The Wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, has commended Governor
Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State for donating N150m to Internally
Displaced Persons in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe.
The commendation is contained in a statement signed by Buhari’s
Special Assistant on Media, Mrs Adebisi Ajayi, on Friday in Abuja.
Buhari said the gesture would help to ameliorate the sufferings of
IDPs in various camps in the affected states as well as in their
rehabilitation, and urged other states and individuals to emulate the
governor.
She said insurgency had remained a major challenge in the country but
expressed optimism that it would soon be a thing of the past.
She appealed to governors of the affected states to take measures at
ensuring that children in the IDPs’ camps were properly catered for.
“I am grieved as a mother that children can go through such appalling
conditions in their country,” Buhari said, noting that malnutrition
rate of children in the camps had risen.
She explained that children had specialised nutritional needs, and
said “the current situation underscores the importance of highly
specialised nutritional support for this category of children.”
The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Ambode had on
October 21, presented three cheques of N50m each to the governors of
Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, respectively, shortly after the Council of
State meeting.
The ambitious budget and debt deal cleared a major hurdle in the US
Senate early Friday, setting the stage for Congress to pass the measure
and send it to President Barack Obama.
The Senate voted 63-35, giving the bill the 60 votes necessary to end any delaying tactics. Several of the Republican presidential candidates
had criticized the legislation, which is aimed at averting a
catastrophic default, avoiding a partial shutdown and setting government
spending priorities for two years.
Obama negotiated the accord with Republican and Democratic leaders
who were intent on steering Congress away from the brinkmanship and
shutdown threats that have haunted lawmakers for years. Former Speaker
John Boehner felt a particular urgency days before leaving Congress,
while lawmakers looked ahead to presidential and congressional elections
next year.
The opposition was strong in the Senate, and White House hopeful
Republican Senator Rand Paul left the campaign trail and returned to the
Capitol to criticize the deal as excessive Washington spending.
Another Republican presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, speaking on the
Senate floor late on Thursday, complained that Republican majorities had
given Obama a “diamond-encrusted, glow-in-the-dark Amex card” for
government spending.
The agreement raises the government debt ceiling until March 2017,
removing the threat of an unprecedented national default that would have
come in a few days. At the same time it sets the budget of the
government through the 2016 and 2017 fiscal years and eases punishing
spending caps by providing $80bn more for military and domestic
programs, paid for with a hodgepodge of spending cuts and revenue
increases touching areas from tax compliance to spectrum auctions.
The deal would also avert a looming shortfall in the social security
disability trust fund that threatened to slash benefits, and head off an
unprecedented increase in Medicare premiums for outpatient care for
about 15 million beneficiaries.
The promise of more money for the military ensured support from
defense hawks like Senator John McCain, chairman of the Armed Services
Committee, while additional funds for domestic programs pleased
Democrats.
Obama and Democratic allies like House minority leader Nancy Pelosi
of California were big winners in the talks, but Republican leaders
cleared away political land mines confronting the party on the eve of
2016 campaigns to win back the White House and maintain its grip on the
Senate.
The measure leaves a clean slate for new Speaker Paul Ryan as he begins his leadership of the House.
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Obama
had repeatedly said he would not negotiate budget concessions in
exchange for increasing the debt limit, though he did agree to package
the debt and budget provisions.
“I am as frustrated by the refusal of this administration to even
engage on this [debt limit] issue,” said finance committee chairman
Orrin Hatch. “However the president’s refusal to be reasonable and do
his job when it comes to our debt is no excuse for Congress failing to
do its job and prevent a default.”
The budget relief would lift caps on the appropriated spending passed
by Congress each year by $50bn in 2016 and $30bn in 2017, evenly
divided between defense and domestic. Another $16bn or so would come
each year in the form of inflated war spending, evenly split between the
defense and state departments.
The appropriations committees will have to write legislation to reflect the spending and face an 11 December deadline.
The cuts include curbs on Medicare payments for outpatient services
provided by certain hospitals and an extension of a two percentage point
cut in Medicare payments to doctors through the end of a 10-year
budget. There is also a drawdown from the strategic petroleum reserve
and savings reaped from a justice department fund for crime victims that
involves assets seized from criminals.
On paper, Sam Shepherd makes an unlikely dance-music trailblazer.
There’s the PhD in neuroscience. There’s his gentle demeanour, more akin
to a bookish vinyl nerd than a international 24-hour party boy. And
there’s his handmade album artwork – drawn using a harmonograph
that he built in his studio himself. The 29-year-old also likes to test
his audience: his forthcoming live shows will feature an 11-piece
orchestra; for a recent six-hour set at Berlin techno haven Berghain – a booking that was “as much to my surprise as everyone else’s” – he played the album Harvest Time by spiritual jazz saxophonist Pharoah Sanders in its entirety.
In addition, Shepherd is, perhaps, the only musician to have been
given a philosophy book during a DJ set. “A girl came up to me at a gig
in San Francisco and said, ‘I think you might like this, you should read
it,’” he recalls, sipping at a rhubarb gin that matches his top. “It
was a David Eagleman book called Sum,
which is 40 short stories about what the afterlife might be and atomic
reincarnation, where you get to heaven and God is presented to you as a
bacteria, and of the absorbance of life …” I give him a look that
suggests he has lost me. “I know,” he says, and laughs.
We’re in Brilliant Corners, a low lit DJ bar-restaurant in Dalston,
east London, where discerning vintage sounds spill out of an
expensive-looking speaker stack behind us. Shepherd, however, isn’t a
tiresome chinstroker. Under the Zen-like moniker Floating Points, his DJ
sets are brainy but banging; his own productions distil his spiritual
jazz, classical, soul and broken-beat influences (by his hazy
estimation, he owns 10,000 vinyl records) into sparky house and techno
shufflers. He can release an EP with a string ensemble, but he can also
entertain the face chompers at 6am.
Still, Shepherd finds it frustrating that he is often made out to be
some sort of techno Einstein. “The worst question I get asked is the one
where people try and draw a parallel between science and music,” he
groans. “It is possible that the two exist exclusively of each other,
but apparently that’s not a good enough answer.” As a young boy,
Shepherd was a chorister at Manchester Cathedral and went on to study
piano at Chetham’s School of Music. His father is a vicar and the family
vicarage turned into a studio for musical experiments: “I could set up
cellos in the kitchen, drum kits in my sister’s room,” he says
mischievously. A teacher gave him some jazz records and it was then that
he “stopped thinking of classical and jazz as two different things”,
and started seeing them harmoniously. “Kenny Wheeler is so beautiful that [his music] could have been Rachmaninov,” he enthuses. “And Bill Evans is similar to the colourfulness of Debussy.”
Meanwhile, his appetite for records became serious. When he moved to
London to study for his PhD, he would save up his student loan to travel
around the US hunting for old music. “We’d go digging for weeks, stay
in motels, and bring back as many records as we could find,” he says.
“They were cheaper than CDs.” He learned how to DJ properly by watching
the owners of Peabody Records in Chicago,
which also perhaps inspired his love of the marathon set. “They would
start playing tunes at 10am and go through the records that had been
brought in all day. I saw it and thought, that’s how it’s done.”
Today, Shepherd has kindred spirits and close friends in Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) and Caribou
(Dan Snaith). They have a passion for obscure records, and enjoy
throwing low-key parties on the fly, where the guilty blue glow of
Shazam is always peeking out of someone’s pocket near the booth. Here,
in Brilliant Corners’ intimate backroom, Shepherd and Hebden recently
hosted an impromptu Sunday-night party – just for fun. The weekend
after, all three played at Hebden’s Brixton Academy all-nighter where,
in the face of inflated ticket prices, they only charged £5 to get in.
