GBOSA GBOSA GBOSA to Celtel!
GBOSA to Cabali!

However, I'm confused with the international tariffs. Let's say i have migrated to the Simply Special tariff. How much would I pay to call Ghana, say a landline? Is it 65 kobo per second or 55 kobo per second? The information on the Unity Tariff homepage suggests 65 kobo per second http://www.ng.celtel.com/en/personal-plans/unity/index.html#international yet their "Special Offer-International plan promo"(March 19th-31st) says it'll be 55 kobo per second http://www.ng.celtel.com/en/get-connected/special-offers/int-calls-promo/index.html http://www.ng.celtel.com/en/get-connected/special-offers/int-calls-promo/index.html.

Does this mean from now till the 31st it'll cost 55 kobo and 65 kobo thereafter? After the 31st would Ghana (and other similar countries as listed on the Unity page) revert to being in international zone 2? Please clear the air.

Nairalanders, what farewell gift would u give to Baba No Regrets when he leaves come May 29th and why?

Perhaps an "invitation" to EFCC or SSS headquarters?  Or a personalised reminder in the national dailies that he should come with all his particulars to the nearest pensions office  to verify his pension entitlements(again!)  and that he was never a "ghost president" especially when he was often jetting out (99-03) to convince foreign investors to come to Nigeria?

Your place in the queue at the petrol station? A herd of (sacred) cows? He could easily venture into the business at his Ota farms.  Or maybe, 18, 553,000,000 ordinary shares of Transcorp? Even better, maybe extend his tenure?

Or would you rather do away with presents and just monetise his benefits?

Whatever it is, Nairaland users please discuss. You can suggest anything. Many thanks.


*picks race out of NR*

why not make 100 , 200 & 500 notes as coins as well as the 1 & 2 naira notes plus the kobo coins but keep all others (5,10, 20, 50 & 1000) as notes?

i'm not a whizzkid in economics (sp?) but I think people would guard the 100 , 200 & 500 coins jealously and would be unwilling to spend it. Yes, doing so would defeat the rationale for having high denominations but won't it cause inflation to be slower?

as for the new notes, i think they're too fat. they should be thinner and i agree that there's too much "white space". i prefer the look of the old one naira coin but i guess this one is cheaper to make.

Mr ConSOLUDOtion carry go!

Does anyone know exactly how I can close my Nairaland account?

q:Who Is Barack Obama?

a: who cares?!

all you people talking about the truncation of the 2nd republic: how old were you then? age 10 and above? if not, ask your parents or other elders who were mature then what the second repubic was like (particularly from 1980). then re-evaluate your opinions.

i am 100% behind the FG's action. these SAfricans will soon "own" everything in Nigeria if care is not taken.  And yes, why should DSTV have continent-wide rights to some of these channels? let other (foreign & indiginous) cable coys mushroom. and why watch the permiership? there are some peeps here who would rather support Arsenal, ManU, Madrid, Barca etc than the Super Eagles gone are the days when people were Rangers, Shooting or Nationale fans. maybe we'd start to follow our local league which will improve the standard, revenue and several other ripple-effects.

are my yarns just nationalistic rants/foolish sentiments? maybe. But what i do know is that we Nigerians are arguably the one of the least patriotic/nationalistic people on earth. at least this is a start. BRAVO FG!

let's give it up for Tienepre Oki - Niaja's representative for Miss Universe 2006. Was she the runner-up in MBGN last year? But i gotta to give it to her
She's pretty and seems to be the most intelligent representative we've sent to the Miss World/Miss Universe pageants.
Hope she goes far.

http://www.missuniverse.com/delegates/2006/files/NG-interview.html

UP NIGERIA!

MEND, NDPVF and all other such groups are despicable! Yes, the Niger Delta is underdeveloped but what happened to the 13% given to the state governments? Some say it's actually not 13% and is more like 7% due to offshore/onshore dichotomy. Fine! But what has Ibori, Odili, Alamco (now Goodluck) and Attah done with that 7%?
Over the last few weeks, the press was filled with stories about how Ibori will reward the Delta athletes who excelled in the just concluded Gateway Games.  Never mind, that the statements were just rhetoric. Is sports Delta's highest priority? Or is a tummy tuck for his excellency(Alamco) the priority? Akwa Ibom is the 2nd largest shareholder in V-mobile while Odili is a director of MTN which suggest that Rivers State is a big shareholder in MTN. We all know how the mobile phone network operators are making a killing especially MTN whose profits account for more than a third of the entire MTN group. What has been done with that?
Granted, oil companies should not degrade the enviroment but surely, providing pipe-borne water, tarring roads, building health centres for the community shouldn't either. Their only business should be to carefully exploit oil and pay their corporate taxes. It is the FG and state governments that should.
The FG has failed time & again to play its natural role by ensuring checks & balances to enhance lievlihood. Let's stop kidding ourselves. Everyone is at fault. Simply getting more money or autonomy is not going to make a difference and is not the answer!


