Wednesday, 30 April 2014
See Photos: Work in progress on light rail system construction in Lagos
Chibok schoolgirls 'alive' & deal is 'within reach' - hostage negotiator claims
A hostage negotiator in direct contact with the kidnappers of more than 200 schoolgirls in Nigeria tells Channel 4 News their safe release is "within reach", but that their fate rests on a knife-edge.
The girls, we believe, are alive but they have been moved from the location to which they were originally taken," the intermediary told Channel 4 News. "It would not be hard to engineer a deal. It looks like they want to release them."
The kidnappers have warned, however, that attempts by the military to launch a rescue attempt "may result in the deaths of many of the captives".They want a way out," said the negotiator, who has long experience of dealing directly with the Islamist group Boko Haram in previous hostage crises.
Boko Haram translates as "western education is forbidden" and, like the Taliban, the group opposes the education of Muslim girls, particularly if that education has western influence.
Even though most of the kidnapped teenagers are from Christian families, the intermediary says the group believes it has already succeeded in embarrassing the government and instilling terror in the civilian population.
Fate undecided
However splinter factions within the fractious group are understood to be arguing over what to do with their hostages. "The danger now is that the military will get involved and that can only end badly," he said.
Past kidnappings by the al-Qaeda inspired jihadist group, which is fighting for a strict sharia state in northern Nigeria, have ended with the execution of hostages as a result of attempted military intervention.
The hostage-takers have now been asked for a list of the girls' names as proof-of-life. The negotiator - who wanted to remain anonymous for reasons of personal security - said the group is demanding a ransom but added: "we are hoping they will soften their stance".
The Islamist insurgents abducted 273 girls, aged 16 to 18, from dormitories at the Chibok Girls' Secondary School in Chibok, Borno state, a fortnight ago. Around 40 girls reportedly escaped early on. The numbers of those originally kidnapped - and those still held captive - has been in dispute. Last week, the missing girls' parents insisted that government figures had dramatically underestimated the number held.
The school's headteacher, Mrs Asabe Kwambura, told Channel 4 News on Tuesday that a further 10 girls had since been "recovered". "For now, the total number of girls we have recovered is 53 while 220 girls are still missing," said Mrs Kwambura.
Relocated, and 'forced to marry'
The abductors, who have been in intermittent contact with the intermediary over the past 48 hours, claim to have released "a number of hostages" because "they did shehada" - meaning forcible conversion to Islam, a hallmark tactic of Boko Haram.Channel 4 News has also established that the schoolgirls are not being held in the group's notorious bush camps in the Sambisa forest, an area 50 miles to the south east of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri. This region has reportedly been the focus of Nigerian military activity in recent days.
Instead, the hostages have, we understand, been split into smaller separate groups, a number of whom have been taken close to - or across - Nigeria's eastern border with Cameroon. This is an area from which Mohammed Nur, one of Boko Haram's leading commanders is known to operate.
"They have a problem," the intermediary said. "They have 220 captives and moving that many around cannot remain hidden. There is good, reliable, local knowledge as to their location. The military knows where they are."
The relocation of the teenage hostages has been corroborated by a senior community leader in Chibok, the town from which they were abducted. Dr Pogu Bitrus told Channel 4 News that he too has learned that following the kidnapping, many of the girls were forcibly converted and some then married off in neighbouring Cameroon. He did not cite his sources.
"Many were taken to the northern part of Borno state and then moved across into the Republic of Cameroon," he said. "After they converted to Islam, they were forcibly married off with a bride price of just 2,000 Naira [less than £10]." Dr Bitrus believes some of the girls do still remain in Boko Haram camps in the Sambisa forest. "The federal government must act fast" to avoid them suffering the same fate, he added.
14yr old girl kills another 14yr old girl after Facebook fight over a boy
According to Chicago Times, the handgun used to kill Endia Martin had been brought to the scene by someone who knew the suspect and knew 'there was going to be a fight' Chicago police said
"What would have been, under any other circumstance, probably a fistfight between 14-year-old girls, because they were fighting over a boy, turned into a murder. You introduce a firearm and you have a murder." The police saidEndia was walking home from school when the other girl approached, pulled the gun and opened fire around 4:30 p.m on Monday in West Garfield Boulevard, Chicago, according to police. Endia was hit in the back and killed instantly.
The 14 year old girl has been charged as a juvenile with murder, while her 24-year-old uncle and a 17-year-old boy are also facing charges. The two are being held for giving the gun to the killer.
WOW! Tiwa Savage Shows Off Her SEXY Bod With Hubby Teebillz
Beautiful lady. She looks so much sexier with the weight loss and they look so good together. Our Naija celebrity couple.
