HELICOPTERS SEEN BY IDP's DROPPING ARMS AND FOOD FOR BOKO HARAM. Displaced residents of Monguno, in Borno State, which was recently taken over by Boko Haram, have said they saw helicopters dropping arms and food items for the insurgents in the bushes. The IDPs, who said they spent about 48 hours in the bush running towards Maiduguri, expressed worry that the Boko Haram sect was not the only ones involved in the insurgency, but that there are many foreign fighters and some external supports. Leader of the Nigeria Vigilante Group in Monguno, Muhammed Sani-50 said he had, on several occasions, spotted unusual delivery of items in big wooden boxes by air, and sacks being dropped in the bushes around Marte and Monguno where Boko Haram terrorists were camped. “Even during the attack on Monguno, there was an aircraft that came but did not do anything, not even dropping a single bomb before it left; then another one later came around the Monguno barracks and we saw four men alighting from the aircraft, using a rope. The aircraft left, but we doubt if they were soldiers. “Even before then, some of my colleagues and I have been sighting helicopters dropping items in sacks and some in boxes to them at the camp of Boko Haram near Chikungudu and Kwalaram villages. Many helicopters came to drop items packed in boxes and sacks to the Boko Haram insurgents at a bush camp between Monguno and Marte; then we would see the Boko Haram gunmen rushing to the spot to pick the dropped items,” he stated. The displaced vigilante officials said those that attacked Monguno comprised hundreds of foreigners who looked like Chadians. “Many of them looked like Chadian Arabs – they were light-skinned with coiled hair, and there were many young men from Monguno – who Boko Haram had abducted when Nganzai was attacked last year – that were now active members of the sect. “While Boko Haram members that are former youths of Monguno were leading other insurgents to attack Monguno town, the foreigners were the ones engaging soldiers near the barracks,” he explained. Sani, who said he had lived in Monguno for the past 20 years, said he fled amidst the hail of bullets when the terrorists became irritated by his anti-bullet charms that rendered bullets ineffective. His shirt and trousers were riddled by bullets, yet he remained unhurt, he said.

Security Awareness Tips. Your safety and security are very important in every aspect of your life. Use these tips to help protect yourself, your loved ones and your valuables. EXTREME COLD SAFETY. When extreme cold arrives, there are many challenges to stay safe. It is important to take extreme cold seriously and minimize your risk of exposure. Preventive Action is Your Best Defense. (1) Prepare your home and car in advance for cold-weather emergencies: (2) Winterize your home by insulating, using weather stripping and caulking, and installing storm windows (3) Create a home emergency kit that has enough supplies for three to seven days. (4) Keep anti-freeze and windshield washer fluids at proper levels in your car and have a full tank of gas. (5) Carry a vehicle emergency kit that includes warm clothing, a blanket, a scraper, a shovel, a flashlight with extra batteries and jumper cables if you are residing in a severe snow area. If you must go outside, make it brief and avoid physical exertion, as cold weather puts extra strain on the heart. (6) Wear several layers of loose-fitting clothing: Outer layer-Wear a coat made from a tightly woven fabric that is wind- and water-resistant. Inner layer-Fabrics like wool, silk or polypropylene hold more body heat than cotton. (7) Wear a hat, a scarf to cover your face and mouth, mittens and water-resistant boots. (8) Remove extra layers of clothing if you feel too warm, as excess perspiration can increase heat loss. (9) Avoid wet clothing, which loses 90 percent of its insulating value. Shivering should not be ignored; it means your body is losing heat. (10) Do not drink alcoholic or caffeinated beverages, which cause your body to lose heat more rapidly. Don’t forget to bring your pets indoors!

Ahmadu Ali Says PDP Will Ensure Maku Fails For The Rest Of His Life. The Director-General of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Council, Ahmadu Ali, on Tuesday said his party will make sure the former Information Minister, Labaran Maku, fails for the rest of his life for defecting to the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. Mr. Ali said Mr. Maku is a “dangerous boy” who the PDP helped groom from nothing, adding that his defection will cause a reduction in the number of votes the PDP will garner in Nasarawa state. The Director- General who stated this at the PDP presidential rally in Lafia, explained that the former minister benefited from the PDP-led Federal Government only to defect to another party. “We have a young man who from nowhere was a Deputy Governor of this state for four years, from nowhere he was made a Minister at the federal level for six years, decided to leave the party for another party and keep telling lies that by being in that party, he is helping us. “He is only going there to reduce our votes. He is a dangerous boy. “We must make sure that now that he has shown his colour, he will continue failing for the rest of his life unless he retraces his steps back to the elders like us and we will forgive him.” Mr. Ali then urged the electorate in the state to vote for President Goodluck Jonathan and other candidates of the party at both federal and state levels. (NO Sir, #CHANGE - APC or Nothing) In his remarks, the President also denied lending any form of support to Mr. Maku’s gubernatorial aspiration under the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA. Mr. Jonathan said lending such a support to the former minister would amount to anti-party behaviour. He, therefore, expressed his support for all the PDP candidates in the state in the February 14 and 28 general elections. “We are told and everybody spoke about that the former Minister of Information that is in another party and saying that it is the President who asked him to go to another party. Definitely I cannot play anti-party. “PDP is my party and all those who want to help us should come to PDP and work for PDP so that PDP will be in control of Nasarawa State so that government of PDP in Nasarawa State and the Federal Government that will be in the hands of PDP and work together to move Nasarawa State forward,” Mr. Jonathan said. Also speaking , the President of the Senate, David Mark, urged Mr. Maku to desist from dropping the name of Mr. President in his quest to achieve his political ambition. He advised him to apologise to the PDP ”if he is willing to return to the party”, saying that the PDP would wholeheartedly accept him into its fold. “People of Nasarawa State, don’t be deceived by any ungrateful son of yours, who goes round saying he is in another political party because Mr. President has put him there. “That is absolute lie, you must never believe it. We said so few days ago and we are emphasising it again. “And we want to emphasise it; (the) President is body and soul PDP. “He can’t, therefore, put somebody in another political party to be campaigning on behalf of another political party. “How can you be in APGA and be campaigning for the PDP presidential candidate? “Return to PDP with apology because before we even take him he has to apologise to all the good people in PDP.’’

They Believe No Christian Should Govern Nasarawa” Labaran Maku Blasts David Mark, Ahmadu Ali, Others. The governorship candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance in Nasarawa State, Labaran Maku, has hit back at Senate President, David Mark, and a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party [PDP], Ahmadu Ali, for accusing him of betraying the party. Maku, a former Minister of Information, formally joined APGA to contest the Nasarawa State governorship election, after losing to Yusuf Agabi in the PDP primaries in December last year. President Goodluck Jonathan, President of the senate David Mark and Ahmodu Ali had sworn it will not be well with Maku who they’ve supported all along only for him to defect. Mr. Maku, speaking through a statement by Zakari Edego, the Director, Media and Publicity of his campaign organisation, said the PDP leaders were jittery and panicky as a result of his exit from the party to emerge as APGA’s governorship candidate for Nasarawa State. “The import of these attacks on the APGA governorship candidate clearly shows that there is panic in the PDP in Nasarawa State following the emergence of Mr. Maku as the flag-bearer of APGA,” the statement said. “The real issue in Nasarawa state is that some people within and outside the state believe that no Christian should ever be governor of Nasarawa state. Therefore, Mr. Maku is being persecuted purely for religious reasons. “The attacks on him are orchestrated to sustain the status quo in Nasarawa, which is already leading to destruction of the state by insurgents and mercenaries. This development portends danger to the future unity and development of Nasarawa state and our dear country. “The Maku Campaign Organisation views the sustained attack against the APGA candidate as a desperate measure by some leaders of the PDP to distract him from campaigning to defeat their candidate and the incumbent in the upcoming governorship elections.” He queried Mr. Mark’s particular anger over his exit, while remaining silent on the defections in his native Benue State. “While Mr. Maku has high respect for Senator Mark and Dr. Ahmadu Ali and wishes not to join issues with them, he finds it especially curious that Senator Mark has remained mute over the defection in his own native Benue State of Former Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Dr. Sam Ortom, and former PDP National Chairman, Senator Barnabas Gemade, who have gone all the way to the opposition APC to contest for the governorship and senatorial positions respectively. “Why has Senator Mark not condemned these defections from his native Benue state? Why the undue attention on Mr. Maku and Nasarawa State?” Mr. Maku said he never enlisted the support of Mr. Jonathan for his governorship ambition in APGA, adding that, he is experienced enough to know a sitting president would not support him in an opposition party. He condemned David Mark and Ahmadu Ali for expressing anger over his campaign for Mr. Jonathan, whom APGA adopted as its presidential candidate as a result of his “sterling leadership qualities and many achievements in office”. “We therefore urge our teeming supporters to disregard all insinuations and threats and sustain the tempo of the campaign for Mr. Labaran Maku and Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to emerge as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and governor of Nasarawa State in this year’s general elections,” the statement said.

Sharia police arrest 12 men accused of planning to wed in Nigeria's Kano. KANO, Nigeria: Sharia police arrested 12 men accusing them of attempting gay marriage in Nigeria's second city of Kano, though 10 were later released, a spokesman for the board overseeing Islamic rules in the area said on Tuesday. Gay marriage, same-sex relationships and membership of gay rights groups were banned in January 2014 by President Goodluck Jonathan despite Western pressures over gay rights and threats of aid cuts to those passing laws that persecute homosexuals. Nigeria's population is roughly split between predominantly Christians in the south and Muslims in the north. As in much of sub-Saharan Africa, anti-gay sentiment extends across the religious divide. A spokesman for the sharia law group, Mohammed Yusuf Yola, said the men were arrested at the scene of the ceremony on the outskirts of Kano on Sunday following a tip-off. "It is still an allegation but when we screened them, they really looked gay, and the way they behaved was gay," Yola said. Ten out of the 12 suspects were released after their parents signed a statement saying they would keep their children away from such activities, Yola said, but would be handed over to the police for prosecution if they were caught again. Nigeria's anti-gay laws provide for sentences of up to 14 years in prison.

AN EXPOSITION OF A JUST CAUSE. It is rare to have two or more people with the same idea of what capitalism is all about. But the truth is that it is not a system of force imposed by others. Rather, it is the lack of such a system. Broadly speaking, capitalism is what happens when people are free from the force of others. And to have people free of the force of natural conditions, ordinarily, something must be done to make those conditions people – friendly. The inventors of machines and wheels, the production of energy and everything that followed are the product of people. Without these, mankind may have been unprotected against nature. The Kilba people in Hong Local Government Area of Adamawa State provide a similar example of the intimate connections between development and political change. Even before Nigeria’s independence, the people irrespective of their differences in religious leanings, had demonstrated how development in their various religions and in more explicitly political organizations, might be two different organizational and ideological expressions of the same process. For instance, the then Danish Sudan United Mission opened a station in Pella Village in 1922, from where Christianity spread to other parts in the entire community. Infact Mission activities were organized then along the same line as among the Bachama in Numan LGA, although in the period before 1945, they did not have similar scope and success as among the Bachama people. To be precise, in 1940, barely 18 years after the opening of the station in Pella, reports had it that only 21 Kilba people had been baptized; prominent among them was the first baptized Kilba Christian, Rev. Shall Holma of blessed memory. Infact, a point of reference for the political history of Christianity in Kilba land was that, the British administration then gave permission to open a station in Pella in 1922, in spite of its own general principle of not permitting Missions to work in predominantly Muslim areas. Here, it should be noted that, Kilba land was not among the areas in Adamawa Division then dominated by the Muslim Yola Emirate. The area was mainly dominated by pagans. And when the British nevertheless authorized the Danes to work there, they did so, hoping that the Missionaries might succeed in what the British had failed to do; thus, to bring Kilba under control. But that did not work out after all. The early Kilba, according to historians dates back to the 8th Century AD. It was there after in early 14th century that the German traveller Dr. Berth reported that “there was no other power supreme and well organized north of the River Benue than Kilba”. He further recorded that “Kilba history is an organized pagan kingdom second to none in Western Sudan and resembled that of ancient Egypt”. It could be recalled that, even during the colonial period, the Kilba people had persistently left no one in doubt, that they wanted to separate themselves from the defunct Adamawa province and even uptill today. The struggle did not just begin today as erroneously held in some quarters by certain politicians and their Co-hort. Their (Kilba) struggle against suppression and oppression, started by using the Mission, first by joining the Mission schools and acquiring Western Education. After World War II, the dominant political issue in Kilba land was the relationship between them and the Yola Division. As in other parts of Northern Nigeria then with substantial non-Muslim populations, the system of Fulani sub-imperialism began to disappear. The leadership of the Emirate in Yola and the British Administrators gradually realized that the system was already in jeopardy. This was glaringly clear in the annual report from the Adamawa province heaquarters in 1953 put together by the British Resident, C.K. Wreford, where he was quoted as saying “the new Lamido and members of the Council realized that there are many stresses within the Emirate, and a sharp increase in political consciousness” Equally “there is a growing awareness of identity, particularly in the tribal areas, leading to an awareness of rights”. The aforestated quotation captures the colonial administration’s view of political changes after the Second World War in Adamawa, especially among the young people who acquired Western education (Christians and Muslims inclusive). Typical of a politically conscious society, the Kilba community through an ethnic Association Kilba State Union (KSU) under the leadership of Yerima Balla, formerly known as Yerima Amos Balla, of blessed memory, father of Fati Y. Balla, former Ambassador to Mozabique, continued with an intensive struggle for Kilba independence. The indefatigable Yerima Bala, developed himself for political struggles of his people, when as a child attended the Danish Sudan United Mission in Pella. He later proceeded to a Church Missionary Society School in Zaria. During the Second World War, he enlisted in the Army. After a successful military training, Yerima Bala served both in Burma and India throughout the War period. His stay in Delhi was of decisive importance for his religious and political development. He later converted to Islamic faith in Bombay in 1942. Meeting the Indian nationalists became a turning point in the political life of Alh Yerima Balla. His political horizon was broadened and suddenly presented himself as part of a worldwide movement for the struggle against the colonial subjects for political independence. He started his career in Nigerian politics which was to last till the middle of the 1980’s. Apart from championing other issues of common interest to the Kilba community as a whole, the first major regional political event which the KSU handled was the election for the House of Representatives in 1954, where Balla vied for election but lost. As a democrat, he petitioned the British administration, complaining over the election. Ahead of the said election Yerima Balla earlier complained to the Resident in Yola that the then Kilba District Heads were favouring the Fulani, alleging refusal of his brain-child the (KSU) to organize public meetings prior to the election. He (Balla) criticized them for showing a higher loyalty to the Fulani than to a laid down democratic election principles. It is based on this recorded antecedents among several similar Kilba history, that the then Governor-General of the Northern protectorate, Fredrick Lugard in 1906, directed the British Resident Administration in Yola to confer staff of office on a number of chiefs, prominent among whom were the Kilba and Bachama. Unfortunately, over 100 years after, nothing came out of that, at least for the Kilba people and many other tribes. The usual idiosyncrasies to manipulate others, seem to be the choice of the people at the helm of affairs across board. As a result of high profile intrigues adopted by the Adamawa Emrate Council and the then Resident British Administrator, the staff of office approved for the Kilba and their counterparts in other local governments in the state have continued to elude them. In the 80’s during the military regime, both Military administrators late Colonel Yohanna Madaki and GP Capt Jonah Jang, gave approval for the conferment of second class staff of office to the Tol Hoba as directed by Lord Lugard in 1906. But playing the script of powers that be then, their successor Wg Cdr Isa Mohammed, turned down the conferment on the instruction of the former Chief of General Staff and Second in Command to Gen Ibrahim Babangida; Vice Admrial Augustus Aikhomo. It should be noted however that whatever reasons that prompted the Federal Military Authorities and their Collaborators to cancel the Conferment of the Chieftaincy title on Tol Hoba in 1986, was baseless, unconstitutional and biased. Their action was ultravires, self serving and does not hold water, as it is an infringement of section 5 (Cap 20) of the laws of Northern Nigeria (1963) which empowered only the state chief Executive to exercise such action. Infact there is no any provision in the country’s constitution since independence, which vests the power to appoint and a depose emirs or chiefs on the federal government but rather on individual state governors. The late Elder Statesman, Alh Yerima Balla on the other hand, has left a legacy on the sands of time. Posterity will surely forgive him because he had proved he was a patriot committed to the cause of his people; just like some few other community leaders who also fought the same cause. After those tortuous struggles, it is only logical that some concerned citizens from the area should take up the challenge to the next level. Before the present generation incurs the wrath of their children’s children, who may decide to term them, as cowards and traitors, for their age-old action and inaction on this issue. They should forge ahead and push the issue of development through democracy for final adjudication through a judicial due process. In the meantime, the attention of Kilba people should be draw to the fact that, the perpetrators of this injustice are not done yet with their evil machinations on their fellow citizens as some of them still exist and imposing elective political candidate on us, more gross injustice is still the lot of many communities, as far as some selfish political stooges still propelled by those that think, they will subvert us of dividend of democracy, thereby enriching themselves or sharing the loot with their master/godfathers, then, then the issue of injustice may only be simmering for now, but it is really a time tomb, if left unchecked, it may do no one any good. The successes achieved by the creation of Hong Local Govt Area out of defunct Gongola State, The Creation of COE Hong, The creation of Radio Transmission Station and Activation of Telecommunication Centre in Hong were archieved through selfless service by notable learders; but alas. Today, we are encroached by greedy humanbeings that are arrogantly speaking ill of those that bring meaningful development to Kilba land, one of such is a derogatory comment made by a selfishly attached politician, who say 'Kilba Man can never be a senator after Engineer Adamu Yahaya won senate election during the 2003 election thereby defeating his counter part Prof Jibril Aminu hands down, to an extent same Prof Aminu contratulated him on BBC Hausa service before it was swindle the next morning, now same person who irritated that Kilba Man can never be a senator is contesting for sanator shamefully. Note; What tribe is this guy? Is he a Fulani, Fali, Dang-Dang Ko, Babur, Margi or Higi? I believe something is very wrong here, which deserve serious investigation, so that the slot of Kilba Man is not compromised.

