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Thursday, January 8, 2015

SOME SENIOR CITIZENS BEHAVE LIKE MOTOR PARK TOUTS —JONATHAN



President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, lampooned some unnamed senior citizens in the country for their provocative and divisive statements, saying though these people would like to be seen as statesmen, they behaved more or less like “motor park touts.”


Jonathan spoke when he received the executive and members of the Board of Trustees, BoT, of the Northern Elders Council, NEC, led by Alhaji Tanko Yakassai at the State House, saying mere occupation of a big office in the past did not confer statesmanship on any body.

He also told the delegation that it was wrong for anybody to accuse him of hating the north, saying some of his closest aides are from the north.

Although the President did not name any politician, there has been no love lost between him and former President Olusegun Obasanjo who had in recent past criticised his administration over alleged non-performance.

Obasanjo on Monday also accused Jonathan of squandering about $55 billion savings in the excess crude account and the nation’s foreign reserve.

You are ordinary motor park tout

Jonathan said: “Some people call themselves statesmen but they are not statesmen they are just ordinary politicians. For you to be a statesman is not because you have occupied a big office before but the question is what are you bringing to bear. Are you building this country or are you a part of people who tell lies to destroy this country to create enmity and make people who ordinarily would have been living together to fight themselves? Are you planning to set the country ablaze because you did not get that particular thing you want?

“At the appropriate time Nigerians will know all of us even though I know most of you know us but the younger ones do not know. Some people are hiding under some big names and creating a lot of problems in this country. Making provocative statements in this country; statements that will set this country ablaze and you tell me you are a senior citizen. You are not a senior citizen; you can never be. You are ordinary motor park tout.

“Because, if you are a senior citizen you will act like one. It is not because of the offices we occupy, it is by divine grace and providence that some of us occupy these offices. But what role are you playing to build this country?”

Friday, October 31, 2014

Are Igbos really foolish? (1) - Culled from VANGUARD



Dr Junaid Mohammed,a member of the House of Representatives in the Second Republic and currently coordinates the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen. He treats other zones of Nigeria with little respect, and obviously cannot hide his hatred and disregard for Ndigbo of the South East Nigeria.

In the Punch Newspaper of September 12, 2014, he described the just concluded National Confab as a waste of time, and that it achieved nothing, and argued that the agenda of the different regions of the South failed.

According to him: Those who wanted to use the result of the conference for their own political good, like Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party have failed woefully; the Igbo wanted to use the conference to achieve their demented agenda of equality or parity between the North-West and the South-East.

In his words: “If you are to use a serious map that is scientifically based, to show respective areas where you show the North-West as the palm of a hand, the South-East will only be a dot”.

Continuing, he said: The South-South request for resource control also failed; the recommendations of the Confab would not scale through the National Assembly that has Northerners in the majority; any of the presidential candidates in 2015 election who commits to maintaining the current revenue allocation formula would not win; anybody who commits himself to maintain the preponderance of the Igbo in all our financial agencies, ministries and department will also not win the next election; Goodluck Jonathan has already started boasting that he has given the Igbo more than anybody in the past, for that alone he will not win the next election. If he rigs it, there will be mayhem.

Dr. Mohammed has said it all; he should be held responsible for any bloodshed after the 2015 elections. He must be coming from a school of thought that believes Northern Nigeria must always produce the President and the heads of all Federal Government ministries and agencies in Nigeria.No wonder Northerners are swarming the NNPC through which they milk Nigeria as their inheritance as given to them by Great Britain and exposed byAliyu Gwarzo.In their wisdom, their tribe is meant to reap where they have sown nothing, while denying the actual owners of the oil any benefits with the vehemence of a suicide bomber!They cannot stand women in powerful positions as we have them now.

For the likes of Dr. Mohammed and his brother Murtala Nyako, GEJ is an Igbo man; how unfortunate!
A great beneficiary of the years of Northern rule of Nigeria, Dr Mohammed needs our sympathy and understanding because the tide in the affairs of Nigeria has continued to change as ordained by God who created the heaven and the earth. The refusal of any mortal to accept the will of this sovereign God over this nation is rebellion against God, and the consequences include destruction. God will judge that, and He does not fail.

