That was Nelson Mandela, who emerged from prison after 27 years to lead his country out of decades of apartheid.

He died Thursday night at age 95.

His message of reconciliation, not vengeance, inspired the world after he negotiated a peaceful end to segregation and urged forgiveness for the white government that imprisoned him.

"As I walked out the door toward the gate that would lead to my freedom, I knew if I didn't leave my bitterness and hatred behind, I'd still be in prison," Mandela said after he was freed in in 1990.

Mandela, a former president, battled health issues in recent years, including a recurring lung infection that led to numerous hospitalizations.

Despite rare public appearances, he held a special place in the consciousness of the nation and the world.

"Our nation has lost its greatest son. Our people have lost a father," South African President Jacob Zuma said. "What made Nelson Mandela great was precisely what made him human. We saw in him what we seek in ourselves."

His U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, echoed the same sentiment.

"We've lost one of the most influential, courageous and profoundly good human beings that any of us will share time with on this Earth," Obama said. "He no longer belongs to us -- he belongs to the ages."



I salute this great icon, now you can all have your say.

Man of the People
Mandela tours Cape Town’s Eerste River township in November 2000. The year before, he opted to not contest for re-election, giving way to his party deputy Thabo Mbeki. Under Mbeki’s ANC government, economic — less than racial — inequality would come to define South Africa in the post-apartheid era.

The World and South African Icon
Mandela addresses a conference on AIDS in Durban, July 2000. Mandela is credited with breaking the conspiracy of silence that surrounded the disease in his home country.

Electioneering
Mandela greets the crowds on the campaign trail in February 1994 as South Africa readies for its first all-race general election.

Swearing In
Mandela, 75, takes the oath of office in the political capital Pretoria as the first democratically elected President of South Africa. De Klerk, once an adversary, joined government as Mandela’s deputy

The Troubles
In the Athlone neighborhood of Cape Town, regime police use horsewhips against protesters demonstrating in support of the jailed Mandela. Ruthless crackdowns, mass protests and bouts of insurgent violence across the country’s townships captured world attention and generated international support against the apartheid state.

Free at Last
Mandela walks with his wife Winnie after being released from prison, Feb. 11, 1990.

Eye on the Prize
In 1993, Mandela is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside then South African President F.W. de Klerk, whose rapprochement with Mandela and the ANC helped engineer the end of apartheid.

Fighting the Law
Mandela and other co-defendants appear at the famous Treason Trial in Johannesburg, 1956. Mandela, along with his longtime ally Oliver Thambo and 154 others, was charged with treason. The case, which dragged on for five years, by which time all were acquitted, brought the struggle of the ANC to international attention.

The Long Wait
Mandela sews prison clothes by the shore in 1964. He was sent to the infamous jail at Robben Island, a barren rock off the coast near Cape Town, in 1963 in part for his activities supporting the ANC’s militant wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (the Spear of the Nation). His 27-year-long imprisonment made him the world’s most famous political prisoner.

Keeping Hope Alive
Winnie Mandela stands by a portrait of her then husband in their Soweto home, 1985.

Prodigal Son
Mandela was born on July 18, 1918, in the village of Mviza in South Africa’s Eastern Cape. His father was a counselor to a local king. He chose for his son the name Rolihlahla, which translated from Xhosa means literally “pulling a branch off a tree” — or, more colloquially, “troublemaker.” A schoolteacher would confer upon him the name Nelson.

Fighting the Law
Mandela and other co-defendants appear at the famous Treason Trial in Johannesburg, 1956. Mandela, along with his longtime ally Oliver Thambo and 154 others, was charged with treason. The case, which dragged on for five years, by which time all were acquitted, brought the struggle of the ANC to international attention.

