Buhari signs N6.06trn 2016 "Budget of Change"

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Buhari signs N6.06trn 2016 “Budget of Change”

By Levinus Nwabughiogu

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BUJA—President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday signed the 2016 Appropriation Bill into law. The President signed the delayed 2016 budget at the Presidential Villa with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, President of the Senate, Senator Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara and Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun among others as witnesses.

The record 6.06 trillion budget is expected to stimulate the nation’s slowing economy which took a hit as the price of crude oil, Nigeria’s main export, collapsed in the global market.

IMMEDIATE BOOST FOR INFRASTRUCTURE Speaking after signing the budget into law the President said that N350billion will immediately be injected into the economy by way of capital projects. The President also said that N200billion was earmarked for roads infrastructure.

Other witnesses to the budget signing ceremony were the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udoma Udo Udoma; Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun; Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed; Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Ita Enang; Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives), Samaila Kawo; National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), John Odigie-Oyegun; Chairman Senate Committee on Appropriation, Danjuma Goje and Chairman House of Reps Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumuni Jubril.

In his remark after the signing ceremony the President said “It gives me great pleasure today to sign the first full-year budget of this administration into law. I thank the leadership of the National Assembly, in particular, the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and indeed all members of the National Assembly for their cooperation in making this a reality.

A RENEWAL OF FAITH WITH NIGERIANS “The budget is intended to signpost a renewal of our commitment to restoring the budget as a serious article of faith with the Nigerian people. This Administration is committed to ensuring that henceforth the annual appropriation bill is presented to the National Assembly in time for the passage of the Act before the beginning of the fiscal year.

“Through the 2016 budget, aptly titled “Budget of Change”, the government seeks to fulfill its own side of the social contract. The Budget I have signed into law provides for aggregate expenditures of N6.06 trillion. Further details of the approved budget, as well as our Strategic Implementation Plan for the 2016 budget, will be provided by the Honourable Minister of Budget and National Planning.

MORE DETAILS FOR MAY 29 “I shall be speaking in more details about the Budget, its implementation and the over-all national economic and social policies of the Government in my address on May 29th, God willing. In designing the 2016 budget, we made a deliberate choice to pursue an expansionary fiscal policy despite the huge decline in government revenues from crude oil exports. This is why we decided to enlarge the

•Immediate injection of N350bn into economy •N200bn for roads construction •To give details on implementation May 29 •Feels the pains Nigerians are going through •Budget will benefit Nigerians—Saraki •2017 budget ready in October-Udoma •Appropriation bill passage before the beginning of the fiscal year •Minister of planning to provide details and implementation plan

•From Left: Minister of Budget and Planang, Udoma Udo Udoma; Speaker, House of Representative, Yakubu Dogara; Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo; Senate President, Bukola Saraki and President Muhammadu Buhari during signing of the 2016 budget into law by the president at the presidential villa in Abuja yesterday. budget deficit at this time, to be financed principally through foreign and domestic borrowings. All borrowings will however be applied towards growth-enhancing capital expenditures.

“The signing of the budget today will trigger concerted efforts to reflate the Nigerian economy, a key element of which is an immediate injection of N350bn into the economy by way of capital projects. To illustrate our renewed commitment to infrastructural development, the 2016 budget allocates over N200bn to road construction as against a paltry N18bn allocated for same purpose in the 2015 budget.

Continuing the President said “Despite the current difficulties we will work extra-hard to achieve our revenue projections. Our revenue generating agencies are coming under better management and are being re-oriented.

The implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) is expected to contribute significantly to improving transparency over government revenues.

I SHARE YOUR PAINS “Our determined fight against corruption is resulting in improvements in the quality of public expenditure. The work of the Efficiency Unit, as well as other public financial management initiatives, are also contributing in this regard. The continuing efforts to reduce recurrent expenditures should hopefully free up more funds for capital expenditure in 2017 and beyond. As I said in my New Year message, living in State House does not in any way alienate me from your daily struggles. I read the newspapers and listen to the TV and radio news.

I hear your cries. I share your pains.

“We are experiencing probably the toughest economic times in the history of our Nation. I want to commend the sacrifice, resilience and toughness of all Nigerians young and old who have despite the hardships continued to have hope and confidence of a great future for Nigerians. But permit me to say that this government is also like none other. We are absolutely committed

to changing the structure of the Nigerian economy once and for all.

We are working night and day to diversify the economy so that we never again have to rely on one commodity to survive as a country.

So that we can produce the food we eat, make our own textiles, produce most of the things we use. We intend to create the environment for our young people to be able to innovate and create jobs through technology.

“I cannot promise you that this

will be an easy journey, but in the interest of so much and so many we must tread this difficult path. I can assure you that this government you have freely elected will work with honesty and dedication, day and night to ensure that our country prospers and that the prosperity benefits all Nigerians. God bless Federal Republic of Nigeria”.

NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE Meanwhile the news that the

President has signed the 2016 into law buoyed activities on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) with the market indices growing by 0.54 per cent after declining for two consecutive days. Investors gained N47 billion as the market capitalisation closed at N8.84 trillion compared with N8.79 trillion recorded on Thursday.

Mallam Garba Kurfi, Managing Director, APT Securities and Funds Ltd., attributed the growth to investors reaction to the signing of the budget.

Kurfi said that signing of the budget had ended the impasse between the presidency and the lawmakers for over four weeks, adding that the uncertainty surrounding the budget had ended with the signing.

A breakdown of the price movement chart indicated that Forte Oil led the gainers’ chart, growing

by N20.44 to close at N219.92 per share. Mobil Nigeria followed with a gain of N7.29 to close at N155.09, while Flour Mills Nigeria gained N1.83 to close at N22.34 per share.

Guinness appreciated by N1 to close at N95, while Cadbury increased by 78k to close at N16.46 per share.

On the other hand, PZ topped the losers’ chart, dropping 68k to close at N20.62 per share.

Nigerian Breweries trailed with a loss of 24k to close at N115.08, while Ecobank Transnational Incorporated lost 20k to close at N14.50 per share. Dangote Sugar Refinery shed 11k to close at N5.79 and Portland Paint also declined by 11k to close at N2.17 per share. FBN Holdings remained the most active, accounting for 30.73 million shares worth N107.99 million.

Transcorp followed with an exchange of 20.07 million shares valued at N20.66 million, while Zenith Bank sold 14.22 million shares worth N185.69 million.

Guaranty Trust Bank traded 11.19 million shares valued at N194.04 million and Access Bank traded 9.69 million shares worth N40.61 million.

In all, investors traded a total of 181.11 million shares valued at N1.17 billion as against 178.87 million shares worth N1.48 billion exchanged on Thursday.

2016 Budget: Saraki assures Nigerians of on Nigerians will be put in place. adequate oversight “That is why we have started

By Henry Umoru & Joseph Erunke ENATE President, Bukola S Saraki, has commended Nigerians for their patience

while awaiting presidential assent to the 2016 Appropriation Act. He promised that the National Assembly will ensure its proper implementation through diligent oversight.

Saraki spoke after he joined the Speaker, House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara and other top government officials in witnessing the signing of the budget into law by President Muhammadu Buhari,yesterday.

He said the responsibility was now that of both the executive and the legislature to ensure that the objectives and goals of the budget were duly realized.

The Senate President called on ministers, heads of departments and agencies to hit the ground running with the implementation of the various provisions made in the budget so that the expectations of the people can be fulfilled.

“On our own part as members of the National Assembly, we will closely monitor the implementation of the budget by

providing effective oversight. We will also ensure that all necessary laws that will aid the transformation of the contents of the budget into practical policies, projects and programmes that will directly have positive impact

the amendment of the Public Procurement Act to ensure that a substantial percentage of the money to be spent in the budget are made available to Nigerians through government patronage of Made-in-Nigeria goods and services.”

APC hails signing of 2016 ‘Budget of Change’

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HE All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday hailed the signing of Nigeria’s 2016 Appropriation Bill into law by His Excellency President Muhammadu Buhari.

The party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun in a statement on behalf of the APC also commended both arms of the 8th National Assembly – Senate and House of Representatives – for its successful consideration and passage of the 2016 National Budget.

“The APC calls on Federal Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies to ensure effective and speedy implementation of the 2016 Appropriation Act so that the objectives of the unprecedented N6.06 trillion 2016 National ‘Budget of Change’ will be realised. Commendably, 30 per

cent of the 2016 budgetary provision has been committed to capital projects.” The APC National Chairman stated.

The party also commended Nigerians for their patience and understanding during the consideration, passage and eventual presidential assent to the 2016 Appropriation Act, stating that the 2016 National Budget caters for many of the promises made to the Nigerian electorate by the party.

“The APC assures Nigerians that the 2016 National Budget caters for many of the promises made to the Nigerian electorate by the party in the course of the 2015 presidential campaign. This includes the safety net created to cater for the poorest and most vulnerable Nigerians amongst other pro-people developmental policies.’’

6 — SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Fani-Kayode escapes arrest •As CRS PDP chair spends weekend in detention over N500m election money •Fani-Kayode fumes: I agreed to be with them on Monday; why invade my house now? arrived the house on Zuma wasdated6thMay.Theysaid

By Soni Daniel

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O R M E R spokesman of President Jonathan's campaign team, Femi FaniKayode yesterday escaped arrest of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and said he would be with the commision on Monday.

Meanwhile, the embattled Chairman of the People's Democratic Party Ntufam JohnOkonmaybespending the weekend with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for reportedly collecting the sum of N500 million out of the N24 billion that former Petroleum Minister, Diezani Alison Madueke dropped to allegedly compromise the last Presidential election.

A source said Ntufam Okon who was picked up by EFCC operatives on Thursday, had not been released as at the close of work yesterday.

A top source in EFCC told Saturday Vanguard that the commission would charge Okon to court as early as possible but did not say exactly when.

The chairman was arrested on Thursday in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, for collecting a sum of N500 million as his share of the booty given by Diezani through the former MD of Fidelity Bank.

EFCC told Saturday Vanguard that Okon collected the money on 26 March, 2015 at a branch of C M Y K

FidelityBankinCalabar. The money was placed in the transit account at the Corporate Headquarters of Fidelity Bank but cash was made available to Okon in the Calabar branch of the bank.

However strident attempts to arrest the spokesman for the PDP presidential Campaign, Femi Fani-Kayode, proved abortive. The operatives had stormed Fani-Kayode’s Maitama home with the hope of picking him to cool his feet in its custody but did not get him by the time the plain-clothed operatives

Close, off Aso Drive.

Although the two operatives suspected that the former Aviation minister was in the house, they did not find him despite entering inside to fish him out.

They later withdrew after checking some of the rooms in vain. In a text message to Vanguard, Fani-Kayode said “today, the EFCC invited me to come to their office on Monday. I have their letter. I agreed to be there. Now, they have surrounded my house.

“The letter of invitation was served this morning and it

I should report on the 9th.

Can somebody please tell me why they are at my gate?

Theycan’tevenwaitbecause they want to detain me so badly and keep me away for the weekend. I never refused their invitation. Why all these? I leave them to God.” He was said to have received N840 million out of the N4 biion given to Nenadi Usman ahead of the 2015 Presidential poll.

He has promised to turn in himself to the EFCC on Monday in response to a formal invitation from the anti-graft agency.

Diezani N24b payout: EFCC arrests Access Bank MD, 6 more Bank MDs may follow

By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor

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ANAGING Director of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. He was picked up in Lagos yesterday in connection with the sharing of the $115 million (N24 billion) cash given to the Managing Director of Fidelity Bank to be disbursed to top INEC officials ahead of last Presidential election.

Already, the former MD of Fidelity Bank, Nnamdi Okonkwo, who reportedly accepted the cash and supervised the disbursement to the beneficiaries is being detained by EFCC. Access Bank MD was said to have been arrested yesterday in connection with the cash but it was not clear as at press time whether he had been freed.

We gathered that the EFCC had their eyes on six more Managing Directors of Banks who may also be quizzed over the money distributed for election purposes.

Late Prince Ademola Adeniji-Adele mourners Yobe ghost workers gulp N2 caught in cross fire of gunmen billion annually, says Gaidam

By Olasunkanmi Akoni

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AMILY members, friends and well wishersoflatePrinceAdemolaAdeniji-Adele who visited 712 Road, A close, House 29, Festac Town, residence of the deceasedtocommiseratewith the bereaved family, narrowly escaped death yesterday when two rival groups started shooting sporadically at the venue.

Pandemonium was said to have broken out when loyalists of former chairman of Amuwo Odofin Local Government, Hon. Ayodele Adewale who is an in-law to Late PrinceAdenijiAdele,clashed with supporters of the current Executive Secretary of the council, Mrs. Modupe Ajibola-Ojuduturningtheplace

into a battle field.

According to an eyewitness, the clash was ignited by security personnel that came with Adewale when they started shooting into the air and everybody started running helter skelter. In the processsomestructureswere destroyed.

Some of the people at the residence sustained injury while others were lucky to escape unhurt.

It took the intervention of policemen called in to restore normalcy.

Thebulletsriddenwallwas evident when Vanguard visited the residence. Both Adewale and Ajibola-Ojudu couldnotbereachedforcomment at press time.

A member of Adele family,

who confirmed the incident but preferred anonymity, described the incident as” unnecessary show of shame and highly barbaric. When people are mourning some engaged themselves in unnecessary power show. It’s unfortunate.”

It will be recalled that the deceased was a former Chairman Lagos Island Local Government Area, and laterCommissionerofSports, in Lagos State. Adeniji-Adele was aged 60 years.

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BY NDAHI MARAMA, MAIDUGURI

OVERNOR Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe state has said that a lotofcouncil administrators,politiciansandbusinessmen inthestatehave allegedlyconnivedtocontrolandretain names of ghost workers in the 17 Local Government Councils’ salary system.

Gaidamdisclosedyesterday while swearinginfour members of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) at the Wawa hall of Government House,Damaturu.

He warned that those who are involved in the “acts of connivance;”todesistfromsuchactsbydeletingimmediatelyall the names of ghost workers on government pay rolls.

His words: “My administration has surprisingly uncovered theculprits.Letmeusethis occasiontocautiontheperpetratorsof hoardingghostworkersinthe17councilpayrolls,”warningthat all the names of suspects will be made public to face the wrath of law.

In an interview with journalists shortly after swearing in ceremony,Gaidamtracedthehistoryofghostworkersinthestate since 1991, when the state was created on August 27, 1991 by lateGen.SaniAbacha.

Hiswords:“My interventioninrecent timesledtotheabilityof this administration to always pay salaries of workers across the state without any delay or hitch.”

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Boko Haram: 9-year-old rescued girl on hunger strike •Says, “I want to go back to Sambisa to meet my husband” •12 other girls pregnant

By Ndahi Marama, Maiduguri

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nine-year-old girl who was among the 65 young girls rescued by the troops from Sambisa forest has embarked on hunger strike, saying she wanted to go back to Sambisa forest to meet her Boko Haram husband.

It was gathered that the girl (name withheld) has refused to eat for the past three days insisting that she wanted to go back and reunite with her Boko Haram husband in Sambisa 12 other rescued girls were also discovered to be pregnant while others have already given birth.

This was disclosed yesterday when Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno state visited the headquarters of the 7 Division, Nigerian Army, Maimalari Cantonment to officially receive the Boko Haram hostages by the General Officer Commanding (GOC), Major General Victor Ezegwu.

Our Correspondent observed that most of the rescued hostages comprising 27 children and over 30 young girls with few women including two Camerounians have beenindoctrinatedbythesect as many of them claimed they have been with the sect for the past three years, and were willing to go back to Sambisa to meet their husbands.

BriefingGovernorShettima at the Youth centre in Maimalari Cantonment, venue of the official handing over of the hostages to the Borno State Government, the GOC said, the ongoing Operation crackdown in Sambisa forest which commenced about a week ago was recording successes as according to him, many of the insurgents have been killed by troops with the recovery of chunks of arms and ammunitions at Balaza, Walasa, Banki and other surrounding villages.

He said during the crackdown, over 300 persons held by the insurgents in Dikwa, Gamboru, Ngala, Kala Balge axis have been rescued and handed over to their families in Dikwa resettlement camp, while 300 cattle rustled by the

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sect have been returned to their real owners.

While commending Governor Shettima and the state government for their support towards complementing effort of the military in the fight against insurgents, the GOC assured that the Nigerian Army will not rest on its oars, until Boko Haram elements are dislodged from their hide-

outs.

Responding, Governor Shettima commended the military and other security agencies for storming the heart of Sambisa Forest, which according to him will see to the end of the insurgents deadly activities in the north east.

He said, as government, he will do everything possible with the scarce resources at

his disposal to support military in order to put an end the Boko Haram madness in the state.

While congratulating the rescued hostages Shettima said, the state government will keep them in a safer place to enable them undergo proper counselling and traumatictrainingbeforethey reunite with their families, pointing out that the two Cameroonians who were freed alongside other Borno citizens will be taken back and handed over to the Cameroonian government.

Giwa storms NFF, arrested

by Police

By Jude Opara, Abuja

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HE drama in the administration of Nigerian football took a new twist Friday afternoon when Chris Giwa and his group arrived the secretariat of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF).

The Giwa group had last month secured a ruling of a Jos Federal High Court which was said to have declared them as the authentic board of the federation.

However Giwa who arrived the NFF about 4pm was arrested by the police who drove him away in his SUV to the Wuse Police Station.

The drama began to unfold when the policemen at the gate of the NFF secretariat which they share with the FCT Command of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) ordered that the main entrance gate be locked.

This resulted in a scene as many people including some journalists who could not enter with Giwa were stranded.

However unknown to Giwa who had entered the secretariat and toured all the offices, he was not to go out as he and his train were prevented from leaving until the arrival of the plain clothed policemen.

Giwa who wore a Navy blue caftan had told some of the staff he met in the office that he would resume on Monday. “I have come to revalidate the Court Order and by the Grace of God I will resume fully on Monday.”

As at press time it was not clear if the police had released him or not.

Steer clear of our affairs, Kogi lawmakers tell NASS

By Joseph Erunke

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Minister of Power, Works & Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, SAN (2nd left), Senator representing Lagos East Senatorial District, Senator Olugbenga Ashafa (left) , the Chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Femi Okunnu, SAN (2nd right) and former Commissioner for Justice Lagos state, Mr Olasupo Shasore, SAN, (right) during a public lecture delivered by the Minister at the Oriental Hotel, Lagos, recently.

HERDSMEN ATTACK: Abia govt revives Bakassi Boys to guard rural communities

By Anayo Okoli

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OLLOWING the raging attacks of communities across the country by Fulani Herdsmen, Abia State Governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu has approved the deployment of the State’s Vigilant outfit, Bakassi Boys to all rural communities of the State.

The Governor also directed all monarchs in the State to nominate 10 youths to the Local Government Commissioner to join a planned intensive training of the Bakassi vigilante for onward deployment to the rural communities. He said that they would assist in community policing under the supervision of the police.

Ikpeazu also mandated the law enforcement agencies to search and screen all trucks and vehicles conveying live stocks, food items and persons into the state from any part of the country as well as search and

screen markets and settlements where live stocks and dealers are to ensure security.

The State Government has also constituted Farmers/Herdsmen Conflict Resolution Committee in the 17 Local Government Areas of the state to be headed by the Local Government chairmen with Divisional Police Officers in the councils, NSCDC heads, the DSS Local Government Chiefs, Chairmen of Traditional Rulers Council and Heads of Hausa communities in the councils as members.

Governor Ikpeazu’s action was prompted by a clash between solders and butchers in Aba which led to the killing of two butchers and almost led to an ethnic clash between Hausa/Fulani and other tribes.

A statement personally issued by the Governor himself stated thus: “My dear brothers and sisters, I have been informed of the very unfortunate incident that happened in Aba, the commercial town of our dear state today, where a solider killed a meat-seller at the popular abattoir located at the Ogbohill area of Aba. I condemn the act that led to the untimely death of this brother. I associate myself with his family in this moment of pains and loss, even as I commiserate with traders in the market. The

solider who perpetrated this act has been arrested and taken into custody. “I call on the people of Abia, especially those of us in Aba, to remain claim. I reassure all citizens of the state that the government is doing everything to protect lives and property of citizens from any attack.

“I have instructed and equipped security agencies in the state to ensure watertight security around our boarders and towns against any form of attack.

“I have directed that the men of the Abia State Vigilante Services (AVS), popularly known as Bakassi, to commence, with immediate effect, a two week intensive training, for onward deployment to our communities to assist in community policing under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police.

“All Traditional Rulers in the state are required to sub Continues on Page 43

IFTEEN out of the 20 members in the Kogi State House of Assembly have asked the National Assembly to steer clear of affairs of the state legislature.

The 15 members, including the embattled speaker, Momoh-Jimoh Lawal, said the planned take over of affairs of the state assembly by the National Assembly should be halted because the matter was already in court.

They insisted that the National Assembly must rescind its decision to take over the affairs of the state legislature as a result of the crisis, which they claimed was caused by five of their colleagues.

In a letter written to the leadership of the National Assembly,a copy of which Vanguard obtained,yesterday, the lawmakers informed the federal parliament that its order directing the sealing-off of the Kogi House of Assembly premises was illegal as it does not posses such power in the constitution.

Fish out criminals in your locality, Delta Deputy Speaker tells youths

By Oghene Omonisa

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N line with his commitment to enhance peace and community development, the Deputy Speaker, Delta State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Friday Ossai Osanebi has called on youths and community leaders to fish out strangers and individuals causing unrest, perpetrating violence and threatening peaceful and harmonious coexistence in their community.

The Deputy Speaker gave the charge yesterday in his office, when he received leaders of Ashaka Community in Ndokwa East LGA of the state in his office in Asaba. Osanebi noted that the interest of the present administration of Sen. Ifeanyi Okowa was the holistic prosperity of Deltans, and called on community leaders to be veritable tools in peace building in order to facilitate prosperity, noting that development and prosperity could not be experienced in an atmosphere of rancour.

8 — SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

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Four sentenced to death by hanging over kidnapping, murder He sentenced them to Josephine’s husband and and contacted the boyfriend kept his parts inside who came joined her in death by hanging.

By Peter Okutu

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WO persons, Onyemachi Oge and Okechukwu Oma were friday sentenced to death by hanging by a High court sitting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state for kidnapping a medical doctor, Dr. Chuka Manyike in the state.

The duo alongside Chukwuemeka Levi, Idris Oken, Edeke Desmond and Ijeoma oge were accused of kidnapping Manyinke, a Doctor of Pediatrics at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Abakaliki on 5th May, 2013 at his private hospital, No 15 Owerri street Abakaliki .

Manyinke’s security guard identified simply as Peter was shot dead during the kidnap for attempting to prevent the hoodlums from kidnapping his boss, Manyinke.

The sum of N3million ransom was paid before the release of the medical doctor after six days in captivity. Oge and Oma got N200, 000 from the total ransom paid.

Oma, a tailor opposite Manyinke’s hospital provided information to the kidnappers and gave them directive on how to perfect their plan while Oge supplied beer, biscuits and water to the doctor during his days in captivity.

All the accused persons have been in prison custody since the incident.

Delivering judgment on the matter yesterday at High court 3, the trial judge, Justice Eze Udu said the prosecution counsel; I.I Anikwe proved his case against Onyemachi Oge the 4th accused person and Chukwu Oma 6th accused person in the case beyond reasonable doubt and sentenced them to death by hanging.

He discharged and acquitted the 1st accused person(Levi), 2nd accused person(Oken), 3rd accused person(Desmond) and 5th accused person(0ge) and however recommended that Ijeoma Oge the 5th accused and the husband who is at large be charged for conspiracy and kidnapping for allowing their house to be used in keeping the victim during the incident.

In his reaction, counsel to the 3rd, 4th and 5th accused persons, Barrister D.I Njoku said he is already preparing to appeal the judgment against the 4th accused person who was convicted and sentenced to death by hanging.

Meanwhile, a high court also sitting in the state yesterday sentenced a woman, Mrs Josephine Onwuzuruike and her boy friend, Ekene Onyeka to death by hanging.

The woman and Onyeka had in 2008 at Azuiyiokwu, Abakaliki butchered

cupboard.

The Josephine had accused the husband of attempting to marry another wife by building a separate house other than the one they were living

murdering the husband.

Delivering judgment on the case, the trial judge Justice Benson Ogbuh found the accused persons guilty of the offence and convicted them.

Josephine, after the incident wept uncontrollable and pleaded with the judge to be lenient on her because of her children.

Glo extends lead in first quarter internet subscriber report

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ATIONAL operator, Globacom, has sustained its lead in internet subscriptions in the telecoms market as the industry report for the first quarter of 2016 shows that the company strengthened its position as Nigeria’s preferred network for new data subscribers.

In the report released by the industry regulator, covering the first three months of the year, Globacom added 1,448,354 new internet subscribers on its network during the period. The figures, as released on monthly basis, show that for the month of January, Globacom had 354,178; for the month of February 248,593 and for March it had 845,583, bringing its total internet customers as at the end of the quarter to 26,530,420.

Globacom’s cumulative figure of 1,448,354 for the three months under review represents 80% of the total number of 1,820,651 new customers who subscribed to internet services of the four major telecom operators in the first quarter of this year.

PDP LG Congresses first step towards reclaiming FG – Ojugboh, Akobundu

By Anayo Okoli and Festus Ahon

From left: Yemi Akeju, President and Chairman of Council, Institute of Directors, Nigeria presenting commemorative award to His Imperial Majesty, Ooni Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II; Chief Chris Okunowo, 2nd Vice President IOD; Chief Mrs Opral Benson and others institute members during the Institute’s courtesy visit to the Ooni of Ile Ife in his palce recently.

Kidnappers kill businessman after collecting N15m

By Chioma Onuegbu, Uyo

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BUSINESSMAN identified as Mr. Chijioke Anyanwuor resident in Ikot Abasi local government area of Akwa Ibom state has been reported killed by suspected kidnappers Saturday Vanguard learnt that Anyanwuor a native of Agulu in Anambra state was earlier abducted on February, 25, 2016 in front of his Ikot Abasi residence about 2:00hours in the morning after returning from a Church programme.

A reliable family source who spoke to newsmen in confidence in Uyo said the kidnappers numbering over five succeeded in blocking their victim and whisked him away in his vehicle to unknown destination.

It was further learnt that he was later killed and buried in a shallow grave in the forest even after his family paid over N15 million naira ransom to his abductors.

“Our source said, “But two days after the kidnappers

contacted the family and demanded huge sum of money. The money was paid it paid at different tines and locations as the kidnappers directed.

“We had expected that they would immediate release Mr. Chijioke after the abductors collected seven million but he was not released. Instead after a very short time interval they demanded for more money and even after N15 million was paid they did not free their captive”.

Our source said when family requested to hear Chijioke’s voice to ensure he was alive after being held in the kidnappers’ custody for weeks little did they (family) know that he had been murdered and buried.

He further disclosed that two months after, the kidnappers were tracked down and apprehended by Department of the Security Service (DSS) in collaboration with Security and Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) in the area.

Include erosion control in supplementary budget, Nwankwo tasks lawmakers

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ON. Dozie Nwankwo, who represents Anaocha, DunukofiaandNjikokaFederal Constituency in the House of Representatives has moved a motionintheHousecallingon Members to mandate the Committee on Environment andHabitattoincludecontracts for gully erosion control in the 2016 Supplementary Budget andalsovisittheaffectedareas inAnambraState.Themotion further urged the Ecological Fund Office to take measures aimed at controlling the menace. He also called on the National Emergency Relief

Agency (NEMA) to, as a matter of urgency send relief materials to victims of the erosion.

He observed that his Constituencyissituatedinthe rain forest zone that is constantlyfacedwithecological problems.Hon.Nwakwoalso listed other erosion sites such asEnuagu/UruogboandOsili villages in Enugwu Ukwu in Njikoka L.G.A, Ududonka, AguluNanka,AdaziNnukwu gully,EnuabovillageObeledu, Dunukofia, Nkwelle UmunnachiandUkpoerosion sites, which according to him are worst hit.

Effort to get the Commissioner of Police Mr. Murtala Mani to confirm the incident failed as at the time of filing this report.

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ATIONAL vice-chairmen of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the South-South and Southeast, Dr. Cairo Ojugboh and Col.AustinAkobundu (rtd) have expressed satisfaction with the conduct of the party ward congresses in the two geopolitical zones.

The two party chieftains speaking to Saturday Vanguard ahead of today’s local government congresses in the two zones said issues arising from last weekend’s congresses were being articulated even as they expressed readiness for today’s local government congresses to elect new executives for the local governments.

Col.Akonbundu speaking on the ward congresses in the South-East said: “We are still articulating the reports, but it was largely successful.

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016 —9

B-R-I-E-F-S

Herdsmen: Southern leaders fault Grazing Bill •Say, It portends danger

By Festus Ahon, Asaba

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HE Southern Nigeria People’s Assembly, SNPA, said yesterday that the proposed Grazing Reserve Bill before the National Assembly is not only anachronistic and antiquated, but also an unfortunate elevation of what ought to be private commercial ventures into a national or government business.

The group in a statement by the leaders from the three South geo-political zones, which included former Vice President Alex Ekwueme (represented by former Anambra State Governor Chukuwuemeka Ezeife); Ijaw National leader, Chief Edwin Clark (represented by Senator Roland Owie); and Senator Femi Okorounmu who stood in for Bishop Bolanle Gbonigi decried the raping and killing of innocent Nigerians by Fulani herdsmen.

Lamenting the recent killings in Enugu State, Benue State and other parts of the country by the herdsmen, they said that the grazing bill portends danger to the nation. They added it will institute a source of permanent conflict in the land especially the federal structure of the country and the 1999 Constitution which vest power to hold land on the 36 states of the country and the minister of the Federal Capital Territory.

“The President should deal decisively with the issue of Fulani herdsmen in the manner government is dealing with the insurgency problem”, the leaders said, stating that “if unchecked it has the capacity to snowball into another Boko Haram.

Consequently, he should

set up a Judicial Panel of Inquiry to investigate all Fulani herdsmen attacks between May 2015 till date and all those found to be directly or remotely involved in those attacks should be arrested and brought to book.”

The Southern leaders in the statement which was issued yesterday at the end of a three day meeting in Asaba, also said that the inability of President Muhammadu Buhari to begin the implementation

of the resolutions of the 2014 National Conference was objectionable.

According to them, the resolutions if implemented may help in resolving many political, socio-economic and security challenges of the country.

Calling on Nigerians to support Buhari in his anticorruption drive, war on insurgency and his effort at reviving ailing industries, the Southern leaders however urged him to

Sir Tony Obuh son’s wedding

HE leadership of Labour Party Edo state chapter has condemned the use of ‘juju’(voodooism) and the pandemonium that has characterized the recent political developments within the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state. The party chided the key contenders in APC for throwing caution to the winds and reducing governance in the state to ‘’spirituality, voodooism, fetishness and personal vendetta.’’

In a statement made available to journalists in benin city, the party wrote:’’ the allegation and counter allegation of witchcraft and C M Y K

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By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

ENATOR Chris Anyanwu yesterday said that though she was one of two persons appointed to oversight President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign in Imo State but that she was completely sidelined in the disbursement of the funds earmarked for the campaign.

Senator Anyanwu in a statement made available to Saturday Vanguard confirmed being invited to the Enugu offices of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC where she said she deposed her innocence of any financial dealings during the campaign.

In a statement issued by her media aide, Everest Ezihe, she said: “For the record, Senator Anyanwu was neither a party official nor the Presidential campaign coordinator for Imo State and therefore was in no position to collect or distribute funds for and on behalf of the party or indeed the candidate.

“Consequently, let it be stated without ambiguity that Senator Chris Anyanwu did not witness the collection of any money belonging to the PDP for the purpose of prosecuting the 2015 Presidential Elections in Imo State and therefore could not have been involved in its distribution in any form, directly or indirectly.

“Senator Anyanwu visited the EFCC offices in Enugu and made this position clear to the officials and was allowed to go home.

Police parade 16-year-old as armed-robbery suspect

By Tom Moses -16 year old member of a-two man armed-robbery gang, Imo Isaiah and the leader of the gang, Daniel Mark have been arrested by the Akwa-Ibom State Police Command.

