tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23523103651666299412024-02-07T23:44:19.489-08:00Charles Ifeco's TRENDnews,entertainment,theatre, film matterz,cultural orientation,critique, issues.... Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.comBlogger458125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-30176734050170620142020-01-18T13:34:00.000-08:002020-01-18T13:34:18.664-08:00Game of Throne Prequel series "House of Dragon" likely to hit the cinema soon<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kajtB-WzfMvdd4geXg5JqdKofeXH5hY6xPZ0_9aU_a3K-O-EYX5T7HZwUKjQqk707HAeh8yK2Mvls3mwoK7fVfLI6c0H3rvdEaWEX5txecmjYj7_XAkq_qUOM1IO1jNLFSbTmQc3BLmh/s1600/Daenerys-Targaryen-Game-of-Thrones-Season-8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="767" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9kajtB-WzfMvdd4geXg5JqdKofeXH5hY6xPZ0_9aU_a3K-O-EYX5T7HZwUKjQqk707HAeh8yK2Mvls3mwoK7fVfLI6c0H3rvdEaWEX5txecmjYj7_XAkq_qUOM1IO1jNLFSbTmQc3BLmh/s320/Daenerys-Targaryen-Game-of-Thrones-Season-8.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
“Game of Thrones” fans might not have too long to wait for the first of many developing prequel series to hit the cable airwaves of HBO. The original series which lasted for many years went of the airwaves last May, with many fans disappointed by how the final season ended.<br />
In a new chat with Variety, HBO programming chief Casey Bloys hinted at a possible 2022 airdate for what will likely be the first spinoff to arrive: “House of the Dragon.” While Bloys was reticent to announce an official date — after all, the series has not yet laid out production dates — he did tell the trade that the team is “in the room breaking story right now. … My guess is we’ll see it on the air in ’22.”<br />
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In the waning days of HBO’s fantasy hit, the cable outfit hinted at a number of potential spinoffs, sequels, and prequels that could follow the smash series. At one point, the rumored series numbered four, and then as many as five possible offerings. The first to make it out of the gate: “House of the Dragon,” focused on the early days of House Targaryen.<br />
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The new series which Set 300 years before Game of Thrones, will focus on House Targaryen. Although no cast has yet been announced. Of course, one of the most famous Targaryens is the Mother of Dragons herself, Daenerys. However, with the series in the early stages, it's unknown if any Game of Thrones characters will pop up in some capacity.<br />
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Per Variety, House of the Dragon is on track for a 2022 release. In the interview Casey Bloys spoke about the series. He explained, “They [the writers] are in the room breaking story right now. My guess is we’ll see it on the air in ’22.” If that release date does come to fruition, it should give fans more than enough time to miss the world of Game of Thrones and be excited to revisit it.<br />
<br />Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-24392465317847064902020-01-13T10:30:00.000-08:002020-01-13T10:30:58.932-08:00 FG orders cinemas to stop showing Banky W’s Movie, Sugar Rush<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidFu56V01Kp4pCxGARUSWg73EFsycbt4qkS_G6Tr6tgiCkZwwR3FMm_9Bw2m-3NHtApXRNUCkCHZttn4repCgzDSBhSQiMMOFK_Aal4m8EBefYT212AFW5EZp2gErmkBr_M3wxY1dEqkeA/s1600/Sugar_Rush_2019_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="282" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidFu56V01Kp4pCxGARUSWg73EFsycbt4qkS_G6Tr6tgiCkZwwR3FMm_9Bw2m-3NHtApXRNUCkCHZttn4repCgzDSBhSQiMMOFK_Aal4m8EBefYT212AFW5EZp2gErmkBr_M3wxY1dEqkeA/s320/Sugar_Rush_2019_poster.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> FG orders cinemas to stop showing Banky W’s movie</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The National Film and Video Censors Board has ordered cinemas nationwide to stop showing a recently released movie, titled, Sugar Rush.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol'; line-height: 35.078px;">Following the the directive on Monday showed that Nigerian cinemas have removed the film from their movie listings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 40.617px;">Several online reports suggest that the poor portrayal of the EFCC in the comedy might be one of the reasons it was pulled out of cinemas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">However, the NVFCB, Executive Director, Addedayo Thomas has debunked the allegation. In a statement published on its social media handle shows that the movie was not suspended because of some scenes found to portray the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as an incompetent organisation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The film, which has reportedly grossed about N160m since its release on December 25, 2019, was directed by Kayode Kasum, and largely publicised by singer Bankole Wellington aka Banky W and wife, Adesua.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The movie was, however, removed from cinemas by the NFVCB, the Federal Government agency responsible for classifying movies and giving approval for release.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">The film centres on three sisters who accidentally discover $800,000 (N288m) in the house of a corrupt man.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">According to some online critics, the comedy drama also shows failed attempts by the EFCC to recover the money, depicting the EFCC operatives as incompetent and clumsy</span></span><span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol'; line-height: 24px;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Confirming the suspension of the movie, Banky W said he was optimistic that it would return to the theatres.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">He wrote on Twitter, “Thank you all so much for the support that our film Sugar Rush has received. Unfortunately, due to issues that are way beyond our control, Sugar Rush has been suspended from playing in cinemas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">“We’re hoping the issues will be resolved quickly, so we can resume screening as soon as possible.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">In a subsequent tweet, the musician said the NFVCB was already looking to resolve it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> The Executive Director of the NFVCB, however, stated that the movie was not suspended because of pressure from the EFCC.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">He added, “The movie was given temporary approval in December. They had told us that they wanted to release it on Christmas Day and they were thus given a temporary approval pending the approval of a permanent one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">“The temporary one lapsed before they could complete the process of getting the permanent one.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">“The matter has nothing to do with the EFCC as is being reported on social media.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Thomas said the movie had not just significantly increased box office revenues within a short period, but had improved our cinematic culture which is sine qua non for attracting the investment Nigeria desires.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="sp-column" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box;">
<span style="font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica Neue, Arial, sans-serif, Apple Color Emoji, Segoe UI Emoji, Segoe UI Symbol;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">“I am currently working with the distributor, producer, director and key actors to grant final approval for the resumed exhibition at cinemas,” he said.</span></span></div>
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-18715892694287862412019-12-29T09:37:00.000-08:002019-12-29T09:37:10.638-08:00Actress/singer Onyeka Onwenu ProfileOnyeka Onwenu is Nigerian singer, songwriter, actress, civil servant, journalist and formerly X factor series judge.<br />
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Onyeka Onwenu was born on 17 May 1952. She is from Arondizuogu, a small town in Ideato, North Local Government Area of Imo State in the south eastern part of Nigeria. She is the youngest daughter of the Nigerian educationist and politician D.K. Onwenu. Her father died when she was four years old in an autocrash.<br />
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Raised and cratered for by her mother, she studied abroad, bagging a Bachelor's degree in International Relations and Communication at the Wellesley College of Massachusetts, USA, and a master's degree in Media Studies from The New School for Social Research in New York..<br />
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Onyeka Onwenu's music career began in 1981 with the release of ‘For the Love of You' and 'Endless Life' which was produced by Sunny Okosun in 1982, 'The Morning Light' in 1984, 'One Love' in 1986 and 'Dancing In The Sun' in 1988. She stands out as the only musician to have crossed Pop with Juju music and Highlife, and still produce ‘eargasmic’ sounds. Her songs like her writing advocate for unity and cultural cohabitation as well as picking on social issues, issues relating to health and women rights as well as the plight of children.<br />
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She emerged into the movie scene in 1999 with the movie 'Not Your Wealth' and has since then been debuted in over 100 Nollywood movies including, 'Conspiracy' in 1999, 'Different Worlds' in 2006 and in Chimamanda's Half of a Yellow Sun which featured Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton in 2014. In 2006 She won the African Movie Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role In recognition of her contribution to music, movies and arts in Nigeria, she has been celebrated by professionals like Mahmood Ali-Balogun, Laolu Akins, Charles O’Tudor and former PMAN president Tony Okoroji among others.<br />
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She was the former chairperson of the Imo State Council for Arts and Culture and later the Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of the National Centre for Women Development.<br />
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What do you love most about her?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO2IgFDHkSz1jlC6fpSK89OeNJNrIR0g3qxBL1_ZpgLkt7s925OZZX_vSiOZBg907XKurmvcmYDvZivG8VUBJIUsMOgRU-muvV6v7LvxPt6p0Z75e8mtsWObQpZr29YKEe-yxCAk7YX3v/s1600/FB_IMG_1577639327520.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="565" data-original-width="470" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHO2IgFDHkSz1jlC6fpSK89OeNJNrIR0g3qxBL1_ZpgLkt7s925OZZX_vSiOZBg907XKurmvcmYDvZivG8VUBJIUsMOgRU-muvV6v7LvxPt6p0Z75e8mtsWObQpZr29YKEe-yxCAk7YX3v/s320/FB_IMG_1577639327520.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAOr2uJ22j4w8ErXRwv5luROPKP7c1nJfHST9CPGW178SHgcZmfV4vqHOl1jyNNwTL7ZfIhejrDyjCp3VNLODszbzbDSX_GTL5Dve9AiPLtEcmWVoRlYY3q2XQ2eukH16c556iFWAA8WG/s1600/FB_IMG_1577639330178.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="640" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoAOr2uJ22j4w8ErXRwv5luROPKP7c1nJfHST9CPGW178SHgcZmfV4vqHOl1jyNNwTL7ZfIhejrDyjCp3VNLODszbzbDSX_GTL5Dve9AiPLtEcmWVoRlYY3q2XQ2eukH16c556iFWAA8WG/s320/FB_IMG_1577639330178.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-33501235626800541492019-12-26T01:22:00.001-08:002019-12-26T01:22:39.986-08:00Location Pics: can you name the actors and actresses here?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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How many actors and actresses can you find in this picture?Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-63517428766400957262019-12-23T12:12:00.000-08:002019-12-23T12:12:27.095-08:00English actor, Idris Elba bags Sierra Leone citizenship on his first visit.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The prolific British actor, Idris Elba has been honoured with a Sierra Leone citizenship on first visit to the country.<br />
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Elba who was born on 6 September 1972 in London of a Sierra Leonean father and a Ghanaian mother has not visited his native country until on Wednesday when he landed in the capital Freetown for first visit to the country.<br />
Elba told the BBC's Umaru Fofana that citizenship was "<i>the biggest honour I could get from my country".</i><br />
<i>"I'm no stranger to Africa: I've been in Africa, I've made films in Africa, I've championed Africa,"</i><br />
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he said. "<i>But Sierra Leone, it's a very different feeling because it's my parent's home."</i><br />
<i>"The welcome has been incredible, and I've plugged straight into that energy that I think Sierra Leone is rising with.</i><br />
<i>"The son of the soil is coming back to fertilise the soil."</i><br />
As part of that commitment, the Avengers actor said that he wanted to invest in developing tourism, but also spoke about boosting the entertainment industry.<br />
"<i>America or England cannot house my ambition. Africa can house my ambition, I can create another Disney here [and] I can't do that in America."</i><br />
Elba said he wanted to help rejuvenate and "rebrand" the country.<br />
He believes that a Sierra Leonen entertainment industry has the potential to tell its own stories to the rest of the world.<br />
"<i>There are a lot of bright kids here who are techno-heads, [they're] really really smart. I feel like I could contribute to building a workforce that supports other nations in film and that's part of my journey."</i><br />
The passport, Elba told the BBC, would allow him to "come back home as a son of the soil".<br />
