GBTYO:
Yorubas are the most diabolical and archaic people in Nigeria.

geesampower:

Yh good decision, But no news source

Gov Emmanuel to auction A-Ibom’s private jet

June 17, 2015

[img]http://cdn2.vanguardngr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/183x250xudom.jpg.pagespeed.ic.t1TKzKqSTz.webp[/img]

UYO—Akwa Ibom State governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, is not finding private jet ownership a worthwhile investment.

Vanguard gathered in Uyo, yesterday, that in view of Governor Emmanuel’s unfavourable disposition to the private jet acquired by his predecessor, Chief Godswill Akpabio to ease his movement outside the state, he is contemplating disposing of the aircraft.

Since his inauguration on May 29, 2015, Emmanuel is said to prefer travelling by chartered helicopters which he considers less-ostentatious.

An Akwa Ibom State Government House source told Vanguard that the governor was shopping for buyers of the jet to relieve him of the burden of fuelling and maintaining it.

The source could, however, not disclose the cost of fuelling and maintaining the jet.

“Governor Emmanuel is not comfortable with the idea of sustaining the ownership of the jet and is contemplating selling it, more so, because of the slash in states’ allocations and the high cost of aviation fuel,” the source said.

Efforts to speak with Mr. Ekerete Udo, Senior Special Assistant,Media/Chief Press Secretary to the governor was unsuccessful as he did not pick his calls.

Change2015:
This is simply misguided. Emeagwali is a fraud while this man Achilefu appears to have done something useful. To lump the two together is a disservice to him, Achilefu. Do your own research on Emeagwali, it is public record that he has lied about receiving a doctorate, and has overrated his contribution to the field of computer modelling, having been part of a team that won a 1000usd prize for a particular breakthrough. Even the size of that prize should be a clue to you that he is not particularly significant in the computer modelling world, and his claims to patents have proved false. The USA patents database is searchable and his name does not show up.

jaybee3:


Did you even bother to read his prelude or you did but didn't understand?

Stop displaying your ignorance on a public forum doofus

anulaxad:
Lies, lies, lies, and more lies. Why on earth would America give 5 billion dollars to this task.

5 billion dollars is more than every other country surrounding Nigeria's annual budget. People are so gullible. America is going to put down 5 million dollars in the funding for the joint task team. Not 5 BILLION people are so gullible.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-africa-33118885

If you scroll down on that page you will see this:

White House Proposes $5 Billion Global Anti-Terrorism Fund

May 28, 2014

President Obama announced plans for a Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF) during a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Wednesday

President Barack Obama unveiled a proposed $5-billion “terrorism partnership fund” Wednesday to aid other countries in fighting extremists and other radical groups.

The President said he would ask Congress to support the establishment of a Counterterrorism Partnerships Fund (CTPF) during a speech at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

[b]“These resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions,” Obama said, “including training security forces in Yemen who have gone on the offensive against al Qaeda; supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia; working with European allies to train a functioning security force and border patrol in Libya; and facilitating French operations in Mali.”

The fund would add vital resources to help tackle fallout from the ongoing conflict in Syria, he said, where fighting between the regime of President Bashar Assad and opposition forces has attracted extremist Islamist groups seeking to take advantage of a power vacuum. “With the additional resources I’m announcing today, we will step up our efforts to support Syria’s neighbors—Jordan and Lebanon; Turkey and Iraq—as they host refugees, and confront terrorists working across Syrian borders,” Obama said.

The fund would allow the Department of Defense to improve and expand counterterrorism training, assist other countries’ efforts, and collaborate with the State Department to support stable governments around the world in their “efforts to counter violent extremism and terrorist ideology,” the White House said.[/b]

During television appearances on Wednesday morning, Secretary of State John Kerry defended Obama’s plans to reduce U.S. troop presence in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

“This is not an abandonment of Afghanistan,” Kerry said on NBC’s Today show. “This is an emboldenment. This is an empowerment of Afghanistan.”