And some people have been surprised about the military playing down the havoc because they should get, in theory, an increased defence budget. This is not the US, this is Nigeria. The norm doesn't necessarily apply. In any case, prevention has and will always be better than cure. What is particularly troubling is that the FG don't seem to have the political will to use miltary might. During the hostage crisis, government spokesmen were making stupid comments like, "These are our children (the militants), that is why we don't want to use force to free the hostages." BOLLOCKS! What responsible father doesn't discipline his child when he misbehaves? Like an armed forces spokesman told the National Assembly committee on defence, not acting decisively is sending the wrong message to the militants and the outside world that the Nigerian militray is not strong enough (even though they are). If undue attention is given to the militants cause it advancing their cause. As Winston Churchill said, "The empires of the future are the empires of the mind." So you can see where the army is coming from.

And finally, the West couldn't give a hoot whether we stay as one or not. If we split, they'll simply cavort whoever is new leader.

The following is an alleged account detailing the bundled kidnapping of Umaru Dikko. Pls express your opinions.



Disappearing act

By Yossi Melman

For Elisha Cohen, his role in the attempted abduction of Nigerian transportation minister Dr. Umaru Dikko was the realization of his life's dream: To be an international conspirator involved in a secret international mission. A report on how the representative of a construction company made friends in high places - and why he was chosen for the mission.

When Elisha Cohen passed away in July, 2000, he took with him to his grave a huge secret that had agitated many in Israel and abroad. The secret related to an event that could well be the stuff of a great feature film, combining a military commando mission and a mafia-type operation.

The event in question was a failed attempt in July, 1984, to kidnap the former transportation minister of Nigeria, Dr. Umaru Dikko, in London, in broad daylight. Three Israelis and a Nigerian intelligence officer were arrested, tried and sentenced to long prison terms. Their stories were widely published in the world media. But the planner of the operation was never discovered and his motives never revealed.

A few days after the failed abduction attempt, the now-defunct daily newspaper Davar reported that behind it stood the government of Nigeria, which had enlisted the help of the American construction company called Johnson Drake and Piper. The company denied this. Based on a detailed investigation, it may be said now that indeed the company had no connection to the deed.

But Cohen, the president of the company and one of its owners, was "the brains" behind the attempted abduction and, in return, he received $3-$5 million from the Nigerian government. Some of the money went toward financing the trials of his operatives, including the three Israelis who were arrested in the case, to monthly support for their families and to the payment of hush money to others. But most of the money stayed in his pocket, though heirs, who are currently engaged in a legal battle over the probate of the estate, discovered later to their surprise that it had disappeared.

"Relative to my father's many business interests, expectations were great and there were those who expected that he would leave a lot of money in his estate. In this respect, there's a disappointment," says his son, Harel.

PR in Nigeria

Elisha Cohen was born in Tel Aviv in 1930. He enlisted in the Palmach and served in the Harel Brigade commanded by Yitzhak Rabin. He was lightly wounded in his eyes during the battles for the Jerusalem corridor, and hospitalized. There he met a nurse called Ziva, who took care of him. Some time later, the two were married and they had two sons, Harel and Lior. After the War of Independence, he worked for the Mekorot Water Company installing pumps and other equipment. At the beginning of the 1950s, he decided to study mechanical engineering in the United States and earned his living as a guard at the Israeli consulate in New York.

At some stage, Cohen's marriage got rocky, he divorced and married Susan, a young American woman. The couple had two children, Tamar and Michael. For a while, Cohen worked in America for a company that installed air conditioners, but he was not satisfied with his job. At the time, Susan was working as a secretary in the offices of Solcoor, which was owned by the Histadrut labor federation, in New York.

In 1963, Solel Boneh, also owned by the Histadrut, sent its representative, Mordechai Allison, who had completed a stint in Nigeria, to New York to open a branch there. In his search for a secretary, he heard about Susan Cohen and offered her the job.

The Solel Boneh offices also served the company's subsidiary, Reynolds, which it had purchased back in the 1950s for legal and business-related reasons. This enabled it to submit bids for U.S. government projects. Among other things, during that time, Solel Boneh won contracts to build military bases in the United States and Turkey. Reynolds and Solel Boneh were among the jewels in the crown of Hevrat Ha'Ovdim (the Workers' Company) - the body that united, coordinated and administered all the businesses, companies and industrial plants of the Histadrut's economic empire.

