President Jonathan critisized for accepting church building donation

 

President Goodluck Jonathan is being heavily criticized for accepting a multi-million naira church building donated to him by an Italian construction. The company named Gitto Construzioni Generali donated the 2,500 seat capacity church building to President Jonathan's home community in Otueke, Bayelsa State.

P resident Goodluck Jonathan goes on leave

 

President Goodluck Jonathan will begin a week-long break from his work routine on Monday, April 2, 2012.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati made this known in a press statement.

He said in the statement, that the President will be in Abuja for the period his leave is meant to last and will continue to deal with all essential affairs of state.

Mr Abati said that the President will return to work after the Easter holidays.

Ojukwu was raised for specific assignment in Nigeria – Jonathan

(Anambra) – President Goodluck Jonathan on Friday described the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu as a leader raised by God for a specific assignment in Nigeria.

Speaking at a requiem mass in honour of the ex-Biafra leader in Nnewi, Anambra, Jonathan said Ojukwu was not raised for the Igbo alone but for the entire country.

He said no Nigerian leader had been accorded the respect by Nigerians as Ojukwu had received since he passed on.

The president said that the popularity of Ojukwu could be seen from the way his body had been taken round the south eastern states.

He said such show of acceptance was rare in Africa where the bodies of former leaders were not allowed into their country when they died in exile.

Jonathan also expressed his gratitude to the Igbo for their support for his administration.

Speaking earlier, Gov. Peter Obi of Anambra said Ojukwu fought against injustice so that Nigeria would be liberated from oppression.

Billionaire Politician, Ned Nwoko Romances Actress Chika Ike …Buys Her N16 Million Range Rover Sport …Opens Exclusive Boutique For Her In Abuja

yemojanew gathered that the source of Chika Ike’s sudden found wealth is confounding most of his friends and admirers.One of Nigeria most beautiful and sexy actresses, Chika Ike is in the news.

It would be recalled that Chika’s marriage to Tony Ebireri  broke down recently and she had to relocate from Lagos to the Federal Capital City, Abuja.
Interestingly, it seemed Chika Ike hit a goldmine when she got to the FCT as her status changes spontaneously.
The sultry actress hit it big as she began to cruise around town in exotic automobiles, which were alleged to have been given to her by a top politician she was dating in the city.

Tinubu ill, As Wife Send Politicians Out of their Home

Former Governor of Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is said to be down health wise.
Though the nature of the ailment is being kept heavily guarded- his very close confidants are attributing it to stress, while the situation is being quietly and efficiently managed. Further findings revealed that the former governor has been battling this phenomenon on and off for a while. His strong supporters tagged the development a conspiracy between the fasting he undertook and the stress of overseeing his political and business Empires. But his loving wife, knowing the position of her husband, had to send some politicians out of their home, as they kept visiting the home one after the other in their numbers, knowing fully well, the lord of politics have been placed on bed rest. The politicians, who left in anger, came in to discuss the forth coming Local Government elections with their party leader, as his advice was necessary at this point, but got the shock of their lives, has they were sent out of the house.

Al- Mustapha, a liar, blackmailer, say Adebanjo, Falae, Fasoranti, others

Former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late General Sani Abacha, Major Hamsat Al-Mustapha, yesterday has stirred the hornet’s nest by mentioning names of two leading Yoruba leaders who are already late as beneficiaries of the Federal Government’s largesse to scuttle the June 12, 1993 presidential poll struggle.

He mentioned Senator Abraham Adesanya, the leader of Afenifere and Chief Bola Ige (SAN), his deputy, both of blessed memory, as being among the leaders that allegedly collected money from the government to scuttle the release and restoration of the mandate given to the late Chief MKO Abiola.

Al-Mustapha mentioned the two names in the continuation of his defence over what transpired in the country during the June 12 struggle that led to the killing of several people and detention of the winner of the annulled election, Bashorun MKO Abiola who eventually died in detention in mysterious circumstance.

Earlier on Tuesday, when he alleged that some Yoruba leaders played the spoilers in Abiola’s case, some Yoruba leaders rose in unison to challenge him to mention names.
Having done so yesterday, some leaders, who were close to both the late Adesanya and Ige did not only laugh it off, they described Al-Mustapha as a “drowning man who wants to pull somebody along with him to the bottom of the ocean.

They, however, expressed disappointment that “rather than mention living persons that can defend themselves, he resorted to blackmailing the dead who cannot rise to challenge him.”
The first child of Senator Adesanya, Adebayo described the allegation against his late father as “false, laughable, ridiculous and difficult to believe,” wondering “how could somebody Al-Mustapha sent a killer squad after go back to Aso Rock to request for money.”

