PRESIDENTIAL GRADES AND GAFFES BY SONALA OLUMHENSE

Doyin Okupe

“Most of the Ministers and Special Assistants/Advisers in that government were mini-tyrants; they saw every criticism of government policy as an act of affront, the more deluded and disoriented ones among them, with their arrogance helped to make more unnecessary enemies for government. It was also a style of governance that encouraged sycophancy. The point was often made that Ministers went to the Federal Cabinet meeting only to massage the President's ego…”


Those words were penned on May 26, 2007, just days before Umaru Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan took office, part of a newspaper columnist’s postmortem of the Olusegun Obasanjo years. 

“The General ran a government in which he was the wisest man in the entire country. Nobody was expected to contradict him, and those who did were punished for their insubordination. Governors struggled to be in Baba's good books. The President was called Baba: he was the father of everyone whose words could not be questioned since this is the dictate of age-old culture and tradition…”

Of the centrality of sycophancy in that administration, the author said, “When on one occasion all the Ministers in a show of solidarity with the President rose in unison against the Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who had become Obasanjo's adversary, it was clear at last that we had a civilian dictatorship on our hands.”

The article was “Obasanjo’s Legacy (4),” by Reuben Abati, who was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Guardian (Nigeria) 

Four years after those words, Abati took office as Special Adviser for Media and Publicity to President Jonathan.  In that capacity, he has blossomed in the past three years as some kind of Director of Denials: when there is something for Mr. Jonathan to deny, he calls upon the man who so well understands tyranny—mini and maxi—delusion, disorientation, sycophancy, and presidential ego massage. 

However, if there is someone who takes presidential ego massage more seriously than Abati, it is far and away his colleague, Senior Special Adviser Doyin Okupe. 

 If Abati is the Doctor/Director of Denials, Okupe is without question the most dangerous man in the presidency.  He is the quintessential mini-tyrant described in Abati’s article, gifted with the easy ability to accumulate enemies for the president.

Okupe courts the mainstream media, but he is also heavy on social media, with particular loudness on Twitter.  That is not difficult to understand: Twitter is easy: 140 characters by which to combine praise and worship, 24 hours a day.  Okupe is the propaganda champion. 

But he is also a chameleon.  Recently, as he praised Mr. Jonathan’s so-called Transformation Agenda, I asked him: Are Mr. Jonathan 2011 electoral promises part of the TA? 

I also asked: Were Mr. Jonathan’s post inauguration vows also part of the TA?  His response has been deep silence.

But this same man, a medical doctor brought into the presidency not to heal the sick but to injure the healthy and deceive the hopeful, leads the charge to portray Mr. Jonathan as special.

Last week, citing “facts on the ground, he declared, “…In terms of performance and achievements, no administration since 1960 when Nigeria gained independence from Britain, has done as much as that of President Jonathan.”

He immediately reminded me of another man who once observed, accurately, how the more deluded and disoriented among Nigeria’s Ministers and Special Advisers “with their arrogance helped to make more unnecessary enemies for government…a style of governance that encouraged sycophancy…”

Sycophancy is a difficult word to spell, but even Mr. Jonathan, by now, understands that some of the people close to him are sycophants.  Were Mrs. Jonathan to ask him for an example of sycophants, I have no doubt he would point one finger at Okupe.

No administration…has done as much as that of President Jonathan?   You can almost see Mr. Jonathan, turning to Mrs. Jonathan, pointing at Okupe.

You thought, for a moment, that perhaps Mr. Jonathan did something unique, something exemplary, or something profound.

You thought perhaps he read a book…perhaps to a child, or took his Ph.D dissertation in his hands to a department of agriculture to share his ideas.

Perhaps he declared his assets publicly—determined to enthrone example and presidential transparency—thereby launching an unprecedented era of accountability?

Perhaps he inherited 36 States from his predecessor, and 36 months later, still had all of them within his control?

Did he implement one of the presidential reports submitted to, and applauded, by him?

Perhaps Mr. Jonathan, upon assuming office, was stunned to discover the presidency had an embarrassing pool of jets and expensive automobiles, and swiftly proceeded to rationalize the needs of the office and sell-off the excess capacity to make the funds available for drinking water for elementary schools?