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The place that most inspired their idealistic approach to club culture was Shoreditch’s Plastic People, which closed in January this year. The trio would often DJ there together,
holding that music heard on a decent sound system in pitch-black, with
no distractions, had the power to take you somewhere else. “Everyone on
the dancefloor was one body,” says Shepherd of the memorable nights in
that rave basement. “You felt like something more than the music,
something entirely transcendental, was happening. The ambience in the
room and everything came together in a way that was more than the sum of
its parts.”
He could as easily be talking about his debut album, Elaenia.
Comprised of seven “suites”, it builds delicately with strings, piano,
dizzying time signatures, dappling synths and drones until it engulfs
you. Silhouettes (I, II & III) starts with a restless drumbeat and
blossoms into 10 cinematic minutes of romantic, careening strings and a
steady swell of choir-like voices. The titular track – inspired by a
poetic dream that Shepherd had about a bird trapped in a forest, after
reading Eagleman’s Sum – is more abstract, a pearlescent piano melody
caught in layers of static and synth. Some songs implode, others turn
inside out.
Much of this experimental composition is filtered through a
contemporary prism of influences, some more intentional than others. The
final track, Peroration Six, is like something Radiohead might have come out with during an unhinged Kid A take. But Shepherd was particularly drawn to the recording of Talk Talk’s 1991 album Laughing Stock.
He tried many of its techniques, down to the oil projectors that the
band used to create an intense studio atmosphere. “Listening to that
record is where I started to realise that you can’t separate the music
from the recording,” he explains. “So if you work hard at making records
sound a certain way then it can enhance the music itself.”
Like his favourite spiritual jazz records, Elaenia is improvisational
and designed to be heard in one go. But Shepherd says he “finds it
difficult to reconcile not being religious with being into spiritual
music”. Instead, he admires the genre architecturally. “Spiritual jazz,
for me, feels like building a space out of nothing and within that space
[the musicians] build their house, their city, their entire universe
through music,” he says excitedly. “They exist in this black hole and
they All
of which, to be honest, is starting to sound a bit rollneck jumper. But
Shepherd winces at the idea of anyone using the word “jazzy” to
describe his music, as if it could be found on the kind of compilation
that would’ve played in a hotel lobby in 1998. “It’s very sad to be
misunderstood. You can press play and have prejudices about what jazz is
or isn’t, but I like to imagine I make music that doesn’t require the
listener to have any prior knowledge or reference points.” After all, he
adds, “what kind of boring music is that?” Elaenia is anything but boring; even in its chaos, it is beautiful.
It builds like a hypnotic DJ set – a soothing balm after a hard day in
the office; a respite from a packed train full of screaming children
where you can’t sit down. Some people are angry Shepherd hasn’t made
Floating Points: The Bangerz album, he says, but he hopes they will find
Elaenia “inviting in some way” in spite of that. “I would like to feel
that a person walks into an empty room and that, through listening to
the record, the room is built for them without trying to push them out
at any point,” he explains. “I’m trying to draw people in.” You don’t need a thesis to enter Sam Shepherd’s lab – an open mind will do.
Elaenia is out on Pluto Records on 6 November. Floating Points plays live at Islington Assembly Hall, London N1, on 17 November.
Dangerous flooding was occurring in Texas
in the early hours of Saturday, as gushing waters closed the interstate
between Dallas and Houston and caused a freight train to completely
derail and overturn.
A creek that broke its banks near Corsicana in the north of the state
swept away train tracks in the night, causing a Union Pacific freight
train to collapse into the flood waters around 3.30am a spokesman for
the rail company said. The two crew members were forced to swim to
safety.
More than 16in of rain fell Friday in the Corsicana area as the outer reaches of hurricane Patricia, which made landfall on the Pacific coast of Mexico, were felt across the south-central US. The rain was still heavy and steady as Saturday began.
Parts of Louisiana, southern Oklahoma and Arkansas were under flash
flood alert and torrential, relentless rain was expected to persist
through Saturday and in some cases into Monday.
One man was missing in the San Antonio area of Texas, after entering a ditch of swift flood water in attempt to rescue his dog.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, and Russia’s foreign minister
have spoken about holding talks between the Syrian government and the
opposition.
In a telephone conversation on Saturday held at the request of Kerry,
he and Sergei Lavrov also discussed enlisting other countries in the
region to help push the political process forward, the Russian foreign
ministry said.
Lavrov also appeared on Russian state TV on Saturday urging an
intensification of efforts to find a political solution to the war. He
said Moscow was ready to coordinate with the US in fighting terrorism in
Syria.
He also said that Russia would be ready to help western-backed Free Syrian Army rebels if it knew their locations.
Lavrov said that the Kremlin wanted Syria to prepare for
parliamentary and presidential elections and that Russia was prepared to
provide air support to the Free Syrian Army, as Moscow intensified its
drive to convert its increased clout with Damascus into a political
settlement.
The Kremlin – Bashar al-Assad’s strongest foreign ally, has spoken
broadly about the need for elections in Syria before. However, Lavrov’s
comments represent a notable shift in Russia’s position.
The shift follows a meeting on Friday with the US and other countries
to discuss a political solution to the Syria crisis and comes just days
after a surprise visit by Assad to Moscow.
Lavrov said: “External players cannot decide anything for the
Syrians. We must force them to come up with a plan for their country
where the interests of every religious, ethnic and political group will
be well protected.”
He also said the continued US refusal to coordinate its military campaign in Syria with Moscow was “a big mistake”.
The comments follows criticism of Russia’s military intervention in
Syria by the Gulf Cooperation Council. Its assistant secretary-general,
Abdel Aziz Abu Hamad Aluwaisheg, said that the action taken by Russia
was “the best gift that could be given to terrorist groups”.
“I
think it has the potential of being a very dangerous escalation between
the superpowers, between Russia and the US,” he told the BBC.
“I think we’re all concerned about that and I think the Russian
decision that was made without consultation, without coordination with
the international coalition to fight Daesh [Isis] is unfortunate, and I
think it could cause dangerous escalation.”
Aluwaisheg warned that Russia’s military intervention risked
bolstering terrorist groups, saying it would help them recruit more
members from all over the world. He said: “I think it probably will
happen in Syria if the Russian intervention continues.”
His comments came as the Russian defence ministry said its planes had
flown 934 sorties and destroyed 819 militant targets in Syria since the
start of its operation on 30 September, the Interfax news agency
reported.
Meanwhile, Kerry, was flying to Saudi Arabia for further talks on the conflict in Syria.
CHICAGO (AP) — Police anxiety in the era of ever-present cellphone
cameras and viral videos partly explains why violent crime has risen in
several large U.S. cities this year, FBI Director James Comey said
Friday.
Comey told several hundred students during a forum at the University
of Chicago Law School that it's critical to do more to address a
widening gulf between law enforcement and citizens in many communities,
particularly African-Americans.
He said while there likely are multiple factors behind the spike in
violence in cities, including Chicago, officers and others nationwide
have told him they see "the era of viral videos" as a link.
"I don't know whether this explains it entirely, but I do have a
strong sense that some part of the explanation is a chill wind blowing
through American law enforcement over the last year, and that wind is
surely changing behavior," Comey said.
He added that some of the behavioral change in police officers has
been for the good "as we continue to have important discussions about
police conduct and de-escalation and the use of deadly force."
Comey likened the strain between law enforcement and local
communities to two lines diverging, saying repeatedly that authorities
must continue to work at improving their relationships with citizens.
But he added: "I actually feel the lines continuing to arc away from
each other, incident by incident, video by video."
The New York Times reported that
Comey's remarks "caught officials by surprise at the Justice
Department," where many do not agree with his explanation. Several
officials there "privately fumed" over his opinion, according to the
paper.
Most of the country's 50 largest cities have seen an increase in
shootings and killings, he said, citing Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas and
others. In Washington, D.C., he said homicides are up more than 20
percent. And he added that Baltimore is averaging more than one homicide
a day — a rate higher than New York City, which has 13 times the
people.
