The Nigerian government will investigate allegations of fraudulent claims levelled against Nigerian United States-based scientist, Philip Emeagwali, the Minister of Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, has said.
NEXT had in a report on Sunday quoted some leading American scientists as describing Mr. Emeagwali’s claim that he was a father of the Internet as misleading.
In a telephone interview yesterday, Mrs. Akunyili said the allegations against Mr Emeagwali were weighty and disturbing and would have to be thoroughly investigated.
Mr. Emeagwali is among Nigerians that Mrs. Akunyili showcased to the world in the government’s effort to improve the country’s image.
The Nigeria Postal Service, which is directly under the minister’s supervision, has also put the embattled scientist on the Nigerian stamp.
“The allegations are unbelievable, but we cannot jump to conclusion,” the minister said. “Our government is a responsible one and so, we cannot disregard what has been published. We will pierce information together and if necessary, we will invite him to say his own side of the story. He is our son. When they tell you your child is a thief, you can’t just jump up and start celebrating. You will have to find out and establish the truth.”
Mrs. Akunyili said the government cannot afford to make mistakes on such a sensitive issue and would therefore take its time to do a thorough investigation.
She said once the investigation is completed, the government will issue a final statement, and then decide whether to remove him from the Nigerian stamp...
She did not say how long the investigation would last, saying it was not a decision she could unilaterally take.
Erroneous celebration
Meanwhile, a graduate student of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Adekunle Yusuf, on Sunday apologized for erroneously celebrating Mr. Emeagwali at an event in his university four days ago.
In a telephone interview with NEXT, Mr. Yusuf said at a “Taste of Nigeria” event, organized by the university to celebrate the culture and people of Nigeria, Nigerian students showcased Mr. Emeagwali alongside the likes of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe as their country’s great human exports dazzling the world.
He said he became sad after reading the report of Mr. Emeagwali’s fraudulent claims in NEXT.
“We didn’t know he was just deceiving the world. I’m really depressed that he was among those we celebrated,” said Mr. Yusuf, a Senior Writer with TELL and Ford Foundation scholar at Wisconsin.
In 1989, Mr. Emeagwali won the $1,000 Gordon Bell Prize, which is awarded each year to recognise outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.
His award was for an application of the CM-2 massively parallel computer for oil reservoir modelling. Following the feat, Mr. Emeagwali proceeded to claim, for several years, that he was a father of the Internet; that he improved upon Isaac Newton’s laws of motion; that he owned the world’s first personal website; that American computer giant, Apple, uses the microprocessor technology he pioneered in its Power Mac G4 model, among many other claims.
But leading American and Nigerian scientists have faulted the claim, saying Mr. Emeagwali made no contribution to the evolution of the Internet as he had over the years made the world to believe.
By Peter Duru, Makurdi..
A volcanic eruption has occurred at the mountainous Mkomon district of Kwande Local government of Benue State with one person feared dead while properties worth millions of Naira have also been destroyed.
Residents of the affected community have deserted their homes in search of safer place. Sources of portable water have been polluted by the heavy magma emitted from the eruption.
Vanguard gathered from eye witnesses that there were heavy vibrations around the mountains at the border with Cameroun Republic, followed by eruptions at six points on the mountainous terrain.
The vibrations spewed magma which covered streams and hand dug wells and the entire community leaving the people without portable water...
At the moment, there is panic amongst the people who are said to be cut off completely from the rest of the world as a result of the occurrence and damages to roads and bridges which was occasioned by the heavy vibration.
For the first time in the history of Nigeria, a direct investment intervention has been made by the Federal Government into the entertainment industry.
Announcing this lifeline yesterday at the Eko Hotel and Suites venue of the Silverbird Group 3oth anniversary, President Goodluck Jonathan disclosed that N200 million has been set aside by the finance ministry for direct investment into the Nigerian entertainment industry...
Jonathan acknowledged that the Nigerian entertainment industry currently makes an annual turn over of over 250 million Dollars. He said his administration was determined to change the era when the entertainment was viewed as an informal sector and practitioners in the creative industry were exploited.
