bribe to confirm him. We all cheered and thought we had found a courageous, incorruptible member of the PDP mafia who might be trusted with a cleansing from within. When the two senators fought back and challenged El-Rufai to provide evidence of the alleged shakedown, an opportunistic El-Rufai suddenly and curiously embraced silence.

Later, information leaked out that he had met and quietly resolved his problems with the senators. Some reports even suggested that he recanted and apologized to the senators in exchange for confirmation.  El-Rufai acquiesced to the odious PDP family solution that often robs Nigerians of closure in corruption scandals. Assuming that his allegation was true, his subsequent action (or inaction) amounted to a despicable compromise with evil. He had a self-created opportunity to expose and shame sleaze and to emerge a hero of Nigerians’ anti-corruption yearnings. But he put his political interest and the interest of his beloved PDP allies ahead of the nation.

El-Rufai’s modus operandi seems fairly predictable. When in government, he hides and defends the crime of his friends and benefactors like Obasanjo. He hides his own crimes behind the facade that he is a tough technocrat. When outside government, he hides behind hollow anti-government rhetorical posturing. That way, he is able to deftly maintain his relevance in and out of government.

This is the same El-Rufai who, as FCT minister, delighted in awarding choice properties and lands to himself his wives, children, relatives, and friends. He arrogantly admitted this before the national assembly. He and his supporters looked past this clear infraction and sought to muddle public perception of it. They argued that the former minister broke no law and that his family members were entitled to the choice Abuja lands as Nigerian citizens! Have the former minister and his hirelings heard of abuse of office and nepotism? 

Why were El-Rufai’s supporters able to secure a pass for the former minister on this blatant, self-confessed corruption? The answer is that El-Rufai, ever the crafty opportunist, found a cause dear to Nigerians’ heart and aligned himself with it: the opposition against Yar’Adua’s incompetent and paranoid regime. He also financed it with his immense personal wealth. He came out of that episode playing the victim of state persecution in an Oscar-worthy performance that many Nigerians lapped up. We never asked the former minister what he was doing with Jimi Lawal, a fugitive from the failed bank tribunal of Abacha’s regime. Or why he was paying millions of naira as starting salary to a female Youth Corper he hired to be his aide with no prior experience.

We always give El-Rufai a pass because he is skillful at manipulating the public mood to his advantage, at aligning opportunistically with every current national outrage. He abandons the cause as soon as it is no longer politically profitable or when it loses credibility.

El-Rufai’s dizzying, chameleonic political transformation in the period between his self-exile and the April elections is instructive. First he praised Jonathan from exile and cursed Yar’Adua at every media opportunity. Allowed to return home by Jonathan, he visited the latter in Aso Rock and spoke positively of him afterwards. He then returned to his beloved PDP and started making the usual political noise about reform. He was an early supporter of Jonathan’s and Nuhu Ribadu’s candidacies, even calling Buhari a political dinosaur and counseling him to vacate the scene for a younger generation of presidential aspirants. He even got into a public media fight with the retired general over this critique.

Then, in a summersault dramatic enough for an Olympic medal in gymnastics, El-Rufai turned on his former friends and preferred candidates, Jonathan and Ribadu. The crass opportunist that he is, he saw the mass movement in his native North in support of Buhari’s presidency and the virulent, potentially violent hatred for the PDP and its Northern members. He ran to Buhari, the same old, spent force of his recent critique. Opportunistic criticisms of Ribadu and Jonathan followed to convince the Buhari folks that he was not a mole and to ingratiate himself with the Northern political icon and his supporters. This, he reckoned, would secure for him immunity from the coming anti-PDP wave. He was right in his opportunistic calculations. He was spared the anti-PDP rage that followed the elections in several Northern states.

This duplicitous, dishonorable, and deceptive political behavior was as opportunistic as it was disgusting. Yet, he found a way to shift our focus from his insincerity. He got us to view him instead as a victim of Jonathan’s persecution. He played the victim card once more in the wake of the elections, citing his support for Buhari as the source of his trial for the self-admitted award of choice lands to fronts and family. And some Nigerians bought the crap, as if Jonathan’s well-known and well- documented poverty of statecraft and his intolerance for critique erases or excuses El-Rufai’s crimes.

When El-Rufai is in government and basking in its licit and illicit perks, he says little about the malfeasance that goes on and even defends it. When out of government and at risk of being asked to account for his role in the crimes of state, he cowardly and opportunistically recoils behind the rhetoric of victimhood that he knows will strike a chord with Nigerians. He is always asking us to believe that he witnessed many crimes but didn’t partake in them.

With the resonance of the victimhood tact wearing thin, El-Rufai has now resorted to another gimmick to curry public sympathy and deepen our amnesia on his infractions. He has taken to writing social commentary lamenting the rot in the health, education, and other sectors of our troubled country. Thankfully, Nigerians seem to have wised up to his antics and are asking him about the sudden display of social conscience and about why he did not raise these critiques and issues when he was a first-among-equals member of the Federal Executive Council.

Even his friends at Next, a paper in which he is a major investor, seem to have gotten weary of El-Rufai’s deceptions and direct or indirect roles in several unfolding national scandals.

We may be an amnesiac nation but we have to resist and reject more insults from the pen and mouth of El-Rufai.

-(meochonu@gmail.com)

Dealing With The El-Rufai Nuisance By Moses Ochonu
Posted: August 17, 2011 - 16:21

Nasir El Rufai
Former FCT Minister, Nasir El-Rufai, is at it again. He knows how to get the nation’s attention and how to use damning moments of scrutiny to his advantage and as a way to add luster to his controversial image. He also knows how to profit from our national proclivity to forget, our culture of amnesia. Unfortunately for the ex-minister, not everyone has this national disease of forgetting.

El-Rufai struck again recently. He declared spectacularly that, as the Director General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the clearinghouse of the government’s massive privatization exercise, he received and rebuffed pressure from ex-president Obasanjo and his deputy, Abubakar Atiku.  El-Rufai claimed that the duo approached him to influence the sales of strategic national assets to their preferred bidders and he retorted that due process was sacred. Even more sensational is his claim that he rejected gratification offered him by Globacom chairman, Mike Adenuga and punished a subordinate who helped himself to the offer and later told him about it.

Even by the standards of a nation desensitized to corruption scandals, these are earth-shattering revelations, even if they conform to and confirm what Nigerian’s already believe about the privatization process. Understandably, El-Rufai is basking in these self-serving revelations and in the controversy that it has stirred among Nigerians. Until and unless those indicted by his testimony refute these claims, El-Rufai will milk this episode as he did previous revelations to his public relations advantage.

In the wake of his testimony, the former minister has issued a press release designed to distance himself even more emphatically from the rot of the BPE, a rot so deep that the national assembly committee investigating it may have to extent its work.

But the revelations raise as many questions as they purport to answer about El-Rufai’s stint in government. They are also remarkable for their willful silences as they are for their loud revelations. El-Rufai claims that only one of the many privatization deals he oversaw was poor. Conveniently, he would not tell us which one. We know why. It is because that poor deal is still the most scandalous privatization deal ever executed in Nigerian history. It’s the sale of NITEL to a fraudulent, fly-by-night consortium called PENTASCOPE.

PENTASCOPE, a scandalized nation would learn later, was a hastily formed asset-grabbing front whose central address was traced to an empty warehouse in the Netherlands! We would also learn to our horror when the deal unraveled that the contract papers for the sale was written in Dutch!! All told, Nigeria lost close to N40 Billion on that transaction. Some argue with good reason that the failed transaction, which saw NITEL stripped of its valuable assets by the PENTASCOPE predators, doomed the company to date. NITEL is still a cesspool. Burdened by a mountain of debt, it hemorrhages money and is unable to sustain itself. It has become a drain on the public purse.  Because PENTASCOPE and subsequent private managers stripped the company bare, it now has few, if any, suitors willing to pay reasonable money for it.

For those like me who look beyond the sensation of the moment, there is the question of why it took El-Rufai so long to unleash these revelations. There is also the question of whether he would have volunteered this information if he had not been summoned to testify before the senate committee. Then there is the question of why he stayed on in the position of BPE Director General, and became a loyal member of the inner circle of a president who was trying to corruptly snag choice national assets through the BPE. Knowing as he did that Obasanjo was a hypocritical, corrupt leader who mouthed anti-corruption rhetoric by day and engaged in graft by night with attempts to corrupt due process, why did El-Rufai graduate from an Obasanjo appointee to one of the most fanatical defenders of the former president’s integrity?