"Why is it happening ... all over and all of a sudden?" he asked. "I've heard a lot of theories — reasonable theories."
He suggested other factors, including the availability of cheaper
heroin, guns getting into the wrong hands for wrongdoing, and street
gangs becoming smaller and more territorial.
But he said his conversations with officers often come back to
cellphones. He said they describe encounters with young people and their
cellphone cameras "taunting" them "the moment they get out of their
cars."
"They told me, 'We feel like we're under siege and we don't feel much like getting out of our cars,'" Comey said.
He said he has been told about higher-ranking police telling
officers "to remember that their political leadership has no tolerance
for a viral video."
A spokesman for the ACLU of Illinois, Ed Yohnka, said later Friday he disagreed with Comey's assessment.
"Police officers who respect civilians and the law will only enhance
the reputation of their departments when recorded by civilians," Yohnka
said. "And officers should be trained to conduct themselves with
professionalism regardless of whether a camera is recording them."
Amber Rose took it all off for GQ magazine - the inside spread was just
released and its hot. Amber is 32 years old today..shares same birthday
with Kim K. See full pic after the cut...
Respondents
to an online poll on PUNCH website have demanded the resignation of Dr.
Bukola Saraki as the Senate President to answer charges of false asset
declaration levelled against him by the Code of Conduct Tribunal.
The respondents participated in an online poll on PUNCH website, www.punchng.com,
asking the readers to answer the question: Should Dr. Bukola Saraki
resign as Senate President over his alleged false assets declaration
case at the Code of Conduct Tribunal?
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The survey required the participants to indicate either ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
One thousand, seven hundred and fifty
nine respondents participated in the poll, which opened on Monday,
September 28, 2015 and closed on Thursday, October 8, 2015.
Demanding
the resignation of the Senate President, 1,226 respondents,
representing 70 per cent of the participants believed Saraki should
resign by indicating a ‘Yes’.
On
the other hand, 533 respondents, which represent 30 per cent of the
participants, are of the opinion that Saraki, a former Presidential
Adviser to Olusegun Obasanjo and the immediate past Kwara State
governor, should not resign as the Senate President.
The
Code of Conduct Bureau had dragged Saraki, who emerged the President of
the Senate in controversial circumstances on Tuesday, June 9, before
the CCT on charges bordering on false declaration of assets, especially
during his time as the Kwara State’s helmsman between 2003 and 2011.
Saraki
had battled unsuccessfully to stop his arrest and arraignment before
the tribunal through his suits before a Federal High Court in Abuja and
the Court of Appeal in the Federal Capital Territory.
When he finally made his dramatic
appearance at the CCT on Tuesday, September 22, he pleaded not guilty to
the 13 counts filed against him before the Chairman of the tribunal,
Justice Danladi Umar, adjourned the case to October 21 and 22 for
continuation of trial.
In
pleading his innocence before Justice Umar, the accused had alleged
that he was being politically-vilified for emerging the Senate
President.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday approved the appointment of Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, as the acting Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
A statement by the Director of Press and Public Relations in
the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation,
Mr. Bolaji Adebiyi, said the appointment took effect
from Wednesday, October 21, 2015.
Oyo-Ita was, until her appointment, the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology.
She hails from Odukpani Local Government Area of Cross River State.
The statement described the appointment as “a testimony of Mr.
President’s implicit confidence and trust” in her ability to discharge
the responsibilities of the office of Head of the Civil Service of the
Federation.
The Presidency had on Tuesday
clarified the exit of the erstwhile Head of Civil Service of the
Federation, Mr. Danladi Kifasi, which it described as “retirement.”
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Communications,
Mr. Femi Adesina, made the clarification in an interview with our
correspondent in Abuja, amidst speculations that the HoS was sacked.
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Adesina had said, “The Head of Service is due for retirement in December and so he is proceeding on his terminal leave.”
Kifasi was appointed HoS by ex-President Goodluck Jonathan on August 13, 2014.
Ondo State Governor, Dr Olusegun Mimiko, on
Wednesday unveiled the Shoprite outlet in Akure, the state capital,
where he reiterated his administration’s commitment to providing
enabling environment for small and medium scale businesses to thrive. Unveiling the outlet, located in the premises of
the old Owena Motel, Akure, the governor assured the people that the
mall would add value to the economic landscape of the state, stressing
that it would also provide opportunities for domestic retailers to by
enhancing effective supply chain process. He noted that the Mall would create employment opportunities as well as boost the economy of the state. Mimiko said, “Looking forward in the next couple
of weeks, the Dome will be back along this corridor and this place will
be the commercial hub of sort. At the end of all these, our people will
be gainfully engaged and the multiplier effect on our economy will truly
be great. “The excitement is not just having the Akure Mall,
but about the opportunity for our local retailers to ply their trade
and also about the opportunity for a supply chain that will originate
from this state.”
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Chief
Executive Officer of Top Services Limited, the developer of the Mall,
Mr. Tokunbo Omisore, commended Mimiko for providing the enabling
environment for the project and also for fast-tracking every aspect of
the contract agreement. According to him, the Mall will provide jobs for
no fewer than 1,000 residents of Ondo State, adding that entrepreneurs
and small and medium scale businessmen would be able to showcase their
products, especially farm produce.
From
left: President Muhammadu Buhari; Former Head of State, President
Badamasi Babangida; Former Chairman, Interim National Government, Chief
Ernest Shonekan; Last Military Head of State, General Abdusalami
Abubabakar and a Former Chief Justice of Nigeria. Muhammad Uwais during
the meeting of the National Council of State chaired by President Buhari
at the Aso Chambers, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
From
left: Former Head of State, President Badamasi Babangida;Akwa Ibom
State Governor, Former Chairman, Interim National Government, Chief
Ernest Shonekan; Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna Stat and Last
Military Head of State, General Abdusalami Abubabakar during
Jigawa
State Deputy Governor, Irahim Hadejia; Plateau State Governor, Solomon
Lalong; Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello; Lagos State Governor,
Akinwumi Ambode; Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State; Governor
Rochas Okowrocha of Imo State and Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe
State
From
left: Plateau State Governor, Solomon Lalong; Jigawa State Deputy
Governor, Ibrahim Hadejia; Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello;
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State; Governor Rochas Okowrocha of
Imo State Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode; and Governor Ibrahim
Dankwambo of Gombe State
From
left: Plateau State Governor, Solomon Lalong; Jigawa State Deputy
Governor, Ibrahim Hadejia; Niger State Governor, Abubakar Bello;
Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State; Governor Rochas Okowrocha of
Imo State Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode; and Governor Ibrahim
Dankwambo of Gombe State
Lagos State Governor, Akinwumi Ambode; Governor Idris Wada of Kogi State; and Governor Aminu Masari of Katsina
ABAKALIKI-THE
faction of the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of
Biafra, MASSOB weekend called on the Federal government to immediately
release the Radio Biafra Director, Nnamdi Kanu who was arrested by the
Department of State Security, DSS in Lagos state.
Director of pirate radio, Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu
In a statement issued in Abakaliki, the National Director of
Information, MASSOB, Comrade Uchenna Madu threatened that any refusal by
the federal government to ensure the release of Kanu would lead to a
world wide demonstration, protest which would endanger the already
battered image of Nigeria before the international communities.
The statement read in part: “MASSOB Faction condemned the cowardly
arrest and detention of Radio Biafra Director but also accept the fact
that it is part of non violence struggle; no agitation is complete
without arrest, detention & prosecution.
“It shape the minds of the activist, drawing sympathy from the
internal and external observers. It also shows that Nnamdi Kanu and
Radio Biafra have become a factor of reckoning in Nigeria.
