Pics: Ibo market leaders in Lagos meet with Ambode, assures him of their full support

Pioneers of Igbo Town Unions and markets in Lagos State met with APC governorship hopeful, Akinwunmi Ambode today April seventh where they consoled him and APC of their backing in the forthcoming decision.


More photographs bellow.

DSS warns on inciting & unguarded statements

The Department of State Service (DSS) today April 7th released a statement signed by its Deputy Director, Public Relations, Marilyn Ogar, warning against inciting and unguarded statements by some Nigerians.


“Its attention has been drawn to certain unguarded, inciting and divisive statements by some persons. We want to warn those stoking these embers of violence and disunity to desist, as this will not be tolerated. We should all strive to strengthen our nascent democracy as we work towards building a better Nigeria.

We want to also seize this opportunity to thank all Nigerians for their peaceful conduct during the Presidential election and urge them to shun all forms of violence before, during and after the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly election which will take place this weekend 11th April, 2015” Ms Ogar said.

DSS also said Nigerians should go out and vote this Saturday without fear as adequate security has been put in place.

Dollar crashes as hoarders release currency after presidential poll

Bureau De Change operators in Abuja have attributed the fall in the dollar to release of the foreign currency by hoarders who had stored it pending the outcome of the nation’s general elections.

A cross section of the operators, on Tuesday in Abuja, said that the dollar sold as low as N185 to a dollar as against N220 in the parallel market before and during the Easter holidays.

Ibrahim Adamu, one of operators in Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, said there was sudden influx of dollar by people to sell in the market.

“I think what happened last week in the market was simply because a lot of people, who were buying dollars and hoarding them thinking that the country will go on fire, brought them out,” he said. “We got what we usually get from the Central Bank every week; there was no difference but we had enough to meet the demands of the market.

“And you know that since there was no problem in the country after the presidential election, some of them felt that there was no need keeping the money again.

“I also want to thank Mr. President for conceding to defeat and (that) made peace to reign in the country and that is what the currency is equally experiencing.”

Abdullahi Idris, another operator, also noted that elections and the long Easter break made the currency to fall as low as N185.

“Today, the first working day after Easter, we sell at N202 and buy at N190,” he said. “The market will still pick up; what happened last week was a case of sudden change in the system.

“Again, now they (politicians) have stopped campaigning for election; the demand for the foreign currency has dropped too and during the long break, market closes, it always affects the market.”

Mr. Idris said it was good to have the currency strengthened and urged the CBN to increase the amount sold to BDC to help meet the demands of buyers.

This, he said, would help reduce the amount of pressure on the currency.

The apex bank closed the Retail Dutch and Wholesale Auction system of the Foreign Exchange Market, to help strengthen the currency.

It further, at one point, sold additional $30,000 to BDCs to help demand meet supply in the market.

For over one month, the naira had traded consistently at N197 to a dollar at the inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market. (NAN)

What is wrong with this photo? (John Dumelo's Anaconda set to hunt version)

Performer John Dumelo posted his first bathroom selfie on his instagram page today and a few women said there was some kind of problem with the photograph. Ladies, can you spot what is wrong with this pic above ?

Photos: Buhari, OBJ, Ameachi Arrive Lagos To Campaign For Ambode

President-elect Muhammadu Buhari is shortly in Lagos where he has come to campaign for Akinwunmi Ambode.


Buhari was welcomed by Gov. Tunde Raji Fashola, Rivers Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, Bola Ahmed Tinubu and a large group of party excos. Previous president Olusegun Obasanjo was likewise in Lagos to see him. What do you think about baba Obj’s move ?

Troops flush out Boko Haram from Borno stronghold

The Director, Defence Information, Maj. Gen. Chris Olukolade, has said troops of the Nigerian Army concluded a comprehensive raid on Alagarno Forest, Borno State, on Tuesday morning.  Olukolade said in a statement on Tuesday that the troops cleared the Alagarno community, described as a major haven of Boko Haram insurgents, of terrorists presence.

The Defence spokesman added that the soldiers captured several weapons and equipment from the insurgents during the operation.

