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The Tragedy of a Nation:Jonathan Expresses His Support For Aviation Minister’s Fraudulent Purchase Of BMWs Worth N255 Million

Speaking on behalf of President Goodluck Jonathan, the Special Assistant to the President on Constitution and Legal matters, Barrister Ahmad Ali Gulag, today condemned what he described as “online public lynching” of Minister of Aviation Stella Oduah-Ogiemwonyi over the purchase of two executive armoured car worth over N225million.

Gulag affirmed, “Mr President is satisfied with the good work of the aviation minister and the transformation of the aviation sector” Gulag added “the cars are not personal property of the Minister but that of the office of Aviation Minister, no cost is too high to protect public officers who are carrying out desired changes”

.Culled from Ireporterstv

NIGERIA'S AVIATION MINISTER ADMITS BUYING 2 BMW CARS FOR $1.6 M

Nigeria’s Aviation Minister Stella Oduah has admitted that she used the funds of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to buy two BMW armored cars for her personal use, according to an official ministry response published by The Punch, Nigeria’s leading newspaper.

The paper’s report is carried in its October 17, 2013 edition and titled, “Ministry confirms purchase of N255m vehicles for Oduah”. The story, reported for Punch by Udeme Ekwere, stated, “The Ministry of Aviation has confirmed that the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority bought two bulletproof vehicles worth $1.6m (N255m) for the Minister of Aviation, Ms. Stella Oduah.

“An online news medium, SaharaReporters, had reported on Tuesday that the armored vehicles were delivered to the minister in August.

“The medium reported that documents in its possession showed that the transaction for the purchase of the two BMW cars started in June, but the request for the delivery of and payment for them was fast-tracked between August 13 and 15, 2013.

“The transaction involved the NCAA, First Bank of Nigeria, and Coscharis Motors Limited, according to the report.

“The two black BMW 760 Li HSS vehicles had chassis numbers WBAHP41050DW68032 and WBAHP41010DW68044, and were reportedly delivered to the NCAA on August 13, 2013. They were received by two store managers, F. Onoabhagbe and Y. A. Amzat, who is also the agency’s head of transport.”

The paper stated that Joe Obi, the Aviation Minister’s special assistant on the media, confirmed the purchase, claiming that “the vehicles were purchased to protect the minister from some external threats.” According to the Punch, Mr. Obi had told the paper, ‘“Yes, it is true that some security vehicles were procured for the use of the office of the honorable minister in response to the clear and imminent threat to her personal security and life following the bold steps she took to reposition the sector.”’

The paper further quoted the minister’s media aide as stating: ‘“When she came on board as the minister, she inherited a lot of baggage in terms of the concession and lease agreements in the sector, which were clearly not in the interest of the government and people of Nigeria. And so, she took bold steps and some of these agreements were reviewed and some were terminated, and these moves disturbed some entrenched interests in the sector, and within this period, she began to receive some imminent threats to her life; therefore, the need for the vehicles.”

Mr. Obi added: ‘“It should be noted that these vehicles are not personal vehicles and were not procured in the name of the honorable minister; they are utility vehicles and are for the office of the minister, and if she leaves the office, she will not be taking the vehicles along with her.”’

However, the Punch reported that the NCAA’s spokesperson, Mr. Fan Ndubuike, “feigned ignorance” about the cars.

‘“I am not aware of anything like that,”’ he told our correspondent at 8.05 p.m. on Wednesday.”

The Punch report added that “two major air crashes have occurred under Oduah’s watch.

These were the Dana Air crash in Lagos on June 3, 2012, in which 163 people died; and the Associated Airlines crash of October 3, 2013, also in Lagos, which claimed 15 lives. A day after the Associated Airlines’ crash, a Kabo Airlines’ Boeing 747-400 plane carrying 512 pilgrims made an emergency landing at the Sokoto airport with deflated tires and damaged the airport’s Instrument Landing System.

