As the 2010 World Cup draws to a close this weekend in South Africa, women across the globe, especially wives of players from participating countries, are eagerly awaiting the return of their husbands back home.

While millions of football fans have been enjoying the thrills of the World Cup since last month, women, who were denied access to their husbands say they can’t wait for their heartthrobs to return home after Sunday’s final at the Soccer City stadium.

As flowers without water wither away, Menaye Donkor, wife of Ghana’s Sulley Muntari said 2010 World Cup has been great in South Africa but she is happy now that her hubby, who scored a fantastic goal against Uruguay, is due home.

•Sunley Muntari (left) and Menaye.

Speaking on South Africa Broadcasting Corporation, SABC Fashion Show, Menaye praised Ghana’s squad for doing Africa proud. “Ghana made all of us proud and I think my lonely nights are over now. Sulley will soon come home and then we’ll talk about the games as a family”.

•Muntari’s Menaye. Photos: Tunde Oyedele.

Worst hit are the ladies who escorted their husbands to South Africa. They have been coping alone in the hotels as coaches of participating teams do not want them near their husbands to avoid distraction in camp

Caroline Celico, wife of Brazil’s star, Kaka said: “I missed him a lot but I’m not the only one. Some women are used to this because the players travel all the time. But’s it’s hectic in South Africa. I’m, however, happy that the World Cup is over and my man will see me once again,” Caroline said.

•Kaka’s wife, Caroline.

If the women have a choice, may be they would have protested but the wealth from football gives them their daily bread and limelight.

Amaia Salamanca says she can’t wait for the sweet whisper of Spanish star, Ramos, but she must wait until after Sunday’s final against Netherlands to welcome her Real Madrid husband back home.

•Didier Drogba (right) and Lalla.

“I miss Ramos, especially when I see some couples hugging around. I’m happy Spain are playing well, but I have told him the rooms are getting too big for me,” Amaia jokingly said

From the parting statement made by Super Eagles skipper, Nwankwo Kanu immediately after Nigeria crashed out of South Africa 2010 World Cup, it was evident his wife, Amarachi, would be glad he was heading home.

•Nwankwo Kanu (right) and Amarachi.

Kanu, who played just a match for Nigeria at the tournament, was answering questions from international journalists when his wife called to ask when he would join them.

His response was so funny that the journalists at the Mixed Zone of Durban Stadium burst into rounds of laughter. “Oh, you want to know what next I plan to do for the Eagles now that Nigeria has crashed out of the World Cup? Okay, I’m going to meet my wife and kids, who are here in South Africa. They are missing me and I need to go and give them a treat to enjoy the rest of the tournament,” Kanu said as he parried the question.

A close friend of Kanu said Amarachi called her husband to be sure he was not attacked after the last game in which Nigeria drew 2-2 with South Korea.

Amarachi, P.M.Sports gathered, has been a good mother caring for their kids while Kanu was in camp. But, the Igbo lady was quoted as saying she could not wait to welcome her hubby back, especially with the chilly weather of the host country.

Also, Didier Drogba’s wife Lalla, Soma, wife of Matthew Booth of Bafana, say they would hold tight to their husbands immediately after the tournaments before they travel for club assignments again.

•Didier Drogba (right) and Lalla.

“The only language I will like to listen to is: ‘I love you’. That’s what Drogba tells me and I’ve missed that, Lalla said of his Chelsea of England and Cote d’Ivoire hubby....

Facebook’s co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moscovitz have both expressed some measure of disapproval where the highly anticipated film The Social Network is concerned..

Moscovitz published a frank assessment of the upcoming movie tonight on a Q&A site, saying the trailers seemed “a lot more exciting” than the actual goings-on during Facebook’s earlier days.

(Interesting side note: The Q&A site linked above is Quora, a startup made by several former Facebook employees. It’s a small world after all — especially in Silicon Valley.)

Zuckerberg, currently Facebook’s CEO, had some negative comments about the film when he took the stage at the D conference last month, saying he wished the movie had not been made. Moscovitz wasn’t completely down on the movie; however, his mostly sarcastic comments did belabor the point that the film is anything but historically accurate — at least from his perspective.

“It is interesting to see my past rewritten in a way that emphasizes things that didn’t matter,” he wrote — “things that didn’t matter” referring to a breach of contract/IP theft lawsuit brought by fellow Harvard students Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss in 2004.

