₦airaland Forum

eggheaders: Hmmn the case don critical oooo.

eggheaders: OK boss I see wetin dat pikin dey yarn. But from your post you are ara ile na ni. Leave that thing alone I gat the antidote to all the syndromes affecting him.

eggheaders: No be ban dem dey use chase all of us. Who tell you say dem no go ban me self before today end.

berem:

eggheaders: Oga rhino me no dey shak ooo. Na fayrouz be my brand ooo. O boy 3 ban by sexkid only today no be small thing ooo.

eggheaders: Who dey here una get virus abi na fayrouz dem dey call am ni. 6 bottles for my table asap.

obyrich: Nothing can be truer.

https://edge.punchng.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/President-Goodluck-Jonathan2-360x225.jpgPresident Goodluck Jonathan

About 100 million Nigerians live in destitution, the World Bank has said.

The World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Marie-Francoise Marie-Nelly, said this at the bank’s Country Programme Portfolio Review in Enugu on Tuesday.

She said that the bank’s ongoing commitment to Nigeria stood at $5.34bn. According to the World Bank boss, the number of Nigerians living in destitution makes up 8.33 per cent of the total number of people living in destitution all over the world, which the bank plans to reduce drastically by 2030.

She said, “1.2 billion people live in destitution out of which 100 million are Nigerians. Inequality is rising in many developing nations.

“For this reason, the World Bank’s corporate perspective has shifted more strategically in the past year. The World Bank wants to galvanise international and national support around two goals: to end extreme poverty in a generation and to push for greater equality.

“To end extreme poverty, the World Bank Group’s goal is to decrease the percentage of people living on less than $1.25 a day from 20 per cent today to three per cent by 2030.

“The goal is to promote income growth of the bottom 40 per cent of the population in each country. In Nigeria, 63 per cent of the population live on less than $1.25 a day.”

Marie-Nelly said although the World Bank was the largest overseas development agency that provided assistance to Nigeria, the contribution of the organisation to the country was very small compared to the budgets of the states and the Federal Government.

She said if the World Bank’s small assistance could produce so much result because of effective implementation and monitoring, the revenues accruable to the country could do much more if they were similarly utilised.

Giving a more graphic picture of the World Bank’s credit to Nigeria in relation to revenues accruing to the nation, Marie-Nelly said while the bank’s total commitment to Nigeria amounted to $4.67bn by 2012, the budget of the states and Federal Government amounted to $64.05bn in the same year.

She said the World Bank’s portfolio amounted to $5.34bn as of June 2013, while the budget of the Federal Government alone for 2013 amounted to $31.17bn.

She said the bank had shifted from being Federal Government centric to a more balanced federal and state level support.

She said the annual Country Programme Portfolio Review, which the bank undertakes with various governments, was necessary to assess the progress in achieving the development objectives as well as the quality of implementation of the projects.

ogologodimkpa: Likes!.
They're doing a fantastic job
I'm not forgetting OAM4J
Haters, oya go hug transformer

Italiano1: If you are still posting on NL after you said the following just 2 days ago, then you have no right to call others tribalists

https://www.osundefender.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/umeh-and-peter1-469x313.jpg
Be it as it may, the Nigerian police’s primary function is security of life and properties. The new trend of using police as servant boy by politicians is a great national insult to our police force. Police are not suppose to be servant boy but security agents.

What do you feel about the photo?

https://premiumtimesng.com/dev/wp-content/files/2013/04/Dino-Melaye1.jpg

Only the conference room of the hotel was sealed-off.

Scores of armed police officers, on Tuesday sealed off a Nicon Luxury hotel conference room where an anti-corruption conference was planned.

The anti-corruption conference was planned by an organization promoted by former House of Representatives member turned anti-corruption campaigner, Dino Melaye.

The police arrived in the early hours of the day with combat officers, including anti-terrorism squads, to carry out the seal-off of only the conference room the anti-corruption campaigners rented for the conference.

It is still unclear why the conference room was sealed. The police authority responsible for Abuja, the FCT Command, denied ordering the operation.