YUGUDA'S REVELATIONS ON BAUCHI ATTACK SHOCK PRESIDENCY AND PDP. REVELATIONS by Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda on the stoning of President Goodluck Jonathan in the state during a campaign rally was said to have shocked the Presidency and the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party. Yuguda, in an interview with the BBC Hausa service, said that the stoning and the attack on the President were carried out by members of the ruling PDP. Before now, the Presidency and the ruling party had accused the opposition All Progressives Congress of being the mastermind of the attack. Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Prof. Rufai Alkali, and the PDP Presidential Campaign Office, however insisted that the attack was carried out by the APC. But Yuguda, a member of the National Executive Committee of the PDP, insisted that those who organised the youths that threw stones and pelted the President with sachet water, were members of the party from Abuja. The governor said, “I am sure and let the world know that the people who did this thing were PDP members and those politicians in Abuja were the ones behind it; they were not APC members. “They found these youths on the road and gave them brooms and satchets of water and they instructed them that when the President was passing they should raise the brooms and throw the satchets of water at him. “They did that so that the President would think that Isa Yuguda is against him. They have been telling him in Abuja that we are not supporting him. They did that to show the President that Isa Yuguda is nothing in Bauchi, to show that despite being an indigene of Bauchi, Isa Yuguda could not be respected with his guests in Bauchi.” Yuguda also said that he and members of his cabinet were not aware of the plan ahead of the rally, saying they were taken by surprise. Reacting to the governor’s statement, the Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Alhaji Ibrahim Jalo, said that only the governor was in a position to clarify his statement on the matter. Jalo said, “How can my party be organising stoning? Anyway, Yuguda has spoken on the issue. He should be the one to clarify his position on the matter. “I was in Bauchi that day and I saw what happened. The governor said it was done by PDP members. Ask him to speak further on it.” However, a presidency source described the governor’s statement as unfortunate. “How can he speak like that? We have condemned it; the party has condemned it and now, he’s blaming the party for this. That’s bad,” a presidential aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak officially on the matter, told our correspondent. The National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said he was happy that Yuguda was able to summon the courage to clarify what happened in the state. Mohammed said, “Governor Yuguda’s interview has vindicated the APC and confirmed our position that the PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan will stop at nothing to scuttle this election. “It is sad that in their desperation PDP and Jonathan are ready to bring down the nation. “Thanks to Governor Yuguda. The whole world now sees the hypocrisy and perfidy of President Jonathan and the PDP. “In Jos, Kano, Bauchi, Rivers and other states we have witnessed electoral violence, PDP are the instigators and aggressors.” But the Director of Media and Publicity of the PDP presidential campaign organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, warned the APC on Sunday to stop blaming the ruling party for the attacks on the President.

ADAMAWA'S FLEDGLING DEMOCRACY AND THE PEOPLE. The dynamics of political appointment/election is imperative in several ways. First of all as a job and as a patronage and the person whom the cap fits in this office is assumed to be a leader. Obviously such a person should be one whom others will follow willingly without coercion. That rules out tyrants, bullies, autocrats and all those others who use coercive power to impose their will on others. Usually in achieving this, due respect is paid to the sanctity of truth and transparency devoid of impurity. But in the life of Hong LGA, I make bold to say that these fine attributes of good governance have been trampled upon with a bit of recklessness. There is no doubt, pockets of achievements have been recorded in few sectors since then, but over all, all these have been subsumed in the thick clouds of controversy and false hood. Unlike what obtains in developed democracies where the universal spoils system died long ago, in Nigeria political administration jobs are still regarded by many participants in the political process, as an important part of the rewards system. They are very essential to those who get the jobs, and also to those who make it possible for such to happen. Whatever the patronage or symbolic value of those political offices, however, office is registered most clearly in their impact on public policy. In contrast to the foregoing, the noble concept of internal democracy has been bastardized in Adamawa by Senator Jibril Aminu and Dr Aliyu Idi Hong, Former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, under the tutelage of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. One of the notorious legacies Obasango bequeathed to the duo is the imposition of candidates in supposedly elective posts. For the records, both the Minister and the Senator are alleged to have imposed some governor and the 21 LG Chairmen in the state. This they did not out of likeness for the impostors, but allegedly for their selfish political considerations. Infact, in the wake of the era of imposing especially the Council Chairmen, no soul dares any of them and go scot-free. This category of appointees was untouchables. But possibly due to the change in the political configuration going in the state, there are palpable fears that, reckoning time is in the offing for the political godsons in the state. The first casualty was Malam Ibrahim Gayus of Hong LGA. According to impeccable sources from the area, his godfather was miffed by the Chairman’s rumored excitement over Dr Hong’s removal from office for a period of 2 weeks, before his reappointment, other sundry issues, leveled against the Chairman by the minister’s loyalists. After stabilizing in his new office, the minister commenced a plot to remove Malam Gayus from office by way of instigating members of the legislature to formally impeach him as a revenge mission. The other factor which manifested in Hong town was at the funeral of late Alh. Iliyasu Njanusu Hong, an Hon. Member of House of Reps, where in the presence of the minister, his political thugs openly rained abuses on the Council Chairman ostensibly to ingratiate themselves with their boss. It was reportedly gathered that all attempts by the Chairman to scold the thugs from embarrassing him in the midst of sympathizers at the deceased compound, was allegedly rebuffed by the minister, who equally is the Chairman’s godfather as far as the May 2nd, 2009 purported LG election is concerned. This altercation continued, and in a bid to assert his authority as the Chief security officer of the area, the Chairman was reported to have authorized the arrest of those thugs by the police for detention. In the process, the minister got the wind of the arrest and ordered the immediate release of the boys by the police authorities in the area as the action of the thugs the minister was quoted, is just an internal family matter. And that order was carried out to the latter, leaving the Chairman as an underdog in his domain. It should therefore be noted that the operational principle that shapes political behaviour of politicians and their action in a democracy, is the notion that all its participants share, they elective decisions of a people is important. They have a significant effect on the outcome of policy decision of government. It therefore goes to show that Dr Hong and Prof Jibril Aminu, ought to follow the path of honour and apologize to the people of Adamawa for their individual and collective roles in subverting the people’s will in the last three years. For instance, if really they want the people of Hong to believe and accept that, there was an election, a peaceful one for that matter, and not to talk of the fact that Ibrahim Gayus was duly elected, how could he have emerged from a contest that had no other contestants? If he was adopted by party faithfuls as they want people to believe, where is the relevant form those concerned filed? Where and when were the Primaries that selected him conducted? Who was the returning officer of the said election? These questions need deserved answers if the duos are to be taken serious and as responsible people. From the bits and ends of the issues, it is alleged that the tactful refusal of Ibrahim Gayus to remit an agreed sum of money to the minister’s account in appreciation of the former’s imposition on the good people of Hong, had put the duo on a collision course. This latest development has just confirmed that Dr Hong’s wild interest in imposing Mr. Gayus in the first place was not a patriotic one. Both of them and their fellow co-travelers have proved their critics right. What a shame you will say.

THE UNITED STATE SECRETARY ASK INEC NOT TO SHIFT 2015 GENERAL ELECTION. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that it is imperative for Nigeria to hold its elections on time. Kerry, who held a closed door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari, was reacting to the call by National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki for the poll to be delayed to allow more time to distribute Prmanent Voter’s Cards (PVC). “Given the stakes, it’s absolutely critical that these elections are conducted peacefully,” Kerry told journalists in Lagos. “Nobody gains by violence, nobody gains by turning a political disagreement into a killing spree ... The proof will be in the actions that are taken in the course of the election and afterwards,” Kerry added. The Secretary of State also reached out on phone to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Attahiru Jega asking him to ensure the poll is credible and not to let the date slip. He said the United States remained committed to helping Nigeria fight Boko Haram, which has killed thousands, kidnapped hundreds and displaced over a million people in the past few years.

THE UNITED STATE SECRETARY ASK INEC NOT TO SHIFT 2015 GENERAL ELECTION. US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that it is imperative for Nigeria to hold its elections on time. Kerry, who held a closed door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan and General Muhammadu Buhari, was reacting to the call by National Security Adviser (NSA) Sambo Dasuki for the poll to be delayed to allow more time to distribute Prmanent Voter’s Cards (PVC). “Given the stakes, it’s absolutely critical that these elections are conducted peacefully,” Kerry told journalists in Lagos. “Nobody gains by violence, nobody gains by turning a political disagreement into a killing spree ... The proof will be in the actions that are taken in the course of the election and afterwards,” Kerry added. The Secretary of State also reached out on phone to Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Attahiru Jega asking him to ensure the poll is credible and not to let the date slip. He said the United States remained committed to helping Nigeria fight Boko Haram, which has killed thousands, kidnapped hundreds and displaced over a million people in the past few years.

VARIOUS CORRUPT PRACTICES OF FORMER MINISTER OF STATE FOR HEALTH; WHO IS NOW CAMPAIGNING FOR ELECTION AS SENATOR UNDER ADAMAWA CENTRAL SENATORIAL DISTRICT UNDER (PDP). Nigeria’s Minister of State for Health, Dr. Idi Aliyu Hong seems to be a man that can’t live without scandal if the latest information coming out on him is anything to go by. While the young minister is yet to come out clean on the allegation that he bought a N300 million mansion in Utako area of Abuja, he has again been accused of ‘stealing’ government vehicles for his 2011 governorship ambition in his Adamawa home state. Late last year, Hong was accused of paying N300 million for a property located at plot 331 Utako district in Abuja barely a year after he was appointed a minister of the federal republic. The lid was blown off the deal when the minister allegedly failed to pay some agents who introduced the property to his aide, their own fee. The minister was however said to have set security agents after the property merchants for trying to blackmail him. He was also said to have confirmed that he bought the mansion but with a loan from a bank which is the usual defence tactic of many officials caught in a similar web after they would have struck a deal with their bankers for a fee. While Nigeria’s anti-graft agency, EFCC is yet to let the minister off the hook of its searchlight on the source of the money used to buy the mansion, iReports-ng’s investigations have revealed that Hong has been fighting yet another battle with some officials of the National Museum and Monuments Commission. The officials under the aegis of concerned staff of the Commission revealed that while the present Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Adetokunbo Kayode and Hong were minister and minister of state for Culture and Tourism respectively, “the parastatal was asked to supply cars for the exclusive use of the minister and the minister of state. That was done with the understanding that after their appointment they return the cars.” According to the officials, “one of the cars given to Hong, a Toyota corolla has an engine number 2933678 and chassis number JTDBR 22e703217112. After Kayode was reassigned to ministry of labour, he returned his cars, while Hong who we are made to understand is interested in future elections has refused to return his own.” Beside the Toyota car, Hong is also being accused of keeping another Honda Accord car which belongs to the Commission. The officials alleged that he had taken the vehicles to Adamawa state to keep as part of preparation of logistics for his gubernatorial ambition in the next election year. The aggrieved workers have threatened to drag Hong before the EFCC if he fails to return the vehicles he inappropriately took away from the Commission. Investigations by iReports-ng revealed that what Hong is being accused of is a common corrupt practice among ministers. It was gathered that ministers in Nigeria have the habit of forcing agencies and parastatals under their supervision to put some cash together for their (ministers’) welfare package especially when they just get into a new ministry while they equally demand vehicles from these agencies as gifts. A minister who was just removed from a very important ministry is said to have received over 20 of such car gifts from agencies under his ministry. Suspecting that security agents may go after him after his sack from his juicy ministry, the minister was said to have hurriedly transferred the vehicles mostly assorted jeeps to the homes of relatives and friends for safe keep and take away the prying eyes of security agents from him. Source - http://ireports-ng.com/2010/03/07/minister-of-state-for-health-idi-hong-in-another-corruption-scandal/ http://ireports-ng.com/

OBAMA CUT SHORT INDIA TRIP TO PAY CALL ON SAUDI ARABIA. President Barack Obama will shorten his trip to India and divert to Saudi Arabia, paying respects after the death of King Abdullah and meeting with the oil-rich nation's new monarch, the White House said Saturday. The scheduling shift, announced just before Obama left Washington, underscores the desert kingdom's pivotal role in U.S. policy in the Middle East, including the military campaign against the Islamic State group. Saudi Arabia's status as one of Washington's most important Arab allies has at times appeared to trump U.S. concerns about the terrorist funding that flows from the kingdom and about human rights abuses. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama would meet on Tuesday with King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and other officials to "offer his condolences on behalf of the American people." The president called Salman from Air Force One to express his sympathies on the passing of his older brother. The White House said the king welcomed the news that Obama would be traveling to Riyadh. Obama's pivot comes two weeks after the White House faced criticism for not sending a high-level representative to Paris for a peace rally in the wake of terrorist attacks in France. The White House later said it was a mistake that someone with more stature than the U.S. ambassador to France had not joined the dozens of world leaders who marched arm in arm through the boulevards of Paris. White House officials said Obama's stop in Saudi Arabia was not influenced by the Paris misstep, but it could keep similar criticism at bay as other world leaders head to Riyadh to offer condolences. Obama's willingness to visit Saudi Arabia, a country with ties to the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 attacks, could give critics a fresh reason to question why the president did not stand with Western allies in a symbolic show of defiance against violent extremism. The schedule change meant that Obama, who arrived in New Delhi on Sunday morning local time, would skip a visit to the Taj Mahal, India's famed white marble monument of love. The rest of Obama's travel itinerary was to remain intact, including meetings with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a summit with U.S. and Indian business leaders, and his participation in the annual Republic Day festivities marking the enactment of India's constitution. Modi, who took office in May, surprised the White House by inviting Obama to attend the parade as his guest, the first time that honor has been bestowed on an American president. Given Obama's commitments in India, the White House originally had said Vice President Joe Biden would travel to Saudi Arabia following the 90-year-old Abdullah's death on Friday. Officials said that as plans for Biden's trip came together, they realized that the window for the U.S. delegation's visit coincided with Obama's departure from India, and they decided the president would make the four-hour flight from New Delhi to Riyadh. In keeping with Islamic tradition, only Muslims attended Abdullah's funeral Friday. Other Western leaders were making plans to visit Saudi Arabia throughout the weekend. Obama made an overnight visit to Saudi Arabia last March and met with Abdullah at his desert camp outside Riyadh. The king was in frail health at the time and appeared to be breathing with the help of an oxygen tank.