Nelson Mandela was always uncomfortable talking about his own death. But not because he was afraid or in doubt. He was uncomfortable because he understood that people wanted him to offer homilies about death and he had none to give. He was an utterly unsentimental man. I once asked him about his mortality while we were out walking one morning in the Transkei, the remote area of South Africa where he was born. He looked around at the green and tranquil landscape and said something about how he would be joining his “ancestors.” “Men come and men go,” he later said. “I have come and I will go when my time comes.” And he seemed satisfied by that. I never once heard him mention God or heaven or any kind of afterlife. Nelson Mandela believed in justice in this lifetime.

It was January 1993, and I was working with him on his autobiography. We had set out that morning from the home near Qunu, the village of his father, that Mandela had built after he was let out of prison. He had once said to me that every man should have a house in sight of where he was born. Much of Mandela’s belief system came from his youth in the Xhosa tribe and being raised by a local Thembu King after his own father died. As a boy, he lived in a rondavel — a grass hut — with a dirt floor. He learned to be a shepherd. He fetched water from the spring. He excelled at stick fighting with the other boys. He sat at the feet of old men who told him stories of the brave African princes who ruled South Africa before the coming of the white man. The first time he shook the hand of a white man was when he went off to boarding school. Eventually, little Rolihlahla Mandela would become Nelson Mandela and get a proper Methodist education, but for all his worldliness and his legal training, much of his wisdom and common sense — and joy — came from what he had learned as a young boy in the Transkei.

Mandela might have been a more sentimental man if so much had not been taken away from him. His freedom. His ability to choose the path of his life. His eldest son. Two great-grandchildren. Nothing in his life was permanent except the oppression he and his people were under. And everything he might have had he sacrificed to achieve the freedom of his people. But all the crude jailers, tiny cells and bumptious white apartheid leaders could not take away his pride, his dignity and his sense of justice. Even when he had to strip and be hosed down when he first entered Robben Island, he stood straight and did not complain. He refused to be intimidated in any circumstance. I remember interviewing Eddie Daniels, a 5-ft. 3-in. mixed-race freedom fighter who was in cell block B with Mandela on the island; Eddie recalled how anytime he felt demoralized, he would just have to see the 6-ft. 2-in. Mandela walking tall through the courtyard and he would feel revived. Eddie wept as he told me how when he fell ill, Mandela — “Nelson Mandela, my leader!” — came into his cell and crouched down to wash out his pail of vomit and blood and excrement.

I always thought that in a free and nonracial South Africa, Mandela would have been a small-town lawyer, content to be a local grandee. This great, historic revolutionary was in many ways a natural conservative. He did not believe in change for change’s sake. But one thing turned him into a revolutionary, and that was the pernicious system of racial oppression he experienced as a young man in Johannesburg. When people spat on him in buses, when shopkeepers turned him away, when whites treated him as if he could not read or write, that changed him irrevocably. For deep in his bones was a basic sense of fairness: he simply could not abide injustice. If he, Nelson Mandela, the son of a chief, tall, handsome and educated, could be treated as subhuman, then what about the millions who had nothing like his advantages? “That is not right,” he would sometimes say to me about something as mundane as a plane flight’s being canceled or as large as a world leader’s policies, but that simple phrase — that is not right — underlay everything he did, everything he sacrificed for and everything he accomplished.

I saw him a handful of times over the past few years. He was much diminished. The extraordinary memory that could recall a particular dish at a dinner 60 years before was now such that he often did not recognize people he had known almost that long. But his pride and his regal bearing never left him. When he “retired from his retirement” (as he put it in 2004), I thought it was simply because he couldn’t bear not remembering familiar things and he could not bear people seeing him in a way that did not live up to their expectations. He wanted people to see Nelson Mandela, and he was no longer the Nelson Mandela they wanted to see.