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The star, who was named People magazine's "sexiest man alive" in 2018, is best known for his work in Marvel films, including the Avengers, as well as for the lead role in Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom.<br />
He also starred in a Netflix movie about child soldiers, Beasts of No Nation, which was filmed in Ghana.<br />
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<br />Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-72911887813181322742019-10-08T05:10:00.000-07:002019-10-08T05:26:37.049-07:00Hollywood director refuses money to replace actor with Down's syndromeDuring a new interview, Tyler Nilson, the director of “Peanut Butter Falcon” revealed he was offered more money to replace the movie’s lead actor, Zack Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, for someone able-bodied with a “more marketable face,” highlighting the discrimination disabled actors face in Hollywood.<br />
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Daily Mail reports that the cast, Zack Gottsagen, was asked to be removed because he was said not to have a “marketable face”. In his words:<br />
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“<i>We were offered money if we would’ve replaced Zack but that was something for us that was a major no,” Nilson said. “We were told the movie we made with starring somebody with Down syndrome, we were told that this would not be marketable, that people wouldn’t go see it in theaters, that a lot of streaming services wouldn’t pick it up because they said he’s not a marketable face.”</i><br />
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In the film "Peanut Butter Falcon" Gottsagen played the role of a young man who runs away from his nursing home to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional wrestler.<br />
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The director said his bosses were not of the conviction that the film would would not be good for business with his face as the lead character, offering to give him a bigger budget if he could switch Gottsagen which Nilson rightly refused. Siting his directing partner, Michael Schwartz and himself<br />
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created “Peanut Butter Falcon” with Gottsagen in mind. They saw him perform at an acting camp and were reminded how few acting roles were available for people with disabilities.<br />
Despite the grave concern the movie investors earlier showed, the $6.2 million budget movie brought in huge revenue of $16.8 million and the lead role has been suggested for an Academy Award for the way he acted in the film.<br />
“We hope for a lot but we expect nothing. 'It's really special people are acknowledging Zack's work it is a really special performance,” he said.<br />
Nilson also said that he has received a lot of appreciation for the movie, and heard how people were moved to tears after they saw the movie.<br />
He said before they got down making the movie, the prospect of Gottsagen as an actor was discussed and he performed way above expectation<br />
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-3273570071231411832019-09-01T15:46:00.001-07:002019-09-01T15:46:09.673-07:00Kevin Hart Reportedly Suffers Major Injuries After Car Accident<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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American stand-up comedian and actor, Kevin Darnell Hart has suffered "major back injuries" after a car accident around 1 a.m. this morning (Sunday, September 1) just south of Calabasas, California.<br />
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According to TMZ and the local ABC7 news, Kevin Hart was not the one driving the car but he was in his own 1970 Plymouth Barracuda along with two other people when the car veered into a gully about 10 feet off of the road. The car was turning from Cold Canyon Road onto Mulholland around 1 a.m. West Coast time when the driver lost control. The car rolled down an embankment, and California Highway Patrol reported two people were initially trapped in the rollover. The car's roof was completely crushed, as shown in photos from the scene.<br />
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A witness told TMZ that Kevin Hart was the first one to get out of the vehicle, and one of his security team members showed up shortly afterward to pick him up. Hart was said to suffer major back injuries and was brought to Northridge Hospital. The driver was also hospitalized. The California Highway Patrol said there was no indication that drugs or alcohol were involved. It's not clear exactly what happened, but the cause of the crash is being investigated.<br />
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Kevin Hart bought the vintage car this past summer as a 40th birthday present for himself. It sucks to lose the car, but it sounds like he and his fellow passengers are lucky to be alive.<br />
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The actor is currently filming the movie Fatherhood for an April 2020 release. He has the lead role in the film, which is based on the memoir by Matthew Logelin. Kevin Hart replaced Channing Tatum in the role.<br />
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Here's hoping Kevin Hart and the driver both have speedy recoveries.<br />
<br />Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-59078356115955491282017-07-11T15:45:00.001-07:002017-07-11T15:45:26.069-07:00Reno Omokri and the Celebration of Ignorance<h1 class="name post-title entry-title" style="background-color: white; border: 0px none; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: 'Patua One'; font-size: 28px; font-weight: normal; list-style: none; margin: 0px 0px 10px; outline: none; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Muli; font-size: 14px; line-height: 22px;">By Azuka Onwuka</span></h1>
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Last week, Mr Reno Omokri, former social media aide of erstwhile president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, reacted to a 2014 comment the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Mr Nnamdi Kanu, made against Jonathan. In that comment, Kanu accused Jonathan of being weak, and said that his wife, Dame Patience Jonathan, was a stronger character. Someone looking for mischief republished the story as if it was a fresh comment, and many like Reno Omokri fell for it without asking questions.</div>
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However, the interesting thing was that Omokri did not respond to Kanu. He responded to the entire Igbo ethnic group, saying all kinds of uncomplimentary things about them. This is the way most Nigerians react to things involving an Igbo: they usually leave the culprit and attack the whole Igbo ethnic group. When an Igbo speaks, it is the entire Igbo ethnic group that has spoken, but when a Yoruba, or Hausa or Ijaw or Tiv speaks, people usually respond to the individual involved.</div>
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That was how the January 1966 coup was branded an Igbo coup. Consequently, Igbo civilians were massacred, even after the July 1966 coup-plotters had succeeded in killing the head of state and taking back power. Sadly, 50 years after that genocidal reaction to the Igbo civilians, those who carried out that cold-blooded mass murder as well as their children and the children of those who kept silent when the massacre of Igbo civilians took place are still justifying it with the argument that “the Igbo started it,” as if the killed Igbo civilians participated in the coup or were consulted by the soldiers during the planning of the coup.</div>
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In contrast, when the 1976 coup, which was masterminded by Middle-belt soldiers, executed, the Middle-belt civilians were not massacred, neither was it labelled a Middle-belt coup. Nigerians focused on Lt. Col. Buka Suka Dimka and his co-plotters.</div>
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Similarly, when the 1990 coup led by mainly Middle-belt and South-south people (with Major Gideon Orkar, Col. Tony Nyiam and Chief Great Ogboru as arrowheads), occurred, Middle-belt and South-south civilians were not attacked or even blamed. It was seen purely as a coup by soldiers. And only those who had a hand in the coup paid for it.</div>
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In his article against Kanu’s 2014 comment on Jonathan, Reno Omokri tried to prove how tactless Igbo are with this example: “Nnamdi Azikiwe was at one time known all over Africa as Zik of Africa. It was a thing of pride and joy to pre-independent Nigeria. Everyone was proud of Zik including Northerners. This is a fact. But the story ended tragically. No matter what may have happened to him through his political choices and alliances, it was a very great disappointment that a man who reached the peak of his political career as Zik of Africa ended up allowing himself to be known as the Owelle of Onitsha, not even of Nigeria, or Igboland or even Anambra, but of Onitsha.”</div>
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About a month ago, in his article “Hegemony: What the Igbo can learn from Yoruba and Fulani about power,” Omokri said: “This humility is ingrained into Yoruba and Northern youths from infancy. In the North, youths squat to greet their fathers and their male elders. In the Southwest, children are taught to prostrate for their elders as a form of greeting. Banky W is an international star but when he met Dele Momodu, he prostrated before him. Long before him, Sir Shina Peters did that to King Sunny Ade. I doubt that an Igbo man can even muster enough humility to prostrate before his own father how much more an elder! He would consider that as foolishness.”</div>
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It was shocking that an educated person, a well-travelled person and a pastor like Omokri could wallow in such ethnocentric ignorance by using one culture to judge another. It is like a newspaper columnist denigrating the Warri people over the starch they eat by comparing it with the pounded yam the Yoruba eat, or a European writer ridiculing Nigerians for eating cow’s hide (kanda/kpomo) as a delicacy rather than using it for leather, or eating goat’s head, intestines and feet as a delicacy (isi-ewu and nkwobi) which the Europeans would usually throw away or use as feed for animals.</div>
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We should remember that Isaac and Jacob in the Bible married their first cousins. Many ethnic groups and races in Nigeria and across the world marry their relatives, but it is an abomination among the Igbo to marry somebody from the same umunna, which is a large family that shares the same progenitor dating back 10 generations or more. Now imagine an Igbo writer denigrating those who marry their first or second cousins because his own custom forbids it! This can only be acceptable if the writer is pointing out the health implications of marriage between people who are related.</div>
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In Igbo cosmology, prostrating or kneeling down to greet anyone is blasphemous. It is reserved for God Almighty alone. It is seen as ill-breeding for any Igbo person not to greet anyone who is older. Such a child is usually corrected verbally by the elder or even disciplined. However, no Igbo man or woman accepts another to prostrate or kneel down while greeting him or her. A friend of mine who did his National Youth Service Corps scheme in the South-west returned home and prostrated to greet his father, as a show of respect that he had learnt in the South-west. Rather than feeling happy, his father was shocked and angry. The father shouted at him to rise up immediately and never deify him again.</div>
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When commercial vehicle operators or motorcycle operators, who are known for their recklessness, hit the car of a person on a Lagos street, their usual action is to prostrate as a way to show that they are remorseful. However, if the owner of the car is a Yoruba person, the prostrating may touch him, but if it is an Igbo, such prostrating irritates him immediately and makes it more difficult to forgive the offender.</div>
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How then could an educated person like Reno Omokri want an Igbo musician to prostrate while greeting another older Igbo celebrity when the older person sees such an act as blasphemous?</div>
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On the issue of Zik dropping from being the Zik of Africa to the Owelle of Onitsha, this ridiculous statement had been made in the past by some people out of ignorance, and Omokri simply rehashed that comment without interrogating it, just because he needed to find something with which to prove that Igbo are not as good as other ethnic groups.</div>
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Every Igbo man (as well as woman) is expected to rise from the name his father gave him to the name he gave himself or acquired through the acquisition of the ozo title (or honorary chieftaincy title nowadays.) That name is usually cherished by the bearer more than his given name, and it often overshadows his original name. Titles are given by the traditional ruler of a town, not the state or Igboland. Combining a title with the name of the town accords the title more authenticity and class. That is why Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu is synonymous with “Ikemba of Nnewi.” Another man can be the Ikemba of Asaba or Abakaliki. Senator Chuba Okadigbo is better known as the Oyi of Oyi, while Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife is better known as Okwadike Igbo-Ukwu.</div>
