Blog

Emerging details of this year’s budget proposals indicate that the Presidency has proposed to spend N574m on food in 2011. When this total is spread over the 365 days in 2011, the average amount that the Presidency will spend on food per day is a little over N1.57m.

The N574m is N168.7m more than the N405.3m spent by the same office on ‘food stuff supplies’ in 2010. However, the 2010 figure is exclusive of the sum expended on foods eaten during summits. A separate sub-head for “meals/entertainment” for summits held at the State House last year totalled N73m.

It (N574m) is also part of the N13.9bn that will be used to fund sub-heads and the overhead cost of the State House or Presidential Villa.

The details, which our correspondent obtained on Monday, showed that the rehabilitation of the State House Guest House in the Marina, Lagos, would cost N1.2bn.

Similarly, “residential furniture” items for the Presidency are to be purchased for a whopping N1.1bn this year.

The furnishing of Vice-President’s two guest houses — one in Asokoro and the other called “Aguda House,”— will cost N500m.

The furniture for the guest house in Asokoro will cost N100m, while that of Aguda House will consume N400m.

Incidentally, the lounge of Aguda Guest House was extended in 2010 for N50m. Another guest house was also furnished for the Vice-President’s use in 2010 for N50m.

This year, the “purchase of canteen/kitchen equipment” for the Presidential Villa will also gulp N553.6m.

Further details of the 2011 budget estimates showed that out of the N553.6m, N150m will be used to fund “household equipment and materials for the Vice-President’s office.”

However, in 2010, a provision of N240m was made for the purchase of office, household and kitchen equipment for Asokoro Guest House.

Other details show that the Director of Protocol to the Vice-President, his Aide- De- Camp, and other aides are to be housed in new official quarters to cost N560m in 2011.

Dodan Barracks in Lagos will also benefit from the presidential renovation in 2011, as it has a provision of N400m in the budget.

President Goodluck Jonathan presented a N4.23tn budget to the National Assembly for approval on December 15.

The sum comprises N198.12bn for statutory transfers, N542.32bn for debt service; N2,481.71tn for recurrent (non-debt) expenditure; and N1,005.9tn for capital expenditure.

The government also earmarked the sum of N347.2bn for critical infrastructure development.

This includes capital allocations of N86.25bn for power; N20.74bn for Aviation; N10.27bn for petroleum resources; N136.88bn for works; N48.9bn for transport; N44.18bn for the Federal Capital Territory; N35.01bn for education; N33.35bn for health; N29.46bn for agricultural development; and N24.76bn for water resources.

But Cornelius Dupree Jr. refused to do so, doggedly maintaining his innocence in a 1979 rape and robbery, in the process serving more time for a crime he didn't commit than any other Texas inmate exonerated by DNA evidence.

"Whatever your truth is, you have to stick with it," Dupree, 51, said Tuesday, minutes after a Dallas judge overturned his conviction...

Nationally, only two others exonerated by DNA evidence spent more time in prison, according to the Innocence Project, a New York legal centre that specializes in wrongful conviction cases and represented Dupree. James Bain was wrongly imprisoned for 35 years in Florida, and Lawrence McKinney spent more than 31 years in a Tennessee prison.

Dupree was sentenced to 75 years in prison in 1980 for the rape and robbery of a 26-year-old Dallas woman a year earlier. He was released in July on mandatory supervision, and lived under house arrest until October. About a week after his release, DNA test results came back proving his innocence in the sexual assault.

A day after his release, Dupree married his fiancee, Selma. The couple met two decades ago while he was in prison.

His exoneration hearing was delayed until Tuesday while authorities retested the DNA and made sure it was a match to the victim. Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins supported Dupree's innocence claim.

Looking fit and trim in a dark suit, Dupree stood through most of the short hearing, until state district Judge Don Adams told him, "You're free to go." One of Dupree's lawyers, Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck, called it "a glorious day."

"It's a joy to be free again," Dupree said.

This latest wait was nothing for Dupree, who was up for parole as recently as 2004. He was set to be released and thought he was going home, until he learned he first would have to attend a sex offender treatment program.

Those in the program had to go through what is known as the "four R's." They are recognition, remorse, restitution and resolution, said Jim Shoemaker, who served two years with Dupree in the Boyd Unit south of Dallas.

"He couldn't get past the first part," said Shoemaker, who drove up from Houston to attend Dupree's hearing.

Shoemaker said he spent years talking to Dupree in the prison recreation yard, and always believed his innocence.

"I got a lot of flak from the guys on the block," Shoemaker said. "But I always believed him. He has a quiet, peaceful demeanour."

Under Texas compensation laws for the wrongly imprisoned, Dupree is eligible for $80,000 for each year he was behind bars, plus a lifetime annuity. He could receive $2.4 million in a lump sum that is not subject to federal income tax.