In many ways, the image of Nelson Mandela has become a kind of fairy tale: he is the last noble man, a figure of heroic achievement. Indeed, his life has followed the narrative of the archetypal hero, of great suffering followed by redemption. But as he said to me and to many others over the years, “I am not a saint.” And he wasn’t. As a young revolutionary, he was fiery and rowdy. He originally wanted to exclude Indians and communists from the freedom struggle. He was the founder of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the military wing of the African National Congress, and was considered South Africa’s No 1. terrorist in the 1950s. He admired Gandhi, who started his own freedom struggle in South Africa in the 1890s, but as he explained to me, he regarded nonviolence as a tactic, not a principle. If it was the most successful means to the freedom of his people, he would embrace it. If it was not, he would abandon it. And he did. But like Gandhi, like Lincoln, like Churchill, he was doggedly, obstinately right about one overarching thing, and he never lost sight of that.

Prison was the crucible that formed the Mandela we know. The man who went into prison in 1962 was hotheaded and easily stung. The man who walked out into the sunshine of the mall in Cape Town 27 years later was measured, even serene. It was a hard-won moderation. In prison, he learned to control his anger. He had no choice. And he came to understand that if he was ever to achieve that free and nonracial South Africa of his dreams, he would have to come to terms with his oppressors. He would have to forgive them. After I asked him many times during our weeks and months of conversation what was different about the man who came out of prison compared with the man who went in, he finally sighed and then said simply, “I came out mature.”

His greatest achievement is surely the creation of a democratic, nonracial South Africa and preventing that beautiful country from falling into a terrible, bloody civil war. Several years after I finished working with him on Long Walk to Freedom, he told me that he wanted to write another book, about how close South Africa had been to a race war. I was with him when he got the news that black South African leader Chris Hani was assassinated, probably the closest the country came to going to war. He was preternaturally calm, and after making plans to go to Johannesburg to speak to the nation, he methodically finished eating his breakfast. To prevent that civil war, he had to use all the skills in his head and his heart: he had to demonstrate rocklike strength to the Afrikaner leaders with whom he was negotiating but also show that he was not out for revenge. And he had to show his people that he was not compromising with the enemy. This was an incredibly delicate line to walk — and from the outside, he seemed to do it with grace. But it took its toll.

And because he was not a saint, he had his share of bitterness. He famously said, “The struggle is my life,” but his life was also a struggle. This man who loved children spent 27 years without holding a baby. Before he went to prison, he lived underground and was unable to be the father and the husband he wanted to be. I remember his telling me that when he was being pursued by thousands of police, he secretly went to tuck his son into bed. His son asked why he couldn’t be with him every night, and Mandela told him that millions of other South African children needed him too. So many people have said to me over the years, It’s amazing that he was not bitter. I’ve always smiled at that. With enormous self-control, he learned to hide his bitterness.

And then, after he forged this new South Africa, won the first democratic election in the country’s history and began to redress the wrongs done to his people, he walked away from it. He became the rarest thing in African history, a one-term President who chose not to run for office again. Like George Washington, he understood that every step he made would be a template for others to follow. He could have been President for life, but he knew that for democracy to rule, he could not. Two democratic elections have followed his presidency, and if the men who have succeeded him have not been his equal, well, that too is democracy. He was a large man in every way. His legacy is that he expanded human freedom. He was tolerant of everything but intolerance. He deserves to rest in peacE

Yesterday President Goodluck Jonathan and his wife flow out of Abuja supposedly to attend a peace summit in France. However, there have been indications that they left to undergo a health check in a German hospital.


Previously it had been reported that Goodluck and Patience Jonathan will stop over in Germany for a private visit on their way to Paris.

However, a reliable source at the Presidency told SaharaReporters that the Jonathans will undergo tests and receive treatment in the same German hospital where Patience Jonathan spent several months in 2012.

The source added that the President had been feeling unwell since returning from a recent trip to London where he was hospitalized for a serious stomach-related ailment.

According to the source, plans were made for the Goodluck Jonathan to receive medical attention in Germany after he suddenly fell ill last weekend during a visit to Bayelsa. The sudden illness almost led to President Jonathan's emergency evacuation to Germany, the source added.

Patience Jonathan is also expected to receive follow-up medical treatment in the German hospital.