Through Susan, Allison met her husband, Elisha, and became friendly with him. Cohen asked to work at Reynolds but because of Histadrut regulations, which prohibited the employment of couples in the same office, this did not work out until after Susan resigned. Three years later, Allison returned to Israel and was appointed director of the external projects department of Solel Boneh. Cohen did not get along with Moshe Boaz, Allison's replacement, who wanted to fire him. With Allison's intervention, a compromise was achieved: Cohen was sent to Nigeria as the representative of Reynolds.

Reynolds submitted bids for Nigerian government contracts, with implementation of projects carried out by Solel Boneh, serving as the sub-contractor. During the 1960s, especially after Israel's victory in the Six-Day War, Israeli military and intelligence activity flourished in Africa. Nigeria, the wealthiest country on the continent, thanks to its oil and its large population, was considered a particularly desirable target for Israeli cooperation.

Cohen's main responsibility was in the area of public relations and international relations.

Ties with the top

From his office in Lagos, the capital, Cohen had to nurture ties with the upper echelons of the Nigerian administration and, through these ties, get contracts. Cohen, say those who knew him at the time, excelled at his job: Reynolds and Solel Boneh won, among others, three contracts for paving major roads in the country that totaled about $100 million.

Cohen was especially successful in establishing relations with military officers of all ranks, both senior and junior. However - as one of his acquaintances has explained - his special talent was for establishing relations with middle-ranking officers, especially majors and colonels - who, a decade later, attained senior positions in the government.

"Cohen knew how to impress," says someone who knew him during that period in Nigeria. "He gave his listeners - Israelis and especially Nigerians - the feeling that he was a mystery man. He let it be understood that he was connected to the Mossad and the Shin Bet intelligence services or maybe even represented them in Nigeria. Among other things, he related that he worked on behalf of the Mossad in North Africa. Most of the Israelis were not very impressed by his hints and most of us understood that this was just fake showing off. But on the Nigerian army officers this made a great impression. They believed him."

One of those officers with whom Cohen became friendly was Olusegun Obasenjo who, since May, 1999, has been serving as the elected president of Nigeria. Cohen met General Obasenjo during the 1960s as a civil war was raging in Nigeria over the succession of the province of Biafra, inhabited mostly by members of the Ibo tribe. The commander of the Nigerian army, which occupied Biafra, was Obasenjo who, at the time, commanded the army's Second Division. Cohen and other Solel Boneh employees were arrested then by the army, and General Obasenjo interrogated Cohen personally. In the interrogation, the accusation was that Solel Boneh had built installations, paved roads and provided equipment to the rebels in Biafra. Cohen replied: "We can also build for you."

This was the beginning of a friendship that lasted for several years and that benefited both Cohen and the company. In 1976, with the death of the popular General Murtala Muhammad, the military junta that had taken over the government of Nigeria appointed General Obasanjo as ruler of the country. He did not want to govern and after three years, handed over the government to civilians and helped re-establish a democratic regime. At a certain stage, he cut off his ties with Cohen after he heard that his Israeli friend was boasting of his influence on him.

In 1974, Cohen left Nigeria and returned to the offices of Reynolds and Solel Boneh in New York. But not for long. In 1976, Allison initiated a move in which he and Cohen quit Reynolds and Solel Boneh. They joined up with the Ashtrom company, which had been established in 1958 (by five people who had resigned from Solel Boneh in the wake of the firing of the CEO Hillel Dan), and together they purchased a company, which turned out to be the overseas branch of the American company of Johnson Drake and Piper (JDP). JDP had a fine reputation during World War II and built many bases for the American and British armies in America and elsewhere. Among other things, it built Tel Litvinsky, on which the Tel Hashomer hospital complex later went up. For tax reasons, the company was registered in the state of Delaware and it had a modest office in New York, which served as the "post-office box" for its dealings. It also opened an office in London.

The new partners directed their business to construction projects in Nigeria, but they found themselves facing stubborn rivals in the companies from which they had resigned: Solel Boneh and Reynolds. The struggle for every contract and project often led to reciprocal recriminations and threats. Cohen's connections with military officers and Nigerian intelligence people aided in the development of JDP.

Campaign against corruption

In 1983, after a four-year absence, the generals again ousted the elected civilian government in Nigeria. Heading the country was General Muhammadu Buhari. A number of government ministers, including transportation minister Dr. Umaru Dikko, fled the country. The press in Nigeria, influenced by the junta, was full of reports of the corruption of the ministers who had fled to safe villas they had prepared in advance abroad, along with secret bank accounts.

In the campaign against corruption, Dikko was depicted as enemy No. 1 of the Nigerian people. As transportation minister, responsible as well for the ports and shipping, he controlled most of the country's imports. This status, said his enemies, gave him access to many foreign businessmen and companies.

One of them was the Swiss-Jewish tycoon Nissim Gaon. Gaon, through Noga Commodities, was considered one of the major importers of goods into Nigeria. In addition to about 10 percent of the rice imported to Nigeria, his interests also included shipping, cement and construction materials and other goods.

