Blog

country (5)

Atiku: Lets debate ! Please where dis man come get brain now ?

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on September 22, 2010 at 11:03pm
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.
Read more…

US removes Nigeria from drug list

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on September 19, 2010 at 9:00pm
The United States government yesterday removed Nigeria from the major drug list.

President obama said that Nigeria was a onetime drug trafficking focal point but that the country had taken a lot of drastic steps to make counternarcotics a top national security for the country. Photo: REUTERS

According to a statement released by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the US President, Barack Obama, said that this was the first time that Nigeria would be delisted from the drug majors list since 1991. The anti-narcotics agency stated that Mr Obama said that Nigeria was a onetime drug trafficking focal point but that the country had taken a lot of drastic steps to make counter narcotics a top national security for the country. He said that international data showed that there was a strengthening of illegal drug trafficking between Latin America and West Africa, especially via Brazil and Venezuela, with a considerable portion of illegal product destined for Europe.

According to the report, Nigeria, Brazil, and Paraguay were recently removed this year from the list because they no longer meet the criteria for the list according to US law. Reacting, Ahmadu Giade, the Chief Executive of the NDLEA, said that Nigeria had gotten a well deserved honour. He noted that the removal of Nigeria from the majors drug list was an endorsement of the collective efforts of the agency to combat drug traffickers with the aim of having a drug free society. According to him, the honour given to Nigeria by removing her from the drug list was as a product of dedication, transparency, hard work, and cordial working relationship between Nigeria and United States in controlling drug trafficking in the country.

The NDLEA is happy

“I appreciate President Barack Obama and Americans for this candid and credible assessment,” he said. “The removal speaks volumes concerning our impressive scorecard and determination to address the drug problem. Illicit trade in narcotics transcends national boundaries. Our foreign collaborators also have a way of monitoring most assiduous efforts. All exit entry points will remain invincible to drug criminals through effective drug interdiction.” The NDLEA boss also thanked President Goodluck Jonathan for his anti-drug policies, and other stakeholders for their unrelenting efforts. He promised that no drug baron or major drug trafficker would go unpunished in the country, adding that NDLEA was one of the best anti-drugs agencies in Africa and that the agency is prepared to make sacrifices to sustain and improve on its drug control performance “Our level of professionalism shall be further consolidated on the tripod of transparency, anti-corruption and respect for the rule of law,” he said. “It is a call to duty that demands higher commitment on our part. We shall continue to partner with the United States and other stakeholders. No stone will be left unturned in our quest for a drug free society.”

According to the agency, the 20 countries on the list this year are Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India, Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. A major drug-transit country is defined as a significant direct source of illicit narcotic or psychotropic drugs or other controlled substances significantly affecting the United States; or a country through which such drugs or substances are transported.
Read more…

Naija October Ist Gbedu :Lawmakers Upgrade Expenses to 17billion round figure. Rich country Great Criminals

Posted by Paul "EFCC" Hawk Adams on July 25, 2010 at 11:00pm

In a bizarre move, the National Assembly which previously criticised the budget for the celebration of Nigeria's 50th independence anniversary, calling it excessive, has turned round to approve a figure that is N7 billion more than the Presidency had requested..

The President had initially asked for N16.4 billion for the anniversary but later reviewed it downwards to N9.48 billion following severe criticisms from the public, civil society groups and even the lawmakers.

When the request for N16.4billion was turned down on July 7 and returned to the Presidency, President Goodluck Jonathan scaled down the request to N9.48 billion in a revised supplementary budget. However, the lawmakers have now approved N17.195 billion, an excess of about N7.715 billion for the anniversary.

Assembly bonanza

In approving the new revised budget, the national assembly accommodated the additions under the capital expenditure budgeted for the ministry of the Federal Capital Territory and the ministry of aviation.

For instance, the president had requested only N97 million for the ministry of Federal Capital Territory for the replacement of the carpets in the International Conference Centre, but the lawmakers ended up approving N3.8 billion for the ministry. This is N2.83 billion above what was requested.

Also, the Aviation ministry which had tendered a N2.25 billion request, out of which N1 billion will be used for the renovation of the Abuja airport, N1 billion for the provision of additional parking and N250 million to buy equipment for safe aircraft parking at five airports, it got an approval of N7.135 billion from the lawmakers.

The addition to the ministry's request was in excess of N4.885 billion.

Tight-lips

Unlike the original budget proposal sent to the national assembly by the executive, which had detailed explanation for each allocation, the budget as approved by the lawmakers had no details, and was arranged in lump sums for subheads only.

Both secretariats of the House and Senate committees on appropriation which handled the computation of the budget denied any knowledge of the details saying they believe details of the approvals will be made available in future.

Also, Ayo Adeseun, chairman of the House of Representatives committee on appropriation, said he will offer explanations on a future date. Mr. Adeseun who was reacting to questions said he will need to consult the records before offering the needed explanation.

However, Iyiola Omisore, the chairman of senate committee on appropriation did not reply to enquiries nor returned calls.

In addition to the N7.715 billion excess made to the revised anniversary budget, every other fund requested by the president for the anniversary was approved as requested.

The designing and hosting of the Nigeria @ 50 website for 2 years will still cost N6 million, anniversary Logo- N30 million, and anniversary parade including march past, fleet review, aerial display - N950 million.

The ministry of foreign affairs plans to use N600 million to organise celebrations for Nigerian missions abroad and the information and communication ministry's plan to use N1 billion to insert special reports on Nigeria in local and international media were also approved.