President is to attend a Summit on peace and security in Africa organized by the French government December 6 and 7 in Paris, but Jonathan's ability to make the trip will depend on the prognosis of his condition and the advice of the German doctors, the source said.

SaharaReporters' sources recalled that Jonathan has had recurring abdominal troubles in recent weeks. He is notorious as a heavy drinker of alcohol, especially strong spirits, says said the source.

Dr. Reuben Abati, the President’s special adviser on media, however, denied these allegations.
READ MORE: http://news.naij.com/53613.html

God forbid
God forbid
God forbid.
I can't imagine the pain I will feel if my honey I mean my love should tell me this.
God forbid bad thing.

Whaooo what a story.
have never heard something like this in Nigeria. when children are snatched here that is the END.

And to think of it, most ladies still think guys are fools not really knowing that we are up to their tricks of try to deceive us with their beauty for marriage and after all the 4k they start giving us hell on earth.

Well those days are over and today most beautiful ladies are becoming 4;kin toys because they have nothing else to offer.
Why the not too beautiful and even the ugly ones are getting married.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.




Front page things .....

phoneport: Who is a leader and a fool?
Who is a fool and yet a leader?
A leader is a Leader and a Fool is a Fool.
Positions does not really makes one a leader.
Though fools are in positions but does that makes them Leaders?
Though Leaders sometimes act like fools but does that makes them Fools?
There are levels of Foolishness in every Human being and does that make us all Fools?
And if all are Fools, what rights do one have to call others Foolish?
Who then is a Fool?

What are you even saying, I don't understand your round about words that looks smooth and yet filled with hooks.
who then is the fool, Nigerians who from there good will voted for a seeming humble and focus president they thought.
Or the said Leader who threw the trust of Nigerians to the dogged Cabals and an infective spirit to deliver.
who then is the Fool.
May be you for not preferring any way out and instead call us, All Fools.

Anambra –
The remains of the  four members of the  Ezebuala family, who were  victims of the Kano bomb blasts on July 29, were on Thursday buried  at Uga Community.Uga is in the  Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra.The atmosphere was characterised by wailing and grief as the corpses of the victims were brought for final commendation service at the church.The deceased were Nnamdi Ezebuala (48) and his three children: Chinemerem (14), Chiamaka (12) and Nmesomachukwu (10).

They were killed when Boko Haram sect members launched bomb attacks simultaneously at various points on two busy roads in the Sabongari area of Kano.Gov. Peter Obi, who could not hold back his tears, described the incident as “a national calamity’’.
Obi said that Anambra had faced similar ugly incidents in years past when Anambra indigenes were slaughtered in various parts of the North by Boko Haram insurgents. He expressed dismay at the level of destruction of lives and property in various parts of the North.The governor said that his administration had fought to ensure security of lives and property, “which has made Anambra  State a beautiful place for local and foreign investors’’.

The governor urged the Ezebuala family and the people of Uga to bear the irreparable loss with fortitude.He said that government would take over the welfare of the wife of the deceased and her two surviving children.Speaking during the service, the ‘Commanding Officer’ of Uga Corps of the Salvation Army, Maj. Emeka Ezechukwu, described the death of the victims as manifestation of the love of God towards those who loved Him. Ezechukwu said that the victims as children of God met their death in the house of God, where they had gone to worship God. He noted Nnamdi Ezebuala and his children were strong members of the church, whose commitment were fervent. The cleric prayed God to grant them eternal rest.

The Chairman of Uga Democratic Vanguard, Chief Peter Okala, thanked the governor for finding time to come to commiserate with the people of Uga and the Ezebuala family. Okala said that the Uga Community had been over-shadowed by anguish and tears since the death of the Ezebualas.He, however, prayed God to grant the departed souls eternal rest and for God to grant the family of the deceased fortitude to bear the loss.
The Founder of Konigin Des Friedens, Uga, Monsgr. John-Bosco Akam, where Chinemerem was a student, described his death as national tragedy that had affected the lives of the young generation. (NAN)

can any good thing still come out from the Nigerian Senate.
They are truckers and roughs who will sell their mothers for a penny.
I will never believe them until the conference start.

