Thursday, 20 October 2016

47 airlines have folded up in Nigeria —Operators


Airline operators on Wednesday blamed the dwindling fortunes of some airlines in the country on the harsh operating environment.
They told the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation that 47 airlines had folded up in the last 30 years owing to the unfavourable operating environment.
The Secretary General, Airline Operators of Nigeria, Capt. Mohammed Joji, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, attributed the development to “policy formulation, policy deviation and policy contradictions on the part of the executive arm of government.”
The committee, which is chaired by Mrs. Nkiruka Onyejeocha, held a public hearing at the National Assembly on the need to rescue the airlines from imminent collapse.
“Forty-seven airlines have gone under due to policy somersault and high operating costs,” Joji said.
He stated that the Federal Government tried to address the situation in 2006 through the Presidential Task Force set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
However, he noted that there had been no remarkable change in the way government agencies in the aviation sector churned out policies because the report of the task force was not implemented.
Joji said, “These include high operation costs, leading to unstable operating environment such as the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency charging dollars for domestic operators flying within the Nigerian airspace.
“It was for that reason the Presidential Task Force set up by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo submitted its report in March 2006. The published white paper approved among other things the following: government accepted the recommendation to grant zero tariff and Value Added Tax on aircraft, aircraft spare parts and ground equipment.
“Government also approved the removal of the five per cent VAT on ticket sales and cargo charges. The task force also noted that VAT is never charged on transportation in any part of the world because transportation is a basic service, which drives the economy. The task force’s recommendation can be collaborated by the VAT Decree No. 102 of 1993.”
The operators also complained that foreign airlines were enjoying certain incentives that were denied local carriers.
One of such is the approval of multiple destinations to foreign airlines, which they said had adversely affected their own operations.
Joji explained, “The Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority policy of levying operators flying on scheduled flights out of Nigeria is a punitive measure devoid of any economic sense to the airlines.
“The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria charges the most expensive land rate in the world at N60,000 per square metre. That is more expensive than choice land in Victoria Island, Lagos, and Asokoro in Abuja.”
The Managing Director, Medview Airline, Mr. Olanrewaju Lukman, told the committee that Joji’s presentation adequately captured the feelings of the operators.
He said while the government’s plan to concede four major airports to private operators might sound appealing, it could be distorted if the process was not made transparent.
“If anything meaningful must be achieved in the proposed plan to rescue the aviation sector, then transparency must be the watchword,” he argued.

Guardiola won’t sacrifice style despite Barca blunders


Manchester City coach Pep Guardiola was defiant he will not change his ways despite a harrowing night for goalkeeper Claudio Bravo on his return to Barcelona as a Lionel Messi hat-trick inspired a 4-0 Barca win on Wednesday.
Bravo was sent-off with City trailing just 1-0 for saving Luis Suarez’s effort when outside his area after gifting the ball to the Uruguayan striker, putting Guardiola’s decision to jettison England number one Joe Hart under more scrutiny.
“Until the last day I am a coach I will try to play from the goalkeeper,” said Guardiola.
“Of course you cannot play all the time, but it was a mistake and it sometimes happens.”
Bravo enjoyed two almost faultless years at Barca before joining City in August, but has endured a shaky start under Guardiola’s firm instructions to build City’s attack from the back.
“He (Bravo) has a lot of experience, he is one of the best goalkeepers in the world for the last 10 years, but he will learn and is the first one in the dressing room to apologise.”
Bravo’s gaffe was just one of many City defensive howlers on the night as Messi took advantage of Fernandinho’s slip to give Barca an early lead.
Messi curled home a second before Ilkay Gundogan’s misplaced pass played in Suarez, who squared for Messi to complete his hat-trick.
The scoreline could have been even more embarrassing for City had substitute goalkeeper Willy Caballero not saved a penalty from Neymar before the Brazilian made amends with a brilliant fourth.
“It is always difficult to play in Barcelona with 11 players and with 10 the game was over,” added Guardiola.
“We created enough chances, we arrive at the byline many times, but with their strikers when they arrive they punish you.”
Guardiola won his first 10 games in charge, but City have now failed to win any of their last four matches and the Catalan lamented the series of error-strewn performances affecting his side.
A 3-3 draw at Celtic was followed by a 2-0 defeat at Tottenham Hotspur before City missed two penalties in a 1-1 draw with Everton on Saturday.
“Starting in Glasgow, own goals in White Hart Lane (against Tottenham), missing penalties, we give a lot for the opponents,” he added.
Guardiola, who won 14 trophies in four years in charge of Barca, has now lost on both occasions he has returned to the Camp Nou after losing 3-0 in 2015 when with Bayern Munich.
However, Guardiola’s former teammate and Barca boss Luis Enrique agreed Bravo’s dismissal changed the game.
“The sending-off was decisive and conditioned the game a lot,” said Enrique.
“Teams that try to play from the back know those errors can happen and you have to accept it. In the long-run it is more beneficial.”
Messi has now scored two hat-tricks in as many games in this season’s Champions League as the Argentine showed no signs of rust on his first start for a month after a groin injury.
“We have seen the calm that Messi has to finish inside the area as if he was in the school yard,” added Enrique.
“If there is anything you can expect of Messi it is that. It doesn’t matter how many days he has been out or the games he has missed.”