The women affairs ministry budget of N105 million for seminars for women and children and 50th anniversary party for 1000 children were also approved as requested.

Frivolous and extravagant

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had in criticising the anniversary budget described it as "wasteful and insensitive."

The NLC spokesperson, Onah Iduh, said considering that the mass misery and poverty in the country has been made worse with the prevailing cash squeeze due to the global economic crisis, the over N10 billion budgeted for the anniversary was "very frivolous and extravagant.''

He said, "As far as the NLC is concerned our leaders must realise that the logic, essence and philosophy of nationhood is purely the welfare and security of citizens through humanitarian, progressive and egalitarian ideals enforced through the instrumentality of government. These are fundamental obligations that the Nigerian political leadership has abdicated in the past 50 years."

However, the Minister of Finance, Olusegun Aganga, while defending the budget said the public perception that the money was wasteful amid pressing economic problems, was wrong because it was tied to capital expenditure.

He had said, "We just tied them to the anniversary budget to make things faster. We are renovating Lagos and Abuja airports, for example. Both airports should measure up to international standards normally. We are doing that and putting in place standard security systems so that the airports will be up to standard. These are places people will visit first. There are many other beneficial projects tied to this budget.

"Rather than fault the budget, people should ask, what the money is being spent on?''

Read more…

Oil Spill in Naija Vs BP Oil Spills what is all the Fuss about that

Posted by 9jabook.com on June 18, 2010 at 3:30am
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.”
Read more…

Assassins kill NAFDAC director in his country home

Posted by 9jabook.com on June 5, 2010 at 1:01am
Unknown killers have struck again in Umuahia, Abia State, killing a 53-year-old director of National Agency For Food and Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC), Chief Emeka Obi. Obi was murdered in his country home, Umuagungolori, Afugiri, in Ohuhu, Umuahia North Local Government Area, when he came home to spend the week end and attend to his farm land..

His lifeless body showed that he must have been matcheted to death by his assailants. The Village Head of Umuagungolori, Chief Bekee Ukaogo, a retired principal and the deceased’s younger brother, Steve Ononogbu, both of who spoke to Daily Sun said that there were deep matchete cuts on his neck and throat regions.

According to them , the killers must have killed him in his parlor and carried his corpse and laid it on the foam in his bed room.

The Assistant Commissioner of Police, state C.I.D, ACP Micloth, who confirmed the murder said that investigation was still going on.

His killers locked the door and gate to make people believe that he was not at home. The intention would have been for his body to decompose before it was discovered, a source said. “There were signs of struggle between him and his assailants before they eventually overpowered and killed him.” Ukaogo, said that the deceased, came home on Friday, April 23, 2010 about 2pm and many saw him and exchanged pleasantries with him.

“I met him about 2.pm and we discussed and as our discussion was becoming too long, I excused myself and told him that we would talk more in the evening and left.

“I was staying with one of his half brothers when he arrived home(Onuabuchi Obi). He told me he was going to Ugwu Nkpa to look for some one who would help him plant yam seedlings and that he would come back for us to talk again in the evening. We did not see again in the evening and I felt that since he did not come as he said , he would have been too busy.

I did not know that he was still in the village. It was on Monday night that it was discovered that he was dead.

“He had arranged with one of his brothers , to travel to Port Harcourt on Saturday. When the boy came and saw that the gate and door were locked, he left , believing that he had travelled without him.

“By Monday, his wives and some staff started calling that they had not seen him in Port Harcourt. They asked that people should look for him. Those who came around there said they perceived some unpleasant odour and so suspected that something was wrong.

“Then I. K. scaled the fence, into the compound and peeped in through the window and saw his corpse on his bed. He raised alarm and people gathered. Then he went and reported the findings to his younger brother, Steve Ononogbu Obi, who now invited the police to the scene. The wives were then called and they came and an arrangement was made and the corpse was taken to the mortuary.

“They said he had deep matchet cuts on his neck. The floor of his parlour and bed room had traces of his blood.

“They must have killed and carried his corpse and laid it on the bed face down to make people believe that he had gone out. I believe they planned it that no one would discover his corpse until it had decomposed.

“There were deep matchete cuts on his throat and the back of his neck. Those cuts must have touched his spinal cord. The police took pictures of the parlour and bedroom.

“He was a very liberal person, some one who liked to keep to himself. He was my student at Williams Secondary School in the 1970s. We have never experienced this type of incident before. He did not come with his car and I believe the reason is to avoid this type of problem. “The community has been meeting over this matter because it is very bad. The women have organized prayers for God to bring out those who committed this atrocity. He was the only one living in his house. His nearest neigbour is not at home. Everybody is shocked.”

His younger brother said: “It was a shock and I rallied elders of the family, went to the police and notified them and they came the next day. The gate and door to his house were padlocked and that must have been the handiwork of his attackers.

“The door was opened and he was discovered to have been lying face down on his foam. His body was taken to the mortuary. There were blood stains. It is a trauma to me , very unbelievable, it is cruel, so painful.

“He was one of the illustrious sons of this village, a model to so many of us. He was an icon. The village has called a meeting in an effort to unravel the mystery behind his death. One cannot really explain it. He was about 53 years of age.”
Read more…

Latest Blog Posts

Most Popular Blog Posts

Blog Topics by Tags

  • in (506)
  • to (479)
  • of (339)
  • ! (213)
  • as (166)
  • is (157)
  • a (156)

Monthly Archives