“On Sunday, an IRS Airlines Fokker 100 plane carrying 99 passengers also made an emergency landing at the Kaduna airport, after developing hydraulic problems mid-air. Four days after the tragic crash involving Associated Airlines’ Embraer 120 plane, Oduah described air accidents as God’s will that were inevitable.” She said notwithstanding this reality, the Federal Government would continue to ensure that there were no accidents.

“The minister made the submission while fielding questions from State House correspondents on investigations into the crash. The minister said, ‘We do not pray for accidents but they are inevitable. But we will continue to do everything to ensure that we do not have accidents. But an accident is an act of God. Again, we do not speculate on the causes of accidents. Until they happen, you cannot say this is the cause or that is not the cause. But what is obvious and is the truth is that in aviation, there are shared responsibilities, starting from the man that carries your luggage to the man that makes sure that your boarding pass is issued to you. And so, the regulatory agency, the operators, the management, everybody has his/her  responsibility and all must work in tandem for there to be an optimal, secure and safe aviation sector in the country. And that is what we have been working on.”’

The paper further reported that Ms. Oduah “described those saying that she left the issue of safety in the airspace to dwell on money-making ventures as ignorant.”

Sources within the NCAA had told SaharaReporters that the minister was irresponsible for demanding the purchase of two armored BMW cars for her personal use when the agency is unable to buy critical equipment and send its staff for important training. In her statement after the October 3, 2013 crash of an Associated Airline plane, Ms. Oduah herself “had explained that security and safety could not be achieved without proper funding,” according to the Punch.

The NCAA is responsible for monitoring the airworthiness of commercial planes flying within Nigeria’s airspace.

The Punch reported that the agency “has been under fire lately over a series of mishaps and near crashes involving planes being operated by domestic airlines that were certified fit for flight operations by the NCAA. There have also been rumors that the NCAA does not have enough funds to upgrade its equipment, send its employees for critical training and hire enough qualified hands, while questions are also being raised by industry watchers on the ability of the cash-strapped agency to procure such expensive vehicles.”

The paper reported that the NCAA’s Director-General, Captain Fola Akinkuotu, “had on Monday denied the claims of being cash-strapped, saying that the agency was buoyant.” Mr. Akinkuotu reportedly stated, “We are not broke, we have been carrying out all our responsibilities and have been undertaking the training of our staff as and when due. I can tell you that right now, some of our staff members are undergoing training abroad and we still have others that are waiting for approval; we do not joke with training here and I challenge anyone to come up with anything otherwise to that effect.”

Culled from Sahara Reporters

Shark attack plus...

They say lightning never strikes the same place twice, and your odds of winning last night’s Powerball were about 1 in 175 million. Tell that to the guy who was just bit by a shark after surviving both a lightning strike and an encounter with a rattlesnake.

Eric Norrie was spear fishing in  the Bahamas with his family when a shark suddenly bit his leg, tearing out a chunk and leaving a pool of Norrie’s blood in the water. “You could see a piece of my leg in his mouth,” said Norrie.
 
Norrie’s quick thinking, and brave, father-in-law jumped into the water and got between Norrie and the shark, protecting him from another attack. Meanwhile, his wife and four daughters pulled him to safety aboard the boat and quickly fashioned a tourniquet out of the bands of the spear gun.

A look at the webgainers

The Google Guys: Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page

 Larry page loves moon shots, so it's fitting that as CEO of Google (GOOG) he has entrusted the company's most ambitious endeavors -- self-driving cars, for example -- to his closest friend, confidant, and collaborator, Sergey Brin.

Even before they became known as the Google Guys, their fellow graduate students at Stanford called them "LarryandSergey." After they achieved worldwide fame by creating the sophisticated algorithms that powered their search juggernaut, they still worked in unison from a shared office in the Googleplex. By any measure, theirs is one of the most successful partnerships in business history.