“The arrest & detention of Nnamdi Kanu by DSS will assist
immensely in reviving the consciousness & sympathy for Biafra
actualization in higher dimension which was temporary halted by Ralph
Uwazuruike’s deviation & lust of wealth.
“This singular arrest will cause more diplomatic harm on Nigeria’s
image than good. Before Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest, he has succeeded in
rooting the Biafra struggle in about 78 countries including Biafraland
“Through Radio Biafra, International tour & secret diplomatic
build up. MASSOB warns Nigeria Govt to quickly release Nnamdi Kanu now
or arraign him in a competent court of justice or face an eruption of
Biafra world wide demonstration, protest which will endanger the already
battered image of Nigeria before the international communities and
cause more diplomatic harm to Nigeria”
In a recent visit to Pretoria, Vice
President Yemi Osinbajo tells select South Africa-based Nigerian
journalists measures the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration
has put in place to combat terrorism, poverty among others
President Muhammadu
Buhari was here (South Africa) for the African Union summit where one
of the topics of discussion was African security, how far have you gone
in achieving this?
Nigeria has several concerns in terms of
security. We are co-operating at the moment with the Lake Chad Basin
Authority and all of the countries there. Insurgency generally is what
is happening in several layers of West Africa, the horn area and many
areas in the North East of Nigeria. In those areas there is Islamic
insurgency with all the problems associated with it. For Nigeria, the
critical concerns are how to stop what appears to be a growing tendency
of insurgency in these areas; and we think we can. We think if we are
able to keep our borders, especially the Lake Chad Basin areas and our
countries safe, it will be a critical input we are making into African
peace and security. A lot has gone into co-operation in that
neighbourhood already. We have a joint task force in the area that is
led by Nigeria. We have also made significant contributions in terms of
financing the whole efforts. All the countries in that neighbourhood are
cooperating. The president has spent considerable time going round
involving the countries in the Lake Chad Basin area, in the
collaboration and effort to contain and eradicate terrorism in our
individual countries.
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How
would you explain the recent spate of blasts in Nigeria? Would you say
that your efforts are faltering or are there challenges we don’t know
about?
I am sure that you recognise that there
are several aspects of terrorism. Only one is essentially the military
aspect. The military aspect of it, as you can see, is practically won in
the sense that we’ve degraded the forces of insurgency recently. We do
not think that they have the capacity to operate militarily in any
significant way. And we think that in the next couple of months, we
should be able to deal decisively with that. But the cowardly act of
using IED, strapping up young children with IED and leading them into
detonating bombs remotely are not really things you can deal with purely
militarily. I mean these are just cowardly acts by a few individuals.
Anyone can do some of the things that they are doing. Literally,
somebody coming from behind you and smashing a huge stone on your head
to kill you when you are not looking so long as they are prepared to
die. In other words, we must distinguish between these suicide bombers
and the overall threat of insurgency in the country. And that
distinction is important because of the way we would tackle it. Tackling
these bombings, has a lot to do with being vigilant; vigilance on the
part of the local populace. Education of the local populace is also
important, because some of these young girls who strap on IEDS and go to
market place to bomb it don’t even know what they are doing. They don’t
even know that they would die. And so, that aspect of it has to be
dealt with by more public education which we are starting. National
orientation using radio and all kinds of media to ensure that people
understand that these are the kinds of dastardly act we have.
Some say beyond education,
the issue is poverty; that people are willing to die just to get money
for their families. What is your take?
I think it goes beyond that. I am not so
sure. I think it has to do with deprivation and all that. But poverty
is an important part of the whole sense of alienation that gives rise to
some of these problems. I agree with you entirely and I think it’s a
concern that the government has. And that is why we have the
Presidential Initiative on the North East as some of the work we are
doing in that area. I think education is crucial. People need to be
educated, to be empowered to work, to find work to so. And of course, we
need to do some social investment. Talking about social investment, we
are talking about conditional cash transfers and free meals programme.
Some of those things are direct investments in the lives of the people.
We think that is important to take people out of poverty. But frankly, I
don’t think that poverty by itself offers any explanation for somebody
to want to blow themselves up. I don’t think it is sufficient. I think
there is also brainwashing.
In a recent interview you
granted, you talked about diversification of the economy. How do you
hope to do that in the face of glaring infrastructural challenges?
It is true we have to deal with the
infrastructural challenges and we have to deal with everything
practically simultaneously. For example, we need to deal with power,
because we need power to do most of what we say we want to do. And, we
have to handle that as soon as possible. Then, we have to deal with road
network, because we have agricultural plans. That is one of the major
plans of the diversification. We are looking at agriculture especially
the area of rice, wheat and oil palm production; which at the moment
constitute a significant drain on our foreign exchange. Presently, we
import about $3 billion quantity of rice and wheat and palm oil. Now,
all of these are in the agricultural areas, where we feel we can do a
lot more. If we are able to be self-sufficient in rice and wheat
production, not only would we have saved significantly, we would also
have created significant jobs in actual farming and in the whole
agro-allied chain. That is why we have the silos that we built and the
milling facilities that we have for rice. A lot of those things need to
be oiled; they need to be kept well. If we are able to achieve these, I
am sure that we would have significantly contributed to a whole effort
of diversification. We are developing the Micro, Small and Medium
Enterprises also. We are also going to be involving market women across
the country. We are looking at how to support their businesses, by
working through co-operative societies. These are individuals who are
entrepreneurs in their own right, but are usually ignored because they
don’t fit into the formal definition of a MSMEs. But we think that they
need to be involved in this. Once we are able to bring them in, we will
be able to help them access finance and help them with financial
planning, with projections and acquiring inventories for whatever it is
they are selling.
A lot of Nigerians outside
the country are being stigmatised and abused. Also a lot of innocent
Nigerians die. What does the life of an average Nigerian mean to your
government? What does your government intend to do with countries where
Nigerians are residing?
I think President Buhari made that very
important point, and he said that the life of every Nigerian is worth
his own life; that he takes the life of every Nigerian seriously enough.
And that is very important to hear. And I think that that is a very
significant thing coming from the president of the country. I think that
the issue really is how we ourselves in these various countries we are
in can give ourselves significant support, not only in reporting but
also highlighting these issues. This is because there are many places
that we don’t even have the consular capacity to assist and help people
fight for their rights. In the past few months, a lot of efforts have
gone into creating channels through which the Diaspora can speak to the
government. And, I have been facilitating quite a few activities with
the people in the Diaspora. We just attended a major Diaspora event in
Abuja where we had significant interactions about that. I think that the
most important thing is what we are able to do for ourselves and the
amount of importance we attach to ourselves. To what extent are we our
brother’s keepers? People need to know, government needs to know what is
going on. The major thing is not so much about what the life of a
person in the Diaspora worth; it is what does the life of a Nigerian
worth anywhere a Nigerian is. And I think that part of what is important
to us as a government is in ensuring not just in words but in actions,
that the Nigerian life is important. That’s why we have for the first
time, a government that has committed itself to huge social investment.
Thus, it is not so much the life of somebody in Diaspora, but more of
the life of a Nigerian. What is the life of a Nigerian worth? And we
think that has to be reflected not in terms of just what you say, but in
terms of the protection of the rights of people and what you are
investing in the lives of Nigerians. And that’s what we are committed to
as a government.
It is believed that there is
lopsidedness rather than reciprocity in the operation of businesses by
South Africans in Nigeria and vice versa. What is your view?
One of the critical things that we are
doing is bilateral relation and we are trying to expand the whole scope
of co-operation between Nigeria and South Africa. Now, when you make the
argument that there seems to be a lopsidedness in number of South
African companies doing business in Nigeria and the number of Nigerian
companies doing business in South Africa, you are probably right. But if
you look at the balance of trade, we are doing better. And that’s the
argument South Africa will always bring up. In terms of balance of
trade, we are at an advantage. It isn’t as if there is a great deal of
unfairness on one side or the other. They too can also talk about
imbalance. But having said that, one of the critical things that we
intend to talk to South Africa about is how we can do more business in
South Africa; how Nigerian businesses can be better occupied here.
