Is Africa’s most populous nation becoming the latest battleground in the global war on terror?

Last week, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan proclaimed emergency rule in three northern states, deploying fighter jets and thousands of troops to the region to quell an Islamist insurgency that he says has taken over parts of the country and “become a very serious threat to national unity.” The surprise campaign against the little-known group called Boko Haram—said to be responsible for the deaths of some 2,000 people since 2009—marks a serious change of direction for a government that until recently has been dangling offers of amnesty, job training, scholarships and even PTSD counselling for rebels who lay down their arms. “We exercised restraint to allow for all efforts by both state governors and well-meaning Nigerians to stop the repeated cases of mindless violence,” the president said in a nationally televised speech. But no longer. “We will hunt them down, we will fish them out and we will bring them to justice.”

For months now, residents of Borno, Yobe and Kano, three remote, arid and overwhelmingly Muslim states that border Chad, Niger and Cameroon, have been subject to a dusk-to-dawn curfew and a heavy police and military presence. But within hours of the emergency proclamation there were reports of gunfire, explosions and a pitched battle involving the shelling and strafing of a game reserve where the rebels are believed to have set up camp. The escalation raises the worrying prospect that Nigeria—home to more than 250 different ethnic groups, with its population of 160 million roughly split in half between Christians and Muslims—might now be sliding toward open civil war. Or the kind of foreign-jihadi-fuelled insurgency that dragged French and African forces into nearby Mali earlier this year.

Boko Haram, the local nickname given to the group formally known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, which translates as “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad,” emerged as a military entity in 2009. Formed seven years earlier by Sheik Mohammed Yusuf, a charismatic imam from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno, it originally functioned as a religious and social welfare organization with a distinctly odd bent. Not only did the group, whose nickname translates to “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language, reject secular schools and Western dress, it also denied evolution as “un-Islamic” and proclaimed the Earth to be flat. But when their dissent over a new law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets was met with raids and mass arrests by local authorities, Boko Haram transitioned to violence, attacking police with bows and poison arrows.

Things worsened after security forces stormed their headquarters in 2009, killing hundreds, including Yusuf, whose body was found in the street with his hands still cuffed behind his back, apparently the victim of a summary execution. Starting with drive-by shootings and bombing attacks against local authorities and Muslim leaders, the group quickly moved on to mass attacks like the series of Christmas Eve church bombings that killed 32 Christians in the central Plateau state in 2010. The summer of 2011 saw Boko Haram’s first suicide bombing, a strike against police headquarters in the Nigerian capital of Abuja that left five dead. And that August, the group staged its first attack against a foreign target, when an operative crashed a car into the UN’s Nigerian headquarters and detonated a 100-lb. bomb, killing 23 and injuring 80.

In recent months, a variety of attacks—bombings, shootings and bank robberies—have been attributed to the group. (Boko Haram only occasionally claims responsibility through its web-based “public enlightenment department.”) And the February abduction of seven members of a French family, including four children between five and 12, vacationing in neighbouring Cameroon, marked their first operation outside Nigeria’s borders. (The family were freed after a reported $3-million ransom was paid.)

Still, not everyone is so sure that the group is the threat it is being made out to be. Highly decentralized, its squabbling factions appear to act more like independent franchises than a coherent fighting force. And there are suspicions that criminal gangs and other militias sometimes claim to have acted in their name to throw authorities off their own trail.

“The rise of Boko Haram is about more than just Islamicism,” says Chris Kwaja of the Centre of Conflict Management at the University of Jos, in central Nigeria. Despite its vast oil riches, income disparity remains a huge problem in the country, especially in the Muslim north where 75 per cent live below the poverty line, versus just 25 per cent in the Christian south. Meanwhile, democratic institutions remain weak, corruption rampant and the constitution almost unworkable. “The quest for power in Nigeria is a vicious contest, where you win by mobilizing identities—religious ones, ethnic ones and regional ones,” says Kwaja. And while Boko Haram has grown in size and reach, it is hardly the only threat to national security. Just last week, a botched operation against the Ombatse Militia cult in central Nasarawa state left 46 police and 10 state security officers dead.