Well I love your peace it's really cool

Sorry is this part of the
END TIME THINGSSSSSSS

when will these atrocities end in Nigeria?

“I kept abducted victims in church and share ransom with my pastor” – kidnapper.
The Anambra State Police Command has arrested 38-year-old wanted kidnap suspect, Okafor, a graduate of Mathematics from the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Okafor popularly known as Igwe did not only fall afoul of the law as a kidnapper, he also messed up the temple of God by keeping his victims in a church and sharing his loot with the pastor.

Once on a mission to collect N5 million ransom from the family of victim in Asaba, Delta State, he was rounded up by crack policemen and locked up in a cell. Okafor, however, escaped through the window of the cell to continue his evil trade until the hardworking members of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Anambra ended his reign of terror.
The kidnap kingpin spoke with Sunday Sun: “I graduated from Unizik in 2006 and I studied Mathematics. I did my NYSC in Abuja and I served in NNPC at Berger. After graduation I was going to Ghana to buy clothes to sell in Lagos State. “I am now involved totally in kidnapping where I make quick money. When I kidnapped I used to take my victims to my church in Awkuzu where the General Overseer, Pastor Nwaezeagu always collects the victims from us and at the end, we would give him his own share. We decided to join the church so that the members would not suspect us that we were keeping some victims we kidnapped inside the church.”
“I was the one who was involved in the kidnapping of the traditional prime minister in Enugu-Ukwu and we collected N50 million from the victim before we released him and I gave Pastor Nwaezeagu his 20 per cent share on that day.

“I kidnapped another woman in Awka and collected N30 million from the family of victim and kept her in the church and, after the family paid the ransom, I released the suspect and I gave Pastor Nwaezeagu the sum of N200,000.”
Okafor who hails from Anambra West Local Government Area continued: “Myself and my gang kidnapped one victim, Chief John Uchachuwu at Asaba and we demanded the sum of N5 million. The family of the victim called me to come and take the money at Asaba. When I got to Asaba I collected the N5 million but the policemen from the anti-kidnap arrested me and they took me to Delta State and put me inside their cell.” He said that he escaped through the toilet of the cell and quickly moved to Anambra State to continue his kidnapping job.“
I was arrested in Onitsha market by the men of SARS and I have confessed to them about my involvement in kidnapping,” he said.Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Ballah Nasarawa told Sunday Sun that the suspect had been declared wanted by Anambra State Police Command before he was eventually arrested on September 2, 2013 in Onitsha.
The police commissioner said Okafor was the same suspect that the Delta State Police Command declared wanted after he escaping from the cell through the toilet in 2013.He stated that the suspect had kept several victims he kidnapped in the church in which he was a member and which he used as a hideout.

CP Nasarawa added that, besides the kidnap instances that Okafor gave, the suspect was also behind the abduction of the Chairman of Association of Electronics Dealers in Nnewi and collected N30 million that he shared among his gang members and released the victim from the church in which he was kept.
Also commenting about Okafor, Delta State Commissioner of Police, Ikechukwu Aduba told Sunday Sun that the notorious kidnapper had with his gang kidnapped one Chief John Uchachuwu in Asaba and they demanded N5 million as ransom and the police played along as they negotiated ransom payment.
He was told to come and collect the money in Asaba. It was in the process of collecting the ransom that he was arrested.“Also we had to rescue the victim, Chief Uchachuwu while the suspect, Okafor came to Asaba to collect the ransom of N5million.
What shocked me was that the notorious kidnapper, Okafor escaped from the cell in our custody despite the fact that he has injury on his legs. The policemen involved were one ASP, one Inspector and one Corporal. I had to detain them in my custody.“I have written to my AIG in charge of Zone 5, Benin who appreciated that action had been taken. They will definitely face the music. How can a notorious kidnapper escape from their custody?” he queried.CP Aduba added that later the information got to him that the SARS in Anambra had re-arrested the kidnapper and I sent my officers to Anambra State Police Command and they saw him.