Nigerian banks are anxious to come and do business in South Africa. They
are in other parts of the world; they are in Zambia, Ghana and some
other places. Thus, obviously, they would like to be able to open up
here and start business. And we intend to promote that as much as
possible. We intend to cooperate in defence as well as to see different
ways we can work together in those areas. We have a great opportunity
now because both President Jacob Zuma and President Buhari have a good
chemistry and we think that there is a good opportunity to expand the
scope of business both ways.
SOURCE:
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Chelsea’s Diego Costa lifted the mood of the distressed Mourinho’s
side after getting his goal following a horrendous mistake made by
Aston Villa’s back.
Chelsea’s Brazilian-born Spanish striker Diego Costa
Villa may have played the better football in this first half, but a
horrendous mistake at the back has cost them dearly. Guzan’s poor pass
to Lescott is cut out by Willian, who then charges into the box and
squares for Costa to tap the ball in from close range. It was a howler
from the keeper and it has suddenly lifted the mood at Stamford Bridge.
Recall that the Blues have endured a miserable start to the new season and have won just two of their eight league matches.
It’s another cruel blow for Villa, as Chelsea double their lead
thanks to a second goal for Costa. The Blues break quickly and the
Brazilian is picked out by a pass over the top from Fabregas. He then
cuts inside onto his right foot and fires in a drive which takes a huge
deflection of Hutton and leaves Guzan wrong footed as it drops into the
net.
Former Akwa-Ibom State Governor and current Senate Minority Leader,
Chief Godswill Akpabio has returned to the EFCC headquarters in Abuja
for questioning as part of investigations into allegations of N108.1
billion fraud against him while serving as Governor of his state between
2007 and 2015.
Akpabio
Akpabio was first questioned on Friday and left the facility at about 9PM local time.
He was again accompanied to the EFCC on Saturday by his lawyers led by Mr. Ricky Tarfa SAN and some aides.
Pope Francis will visit a refugee camp and a mosque in the Central
African Republic as well as a slum in Kenya during a trip to Africa next
month loaded with potential security risks.
The pontiff will be in Kenya from November 25 to 27, spend the next
two days in Uganda and travel on to the Central African Republic (CAR),
where the trip will end on November 30, according to a Vatican itinerary
published Saturday.
The three countries have significant Catholic communities and have
been troubled by civil conflicts and violence, which will increase
concerns surrounding possible attacks during the visit.
In Nairobi, Francis will tour the Kangemi slum, home to some 100,000
people who live in shacks without sewerage systems, including 20,000 who
belong to the local Catholic parish.
Though he regularly visited slums in Buenos Aires in his native
Argentina before becoming pope, Francis’s tendency to head off
unannounced from secured areas to mingle with the crowds will be a
headache for his bodyguards.
Islamic rebels have staged a string of attacks in Kenya, including
the April massacre at Garissa university in which 148 people — mostly
Christians — died, and the 2013 assault on the Westgate shopping mall
that killed 67.
The pontiff will meet with representatives of Kenya’s multi-faith community in a bid to promote inter-religious dialogue.
In Entebbe in Uganda, Francis will commemorate the canonisation by
Paul VI in 1964 of the first African saints — 22 young people killed in
1878 on the orders of the local ruler because they refused to renounce
their Christian faith.
And in Bangui, the CAR capital, the pontiff will tour a refugee camp
before visiting the city’s central Koudoukou mosque to meet
representatives of the Muslim community.
The trip will wind up with a final mass in the Barthelemy Boganda football stadium.
Here too security will be tight: the CAR descended into bloodshed
after a 2013 coup against longtime leader Francois Bozize unleashed a
wave of violence, pitting Christian anti-balaka militias against mostly
Muslim Seleka rebels.
Security at the Vatican was stepped up in February because of a
perceived heightened risk of attacks by Islamist militants, with the
head of the Vatican’s Swiss Guard confirming additional precautions had
been taken to ensure the safety of Pope Francis.
The Federal Ministry of Health has said that the student who died of
suspected fresh case of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Calabar, proved
negative to all pathogenic viruses known to man.
This is contained in a statement by Mr Linus Awute, Permanent Secretary in charge of the ministry in Abuja on Tuesday.
NAN reports that the ministry had earlier dispelled the speculation of fresh case of Ebola in Calabar.
“Various test conducted on the decease’s blood samples confirmed that
the deceased was negative for both the Ebola Virus and Lassa Fever
Virus.’’
The ministry had also directed that the Redeemers University’s
African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases at Ede,
Osun, to confirm which virus caused the infection and death.
According to him, the result shows that the decease patient is negative of pathogenic virus.
“The possibility of poisoning or intoxication with a chemical cannot be ruled out at this stage.
“The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) will continue with
this investigation in collaboration with National Agency for Food and
Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),’’ the statement stated.
It stated that the ministry had directed that the Accident and
Emergency (A&E) Unit where the patient was admitted would remain
closed throughout this weekend.
“The quarantined staff have been released and directed to report
twice daily for temperature monitoring and follow-ups where necessary.
“A hospital sensitisation seminar facilitated by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control was conducted.
“Normal clinical services have resumed at the University of Calabar
Teaching Hospital and the safety of this operation is guaranteed after
the detailed decontamination carried out.
The ministry, the statement added, reiterate that there was no Ebola
in Nigeria and the country remains Ebola free as certified by the World
Health Organisation.
The permanent secretary urged the Nigerians to observe personal and
environmental hygiene and keep reporting any suspected cases to the
health institutions nearest to them.
Government departments are intensifying efforts to win lucrative
public contracts in Saudi Arabia, despite a growing human rights row
that led the ministry of justice to pull out of a £6m prison contract in the kingdom last week.
Documents seen by the Observer show the government identifying Saudi Arabia as a “priority market” and encouraging UK businesses to bid for contracts in health, security, defence and justice.
“It’s becoming increasingly clear that ministers are bent on
ever-closer ties with the world’s most notorious human rights abusers,”
said Maya Foa, director of Reprieve’s death penalty team. “Ministers
must urgently come clean about the true extent of our agreements with
Saudi Arabia and other repressive regimes.”
The UK’s increasingly close relationship with Saudi Arabia – which
observes sharia law, under which capital and corporal punishment are
common – is under scrutiny because of the imminent beheading of two
young Saudis. Ali al-Nimr and Dawoud al-Marhoon were both 17 when they
were arrested at protests in 2012 and tortured into confessions, their
lawyers say. France, Germany, the US and the UK have raised concerns
about the sentences but this has not stopped Whitehall officials from
quietly promoting UK interests in the kingdom – while refusing to make
public the human rights concerns they have to consider before approving
more controversial business deals there. Several of the most important
Saudi contracts were concluded under the obscurely named Overseas Security and Justice Assistance (OSJA) policy,
which is meant to ensure that the UK’s security and justice activities
are “consistent with a foreign policy based on British values, including
human rights”. Foreign Office lawyers have gone to court to prevent the
policy being made public.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has written to David Cameron asking him to commit to an independent review of the use of the OSJA process.
“By
operating under a veil of secrecy, we risk making the OSJA process
appear to be little more than a rubber-stamping exercise, enabling the
UK to be complicit in gross human rights abuses,” Corbyn writes.
The UK has licensed £4bn of arms sales to the Saudis since the Conservatives came to power in 2010, according to research by
Campaign Against Arms Trade. Around 240 ministry of defence civil
servants and military personnel work in the UK and Saudi Arabia to
support the contracts, which will next year include delivery of 22 Hawk
jets in a deal worth £1.6bn. And research by the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute shows that the UK is now the kingdom’s largest arms supplier, responsible for 36% of all Saudi arms imports.