Imo Isaiah, a barbing apprentice and student of Methodist Secondary School, Ete Ikot-Abasi Local Government Area and his boss, Daniel Mark were said to be arrested by the men of the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the AkwaIbom State police Command who had been on their trail for about one month before eventually catching up with them after they robbed one Nuru Lawal at Ikot Udo Mbang in Ukanafun Local Government Area. The police also paraded another set of armed-robbery suspects who had allegedly been terrorising innocent citizens in the Ukanafun Area.

The suspects include Usen Monday Amos, NkereuwemAbasido, Zerubabel Aniefiok John, Nyakno Saviour Ikpe and Emmanuel Emmanuel Anthony Effiom who were allegedly robbing and terrorising the residents of Maitaima Area in Uyo, the state’s capital.

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Deacons Roli Uduaghan, Dame Edith Okowa; the couple (Tony Jnr Obuh and Ovino Efekodha) and Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, Governor of Delta State at the wedding reception in Asaba last week where dignatries and high networth individuals were present.

Chevron pipeline attack: FG warns Niger Delta militants of dire consequences

By Soni Daniel

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PECIAL Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), BrigGen. Paul Boroh (rtd), has denounced the recent attack on oil and gas pipelines in the Niger

Delta by some misguided elements, warning the masterminds of the dire consequences of their nefarious action.

The PAP coordinator, who spoke to journalists in Abuja, against the backdrop of the recent attack on the Chevron Abiteye pipeline in Delta State, said the act

Labour Party condemns use of juju in Edo voodooism between the and state secretary Fred govt house comrade Governor Adams

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respect the rule of law, the protection of citizens’ fundamental human rights and the pronouncements of the courts.

They advised that the war on corruption should neither be vindictive nor selective, adding that selective justice amounts to injustice. They also called for the immediate release of all Nigerians who were granted bail by the courts and have subsequently met their bail conditions but are still being detained.

I was sidelined in disbursement of campaign funds— Chris Anyanwu

Oshiomhole and the deputy Dr. Pius Odubu is a clear and unambiguous indication that governance in Edo state has been handed over to juju.’’

The party in the statement signed by the National secretary Barr Julius Abure, state chairman Sam Omakaro

Akhere expressed displeasure that ‘’it is quite unfortunate that this is happening at a time when modern progressive and innovative governments are thinking of how to improve the living cconditions of their people, ours is busy accusing each other of juju and witchcraft.’’

Anxiety as gunmen invade Rivers community, kill one

By Davies Iheamnachor

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HERE is fear in Rumuche community in Emohua clan, Emohua Local Government area of Rivers State, as suspected assassins killed one person in the area.

The unidentified gunmen

who took siege of the community on Thursday in heavy gunfire murdered a resident of the area identified as Mr. Mini Ibuchim.

It was gathered that the killers had stormed Rumuche communityatabout6p.mand shot dead Ibuchim in front of his house.

is condemnable as it poses grave danger not only to the region but also to the Nigerian economy.

“Pipeline vandalism is an avoidable self-inflicted agony. It is unreasonable to engage in such criminal activity not only because of the resultant economic effect on the country but particularly as it also negatively affects the Niger Delta environment. The act of vandalising pipelines is counter-productive apart from it being a crime against the state.

“Those involved in this nefarious activity are economic and environmental saboteurs. It will do well for them to refrain from it as my office is always open to dialogue regardless of their grievances.

“The Federal Government already has in place a well-structured reintegration programme for youths of the region, which has helped in maintaining the peace and stabilizing security of the region. The Amnesty Programme has made militancy unattractive in the region mainly because of the government’s sincerity and commitment to the programme.”

Another victim of Delta shooting recuperating in hospital

By Emma Amaize N 18-year-old carpenter, Shedrack Saduwa, hit by a stray bullet allegedly fired by the soldier, who killed Mrs. Alice Akparobi at a military checkpoint on Jakpa Junction, Effurun, Delta State, during last Saturday’s Environmental Sanitation exercise, is convalescing at a private hospital in the state.

Executive Director of the Centre for the Vulnerable and the Underprivileged, CENTREP, Warri, Delta State, Mr. Oghenjabor Ikimi, told Saturday Vanguard: “Our attentions has just been drawn to the shooting of Mr. Shedrack Saduwa, a carpenter by profession aged 18 years, by soldiers at an army checkpoint at Jakpa Junction, Effurun, Delta State of Nigeria.”

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I have tremendous respect for Benin customs and tradition—Odubu

By Gabriel Enogholase EDO State deputy governor, Dr. Pius Odubu has described the allegation by those he described as a faceless group that he did not suspend his campaigns in mourning the passage of the Benin monarch Omo N’ Oba Erediauwa as a calculated attempt to demonize, disparage and cast aspersion against his person.

He said that as an illustrious son of Benin, he has tremendous respect for the custom and tradition of his people.

The deputy governor in a statement yesterday in Benin and signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kelly Odaro said, “To set the record straight, Dr. Pius Odubu is an ardent respecter of tradition, a superlative loyalist to the traditional institution and its embodiments and cannot and did not defy the declaration of the mourning period for our very revered monarch.

“He was indeed one of the early callers to the Edaiken N’Uselu and among the first to send a condolence message in the electronic media to commiserate with the Royal family.”

10—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Is Kaduna still Nig

BY AGAJU MADUGBA

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aduna was said to have been founded by the British in 1913, according to Wikipedia, the online encyclopaedia. The area served as headquarters of Northern Region beginning from 1917 and several years after the collapse of the Northern Region, Kaduna, the capital city of Kaduna State, has continued to be regarded as the unofficial headquarters of northern Nigeria. Located in the North-West geopolitical zone, the area is said to have derived its name from Kada, the Hausa word for crocodile, found in abundance in the Kaduna River.

The Gbagyi are said to be the original inhabitants of the present Kaduna metropolis. With civilization and influx of other tribes, the Gbagyi, a mobile population, vacated the area and moved further into the hinterlands and they are currently scattered as minority communities in various parts of the state and even beyond as the people also form part of the inhabitants of Nasarawa, Niger and the FCT, among other locations. Kaduna also served as headquarters of the defunct North Central State in 1967 and continued to retain the status after the creation of the state in 1975.

Kaduna once had a flourishing textile industry established by the late Sarduana. But the textile companies have since collapsed.

Kaduna is also host to the Kaduna Mafia, a group said to be faceless but known for its influence on both Kaduna state government and successive regimes at the federal level.

The people With a total population of about 1.3million people (2006) and flaunting the tag of “Centre of Learning” Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state is cosmopolitan and it is home to people from across the country, a development which may not be unconnected with its earlier tag of, “The Liberal State.” But the area apparently lost its liberal status as a result of many years of ethnoreligious violence as a number of people no longer consider Kaduna as a safe haven that it used to be. At the height of the 2000 religious riots, the then Governor Ahmed Mohammed

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•Mohammed Abdulrahman

Kaduna Polytechnic, the School of Midwifery, the Arewa House, Centre for Historical Documentation and Research, of the Ahmadu Bello University, National Eye Centre, Nigerian Air Force Institute of Technology, the Petroleum Training Institute and the Kaduna State University, among several others. Kaduna also serves as headquarters of the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI), the umbrella union of the nation’s Muslim community as well as that of the 1Division of the Nigerian Army. The Arewa House was the official residence of the late Premier of Northern Nigeria, Sir Ahmadu Bello. The Kaduna refinery is also located in Kaduna metropolis.

Makarfi ordered the removal of the liberal tag attached to the state and adopted the Centre of Learning slogan. Apart from the Gagyi whose population is found at the south eastern flank of the metropolis, complete with its chiefdom, the Hausa and Fulani, along with the Igbo, Yoruba and the indigenous people of Kaduna State, especially from southern Kaduna, constitute a large proportion of residents of Kaduna metropolis.

The Centre of Learning tag may as well be the most appropriate for a state that has perhaps the largest concentration of Federal Government educational institutions when compared with other states of the country. In Kaduna metropolis alone, there is Nigeria’s foremost military training school, the Nigerian Defence Academy, the National Water Resources Institute, the National Open University of Nigeria, the National Teachers’ Institute, the

Kaduna: A killing field Kaduna may have come into national limelight beginning from January 15, 1966, in the course of Nigeria’s first military coup, as Sir Ahmadu Bello fell to assassins’ bullets at the Arewa House. The incident is reported to have engendered certain consequences culminating in the 30 months civil war. Kaduna was said to have provided a launch pad for that war following the reported mass killing of the Igbo from the southeastern part of the country

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—11

geria’s Mafia city?

animal bone with Arabic scripts which dates as far back as the early days of the introduction of Islam in the country.

Incidentally, according to the museum’s records, the bone has its origin in Ogun state, south-western Nigeria. Some other antiquities include, a Sango staff, equally from the south-west, Nok terracotta, from southern Kaduna state, a Benin bronze, traced to the ancient Benin Kingdom, various swords from the north, as well as the Ikenga from south-eastern Nigeria, among several others.

The quest by the museum’s authorities to introduce certain elements of innovation has led to the establishment of a shopping complex and a crafts village within the premises. But, in spite of this, the museum does not seem to hold attraction to people, given the rather insignificant number of visitors.

•Kaduna new Government House

provides a natural gulf between the two communities.

reportedly forcing the then Military Governor of the defunct Eastern Region, Col. Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, to announce a secession and proclamation of the state of Biafra.

The rest is history but Kaduna has consistently made the headlines over these years as a veritable theatre of war.

The state is said to have over 50 different ethnic groups with equally diverse cultural orientations and most of them concentrated in the southern part of the state popularly referred to as southern Kaduna. Ethno-religious upheavals are legion and irrespective of where a particular crisis begins, it eventually spreads to the Kaduna metropolis.

In 1987, intra-ethnic riots erupted at the southern Kaduna town of ZangonKataf and it spread to Kaduna leading to loss of several lives. In February and May 2000, the town was in flames again following government’s planned decision to introduce the Muslim Sharia’h legal system. The killings were so widespread that the then visiting President Olusegun Obasanjo equated the level of devastation with that of the three years of civil war.

The Miss World riots followed in November 2002, also leading to loss of several lives and in April 2011, Kaduna was also hit by the wave of riots that trailed the announcement of results of the presidential election that year. And, apart from elsewhere in Kaduna state, Kaduna metropolis has also had its fair share of deaths arising from the Boko Haram insurgency campaigns.

Perhaps thus far, the 2000 crisis dealt Kaduna the most devastating blow as the religious acrimony that ensued led to a certain level of segregated living in the town. The Muslim community moved to the northern part of the metropolis while a number of the Christians consider the southern part as safe haven and the River Kaduna Bridge in the metropolis apparently

Sir Kashim Ibrahim House The Sir Kashim Ibrahim House is the seat of the Kaduna State government, named after the late Sir Kashim Ibrahim, a politician and close associate of Sir Ahmadu Bello. He was at various times Minister of Education, Minister of Survey as well as Minister of Social Services, all during the preindependence period and later became Governor of Northern Nigeria in 1962. Between 1967 to date, the Sir Kashim Ibrahim House has been residence for about 20 governors including military Administrators during the era of military rule, beginning with Abba Kyari who was the North Central State Governor between 1967 and 1975.

The Kaduna Government House has undergone various renovations over the years

culminating in the recent construction of a new complex which was initiated by former Governor Mohammed Namadi Sambo who later became Vice President. At the conclusion of the April 2015 general elections, Malam Nasir El-Ruf’a’i of the All Progressives Congress emerged governor. Some other past governors of the state include Alhaji Balarabe Musa, Abba Musa Rimi, Lawal Kaita, Abubakar Tanko Ayuba, Lawal Jafaru Isa, Col. Hameed Ali and Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi, among others.

The National Museum Located within the headquarters of the defunct Northern People’s Congress, the National Museum at Ungwarn Sarki in Kaduna metropolis is one of the repertoires of the nation’s historical past, with a number of antiquities from various parts of the country.

Significant among them is an

Lord Lugard Footbridge The Lugard Foot Bridge is 134 years old having been built in 1880 by Lord Frederick Lugard, at Zungeru, Niger state when he was Governor of the defunct Northern Protectorate during the period of British Indirect Rule.

Lugard later moved the movable bridge to Kaduna in 1920 when he relocated the headquarters of the protectorate from Zungeru to Kaduna.

The bridge is located across a tributary of the Kaduna River at the Gen. Hassan Katsina Park popularly called Gamji Gate, on Swimming Pool Road, Kabala East.

Lugard Hall The Lugard Hall complex is also named after Lord Lugard who was Governor of Northern Nigeria and later Governor-General of Nigeria. The complex, according to the information office of the Kaduna State House of Assembly, is a replica of the British House of Commons and Lords. The complex has two structures, the Lugard Memorial Council Chamber and the House of Assembly. The Lugard Memorial Council Chamber which was known as the Northern House of Chiefs is about 66 years old. Late Sultan of Sokoto, Sir Abubakar 111 laid the foundation stone for the construction of the chamber in 1947.

When it was completed, it served and still serves as a meeting place for northern traditional rulers.

The foundation stone for the House of Assembly structure at Lugard Hall was laid on May 18, 1959, by Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto.

The structure has three wings of seven blocks and the main chamber has a sitting capacity for between 250 and 300 persons and members’ lounge which has capacity to sit 200 persons while the gallery for the public can accommodate 400 people. It served as the Northern House of Parliament and currently serves as the Kaduna state House of Assembly. An additional block was constructed in 1991 which currently serves as the printing press.

Kaduna “Obalende,” Yam Market There is a popular saying that if you are a visitor and you do not go to the Kaduna “Obalande,” then it is assumed that you have not seen Kaduna. Named after Obalende in

•Lord Lugard foot bridge

Continues on page 12 C M Y K

12—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

•Hamdala Hotel

•Ahmadu Bello Stadium

The Kaduna Mafia Continues from page 11 Lagos, Kaduna Obalende is located on Maiduguri Road, off Constitution Road, in the Sabon Gari area of Kaduna metropolis. Kaduna Obalende is popular for its night life activities and it has a number of hotels as well as Federal Club, owned by a private entrepreneur.

The name, Kaduna Yam Market, may be quite deceptive because if you intend to go shopping for yams there, chances are that you may not find a single tuber of yam in the so-called market. The Yam Market is another hangout for night crawlers who desire to catch some fun and it operates 24 hours. It is located at the popular Television Garage, a bus station, at the southern axis of Kaduna metropolis.

The Kaduna Mafia Some reports trace the origin of the Kaduna Mafia to 1966 when some prominent leaders from the north were killed in the course of the first military coup that terminated the First Republic and brought in the short-lived administration of General Aguiyi Ironsi.

According to the reports, a number of northerners came together with the sole aim of promoting the interest of the north in national affairs. Often described as faceless, the group is believed to have wielded considerable influence on successive administrations in the country, determining who gets appointed into certain positions.

But a Kaduna community leader, Alhaji Hassan Ibrahim (Sarduana Hayin Banki), says Kaduna Mafia may have ceased to exist. According to him, “the Kaduna Mafia was made up of some powerful northerners especially from the retired military class who had a lot of influence at all levels of government and things had to be done their way at that time.

But nowadays, I do not think there is still Kaduna Mafia essentially because the northern unity or cohesion that once existed is no longer there. Northern Nigeria has been divided into different states.”

There are also those who trace the origin to Baruwa College C M Y K

which produced prominent Nigerians many of whom settled in Kaduna or operated from the city.

However, a Kaduna-based politician who pleaded anonymity told Saturday Vanguard that some members of the Kaduna Mafia still exist. He identified Alhaji Maman Daura, a former Editor of the New Nigerian Newspapers and cousin of President Muhammadu Buhari, and Dr. Maman Tukur, elder brother of former PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, as two surviving members of the Kaduna Mafia, who, according to him, have a great influence on the current administration. He also named the Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu and Abba Kyari, a retired army officer and former Governor of the defunct North Central State and currently Chief of Staff at the Presidency, as also belonging to the class that wields a lot of influence.

Adamu was Buhari’s Personal Assistant at the defunct Petroleum Trust Fund.

Return of Kaduna Mafia Another Kaduna politician who also spoke with Saturday Vanguard, Modecai Ibrahim, said that, “Kaduna Mafia were people who determined who got what in terms of appointments and contracts. But with time, they fizzled out.

However, with the coming to power of Muhammadu Buhari as President and Malam Nasir El-Rufa’i as Kaduna State Governor, it is obvious that Kaduna Mafia has reincarnated. If you check the first appointments that Buhari made

and those of El-Rufa’i, they are students of the old Kaduna Mafia or oligarchy. The Godfather of Kaduna Mafia has come to power in the person of Maman Daura.

He has bounced back with his son in power. One thing you should know about Maman Daura is that there is nothing he asks Buhari to do that the President will fail to do. Buhari cannot look into the face of Maman Daura and tell him, no. It is impossible. What it means is that Maman Daura is the power behind the Presidency.

Jafaru Isa contributed to the death of Kaduna Mafia and Mohammed Makarfi was one of those who buried Kaduna Mafia but the group has reincarnated.”

Kaduna Mafia not faceless But a member of the Politics Committee of the Arewa Consultative Form, Alhaji Mohammed Abdulrahman, told Saturday Vanguard that Kaduna Mafia had its membership drawn from across all the geo-political zones of the country while the group existed. He named the late Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu and Alhaji Babatunde Jose as nonnortherners who were part of the Kaduna Mafia, among others.

According to him, Kaduna Mafia used to exist but it is no longer there. I was an errand boy for them. It was not a registered organisation. The members were concerned with the protection of the welfare of the people irrespective of ethnic or religious background. They did everything

possible to correct any wrong doings against the people but their activities were discreet.

I ran errands for them to different places including Lagos. I carried urgent messages that needed implementation to confront challenges facing Nigeria. They were not concerned about the north alone, they were concerned about Nigeria. They worked to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor.

They did not live flamboyant lifestyle with exotic cars. Ahmed Talib, Yahaya Gusau, Mohammed Bello, Ahmed Joda, MT Usman, Gen. Hassan Katsina, Emeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, Yakubu Gowon, Gen. Babangida were among those who propelled the engine room for the Kaduna Mafia.

They ensured that things worked.

If they noticed anything wrong they drew the attention of the appropriate people in positions to effect the desired changes. They were highly influential.

It was not a registered organization with an identifiable headquarters somewhere. It evolved and members were not people you could describe as roguish or criminal minded.

At a time, the late Hamza Zayyad was the de-facto Chairman. The late Shehu Yar’Adua was involved.

Babatunde Jose was one of them.

They called them Kaduna Mafia but the membership cut across all Nigerians from various backgrounds.

At that time, many people had houses in Kaduna because it was the headquarters of Northern Nigeria and the place was convenient for people to hold meetings and make things work.

Kaduna Mafia existed but fizzled out because most of the people we have now cannot fit in and they cannot do what those people did in those days because they control so much money, making it impossible for them to have the state of mind to deal with certain challenges. The Kaduna Mafia had the fear of God and it was one of their major attributes. Today, people talk more about wealth, especially stolen wealth.

In those days of the Kaduna Mafia, it was an act of irresponsibility to accumulate wealth. Wealth acquisition was not part of their programme. They were more concerned with how to use power for the benefit of the entire people. But nowadays, even the youth acquire so much money and they control political parties and nobody respects them.

It was the Kaduna Mafia that transformed into what later came to be known as the Committee of Concerned Citizens of Nigeria. The group used to meet at the Metropolitan Club, Ikoyi, in Victoria Island. At a time they published a list of 33 people who can save Nigeria. Prof. Ben Nwabueze, Akintola Williams, Rotimi Williams, were among them but the group eventually fizzled out because a number of them died.

Some prominent Kaduna state indigenes •Alhaji Balarabe Musa •Mohammed Namadi Sambo •Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar •Mrs Nenadi Usman •Senator Ahmed Mohammed Makarfi •Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa •Gen. Zamani Lekwot •Professor Ango Abdullahi •Ge. Martin Luther Agwai •Admiral Ishaya Iko Ibrahim •Alhaji Dabo Lere •Dr. Shehu Idris, Emir of Zazzau •Gen. Yunana Nom •Gen. Dangiwa Yusu •Lord Lugard Hall

SA TURD AY SATURD TURDA

Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—13

Edo 2016: Oshiomhole and Odubu must not set Edo on fire —Onaiwu •My pact with Edo people

SIMON EBEGBULEM, BENIN CITY hey call him the ‘Solution’ but his T real name is Earl Osaro Onaiwu.

He is the Director General of the Peoples

Democratic Party (PDP), Governors’ Forum as well as governorship aspirant of the PDP in the forthcoming September 10 election. In this interview with Saturday Vanguard, Onaiwu declares his preparedness to take over the mantle of leadership in Osadebey Avenue after Governor Adams Oshiomhole’s tenure.

He also condemned the recent violence that occurred at Auchi when the Deputy Governor of the state, Dr Pius Odubu visited the area to meet with delegates of the party.

Excerpts: We learnt that PDP governorship aspirants were screened last Sunday, how was it?

We went for interactive session, it was a family affair. I believe that the four of us are qualified to govern this state but we cannot be candidates at the same time. As for me, I believe I am well equipped to govern the state because I have been involved in practicals in leadership, accountability, transparency and good governance. What I mean by that is I have had working relationships with serving governors. I can tell you that I know how governor Emmanuel Uduaghan built the Airport in Asaba, I know how he built the roads in Delta state. I can also tell you, I know how Governor Mimiko performed in Ondo state, how he built mega hospitals, beautiful roads, street lights. In Jigawa state, I was there when Governor Yuguda built the state stadium, the airport, new schools and many other projects. I can also tell you about Gombe. I have been involved in those things in the past nine years. I am therefore coming to bring that experience back home. I am not coming home to learn. I already have the experience. There are things we do which we call minimal impact and maximum output. I have learnt from my practical how to spend little money and achieve maximum output. I believe that the party will not make the mistake, but will look at the four of us and choose the right person to do the job. And because of the experience I have in working with governors, taking the youths off the street and empowering the women, the elderly, if I have been able to serve PDP governors for eight years, coming to serve our people is not to make money. It is about service, it is about loyalty, I want to come and give to our people what they gave to me. I am going to improve on what the present administration in Edo has done.

Do you think you have the structure to pick the ticket of the PDP? Party is the structure, a party that is strong, that is not weak is the structure.

PDP is the only party that formed a government without any coalition, without agreement and it is in every local Government and every unit in this country. The party has been a strong structure since 1999. The only governor that was able to win election outside PDP was Mimiko because we had these new parties now. If there is anybody who believes that he has the structures as

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• Earl Osaro Onaiwu

they claim, he should go and try in another party and see if he will win. After Mimiko did it and he won, any body who says he is a super star should try his popularity. I have been a faithful party man, I have been serving the party since 1999. PDP is the structure and anybody who has another structure should test it by running for the governorship under the umbrella of another party and test his popularity. For instance, we have over eight governorship aspirants in the APC and it is because the APC has formed government here, but if those aspirants feel they are popular let them try another political party and test their popularity.

So PDP is the structure not the individual.

In what areas do you think that Oshiomhole has not done well which you will want to do?

People criticize governors, not just Oshiomhole. Governance is a thankless job, people will always criticize you no matter what you have done. I can tell you for example that Jigawa state governor, while he was in office, lived in a three bedroom bungalow. In Abuja he stayed in Garki, he did not live in Asokoro or Maitama but people still criticized him.

He transformed Jigawa state, but people still wrote petitions against him and he was dragged before the EFCC. Look at Bauchi state governor, when he took over in Bauchi, the civil servants were using Keke Napep, but by the time he left Bauchi every civil servant was riding a car and they built houses. He turned Bauchi around but people still say negative things about him. When you are a governor, no matter how hard you try, people will criticize you. Do you know that some people criticized Ogbemudia, despite all he did for the old Bende state?

Are you trying to tell me that there is nothing Lucky Igbinedion administration did in Edo state, but you saw how they treated him. People have started criticizing Oshiomhole already and they will criticize him more when he leaves office. For me, the APC government in the state has done their best, we have seen their eight years, the PDP government which I will form by the special grace of God, will improve on what Oshiomhole has done and we will bring the PDP manifesto into play. The only area I frowned at by this government in Edo state is increasing the minimum wage at the tail end of the administration when we know that things are really bad with the economy.

Though we know they have done well in boosting the IGR of the state but I believe the timing was not proper. I don’t believe in condemning a government out rightly or cancelling projects a previous government initiated unless they are not

in the best interest of the people. I cannot say this man has failed or this one has failed because even at home, our wives complain about us, our children complain about us, no body is perfect.

But when we form government, we will look at their policies and see what they have done wrong or right. The things they did wrong we will correct them while the good ones will be perfected. If they are building roads or schools they could not compete we will complete them because those things do not belong to Oshiomhole, they belong to the state.

Edo people cried for change after PDP ruled here for ten years and that brought Oshiomhole, do you think the people will vote for PDP this time around seeing what Oshiomhole has done?

I will not agree with you that the years of PDP were completely wasted. Don’t forget that that was the beginning of our democracy, we were testing democracy then so you should expect many mistakes. Governors who came at that time had that problem. Like I said earlier, government job is a thankless job, so people must talk. But for me, governance is about continuity and we must look at what is on ground so we can make progress. If I am sworn in as governor, if I don’t continue with Oshiomhole’s project people will say he failed but that may not be the case. But if you continue with those projects no body will say that governor failed. If Oshiomhole had continued with the projects inherited from the PDP people will not say PDP failed woefully.

Whatever a previous government has done a new government should complete it as long as it is a project that will improve the lives of our people. For me, there is no benchmark to qualify the PDP’s ten years and APC’s eight years because it is about continuity.

And whether the PDP will get the state back, yes we can. Because I am talking to market women, our youths, students, everybody. We are very optimistic that we will win in this state particularly when the APC at the center has not done well. The APC here does not have anything thing to campaign with that they have done at the Federal level so when we get into the elections we will have a lot to say about them. Buhari said he is fighting corruption but you know there are countries who give amnesty to corruption. If you say I have stolen money, charge me to court, not crucifying me in the papers. We hear every day that they have recovered money from people, let them publicly name the people they recovered money

from and where the money is kept. The APC government as at today is anti people, look at it today everything has gone up, the price of food has gone up, so I don’t know what they will campaign with in the coming election in Edo state.

Will there be free and fair PDP primary We have insisted on transparent primaries, we have all agreed that we want to go to primaries. I have said that if we go for free and fair primaries and I am defeated, although I know I will not be defeated, I will embrace whoever is the winner. I know I am going to win so I will expect other aspirants to embrace me when I win the nomination. I am very optimistic because of my stability in the party, my sincerity of purpose, my dedication and service to the party. I know I will win the primaries and win for the party. People are already talking that I have no baggage so if I win the APC will find it difficult to campaign against me. Because we really do not need candidates that will create more problem for the party, that will be suicidal.

How do you see the burning ing issues between Oshiomhole and his deputy?

I condemn that incident. Edo state is not known to be a violent state. Both of them must not set Edo on fire. I have asked the Commissioner of Police to please call a meeting of political parties and all the aspirants so that we can talk because some of the aspirants are moving around with thugs and it is not good. Edo is not a state of hooliganism but the level of hooliganism that we are witnessing already when the election has not come is scaring. We cannot go into a general election with this kind of tension, we must reduce the tension because if you want to be governor, you will be governor of the people so when you kill everybody how will you govern. Development cannot come when there is no peace in a state. I believe in peace, I am an apostle of peace. Even though we heard conflicting reports as to what really happened in Auchi but it is totally unacceptable to see that level of violence. We heard that the deputy wanted to go and intimidate Oshiomhole in his domain but Oshiomhole’s people chased him away. But the Deputy’s people said the attack was masterminded against the Deputy, so we don’t really know the truth but that is their own in-house problem.

14—SA TURD AY 14—SATURD TURDA

Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

TOMPOLO:

Life in limbo

•The once juju man, now prays and fasts •How he is surviving in secret hideout

By Emma Amaize, Regional Editor, South-South

O

BVIOUSLY, founder of the non-operational Movement for the Emancipation of the NigerDelta, MEND, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, neither foresaw nor prepared for his travails in the past few months, which have seen him move underground, despite the fact that he was used to hard-hitting existence as an exmilitant leader.

Although he did not expect a rose-colored life with the All Progressives Congress, APC – led government of President Muhammadu Buhari given his romance with former President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he thought he could just live a quiet life.

Tompolo was, however, in the wrong as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, not only froze his accounts, but also prepared charges against him, especially regarding his business dealings with the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, NIMASA. Some highly placed persons initially advised him not to panic, saying that his supposed ordeal was politically motivated and would be sorted out before long, but he saw the futility of the assurance when the police withdrew the escorts attached to him and the EFCC deepened its claws on him. At the behest of the anti-graft agency, a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos issued a bench warrant for his arrest and also gave an order for the seizure of his assets when he failed to appear before the court to face the charges against him.

Taking cover Having read the handwriting on the wall, Tompolo, feared and admired at the same time by folks for his creek dexterity took cover. The police said they were on his trail since then, but until date, there is no news about his whereabouts.

Reports available to Saturday Vanguard, however, indicated that life has not been the same for the Ibe-ebidouwei of Ijaw nation since he went underground.

Fasting and prayer Our dependable source said C M Y K

his current ordeal has drawn him closer to God since it was clear to him that only the finger of God can save him from the clutches of those that want him behind bars. He has reportedly embarked on fasting and prayers to turn the heart of God to save him.

People know Tompolo as a strong adherent of the Amasiekumor deity in his native Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State and a believer of Egbesu, an Ijaw combat deity combining his traditional belief and prayer to the Almighty God for deliverance at this trying time is seen as ambiguous. Many Christians say their Holy Book is unequivocal that you cannot serve God and Mammon at the same time.

The only plausible escape is if Tompolo, supposedly an evangelist of the Celestial Church has decided to embrace the only true God in his hour of need, which is possible as Saul was not only seen with the prophets, he prophesied when the Spirit of God came upon him.

Our source did not say when Tompolo commenced the fasting and prayer programme for deliverance from God. His Media Adviser and Consultant, Mr. Paul Bebenimibo, who spoke to Saturday Vanguard corroborated our findings that Tompolo was waiting on God to intervene in his tribulations. He said the exmilitant leader strongly believes that God would see him through.

His major worry Bebenimibo asserted: “I want to tell you that even in his moment of agony, Tompolo is disturbed about the nonresumption of studies at the Nigerian Maritime University, Okerenkoko, which he is proud to have attracted to Gbaramatu kingdom and Delta state. He is also praying for God to touch the heart of the present leaders to lift the suspension of work on the permanent site of the university and commence academic activities at the permanent site, which is ready.”

He said: “If the university had taken off as planned, it would have turned around many things in the area by now and many people will be

•Government Ekpemupolo

productively engaged. The place will also be a tourist destination.” …Doesn’t rely on friends Regarding friends, the exmilitant leader has lost many of his friends in the course of his ongoing predicament, but surprisingly, he has also gained more admirers from quarters that he never thought of.

However, Bebenimibo insisted: “Tompolo does not rely on friends; he knew right from time that when one finds himself in difficulty, family members, not even friends alone, will abandon him.”

Another source, who agreed with the assertion added: “It happened in 2009 when the military was bombarding everywhere in Gbaramatu kingdom in search of him, it was some of his friends and even relatives that government used to fight him.”

Unforeseen birthday celebration Last month in Warri, some newborn friends of Tompolo , led by an activist and president of Ijaw People Development Initiative, IPDI, Comrade Austin Ozobo, celebrated his 45th birthday in absentia.

Others were the president, Niger Delta Security Watch Organization of Nigeria,

Barrister Dickson Bekederemo, and Mr. Alpal Ebitonma,

Having read the handwriting on the wall, Tompolo, feared and admired at the same time by folks for his creek dexterity took cover.

The police said they were on his trail since then, but until date, there is no news about his whereabouts

No –go-area On his whereabouts, the source told Saturday Vanguard: “That is a no-go-area or do you (reporter) candidly want me to reveal his location to you? Of course, that is not possible, but what I can tell you is that it was necessary that he went out of circulation because of the manhunt for him. It is not easy for him but he is safe, remember that he had had cause in the past to seclude himself to fight for his people.”