The president stated that he has directed the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Finance Minister to be at the event so that they could participate in the process that would lead to a structured intervention by government to create jobs and give hope to the people in the creative industry.
Through a programme called Growth and Empowerment Pact, the president said government would encourage public private partnership in the tourism, entertainment industry to strengthen the ability of the entertainment industry to promote high growth.
Jonathan’s speech followed a passionate plea from Mr. Ben Murray-Bruce asking for a presidential support for the entertainment industry.
The event was spiced with musical performances by Nigerian artistes including the Sharpe Band which did a rendition tracing 25 years of Nigerian music, D’Banj and Sound Sultan. An American Band, Party on the Moon, got a standing ovation for rendering many popular songs by American artistes.
The suspects being paraded at Navy base, Apapa.
By Albert AKPOR
STRATEGICALLY located at the nation’s territorial water way, the Atlas Cove oil facility, a major distributive channel of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has for sometime now, elicited security alerts, following the July 12, 2009 attack, allegedly by a group operating under the aegis of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).
After the attack, which led to the death of about four persons, including a senior navy personnel, it became clear to the relevant authorities that there was dire need to provide maximum security in and around the oil installation.
Consequently, a combined team of armed soldiers and policemen were drafted to the area to beef up an already existing security arrangement; especially when the group which claimed responsibility for the attack threatened to launch a repeated one. It was on this premise that movement around the oil facility was restricted and a dusk to dawn patrol intensified.
Perhaps, these arrangements may not be known to 18 persons who were rounded up in a boat near the facility by naval personnel. They were said to be members of a militant group on a vision to vandalize oil installations. But the suspects flatly denied the allegation, insisting that they belong to a dreaded campus cult known as the Supreme Vikings, saying that they were innocently sailing when security agents swooped on them.
Reports say the suspects, who were spotted on a speed boat with red band tide around their heads, were surreptitiously moving towards the oil facility, chanting war songs when they were rounded up. They were promptly taken into custody.
Earlier, the porosity of the Atlas Cove and the need to beef up security has been raised by the manager of the depot, Engineer Anthony Onwuka. Engineer Onwuka had amongst other things raised security alarm on the urgent need to erect perimeter fencing and emergency take off and landing jetty when both the Chief of Defence and Naval Staff, Air Chief Marshal O. O. Petririn and Vice Admiral O. S. Ibrahim visited the oil facility on October 11, 2010.
He had said, “There is urgent need to construct additional observation post both within depot premises and along some strategically identified spots, along the sea side to check vandals’ activities through sea shore lines and creeks. As a matter of security, the Atlas Cove depot has no take-off and landing jetty. We presently operate at the absolute mercy and kindness of the army officers’ jetty opposite Onikan stadium..
But when the 18 suspected militants were paraded before pressmen by the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC) Western Navy Command, Apapa Lagos, Rear Admiral E.O Ogbor, some of them who volunteered information claimed that they were neither members of MEND nor Niger Delta militants, stressing, however, that they belong to a dreaded university cult known as the ‘Supreme Vikings.’
They claimed that they were ‘sailing’ as is the custom after the initiation of new members into the confraternity. Said one them who gave his name as David and who also claimed that he was newly initiated into the confraternity, “I do not even know why we were in the sea because I was only initiated into the group just last week somewhere in Mushin area of Lagos. However, I paid N5,000 for this trip. Please do not reveal my identity because if they get to know, they will kill me and members of my family...
The only thing I was told was that we, the newly initiated members, were going on a trip on the sea to get acclimatized, learn signs and songs of the confraternity and become ‘hard men.’ It was in the process that we were arrested by the navy.”
The suspects being paraded
GET STOCKED FOR STUCK !
It's hard to have fun when you're feeling stuck.
Stuck shows up differently for each of us.
For some it's having a dream but not knowing how to get it.
For others, it's not having a dream and feeling empty.
It can be waiting for your superhero to show (and they're taking their time)
Or it can be feeling responsible for everyone - and feeling exhausted.
However you get stuck -- and we all get stuck from time to time, it's part of being human -- it has this as its essence:
You only have one way to see the situation ... and you don't like what you see.