I recall a particularly telling newspaper interview conducted with El-Rufai and his Obasanjo political family friend, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. In it the former minister labored so hard to defend Obasanjo against widely circulating allegations of corruption and against ubiquitous and documented evidence of the latter’s corruption. Such evidence included the Transcorp shares; the presidential library scandal; the PTDF largesse; Andy Ubah’s smuggled dollar purchases for Obasanjo’s farms; the revelation that a formerly bankrupt Obasanjo farms now made N30 Million a month, etc. When all else failed and the interviewer, Sam Omatseye, I think, persisted in calling attention to the hollowness of El-Rufai’s defense of Obasanjo’s integrity and to the publicly available evidence of the latter’s corruption, the former minister, in exasperation, claimed that when Obasanjo came to power in 1999, he had only N20, 000 in his bank account. This was supposed to dispel all the chatter that Obasanjo was corrupt in his personal capacity and was also an enabler of corruption—financial and electoral. The poor defender that he was, El-Rufai was oblivious to the fact that that revelation constituted the most damning evidence yet of the monumental corruption of his principal and benefactor. It dramatized the miraculous financial transformation of Obasanjo, a transformation impossible on the strength of legitimate presidential earnings and perks.

So, here is a man, whom by his recent testimony, knew that Obasanjo was a corrupt bully trying to pressure him into favoring his front consortium in the privatization of a juicy national asset. Yet, a few years later, having made his way to the top of Obasanjo’s government, El-Rufai set aside the moral objection to Obasanjo’s corruption that he now claims he felt and appointed himself defender-in-chief of the personal integrity of the same merchant of corruption. And we are supposed to applaud him for his revelations regarding what transpired in that period!

El-Rufai’s defense of Obasanjo’s failed, corrupt presidency continued into the Yar’Adua administration. When the House committee on power revealed that Obasanjo’s government spent between 10 and 18 Billion dollars on the power sector and gave us less power than we had, El-Rufai was the most vocal defender of the regime’s profligate investments in the power sector. He argued farcically that the amount spent on the sector was not $10 Billion or $20 Billion but $5 Billion, as if spending $5 billion dollars on fraudulent contracts and misappropriated allocations to produce more darkness was an honorable proposition deserving praise!

This duplicity should not come as a surprise to perceptive Nigerians. It fits seamlessly into a familiar pattern. In fact, while we are on this subject, this may be the time to do a fairly comprehensive exploration of El-Rufai’s history of making spectacular claims that indict former allies and partners in crime after the fact.

Only recently, the former minister, told us that he had met James Ibori several times in detention in Dubai to recruit him into the effort to get Muhammadu Buhari elected. Realizing that this was a damning information that would spotlight his duplicity and opportunism, the former minister threw in what looked like a tangential aside: that Nuhu Ribadu was a friend of Ibori’s and that the two used to meet in the house of Andy Ubah. Totally unconnected to the subject of his scandalous visits to Ibori, El-Rufai threw that red meat out to deflect attention from himself, to deflect the backlash that he knew would follow his courtship of Ibori. Predictably, the outrage that followed ricocheted to the man El-Rufai always calls his brother and friend, Ribadu.

El-Rufai will throw anyone under the proverbial bus to look good or look less bad. Lost in the debate that followed these revelations is the question of what El-Rufai, a self-proclaimed clean guy, was doing consulting the filthy Ibori in his detention or why he was asking political advice from a man who rose to political prominence through the vilest combination of corruption, violence, betrayal, and anything-goes political tactics? In focusing on the juicy tangential detail of Ribadu’s friendship with Ibori and the meetings the two allegedly held in Andy Ubah’s home, we forgot to interrogate El-Rufai on why he would uphold Ibori as a political asset worth consulting on the strategies of electoral success. He got away then by playing on our appetite for sensational tit-bits and our concurrent disdain for the big canvass.

El-Rufai has gotten away with more insults on our nation than perhaps any politician in Nigeria’s recent history. He finds a way to have it both ways. When he is an insider in the establishment he basks and profits from it. When he is displaced from government, he manages to reestablish himself as an anti-establishment insurgent political activist.  His duplicity, opportunism, and willingness to betray benefactors, co-conspirators, and accomplices, as well as his infinite elasticity on matters of morality and principle enable him to construct and maintain this deception. But more than his tricks, we let him do it. Like hungry dogs, we latch onto every red meat he throws at us and forget the fact of his own complicity in what he pontificates on.

In the aftermath of the 2007 elections, El-Rufai told us arrogantly and unabashedly that he and his fellow Obasanjo “boys” imposed Yar’Adua on Nigeria, ensuring that other aspirants were neutralized and that the nomination process was effectively rigged to produce the desired outcome. That desperate act of democratic subversion unleashed one of Nigeria’s worst election rigging sprees, a rigging orgy so thorough even the beneficiary admitted that his mandate was tainted.

That imposition started the disastrous Yar’Adua absentee presidency that in turn inaugurated Jonathan’s reign, whose pain we now endure. In spite of El-Rufai’s imprint on these high national crimes, some of us let him off when he tried to exonerate himself from the 2007 electoral heist, declaring laughably that he thwarted rigging in the FCT and so had nothing to answer for. Even if that were true, which is not the case, where is his contrition for helping to distort and subvert the democratic process for candidate selection? Because some of us let him off he was able to successfully make some populist noises from exile and later from home.

El-Rufai has a knack for claiming that he was at the scene of most of the egregious national crimes of the last twelve years but that he is not a criminal and did not partake in any of them. It is the political equivalent of claiming that you smoke but you don’t inhale. It is a game he plays with ruthless efficiency, relying on our thirst for political sensation. When the former minister was first nominated for a ministerial position he loudly accused the duo of Senators Jonathan Zwingina and Ibrahim Mantu of demanding for a bribe to confirm him. We all cheered and thought we had found a courageous, incorruptible member of the PDP mafia who might be trusted with a cleansing from within. When the two senators fought back and challenged El-Rufai to provide evidence of the alleged shakedown, an opportunistic El-Rufai suddenly and curiously embraced silence.

Later, information leaked out that he had met and quietly resolved his problems with the senators. Some reports even suggested that he recanted and apologized to the senators in exchange for confirmation.  El-Rufai acquiesced to the odious PDP family solution that often robs Nigerians of closure in corruption scandals. Assuming that his allegation was true, his subsequent action (or inaction) amounted to a despicable compromise with evil. He had a self-created opportunity to expose and shame sleaze and to emerge a hero of Nigerians’ anti-corruption yearnings. But he put his political interest and the interest of his beloved PDP allies ahead of the nation.

El-Rufai’s modus operandi seems fairly predictable. When in government, he hides and defends the crime of his friends and benefactors like Obasanjo. He hides his own crimes behind the facade that he is a tough technocrat. When outside government, he hides behind hollow anti-government rhetorical posturing. That way, he is able to deftly maintain his relevance in and out of government.

This is the same El-Rufai who, as FCT minister, delighted in awarding choice properties and lands to himself his wives, children, relatives, and friends. He arrogantly admitted this before the national assembly. He and his supporters looked past this clear infraction and sought to muddle public perception of it. They argued that the former minister broke no law and that his family members were entitled to the choice Abuja lands as Nigerian citizens! Have the former minister and his hirelings heard of abuse of office and nepotism? 

Why were El-Rufai’s supporters able to secure a pass for the former minister on this blatant, self-confessed corruption? The answer is that El-Rufai, ever the crafty opportunist, found a cause dear to Nigerians’ heart and aligned himself with it: the opposition against Yar’Adua’s incompetent and paranoid regime. He also financed it with his immense personal wealth. He came out of that episode playing the victim of state persecution in an Oscar-worthy performance that many Nigerians lapped up. We never asked the former minister what he was doing with Jimi Lawal, a fugitive from the failed bank tribunal of Abacha’s regime. Or why he was paying millions of naira as starting salary to a female Youth Corper he hired to be his aide with no prior experience.

We always give El-Rufai a pass because he is skillful at manipulating the public mood to his advantage, at aligning opportunistically with every current national outrage. He abandons the cause as soon as it is no longer politically profitable or when it loses credibility.

