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Lagos APC Denies Rumours Of Plans To Stop Third Term Aspirants

Mohammed Useni
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Lagos APC Denies Rumours Of Plans To Stop Third Term Aspirants

All Progressives Congress, APC, Lagos state chapter on Thursday denied rumours that it has perfected plans to stop third term aspirants from contesting the 2015 elections.

 Chief Henry Ajomale, the state chapter of the party made the clarifications in a statement issued by the Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Joe Igbokwe.

“The reports now making the rounds about alleged decision by the leadership of APC in Lagos to stop aspirants from contesting after a second term is a fallacy.

“There is no iota of truth in the report as no such decision was reached. It is a total mis-representation of the decision reached and such information must have emanated from Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, agents and not APC.

“The Governors’ Advisory Committee, GAC, never issued such a directive or reached such a decision.

“The APC believes in the inalienable rights of every eligible member to contest for any elective office for as many terms as possible as long as it is constitutional.”

While Governors and the President are entitled to a two term of years each, there is no such constitutional restrictions on legislators both at the state and national level.

Mavin All Stars Tear Down The Roof Of Indigo2 With Electrifying Performances

Mohammed Useni
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Mavin All Stars Tear Down The Roof Of Indigo2 With Electrifying Performances

The Mavin All Stars brought down the roof of London’s Indigo2 in North Greenwich on Thursday 23rd October 2014. All Mavin stars but D’Prince were present as they performed their singles and also covers of other songs.

Korede Bello performed Sam Smith‘s Stay with me and also showed how good he is with the guitar while Tiwa Savage performed Dr Dre‘s ‘I need a doctor’ as she ushered Dr. SID on to the stage.

Dr. SID’s performance was electrifying as he remixed some of his songs on stage. Reekado Banks and Di’ja also performed their singles.

The Mavins ended the night on a high note as they jointly performed their hit single, Dorobucci.

If you were in London last night and you missed the show, what’s your excuse?

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Another Case Of Ebola Hits The US, New York Dr. Craig Spencer Tests Positive

Mohammed Useni
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Another Case Of Ebola Hits The US, New York Dr. Craig Spencer Tests Positive

A doctor in New York City who recently returned from treating Ebola patients in Guinea became the first person in the city to test positive for the virus Thursday, setting off a search for anyone who might have come into contact with him.

The doctor, Craig Spencer, was rushed to Bellevue Hospital Center and placed in isolation at the same time as investigators sought to retrace every step he had taken over the past several days.

At least three people he had contact with in recent days have been placed in isolation. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which dispatched a team to New York, is conducting its own test to confirm the positive test on Thursday, which was performed by a city lab.

Spencer had worked with the humanitarian organization – Doctors Without Borders in Africa.

He first developed Ebola symptoms on Thursday morning and was taken from his Manhattan apartment to isolation at Bellevue Hospital by a team wearing protective gear, according to city officials. He had been taking his temperature twice a day since coming home, said city Health Commissioner Mary Travis Bassett.

Two friends and his fiancée have been quarantined, the Commissioner disclosed, noting that all three were healthy. The taxi driver did not come into close contact and was not considered at risk, she said.

Ebola has killed nearly 4,900 people, largely in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea.

Tahir Sherrif: Change Over Crisis And Controversy, GMB Can Turn The Tides

Mohammed Useni
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Tahir Sherrif: Change Over Crisis And Controversy, GMB Can Turn The Tides

Far too often, political coverage has been based on the thinking of friends and political allies and doesn’t pay enough attention to what the voters are actually thinking. For instance, how does General Muhammadu Buhari maintain his audience, who keep putting their thumbs to vote as well as staying ready for conflict even when the odds are stacked against them? What is the silent statement here?

Nasty political mud-slinging. Campaign attacks and counterattacks. Personal insults. Outrageous newspaper invective. Dire predictions of warfare and national collapse. This is today’s style of politics. Politicians have become trapped in the idea of winning or losing that they even fail to capitalize on innovative new forms of politicking or growing technology and more importantly, they fail to address the issues at hand.

This explains why security and the eradication of corruption have had top legislative priority over proposing an economic agenda to assuage voter anxieties. And it’s why pundits and donors alike are vastly overrating the prospects of brand-name candidates and undervaluing the reality that the current political environment is as toxic as it’s ever been for lifelong politicians.
At the most fundamental level, the next presidential election is shaping up to be a battle of which party can best conquer its demons—whether Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s camp can improve their badly beaten brand, and whether General Muhammadu (or any other APC candidate) can present himself as the candidate of change, given the high level of voter dissatisfaction.
Whether we like it or not, when our car is bad, we take it to a mechanic.

