Peoples Daily Weekend, Saturday 28 February - Sunday 01 March, 2015. Edition.

Police Corporal kills Squandron Commander

Pg 6

War threat: Niger Delta militants chicken out

CHATHAM House: ‘PDP shamed by Buhari’s reception’ Pg 13

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weekend.peoplesdailyng.com

Saturday, FEBRUARY 28, 2015 Jimada Al-Awwal 9-10, 1436 AH

. . . P utti ng the p eop l e fi r st

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N150 Vol. 4 No. 32

PDP Councillor arrested with PVCs

>Pg 10

Long queue of vehicles at NNPC filling station along Obasanjo way as fuel scarcity resurfaces, yesterday in Abuja Photo: Justin ImoOwo

CAN leaders under threat for endorsing Buhari 320 Days after

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Will the abducted Chibok schoolgirls ever be rescued?

Interim National Government:

In whose interest?

Pgs 7-9

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 2

Interview

T

he PDP has campaigned in all the geo-political zones ahead of the March 28 presidential election, what are the chances of your candidate?

Having gone round, we are proud that Nigerians are happy that the president has done well. The president is running on a track record of impressive performance, amidst the security challenges, the distractions it springs up and the huge cost incurred in waging a war against insurgency.

The president has made meaningful impact on all sectors of the Nigerian economy.

He has also engineered the improvement and stabilisation of the economy, leading to transformation, created jobs for young people in the agricultural sector, renovated the airports, as well revived the railway system, making them operational and conveying goods and people across the nation.

Education-wise, he has established 14 federal universities nationwide, nine of which are in the north, the almajiri schools in the north testify to the fact that we have improved the standard of education in this country.

As for health, we have developed the sector such that we are able to handle emergencies. The Ebola issue and the way it was handled is a very good example.

In all aspects of our lives, we have seen improvements and it is clear that the president has done tremendously well. What distinguished him from other people is his democratic credentials and the fact that he is a humble, accommodating, forgiving and his sincerity in guaranteeing that there will be free, fair and credible elections, as well as the security of lives and property. This is wonderful and the people of Nigeria have accepted it.

The president is widely received and accepted and we are very sure that, come March 28, we will have a resounding victory.

The PDP has been in power for the past 16 years. What does the party hope to do differently?

We want to consolidate on the things we have been doing. The task of transforming the country is enormous. We have tremendous improvement and we believe that with the PDP in government by 2020, a lot of things will change in this country.

The APC presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, has promised that, if he is elected, he would end insurgency within a short time, which your government has been unable to end for five years now. What is your take on this?

We do not think that he said this. I will take you back to what he said during an interview on cable television. He said restoring “security in the country will take more than five years to address and bring things back to normalcy.” That was what he said. He can flip-flop all he wants, but we are sure that Nigerians can attest to the fact that we have been making sufficient progress in tackling the security challenges, with the rearmament which has occurred.

Do not forget that at the onset of this security issue the president had decided to wage war against Boko Haram, but the opposition parties screamed that he was killing innocent people and the insurgents.

The president listened, as usual, to the hues and cries of those people and decided to embrace dialogue. He offered cease-fire which the insurgents refused, he offered amnesty still they refused, he offered dialogue and they refused again. When he decided on waging a full war on them, he discovered that the military was poorly equipped to wage modern warfare.

He requested for funds to wage the war, but the opposition told their legislators not to vote in favour of the president’s request. For five, six months, there were debates about its approval. In the end, the PDP lawmakers fought its approval. Now, despite the obstacles set up by certain foreign companies, the

Nigeria will be fully secured in three weeks —Metuh Olisa Metuh, the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is convinced that the insurgency will be crushed in three weeks, adding that the evil spell cast on defectors from the party will soon wear off.

Metuh also revealed that some APC governors are working for PDP’s victory at the polls. He spoke with Ahmed Abubakar. Excerpts...

Metuh

“

None absolutely. I am not aware of any. However, I am aware that one or two governors of the APC are currently discussing with our people on how to work for the president; that, I am very much aware of. The idea is three, but I am saying two.

nation has acquired these foreign equipment and, today, the military has been completely re-armed and have become effective in the war against insurgency.

A new Nigerian military well trained and armed is on duty now, recovering all our lost territory and, we believe, in the next two or three weeks, all the local governments will be fully secured.

Now, if that is what the candidate of the APC is implying, then he needs not bother; all the bases have been covered. He should have applied for security adviser or something, but if that is what he has his eyes fixed on, there will be no job for him because insurgency will be crushed before the elections.

Recently, you accused the APC of being ‘one-week-one-lie’ sort of party.

What did you mean by that?

What I meant was that the APC dishes out lies every time. They tell a different lie each time they open their mouths to speak.

Worse they conjure stories and weave them in deceptive circles.

If you look carefully, you will see that their promises to Nigerians have always been unrealistic. Consider the promise to pay N5,000 to unemployed Nigerians. If you calculate how they promised to pay to the 25 million poor people who have no jobs, you will see that we are talking about N125 billion. If you do that for 12 months, that is N1.5 trillion per annum. Where will they get that kind of money from because our revenue is dwindling, the oil price is going down and our economy is at dire straits presently.

They also promised that they will provide free education, free meals and free uniforms.

That is a lie. How can they afford it? They lied about free medical care, creation of 740,000 jobs in each local government. They even mismanaged the trip which their presidential candidate embarked on abroad and acted as if they are hiding something.

They are embarking on a campaign of deceit. What I am saying is that they should tell Nigerians how they will fulfill these promises. We cannot have them double our income tax, suddenly, when they find themselves in power. That is what credibility is all about.

Unlike their presidential candidate, Jonathan speaks with candour, has integrity, is open for all to see and is totally accommodating. The APC, on the other hand, is very secretive, like a cult. They behave as if they have got a lot to hide; in physical appearance, speech and promises while, in their mind, they are neither clean nor pure.

Isn’t it true that until recently, most of the APC leaders were in the PDP, persons like Amaechi, Kwankwaso and Saraki?

That is why we do not attack them. We will never forget yesterday, we will never forget that we were once brothers who once sat together. We believe that they were misled because they thought we had some differences. However, we are aware that since they crossed over they have been influenced by the evil doctrine of the APC. We have decided not to attack them because of the contributions they made to our party.

Although they have forgotten the contributions which the PDP made in their lives – elevating them to national prominence and giving them a platform on which to air their views – we will forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. They are under the influence of a spell.

How else can you explain the speed with which they joined the APC? We pray for them to see the light soon enough.

Are you aware of the rumours making the rounds that some of your elected governors are poised to go behind the scene to…

None absolutely. I am not aware of any. However, I am aware that one or two governors of the APC are currently discussing with our people on how to work for the president; that, I am very much aware of. The idea is three, but I am saying two.

INEC shifted the elections by six weeks and, before the shift, you were all over the country galvanising supporters for your party’s candidate.

It does seem that the tempo is a bit low now. Won’t it affect anything?

The tempo is reducing. However, we have been meeting with market women and having town hall meetings. There is nothing else that we have to do other than to consolidate on the campaigns, build on whatever we had done and all the other stuff which we have put in place.

The election was not postponed for us to campaign; it was postponed because INEC was far from ready.

For the PDP, we believe that our work is done. We are just consolidating and waiting for the real thing on March 28. We are on top of the situation.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 3

Feature

Good family, good nation:

Nigeria’s missing point

By Evelyn Okakwu

T

he place of the family in ensuring full development of a nation can never be over emphasized. Often, the family pattern prevalent in societies, determine to a great extent, the cultural adaptability of the people.

Shortly after President Goodluck Jonathan assented to the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act 2014, countries of the west, particularly the European Union, United States and Canada flayed Nigeria’s decision, describing its action as a violation of citizens’ rights.

US Secretary of State, John Kerry, stated that anti-gay marriage law represents an ugly restriction to the freedom of assembly, association and expression for all Nigerians. Kerry even added that the anti-gay law does not tally with Nigeria’s international legal obligations and negates democratic reforms and human rights protections.”

To buttress his country’s displeasure for Nigeria’s stand on the matter, America’s Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr James Entwistle, threatened that the United States will relent on its support for HIV/ AIDS and anti-malaria programmes as a backdrop of the federal government’s position on the gay rights issue.

Even Nigeria’s famous writer, Chimamanda Adichie, regarded the law as inconsistent with the dictates of democracy and the many demands of civilisation.

Thus, during his recent conversation with journalists at the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) 2015, the Archbishop of Abuja, Cardinal John Onayekan, stated that: “We live in a world where the values of the family as enshrined by God are being thrown overboard in the name of progress and modernity. And because it is so; those ideas are becoming attractive to some of our people. They even tell us that the reason why we are backward is because we have not adopted these ideas. But we know very well now that they themselves in those countries who have allowed their families to crumble are now having serious problems.

“Also, people have stated that there is a link between terrorism and poor family background. It is practically impossible for you to find a descendant of a truly happy family becoming involved in such heinous crimes,” Bishop Onayekan said.

Speaking earlier, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan noted that the family is key, if we must develop as a people, and move our nation in the right direction.

In the same vein, President of the Catholic Bishop Conference of Nigeria, Most Reverend Ignatious Kaigama, stated that: “The family is vital in transforming a society positively.

“If you take the family seriously, you would have educated your family well at

President Jonathan

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Ambassador Entwistle

Discipline is the bridge between success and failure. And as I have said earlier, communication is very important. Most husbands leave their wives at home from morning till evening; such is not in the interest of the family.”

home. And the child only goes to school, to build on that. But when you neglect it, because you are too busy, or you fill them up with negative thoughts: inject in them hatred and prejudice against other tribes or religions, the difference it will have will be too drastic.”

Stressing that a good family makes a good nation, the CBCN president added that: “We can go further to add that a good nation is a family of families.”

Also at the event, the Papal Nuncio to Nigeria, Archbishop Augustine Kasujja, stated that the family is the first fruit of evangelization and the cradle of every vocation.

He noted however, the discomforting effects of negative western culture: “There exists a kind of spiritual worldliness.”

In his address, Senate President, David Mark, talked about our traditional values. He said the family is not just the man, his wife and children, but the entire community. “Everybody takes interest in making sure that the children grow well. Now

when you transfer the context of family to the level of the nation, it is then that we have the whole issue of how do we live in peace with our diversity? The family has different people with different characters but they still live as one,” he noted.

Dwelling more on the immediate challenges of the home, Bishop Felix Ajakaye, the Catholic Bishop of Ekiti, stated that: “Marriage is one of the seven sacraments of the church. There is no alternative for that, and the church does not promote marriage, outside the sacrament. The sacrament is sacrosanct.”

He stressed the importance of love and communication in ensuring a happy and workable family.

He said families mostly become unable to solve marital problems, due to lack of prayers: “The key for a successful marriage and family life is prayer. Prayer is the key. It is lack of communication that causes divorce and separation. When people don’t communicate or understand themselves well enough. When they have

Cardinal Onayekan

misunderstanding, it means that understanding is lost, that is why it is called misunderstanding. When they allow misunderstanding to push them to the point of divorce, then they have forgotten their root, which is God.” Some couples feel they can solve the problems of their families, outside the shores of those families; to this, Bishop Ajakaye said: “No matter the situation, when people begin to look for solutions outside their families, then they should know that there is a problem.”

He added that not even the law, constitute a way out of marital problems: “The laws being made by government should not even affect a normal family. It is just like God’s instructions, those who will listen, will listen.

“Those who have ears let them here.

If there is love, no matter the law, the unconditional love will solidify that marriage. The breakdown of a family depends on the family members. And I always say too that parents and guardians should visit their wards in higher institutions; particularly tertiary institutions. Don’t just say you give them money or you pay their fees. Visit them, and inculcate discipline into them.

“Discipline is the bridge between success and failure. And as I have said earlier, communication is very important. Most husbands leave their wives at home from morning till evening; such is not in the interest of the family.”

Bishop Ajakaye added that celebrating happy moments is an antidote that would go a long way in helping the family. “And I always want families to celebrate themselves; monthly, quarterly or annually, giving themselves a treat.”

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 4

Special Report

Indigeneship: Will constitution amendment break jinx?

By Osby Isibor

A

lot has been said or written on the subject of indigene and settler dichotomy which was also debated at the recent National Conference convened

by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The issue has been with us for a long time, periodically generating conflicts and violence in different parts of the country.

Often the trigger to the conflicts is a contest over ownership, access and exclusion to critical resources and the entitlement that being an indigene confers on the individual.

“How can they come to our land or state and fight us? This land was founded by our forefathers; they can’t be dragging our land with us, we have to chase them out of our land,” are some of the comments one hears everyday on social networks and group discussions among Nigerians.

Contrary to the impression in some quarters, the indigenesettler problem is found across the length and breadth of the country.

It is however more politicised and intense leading to bloodshed in some parts of the country.

Nigeria is a multi-cultural and heterogeneous society with over 250 ethnic groups across the six-geopolitical zones of the country. Consequently, there are a multitude of indigenous tribes across its length and breadth with different cultures and traditional dispositions, even within the same state.

Often some settlers will assimilate very well into the culture of the host community –speaking their language, inter-marrying with them and worshipping alongside them. Usually the offspring of people who assimilated well into the cultures of their host communities do not experience the negative politics around the indigene/settler dichotomy.

Intolerance among these ethnic groups has led to catastrophic consequences in the form of violence and wanton destruction of lives and property, notable among which are the HausaBerom clash in Plateau State; Tiv-Jukun in Taraba, Agueleri/ Umuleri in Anambra; Tiv-Fulani in Benue, Owa-Ukwani clash in Delta State, Ife/Modakeke in Oyo and the southern Kaduna debacle in Kaduna State.

These conflicts illustrate how identity is used as the basis to access opportunities within a heterogeneous society. But why is there conflict everywhere about who is an indigene, who owns the land and who doesn’t?

In trying to answer these worrisome questions a lot of things have to be considered. For example, who is a citizen? What is the difference between citizenship and indigeneship? Why should other citizens refer to others as non-indigenes, settlers, migrants in other parts of the country and what should be the right of Nigerian citizens? What is the position of the constitution?

National Conference committee members The term “citizen” typically refers to any person who owes allegiance to a sovereign state and thereby receives certain protection within that state.

Section 25 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria expressly stipulated who is a citizen of Nigeria. Citizenship and indigeneship are different terms both theoretically and practically. While indigeneship is a natural link between a person and a geographical location (his ancestral home) where he traces his roots through a blood lineage and genealogy that puts him in contact with his kin and kindred, citizen is a man-made arrangement that seeks to confer on a person certain rights that are enjoyed by all persons in a certain geographical location.

Again, chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution outlines the Fundamental Rights of all Nigerians, including the right to be free from discrimination, while Section 41(1) gives every citizen the right to “move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof.” Section 43 guarantees every citizen “the right to acquire and own immovable property anywhere in Nigeria.”

There are no constitutional provisions that make these rights dependent on indigene status.

Indigeneship rights on the other hand are largely cultural, ancestral and genealogical.

Indigeneship should not be confused with naturalisation under immigration law whereby an alien may become a citizen of a country after residing in the host

country for certain years.

In Nigeria, it is a known fact that no Igbo or Hausa man can claim to be a Yoruba man even if he spends 60 years or more in Yoruba land.

He cannot lay claim to the cocoa farm or other resources in Yoruba land. The same treatment will apply to a Yoruba and Hausa man who resides in Eastern Nigeria for several years. They cannot claim to be Ijaw or Igbo nor lay claim to the oil in the region. Yoruba and Igbo people residing in Hausa land can also not claim to be Hausa nor lay claim to any resources in the north no matter how many years they reside there.

In 2010, the House of Representatives sought to deal with the problem when Hon. Sama’ila Mohammed (ANPP, Plateau State) sponsored a Bill for an Act, which would give Nigerians the right to be indigenes of any local government area in the country if that person or the person’s parents

“

migrated to that local government area before October 1 1960. The Bill also sought to restrict the authority for the issuance of ‘indigeneship’ certificates to the Ministry of Internal Affairs instead of the current practice where it can only be issued by states and local government councils.

Another effort to address this issue is the latest proposed amendment to the 1999 Constitution concerning the insertion of Indigene Clause in the constitution which will confer indigenous status on any citizen of the country, who has lived in an area for 10 years, thus making the visitor an indigene of host community.

But how far can this go in addressing the indigeneship/ settler cankerworm that has eaten deep into the fabric of our national unity?

The denial of the rights of many Nigerians residing in places other

than their homeland has enormous consequences on national cohesion, it is imperative that the National Assembly through the constitution review exercise redefine the status and character of the Nigerian citizenship.

The constitution amendment should clearly state that Nigerians have inalienable right of residence, to contest for public office, own land, have access to social benefits such as employment and scholarship in any part of the country.

In this way, Nigerians will mould a spirit of accommodation among themselves, thereby fostering the much needed national integration and cohesion for development to take place.

However, dealing with citizenship challenges in Nigeria will require a change of mindset.

For this to happen, massive civic education and reorientation campaign is imperative.

In Nigeria, it is a known fact that no Igbo or Hausa man can claim to be a Yoruba man even if he spends 60 years or more in Yoruba land. He cannot lay claim to the cocoa farm or other resources in a Yoruba land. The same treatment will apply to Yoruba and Hausa man who resides in Eastern Nigeria for several years. They cannot claim to be Ijaw or Igbo nor lay claim to the oil in the region. Yoruba and Igbo people residing in Hausa land can also not claim to be Hausa nor lay claim to resources in the north no matter how many years they reside there.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 5

Feature

FG procures N11 billion equipment to hack phones

T

he Nigeria Police, the State Security Service (SSS) and the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT) are, on behalf of the Nigerian government, possibly hacking Nigerians’ phones and listening to conversations.

The three agencies are able to do this with the aid of an over N11 billion sophisticated equipment procured and installed for them by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Knowing what Nigerians are discussing over the telephone was too important a necessity for the government that it awarded two different contracts for the same purpose in less than two months interval.

On August 31, 2010, less than six months after he became acting president, Jonathan awarded an approximately N6billion contract to an Israeli-owned but Abuja-based security firm, V & V Nigeria Limited, for the “Procurement of strategic GSM Tracking System for the Nigeria Police and expansion/upgrade of the existing system with the DSS.” The project, awarded to the contractor by the Ministry of Police Affairs, was jointly hosted by the Nigeria Police and Nigeria Communication Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), under the Nigeria Police Reform Programme.

Less than two months after – October 21, 2010 – another N2.61 billion contract was awarded by the same Ministry of Police Affairs “for the procurement of Strategic GSM Tracking and Interception Systems for the Department of State Services, under the Nigeria Police Reform.”

This other contract, which appears a duplicate of the first, was awarded to a British security firm, Gamma TSE Limited, which, according to the information on its website, “manufactures highly specialized surveillance vehicles and integrated surveillance systems, helping government agencies collect data and communicate it to key decision-makers for timely decisions to be made.”

The two clearly similar projects were however neither budgeted for nor listed among contracts approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2010. They were also not captured in the government’s budget implementation reports for that year.

There is also no indication that the contracts complied with Nigeria’s public procurement law, which requires competitive bidding for government contracts of that magnitude.

Yet there was a separate project in the 2010 budget by the Nigeria Police Force (not the Ministry of Police Affairs) for “the procurement of GSM interception and tracking equipment installed in 10 configured vehicles (security/criminal intelligence)” for which N2.5billion was budgeted.

It is not clear whether this other project was executed at the time, but it was also not captured in the budget implementation report as well as FEC approvals for the year.

Insiders at the State Security Service, the Nigerian Police and the NIGCOMSAT said while Gamma TSE delivered on the contract awarded to it, they were not sure that V & V, linked to a top politician from the South-

IGP Abba

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Minister of Communications, Johnson

There is also no indication that the contracts complied with Nigeria’s public procurement law, which requires competitive bidding for government contracts of that magnitude.

South, performed satisfactorily.

Gamma TSE could not be reached for comments. Repeated telephone calls to its London office were neither answered nor returned.

V & V also declined to comment when contacted by PREMIUM TIMES. The official, who answered the call made to the company’s Abuja office, directed all enquiries on the project to the Ministry of Police Affairs.

But the spokesperson for the Ministry of Police Affairs, James Odaudu, also declined comments, just like his counterpart at NIGCOMSAT, Sonny Aragba-Akpore. Both officials said they should not be expected to divulge details about security-related installations.

Details about these new surveillance contracts emerged about 22 months after PREMIUM TIMES exposed a similar $40 million surveillance contract the administration secretly, also in open violation of lawful contracting procedures, awarded to an Israeli firm, Elbit Systems, with headquarters in Haifa.

At the time, Nigerian rights activists considered the project one of the most farreaching policies ever designed in the country’s history to invade the privacy of citizens.

The clandestine programme allows the government spy on citizens’ computers and Internet communications and emails under the guise of intelligence gathering and national security.

Embarrassed by the widespread national outrage that arose after this newspaper exclusively exposed the secret contract, the presidency had summoned the management of Elbit Systems for a meeting to explain why the contract should not be revoked after it allegedly breached a confidential clause in the contract.

In May 2013, the House of Representatives asked the federal government to suspend the contract, saying it was awarded in breach of the Fiscal Responsibility Act and that the deployment of such spy equipment would violate citizens’ constitutional rights.

The House then ordered the immediate suspension of the project to allow its

Committees on Information and Computer Technology; Human Rights and National Security, to conduct an inquiry.

The House is however yet to make the outcome of its enquiry public, and the project has since gone ahead. Intelligence sources say the Internet Spy device has since come alive.

The spying on telephone and Internet communications of citizens is continuing despite the country not having any law in place to regulate such undertakings by the nation’s security agencies.

The Cybercrime Bill 2014, which allows a measure of communication interception, is yet to be passed into law by the National Assembly.

Part 3 Section 22 of the Bill, which deals with Interception of electronic communications, says: “Where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that the content of any electronic communication is reasonably required for the purposes of a criminal investigation or proceedings, a Judge may on the basis of information on oath: (a) order a service provider, through the application of technical means to collect, record, permit or assist competent authorities with the collection or recording of content data associated with specified communications transmitted by means of a computer system; or (b) authorize a law enforcement officer to collect or record such data through application or technical means.”

However, the bill, initiated by the presidency, was passed in December by the Senate but it only scaled second reading in the House of Representatives and was referred to the House committees on justice and information for further scrutiny.

When eventually passed by both chambers, it would be harmonised and then sent to the President for assent. premiumtimesng.com

Page 6

Nigerian Troops recapture more towns in Yobe, Adamawa

By Patrick Andrew Less than 24 hours President Goodluck Jonathan visited Nigerian troops in Adamawa and Borno states, the troops have Friday liberated two more towns from Boko Haram clutches.

According to a press release signed by the Director Defence Information, Major General Chris Olukolade, troops have finally routed terrorists from Bara, the Headquarters of Gulani Local Government Area of Yobe State and Gulag, the Headquarters of Madagali Local Government Area of Adamawa State in the early hours of today, Friday.

“The fierce fighting that preceded the clearing of towns and other communities resulted in appreciable casualties on the terrorists, the capture of some of them, the recovery and destruction of arms, thousands of assorted rounds ammunition as well as vehicles and other equipment including; Anti-Aircraft Guns, General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMGs), Grenades, Multi-barrel bombs, Multibarrel Grenade Launchers, rifles and mortar guns.

“Other locations also cleared in the course of the two days operation include, Shikah, Fikayel, Tetebah, Buza, Kamla and Bumsa”.

Also the Defence Headquarters posted on its official twitter, @ DefenceinfoNG. Some of the tweets read: “We have also flushed out Terrorists from #Gulag, #Madagali LGA HQ in #Adamawa state, earlier today. #VictoryForNigeri.

“After 2 Days of intense operations, troops have finally routed terrorists from #BARA, Gulani LGA in Yobe.

“Many Assorted Arms, Ammunition and Vehicles recovered or destroyed.

Cordon and Search OPs #now in #Gulag and #Bara #VictoryForNigeria.”

Jonathan mourns Gimba

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan has extended heartfelt condolences to the family of Alhaji Abubakar Gimba over the death if their patriarch, the late writer and former President of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

According to a statement from his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, Jonathan extended heartfelt condolences to the deceased’s family, friends and associates as they mourn the literary icon who has left behind a legacy of notable works such as Witness to Tears, Sunset for a Mandarin, Trails of Sacrifice and Innocent Victims.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

News No respite for Boko Haram, Jonathan declares

By Lawrence Olaoye

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan has said there would no respite for the Boko Haram insurgents as he expressed the confidence that the troop would maintain momentum they have built up in ongoing operations with the determination to rapidly recover more occupied territory from the terrorist group.

Speaking at an audience with the outgoing French Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Jacques Champagne De Labriolle, Jonathan said that the officers and men of the Nigerian Army he met on the frontlines in Borno and Adamawa states

yesterday were in very high spirits, well prepared and determined to successfully complete their operations against Boko Haram.

He said “We have already recovered much territory and very soon our troops will clear the terrorists out of other areas not presently under our control.”

While welcoming a congratulatory message from France President Francois Hollande to Nigeria for recent successes of its armed forces against Boko Haram, Jonathan restated Nigeria’s appreciation of France’s unwavering support for Nigeria and its neighbours in the fight against terrorism.

The President particularly commended his French counterpart for organising the Paris Summit of Heads of State of Nigeria, Benin Republic, Cameroon, Niger and Chad in May 2014 to foster greater regional cooperation against terrorism and insurgency.

He pledged that beyond the ongoing military campaign in the North East, Nigeria will continue to implement all agreements reached at the summit to ensure lasting peace and security within its borders and in neighbouring countries.

Jonathan also seized the opportunity of the audience with Labriolle to reassure the international community of his

firm commitment to free, fair and credible polls in Nigeria next month.

The President wished the outgoing ambassador well in his future endeavours and urged him to always be a “good ambassador of Nigeria’’.

In his remarks, Ambassador Labriolle said that France was “confident in the future of Nigeria and its ability to continue playing a huge role in Africa and world affairs”.

The ambassador also expressed delight at improved trade and economic ties between Nigeria and France in the last three years, noting that over 250 French companies are currently operating in Nigeria.

L-R- Ekiti State Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice, Mr. Owoseyi Ajayi, Chairman, National Human Rights Commission (NhRC), Prof.

Chidi Odinkalu and Executive Secretary NHRC, Prof. Ben Angwe during the Response of Ekiti state government , to the alleged abuse of Human rights in the state, held at NHRC office, yesterday in Abuja, Photo : Justin Imo-Owo

Niger Delta warlords withdraw war threats

By Patrick Andrew with agency report

F

ormer Niger Delta militants yesterday recanted earlier threats to cause trouble if President Goodluck Jonathan loses the forthcoming Presidential election, stating that Nigerians should voluntarily vote for President Jonathan for a second term in office.

The militant leaders, who begged Nigerians to ignore hate campaigns against the President, said individuals should be elected on merit not tribal or religious sentiments.

They argued that based on President Jonathan’s positive impact on the economy and his developmental strides in the country during his first term, he deserves re-election.

The leaders, under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace and Cultural Development Initiatives (LPCDI), said the President had done well in the areas of education, power, infrastructural development and security.

The group’s National Coordinator, Pastor Reuben Wilson, decried campaigns of calumny and violent utterances hurled at the President by

politicians.

“We resolved to call on Nigerians, particularly eligible voters to rate the candidates for the presidential election based on performance and eligibility.

President Goodluck Jonathan has done well and he should be voted in by Nigerians for second term.

They should assess him based on performance and not the region he comes from”.

28 Policemen killed by politicians in February - NHRC

T

he Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Dr. Chidi Anselem Odinkalu has called on President Goodluck Jonathan and Gen Muhammadu Buhari to restrain their supporters from killing innocent people and policemen ahead of the general elections in the country.

He said that in February

alone, over 28 policemen have been killed by politicians.

Speaking in Abuja when the Ekiti State Government and the Peoples Democratic Party in the state came to file their response to the allegations by the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ekiti that the State Governor, Ayo Fayose was sponsoring the killing of opposition members in

the state, Odinkalu said that the commission would look into the allegations dispassionately.

Executive Secretary of the commission, Prof. Bem Angwe, welcomed the delegation, noting that the commission was home for all Nigerians irrespective of tribe or religion.

He said: “We are happy that you have chosen to come to

respond to the allegations against Dr. Ayodele Fayose. Upon the receipt of the petition we had dispatched an invitation to the governor and the PDP Chairman in Ekiti State. We are happy that you are here to represent the governor and that the PDP Chairman in Ekiti is here in person.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 7

Cover

Interim National Government:

In whose interest?

President Jonathan

By Patrick Andrew

A

bout 22 years ago, the Interim National Government (ING) suddenly found its way into the political and socio-economic dictum of Nigerians. Well, it was General Ibrahim Babangida’s contraption, following the botched Fourth Republic when the acclaimed freest and fairest presidential election was inexplicably annulled by the military president.

With that appalling act, his already discredited regime became even more disreputable such that IBB literarily fled the Aso Villa to Minna and subsequently, into irritating oblivion. Though his contraption was dispensed with by the dark gogglewearing General Sani Abacha, memories of the short contraption still linger, alas not pleasantly. The Chief Ernest Shonekan-led ING lasted only three months from August 26, 1993 to November 17, 1993 when Abacha dismantled that ill-gutted, militarised democratic institution to return the military to full control.

Sadly, not a few lauded the termination of the ING because they had seen in it an extension of a military imposition and were therefore uncomfortable with the arrangement, arguing that it did not by any trace of imagination reflect democratic

“I am alarmed that the issue of Interim National Government has been given underserved prominence in our national discourse.

Interim National Government is alien to the 1999 Constitution as amended.

Therefore, those calling for it are calling for an exercise in futility” — S e n a t e President David Mark

complexion.

However, 14 years later, the ING became an issue of public discourse under the Olusegun Obasanjo-led government when it was strongly rumoured that Obasanjo whose glandulous attempts to secure a nonconstitutional third term, had sought to employ it as an alternative government, with himself at the helm of affairs.

First, some prominent political figures started calling for the introduction of the ING. President of the Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), General Adeyinka Adebayo (rtd), led the charge, followed shortly by Chief Sunny Odogwu and subsequently by Chief Emeka Ezeife and a horde of others.

Curiously, Obasanjo remained reticent on this anti-democratic clamour for an interim national government, which was totally uncalled for and unacceptable.

Though elections were only months away, INEC had, in the usual style of that administration, been stifled of funds.

INEC claimed that it had started preparations for the 2007 general elections, but the voters’ registration had not commenced. Election materials were not procured, parties had neither nominated candidates nor had campaigns started.

There were no election issues, that year’s elections seemed vague, it was inexact and strewn with several booby traps. Many

Gen. Obasanjo

commentators saw that as deliberate political contraptions meant to truncate the democratic order. Yet, the clamour persisted and assumed a well-timed, systematic and consistent call and it became obvious that it was simply the hands of Esua but the voice of Jacob. Political watchers were aghast.

Clearly, a kite was being flown and it meant something was about to happen in Nigeria’s political firmament. Still, Obasanjo acted deaf and continued as if nothing was amiss.

Then President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Adams Oshiomole, during a Congress at Agura Hotel, Abuja, likened the callers of the ING as coup plotters and demanded for their arrest and prosecution.

The defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) cautioned Nigerians against complacency, warning that a plot to subvert the 2007 general elections and impose an interim national government instead of an elected government was in furtherance of the failed tenure elongation of President Obasanjo.

The party emphasized that the imposition would be worse than a military coup and cautioned that it would cause unprecedented chaos in the country if allowed to materialise.

“The Atiku campaign organisation strongly condemns any attempt by unpatriotic individuals or organisations

to plunge this country into a needless political crisis by foisting an illegal interim government on the country. The 1999 constitution, which is the legal basis of our democracy, does not recognise an interim government.

“Therefore, promoters of such a government are unpatriotic and utterly irresponsible. The constitution is clear and unambiguous about the transition process from one administration to another through credible and transparent elections. The body charged with such a responsibility is INEC. “We would also like to note that there is no crisis in Nigeria as a result of which elections cannot hold. If there is sincerity of purpose, the courage to do the right thing and if adequate resources are made available to INEC and other institutions, credible elections can be held within the time available,” the chief spokesman for the vice president, Malam Garba Shehu, said in a statement.

Eventually, Obasanjo had to go and the ING never came into existence.

Eight years on, agitation for ING has resurfaced. The major political parties, the PDP and the APC have accused each other of plotting the unconstitutional and illegal contraption under a democratic dispensation.

Contd on Page 8

PAGE 8

Cover

Contd from Page 7

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC said: “It is an open secret that their emissary is touring the north, meeting with emirs and others to push for an interim government.

It has also been revealed how they plan to use the National Assembly to seek tenure elongation.’’ ‘‘We believe that the APC’s unconscionable alarm is part of its characteristic and habitual propaganda through which it has over and over again imposed its skewed agenda on many undiscerning Nigerians. The truth is that they cannot win the forthcoming elections and they know it. That is why they have come up with the allegation of Interim National Government. Those who want the ING are the APC and some elements that are secretly behind their party,” Femi Fani-Kayode, the PDP campaign organisation spokesman said in a swift response.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo loudly accused President Jonathan of planning an ING on February 14, 2015. It was not the first time he had made that allegation. At his book launch, he had hinted that the Jonathan government was plotting tenure elongation through an interim government.

“Either the president, following his own grand plan, or his aides and associates, are working a script. They are playing a script which must not get his endorsement if not initiated by him. It looks to me that the president is trying to play Gbagbo. All reasonable persuasion and pleading was rebuffed by him and he unleashed horror in that country until nemesis caught up with him. I believe that we may be seeing the repeat of Gbabgo or what I called Gbagbo saga here in Nigeria, I hope not,” Obasanjo said in clear declaration that Jonathan was surreptitiously plotting to introduce the ING in order to remain in office.

Last December, the Minister of Police Affairs, Jelili Adesiyan, had disclosed that there was a grand plan by Obsanjo and Buhari, both retired Generals of the Nigerian Army to foist an interim government on the people. Adesiyan spoke at the launch of a book titled, “Watch the Watcher” written by Yinka Odumakin, which was in reaction to Obasanjo’s book, ‘My Watch’ Neither the political parties nor Obasanjo was the first to return the ING into the consciousness of Nigerians. Pastor Tunde Bakare did. The pastor of the Latter Rain Assembly in a sermon delivered at the first Sunday service of the year 2015 and titled: “The Gathering Storm and Avoidable Shipwreck: How to Avoid Catastrophic Euroclydon,” had advised the president to invoke Section 135(3) of the 1999 Constitution and suspend the February general elections.