Calling the movie a “dramatization of history,” Moscovitz continued to write, “A lot of exciting things happened in 2004, but mostly we just worked a lot and stressed out about things; the version in the trailer seems a lot more exciting, so I’m just going to choose to remember that we drank ourselves silly and had a lot of sex with coeds.”

When it comes to the film’s portrayal of Zuckerberg, Moscovitz is at once cautiously pessimistic and fawning.

“The plot of the book/script unabashedly attack him, but I actually felt like a lot of his positive qualities come out truthfully in the trailer (soundtrack aside). At the end of the day, they cannot help but portray him as the driven, forward-thinking genius that he is.”

Moscovitz currently heads up Asana, a Silicon Valley startup who counts a few Facebook and Google heavy-hitters among its staff. When not drinking and carousing with coeds, they build project management software.

What do you think of the trailers so far? How would you feel if someone made a movie about you and your company? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

June 13, 2010

My wife and I were just settling in for our week-long 10th anniversary trip in the Ozark mountains. We had a great week planned,with lots of hiking and site seeing, even a trip to an old car museumwhich I love to go to when we visit there. I woke up the morning afterwe arrived ready to get started, only to see that there was a voice mailon my phone from 6 a.m. It was Amin Motin, my helpdesk manager,informing me that a number of my sites had been hacked into…

As you may be aware of, three of my servers were hacked into last week, resulting in a number of my sites displaying the hacker's "look atwhat I can do" message as the home page. Fortunately no data was lostfrom any of the databases, and the sites were restored back to theirproper working order within a matter of hours after I reported the issueto my server host.

It would appear that my computer got a keylogger-style virus installed on it, despite the fact that I only use a Mozilla browser(which I didn't think was targeted by such things, but apparently due toits popularity growth this is no longer the case). I often scan the"black hat" and "software cracks" forums for references to my ownsoftware so I can close any loopholes those guys find to try and rip offmy software, and I can only imagine that the virus came from one ofthose sites. Shame on me for getting busy and not updating my virusprotection software.

Well, long story short, I had these 3 server's open in a shell (SSH) window, and next thing you know the hacker was logging in and doing histhing.

The virus has since been removed, the servers restored to their normal working condition and all passwords changed.

This is not the kind of thing I wanted to deal with while I was away on my 10th anniversary with my wife, and it's certainly not the kind ofthing she wanted me to have to deal with on such a special occasion.However, the matter was resolved within a few hours of my reporting itto my web host, which allowed my wife and I to enjoy the rest of ourtrip in peace. It could have been a whole lot worse, to say the least,had I not had such fantastic support from Amin, my customers and my webhost.

I wanted to share with you the lessons I have learned from this incident in case they will help you.

1. Having strong passwords is not enough.

It doesn't matter how "unguessable" your password is if a keylogger gets installed on your computer and the hacker gets the password sent tohim by the virus. It's also not enough to rely on your virusprotection software, because a brand new virus may not be detected.

That's why I've had my host block all shell (SSH) and FTP access from all IP addresses except my own. So unless the hacker manages to breakinto the data center where my servers are, or breaks into my house andsits at my desk, even if he has the passwords it won't do him any good.

Since I never do any SSH work away from home, this works just fine. But even if I did need to access the server via SSH from somewhere else,I can always log a ticket with my web host to get the IP addresstemporarily added to the "allow" list.

2. Having loyal customers is a beautiful thing.

Within an hour of the hack, there were a dozen emails sitting in my inbox from customers and colleagues informing me of the issue andoffering to do whatever they could to help. Within two hours there weretwo dozen emails.

I can't even being to describe how good it made me feel to know that my customers and associates all have my back, and were willing to go theextra mile to help me resolve the problem if they could do anything tohelp. That really lets me know that I'm running this business the way Ishould.

Thanks to everyone who alerted me and offered to help. It is VERY much appreciated.

3. Having a responsive host is vital!

It wouldn't matter much if I knew about the hack while out of town if my web host was slow in responding. That certainly was not the case!Within a few hours of my notifying my host, they had the problem cleanedup and everything set right.

I was informed later that two of their top-tier systems administrators were set on the task. It wasn't long before they knewexactly how the hack occurred, what to do to close the hole, and how totighten security to prevent any such incidents in the future.

I always knew that my web host's service was top notch, but you REALLY know you're in good hands when something like this happens andthey're on the ball. I am SO glad I switched hosts a couple of yearsago. My previous host was incredibly slow to respond no matter howurgent the matter.

In case you're wondering, my server host is:

http://www.systemini.net

I cannot recommend their services highly enough. Their response time even on trivial issues is incredible, and when it really matters,they're on top of things in a flash.