The compensation law, the nation's most generous, was passed in 2009 by the Texas Legislature after dozens of wrongly convicted men were released from prison. Texas has freed 41 wrongly convicted inmates through DNA since 2001 — more than any other state.

Dallas County's record of DNA exonerations — Dupree is No. 21 — is unmatched nationally because the county crime lab maintains biological evidence even decades after a conviction, leaving samples available to test. In addition, Watkins, the DA, has co-operated with innocence groups in reviewing hundreds of requests by inmates for DNA testing.

Watkins, the first black district attorney in Texas history, has also pointed to what he calls "a convict-at-all-costs mentality" that he says permeated his office before he arrived in 2007.

At least a dozen other exonerated former inmates from the Dallas area who collectively served more than 100 years in prison upheld a local tradition by attending the hearing and welcoming the newest member of their unfortunate fraternity. One of them, James Giles, presented Dupree with a $100 bill as a way to get his life restarted..

If the name Lonzo Nzekwe does not strike you in anyway, the movie, Anchor Baby, one of the best ever to have hit the Nollywood scene, would definitely ring a bell. This may be due to its popularity in the media or its engaging and biting climax, in case you have been lured to the cinema by the movie.

But for a man, who says, “I am just a self-taught producer and director,” what many critics in Nollywood hate to hear, Lonzo is credible and also deserves respect as far as any moviemaker in Nigeria should get.
..

“I just studied film editing and bought a lot of DVDs through which I taught myself.

“I have always wanted to write a movie that people can relate with and I can see that is happening right now because the movie is out here and a lot of people love it.”

Anchor Baby has its setting in the United States but it was actually shot in Canada, the reason for this is not far-fetched.

According to Nzekwe, it has to do entirely with him, as he shed more light on the process of producing the movie.

“I actually live in Canada and so it was the natural location and I must tell you that it was actually harder to get Omoni (Oboli) to come over there to shoot than some others. I didn’t know her before, neither had we really met but I just got in contact with a couple of people that had been in the industry and I was referred to most of the crew and the cast also. We used a casting director for the movie so it was really taken care of on that level,” Nzekwe said.

It is always easy to get a chance to savour the success of any project but the challenges conquered are always there somewhere. Lonzo sheds some light on this area also.

“When it comes to challenges, like I said a while ago, it was the challenge of really getting people to believe in me that I could direct a movie because it was just my first time to be involved in any movie. I had not been involved in movie production before now and so when I was telling people that I wanted to cast people for a movie that I am going to direct, nobody believed me but for people like Omoni, it was an issue of some faith,” he said.

One issue that has bothered the mind of some people in the Nigerian movie industry for sometime now is what makes a movie qualified to be called a Nollywood production and with only Omoni Oboli carrying the Nigerian flag in Anchor Baby, the movie was always going to swim in the speculation but the issue of the Nigerian input is one that Nzekwe puts to bed pretty well with his reply.

“The Nigerian input, as far as I am concerned, is not minimal; that is as a result of the fact that I am a Nigerian and I am the writer, the producer and director of the movie. Aside that, the lead actress in the project is a Nigerian and I think that is the majority right there if we are talking about the input. But you should know that is exactly what the story calls for; I would not put a Nigerian if he or she does not fit in a role. I am a moviemaker and I don’t just make movies for the sake of it. I make movies and the script would determine who plays what role because if the script requires me to have 100 Nigerians in it, I would have them but if the script also requires me to have none, then I would not have any Nigerian in the project,” he said.

While the end of the movie seems to punch the greener pasture aspiration of many in Nigeria, Nzekwe says he was inspired into writing the story because of the huge space the word, Anchor baby, occupies in the American lexicon and not directed at Nigerians per se.

“One thing that really inspired me into writing this story is the fact that Anchor Baby, as a term, is a really strong issue in the United States and I wanted to write a story to put a face to who these people are and what they go through. So, that was rally the inspiration – to write a story that many people would relate with regardless of where you come from; either Nigeria or Mexico or wherever. Actually, my point of writing the story is not really to dissuade or discourage anybody from traveling but I just wanted to make a movie, but of course, there are lots of messages in the movie. One of the most powerful of these is why is she (Joyce Nnaga) trying to have a baby in another country, what is wrong with her country? People have to ask that question as to how we are treating our people and such but I am not saying people should not try to give their children a better life or anything like that. People have to take care of our own people in our country and our people don’t have to go and struggle elsewhere if the country is good enough,” he said.

Nzekwe, an indigene of Abia State who had both his primary and secondary school education in Nigeria before relocating first to the U.K., then to America before finally settling down in Canada, said he started writing the story encapsulated in the movie in January 2010, and finished it sometime in April after which he started shooting straightaway.