AFP

Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Mother kills eight-year-old son who caught her having sex with grandfather


A mother, Veronica Panarello, received a 30-year jail term for murdering her son because he discovered she was having an affair with his grandfather.
Veronica Panarello strangled her son Loris Stival with electrical cables then abandoned his body in a remote gully in Santa Croce, Sicily, Metro UK reported.
She thereafter lied to the police that the boy had been kidnapped.
She said she had taken Stival to school but was not seen as for the time she went back to get him in the afternoon.
Nevertheless, CCTV footage showed that she had not dropped him off at school that day.
Prosecutors branded her an ‘egocentric, manipulative liar.’
Even after she had been found guilty of Loris’ murder and received the sentence, she continued to deny the act.
She also blamed the husband’s father, Andrea Stival, When she confessed that her son had been killed in November 2014.
She told an earlier hearing that he had helped to plot and then carried out the murder because Loris had caught them having sex.
Stival is being investigated as an accessory to murder, according to Italian media.
He has denied the claim and is threatening to sue his daughter-in-law for slander, it has emerged.
Her husband has now filed for divorce.

Edo declares holiday as Benin crown prince picks name


The crown prince of Benin Kingdom, His Royal Highness, Eheneden Erediauwa, on Tuesday visited Use community in Egor Local Government Area of Edo State, where he picked a name he would bear as the new Oba.
The ceremony was part of the traditional rites ahead of Eheneden’s coronation on Thursday.
 When our correspondent visited Use at about 2.30pm, many residents were seen rushing towards the palace, while those that arrived earlier were seen around the perimeter fence of the building.
Various traditional groups, including Benin chiefs, were also present.
Eheneden arrived at about 4pm in company with his royal entourage and received a rousing welcome from a large crowd, who showered praises on him.
He proceeded to the palace with the Edigin N’Use, Ekpen Kelvin Edigin.
The heir apparent later played the traditional game of pebbles (Akhue) while a large crowd of residents watched with admiration.
Although, the name chosen by the prince was not announced after the game, it was learnt that it would be made public on Thursday.
Eheneden later proceeded to Ugbo shrine where he prayed for God’s guidance and protection.
Meanwhile, the Edo State Government has declared Thursday as a public holiday.
According to a statement signed by the Secretary to the State Government, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, the public holiday was declared in honour of the crown prince.
Ihonvbere added that the holiday would give residents of the state the opportunity to witness the coronation and ensure a hitch-free exercise.
Also, in preparation for the coronation of the new Oba, an adjustment has been made in traffic flow within the state capital and alternative routes provided for motorists.
The coronation planning committee said the adjustment  would take effect from midnight of October 18.
In a statement signed by the Chairman of Media and Publicity Sub-committee, Josef Omorotionmwan, the committee listed some of the affected roads as Airport Road, Sapele Road, Sakponba and Akpakpava.
…5,000 policemen to be deployed for coronation
The Edo State Police Command has said that no fewer than 5,000 policemen would be deployed on Thursday in Benin for Prince Eheneden Erediauwa’s coronation.
The Commissioner of Police, Haliru Gwandu, said the deployment became necessary due to the large number of personalities expected to attend the event and the need to provide adequate security.
Gwandu spoke on Tuesday while parading 44 suspects arrested for various offences including kidnappings, pipeline vandalism, cultism and communal land tussles.
The Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Operations, Joshak Habila, had prior to the September 28 governorship election promised that the police would provide adequate security during the coronation.
 Gwandu said that the police had decided to remain proactive to make sure that the peace in the state was not disturbed by unwanted individuals.
He said, “We have  information that the occasion is attractive to the international community, ambassadors from the USA, ambassadors from the UK, our neighbouring countries, our paramount rulers, and of course, the crème de la crème of the society.
“So, we have to ensure that the society is safe (and) our people are protected. We will do everything humanly possible to protect the citizens, prevent the influx of misguided elements because of these important dignitaries that are coming.”

