₦airaland Forum

English FA Women's
Super League
champions, Liverpool
Ladies have secured the
services of Super
Falcons star Asisat
Oshoala from Nigeria Women’s Premier
League side, Rivers Angels.
The 2014 African Women Player of the Year
inspired the Super Falcons to win the 2014
Africa Women Championship in Namibia as
well as help Rivers Angel lift the Nigeria
Women Premier League and Federations
Cup titles.
Matt Beard's Liverpool are currently
preparing for forthcoming WSL and
Champions League campaigns, having
retained their league title on the final day in
2014.
"Since I began my football career I have
always dreamt of being a professional
footballer, so to be able to join the reigning
Women's Super League champions is
absolutely fantastic,” Oshoala said of her
move to Merseyside.
"Liverpool Ladies are a massive club, who
have some fantastic players who I believe
can help to develop my game to the next
level.
"It was also a big incentive to be able to
play in the UEFA Women's Champions
League, which is a huge competition and
one I'm confident we can do well in,” she
concluded.
Ladies boss, Matt Beard also expressed her
delight following the capture of the Nigeria
youth prodigy.
"I'm absolutely thrilled to have signed
Asisat as she is one of the world's top young
footballers,” said Beard.
"Asisat proved in the U20 World Cup what
a top-class talent she is and this signing is a
big coup for us.
"The Women's Super League continues to
improve year after year, so it is vital that we
strengthen our squad following last season's
successful title defence. This signing is
definitely one that the supporters can be
extremely excited about.”

www.m.goal.com/x/en-ng/news/8232702

Join the moving train on twitter by hastag #PDPwillsoonsay.
example

#PDPwillsoonsay Buhari is pursuing Jonathan in the dream #SaiBuhari #APCdecides #APC #NigeriaDecides

THERE is a harrowing story told by
Adekoya Boladale, which needs to be
brought to the attention of Nigerians,
especially the people of the South-West.
In the middle of the night of 4th January,
1984, heavily armed men of the Strike
Force of the Nigerian army invaded the
Lagos home of Chief Olu Awotesu, the
Minister of State for Agriculture. This
military operation had one design, to put
the minister under arrest.
However, Chief Awotesu was not at home,
having gone to his home-town in Iperu,
Ogun State. On meeting his absence, the
soldiers descended on his family. His wife
was dragged from the bedroom upstairs
through the staircase to the ground floor,
where she was kicked and beaten by the
men in khaki. Her assailants laughed at
her while she screamed and begged for
mercy. The children were not spared
either. They were also slapped and
tortured in the bid to determine the
precise whereabouts of their father. This
ordeal apparently went on for over three
hours. When Chief Awotesu returned
from Iperu to Lagos and learnt that he
was now a wanted man, he drove straight
to Dodan Barracks, then the seat of
government in Nigeria, to give himself up.
He was not only arrested, he was detained
without trial for nearly two years. It was
while in detention that he learnt about the
ordeal his family had been put through by
men of the Special Forces. Chief Awotesu
was only released in 1985, even though the
government found no evidence of any
crime against him.
South-West is not for sale
The man responsible for this injustice is
Muhammadu Buhari. He is now running
for president and wants our votes.
Paradoxically, a number of the kinsmen of
the late Chief Awotesu are now charged
with selling his candidacy to us in the
South-West; and yet Buhari himself has
never found it necessary to apologise to us
for the human rights violations his regime
inflicted on us. A unique opportunity was
given to him by the institution of the
Truth and Reconciliation panel under
Justice Chukwudifu Oputa in 1999.
However, Buhari showed his contempt for
us by refusing to appear before the panel.
Why then should people in the South-
West give this same man their votes in
2015?
The fault is not Buhari’s. The fault is that
of those now charged with white-washing
his image. These people are obviously
contemptuous of their Yoruba kith and
kin. They have told Buhari that all he
needs is a bit of cosmetic surgery. He
should change from wearing an agbada to
wearing a suit. He should choose a
Christian Yoruba pastor as his running
mate, and even attend a thanksgiving
service in Lagos where he pretends to sing
Christian praise songs. He should then
mouth a few inane words about “change”
and “anti-corruption” and all will be
forgotten.
Somebody is being fooled but it is not the
Yorubas. It does not matter how many
curious onlookers are paid to come to
Buhari’s campaign rallies in the South-
West; the Yorubas will ultimately not
succumb to this hogwash. Buhari has been
rejected in the South-West three times.
He will be rejected yet again. Out of over
4.7 million votes cast in the six states of
the South West in 2011, Buhari could only
get 321,609. That is less than seven
percent. Nevertheless, some Yoruba
bigwigs in the APC have gone ahead to
strike a deal with Buhari on the grounds
that they will deliver the South West to
him in the coming election. It is not going
to happen.
In the first place, who made these men
spokesmen for the South-West? Who
mortgaged South-West Yoruba interests
to the political ambitions of Bola Tinubu
and his associates? As a matter of fact, the
2015 presidential election provides a
unique opportunity for the people of the
South-West to break off the political
shackles of Bola Tinubu by rejecting his
new-found ally of Muhammadu Buhari. If
for no other reason than the refusal of the
Yorubas to be sold into slavery, Buhari
must be rejected outright in the South-
West and the APC must be kicked out of
Lagos State.
With all the noise currently being made
about Buhari’s candidacy, one important
point is often overlooked: Buhari is not
even well-liked by his own people. A lot is
made of the 12 million votes he obtained
from the North in 2011, conveniently
forgetting that Goodluck Jonathan also
obtained a sizeable eight million votes
from the same North. Indeed, in 2011,
Goodluck Jonathan won 428,392 votes in
Buhari’s home-state of Katsina; to
Buhari’s 1,163,919. That means Jonathan
won 37% of the votes in Buhari’s
backyard. Compare that to the situation in
Jonathan’s home state of Bayelsa.
Jonathan won 584,811 votes; while Buhari
obtained a miserable 691 votes. That gives
Buhari a measly 0.11% of Jonathan’s votes.
It is also instructive that in the primary
election for the APC presidential
candidate, Northern delagates did not
vote for Buhari. Instead, they gave their
votes to Kano State governor, Rabiu
Kwankwaso, and former vice-president
Atiku Abubakar. Delegates from Buhari’s
North-West voted for Kwankwaso, while
those from the North-East voted for
Atiku. Buhari’s votes came primarily from
the South-West, as well as from the
South-East and the South-South.
However, in 2011, out of over 38 million
votes cast in the entire country, Buhari
could only obtain 391,933 from the entire
South-West, South-East and the South-
South put together; that is 1.03% of the
votes.
In short, Buhari was imposed on the
North as the APC presidential candidate
by delegates controlled by Tinubu. It was
out of gratitude for this that Buhari gave
Tinubu the sole responsibility for
choosing his vice-presidential running-
mate. Tinubu’s first instinct, of course,
was to reserve the vice-presidency for
himself. But the political pressures against
a Muslim/Muslim APC ticket, led him to
concede it to his political surrogate,
Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
Buhari’s crimes
It is contemptuous of Tinubu and his
Yoruba acolytes in APC to presume that
they can deliver the South-West to Buhari
in the 2015 presidential election, in spite
of Buhari’s antecedents. Of all the people
they could form an alliance with, Buhari is
by far the least acceptable to the Yorubas.
In over 30 years of being a fixture of
Nigerian politics, Buhari has been
decidedly and unapologetically anti-
Yorubas and anti-South-West. It is a
matter of public record that Buhari has
never done anything for us. On the
contrary; he has done so many things
against us.
When he assumed power in 1984, he
established a 16 member Supreme
Military Council (SMC) to rule the
country. In spite of the fact that the
Yorubas are the largest ethnic group in
the country; larger according to every
statistical index than the Hausas and the
Fulanis; Buhari could only find room for
one solitary token Yoruba man: Brigadier
Ola Oni. Buhari’s SMC had 11 Northerners
to 5 Southerners.
Buhari locked up South-West politicians
like Bisi Onabanjo and Michael Ajasin
even though no case was found against
them. Even after they were discharged and
acquitted by the kangaroo courts he set
up, he still kept them locked up and
refused to release them. He pressured a
judge to jail Fela Anikulapo Kuti for
failing to declare foreign –exchange he
had legitimately procured for the up-keep
of his band on a foreign trip, while
allowing the Emir of Gwandu to smuggle
back into the country 53 suitcases during
the currency-change exercise.
He did not just brutalise Chief Awotesu
and his family. He did the same to Tai
Solarin, who was denied medication for
his asthmatic condition while in Buhari’s
gulag; Ayo Oyewumi, who became blind in
Buhari’s detention; and Busari Adelakun,
who died of chronic ulcer, complications
developed in Buhari’s jail. Buhari even
seized Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s passport
for no just cause, and thereby denied the
old man visits to his doctors at Mayo
Clinic, Rochester Minnesota, USA during
the years when he ruled Nigeria.
He frustrated Lagos’ attempt to build a
metro-rail system and, as PTF chairman,
he discriminated blatantly against the
South-West. It is pathetic that, rather
than insist he should apologise for these
and other infractions, the Yoruba
politicians that have decided to pitch their
tent with Buhari are now trying to pull the
wool over our eyes by trying to give him a
cosmetic political makeover. It is just not
going to wash.

By

Femi Aribisala.

www.vanguardngr.com/2015/01/time-disgrace-self-appointed-godfather-south-west/

FEW PICTURES OF MY NYSC CAMP ACTIVITIES.