According to him, the items recovered from the terrorists included Armoured Personnel Carriers, various sizes and calibres of arms and ammunition, power generating sets, and Improvised Explosive Devices. He stated that the troops also captured rolls of copper cable used for the production of IEDs, megaphones, bow and arrows from the insurgents.

He said the military had commenced a cordon and search and mopping up operations to make the community safe for the people of the area to return.The spokesman explained that Alagarno was also reputed to have provided the routes being used by terrorists to neighbouring towns and countries aside being a major stronghold of terrorists.  Olukolade added that the thick forest in the area and the difficult terrain, which made it difficult to carry out aerial operations, made Alagarno a safe haven for the terrorists.

I'll support Buhari – Clark

A previous Minister of Information, Chief Edwin Clark, has swore to work with the President-Elect, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd.)  He said he will bolster him the way he upheld the late President, Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua.

Clark expressed this in a celebratory message sent to the President-elect, who challenged the presidential race on the stage of the All Progressives Congress against President Goodluck Jonathan of the people groups Democratic Party in the March 28 presidential decision.

He said,
“I congratulate you and reassure you that as you get to commence the process of peaceful transition and government, you will have my full support, as a man who strongly believes in the unity of Nigeria, just as I supported our most respected late President, Umaru Yar’Adua, and his successor, President Jonathan, as along as you will, at all times, uphold the dignity of Nigeria and those things that bind us together as one united country.

“Remember that part of our old National Anthem, which says, ‘Though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.’

“This was exactly what the late Nelson Mandela of South Africa stood for, and the late Martin Luther Kings Jnr of the United States of America fought and died for.”

“This is the principle I have always stood for and supported. But some people misunderstood me.”

Singer/model Sefiya goes bra-less in stunning new photos

Dazzling fast rising artist, model and video vixen, Sefiya, has dropped some dope new photographs shot by well known picture taker, Paul Ukunu.


See more photographs bellow.

Mavin Boss, Don Jazzy replies fan who called  him out for not denouncing Oba of Lagos!

At the point when a fan called Don Jazzy out for not censuring Oba of Lagos in light of his assumed cooperation with Governor Fashola, the nonconformist music maker took to instagram to judiciously answer and clarify himself.

See what he composed bellow.

Drop your crown & pursue politics - Afenifere tells Oba of Lagos

Pan Yoruba group, Afenifere has approached the Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu to drop his crown and seek after governmental issues taking after  his speech  against ibo. Representative of Afenifere, Yinka Odumakin spoke with Vanguard about the position of the group;

“We say with all sense of responsibility that if these were truly the words of Kabiyesi, he has clearly crossed the line of royal decency, desecrated the royal stool and violated the electoral laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and engaged in promotion of hate speech capable of fueling ethnic tension and clashes which are against the spirit of peaceful co-existence which we have achieved in recent years.

We respect the right of Oba Akiolu to drop the crown at Iga and become Director of Mobilisation for the leader of his party if he so desires, but we detest his hiding behind the throne to fan the embers of disunity which could put Yoruba people in harm’s way wherever they are living as settlers. Yoruba people are too civilized to support the primitive intimidation of fellow Nigerians just as we will not accept such action being visited on our people in any part of Nigeria.” he said

Letter to Muhammadu Buhari and Yemi Osinbajo - Tolu Ogunlesi

President Buhari should under no circumstances allow himself to be cast as a Fulani President, or a President of northerners or Muslims.

Vice President Osinbajo should never succumb to the temptation to see himself as a Vice President for Yoruba people, or the Redeemed Christian Church of God, or for Nigerian Christians.

Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo sadly saw nothing wrong in using religion to divide the country; Jonathan taking delight in running from church to church, posing with Pastors and Bishops (he even managed to squeeze in a photo-splashed pilgrimage to Jerusalem), while his party tried to portray Muhammadu Buhari and the APC as Islamists, Sharia apologists, ‘Janjaweed’ and even the political wing of Boko Haram. During the presidential campaign Vice President Sambo reversed the strategy, and did all he could to convince us he was the next in line to Prophet Mohammed, in the Islamic pecking order. (From him we learnt that ‘Namadi’ actually means ‘Na Madinah’, and that Osinbajo was on a mission to Christianise Nigeria).