The former CPC vice presidential candidate in the 2011 elections had hinged his argument on the growing insurgency in the northeast and some isolated cases in other parts of the north, spate of kidnappings in the south east, south south and armed robbery in the south west. Warning against what he called an “imminent storm, threatening to hit our nation”, Pastor Bakare adduced some suggestions that he felt could be adopted to address the problem.

Specifically, Bakare had argued that irrespective of who eventually wins the elections between the incumbent President Jonathan and former Head of State, General Buhari, violence could hardly be avoided across the country, after the results are announced.

“I must state that the proposal for suspension of elections is not with a view to giving the president an avenue for undue tenure elongation, but for the purpose of

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

In whose interest?

Gen. Buhari building a coalition that will bring lasting solutions to our problems,” he said, and went on to suggest the creation of a ‘Transitional Government’.

“In suspending the elections, to gain the support of all stakeholders, the president must not act with the intention to seek re-election. Rather, he should, within the period, commit himself to building a nonpartisan coalition comprising of major stakeholders and competent statesmen from each geopolitical zone. This coalition, headed by the president, will constitute a combined force that will tackle terrorism and address what I have earlier referred to as the fundamentals, within a time frame of two years or less,” he submitted.

Clearly, Bakare suggested a ‘Transitional Government’ in other words an interim government to be headed by the president and which also ruled out the president from

“

participating in the election the interim structure will midwife.

The suggestion and its implication should it be adopted sparked public outcry from the parties and continued through to the days before INEC finally announced the shift in dates of the elections. The APC in words and posture believed that the eventual shift was part of the PDP’s ploy to force tenure elongation and nothing to do with the electoral body’s dismal distribution of PVCs and insecurity in the northeast.

Prior to the shift in dates of the polls, former PDP chairman, now an APC chieftain, Dr. Audu Ogbeh, claimed that the postponement was an affirmation of moves to have an interim government.

“Does this not suggest that we should expect high level theatrical manipulations as the six weeks get closer to convince us that another six weeks will be necessary?

I think it is a ploy by the parties to attempt to distract opponents. We know politicians can do anything to distract and discredit their opponents.

Isn’t this a ploy to ensure that we enter May 29 without an election on grounds of nationwide instability?

“Doesn’t this then give credence to rumours, and indeed, the declaration in a rowdy press conference four days ago by Dr. Doyin Okupe that they have no intention of handing over to General Buhari? Isn’t this leading to the strongly rumoured ING? It is time for all Nigerians to take heed that there are very many stormy and dark clouds ahead.”

Before then though, Speaker of House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, had while receiving the newly elected leadership of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), warned against the postponement of the elections and contemplation of the ING, saying there is no such provision in the Nigerian Constitution.

“You cannot postpone elections. There is no such provision in the constitution. You cannot form an interim government. The only option is to conduct election; an election that must be free, fair and credible,” he said, stressing that rather than use insecurity in the northeast as an excuse to shift the polls, the government should intensify military efforts to overrun Boko Haram.

Senate President, David Mark, seemed terrified by the incessant claims and counterclaims and made haste to disassociate the upper legislative chamber from any plan to install an unconstitutional ING on the people. “This Senate is committed to the provisions of our constitution which we swore to protect and we will not do anything to sabotage the democratic process. It is important to note that on May 29, 2015, a democratically elected government, through a free, fair, transparent and credible election will be sworn in,” he said.

Still, the rumour persisted, groups openly talked about it as if they had just finished a meeting where modalities for the interim government was deliberated and adopted forcing Mark to reiterate that “These are not ordinary times in our nation; there is palpable tension in the land.

Comments and even the body language of the political class further exacerbate the tension. As statesmen and women, we must rise to the occasion and help reduce this tension.

“We must refrain from acts that will aggravate this already charged atmosphere across the country. I urge you, my distinguished bosses, to be dedicated to our constitutional duties as you have always done,” he said in apparent response to utterances of some senators and former President Obasanjo.

The presidential spokesman, Rueben Abati, then stepped on the pedal, “Chief Obasanjo’s plot with others within and outside the country to thwart the general elections and foist an unconstitutional Interim National Government, which he hopes to head is well known to us, but by the Grace of God Almighty, his odious plan to return to power through the back door will fail woefully. The vast majority of Nigerians who are patriotic and right-thinking cannot be fooled by his antics,” he said.

The National Solidarity Alliance (NASA) also stepped into the fray and described the subtle campaign for an Interim National Government by some persons as moves to stop President Goodluck Jonathan’s reelection bid.

“Another issue of concern that NASA deliberated on is the ongoing subtle campaign for an interim government in order to deny Jonathan of his anticipated victory in the March 28 presidential election. The concept of interim government is unknown to the 1999 constitution as Contd on Page 9

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 9

In whose interest?

Contd from Page 8

amended. Therefore, on no account shall this unconstitutional interregnum be acceptable to our fellow Nigerians,” Saidu Samaila Sambawa, former Sports Minister and the Chairman of NASA, a body of former ministers and ambassadors, said.

General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who is the Chairman of the Peace Committee, made up of security chiefs, party and religious leaders, dismissed rumours linking him with the leadership of the ING and emphatically stated that going

by President Jonathan’s promise, elections will be held as scheduled, and the May 29 handover date remains sacrosanct.

“We have been meeting to review where we stopped at the last meeting. We are aware that the election dates have been shifted. There are a lot of rumours on whether there are plans to form an interim government. We have heard from the president that election will hold in March. He has also said that there are no plans to have an interim government. We are appealing to Nigerians to focus their minds on exercising their rights on election day.

“During the meeting here we were fortunate to have the chairman of the APC and representative of the PDP chairman. We are appealing to our youths to ensure that they are not used as thugs during the elections.”

However, talks about the ING have refused to abate. This may have compelled the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), to douse the tension by explaining that there is no provision for an ING in the 1999 Constitution.

“My attention has been drawn to recent calls in the media by some Nigerians for the constitution of an ING to ostensibly midwife the 2015 general election to usher in a new democratic government. It has, therefore, become necessary to correct this misconception and refocus the citizenry on the path of constitutionalism and democratic tenets consistent with our quest for democratic consolidation in Nigeria.

“For the avoidance of doubt, it is pertinent to state that the framers of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria did not envisage the constitution of ING to superintend over the affairs of government. It is therefore not surprising to observe that no provision for ING was made in the constitution.

The contraption called ‘Interim National Government’ is therefore alien to Nigeria’s constitutional framework and the arrangement should not be promoted by well– meaning Nigerians under any guise or circumstance.

“Nigerians are therefore enjoined to continue to rely on the constitution, which contains adequate provisions on how

NSA Dasuki

“

Pastor Bakare

Eight years on, agitation for ING has resurfaced. The major political parties the PDP and the APC have accused each other of plotting unconstitutional and illegal ING under a democratic dispensation.

the democratic process can be activated to elect their leaders from time to time.”

Like the Peace Committee that urged Nigerians to desist from insinuations capable of derailing the democratic train, NASA equally advised that “We, therefore, call on all wellmeaning Nigerians to resist any attempt to subvert our democracy.

NASA invites all Nigerians, the international community and civil society organisations to cooperate with INEC and security agencies to ensure a credible, free and fair election come March 28 and April 11.

Emmanuel Ibru believes that the talks about ING was a strategy adopted by some political parties to distract others. “I think it is a ploy by the parties to attempt to distract opponents. We know politicians can do anything to distract and discredit their opponents,” he said, noting that it should not be allowed to distract Nigerians from the main issue: March 28 and April 11 elections.

However, Jude Ifezue sees it from a different dimension.

“Look Obasanjo is somewhat mischievous. Because he sought a third term and failed he believes

every other person harbours the same ambition that he had.

He thinks Jonathan would try to seek tenure elongation from the backdoor. “You know that Obasanjo had wanted the ING in 2007 when his third term bid was rejected by lawmakers despite attempts to arm-twist them to allow the unconstitutional third term sail through. He also wants to discredit Jonathan who it seems has repeatedly refused to budge to his self-centred demands. I don’t see Jonathan or any reasonable person insisting on a contraption that has no basis,” he said, adding that some politicians were deliberately heating up the polity.

Musa Abdullahi, who resides in Kubwa, does not consider the ING as a mere rumour. “Look there is no smoke without fire. True, the opposition party may want to score cheap points against the ruling party by rubbing mud on them.

That is allowed in politics. But in the Nigerian context, when people start talking about a seemingly baseless thing one needs to be alert because something is in the offing.”

Perhaps, Mark’s caution should be taken seriously. The Senate president had urged his

colleagues to trade cautiously when commenting on the interim government because it is both illegal and unconstitutional.

Interim National Government has no place in the constitution and under a democratic setting, there is no such provision because every elective office is contested for and occupants must get the mandate of the electorate.

Democratic governance is unlike the military government that is governed by decrees, the present democratic government derives its powers from the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria wherein Section1 (1) states that “this constitution is supreme and shall be the binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Further, Section1 (2) states that: “the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed, nor shall any person or group of persons take control of government of Nigeria or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this constitution.”

The constitution makes provisions for the office of the president, as well as the office of the governor of a state through

Cover

an election to be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The constitution under which the present democratic system operates never made any provision for an interim government and therefore its adoption would be unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.

From the foregoing, it would be foolhardy for any person or party to attempt to foist the contraption on Nigerians, according to the Deputy Director of the APC campaign organisation, DR Fasakin, who dismissed the PDP’s allegation that it was a ploy by the APC to discredit its impending victory at the polls.

“It must have dawned on Nigerians that the PDP doesn’t have any answer to the multifarious problems plaguing Nigeria and that is why it has resorted to mudslinging and character assassination.

If Buhari was planning an interim government, why would he be running for president in the first place? I think sanity has taken leave from them,” Dele Alake, a member of the Buhari Campaign Organisation, said.

Heaping the blame on Obasanjo, the PDP said, “We know very well that it is in pursuit of this nefarious plot that the former president continues to sow the seeds of discord and crises in the polity by purporting to remain in the ruling party while openly consorting with the opposition, endorsing its candidates and predicting victory for opposition candidates in a manner most unbecoming of a supposed elder statesman.”

Even then, Abati assured Nigerians that Jonathan’s commitment to democracy in all its ramifications “remains constant and that he will never be party to the use of unlawful means to remain in office or gain political advantage over his opponents.

The president stands by his commitment, which he reaffirmed on national television that on his watch, all elections in Nigeria, will be free, fair and credible.”

Can the president be trusted?

Depending on one’s political affiliation the answer varies.

Nonetheless, in a democracy, the right of the people to choose who leads them cannot be compromised, it is the essence of democracy and only expressed through the ballot and not a contraption which the interim government represents.

Nigerians can’t be fooled by any contraption; they have the capacity and capability of choosing the kind of leaders they want. “No person(s) should think he knows or like Nigeria more than all other Nigerians. ING is illegal, undemocratic, satanic, retrogressive, counter-productive, a political contraption, it is evil and not in the overall interest of the Nigerian state,” Rauf Ibrahim said.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 10

News

councilor arrested with Benue Assembly summons PDP 21 PVCs in Katsina officials over non-payment A of salary From Lawal Sa’idu Funtua, Katsina

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

W

orried by the continuous nonpayment of workers’ salaries, the Benue State House of Assembly yesterday demanded that Governor Gabriel Suswam should offer valid explanations over the general financial status of the state.

The Speaker of the House, Hon. Terhile Ayua, who said this at a heated plenary, decried widespread allegation that the state is broke, as the situation had lead to owing of salaries of state workers for several months.

Consequently, the speaker

summoned the Commissioner of finance, Omadachi Oklobia, the Chairman of Benue Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Gabriel Asen, and the Special Adviser to the Governor on Local Government, Solomon Wombo, to appear before it next Tuesday.

The Assembly also ordered the government functionaries to submit all relevant details of the federation account accruing to the state, financial expenditure, internally generated revenue and the cash flow and disbursement to local governments.

The legislators unanimously moved a motion to verify the claims and discover the circumstances surrounding the

downturn of the financial status of the state.

The member representing Ohimini constituency, Mr. James Ochojila, raised the motion calling on the governor to furnish the legislative arm with all financial details of the state. The motion was seconded by all the 23 members of the house.

Benue workers have been lamenting over the nonpayment of salaries for over four months.

A situation which has caused great hardship resulting in most of them borrowing to survive, while others cannot even pay their children and ward school fees as well as house rent.

n elected PDP councilor , Alhaji Ahmad Narayya, representing Dungun Agala in Baure Local Government Area of Katsina State has been arrested with 21 voter cards he allegedly purchased from some voters in the area.

The Katsina Police Command spokesman, DSP Aminu Sadiq, confirmed to our correspondent that someone was arrested with the PVCs, but according to him “I could not confirm on which political party he belong. We are still investigating”.

However, our correspondent gathered that the councillor was arrested by some vigilant youth in the area when the culprit visited a business centre to photocopy the purchased voter cards.

A source in the area told our correspondent on condition of anonymity that when arrested the councilor confessed to purchasing the cards from their owners at the costs of between N15, 000 to N20, 000.

The source further disclosed that it was after the arrest that they moved him straight to the Katsina Police Command where he would be interrogated.

However in a swift reaction, the All Progressives Congress, APC, deputy chairman, Katsina state, Alhaji Abdulqadir Nasir has disclosed to newsmen in an interview that after the arrest of the culprit they quickly mobilized to the police headquarters in Katsina to see for themselves what actually happened.

He said “when we visited the headquarters we met the Deputy Commissioner who assured us that the culprit will be sent to court. But to our dismay while leaving the headquarters we realized that the culprit left the premises before us”.

Nasir noted that the conduct of the PDP councilor and the police violates the peace pact signed by political parties to avoid anything that could generate tension in the state, calling on the police to be non-partisan and ensure the culprit is punished.

Police corporal kills Squadron Commander in Bauchi From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi he Squadron Commanding Officer, Mopol 10 PMF Bauchi, SP Chris L Eza was shot dead by Police Corporal while on routine visit at the stop and search point along Ahmadu Bello way, Bauchi.

The Bauchi state Police Command Public Relations Officer, Dsp Haruna Mohammed confirmed the incident to newsmen in Bauchi.

The Command PPRO said, “The incident occurred yesterday 26/2/2015 at about 11: 20 pm. The Commanding officer Mopol 10 PMF Bauchi, SP Chris L Eza was shot by a Police Corporal while on routine visit at the stop and search point along Ahmadu Bello way, Bauchi”.

According to him, the victim was rushed to ATBU Teaching Hospital, Bauchi where he was certified dead by a medical doctor and his corpse deposited at the mortuary for postmortem examination.

He said, the scene was visited by the Commissioner of Police, Mohammed K. Mohammed and his management team.

Meanwhile, DSP Haruna said the suspect was arrested and detained while the commissioner of Police has ordered for a full scale investigation into the matter.

T

Members of the Nigerian Medical Association, Rivers State chapter, on a peaceful protest over the murder of their colleague, Dr Sam Okpara, yesterday in Port Harcourt

Ebonyi Assembly serves Elechi notice

T

he Ebonyi State House of Assembly has agreed to serve an impeachment notice on Governor Martin Elechi, after accusing the governor of corruption and gross misconduct.

A motion for the notice to be served on the governor was approved after the acting Majority Leader of the House, Francis Nwifruru, yesterday read details accusing Mr. Elechi of undermining the integrity of the House and committing fraudulent acts.

The Ebonyi Assembly had last Wednesday, February 18, set up a panel to investigate allegations of financial misappropriation against the governor and some of his aides.

The assembly took the decision following

petitions it received from groups in the state, including Ebonyi Integrity Group.

In one of the petitions, the embattled governor, his son, Elechi Elechi, and Edward Nkwegu, among others, were accused of contract inflation and illegal use of state funds for private gains.

Before the probe panel was constituted, the House Leader, Ikechukwu Ogbu, had read the petitions written against the governor on the floor of the assembly.

The petitions were adopted through a motion sponsored by Ogbonnaya Nwifuru, a member representing Izzi West State constituency.

In his contribution, the Minority Leader, Enyi Enyi, described the allegations against Mr. Elechi as shocking, adding that the governor risked

impeachment if found guilty.

Other lawmakers who spoke that Wednesday urged the assembly to invoke all its constitutional powers to deal with the issue.

They, however, pointed out that those accused would be given the opportunity to defend themselves before the house takes necessary action.

Shortly after debates on the petitions were concluded, the Speaker, Chukwuma Nwazunku, called for a voice vote and members unanimously agreed that the governor be investigated.

The assembly, thereby, set up a special panel headed by Odefa Odefa, a member representing Onicha South, to further investigate the allegations and report its findings to the assembly.

PEOPLES DAILY Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015 Peoples DailyWeekend, WEEKEND, SATURDAY — SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 21 - 22, 2015

PAGE 11

UNICEF donates 5,800 school bags, 15 tents to Adamawa T

News

FG drafts 134,000 NYSC members for polls …As Jonathan approves corps Presidents’ award

By Albert Akota

From Umar Dankano, Yola

I

n its resolve to boost education, UNICEF has distributed 5,800 school bags and 15 ultra modern tents for onward distribution to displaced children of school age under the Safe School Initiative.

While handing over the materials to Adamawa State Commissioner of Education, Professor Alikidon Voh, representative of

UNICEF and education specialist from Bauchi zonal office, Maryam Dikwa noted that the gesture was meant to create enabling environment for the teeming displaced children in the state to continue their learning process.

She urged the state government to ensure fair distribution of the materials for the benefit of the teeming displaced pupils.

In his speech,

the commissioner of education in the state Alikidon Voh thanked UNICEF for the intervention adding that it will go a long way at enhancing knowledge among the teeming displaced pupils in the state.

He also promised to use the items for the purpose they were given adding that he will ensure fair and judicious distribution of the items.

In his response, Executive Chairman of

Adamawa State Universal Basic Education Alhaji Bello Dauda Furo said a committee for the distribution of the materials will be formed adding that the materials will be given across the 5 IDP camps in the state.

He said each of the donated bags contains 1 drawing book, one mathematical set, English normal exercise book, 5 pieces of pens among other items.

he federal government will use 134,000 members of the National Youth Service Corps ( NYSC), for the March and April polls, the Director General of the Corps, Brig.

Gen. Johnson Olawumi has disclosed.

He also said President G o o d l u c k Jonathan has approved the 2014 NYSC President’ honours award.

B r i e f i n g journalists in Abuja on Friday, Olawumi explained the NYSC has an

existing MoU with the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, however this year INEC brought a new dimension by asking corps members interested in participating in the election to register online.

He said, “A total of 168,000 m e m b e r s registered online to participate in the election.

We always have batches and the batch 8 of 2014 was supposed to participate in the postponed February polls.

We had trained 34,000 out of

168,000 to use for the February polls” The NYSC DG added that the trained 34,000 corps members have passed out so can’t be used under NYSC and cannot use uniform, a development that informed INEC engaging them as adhoc staff.

Olawumi said the remaining 134,000 corps members will participate actively in the March and April polls.

On the NYSC awards, he said the ceremony is slated for Monday next week following the gracious approval of the President.

Arewa House, seeks collaboration with NTI From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

T

he Arewa House, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria is seeking a working relationship with the National Teachers’ Institute (NTI) to help it deliver on some aspects of its mandates.

Director of the centre Prof. Abdulkadri Adam in company of the Curator of the House- Mallam Usman Sulaiman, and the Programme Coordinator of the House- Alhaji Shaibu Shehu paid a courtesy visit on the NTI DG recently to deliver this intent.

The Director, while putting his organization’s demand before the NTI management, acknowledge the success story of the NTI under the Dr. Aminu Ladan Sharehu led administration, saying his organization is willing to be part of the remarkable story.

Prof. Adam, who was recently appointed as the Director of the Arewa House, informed that the House needs the expertise and professional know how of the NTI in contributing to the educational development of the North in particular and the country in general.

He gave a brief of the

House and said he is determined to resuscitate the Northern Education Summit normally organized by the House.

The Director Said the summit was last organized about six years ago.

Responding, the Director General and Chief Executive of the NTI, Dr. Aminu Ladan Sharehu said the institute is always ready to share its’ experience with individuals and corporate organizations.

He assured the Arewa House that the institute will render all necessary assistant to it as soon as it formally gets the areas the centre wants it assistance.

Tension in Delta over mysterious disappearance of 17 year-old girl Osakhare Erese, Asaba

T

ension has gripped a family in Oleh, the headquarters of Isoko South Local Area of Delta State over the mysterious disappearance of a 17 yearold girl who was last seen a week and some days ago.

It was gathered that the victim’s whereabouts could not be ascertained by the parents who claimed to have left her at home for work.

The parents who later returned home could not

tell where the victim went and when they waited for a while without coming home on the evening of the day reported the matter to the police.

It was also learnt that a search party was organized to look for the victim without success, making the family to believed that she might had fallen victim of suspected ritualists.

Even the community is not at rest as they combed everywhere looking for the missing girl.

Cases of persons who

missed mysteriously are on the increase, last two weeks; we reported the sudden disappearance of a boy and the activities of suspected kidnappers and ritualists who on a daily basis abduct persons who their whereabouts are unknown till date.

When contacted over the matter, Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Celestina Kalu confirmed the receipt of the report of the missing girl at Emede town in Isoko South Council Area.

KEBBI STATE GOVERNMENT CONSTRUCTION OF CHIEF MAGISTRATE COURTS AT YAURI, MAHUTA, GWANDU AND AUGIE.

CONTRACT NO:KBSTB/HC/052/2015 The High Court of Kebbi State intends to undertake construction project for Chief Magistrate Court of Kebbi State is hereby inviting Architectural firms, Builders and similar qualified persons to submit bids for carrying out the said construction works Completed Tenders Documents should be returned to the office of the Chief Registrar High Court of Complex Gwadangwaji on or before Wednesday 1st April, 2015. a. Company profile (if applicable) b. Certificate of Incorporation (if applicable) c. Evidence of Registration with the Tenders Board d. Evidence of Technical, Operation and Management Capabilities e. List of Similar jobs Secured and Completed f. Financial Capability from a reputable Bank g. Current Tax Clearence for 3years.

All bids should be submitted to the office of the: Chief Registrar, Kebbi State High Court of justice Complex Gwadangwaji The Chief Registrar Reserves the right to reject any bid submitted at no cost or liability to the Kebbi State High Court of Justice or Government of Kebbi State Signed Abubakar Siddiq Bello Chief Registrar

Page 12

Photosplash

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Sen. Oluremi Tinubu (5th L) with members of All Progressives Congress, Arewa Community in Lagos Central senatorial district, during their visit to her yesterday  in Lagos

Children fetching water from a well at Liman Katagum district, yesterday in Bauchi State

R-L: Deputy Director, ICT unit, ,INEC Lagos State, Mr Muyiwa Yussuf demonstrating the usage of voter card’ reader (machine) with Governor Babatunde Fashola in Lagos

Victim of the bomb blast at Bauchi road motor park in Jos, receiving treatment, at the Plateau State Specialist Hospital

Mr. and Mrs. Esther Musa Daniel during their wedding ceremony at ECWA, Binawa, Kaduna State, last weekend

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Chatham House: APC slams PDP, Presidency over comments on Buhari

From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

T

he All Progressives Congress (APC) has condemned, in the strongest terms, the needless resort to sheer hysteria by the PDP and the Jonathan administration over the globally-acclaimed appearance of the APC’s presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, at the Chatham House in London on Thursday.

In a statement issued in London on Friday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said even when it was so apparent that the PDP and the Jonathan administration were so stunned and stung by Gen. Buhari’s well-accepted presentation, ​ they could have saved themselves from further disgrace by simply keeping quiet, instead of exposing their inanities. ‘’For the spokesmen of the PDP and the Jonathan Campaign organizations to have rushed to the press to denounce what was a patriotic presentation by a high-regarded Nigerian is not only absurd but a new low, even for those who have lost every sense of propriety in their public actions and pronouncements,’’ it said.

APC said the level of paranoia of the PDP and the

Jonathan administration was so high, even before the General’s presentation that they went to hire some poor folks to protest at the Chatham House over an issue they knew nothing about.

The party said it was just as well that the rent-acrowd show boomeranged on the PDP/Jonathan Administration, when those among the scanty protesters who were interviewed said they did not even know why they have come there, with some of them hiding behind their placards of shame! ‘’The fact that the Jonathan Administration wasted public funds in hiring people to protest against Gen. Buhari’s appearance is another indication of how the commonwealth has been consistently frittered away under the​ clueless and incompetent Jonathan ​Administration,’’ it said, wondering who appropriated the funds that were wasted on the uninformed and disinterested band of protesters.

APC also described as the worst case of double standard for the loudmouths of the PDP and the Jonathan Administration to question the basis for Gen. Buhari’s appearance at the Chatham House, when the same platform was used a few weeks back by the

Administration, which sent National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki there to push for the postponement of the 2015 general elections. ‘’So it is OK for Dasuki to speak at the Chatham House, one of the most important platforms for any statesman, but forbidden for the APC Presidential Candidate to use the same platform? The needless vituperation of the PDP and the Jonathan megaphones against our candidate is precisely the reason the sinking ruling party and the ​failed Administration it sired have become the butt of jokes around the world. ‘’Instead of apologizing for seeking to pull the wool over the eyes of Nigerians by saying that Gen. Buhari went to London for medical treatment, these band of poor propagandists persisted in dancing naked in the public square. What a pity?’’ the party said.

APC hailed Gen. Buhari for his well-crafted, welldelivered and patriotic presentation, and his deft handling of the subsequent question-and-answer session at such a big-league platform as the Chatham House, saying despite the barrage of personal attacks and death wishes by the PDP and its agents, the General’s stock has continued to rise both within and outside Nigeria.

Delta Assembly promises increased funding for tertiary institutions Osakhare Erese, Asaba

D

elta State House of Assembly has promised to appropriate the needed funds to enhance the growth of education in the state-owned tertiary institutions.

The Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation, Hon (Barr) Daniel Mayuku, made the promise when the Commissioner for Higher Education, Mr. Charles Emetulu led top officials of the ministry and heads of various tertiary institutions and parastatals in the state to defend the ministry’s 2015 budget estimates before the committee recently.

Mayuku said the committee

will look into the issue of accreditation and poor internal road network among others in the various institutions, maintaining that all of them have similar challenges.

He called on the commissioner to have a policy of replacement of staff that resign or retired in the institution, but warned against abuse of such arrangement.

Speaking earlier, the Commissioner for Higher Education, Mr. Charles Emetulu said that N5 billion was required for the accreditation of courses alone in the three campuses of the Delta State University, Abraka.

He told the committee that inadequate funding, infrastructure and poor staffing are major challenges

faced by all the tertiary institutions in state.

The Vice Chancellor of the Delta State University, Prof Victor Peretomode, noted that accreditation of courses was a major challenge in the institution, stressing that the Engineering Faculty at Oleh was seriously affected as it lacked the requisite staffing standard set by the Nigeria University Commission (NUC) for accreditation.

Professor Peretomode said the institution was looking at the possibility of getting foreigners from India, Pakistan among others as lecturers to enable the faculty get accreditation and in turn train their staff as Nigeria lacked engineering personnel’s in some fields.

RTEAN to purchase 80 vehicles for drivers

By Usman Shuaibu

N

ational President of the Road Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN), Chief Shehu Musa Isiwale, said arrangements have been concluded to partner with the relevant transportation sector to purchase over 80 vehicles to be sold at a reduced price to the drivers of the association.

Isiwale, who disclosed

this while briefing newsmen in Abuja, pointed out that his leadership, would continue to pursue policies and programmes aimed at satisfying the aspirations of the members of the association.

He said his administration would continue to put in place the needed facilities across the thirty-six states in the country to boost the morale of the members.

He revealed that the facilities

in some training centres had been overstressed, urging the members to make use of the facilities judiciously for the benefit of the association.

The RTEAN president, however, said the empowerment programme of the association had impacted positively on the lives of the unemployed youth, as it was in line with the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan.

PAGE 13

News KEBBI STATE OF NIGERIA

MINISRY OF WORKS AND TRANSPORT, HEADQUARTERS

HALIRU ABDU SECRETARIAT COMPLEX, BIRNIN KEBBI

INVITATION OF BIDS FOR CONTRUCTION OF ROAD IN THE STATE The Ministry of Works and transport on behalf of the State Government invites bids for the construction of Roads within the state.

The road project is:i. Construction of Augie – Zagie – Sokoto State Border Bids shall be submitted in sealed envelope on the bill of engineering measurement and evaluation (BEME) included in the contract documents to be obtained from the office of permanent secretary.

Bids are to be submitted/received until 12:00pm Thursday 5th March, 2015. Additionally bids will be open 6th March, 2015 at the office of the Permanent Secretary by 11.00am.

Successful bidder must:- Show knowledge and understanding of the geographical terrain and other geo-physical features of Kebbi State particularly the specific area of project execution.

- Show clear evidence of execution of similar civil engineering project in the state.

- Show clear records of payment of corporate takes, PAYE, for personnel and employees.

VAT, Kebbi State Tender Board Certificate etc.

- Present clear evidence of having in the employment the requisite civil engineering and other competencies required for the execution of project of this nature.

Successful Contractor shall note:That all contractors who are debarred, suspended or otherwise excluded from or ineligible for participation on the execution of any civil engineering or complex engineering contract in Nigeria may not undertake any activity ion part or full under the project.

The Kebbi State Government reserves the right to reject any or all bids or to waive any informalities in the bidding.

Dr. Isah Muhammad Sama Permanent Secretary For: Hon. Commissioner

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 14

Crime Cycle

Stanley Onyekwere pmlcrimecycle@gmail.com 08138559513

Mortuary attendants in court over missing corpse

Sisters docked for stealing N1.2 m gold

T

wo sisters, Jemila Umar, 22, and Ruth Umar, 18, have appeared before a Shomolu Chief Magistrates’ Court in Lagos State, for allegedly stealing gold valued at N1.2 million.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the two sisters are standing trial on a two-count charge of conspiracy and stealing.

NAN reports that the accused whose addresses and occupations were not disclosed, were alleged to have stolen the gold from one Margret Akpan.

The prosecutor, ASP Akin Adegoke, said the accused allegedly committed the offences on February 1, at about 5.10 p.m., at No. 19, Lower Mayoung Barracks, Yaba in Lagos.

Adegoke said the offences contravened Sections 285 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The accused persons, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The chief magistrate, B.O. Osunsanmi, granted them bail in the sum of N200, 000 each with two credible sureties each in like sum.

She adjourned the case till March 25 for proper trial.

IG Suleiman Abba

F

ive mortuary attendants in Wuse General Hospital have appeared before a Chief Magistrates’ Court, Karu, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), for

Station that the corpse of his late wife, Mrs. Ann Tijani, which he deposited at Wuse Hospital on September 26, 2014, was missing.

It added that the complainant alleged that he deposited the corpse and paid the mortuary attendants the sum of N81, 000, but a receipt of N51,000 was issued to him.

The deceased’s hubby was alleged to have gone to the mortuary on November 20,2014 to collect her corpse for burial, but was shocked that the morticians could not produce the corpse nor gave any logical account of it.

According to the prosecuting

Suspect escapes police custody with handcuff

Mohammed Adoke,

A

33 year-old, suspect, Suleiman Tara, escaped police custody with handcuff after he was arrested in connection with a stolen Samsung Galaxy Phone, worth N95, 000.

The suspect, who was taken

into custody on February 10, 2015 at the Garki Police station, Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), escaped with handcuffs on his hand; while undergoing interrogations by the police.

It was gathered that the Police re-arrested Suleiman with the handcuffs allegedly damaged.

As it stands, Suleiman is now standing trial before an Abuja Magistrates’ Court, for alleged theft and escape from lawful custody, which the police said contraven the provisions of sections 288 and 172 of the Penal Code Laws.

The police in a First Information Report (FIR)

numbered CR/64/15 stated that, Suleiman was held after considering available evidence that he had stolen the Samsung Galaxy Phone, belonging to one Miss Akpa Adaobi, of Okakoko Street Garki 2, Abuja.

During the arraignment of the accused, the prosecutor, Mohammed Garba, informed the court that during police investigations, the stolen phone was recovered from the accused.

Meanwhile, the court presided

by Umar Kagarko, granted him bail after he pleaded not guilty.

Kagarko thereafter adjourned the case till March 23, for continuation of hearing.

officer, Adama Musa, it was on the premise of the complaint that the police commenced investigations, which led to the arrest of the five suspects.

He said that the offence contravened the provisions of sections 97,312,364 and 287 of the Penal code Laws.

However, counsels for the accused, Enoch M. Dodo and Moses B. Bature, made an oral application for the bail of the accused persons, which the court denied them.

The court asked the counsels to make a written bail application, and gave an order for the remand of the accused persons pending the determination of their bail application.

The case was thereafter adjourned till March 25, for further hearing.

When PeoplesDaily Weekend contacted the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat (HHSS), Yakasai Badiru, who admitted that the corpse in question was missing, also acknowledged the arraignment of the fiver accused persons.

“We are aware of the issue of a missing corpse in Wuse General Hospital, but the matter has been taken to the court,” affirms Badiru, who spoke in a telephone conversation, yesterday.

Abuja lawyer tasks CJN on creation of more courts

A

Crime quotes: A crime persevered in a thousand centuries ceases to be a crime, and becomes a virtue. This is the law of custom, and custom supersedes all other forms of law.

-Mark Twain

allegedly stealing a corpse from a morgue inside the hospital.

The accused persons; John Nimzing, James Agbo, Solomon Taru, Ezekiel Iliya and Obonyilo Ochigbo, all of the said hospital, are standing trial for alleged criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, forgery and theft by the FCT Police command.

In a First Information Report (FIR) numbered CR/02/15, the police said on November 20, 2014, one Mr. Tijani Joshua, a staff of the Federal Ministry of Information, lodged a complaint at the Wuse Police

CJN Mahmud Mohammed

n Abuja based constitutional lawyer and publisher of Supreme Court Law Reports (SCLR), Max Ozoaka, has called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mahmud Mohammed, to as a matter of national urgency facilitate the building of more courts, especially a constitutional court in the country.

Ozoaka said the existence of more courts will help in making. Judges more effective in discharging their duties.

He cited an example of the Federal High Courts, where he said judges are overloaded with up to 16 and 20 cases per day. In his opinion, such situation will not allow them give their best in the administration of justice.

The lawyer added that the

creation of a constitutional court will provide a robust option for constitutional matters that hitherto struggled for space in conventional courts.

He noted that the new CJN, who is already poised to introduce radical reforms in the judiciary; should make more commitment in securing the independence of the judiciary, to avert crises like the recent industrial action by the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), that crippled judicial activities for almost a month.