A TRADITIONAL WEDDING IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA

Regarding the Boko Haram menace in the
north, the cleric further acknowledged
that it is a problem of the northern region
of the country and more specifically the
Muslim population. “Kanuris, Fulanis and
Hausas are the Boko Haram," Gumi told
SaharaTV. The government initially
thought it wass a northern problem, leave
them let them kill themselves.”
During this weekend’s SaharaTV
broadcast, which kicked off the platform's
2015 Nigerian presidential election
coverage, many of the most critical
discussions were centered around not
just the politics leading up to the contest,
but the incessant Boko Haram militancy
in the northern part of the country, a
violence that has seemingly intensified in
recent weeks.
Sheikh Ahmad Gumi, one of Nigeria’s top
Islamic clerics, known for his strong and
often controversial opinions, spoke to
Sahara TV at length about the insecurity
crisis and its effect on the political
landscape in Nigeria.
Recently, Gumi was quoted as saying that
he is not a politician and does not have
sympathy for any of the political parties,
but warns the two main presidential
candidates, President Jonathan and Gen.
Mohammadu Buhari (rtd) against
contesting in the presidential elections
this year.
Regarding the Boko Haram menace in the
north, the cleric further acknowledged
that it is a problem of the northern region
of the country and more specifically the
Muslim population. “Kanuris, Fulanis and
Hausas are the Boko Haram," Gumi told
SaharaTV. The government initially
thought it wass a northern problem, leave
them let them kill themselves.”
Gumi additionally suggested that
Muslims in the north sit down to tackle
the issue, supported by the government,
and the government supported by the
international community. “Coordination
between these three will lead to an end to
Boko Haram," he stated.
Also touching on the recent Charlie
Hebdo incident in France, which left
many writers and artists at the satirical
magazine dead, Gumi stated clearly that
the Qur’an does not support violence.
“Leniency beautifies everything and
violence tarnishes everything," he said,
quoting the Prophet Muhammed. “The
Qur’an does not encourage anyone to pick
arms and fight.”
Gumi however also said that people
should not hide behind freedom of speech
to condemn other people’s faith.

www.saharareporters.com/2015/01/19/kanuris-fulanis-and-hausas-are-boko-haramsheikh-ahmad-gumi

President Goodluck Jonathan
has rejected explanations by
the presidential candidate of
the All Progressives Congress,
APC, over concerns about his
qualification.
The PDP accuses Mr. Buhari
of not having requisite
secondary school certificate or
its equivalent to bid for
president.
Speaking to journalists on
Sunday, Mr. Buhari expressed
surprise at the growing
concern by the Mr. Jonathan’s
Peoples Democratic Party,
PDP, on the matter, saying he
was qualified the three times
he contested to be president.
“I have contested three times
under the same rules set by
INEC (Independent National
Electoral Commission) where
there is a basic educational
qualification you must have.”
The former military ruler was
quoted by Punch newspaper
as saying.
“I was allowed to contest all
these elections because my
certificate was in order and
there were individuals that
wrote to the United States
War College and the college
answered them and they were
published in the newspapers.”
He continued: “So, I really
don’t understand this
desperation or
misinformation that is being
passed around. They will do
nobody any good because our
minds are being taken away
from the serious issues of
corruption and incompetence
by the PDP.”
But in statement by his
campaign group Monday, Mr.
Jonathan said that Mr. Buhari
was allowed thrice to contest
elections does not imply he
was qualified.
Read the statement signed by
Femi Fani-Kayode, head of
Media of Mr. Jonathan’s
campaign organization.
It is disingenuous for Buhari
to say that he contested
previous elections and that the issue of his
qualifications did not arise. Had INEC not
complied with the Electoral Act this year,
which requires that they paste the
academic credentials of all the
Presidential candidates, Nigerians would
have remained ignorant of the fact that
Buhari has probably been submitting
affidavits for the past elections.
The fact that he got away with it in 2003,
2007 and 2011 does not make it right. The
minimum that Nigerians require from
Buhari is the presentation of his
secondary school certificate which enabled
him to gain admission into the Nigerian
Military College in 1962 and on which
basis he became a commissioned officer of
the Nigerian Army.
This forms the fulcrum for the subsequent
courses that he attended as he rose in the
Army, including the U.S. War College.
Failure to produce that school certificate
implies that Buhari’s entire career in the
Army was based on falsehood which
cannot stand. This brings to question the
admission system/policy into the Army in
the early 1960s.
Were the rules bent for certain individuals
in fulfilment of the quota system? Anyone
that reads General Alabi Isama’s book
which was published last year will know
that this was the case. In fact, Alabi Isama
went as far as to allege that some
Nigerians were admitted into the military
academy without the necessary
qualifications like school certificate.
We believe that Buhari was one of those
people and this is why he is unable to
produce his certificate. The truth is that
he was never qualified for entry into the
Military Academy in the first place and
consequently he should never have
become a commissioned officer let alone a
man that rose to the rank of General. At
best he ought to have remained a non-
commissioned officer.
As long as he cannot produce that
secondary school certificate, we believe
that he is not qualified to run for the
Presidency of Nigeria. This is a matter of
law and not sentiment. Buhari, just like
any other Nigerian, must be compelled to
abide by the law and he must prove his
eligibility for the Presidential election by
simply producing his secondary school
certificate.

www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/175241-buharis-qualification-jonathan-rejects-apc-candidates-explanation-demands-certificate.html

Without doubt,Ayodele fayose is on his way to kirikiri.

Suspected Boko Haram fighters have
abducted up to 80 people, many of them
children, in a deadly assault on villages
in northern Cameroon, officials say.
"According to our initial information,
around 30 adults, most of them herders,
and 50 young girls and boys aged
between 10 and 15 years were
abducted," a senior army officer
deployed to northern Cameroon told
news agency Reuters.
That would make it Boko Haram's
largest abduction in Cameroon to date.
The raid targeted a number of villages
near the border with Nigeria
Government spokesman Issa Tchiroma
Bakary confirmed that three people
were killed in the attack on Sunday,
which targeted the village of Mabass
and several others along the Nigerian
border.
He said soldiers had intervened and
exchanged fire with the assailants for
around two hours.
Video: Terror Group's Deadliest
Attack
He added that up to 80 houses were
destroyed.
The assault comes just days after
Amnesty International released
satellite images of "catastrophic"
Boko Haram attacks on two towns in
Nigeria.
It believes hundreds of people were
killed and that over 3,700 structures
were either damaged or destroyed in
the attacks in Baga and neighbouring
Doron Baga earlier this month.
Video: Dec: Girl Refuses To Detonate
Bomb
The campaign group said the pictures,
taken on 2 and 7 January, provided
"indisputable and shocking evidence" of
the scale of the assaults.
The Islamist organisation was also
responsible for the kidnap of more than
200 teenage girls from a school in the
northern Nigerian town of Chibok in
last April.
Boko Haram has been fighting a bloody
six-year insurgency to create an Islamic
state which has left thousands dead and
forced hundreds of thousands to flee
their homes.
Video: 27 Oct: Abducted Girls Speak
Out
Attacks are increasing in
frequency as Boko Haram continues
to seize territory in northern Nigeria,
and expands its insurgency across the
border.
Chadian troops began to arrive in
Cameroon in Sunday in order to help
repel the extremists' offensive.


www.news.sky.com/story/1410275/boko-haram-abducts-50-children-in-cameroon

Dear Louis van Gaal,
It was a very sense of relief for me especially after you resume as Manchester United new manager but your decision to be using a unfamiliar formation is giving me a lot of head ache.
In the game against QPR,We need to switch out of the the 3-5-2. The fact that there have been like 5 or so matches this season in which you start with 3-5-2 but was force to switch out of it because the team is playing bad in it speaks volume to how it needs to go.
I have seen a couple United fans defend the use of the 3-5-2, using your argument that it provides "balance" and better defense, and I wonder if these people are watching the matches. I'm not trying to bash anyone since we are all United fans but are you people defending this formation watching the team play? Balance? Is balance what you call playing almost everybody out of position? Rooney in midfield and Di Maria as striker is balance? Is balance using a formation that prevent you from using the players (Hererra, Shaw, Falcao) that you spent millions on? Is balance what you call using a formation that exploit all of our CBs weakness? A formation that is requiring the CBs to have the ball on their feet so much that in some matches they have more possession than our attackers isn't balance.
Also, the ideal that the formation provide better defense is unfounded. We have allow just about the same amount of goals this year as we allow under Moyes 4-4-2 last year and we have a worst goal differential right now. Also, anyone watching the matches know our defensive record is decieving. The only reason we haven't allow more goal is De Gea. He is on one of the best goalkeeping form ever. His form right is better than Van dar Ser when he set the record.
How many times have we seen one of our CBs turn the ball over because the 3-5-2 requires them
to have the ball on their feet and give the opposing player a goal scoring opportunity only to have De Gea come up with a big save? Uncountable. How many times have we seen our CBs been out of position in 3-5-2 formation because they don't know how to play in it only to be save by De Gea making a big save? Uncountable? Any balance or defense solidarity
that anyone think the 3-5-2 provide is perceived and far from reality.


Truly yours.
Odeyele Ayodeji.

Dear Louis van Gaal,
It was very sense of relief for me especially after you resume as Manchester United new manager but your decision to be using a unfamiliar formation is giving me a lot of head ache.
In the game against QPR,We need to switch out of the the 3-5-2. The fact that there have been like 5 or so matches this season in which you start with 3-5-2 but was force to switch out of it because the team is playing bad in it speaks volume to how it needs to go.
I have seen a couple United fans defend the use of the 3-5-2, using your argument that it provides "balance" and better defense, and I wonder if these people are watching the matches. I'm not trying to bash anyone since we are all United fans but are you people defending this formation watching the team play? Balance? Is balance what you call playing almost everybody out of position? Rooney in midfield and Di Maria as striker is balance? Is balance using a formation that prevent you from using the players (Hererra, Shaw, Falcao) that you spent millions on? Is balance what you call using a formation that exploit all of our CBs weakness? A formation that is requiring the CBs to have the ball on their feet so much that in some matches they have more possession than our attackers isn't balance.
Also, the ideal that the formation provide better defense is unfounded. We have allow just about the same amount of goals this year as we allow under Moyes 4-4-2 last year and we have a worst goal differential right now. Also, anyone watching the matches know our defensive record is decieving. The only reason we haven't allow more goal is De Gea. He is on one of the best goalkeeping form ever. His form right is better than Van dar Ser when he set the record.
How many times have we seen one of our CBs turn the ball over because the 3-5-2 requires them
to have the ball on their feet and give the opposing player a goal scoring opportunity only to have De Gea come up with a big save? Uncountable. How many times have we seen our CBs been out of position in 3-5-2 formation because they don't know how to play in it only to be save by De Gea making a big save? Uncountable? Any balance or defense solidarity
that anyone think the 3-5-2 provide is perceived and far from reality.


