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Lagos, one of the worst cities to live in

jpeg&STREAMOID=zEVW4hAslzmcmOyjezdUpC6SYeqqxXXqBcOgKOfTXxTfPCZPAxRUhKu2C9hcJ8WEnW_PgxgftuECOcfJwS6Jtlp$r8Fy$6AAZ9zyPuHJ25T7a9GKDSxsGxtpmxP0VAUyHL6IDcZHtmM2t7xO$FHdJG95dFi6y2Uma3vSsvPpVyo-The 2011 Liveabililty Ranking and Overview has rated Lagos city as the fourth worst city to live in. Last year, the city ranked fifth after an assessment of living conditions in 140 cities around the world using 30 indicators across five broad categories: stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure.

This was revealed in the latest summary of the EIU Liveability survey for the year 2010 where the state depreciated further from the fifth worst city it was ranked in 2009. With sub-indicators for each of factors such as the availability and quality of both private and public health care coupled with general health indicators, while prevalence of petty/violent crimes with threat of civil unrest/militancy are evaluated for the stability indicator.

The incessant rush-hour traffic congestion on major roads of the metropolis; insufficient low-cost housing, and its attendant impact on the housing needs of the rapidly growing population are glaring examples of the strained infrastructure needs of the city under the infrastructure indicators.

Lagos was ranked 137 in the list of 140 countries surveyed. The city with a population of 18million people had an overall rating of 39.0. The state also earned the score of 25 in stability, 33.3 in both education and health care and an above average score of 52.3 for culture and environment. The recent huge investments by the state government in infrastructure earned the state a score of 48.2.

However the deputy state governor, Sarah Sosan, who oversees the Ministry of Education disagreed with last year’s ranking stating that, “I don’t think the standard of education is low.” She said this during a press briefing held to mark the third anniversary of the current administration. “We need to improve on factors and we’ve been doing that through the rehabilitation of science laboratories, provision of libraries, putting of furniture in place, and so on. We are also aggressively putting structures in place to reduce congestion in our schools.”

On the first position of the worst city to live in the world is the Zimbabwean capital; Harare which was closely followed by Dhaka-the Bangladeshi capital which is currently hosting the cricket world cup and Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Other cities on the bottom of the table are Algiers, Karachi, Tehran, Dakar and Colombo. The bottom list was populated mainly by African and Asian cities.

Vancouver again

Vancouver in Canada remained at the top of the ranking, as it did last year and according to the EIU; the position was maintained by the “successful hosting of the 2010 winter Olympics and Paralympics, which provided a boost to the infrastructure and culture and environment categories.”

The Australian city of Melbourne rises to become the second highest ranked city with Vienna; the Austrian capital coming third.

Two other Canadian cities; Toronto and Calgary completed the top five cities most suitable to live in the world according to the EIU liveability survey.

NEXT called up the senior special assistant to the Lagos state government on media; Hakeem Bello but he declined comment saying he will have to get across to the Ministry of Economic Planning which will be privy to such statements before the state government can adequately react to it.

Respondents who reacted to the previous ranking of Lagos were unanimous that the city has enjoyed a fairly stable atmosphere despite its peculiar characteristic as a meeting point for diverse ethnic groups. Yoruba residents in the state are particularly known for their goodwill and cheer, which gives rise to the numerous parties that dot the metropolis during weekends, and even, on some cases, work days. “Lagos is like a house of everything; a mix of everything,” said Justyna Kita, a Polish citizen from Krakow who was an intern at the Murtala Muhammed Foundation

“There is the traffic, the generators, and so much noise. But the people are very friendly and open. They shake my hands in the streets, and are always singing and dancing. I have made so many friends here, and I don’t miss my home for now.” A sociologist, Uwadiegwu Otisi, attributed the city’s stability as a factor responsible for its massive population growth. “Despite the aggression displayed by most Lagos residents, the city has won accolades as a peaceful city,” he said. “And I think it has been a major form of attraction to so many people who decided to relocate to Lagos. A lot of southerners have relocated to Lagos due to the incessant religious skirmishes in the north.”..

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12166300684?profile=originalThe glamorous lovers’ day celebration on Monday turned bloody at the University of Lagos (UNILAG) when gunmen killed two students. Daily Sun gathered that the clash was between two rival cult groups, namely, Black Axe and the Buccaneers,’ over a female student allegedly snatched by the Capone of the Black Axe for Valentine celebration.

 

The action of the Capone , the source said did not go down well with the other group leading to the clash.
A student who witnessed the shooting said besides the two cult members who were shot dead, about four others sustained injuries and were ferried out of the campus by their leaders to shield their identity.

The sources said the cult members who carried out the attack were not UNILAG students but members from another campus, adding that the attack was carried out in a commando style with sporadic shooting.
An undergraduate student of English Department told Daily Sun that the Buccaneers’ group attacked the Black Axe members while another student returning from the Mosque said those who carried out the killing were not from UNILAG because they did not cover their faces.

It was learnt that as soon the shooting started, students scampered for safety while others took cover behind the wall and under cars packed around, while others ran into the halls to avoid being hit by stray bullets. 
A senior lecturer who confirmed the killings said the university management had met to curtail any reprisal attack while security personnel had taken over the investigation of the deadly cult clash.
When Daily Sun visited the troubled institution yesterday, there was uneasy calm, as most staff and students rebuffed efforts made by the reporters to get their comments.

However, one of the students who resides at Sodeinde Hall, said there was sporadic gunshots outside the premises which caused panic everywhere. 
It was gathered that the crisis, which erupted when the students were at the peak of lovers’ day celebration, created stampede on the campus as people ran for safety.

One of the victims of the attack reportedly ran into Sodeinde Hall for help, from where he was taken to the hospital.
Although the Hall Master of Sodeinde Hall declined comments on the issue, one of the officials, who wouldn’t want his name published, said the attack could not be linked to any cult group. He said there was increasing speculation that the perpetrators of the attack could be fighting for love. Efforts made by Daily Sun our reporter to ascertain the identities of the victims were unsuccessful.
The news bulletin of the university, Information Flash (ISSN 08195540) also captured the incident, while assuring the staff and students of the university of adequate security.

“The attention of the universities authorities has been drawn to the incident which occurred in one of the Halls of Residence in the late hours of Monday, February 14, 2011 where two persons were reportedly injured in fracas. The university management has commenced investigation into the unusual incident, in particular at a time when preparation for the first semester examinations due to commence on February 21, 2011 are in top gear. Security has been intensified to ensure safety of life and property on campus. Law enforcement agents have been involved to assist the university in this respect,” it said. 
Daily Sun learnt that students are leaving the campus because of the fear of reprisal attack while some parents called their wards on phone to return home until the situation is brought under control. 

The Deputy Registrar Information of UNILAG, Mr. Dare Adebisi refused to pick his calls or replied to text message sent to his phone.
When the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Samuel Jinadu (DSP) was called thrice, he promised to contact the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in the area and did not call back as at the press time....

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12166298090?profile=originalwhat if my girl was called aharit instead of arit



My girl has always been my closest friend but not one day has she ever told me her

real name . She said her name is arit and many times i go Aight ? and she says Right

. Not one day has she dared to put it all together and say AHARIT !

I wondered why she would never tell me her real name . I wondered not for long as I

asked her to marry me . to which she immediately agreed . She had been waiting for

this for ages .


Now we are about to get married it is just a few days or even weeks away .



And I asked her for the last time What is your name Arit

And she said AHARIT and I looked at her and understood . AHA RIGHT !


He sold his birthright for a meal of porridge He ignored the 'Aharit' . That which

comes After . Show me Temptations and I will ask for the AHARIT .

Now we shall soon be together for ever even after the AHARIT !

 

Happy Valentine

 

Ephesians 4:2


Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
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Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has received a $1million bid for his 34-year-old car, only a day after it was put up for sale.

The Iranian president, who is auctioning his 1977 white Peugeot sedan to
raise money for a low-income housing project, has been made the offer by
a foreign source.

The project is aimed at disabled and young people in a move by the 54-year-old, who took charge of Iran in 2005, to
appeal to fulfill a campaign promise to put a roof over the head of
every poor Iranian.

An Iranian Sunday newspaper said various bids from abroad have been received by the multilingual website set up
yesterday for the auction, including $1 million, but it did not
elaborate on the identity of the bidders.

The top bidders will be invited to the auction, which will be held in mid-February in the south-western city of Abadan.

And online offers can be made until the end of January.

Foreign bidders paid £43 to register, while locals pay around £30.

The president had made a point of being seen in the humble white Peugeot
504 sedan when he was Tehran mayor before becoming president in 2005.