UK business want to capitalise on the fragile situation in the Middle
East. A 2013 document, written by an official at UK Trade and
Investment, the body charged with promoting business interests,,
outlines how the region’s “global policing and security market has
ballooned”. Freedom of information requests show that the UK Trade and
Investment Defence and Security Organisation (UKTI) is courting the
Saudis and that civil servants met Saudi military delegations at the
UK’s Security and Policing arms fair this year and last summer at the
Farnborough airshow. Civil servants were also due to meet Saudi
representatives at the major arms expo in London’s Docklands last month,
just as the regime upheld a ruling that al-Nimr was to be executed and
his body crucified and left in public view for three days.
The UKTI is offering grants to support businesses, including those
selling security equipment, to take part in overseas exhibitions aimed
at specific emerging markets, notably Saudi Arabia.
However,
human rights groups are asking why the UK is intent on selling arms and
security equipment to a repressive regime when it has withdrawn from
the prisons contract.
More than 100 people have been executed in the first six months of
this year in Saudi Arabia. Andrew Smith, of the Campaign Against Arms
Trade, said: “The Saudi regime has an appalling human rights record, yet
it remains the world’s largest buyer of UK weapons. How many more
people will be tortured and killed before the UK government finally says
enough is enough?”
It was concerns about Nimr and Karl Andree,
74, a UK citizen sentenced to 350 lashes for possession of alcohol,
that persuaded the justice secretary, Michael Gove, to pull out of the
prisons contract, , sparking a row with the foreign secretary Philip
iHammond, who reportedly accused him of naivety.
There are questions about other UK-Saudi deals. One is with the UK’s
National College of Policing, which signed a secret memorandum of
understanding to help modernise the Saudi ministry of the interior. The
UK also signed a 2011 memorandum of understanding with the regime on
healthcare.
“It seems ironic for the UK to be working on healthcare with the
Saudi regime at the same time as selling them the means to suppress and
kill their own people,” Smith said. According to human rights groups,
more than 100 people have been executed in the first six months of this
year in Saudi Arabia. Reprieve claims two Pakistani men convicted in the
Saudi courts are due to be beheaded very soon. According to their
lawyers, Muhammad Irfan and Safeer Ahmad, from Pakistan, were taken to
the kingdom by men posing as “employment agents”, and were led to
believe that they would find work there. The men’s lawyers say they were
forced to bring drugs into the country and were arrested by Saudi
police on arrival. Both were sentenced to beheading. It is believed that
the sentences have now been upheld, and that they now face imminent
execution.
Four months ago, Demeteriya Nabire was killed by a crocodile when she
went to the lake near her home to fetch water. The animal later came
back to the area but found Nabire’s husband waiting, ready to take
revenge. Demeteriya Nabire was at the water’s edge with a group of women
from her village – they were gathering water from Uganda’s Lake Kyoga
when the crocodile grabbed her. It dragged her away and she was never
seen again. Her
husband, Mubarak Batambuze, was devastated – Nabire was pregnant when
she died, and he had lost not only his wife but an unborn child as well.
He felt powerless. But then last month he heard the crocodile had
returned. “Somebody called me and said, ‘Mubarak, I have news for you –
the crocodile that took your wife is here – we are looking at it now.’”
The 50-year-old fisherman made his way to the lake with some friends.
“He was a very big monster, and we tried fighting him with stones and
sticks. But there was nothing we could do,” he says.
So Batambuze went to visit the local blacksmith.“I explained to him
that I was fighting a beast that had snatched and killed my wife and
unborn baby. I really wanted my revenge, and asked the blacksmith to
make me a spear that could kill the crocodile dead. “The Blacksmith
asked me for £3.20 ($5) and made the spear for me,” he says. It was a
significant amount of money for Batambuze, but he was determined to kill
the animal that had snatched his future.
“The crocodile ate my wife entirely. Nothing was ever seen of her
again – no clothes, no part of her body that I could identify. I just
didn’t know what to do – a mother and her unborn child. It was the end
of my world. I was completely lost.” Armed with his new spear –
specially designed with a barb on one side – the widower went on the
attack.
When he got to the water the crocodile was still there, but
Batambuze’s friends took fright. “Please don’t attack this beast,” they
pleaded, “it’s so huge it may eat you. The spear is not enough – it
won’t finish the job.” But Batambuze insisted they stay. “I failed
killing it the first time around,” he told them, “I’m not bothered if I
die killing this beast. I’m going to take it on with this spear, and I
will make sure that it dies.”
A Ugandan Wildlife Authority ranger, Oswald Tumanya, says the
crocodile was more than four metres long and weighed about 600kg. “I had
so much fear in me but what helped me to succeed was the spear,” says
Batambuze. He tied a rope to the end of the weapon so that once the tip
was embedded in the crocodile, he could pull it out at an angle and the
barb would cut into more of the animal’s flesh. “I put the spear into the crocodile’s side, and while my friends were
helping to throw stones at the beast’s back, it tried getting its mouth
up to attack me again. “It turned violent, and then there was so much
fear in the place. But I was so determined, and I wasn’t afraid of
dying. I just wanted it dead, so I put the spear in its side and I
pulled the rope. That got the crocodile into trouble.”
It took an hour and a half for Batambuze and his friends, fighting
and retreating, exchanging attacks with the enraged animal, before the
crocodile was finally dead. Exhausted, they made their way back to their
village. “There was so much shock. What really surprised everybody was
how big the beast was. It wasn’t an ordinary crocodile. It was so big.
And people called me and my friends heroes,” he says.
The dead animal was taken to Makarere University in Kampala, where it
was examined by a vet, Wilfred Emneku. He says a tibia bone was found
inside the crocodile’s stomach, but while he believes it’s human he
can’t be sure. A crocodile expert at Charles Darwin University in
Australia, Adam Britton, says he would be very surprised if any remains
inside the animal’s stomach were those of Demeteriya Nabire.
“After 12 weeks… under normal conditions, it would be highly
improbable for bones from the same meal to remain in the stomach,” he
says. So while Batambuze’s celebrity status endures in his village, it
is unlikely that he will ever have a grave to mourn at. “Within myself
I’m a very depressed man because I lost a wife and an unborn child,” he
explains.
“But the locals keep on saying, ‘Thank you for killing the beast,
that’s where we fetch water and we’re sure it would have taken somebody
else. Thank you so much, you did a great job.’” “So I’m a local hero –
people keep on thanking me.”
Jose Mourinho hopes Diego Costa’s return from suspension will provide
troubled champions Chelsea with the spark to ignite their spluttering
campaign.
Feted as kings of the Premier League in May, just five months later
the Blues are languishing in 16th place following a 3-1 home defeat
against Southampton.
That loss came amid reports of a dressing room mutiny against the Chelsea boss.
And, despite public backing from Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich,
Mourinho cut an agitated figure this week when he launched a scathing
attack on the Football Association after he was fined and given a
suspended one-match stadium ban following his criticism of the officials
in the Southampton match.
With tensions running high at Stamford Bridge, Mourinho is relieved
to welcome back Costa after a three-match ban and said the Spain
striker’s return had lifted morale ahead of Aston Villa’s visit on
Saturday.
“On Friday we had a good conversation. We laughed a lot because Diego
Costa found the reasons for the bad results,” Mourinho said.
“I cannot tell you but he gave us the solution to go back to victories.
“We cannot run away from the reality of the table in the Premier League.
“The numbers are very cruel and we need points, but obviously we know we’re not going to be relegated.”
Meanwhile, Jurgen Klopp has challenged Liverpool’s under-performing
stars to rediscover their swagger when the new Reds boss gets his first
taste of the Premier League against Tottenham.