Both Buhari and Osinbajo should avoid anything that will portray them as beholden to any group of Nigerians on the basis of sectional or religious or partisan interests. They should strive to be leaders for all of Nigeria, regardless of ethnicity, religion, age, or political affiliation.

Two. The matter of the Office of First Lady. One of the greatest contributors to President Jonathan’s loss of goodwill has been his wife, the uncouth, overreaching, uncontrollable Patience ‘Mama Peace’ Jonathan. Wole Soyinka warned the President to keep his wife in check; like much of the other advice he got he ignored it. Buhari has given hints that he does not believe in the existence of the office of First Lady, because there is no place for it in the Constitution. Our recent experiences with First Ladies have convinced me that any President serious about bringing change to Nigeria cannot afford to have his or her spouse running a parallel government in the manner that Turai Yar’Adua and Patience Jonathan did. While I don’t think the Office has to be abolished, it is clear that whoever occupies it must do so with a sense of decorum and responsibility.

Three. Presidential assertiveness. Goodluck Jonathan’s biggest failings, in my opinion, lay in his almost total abdication of presidential control and responsibility, so that he became a hostage of the forces surrounding him. There’s an interesting anecdote by journalist and newspaper editor Jide Ajani, who was part of a team that interviewed President Jonathan in the presidential media chat of Sunday May 4, 2014; the first after the abduction of the Chibok girls. After the chat, Ajani was invited to join the president for dinner. Listen to Mr. Ajani’s account of what transpired while they ate:

“Apart from Mr. Vice President, Namadi Sambo; Chief of Staff, Gen. Arogbofa (rtd); Dr. Reuben Abati; and Labaran Maku, Information Minister; the dinner table was filled with jesters. Some would not even allow Mr. President to finish a sentence before they would interject and complete the sentence for him. When Jonathan tried to explain the complexities involved in the abduction saga and why he remained disappointed in the way the episode is turning out, some people around the table would not let him finish. ‘Yes, the state government should be blamed, Mr. President’; ‘the school principal is not fit to head a school’; ‘Mr. President, this looks like a set up’.” Ajani’s damning conclusion: “Jonathan’s friends and close aides … appear to have ring-fenced the man from reality.”

These buffoons and jesters surrounded the president and kept him detached from reality. Instead they endlessly reinforced the nonchalance and paranoia that came to define his administration. So that when, in February, the Wall Street Journal asked him if there were any plans to investigate the Ekitigate tape, all he could think to say was: “It’s all fabrications. Why should I investigate things that are not real?” And this was the same attitude he extended to everything, whether it was allegations of impropriety against the oil Minister, or reports of billions of dollars in missing oil revenues (“America will know!”), or (in the early days) the news that hundreds of Chibok schoolgirls had been abducted by Boko Haram, or that MEND had claimed responsibility for the Independence Day bombings of 2010 (Recall that he hurriedly absolved MEND of responsibility, because “it is erroneous to think that my people who have been agitating for good living will deliberately blow up the opportunity they have now.”)

What we learn from the Jonathan era is that a President who allows these professional sycophants to hold him hostage will pay for it in substantial political and moral capital. Buhari and Osinbajo would do well to avoid surrendering to these men and women who haunt the corridors of power, looking for whom to mislead and destroy. They will wear all sorts of masks, they will be the ones singing and praying the loudest in Professor Osinbajo’s early morning prayer meetings, they will be the ones hustling to have breakfast with President Buhari or to sit closest to him in the mosque. Some of them are worse than merely sycophantic; they are downright evil characters, reprobate souls for whom no lies are too large, and no schemes too immoral.