Old: The 34-year-old car is wanted by a number of foreign suitors, according to an Iranian newspaper

Old: The 34-year-old car is wanted by a number of foreign suitors, according to an Iranian newspaper

Auction: Official photographs of the car show that Mr Ahmadinejad took good care of his car, made in 1977 and normally worth $2,000

Auction: Official photographs of the car show that Mr Ahmadinejad took good care of his car, made in 1977 and normally
worth $2,000


He has rarely used the car in the past years, however, probably because of security measures.

 

 

The car would probably be worth around $2,000 on the local market.

Lack of housing has always been a major concern in Iran, where a quarter of
the 75-million population live in rented apartments and nearly a third
of a family's income goes to pay the rent.

Official statistics say the government has built more than 140,000 housing units in the first
half of 201l. It has promised to build nearly 1 million units by March
2011....




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comment: for Naija men I think Science would have to look at one in one !


join our cheaters group here http://www.9jabook.com/group/naijacheaters



It might seem like the perfect get-out clause for those with a ­roving eye: some people just aren’t built to be faithful.

Scientists have found a gene that raises the odds of ­cheating on a partner.

They say that when a man or woman with the ‘love rat gene’ has an affair, they receive the same chemical rush as a gambler whose luck has changed or an alcoholic savouring a drink.The tendency to cheat could be down to a variant in a person's genes, a new study has found (picture posed by model)

Researchers quizzed 180 young men and women about their attitude towards relationships and tested them for a gene called DRD4, which affects levels of the brain chemical dopamine.

The tendency to cheat could be down to a variant in a person's genes, a new study has found (picture posed by model)

The one quarter or so with the ‘love rat’ version of the gene were more than twice as likely to be unfaithful. And when they did cheat, they had more one-night stands, the journal PLoS ONE reports.

Researcher Justin Garcia said: ‘What we found was that individuals with a certain variant of the DRD4 gene were more likely to have a history of uncommitted sex, including one-night stands and acts of infidelity.

‘The motivation seems to stem from a system of pleasure and reward, which is where the release of dopamine comes in.



‘In cases of uncommitted sex, the risks are high, the rewards substantial and the motivation variable – all elements that ensure a dopamine “rush”.’

He added that his results suggest it is possible to feel committed to a partner, but still feel the need to cheat on them.

But those with a wandering eye cannot wholly blame their genes.

Mr Garcia, of the State University of New York, said: ‘The study doesn’t let transgressors off the hook. Not everyone with this ­genotype (genetic make-up) will have one-night stands or commit infidelity.’

Last month, scientists found that the same strain of the DRD4 gene can also make people have more liberal views.


Because the genetic variant drives people to seek out ‘novelty’, it can also make people more likely to seek out less conventional political views, the U.S. study found.

Those with the gene supposedly seek out other people’s points of view and are influenced by them far more than those without the gene.

In the U.S. this mean that people with the gene were more likely to have a liberal political viewpoint....



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Volcanic eruption in Benue, one person feared dead

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.

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A Peoples Democratic Party presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has called for a debate, on the economy, among all the presidential aspirants on the economy.Photo Atiku ? this man looks like a Hitman sha



Abubakar, a former vice-President, made the call after submitting his nomination form at the PDP national secretariat on Tuesday in Abuja.



The Adamawa State- born politician said the economy should be the main issue in the 2011 election campaigns.



“The issue of economic recovery for Nigeria cannot be a matter of wishful thinking nor of rhetoric. It is a subject for rigorous analyses and provision of well-thought, viable, practicable and sustainable strategy,” he said.



Abubakar said that all aspirants must be able to tell Nigerians how they intended to confront the challenges of the economy and reposition it for the benefit of all at the shortest possible time.



He said, “Of all the aspirants that have declared interest in the presidential election, I consider myself the most qualified to address the daunting economic challenges facing the country.



“I am the only one who has successfully managed a business and you need extensive knowledge of the private sector to combine its potential with the authority of the public sector to address this challenge.”



The former vice-president said his approach to resolving the economic crisis in the country was contained in a 47-page Policy Document he presented on August 15, 2010 while announcing his intention to contest the 2011 presidential poll.



He said, “We are faced with a job crisis of monumental proportions. Unless we evolve strategies to dealing with the teeming population of young people churned out almost on a daily basis, we may risk the destruction of the next generation.



“If we fail to channel the energies of this huge population, they could be a potent force for instability and social unrest.”



Abubakar, however, stunned journalists when he said that he was not aware that the President had declared his intention to vie for the PDP ticket.



“I didn’t see it (declaration). Honestly, I didn’t watch it,” he said.



Twenty seven out of the 28 PDP governors were among thousands of people that attended Jonathan’s presidential declaration at the Eagle Square on Saturday in Abuja. The event was shown live by some public and private television stations nationwide.



On the reported move by some politicians to produce a consensus presidential candidate among the Northern aspirants, Abubakar said, “There is a process for the emergence of a consensus candidate in the North. It shows that North is even more united if “they” agree to bring out a consensus candidate.”



He also said he was not aware of the support that Jonathan was getting from the northern states.



Reacting to the challenge, the Presidential Adviser to Jonathan on National Assembly Matters, Senator Mohammed Abba-Aji, said the President was ready for such a debate.



“We are ready for it (debate) anytime. The President has talked about all the aspects of the economy when he declared. If they want more, we are ready for them,” he said.



Another aspirant, who is also the Kwara State Governor, Dr. Bukola Saraki, also expressed readiness for the debate.



“We are ready for the debate. That is what we have been calling for. Without such an issue-based debate, we will not be able to get the best candidate. Saraki is ready for it,” one of the governor’s aides, Mr. Billy Adedamola, said.
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Rosh Hashanah DAY !

Rosh Hashanah (Hebrew: ראש השנה‎, literally "head of the year," Israeli: Hebrew pronunciation: [ˈʁoʃ haʃaˈna], Ashkenazic: ˈɾoʃ haʃːɔˈnɔh, Yiddish:[ˈrɔʃəˈʃɔnə]) is a Jewish holiday commonly referred to as the "Jewish New Year." It is observed on the first day of Tishrei, the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar.[1] It is ordained in the Torah as "Zicaron Terua" ("a memorial with the blowing of horns"), in Leviticus 23:24. Rosh Hashanah is the first of the High Holidays or Yamim Noraim ("Days of Awe"), or Asseret Yemei Teshuva (Ten Days of Repentance) which are days specifically set aside to focus on repentance that conclude with the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Rosh Hashanah is the start of the civil year in the Hebrew calendar (one of four "new year" observances that define various legal "years" for different purposes as explained in the Mishnah and Talmud). It is the new year for people, animals, and legal contracts. The Mishnah also sets this day aside as the new year for calculating calendar years and sabbatical (shmita) and jubilee (yovel) years. Jews believe Rosh Hashanah represents either analogically or literally the creation of the World, or Universe. However, according to one view in the Talmud, that of R. Eleazar, Rosh Hashanah commemorates the creation of man, which entails that five days earlier, the 25 of Elul, was the first day of creation of the Universe.[2]

The Mishnah, the core text of Judaism's oral Torah, contains the first known reference to Rosh Hashanah as the "day of judgment." In the Talmud tractate on Rosh Hashanah it states that three books of account are opened on Rosh Hashanah, wherein the fate of the wicked, the righteous, and those of an intermediate class are recorded. The names of the righteous are immediately inscribed in the book of life, and they are sealed "to live." The middle class are allowed a respite of ten days, until Yom Kippur, to repent and become righteous; the wicked are "blotted out of the book of the living."[3]



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosh_Hashanah



For secular Jews


It would happen each fall around the Jewish new year. At the very time when renewal was in the autumn air, Arnold Barnett, an engineer from Moorestown, would go into a mild funk. His wife eventually figured it out: He was less than enamored with high holiday synagogue services.


"He simply wasn't engaged by what went on inside our Reform synagogue, or with the traditional approach to Judaism," said Ellen, 70. "I knew he was struggling. So sometimes, I would just go to services alone."


Then last year, the Barnetts saw a small notice in a local Jewish newspaper about a recently formed group in South Jersey. "We went to a meeting that was focused on Jewish history," Arnold, 71, recalls, "and that was something I could relate to. It was much more appealing."


And so the Barnetts will celebrate Rosh Hashanah, which begins Wednesday at sundown, by meeting Sunday with like-minded members of South Jersey Secular Jews - a group of people who may or may not believe in God, but do believe in caring about the world and one another, respecting and understanding Jewish history, and celebrating a culture that has meaning and emotional pull.


"The most important aspect of secularism is the survival and continuity of the Jewish people," said Paul Shane, a native New Yorker now living in Philadelphia and married to the daughter of Holocaust survivors.


Shane, 75, a member of the more established Philadelphia Secular Jewish Organization, believes humans are responsible for what happens on Earth. The here and now is central, and actions speak louder than words.


That philosophy resembles traditional Judaism. But secular Jews and traditional Jews part company when it comes to accepting religious dogma.