Truly yours.
Odeyele Ayodeji.

Pope Francis was moved to embrace a
tearful abandoned girl at a university in
Manila after she asked why God allows
children to become prostitutes.
Glyzelle Palomar wept as she asked the
Pope: “Many children get involved in
drugs and prostitution. Why does God
allow these things to happen to us? The
children are not guilty of anything.”
The pontiff, cementing his reputation as a
champion of the poor and oppressed,
took the 12-year-old in his arms to
comfort her.
He was so touched by the girl’s appeal
that he abandoned his pre-prepared
speech in English and instead responded
to the child in Spanish, his native
language.
Visibly moved, the Pope said: “She is the
only one who has put forward a question
for which there is no answer and she was
not even able to express it in words but
rather in tears.”
Calling on people to show compassion for
the marginalised, he continued: “I invite
each one of you to ask yourselves, 'Have I
learned how to weep, how to cry when I
see a hungry child, a child on the street
who uses drugs, a homeless child, an
abandoned child, an abused child, a child
that society uses as a slave'?”
The girl had been abandoned before
being sheltered by a church-run
community and was once homeless. She
had been welcoming the Pope to the
university, but broke down as she asked
her emotional question.
The religious leader was speaking at an
event at a Catholic university in the
Philippines’ capital, where 30,000 people
had crowded to see Francis.
Later, he said mass in Rizal Park, at the
end of a seven day tour of Asia, where
officials estimated more than 3,000,000
were in attendance. People had been
waiting through the night for the park
gates to open at dawn; nine hours before
the mass was due to begin.
Pope Francis was driven through the
throng of people in a modified
“popemobile” wearing a transparent
yellow poncho over his white papal
cassock and regularly stopped to kiss
children and bless religious statues.
In the Philippines it is thought that 1.2
million children live on the streets and
35.1 per cent of children were living in
poverty in 2009, the last year such
figures were collated, according to the
Child Protection Network Foundation.
The theme of compassion for the poor
was central to the Pope’s visit and he
attacked the “scandalous social
inequalities” in the Philippines.
The Catholic Church has grappled with a
number of scandals in recent years,
including the abuse of children by priests.
Pope Francis is attempting to move on
from this by modernising the church and
acting in a more conciliatory manner
than his predecessors.

www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/pope-francis-embraces-girl-after-she-asks-why-does-god-allow-children-to-become prostitutes-9985855.html?cmpid=facebook-post

Some people just can’t take criticism. We
mean they really, really can’t take
criticism. And when you’re a world
leader, you don’t have to.
When the king of Bahrain recently upped
the penalty for anyone found guilty of
“offending” him, it reminded us just how
many countries count defaming their
head of state a crime. It may be par for
the course in the United States, but in
dozens of nations around the world,
badmouthing your commander-in-chief
will earn you fines, imprisonment or even
a flogging.
Here are 11 countries where it's an
offense to offend, and one where it soon
might be. While there are many more
countries where insulting the leader is
illegal on the books, the laws aren't always
put into practice. Not so for the countries
below, which have all prosecuted
offending citizens in recent years.
1. Azerbaijan: Up to two years'
"corrective labor"
(Tofik Babayev/AFP/Getty Images)
These men are risking "a fine of 500 to
1,000 nominal financial units, or
corrective labor for up to two years, or
imprisonment for the same term" if the
Azerbaijaini authorities judge that this
poster of theirs is "humiliating" to the
honor and dignity of President Ilham
Aliyev. (No, we're not sure exactly what
"corrective labor" is either, but you can
bet you wouldn't enjoy it.) Even worse
news for them, given that they're
comparing him to Charlie Chaplin as
Adolf Hitler, is that "Where such acts are
connected to accusations of the
commission of a serious crime, these are
punishable by imprisonment from two to
five years."
2. Lebanon: Up to $66,400 in fines
(Jewel Samand/AFP/Getty Images)
Lebanon's laws forbid the publication of
material that "undermines the dignity of
the president of the republic," which is
punishable by a minimum of one month
and a maximum of two years in prison,
and/or a fine between 50 million and 100
million Lebanese pounds ($33,200-
$66,400). You might assume that
"publication" means the law applies only
to newspapers, and perhaps it did when
the code was written in 1977, but Lebanon
has decided its 30-something year old law
also extends to new media. Just last
month, for instance, a Lebanese web
developer was sentenced to two months in
prison for insulting President Michel
Sleiman on Twitter, when he tweeted that
the head of state was "politically
castrated."
3. Venezuela: Up to 40 months in
prison
(Leo Ramirez/AFP/Getty Images)
Under Venezuelan law, it's a crime to
offend, "in writing, speech or by any other
means" (interpretative dance?), the
elected or acting president. If you're found
guilty, you'll get six to 30 months'
imprisonment if the offense is considered
serious, and three to 15 months if it's
considered minor. Commit the offense in
public and you'll see your sentence upped
by one third. The legislation received
some controversial outings under the late
Hugo Chavez, who critics accused of
borrowing the Castro brothers' approach
to dissent in Cuba (where "contempt" of
almost any public official is a crime, and
insulting the president could earn you up
to three years in prison).
4. Poland: Up to three years in
prison
(Jewel Samand/AFP/Getty Images)
US President Barack Obama might want
to watch his tongue when he visits Polish
President Bronislaw Komorowski:
publicly insulting the Polish president is
punishable by up to three years in prison.
But the same warning goes for anyone
tempted to take a swing at Poland's
foreign guests. You see, the country's
penal code extends the same privilege to
any foreign head of state while he or she is
on Polish soil. So, for example, during a
state visit by Russian President Vladimir
Putin in 2005, Polish police arrested 28
protesters demonstrating against him. It
may not be the world's harshest insult
law, but it's certainly had one of the
weirdest applications: in 2006,
prosecutors reportedly charged a 45-year-
old man with "contempt for the office of
the head of state" after he, ahem, loudly
passed gas at the mention of Poland's
then-president.
5. Turkey: Up to four years in prison
(Ozan Kose/AFP/Getty Images)
Turkey has some pretty stringent insult
laws, and it isn't afraid to use them. The
penal code states that "a person who
defames the president of the republic shall
be imprisoned for a term of one to four
years," with the sentence to be increased
by a sixth if the offense is committed in
public. That goes even if the president has
been dead for 75 years: there's a special
law on crimes against Turkey's founding
father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which
states that "Anyone who publicly insults
or curses [his] memory... shall be
imprisoned with a sentence of between
one and three years."
6. The Netherlands: Up to five years
in prison
(Martijn Beekman/AFP/Getty Images)
That's right, even liberal little
Netherlands has laws to protect its rulers'
honor. Intentionally insulting the
monarch could earn you up to five years'
imprisonment or a fine, while the same
offense against the monarch's spouse, the
heir apparent, the heir apparent's spouse
or the regent carries up to four years
behind bars. And these laws don't just sit
gathering dust in the statute books, by the
way: in 2007, two people were arrested
for separately calling the then Queen
Beatrix a "LovePeddler," while in 2012 another
two individuals found themselves with
short prison sentences for making
statements judged offensive to her
dignity.
7. Cameroon: Up to $42,260 in fines
(Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images)
Several African countries have laws
against "sedition" (read: saying stuff your
ruler doesn't like) left over from times
colonial, and continue to make
enthusiastic use of them. We're singling
out Cameroon for the chilling reason that,
per the penal code, truth is not a defense.
In other words, all the bad things you're
saying about President Paul Biya may very
well be accurate; but that doesn't mean
they won't earn you one to five years
imprisonment and/or a fine of 20,000 to
20 million CFA francs ($42-$42,260).
And while there may be no specific law
against it, you definitely want to refrain
from saying too much about the
president's wife: one author who wrote a
book about the thrillingly-haired Chantal
Biya (pictured with her husband, above)
found himself sentenced in 2010 to two
years' imprisonment after insult charges
were filed against him by the
Cameroonian state.
8. Bahrain: Up to seven years in
prison
(Feng Li/Getty Images)
Time was, you could insult the emir of
Bahrain and get a simple jail term. It was
a crime, sure, but no minimum or
maximum punishment was set. As of last
month, anyone who publicly offends the
kingdom's monarch, flag or national
emblem is looking at "a punishment of
imprisonment for a period of no less than
one year and no more than seven years
and a fine of no less than 1,000 Bahraini
dinars [$2,650] and no more than 10,000
Bahraini dinars [$26,500]." Doing so in
the presence of King Hamad bin Isa Al
Khalifa himself, according to Bahrain's
official news agency, will be considered
"aggravated circumstances" and could
presumably lead to worse.
9. Kuwait: Permanent exile
(Yasser Al-Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images)
If Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah looks
shocked at what you just said, it's because
he's "immune and inviolable" and any
criticism of him is illegal. It says so right
there in the Kuwaiti constitution. If you're
found guilty of disregarding this precept
— and several people have been in recent
memory — you face up to five years in
prison and even, in one case in January
2014, permanent exile. Meanwhile any
publication that prints content
unfavorable to the emir, or even
attributes a quote to him without first
obtaining written authorization, is liable
for a fine of between 5,000 and 20,000
dinars (approximately $17,800-$71,100).
10. Thailand: Up to 15 years in
prison
(Ed Wray/Getty Images)
We have a feeling Kuwait's royal family
would get on rather well with Thailand's.
Just like the Kuwaiti emir, the Thai
monarch is inherently infallible: "The
King shall be enthroned in a position of
revered worship and shall not be
violated," states the country's
constitution. "No person shall expose the
King to any sort of accusation or action."
Anyone who forgets that, and dares
to defame, insult or threaten the king, his
queen, the heir apparent or the regent
"shall be punished with imprisonment of
three to 15 years." So says the criminal
code. In practical terms, any commentary
on the royal family that is less than
glowing can invite charges and lengthy
prison terms. According to a Supreme
Court ruling in 2013, the same
punishments apply to anyone found to be
insulting any Thai monarch, evxer, whether
they're alive to hear you or not.
11. Iran: 74 lashes
(Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)
Iran reserves its harshest penalty — death
— for those who insult the Prophet
Mohammed, but the punishment for
speaking ill of its political leaders is
hardly a slap on the wrist. More like
several slaps, on the back and with a whip.
According to the penal code: "Anyone who
insults any of the leaders of the three
branches of government, presidential
deputies, ministers, any of the members of
Parliament, or any ministry staff, or any
other state employees, due to their duties,
shall be punished by imprisonment of
three to six months, flogging (74 lashes)
or a fine." And you'd better believe they
mean it. Just ask Maziar Bahari, a
journalist for Newsweek who was
sentenced in May 2010 to 13 and a half
years in prison and 74 lashes for, among
other charges, insulting Iran's supreme
religious leader and its president. Bahari
had already left Iran and thus escaped his
sentence; not so Peyman Aref, an Iranian
student found guilty of writing an
"insulting" letter to then-President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in March 2010.
He was jailed for a year and, just hours
before his release, flogged 74 times.
12. Indonesia: Up to five years in
prison?
(Oli Scarff/Getty Images)
Let us be clear: you are now free to insult
the president of Indonesia with impunity.
(Or at least, no less impunity than for
insulting anyone else in Indonesia, which
isn't actually much impunity.) The article
in the criminal code that specifically
outlawed "intentional insult of the
president or vice president" — formerly
punishable by up to six years'
imprisonment — was declared
unconstitutional and abolished in 2006.
However, the government has proposed
revising the code yet again, including
restoring the ban on dissing the head of
state. If the draft is approved by
legislators, who are debating it right now,
an insult against President Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono could get you up to
five years in prison.
www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/politics/world-leaders/140310/insult-world-leader-crime-punishment