How he survives On how he lives his life now, the source said, “All I can tell you is that he is surviving, he has been in a more critical condition in the past and he survived. Today, he has gone underground; there is nowhere or any situation he cannot survive.”

Financial squeeze Saturday Vanguard learned that the manhunt and freezing of Tompolo’s accounts have affected his financial standing.

Immediate family shielded Tompolo had always insulated his family, particularly his wife and children, from his struggle and as expected; members of his inner circle have shielded them from the present happenings.

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—15

C M Y K

16—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Girl who murdered her mother, brothers recalls her evil hours •Pier gan visits the ffemale emale killer •Pierss Mor Morgan killerss behind bar barss in America including woman ho drowned her daughter who

T

he giant jail door clanks open slowly.

I’m waiting in a small, plain visitor room for a young woman named Erin Caffey.

She is led in by a heavily armed guard, which seems almost laughably unnecessary given that she’s only 4ft 11in.

Erin, now 24, has been detained at a highsecurity prison in Gatesville, Texas, for eight years.

She’s blonde, blue-eyed, pretty, softly spoken and she has the voice of an angel.

My first impression is that she seems gentle, sweet and unthreatening, as befits someone from a loving, stable home, someone who had never been in trouble, and who sang in the church choir every Sunday with her parents and two brothers.

But to say she’s not what she seems is the understatement of the century. In fact, Erin Caffey is the most dangerous woman I have met in my entire life. Someone who eight years ago, at the age of just 16, masterminded the astonishingly brutal, appallingly bloodthirsty annihilation of her family.

Erin’s three accomplices were her boyfriend Charlie Wilkinson, 18, his best friend Charles Waid, 20, and Waid’s girlfriend Bobbi Johnson, 18.

The two men did the actual killing: Erin’s mother Penny was shot, stabbed and almost decapitated.

Matthew, 13, was shot in the head. Tyler, eight, was hunted down to a cupboard where he was hiding and repeatedly stabbed with a Samurai sword. Erin’s father Terry was shot five times and left for dead as the house was torched.

Miraculously, he survived, thus creating a second extraordinary narrative to this story. Why did Erin do it?

The only motive appears to be that, a few days before the murder spree, Penny and Terry told their daughter that she could no longer see her boyfriend after they stumbled across his MySpace social media page, which revealed drinking and sexual exploits.

Filled with love-sick rage, Erin ordered Wilkinson and Waid to carry out her despicable revenge. ‘I was shocked, angry and hurt – this was the guy I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with and he loved me,’ she told me. ‘We were going to get married.’

When police arrested them all, Erin claimed to have been drugged and kidnapped. But the other three immediately said she had been the ringleader. It also emerged, extraordinarily, that after the murders, Caffey went back to Wilkinson’s trailer, where they had sex.

As I sit now, just 2ft from Erin, it’s hard to understand how this beguiling woman could have been capable of such pure evil. But she was.

‘I’ve never come across anyone as dangerous as Erin,’ said criminal therapist Israel Lewis, who worked with her after her capture. ‘And I hope I never do again. She was the best liar I’ve encountered in my career.

‘This was a girl who was so manipulative that she was able to orchestrate a horrifically evil act and then have intercourse afterwards.’

I interviewed Erin as part of my new two-part ITV documentary series called Killer Women With Piers Morgan. In it, I meet three of America’s most notorious murderesses.

The second is Rhonda Glover, a former Texas beauty queen and cowgirl, who for weeks carefully planned the murder of her long-term lover, an oil baron. She lured him to the house they once shared and shot him ten times at point-blank range.

The third is Amanda Lewis, a Florida mother convicted of deliberately drowning her seven-yearold daughter Adrianna in the pool at their home.

The only witness? Amanda’s six-year-old son AJ, C M Y K

•Behind bars: Columnist Piers Morgan with murderer Erin Caffey, who orchestrated the slaughter of her mother and two younger brothers at the age of just 16

the dead girl’s little brother. His dramatic, heart-rending, sobbing evidence, all captured on court cameras, shocked and haunted America. ‘That’s my momma,’ he told the prosecutor. ‘Killing my sister.

If she did, as the jury concluded, then Lewis is a heinous child murderer. But doubts about the case remain. Considerable doubts.

AJ’s testimony was riddled with the sort of inconsistency that you might expect from a young boy, and the verdict led Lewis’s defence lawyer to quit the profession.

‘This was the biggest miscarriage of justice I have ever been involved with,’ he told me.

After spending an hour with Amanda at her prison – a place where she will now spend the rest of her life, with no chance of parole – I still don’t know if she did it or not. Viewers, I suspect, will be equally torn.

This is the most fascinating TV series I have ever made. Murderesses are a rarity compared to male killers. And most women who kill do so as crimes of passion, or spontaneous outbursts of violence which they immediately regret. Very few carefully pre-plan and then murder.

I travelled to rural Texas and Florida, interviewing not just the killers but also the detectives involved in catching them, defence and prosecution lawyers, and friends and family of the victims and perpetrators.

As with the smash-hit Netflix documentary series Making A Murderer, each episode poses many questions, some of which may never be properly answered.

The most bizarre and unsettling aspect of Erin Caffey’s crime, for example, is that it’s so utterly inexplicable. There were no warning signs, no history of trouble, no hint that she was even thinking of harming her family. In fact, quite the opposite; Erin was almost the perfect child. As she herself tells me: ‘You know, I was voted when we went to youth camp “Most Likely To Succeed” and “Most Fun-Loving Person”. Never did I think that I’d be sitting here.’

‘What the hell happened?’ I asked.

‘I guess what it all boils down to is choices,’ she said, almost matter-of-factly.

‘The choices I made at a young age that I

Continues on page 17

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—17

Continues from page 16 thought were just affecting me and the little stuff I was doing, but that little stuff adds up and then it just blows up.

‘When I look back now, this was all just stupid. I mean for what? They weren’t beating me, they weren’t starving me to death. I had it made – Daddy bought me a car, let me have a job…’

We all make ‘bad choices’ in life, but what kind of shockingly twisted, deviant mind wakes up one day and decides to murder her entire family?

None of the youngsters involved was drunk or had taken drugs on the night of the murders.

While Wilkinson and Waid carried out the actual killings, the girls waited in a car a few hundred yards away.

Erin had slipped out of the house minutes beforehand, after repeatedly calling Wilkinson, as phone records later showed. This nailed her lie to police that she had been the victim of a kidnap.

The murders were carried out with diabolical savagery.

The men sneaked into the house and burst into the bedroom, where Wilkinson opened fire on Erin’s parents.

When his gun jammed, he used a samurai sword, nearly

Girl who murdered her mother, brothers recount her evil hours

•Erin (right) with her mother Penny, brothers 13-year-old Matthew and eight-year-old Tyler and her father Terry. Erin’s boyfriend and his best friend killed her family with a gun and samurai sword on her instruction. She also intended for her father to die in the attack but he managed to survive

decapitating Penny. Then the killers ran upstairs to where Erin’s brothers were yelling. Waid shot Matthew at point-blank range, then Wilkinson took the sword and stabbed Tyler to death as he hid in a closet.

Satisfied that everyone was dead, they then set fire to the house and rejoined the girls in the car.

Waid later told investigators that Erin’s first words afterwards were: ‘Holy s***!

That was awesome!’

Perhaps the most surreal moment in my interview with Erin came when she sang Amazing Grace for me in perfect pitch.

The words were appropriate: Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me, I once was lost, but now I am found, Was blind, but now I see.

I believe Erin knew exactly what she was doing and knows now exactly how culpable she was. But she also knows that, if she admits it, then she may never see her father again. And right now, he’s all she has left as he is, despite everything, the only person who visits her.

In the case of Rhonda Glover, what’s extraordinary is the level of planning that went into her murder of Houston oil baron Jimmy Joste.

He was described by family and friends as a kind, generous, fun-loving, wealthy guy who fell under the bewitching spell of a mad, bad, gold-digging beauty queen and rodeo girl. Joste lavished gifts on Glover, including a £200,000 engagement ring, until his money ran out. Prosecutors said she then decided Joste had served any useful purpose and had to die.

Glover was articulate, intelligent and charming when I met her in prison. But as the interview went on, she also displayed highly erratic and emotional behaviour. I don’t think I’ve ever looked into more insanely demented eyes than when I pressed her on why she had done it.

Glover insists she shot Joste in selfdefence. But detectives discovered she had gone to a gun range a few weeks previously to practise firing at targets with the same gun she used to kill her victim.

She even asked instructors to help her simulate the exact circumstances in which she was to commit her murder, saying she C M Y K

was concerned about intruders.

Glover then visited another range just a few hours before the shooting to do some final practice.

The more animated she got with me, the more scary she seemed, and the more convinced I became that she is an absolute psycho. Yet her lawyers never used mental instability as a defence.

In the case of Amanda Lewis and her drowned daughter, the police discovered during their investigation that when she was just 17, Amanda had lost her 16month-old son to a form of cot death.

There was no evidence that this was anything but a tragic accident, yet from speaking to the policemen involved, it was clear to me that they decided early on she was a serial child killer.

Perhaps that’s true. But if it isn’t – and having met her and grilled her, I still can’t decide where I think the truth lies – then you’re left with a woman who lost a baby son, then a seven-year-old daughter, and will never again see her other son, now aged 15. Of all three women, Lewis looked the most broken and beaten by what had happened.

This was a draining series to film, both mentally and physically. We traipsed across rural America in our convoy of vans for up to six hours a day, reminding us all of the sheer vastness of the country.

I learned a lot about the American justice system, particularly in those two giant, very conservative states, where punishment tends to be administered in an utterly unforgiving manner.

Rhonda Glover is serving 46 years at the Dr Lane Murray Unit, a prison in Gatesville, Texas.

Amanda Lewis is serving life without parole at the Lowell Unit in Florida. She will never get out.

Erin Caffey is serving a minimum of 42 years at the Hilltop Unit – she is ineligible for parole until she is

59.

Wilkinson and Waid are serving life without parole but were spared the death penalty because Terry Caffey intervened and asked for it to be taken off the table.

The prisons were huge, grey, grim places, where miscreants are sent in many cases to rot and die. There’s a definite sense of the old Wild West about these parts of rural America. ‘An eye for an eye’ is still very much the norm and the tools to commit horrific murder are simple to acquire.

This is gun country, where virtually everyone has one. To many Americans it seems perfectly logical to settle

•Piers Morgan also met with Texas beauty queen Rhonda Glover, who is serving 46 years at a prison in Gatesville, Texas, who lured her oil baron lover to the house they once shared and shot him ten times at pointblank range

disputes with a bullet.

One retired police chief who worked on the Amanda Lewis case warned as we set off to visit Amanda’s old home: ‘Be careful. Don’t go on to that property without the owner’s permission or he might shoot you… Be careful where you walk.’

We survived, although we did walk and film very carefully.

It was a hard experience studying such horrific crimes, one that left mental scars on all of us in the production team. Ultimately, though, I came away overwhelmed by one shining light of positivity amid all the mayhem and death: the astonishing power of forgiveness displayed by Terry Caffey.

As he sobbed on my shoulder at the crime scene, remembering his beautiful wife and handsome young boys – and the heinous night they met their despicable deaths – I saw a man crushed by the enormity of what had happened to his family.

But this same man would a few days later make the eighthour round-trip to the prison to see his daughter, the person who planned the mass murder and had wanted him dead too. He does it every month, and sits for a couple of hours in the same room where I met Erin. He is her only regular visitor and she is the only living remnant of his old family.

‘Do you believe her version of events?’ I asked him.

‘I feel like for the most part I believe her,’ he replied. ‘You know what your children are capable of and what they’re not capable of. Erin had responsibility that night but I honestly believe she was not the mastermind and I don’t believe she is evil.

‘This was a vulnerable 16year-old girl with a controlling, psychopathic guy.

You mix that together and this is what you end up with.’

This might just hold water were it not for one sensational twist to the story. Erin’s previous boyfriend, Michael Washburn, came forward to reveal that she had said to him too that she wanted her family dead.

‘What caused the break-up between you?’ investigators asked.

‘Her mum and dad didn’t want me seeing her.’

Then Michael said: ‘She told me that she was going to hire somebody to kill her parents.’

Back to Terry Caffey.

‘Do you forgive her?’ I asked.

‘I do forgive her,’ he told me. ‘I have to forgive her.’

Does he?

Could you?

I think it’s a question millions of people will be asking in Britain after watching the programme.

Me? I just don’t know what I’d do. And like every parent, I sincerely hope I never have to find out.

Culled from .www.dailymail.co.uk

18—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Nigerians say NO to National Grazing Reserves Bill place to the other. If you are saying that a particular portion of land should be apportioned to these herdsmen, the question is that who now takes charge of the land, particularly when they migrate.

Continues from last week

ANAMBRA

Dr. Chris Eluemunoh, Chairman of Presidents of Ohaneze in all Igbo – speaking states Why should government create grazing fields for people doing their private businesses? What is special about Fulani people and their cows? They should create grazing fields in their areas and such a thing should not concern people who are not herdsmen. Forcing people to donate their farmlands for grazing fields will only lead to a catastrophe as clashes are bound to happen between the herdsmen and farmers. This law should never be allowed to pass. The ideal thing is that grazing fields should be created where there are cows and everybody knows where the cows are found in this country. The highest the government can do is to create ranches in the states where cows can be kept for people to go and buy and the cows should not leave those ranches to wander on people’s farms. That is how it is done in countries that even have more cows than Nigeria. We discussed this issue at the last National Conference and resolved that only ranches can be created in southern states and not grazing fields.

BAUCHI

Nachia Jonathan I don’t support the plan by the government to apportion grazing Field to fulani herdsmen in all the States of the country because it will not solve the clashes they have with farmers as they will still trespass and enter people’s farmland, particularly when they see greener pastures elsewhere.

The president should solve this problem of frequent clashes between Fulani herdsmen and citizens by first of all bringing to justice all the perpetrators of violence among the herdsmen before talking about apportioning any portion of land to them for grazing “ Tasiu Kawu, I support the plan because it wil minimize the clashes between herdsmen and citizens. If the herdsmen are given a portion of land in all the states of the federation, they will now know their boundaries and if they trespass, they will face the wrath of the law’ Fulani Herdsmen from countries like chad, Niger and cameroun , are known to be violent, they are the ones that migrated from their countries into Nigeria and they are called Kudda. They are known to graze with weapons, but once this law is enacted, it will help to curtail them.

Elizabeth Carr, a journalist.

The plan is not a good development because it is strictly their private business and they should not be made to be confined to a particular area because they are normads that migrate from one C M Y K

Ernest, School Principal Apportioning grazing fields to Fulani herdsmen is unacceptable because the plan is coming as an afterthought from the •Eluemunoh President after the herdsmen had wrecked havoc among residents. I feel this plan should have come earlier and not after the herdsmen have destroyed lives and properties in some parts of the country. Even if they are given grazing fields, they will still wreck havoc because they are looking for something else and not grazing lands”

ENUGU

*Danjuma

Gambo Danjuma,Member Civil Liberty Organization,CLO,Governing board.

No sane man can support the plan to establish grazing reserves across the country. Ab initio, we had grazing routes where Fulani herdsmen ply to cross over from one state to another. The planned grazing reserve is an avenue of wasting taxpayers money on the Fulani. Are we going to contribute money to boost their businesses? Their business is a private business. It is as good as saying Nigeria is raising cattle for the fulani herdsmen”.

Johnson Chukwuobasi,Businessman.

The plan will create anarchy especially in the south-east geopolitical zone where the herdsmen have found a safe haven. The herdsmen should deal with issues of deforestation and insurgency driving them away from the North-East geopolitical zone. Whose land will Federal Government take and give to •Chukwuobasi private herdsmen who are doing their own business? The federal government should equally make plans of building shops for Igbo traders in all council areas nationwide. We will stand up and resist any attempt to create grazing reserves especially in the south-east geopolitical zone because it is criminal”.

Emma Ugwueze,Journalist States that are interested should establish ranches as is obtainable in developed climes. Businessmen pay for their shops. Why should federal government usurp people’sland to grow individual businesses.

They should buy land and conduct their business in a confinement. The idea to create reserves in all council areas will plunge the country into a perpetual war. The menace of the herdsmen,killing,raping,destruction •Sadiq of farmland and properties will then spiral out of control. The National Assembly should throw out any bill seeking to create grazing reserves nationwide. This is a manifestation of Buhari’s agreement

with the Fulani to support his electioneering campaigns in the days leading to the 2015 general election” Onah Festus, Lecturer

The plan cannot be encouraged because herdsmen do not pay any form of tax to the Federal Government. They disguise as cattle rearers to unleash mayhem. They should operate within their domain in the North. It is just like giving land for example to Abakaliki Rice producers nationwide for free which the federal government has not talked about.

Where on earth has a country contributed their land to grow private businesses of a negligible few? It is not done. Everyday,we are greeted with chilling news of herdsmen attacks,sack of their host communities. They are notorious everywhere they go. They cannot coexist with their host peacefully. Any state or council area that wants to accommodate them should be ready for war because they will overrun the people. It is sacrilegious to think of a grazing reserve in the country amidst the prevailing security situation. It will give way for further insecurity problems. Our people will resist any attempt by the Federal Government to create the grazing reserve. No day passes in this country without attacks on hapless Nigerians by the herdsmen. Moreover,it will be an infringement on peoples right of land ownership if government forcibly takes their land for individuals’ grazing reserve.

ABIA

Chief Uzor Azubuike, Abia state commissioner

For me, it is a welcome development because our experience in Abia is that they destroy farm lands, rape our women, and maim people. So putting them together and guiding them will be good because we already have some problem. But I hope that they will not see the proposal as an opportunity to occupy and build an empire we see in Benue State today. It is a programme that must be carefully and properly planned so that the Fulani herdsmen can conduct themselves. I am afraid that if not properly planned and managed, they may use it as a launching pad for an empire. And if it is properly done, our people can also go into the business, it is not an exclusive trade of the Fulani. Generally, it is a good idea but it must be properly done so that there will be sanity.

NIGER

to that because the issue of rearing animals from one point to the other is only applicable mostly in this part of the world.

This idea will assist greatly not only in curtailing the crisis between Normads and farmers but it will also improve the livestock development in this country.

Alhaji Aliyu Lawal, Journalist I am very in support of the new policy because it will curtail the frequent Fulani Farmers clashes that have been reuccuring in parts of the country in the past years. When the new policy is implemented,the Fulanis will not have the opportunity of encroaching into other people’s farms. Instead, they will stay with their cattle and allow them to graze there and I am sure that if this is done, a Fulani man can stay there for ten to twenty years without moving to anywhere and the problem of clashes between them will be a thing of the past. I disagree that the Fulanis cannot stay in one place for long. though they are Nomadic, they can easily adopt to the new policy especially when their cattle can have proper feeding to enable them produce enough milk and have fleshy

OGUN

Wale Taiwo The Fulanis have spoilt so many farm lands, giving them land is not going to solve the problem, they should go back to their state where they belong”.

Adewale Adelani I don’t support the government coming to appropriate our lands here in South West because our children must inherit the land but if it taken from us now what will our children who want to farm live on? I don’t support Segun Oladipupo The best thing to curb the invasion of Fulani herdsmen men from destroying people’s farm is to create grazing field . When they organise a grazing field for them, their herds will be able to feed without disturbing anybody. That is the best solution”.

Comrade Seyi Adeyanjo Why is it that in the whole of southern Nigeria, the Fulani men are rampaging the whole place and there was nothing anybody can do to stop it, and not even one person has been arrested? The government should address that before talking about grazing field

•Folashade Garuba

Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, secretary, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, Niger state chapter I am very much in support of the

idea of grazing field just as our Association is also in support of the idea. We have lost a lot of lives and property, a lot of animals were killed, herdsmen were killed while many houses were burnt as a result of clashes between the Nomads and farmers in this country. It is our belief that with this bill, this crisis will be reduced to the barest minimum. In the global world now where ranches are established, grazing reserves being proposed by the government is similar

Biyi Oduyale If apportioning grazing field to them will solve the problem of violent clashes with farmers, let them have it.

KWARA

Mrs Folashade Garuba, Business woman It can’t work,because they are used to migrating from one place to another, that has been their lifestyle. Their people should talk to them at the community level to make them understand that they should be controlling their cows to stop them from destroying other people’s property.

Continues on page 19

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—19

Nigerians say “NO” to National Grazing Reserves Bill Continues from page 18

BENUE

Mrs Mnlumun T. We will not give our land to Fulani herdsmen, they should go back to where they are coming from because Nigerians are tired of their troubles. If they do that it means this government wants to create colonies for Fulani herdsmen in every state.

• Mnlumun

KANO

Emmanuel Onah Let the owners of the cows take them to their various states and look for how to graze their cows. How is it the business of government to provide grazing field for cows that belong to individuals which more or less is a business venture?

Bappa Jakusko, a Fulani The Fulanis are rich people, and they should be encouraged to privately own grazing fields fortified with state of the art facilities as obtained in the developed economy in the interest of peace and socio economic development of the country.

Mrs. Ali, Nursing mother I cannot support such a plan, people who own the cows should bear the responsibility of getting a place for pasture and not the government.

Except they want to tell us that some top government people own the cows and are equally arming the herders.

Muhammad Kabiru Yau, Human Rights activist I think the effort is not necessary considering the nature of the Fulanis. It is difficult to cage them in one place in whatever guise and going by their nature you can’t restrict them to a place no matter what you do. It is difficult to change the age long tradition of these people

Mr George Oko The truth is that no community in Benue state will be ready to part with its parcel of land for that purpose.

Owners of herd should be able to provide pasture for their cows, it is certainly not the business of government to do so. In other countries of the world herd are confined by their owners. It is not the business of government to do such.

Odu Ichapi Government should make laws banning wild grazing as practiced in the country presently and allow owners of the cows find pasture for their herd since it is the private business of such individuals.

OSUN

Rafiu AbdulHameed Yes, I’m in support, because of many reasons. Aside from the fact that the step will give them a sense of belonging,it will also reduce various clashes being witnessed all over the country between the fulani herdsmen and farmers Gbenle Adebiyi My take on the issue is that there should be a restricted grazing reserve since in the South West here, we are not known for Normadic business. The cattle rearers should be restricted to their areas. These cattle rearers are destroying the farm land with impunity in Yoruba communities. For me, the activities of these cattle rearers look like they have the backing of the Federal Government.

Wale Olayemi My position is that just like farming, animal husbandry is an economic venture. In •Okpara other countries people who engage in animal husbandry have their private grazing land that restricted their animals to a particular area. So, the Nigeria situation should not be different, the Fulani cattle rearers are encouraged to create their own private grazing land.

Olaniyi Ajibola I am in support of the proposed policy but it should be decentralized because of the sensitivity of the C M Y K

business. The incessant crises between the farmers and the cattle rearers is capable of dragging the country into another civil war. My advice for the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association is that they should sensitise their members because of the activities of those carrying dangerous weapons.

Comrade Saidu Bello I really support the proposal, it is the surest way to checkmate incessant clashes.

Besides, it is their fundamental right considering • Bappa Fulanis’ contribution to the economic growth of our country. If you provide a grazing field you guarantee economic growth, control criminality and you ensure peace.

Engr Abubakar Maishanu Well it’s a nice step in the right direction, but government must take into cognizance the lifestyle of the Fulanis. They are nomadic in nature and may be difficult to cage them in one place, and it would be ideal for Government to also involve the private sector but should set the ball rolling before gradual withdrawal for the private sector.

Hon. Sagir AbdulQadir Panshekara, ex chairman, Kumbotso local government area of Kano.

It’s an inalienable right of the Fulanis to be given special treatment considering their vital role in the economy. Personally, this is long over due, if farmers are given fertiliser subsidy for providing the food, what do you offer to the group that provides the meat? Their role in modern economy is such that we need to encourage them through laudable policies to tap the best out of them.

RIVERS

Chief Polycap Okpara Creating a reserve for Fulani herdsman could lead to disintegration.

The reserve as it is,stand out as the major, if not only source of food supply to the larger nation. Federal Government should take a cue from the U.S that has no reserve for cattle

grazing, yet they produce the largest market of beef for domestic consumption and for export. In addition, any attempt to allow Fulani herdsmen to graze in the reserve, will surely lead us to long awaited disintegration of the federated Nigeria.

Doris Mcdaniels, Chairperson Ijaw Mothers Union.

Our Okrika people will not welcome a reserve in the community. My people are peculiar. If they allot grazing area in Okrika, I am sure the cattle and the Fulani herdsmen will find their exit through the sanitary soak away.

AKWA IBOM

Mrs. Ubong-Abasi Chris Grazing Site is necessary to check the attacks and unnecessary killing of defenceless farmers. I am saying this believing that they would also tolerate other ethnic nationalities and religious groups to reside in their states and do their legitimate businesses without hinderance.

farmers. That is not justifiable, I don’t support that idea. It is a biased idea.

ADAMAWA

Abubakar Tafal The idea is not a good one because the business of cattle rearing should be the sole responsibility of the owners of the cattle to find grazing sites for their flocks.

Mr. Ogbonna Uche The issue is fragile and government has to be careful about it in order not to overheat the polity because Nigerians are feeling that government is giving undue attention to the Fulani herdsmen and their flocks to the detriment of others who are in the cattle business.

Mr. Femi Oluwalomola, cattle farmer The idea of a creating a grazing field for Fulani herdsmen is an an insult on other Nigerians. Anyone who owns flock should be responsible for their upkeep.

Aliyu Sarki The issue of apportioning a grazing field for Fulani herdsmen will reduce if not eliminate the present spate of cattle rearers/farmers feud across all states of the Federation.

Chiemeka Akwarandu, Public Affairs commentator Nigerian government should embrace modern system of agriculture like it • UbongMiss Imo is done in many African Abasi Etukukoh-A civil countries like Morocco, Egypt servant and Kenya. The nomadic system It is a welcome should be abolished given the present security challenges in the country. development so that these people Secondly, our traditional institution should could be monitored. It is a nice idea set up local security to compliment the because like in other states, farmers in efforts of the police and other security Akwa-Ibom State are complaining of agencies. degradation and destruction of their farms by cattle rearers. Grazing field Dr. (Mrs.) Nma Olebara, a woman leader will enhance control of the cows and and retired educationist. also help to curb the lawless The menace of these herdsmen has disposition of the herdsmen. become something else but government seems to be comfortable with their atrocities.

Edidiong George-Student Why would the army, the police and other I am in support of the idea to security agencies appear to be doing little provide herdsmen in the states of the when these herdsmen kill and destroy federation with grazing fields. It will property, but we see photographs on the help to check the excesses of the cattle social media where the law enforcement rearers and the destruction of people’s agencies are killing IPOB members who are farms by their cows since they think harmless and only staging a protest. Do we their business is superior to other talk of the massive genocide in Nasarawa, people’s business. the Agatu Holocaust, the Jos devastation and the massacres of South Easterners and Bassey Umoh-Farmer the devastation of their farmlands. Do we Cattle rearing is a private business talk of over fifty lives, churches, schools and and as such, those who are into it property that were lost in Enugu State or should not take the laws into their over two thousands displaced in their own hands because other private homelands? Don't we have a commander in individuals do not disturb the peace of chief who can order military action against other individuals with their businesses. these insurgents as he did to Boko Haram If they do not know how to manage and promised to do to pipeline vandals? Or their businesses again, they should do we now value cows and crude oil more look elsewhere. If they must run their than human being? Is human life no longer sacred and blood not precious and costly cattle business, they should provide anymore in Nigeria? What is bad is bad, grazing sites for their cattle or be must we keep silent because of those made to face the wrath of the law involved? Let's do unto others as we would when they contravene the law. expect them do unto us. Enough is enough!

Rev. Samuel Joshua- Cleric Professor Chinedu Asinu Anosike, Brand I agree with Governor Ajumobi of consultant.

Oyo State, who has said that his state It is high time the Igbos came together as will not provide grazing sites for cattle one united entity to match the Fulani militia, rearers because of their belligerent which Nigerian carelessly call herdsmen, and militant nature. These people go force for force. about with guns causing havoc Boko Haram has truly penetrated the unchallenged and the security nooks and crannies of Igboland in the guise agencies fold their arms watching of herdsmen and we are folding our hands them. I believe our President who has watching helplessly until we are held experience in warfare should be a hostage in our dear fatherland. We need to Minister of Defence and not deal with the situation decisively now or Petroleum so as to check militancy as never. perpetrated by those cattle herdsmen.

Besides, the federal government does Okenze Ndukwe, a community leader not provide special space for farmers, It is time the ghosts of the famous Bakassi so, why should special treatment or Boys are resurrected. Igbos need to wake up preference be given to cattle rearing the strong men of Aguleri and Umuleri.

20—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

The Igbo and Ethnic Championship

O

nce upon a time, cattle herdsmen sent word home. They had lost men and cattle in Saki, Oyo state. They relayed their distrust and contempt for the police and the state government. Derelict and partisan authorities have trivialized the mass murder of their kin by Yoruba farmers. That was the insinuation.

Deep resentment runs against perceived Hausa-Fulani’s sense of entitlement in the south. Tales of persecution would find credulous ears. Muhammadu Buhari and Buba Marwa put on their Arewa caps and headed to Oyo to confront the state governor. ‘Their people” had been treated savagely. They trusted neither phone calls nor letters. It was tense, they were unsmiling. The allegations had been exaggerated. Suspects didn’t walk away, hadn’t been ‘amnestied’. The police were preparing charges. That didn’t placate them. Such imperiousness! They left without requiting courtesies extended to them.

They were neither government officials nor civil society activists.

Yet they didn’t feel enfeebled.

Patriotism didn’t dissuade them. And they were not morally shackled by the impropriety of clannishness by former national leaders. They had no compunction about leading such an ethnic cause. The sort of cause that falls within the job description of Gani Adams. Obasanjo was

Igbo leaders, always drenched in timidity, were mute in the interest of national unity

president. His being Yoruba didn’t intimidate them. It may have inflamed their overflowing righteous indignation. Don’t even think about Agatu or Enugu yet. They didn’t leave it for political office holders. They went in to challenge the menace. To hold officials with direct responsibility , accountable. Their participation was not secured by the promise of monetary rewards. That is championship.

Igbos sorely lack champions. There is not a country. Were there a country, such championship would be parochialism. And murderers would never go unpunished. And non indigenes everywhere would be protected by the state. Buhari and Marwa would have been despised as petty minded agents of national disunity, ethnic jingoists. But they have retained their claims to patriotism. There is not a country.

For were there one, quota system and federal character would be decidedly retrogressive, divisive and jettisoned. And the Fulani would not need their kith to plead their case in Oyo. If there were a country, those who fly ethnic and

religious flags would operate at the fringes of national affairs. And those who have been in the thick of national affairs would abhor narrow ethno religious agitations.

But where is the country? So Buhari and Marwa, despite all negative idealistic interpretations, did the right thing.

The industry of Igbos and their entrepreneurial restlessness have ensured not just their flourishing but their dispersal. Spread so widely and rooted so randomly, they are especially endangered in a volatile Nigeria. Particularly northern Nigeria, where non indigenes are perpetually at the mercy of whirlwinds. When trouble rears its head in the north, envy complicates religious extremism. The Igbo man and his businesses are hunted and burnt. Corpses are shoveled into trucks and smuggled into mass graves at night. Governments too weak to protect lives and property are quick to shroud carnages “in the interest of national unity”. And the Igbo man living in the north develops the psyche of a coward.

Because those who should champion his cause have surrendered themselves to timidity. The Igbo ,scarred and victimized , feel especially vulnerable to authorities.

It’s one thing to be chronically marginalized and driven into street trading . But it’s another to suffer repeated humiliating victimizations.

The average corrupt policeman on the street, everywhere, sees the Igbo businessman as a one legged prey. But treats the Fulani Alhaji of same social standing with measurable reverence. Second class citizens, can’t fight for rights. So the Igbo routinely buys his peace from bullies in uniform and buys privileges, accesses, contracts, recognitions, everything.

With the indelible history of the 1966 pogrom as a reminder of what can be, ordinary Igbos live with a residual paranoia of particularly the Hausa Fulani. And it’s difficult to say that other groups trust Igbos.

Igbos will excel in the Nigerian Defence Academy but are never really good enough to head the Army. They will not head the DSS or the Supreme court. Igbos occupy sensitive positions in the country only if they pass special loyalty tests.