“I am not aware of it,” the spokesperson of the command, Altine Daniel, said.

But Mr. Melaye believes the seal-off was ordered by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar.

“The hotel management said the police officers brought an order from the IG,” he said.

The spokesperson of the Nigeria Police headquarters, Frank Mba, is yet to respond to inquiries.

“We will never give up, the conference must go on,” Mr. Melaye said.

“We already know that when you fight corruption, corruption fights back.”

The former lawmaker has, recently, had a recurring battle with the police over anti-corruption protests including that organised to demand the removal and prosecution of Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, over the N255 million armoured car scandal. Mr. Melaye was briefly arrested, then released, during the protest.

The Federal Government is to declare two sites in Borno as national monuments as part of Nigeria’s centenary celebrations in 2014.

The Coordinator of the National Museum in Borno, Hajiya Aisha Jidda, said this on Tuesday during a courtesy visit on Gov. Kashim Shettima in Maiduguri.

Jidda named the sites as the first Shuhe Tomb in Kukawa, Kukawa Local Government Area and the Shehu Mohammed El Kanemi Prayer House in Ngala, Gamboru Ngala Local Government Area of the state.

“It may interest you to note that since 1959 when the Rabeh’s forte was declared National Monument in the state, no other site has been declared.

“Two important sites will be declared as National Monuments to complement the 100 years of amalgamation of Nigeria in 2014,” she said.

Jidda said the enlistment of the sites would boost the tourism potentials of the state.

“Your administration has no doubt recorded tremendous achievements in all spheres of human endeavour.”

The National Museum would like to partner with you in exploring the tourism potentials of the state,” the coordinator said.

But it is plain fact that those who served their countries well are honoured and adulated; they are not dragged by the scruffs of their shirts before judges to answer to embezzlement and money laundering. I do not think much of Mr. Fani-Kayode. I do not see him in my waking moments. But it is my obligation as a purveyor of opinion to put him before the courts of public opinion whenever he makes use of his own bully pulpit to retail hokum as he frequently does. I have nothing also but contempt for the likes of Ayodeji who fish in shallow ponds.

Dr. Obi Nwakanma the writes the “Orbit” column on Sunday Vangurd.

The columnist’s obligation is oftentimes to lay to rest ghosts of miscreant sentiments often imported to distort public issues by people who also sometimes hyperventilate on non-issues.

I see myself in that role of the columnist in the discharge of this duty to the public in calling the bluff of Jasper Ayodeji, or some fellow by that name, who has described himself as a lawyer for Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode on whose behalf he wrote disparagingly about my person and my column in theSunday Vanguardtitled, “The Scandal in Aviation.”

To be on record, I am neither a consultant to the Minister of Aviation, nor have I defended her beyond the basic facts of the issues arising out of the current brouhaha in Aviation.

I would defend my “Igbo sister” if there are grounds to defend her, but not simply because she’s my “Igbo sister” but because she has rights, and she should not suffer the laceration of powerful men who see mostly below her waist and are incapable of reading her mind. I have very little regard for spoilt brats whose messiah complex drives them to the elation of self-regard and calumny.

Mr. Fani-Kayode, Jasper Ayodeji’s client, is an interesting study: this conservative, right-wing, Cambridge-educated lawyer who thinks in profoundly medieval terms often needs to be called out of his closets. I therefore like to make the following observations regarding the piece to which he sends a half-baked minion to respond: my original essay, “Scandal in Aviation” was not about Mr.Fani-Kayode. But it is clear he likes the very opportunity to come to the public eye by inserting himself more forcefully, beyond my rather marginal reference to him in that essay.

Any reference to Fani-Kayode is purely incidental and goes merely to adumbrate a particularly clear situation, to wit: That Ms. Stella Adaeze Oduah has fought battles with powerful forces, including a former minister for aviation, in the person of Mr. Fani-Kayode. This former minister for aviation threw very vicious barbs at the current minister, and as Mr. Jasper Ayodeji clearly confirms called Oduah, a Minister of the government of the Federal Republic a “Fish wife” among other calumnies.