Ozoaka expressed confidence that the CJN will write his name in gold if he is able to secure absolute independence for the judiciary beside other achievements he is capable of recording during his tenure.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 15

Politics

2015: Battle for Lagos gets hotter I

By Patrick Andrew

t is no longer news that the two dominant political parties in Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial capital located in the western part of the country, are the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The fascinating twist about the governorship race in the state however, is that the struggle for the control of the state is not even between the candidates of the two parties, but their god-fathers.

Though it is certain that either Akinwunmi Ambode of the APC or Jimi Agbaje of the PDP would win the election, analysts say the actual winners of the election would either be the national leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu or Chief Bode George, a chieftain of the PDP who is considered as Agbaje’s godfather.

Both Tinubu and George lay claim to Lagos, but have been sworn enemies for long.

Apart from the role played by party affiliation, George believes that Tinubu was instrumental to his imprisonment even though court documents showed that he was guilty of fraudulent activities while in office as chairman of Nigerian Ports Authority.

Since the electioneering began, George has vowed continuously to wrestle power from Tinubu and his APC using every means possible including federal might.

To him, it does not make sense to know that while the PDP has held sway at the federal level, it has not been able to grab government from the opposition APC in Lagos State.

He believes this is one of the last chances for his party in Lagos State. He further believes that if the PDP could win Lagos, it means it would be easy to “overrun” the entire southwest using political might.

George believes that Tinubu would do everything to bring him down if his party takes over government again in Lagos and at the centre.

To underscore his resolve against the perceived soaring political influence of Tinubu, George recently said he would leave the country if APC takes over government, especially from the PDP at the centre in the forthcoming elections. If Bola Tinubu finds his way into national government, I will go on exile.”

Beyond the chieftains, the battle is all embracing. So far, attention has shifted, if slightly, from the gladiators to their ‘underlings’ the gubernatorial candidates- Jimi Agbaje and Akinwunmi Ambode.

Whereas the latter enjoyed media bliss even at the national level with attractive advertorials, his counterpart has been somewhat reticent in that area. However, Agbaje has not been inconspicuous but a little advertorial shy, if one may say so.

Perhaps, this may have emboldened the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate to describe his main contender as an intern who lacks the executive experience to govern the state.

What swipe that!

Ambode, who chose to lambast Agbaje whenever the opportunity offers itself, took advantage of the the party’s campaign rally at Ifako-Ijaye Mini Stadium on Thursday, to undermine the pedigree of his opponent.

He said Agbaje lacks the depth, experience and requisite profile to lead an economically sprawling state like Lagos, adding that the complexity of the state, its enormity and dyna-

Fashola mism will be too cumbersome for light weights like Agbaje.

Apart from calling him an intern, he described Agbaje as a pharmacist with just a chemist experience, who had been unable to grow his business beyond two shops.

“The job of the governor of Lagos is not meant for people without experience like the PDP candidate. He has no executive experience; his experience is that he has only worked in his pharmacy.

“He has not developed it beyond two shops. Lagos is too complex for an intern, we can’t entrust this state into the hands of someone who will experiment with it,” Ambode concluded and therefore urged Lagosians to vote for him in the April 11, 2015 governorship election.

In sharp contrast to Agbaje, Ambode boasted that he has enough depth and experience to manage the complex state and assured the electorate that he possessed the needed executive experience to govern the state and move it to the next level.

“Whatever project that Governor Babatunde Fashola has not completed, I will complete it; there must be continuity. We want continuity because Lagos is known for excellence. We will work together to make Lagos prosperous for us all and nobody will be left out.”

Perhaps, pleased with the reception from

“

Ambode the delightful listeners, he went national chosing to slice into the federal government with reckless abandon. So confident was Ambode that he took headon the Jonathan administration, describing it as a visionless and directionless administration that must be voted out come March 28.

“The PDP government at the centre should be allowed to go no further. It has failed and we don’t want to sustain failure but to move on to a change that is desirable. You want change.

Now, you have the opportunity to vote out this government that lacks wit and vision. We can’t allow the PDP to continue to destroy this country.”

He also cautioned the populace against the sale of their Permanent Voter Cards, saying it was their weapon to effect a change for good governance. “The Permanent Voter Card is something that you have in your hands. It is your power to effect the change that you desire. Don’t toy with it, don’t sell it otherwise you would have sold your future and the doom will continue.”

The Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, is also in the fray. The lawyer, who has changed the state for good and away from the mess his predecessor, Bola Tunubu, left on the scene, is unimpressed with President Jonathan’s economic performance.

Better still, Fashola sees nothing credible and edifying in Jonathan’s recent visits to the

They have said the president is coming to Lagos. He is welcome to come; Lagos is part of his constituency but we will not vote for him because when we needed him, he did not come to help us.

Agbaje state. Therefore, it comes easy for him to accuse him of sharing dollars during his fiveday visit to Lagos, adding that he was being deceived by the state leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party as Lagosians would not vote for him.

Here are his words.

“They have said the president is coming to Lagos. He is welcome to come; Lagos is part of his constituency but we will not vote for him because when we needed him, he did not come to help us. When the international airport road was damaged and he promised to fix it, did you see him?”

“When Ebola hit Lagos, did he come?

When Kuramo Beach was overflowing and it was going to wipe out the entire Goshen Beach Estate, did you see the president?

“When I took him to Ibeju-Lekki, where people were losing their lands, we flew in a helicopter to the place but after that, the President never returned. I wrote letters and appealed but no response.

“The only time the president works is a few weeks to elections. When there was security problem in Lagos, who was buying guns and patrol vehicles for the police? Was it not us?

“We have been using your taxes to protect those communities. So, you have been on your own, with your own party and government.

So, he can come 200 times but will you vote for him?

Only recently, Fashola in an interview he granted Kadaira Ahmed (Straight Talk) on Channels Television dismissed whatever the federal government laid claim to, stressing that the so-called economic achievements were on paper and therefore theoretical and nothing to benefit the ordinary man on the streets of Nigeria.

Drawing to a logical conclusion, Ambode said his supporters were free to collect money from Jonathan when he comes to visit this Sunday. However, he reiterated the need for the people of the state not to sell their PVCs to the PDP. “When they offer you dollars, collect it, it is our money. It is your money. But vote for us,” he said.

PAGE 16

Politics

Jega says 78.93 percent voters received PVCs

By Ahmed Abubakar

N

o fewer than 78.93 percent of voters have collected their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) across the country, according to a statement issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The figure was derived from the INEC statistics of registered voters that have been issued with their PVCs as at 26th February, 2015. This means remarkable improvement from the 65 percent INEC said had obtained the PVCs just days prior to the February 14 date for the

presidential elections.

In yesterday’s release, INEC said already, 68,833,476 of the registered voters out of which 54,327,747 electorate from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja are confirmed to have collected their PVCs. The statement also indicated that 1,794,646 Jigawa state voters have been issued with their PVCs out of the 1,831,276 representing 98% of the highest so far collected from the entire country.

Akwa Ibom state that have 1,680,759 registered voters have been issued with 1,587,566

representing 94.4 percent of persons that have collected their PVCs while in Bauchi state out off 2,054,124 registered voters 1,938,192 representing 94.3 percent..

Further, the statement indicated that as at this week the FCT with 881,472 registered voters only 552,381 persons have collected their PVCs representing about 62.67 percent while the lowest so far is former President Olusegun Obasanjo home state, Ogun state that recorded only 808,590 out of the 1,829,534 representing 44.20 percent.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Use of card readers will disenfranchise Nigerians - Sen Nenadi From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

S

enator Nenadi Usman Usman has expressed fear that the use of card readers during the forthcoming general elections will disenfranchise Nigerians.

Nenadi, who represents Southern Kaduna Senatorial District, stated this at an outreach programme for Goodluck/ Sambo 2015 , held in kaduna. She claimed that card reader doesn’t work fast enough to be able to accredit many people and that the process it takes might lead to the disenfranchisement of a lot of Nigerians.

“I think the card reader is a good thing but the only disadvantage is that many people are going to be disenfranchised on the day of elections. Because the card reader from what I saw at the demonstration in the senate, it cannot possibly accredit more than one person per minute. So its been programmed that on

that day its going to accredit for 5 hours.

And if it is going to accredit one person per minute it means in an hour it will accredit 60 people.

It means that in 5 hours it will do accreditation for 300 people.

“So if a polling unit has more than 300 people I don’t see more than 300 people getting accreditation done. So that is just the issue. So my fear is that many people will be disenfranchised on that day.

“Accreditation is like bring your PVC to the card reader, then it will pick the informations. It is a technical think and it is just for INEC to improve on it,” Senator Nenadi Usman stated.

Meanwhile, Usman commended the over 300 support groups who took advantage of the forum to endorse the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan and his Vice, Architect Mohammed Namadi Sambo for continuity.

Northern CAN leaders under threat for endorsing Buhari From Femi Oyelola, Kaduna

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President Goodluck Jonathan (R), being welcomed by the Asagba of Asaba Prof. Chike Edozien during his official visit to Asaba, yesterday in Delta State. Photo: Joe Oroye

... Won’t be sacked by FG, says Duke

By Patrick Andrew

S

upervising Minister of Information and Minister of Culture, Tourism and National Orientation, Chief Edem Duke, reiterated yesterday that Prof.

Attahiru Jega, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, will not be sacked.

Responding to questions at the Corporate headquarters of the ministry, the minister said, “On the issue of the INEC chairman, I align myself with what the president said that he has no plan to sack the INEC chairman.

“That is not to say that when it is time for the INEC chairman to naturally exit his office, then the natural course of things will not take place. It is like saying a civil servant has done 35 years or achieved the age of 60; we now begin to say that he must not retire or he must retire. I think all of that

is in the terrain of the presidency and he has spoken.”

It would be recalled that members of the All Progressives Congress in the Senate had on Thursday alleged that there was a fresh plot by the Federal Government to prevent Jega from superintending over the forthcoming general elections.

The APC senators, led by George Akume, said they were reliable source that the Head of Service would direct Jega to proceed on his pre-retirement leave next week.

“We have received information from a very credible source that next week, the Chairman of INEC will be given a letter from the office of the Head of the Civil Service to proceed on a terminal leave,” they said.

The opposition senators alleged that the Federal Government was trying to use a circular from

the HoS dated August 11, 2010 to place Jega on compulsory preretirement leave.

“Whether the letter emanates from the HoS office or the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, it does not make sense. Even if we go by the terms of the Civil Service circular of August 11, 2010, (it) is not applicable whatsoever to the INEC chairman.”

The lawmakers explained that the circular, with reference number HCSF/CMO/1772/TI/11, talks about clarifications on preretirement leave, which is only applicable to tenured officers who are career civil servants.

They said anyone who has spent 30 years in service or has attained 60 years of age was bound to disengage officially from the service. The senators however said that the case of Jega did not fall into any of these.

orthern Christian Leaders Eagle Eyes Forum (NCLEEF) has raised alarm that the lives of its officials are under serious threat following their endorsement of the presidential candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari.

The group, which vowed to resist intimidation to support President Jonathan on mere basis of religious sentiment, said their decision to back Buhari was because of the failure of the present administration to affect the lives of citizens positively as well as the growing insecurity that it has not been able to contain.

The Chairman of the Forum, Pastor Aminchi Habu said, “supported President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, but his tenure in the past six years has been a disappointment to Nigerians; particularly Christian community.

“Our decision to endorse Buhari was informed by our patriotic commitment to build

a free, fair and a secular society where the inheritance should be justice to all. After the endorsement, our members, especially the Chairman of this Forum have continued to receive threatening phone calls and text messages, labelling them a sellout group who has abandoned a Christian candidate in the person of President Goodluck Jonathan.

“We supported the present government in 2003, 2007 and 2011, however after critical analysis, the Forum decided to endorse General Muhammadu Buhari based on abysmal performance, the security challenges, outrageous corruption in public places, coupled with economic downturn.

“Our enemies accused us of collecting N500,000,000.00 from General Buhari, this accusation is not wrong, but a blatant lie from the pit of hell. We charged anybody with concrete evidence of any money collected by anybody on behalf of the Forum to come forward with such evidence.

Jonathan’ll ensure continuity in progress - Sen Okon

F

or Nigeria to sustain the present development strides in the country, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan remains the best candidate and the only option that would guarantee the stability and continuous progress of Nigeria.

Senator Aniete Okon, who said this at a one-day sensitization workshop with the theme: ‘Consolidating the Transformation Agenda at the Grassroots’ in Abuja, what Nigeria needs now is a democrat who can consciously continue the growth of democracy and not a dictator.

“The overall purpose of continuity in government is to ensure the continuity of experience at a critical time” in any nations growth and development. It is in the best interest for Nigerians to re-elect President Jonathan for another four years,” He noted that under President Jonathan’s watch “Nigeria has recorded remarkable economic growth” overtaking South Africa “as the continent’s largest economy after it rebasing its gross domestic product data for the first time in more than two decades.”

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE17

Tambuwal, Ihedioha, Peterside, Ugwuanyi in ‘uncommon solidarity’

Speaker Tambuwal

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peaker Aminu Tambuwal, his Deputy, Emeka Ihedioha, Dakuku Peterside and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, all have one thing in common: Urge to be governors of their respective states.

Whereas Ihedioha wants to unseat Rochas Okorocha, an APC governor in Imo, the duo of Aminu and Dakuku want to consolidate the achievements of the APC administrations in Sokoto and Rivers States.

Aliyu Wamakko, like Chibuike Amaechi, was until late 2013, a prominent PDP governor before he joined forces with like minds to first form nPDP and then ensured that it metamorphosed into the APC. He thinks the speaker will do a

Dep. Speaker Ihedioha better job of sustaining his records. Amaechi, now known as the nemesis of the PDP, thinks Dakuku, and not Nyesom Wike, is better suited to keep the APC’s ‘good works’ on course in Rivers State.

In Enugu it is like for like.

They are ambitious. Well, who isn’t? We all are though some may have hit the ground running, made it big and quick, while others, like the mill of God that grinds slowly but surely, eventually made the mark.

The foursome previously belonged to the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Not anymore. They have gone their different ways to seek greener pastures. Isn’t it true that the pasture is greener at the Gov-

ernment House? Yes, they heard and desire the juice dripping from the spring that is the government houses. They think they can pave and pace the spring better for everyone.

And so they have jettisoned the allure and glamour of lawmaking. That gives little power.

Governors, on the other hand, are in control of resources and the fate of the greater number of persons. Tin gods of some sort!

So Tambuwal, Ihedioha, Peterside and Ugwuanyi want to be in charge, at the apex of the command structure of their respective states, calling the shot, rather than burning the night candles over executive and legislative bills, is the latest attraction.

Originating and debating bills no longer attract, what is in vogue is the swagger of being Your Excellency and not Honourable member. After all, just anyone can be honourable.

The number of the honourables roaming the streets in penury attests to its effeminateness.

It is no different from obtaining an honorary degree, using whatever means and securing same from God knows where.

And so, in a rare moment of partisanship, if you like selfcentredness, he opted to indulge his and their fancies by formally introducing the foursome to their Honourable col-

From the Green Chambers With Patrick Andrew

leagues in the Green Chambers.

As a matter of duty, the speaker, who is the governorship candidate of the APC in Sokoto State, after harping on the essence of according national interest prime consideration, and therefore above selfish and partisan interests, presented colleagues to whom the attraction of the Government House has gone beyond muted dream.

He took his time, was ponderously selective of his words, and with legislative elegance he announced the foursome’s desire to advance the course of the people beyond the level of legislation: That they want to originate and implement decisions, they want to be responsive to the lawmakers, forthwith.

Such sentiment did not go unnoticed. Promptly it engendered uncommon applause, colleagues rose in salutation of their courage, some close by padded their shoulders, pumped palms and wished me well come April 11, when they will hopefully change designation from Honourable to Your Excellency. In fact, a member, unable to hide his excitement or confidence in the certainty of Tambuwal’s victory, shouted “Your Excellency, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal” which promptly drew chorus and applause.

Little wonder, the foursome walked away hand-in-hand to the admiration of their colleagues some of who tacked along in obvious jealousy.

Peterside

Ugwuanyi

Rowdy sessions, unparliamentary conduct, humble pie

R

ows in parliament aren’t unexpected. It kind of portrays the robust nature or disposition of democracy. In fact, in advanced democracies, no debate even those having to do with the territorial integrity of the nation ever goes in absolute unanimity.

At worst, few would be at variance with the majority ensuring that it is not a one-sided debate and that a semblance of cross-pollination of ideas would have taken place.

So when the House of Representatives went stormy Tuesday and Wednesday during debates on whether troops should be deployed or not for the forthcoming elections, nothing ulterior could on the surface be ascribed to it.

However, a deeper look revealed otherwise. There was politics, and in particular, the March 28 and April 11 elections were written all over it. First, it turned out to be a fierce battle between elements in the APC, who tend to see every move initiated by a PDP member as an attempt by the ruling party to foist its rigging machinery on the APC, and therefore deny them the chance to effect the ‘change’ by forming a new government.

Penultimate Wednesday, the Minority Leader of the House, Femi Gbajabiamila, had raised a motion under matters of urgent public importance, challenging the propriety of military deployment for election purposes. Debate on the issue was scheduled for the next day, the Speaker subsequently mandated a

committee to advise it on a motion seeking to stop the president from deploying troops for election purposes.

The Speaker had drawn the attention of members to the fact that the matter was in court. In fact, the motion was challenged by another member, Sunday Karimi, who reminded the House that based on its rules, the motion could not be entertained since the matter was a subject of a pending litigation in court.

This prompted Tambuwal to direct the Committees on Rules and Business, Judiciary, and Justice to jointly review the issues and advise the House accordingly. And so on Wednesday, the Chairman of the Committee on Rules and Business, Albert Sam-Tsokwa, advised the House to drop the motion because it was ‘effectively caught in the cobweb of both the constitution and the House standing orders,’ and all hell broke loose.

Uproar promptly ensued.

Members openly challenged one another, shouted at themselves and openly accused the presiding officer of being partisan. The APC members were piqued that the Deputy Speaker, Emeka Ihedioha, tended to have in their estimation favoured the PDP. Ihedioha upheld the call by Karimi to drop the motion, despite efforts from the APC to effect a division of the House. In a frantic attempt to press home their point, Leader of the APC, Gbajabiamila,

Gbajabiamila who made frantic unsuccessful moves to bring up the matter again, led his colleagues to stage a walkout.

When the matter was first introduced a week earlier, Gbajabiamila had restored calmness to the House following a rowdy situation.

Rising with a certain aristocratic mien, the Lagos State representative had insisted that the rules of the House should be used as the guide in every proceeding. His composure, insight, directness and respect for the presiding officer had an infectious effect on members of both the opposition and the PDP. He again came to the rescue

of Ihedioha when the matter of the majority party in the House was raised through a motion by a member representing Kano, Muhammed Aminu. Tempers rose from both sides until he calmly hushed them into silence. This time he was not to have his way, in fact he led the charge against the PDP and all hell almost broke loose. Fisticuffs were barely prevented.

It was a show, ugly, degrading and undemocratic. It was ‘unparliamentary’ in the words of the House Majority Leader, Mulikat Akande-Adeola, at a press briefing.

She thought embracing decorum and dialoguing in a democratic manner and within a democratic ambience irrespective of political party affiliations, would have demonstrated maturity and patriotism.

Unlike, his usual calmed self, Gbajabiamila insisted that “What happened yesterday has never happened in the history of legislative work where another member attempted to move a motion sponsored by a member because we have the kind of deputy speaker that we have never had before in this country. He threw all caution to the wind and he attempted to allow it, if not that we stood steadfast.

“But yet again today, we said a situation where a motion that was supposed to be moved by myself and other members of the House was brought to a halt by the chairman, rules and business, who was actually debating my motion for

me, who claimed and who said that there was no evidence that there was a court case, but yet he felt that the motion should die a natural death, and of course the deputy speaker, in his typical fashion, partisan as best as he can, upheld that verdict.

“You heard when a leader of the House, Samson Osagie (Minority Whip), attempted to raise a point of order which he is entitled to not just as a member but as a leader, but he was shut down. Enough is enough.”

With the close of business, members left in anger. Gbajabiamila had accused the Ihedioha of being the deputy speaker of the PDP and not Nigeria.

“What you saw today (Wednesday) is yet another indication of what the PDP has brought on our country,” he had said at a press conference after he led APC lawmakers to walk out of the chamber.

“We have a deputy speaker who has never hidden his ‎partisanship. He has always taken sides with the PDP, compared to the speaker (Tambuwal), who sees himself as the Speaker of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

At Thursday’s session, presided over by the Speaker, Aminu Tambuwal, Gbajabiamila bent over and humbly withdrew his allegation against Ihedioha. “I withdraw that portion where I called him the deputy speaker of a political party. We should be accommodating of each other as a House,” he said pleadingly.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 18

Politics News

Borno APC wants leaders of 23 parties’ arrested

By Patrick Andrew

B

arely hours after leaders of 23 political parties in Borno urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to suspend the forthcoming elections in the state for five months, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Borno State has called on security agencies to arrest and prosecute 23 political parties.

The APC said they should be arrested because they were indirectly calling for the imposition of an illegal and unconstitutional interim government in sharp contrast to recent clarification by President Goodluck Jonathan that interim government is a treasonable offence punishable under Nigerian laws.

The state Chairman of the APC, Ali Bukar Dalori, said in a statement that the 23 parties were acting the script of a former governor of the state who he said is desperate to takeover power at all cost even if it means pushing the state into extinction.

“We strongly believe that the call by the 23 parties to shift elections to September and for an interim government to be put in place by May 29 is in furtherance of blind desire to implement an agenda of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that is aligned to a former governor of the state who is hell bent on ensuring that elections do not hold in state due to his fear of massive defeat for his anointed candidates given the evident popularity of the APC in the state.

“The political parties, which only exist on newspapers, are mere tools in the hands of the former governor. However, we are also excited by their calls for postponement because in politics, calls for postponement of election is conceding defeat because only those who see

defeat coming their way, try to avoid elections.

“For the purpose of educating these parties, they need to know that there is no portion of the Nigerian constitution that gives room for a democratically elected government whether at the state or federal level to be toppled through a civilian coup which they are advocating for. In fact, according to President Jonathan last week, a call for interim government is treasonable and a coup against the Nigerian constitution.

We therefore call on security agencies to act accordingly and effect the president’s clarification. The Nigerian Constitution has since addressed many of these issues,” the statement noted.

Peoples Daily Weekend recalls that the Borno State chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council had on Thursday called on INEC to postpone the elections in the state by five months citing insecurity and a charged political climate as basis for the call.

IPAC, which comprises all registered political parties in the state, said an interim government should be formed in the state when the tenure of the present government elapses due to the postponement.

Reading a statement signed by 23 party representatives, including two governorship candidates in the state, Babagana Musa, who is the branch chairman of IPAC, said “registered voters not getting their Permanent Voters Cards, insecurity of opposition parties in the state, indecent activities of the CivilianJTF, and promotion of thuggery” are enough reasons for elections to be suspended in the state.

“After holding series of stakeholders’ meetings, we finally resolved that it was necessary to call for the extension of the 2015

2015: Jonathan’ll win South West, says Kotoye P resident Goodluck Jonathan’s Campaign Coordinator for Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, Adeyinka Kotoye, has said that the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will win majority of votes in the South West because of his performance and contributions to the growth of the region and the country.

“Jonathan deserves to return, he has done well. He has improved the transport sector, improved the agriculture sector, aviation sector and has done so much for the education sector in the country. In the economic sector, he has done well. In many areas, President Jonathan has recorded success,” he said Kotoye said the propaganda of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd), was not not enough to sway the region from voting Jonathan.

“I believe the electorate will decide, but I don’t like sounding absolute but Jonathan will win. When people postulate about Tinubu’s influence in the Southwest, I often shudder. It is very unpredictable on how people will vote.

“The media rebranding of Buhari will have limited influence because at the grassroots, people do not use facebook, twitter or watch the television like the elite.

“The APC are using double standard to promote his candidature; in the South, they are projecting Buhari as pro-Christian, while in the North, the slogan is if you vote Jonathan, you are voting a Christian; so why the deceit?”.

President Jonathan

Jega general elections in Borno State, to September 2015. After a long wait, up to this moment, INEC has not distributed PVCs in 175 polling units. This means approximately 500,000 eligible voters will be denied the right to vote in 2015,” Musa said.

The parties, which signed the statement, are Independent Democrat, Social Democratic Party, Democratic Peoples Party, New Nigerian Peoples Party, Peoples Democratic Congress, Labour Party, Mega Progressives Peoples Party, Advanced Congress of Democrats, African Democratic Congress, Unity Party of Nigeria, African Peoples Alliance, United Democratic Party, Citizens Popular Party, Fresh Democratic Party, United Progressives Party, Peoples Party of Nigeria, Peoples Democratic Movement, National Conscience Party and Hope Democratic Party.

But the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party were absent at the event and did not sign the statement.

However, the APC chairman said, “The

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has no powers to hold elections later than 30 days before the expiration of the tenure of elected public office holders. In the event that election is not to be held for reasons spelt out by the constitution, it is the tenure of those elected public holders who are serving, that will be extended by an initial period of six months through a constitutional procedure it is there for all to read.

“The constitution does not entertain coup be it military of civil, as being advocated by those who call themselves democrat practising constitutional democracy with political parties established through provisions of the constitution. Security agencies need to urgently arrest those persons who represented the 23 political parties at that press conference in Maiduguri, today (yesterday) and they should be tried for treason in line with the recent declaration of President Jonathan who is by his position, the chief defender of the constitution.”

PDP’s case against Ortom baseless, says Counsel

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

N

iyi Akintola, lead counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) Benue governorship candidate, Chief Samuel Ortom, has described the suit instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against his client’s nomination as the APC governorship candidate as a house built on sandy soil and a mere distraction.

Akintola said after the court sitting at the Federal High Court, Makurdi, that if it were not for court processes, they would have made no case submission.

Akintola described the PDP as a ‘busy body and an interloper’, accusing them of prying into the internal affairs of another party, and added that the matter was intended to distract the attention of his client, Chief Ortom.

“You are not a member of the APC and you are questioning the qualification of an APC candidate. The PDP has not even served APC properly. APC and INEC headquarters are all in Abuja, they failed to serve them. The PDP is just a busy body and interloper. Such matter has since been resolved by the Supreme Court which held that it is purely an internal affair of the party.

They do not have a case”, Akintola said.

It would be recalled that the ruling party

had filed a suit challenging the former Minister of State, Industry, Trade, and Investment’s membership of the APC and his nomination as the governorship candidate of the party in Benue State.

The case, which was for mention yesterday was later adjourned by the presiding Justice ,Binta Nyako, to March 26, 2015 for hearing.

Ortom

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

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Tourism

Tinapa Business Resort: A marriage of business and leisure

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ituated by the Calabar River, Tinapa is a business and leisure resort conceptualized to be an integrated business resort. It is a four phased development promoted by the Government of Cross River State, under a Private Public Partnership (PPP), and very close to Calabar Free Trade Zone.

It is the realisation of an exciting dream – the first integrated business and leisure in resort in Nigeria. Tinapa Free Zone has world class facilities that enable visitors to engage in retail and wholesale activities as well as leisure and entertainment.

Tinapa has lettable space for retail and wholesale, several line shops, warehouses etc. It also has an open exhibition area for trade exhibitions and other events, a movie production studio commonly referred to as “Studio Tinapa” or “Nollywood”, an entertainment strip that comprises of a casino, an Eight-Screen Cinema, a children’s arcade, restaurants and a mini amphitheater, a night club and pubs.

Features and facilities The Tinapa Free Zone and Resort which is also Africa’s Premier Business Resort, is composed of world Class facilities that allow for retail and wholesale activities as well as leisure and entertainment.

Some of these facilities are as follows: • A total of about 80,000m2 of lettable space for retail and wholesale made up of Four Emporiums of 10,000m2 each, several Line Shops, Warehouses, and so on.

• An Open Exhibition Area for Trade Exhibitions and other events.

• A movie Production Studio commonly referred to as “Studio Tinapa” or “Nollywood”. It is set to become the most modern film production studio in Nigeria.

• An entertainment strip that comprise a Casino, an Eight-Screen digital Cinema, a children’s acade, international standard restaurants and a mini amphitheater, a night club and pubs.

• An artificial tidal lake that feeds from the Calabar River • A Two Hundred and Forty Three (243) Room international three start Hotel christened “Amber Tinapa” being operated by African Sun Limited.

• A Water Park/ Leisure Land • Parking Space for about Four Thousand Cars • A truck Terminal • An independent power plant Cometonigeria.com

Tinapa is a leisure resort conceptualized to be an integrated business resort

Tinapa Lakeside Hotel, entrance to the craft village area and on insert Tinapa Water Park

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 20

Homes

By Miriam Humbe

Make your bathrooms bold and brilliant

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nyone who remembers the seventies, or has lived in a house from the decade, will no doubt shudder when it is suggested that bright and bold colours should be used in the bathroom. Unfortunately, mustard yellow wallpaper and lime green linoleum floors scared many and significantly damaged the reputation of bold colours in bathroom dÊcor. Today, it’s time to bury your fears, and, to put it bluntly, move on. Bold colours, when applied in the right way can transform the bathroom into a memorable feature. The first golden rule, select a colour you are going to like in ten years. This is a difficult prediction, and no one has a crystal ball, but if you have any hesitation towards a colour scheme now, in a couple of years, you will truly hate it. Robust colour is a different design game, compared to working with shades. Bold colours will be dominant, before we go any further, make

a curtain. This will ensure your colour application is always in view. A Pivotech shower screen is perfect for the job.

Navy never goes out of fashion If you are nervous about bold colour application, navy is a style safety zone. Navy, like black, is always in fashion. Navy is easy on the eye and easily complimented by other colours. When applied liberally, the result is audacious, but at the same time, elegant. Applying bold colour, on interior walls, and across decoration and accessories within the space, will provide a strong sense of composition.

Power to the pastel Pastels are not often thought to be bold colours. However, combining sweet pink tones, with musk yellow, results in a sugar sweet pop of daring sure you are prepared to love your chosen colour scheme for many years to come.

If the above warning has not scared you, and all this colour talk is making you experience a decorating buzz, here is some inspiration and advice.

Lush Lemon Avoid a flashback to peeling mustard wallpaper, work with lemon yellow. Lemon is very much on trend at the moment, and when teamed with a complimentary crisp white, it will create a refreshingly cheerful interior. Bathroom tiles are a manageable way to applying bold colours. Using the shower cavity colour. as a colour zone is an effective way To avoid pastels looking to create boundary. Make sure you install prudish, combine contrasta framed glass shower screen instead of ing colours. The effect will

be cheeky and modern. Use colour across different bathroom elements to enhance the contrast further.

Creating contrast will also ensure a potentially pale interior, sustains depth and animation.

Sometimes less is more While it is completely in order to support and encourage liberal applications of attention seeking colours, sometimes, less is more. If you are drawn to an extraordinarily dynamic hue, such as a florescent, it will be most effective if you strategically select the area of application. Below, the dominant green bathtub is effective and fashionable, because it is not challenged by other colours, nor is green applied across multiple surfaces. If you want to be so bold as to design with fluorescent colours, be discerning and you will achieve a smart looking bathroom.

Balance If you want to go all out, applying colour across almost every bathroom surface, there must still be a balance within the interior.

Use mirrors and glass to relieve colour application and avoid needing to increase your palette. Mirror frames and shower screens from Pivotech are an effective solution to achieving a subtle break in colour. www.pivotech.com.

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PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

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PAGE 21

d Bollywoo

2Face releases ‘Vote not fight’

>>PG 36 >>PG 36

Chris Brown disses the Grammys

>>PG 37

Controversy trails Tonto Dikeh’s ‘Mr. X’ >>PG 36

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 22

Your Body, Image & U

Capturing youths in the right focus

Youths in industrial training

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atching daily how Nigerian youths roam the streets searching for the wrong priorities of life is becoming worrisome to a lot of people who understand what ‘’living well’’ stands for.

It is not enough to blame the society for all the woes and ills happening. Who makes up the society you are blaming? Are you not part of this society thet you blame for your failings and disappointments? What have you done for the society to make it work for you?

As we all know, the youths are the most vibrant in every society and their population is always higher. Have you taken note of how Nigerian youths pursue the wrong things of life?

Chasing the wind rather than building their lives in the right directions?

Why is it that most youths prefer channeling their skills and talents into negativity? The great talents and skills hidden in our youths are so numerous that if they are ready to build a good life for themselves, this country will over take most super powers of the world.

Is the grass greener outside Nigeria? If yes, who made them so? Same human beings like our youths. Recently , we were told that Nigerians are the highest users of social media, especially Facebook in the entire Africa.

Is there a youth in Nigerian without mobile phone that can

“

Having money is good because we need it to live well. What is wrong about putting strutures and facilities on ground that can empower our youths. The worst part is that, whatever you do to make fast money hardly lasts. The things people do that add value to humanity are not driven by the greed for wealth and fast money.

surf the net. Even those who claim to be hungry and jobless carry the most sophiscated smart phones yet, they claim to be joblesss and have no money.

Facebook, that most Nigerian youths are crazy about was created by a couple of American youths out of trial and error.

Do not tell me that these youths never came across some bad ideas they can use to rip off the world, but they decided to focus on the positive side. They were not driven by the greed for money, wealth, material things like our youths here, but were interested in making a name and creating something that can benefit mankind. Not that they were millioniares then, they were not even university graduates when they came up with FACEBOOK. Their focus was for the good of mankind

and today, they are billonaires and still keeping a low profile.

We have more intelligent and creative youths than the ones that made FB and other social the media that our Nigeria youths are crazy about, spending their money on, month after month, patronizing them. We have youths who complain of being jobless yet they recaharge their phone with internet data weekly with nothing less than N10,000 just to browse, especially facebook/ twitter/whatsapp etc.

Do we not have youths who can do better than what youths in other countries have done?

How did we get to this crazy age of --- I must be a millionaire overnight...no matter which way...any how...any how?

Why can’t we get our youths focused on being positive

and creating things that can benefit them and mankind and not putting money first? Our youths materialistic focus has been and is still destroying a lot of things in this country. Is it not high time we find a way to youths from making fast and quick money?

Everyone has a role to play in this----individuals, corporate organizations, religious institutions, government, educational systems, family etc.

Having money is good because we need it to live well.