According to members of the junta, Dikko exploited his public position to accrue private capital through bribes he got from various businessmen around the world. The bribery attributed to him was estimated at tens of millions - and perhaps even billions - of dollars.

Nigeria is considered one of the most corrupt countries in the world. The blight affects everyone: officials, ministers and both senior and junior military officers. Dr. Dikko was no different from the members of the junta who accused him, but the officers who had taken over the government needed a scapegoat to divert criticism from themselves, especially at home. They made him into an enemy of the people.

Even today it is not clear who in the junta first had the idea of kidnapping Dr. Dikko to bring him to a kind of show-trial in Nigeria. But whoever it was who had the idea also knew to whom to turn. In the eyes of the Nigerian plotters, the man for the job was Cohen, who was not only a businessman but also - or maybe only - an agent of the Israeli intelligence services or at least connected to them.

At the beginning of 1984, on one of his many quick trips to Lagos, Cohen accepted the proposal he received from a friend, a retired senior army officer. The Nigerians transferred to him between $3-$5 million, and put the national intelligence service at his disposal.

From that moment, the mission became the focus of Cohen's life. "For him, this was the fulfillment of all he dreamed of being and wasn't: an international conspirator and secret hush-hush missions," related an acquaintance of his.

Cohen set about planning the operation like a veteran intelligence man. First of all, he looked for a "field man," who would be directly responsible for the operation. He hired Alex Barak of Netanya. It is not clear how Cohen came to know about him, but he promised Barak considerable sums of money, apparently hundreds of thousands of dollars, and full coverage of all his expenses. Barak himself, today the owner of a cafe in Tel Aviv, refuses to tell how he was enlisted for the mission and is not even prepared to admit that he knew Cohen.

Born in 1957, Barak comes from a family of diamond merchants. He studied at the military boarding school at the Herzliya Gymnasium in Tel Aviv and the Sharett High School in Netanya. He did his military service in the army newspaper Bemahaneh, and as a photographer for the intelligence corps. Afterward, he tried to do business in Israel and abroad, but with little success; he had a run-in with the law in Germany and returned to the diamond business.

Cohen took care to put up a smokescreen so that the operation could not be attributed to him.

The plot thickens

All the participants were given code names. In return for a substantial sum of money, Barak enlisted Felix Masoud Abutbul, 31 at the time, whom he knew from Netanya and who is now known as one of the "crime lords of Netanya."

Through a connection, Barak also enlisted Dr. Arieh Lev Shapira, an anesthesiologist, who worked at Hasharon Hospital in Petah Tikva. Shapira was told that it would be his job to anesthetize the victim and that the operation was for "the good of the country." To this day the doctor, who has since gone on to direct a unit at Meir Hospital in Kfar Sava, continues to believe that he had been enlisted for the operation by the Mossad for an official mission and not for a private criminal act. Abutbul also tended to believe, at least at first, that he was working in Israel's interests.

After enlisting the mission force, Cohen and Barak, who met at least once to coordinate the operation in New York, began the second phase of their preparations: locating Dr. Dikko. When Barak described the affair to the daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth in 1995, he confirmed that they had met in New York with a man called "Rafi," whom he defined as "close to the ruling circles in Nigeria."

Barak and Cohen also flew out to meetings in Nigeria with a retired senior military officer, their connection to the junta. There, Barak was given a Nigerian passport under the name "Kamal Shimon." To this end, he was helped by the Nigerian intelligence service, international business people, friends and private detectives.

The search for Dr. Dikko took several months. Initially, they thought he was hiding in Switzerland, but he was tracked down in the Bayswater section of London. From that moment on, Major Muhammad Yusufu, a Nigerian intelligence operative stationed at his country's embassy in London, became the liaison man between the junta and Barak. A New York detective agency hired detectives in London to gather operational intelligence, and they followed Dikko and studied his daily movements.

The plan developed by Barak and Cohen was to lure Dr. Dikko to a "television interview." To this end, an apartment was rented in London to serve as a "television studio." Barak set out on several missions in London and Paris, where he introduced himself as "Michel Peron," an American television producer. Abutbul and Dr. Shapira were also sent to London to become familiar with the territory.

Barak requested the aid of two "freelance journalists": a French Jew called Adrian Dramon and a Ghanaian called Camroun Daouda. He inveigled them into making contact with Dr. Dikko, to gain his confidence and convince him to come to the "studio," for an interview with "an American television network." In return, he promised them several thousand dollars, which according to Dramon were never handed over. At certain stage, Nissim Gaon, without knowing the real intention, was asked to help in luring Dikko. He was invited to be interviewed together with Dikko, but refused.