His words: “I know my father to be a straight forward, honest and credible person. His struggle to actualise Abiola’ mandate nearly caused him his life. Yet, he never relented in his efforts to see that through. He never, and could have ever collected a dime from anybody to jettison and scuttle the cause in which he believed passionately.

“If he had collected money from them, it would have shown in his lifestyle. He never lived in affluence. He built all his houses, (two in Lagos and one in Ijebu-Igbo) in the sixties before he joined active politics through which he fought for the cause of common man.
“Hamzat Al-Mustapha is a drowning man, who wants to pull somebody along with him to the bottom of the ocean. My father was a contented human being and I wonder why Al-Mustapha is saying that now and not when Papa was alive. He is not serious.”

Also, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, one of the closest associates of the late Pa Adesanya and Chief Bola Ige,  condemned Al-Mustapha’s allegation describing it as “false and unfortunate.”
According to him, the allegation was not correct. Hear him: “I don’t believe him. May be he did not want to mention those people we suspect. Wasn’t he the person that sent Sgt. Rogers to kill Pa Adesanya? He is a blackmailer and should not be taken serious because the persons he mentioned were known for probity, justice and accountability. They could not have had anything to do with their money.”
The present leader of Afenifere, Chief Rueben Fasoranti, also described the allegation as “strange and difficult to believe,” saying “I know Adesanya for what he was as a man that stood for the truth, probity, honesty and justice.”

Throughout his life, Fasoranti said, he never lived an affluence life. He lived as an ordinary man with concern for the masses, wondering why Al-Mustapha waited for about six years and more after the demise of these two respected leaders before attempting to discredit them when they could no longer stand up to him to challenge him and defend themselves.
The former secretary of Afenifere under the leadership of Adesanya and Ige as his deputy, Mr. Ayo Opadokun, dismissed the allegation with the wave of the hand, insisting that “the fellow just want to ridicule these most respected people.”

Opadokun, who reminded that it was that fellow that co-ordinated the killing and detention of the people, asked him to mention “at what period were these people collecting money, who were there to witness the transaction?”

To Opadokun, “the fellow is a blackmailer, who just mentioned these names intentionally to cause crisis in Yorubaland,” adding that “he has failed woefully.”
Also attesting to the impeccable characters of the leaders mentioned.
 Former presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democrcy (AD), Chief Olu Falae regretted that “they are conveniently dead and could not defend themselves, saying “the duo were disciplined, honest, transparent and could not, for anything take blood money.”

According to Falae, it was because Adesanya refused the blood money that he was ambushed and shot at severally, stating that “it is difficult to believe the allegation.”
He wondered how anybody could have the gut to approach them with such a proposal, reminding that “they were six month in detention when they were framed as the killers of the late Kudirat Abiola.
The Personal Assistant to Pa Adesanya during the turbulent period, Reverend Adetona Adetunji Adebiyi, told Daily Sun that “history has it that Abraham Adesanya was an incorruptible elder statesman who was contented with what he had.

As far back as early 60s, Adebiyi recounted that “Papa has been a successful trader and businessman who was a self-made person, disclosing that “he was one of the few members of the Western House that championed the cause of the common man.

According to him, the late Senator Adesanya was so contented that “he would not have contested election if not prompted by the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.”
Adebiyi said: “I could not see anything about Papa to show that he was a beneficiary of such a largesse,” just as he challenged the government to investigate the allegation with a view of bringing those who actually collected the blood money to book.

