₦airaland Forum

When Pravda.ru editor, Dmitry Sudakov, offered to publish my commentary, he referred to me as "an active anti-Russian politician for many years." I'm sure that isn't the first time Russians have heard me characterized as their antagonist. Since my purpose here is to dispel falsehoods used by Russia's rulers to perpetuate their power and excuse their corruption, let me begin with that untruth. I am not anti-Russian. I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.

I make that claim because I respect your dignity and your right to self-determination. I believe you should live according to the dictates of your conscience, not your government. I believe you deserve the opportunity to improve your lives in an economy that is built to last and benefits the many, not just the powerful few. You should be governed by a rule of law that is clear, consistently and impartially enforced and just. I make that claim because I believe the Russian people, no less than Americans, are endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A Russian citizen could not publish a testament like the one I just offered. President Putin and his associates do not believe in these values. They don't respect your dignity or accept your authority over them. They punish dissent and imprison opponents. They rig your elections. They control your media. They harass, threaten, and banish organizations that defend your right to self-governance. To perpetuate their power they foster rampant corruption in your courts and your economy and terrorize and even assassinate journalists who try to expose their corruption.

They write laws to codify bigotry against people whose sexual orientation they condemn. They throw the members of a punk rock band in jail for the crime of being provocative and vulgar and for having the audacity to protest President Putin's rule.


Sergei Magnistky wasn't a human rights activist. He was an accountant at a Moscow law firm. He was an ordinary Russian who did an extraordinary thing. He exposed one of the largest state thefts of private assets in Russian history. He cared about the rule of law and believed no one should be above it. For his beliefs and his courage, he was held in Butyrka prison without trial, where he was beaten, became ill and died. After his death, he was given a show trial reminiscent of the Stalin-era and was, of course, found guilty. That wasn't only a crime against Sergei Magnitsky. It was a crime against the Russian people and your right to an honest government - a government worthy of Sergei Magnistky and of you.

President Putin claims his purpose is to restore Russia to greatness at home and among the nations of the world. But by what measure has he restored your greatness? He has given you an economy that is based almost entirely on a few natural resources that will rise and fall with those commodities. Its riches will not last. And, while they do, they will be mostly in the possession of the corrupt and powerful few. Capital is fleeing Russia, which - lacking rule of law and a broad-based economy - is considered too risky for investment and entrepreneurism. He has given you a political system that is sustained by corruption and repression and isn't strong enough to tolerate dissent.

How has he strengthened Russia's international stature? By allying Russia with some of the world's most offensive and threatening tyrannies. By supporting a Syrian regime that is murdering tens of thousands of its own people to remain in power and by blocking the United Nations from even condemning its atrocities. By refusing to consider the massacre of innocents, the plight of millions of refugees, the growing prospect of a conflagration that engulfs other countries in its flames an appropriate subject for the world's attention. He is not enhancing Russia's global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world.

President Putin doesn't believe in these values because he doesn't believe in you. He doesn't believe that human nature at liberty can rise above its weaknesses and build just, peaceful, prosperous societies. Or, at least, he doesn't believe Russians can. So he rules by using those weaknesses, by corruption, repression and violence. He rules for himself, not you.

I do believe in you. I believe in your capacity for self-government and your desire for justice and opportunity. I believe in the greatness of the Russian people, who suffered enormously and fought bravely against terrible adversity to save your nation. I believe in your right to make a civilization worthy of your dreams and sacrifices. When I criticize your government, it is not because I am anti-Russian. It is because I believe you deserve a government that believes in you and answers to you. And, I long for the day when you have it.

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/19-09-2013/125705-McCain_for_pravda_ru-0/

Mr tukur's face is already bad dream for those who see it with his many missing teeth and now they want to show innocent nigerians his unclothedness? Do they want to commit visual genocide?

Why is wike and his boss afraid of this northern governors? Look at the cordial statement his office released to an insult by aliyu. If it were ameachi, he would have tore into him, telling him him how he is not God and that he's a disgrace. I'm guessing the presidency gave wike rules of engagement in this war, "do whatever with ameachi, but whatever you do don't mess with the northern governors"

stupid ikwerre tout called wike presiding over the education ministry, are we not finished?

When i was in amsterdan, why did'nt my pic make front page? Crappy nairaland. What's so special about a silly musician in amsterdan?

stine b: quote author=Symphony007] you are saying bigger rubbish! Ameachi has had three police commissioners as givernor. Non has fought him, there are 35 commissioners of police in nigeria except rivers. Non are fighting their governors. For this man to be fighting ameachi. Does it not show he has federal support. He closes down ameachi's new offices but wike's grassroot support movement office populated by thugs are not touched. How stupid do you have to be not to see this or are you just in denial. Ask your president was he can't govern his party. Why is he always fighting governors and other members of his party. If a man can't lead his party, how can he lead a nation. PDP is a mess, the country is a mess, and we're suppose to have a leader? Rather than you to point out this amatuerish way of leadership and thiuggish greed to hold on to power in 2015 you support him blindly.