What is wrong about putting strutures and facilities on ground that can empower our youths. The worst part is that, whatever you do to make fast money hardly lasts. The things people do that add value to humanity are not driven by the greed for wealth and fast

With Jacqui Iwu bwreforms@gmail.com 08184825606 (sms only) money. Ironically, such good ventures still turn out to be money spinning machines/ avenues/sources for those who created them.

I doubt if the creators of most popular social media we have now had in mind that they were going to make thrillions from the entire world including African countries whom they see as still living in the dark ages? They just wanted to touch lives, turn lives around, change the world for good, be innovative, but at the end, money turned up for them in ways they never expected it.

Why can’t our youths and do likewise?

The brains they use to hack emails, defraud foriegners can be used to create positive ideas and inventions as well. These youths who are gifted in these areas know this but because they are driven with greed for fast money, they feel they will make easy money by turning to fraud, they turn their focus into negative tendencies instead of positive ideas, thereby missing creativity that can make Africa proud.

Have you not seen youths selling books and teaching people how to trace mobile calls.

Teaching people how to monitor this and that from other users of mobile phones? Teaching people how to know fake/original mobile phones before buying phones?

Why can’t these youths have patience, spend more time in such initiatives/creativity/ intelligence and create/invent things that can make our economy boom?

I ask Nigerian youths to give government a breathing space and look inwards on how to grow economically and make Africa proud. We have what it takes, but the problem is the greed for quick money and not lasting virtues/services for the good of mankind. Unless our youths change their foucs entirely, life in Nigeria will become more unbearable in the years to come.

Jacqui IWU is a Life/ Career/Business Coach A Stress Management Expert &Conference Speaker Media Relations Personnel BLOG: http:// bluntjacqui.blogspot.com F A C E B O O K : b e a u t i f u l w o m a n . column TWITTER: @ JacquiWORLD

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

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woman of dignity, Mrs. Emmanuela Abimbola Fashola is a symbol of genuine humility. She has an uncommon capacity for hard work and a burning passion to motivate youths to actualize their potentials. Her unassuming carriage and disarming simplicity belie her status as the First Lady of Lagos State, one of Nigeria’s most populous and economically viable states. In her characteristically simple and unobtrusive style, Mrs. Abimbola Fashola, has been working assiduously behind the scenes to complement the efforts of the Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), and add value to governance in Lagos State.

In pursuit of her commitment to “grooming tomorrow’s leaders to be confident, self-sufficient and socially responsive through education, vocational skills acquisition and recreation”, she has established a unique NonGovernmental Organization, the Lagos Empowerment And Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N).

As Chairman of the NGO, she has been diligently overseeing the systematic implementation of its strategic vision of establishing resource centers in the five administrative divisions of Lagos State as a basis for thereafter exporting the L.E.A.R.N. model to other jurisdictions.

Within its very short period of existence, L.E.A.R.N. has begun to impact positively on the lives of tomorrow’s leaders through various creative programs targeted at students. Between August and September, 2007, for instance, L.E.A.R.N. successfully organized a 6-week free Summer Skills and Training Camp on basic leadership principles and vocational skills for 485 students from both public and private schools.

L.E.A.R.N. is also currently organizing After School Revision Classes for 3,850 senior WAEC students spread across 19 educational zones in Lagos State.

This program will provide a scientific basis for ascertaining the impact of after school revision classes on student performance in WAEC examinations.

With the emergence of China as a global economic power, L.E.A.R.N, through the pro-active leadership of Mrs. Fashola, has initiated the L.E.A.R.N./SinoCulture Exchange Programme to prepare Nigeria’s future leaders for productive interaction with Chinese society and culture. Under this programme, 25 students from five public primary schools in the Eti-Osa Local Government Area are participating in Chinese language coaching and the best student will have the opportunity of watching the Olympics in Beijing.

Apart from her work among students and youths, Fashola’s wife is passionate about environmental cleanliness.

She has been at the forefront of the campaign for Lagosians, particularly women, to embrace environmental cleanliness and keep the surroundings of their homes and markets clean. She religiously participates actively in the monthly sanitation and weekly market sanitation days showing by personal example the pivotal

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Womanhood

Mrs. Abimbola Fashola: Equipping the youths through learning

Mrs. Abimbola Fashola role of women in maintaining a hygienic environment.

Mrs. Fashola’s accomplished and cultured style is no doubt a reflection of her roots as a daughter of the illustrious Ojo’Badan family of Ibadan. Her grandfather, who died in 1952, was the Ekerin Olubadan of Ibadan. He fought in the First World War and as the first African Sergeant Major in the

“

Army, he won several medals for bravery in battle. Her great Uncle, Mr. J. Ade Ojo was among the first students of Kings College, Lagos, when it was established in 1952; he was Science Tutor and Games Master at the school for 33 years.

Another Great Uncle of her’s Chief S. Ade Ojo, was the first Nigerian Clerk of the Legislative Council established in 1941, the

first Clerk of the Nigerian House of Representatives in Lagos, the first President of the Western House of Assembly and first Chairman of the Western Nigerian Public Service Commission. He died as the Maye Olubadan of Ibadanland.

Her Great Aunty, Chief Mrs. Adepeju Wuraola Esan, was the First Educated Iyalode of

Mrs. Fashola’s accomplished and cultured style is no doubt a reflection of her roots as a daughter of the illustrious Ojo’Badan family of Ibadan. Her grandfather, who died in 1952, was the Ekerin Olubadan of Ibadan. He fought in the First World War and as the first African Sergeant Major in the Army, he won several medals for bravery in battle.

Ibadan land and the first Female Senator in Nigeria. Another Uncle of Mrs. Fashola’s, Professor O. Adewole Ojo, was the First Nigerian Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University College Hospital, Ibadan. Her own father, Chief Emmanuel Adewinsi Ojo, was a distinguished lawyer who served as the First African Director of Texaco PLC and died as the Ekarun Olubadan of Ibadan land.

It was into this eminent family of many “Firsts” that the First Lady of Lagos State, Mrs. Abimbola Fashola was born on 6th April, 1965. She began her formal education at Kotun Memorial Nursery and Primary School in Surulere and obtained her secondary school education from Marywood Girls Grammar School, Ebutte-Metta and Yejide Girls High School, Ibadan. She received her professional training at the Lagoon Secretarial College, Adisa Bashua, Surulere, where she obtained a Diploma in Secretarial studies and followed this up with an Advanced Computer Certificate from the Computer Department of the University of Lagos.

Mrs. Fashola had a brief stint as a trainee Journalist with the Daily Sketch before joining the British Council in 1987.

Whilst in the employment of the British Council, she served in various capacities from Front-of-House Operations, Technical Cooperation and Training, Projects and Overseas Development Support, Arts & Gender Relations and Examinations Officer/IELTS Administrator responsible for managing various examinations on behalf of several UK institutions and boards for over 10,000 candidates yearly before resigning her appointment in 2006.

She has attended various training programmes and courses both locally and overseas on Customer Relations, IT Skills, Managing people and Effectiveness in the work place.

As the First Lady of Lagos State, Mrs. Fashola is the Chairman of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials (COWLSO), a community based gender organization established by the wife of the first military governor of Lagos State to complement the efforts of the state government in improving the socio-economic conditions of the people.

Mrs. Fashola is married to Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), the Governor of Lagos State, and the marriage is blessed with children. tundefashola.com

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 24

Kiddies World

With Miriam

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS

The crocodile pit

G

“

rides. The Park is sometimes used for open air pop concerts.

Attractions at Gamji Gate The crocodile pit Gamji Gates houses a crocodile pit with five crocodiles. On viewing them for the first time, you would think they are statues until you see their eyes blink or jaws snap shut really viciously. They often keep their mouths open to catch flying prey and snap it shut suddenly, to the amusement of everyone. They often look like they have a grin sitting in the sun with their mouth open.

Building up together

Cartoon Angle

Lovers’ corner There are beautiful painted trees with relaxation points where lovers can relax with a cup of ice cream sold in various canteens within the park. There is also the ostrich cage with two ostriches; male and female.

Amusement park Gamji Gates feature an amusement park with roller coaster rides; horse drawn carts and a small part of River Kaduna that flows through the park. There is also an old bridge that was built by Lord Lugard.

It is housed in Gamji as a historical attraction, but is realistically just an old bridge.

Although Kaduna is quite a nice place it does not have many tourist attractions you should visit. There are a few things to do however. For instance, the “General Usman Katsina Gate”, known locally as Kofar Gamji, or Gamji Gate.

ABCDE

HIS AND HERS CORNER

Gamji Gate [Kofar Gamji]

amji Gates is one of the places worth visiting in Kaduna; the crocodile city in the northern part of Nigeria. The place is serene with local attractions and an amusement park; an ideal place for families with kids and lovers. Gamji also features a mini zoo with few animals. Kaduna means(Kada meaning, Crocodile, hence Kaduna City of Crocodiles) used to be the colonial and immediate post-independence capital of Northern Nigeria. It is situated on the Kaduna River and has a cool temperate weather. It has an airport, railway station and is an important junction with roads branching in five different directions. It is also a major commercial and industrial base in the north. It is now the capital of Kaduna State.

Although Kaduna is a nice place, it does not have many tourist attractions.

There are a few things to do however. For instance, the “General Usman Katsina Gate”, known locally as Kofar Gamji, or Gamji Gate. Gamji Gate was once a great park by the River Kaduna that cuts through its serene and simple landscape and crocodiles of course.

The park, has bars and restaurants, a swimming pool, and a zoo, with camel

Humbe

Tom and Jerry

Donald Duck and Daffy Duck

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Kiddies World

PAGE 25

With Miriam

Humbe

ABCDE

MODEL OF THE WEEK

AFRICAN TALES

Why the tortoise lives both on land and in water

T

he elephant and the hippopotamus always used to feed together, and were good friends.

One day when they were both dining, the tortoise appeared and said that although they were both big and strong, neither of them could pull him out of the water with a strong piece of tie-tie, and he offered the elephant ten thousand rods if he could draw him out of the river the next day. The elephant, seeing that the tortoise was very small, said, “If I cannot draw you out of the water, I will give you twenty thousand rods.” So on the following morning the tortoise got some very strong tie-tie and made it fast to his leg, and went down to the river. When he got there, as he knew the place well, he made the tie-tie fast round a big rock, and left the other end on the shore for the elephant to pull by, then went down to the bottom of the river and hid himself. The elephant then came down and started pulling, and after a time he smashed the rope.

Directly this happened, the

tortoise undid the rope from the rock and came to the land, showing all people that the rope was still fast to his leg, but that the elephant had failed to pull him out. The elephant was thus forced to admit that the tortoise was the winner, and paid to him the twenty thousand rods, as agreed. The tortoise then took the rods home to his wife, and they lived very happily.

After three months, the tortoise, seeing that the money was greatly reduced, thought he would make some more by the same trick, so he went to the hippopotamus and made the same bet with him. The hippopotamus said, “I will make the bet, but I shall take the water and you shall take the land; I will then pull you into the water.”

The tortoise agreed, so they went down to the river as before, and having got some strong tietie, the tortoise made it fast to the hippopotamus’ hind leg, and told him to go into the water. Directly the hippo had turned his back and disappeared, the tortoise took the rope twice round a strong palm-tree

which was growing near, and then hid at the foot of the tree.

Tired of pulling, the Hippo came up puffing and blowing water into the air from his nostrils.

The tortoise saw him coming up, unwound the rope, and walked down towards the hippopotamus, showing him the tie-tie round his leg. The hippo had to acknowledge that the tortoise was too strong for him, and reluctantly handed over the twenty thousand rods.

The elephant and the hippo then agreed that they would take the tortoise as their friend, as he was so very strong; but he was not really so strong as they thought, and had won because he was so cunning.

He then told them that he would like to live with both of them, but that, as he could not be in two places at the same time, he said that he would leave his son to live with the elephant on the land, and that he himself would live with the hippopotamus in the water.

This explains why there are both tortoises on the land and tortoises who live in the water.

Gimbiya Rumaisau Yelwa

ACTIVITIES

With the help of the right materials, have fun time this weekend coloring the image below. Show your work to your parents or teacher for correction. Cheers!

CREATIVITY

Make a paper case for your iPad 4

M

any people like the way that iPad looks without a protective case. However, we know it’s obviously inadvisable to carry an iPad without a case, as we will never forgive ourselves

once we crack it if the device has no protective case.

If you’re interested in the cases for your tablet, making a case by yourself is a great way to personalize your device without losing its original

design. It’s even better than the expensive cases from an online shop. This tutorial teaches you how to use the basic tools and some materials to make a cheaper case. The idea of this tutorial is very simple and it won’t take you much time. Make this iPad case and enjoy your original iPad! Enjoy!

Tools and materials: • A book • Paper Knife • Adhesive and glue • Pencil Step One: Draw the “frame” of the iPad Select a book which has a bigger size than the iPad. Turn the cover page of the book, and then draw the “frame” of the iPad with the pencil on the first page.

Step Two: Hollow out the papers Hollow out the papers that are lying in the frame.

You should clip the interior angle carefully in this step, especially make a great radian.

Step Three: Stick all the interior pages together As the following picture shows, stick all the interior pages together with adhesive while the frame is fit perfectly for the iPad. Attention: In this step, in order to prevent the interior pages from tilting, you should make the cover stand on the table, and position the cover and the pages at a 90-degree angle.

Step Four: Turn the book to the back cover, use the glue to stick the back cover and the interior

pages together, and then place something heavy above the front cover. The cheaper iPad case is finally done until the glue is dry.

If you worry that the side part of the iPad may be scratched by the pages, you can use the thin flannelette to cover the interior part of the pages.

Attention: When working with glue, make sure everything is dry and clean before touching the iPad. When making this case, be very careful towards scratching your iPad’s display.

You need to measure, try, proof, etc. again and again with your iPad, as the case needs to be very precise in order to function well.

PAGE 26

e-Learning

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

When healthy eating goes too far A

s National Eating Disorders Awareness week begins, we look at what happens when the 'perfect diet' becomes an obsession – a condition called orthorexia There is no doubt eating healthily is an important part of looking after yourself. Yet anything can become dangerous if you take it to extremes.

For some people, the desire to eat healthy, “clean”, unprocessed foods becomes a life-ruining compulsion. The condition is known as orthorexia, a term coined in 1997 by Dr Steven Bratman.

“It can, in fact, often bear more resemblance to obsessivecompulsive disorder in that it is characterised by a fixation on righteous eating, eating only 'pure’ foods and trying to avoid contamination by food,” says Susan Ringwood, chief executive officer for eating disorder charity Beat. Anecdotally, professionals are reporting an increase in individuals suffering from symptoms of orthorexia, but the condition still does not have a formal medical classification and, as such, isn’t regarded as an “official” eating disorder. Yet, having seen orthorexia in action several times, I know only too well that it can be just as harmful and upsetting as other major eating disorders, because it involves the same intense, joy-sucking preoccupation with food and body.

The only difference is that, unlike anorexia, where food intake is restricted, or bulimia, where food binges are followed by some form of purging, orthorexia always involves an intense compulsion to stick to any single way of eating food, thinking and behaving around food.

Orthorexia isn’t the same as following a specific eating plan for ethical reasons, or because of food intolerances. Yet the line between the two is often blurred, which is why orthorexia can go undetected or unnoticed, as in the fitness industry.

Whether one’s particular compulsion is to follow a paleo/caveman, macrobiotic, low-fat, lowcarb or gluten-free diet doesn’t matter. But when choice and flexibility become compulsion and rigidity, it’s usually a sign that something deeper is going on.

Emmy Gilmour is clinical director at the Recover Clinic, a London centre that specialises in eating disorders. She says: “Orthorexia is when a way of eating shifts from being a choice and temporary measure to becoming part of who you are and how you live.

“Cutting out entire food groups from your diet under the guise of it being a healthy diet is not necessarily healthy.”

The core issue with any eating disorder is usually less to do with eating behaviours and more the underlying cause. In essence, orthorexia develops when a person can’t feel good about themselves without adhering to stringent rules around eating, when they fear a type of “bad” food because they don’t feel safe or worthy if

Orthorexia often goes unnoticed in the fitness industry they eat it, or if they find themselves regularly overriding their body’s needs because they can’t bear the thought of “failing” in a misdirected quest for wholeness via nutritional virtue.

“There’s a strong connection between what’s going on for you emotionally and how you respond to that in your eating,” says Gilmour. “So thoughts and feelings

become translated into ideas and behaviours around food, such as needing to maintain this lifestyle to feel in control of your world.

And actually the origins of the problem are how you feel about yourself and your responses to your emotions.”

It makes sense, then, to tackle orthorexia through talking therapies rather than yet another, al-

beit less restrictive, meal plan.

“Recovery is about developing an ability to eat intuitively based on what you want, what you feel like and what your body needs,” says Gilmour.

“We need to trust that our bodies are amazing machines and they really know what we need and want. Patients don’t graduate from the eating disorders

‘Orthorexia always involves an intense compulsion to stick to any single way of eating food’

programme at our clinic until they are entirely free of eating disorders, behaviours and obsessive thoughts. Our goal isn’t about helping people reach a stable weight – it’s about how their head is working and how they are responding.”

Personally, I’m a huge advocate for eating unprocessed foods where possible and trying to think about what we put in our mouths.

But having worked alongside athletes, personal trainers and members of the public befuddled and/or intoxicated by the latest diet craze, I’ve realised there’s a big caveat here: true health is a process and comes about with moderation.

We need to be watchful over even the healthiest of eating patterns and be curious about why we are trying a diet, so as to ensure it comes from a place of selfnourishment, rather than selfpunishment.

Eight warning signs that you, or someone you know, may be suffering from orthorexia 1. Obsession with maintaining what the sufferer determines to be a “perfect” diet.

2. Restricting foods because of allergies that are often not confirmed by a doctor.

3. Excessive and obsessive use of supplements.

4. Often low weight.

5. Obsession with exercise.

6. Irrational behaviours regarding food preparation and cleanliness.

7. Fixation on foods that are believed to be healthy and “pure”.

8. Obsession about the links between foods and any related health concerns.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 27

Leisure

Compiled By Doyin Ojosipe

The fate of Essido and his evil companions (III)

H

is brother, Eyo I., had supper by himself and consumed all the soup.

In a week’s time he began to feel very ill, and as the days passed he became worse, so he sent for his Ju Ju man.

When Essido saw him coming, he quietly left the house; but the Ju Ju man, by casting lots, very soon discovered that it was Essido who had given poison to his brother. When he told Eyo I. this, he would not believe it, and sent him away. However, when Essido returned, his elder brother told him what the Ju Ju man had said, but that he did not believe him for one moment, and had sent him away. Essido was much relieved when he heard this, but as he was anxious that no suspicion of the crime should be attached to him, he went to the Household Ju Ju,[1] and having first sworn that he had never administered poison to his brother, he drank out of the pot.

Three months after he had taken the poison Eyo I. died, much to the grief of everyone who knew him, as he was much respected, not only on account of his great wealth, but because he was also an upright and honest man, who never did harm to anyone.

Essido kept his brother’s

funeral according to the usual custom, and there was much playing and dancing, which was kept up for a long time. Then Essido paid off his old creditors in order to get popular, and kept open house, entertaining most lavishly, and spending his money in many foolish ways. All the bad women about collected at his house, and his old evil companions went on as they had done before.

Things got so bad that none of the respectable people would have anything to do with him, and at last the chiefs of the country, seeing the way Essido was squandering his late brother’s estate, assembled together, and eventually came to the conclusion that he was a witch man, and had poisoned his brother in order to acquire his position. The chiefs, who were all friends of the late Eyo, and who were very sorry at the death, as they knew that if he had lived he would have become a great and powerful chief, made up their minds to give Essido the Ekpawor Ju Ju, which is a very strong medicine, and gets into men’s heads, so that when they have drunk it they are compelled to speak the truth, and if they have done wrong they die very shortly.

Essido was then told to dress

himself and attend the meeting at the palaver house, and when he arrived the chiefs charged him with having killed his brother by witchcraft. Essido denied having done so, but the chiefs told him that if he were innocent he must prove it by drinking the bowl of Ekpawor medicine which was placed before him. As he could not refuse to drink, he drank the bowl off in great fear and trembling, and very soon the Ju Ju having got hold of him, he confessed that he had poisoned his brother, but that his friends had advised him to do so. About two hours after drinking the Ekpawor, Essido died in great pain.

The friends were then brought to the meeting and tied up to

posts, and questioned as to the part they had taken in the death of Eyo. As they were too frightened to answer, the chiefs told them that they knew from Essido that they had induced him to poison his brother. They were then taken to the place where Eyo was buried, the grave having been dug open, and their heads were cut off and fell into the grave, and their bodies were thrown in after them as a sacrifice for the wrong they had done. The grave was then filled up again.

Ever since that time, whenever anyone is suspected of being a witch, he is tried by the Ekpawor Ju Ju The End

Poem

SMILLING FLOWER The flower smiled at the sun Though, some were kissed by the sun Despite scourge of the sun And the strained relationship The flower smiled at the sun.

Chrysanthernum of nature Smiling at the stern nature Not wearied of its journey so long Coming of hurdles in cradles It smiles at the sun.

Seceding to the zenith The flower cannot be scuttled Like cheetah you have come of the base Cicada in terrorism you now face Yet clad in honour.

The flower cannot seize…

Like right hand cannot spurn its action The base is past now zenith the strife To go in honour to honour For the fight we cannot tell Gazing at the elevated ground To attain but fame.

The flower smiled at the sun When sun lost its strength in pride And snow trampled its face When storm was made friend To give but joy all-long The flower smiled, it smiled at sun.

Get acquainted with Oil and Gas!

BY: JOHN OCHEJE

Laugh out loud (lol)!

AKPOS: Sweetheart, I’m GEJ EKAITTE: You’re kidding, our president is GEJ (Goodluck Ebele Jonathan) AKPOS: I mean, I’m GEJ; “Going on Emergency Journey”!

EKAITTE (Smiles):- Oh! You are not serious! What kind of journey are u going on?

AKPOS: OBJ EKAITTE: To meet Obasanjo?

AKPOS: No, it means On a Business Journey.

EKAITTE: Oh! AKPOS: Yes… IBB EKAITTE: Babangida?

AKPOS: I’ll be back EKAITTE: *smiles* AKPOS: Till then ACN. EKAITTE: - You want to join Politics?

AKPOS: I’ll always call your number.

EKAITTE: Hmmm…

AKPOS: While I’m away, PDP with love.

EKAITTE: What? Akpos: please don’t play with our love.

EKAITTE: you know I won’t BRF. AKPOS: What has Lagos state governor, got to do with all this!?

EKAITTE (smiles): I’ll be Righteous and Faithful!

AKPOS: I trust you EKAITTE: Fool!

AKPOS (Screamed): What!?

EKAITTE: For our overwhelming love!

Have a great attitude…

O

ABUNDANT

HYDROCARBON

PLANKTON

BITUMEN

KEROSENE

POLYETHENE

CRUDE

MICROSCOPIC

REFINERY

DRILL

NATURAL

RESOURCE

ENGINE

NONRENEWABLE

SEDIMENT

FOSSIL

NYLON

SUN

FRACTION

PETROL

FUEL

PETROLEUM

GAS

PHOTOSYNTHESIS

nce a Bird a s k e d a BEE, “after a continuous hard work, you prepare the honey” But a man steals the honey; Do you not feel sad?”

Then the Bee replied, “Never; because a man can only steal my honey, not the art of making honey”

Beauty

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 28

TIPS

Compiled by Isioma Nwabasha

Tips to repair nails after fixing acrylics

Lovely acrylic nails

F

ake nails come in a variety of lengths, colours and designs, allowing people to drastically change the look of their hands. Unfortunately, they can also damage the natural nails underneath due to the chemicals in the primer and adhesives used to apply them. These chemicals make the natural nails thin, weak, dry and prone to splits and breaks. It takes time to grow healthy nails and reverse nail damage, but there are ways to speed up the process.

After wearing acrylics on your fingernails, your natural nails can end up feeling very weak and flimsy, especially if you have had them on for a long period of time. One thing you should remember is that acrylics don’t ruin your nails forever and it is just the layer of the nail bed that the chemicals were adhered to that will feel damaged. Repairing nails after acrylics may at first feel and look like they will never

Damaged nails

look healthy again, but in actual fact with the right products and a little bit of time you can re-gain the strength of your nails in as little as two weeks.

Symptoms of damaged nails Nails coming away from your nail bed Weak, brittle nails Dry cuticles and cracked cuticles Inflamed skin around nails Ridges in your nails Peeling Flimsy Great tips to help repair nails Keep your nails short as soon as you have had your acrylics removed, just while your nails are re-building damaged tissues.

Make sure this is done straight away to avoid catching them on anything. Once you can see that your nails are feeling a little stronger and looking a lot healthier, then you can think about some length.

Get a regular manicure preferably once a fortnight or monthly to ensure better circulation in your nail bed. Since a lot of us are on a budget these days to avoid additional expenses why not try giving yourself a manicure at home.

Massage your nail beds each night before you go to sleep to get the blood circulating at your fingertips which will stimulate the blood flow to that area and really help in the healing of your nails.

Soaking your nails in an essential oil for at least ten minutes daily for a month will do wonders in speeding up the process, strengthening and moisturising your nails. After a month you will only need to soak your nails maybe once or twice a week.

Stay away from harsh chemicals, this tip will prevent you from causing further damages to your already damaged natural nails. Harsh chemicals are present in cleaning

products, so consider staying away from them for a while after removing acrylics or make sure you wear gloves.

Use a good cuticle conditioner, your cuticles are just as important as your nail and there is nothing worse than cracked, dry cuticles. If you are serious about repairing your nails you shouldn’t forget about the health of your cuticles.

Consume biotin-rich foods.

Biotin works effectively in keeping your nails strong and thick. Among the best biotin sources are avocados, bananas, eggs, sardines, salmon or tuna, berries, mushrooms and whole grains. These are just a few of the many biotin-rich foods you could start to add to your diet to help with not only your nails, but your hair and skin.

Nail repair kit

Investing in a good nail repair kit, one which is designed to really condition your nails while helping repair them at the same time. There are a lot to choose from out there so don’t run out and grab the first nail repair kit you find because there are many that seem like they are doing the job, but are actually doing more damage than good. You are looking for a nail repair kit that contains formaldehyde, a very small amount and around 80 percent protein and 15–18 percent moisture.

Repairing your nails after fixing acrylics can take a little time, but if you are patient, make some time each day for a couple of weeks and follow the aforementioned tips, it won’t be long before you have your strong and healthy nails back.

Compiled by Miriam Humbe

Fashion

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 29

Don’t miss the vintage feel of Ankara boyfriend jacket R anging from Michelle Obama to top Hollywood celebrities etc, Ankara prints are appreciated by everyone, both young and old. You can never go wrong in Ankara prints.

Ankara prints can be sewn as a shirt, blouse, swimming trunks, bow ties, laptop bags, bangles and so on.

Who would have thought that African prints, now known as Ankara, would make headlines in fashion international magazines and even get to be featured in international fashion events? Thanks to the buzzing designers out there.

Ankara prints can make outfits from office to weddings. All types of accessories can be done using Ankara prints as well.

This is what gave Ankara print a

breakthrough. Ankara boyfriend jacket has a vintage feel and at the same time modern-day look. One can wear this jacket to work, church and even weddings when paired with the right accessories. You can pair it trousers or a gown or better still a skirt.

This is a musthave for both men and women.

This jacket can be paired with jeans, straight pants, threequarter pants or even shorts.

For office wear, the Ankara boyfriend jacket can be worn over a little black/ white dress.

A maxi dress worn over with this jacket is also eye-catching.

Whichever way you decide to pair your Ankara boyfriend jacket, you will surely look your best.

PAGE 30

Pots & Pans

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

With Miriam Humbe Yields 10 servings

Millet Pancakes (‘yartsala)

Preparation time 4 hours Cooks for 10 minutes Low Fat, Fat-Free, Low in Saturated Fat, Low Cholesterol, Cholesterol-Free, Trans-fat Free, Low Carb, SugarFree, Sodium-Free, Low Sodium

Ingredients 2 cups millet flour buy at a health food store 1¼ cups water lukewarm 1xmargarine or oil 1xsugar to taste 1 pinch salt

Directions The batter for these pancakes needs to stand for about 4 hours before you start cooking.

It helps if you have a flat pancake griddle, but if you do not then use a heavy frying pan.

Sift flour into a bowl and gradually pour in the warm water, stirring and mixing well as you do so to make a smooth, runny paste.

Set aside for 4 hours.

After this, heat the margarine or oil in a shallow pan or griddle plate.

While it is warming. beat the batter with a spoon.

When the margarine or oil is hot, ladle or pour enough batter in the pan to make a saucer sized pancake and cook until crisp.

You can turn it once if you like but it is not essential.

Remove and keep warm.

Cook the others in the same way and serve to accompany a main dish, or a snack with honey or chutney.

Banana, honey, soymilk smoothie With soya milk, bananas, and honey, you can spoil yourself with this smoothie. Ideally, freezing your bananas in advance makes this really creamy. Preparation time is probably the minimum amount of time it would take to freeze bananas. You can leave the bananas to stay in the freezer overnight for best results.

Ingredients Servings: two • 1 1⁄2bananas, peeled, cut into 1/2 inch rounds, frozen (this is an important step!)

• 1 cup soymilk lite (1%) • 1 cup ice cube • 1 tablespoon honey • 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract

How to prepare Combine all ingredients in blender.

Blend until smooth.

Pour into two glasses and serve immediately.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 31

Relationship

Does body count really matter?

B

ody count is the most irrelevant yet problematic number to ever exist.

You can’t talk about it with your significant other or your parents. When not in reference to the number of murder one has committed, ‘body count’ refers to the number of sexual partners one has acquired.

It seems that when it comes to ‘mingling’, society has unanimously decided that less is better. So, why do we still think that it is important to know how many people someone has slept with? Asking about someone’s body count is a personal question and it is often asked hesitantly, as if we are not quite sure we want the answer.

The answer is often given with just as much hesitance.

Depending on who is asking, we might edit the numbers. No one wants to be judged with the number of partners that may have had. Most women think that a potential boyfriend might be less interested if they know the truth about how many partners we have had. You may brag about your conquest in the bedroom to friends, but downplay your experience when it comes to a potential significant other.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the number of men a woman has bedded, the higher the number, the higher the judgment. It can be very difficult to tell what is true and what isn’t when it comes to how many partners she has had. She can tell you straight-faced and completely believably that she has only been with two, five or six men, when the number is actually higher.

You are likely to get something closer to the truth if she doesn’t see you as long-term material.

Now for us women, body count is an actual source of contention. We have to concern ourselves with opinion because that is what double standard has taught us. The problem is there is no defined number for an acceptable body count.

So where a dude says “I want a girl with less than 10 body count”, another is happier with a girl who has more experience.

Asking a girl her body count opens a can of worms in most cases. You open yourself up to being lied to, dissatisfied, shocked or disappointed.

Most girls do lie about it. It is much easier to maintain the respect that a man has for you if your body count appears to be ‘acceptable’. The honest babe with a higher count has to listen to a guy fake-accept it. “There is nothing wrong with that.”

Your body count doesn’t matter

But asking the question alone implies that you care about that number and that you care means you are likely to judge this girl based on it.

Another aspect of this topic is the ‘birds of a feather’ rule.

Generally speaking ‘heaux are friends with other heaux’.

People who have things in common always mingle together. However, this is not always true for groups of people and sexual history. We all have friends with body counts that are lower and higher as well, the same goes for men. Not only women are ‘hoes’, there are guys who are bonafied hoes with triple digit body counts, whom no one calls a bad name.

Even in these supposedly enlightened times, there are double standards. Men often feel comfortable boasting about their number of conquests. If it is high then they are regarded as real men-about-town. But for women, a large number of sexual partners draw a much less favourable response, often running the risk of being branded ‘easy’.

“

It is completely fine for guys to be the explorative manwhore and screw anything with a hole all because they are ‘getting it out of their system’.

But when it comes to their female counterpart, if a girl has anything close to double digits she is automatically labeled a slut. For men, this isn’t a concern. Double standard allows them have as high a body count as they please. There is no stigma attached to being a promiscuous male. Another thing to consider is that many men have lost count, so you are not guaranteed to get an honest or accurate number regardless.

Why must we be so wrapped up in numbers? I am not saying it is cool or safe to go out there and give-it-up to anybody who bats an eye at you. However, it is about time we realise that some people are more sexually driven than others. Who are we to create any type of standard for how others should live their lives? If a woman wants to experiment, let her do so. If she wants to remain virginal, it is allowed. Either way, life choices

should not come equipped with our judgements. The amount of sexual partners someone has really has zero correlation to her character.

Though it is human nature to judge people by their physical weaknesses, but judging them by the number of sexual partners they have (both present and past) comes off as a sad attempt at labeling. Morals should not be determined by judgment, but by perception and one of the reasons why most people become dishonest and lie about their past is because they fear they will be judged. A woman’s worth should be in her strength, abilities, talents, efficiency and her personality. She should be judged not by what she has done, or is doing, but what she can do, because the future is always more important than the past or present.

A woman, as a young teenage girl, may have been the generic ‘wild child’, living in the moment, but that does not mean she will not become a high court judge in the future or a powerful leading figure in

Always remember that the only person that your body count matters to is you. It should be whatever you feel comfortable with, whether it is going to be a total of one or if you are on the road to 100. There is no right or wrong number, so don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad about it.

a corporate organisation. Same goes for the girl who wasn’t a wild child. We need to stop judging people by what they did, are doing or what they will do, or who they are. Everyone is unique with their own struggle, a specific page, whether dogeared or not, and people need to respect that.

So at the end of it all, body count shouldn’t even be brought into a conversation with someone you are going to date. It has no reflection on the way you will act in a relationship. Sometimes people correlate it to cheating or poor intimate relationships, but that is just not true. Its upside is that you will know what you like, what makes you tick and what you absolutely are not into. So knowing what you are into will help you find a partner that is compatible.

Always remember that the only person that your body count matters to is you. It should be whatever you feel comfortable with, whether it is going to be a total of one or if you are on the road to 100. There is no right or wrong number, so don’t ever let anyone make you feel bad about it.

People aren’t defined by the amount of sex they have. No matter the number, the person remains the same. It is simply the idea of the person that changes.

Your view of a person may change once you find out about his or her number, but it shouldn’t. Just because someone slept with X number of people doesn’t mean he or she can’t be the person who makes you happy.

The only thing that should matter is the number of people with whom you are currently sleeping with. And, if you are in a relationship, that number should equal a grand total of one.

Though this is undeniably unfair, slut-shaming unfortunately still happens all the time. Just remember, your body, your choices. Save yourself the effort of having to justify them.