Naira shortage pushes interbank rate to 150%


Two days after commercial banks placed funds with the Central Bank of Nigeria to participate in last Friday’s currency forward auction, overnight interbank rate was quoted at a record high of 150 per cent on Tuesday.
Traders said few deals were done on Tuesday due to a shortage of naira on the money market, with banks unwilling to place funds among themselves until the result of Friday’s currency auction was published.
On Friday, the CBN held a two-month dollar forward auction to clear a backlog of demand from airlines, manufacturers and other companies, as the exchange rate crisis deepened.
Traders said the banks were later directed by the CBN to re-submit bids again on Monday.
It was learnt that rates spiked because banks were barred from the CBN’s repo window before any currency auction. The CBN had not announced result of the auction as of Tuesday.
“Most banks are not quoting rates because they are still waiting for the result of the FX auction,” one trader said.
The regulator has been tightening liquidity and intervening directly with dollar sales to banks to support the ailing naira, hit by the fall in oil prices, the nation’s economic mainstay.
Overnight rates closed at 128 per cent on Monday after they opened at 100 per cent, up from 14 per cent on Thursday.
The money market ended with no deals on Friday as lenders held onto naira to be able to participate at the auction.
The overnight interbank lending rate soared to a record high of 128 per cent on Monday on naira cash shortages after commercial banks  funded their account with the Central Bank of Nigeria to participate in last Friday’s currency forward auction.
Overnight rates opened at 100 per cent on Monday, traders said, after the money market ended on Friday with no deals as commercial lenders held onto naira to be able to participate in the auction, Reuters reported.
Overnight money had traded at 14 per cent on Thursday.

Ambode sacks finance, transport, tourism commissioners


Lagos State governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, on Wednesday fired the commissioners for Tourism, Mr Folorunsho Folarin-Coker; Finance, Dr. Mustapha Akinkunmi and Transport, Dr. Ekundayo Mobereola.
A statement by the Secretary to the State Government, Mr. Tunji Bello, announced the cabinet reshuffle by the governor.
The statement said Ambode directed the Special Adviser, Arts and Culture to take over as the Acting Commissioner for Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
The Special Adviser on Transportation will take over as Acting Commissioner for Transportation, while the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance will take over as the Acting Commissioner for Finance, pending the appointment of new Commissioners in the respective ministries.
Ambode thanked the former Commissioners for their service to the State and wished them well in their future endeavours.

No reason was given for the decision

(PUNCH)

'New set of Nollywood actors lack knowledge' - Segun Arinze

Segun Arinze criticized the new set of Nollywood actors, terming them as pretentious and lacking discipline.

 The veteran actor commented about this in an interview with Hip TV News, where he added that the new entries only show proficiency in phonetics.
"Today’s set of Nollywood actors are not grounded. What they know how to do is to speak phonetics.
“Most of these guys are pretentious. They are only interested in who has the highest number of likes or followers on their social media platforms.
“Most of them are not even disciplined and they lack the knowledge; they only want to be popular,”
“I am sorry to say this but the truth is that today’s crop of Nollywood actors are not grounded. Talent is not the only thing you need; you also have to be grounded."
The actor began his career in Ilorin, Kwara State, and has featured in a high number of movies.
Some of these include "Silent Night", "Across the Niger", "Family on Fire" and "Black Arrow". The latter earned him the alter ego of the same name.

Stephine Linus in second Hollywood trailer movie

The second trailer for "Boonville Redemption" has been released. 

The movie which is set for a November 8, 2016 release, stars Nigerian Africa Magic Viewers Choice Award winner, Stephanie Linus.
The actress plays the role of Doris, a lady from the second generation of slave trade in America whose parents came from Nigeria. Doris is no longer a slave and she lives with her Uncle in this community where people are not judged by their race or colour.
She is a strong compassionate woman who forms a bond with a young girl, Melinda, who grew up not knowing her father. Doris plays the role of convincing her Uncle to reveal the truth to this young girl about her father’s whereabouts. She also helps take care of Miss Mary, Melinda's grandmother when she was ill and sheltered a young boy who had no place to stay.

About movie
13-year-old Melinda is angry about the hand life has dealt her. Being born out of wedlock and scorned by many, she struggles to find out who she is in this world, to herself, her family and to God.
Melinda desperately wants to know what happened to her real father. Determined to do all within her power to find her father, Melinda’s bravery compels  some of the townspeople to reveal the dark secrets that they have kept to themselves for years.
Her example gives them strength to bring the truth to light and ultimately to find forgiveness and redemption. Along with Boonville’s residents, Melinda learns that when you look for the truth, that’s where you’ll find grace.

Stephanie Okereke Linus on set

The American Western Epic movie also stars Pat Boone, Diane Ladd, Edward Asner, Emily Hoffman, Nicholas Neve Shari Rigby, Richard Tyson among others.
"Boonville Redemption" is produced and directed by Don Schroeder.