In fact, the general deterioration of the situation in Nigeria has left many foreign governments and industries leery of doing business there. Air crews no longer overnight in Abuja, for example. “We are extremely cautious about Nigeria, particularly in the north. We tell clients not to go there if possible,” says Claude Moniquet, a former French intelligence agent who now runs the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Centre, a Brussels-based consultancy. He says the harsh counter-insurgency methods used by the military are hurting more than helping. “They come in and kill everyone. They basically push people into the arms of Boko Haram.” (In one recent example, an attack on an army patrol in the town of Baga was followed by a reprisal raid that burned down more than 2,000 homes, killing 200.)

Nigerian authorities say that the group has received training and support from Islamic militants in Mali and Somalia, as well as funding from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, but there seems to be scant proof of profound links to established terror groups. Back in 2011, Gen. Carter F. Ham, then the head of U.S. Africa Command, told an interviewer that intelligence suggested Boko Haram was trying to forge a “loose partnership” with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to “coordinate and synchronize” attacks. A subsequent report from the U.S. House committee on homeland security sounded the alarm, calling for better intelligence on the group and more counterterrorism support for the Nigerian government. But so far, the Obama administration has resisted attempts to have Boko Haram added to its formal list of foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

Jean Herskovits, a State University of New York historian who has studied Nigerian politics for more than 50 years and provided counsel to several administrations, says she is thankful that U.S. policy-makers seem to grasp the complexity of the situation. An FTO designation would add layers of complication to all financial transactions with Nigeria, hurting the millions who rely on money sent from family abroad. And the Jonathan government, which already devotes 25 per cent of its budget to security with little to show for it, hardly needs more guns and equipment, she adds.

And as Kwaja notes, this state of emergency is not the first to be declared by the Nigerian president. The previous declaration, over fears of the same group, was in December 2011. “The government is resorting to the use of maximum brutality as its only tool,” he says. “And no one is talking about how it worked the last time.”

Source: Maclean

Beautiful, busty and brainy, Cythia is a simple woman who will rather have a glass of wine instead of going all the way even with the man of her dream, out of wedlock. In this chat with Showtime Celebrity, she opens up on variety of scandals trailing her career and why she prefers dating a white guy to a black man. ..Enjoy!!!

You once dated a White guy and there was an interview where you said you regretted dating a White guy…

(Cuts in) that was years ago. Did I ever say I regretted dating the guy? That was a long time ago and now that I am more mature I will say White guys are better. For one, they wouldn’t break your heart unnecessarily. If you want me to compare I will say White guys are better lovers because of their truthfulness.

What if we look at the difference between the two in bed. Which would you say is better?

(Laughing) oh, what a question! Well, it depends on how you go about it. A man is a man. I am not saying that Black men are not blessed naturally more than the whites. They seem to be more endowed but then it still depends on how you go about it. You can get whatever you want from the white man depending on how you go about it.

What’s your idea of sex generally. How often should it be done?

I think sex is good when someone is married. You know, you do it without fear of committing a sin or committing adultery. Sex is something every couple , married couple, should do, probably, everyday, I don’t know, probably every time they are moved to do it.

Sex has the real pleasure when you are doing it without any form of fear. I’m not saying unmarried people should not engage in sex because there is nothing I will say that will make them stop but somebody like me, every time I do it I always feel bad that I’m sinning against God. Even before sex I feel frigid because there is always that looming fear that I’m not doing what is right. That is for me, I don’t know about any other person. If I’m married to the man then I will feel very free and enjoy it very well.

Can you marry a married man like some of your colleagues in the industry are doing?

Oh, what a question! I wouldn’t marry a married man because the man is married. I can only marry such a man if he is divorced. If the man is divorced he is no longer married, then I can marry him with or without children. There is nothing wrong in a man having children. If the person is nice and we are compatible, why not? I don’t mind

There was a rumour some time ago that you fought with Cossy Orjiakor in public and got yourselves stripped?

That was a very big lie but then what do I do. I heard it but had to overlook it because that was a very big lie. Even at the end of the day, the person that wrote the story came to apologise to me. The journalist said she just wanted to make noise. For me, it’s a bygone, I wouldn’t do that with anyone let alone Cossy. Cossy is my friend. I never had a fight with even my enemy.