If you're secular, God is optional. (Traditional Judaism has "God at its heart. That's not an option," said Rabbi Ethan Franzel of Main Line Reform Temple Beth Elohim in Wynnewood.) Also, life-cycle events are handled individually - for instance, there are no set burial or wedding traditions in secular Judaism.


Of course secularism, in which one adheres to cultural norms rather than religious ones, is hardly new. During the Renaissance, from 1450 to 1600, and the Enlightenment in the 18th century, many Jews shed the God-oriented elements of their Jewishness, according to Shane, a professor of social policy at Rutgers University in Newark. That shedding also continued in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.


What's different today is that a growing number of secular Jews are finding one another, forming groups, and practicing the social responsibility Judaism requires - minus the synagogue.


Rifke Feinstein, executive director of the national Congress of Secular Jewish Organizations, says there are approximately 2,000 affiliated secular Jews in the United States. But because seculars typically are unaffiliated, and therefore uncounted, estimates for the entire American secular population range from 8,000 to 40,000.


In the Philadelphia area, there are six such organizations for secular Jews - including the five-year-old South Jersey Secular Jews - all under the local umbrella cooperative venture called Kehilla for Secular Jews.


For many people, discovering that such an organization exists has been a relief.


" 'I thought I was the only one!' is what people often express when they discover that they are not alone in their secular relationship to their Jewishness," said Larry Angert, 59, a member of 11-year-old Shir Shalom: A Havurah for Secular Jews. "The Jewish tent is big, and there's room for all of us in it."


Some local secular groups, like Philadelphia's Sholom Aleichem Club, which started in 1954, and Philadelphia Workmen's Circle, founded nationally in 1900 to aid Jewish immigrant workers and to promote Yiddish, have graying memberships. Bob Kleiner, 85, of Elkins Park, a retired sociology professor at Temple University, and his wife, Frances, a teacher of Yiddish, both long active in the secular movement, lament that younger people are not actively involved in these historic groups.


But the formation of new groups, such as South Jersey Secular Jews, is evidence the movement still has traction.


Credit Naomi Scher, 64, of Cherry Hill, whose children attended the Jewish Children's Folkshul, another Kehilla group, which is a parent-run cooperative held at Springside School in Philadelphia. About 100 children receive their Jewish education, not in a traditional Hebrew school but in classes that nourish social justice and individual responsibility. Bar and bat mitzvah aspirants undertake personally meaningful projects that they ultimately share with the entire Folkshul community.


Although Scher formed relationships with parents of her children's classmates, commuting to Philadelphia became burdensome once her children graduated, and in 2005, the retired social worker decided to start a secular group closer to home.


What began as a gathering of eight to 10 people now regularly attracts 30, meeting monthly with speakers who address social and political concerns, Scher said.


Deborah Chaiken, 74, of Palmyra is delighted to have a group close to home. "In the formal Jewish community, I felt that I didn't really have a voice. Here, I know that I do."


Dues are $25 a year, and participants are asked to bring food for potluck dinners. Meetings are held on the second Sunday of the month at Unitarian Universalist Church in Cherry Hill..


South Jersey Secular Jews members Cary and Bilha Hillebrand of Cherry Hill call the group a welcome addition to the local landscape. For Bilha, 54, the philosophy of the group is more in keeping with that of her native Israel, where the majority of the population leads a more secular lifestyle.


"We are not in any way antireligious," says Cary, 60. "We hold the belief that we are responsible for what happens to ourselves and to the world. And to us, that's the essence of what religion is, and should be."






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5 Corpers Kidnapped 4 Ladies one Male

Five members of the National Youth Service Corps, four female and one male, were last night, at about 11.30 pm, abducted by unknown gunmen at Corpers’ Lodge at Unuogha Community Secondary school in Omuma Local Government area of Rivers State.


According eyewitness account, the gunmen who arrived in a Sports Utility Vehicle, stormed the Corpers’ Lodge, shot sporadically into the air to scare people and abducted the corps members.
They also made away with valuable belongings of the Corps members..
Immediately after the Corps members were abducted, the kidnappers put the Corps members on phone to announce to their colleagues and relations that they are holding them.
At the time the operation was on, the Police were contacted and immediately mobilised to the scene but only succeeded in pursuing them into the boundary between Abia and Rivers states.
The Rivers State Police image-maker, Mrs. Rita Innoma-Abbey confirmed the kidnap when contacted and said that the Rivers Police command is working round the clock in conjunction with the Abia Police Command to ensure the release of the victims unharmed..
In his reaction, Blessing Wikina, the Acting Chief Press Secretary to Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, told PMNEWS that “it is very sad an unfortunate that at the time corps members are serving their fatherland they could be kidnapped. The state Government calls on the kidnappers to release them forthwith as they are of no pecuniary value.”
He also called on the police to ensure their release unharmed.”
On 10 August,this year, during a Town Hall Meeting with the people of Omuma Local Government, the governor pledged to pay N1 million on each kidnapper arrested by the villagers to stem the tide of kidnapping in the local government.
As a precautionary measure, P.M.NEWS learnt that the rest Corps members are being evacuated from their lodge by the government..
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In Just One Thing, author John Mauldin offers an incomparable shortcut to prosperity: the personal guidance of an outstanding group of recognized financial experts, each offering the single most useful piece of advice garnered from years of investing. Conversational rather than technical in tone, each contributor’s personal principle for success is illustrated with entertaining and illuminating real-life stories.
I got 11 of my friends to give me that one idea, that one bit of hard-learned wisdom, added my own chapter and put it all in my brand new book called Just One Thing. You can get it for free email freebooks@systemini.net courtesy of the 9jabook Educational Foundation

One of the great things about working in my world is that I get to run around with some very smart, very successful people, who also happen to be very good investors. I get to pick their brains and learn from the best. If you could get a chance to sit down with Richard Russell or a Gartman or Kessler or Gilder (or Shilling or Arnott or the rest of the writers featured in my new book) most of us would leap at the chance. What is one idea worth, if it helps us become better investors, or saves us fro m the pain of losses?

The authors of these chapters have all learned a lot along the way. "Why not," I thought, "ask them to share the wealth of their wisdom?" And so I did. The rules of the book were pretty few. I told them to write me a chapter on a subject in which they had expertise and thought was one of the special insights they had picked up in their time. I gave them no minimum or maximum word length — just make the chapter long enough to cover the topic. As you will notice, some chapters are quite short and oth ers are feature length. .

"Make it readable and understandable to the average person," I told them. "Nothing is more frustrating to me than a great idea you can't understand. I want something you are passionate about. Make it something that will give my readers an 'aha' moment. It will probably be something you have worked on for a long time. Maybe you already have the basic outline or material done. Just share it with us."

Now, I could guess what a few of them would write about before I asked. Mark Finn was going to write about the problems of past performance. He is absolutely brilliant on that (and a lot of other things), which is why he gets big institutions to keep coming back for his consulting. And you knew that Dennis Gartman would write on his Rules of Trading. Gartman has forgotten more about trading than most of us will ever know. Which, he would tell you, is why he writes his rules down so he can remember them and follow them! You break these rules, you are gonna lose. If you want to trade, you need these near your desk.

But a lot of the others had me curious as to what they would contribute. Many of them could have done several chapters or even books (and most of them have!). But to cut it down to Just One Thing? That was hard.

OK, Andy Kessler gives us two. But when you turn $100 million into a cool $1 billion, and get out at the top, two ideas are a good thing. Kessler shows how investing in what everyone already knows is how to get average returns (or less!). Better, he says, to invest like you are walking in a fog. This chapter is so compelling and well written, I guarantee you cannot put it down once you have started.

Gary Shilling shows us the value of one really good idea. It made his career. George Gilder tells us that in fact inside information is the best information. I leave it to you to read why. Bill Bonner tells us that we need to first start with a principle if we want to succeed and then shows us his idea as to what that is. Mike Masterson looks at the same thought, but comes away with an entirely different take.

Want to average almost 3% a year better on your funds? Rob Arnott writes compellingly that the way index (and many mutual) funds are currently constructed is inefficient and offers a new way to invest. This powerful analysis could be worth a lot to you. My side prediction? The revolutionary new indexing method that Arnott lays out will be the dominant index investing style within ten years. Arnott will go from running almost $10 billion today to several hundred billion in a few years and within ten will eclipse the large index funds like the Vanguard S&P 500. A bold reckless prediction? Not at all when you understand what Rob has done. Rob has found a way to put fundamental value into index investing. It is worth an extra 3% a year. Now THAT is a chapter you will want to read.

James Montier gives us a very thorough overview of the latest research on the human foibles in investing. He is an expert on the psychology of investing, having literally written the book. In fact, his book is one of the textbooks used to teach the subject. I got him to give us a very easy to read summary. This is one you will want to read and re-read and come back to often.