While appearing on CBS This Morning, Kerry said that withdrawing from Afghanistan will allow the U.S. to devote more resources to fighting terrorism around the word. The nation’s foreign policy, he said, should be updated to reflect the “rapidly changing, more complex world where terrorism is the principal challenge.”

Kerry also told Good Morning America on ABC that the U.S. has “people on the ground” and is “working hand in hand with Nigerians” to recover the nearly 300 schoolgirls kidnapped in Nigeria by Islamic radicals.

Eko Electricity to Add 474MW from Embedded Generation

16 Jun 2015



Installs 29,017 prepaid meters
Ejiofor Alike

As part of its continued efforts to ensure that customers enjoy improved and reliable power distribution within its network, Eko Electricity Distribution Plc (EKEDP) has concluded a pioneering plan to acquire up to 474 megawatts of electricity directly into its network in an unprecedented embedded power generation initiative, which will more than double its current allocation from the national grid.


The company has also installed 29,071 prepaid meters within 18 months, while the Board of Directors has approved a roll-out plan for additional 50 prepaid meters at a cost of N52 billion.

The embedded generation programme involves the construction of smaller -sized plants to generate electricity that is connected to and evacuated through the distribution network infrastructure.

The proximity of these plants to load centres within various communities will further assist EKEDP in alleviating some of the current challenges being experienced by unclogging its transmission grid of bottlenecks amongst other notable issues.

EKEDP had extended invitation bids to budding power generating companies and in return, received over 50 letters of interest.

After the bids received were evaluated for both technical and commercial competence, 14 companies were adjudged as adequate in possessing the technical and commercial capacity to participate in the first phase of EKEDP's embedded generation programme.

Following the receipt of NERC approval on the submissions tendered, EKEDP will then invite approved companies for final negotiations leading to the signing of Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) with them.

Projects alongside the Embedded Power Generation program are expected be completed within the next 18-24 months bringing about a most welcome relief to customers who have had to endure long periods of erratic power supply from the grid.

Speaking on bringing relief to its valued customers, the Managing Director of EKEDP, Mr. Oladele Amoda, said in a statement at the weekend that “with the active support of NERC for our proactive measure, our customers can indeed expect to enjoy the benefits of the privatisation of the power sector”.

Amoda continued that “apart from the embedded generation plan, EKEDP is also engaged in bilateral negotiations to purchase more power into our network which will bring relief to our consumers in the short term”.

Speaking earlier on Friday at a stakeholders’ meeting in Lagos, Amoda stated that the company installed 29,071 meters in 18 months and has commenced a process to augment power allocation from the grid with about 700 megawatts through embedded IPPs and more from bilateral agreements with existing merchant generators.

“At the advent of privatisation, our aggregate technical, commercial and collection (AT &C) loss stood at 35 per cent but today it is below 30 per cent. The modest reduction was achieved through network rehabilitation, reinforcement, improvement and assets upgrade. More than 10 billion have so far been expended on these projects. Poor metering is one of the legacy inherited from the defunct PHCN. We have initiate a robust metering plan; if approved by the regulatory body, will enable us roll out and step up meter installation activities and this will run through the next few years until all our customers have functional meters,” he explained.

He said the meters would come with modern technology to delight the customers with their various functions, adding that it will cost N52 billion.

Ploutos:
Still trending on Twitter?? I don't think so.
What meetings are they holding? With Mr President?? As it is now, they have stayed their voices and are not giving the heat to the present government like the did with the previous.

Nigeria's Bring Back Our Girls Group to Meet with President Buhari

June 16, 2015 4:19 AM



ABUJA—
As Nigeria and neighboring countries debate the leadership of a military task force and how to fight Boko Haram, Bring Back Our Girls campaigners are pressing Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue girls kidnapped by the group and end the insurgency.

The cry rings out at the Unity Fountain Park in central Abuja. The cry of Nigerian parents, relatives and campaigners of the Chibok girls who were kidnapped by Boko Haram more than a year ago.

More than 100 people met to discuss issues surrounding the kidnapping of the 219 girls.

They have met in this park for more than a year.