1.There shall be harvest of testimonies
for women looking for fruit of the womb.
2. President Obama needs serious
prayers for his health.
3. I see a woman becoming the
president of America, but her health
needs attention.
4. Britain needs prayers because of her
Queen.
5. I entered the house of former
president Shehu Shagari in the spirit and
I saw RIP; he needs prayers.
6. There shall be agricultural boom this
year.
7. I saw Catholic Reverend Fathers
getting married. I saw a group rising,
called “Old Catholic Church”, they were
on fire for God and caused a revolution.
8. Boko Haram is sponsored by two
people; one is a traditional ruler and the
other is a retired General.
9. Nollywood should stop nudity and
immoral content been shown because
God is not happy.
10. Bola Tinubu, Bode George and king
of Onitsha need prayers.
11. A great Pentecostal man of God
been called to glory. I wept.
12. I see president Goodluck Jonathan
coming back but troubles.
13. I saw people crying in the Oba of
Benin’s house.
14. Libyan election to be cancelled.
15. El Rufai should go and sit down. For
abusing Jesus, he will not win Kaduna
election.
16. Brigade Commander Aso rock should
be changed.
17. Buhari’s health needs attention.
18. Aminu Tambuwal, I saw him leading
Sokoto State.
19. Dangote will not have it smooth this
year; he will drop from Africa’s richest.
20. Patience Jonathan needs serious
prayers.
21. Egypt will have elections.
22. 2015 presidential election will be
rigged, marred in violence and end up in
court case.
23. Thank you Jesus! Finally a Christian
is now the governor of Lagos state.
24. A popular Abuja pastor needs
serious prayers. I saw mourning.
25. I saw the Naira falling greatly. It
became N200 (two hundred naira) to 1$
(a dollar).
26. I saw Cameroonian soldiers killing
Boko Haram soldiers.
27. Prophets who deceive people,
collects their properties, charge money,
will face great judgment this year.


www.dailypost.ng/2015/01/05/ostle-sulemans-2015-prophecies-general-election-another-june-12-buharis-health-needs-attention/

Remember all those hundreds of girls
kidnapped by Boko Haram, the Islamist
insurgents in Nigeria? Well, turns out
that seven months later, few of them
have been returned home. Many have
been married off to Boko Haram
fighters–in other words, into sex slavery.
How could this be, given all the outrage
that the kidnapping occasioned?
Remember the #BringOurGirlsBack
hashtag campaign? Even Michelle
Obama got into the act.
But now few of those who patted
themselves on the back for their social
conscience in tweeting remember
anymore whether their tweets achieved
any effect–and most, one suspects, have
moved onto other causes (though not,
for some reason, to the slaughter in
Syria, which claimed another 76,000
victims last year). It turns out that–
surprise, surprise–the sword remains
mightier than the tweet.
More significant than the fact that the
tweet campaign has fallen short–did
anyone over the age of 14 ever imagine
that it would succeed?–is the fact that
military assistance provided by the U.S.
Africa Command to the Nigerian forces
has also fallen short. The drones have
now been withdrawn amid mutual
recriminations between the U.S. and
Nigeria, as recounted in this New York
Times article.
U.S. officials blame the Nigerian military
for being brutal and corrupt and
ineffective. The Nigerians complain that
they haven’t received heavy enough
weapons from the U.S. Nigeria’s
ambassador to the U.S., speaking at the
Council on Foreign Relations (where I
work), recently said, “There is no use
giving us the type of support that
enables us to deliver light jabs to the
terrorists when what we need to give
them is the killer punch.”
Needless to say, the U.S. military
representatives, schooled in a decade of
hard counterinsurgency in Iraq and
Afghanistan, have the better end of this
argument. Heavy weaponry will only
make the situation worse if it enables
the Nigerian military to kill more
innocent civilians, thus leading their
friends and relatives to flock to Boko
Haram for protection and revenge. The
key to success is cleaning up the military
and improving its relations with civilians.
That is true not only in Nigeria but in
other countries–Iraq comes to mind–
where insurgencies have had a field day
recently.
Alas, American leverage to change
indigenous military forces in a place like
Nigeria is limited. The U.S. actually had
more leverage in Iraq when there were
still tens of thousands of U.S. troops in
the country but when President Obama
pulled the troops out, our leverage
disappeared–and so did the combat
effectiveness of the Iraqi military. Now it
must be rebuilt if Mosul and other towns
taken by ISIS are ever to be retaken.
There is no easy solution here. The U.S.
must continue to use what influence it
has in places like Nigeria to push for
military transformation–not in a high-
tech direction but rather in the direction
of more accountable, less corrupt forces.
If Nigeria’s leaders knew what was good
for them, they would undertake this
transformation themselves, but of
course as in many other countries they
are so invested in a corrupt power
structure that few of them have the will
or the means to reform it.
At the end of the day Nigeria needs
nation-building starting with the army.
Until Nigerian leaders wake up to this
need, Boko Haram will go from strength
to strength.
www.commentarymagazine.com/2015/01/02/boko-haram-and-the-need-for-nigerian-military-reform/

The director of public relations of the
Nigerian Army, Brigadier Olaleye Lajide,
has dismissed reports in the Nigerian
media claiming that the army could not
find academic records of General
Muhammadu Buhari (ret.), the
presidential candidate of the All
Progressives Congress (APC). Brigadier
Lajide described the reports as false.
Major General Muhammadu Buhari
in military uniform
The military spokesman made the
disclosure while responding to a text
message from SaharaReporters seeking
clarification about the status of Mr.
Buhari’s records. Brigadier Lajide
affirmed that the Nigerian Army is in
possession of all records of serving,
retired and deceased officers since its
inception. He added, however, that all
military officers are supposed to keep
original copies of their certificates.
According to him, in the event where an
officer loses his or her original copy of
records, the concerned officer must
officially apply for copies from the army.
He stated that the army responds to
such requests in an expeditious
manner.
Brigadier Lajide told our correspondent
that he was a former director of records
at the Nigerian Army headquarters and
had seen records of older and retired
generals. He added that he was in no
doubt that General Buhari’s records
were intact.
Brigadier Olaleye insisted that the claim
in a major Nigerian newspaper, that the
army could not locate Mr. Buhari’s
record was untrue.
www.saharareporters.com/2015/01/03/nigerian-army-has-buharis-academic-records-he-needs-apply

2/3 of them are from western part of Nigeria...u can't just neglect the brilliance of the Yorubas.

Please does anybody has Info about Uniabuja Post graduate programme for 2015.

By Femi Aribisala

The armed robber takes your money from you with a gun in his hand: the pastor takes your money by brandishing a bible.

Jesus berated the mercenary religious leaders of biblical days. He told them: “‘It is written, my house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Matthew 21:13).

This word remains pertinent to pastors in the churches of today. They come up with all kinds of schemes designed to squeeze money out of their church-members. They search the scriptures, looking for quotable quotes that can be used to make merchandise of men. Some of their favourites are those scriptures dealing with giving first-fruits to priests.


Fleecing the flock

Those months with names ending with “ember” in English are sometimes referred to as the “ember” months. These include September, October, November and December. Strictly-speaking, October does not fit this bill; otherwise it would have been called “Octoember.” Nevertheless, it is conventional also to include it as one of the “ember” months.

In these months, there is a definite change of emphasis in the messages preached by pastors in many of today’s new generation churches. If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed this already. In the “ember” months, pastors start to talk repeatedly about the need to give “first-fruits;” laying down the foundation for a major robbery routinely planned for January.

In the Old Testament, first-fruits were required to be given to priests. Ezekiel says: “The best of all the first-fruits and of all your special gifts will belong to the priests.” (Ezekiel 44:30). This scripture is seized on by today’s money-grubbing pastors who now insist that the “first-fruits” of all the members of their congregation must be handed over to them.