There is a reason why the past is the past. A person’s sexual history is just that, history. The notion that a man or woman whom you view as ideal would be thought of differently once you discover his or her number of sexual partners doesn’t make sense. So, let us stop putting so much emphasis on needing to know a partner’s body count.

If ignorance is truly bliss, then being ignorant about one tiny detail can’t be that bad.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 32

Fiction

A chance encounter with the detective (Part 1)

T

he transporter climbed through the upper levels of Abuja city. Its powerful engines revved and hummed in a never ending tussle with the earth’s gravity for superiority.

Occasionally, the earth’s gravity would win. The events that took place thereafter could always be read in the Union, the following morning, along with the ghastly pictures splashed across the front page. Ibrahim’s eyes took in the muggy city landscape, blanketed by a cloud of gas fumes created from years of nonrecycled air. A voice came on the vehicle’s intercom and amidst static, announced that they were five minutes from level 47.

His apartment was on level 45.

Ibrahim peeked out the window once more. The platform was now in view. His thoughts went to Artemis and their discussion earlier that morning.

“I have purchased a new phone and number for you. Do not turn it on until you get to the first of the three arms levels.

Though, they will be attempting to track signals from your former line, they will also be tracking calls made to friends, lovers, and loved ones. That includes your father.”

“No. Not my father.” Ibrahim had responded shaking his head.

“He’s the Nigerian ambassador to the U.S. Tracking his calls entails tracking the calls of some of the top citizens and government officials of the states. They’d never…”

“You don’t know the NIA.” Artemis had said, interrupting him. “There is no length they won’t go to, in order to stop you, to kill you. Ambassador or not, they’ll ruthlessly hunt you down and you will never know peace.”

Ibrahim had sighed and looked at her.

“Then what do I do? How do I end this?”

“By fleeing…. To fight another day and with the right people behind you.”

“So you want me to join the resistance.” Ibrahim had said, his voice turning cold.

“No. I want you to meet the one who sent me, and then make the right decision, for the right cause.”

“No. Never. Besides I am in my last semester of college. I have to graduate.”

“Ibrahim.” It had been Artemis’s voice which had gone cold now. “I will be frank with you. My original mission was also to assassinate you. There’s a bounty on your head. However, he saw something in you, something that changed my mission from an assassination to a rescue… and retrieval.”

“Who is ‘he’? And it’s the retrieval part I can’t accept. I was better being in the shadows!

I can work effectively that way, bringing about the change we need!”

Artemis shook her head and smiled.

“Maybe just maybe you’ve been afraid to take a step into the

light. Are you afraid of what the world might think of you? You have to remember, you

cannot bring about change, if you don’t see change within yourself. You don’t have to fight for someone else’s approval Ibrahim. Fight for yours?”

“What are you…?”

A finger gently placed on his lips had cut him short.

“Think about it. I will discuss with him and buy you some time… possibly till May, your month of graduation. Until then, we will work as a team from here. So, here are my instructions newbie.”

The transporter’s operator maneuvered the vehicle into position, right above the platform. The doors opened up and the passengers trooped out in droves. In advanced cities, every platform on a level had a dock, for safety precautions. In Nigeria, a dock was a luxury available only to the top government officials or the wealthiest and least selfish citizens. Ibrahim got down from the transporter and looked around.

Always survey the crowd. It’s easy to blend in, but it’s also easy to stand out if the other person knows what to look for. Look for people who seem to be doing nothing out of the ordinary but never really moving on from a very repetitive task. They might be reading a book, or ordering coffee at a stand. They might be standing near the platform railing, looking over the city.

Whatever it is they are doing, they usually have a good excuse to be there for an indefinite period of time and if there is more than one, they try to maintain occasional visual contact with each other.

Ibrahim’s eyes scanned the

crowd looking for anyone who fit the descriptions Artemis had given him earlier.

H e

quickly followed the crowd while his eyes darted this way and that. In between glances, he would look down to avoid being made. Something was not right, but he could not tell what it was. Ibrahim looked up again and scanned the faces, as he passed through the entrance gates leading into level 47. There was a man observing jackets in a clothing store to his right. He moved from one jacket, feeling the material and then checking the price tag, to the other. To Ibrahim’s left was another man making a call on his phone. He occasionally laughed out loud before engaging in the next wave of chit-chatter with the person on the other end of the connection.

A lady walked past him. She was also on the phone talking and laughing out loud. She could have been talking to anyone in the world but Ibrahim’s gut feeling told him the person was much nearer. Ibrahim stopped at the other side of the entrance gates and watched her board the waiting transporter. She turned briefly and looked up in the direction of the man on the phone. The movement was very brief but Ibrahim caught the slight knowing nod she gave before being whisked away.

Ibrahim turned around and began walking briskly. He passed a couple walking arm in arm from one station shop to another. The man was talking.

“This looks nice on me doesn’t it?” He asked.

“Very nice indeed. Hmmm.

I’m tripping.” The lady responded, massaging his ego to the point of overkill. Ibrahim stopped at a coffee stand and asked for bottled water. He glanced over to his

left and just as he suspected, the laughing man and the jacket man had crossed the entrance gates.

Ibrahim looked at the man next to him, who was still talking with his wife.

“And to think I got it from this particular outlet.” “ I know, I

know.

I’m just surprised you chose to wear it immediately.”

“Of course. Who wouldn’t want to flaunt The Gentleman’s clothing?”

“Bottled water. One hundred naira.” The coffee seller said to Ibrahim as he placed the bottle and the receipt on the counter.

Ibrahim took out a hundred naira note and slid it across the counter into the seller’s finger tips.

“Thank you.” He said as he took his bottle and walked up to the couple. Ibrahim cleared his throat, interrupting their conversation.

“I am so sorry to barge in like this but I couldn’t help but listen in on your conversation.

What shop did you get the sweater from? I’m scheduled to have a reunion with my high school friends tonight and I want to show up looking grown and sophisticated like my big brother here.” Ibrahim flashed his best charming smile as he surveyed the man’s physique. They had similar builds.

“Oh why sure!” The man said happily and turned to his partner.

“Do I need more validation?”

The lady chuckled in response.

“Let’s go joor.” She said amidst giggles.

“C’mon young man. I’ll take you there myself.”

“Thanks!”

Ibrahim responded, feigning excitement.

The man pushed past him walking briskly. Ibrahim thought his head was going to burst.

Serious psyching.

Ibrahim thought as they walked on one of many metallic sidewalks and streets that overlaid the translucent platform that served as the “ground” of level 47. The

translucent glass base served as both the “ground” of one level, and the “sky” of the next, letting light through all the way to level one, without necessarily forming clear images of the foot and motor traffic above. Level 47, much like all the other levels was a designated region that spanned about twenty mega sky scrapers much like the one they had landed on. Each had a connection to the other either through a bus system (straight tubes that conveyed passengers in rollercoaster style ferries) or the aerial system which was made up of the transporters and other aerial vehicles piloted by both civilians and authorized personnel. They turned the corner unto the street The Gentleman’s was on.

“Alright young man, here we are.” The man said, ushering in Ibrahim.

“After you.” He said, holding the door for Ibrahim. He also beckoned to his wife to follow suit, before closing the door behind himself. The Gentleman’s was fairly crowded with lots of potential customers looking through the clothing selection on display. Ibrahim heaved a sigh of relief as he navigated his way through the slew of people, towards the sweater and cardigan section. It was not long before he caught sight of the blue and black striped cardigan the man so proudly wore.

“Here it is.” Said the man excitedly. “And it is the last one.”

Ibrahim picked up the cardigan and examined it.

“Just my size.” He said, flashing a fake smile. His eyes darted to the glass doors. He knew his followers would eventually search this store, any minute.

“But just to be sure, let me try it on.”

“Please do.”

Ibrahim made his way to the changing rooms and was in the nearest empty one just as his followers came charging through the glass doors. Ibrahim peeped at them as he quickly took off his shirt and slipped on his cardigan.

He took out his new phone and expanded the disc to reveal the holographic keypad. He quickly dialed 999 – the country’s emergency response number. The feminine voice of an operator was quickly heard on the other end.

999 how may I help you!

“I’m calling from level 47.

Two suspicious characters just walked into a clothing store, The Gentleman’s and I believe I saw them during the bombing of Kano Motel a few days ago.”

Sir that was not a bombing, but an accidental fire caused by a room occupant’s…

“Don’t give me that bull crap. Now I know you have been instructed to sell that fib to the general public but I am not the general public. If you don’t mobilize men here, the consequences will be yours to bear. Is this being recorded?”

To be continued……………

Naijastories.com

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 33

Romance

She returned to my life when it was too late

I

decide to go upstairs. I barely stand to my feet when I hear a drunken song.

Francis!

On white shirt, black trousers and shoes, his feet rocking and skipping on the floor, body sways back and forth like a palm tree in dance for storm. His eyes, like dim motor lamps, fluctuate in their sockets.

I resume my seat, my hand propping my jaw. I shouldn’t care about him, or else there would be a fight here tonight. Angelina has jerked to her feet, inching close to him, a baffled expression on her face. Like a stammerer, she keeps swinging her fists, trying to free words from her tongue.

“Fra…Francis!” She finally bursts her throat like a threatening rain, “What the hell have you done to yourself, huh? You’re drunk?”

“Who-o-o-o is this troublesome woman?” He yells, tugging at her Brazilian weave-on.

“I’m not troublesome. It’s me, your Angee!” she whines like a baby, wrapping her right hand around his waist. But he squirms out, “Baby, is it because of my hairstyle? I will undo it for you.

Let’s go upstairs. You are drunk.”

Francis could say nothing, but laugh like a mad man, pointing at her and laughing the more.

“Who…told you…am…am… drunk. How can I be drunk?”

He motions to lay his palms on her shoulders, then halts, turns sharply in my direction, cupping his hand above his face, squinting as if to sight something a mile away.

“My lo-o-o-ve, there you are,” His laughter rings louder, and he begins to sing: Ada-nwa. Pa-ran-ran-ran-ran Ada, my sugar cane. Pa-ranran-pa-ran-ran Ahuru m gina-anya (I love you.)

“Baby, I’m here with you,” says Angelina, turning his face off me.

This dude is so high. How does my complexion tally with Angelina’s, let alone my figure?

“I said le-e-a-ve me…am… not…drunk. That…that is my sweetheart!”

Angelina glares at me, flipping eyelashes like busy hand-fans. I know she could strangle me to death if chanced.

Dragging and pulling, she eventually assists him upstairs.

Some minutes later, I begin to make my way upstairs, climbing each case with heavy tired steps— as if a rock is weighed upon my shoulders. My mind swings between Mathew and the foolish impediment in my family. Besides, how do I express my feelings to him? Maybe I should invite him for a dinner, and in the process tell him, “I love you Mathew,” then pause, and continue, “Do you love me?” What a silly idea!

Should I give him a romantic card and ask him to reveal in private?

Confessing my feelings should be my next move. I have to find a way to do that. Maybe I…..

My thought shatters.

Walking across Frances’ door, I pause.

My body is melting down to the moans along the passage.

Sometimes, the soft ‘woosh’ and ‘ouch’ would die off, into a choked, ecstatic, silent cry. Then rise back in louder and doubled pattern.

With clouded mind, I walk further away.

YINKA It’s a Saturday morning. 8: 40am. I wake up to find a missed call.

Janet!

Staring at the call, my heart crashes, outrunning a beat.

Yesterday was so stressful.

Besides, I have put my phone on vibration. The mention of her name is such a banger in my heart, dare not her murderous sight. In fact, I’m yet to recover from our acted kiss….I wish those lips were mine.

We still spoke on phone two days ago and the day before, on some issues. She is aiming to open a boutique on the Lagos Mainland.

She expressed her resentment for office work, as a tiring task. And she wished I wouldn’t work there anymore, stating the way she could assist me to stand as a man.

I was glad to hear that she would assist me with a capital for import and export business. But she promised to fulfill everything after impersonating as my fiancée. I think she is just too kind. Anyway, I pray she finds the right man, if she is not for me.

Browsing through my phone, I realize she left a message, which reads: I should be at your place by 9: am. Please, be prepared.

Have a wonderful night dear.

I hurriedly grab at my tooth brush and towel, rushing for the pail at the foot of the bed.

I finish my bath in five minutes. Almost helter-skelter, I clean myself, apply a body cream, and jump into a red shirt and black trousers.

It’s exactly 8:50am when I finish dressing, Before long I have a call. Janet.

Good timing.

I clear my throat. Once. Twice.

And pick up, “Hello!”

“Good morning,” she says coolly, “I hope you’re set. There is a slight traffic. I should be in your place in twenty minutes, or less.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that. I’m ready. Thank you.”

After the call, I lie on the bed.

“

I’m expecting her to park in front of my house. The last time she came, she finally parked there, calling my phone. Getting outside, she asked me to show her to my room. I was surprised, and then laughed. I wondered how she would regard my humble abode.

When she entered, she looked around, smiled and said, “It’s not that bad. We should be going now.

We’re late for the party.”

My house is facing the Apapa high way. But there is hardly a parking space, so she prefers parking at the parking lot, at the nearest junction.

I keep taking a glance on my wrist watch, anxiously waiting for her call.

Ten minutes later, I hear a knock at the door. I jerk to my feet, adjusting my wears. Then walk gently to the door.

“Baba onile ni O.” says a manly voice, before I could get to the door. (It’s your Landlord) “Baba, e karo sir,” (Baba, good morning, sir) I barely open the door before prostrating to the man, raising my head to see…

Adeola!

“What!” My throat burst in shock, “Am I…am I dreaming or what?”

I open my mouth, dumbfounded.

She is standing right beside the old man, an apologetic expression on her face. She is brushing her

My body is melting down to the moans along the passage.

Sometimes, the soft ‘woosh’ and ‘ouch’ would die off, into a choked, ecstatic, silent cry.

Then rise back in louder and doubled pattern.

palms together in plead, going down on her right knee. Like an official beggar. She seems to have lost some weight. Her once fleshy chocolate figure is now reduced to a willowy structure. Still looking pretty though, but her braid is weary, dancing on her head and over her face like cobwebs. On her blue short skirt, yellow blouse and black handbag, she is looking rather unkempt.

“You’re not dreaming, my son,” says the old man, in Yoruba, “Just calm down. She came to me three days ago, in the afternoon….” The man begins, but I cut him short, ask him to come in.

I could see my opposite neighbour, Iya Folake, peeking from her blue curtain. A face-meface-you is indeed a hell. I really respect this landlord. He treats all his tenants like a family, or else I wouldn’t let Adeola stay a second here.

Getting inside, the man refuses to sit, adjusting his yellow agbada.

Adeola roots beside him.

He says Adeola has met him, in order to pacify me on her behalf. But I usually returned late from work. And he, the landlord, has been an early sleeper owing to his poor health, thus, we couldn’t meet. He says Adeola has regretted all her deeds, adding some Yoruba placatory adages.

I sigh.

“Please forgive me,” she falls to her knees, sniffing and swallowing hard; her head drops, “It’s my Mum….She….She….” her voice fading off, like a smoke wisp.

Staring at her, I wonder with a bitter smile. The fact is, she no longer has a room in my heart.

She used to show true love, until a particular time. She once planned to carry my baby, so that her Mum would hopelessly leave her to marry me. Her Dad was wholly in support; her Mum was absolutely not. When she introduced me to them, the woman was glaring

at me like fire. She wanted her daughter to marry an affluent man. On several occasions, she came to shout at my door, that I have charmed her daughter. She came back too late when I have already moved on.

My thought is shattered to the call on my phone. Janet is certainly outside. I thank the old man, excessively. He takes his leave, urging me to consider her.

“Please, leave right now!” I yell at her, “As you can see, I have a program! Or do you want me to bundle you out?”

The phone is still ringing…

I sigh. Then press the receive button.

“I’m at your doorstep, Mathew,” says Janet, softly, “Could you open the door.”

“At my door?” I query in surprise, mixed with shock, “Okay, I’m coming.”

When I open the door, she smiles. “You’re surprised I could still recognize your room, right?”

“Yeah…Yeah…”

I answer uneasily, trying to compose my voice, and then force a broad smile,” Yes, I’m wondering. You’re welcome.”

She is arrayed in a red skirt and white blouse, the pink on her lips and other applications are mind-blowing.

She steps in, looking straight ahead, wincing and making a face as if to ask, “Who is this?”

Adeola is still on her knees, head adown; just beside my shelf.

Before Janet could say a word I tell her, slowly,“That is Adeola.”

Adeola reveals her face at that moment, her eyes clouded.

Pointing at her, Janet says, “You mean the lady you…”

She is cut short by Adeola’s statement, “If….If you can’t consider me, please, consider my two months pregnancy.”

Naijastories.com

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 34

Nollywood S

inger, Ay.com, has cleared the air on lingering rumours that he could not withstand the stiff competition in the Nigerian music industry and that was why he quit.

Rumour also has it that aside the competition, the rift between him and his friend, Terry G, was also part of what affected his musical career.

The singer in a recent interview said he had to put his music on hold to get closer to his family which is the most important thing to him. Now blessed with two kids, the singer said he needed to take time off to enable him understand his wife better and train his children. ‘‘I am a family man and marriage is totally different from courtship. It is a lifetime union. I was away from music so that I could get to know my wife better. Marriage was one of the reasons I was away from the limelight. Raising a family requires a lot of attention and that is what I am giving my family. I have two children now.

I had to train them to a level. I had to make sure my home is stable before I go back to music.

I had to give my home the attention it deserves because my family is very important to me.

If my home is not settled, there is no way I can make headway in life. I give God the glory that my family is settled.”

AY.com explained that he can never have a failed career because he controls music, adding that he just released a song with Terry G titled, ‘No Mind Them,’ so as to show people that they are good together.

He explained though that he had a rift with the singer, but had learnt his lessons from it, noting that he regretted some aspects but has since been able to stand alone as a man. “Before the misunderstanding, we used to be very close friends. We are not so close now because we are both family men. I don’t know if things can be the way they used to be between us because there are women and children in our lives now. I wish and pray that things would be better than they used to be between us because he is a very good friend of mine,” he said.

Hip-hop stars to collaborate against internet fraud

Family took me out of music -AY.Com

Aralola Olamuyiwa, Ara

H

ip Hop superstars, Ice Prince, Phyno and Olamide will collaborate on a yet to be released song called ‘Get Some Money’. The song is an initiative of Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, a social enterprise that connects Nigerian youths with ICT-enabled opportunities.

This organisation is currently working on a project called #DigitalJobs which aims to provide tens of thousands of Nigerian youths with legitimate jobs on the internet.

In order to make this objective a reality, they have gotten some of the biggest stars in Nigerian music to encourage youths to embrace the #DigitalJobs project and desist from internet fraud.

Eucharia, Danja, Ekubo in ‘Dark closet’

Zakky desperate to see children after 3 years

R

emember, the divorce scandal that rocked the marriage of torch-carrying artiste, Zakky Azzay? Though he has moved on with his life and has even remarried, but his joy seems incomplete. This is because he wishes to reunite with his children from his previous marriage.

In a recent chat, the artiste lamented his inability to see his kids for about three years after the

Zakky

scandal and said he misses them badly. “It is a known fact that my children were closer to me than their mother. I have not seen two of my kids since after the scandal.

It is just one of my daughters that is with me. I am not happy about this,” Zakky confessed.

Though the case is still in court, Zakky said he hopes things speed up so that he can reunite with his children.

Now that he has remarried, the

artiste added that his current wife is very understanding and loving.

“I had to move on with my life so I wouldn’t become irresponsible.

I had to marry again and I am so happy with my current wife.

You know the nature of our job; if I don’t re-marry, I would have become one useless man jumping from one woman to another. I am happy with the choice I made,” he said.

F

rom the staples of Mac Rissals Pictures comes another block buster movie titled, ‘Dark Closet’ which was produced by Uzee Concept and directed by Saheed Apanpa.

The movie features Alex Ekubo, Jibola Dabo, Chelsea Eze, Eucharia Anunobi, Yakubu Mohammed and singer, Sani Danja.

‘Dark Closet’ tells the story of self centeredness in the country’s political circle, domestic violence, sheer camaraderie, lust, virtues of endurance and patience.

The theme of the movie revolves round a lady known as Angela, who out of fear of losing the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with, hides a vital issue from public glare for over 30 years.

The movie is set to be released anytime soon as it is in its final stage of packaging.

According to the producers, the movie is a must watch for every family as it tends to educate viewers about what some people go through and what some are capable of doing even with their gentle way of life.

PAGE 35

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Theatre review

Hollywood

Shakespeare in love

Moments of sheer stage poetry are mixed with effervescent fun

“C

omedy, love – and a bit with a dog. That’s what they want,” declares Thomas Henslowe, the debt-ridden theatre manager in Shakespeare in Love. We’ll come to the love in a moment. But first things first. Not since the chihuahua in the musical of Legally Blonde has there been a more captivating canine cameo in the West End than that now being turned in by the Labradoodle “Spot” (“Out, damned spot! out, I say!”) in this joyous stage adaptation the theatre.

And the smartest move made by the producers was to hire director Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod, the world-renowned Cheek by Jowl team whose profound understanding of Shakespearean drama (its dazzling fluidity; its blithe of the Oscar-laden 1997 movie.

Spot is used sparingly and starts off, truth to tell, as a bit of a dope. But Lee Hall’s very canny overhaul of the celebrated Tom Stoppard/ Marc Norman script gives Spot the chance to turn up trumps at a crucial juncture (Lassie, eat your heart out) and it’s deliciously funny and absurd and affecting and entirely of a piece with the irresistible spirit of this show.

Screen to stage transfers are so frequent and mostly

catchpenny and cynical that the prospect of yet another tends to fill a critic’s heart with dread. But here there’s the elating sense that the material – with its rivalry between two public playhouses echoing the feud between the Montagues and Capulets – is reveling in it natural element in refusal to respect the “rules” of genre; its moodmingling suppleness) enriches a production that is filled with moments of sheer stage poetry as well as goodnatured, effervescent fun.

The action unfolds on a set that resembles a wooden three-tier Shakespearean playhouse.

The middle section is mobile allowing for magical kinaesthetic gliding between backstage and onstage.

The proceedings begin and end with the enormous, superbly characterful 28-strong cast clustered and craning round the young Bard and his contrary quill.

Shakespeare in Love at the Noel Coward Theatre Throughout there’s a zestful rejoicing in the nonliteral nature of theatre and the collective storytelling powers of a company.

The performers double as observers of the show (from the balconies or right up close) and there are adorable little touches such

as when the newly cognisant Shakespeare removes Viola’s false moustache in her boudoir, he calmly hands the bogus whiskers to the actor playing Marlowe who happens to be one of the bystanders.

The ridiculousness of this gesture doesn’t undercut the romance but delectably reinforces it.

There’s sizzling chemistry

between Tom Bateman (a more dashing and impetuously open-hearted Shakespeare than the sneakier Joseph Fiennes) and Lucy Briggs-Owen who is feistier and more forthright than Gwyneth Paltrow as Viola de Lesseps, the noblewoman whose passion to act out Shakespeare’s verse in a theatre culture that excludes

Shakespeare in Love at the Noel Coward Theatre

women drives her into male drag and a gig as Romeo.

The poignancy of their star-crossed love is intensified here by the strategy of freezeframing while they enter into a deeper dimension and by Paddy Cunneen’s ravishing quasi-authentic settings of Shakespearean songs and sonnets with period instruments (lutes and recorders) and a harmonising quartet dominated by the melancholy beauty of a questing counter-tenor.

Lee (Billy Elliot) Hall’s adaptation sticks to the story and about 90% of the original dialogue with the cheeky anachronisms that drolly suggest that it was ever thus with showbiz. But he’s invented some seriously witty twists of his own.

He’s beefed up Shakespeare’s relationship with his friendly rival Marlowe (enchantingly mild and kindly David Oakes) who is seen here, a la Cyrano de Bergerac, feeding him from the shadows with the improvised lines of one of the Bard’s own forthcoming sonnets in the balcony scene with Viola.

And the backstage reangling, the impassioned presentation of the death scene Romeo and Juliet, and the haunting intimations of Twelfth Night, sharpened by the suggestion that the censorious Master of the Revels is a forerunner of Malvolio, are all masterly. It makes you feel grateful to be alive.

Did I mention the bit with the dog?

Source: Hollywood Reporter

PAGE 36

Celebrity gists

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

2Face releases ‘Vote not fight’

Controversy trails Tonto Dikeh’s ‘Mr. X’

N

ollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh, recently shared a photo of her boyfriend after months of keeping his face private. Details have emerged about an Instagram page that was created on February 22 (just a day before Tonto Dikeh shared the face of her boyfriend) in which the user said ‘Mr. X’ is a married man.

Things seem to have gotten even more complicated as wedding photos of ‘Mr. X’ have emerged. According to an online blog, his real name is Churchill Oladunni and he is “happily married with kids.” Regardless of the news making the rounds, the

F

or the past few months, music legend, 2Face Idibia, has been actively campaigning against violence in the upcoming elections and now he has released the video for his campaign song, ‘Vote Not Fight’.

The video is directed by Yinka Obede and it sends a message to youths about a non-violent participation in the 2015 elections.

According to the music star, the campaign seeks to encourage youths to make a commitment to shun violence and embrace peace. It is hoped that Nigerians from all walks of life will commit to peaceful elections by signing a non-violence pledge.

controversial actress posted a picture on Instagram a few minutes ago with the caption ‘#MRSX #JOYFUL #JOYFUL #HAPPYWOMAN’.

Other sources claim ‘Mr. X’ is legally separated from his wife and therefore is free to date whoever he pleases. This isn’t the first time the actress is referring to herself as ‘Mrs. X’ in her captions.

Meanwhile, the actress and ‘duchess of DB Records’ is already shooting the video for ‘Sugar Rush’ which is her last single. The video is directed by Moe Musa with makeup

by Chyna B and styling by Jeremiah Ogbodo of Swanky Signatures Styling.

Raven Symoné is coming to ‘Black-ish’

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ormer Disney Channel star, Raven Symone, will appear on ABC’s Black-ish as Dre’s (Anthony Anderson) gay sister, Rhonda.

EW first reported the news, and described this sibling relationship as a ‘playful rivalry’ as they compete to take the top spot in their mother’s (Jennifer Lewis) rankings. Though the two are very close, Dre and Rhonda have a hard time openly discussing her sexuality.

Raven will be showing up later this season in an episode called, “Please Don’t Ask,

Please Don’t Tell.”

Before showing up on Empire, Raven had mostly been doing voice work after the end of her 2011 series, State of Georgia. Despite these recent roles, she doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to get back into acting full-time. “I will forever be in retirement.

I deserve it. I have been working from three years old to 27. I will always be on vacation and now I am going to do things that I want to do.

I am just not going to go hard all the time like I used to,” The Cosby Show star told E! News at the Empire premiere party in January

I’m not ready for marriage now-Big Sean

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apper Big Sean and Pop singer, Ariana Grande, are Hollywood’s cutest couple, but are they ready to take their relationship to the next level? The Dark Sky Paradise rapper sat down with Larry King to chat about a variety of topics for Larry King Now, and the 81-year-old didn’t shy away from asking where Sean’s romance with the 21-year-old pop star is going.

“It is pretty serious,” Sean Don told King, who then followed up with, “Is she gonna get married?” That drew a smile from Sean, and the celeb revealed that he is in no rush. “Aw, man. Not right now.” Still, King continued: “Get a Little Sean someday?” to which the rapper replied “Eventually, that is the goal.”

Sean, who signed with Kanye West’s GOOD Music in 2007, also spoke about his mentor’s recent outburst

about Beck’s Grammy win for Album of the Year. “He is opinionated, but you gotta respect it, though,” he told King when asked about the notorious incident. “I really gotta listen to Beck’s album to keep it 100 to see what I think.”

Regardless, the rapper couldn’t help but praise the outspoken artist. “It is great working with him. He is one of the most hardworking, attention-to-detail persons when it comes to music and that has carried over to my work even when I work by myself. You know the stuff I learnt from him, the lessons, hours, I am talking about re-writing verses to just paying attention to production, doing every single thing you can to make it the best. I do that on my own and that is something I learned from Kanye.”

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

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Ent e r t ain m en t

Mercy Johnson to premiere ‘Thy will be done’

Osas Ighodaro is face of Polo Avenue

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ollywood actress, Osas Ighodaro, has had a number of gigs recently from being on the cover of Made magazine to being the new face of retail store, Polo Avenue.

The former beauty queen turned actress shared the exciting news on her Instagram page. Also, the official Instagram page of the retail store announced that ‘Polo Avenue is proud to present our brand ambassador Osas Oghodaro.’

She also shared a picture on her personal page and captioned it ‘Off to the Reveal of…….. #StayTuned, #BrandAmbassador #Blessed #GodisGood.’

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ollywood actress, Mercy Johnson’s latest movie, Thy will be done, directed by Obi Emelonye of Last Flight to Abuja fame, will have its world premiere in London.

This is the first time an independent movie has premiered at the prestigious home of cinema in London, let alone a Nollywood movie.

The actress alongside her co-star, Mary Njoku, will grace the red carpet with other stars on London’s South Bank before the show starts.

Chris Brown disses the Grammys

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appers Chris Brown and Tyga are currently promoting their new joint album, ‘Fan Of A Fan 2’, which drops February 24.

In an interview with Hot 97, Chris Brown dissed the Grammys, saying “The Grammy is f*cking bullsh*t.

I am that great that I don’t need to vote for myself. So many people are scared to say something. I kinda give it to Kanye West. I think it should be a different form of how they judge.

On having to reschedule dates for ‘Between the Sheets’ tour: ‘‘I lost $3 million from doing that, $3 million in production. The thing that hurt me the most was that it was already an approval. I had 100 hours left, but they knew doing that would mess up a lot of stuff. So they were like I had to finish the 100 hours before I went on tour. I wish they had told me that two, three weeks in advance.”

Flockhart returns to TV, features in ‘Supergirl’

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ctress Calista Flockhart is making her grand return to television, and of course, it is in one of the highly anticipated projects of the season, Supergirl.

The Ally McBeal and Brothers & Sisters’ alum has joined the cast of CBS’ drama pilot, which stars Glee’s Melissa Benoist in the lead role of Superman’s cousin, Kara.

Flockart is set to take on the series regular role of Cat Grant, a self-made media magnate and founder of CatCo. After starting off her career as a reporter, Cat has built her company into a global powerhouse. Since wrapping Brothers & Sisters in 2011, the Golden Globe winner has made several guest appearances on Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy and voiced characters on Robot Chicken and The Penguins of Madagascar.

She the latest star to join Supergirl, which comes from Arrow and The Flash mastermind, Greg Berlanti and Ali Adler. True Blood alum, Mehcad Brooks is set to play James “Jimmy” Olsen, a photographer at CatCo, while Tony Award winner. Laura Benanti, she of Nashville, Go On and The Good Wife fame, is taking on the recurring role of Kara’s birth mother, Alura Zor-El.

Imitation Game leads Empire Award nominations

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his year’s Empire Awards is led by World War Two thriller, The Imitation Game, which has six nominations. The winners are chosen by readers of the monthly film magazine, allowing big budget blockbusters to rub shoulders with critic favourites.

This year’s UK box office smashes, The Hobbit: The Battle of the five armies and dawn of the planet of the apes, have four nominations a piece.

Best film sees Richard Linklater’s Boyhood up against Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Eddie Redmayne, who plays Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, can dust down his dinner jacket once again as he is up for best actor.

Joining him in that category is Dawn of the planet of the Apes’

star, Andy Serkis, for his role as Caesar. Also, Emily Blunt (Edge of Tomorrow), Felicity Jones (The Theory Of Everything), Keira Knightley (The Imitation Game), Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina) make up the list.

James Nesbitt is hosting this year’s ceremony in London on Sunday, March 29.

Hollywood legends like Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Emma Thompson rubbed shoulders with the next generation of acting talent and the atmosphere was electric. The public can vote for the shortlisted nominees at the Empire website.

Last year, Gravity and The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug were the big winners.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 38

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ISSUES

Arrogance of the political elite

By Tola Adeniyi

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once wrote on the arrogance of power (Nigerian Compass 2007) where I castigated the Nigerian power wielders and their ‘next-to-God’ disposition and inclination. Today, however, I am more concerned about the fall-out of that arrogance and the huge contribution that the voters and citizens in general make to that effect.

We are going to dwell on the slavish mentality of Nigerians which has turned the political elite into semi-gods.

The word ‘minister’ in its elementary form means to serve, to minister to others.

And so ministers are those who carry out the policy initiatives and decisions of the executive. A minister in any political arrangement is not meant to be a master. He or she is not a master. He/ she is the servant of the people. An elected governor or premier of a region or a state in a federation is not more than the chief servant of the state or the region. He or she is the head of government and the chief of the servants in his cabinet.

But Nigerian political leaders woke up one morning and thought they were the descendants of the colonialists from who they inherited power. They thought they should also live in designated areas like their former slave masters and at the immediate instance became the new lords of the manor.

When the military strayed into the political space, they brought in their jackboot ‘command-and-obey’ mantra and made zombies of the civilian population.

Everybody must obey the orders of military governors without question. And so began the culture of breathing down on the civilian population and making themselves unquestionable and unaccountable.

WRITE TO US

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Politicians are very much aware of this fact and they are ever prepared to sacrifice anything and everything to garner ascendancy to power. And while canvassing for power and position, they ride on the bare back of hapless masses, and even employ some of them as thugs and body guards. As soon as they acquire power, they do everything to recoup all the investments they put in the process of power acquisition. Thereafter they begin to amass wealth, filthy wealth to the neglect of their sacred responsibility of delivering on the promises they made during electioneering.

Now that they have accumulated so much wealth, power and privilege, the masses who voted them become toys in their arena of play.

Unfortunately, as the masses become progressively dispossessed and impoverished, they become weak and voiceless and their power to bargain vanishes. They begin to struggle for crumbs from the tables of the men and women

their votes put into power. Because of poverty, unemployment and other manmade deficiencies in their socio-economic plight, they turn themselves to beggars and hustlers. And doing so lose all the respect they ought to have.

The degree of subservience of Nigerian citizens to the political elite is simply out of this world. Elites who were school-dropouts yesterday immediately became ‘Their Excellencies’ the moment they are sworn in as governors or president. Nigeria is perhaps the only country where a governor is addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ about a million times at a state function.

Commissioners and ministers are addressed as ‘Honourables’, a great misnomer. It is only in the parliamentary system of government where you must have won an election in your constituency before you are appointed a minister that the term ‘Honourable’ applies.