The group's leaders say President Muhammadu Buhari has responded to a letter they sent last week and he will be meeting them soon.

Bring Back Our Girls campaigner Hadiza Bala Usman said there are several issues to address.

“One being the status and rescue of the girls, making inquiries about ending the insurgency, where we are in terms of accountability and security spending. We have a document called the citizens solutions to end terrorism which is a collection of information that was drawn across the citizens, which we will present to him,” said Usman.

Nigerian media report President Buhari met with 10 parents of the missing girls last week before he left for African Union Summit in South Africa.

Nigeria, Chad, Benin, Niger and Cameroon have called for a united effort to defeat Boko Haram. The militants have been launching attacks in and near northeastern Nigeria since 2009.

Amnesty International says Boko Haram has abducted at least 2,000 women in Nigeria since the start of 2014, forcing many into sexual slavery and armed combat. Amnesty says men and boys are regularly conscripted or executed.

Reverend Mark Enoch had his biological and adopted daughters kidnapped in Chibok. He fled when Boko Haram threatened him.

“Really life has been so bad, life has been so bad, I lost my daughter, I lost my office, I lost my properties ... and really the former northeast is not steady, the university has been closed, all schools have been closed and we are forced to leave our own motherland. We are now refugees in Abuja,” said Enoch.

Dr. Peregrino Brimah recently joined the group in the park for the first time. He said it is good for people to be involved.

“As a physician it is only healing one broken limp at a time, but there is somebody on this other side bombing and breaking hundred limbs at a time. So at a point you have to look at it, and each one of us have a unique skill, and I believe we should never just be fixing to our little profession, we should be involved at some level in government,” said Brimah.

Usman said the meeting with President Buhari will mean little if it does not result in action.

“What matters to me is the outcome of the discussion what matters to me its if it translates into actionable activity where girls are rescued, where insurgency brought to an end. Meeting would reiterate the fact that the citizens are agitating for an end of the insurgency,” said Usman.

In April, President Buhari said he could not promise authorities will find the 219 kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.

But for more than 420 days the voices of Chibok girls parents and campaigners have been raised. Their persistence and determination has given them a chance to pass their message to the president in the hope the girls and others in the hands of Boko Haram will be rescued.

Fowobi:
When did omo ibo become OPC member and Publicity secretary for that matter? Wonder shall never end ! Little wonder u see Hausa man claiming omo onile in Lagos.

3ace:
Prince Sylvester Eweka as OPC spokesman? Not that I'm against it but I'm surprised. This guy must have lived all his life in southwest. I can bet that he speaks yoruba fluently and probably speaks Yoruba proverbs too.

MzJackBaueress:
Shut up you Bloody TANoid!

Sunnybobo3:
No contract has been cancelled. OPC stated clearly that they are pulling out of the agreement due to non payment of their due amount by NNPC.

Protesters shut down flow stations in Delta over pipeline contracts

Ebenezer Adurokiya —Warri

SCORES of protesters from Urhobo and Isoko host communities in Delta State, on Monday morning, shut down flow stations and operations at the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) in their areas.

This was on the heels of reports doing the round that oil surveillance contract awarded to former freedom fighter, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, expired on Monday.

Obviously propelled by the feelers, the Isoko and Urhobo ethnic stock went on protest over inclusion in the next pipeline surveillance contracts and the need for NDPC to pay up the OML30 GMoU N1.4 billion funds owed them.

The protesters, armed with twigs and leaves, were made of youths, women and leaders of the Urhobo and Isoko Host Communities of Nigeria (HOSTCOM).

The NPDC flow stations shut down during the protest were OML 26, 30, 34, and 65 in Udu and Ughelli South local government areas of the state.

The protesters stormed the flow stations at 9.00 a.m, shut down the facilities with a demand that NPDC should immediately create a contract department in its Edjeba office to take care of contractors in Delta State.

But armed soldiers attached to the flow station were on hand to avert a breakdown of law and order during the protest.