The report was trying to paint a picture that you and Cossy were in competition with each other over whose boobs are bigger and finer…

(laughing): I never knew that. I think I am hearing that for the first time. Cossy is my friend. We never quarrelled even during the time we lived together. At a time, she was staying with me and later moved into her own house. When some people see two people being friends they just imagine things and write stuffs about them. Me and Cossy are still friends till date.

Source: 247 News

Chibuke Amaechi, Chairman Nigeria Governors Forum

The four pro-Jonathan governors subsequently released a document claiming that 19 governors voted for Mr. Jang. The document did not state when the so-called voting was conducted. At a press conference called by Mr. Akpabio and attended by Governor Jang, the latter did not utter a word about his purported victory. Instead, Mr. Jang was glum and had a blank, vacant look.

Earlier today, Saharareporters broke the news about Governor Amaechi’s victory.

A Presidency source told SaharaReporters that, before traveling to Ethiopia, President Jonathan had collected the signatures of 19 governors, including the governor of Yobe, with the aim of wresting the Governors’ Forum post from Mr. Amaechi. But at today’s meeting where the election took place, Governor Ibrahim Gaidam of Yobe was conspicuously absent. One of the governors told SaharaReporters that the Yobe governor decided not to attend the meeting because he detests Mr. Jang’s sectarian fanaticism.

Our sources, who detailed the coalition that handed Mr. Amaechi a victory, told Saharareporters that 19 governors voted for the Rivers governor who has been locked in a major political dispute with Mr. Jonathan. The pro-Amaechi governors were those of Imo, Ekiti, Edo, Oyo, Ogun, Lagos, Adamawa, Borno, Osun, Jigawa, Kano, Nasarawa, Niger, Kwara Kano, Sokoto, Zamfara and Sokoto. Mr. Amaechi also voted for himself, securing reelection.

Our sources disclosed that the governors of Bauchi, Benue, Gombe, Taraba, Kogi, Plateau, Ondo, Kebbi, Katsina, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Kaduna and four others voted for Mr. Jang, the president’s candidate.

Our sources painted a portrait of some dramatic developments ahead of today’s voting. SaharaReporters learned that the pro-Jonathan group adopted Governor Jang as their consensus candidate following a decision by a few Northern governors and some members of the PDP’s Governors Forum to pick a flag bearer outside of Governors Ibrahim Shema of Katsina and Isah Yuguda of Bauchi. The Jonathan group believed that Mr. Jang would seem less contentious. They also tipped Governor Mimiko of Ondo as Mr. Jang’s side kick in the hope of swaying some governors from the South-West.

Two governors disclosed that the anti-Amaechi group also suggested using “consensus” rather than an election to determine the leader of the forum. “They hoped the ‘consensus’ method would make it possible for them to swing the votes in their favor,” said one governor, adding that most governors insisted on voting.

One of the governors disclosed that Mr. Jonathan’s camp came to today’s meeting confident that they would prevail, since the president had obtained signatures from several governors in advance. But the president’s gubernatorial opponents said they knew Mr. Jang would be vanquished as the election, which was conducted by the secretariat of the Governors’ Forum, began. The forum’s director-general, Ashishana Okauru, was the presiding officer at the election with Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State serving as the returning officer. Pro-Amaechi governors said they were certain of their candidate’s victory since the election was conducted via a secret ballot. “It was free and fair, so we knew that Chibuike [Amaechi] would win,” said one of the governors from the south-west.

After the voting, Governor Uduaghan announced the results, declaring Mr. Amaechi victorious. “All 35 governors present cast their vote and the tally was 19-16 in favor of Governor Amaechi,” one of the governors said. He dismissed Mr. Akpabio’s list of 19 governors for Mr. Jang, laughing that the Akpabio group even included the name of the Yobe governor who was not present at today’s vote.

It remained unclear whether the Presidency would succeed in pressuring Mr. Uduaghan to back away from the results he collated and announced at the governors’ parley.

One of the pro-Amaechi governors told SaharaReporters that Mr. Jang’s candidacy was “technically flawed, but we allowed him to run for the sake of peace.” According to him, observance of the forum’s constitution would mean that the picking of nomination forms ought to have ended by midnight on May 23, 2013. He claimed that Governor Jang only sent in a letter indicating his interest in the race around 3 p.m. on May 24, 2013. “It was a breach of our constitution, but Governor Amaechi and some of us decided not to push for Jang’s disqualification,” said the governor.