How Nigerian youths can be 21st century assets, by Falade

IN his new book The 360 Degrees Youths: 21st Century Approach to Total Youths’ Development, Joshua Olabisi Falade explores the amazing world of the Nigerian youth and its place within the global context. But what he finds is a nation’s youth in disadvantage in the global scheme of things. As a youth leader within the Christian fold, Falade is worried. And he thinks every other Nigerian should be worried as well, especially parents who he says are saddled with the task of raising assets not just children.
It is this distinction between raising children and making them assets that has set the Nigerian youth at an uncertain the cross-road. Falade argues in his book that there is a need to raise well-rounded youths that can compete at all levels and in all sectors of human life to fit the global economic vision. He maintains that youths need to go beyond being educated but also being able to fit the demands of the century founded on solid Information Technology and Communications (ITC).
“Youths should be compliant with the features of the 21st century, especially in the area of competition, which is global,” Falade states, “Youths must be used to all the tools used in dealing with the century. I advise parents to have small family that they can manage as it has become increasingly expensive to raise a family so the children can become assets rather than a liability. On their part, youths should adapt to the old moral order so as not to be too materialistic.”
Falade lists various factors that have made the Nigerian youth less competitive with his mates in the global arena. These factors include a poor, starry-eyed educational curriculum that ill-equips him for usefulness in society, government’s failure to take into account youths’ potential as productive sector of the economy; a poor technological appreciation, physical inadequacy, mental lapse and poor financial base.
These factors, according to Falade, need to be addressed urgently so as to better reposition the nation’s youth force and turn it into an asset and advantage for purpose of national development. He says, “Educationally, the Nigerian youth is so backward. Education should not be abstract but one that teaches skills, especially entrepreneurial skills– so graduates would be better prepared for life after school. A large number of youths are not where they should be in terms of readiness for work.
“In other words, they are globally unprepared, socially disconnected, financially uninformed, physically un-agile, anti-fitness; in fact, they are not there yet in these areas. Reason is that education hasn’t prepare them. The curriculum is inadequate; it can’t prepared youths to be 21st century-compliant.
“In terms of technology, Nigerian youths are just hooked onto the social media network. They are not really into technology yet whereas the global economy is tech-driven. Also in terms of mental ability, Nigerian youths lag behind; the reasoning of youths today is very low; their debate is shallow. All Nigerian youths know is soccer and such trivial affairs and not the issues that drive the world like politics. Financially, Nigerian youths are not there yet; only in negative terms like yahoo or 419”.
To redress the situation, Falade maintains that there is a need for parents to bequeath to children needed skills that will make youths fit to play a part in a globalised economy otherwise raising them becomes a disservice and incalculable harm to society. He also tasks religious institutions to step up their roles and act as great socialising agents and elevate the love for mankind, morality and de-emphasise the love for materialism. Religious institutions, he states, should go back to the moral basics that will replace the corrupt order.
He insists government must redefine the basis of education to remove all abstractions for the reality staring the world in the face. Falade says things that are relevant and practical in education should be in the curriculum for a better society, saying the old concept of the town and gown should be well-aligned.
The 360 Degrees Youths: 21st Century Approach to Total Youths’ Development is scheduled for launch later this month.

Nigeria Politic Blog

Buhari Said Jonathan can’t handle Boko Haram

BuhariFrom the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC), Western Zone came a warning at the weekend on President Goodluck Jonathan not to grant amnesty to the Boko Haram fundamentalists. The sect had made Borno and other states in the North ungovernable recently. With the warning came a damning verdict from Gen Muhammadu Buhari saying the government can’t handle the sect.

And bothered by the attacks in Northern parts of the country by suspected Boko Haram members, churches now frisk their congregation at the gates before being allowed entry. A number of churches had been bombed lately by people suspected to be Boko Haram, even as a director in the Amnesty Office in the Presidency called for a programme to cater for youths.

But the IYC argued that there was no comparison between the Niger Delta militants and the Boko Haram sect. It decried the comparison of the Islamic fundamentalists and Niger Delta combatants.

In a communique issued at the weekend after the zonal meeting in Arogbo, Ondo State, the IYC warned: “ If the Federal Government should bow to calls for amnesty for Boko Haram, the fund accruing from the Niger Delta oil should never be contemplated to facilitate such amnesty programme.
“While the council condemns the activities of Boko Haram in strong terms and maintained that there was no basis for comparison, as some have done, of the Moslem group with Niger Delta combatants fighting for the criminal neglect of the region by the Federal Government that feeds fat from its resources,” the statement further added.

The Ijaw group, however, hailed President Jonathan on the re-appointment of Kingsley Kuku as Special Adviser on Niger Delta Affairs, adding that Kuku had applied his “wealth of experience in fast-tracking the amnesty programme.”

The IYC, among other things, tasked President Jonathan to establish standard tertiary institutions in Ijawland “to reconcile the backward region to the rest of the country,” adding: “To that effect, Congress calls on the Delta State Government to properly fund the Delta State Institute of Marine Technology, Burutu to enable it succeed in its purpose.”

Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Buhari has bemoaned the insecurity in the nation, saying the President cannot handle the Boko Haram sect.
The former military Head of State, who spoke through his spokesman, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, noted that the major issue is that we live in denial in this country and we don’t want to get to the root cause of all problems, saying we just see them on the surface.

“The issue of Boko Haram has become a major security challenge and like many other groups that are taking up arms against the state, they are products of injustices.
“When you look at the Boko Haram, Boko Haram is an anarchist group that is a response to the neglect of the poor, to the kind of inequality in the society that has confined majority to poverty, while a few take all the goods of the society.