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At the gathering of elders and titled men, they do not call each other by their given names. They use the salutation names. As a younger person, I dared not call Ojukwu by his personal name, but I hailed him “Ikemba Nnewi” anytime I met him, and he responded with excitement. If I wanted to show him that I knew him too well, I would hail him Odenigbo Ngwo (the title his in-laws gave him). That would immediately make him respond: “Onye na-akpo m” (Who is hailing me?) or “Onye ma m otu a?” (Who knows me like this?)</div>
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In Things Fall Apart, even though Chinua Achebe identified the title name or salutation name of most of the characters in the novel, he did not identify the title name of the hero of the novel, Okonkwo, who had taken some ozo titles and was the greatest wrester and warrior of his clan. As a warrior, an elder and an ozo title holder, Okonkwo would not be addressed as “Okonkwo” except by his parents or elder siblings. He would be addressed by his title name. When Things Fall Apart was turned into a TV series by Nigerian Television Authority in the mid 1980s, the producers rectified that by giving Okonkwo the title “Ebubedike”.</div>
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When I call my father-in-law or mother-in-law on phone or meet them in person, I hail them by their salutation names. They love it. Sometimes they respond by hailing me too by my salutation name. Occasionally when I hail my father by his own salutation name, especially when he finishes the ceremonial breaking of the kola nut, he lovees it.</div>
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That is how we roll.</div>
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If you hail a person by his salutation name and he fails to reciprocate, you remind him that he has “eaten” your own salutation name. If the person does not know yours or has forgotten, it is his duty to ask you yours. If the person is your father or mother or much older and does not respond by calling you by your salutation name, you don’t take offence, neither do you withhold hailing him next time. It is your duty as a junior person to greet him or her by including his or her salutation name or title name.</div>
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As an author, Omokri should know that his greatest asset should be the word “research”, if he wants to be taken seriously. There is no room for assumptions. It is called research because you need to search and search again and continue searching. Before you write about a people, you visit them, ask questions, make observations, read about them. That way you see the reason behind actions and write like an authority, not a neophyte.</div>
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Combining title names with city names is not even peculiar to the Igbo. Most Nigerians know the name Sardauna of Sokoto more than his real name Sir Ahmadu Bello. Former Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar, enjoyed being called Turaki Adamawa until he was elevated as Waziri Adamawa last month. Scholars of English literature know of the poet called Earl of Surrey and address him as such: His original name “Henry Howard” is rarely remembered. None of these titles with city names diminishes or localizes the bearer, except in the minds of mischief makers like Reno Omokri who must find a reason to denigrate the Igbo.</div>
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Ironically, in spite of the so-called great love people like Omokri had for Zik of Africa, when Zik contested for elections in Nigeria, after leading Nigeria’s independence struggle, Nigerians did not elect him in the First Republic nor in the Second Republic. So where is this wonderful love that Nigerians claim to have for Zik of Africa? Isn’t it hypocritical love or crocodile tears? Among Zik’s contemporaries in Africa – as well as non-contemporaries across the globe – the first elected prime minister or executive president of a country is usually the leader of the independence struggle: George Washington in the USA, Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, Leopold Senghor in Senegal, Kenneth Kaunda in Zambia, Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya, Julius Nyerere in Tanzania, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Sam Nujoma in Namibia, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Salva Kiir Mayardit in South Sudan, etc. But in Nigeria, the opposite was the case.</div>
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Given the type of person Dr Goodluck Jonathan is, he would be embarrassed by the attack on the Igbo by Omokri, even though Omokri’s mission was purportedly to defend him. It is sad that when the Igbo were supporting Jonathan and were even killed during the 2011 election, they were great people in the eyes of people like Omokri, because their support ensured that the daily bread of Omokri was not threatened. But since Jonathan is out of power, it is time for Omokri to show the world how he feels about the Igbo under the guise of giving them advice.</div>
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Nigerian ethnic groups have wonderful traits. There are people who make it their duty to celebrate these traits in other ethnic groups. But the majority of Nigerians usually try not to see the good in other ethnic groups but only look for negatives to highlight to show ethnic superiority. And that is why there is so much ethnic rivalry, suspicion, distrust, tension and clashes.</div>
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Those who have the power to write for the public must pocket their ethnic or religious bigotry and disdain and focus on issues (or offending individuals, if need be)</div>
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-19330307959100288962016-11-08T03:19:00.002-08:002017-01-14T10:55:05.982-08:00Linda, you cannot have it both ways- Ebonyi state Legistrator advises Linda on how to find the right man<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_n">
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<br />
Linda Ikeji has been on the trend for long time. Partly not just for her success in the blogging business, which has turned her to much talk about celebrity in own right, but also her inability to hook up with a man even at an alarming age of 36. Linda herself feel not disturbed by her age. For she has stated it time and time again that she is not desperate for a man. In a recent interview, she made it clear that she will not marry a poor man and she rather remain single all her life than fall for such. As a reaction to that interview, Ebonyi state House of Assembly legislator, Hon Maria Ude Nwachi has an open letter to the blogger. Stating that there are lots of considerations and compromise that need to be put on the table when it comes to men...<br />
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<i><b>Excerpt after the cut:</b></i><br />
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Linda, you cannot have it both ways.....<br />
I personally did a lot of damage control for Linda Ikeji when it was
alleged she said; she can buy any man with her money. I sincerely did
not believe she can utter such; as I could not imagine any reasonable
human being saying such. I defended her with all my might. I Paid
Facebook and Google to boost and promote the article I took my time to
create, image-making style, in order to squash that allegation.
Remember, I do not know her in any shape. Never met her. Never spoken
with her. I know her the same way millions do, via the fact that she is
famous blogger. I Just did it from my heart; for I see her as a role
model to women and youths. And I did not want such dent on her image. <br />
Recently, power-blogger, Linda Ikeji, told an interviewer that she can
never marry a poor man. Hear her: "No, I can’t marry a poor guy and I’m
being honest about it. He doesn’t have to be rich but let him be
successful in his own way. When I was 30, my standards were extremely
high. Now, I have only three criteria. He must be successful. He must be
a good man in the sense that he has to be very supportive of what I do.
If he tries to stifle me, I’m out. The third one, is the one that likes
to eat groceries well (laughs)." </blockquote>
On her latest statement, I do
not agree with her at all. Firstly; a rich man is nothing but a poor
man with money. And; no condition in life is ever permanent.<br />
The
scariest thing for a man to hear is not even the one of her saying she
can't marry a poor man, it is the one she says that she would be out if a
man tries to stifle her. Then she better just create the man from
scratch. Because there is no man, especially African man, that will not
attempt to stifle his wife every now and then. That innocuous utterance
has already sent strong signals to those successful men she is seeking
that they better go and marry someone that will not attempt to wear the
trouser at home with them; and not her. It also indicates to those
successful men she wants that she will never be submissive in anyway to
them; that she no send and is ready for a divorce at any given time. She
is basically preempting divorce even before marriage.<br />
The major
reason men, especially African men are working hard to be successful is
so they can get that woman they want, that will give them a peaceful
home, and the leeway to be the oga of the house. Why would a man go
through it all to make it only to marry a woman who is going to become
the man of the house with him.<br />
Important: A man is a man, poor or
rich. No man with his head in intact, will be okay for a woman to
control him. Even if the woman is richer than money itself. It will not
happen. Even the poorest man on earth would rather be eating his Indomie
in peace than to be controlled by any woman. This applies even in the
civilized world. This not about pride, this is human nature. <br />
On
money: Being rich, poor or broke is not a permanent state of being.
Moreover; money is not the be all and end all of life. Some people are
very rich today not just by hard work but by force of universe which can
also be interpreted as grace. Let us not dismiss people based on their
current condition. Moreover, he only thing constant in life is change.<br />
Hear Linda, "I keep telling people. It’s not that men are scarce. They
are not scarce. The type of men that some of us are looking for are
scarce. If I want to get married next week, I can. I want a man that I
can look up to. Somebody that inspires me, somebody that will push me,
motivate me; somebody who has had some success in his own career. I’m
inspired by successful people. I can’t wait to meet someone like Tyler
Perry."<br />
Now let us talk about the definition of success.
According to her, she wants to marry a successful man, but the man does
not have to be rich. This is a huge oxymoron (an epigrammatic effect, by
which contradictory terms are used in conjunction). Success is defined
as; the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. And it does not take a
genius to understand that by successful, she means a wealthy man. A man
of means. Going by the example she gives as her kind of man, Tyler
Perry, she has dropped all the hint any one needs to know concerning her
idea of a successful man. Perry is an ultra-rich American actor,
comedian, producer, director, screenwriter, playwright, author, and
songwriter.<br />
The problem i see with Linda is that she is often too
open about her feelings. I will advise that in her search for a man
that she should keep some of her criteria private. This is not America,
this is not oyibo land where women can say and do anything with minimal
or no consequence. Emotional intelligence is knowing your environment
and adapting to it; especially when it comes to utterances, actions etc.
It is not everything the heart conceives that must be uttered publicly.
<br />
Dear Linda, you can't have it both ways. You can't eat your
cake and have it too. Being a very successful woman in Nigeria, you must
be willing to compromise when it comes to relationships with the
opposite sex. You might not be a girl, due to your high level, a man can
tell what to do or what not to do, but you must not say such out loud,
you must give vibes that you can be told what to do by your man, you
must do your best to show them the utmost respect, the most respect you
can muster to give them. You are going to have to eat humble pies for
your man many a times. And it is okay my darling, it will take nothing
away from you. Let the man to feel he is in control. You must try and do
that. It is not an option, it is necessary.<br />
By your success
alone, you have made many men feel a bit less manly, and so to even rub
it in by reading them riot acts to them, is an overkill. Humility is a
natural gift, those who are humble by nature will remain humble even if
they become the richest on earth. But humility can be learned too, in
dealing with the opposite sex you will need a mighty doze of humility,
nnem, learn it if by force biko. Always remember that a man is a man is
man is a man. Respect matter to a man; no matter his status and class.
Linda, in the end you will have the last laugh, when you are running
around with your cute kids doing one or two things and your hubby by
your side. When you are compromising and eating them humble pies, think
of your family (your own kid/s and man) and it will all be worth it.<br />
By virtue of you being a very successful woman, African woman for that
matter, no matter who you marry, it is not going to be easy. But if you
do your math properly, do some adjustments and amendments, you won't
have any regrets. Life as we know it is not a bed of roses for anyone,
if you have this, you might not have that, so it's all about compromise
and middle-ground.<br />
You are a very public figure. Your public
utterances must be guided. By virtue of your rag to riches success
story; you have become an involuntary role model to many; including me.