Did he walk through a shopping mall in Abuja, encouraging small businesses to broaden employment?

Did he achieve a ceasefire with Boko Haram, or end the militant group as he has promised over and over?

 If Abati is the Doctor/Director of Denials, Okupe is without question the most dangerous man in the presidency.  He is the quintessential mini-tyrant described in Abati’s article, gifted with the easy ability to accumulate enemies for the president.


Perhaps some kidnappers were stupid enough to seize hundreds of schoolgirls from a school somewhere within the Federal Republic of Nigeria, and he, outraged, ensured they were swiftly returned to their parents and schools unharmed?

Perhaps he demonstrated courage, literally under fire, by visiting and sleeping in one of the states under emergency rule?  Did he go to Chibok and break bread with the families whose children were spirited away under his watch?

Perhaps, unknown to us, the President wrote up a cheque, representing 50 per cent of the vast, private wealth he knows he will never need and used it to develop libraries or to offer scholarships to indigent students?

Perhaps he made his wife return her bogus earnings as Permanent Secretary in Bayelsa?

Did he give his country electricity, or did he explain why Aso Rock must buy new generators every year?

Did he persuade the people of South Africa or of Kenya that Nigeria’s presidential jets and other government toys are not used for extensive money-laundering?

Did he finally kill Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau?  Did he transform the people of Chibok, or just the citizenry of Aso Rock?

These are a few of the questions that Okupe ought to be answering in prosecuting the mission to sell the 2015 Jonathan candidature. 

Obasanjo, who rated the Jonathan presidency as “average,” was actually offering unearned credibility.  Jonathan’s administration is the very definition of a tragedy.  How can anyone define as an achievement the epochal equivalent of arson and looting? 

The bigger tragedy is that it is to Obasanjo that Nigeria owes the Jonathan administration. Seven years ago, the PDP certainly had men of presidential potential, but Obasanjo permitted them no electoral opportunity.

I have written elsewhere that if the former president must be taken seriously concerning his criticism of Jonathan, he must first apologize for inflicting him on Nigeria. In 2006, Jonathan was minding his business trying not to attract attention when Obasanjo offered him the buffet. 
As Nigeria slips from unworkable into unmanageable, we are paying for that colossal crime, driven on by ruthless sycophants who have no regard for truth or for the corporate interest.  Nigerians must respond by speaking loudly and courageously for themselves.

FRENCH PRESIDENT CALLS FOR UNITY AGAINST BOKO HARAM 'BARBARISM'

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 French President Francois Hollande has called for a united front against the "barbarism" of Boko Haram Islamists following the Nigerian group's latest attack that claimed more than 120 lives.

"In Nigeria, an attack that killed more than 120 people coming out of a mosque -- that's what a sect like Boko Haram is capable of, that's why we still need to fight together, always fight against terrorism," Hollande said.

"We must unite against barbarism, against the risks posed by fundamentalism, notably in the Sahel, in Africa," he said at an annual gathering of French-speaking countries hosted this year by Senegal.

The president of neighbouring Cameroon, Paul Biya, also addressed the meeting, saying: "With this sort of adversary there cannot be any compromise. We are facing an organisation of global proportions."

Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria pledged to send a combined total of 2,800 troops along their shared borders on November 1, but none have yet been deployed.

OBAMA AND DAUGHTERS HIT BOOKSTORE FOR SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama and his teenaged daughters, Sasha and Malia, went to an independent book store in Washington to buy books as a way to promote Small Business Saturday, an event aimed at boosting small businesses.

"Do I get a discount for that?" the president asked jokingly while unloading a bunch of books from his shopping basket at the Politics and Prose book store on Saturday.

"Maybe a neighbor's discount," the clerk joked back.

It is not clear whether Obama would have taken the discount, if offered.

The first family shopped at the same bookstore last year.

On Saturday, Obama was met by a mostly cheery crowd of shoppers and got a round of applause when a baby earned a presidential selfie.

Over the clicking of cameras and flashes of smart-phones, one shopper yelled: "When are you going to close Guantanamo?"

"We're working on it," the president replied. "Any other issues?"

Started in 2010 by credit card company American Express, Small Business Saturday comes on the Saturday after Thanksgiving Day, to encourage people to spend their holiday shopping dollars at small businesses.