Disaster Averted

The situation certainly could have been a lot worse than it was. I cringe to think how things would have gone had I still been with my oldweb host (which shall remain nameless — but it was a BIG host, which youthink would have great support, but didn't). I could have beenstressing it out all week long waiting for things to get corrected IF Ihad even known about what happened. I might have been obliviouslyhiking through the mountains while a dozen of my sites were down for aweek. Just thinking about that grows gray hairs on my head!

But things didn't work that way. Everything was set right the day I reported it to my fantastic host, thanks to being informed by Amin andmy customers and associates. Because all of the links in the chain werestrong, disaster was averted, and the security of my servers are nowfar stronger than they were before.

I have certainly learned a lot from this situation, but the biggest lesson can be summed up in these smile-evoking words: I'm in good hands.

Please post your thoughts and questions in a comment below.

For only $1,900 a month, you can rent an apartment President Obama lived in during his years at Columbia University.

The apartment itself is shabby, a one-bedroom, third-floor walk-up. And while living there is unlikely to shed any light on the issue, it’s interesting that so little is known about that era of Obama’s life.

Obama spent two years Occidental College in Los Angeles, transferring to Columbia University in New York City in 1981 and graduating two years later. Little is known about Obama’s time at Occidental, but even less is known about his time at Columbia.

The president did not release his transcripts from either school during his campaign for the presidency, as John McCain, John Kerry, George W. Bush and Al Gore did. Occidental and Columbia have said they are prevented by federal law from releasing the transcripts.

Obama’s thesis on nuclear disarmament, on which he spent a year at Columbia, has apparently been lost. Obama says he doesn’t have a copy and his professor at the time thinks he lost it when he moved a few years ago.

Obama barely mentions his years at Columbia in his two autobiographies. He has said he didn’t know many people at Columbia and that he spent most of his time in the library reading, “like a monk.” Indeed, Fox News contacted 400 of Obama’s former classmates – no one remembered him.

Some of Obama’s Columbia classmates have since come forward, saying they remembered Obama there. Both schools have confirmed Obama was their student.

Columbia is where Obama “stopped getting high,” he wrote, which his old roommate verified to reporters.

To the New York Times, Obama “declined repeated requests to talk about his New York years, release his Columbia transcript or identify even a single fellow student, co-worker, roommate or friend from those years.” A spokesman told the Times Obama “doesn’t remember the names of a lot of people in his life.”

At Occidental, Obama was better known by classmates. There, he gave what is thought to be his first public speech. In it, he urged his school to disinvest from South Africa because of apartheid.

In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama wrote he socialized with black students but also “the foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists and punk-rock performance poets … When we ground out our cigarettes in the hallway carpet or set our stereos so loud that the walls began to shake, we were resisting bourgeois society’s stifling constraints.”

A professor at Occidental, Roger Boesche, told the Los Angeles Times Obama was “a very thoughtful student and a very curious student … You didn’t take my European Modern class without wanting to think about deep ideas.”

The White House did not reply to a request for comment.

He was said to have brought her from Egypt

Criticisms continued to trail the alleged marriage of former governor of Zamfara State, Senator Ahmed Sani to a 13-year old Egyptian girl.

The former governor reportedly paid $100,000 as bride price to the parents of the minor.

But in a statement made available to our correspondent in Lokoja on Monday, the National Council of Women Societies condemned the action of the senator, describing it as shameful.

Speaking through its National President, Hajia Ramatu Usman, the umbrella women’s organisation said Sani’s action did not come to Nigerian women as a surprise because, according to them, many northern governors had been using religion as an excuse for not passing the Child Rights Act.

She further stated that the council had been mounting a campaign against young girls being given out for marriage at ridiculously early ages of 12 or 13 years, adding that the action was against all reasoning.

According to Usman, “Vesico vaginal fistula has been attributed to under age marriages due to the practice of early marriages in Nigeria, where young girls are given out for marriage at ridiculously early ages as 12 or 13 years. They get pregnant and when they are ready to deliver, their pelvises are so small for the babies to pass through.

“The baby gets stuck in the birth canal and in some cases dies. The baby‘s head wears a hole between the birth canal and the bladder (VVF) or rectum (RVF).

“So, when the dead baby is eventually delivered, the young mother is left with a dead child and she begins to drain urine and/or stool continuously. She develops sores on her skin and smells horribly from the constant drips of urine and stool on her clothes.”