HOW PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN AND GOV GABRIEL SUSWAN OF BENUE STATE DIVERTED N8bn “ZAKI BIAM MASSACRE” VICTIMS’ SETTLEMENT FUNDS President Goodluck Jonathan has come under attack for diverting N8billion settlement funds for victims of the 2001 massacre in Zaki Biam, Benue State, North-central Nigeria. A member of the legal team representing victims of the killings, Sebastine Hon, on Wednesday blamed Mr. Jonathan for diverting the funds meant for the settlement of the massacre victims to the Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam. In a petition to the president dated January 14, and signed by Mr. Hon, Ocha Ulegede and Chris Alashi, all members of the legal consortium for the massacre victims, the lawyers described Mr. Jonathan’s action as “most embarrassing and shocking.” The lawyers also described as embarrassing, claims by the Attorney General for the Federation and Minister of Justice, Bello Adoki, that Alexander Gaadi, the lead plaintiff gave a mandate to Mr. Suswam to collect the judgment debt. They insisted that no such mandate was given by Mr. Gaadi and never did such an issue presented at the various discussion held between the legal team and the government. “Since the matter is before the Court of Appeal awaiting out-of-court settlement, we wonder whether it is Mr. Suswam who would be signatory to the settlement terms to be adopted as consent judgment of the court,” a part of the petition reads. “In law, it is never heard of that strangers to a court judgment would be permitted to enforce the judgment of the court.” PREMIUM TIMES investigation showed that neither Mr. Suswam nor the Benue State Government was a party toor supported the long-drawn legal battle between the massacre victims and the Federal Government of Nigeria. Fiery Tiv activist, Mr. Gaadi led 13 others and a consortium of lawyers including Messrs Hon, Ulegede and Alashi, to sue former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Nigerian Army after the killings. After six years of legal battle, a Federal High Court in Enugu on July 5, 2007, ruled in favour of the massacre victims and awarded N41.8billion damages against the government. After the ruling, the judgment creditors secured an absolute order to compel the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, to release the funds to victims of the massacre. A Federal High Court in Enugu, headed by Justice Lewis Allagua, issued the order on October 27, 2007. But when the government failed to honour the court ruling and the order to pay the judgment debt, counsels to the massacre victims entered contempt proceedings against the CBN. The government went ahead to secure a restraining order from the Appeal Court to stop the committal proceedings on October 25, 2007. Again on March 3, 2009, the government through its counsels, D.D. Dodo, Adoke Bello, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, and Innocent Daagba secured another restraining order against the payment of the judgment debt. It was at this point that the judgment creditors filed an appeal to the Supreme Court challenging the second restraining order secured by the government. The Supreme Court did not hear the appeal but directed the legal team to approach the Appeal Court to set aside the restraining order. While the parties were exploring out of court settlement processes, Mr. Gaadi, the lead judgment creditor, died on September 15, 2011. Mr. Gaadi’s demise came barely a month after the government agreed to a compromise deal of N8 billion and shortly after Mr. Adoki, formerly one of the government’s counsels was appointed Attorney General for the Federation and Minister of Justice. Following Mr. Gaadi’s death, Mr. Suswam reportedly initiated moves to collect the judgment debt. At a press conference on March 4, 2013, the governor had reportedly told journalists how the state government sued the Federal Government over the Zaki Biam killings and how the Appeal Court awarded it N40 billion in compensation. Mr. Suswam also indicated meeting Mr. Jonathan and the Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who he claimed complained of paucity of funds but agreed to pay N8 billion after all. “We are almost being paid. We took the Federal Government to court and we got judgment of N40 billion,” Mr. Suswam is quoted to have said. Cletus Akwaya, the chief press secretary to Mr. Suswam told PREMIU TIMES the state government has constitutional duty to ensure the wellbeing of the people of the state. “Whether the state government was involved in the litigation or not, since the resources are coming to Benue citizens the government must be involved,” he said. He argued that the government was not embezzling the funds but was interested in ensuring the real victims benefitted from it. Mr. Akwaya said the federal government did not pay the compromise funds because of the court ruling but because of Mr. Suswam’s intervention. He said, “The money is not being paid because of the litigation. It is being paid because the governor engaged the president and told got him to pay the money. “This has happened in many other places. There are several parts of the country where such killings took place but government has not done anything. When reminded that similar payments were made in Odi, Bayelsa State, he said, “Zaki Biam is different from Odi.” Asked why the state government failed to take the Federal Government to court but waited for private citizens to win a case before stepping in, he said, “It was a matter of strategy. The state government had representatives and in this case Dr. Gaadi and other litigants. “Again, this is a legal issue. If the people feel that the state government should not be involved, the attorney general for the federation will determine who collects the money based on his interpretation of the law. “This is a legal issue. People should not bring their own whims and caprices into this matter. The legality of the matter will be based on interpretation of the law. “If the state government is justified by law to take custody of the funds, the Federal Government cannot be said to have done anything illegal. Anybody who feels aggrieved can seek legal redress. If anybody feels that Benue Government should not be involved, there are many legal avenues to seek redress.” Peter Akper, one of the aides to the attorney general for the federation and minister of justice refused to speak on the issue when PREMIUM TIMES contacted him. Calls made to the minister’s telephone failed to connect and a text message sent to him was not responded to.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF PRESIDENT JONATHAN AND SHRIMP. We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. – Budha I have recently become fixated in studying the early lives of our presidential contestants and public officials. We are shaped by our academic education and our professions. This is my current focus. Perhaps by visiting their past we can better predict our future. The early life of the “people’s General,” Muhammadu Buhari and how a military life of discipline stopped people like himself and his late partner, general Tunde Idiagbon from ever being caught smiling. General Buhari I believe said you only smile on annual occasions. I grew up with a personal relationship with General Tunde Idiagbon. I sat with him for tons of hours. He had a close friend that was the funniest man on the planet—a jester who cracked jokes about jokes, literally. Late Tunde Idiagbon never smiled, talk less laughed. These are a very disciplined crop of people. The army has changed these days where you see public pictures of its top chiefs popping bottles and raising glasses; obese and morose looking. But let’s not deviate. Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had an interesting past—not talking about the fact that he did not just have shoes but had a thing for fancy shoes with really high heels—he studied zoology. I look for his thesis, but could not yet find it. I am eager to read it if/when it hopefully shows up. His field of training is in Zoology and water biology. In zoology, I was able to find a paper he wrote as a lecturer with the college of education. It is a very short academic paper titled, “Identification of West African Estuarine Shrimp and Crab Larva.” He is a specialist in shrimp, shrimp-life. As a published researcher myself, I know how engrossing and involving it is to study and research on items for possible publication in peer reviewed journals. President Jonathan’s teacher, Professor Charles Bruce Powell (Late), spent so much time studying the waters of the Niger Delta, that he ended up converting from a primary ecologist to an environmental activist engaged fully (even getting detained), in the protection of the Niger Delta from the effects of logging and oil pollution. We indeed are what we study/engage in. It’s ironical his student is in charge of the nation when pollution is now even 10x higher. I wanted to spend a day in the mind of Goodluck Jonathan, so I spent much of yesterday reading up on and studying the life of shrimp, his primary scientific specialization. Shrimp are crustaceans. All crustaceans love to groom themselves; shrimp are most notable for their addiction to grooming. They can literally spend hours of the day grooming their exoskeletons, cleaning their appendages, brushing, preening, nipping body parts to make them all nice and trim. They are very superficial creatures if you can call them such. For shrimp it is all about the clothes, the shoes; the appearance. It is interesting studying shrimp. You spend days and years if you are a marine biologist or zoologist academician watching these fascinating creatures groom and groom themselves. The other thing notable about these decapods (ten-leg) crustaceans is their cannibalism. As you watch them you see them pick on dead bodies of fellow shrimp and gobble them up. They find skin, animal parts and other dead stuff and eat it. They are scavengers. Some shrimp actually eat other shrimp alive. I watched video where ghost shrimp were eating each other alive. One day of studying the life of shrimp was a tasking and slightly harrowing experience. I’ll stick to just eating them. I congratulate our president on his academic prowess. I will be glad to soon read his thesis and any other collegiate academic publications to know more about this great person in Nigeria’s history. Dr. Peregrino Brimah

A DAY IN THE LIF OF PRESIDENT JONATHAN AND SHRIMP. We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. – Budha I have recently become fixated in studying the early lives of our presidential contestants and public officials. We are shaped by our academic education and our professions. This is my current focus. Perhaps by visiting their past we can better predict our future. The early life of the “people’s General,” Muhammadu Buhari and how a military life of discipline stopped people like himself and his late partner, general Tunde Idiagbon from ever being caught smiling. General Buhari I believe said you only smile on annual occasions. I grew up with a personal relationship with General Tunde Idiagbon. I sat with him for tons of hours. He had a close friend that was the funniest man on the planet—a jester who cracked jokes about jokes, literally. Late Tunde Idiagbon never smiled, talk less laughed. These are a very disciplined crop of people. The army has changed these days where you see public pictures of its top chiefs popping bottles and raising glasses; obese and morose looking. But let’s not deviate. Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had an interesting past—not talking about the fact that he did not just have shoes but had a thing for fancy shoes with really high heels—he studied zoology. I look for his thesis, but could not yet find it. I am eager to read it if/when it hopefully shows up. His field of training is in Zoology and water biology. In zoology, I was able to find a paper he wrote as a lecturer with the college of education. It is a very short academic paper titled, “Identification of West African Estuarine Shrimp and Crab Larva.” He is a specialist in shrimp, shrimp-life. As a published researcher myself, I know how engrossing and involving it is to study and research on items for possible publication in peer reviewed journals. President Jonathan’s teacher, Professor Charles Bruce Powell (Late), spent so much time studying the waters of the Niger Delta, that he ended up converting from a primary ecologist to an environmental activist engaged fully (even getting detained), in the protection of the Niger Delta from the effects of logging and oil pollution. We indeed are what we study/engage in. It’s ironical his student is in charge of the nation when pollution is now even 10x higher. I wanted to spend a day in the mind of Goodluck Jonathan, so I spent much of yesterday reading up on and studying the life of shrimp, his primary scientific specialization. Shrimp are crustaceans. All crustaceans love to groom themselves; shrimp are most notable for their addiction to grooming. They can literally spend hours of the day grooming their exoskeletons, cleaning their appendages, brushing, preening, nipping body parts to make them all nice and trim. They are very superficial creatures if you can call them such. For shrimp it is all about the clothes, the shoes; the appearance. It is interesting studying shrimp. You spend days and years if you are a marine biologist or zoologist academician watching these fascinating creatures groom and groom themselves. The other thing notable about these decapods (ten-leg) crustaceans is their cannibalism. As you watch them you see them pick on dead bodies of fellow shrimp and gobble them up. They find skin, animal parts and other dead stuff and eat it. They are scavengers. Some shrimp actually eat other shrimp alive. I watched video where ghost shrimp were eating each other alive. One day of studying the life of shrimp was a tasking and slightly harrowing experience. I’ll stick to just eating them. I congratulate our president on his academic prowess. I will be glad to soon read his thesis and any other collegiate academic publications to know more about this great person in Nigeria’s history. Dr. Peregrino Brimah

A DAY IN THE LIF OF PRESIDENT JONATHAN AND SHRIMP. We are shaped by our thoughts. We become what we think. – Budha I have recently become fixated in studying the early lives of our presidential contestants and public officials. We are shaped by our academic education and our professions. This is my current focus. Perhaps by visiting their past we can better predict our future. The early life of the “people’s General,” Muhammadu Buhari and how a military life of discipline stopped people like himself and his late partner, general Tunde Idiagbon from ever being caught smiling. General Buhari I believe said you only smile on annual occasions. I grew up with a personal relationship with General Tunde Idiagbon. I sat with him for tons of hours. He had a close friend that was the funniest man on the planet—a jester who cracked jokes about jokes, literally. Late Tunde Idiagbon never smiled, talk less laughed. These are a very disciplined crop of people. The army has changed these days where you see public pictures of its top chiefs popping bottles and raising glasses; obese and morose looking. But let’s not deviate. Nigeria’s president, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan had an interesting past—not talking about the fact that he did not just have shoes but had a thing for fancy shoes with really high heels—he studied zoology. I look for his thesis, but could not yet find it. I am eager to read it if/when it hopefully shows up. His field of training is in Zoology and water biology. In zoology, I was able to find a paper he wrote as a lecturer with the college of education. It is a very short academic paper titled, “Identification of West African Estuarine Shrimp and Crab Larva.” He is a specialist in shrimp, shrimp-life. As a published researcher myself, I know how engrossing and involving it is to study and research on items for possible publication in peer reviewed journals. President Jonathan’s teacher, Professor Charles Bruce Powell (Late), spent so much time studying the waters of the Niger Delta, that he ended up converting from a primary ecologist to an environmental activist engaged fully (even getting detained), in the protection of the Niger Delta from the effects of logging and oil pollution. We indeed are what we study/engage in. It’s ironical his student is in charge of the nation when pollution is now even 10x higher. I wanted to spend a day in the mind of Goodluck Jonathan, so I spent much of yesterday reading up on and studying the life of shrimp, his primary scientific specialization. Shrimp are crustaceans. All crustaceans love to groom themselves; shrimp are most notable for their addiction to grooming. They can literally spend hours of the day grooming their exoskeletons, cleaning their appendages, brushing, preening, nipping body parts to make them all nice and trim. They are very superficial creatures if you can call them such. For shrimp it is all about the clothes, the shoes; the appearance. It is interesting studying shrimp. You spend days and years if you are a marine biologist or zoologist academician watching these fascinating creatures groom and groom themselves. The other thing notable about these decapods (ten-leg) crustaceans is their cannibalism. As you watch them you see them pick on dead bodies of fellow shrimp and gobble them up. They find skin, animal parts and other dead stuff and eat it. They are scavengers. Some shrimp actually eat other shrimp alive. I watched video where ghost shrimp were eating each other alive. One day of studying the life of shrimp was a tasking and slightly harrowing experience. I’ll stick to just eating them. I congratulate our president on his academic prowess. I will be glad to soon read his thesis and any other collegiate academic publications to know more about this great person in Nigeria’s history. Dr. Peregrino Brimah

BIOGRAPHY OF THE NEW KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ OF SAUDI ARABIA The death on Friday of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah means Salman bin Abdulaziz has become the country's new ruler and the last to be born before the discovery of oil in the world's top crude exporter. As king, Salman, thought to be 79, will have to navigate regional turmoil caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as a bitter rivalry with Shi'ite Muslim power Iran and a lingering threat from an al Qaeda wing in neighboring Yemen. His crown prince will be his youngest half brother Prince Muqrin, a former intelligence chief who was appointed as deputy crown prince in March. A reputed moderate with a deft understanding of the competing demands of conservative clerics, powerful tribes and an increasingly youthful population, Salman will also have the final say on social and economic reforms started under Abdullah. "It appeared to me he had a good handle on the delicate balancing act he had to do to move society forward while being respectful of its traditions and conservative ways," said Robert Jordan who was U.S. ambassador in Riyadh from 2001-03. A physically imposing figure, Salman controls one of the Arab world's largest media groups. He believes that democracy is ill-suited to the conservative kingdom and advocates caution on social and cultural reform, according to a 2007 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. For nearly 50 years Salman was governor of Riyadh Province, a role that involved working closely with both conservative traditionalists and liberal technocrats as he oversaw the development of the Saudi capital from a small desert town to a major metropolis. However, when two elder full-brothers, crown princes Sultan and Nayef died within a year of each other, Salman was appointed first Defense Minister and then heir apparent. The defense portfolio involved running the kingdom's top-spending ministry, which used massive arms purchases to bolster ties with allies such as the United States, Britain and France. He has been part of the inner circle of the al-Saud ruling family, which founded and still dominates the desert kingdom in alliance with conservative religious clerics, for decades. In a royal family that bases its right to rule on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, Salman is reputed to be devout and relatively outward-looking. "He's intelligent, political, in touch with the conservative base but also quite modern-minded," said a former diplomat in Riyadh interviewed about the kingdom's succession process. RIYADH GOVERNOR As governor of Riyadh from 1962 until 2011, Salman had more to do with foreign governments than many senior royals. The role also meant he was responsible for arbitrating disputes between quarreling members of the ruling family, putting him at the center of the kingdom's most important power structure. The governor's office overlooks Riyadh's most appealing square where, if he worked on Fridays, he would have been able to watch as an executioner publicly beheaded malefactors. In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in March 2007, described in a cable released by WikiLeaks, Salman said the social and cultural reforms instigated by King Abdullah had to move slowly for fear of a conservative backlash. He also argued against the introduction of democracy in the kingdom, citing regional and tribal divisions, and told the ambassador that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary for Middle East stability. Jordan said Prince Salman had initially refused to believe Saudis participated in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but his attitude changed in the face of increasingly solid evidence that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. "He doesn't blindly accept everything the United States says, but at the same time he understands the importance of the relationship, which goes beyond oil," Jordan said. ROYAL POWER With his strong, bearded features, Salman is the prince who is said to resemble his father, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, more closely than do any of his brothers. Ibn Saud recaptured his family's old stronghold of Riyadh in 1902 with a small group of followers fired by an austere vision of Islam, setting off a three-decade campaign of conquest that carved out the modern borders of a kingdom founded in 1932. As one of the so-called "Sudairi seven" - the brothers born to Ibn Saud by his favorite wife Hassa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi - Salman has been at the center of royal power for decades. His full brothers in a family of more than 30 half-brothers include the late King Fahd and Crown Princes Sultan and Nayef, and former interior minister Prince Ahmed. Salman was born in 1936 in Riyadh, then a mud-brick oasis town deep in the interior of a new kingdom that had not yet discovered oil, depending instead on revenue from pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, date farming and camel herding. Yet one son, Prince Sultan bin Salman, became the first Arab astronaut, flying on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985. Prince Sultan is now the kingdom's tourism minister while another son, Prince Abdulaziz, is the deputy oil minister. In his five decades administering Riyadh and its surroundings, Salman oversaw the development of the capital from a large desert town into a metropolis of 4.6 million people. Prince Salman was taught in the "princes' school" set up in Ibn Saud's palace by the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, signaling the importance that Ibn Saud attached to the centrality of pure Islamic belief in the kingdom he created.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE NEW KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ OF SAUDI ARABIA The death on Friday of Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah means Salman bin Abdulaziz has become the country's new ruler and the last to be born before the discovery of oil in the world's top crude exporter. As king, Salman, thought to be 79, will have to navigate regional turmoil caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, as well as a bitter rivalry with Shi'ite Muslim power Iran and a lingering threat from an al Qaeda wing in neighboring Yemen. His crown prince will be his youngest half brother Prince Muqrin, a former intelligence chief who was appointed as deputy crown prince in March. A reputed moderate with a deft understanding of the competing demands of conservative clerics, powerful tribes and an increasingly youthful population, Salman will also have the final say on social and economic reforms started under Abdullah. "It appeared to me he had a good handle on the delicate balancing act he had to do to move society forward while being respectful of its traditions and conservative ways," said Robert Jordan who was U.S. ambassador in Riyadh from 2001-03. A physically imposing figure, Salman controls one of the Arab world's largest media groups. He believes that democracy is ill-suited to the conservative kingdom and advocates caution on social and cultural reform, according to a 2007 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks. For nearly 50 years Salman was governor of Riyadh Province, a role that involved working closely with both conservative traditionalists and liberal technocrats as he oversaw the development of the Saudi capital from a small desert town to a major metropolis. However, when two elder full-brothers, crown princes Sultan and Nayef died within a year of each other, Salman was appointed first Defense Minister and then heir apparent. The defense portfolio involved running the kingdom's top-spending ministry, which used massive arms purchases to bolster ties with allies such as the United States, Britain and France. He has been part of the inner circle of the al-Saud ruling family, which founded and still dominates the desert kingdom in alliance with conservative religious clerics, for decades. In a royal family that bases its right to rule on its guardianship of Islam's holiest sites in Mecca and Medina, Salman is reputed to be devout and relatively outward-looking. "He's intelligent, political, in touch with the conservative base but also quite modern-minded," said a former diplomat in Riyadh interviewed about the kingdom's succession process. RIYADH GOVERNOR As governor of Riyadh from 1962 until 2011, Salman had more to do with foreign governments than many senior royals. The role also meant he was responsible for arbitrating disputes between quarreling members of the ruling family, putting him at the center of the kingdom's most important power structure. The governor's office overlooks Riyadh's most appealing square where, if he worked on Fridays, he would have been able to watch as an executioner publicly beheaded malefactors. In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador in March 2007, described in a cable released by WikiLeaks, Salman said the social and cultural reforms instigated by King Abdullah had to move slowly for fear of a conservative backlash. He also argued against the introduction of democracy in the kingdom, citing regional and tribal divisions, and told the ambassador that a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was necessary for Middle East stability. Jordan said Prince Salman had initially refused to believe Saudis participated in the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, but his attitude changed in the face of increasingly solid evidence that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis. "He doesn't blindly accept everything the United States says, but at the same time he understands the importance of the relationship, which goes beyond oil," Jordan said. ROYAL POWER With his strong, bearded features, Salman is the prince who is said to resemble his father, King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud, more closely than do any of his brothers. Ibn Saud recaptured his family's old stronghold of Riyadh in 1902 with a small group of followers fired by an austere vision of Islam, setting off a three-decade campaign of conquest that carved out the modern borders of a kingdom founded in 1932. As one of the so-called "Sudairi seven" - the brothers born to Ibn Saud by his favorite wife Hassa bint Ahmed al-Sudairi - Salman has been at the center of royal power for decades. His full brothers in a family of more than 30 half-brothers include the late King Fahd and Crown Princes Sultan and Nayef, and former interior minister Prince Ahmed. Salman was born in 1936 in Riyadh, then a mud-brick oasis town deep in the interior of a new kingdom that had not yet discovered oil, depending instead on revenue from pilgrims to Mecca and Medina, date farming and camel herding. Yet one son, Prince Sultan bin Salman, became the first Arab astronaut, flying on the U.S. space shuttle Discovery in 1985. Prince Sultan is now the kingdom's tourism minister while another son, Prince Abdulaziz, is the deputy oil minister. In his five decades administering Riyadh and its surroundings, Salman oversaw the development of the capital from a large desert town into a metropolis of 4.6 million people. Prince Salman was taught in the "princes' school" set up in Ibn Saud's palace by the imam of the Grand Mosque of Mecca, signaling the importance that Ibn Saud attached to the centrality of pure Islamic belief in the kingdom he created.