Two years ago Page, 39, stepped into the spotlight to become CEO, while Brin, also 39, receded into the background. Their partnership, rather than dissolving, has morphed, but by all accounts continues to bear fruit.

MORE: The future according to Google's Larry Page

Brin now runs special projects, including Google X, the company's skunkworks. In addition to self-driving cars, Brin's group has come up with Glass, Internet-connected, augmented-reality eyeglasses that should be available to developers this year. Brin, who often wanders the Googleplex in shorts and Five Finger shoes, wears the glasses all the time. He loves to work on completely new things, he says, and the more tempered pace of Google X suits him -- he is famously allergic to scheduling. "My big regret," Brin says, "is that I didn't make this change years ago."

Page keeps Brin close. "He knows the company inside out," Page says. On Mondays, Brin attends Page's staff meetings with Google's top brass. Last fall, when a problem with Page's vocal cords kept him from speaking, Brin ran the meetings. "He spends a lot of time with my team," Page adds.

At Google X, Brin has brought focus to some of Page's priorities -- making Google's products more beautiful, for instance. Such concentration may have paid off: At Fashion Week in New York last year, several models showcased Diane von Furstenberg's new collection while wearing Google Glass.

Times change, but Page and Brin still are the Google Guys, in pursuit of a more connected tomorrow. "X really embodies Google's spirit, which is to take technology and turn it into something transformational for the world," Brin says. Busy with the nitty-gritty of running a giant corporation, his friend, and now boss, says he wants Google to scale its ambition. In other words: Page and Brin want more moon shots.What do you think about these guys?

Valentinz?

February the fourteenth has over the last few hundred years been dedicated to the exchange of love. This is supposedly one of the gifts of Christianity[ Specifically the Roman Catholic Church] to modern man. Originally conceived as a day to share true love amongst peoples, the day has always been a day to appeal to the more noble qualities of the human nature. That is a great idea ,after all love is something you do not just say or affirm. But overtime a metamorphosis has been observed.

Gradually the day became special for lovers and now many began to call it ‘Lovers’ Day’. But the question we need to answer is ,’What is love? ’What is the parameter for determining love between any two persons? Can love be quantified by things? Can one have too much of love? Are there varieties of love? Can sex out of  marriage be classified as true love?

The  first miscomputation about  love is to assume that sex is another word for love. One of the saddest phenomena of the 21^st century is all the misleading  branding and  indoctrination about sex.You hear people being described as being sexy or having a particular sexy feaurture.Sexual love has its place and that within the confines of a legal marital union. So two unmarried people cannot share true sexual love.Do not get me wrong please ,anyone can have sex but not everyone can enjoy sexual love. So during Valentines Day  some one can go out and get sex as much as he or she wants but he or she can never  find sexual love except with his or her legitimate mate. This misconception has driven many off life’s course; some to wrong partners, some to the divorce courts and some to their untimely graves.

Secondly, love is   associated with what can be received. This a very dangerous misconception also. This attitude is fed by the base human qualities of greed and gluttony. Love is what you do or give but love like hatred is nonmaterial. By  the law discordant dimensions nonmaterial things cannot be measured with material things. So then you must understand during  this Valentine that the bigger gift does not signify a bigger love it may simply be an indication of the depth of the giver’s wallet or handbag for that matter.

What then is love? To  fully understand what love is man must turn to God because God is love. Love is sacrifice. Juliet [to Romeo]; For thy name which is not a part of thee ,take all myself’ –[Romeo and Juliet ]–William Shakespeare. Wherever the voice of true love is heard there is an image of the Creator .This is the meaning of the often repeated Bible quote ,’God made man in His own image. True love is an image of the living God .And all through  the vista of time God has not been able to change this definition of love nor will He   because we know Him to be an unchanging God. Neither will the hang-ups and tantrums of the information age man change it.