The way and manner some governors treat their commissioners, or the way

some presidents address their cabinet members will make any respectable and self-respecting person cover his or her face in shame. And it is not the fault of these presidents and governors, it is the fault of those who tolerate insults because he/she wants to keep his job.

I have always asked myself where the terminology ‘Executive Governor’ comes from. A governor is ordinarily the chief executive officer of his state. Why the double portion of ‘executive this and that’?

It is all about arrogance of power and the Nigerian subservience to lick the boot of the person in power. A governor should be more concerned about the enormous responsibility which power entails rather than bogus meaningless titles.

Part of our problems in Nigeria today is the deification of our political elite.

We treat political office holders, mainly because they have money and wield considerable influence, like gods. And they in turn treat all of us as like dirt. They take all the decisions on our behalf. They decide in their caucus who to present to us as candidates to vote for in primaries. And when elections have come and gone, it is the political elite who singularly decides who gets what in the distribution of posts, positions and favours.

It becomes more worrisome when you see university professors lobbying some touts of a governor for consideration for the post of commissioners. There was a time a semi-literate ‘head of state’ screamed that he had over 10,000.00 CVs on his table.

Until Nigerians learn to speak truth to power, until they develop self respect, until they let the political elite know that we, the masses, are their masters and that while they are in office it is we the poor masses who pay their salaries and feed them, they will never cease from riding roughshod on us.

Culled from Ekekeee.com

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PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Opinion

Obasanjo, Nigeria’s greatest enemy

By Preye Ogriki

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agree completely with those who say that Chief Olusegun Obasanjo is the greatest enemy Nigeria has today. I will buttress my position by adducing some of the things he did deliberately to hurt this country and by extension the citizenry.

When Obasanjo was nominated as presidential candidate of the PDP, a party that was formed without any input from him, for the 1999 general elections, he picked Atiku Abubakar as his running mate because of his political clout, popularity and his enormous ability to mobilise both financial and human resources. The duo went on to win the elections and were sworn in as president and vice president.

After the first tenure, Atiku sought to, based on whatever arrangements he had with Obasanjo, to become the PDP presidential candidate. We were told of how the former president went on his kneels to beg his vice to allow him get the ticket and Atiku magnanimously agreed though to his detriment.

After they were sworn in, Obasanjo begrudged Atiku for daring to nurse the ambition of becoming the PDP presidential candidate. He went on vendetta and deliberately denigrated the vice president’s office, he investigated Atiku on the PTDF saga just to find something to hang on him and subsequently jail him, but all to no avail.

He wasted public resources trying to force his third term agenda on Nigerians and the constitution.

To punish Nigerians, he imposed an ailing president and a deputy he thought he could control in the person of President Goodluck Jonathan. Obasanjo had rejected the then

governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke, as vice president on the grounds that he was too independent minded.

Because Jonathan has chosen not to be Obasanjo’s stooge, he has decided to punish him by working against his re-election even if it is against the will of the majority of Nigerians. He has severally discredited the president, written letters accusing him of all sorts of things, including the training of a killer squad for the purpose of the 2015 elections.

Those who know him well said he wants to singularly take credit for any good thing happening around him. It is obvious that Obasanjo feels threatened by the strides being made by this government and he is afraid that he will become inconsequential when history finally places his role in nation building compared to people like Jonathan, who without making so much noise is transforming every facet of the society.

From industrialisation with the roadmap reeled out already, auto policy, GRIC ($16bn Gas Revolution Industrial City project) to housing, 24, 000 mortgages approved and issued between April when the policy and funding was concluded and December 2014 compared to the 25,000 total mortgages in the country prior to the take-off of this new policy.

The power sector, with the successful privatisation of DISCOS and GENCOS with over 70 percent of the power plants completed, the progress made in completing key pipelines to deliver gas to over 80 percent of the power plants to infrastructure, especially the quality of work being done on the roads across the country. The new airport terminals and the major progress being made in agriculture, which has seen our food import bill dropping

to about N650billion from N1.1trillion within three years, clearly making the impact of drop in crude oil prices minimal on food prices.

No matter how many books Obasanjo writes to lie about the things he has done, history will judge him fair and square.

Privatising public companies and selling them to himself directly or through cronies.

Does Transcorp ring a bell, or is it Eleme Petrochemical? Or is it the steel mills, DSC and Ajaokuta or is it the Halliburton scandal or is it the billions that were allocated and disbursed for road interventions which never happened?

Or is it the crimes he committed against individuals? Citizens of this country he perceived as enemies and shut down their businesses?

Another example of Obasanjo’s hypocrisy and selfish motives was in the handling of the Bakassi issue. He single-handedly forfeited the

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territory without the approval of the National Assembly and without the consent of Bakassi people. When the issue came to the fore and he was queried by the National Assembly, his pretence was that he wanted peace in the region at all costs. Obasanjo had his eyes on becoming a Noble Peace Prize winner and it didn’t matter to him if Nigeria loses its mineral resources to Cameroon or if Nigerians in Bakassi become homeless. Due process was not one of the things he subscribed to once his personal interests are involved.

The ‘gods’ are certainly to blame for foisting this character on Nigeria. He is in the league of African leaders who failed woefully when they had the opportunity of leading their people.

Ogriki contributed this piece from Abuja.

Those who know him well said he wants to singularly take credit for any good thing happening around him. It is obvious that Obasanjo feels threatened by the strides being made by this government and he is afraid that he will become inconsequential when history finally places his role in nation building compared to people like Jonathan, who without making so much noise is transforming every facet of the society.

Jega and the danger of over-indulgence Laurence Ani

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e may not realise it, but we have become hostages to our obsession with political correctness. This obsession gives ample room for problems that could have been nipped in the bud to fester to a point where it becomes almost intractable. The somewhat tepid response of the government to the threat posed by Boko Haram was shaped by this urge to pander to sectional whims which, in this case, rationalised the emergence of the terror group in a manner that made an appropriate military response untenable. The capacity of this national malaise to imperil commonsense played out recently as Nigerians debated the propriety of rescheduling the general elections. For many, it seemed that there was an untoward goal behind the call for postponement, a narrative that completely ignored the fact that Professor Attahiru Jega was living in delusion and assumed his powers as INEC chair included the right to shut out a vast population from an electoral process. So the military became the convenient fall guy.

It no longer mattered that Jega’s INEC was anything but prepared for the election as he had long claimed. Not even after he admitted that “between 800 to one million PVCs” had yet to arrive from the country of production.

The popular line remained this: the military compelled the shift, in concert with the presidency. At the late night press conference where the new dates for the elections were announced, a journalist asked Jega what he thought about calls for his resignation over allegations of bias. He would resign only if

there was a sufficient ground for him to do so, he replied dismissively, as though the obvious mishandling of mere voter registration wasn’t such a compelling reason. He was, of course, emboldened by the indulgent mood which gave the impression that he was beyond reproach. It is curious that some people were willing to overlook the fact that millions stood the risk of being disenfranchised by Jega, but took on an uncompromising posture over insinuations that the man who created this near-fiasco may be removed from office as if his right to be treated fairly was superior to citizens right to vote.

The annoying refrain was that Jega had been ‘arm-twisted’. But was that really the case? It doesn’t seem so because Jega had himself given the National Council of State a

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subtle hint that his commission could do with an extension when he met its members. As it is, any claim of subtle coercion is invalidated by his inability to prepare the logistical groundwork that would aid the smooth conduct of the elections. When public officers get an indulgent treatment from the people to whom they are supposed to be accountable, it unwittingly offers them an alibi for future shortcomings. It is important to see the danger inherent in this carte blanche some are offering Jega as the election day approaches.

We could, at least, glimpse the folly in the many embarrassing revelations that further highlight the appalling state of logistics at the commission: the fact that as of a few days ago, Lagos was still waiting for the delivery of 400,000 PVCs; that no PVC had been sent to

When public officers get an indulgent treatment from the people to whom they are supposed to be accountable, it unwittingly offers them an alibi for future shortcomings. It is important to see the danger inherent in this carte blanche some are offering Jega as the election day approaches.

about three local government areas in Cross River State and the fact that over one week after the originally scheduled election date for which Jega claimed he was prepared, PVC distribution in several states is still unsatisfactory. Do we blame the military for that? If there is one lesson learnt through the discourse thrown up by the shift, it is how the narrative of a contemporary event could be so easily distorted.

This reflects in General Muhammadu Buhari’s suggestion in an interview on CNN that the presidency was the mastermind behind the INEC decision. There was no mention of the commission’s inefficiency that would ordinarily have made the results of the elections questionable. Another lesson, albeit related to the latter, is how static the west’s understanding of African states has remained for decades. Issues are never contextualised; it is often that inflexible pronouncements issued from the bully pulpit which assumes we need to be shepherded to do the ‘right things”.

Strict observance of democratic traditions are romantic notions that subsist in part because they haven’t been tested by severely exigent situations. Were it not so, the late Theodore Roosevelt could not have served a fourth term as the United States president.

If the long established tradition of two presidential terms could be breached on account of the exigencies of the Second World War, why do we then make so much fuss about a shift in election date? ng

Ani posted this article on Opinion.

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PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Comment Winning the war against terrorism Ayo Baje

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his is no longer an issue of national security for Nigeria, it is a question of regional and international security. If Nigeria implodes, then the whole of Africa will feel it.” – Col. Mahamane Sani (Director of Documentation and Military Intelligence of Niger’s Armed Forces) The recent level of success achieved by the Nigerian armed forces in their determined onslaught against the Boko Haram insurgents could be traced to some salient factors. These include the increased support and cooperation from the neighbouring countries of Cameroun, Chad and Niger, as well as the enhanced deployment of sophisticated arms and ammunition, frequent use of air bombardment of the terrorists training grounds and of course, more tactical implementation of relevant intelligence information gathering.

Assisting in all of this is the humongous allocation to security in the annual budget. This is a most welcome development, coming few weeks to Nigeria’s general elections. It would be recalled that the main reason advanced by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega, for the polls shift from February 14 to March 28, is the insecurity situation, especially in the north-east. And the assertion by the top brass of the security forces that they could not guarantee the safety of stakeholders in the electoral process. It would have been foolhardy to jettison such a piece of advice. But beyond this, will the policy measures and mechanisms put in place sustain the war against the insurgents?

For instance, only recently, Shekau, the kingpin of the Boko Haram terrorists, boasted in a video clip to unleash mayhem during the forthcoming general elections. This threat cannot be wished

away with a wave of the hand, given their recent incursion into Gombe about two weeks after they had sent a warning signal to that effect. We must also not forget in a hurry how similar threats on the police headquarters and the United Nations building all in Abuja, as well as the bomb blasts at Nyanya were not heeded. We must come to understand the vampire-bat mindset of the bloodthirsty terrorists. The more intense their killings and the greater the casualties, the happier they become.

We recall the tear-jerking attack on Baga, a town in northeast Borno State, which wiped out more than 200 residents on April 16, 2014 and the spine-chilling killing of more than 100 passengers at a luxury bus park in Kano State. The wanton wasting of defenceless students in schools in Yobe, Adamawa and the abduction of over 200 Chibok school girls have only emboldened them to cause more terror. The critical issue of insecurity must therefore, not be politicised, as no one person or political party has the magic wand to wipe it off. Terrorism is an asymmetric war which cannot be curtailed or contained

using a conventional method. For more sustainable solution we should consider the immediate, medium and long-term measures. We should also adopt the Root Cause Analytical (RCA) approach.

This raises some fundamental questions. How did it begin? What factors have sustained it so far? Who are those funding and fueling the crises?

Who arms them, from where and with what? What are the cost implications of winning the war against terror?

What do we do to drastically reduce its economic devastation and psychological traumatisation of the citizenry?

According to Dotun Bademosi, a UStrained international security expert in an interview with the Chinese news site Xinhua in Abuja, “The present security problems in Nigeria are of many spheres.

But we can safely say that they were caused mainly by economic challenges and political intolerance. Those are the undertone in these security problems.

Boko Haram, for instance, initially started as a religious affair that was badly managed. Then, some selfish people capitalised on it to cause greater problems.

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The present security problems in Nigeria are of many spheres. But we can safely say that they were caused mainly by economic challenges and political intolerance. Those are the undertone in these security problems. Boko Haram, for instance, initially started as a religious affair that was badly managed. Then, some selfish people capitalised on it to cause greater problems.

Nigeria’s last chance Oluwole Alabi

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hat entrenches and solidifies democracy is the ability of an opposition party to win a national election. It also goes without saying that a very large majority in any parliament is an anathema to an enduring democracy. These two vital factors have been clogs in the search for true democratic governance. The closest we had was in the second republic when a coalition of other parties made a disconcerted effort to forge a formidable opposition to the ruling National Party of Nigeria. All the efforts made by the then leadership of the Progressive Party Alliance were prematurely aborted by the inordinate ambition of the political gladiators of the alliance.

The issues in politics are dynamic and the way a political party handles them determines their electoral fate. In the recent past, two main issues accounted for the change of government in the western world, the economic recession and the Iraqi war. In the light of these, the Americans sent George Bush and his party out of the White House and brought in Barack Obama, the British forced Tony Blair to hand-over to Golden Brown who eventually led his Labour Party to electoral defeat to David Cameron’s Conservative Party, Sarkozy was replaced with Francois Hollande in France for similar reasons. Last week, a new party was elected to form the next government because of its anti-austerity stance. Close to our borders, the opposition party won a presidential election in Ghana because the incumbent was drifting away from their values. This can only be possible where a credible and formidable opposition exists.

In contrast and just like Nigeria, South Africa lacks a formidable opposition to the

ruling African National Congress. Otherwise, Jacob Zuma ought to have been voted out because of the alleged use of state funds to upgrade his personal property. This portends a great danger to South Africa’s democracy.

In 2011, conscious efforts were made by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) to collaborate and upstage the ruling PDP in the presidential election. Perhaps, the loose alliance would have snatched the presidency from the PDP. But who knows what would have followed then as there was mutual mistrust amongst the players of the alliance.

Since the termination of that effort, leaders in opposition parties saw reasons why they would never win a presidential election without one form of collaboration or the other. Especially, the voting pattern where most of the northern states went with Buhari and the southern states overwhelmingly voted for Jonathan. It was a case of ‘had we known’. This realisation was the eye-opener they needed to go back to the drawing board which made them more transparent in their discussions towards a political marriage. Electoral collaboration, to them was too loose, too fragile and highly susceptible to manipulation. The only way forward is a proper consummated relationship.

To their credit, the journey to the marriage registry was completed after many political potholes were successfully navigated. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) eventually recognised the wedlock and registered the coalescing parties as All Progressives Congress (APC). When five of the seven governors who broke away from the PDP joined the APC, it was clear that the party has gotten a sound footing, even the prediction of the Aso Rock soothsayer that the

party would not last one year, did not come to pass. I am not sure whether anybody has called him a bastard as he requested. His crystal ball failed him spectacularly. Instead, what has come to pass is the prediction of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who once opined: “A day will come when Nigerian masses from the north and south, Christians, Muslims and Animists will merge as a force for progress and unity and kick against rigging, corruption and tyranny.”

Many of the political events and decisions that could have caused separation and eventual divorce of the constituent parties were carefully negotiated. Notably, the congresses to elect party officials at all levels, the presidential primaries and the selection of the presidential running mate were potentially destabilising and toxic moments.

Ahead of the general elections, Nigerians, perhaps for the first time; have been presented with a very credible alternative to the ruling party. Every part of the country is buzzing in anticipation of the change that we all hope will bring back the nation’s lost glory. In fairness to the citizens of this country, we have all endured, for so long; the cluelessness and tardiness of the PDP government in proffering mitigating solutions to the multi-faceted problems the country is grappling with. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that all these problems would be solved in one fell swoop. But we need a government that will provide the platform for economic growth, prevent corruption, provide security and rebuild infrastructure. People at the helm of affairs must be positively creative and map out ways that will take this great nation out of the wood. The PDP has shown in the last 16 years, more so in the last six years; that it is peopled by insensitive, clueless and retrogressive

‘‘It is an open secret that some of the sponsors don’t like the government of the day, so they sponsor these jobless boys to go and cause problems and get paid. And gradually, for some people, killing has become a source of income.

It is unfortunate that people can go that far to play their dirty politics,” he stated. A more holistic approach is to understand Boko Haram within the context of a global terror matrix with links and support from ISIS, Al-queda, al-shabbab. Cutting off such connecting threads of terror has become imperative.

There must be cooperation between Nigeria and the neighbouring countries in addition to collaboration from African Union (AU) and the west, especially the United States. The internal collaborators for political, religious and economic motives must be fished out, prosecuted within the ambit of the law to serve as a deterrent to others with similar evil mindset. There must be no sacred cows as the culture of impunity and social inequity when it comes to dispensation of justice have combined to bring us to this sorry pass.

With the international collaboration in full swing, public enlightenment is expedient for the citizens of all the affected countries to see the war as allencompassing. Furthermore, though the north-east is now labeled as the ‘axis of evil’, there is no guarantee that if not stemmed the tidal wave would not spiral out of control to other parts of the country and beyond. Now, both Cameroun and Chad have started feeling the heat which they once thought was consigned to only their neighbour’s kitchen. Above all, whichever party wins the next general election, the significant issues of curbing youth unemployment, arming the military, motivating and training them on the new ways of handling terrorism would go a long way in winning the war.

Culled from Opinion.ng

members.

In his short stint as Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari demonstrated that he has the capacity and ability to take tough decisions that will propel the country forward. In one of his creative decisions, he introduced the trade by batter policy that was loathed in the beginning by the western world, but later embraced when they realised that it was working. He flatly rejected the conditions stipulated by the IMF for loans and instead looked inward for funds to run the government and implement developmental projects. In quick succession, he paid some of our outstanding loans. No one will forget in a hurry the war against indiscipline introduced by his administration, this encompassed the orderliness and prompt resumption at one’s duty post. Students then knew lateness to school and truancy would be met with stiff penalty.

In contrast, Goodluck Jonathan has shown that he lacks what it takes to take tough decisions. He does not have the wherewithal to think creatively on how to solve the many problems confronting this nation. He is clearly disinterested in moving this nation forward.

His actions and body language are eloquent testimonies to the fact that he just wants to stay in office without doing the job the office requires of him. Not only this, he is surrounded by people who have little or no interest in the common man’s welfare.

So, fellow Nigerians, let us all go out on election days to effect the change that will usher in a purposeful and progressive government. This is our golden chance and I am afraid to add; our last chance at getting it right.

Alabi posted this article on Abusidiqu.com

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 41

Online Comments Polytechnic lecturers suspend planned strike

CAN collected N7bn for Jonathan’s campaign – Pastor

Ayahbonetz says: Is it in the interest of Nigerian students?

Odogwu_Aganaga says: All purveyors of the Middle East religion in Nigeria are guilty as charged whether you are Oritsejafor or Mbaka.

They are all thriving on human misery and extorting steadily from the poor in this day.

Organised religion is on the verge of losing its justification. It is a shame.

Human rights commission probes extra judicial killings in Zaria

Umar Mukhtar says: We are still waiting for justice over the killing of our brothers. Lt Col Okun should be punished because nobody is above the law.

Ben Ozour says: This man is the biggest thief of all times. God, why are you so relaxed with people like Ayo Oritsejafor who has been robbing Nigeria through politicians using your holy name?

Abdulmalik Sani says: When will justice come? After seven months nothing has been done to Okun.

Are you trying to tell us that there are people above the law? We will not forget what was done to our brothers and sisters.

president, David Mark, receiving ash on his forehead marking the OC Ukeje explains real Senate begining of the Lenten seasonon reason he doesn’t wear wedding ring Analyzing My grandmother once pockets: Bride And Groom says: OHCSF budget employed Obasanjo’s father Thanks for your marvelous posting, I Tadiq says: certainly enjoyed reading it, you are a great – Seun Kuti writer. I will bookmark your blog.

Polls: APC Reps protest Ihedioha’s move to OK troops deployment

Daniel C says: What the deputy speaker did was right we need the presence of the military for security purposes during and after the election. The insurgency we are experiencing today is as a result of election violence,

Stop crucifying Fayose over Buhari, Lagos rights’ activist tells APC

Adesoye says: l just hope that people like you who overturn the truth will be around when God delivers Nigeria from the stronghold of its enemies. Instead of telling Nigerians what you will offer them, you castigate your opponents. Only God gives and takes life as no single person can increase or decrease the span of his/her life.

Buhari, Kwankwaso condemn Kano, Yobe bombings, calls for vigilance

Mr. Abdin says: Well Buhari there is the need for vigilance and the continuous attack by Boko Haram deserves condemnation.

Change is here. God save Nigeria.

Pako says: Keep quiet you are too small to abuse your grandfather. If you want to be old like your father or leave a legacy like your grandparents then you must learn to respect your elders starting from Femi whom you don’t show any respect.

Senate blames FG for ailing economy

Master says: They have forgotten that they were always increasing each year’s budget over and above the proposals sent to them to fill their pockets. Now it is the federal government that is responsible. In any case what makes up the federal government? Is it not the three arms of government?

Dirty campaign: Buhari threatens to back out of Abuja accord Salisu A M. says: Peace is our accord.

HAKILU YUSUF says: We are always praying to God to give us good leadership in Nigeria.

Okungbowa Osagie says: Let us continue to preach peace, Nigeria is an indivisible entity, we must be modest in our campaigns. Nigeria must move forward. God bless us all.

Jibrin says: We need change,

House wife, 18, stabs husband to death in Kano

Ebi De Blessed says: She shouldn’t have killed her husband, it was better to have divorced the man and then marry a man of her choice. This heartless girl can even carry out suicide attack on innocent Nigerians, the police should keep her in custody for the rest of her life.

Jonathan, Obasanjo, Gowon, others pay homage to Shagari

Jonathan says: You are a legend to me Pa. Shagari. You are the only president of Nigeria whom I enjoyed your tenure.

Gov. Sule Lamido

Transformation

of

a

few

Hate Speeches: Parties to pay N1m fine – INEC the

This just goes to show the level of decadence and the continuous misplacement of priorities by some people in government.

Odogwu_Aganaga says: If ‘hate speech’ is an offence in Nigeria why has Mbaka, the so-called fiery/ controversial priest/, not been arrested?

Are the police waiting until another stampede occurs? Hstory usually repeats itself when it is ignored.

Kwankwaso explodes: Lamido, Aliyu betrayed agreement to dump PDP IBB, Abdulsalami, Mark mourn I Dey Laugh Oo says: Nigerian author, Gimba Kwankwaso will be the first northerner Thomas Ayan says: Late Abubakar Gimba, your sweet memories would continue to resonate in the minds of those who knew you. I urge the family members to bear the irreparable loss with fortitude because we are all birds of passage.

to call for another Northern Muslim to take over if Buhari dies half way in office.

He was the arrowhead during the Yar’Adua saga, yet today selfish interest can’t permit him to see beyond his nose.

Maigaskiya says: Thanks to the NUP representatives. All the talk about what was done or is being done to sanitise the pension administration translates to nothing as far as pensioners are concerned if they are not paid their entitlements as and when due.

judicial killings by policemen will continue until a governor or a minister or even the IGP himself is shot and killed based on some flimsy excuse that betrays lack of professionalism.

Haruna Idiot Guda says: His is a true father and he is benevolent to his friends and the needy around him.

My role model and friend to my late father, he always makes the right decision.

Transparency is what we need, the government should tell Nigerians about the missing monies. The call by the APC for proper record of the transaction is right and good for the country.

Col. Adokwu of Otukpo

Lent: Significance of prayers in ensuring peaceful election

Prof Falaki’s murder: IGP full scale investigation 15,000 ghost pensioners orders Maigaskiya says: collect N2bn annually – Thank you, IGP. Something drastic has to be done, otherwise this spate of extraOkonjo-Iweala

Buhari to Jonathan: Publish forensic audit on missing Dambatta resigns as Unity $20bn in NNPC Bank board chairman Mr.Abdin says:

Edache Abu says: Col. Adokwu, a gallant officer indeed, your story is quite interesting.

Remain in business despite intense competition

Odogwu_Aganaga says: Religion is now being used for power grab and accumulation of wealth.

Lease Car Deals says: Awesome issues here. I am very happy to see your article. Thank you so much.

Beyond doubts over elections

Ebinutai says: This president is under the siege of the June 12 junta. Jonathan has deliberately walked into a cul-de-sac.

Mark and Dasuki played great roles in the overthrow of the Buhari regime and the 1993 election annulment.

Nigerians shine your eyes. IBB will be foisted on Nigerians to head an illegal interim government and conduct election.

What a pity for our beloved nation.

Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor

PAGE 42

Interview

I

nternational schools are often accused of using foreign curricula, is it the same with NTIC? We use Nigerian curriculum, we offer WAEC standard curriculum; we are preparing our students for WAEC and JAMB examinations. Everything we do in our classes are based on Nigerian curriculum, but if a child says he will go abroad after finishing from here, we give extra courses like SAT, TOEFEL to give extra assistance. The second advantage in NTIC is international admission into universities because we have affiliations to universities; our educational office is very experienced and has a lot of information about universities, sometimes they ask representatives of the universities to come to Nigeria to directly talk to the parents and children and give information about their universities.

What is your performance rate in Senior School Certificate Examinations?

Our students are very successful in English and Literature in English in the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and others.

What are the major challenges of your students in English and Literature in English?

It is not only the challenge of our students; it is a challenge of many schools and students internationally. The challenge is that students are not keen on reading, they usually prefer to play computer games and watch television, if there is no scheduled time for students, they don’t want to read.

Was that why you installed smart boards in classrooms?

Smart boards have improved the teaching of English and literature, because in English, if the teachers stand in class and deliver in the way of lecturing, the students will be idle and passive, they will only be receivers instead of being active and independent learners trying to construct their own learning themselves. Smart board is necessary for learning because students’ attention is going to be longer and they are going to learn better because they are being engaged in what the teacher is trying to teach.

NTIC students are known for high performance in Mathematics, what about English Language?

Actually, the students have been successful in mathematics and other science subjects mainly because there are examinations and Olympiads which give our students the chance to show our performance. Likewise, our students are also very successful in English Language, but we don’t show it. Through examinations, club activities and some competitions our students record some achievements.

But it is like Mathematics attracts more attention. For example, there was this competition of Spelling Bee. Our students got second place and third place in Abuja in different years. Apart from this, there was an institution from America; Gulen Institution, that organised an international essay competition and our students got 10th position in the world.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

We use Nigerian curriculum -Turkish College Mr Feyzullah Bilgin is the Head of Department (HOD), English and Literature in English, Nigerian Turkish International Colleges (NTIC). He holds a master’s degree in education from the prestigious WestMinister University, United Kingdom, and is presently studying for another master’s degree in education administration and management, Zirve University, Turkey. In this interview with Mohammed Usman, Bilgin speaks on how the NTIC is raising the bar on students’ performance in English Language through the adoption of various result-oriented methods.

Bilgin

“

Our students are very successful in English and Literature in English in West Africa Examination Council (WAEC) and others.

Similarly, there are other very good achievements, but specifically science and mathematics Olympiads seem to be more organised internationally and students have the chance to join and show the results, but in terms of English I don’t know if there is a worldwide international Olympiad, if there is we will join it.

How do students without good English background cope in NTIC? If an international student comes to NTIC and has proficiency in English there is no problem at all, the school helps in terms of adaptation, socialisation, guidance and counselling.

But if a child comes with a low proficiency in English or no English at all, we have support classes, extra lesson to prepare the students to be able to manage in the classroom in terms of learning, communication and socialisation. These are all extra assistance to the students depending on their condition of the child.

What general challenge do your students face?

Reading is a challenge to some of the students, that students don’t read a lot and often. As a department, and in collaboration with the school administration we have agreed to schedule a reading time into the school timetable daily, from 7:50 am to 8:30am, the students sit down before lesson time and read. In all branches of NTIC, all students, regardless of age or the class, they read.

We have professional teachers and we discuss issues that come up during our meetings. Apart from this, we have a sample lesson, every week the teachers teach for 20 minutes to other colleagues in class, after the sample lesson they see how the lesson is supposed to be taught and some activities that can be applied and teachers will also comment on it.

Another thing we do is that one teacher prepares a presentation on an area in which other teachers are supposed to explore, search and prepare in a very detailed way on a topic like classroom management, Oral English and anything that concerns teaching in classes. Each week with a presentation on different topics, our teachers get the chance to learn something on certain topics in a very detailed way. It helps them to learn more. The next thing we do is to select an article on English and English teaching from the internet or other resources. The article selected is published by great teachers and very useful in terms of knowledge.

We also do teachers examination, they (teachers) know they are not on their own, they know they are going to be tested on their knowledge in English and literature, three times in a year and each term, sometimes we specify the content of the examination, sometime we give examinations like JAMB, sometimes we give a book to teachers and tell them to prepare in a certain amount of time.

We also organise annual workshops that often last from three to five days and all NTIC branches send teachers to Abuja, and in our department, we have about 50 teachers in English. We compare the arms of schools with each other and it helps us know the performance of students and how successful we are. ​

PAGE 43

Biographies

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Amílcar Cabral 1924 – 1973)

A

mílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral (Portuguese: 12 September 1924 – 20 January 1973) was a GuineaBissauan and Cape Verdean agricultural engineer, writer, and a nationalist thinker and political leader. He was also one of Africa’s foremost anti-colonial leaders. Also known by his nom de guerre Abel Djassi, Cabral led the nationalist movement of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde Islands and the ensuing war of independence in GuineaBissau. He was assassinated on 20 January 1973, about eight months before GuineaBissau’s unilateral declaration of independence. He was deeply influenced by Marxism, and became an inspiration to revolutionary socialists and national liberatonalists worldwide.

Early years He was born on 12 September 1924 in Bafatá, Guinea-Bissau, from Cape Verdean parents Juvenal Antònio Lopes da Costa Cabral and Iva Pinhel Évora.

Cabral was educated at Liceu (Secondary School) Gil Eanes in the town of Mindelo, Cape Verde, and later at the Instituto Superior de Agronomia, in Lisbon (the capital of Portugal, which was then the colonial power ruling over Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde). While an agronomy student in Lisbon, he founded student movements dedicated to opposing the ruling dictatorship of Portugal and promoting the cause of liberation of the Portuguese colonies in Africa.

He returned to Africa in the 1950s, and was instrumental in promoting the independence causes of the then Portuguese colonies. He was the founder (in 1956) of the PAIGC or Partido Africano da Independência da Guiné e Cabo Verde (Portuguese for African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde) and one of the founders of Movimento Popular Libertação de Angola (MPLA) (later in the same year), together with Agostinho Neto, whom he met in Portugal, and other Angolan nationalists.

War for independence From 1963 to his assassination in 1973, Cabral led the PAIGC’s guerrilla movement (in Portuguese Guinea) against the Portuguese government, which evolved into one of the most successful

Cabral

wars of independence in modern African history. The goal of the conflict was to attain independence for both Portuguese Guinea and Cape Verde. Over the course of the conflict, as the movement captured territory from the Portuguese, Cabral became the de facto leader of a large portion of what became Guinea-Bissau.

In preparation for the independence war, Cabral set up training camps in neighboring Ghana with the permission of Kwame Nkrumah. Cabral trained his lieutenants through various techniques, including mock conversations to provide them with effective communication skills that would aid their efforts to mobilize Guinean tribal chiefs to support the PAIGC. Amílcar Cabral soon realized that the war effort could be sustained only if his troops could be fed and taught to live off the land alongside the larger populace. Being an agronomist, he taught his troops to teach local crop growers better farming techniques, so that they could increase productivity and be able to feed their own family and tribe, as well as

Cabral and Fidel Castro

the soldiers enlisted in the PAIGC’s military wing. When not fighting, PAIGC soldiers would till and plow the fields alongside the local population.

Cabral and the PAIGC also set up a trade-and-barter bazaar system that moved around the country and made staple goods available to the countryside at prices lower than that of colonial store owners. During the war, Cabral also set up a roving hospital and triage station to give medical care to wounded PAIGC’s soldiers and qualityof-life care to the larger populace, relying on medical supplies garnered from the USSR and Sweden. The bazaars and triage stations were at first stationary until they came under frequent attack from Portuguese regime forces.

In 1972, Cabral began to form a People’s Assembly in preparation for the independence of GuineaBissau, but disgruntled former PAIGC rival Inocêncio Kani, with the help of Portuguese agents operating within the PAIGC, shot and killed him.

The Portuguese government’s plan, which eventually went awry, was to enjoin the help of this former rival to arrest

Amílcar Cabral and place him under the custody of Portuguese authorities. The assassination took place on 20 January 1973 in Conakry, Guinea. His half-brother, Luís Cabral, became the leader of the Guinea-Bissau branch of the party and would eventually become President of GuineaBissau.

Other than being a guerrilla leader, Cabral was highly regarded internationally as one of the most prominent African and Marxist thinkers of the 20th century and for his intellectual contributions aimed at formulating a coherent cultural, philosophical and historical theoretical framework to justify and explain independence movements.

This is reflected in his various writings and public interventions.

Tributes “...one of the most lucid and brilliant leaders in Africa, Comrade Amílcar Cabral, who instilled in us tremendous confidence in the future and the success of his struggle for liberation.”

— Fidel Castro, 1966 Tricontinental Conference in Havana, Cuba.

Cabral is considered a “revolutionary theoretician as significant as Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara”, whose influence reverberated far beyond the African continent.

Amílcar Cabral International Airport, Cape Verde’s principal international airport at Sal, is named in his honor. There is also a football competition, the Amílcar Cabral Cup, in zone 2, named as a tribute to him. In addition, the only privately owned university in Guinea-Bissau is named after him—Amílcar Cabral University—and is in Bissau.

Jorge Peixinho composed an elegy to Cabral in 1973.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 44

Archive

Stunning photos turn back the clock to 1946 New York T

hese stunning photographs show a lost vision of New York City, where streetcars barreled down Third Avenue, the Empire State Building was the tallest in town - and five cents could get you a a bag of fresh-roasted peanuts.

Taken by photographer Todd Webb in 1946, the collection of 15 black and white images show the then-bustling docks of Manhattan, the skyline as it was before glassclad skyscrapers rose up in decades to come - and the people who called the city home.

Webb was around 40 years old when the images were taken, and had just returned from a posting as a Naval Photographer in the Second World War. As well as the iconic sights and architecture of the metropolis, Webb’s images also took in locals around his Harlem neighborhood,

and working folk around the city.

The images have been brought out of the archives and published again in a limited-edition collection by 21st Editions.

According to photography experts, Webb, who won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1955, was notable in getting to know the subjects of his portraits before shooting - sometimes spending days talking before wielding the camera.