SAUDI ARABIA’s POWERFUL KING ABDALLA Bin ABDUL'AZIZ DIES AT 90. Saudi Arabia’s king, Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz has died, according to Saudi Arabia’s royal officials. His death comes weeks after he was admitted to the hospital for a lung infection. The 90-year-old king, who got on the throne in 2005, has already been succeeded by his 79-year-old half-brother, Salam. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz was the fifth of his brothers to take the throne and become king in 2005. US President Barack Obama has expressed his personal sympathies and those of the American people, on the death of King Abdullah. He said, “As a leader, he was always candid and had the courage of his convictions. One of those convictions was his steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship as a force for stability and security in the Middle East and beyond.” Vice-President Joe Biden tweeted that he would lead a delegation to Riyadh to pay respects. UK Prime Minister David Cameron said Abdullah would be remembered for his “commitment to peace and for strengthening understanding between faiths”.

(1) Buhari is too old to be president..... (2) Buhari is poor to be President......... (3) Buhari didn't appoint women in his Govt...... (4) Buhari didn't purchased weapons as President..... (5) Buhari is semi-illitrate........ (6) Buhari don't have WAEC certificate...... (7) A call for to postpone election is made from Chatham House in London....... WHAT NEXT?????????? Na by force to rule us?

PDP THUGS VIOLENTLY BEATEN IN BENUE. There was a serious drama today 22 Jan 15 at Makurdi, Benue State after President Goodluck Jonathan's Predential Jet touched ground. The PDP supporters who were driving into the airport that is located at Fiddi village in convoy when one of the thugs of Gov Gabriel Suswan known as SPACO sighted Chief Samuel Loraer Ortom, the APC governorship candidate in the state. An eye witness known as CHINOS said, trouble started when the thug dropped down and removed the APC poster, this resulted to serious chaos, were some of the villager that were standing opposite the junction that leads into the airport asked him to replace it, but, the thug refused doing so, this resulted into assault, where the thug slapped one of the villager who asked him to replace the poster with same hand he used to remove it. On seeing that, the villager beat-up SPACO with bamboo and various harf objects till he picked to his heels. He managed to escape into the airport and returned with some of his colleagues numbering about six. As soon as they dropped from the vehicle that convey them, they started beating the villagers in all direction, but, the villagers instead of running away stood and beat-up all the thugs mercilessly and bloody. Some soldiers who were deployed to cover security at the junction didn't only stand and watch, but joined the villager in beating the thugs blue-black, stating that, the thugs has no right to remove any poster for no reason; be it of any party or candidate. Some of the thugs managed to run far before getting commercial motor cycles (Okada) that helped to escape with them, leaving their vehicle at the spot. It was after the President drove in convoy to campaign ground before a different driver came and take the vehicle away.

Fayose to face sanctions over controversial Punch advertisement by placing death wish and making example with Late General Murtala Mohammed, General Sani Abacha and President Umaru Yar'adua. Ekiti state governor, Ayodele Fayose may be in trouble over the controversial advert he placed in major national newspapers regarding the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari. On Wednesday, January 21, the National Human Rights Commission, said it had reviewed the advertorial, and it found that the material amounted to “hate speech.” The commission says it may not immediately arrest and prosecute Fayose because of the immunity he currently enjoys as a sitting governor, but added that Fayose would be recommend for appropriate sanctions after he leaves office. The intention to take action against the governor was communicated at a stakeholders’ roundtable organised by the NHRC for civil society groups, mainstream and social media partners in Abuja, on Wednesday, January 21. Chairman of the NHRC, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, while addressing journalists at the forum, condemned the death wish publication, saying it offended public decency and violated all known norms of decorum. Odinkalu said the governor should have exhibited caution and statesmanship in sending out the message, adding that he went too far in his message, without regard for the children of the former Northern leaders he showed to have died in office. Furthermore, he noted that the governor’s advert also violated Section 95 of the Electoral Act and should be made to pay for such open infraction. According to Section 95(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act: “A political campaign or slogan shall not be tainted with abusive language directly or indirectly likely to incite religious, ethnic, tribal or sectional feelings.” It also says: “Abusive, intemperate, slanderous or base language or insinuations or innuendos designed or likely to provoke violent reaction or emotions shall not be employed or used in political campaigns.

American International Studies based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Invites General Buhari To Speak On Nigeria’s Future. The Presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) may be travelling to the Washington DC in the United States of America towards the end of January to honour an invitation by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). A letter of invitation, signed by the Director, African Programme of CSIS, Jennifer Cooke, requested Buhari “to give a major public address on Nigeria’s future as it stands on the edge of a pivotal national elections.” Ms. Cooke gave Buhari the liberty to choose a convenient date for the proposed lecture. “We propose to hold this event on a day of your choosing on either the week of January 5th or the week of January 26th, 2015 but will of course do our best to accommodate your schedule should you have other preferences.” Ms. Cooke who said the event is expected to attract a large number of United State policy makers, academics, business leaders and members of the diaspora, also told Mr Buhari that he would be expected to take part in a private off-the-record briefing with a small group of senior US government officials and U.S Congress. “The event would be on-the-record and given the importance of Nigeria’s elections would be certain to attract a large audience of U.S. policy makers, academics, business leaders, and members of the diaspora. In addition, we invite you to take part in a private, off-the-record briefing with a small group of senior officials from the U.S. government and U.S. Congress. This will be an excellent opportunity to develop contacts and articulate your key messages to an influential audience of foreign policy decision-makers.” “The CSIS Africa Program has long been engaged in research and analysis on the African continent, and Nigeria specifically. For the past year, we have hosted a conference series analyzing various dimensions of Nigeria’s forthcoming elections and their implications for peace, security, and prosperity in Africa’s most important country. These conferences have provided a platform for Nigerian statesmen to interact directly with Washington policy makers and we wanted to extend this opportunity to you. We hope that your schedule permits your participation and look forward to receiving a positive reply.

President Obama to Urge a Skeptical Congress to Back Initiatives In State of the Union Speech. WASHINGTON — President Obama plans to use Tuesday night’s State of the Union address to outline a wide-ranging agenda intended to address income inequality and help Americans afford things like education and child care. Meeting a skeptical Congress on its own turf, Mr. Obama will press to capitalize on the economic recovery to achieve some of his long-held goals. He is expected to call on Republicans to work with him on potential areas of consensus, including a new push to approve far-reaching trade deals in Europe and Asia. But the president will also use the annual primetime address to sketch an activist vision for his final two years in office and to set the terms of a debate that will sharpen the distinctions between the two parties in advance of the 2016 elections. Mr. Obama will call on Congress to join him in enacting new initiatives to make community college free and to enhance tax credits for education and child care, financed by new taxes and fees on high-income earners and large financial institutions. The plan, unveiled by the White House over the weekend, indicates that the president — bracing for a season of conflict and compromise with Republicans on Capitol Hill — is nonetheless determined to have a loud voice in defining the choices at hand. Republicans, who tapped Joni Ernst, the newly elected senator from Iowa, to give their official response to the speech, are grappling to have their say as well. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he hoped the president would use the speech to change the dynamic and “turn the page” on a season of confrontation and gridlock. “The American people aren’t demanding talking-point proposals designed to excite the base but not designed to pass,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement before the speech. “They said they’re ready to see more constructive cooperation, especially on bipartisan jobs initiatives.” Even as Mr. Obama addresses a newly-empowered Republican majority, his standing in the country is improving in the wake of several aggressive moves he has made in the wake of the 2014 midterm elections, including executive action on immigration and a move to normalize relations with Cuba. After spending nearly a year hovering at about 40 percent approval, the president’s popularity has improved markedly since the contests. On average, the president’s approval rating stands at about 46 percent, and a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Monday shows it at 50 percent for the first time since just after the 2012 presidential election. The survey reflects a nine-point increase in the last month, though other polls have shown smaller gains. The bump in popular support comes as the economy continues to improve, with unemployment sinking to 5.6 percent and the pace of job growth accelerating. Mr. Obama has said he wants to work with Republicans on a business tax overhaul, trade liberalization and bolstered cybersecurity protections. He also promised Republican leaders at a closed-door meeting at the White House last week that he would soon send the text of a new authorization for the use of military force against the Islamic State militant group, and would work with them to ensure both parties could accept the language. The White House took the unusual step of previewing many of the new initiatives to be discussed in the speech in the two weeks leading up to it, working to maximize public attention on Mr. Obama’s agenda and prevent the address from devolving into a laundry list of policy proposals. Also among the initiatives Mr. Obama has unveiled this month are efforts to widen the availability and affordability of broadband Internet access, and legislation to allow employees to earn up to seven days of paid sick leave.

Welcome to Musa HRS007 blog: TIPS FOR KEEPING OUR CHILDREN SAFE IN THE CAR. The number of infants kept in potentially dangerous positions in moving cars on Nigerian roads roads is quite alarming. Even worse is the fact that the adults/caregivers who should know better are totally oblivious to the danger they have placed their loved ones. Feeling helpless, it is impossible to provide caution to passengers in a moving vehicle. Hopefully, its important to increase awareness on this subject to ensure that our little men and women who we all loved so dearly are kept safe at all times. Here are some tips to address some of the potential dangers I have spotted in moving vehicles on Nigerian roads: • No kids sitting on your lap while you occupy the driver’s seat. I know you want to take that cute selfie of you and your little one and post on facebook, BB, instagram, but if you must do so, ensure the vehicle is motionless and off the road • Resist the temptation to allow you kids stand up at the back seat of the car because they want to have a view of the road, your face or be your gist companion while you drive. Strap them into their car seats and keep them entertained. Invest in an ipad, kiddies tablets or book – whichever matches your pocket. • Car seats: People, it appears there’s no escaping doing some good research and reading the manual on this one. Weight and height of your infants and kids need to be considered before taking a decision on the appropriate car seat to purchase. It is advised that, you do not place care seats in the front passenger seat. If you must, airbags need to be de-activated. The UK Government even advises that kids shouldn't use a child car seat until they are 12 years old or 135cm tall. • Following from the above, any child under the age of 12 should ride properly buckled in the back seat and should not be allowed to occupy the front passengers’ seat. This also applies to kids being carried by adults in the front seat, this is also a very dangerous act. • Ensure children (hands, feet, face, etc) are clear of doors before shutting them. This incident has been observed on a couple of occasions. • Always double check to ensure your kids are not locked in the car before you step away. Research reveals an alarming rate of kids suffer fatal accidents from car related dangers. Here are some types of accidents which have been recorded by KidsAndCars.org (KAC) – a nonprofit child safety organization in the United States of America dedicated to preventing injuries and death to children in or around motor vehicles. Unfortunately we don’t have a track on similar incidents in Nigeria: “Backovers: typically takes place when a car is backing out of a drive-way or parking space. In the US, at least fifty children are being backed over by vehicles EVERY week and at least two are fatally injured. Tragically, in over 70% of these incidents, a parent or close relative is behind the wheel. Front-overs: Every year, thousands of children are hurt or die because a driver moving forward very slowly didn’t see them. These incidents for the most part take place in residential drive-ways or parking lots. Heat-stroke: In the US, on average, 38 children die in hot cars each year from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside motor vehicles. Even the best of parents or care-givers can unknowingly leave a sleeping baby in a car; and the end result can be injury or even death. Power windows: Power windows in vehicles have killed or injured thousands of children. It takes just 22 pounds of force to suffocate or injure an infant while power windows can exert an upward force of 30-80 pounds of force. Trunk-Boot Entrapment: Internal trunk release mechanisms are now required in all vehicles with trunks. There has not been one fatality in the trunk of a vehicle with this glow-in-dark release! Vehicles set in Motion: Stories about kids and cars have a tendency to end badly. Each year hundreds of children are hospitalized or even killed after accidentally setting a car into motion.” Do spread awareness on these dangers to all around you and share any additional tips you have, you may just be saving one or even multiple lives. I am also hopeful that the relevant authorities would do more in the area of creating regulations, sensitizing the public on proper road use, safety and generally making our roads less accident prone. musabello.blogspot.com

Welcome to Musa HRS007 blog: TIPS FOR KEEPING OUR CHILDREN SAFE IN THE CAR. The number of infants kept in potentially dangerous positions in moving cars on Nigerian roads roads is quite alarming. Even worse is the fact that the adults/caregivers who should know better are totally oblivious to the danger they have placed their loved ones. Feeling helpless, it is impossible to provide caution to passengers in a moving vehicle. Hopefully, its important to increase awareness on this subject to ensure that our little men and women who we all loved so dearly are kept safe at all times. Here are some tips to address some of the potential dangers I have spotted in moving vehicles on Nigerian roads: • No kids sitting on your lap while you occupy the driver’s seat. I know you want to take that cute selfie of you and your little one and post on facebook, BB, instagram, but if you must do so, ensure the vehicle is motionless and off the road • Resist the temptation to allow you kids stand up at the back seat of the car because they want to have a view of the road, your face or be your gist companion while you drive. Strap them into their car seats and keep them entertained. Invest in an ipad, kiddies tablets or book – whichever matches your pocket. • Car seats: People, it appears there’s no escaping doing some good research and reading the manual on this one. Weight and height of your infants and kids need to be considered before taking a decision on the appropriate car seat to purchase. It is advised that, you do not place care seats in the front passenger seat. If you must, airbags need to be de-activated. The UK Government even advises that kids shouldn't use a child car seat until they are 12 years old or 135cm tall. • Following from the above, any child under the age of 12 should ride properly buckled in the back seat and should not be allowed to occupy the front passengers’ seat. This also applies to kids being carried by adults in the front seat, this is also a very dangerous act. • Ensure children (hands, feet, face, etc) are clear of doors before shutting them. This incident has been observed on a couple of occasions. • Always double check to ensure your kids are not locked in the car before you step away. Research reveals an alarming rate of kids suffer fatal accidents from car related dangers. Here are some types of accidents which have been recorded by KidsAndCars.org (KAC) – a nonprofit child safety organization in the United States of America dedicated to preventing injuries and death to children in or around motor vehicles. Unfortunately we don’t have a track on similar incidents in Nigeria: “Backovers: typically takes place when a car is backing out of a drive-way or parking space. In the US, at least fifty children are being backed over by vehicles EVERY week and at least two are fatally injured. Tragically, in over 70% of these incidents, a parent or close relative is behind the wheel. Front-overs: Every year, thousands of children are hurt or die because a driver moving forward very slowly didn’t see them. These incidents for the most part take place in residential drive-ways or parking lots. Heat-stroke: In the US, on average, 38 children die in hot cars each year from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside motor vehicles. Even the best of parents or care-givers can unknowingly leave a sleeping baby in a car; and the end result can be injury or even death. Power windows: Power windows in vehicles have killed or injured thousands of children. It takes just 22 pounds of force to suffocate or injure an infant while power windows can exert an upward force of 30-80 pounds of force. Trunk-Boot Entrapment: Internal trunk release mechanisms are now required in all vehicles with trunks. There has not been one fatality in the trunk of a vehicle with this glow-in-dark release! Vehicles set in Motion: Stories about kids and cars have a tendency to end badly. Each year hundreds of children are hospitalized or even killed after accidentally setting a car into motion.” Do spread awareness on these dangers to all around you and share any additional tips you have, you may just be saving one or even multiple lives. I am also hopeful that the relevant authorities would do more in the area of creating regulations, sensitizing the public on proper road use, safety and generally making our roads less accident prone. musabello.blogspot.com