It is the Black Friday for mom-and-pop shops that has become an annual tradition and has gained momentum, spawning "shop local" movements in communities across the country.

Last year, shoppers spent about $5.7 billion at small companies on Small Business Saturday, according to a joint survey by National Federation of Independent Business and American Express.

The White House did not immediately provide a list of the books purchased by the first family.

CREATIVE NIGERIA NIGHT WITHOUT JONATHAN (EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS)

Last Friday, hundreds of stakeholders in the Nigerian creative industry gathered  for An Evening With President Goodluck Jonathan tagged Creativity Moving Nigeria Forward, at the Eko Convention Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos.
Though absent as a mark of honour following the insurgents’ attack on Kano earlier in the day that left many people dead, President Jonathan had  mourned  with the families of the deceased and promised to bring an end to the spate of attacks. At the event, a one minute silence was observed in honour of the victims killed during the attack.

The Finance Minister, Ngozi  Okonjo- Iweala, who represented the President said Jonathan has promised to continue to support the creative industry, which has continue to be a reference point anywhere in the world. The relevance of the industry has made it a major challenge to Jonathan’s administration to continue to support the industry by ensuring appropriate funding and structures are in place to enable growth.  Okonjo further urged the industry that in appreciation, they should support President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to succeed.

The night of performances opened with KSA’s all time song of unity, “Nigeria Yi Ti Gbogbo Wa” backed by Sani Danja, Waje, Osita and Pawpaw, Rita Dominic, Kate Henshaw, Segun Arinze, and Ben Ogbeiwi.
Soulful voice, Timi Dakolo, whipped emotions and raised the roof with his song, “Great Nation” which is fast becoming a national anthem.

Credit: E24-7 Magazine

ROBBERY SUSPECT GETS STUCK TRYING TO ESCAPE FROM HIS CELL (PHOTOS)

A 35 year old robbery suspect got stuck in a hole as he tried to escape his cell from his cell in Oyo. The inmate, Femi Akanji was caught after burgling a shop on the 12th of November 2014. He narrated to the Tribune why he decided to escape;

"I decided to escape from the cell to avoid the trouble I had put myself into, unknown to me that I was complicating matter. After my two cell mates had slept, I started using my hands to dig the wall silently in the dead of the night. I started from a point where I noticed a crack in the cell.When some bricks fell, I further used them in digging and after I had created a hole, I pushed my head

into it and tried to escape before dawn. Unfortunately for me, I got stuck, so I shouted. My cry brought the policemen on duty towards the cell and woke my co-inmates up. That was how I was rescued and secured till I was brought to Ibadan. Now, I know that crime does not pay. If God should save me from the current situation I am in now, I will never venture into crime again in my life. I have realised that whatever is acquired fraudulently or any ill-gotten wealth does not last. I have my time and life. If I had been contented with my little business and had not engaged in crime, I would not have lost my belongings which now serve as part of the exhibits recovered.”

NEITHER PDP NOR APC BY OKEY NDIBE

Okey Ndidi

...Nigeria needs to be rescued from the tyrannizing hands of the PDP and APC.

My weeklong visit to Nigeria last week was enlightening. Here’s one of the clearest things I discovered: that most enlightened Nigerians are deeply dissatisfied, indeed troubled, by the state of affairs in their country. Those I talked to included men and women who, in the going parlance, “are doing well.” Despite their privileged circumstances, they were in no haste to sugarcoat Nigeria. They knew, deep down—and freely admitted it—that Nigeria is a dysfunctional space. Over dinner at a restaurant, one entrepreneur who runs a highly successful business told me that Nigeria is one of the few places in the world where one could wake up with N50,000 to one’s name and then go to bed with a million dollars in the pocket.


“I don’t kid myself,” the man told me. “Nigeria can be a lawless country. When I first returned [from the US, where he trained], I argued with a group of friends who told me that a day would come when a reckless driver would smash my car—and I would just drive on. I said, not me. But do you know that somebody hit my back recently and I continued to go on my way. I mean what can you do to the man? First of all, he bought his driver’s license, even before he could put a car in gear. Second, chances are that the driver who hit you has no insurance. So what are you going to do? If you’re stronger, you can slap the driver once or twice. If you call the police, that’s a big mistake. The police will simply seize the opportunity to milk you of money. 