In an introduction to the images, Harvard professor John Stauffer wrote how Webb was also unusual in taking an interest in photographing black people and interracial friendships - the kind he would have seen on the streets of Harlem around him.

Although the year was blighted by the death of his mentor Alfred Stieglitz, Webb - who died in 2000 - remembered it as one of best and most productive.

In harmony: This photograph, called ‘The Circle,’ LaSalle at Amsterdam, shows a group of black and white children playing together around a pipe spraying water

Old-school: The images show yesteryear NYC transportation, including the image to the left of the now-demolished Third Avenue El train metro line, with a street car running underneath. To the right, a photograph taken at the interaction of Second Avenue and 50th Street shows the Chrysler Building standing tall, not yet surrounded by other midtown high-rises

Commerce: This image shows traders on Suffolk Street, near Manhattan’s Chinatown

Relaxing: Webb found these five boys on a street in Harlem, and asked them to pose for him - a process documented in his other photos, too

Pals: This photograph, called 123rd Street (Boys with Toy Gun) shows a black child and white friends playing in Harlem. Webb’s writings show how he despised racism describing seeing ‘Whites Only’ signs on a visit to the segregated South ‘hard to take’

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 45

Insight

Malcolm X: The murder that robbed the world of a Muslim civil rights visionary

M

alcolm X is associated with violent black nationalism. But his conversion to Sunni Islam helped bring him back into the mainstream of American life. His assassination 50 years ago robbed the civil rights movement of a powerful leader When Malcolm X was assassinated, Time Magazine wrote that he had been “a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief. He was an unashamed demagogue. His gospel was hatred.” The New York Times, America’s liberal bible, called him “an extraordinary and twisted man, turning many true gifts to evil purpose.”

That his killers were identified as members of the radical black Nation of Islam suggested a case of chickens coming home to roost. Large parts of white society breathed a sigh of relief. They thought they had been delivered from a gangster.

Fifty years on and Malcolm’s reputation is very different. With a better understanding of what Malcolm really thought and what he really stood for, he now stands out as a prophet of the civil rights era and the embodiment of black pride.

If Malcolm was angry, he had good cause. He was born in 1925 into a society wherein he felt that black people had no personhood: brought to America by theft, owned, freed with a fight, condemned to poverty and racism. The United States preferred its “good” black men to be victims, martyrs or Christian visionaries. But Malcolm grew up in a household where the words of black nationalist Marcus Garvey were gospel, and he wandered the streets of a New York where jazz gave African-Americans their own language and identity.

He father was killed in mysterious circumstances, his mother went insane. A white teacher, he claimed, told him that his ambition to be a lawyer was “no realistic goal for a n–––––.” So Malcolm became a career criminal – including a gay prostitute – before landing in jail in 1946. There he was picked up by the Nation of Islam. Malcolm Little became Malcolm X. The Nation has a reputation for hate. It teaches that black and white people do not share an ancestry – that black people are divine and righteous whereas white people are devils.

We might regard this dogma as contrary to traditional religious emphasis upon the common origin of man, but to someone with Malcolm’s history it contained a certain logic. First, it inverted a centuries old prejudice that blackness was inferior to whiteness – a notion ridiculed by the obvious injustice of American society. Second, if white, mainstream American culture would not let black people succeed on equal terms then any claim to America being racially equal was a nonsense and blacks would never obtain their rightful equality within

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcom X) it. So why bother trying? Better to separate from white and try to build communities that would stand on their own. The Nation urged African-Americans to quit the mainstream, live clean and disciplined lives, and to obtain dignity through self-reliance. Violence was acceptable only in self-defence.

As a high-profile preacher for the Nation, Malcolm was not just despised by conservatives. Liber-

“

als had little time for him, too. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the civil rights model was perceived to be that of whites and blacks working together as part of an alliance towards the securing of constitutional rights. The goal was to integrate black people into those parts of American life from which they had been hitherto excluded: democracy, public spaces, the professions etc. Malcolm’s suggestion

that black and white are in natural competition and that black people should go it alone thus ran entirely counter to the liberal ethos.

Malcolm poured scorn on Martin Luther King Jnr’s strategy of peaceful resistance: “The only revolution based on loving your enemy,” he said in 1963, “is the Negro revolution…That’s no revolution.”

So why, then, has Malcolm’s reputation among historians improved dramatically since his the years following his assassination?

Partly, his biography became better understood. In 1963-64, Malcolm began to split with the Nation in an argument over personalities and tactics – and in the few months that he still had to live there was a revolution in his politics. Critical to this was Malcolm’s conversion from the Nation of Islam to mainstream Sunni Islam. He went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and was struck by the racial harmony among Muslims: “There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world.

They were of all colors, from blueeyed blonds to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.”

Nowadays, we’ve been trained by media portrayals to see Islam as politically radicalising and divisive.

But it helped transform Malcolm from a black leader who preached separation into a proponent of the hope that African-Americans could advance as part of a broader coalition with oppressed people – something closer to a socialist. Now advocating democratic participation, he said, “It’s time for us to submerge our differences and realize that it is best for us to first see that we have the same problem, a common problem — a problem that will make you catch hell whether you’re a Baptist, or a Methodist, or a Muslim, or a nationalist.”

Had Malcolm lived beyond

Some say that the establishment benefited from the division within the civil rights ranks that resulted from the death, others point out that Malcolm’s murder robbed African-Americans of one its brightest and best leaders.

1965 it’s fascinating to imagine how he might have informed the civil rights revolution to follow. Could he have put iron in the glove of Martin Luther King Jnr’s anti-poverty campaigns? How would he have reacted to growing violence and urban riots - could he had articulated their purpose better? Would he have made his peace with the system and endorsed Robert Kennedy for president in 1968? Malcolm’s evolving philosophy might have seen him eclipse King as the natural leader of the new phase of civil rights activism. For it was moving, necessarily, away from the liberal ideal of biracial campaigning and towards assertion of black pride. Blacks had defeated de jure segregation but now needed to fight de facto segregation. That struggle declined at points into an impotent rage that was all too easily dismissed by resurgent conservative forces as Marxist criminality. It would have benefited enormously from having Malcolm at the barricades with it, providing some moral clarity.

But it wasn’t to be. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm was preparing to address his Organization of AfroAmerican Unity in Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom when a struggle broke out in the crowd. A man rushed forward and shot him in the chest with a sawn off shotgun; two other men fired at him with semiautomatic handguns. He died from his wounds in hospital.

Inevitably, there are conspiracy stories surrounding the murder.

He was certainly being followed by the FBI – director J Edgar Hoover told the FBI New York office to “Do something about Malcolm X.” Normally Malcolm’s rallies were given police protection, and we might have expected his Manhattan speech to have been crawling with cops given that his home had just recently been firebombed. Instead, there were no policemen posted outside the building and only two inside. And the investigation into the killing was botched: the crime scene wasn’t preserved but cleaned up immediately to allow for a dance to take place that same afternoon.

Some say that the establishment benefited from the division within the civil rights ranks that resulted from the death, others point out that Malcolm’s murder robbed African-Americans of one its brightest and best leaders. That latter point is certainly true. Time was quite accurate when it described him as “a pimp, a cocaine addict and a thief”.

But his evolution in to the embodiment of black pride reminds us that the struggle for personal moral uplift has always been at the heart of the civil rights movement. It was a movement that didn’t just change laws but also transformed individuals – and the rebirth of Malcolm Little as Malcolm X personalised the struggle of millions of AfricanAmericans.

Source: telegraph.co.uk

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 46

International

Anti-Terrorist surveillance and the enemy within

By Julian Vigo

J

ust over a year after September 11, 2001 the Metropolitan Transport Authority of New York City ran the series of ads, “If you see something, say something,” forewarning subway commuters of abandoned bags or rucksacks left under subway platform or passenger seats.

The subtitle could not have directed a clearer message to New Yorkers: “Be suspicious…” where the object of suspicion was left ambiguous, if not bulky and dark.

This public campaign was launched just a few months before the United States’ government initiated Special Registration, a process which required Muslim male immigrants over the age of 16 to register with Homeland Security (the agency created in the aftermath of 9/11 which replaced the Immigration and Naturalization Services). Because of Special Registration there was a roundup and detention of Arab and Muslim men carried out with unprecedented secrecy violating very basic civil rights guaranteed by the US Constitution and the very human rights delineated by the Universal Declaration that the United States helped draft (Eleanor Roosevelt was the Chairperson of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and played a major role in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948). In the months following 9/11approximately 13,000 men were virtually disappeared from civil society in the United States as part of the US government’s implementation of the Patriot Act as executed through its Homeland Security Department.

Contiguous to the quite visible and much-discussed rendering of the dead of 9/11 and their memorialization in American society in the years since 9/11, there has been a disturbing silence in American media and society at large regarding the routine rounding up, interrogation and imprisonment of these men of Arab origin throughout the United States that took place in the months following 9/11.

Still what persists in New York’s transport system today are 8th generation versions of this public service announcement to include multimedia adaptations of this message from December 2002 while the suspicion of Muslims and Muslim Americans in the United States has reached previously unimaginable depths.

Since its adoption by New York’s Metropolitan Transport Authority, “See something, say something” was adopted by the City of Chicago, and then nationally with Department of Homeland Security.

In February 2005 the UK followed suit with the Metropolitan Police, the City of London Police, the British Transport Police, and the Mayor’s Office launching its campaign, “If you suspect it, report it.”

Similar to the New York City campaign, this public outreach

Bangladeshi-American blogger Avijit Roy who was killed in a street attack in Bangladesh was ostensibly bent on alerting people about “suspect packages and unusual activity in places like flats or garages,” but the message of this media flier went much further, moving from inanimate objects left abandoned to involving its citizenry in the patrolling of fellow humans.

According to the BBC, “Mr Clarke, who heads the Met’s anti-terrorist branch, said: “The Metropolitan Police Service is working harder than ever to keep London safe from the threat of terrorism but we very much need the public’s help to reduce the danger. I would ask people across London to think very carefully about anyone they know whose behaviour has changed suddenly. What has changed – could it be significant?”

Soon transmitted around the country, this campaign set out to delineate exclusively “odd” behavior—who might be a terrorist taking a photo, using a mobile, or using the Internet inappropriately: This public soliciting of assistance by the government to watch out for company vehicles, prepaid mobile phones, multiple mobile phones, computers, camera equipment, and “vague” travel plans became a public call for the citizenry to scrutinize and surveil in a panoptic dragnet that even Foucault would not have believed. This campaign went far beyond the public surveillance of those 17th century subjects whose bodies might bear marks of the plague, those individuals who had overstepped the urban boundaries of disease. The public service announcements in the UK since 2005 became far more than practical educational tools for the masses and instead these

campaigns were propaganda tools in their own right, issuing forth possible (albeit it illogical) signs of terrorism which functioned as floating signifiers from which most everyone—from the student to the business person—would easily be identified as a “terrorist.”

The surveillance of potential terrorists took Foucault’s popular mantra that sought to render those suspect as “perfectly individualized and constantly visible” and turned this equation into a field where every object signifies terror, hence discretely turning the focus away from these objects and towards the bodies operating them.

The tactics employed by the UK government and the Metropolitan Police, by enlisting social participation in weeding out terrorists, was not so much about actually creating a panoptical force of social surveillance and a honing in on terrorists.

Instead, such campaigns sought to build a socially imagined and volunteer-driven fear factor whose participants were falsely led to believe they were actors in their nation’s anti-terrorist efforts, while in reality they were simply part of a larger systemic network that instilled paranoia towards British Muslims and immigrants from the Arab and Muslim world while using this societally engineered paranoia to further the west’s military and economic colonizations of Iraq and Afghanistan in the name of the “Global War on Terror” where today the civilian casualties in Iraq are estimated to be anywhere from 134,804 to 1.2 million and in Afghanistan between 10,960 and 49,600.

The latest addition to the west’s

public panoptic outreach for identifying terrorists is the French government which recently issued a public service announcement, “Stop-Jihadism.” In the aftermath of January’s Charlie Hebdo killings, the French government set up a website with videos and printable PDF announcements informing its electorate how to identify “the first signs that can alert” one as to what jihadist radicalization looks like. Similar to the US and UK’s campaigns, the French public awareness venture simplifies radical Islam and jihadism into a profile of nine images with explanatory subtitles: 1. They distrust old friends; 2. They reject certain members of their families; 3. They suddenly change their eating habits; 4. They drop out of school or professional training; 5. They stop listening to music; 6. They no longer watch television or go to the cinema; 7. They stop sporting activities; 8. They change their attire; 9. They assiduously frequent social websites and networks.

This list and its accompanying imagery such as symbols of the French baguette and a western dress crossed out as “forbidden” speaks more to the hyperbole and racism utilized in the west’s onslaught against Arabs and Muslims than any tangible danger to its citizens. Reading the above list I shake my head in despair at the sheer orientalism used allegedly to enlist a publicdriven reading of how to spot a terrorist. “I spy with my little eye, something that cuts bodily contours….”

The Jihadist who stays connected on Facebook and who doesn’t watch television or go to the cinema is at best a facile typology of the “devout” Muslim. At worse, however, this stereotyping of the Muslim is quickly revealed to be a caricature imbued with all of the western intonations and projections of orientalism that Edward Said had described back in the late 1970s.

Were we to take this list seriously (and sadly there are those who do), what should we then make of the 9/11 fourth hijacker, Ahmed Alnami, who allegedly went to the movies in south Florida with his waiter, Mohammed Kamel Belllahouel, an act which served as the grounds for arresting and holding in jail for five months this poor waiter who was later found guilty of nothing?

Or what about Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi who regularly frequented a Subway restaurant in Coral Springs, Florida? This is hardly a venue for a radically strict Muslim diet given there are no halal Subway restaurants in the United States whatsoever.

What comprises a sudden change in eating habits? Or does Mohammed Atta’s switch from Subway to Pizza Hut comprise a “sudden change”?

Likewise the theory of terrorists stopping all sporting activities is certainly not evidenced in Camp 6 at Guantanamo Bay where the inmates there have

three separate sports facilities to include a new football pitch. Nor is the terrorist who drops out of school and professional training.

I mean are these terrorists not supposed to excel at training at madrasas? Also, the change in attire is most mystifying to me since I have spent a great deal of my life living in Muslim countries and find this devaluation of reality so shockingly indicative of a state without any proper intelligence.

Just a cursory glance at Moroccan, Tunisian, or Jordanian newspapers will inform the reader about the versatility in modern dress today. (Hint: they’re just like us!) One other question popped into mind as I looked at the image of the western dress crossed out in a big blue “X”: have these folks in the French ministry even watched The Battle of Algiers which underscores the fact that the resistance in the film and in reality was facilitated by the flexibility of wardrobe for which Djamila Bouhired and Zohra Drif were able to successfully place bombs?

Concerning the alleged prohibitions of music, there are even more trenchant contradictions from what the French government maintains as the Jihadist’s dislike of music and the practices of alleged Jihadists. For instance, there is the ISIS anthem, “Dawlat al-Islam Qamat,” taking the form of chant morphing towards that of song contemporarily called a nasheed which many Salafists and even stricter fundamentalists deemed unIslamic since the birth of the nasheed in the 1970s. Might the stereotype of the Jihadists who refuses to listen to music instead be a projection of other western policies regarding the treatment of Muslims? For instance, similar racist inflections of this belief that Muslims do not listen to or dislike music was reflected in American policy in the 2000s in a sort of postmodern autoda-fé. In Detention Site Cobalt, Muslim prisoners were tortured by the CIA in combination with background music, a testament of these Muslim men’s dislike of music, thence the proof of these men’s terrorist affiliations.

Such medieval tautologies are rife within these public outreach campaigns, most especially in the latest French installment. The reductions of what the Jihadist is or does reveal quite cogently the western regard for and the orientalist fantasy of Islam and Arabs alike, to include the massive misrepresentations of what neoliberal western media has inaccurately redefined as jihad, madrasa, and myriad other tenets of Islamic doxa. The Muslim is laid bare as that individual who thinks in opposition to the “normalcy” of the western subject and western culture such that all interpretive groundwork is set into Manichean schemes of normal and abnormal, “them” and “us”.

Culled from Counterpunch Newsletter Continue next week

PAGE 47

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Business

Efforts in stabilising the naira and its outcome

By Mohammed Usman

F

ollowing the oil price crash that has impacted negatively on the naira, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) officially devalued it at N168 to a dollar. But the naira has continued to depreciate.

This was followed by other efforts ranging from restricting and injecting of dollar, stopping interbank sales of dollar, stopping banks from selling dollar to Bureau-de-Change operators (BDC), and one of the recent efforts was closing of forex windows. All through, speculation and round tripping has been attributed to these efforts to stabilise the Nigerian currency.

For instance, in a move geared towards realizing a positive outcome of these efforts, retail Dutch Auction System (rDAS) and interbank funds to BDCs was stopped by the CBN. In this regard, CBN buttressed thus; “This is to inform all authorised dealers that in continuation of the review of developments in the foreign exchange market and to curb speculative demand in the market, both rDAS and interbank funds should henceforth be used, strictly for funding of letters of credit, bills for collection and other invisible transactions, subject to appropriate documentation as provided by extant regulations.

“Consequently, rDAS and interbank funds will no longer be sold to BDCs and other authorised buyers’’.

Meanwhile, the weekly sales of forex to BDCs will be sustained by the CBN based on the quality need of the market.” Still, naira maintained its depreciation.

In another effort, the CBN raised dollar sale to BDCs to boost naira as it informed all licensed BDC operators that

it would be intervening in the market by selling dollars to the segment. In a statement, CBN said, “This is to inform all licensed BDC operators that in order to improve liquidity in the BDC segment of the foreign exchange market, the CBN will be intervening in the market by selling $30,000 to interested BDCs adding that this is in addition to the weekly sale to operators.’’

Following concerns to further utilise another option, the CBN closed its retail Dutch auction system (rDAS) and Whosale Dutch System (WDAS).

While revealing the decision to close rDAS and wDAS, the CBN said with the sharp decline in global oil prices and the resultant fall in the country’s foreign exchange earnings, it has observed a widening margin between the rates in the interbank and the rDAS window which is engendering undesirable practices including round-tripping, speculative demand, rent seeking, spurious demand and inefficient use of scarce foreign exchange resources by economic agents.

The CBN added that the scenario continued to put pressure on the nation’s foreign exchange reserves with no visible economic benefits to the productive sector of the economy and the general public.

“In view of the foregoing, it has become imperative that appropriate actions be taken to avert the emergence of multiple exchange rate regimes and preserve the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

Consequently, we wish to inform all authorised dealers and the general public that, with effect from the date of this press release, the rDAS/wDAS foreign exchange window at the CBN is hereby closed. Henceforth, all

Dollar and naira notes demand for foreign exchange should be channeled to the Interbank Foreign Exchange Market. For the avoidance of doubt, all authorised dealers and the general public should note that the CBN will continue to intervene in the interbank foreign exchange market to meet genuine/legitimate demands.”

Although, the CBN added that the managed float exchange rate regime, which the bank had adopted, following the liberalisation of the foreign exchange market has for the most part been successful in ensuring exchange rate stability in line with its mandate, the naira keep depreciating as small and medium traders and some private sector stakeholders are groaning over the increasing cost of naira depreciation.

Recently, the private

sector stakeholders of the Nigerian economy lamented the continuous depreciation of the naira. They stated that as a result of the import dependent nature of the Nigerian economy, the sharp decline in the naira exchange rate has naturally pushed up the operating costs of enterprises.

A textile merchant, narrated that she borrowed money from a bank to import textile materials which were lesser in volume compared to previous periods when the naira was strong enough and relative to its dollar equivalent. The merchant buttressed that on a worse note, the textile materials were not being bought by customers the way it ought to have been because of high cost, adding that the bank the money was borrowed from has given a notice of the expiration of the

“

Bundles of naira notes

loan.

Also, an estate developer said naira devaluation is crippling the property market and has led to low sales. The property developer, said most of the items used in the building sector are imported, adding that the prices of those produced locally have also gone up because some of them, to a given level, use foreign materials.

The developer added that for that reason, it is now very difficult to have affordable housing at a lower rate in order to reduce the housing deficit in the country, saying that devaluation is going to affect the sector heavily as they can no longer provide the affordable housing that have been advocated for in respect of government’s vision of housing for all in the year 2015.

This is to inform all licensed BDC operators that in order to improve liquidity in the BDC segment of the foreign exchange market, the CBN will be intervening in the market by selling $30,000 to interested BDCs adding that this is in addition to the weekly sale to operators.’’

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 48

Business

Overnight lending rate falls on increased liquidity

By Mohammed Usman with agency report

T

he overnight lending rates fell to 8.25 percent on Friday, from 25 percent last week after monthly payments of budget allocations to government agencies and proceeds of cash call by joint crude-oil production partners.

Reuters reported that traders said about N256 billion ($1.26 billion) in January budget allocations was injected into the system on Thursday, while N60 billion from the cash call entered

the market this week, forcing down borrowing cost among banks.

Before the drop, lending rates hovered between 20 to 40 percent at the beginning of the week, owing to cash squeeze. Banks’ cash balance with the central bank stood at N400 billion credit on Friday compared with N4.8 billion credit last week, traders said.

The secured Open Buy Back (OBB) closed at eight percent, compared with 25 percent last week. The secured fund was five percent point below the central

bank’s 13 percent benchmark interest rate.

The central bank withdrew N11 billion from lenders this week to meet its cash reserves requirement to keep liquidity tight, but monies from government disbursement meant that the banking system awash with funds, dealers said.

Meanwhile, yields on debt will trend up next week over political uncertainty after the six-week postponement of the Feb. 14 presidential elections.

The currency of Africa’s top oil producer has also tumbled

after concerns grew about political stability exacerbating a fall triggered when global oil prices collapsed. Traders said tight liquidity early in the week caused some bond holders to cut back their positions to get cash for operations, but yields fell towards the end of the week.

Yields on the 2016 debt closed at 16.42 percent, down from 16.85 percent last week. The 2022 paper traded at 16 percent against 16.20 percent. The benchmark 2024 debt note closed at 16.04 percent compared with 16 percent last week.

Calabash carver, Malam Usman Datti, at work at maraban liman katagum market , recently in Bauchi lga

Farmers urged to access N5bn CBN loan

T

he Kebbi State government said it would assist farmers to access the N5 billion loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

According to reports, the loan is part of the federal government’s intervention programme for agriculture and small and medium scale enterprises.

A statement by Alhaji Abubakar Mua’zu, the Press Secretary to Governor Saidu Dakingari, quoted the governor as saying that the government has resolved to stand as guarantor for the loan.

Dakingari, the statement said, gave the assurance at a meeting with executives of the state branch of the All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN).

He advised farmers in the state to form cooperatives in order to access the loan from the intervention fund. According to him, the loan will enable the farmers get modern facilities that include tractors, farming implements and seedlings.

The governor said strategies would be put in place to ensure that beneficiaries make good use of the loans.

In his response, the Chairman of the association, Alhaji Abubakar Yauri, commended the government for the gesture and promised that the farmers would establish cooperatives to ensure prudent management of the loan.

Meanwhile, Samsung could be investigated by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the US, following a complaint which claims that its smart TVs record private conversations without informing users.

US consumer rights organization, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) accuses Samsung of breaking federal privacy laws including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which both concern the collection and disclosure of electronic communications.

“Samsung routinely intercepts and records the private communications of consumers in their homes.

Consumers who have learned of this practice have described it is as both “unfair” and “deceptive”,” said Epic in the

complain.

“Samsung’s attempts to disclaim its intrusive surveillance activities by means of a “privacy notice” do not diminish the harm to American consumers. It is incumbent upon the Federal Trade Commission to take action in this matter, and to enjoin Samsung and other companies that engage in similar practices, from such unlawful activities.”

A Samsung spokesperson denied EPIC’s claims: “The claims made by Epic are not correct and do not reflect the actual features of our Smart TV. Samsung takes consumer privacy very seriously and our products are designed with privacy in mind.”

The debate rages around the collection of personal data including speech by voice recognition systems and how they operate. It was instigated by an “Orwellian” change to Samsung’s privacy policy regarding its smart TVs and where the data recorded by them is sent, in this case to a third-party.

Samsung uses voice recognition specialist Nuance

Communications to process speech and return text results.

“When the voice recognition feature is enabled, everything a user says in front of the Samsung SmartTV is recorded and transmitted over the internet to a third party, regardless of whether it is related to the provision of the service,” Epic states in its complaint.

Samsung clarified its privacy policy, but some of its smart TVs were found to transmit both voice data and the recognised text unencrypted across the internet, despite the company stating that all private data is encrypted when passed between the TV to the voice recognition servers.

Epic is hoping that the FTC investigates not only Samsung’s practices, but those using similar systems to ensure that they comply with privacy laws.

But the case demonstrates the complexity of the technology entering the home and the lack of consumer understanding of what it is doing and how it works.

Naira in biggest monthly fall for five years –dealers

T

he naira suffered its biggest monthly fall in over five years this February, dealers said, citing concerns over political uncertainty and the central bank’s ability to manage a currency hammered by weak oil prices.

The naira shed 8.3 percent to the dollar in February, dealers said, worse than a 6.9 percent fall in November after the central bank devalued the currency by eight percent in order to save its foreign reserves.

However, reserves have fallen steadily and were down 8.6 percent by February 26 from a month ago, to stand at $31.46 billion after the central bank stepped up support for the currency.

The naira closed at 202 on the interbank market on Friday, a level it broadly traded at this week, dealers said.

A sale was carried out on Friday just before the interbank market closed, at N198 for $82.9 million, Thomson Reuters data showed. Dealers attributed the trade to a dollar sale by the central bank.

At its weakest, the naira was quoted at a record low of 206.60 to the dollar earlier this month, a decline of 20 percent since the start of November.

The naira crashed through a psychologically important level of N200 to the dollar this month in a rout triggered by weak oil prices and escalating tension over the postponement of a presidential election in Africa’s top oil producer, prompting the central bank to scrap its biweekly forex auctions.

The local unit of Mobil asked commercial lenders to bid for $15 million on Friday, as the firm sought to buy naira to meet its local obligations, dealers said.

The results of the bidding are due out on Monday.

The central bank scrapped its bi-weekly currency auctions this month and a market body said it would sell dollars only at N198, a move that amounts to a de facto devaluation of the naira Meanwhile, OPEC’s oil supply has fallen this month as bad weather delayed exports from Iraq’s southern ports, slowing an expansion of supplies in the group’s second-largest producer.

A Reuters’ survey has found on Friday The survey also found slightly higher output in Saudi Arabia, a sign that the largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is sticking to its strategy of focusing on market share rather than cutting output.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 49

Oddities Compiled by Isioma Nwabasha

Jealous woman bans hubby from watching TV

Chinese website rents fake boyfriends to single ladies

S

D

ebbi Wood has banned her husband from watching women on television.

Debbi, 43, has been diagnosed with Othello Syndrome, which causes delusional jealousy. It has affected her to the point that she has stopped her husband, Steve, 32, from watching television in case there is a woman shaving her legs in an advert.

Wood, from Leicester, checks her partner’s phone, email accounts and bank statements and even makes him take lie detector tests every time

she doubts his word.

Appearing on This Morning show with her hubby, Debbi said ‘All women have an inner beauty, but for a man it goes beyond that… lusting after a woman mentally. Mentally having some sort of intimate fantasy about them as opposed to actually just admiring that person’s beauty.’

However, Debbi believes having a gastric band operation on the NHS will help her with her insecurity.

Bodybuilders ‘buying breast milk’ online B

odybuilders are reportedly using breast milk as a bizarre muscle supplement which costs more than £6 an ounce on the internet.

Gym-lovers are well known for looking for new ways to bulk up, from protein tablets to steroids.

However, human breast milk would not be the first ‘supplement’ many would think of when looking for a way of building up their physique.

But ex-competitive bodybuilder, Brett Schoenfeld, assistant professor of exercise science at CUNY Lehman College in New York City, said people are now buying the expensive substance for just this purpose.

Human breast milk sold on the internet is often not properly refrigerated ahead of being delivered raising the risk of potential contamination.

ingle Chinese women have found a way to stay off marriage pressure. They are renting fake boyfriends to put on an act to please their parents.

‘Taobao, China’s largest online market place, is the place to go to find a temporary boyfriend as men advertise companionship starting from 1,000 yuan (£103) to 10,000 yuan (£103,300) a day.’

These men also charge extra for romantic activities such as hand holding, going to the cinema together, cuddles, or joint internet surfing. An advert for Greater China Royal Sovereign boyfriend rental centre on Taobao offers a selection of men including American boyfriend, Canadian boyfriend and domineering boyfriend, Jiangsu.

A potential boyfriend had a clear list of his prices, including 800 yuan (£82) for trips to other cities to visit family and 150 yuan (£15) an hour to act as a shopping escort. He even said he would listen to complaints or abuse for 50 yuan (£5) per 20 minutes.

Office worker, Lily Li, 26, who hired a fake partner, revealed that she wanted to take a boyfriend home to curb speculation. ‘‘I was not looking for some perfect guy to marry. Just someone tall, my parents like tall guys a lot, honest and not too talkative, so he doesn’t say something wrong.

‘Bringing a ‘boyfriend’ home simply means I get less hassle from relatives and my parents will stop worrying about my romantic life,’’ she told The Guardian.

Sui Wei, 29, makes a living by renting himself out as a boyfriend to help reassure worried parents that their child is on the path to matrimony. Once he took a big wad of cash stuffed in a traditional red wedding envelope, from the mother of his fake bride. ‘‘I knew she and the father were expecting us to live happily ever after, but I knew we would be together for only one day.’’

Online searches for the term ‘rental boyfriend’ rose by 884 percent between 2012 and 2013, according to Taobao.

Hu Xingdou, a social commentator at the Beijing Institute of Technology, added that the trend for hiring fake partners had emerged from a clash between old and new ideas.

Monkey to inherit millions after ‘parent’s’ death

A

n adopted monkey of a childless couple will inherit their property worth millions when they die.

The monkey, named Chunmun, has been raised like a son by his human owners, Brajesh Srivastava and wife, Shabista since his mother died in 2005. His inheritance include a house worth 7 million rupees ($112,000), a 182 metre plot of land and millions of rupees in a trust fund which will help animals in need. “The trust will feed monkeys in the forests who are suffering and are starving due to the cutting down of forests and have been removed

from their natural habitat,” Srivastava said.

The couple considers Chunmun their lucky charm, saying they prospered since he came into their lives.

Chunmun, like a pampered child, has his favorites and things he does not like. The monkey has daily intake of fruits in good quantity, however, he likes stir-fried noodles; chow mein and chilli paneer gravy most.

Brajesh also said that the monkey has been given air conditioner-fitted rooms and that he does not like sleeping without AC during summer and without hot air blowers

during winter.

In 2010, when it was time for Chunmun to marry, the couple threw a ’lavish’ wedding for him and a female monkey named Bitti Yadav.

The two monkeys live together at the couple’s home and have a party for their wedding anniversary every year.

Brajesh and Shabista had been isolated from their family after their parents disapproved the marriage of a Hindu man and a Muslim woman, so they decided to leave it all to their only ‘child’.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

PAGE 50

Healthy Living

Tips for physical, mental health

A healthy family ealthy living means that your physical and mental health are in balance or functioning well together. In many instances, physical and mental health are closely linked, so that a change (good or bad)

H

in one directly affects the other.

Consequently, some of these tips will include suggestions for emotional and mental ‘healthy living’.

Eating (diet) All humans have to eat food

for growth and maintenance of a healthy body, but we have different requirements as infants, children (kids), teenagers, young adults, adults, and seniors. For example, infants may require feeding every four hours until they gradually age

and begin to take in more solid foods. Eventually they develop into the more normal pattern of eating three times per day as young kids.

However, as most parents know, kids, teenagers, and young adults often snack between meals.

Tips: Eat three meals a day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner); it is important to remember that dinner does not have to be the largest meal.

The bulk of food consumption should consist of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and fat-free or low-fat milk products.

Choose lean meats, poultry, fish, beans, eggs, and nuts.

Choose foods that are low in saturated fats, trans fats, cholesterol, salt (sodium), and added sugars; look at the labels because the first listed items on the labels comprise the highest concentrations of ingredients.

Control portion sizes; eat the smallest portion that can satisfy hunger and then stop eating.

Snacks are okay in moderation and should consist of fruit, whole grains, or nuts to satisfy hunger and not cause excessive weight gain.

Benefits of eating food rich in fiber

O

nce upon a time, our diet was made up mostly of whole foods loaded with fiber. It helps keep our cholesterol and blood sugar levels low and kept our bowels functioning smoothly.

Now in our frenzied lifestyle, we are more likely to grab fast food or use prepared foods at home that have only a passing acquaintance with dietary fiber.

Studies have shown that dietary fiber including foods such as apples, beans and other legumes, fruits and vegetables, oatmeal and brown rice clearly lower blood cholesterol.

High-fiber foods are also digested more slowly, so they don’t cause spikes in blood sugar levels like white bread, potatoes and sweets do. Of course, everyone knows that fiber helps keep you regular, but so do laxatives. It, however, has an added plus: High-fiber foods help us feel full, making it easier to control weight.

Antioxidant ‘Superfoods’ to protect your cells and heart When you are thinking ‘superfoods’, think colour, Beverly Clevidence, PhD, a research leader at the USDA’s Diet and Human Performance Laboratory, said. That means foods that are deep blue, purple, red, green, or orange. The carotenoids and anthocyanins that provide the colour for these foods contain health-enhancing nutrients that protect against heart diseases and cancer, and also improve our

sense of balance, memory and other cognitive skills.

Your ‘superfoods’ colour chart should include: Deep greenCruciferous vegetables like broccoli may help prevent colon cancer, while spinach is a good source of calcium. It also helps fight against age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness.

Red- Red tomatoes, especially when cooked are beneficial sources of lycopeine, which helps protect against prostate and cervical cancer.

Orange/yellow - Squash, carrots, sweet potatoes and yam promote healthy lungs and help fight off skin cancers such as squamous cell carcinoma.

Deep blue/purple - Eggplant, plums, blueberries, strawberries and cherries come under this category as well. They lower your risk of heart disease by helping the liver “sop up” extra cholesterol, as well as improve your mental functioning.

Got milk? If you want to keep your bones strong and lessen your chance of fractures as you get older, add calcium-rich foods such as lowfat milk to your diet. Calcium also keeps the teeth strong, helps your muscles contract, and your heart beat. Recent studies have even shown that calcium may lower your risk of colon polyps, and help you lose weight. Researchers at Purdue University found that women who consume calcium from low-fat dairy products, or get at least 1,000 milligrams a day, showed an overall decrease in body weight.