Leaders of the host communities, Mr. Efe Okovwurie, Mr. Morrister Idibra, Pastor Rochard Erhurhore and Mr John Obaro, who led the protests, warned that the oil facilities in OML 26, 30, 34, and 65 would remain shut until NPDC and NNPC awarded separate pipeline surveillance and intelligence gathering contracts to Urhobo and Isoko host communities.

They added that NPDC must pay up the nine-month outstanding monthly salaries of host communities' workers in OML 26, 30, 34, and 65, alleging that NPDC was indebted to most of the indigenous contractors.

The HOSTCOM leaders decried the replacement of indigenous contractors, whose contract tenure had expired for over two years and the refusal of NPDC management to renew same.

omenka:
Are the editors or columnists of the paper Tinubus's appointed spokespersons?- No.

PDP would do anything to deepen the assumption there's a rift between Tinubu and the president.

This is nothing but cheap propaganda from a cheap blog presumably bankrolled by PDP- just like breakingtimes and hopefornigeria.

First storm



Some have called it Buhari’s litmus test. Others have said, he rose above the fray. Some others said, it had nothing to do with Buhari or APC, but it signalled that, in Nigeria, democracy had come to stay. A voice of a partisan edge growled that it was the rebirth of PDP.

But the battles for the Senate and the House signified Buhari’s first storm. The cloud gathered, the lighting flashed, droplets of rain drew faint lines on the horizon. But President Muhammadu Buhari did not know they presaged a storm. Or did he encourage the elemental fury and play bystander?

It was so perhaps because of his often quoted assertion that he belonged to everybody and belonged to nobody. While the Senate sat and anointed Bukola Saraki as Senate President, the senators regarded him as a nobody even though he called a meeting of all party leaders, including members of both chambers. Or was he the somebody who goaded them on as though he didn’t?

The other miscue was when Femi Adesina, his media spokesman, broke the ice and said it “somewhat” served the higher purpose of democracy. And analysts wondered, how could it be good when your party lost in its first battle after the elections? Later, in an apparent contradiction, Garba Shehu pitched in for the president and said the APC senators defied their party leader and president. Is it the case of a stern, muscular Buhari playing a wishy-washy card?

I chewed both releases and wanted to know if Adesina had one brief and Shehu another and whether one was intended to annul the other. That, I thought, was the problem when two persons serve as a president’s spokesmen. I think it is not neat and looks at best like duplication and potentially as a battleground. For the sake of both gentlemen, I hope not.

“Somewhat” in Adesina’s statement implied ambiguity in the process. But Shehu’s follow-up indicated that the president was interested but not interested enough. For a party of change, that is not good enough.

[b]But by defying their party leaders and conniving with the opposition, we shall say it was the dubious triumph of politics over commonsense or over values. But what is politics, but the art of the possible. That was the point of the Saraki victory. But the presidency has not up to the time of writing made any indication of moral tone. It has spoken the language of politics and law, and not of values. The reason Buhari was voted in by those enamoured of his biography was his moral and puritan appeal. We did not see this in this first and auspicious test.

Some have said Saraki was going to win anyway. So why did he not wait for the president? It was an overthrow of decency, if it was political marksmanship. But for me, neither Saraki nor even the PDP lawmakers deserve all the blame. Were the PDP supposed to wait for the president because of an APC meeting? The PDP lawmakers do not belong to APC, so they had the right to fuel the rebellion. On the meeting the party scheduled, we learned that Buhari’s advance party was at the venue, but he did not come. Why not? Shehu said he was about to come when the fait accompli of Saraki’s victory occurred. Was that not enough reason for the president to express open disavowals of condemnation rather than a tame Channels interview? Or shall we say the advance party of the president was a dummy and he was not going to appear at the meeting? After all, Adesina said it was a party meeting and not the president’s.
[/b]
That is where the spirit of loyalty failed in APC, and that is where Saraki and company, including Atiku Abubakar, lacked moral grace. More blame lands right at the doorsteps of the president. And I think the president knows that, and that accounted for the afterthought that was Shehu’s frenzied intervention on Channels Television to clarify the president’s stand. The meeting could have been held earlier. Perhaps the previous night.