All eyes will be on Klopp’s eagerly anticipated debut at White Hart
Lane following the highly-regarded German’s recent appointment as
successor to the sacked Brendan Rodgers.
The charismatic 48-year-old’s impressive track record at Borussia
Dortmund has established him as one of Europe’s top coaches and his
arrival has rekindled enthusiasm among Liverpool fans who had grown
disillusioned with Rodgers’ trophyless reign.
But, with Liverpool slumping to 10th place after just one win in
their last nine matches in all competitions, Klopp is well aware he
faces a major rebuilding job before he can dream of emulating legendary
Anfield managers like Bill Shankly, Bob Paisley and Kenny Dalglish.
“I have met two kinds of people in the last week: most of them say
‘We’ll win the league’ and the other guys look at me like ‘What have you
done? Why are you here?’,” Klopp said.
“Both are not right in this moment. It is not interesting what people think about this.”
– Fear of failure –
While Klopp is cautious about revealing his own ambitions, he has
already identified one key problem that needs to be solved if Liverpool
are to get back on track quickly.
He believes the players were hamstrung by a fear of failure as the
pressure mounted on Rodgers and he wants them to forget about past
mistakes.
“Some things you can change instantly: mentality, readiness,” Klopp said.
“I want to see more bravery, more fun in their eyes. I want to see that they like what they do.”
While Klopp will steal most of the headlines this weekend, new
Sunderland manager Sam Allardyce returns to the Premier League facing
arguably the toughest challenge of his career.
The second bottom Black Cats turned to Allardyce after Dick Advocaat
quit, making him the first man to take charge of bitter north-east
rivals Newcastle and Sunderland.
Allardyce, who left West Ham at the end of last season, has a well-earned reputation for helping clubs punch above their weight.
But Sunderland have failed to win any of their first eight matches
and defeat in Allardyce’s debut at struggling West Bromwich Albion would
be a hammer blow.
“It’s a big challenge. Even at this early stage of the season, it’s clear that we are in trouble,” Allardyce said.
“It could take the vast majority of our 30 matches to get safe.”
Leaders Manchester City host Bournemouth bolstered by captain Vincent
Kompany’s return after a five-game injury absence, but Manuel
Pellegrini’s side will be without star striker Sergio Aguero and key
midfielder David Silva after both suffered knocks on international duty.
Second placed Arsenal will face Watford for the first time in nine
years when they travel to Vicarage Road, while third placed Manchester
United are at Everton.
Fixtures (1400GMT unless stated)
Saturday
Chelsea v Aston Villa, Crystal Palace v West Ham, Everton v
Manchester United, Manchester City v Bournemouth, Southampton v
Leicester, Tottenham v Liverpool (1145GMT), Watford v Arsenal (1630GMT),
West Brom v Sunderland
Sunday
Newcastle v Norwich (1500GMT)
Monday
Swansea v Stoke (2000GMT)
smg/gnf
A series of recent government maneuvers in Alabama may prevent some citizens from voting across large swathes of the state, particularly in poverty-stricken Black Belt counties.
The first of the moves happened a year ago, when Alabama enacted a
law requiring voters to present government-issued identification at the
polls. The second happened two weeks ago, when the state shut down
dozens of driver’s license-issuing offices, leaving 28 counties with no
means of issuing the most common form of ID.
The Republican governor, Robert Bentley, says the office closures are
a cost-cutting measure. Opponents say they are an effort toward
disenfranchisement that harkens back to Alabama’s painful past. A
half-century ago, Bloody Sunday in Selma led to the Voting Rights Act,
removing obstacles for black voters.
While politicians and activists squabble in the state capital, many
residents in isolated, rural areas have not yet heard of the changes or
grasped their impact.
In Hale County, Sandra Smith works as the clerk at a state department
of transportation office. On Friday, she did not know that the county
no longer issued driver’s licenses.
“Well, I don’t like that,” she said. Then her face brightened. “I live in Perry County, so I should be OK.”
Not so – Perry County has also lost its license offices.
She gestured toward a photo of the governor hanging on the wall.
“Last I heard Mr Bentley was working to stop this?” she said. “I don’t know what people are going to do.”
Wilcox County is the poorest county in Alabama, and one of the
poorest in the nation. Outside the courthouse in the county seat of
Camden, Willie Moton sat on a corner selling vegetables and melons. He
is 72, and most days he spends about 10 hours on the corner. On a good
day, he said, he sells $30 in produce.
On Friday he tallied up his sales in a tattered notebook, and grinned. “This is a great day,” he said. He had made $33.
When told the state had closed Wilcox County’s driver’s license offices, his face fell.
“Oh, no. I hate to hear that,” he said. “My license has expired.”
The nearest license office, now, is in Selma, about 45 minutes away.
Wilcox County’s circuit clerk, Ralph Ervin, said Moton was lucky – he
can get his license renewed at the probate court in Camden. He could
also acquire a voter identification card at the county registrar’s
office. The problem is Moton, and many others like him, don’t know how
to navigate the various bureaucracies. Across the state a half million
voters – one in five – don’t have a photo ID.
And even when they do, Ervin said, people who live beyond walking
distance will struggle to get there. Working cars are so rare in Wilcox
County, he said, that a native ride-sharing barter economy has grown up.
When Ervin needs to gather a jury of 12 county residents for a trial,
he said, he regularly sends out more than 200 subpoenas, because so many
candidates will be stricken from jury duty because they have no
transportation.
“I know it’s hard for people outside to understand,” he said. “This is what poverty means.”
The idea of people here finding ways to and from farther towns, he
said, is nearly impossible: “The state is cutting from those who have
the least.”
Ervin’s forebears were slaves on the Ervin plantation in Wilcox
County. On Friday, as he worked out the implications of the two-step
change – requiring ID to vote, and then shutting down the most common ID
provider – his voice rose.
“Black people made it past the poll tax, literacy tests, everything,
to get the right to vote. Driving is a privilege, but voting is a
right,” he said. “Too many people fought and bled and died for the right
to vote, and now they’re taking it away.”
Here he arrived at an accusation that is starting now to rumble
across other counties: “It’s deliberate. It’s done by design.” It’s a
way, he said, of consolidating power in the wealthier – and whiter –
centers of Birmingham, Huntsville and Mobile.
Bentley argues otherwise. Where the state’s critics see purpose, he said, there is only coincidence.
Both sides could be right.
In the Alabama’s early history, its agricultural heart became known
as the Black Belt because of its dark, rich soil. Now it’s often called
that because of the color of its residents’ skin. That was never the
intended meaning of the term – but in reality slaves were concentrated
in those counties directly because of that same soil.
Likewise, Alabama’s officials may not now conspire to isolate the
state’s black citizens – but they make up the vast majority in the
affected, impoverished counties.
Outside the Wilcox County courthouse in Camden, Willie Moton’s friend
Breston Hughes sat next to him. The two waited together for customers
to stop for tomatoes or sweet potatoes.
“These politicians all talk about their Christianity, but what would
Jesus say to them?” Hughes said. “When they talk about cutting waste,
the waste they’re talking about is poor people. We are the waste.”
Hughes is 76; he said he lives on a monthly social security income of about $1,200.
Moton smiled. “Man, I wish I got that much,” he said.
His monthly social security check, he said, was $700. So he’ll just
keep hauling watermelons and sacks of peanuts, he said, until his back
gives out.
The AIDS Health Care Foundation (AHF), an NGO, on Thursday said that
about 50 per cent of Nigerians were yet to know their HIV status.
Mrs Oluwakemi Gbadamosi, the Advocacy Manager of the foundation, said
this in Abuja in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Gbadamosi said the figure was worrisome because of Nigeria’s
population of about 170 million people and its status as a country with
the second highest burden of HIV in Africa after South Africa.