“And these people are responding to the crisis in their own way and in the process, have taken up arms.
“I have not seen any issue where the President has shown capacity that he can address Nigeria today. He has not shown that he can address any serious issue confronting the country,” Buhari said.
On the way forward in putting to rest, the insecurity in the nation, Buhari said it is so clear that the signs are not very good at all, adding that they are dangerous signals.
“Only this morning, we read in the papers that some groups are circulating leaflets in our 10 states in the North, that they are also Christian militants and that they are ready to engage Boko Haram.
“If care is not taken, I think those are dangerous signals and rather than engaging or encouraging this kind of thing, because when you look at the country where this kind of thing is happening, it is a bad signal and we have just been rated as the 14th most failed country in the world.

“If you allow this kind of thing to go on unchecked, uncontrolled and without a serious approach, which requires sophisticated thinking, we will be heading for trouble in this country,” Buhari said.
While saying that Nigeria needs serious leadership at this moment and not politics, Buhari also said that “with what we have seen in the last one year, we want to play politics with security at every critical juncture,” saying “that is why we have not been able to address the question of security challenge.”
On its part, a director in the Amnesty office in the Presidency, Dr. Ferdinand Ikwang, said agitation for resource control and wanton destruction of lives and property are two different things.
He called on the government to design a programme that would cater for the needs of all the youths in the nation’s six geo-political zones.
Ikwang, who spoke against the background of the call for amnesty for Boko Haram lamented over the violence carried out by the group.

Speaking in Lagos at the weekend at the sendforth of 50 Niger Delta youths to Sri Lanka for vocational training, Ikwang declared: “Every zone should be dealt with by its merit. We should also look at what will be of strategic national, economic, and security interests of the country and then what are we looking out for in the future,” said Ikwang.

Source

PDP Stalwart And Ministerial Nominee Drowns In The Lagos Lagoon, Body Yet To Be Recovered

 The body of a Lagos politician, Mr. Al-Mustaim Alade Abaniwonda, who jumped into the Lagos lagoon yesterday evening is yet to be recovered, sources within the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, told P.M.NEWS this morning.
The politician, who was 56 as at the time he committed suicide, was a ministerial nominee who could not make it to the screening of nominees by the Senate recently.
Abaniwonda, a die-hard loyalist of Chief Bode George, had lost the senatorial seat in the last election to Senator Gbenga Ashafa, who now represents Lagos East Senatorial District.
P.M.NEWS learnt that he spent a lot of money during the campaign and was supposed to be compensated with the ministerial slot. He was however denied the slot under circumstances which could not be ascertained as at the time of filing this report.
When P.M.NEWS contacted the party’s secretariat over the incident this morning, Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Barrister Gani Taofeek, said a search party had been on the lagoon in search of the body of Abaniwonda, who jumped into the lagoon after driving his car, a Toyota Camry with registration number MU 555 AAA to the Leventis Bus Stop in Marina.
Explaining how the incident occurred, his driver, Wasiu, who drove him to the spot, said they were coming from a bank on the Lagos Island when he told the driver that he was pressed and would need to use the toilet. He rebuffed the driver’s advice to wait till they get to the CSS Bookshop building located on Broad Street.
According to Wasiu, who spoke with journalists at the scene of the incident, “he ate his food after we left the bank and he told me he was going to use a toilet down there. That was all I knew until I heard people shouting.
“He was still struggling to get out of the lagoon when I got there but he later went down inside the water.”
Eyewitness account has it that when the politician jumped into the lagoon, he was still able to stand upright at a shallow part of the lagoon but he deliberately walked into a deeper section of the lagoon.
The late Epe-born politician’s son, who rushed to the scene with some other siblings while the rescue efforts were still going on, denied that his father took his life as a result of frustration from his failure in politics, saying he was lively and happy while the family celebrated the birthday of their mother the previous day.
“If he is still in the water up till now, and you told me it happened about an hour ago, then he must have died because he is diabetic. There is a limit to which his lungs would be able to hold him under water,” his son said.

Update

 Drowned Lagos politician’s remains found, buried 

 The late Abaniwonda's widow
 Forty-eight hours after he slipped and got drowned in the Lagos lagoon, the remains of Lagos politician Mustain Abaniwonda were finally retrieved and buried yesterday afternoon at the Victoria Court Cemetery, Lagos.

His remains were found floating face-up deep into the sea by a search party 48 hours after he slipped into the lagoon in Marina and was swept away by the tidal waves.

His family have denied he jumped into the lagoon, they insist he slipped and drowned when help didn't come to him on time. What they told the press when you continue...