They are potential secessionists.

They have to be approved of as ‘trustworthy’, less Igbo than Igbo, psychologically vanquished. When they can speak Hausa, they are more appealing, more patriotic. When they are appointed, they slough off any residual ‘Igboness’ and become committed ‘detribalized’ lackeys.

And they become allergic to close contacts with other Igbos to prove continuing loyalty.

Contrast Oyo not with Enugu but with Akaluka. That poor Igbo trader had made Kano his home. His wife stirred a storm when she cleaned up her baby with a paper that had Islamic inscriptions. She was alleged to have desecrated the Koran. Gideon Akaluka left the market for home to settle the matter.

He ran into the mob whom his family had evaded. He was rescued by the police and put in protective custody. The mob reenergized, seized him from police custody, burnt the police station and beheaded him. His head was held aloft a stick and a triumphant procession marched round Kano in broad daylight. That was a message.

The sort of message that reinforces paranoia. Were there any arrests made? Even nomads brag about contacts in high places. Igbo leaders, always drenched in timidity, were mute in the interest of national unity.

The set of circumstances that constituted the Enugu herdsmen madness is unhealthy for Igbos. It’s easier for the Tivs to handle Agatu psychologically. And I don’t make light of the unspeakably atrocity that happened there. Enugu was particularly nightmarish because it reawakened ghosts. Authorities watching while people are hunted down and butchered. That pogrom.

The authorities should be sensitive.

No German plays gas chamber jokes around Jews. That prolonged silence by this presidency after the Enugu incident was provocative and shameful.

Nigeria is a tempestuous polygamous setting. Rabid tribalism has left a shell of country no one primarily identifies with. Igbos need committed ethnic champions. Sold out to the immediate well-being of the race. And I don’t mean anything close to IPOB’s charlatanism. An ethnic champion is neither a bigot nor a secessionist. He is not even an ethnic chauvinist.

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he Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, and Group Managing T Director(GMD) of the Nigerian National

Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Ibe Kachikwu recently contemplated a strategic petroleum products reservefor the country. He was thinking about meetingemergency local demands.

Unfortunately we import products in its entirety.Weshould ponderover the reserveoption whenwe import with lean foreign exchange. It is also uneconomical whenoperations of four refineries have been hamstrung by long periods of inadequate maintenance resulting in shutdowns.

Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) as we know it globally is more from the crude point of storage. The United States established a Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counterbalance the power of Arab producers in the 1970s. It now has 695 million barrels in reserve held in four sites along the Gulf of Mexico coast.

The NNPC was established on the 1st of April 1977 to refine, treat, process and generally engage in the handling of petroleum for the manufacture and production of petroleum products and its derivatives.The NNPC managers have failed to address how four refineries, 22 depots (storage facilities) and 5001 kilometres of pipelines (for crude and multi-products)vanished into nothing.

Ones drumbeats about6000 investment opportunities when you refine a barrel of crude oil had been handled with levity for pecuniary crude gains. When we refine locally there are advantageous chances for economic diversification along vertical linkages.

It is inexplicable that Nigeria’s petroleum discovered 60 years ago was surrendered to foreigners who refine products offshore and sell to us. We are still cap in hands for super majors to assist us with foreign exchange for products payments. Integrated oil companies (IOC) or super majors operating in Nigeria C M Y K

Nigeria, Super Majors and Research Laggards It is inexplicable that Nigeria’s petroleum discovered 60 years ago was surrendered to foreigners who refine products offshore and sell to us recently bailed out Nigeria with $200 million to import petroleum products overseas.

The upstream(exploration and production) petroleum sector is in the hands of super majors who own equipment, storage, terminal and export facilities.Current battle with them over production sharing contracts (PSC) is that the Federal Government is taking more than its share and so caused delays in crude loading programmes. The Federal Government owes oil super majors over $5 billion in the upstream joint venture cash calls.

Nations that have developed and those that are emerging never looked for the easy way out.

They found lasting solutions to complex problems but ours as a nation is prodigal that with the slightest challenge, we call for the sale of critical infrastructure bequeathed for posterity.

At independence in 1960 our peersin terms of development are some in the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and some Asian tigers- Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia.We are now the beautiful bride to be wooedwith all sorts of developmental aids. India and China in late 2015 summoned Nigeria and other African countries to summits promising them aids.

We note that the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) members: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Oman and Bahrain were at developmental infancy at our independence.Some of these GCC countries in OPEC are now courtedby Nigeriafor oil supply freeze and to assist in tracking stolen petroleum funds. These situations elicit enquiry into our petroleum resource managementand indeed national strategic thinking. Our refineries are not working for reasons of corruption, mismanagement and technical incompetence.

One obvious fact that had emerged is the absence of methodical investigation to develop a plan of action based on facts discovered which research is.

What is the position of research in Nigeria? An appointee posted to a research department is sent to “Siberia”in our parlance. Research offices and efforts are never fundedwhereas research drives the world. We all want the luxuries of life without imagining the strategic thought that produced them. This structural deficiency is the bane and laggard of our development.

With threats of carbon emissionsand the campaign on reduction of fossil fuels usage we must be more ingenious, sagacious, pragmaticand practical to join the science and technology train. Anairplane,fully powered by the suncalled Solar Impulse 2 began its circumnavigation around the world in March 2015 in Abu Dhabi and is scheduled to cross the Atlantic by June 2016. Thiscalls for national strategic thinking.

Artificial photosynthesis as a new source of renewable liquid fuels for cars, ships and planes is what U.S. researchers are trying to perfect. The breakthrough in artificial photosynthesis seeks to mimic the action of plants in capturing energy from the sun to produce biomass by breaking downwaterandcombiningitwithcarbondioxide.

Number one auto maker, Toyota in October 2015 announced plans to transform its product line with the goal of selling very few if any conventional gasoline vehicle by 2050. It will manufacture vehicles that are hybrids or will run on fuel cells. It plans to sell 30,000 fuel cell vehicles by 2020 and gradually divest from gasoline engine.

Plug in electric vehiclesmanufacturers have not embraced large scale productionnow because recharging time is excessive but its production and usage would shape the direction of world automobile by the end of the 21st century.

Saudi Arabia is not left out of the quest to reduce global warming. Saudi Aramco has opened up a Research and Development facility in Detroit as part of its drive to expand its global fuel technology programme to reduce the overall environmental impact, cost and complexity of both current and future fuel engine systems.

Not minding our indeterminism, it behooves the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to address Nigeria’s myriads of petroleum problems imbued in science and technology. This administration must enlist our patriotic, brilliant, experienced, young, dynamic scientists and other professionals in the management of research and development.

SATURDAY Vanguard Vanguard,, MAY 7, 2016 —

T

his scene is very familiar to those in the publishing business. You are owing the newsprint suppliers. They are threatening to stop further supplies unless you offset some of the outstanding credit. Those who are supplying ink and chemicals are also grumbling. The vehicles going all the way to Calabar in the East and the ones going all the way to Kano in the North need urgent repairs if not downright replacement. But there is no money.

In fact, you are owing three, four months in salary arrears. And you cannot get respite from the banks because you have stopped servicing your loans. Meanwhile, the advertising agencies are owing you tons of money, and paying in trickles. The distribution agents collect in bulk and settle piece meal. And if you are not vigilant, full editions can be easily misappropriated. You are owing everybody and everybody is owing you and you are left with next to nothing to do the basics. No wonder Sonala Olumhense, my friend and colleague once likened publishing to passing through the valley of the shadow of death. It is a valley that very few people emerge unscathed from.

This was the scene I found myself in and was grappling with some years ago during my publishing days when my editor suddenly came up with what he thought was a brilliant suggestion. He had gone to the university with the editor of one of the more successful newspapers and was convinced the guy was not a better journalist. So why shouldn’t his salary be at the same level with this editor? After all, their children attended identical schools and their wives visited identical markets. Sounds logical? At least it must have sounded so for him to have presented it. He however conveniently overlooked one small detail; that the particular newspaper his university mate was

W

titbits2012@yahoo.com

The May Day pay demand editing grossed in a day what we contributed to the parlous state of the struggled to gross in two months. company. The 56,000 naira demand by My counter logic was to point at a Labour on May Day at a time many publisher who was younger than I states are struggling to pay 18,000 naira was in age and in the profession, is a case in point. but whose publication had crawled Don’t get me wrong. The wage demand through the proverbial valley and is within their legal rights. A review is was living in a posh area of Lagos. statutorily due just about now. And we I then asked my editor if it was not only have to look at the poverty level in also logical for me to emulate him. the country and the worsening The point I am making here is purchasing power of the naira to know that we are where we are as a that the present take home pay can’t take nation because of our culture of anybody home. Nobody in a Nigeria where there are no amenities entitlement which leads to and safety nets should have demands that often have no to clothe, feed, provide bearing with the financial shelter and send their status of the institutions we children to school on 18,000 are involved in. A chief Do naira a month. executive of a bleeding Unfortunately, because your institution wants all the is desirable does allowances and homework something not make it feasible. That is accoutrements of the more and why it amounts to a wrong successful chief executives. demand at a wrong time to ask A foreign study once stated prove it for three times your current that Nigerian chief wages at a time when the executives don’t look at the national purse has dwindled balance sheets of their respectful to a third of what it was two years ago. companies before making There is a caveat though for me. financial demands.

The Organised labour must prove that the employees are not any better. In states, many of which are struggling to fact, they are often worse. I have pay the current wages, can indeed afford worked with people who believe more if they tidy up their acts. But it they deserve their monthly pay must provide proof, in figures and whether they put in an honest statistics, of the profligacy of the states. day’s work or not. Or whether they It is not just enough to stand on the have deliberately or inadvertently podium and announce that the states

e live in a free world, but virtually everybody is in one form of prison or the other. We are prisoners of nature and nurture.

Nature refers to all of the genes and hereditary factors that influence who we are, while nurture refers to all the environmental factors that influence who we are. Nature is inherited from our parents, while nurture is environmental. Everybody is a combination of nature and nurture; in fact every living thing is a combination of nature and nature. Scientists are still not in agreement on which is dominant in humans between nature and nurture.

But we know for a fact, for instance, that nature is dominant in cobras. That is fit into one of these categories.

Many marriages are troubled why the first assignment of a newlyhatched cobra is to kill and eat. It is all today or have broken down because natural and has nothing to do with the couples are “inmates” of nurture. That is also why it is risky different prisons and are unable to resolve the emanating having cobras as pets. contradictions. For instance, the There are many types of prisons, but small security prison wife might we shall make do with three: small find the maximum security security prison, medium security prison husband myopic, overbearing, and maximum security prison, so named restrictive and self-centred. because of the level of security and the There is nothing wrong with kind of inmates they keep there. In our marrying somebody from another so called free world, people in small prison. Sometimes, the contrast security prisons are those who though actually helps both spouses in influenced by nature embrace complementing each other ’s environmental influences and are ready strengths and making up for each to see and accommodate the views of other ’s weaknesses. But it is others around them; they are open- important that you understand the minded. In other words, they are mindset and characteristics of welcoming of nurture and change. inmates from that prison. It helps Those in medium security prisons are in having a happier marriage. It is also pliable, but not as open-minded like an Igbo woman who married and receptive to change as those in an Urhobo man and became so small security prisons. fluent in not just the Urhobo Those in maximum security prisons language, but her husband’s are in a world of their own. The security dialect. I never knew the woman is tight and their prison walls are so was Igbo until I met her siblings. high they only see the immediate world If we accept language as a form of around them. They are close-minded prison, you can see that the and scarcely see beyond their noses. woman, though from another Here nature reigns high and only prison, has learnt to behave like compliant nurture sees the light of the inmates from her husband’s day. They are always inward-looking prison. and resistant to change. Somehow, we Courtship, it is generally agreed,

Prisons

C M Y K

is a necessity for would-be couples. It is a time to know your potential spouse and assess his/her suitability as a spouse. It is a time to ask tough questions and know more about his/her beliefs, core values, health status, family background, dreams and aspirations. It is also a time to know your potential spouse’s prison. If your prisons are different, you need to find out whether you can live with an inmate from his/her prison.

Rather than answer this crucial question, some would-be couples believe in getting married first and trying to change their spouses thereafter. I call that risky business; I do not share that genre of thought, as you would have found out by now in this column. I believe the kind of change you desire can only come from one party in marriage and that person is you; that is your salary.

In the event that your spouse changes to what you desire, that is a bonus, not an entitlement. Like an intelligent worker, make your plans and projections on your salary, not bonuses that are at the whims and caprices of others. As in business, you do your situation analysis before commencing marriage. Thereafter you do evaluation. It is comparatively easy for business partners to part ways.

Parting ways in marriage is more difficult because marriage is covenantal and the emotions are higher; the more

21

can afford more. Do your homework and prove it. Also prove that the enhanced wages will not generate more unemployment because that would defeat the whole purpose. You also have to prove that it will not lead to abandoned projects and decaying infrastructure which will in turn lead to the inability to generate increased IGR for the states.

Organised labour must come up with alternatives to the cost of governance at the federal and state levels. It must visit the cost of maintaining the state and national assemblies. It must pay more than a cursory look at the political hangers-on that dot the landscape. It must look at the various areas of wastages including ghost workers.

Having done all of these and more, the organised labour must now proffer ways of generating greater IGR. It must critically examine the role of its workers in making Nigeria one of the most difficult countries in which to start and do business. It must demonstrate its willingness to partner with employers of labour both in the private and public sectors in reducing the incessant and often trivial strikes that hold the country ’s economic and educational progress hostage. It must change the attitude of pay without work and plan towards a leaner, more efficient work force.

Nigerians are generally industrious and enterprising. But our attitude to employment is all wrong. We see it as a meal ticket. Many moonlight and even undermine the very organisation that provides their wages.

So my dear comrades; some work needs to be done on your part before you can win the support of critically thinking Nigerians on the feasibility of your wage demand at this point in time. Everybody, from leaders to the led, must learn to bake the cake before we can share it. Otherwise, it would be a virtual cake. reason to look well before you leap.

But before going about knowing your potential spouse’s prison, do you even know and accept yours? Many of us live in self-denial. You can lie to others and get away with it, but when you also lie to yourself, you are courting failure and disaster. You must see and know yourself truly as you are; that ought to be the first assignment of anybody going into an interpersonal relationship because “private victories must precede public victories.”

Sometimes our prisons make us pass harsh judgments on others. Hence an organised spouse is labeled as rigid and a flexible spouse is dubbed unfocussed; a spouse who showers excessive love on the other half is either possessive or obsessed. When he/she gives the spouse space, he/she is aloof or uncaring. It all comes down to looking at our spouses from our prisons which define our world views.

We therefore need to be wary of the logs our prisons have placed in our eyes, which prevent us from getting the true or perfect picture.

In all these, however, there is a divine angle to it; after all God is the author of marriage. You see some couples and you never cease to wonder “How these two ‘mad’ people have managed to live together for this long.' “How does she cope with this terrible man?”

“How does this man put up with this scattered woman? I will run mad if I stayed with her for just one day.” One complete guy/girl is dying to marry you, but your heart is somewhere else and the world, including you, cannot explain why. Just leave matter, na only God know how water take enter coconut. There are some marriages and certain aspects of marriage that defy human understanding. They are mysteries and belong to the divine realm.

22—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

PANDA RELATIONSHIP :

Our Economic Eldorado?

•How trade deficit with China can be reduced

By Eugene Onyeabo Aligbe

I

t has become imperative to note that Nigeria’s problem is not only fiscal corruption but weak policy framework and attitudinal problem. This is so because, positive attitude, policy consistency and sound institutional framework are necessary for the implementation of any bi-lateral relationship among countries.

The economic relationship between Nigeria and China is a classical example of one such relationship that requires positive attitude, discipline as well as sound institutional framework to succeed more than past agreements.

Nigeria’s economic relations with China dates back to 1971 and since then the trade relations between the two countries have grown in the last decades from limited and intermittent contact to an increased business engagement of about $2.8 billion in 2005 to $7.2 billion in 2008 and $14 billion in 2015. With that level of trade, Nigeria becomes one of China’s biggest trade partners in Africa. This is a surge that has resulted to larger volume of Nigeria imports of Chinese products relative to Nigeria exports to China. Do we say that the recent Panda Bond agreement signed by the government to further increase trade will reverse the trend, knowing that this can only be done through a sustained change of attitude as well as evolving home

BY FRANCIS IGATA

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NUGU—The Corps Marshal,Federal Road Safety Corp,FRSC, Boboye Oyeyemi has canvassed the installation of speed limiters in private and commecial vehicles to stem the increasing rate of road accidents occasioned by over speeding.

This came on a day the FRSC boss,commissioned 300 Peace Mass Transit,PMT,brand news business class buses at the company’s headquarters,No 2 Destiny road,Emene,Enugu.

Commissioning the vehicles,Oyeyemi said,”I have come to demonstrate my personal interest in this company because it was the first road transport company to introduce speed limiters in 2009. Speed limiters reduce road crashes by eighty percent. With over 4,000 vehicles in your flight,you have contributed immensely to development of the economy. We are bent on supporting road

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Chinese PresidentXi Jinping(r) holds talks with Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari in China grown alternatives of the same quality at competitive prices?

Until this is done, the trade deficit with China may continue.

From the foregoing, it seems as though China has almost literally invaded Nigeria. But, the truth is, what China is leveraging on today, is the benefit of globalization, which serves as the process through which goods and services, capital, people, information and ideas flow across borders and lead to greater integration of economies and societies, thereby removing the barriers to free movement of international capital as well as accelerate technology transfer.

It is however necessary to recall that China did not get to where they are presently

without dealing with some fundamental national issues that negate good policy intentions. Prior to their emergence as the second world economic power in 1980, China was grouped among the poorest in the world. The rise of China from her miserable situation to a major economic power in the last three decades has been described as the greatest economic success story ever, anchored on self discipline, patriotism and strict adherence to the policy direction of the country. This is what I suggest our government should adopt as we embark on this advanced sophisticated Panda relationship.

The difference between China and Nigeria is political will

and patriotism. When China was working on how to turn their economy around, Nigeria was looking for palliatives which IMF, Paris Club, Euro bond, WTO and World Bank could offer at a high interest rate together with stringent conditions such as devaluation of currency, which resulted in under – utilization of productive capacity and destruction of local manufacturing sector.

You will agree that since year 2000, when the relations between China and Nigeria, and indeed Africa grew aggressively, an upward trend characterized by unprecedented renewed positive and mutually beneficial cooperation arrangements, to the concern of western countries across Europe and North America became the order of the day. The question is, if IMF really meant well for us, why recommend devaluation of naira, even with the knowledge that Nigeria has no other product, except oil to shore up the country’s foreign reserve? Currency devaluation on its own is not a bad idea but it is meant for serious countries like China with a genuine intention of economic revival by boosting their export.

Devaluation is a way of making the country’s product cheap in the international market. So, assuming Nigeria devalues the naira, what other products does she have to export at the moment and at the same time determine the price in the international market?

In the aftermath of Panda bond agreement, China like Nigeria is excited and expects to fully utilize the business opportunities that such agreement offers. The Chinese in their usual characteristics as they did in 1979 by launching several economic

reforms which included, price and ownership farmers subsidies; establishment of special economic zones for the purposes of attracting foreign direct investment; importing high quality products into China and formulation of sound policy framework, will probably be strategizing on how to further seek Nigerian oil and raw materials to feed its ever expanding industries back home as well as markets and new trading routes for their finished industrial products. This is to say that Nigeria has a lot of work to do. This infers that the relationship goes beyond opening of borders and boarding the next available flight to China, but working on how to re-orientate the mindset of Nigerians towards improving the quality standard of products allowed into Nigeria the same way China did back then. Nigeria should equally focus on technology transfer, infrastructure development and market for non – oil exports.

It is now urgent for agencies like NAFDAC, Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON) and all others responsible for standards and quality to set the benchmarks on specifications and strictly monitor and enforce in order not to make a mess of every good intention of this Panda bond business engagement.

Be that as it may, I congratulate the present government for continuing the relationship with China where the Jonathan’s administration stopped. By this, Buhari, unlike some of our past leaders has proved that government is a continuum, Kudos.

Eugene Onyeabo Aligbe, onyxeugene2003@yahoo.com

FRSC Corp Marshal advocates speed limiters in vehicles •Commissions 300 PMT business class buses

From left, FRSC Enugu Sector Commander, Mr David Mendie, Head Media, Mr Bisi Kazeem, Zonal Commanding Officer RS9 Enugu, Mr Samuel Obayemi, Corps Marshal, Mr Boboye Oyeyemi, Chairman Peace Mass Transit (PMT), Mr Sam Onyishi and Vice Chairman, Lolo Ify Onyishi during the commissioning of pmt 300 newly acquired buses in Enugu

transport services. I want to see a month in Nigeria that will pass without any road crash.

“PMT has not recorded any case of overloading which should be sustained. We will continue to partner with you in the area of training of drivers and it is about time,you set up a driving school”.

Responding,Chairman Peace Group,Chief Samuel Maduka Onyishi revealed that the company takes safety seriously which prompted its moves to install speed limiters in all its vehicles in 2009.

“It has reduced accident rate by eighty percent.

Speed limiters make the

buses to move properly and not to cheapen lives. Its should be installed in private vehicles too. The National Assembly should enact the enabling law,mandating that all private vehicles be installed with speed limiters.

We take cognizance of its importance that is why we started installing it in 2009.

“As a transporter, it is not the number of trips you make that is important but the number of years you are on the road. We change our tyres based on the number of kilometers covered. We have commenced the construction of an Assembly Plant to assemble our own brand new here. That is why we have equally installed a lubrication plant” PMT boss revealed.

SATURDAY Vanguard,

MAY 7, 2016 — 23

BY SONI DANIEL

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he once was a player in the corporate world, where she worked in a leading Nigerian engineering company that also runs one of Nigeria’s largest and most successful airlines. But when she heard the voice to leave the secular work and channel her potentials into gospel music, Nina Orji wasted no time in heeding the call. Today, she has some singles in the market, turning hearts towards heaven. But the Abia State-born singer says she’s still far from where she wants to be. According to her, she wants to be up there with the Joyce Meyers, Anita Bynun and Les Brown of this world while remaining as source of inspirations to generations of

My goal is to become an icon of motivation. I want people to see this Nina as an icon of encouragement, changing lives through music and motivational speaking and becoming a household name

Nigerians.

Having done some work in the music industry, where do you think you are now?

Well, I would say I have taken off. But you know starting something new is not always easy and you need the grace of God and the support of the people to achieve set goals. For now, I am doing well, given where I started from and where I am going. I am also a music minister and a motivational speaker.

What really moved you from the corporate world into music?

What brought me into music is first of all, my desire to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ via music. Again, music has always been in me right from when I was young.

I remember as far back as when I was in primary and secondary schools I would make songs which were used in our school events and activities, for example, interhouse sports competitions and all that. It was awesome but then we took it like a child’s play. But as I grew up, I realised that this thing cannot just be shut up in my bones and I went into gospel music to actualise that Godgiven talent. So, I can say that I sing gospel because of the call of God on my life, secondly, my love for the gospel of Jesus makes me to find a medium of expressing it, and music remains the best route to preach it and finally, my desire to impact the lives of men positively.

So what do you have to show so far?

Yes, I have an album of my own in the market right now which is entitled “Your Majesty” by Nina. It is enjoying airplay on radio and on the Internet.

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I want to impact on the lives of men — Nina Orji Have you done any video of it?

Yes, I have done a video of one of the tracks “Give it to me” and it is also on YouTube.

And I have a new video coming up right now; we just concluded it and very soon it will be out.

What is the title?

Oluwabueze And what does it mean?

It simply means Jehovah is king. I did it in Igbo because

that is how the inspiration came.

What have you found out about the Nigerian music industry?

The truth is that it is highly competitive especially in the secular circular world.

Although competition also rages in the gospel industry, I am not moved because I believe that people are into the industry for different reasons. For me, the

foundation of my own music is clear and settled and nothing will move me to change course.

As a gospel artist, do you concentrate on singing in religious outings alone?

No, I do other side shows in addition to performing in churches and other religious events. I go out there to minister to people in meetings, in programmes as I am invited.

From the way you are talking about gospel music as your own genre, does it mean that you cannot accept any offer to perform secular music?

Of course. I have had several opportunities to do that, I have had big time opportunities to leave my gospel music and join the secular world but that is not me. I am not even going to do well there because I don’t belong there.

What is your vision given all that you’ve spoken about?

My goal is to become an icon of motivation. I want people to see this Nina as an icon of encouragement, changing lives through music and motivational speaking and becoming a household name like most of the prominent people we currently look up to in Nigeria and abroad. That is my goal. I want to see myself as the Paula White of Nigeria, Les Brown of Nigeria, Joyce Meyer of Nigeria, Juan Anita Bynum of Nigeria etc. I want to emerge as one impactful lady that people will look at and see yes, we thank God that you came in our generation. This is my vision and this is where I am headed.

24 — SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

By KEHINDE AJOSE 08054680266

Tiwa Savage-Teebillz crisis:

Label mates keep mum

Olamide’s first female act sends social media into turmoil

Since Tiwa Savage –Teebillz marriage crisis began, many entertainers have been wading in, making comments, taking sides and saying all sort of things, but not Tiwa Savage’s label mates. They have maintained social media and radio silence over the issue. It’s like they have been instructed not to comment on the crisis. Conversely, Korede Bello and Reekado Banks performed in the U.K at the Mayday Concert Afrobeats Concert held on the 2nd of May. Mavins Instagram account which is known to promote the label’s activities hasn’t been too active lately. Efforts to reach her label mates for comment has proved abortives

BNL boss and mainstream rapper, Olamide, got the social media buzzing when he announced on Twitter that a fresh face would be joining his label, YBNL. The signed artiste, Temmie Ovwasa, is a singer, guitarist and spoken word poet.

Though she is new on the Nigerian music scene, her Instagram followership has profoundly increased from about 1,500 to 16,500 followers as at the time of this report.

While writing this report, she has uploaded only 8 pictures on her Instagram account (@YBNLPrincess) and already promoting her new song, Jabole. Music pundits and social media experts are surprised at the abrupt rise in her Instagram followers. A lot of people are speculating whether the increase came as a result of the Olamide star power or whether she simply bought Instagram followers. In addition, she has multiple instagram accounts opened in her name.

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Greatest price I have paid for stardom — Yemi Alade

B

UBBLY Afropop singer, Yemi Alade, is no doubt one of the reigning queens of Nigerian music at the moment. There was a time the self-proclaimed Mama Africa had ample time to do whatever she desires. Now, the story has changed. In a chat with Showtime, she reveals that her personal time is almost nonexistent.

“The greatest price I have paid for stardom is that I no longer have time for myself. My personal time has now become my work time. My personal time is almost nonexistent.

That is a huge price that cannot be quantified. I like to take long walks, but now I can’t do it.. It used to be one of my hobbies. I can’t take long walks anymore.”

Young Bobby and Lexeye unveils new video

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oung Bobby and Lexeye are teenage artistes who desire to make a mark in the music industry.

The youngsters who have performed on several platforms unveil the visuals of their song titled Prodigy. The video was shot

by Matt Max. “We did this song to encourage people that they can do whatever they desire and be good at it. For instance, we can roller skate, play golf, play the piano, rap and sing.”

Young Bobby and Lexeye, whose real names are Robert Albert Akpan and Alexis Albert Akpan (aged 15 and 11 respectively) are siblings. They were born in New Jersey in the United States of America, but are originally from Akwa Ibom state of Nigeria.

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What I will do if I get cheated on — Cynthia Morgan G

ERMAN Juice singer, Cynthia Morgan, gained popularity for her song, Don’t break my heart.

In the song, she pleads with her lover not to leave her, saying, “I wanna be with you from the start to the end.

Baby don’t break my heart.” The dancehall artiste took to her Instagram account last week, saying she won’t stress herself if her lover cheats on her. She posted a video of a lady dancing while holding on to knives.

“If I get cheated on, I will never stress on it. I will just write a couple of good songs that he will love, his friends will love and his new girl will love. I will watch them stalk me and my tour dates for the rest of their lives. What I am saying is this: young girl, don’t stress, never stress. Work hard, pray and watch him be a fan.”

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—25

By TOFARATI IGE 08068792241

Tiwa Savage-Teebillz saga: In the wake of Tiwa Savage-Teebillz marriage crisis, celebrity marriages has come on the spot again to be knocked to pieces. Like elsewhere in the world, Nigeria, has had its fair share of celebrity marriages which simply could not go the distance. Funke Akindele-Kehinde Oloyede, Doris Simeon-Daniel Ademinokan, 9ice-Toni Payne, Kenny St Best-Eddie Remedy, Ini-Philip, Kate Henshaw-Nuttal, Fathia William-Saheed Balogun, the list is endless.

In each of these crisis, there seems to be a common trend of excuses for the breakup. Here are some:

Common trend in celebrity marriage crashes

Infidelity This is a recurrent decimal in many celebrity marriage crashes in Nigeria.

Many entertainers cite infidelity on the part of their partners as the reasons for packing up their marriage.

‘Gongo Aso’ singer, 9ice’s ex-wife, Toni Payne, once stated that her estranged hubby’s cheating ways was responsible for their marriage collapse.

She reportedly said: “Three things broke my marriage: his family’s interference, his manager’s interference, and his affair with Vicky Godis.”

Late Nights It is practically inevitable for celebrities to keep late nights by virtue of their jobs. Late night shows, studio runs and location calls are some of the things that keep entertainers out at night, but unfortunately, this is also a major contributory factor to many marriage crashes. “Most times he lives home and doesn’t come back until 7AM, at times 2PM following day,” says Tiwa of her husband.

Ego problems Ego problems have also been fingered as one of the leading factors in the collapse of many celebrity marriages. This is especially so in cases where only one partner is famous, and this makes the spouse give in to insecurity. In the aftermath of popular actress, Funke Akindele’s separation from her ex-husband,

Kehinde Oloyede, it was reported that the man was often suspicious of his wife’s movements as a celebrity.

“I stooped to conquer him; buried my fame and name to make him my husband, but it did not work… I respect him to the end but he chose to treat me that way. He said he wanted to clip my wings,” Funke cried out shortly after the separation.

Fraud Some people believe that whatever belongs to the husband also belongs to the wife, and vice-versa. However, stealing habit is taken seriously by some couples, and it could lead to divorce. Amongst the many claims made by Tiwa Savage as the cause of her marriage failure, one that stands out is the fact that she said Teebillz was stealing from her. According to her, he used to short-change her while he was still managing her. She also accused him of piling up debts in her absence which she eventually had to pay for. “Then the other thing was TJ would declare that they paid N3m.

Meanwhile they paid N4.5m, and out of the N3M he’s still receiving his management fee of 40%. So you are basically stealing from your wife and it doesn’t feel anything,” says Tiwa Savage.

interview last week, Tiwa claimed that Teebillz often neglected his family, preferring to take solace in alcohol and drugs. She alleged that she once walked in on him sniffing cocaine.

“You come back drunk, angry; we were living on eggshells because we never know what mood he’ll be in. At times I even pray that he’s with another woman, so that way I know he’s still alive and has not gotten drunk in an accident or something else....Or should we talk about the fact that I walked in on him taking cocaine in my house when we were still leaving in 1004 then” he said.

Childlessness Failure to produce children is another reason celebrity marriages go down like ill-fated airplanes. When actress, Ini Edo’s marriage packed up,

it was alleged that her in-laws were constantly at loggerheads with her because she was unable to bear a child.

Witchcraft Whether you like it or not, Nigeria is a country that is deeply spiritual. Many things that happen on daily basis are assumed to have a supernatural tinge to them.

Thus, it is not surprising that Teebillz alleged that Tiwa’s mother was trying to destroy his life and business through witchcraft. This was also cited by ‘Jenifa’ actress, Funke Akindele, who claimed that her exhusband, Kehinde Oloyede, probably used charm in marrying her. A report which went viral at the time of their break-up quoted a close friend of Akindele as saying, “Funke Akindele believes that Kehinde Oloyede used charm to marry her and Funke herself simply could no longer cope with the marriage as a result of many women in Oloyede’s life, and the string of kids showing up from different women…the union was dead on arrival.”