Likewise. I advise you to talk to your president and tell him he suppose to lead. Not to hunt governors who oppose him, Shred the constitution, abandon a nation in disarray to chase a 2015 agenda. Once again. How many meeting has the president of nigeria held with ASUU so the youths of his country can return to school? How many meetings has the president of nigeria held with PDP governors and factional members to preserve his 2015 ambitions? Make the distiction and how the let's see what moral guts you have to reply me.In your little mind,I'm sure you think you have madde sense!schewwwwwwww

if i did'nt. You won't be quoting me, sir!

enigmang: Lol.. I can bet this guy has never been to Riverstate (in the last 4years).. Visit the state then say theses things again..

hello!! If you have anything to say. Please do. I'm ever ready to respond. We will see who has been in PH or not.

Xano: dude, do you reside in rivers state? If No, visit before lie to everyone. If Yes, continue with the lie.

if you have a fact to state, please do, i have alergies to stupid post like yours.

solomon111: And what will you gain if PDP goes "B00M".?
You want to remain under APC as a one party state?

hopefully.APC will go boom too. Because i see no difference between APC and PDP, they are just a greedy pack of wolves. Hopefully when they fall, great independent minded nigerians can riseto save this nation, while we still have time.

Oil firm, Oando Plc, which is being linked by British prosecutors to funds stolen by jailed former Delta State Governor, Chief James
Ibori, has hired a top flight British lawyer, Mrs. Cherie Blair QC, to defend its interest in the case. Blair, who is the wife of former
British Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, has already been paid 200,000 pounds to take
up the matter, according to sources familiar with the matter.
This is just as a London court yesterday heard how Ibori had claimed ownership of 30 per cent of Oando Plc, while opening an
account with Swiss bank, PKB Privatbank, into which the company paid $1.2m,
suspected to be looted funds in 2004.

The court also heard that PKB Privatbank had, in an internal document, likened Ibori, who governed oilproducing Delta State from 1999 to 2007 and influenced national Nigerian politics, to a scion of the Kennedy dynasty in the United States. Ibori was jailed for 13 years in Britain after pleading guilty in February 2012 to 10 counts of fraud and money laundering worth 50 million pounds ($79.5 million). Prosecutors say his total wealth was likely to be far greater than that and he could have hidden assets in the oil firm. Oando has however clarified that Ibori
owned only 433 shares out of the
company’s 6.8 billion issued shares and rejected allegations that the convicted governor had hidden assets in the company.
Details of Ibori’s assets and how he kept them hidden from the public gaze through a web of shell companies and foreign bank
accounts are being disclosed as part of a three-week confiscation hearing which began in London on Monday, Reuters said yesterday. The prosecutor, Ms Sasha Wass told Southwark Crown Court yesterday that in 2004, Ibori had opened an account at Lugano-based PKB in the name of a shell company called Stanhope Investments. Quoting from internal PKB documents, Wass
told the court that Ibori had presented himself to the bank as the owner of an insurance company, half of a bank and 30
per cent of Oando.

She said that a total of $1.2m flowed into the PKB account from Oando in three payments
that year, which had later been channeled to other accounts and were part of funds intended for the purchase of a $20m private
jet. Oando had said on Monday that Ibori had only an “insignificant” holding in the firm
and also said it had sold $2.7m of its foreign exchange earnings for naira in 2004 to a company that had later turned out to be controlled by Ibori. It said it was not aware of Ibori’s interest in
the company at the time. Wass also told the court yesterday that despite his assets being restrained in 2008, Ibori had after that date
continued to live a lavish lifestyle, travel and pay fees to the English boarding school where his three children were being educated.
Combined with Ibori’s track record of hiding his assets, this led to the “irresistible inference” that Ibori had further hidden assets which investigators had not yet uncovered, she said, adding that one option of where these might be was Oando. Wass also quoted from an internal PKB report from 2004 which said Ibori came from one of a few Nigerian families which had for decades developed the oil industry in that country.
“We could compare these families with the Kennedy dynasty, which also mixed business and politics,” the bank document said. Another excerpt said Ibori was “an extremely rich man as he was doing a lot of business before becoming governor.” PKB, which is fully owned by the Luxembourg- listed Compagnie de l’Occident
pour la Finance et l’Industrie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Reuters.
Oando had said that sometime in 2004, in the normal course of its business, it sold some of its foreign exchange earnings for
naira and the recipient of the US Dollars was a company which has now turned out to be one controlled by James Ibori.
“At the time of the transaction, this information was unknown to Oando. The total amount was $2.7m made in three separate transactions over a period of about seven months. This amount was insignificant considering the company’s turnover of approximately $800m in 2004.
“The above constitutes the only transactions between Oando and any company controlled by Mr. Ibori. Consequently, Oando
cannot be described as a company where James Ibori has hidden assets as a result of these foreign exchange transactions,” the
company had said in a statement on Monday.
Counsel representing Oando, Mr. Andrew Baillie QC, had stated outside the courtroom: “It is unfortunate that our client has been dragged into these proceedings. There is no suggestion from the prosecution of any wrongdoing or involvement in wrongdoing on the part of Oando.” In the early 1990s, Ibori worked as a cashier at Wickes, a home improvement
chain store in London. He was convicted of theft in 1991 after
being caught taking money from the till. A pro