TIPS FOR KEEPING OUR CHILDREN SAFE IN THE CAR. The number of infants kept in potentially dangerous positions in moving cars on Nigerian roads roads is quite alarming. Even worse is the fact that the adults/caregivers who should know better are totally oblivious to the danger they have placed their loved ones. Feeling helpless, it is impossible to provide caution to passengers in a moving vehicle. Hopefully, its important to increase awareness on this subject to ensure that our little men and women who we all loved so dearly are kept safe at all times. Here are some tips to address some of the potential dangers I have spotted in moving vehicles on Nigerian roads: • No kids sitting on your lap while you occupy the driver’s seat. I know you want to take that cute selfie of you and your little one and post on facebook, BB, instagram, but if you must do so, ensure the vehicle is motionless and off the road • Resist the temptation to allow you kids stand up at the back seat of the car because they want to have a view of the road, your face or be your gist companion while you drive. Strap them into their car seats and keep them entertained. Invest in an ipad, kiddies tablets or book – whichever matches your pocket. • Car seats: People, it appears there’s no escaping doing some good research and reading the manual on this one. Weight and height of your infants and kids need to be considered before taking a decision on the appropriate car seat to purchase. It is advised that, you do not place care seats in the front passenger seat. If you must, airbags need to be de-activated. The UK Government even advises that kids shouldn't use a child car seat until they are 12 years old or 135cm tall. • Following from the above, any child under the age of 12 should ride properly buckled in the back seat and should not be allowed to occupy the front passengers’ seat. This also applies to kids being carried by adults in the front seat, this is also a very dangerous act. • Ensure children (hands, feet, face, etc) are clear of doors before shutting them. This incident has been observed on a couple of occasions. • Always double check to ensure your kids are not locked in the car before you step away. Research reveals an alarming rate of kids suffer fatal accidents from car related dangers. Here are some types of accidents which have been recorded by KidsAndCars.org (KAC) – a nonprofit child safety organization in the United States of America dedicated to preventing injuries and death to children in or around motor vehicles. Unfortunately we don’t have a track on similar incidents in Nigeria: “Backovers: typically takes place when a car is backing out of a drive-way or parking space. In the US, at least fifty children are being backed over by vehicles EVERY week and at least two are fatally injured. Tragically, in over 70% of these incidents, a parent or close relative is behind the wheel. Front-overs: Every year, thousands of children are hurt or die because a driver moving forward very slowly didn’t see them. These incidents for the most part take place in residential drive-ways or parking lots. Heat-stroke: In the US, on average, 38 children die in hot cars each year from heat-related deaths after being trapped inside motor vehicles. Even the best of parents or care-givers can unknowingly leave a sleeping baby in a car; and the end result can be injury or even death. Power windows: Power windows in vehicles have killed or injured thousands of children. It takes just 22 pounds of force to suffocate or injure an infant while power windows can exert an upward force of 30-80 pounds of force. Trunk-Boot Entrapment: Internal trunk release mechanisms are now required in all vehicles with trunks. There has not been one fatality in the trunk of a vehicle with this glow-in-dark release! Vehicles set in Motion: Stories about kids and cars have a tendency to end badly. Each year hundreds of children are hospitalized or even killed after accidentally setting a car into motion.” Do spread awareness on these dangers to all around you and share any additional tips you have, you may just be saving one or even multiple lives. I am also hopeful that the relevant authorities would do more in the area of creating regulations, sensitizing the public on proper road use, safety and generally making our roads less accident prone. musabello.blogspot.com

SCIENCE FOR THE CURIOUS! Psychologists can give you false memories of having committed a crime. You’ve probably heard of “false confessions,” when pressure from the police and long interrogations can make someone confess to a crime they didn’t actually commit. According to this study, it’s actually not that difficult to give someone a false memory of a serious crime. Here, researchers tried to make undergraduate volunteers believe they had committed a crime when they were younger by conducting interviews in which the researchers used “suggestive memory-retrieval techniques.” They tried, for example, using false evidence (“According to your parents, you did this…”), applying social pressure (“Most people are able to retrieve lost memories if they try hard enough”), and using guided imagery to try to get the person to fill in the details of the crime. The scientists found that after several interviews, 70% of participants believed they had committed a crime (theft, assault, or assault with a weapon) in early adolescence, and they were able to give a detailed false account of this event. Be sure to check out the excerpt below for a list of other false memories that researchers have been able to implant. (Tea with Prince Charles, anyone?) Constructing Rich False Memories of Committing Crime. “Memory researchers long have speculated that certain tactics may lead people to recall crimes that never occurred, and thus could potentially lead to false confessions. This is the first study to provide evidence suggesting that full episodic false memories of committing crime can be generated in a controlled experimental setting. With suggestive memory-retrieval techniques, participants were induced to generate criminal and noncriminal emotional false memories, and we compared these false memories with true memories of emotional events. After three interviews, 70% of participants were classified as having false memories of committing a crime (theft, assault, or assault with a weapon) that led to police contact in early adolescence and volunteered a detailed false account. These reported false memories of crime were similar to false memories of noncriminal events and to true memory accounts, having the same kinds of complex descriptive and multisensory components. It appears that in the context of a highly suggestive interview, people can quite readily generate rich false memories of committing crime.”

Yes, Buhari Is Sick, And So I Am By Vitus Ozoke Nigerians and their infinite capacity for facile propaganda. I wake up this morning and what I see all over social media is some poor taste, childish diagnosis of Major General Buhari as being sick. Well, I agree. I agree that Buhari is sick. I am sick, too. Any Nigerian who is not sick is not sick because he or she is incurably sick. We are all sick. And we should be sick. So, yes,… …Buhari is sick of the monumental corruption that has become institutionalized in Nigeria. Buhari is sick of the incompetence of a government that cannot protect the lives and properties of its citizens; …Buhari is sick of the lack of a sense of urgency in the circles of government in Nigeria. Buhari is sick of a country that has placed itself on permanent reverse gear. Buhari is sick of a country that has left itself naked as it is raped dry by vagabonds in power. Buhari is sick of a youth population without jobs. Buhari is sick of a country where university education has become comparable to 8th grade competence in advanced civilizations. Buhari is sick of a country where roads are death traps. Buhari is sick of a country where people go into political offices near poor, but turn stupendously wealthy overnight. Buhari is sick of a country where education is priced beyond the reach of the common masses. Buhari is sick of a country where $20 Billion (possibly $40 Billion) of public fund develops legs and walks away, its whereabouts knowingly unknown. Buhari is sick of watching the country he loves ranked at the bottom of corruption index by Transparency International. Buhari is sick of a country that earns billions of dollars in oil revenue, yet has not a single functional oil refinery. Buhari is sick of a country where government has bowed to the dictates of power generator cabals in a conspiracy that ensures perpetual darkness. Buhari is sick of a country where senators and congressmen earn more than the president of the United States of America. Buhari is sick of a country where soldiers are so demoralized to confront a ragtag Boko Haram terror sect. Buhari is sick of a country where convicted looters are pardoned and fast tracked for senate positions. Buhari is sick of a country where life expectancy is among the lowest in the world. Buhari is sick of a country that is on international news for all the wrong reasons. So, yes, Buhari is sick; and so am I. The big Question is, why is Jonathan not sick as well? Why has Jonathan remained healthy in the face of all the above-listed filth and diseases? The Question is why is not every Nigerian sick of all the social maladies and existential outbreaks? It is a time to be sick, my friends. Buhari is; I am. Are you? Let’s all get sick of where and how Nigeria is! Let’s get real sick!!And the sicker we are, the healthier we are going to be. Let’s schedule a doctor’s visit on February 14. Let’s not forget our health insurance card (voter card) as we go for this February appointment. We need to feel better. But until February 14, let’s feel sick… …Real sick! My footnote: There is no medical institution known as Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital as the fake letterheads read. What everybody but the brainless GEJ pathetic propagandist know is Ahmadu Bello UNIVERSITY Teaching Hospital. Vitus Ozoke, Ph.D is a lawyer and professor of conflict analysis and dispute resolution at Salisbury University, Maryland, USA

DEJI ADEYANJU We will hand over govt to military rather than to General Muhammadu Buhari in the event that the APC candidate wins the election. The Blackberry Messenger (BBM) statement by Deji Adeyanju, an official in the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Doyin Okupe said "Buhari can never be President of Nigeria. Quote me any day any time. Instead of Buhari to become President of Nigeria, Nigeria would rather break. A military coup will even be allowed than for Buhari to become the president of a democratic Nigeria quote me any day, any time," according to statement by Buhari campaign. A statement by the campaign media and publicity director Malam Garba Shehu said controversial statement "is still to be denied or retracted by the official who handles Dr Okupe's Twitter handle." The Buhari campaign said unless it is convincingly rebutted, the statement above, by the ruling party appears to clearly be uninterested in free, fair and conclusive elections, but rather to engender crisis and chaos if it happens that the APC candidate, General Buhari wins the elections. "This revelation in a public statement via the BBM would appear to support the PDP's avowed determination to rule for 60 years, a boast echoed repeatedly by some former national chairmen of the party. The boast however did not reckon with the emergence of the All Progressives Congress and the determination with which the party mobilized and stuck together to confront the PDP that over time had prided itself with invisibility," the APC campaign said. "We of the APC hereby call on all Nigerians to be vigilant and ensure that no one is allowed to truncate the 2015 elections. It is also important that all Nigerians allow peace to reign and insist on free and fair polls to assist the process of peaceful and democratic transition," the campaign said. The camapoin said added that the APC is "confident that the men and women of our patriotic Armed Forces and the Police, including other security agencies would discharge their obligations without fear or favour and ensure that the 2015 polls is not only free and fair but also credible leading to the installation of a popular-elected government that will improve the well-being of Nigerians.‎" (Quated from DailyTrust News) http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/daily/news/44583-apc-alleges-plot-to-scuttle-buhari-s-victory-by-presidency

Idriss Deby of Chad Dispatches Troops to Capture Nigeria’s Baga without President Jonathan's Permission. That there is a vacuum in Nigeria’s leadership is not in dispute; however the recent declaration by the president of Chad, Idriss Deby compounds Nigeria’s delicate situation and threatens the nation’s sovereign integrity. As reported by the AFP in an article of January 17, 2015, captioned “Thousands of Chadian troops to fight Boko Haram,” Idriss Deby the authoritarian leader of Chad, Nigeria’s north eastern neighbor, said “in a speech read by the speaker of parliament that the new deployment (of Chadian troops to Cameroon) aimed to recapture Baga.” Cameroon had requested for and welcomed the deployment that saw 400 Chadian military vehicles arrive in Cameroon. [AFP] However, Nigeria was not invited to the table. Nigeria’s military leadership as quoted by the AFP are “lukewarm.” The word is defined by Google dictionary thus: “(of a person, attitude, or action) unenthusiastic.” Nigeria’s military spokesperson, GEN Olukolade said as quoted by the AFP: “All support for our operations will be welcome, but it must conform with our own ongoing operations.” In as much as Baga at the border with Chad and another 14 to 20 local governments in Nigeria by all means needs various degrees of military liberation from Boko Haram’s control, a Chadian intervention without approval by the African union or explicit approval by Nigeria’s government, even though lacking and inebriated infringes on the laws of national sovereignty; and prompts further suspicion of the intentions of Nigeria’s neighbors who have reportedly been permissive and in some cases frankly supportive of Boko Haram. The Chadian government and the government of Niger pulled out their troops from the multi-national force stationed at Nigeria’s northeastern border late last year leading up to and enabling the Boko Haram massacre that resulted in 2500 to 3000 dead in Baga town and environ. The stationing of troops by Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger by November 1 of 2014 was agreed upon by the four nations at the Paris summit in May of last year. Acknowledging a vacancy of leadership in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital of government; the new do-it-our-way, without Nigeria’s or any other openly known regional or global union’s explicit authorization challenges years-long developed modalities of territorial interrelation. Boko Haram terrorists are known to organize, train and source weapons from Chad, Niger and Cameroon. Nigeria has over the past years demanded these nations seal their borders and dis-allow terrorist’s assemblies on their soil. The McCain approach of total disregard to “some guy called Goodluck Jonathan,” disregards Nigerians as a whole and compounds an already highly suspicious situation and pits Nigerians to choose between Boko Haram (mostly) foreign terrorists’ invasion and foreign leaderships’ invasion. Nigerians in the affected territories swear that Chad president, Idriss Deby is a sponsor and financier of Boko Haram. A majority of Boko Haram insurgents are Chadians [SaharaReporters, Jan 14, 2015]. There is undeniably a serious problem here. In the course of Nigeria’s French neighbors partnering and protecting their interests, this cannot be done with permission of terror to Nigeria and at any risk to Nigeria’s territorial integrity. “Serious Allegations of Cameroon, Chad Arming Boko Haram Is Act of Terror And War;” In October last year, Nigeria’s president and the president of Chad jointly declared a very suspicious cessation fire against Boko Haram. This leadership ‘blunder’ which world unions and lead groups were slow to recognize led to the strengthening of Boko Haram and the deaths of thousands more innocent Nigerians and Cameroonians. The world cannot continue to sit and watch these deadly conspiracies and administrative ‘errors.’ John Dramani Mahama, of Ghana, head of the regional Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS on Friday called for an African action against the Boko Haram regional threat. Absent a change of Nigeria’s incapacitated government, this is the right action, long overdue. On behalf of the people of Nigeria, we demand Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon sit down and negotiate the full modalities of any incursion by Chad and/or Cameroonian forces into Nigeria’s territory, and that the urgent agreements reached as sanctioned exigently by the African union.

BOKO HARAM INVADED GOMBI TOWN IN ADAMAWA STATE TODAY 18 JAN 15. The Boko Haram Terrorists has invaded Gombi town in Adamawa State this evening 18 Jan 2015. The terrorists came in large number shooting sporadically killing many, with others injured in the process of escaping the mayhem. Gombi is distanced Gombi 108.87 km from Yola the State Capital. That is equal to 67.65 miles, and 58.74 nautical miles. As at the time of filling this report, the number of dead and properties destroyed has never been ascertained. To ensure safety of the lives, please disseminate information to a wider range.