The beeper goes off

When it turned out that Dikko was not eager to be interviewed, Barak and Cohen decided on a new plan. The idea was to kidnap him and take him to the apartment in London, where Dr. Shapira was to give him an injection that would dull his senses. Then, they planned to board him in a wheelchair on a regular commercial flight from London to Lagos. Barak was supposed to be accompanying the imaginary patient. But, at the last minute, it turned at that under British law, a sick person could not be boarded on a plane without an authorization from a doctor from the British airports authority.

Barak and Yusufu had to change the plans. It was decided to abduct Dr. Dikko near his home, put him in a car and from there to transfer him to another car where Dr. Shapira would give him an injection to put him to sleep. The Israeli doctor was supposed to get into a special crate with him, prepared in advance by Major Yusufu and his people, which would be taken to Stanstead Airport near the city of Luton, north of London. According to the plan, Barak was supposed to get into a second crate, and at the airport, a cargo plane from the Nigerian airline would await them.

Barak, who could have left Britain some other way, chose to go to Nigeria hiding in a crate and be greeted there as a national hero in the hope that he would be suitably rewarded. Yusufu and his people were supposed to stamp the crates as "Diplomatic Mail," and Yusufu himself was to join the flight as a member of the flight crew.

On Thursday, July 5, 1984, at 12 noon, Dr. Dikko left his residence on Portchester Terrace in Bayswater. There, six kidnappers were waiting for him in two cars: Barak and Abutbul and four others, some of them Israelis whom Barak had enlisted and whose identities have not been discovered to this day. Even then Barak realized that the operation had not been prepared properly but he decided to carry on with it: Yusufu's driver forgot to bring along the Nigerian airline uniform, and the white van with the crates did not arrive on time at the meeting point near the Regents Park Zoo.

Within a few seconds, Dikko was abducted and trundled into a yellow Bedford van with the British Telecom logo on it (that had been obtained with the help of Major Yusufu). Abutbul and Barak tied the Nigerian minister up, gagged him and drove through Paddington to the meeting point in Regents Park. Along the way, they heard the beeper on the kidnapped man's belt go off. Over the device came the message: "Don't worry, we've informed the police and called for help."

In retrospect, it turned out that Dikko's secretary, who had followed him out of the house in order to hand him something she had forgotten, had discovered that her boss had been kidnapped. She hurriedly called the police and sent him the reassuring message. Barak, keen on carrying out the mission, decided nevertheless to continue.

In the article in Yedioth Ahronoth, he explained it like this: "They told us it would take at least two hours from the time we `picked up' the man until the mechanism that closed down the exit ports in Britain would go into operation. The timetable, which had been precisely calculated over and over again, showed that even if they called for help, we would still have enough time to get away."

Negligent partners

Despite the delays and the hitches, everyone met at the parking lot by the Regents Park Zoo. Dr. Shapira injected Dikko with the anesthetic and got into the crate provided with emergency medical equipment. Abutbul, who should have left the scene under the original plan, went to the airport with Barak. There, as planned, Major Yusufu was waiting for them, disguised in an Air Nigeria uniform. Barak and Abutbul were supposed to nail the crate housing Dikko and Shapira shut, and then climb into the second crate. Yusufu and his aide from the embassy stamped the crates with a wax seal, as a sign they had been identified as diplomatic cargo that could not be opened.

After a three-hour delay, "We feel a crane lifting the crates," related Barak to Yedioth Ahronoth. "One after the other, they are taken out of the van and placed on the loading deck. I can feel the upward movement of the crate. They load us onto the plane. In the background there is the roar of the Boeing 707's jet engines. A smile crosses Abutbul's face and he makes a take-off gesture with his hand.

"At that moment, screams and cries are heard outside. I identify the raised voices of an argument between Yusufu and someone, apparently a customs official, who orders the stevedores to stop the loading and bring the crates back to the hangar immediately. Within the fraction of a second, I realize: We've had it , I make the Israeli version what we call `giving a finger,' and this says it all."

The British customs authorities ignored the diplomatic immunity of the crates, opened them and found the four men inside them. Dr. Dikko was released and the three Israelis - Barak, Abutbul and Dr. Shapira - were arrested. Later Major Yusufu was also arrested.

Two days before the kidnapping, Cohen had flown from New York to Lagos to see at close range the happy ending of what was supposed to have been the mission of his life. A short time after the BBC broadcasted the news of the failed attempt to abduct the former Nigerian minister, some of his friends knew that Cohen had been responsible for it. One of them phoned him at the office in Lagos. Cohen poured his wrath on his partners from the Nigerian security services who had been negligent.

In the story in Yedioth, Barak had similar things to say: "In retrospect, I found out that the main culprit had been Group Captain Banfa, formerly head of the Nigerian Air Force and now CEO of Air Nigeria. This guy was supposed, according to the plan, to meet at 9:00 A.M. with Yusufu and Dr. Shapira at the apartment in London and give them the right documents and join us, to supervise the loading of the diplomatic crates at Stanstead Airport. But at the last minute Banfa got cold feet."