“So the question is, would I choose to live in this country if my business wasn’t making so much money? Am I crazy?”

The businessman and many others were aware that the vast majority of those who presume to run Nigeria either have no inkling of the responsibility of leadership, or are too busy gorging to care. Another businessman told me that the recent sharp drop of the naira was not wholly a consequence of policies put in place by President Barack Obama and America’s European allies to punish Russia for its acts of expansionist aggression against Ukraine. “The truth is that the naira is falling because politicians are mopping up billions of dollars for next year’s election. So, those who want to win or retain power by all means are causing this hardship for people like me.”

Given the deep current of political disaffection I detected in Nigeria, I had expected to see new, outside-the-box thinking about the way forward. Instead, I was confronted with a paralyzing sense of helplessness. I found that Nigerians, including those one expected to know better, were trapped in a conceptual political mindset in which only two parties—and, by extension, two paths to the future—exist in the Nigerian universe. Those two parties—and paths—are the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In conversation after frustrating conversation, one had a hard time nudging Nigerians to release themselves from their binary entrapment in order to see a third way. And yet, to hear them speak was to realize that there was no doubt in their minds that the two parties whose fortunes and prospects alone excite them represent dead-ends.  As I argued last week, the PDP and APC are kindred spirits, two parties beset by ideological aridity, and most of their most prominent figures fueled by the same contemptible idea that politics is, above all, a means for accumulating riches. Why else do they hire thugs, kill or maim their opponents, betray all lofty principles, submit themselves to the most diabolical rites? It is certainly not to serve Nigerians.

If the two parties jostling to define Nigeria’s future are essentially ideologically similar and deeply pathological—and I insist they are—then why don’t we unshackle ourselves from their stultifying reins? That was the question and challenge I put to many a friend or fan I met last week in Nigeria.

Their responses were interesting. Some offered the pat retort that the PDP and APC alone have the “structures” and cash to dominate Nigerian politics well into the future. Some said Nigerians were far from ripe for issues-driven, exemplary leadership. Some said there was no cure for the festering sectarian and ethnic wounds in the Nigerian body politic.

I countered that the so-called structures are overhyped, that the two parties (or their past incarnations) dominated Nigerian politics on account, largely, of their wizardry at rigging and looting—compounded by the failure of enlightened Nigerians to rise to the occasion. I contended that a commitment by the country’s enlightened sectors to fight for Nigeria’s future would neutralize cash, one of the main weapons deployed by the PDP and APC.

Time is running short, but that’s no reason to throw up our hands in surrender. If anything, the shortness of time lends urgency to the task. Last week, I told an audience at the Ake Book Festival that the Nigerian state had animalized the Nigerian. Nigerian streets and highways have few public toilets, which means that many Nigerians must pee and defecate in the open, as animals do. More than fifty years after Independence, most parts of many Nigerian cities still lack access to pipe-borne water. As a result, some log about a strong bodily stink, as do some animals. Workers’ salaries often go unpaid, or are paid several months in arrears, as if the workers were beggars, subject to their employers’ philanthropy.

I believe that too many Nigerians resort to ethnic baiting precisely because they are so thoroughly impoverished, so ground down, that they must find somebody else to blame. Part of the mutual suspicion between Muslims and Christians arises from the same toxicity of lived experience. The main instigators and profiteers from Nigeria’s malaise thrive when their victims are too engrossed in ethnic and religious hate to recognize their common foes.

I say let’s go beyond this facile notion that we must choose only between the PDP and the APC. There are lots of other parties out there, some of them founded by progressive and visionary Nigerians. Rather than be detained by the real or ostensible odds and impediments, the enlightened political elements in Nigeria should adopt one of these marginal, fledging parties, and turn it into a vibrant and vital third force in the 2015 elections. It’s going to be arduous, demanding a re-orientation of the pauperized and desperate Nigerians. But it’s a challenge that the class of enlightened Nigerians should not easily ignore. A party that offers a strong critique of the current diseased politics symbolized by the PDP and APC, and puts forward a set of principles for transforming all aspects of Nigeria, is a winning formula.

