GEJ SACKED SURE-P BOSS FOR ATTENDING OBASANJOS' BIRTHDAY.

The Media Presidential spokesperson Reuben Abati a few hours ago announced the sack of SURE-P boss, General Martin Luther Agwai (Rtd) who was the former Chief of Army Staff. There are reports that he was sacked for attending former president Obasanjo’s birthday event last week. General Agwai was fired for flouting a presidential instruction that no government official or member of the ruling PDP, should attend the birthday event of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, last week. Sources within the presidency told said that all government functionaries were instructed by President Jonathan to boycott Mr Obasanjo’s birthday event. The information said when informed of the president’s warning, General Agwai, who climbed to the pinnacle of his career under the Obasanjo administration, said he will go ahead and attend the function, more so, in view of the president’s directive. A source said for daring the president, it was clear General Agwai would be fired. One source said it appears General Agwai was informed ahead of the announcement of his removal Tuesday, as the former defence chief arrived early at the SURE-P office to pack his belongings. General Agwai himself replaced Christopher Kolade, who left office after criticising the president.

FORMER IVORY COAST PRESIDENT LAURENT GBABO’S WIFE; SIMONE GBABO HAS BAGGED 20 YEARS JAIL TERM.

Ivory Coast’s former first lady, Simone Gbagbo, has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for her role in the violence that followed the 2010 elections. The 65yrs old Simone Gbagbo had been charged with undermining state security. Her husband, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court. (ICC) More than 3,000 people died in the violence that followed the presidential poll after the ex-leader refused to accept defeat to Alassane Ouattara. She and her husband were arrested in 2011 after troops stormed a bunker where the pair had taken refuge in the capital Abidjan. And it was in the same city where Simonee Gbagbo that was once refered as “Iron Lady” faced trial. She was also accused of disturbing public order and organising armed gangs. The court unanimously sentenced her to 20 years, twice as long as the prosecutors had asked for. Her daughter, Marie Antoinette Singleton said the sentence was unfair and a sign of “political justice”. “Why would you want to double it? It’s not about justice, it’s about getting rid of political adversaries.” “If we say that something wrong happened, it happened on both sides. Nobody looked into bringing all responsible parties to trial,” she said. Laurent Gbagbo, is facing four charges at the ICC in The Hague, including murder, rape and persecution. Laurent Gbagbo himself has been held for three years in The Hague facing charges of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC). But Ivory Coast has repeatedly refused to hand his wife over to the ICC on the same charge. The presidential couple were arrested April 11, 2011 after five months of fierce fighting following a final push by French forces against their residence. Fervently Christian, but ruthless by reputation. Simone Gbagbo has never sought to deny exercising political influence after her husband rose to power in 2000 elections in which former prime minister Alsanne Ouattara was barred from standing on the grounds he was a foreigner. "All the ministers respect me, and they often consider me above them. I've got what it takes to be a minister," she told the French newsweekly l'Express in 2001, justifying her stance after a life she said had been dedicated to activism. "I engaged in political struggle against the former regime alongside men. I spent six months in prison, I was beaten, molested, left for dead. After all those trials, it's logical that people don't mess with me." A key issue in her trial was whether she played a part in directing the death squads that ran amok in the weeks after the disputed vote. Judicial authorities argued that the proceedings were a test of the west African country's capacity to conduct a fair trial, while contributing to national reconciliation. As observers noted at the December 26 opening of her case when Gbagbo appeared in a bright yellow dress, carefully plaited hair and a defiant air. She is not inclined to wilt in the face of adversity. Born in the predominantly Christian south in 1949 as one of 18 children of a policeman, she studied linguistics and history before becoming a trade union activist. Her militancy led to a jail term in the 1970s for openly criticising then President Felix Houphouet-Boigny; Ivory Coast's first leader after independence from France in 1960. When he rejected opposition calls for multi-party elections. She and Laurent Gbagbo married in 1989 after founding the opposition socialist Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), and she was later elected to parliament in the world's leading cocoa producer. Her husband sought to change relations with former colonial master Paris, arguing that previous regimes had been servile, and the first lady proved a fierce critic of "neo-colonialism", once famously describing France's former president Nicolas Sarkozy a main mover in her husband's downfall as "the devil". Supporters of Simone Gbagbo's commitment to political causes hailed her as "the Hillary Clinton of the tropics". But for detractors, the "Iron Lady" became the "Blood Lady", amid allegations by human rights activists that the regime used teams of killers to deal with opponents. Those concerns were reinforced when she was implicated by a French judicial inquiry into the sinister disappearance of French-Canadian journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer in Ivory Coast in 2004. Gbagbo frequently mingled politics with the evangelical faith she practised after "miraculously" surviving a car crash and starting prayer meetings at the presidential palace. "God is on our side, God is with us," she told a joyful crowd after her husband rejected electoral defeat. "God has already given us victory." Families of victims have said previously they cannot win even if Gbagbo is convicted by a domestic court, while rights monitors had been keen to see how far the trial may venture in tackling crimes against humanity on home ground.    