That’s a typical Nigerian attitude. We don’t care whether the mechanic is an engineer or if he is also going to experiment with our vehicle. So where do we take a Nigeria beaten down by corruption, ineptitude, red-tapism, recycling leadership structure, high levels of unemployment and a host of other claims puritanicals have been brandishing? To the product of a political miscalculation by a power drunk leader who had scarcely recovered from dictatorial tendencies, a geographical error embedded in a Southerner planning to spend a minimum of 10 years in power? Or to a northern Muslim leader renowned for an era of radical approaches against corruption and impunity, praised for keeping his hand away from the glitters of the national purse and rising again and again from defeat as the years go by.

The cases against GMB are diverse; majority of Nigeria’s political elite being reluctant to welcome a president who once possessed draconian military tendencies, pundits dubbing him a serial-loser, the fear that an era under him may be one of retribution and vengeance, and the possibility of extreme religious view being ushered into the political parlor. Yet even some of these people have their grudges against the current occupier of Aso Rock. A chunk of supporters who stood through angry glares from their friends and colleagues over GEJ during the last elections have become disillusioned by his performance in different sectors.

Optimists can say what they like, but Nigeria has still got its power problem, and the Goodluck Jonathan era has remained largely an era of insecurity. In the coming elections, the considerations are what direction GMB (if he wins the party’s primary election) will go? Elitist views can stretch as far as they like. But a bad car ends up in the hands of a mechanic, and when it’s there, good and bad doesn’t matter. Whether other contestants like it or not, General Muhammadu Buhari enjoys his kingship of the north, he alone can boast of restraint from the political cookie jar, and every year that he picks the ticket he raises millions of voters to his side. He is sure to do this again in 2015.

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Article written by Tahir Sherrif, in-house freelance reporter with NewsWireNGR in Abuja

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It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
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Tunde Leye: Those That Want To Lead Nigeria Must Answer This

Mohammed Useni
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Tunde Leye: Those That Want To Lead Nigeria Must Answer This

In my piece on Monday http://ynaija.com/tundeleye-africas-leadership-crisis-y-frontpage/ , I spoke about the leadership problem in Africa and how we have ended up with men and women who lack a clear ideological framework for running the countries that they rule and whose wizened fingers hold on to the reins of power in a death grip, leaving us with a majority of African countries run with an “anyhowness” that is not present anywhere else in the world.

This, coupled with free money from extracting natural resources as well as the banality that is foreign aid has continued to support this generally clueless leaders across the continent through a mix of the extremely complex patronage networks this free money enables them to create and the oppressive security/law enforcement that does not hesitate to unleash violence of varying shades on the citizenry in order to keep the status quo. As it is in many cases, the good men Africa had at the dawn of the independence waves died young.

I zeroed in on Nigeria which has a semblance of democracy, but which is essentially a state run on the elite consensus of organizing what is really an expensive tug of war to determine which section of this elite will control access to the free oil wealth and rearrange the patronage networks for the intermediate periods. In the last paragraph, I gave an overview of the types of questions we need to begin to ask the men and women who want to lead the country at all levels. Whilst I understand that we are limited in options available to make a choice for at the ballots to whoever the main political parties produce (at least until the independent candidature proposal the National assembly is considering becomes law), it is important to bring up these issues. It doesn’t help matters that the exorbitant fees the parties attach to the forms for indicating interest in political office is more than most Nigerians will earn for many years of honest work.

These absurdities abound because of the way our system is set up and it is not a political party problem. It is a political class problem and politicians will do it whichever party they belong to, in order to ensure that those who have not had access to free state money like them are unable to participate in the political process. This is the strongest case for independent candidature and I am glad that the national assembly is considering it very seriously.

I am under no illusions that voting in Nigeria has gotten to the stage where the vision and clear execution plan backed by ideology of the contestants and their party will be the critical swing factor in determining who the people will vote for. It therefore follows that this will not be the biggest issues on the minds of the politicians who want to win these votes. However, slowly but surely, a more educated and conscious populace is emerging that will begin to ask these questions. And it is important to put these issues out here and maybe give some focus and direction to the thoughts of these people. So in a series of follow up articles to the first, I will be highlighting key critical areas I believe every serious government needs to focus on for the next couple of administrations in Nigeria. In this article, I will share three of them.