The body therefore advised parents to avoid giving out their under age daughters in marriage in order to check cases of this health risk, which it said is particularly common in the northern part of Nigeria.

The statement further said, “It is a shame that while we are seeking ways to view closely what pushes parents into giving out their underage daughters into early marriages, a former governor of a state is celebrating this act of child trafficking and abuse.”

It also called on well-meaning Nigerians to mount pressure on northern governors to immediately commence work on the Child Rights Act.

As the Police reverted from the gunshot wounds that was alleged to have slaughtered Rimi saying it was heart failure. The

Driver of the late Abubakar Rimi yesterday gave a blow-by-blow account of how the former Kano Stategovernor died, saying Rimi began gasping soon after he saw wounds in his brother’s head after a brush with armed robbers on Sunday night.

Alhaji Haruna Abdullahi, who worked with the Rimi family since 1979 when the late politician was elected governor, said their vehicle was forced to stop by a gang of armed robbers along the road to Darki/Gadar Janna near Wudil, south-east of Kano.

“The robbers had completely taken over the road when we approached Darki/Gadar Janna,” he said. “It therefore became compulsory for us to stop, otherwise they would shoot at us.”

“As we stopped, they searched us and collected our money and our handsets. They also beat my boss’ younger brother who was seated right behind me. The security aide to my boss was sitting at the front.

“The robbers were armed, but they did not use their weapons. They asked for money and we gave them. They asked me to open the boot and when I opened it, they searched all our luggage, including that of my boss, but one of the bags was difficult to open.

“At that time, I tried to frighten them by telling them that the police could come and open fire on us all.” Abdullahi said one of the robbers responded by saying: “to hell with the police!”

He said after the robbers were done with them, they asked them to proceed on the journey. As they moved on, Rimi said to him: “You see what robbery is nowadays. These men have now cheated us.” The deceased then said he would never travel at night again, because this was not the first time they encountered robbers.

“They have robbed us once and robbed us twice, therefore we should not fall victims again,” the driver quoted the late Rimi as saying.

He said at that point, Rimi’s brother Alhaji Sule Sa’a told them he was injured in the head and arm by the robbers. Rimi asked to see the wounds and immediately he saw them, he started coughing and gasping. He said as they got to Wudil town, Rimi’s son Nura rang the guard, whose hidden cell phone was not taken by the robbers.

Abdullahi said Nura suggested to them to take the late Rimi straight to hospital instead of coming home, though they assured him that Rimi was not physically attacked by the robbers.

“At that moment my boss started sweating to the extent that Alhaji Sa’a advised me to put on the car air conditioner. As we approached Gano town, my boss said to me ‘take me to Classic Clinic as soon as we get to Kano.’” At the Classic Clinic, Abdullahi said, “after he was examined by a female doctor, we were asked to take him to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH).” He said Rimi was already unconscious by the time they got to the teaching hospital.

“We—myself, Nura and the bodyguard—lifted him into the emergency ward. They later asked us to leave the room so that he could take fresh air. So I came out, but shortly Nura came out and started calling friends and family members to inform them that my boss was dead,” Abdullahi said.

Rimi, a former minister of communications and presidential aspirant, died Sunday night of complications from high blood pressure an hour after he had an encounter with armed robbers on his way back to Kano from Bauchi. (Daily Trust)

She may be a bitch but she is definitely Yaradua's bitch !

Since returning her critically ill husband to the country in the dead of the night yesterday, Turai Yar’Adua has in the last twenty-four hours effectively seized control of the apparatus of government, shoving aside Goodluck Jonathan and unilaterally causing a reversal of the decision by the National Assembly to name him Acting President.

She has a combination of factors working to her advantage: on the one hand, her husband is back in the country and expected to resume Presidential functions; on the other, the state of his health renders him incapable of exercising any presidential authority, automatically creating a vacuum for a proxy.

This bizarre scenario is what Mrs. Yar’Adua is exploiting, with urgency and precision. Yesterday, she instigated a series of puzzling actions, aimed at curtailing the movement and powers of the Acting President.

These include the deployment of two members of the brigade of guards to barricade the “presidential seat”, allegedly to prevent Mr. Jonathan from sitting on it to preside over the meeting of the Executive Council of the Federation; and the early afternoon ransacking of Mr. Jonathan’s office by personnel of the State Security Service (SSS).