Keyamo Explodes: Between Jonathan Versus Buhari Here Is A President Who Destroyed PDP And Almost Destroyed Nigeria. The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST DESTROYED NIGERIA. This is a season of hire-wired deceits, misinformation, campaign of calumny and spewing of outright falsehood and lies – all to hoodwink and deceive ordinary and gullible Nigerians for their votes. I am not worried about these antics of the politicians. It is their way. For them, their business is politics and their politics is business. No scruple. My real worry is that many Nigerians who are the elites can see through some of these outright falsehoods but have decided to sit on fence and keep an embarrassing silence. They forget that millions of ordinary Nigerians who are confused and hoodwinked by these falsehoods and who do not have access to facts depend on their voices and guidance to make their choices. This is, therefore, a message directed at those silent Nigerian elites who should speak up at this time. For me, I have decided that enough is enough. This is the time to speak up. Unfortunately, many of our elites do not want to speak up now because they do not want to be caught on the wrong side of any government in the next four years; they prefer to play safe, not wanting to be tarred with the brush of partisanship. But, I ask: what is wrong with partisanship in a country where you and your children have a huge stake? What is wrong in speaking up and standing up for what your conscience tells you is the right thing to do? What is wrong in being caught on the wrong side of the government in the next four years, if only you would be caught on the right side of posterity? Except for a few class of persons like INEC officials, security agencies and those on the Bench, every other Nigerian has a duty - yes, a duty - to speak up now for our country, and to come down from that fence on which they are sitting regarding the 2015 general elections. Those elites who do not speak up now for fear of being branded partisan and losing face upon defeat are enemies of the people who are looking up to them for guidance. My message to those silent elites today is that whilst they are sitting on the fence, people are being killed like flies in some parts of the country on a daily basis; whilst we are on that fence, our foreign reserves are going down, corruption is growing like cancer, poverty is growing even in the face of dubious economic theories and figures, and we continue to live without adequate power supply. Yet, those who should speak truth to power are sitting on the fence in anticipation of personal gains. I am sorry, but today I have come down from that fence because my buttocks are already hurting from sitting on it. Do not forget that I am from the Niger-Delta region and all my close friends and associates are the main supporters and aides of Mr. President. Two or three Governors who are either my former classmates or colleagues are the main backers of Mr. President. It is so easy, so convenient and so seemingly logical for me to get into that political mix and forget about the good of my country for personal gains. The disgusting message we hear all over the streets of that region every day at this time - promoted by the hirelings of the President – is that Goodluck Jonathan is “our son”, so we have no choice but to support him. In fact, I see some of my “brothers” from the Niger Delta region these days strutting all over the place, denigrating people from other regions. It is typical of what the Yorubas call “omo oju ori ola ri” (a person whose eyes have not seen wealth before). But the question I ask those who tell me such nonsense and behave in such a manner is that, after the next four years, what is next for us? Is our entire future and that of our children dependent on a South-South President for the next four years? Kindly note that in getting down from the fence and speaking up at this critical time, I do not mind if you speak up for Goodluck Jonathan. Yes, you have a right to do so as a Nigerian. But, as an elite, your stand must be known so that when the massacres continue because of cluelessness, when the unrestrained stealing of our public resources continue, when darkness continues to befall the nation because of lack of power, it is important we all remember those who betrayed their conscience and the people because of ethnicity and self-aggrandisement and for posterity to record it as such. We have a President who has no single appetite to fight corruption – yes, none. Imagine a campaign that is dominated by the theme of corruption, yet the President has decided to appoint a person facing trial for money-laundering as his Director of Media and Publicity. If nobody would say it, I will say it because I am the one prosecuting the fellow in court and the case has been adjourned to February 23 and 24 for trial. Part of the lies told is that the fellow has been freed whereas some of the counts in the Charge were just struck out and the court held that he has a case to answer on some other counts. Yet nobody is asking the President these hard questions. The President only mouths anti-corruption. The other day (December 23rd, 2014, I think) the President said he would like to erect a Hall of Shame for Nigerians who engage in corrupt and unwholesome activities that bring the country to disrepute. But he was the same person who brought a convicted criminal, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, out of the Hall of Shame to the Hall of Fame by misusing his power of Prerogative of Mercy when he granted pardon to this self-confessed ex-convict. Imagine the pain, the efforts and resources that go into securing a single conviction for corruption in this our clime. Yet, the President decided to spoil the party for anti-corruption campaigners. On top of that, he displayed corruption within corruption by selective pardon when the likes of Tarfa Balogun, Lucky Igbinedion and others who were convicted about the same period did not enjoy his Presidential pardon. Yet nobody is asking these hard questions on the campaign trail. The funny thing is that, nearly six years into his tenure as President, Goodluck Jonathan said the other day that he is just coming up with a plan to tackle corruption!! Haba, Jona ! To add insult to injury, President Goodluck Jonathan decided to tackle the corruption of stealing of our resources in the high seas by empowering small-time crooks and criminals to police our waterways. This is because he has no idea as to how to revamp, re-organise and re-invigorate the Nigeria Navy to perform its constitutional duty. These days, it is an eyesore to see our military chiefs and officers kowtow to these empowered small-time crooks and criminals for appointment and promotions and other privileges. The disaster about this initiative of empowerment of crooks and criminals is that crude oil theft has never been so high, so rampant in the annals of this country than it is now. Why? Because the President has put a rat as a watchman over a morsel of fish. It is sad to say, but the President, by his actions, has shown no spine, no appetite, no nerve to fight corruption. He just continues to sink into an abyss of moral debauchery. The other tragedy of this President is that, even as he is on the campaign trail, in the last one month, the omnipresent insurgents have attacked towns like Baga, Damaturu, Biu, Askira-Uba, Konduga, Marte and Gombe. Even as we speak, the Boko Haram insurgents are in total control of the whole of Borno State except Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa, Konduga and Biu. The insurgents are in total control of towns like Baga, Bama, Gwoza and Banki. Before Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Boko Haram was nothing but a rag-tag group of extremists living in enclaves like Sambisa, while our proud military boys patrolled the towns. Now, under Jonathan, the reverse is the case. Our military boys are now in enclaves while Boko Haram patrol our towns. Is it not shocking that insurgents have a free reign to enter cities, abduct young girls like in Chibok, burn houses like in Baga, slaughter people for hours like in Konduga, Gwoza etc, yet our military men are nowhere to be found and they do not even give hot pursuit to the retreating insurgents? What is really going on? One obvious flaw is that our President has lost control of the military and the top hierarchy of the military is merely feeding fat on this unfortunate situation and the President seems to be totally helpless in the face of this. The only response the President and his handlers can proffer is to hide this glaring and crass incompetence under political gymnastics; they blame the opposition on the one hand and in the same breath, they say it is a world-wide trend and Nigeria is just having its fair share of a global malaise. Is this true? As President, you are the Commander-In-Chief. If you have evidence against the opposition, just come out with it and arrest the ring-leaders. Do not cry like a baby as Commander-in-Chief. Deal with the situation. That is why you occupy that seat. Till date, no single evidence has been produced against any of the opposition leaders linking them with the insurgency. Rather, what we see is a President who is supposedly bent on fighting insurgency but who is wining and dining with someone who has been directly linked with sponsoring the insurgents and even traveling with such a person to Chad at a time when the State Security Services officially invited that person to answer questions relating to the insurgency. Another calamity and embarrassment is that our President, his Service Chiefs and security advisers were all led into wasting public funds by entering into a phantom cease-fire deal with fake Boko Haram leaders that left them with bloodied noses. Not to also mention the short-lived public celebration of the supposed killing of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, by the President and his security team, only for the outlaw to appear in subsequent videos posted online, taunting the Nigerian government. Any four more years of a Jonathan Presidency can only lead to more carnage by the insurgents. He just does not have the requisite capacity to tackle this problem of insecurity. The truth must be told. Yet you hear the President say that the nation will appreciate him better after he has left office. I am sorry, but we have seen enough bloodshed and incompetence in the last six years to know there is nothing more to expect the next four years and we have seen enough to do an assessment right now and not in the future. In all his campaign tours, the President is already sounding like a broken record. He says he has made the rails to function again. He mentioned this so much that you imagine that he was primarily elected to revive a few train lines. It sounds very funny when you hear such things, whereas the primary duty of government is the protection of lives and properties. If that primary duty fails, then the government has failed. It is like an undergraduate hoping to be promoted to the next level by barely scraping through the ‘electives’ and failing the core courses. It will never happen. So, is the President providing train coaches to be transporting the dead bodies from the North to the South? Are the trains to be occupied by living human beings or dead human beings? Make no mistake about it, like the President always says, it is true that we have a rise of terrorism around the world. But, we have all seen how governments around the world respond quickly and decisively to any attempt for terror to rear its ugly head within their society and how they quickly crush it. We saw it happen in the United States after 9/11; we saw it happen in Britain after the July 7, 2005 bus bombing; in the last few days, we have seen it happen in France and in Belgium. In all these cases, all attempts were nipped in the bud. Even, here in Nigeria, previous governments have nipped insurgency in the bud. The ONLY government that has allowed it to fester, germinate and grow into a full-blown war leading to a successful secession of some parts of the country is that of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is so bad that hardly a day passes by without reports of one insurgent activity or the other leading to loss of lives and limbs. The President is also quick to mention that his administration has made the Nigerian economy the number one in Africa. He forgot to mention two things, though; one, that some of the major sectors of the Nigerian economy, that is, the telecom sector, financial services and the Nollywood industry that were taken into account to re-base the economy were sectors not created or grown by his government. Secondly, he forgot to mention that the so-called re-basing has no impact at all on the ordinary Nigerian as the 2014 World Bank Survey still shows that Nigeria is ranked third among world top five poorest countries with sixty-one percent (61%) of its citizens living below $1.25 dollar per day. No government can boast of any economic growth or theory that does not have a direct impact on the lives of its ordinary citizens. It is like a father coming home to announce and jubilate about a pay rise and promotion at workplace, yet the wife and children cannot eat or live better many months later. The Nigerian people have tolerated too much and taken too much battering from the PDP-led Federal Government since 1999. Under the Jonathan Government, the situation in the country has sunk to an all-time low, except for the few benefitting directly from the government. They are blind to criticism and blind to healthy opposition. They hurl abuses at anyone who dares to point out these acts of maladministration. In saner societies, the President will not be allowed to campaign in many parts of the country. The people will rise against him and chase his convoy away. The clear alternative to this monumental mess is the person of General Muhammadu Buhari. Let us be clear that Buhari does not present the total package Nigerians want at this time. He is human, he is not perfect. But at this point in our history, at this time, at this moment, he presents the only viable option and avenue for the people to vent their frustrations and anger against an inept and clueless Federal Government. He represents the rallying point for the frustrated and teeming masses of our people. He reminds me of MKO Abiola (with some of his imperfections) who became the rallying point in the struggle against military rule. That is the change we are talking about. It is not a change from imperfection to perfection. It is a change from hopelessness and cluelessness to some hope and to some expectations. All the personal attacks on the person of Buhari in the last few weeks have only convinced me that he is the best available option at this time. Anyone on the weaker side in any argument always resorts to personal abuses and attacks. Have you noticed that on corruption, the only accusation against Buhari is that, he was too high-handed in fighting corruption in the past? In other words, nobody can/has accused him of lacking the courage, zeal and will to fight corruption. On the other hand, the President eats, sleeps and wakes up with corruption. In one of his famous interviews, he did not even see stealing as corruption. That is why he does not see the point why he should not appoint a person standing trial for corruption as his Director of Media and Publicity. He just does not care. So, Nigerians, we must decide what we want. When Buhari fought corruption and was supposedly high-handed, he was ruling with Decrees. Now, he has the Constitution, the National Assembly, and the Judiciary without ouster clauses to guide him. It is therefore only an idiot that will believe the propaganda that he would throw everyone suspected of corruption into jail. I feel so sorry at times for the gullible masses of this country who fall for such cheap propaganda. But it is his type of appetite and revulsion against corruption that we so dearly need at this time. You may say whatever you like about Buhari, but in terms of the character, the steel, the competence to lead the nation out of this period of insurgency, nobody can compare a Goodluck Jonathan to a General Buhari. Just imagine the Service Chiefs (who were probably in secondary school when Buhari and others fought the Civil War) sitting in front of Buhari to brief him about the situation in the North East, and attempting to mislead him about movements of artillery, brigades or troops and, the strategy against the enemy! The attack on Buhari’s certificate is most unfortunate. Only fools can be deceived that a sworn affidavit in place of a certificate that you cannot readily produce is not sufficient for certain purposes. What is important is that the school(s) and dates are mentioned in such affidavits which can be subject to verification. But unfortunately the President’s team has carried on as if leadership is a function of academic degrees and qualifications. This is so sad. Leadership is a divine quality, almost always bestowed at infancy so much so that even in primary schools, we see traits of leadership amongst pupils. If it were not so, then there would be no need for elections. We should just look for the most qualified professor in our Ivory Towers and make him President because that would be the best material for President. Besides, what moral right has Jonathan got to discuss Buhari’s certificate when I have since informed him that his Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko forged all his certificates, yet the President has not even ordered a simple investigation into the matter. He has turned a willful blind eye to the issue. The orchestration of the age of Buhari is just another mischief, symptomatic of the weaker side the President’s team find themselves in the argument. Agility and strength and good health is not exactly a function of age. Yar’Adua did not die in power because he was an old man. Abacha did not die in power because he was an old man. Obasanjo ruled until he was seventy (70) years and it is the same set of PDP big wigs that are now criticizing the age of Buhari that were promoting and supporting the third-term bid of Obasanjo that would have taken him to, perhaps, seventy-eight (78) years as President. Today, Obasanjo still jumps about at nearly eighty (80) years or perhaps more. Professor Wole Soyinka, at over eighty (80) years, still travels everywhere, delivering lectures. The relevant question here is that, is the age more important than the character or the character more important than the age? For those who are Christians, remember that the Bible says in Proverbs 16:31 that grey-headedness is a crown of beauty if found in the ways of righteousness. It is idiotic to deride an elderly person who is still agile and upright in character, instead of us praying that we live up to that age and we are blessed with such strength at such an age. During the Second Republic, the South-West and South-East massively voted for Awolowo and Azikiwe respectively who were both over seventy (70) years old, yet nobody raised an eyebrow. Finally, this is not the time to adopt the herd mentality by joining the so-called “winning train” because the ruling party is always expected to rig elections in its favour. What we are witnessing with the large followership of Buhari is a revolution, a mass movement, a display of anger by the people against Jonathan and his government. This is a time for well-meaning Nigerians, the elites to rise up and speak truth to power, regardless of whose ox is gored. We can halt the slide to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc by our simple votes. We must vote out incompetence, cluelessness and corruption. The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST DESTROYED NIGERIA. I have purged my conscience. Now, I can sleep. FESTUS KEYAMO, ESQ.

Keyamo Explodes: Between Jonathan Versus Buhari Here Is A President Who Destroyed PDP And Almost Destroyed Nigeria. The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST DESTROYED NIGERIA. This is a season of hire-wired deceits, misinformation, campaign of calumny and spewing of outright falsehood and lies – all to hoodwink and deceive ordinary and gullible Nigerians for their votes. I am not worried about these antics of the politicians. It is their way. For them, their business is politics and their politics is business. No scruple. My real worry is that many Nigerians who are the elites can see through some of these outright falsehoods but have decided to sit on fence and keep an embarrassing silence. They forget that millions of ordinary Nigerians who are confused and hoodwinked by these falsehoods and who do not have access to facts depend on their voices and guidance to make their choices. This is, therefore, a message directed at those silent Nigerian elites who should speak up at this time. For me, I have decided that enough is enough. This is the time to speak up. Unfortunately, many of our elites do not want to speak up now because they do not want to be caught on the wrong side of any government in the next four years; they prefer to play safe, not wanting to be tarred with the brush of partisanship. But, I ask: what is wrong with partisanship in a country where you and your children have a huge stake? What is wrong in speaking up and standing up for what your conscience tells you is the right thing to do? What is wrong in being caught on the wrong side of the government in the next four years, if only you would be caught on the right side of posterity? Except for a few class of persons like INEC officials, security agencies and those on the Bench, every other Nigerian has a duty - yes, a duty - to speak up now for our country, and to come down from that fence on which they are sitting regarding the 2015 general elections. Those elites who do not speak up now for fear of being branded partisan and losing face upon defeat are enemies of the people who are looking up to them for guidance. My message to those silent elites today is that whilst they are sitting on the fence, people are being killed like flies in some parts of the country on a daily basis; whilst we are on that fence, our foreign reserves are going down, corruption is growing like cancer, poverty is growing even in the face of dubious economic theories and figures, and we continue to live without adequate power supply. Yet, those who should speak truth to power are sitting on the fence in anticipation of personal gains. I am sorry, but today I have come down from that fence because my buttocks are already hurting from sitting on it. Do not forget that I am from the Niger-Delta region and all my close friends and associates are the main supporters and aides of Mr. President. Two or three Governors who are either my former classmates or colleagues are the main backers of Mr. President. It is so easy, so convenient and so seemingly logical for me to get into that political mix and forget about the good of my country for personal gains. The disgusting message we hear all over the streets of that region every day at this time - promoted by the hirelings of the President – is that Goodluck Jonathan is “our son”, so we have no choice but to support him. In fact, I see some of my “brothers” from the Niger Delta region these days strutting all over the place, denigrating people from other regions. It is typical of what the Yorubas call “omo oju ori ola ri” (a person whose eyes have not seen wealth before). But the question I ask those who tell me such nonsense and behave in such a manner is that, after the next four years, what is next for us? Is our entire future and that of our children dependent on a South-South President for the next four years? Kindly note that in getting down from the fence and speaking up at this critical time, I do not mind if you speak up for Goodluck Jonathan. Yes, you have a right to do so as a Nigerian. But, as an elite, your stand must be known so that when the massacres continue because of cluelessness, when the unrestrained stealing of our public resources continue, when darkness continues to befall the nation because of lack of power, it is important we all remember those who betrayed their conscience and the people because of ethnicity and self-aggrandisement and for posterity to record it as such. We have a President who has no single appetite to fight corruption – yes, none. Imagine a campaign that is dominated by the theme of corruption, yet the President has decided to appoint a person facing trial for money-laundering as his Director of Media and Publicity. If nobody would say it, I will say it because I am the one prosecuting the fellow in court and the case has been adjourned to February 23 and 24 for trial. Part of the lies told is that the fellow has been freed whereas some of the counts in the Charge were just struck out and the court held that he has a case to answer on some other counts. Yet nobody is asking the President these hard questions. The President only mouths anti-corruption. The other day (December 23rd, 2014, I think) the President said he would like to erect a Hall of Shame for Nigerians who engage in corrupt and unwholesome activities that bring the country to disrepute. But he was the same person who brought a convicted criminal, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, out of the Hall of Shame to the Hall of Fame by misusing his power of Prerogative of Mercy when he granted pardon to this self-confessed ex-convict. Imagine the pain, the efforts and resources that go into securing a single conviction for corruption in this our clime. Yet, the President decided to spoil the party for anti-corruption campaigners. On top of that, he displayed corruption within corruption by selective pardon when the likes of Tarfa Balogun, Lucky Igbinedion and others who were convicted about the same period did not enjoy his Presidential pardon. Yet nobody is asking these hard questions on the campaign trail. The funny thing is that, nearly six years into his tenure as President, Goodluck Jonathan said the other day that he is just coming up with a plan to tackle corruption!! Haba, Jona ! To add insult to injury, President Goodluck Jonathan decided to tackle the corruption of stealing of our resources in the high seas by empowering small-time crooks and criminals to police our waterways. This is because he has no idea as to how to revamp, re-organise and re-invigorate the Nigeria Navy to perform its constitutional duty. These days, it is an eyesore to see our military chiefs and officers kowtow to these empowered small-time crooks and criminals for appointment and promotions and other privileges. The disaster about this initiative of empowerment of crooks and criminals is that crude oil theft has never been so high, so rampant in the annals of this country than it is now. Why? Because the President has put a rat as a watchman over a morsel of fish. It is sad to say, but the President, by his actions, has shown no spine, no appetite, no nerve to fight corruption. He just continues to sink into an abyss of moral debauchery. The other tragedy of this President is that, even as he is on the campaign trail, in the last one month, the omnipresent insurgents have attacked towns like Baga, Damaturu, Biu, Askira-Uba, Konduga, Marte and Gombe. Even as we speak, the Boko Haram insurgents are in total control of the whole of Borno State except Maiduguri, Monguno, Dikwa, Konduga and Biu. The insurgents are in total control of towns like Baga, Bama, Gwoza and Banki. Before Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, Boko Haram was nothing but a rag-tag group of extremists living in enclaves like Sambisa, while our proud military boys patrolled the towns. Now, under Jonathan, the reverse is the case. Our military boys are now in enclaves while Boko Haram patrol our towns. Is it not shocking that insurgents have a free reign to enter cities, abduct young girls like in Chibok, burn houses like in Baga, slaughter people for hours like in Konduga, Gwoza etc, yet our military men are nowhere to be found and they do not even give hot pursuit to the retreating insurgents? What is really going on? One obvious flaw is that our President has lost control of the military and the top hierarchy of the military is merely feeding fat on this unfortunate situation and the President seems to be totally helpless in the face of this. The only response the President and his handlers can proffer is to hide this glaring and crass incompetence under political gymnastics; they blame the opposition on the one hand and in the same breath, they say it is a world-wide trend and Nigeria is just having its fair share of a global malaise. Is this true? As President, you are the Commander-In-Chief. If you have evidence against the opposition, just come out with it and arrest the ring-leaders. Do not cry like a baby as Commander-in-Chief. Deal with the situation. That is why you occupy that seat. Till date, no single evidence has been produced against any of the opposition leaders linking them with the insurgency. Rather, what we see is a President who is supposedly bent on fighting insurgency but who is wining and dining with someone who has been directly linked with sponsoring the insurgents and even traveling with such a person to Chad at a time when the State Security Services officially invited that person to answer questions relating to the insurgency. Another calamity and embarrassment is that our President, his Service Chiefs and security advisers were all led into wasting public funds by entering into a phantom cease-fire deal with fake Boko Haram leaders that left them with bloodied noses. Not to also mention the short-lived public celebration of the supposed killing of the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, by the President and his security team, only for the outlaw to appear in subsequent videos posted online, taunting the Nigerian government. Any four more years of a Jonathan Presidency can only lead to more carnage by the insurgents. He just does not have the requisite capacity to tackle this problem of insecurity. The truth must be told. Yet you hear the President say that the nation will appreciate him better after he has left office. I am sorry, but we have seen enough bloodshed and incompetence in the last six years to know there is nothing more to expect the next four years and we have seen enough to do an assessment right now and not in the future. In all his campaign tours, the President is already sounding like a broken record. He says he has made the rails to function again. He mentioned this so much that you imagine that he was primarily elected to revive a few train lines. It sounds very funny when you hear such things, whereas the primary duty of government is the protection of lives and properties. If that primary duty fails, then the government has failed. It is like an undergraduate hoping to be promoted to the next level by barely scraping through the ‘electives’ and failing the core courses. It will never happen. So, is the President providing train coaches to be transporting the dead bodies from the North to the South? Are the trains to be occupied by living human beings or dead human beings? Make no mistake about it, like the President always says, it is true that we have a rise of terrorism around the world. But, we have all seen how governments around the world respond quickly and decisively to any attempt for terror to rear its ugly head within their society and how they quickly crush it. We saw it happen in the United States after 9/11; we saw it happen in Britain after the July 7, 2005 bus bombing; in the last few days, we have seen it happen in France and in Belgium. In all these cases, all attempts were nipped in the bud. Even, here in Nigeria, previous governments have nipped insurgency in the bud. The ONLY government that has allowed it to fester, germinate and grow into a full-blown war leading to a successful secession of some parts of the country is that of President Goodluck Jonathan. It is so bad that hardly a day passes by without reports of one insurgent activity or the other leading to loss of lives and limbs. The President is also quick to mention that his administration has made the Nigerian economy the number one in Africa. He forgot to mention two things, though; one, that some of the major sectors of the Nigerian economy, that is, the telecom sector, financial services and the Nollywood industry that were taken into account to re-base the economy were sectors not created or grown by his government. Secondly, he forgot to mention that the so-called re-basing has no impact at all on the ordinary Nigerian as the 2014 World Bank Survey still shows that Nigeria is ranked third among world top five poorest countries with sixty-one percent (61%) of its citizens living below $1.25 dollar per day. No government can boast of any economic growth or theory that does not have a direct impact on the lives of its ordinary citizens. It is like a father coming home to announce and jubilate about a pay rise and promotion at workplace, yet the wife and children cannot eat or live better many months later. The Nigerian people have tolerated too much and taken too much battering from the PDP-led Federal Government since 1999. Under the Jonathan Government, the situation in the country has sunk to an all-time low, except for the few benefitting directly from the government. They are blind to criticism and blind to healthy opposition. They hurl abuses at anyone who dares to point out these acts of maladministration. In saner societies, the President will not be allowed to campaign in many parts of the country. The people will rise against him and chase his convoy away. The clear alternative to this monumental mess is the person of General Muhammadu Buhari. Let us be clear that Buhari does not present the total package Nigerians want at this time. He is human, he is not perfect. But at this point in our history, at this time, at this moment, he presents the only viable option and avenue for the people to vent their frustrations and anger against an inept and clueless Federal Government. He represents the rallying point for the frustrated and teeming masses of our people. He reminds me of MKO Abiola (with some of his imperfections) who became the rallying point in the struggle against military rule. That is the change we are talking about. It is not a change from imperfection to perfection. It is a change from hopelessness and cluelessness to some hope and to some expectations. All the personal attacks on the person of Buhari in the last few weeks have only convinced me that he is the best available option at this time. Anyone on the weaker side in any argument always resorts to personal abuses and attacks. Have you noticed that on corruption, the only accusation against Buhari is that, he was too high-handed in fighting corruption in the past? In other words, nobody can/has accused him of lacking the courage, zeal and will to fight corruption. On the other hand, the President eats, sleeps and wakes up with corruption. In one of his famous interviews, he did not even see stealing as corruption. That is why he does not see the point why he should not appoint a person standing trial for corruption as his Director of Media and Publicity. He just does not care. So, Nigerians, we must decide what we want. When Buhari fought corruption and was supposedly high-handed, he was ruling with Decrees. Now, he has the Constitution, the National Assembly, and the Judiciary without ouster clauses to guide him. It is therefore only an idiot that will believe the propaganda that he would throw everyone suspected of corruption into jail. I feel so sorry at times for the gullible masses of this country who fall for such cheap propaganda. But it is his type of appetite and revulsion against corruption that we so dearly need at this time. You may say whatever you like about Buhari, but in terms of the character, the steel, the competence to lead the nation out of this period of insurgency, nobody can compare a Goodluck Jonathan to a General Buhari. Just imagine the Service Chiefs (who were probably in secondary school when Buhari and others fought the Civil War) sitting in front of Buhari to brief him about the situation in the North East, and attempting to mislead him about movements of artillery, brigades or troops and, the strategy against the enemy! The attack on Buhari’s certificate is most unfortunate. Only fools can be deceived that a sworn affidavit in place of a certificate that you cannot readily produce is not sufficient for certain purposes. What is important is that the school(s) and dates are mentioned in such affidavits which can be subject to verification. But unfortunately the President’s team has carried on as if leadership is a function of academic degrees and qualifications. This is so sad. Leadership is a divine quality, almost always bestowed at infancy so much so that even in primary schools, we see traits of leadership amongst pupils. If it were not so, then there would be no need for elections. We should just look for the most qualified professor in our Ivory Towers and make him President because that would be the best material for President. Besides, what moral right has Jonathan got to discuss Buhari’s certificate when I have since informed him that his Comptroller-General of Customs, Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko forged all his certificates, yet the President has not even ordered a simple investigation into the matter. He has turned a willful blind eye to the issue. The orchestration of the age of Buhari is just another mischief, symptomatic of the weaker side the President’s team find themselves in the argument. Agility and strength and good health is not exactly a function of age. Yar’Adua did not die in power because he was an old man. Abacha did not die in power because he was an old man. Obasanjo ruled until he was seventy (70) years and it is the same set of PDP big wigs that are now criticizing the age of Buhari that were promoting and supporting the third-term bid of Obasanjo that would have taken him to, perhaps, seventy-eight (78) years as President. Today, Obasanjo still jumps about at nearly eighty (80) years or perhaps more. Professor Wole Soyinka, at over eighty (80) years, still travels everywhere, delivering lectures. The relevant question here is that, is the age more important than the character or the character more important than the age? For those who are Christians, remember that the Bible says in Proverbs 16:31 that grey-headedness is a crown of beauty if found in the ways of righteousness. It is idiotic to deride an elderly person who is still agile and upright in character, instead of us praying that we live up to that age and we are blessed with such strength at such an age. During the Second Republic, the South-West and South-East massively voted for Awolowo and Azikiwe respectively who were both over seventy (70) years old, yet nobody raised an eyebrow. Finally, this is not the time to adopt the herd mentality by joining the so-called “winning train” because the ruling party is always expected to rig elections in its favour. What we are witnessing with the large followership of Buhari is a revolution, a mass movement, a display of anger by the people against Jonathan and his government. This is a time for well-meaning Nigerians, the elites to rise up and speak truth to power, regardless of whose ox is gored. We can halt the slide to Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc by our simple votes. We must vote out incompetence, cluelessness and corruption. The epitaph that will be left for the Presidential years of Goodluck Jonathan is this: HERE IS A PRESIDENT WHO DESTROYED PDP AND ALMOST DESTROYED NIGERIA. I have purged my conscience. Now, I can sleep. FESTUS KEYAMO, ESQ.