• Creating Other Lagoses – Lagos currently has more than half of Nigeria’s production capacity. Businesses who want to make real money in Nigeria are forced to have at least an office in Lagos. People troop into Lagos daily at an alarming rate. To put it in business terms, Nigeria has concentration risk in Lagos. The most baffling thing is that Lagos offers no advantages that many other places along the coast in Nigeria do not offer. All that Lagos has is the presence of tradepoints via land, airports and deep water seaports. If we replicate these advantages in strategic places along the coast, we will create more Lagoses, decongest Lagos, diversify our risk and create the platform for an explosion of production since the production capacity of Lagos can be replicated to varying degrees of success. It is what those that colonized the continent of Africa did, therefore it isn’t rocket science. But any government that doesn’t have such plans and the political will to make it happen is not yet serious about unleashing the potential in Nigeria
• Trade Hub Nigeria: Studying the history of West Africa, many of trade routes that connected the outside North, West and Central Africa passed through the empires and city states that now make up Nigeria. Nigeria is the most strategically located country to serve as the trade hub for the three African subregions.

In fact, one of the reasons that the volume of trade within Africa is so low at the moment is because Nigeria has not taken advantage of this strategic positioning. We are the crossroads of these three subregions but our focus on oil revenues has not opened our eyes to the huge potential revenue that passing all that trade through our borders will bring to us. Universally, being strategically located along trade routes is a sure way for a state to become wealthy. This ties into the first point nicely. Things like port congestion and overload happen today because Lagos is overburdened. Hence we need the politician seeking office to tell us how they will tap into this potential and begin to drive trade through the new Lagoses they build aggressively and transform Nigeria into the trade hub of Africa.

• Plans for Modern Rail: Nothing caused economic growth of the interior of countries and the breaking down of centuries long cultural walls like rail travel in the past two centuries. In fact, the unlocking of the economic potential of the United States is directly traced to the the advent of railroads crisscrossing the country. Nigeria’s rail systems has begun to show signs of life under the current administration. However, the life is a jaundiced one, with the revival of trains that cannot compete in the 21st century. Tied again to the last two points is this third one.

Anyone that wants to lead the country must share a detailed plan for, not the revival of the old rail system, but the creation of an ambitious modern rail system that can turn us into the trade hub that our geography gives us the potential to be. We need ambitious building of these types of things with creative use of financing and serious work on legislation that makes such building difficult if not impossible. The plans we must hear must provide us with details on how these challenges will be dealt with as well as measurable timelines for performance measurement.

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Article written by Tunde Leye

Disclaimer

It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
Opinion pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of NewsWireNGR.

 

Consensus Candidacy: Nda-Isaiah Rejects APC Governors’ Approval

Mohammed Useni
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Consensus Candidacy: Nda-Isaiah Rejects APC Governors’ Approval

Founder of the Leadership Newspaper and All Progressives Congress  (APC) Presidential aspirant, Mr Sam Nda-Isaiah, has kicked against proposals by his party’s governors to get a consensus candidate.
Nda-Isaiah who spoke with THISDAY on Thursday said it was the wrong for the Governors to adopt the plan holding that a transparent secret ballot election is preferable.
“We have to be clear about the reality on ground. If you look at President Jonathan, the question to ask is who would beat him among all of us. That’s the first question that needs to be answered. My understanding of who a consensus candidate is, is someone we all accept. And I also understand that the governors want to try that first. If that fails, they would then consider an election.”
“The best way to go is a free, fair and transparent election through a secret ballot. To do otherwise is counterproductive. My advice to them is to allow for a free and fair poll. I can’t see how I would step down for someone considering the amount of work we have done. We all know the work we are doing. We have different strategies but we all know the delegates and the job to be done. So let there be an election. No need for this consensus talks and I’m not even going to split hairs on it,” he said

N27.5m Loan: Falana Condemns Buhari For Monetizing Politics

Mohammed Useni
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N27.5m Loan: Falana Condemns Buhari For Monetizing Politics

Human rights Lawyer and a  Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr. Femi Falana, has spoken out against  former Head of state, General Muhammadu Buhari for obtaining a loan of N27.5m to procure his party’s expression of interest and nomination form for the 2015 presidential election. Falana said that Buhari’s action amounted to a monetization of politics.

Falana said this  Abeokuta, while speaking on the topic ” Current Security Challenges: Implication for 2015 Elections”  at the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Paramount FM Chapel Press Week on Thursday

“It is indefensible for Gen. Buhari to have obtained a loan facility of N27.5m just to obtain a form of intent to contest in the presidential election in 2015 under the All Progressives Congress.