Domestic Abuse This is another culprit when it comes to celebrity marriage break-ups in Nigeria. Despite the vibrant campaign against domestic violence, some men still give in to their animalistic sides and batter their wives senseless. A shining example of this is Chika Ike and ex-husband, Mr. Eberibi.

“I was a victim of domestic violence in my marriage and that was the singular reason I left my marriage, aside other reasons,” said the actress in an interview after the marriage crashed.

Alcohol and Drugs Indulging in alcohol and drugs is known to have destroyed many lives, and marriages are not exceptions. The love for the bottle and other illicit substances has led to the demise of many marriages. In her video

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26—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016 Edited by Ayo Onikoyi 08052201215

I can have sex as long as it makes my man happy

want to. I just want to pursue my career for now. Being in a relationship now will be a distraction, so it’s one step at a time for me. It has nothing to do with my experiences in previous affairs. I’ve actually never been heartbroken before, I’ve been in a relationship before but I ended it not because of my career but because I just got tired.

— Marian Aligbe

Opinion on the fashion industry in Nigeria Well, the fashion industry in Nigeria is actually moving differently, people now get to buy more of African and Nigerian stuff. On red carpets at events, when celebrities and other guests are asked what they are wearing, you now hear names of Nigerian stylists and fashion designers.

They patronise more of Nigerian stuff than foreign stuff now, and this has encouraged more people to invest in the Nigerian fashion industry.

BY ROTIMI AGBANA & ADEYERI ADERONKE Luscious and sensual looking Marian ‘Mimi’ Aligbe is poised to storm the entertainment industry in Nigeria, in a style not seen in a long time. In this interview, the stunning lawyer turned model, talks about her career, fashion, love and sex: How it all began My manager, Jazzy, linked me up.

But before then, he knew I had a passion for modelling and acting so he decided to help me out. I was in a music video sometime in 2014; we met at the video shoot, the title of the song isJejeje, by Elmya. I was the major video vixen in the video. I started modelling professionally in 2011 before I gained admission into the university. I started modeling before acting but modelling is just something I love doing while acting is what I really want to do. You could say that acting is an inborn thing for me.

prayers also helped me. I never cut corners, even when I partook in a beauty contest, Miss Houdegbe, that was in 2012.

Though I didn’t win but I was the 1strunner up. Well, I’m pretty and I have the passion, brain and confidence needed to get there.

Education and career I’ve been in school; I’m a graduate of law from Houdegbe North American University, in Republic of Benin. That’s why I’ve not really had time to pursue my acting career, but now that I’m done with school, I’m going fully into it. Though my passion is in acting and modelling, career wise, I have always wanted to be lawyer, that’s why I went into the university to study law. . In the future I may still practice law, but for now, it’s acting and modelling.

What makes a model?

First, your passion, followed by your looks. I mean if you are pretty and tall, depending on what kind of modeling you are doing. If it’s runway it’s about the height, it doesn’t depend on your beauty.

You just have to be tall and have a good physique. If it’s billboards, it’s mostly about the face. You also have to be smart about it because some people do some unprofessional stuff before getting up there. More, so, you have to put God first in everything you do.

Parents’ reaction to dumping law for acting and modelling They are okay with it, though my dad is not so into it, but my mum is 100% behind me. She is and has been very supportive. My mum bought the idea because I’ve been convincing her long before I even got into the university. I did some modeling stuff in the U.K when we travelled; runway, photo shoots, etc, so she already knew I had passion for it. I just had to suspend it because of school.

Coping with peer pressure in school It’s a matter of choice, you have to choose between good and bad, we can’t all be the same. With God and parental advice, I was able to scale through. Of course yes, there would definitely be temptations, but I overcame them. I always remembered my mum, her advice and prayers, so I resist the temptation. I guess her C M Y K

Temptations in the line of duty Yes, I have been tempted severally to go overboard in the quest of getting something done but I have always resisted the it.

While I was in the U.K, there was this guy who had gone far in the movie industry and he wanted me to have sex with him in order to secure jobs for me. As much as I wanted the jobs, I didn’t have to do that. I really tempted to do it but I convinced myself it wasn’t wise, that I should wait for my time. I’m glad I did.

Relationship status I’m not dating, because I don’t

Fashion style I really don’t have a fashion sense or style.

When I wake up in the morning, I check my wardrobe, I just combine one outfit with the other and if it comes out nice, then I go with it. I’m actually passionate about what I wear and how I look, and to be frank, I do more of foreign. It’s not like I’m promoting foreign stuffs but I’ve not really had time to go to an indigenous fashion house to get something for myself, I just buy clothes. I wear anything, it doesn’t matter who made it or what, as long as it looks good, I’ll wear it.

I think women are stronger in bed. Women tend to last longer in bed compared to some men that just last for about two minutes.

Take on Nollywood actresses who date marketers to get roles I think it’s true. A friend of mine actually dated a marketer in order to get a role in a movie. Seriously, it is not the best thing to do. It’s not even certain that the marketer would help you get the role. There is no signed contract or document so you might just be cheated. I would rather just wait and get things done in the right way.

Sex That is like five times a year, (laughs). Honestly speaking, it depends on the man. I can have sex as many times as possible and as long as it takes for my man to be happy.

Comparing the sexes I think women are stronger in bed.

Women tend to last longer in bed compared to some men that just last for about two minutes.

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—27

How death of Tupac's mother can set off estate battle

BY IYABO AINA

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t is no longer news that the mother of legendary rapper, Tupac Shakur has passed away at the age of 69, as reports have it that Afeni Shakur’s death was confirmed on the morning of May 3 in a tweet from the Marin County Sheriff’s Department in California.

What seems to be news are controversial reports of who will have control of his lucrative estate, music and money which he left in the hands of his mother, Afeni Shakur, after his death in 1996.

But a new report claims to have the answers which is whether Afeni’s husband, North Carolina minister, Gust Davis, will take over, not minding the controversial divorce battle surrounding his late son's estate, as his wife’s death could spark an even more complicated dispute.

Shakur, whose net worth is listed at more than $50 million, had been the arbiter of her son's estate, which reportedly reaps almost $1 million annually and had been paying her more than $20,000 a month.

On March 18, 2016, Shakur filed for divorce from her husband of 12 years, North Carolina minister Gust Davis. The couple, who previously lived in that state, did not have a prenuptial agreement, and in

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divorce proceedings, Davis requested alimony payments totalling about half of the money generated by the estate, in addition to other assets purchased by the couple.

The divorce was not reported to have been settled at the time of Shakur's death.

Now the question becomes who will maintain control of Tupac Shakur's estate if Afeni Shakur did not have a will?

North Carolina law states that in the absence of a will, the spouse of the decedent inherits control of all assets.

But the status of Shakur and Davis' divorce was not immediately clear at the time of her death, nor was it clear how it could affect Davis' legal standing in regard to the estate.

That decision will likely involve the courts, which have wide discretion in these matters in the state of North Carolina. However, Shakur's daughter (and Tupac's sister), Sekyiwa Shakur, could further complicate the situation.

As if Davis is deemed not to be the legitimate executor of Shakur's estate

as a result of his divorce proceedings, those assets could fall to Sekyiwa Shakur.

In either case, a legal battle could easily erupt between the pair. It may also be possible that a judge could deem Davis to be entitled to half the estate via alimony payments as requested, while still making Sekyiwa Shakur the sole executor.

Without a will, the complicated situation will almost certainly require a judge to determine the fate of the legendary rapper's fortune.

Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, others dazzle at Met Gala 2016

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ROM Beyoncé’s latex dress to Kanye’s blue contacts, the stars took some major fashion risks at the 2016 Costume Institute Gala at Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City on Monday, May 2.

This year’s theme was Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology, and many embodied it, donning some futuristic and daring looks.

Nicki Minaj buckled up in a black Moschino dress by Jeremy Scott, while fellow fashionista, Zendaya transformed into a modern Cleopatra

in a Michael Kors gown and bob.

Lady Gaga channelled her inner punk rocker in a look she claimed took “10 minutes” to put together. Meanwhile, Rita Ora’s Vera Wang creation was from a galaxy far away.

Ciara donned custom H&M and silver hair, while her ex, Future skipped the carpet and headed inside, where he held court with Nas, Wiz Khalifa, Carmelo Anthony, and Odell Beckham Jr. Kanye West and Kim Kardashian both had some fun matching their outfits, as they donned futuristic Balmain looks.

Mrs. West described herself as a “blingy sexy robot,” while ‘Ye spotted ripped jeans and a tee under a beaded Balmain jacket and ice blue contact lenses.

Kendall and Kylie Jenner were also part of the Balmain gang, as was Kylie’s boyfriend, Tyga, who made his Met Gala debut in a studded jacket by Olivier Rousteing.

The fashionable Smith siblings, Willow and Jaden, held hands as they turned heads on the carpet. Willow in Chanel and her bro in Louis Vuitton.

28—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Missing Jim Iyke and his controversies?

•Jim Iyke

N

ollywood bad boy, Jim Iyke is one hunk of a man who hardly go into hiding no matter the situation he finds himself. But in recent times, the actor may have yielded to pressure from all quarters and decided to withdraw into his shell to rebrand and shame his haters. In fact, since he came into limelight in 2001, featuring in over 200 films, Jim Iyke has always been in the news either for the right or wrong reasons. The last that was heard of him was when he featured in actress Joselyn Dumas’ programme on Africa Magic last year. During the programme, the controversial actor gave the number of women he has kissed on set as 200, and went ahead to explain why he started his reality show, “Jim Iyke Unscripted” featuring himself and his ex-girlfriend and now, mother of twins, Nadia Buari. Jim’s name is synonymous with controversy, and that’s one attribute his fans are missing about him. Recall that last year , before he finally disappeared into thin air, a PR Manager, simply known as Baudex, accused Jim Iyke of not paying for the services he rendered to the actor. The said Baudex who claimed to be the actor’s social media PR Manager, alleged that the actor owed him some amount of money which he has refused to pay since last year, stating that the actor decided to block him on his social media applications because he had been calling him to ask for the balance of his money. The allegation was one of the many controversies that have trailed Jim Iyke’s acting career. It has equally endeared him to many admirers. Then, it was one trouble or the other. But the one that hit him most was the case of the daughter of a Lagos-based business man who claimed that Jim Iyke impregnated her. Her pregnancy became a subject of controversy, even after the father made the lady confess who was responsible for the pregnancy, she still claimed she had been having a secret affair with Jim Iyke. But despite all the controversies, Jim Iyke was still respected and admired by many as one of the most sought after actors in Nollywood. It’s unfortunate that in recent times, he has gone underground to have his peace.

My romance with older women —Aremu Afolayan N

ollywood actor, Aremu Afolayan, isn’t a gigolo. The younger brother of renowned film maker, Kunle Afolayan, has revealed that his love for dating older women has nothing to do with money.

The talented actor and son of late legendary actor, Adeyemi Afolayan, a.k.a Ade Love, said he is not bothered by what people say about him, so far he is happy doing what they criticise him for.

In a recent interview, he said, “ I love ladies that are older than me. It’s my business because I don’t find the good thing, the real love and happiness from the young chaps.’

•Aremu ‘They said I’m a gigolo right? I

Afolayan

owe no one any explanation for the way I live my life. They can criticize my film, but not my life.

They said I do rich women for money, how I wish I can do that because a gigolo doesn’t get broke like this. If I’m a gigolo I will never sell my properties to do a film of N16 million. I sold three of my cars to raise the money. I am not what people think I am.’

‘Can you imagine a situation where I sleep with my girl now and she will go and sleep with one yahoo boy or my daddy’s friend again because she needs money? So, I have to follow someone who is not a girl as they say, but a lady that is at least older than me. This is what I like; my life, not their life. So, that’s no one’s business. You see, I owe no one any explanation concerning this. I can only explain to God and until He comes, I can continue.’

STAR SPOT

Nollywood mourns again!

By ANOZIE EGOLE

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nce again, the Nigerian movie industry is in mourning. After the industry lost some of its vibrant stars to the cold hands of death earlier this year, it’s here again, digesting the death of another rising star, Genevieve Nene.

The light-skinned actress died last Sunday as she was recuperating from typhoid fever.

Before her death, Genevieve, who is a graduate from the Institute of Commerce, featured in many movies including Hottest Strippers, Hottest Virgins, Quest Of A Life Time, Romantic Heart, and Mistake Women Make, among others.

Also, the Ebonyi State-born actress made several appearances as a video vixen, featuring in the videos of artistes such as May D, Reekado Banks, Pasuma, Samklef’s “Birthday Late Genevieve Girl’ and Skripture’s ‘Sweet Nene Trouble.’

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OC Ukeje, Ehiz turn singers at Lip Sync Battle Africa

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ollywood actor, OC Ukeje and MTV Base VJ, Ehiz, stole the show last week Friday when they took the stage and delivered some electrifying performances to herald the musical reality competition, Lip Sync Battle Africa.

The duo who hosted the event, took the audience by surprise, singing and dancing ceaselessly, just as the MultiChoice Managing Director, John Ugbe, was carried away by the euphoria of the exclusive launch of the show.

At the company’s Head office, Lagos, venue of the launch, it was a different experience for the different people that graced the event. But the highlight of the show was the media category where blogger, Tosin Ajibade of Olorisupergal and Entertainment journalist, Hazeez Balogun, went head-to-head. While Tosin dazzled the crowd with Lagbaja’s ‘Koko below,’ Hazeez impressed with a surprise rap number by 50 cent titled ‘Patiently waiting.’

Prizes were presented to both contestants for participating.

Lip Sync Battle Africa is hosted by South Africa’s actress and TV presenter, Pearl Thusi and D’Banj. Contestants have the opportunity to mime two songs each and the winner is presented with the winning championship belt as well as earn the bragging right of being Africa’s first lip sync battle champion. In the first episode aired last Saturday, Derenle and Ebuka went head-to-head to determine the celebrity Lip Sync Battle champion.

Contestants at the or

SATURDAY VANGUARD, MAY 7, 2016—29

Olamide’s first female YBNL act drops first single Jabole

Rotimi Agbana 08137741609

Barely a week after Olamide’s protégé, Lil Kesh, exited YBNL to form and float his own record label; Olamide signed his first ever female artiste, Temi Ovwasa, on to the YBNL label. The undergraduate of Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso, has released her first single titled Jabole under the label imprint. The single which was produced by Pheelz, was officially released in the early hours of Wednesday

Vanguard confirms result of Tee Billz’s drug test

V

anguard has confirmed that the result of drug test undertaken by the embittered husband of Nigeria’s pop singer, Tiwa Savage, Tee Billz, which has gone viral on the internet is genuine.

The test report was confirmed after Vanguard E-News spoke on the telephone with one of the high ranking personnel of the laboratory.

The source, in conversation with Vanguard E-News confirmed that Tee Billz was actually in the facility of the lab but declined to disclose the nature of his business. But when we probed further and told them the result of the test has been made public, they concurred that if it was Tee Billz that published the result it could be assumed as authentic and genuine. “ We have a professional duty to keep all matters relating to our clients confidential and under no circumstances are we to reveal anything without the consent of the client. However, if the result was made public by the client, I assure you it can be considered authentic and true because he was here,” said the lab personnel.

According to the result of the test, Teebillz tested negative for the use of cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, oxycodone and every other form of hard drugs which counters the rumours that suggest he is a drug addict/coke head that is in debt because of drug abuse.

•Tee Billz

Ketchup wakes up after 20hours in coma Earlier in the week, there was a brief moment of pandemonium in the entertainment industry as news broke that Nigerian dance-hall singer, Ketchup, was in a coma, in far away Dubai. The show me your rozay crooner who traveled all the way to Dubai a week ago to shoot some music videos and celebrate his birthday, reportedly fell off a jet ski while out with his friends on Monday and fell into an immediate coma. It was gathered on Wednesday from a source close to the artiste that he came out of the coma after 20 hours. “We are all happy he’s out of coma now, because we were all really scared for him. He’s better now and will be back in Nigeria next week.”

Timaya invites fans to home-coming gig D

•Kiss Daniel

em Mama Records CEO, Timaya, is set to thrill music lovers to hit tracks of his such as I concur, Ukwu, Sexy Ladies, Bum Bum amongst others, at the Legend’s Real Deal Experience billed to hold in May 2016, at the Joseph Yobo Mini Stadium in Port Harcourt. The Bum Bum crooner will headline the city tour, which will also feature local acts, amazing onstage stunts, a full-sized rotating bar and game shows that would be accompanied by fun prizes.

The Legend Real Deal Experience, which has already visited Lagos and Onitsha will visit some other major cities in Nigeria in the coming weeks.

Kiss Daniel releases track list for forthcoming debut album, New Era eading G-Worldwide Entertainment act, L Kiss Daniel, has released the track listing for his muchawaited debut studio album titled New Era. Following the

release and success of his recent single Mama, the artist who recently became controversial as a result of discrepancies regarding his real age, released the 20track list for his forthcoming album. The track list include: new king, another day, jumbo, mama, gobe, napo, goodtime, give into, kudi, ghetto boys, laye, are you alright, alone, kiss me, sin city, upon me, woju, duro, all good and nothing dey. The album is set to be officially released later this month at an album launch and concert, at the prestigious Eko Hotel and Suites.

Dele Momodu prays for Tiwa Savage and estranged hubby, T’Billz In a recent post on his Instagram page, Ovation publisher, Dele Momodu, took time off his busy schedule to say prayers for the troubled couple; “I pray God heals the deep wounds sustained by Tiwa Savage and the love of her life. Tunji Balogun during this difficult moment. Nothing is impossible if they are both willing and ready to forgive each other. We should put them in our prayers”, he said. The pop-singer’s estranged husband, T’Billz, has since his social media rants, subsequent denial and claims of being hacked, remained silent.

His whereabouts has been unknown ever since news broke that he was chased away from BankyW’s house by the latter’s mum.

Access Bank launches N1 billion fund for film industry Access Bank has launched a N1 billion ‘AccessNolly’ fund for the film industry. The ‘AccessNolly’ fund is primarily targeted at movie producers and distributors for the production and distribution of films of international quality and standard. Speaking at the launch event, executive director, Business Banking Division, Titi Osuntoki, said, “ The fund is primarily targeted at players within the industry that have the capacity to produce and distribute movies as well as meet other set eligibility criteria, some of which are number of movies produced, number of years in the industry and annual business turnover”

•Timaya

Uche Jombo’s brother, Nelson launches new movie ‘Good Home’

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elson has once again proven that he is in for some serious business, as he unveils “Good Home”, another strong allusion to one of the vices of the society that most people have decided not to talk about-Human Traffickingespecially as he drives his message from the point of the role of the supposed entrepreneurs in this societal ill.

The plot of “Good Home” focuses on the CEO of a trucking company, who is acquitted during a high profile human trafficking case, but when he wants to go legitimate, his dodgy business partner does everything in his power to keep their arrangement going.

The movie which was directed by Edward Uka •From set of and produced by Nelson Jombo under the Nelson 'Good Home' Jombo Production stars the likes of Seun Akindele, Okey Uzoeshi, Vincent Opurum, Maureen Okpoko, Eric Obinna, Nkechinyere Urum Jombo, Ejike Ibedilo and Laurel JE. “Good Home” would be showing exclusively on Iroko TV, Irokoworld, Channel 23, and Channel 211 on Star Times.

30—SATURDAY

Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Marijuana helps beats cancer, but...

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he use of marijuana, Cannabis sativa, as a cancer therapy is gaining acceptance, but remains controversial. But there’s an evergrowing body of research that shows this ancient plant can’t be written off as “dope.” There are specific hemp compounds that are proving to be potent allies against all types of aggressive cancers—and have no mind-altering effects.

When 54-year-old wife and mother Sharon Kelly was diagnosed with Stage IV non-small-cell lung cancer, she was told that the cancer in her body had made its way to her lymph nodes and the lining of her stomach, and that she could expect to survive for somewhere between six and nine months. She was informed that radiation and chemo were not valid treatment options for a patient with stage four lung cancer, as they would likely only make her sicker. Instead, they urged her to return home to her family and live out what was left of her life as enjoyably as possible.

Kelly’s medical scans indicated the presence of a large, 5cm tumour in her left lung as well as numerous cancerous lymph nodes in her chest and neck. The scan also revealed large amounts of fluid around Kelly’s heart, which medical professionals said was a sign of the presence of cancer in her left lung’s lining.

After several months of inaction, Kelly all but ordered that something else be attempted. Reluctantly, her medical team chose to begin chemo about two months after her initial diagnosis. After two months of chemotherapy treatment, Kelly received yet another blow when she tested positive for an EGFR, which affects about 15 percent of American lung cancer sufferers. The presence of the mutation meant she could no longer undergo traditional chemotherapy treatments.

Without adequate help from the medical community, Kelly’s youngest daughter turned to the internet and began reading numerous testimonials from cancer patients who had found relief with cannabis oil, an alternative treatment method

•Cannabis oil

•Cannabis extract and leaves used by many chronicthat this method didn’t disease sufferers. With make her tired, and that it nothing left to lose, Kelly allowed her to take the full decided to try it for herself, recommended dose without and began taking a small complication. dose orally several times a She eventually upped her day. dosage to two grams per After noting how tired she day, and paired the became after taking the oil treatment with an orally, she began alkalizing, clean-eating researching cannabis diet. Within a few months, suppositories, or drugher tumour had shrunk administration systems that from 5cm to 2.1cm and her are inserted into the rectum, lymph nodes had retained vagina or urethra. She found their normal size. Her

If you’re interested in taking this route, be sure to do extensive homework about the provider and dosage

doctors noted the fluid surrounding her heart was also no longer visible.

After seven months of cannabis oil treatment, Kelly’s scans indicated she was completely cancer-free, shocking her oncologist and others familiar with her case. Months after her initial diagnosis, Kelly remains cancer-free, and credits the use of cannabis oil for not only her otherwise unexplained recovery, but also her ability to live out the rest of her life amidst the love and comfort of her family.

This is incredible and very exciting for the future of treating such stubborn cancers. Now, should you climb on board the medical marijuana bandwagon?

A word of caution — as with all natural supplements and herbs.

If you’re interested in taking this route, be sure to do extensive homework about the provider and dosage.

The research is clear: There is a tremendous promise in this new plant-derived treatment for cancer that may have fewer side effects than the current conventional therapy options.

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—31

08 11 6759 759 081 6759759

Female bodybuilder shows off incredible leg strength by crushing watermelons between her thighs FEMALE bodybuilder who claims to have “the world’s A deadliest thighs” shows off her

incredible leg strength by using them to crush three watermelons.

Personal trainer Kortney Olson, from Australia, is her country’s first

female arm wrestling champion and an Olympic weightlifting coach. She demonstrates her fruity talents in this video, obliterating the juicy melons wearing nothing but a black bra, g-string and killer heels.

Flexing her muscular pins for the

What a hero!

heeky motorist pulled up C right in front of the sneaky camera and blocked its

view. A HERO motorist saved unsuspecting speeders from fines by taking matters into his own hands when he spotted a police camera van.

After spotting the wellpositioned vehicle on the side of the road in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, the unknown driver pulled a clever prank on the traffic cops. He pulled his sports car in as close the police van as possible and lifted the boot to block the camera, so it was unable to catch speeding cars as they passed.

The unknown man then left his car there and went across the road for a pint in his local boozer, The Crabtree.A worker at the pub said the C M Y K

mobile van regularly sets itself up on the stretch of road outside.

One passerby witnessed the clever stunt and took a photo, which he later posted on photosharing site Imgur.

He captioned it: “Someone just parked in front of a speed camera, lifted his boot so nobody could get caught speeding.

Then went to the pub across the road.”

Traffic police say obstructing a speed camera could amount to perverting the course of justice, depending on circumstances.

The image has

been viewed nearly two million times and hundreds of thankful drivers have shared their support.

Some have even hailed the mysterious driver a “champion”, and “the hero we don’t really deserve but it’s pretty great to have”. One Imgur user declared “WHAT A GUY”, while another said: “Buy that man a beer!”

However others were not so impressed, with some pointing out the important role speed camera play in keeping roads safe.

One wrote: “Maybe just don’t f****** drive over the speed limit, assholes?”

Another said: “Yeah, what a hero, helping people to speed down residential streets.”

While one mused: “How is this a good thing?”

camera, Kortney explains she had just arrived back from a video shoot abroad and admitted her legs were “a little shot” but she was going to “give it a whirl” anyway.

Lining up her watermelons, she takes the smallest first and places it between her thighs.She then turns around and squeezes. Seconds later the fruit explodes, sending pink flesh shooting out.

Kortney giggles before sampling the fruit, quipping: “Not bad.” After mopping herself down she takes the second largest melon and performs the trick in a slightly different position, this time lying on her side.

As the melon goes “pop” the man behind the camera admits: “That didn’t have a chance, that was like, fast.” For the final fruit, which Kortney dubs “the big daddy”, she prepares to “crush the hell out of it” by placing her weight on her hands and crossing her outstretched legs.

After a couple of seconds of squeezing the huge watermelon explodes, juice oozing onto the blue protective plastic covering she had placed underneath her. Clearly pleased with her work, Kortney jokes: “And that, my friends, is how you serve up a favourite summertime dish.” She uploaded the insane video to social media last year, winning herself an army of fans online.

Six weeks ago she posted another video on her Instagram account where she crushed six watermelons between her thighs in 60 seconds.

Not satisified, she captioned the video: “I think I can do better. I need a towel boy.”

Chinese man who looked heavily pregnant for more than a decade ffinally inally has huge 2s ved 2stt tumour remo removed

A

MAN in China has had a 12-year-old tumour removed after it left him looking heavily pregnant.

Zhang Cheng, 33, spotted the growth in 2004, but he could not pay for the surgery to have it removed. The cash-strapped man tried to heal his tumour with traditional medicine, but the growth kept getting bigger. At its heaviest, the benign tumour weighed 33lbs and was threatening his health. Zhang was talked into borrowing a large sum of money to pay for the operation.

Medics said that the swollen mass was putting too much pressure on Zhang’s internal organs.

Zhang was taken to the Military General Hospital in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. The heavy tumour was removed in a six-hour operation by experts from three departments. Even though the

surgery was a success, Zhang is still at risk of heavy bleeding.

Lead surgeon Doctor Dai Ruiwu said: “Due to the tumour ’s position the surgery was

extremely risky. There was a high chance of heavy bleeding.

“The patient is now being kept in the intensive care unit for further observation.”

32—SA TURD AY Vanguard, MA Y 7, 2016 32—SATURD TURDA MAY

eds onyy Obuh’s son w weds Lat e Deaconess A de o rest Ton Late Ade dettoun Nunu laid tto

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th igh profile personalities from far and wide stormed Sapele last Saturday, April 30 for the burial rites in honour of Late Deaconess Gladys Eduwirofo Onoghomoren Adetoun Nunu, Nee Amayo, alias Ogbodu. The funeral service for peaceful repose of the soul of the deceased took place at Methodist Church of Nigeria, Diocese of Edo/Delta State, Sapele Circuit. Photos by Akpokona Omafuire

R-L: Boyewa Nunu, Arch. (Mrs.) V.U. Udoh, Amas B. and Mrs. Misan Bemigho Paige.

amid pomp

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t couldn’t have been a grander occasion, in terms of ambiance, splendour, panache and the richness of the guest list when the son of former PDP governorship aspirant in Delta State, Sir Tony Obuh wedded last Saturday, April 30th. The couple, Ovino Efekodha and Tony Obuh (Jnr) exchanged marital vows at St. Anthony Catholic Chaplaincy, Asaba and thereafter proceeded to the Event Centre, also in Asaba, for the reception which was a super deluxe affair.

Temi Jaiye Nunu and Misan Bemigho Paige

L-R: Grooms parents, Sir Tony Obuh & wife, couple and bride's parents, Rt. Hon Prince Anthony Efekodha and wife, Chief (Mrs) Betty Efekodha.

L-R: Mrs. Rosemary Nunu, Elder Alfred Ada Nunu , Rt. Rev. Samuel .K. Nortey , Bishop of Methodist Church, Nyanya Abuja and Mr. Micahel Nun.

A cross section of some wives of the ArchBishops and Bishops of Methodist Church Nigeria. R-L: Mrs. Stephen, Mrs. Adeleye, Mrs. Aluko.

Deaconess Roli Uduaghan, HE, Dame Edith Okowa, the couple and HE Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa.

L-R: Mrs. Rita Amuka (right) and Mrs. Yeye Rewane.

R-L: Engr. E.A. Amatosero, Amb. A.J. Nanna and Mrs. Obhiemin Patience.

Vict oria A dande mar ks 6 1 Victoria Adande marks 61 st A woman of substance, Victoria Adande marked her 61 birthday at her Maryland Estate home in Lagos recently. It was a jolly timeout for her, family and friends. Photos by Akeem Salau.

L-R: Mrs. Ibris Grace, Mrs Modupe Lawale; Mrs Lizzy Abiola; Mrs Victoria Adande (celebrant)Ms Enitan Akerele and Mrs. Funsho Taiwo C M Y K

L-R: Her Excellency Dame Edith Okowa, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan and wife, Deaconess Roli Uduaghan at the Church.

L-R: Mrs Ayo Samo; Mrs Aina Dosumu; Mrs Victoria Adande, celebrant and Mrs Taiwo L-R: Mrs Ogor Obuh, HRM, the Dein of Agbor, Sir Tony Obuh with Couple.

Ogunshola.

SATURDAY Vanguard Vanguard,, MAY 7, 2016—33

By Gbenga Olarinoye, Osogbo

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overnor Rauf Aregbesola has left no one in doubt about his ability since his assumption of office about five years ago. One of his new innovations is the one the administration is currently tinkering with through the introduction of standard measure and scale for transactions in all markets in the state.

The plastic measure size that is being used in the state at the moment was inherited from Oyo State when Osun was carved out of the state on August 27, 1991, and since then, no administration had paid attention to several complaints from buyers about the undue advantage the measure, used mainly to sell grains, affords sellers.

There are insinuations that the plastic measure that is currently in use in the state shortchanges buyers for they do not get the real value for what they pay for, meaning that buyers have been paying for items not supplied to them.

Also, from findings in the state, notwithstanding usage of weight to sell frozen foods in many towns, there have never been a generally accepted government approved weight.

Implication The implication of this is that sellers of frozen foods have been employing whatever weight they find good for them to sell to consumers, who have been left with no choice than accept the situation.

However, in many instances, disagreement over measure have led to major threat to public peace.

THAT PEACE MAY REIGN IN MARKETS:

Osun introduces standardized measure, weight It is apparently for peace to reign, and for all sides not to be cheated, that the Osun State Government concluded arrangements towards the introduction of standardized weight and measuring scales in transacting business and commerce in all markets across the state.

The project had been in the pipeline for more than two years, during which sensitization and enlightenment had been done, especially among market women and men and other stakeholders on the need to use standardized measuring gauge and weight for transacting commercial activities in the state.

•Governor Rauf Aregbesola Despite the fact that many of the fights occasioned by disagreements over measure are largely unreported, a few incidents have even gone up to litigation level, especially those ones involving dealers in cash crops.

Welcomed development From all indications, the initial fear that the new innovation would be rejected by market men and women have been discovered to be unfounded. The project has been welcomed by market men and women as well as other stakeholders, while more than 40,000 customized measuring weights and gauges have been procured by the state government for distribution to stakeholders at affordable prices.

Explaining why Aregbesola’s administration is introducing standardized weight and measure during visits to markets across nine cities in the state, former

Commissioner for Commerce, Industries, Cooperatives and Empowerment, Mr. Ismail Adekunle Jaiyeoba Alagbada said that the establishment of standardized weight and measure in the state was a Federal Government law being made active in Osun State.

He explained that weights and measures constitute item 63 on the Exclusive Legislative List of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That is, only the Federal Government can legislate on weights and measures in the country.

The laws made in this respect include Weights and Measures Act CAP W3LFN, 2004 (formally Weights and Measures ACT CAP 467LFN 1999); Pre-Shipment Inspection of Export Act CAP P25LFN, 2004; Weights and Measures Standardization of Indigenous Measures Regulations, 1992; and the Weights and Measures Fees Regulations.

Alagbada maintained that standardized weights and measures is critical to establishing consumers’ confidence and equity, adding that all over the world, standardizing weights and measurements is critical to equity and justice in an effort to establish consumers’ confidence and economic security.