Dr. Junaid Mohammed was reported recently as calling Igbos selfish and shameless in an interview published on the Hope for Nigeria website. I do not blame him. He is saying it as he sees the Igbo man. There are reasons to think that the Igbo man is selfish and foolish, I mean very foolish! After all, an Igbo Proverb, says that the madman knows what he does, but may not know why he does those things. Dr. Junaid may not know why he is saying the things he said, as a matter fact.

Let us face it, here is a people who were massacred in the North of Nigeria in 1966.They were killed in hundreds of thousands which culminated in a three years civil war.

What did the Igbos do right after the war? They quickly ran back to the same spots where they were killed in 1966 and re-established businesses in a bid to survive the hunger from the war.

They remained in those states,built houses, estates, hotels, and expanded the economy of their erstwhile killers! Some have children born in such places who can’t speak Igbo language!Is it wise to think that your enemy will love you because you came back to make money? No man will hate your father and turn round to love you! Igbos know this too well, but refuse to change, it is shocking!I was in the war, as a young boy, in the Biafra Organisation of Freedom Fighters,BOFF.

We were told then, that one way the Nigerian soldiers confirmed that an Igbo soldier was really dead was to shake a few coins noisily in his ears. If he did not move, then he is dead! This captured the greed or selfishness of an average Igbo man as perceived by Nigerians. This wrong notion may have accounted for the different attitude of some of us; the products of that training to money. We see money as the reason Igbos are insulted by every fool in Nigeria!

Since after that war, Igbos have succeeded most in working against themselves. First was the Onitsha sea port which the then Alhaji Shehu Shagari government wanted to build for Igbos, but ended up building that small canoe jetty in the name of seaport at Onitsha. Igbo sons were part of the deceit at that time, and it remains a scar on the conscience of those who betrayed their land by refusing to use that opportunity to give Igbo land a sea port.

When you demand for a seaport in Igbo land today, the Northern interests would get an Igbo professional to tell you that it cannot be done, forgetting that the United Arab Emirates built one of the biggest seaports in modern world today, in the desert! If these Igbo professionals that are being used are not fools, what will you call them? We know them, yet we clap when they vomit upon us!

Clement Udegbe, a legal practitioner, wrote from Lagos.



Thursday, September 25, 2014

Col. Adekunle: A hero or a war criminal?


When the news of Adekunle’s passing at 78 was announced recently, it barely gathered traction as a piece of news. However, on resumption of the National Assembly from vacation, the Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mulikat Akande, who represents Ogbomosho, Adekunle’s hometown in Oyo State, officially brought the news to the Green Chamber. Since Adekunle fought for the federal side during the war, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, asked his colleagues to stand and honour him with a one-minute silence. As the House rose, some Igbo Reps members refused to comply. Their grouse was that Adekunle was a “war criminal” who allegedly killed a lot of defenceless civilians. In fact, he was quoted in some written works of boasting he would “kill everything that moves” in “Iboland”.

Following this event, a big fight (predictably) ensued across the social media forums between Igbo and Yoruba commentators. These fights are always breaking out whenever a historic figure dies on both sides. It happened when Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and Professor Chinua Achebe joined their Creator. When Obasanjo, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Generals Yakubu Gowon and Theophilus Danjuma eventually go, you can be sure of more fights among these, mainly young people, most of who do not properly understand the full underpinnings of our history and why people played the roles they had to.

What happened in the House of Reps was unfortunate, but I fully understood it. When it comes to the events that culminated in the civil war and their aftermath, we can never feel the same when we remember. Nigeria won independence in 1960, but in 1966, the crises that followed the independence overflowed after the January 1966 military coup. A civil war was fought when the East (Igbos) declared secession. The war was a gang-up of the rest of the country and their foreign backers to force the Igbos back to Nigeria. Those, like Adekunle, who played prominent roles at the war front towards “keeping Nigeria One” qualify as heroes of the Nigerian civil war
.
The Igbos who felt the heat of the war will, naturally, not be amused when such people are being celebrated because, for them, one man’s war hero is another man’s war criminal. It is an interplay of democracy that while one side is celebrating their war hero the other side chooses to abstain.

The Benjamin Adekunle story is free for all. If he was your hero, celebrate (or mourn). If he was not, put him where he belongs. Personally, as far as events of those days were concerned, I would rather honour Col. Adekunle Fajuyi as a true hero and man of great example (who chose to go down with his visiting boss, General Aguiyi-Ironsi, rather than join his murderers) than an Benjamin Adekunle who derived demonic pleasure from killing defenceless people.