As you get older, the amount of minerals in your bones decreases.

Too little calcium increases your risk for osteoporosis and, with it, disabling or life-threatening fractures.

Dairy products are the best

source of calcium. Choose skim milk, low-fat yogurt to avoid saturated fats. A single serving can provide you with 20 percent of the 1,200 milligrams a day you need.

You can also add calcium to your diet with calcium-enriched cereals

Avoid sugar-enhanced drinks because of the excessive calories; diet drinks may not be a good choice as they make some people hungrier and increase food consumption.

Avoid eating a large meal before sleeping to decrease gastroesophageal reflux and weight gain.

Avoid rewarding children with sugary snacks; such a pattern may become a lifelong habit.

Vegetarians should check with their physicians to be sure they are getting enough vitamins, minerals, and iron in their food.

Cooking foods (above 165 F) destroys most harmful bacteria and other pathogens; if you choose to eat uncooked foods like fruits or vegetables, they should be thoroughly washed with running treated (safe to drink) tap water right before eating.

Avoid eating raw or undercooked meats of any type.

Seek medical advice early if you cannot control your weight, food intake, or if you have diabetes and cannot control your blood glucose levels.

Culled from Medicinenet. com

and orange juice. Foods such as dark green vegetables and sardines also contain calcium.

While you are adding calcium to your diet, don’t forget to exercise.

Your bones will thank you later.

Foods rich in fiber

“

As you get older, the amount of minerals in your bones decreases. Little calcium increases your risk for osteoporosis and, with it, disabling or life-threatening fractures.

PAGE 51

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Church abuse (I) N

“

ow the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away!

Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’” (John 2:13-17 NKJV) Initially, the Greek word “Ekklesia” or “Ecclesia” meant any assembly of people summoned for a common purpose, a political assembly of an ancient Greek state.

But later, the word Ekklesia began to be used in the New Testament to mean a calling out, a religious congregation (Jewish synagogue, or Christian community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both) (Biblesoft’s New Exhaustive Strong’s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.) Ekklesia is used 115 times in the New Testament and in no fewer than 92 times the word refers to a local congregation while in others it refers to the church in general or believers in Jesus Christ everywhere.

Basically the church is not the building where believers gather to worship but the word church is sometimes used to refer to the building. In the Scripture above, Jesus met people buying and selling in the gentiles’ court section of the temple. They were exploiting the people who came for worship and had to exchange their money to buy materials for the sacrifice. Those selling the sheep, the oxen and the doves and the money changers were abusing the temple by cheating the people. The prices of the sheep, the oxen and the doves were usually

inflated, very prohibitive.

Worshippers from all parts of the world brought different currencies in exchange for the special temple coins, the only currency accepted by the sellers of the animals for sacrifice. But the money changers usually used dishonest exchange rates. These people were more interested in maximizing profit than helping the people to make acceptable sacrifice to God. Jesus stopped their business and drove them out.

In Matt. 21:12-17, Mark 11:1219 and Luke 19:45-48 unlike in the account in John 2:13-17, the event is put towards the end of the ministry of Jesus Christ on earth. Some Bible scholars have suggested that perhaps Jesus cleansed the temple twice during his ministry.

In Matthew’s account, after Jesus had cleansed the temple, he healed the blind and the lame. While the money changers and the sellers abused the temple, Jesus put it into proper use by healing the blind and the lame.

Healing, deliverance etc. should be a common occurrence in church. This is part of the full gospel. The devil, sicknesses, diseases are robbers doing business in the body of human beings but Jesus was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor; sent to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the acceptable year of the LORD. (Luke 4:17-21) Commercialization of the anointing The money changers and sellers in the temple were exploiters. They were not in the temple to worship but to do business. These traders are in church today using the church for the wrong purpose. Some ministers commercialize the anointing; they charge people money under different guises.

Imagine paying ‘admission fee’ or ‘consultation fee’ to see a “man of God.” I was shocked when a pastor

told me that he tried to see a minister of God in one of the major cities in Nigeria, and the secretary told him on phone that he must first buy a form for Six Thousand Naira before he could see the minister. Is that not admission fee or consultation fee? Most hospitals in Nigeria don’t even charge that much for either!

What are we turning the church of Jesus to? Jesus says, “Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matt 10:8 NKJV) If you received your calling and anointing from God, why are you charging fees contrary to the Word of the Master? That is corruption. Commercialization of the anointing is an abuse of the church. It is caused by the love of money which is the root of all evil. (1 Tim 6:10) Financial exploitation of the church Financial and material exploitation of the church by some pastors, false teachers and false prophets through manipulation, selfish interpretation of the Scripture is giving the church of Jesus a bad name. 2 Peter 2:2-3 warns, “And many will follow their destructive ways, because of whom the way of truth will be blasphemed.

By covetousness they will exploit you with deceptive words; for a long time their judgment has not been idle, and their destruction does not slumber.” (NKJV) Yes, the Bible teaches that church should support ministers of the Gospel. Paul writes, “If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things?” 1Cor. 9:11 NKJV) However, the truth about giving or sowing of seed must not be recklessly overstressed to accommodate any minister’s covetousness or finance some grandiose programmes and projects neglecting ministering to people. People are more important than programmes and projects. The willingness of the church to give because of their love for God must not be abused by any minister.

Paul could confidently say, “We have cheated no one.” (2 Cor. 7:2

From the Pulpit green pastures

By Pastor T. O. Banso

cedarministryintl@yahoo.com GSM: 08033113523 NKJV) He said a similar thing in Acts 20:33: “I have coveted no one’s silver or gold or apparel.” (NKJV) Not many ministers can say that without being refuted. But Paul said this because he didn’t engage in questionable practices to defraud the people. In order to avoid being a burden on the church or dependent on anyone, Paul had to work – not so as to be rich but to support himself and his traveling team. He said, “Yes, you yourselves know that these hands have provided for my necessities, and for those who were with me.”

(Acts 20:34 NKJV) Did you see that?

He told the Thessalonians: “For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God.” (1 Thess 2:9 NKJV) He also said a similar thing to the Corinthian church: “We have worked wearily with our own hands to earn our living.” (1 Cor. 4:12 NLT) At Corinth, he worked as a tentmaker. (Acts 18:3) And to the Philippians, he wrote, “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.

Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” (Phil 4:11-13 NKJV) In fact, Paul is an example of financial integrity in ministry. He had to tell the Corinthians: “Did I do wrong when I humbled myself and honored you by preaching God’s Good News to you without expecting anything in return? I

‘robbed’ other churches by accepting their contributions so I could serve you at no cost. And when I was with you and didn’t have enough to live on, I did not ask you to help me.” (2 Cor. 11:7-9 NLT) I shall still be talking more next week on Paul and financial integrity in ministry. I believe God has spoken to you today. Don’t abuse the church of Jesus, and if you’ve been involved in church abuse in any way, repent today.

TAKE ACTION! If you’re not born again, kindly say this prayer now: “0 Lord God, I come unto you today. I know I am a sinner and I cannot save myself. I believe that Jesus is the Son of God who died on the cross to save me and resurrected the third day.

I repent and confess my sins. I confess Jesus as my Lord and Saviour and surrender my life to him today. I invite Jesus into my heart today. By this prayer, I know I am saved.

Thank you Jesus for saving me and making me a child of God” I believe you have said this prayer from your heart.

Congratulations! You will need to join a Bible believing, Bible teaching church in your area where you will be taught how to live your new life in Christ Jesus. I pray that you flourish like the palm tree and grow like the cedar of Lebanon. May you grow into Christ in all things becoming all God wants you to be. I’ll be glad to hear from you. May the Lord be with you

Recognizing false prophets by their fruits (II)

T

he faithful prophet, like the shepherd, cares for the flock more than he cares for his life; the false prophet, like the ravening wolf, cares for nothing but to satisfy his own gluttony, and his own greed. The false prophet is in the business of religion for what profit he can get for himself. His basic motivation is self-interest; like an hireling, he labours and ministers for material gain. Instead of ministering and teaching for the purpose of opening blinded minds to saving and sanctifying truths of the gospel, he is in the ministry for the pay it offers.

3. THE IGNOMINIOUS CHARACTER OF FALSE PROPHETS Matthew 7:16-18; Ephesians 5:12; Jeremiah 2:8,26; Jeremiah

23:11-14; Ezekiel 13:22; Revelation 2:20-23; Romans 2:19-24; 2 Peter 2:2; 1 John 4:1,5,6; Matthew 7:21-23.

False prophets and their followers hate exposure. They often accuse those who remove their masks or their garb of deception, their sheep’s clothing, of being narrow-minded preachers who lack love for all. The minister of health who exposes quack doctors is not lacking in love; the father who warns his daughters of the ‘snake in the grass’ is not narrow-minded or devoid of love; the shepherd who unmasks wolves in sheep’s clothing so as to protect the flock of Christ cannot be accused of having no love. Love is faithful and truthful. It was love for sinners and saints, love for “other sheep which are not of this fold”

By Pastor W.F Kumuyi and for the “little flock” already saved which moved Christ, the good Shepherd, to tear off the disguise of the false prophets.

Love compels faithful shepherds to expose deadly enemies of the flock and reveal them in their real character. Christ did not hesitate to brand these subtle deceivers as “ravening wolves” because that is who they are.

“Ravening wolves”! The

wolf, like the fox, is tricky and treacherous, subtle and sly. See an example of the subtilty of “that fox” (Luke 13:31,32; Matthew 2:7,8,12-16 - note: these are two different Herods, foxes, wolves, but they had the same nature - murderous subtilty). False prophets “lie in wait to deceive” and they employ “cunning craftiness” to entice souls into their trap. As wolves are cruel

and merciless, so are these deceivers of souls. They profess much love but they are full of hatred toward those who expose them. They are greedy, avaricious and hungry for applause and the praise of men. “Their prophets are light and treacherous” (Zephaniah 3:4), frivolous, not sober. Their character matches their conviction and their choice.

They recommend the wide gate instead of the strait gate; they walk in the broad way instead of the narrow way. As their creed does not accept the narrow gate and the narrow way, their character or conduct does not reflect self-denial, cross-bearing, crucifixion of the self-life and the mortification of “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” (Matthew 16:24; Luke 9:23; 14:25-27; Galatians 2:20; 1 John 2:15-17).

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PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

“Manchester City won’t sell Toure for £250m” >>PG 54

Kano Pillars seek double >P 53 over Malakia

The untold story of Keshi Ogunjobi, Chukwuemeka, and NFF president >>PG 54 Ogba retain FA chairmanship seats >>PG 53

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PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Sports Kano Pillars seek double over Malakia

K

ano Pillars will today hope to win home and away against South Sudan’s AlMalakia FC to qualify to the first round of the CAF Champions League.

The overall winners of this tie will battle the winners of the clash between Club Olympique de Bamako of Mali and Moghreb Tetouan from Morocco, who lost the first leg 2-0.

Two weeks ago, Pillars defeated two-time South Sudan champions Malakia in Juba 2-0 in a preliminary round first leg match and they are now poised to wrap up their qualification to the next round of the competition in front of their fans.

Malakia coach Ramzi Sebit said he believes his team will avenge their home loss in Kano.

“We will go back to the drawing board to commence plans on how to upset Kano Pillars in Nigeria,” said Sebit, whose team were

eliminated from the preliminary round of last year’s Confederation Cup. Pillars will be playing for the first time in 10 months at the renovated Sani Abacha Stadium in Kano, which has been a favourite hunting ground for the four-time Nigerian champions for many years.

Pillars forward Ubong Ekpai vowed they are going all out for victory as the tie is not over and they are not looking down on the South Sudan team.

“It is going to be a tough game because Malakia will throw everything at us because they know it is their last chance,” Ekpai said.

“We have been training hard and we won’t take them for granted because we won away 2-0, we want to finish it off and complete a double over them.”

Pillars will still be without experienced defender Umar Zango, who also missed the first leg on account of a knee problem injury.

Pillars forward Shobowale

Warri Wolves set to progress in Confed Cup W

arri Wolves are expected to beat Club Racing de Bobo Doulasso of Burkina Faso again today to progress to the first round of the CAF Confederation Cup. Wolves beat RC Bobo 1-0 a fortnight ago in a preliminary round first leg match.

The overall winners of this match-up will confront the winners of the clash between debit of Ethiopia and Cote d’Or from Seychelles in the first round next month.

Wolves match winner in Burkina Faso Abu Azeez said he is looking forward to getting another goal to help his side see off the Burkinabes, but warns it will be tough.

“I am looking forward to a great and good game against the

Burkina Faso team, we just want to win the second leg to do a double over them and progress to next stage and I am looking forward to score against them again in this one,” said Azeez, who along with Bartholomew Ibenegbu, has been excused by the beach Eagles.

“It won’t be an easy game for us, they are a good side too and will come hard at us because they know it is the last chance they have. They will be coming here with everything in them.

“As I said they are a good side, we were better in the first leg and will still be better than them in the second leg.”

Wolves have been fortified with the return of Nigeria U23 star Oghenekaro Etebo, who did not feature in the first encounter in Burkina Faso.

Wolves against Dolphins recently

Pinnick makes special appeal to media Stories by Albert Akota

P Pinnick

resident of Nigeria Football Federation, Mr. Amaju Melvin Pinnick has made a passionate appeal to sections of the Nigeria media to stop heating up the football polity in the name of sensationalism.

Speaking in Abuja, Pinnick charged media persons to make peace and tranquility in the football family their winning words, and to be careful with the words they use in conveying messages to the public because of

the important role they play.

“I have immense respect for the media, because of the very critical role they play in the promotion of football, nay sports, as an instrument for peace and fostering of tranquility worldwide.

However, there is need for caution in the way and manner a section amplifies and celebrates what is negative.

“A minute section of the media feels that only the negative sells, which is an archaic belief.

On Wednesday, someone wrote on a website that Stephen Keshi

called the NFF and particularly my person all sorts of names. This is not true.”

“Keshi told me that his words were blown out of proportion. This is not good for Nigeria football and the imperative for harmony within the football structure.

Keshi himself knows that using such words would not in any away endear him to the NFF. “It is important that we all join hands to build a sustainable football culture for the country, and it is the job of everyone, not only the NFF.”

Ogunjobi, Chukwuemeka, Ogba retain FA chairmanship seats

O

ne –time General Secretary of Nigeria Football Federation and former chairman of NFF Technical Committeee, Chief Taiwo Ogunjobi has been re-elected chairman of Osun State Football Association.

In elections conducted in Osogbo, and supervised by NFF Assistant Chief Sports Officer, Dr. Christian Emeruwa, Ogunjobi, who was unopposed, polled all 34 votes cast by eligible delegates. Three delegates were absent.

Hon. J. O. Olayemi, also unopposed, retained his vice chairmanship position with 33 votes, while Hon. E. O. Adeniyi, Prince Bamidele, Hon. S. O. Adio, Engineer K. O. Aina, Chief Rasaq Mustapha and Prince Dauda Abimbola all won seats on the executive board.

In Umuahia, the Congress of Abia State Football Association returned Sir. E. C. Chukwuemeka as chairman for the next four years. He defeated Dr. Mayor Nwachukwu by polling all 21 votes to Nwachukwu’s zero at elections supervised

by Secretary of State Elections Monitoring Committee, Mr. Tunde Aderibigbe.

Revd (Dr.) Obioma Onyeaghala won 16 votes to retain the vice chairmanship seat, defeating Mr. Edede Ndudi who got only five votes.

Former Member of NFF Executive Committee, Chief Obinna Ogba retained his seat as chairman of Ebonyi State Football Association, at elections conducted in Abakaliki on Thursday and supervised by Member of NFF Executive Committee and chairman of the Finance Committee, Otunba Sunday Dele-Ajayi.

Ogba got all 11 votes cast, with no vote for his opponent, Nwankwo Patrick. Andy Chukwu became the vice chairman after thumping Akpa Peter by nine votes to one.

Page 54

Sports

Weekend fixtures

“Manchester City won’t sell Toure for £250m”

Barclays Premier League CAF Champions League 2015 Township Rollers v Kaizer Chiefs Mamelodi Sundowns v St Mitchel United Barclays Premier League West Ham United v Crystal Palace Newcastle United v Aston Villa Stoke City v Hull City Burnley v Swansea City Manchester United v Sunderland vory Coast captain Yaya W/Bromwich Albion v Southampton Toure has been labelled Liverpool v Man. City Manchester City’s Lionel Arsenal v Everton Messi by his agent, who Chelsea v Tott. Hotspur also insists the club’s bosses French Ligue 1 wouldn’t sell him for £250 Lille v Lyon million.

Bordeaux v Reims Stade Toure has been subject Lens v Rennes to speculation with Inter Lorient v Bastia Stade boss Roberto Mancini, who Metz v Evian brought the 31-year-old to City Toulouse v St Etienne in 2010, openly expressing his Nantes v Guingamp interest - but his agent Dimitri Montpellier v Nice Seluk ruled out a move.

Monaco v PSG “Sheikh Mansour wouldn’t sell Yaya not even for £250 German Bundesliga Hertha BSC v FC Augsburg million,” Seluk told The 1899 Hoffenheim v 1. FSV Mainz 05 Mirror.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen v Sport-Club “He is their most important Borussia Dortmund v FC Schalke 04 player as their results when Hannover 96 v VfB Stuttgart he was at the Africa Cup of Eintracht Frankfurt v Hamburger SV Nations proved.

Borussia Mnch v SC Paderborn 07 “The only game they won SV Werder Bremen v VfL Wolfsburg was at Stoke and before that their last win in the Premier Italian Serie A League without Yaya was in Chievo v Milan Cagliari v Verona Atalanta v Sampdoria Cesena v Udinese Genoa v Parma Palermo v Empoli Sassuolo v Lazio Internazionale v Florentina Torino v Napoli

I

Spanish La Liga Granada CF Rayo Vallecano Almeria Malaga Valencia CF Eibar Sevilla Real Madrid

v v v v v v v v

Barcelona Levante Dep. de La Cor Getafe Real Sociedad Athletic Club Atlet de Madrid Villarreal

CAF U17 Championship Nigeria v Guinea South Africa v Mali

Barcelona aiming to put pressure back on Real Madrid

B

arcelona visits second-frombottom Granada in La Liga today, hoping for a victory in order to put pressure back on leaders Real Madrid.

Luis Enrique’s side fell to a shock 1-0 home loss at the hands of Malaga last Saturday, allowing Real to move four points clear with their comfortable 2-0 success at Elche a day later.

Once again, Barca is scheduled to play earlier than their title rivals, with Real - and third placed Atletico Madrid facing Villarreal and Sevilla respectively on Sunday.

Following their Liga disappointment against Malaga, Barca were back to nearer their fluent best in midweek with a 2-1 victory at Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League last-16 first leg.

Luis Suarez scored both goals for the Catalan giants - taking his season tally to nine - and the Uruguayan appears to be finally hitting his straps after a frustrating start to life in Catalonia.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

April last year.”

Seluk also insisted Toure makes players like Sergio Aguero and David Silva look better, and believes the club’s bosses would never allow his departure.

“City have some great players. But Aguero scores goals because of Yaya and Silva plays well when he has Yaya. He organises the entire team and gives them control of games,” he added.

“Even if Pellegrini wanted to sell Yaya, the Sheikh and Khaldoon (Al Mubarak, City’s chairman) would not allow it.

“Barcelona has Messi and Madrid have Ronaldo.

Manchester City have Yaya Toure.”

Toure has made 27 appearances for City this season, scoring nine goals.

Yaya Toure

Newcastle praises Manchester United, rejuvenated Aston Villa Sunderland clash: Poyet eyeing another

S

underland boss Gus Poyet believes Manchester United is vulnerable as his side go in search of back-to-back Old Trafford victories in the Premier League today.

Sebastian Larsson’s strike secured a 1-0 triumph for the Wearsiders last term as their improbable bid for top-flight survival hit top gear against a side still reeling from David Moyes’ sacking.

United are once again wounded heading into the clash after a 2-1 defeat to Swansea City last weekend, allowed Liverpool and Tottenham to move within striking distance in the race for a

Sunderland head coach Gus Poyet

top-four spot.

While Louis van Gaal’s tactics have been scrutinised this season, the Dutchman continues to get positive results at home - United have won 10 of their 13 home league matches this season.

United have remained unconvincing, though, and Poyet pinpointed their recent win over Burnley which saw the team’s efforts jeered by the Old Trafford faithful as cause for optimism.

“Van Gaal was not happy about Burnley game but they scored three goals, but Burnley had plenty of chances,” the Uruguayan told the club’s official website.

Newcastle United manager John Carver

N

ewcastle United manager John Carver expects an Aston Villa team with a “new lease of life” to provide a tough test in today’s Premier League encounter at St James’ Park.

Carver’s men were thumped 5-0 by defending champions Manchester City last time out in a game that marked the low point in a run of just one win in their last eight.

A home match against relegation-threatened Villa - who has not won in the league since December 7 - presents a chance for Newcastle to end that dismal streak.

Despite the visitors’ 2-1 home defeat to Stoke City in Tim Sherwood’s first game in charge, Carver has already seen improvements in the Midlands

club.

The hosts have received a morale boost with the news that midfielder Jonas Gutierrez is in the senior squad for the first time since recovering from testicular cancer.

Remy Cabella is a doubt with a knee problem that forced him to miss the drubbing at the Etihad Stadium, while Jack Colback is suspended.

Teenage winger Rolando Aarons (hamstring) is still out and is joined on the sidelines by Siem de Jong (lung), Paul Dummett (knee), Robert Elliot (thigh), Steven Taylor (Achilles) and Cheick Tiote (knee).

Villa’s only confirmed injury absentee is Kieran Richardson because of a knock. Ron Vlaar is banned, while Aly Cissokho, Alan Hutton and Philippe Senderos (calf) are all doubts.

PEOPLES DAILY Weekend, Saturday 28,- sunday 1, march, 2015

Page 55

Sports

The untold story of Keshi and NFF president T

he Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) has recently been saying to the media that they have a contract proposal for Keshi, and that they had offered him fresh terms (depending on the version you’ve read/heard). But the latest twist is that Keshi has come out deny the reports in its entirety, and has gone to the extent of branding the NFF President, Amaju Pinnick, a liar! Some things never change.

When Amaju Pinnick was elected as President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) on September 30, 2014, a lot of us hoped that would be the beginning of the end of some of the controversies that had plagued the football house, most importantly, the issue of whether to retain Keshi or not.

It was no news that the Aminu Maigari-led NFF didn’t want to renew Stephen Keshi’s contract which had expired at the last World Cup. The ‘Big Boss’ never really got along with the Maigari board, always falling out with his then bosses. Chris Green, then technical committee chairman and a very influential member of the Maigari board was seen as the brain behind the storm that rocked Keshi’s relationship with the Glass House.

Green and his technical committee were said to have been too overbearing and were even accused of trying to usurp Keshi’s position as Chief Coach, to the point that both parties barely saw eye to eye. It was a difficult situation.

Soon after the World Cup in

Amaju Pinnick

Brazil, the NFF were embroiled in different controversies that took the attention away from Keshi, and it became obvious at some point that Keshi wasn’t going to be a Maigari ‘problem’ again.

So when Maigari was ousted and Pinnick was elected, there was a bit of a sigh of relief. Not because the Keshi conundrum had vanished, but because it felt like Pinnick would be more decisive and Keshi’s fate would eventually be decided.

The qualifiers for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations were due to start in weeks, so it probably wouldn’t have been ideal to ditch Keshi at that point, but a decision also had to be made because he had no contract with the Glass House.

But before becoming the NFF President, and before even entering the fray, Pinnick was reported to have implied in an interview that he wouldn’t have Keshi as the Super Eagles coach.

So you can understand the perception when he became the head of Nigerian football. To his credit, he was able to state during his inaugural speech that Keshi’s issue will be looked at without prejudice. But from all indications, it seemed Pinnick never really fancied Keshi. Another difficult situation.

But let’s take a look at where both men got it wrong, and how the present unsavoury situation would have been averted.

PINNICK Whoever became the NFF President after Aminu Maigari was always going to have a rough start

for obvious reasons. There were so much issues that plagued the latter part of Maigari’s administration that it was obvious whoever succeeded him would ‘inherit’ a large chunk of it, and so it proved.

During his inaugural speech as the NFF President in Warri, Amaju Pinnick sounded like a man who knew the enormous challenges he was walking into and knew just how to steady the ship at least.

But five months on, Pinnick has faced several challenges that it seemed he wouldn’t survive. First he had to deal with the issue of his election. There were petitions before the NFF Electoral Appeals Committee against his elections, citing ‘irregularities’ in the conduct of the elections that brought him in. Even though that issue is not wholly settled, he seems to have survived that – at least for the time being.

Then came the Keshi conundrum. To be or not to be.

The belief then was that Pinnick would have ditched the Big Boss if he had his way. But there was no time. The Africa Cup of Nations qualifiers were approaching and Pinnick didn’t want to be seen to upset the applecart, so Keshi remained. The Sports Minister also played a huge role at the time to ensure Keshi stayed, as he said that ‘the NFF will offer Keshi a new contract when they sort out their problems’.

Eventually, Keshi continued and started the qualifying process – albeit without a contract – and after the 0-1 loss to Sudan in Khartoum, it seemed Pinnick would wield the axe, but for some reason he didn’t. However, Pinnick and his board felt the most appropriate time to ‘sack’ Keshi was hours after Nigeria had beaten Sudan 3-1 in Abuja to move the country back into contention for a place in Equatorial Guinea. Amodu Shuaibu and a ‘consortium’ of coaches were appointed to oversee Nigeria’s other qualifying matches pending when a foreign coach would be hired. Wrong move!

Pinnick got his fingers burnt there, as Keshi was reinstated by an order from Aso Rock. At that point, Keshi suddenly found himself ahead on the bargaining table, while Pinnick and the NFF could only watch from the rear.

Pinnick, a smart fellow, sought some damage control. A statement was quickly issued, where Amodu Shuaibu pleaded for Keshi to be reinstated, with Pinnick agreeing to the move (I pity you if you believe that crap).

Well, at that point, Pinnick and the NFF had lost their bargaining power and could only watch as Nigeria failed to make the second AFCON in three editions.

Now this is the issue; the NFF can’t ‘sack’ Keshi for fear of the

Keshi unknown. They obviously do not want him, but are scared to make the announcement for fear of a repetition of what happened last October. Since Keshi does not have a running contract, they can’t sack him but then again, they can’t announce plans to hire a replacement either, for fear that an order from Aso Rock could again rock their boat and strip them of any bargaining power left.

KESHI How time flies. When Keshi led Nigeria to win her third Africa Cup of Nations trophy in 2013, just over a year after the country failed to make the same competition in 2012, he was seen as a god, a messiah that could do no wrong.

Fast forward to 2014 and Keshi is the most unwanted man in Nigerian football. How sad.

I would say he partly has himself to blame for his predicament.

After working with the NFF for two years – albeit a turbulent working relationship – one would have thought the Big Boss would see the handwriting on the wall.

Keshi’s desire was to lead Nigeria to the World Cup after failing to do so with Togo in 2006 despite qualifying them to Germany. But knowing that his contract was up after the World Cup and after leading Nigeria to a last 16 finish for the first time in 16 years, the smartest move would have been to leave the scene after that.

The impression he gave after

the loss to France was that he had had enough, but alas he was looking to get ahead of the NFF on the bargaining table.

If he had walked after that tournament, he probably would still be highly revered. But now he’s seen as the coach that failed to get Nigeria to the Africa Cup of Nations in a group that had Sudan, Congo and South Africa.

It got so bad that Amodu Shuaibu said he was hanging on like a ‘beggar’.

He also didn’t help himself when he kept boasting that he had at least six offers from different countries. The information I have is that he would have gotten the South Africa job, but SAFA were unimpressed that he mentioned he was in discussions with them.

On the other hand, I personally don’t think the Super Eagles needs Keshi anymore. I think he has given his best and I doubt he can take Nigeria beyond this level because the truth is, for all his charisma, it’s difficult to decipher the system he plays. His philosophy is vague and most times leaves the players confused.

In my opinion, Keshi has served his time and shouldn’t be told he has to leave. He keeps talking about being patriotism and his love for Nigeria but I’m sure Sir Alex Ferguson loved Manchester United too. But he knew he couldn’t take them beyond the level he left them and the smartest thing to always do in such situations is to leave.

BIG PUNCH On corruption, there will be no confusion as to where I stand. Corruption will have no place and the corrupt will not be appointed into my administration.

Peoples Daily WEEKEND, SATURDAY — SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 28 , 2015

Saturday Column Lawal Sabo Ibrahim

W

atching video clips of the aerial bombardment of Boko Haram enclaves coupled with the news of massive annihilation of insurgents, that made our military to gain grounds and reclaim territories, every well meaning Nigerian and even ‘well-wishers,’ cannot hide his feeling of elation and relief albeit cautiously.

At last, our military have been ‘awakened’ to do the needful.

These are professionals that helped in quelling strife after strife in several parts of the globe, gaining acclaim and accolades in the process. But they were for half a decade, fumbling to contain a revolt by an initially ragtag group that over the years, miraculously metamorphosed into a demonic and highly lethal gang.

Yes, one can safely say that our troops have been awakened not because they were sleeping but because they were being roused after years of being criminally demotivated as a result of the ‘monkey dey work, baboon dey chop’ syndrome in the Nigerian parlance.

It is a simple logic that no troop will perform beyond the capacity of their commander nay, commander-in-chief. Thus, as is said, an army of sheep led by a lion can defeat that of lions under the command of a sheep. This is because, whereas the former will go to the battlefield with a lion’s heart, the latter will have a sheep’s mindset.

What we saw was a fearful group that used to operate in a guerilla fashion of hit and run, but because of the absence of resolute challenge, it graduated to a level that it had ‘excised’ some of the nation’s statutory local governments and became brazen enough to hoist some rags they referred to as flags, renaming Mubi and Gwoza towns in Adamawa and Borno States to Madinatul Islam (meaning City of Islam) and Darul Hikma (meaning House of Wisdom) respectively. All of this was due to the misapplication or rather outright diversion of defence funds that caused high disillusionment among the rank and file of our military, to the extent that there were instances of refusal to accept postings to the battlefield.

As this criminality lasted, there was more politics than Advert: business: news: lagos:

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honesty to quell the insurgency, to the extent that, rather than being a real Commander-inChief that he ought to be, our president was performing below what one can even describe as complainant-in-chief. In place of talking and acting tough to quash the insurgency as expected of a C-in-C, he always waited for attacks by the group before he makes feeble comments that were often devoid of command or conviction gait.

Nevertheless, the renewed vigour among the rank and file of the Nigerian security forces is very encouraging and gives a glimmer of hope that, at last, there is light at the end of the tunnel. This is especially with the more confident and genial posture being displayed towards our troops at the war front by their officers.

However, one very disturbing issue about the whole trend was the pledge by President Jonathan that soon, they will catch Shekau, in a recent interview with Thisday newspaper. “God willing we will catch Shekau before the elections,” he said in response to a question on what his government is doing about Shekau’s threat to disrupt upcoming elections.

In the same vein, military authorities directed soldiers to capture Shekau alive. But, all these were against the back drop of claims and insistence by the same military authorities that they had killed the same man.

In October 2014, Nigeria’s defence headquarters published a statement on its website, www. defenceinfo.mil.ng insisting that the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, was dead. It maintained that he was killed

Wild ‘ghost’ chase of Shekau

Shekau in the Kondunga battle in September of the same year.

Part of the statement said: “The Defence Headquarters is studying the claims made in the video purportedly released by the terrorists showing their leader, Abubakar Shekau, as dismissing his death.

From immediate observation and what some online news outlets claimed to have seen, the video did not indicate when it was shot neither did it show any proof of life or currency such as screen time or date. The video also did not make any reference to anything that has happened since the impostor’s reported death.

“It is also noteworthy that the airplane said to be mentioned in the video had been missing

All hail Kano Police Commissioner The story on the arrest of political thugs in Tudunwada Local Government was highly encouraging. At last, the area has got the attention of police authorities. As someone who hails from the area, I feel pained whenever I see how security operatives there connive with thugs or their influential sponsors to perpetrate all sorts of atrocities against innocent and peace-loving people.

A case in point was during the 2011 legislative election, when some thuggish political office holders ‘imported’ thugs into the council headquarters who virtually shut the town down for three days, blocking the Kano-Jos highway in the process. They robbed and maimed people at will and no rescue came until highly contoversial results were announced in favour of the thugs. Thus, the Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Idris, deserves commendation for this proactive measure, but he should please direct for continuous priority attention on the area, as, the same people who perpetrated the 2011 mayhem are still in contention.

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—APC presidential candidate, General Buhari at Chatham House, London.

before he was killed. It should not surprise anybody if the terrorists decide to manipulate pictures, clone another Shekau or upload a pre-recorded video all in a bid to prove invincible.

“As far as we are concerned, the individual who was appearing in video and claiming to be the leader of the terrorist group was killed in the Kondunga battle in September.

The resemblance of the corpse and that of the eccentric character was incontrovertible. His identity was equally corroborated by people who knew him before we announced his death,” the statement said then.

But, beyond this, it flatly failed to provide any empirical evidence like a result of a DNA test on the purported corpse to ascertain whether it was actually Shekau’s or not; the defence authorities only insisted on what they believed, and anyone who tried to raise any question was cowed by being termed as saboteur collaborator or outright sponsor.

All this was in response to an earlier video the Boko Haram issued online showing Shekau saying: “It was said that I was killed, but here I am; I deliberately refused to respond on time; but here I am talking and laughing at Nigerian authority who misled the world that I am dead. I believe by now Lt Col Sagir Musa, who issued the statement of my death, should bury his head in shame,

President Jonathan should bury his head in shame.”

So, the questions now are, which Shekau is President Jonathan and the military authorities talking of catching alive in the present onslaught?

Was there any (unlikely) evidence that the same man killed in September last year has resurrected; or are we witnessing another gimmick to prepare ground for another round of politicisation of the war on terror?

Or worse still, were the military authorities economical with the truth as they were on many other occasions when they claimed the death of Shekau?

All these give so much credence to the allegation that government is making a clandestine arrangement for a fake Shekau to be presented to Nigerians to gain cheap political goal and even use him as a tool to blackmail opposition politicians; and, this, to say the least, will be the height of irresponsibility, inhumanity and highest level of unpatriotic behaviour.

Thus, the earlier government and the military authorities come clean on the previous claim of Shekau’s death and the present allegation the better for them and the nation at large. The bottomline is, however long a path may go, there is always an end to it, good or bad.

DAN GAYE

Jonathan plots to sack Jega next week –News

Is it also for security reasons?

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