El-Rufai’s dizzying, chameleonic political transformation in the period between his self-exile and the April elections is instructive. First he praised Jonathan from exile and cursed Yar’Adua at every media opportunity. Allowed to return home by Jonathan, he visited the latter in Aso Rock and spoke positively of him afterwards. He then returned to his beloved PDP and started making the usual political noise about reform. He was an early supporter of Jonathan’s and Nuhu Ribadu’s candidacies, even calling Buhari a political dinosaur and counseling him to vacate the scene for a younger generation of presidential aspirants. He even got into a public media fight with the retired general over this critique.

Then, in a summersault dramatic enough for an Olympic medal in gymnastics, El-Rufai turned on his former friends and preferred candidates, Jonathan and Ribadu. The crass opportunist that he is, he saw the mass movement in his native North in support of Buhari’s presidency and the virulent, potentially violent hatred for the PDP and its Northern members. He ran to Buhari, the same old, spent force of his recent critique. Opportunistic criticisms of Ribadu and Jonathan followed to convince the Buhari folks that he was not a mole and to ingratiate himself with the Northern political icon and his supporters. This, he reckoned, would secure for him immunity from the coming anti-PDP wave. He was right in his opportunistic calculations. He was spared the anti-PDP rage that followed the elections in several Northern states.

This duplicitous, dishonorable, and deceptive political behavior was as opportunistic as it was disgusting. Yet, he found a way to shift our focus from his insincerity. He got us to view him instead as a victim of Jonathan’s persecution. He played the victim card once more in the wake of the elections, citing his support for Buhari as the source of his trial for the self-admitted award of choice lands to fronts and family. And some Nigerians bought the crap, as if Jonathan’s well-known and well- documented poverty of statecraft and his intolerance for critique erases or excuses El-Rufai’s crimes.

When El-Rufai is in government and basking in its licit and illicit perks, he says little about the malfeasance that goes on and even defends it. When out of government and at risk of being asked to account for his role in the crimes of state, he cowardly and opportunistically recoils behind the rhetoric of victimhood that he knows will strike a chord with Nigerians. He is always asking us to believe that he witnessed many crimes but didn’t partake in them.

With the resonance of the victimhood tact wearing thin, El-Rufai has now resorted to another gimmick to curry public sympathy and deepen our amnesia on his infractions. He has taken to writing social commentary lamenting the rot in the health, education, and other sectors of our troubled country. Thankfully, Nigerians seem to have wised up to his antics and are asking him about the sudden display of social conscience and about why he did not raise these critiques and issues when he was a first-among-equals member of the Federal Executive Council.

Even his friends at Next, a paper in which he is a major investor, seem to have gotten weary of El-Rufai’s deceptions and direct or indirect roles in several unfolding national scandals.

We may be an amnesiac nation but we have to resist and reject more insults from the pen and mouth of El-Rufai.

-(meochonu@gmail.com)

Standing5: And if i may ask, how were they able to record or capture the ID of the some supposedly random customer who deposited 15m in a branch of a old generation? Through the marked notes just like that?

Dum.b ! Dum.b du.mb!!!

US state allows bosses to fire attractive staff
Updated 9 hours 31 minutes ago

MAP: United States
The Iowa Supreme Court in the United States has ruled that employers in the state can legally fire workers they find too attractive.

In a unanimous decision, the court held that a dentist did not violate the state's civil rights act when he terminated a female dental assistant whom his wife considered a threat to their marriage.

The dental assistant, Melissa Nelson, who worked for dentist James Knight for more than 10 years and had never flirted with him, according to the testimony of both parties, sued, saying she would not have been fired if she were a man.

At trial, Mr Knight testified he had complained to Ms Nelson on several occasions that her clothing was too tight, revealing and "distracting".

But sometime in 2009, he also began exchanging text messages with Ms Nelson.

Most of these were work-related and harmless, according to testimony. But others were more suggestive.

In late 2009, Mr Knight's wife found out about the text exchanges and demanded her husband terminate the dental assistant because "she was a big threat to our marriage".

In early 2010, he fired her, saying their relationship had become a detriment to his family.

Ms Nelson sued, saying that she had done nothing wrong, that she considered Mr Knight a friend and father figure, and that she would not have been terminated but for her gender.

Mr Knight argued that Ms Nelson was terminated not because of her gender - all the employees of his practice are women - but because of the way their relationship had developed and the threat it posed to his marriage.

The seven justices, all men, said the basic question presented by the case was "whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction".

The high court ruled that bosses can fire workers they find too attractive and that such actions do not amount to unlawful discrimination.

Reuters

Topics: work, courts-and-trials, industrial-relations, united-states

First posted Sat Dec 22, 2012 9:17pm AEDT

if this was a negative report about Nigeria, this thread would have entered 12 pages by now. if u feel you are so hopeless that nothing good can come out of this country, go hug transformer or jump into the lagoon. you cant pull this country down with ur pessimism or unfounded criticism. God bless Nigeria.

Unidentified Man Falls From Sky
Posted by foluso in Home » Lifestyle, News on December 10, 2012 - 2 Comments
Police believe he was from Africa, probably from Angola, but they don’t know his identity.

The mystery began in September when residents of a suburban street in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London woke up on a quiet Sunday morning to find the crumpled body of a black man on the sidewalk of Portman Avenue, near a convenience store, an upscale lingerie shop and a storefront offering Chinese medical cures.
Detectives believed at first the man was a murder victim and cordoned off the area. Within a day, however, police concluded the man – probably already dead – had fallen to the ground when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at nearby Heathrow Airport.
The apparent stowaway had no identification papers – just some currency from Angola, leading police to surmise that he was from that African nation, especially as inquiries showed that a plane from Angola was beginning its descent into Heathrow at about that time.
The macabre explanation made perfect sense to residents, who are familiar not only with the roar of the jets descending, but are also able to see the planes lower their landing gears as they pass overhead, said Catherine Lambert, who lives a few doors down from the spot where the man landed.
“You could see him, his body was contorted,” she said. “It was a beautiful blue day, really sunny, but we had to keep the children inside. I didn’t want the children to see, and to have to explain to them and put fear into them every time a plane goes over.”
A post mortem conducted two days after the body landed listed the cause of death as “multiple injuries.”
In the days afterward, some neighbors put flowers on the spot where the stowaway was found, and a small group of Angolans who live in the London area came to place more flowers and to pray. Lambert, 41, said there is lingering sadness, since the man has not been identified and there has been no way to tell his family he is gone.
“I felt, what was he running away from? What made him think he could he could? And how will his family ever know? He’s a lost soul now; his father and mother are probably waiting for him to make contact,” she said.
A London police spokesman, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record because of force policy, said Sunday that police are appealing to the public for help identifying the man based on a composite image of his face and a photo of a tattoo on his left arm. The tattoo showed the letters “Z” and “G” inked on his upper arm, with a horizontal line through the “Z”.
Police also said attempts to identify the man with the help of Angolan authorities had been unsuccessful. They stressed there is only “circumstantial” evidence linking the stowaway to that country.
In a statement, police said the man is believed to be an African of slight build between the ages of 20 and 30. He was wearing jeans, white sneakers and a gray sweatshirt when he was found on Sept. 9, police said.
Although firm figures are not available, in recent years there has been a rise in the number of stowaways trying to get to Western Europe by hiding in the undercarriages of passenger planes.

Unidentified Man Falls From Sky
Posted by foluso in Home » Lifestyle, News on December 10, 2012 - 2 Comments
Police believe he was from Africa, probably from Angola, but they don’t know his identity.