Photos of Nollywood actor Kenneth Okonkwo and his sisters at Enugu High Court


Nollywood actor and lawyer, Kenneth Okonkwo shared theses photos of himself and siblings at the Enugu High Court. He wrote: "It tastes pretty good for lawyers from the same womb to appear on the same side of a case. Glad to be with Anita and Princess my siblings at an Enugu High Court. To God be the glory"

U.S. Govt hosts northern Nigeria governors in Washington D.C


Governors of the 19 northern states in Nigeria were yesterday received in Washington by the US government, in furtherance of the northern governors’ symposium organised by United States Institute of Peace (USIP) designed to amongst other things, seek possible ways of attaining lasting peace in Northern Nigeria.

The visiting governors are expected to spend three days in Washington while meeting with Steve Hayes, chairman of the Corporate Council on Africa and Gayle Smith, USAID director, to discuss project priorities for northern Nigeria.

Guardiola’s father insists he will never return to Barcelona


Pep Guardiola’s father, Valenti, has said there is no chance his son will return to Barcelona and also ruled out the possibility of him taking the Spain job.
Guardiola started his playing career at Camp Nou and won a lot of major titles both as a player and coach, during his two decades with the club.
The Spaniard ended his association with the club in 2012, when he embarked on a one-year sabbatical leave from the game.
Now his father has told Barca fans, not to expect him back in any role at the club.
“Return to Barcelona? To do what, work as a ballboy?” Valenti joked with Cadena Ser on Monday.
“I really don’t see him there either as president or on the bench. His time with Barca has come and gone, I don’t think he would do well in going back.
“At the very least, I think we can rule out him coming back as coach.”
Guardiola, who is now coach of Manchester City, returns to Camp Nou on Wednesday to face his old club. Valenti says he will be supporting the Premier League team.
He also backed his son to do with his new club.
“He does well everywhere,” he added.
“He did great in Germany too, they loved him there, and he has walked into a big club in England.”
There is one job, he however cannot see his son accepting.
“I would say he could take the Catalan national team, but I can’t see him in Spain,” he said.
“I’m not just saying that, I have nothing against anyone. Everyone is free to think what they want.
“I don’t know what he will do, who am I to say what he should do?”

Enugu Rangers have apologised for their shameful trophy parade


Enugu Rangers Int. FC won the Nigeria Professional League last month After 32 years of waiting, and were rewarded with N40 million by the NFF and League Management Company.
But, there was outrage on social media when the team had a trophy parade on Oct 15 around Enugu main town and used an old 'dirty truck'. An apology has now been issued through the football team's official twitter account...

PSG lost 8million fans after Ibrahimovic left for United – Blomqvist


Jesper Blomqvist has claimed that Paris Saint-Germain “lost eight million supporters”, after Zlatan Ibrahimovic joined Manchester United this summer.
Ibrahimovic left the Ligue 1 champions at the end of last season after four years and signed for the Premier League side as a free agent.
Blomqvist, also a former Sweden international, says PSG have lost more than just a player.
 “He is one of the biggest personalities in Sweden,” Blomqvist told the Sun.
“He has launched his own perfume, Volvo cars and his own sports clothing range. He is his own brand. He is everywhere even though he has stopped playing for the national team.
“I work a lot with travel companies in Sweden coming over to Manchester. The interest is just triple. Zlatan is so big in Sweden. I think PSG have lost eight million supporters in Sweden and now they are all Manchester United. Not all but it is like that.
“More planes come over, they sell a lot more tickets to the United games. I have done it every now and then for a couple of years. Now there are 10 times more calls from companies who want me to come over with the supporters.”

Tuesday, 18 October 2016

Recession led me to crime – Fake Customs official


The Police in Ogun State on Monday nabbed a self-professed Assistant Comptroller of the Nigerian Customs Service, NCS.
The 55-year-old man, Mr. Ariyo Wasiu, who was arrested in the Agbara area of the state, has duped many unsuspecting Nigerians.
The state police spokesman, Abimbola Oyeyemi, who confirmed the arrest, said the suspect, a resident of Lagos Island, was dismissed six years ago from the Mechanic Department of the customs for an act of indiscipline.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Novelist writes on Nigeria’s Failed Promises