This is disingenuous because, in the New Testament, there is actually no longer an exclusive priesthood. Instead, Jesus has made all believers: “kings and priests to our God.” (Revelation 5:10). But this fact is conveniently ignored by today’s first-fruits collectors.
First-fruits were given to priests because they were not allowed to own landed-property in Israel. God said: “I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; I will be their possession.” (Ezekiel 44:28-29).

However, the pastors of today are men of means and property owners. In no way whatsoever do they fit the bill of a people without inheritance who only have God as their possession. Indeed, some of today’s mega-pastors are multi-millionaires who drive around with bodyguards in a cortege of Jeeps and even fly around in private jets.


Fruits of money

As the word indicates, first-fruits were strictly-speaking agricultural produce. Moses says: “The first of the first-fruits of your land you shall bring into the house of the LORD your God.” (Exodus 23:19). This shows first-fruits were crops. Indeed, money was never regarded as first-fruit in the bible; neither was it ever paid as such.

However, today’s pastors would not find it funny if you were to bring your first-fruits to them in bananas or pineapples. First-fruits are now only acceptable in cash or cheque. If you ask why, don’t be surprised if you are told that: “Money is the answer to everything.” (Ecclesiastes 10:19).

Scripturally, first-fruits were only required from Jews living in Israel because God gave them their land. First-fruits were inapplicable to Israelites living in foreign lands. This also means first-fruits are inapplicable to today’s Christians who are mostly non-Israelis and do not live in Israel. Nevertheless, pastors hoodwink Christians by claiming there are special blessings attendant upon giving first-fruits to pastors anywhere.

In biblical days, first-fruits were not required from those in non-agrarian trades, such as carpenters or fishermen because these professions were not tied to the land. However, today’s opportunist pastors collect first-fruits from anybody and everybody.

It should be clear from the foregoing therefore that pastors who insist on collecting first-fruits in the churches of today are nothing but thieves and robbers. The armed robber takes your money from you with a gun in his hand: the pastor takes your money by brandishing a bible.


Bonanza

It used to be the case that first-fruits were defined as a Christian’s first salary after leaving school and securing gainful employment. But some pastors quickly realised that this only gives them the right to a Christian’s salary once in a lifetime. Therefore, this soon became inadequate, leading to more ingenious and more financially lucrative biblical “revelations” about first-fruits.

Many pastors now insist that since the January salary is the first in the year, it legally falls under the definition of first-fruits. Therefore, they now require that all church-goers hand over to them their entire January salaries in the name of first-fruits. This makes the first-fruits boon far more profitable than the tithe; which is just a tenth of the Christian’s salary. Moreover, the tithe is nominally given to “the church.” The “first-fruits” is a far more rewarding scam because the money is specifically addressed to the pastor.

If this “godliness” is taught effectively, a pastor can make a bundle of money at the beginning of every year. Just do the maths. Imagine a situation where the pastor gets the January salary of every single member of his congregation. Depending on the size of his church, he can get in one bonanza enough money to last him a lifetime. Is it any wonder, therefore, that pastors are very zealous in preaching about first-fruits in the “ember” months?

Many even refuse to be limited to their churches. Turn onto Christian television such as the Trinity Broadcasting Network in the “ember” months, and you are likely to find Paula White or Steve Munsey extolling the blessings of giving first-fruits. Of course, the first-fruits must be sent to them and to no one else.


Comeuppance

In one of Nigeria’s big churches with a large branch-network, the pastors were making a killing collecting first-fruits. But one of them used the money to put up a church building. This went a long way to endear him to his congregants. Other pastors who had nothing to show for the first-fruits they collected became concerned that the pastor would soon bring them into disrepute. So they decided to take “appropriate” action.

They reported him to the General Overseer of the church. His transgression was that he put up an entire church building single-handedly. So doing, they claimed, he prevented others from getting blessed by not taking contributions from them. The General Overseer wondered where he got the money to erect the entire building by himself. So they told him the money came from the first-fruits he collected from his church-members.

The General Overseer became even more curious. Just how much first-fruit were these pastors collecting? He was astonished to discover the sums involved. It was unacceptable that such lucrative business was taking place in his churches without due recognition for his position. Therefore, he fired a memo to all his parishes: henceforth, all first-fruits must be forwarded intact to headquarters.
However, his memo backfired. Thereafter, his subordinate pastors noticeably lost all interest in collecting first-fruits. “Let everybody shout hallelujah.”

“They are greedy dogs which never have enough. And they are pastors who cannot understand; they all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own territory.” (Isaiah 56:11).

Source: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/pastors-planning-major-robbery-churches-january/

Tomisin, 24, was posted to Giade Local
Government Area of Bauchi State by the
National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) for
his primary assignment after the
orientation exercise at Wailo Camp in
September 2011.
Tomisin,was an indigene of Osun State, he
was among the 200 other corps members
recruited as electoral officers by the
Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) to cover the 20
Local Government areas in the state. As it
turned out eventually, those of them
posted to the northern parts of Bauchi
State like Katagum, Darazo, Giade,
Dambam Jammare became the biggest
casualties of the senseless riots that
trailed the presidential polls as many of
them were attacked and killed.
According to an oral source,The Batch C,
2010 corps member ran to the police
station in Giade to seek refuge as their
lodge in Giade was attacked. The rioters
attacked the station and overpowered the
policemen on duty before setting the
station on fire. They brought out Tomisin,
a graduate of Computer Science from the
University of Ilorin and about six other
corps members and killed them. Another
account also said that the female corps
members among them were allegedly
raped.
The discovery was corroborated by one of
the rape suspects arrested by the Bauchi
State Police Command and paraded
among the 67 other suspects by the
Commissioner of Police posted to the
state for the general election, according to
an oral account, Tomisin was preparing a
meal of beans when the attackers stormed
the Corpers’ lodge that Sunday afternoon.
“They were carrying big sticks, machetes
and chanting Sai Buhari, Sai CPC,” one of
the corps members who were rescued by
the police said.
But Tomisin and six of his colleagues
made for the police station to escape
being lynched.
The deceased friend who pleaded
anonymity said: “I spoke with him that
morning and asked him to come to Bauchi
to spend the weekend with me. He usually
came to Bauchi to spend the weekend with
me. I asked him to come to Bauchi as
usual. I waited for his call but he did not
call which was unusual. I tried his number
but I could not reach him.
“I went to ECWA church in Bauchi to see a
friend when another friend now called me
to inform me that Tomisin had been killed
in Giade. It was like a joke to me. I was
told that he was at home at the lodge
cooking beans when the mob attacked
them and he ran to the police station. The
policemen tried to disperse the mob but
they refused.
They even fired tear gas at them but they
did not run. They now set the place on fire
and killed Tomisin and the other corps
member.
He described the death of his colleague as
shocking. He said: “We met in camp last
September and became friends. He was a
very lively person. Our last discussion was
that he was coming to Bauchi. His dad was
even trying to get him a job at NNPC.
He also told me that he wanted to go for
his post graduate degree after the
service.”
Tomisin’s friend said he was posted to
both Giade and Bauchi, the state capital as
an electoral officer. “I was surprised to see
two postings in my name so I settled for
Bauchi since it was nearer and it is the
capital. I never knew that it would become
a killing field.”
Tomisin’s friend said that the parents
were devastated by the news.
“I can say that the NYSC is a good scheme
but the implementation is very bad. Corps
members are just posted to places to
serve but there is, in most cases, no
careful plan for their welfare and security.
It is very sad. As for me, I am through
with the service. I am not going back to
Bauchi for now. I will only go to that state
to collect my redeployment letter or
certificate.”
Remove Hairdress””
May your soul rest in peace.
Adieu Tomi”’

Priceless24:
Stale fake gist

U can search online for other sources.

Pope Francis shocked the Catholic world
today announcing that he plans on
stepping down from his position. Papal
Resignation is extremely rare, and this
will only be the 7th time in the history of
the church. Pope Francis made his
announcement from his balcony in
Vatican City to thousand of shocked
spectators.
“I have come to the conclusion there is no
God,” said Pope Francis, a man who has
become known for his unorthodox views
on the Catholic church. “I have dedicated
my life to the church. Clearly, so many
wasted years of unanswered prayers. I can
no longer in good faith head the church
anymore, as whatever spirit that had filled
my heart is gone.”
A shocked crowd of onlookers became
extremely quiet as the Pontiff continued,
many of whom openly wept.
“I will stay on long enough for another
Pope to be chosen, of course. I know many
of you will be upset, but please be happy
for me and my new life. I plan on spending
my remaining years traveling, maybe
finding a good woman and settling down.
Hell, maybe even a good man. Who
knows? It’s a new day, and I solemnly
believe that everyone should choose to
live their life the way they want. I wish
you all the best and don’t let my decision
stop you from believing in an imaginary
God, if that’s what you want to do.”
”Pope Francis’ decision comes as no
surprise to Vatican insiders, his hard-line
stance on altar boy molestation, his
generosity to the poor, and his blessing of
gay marriage have made unpopular among
priests of the church,” says Vatican
reporter Francesco Rinaldi. “Some say the
Pope was being blackmailed to step down
by Church officials. Whatever the reason,
most look forward to his departure so the
Church can get back to business as usual –
hating gays and bashing sinners.”

www.empirenews.net/pope-francis-stepping-down-says-there-is-no-god/

www.thedailybanter.com/2014/10/pope-francis-basically-just-admitted-may-not-god/

Are you just married and you want to do your change of name in the Nigeria newspaper.Kindly contact me via this phone number 08067973773 .its just a token of Price.