This utter disrespect for the minister and serially for other people, particularly women outside of Mr. Fani-Kayode’s ethnic affiliation, is clearly what I meant by my reference to the “ethnic other.” It is public knowledge. Indeed, nothing I said of Mr. Fani-Kayode in the brief reference to him in that article is my personal opinion: it is reportage: they are derived from publicly stated comments to which Mr Fani-Kayode has never offered a refutation. I presume Mr. Fani-Kayode did “smoke” at some point or the other in his life.

But it is quite gratifying that his lawyer has publicly acknowledged in his attempts at a rebuttal that the only thing Mr. Fani-Kayode does get high on these days is the “holy spirit.” It is of such truths that one would, like the Americans just simply say: “Holy smokes!” But I should rather say, whatever gets Mr. Fani-Kayode high is his business; I have no truck in that matter: I was simply reporting his tiff with Ms. Stella Oduah as a point of departure to the point I labored to make in that essay, and it is simply this: even if the Minister, Ms. Oduah has fought her big battles, the president has an obligation to demand her resignation, and expand the inquiry into other Federal government establishments.

But I suspect that Mr. Ayodeji, Fani-Kayode’s lawyer, exhibited very little comprehension of that article and even poorer communication skills in his attempts to rebut my column: I feel the personal insult of such mediocre writing and response to my essay. I too will be talking to my lawyers to advise me on the full range of defamation in that rebuttal. Meanwhile, Ayodeji described Mr. Fani-Kayode as “a man who has not only served his country well but has also saved lives by stopping crashes.”

I would take such an assertion under advisement, except that the facts seem to suggest otherwise. The plain incontrovertible fact is that Mr. Fani-Kayode was arrested in July 2008 by the EFCC for allegedly embezzling the Aviation Intervention Fund, and there is a case pending even now against him for money laundering. I have no opinion about these cases at the moment, and shall not make sub judice statements until the matter is discharged either in his favour or against him.

https://premiumtimesng.com/dev/wp-content/files/2012/09/Aero-Contractors-465x318.jpgThe airline could not apologise to the passengers.
Dozens of passengers were on Friday night till Saturday morning stranded at the Abuja airport as the airline they paid to transport them failed to do so.

The passengers had each paid several thousands of naira to be flown by Aero Contractors to Lagos from the Nigerian capital.

The flight, AJ132, was scheduled to leave Abuja at 6:30p.m. on Friday

In what has become a norm among domestic airlines operating in Nigeria, the flight was announced to have been delayed. Early on Friday, the passengers got a message from the airline announcing a delay in the flight by about 3 hours.

“This is to inform you that our flight AJ132 from Abuja to Lagos Today the 8th of November 2013, has been rescheduled to 21:40hrs due to operational reasons. Check in starts two (2) hours before and ends forty(40) minutes before departure. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. For rescheduling, please call: 01-6284140 or mail tickethelpdesk@ acn.aero,” the airline said in the message sent to the passengers.

Many of the passengers arrived earlier than two hours before 9:40 p.m. for the trip.

“Based on their message, I got to the airport around 7:30 p.m.,” one of the affected passengers, Charles Musa, said.

Before 9:30 p.m., the airport announcer announced that the flight had been further delayed with many of the passengers lamenting the situation.

“They still announced and assured us that we were going to fly to Lagos. And so when they announced that a plane had landed from Lagos, we were asked to queue up for boarding,” Mr. Musa, a Lagos-based lawyer said.

PREMIUM TIMES learnt that the plane from Lagos, which was also a delayed flight, arrived Abuja some minutes before 12 midnight.

After the passengers in the plane disembarked, the Lagos-bound passengers queued and were ready to board.

“Surprisingly, the pilot just came out with his crew and said he was not told to fly back to Lagos. He said he would not fly,” Mr. Musa said.

The passengers were thus left stranded at the tarmac around midnight with no official announcement about their flight from Aero. Some junior staff of the airline, however, told them they would be flown to Lagos at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday but kept mum on where the passengers would stay for the next seven hours before the flight.