I was 7 years old the first time I recognized political fear. My parents and their friends were talking about the government, in our living room, in our relatively big house, set on relatively wide grounds at a southeastern Nigerian university, with doors shut and no strangers present. Yet they spoke in whispers. So ingrained was their apprehension that they whispered even when they did not need to. It was 1984 and Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari was the military head of state.
Governmental controls had mangled the economy. Many imported goods were banned, scarcity was rife, black markets thrived, businesses were failing and soldiers stalked markets to enforce government-determined prices. My mother came home with precious cartons of subsidized milk and soap, which were sold in rationed quantities. Soldiers flogged people on the streets for “indiscipline” — such as littering or not standing in queues at the bus stop. On television, the head of state, stick-straight and authoritative, seemed remote, impassive on his throne amid the fear and uncertainty.
And yet when, 30 years later, in 2015, Mr. Buhari was elected as a democratic president, I welcomed it. Because for the first time, Nigerians had voted out an incumbent in an election that was largely free and fair. Because Mr. Buhari had sold himself as a near-ascetic reformer, as a man so personally aboveboard that he would wipe out Nigeria’s decades-long corruption. He represented a form of hope.
Nigeria is difficult to govern. It is Africa’s most populous country, with regional complexities, a scarred history and a patronage-based political culture. Still, Mr. Buhari ascended to the presidency with a rare advantage — not only did he have the good will of a majority of Nigerians, he elicited a peculiar mix of fear and respect. For the first weeks of his presidency, it was said that civil servants who were often absent from work suddenly appeared every day, on time, and that police officers and customs officials stopped demanding bribes.

He had an opportunity to make real reforms early on, to boldly reshape Nigeria’s path. He wasted it.

Perhaps the first clue was the unusually long time it took him to appoint his ministers. After an ostensible search for the very best, he presented many recycled figures with whom Nigerians were disenchanted. But the real test of his presidency came with the continued fall in oil prices, which had begun the year before his inauguration.
Nigeria’s economy is unwholesomely dependent on oil, and while the plunge in prices was bound to be catastrophic, Mr. Buhari’s actions made it even more so.
He adopted a policy of “defending” the naira, Nigeria’s currency. The official exchange rate was kept artificially low. On the black market, the exchange rate ballooned. Prices for everything rose: rice, bread, cooking oil. Fruit sellers and car sellers blamed “the price of dollars.” Complaints of hardship cut across class. Some businesses fired employees; others folded.
The government decided who would have access to the central bank’s now-reduced foreign currency reserves, and drew up an arbitrary list of worthy and unworthy goods — importers of toothpicks cannot, for example, but importers of oil can. Predictably, this policy spawned corruption: The exclusive few who were able to buy dollars at official rates could sell them on the black market and earn large, riskless profits — transactions that contribute nothing to the economy.
Mr. Buhari has spoken of his “good reasons” for ignoring the many economists who warned about the danger of his policies. He believes, rightly, that Nigeria needs to produce more of what it consumes, and he wants to spur local production. But local production cannot be willed into existence if the supporting infrastructure is absent, and banning goods has historically led not to local production but to a thriving shadow market. His intentions, good as they well might be, are rooted in an outdated economic model and an infantile view of Nigerians. For him, it seems, patriotism is not a voluntary and flexible thing, with room for dissent, but a martial enterprise: to obey without questioning. Nationalism is not negotiated, but enforced.
The president seems comfortable with conditions that make an economy uncomfortable — uncertainty and disillusion. But the economy is not the only reason for Nigerians’ declining hope.
A few months ago, a young woman, Chidera, came to work as a nanny in my Lagos home. A week into her job, I found her in tears in her room. She needed to go back to her ancestral home in the southeast, she said, because Fulani herdsmen had just murdered her grandfather on his farm. She showed me a gruesome cellphone photo of his corpse, desecrated by bullets, an old man crumpled on the farm he owned.
Chidera’s grandfather is only one of the hundreds of people who have been murdered by Fulani herdsmen — cattle herders from northern Nigeria who, until recently, were benign figures in the southern imagination, walking across the country with their grazing cattle.
Since Mr. Buhari came to power, villages in the middle-belt and southern regions have been raided, the inhabitants killed, their farmlands sacked. Those attacked believe the Fulani herdsmen want to forcibly take over their lands for cattle grazing.
It would be unfair to blame Mr. Buhari for these killings, which are in part a result of complex interactions between climate change and land use. But leadership is as much about perception as it is about action, and Mr. Buhari has appeared disengaged. It took him months, and much criticism from civil society, to finally issue a statement “condemning” the killings. His aloofness feels, at worst, like a tacit enabling of murder and, at best, an absence of sensitive leadership.
Most important, his behavior suggests he is tone-deaf to the widely held belief among southern Nigerians that he promotes a northern Sunni Muslim agenda. He was no less opaque when the Nigerian Army murdered hundreds of members of a Shiite Muslim group in December, burying them in hastily dug graves. Or when soldiers killed members of the small secessionist pro-Biafran movement who were protesting the arrest of their leader, Nnamdi Kanu, a little-known figure whose continued incarceration has elevated him to a minor martyr.
Nigerians who expected a fair and sweeping cleanup of corruption have been disappointed. Arrests have tended to be selective, targeting mostly those opposed to Mr. Buhari’s government. The anti-corruption agencies are perceived not only as partisan but as brazenly flouting the rule of law: The Department of State Security recently barged into the homes of various judges at midnight, harassing and threatening them and arresting a number of them, because the judges’ lifestyles “suggested” that they were corrupt.
There is an ad hoc air to the government that does not inspire that vital ingredient for a stable economy: confidence. There is, at all levels of government, a relentless blaming of previous administrations and a refusal to acknowledge mistakes. And there are eerie signs of the past’s repeating itself — Mr. Buhari’s tone and demeanor are reminiscent of 1984, and his military-era War Against Indiscipline program is being reintroduced.
There are no easy answers to Nigeria’s malaise, but the government’s intervention could be more salutary — by prioritizing infrastructure, creating a business-friendly environment and communicating to a populace mired in disappointment.
In a country enamored of dark humor, a common greeting among the middle class now is “Happy recession!”