In any case, look at the One Nigeria they fought for, where everyone is crying tears, sorrow and blood, irrespective of which side they belonged. More than forty years after the war, Nigeria is yet to recover from the rapacity of those who fought to keep it one. They waged a mindless war on its resources and condemned its future. Was this what Adekunle, who returned from the war front to a life of recluse, fought and joyfully killed for?

And I am wondering: if Adekunle hated Igbos so much that he was ready to kill everything that moved during the war.                                               
                                                                            Culled from the VANGUARD

Saturday, September 20, 2014

Exposing the CBN Boko Haram “sponsor”

Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has added his voice to this allegation, affirming that his own independent inquiries showed that the same individual is indeed culpable. He went on to say that the name of the person has been made available to the highest authority in the land.
The question on the lips of Nigerians is: who is this person? What is so special about him that he cannot even be named? Why can’t he be brought out for the public to see the person who has helped in sending thousands of Nigerians to their early graves while the nation is faced with the greatest threat to her unity since the Nigerian civil war nearly fifty years ago? Why has the CBN remained mute about this issue, since its name is being dragged to the mud? Why hasn’t the CBN seen it fit to tell Nigerians what it knows about this matter?
Happily, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a social crusader organization, has taken up the gauntlet and given the CBN a fourteen-day ultimatum, based on the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. SERAP demands information about the persons involved in the money laundering and sponsorship of Boko Haram sect. A statement from the group said the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, is required to explain the exact nature of any such transactions.
We commend SERAP for wading into this matter clinging to the force of the FOIA. We are waiting patiently to see how the CBN under a new manager, Emefiele, will respond to this challenge. It will be a major metric for measuring the seriousness he attaches to his work and the need to keep the Bank clean of scandals.
We are greatly worried that the Presidency and the security agencies have chosen to keep the Nigerian public in the dark about the truth or otherwise of this individual’s involvement.
Although the very thought that an individual in the top echelon of Nigeria’s ultimate Bank and regulator of the financial system will become a bankroller of our enemy, yet it is only such a high level conspiracy that can make Boko Haram to grow into the monster it has become.
When this fellow is identified, tried and convicted, we will expect him to face the full wrath of the law. - VANGUARD

 

Friday, September 19, 2014

If you are desperately in search of a sugar mummy, then search no more as controversial actress turned singer, Cossy Orjiakor has come to your rescue.


If you are desperately in search of a sugar mummy, then search no more as controversial actress turned singer, Cossy Orjiakor has come to your rescue.

The busty actress said, her male fans wouldn’t let her be, as they want her to be their sugar mummy.

On that note, the actress has reeled out some criterion for considering them. Yes they have actually been disturbing me for that. But I told them that if you must be my sugar boy there is need for you to be a good cook, a good house boy and a driver.

I have even asked some of them to send a picture of themselves cooking in the kitchen and what they are preparing. But they weren’t sending the picture I want.

At the moment, none of them is qualified to be my sugar boy. If they had qualified, I would have employed at least three of them and placed them on salary,she said -VANGAURD

Friday, August 8, 2014

Passports Go Mobile



Airplane boarding passes went mobile a long time ago, and now passports are joining the digital age, as well.

United Airlines this week announced that customers can now scan their passports to check in for international flights via their iOS and Android devices, making United the first U.S. airline to offer such functionality. The airline is still testing the feature, but it's now available through United's mobile app.

"We are focused on building the most useful travel app in the industry for our customers. The new passport scanning feature saves valuable time and provides customers with more options to control their travel experience," Scott Wilson, United's vice president of merchandising and ecommerce, said in a statement.

Customers will be able to access the passport scanning feature when checking in for international flights up to 24 hours before their departure. After firing up the app's check-in feature, you'll have the option of either verifying your existing stored passport data or scanning your passport for the first time.

The app uses your phone's camera to capture your passport, similar to a mobile banking deposit. For added security, the credentials management company Jumio will then verify your passport. Once the verification process is complete, you can obtain your boarding pass.

Those requiring additional travel documentation, such as a visa, will still need to check in at the airport.

United said it will collect feedback during this testing phase, and hopes to improve the experience based on the comments it receives.

The move comes after United in 2007 became the first U.S. airline to introduce mobile boarding passes. United currently offers mobile boarding at 54 international airports, including all domestic airports it serves in the United States, the most of any U.S.-based carrier.