So where are you feeling stuck right now?
Not sure? Here are some clues...
==> Where do you feel in a rut?
==> Where do you feel lots of "shoulds" and "musts"?
==> Where do you feel there's no choice?
==> What makes you grit your teeth in frustration?
==> What are you tolerating?
So what can you do about it?
Funny enough, just articulating and acknowledging the situation where you're feeling stuck is often enough to get things moving.
When you finally get what's hanging you up it often doesn't feel quite so big, quite so overwhelming, quite as daunting.
So look at the situation head on.
No more sideways glances or head in the sand.
Get specific and detailed - go on, wade right into it.
Write it down...
Turn it from a "stuck-ness"... and into a challenge you're willing to take on and to change.
So... Where are you stuck?
(And in a couple of days we'll look at what you can do about it)
9ija here's to your life of fun, inspiration & action.
Authorities in Spain were today trying to decide what to do with a 10-year-old girl and the baby she gave birth to last week, admitting they had never before encountered such a young mother. The girl gave birth in a hospital in the southern city of Jerez on 26 October, though the case only came to light today. Doctors remarked that both the girl and her mother, who accompanied her to the hospital, seemed calm about the birth. The young mother was allowed home at the weekend with the healthy 2.9kg (6.4lb) baby, whose father was reported to be an under-age boy. "The important thing is that both the baby and the mother should be cared for properly," said Micaela Navarro, head of the health service in the region of Andalucía. "If that is the case, then they can stay with their family without any problem. That is what we are checking on at the moment. She might be the mother, but she is herself a minor," she added. Navarro did not explain why the checks had not been carried out earlier. The Diario de Sevilla newspaper reported that, despite the age of the mother, a caesarean had not been necessary. But doctors warned that pregnancies carried health risks for very young girls. "At a young age your bones are not even fully formed," said Dr Adolfo López Gómez of Seville's Sagrado Corazón hospital. "The high level of hormonal activity caused by a pregnancy can provoke problems." Andalucía had 177 children born to girls who were 14 or under in 2008 – though no one can recall a case involving a 10-year-old. Doctors remarked that the baby was welcomed into the new family, who said that childbirth at a young age was not abnormal in their native Romania, according to the local Diario de Jerez newspaper. Spain allows marriage, where a judge deems there are exceptional circumstances, at 14 years old. "WONDERS SHALL NEVER CEASE" | ||
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More than 64 million Nigerians, constituting 46 per cent of the country’s 140 million population, are illiterate and cannot contribute to socio-economic development of the country.
The Board Chairman of the National Commission for Mass, Adult and Non-formal Education (NCME), Paschal Bafyau, said this yesterday when the Senate Committee on Education visited the commission’s headquarters yesterday.
Bafyau told the lawmakers who were on oversight visit that it was necessary for government to give an accelerated impetus in its annual budget to the commission in order to eliminate the problem.
He also said the commission needs a total of 200, 000 facilitators who will reach the target of at least 150,000 illiterates in each state of the federation...
The Executive Secretary of the commission, Alhaji Jibril Yusuf Paiko, said they were financially incapacitated to effectively meet their statutory mandate of ensuring Nigerians are educated at both formal an non formal sectors.
He also said apart from Lagos and FCT, other state governments have been failing to settle the N7,000 allowances to the facilitators, calling on the federal government to intervene by calling on governors to accomplish their promises.
Reacting, the Chairman Senate Committee on Education, Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu (PDP, Kebbi) said they were at the commission in order to ascertain whether they have received the monies appropriated to them in 2009 and 2010 and to assess the level of implementation as well as constraints the commission was facing.
SINGAPORE — A Qantas Airways jet was
forced to make an emergency landing after an engine appeared to explode
Thursday — showering debris onto houses and a shopping mall below —
shortly after take-off from Singapore.
Qantas said the Airbus A380 — which had stopped off en route from London, U.K., to Sydney, Australia — suffered a "significant engine failure" and grounded its fleet of six A380s.
The carrier said there had not been any explosion and landed safely with no injuries. Australian officials said no one on board was injured.