Another governor told Saharareporters that he suspects Mr. Jonathan would now be hell bent on destroying or dividing the Governors Forum. “He will see the result of today’s election as a vote of no confidence on his leadership,” said the governor, from one of the Northern states. He added: “All I know is [the] majority of governors don’t want the Presidency to be telling us what to do. We were elected just as Mr. President was elected. Let him lead the nation with good leadership effort and allow do the same in our state.”

The source added that Mr. Jonathan and his political associates would likely interpret the loss by Mr. Jang to Governor Amaechi as an indication that the president may lose the PDP’s primary elections to be the party’s flag bearer. “But it is his good governance that will make the party pick him again, not whether he forces Governor Jang to be our chairman,” said the source.

Several governors who spoke to us today said Governors Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Segun Mimiko of Ondo, Peter Obi of Anambra and Jonah Jang of Plateau were out to do the president’s bidding at all cost. They accused the governors of seeking to polarize the Governors’ Forum in order to advance President Jonathan’s agenda of neutralizing Governor Amaechi.

“These colleagues are key to President Goodluck Jonathan’s plan to turn Nigeria into Ivory Coast if he does not win in 2015,” said one source.

Source: Sahara Reporters

State of Osun Student Displaying Opon-Imo in Class. (Inset is Ayo Aluko-Olokun)

The results of NECO attracted gratitude from the students in the state, and their parents. The performance of Osun State students in NECO was even more significant because the benefits of the fundamental changes which the Aregbesola-led administration had started to make in the education sector.

This background is important in responding to a gale of disinformation, mischief-making and crass ignorance being spread about the unprecedented changes in modern learning, among other measures, which are being implemented by the Aregbesola government in Osun State. One of such is a recent piece by one Ayo Aluko-Olokun. Left to the likes of Aluko-Olokun and his confederates, teachers and school authorities in Osun State would still be shoving their list of nine books per student at the faces of Senior Secondary students mired in insolvency.

What is his grouse? In Osun, the government was looking for the most cost-effective means of delivering top quality education to pupils in their public schools. One of their main thrusts was a computer tablet (Opon Imo), distributed free to the pupils. Each tablet is preloaded with all the textbooks they need, 56 in all, not to mention seven extra volumes like the Bible and Quran, personal health, sex education etc. The tablet also comes with ten years of WAEC and JAMB past questions in 17 subjects. The state government reckons it has spent about N57, 000 per child. There is nothing in this that a child cannot understand, but the likes Ayo Aluko-Olokun are looking for an elephant in the room with a magnifying lens. The state government has not issued a decree that the parents should not buy physical books for their children to complement the e-device if they so desire.

It is evident some of the ignorance in some quarters around this revolutionary project comes from the fact that they are totally unaware that it is one of the products of a thorough process of an education summit convened by the state government in February 2011 and chaired by Professor Wole Soyinka. When I read Aluko-Olokun’s estimation that an SS student will normally have nine books and his rage at a governor who provided them with 63, I was disappointed.

When I went to Ilesa Grammar School in the 80s, Governor Bola Ige administration had a free education programme through which it supplied all schools with every educational materials: textbooks, notebooks, pencils etc. The only thing our parents contributed was their taxes and our school uniforms because we paid no tuition fees too. In my own school, we had good library with quality books on all areas of learning. We were being raised to be thoroughly knowledgeable so we can contribute to the progress of our nation. Kids raised that way grow to adults who are hard-boiled and unflinching in their vision but flexible in their approach. I have no doubt whatsoever that what will come out of the efforts of the governor of Osun State in this Opon Imo innovation is what comes out of a kid that grew up around a rich library.

We should soberly ask ourselves how has it come to this in Nigeria that someone who poses as a ‘public affairs analyst’ would recommend one book per subject for a Senior Secondary school student and reproach a governor who says they should have much more at no cost. Have the standards plummeted so abysmally around here? The next thing Aluko-Olokun(a media aide of a PDP gubernatorial aspirant) would do is to whine and squeal endlessly about the cost of this laudable project, while contesting how much has been saved by the state government by embarking of this innovative project. I bet every kid with an Opon Imo in Osun can tell that 63 books at N1,000 apiece for 150,000 students will mean 9 billion naira.