Richard Russell, who has been writing The Dow Theory Letter since 1958 and is the dean of economic writers, gives us his thoughts on time, hope and the power of compounding. Anytime Richard talks, we should listen.

My good friend Ed Easterling shows us that risk is not a knob. "The first step toward making money is not losing it," he writes, and shows us how to avoid unnecessary risk while making it our friend when we do encounter it. Isn't that something we all want to do? Ed shows us how.

And finally, I weigh in with a few thoughts on the power of change in our future. The pace of change is accelerating, and we not only need to know what is changing but how to take advantage of it. The best investments of the next 20 years will be those that are a part of the process of change. I call my chapter The Millennium Wave. I have been working and thinking on this topic more than any other for the last ten years.

I am proud of this book and the work my friends have done to bring you their one best idea. I believe you will find many nuggets you can use in your own life and investing. As to the order of the chapters, it was just too much to decide who should be first and then second and so on. Each chapter is a "lead" chapter. So I let the way they were organized in my inbox be the prime factor. So, start at the beginning or in the middle or the end, but read them all.

And Just One More Thing. There are a lot of great ideas in the few hundred pages of this book. So as you read, think about how you will put the principles, tips and ideas to use in your personal life. And that will make this book be a very good thing.

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IBB "bribes" Journalists

Five months ago, a friend of mine, who edits a national daily, sent me a text message agreeing substantially with my column, ‘The Punch and the rest of us’, except the generalised conclusion that “all (journalists) have sinned and fallen short of the glory of the profession”. There are still some journalists, he submits, who toe the narrow path of integrity. Of course I knew where he was coming from, but I also knew the context in which I had made that statement.

I revisit that statement in light of the stories spewing out of the political beat, specifically on the race for the 2011 presidential elections and how it affects the integrity of news.

As part of the effort to sell his candidature for the presidency, former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB) invited as many as 40 journalists to his Minna home on August 14 for an interview. I have heard questions asked about why he should invite journalists to his home instead of a public place if he didn’t have an ulterior motive, and why he should offer monetary gifts to the journalists in the name of paying for their transportation.

One news medium, which has championed this opposition in the open, is the online agency, Sahara Reporters. According to SR each of the journalists received N10 million for heeding Babangida’s call on his presidential ambition. That is N400 million just for one night’s interview from an aspirant yet to win his party’s nomination if it were true. But it was not. When some of the journalists complained about the fictional sum, SR changed the story on August 19, saying it was just “a paltry N250, 000 each”. Rather than admit its initial error SR simply said, “our accountants have told us that going by the number of 40 journalists in attendance, we are still around the same ballpark of N10 million”. So much for credible reporting!

Three days later, SR followed up with ‘IBB and his Rogue Journalists’, accusing the journalists of roguery and professional misconduct; roguery, because they collected money from two sources—their employers who presumably authorised and funded the trip and their news source, IBB; misconduct because it is unethical for them to demand/receive gratification from news sources for their services.

And on August 23 in ‘IBB Nocturnal Press Parley: Punch fires Editorial board Chairman’, SR stayed on top of the story by reporting that Adebolu Arowolo, editorial board chairman of the Punch, had lost his job for going on that trip without his management’s approval..

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Written by Biola Azeez, Leon Usigbe, with Agency Report

THE Chairman of Lagos State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr Wahab Oba and three other journalists, with their driver, who were kidnapped penultimate Sunday in Abia State, have regained their freedom.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that they regained their freedom in the early hours of Sunday, between 1.30 and 2 a.m. at Ukpakiri, in Obingwa Local Government Area of Abia State.

Narrating their ordeal to newsmen at the Police Headquarters, Umuahia, Oba and the others said that they were released by their abductors in a market.

He said that the hoodlums had taken them to a market square where they were abandoned between 1.30 a.m. and 2 a.m. and that they had to wait till 6 a.m. “and we were there until the police came and rescued us.

“They collected all our personal effects, including laptops, wristwatches and the sum of N3 million and even shared the money in our presence,” he said.

Oba said that they were fed on bread once a day but that at a time they declared a fast “and they asked us if we were fasting against them.

“We explained to them that we are journalists, who were at the vanguard of enthroning good governance, and even told them that we have been in the forefront for the release of Chief (Ralph) Uwazuruike, leader of the Movement for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MOSSOB).

“We even requested them to give our phones to us to contact our families for them to bring the money they requested but they said that they were not after our money but that of the government.

“We were not beaten except the fact that they blindfolded us on some occasions.

“The kidnappers told us that they resorted to protest as a result of bad governance in Abia and accused the state government of diverting the money the Federal Government released for amnesty.

“They told us that they were giving the state government one month to either complete the amnesty programme or face their wrath and that they will come out openly to shoot at people,” he said.

Oba said that the hoodlums accused the government of insensitivity to the plight of residents of the state and threatened to disrupt the 2011 general election.

Mr Silver Okereke, a Daily Champion correspondent, said that at a point the kidnappers blindfolded them and took them to a point they were to be slaughtered.

“They told us to say our final prayer,” he said, adding that it was a sad experience.

“I don’t know whether government paid any money but they told us that they did not collect any money and that they were releasing us due to our profession so that we will go and right the wrongs in the society,” Okereke said.

He said that the hoodlums had the best of communication networking, adding that all the information that transpired in the course of their captivity were at the finger-tips of the kidnappers.

“These people are well connected and are aware of every bit of police movement both internal and external,” he said....

Okereke said the kidnappers’ colleagues outside the country were also communicating with them to give them information.

Meanwhile, Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr Jonathan Johnson declined comments, saying that the Inspector General of Police, Mr Ogbonna Onovo, would be in Umuahia to address journalists on the issue.

Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan has welcomed the release of the four journalists, and their driver.

According to a statement signed by his Special Adviser, Mr. Ima Niboro, in Abuja, on Sunday, the president noted that their release brought to closure “a sordid criminal incident, which, however, must be uprooted once and for all in Nigeria.”

While commending the police and Nigerians in general “for turning sufficient heat on the kidnappers and causing them to abandon the victims,” President Jonathan charged Mr Onovo, to ensure that the criminals were apprehended by all means.

He felicitated with the freed journalists, their families and the NUJ, saying “even as we celebrate freedom today, let us insist that this spate of criminality must stop. In every way possible, we must say no to these vices, and assist the authorities to expose perpetrators and bring an end to these vices as quickly as possible.”

However, the Abia State government has said that the traditional ruler of Amauba-Ime Oboro Autonomous Community in Ikwuano Local Government Area of the state, Eze Vincent Okezie Uche, has been placed under arrest and has been charged to court for allegedly aiding kidnapping and armed robbery.

The state government also said the monarch had been dethroned as the traditional ruler of Amauba-Ime Oboro Autonomous and his staff of office withdrawn.

The Abia State government, in a press statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Kingsley Emereuwa, also said that other traditional rulers, namely, Eze Okechukwu Atulobi of Osusu Abala Autonomous Community; Eze Nwabiaraije Eneogwe of Abayi Autonomous Community, and Eze S. Onwukwe of Abala Ibeme Autonomous Community, all in Obingwa Local Government Area of the state, had been suspended as traditional rulers of their communities.

The decision to suspend the three royal fathers, the statement said, “followed security reports of their alleged serious involvement in sponsoring kidnapping and armed robbery in the state, for which they are currently under investigation.

“The state government wants to assure the entire citizenry that it will not stop at anything to eradicate the shameful manace of kidnapping and armed robbery in the state, as any person/s suspected to be behind this ugly vocation, no matter how highly placed, will be summarily dealt with,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, Governor Theodore Orji of Abia State and Mr Onovo have promised kidnappers in the state total onslaught henceforth if the kidnappers refused to lay down their arms.

Speaking while receiving the freed journalists and their driver at the executive chambers of the Government House, Umuahia, on Sunday, the governor urged kidnappers in the state to partner with the government rather than go into criminality to attract attention. “No development can take place in a state of insecurity,” the governor said.

Governor Orji said that the youth of Ngwa area, particularly Obingwa, had hindered development projects by kidnapping either the contractors or expatriates handling projects in the area, adding that they refused to key into the recent amnesty programme of the state government.

The governor said the state government had not received any money from the Federal Government with regard to the amnesty programme as being rumoured by the kidnappers. “If we receive any such money we will give it to them,” Orji said.

He congratulated the South-East governors, the Nigeria Police and all those who assisted in securing the release of the abducted journalists, adding that kidnapping should be fought nationally.

He also charged journalists to fight kidnapping with their pens and also fight for freedom in all its ramifications, adding they should also join in he campaign for a better equipped police.

Also speaking, the IGP said that rescuing the journalists was a big challenge to him and the Nigeria police, since their ultimate goal was to rescue them alive, adding that the kidnap of the journalists had brought out the fact that everybody was a potential victim of the kidnappers.