President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo will need to find a way to keep open that all-important access line to common sense and outside reality. Our leaders need an antidote to the reality distortion fields of the presidential villa. For all we know Goodluck Jonathan truly believed he was transforming Nigeria, because that was the message his army of court jesters consistently vuvuzela-ed into his ears. Imagine the surprise that awaits him when he steps down from the gilded cage and realizes that even the East-West road (which connects his home state of Bayelsa to his wife’s home state of Rivers) remains, in many sections, a death trap; that it may be faster to bicycle from Lagos to Kano than attempt to take his much lauded trains, that the Kaduna-Abuja railway line which his government has been boasting about finishing is really still a long way from being ready for use. I don’t know how Buhari and Osinbajo plan to counter the inevitable attempts to ring-fence them from reality; what is clear is that if they don’t, they will, in a few years from now, find themselves in the deep hole in which Jonathan is concluding his presidency. And they shall deserve no pity, because they had the example of Jonathan to learn from.

Four, a reading list for the President and President-elect. In recent years a handful of former presidential insiders have published accounts of their time in power. For me two of those books stand out, and not necessarily because they are wholly truthful – indeed they have both been challenged by other players who have recalled incidents and issues differently – but because they at least have taken the bold step of painting a picture of what it means to be an insider in the intrigue-ridden catacombs of Aso Rock. First is Segun Adeniyi’s account, ‘Power, Politics and Death’ (on the Yar’Adua years); the second one is Nasir el-Rufai’s ‘The Accidental Public Servant’ (on the Obasanjo years).

I would encourage the President-elect and Vice President-elect to find the time to read these two books and discuss learning points from them. We cannot afford to repeat the most egregious mistakes of our recent past. (As for the mistakes of the Jonathan era, we are surrounded by them, and are still feeling the many effects). There’s one more title I’d recommend for both men, and this is ‘Reforming the Unreformable’, outgoing Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s account of her first stint in office as Minister of Finance, under President Obasanjo, between 2003 and 2006. There is no sense in repeating, deliberately or out of ignorance, the mistakes of the past. The task ahead is too important, and too urgent, for Buhari and Osinbajo to not put in all the preparation that is necessary. Posterity will not forgive them or their party if they bungle this long awaited task of redemption.

Follow me on Twitter: @toluogunlesi

See the APC's 'message' that got Nigerians talking about Desmond Elliot!

The Oba of Lagos does not speak for the APC. From Gen. Buhari down to Desmond Elliot, even true APC supporters, no hate speeches made so far

— APC Nigeria (@APCNigeria) April 7, 2015

APC Nigeria tweeted shared the tweet “The Oba of Lagos does not speak for the APC. From Gen. Buhari down to Desmond Elliot, even true APC supporters, no hate speeches made so far” and some Nigerians feel that was a strong message to Desmond Elliot.

See how Nigerians react to the message bellow.

Akiolu not APC’s spokesman – Tinubu, Igbokwe

A former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, has said the Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu, is not a member of the All Progressives Congress and cannot speak on behalf of the party.

Tinubu said this at a rally in Iganmu, Lagos, while reacting to the controversial comments of the monarch on Tuesday.

The APC National Leader, who noted that he was the first Yoruba governor to ever appoint an Igbo commissioner, said the Peoples Democratic Party, having failed to win last week’s presidential elections, were desperately trying to pull the APC into the Akiolu controversy.

He said the Coordinator of the Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria, Ifeanyi Ubah, and the PDP leader, Bode George, were only making baseless accusations against the APC.

Tinubu said, “The oba is not a politician. His job is to accommodate all political parties, whether PDP, APC or SDP. So, what did he (Ubah) go and do at the palace?

“To you Igbos, don’t we pay your children’s school fees like others? Or is it the palace that pays for it? When we conducted an exam and a spelling competition, an Igbo boy, Ebuka, from Anambra, came first and he became the governor for one day.

“Those that won the competition three times in a row were Igbo. Ebuka was sent to Switzerland computer school and then Obafemi Awolowo University. We did not say he was an Igbo boy and he would not enjoy. He became an executive in Oando and he is now in Canada.

“Another boy, Felix, won and went to Switzerland and OAU. We paid his scholarship; we did not deny him because he is Igbo.”

In a separate statement, the Lagos State APC Publicity Secretary, Joe Igbokwe, said the monarch spoke out of anger.