Angry youths set police station ablaze in Zamfara


Angry youths have set ablaze the Magazu Police Station in Tsafe Local Government Area of Zamfara, following a misunderstanding between the police and the people of the village.
An eyewitness told the News Agency of Nigeria that the misunderstanding followed an alleged death of a suspect from the area, Ibrahim Muhammad, in police custody.
The eyewitness, who spoke anonymously, told NAN that the suspect was detained for allegedly stealing a cell phone.
According to him, Muhammad’s death angered the youths of the village who turned violent and set the police station ablaze.
The Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Shehu Muhammad, confirmed the incident.
Muhammad said the State Police Command was already compiling a report on the mayhem.
NAN

A hater of women and a president from the dark ages by Femi Fani-Kayode


“Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I fear no evil for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me” – Psalm 23.
I recited this scripture three times and waited on the Lord quietly and calmly when I heard that my wife and son had been unlawfully apprehended and detained in a bank in far away Ado Ekiti on the orders of the EFCC whilst I was in Lagos.
Somebody should tell M… Buhari to stop sending his goons to abduct other peoples wives and 8 month old infant babies and to stop trying to traumatise them, lock them up and destroy their lives simply because they are married to or fathered by opposition politicians and those he hates.
He should leave my wife Precious Chikwendu, my 8 month old son Aragorn and other members of my family alone, face me directly and be a man. Even in war the wives and children of the enemy are out of bounds.
The truth is that Buhari is nothing more than a coward and a bully and he will suffer the consequences of his actions because God will punish him.
I give thanks to the Living God, the fearless lion that is known as Governor Ayo Fayose and the good people of Ado Ekiti for saving the lives of my loved ones and protecting them from the barbaric and illegal actions and tyranny of the fascists of the EFCC.
I have nothing but contempt for these people. They are the scum of the earth and by the time this is all over they will know that I serve a mighty God.
Despite the threats, persecution, violence and intimidation that my family and I have been subjected to over the last one year my opposition to the Buhari government remains implacable and unrelenting and I refuse to be silenced.
I said that Buhari was an evil man right from the outset and that he would prove to be an incompetent and disasterous President if elected into office and I have been proved right.
If he and his security forces are not killing Shiite Muslims, marginalising Christians, silencing and intimidating critics, locking up members of the opposition, storming the homes of judges or threatening bloggers and journalists they are sponsoring Fulani militants and herdsmen to commit acts of barbarity and terror against their fellow Nigerians.
If they are not impoverishing Nigerians, decimating the economy or freezing the bank accounts of innocent men and women and their family members they are tormenting, abducting and locking up the wives, infants and babies of opposition figures.
If they are not intimidating and charging leaders of the Senate and other senior legislators to court on trumped up charges, murdering IPOB youths, butchering Niger Deltans, humiliating and cheating their own party leaders or discrediting and jailing dissenters they are denigrating women and confining them to the kitchen and bedroom.
Buhari has divided our country along ethnic, religious and regional lines as never before and he has subjected the Nigerian people to levels of starvation, deprivation, poverty and suffering that were hitherto unkown.
And it is not just southerners and Christians that are feeling the pinch and suffering the pain and affliction. Millions of northern Muslims are feeling it as well. If anyone doubts that I challenge Buhari to walk the streets of Kano today and see what happens.
One wonders how things got so bad? One wonders what engendered this terrible affliction and what attracted this deep-rooted curse of a government?
One wonders how a country of 180 million resilient, hard-working, educated, enterprising, adventurous, courageous, cheerful, charitable, forgiving, kind, God-loving, God-fearing and strong-willed people ended up with a President from the dark ages like this?
Even members of the President’s own constituency in the core north, his leading party members from all over the country, his greatest allies and erstwhile friends and now his beautiful young wife are complaining bitterly and openly. They are all wailing as loudly and as frantically as the traditional wailers of the wailing opposition.
The response of the President is to dismiss their concerns with contempt and to describe his young wife as nothing more than something akin to a kitchen maid, a glorified cook and a slavish bed wench before a shocked German audience and an utterly dumbfounded world.
His media aides and apologists tried to spin the whole thing by suggesting that he was just joking but this did not go down well with Mumu Buhari.
The very next day he told yet another group of foreign journalists that he meant every word of what he had said earlier and that as far as he was concerned “women had no place in politics” and they belonged to the “kitchen and the bedroom”.
Now the question is this? How can any sane man describe his wife as only being fit for the kitchen and the bedroom let alone the President of the largest and most densly populated black nation on earth?