The police boss thanked the governor for his assistance, saying that security was the business of everybody and that police operation in the South-East to rout criminals had just started. He said the police would go after the criminals, warning that many innocent people would be inconvenienced.

In a vote of thanks, Mr Oba expressed his appreciation to all Nigerians, their families, the police force and the Abia State governor for all the sacrifices they made to ensure their release.

Oba called that the police to be properly equipped, saying that their weaponry did not compare favourably with what the criminals were flaunting.

Ukpakiri town, where the four kidnapped journalists were rescued, on Sunday, was calm, but there was still a heavy presence of security men in the area.

A NAN correspondent reported that the people carried on their normal activities but they expressed joy that the journalists regained their freedom unhurt.

Chief Okoro Kalu, a community leader, told NAN that he was happy that the journalists, who had helped to shape the country positively, regained their freedom.

Chief Azuka Alagwu, the president of Aba Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture, said the kidnap of the journalists had drawn the attention of the Federal Government to the sufferings of the Aba business community.

He urged the government to eradicate kidnapping to save businesses in Aba, which is 10 kilometres from Obingwa.

Also, the Rivers State Commissioner for Information, Mrs Ibim Semenitari, expressed gratitude to God over the release of the journalists by their abductors.

The commissioner told NAN in Port Harcourt, on Sunday, that it was a thing of joy that the journalists came out unharmed.

Mr Akinola Ariyo, the Financial Secretary, Lagos State council of NUJ, told NAN on telephone that journalists in the council were happy over the freedom of their colleagues.

He added that the families of the journalists received the news with joy.

Ariyo thanked the federal and state governments, the security agencies and the NUJ president, Muhammad Garba, for their roles in the release of the journalists.

He also thanked other members of NUJ, religious leaders and Nigerians for their prayers over the incident.

The Minister of Information and Communications, Professor Dora Akunyili, charged Nigerians, on Sunday, that they should stand up against the kidnappers.

Akunyili told NAN that payment of ransom had encouraged kidnapping, which, she lamented, had now become an industry.

In his reaction, the president of the Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), Mr Gbenga Adefaye, recommended that kidnappers should be punished to put an end to the act.
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A really Strange Tale indeed Read On !
By WOLE BALOGUN

Sunday, July 11, 2010
Marriage is a common cultural institution. In Nigeria, it comes in variants, according to the culture group. But it is not known of any ethnic group where it is allowed that a woman would marry two husbands at the same time.

But that pattern of marriage would not have happened until some 16 years ago when a set of twins in Kogi State introduced a strange dimension to marriage by taking one wife and having children from her.

While brothers and close friends kill each other over a woman and for encroaching on each other’s territory, these strange ones scored a weird first in standing the culture of their people on the head. Because this was not acceptable in their world, their father fought the arrangement for as long as he lived. When his pestering became so unbearable, the first known woman to have married two husbands same time, same day and lived and had children for them had to dump the relationship.

Wags in the community have put their finger to the conviction that the strange twins eventually died after their peculiar marriage arrangement was forcefully severed. Yes, they accepted, to do their father’s bidding, but could not contract any other marriage as separate individuals, as demanded by family, until they both died mysteriously.

A peculiar world

The villagers of Ayetoro-Gbede and Ayekunle-Gbede, Ijumu Local Government Area of Kogi State witnessed the unusual two young men, who were born about 40 years ago and died the same year four years back. They carried on like they had their private world oblivious of what the tenets of culture taxed them to do. That defiance made them step outside defined lines to take one wife and had children from her.

They were simply known as Taiwo (Towo) and Kehinde (Koido), the general accolade for twins in Yoruba. But they called each other Oba, short for their surname - Obadero. Like an oba (king) even as they called each other, they carried like institutions to themselves and died as mysteriously as they lived.

Saturday Sun had to find out the truth in the story in Kogi State that the two were more than enigmatic. They had everything in common and did everything together. They said the same words, when speaking and joined their buttocks when defecating.

What was responsible for this unusual act was explained by their stepmother and aunt, Awawu Obadero and Racheal Ologe. “The reason for that unusual closeness and attachment was because they came with one placenta at birth and against our tradition of dividing it into two before burial, theirs was not divided. Thus, naturally, they began acting as an individual.”

Because the twins are late as well as their parents, the family home looked deserted when our reporter visited. But their stepmother, elder sister and son are the few inhabitants left. When asked to tell the story of the twins, the old woman, Awawu Obadero, excused herself and went to call the twins’ elder sister from a nearby market. They came back and the story began.

Reliable tale

“The twins’ mother had died when they were barely four years old”, their sister started. “Right from their infancy, they did things in common. They had left home to fend for themselves at about 10. Later, they settled in Ayetoro-Gbede doing bricklaying, farming and other odd jobs. It was there they met their wife, Toyin (not real name), who they shared, in defiance to everyone’s objection. She bore two children for my brothers - Kulu, a female and Ibrahim, a male. Kulu is now married, while Ibrahim stays here in the family house. It was at the time our father insisted that they got married separately that strange and tragic things began happening to them.”

Wife of two

Saturday Sun spoke to the twins’ wife, Toyin, who now lives in Ayetoro-Gbede. She pleaded that her picture should not be published because she has just moved on with another man after the double take.

She said: “I knew Taiwo and Kehinde (her late twin husbands) since adolescence. We met when we were laying bricks in Ayetoro. They were both strange and adorable to me because they did and had everything in common. Both had approached me the same time. They used to say the same word at the same time. Strange even to me, I did not accept or reject their advances. I soon became inseparable from them anywhere they went. I must have been carried away by the way they did everything in common. They felt hunger, urge to urinate and others, the same time. They even expressed love the same manner and time. They were very interesting lovers. So I could not resist them. Even the villagers used to say that only I understood their weird ways.”

The strange wife of two husbands had fondness for the two and possibly would have loved them dearly and equally as they did her. “I called one Iye-Oho, and the other Oba-Oho,” she revealed.

The special woman never held anything back about the affection she had for the duo. It would have been a sizzling double take for her as she revealed that her two late husbands had sexual urge the same time and expressed love, sex and romance the same way. You might be going too far to inquire if any of them was particularly better in bed than the other or if one of them gave her better deal.

Putting asunder

After giving birth to Ibrahim, the second child, father of the weird twins, Eleha Obadero, began putting pressure on them to marraige separate women, in line with customs and tradition. “They did not like that because they had grown so attached to me. I did not also like the idea and so I withdrew from them. It was then they relocated to Ayegunle-Gbede, their hometown. But they never married another woman. Though I was told they tried several women, it never worked out. I had to join them later, hoping things would be better, but their father gave no chance for this re-union till they died in strange circumstances. Then I left with my daughter, Kulu and returned here,” the woman of history narrated.

One child, two dads

Fourteen-year old Ibrahim, the only son of the twins, also confirmed that his granddad at a time pestered his late fathers to get married separately and it was not long after this that tragedy struck. He said: “It is true that my grandfather wanted my fathers to get married to different women. But it wasn’t long after this that strange things began to happen to them. He used to also say that Taiwo was more likely my father, as I behaved more like him.”

But the handsome teen knows, without any doubt, that he has peculiar identity, as, perhaps, the only young man in his world who could be excused to fill a form stating double paternity instead of one, like others. And as a young child growing up, he would not have lacked paternal care, not with two fathers ever present with him.

Strange deaths

Four years ago, after the twins had accepted to toe the line of custom and accept to marry the prescribed way, they died.

Their stepmother, Awawu Obadero said: “ Kehinde was smitten by snake in his farm one day and unusual of him, he did not reveal it until late in the night when it was too late to remove the venom. He died shortly after. After his death, Taiwo immediately became a shadow of his former self and was always saying he would join his brother. In less than a year later, he fell ill and died.

Okilo, the village ballad, told Saturday Sun: ‘If you asked one of them a question, the two will answer at once, saying the same word. They urinate on the same spot. They were very identical and so you cannot differentiate them. They had only one wife whom they were always going out with. They loved her so much. They reigned as strange twins in this village and died the same year.
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Weekend Trivia:KAITA(Noun/Verb): A man who single handedly hinder the hope of his country for reason best known to him. "Kaita" can be use in place of words like Jeopardy, Hinder, Sabotage, Disrupt, Antagonist, fool etc.
Example

Noun: IBB is a kaita, so is Ota boy. Verb: Don't kaita what we have been building for 11 yrs in one day." I like that girl, please don't be a Kaita" Or In a Foolish Person's Thought: We are winning 1 - 0, let me kaita this game, so that I can get a red card and my opponent can win.



BODO, Nigeria — Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.


Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.

Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.

The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest — soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses — but mostly resentful resignation.

Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther — “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat — and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head.