Kim & Kanye's Vogue cover sells 500k copies, beating both Beyonce and Michelle Obama
Their cover has sold over 500,000 copies and with subscriptions, expected to sell over 1.2million copies. Beyonce's 2013 Vogue cover sold more than 350,000 copies while First Lady Michelle Obama's cover sold nearly 300,000.
Report claims Vogue had to restock many shelves after it sold out, something that almost never happens.
See Photo: Singer Niyola goes bare in new video
President Jonathan Ready To Go Into Sambisa Forest?
It is indeed pertinent to ask if Goodluck Jonathan, the armed forces over which he presides as Commander-in-Chief, and other security agencies, will go after the terrorists that abducted more than 200 teenage girls into their hideout in Sambisa Forest, in Borno State.
That question can be posed in another way: Can President Goodluck Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest? The point is that the question of willingness is closely allied to that of capability. But before one goes on to look at the issue of capability, it is important first to settle that of willingness because that is at the very heart of President Jonathan’s administration’s strategy towards prosecuting our own battle against terror.
From the very beginning when the terror insurgents resurfaced during his administration, President Jonathan had showed himself incapable of rising to the challenge. He lacked the will to take on the terrorists and failed to exercise the power invested in him as president to bring the terrorists to their knee. He was all too tentative, in turns weak and vacillating on what to do.
Even though what he needed to do was clear –
crush the rising revolt with one firm and determined blow and thereafter take the initiative from the terrorists – he was clearly unprepared for it. More so, as the Northern oligarchy that lost the election that brought him into office were yet breathing fire and speaking from both sides of the mouth about the dangers posed by the terrorists. It’s no wonder today that he is effusive in his gratitude and showering of praise on Mohammadu Buhari for his belated condemnation of the terrorists.
But lacking both the decision and the decisiveness to act, the President went about making virtue of his weakness by saying he wanted to respect the law and avoid the mistakes of Odi and Zaki Biam. But the criminalities that prompted the military outrage of Odi or Zaki Biam were not the handiwork of terrorists. Yet, Jonathan blossomed in weakness and continues today to luxuriate under the delusion of respecting the rights of beasts who are neither human nor respectful of the minimum standards of human relations. He dithered way too long in the pit latrine that flies now swarm around him.
He allowed the sore of intermittent outbursts of hoodlums to fester into the cancer of routine terrorism with international dimensions. Now Nigerians wonder how things got to this point where terror has taken over our land, where school children are shot on their way to sit public examinations and hundreds of teenage school girls are rounded up in their hostels and herded into forests within national territorial spaces known to the ruling authorities. The impunity of terror is spreading fast as was reported in parts of Mushin in Lagos where rival criminal gangs terrorised, robbed and raped residents for many hours without a whimper from the police.
Which brings me back to my earlier question- Will Jonathan go into Sambisa Forest, will he, can he effectively deploy the apparatus of state power to take on the terrorists? For his initial lack of initiative, he now has a tough row to hoe. His job has been compounded and he cannot and must not expect any relief any time soon- not when his thoughts are wholly directed at retaining his tenancy at Aso Villa.
His strategy against terror, if he has any, has become too routine to be effective just as the battle his poorly motivated, battle-weary military pretended to be waging against the terrorists has been too much prolonged. You don’t have to be Hannibal, heard of Napoleon, read Sun Tzu or fought alongside Shaka to know nothing good can come out of it. It is a non-starter of a battle. We need not confer the grandeur of war on these boys scout-like skirmishes yet. So let nobody call this a war on terror.
The postponed meeting between the President and the state governors last week confirmed the routing bog into which the response to the reign of terror has fallen into. The much anticipated meeting was an anti-climax as all that came out of it was the same call on the military and the security agencies to work to rescue the abducted school girls. Wonder what comfort this would be to their traumatised families.
This confirms my suspicion that the military, personified by Goodluck Jonathan, is not ready for Sambisa. Or they wouldn’t make false military claim on the rescue of the school children or, in fact, got the actual figures of the abducted wrong while going on with their jaded promises of ensuring the end of terror.
Although by their initial silence on, justification of and covert accommodation of the activities of the terrorists, the Northern oligarchy stands complicit in nurturing them, not minding the blame-trading, unreflective letter of Murtala Nyako who appeared to have been sleeping while terrorists prowled his territory. But by playing footsie with them when he ought to have sent hot lead into their midst and scattered them into the winds, Jonathan can neither escape blame nor responsibility for the terrorists gaining ground. So entrenched are they now that their enclave in the forest of Sambisa is a no-go area for even the military. The President until recently kept far from the terror zones in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa and even travellers in far-flung places like Lagos and Ibadan are now held by the terror of insurgent attacks as was the case a few days ago. This is pure madness, where people can no longer see order or feel the protection of state power.