You are intelligent but you need to take a class on emotional
intelligence. Be very mindful of your public statements please. I wish
you more success in life. Thank you.<br />
Sincerely yours,<br />
Maria Ude Nwachi (Afikpo Chic).<br />
<a class="_58cn" data-ft="{"tn":"*N","type":104}" href="https://web.facebook.com/hashtag/bcel?source=feed_text&story_id=1785884108316242"><span class="_5afx"><span class="_58cl _5afz">#</span><span class="_58cm">BCEL</span></span></a> - Best Chic Ever Liveth (Nwanyi Afikpo).</div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-21729469721938598102016-10-20T08:17:00.004-07:002016-10-20T08:17:59.264-07:00Patience Jonathan explains How She Made $15m In 15 Years
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There have ruining battle between wife of former Nigerian President, Patience Jonathan and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, over the $15million in several bank accounts
linked to her. Mrs Jonathan who had earlier the anti craft agency for unlawfully freezing accounts, has explained
how she accumulated in 15 years $15million in several bank accounts
linked to her.<br />
<i><b>READ:</b></i><br />
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“The funds in question were legitimate gifts from her friends and
well-wishers over the last 15 years which she had been saving in order
to utilize to upgrade family businesses and concerns which had been
somewhat dormant by reason of the long period of her husband service as a
public officer in Nigeria.<br />
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“The gifts were given in small contributions by several persons some of
whom she cannot even now recall over this period of 15 years sometimes
in as small a gift as N250,000 Naira.<br />
In order to preserve the value of these funds which she did not require
for any purpose at the time she changed them into foreign exchange and
kept them as cash for a long period in her home safe in Port Harcourt
and Abuja.<br />
It was when the family home in Otuoke was burnt down by hoodlums under
the instigation of political adversaries in 2010 that she began to think
about banking these gifts which had now grown to large sums in United
States Dollars.<br />
In 2010 she therefore summoned one of her husband’s domestic aides,
Waripamo-Owei Emmanuel Dudafa to assist her in opening bank accounts
into which the funds could be deposited.”<br />
“Unknown to her the said Dudafa in a bid to be discreet about the owner
of the funds decided to bank the funds in the names of companies owned
by him. When she discovered this she was constrained to continue with
the names of the companies when she was advised that it did not make any
difference as to the ownership of the funds since the director of the
company would appoint her as sole signatory to the accounts in
question.”
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-59683176960334136832016-10-19T03:01:00.002-07:002016-10-19T03:01:24.934-07:00Buhari's Failed Promises- By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<br />
<b>Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie</b> <span class="nowrap"><span class="noexcerpt"><sup><span class="IPA" style="color: #0000ee; font: bold 80% sans-serif; padding: 0 .1em;"></span></sup></span><span class="IPA nopopups"><span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted;"><span title="/ˌ/ secondary stress follows"></span><span title="/tʃ/ 'ch' in 'china'"></span><span title="/ɪ/ short 'i' in 'bid'"></span><span title="'m' in 'my'"></span><span title="/ɑː/ 'a' in 'father'"></span><span title="/ˈ/ primary stress follows"></span><span title="'m' in 'my'"></span><span title="/ɑː/ 'a' in 'father'"></span><span title="'n' in 'no'"></span><span title="'d' in 'dye'"></span><span title="/ə/ 'a' in 'about'"></span></span><span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted;"><span title="/ə/ 'a' in 'about'"></span><span title="/ŋ/ 'ng' in 'sing'"></span><span title="/ˈ/ primary stress follows"></span><span title="'g' in 'guy'"></span><span title="/oʊ/ long 'o' in 'code'"></span><span title="'z' in 'Zion'"></span><span title="/i/ 'y' in 'happy'"></span></span><span style="border-bottom: 1px dotted;"><span title="/ʌ/ short 'u' in 'bud'"></span><span title="/ˈ/ primary stress follows"></span><span title="'d' in 'dye'"></span><span title="/iː/ long 'e' in 'seed'"></span><span title="/tʃ/ 'ch' in 'china'"></span><span title="/ɪər/ 'ear' in 'beard'"></span></span></span></span> is a novelist, nonfiction writer and short story writer. A MacArthur Genius Grant recipient. Read her article publish on the New York Times:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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.</blockquote>
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<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="591" data-total-count="1087">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="404" data-total-count="1491">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="554" data-total-count="2045">
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.</div>
</div>
<br />
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<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="102" data-total-count="2147" id="story-continues-2">
He had an opportunity to make real reforms early on, to boldly reshape Nigeria’s path. He wasted it.</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="338" data-total-count="2485">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="160" data-total-count="2645">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="383" data-total-count="3028" id="story-continues-3">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="477" data-total-count="3505">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="748" data-total-count="4253">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="187" data-total-count="4440">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="402" data-total-count="4842">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="268" data-total-count="5110">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="248" data-total-count="5358">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="484" data-total-count="5842">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="529" data-total-count="6371" id="story-continues-4">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="523" data-total-count="6894">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="443" data-total-count="7337">
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.</div>
<div class="story-body-text story-content" data-para-count="242" data-total-count="7579">
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.</div>
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In a country enamored of dark humor, a common greeting among the middle class now is “Happy recession!”</div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-13187017527218403342016-10-19T02:11:00.003-07:002016-10-19T02:11:42.136-07:00 A hater of women, a president from dark ages - By Femi Fani Kayode<span class="twitter-byline"></span>
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An Article from Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani Kayode.</div>
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<b><i>PLEASE READ ON:</i></b><br />
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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.<br />
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.<br />
Somebody should tell Mumu 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.</blockquote>
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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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
One wonders how things got so bad? One wonders what engendered this
terrible affliction and what attracted this deep-rooted curse of a
government?<br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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”.<br />
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?<br />
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?<br />
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.<br />
By his shameful and ignorant asserions 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 prescence and on German soil.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
Such people believe that to 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.<br />
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.<br />
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, Kime Engozus 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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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<br />
once said “give me liberty or give me death”.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
Why? Because there is a God in Heaven who rules in the affairs of
men. Why? Because you have touched the annointed of the Lord and you
have troubled His beloved people.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
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.<br />
Sooner than later He will deliver us from this evil and wicked President who hails from the Darrk Ages.<br />
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.<br />
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-519486412141110952016-10-16T11:14:00.003-07:002016-10-16T11:14:27.517-07:00Akwa Ibom state governor sacks all his serving commissioners <div class="btn-group btn-breadcrumb">
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The executive governor of Akwa Ibom state, Mr. Udom Emmanuel has approved the sacking of all the members of the State Executive Council, comprises of all the commissioners of the state. This is according to a statement released my the Secretary of the State government, Etekamba Umoren. The Governor in the statement, expresses his deep and profound appreciation for the
contributions of the EXCO members to the development of the state, and
wishes them success in their future endeavours.
He however, advised the outgoing commissioners to hand over to the Permanent Secretaries in the respective ministries pending the reconstitution of a new
Executive Council.<br />
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No reason has been given for the sack so far, but it has been alleged that most of the outgoing commissioners are stooges from his predecessor, Godswill Akpabio who were selected for political compensation.<br />
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<i><b>Picture of the statement below:</b></i><br /><br />
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-61054194007753401682016-10-15T16:01:00.004-07:002016-10-15T16:01:49.810-07:00Aisha Buhari And That BBC Interview - By Reuben Abati<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" id="js_s">
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<b><i>The article was written by Reuben ABati. Please read on: </i></b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b><i> </i></b><br />
Public
communication is one of the most delicate challenges that people in
public life face, either in the corporate or the public sector. Many
people suddenly find themselves in high places, and they become a source
of news, a potential interview subject, and they get chased around by
journalists and other media figures who want a story, in fact, not just a
story, but a scoop. I used to explain in communication coaching
classes and to the bosses whose media I managed, at one point or the
other that they should never feel obliged to say things they do not want
to say. No matter how aggressive the journalist may be, they should be
careful what they say. </blockquote>
A journalist would make you feel
at home, he or she may even reassure you that whatever you don’t want
published could be edited out, and that if you don’t feel comfortable
with a question, you should feel free to keep quiet. But a good
journalist knows how to push you into a corner and get you, through
follow up questions, to say things you may not ordinarily want to say.
By the time the tape starts rolling, and you are encouraged to feel like
a star, and your own tongue starts rolling, you’d be surprised the kind
of emphasis, what you consider an innocent remark, would receive when
it is published. Point is: journalists, while on duty, are not working
for politicians or big men and women; they are working for organizations
that need stories that can sell. They want scoops that can make the
headlines. That is what makes them journalists: getting the good story,
the good comments, the good shots.<br />
After reading the
interview granted by First Lady Aisha Buhari on BBC Hausa Service, I was
tempted to conclude that this is what may have happened. She could have
said the same things in a more delicately phrased manner. I have
always held the view that anybody at all in a public position should be
sent for media training (including how to deliver speeches, poise,
pronunciation skills, even basic grammar lessons) before they are
unleashed on a Nigerian public that has learnt to subject the lives of
public officials to utmost scrutiny. The Aisha Buhari interview also
fell short in this regard. She just gave the BBC Hausa service a scoop,
which in my view has done more damage to her husband’s politics than
good.<br />
Given the enormous effect that the interview has had
on the public, I would have expected that by now, she would perhaps have
tactically disowned it, put a spin on it somehow, and make it clear
that it is not intended in any way to discredit, or criticize her
husband’s administration. But nothing of such has happened. And what
does that mean? That the interview was deliberate and that she is
standing by every word she said. She has been called the “good lady in
the Villa.” She has been praised for being a modern wife who can speak
up, and exercise her right to free speech. She has been called fearless
and assertive. The only thing I have not heard from some of the
hypocritical commentators is that she would be a good Presidential
candidate for 2019.<br />
I have also been told that she must
have spoken out of frustration and that her public outburst about the
existence of a cabal in the Villa, which determines who gets what
appointment, to the disadvantage of members of the All Progressives
Congress is making APC members who feel left out of the power-sharing
process, very unhappy. But her outburst is nothing but a poor
understanding of power politics. There will always be cabals around the
seat of power. Power is so potent the people around the corridor will
never leave it alone to the President.<br />
And if it is true
that this cabal or the President has recruited non-APC members into the
government, then that is a positive thing, it is also a positive thing
that the President does not know many of the people he has appointed. He
doesn’t need to know them personally as long as they come from all
parts of Nigeria and they are competent men who can get the job done.
The First Lady seems to assume that only card-carrying members of the
APC should work for the Buhari administration. On a positive note,
however, she doesn’t want anybody to hijack her husband’s Presidency and
she believes those who are trying to do so do not mean well. But what
does that say about her husband? <br />
The First Lady is also of
the view that if the present trend continues, she cannot campaign for
her husband in 2019 should he decide to seek re-election. She sounded
pleased with what is being done to ensure security in the North East,
but she gave the impression that she doesn’t think her husband has done
enough to merit a second term in 2019. Hear her: “What I fear is the
uprising of 15.4 million people”. And consider this: “…Nobody thought
it is going to be like this. But now that it is so…Sometimes when one is
doing something wrong without him knowing, but when people talk to
them, they should listen”. Who is that person doing something wrong and
who does not listen? <br />
Altogether, Mrs Aisha Buhari has
passed the equivalent of a vote of no confidence in her husband, and the
people around him. This is a kind of “home trouble” brought to the
public. The biggest challenge a man can face is to have his own wife
“fight” him in public. And what has happened is both unprecedented and
significant considering that a Hausa-Fulani couple is involved. It is
probably the first time a lady in this position would publicly upbraid
her husband and his team. Is she furious because she has been scorned,
ignored, rendered powerless?<br />
Well, even if we were not
privy to other details, she was publicly scorned when her husband sent a
volcanic message from Germany that she should go back to her place in
the “kitchen, the living room and the other room.” Feminists and
critics of misogyny have protested over this, quite rightly too, at a
time when women are leading countries and corporations, it is incorrect
and insensitive to say that the best place for a First Lady is to be a
cook, a living-room-soap opera-watching detainee and a bedroom object.