HOW I ESCAPED FROM UK,US PRISONS - EX-FEMALE DRUG TRAFFICKER.

As a teenager in the 70s, Mrs. Iya­bo Yomi’s greatest dream was to climb the social ladder at all costs. That quest pushed her into joining a drug trafficking cartel which landed her in and out of several prisons across the world. After several jailbreaks and series of unfinished prison sentenc­es, she was arrested in Ghana where she decided to turn a new leaf and complete her 10-year jail term. Broken but grateful to God for having spared her life, Iyabo, who is in her early 60s, went down memory lane to tell Satur­day Sun the story of journeys through sev­eral prisons including how she broke out of UK prison twice and once in US prison. She is currently involved in a ministry that sees to the rehabilitation of persons going in and out of prison.  “I got it all wrong from the very beginning. It was all about enjoying myself and climbing the social ladder at all costs. Shortly after my secondary education in 1975, I told my parents that I wanted to travel down to London to further my edu­cation. Every big boy and girl was travel­ling to London for business or studies then. Initially, my mother refused, insisting that I was too young to be alone. She, however, took me to Mecca twice, and I became an Alhaja at 18. “I was able to convince my mother and she allowed me to travel out of the coun­try. I got to London and made some friends. During the period I spent in London, I was able to research the possibility of owning a shop in London. “I came back, was able to raise 500 pounds and prepared to travel back to Lon­don. My aunty gave me a parcel to help de­liver to a friend in London. I never knew that she added Indian hemp in the package. When they called me to open my bag at the airport, I innocently opened the bag, and they found the wrap. I was arrested and tak­en to Reading police station and later sent to Holloway prison”, she stated In the prison, she was convinced that drug peddling was the key to the success that she sought.  “I met a lot of Nigerians, it was there that they told me the worth of what I was carrying. I couldn’t believe it, that I just got the key to my wealth. Luckily, I was given three years suspended sentence and later deported back to Nigeria.” Insatiable lust for wealth Back home in Nigeria, all that was in Iyabo’s mind was how to start moving In­dian hemp from Nigeria to London.  “I im­mediately got another passport with another name and started my trip with packs of Indi­an hemp. It was a good business and money started to flow. I continued till 1981 when I was arrested. I was pregnant with my sec­ond child. I was 26 years old and full of en­ergy. For the sake of my pregnancy, I was also given suspended sentence and deported back to Nigeria. “The more they arrested me, the more I became crazy and determined to continue in drug pushing. I kept strategizing and perfecting my skills. I was young and very rich. I did not know the value of money then, I was ready to spend it on anything. At the age of 20, I bought the latest car, BMW sports for myself.” Still not satisfied, Iyabo got another passport and returned to London. “Getting passports was easy then, unlike now that is very difficult. I got a new passport with a new name and entered London again. After several successful trips, I was arrested again and jailed. Then I was pregnant and almost