But the die is cast. Both houses have leaders that defeated the party choices. I think it is an early lesson for the president, unless the president wants it so. He should now understand that his presidential office compels him to be interested in the direction of politics. If he did not have his politics right, he would not be president today. He would not have the opportunity to set policies. Politics defines policies. What policies can he champion with a Senate full of the members and sentiment of the ancient regime?

Atiku Abubakar, who lost to Buhari during the APC primaries, recently said the president is a leader and not interested in politics. Atiku, a restless man of ambition but little vision, received Saraki after the victory. He confirmed all the reports that he championed rebellion in his party. The peripatetic harlot of politics who sways right and left simultaneously, may be smacking his lips, but he is no noble man of this era.
I hope Buhari has learned that he has to be both politician and leader. If you are president, it is because you have a vision. If you have vision, it is because you need men who think like you to pursue the vision. So, as president he was wrong if he stayed off who emerged as leaders of both chambers. And if he didn’t, what sort of agenda can he push now?

Dogara emerged in a clear contest in the House, and a graceful Femi Gbajabiamila has conceded. If Saraki and his men had waited and allowed the other APC men to be in the chambers, he probably would have won. That could have dispelled suggestions of bad faith, desperation and even the air of hurried primitivism that sullied the process of his emergence.

President Buhari has started off on a learning curve, and he ought to know that both houses can paralyse him if the PDP works with Saraki in a camp against those who were absent in the chambers.

What has haunted the president is the “everybody” and “nobody” refrain. I don’t know of any successful leader in modern democracy that is not interested in the leadership of the legislature. The parliamentary system places the law chamber at the centre of activity. The challenge of the Obama presidency is the hostility, sometimes racism, of the Congress. He has not been able to work with Senate leader Boehner. And when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker, she even sometimes did not pick his calls. Obama has disavowed the mushiness of schmoozing with the lawmakers. They have paid him back in brutal kind.

The National Assembly story is good in that it has given the opposition a new bite, a potential fang. Opposition reminds me of the lament of Poet Walt Whitman: “my enemy is dead. A man divine like myself is dead.” You need your enemies. APC needs a soulful opposition.

But the APC will end up a contraption of convenience if it allows itself to collapse so early. It will be bad for our democracy, and it will deprive us of the quality of dialectical tension required to build a vibrant democracy. The APC was built in order to kill its merging partners. They should not hark back to ACN, CPC, ANPP, etc in the pursuit of a spoils system. It will only suggest that what we have is not a party but various parts that have come to pack their own parts of the booties. It will be naïve to shut out their birth places, but to hold on to them as reference points of loyalty only tells us that the party has a lot of work to do to build a family.

It also tells us that the battle to entrench it as a platform of ideas has not begun. This is still a democracy of big men and not of conscience. That is the lesson President Buhari must take from the National Assembly narrative.

The National Assembly story may determine much of the pattern of the Buhari era. He should beware not to shoot himself in the foot. As a solider, the message cannot be lost.

Protesters shut down flow stations in Delta over pipeline contracts

Ebenezer Adurokiya —Warri

SCORES of protesters from Urhobo and Isoko host communities in Delta State, on Monday morning, shut down flow stations and operations at the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) in their areas.

This was on the heels of reports doing the round that oil surveillance contract awarded to former freedom fighter, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, expired on Monday.

Obviously propelled by the feelers, the Isoko and Urhobo ethnic stock went on protest over inclusion in the next pipeline surveillance contracts and the need for NDPC to pay up the OML30 GMoU N1.4 billion funds owed them.

The protesters, armed with twigs and leaves, were made of youths, women and leaders of the Urhobo and Isoko Host Communities of Nigeria (HOSTCOM).

The NPDC flow stations shut down during the protest were OML 26, 30, 34, and 65 in Udu and Ughelli South local government areas of the state.