Not long after that action, the President’s spokesperson, Segun Adeniyi issued a statement announcing that, “while the President completes his recuperation, Vice President Jonathan will continue to oversee the affairs of state.” There is however no evidence that the Acting President is in any position to oversee Nigeria’s affairs, as he spent most of Wednesday holed up in his office or home, as ignorant as the rest of the country about happenings in the corridors of power. In the vacuum, the First Lady is in absolute control, not only of the affairs of state, but also of access to the President.

Acting in the dark

Over 20 hours after arriving in the country, no public official has yet seen Mr. Yar’Adua, NEXT findings reveal. It emerged yesterday that even Mr Jonathan, has not seen or spoken to Mr Yar’Adua since he returned to the country. A highly placed source in Aso Rock revealed this Wednesday, adding that a political stalemate is in the offing between the two men.

The source confirmed that the Mr. Jonathan was completely unaware of the president’s homecoming until just a few hours before his plane landed in Abuja. In addition, all the security and army personnel that were dispatched to the airport did not receive their orders from the Acting President’s office.

Two army units, the 4th battalion and Guards brigade, were deployed to secure the road leading to the airport and escort the presidential convoy back to Aso Rock.

According to our source, “300 carefully selected officers were secretly deployed and conveyed in 25 vehicles for the operation. Even the weapons were released to them at night.” The directive for this deployment was not issued by the Acting President who is also the present commander in chief of the armed forces of Nigeria. This caused a little pandemonium among the ruling class who wondered who deployed the men.

“The Acting President did not give orders for the deployment of the troops and neither were we consulted on such.

So we all wondered if the army was just acting on its own. Maybe it was the Chief of Defense Staff, or the Chief of Army staff or the National Security Adviser who deployed them; you know they all never liked Mr. Jonathan. We don’t know even up till now,” our source stated.

A President held hostage

The list of persons who are being denied access to the President by the First Lady is growing.

Apart from the Acting President, none of the Ministers or Presidential aides has seen or spoken to Mr. Yar’Adua. Not even Segun Adeniyi, Mr. Yar’Adua’s senior special assistant on media and communications, who issued a press statement on behalf of the President has seen or directly heard from him, NEXT findings reveal.

The Chairman of the Governors’ Forum, Bukola Saraki, and the Chairman of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Vincent Ogbulafor, have also been unsuccessful in their attempts to see Mr. Yar’Adua.

“They are preventing everyone from seeing him. None of us, except his wife and his security aides have seen him since his arrival. Right from the airport, they hid him from everybody. The Vice President even tried to go see him yesterday, but was disallowed by Turai,” a senior government official stated.

At the moment, no one outside the tiny inner circle has any details about the current state of the President’s health. A widely-quoted NEXT exclusive story in January reported that he was “seriously brain damaged.” Our investigations continue to point to a man who remains incapacitated and clearly unable to function as President, contrary to Mr. Adeniyi’s statement that the President had been “discharged” by his Saudi doctors.

We have it on reliable authority that since the President’s arrival in the country on Wednesday, his critical condition has necessitated his continued stay in the Ford E-250 intensive care ambulance that picked him at the Abuja airport. He is expected to be in the ambulance until the intensive care unit that will receive him is retrieved by Julius Berger from Katsina and re-installed in House 7 within the grounds of the Presidential Villa.

Sources also said that the President was carried on a stretcher aboard the ambulance that airlifted him into the country. The arrival of the President in the early hours of Wednesday was engineered to take place in utmost secrecy. Just before midnight on Tuesday, the military units sealed off the presidential wing of the airport and cordoned off the area, ordering all airport staff to move to the international wing. The airport was sealed off from journalists and other visitors who had begun to gather at the presidential wing.

The air ambulance conveying the President landed at 1.45am in a remote section of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport runway. Tarmac floodlights were also dimmed, heightening the covertness of the operation.

Sinking deeper into confusion

A brief private meeting between Mr. Jonathan and the ministers held in place of the customary Wednesday Executive Council meetings, which Mr. Jonathan has consistently chaired in the absence of Mr. Yar’Adua. The meeting, which traditionally starts at 10.00am, was postponed by Mr. Jonathan as soon as news of the President’s arrival broke.

The Ministers were duly notified.

A minister confirmed that the instruction to postpone the council meeting came from Jonathan.

“I received a call at about 8.30 from his secretary saying that our meeting would be postponed,” the minister said. “I was asked to come directly to the conference room by 2 (o’clock) where they would explain why the meeting did not hold.” The minister went on to say that many of his colleagues did not know about the arrival of the President until Wednesday morning. “Some of us were hearing it from you people in the media as of this morning,” the minister said. “As for me I have not spoken to him since he left and that remains so.” The failure of the meeting to hold is just one of the many manifestations of the deepening confusion that has plagued the country since news first broke on Tuesday evening of Mr. Yar’Adua’s return.