What does that tell the world about us as a people? How is that supposed to make our women feel? Does the President know the damage he has done to us by that single statement which he made in distant Germany at the very heart of the European Union?
One of his media aides has already told us that he cannot read newspapers and that he can only manage to comprehend the cartoon section of any paper but even at that his latest comments go beyond the pale.
By his shameful and ignorant assertions about women in Germany Buhari has confirmed the fact that he has no respect for himself, for his people, for his continent, for his women or even for his host, Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is a woman and her German people.
Not only did he say those shameful things about his wife and women but he also said it in Merkel’s presence and on German soil.
No wonder there was deep outrage in Germany and indeed throughout Europe and the civilised world and no wonder leading feminist and human rights organisations and respected members of the German community were demanding for his expulsion from that country.
It is only in Nigeria that some ignorant, sorry and hapless opportunists and hungry government apologists, freeloaders and beggars tried to play the whole thing down by claiming that the President was “just joking”.
Shameless are those who say so.
The bitter truth is as follows: Nigeria is being run by a small cabal of hardened, violent, merciless, paranoid, incompetent, relentless, cow-loving religious bigots who are also closet paedophiles, chronic misogynists and ravenous sodomites.
Such people are happy to marry nine-year old brides and to confine their wives to the kitchen and bedroom for the rest of their lives.
Such people hate criticism or opposition in any shape or form because they believe that being in power confers some degree of divinity and deification upon them.
Such people believe that to challenge their authority is to challenge God and they see themselves not as elected servants of the people but as divinely ordained representatives of God on earth.
Such people believe in crushing, destroying, humiliating, killing and jailing their perceived enemies and political adversaries for no just cause the moment they feel threatened or intimidated.
Yet the truth is as follows: no matter how many Sambo Dasukis, Nnamdi Kanus, El Zak Zakys, Olisa Metuhs, Justice Niyi Ademolas, Warimpo Dudafas, Patience Jonathans, Ayo Fayoses, Nyesome Wikes, Seriake Dicksons, Iyiola Omisores, Segun Mimikos, Robert Azibolas, Bukola Sarakis, Bola Tinubus, Ike Ekweremadus, Femi Fani-Kayodes, Goodluck Jonathans, Cletus Ibetos, Ayo Adeseuns, Precious Chikwendus, Bintu Dasukis, Patrick Akpobolokemis, Kimes or any of the thousands of others that you constantly malign, harass, falsely accuse, lock up, terrorise, intimidate, charge, traumatise, demonise, malign, misrepresent, beat, spit upon, insult or humiliate, your time is running out and you cannot escape God’s wrath and judgement.
No matter how many of their families members you seek to shame, humiliate, traumatise, pauperise, break and bring to their knees it changes nothing and it cannot slow down the ticking of the clock or stop the disaster that is coming your way.
The truth is that the fear has gone and no-one is intimidated by you, your goons, your henchmen and your security agencies any longer.
The worse you can do is to kill us all in order to remain in power and even if you do that others will rise up against you in our stead.
As the great American freedom fighter, founding father and patriot Thomas Jefferson said, “the tree of liberty is watered by the blood of patriots and tyrants”. Again as another great American patriot by the name of Patrick Henry once said “give me liberty or give me death”.
Yet the clock is ticking and your time is almost up. I pray that you repent before it is too late. I say this not out of malice or in an attempt to seek revenge but with love and compassion from the bottom of my heart.
I say it by the leading of the Holy Spirit of the Living God. If you do not repent and desist I assure you that the very pit that you are digging for others may well be your final resting place.
No man is greater than the Living God and no government can successfully and indefinately resist the will of the people. In your attempt to silence me, God will silence you.
It is just a matter of time before the good Lord strikes back and pulls you down. Why? Because your wickedness knows no bounds and because you take pleasure and delight in it.
Why? Because there is a God in Heaven who rules in the affairs of men. Why? Because you have touched the anointed of the Lord and you have troubled His beloved people.
Why? Because He is the father of the fatherless, the defender of the weak, the provider of the needy and the husband of the widow.
Why? Because the Nigerian people are praying morning, night and day that your cancerous evil and reckless insensitivity and brutality must be brought to an end.
This is a wake up call and your final warning. Desist from troubling the Nigerian people Mr. President and stop trying to destroy the lives of innocent men and women.
If you do not God will not only bring you to your knees and humiliate you to a point of ridicule and contempt but He will also sweep away your government, remove all your clothes and strip you naked before the entire world.
In your desperate attempt to silence me, the Lord of Hosts and the Ancient of Days will silence you. Thus sayest the Spirit of the Most High God and His zeal shall surely perform it.
Sooner than later He will deliver us from this evil and wicked President who hails from the Darrk Ages.
Sooner than later He will rescue us from the cruel and unrelenting claws of the Dark Angel that presides over the affairs of our land. Blessed be His name forever.