awodman: Now these are the demands of amaechi and his gang...

1. Don’t contest 2015
2. Sack Tukur
3. Stop EFCC from investigating us
4. Total control of PDP structures in our states

Now they are adding okonjo's resignation to the list...because of her insistence on the establishment of SWF and for not give them unfettered access to the ECA...

Now when you look @ all this demands you begin to wonder the place of Nigerian masses in their agitation...all these demands are they for the betterment of Nigerians..

and definitely the president will not aggree so in a few months or years time, PDP will go BOOM...BOOM...BOOM!!!!! Oh, God, dreams do come true. *tears of joy*

One_Naira: Mtcheww. Rubbish.

Anyone that the thug parading as a governor fights is immediately named "GEJ's tool". SMH. Tell Amaechi to look deep inside himself and ask himself why he's constantly in the news for thug-like behavior; ask himself why he is constantly fighting not 1 person but multiple people. Why his popularity in his region is reducing as the day goes by. Rather than you all to accept his shameless behavior and advice him accordingly, you all resort to the usual blame GEJ tatics.

Like I said earlier, go back to that man and inform him that he is a governor, not some street thug.

you are saying bigger rubbish! Ameachi has had three police commissioners as givernor. Non has fought him, there are 35 commissioners of police in nigeria except rivers. Non are fighting their governors. For this man to be fighting ameachi. Does it not show he has federal support. He closes down ameachi's new offices but wike's grassroot support movement office populated by thugs are not touched. How stupid do you have to be not to see this or are you just in denial. Ask your president was he can't govern his party. Why is he always fighting governors and other members of his party. If a man can't lead his party, how can he lead a nation. PDP is a mess, the country is a mess, and we're suppose to have a leader? Rather than you to point out this amatuerish way of leadership and thiuggish greed to hold on to power in 2015 you support him blindly.

Likewise. I advise you to talk to your president and tell him he suppose to lead. Not to hunt governors who oppose him, Shred the constitution, abandon a nation in disarray to chase a 2015 agenda. Once again. How many meeting has the president of nigeria held with ASUU so the youths of his country can return to school? How many meetings has the president of nigeria held with PDP governors and factional members to preserve his 2015 ambitions? Make the distiction and how the let's see what moral guts you have to reply me.

One_Naira: What debate? A useless man that refuses to focus on his job. The only thing he has been doing so far is running around fighting every politician he can think of like an agbero. Mtcheww. The behavior of that man is nothing but a disgrace and gradually his political career is going down the drain because of it. He is hated in his own region, hated in his own state (excluding his people), even the DPO of his own state had the balls to disrespect him (the governor of the state) and instead of the 1diot to try and save the little degree of strength he has in his political career, all his been doing is creating more problem for himself. Thank you but I rather not debate the act of a shameless man.

you see why i said you should keep off this debate because the cracks in your understanding of it will become glaring.

Firstly, ameachi has not abandoned his responsibilities as governor despite all he is going through. I was surprised to see him lastv week in old port harcourt township inspectng the new intergrated cultural center under construction and some roads, what about your president who went nigerian children are languishing at home, he is busy calming nerves in his party so he can be president again 2015. How many meeting has he held with ASUU? How many meetings has he held with PDP governor, party leaders, etc..get the figures and know where his priorities lie.

Secondly the head of police in rivers state and every state is a commissioner, not DPO, and the reason he is disrespecting the governor is because he is a tool of the president. Even the strongest jonathan supporter here can attest to that fact.

They said the day will never come. But behold the implosion of PDP before our eyes. *tears of joy*

One_Naira: I've kept quiet in the whole bash amaechi saga but Amaechi if that your disgraceful hand touches NOI, your political downfall would be worse than it is now.
Touch NOI. Useless man. Traitor. Nkita.

i suggest you continue keeping quiet because your voice has no effect whatsoever on this debate, so save us the rancour.