“There was a time we traced Okafor to Niger Republic and Ghana and he escaped. We couldn’t take over the case from Anambra State Police Command because he did a lot more of kidnapping in Anambra State than Delta State and he has more questions to answer in Anambra State Police Command and they should continue their investigation,” he stated.
The Anambra police boss assured that the suspect would soon be charged to court after investigation had been concluded.

IF A 13 YEARS OLD BOY CAN HIDE IN THE TIRE COMPACTMENT OF A SUPOSED AMERICAN BOND PLANE.
THEN TELL ME TEN YEARS IN AN AMERICAN JAIL FOR CITIZENSHIP IS JUST BABY PLAY.

why do most countries hate Nigeria so much?

phoneport: Is there still hope for Nigeria?

it is not an issue of hope but corrupt leaders and followers.
more people will suffer for the mistakes they never created but have become a part of through their affiliation with an entity.

Americans expression is not what Nigerians want, but help.
our leaders have become blind to see the coming wave of Revolution emanating from deep rooted hatred and anger the youths of this nation has for the precarious conditions most people live in.

Gbam! Well it has gotten to this level, this may be a useless trend to you all the same I want to test a survey and see if we are really desperate.
A friend of mine once said that if a plane should land in Lagos Airport and it is announced:

" Nigerians enter this airplane to America and spend 10 years in their jail first and u will then be released and given a permanent CITIZENSHIP"

Tell me who will not enter?
As if people are not prison here.
What a nation!!!

Gbam Well it has gotten to this level.
A friend of mine once said that if a plane should land in Lagos Airport and it is announced:

" Nigerians enter this airplane to America and spend 10 years in their jail first and u will then be released and given a permanent stay and work VISA"
Tell me who will not enter?
As if people are not prison here.
What a nation!!!

well in a camp like nation such as this, even mad men can become Prophets.

well I agree with you

I'm not religious but I'll give it a shot - it wouldn't happen. According to the Bible the future's already written and that version of the future doesn't involve a twist ending in which Satan repents.

But I think it would be an interesting twist in the story, maybe Satan repents get's right with God but its all a ruse to stab God in the back, then Satan wins ... good strategy. The question is what would happen to all that evil? You see one of my main problems with the Bible is it does nothing to explain where evil comes from, its just says something about sin being found in Lucifer and all of a sudden he turns evil in an otherwise righteous Universe (doesn't make much sense). So maybe after he repents the evil breaks off and looks for a new host like the symbiote from Spider-Man.

Well well well
Those who think or even see themselves as victims in this life and Nija, will surely be treated like victims.

well my own question is 'who is not a victim in this mistake of a nation?

somebody please ask this people if this is how education is been run in other countries.

They went to laboratories where they found people using kerosene stoves instead of bushing burners to conduct experiments; they found specimens being kept in pure water bottles instead of the appropriate places where such specimens should be kept



PROF. FESTUS IYAYI is a former National President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). In this interview, he explains why university teachers nationwide are on strike; saying the action is to compel the Federal Government to implement the agreement it reached with ASUU on funding of universities. Iyayi, currently Head of Dept, Business Administration, University of Benin, insists that the union members are prepared to stay at home for the next three to five years until the right thing is done. Excerpts:

this is just the beginning, very soon this group of northerners will approve
homosexuals
babysexuals
animalsexuals
and God know's what else.
Ntn PERVERTS

The clamour for the presidency to return to the North in 2015 is growing. No fewer than four prominent groups are now championing the cause. The campaign was initially spearheaded by two groups – Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and Northern Elders Forum (NEF). Last week, the four northern groups signalled that the presidency will not remain with a southerner beyond the next general elections.