due to deliver. I actually gave birth there and handed over my baby to my friend. I did that because I needed to come out and claim my baby. If they discovered that there was no body, government would claim that child. “They later transferred me to Asken grange where I met those who were in for much more terrible offences. We hatched a plan and escaped by jumping through the fence. I was able to get a travel certificate after I bought a British birth certificate from a white friend and moved over to Holland. I went to the Nigerian embassy and told them that I lost my things in transit. They gave me ticket and a covering passport back to Nigeria. This did not change me. Naturally, as a mother, I am supposed to slow down and face my family but I had so much mon­ey and left them at the mercy of my mother, relatives and friends.” While in Holland, Iyabo got a connec­tion to start trafficking heroin. “It was much better and you can carry as much quantity as possible. I decided to try US and it was a huge success. I could travel every two weeks to US with wraps of heroin. I suc­cessfully moved drugs in and out of US for more than 24 times before I was caught. I was remanded at MCC in New York and sentenced to five years imprisonment. I was later moved over to West Virginia prisons in US, where I was to serve my remaining sen­tence. It was there that I met a friend from Columbia, her case was worse than mine. We also hatched a plan and escaped after spending several months. We scaled the wall and ran away. They declared a man­hunt but because everything about me was fake including my passport, it wasn’t easy to find me. I quickly made arrangements and got the services of a man who posed as my husband. We got a ticket from Boston to Washington and then to London. “Whites love couples and they believe so much in them, so it was easy for me to move ahead of the man and just wave that my hus­band was right behind me with my passport. Since I had a boarding pass, they would let me through. I immediately disappeared in the crowd. In London, I told them that I was in transit, that I did not know what was holding back my husband. They allowed me through and promised to help sort it out. This was how I landed in Nigeria. “But instead of change of mind, I became worse than I was before. I changed location, from Bangkok, India, Thailand, Pakistan and different countries in Europe and Asia. My craze continued even after giving birth to five kids. One thing I never did was to take drugs. Most successful drug couriers do not take drugs. I was very confident of myself and never wore anything with metal to avoid the machine from asking me to re­turn. The machines then could not detect if you were carrying hard drugs. The officer would only watch if you are nervous. I was so perfect that even with my body heav­ily laced with drug, I will stop a drug en­forcement agent and request for direction to where I was going to. I also stayed away from Mecca and Israel because these coun­tries are sacred. As I said earlier, I became an Alhaja at the age of 18, I only visited the country to seek God’s forgiveness. I feel bad when I see those who carry drugs to Mecca and Israel in the name of seeking the face of God”, Iyabo narrated.

MOROCCAN KING MUHAMMAD VI SNUBS PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHANS' REQUEST FOR TELEPHONE CONVERSATION.