The mystery began in September when residents of a suburban street in the Mortlake neighborhood of West London woke up on a quiet Sunday morning to find the crumpled body of a black man on the sidewalk of Portman Avenue, near a convenience store, an upscale lingerie shop and a storefront offering Chinese medical cures.
Detectives believed at first the man was a murder victim and cordoned off the area. Within a day, however, police concluded the man – probably already dead – had fallen to the ground when a jet passing overhead lowered its landing gear as it neared the runway at nearby Heathrow Airport.
The apparent stowaway had no identification papers – just some currency from Angola, leading police to surmise that he was from that African nation, especially as inquiries showed that a plane from Angola was beginning its descent into Heathrow at about that time.
The macabre explanation made perfect sense to residents, who are familiar not only with the roar of the jets descending, but are also able to see the planes lower their landing gears as they pass overhead, said Catherine Lambert, who lives a few doors down from the spot where the man landed.
“You could see him, his body was contorted,” she said. “It was a beautiful blue day, really sunny, but we had to keep the children inside. I didn’t want the children to see, and to have to explain to them and put fear into them every time a plane goes over.”
A post mortem conducted two days after the body landed listed the cause of death as “multiple injuries.”
In the days afterward, some neighbors put flowers on the spot where the stowaway was found, and a small group of Angolans who live in the London area came to place more flowers and to pray. Lambert, 41, said there is lingering sadness, since the man has not been identified and there has been no way to tell his family he is gone.
“I felt, what was he running away from? What made him think he could he could? And how will his family ever know? He’s a lost soul now; his father and mother are probably waiting for him to make contact,” she said.
A London police spokesman, who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record because of force policy, said Sunday that police are appealing to the public for help identifying the man based on a composite image of his face and a photo of a tattoo on his left arm. The tattoo showed the letters “Z” and “G” inked on his upper arm, with a horizontal line through the “Z”.
Police also said attempts to identify the man with the help of Angolan authorities had been unsuccessful. They stressed there is only “circumstantial” evidence linking the stowaway to that country.
In a statement, police said the man is believed to be an African of slight build between the ages of 20 and 30. He was wearing jeans, white sneakers and a gray sweatshirt when he was found on Sept. 9, police said.
Although firm figures are not available, in recent years there has been a rise in the number of stowaways trying to get to Western Europe by hiding in the undercarriages of passenger planes.
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Oyerinde: Kudos to police
By Chuks Madueke

The police in Abuja, finally arraigned for armed robbery, the suspects earlier paraded by the Department of State Services, SSS, on August 1, in a televised press conference, before Justice E. A. Asemota of Oredo Magistrate Court, Benin City, Edo State. It will be recalled that in that press conference by SSS, the suspects were alleged to have on May 4, robbed and killed Olaitan Oyerinde, Principal Secretary to Edo State governor, Mr Adams Oshiomole at his residence, 65, 2nd Ugbor Road, G.R.A Benin City at 2am.

The suspects arraigned before the magistrate court included Mohammed Ibrahim Abdullahi, Raymond Onajite Origbo, Edeh Chikezie, Saidu Yakubu and others at large. The suspects pleaded not guilty to the armed robbery charge preferred against them and were granted bail while the case was adjourned to November 23.

This development rather brought to rest the intrigues and politics that had trailed the death of Oshiomole’s Principal Secretary, which gave vent to various shades of accusations and counter-accusations between the police and the SSS. Then on the other hand, between Oshiomole’s government and Peoples Democratic Party’s, PDP, leadership in Edo State since Oyerinde’s death occurred during the tensed build up to the last gubernatorial elections in Edo State.

Parading the six suspects over the murder while police investigation was still ongoing, the SSS had created the impression that it was running a parallel show when it was expected to close ranks with the police initially over the matter. Considering the sensitive nature of the agency to the overall security of the nation, the SSS is also expected not to be amenable to such hasty publicity stunts in its operations.

Is it likely that SSS paraded fake or perhaps innocent suspects in August in that widely televised media stunt? Was the action a deliberate one or perhaps inefficiency and laxity by the secret security agency? Or was it a cover-up for some parochial and political interests?

However, it will be recalled that the police under the DIG “D”, Peter Y. Gana on May 4, immediately deployed an investigating team over the murder case. The police investigating team led by one Chris Ezike, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, Federal Special Anti Robbery Squad, FSARS, had painstakingly identified 18 different suspects.

Yet after careful analysis of the reconstruction of the crime scene and the confessional statements by these different 18 suspects, one had no doubt that the police had successfully cracked the Oyerinde murder case. By dint of hard work and routine investigation that saw the police team traversing Kano, Adamawa, Lagos and Benin, the initial success in the case came through the telephone service providers that established the use and location of Oyerinde’s and his wife’s blackberry phones by the suspects. From there, a chain of other events followed that led to the arrest of the 18 suspects. Evidently, some of these suspects were identified by Oyerinde’s wife and his security guard as those who raided their residence on May 4. Yet on the other hand, Oyerinde’s wife and the guard could not identify any of those suspects earlier paraded by the SSS.

Kudos should, therefore,
be given to the police for cracking the Oyerinde murder case despite the initial attempt by the SSS to bungle the matter at the outset. The investigating team led by Ezike should be commended for its diligence, commitment and courage in cracking the Oyerinde murder case thereby saving the country another round of national embarrassment and shame.

In fact, the Chris Ezike-led team should be promoted immediately to encourage efficiency and productivity in the force since the achievement was no mean feat considering the circumstances and intrigues surrounding it and perhaps considering too that such high profile murder cases in the past have remained unresolved.

Yet one of the factors that contributed to the team’s success was the professional, dispassionate and unbiased stance taken by its leadership over the matter. Although attempts were made to influence and vilify the team, yet it remained focused and dedicated to its duty. No doubt, the team should be celebrated and rewarded, especially over recording such a feat at a time the police force is perceived as some blight in our collective efforts to improve our global image and rating.

President Goodluck Jonathan should auspiciously institute a panel of inquiry to look into the circumstances that caused the initial friction between the police and the SSS in order to forestall such cases of inter-agency rivalry in future since it has been proven to negate the overall principles of national interest. Such has gradually assumed an alarming proportion in the polity. The president should also consider as a matter of urgency awarding national honours to the Chris Ezike-led investigating team. Sincerely speaking, no garland is too much for the team.

Reliable sources have also quoted that this dynamic team led by Ezike have cracked the riddles surrounding the recent death in Lagos of a newly married man, Mr. Ugochukwu Ozuah.

At the moment, five policemen are said to be in custody over the Ozuah murder awaiting the recommendations of an expert ballistician before the development is made public.

Consequently, the nation may miss another opportunity to be so reckoned in the comity of nations if the Chris Ezike-led police investigating team was not rewarded for this selfless service to the nation.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/11/oyerinde-kudos-to-police/

There are 193 members of the United Nations. Unfortunately, the number 193 is too often used to represent the number of countries in the world. Although this number represents almost all of the countries in the world, there are still independent countries such as the Vatican City and Kosovo, that are independent and are not members of the U.N.
U.S. Department of State
The United States' State Department recognizes 195 independent countries around the world. Their list of 195 countries reflects the political agenda of the United States of America and its allies. Missing from the State Department's list is one entity that may or may not be considered a country, depending on who you talk to.

From this information, it means there 115 worse countries than Nigeria that you could be born into. If you feel My Nigeria is the worse place to be born, it only reflect where you stand now. It means your life isnt worth it, " meaning say your parents no try". As for me and my household, we couldnt have been born in a better country than Naija. If you no like am here, go hug trasformer or enter slave ship go America or Europe.

am not surprised. these show organisers need to rethink their strategies. they just put anything together and ask you to pay 7.5k just to sit down for two hours and watch an obscure artist or comedian. money is not paper you know and people are getting tired of paying without getting value for their money

wetin you wan hear? you no get mama abi which one be ur own?

Johnwizzy: My broda u better say something else b4 ppl throw e-stone @you
There are thousands of people who are willing and ready to do something to better this country but our corrupt government will not support them,rather they send their families abroad to enjoy our money...they are not ready to help...
I will equate Nigeria problem with law of UNEMPLOYMENT

i respect you for stating ur case in a civil way without resorting to insults. i think what we need is to think for ourselves and not allow some displaced politicians to form our thinking for us. where has all d complains taking us so far??
i am happy to engage anyone on an intellectual discourse but i will not accept hook line and sinker the report by an agency far away in US which has repeatedly failed in its prediction in its home country

FreeGlobe: you must be retar.d.ed.

only a reta.d would recognize one

this is the kind of news we celebrate in this country. this is the kind of news that find there way to front page within seconds. we accept this kind of report without questioning its basis and the credibility of the rating agency. however, if this was a positive report about the country, we will discard it, question it and critically scrutinize it. well done to all of us. we can feed our pessimism by project the worse about our country, may be if we try quite hard we may actually succeed in destroying it then we will rest. the truth is no country is perfect. the countries we envy and compare ourselves with didn't get to where they did folding their hands and blaming the govt for envy thing. we cheat ourselves, hike price at the slightest excuse, hoard product, fail in our own responsibility to the country and then, stand aloof and bad mouth the country.peddling and circulating negative reports about our country will do none of us any good. lets roll our sleeves and play our part. am just tired of talk talk and talk and nobody really doing anything to change the status quo. do something positive , then you can come here and criticize those who haven't done their part, otherwise...just shut u p.