That the Gulf of Mexico disaster has transfixed a country and president they so admire is a matter of wonder for people here, living among the palm-fringed estuaries in conditions as abject as any in Nigeria, according to the United Nations. Though their region contributes nearly 80 percent of the government’s revenue, they have hardly benefited from it; life expectancy is the lowest in Nigeria.

“President Obama is worried about that one,” Claytus Kanyie, a local official, said of the gulf spill, standing among dead mangroves in the soft oily muck outside Bodo. “Nobody is worried about this one. The aquatic life of our people is dying off. There used be shrimp. There are no longer any shrimp.”

In the distance, smoke rose from what Mr. Kanyie and environmental activists said was an illegal refining business run by local oil thieves and protected, they said, by Nigerian security forces. The swamp was deserted and quiet, without even bird song; before the spills, Mr. Kanyie said, women from Bodo earned a living gathering mollusks and shellfish among the mangroves.

With new estimates that as many as 2.5 million gallons of oil could be spilling into the Gulf of Mexico each day, the Niger Delta has suddenly become a cautionary tale for the United States.

As many as 546 million gallons of oil spilled into the Niger Delta over the last five decades, or nearly 11 million gallons a year, a team of experts for the Nigerian government and international and local environmental groups concluded in a 2006 report. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 dumped an estimated 10.8 million gallons of oil into the waters off Alaska.

So the people here cast a jaundiced, if sympathetic, eye at the spill in the gulf. “We’re sorry for them, but it’s what’s been happening to us for 50 years,” said Emman Mbong, an official in Eket.

The spills here are all the more devastating because this ecologically sensitive wetlands region, the source of 10 percent of American oil imports, has most of Africa’s mangroves and, like the Louisiana coast, has fed the interior for generations with its abundance of fish, shellfish, wildlife and crops.

Local environmentalists have been denouncing the spoliation for years, with little effect. “It’s a dead environment,” said Patrick Naagbanton of the Center for Environment, Human Rights and Development in Port Harcourt, the leading city of the oil region.

Though much here has been destroyed, much remains, with large expanses of vibrant green. Environmentalists say that with intensive restoration, the Niger Delta could again be what it once was.

Nigeria produced more than two million barrels of oil a day last year, and in over 50 years thousands of miles of pipes have been laid through the swamps. Shell, the major player, has operations on thousands of square miles of territory, according to Amnesty International. Aging columns of oil-well valves, known as Christmas trees, pop up improbably in clearings among the palm trees. Oil sometimes shoots out of them, even if the wells are defunct.

“The oil was just shooting up in the air, and it goes up in the sky,” said Amstel M. Gbarakpor, youth president in Kegbara Dere, recalling the spill in April at Gio Creek. “It took them three weeks to secure this well.”

How much of the spillage is due to oil thieves or to sabotage linked to the militant movement active in the Niger Delta, and how much stems from poorly maintained and aging pipes, is a matter of fierce dispute among communities, environmentalists and the oil companies.

Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell in Lagos, said, “We don’t discuss individual spills,” but argued that the “vast majority” were caused by sabotage or theft, with only 2 percent due to equipment failure or human error.

“We do not believe that we behave irresponsibly, but we do operate in a unique environment where security and lawlessness are major problems,” Ms. Wittgen said.

Oil companies also contend that they clean up much of what is lost. A spokesman for Exxon Mobil in Lagos, Nigel A. Cookey-Gam, said that the company’s recent offshore spill leaked only about 8,400 gallons and that “this was effectively cleaned up.”

But many experts and local officials say the companies attribute too much to sabotage, to lessen their culpability. Richard Steiner, a consultant on oil spills, concluded in a 2008 report that historically “the pipeline failure rate in Nigeria is many times that found elsewhere in the world,” and he noted that even Shell acknowledged “almost every year” a spill due to a corroded pipeline.

On the beach at Ibeno, the few fishermen were glum. Far out to sea oil had spilled for weeks from the Exxon Mobil pipe. “We can’t see where to fish; oil is in the sea,” Patrick Okoni said.

“We don’t have an international media to cover us, so nobody cares about it,” said Mr. Mbong, in nearby Eket. “Whatever cry we cry is not heard outside of here.”
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April 28, 2010. We here at 9jabook.com are 100% supporters of President Obama. At first we thought about SUPPRESSING this new report . . . but we figure that it would be better to know about what Republicans are trying to do to the prez.. Photo Alleged Obama Lover

According to a new report, Republican operatives are looking to pay as much as $1 million to anyone willing to discuss the president's relationship with a 35 year old woman named Vera Baker..

And according to one weekly tabloid, Vera's limo driver is SNITCHING!!! Here's what Vera's limo driver is saying:
"I took [President Obama] to various locations while he was looking for campaign funds. Vera accompanied him to each meeting.

"About 10:30 pm, I drove them to the hotel and they went in together. She didn't ask me to wait or to be taken back to her friend's home - or to her home"

Well .. . . we ain't gonna believe NOTHING about the prez unless we have more solid evidence.
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C' River: Female teacher, 10 men detained in one cell …Petitions Army Command over illegal detention, torture
From JUDEX OKORO, Calabar
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A female school teacher, Mrs. Etta- Bassey Ephraim, was made to pass through the valley of death as she was detained in a military cell for eight hours with 10 men. Some of the men, she said, displayed signs of lunacy and violence, sending shivers down her spine.

Narrating her ordeals to Daily Sun, Mrs. Ephraim, a History at Army Day Secondary School, Ikot Ansa, Calabar, Cross River State, stated that she was so terribly frightened and depressed that the male inmates could rape her at any slightest opportunity.

She said, “ I was shocked to the bone marrow when I was put in the same cell with these hefty men; I asked myself what offence did I commit to warrant such torture, human debasement and treatment from the Commanding Officer whose duty it is to ensure my protection in the barracks. But thank God that after eight gory hours, my husband and my principal were able to effect my release from the gallows,” adding, the experience has worsened my health condition because it was the biggest nightmare I have ever had in my life.”

In a petition, entitled, “Petition against the Commanding Officer, 146, Battalion, Eburutu Barracks, Calabar, for an illegal detention in military guardroom,” and addressed to the General Officer Commanding 82, Division, Nigerian Army, Enugu, Cross River State House of Assembly and Commissioner for education, the petitioner stated that since she joined the secondary education board and command school for over 14-years now, she had never had any case of indiscipline or problem whatsoever in the various schools served and, therefore, wondered why she could be subjected to such a treatment.

Mrs. Ephraim, who described her detention as illegal confinement and breach of fundamental human rights by the military authorities, is demanding an unreserved apology and that the Commander of 146, Battalion, Eburutu barracks, Calabar, Lt.Col.K.N. Garuba, be cautioned for an alleged misbehaviour and inhuman treatment meted out to her for no just cause.

According to her, the incident that led to her detention was as a result of her trying to intervene in a matter between one of her colleagues, Mrs. Theresa Egrinya, and the Commanding Officer, Lt.Col. Garuba, on Saturday, March 2, 2010 at about 10:45 am in the school compound. Explaining further, she said, “We were in school with some of my colleagues for a re-scheduled examination for students. After the examination, we were outside the school, discussing the Army Day African Cup of Nations, a football tournament of the school when a motorbike pulled up in front of us.”

Looking agitated, the rider started shouting at one of the teachers, Mrs. Theresa Egrinya, saying, “madam you sent your son to knock me down, pack out of my barracks, I own this barracks.” On hearing this, she claimed, the madam fell on her knees and pleaded for mercy and in the process the school principal joined in pleading for leniency, an action which further infuriated the officer.

“Not yet satisfied, the army officer went ahead to order me out of the barracks for daring to interfere in the matter. And before I could get my things out of my office, he ordered one of the soldiers on guard to escort me to pack my things and lock me up in the guardroom.

In an emotion laden tone, she therefore, called on the relevant military authorities and the Cross River House of Assembly to intervene in the matter and caution Garuba against such action.
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Three sisters, one hubby: Twin sisters snatch their elder sister’s husband • And the man says, it’s no crime
twins-market[1].gif
The story of three sisters: a set of twins and their elder sister, who married a single man may sound like fairy tale, but it is true. The twin sisters, Taiwo and Kehinde and their elder sister, Mama Wale, married a man called Akomeji (surname withheld) about ten years ago and have all had children for him.

PHOTO:The twins’ wing at Gbag Itutu market

Mama Wale, the twins’ elder sister, was first married by Akomeji years before her twin sisters joined the large family. Mama Wale and the man’s marriage had produced three children. Things went smoothly with the nuclear family until Mama Wale decided to bring her two beautiful younger twin sisters to her matrimonial home because their parents were had died and the responsibility of taking care of her twin sisters fell on her.