In other words, incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan, from the South-south, suspected of nursing re-election, will not return to power. They claimed to have conceded power to the South to give it a sense of belonging, saying, whether by power rotation or voting power, the North would upstage the South from the presidency in 2015.

The groups also said that once North was back in power, it could decide to hold unto it indefinitely. The spokesman for the groups, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, who spoke in Kaduna, said: “Let me state that ACF, to many people, is not being as assertive on 2015 as they wish. This is not correct. Here in the North , we have certain tradition that sometimes people misread as a weakness”.

North must take back power

“The fact that we don’t come out in shouting match and in abusive language and so on sometimes gives the wrong impression that we do not have deep-rooted concern for ourselves about 2015. This is not true. The South-south is a tiny enclave of a few people, perhaps not bigger than Kaduna State”, Prof. Ango Abdullahi, a former vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria (ABU) and the NEF leader, told journalists.

He continued: “The North is determined and is insistent that the leadership of the country will rotate to it in 2015. “And I am making that very clear. ACF in front because they have been the oldest group, the Middle Belt Forum and our other groups have been very active and strong. All of us are likely to have this very tough but a common agenda.

It is not that the North is power blind. No! it will be argued on the rational agreement on ground today. “The North, on the basis of one-man-one-vote, can keep power indefinitely in the present Nigeria state. If it is on the basis of one-man – one-vote, the demography shows that the North can keep power as long as it wants because it will always win elections.



No zoning in the constitution

“Some of us who participated in conferences- constitutional conferences from 1987 to the last one, the Political Reform Conference – accepted that every part of this country should feel it is part of the leadership and that is the basis of the acceptance of the rotation arrangement between the North and South. This is what happened at the constitutional conference.

There was no question of geo-political zones. The geo-political zones were later introduction. So when this happened, of course, the argument was that it was supposed to be in the constitution but the government in power at that time said it was better for parties to use it to attract support and growth from all parts of the country. And this is what the PDP, the ruling party, now accepted.

I was part of the constitution drafting committee of the party and we incorporated it that there would be rotation between the North and South and, particularly in terms of the top leadership of the party. The question that followed immediately was that where would the rotation start? We, northerners, thought we should concede, that it should start with the South.

‘Obasanjo begged’

“This was because the North, over the years, whether military or civilians, had taken a good share of the leadership. And before then, there had been a crisis that led to the annulment of the June 12, 1993election. For example, somebody from the South-west was believed to have won the election that was annulled. This was the cumulative issue that informed our decision that the South should start.

That is how eventually Obasanjo came to be our president under an arrangement and the tenure clearly for four years. And when he asked or rather begged for the arrangement to be extended to match the constitutional allowance that the president could go for two terms, this was extended in an expanded caucus to make it eight years for Obasanjo.

“This particular president(Jonathan) was there as deputy governor representing the governor of Bayelsa State in that caucus meeting. He signed as number 37. It is in the document. The meeting agreed that the South will have eight years and then the North will have eight years. But, Obasanjo, after seeing some lacuna, tried to abandon the zoning as well as the constitution to seek third term. Of course he failed.

He came to the North and thought we will allow him to go without resistance to hand pick his successor. He hand picked my younger brother, the late Umaru Yar’Adua. But the condition had been satisfied, a northerner was president. Umaru soon took ill and died two and a half into his first term. It is obvious the constitution says if the president for whatever reason is not there, his vice will take over. That is why Jonathan, being his vice, became the president and we thought that at least, on moral grounds, at the end of four years, the North should take over.

North to blame

“It must have been the fault of northerners as far as I am concerned that they allowed this because it was their turn in 2011. But they allowed it. I thought Jonathan should have been first, purely on moral grounds, knowing that there was a rotation arrangement in place and that there was an agreement and all of them were signatory, but they came out to say they didn’t know about rotation. Obasanjo started it, he said he didn’t know about rotation. Jonathan himself said it that he didn’t’ know about rotation.