Alagbada further explained: “When a housewife buys a bowl of beans and when a butcher sells his portion of meat, there is an implied faith that

T

he name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runs into it and they are saved. Your only sure point of safety in life is in the Lord.

No matter the challenges, victories are available to you in His name. I see Him helping you out of that dilemma that has almost drowned you. Don’t trust in man, for the arm of flesh will fail you. Like David, refuse to trust in chariots and horses. Pharaoh and others trusted in them but were disappointed. Know that vain is the help of man but through God you shall do valiantly.

In Isa. 41:10-11, God said, “fear thou from sin. Jesus, said to Him, Satan you not; for I am with thee: be not but this time around, the Israelites can find nothing of yours in me. called on God through His Prophet dismayed; for I am thy God: I will Imagine for a moment. The only strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; Samuel. God’s prophet simply told reason why the Israelites were them to make up with God. When the yea, I will uphold thee with the right suffering in the hands of the hand of righteousness. Behold, all Israelites obeyed, Samuel cried out to philistines was because they had sin God on their behalf and God heard His they that were incensed against thee against God. Thus, sin must be hated shall be ashamed and confounded: intercession and helped the Israelites with all of your being and at all cost. to defeat the philistines that always they shall be as nothing; and they that Their sin shut the door against God’s strife with thee shall perish”. If God defeated them in time past. Please, help. Make up with God right now and permit me to say this to you.

Sin of be for you, who can be against you. you shall surely receive the help of Thus, He says to you to fear not because any kind does not exalt. It brings God. The scripture says, “and as shame, defeat, pain, sorrow and He has not given you the spirit of fear Samuel was offering up the burnt but the Spirit of power, of love and of sufferings. It shuts the door against the offering, the philistines drew near to grace of God. It limits and frustrates a sound mind. Trust God, He cannot battle against Israel: but the Lord lie. Fear has torment and it is the the potential of a man. Great destinies thunder on that day upon the have suffered shipwreck because of sin. absent of faith. As long as there is fear, philistines, and discomfited them; and there is very little that God can do. Rise It is time to repent and turn away from they were smitten before it right now.

The only reason why you above the fear and enter into the Israel. And the men of Israel strength of God that faileth not. His probably are not walking victoriously went out of Mizpeh, and might be because of the sin in your strength always prevails. The truth of pursued the philistines, and the matter is that His strength is life. Satan can’t stop a man that is free smote them, until they came available. He said, not to fear and that He will both strengthen and For more details, contact us at Christ Reality Church, beside Gossard help you. Surely God is Hotel, opposite First Bank Sports Ground, Community Road, Satellite wonderful.

Town or P.O.Box, 3196, Yaba Lagos. Tel: 08023062635, 08168955932; Remember He said that all 08033378769.

E-mail: johnson_cr m@yahoo.com.

Website: that is incensed against you www.christrealityministries.org. Our account details are Pastor Johnson shall be put to shame. Now Omomadia, Guaranty Trust Bank, A/C Nos. 0005171407; Christ Reality look at what happened to the Ministries, Zenith Bank A/C 1011711622. philistines who came against the Israelites, God’s covenant Worship with us on Sundays, 1st Service: 7.45 am – 9:15am; 2nd service children. In 1 Sam. 7, the 9:15 – 11:30am. Wednesday World Revelation 6pm. Counseling days philistines as usual came Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. 11Am – 5pm daily or by appointment. against the Israelites thinking Showers of blessing every 2nd - 4th Sat. of each month 6 a.m – 7.15am. that it was business as usual

God will help you (III)

C M Y K

as goods are exchanged for money, there is the same just balance for buyer and seller.

“However, experiences in almost all present-day commercial transactions indicate that such faith is often lacking. Great variations exist in the weights and measures used in different localities; and even at times, in those used by different individuals in the same locality.”

The Coordinating Director on the project, Mr. Osho Abimbola, while addressing market women, stressed further on the importance of the weight and measure, saying that the programme when it became operational in the state, would create large number of business and employment opportunities for citizens of the state as large number of unemployed youths in the state could acquire vocational training in repairs and maintenance of scales.

Speaking on the project during the visits, the President of Market Women in the state, Alhaja Asiahu Ashindemade, explained that the government had interacted with the association on the introduction of weights and measures, assuring that her members were ready to comply with the Federal Government’s directive.

To ensure hitch-free implementation, Alagbada disclosed that monitoring units would be placed at strategic locations across the state to ensure compliance, adding that the control posts to be manned by cadets of Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme, OYES, are there for people to visit and complain whether they have been cheated or not.

under Bethcar. Then Samuel took a stone and set it between Mizpeh and Shen and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, hitherto hath the Lord helped us “(1 Sam 7: 10-12). You can see that the moment they made up with God, God turned the table against their enemies. The Israelites were greatly helped by God and their enemies were put to shame. The scripture went further to say that the children of Israel recovered all that their enemies had taken from them.

Return back to God and the God that helped the Israelites to defeat their enemies and to recover what their enemies had stolen will also help you mightily and you shall recover your blessings. Know that God is not a respecter of persons. What He did for one He can do for another and much more. God help you and help our great nation Nigeria.

Have you given your life to Jesus? If not, please pray this prayer. Father, I come to you as I am. I invite Jesus into my life to be my personal Lord and Saviour. Wash me cleanse with the blood of Jesus and empower me with the power of your Holy Spirit. Thank you Father for saving my soul and making me your child.

34—VANGUARD, SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2016

ENDLESS SUBSIDY PAYMENTS:

The dysfunctional refineries’ connection

By Michael Eboh

T

he controversy on whether the country should continue or discontinue subsidy payments would continue to rage until Nigeria addresses the challenges confronting crude oil refining in the country.

This is the view of stakeholders in the Nigerian petroleum industry, who have over the years, been divided on whether the Federal Government should fully deregulate the downstream petroleum sector, allowing market forces to determine the price of Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, also known as petrol; adopt partial deregulation; or continue to regulate the sector.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, had a couple of weeks ago, disclosed that the country was spending N1 trillion annually on petroleum products subsidy, stating that the removal of subsidy would ensure that the amount is channeled to more productive use in the economy.

Presently the Federal Government is subsidizing petrol to the tune of N12.88 per litre. Using Nigeria’s estimated daily fuel consumption of 40 million litres per day, this translates to subsidy payment of about N515.2 million daily. This also translates to subsidy payments of N15.46 billion in one month and N46.38 billion over a three-month period.

On the one side, Professor Adeola Adenikinju, Director, Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law (CPEEL), University of Ibadan, argued that the fuel subsidy regime

•Oil Refinery is unprofitable and wasteful and should be removed without delay.

He called for the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector, so as to allow for increased private sector participation.

According to him, current emphasis on crude petroleum exports must stop and be replaced with seeing petroleum as source of energy and growth enabler.

He also advocated the promotion of vertical integration within the oil industry in order to develop a fully integrated economy that is able to generate jobs and development.

Speaking in the same vein, President of the Nigerian Association for Energy Economics, NAEE, Mr. Wumi Iledare, called for partial deregulation of the petroleum industry, since it is not possible to adopt total deregulation at the moment.

He said, “My opinion is that government should stop subsidizing private sector, let oil marketers go and look for risk capital. It is also not possible they will have petrol and not sell it, especially if they went out to borrow the money.

“What we have now is that the marketers are depending on the government and the

government needs to find a way to let them go and look for foreign exchange to bring petroleum into Nigeria, sell it at the market clearing price, which might be N120 per litre, or N125 per litre and there would be a time at which it is going to be N100 or N90 per litre as the market stabilizes. Government cannot allow itself to be taken for a ride.”

However, the Nigerian Labour Congress, NLC, said it is opposed to subsidy removal at the moment, stating that the removal of fuel subsidy without the capacity to refine crude oil for local consumption would unleash hardship on workers and indeed the average Nigerian.

According to the NLC, as long as the country continues to depend on imported refined products, deregulation and the abandonment of a subsidy scheme will lead to hardship.

The NLC maintained that it is illegal for the Minister of Petroleum Resources or anyone to fix petrol prices without recourse the Board of the Petroleum

Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, which it claimed had not been constituted.

According to the NLC, the PPPRA is the only government agency empowered by law to recommend the prices of petroleum products in the country, while it called on the Federal Government to constitute the board of the PPPRA to empower the agency to determine the pump price in line with current realities.

However, irrespective of the disagreement surrounding the subsidy issue, the stakeholders are unanimous in their views that the country’s refineries need to be working at full capacity, while newer refineries should be set up to meet the country’s crude oil refining demand.

Presently, the refineries production capacity are 445,000 barrels of crude oil per day, which, according to Kachikwu, even when producing at 100 per cent of their capacity, they can still not meet more than 50 per cent of Nigeria’s PMS demand.

Realising this challenge, the Federal Government is encouraging private investors to venture into building of refineries so as to support the existing refineries.

It is expected that when the Dangote refineries, the proposed co-located refineries and other modular refineries come on stream, the importation of PMS would end.

Already, the Federal Government said it had set a three-year deadline to achieve selfsufficiency in refined petroleum products and to become a net exporter of petroleum products.

According to the government, the objective is to increase domestic supply of refined products and reduce demand on foreign exchange for importing refined products in the country.

Therefore, it is expected that with the current plans for sufficiency in crude oil refining, the controversy surrounding subsidy payments would be laid to rest, while funds expended in that regard would be channeled to more productive economic uses. The question is when will this be?

Oil production in Lagos: The concerns, the celebrations

By Michael Eboh igeria’s quest for increased crude oil N production and reserves is on the

verge of being achieved with the commencement of oil exploration in offshore Lagos, at the Aje field located in Oil Mining Lease 113.

Though the actual quantity of current production was not stated, it is expected that production from the well would contribute to Nigeria’s attainment of four million barrels per day crude oil target and also help achieve the daily target of 2.5 million barrels.

It is also expected to boost the country and Lagos State’s revenue profile, generate employment and make positive contribution to the economy of the country in general.

However, the commencement of production also raises certain questions and concerns, especially as it concerns the management of proceeds from the field. This is mainly due to the large-scale corruption that has bedeviled the Nigeria’s oil and gas sector over the years.

There is also concern around environmental management, mostly because of the fact that most of the communities in the Niger Delta are currently battling with environmental pollution and degradation of immense proportion, due to oil exploration activities within the area.

Aje is an offshore field located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 113 in the western part of Nigeria, in the C M Y K

•Gov Ambode Dahomey Basin. The field is situated in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,000 metres about 24 km from the coast.

The Aje Field contains hydrocarbon resources in sandstone reservoirs in three main levels - a Turonian gas condensate reservoir, a Cenomanian oil reservoir and an Albian gas condensate reservoir.

Panoro Energy, one of the owners of the oil field, disclosed that AGR TRACS International calculated the gross Cenomanian oil Proved plus Probable Reserves estimate associated the Aje-4 and Aje-5 wells, and the gross Contingent Resources estimate associated with the future drilling of Aje-6 and Aje-7 wells.

At that time, the company said AGR TRACS International calculated these as 23.4 million barrels (MMbbl) and 15.7MMbbl respectively (on a gross basis), indicating a mid-case expected ultimate recovery of 39.1MMbbl from the Cenomanian Oil Reservoir once all four wells have been drilled.

AGR TRACS International also calculated the Turonian gas and condensate/oil best estimate gross contingent resource as 163 million

barrels of oil equivalent (MMboe).

Former Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources for Lagos State, Mr. Taofiq Tijani, had during the announcement of the discovery of oil in the state, disclosed that Lagos had done its due diligence about the activity of oil and gas within the state and was aware of the different status and level of activities.

He said the state is aware of companies that have drilled and found oil, but are yet to commence operation after about seven years.

He said, “We were aware when they found the oil and they contacted us so that we can work in partnership to develop that block. So we are in touch with them. We know about another block owned by Sunlink. We have also been interacting with all the professional groups, Geologists, Geo-physicists’, petroleum engineers and stakeholders to know about the kind of resources we found within our offshore, onshore Lagos.

“We have been told all along, that offshore Lagos is also a potential oil producing region like the Niger Delta, if they do enough exploration and exploitation activities. We know that the reservoir that we are talking about of the new discovery will amount to that of the Jubilee Field in Ghana where they are now producing.

“So it is not news to us that they found oil, it is a thing of joy that they put in money to be able to explore and make arrangement for production.”

“What then is the economic impact of this discovery to the state? As for the economic impact for Nigeria and Lagos in particular, it has a very positive economic implications for Nigeria. Considering the fact that Nigeria has made a projection that we are going to achieve certain billion barrels of reserves in certain years. We have not been able to make

good the projection because most of the international oil companies are not doing what they are supposed to do – developing their resources.”

He had blamed the inability of the other companies to start production on the absence of a proper fiscal regime, especially with the delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

Panoro Energy ASA, an independent Exploration and Production (E&P) company, with assets in Nigeria and Gabon, in conjunction with its partner, the Operator of OML 113, Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited, had earlier in the week announce the first oil production from the Aje field, offshore Lagos.

According to Panoro, subsea installation activities had been underway at Aje since January and were completed in early March ready for the hook-up of the Front Puffin Floating Production, Storage and Offloading, FPSO, which arrived in Nigeria on the 16th of March.

The company said oil produced from the Aje field will be stored on the Front Puffin which has production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day and storage capacity of 750,000 barrels, adding that flow rates will be provided in Panoro’s next operations update, following a period of commissioning and well stabilisation.

Commenting on the development, Panoro’s Chief Executive Officer, John Hamilton, said, “We are extremely pleased to announce the start of first oil production at Aje. This is a transformational milestone for Panoro and represents a great achievement by the Aje project teams. “It is also a key building block in our strategy to become a full cycle E&P company, focused on West Africa. The commencement of production at Aje is also significant for Nigeria as it is the first commercial production for the country in the emerging Dahomey Basin.”

VANGUARD, SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2016—35

Akpabio’s big shoes and I

of the way we are structured and that is why we are going the way we are going. We have structured it in phases, and that is what you would be seeing in the next few years if the Lord tarries.

When my predecessor came, there was total decay in infrastructure. So, what we needed to do was to try and arrest that and by doing that, it was like somebody laying a foundation. If you have to build a skyscraper, you do not put a quack that would come and do a bungalow.”

“We needed to lay a foundation of reliable infrastructure. That is what we are building on, •Gov Udom and you do not wait until Emmanuel you complete all the infrastructure before you now start to build on the economy. So, it is not a question of shoe size. I think we are going somewhere as Akwa Ibom.”

Government is a continuum. If That Mr. Emmanuel has a vision someone gets into power in Year of where he is going was reflected in way he drew memories of the past 2007, the shoe size is 2007. If I get into the glories of the state, especially in power in 2015, the shoe size is 2015. industry and sports.

Whereas Akpabio left a memorable So, which one is bigger? I do not legacy in infrastructure which some know how a 2007 shoe would be now couch as the hardware of bigger than a shoe of 2015. The 2015 development, Emmanuel said he is not just building upon the shoe size is actually bigger! infrastructure but also bringing an innovative software applications to State in the last eleven months. the state’s development.

The sign that Emmanuel has gone far from “Then you talk about soft the cut throat world of banking where infrastructure that you can’t see, you questions are answered in figures and codes can’t find. Take for example right now, was seen when some seemingly troublesome I set up a target that Akwa - Ibom in questions were asked that day. the next seven years, if you have 11 Asked to respond to the public perception players on the football field, I must that his predecessor, the larger than life produce four to five of the first incumbent Senate Minority Leader, Senator eleven,” he said in reference to the Godswill Akpabio left a very big shoe for him, administration’s plans for sports he went on a rather amusing narrative about development. shoe sizes.

“That is not something I can come “Government is a continuum. If someone and start openly discussing with gets into power in Year 2007, the shoe size is anybody. I am saying that in every 2007. If I get into power in 2015, the shoe size athletic event in this country, I must is 2015. So, which one is bigger? I do not have an Akwa- Ibomite there. That is know how a 2007 shoe would be bigger than a why you today, have a JSS student, shoe of 2015. The 2015 shoe size is actually and he is running for Nigeria in 200 bigger!” meters. We picked her from the village “Akwa Ibom is a little bit different because and trained her in our stadium.

—Gov Emmanuel

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

T

his penultimate Monday at the beginning of the week when bankers sit down to map out strategies for strengthening positions and playing the money market, Mr. Udom Emmanuel was in a totally different world. Just over two years ago, Emmanuel, left his top position as an executive director in one of the country’s leading banks, Zenith Bank to meddle into the murky waters of politics with his appointment as the Secretary to the Akwa Ibom State government.

His lift to the zenith of the state’s politics was rapid thereafter as within months he became governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP for the 2015 election.

When this correspondent met him just before the governorship primaries, the singsong in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom capital was Udom is Right, Is Bright and Fair....

But on this Monday having settled down as governor, the countenance and carriage of Mr. Emmanuel were visibly different from what one saw at our first meeting almost 18 months ago.

He was more political, more engaging and even more chatty!

The interactive session with Governor Emmanuel and selected journalists in the comfort of one of Lagos leading hotels was an opportunity for the new helmsman to pass on to the public the pace and pattern he has carved out in the administration of Akwa Ibom

Kogi’s Legislative Conundrum

Political Editor

emmanuelaziken@vanguardngr.com 08052201189

The Edo woman that pulled the tail of the tiger

At the beginning of the week when they should have been in deep mourning, members of the Edo State House of Assembly surfaced to unseat their speaker, Victor Tiger Edoror. Remarkably, Tiger Edoror was replaced by Mrs. Elizabeth Atvie, who became the first woman in the annals of the state legislature to serve as speaker. Of course, Tiger did not lay back and watch a woman take over his seat of influence. He tried to fight back but with the wind taken off his sail with revelations of disproportionate sharing of resources, his fight was albeit to no avail.

Not even the governor’s intervention was able to save him.

Unlike lions which hunt in family packs, tigers are known to be more of solitary hunters. Speaker Tiger Edoror according to some of his colleagues hunted and ate alone even when the members complained of hunger.

Given the recent developments in the state,

especially the face-off between Governor Adams Oshiomhole and his deputy, Dr. Pius Odubu, it was not surprising that some sought to link the developments in the House of Assembly to the governorship brawl between the governor and Odubu. But no such nexus exists, nearly all the actors affirm.

But what can be affirmed is the whispering campaign allegedly being mounted against one of the popular aspirants on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC. It is being claimed that the Enigies have been instructed not to receive him in any of his campaign visits. The instruction according to some arose from the fear that this particular aspirant could be a threat to the institution of the monarchy given what is alleged to be a genetic trait. But whether it is politics or persecution from enemies is an issue that would in the near future blow open.

It is a logjam that may yet stretch the limits of the country’s constitution. The refusal of the group of five in the Kogi State House of Assembly and Governor Yahaya Bello to heed the resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives taking over the functions of the Kogi State legislature continues to ruffle feathers.

The National Assembly had upon the powers conferred on it by Section 11 of the Constitution resolved to take over the affairs of the Kogi State House of Assembly following the stalemate that arose after five members of the House of Assembly overrode the decision of the majority of 15 members of the House.

The five members, reportedly with the support of Governor Bello have continued to sit in disregard to the resolution of the National Assembly. The stalemate has not been helped by the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, Mallam Abubakar Malami, SAN, who reportedly gave legal advise to the Inspector General of Police not to give backing to the resolution of the National Assembly.

It is rather unfortunate that the principal actors in the crisis have failed to trudge the letter and intents of the constitution and have rather followed sentiments in their approach to the crisis. It is rather interesting seeing the AGF who submitted

“So today what we are doing is that in 10 Federal Constituencies, you see some football pitches that can compete with that anywhere in the world. What is the difference between Serena Williams and a girl from my village? It is her exposure to facilities.

“In those days we used to hear of Ekarika, Friday Ekpo, Etim Esin, so we don’t have to lose sight of those things. So we are rolling these things back, most of these things, you won’t see them to read. So in the next seven years, we are coming with something that you can say we want to catch them young.

“By September, we would start the Talent Hunt, at least, one of the centres is ready. The other ones would be ready before September. So in 10 Federal Constituencies, we would start that and nothing is stopping me.

“Even today, even the little we are doing, look at where we picked Akwa United from, from nowhere, they won the FA Cup. Even you could see that even mentally, a mental alertness can change the situation of things.”

It was not out of place to ask Governor Emmanuel his attitude towards the opposition in the state. Again and again, Emmanuel who is now taking a front place position in the politics of the PDP having recently led the committee that zoned offices for the next executive was wont to affirm Akwa Ibom as a one-party state.

In his words, he has won over many of his former critics from the opposition.

“Over and over again, I made that point that we have only one project in Akwa Ibom, and we should all join hands to come and work for Akwa Ibom. As at today if you come to my government, there are a whole lot of people, they were those that were carrying brooms. So immediately they left the broom, I embraced them because they are Akwa Ibom people.”

At the beginning of his governorship, Mr. Emmanuel was faced with the controversy arising from the alleged invasion of the Government House by operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS during which they made discoveries of bales of dollars that were largely circulated on social media. What happened, the governor was asked?

“One thing I have to state clearly here is that the bale of money you saw on the internet had been on Google since 2011 or so, they just put the picture there, it didn’t come from Government House, I was there.

“Two, I want to also commend the president because immediately those guys came, I picked up a phone and called Mr. President, and he answered and he called the NSA immediately.

So they didn’t see a dime not to talk even of the money whose picture you saw outside there that they refer to.”

to the National Assembly when he bowed to the Senate during his ministerial screening now challenging the powers and resolution of the National Assembly!

King Fayose!

Governor Ayodele Fayose’s self appointed ranking as the country’s opposition leader may after all not be a fluke. By his actions he is gradually showing his influence not just in his native Ekiti State, but also in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. Fayose who was instrumental to the appointment of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as national chairman, this week showed his magic wand when he shocked many by appearing at a gathering of PDP Southwest stalwarts in Akure, Ondo State where many of those opposed to him had gathered to strategise on how to defeat his plot to return Sheriff as PDP chairman in the forthcoming national convention.

To the amazement of many, after Fayose appeared, the major stakeholders at the meeting including Governor Olusegun Mimiko, Chief Bode George among many others changed their opposition to adopt the zoning of the national chairman to the Northeast. Instead of the communiqué rejecting the national zoning arrangement, the Akure gathering adopted the recommendations as reportedly dictated

by Governor Fayose.

Even more, as an icing to the cake, it is understood that one of the princely positions zoned to the Southwest, National Publicity Secretary, has been sub-zoned to the Ekiti/Ondo axis. With Governor Mimiko not having a candidate in the race, the race has been reportedly left open for Governor Fayose’s Man Friday, Lere Olayinka!

36—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

KIDNAP OF SEN. ANISULOWO:

Police chief gives blow by blow account of how she was rescued •The plot, intrigue and rescue operation

By Emma Nnadozie, Crime Editor

S

even days after her abduction, the Ogun State Police on Tuesday rescued the former Minister of State for Education, Sen. Iyabo Anisulowo. She had been abducted by armed men at Sawonjo in Yewa North Local Government Area of the state.

The state Commissioner of Police, CP Abdulmajid Ali reveals to Saturday Vanguard details of the operation that led to her rescue.

Excerpts: “In the evening of April 27, 2016 at about 8 pm, I received a call from the Secretary to the State Government, that a top politician and former senator, Iyabo Anisulowo based in Ilaro, had been kidnapped. However, he stated that it was yet to be confirmed and promised to call back. I quickly put a call through to my Area Commander in Ilaro.

He said he heard the same thing but he was going there to confirm. Later on, the Area Commander called at about 11pm, that it had been confirmed, that the woman was kidnapped and they were looking for her vehicle.

Synergy “That same night, we organised a search party for her till the early morning of April 28, and no success. His Excellency, the Governor of Ogun State was contacted; he was also aware of it. Together with the SSG, Brigade Commander and the Area commander, we all converged at the Government House and proceeded to the farm. Her farm is not far from Igbogbila area, around Ilaro. We met her workers on her farm, who told us that at about 7pm, some people accosted them after they had closed from the farm and were going home. One of them with AK 47, another one with a C M Y K

machete, forced them to stop.

When they stopped, the armed men asked them to lie down, then stepped on them. They then hit the workers and drove away with the senator. I came back to the office, sat down with my security chiefs to plot our next move.

“We were waiting for the abductors to call us and tell us that they were the kidnappers and start negotiation. The first day, they refused to call; the second day, they called in the evening. When they called, they asked one of Mama’s boys who happened to work in the bank to be the only negotiator, that they would like to be talking to him alone. So, we had to get to the man called Mutiu Barkare. He is a bank manager and lives in Ibadan. That same night, we had to go to him as the Governor ordered that we must get him to Abeokuta. The Commissioner of Police, Oyo State, Oyebade Leye, was contacted to provide security. That same night, we brought the bank manager to Abeokuta, put him in a hotel and so the bargaining started. It wasn’t an easy thing. They were calling. I had to relocate my office to the Area Commander’s office in Abeokuta, just to be closer to the Government House and other places.

“The Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase was contacted. He immediately sent Technical and Intelligence Unit from Abuja to join me. The Assistant Inspector General of Polcie, AIG, Balla Hassan, moved from Zone Two to Abeokuta

permanently. It was a synergy that encompassed everybody. It showed how swiftly the police can respond to any situation. The IGP gave approval and the helicopter was brought in and so we started monitoring, plotting, bargaining

and discussing with them.

Movement into the forests “We moved into the forest within Ilaro to search. The vigilante service was called upon to move in as well. All those well known areas, uncompleted buildings, Igbogila areaa were searched. We were all searching and searching.

And as we were searching, information we received confirmed that they were moving. As we were closing in on them, they were moving.

Later, we received information that they were in Okeho, Oyo State. I got in touch with the CP Oyo. He sent his team. CP Lagos sent his team. We all met in Okeho. In some places we went, some people were picked up for interrogation.

Later, we learned that they had moved as we deployed so

Continues on page 37

•CP Abdulmajid Ali

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—37

Continues from page 24

Continues from page 36 many patrol vans, while check points were set up.

Fulani herdsmen, Hausa community “Fulani herdsmen were contacted as well as the Hausa community, because we didn’t even know which group had abducted her. But from the tone of the person that was negotiating with us, it did not sound like a Hausa or Yoruba man.

Through intelligence later, we found out that they had moved to a forest in Jabatan, Kwara State, then we contacted CP Kwara. Then we got information that they were moving towards Ogbomosho, but Ogbomosho was also blocked. We got another information that they were moving towards Offa, and we blocked the area and began stopand-search in all the towns. We learned that they were moving but not with Mama, that mama had been kept somewhere within our area here.

The intelligence team sent by the IGP kept providing accurate intelligence because you know, IG has said we should do intelligence-based policing, that the intelligence should do the job first

Ransacking Ogun and Kwara axis “We divided ourselves into groups: one in Kwara and another group in Ogun State and we kept on searching. Then, the man negotiating came up and said that they needed N200m. We made them realise that the person they had kidnapped happened to be a bad market, that Mama did not have N200m, and that if she had N200M, she would not be involved in farming, and that they should, please release her. They said she was a politician. The next day, they reduced it to N150m, and said that if there was no N150m, there was no Mama, and that they were going to kill her. Later, he called again that he had seen us patrolling with helicopter, that we could never get them and that they were smarter. They added that they would come after the Commissioner of Police, they would come after the Governor, and they would do this, they would do that.

IGP’s intelligence team at work “Meanwhile, the intelligence team sent by the IGP kept providing accurate intelligence because you know, IG has said we should do intelligence-based policing, that the intelligence should do the job first. So, we had to zero down to other cases we had before on kidnapping. We brought some past case files, went through tried ones to see the link between past kidnap cases and Mama’s kidnap. Luckily, one worked. We now zeroed down to that person.

Luckily again, we found out that there was a collaboration between both of them and that one that we zeroed closer to, lives in Ilorin. So, we went to strike but unfortunately, we missed him. The next thing we heard was that the main target escaped but we

•CP Abdulmajid Ali were able to get the girlfriend. In as much as we were negotiating, we were also doing underground work and searching for Mama. We now used our local vigilante men who were moving from house to house and searching.

N5m reward “Then we said anyone that could give us useful information about the whereabouts of Mama would be rewarded with the sum of N5m. I came up with that idea and my colleagues said it was a good idea. And that day, people were calling, calling and they were taking advantage of it.

Some called and said we should contact a native doctor; some said I should send them money. They bombarded me with phone calls and it paid off. Yesterday, last Tuesday, the Police at Ilorin, after missing the main target, we asked them to come back so that we could sit down again and fashion out the next move.

Kidnappers interrogate CP “Suddenly, there was a call from one of the kidnappers. He asked if he was speaking with the Commissioner of Police? I said yes. He said ‘Why are you disturbing us? You are disturbing our business; You don’t want us to collect our money?’ He said ‘You have to pay us our money, because if you don’t pay us this money, you won’t see mama. You are using police to disturb our life, blocking all the roads and patrolling with helicopter; this is our business. We have been in this business for a while.’ He said we were disturbing them, that if I didn’t pay them the money, they would kill mama, and the blood would be on us. We told him that the blood would be on their head if they killed mama. He said the Governor could pay the ransom or Mama could call her political

The plot, intrigue and rescue operation associates to pay the money. I told him that it was not possible, because there was no loose money anymore due to the situation in the country right now. He said anything that happened we should take it like that, and that we would not hear from him again.

Apprehension “We were a little apprehensive because you can’t trust some of these boys. We were not comfortable. We said, in as much as we had got some targets, lets pick those soft targets and then through them, we could get the main one we are looking for. So, I decided to look inwards; all the workers in the farm, all the workers that assisted her in planting, those that assisted her in cleaning, we invited them. We interrogated them, took their statements, went through their phones. Then, they started being apprehensive as well. The next time the negotiator called, he said ‘all those people you arrested, they are innocent people. Why are you arresting them?’ We said ‘Ok, we are getting them. We are going to prove if they are innocent people’. Then, CP Lagos organised his own team. As he was monitoring that one, we were also doing patrol of our area again.

Aerial patrol to the rescue “At about 2:30pm, we embarked on aerial patrol. This time, I told the pilot to get a bit low as if we

were about to land. So, we flew very low, disturbing the area, and after all these things, we came back to the office to find out the next line of action. Then CP Lagos called and said he had picked the ring leader. Then another news came up that they had been forced to abandon Mama somewhere in Gbogbolahun area in Ogun State.

We sent the DPO to confirm and behold, it was true and she was found there. She was kept inside the forest for six days, an old woman of over 70 years. Luckily, she is a strong woman. She kept her faith that she was not going to die. She was brought here. We had to take her to the Governor of Ogun State for him to confirm and make sure she was the one. That was how we were able to burst this tough kidnap case.

Payment of ransom “The only thing I want you to know is that paying ransom will not deter these people. The best thing is that people should desist from crime because the kind of police we have now are ever ready.

We have all the equipment you can think of and the officers are young boys who are willing to work. In fact, I was so impressed when we went to Okeho. People didn’t know we had policemen on ground until the helicopter was about to land.

Even some policemen were afraid when they saw people moving towards us in the forest and they asked if they were the kidnappers but I said ‘No, these are our officers.’”

38—SATURDAY VANGUARD, MAY 7, 2016

Int el ttar ar ge ts African de vt via SMEs, business Intel arge gets devt empowerment among women, youths

F

or the last eight years, Intel Foundation, in partnership with governments, educational institutions, non profit organizations, entrepreneurs, business leaders and private enterprise, has worked to meet the challenge of harnessing the power of entrepreneurship to benefit economies around the world especially African region Entrepreneurship and innovation are fundamental drivers of sustainable growth. A thriving entrepreneurial culture is supported by education, investment, and infrastructure. Intel, building on its heritage of innovation, collaborates MD/CEO Novo Health Africa, Dr Dorothy Jeff-Nnamani (3rd Right) with with governments, Healthcare Executives from five other countries, hosted by President/CEO educators, NGOs and Cleveland Clinics, Dr Toby Cosgrove (3rd Left) to reflect on global healthcare industry to help build leadership challenges and management, USA capacity in each of these areas. So individuals have entrepreneurship, Intel and its reliant and for economic and the opportunity to obtain the skills, technology partners have embarked on several social benefits. It is important and resources they need to build successful empowering programmes, first to to know that educating girls has businesses that drive innovation, create educate the African girl with the multiplier effect – expanding employment, accelerate economic growth necessary and available economic opportunities for and have a positive impact on society. technological tools such as the use of families, communities, and Realising the benefit of technology on internet and others while in school, nations. human development, SMEs, that would empower her for selfThis Intel initiative commits

ICAN tasks members on entrepreneurial devt he 51st President of the Institute of Chartered T Accountants of Nigeria,

(ICAN), Otunba Samuel Femi Deru, in a recent programme organised by an arm of the Institute, Amuwo & District Society, called on ICAN members in the country to develop skills in entrepreneurial schemes that could help them generate more income in addition to their accountancy profession, considering the oil fall in the international market that has dealt a big blow to the Nigerian economy.