But given the cultural circumstances involved, this may well be the
future Aso Villa fate of First Lady Aisha Buhari. She could be marked
out as an ambitious woman who wants to share power with her husband, and
as a threat to her husband’s politics.<br />
See how much
damage has been caused already by the President’s counter-response: The
German Chancellor glared at our President when she heard that comment
about “the kitchen, the living room and the other room.” She quickly
ended their press conference. Angela Merkel is married, and she is
Chancellor, but I don’t think her husband would dare tell her she is
best fit for the kitchen and the other room. And imagine if Theresa May,
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Oby Ezekwesili, Grace Alele-Williams, Omobola
Johnson, Chimamanda Adichie, Joke Jacobs… had all been chained down in
the “other room”. No wonder, President Buhari’s local opponents are
already making big political capital out of his un-Presidential
comments, and the German public is shocked that any world leader could
be so politically incorrect. The number of jokes and memes that have
been designed around this husband-wife exchange are thoroughly amusing.
Mrs Buhari has also handed over to critics of this administration,
speaking points that would be exploited all the way till 2019, and she
may well end up not as a powerful force in the Villa but as a strong
voice for women’s rights.<br />
It is possible she may be
advised soon to recruit spin-doctors to do damage control, but she may
have left that rather late already. On the other hand, there is no
amount of damage control that the President’s spin-doctors can sell to
anyone. Whatever happens, she is cultivating a reputation as a different
kind of First Lady. Since independence, every Nigerian Head of State
or President has enjoyed the support of his wife while in office:
strong, fanatical support. Mrs Maryam Abacha was so supportive of her
husband, while everybody condemned him, and long after his death, she
has continued to celebrate his memory. Before her, Mrs Maryam Babangida
brought greater colour and celebrity status to the Office of the First
Lady and added much value to her husband’s tenure. <br />
Mrs
Fati Abubakar was a dignified presence behind her husband, the same with
Mrs Margaret Shonekan. President Olusegun Obasanjo had as First Lady,
the very elegant and beautiful Stella Obasanjo who mobilized support and
goodwill for her husband. Turai Yar’Adua, wife of the late President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was also so devoted to her husband’s cause, she was
declared the head of the Aso Rock cabal. No one doubted her
determination to protect her husband’s interest during those critical
moments. You all know Mrs Patience Jonathan. She was as First Lady, her
husband’s most vocal supporter. This brought her at loggerheads with
some sections of the public who objected to her prominence and
controversial statements, but not once did she or the other First Ladies
before her, criticize their husbands in public.<br />
Elsewhere, First Ladies also support their husbands. With all the
reported cases of dalliance and cuckoldry during the Bill Clinton
Presidency, Hillary Clinton stood by her husband. Michelle Obama has
also proven to be a very good role model in this regard. Certain
positions require careful grooming. Any form of tension in the home
could distract a political leader and make him seem vulnerable in the
eyes of the public. Mrs Aisha Buhari may have spoken her mind, but she
should not make a habit of assuming the role of a radical, in-house
critic, throwing her husband under the wheels. She ought to be
thoroughly embarrassed by all the fun being poked at her husband because
of that BBC Hausa interview she granted. How this matter is resolved
between their kitchen and “the other room” is a family affair into which
we cannot dabble.</div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-39194850521816387942016-10-15T04:04:00.001-07:002016-10-15T04:04:03.352-07:00Reuben Abati's 'spiritual side of the Villa', Buhari's 'Kitchen wife' and the curse and pain of Power- Femi Fani Kayode <h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="headline" style="text-align: justify;">
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<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is a subjoined article to Reuben Abati's earlier piece </span>'spiritual side of the Villa', <span style="font-family: inherit;">written by Femi Fani Kayode. <i><b> </b></i></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><b>READ:</b></i></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I read Reuben Abati's excellent
write-up titled "The Spiritual Side Of Aso Villa" and I concur with his
submissions. I worked in the Villa for three years as President Olusegun
Obasanjo's spokesman on public affairs and a lot of very strange things
happened there.</span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Amongst them is the fact that the
two people that served as Senior Special Assistant to President Obasanjo
on Media and Publicity one after the other, namely the much-loved Mr.
Tunji Oseni and then later Mrs. Remi Oyo, both contracted a terrible
terminal illness whilst in office and died a few years later. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Apart from that many other aides
that worked in the Villa at that time were also afflicted with strange
diseases and a sudden and tragic end. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Amongst them were Col. Solomon Giwa
Amu, Obasanjo's hard-working and good-looking ADC and Mr. Stanely
Macebuh, his brilliant and cerebral Senior Special Assistant on Public
Communications. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I was so moved by Abati's piece that
I decided to share the following thoughts about the spiritual
challenges that those in power have faced. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When our President can get up and
tell the whole world all the way from distant Germany that his wife
"belongs to the kitchen, the living room and the other room" simply
because she dared to speak her mind to the BBC then you know that he is
in the grip of something evil and that demons are speaking through him. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is all part of the spiritual
dimension of living in the Villa that Abati was referring to in his
essay. The President's mind has become twisted and he is now possessed
by strange and powerful entities. He needs a lot of prayer. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the problem is much bigger and
wider than that. When one studies the history of our country critically
and takes the time to do the appropriate research, one thing becomes
very clear- that, in Nigeria, politics and the power game is a dangerous
calling and terrible business which, more often than not, comes with a
heavy price tag.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That price tag includes pain,
anguish, betrayal, humiliation, persecution, misfortune, hardship, loss,
death, strange ailments and tragedy for those who reach the top and
their loved ones. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It is rather like playing Russian
roulette- there is one live bullet in the six empty chambers of the
pistol and one doesn’t quite know when that bullet will go off when the
trigger is pulled. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The gamble and risks taken are not only compulsive but they are also addictive and at the same time utterly deadly. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sadly the result is as follows-
virtually every single one of our national leaders and those that have
ever ruled this country has suffered immeasurably at some point or the
other in their lives, whether it be before, during or after they came to
power. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">They too have shed tears in the
loneliness of their closets and have eaten portions of what the Bible
describes as the ”bread of sorrows”. Yes, even the rich and powerful cry
and even they suffer loss and tragedy. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is the case for leaders all over the world but in Nigeria it is far more pronounced and common than anywhere else. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here the angel of death, misfortune
and sorrow seem to stalk those that find power and, like an ugly old
crow plucks out the pink feathers and precious eyes of a beautiful
flamingo, she cuts short and plucks away their lives or the lives of
their loved ones. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Like a light bulb attracts a moth
and leads it to a sudden end, so power attracts those who seek it with
equally tragic consequences. As painful as it is, let us look at the
facts.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In the early 60′s Chief Obafemi
Awolowo, the first Premier of the Western Region, lost his first son and
years later his second son and second daughter were cut short in the
prime of their lives. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chief S.L. Akintola, his bitter
political rival and the second Premier of the Western Region also lost
his first daughter in the early 60′s and a few years later lost his
third and youngest son. His second son was also cut short in his prime a
number of years later. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">My father, Chief Remilekun
Fani-Kayode, the Deputy Premier of the Western Region, who was a close
ally and second in command to S.L. Akintola, lost his second son. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sir Adesoji Aderemi, who was the
Ooni of Ife, a close ally of Awolowo and the first ceremonial Governor
of the old Western Region, lost his first son. Chief Nnamdi Azikiwe, the
Premier of the old Eastern Region and Nigeria’s first and only
ceremonial President, lost his first wife. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President Olusegun Obasanjo,
Nigeria’s second democratically-elected President lost four wives and
one son many years ago whilst Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the
Northern Region, lost two sons and one daughter. Awolowo and Obasanjo
went to jail for three years each whilst Ahmadu Bello went to jail for
three months.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">S.L. Akintola was killed in the
prime of his life just as were Ahmadu Bello and Sir Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, Nigeria’s first democratically-elected leader and Prime
Minister. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As a matter of fact they were all
killed on the same night- the night of January 15th 1966. President
Shehu Shagari, Nigeria’s second democratically-elected leader and first
executive President lost four children whilst he was in power and was
locked up for over two years after he was toppled. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chief MKO Abiola, the winner of the
June 12th 1993 Presidential election, lost two wives, was locked up for 4
years and was eventually killed.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chief Bola Ige, the first
democratically-elected Governor of Oyo state and the former
Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federation lost his
first son and he himself was later murdered. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chief Bisi Onabanjo, the first
democratically-elected Governor of Ogun state lost his first son. Alhaji
Lateef Jakande, the first democratically elected Governor of Lagos
state, lost his first daughter. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, the second
democratically-elected Governor of Oyo state lost his son. Chief Festus
Okotie-Eboh, the first Minister of Finance of Nigeria was killed. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chief Alfred Rewane, one of the
founding members of the Action Group and a leading figure in NADECO, was
killed. The list is endless and I could go on and on.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Alhaji Musa Yar’adua was Minister of
Lagos Affairs in the First Republic. He was blessed with a long and
peaceful life. However two of his sons were not so lucky. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His first son, General Shehu Musa
Yar’adua, who was number two to General Obasanjo when he was military
Head of State and who for many decades was one of the most powerful men
in the country, was murdered whilst he was in prison. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His second son, President Umaru
Yar’adua, was cut short in his prime by a strange and inexplicable
ailment after he had been President for only three years. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">He was succeeded by his number two,
Vice President Goodluck Jonathan. Jonathan lost his brother and his
mother-in-law one year after the other after he became President. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Worse still those that he had been
deputy to throughout his political life, either as Deputy Governor or
Vice President, always suffered one form of misfortune or the other,
whether it be death, shame, incarceration or impeachment, and he would
end up stepping into their shoes and taking their place.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When it comes to our military rulers
the story of consistent tragedy is no different- General Aguiyi-Ironsi,
our first military Head of State was killed. General Yakubu Gowon, our
second military Head of State, was toppled from power, exiled and lost
his brother. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">General Murtala Mohammed, our third military Head of State, was killed and lost both his son and son-in-law. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">General Olusegun Obasanjo was our fourth military Head of State and we touched on his misfortunes earlier. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">General Muhammadu Buhari, our fifth
military Head of State, was toppled from power, locked up for a number
of years, lost his mother whilst he was in detention and was not allowed
to attend her burial, lost his first wife, lost his daughter and now he
has publicly described his second wife as nothing more than a "kitchen,
living room and 'other room' wife". </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His number two, General Tunde idiagbon, was cut short under very strange and suspicious circumstances. General Ibrahim Babangida, our sixth
military Head of State, was eased out of power and compelled to ”step
aside” amidst massive controversy and turmoil and later lost his wife.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">His number two, Rear Admiral
Augustus Aikhomu, lost his first son, Chief Ernest Shonekan, our first
and only Interim Civilian Head of State, was badly humiliated and
toppled from power. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">General Sani Abacha, our seventh military Head of State, lost his first son, was removed from power and was killed. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">General Abdulsalami Abubakar, our
eight military Head of State, as far as I am aware is the only exception
and appears to have escaped any misfortune.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the picture is very depressing.