The Abuja airport is one of many being remodelled by the aviation ministry, with only makeshift facilities available for both arriving and departing passengers. The airport currently has no facility for a resting area or a hotel.

“Some of us decided to go sleep inside the plane as no other provision was made for us by Aero.

“The plane was locked, but there was another Aero plane nearby. About 30 passengers including foreigners therefore went to sleep inside the other plane,” Mr. Musa said.

The passengers were, however, asked to leave the plane by soldiers at about 3:00 a.m. on Saturday with many of them sleeping on the floor at arrival lounge of the airport.

Aero, which says its mission is to “provide a safe, reliable, efficient and competitive service to our customers”. again delayed its flight on Saturday morning, with the almost 60 passengers finally travelling to Lagos at about 8:00 a.m.

“ We left Abuja at 8:00 a.m. No apologies, no compensation from Aero. It was sad, one of the passengers was at the airport since 1:00 p.m. on Friday,” Mr. Musa said.

Aero Contractors, which won the ‘Best West African Airline of the Year 2012 Award’ at the West African Tourism and Hospitality Awards, refused to respond to PREMIUM TIMES’ enquiry on the treatment of the passengers, and any possible compensation.

Its spokesperson, Simon Tumba, did not pick his calls, return calls or reply to a text message sent to his phone.

https://www.ngrguardiannews.com/images/November_2013/OBASANJO-OLU.jpgFORMER President Olusegun Obansanjo has said that Nigeria will remain one indivisible country despite the socio-economic and security challenges being experienced in parts of the north, noting that the country will not break up either in the aftermath or processes leading to the 2015 general elections.

Obasanjo, who stated this Friday in Abuja at the Global Peace Leadership Conference 2013, stressed that Nigeria will remain one indivisible country, insisting that the ethnic groups that make up the country have no problems with one another and are prepared to continue to live in peace.

He noted that instead, a few bad eggs in the country have succeeded in subjecting the nation to crisis, which he maintained were surmountable.

He, however, urged Nigerians to resist such group of people in order to uphold peace. He called on the media to channel its energy on positive developments in and around the country instead of consistently harping on the challenges currently being faced by the country.

“Nigeria will not break up. Nigeria is like a country in a marriage. There will be no divorce in Nigeria. The problem in Nigeria is caused by those who want to make politics out of our existence. Nigerians have no problems ordinarily. They intermarry without difficulty. All we need to do is to focus on the things that bind us together rather than always focusing on challenges, which are surmountable. Let those who report paint the picture of the truth about Nigeria,” he said.

Also at the occasion, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who was represented by the Chaplain of the Villa, Obinna Onwururumba added that Nigeria will not break but will ride on the current storm to greater height.

The President emphasised that Nigeria had recently come under attack by people who used the youth as foot soldiers to foment trouble in the belief that they were fighting for God.

“Our dear country Nigeria recently came under attack of vicious virus of sectarian virus. Your focus on youth is therefore noteworthy considering that the foot soldiers of this destructive extremism are usually recruited from among the youth who are often unfortunately deceived into believing that they are fighting for God. This is why all of us including those who in one way or the other are in leadership positions of our various religions should rally against the distortion and misrepresentation of the sacred teachings of our great religious faith,” he advised. Chairman and Founder of Global Peace Foundation from the Korea Republic, Dr. Hyun Jin Moon, said Nigeria was viewed as one of Africa’s rising hope for the future and called on all stakeholders to embrace peace in the interest of the nation.

He noted that Nigeria as a nation noted for its spirituality should seek solace in God rather than in politics to resolve current problems, which he said border on morality and wealth distribution.

ilugunboy: So can you now please do the right thing by moving it back to the Politics section.....

The other Mod that doesn't know his left from his right but to ban members indiscriminately just arrogantly and childishly called it sectarian....am sure he doesn't even know the meaning of the word.

owobokiri: But tht Oduah sis take vex fine oo

https://cdn.thisdaylive.com/0bef99d6-acf5-4e2c-9779-8fa02ba3fcd4/assets/110713N.-Stella-Oduah-New.jpg?maxwidth=400&maxheight=540Stella Oduah


Senate defers Oduah’s appearance to next week


Onwuka Nzeshi


The House of Representatives may hand over the officials of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Coscharis Motors and First Bank of Nigeria Plc to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for further investigations and prosecution over the controversial purchase of two bulletproof BMW cars for the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah.