According to him, diversification into entrepreneurship and agriculture would save the economy from total collapse.

Centre is the 51st ICAN President, Otunba Samuel Femi Deru, flanked left is Chairman, He advised government to invest in agriculture and Amuwo & District Society, (ICAN) Chidi Otumba, and other board members of the District other non oil sectors that Society, during National President visit recently in Lagos. would promote economic 2015. He said further that the growth and development. Deru tasked members involved visit to some outstanding District has sustained its Journal, on integrity and professionalism which ICAN corporate organisations within the ICAN Amuwo Journal which has has been known for all over the world.

District where ICAN members are become acclaimed as a veritable Also, in a way to encourage accountancy carrying out their professional skills. source of authoritative and students in Lagos State Polytechnic, the venue of In addition, Chief host and professional material, even as the the event, Deru promised that the Governing Chairman, Amuwo & District Society, District has sponsored one HND Council will donate some Laptops and Chidi Otumba, said, since inception, Distinction and one Bachelor’s accounting books that would help them succeed Exco members have been wonderful in Degree (Honours) 1st Class in their career. making meaningful contributions. candidate for scholarship under Part of the activities which were to add flesh to Otumba said, the District has the Institute’s graduate the event was to communicate to the President, participated in different conferences in Scholarship Scheme among the update on the activities of Amuwo District other states and alongside this others. since the commencement of the 2015/2016 development, immediate past Considering the role of tenure of the executive management committee Chairman, Pastor Moses Malomo and entrepreneurship in nation as well as challenges confronting the District by extension, ICAN Amuwo received building, Otumba said, “We are Society. The programme of activities also the ICAN Merit Award for the year developing our version of C M Y K

to expanding digital literacy skills for young women in developing countries. Intel is beginning the effort in Africa where the gender gap is the greatest.

From what is gathered, Intel has worked for decades to improve education globally, investing more than $1 billion in the past decade alone, and continuing to invest at a rate of approximately $100 million a year. This includes the efforts to provide hands-on training and exposure to careers for girls and young women.

The youths are not left out of this initiative as Intel Foundation is enhancing entrepreneurship and innovation skills among young students, educators and communities around the globe.

From the management source, Intel Youth Enterprise programme focuses on developing ideation and innovation skills among students by giving them an opportunity to a work on a real challenge faced by a community on livelihood.

“The programme is targeted for students with good technology skills, in the age group of 16-20 years and currently in a formal education system. It is designed to train these students on a framework so as to harness their innovation skills to create solutions that enhance the livelihood of underserved youth in their country through the use of technology.”

These programmes will help SMEs, entrepreneurial process in African region to position its economic opportunities in today’s competitive global marketplace.

Again, it will deliver Africa from global employment crisis.

Access Gold, providing mobile phone data security

I

n line with the global growing technology cutting across almost all sectors, Access Gold, e-mobile security system is available at affordable prices to help Nigerian mobile phone loving users to secure their mobile phone data security in case it got missing. It was invented to ensure global mobile esecurity solution.

According to the Managing Director (Oversea), Darlynghton E.O, Access Gold is anti-mobile solution that protects mobile phones as well your contacts in the phone which I think is the most important, especially people using mobile app for banking solutions, Access Gold gives them security over their phones against unauthorised persons accessing your mobile device.

In addition, Darlynghton said, in case unauthorised get access to it, you can use your back-up number to know or retrieve information from the phone even if your sim card is removed, from the registered number device, your back up number will get update of the new Sim card, address and location of the mobile phone.

Explaining further, Darlynghton said, this is possible because during registration you have two mobile phone numbers to use as your back up numbers and it is the two back up numbers that will receive the new Sim card number and with the two new Sim card number, you can call the person that the phone you are using belongs to you. Or you have a solution to call the provider that your phone is stolen, this is the IMP, the mobile number so that they can block it.

“Nigerians can enjoy it, once you integrate the pin into your own phone, the manual on how to use it will be sent to you through email”.

Continuing he said, for the security of your mobile device and contacts I would advise Nigerians to get it. It will protect your phone facilities because Access Gold is still one of the best in the world today.

We want to introduce this device in the Nigerian market because Nigeria is one of the countries that uses expensive phones. I have used it and it’s selling in a global market.

entrepreneurship initiative by organising lectures for our members along with a plan to visit significant entrepreneurial locations within and outside the country ”.

Otumba acknowledged his wonderful and ever-supportive colleagues in the District Society, all and sundry, for their financial and moral support for making the occasion a success.

Lagos State Polytechnic rector, Samuel Oluyinka Sogunro represented by Dr.

Abayomi A. Cole, said the Polytechnic management holds ICAN in high esteem being foremost accountancy body in Nigeria, hence the continued partnership with the Institute in the training of well-grounded accountants, through the accreditation of its accountancy programme over the years.

“It is our belief that this visit would further cement our relationship in the provision of qualitative accountancy education in Lagos State and beyond”, he said.

Donald Trump backs Brexit, says UK is 'better off without' EU

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S presidential hopeful Donald Trump has stated that the UK would be “better off without” the European Union.

The migration crisis had been a “horrible thing for Europe” and blamed the EU for driving it. The Republican said he was not making a “recommendation” but his “feeling” was that the UK should vote to sever ties with the EU in its 23 June referendum.

Mr Trump, who has emerged as the Republican presumptive

nominee for the US presidency, said “I think the migration has been a horrible thing for Europe; a lot of that was pushed by the EU. “I would say [the UK] are better off without [the EU], personally; but I’m not making that as a recommendation, just my feeling. I know Great Britain very well. I know the country very well; I have a lot of investments there.”

He added: “I want them to make their own decision.”

In April, Mr Obama said Brit-

N. Korea stages first party congress with us” and “Defend the headsince 1980 quarters of the Korean revolu-

orth Korea is holding its N most important political gathering in a generation, where Kim Jong-un will cement his status as leader.

The first full congress of the ruling party in 36 years is being closely watched for any shift in policies or changes in political leadership.

Mr Kim is expected to reassert his nuclear ambitions, amid speculation he will soon conduct a fifth nuclear test.

Foreign media have been invited but are not allowed inside the venue. The capital was spruced up ahead of the event and citizens laid flowers in central squares as it got under way.

The streets are lined with National and Workers’ Party flags with banners that read “Great comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il will always be

tion at the cost of our lives”. It is the seventh meeting of North Korea’s Worker’s Party and the first since 1980, and is being held inside the April 25 House of Culture, now covered in vast red and gold banners and massive images of the current leader’s father and grandfather.

ain would go to the “back of the queue” for trade deals with the US if it votes to leave the European Union, sparking anger among Leave campaigners in the UK. He said Britain was at its best when “helping to lead” a strong EU and membership made it a “bigger player” on the world stage.

EU has ‘too many part-time Europeans’— Juncker

eanwhile European M Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, yester-

day in Rome said “We have too many part-time Europeans,” It is the Commission’s job to draft EU laws.

The 28-nation bloc lacks a coherent European vision and is being undermined by national self-interest.

Mr Juncker - a former Prime Minister of Luxembourg - said the old “shared sentiment” of common policy-making in the EU “has totally gone”.

The man who chairs EU summits, European Council President Donald Tusk, said the

A

BOUT two persons were yesterday, feared dead and several others injured in renewed hostilities between youths of Igbide and Okpolo-Enwhe communities, both in Isoko South Local Government Area, Delta State

controversial and wealthy businessman has been shot A dead in the Kenyan capital,

•Kim Jong-un

Nairobi yesterday.

Jacob Juma was driving home from a bar to his home in an upmarket suburb on when unknown gunmen attacked his car.

He had been involved in several high-profile legal cases against the government over failed

over a disputed piece of land.

The neighbouring communities, it was gathered, have been embroiled in an age long boundary dispute, resulting in an unfriendly relation between indigenes of the communities. “The case has been in court for over 40 years

and the leadership of the two communities has over the years tried to set up peace communities to resolve the dispute to no avail,” source close to the communities told Saturday Vanguard.

The source who craved anonymity said yesterday ’s crisis “ was triggered by allegations that

AGF, Uboh in crossfire over N3tn recovery job Continues from Page 43 sonality (Dr. Uboh) that was requesting for those sensitive materials from the banks that he was indeed an ex - convict prosecuted after US law enforcement agents carried out a major raid on a credit card and bank fraud ring led by George Uboh in Georgia in 1992. He reportedly came out of jail on 16th January, 2001.

“As if history was repeating itself, the same Dr. Uboh of PASS recently described by the media as a serial fraudster was again prosecuted, convicted and sentenced to three years imprisonment by Justice S. E. Aladetoyinbo of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Abuja on

EU’s priority must be to make its external borders secure in the current migrant crisis.

He suggested that there was no point pursuing an ideal of a “European nation”. He spoke of the need for “political common sense”.

“The idea of one EU state, one vision... was an illusion,” said Mr Tusk, a former Polish Prime Minister.

Eurosceptic parties, hostile to deeper EU integration, did better than ever in the last European Parliament elections, in 2014. They now account for about a quarter of the 751 MEPs.

Kenyan businessman Jacob Juma shot dead

2 killed, several others injured in Delta inter communal clash

By Ochuko Akuopha

•Donald Trump

the Monday 25th April, 2016 for converting the assets of the defunct Police Equipment Foundation (PEF) to his own personal use.

It is not likely that the federal government would recall Uboh to undertake the job given the recent court sentence against him.

Uboh is angry that the lucrative job offer had been ‘prematurely’ terminated by Malami, who is seen by many Nigerians as one of the trusted ministers in the Buhari administration having stuck with the President during the trying days of his political career.

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SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016 — 39

business deals.

Mr Juma had warned several months ago that there was a plot to kill him because of his outspoken views.

“We don’t know the motive but this seems to be a pure murder,” Nairobi Police Chief Japheth Koome said'.

The gunmen escaped on motorbikes after firing 10 shots at the vehicle.

youths from Okpolo-Enwhe numbering 15 attacked a man that lives close to the disputed boundary, vandalizing his building and was forced to flee into the bush with his family.

“On getting wind of the development, some Igbide youths came out and tried to retaliate and in the process, one person was killed while several others were wounded. Another person is also said to have been killed but so far, he has not been found.”

As at the time of filing this report, residents of the two communities have begun to relocate from the areas to neighbouring communities.

Contacted, Police Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Celestina Kalu, said no death had been confirmed.

Cologne attacks: First trial for sexual assault to begin

T

he first trial for sexual offences is getting under way in Cologne over alleged attacks on women in the city on New Year’s Eve. A 26-year-old Algerian has been charged with attempted sexual assault and theft.

He is accused of being part of a group of 10 men who surrounded and groped a woman in the main railway station in the early hours of New Year’s Day. The large-scale sexual assaults and robberies by men of North African and Arab appearance shocked Germany.

More than 1,000 criminal complaints were filed, hundreds of them alleging sexual assault, after women reported being surrounded by groups of men in and around Cologne’s main station.

Arsenio Hall to sue O’Connor over Prince comments

C

omedian Arsenio Hall is suing Sinead O’Connor after she suggested he supplied drugs to Prince.

O’Connor alleged on Facebook that Hall had been providing drugs to the singer, who died last month, for “decades”.

Hall filed a $5m (£3.46m) libel suit against O’Connor on, for damages to his reputation.

The comedian said O’Connor ’s accusations were “despicable, fabricated lies” and labelled her a “desperate attention-seeker.”

O’Connor claimed she had reported Hall to the sheriff ’s department in the Minneapolis suburbs that is investigating Prince’s sudden death.

3,000 athletes chase Okpekpe title today

M

ORE than 3,000 runners will today battle for the prestigious 10-kilometre race in Nigeria’s city of Okpekpe in Edo State.

The only IAAF road race in Nigeria is expected to kick off by 6 am. It starts at Apana Road and ends in Okpekpe, a town now famous for the international reputation the race has attracted to it.

Indomie kicks-off 2016 Heroes Awards Nigeria.

UHL Prima Foods Plc, makers of InD domie Instant Noodles, has kicked-off the 9th edition of its CSR initiative, tagged Indomie Independence Day Award, IIDA, for Heroes of

FG retains oil benchmark at $38, exchange rate at N197/US$

By Soni Daniel

T

HE Federal Gov ernment has retained major revenue assumptions in the reworked budget signed into law this morning by President Muhammadu Buhari.

In the 2016 Appropriation Bill assented to by the President, the key

revenue assumptions proposed by the Executive was retained by the National Assembly.

These include the benchmark oil price of $38 per barrel, oil production volume of 2.2mbpd and exchange rate of N197/US$.

A statement from the Office of the Budget and National Planning Min-

ister, Senator Udoma Udoma indicated that the Presidency was pleased with the retention of the benchmarks by the lawmakers, who worked on the budget.

The statement, which was signed by the Minister ’s Media Adviser, Mr. James Akpandem, indicated that the aggregate budget of N6.06

Athletes from Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Uganda, Morocco, Israil, Bahrain are expected to chase this year ’s title.

Governor Adams Oshiomhole, as usual, will be part of the race that he will always be proud of even after leaving office.

“It’s a legacy that everybody will continue to celebrate,” Mike Itemuagbor, the brain behind the race said.

trillion was passed by the National Assembly and given assent by the President.

It will be recalled that the Executive had proposed N6.077, indicating a decrease of about N17 billion. This implies a reduction in the fiscal deficit from 2.16% of GDP to 2.14% of GDP.

IIDA is geared towards the recognition of children who have against all odds exhibited extraordinary acts of bravery in the face of danger/societal challenges, which have sometimes brought them injury.

The Managing Director/ CEO, Dufil Prima Foods Plc, Mr. Deepak Singhal, spoke at an occasion to herald the commencement of the search and call for entry for the award for deserving Nigerian children in Lagos. He announced the readiness of Indomie to invest more in the CSR initiative in order to expand the scope and increase the number of winners expected to emerge at the 2016 edition of the awards.

40—SA TURD AY 40—SATURD TURDA

Vanguard,MA Y 7 anguard,MAY 7,, 2016

bunmsof@yahoo.co.uk

Forget the economy, give your love life A-Z boost!

R

ECENTLY, I had been inundated with requests from you readers on how to improve your not everybody enjoys oral enjoy giving to others love life. And what better time to start than now to relieve the stress of the economy? sex and it’s important to and perfect your respect your partner’s technique so you can I was musing on this when I came across an A to Z guide to a sexier you by a sexologist, wishes. To protect yourself perform with confidence Catherine Hood. So I’ve decided to adapt it for readers’ delight. You’ll definitely find the tips from sexually transmitted with a new partner. worth trying. Enjoy! infections, use flavoured U-is for underwear: Is A-is for aphrodisiacs: Food condoms with new partners. your knicker drawer can spice up love-making.

P -is for positions: Try looking tired, grey and Include plenty of suggestively some new positions this uninspiring? Then invest shaped nibbles you have to eat year. The angle of in some new lingerie or with your fingers like asparagus penetration can alter sexual underwear. Many men and bananas, and add a little stimulation. like to see their ladies luxury with juicy grapes, and, of Q-is for question: We are wearing something fancy course, chocolate. all experts in what turns us and seductive... but B-is for bondage: We have five on, so when you have new women too like to see senses, all used in love-making. lovers take time to ask them men looking trim in their Using a blindfold can heighten what they like.

We give undies. other senses like touch. Go feedback in bed not only by V-is for vulva pain: further and use restraints and what we say, but also in how Painful sex is a common your victim is powerless to resist. our body moves. If you’re complaint among women.

C-is for contraception: Unless too shy to ask directly then If you’ve been suffering you’re planning to get pregnant pay attention to what your in silence go and seek in 2016, get yourself some lover’s body is telling you. help. There are many effective contraception.

R-is for romance: Whether potential causes, from D-is for dating: The internet you’re dating or in a longfungal infections that are has opened up new ways to term relationship, there easily treated to meet sexual partners chatting should always be a place for psychosexual problems online. Or take up a hobby or an romance in your sex life. that can be improve by activity that will help you meet Romance feeds the therapy. new people. emotional aspect of your sex W-is for water: If you E-is experimentation: Add drive in the same way want to enjoy a really something new in 2016. If you intercourse satisfies the indulgent and prolonged give feedback about worries in your life and are usually passive in bed,take physical urge.

Small acts sex session with your pressure and how quickly to priorities some time and the lead and surprise your can be just as romantic as partner then incorporate a move your fingers.

Start space for sex in 2016.

Make partner. big gestures —-cook your shower or bath into your with small circular a resolution to tackle any F-is for fantasy: Most men lover a meal, send them a foreplay. Giving your love movements with your discord in your relationship and women use fantasy in bed. few romantic texts or run a good soap and scrub thumbs and don’t press too rather than letting Sometimes the story lines are them relaxing bath with can be very seductive. hard. Begin with the resentments gather. If extreme; at other times more scented candles.

X-is for Love Letters: shoulders, move down the you’ve been feeling low, see tame and predictable. Thinking S-is for seduction: All With e-mail, messaging back and then from the your GP and get some help. about another person while good things come to those and texts it’s easy to lose ankles up to the thighs.

M-is for massage: having sex is not infidelity. who wait.

If you’re single the art of writing a love N-is for new start: If Massage is a wonderful G-is for sex god or goddess: and dating then boost your letter but there is nothing you’re pining for a lost love addition to foreplay. What Great sex starts with knowing success rates by brushing up quite like receiving a or holding out for a better way to chase away the yourself. Get in touch with your your seduction techniques. hand-written note. reluctant beau, then make stresses of the working day desires through self-play. Sex Let your eyes do the talking Y-is for Yes: Embrace 2016 the year you move on in preparation for an erotic toys can help you explore your by holding your intended new experiences in 2016. and find a partner who evening? Touching and erogenous zones but you can lover’s gaze for a little If you’ve got stuck in a gives you some love in caressing your lover’s body use them on your lover to longer than normal. Take rut with a relationship or return.

Who knows what helps you get in touch with discover theirs too. time to listen to what your being single, then resolve wonderful surprises 2016 their feelings and can ignite H-is for hair and makeup: lover is saying to you and to change your situation. has in store? the erogenous zones Being sexy isn’t about having a show you’re interested in Z - is for sleep: Don’t O-is for oral: Oral sex is making them more receptive perfect physique; it’s about more than just their body. burn the candle at both one of the favourite foreplay to love making. You don’t being confident in your own T-is for technique: It can ends. Make sure you get techniques. Arguably it’s a have to be an expert skin. Tone up your muscles boost your sexual confidence enough sleep to enjoy life more intimate act than masseuse; simply caress the through exercise and smooth to know you can perform a in 2016. Your sexual having penetrate sex, and skin and ask your lover to your skin with exfoliation. particular erotic signature appetite will suffer if you many find it just as I-is for infection: Don’t move. Choose a sex act you ‘re too tired. physically satisfying.

But become another sexual health clinic statistic. Whether you plan to have multiple partners in 2016 or to meet just one special he seven-year itch used to be the Expect that there will be hard times: person, don’t take risks until time when you should start noticing Many couples think: “If we were right for you’ve both had an infection the rut in your marriage and try to each other, it wouldn’t be this difficult”. But screen. Insist on condoms. revamp it. The period has now been that isn’t accurate. Love temporarily cools.

J-is for jealousy: There is little reduced to five years. According to one Marriage is like the stock market. Tough that will ruin a relationship multi-universal study, unhappy married and normal, and it is usually best to ride quicker than jealousy. Keep your couples who stick it out and work them out. cool. through their problems are reportedly Fight right: It’s not what you argue Most K-is kissing: There is nothing happier five years after a rough patch about but how you argue it. Avoid name sexier than a really good kiss. men than couples who threw in the towel. calling (it is disrespectful); put Get back to basics and improve Here are professional tips to help you and compromises ahead of the need to be right your kissing techniques. Involve stay the course. (harmony outranks “winning”); be quick to your tongue and your teeth by women, Embrace change: Over time you and forgive— and quicker to say: “I apologise”. nibbling around their lips. Make your spouse will each evolve. Accepting use Remind yourself why you married him: kissing a central part of your that change is inevitable, makes it easier Remember how your pulse raced the first love-making. fantasy to be flexible and help you to focus on time he kissed you? Calling up positive L-is for libido: Stress and in bed big picture bonding points like building memories like that during less than blissful anxiety are the biggest passion a strong family. moments can be effective attitude adjuster. killers so try to reduce the

T

Your marriage need not experience the five-year itch

SATURDAY

Vanguard , MAY 7, 2016—41

YETUNDE AREBI Yetty5050@yahoo.co.uk tweeterhandle@yetundearebi 08054700825

Sex and the spirits M

any years ago, there was no GSM and telephone was like gold, owned only by the rich and powerful. In the days when information could not go viral courtesy of the internet, a certain story broke the norm and managed to spread quickly, and it left a great impression on the minds of both old and young.

And for many like me, it informed our decision for caution, at least a little, in some of our actions, then and even up till now. This was in the mid ’80s and as young teenagers, no matter how criminally inclined, or greedy and materially thirsty one was, endangering one’s life was on the card at all.

The story had it that a certain undergraduate, of no particular institution had followed a rich aristo home. After haven been generously paid for her would be services, the aristo opened a big calabash where a large snake was let out. It was the snake that went into the girl and came out again. The aristo later dumped the distraught girl at the gates of her school where she went mad, perhaps from both depression and shock combined. She began singing like a canary bird, revealing all that had transpired the night before.

What eventually happened to the girl in the story, I cannot readily recall now, though I guess she died. And though there were other versions of the story; one alleged that a turtle crawled out of her while another said that maggots were oozing out of her vagina, one thing was consistent, a young ambitious undergraduate, a rich aristo willing to pay the bill, and something sinister eventually consuming the desperate girl. In my mind, I can still imagine what the poor girl must have gone through in that horrible ordeal. That she managed to survive to tell the whole sordid story is a miracle, for I know without doubt that I would have died at the sight of the snake. I hate snakes with a passion. I can’t bear to look at mere still pictures of a snake, not to mention seeing it live, crawling and all that. In subsequent years, I would sometimes review the story and come to the C M Y K

conclusion that it must have been cooked up by some over protective parent trying to drum fear in the minds of impressionable teenagers of the dangers lurking around in the society, until I stumbled upon a video clip on the internet a couple of years ago, where a snake was having sex with a guy! The story suddenly came alive in my memory once again.

But while the man in the video clip was engaging the services of the snake for sexual pleasure, the aristo who arranged the snake to have sex with the young girl was not interested in watching a lap dance between the girl and the snake to trigger sexual desires.

The import of the drama was for ritual purpose, and a money making one for that matter. Give the greedy bitch what she wants and take from her what you need!

These type of stories have become a regular feature in our society.

The get rich quick syndrome has lured many of us into situations we cannot untangle ourselves from, while the sleeping money demons we have woken up from slumber must be fed at all cost and by all means. Everyone is now in a wild goose chase for what may or may not be real. Sex for spiritual purposes, real or imagined, have now become entrenched in our society. Many of us may snigger, twitch their noses or hiss at the idea simply because, for anything spiritual , it is difficult to see and prove with the ordinary human eye and is not accepted in law as a basis for evidence.

Many other factors, such as the new religions (Islam and Christianity) westernisation and cosmopolitanism contribute to our denial that these things are possible and are being perpetuated in our society, while we forget that even the holy books acknowledge that we wrestle with powers and principalities,

spiritual forces in high places. If you surf through all the Africa Magic channels on DSTV and other cable services, there is hardly a day you will not see a movie with this plot. If it were not happening, there will be no victims and there will be no stories.

That it has not happened to you or someone you know of, is hardly a reason to dismiss it as false.

Sex itself is a spiritual exercise. It is the bonding together of two bodies in creation form, naked. Two cannot walk together, unless they agree. Where they disagree, it is logical that the more dominant or powerful will subdue the other. What is this power?

It could be good or evil! One school of thought says that when you have sex with a partner, you give away a part of you that you cannot ever get back, while you also take a part of the other person. What you might have, going by this theory are; evil + evil, good + good and good +evil. And it would

Another school of thought is that the more sex partners one has, the more chances of one’s exposure to various powers. Invariably, your own being is being reduced while you are taking on all these other beings that may be in contrast with your own

depend on which is more powerful. Eventually, you may lose all of your original powers or being while adopting all sorts of various beings in you.

Another school of thought is that the more sex partners one has, the more chances of one’s exposure to various powers. Invariably, your own being is being reduced while you are taking on all these other beings that may be in contrast with your own. In simple sexual terms, you can give or contract STD, pregnancy and other related issues depending on what you both have. Also, the more partners you have, the more your chances of contracting any or all of the available diseases.

While the above is only a mere module I use in counselling young people about the dangers of premarital sex, it can only add credence to the belief that there is a spiritual connection with sex, even though this is not exactly listed by science as one of the benefits or dangers of sex. Sex can be used in the spiritual realm to take something away from an individual or to give something to one also, similar to the experience of the young Olosho girl in the above story.

Something was taken away from her and another implanted in her for spiritual or rather, ritual purposes. And in exchange for that precious item stolen from her, the man had given her a large sum of money as incentive to let down her guard. She lost all and gained nothing, even the money given to her that night for the encounter became useless.

Between the time that particular incident happened and now, several similar stories have made headlines even in newspapers and the social media is agog with related stories too. Yet, many are still being lured like moth to fire, despite the gruesome and harrowing experiences of victims and their families. Daily, men and women perhaps due to low moral and societal values and economic hardship, position themselves as target for spiritual harakiri. About 10 years ago, I met a woman who had just packed out of her matrimonial home at the time. Her story was both intriguing and mind blowing such that till date, I find it difficult to forget. According to her, her husband was a God-fearing, homely and loving husband until he had a little problem at the office.

In the process of looking for spiritual assistance as advised by some people, he was introduced to a prophet. She said though she did not like the guy, he became a permanent fixture in their home because of the relationship that ensued after her husband’s challenge was solved. She said soon, her husband began exhibiting strange ideas and behaviours, especially his opinion about women and extra marital affairs and bringing home all sorts of funny ritual stuff. Confronting him with his now obvious philandering and preference for juju and rituals always resulted in big quarrels between them.

Then, one night, he woke her up for what he called a serious discussion and dropped a bombshell. He was doing it for her welfare and that of the children. How? To secure their future!

How will dating all sorts of women and rituals secure their future. He told her to forget about jealousy, which he described as a woman’s problem that blinds them from seeing the good in people and things and open her mind to what he was about to share with her. He told her that sleeping with the various women was for spiritual purposes, rather than his need for sex. That the more women he sleeps with, the more good fortune will come his way through them. He said she should look all around her and the great men of power in the country as well as many others who have women flocking around them. He said, for the women it is about financial gain and social status, but for the men, it is much more than that as they use them to boost their own spiritual powers to achieve more successes. He asked her if she thought sleeping with such a large number of women was fun? It was at that point that she realised that her husband had lost it. A few weeks later, she woke up in the dead of the night and overheard him talking to the prophet. He was giving him the profile of a married woman in the neighbourhood to check if she was alright for him to bed. She knew then that she had to run to save herself and her children. On one hand was the danger of STDs and HIV and also the possibility of herself or the children becoming a target should the prophet say so.

At the time, I asked myself if a university graduate with the man’s level of exposure could sink so low? I have since concluded that the answers cannot be found using those indices.

They are found in something more deep rooted in our psyche. If only the preys know!! Do have a wonderful weekend!!

42—SA TURD AY 42—SATURD TURDA

Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Enugu Massacre: Kudos to Ugwuanyi as govt funds Watch Group

BY FRANCIS IGATA,ENUGU he provocative invasion on April 25, of Ukpabi,Nimbo community T in Enugu State by over 500 dare-devil

Fulani herdsmen culminating in the slaughter of 46 natives, was an incident which would have made most Leaders lose their head, belching blood following instigating comments that could engender reprisal attacks which could snowball into ethnic and tribal uprising across the nation.

But,Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State, after a copious review of events culminating in the attack held security agencies on the jugular,demanding explanations as to what transpired between 6.30AM to 7.30AM on the ‘Black Monday’ despite assurances that they(security operatives)were on ground to ward-off any impending danger on the community.

Ugwuanyi’s decisive step to expose security agencies in the state as being culpable especially as the natives alleged that one Police corporal,Chukwu of Adani Police Station led the fulani herdsmen that invaded their community,led to the redeployment of Commissioner of Police, Ekechukwu Nwaodibo.

The governor’s strident call for peace,prayer and fasting in the face of stretched frayed nerves won him accolades which jolted the ruling party,All Progressives Congress,APC,Governors who visited Enugu House last Tuesday,to commend him.

Leader of the APC governors,under the aegis of Progressives Governors Forum,Rochas Okorocha,whose mien showed the depth of his heart as he spoke said,”we are in Enugu to share in the peoples’ moment of grief. This situation calls for unity and indivisibility of the nation.

“We are governors from various states representing the entire governors elected under APC platform. We are here because of the tragic incident that took place here on April 25. Death is painful

The rectus Technique:

S

tand with the feet a little bit apart. Place the hands on the corresponding thighs. Bend the trunk just a bit. Breathe in deeply and out

•The rector

L-R: Deputy Governor of Enugu State, Mrs. Cecilia Ezeilo; her Yobe State counterpart, Abubakar Ali; Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima; Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State; his Imo State counterpart, Rochas Okorocha; Governor Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State; Deputy Governor of Kogi State, Simeon Achuba; and Anglican Bishop of Enugu Ecclesiastical Province, Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, when a delegation of APC governors came to Enugu for a condolence visit over suspected Fulani herdsmen attack in Nimbo, at Government House, Enugu recently but the most painful is, man-made death. We are here because you are one of us irrespective of political party affiliations. In death we are one. We are here to commiserate with you and the people of Enugu State over the dastardly act.

“You(Ugwuanyi) have shown profound maturity in handling the provocative incident. This incident would have snowballed … if the governor did not handle it with maturity. That is why we are impressed with your conduct and leadership qualities. We will partner with the Federal Government to fish out the perpetrators and bring them to book. We will further ensure that this incident does not repeat itself anywhere in the country.

“The traditional rulers have demonstrated a high sense of leadership by suing for peace rather than retaliation. This incident is a criminal act and cannot be associated with tribe,religion or political party. We condemn it in its entirety.

“We will join hands with the Federal Government to ensure that perpetrators are brought to book and forestall a reoccurrence. This is time we speak about the unity of this country. All the APC governors would have been here

but we are representing them because of some tight schedules. We reaffirm the unity of this country which is not negotiable. Our sympathy goes to the victims and family. This matter is being handled with utmost urgency by the Federal Government”.

Speaking on behalf of Northern Governors,under APC,Governor Ibrahim Shettima of Borno State said,”we are here to register our profound condolence to the people of Enugu State over their tragic loss.

As a nation,we mourn and rejoice with each other at different times. We have lived with our brothers and sisters in the North-East ravaged by BokoHaram for seven years.

“What kept us going was the empathy from people living outside the north-east including the people of Enugu State. Times like this call for maturity,calmness,leadership role which Ugwuanyi has exhibited. We are one nation with a common destiny. The killers should be treated like criminals and should be fished out and dealt with”.

Enugu funds Neighborhood Watch Groups

Welcoming the visitors,Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi assured them that a Judicial Panel of Inquiry will be set up,adding that Government has moved to fund 472 Neighborhood Watch Groups in all communities in the state to compliment efforts of the security agencies to forestall a repeat of such dastardly act.