Imagine a state where the public schools pupils go about with a mini-library, and a hard stuff examination cracker of 20 years past question papers (WAEC and JAMB, ten years each) in their backpacks. That is positively taking on the future indeed, for those students. They can haul less baggage around for more educational value and key into a world that has gone digital in all aspects.Yet, those who want a return to the visionless, incompetent and inefficiency of the PDP years in the state see nothing commendable in this initiative, but to discredit the idea.

One of the questions raised is how students will power the tablets given the epileptic power supply. The simple answer to this distracting question is to ask the likes of Aluko-Olokun, how do Nigerians power the 50 million-plus mobile phones that they use? Surely, a 150,000Osun students are likely to be able to find a way around charging their computer tablets too if Nigerians can keep their mobile phones working despite the problem of constant power supply. However, the Aregbesola administration is making arrangements for communal solar chargers in remote rural High School locations.

This year’s JAMB examination was done on the computerized format. The signs that the digital direction is the way to the future are everywhere and plain for all to see. The PDP ran this state for seven and a half years and they couldn’t figure out a thing as simple as computerizing salary payments.

Apparently, Ayo Aluko-Olokun and his PDP crowd would have been more at peace with kids using chalk and black slates because there is no electricity for computers. They are people who will buy handheld phones for a hundred thousand bucks and squirm at a government spending N57, 000 on a computer for a twenty-first century child. Osun manages its resources judiciously, and it is not in the list of CBN’s bad-debt states. Contrary to the lies about the state borrowing N280, Osun State only raised a long-term facility of N22 billion in the form of bonds through the capital market, which is a healthy thing in public finance. If you borrow on long-term basis for specific value-adding development projects like Osun State has done, by the time you have to start repaying, you would have grown your economy and IGR so your debts have become cheaper and mush easier to pay. That is what Osun State is doing and it agrees with development economics anywhere in the world.

Only recently, the National Bureau of Statistics announced that Osun State now has the lowest unemployment figure of all Nigeria’s states. This is the consequence of the vision, planning and shrewdness of the Aregbesola administration.

John Ogunlela writes from Osogbo, Osun State

Source: Vanguard

Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, CON.
Governor, Rivers State and Chairman, Nigeria’s Governors’Forum

I must thank my colleagues for their tenacity and determination to ensure the unity of the forum but more importantly of our nation.

We remain committed to supporting our leader, the president and commander in chief of the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan to realize the development dream of all Nigerians by reducing tension, uncertainty and insecurity in our beloved country.

We want to pledge our steadfastness and resolve working alongside Mr. President to better the lives of our people as we render transparent and accountable stewardship.

Finally our thanks go to all those who have patiently endured these times especially our constituents and members of the fourth estate of the realm who have followed these elections with keen interest.

We promise that we will not betray the confidence you have reposed in us.

Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, CON.
Governor, Rivers State.

According to the truly magical paper shared among journalists by Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State, Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State was the “real winner,” while Governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo was the “deputy.”

The statement, released on a letter head that did not even call the governors’ forum by its proper name, claimed that Jang and Mimiko were endorsed by 16 PDP governors; one Labour Party governor; one All Progressive Grand Alliance governor; and one All Nigeria Peoples Party governor, and dismissed Amaechi’s election as a sham and a fraud.

Governor Akpabio said they had pulled away and only recognised Jang as the duly elected and recognised chairman of the NGF. Akpabio was conveniently silent about the mutilations in the dates of the second paragraph of the letter he issued and the fact that that letter was signed in April after one of the NGF meetings ended in a deadlock.

He also omitted to mention that Jang, who in whom President Jonathan’s faction is now well pleased, was not even in the reckoning in April and had, in fact, rejected his nomination by the Northern Governors’ Forum yesterday on grounds of “old age!”

So, are there two or more factions of the NGF now? What does this portend then for the polity? What does this mean for 2015? Is the PDP already preparing a result, just waiting to alter it if the result does not favour its candidate?

The PDP has no one but itself to blame for the crisis in the NGF; it mismanaged the process leading to yesterday’s election.

The re-election of Governor Amaechi as the chairman of the NGF came to many as a surprise as it was believed that the governor whom the presidency drew battle lines with was on his way out of the seat.