Obama’s re-election: Secession petitions filed in 20 states

NOVEMBER 13, 2012 BY AGENCY REPORTER 13 COMMENTS

| credits:
As the dust settles in the wake of President Obama’s decisive reelection last Tuesday, the White House petition website has been flooded by a series of secession requests, with malcontents from New Jersey to North Dakota submitting petitions to allow their states to withdraw from the union.

Most of the petitions submitted thus far have come from solidly conservative states, including most of the Deep South and reliably separatist Texas. But a handful come from the heart of blue America – relatively progressive enclaves like Oregon and New York.

All told, petitions have been filed on behalf of 20 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Many of the petitions invoke the Declaration of Independence’s dramatic assertion that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government.”

The petitions have been submitted through the White House’s “We the People” website, which aims to give “all Americans a way to engage their government on the issues that matter to them.” The White House promises that “If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.” The threshold is 25,000 signatures in 30 days and, at the time of this article’s publication, none of the secession petitions have reached the threshold (the Texas petition has received over 22,000 and needs to hit 25,000 by Dec. 9; Louisiana, with just under 15,000 signatures, needs to hit the threshold by Dec. 7.)

For some of the states represented, the secession requests are nothing novel: South Carolina, the state whose 1860 secession sparked the civil war, is hardly an unlikely locus of conservative angst in response to Mr. Obama’s victory.

And in Texas, which still conceives of itself as a “republic,” not a mere “state,” politicians seem to make an almost annual show of flirting with secession, periodically dropping dark hints that Washington’s chicanery may force the Lone Star state to flee the Union.

After repeatedly nodding at the possibility of secession in the last few years, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Tex., has more recently kept mum on the subject. But some local GOP officials in Texas have been happy to fill the void: Tom Head, a county judge from Lubbock predicted in August that Obama’s reelection could lead to a second civil war. And the treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party, Peter Morrison, asked in a post-election newsletter, “Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?” Morrison’s newsletter requested an “amicable divorce” from the “maggots” who reelected President Obama, many of them voting on an “ethnic basis.”

The Texas petition assails the federal government’s “neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending,” arguing that “it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”

Source: cbsnews.com
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Obama’s re-election: Secession petitions filed in 20 states

NOVEMBER 13, 2012 BY AGENCY REPORTER 13 COMMENTS

| credits:
As the dust settles in the wake of President Obama’s decisive reelection last Tuesday, the White House petition website has been flooded by a series of secession requests, with malcontents from New Jersey to North Dakota submitting petitions to allow their states to withdraw from the union.

Most of the petitions submitted thus far have come from solidly conservative states, including most of the Deep South and reliably separatist Texas. But a handful come from the heart of blue America – relatively progressive enclaves like Oregon and New York.

All told, petitions have been filed on behalf of 20 states: Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Many of the petitions invoke the Declaration of Independence’s dramatic assertion that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute new Government.”

The petitions have been submitted through the White House’s “We the People” website, which aims to give “all Americans a way to engage their government on the issues that matter to them.” The White House promises that “If a petition meets the signature threshold, it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.” The threshold is 25,000 signatures in 30 days and, at the time of this article’s publication, none of the secession petitions have reached the threshold (the Texas petition has received over 22,000 and needs to hit 25,000 by Dec. 9; Louisiana, with just under 15,000 signatures, needs to hit the threshold by Dec. 7.)

For some of the states represented, the secession requests are nothing novel: South Carolina, the state whose 1860 secession sparked the civil war, is hardly an unlikely locus of conservative angst in response to Mr. Obama’s victory.

And in Texas, which still conceives of itself as a “republic,” not a mere “state,” politicians seem to make an almost annual show of flirting with secession, periodically dropping dark hints that Washington’s chicanery may force the Lone Star state to flee the Union.

After repeatedly nodding at the possibility of secession in the last few years, Gov. Rick Perry, R-Tex., has more recently kept mum on the subject. But some local GOP officials in Texas have been happy to fill the void: Tom Head, a county judge from Lubbock predicted in August that Obama’s reelection could lead to a second civil war. And the treasurer of the Hardin County Republican Party, Peter Morrison, asked in a post-election newsletter, “Why should Vermont and Texas live under the same government?” Morrison’s newsletter requested an “amicable divorce” from the “maggots” who reelected President Obama, many of them voting on an “ethnic basis.”

The Texas petition assails the federal government’s “neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending,” arguing that “it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it’s citizens’ standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.”

Source: cbsnews.com
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A Boko haram Suspect Mohammed Sani who was arrested with Kabiru Sokoto in January have reportedly escaped from Police custody. He was said to have escaped from SARS detention last night night.

Standard & Poor's upgraded Nigeria's credit rating on Wednesday because of improved financial stability and optimism over reforms to the banking and electricity sectors.

Nigeria is among the world's top 10 crude oil exporters and a key supplier to the United States, China and India. It is Africa's second-largest economy after South Africa.

The ratings agency raised its long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit rating to BB- with a stable outlook, three notches below investment grade, from B+. This brings its view in line with Fitch's rating.

Fellow ratings agency Moody's expanded its coverage to include Nigeria on Wednesday, assigning a Ba3 rating with a stable outlook.

Moody's said it also expanded its coverage to Kenya and Zambia.

"(Nigeria's) external reserve buffers have ... been strengthening on the back of high oil prices and strong exports," Standard and Poor's said in a statement.

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/news/76-hot-topic/47242-sap-upgrades-nigeria-citing-financial-stability

"The government has sustained reform momentum in several key areas, including cutting the fuel subsidy and reforming the power sector, and the authorities have restructured and strengthened the previously troubled banking sector."

Nigeria's foreign exchange reserves have risen to around $42 billion, up from around $33 billion at the start of the year.

The Excess Crude Account (ECA), where it saves money it earns from oil exports over a benchmark prices, contains around $8.4 billion, compared with $2 billion at the end of 2010.

"I think it's justified and actually long overdue," said Stuart Culverhouse, head of research at Exotix.

"I don't have big concerns about debt or fiscal sustainability so the higher rating, which brings it into line with Fitch, is deserved."

Ghana department store collapses in Accra

7 November 2012 Last updated at 14:23 GMT
The BBC's Sammy Darko says he has seen several people being pulled from the rubble

A multi-storey department store has collapsed in Ghana's capital, Accra, with dozens of people believed to be trapped inside.

Rescue efforts are under way, with officials saying that at least three people died in the Melcom store.

The BBC's Sammy Darko, who is at the scene, says 10 people have been pulled alive from the rubble so far.

Ghana's President John Dramani Mahama said he had suspended his campaign for next month's election.

The government has declared the area in the city's Achimota neighbourhood a disaster zone.

Vice-President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur is co-ordinating rescue efforts after the building, which opened earlier this year, collapsed 15 minutes before the shop opened.

Hundreds of rescuers are digging through the rubble, amid fears that dozens of people are trapped inside, our correspondent says.

In a statement on its Facebook page, Melcom said it had rented the building which housed its Achimota branch on a 10-year lease.

"This is indeed a very tragic incident," it said.

"We are doing everything possible to see that help reaches those who need it. Our heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathies goes to the families of those who may have lost their lives."

Our reporter says customers often queue outside the store before it opens and officials say they believe about 50 people may been inside at the time of the collapse.

Eyewitness Ama Okyere told the AFP news agency she was very close to the shopping centre when the building came down.

The building collapsed just before the Melcom store was about to open
"I had to run for my life. I was so terrified. I believe there are lots of people trapped under this because this is a heavily patronised shopping mall in the area."

Family members have been trying to call relatives feared trapped beneath the rubble on their mobile phones, AFP reports.

Another witness, John Owusu, said he heard a bang before the building collapsed.

President Mahama, in a tweet moments after the building collapsed, said: "My prayers are with the workers, shoppers and others who are trapped in the rubble of the Achimota Melcom building."
He has cut short his campaign in the north of the country and is flying back to Accra

na wa o. water don pass garri. abeg make una leave Tinubu alone o, he is still recovering from the Ondo election hangover.

I just saw it on CNN its real. The report says the machine have been decommissioned and recalibrated but all that is grammer. Obviously there were more than one machine doing this. My question is why haven't we heard report of someone trying to vote for Romney and d vote going to Obama, why has it beeen the other way round? Do i smell something fishy?.