It was gethered that the twins were just getting into adulthood when Mama Wale accommodated them. They were to assist her in domestic chores and to be taken care of and empowered, in return, during the short time they would stay with her family. After the training, there were expected to either get married to the man of their choice or stay on their own, once they could afford it. They later got married as expected, but to the least of Mama Wale’s imagination: Her husband

AKomeji welcomed the idea and was very supportive to the twins.

He took care of them. He made sure there was enough food, clothing and even made effort to empower them by sponsoring their schooling and trade acquisition. His wife was happy, as it is indeed, rare to have a caring and understanding husband like him.

Another story

However, things began to take a different shape months later. Taiwo, one of the twins, started becoming too rude to her sister. Her twin sister, Kehinde, joined later in the act. They could look their elder sister straight in the face and tell her to go to hell if she threatened to punish them for failing to obey her instructions. Using her husband as threat no longer cowed the twins. They just laughed at her scornfully and told her they had equal rights with her in the home.

Attempts to make her husband tame the twins were futile. But that was just a tip of the iceberg. The bombshell that was to come later was that one of the twins was pregnant!. For who? Mama Wale asked, only to get a shocker that it was an in-house act, a home game and domestic meddling. “Ask your husband,” was the reply her younger sister gave her. Mama Wale had not believed her. She surely must be joking or acting a movie scene or better still going gaga! She promptly told the girl to go have her knots screwed.

Some days later, Kehinde, the other twin sister, also showed signs of being pregnant. Mama Wale detected it from her so much sleeping, laziness and spitting around the home. Were the twins going mad the same time? How could they become pregnant coincidentally under her nose? Is that contagious pregnancy or an epidemic form of it? They must reveal the men responsible for their pregnancies. That was her verdict as she was prepared to send them packing from her matrimonial home if they failed to own up.

Little did she know that she was planning the process of evicting herself and her three children permanently from their home.

The bubble bursts

Having chalked up enough courage, given by peps from friends and advisers, Mama Wale confronted her husband. She demanded to know if the allegation levelled against him by her younger twin sisters was true. The man did not waste time or mince words. He simply confirmed it and added that he wanted the duo to be his wives as well. A swell party, you may guess.

The world came to a standstill for Mama Wale. She has been betrayed, like the biggest fool on earth. She was both confused and upset. She made for the relations of her husband and reported the man’s ways to them. Tension mounted, as relations, from both sides rose and raged calling for the head of the erring Akomeji. He was undaunted and stark faced. He insisted on marrying them. The twins also agreed that he must be their husband. Case seemed closed.

“The whole of Gbagi Tuntun was at war that day. Everyone who heard the story rained curses on Akomeji and the twins. Mama Wale’s relations demanded the head of Akomaji. It took the intervention of elderly people to calm nerves. It was really a devil’s own day,” a trader in Gbagi Tuntun area of Ibadan, Oyo State, where Akomeji has his business told Saturday Sun.

Asked what later happened. The trader said that Mama Wale has since left the husband’s house for her twin sisters and moved on. Many elderly ones believe Akomeji must have used something to win the twins to his side. “He must have used juju on them for a purpose only he can reveal; that is the opinion of the elders”, the anonymous trader added.

Saturday Sun visited Gbagi Tuntun in the LGA of Ibadan. What was first noticed is that virtually everyone you asked know who Akomeji is. He is popularly called Baba Akomeji or akometa alankara. This is because he is a dealer in ankara wears. He has two shops in the market. This reporter went to the twins who are now married to Akomeji. One of them did not deny the allegation, but she refused to grant an interview on the issue. The twins are popularly called Ibeji Akomeji, (twins of akomeji).

The fair complexioned women are very identical twins and beautiful as well. They carried on with their business of selling ankara as if nothing ever went wrong.

Saturday Sun made efforts to speak with the man at the centre of the issue. Having been earlier warned not to call him Akomeji (harvester of two), the reporter called him his surname and he confirmed it. Saturday Sun also asked to know if he was the one who had married the twin sisters. He frowned and hesitated. He then asked how the reporter got to know about the story? He was assured he would be told that if he confirmed the story.

Akomeji insisted on knowing the source of the allegation before he opened up. The reporter continued and asked how he felt marrying twin sisters. He said: “That is not your business; your business now is to bring the person and I will tell you how it happened.”

The reporter had said: “Sir, I am not going to blackmail you, I will only tell your story as one of the wonders of life.”

He replied: “If you like, blackmail me, I have not committed any crime. But you will not hear my side of the story until you bring to me the person spreading such story about me. I am not denying the story but I must see the person who told you before I talk,” Akomeji insisted.

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Explosion rocks amnesty talks


Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had a baptism of fire yesterday as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) detonated two bombs at the post amnesty dialogue organised by Vanguard Media Limited, the publishers of Vanguard newspapers in Warri, Delta State, that left one person dead.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted Charles Muka, the Delta State Police Command spokesperson, that one person died in the explosion. Mr. Muka said that the police headquarters in Asaba, the state capital, had received the report of the death of a woman in the explosion, which also injured a number of other persons. He could not ascertain the number of those who were injured in the blast, which twice rocked the venue of the meeting.

The explosions caused the postponement of the meeting hosted by the Delta State government.

It was gathered that the first bomb exploded at 11 a.m. as governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta was walking into the hall with his colleagues from Imo and Delta, Ikedi Ohakim and Adams Oshiomhole.

The Niger Delta Minister, Ufot Ekaette, who represented Mr. Jonathan, was also behind the governors, witnesses said.

Eyewitness account

Daniel Orji, a staff of the Delta Broadcasting Corporation, who was at the scene of the explosions said in a phone interview, “There was a bomb explosion while the programme was on.

“After about 30 minutes, the second one exploded. The initial report was that three people were injured. Two cars exploded but altogether four cars were affected; two other cars that w ere beside the second car were affected.”

Mr. Orji added that immediately after the second explosion everybody scampered away for safety, unlike the first explosion when people still stayed at the venue.

Also, MEND in an e-mail message signed by its usual signatory, Jomo Gbomo, to journalists confirmed the attacks:

“The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta salutes all its operatives who at great risk, successfully planted and detonated two car bombs at the venue of the Vanguard Post Amnesty Conference in Warri,” the statement said.

“Three such bombs, of varying strength, were planted at this venue. It was unnecessary to detonate the third and most powerful bomb as our operatives noticed the participants at this jamboree fled towards the direction of the last bomb.

“Any attempt to detonate this bomb would have resulted in great loss of lives. This bomb is being preserved for future use.

“All who participated in this operation safely returned to their respective bases.”

Oma Djebah, the Delta State information commissioner, had earlier in the day confirmed the explosion.

“Yes, there was an explosion about 200 meters away from the conference venue,” Mr. Djebah said in a phone interview.

Contrary to agency reports which indicated that the device went off near the main hall of the event, Mr. Djebah claimed that the explosion went off in a car parked away from the venue.

“The explosion happened while Sam Amuka-Pemu - the Vanguard Publisher - was giving his address after the chairman, Patrick Aziza, had given his opening remarks,” said a source who was at the conference.

We’re no media creation

However, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said in an e-mailed statement to journalists that it had planted three explosive devices in and around Delta State Government House in Warri to debunk the state governor’s claim that “MEND is a media creation.” “After receiving the baton of ignorance from his Bayelsa State counterpart, the governor of Delta State declared in the Vanguard newspaper of February 22, 2010 that “the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) is a media creation,” the statement said and promised that it would detonate the first bomb remotely at 11:30 hours Nigerian time, which it did.

The use of car bombs marks a significant change in the tactics adopted by MEND, which had maintained a tenuous peace since the federal government amnesty programme commenced last June. The deal, brokered with the aid of the then Vice President Goddluck Jonathan, has been touted as the greatest achievement of the Yar’Adua administration till date.

MEND also disputed insinuations that the attack was targeted against specific individuals saying, “It was not targeted to harm anyone and that is why the cars were not filled with bolts, nuts and nails which in the event of a blast become deadly projectiles. Our aim was to stop the jamboree and pass a message to Uduaghan.”

Amnesty on course

Meanwhile at Abuja, the Federal Government reinstated its commitment to pursue the post amnesty programme, the explosions notwithstanding.

“We’re on top of the situation in Niger Delta,” Mr. Jonathan said at the State House while receiving Kenneth Yellowe, the chairman and chief executive of Global Gas and Refining Limited.

“The problems in the region, being human and development-related, are such that require time to be addressed. I encourage the Niger Delta people and major companies in the region to keep faith with government, as we are determined to reinvigorate post-amnesty plans and programmes for the region.”

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Heteropaternal superfecundation-photo twin girls
After three years, dad realises only one twin is his
January 31, 2010

A Turkish man has decided to divorce his wife after DNA tests showed he was the father of only one of their twin boys.

The Turkish daily newspaper Sabah reported the security guard from Istanbul, identified only as A.K., had DNA tests done on the three-year-olds after becoming suspicious his wife had been unfaithful.