The Moroccan monarch, King Mohammed VI, has rejected a request from President Goodluck Jonathan for a telephone conversation, saying it was an “inappropriate” move by the Nigerian leader to curry electoral favour just weeks before a crucial poll. Mohammed VI snubbed Mr Jonathan’s request last week, saying it was more of an attempt to seek electoral favour than a genuine diplomatic act, the country’s foreign ministry said Friday. “The request by Nigerian authorities for a phone conversation between His Marjesty King Mohammed VI and Nigerian President was refused by the Monarch who deemed it inappropriate on grounds of the upcoming elections in Nigeria,” the Moroccan Foreign Affairs ministry said in a statement. The statement explained that the monarch rejected the request for a phone chat and the sending of a Nigerian envoy to the country because Mohammed VI viewed the overture as an attempt by Mr Jonathan to take advantage of Morocco’s influence to secure Muslim votes in the forthcoming election. Confronted by an increasingly popular opposition, in perhaps the closest election in Nigerian history, Mr Jonathan is frantically exploring unusual avenues for support, particularly from the largely Muslim northern region of the country. Mr Jonathan’s closest rival, Muhammadu Buhari, comes from Northern Nigeria and has a cult following in the region. A move to patch the diplomatic relation with the influential Moroccan monarch is seen as a potentially impressive step that may endear the president to some Muslims. Relations between Nigeria and Morocco have been anything but cordial for years, largely over Nigeria’s decision to support the independence of the Western Sahara region of Morocco. Nigeria recognises the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic declared by the separatist group, the Polisario Front. The Algeria-backed Polisario Front has led an armed insurrection against the Moroccan government for decades. Western Sahara is a largely desert region but rich in petroleum and phosphate deposits. Nigeria has lobbied the United Nation to set up human rights monitoring group to investigate right abuses by Moroccan forces in the area, a position the Moroccan monarchy frowns at. The Moroccan foreign ministry made it clear in its statement that King Mohammed VI refused to speak to Mr Jonathan partly because of “Nigeria’s positions regarding the sacred national, Arab and Islamic causes”. The Moroccan monarch is one of the two surviving sovereign monarchs on the continent. While the monarch’s decision appears popular in the North African country, some Moroccans have also questioned the judgement of the King in apparently discarding a fresh opportunity to normalise relations with Nigeria, and win over a strong ally. “If the Palace’s foreign affairs’ advisers recognize the role Morocco can play in Nigerian politics, why haven’t they use it to persuade the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan to change his hostile positions on the Western Sahara?” asked Hassan Masiky, a Washington-based Moroccan blogger. “Notwithstanding the fact that Abuja is strong supporter of Algerian positions, in reaching out to King Mohammed VI at the height of a close presidential election, Nigerian officials show how much they value the role the Monarch could play in their country,” Mr. Masiky wrote in an article published by the MoroccanWorld News. “Moroccan diplomats give the impression that they don’t have a plan on how to use the Kingdom’s religious clout to advance ethnic and religious reconciliation in Nigeria. If Rabat takes the initiative once the political uncertainty ends, it will certainly offset Algeria’s plan in the region and create an opening for a smoother relations with Nigeria’s next president,” he added. Mr. Masiky also criticised the Moroccan authorities for not offering “aggressive and vocal religious advice and assistance to the Nigerian authorities in the fight against the extremists of Boko Haram”.

I'M BACK TO DEFEAT JONATHAN - GEN BUHARI.

I’M BACK TO DEFEAT JONATHAN/PDP ON MARCH 28 – GEN BUHARI. Presidential hopeful and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), retired Major General Mohammadu Buhari returned to the country earlier today, saying that he is physically and mentally fit to launch the last leg of his campaign to dislodge the Goodluck Jonathan led PDP government in the March 28 elections. Speaking to newsmen at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, shortly after returning to Nigeria from the United Kingdom aboard a British Airways flight at about 5:40am local time, Buhari dismissed insinuations that he was ill saying he had no problem with his health . He had left the country on Thursday, February 19, 2015 for London where he addressed the international community at the Royal Institute of International Affairs popularly called Chatham House, London on Thursday, February 26, on his plans for the country. However the trip was given different interpretation with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) claiming that he was in London for medical reason .Clad in a black flowing gown , Buhari was full of smiles and waved to the crowd of supporters who were at the airport to welcome him. Responding to a question on whether he went abroad to seek medical attention, the APC candidate simply said “I just went off for a couple of weeks to rest. That’s all I did.” Asked if he ever visited any hospital while in UK, he said “What is wrong for me to go to hospital? Am I not here now? Aren’t you seeing me? Are you seeing a sick man? On his engagements in London, he said “I went to Chatham House. I read an address and there was a question and answer session. That’s all.” The APC candidate who was flanked by the Deputy Director General of his Campaign, Senator Olorunimbe Mamora and other chieftains of the party said he is back to focus on the coming election.