GIVE THEM HELL AMEACHI!!

shortgun: They are d ones who are supposed to resign for failing Nigerians who voted them, that is if they still a little bit of integrity left in them.

and mr jonathan has intergrity left in him?

Ghastly inconsequentialities!!!

Situation: somebody is given a bundle of money.

Question: all this for me?

Culpit: patience ozokwo and other actors playing village roles.

Below is a pic of the rivers state government primary healthcare center. Their are over 150 of them in the state, they are all of similar design. It is fully equiped, including three, two bedroom flat living area behind the hospital where the doctor, mathron and medical lab scientist lives, the doctor also gets a car. The hospital are managed by the rivers state hospitals board, a independent body set up to manage the hospitals with little government interferance, that is why the hospitals have been in top shape since it's completion.

talk2s: Motifs behind the Thread:
Bias;
Falsehood;
Misinformation;
Imbalance.

Yes, Ameachi's schools are finer than Akpabio's.
But other than Schools, what other developmental strides has Ameachi recorded.
Stop this prejudice. If you want to compare notes, be wholesome, putting all things into consideration.
We won't fall for this lopsided dummy!

maybe some body ought the post the pics of primary health centers in rivers state located in every LGA. By the way, this is a rivers state government free dental clinic.

esbjay@gmail.co:
is it that u are confused or u don't understand the grammar. They used the impact of their money (company ) on society.What is the essence of ur wealth If ur immediate environment are not benefiting from it. I stand to be corrected. thanx

carlos slim from mexico, which has amongs the most impoverish citizenry in the world is the 2nd richest man in the world and as of 2012, he was the richest beating out bill gates, buffet, grosvenor, mittal,etc...how has his company influenced the life of mexicans. I don't even know were you got this twisted logic from.

ifeomabernard: richer than Oprah Winfred the Number one on Forbes list!!! Guy u must be high

who made oprah number one on forbes list? Oprah was the richest black woman on earth, and mrs alakija has dethrown her, if you need proof. Google!

I am incrediby gratefull to everyone who contributed and offered advice to me. They have been really, really helpfull. Thank you.

Special thanks to all those i've had heated and sometimes insult filled fights with on politics sections but still offered their advice and experience.

Why was'nt the immediate resolve of the ASUU strike part of the terms of demands the new PDP made to jonathan for them to rejoin the party? That would have been a more comendable and serious action rather than eye service prayer and fasting.

ckkris: I'm just warning up. When I really begin to confuse you, you'll be typing Jona, Jona, Jonathan till 2019. That's what Nigerians need, in order to have stable electricity, re-establish a working Railroad system, and continue to attract Foreign Direct Investments.

quite amusing..but extremly stupid. Goodluck jonathan in my extimate has been quite a disgrace. He promised us fresh air but he turned out to be the same old air nigerians have been breathing for the past 15 years...the moment he granted padon to dsp alams and started coherting with bode george, i knew fresh air was a fraud.

ckkris: In ANY SETTING IN THE UNITED STATES, the President IS NOT ALLOWED TO STAND BEHIND anyone. Its people like you that tell Amechi that he Amechi is capable of FORCING the C-in-C to redeploy Police Commissioners, or perhaps military commanders. No wonder Governor Amechi is running himself from one political difficulty to another, so long as he sharing billions of naira. But at least you have your own national cake, don't you?

i spent a considerable amount of time trying to comprehend your ghastly right up, and i could. It was just too shambolic for me to come up with a reply. Please if you require a reply from me. Try to write and articulate better.

theoctopus: Do you seriously love to delude yourself like this? It is not good for your health bro! You just keep telling yourself lies and quoting Sahara reporters opinions when we know where their loyalty lies. Who is commanding who in that picture? You mean that guy hidden behind those govs is the one commanding? Or you meant to say complaining? Ok, I understand

it shows how much factuality and substances is absent in a discussion when a picture becomes some people's point of reasoning.

Following your reasoning, let's review the picture below, i'm guessing pres da slyva of brazil of more in control than barack obama, that is why he is sitting and obama is standing behind. Or christina de kistna of argentina is in more control than the italian prime minister who is far behind. We are go on and on..since your reasoning has been streamlined into pictures.

Sadly, Mr biggs is now the equivalent of mama put.

I commend everybody who in one way or the other assisted this program to this level. Especially the hardworking farmers and workers whoes sweat made this possible. There is still massive room for improvement and we hope it is achieved.

Ghastly! We are not amused.

Thanl you very much folks..i'm really loving your advice, and trust me, it helps.

sayso: How old are you? Please ask your Uncles the longest strike in Nigeria history.

why do i need to ask my uncles, when i have you grandpa. I'm sure you're the oldest nigerian alive so you can give me the answer. And correction old man, i said "UNIVERSITY STRIKE"....if you don't have the answer. I see no reason for you to quote me.