Hence ,this Valentine  is a time to turn to God the Source, Supplier and Sustainer of true love. To reflect on His mercies; to cherish His goodness. Because at the far end of the  road the totality of our lives is going to be measured on the basis of how much we have experienced and known God for God is love. Best Valentine wishes to you.Tell me what you think in the comments box. Let’s talk about this news!

The boundlessness of Beyonce

At the Super Bowl one artist was said to have stolen the show .This is what all the networks are saying. She received a raving applause both on and off stage. Later her handlers demanded that some of her images at the show be taken off the internet.Beyonce is the one I am talking about here .While I must clearly state that creativity and artistic endowments are things to be appreciated ,and that I  have no personal grudge against Beyonce,This article is essentially an examination of the love of the unusual that has taken over our age.

First ,artistic performances and in reality any ejaculation of creativity serves  only one purpose on the individual and society. That purpose is simply to draw into a deeper  level of appreciation . ’ Art is for art’s sake’ ,so goes a common but true quote. Any truly creative work is a baton given to its admirers to pass on to others. This can only take place in an atmosphere permissible by society ,yes within the generally accepted norms of human behavior

Conscience  no matter how hard it's gagged strives to stop man from going beyond the normal. We naturally want to go beyond boundaries in everything but conscience will always say ,’No’.This creates an internal struggle which stifles the appreciation of true art.When wantonness takes over ,when the more base nature of man rules the mind the result is crisis and not creativity .In this turbulence art is neither received nor released. Creativity is neither recognized nor relished. So the old rule,’Art is for art’s sake is broken.The result is the effect you get when you set fire on a handful of dry leaves –smoke ,fire and ash-.One word for these is waste.In the busyness of such endeavor  time ,talent and and treasures are all lost, for ever.This is the curse of our age.

Pick up a copy of Charles Dickens’  ‘Old Curiosity Shop’, or  listen to Handel’s Messiah. How  do you to come out of these experiences feeling? A wave of creativity which is often called inspiration sweeps over  you. Whether it is a stalled business you’d like to jolt forward or an engineering challenge your company is faced with you are sure to catch the mental creativity energy to move on ahead from these experieces. That is the purpose of art.

Another dimension of  creativity  may be outrageous to most people today. Creativity serves to relax the mind and steady the nerves for the challenges ahead. This is a misplaced and utterly distorted aspect. Many who were at the Super Bowl came simply to  relax. But sadly they  were at the wrong place .Because instead of relaxing and receiving strength they went away drained .Instead of going away inspired they left tensed up,This is the hidden conspiracy against our time-looking for  all the right answers in all the wrong places-.

Lastly is the wonder of the drama surrounding the demand that some of Beyonce’s at the show images be taken off the web. While I’m not sure of any reason given for this demand,I must submit that such request would have been unnecessary if such images were acceptable within the bounds of social norm.Many no doubt came for such images –they were drawn to the event by the expectation of seeing such images.Now if such images were deliberately used to draw such people and now a demand is being made for their withdrawal then the question is ,’Who is fooling who?’That is the question I put to you .Now let's talk about this news!

APC Governors' Special Offer

Governors who are members of the new All Progressive Congress (APC) party, say they will position and pride themselves as social democrats, with free education as their leading programme.

The 10 governors, who come from the former All Progressive Grand Alliance, the Action Congress of Nigeria, All Nigeria Peoples Party and the Congress for Progressive Change, met in Abuja today where they rolled out their programmes under the yet-to-be registered APC.

There are 11 opposition governors in Nigeria and all of them, except the Governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi, were present.

They are: the Governor Adams Oshiomhole (Edo), (Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo), Kayode Fayemi (Ekiti), Babatunde Fashola (Lagos), Rauf Aregbesola (Osun), Rauf Aregbesola(Osun), Tanko Almakura (Nasarawa), Ibikunle Amosun (Ogun), Ibrahim Geidam (Yobe) and Abdulaziz Yari (Zamfara).