This is indeed a catalogue of tragic events. Sorrow and pain just
appears to be following sorrow and pain. It is a vicious circle of
misfortune and calamity. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yet the most curious phenomenon and
bizarre series of events of all is the fact that every single Head of
State or President that has ruled our country from the Presidential
Villa in Aso Rock, Abuja for three years or more has either ended up
dying whilst there or has lost a spouse before leaving office. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President Jonathan stayed there as
President for four years in a stretch but the travails of his wife and
her series of illnesses and medical complications which suddenly and
miraculously ceased and abated after he conceeded the 2015 election
indicates that had he continued in office after 2015 he may have lost
her and the demons of Aso Rock Villa would have come for their prey.
Thankfully he left before they could lay claim to it and before the
curse was activated. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Babangida did not stay in the Villa
in Abuja for up to three years so he and his wife escaped what has come
to be known as the ”Villa curse”. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It was the same for Chief Ernest
Shonekan who, wisely, never stayed at the Villa at all but who chose to
preside over the affairs of the nation from Aguda house next door and
who remained in power for barely six months. General Abdulsalami
Abubakar stayed at the Villa but he remained there for less than a
year. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However Abacha, Obasanjo and
Yar’adua were not so lucky- each of them stayed at the Villa for three
years or more and before the end of their tenure they either lost their
own life or the life of their spouse whilst there. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The story is that once the three
year mark is passed the curse sets in and the clock begins to tick. At
the end of the day only one of the two spouses comes out alive. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">When one considers all these facts
and series of misfortunes that have trailed our leaders in the last 56
years of our existence as an independent nation one cannot but conclude
that there has indeed been a harvest of hardship, pain and death
attached to the highest, most powerful and most prominent offices in the
land and to those that are close to or have occupied it.</span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The truth is that power comes at a
terrible price and those that wield it have, more often than not,
experienced terrible pain and anguish in their lives. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">That is the price that virtually
every single one of them has had to pay. What a tragedy. Yet at the end
of the day I wonder whether it is all worth it. </span></div>
<div id="m_6303153379926532896m_1076916840836620431AppleMailSignature" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For as the bible says, it is nothing but ”vanity upon vanity- all is vanity”.</span></div>
<div class="yj6qo">
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span>Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-80071521499724884222016-10-15T03:10:00.001-07:002016-10-15T03:10:41.826-07:00The Spiritual side of Aso Villa- By Reuben Abati <img alt="Image result for reuben abati" class="irc_mi iQZBl_EonG_w-pQOPx8XEepE" height="400" src="http://theglobe.ng/assets/images/img2016082604083158.jpg" style="margin-top: 6px;" width="600" /><br />
This is yet another comical, yet revealing piece from the former presidential media aid to Former President Goodluck Jonathan, Rueben Abati<br />
<i><b>READ:</b></i><br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
People tend to be alarmed when the Nigerian Presidency takes certain
decisions. They don’t think the decision makes sense. Sometimes, they
wonder if something has not gone wrong with the thinking process at that
highest level of the country. I have heard people insist that there is
some form of witchcraft at work in the country’s seat of government. I
am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I
eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural
about power and closeness to it. I’ll start with a personal testimony. I
was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished
and equipped. But when my son, Michael arrived, one of my brothers came
with a pastor who was supposed to stay in the apartment. But the man
refused claiming that the Villa was full of evil spirits and that there
would soon be a fire accident in the apartment. He complained about too
much human sacrifice around the Villa and advised that my family must
never sleep overnight inside the Villa.</blockquote>
I thought the
man was talking nonsense and he wanted the luxury of a hotel
accommodation. But he turned out to be right. The day I hosted family
friends in that apartment and they slept overnight, there was indeed a
fire accident. The guests escaped and they were so thankful. Not long
after, the President’s physician living two compounds away had a fire
accident in his home. He and his children could have died. He escaped
with bruises. Around the Villa while I was there, someone always died
or their relations died. I can confirm that every principal officer
suffered one tragedy or the other; it was as if you needed to sacrifice
something to remain on duty inside that environment. Even some of the
women became merchants of dildo because they had suffered a special kind
of death in their homes (I am sorry to reveal this) and many of the men
complained about something that had died below their waists too. The
ones who did not have such misfortune had one ailment or the other that
they had to nurse. From cancer to brain and prostate surgery and
whatever, the Villa was a hospital full of agonizing patients.<br />
I recall the example of one particular man, an asset to the
Jonathan Presidency who practically ran away from the Villa. He said he
needed to save his life. He was quite certain that if he continued to
hang around, he would die. I can’t talk about colleagues who lost
daughters and sons, brothers and uncles, mothers and fathers, and the
many obituaries that we issued. Even the President was multiply
bereaved. His wife, Mama Peace was in and out of hospital at a point ,
undergoing many surgeries. You may have forgotten but after her husband
lost the election and he conceded victory, all her ailments vanished,
all scheduled surgeries were found to be no longer necessary and since
then she has been hale and hearty. By the same token, all those our
colleagues who used to come to work to complain about a certain death
beneath their waists and who relied on videos and other instruments to
entertain wives (take it easy boys, I don’t mean nay harm, I am
writing!), have all experienced a re-awakening.<br />
Every one
who went under the blade has received miraculous healing, and we are
happy to be out of that place. But others were not so lucky. They died.
There were days when convoys ran into ditches and lives were lost. In
Norway, our helicopter almost crashed into a mountain. That was the
first time I saw the President panicking, The weather was all so hazy
and he just kept saying it would not be nice for the President of a
country to die in a helicopter crash due to pilot miscalculations. The
President went into a prayer mode. We survived. In Kenya once, we had a
bird strike. The plane had to be recalled and we were already airborne
with the plane acting like it would crash. During the 2015 election
campaigns, our aircraft refused to start on more than one occasion. The
aircraft just went dead. On some other occasions, we were stoned and
directly targeted for evil. I really don’t envy the people who work in
Aso Villa, the seat of Nigeria’s Presidency. For about six months, I
couldn’t even breathe properly. For another two months, I was on
crutches. But I considered myself far luckier than the others who were
either nursing a terminal disease or who could not get it up.<br />
When Presidents make mistakes, they are probably victims of a force
higher than what we can imagine. Every student of Aso Villa politics
would readily admit that when people get in there, they actually become
something else. They act like they are under a spell. When you issue a
well- crafted statement, the public accepts it wrongly. When the
President makes a speech and he truly means well, the speech is
interpreted wrongly by the public. When a policy is introduced, somehow,
something just goes wrong. In our days, a lot of people used to
complain that the APC people were fighting us spiritually and that there
was a witchcraft dimension to the governance process in Nigeria. But
the APC folks now in power are dealing with the same demons. Since
Buhari government assumed office, it has been one mistake after another.
Those mistakes don’t look normal, the same way they didn’t look normal
under President Jonathan. I am therefore convinced that there is an evil
spell enveloping this country. We need to rescue Nigeria from the
forces of darkness. Aso Villa should be converted into a spiritual
museum, and abandoned.<br />
Should I become President of Nigeria
tomorrow, I will build a new Presidential Villa: a Villa that will be
dedicated to the all-conquering Almighty, and where powers and
principalities cannot hold sway. But it is not about buildings and
space, not so?. It is about the people who go to the highest levels in
Nigeria. I really don’t quite believe in superstitions, but I am
tempted to suggest that this is indeed a country in need of prayers, We
should pray before people pack their things into Aso Villa. We should
ask God to guide us before we appoint Ministers. We should, to put it
in technocratic language, advise that the people should be very
vigilant. We have all failed so far, that crucial test of vigilance. We
should have a Presidential Villa where a President can afford to be
human and free. In the White House, in the United States, Presidents
live like normal human beings. In Aso Villa, that is impossible. They’d
have to surround themselves with cooks from their villages, bodyguards
from their mother’s clans and friends they can trust. It should be
possible to be President of Nigeria without having to look behind one’s
shoulders. But we are not yet there. So, how do we run a Presidency
where the man in the saddle can only drink water served by his kinsman?
No. How can we possibly run a Presidency where every President
proclaims faith in Nigeria but they are better off in the company of
relatives and kinsmen. No. We need as Presidents men and women who are
wiling to be Nigerians. No Nigerian President should be in spiritual
bondage because he belongs to all of us and to nobody.<br />
Now let
me go back to the spiritual dimension. A colleague once told me that I
was the most naïve person around the place. I thought I was a bright,
smart, professional doing my bit and enjoying the President’s
confidence. I spelled it out. But what I got in response was that I was
coming to the villa using Lux soap, but that most people around the
place always bathed in the morning with blood. Goat blood. Ram blood.
Whatever animal blood. I argued. He said there were persons in the Villa
walking upside down, head to the ground. I screamed. Everybody looked
normal to me. But I soon began to suspect that I was in a strange
environment indeed. Every position change was an opportunity for
warfare. Civil servants are very nice people; they obey orders, but they
are not very nice when they fight over personal interests.<br />
The President is most affected by the atmosphere around him. He can
make wrong decisions based on the cloud of evil around him. Even when he
means well and he has taken time to address all possible outcomes, he
could get on the wrong side of the public. A colleague called me one day
and told me a story about how a decision had been taken in the
spiritual realm about the Nigerian government. He talked about the
spirit of error, and how every step taken by the administration would
appear to the public like an error. He didn’t resign on that basis but
his words proved prophetic. I see the same story being re-enacted. Aso
Villa is in urgent need of redemption. I never slept in the apartment
they gave me in that Villa for an hour.Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-68050977077274959842016-10-15T01:53:00.000-07:002016-10-15T01:53:25.498-07:00Controversies continue to trill Aisha Buhari recent critique of Buharis's kitchen cabinet. Read the full text <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="headline">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> Mrs Aisha Buhari recent interview with Hausa Service of the BBC has been trilled with controversy ever since the agency decided to air an excerpt from the interview. There was pressure coming from the presidency to the BBC not to air the full version of the interview since it was considered to have revealed too much and poses some elements that may make the general public, especially the opposition to think that there is a crack in Buhari's leadership. In the said interview, which was literally translated, she said that it is worrisome
that some individuals have started creating division among members of
the All Progressive Congress (APC). Mrs Buhari said that those who took the lion share of
appointments in the present administration were people who did not
contribute to the success of the party during the last year presidential
election and are the ones creating division among the party. She was quoted to have also said that she may not support her husband's re-election. President Buhari replied moments later form Germany that "Aisha belongs to my kitchen and the other side."</span></h3>
<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="headline">
<span style="font-weight: normal;"> Read the full text of the interview with BBC Hausa.