Nigeria needs to be rescued from the tyrannizing hands of the PDP and APC.

OIL PRICES ARE PLUNGING: HERE'S WHO WINS AND WHO LOSES

Lower gas prices are a boon for drivers, but more miles driven mean more carbon emissions. CreditDavid Goldman/Associated Press

Indeed, the falling price of oil looks likely to be one of the dominant forces shaping the global economy in 2015. Here is an early guide to the winners and losers. The list is hardly exhaustive — though perhaps no list would be, given the unpredictable ripples caused by swings in the price of the world’s most economically important commodity.

Winner: Global consumers. Anybody who drives a car or flies on airplanes is a winner, as lower oil prices are already translating into lower prices for gasoline and jet fuel. Lower transportation costs will also give manufacturers and retailers less urgency to raise prices, as their costs fall.

This is, in effect, a global supply shock, the reverse of what happened with energy in the 1970s (or, to a smaller degree, the mid-2000s) when petroleum shortages and embargoes led to a sharp rise in prices. It may not last forever, but for now consumers in the United States and beyond will be winners.

Loser: American oil producers. One of the big open questions is just how many of the small, independent producers in the American heartland have cost structures that make them viable with oil prices in the $60s rather than the $100s. Many have relied on borrowed money, and bankruptcies are possible. But because the companies tend to be privately held (their financial details not publicly released), analysts are doing guesswork in projecting how severe the pain will be.

Loser: Oil-producing state economies. As the American economy has struggled to recover in the last few years, the exceptions have been oil-rich states like Texas and North Dakota, which have enjoyed low unemployment and strong real estate markets.

But is the “Texas Economic Miracle” just an artifact of high energy prices and improving technologies to extract petroleum from the ground? Or is Texas’ low-tax, low-regulation approach really the recipe for economic success? Seeing how the Texas economy fares now that prices are slumping will be a test.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
Loser: Vladimir Putin. Russia’s economy is already facing its sharpest challenges in years, as Western sanctions imposed after Russian aggression toward Ukraine crimp the nation’s ability to be integrated in the global economy. Russia is a major energy producer, and the falling price of oil compounds the challenge facing its president, Vladimir Putin.

Winner and Loser: Central bankers. Anybody who has fretted that years of money-printing by global central banks will create out-of-control inflation has some egg on his or her face right now. Plummeting prices for energy and other commodities are dragging down inflation to levels that are, if anything, too low.

The falling commodity prices are actually making these authorities’ jobs harder. The overwhelming urgency across the advanced world — in the eurozone, the United States and Japan — has been to try to get inflation higher, to reach the 2 percent annual target central banks in all three places have set.

In the short run, central banks tend to look through big swings in commodity prices, viewing them as one-time events rather than permanent shifts in the rate of price increases. But to the degree those one-time shifts change peoples’ expectations about future inflation, and lead people to doubt the credibility of the central banks’ promises to keep inflation at 2 percent, it is a problem. That’s particularly true when inflation expectations are already below where the likes of Mario Draghi, Janet Yellen and Haruhiko Kuroda would prefer.

Potential Loser: The environment. As a general rule, the cheaper fossil fuels become, the more challenging it will be for cleaner forms of energy like solar and wind power to be competitive on price. That said, the picture is a bit more complicated with this particular sell-off. Solar and wind power are sources for electricity, whereas fluctuations in oil prices most directly affect the price of transportation fuels like gasoline and jet fuel.

Unless or until more Americans use electric cars, they are largely separate markets, so there’s no reason that cheaper oil should cause a major reduction in investment in renewables. But to the degree cheaper oil means people drive more miles and take more airplane flights, the falling prices will mean more carbon emissions.  


Source: The New York Times      

BREAKING: EX-FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTER, GBENGA ASHIRU DIES OF BRAIN TUMOUR

Ambassador Ashiru

Olugbenga Ashiru, former minister of foreign affairs, has died in a South African hospital after a long battle with illness.

The career diplomat, credited with re-energising Nigeria’s presence in international diplomacy in the post-Olusegun Obasanjo era, died on Saturday. He was aged 66.

Family sources disclosed that he had been battling with brain tumour for a while and had be hospitalised for over three months.