Nigeria will now have 54 states as against
the present 36 states should President
Goodluck Jonathan implement the
recommendation of the National
Conference contained in the final report
submitted to the President last week.
According to the recommendation on
creation of additional states, “Alteration
of section 3 Section 3 of the principal Act
is altered – (a) by replacing the existing
subsection (1) with the following as new
subsection (1) -”(1) There shall be fifty-
four states in Nigeria, that is to say, Aba,
Abia, Adada, Adamawa, Akwa Ibom,
Amana, Anarribra, Anioma, Apa, Bauchi,
Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Delta,
Ebonyi, Edo, Edu, Piciti, Enugu, Etiti,
Ghari, Gombe, Gurara, Ijebu, Imo, Jigawa,
Kaduna, Kainji, Kano, Katagum, Katsina,
Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa,
New Oyo, Njaba-Anim, Niger, Ogoja,
Ogun, Oil Rivers, Ondo, Ose, Osun, Oyo,
Plateau, Rivers, Savannah, Sokoto,
Taraba, Yobe and Zamfara,” and (b) by
deleting subsections) (2) and (6); and ( c)
in subsection (3) by replacing the word
“third” with the word “second.”
The long standing agitation for the
creation of a mayoral status for the
Federal Capital City was approved, just as
additional two area councils were
approved for the FCT in addition to the
existing six area councils with strong
warning that all compensations be paid.
The conference also resolved that the
Minister of Finance, not the President will
now present the annual budget to the
National Assembly, even as it threw out
recommendation for a unicameral
legislature and voted that the bi-cameral
legislature be maintained.
The report also stated that public schools
taken over by various state governments
across the country 42 years ago would
henceforth be returned to the religious
missions which were the original owners.
The conference further voted in favour of
Modified Presidential System of
Government as recommended by the
committee; described as “home-made
model of government that combines the
attributes of parliamentary and
presidential systems.” The concept has the
potentials of entrenching the principle of
separation of powers as practised in
presidential system and promotion of co-
operation and harmony between executive
and the legislature as operated under the
parliamentary system.
The President elected under the new
system shall exercise full responsibility
for his government and shall select
ministers, not more than 18 of them, from
the six geo-political zones of the country,
and in the modified presidential system
the president shall pick the vice president
from the legislature.
On local government administration, the
conference also voted that states should
own their own constitutions while the
functions of local governments as
contained in schedule 4 of the 1999
constitution (as amended) has been
transferred to the states subject to the
power of the state Houses of Assembly to
add or reduce the said functions of the
local governments.
Conference also voted against the local
government as a different tier of
government, saying that the House of
Assembly of a state may confer other
functions on local government and agreed
that the constitution shall fix the tenures
for local government councils.
Delegates approved the scrapping of joint
state and local government accounts; to be
replaced with a State Revenue
Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal
Commission, adding that the body would
be expected to have as members,
representatives of local government areas
and a chairman nominated by the state
governor for confirmation by the state
House of Assembly.
In addition to the functions conferred on
the local government councils as specified
in the Fourth Schedule of the 1999
Constitution as amended, a state House of
Assembly may by law, confer other
functions on the local government.
Henceforth, and except otherwise
overturned, conference also conferred
financial autonomy on state Houses of
Assembly as a way of freeing them from
direct control by the executive and voted
that for functionality, local government
should be politically and economically
independent.
The report recommended that there
should be complete abolition of the
concept of plea bargain by accused public
functionaries and also agreed for the
establishment of special courts, for
instance, anti-corruption courts to handle
cases involving corrupt practices.
Also in the report, henceforth, anybody
arraigned before the court by EFCC, ICPC
and by any law enforcement agencies, the
accused person is regarded as guilty,
unlike the present situation where he is
regarded as innocent until the accused is
proven not guilty. Now he is regarded as
guilty until he proves himself innocent.
The issue of state police as controversial
as it appeared, a decision was taken that
those who want it should go and have
state police, but those who do not want it,
the recommendation of the conference
was that the present status of the Nigerian
police should remain. But from ASP
downwards should be indigenes of every
state and that on its own, is like state
police.
Churches and mosques
Henceforth, there will be no sponsoring of
both Christian and Muslim pilgrimages to
the holy lands and that churches and
mosques will now pay tax to the Federal
Government.
It was also agreed that payment of
pension, severance, life insurance for
legislators at all levels be cancelled and
according to the delegates, same would
apply to governors and their deputies, just
as lawmakers, governors and their
deputies will now receive salaries and
allowances commensurate to the functions
they perform.
Henceforth, civil servants, who engage in
contract for pecuniary gains, will be
dismissed from service, just as there was
the retention of status quo of retirement
age of 60 for workers in public service.
There was also succour for people living
with disabilities as delegates voted that
governments at all levels should grant
allowances to them which will be
equivalent of government workers on
grade level 06 as that would enable them
employ the services of private aides to
assist them in carrying out some private
and domestic activities.
Also contained in the report is sharing of
funds to the Federation Account among
the three tiers of government should be:
Federal Government (42.5 per cent), State
governments (35 per cent) and Local
governments (22.5 per cent).
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/confab-recommends-54-states-nigeria/

FAWOLE JOHN OYEYEMI: ONE OF NIGERIA MODERN ARCHETYPE OF THE GAME OF CHESS IN NIGERIA.


The game of chess unlike football is still very much unpopular in Nigeria, this game is basically for the intellectual and although it’s not a team game, in recent time has compared it with boxing and wrestling. It is indisputable that there is a strong psychology behind the game. Which revolves around the player ability to analyze his or her opponents’ style of play, strengths and weaknesses and resolve to conceal one’s emotions. Chess games often played under pressure with a blend of emotional manipulation. If a player display too much confidence or, conversely, a flicker of insecurity, it could give his opponent the ammunition needed to plot his downfall. Players use these loopholes as openings to psych each other out. Preparation for this kind of pressure takes shape in two different ways. In order to get ready for a particular opponent one must study their previous games intently, looking for strengths and weakness. On the other hand, games can also last for up five or six hours in one sitting and as a player one needs to prepare his or herself physically to be able to concentrate for that length of time. One must also develop sitting stamina with a combination of swimming and running training. This routine helps to withstand the emotional and mental pressure that characterized this competitive game.

Internationally the game of chess has been popularized by many icons that rose from different part of the world among such is Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov, Gary Kasparov, Maurice Ashley and of course the World Champion- Magnus Carlsen just to mention but few.

In Nigeria, there are very few people who have the interest of chess at hand and also there are few who are following the game of chess though many have also contributed their own quota to the game of chess and among such people are International Master Bunmi Olape, International Master Aikhoje Odion, Candidate Master Bomo Kigigha, Fawole John Oyeyemi, who has contributed and of course still much in the game.

Fawole John Oyeyemi was born in the ancient city of Ile-Ife in Osun State, Oyeyemi was introduced to the game of chess in 1998 by his secondary school collogues who taught him the basics of chess. With this Oyeyemi developed interest and thought it wise to go further and study the game, this led him to get for himself more knowledge by reading books about chess.

It’s worth to mention that Oyeyemi parent were his first sponsor, at first they needed him to set his priority right and according to Oyeyemi its was very difficult combining chess with academics but he did ,Oyeyemi has a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from University of Abuja.


Oyeyemi since 1999 have had serious results and achievements in his chess career, making him one of the few celebrated Nigeria chess players. In 2002, He won the Opens II category of the NBL Chess Championship in Lagos. The following year, He became the National Junior Chess Champion by winning the Augusto & Co under 20 Chess Championship. Following this achievement in 2003, he started playing in the (Masters Category) highest level in Nigerian Chess. Oyeyemi came 1st Position in the 26th NBL Open Lagos 2002, 1st Position, Augusto & Co U- 20 Junior Championship Lagos 2003,he won Gold Medal at NUGA University of port Harcourt 2004, Silver Medal NUGA University of port Harcourt 2004 ,he came 1st Position in 9th Friends of Chess Asaba, Delta State 2005,he was also a Qualifier of World Junior Chess Championship, Istanbul, Turkey 2005 in the same year he also won a Gold Medal in Lagos state Sports Festival, in 2006 Oyeyemi won Silver Medal in National Sports festival, Gateway games, Ogun state, he was a Gold Medalistin West African Polytechnic Games , Yaba 2007 In the same year Oyeyemi won Gold medal in the Nigeria University Games (NUGA) UNIMAID 2007,also in 2007 Oyeyemi won the Blitz Silver Medal in West African polytechnic Games, Yaba and he was a Qualifier to National Camp of the All African Games, Kaduna and Abuja in 2007& 2011 respectively. Oyeyemi went further and won a Silver Medal in West African Polytechnic Games Yamoussoukro, Cote de Voire in 2008. Oyeyemi did not stop winning medals, In 2009 he won Bronze medal in the National Sports festival, KADA Games, Kaduna . he came 1st position in the Abuja Friends of Chess, Abuja 2010,also 1st position, University of Abuja Chess championship 2010, 1st position, Gambit chess club, Makurdi, Benue 2010, He Coached Federal University of technology, Minna to NUGA, UNIBEN 2010 and won a Bronze Medal for FUTMINNA on board 4,he has also Captained University of Abuja Chess team in 2010

Fawole john Oyeyemi Drew England’s (GM NIGEL SHORT) Number one in a simultaneous game 2011, he continue his winning form in 2012 and won Gold medal at West African University Games (WAUG) ILORIN, in the year 2012 he also won, 1st position at the Gaminer Chess tournament, Abuja and 1st position, Zalika Chess tournament, Abuja. In the year 2013 he won himself 1st position in July Chess Heights Congress, UNILAG, Lagos and reclaimed his 1st position in Zalika Chess tournament, Abuja and 1st position, 1st Nook Rapid Chess tournament, Abuja and also1st Position NBL Chess Championship, Lagos 2013 by the year 2014 he won 1st Position, Trade wise Gibraltar Chess Festival, Gibraltar and 1st position, FIDE Congress, Surrey, United Kingdom and e2e4 West Brom Congress Uk. There are no icons in the game of chess that haven’t lost and according to Oyeyemi he said and I quote

“I have lost counts of tournaments I participated in since I started playing competitively in 1999. I have won over fifty tournaments, big and small. This year, I participated and won 3 tournaments in Europe, played a total of 18 games, won 14, drew one and lost 3.”