The tests established with a 99.99 per cent certainty that the man was the father of only one of the boys, adding that the result was confirmed by a forensic medicine institute upon the request of the court handling the divorce case.

The mother, identified as C.K., had maintained a relationship with a lover she had dated before her family forced her to marry A.K., the newspaper said.

The phenomenon of twins with different fathers - known as heteropaternal superfecundation - is very rare in humans but more common in animals such as cats and dogs.

It becomes possible in rare circumstances when a woman produces two ova in a menstrual cycle, said Professor Rusen Aytac, head of the gynaecology department at Ankara University's medical faculty.
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When David Beckham arrived in Italy for what, at the time, seemed a novelty excursion some 14 months ago, he received a text message from an old friend. It consisted of just seven words: “David Beckham. Manchester United. Real Madrid. Milan.” The point was being made that, long after he stopped being a footballer, he would have a unique legacy: he has belonged to the three most glamorous clubs from what, in the span of his playing career, have been the three most celebrated leagues.images?q=tbn:NtJfBvwu1KhAUM:%3Ca%20rel%3Dnofollow%20href=http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/sports/rap_sheet/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/david_beckham1_300_400.jpg">

So storied is the life of David Beckham that there is plenty to insert in between the Manchester chapter, the Madrid episode and the coda in Milan; there are debates to rehearse about the ratio of skill to hard-sell that motivated those who have employed him; arguments to hold about the greatness of the actual sides he played in at each of those clubs. But the sequence United-Real-AC gives Beckham a great deal of pride, not just because it reflects professional peaks set across so sustained a time, but because it also shows a sportsman with the dedication to see out and deliver a grand plan.

What he had never quite planned for, he admits, was the moment when the distinguished line of fabled club names had a kink in it, a meeting of the threads, as it does on Tuesday, when Milan face his “ex” — his most loved ex. “You know, I’ve never had to do this before, play against one of my old teams,” says Beckham, struck by the curiosity of that fact. In Madrid, he used to look forward to Uefa draw ceremonies at least twice a season, and the strong possibility that the names Real and Manchester United would be paired and he would be obliged to stand in a line and shake hands before kick-off with Gary Neville, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and perhaps Roy Keane as they filed past him wearing red while he wore white.

As Beckham spent a third and then a fourth season as a Madrid footballer, always in the Champions League, the chance of playing against United became more probability than possibility. It never happened. Once he joined Milan for the second half of the 2008-9 campaign, his adventures abroad were restricted to the Uefa Cup. When Milan did meet Madrid in the senior competition last autumn, Beckham was at the other end of his transatlantic commute, seeing out his obligations to Los Angeles Galaxy in America.

And so, 15 years and two months after Beckham made his Champions League debut for United, it is United he faces on his Champions League debut for Milan. The occasion will have an extra drumroll and crash of cymbals because it is Milan’s 100th match in the European Cup to be played at their San Siro site.

As Beckham spoke on Friday evening, it was clear that if he was preparing to put on the professional blinkers to safeguard against a confusion of emotions, those around him were readying themselves for an occasion of gravitas. His children, who have continued their schooling in the US while dad does his five-month stint in Italy, have come over. His head coach at Milan, Leonardo, spoke of “a very special moment in David’s life. For any player to play in the Champions League against an old club is special, but for David it is particularly.”

Leonardo was stressing that this was not just a case of an itinerant professional playing against a former club. Beckham is not a peripatetic Nicolas Anelka or Christian Vieri, he is a Manchester United fan, several of whose contemporaries never left Old Trafford. Beckham still sometimes suggests that he would have been equally happy, in the summer of 2003, had he stayed there rather than joining Madrid.

Will there be a knot in his stomach, a lump in his throat on Tuesday? “Obviously there will be emotions,” he says, “but I don’t think it will be a problem. I’ve played in many big games. There has been so much talk about me going back to Manchester United in the second leg, because it will be my first time playing for a club there in seven years. But this tie is not just about me playing against United, it’s about AC Milan. It’s about two great clubs coming together, and that’s what makes it such a big game, for the teams, for the fans.”

There are plenty of grounds for trepidation besides his own butterflies. “United are just on fire at the moment, which means it’s going to very tough for us.” It goes without saying that Beckham — “I love to watch every United game where possible” — has as precise a gauge of United’s form as anybody at Milan, and the same understanding of where the principal menace comes from: Wayne Rooney.

Beckham, a close witness to Ronaldinho’s recent revival in form, has no hesitation in likening Rooney to the Brazilian in his best form. He sees a Rooney liberated this season, operating at the sharpest point of the attack. “I have always thought,” says Beckham of his England colleague, “that Wayne is one of the best goalscorers in football anywhere. He’s proving that. He’s at a great club and doing what he does best, which is scoring goals. United are playing so well for him, too.” Not least Ryan Giggs, whose absence with injury seems a genuine source of personal regret for his former colleague. “It’s a big shame Giggsy’s out. To have played on the same field as Giggsy, but against him for once, would have been really nice for me. Hopefully he’ll be fixed up soon and maybe he’ll make the second leg.”images?q=tbn:ib67OKW5GLWOiM:%3Ca%20rel%3Dnofollow%20href=http://www.sportsagentblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/david_beckham_victoria_beckham_boob.jpg">

As for his own fitness, Beckham, 34, is happy with progress since reaching Italy and with his capacity for taking his season all the way into July, as part of the England World Cup squad. Fabio Capello is expected at San Siro as an observer on Tuesday and the understanding between the England manager and Beckham is that the player needs to show sufficient stamina and competitiveness with Milan to earn his ticket to South Africa. Major League Soccer was not a convincing platform for Capello. Milan is.

“My fitness is good, really good,” insists Beckham. “Obviously being back at Milan and working hard with the medical regime they have here has been great. To be part of an England squad, you have to be playing at the top level. You have to be playing with top players and be at the top of your fitness.” And his form? “Good,” he replies. Up and down, say the Italian media, ranging from a beaming 7.5 out of 10 from Tuttosport for his showing on his first game back, to a grumpy 4.5 from Corriere dello Sport for the Milan derby three weeks ago.

Leonardo, appointed head coach last summer, appears pleased to have Beckham back at Milan. “He arrived in December, he already knew everything he needed to, knew the atmosphere, most of the team, and how we play,” says Leonardo. “All of that’s not been a problem for him.”

Of the new teammates, the strikers were especially welcoming. Marco Boriello, who spent most of last season injured, has already profited from Beckham’s crossing. The Dutch international Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, signed last August but more out of the first XI than in it so far, hopes the combination of his alertness in the penalty box and the Englishman’s passing might prove fruitful. “He’s got a real eye for the assist,” Huntelaar thought immediately. “He’s always looking for the strikers and to swing the ball in, in front of you. It’s nice to play as a striker with him there and with Ronaldinho on the other side.”

“I got a great welcome from everybody, fans and players,” says Beckham. But there was one significant change from the last Milan dressing room he had been a member of. “Obviously Paolo Maldini’s retired and a couple of other characters have gone who were here last time. But the team is similar. There’s a great spirit within the club and that’s definitely not changed. We’re just as strong. When we play well, we’re a very good team.” The “when” is heavily weighed. He acknowledges that Milan have had a horribly inconsistent month.

January started superbly as Beckham seemed to have brought his Golden Balls knack with him into the new year: Milan had finished 2009 with just three points from their past three games. Beckham went straight into the starting line-up and they won the next three matches, racking up 12 goals, including a 3-0 win away at Juventus.

Then came the derby with Inter, a 2-0 defeat, and two subsequent draws, the second of which, against Bologna, Beckham watched entirely from the bench. Is he frustrated at being left out of the XI? “No,” he replies, “because I’ve always said when I came to the club, I never expect to start any games here.”

His return to action in Friday’s 3-2 win over Udinese, albeit as a substitute, suggests he will have a senior role on Tuesday. “We needed that win after the past couple of games,” he says, “and we needed also to get players fit again, like Alex Pato, with the United matches coming up. Both are going to be tough, but I’m looking forward to it.”

FIFTH TIME LUCKY FOR UNITED?

Manchester United have a score to settle with Milan. The teams have met in four previous two-legged European ties — three of them at the semi-final stage — and Milan triumphed each time, twice going on to win the trophy — in 1969 and 2007.

May 1958 European Cup semi-final: Man Utd 2 Milan 1, Milan 4 Man Utd 0.

April/May 1969 European Cup semi-final: Milan 2 Man Utd 0, Man Utd 1 Milan 0.

Feb/Mar 2005 Champions League, 2nd rd: Man Utd 0 Milan 1, Milan 1 Man Utd 0.

Apr/May 2007 Champions League semi-final: Man Utd 3 Milan 2, Milan 3 Man Utd 0.

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