Hope For Nigeria
5 minutes ago
Buhari's Coup Was to Prevent Ekwueme from Succeeding Shagari. - Dr. Umaru Dikko. - By Shola Oshunkeye.

**Ekwueme reconfirms Umaru Dikko's statement.
**It was too early for Igbo to rule, after the War. They were lucky to get VP, It takes 200 years for loser to get leadership post - OBJ.

Last week, Dr. Alexander Ifeayinchukwu Ekwueme, former vice president, who clocked 80 on October 21, went back in time to recount his ordeal in the hands of coup plotters who toppled the government he ran with President Shehu Shagari on December 31, 1983.

His inference on the putsch would shock you. He said the latent reason the coupists struck was to stop him from succeeding President Shagari were he allowed to finish his second term as scheduled on October 1, 1987.

This week, the multi-disciplinary academic-turned-politician continues his story with his various efforts at helping Nigeria to midwife sustainable democracy and the hiccups he had to subdue in the campaign.

I read an interview where you said General Gowon's post war principles of the three 'R's-reconciliation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. There was also his post-war philosophy of 'no victor, no vanquished', which you said were terribly, terribly flawed. Do you still stand by that or you have changed your mind?

I think we should draw a distinction between the three 'R's and the principle of 'no victor, no vanquished'. I think I applauded Gowon for the principle of 'no victor, no vanquished'. But I'm saying that, that was in real terms. In terms of implementation, it was observed more in the breach.

Question: How do you mean, sir?
Answer: At every turn, everybody here knew that he was vanquished. Ok, let me give you an example. Let's say on May 30, 1966, the day Biafra declared secession, if on that day, I had a million pounds in my bank account, and then I came on May 31 and withdrew half a million of that money; and then on June 1, I put back the half a million of the same money. Now, the way it was worked out by the Federal Ministry of Finance, at the end of the war, was that the money I took out on May 31, was good money. But the money I was returning was worthless money in the sense that it was no longer Nigerian money. So, I now ended up with half a million instead of one million. And if you take it all the way that one million could become zero. If you take and put, and take and put, what you take is discounted in the books of the bank. What you put is in fact credited. The debit is accepted but the credit is not accepted. So, it was calculated to impoverish those who are here. That cannot be an implementation of 'no victor, no vanquished' post-war philosophy. It is clearly against the vanquished. And then, no amount of money you have, when you go to exchange it, it is 20 pounds! And this 20 pounds, to get it, you have to sweat and fight! So, you can imagine.

This is not to talk about the issue of 'abandoned property', when the war was over and the people had to come back to nothing.

That was why I said the spirit in making this pronouncement is commendable but in actual terms of implementation, it was flawed.

Throughout his lifetime, till he died, Dim Odumegu Ojukwu kept saying the east have never been forgiven for the civil war which was principally why it has been impossible for any Igbo man to emerge as president of this country. Do you subscribe to that submission?

Well, I'm sorry, I'm an affected person. So, it is awkward for me to be the one talking about it. But I know that after Gen. Buhari's coup of December 31, 1983, Umaru Dikko gave a press conference. And he said at that press conference that the plotting of the coup was to prevent me from becoming president in 1987. That, that was the reason they had the coup. So, all this talk about corruption and all that, was neither here nor there.

The actual objective was to get you out of the way.

Oh, yes.

Question: What was their fear?
Answer: Well, I don't know, but it may because, as Ojukwu said, the East has not been forgiven. It may be because I'm from the East. That is one. And in 1999, PDP, which I nurtured from the scratch, bringing different associations together, nurturing them until we got registered as a political party...

Starting from G34 and...

Yes. Yes. In fact, it started from Institute of Civil Society, to All Politicians Summit, which I chaired in Eko Hotel, and which the military disorganised, and so on...to G. 34 which we formed at a great risk to my own person, then, to getting the different associations to form the PDP under my chairmanship, I handed it over to Chief Solomon Lar on September 12, 1998...

To become the first chairman of the Board of Trustees...

Yes. And then I went to go for the presidency against Gen. Obasanjo who was not around when we formed the party.

Obasanjo, who people had to go and beg from prison to come and run...

And yet you found out that some of those who were with me, dumped me at the last minute and they all went to vote for Obasanjo at the primary in Jos. Then, there was this rumour, again, that they did that because they didn't think that somebody from this part of the country should be president 'so soon' after the civil war. That's the rumour. And Obasanjo himself, when he came to Amaichi, in my state, I think in January 2001 or so, when he came for the 70th birthday of my friend, Chief Simon Okeke, who was the chairman of the Police Service Commission, he made a statement there publicly that Amaichi was where he had to take the surrender of Biafra. And that within nine years of ending of civil war, we had produced a vice president and we were now talking about looking for president. And that, historically, in some other countries where they had civil war like this, it took them 200 years or more after the civil war for them to become president. He was talking even about America where he said it took a long time before the southerners became president of the USA. He said this openly. So, to a large extent, what Ojukwu said was true.

But there is also this school of thought that believes that there seems to be no unity of purpose among the Igbos, most of the time, especially when it comes to the big stage. They are so factionalised.

Yes, it's true. Very true because we are Republicans to a fault. We are always described as a people with all chiefs and no aliens. They took from American cowboy films. There, you have a chief, an American Indian, and a thousand American Indians following him when they were fighting against the Americans in battles in the hinterland. There, it was one chief and so many Indians. But here, in this part of the country, we are all chiefs and no Indians. We are all leaders and no followers. Everybody aspires to be a leader, and no one aspires to be a follower.

Question: Can we talk about the state of the nation and coast home, sir? As the first chairman of PDP, and the first Board of Trustees' chairman, are you happy at the state of your party today?

Answer: Not at all. Not at all. I have said so many times that what we wanted the party to be is not what it is now. First, we wanted not just a party, but also a mass movement of all Nigerians. That was why we had four or five associations coming together, and on the we met to ratify the amalgam of these associations, we had many more associations coming to endorse. At the end of the day, we had about 10 associations coming to team up as against the four or five that we started with. And the idea was to a mass movement, to have a party that all Nigerian would have sense of belonging to, a party that would render such invaluable service to the citizens, a party that would enjoy mass support like the African National Congress, which is a century old as is still waxing strong by the day That was the idea.

And unfortunately there were many who did not follow the path of this philosophical underpinning that informed the formation of the party. Some just came to use the party as a vehicle for grabbing power because the party was popular, judging from its G.34 antecedents. It was very popular. And in the very first election, which was the local government election in December 1998, which was the litmus test for the final registration of parties by INEC, PDP swept the polls throughout the country except in the west. So, it was clear that anybody who wanted to be a president of Nigeria would have to belong to PDP to be able to attain that mission. So, a lot of people who didn't know anything about the spirit behind the formation of PDP jumped in and used it as a vehicle for grabbing power. And haven grabbed that power, they used it to destroy the party. That's when they wanted to turn the party into a personal fiefdom. They wanted to control the party, where they can use the party to perpetuate their hold on power. So, the first thing was to seize the party, and when the party becomes personal property, it's no longer the party that we contemplated when we got together, starting from June 1998 to August 31, when the manifesto and the name and the flag and the symbols and the motto and the constitution and all that, were formally adopted.

And some of those who seized power at the executive level did not do justice to the spirit of service, which we emphasised when we came together. We pledged to give selfless service to the people so that they won't go elsewhere for leadership. Today, the party is a shadow of itself and the entire pillars of democracy, which the party was grounded on, have already disappeared.

Could this have translated to the kind of impunity we see on the national stage in terms of governance? When people win power at the behest of godfathers who they are perpetually beholden to at the detriment of real service to the people, could this be the foundation of the misgovernance that we see?

Yes. As long as one person holds tightly to party power at the national level, in the various states, various godfathers would seize control of the party and dictate what the party does in those states. Which defeats the whole essence of the democratic norm, which informs the formation of the party in the first place.

Question: Sir, don't you think the PDP itself would have been better for it if Nigeria had a credible opposition? Wouldn't that have helped its internal democratic mechanisms?

Answer: The opposition today is fragmented, and the strength of the opposition is less than national in outlook. And it's difficult to see how a party or a group that is only interested in a section of the country can rule the country. No matter what you say about PDP and its shortcomings, it still remains the only party that has nationwide relevance. It's just like the NPN of our time, the Second Republic. In the Second Republic, if NPN was not the leading party in a state, it would be the second. It would be the runner-up. The same thing with PDP in this dispensation.