However, passengers among the 459 people on board variously reported hearing a "massive bang" or a "loud boom," with one describing the incident as "the scariest thing I had seen." The giant jet was forced to return to Singapore to make an emergency landing.
Witnesses on the western Indonesian island of Batam, near Singapore, reported hearing a large blast and seeing pieces of debris — including panels painted white and red — falling onto houses and a nearby shopping mall...
Pictures of metal, some the size of a door, were shown on Indonesia's MetroTV broadcaster, with people milling around.
"I heard a big explosion at around 9:15 a.m. and saw a commercial passenger plane flying low in the distance with smoke on one of its wings," Rusdi, a local resident, told MetroTV. "The debris started falling on my house."
'Like a shotgun'
The A380 has four engines and passengers said while the incident was frightening, the plane coped remarkably well...
"I just heard this massive bang, like a shotgun going off," Tyler Wooster told Australia's Network Nine television. "Part of the skin had peeled off and you could see the foam underneath, pieces of broken wires sticking out."
"My whole body just went to jelly and I didn't know what was going to happen as we were going down, if we were going to be OK," he added.
"I was sitting over the wing, where the No. 2 engine is. I was looking out of the window on the tarmac as we took off," Ulf Waschbusch, another passenger, told Reuters.
"Five minutes after take-off there was a loud boom, small pieces flying around (outside), it was the scariest thing I had seen. The plane was surprisingly stable all through. There was no panic," he said.
Christopher Lee told Australia's ABC radio the passengers heard a bang, and reported rattling in the cabin.
"Some of the passengers then alerted cabin staff that there was an explosion, there was smoke ... We circled in a holding pattern above Singapore for about an hour," he said. Passengers were kept informed at all times, he said.
Rosemary Hegardy, 60, of Sydney, told The Associated Press that she heard two bangs and saw yellow flames from her window.
"There was flames — yellow flames came out, and debris came off. ... You could see black things shooting through the smoke, like bits of debris," she said.
Investigation pending
The plane circled Singapore to burn fuel before making an
emergency landing. Passengers evacuated andwere in Singapore's Changi
airport. A Reuters reporter said the plane was surrounded on the ground
by emergency vehicles, but there was no sign of smoke or fire.
Thursday's incident was one of most serious for the A380, the world's biggest passenger jet, in its three years of commercial flight.
Qantas said it was grounding its A380 fleet pending a full investigation.
A Qantas statement said the double-decker plane experienced an "engine issue" soon after taking off from Singapore for Sydney. It made a safe emergency landing in Singapore at 11:45 a.m. local time with 433 passengers and 26 crew on board, the statement said.
Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce told a news conference in Sydney that the suspension would remain in place until Qantas was satisfied that it was safe for its A380s to fly.
"We will suspend those A380 services until we are completely confident that Qantas safety requirements have been met," Joyce said.
"The A380 is a fantastic aircraft. This issue of an engine failure is one we have not seen before. We are obviously taking this very seriously, because it was a significant engine failure," he added.
Separately, Singapore's Changi airport said in a statement that flight QF 32 left for Sydney at 9:56 a.m., and "for technical reasons the aircraft turned back to Changi," landing safely one hour and 50 minutes later.
Qantas spokeswoman Emma Kearns in Sydney, Australia, said there were no reports of injuries or an explosion on board.
Did volcanic ash affect engine?
When asked if the engine trouble was related to ash hurled
from the Mount Merapi volcano, which has been erupting since last week,
Kearns said she had no further details.
London, England (CNN) -- Alcohol ranks "most harmful" among a list of 20 drugs -- beating out crack and heroin --according to study results released by a British medical journal.
A panel of experts weighed the physical, psychological and socialproblems caused by the drugs and determined that alcohol was the mostharmful overall, according to an article on the study released by TheLancet Sunday.
Using a new scale to evaluate harms to individual users and others, alcohol received a score of 72 on a scale of 1 to 100,the study says.
That makes it almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco, according to the article, which is slated to bepublished on The Lancet's website Monday and in an upcoming printedition of the journal.
Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine were the most harmful drugs to individuals, the study says, whilealcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the most harmful to others.