It was common logic to think that whomever the presidency backed for the elections would certainly win the race. But if what transpired yesterday at the Rivers State Governor’s Lodge was anything to reckon with, it could well mean that the proverbial 60-year reign of the PDP foretold by Vincent Ogbulafor is ending even before it has started.

Things have not been the same since the defiance of the House of Representatives’ members to kick against the party’s zoning formula and elect Aminu Waziri Tambuwwal and Emeka Ihedioha as its speaker and deputy speaker respectively. The ruling PDP is gradually losing grip on its members and the opposition is obviously waxing stronger.

And now the same scenario has played up at the Governors’ Forum with the PDP, which has 24 of the 36 state governors linking the wounds. The thinking is that clearly the ruling party is no longer in charge.

If the presidency and in effect the PDP had indicated interest as it did in the candidacy of Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State to wrestle the incumbent Amaechi out of the NGF seat, it would have expected that as it was the case in the past when the party’s decision remained supreme, that an obviously would-be frustrated Amaechi would be forced to step down after reading the writing on the wall – since it would be needless to contest due to the bloc votes of the 24 PDP governors that would have indicated where their votes would swing to. The combined opposing votes of at most 12 governors would still not match the 24 that is intact for the chosen PDP’s candidate.

In yesterday’s election the reverse was the case. Governor Amaechi must have been full of confidence going into the election after gauging the mood of his colleagues and checking the likely support. Unlike the scenario painted above, the 11 opposition governors, now branded as “APC Governors” must have queued behind Amaechi, leaving him to canvass the extra 8 governors (totalling 19, with which he won the election) from the governors of PDP extraction. What this means is that ahead 2015, the PDP cannot say its house is accommodating genuine and faithful party members. And may as well play into the hands of the opposition! Is a dirty 2015 here?

Source: Leadership

Apparently reacting to the claims by the supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan that Jonah Jang won the election, Fayemi said, “Before they go out to address the press that they did not vote, let me tell you that all of them voted in a transparent manner and they were defeated.”

Security was tight on all the roads leading to the River State Governor’s lodge, the venue of the election.

Apart from barricading the roads to the lodge, stern-looking armed personnel of the Department of State Services, and policemen were positioned at various points as most of the governors arrived the venue of the election few minutes past the 4pm fixed for the poll.

Source: Vanguard

It was even an anticlimax that Jang ended up as Amaechi’s sole challenger, having not been in the frame throughout the preparations for the tensed vote.

But Saturday Vanguard learnt that the failure of the series of meeting held to resolve the disagreement over who should challenge Amaechi from pro-Jonathan camp, paved the way for Amaechi’s victory.

The People’s Democratic Party had settled for Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State to run against Amaechi and made it clear to its campaign managers that the governor was its preferred candidate.

However, the Katsina state Governor, Ibrahim Shema, who insisted he had earlier been tipped by the Presidency for the same contest, refused to step down for Yuguda.

Reliable sources confirmed to Saturday Vanguard that spirited efforts made to persuade Shema to see reasons and step down for Yuguda, failed even after the Northern Governors Forum and the PDP Governors Forum had met and pleaded with him.

Angered by the insistence of Shema to run, the NGF meeting, which met earlier at the Niger State Governor’s Lodge in Asokoro, excused him and his Bauchi counterpart from the meeting and opted to push Jang to run.

It was gathered that upon their return to the meeting of the NGF, both Shema and Yuguda were asked to stand down and vote for Jang as the candidate of the north.

At the enlarged meeting of the PDPGF held at Akwa Ibom Governor’s Lodge also in Asokoro, Jang was subsequently presented as the ‘anointed’ candidate of the party to confront Amaechi.

A source said that as soon as Yuguda was forced to leave the contest, it was all clear to them that Amaechi would beat Jang,who was not in the picture at all.

”Honestly, it was a big disappointment to see the way the whole game went because Jang was not in the frame and those who decided at the last minute to draft him into the contest should be made to explain what they wanted to achieve.

”What has happened now is a big slap to our own camp and it is a shame that things went that way because some people believe that they understand politics more than others,” the source said.

Announcing the results of the ballot, the Director-General, Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Asishana Bayo Okauru disclosed that Governor Abdulaziz Abubakar Yari of Zamfara was unanimously voted in as the Vice Chairman, following the withdrawal of Governor Olusegun Mimiko from the race.