Continuing, Ugwuanyi doled out N100 million to fund Neighborhood Watch Groups in 472 communities to complement the services of security agencies in the state.

The governor also mandated the Ministry of Poverty Reduction and Human Capital to quickly inaugurate Neighborhood Watch Groups in all the 472 communities in the state to forestall a re-occurrence of Fulani herdsmen invasion of any part of the state.

This came on a day,the Traditional Rulers and Town Union Presidents in the state in a Communique at the end of their meeting,commended the Governor for the mature and astute way he has been handling the situation arising from the murder of Enugu Citizens at Nimbo, Uzo Uwani Local Government, by suspected herdsmen.

The Communique read in part: We are also grateful to the Governor for the donation of the sum of N100 million in support of the security efforts and activities of the communities. We have resolved to go back to our respective communities to mobilize the people and sensitize them on the need to support the initiatives of the government as they relate to security of lives and property in Enugu State.

“Traditional Rulers and Presidents General of Town Union will work harmoniously and concertedly to ensure the success of the new initiatives of Government on security. We reassure all visitors, settlers or foreigners in Enugu State of their safety and the friendship of the Enugu people so as long as they conduct themselves in a manner that promote peace and order and refraining from acts that may truncate their peaceful coexistence with their host communities”.

Reclaim proper alignment forcefully, and then draw in the abdominal muscles and contract them; this should lead to the isolation of the column of muscles known as the rectus.

This excercise should lasts for about 10 minutes.

Benefits: The nauli dubbed: “India’s gift to the world”, tones the muscles of the abdominal region. It is also an aid to thorough bowel movement.

Triangle Pose

•The triangle pose a variation

Technique: tanding with the feet rather wide apart, turn the trunk to the left and lowering it, place the palm of the left hand flat down on the floor on the outside of the left leg while raising up the right hand and straightening it at the elbow.

Fix your gaze on the palm of the raised hand. Breathe normally and retain the position for about 10 or 11 seconds.

S

Benefits: The triangle stretches the leg, spine, and trunk muscles.

It promotes flexibility of the hip spine and legs. It tones the nerves of the spine and the abdominal organs. It reduces pain in the lower back and invigorates the circulation.

•The triangle pose

Yoga Classes @ 32 Adetokumbo Ademola, Victoria Island Lagos.

1000am — 11.00am on Saturdays

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016 — 43

AGF, Uboh in crossfire over N3 trillion recovery job •You’re blocking anti-graft fight – Uboh accuses AGF, Malami •We unknowingly hired an ex-convict to recover money for us – Malami fires back

By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor & Henry Umoru

A

few days after being sacked as the fund recovery contractor for the Federal Government, the Chief Executive of Public Alerts Security Systems, PASS, George Uboh, has screamed that the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, was standing on the way of his firm to recover over N3 trillion for the country.

Uboh claimed that the minister was wrong in revoking a contract he awarded to him barely 27 days after he had successfully traced over N324 billion in many banks in Nigeria and was on his way to recovering the huge cash for the country.

Under the contract terms, Uboh was to earn five percent of the funds recovered by his firm.

In two separate petitions to the Presidency against the minister, Uboh accused Malami of

failing to recover the huge amount traced by his firm to banks and that he actually worked against the firm’s effort to recover the amount.

Uboh also alleged that the minister blocked him from recovering the N1.993 trillion which his company traced to the former EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, who failed to remit same to the Federal Government.

As if the petitions to the Presidency were not enough, the PASS CEO addressed a press conference in Abuja during which he said that from the action of the AGF, it was clear that he was not ready to fight corruption.

Uboh said, “I was engaged by the FGN to trace stolen funds on February 9, 2016 with a follow-up letter on February 17, 2016 and within 27 days, I had traced 324 Billion Naira ($1 Billion USD).

“Part of the money I traced was stolen by EFCC hidden in Access Bank as alleged last year. Instead of AGF

Malami to recover the funds per the engagement letter, Malami revoked the contract.

“Nigerians should ask Malami why the huge sums of money already traced by my company, PASS, have not been recovered if the minister is actually fighting corruption,” Uboh told journalists, a few days after an FCT High Court had sentenced him to three years in jail for being implicated in a Police Equipment Funds-related matter.

However, the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, in responding to the claims raised by Uboh, explained that he never knew that Uboh had been jailed in the United States of America for bank fraud-related matter when he approved his proposal on February 9 this year for his company, PASS, to recover funds for the Federal Government.

Malami’s position was contained in a detailed explanation he made to

President Muhammadu Buhari in response to the two petitions, which Uboh wrote against him to the Presidency.

In the 19-page letter addressed to the Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, and obtained

by Saturday Vanguard, the minister said that Uboh played a fast game on the government by claiming that he had already traced trillions of Naira in banks only for him to begin what he called ‘ window shopping’ on banks, MDAs and some powerful Nigerians after collecting a letter from his office to recover the said money.

Malami disclosed that while PASS was given approval to retrieve the funds he said were hidden in 13 banks only, he inexplicably expanded his retrieval bid to all the banks in Nigeria, many public and private institutions and individuals, including notable Nigerian leaders and politicians.

Among those targeted

by Uboh for funds recovery were, former Akwa Ibom Governor, Godswill

Akpabio, former Customs Controller General, Inde Dikko and Tony Chukwu, who reportedly executed projects for the NDDC. The unilateral decision

by Uboh to go outside the scope of the contract given him by the Federal Government clearly infuriated the minister, who called off the job, thus leading to the crossfire.

Malami said, “Upon acceptance of the terms of engagement, Dr. George Uboh later requested and/or discussed with me to the effect that introduction of his company to the 13 listed banks/financial institutions (which are the definite/specific targets of the letter of engagement of 9th February, 2016 would go a long way to enable the company to get the required cooperation and support from the specified banks covered by their letter.

“In demonstration of my firm commitment to the recovery efforts of the FGN, I gave PASS a letter titled: TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN dated 17th February, 2016, in-

troducing PASS to the aforesaid banks/financial institutions ‘pursuant to its letter of engagement dated 9th Febr uary, 2016.

“The aforesaid Letter of Engagement dated 9th February, 2016 and the subsequent Letter of Introduction dated 17th February, 2016 (“HAGF Letters”) were given to PASS on the firm understanding that PASS had already identified and/or traced specific FGN funds stashed/trapped in the aforementioned banks and that PASS would promptly embark on processes that would lead to actual recovery and remittance of the traced funds into the designated account of the FGN in line with the proposals submitted, presentations made and the terms contained in its letter of 9th February, 2016.

“In a manner that clearly demonstrated that PASS was merely on a voyage of information and window – shopping, it went to town and unilaterally expanded the scope of its brief far beyond the 13 banks covered by his brief and Continues on Page 39

Abia govt revives Bakassi Boys Continues from Page 7

mit names of 10 youths from their community to the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs from Tuesday 10th to Wednesday 11th May 2016. These youths will be enlisted into the Abia State Vigilante Services (AVS).

“I have mandated the law enforcement agencies to search and screen all trucks and vehicles conveying livestocks, food items and persons into the state from any part of the country. The law enforcement agencies will also search and screen markets and settlements where livestocks and dealers are, to ensure security.

“The Government of Abia State has constituted a

Farmers/Herdsmen Conflict Resolution Committee.

The Commissioner of Police will head the committee. Other members of the committee are: The Brigade Commander, State Director of DSS, State Commandant of the NSCDC, the Naval Commander, Special Adviser to the Governor on Security, Special Adviser to the Governor on Special Duties, State Chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Myati Allah and Saraki Hausa.

“The State Government has also constituted Farmers/Herdsmen Conflict Resolution Committee in the 17 Local Government Areas of the state. The Local Government chairmen

will head the committees in their LGAs. Other members of the committees include; Divisional Police Officers in the LGAs, Local Government NSCDC heads, the DSS Local Government Chiefs, LGA Chairmen of Traditional Rulers Council and LGA Heads of Hausa communities.

“I want to encourage our people to report any suspicious movement of strange persons within our communities to the Traditional Rulers or call any of the following Police Emergency Control phone numbers: 08079210003, 08079210004, 08079210005, 08035425405 for prompt deployment of a Rapid Response Unit formed for the purpose of security alert”.

How we’ll forestall Fulani Herdsmen, communities’ clashes in Anambra — Obiano

By Vincent Ujumadu

A

NAMBRA State government has taken measures to forestall clashes between the Fulani herdsmen and their host communities in the state.

Speaking during a meeting between the leaders of the Fulani community in the state, the traditional rulers of agrarian communities and the state government at the Governor ’s Lodge, Amawbia, Obiano said his administration would fashion out a proactive C M Y K

response to the menace.

He said: “What we intend to do is to send the Fulanis that have been living with us to meet those that are in the villages with their cattle with a view to finding out whether they are coming in peace or otherwise.

More importantly, we want Fulanis in this committee to tell the members of this committee if their people are nursing any grievance in whatever form.

“I don’t want people to take laws into their hands.

That is why we set up this

committee and we have agreed that compensation should be paid for any losses on either side. That is the way to co-exist in a multi-ethnic and diverse society. “More importantly, we agreed at the Security Council Meeting that we will not allow herdsmen to carry arms.

That is a clear directive from Abuja. Herdsmen are not supposed to bear arms. Please, if you see herdsmen with AK47, report them early to the police so that they can be picked up.

44—SATURDAY VANGUARD, MAY 7, 2016

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—45

Rio Olympics:

•Siasia

Siasia faces selection headache over overage players

By John Egbokhan

W

ith about 90 days to the start of the Olympic Games in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, Coach Samson Siasia is facing a selection headache over which over-age players to select to strengthen the side

for the men’s football tournament in the summer. While the qualifying campaign, which Siasia’s boys won late last year in Senegal is restricted to players aged under-23, three overage players can compete at the Olympics, with Nigerians set to spend the next

Leicester’s captain to find it hard to lift EPL trophy ven when Leicester City captain Wes Morgan holds aloft the Premier League trophy today he will still find it hard to believe.The centre back will be handed the trophy after the game against Everton at the King Power Stadium and when he raises it towards the skies it will be a moment he never thought in his wildest dreams would happen.

“Never in a million years did I ever believe I would be the captain of a Premier League winning team – that’s just me being honest,” he said in Saturday’s Official Matchday Magazine, CITY. “Looking back on my time at Nottingham Forest, at that stage of my career, I was just hoping to one day play a Premier League game!

“To go from being a position to just wishing to one day play in the Premier League to actually become a Premier League title winner is testament to everything I’ve worked to achieve and shows just how far I’ve come.“As part of this incredible team, we have grown together to get to this point and that makes things arguably even more special.”Morgan said City’s title triumph had been a fantastic team effort, but not just the players in the squad, but the staff and supporters had played their part.“Everything has really come together to form this perfect scenario,” he said.“We’ve won the Premier League title united as a team, and I include all of the staff at both the training ground and King Power Stadium in that, the supporters – everybody has been involved and played their part, and it’s been a joint effort. To lift the trophy at

Odion

•Enyeama

weeks debating the identity of the trio of overage players Siasia will pick as he has little time before submitting preliminary lists for the August tournament. .

The local media has already dished out plenty of column inches to speculation over the identity of the Dream Team’s over-age trio to the Rio

Bayern target title in Ingolstadt C Bayern München will clinch an unprecedented fourth successive F Bundesliga title if they avoid defeat at FC Ingolstadt 04’s Audi-Sportpark today The Bavarian giants suffered an agonising UEFA Champions League

semi-final defeat to Club Atletico de Madrid on away goals in midweek, and will be determined to make amends after missing the chance to wrap up a 25th Bundesliga crown in last Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Borussia Mönchengladbach.

Promoted Ingolstadt will be be hoping to kick-start a party of their own, however, in their final home game of the campaign. The Bundesliga firsttimers have plenty to celebrate, too, having already secured their top-flight status for another year.

E

•Morgan

•Obi

Games, as the search for a second gold medal in soccer reaches feverish peak after the heroics of the 1996 Olympic Team managed by Dutchman Jo Bonfrere won gold in Atlanta in 1996.

Top on the list is John Obi Mikel and Odion Ighalo, two players from the Premier League, and also goalkeeper Victor Enyeama, who is a strong candidate. The France-based goalkeeper had quit the national team last year when dropped from selection, but now could return. Ighalo has been one of Nigeria’s stand-out performers in the Premier League this season, netting over 14 goals for Watford in the current English Premier League campaign. Other Eagles regular like Ogenyi Onazi, Godfrey Oboabona, Ahmed Musa and Aaron Samuel are also reported to be targeting a place in the Rio Games, all the more complicating the situation for Siasia, who guided the Olympic team to win silver at the Beijing 2008 Games. The Olympic Games football tournament might be seen as something of a misnomer at an event where all the world’s finest athletes are competing ... except in football. But for Nigeria and Africa, it is important and it marked the early breakthroughs for the continent in the international arena.

Zambia’s upset win over Italy in 1988 was followed by a bronze for Ghana in Barcelona four years later. Then came the magical Nigerian performance of 1996 and gold again for Africa in Sydney in 2000 when Cameroon emerged victorious.

Brazil and Neymar will have the tag of favourites and be the firm focus of everyone in August, but the African challenge will be a very real one — with the right over age players to spur on their chances.

Khna battles Canelo tonight

Boxing

•Muller

E

ngland’s Amir Khan sparked loud roars of laughter ahead of his WBC middleweight title fight with Mexican Saul “Canelo” Alvarez tonight when he aimed a light-hearted verbal jab at Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

“You never know, this could be the last fight for me and Canelo here, that’s if Donald Trump becomes president so ...,” Khan said before breaking off with a chuckle during a news conference at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

As the entire room erupted with loud guffaws,

cheers and whistling, Khan went on to say: “You never know. You have to all tune in come Saturday.” Challenger Khan, a Muslim boxer with a 46-1-1 record including 32 knockouts, was speaking during the final news conference before Saturday’s showdown at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Khan made his comments the same day that Trump became the last man standing in the race for the Republican US presidential nomination as the American’s sole remaining rival, John Kasich, ended his campaign.

Zenith Bank WBL Final Eight: Coaches talk tough

T

he Indoor Sports Hall of the National Stadium, Lagos will come alive today as hostilities begin in the final phase of the Zenith Bank Women Basketball League. The coaches are optimistic that their teams will win the top prize, Coach of AHIP of Kano, Wilson Idanwekhai , who said that his team was set up to develop players, noted that it would be nice to lift the trophy with his young side. “We are here to play basketball just like we did in the first two phases, but we also fancy our chance of winning the title.

Also speaking of his team chances, Coach Benson Aikoroje of Delta Force said his team was prepared for the competition, stating that the least they would settle for is a fourth place finish.

“We are in Lagos to do our best and get good results, while hoping that we can upset the top teams. However, we would not settle for anything less than fourth place, this means that we aim to qualify for the semi finals.”

First Bank coach, Peter Ahmedu said his team is in top shape and ready to lift the trophy. “We moved to a camp near the stadium and we are now ready. Our aspiration is to lift the title. We are mentally and physically prepared for the competition.”

46—SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016 two gladiators of Nigerian football clash as the Nnamdi Azikwe Stadium, Enugu.

Rangers are enjoying a comfort ride at the top of the table, with 27 points after 14 games, winning eight, drawing three and losing three while their opponents this weekend, Shooting Stars are languishing in 18 place, winning five, drawing once and losing eight times.

This weekend’s match makes for an interesting viewing as a Rangers win will see them maintain their leadership position over Kano Pillars and Abia Warriors, who both have 24 points and are playing catchup on the Flying Antelopes.

Coach Imama Amakpakabo knows the high stakes attached to a fixture against Shooting Stars and has told his wards to keep a level head as they prod for the victory that will guarantee their stay at the top for another week.

“Shooting Stars like Rangers have a great heritage and that is why I have told my boys to keep a calm head and not take their lowly position on the table as a sign of weakness because as one of the traditional as WNDC Ibadan won the title in 1976, 1980, 1983, 1995 teams in the league, they can be and 1998 dangerous and difficult to beat”, said Rangers have won the FA Cup five times in 1974, Amakpakabo. His opposite number on 1975, 1976, 1981 and 1983 while Shooting Stars with the the bench, Kadiri Ikhana is wary of the nickname of Oluyole Warriors have won the same rampant Rangers attack, warning his competition four times, first in 1971 when still known as wards to stay focussed at the rear and WNDC, then in 1977, 1979, 1995. make good use of their counterOn the continent, both sides have had flourishing attacking options. fortunes, with Shooting winning the African Cup “Rangers will come out for goals Winners’ Cup once in 1976 and finishing but we have to be stay focussed second twice in African Cup of and hit them on the break Champions Clubs while Rangers have when and where won the African Cup Winners’ Cup necessary, without once in 1977. exposing ourselves Only Enyimba have a better to their rampant record in the country and on the attackers”, said continent than Ikhana.

Rangers and Shooting Stars but it can be argued that the duo command greater following than the Aba Elephants, who only shot into the limelight in the early 2000 and walked their way to the Nigerian hall of fame.

The story has been told over time of how games between Rangers and Shooting Stars used to generate enough fireworks before, during and after, with both set of •Shooting fans adding glamour, fanfare and colour to the action on the pitch.

Match days used to be sold out in those days of yore before the slide but with the seeming resurgence of the Nigerian league, fans would be hoping that such great scenes of explosive fireworks will be aplenty this weekend when these

Rangers rekindle rivalry with Shooting Stars STORIES BY JOHN EGBOKHAN

W

hen the story of Nigerian football is told, it is incomplete without the contributions of Rangers International of Enugu and Shooting Stars of Ibadan, two sides who have churned out great soccer stars like the late Muda Lawal, Segun Odegbami, Christian Chukwu and Emanuel Okala, to name just a few Nations Cup winners and Nigerian heroes .

Between them, they have won 11 league titles, with Rangers coming top with six league shields under their belt, one shy of Enyimba’s record seventh title triumph.

Founded in 1970, Rangers nicknamed Flying Antelopes won the •Rangers league title in 974, 1975, 1977, 1981, 1982 and 1984, while Shooting Stars, who were founded in 1950s

Ikorodu plot Pillars fall ll of a sudden, things seem A to be looking up for Ikorodu United after their 3-1 victory over Heartland last weekend at the Onikan Stadium. It was the second win in 14 games for the new boys in the top flight but was not enough to lift them out of the bottom of the table as they still have a paltry nine points, five less than closest rivals Giwa FC, bugged down with all their problems of inability of owner, Chris Giwa to pay the players salaries, despite having the guts to lay claim to the Presidency position of the Nigeria Football Federation.

After seeing the gallantry of Enyimba in the midweek defeat of Kano Pillars at the Sani Abacha Stadium, Coach Sam Okpodu feels his Ikorodu United wards can take a cue from

the Aba Elephants and do the near impossible by upsetting Pillars in their Kano domain.

Speaking to supersport.com, Okpodu said his side were keen to sustain the winning

momentum against Pillars..

“We know Kano Pillars and the environment will be quite different compared with what obtained in the clash against Heartland. We are heading to Kano to see how we can pick three points or a point against Kano Pillars.

“Everything and practice right now is strictly tailored on the

clash at Pillars and our determination to eke a positive result in the tie. Our greatest motivation is the fact that we have proven a point that we could convincingly win a game but the sustenance of the bold statement is another different matter. “However, we strongly believe that another positive result against Pillars will go a long way to cement the aura of progress and self belief around

us. The players have been charged to forget the victory against Heartland but tighten their belts for the difficult clash at Pillars,” added Okpodu But :Pillars defender, Jamiu Alimi believes only a win against visiting Ikorodu United tomorrow will atone in some way for the loss to Enyimba.

“We must redeem ourselves by defeating Ikorodu United and battle on in the title fight.”

Table •Pillars

•Ikorodu

Team Rangers Kano Pillars Abia Warriors ` IfeanyiUbah Wikki Tourists Lobi Stars Rivers United MFM FC Warri Wolves Akwa United Heartland Nasarawa United Plateau United Sunshine Stars Enyimba Niger Tornadoes El-Kanemi Warriors Shooting Stars Giwa FC Ikorodu United

P 14 14 13 14 13 14 14 14 13 14 14 14 14 14 11 14 14 14 14 14

W 8 7 6 7 6 6 7 6 5 5 5 6 5 4 5 5 5 5 4 2

D 3 3 6 2 4 4 1 4 4 3 3 0 3 5 2 2 1 1 2 3

L 3 4 1 5 3 4 6 4 4 6 6 8 6 5 4 7 8 8 8 9

Pts 27 24 24 23 22 22 22 22 19 18 18 18 18 17 17 17 16 16 14 9

GF 21 22 15 15 18 17 18 17 7 17 11 14 16 16 12 16 14 15 11 9

GA 15 14 8 13 6 13 15 15 9 16 13 18 21 13 11 17 19 23 20 22

GD6 8 7 2 12 4 3 2 -2 1 -2 -4 -5 3 1 -1 -5 -8 -9 -13

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016—47

•Morgan

From Algeria to Ghana:

How the world has fallen in love with Leicester Algeria:

P

resident told Mahrez: thank you for making us proud

On the 25 April, Riyad Mahrez was named PFA Player of the Year, becoming the first African to win the coveted award. Two days later, the president of Algeria, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, issued a statement on state television congratulating the winger on his exploits and subsequently thanking him for inspiring Algeria’s children and making the country proud. Algerians have followed Leicester’s historic run closely. Mahrez’s mesmeric play has dominated the front pages of every daily paper. Scores of pedestrians have congregated in front of news stands after weekends for updates as the Foxes inched closer and closer to this most improbable feat.

Argentina: Can Ulloa emerge from the shadows of Messi and Dybala?

The exploits of Diego Simeone driving Atlético Madrid to the latter stages of the Champions League or the role of Paulo Dybala in Juventus’ fifth consecutive Scudetto are much more interesting to Argentinian media and the football fanatics in this country than Leonardo Ulloa’s story as one of the heroes of Leicester.

Maybe that is because he was never considered a star player in the few years he played in the Argentinian first division (31 matches for San Lorenzo, 12 for Arsenal de Sarandí and 14 for Olimpo de Bahía Blanca with a total of nine goals in 57 matches). The fact that he has never played for the national team is perhaps also part of the reason he is not being given huge media coverage, or the

fact that he was born in a small town, General Roca, 1,000 kilometres from Buenos Aires. He is still an unknown quantity in his homeland. “I didn’t leave Argentina in the best way, pretty much by the back door, to pick up the fight [to succeed] in Spain’s second division” he told La Nación, last month.

In the country of Lionel Messi, a lot of Barcelona shirts are being sold on the streets but no Leicester ones, and it is doubtful whether the country’s president Mauricio Macri – who was chairman of Boca Juniors in the 1990s – is even aware that an Argentinian striker has played a part in Leicester winning the Premier League. Of course, websites are reporting his goals and Leicester’s wins but no one is suggesting that he should join Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero in La Albiceleste; although the recent, touching letter of Claudio Ranieri to his players caught the media spotlight over here more than Ulloa’s achievements when coming off the bench.

France: ‘It is shocking that no one had noticed Kanté before’ Ligue 1 does not enjoy the same profile in France as the top clubs in the Premier League have in England, so there was something of an unknown quality to N’Golo Kanté to many casual football supporters in the country when he moved to Leicester from Caen at the beginning of the season. It was not until the Foxes had been well established in first place and the Paris-born midfielder had been called for the national squad that people really started to take notice of him.

With greater coverage has followed greater notoriety, although his explosion on the field

still seems to be regarded with curiosity as opposed to incredible fanfare.

Apart from his former sporting director at Caen, Xavier Gravelaine, who told Ouest France last month: “I’ve watched a lot of Leicester matches and N’Golo is the same there as he was with Caen. The difference is that he’s playing in the Premier League. It’s shocking that no one’s noticed it before. His explosion doesn’t surprise me.”

Leicester’s rise has undoubtedly brought Huth back to the forefront of the national memory, though not quite into the national squad. After Boateng got injured earlier in the year, 80% of users of Sport1 website called for the 31-year-old to be brought back for the Euros. But coach Jögi Löw moved swiftly to quash speculation, explaining that he prefers his teams to play further up the pitch than Leicester.

Italy: Love for gentleman Ranieri comes to the fore Thank you, Leicester. This story has been the stuff of dreams for Italy, the country of Claudio Ranieri. The English city has been the place where we were able to see a new side to Ranieri: he has always been a gentleman, but he has never been so happy and enthusiastic about his job. Ranieri was way too bothered because the world of football in Italy has always been hard to please. Everyone was touched by seeing him so human at Leicester.

At the last count, 500 participants were ready to go. All this is for love of the fable called Leicester and for a great coach like Claudio Ranieri. Thank you, Leicester.

Jamaica: Morgan shirts still not in demand – but that could yet change Wes Morgan may be born in Nottingham but he has 25 •Ulloa caps for Jamaica after qualifying through his grandparents. The reaction to Leicester’s success in Jamaica is what we assume it Germany: has been anywhere in the Hometown celebrates world: bemused amusement. success of loveable oddity While the Premier League Huth dominates the local version for attention, In Germany, Berlin-born defender Robert any Leicester “wagonists” are waiting Huth has long been seen as a loveable carefully for the title; or perhaps the second oddity: a born Berliner who never played in title when it comes. the domestic league; a player who looked For now Leicester are everyone’s second like he belonged to another era even though team. Speaking to 35-year-old Richard he took part in modern German football’s Currie from Kingston, who sells replica sea-change moment; a cult hero, but an football shirts, his business is still to see an imported one. While Huth is fondly increasing demand for a player who has remembered by German fans for his role in already captained the Reggae Boyz thanks the “summer fairy tale” of the 2006 World to his defensive leadership for the Foxes.

Cup, he was soon discarded in favour of “Well, I haven’t seen an order to date or more mobile players like Mats Hummels anyone wearing one,” he says. “But then and Jerome Boateng, playing his last game Morgan isn’t someone who grew up in for his country in an insignificant 7-2 Jamaica so perhaps people can’t identify friendly against the United Arab Emirates in with him like local players; but how he 2009. A recent in-depth interview in 11 defends and his fighting spirit is what people Freunde magazine noted that Huth, who has here identify with him and rate him for. Now spent almost half of his life in the UK, he has won the title you’ll see them come out. appeared to have become “estranged” from We Jamaicans are a proud people and we his homeland. like to show it!”

Marylove Edwards floors another male player

BY ONOCHIE ANIBEZE ade-Victory Olu is a tennis B enthusiast. He plays the game too.

Bade has a dream in Marylove

Edwards. He wants to see the 11-yearold tennis girl make name for Nigeria.

After Rolake Olagbegi played in the circuit, once partnering Zina Garrison in the doubles in the late 80s, Clara Udofa, discovered and trained by Godwin Kienka became the next female potential Nigeria had to challenge the big names in the circuit. But that chance was blown when Kienka stopped managing the girl who became the national champion at 14. Kienka convinced Yusuf Ali, the then Managing Director of Unipetrol to sponsor Clara and the sky was going to be her limit until people around the girl stopped Kienka apparently with the hope of managing the millions of money

that they foresaw coming her way in future. But that step killed whatever future the girl had in tennis.

Bade may not know the story of Clara Udofa but he hopes to assist in turning Marylove into a star that could shine outside these shores. After he suffered a 3-6, 3-6 defeat in the hands of the girl at the tennis court of Golden Tulip Hotel in Lagos, April 10, Bade fixed another match with Kenny Oye, a music artiste who is also a champion at CBN Estate in Satellite in Lagos. The plan is make Marlove strong by fielding her against men. Kenny is the club champion in Satellite. He is well built and very physically endowed. But he fell 4-6 in the first set before rallying to take next sets 6-4, 6-3. Marylove shed a tear and hoped to do better next time. She had tormented Bade himself after his training stint in South Africa and the

telecommunications consultant now feels he could help her grow in the game.

Last Saturday he fixed another match with Emmanuel Phillip, a tennis player who should be playing competitions but who has resorted to coaching because there are no tournaments in Nigeria.

Emma was with Bade in South Africa for training. It meant nothing to Marylove who dismissed him 7-5, 6-3. Emma once led 5-2 in the first set before Marylove gained confidence, changed her game and played some shots that attracted applause. A fan kept shouting “Marylove, I’m in love,” to which another fan each time added “with your game”, apparently to disabuse minds.

Fans cheered and Bade became more confident that his efforts and those of Marlove’s father would not be in vain.

Another match is in the making.

Marylove is a national rising player.

•Marylove

Marylove receiving her prize after beating Emmanuel Philip. Marylove and Emmanuel. Bade and Marylove on the day she beat him 6-3, 6-3

SATURDAY Vanguard, MAY 7, 2016

Giwa storms NFF, arrested

by Police >>7

RIO OLYMPICS:

Siasia faces selection headache over over-age players

•Giwa

Ranger Rangerss rekindle riv alr rivalr alryy with Shooting St ar arss

>>46

•Enyeama

Odion •Obi

Leicester’s captain to find it hard to lift trophy today >> 44 From Algeria to Ghana: how the world has fallen in love with Leicester >> 46,47

CROSS WORD PUZZLE ACROSS 1 Rwandan Prime Minister, Mr. Anastase – (8) 5 Kogi United Coach, Fatai – (4) 7 African Waterbuck – (3) 8 Ethnic Group in Nigeria – (4) 9 Companion – (4) 10 Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon – (5) 12 Pakistani Capital City – (9) 16 Drainage – (5) 18 Enyimba FC Skipper, Chinedu – (5) 19 Ethnic Group in Uganda – (5) 21 President, Zimbabwean Football Association, Phillip – (9) 24 Former Zambia “Chipolpopolos” Coach, Brian – (5) 27 Ghana “Black Stars” Midfielder, Christian – (4) 28 L.G.A in Abia State – (4) 29 Adult Male Sheep – (3) 30 Former Kano State Governor, Abubakar – (4 31 Country in Africa – (8)

DOWN 1 Super Eagles Skipper, Ahmed – (4) 2 Italian “Serie A” Club-Side – (4) 3 Former President, African Development Bank (AfDB), Mr. Donald – (9) 4 Lagos state Capital – (5) 5 Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Hon. Mudashiru – (5) 6 Former Abia Warriors Coach, Ifeanyi – (8) 11 Cereal – (3) 13 Singapore Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Hsien – (5) 14 L.G.A in Jigawa State – (9) 15 Switzerland Capital City – (4) 16 Former Super Eagles Coach, Monday – (8) 17 Former Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Aminu – (4) 20 Female Rabbit – (3) 22 L.G.A in Kebbi State – (5) 23 Senate Majority Leader, Mohammed Ali – (5) 25 Lantern – (4) 26 Hausa Word for “Water”?

– (4)

>>45

NPFL FIXTURES Today Abia Warriors v Giwa 4pm Tomorrow Akwa Rangers Enyimba Heartland Pillars Lobi Stars Plateau Warri Wolves Wikki Tourist

v v v v v v v v v

Ifeanyi Ubah Shooting Tornadoes El Kanemi Ikorodu Utd MFM FC Sunshine Stars Rivers Utd Nasarawa

Today EPL Norwich Aston Villa Bournemouth Crystal Palace Sunderland West Ham Leicester

v v v v v v v

Tottenham 12:45pm Newcastle 3pm West Brom 3pm Stoke 3pm Chelsea 3pm Swansea 3pm Everton 5:30pm

SERIE A Inter Milan Bologna

v v

Empoli AC Milan

LA LIGA Barcelona Celta Vigo Eibar Getafe Las Palmas Levante Real Madrid Real Sociedad Sevilla Villarreal

v v v v v v v v v v

Espanyol Malaga Real Betis Sporting Gijon Athletic Bilbao Atletico Madrid Valencia Rayo Vallecano Granada Deportivo

4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm

5pm 7:45pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm 4pm

BUNDESLIGA M’gladbach v Bayer Leverkusen 2:30pm Cologne v Werder Bremen 2:30pm Frankfurt v Dortmund 2:30pm FC Ingolstadt 04 v Bayern Munich 2:30pm Hamburg v Wolfsburg 2:30pm Hannover 96 v Hoffenheim 2:30pm Hertha Berlin v SV Darmstadt 98 2:30pm Schalke v FC Augsburg 2:30pm Stuttgart v Mainz 2:30pm

Solution on page 33

3,000 athletes battle for Okpekpe title today >> 39

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