A Pandora's box

Months later, Cohen began to suspect that the reason for the failure had not been negligence. One of the possibilities that arose was that someone in the embassy in London, perhaps someone who had been close to Dr. Dikko or belonged to his tribe, had intentionally caused the delays in order to thwart the operation.

According to another version, the same elements in the ruling junta who had initiated the approach to Cohen were the same as those who scotched it by leaking information about the abduction to the British authorities, and everything that happened at Stanstead Airport had been a "staged show." That is, the people of the junta in fact did not want Dr. Dikko to be brought to their country to stand trial. They were afraid that such a trial might be a Pandora's box that would expose their own corruption.

The British government could have got their hands on the initiators of the operation: the military junta and Elisha Cohen. Investigators of the Anti-terrorist Squad of the London Metropolitan Police headed by Commander Hacklesby quickly discovered - from information that emerged from their interrogation of the British detectives that had been hired to follow Dr. Dikko - that Cohen was involved in the affair and that he had been sent by the junta. But the British Ministry of Defense ordered a stop to the investigation; Margaret Thatcher's government feared that problems with Britain's relations with Nigeria would disrupt commerce between the two countries. Thus Cohen was saved from British prison, although until his dying day, he stayed away from Britain for fear that he might be arrested.

Immediately after the failure of the operation, Cohen retained the services of Israeli lawyer Uri Slonim, who until then had handled some of his private business. Slonim flew to London and organized the legal defense of the three Israelis. He hired the best British lawyers for them, but to no avail.

Alex Barak, who had taken all the blame upon himself, was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment. Eight-and-a half years later he was released. Felix Abutbul and Dr. Shapira were sentenced to 10 years, and served six. Major Yusufu was sentenced to 12 years in prison. Dr. Dikko studied law in England and returned a few years later to Nigeria, where he again acquired a respectable standing, this time in the legal system.

Slonim continued to take care of the three Israelis while they were in prison. He organized visits by their families several times a year, and saw to it that money was transferred to them. Dr Rivka Shapria, the anesthesiologist's wife, received over a period of a number of years a monthly stipend of $1,000. It is not known what sums of money were received by the families of Felix Abutbul and Alex Barak.

Cohen spoke little about the operation, but his pride could not withstand the temptation. From time to time, he dropped hints and let a handful of friends in on some details of the secret. During the last seven years of his life, he was gravely ill and divided his time between his home in a small New Jersey suburb, his apartment in Ramat Aviv Gimmel and his house in Caesaria. He also tried to create among his friends the impression that this had been an "official" operation and not a private adventure. When they disagreed with him, he would shrug his shoulders and say, "What do you know?"

Susan continued to believe even after his death, that her husband had been a special Israeli operative. "Is it true that he worked for the Mossad?" she asked his friends.

Elisha's widow, who now lives in the United States, refused to be interviewed for this article. This was also the case with their daughter, Tamar Lamdan, who lives in Tel Aviv.

According to Cohen's son, Harel: "I never spoke to my father about the subject because there were subjects we never discussed, even though I had heard talk that my father had been involved in the matter. I know that he denied this when he was asked."

Lawyer Slonim said: "My involvement in the affair of Dr. Dikko is a matter that concerns a client of mine and I do not discuss such things."

Dr. Shapira did not agree to comment on the affair and said that perhaps some day, he will tell what he knows about it, but this is not yet the appropriate time.

Alex Barak: "All those involved in this old story have embarked on new lives or have returned to their Maker, and I do not see any point in recycling the affair after it has been ground find in all the media."

It was not possible to get a response from Felix Abutbul.

Some of Cohen's acquaintances, among them Pinchas Ashuach, Nati Harel and Mordechai Allison, refused to comment on the affair.




Culled from Haaretz.com

nice, huh?

source:http://www.flickr.com/photos/w00kie/sets/180637/

my guy, it doesn't matter why "biafra" failed. the fact is it did.

i honestly, believe that even though we are a diverse mix of people, we still should be one as therein lies our strength (i.e. the potent mix). yes, the british lumped us together for their own benefit and made sure we never walked without a limp, but out of evil can come good.

but will we survive? will we be truly great and once again begin to realise our potential?

hot-angel:

I'm sorry but that's darn funny!!!

how? why? cos i'm a lazy son of a gun? i honestly can't be bothered.

a dumb move that will neither be obeyed nor enforced.

i have said my own here https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-5843.64.html mr. i'm-too-cool-to-respond appropriately

Yewandé:

Seun
This sites success is testimony enough that it doesnt really need anything to improve it, whatever your personal goals are towards tweeking it a bit Id say fine, but how it looks is zero to do with the reason I'm here and I suspect others would agree.