</span></h3>
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<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC
Hausa: It has been One and a half years since President Muhammadu Buhari
came into power, a lot of people are expressing their unhappiness over
the way few acquaintance of the President have hijacked power while
neglecting people that work for his success. Like we have promised, here
is how the interview with Aisha Buhari and Naziru Maka’ilu from Abuja
goes. </span></span><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span></b></i><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a></span></span></b></i></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>
BBC
Hausa: People have goodwill towards President Muhammadu Buhari,
especially looking at the things he did before, but since coming into
power things have not been working the way they should, what do you
thing is the cause?</b></i></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b> </b></i></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha
Buhari:</b> I am not a government official, but in my opinion as a woman, a
mother, what I think is it is well known that the first 4 years are not
going to be easy. Firstly, it was people that brought the government
into power. More than half of those people are not appointed into the
government. Some people that are not politicians, not professionals were
brought into the government. They don’t even know what we said we want
and what we don’t during the campaign. They even come out and say to
people we are not politicians, but they are occupying the offices meant
for politicians. Some have parted with their wives, some lost their
children lost, some women too have parted with their husbands because of
politics, a lot happened during the time. The way things are going I
too I am not happy. We are just starting, we have not finished. Some
people that worked for the government have been appointed. But those
heading government agencies you can find one fighting his state
governor, they contested together during election one in APC while in
PDP.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" /> </span></span><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC Hausa: Who are those doing these kinds of things?</span></span></b></i><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha
Buhari: </b>Everybody knows them. Those people should know that people
voted singly. Even Buhari too had one vote. Nobody voted 5 times.
15.429 Million People. That one that people are thinking too, he had
only some 2 or 3 people. I am pleading to them to have the people at
heart and embrace everybody so that we can all move together. Not even
now in 2016 or 17, lot of people are creating divisions within the APC,
which is our source of concern. They think they have worked for the
government while those appointed some of them had no voter’s card. What I
fear is uprising of 15.4 million people.</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC Hausa: Is the President aware some people are subverting his government?</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha Buhari: </b>Whether he knows or he do not, those that voted for him knows.</span></span><br />
<br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC Hausa: But you are the most closest to him, did you tell him?</span></span></i></b><br />
<b><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></i></b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha
Buhari: </b>There is nothing I can tell him, he is seeing things himself.
Out of the people he has appointed, take 50, 45 of them I don’t know
them. Perhaps he doesn’t know them too. I have been living with him for
27 years.</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC Hausa: Do you think there are some people that are dictating to the President things to do, not him?</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i><b>Aisha
Buhari: </b></i>That is what I am saying, those that know they don’t have
voters card, they should give chance to those that have, they are the
ones that struggled and knows what we want to do. Some of them if you go
to a meeting with them they will tell you, we are not politicians, if
somebody is wise, they will not accept to take any political office.
They didn’t even work for it. Even if you are asked to, you should say
it is not my profession. Those places not headed by politicians will
cause people discontent.</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC
Hausa: One would wonder to hear you say some people have hijacked the
government without him knowing, but who do you think are those people?</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha Buhari: </b>I don’t know them, I don’t know them. I don’t know them</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC Hausa: But some people are calling names, saying 2 or 3 are the ones, do you that as well?</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha
Buhari: </b>Yes I agree. Because of those appointed apart from Fashola,
Ameachi and some others, not much, I don’t know them, most of us too
don’t know them, and he too does not know them</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC
Hausa: One would wonder that Buhari is not the one charge knowing him
as a person who had leadership experiences, people would not believe</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha
Buhari</b><i><b>:</b></i> Yes it is surprising; nobody thought it is going to be like
this. But now that it is so…sometimes when one is doing something wrong
without him knowing, but when people talk to them, they should listen.
Because in the future, whether he is going to contest or not, it is that
same people that would vote for APC. We hope those people don’t come
back, and everybody don’t hope so too</span></span><br />
<br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">BBC
Hausa: You said “Whether he is going to contest in the future or not”,
has he disclose it to you whether he is standing or not?</span></span></b></i><br />
<i><b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span></b></i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Aisha Buhari:</b> He didn’t tell me, but I have made up my mind.</span></span><br />
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<br />
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/read-full-text-aisha-buharis-interview-bbc-hausa/</div>
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Read full text of Aisha
Buhari’s interview with BBC Hausa
On October 14, 20165:11 pmIn NewsComments
Controversies have continued to trail the comments of the First Lady,
Aisha Buhari in an interview with BBC Hausa-language service broadcast
last Friday, where she alleged that cabals had hijacked her husband’s
party and that she might not support her husband should he decide to
contest the 2019 elections.
President Buhari who is currently on a state visit to Germany has
responded to his wife’s claims by saying she belongs to his kitchen and
other rooms.
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari and Her Aidw, Dr. Hajo Sani
(r) during the presentation of a book titled Muhammadu Buhari: The
Challenges Of Leadership In Nigeria authored by Prof. John Paden at the
African Hall, International Conference Centre, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi
ADESHIDA 03/10/2016
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari
However, below is the full transcription of the Hausa version of the
interview the First Lady, Aisha Buhari granted BBC Hausa as translated
by www.nishadi.tv,.
BBC Hausa: It has been One and a half years since President Muhammadu
Buhari came into power, a lot of people are expressing their unhappiness
over the way few acquaintance of the President have hijacked power
while neglecting people that work for his success. Like we have
promised, here is how the interview with Aisha Buhari and Naziru
Maka’ilu from Abuja goes.
BBC Hausa: People have goodwill towards President Muhammadu Buhari,
especially looking at the things he did before, but since coming into
power things have not been working the way they should, what do you
think is the cause?
Aisha Buhari: I am not a government official, but in my opinion as a
woman, a mother, what I think is, it is well known that the first 4
years are not going to be easy.
We are just starting, we have not finished. Some people that worked for
the government have been appointed. But those heading government
agencies, you can find one fighting his state governor, they contested
together during election, one in APC while the other in PDP.
BBC Hausa: Who are those doing these kinds of things?
Aisha Buhari: Everybody knows them. Those people should know that people
voted singly. Even Buhari too had one vote. Nobody voted 5 times.
15.429 Million People. That one that people are thinking too, he had
only some 2 or 3 people. I am pleading to them to have the people at
heart and embrace everybody so that we can all move together.
Not even now in 2016 or 17, lot of people are creating divisions within
the APC, which is our source of concern. They think they have worked for
the government while those appointed, some of them had no voter’s
cards. What I fear is uprising of 15.4 million people.
BBC Hausa: Is the President aware some people are subverting his
government?
Aisha Buhari: Whether he knows or he does not, those that voted for him
knows.
BBC Hausa: But you are the most closest to him, did you tell him?
Aisha Buhari: There is nothing I can tell him, he is seeing things
himself. Out of the people he has appointed, take 50, 45 of them I don’t
know them. Perhaps he doesn’t know them too. I have been living with
him for 27 years.
BBC Hausa: Do you think there are some people that are dictating to the
President things to do, not him?
Aisha Buhari: That is what I am saying, those that know they don’t have
voters card, they should give chance to those that have. They are the
ones that struggled and knows what we want to do. Some of them, if you
go to a meeting with them, they will tell you, we are not politicians.
If somebody is wise, they will not accept to take any political office.
They didn’t even work for it. Even if you are asked to, you should say
it is not my profession. Those places not headed by politicians will
cause people discontent.
BBC Hausa: One would wonder to hear you say some people have hijacked
the government without him knowing, but who do you think are those
people?
Aisha Buhari: I don’t know them, I don’t know them. I don’t know them
BBC Hausa: But some people are calling names, saying 2 or 3 are the
ones, do you know that as well?
Aisha Buhari: Yes I agree. Because of those appointed, apart from
Fashola, Ameachi and some others, not much, I don’t know them, most of
us too don’t know them, and he too does not know them
BBC Hausa: One would wonder that Buhari is not the one in charge knowing
him as a person who had leadership experiences, people would not
believe.
Aisha Buhari: Yes it is surprising; nobody thought it is going to be
like this. But now that it is so…sometimes when one is doing something
wrong without him knowing, but when people talk to them, they should
listen. Because in the future, whether he is going to contest or not, it
is that same people that would vote for APC. We hope those people don’t
come back, and everybody don’t hope so too.
BBC Hausa: You said “Whether he is going to contest in the future or
not”, has he disclosed it to you whether he is standing or not?
Aisha Buhari: He didn’t tell me, but I have made up my mind.<br />
<br />
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/read-full-text-aisha-buharis-interview-bbc-hausa/</div>
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-48832462360530412702016-10-13T14:48:00.000-07:002016-10-13T14:48:21.733-07:00PHOTO: President Buhari arrives Berlin, Germany <h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="headline">
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President Buhari has arrived Berlin for his three-day official visit to
Germany. </div>
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The presidential media aid, Femi Adesina had said in a statement that while in Berlin, President Buhari, will meet with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel on issues of shared interests between Nigeria
and Germany, including further cooperation on security, the humanitarian
situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and rehabilitation of
the North-East, as well as trade and economic relations between both
countries.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a>President Buhari is accompanied by Governors Kashim
Shettima of Borno State and Rochas Okorocha of Imo respectively and
representatives of the National Assembly, they will meet with Federal
President Joachim Gauck.<br /><br />
In furtherance of the administration’s objective to attract more foreign
investment and create economic opportunities in the country, President
Buhari will participate in a Business Forum in Berlin with leading
German companies already active in Nigeria and other prospective
investors.
Before returning to Abuja, President Buhari is expected to meet with
representatives of the Nigerian community in Germany. It has also been reported by Sahara Reporters that President Buhari will use the opportunity to meet a German physician.<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Buhari is also scheduled to meet with the German President Joachim Gauck and the Nigerian community in Germany." class="size-full wp-image-52505" height="266" src="http://www.tv360nigeria.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/unnamed-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Image result for buhari arrives in germany" class="irc_mi iOPU0BBovYAk-pQOPx8XEepE" height="266" src="http://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/punchng/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/13203720/Buhari-arrives-Germany.jpg" style="margin-top: 6px;" width="400" /></td></tr>
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Buhari celebrated as he
enters Germany
Eromosele Ebhomele Moments ago 0
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– President Muhammadu Buhari is currently in Germany on an official
visit that could further strengthen the relationship between Nigeria and
the country.
– The president left Nigeria with Governor ROchas Okorocha of Imo and
Kashim Shettima of Borno state
President Muhammadu Buhari was given a special honour as he arrived
Berlin, Germany on an official visit on Wednesday October, 13, 2016.
Full details of the actual time his jet touched the country’s airport
was not known at the time of this report, but Germany had a host of
military men in wait to accord the president a befitting welcome.
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Buhari in Germany
President Buhari honoured in Germany
Femi Adesina, the presidential media aide, had said Buhari was on an
official visit and that while in Berlin, he is expected to meet with
Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss issues of shared interests
between Nigeria and Germany, comprising further cooperation on security,
the humanitarian situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and
rehabilitation of the North-East, as well as trade and economic
relations between both countries.
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Buhari in Germany
Some Nigerian officials welcoming Buhari
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Buhari in Germany
Welcome to Germany, President Buhari
“Thereafter, the president, who will be accompanied by Governors Kashim
Shettima of Borno state and Rochas Okorocha of Imo respectively and
representatives of the National Assembly, will meet with Federal
President Joachim Gauck.