All the 36 governors except that of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam were present and the election was through secret ballot.

An elated Amaechi while accepting the outcome of the election, said there was no victor and no vanquished but thanked his colleagues for the confidence reposed in him.

Source: Vanguard

Saturday Sun gathered that Buhari’s discussions with the governors – four in the North and one in the South-South region – are being coordinated by a team of eminent leaders who also constitute the contact committee working to smoothen the path for the emergence of the former military ruler as APC’s presidential candidate in the 2015 election.

Beside the five governors Buhari is reaching out to in PDP, other APC leaders like the former Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, are also said to be in contact with some other governors who have been having running battles with the leadership of the ruling party. Though APC has 11 governors in its fold at the moment, leaders of the party are working hard to harvest not less than 12 more governors from the current crisis rocking the PDP.

Imo State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, did not mince words when he publicly declared at a recent freedom rally in Owerri that about 23 governors are in APC. He had boasted that it was a matter of time for the APC to take over every level of governance in the country, even as he said that the PDP has failed the people for the 12 years of democracy in the country.

Chairman, Board of Trustees of the PDP, Chief Tony Anenih, about a fortnight ago, gave credence to this claim while addressing the governors, federal lawmakers and state chairmen of the party from the South-South geo-political zone, in Asaba, Delta State.

“We must not live under the illusion that our party is invulnerable. Although, the existing opposition parties are still too small, fragile and sectional, we must not ignore the possibility that a merger of these parties may constitute a threat to our current dominance of the political terrain,” Anenih had told his party men and women.

About four parties are merging to unseat the PDP hegemony in the next election. While Tinubu is leading ACN, Buhari is driving CPC into the merger. The duo of ANPP national chairman, Ogbonnaya Onu, and ex-governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, is leading the party into the arrangement, while Governor Okorocha is coordinating a faction of APGA into the deal.

A competent source in the Buhari’s contact committee, who confirmed the ongoing talks with some of the governors, however, said that “what you (Saturday Sun) call secret talks may not be secret anyway since the troubles some of these governors are having with the president and other PDP leaders are more or less open issues.

“It is only natural for them (governors) to look elsewhere for greener pastures or where their views can be accommodated. That is the platform APC has come to give all progressive minded Nigerians, irrespective of their political office, ethnicity or religion.”

The source further disclosed: “Our efforts to reach out to former heads of state, past and present governors as well as other patriotic leaders, are geared towards mobilizing all patriotic Nigerians to join hands with us to salvage the country from PDP’s misrule. So, it is not as if we are targeting only PDP governors to bring on board the moving train.”

When asked to name some of the governors Buhari is holding discussions with, the source declined but added: “Without mentioning names, you can identify a number of states a PDP leader recently visited to beg their governors not to leave the ruling party.”

Indeed, the party’s BoT chairman, Chief Anenih, recently toured and held meetings with Jigawa State governor, Sule Lamido, Niger’s Babangida Aliyu, Kano’s Musa Kwankwaso, Rivers’ Rotimi Amaechi and Cross River’s Liyel Imoke.

Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State has also been having running battles with the leadership of PDP over the control of the party’s structure in the state. In view of the number of PDP governors that may eventually cross-carpet to APC, some leaders of the new party are said to be considering allotting the vice presidential ticket to one of them from the southern part of the country, since the North will produce the presidential candidate.

A prominent APC leader, who is a former governor, told Saturday Sun that “such consideration may likely favour Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers given the strategic value of his state in the South-South, especially the number of votes generated in that state in the last presidential election and the humiliation the PDP-led Federal Government has subjected him to in the recent past.”

To further buttress the deal between some of the PDP governors and the APC leaders, a reliable source in the ruling party said: “The romance between some of our governors and the opposition party is no longer hidden, they meet and attend functions together openly. Watch out for one of such gatherings this Saturday May 25 (today) when the Kano University of Science and Technology, Wudil will award Governor Tinubu a honorary Doctor of Science degree of the university owned by a PDP state government.

A letter notifying Tinubu of the award was signed by the acting Vice Chancellor of the Institution, Prof. U.G. Danbatta. “The University Senate and Council and the Visitor to the university, Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso approved the award of the Honorary Degree of Doctor of Science, Honris Causa to His Excellency, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu at the third convocation ceremony of the institution to be held in Wudil, Kano on Saturday, May 25 at 11am,” the letter stated.