Looks aint everything

word!

like ababoy1 said, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

the "democracy thing" must be handled with the utmost care. if indeed u want to introduce it across the entire boards (as i've seen u've piloted it already) there must be checks and balances. yes, you're an arse ('just had to slip that in!) at times, but such a system must be thoroughly thought through ( speaking in 3's and alliteration; abeg give me BONUS POINTS! ). Seriously, such may be the beginning of the end of Nairaland, at least for me.

ha, ha, ha u r such a comedian!

ODE! i'm darn serious i can't be bothered to open my mailbox and my question is pertaining to NL and its running. and i'll rather keep it private. And no, I don't want "a cut".

seun, is there a way i can contact u apart from email & phone?

Congrats! i'm no tech geek but how about getting a domain name ending with ".com.ng" to rep Nigeria?

Also, try some quality sound bites of fans singing, "Nzogbu, nzogbu! enyimba, enyimba!" and with the lyrics available if only for my benefit. i might just dump shooting stars permanently for enyimba!

all the logos/icons are nice except for the bottom "glo" which is somewhat pixellated (sic). Looking forward to seeing the completed thing. Keep up the good work.

indeed, of all the degree classes, 2 are hardest to get- first class and third class. The former because u have to consistently churn out excellent work and the latter because u have to consistently do badly but not so bad as to be kicked off the course 

people who get both are very special and intriguing people. afterall everyone comes out with second class. 

walahi, i don marra 

This is a very full account of how Britain "stitched up" Nigeria by rigging the pre-independence elections. The account is by a former British civil servant who served in Nigeria during those times. He has tried several times to get the mainstream British media to publish or at least investigate the story to no avail. Some journalists have said it is "dynamite" and so they won't touch it.

Read the accounts at www.libertas.demon.co.uk


Please read (some of it) and spread the word.

rottweiller, so u think the "foreign powers" intervened because of sympathy? of course not! yes, we went to Liberia partly because IBB had vested interests and to Sierra Leone because Abacha owned the refinery and other businesses there. I am not disputing that. But the West should stop its double standards and manipulation. I know that's impossible but they should at least stop being so blatant about it.

And Nigeria is the way it is partly due to the British. it is in their interests. FACT!

www.libertas.demon.co.uk

demmy:

I can't believe that Nigerians are now siding with Charles Taylor. May I remind you that Taylor brutally murdered Tayo Awotunsin and Krees Imodibe, the 2 Nigerian journalists covering the Liberian war back in 1990 for no reason not to talk of countless Nigerian army officers? Or that he destablished Sierra Leone and the sub region?

demmy, it is not a question of siding with Taylor. It is a question of defendiing one's (i.e. Nigeria's) ground. A deal is a deal and they were part of it brokers. The West and it's media are very good at shifting the goalposts to suit themselves.

@rof-lmao: i also tried to post my comments on the BBC website and whittled it down to their 500 character limit  yet mine wasn't published either. I have long said it that the BBC is anti-Nigeria or at least love dishing the dirt on us and wrote to them personally about this. Obviously, they denied it. I believe u a right: they cherry-pick comments on the "have-your-say" board to suit their views.

i'm loving this discusion. some peeps are realistic like uhonmora, odeku and GL.

here's my take:

In the 90's, the Nigerian-led ECOMOG intervened in Liberia and Sierra Leone at a cost of $12 billion to Nigeria without the help from the international community. No thanks were given to Nigeria then. Trouble erupted again in Liberia and the cheapest & most effective way to end it was to offer an international-brokered deal to Charles Taylor. Days earlier, Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN said he was "confident" of a deal being struck. Where were all these so-called human rights campaigners? Why didn't they cry foul then? Afterall, Taylor was indicted by the Special Court of Sierra Leone WHILE he was the Liberian President. The then deputy and now Chief Prosecutor for the Special Court of Sierra Leone, Desmond de Silva, knew about this so why is he just speaking up now? My personal grouse about the deal was that Nigeria once again carried the burden.
Fast-forward to January 2006 and Madam Sirleaf is on record as saying Mr. Taylor  is a secondary issue (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4655186.stm). Two months later she changes her tune to chalk up cheap (and needless)political points by asking for "closure" on the Taylor issue and arm-twisting the Nigerian government by stating that the Nigerians should have expedited action without Liberia's explicit request.  Obasanjo stuck to his earlier statements to hand-over Taylor to a democratic Liberian government and granted its request. Job done! The problem is that Taylor was not arrested; HE LEFT Liberia to avoid further bloodshed and was granted asylum. How then can it be expected that Nigeria should forcibly hand him over back on Liberian soil? But yet again, Nigeria gets the blame.
God forbid that anarchy should reign again in Liberia but, should it happen, the Nigerian government should not get involved no matter what. Let the so-called justice-loving countries of the world intervene. Time and time again, Nigeria has tried to play "big brother" in Africa at huge financial and human capital costs. But instead of kisses, we get kicks.
Wake up and smell the morning coffee, people! THERE IS NOT MUCH JUSTICE IN THE WORLD! The whole world's a stage in the play of politics. The double-standards and hypocricy of the West continues. And self-serving African leaders continue to dance to the tune of the Western fiddler.
Time is a healer. Madam Sirleaf should have let sleeping dogs lie. it's high-time she rolled up her sleeves and got to the serious work of development in Liberia.
Yes, Taylor might not get his comeuppance now but there is still life after death.