In the article, the panelists said their findings show that Britain'sthree-tiered drug classification system, which places drugs intodifferent categories that determine criminal penalties for possessionand dealing, has "little relation to the evidence of harm."
Panelists also noted that the rankings confirm other studies that say that"aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary publichealth strategy."
The Lancet article was co-authored by David Nutt, a professor and Britain's former chief drug adviser, who causedcontroversy last year after he published an article saying ecstasy wasnot as dangerous as riding a horse.
"So why are harmful sporting activities allowed, whereas relatively less harmful drugs are not?" Nuttwrote in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. "I believe this reflects asocietal approach which does not adequately balance the relative risksof drugs against their harms."
Nutt later apologized to anyone offended by the article and to those who have lost loved ones toecstasy. He said he had no intention of trivializing the dangers of thedrug and that he only wanted to compare the risks.
In the article released by The Lancet Sunday, ecstasy's harmfulness ranking -- 9 --indicates it is only one eighth as harmful as alcohol.
The study was funded by the London-based Centre for Crime and Justice studies.
A female advocate for members of the disability community will soon be chosen in the first ever ‘Miss Wheelchair Nigeria Pageant’.
The event, which originated in the United States of America in 1972, will debut for the first time in Africa with the aim of selecting an intelligent and worthy advocate for people living with disabilities in Nigeria. According to Cosmas Okoli, the President of Mobility Aid and Appliances Research and Development Centre (MAARDEC), organisers of the pageant, the criteria for selecting the winner would not be focused on beauty like most other pageants but would seek for a woman with good communication skills who can serve as a brand for people with disabilities...
‘No bikini contests’
“Miss Wheelchair Nigeria Pageant is not a beauty pageant in the sense that there is no emphasis on the physical appearance of the contestants,” he said. “There are no bikini contests and the contestants will be judged on their achievements since the onset of their disabilities, their projection and communication skills, and their abilities to successfully advocate for over 20 million Nigerians with disabilities. It is likely that the winner would be very beautiful but that is not one of our criteria.”
According to him, while the actual worth of prizes to be given to the winner is not yet known due to insufficient financial sponsors, the winner of the pageant would go home with a brand new car and other attractive prizes. “The Miss Wheelchair Nigeria Pageant 2010 title holder will receive a handsome prize and will be branded and equipped to carry out some specific assignments including to ensure at least 500 persons with disabilities are gainfully employed,” he said.
The criteria
The choice of using a physically challenged person for their advocacy, he added, was necessary to adequately project their cause. “In any advocacy it is best to use those that are mostly affected,” he said. “Who is best to talk about marginalisation other than those who are marginalised? Women on wheelchair suffer the most and so we decided it was best to start with Miss Wheelchair. As women with disabilities, they also suffer the stereotype associated with disabilities.”
According to the organisers, the contestants must be women aged between 18 and 50 by May 2010. They may also be married, single, divorced or separated. They may have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren or no children at all. There will be zonal competitions to select state representatives at the grand finale to be held on December 4 in Lagos.
The supporters
Azeez Olanrewaju, the Senior Special Assistant to chairman of Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area, while speaking at the press conference yesterday, said the council was committed to the pageant and the disability centre. “Our local government is very proud and honoured to partner with the president of MAARDEC and to associate ourselves with this model event,” he said. “Pageantry is a medium to market and market is the window of brands. By this novel initiative, I must say that MAARDEC is on a course to history. We shall portray this event in the glory it requires. All necessary support shall be given to this event.”
Mr Okoli, who also announced his intentions to run for a senatorial position in the coming elections, said that it was unfair that there are no people with disabilities in political positions in the country. This he said has contributed to the marginalisation against members of the disability community and building of public facilities such as roads and banks in such a way that is inaccessible to people with disabilities. “If a non-profit organisation can make its structure accessible, why can’t the government? It is very painful that we are pursuing the Millennium Development Goals without people with disabilities,” he said. “A society is judged by its ability to take care of the weakest members of the society. If you build a society for the rich and powerful, you have not built a society because everybody would not be rich and powerful.”
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