Jonathan’s could not Response To Obasanjo’s Five Questions. A seemingly remorseful President Goodluck Jonathan, could only plead for understanding and cooperation when he visited former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to seek his blessings ahead of the February presidential election. Jonathan it was gathered appealed for the support of Obasanjo at the meeting, choosing not to respond to some of the questions posed by the former president. The president had after his re-election campaign in Abeokuta, Ogun State, gone with the general overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye and founder of Living Faith Church, Bishop David Oyedepo, to the residence of Obasanjo to seek his forgiveness and support. At the meeting, however, the former president had asked his estranged god-son the following questions, “ (1) Did you agree to run for only one term or not? (2) What did you tell me was your reason for not going after Boko Haram insurgents even when I told you this will boomerang? (3) What happened to Nigeria’s external reserve and Sovereign Wealth Fund? (4) Did you give licence to Niger Delta militants (Dokubo and Tompolo) to import arms in the name of their privately owned companies? If so, for what reason? (5) Did you not get correspondence from the United States consulate that a certain citizen named Buruji Kashamu is indicted for drug trafficking? Why did you appoint the same Kashamu as South West leader of PDP rather than hand him over to the US? And did the PDP give automatic Senate ticket to a wanted and convicted drug baron? However, it was gathered that Jonathan who either could not respond to the question or decided not, pleaded for Obasanjo’s understanding and cooperation as he goes into the election. A PDP source further hinted that the choice of the two revered pastors was to soften the ground for the former president to attend to him. Obasanjo had since refused to endorse Jonathan’s re-election bid. Their relationship had shortly after 2011 degenerated and culminated in the resignation of Obasanjo from the activities of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

What Does Boko Haram Want In Nigeria? The Voice UK" GOING TO school can be a matter of life or death in certain parts of the world. Like the worried parents in regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, families in Nigeria’s northeastern states are facing the terror of militants, justifying their actions under the banner of Islam, kidnapping and killing their children. Boko Haram, Nigeria’s infamous Islamist militant group whose name roughly translates as ‘Western education is forbidden’, is currently waging an insurgency against the state. Caught in the crossfire are civilians and children, some of whom are being used as instruments of war. The most recent atrocities Boko Haram is suspected of were an alleged 2,000 deaths in the town of Baga, in the northeastern state of Borno, described by Amnesty International as the group’s “deadliest massacre” to date. Government soldiers apparently gave up counting the bodies of children, women and the elderly around January 3. Last weekend (January 10 and 11), suicide bombs killed at least 14 and injured dozens. What grabbed international attention was that the two separate blasts were allegedly carried out by a girl as young as ten years old, and two young women, whom witnesses described as in their early 20s. New York-based Nigerian human rights activist Dr Perry Brimah claimed the latest attacks are part of Boko Haram’s campaign to carry out an “ethnic cleansing” of rural populations in Nigeria’s “farming belt” to colonise land. “Boko Haram pretty much started using girls after April last year when they abducted the Chibok girls,” he told The Voice. “The girls are pressured. They have men telling them, ‘If you don’t do it, I’m going to kill you.’ “In a lot of the north there is so much poverty that you can literally buy kids. Poverty has an important role to play… enabling a pool of people to be recruited for terror, but poverty is one of the less important reasons for [the emergence of] Boko Haram.” Brimah apportioned a large amount of the blame for the chaos on the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election next month (Feb 14). “You have a situation of chaos and there is some kind of sponsor – a tactical brain behind them that is investing heavily and has a certain goal. You have the person behind Boko Haram with an agenda and a government permitting a level of insecurity.” He did not agree with the narrative that Boko Haram is truly seeking to create an Islamic caliphate, but claimed their motives are more worldly – resources and land. “What is the value in that area, the land, the farming belt of Nigeria?” the civil society campaigner speculated. “There is uranium in Borno and crude oil that has been discovered in Borno. What I see is that somebody wants that land – to colonise and occupy. A lot of people don’t focus on this, but at the end of the day, they are exterminating local populations.” AIMS Nigerian historian and author Max Siollun, whose books include Soldiers of Fortune: A History of Nigeria and Oil, Politics, and Violence: Nigeria's Military Coup Culture, said “the jury is still out on what Boko Haram’s ultimate aim is”. He said: “It’s a very fluid and evolving narrative. I would be circumspect over attributing any one theory as the ultimate aim of Boko Haram. “Their message has evolved. They originally stated they want to create an Islamic state from a remote fishing village, then their grievances changed and it was, ‘We want revenge against the security forces who have killed our members and imprisoned our brothers, sisters, wives and children.’ And now it has turned into, ‘We want to create an Islamic caliphate across the whole of northern Nigeria and we are anti-establishment, against existing Islamic authorities in Nigeria.’” The writer added: “During the first ten years of Boko Haram, this caliphate idea was never mentioned. It started after IS [Islamic State in Iraq and Syria] gained prominence and notoriety and when Boko Haram got lots of international publicity for kidnapping those schoolgirls last year.” Boko Haram’s kidnapping of children and alleged use of girls as suicide bombers has drawn international condemnation – following the recent suicide blasts involving minors, the UN’s children agency UNICEF said: “Words alone can neither express our outrage nor ease the agony of all those suffering from the constant violence in northern Nigeria.” Siollun claimed use of children is a useful “bargaining chip” for Boko Haram as it means “the military can’t attack them with the same ferocity as they did before, for fear of endangering the girls’ lives.” “The narrative I’ve heard more often is that they marry off the girls as prizes to their fighters,” he added. On the subject of religion, Siollun argued that it “is a symptom not the cause.” He continued: “When you have a grievance, you can’t just get up and say, ‘I’m going to kill people for no reason,’ you need to find some sort of self-justification for what you’re doing. “What you’re seeing is demographics, economic inequality, marginalisation and unemployment are coinciding in Nigeria to create a perfect storm of insecurity.”

Open letter to Goodluck Jonathan by Hafsat Abiola! Dear President, As young global leaders we would like to express our deep concern about the recent situations in Nigeria. The massacre in Baga has been Boko Haram’s deadliest so far and what has it met with? Your silence. Most disturbing still is the fact that you would send a message to France condemning the killings there, yet seem unable to address the Nigerian people who look to you for leadership. Unfortunately, it would not be the first time On 10 November 2014 a suicide bomber killed 47 people and injured 79 others. The following day, with barely a mention of this horrific incident targetting children, you launched your re-election campaign. And despite the ease with which you move on, even you will remember the abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok in April last year. It was 40 days before you addressed the country on that occasion. Nigerians waited, perplexed, as your government debated whether or not the abductions had even taken place. As a result, of all the girls captured, only 52 have secured their freedom – escaping on their own. The rest are still in captivity, still waiting to be rescued, 276 days after being taken from their friends, family and community. Could it be that your government also doubts that the Baga attacks happened? Amnesty International’s satellite images confirm that indeed a massacre took place, and as many as 2000 people are dead. Yet your army wastes time contesting the numbers. Whether 150 or 2000, we’d like to hear from you on your governments plans to secure the region and to bear witness to the loss of lives in Baga. We have seen a clear incompetency in handling matters of national interest. In the context of existing ethnic and religious fault lines, silence only says that Nigeria’s government does not care about the victims and is not dealing with the insurgency. True the global community has also failed to maintain pressure on your government that seems ambivalent about fulfilling its constitutional role to secure the lives and properties of its citizens. As 1.5 million Nigerians flee their homes, swelling camps within Nigeria and overwhelming border communities’ (if not same as before), it seems the only hope to see you act is global outrage. It was this that finally forced you to address the nation and the world 40 days after the Chibok abductions. It was only then that you reached out to other countries and, with their help, agree a plan for a regional security force to secure the porous borders between Nigeria, Niger and Chad where Boko Haram roams undeterred. Perhaps, had international pressure been sustained last year, a multi-regional force would have been based in Baga as planned. Perhaps it would have been strong enough to repel Boko Haram when the militants attacked on 3 January. Perhaps 2000 lives could have been saved. But Isis happened and the world moved on, leaving a small national military unit to stand between thousands of armed militants and a town of ten thousand people. We now know what happened. The world has seen pictures of bodies still strewn around the forest and river where they died. If these deaths do not generate the attention, outcry and action that they ought to, we can only prepare the ground for more bodies because Boko Haram shows no sign of relenting. The insurgents can be defeated but first you must decide if the lives of Nigerians are worth it or not. Break the silence, Mr. President. Call for global attention and support to avert a crisis that begins to echo the early days of the Rwandan genocide. Be the voice for the thousands of innocent people who have died and the millions who yearn for peace. They have the right to rebuild their communities and claim their place in the unfolding rise of the African continent.