He urged his kinsmen not to take out their anger on the APC governorship candidate, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, who knew nothing about the incident.

The statement read, “Oba Rilwan Akiolu of Lagos is not a card-carrying member of APC. He is not a leader in the APC. He does not speak for the APC. He did not speak for Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos state.

“He did not speak for our national leader Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. He did not speak for the incoming governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode. His Royal Highness is at liberty to speak for himself and he spoke for himself only.

“Lagos APC appeals to Ndigbo not to take the statement as the position of the party in Lagos. We passionately appeal to Ndigbo not to carry the statement credited to Oba Akiolu too far so as not to put a knife on things that have held us together for more than 50 years now.

“If out of annoyance, you throw your cap away, a mad man will take it and use it forever.”

Punch

Northern Christian Forum foresees greater Nigeria under Buhari.

A Christian group, Northern Christian Leaders Eagle Eyes Forum that endorsed the All Progressives Congress Presidential candidate, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari(retd), before the March 28 poll, said it is not surprised that Buhari won the poll.

The group’s endorsement of Buhari during the electioneering, drew the ire of the Christian Association of Nigeria, led by Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. CAN condemned and distanced itself from the endorsement.

Addressing journalists in Kaduna on Tuesday, Chairman of the Forum, Pastor Aminchi Habu, also said under Buhari, Nigeria would take its rightful position among the comity of nations.

Saying that the forum had confidence that the President-elect would steer the ship of the nation to greatness, the cleric noted that he and his other colleagues, believed that the Katsina-born general deserved his electoral victory because he worked for it.

The chairman specifically hailed the National Leader of the APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; Senator Bukola Saraki, governors Rotimi Amaechi, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Magatakarda Wamako and Ahmed Abdulfatai for working to ensure that Buhari won the presidential election.

“These men are not only quintessential politicians but also political strategists in their own rights and so deserve special commendation as they worked tirelessly to ensure that Nigeria changed for good,” he said.

Habu claimed that in 2011, the Christian community overwhelmingly voted for the outgoing president, Goodluck Jonathan,  lamenting that the President failed the entire nation because of lack of performance.

He urged Nigerians to accept Buhari as the “change messiah” that was being expected.

Photos: Pregnant Woman gives birth on the road in Lagos 

A lady gave birth to an infant on the streets of Lagos today April 7th. Eye witnesses said the girl was on her way  to the market when her water broke.


She started screaming for help and some people gathered around her and once they saw the baby’s head had been being released, they helped her deliver the infant right there. The lady and her baby are doing well.  More photos bellow…

Presidency silent on first lady's whereabouts

The wife of the President, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, hasn’t been seen in public places since President Goodluck Jonathan lost the March 28 presidential election to Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) of the All Progressives Congress.

The President had last Tuesday conceded defeat and called Buhari on phone when it became clear from the outcome released by the Independent National Electoral Commission he had lost his re-election bid.  Some dignitaries including serving and former government officials had visited Jonathan to commend him for conceding defeat and solidarise with him on his loss.

Among the visitors had told a correspondent that Mrs. Jonathan also received visitors within the President’s official residence same day.

 “After meeting the President in the new Banquet Hall located within the premised of his office, I also visited the First Lady inside the President’s residence before leaving. She was in high spirit when I met her,” the former government official said.

But since then, the President’s wife had not been seen in public. She did not attend the Good Friday service held inside the Aso Villa Chapel with her husband neither did she attend the Easter Sunday service inside the same chapel.

Mrs. Jonathan and the President’s mother, Eunice, had always been accompanying Jonathan to such services. The last time she was seen in public was penultimate Saturday when she and her husband voted at their polling unit in Otuoke, Bayelsa State.

While many believed however that she must have been too devastated by her husband’s electoral loss to appear in public so soon, our correspondent’s investigation however showed that Mrs. Jonathan might have travelled out of the country.

A Presidency source who pleaded anonymity told our correspondent that Mrs. Jonathan travelled to the United Kingdom during the week to sort out some domestic issues.

“She is in UK. She may use the opportunity of the trip to visit her children,” the source said.