The protesters stormed the flow stations at 9.00 a.m, shut down the facilities with a demand that NPDC should immediately create a contract department in its Edjeba office to take care of contractors in Delta State.

But armed soldiers attached to the flow station were on hand to avert a breakdown of law and order during the protest.

Leaders of the host communities, Mr. Efe Okovwurie, Mr. Morrister Idibra, Pastor Rochard Erhurhore and Mr John Obaro, who led the protests, warned that the oil facilities in OML 26, 30, 34, and 65 would remain shut until NPDC and NNPC awarded separate pipeline surveillance and intelligence gathering contracts to Urhobo and Isoko host communities.

They added that NPDC must pay up the nine-month outstanding monthly salaries of host communities' workers in OML 26, 30, 34, and 65, alleging that NPDC was indebted to most of the indigenous contractors.

The HOSTCOM leaders decried the replacement of indigenous contractors, whose contract tenure had expired for over two years and the refusal of NPDC management to renew same.

OPC Pulls Out Of NNPC Pipeline Surveillance

Jun 15, 2015



The Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) said it would pull out its men from guarding all Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) pipelines nationwide from Monday evening.

Mr Yinka Oguntimehin, the Spokesman for Gani Adams Faction of the congress said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Monday.

Oguntimehin said that this became necessary because the corporation had yet to start paying for the work its men are doing.

He said the corporation was, as part of the contractual agreement entered into, three months ago, expected to start payment.

The spokesman said that the OPC personnel had continued to guard the pipelines with the belief that the corporation would pay as promised.

“When we were given the contract on March 15, it was agreed that they will release money for the OPC personnel for effective protection of the NNPC pipelines nationwide.

“We lost one man last month because of the activities of the vandals here in Lagos, while some of our men were arrested in the course of protecting the pipeline.

“We had told them to release some of our money before the new administration took over, but they kept promising us.

“Enough is enough, three months have passed since our members started monitoring the pipeline, and we have fulfilled our part of the agreement.

“By 10p.m today, our personnel will move out of the NNPC pipelines nationwide and this applies to other groups in the country,” he said.

The federal Government had in March awarded a multi-billion Naira contract to the OPC to secure NNPC pipelines in the South-West Zone of the country. (NAN)

A source within the APC hierarchy told The Nigerian Times that the former Minister turned activist has equally indicated interest in the post of Coordinating Minister for the Economy, a position created by the Goodluck Jonathan administration and currently held by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Our source however says that while the party’s leadership is not unwilling to consider Ezekwesili for the post of Finance Minister, they appear reluctant to make her the Coordinating Minister for the Economy.

It was not clear as at the time of filing this report, whether the party’s reluctance in this regard is as a result of not wanting to continue with the Coordinating Minister post in the new government, or whether it has penciled down some other person for the job.

Though Ezekwesili is not a card carrying member of the All Progressives Congress, she has for long been closely associated with key figures in the party.

She has equally been one of the harshest critics of the Jonathan administration, the high point of her hostility towards the government being her institution of the Bring Back Our Girls movement, in the wake of the Chibok schoolgirls’ abduction in April last year.

She had severely criticised Jonathan’s handling of the Economy, accusing the government of mismanagement of resources.

Ezekwesili, a chattered accountant, was a key member of President Olusegun Obasanjo’s economic team, serving at a time as the pioneer head of the Budget Monitoring and Price Intelligence Unit (also known as the Due Process Unit).

The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur has said that henceforth ministerial nominees who are not card-carrying members of the ruling party will be denied ministerial appointments.

Tukur stated this in Bauchi yesterday during the party’s reconciliation tour of the Northeast geopolitical zone.

Serving ministers from the zone did not attend the meeting, a development that did not go down well with the chairman.

Tukur stressed the need for unalloyed loyalty from party members, stating that the party remained supreme and bigger than any individual, irrespective of their status.

Tukur’s pronouncement was elicited by the observation by the Deputy Senate Minority Leader, Abdul Ningi, who complained that non members of the PDP were being favoured in choice ministerial portfolios, to the detriment of members who toiled for the party’s electoral victory.