At the end of the meeting, the Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili announced that the Mr. Jonathan would be meeting with Mrs Yar’Adua on yesterday evening. Even though a source said the meeting was not at Mrs Yar’Adua’s behest, but an attempt to stave off a constitutional crisis, the fact that it is taking place at all is yet another pointer to the significant role that the President’s wife will be playing in the current power configuration.

It remains unclear what the agenda of the meeting will be, but a source insisted that the ongoing political stalemate cannot be dispelled until the Acting President meets with the President. “Until the Acting President receives a secure directive from the President, the executive council cannot fulfil its duties,” the source said.

AMIDST the controversies trailing the dramatic return of ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia came reports that the government of the Islamic kingdom was responsible for his untimely return.

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Nigerian Tribune was informed by a very competent security source that the government of the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) embarked on a subtle 'blackmail diplomacy' against Saudi Arabia, a development which, according to the source, almost put the Islamic Kingdom in the 'dock'.

The source also gave an insight into how the air ambulance, which brought in the ailing president, was acquired. A frontline construction giant and a former governor from one of the South-South states were said to have brokered the deal that provided the air ambulance.

The multimillion dollar air ambulance was provided by a medical firm in Los Angeles, California, in the United States, after the said construction giant contacted some highly-placed officials of its home government to intervene on its behalf.

According to him, the intelligence community in the country was in the know of the planned return of the sick president, but that the information was not fully shared with the acting president, Goodkuck Jonathan, until very late.

"People still do not understand the undercurrents of this dramatic return. Left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, it would not have allowed the president to leave its soil without fully recovering from his ailment, but then, here is a situation that has put it as a collaborator in the whole saga.

"It got to an extent that the US government and the European Union had to engage in a subtle blackmail diplomacy with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia that it had not done too well as regards the secrecy surrounding the health of the Nigerian president since he arrived in the Kingdom for treatment.

"Of course, we know that if the government of Saudi wanted to be off the dock, it had a duty to correctly advise those very close to the president to quickly take him home rather than attracting unnecessary international attention to the respected kingdom known for its close ties with the United States.

"It was a very simple thing they did: allow the president stop subject to see him or take him to your country and maintain the secrecy of his sickness because the situation was already drawing Saudi Arabia to the international arena as part of Nigeria's political impasse until Jonathan was made the acting president two weeks ago.

The source said this was not the first time the Saudi authorities had tried to make close allies of the president see the need to allow people to see him.

"The first time they attempted to bring the ailing president into Nigeria, the man collapsed and they had to go back to the drawing board; but this time round, the construction giant and the former governor played key roles in approaching a Los Angeles-based medical firm for the air ambulance," the source said.

It will be recalled that Lagos lawyer, Femi Falana, had, last week, threatened to drag the government of Saudi Arabia before international adjucation bodies for its alleged role in the Yar'Adua health saga..

Media reports claiming that Mallams Nasir El-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu are set to rebuff government's invitation to join in nation-building have recently been circulating the rumour mills and have been brought to the attention of these preeminent gentlemen.
We the undersigned, acting not on the instructions of these patriots who have enviable and proven track-records of service to the Father-land and whom are committed to the task of re-engineering this country into its rightful place of leadership and prominence in the continent and within the community of nations; hereby state unequivocally that Mallams El-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu are willing to support the efforts of His Excellency, The Acting President Goodluck Jonathan to set our nation on its proper course, give hope and pride once again to the polity and deliver on the promise to our people.

Both the former FCT Minister and the former EFCC Chairman are willing to put the uncomplimentary events of the past behind, dissociate themselves from these rumours and are available to support the task of nation-building in any way possible.

We are unable to ignore the alleged assassination a few days ago of Danjuma Mohammed, a former EFCC investigator. Being aware that some elements continue to work relentlessly to rule this nation by proxy through intimidation and acts of terrorism, we urge all fair-minded Nigerians to disregard the afore referred rumours and chalk them up to the machinations of persons who are desperate to keep the nation under their thumbs and in perpetual slavery to their selfish ambitions and aggrandizement. Those statements emanated neither from Nasir El-Rufai nor Nuhu Ribadu.

Nigerians are not intimidated. We are not terrorized. May the gentle soul of the departed rest in peace.

G5 – Olowo

Amina

Roz

Mukaddas

Salihu