Candidate Master Fawole john Oyeyemi was the former National chess champion and has a FIDE (World Chess Federation) rating of 2214. He has the National Chess titles of National Champion, National Master, National Instructor and National Junior Champion. He is the Chief Executive Director, Bruvs Chess Academy, a Chess organization that teaches chess as a school program to schools.Having won numerous awards Fawole John Oyeyemi still has the mission to become the first Chess Grandmaster in Nigeria and West African because according to him, Africa has yielded only seven Grandmasters thus far; from Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.

THE WORLD STRONGEST FOOTBALLER NEVER PLAYED FOR NIGERIA.

Without doubt, Nigeria has had affiliates in various part of the world in the world of Football.Nigerians has graced the English Football than any Africa countries.But there are few of these Nigerians who have enjoyed good time with Nigeria football team.
There are very few Nigerians who are not familiar with the English football leagues and many know who Adebayo Akinfenwa is.
Born Saheed Adebayo Akinfenwa (in 10 May 1982), known as Adebayo Akinfenwa,he has spent his entire career in the lower leagues of English football but has still achieved global fame, thanks to a computer game.
According to the makers of the top-selling football franchise, Fifa, Akinfenwa is the strongest player in the world, a title he is proud to accept. The 32-year-old forward has never been
considered a natural footballer , numerous rugby clubs and American universities looking for gridiron converts have asked him to switch sports because of his size and power.
But Akinfenwa has only ever been interested in football and admits there have been times when he has been irritated by the focus on his physique. Standing at just 5ft 11in, Akinfenwa
weighs more than 16 stone.
Many has been wondering why Akinfenwa never played for his Father Home country Nigeria while at the same time has never gotten a call up from England too,the land of his birth.
I recently contacted Akinfenwa on his Twitter account ,his answer was very simple.

Akinfenwa Like Shola Ameobi both share the same Football History but Shola got the opportunity,while at the age of 32 Akinfenwa has been overlooked by Nigeria coaches.
With his scoring record though for league two teams,What do one think can be the cause why Akinfewa was not called up into Nigeria football team?

Desmond Elliot Wins APC Primary
Ticket to Contest for Lagos House of
Assembly; Dayo Adeneye, Kenny St.
Brown & more Lose Out


Desmond Elliot has reportedly emerged
the candidate of the All Progressives
Congress (APC) for the Lagos State House
of Assembly election in 2015 after the
APC primaries were carried out this
afternoon.
Desmond Elliot won over Kabiru Lawal.
Also this afternoon it was announced that
other entertainers Kenny Saint Brown
and Dayo Adeneye lost out in their
respective constituencies.
Kenny Saint Best lost out to Lai
Mohammed‘s son, Folajimi Lai
Mohammed for the Ikeja constituency
while Dayo Adeneye lost out to
Governor Amosun’s former SA on
Education for the APC Odogbolu House of
Assembly ticket.
There is no word yet on how entertainers
9ice, Tony Tetuila and others fared.


www.bellanaija.com/2014/12/02/desmond-elliot-wins-apc-primary-ticket-to-contest-for-lagos-house-of-assembly-dayo-adeneye-kenny-st-brown-more-lose-out/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

http://abusidiqu.com/open-letter-to-ban-ki-moon-in-the-face-of-boko-haram-activitiesby-odeyele-ayodeji-joseph/

September 17, 2014.


UN Secretary General,

The Hon. Ban Ki-Moon,
United Nations Headquarters,
New York, NY 10017.



Dear Sir,

It is with sadness and utmost disappointment that I write this open letter to you, in the name of millions of Nigerians and I’m hoping that this letter gets to you and that you will use your kind office to act now on the situation in Nigeria.

It is a regrettable development that in this 21st Century, a Country like Nigeria, is confronted with an internal disorder and the world is watching while the nation is collapsing.

The bombings and kidnapping that are now rampant in Nigeria, is not just a crime plaguing Nigerians alone but it is a crime on Human Kind as a whole.

It is worth mentioning that as a student of International Studies, I am fully aware that Article 2 (7) of the UN charter states that ‘the United Nations has no authority to intervene in matters which are within the Domestic Jurisdiction of any State’; but with lessons from Rwanda, dire Human Rights violations that call for Humanitarian intervention continue to occur around the world, but with little or no response from the International Community. The situations that readily come to mind include the crises in the Darfur region of Sudan, Syria, South Sudan (the Bentiu massacre), Central African Republic, the ever festering DRC, and, to some extent, Ukraine and now Nigeria. The humanitarian situations in these conflict zones mandate intervention by the United Nations, but the organization, though in sight, is not doing much other than condemning; as rightly said by Emmanuel Ogebe the Human Rights Lawyer,

“a slow international response contributed to the rise of what is now “the second deadliest terror group in the world” after the Taliban.”

In the face of all the attacks, there are ways or methods by which the United Nations Organization (UNO) can intervene and save Nigeria from collapsing. One of the most important would be for the Security Council’s permanent members to transcend their narrow national interests and, in fact, do away with the obsession with state sovereignty. One can only hope that this would happen, particularly because UN Security Council permanent members like China and Russia have continued to exhibit obdurate behaviour in addressing conflict zones like Syria and the Iranian nuclear program crisis. Any nation that fails in its obligation to uphold International Law, particularly the protection of human lives, loses its right to sovereignty, political independence, and territorial inviolability. Thus, state sovereignty should be discarded in favour of human rights and humanitarian principles.

To that end, the advice one would give the Security Council is that it should make the threshold for humanitarian intervention more explicit. State sovereignty should no longer be a barrier to humanitarian intervention because any claim to sovereignty that is not consistent with the protection of fundamental humanitarian principles should be null and void. As such, the Security Council should mandate an unambiguous enforcement action under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. As laid out in Article 43 and Article 45, this would require the Security Council to make a special agreement on such issues as “armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage.” The members of the Security Council should therefore seek to design an agreement that lays out the elements of this enforcement action with an explicit threshold for humanitarian intervention, and set limits to prevent this humanitarian intervention from becoming a regime change.

We in Nigeria humbly plead, that you use your kind office as the Secretary General and Executive Head of the UN, to immediately establish inquiry with a view to thoroughly investigating the menace of Boko Haram and ensuring that the perpetrators and those backing them up bear the consequences of their actions by being made to face the full wrath of the Law..

We look forward to your favourable consideration.

Yours Faithfully,

Odeyele, Ayodeji Joseph

Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state is
under heavy attack by suspected Boko
Haram terrorists who, according to
fleeing residents, may have surrounded
the town.
Explosions and gunshots are being heard
in some parts of the Yobe State capital.
A resident of Damaturu, Yaya Haruna,
told PREMIUM TIMES that the shooting
started at about 6a.m.
“It is as if they have surrounded us all
here; there is sound of explosion and
serious shooting. We are all lying down on
the floor with our families ; please pray
for our safety, that we survive this… ”
“We are in serious confusion now, we are
just hearing gunshots and explosions on
the southern part of the city and people
are fleeing”, said another embattled
resident, Malam Abdulmalik.
The resident said he was woken by loud
sounds of gunshots and explosions which
started at about 6am.
An official of the SSS in Maiduguri, who
usually doesn’t want to be named in the
media, confirmed in a text message sent to
our reporter that “Damaturu may be
under attack now”.
Damaturu is 135 km West of Maiduguri,
Borno State capital.
www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/172156-breaking-damaturu-heavy-boko-haram-attack.html

www.premiumtimesng.com/news/more-news/172130-oau-visit-afenifere-berates-jonathan.html


The Afenifere Renewal Group, ARG, has
said President Jonathan’s attempt to woo
Yoruba nation for the support of his re-
election is already too late in the day.
The group, in a statement by its Publicity
Secretary, Kunle Famoriyo, described the
“Yoruba Progress Summit” which held
last Friday as an afterthought and a futile
effort to sneak the President into Yoruba
land through the backdoor.
“For the past five years under his
administration, Yoruba people have been
deliberately marginalized and skewed out
of national reckoning, especially in terms
of key appointments and opportunity to
partake in key sectors of the economy,”
the statement said.
“We are surprised that President
Jonathan believes the position of the
Speaker, over which he has no control, is
enough to atone for the deliberate
marginalization in key appointments, over
which he has control.”
“In any case, we do not need a ‘Progress
Summit’ in Yoruba land. We already have
a progressive culture based on democratic
and egalitarian values. What Yoruba
nation needs is how to be delivered from
the retrogressive forces imposed on us by
the Nigerian state. The Yoruba nation was
well ahead in terms of development until
the forced union called Nigeria began to
steal our institutions from us. Obafemi
Awolowo University (OAU), being one of
the stolen institutions, is good only to
address the need to restructure Nigeria,
not for an effort to sustain the status quo”
The group said nothing will please Yoruba
nation other than a return to regional
government through maximum devolution
of powers and a return to parliamentary
democracy because “we reckon this is the
best form of public governance that gives
us the opportunity to develop at our own
pace and contribute our quota to Nigeria’s
development.”
According to the group, everything that
happened at summit is a fool’s paradise as
already proven by the students of OAU.
“Those Yoruba persons parading
themselves as leaders of Yoruba people
know that leadership in Yoruba land
resides in treasured virtues of Omoluabi
and Afenifere philosophy, not necessarily
in persons. Yoruba people know their
leaders.”
“We dare say that more than any so called
leader at that event, those students, who
braved all the odds to tell Mr. President
the truth, are the true leaders,
irrespective of their ethnic origin.”
“ARG therefore salutes the courage of
those students who spoke truth in face of
oppression and we enjoin every Nigerian
to replicate their courageous act.”

www.premiumtimesng.com/sports/172127-age-scam-rocks-nigeria-u23-football-camp.html

Some players seeking to be part of the
Nigeria U23 male football team have been
accused of being age cheats and sent away
from the camp.
Currently, the team’s handlers are
undertaking a screening process to raise a
formidable team to compete at next year’s
All African Games and then the Rio 2016
Olympic Games.
Led by Coach Samson Siasia, the U23
technical crew has decamped as much as
10 players suspected to be above the age
required to be part of the Nigeria Dream
VI team.
Amongst the big names allegedly involved
in the ‘age deceit saga’ is Federation Cup
Most Valuable Player and Top Scorer,
Emem Eduok.
Eduok who went into the history books
after scoring the first goal at the newly
commissioned Akwa Ibom Stadium in
Uyo is mysteriously credited with two
different birth dates, both of which put
him in the desired age bracket.
Internet information via this website
stated that the Dolphins forward was born
on January 21, 1994, while another
website, revealed his international
passport reads August 31, 1994.
Timi Ebikagboro, the media officer for the
Nigeria U23 side, confirmed the dropping
of Eduok even as he added that the team’s
handlers will be on their toes not to allow
any age cheats in the new squad being
assembled.
“All selected players must come with their
international passports when reporting to
camp on the 4th of January,” he said. “Glo
Nigeria Premier League players (are) to
add license.”
The spokesperson also revealed that
Coach Siasia has declared that only
players born after January 1, 1993 will be
eligible to report to camp, which has
already witnessed over 1,000 interested
players.
The Dream Team VI camp will go on
break on December 20.
Nigeria has in the past been enmeshed in
age cheat scandals in age-group football
competitions.