Almakura, who spoke on behalf of the governors, said that the programme priorities in the new party will be agricultural development, jobs creation, free education, affordable healthcare, infrastructural development, adequate power supply, eradication of poverty and corruption, and rapid technological advancement and industrialisation.

“We shall pride ourselves as social democrats that are committed to organise our society based on the values of justice for all and individual freedom where everyone’s basic needs are fulfilled,” he said.

He also announced the formation of Zonal Contact and Mobilisation Committees, which are headed by six of their members.
Almakura himself will head that of North-Central; Fayemi, South-West; Yari, North-West; Okorocha, South-East; Geidam, North-East; and Oshiomhole, South-South.
Also speaking with reporters, Oshiomhole underlined his commitment to the merger.  “I am fully convinced about the need for this merger,” he declared.  “There is no question about my conviction and my commitment to the merger.”

Okorocha also insisted that although there are problems in his party, APGA, the party was committed to the merger.

“Let me say that APGA is in the merger talks. We have our little challenges and we are just trying to sort out about who are the APGA-APGA and who are the APGA-PDP.

“But I can tell you that the APGA-APGA (the real APGA) is already in the merger talks.”

But why not start now?Now, let's talk about the news!

;Enugu Gov admitts battle with cancer

Governor Sullivan Chime

The admission by Governor Sullivan Chime of Enugu State that he was being treated for cancer in the United Kingdom served to confirm earlier reports to that effect. At a press briefing in Enugu two days ago, the governor told journalists that he had received treatment for nose cancer after cancerous lumps were detected in his neck and nose.

It had been reported  that Mr. Sullivan, who had been outside of his state for close to 150 days, had been diagnosed with cancer and was receiving treatment in the UK.

The governor’s admission also exposed the lies peddled by several of his commissioners and aides that Mr. Chime was abroad on vacation. The state’s Commissioner for Information had led the propaganda campaign, frequently insisting to reporters that the absentee governor was not sick but had merely taken up several years’ worth of accumulated leave outside of Nigeria.

During the governor’s prolonged absence, several concerned residents of Enugu State were contacted with requests to investigate Mr. Chime’s whereabouts. One caller, a top lawyer from the state, said “Many of the good people of Enugu State are shocked that a whole governor can disappear without anybody knowing where he is – and then the commissioner of information tells us the governor is on vacation.”

At the press conference, Mr. Chime did not disclose the hospital where he was treated. He claimed that he was an outpatient throughout the course of treatment. Sources familiar with the governor’s condition said that Mr. Chime underwent three surgical procedures to removes cancerous cells from his lymph nodes. In addition, he received extensive doses of chemotherapy.

Although Mr. Chime claimed to be cancer-free, one of our sources disclosed that the governor is scheduled to head back to the UK again to continue with treatment, including more chemotherapy.

Incidentally, the governor spent some time at his press briefing castigating the online media for focusing on his illness. One journalist who was at the press conference said he expected that the governor would apologize for the decision of his aides to mislead the people of Enugu State as well as Nigerians as a whole about the governor’s location as well as the reason for his prolonged absence.

Governor Chime is one of several Nigerian governors currently receiving medical treatment abroad. Governor Liyel Imoke of Cross River State is in the state of Maryland in the US where he is being treated for renal disease. Governor Danbaba Suntai of Taraba is in Hanover, Germany where he continues to get treated for grave wounds sustained when a plane he was piloting crashed near the airport in Yola, capital of Adamawa State. SaharaReporters has ascertained that Mr. Suntai is brain-damaged, and has lost the ability to recognize family as well as government visitors.

In addition, President Goodluck Jonathan and former military dictator, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, last week received medical attention for health problems. Mr. Jonathan was treated for a diarrhea ailment while Mr. Babangida had his worsening leg problem looked at.Sickness does spare the mighty yet.What do you think?Now,let's talk about this news!
From SaharsReporters