WHO MISLED OUR DEAR PRESIDENT Fellow Nigerians, please note that the title of my column today is written in the past tense. I must confess that I did it deliberately for reasons I will explain shortly. You probably remember an earlier article titled WHO’S MISLEADING OUR PRESIDENT? I had written too many unsolicited epistles in the past advising our dear President free of charge. Those accusing me of hating the President don't know me. I lack the capacity to hate anyone, not even my enemy. It is sinful to hate your fellow human being. My Christian faith teaches me to love my neighbours and forgive those who trespass against me. I intend to abide by those injunctions to the very end. What is there to hate in President Goodluck Jonathan? For me, he is a man richly blessed by God almighty. He has achieved what no man would in many lifetimes. His story is a stuff of fiction and fairytale. It is a classic case of grass to grace or from a valley to the mountain top. Every man should use Jonathan as HIS prayer point/contact with God and seek his type of uncommon favour. The depiction of his life's trajectory had resonated with many Nigerians. We hoped and expected that he would know and appreciate the meaning of poverty. Nigeria badly needed a compassionate leader who would work for the general people and not for a few privileged fat cats. We prayed and anticipated a relatively young and educated gentleman to come in and fix our comatose education. Dr Goodluck Jonathan fitted that bill almost in surreal terms with his PhD. Who could have been better suitable for such an onerous task if not Jonathan? We believed that here finally was a man to connect perfectly with the university eggheads and put an end to the incessant closure of our institutions of higher learning. But we were dead wrong. Our universities went on indefinite strike and at the height of this mutual madness, university lecturers who refused to go back to work were pronounced sacked with automatic alacrity. Not even a military junta would have conjectured such ribaldry but a democratically elected government led by a former University Don not only envisioned it but made it reality. Beyond that, the substantive Minister of Education, a Professor in the person of Ruqayyah Ahmed Rufa'i was replaced by the Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, a full-blown politician, whose understanding of his remit was undoubtedly suspect. It was a clear indication of how much disdain the Federal Government has for Education. The President who was projected as a man who grew up without the basic necessities of life soon became a high-flying, jet-setting impresario. In fact, his government became so elitist that many started wondering why a man from a pedigree of frugality would become more flamboyant than any leader before him. Our President travelled at the flimsiest excuse. His unwieldy entourage, comprising of a multitude of acolytes, became a subject of international opprobrium. Yet the same government insisted that Nigerians must forgo the nebulous subsidy they had always enjoyed in varied forms in the past. The subsidy itself was a grand scam with the bill skyrocketing and quadrupling within the twinkle of an eye. Yet the citizens were told to pay more for the only semblance of privilege they should be enjoying. The many mistakes of Jonathan are seemingly endless. The President behaved not like a national but a clannish Chieftain. It was as if he did not expect the year of reckoning to arrive sooner rather than later. I repeatedly warned against fighting on too many fronts which no reasonable General would indulge in. I’m yet to understand the logic behind alienating the rest of the nation as if their votes would never be needed. This is the most unfortunate attitude that led to what has become the President’s albatross today. Nothing has redefined this government than the seeming nonchalance of President Jonathan to the spate of Killings in Northern Nigeria. Thousands of our brothers and sisters have been massacred like locusts and the response from government has become too predictable and totally insensitive. The standard practice is for the Presidential spokesman to come out with a cut and paste template of regurgitated message of alleged sadness and sympathy filled with empty promises that won’t be kept. And then, life continues as normal with no sign of the monumental tragedy being addressed. No matter the number of the dead, our government goes ahead with whatever jamboree it has already planned. The latest PR disaster comes with the President offering condolences to the French Government following the Charlie Hebdo tragedy which led to the death of 17 French citizens whilst almost 2000 people were killed in Baga at about the same time without attracting even the slightest whimper from our dear President. Even the “Super” Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iwealla succumbed to this fawning tribute of the ‘whiteman’ forgetting the massacre at home. The Government was #JesuisCharlie, when it should have been. #AllforBaga! I urge Nigerians to let this Government know that Nigerians are also important even if we empathise with others. Our President has never been able to mobilise and galvanise the people into coming together to fight a common enemy. The fact that every occurrence is suspected as an act of political opponents has made it difficult and almost impossible to rise up to some of the debilitating challenges we face today. There are not many people in the world who don’t feel terribly sad about our condition. The Western media has virtually written us off as a nation of violent vandals and vampires. So many reporters visiting Nigeria openly wonder if we actually have blood flowing through our veins. Many have concluded that we are just incapable of caring for those in need. The abduction of over 200 Chibok girls is what has exposed the type of leadership we are forced to live with. Our next door neighbour, Cameroon, has shown a greater capacity to fight terrorism than us. Their military has been motivated in a way that they’ve carried out kamikaze raids on dangerous hideouts. They have been able to rescue their people from captivity while we have suffered too many setbacks and casualties. Since the disappearance of the Chibok girls all we’ve been told is the Government is working very hard. Worse still, more people have since disappeared or been murdered yet the news about them at home is usually scanty. We rely on foreign organisations for any useful information. Even the foreign media is endlessly frustrated by the trouble of getting government sources to open up and give clear answers to questions. But politics appears to be more important to our leaders. Our civilians and military are being slaughtered like Salah rams and we don’t seemed bothered. Nothing is likely to beat the type of disgrace we’ve suffered in the past one week. It is no longer news that the map of Nigeria has been boldly redesigned by daredevil terrorists; the dastardly attack on Baga and Doron Baga last week was the height of it. There are vivid reports indicating that about 2,000 or more died from the indiscriminate shooting by assailants believed to be Boko Haram. Satellite images revealed that over 3,700 structures were damaged. As usual, our government said the story was exaggerated and that the number of those killed could not have been more than 150. Even if true, how a country remains so calm and unperturbed by such degree of wanton destruction of lives and properties remains a mystery to me. Again, we all carried on as normal until BBC, Sky and CNN opened fire on our country. I could not bring myself to watch some of the reports to the very end out of a sense of collective guilt and shame. Once again, we were in the news for the wrong reasons. Suddenly things began to happen in Abuja. Our President’s handlers must have sensed danger with elections a month away. Nobody could afford this type of scandal at this auspicious time. The President who could not find time or the courage to visit the war ravaged parts in the recent past, especially Chibok, now found the time to go to Maiduguri but not Baga. It is a however too little and too late. It confirmed the people’s impression that the President would do almost anything to remain in power. It is such a poor image of who we are. A little effort from our leaders would probably have reduced this tension. There is nothing more disheartening than watching our soldiers, reduced to emotional wrecks while speaking to foreign journalists. Some are claiming how miserable life has become for those expected to safeguard us. They are ill-equipped, ill-motivated, and ill-protected. One of them said he had to pay to obtain his uniform. I’m sorry, I just can’t get it. It all sounds like tales by moonlight. What happened to all the fat allocations in our defence budgets? I remember the President asking and getting the Senate to approve N1billion loan to buy ammunition to fight Boko Haram. I’m tempted to suspect that there are people who are deliberately deceiving and misleading our President. The confession that he gets conflicting and contradictory advice should demonstrate clearly why we are in this mess. I can see how this has now put so much pressure on the President. The tempo of his campaign has become racy because of the realisation that this election will not be a walkover. But I doubt if those mistakes can be corrected in just one month leading to the election. The President has been sold too many lies because he chose to be a psychedelic leader than a man of the people politician who would personally supervise some of the work his aides claimed they have done. He would have been shocked to see the quality of what he’s promoting as uncommon Transformation Agenda. Most of those achievements would have been seen as fake, poor, and abandoned projects. The Murtala Muhammed International Airport remains one of the worst in the world despite the cosmetic renovation that took place at God knows how much. If in doubt, I can give a quick rundown: very terrible air-conditioning, archaic elevators, leaking roofs, lack of car parks next to the airport, cumbersome immigration process (the only country with double screening, Immigration and DSS), too many uniformed agents dipping hands into your luggage at this time and age, poor roads welcoming visitors going out of the airport, the list is endless. So much has been said about roads. Nigeria still has some of the most useless roads in Africa. Most of those under rehabilitation have nowhere near completion. The Benin-Shagamu road is a veritable example. What is the purpose of rehabilitating only a part of it? That road remains a nightmare as does the Lagos-Ibadan which remains not only a nuisance to everyone but a death trap. It is strange how a government can make so much fuss over many uncompleted projects nationwide. Much has been said about the East-West road but like others, it has remained a work in progress. The second Niger Bridge has become a butt of jokes. I love the idea of trains but the government should have invested in modern coaches and certainly more than a single gauge line even if it has to find private investors. This would have complemented the good job done so far. I have read so much about Agriculture and would love to applaud the dream of the Minister but I reserve that for another day as I don’t know where and how he assembled his 10-14 million farmers and how it has impacted on our food production and distribution. This government has not justified the huge resources made available to it. Those days are gone when people would have glossed over some of the excesses. The social media has changed the world for good or for bad. Nigerians are not asking for too much. They are not even looking for saints as their leaders but they want men and women who are less greedy and more caring. Unfortunately, they’ve searched in vain for too long and it seems there is no end to this misery. This is why in frustration they have turned to a man who left power 30 years ago, General Muhammadu Buhari. No one should blame us. It is in the character of human beings to run to the elders of the house in the days of tribulations. Everywhere you turn today what you hear is the cry of change. A wife rejected has suddenly become the beautiful bride in retrospect. Let no one envy Buhari because it is not his fault if those handed power on a platter of gold trampled on it. From what I see and feel, Buhari’s time has come and he looks unstoppable. People are simply tired of being lied to and they want to use someone as scape-goat. Sadly, President Jonathan is the one they see in front of them and it is a cross he has to carry like a man. Those who misled him are just waiting for their flights to a safe haven leaving him alone and forlorn. Such is life.

Madonna Lends Her Voice Against Boko Haram Attack On Baga; Says ‘I Am Nigerian. Beautiful international singer, Madonna has spoken out like other celebrities against the attack on Baga Town by Boko Haram which allegedly claimed the lives of about two thousand innocent people. The screen diva said she is not only concerned with the violence in France alone but also the violence being faced by Nigerians in the North Eastern part of the country by Boko Haram.

South Africa’s eccentric youth leader and federal lawmaker, Julius Malema, has launched a blistering attack on President Goodluck Jonathan over his handling of the massacre in Baga, Borno State, describing the Nigerian president as “irresponsible” and suggesting South African intervention against the extremist Boko Haram sect. Mr. Malema, who leads the Economic Freedom Fighters Party, criticised Mr. Jonathan for rushing out public condemnations of the terrorist attack on a newspaper in France when he has remained silent until date on the bloodbath in Baga, a troubled town in his own country. The youth leader said the South African National Assembly will consider a motion on a possible intervention in the bloody campaign by Boko Haram that has claimed thousands of lives and has worsened in the last weeks. Boko Haram seized Baga, a fishing community on the northern tip of Borno State by Lake Chad, sacking the military base there and killing soldiers and hundreds of civilians.

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A loss by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in general elections next month may be viewed “positively” by foreign investors and probably won’t rattle markets, according to Jim O’Neill, former chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management. While Jonathan, 57, has presided over the sale of the nation’s mismanaged power utilities to private investors, his economic policies in the last four years “could have been better,” O’Neill said in a Jan. 7 interview in the capital, Abuja. Firing central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi last year, who brought “a lot of credibility” to the government, sent out a negative signal, he said. “If he doesn’t get re-elected, and it’s because of Nigerian people wanting something different and something better, I think the markets would be happy with that,” said O’Neill. “Foreign investors are pretty negative about Nigeria, so I don’t dismiss the possibility that if he lost people actually might react positively.” O’Neill ranks Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil producer, alongside Mexico, Indonesia and Turkey in his MINT group. The countries have four of the largest emerging-market populations outside the BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China, an acronym he coined at Goldman. Jonathan, a southern Christian, faces former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari, 72, a Muslim northerner and candidate of the opposition All Progressive Congress in the Feb. 14 vote. The ruling People’s Democratic Party, which has won every contest since army rule ended in 1999, faces its stiffest challenge against the APC, a merger of Nigeria’s biggest opposition parties. Africa’s most populous nation of more than 170 million people is split between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

Goodluck Jonathan In The Footsteps of Slave Master William Lynch:- In the year 1712 on the bank of the James River in the colony of Virginia, a notorious slave master, William Lynch delivered his infamous speech on the manipulation of the Black slave. Quoting from the speech introduction, Willie said: “I have a full proof method for controlling your black slaves. I guarantee every one of you that, if installed correctly, it will control the slaves for at least 300 hundreds years. My method is simple. Any member of your family or your overseer can use it. I have outlined a number of differences among the slaves; and i take these differences and make them bigger. I use fear, distrust and envy for control purposes.” The speech went on to present how the cultivation of envy, segregation, distrust, fear and resentment between and among Black slaves will enable the slave master assert permanent control over the slaves who will be rendered helpless and hopeless for generations to come. Lynch said, “Black slaves after receiving this indoctrination shall carry on and will become self-refueling and self-generating for hundreds of years, maybe thousands.” The full speech which details the planting of seeds of chaos between old and young, intelligent and not, men and women and all other recruit-able ‘differences,’ can be read here and elsewhere on the internet: http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/Perspectives_1/Willie_Lynch_letter_The_Making_of_a_Slave.shtml . It is a must read for every Black man. On October 1st, 2010, there was a bombing in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital that marred the Independence Day celebrations. The Niger Delta terrorist group, MEND immediately took responsibility for the deadly act; however the Nigerian President saw this and some say was directly involved – being alleged to be a patron of the MEND group according to US STRATFOR intelligence intelligence think tank— and even requested this terror act for use as a means of creating a solid reference event to divide Nigerians among religious and geographical lines for utility in securing his electoral victories. Indeed in furthering of the colonial ‘divide and rule’ doctrine, the deliberate accusation of ‘northern elements’ in the terror event would serve to harness and secure sectional votes for the President in the 2011 elections. Rather than arrest whoever was involved, be they from the North or wherever else, and defeat the terrorists in the jungles, the Jonathan government for its six straight years, never indicted a single sponsor of the terror group. Not one! You see, the terror was a superb weapon in the hands of the nation’s leadership to mislead the weak and gullible and consolidate the support of the desperate and fanatical. Nigeria’s President did not create the sectional tensions, however rather than dampen this divide which was deliberately implanted in Nigeria during the colonial years; and rather than bring Nigerians together as they had set on the path to with the President who hails from the South-south actually recording more patronage and votes from the North than he did from his own region; Nigeria’s President catapulted the fading divides and for the better part of his six years in office, continued to aggressively push this singular weapon, investing his entire publicity office in aggressively promoting the distrust between Nigerians, North and South, Muslim and Christian. Differences which do exist but should be reasons for pride and only valuable in competing in excellence were sponsored as reasons to hate and kill in the embraced policy of the dotty regime. Boko Haram was left to rein its terror on the people for the six years. The Nigerian government used in their words, ‘kid gloves’ against the terrorists, leaving them to gather in strength and morale and to continue to rein maximal havoc on the land, killing and displacing thousands of Muslims and Christians. One message was constantly propagated from the Presidency: that it was elements in the North who wanted power so bad, they were sponsoring this death of their own resident people just to get rid of him. It worked… but for only so long. A soft-spoken seasoned General, known for his discipline and integrity yet quietness and unbeaten tolerance was the scapegoat. The evil-genius, Reuben Abati was employed to spin a sweet, malicious tale, taking all statements salvageable from anyone in the North and spinning them into a palatable lie to be tossed at the General. The Femi twins were also heavily paid and given poppycock narratives to spin and re-spin, day in, day out, all in the hope of discrediting the Governor’s most feared ‘adversary.’ And when the General took the Reuben Presidential aide to court and won a victory, the Nigerian President hastily begged the General to settle out of court and accept a published retraction of the libelous claims [See Guardian of July 11, 2013, “Re: For the attention of General Buhari.”] Yet, despite the published apology, which not as many happened to read—as is the nature of the spread of truth vs. slander—the Nigerian leadership did not desist for a day, but unleashed all other attack dogs to continue spewing the tale and planting the seeds of hate and distrust among the people in pure colonial style. Nigerians remained distracted for almost the entirety of his rule; and as a true slave master, the President took advantage of this and prided himself in rapidly making his handful of Cabal coterie wealthy beyond imagination, owners of the plantations while the people fought each other and cried over the un-abating terror. The People of the nation got poorer and poorer while the President continued to sell all the State assets to this handful of fellow slave-master Cabal as the people fought each other and pointed fingers at each other day after day. Billionaires were made, billions were looted from all sectors of the economy, and the Cabal competed in flying private jets and driving armored vehicles. The Boko Haram terrorist group which was actually centered and tactically controlled from French-speaking neighboring Chad; a terrorist network operated from foreign soil against the Nigerian State was the perfect distraction and poison. Unlike the great leaders of Africa; the likes of Thomas Sankara, the Nkrumahs, the Garangs and the Gaddafi’s who rather saw for Africa the need and possibility to join together not just ethnic groups but entire nations into one holistic single unit, the Nigerian ruler prided himself in investing through his clergy, the Wendell Simlins, Mujahids, Ayos and others, in ripping Nigeria to bits, heart, body and spirit. Corruption was liberated from stealing as terror became the tool of the State. Alas, all bad things come to an end as Mahatma Gandhi said, “Remember that all through history, there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they seem invincible. But in the end, they always fall. Always.” Nigerians pulled though. The people came together more than ever; and as Christians surrounded and protected Muslims while they prayed during the January 2012 #OccupyNigeria protests against the ruler’s sudden malevolent removal of the fuel subsidy in favor of his protected Cabal cronies; so also Muslims began to sacrifice their lives fighting against the terror and formed protective barriers around Churches during Christians religious services. [See: “Muslim youths protect Christians during Xmas service in Kaduna” http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/muslim-youths-protect-christians-xmas-service-kaduna/] It was game over. The colonialist and the colonial minded evil planers planned and plotted, but the Lord proved that He is the best of planers and plotters [Quran 8:30]. For everything there is a season; and Nigerians decided this is the season to cast away [Ecclesiastes 3:6].

You #‎Punks‬ were laughing out of dumb mockery when General Muhammadu Buhari shaded tears for the way and manner this country is being governed; a rich country blessed with endowed natural resources, brilliance and reasonable population growth; he shaded tears that even at the battle field and facing death, he did not shade it as a veteran. His tears was real and came as an anguish, his tears is not out of joy; but pains. His tears is as a result of how the affairs of governance in Nigeria is being run under blatant corruption, insecurity, lack of love and how able youth remain jobless after intensed and rigorous stages of learning many graduates and artisans experts passed through, coupled with huge amount their parents, uncles, brothers, sisters and friends spent on them, but; alas, few individuals are reaping the fruits which is supposed to be enjoyed by Nigerian citizens from all walk of life through so many ways as dividend of democracy. The Heros of our nation, whose tireless efforts that made it possible for the Unity, Peace and Progress of this country never remained in vain; the same labour of Nigerian passed Heros will make it possible for #‎CHANGE‬ to take place in this God Loved Country. The Coat of Arms of Nigeria that has a black shield with two white stripes that come together, the letter Y that represent the two main rivers flowing through Nigeria: the Benue River and the Niger River. The black shield that represents Nigeria's good earth, the two horses on each side that represent dignity, the eagle that represents strength, the green and white bands on the top of the shield that represent rich agricultural land of our inspiring country will make #‎ThingsMustChange‬

Thing Must Change in Nigeria

You #‎Punks‬ were laughing out of dumb mockery when General Muhammadu Buhari shaded tears for the way and manner this country is being governed; a rich country blessed with endowed natural resources, brilliance and reasonable population growth; he shaded tears that even at the battle field and facing death, he did not shade it as a veteran. His tears was real and came as an anguish, his tears is not out of joy; but pains. His tears is as a result of how the affairs of governance in Nigeria is being run under blatant corruption, insecurity, lack of love and how able youth remain jobless after intensed and rigorous stages of learning many graduates and artisans experts passed through, coupled with huge amount their parents, uncles, brothers, sisters and friends spent on them, but; alas, few individuals are reaping the fruits which is supposed to be enjoyed by Nigerian citizens from all walk of life through so many ways as dividend of democracy. The Heros of our nation, whose tireless efforts that made it possible for the Unity, Peace and Progress of this country never remained in vain; the same labour of Nigerian passed Heros will make it possible for #‎CHANGE‬ to take place in this God Loved Country. The Coat of Arms of Nigeria that has a black shield with two white stripes that come together, the letter Y that represent the two main rivers flowing through Nigeria: the Benue River and the Niger River. The black shield that represents Nigeria's good earth, the two horses on each side that represent dignity, the eagle that represents strength, the green and white bands on the top of the shield that represent rich agricultural land of our inspiring country will make #‎ThingsMustChange‬