However, the EFCC has already waded into the matter and on Tuesday invited officials of Coscharis and First Bank for questioning.

The commission is expected to expand its probe to include Oduah and NCAA in the days ahead.
The House Committee on Aviation which submitted the report of its investigations to the House yesterday, was said to have recommended that these individuals and persons linked to the transaction be further grilled to establish some of the facts that the legislative panel could not get in the course of its assignment.

Although the contents of the report have not been unveiled, sources in the committee said the report indicted the officials of the NCAA for initiating the transaction and getting it approved knowing full well that it was not provided for in the 2013 budget.

In a related development, the scheduled appearance of Oduah, before the Senate did not hold yesterday.

It was alleged that this was due to the fact that the Senate President, Senate David Mark, was leading the federal government’s delegation to the final of the U-17 World Cup between Nigeria and Mexico.

Checks revealed that Mark asked that Oduah’s appearance be shifted to November 14 in order for him to be in attendance.

Oduah and heads of parastatals under her ministry were billed to face the Senate yesterday, to brief them on the state of the aviation sector, especially on the likely reason for the resurgence of air crashes and the ongoing controversy over the purchase of two armoured BMW cars, which cost N255 million.

Though the minister’s appearance was listed on the Senate’s Order Paper, “That the Senate do receive the Minister of Aviation and Chief Executives of the aviation parastatals to brief the Senate on the state of the aviation sector and the higher number of aviation incidents,” it, however, did not hold, while so many people, who had thronged the senate chamber in anticipation of her, coming went back home disappointed.

The Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, explained that Mark, who was on his way to Dubai, United Arab Emirate (UAE), as head of federation government’s delegation to cheer the Golden Eaglets up in their match against Mexico today requested to be indulged to “personally” chair the session when the minister would face the Senate.

Consequently, the briefing was deferred to November 14, even though the minister was said to be within the National Assembly, preparatory to the briefing.

Meanwhile, the Senate yesterday approved the sum of N315,805,990,000 as the 2013 budget of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

This followed the adoption of the report of the Senate Committee on Niger Delta, which scrutinised the NDDC fiscal policy. The amount represented the exact budget the federal government presented to the National Assembly for approval.

A breakdown of the budget showed that personnel expenditure would gulp about N14.929 billion, overhead expenditure N9.040 billion, capital expenditure (internal) N2.377 billion, while projects (development) expenditure would gulp N289.459 billion.

Further breakdown showed that the revenue brought forward N67 billion, Federal Government contribution N61.347 billion, federal government contribution (excess crude arrears) N50 billion, oil companies contribution and others N125 billion, ecological funds N12.158 billion and other internally realised income N300 million.

The committee said it considered the proposal and noted that the non-project expenditure totalling N26,346,251,148.00 represented 8.34 per cent of the total proposed budget for the year as against 7.5 per cent in 2012.

The increase in percentage, the committee said, was largely due to an increase in the staff strength arising from the re-absorption of members of staff of the defunct Oil Mineral Producing Areas Development Commission (OMPADEC) into the NDDC.

By Sola Ogundipe


Following the release of the DNA results of the remains of victims of the Associated Airline Crash in Lagos, the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja has begun the release of the bodies to their families.

Vanguard gathered that of the 16 victims, samples from 12 were sent for DNA test in the UK.

Recall that an Embraer aircraft operated by Associated Airlines with registration number SCD 361, conveying the corpse of former Governor of Ondo State, Chief Olusegun Agagu from Lagos to Akure for burial, crashed shortly after take-off at Murtala Mohammed Airport, on October 3, killing 13 persons on board.

For bodies of victims that were burnt beyond recognition, the Lagos state government said it would not release the bodies to their families until it has conducted autopsies and forensic tests. The DNA samples taken from the bodies and family members were then taken to the United Kigndom for forensic tests and proper identification.