“I am very excited with the encouragement the movie is receiving and Nigerians are really warming up to the movie very much as we can see from the screening in Port Harcourt and Lagos. It was screened twice in Port Harcourt due to popular demand and I am really looking forward to taking things to the next level from there. I already have another project I would be working on next and I intend to even make it bigger and better than Anchor Baby,” he said.

Although it was not a case of intense auditioning, Nzekwe insists it was not a case of just coming to stroll into the movie for sensational actress, Omoni Oboli, even as he admits the fact that the beautiful actress is one of the very best Nollywood has to offer.

“I had not met Omoni or really seen her works before but somebody referred her to me and I picked up a couple of the movies she has done and I got to know her a lot better over the phone and I was convinced she could transform the script into the way I wanted well. I never made the script with her in mind because I didn’t even know who she was prior to that time,” he said.

There have been cases of people coming to Nigeria and totally lacking ideas as to who is who and the general knowledge about the Nigerian movie industry.

Lonzo Nzekwe, who says the budget of Anchor Baby would seem huge to Nollywood while it is a low budget project by Hollywood standards, is in touch with home despite being far away as he plans to roll out another project soon.

“My knowledge of Nollywood is broad; I watch movies just like everybody else. I watch a lot of movies and I study and analyze other actors and actresses well but Omoni Oboli stoods out of the lot, it was not like I didn’t look at the other,” he said.

To him, like every other industry, Hollywood included, there are bad movies or projects and that is not enough reason to castigate or write off the Nigerian movie industry, which he described as “alright and on its way to getting even bigger and better in years to come,” concluded.


By Adedayo Odulaja

Some 500 dead and dying birds fell onto a Louisiana highway on Monday, just three days after a similar incident in Arkansas.

The events have led to speculation running from poisonings to "End of Days" scenarios, but a key federal agency emphasized that mass bird die-offs are not that rare.

Most of the birds found on Louisiana Highway 1 near Point Coupee were red-winged blackbirds, as was the case in Beebe, Ark., some 360 miles away. The species is one of the most common in the United States, with a population estimated at up to 200 million.

Some of the Louisiana birds will be tested by the National Wildlife Health Center run by the U.S. Geological Survey. But a USGS spokesman told The Baton Rouge Advocate that USGS records showed 16 incidents in the last 30 years where more than 1,000 blackbirds have died all at once.

"These large events do take place," he said. "It's not terribly unusual.".

The National Audubon Society agreed that mass bird die-offs are not rare. "Initial findings indicate that these are isolated incidents," Greg Butcher, Audubon's director of bird conservation, said in a statement.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries also weighed in, saying that necropsies on some birds indicated many "exhibited traumatic injuries." The birds might have flown into nearby power lines, it added.

In Arkansas, preliminary tests showed the blackbirds there, as many as 5,000, died after massive trauma. Experts said the birds were likely spooked by fireworks, lightning or some other loud event and then ran into each other and other objects as they fled at night while roosting.

"The birds suffered from acute physical trauma leading to internal hemorrhage and death," the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission said in a statement Monday. "There was no sign of chronic or infectious disease."

The birds were otherwise healthy, according to the statement.

The injuries were primarily in the breast tissue, with blood clotting and bleeding in the body cavities.

President Goodluck Jonathan has approved N4,705,368,635 as Christmas bonus to federal workers, THE PUNCH has learnt.

 But the bonanza, which was usually paid to workers in a few ministries
and agencies in December along with their salaries until 2009 when all
MDAs were included, could not be paid before the end of 2010.

The President’s approval was given on December 22, 2010, via a letter
with reference no: Pres/87/MF/182 from the Senior Special Assistant to
the President on Administration, Mr. Matt Aikhiombare, and addressed to
the finance minister.

His approval followed a memo by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Olusegun
Aganga, also dated December 22, 2010 to the President, reminding him of
the annual payment of Special Overtime and End of Year bonus to all
staff of the ministry, Office of the Accountant-General of the
Federation and others.The payment, he added, was meant to curb
fraudulent practices in the management of government finances.

Aganga had noted that the payment started with the Nigerian Customs
Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Service in 1994, as a special
incentive to boost revenue collection and reduce loss of revenue due to
fraud and other sharp practices.

He explained, “At the time, targets were set and staff of the two
agencies were to get four per cent of monies realised beyond the set
targets.

“The incentive was expanded to include staff of the ministry, Budget
Office of the Federation and the Office of the Accountant-General,
being supervisors of these revenue-generating agencies. This tradition
has been in practice ever since.”

He added that in 2005, government approved that four per cent and seven
per cent of the revenue generated by FIRS and NCS respectively should
be retained by the two agencies.

However, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget Office and the OAGF
were left out, in spite of their significant contributions to revenue
generation and expenditure management.

Aganga said, “Following this development, the ministry annually applies
for presidential approval for the payment of the special incentives to
its staff.