“Is he going to obtain another loan during his campaign, because in Nigeria, it costs billions of naira to run a presidential campaign?”

He also advised Journalists to give a fair reportage of events as the 2015 elections draw close. He warned them to beware of politicians who play to the gallery and seek attention.

“Journalists must show more than a passing interest on how those aspirants want to manage the economy. The government must address mass illiteracy, corruption and poverty.”

Falana noted that the nation was facing security challenges such as kidnapping, armed robbery, terrorism, human trafficking because of the unemployment rate.

 

Female Legislators Close To Tears As Rape Victims Storm National Assembly To Demand Life Imprisonment For Rapists

Mohammed Useni
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Female Legislators Close To Tears As Rape Victims Storm National Assembly To Demand Life Imprisonment For Rapists

Female federal lawmakers fought back tears on Thursday as they listened to the painful stories of rape victims who besieged the National Assembly to share their agonising experiences in the hands of rapists. The Punch reports.

The victims who were majorly young girls said they came to seek the legislators amendment so that rapists are jailed for life. They recounted the stories of how they were raped and how they were sexually assaulted by older men while efforts made by them to seek redress legally had been frustrated due to weak laws against such a crime.

The victims, who spoke with their faces covered, passionately appealed to female lawmakers at the meeting to save other ladies, either of their ages or much younger than them.

Speaking at the occasion, Senators Oluremi Tinubu and Chris Anyanwu vowed to do everything within their powers to ensure that relevant bills that sought to protect women and children against violence were passed before the end of the current legislative year

The ladies participated in the mock tribunal/court on sexual and gender based violence, organised by the National Assembly Women Affairs Committee and the Legislative Advocacy Coalition for Violence in Nigeria.

I Support Jihad – Rauf Aregbesola

Mohammed Useni
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I Support Jihad – Rauf Aregbesola

Governor Rauf Aregbesola, has said that there is nothing wrong with Jihad,  describing it as an Islamic concept that seeks to promote the establishment of a personal relationship with Allah by Muslims.

Aregbesola said this at  Lecture titled “Muslims’ response to insurgency threat in Nigeria” at the 6th annual Femi Lateef Okunnu lecture series in Ile-Ife.

The Governor however condemn the gross misunderstanding of Jihad to mean war or violence and lambasted Islamic insurgents the Boko Haram for using Jihad as a justification for their violent attacks.

“Jihad should not be turned into a license to unleash terror on people, Muslims and Christians alike and as well as to destabilise the nation.

“Contrary to the claims by groups such as the Boko Haram sect, Jihad is neither a call to arms nor an ideological blueprint for destructive insurgency. Jihad in Islam is at its core about establishing a personal relationship with Allah. The meaning of Jihad in Islam is a total submission to the will and obedience to the laws of Allah.

“Submitting to Allah’s will is an act of conscious choice granted to mankind by God; obeying His laws is a demonstration and vindication of that submission.

“They abused notion of Jihad often used as justification for satanic atrocities of insurgent groups, such as the Boko Haram sect, is a gross misapplication of the concept.

“Jihad is far from being an open cheque for senseless violence, neither is it a Qur’anic endorsement of the pursuit of selfish political desires.

“The concept of Jihad in Islam simply means ‘struggle’ or ‘striving.’ It has two broad dimensions – external and internal striving.”

He argued that Boko Haram and other insurgent groups had no justification in Islam to back the violence they unleashed on the people.

He added, “If Islam thus forbids violence against innocents, how does Boko Haram justifies the senseless killings, maiming, kidnappings of innocent women, children, and girls?”

 

Governors Kick Against Local Government Autonomy

Mohammed Useni
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Governors Kick Against Local Government Autonomy

Nigerian governors are not  impressed with the decision of the National Assembly to grant Local Governments autonomy in the ongoing constitutional review. The Governors are making plans to mobilise members of their state Houses of Assembly to reject the autonomy granted local governments by the members of the National Assembly.

The Jonah Jang led faction of the Nigerian Governors Forum has already rejected the autonomy which if agreed to by the majority of the state houses of assembly, would grant financial and administrative autonomy to the local governments.

The call for autonomy has been made in the past due to the manner in which state governors tamper with the allocation meant for local councils in their state.

The two chambers of the National Assembly had during the amendment to the Constitution, granted 774 Local Government Councils in Nigeria financial and administrative autonomy through amendment of section 7.