According to her, Nigeria’s current HIV testing uptake is quite low
and for a country targeting 50 per-cent testing coverage, a robust
community testing drive is needed to bridge the yawning gap.
Speaking on the prevalence rate, Gbadamosi said the country had 3.1
per cent prevalence, with about 3.5 million people living with the
disease globally.
She said the UNAIDS in 2013 put the figures at 3.5 million people
living with HIV out of which 1.6 million people required anti-retro
viral drugs.
The UNAIDS, she said, puts the treatment gap at over 54 per cent,
revealing that only about 673,000 persons out of those living with the
disease were currently accessing treatment.
However, she urged stakeholders to put in place policies to enable
more people living with the virus access treatment using anti-retroviral
drugs.
According to her, there is need to increase the number of those without access to treatment to reduce AIDS-related deaths.
She said that the viral load of an AIDS patient would be reduced
drastically when placed on anti-retroviral therapy consistently and
correctly.
Some marketers on Thursday expressed concern over the shutdown of all
loading depots of the Pipelines Products Marketing Company (PPMC) in
the South West due to activities of vandals.
The
marketers, who spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on
condition of anonymity, expressed worry as over 2,000 trucks from
various states in the South West now come to load at private depots in
Apapa.
A NAN correspondent, who monitored the situation at Ejigbo Satellite
Depot in Lagos and Mosinmi Depot in Ogun State, reported that loading
was no longer going on at these places although trucks were parked
there.
An executive member of Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of
Nigeria (IPMAN) at Ejigbo Satellite Depot, who preferred anonymity,
told NAN that it had been a serious challenge to trucks coming from
Kwara, Ilorin, Ekiti, and Kogi to load at Apapa.
The source said that the current situation could lead to fuel scarcity if urgent steps were not taken.
According to the source, marketers have not also been able to load
petrol in all NNPC depots in the South West since September due to
pipeline vandalism.
“There might be scarcity of products soon because marketers now face serious problems getting the products in Apapa.
“We have over 4,000 trucks within the Western Zone that struggled to
load products at Apapa due to non-availability of products at depots in
Ejigbo and Mosinmi , but we hope that it will be resolved soonest,” the
source said.
At Mosinmi, a senior member of IPMAN urged Federal Government to
expedite action to combat pipelines vandalism in the area to reduce
loading challenges in the South West.
Another source at Mosinmi said that the depot had been shut since Sept. 10 due to shutdown of system 2B pipeline network.
“Marketers have resorted to lifting the product from Apapa depot which is very expensive and time consuming.
“The shutdown of the pipeline by PPMC over incessant vandalism in Arepo is causing serious hardship,” he said.
Mr Chinedu Okoronkwo, National President, IPMAN, condemned incessant
vandalism of pipelines, saying that the menace was causing huge losses
to the economy.
Okoronkwo said that IPMAN had constituted a surveillance team to curb
activities of vandals along the petroleum pipelines across the country.
He, however, lauded government’s initiative to curb incessant vandalism on pipelines network.
According to him, Federal Government is doing much is that direction
to address pipelines vandalism as it is easy to spoil, but difficult to
repair.
“Very soon, such will be addressed, l urge my members to bear with government on the ongoing challenges facing loading at Apapa.
“It is our collective responsibility to check and bring those pipelines culprits to book,” he said
Mr Tokunbo Korodo, Chairman, NUPENG (South-West), said that there was
the need for government to decentralise loading of products to make for
effective loading at depots across the country.
Korodo said that concentration of few trucks at Apapa could not address the fuel scarcity challenges in the Western Zone.
He said that the absence of Navy officials at the private depots contributed to the challenges of loading of products.
“NUPENG is not on strike, we are fully ready to work with the present
government in achieving its commitment to the general public.
“We are 100 per cent available to load at any time when the products
are available. Government should also stand firm to fight corruptions in
the country,’’ he said.
Korodo lauded the Group Managing Director of NNPC for his efforts to
find lasting solution to the oil and gas industry challenges.
Mr Nasir Imodagbe, Manager, Public Affairs and Community Relations at
PPMC, confirmed to NAN that the depots were shut down in Sept.18 and
Sept. 22, respectively due to pipeline vandalism that occurred in Arepo.
Imodagbe said that incessant vandalism of the pipeline contributed to
the shutdown of system 2B pipeline network, adding that government had
also put machines in motion to ensure adequate distribution of products
in the South West.
“There is no cause for panic buying because we have 23-days products sufficiency.
“The issue of queue should not arise, Nigerians should not engage in panic buying due to speculation.
“Government has put in place a robust system that would ensure
sufficient and effective petrol distribution chain network in the
South-West,” he said.
Like his favourite spiritual jazz records, Elaenia is improvisational
and designed to be heard in one go. But Shepherd says he “finds it
difficult to reconcile not being religious with being into spiritual
music”. Instead, he admires the genre architecturally. “Spiritual jazz,
for me, feels like building a space out of nothing and within that space
[the musicians] build their house, their city, their entire universe
through music,” he says excitedly. “They exist in this black hole and
they All
of which, to be honest, is starting to sound a bit rollneck jumper. But
Shepherd winces at the idea of anyone using the word “jazzy” to
describe his music, as if it could be found on the kind of compilation
that would’ve played in a hotel lobby in 1998. “It’s very sad to be
misunderstood. You can press play and have prejudices about what jazz is
or isn’t, but I like to imagine I make music that doesn’t require the
listener to have any prior knowledge or reference points.” After all, he
adds, “what kind of boring music is that?” Elaenia is anything but boring; even in its chaos, it is beautiful.
It builds like a hypnotic DJ set – a soothing balm after a hard day in
the office; a respite from a packed train full of screaming children
where you can’t sit down. Some people are angry Shepherd hasn’t made
Floating Points: The Bangerz album, he says, but he hopes they will find
Elaenia “inviting in some way” in spite of that. “I would like to feel
that a person walks into an empty room and that, through listening to
the record, the room is built for them without trying to push them out
at any point,” he explains. “I’m trying to draw people in.” You don’t need a thesis to enter Sam Shepherd’s lab – an open mind will do.
In a statement issued in Abakaliki, the National Director of
Information, MASSOB, Comrade Uchenna Madu threatened that any refusal by
the federal government to ensure the release of Kanu would lead to a
world wide demonstration, protest which would endanger the already
battered image of Nigeria before the international communities.
Villa may have played the better football in this first half, but a
horrendous mistake at the back has cost them dearly. Guzan’s poor pass
to Lescott is cut out by Willian, who then charges into the box and
squares for Costa to tap the ball in from close range. It was a howler
from the keeper and it has suddenly lifted the mood at Stamford Bridge.
Akpabio was first questioned on Friday and left the facility at about 9PM local time.
Her
husband, Mubarak Batambuze, was devastated – Nabire was pregnant when
she died, and he had lost not only his wife but an unborn child as well.
He felt powerless. But then last month he heard the crocodile had
returned. “Somebody called me and said, ‘Mubarak, I have news for you –
the crocodile that took your wife is here – we are looking at it now.’”
“I put the spear into the crocodile’s side, and while my friends were
helping to throw stones at the beast’s back, it tried getting its mouth
up to attack me again. “It turned violent, and then there was so much
fear in the place. But I was so determined, and I wasn’t afraid of
dying. I just wanted it dead, so I put the spear in its side and I
pulled the rope. That got the crocodile into trouble.”
“I put the spear into the crocodile’s side, and while my friends were
helping to throw stones at the beast’s back, it tried getting its mouth
up to attack me again. “It turned violent, and then there was so much
fear in the place. But I was so determined, and I wasn’t afraid of
dying. I just wanted it dead, so I put the spear in its side and I
pulled the rope. That got the crocodile into trouble.”