“However, in 2009, the concept was modified and extended to include
some ministries and agencies. To this end, MDAs have made formal
requests for the payment of the incentives.

“The total amount as compiled is as detailed hereunder: FMF, OAGF &
BOF N1, 111, 398, 136 (74 per cent of request); Office of the SGF
N207, 544, 256 (50 per cent of request); Office of the HOSF N386, 426,
243 (50 per cent of request); State House, N42,570, 291 ( 100 per cent
of request); and other MDAs, N2,957,429, 709, totalling N4,705,
368,635.”

Investigations, however, showed that the non-payment of the bonanza to
workers before the end of last year had raised concerns among workers
as some ministries and agencies gave bags of rice and groundnut oil to
their staff instead of the expected cash.

The ministries of Health and Finance; Joint Admission and Matriculation
Board; Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation; Universal Basic
Education Commission; and Central Bank of Nigeria gave rice to their
staff.

A member of staff in one of the ministries told our correspondent that
workers on grade levels 1-14 got rice and oil. He expressed worry that
these items might have been given them in lieu of the cash bonus.

He said, “Instead, they gave a bag of rice and jar of groundnut oil to the workers in place of the money.”

Further, he alleged that staff of the Federal Ministry of Health
collected cash as christmas bonus when Prof. Adenike Grange was the
minister, but such payment ended with her exit.“Our suspicion is that
government has been releasing this money without it reaching us,” he
added.However, Aganga’s memo to the President stated that “the said
amount would be sourced from servicewide vote.”

Apart from this incentive-driven bonanza, workers are still battling for the payment of the new minimum wage.

The Federal Government last week claimed that it had forwarded a
minimum wage bill to the National Assembly to provide a legal framework
for the wage hike.

However, the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Rules and
Business, Mr. Ita Enang, had told THE PUNCH that the House did not
receive the bill before December 14, 2010 when it went on a Christmas
break.

3 bedroom bungalow at akute for 5m
with c of o , all ensuite + tiles

A ready made bungalow house in palm view estate in agege
all ensuite + water in a quite environment
for 15m

Land at Ota built up to lintels level @ #2.5m

A two and half plot of land at Abule Egba, fenced wt gate, with uncompleted structure on it @ #10m

A ready made house in Ajao estate all the international airport road
with details below.
a) The front of the house with the main gate
The side pedestrian entrance
A balcony for the front flat upstairs
A balcony for the front flat downstairs

b) Side view of the house showing the duplex behind (please note that the gate here belongs to the next building.

c) Side view of building showing the duplex behind, the fence and the gate to the next house.

The house is 4 nos of 3 bed room flats. 2 upstairs & 2 downstairs
2 bathrooms and 2 toilets
Parking space
Very close to the international airport

Title: Conveyance stamped and registered


For more enquires pls call DIRECT : 07029316422 , 08087147802

For 9jabay www.9jabay.co moderation Protect: 08064950565

Facebook Tops Google As Most Visited Website Of The Year

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has yet another milestone to celebrate.

In addition to being named TIME's Person of the Year and seeing the social network he founded swell to over 550 million members, he can alsotoast a major triumph over Google: for the first time ever, Facebooktopped the list as the most-visited website of the year, ahead of giantslike Google, Yahoo, YouTube, and Msn.com.

According to data from Hitwise, which provides online competitive intelligence, Facebook "accounted for8.93 percent of all U.S. visits between January and November 2010."

Google.com made up 7.19 percent of visits and Yahoo! Mail ranked third with 3.52 percent of visits. Yahoo! claimed 3.30 percent ofvisits, and YouTube 2.65 percent....

Facebook has soared in the rankings as its share of visits has more than doubled in the past year. In 2009, it was the third most-visited site, behind Google and Yahoo! Mail, with 4.26 percent of visits. In 2008 it ranked ninth on Hitwise's list, trailing Google, MySpace, and eBay.

In an odd twist, Google is actually helping to fuel its competitor's rise by sending search traffic to the social network's site: For thesecond year in a row, "Facebook" was the top search term of 2010. Insecond place was "Facebook login," with "Facebook.com" and"www.facebook.com" also cracking the list of top 10 most popularqueries.

While visits to Facebook have overtaken hits to Google.com, Google-owned properties--which include web video giant YouTube--actuallyreceived a greater share of visits, accounting for 9.85 percent of allU.S. visits. TechCrunchobserved that Comscore confirmed Hitwise's findings: "Comscore alsoshows Facebook.com passing Google.com in visits in November but allGoogle sites as still having more."

 

 

The top websites commanded an ever-greater share of web traffic Hitwise noted in its report. "The top 10 Websites accounted for 33 percent of all U.S. visitsbetween January and November 2010, an increase of 12 percent versus2009," Hitwise wrote.