Details of the autonomy granted the local councils in the federation include strengthening their administration by providing for their funding, tenure, elections and to clearly delineate their powers and responsibilities to ensure effective service delivery and insulate them from undue and counter-productive interference from state governments.

The Jang NGF’s faction said it disagrees with the position of the National Assembly. In a statement released by the Secretary of the Forum, Mr. Osaro Onaiwu, the faction said

“The Nigeria Governors’ Forum under the leadership of Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State has differed with the National Assembly over the move to amend the constitution and grant local governments full administrative and financial autonomy.”

The governors, according to Onaiwu, also accused some unnamed members of the National Assembly of “using the conference committee to force through an amendment that was clearly rejected by the Senate during the constitution amendment debates and votes.”

The statement described the push for local government autonomy by the National Assembly as hasty without first considering the problems of executive recklessness and ineffective administration at the local level.

Also, the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja on Thursday, said autonomy for local governments was not in tandem with the principles of federalism.

“Granting autonomy to local goverments is antithetical to federalism. Nigeria is the only ‘federation’ in the world with three tiers of government.

“Federalism is a system of government where there is a given territory administered by two levels of governments that are coordinate.”

State Governors have often been accused of diverting local government funds for other uses as well as imposing their supporters as the chairmen of the LGAs.

Boko Haram Releases Abducted Women In Adamawa

Mohammed Useni
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Boko Haram Releases Abducted Women In Adamawa

Islamic insurgent group, Boko Haram  has reportedly abducted about 50 women and girls from Waga Mangoro and Madagali, villages between Adamawa and Borno states have freed the women among their captives.

The information was made known by the villagers to newsmen on Thursday. Thoughthey could not say the specific number of women returned.

Relatives of the abducted girls said  some of them have been turned to cooks while others were married off immediately to some of the insurgents.

”Initially, the insurgents captured 80 girls and women whom they later loaded into their vans and zoomed off into the bushes.” a relative said.

However, later in the night, the insurgents separated the elderly women from the girls and released the women, who are now languishing in the forest because they could not relocate the towns because they were razed down by the insurgents.

The abduction came on the heels of a reported cease fire agreement between the Federal Government and the Insurgent group.

“We are confused that hours after the so called cease fire agreement between the Federal Government and Boko Haram insurgents, our girls are still being abducted by the insurgents.

“We are at a loss about government’s insincerity on the whole issue and we urge them to rescue our daughters without further delay as we are ready to die searching for our missing ones.”

 

Why Patience Jonathan Resigned As Permanent Secretary In Bayelsa

Mohammed Useni
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Why Patience Jonathan Resigned As Permanent Secretary In Bayelsa

President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife, Mrs Patience Jonathan on Tuesday resigned her role as a permanent secretary in the Bayelsa state Civil service. Though the resignation was said to have been voluntary, reports are that she resigned to support another aspirant to replace the state governor.

Mrs Jonathan had communicated her resignation verbally to the Governor over a month ago but the official letter was submitted on Tuesday.

Jonathan was in an eye raising appointment made a permanent secretary in July 2012. There was a general public outcry against the appointment but the state governor, Seriake Dickson stuck to the appointment despite the public outrage.

Mrs Jonathan resigned because her relationship with Governor Dickson had gone sour and she is not particularly disposed to his re-election. Her resignation was to enable her have a moral justification to push for another candidate.

Mrs Jonathan is reported to prefer the Special Assistant to the President Jonathan on Domestic Matters, Mr. Waripamowei Dudafa.

Mrs Jonathan is believed to be very influential within the PDP especially in the South south zone where she and the President hails from.

An official said, “The whole thing is political. It appears Madam (the President’s wife) is not happy with the governor. With her resignation, the battle line has been drawn.

“I feel the President’s wife resigned to enable her to have the moral right to slug it out with Dickson ahead of the governorship poll in the state. Let no one deceive you, the whole thing is politics. After all, she is 57 and the retirement age is 60.”

However, another official in the Ministry of Education denied that the resignation was politically motivated, “I can say Patience Jonathan has voluntarily retired. But whether there is political undertone in her resignation or not, I cannot say.

“I think the First Lady felt that her continued stay as Permanent Secretary will be depriving others. Now that she has resigned, it will afford others the opportunity to take over her position.

“Already, in accordance with the civil service rules, we have prepared all her entitlements. Whatever is due her will be given to her. She will also be receiving her pension.”

It remains unclear at this time if reports of her new political inclinations are true and how she will handle supporting her candidate against incumbent Govenror Dickson.

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