President’s wife would come back to the country.  Mrs. Jonathan’s spokesman, Mr. Ayo Adewuyi, did not pick the calls made to his mobile telephone line on Monday. Adewuyi did not also reply a text message sent to him on the mater.

It will be recalled that Mrs. Jonathan had during one of the presidential rallies she organised ahead of the elections claimed that Buhari would send her to jail if he was elected.

Lagos PDP calls for Oba of Lagos, Akiolu’s suspension

The Peoples Democratic Party has demanded the immediate suspension of Oba of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, till after the governorship and state House of Assembly elections in Lagos State.

The party called on Governor Babatunde Fashola to suspend the first-class monarch.  It said this was necessary in order to guarantee free, fair and credible elections in the state.  In a statement issued on Tuesday by Lagos PDP Publicity Secretary, Mr. Taofik Gani, the party stated that it had also alerted the security agencies to hold the monarch responsible for any attack on non-indigenes or PDP members in Lagos.

 

According to the PDP, which is the major opposition party in the state, the silence of the governor of the state, Fashola, over 48 hours after such inflammatory statement and threat to life suggests that the king acted on behalf of the state government.

 

The statement said in part, “The governor is thus a conspirator in this threat to life and must also be held accountable for any violence in this elections. We have at this point been vindicated about the desperation of the APC to retain Lagos state at all cost including the All Progressives Congress’ plan not to concede the imminent defeat on April 11.

 

“The positions of the PDP are coming on the heels of the now viral threat issued by the Oba of Lagos to Igbos that they must vote for the APC Governorship Candidate, Akinwunmi Ambode, or be drowned in Lagos water.”

 

Despite the alleged threat to their lives, PDP urged Lagos non-indigenes and others to be part of Saturday’s voting exercise.

Kenyan air strikes ‘destroy’ Al-Shabab camps in Somalia

The Kenyan air force has said it destroyed two al-Shabab camps in Somalia, in the first major military response since the armed group massacred students at a Kenyan university last week.

Gunmen from the al-Qaeda-aligned group killed 148 people on Thursday when they stormed the Garissa University College campus, some 200km from the Somali border.

Jets pounded the camps in the Gedo region on the other side of the frontier on Sunday and Monday, Kenya Defence Forces spokesman David Obonyo said on Monday. The mission was part of efforts to stop fighters from those camps carrying out cross-border raids into Kenya.

“Our aerial images show that the camps were completely destroyed,” he said, adding that cloud cover made it difficult to estimate the death toll.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab’s military operations spokesman, told the Reuters news agency that none of its camps were damaged in Sunday’s raid, and that the fighter jets had instead struck farmland.

After besieging the university, the al-Shabab gunmen lined up non-Muslim students before executing them in the armed group’s bloodiest attack to date.

The attack claimed the lives of 142 students, three police officers and three soldiers.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Saturday pledged that the attackers would face justice for the “mindless slaughter” and vowed to retaliate for the killings in the “severest way.”

ALJAZEERA.COM

Photos News: Rivers APC protests in Abuja, seeks REC’s sacking

credits: ‘Tunji Obasa

US urges citizens to flee Yemen by sea

The United States admitted Monday that it has no immediate plans to rescue its nationals stranded in war-torn Yemen and urged them to flee the raging conflict by sea.

State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf could not tell reporters how many American civilians are thought to be caught up in the conflict, as citizens of other nations take to ships.

But she said US authorities would contact those that it could, and advise them of opportunities to board ships from allied nations docking to pick up their own nationals.

“At this point, we have encouraged all US citizens to shelter and secure locations until they’re able to depart safely. The airports are still closed, is my understanding,” she said.

A protest website representing Yemeni Americans — stuckinyemen.com — has accused Washington of abandoning dual nationals last month in its haste to close its embassy in Yemen.

Asked about a claim that 200 US citizens have signed up to the site, Harf said officials had been unable to confirm the figure and urged them to sign on to a State Department list.

France has evacuated 63 foreign nationals from the Yemeni port of Balhaf and frigates from the Chinese and Indian navies have rescued 450 and 100 people respectively from Hodeida.