Ashiru played a key role in the diplomatic face-off between Nigeria and South Africa in 2012 over the deportation of 125 Nigerians for not possessing valid yellow fever vaccination certificates. Nigeria retaliated and the stand-off was eventually resolved. Ashiru, appointed minister by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2011, was removed in 2013 in a cabinet reshuffle. He had been one of the most respected ministers but he was said to have been nominated into the cabinet by Obasanjo who had publicly fallen out with Jonathan.

Ashiru, while handing over, said he had succeeded in securing 22 key international appointments for Nigerians. Some of the positions included the commissioner for political affairs in African Union and commissioner for peace and security at the ECOWAS commission.

“I am leaving foreign ministry as a fulfilled man considering my achievements in just two years,” he said. He was born on August 27, 1948 in Ijebu Ode, Ogun state. The product of University of Lagos, was Third Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1972, and served as ambassador to the South Korea in 1991. He was Nigeria’s high commissioner to South Africa, with concurrent accreditation to Lesotho and Swaziland, in 2005. 

UGANDA: MONSTER MAID WHO BATTERED BABY ARNELLA EXPLAINS WHY SHE DID IT, ASKS FOR FORGIVENESS

Jolly Tumuhiirwe

Jolly Tumuhiirwe, the 22-year-old househelp who brutally assaulted 18-month old Arnella Kamanzi, has spoken out for the first time about what led to her actions. Not like there could be any justification for what she did.

However, she is bringing her plight to the media and asking for forgiveness, saying she was under pressure and the frustration affected her work and treatment of the child.

The househelp is currently in prison, after being remanded under the child torture act, and when she comes back to court on Dec 8, she will be facing attempted murder charges.

Jolly Tumuhiirwe told Ugandaonline;

“My dad in Kabale was very sick and my mom did not have any money. I asked my bosses for some money to send to my dad but they told me that I hadn’t made a month yet and my father was dying, so it kept on haunting me. That is the more reason I referred the anger to the baby but I’m sorry.

"But that madam (Arnella’s mom) is not easy. She used to say that I steal money from the clothes and Eric’s wallet, I eat the babies food…and yet I can’t eat the food, I’m not a baby, those were all lies, so, I was also not happy from my heart.”

“I feel guilty..ok when I was doing it I thought I was disciplining the baby because also the mother sometimes slaps her, I also saw from the mom. The torch I used was small and it’s not hard. I think, I will never do it again”

“It’s not good at all even my fellow prisoners don’t want to associate with me, they want to beat me up. In fact they were saying that I should join them in their rooms, nobody likes me and I’m feeling bad I will never do it again, I ask the world to forgive me and also tell the bosses who have maids to treat them well.”

ALLEGED $9.3 MILLION FRAUD: EFCC RE- ARRAIGNS FRED AJUDUA

Fred Ajudua

Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has re-arraigned Fred Ajudua, one of Nigeria’s most notorious fraud titans, over an alleged $9.3million scam. The agency brought Mr. Ajudua again before a Lagos State High Court on Friday, November 28, 2014 on a 28-count set of amended charges.

The re-arraignment of Mr. Ajudua, a lawyer by profession, is the second time in the last eight months. Prosecutors accuse the suspect of defrauding a former Chief of Army Staff, General Ishaya Bamaiyi (ret).

The EFCC alleges that Mr. Ajudua had duped Mr. Bamaiyi of several millions dollars and millions of naira while the two men were being held at Kirikiri maximum-security prison between November 2004 and March 2005. Mr. Bamaiyi was apparently scammed because of his desperation to influence the case against him. Mr. Bamaiyi reportedly paid huge sums in tranches to Mr. Ajudua, after the latter had boasted of his capacity to turn around the case against the former general.

According to the EFCC, Mr. Ajudua obtained the funds through false pretenses.

There was a mild drama at yesterday’s re-arraignment as Mr. Ajudua refused to enter a plea to the amended charges. He told the court that he had to wait for his other lawyer, Olalekan Ojo, to arrive before he would respond. Alex Agbaka, his defense counsel who was present in court at the time, immediately indicated he was withdrawing from the case, noting that his erstwhile client preferred another lawyer to represent him.