Appeal: Osun state governor, Rauf Aregbesola, appeals to Nigerians to stop eating imported rice


Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun state yesterday appealed to Nigerians to stop eating imported rice and go back to eating indigenous ones such as Ofada rice and others. Aregbesola made the call while speaking at an event to mark the 2016 International Day for Eradication of Poverty in the state yesterday.
“Rice was not a staple food in Nigeria before 1980. Ofada rice was the only rice eaten during festivities. We should return to the time when we were eating indigenous rice. We have cassava, plantain, beans and yam. We should return to the time when we were eating our indigenous foods"he said

Zlatan Ibrahimovic happy with Anfield draw


Zlatan Ibrahimovic was happy with Manchester United’s 0-0 draw at Liverpool on Monday, and insists his side remain in the running for the Premier League title.
It was a closely-contested game of few chances at Anfield, but David de Gea had to be at his best to deny Emre Can and Philippe Coutinho in the second-half as Liverpool ended the game with 65 per cent possession against a stubborn United side.
Ibrahimovic fluffed is lines with United’s best chance, failing to convert Paul Pogba’s cross with a header, but the former Sweden international was content to take a point back to Manchester.
“I think it was a good result, after the second half, the chances they had,” Ibrahimovic told Sky Sports.
“First half we did what we needed to do. Second half we did it less. It opened up more for them. They had more chances than they did in the first half.”
Ibrahimovic remains upbeat about United’s long-term prospects, as Jose Mourinho looks to re-establish the club’s credentials as challengers for key trophies.
“We will still work and we can do much more. We are working hard and we are getting there,” Ibrahimovic added.
“The season is long. Many teams are losing points at the same time. Any week different things can happen. You need to win games [but] if you win two games in a row you are near the top. That’s the way it has been so far.
“It’s a long season, the competition is long, it’s not easy. We are fighting, we are training hard so we just need to click – then it will be easier.”
On his own spurned chance he admitted: “It was difficult…but I should have at least got it on target. But I was there, that’s the important thing and next time I will do better.”

Released emails show Clinton foundation received $1m pledge from Qatar while serving as Secretary of State

 
Hacked emails have revealed Bill and Hillary Clinton received $1m from Qatar for the Clinton Foundation while she was still in office as Secretary of State despite Hillary publicly promising the U.S. government that while she served as Secretary of state, the foundation would not accept new funding from foreign governments without seeking clearance from the State Department's ethics office.

The hacked email is among thousands published over the last week by the pro-transparency group Wikileaks from the account of John Podesta, the chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and in the email from 2012, a senior official from the Bill, Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation informed colleagues that a planned donation by Qatar's government to mark Bill Clinton's birthday came up in a meeting he had with Qatar's ambassador in Washington.

In the email, the ambassador said that he asked "to see WJC 'for five minutes' in NYC, to present $1 million check that Qatar promised for WJC's birthday in 2011," Amitabh Desai, the foundation official, writes in his email, using the former U.S. president's initials.

But the email doesn't show if the money was sent as a birthday gift to Bill Clinton or the family's foundation although the family's foundation's website lists the State of Qatar as having given that figure. 

Meanwhile, the U.S State Department in a statement said it cannot cite any instances of its ethics officials reviewing or approving new donations from foreign governments to the foundation while Clinton served as the country's top diplomat from 2009 until 2013.

"You would need to ask the Foundation whether there were additional matters that it should have submitted for State Department review," the department said in a statement..

Bill Clinton announced in August that, if Hillary won the presidency, the foundation would cease to accept money from foreign or corporate bodies and Bill would resign from the board. Hillary Clinton has not served on the board since April 2015.

Source: Fox News