Question: Finally, in the 1994/1995 constitutional conference, you canvassed for a position about the need for us to have something like regionalism like we had in the First Republic, where we had three regions-Northern Region, Eastern Region, Western Region, and they were competing healthily among themselves.

Answer: Yes.

But it wasn't popular at the time you suggested it at the constitutional conference.

Yes, because people were intellectually lazy. The essence of what I was saying was that our independence, as Nigeria, was negotiated with our colonial masters on terms agreed by all the political leaders in Nigeria in the run-up to the First Republic over so many years. And the general agreement was that Nigeria would be run as a confederation of regions. Three regions to start with, eventually four regions in 1963. And each of these regions had its own constitution, and each region had a growth rate of as high as 11 percent, persistently, because of competition by the regions and the initiatives taken by the regional leadership. The only two drawbacks to the structure we had then were: one, imbalance in the size of the regions.

You're talking about the geography of the regions?

Yes, the geography and their putative population. The north was bigger than east and west put together, both in area and in recorded population.

Question: Why did you say 'recorded population'?

Question: Yes, because I am not satisfied that we have done a proper and reliable census of Nigeria all through the years.

Question: Why?

Answer: Because we do ad-hoc census. In 1979 August, when we were having a transition committee of the NPN, we suggested that we should set up a ministry of statistics demography so that we would have a record of everything under one umbrella; instead of having FEDECO, as it was then, having voters registration; Ministry of Internal Affairs having national identity card; having the same human beings; the National Population Commission having census. If we had a Ministry of Demography and Statistics, all these things would be there.

It would form our official database...

Yes. Births and deaths would be put into it automatically and the population would be ascertained based on empirical data. But each time we run through a census, it is a crash programme. We dole out money, do a count and push out figures that are out of this world. Then after the figures are out, we start adjusting until we get a figure that appears acceptable. Then, we publish it, and once it is accepted by the Council of State, it becomes the official figure.

Coming back to the question of the drawbacks of the regional structure, the north had vast rural areas and they recorded a census bigger than east and west put together. That was the first draw back.

The second drawback was that, within each region, there was a majority ethnic group and a lot of minority groups. In the north, Hausa/Fulani-majority; with a lot of minorities-Kanuri, Tiv, Junkun, Bachama, Igala, Nupe, Edoma, Gwari and so on. In the west, as it was then, we had Yoruba as the major group, we had Edo, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Isoko and so on. Then, in the East, we had Igbo as the dominant ethnic majority; then, we had Ijaw, Ibibio, Efik, Ogoja, and so on. And there was always tension between the majority ethnic groups and the minorities. In the north, there was the United Middle Belt Congress, UMBC, in opposition to the Hausa/Fulani majority. In the west, there was tension between the Midwest minorities, which eventually led to the creation of Midwest Region. In the east, there was the Calabar/Ogoja/Rivers in opposition to the Igbo majority. So, these were the two drawbacks to Nigeria's structure at the time.

There was an attempt to cure one of the two drawbacks by having three regions in the North, and three regions in the South so there was parity between North and South.

Now, to the six geopolitical zones...

Then, having three ethnic majority regions and three ethnic minority regions: northwest-mostly of Hausa/Fulani; southwest-mostlyYoruba; southeast-mostly Igbos; northeast-mostly minorities-Hausa/Fulani, Kanuri; north-central- a lot of minority groups-Nupe, Tiv, Gwari, Igala, Idoma and so on, including Yoruba in Kogi; and in the east, we have southeast and south-south

Made up mostly of the minority states of Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Cross River. So, once we have a balance between north and south, and between majority and minority, that would cure shortcomings in the regional structure of the First Republic. But when we do that, we would be operating on the basis of what we inherited, what we negotiated with our colonial masters, only reorganising it so that we would cure the deficiencies of the structure we had at that time. So, I put this forward in a minority report because the committee in which I served did not want anything to do with. So, I had to do in a minority report which I got eight other members to endorse.

Even to present that minority repot at the plenary caused uproar. They thought they could drown me by shouting me down but it didn't work. Eventually, I was protected by the chairman, Justice Adolphus Karibi-White, and his deputy, Justice Mamman Nasir. And it was accepted, not as a minority report. It was later adopted and included in the 1995 constitution, which the then head of State, General Sani Abacha was to propagate on October 1, 1998 before he died.

Question: Do you think that regionalism as we had it in the First Republic, plus the amendment you proposed, would have brought us to a much higher level, as a nation, than we are now? Or looking back again, do you think it would still have required some amendments?

Answer: Once we get the basic structure right, it was made for greater internal growth because, right now, the central government is so over-burdened and so powerful and the states cannot sustain themselves. They have to go cap-in-hand every month to draw allocation, to share money. The benefit of size and security, which the regions had, does not exist in the states. -
http://www.facebook.com/hopefornigeria


By Shola Oshunkeye.

Lola Alao has come out to deny Bisi's claim. What she told City People below...
Bisi should leave me out of her pregnancy mess. How can an adult like her not know who impregnated her? Is Bisi a small girl, that I Lola, will now carry and give Hon Dino to date? It is sad that she has dragged him into this mess. Is she the first actor or actress that Dino will help? Why is she making a deal out of meeting Dino? Dino has been my friend for years and was even at my movie premiere several month back where he donated N10million. I wish to state categorically that I have never dated Dino, I am not dating him and can never date him because he's like a brother from another mother. It is quite unfortunate that Bisi is scandalizing Dino this way. Everything smacks of blackmail to me. Maybe she thinks since Dino donated N10million at my launch , she can scandalize him and make some money off him. I leave her to her conscience.

Currently Worth Around N17.5bn, Bieber Says Owning A Private Jet “Is A Total Waste Of Money”
Posted by daniel in Home » Entertainment, Lifestyle on October 29, 2012 - Leave Your Comment
He might just be 18-years old but with a fortune estimated at £70 million (N17,570,000,000) – which is set to double in the next two years on the back of a world tour, a movie and the returns from numerous investments – far richer than Nigeria, nay, Africa’s wealthiest man, Aliko Dangote, Bieber is a ‘big man.’

I Never Stop Working. In What I Wanted To Do In Music I’ve Never Had Any Fear. But Now I’m At The Top There’s Nowhere To Go But Down; For Me It’s About Staying Standing At The Top,’ Said Justin Bieber
His latest album, Believe, topped the charts in the UK, the U.S. and throughout Europe, and his tour is sold out.
This amazing success has brought him a £4 million, 10,000sq ft house north of LA, a Disney-princess girlfriend, Selena Gomez, and a £500,000 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van customised with three high-definition TVs and a recording studio. About the only thing lacking in his fairy-tale world is a private jet.
‘No way,’ he says emphatically. ‘It’s a total waste of money. You buy the plane, then you have to pay for storage, and on top of that you have to think about the fuel, the cost of the fuel – that’s maybe $4,000 (N628,000)
‘Even hiring a private plane is like 50 or 60K. Once you get into that it becomes a habit – a bad habit.
‘I’ll get one when I need it – if I have to go somewhere instantly – but you don’t want to buy a plane; it’s definitely not worth it.’
Words of wisdom coming from the mouth of a ‘baby’. The nouvea riche in Nigeria don’t want to hear that – owning a private jet to them is the ultimate status symbol but how much are they worth? How many of them can lay claim to their wealth as a result of hard work and honesty?
 
]http://cdn.informationnigeria.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/article-2223058-15AF22F2000005DC-672_634x500.jpg?9d7bd4

Attacking personality is what El-Rufai thrive at. Infact he took it to new height in his senseless attacks of the president and other government official. I dont think he can complain in this case

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), as a Political Party, recognizes the hollow ritual of celebrating or marking another anniversary of the existence of Nigeria as an independent and sovereign entity. Nigeria’s two most prized literary assets, Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe, have fittingly described the Country as bereft of Nationhood. Indeed, it could not have been in the contemplation of the founding fathers that the Country, in fifty-two years of existence, would still be adrift due to lack of political identity predicated on strong, ethical leadership.
 