READ ALSO: Buhari’s second visit to Germany
“In furtherance of the administration’s objective to attract more
foreign investment and create economic opportunities in the country,
President Buhari will participate in a Business Forum in Berlin with
leading German companies already active in Nigeria and other prospective
investors.
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Buhari in Germany 5
Nigerian envoy welcoming the president
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Buhari in Germany
Buhari is on official visit to Germany
“Before returning to Abuja, the President is expected to meet with
representatives of the Nigerian community in Germany.
“President Buhari is committed to deepening relations with Germany and
building on the very cordial relations both countries enjoy in several
areas of bilateral cooperation including the fight against terrorism,
economic relations, rebuilding of the Northeast, support for IDPs,
vocational training, energy partnership and cultural relations,” Adesina
had said in a statement.<br /> Read more: https://www.naij.com/1007953-just-celebrations-buhari-steps-presidential-jet-germany-photos.html</div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-70715599642705695792016-10-13T11:58:00.002-07:002016-10-13T11:58:45.471-07:00AY's 'A TRIP TO JAMAICA' Breaks new record in Nollywood in just 11 days in Cinemas<h1>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Comedian AY's <b><i>A Trip to Jamaica</i></b> has set an all record high by becoming the highest grossing Nollywood film in 2016 with 11 days in cinemas. The movie which is </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">currently running in Cinemas nationwide
as already raked in over 80 Million Naira to surpass every other
Nollywood movie that has hit the cinemas in 2016.The movie which </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">was first premiered </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">on September 25,</span></span> at the Filmhouse IMAX Cinemas in Lekki, Lagos generated over 6o million naira in the first seven days beating Hollywood movie, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Will Smith's <i><b>Suicide Squad</b> </i>that made a record of 40
Million Naira in Nigeria Cinemas.</span></span></span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="spotlight" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/s480x480/14656422_1045327205581097_3813285563826325512_n.jpg?oh=5a19168f3a79cd2ac3ad49495904068c&oe=586659CE" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">AY and Nse Ikpe-Etim</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Going by the figure the movie has already raked in a short while, which has placed it as the fastest film to hit the Naira mark in the history of Nollywood. </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">It is set to smash the box
office records currently held by '<b><i>30 Days In Atlanta.'</i></b> AY's debut movie in 2014 that made over N160 million during its stay in Nigerian cinemas making
it one of the 3 world highest region-specific domestic gross movies in
the current edition of the Guinness Book of World Records.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><b><i>A Trip
to Jamaica </i></b>features Ay, Funke
Akindele, Nse Ikpe-Etim, Eric Roberts, Paul Campbell, Chris Attoh and
others.</span></span></span>Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-19513240605235248822016-10-13T05:31:00.000-07:002016-10-13T05:31:45.442-07:00Currency with free Nnamdi Kanu/ Biafra Tags in circulation in most major markets<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="320" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14702482_1082681948508347_2515632628651448722_n.jpg?oh=a3835a2151b6b76aa429529390059a21&oe=58A5CD11" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="240" /><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="320" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14702482_1082681948508347_2515632628651448722_n.jpg?oh=a3835a2151b6b76aa429529390059a21&oe=58A5CD11" width="240" /></td></tr>
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<br />
I did some business transaction in my recent visit to Ariaria
International Market, Aba and found some of these Nigerian notes. I was
told it is in circulation in most major market like Onitsha, Ogbeto,
Ngwa road Market etc..well when a people is drive my passion....<br />
<br />
<i><b>More of these after the cut: </b></i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="300" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14724566_1082682605174948_7426844120247839341_n.jpg?oh=c706fb630c5b3bc2f2eaf52e4e143017&oe=589CA6D2" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="400" /></td></tr>
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-65868174110313562702016-10-12T04:33:00.003-07:002016-10-12T04:33:50.282-07:00Check out the new Official Portrait of Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoFOYtEn3sJcf9mwuQNEBHHhM3ZVydNOacq2t6YglmfPbr7SGMGIt52XU-kkY1nV8Z31U9ufg8xuHjyiqnWhpEtDXZ9h8-qIWUlNgMIlqfKPaxmSnSlfcGTxjSt40b0dST8T0ggm01NMvZ/s1600/4.png" /></div>
This is the new official portrait of the Emir of Kano. It was taken by TY bello. </div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-40922328314443148902016-10-11T17:41:00.004-07:002016-10-11T17:41:51.668-07:00Those selected are creating problem for us now- Aisha Buhari<h3 class="post-title entry-title" itemprop="headline">
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Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari has said that it is worrisome that some individuals have started creating division among members of the All Progressive Congress (APC).
Mrs Buhari stated this in a recent interview with the Hausa Service of the BBC which was partially aired today. In an excerpt of the interview, Mrs Buhari said that those who took the lion share of appointments in the present administration were people who did not contribute to the success of the party during the last year presidential election and are the ones creating division among the party; <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“This worries us a lot now. Because they believe they are the ones who
suffered, but are no where today. Those who didn’t do anything who don’t
even have voters’ card are the ones in position, doing everything."
<br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a></blockquote>
A part of the interview quoted the wife of the president as saying “What I am afraid for them is the rebellion of 15 million people," an invariable
reference to the number of the people who voted the president into
power.
<br />
Asked whether the president knows those causing the problems for his government, Aisha Buhari said:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Whether he knows or he doesn’t know, those who voted for him know.
There is nothing I will tell him. He can see. Among all the people he
selected, if he is asked among 50 people, he doesn’t know 45. I don’t
know them despite staying with him for 25 years."
</blockquote>
The BBC will air the unabridged version of the interview in a later date.<br />
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
Nigerians, who voted
for the President, know those causing problems – Aisha Buhari
On October 11, 201610:33 pmIn News, PoliticsComments
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, has flayed alleged moves by
some powerful forces to divide All Progressives Congress, APC, saying
they could not countermand the mandate vested in her husband by 15
million Nigerians.
Mrs. Buhari was quoted in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service as
also saying that Nigerians, who voted for the President, knew those
causing problems for the administration.
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari and Her Aidw, Dr. Hajo Sani
(r) during the presentation of a book titled Muhammadu Buhari: The
Challenges Of Leadership In Nigeria authored by Prof. John Paden at the
African Hall, International Conference Centre, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi
ADESHIDA 03/10/2016
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari and Her Aide, Dr. Hajo Sani
(r) during the presentation of a book titled Muhammadu Buhari: The
Challenges Of Leadership In Nigeria authored by Prof. John Paden at the
African Hall, International Conference Centre, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi
ADESHIDA
Responding to comments that those who canvassed the change mantra had
been left out of government, she said: “This worries us a lot now,
because they believe they are the ones who suffered, but are nowhere
today.
“Those who didn’t do anything who don’t even have voters’ cards are the
ones in position, doing everything.”
The President’s wife was also quoted to have said: “What I am afraid for
them is the rebellion of 15 million people.”
Responding to a question on whether her husband had sufficient knowledge
of the identity of those at the centre of the controversies, she said:
“Whether he knows or not, those who voted for him know.
“He can see. Among all the people he selected, if he is asked among 50
people, he doesn’t know 45. I don’t know them despite staying with him
for 25 years.”<br />
<br />
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/nigerians-voted-president-know-causing-problems-aisha-buhari/</div>
<div style="left: -99999px; position: absolute;">
Nigerians, who voted
for the President, know those causing problems – Aisha Buhari
On October 11, 201610:33 pmIn News, PoliticsComments
By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor
Wife of the President, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, has flayed alleged moves by
some powerful forces to divide All Progressives Congress, APC, saying
they could not countermand the mandate vested in her husband by 15
million Nigerians.
Mrs. Buhari was quoted in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service as
also saying that Nigerians, who voted for the President, knew those
causing problems for the administration.
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari and Her Aidw, Dr. Hajo Sani
(r) during the presentation of a book titled Muhammadu Buhari: The
Challenges Of Leadership In Nigeria authored by Prof. John Paden at the
African Hall, International Conference Centre, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi
ADESHIDA 03/10/2016
Wife of the President, Hajia Aisha Buhari and Her Aide, Dr. Hajo Sani
(r) during the presentation of a book titled Muhammadu Buhari: The
Challenges Of Leadership In Nigeria authored by Prof. John Paden at the
African Hall, International Conference Centre, Abuja. Photo by Abayomi
ADESHIDA
Responding to comments that those who canvassed the change mantra had
been left out of government, she said: “This worries us a lot now,
because they believe they are the ones who suffered, but are nowhere
today.
“Those who didn’t do anything who don’t even have voters’ cards are the
ones in position, doing everything.”
The President’s wife was also quoted to have said: “What I am afraid for
them is the rebellion of 15 million people.”
Responding to a question on whether her husband had sufficient knowledge
of the identity of those at the centre of the controversies, she said:
“Whether he knows or not, those who voted for him know.
“He can see. Among all the people he selected, if he is asked among 50
people, he doesn’t know 45. I don’t know them despite staying with him
for 25 years.”<br />
<br />
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/nigerians-voted-president-know-causing-problems-aisha-buhari/</div>
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-2173826206121776812016-10-11T14:55:00.003-07:002016-10-11T15:00:58.752-07:00Photo of the day: what can we call this one ?<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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Lol....<br />
Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-7992550575593030302016-10-11T14:55:00.002-07:002016-10-11T14:56:46.797-07:00Members of The Lord's Chosen Church, Abakaliki in radical evangelism ahead of their General overseer, Dr Mouka's visit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<img alt="" class="spotlight" height="400" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14650458_1946178292276230_529027289414851481_n.jpg?oh=f224f42d1348c64e5fe0b1e4630cb31e&oe=586FA2CC" width="225" /><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="400" src="https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/14725532_1946178192276240_1379452532232966259_n.jpg?oh=a16c2c6b8d084f7feb7e3a934da7dcb2&oe=589F34CF" width="240" /></div>
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I found this pictures on a friend's wall. Visibly, these are members of The Lord's Chosen Church in Abakiliki in radical evangelism ahead of the Visit of
their General overseer, Dr Mouka. Well, madness now has church version..lol<br />
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<b><i>More photos after the gap: </i></b><br />
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<br />Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2352310365166629941.post-90038406191623356162016-10-11T04:02:00.000-07:002016-10-11T04:02:05.742-07:00Nollywood actress, Uche Ogbodo look warn-out in new photo<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<br />Do you guys remember this actress? She is Uche Ogbodo, Enugu born Nollywood actress. It has been a long while since we saw posters bearing her face around. That is one unique thing about Nollywood; you go in there, make a breakthrough and try to grow your profile as much as you can, then you retire as an online champion where you post pictures on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media handles.But some are lucky to remain evergreen in the industry. By the way, We were talking about Uche. Though we don't get to see her on list of new movie on weekly bases, but it seem that she has graduated to cinema movies. The proud mother of one who recently returned from Malaga in Spain, Where she attended <i><b>Zero Deal </b></i>movie premiere posted this no make-up selfie and she looks so warn out in the picture to me. Or what do you think guys?<br />
<b><i>A second picture of her months ago after the gap</i></b><br />
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<b><i> </i></b> <br />
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Ifecohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11517542302942132837noreply@blogger.com0