But the trial judge, Oluwatoyin Ipaye, refused to allow Mr. Agbaka to step down. She said the court had no luxury of time to wait for Mr. Ojo. Justice Ipaye thereafter ordered the court registrar to call out the charges and to enter a “not guilty” plea for Mr. Ajudua.  She then adjourned the case till January 2015 for trial.

Mr. Ajudua has been linked to a series of fraud cases for many years. In 2004, he had fled from Nigeria to evade trial in an ongoing court case. At the time, he had been arraigned for allegedly defrauding two Dutch businessmen to the tune of $1.6 million. He was re-arrested and arraigned again in 2013. He claimed he had gone to India for medical treatment during the years he had been a fugitive from justice.

The charges were eventually dismissed and Mr. Ajudua was exonerated by a Federal High Court presided over by Justice Kudirat Jose.

IMO STATE ACADEMY COLLAPSED BY ACCIDENT - COMMISSIONER

Following the last weekend’s collapse of the multi-million naira Imo Film Academy, along Egbu Road Owerri, the state commissioner for Information, Engr. Chidi Ibe has explained that the building collapsed by accident and not as a result substandard material.

The building constructed and commissioned by Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State penultimate weekend (November 14, 2014) at the premises of the Imo State College of Advanced Professional Studies, ICAPS, collapsed barely one week after it was commissioned by the governor, thereby fueling speculations that the building was one of the governor’s many substandard projects in the state.

But, speaking during his maiden press briefing, the commissioner said the building collapsed because a trailer carrying heavy equipment fell on the building, thereby pulling it down.

According to him, “there was nothing like collapsed building. It was a trailer carrying a heavy generator and while trying to drop the equipment behind the Film Academy,  one of the trailer’s tyres pulled and the trailer fell on the building. The impact of the trailer’s fall led to the collapse of the building”.

Ibe expressed surprise that many journalists went about publishing the story that it collapsed as a result of its purported substandard nature without verifying from any member of the government.

He used the opportunity to call on journalists to endeavour to be more objective and sincere especially now that the nation was seriously preparing for general elections.

On Governor Okorocha’s 2015 ambition, the commissioner said the governor was not so desperate to return back as governor of Imo State but said his only ambition was to become the president of the country.

According to him, despite the fact that the governor had set his eyes on the presidency, more than 90 percent of the people of the state want him to complete his second term and do more for the people of the state.

AT LEAST 64 DEAD, 126 INJURED IN KANO CENTRAL MOSQUE BOMBINGS

Governor Kwankwaso

A double bombing during Friday prayers at one of Nigeria‘s most prominent mosques killed at least 64 people and injured another 126, a rescue official said.

The official, who requested anonymity as he was not authorised to speak to media, said 64 bodies had been brought to just one Kano area hospital after the attack at the city’s central mosque, and the wounded figure reflected statistics from three hospitals.

“Those figures are going to climb,” he said

SHOCKING DNA RESULT: AFROBEAT LEGEND, FEMI KUTI REVEALS TWO OF HIS FIVE CHILDREN ARE NOT HIS

Femi Kuti

AFROBEAT king, Femi Kuti, clocked 52 two weeks back. But in spite of how blessed he has been, he still regrets that he is not the father of two of his five children.
Femi Kuti He revealed this in a recent chat with National Encomium, few days to his birthday.
According to Femi, out of his alleged five children: Made, Afolabi, Dupe, Tosin and Ayomide, two of them, Dupe and Tosin (a boy and a girl) have been discovered not to be his biological children, according to a recent DNA test. He confessed being disappointed and pained that a woman can actually give someone what does not belong to him.

“I did a DNA test and was told two of the children are not mine. The first two (after Made), a boy and a girl. It is very serious. I never knew somebody could give you what is not yours. I’ve three boys now. I can’t father children I was tricked to believe I am their father,” he lamented.
Because of the betrayal, he returned the two children, Dupe and Tosin, to their mothers.
Funke, his ex-wife, gave birth to his first child and son, Made, who Femi treasures so much.
And Bisi Ajala gave birth to Ayomide and one other child that the DNA test recently proved not to be Femi’s. The third woman’s name was not revealed.

EXCLUSIVE PICTURES FROM THE INAUGURATION OF OGBENI RAUF AREGBESOLA