All efforts to get reactions to these developments from the spokesmen of the CPC, Engr. Rotimi Fashakin and the ACN, Lai Mohammed achieved little. While Fashakin refused to respond to a text message sent to his mobile telephone number, his ACN counterpart would not want to be dragged into such at the moment. He, however, said: “The APC is a progressive party and will always welcome like-minded persons into the fold.”

Meanwhile, barring any hitch, the three main parties forming APC –ACN, ANPP and CPC – will, early next week, present a letter jointly signed by their National Chairmen, National Secretaries and National Treasurers to the INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega, informing the electoral body of their resolution to relinguish their old identities for the newly formed APC.

A competent source within one of the merging parties told Saturday Sun that the submission of the joint letter to INEC is the last stage in the merger process, having held their national conventions where the merger and their new identity were ratified. While the ACN held its convention in Lagos in April, ANPP and CPC had theirs in Zamfara and Abuja, respectively, two weeks ago.

As at yesterday, two of the parties had completed the compilation of all the documents to be submitted along with the joint letter to INEC, while the third party was being awaited.

Source: The Sun

Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola; the Unusual Governor of the State of Osun

The 56th Birthday of Governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Adesoji Aregbesola has been characterized with the enumeration and celebration of thirty (30) great achievements of ‘The Unusual Governor’ in thirty (30) months of ‘Unusual Government’ in the State of the Virtues.

HAPPY 56TH BITHDAY TO OGBENI RAUF ADESOJI AREGBESOLA

1. 40,000 Youths Employed under the Osun Youth Empowerment Scheme

2. 5,000 Youths trained and empowered in information communication technology under the Osun Youth Empowerment Technology (OYESTECH)

3. Over N2.4 billion injected to the economy as allowances for the OYES Volunteers

4. 123 kilometres of waterways (streams, arteries, canals) dredged to keep the state flood-free for three years

5. 750,000 school students provided with school uniform coupled with empowerment of 3,000 tailors

6. 150,000 students provided with computer tablets (opon imo), an electronic learning tool preloaded with 17 subjects, 54 textbooks, and past questions of JAMB, WAEC AND NECO of the past 10years

7. Introduction of bi-monthly environmental sanitation exercise under the O’CLEAN Initiative to keep the state clean

8. Beautification of the 185 km Oyo Boundary(Asejire) to Osun-Ondo Boundary (Owena)

9. Trucks provided for a Public-Private Partnership waste management model in the state

10. Primary School Funding Grants increased from N7.4 million to N424 million a year

11. 240,000 children feed daily with nutritious meals under the Osun Elementary School Feeding and Health Programme coupled with empowerment of over 3,000 caterers

12. Secondary School basic funding grants from N171 million to N427 million per year

13. Tuition Fees in State-owned Tertiary Institutions reduced by 30%

14. Security of lives and properties being guaranteed with provision of 5 Armoured Personnel Carrier, over 100 security patrol vehicles and one helicopter for area surveillance

15. 2 state of the art police stations built

16. Internally Generated Revenue(IGR) increased from N300 million to N700 million without increasing tax payable by citizens

17. Setting up of Omoluabi Conservation Fund with a N4.2 Billion reserve

18. Osun Debt Management Office established

19. Building of the largest commercial apiary in Sub-Saharan Africa for refined honey production

20. Over 1,765 hectares of land cleared and prepared to support farmers

21. Rehabilitation of farm settlements in the state

22. Over N1 billion committed to support farmers

23. Building of super highways to connect Osun to Lagos and Osun to Kwara States

24. 61 Township roads covering 128km is being upgraded all over the state

25. Ede Water Works capacity increased from 13% to 30% and plans on-going to reach 100% capacity before the end of 2013

26. Over 3,000 permanent teachers employed into the state education sector

27. 218 km roads being built across the 30 Local Government Areas and Ife East Area Office, Modakeke.

28. Osun Ambulance Service Authority Established with 400 youths trained as paramedics; 74 Primary Health Centers built

29. 9 State Hospitals and 12 comprehensive health centers being rehabilitated in the state

30. Osogbo Railway Station undergoing massive rehabilitation