The terrorists have been lionised beyond measure, their capacity given mythical proportions. Sambisa is now the metaphor of the forbidden, of the criminalities of the Nigerian society writ large. Nigeria does have a huge fight ahead of it. Large sections of our society are being brutalized. The enslavement -and I use that word deliberately- of over 200 teenage girls in the 21st century in their fatherland by criminals whose hideout is well-known routs whatever anyone can imagine. We now have 234 more potential terrorists on our hand and for no fault of theirs!
The trauma of such enslavement may never be healed. The exploitation that must go with this enslavement is painful to imagine. That the parents of these hapless youths are alive to witness this and powerless to act is beyond words. The shame is not theirs but of a people that would allow it. We are all held in Sambisa until the terrorists are destroyed. As a metaphor of our failures and challenges many are the Sambisa and Soka forests in which Nigerians are bound. There is the Sambisa of corruption, the Soka of misappropriation, of dereliction of duty and, above all, inept leadership.
By Rotimi Fasan
Big Girl Dunnie Wants You Guys To See Her Sweet Assets
Kill Politicians Who Steal Above N1m ––Trade Union Congress
The greatest impediment to Nigeria's development is the corruption of public officials, especially in Abuja that a politician or civil servant whose official monthly pay is less than N1m owns about 10 different houses.
Anyway, the Trade Union Congress believe they have the solution. They have recommended death penalty for public officials who embezzle beyond N1m in order to kill corruption once and for all in the country.
“If the governments and legislators are truly sincere about the fight against corruption in the country, they must go tougher. Any public official, whether at the state or federal level, should be executed. Killing them after confirmation of any embezzlement allegation of more than N1m will lead us to the right path.
“I sincerely recommend an active process of legislation that would support that. It would also serve the nation well to have a law which not only provides for every public office holder to declare his assets on assuming office, but also stipulate that he must repeat the exercise each subsequent year that he is in office and not later than one month after vacating the office. Such declaration should be in at least three newspapers and not just to the Code of Conduct Bureau.”
The President of the TUC, Bobboi Kaigama, said this at the fourth lecture series of Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, on Tuesday.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Corruption and challenges in nation-building’, Kaigama noted that Nigeria needed to go tougher in its war against corruption. He said leaders had no reason not to declare their assets publicly.
The TUC boss also advocated that corrupt leaders should be banned from occupying public offices for life.
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
President Goodluck Jonathan Sacks His Political Adviser, Ahmed Gulak
Fear is in the air and no one knows who is next among the big mouth men who have been attacking respected and prominent Nigerians, all in a bid to remain in the good book of President Goodluck Jonathan and continue to be part of the cabal that benefits from the national cake with impunity, as is the case.
Anyway, the first casualty is Ahmed Gulak, Special Adviser on Political Matters to the president. The man had it rough with Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Akpabio, recently and he has also been all out against the Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyak, calling him all sorts of names.
It appears Ahmed Gulak is one of those who have been going about making enemies for Jonathan, hence he has terminated his appointment with immediate effect.
EFCC press release: EFCC arrests 6 suspects for N5.5m bank fraud
Five persons have been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over allegation of fraudulent transfer of a total of N5, 550,000.00 (Five Million, Five Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira) from an account in Skye Bank.
The suspects, Ademola Okunlola, 36; Tajudeen Oluwanisola, 41; Kolawole Adams, 52; Temitope Pedro, 27; Bayo Olowoyo, 39 and Otunba Biodun Adebanjo, 56, were picked up in different locations in Lagos by operatives of the anti- graft agency for allegedly effecting the fraudulent transfer of N5, 550,000.00 from the account of one Ajani Kareem Musibau domiciled in Skye Bank Plc. Continue...
The duo reportedly sent Musibau's photograph and signature specimen to a member of their syndicate who effected the money transfer into two accounts: N4.1Million( Four Million, One Hundred Thousand Naira) was moved into Adebajo Biodun Olusola's account with Wema Bank, Shagamu branch, Ogun State while N1,450,000.00( One Million, Four Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira only) was moved into another account operated by Temitope Pedro with Guaranty Trust Bank, Ikeja branch.
The suspects were arrested following a petition by the bank.
They will be arraigned in court as soon as investigation is concluded.
Wilson Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity
29th April, 2014
Na wa o so people can have sex in the first class section of a commercial plane?
When asked the craziest place she and John have had sex, Chrissy replied;
"We were on our way to Thailand to see my parents, flying commercial first-class. We were under a blanket. We weren’t even in one of those pod things. I feel like we should get a trophy for that." Chrissy tells Cosmoplitan magazine.
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