“But if you go to Chief Audu Ogbeh, who was chairman of the PDP at the time the agreement was brokered, he will give you the full story of how this thing happened. But the issue here is that we now have another four years pending. But, recently, we are now getting to know from one of the governors that they had some secret arrangement that they will still allow Jonathan to go for another four years.

They haven’t expatiated but it was revealed by at least governor of Niger State that there was this pledge to do one term by Jonathan in 2011. But it makes you think, really, how could leaders be trusted if they can not honour simple agreements whether written or unwritten? The hallmark of decent leadership is to honour agreements.

Two means

“The North is insisting that the presidency should come to the North whether on the basis of rotation or on the basis of voting power and we have the voting power.

Middle Belt and the North

“It is true that we are not as united as before. The Middle Forum has been there as part of the North. Last month, they went to say they supported Jonathan. Someone is taking advantage of the problems confronting us in the North to divide us. But we are working on that. We are going to bring back everybody to a roundtable so that everyone will say his mind, and we will come out with a political solution that will address the fears and needs of everyone. The North will always remain one.

“When we decide on our candidate, we will pick a northerner. It does not matter his religion and ethnicity. We shall look for a qualified northerner and support him. He can come from any tribe, state or religion. The most important thing is that we get back power”.

Hands of the Presidency

On the crisis in River State, the northern groups denounced it, including “the role of the spouse of the president in the impasse.

Their spokesperson added, “The shameful and disturbing abuse of power and rule of law in Rivers State are signs that Nigeria is descending into anarchy and lawlessness rarely seen in our history.

“The hands of the Presidency are clearly visible in all these events that appear to draw inspiration from the ambition of President Goodluck Jonathan to stay in power in 2015. The most recent development in Rivers State represents a new low in the shameful conduct of political office holders at the highest levels, and they should be condemned by all Nigerians.

“The crisis in Rivers State is a sad reminder of our experience in the Western Nigeria crisis of 1963. We call on President Goodluck Jonathan to order an immediate cessation of hostilities in Rivers State and stop using the Nigeria Police to settle his political disputes. The police must not be dragged into the internal crisis of the president’s party. The governor of and people of Rivers State and, indeed, all citizens of Nigeria deserve the full protection of the law and their rights to live in peace under the state-guaranteed security”.

ABAKALIKI — A man, Okorie Ogbafor, has reportedly murdered his wife, Ifeoma Okorie, 26, and removed her genitals and hair at Onicha-Isu, in Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, for ritual purposes.Briefing newsmen at the command’s headquarters in Abakaliki, yesterday, Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP, Sylvester Igbo, said the corpse of the deceased was found in a bush behind the couple’s family house adding that it had already started decomposing when a team of policemen from the state command found it.Igbo, who disclosed that the suspect took off to Lagos State after committing the crime, noted that relatives of the suspect who reported the incident at a nearby Police station assisted in arresting him in Lagos.

He said: “On July 12, 2013, a case of murder was reported at Onicha-Isu, in Onicha Local Government Area where it was alleged that one Ifeoma Okorie, 26, wife to Okorie Ogbafor was murdered and the corpse dropped in a bush behind their family house.“When the police team went to the place, on a closer examination of the corpse, it was discovered that the head of the woman was nearly severed from her body and it was also discovered that her private part was chopped off and parts of the hair shaved while the corpse was already decomposing.“It was taken to the Federal Teaching Hospital mortuary for autopsy.“It was after three days that her body was discovered.
However, in the effort to know the actual perpetrator of the act, some people were arrested and it was then that we discovered that one Okorie Ogbafor was the person behind the killing of his wife.“After killing the wife, he ran to Lagos.

All this while, he was not seen within the vicinity and as information reached his kinsmen who were living in Lagos they reported the incident at the nearest police station to where the suspect resided.”
According to the Police spokesman, a team of detectives in charge of the case were on their way to Lagos to bring back the suspect to Ebonyi State as the case would soon be charged to court after investigation.