By Femi Aribisala
The APC did not win any seat whatsoever
in the House of Representatives in the
2011 elections. Therefore, it cannot
provide the Speaker of the House.
Have you ever heard the parable of a man
who stole a goat and was arrested and
prosecuted? When brought before the
judge, his line of defense was that others
had stolen goats in the past but had not
been prosecuted. How does that absolve
him of guilt? The man is a thief, pure and
simple.
When one talks of the treachery of Aminu
Tambuwal’s defection from the PDP to the
APC, his apologists trot out opposition-
party legislators and governors that also
defected to the PDP in the past. So what?
All such defections are equally
treacherous and morally indefensible.
What we have today is the glorification of
treachery for political reasons. The
honorable thing for any defecting
politician to do is to resign his or her seat
in the legislature and then seek a fresh
mandate under the new party through a
by-election.
Dishonorable politics.
Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, Mutawallen
Sakwato
In 1983, Abubakar Rimi resigned as
Governor of Kano when he defected from
the Peoples’ Redemption Party (PRP) to
the Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NPP). He did
this because he was an honorable man; a
true progressive. In 2014, Aminu
Tanbuwal defected from the PDP to the
APC but has refused to relinquish his seat
in the National Assembly. He did this
because he is not an honorable man;
neither is he a true progressive.
Tambuwal has been Speaker for four
years, and yet he has not championed one
single piece of progressive legislation in
all that time.
With his defection, some busybody
parliamentarians with 27.5 million naira
to burn bought the APC nomination
papers for Tambuwal so he can contest for
the party’s presidential ticket. Almost
immediately, he was touted as a spoiler
for Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential
ambitions and was shamelessly courted by
the Tinubu brigade in the APC. Realising
that his hopeless candidacy would only be
used to foment problems within the APC,
Tambuwal wisely resigned from the
contest, forfeiting the millions paid.
As a face-saving device to camouflage his
signaled readiness to ditch Buhari for
Tambuwal, Bola Tinubu went public to
congratulate Tambuwal for deciding not
to contest for the APC presidential
nomination. He said: “This sacrifice you
have made will not be in vain. It must be
noted by all democrats across the country
as an act of great patriotism.”
Trouble-maker Tambuwal
This is really neat. Tinubu’s definition of
patriotism applies to the APC and not to
Nigeria. Tinubu forgot to mention that
while Tambuwal decided not to cause
trouble in the APC; at the same time, he
decided to be a trouble-maker at the
national level. Should this man who has
the good sense to withdraw as APC
presidential candidate “as a sacrifice for
the cohesion and unity of the APC” not
also have the good sense to resign from
the National Assembly now that he has
defected from the PDP for the sake of
national peace and cohesion? Apparently
not!
According to the Godfather of the APC, a
patriot can be a trouble-maker at the
national level, as long as his trouble-
making is in the interest of the APC. That,
in a nutshell, is the crux of the problem
with the APC. It is a party of trouble-
makers. The APC does not really believe it
can win the 2015 elections. Therefore, it is
determined to cause as much mayhem as
possible; even threatening to create a
parallel government when and if it loses
the election.
The Tambuwal saga is the latest example
of APC mischief. The party’s strategy is to
achieve power immorally and illegally. It
is a party of treacherous defectors. It even
went to Obasanjo, a former PDP
president, asking him to defect to the
APC. Instead of attracting its own
membership, it gathers together a coterie
of treacherous defectors. All its
presidential candidates have jumped from
party to party.
It is now encouraging Tambuwal in his
treachery of attempting to defect to the
APC with the position of Speaker.
However, the APC remains a minority
party in the National Assembly. The
position of Speaker belongs to the
majority party. The APC cannot receive by
subterfuge what rightly belongs to the
majority PDP.
Tambuwal knows he can no longer be
Speaker. He knows that APC cannot win a
majority of the seats in the legislature in
the coming elections. He knows the “mago
mago” he used to become the Speaker
cannot be duplicated in the next House of
Representatives. Therefore, in defeat, he
has picked up the nomination form to
contest as Governor of Sokoto under the
APC ticket.
Show of shame
Since this is the new reality confronting
Tambuwal, the man should stop causing
trouble and simply resign his seat in the
House. But rather than resign, and with
his security detail removed, Tambuwal
drove with a convoy of “thugs” to the
National Assembly. This led to a show of
shame that was televised and broadcast to
the whole world. The fact that Tambuwal
led this brazen display of lawlessness at
the National Assembly shows that he is
unworthy of being the number four citizen
of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Emmanuel Ojukwu, the Public Relations
Officer of the Nigeria Police, had this to
say: “The speaker came with thugs,
refused to be searched and six of the
hoodlums attacked a police man, after
which the police tear-gassed the Speaker
and his riotous crowd so as to restore
order. Everybody has seen that somebody
was even beating somebody; somebody
was pushing a policeman from the car.
Somebody was removing road blocks
mounted by police.” Those “somebodies”
are supposed to be Nigeria’s law-makers.
In effect, championed by Tambuwal, our
law-makers became law-breakers.
Impeded by the police from entering the
House, some climbed the gate. The
Speaker himself flouted the directives of
the police. He forced his way inside. Later,
in disgrace, he sent his media aide with
the statement that: “The honorable
speaker wishes to state that he is a law-
abiding citizen of the Federal Republic of
Nigeria who has no immunity against
arrest and prosecution.” This is what is
called “campaigning after failure to be
elected.” The video of his lawlessness had
already gone viral on the internet.
Time to resign
There is nothing left for Tambuwal to do
now than to resign from the House of
Representatives and save Nigeria from all
this “wahala” he has created. Defecting
from one party to another is against the
spirit and the letter of the Nigerian
Constitution. Section 68 (g) of the 1999
Constitution says: “A member of the
Senate or of the House of Representatives
shall vacate his seat in the House of which
he is a member if being a person whose
election to the House was sponsored by a
political party, he becomes a member of
another political party before the
expiration of the period for which that
House was elected…”
Tambuwal’s name did not even appear on
the ballot-paper when he was elected to
the House of Representatives from his
constituency in Sokoto. It was the PDP
that was on the ballot. That is how Rotimi
Amaechi became Governor of Rivers
State. He was not even the candidate who
ran for the office. However, the courts
ruled that he should have been the PDP
candidate. Since the PDP won the election,
Amaechi became the Governor of Rivers
State even though he did not campaign in
the election for the post.
The only proviso in the Constitution for
Tambuwal to remain in the House is if his
defection to the APC is as a result of a
division in the PDP or the merger of the
PDP with another political party, or the
faction of another party. This situation
does not exist, except in the imagination
of APC supporters. The courts in Nigeria
have ruled that the PDP is not divided and
is not bedeviled by any factions. Everyone
in Nigeria knows this in any case.
Some people say it is not the business of
the executive to determine if Tambuwal
should remain as Speaker or not: it is a
matter for the courts. However, the courts
don’t execute laws: the executive does.
The Constitution says if a man defects
from his elected party to another party, he
automatically loses his seat. Tambuwal
resigned; therefore he has lost his seat.
The executive has implemented that loss.
If Tambuwal has a problem with that, the
onus is on him to go to court. The onus is
not on the executive. Until the courts say
otherwise, Tambuwal can no longer be a
member of the House of Representatives;
and someone who is not a member of the
House cannot be the Speaker. We
borrowed our political system from the
United States where it is well understood
that the Speaker of the House cannot
belong to the minority party.
Attempted coup
Tambuwal, the Speaker, is APC. Emeka
Ihedioha, the Deputy Speaker, is PDP.
This situation is unacceptable, especially
given the fact that the mandate for
leadership in the House was freely given
by the electorate to the PDP and not the
APC. You cannot have a situation of
minority rule, when in actual fact it is the
majority that has the mandate.
Indeed, at the national level, the APC is
unknown and has yet to be recognized by
the Nigerian electorate. The APC has
never presented a candidate to the
electorate at the national level. Therefore,
the APC cannot come out of nowhere to
commandeer the major office of the
Speaker. These shenanigans have gone on
for too long. The APC did not win any seat
whatsoever in the House of
Representatives in the 2011 elections.
Therefore, it cannot provide the Speaker
of the House.
Tambuwal should have known that by
resigning from the PDP while hanging on
to the position of Speaker he is bound to
generate unnecessary political tension. If
he did not know this before, he knows this
now. Failure to resign from the House
now only portrays him as a shameless
troublesome opportunist. Tambuwal
needs to redeem his battered image
soonest. He should do the honorable thing
and resign from the House without
further delay.
www.vanguardngr.com/2014/11/tambuwal-law-breaker-supporters/