"The man who wastes today lamenting about yesterday will definitely waste tomorrow lamenting about today." Theodara Agbovu

"Your greatest songs are still unsung. " - Theodara Agbovu

You failed the first time to succeed the second time - Anonymous

"Life is like a bicyclye; to keep your balance, you have to keep riding." - Albert Einstein.

Those who say money can't buy happiness don't know where to shop  - Anonymous

And to all Nigerians, please take note: "The stone age did not end because of a shortage of stones." - Shiek Ahmed Zaki Yamani, former Saudi oil minister.

"Act now before you have to" -  Jack Welch

"It is better to be late than to be 'the late, ' " -  © 2006 by Vongauche

larger_20:

OBASANJO: "everything I do now is to protect Nigeria's interest, and if that will cost me my life, so be it".
Feb 28, 2006

I believe him, I think he is moving nigeria to the right direction and we should not expect nigeria to just turn over in a day. If obj is not elected again, then there is gona be a problem because the president that is comming in will also face issues ,

so what r u trying to say that OBJ is our one & only messiah? hmmn,

DivineOke:

A definite NO to his 3rd term bid. Reminds me of frodo in LORD OF THE RINGS.When d time came to throw it away, he said "The Ring is Mine" . Thatz exactly wot OBJ's doin. Power don sweet am e no wan komot again.If he amends the constitution for a 3rd term, then subsequent presidents will amend to suit whatever selfish purposes they have.

Tho i haven't seen LOTR, I agree with u as per "power don sweet am".

The parallel i draw from this sad reality is that of Chancellor Palpitine in Star Wars who made himself Emperor for the supposed good of the republic. so in response to lager_20's first post that a devil u know (i.e. OBJ) is better than the devils u dont (i.e. badangida, orji kalus etc) i say what if the devil u know is THE DEVIL and not his agent?

Be careful what u wish for.

OBJ's had his chance; he tried. We remember him best for being the first african military head of state to hand over to an elected govt. He shouldn't tarnish that. Baba, pls go and rest.

WHAT A LOAD OF POPPYCOCK!

we might ave some part to blame but we are not the architects

the first Nigerian satellite should be used as evidence to back up the population count.

and on a more imortant note, why can't the said satellite be used to aid the military and give the pinpoint-location of theses rogues? or does the satellite have no such capability? if not, the us military satellites can assist. after all, they should "defend their installations"-pipelines.

back to the census, development should not be made solely on population and or population density. rather, a weighted average of these factors and the contribution of the area to the national economic welfare should be used in dividing the cake.

PS
i know that all my yarns na acada but na true talk i talk

Well, Slobodan Milosevic is dead. Most Nigerians might ask what's the big deal or how does it concern us?

For those of u who do care, what's ur opinion? Was he really a brutal war criminal, no less a war criminal than others or simply a misguided nationalist?

Could the NATO have done more to stop all the wahala or was it in their best interest not to?

Q: Do aliens really exist?

A: NO!


my question is why do they only seem to appear to westerners or ppl in developed countries?

i find it hard to difficult to understand why people say there is no God. of course, there is an answer-the devil.

do u believe u just happened to be?

evolution itself is a theory and therefore cannot be accepted wholeheartedly. Science justifies the existence of God.

Jakumo:

Vongauche your quaint opinion in support of female genital mutilation is in fact quite gauche.

Since you seem to be so supportive of non-essential surgical procedures provided they are carried out in hygienic circumstances, might I suggest that you elect for similarly motivated cosmetic surgery to remove the top 2 inches of your own penis, since your normal excretory and copulatory activities will only be marginally impaired after the "fix".   And when that is done, please do remember to share your post-operative findings with us.

little wonder then that my id is Vongauche. Maybe I should post in the reason-for-your-id thread to give the full raison d'être. 

But on a more serious note, what is the reason for your above-mentioned surgery? If there was a seemingly logical explanation and i was still a baby then why not? Unfortunately, I willnot be able to share "post-operative findings" with u as I will have no recollection of the event!