Barely five years after independence on October 1, 1960, the Country’s political firmament were troubled by a bloody coup d’état, thereby heralding what would become twenty-nine years of participation of the military in the governance of the state. But in the last thirteen
years, the Nigerian state had witnessed an unbroken civil rule, the longest in the nation’s chequered history! It is inconceivably true that successive regimes in the last thirteen have unleashed hopelessness on the State with increased severity.
The major malaise besetting the Country has been largely due to the avaricious content of the character of the Leadership at the expense of the citizenry. Whereas it is entrenched in Section 17(1) of the Constitution that: “the state social order is founded on ideals of freedom, equality and justice.” According to the National Bureau of statistics (NBS), the income inequality index moved from 0.429 in 2004 to 0.447 in 2010. It is also reported by the same body in February,
2012 that out of the Nigeria’s population of 163 million, a whooping 112.519 million (representing 69.03%) is living in abject poverty!
 
Muhammadu Buhari, a retired Major-General in the Nigerian Army, was Head of State between December 31st, 1983 and August 27th, 1984. As Head of State, he had shunned a neo-capitalist Privatization plan brought for his presidential assent in 1984 and declared with uncompromising finality: “I cannot sell Nigeria’s assets to anybody.” Indeed, successive regimes have accepted the poisoned chalice and foisted same on the Nigerian people in a manner that had evinced gradual asset-stripping of Nigeria’s vast resources, with the attendant ennobling of negligible few, in the Society, into the super-rich club.
 
The recently concluded sale of the State’s electricity infrastructure revealed a noxious desire by the leadership to perpetuate the policy of pauperization of the preponderant population of the Nigerian people. The Leadership failed to learn how privatization, as implemented in other climes, had been used for people’s empowerment through ownership of Assets of state. For instance, on 19 July 1982, the British Government formally announced its intention to privatize British Telecom with the sale of up to 51 per cent of the company’s shares to private investors. This intention was confirmed by the passing of the Telecommunications Act, 1984, which received Royal Assent on 12 April that year. The transfer to British Telecommunications Plc of the business of British Telecom, the statutory corporation, took place on 6 August 1984 and, on 20 November 1984, more than 50 per cent of British Telecom shares were sold to the public. At the time, this was the largest share issue in the world!
The anomalous preference of the tribe to the state is often championed by the Leadership which, inexorably, has contributed immensely to the receding hope of nationhood for the Nigerian geographical entity. Over time, the political leadership has perfected, as an art, the constant prosecution of its war in self-interest through the evocation of the primordial fault lines of religion and ethnicity. This is often achieved through the instrumentality of the burgeoning army of ethnic hegemons, wittingly created and sustained, through the deliberate
pauperization policy that merely leaves majority of the citizenry to scrounge for crumbs from the master’s table. For instance, about 70% of the N4 Trillion budget in the 2012 appropriation act is devoted for servicing the bloated machinery of governance; a paltry 30% is devoted
for capital expenditure. As at July 2012, only 10% of the Capital allocation had been utilized. The veiled threat of impeachment by the Federal Legislature that, if by September 2012 the situation is not reversed, excited awful and provocative response from the President’s tribesmen, in communication couched in demagogy of clannish sentiments.
 
Corruption, despite the plethora of extant anti-graft legislation, has assumed the dimension of national culture in Nigeria. It is the reason that the effect of governance does not percolate to the grassroots. This hydra-headed monster is often accentuated by the impunity embedded in the political comportment of the Nigerian President. For instance, N240 Billion was allocated to the fuel subsidy in the 2011 appropriation act. As at the last count, over N2.67 Trillion had been expended without any recourse to the Legislature for a review of the allocation! As it is with financial corruption, so is electoral corruption. Though the shenanigans deployed in the conduct of the 2011 general elections had largely hoodwinked the foreign observers, the unwillingness of the electoral umpire to allow unfettered access, to its process and election register had made the electoral exercise worse than any other in Nigerian history.
 
This assertion was reinforced by Nigeria’s Diaspora-based academic and prolific writer,
Okey Ndibe, when he declared: “The 2011 election saw the deployment of new rigging technologies.” There is every reason to believe that the ruling leadership is unwilling to relinquish political power according to the electoral wishes of the Nigerian people. This is more so that a former leader of the ruling party once impudently asserted that People’s Democratic Party (PDP) shall be in power for another 60 years. The hubris embedded in that gibberish was in the fact that future electoral exercises have already been decided in favour of the
PDP! When this utterly undemocratic predilection to ‘do or die’ politics is juxtaposed with other African nations that have grown in the entrenchment of democratic values, as seen in the incumbents accepting electoral defeats-as dispensed by the people- it is easy to
understand the reason for receding hope in the Nigerian polity.
 
Whereas it is expressly stated in Section 19(a) of the Nigerian constitution: “the foreign policy objectives shall be promotion and protection of the national interest”. The Executive Leadership of Nigeria, in recent times, has shown more loyalty to foreign interests than the country’s. Bakassi, an oil-rich peninsula measuring 665 square kilometers and lying on Latitudes: 4degrees 25’ and 5 degrees 10’ Longitudes: 8degrees 20’ and 9 degrees 8’, had been in dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its judgment on 10 October 2002, finding (based principally on the Anglo-German agreements) that sovereignty over Bakassi did indeed rest with Cameroon. It instructed Nigeria to transfer
possession of the peninsula, but did not require the inhabitants to move or to change their nationality. Cameroon was thus given a substantial Nigerian population and was required to protect their rights, infrastructure and welfare.
 
In what later came to be known as the Green-Tree agreement, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Paul Biya of Cameroon on 13 June 2006, resolved the dispute in talks led by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in New York City. Obasanjo agreed to withdraw Nigerian troops within 60 days and to leave the territory completely in Cameroonian control within the next two years. However, Article 61 of the ICJ statute, which is stated below, allows for a review upon meeting certain conditions:
1. An application for revision of a judgment may be made only when it is based upon the discovery of some fact of such a nature as to be a decisive factor, which fact was, when the judgment was given, unknown to the Court and also to the party claiming revision, always provided that such ignorance was not due to negligence.
2. The proceedings for revision shall be opened by a judgment of the Court expressly recording the existence of the new fact, recognizing that it has such a character as to lay the case open to revision, and declaring the application admissible on this ground.
3. The Court may require previous compliance with the terms of the judgment before it admits proceedings in revision.
4. The application for revision must be made at latest within six months of the discovery of the new fact.
5. No application for revision may be made after the lapse of ten years from the date of the judgment.
From the outset of the pronouncement of the Judgment, there was no doubt that an international conspiracy had firmly brought about the travesty of Justice. The Green-Tree treaty entered into by the former President Olusegun Obasanjo does not have any subsisting Legality in Nigeria because of Section 12(1) of the Nigerian Constitution which states that: “No treaty between the Federation and any other country shall have the force of law to the extent to which any such treaty has been enacted into law by the National Assembly.” Apparently, the
former President Obasanjo – owing to his absolutist proclivity to governance – spurned the treaty being given legal vim through an act of Parliament, thus making the legal instrument of the treaty inchoate in the Nigerian state. The allowable 10-year window for review of the
Judgment shall run out in a matter of days. Owing to the Pressure by the Nigerian people in Bakassi (who have come under unfair treatment by the Cameroonian authority), coupled with new fact of a document by the British of the ownership of the disputed Peninsula belonging to Nigeria, it thus becomes imperative to appeal the Judgment. Quite disappointing is the fact that the Nigerian Executive Leadership is reticent at exploring this option, despite the Senate’s prodding. The question is: what does Nigeria lose putting together its case for a review of the Judgment?
 
True, the choice of the Land of our Nativity was not ours to make as Nigerians. But we have the choice of the leadership that is allowed to govern the Land. This explains why, as Citizens, we must draw the line and say to the Principalities in the land: enough is enough. Section
14(2a) states that: “It is hereby, accordingly, declared that: sovereignty belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution derives all its powers and authority.” It is time to enforce the Sovereignty, envisaged by the Constitution, which rightfully belongs to us as Citizens. In so doing, we shall extirpate the debris of indecency that assault our collective psyche and thus bequeath a livable environment for the next generation.
 
God bless Nigeria.
Rotimi Fashakin (Engr.)
National Publicity Secretary, CPC.
(Saturday, 29th September, 2012)

U guys are pathetic. What do most of u use in thinking before responding to a post? Its obvious it not your brain. For years you all have been shouting for National conference now it is in d offing and your tune have changed again. Wow!!! I think you should mke up ur mind what u really want and stop this eternal hatred for anything initiated by this administration. The truth is your hatred wont erase the fact that GEJ is the president, the earlier you accept that and channel your energies to something positive including positive criticism where necessary, the better for the country and your blood pressure.