REVEALED: The Deal Between President Jonathan And Aggrieved nPDP Governors

More facts have emerged on the Sunday night meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and aggrieved governors in the New Peoples Democratic Party.

Presidency sources made this known just as Jonathan met behind closed doors with some PDP governors loyal to the Bamanga Tukur-led National Working Committee of the party.

One of the sources at the Sunday meeting, said that the President and the other attendees discussed and agreed on five contentious issues: Amaechi’s suspension by the Tukur-led NWC; control of the PDP structure at the state level; Jonathan’s alleged 2015 ambition; Tukur’s fate and court cases.
On Amaechi, the parties agreed that he should be recalled and that a committee be constituted to visit Port Harcourt and reconcile all aggrieved members of the PDP in the state.

The governor was suspended on June 21 for his alleged refusal to “obey the lawful directive of the Rivers State Executive Committee to rescind his decision dissolving the elected Executive Council of Obiokpor Local Government Area of the state.”

The meeting also accepted that all the governors of the party, including the aggrieved ones, should be
in charge of the State Working Committees of the party in their respective states.

It was further learnt that since the governors were to be in charge of the party structures in their states, President Jonathan should determine the fate of Tukur, who all the aggrieved governors want removed.

Our source said that “the President argued that since it had been accepted that he should not interfere in the running of the party at the state level, he should be allowed to determine what would happen to its national chairman (Tukur).”

He added that the meeting, which was also attended by three pro-Tukur governors – Godswill Akpabio(Akwa Ibom), Idris Wada(Kogi) and Liyel Imoke (Cross River State) – agreed that all pending court cases concerning the party must be withdrawn immediately.

Amaechi is therefore expected to withdraw a case in which he is challenging his suspension. Also, numerous cases filed by members of the New PDP and the Tukur-led PDP will also be discontinued.

It was gathered that Jonathan’s 2015 ambition,generated heated arguments as the aggrieved governors insisted that he had told them that he would not run for a second term.

According to our source, the President argued that there was no time he told anyone that he would not contest for second term.

We gathered that Jonathan specifically accused one of the aggrived governors, Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, of misleading Nigerians on the 2015 debate.

Aliyu was said to have told the President he had said at different fora that he was not going to seek re-election.

“The governor listed Ethiopia, United States and different caucus meetings of the party where the President made the statements,” our source added.

When argument on the issue raged,the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the PDP , Chief Tony Anenih, who was also present at the meeting,which was held at the Presidential Villa in Abuja,
interjected and advised that it should be suspended for a latter date.
The source said, “It was a give and take meeting, but at the end of the day, we agreed that the issue of 2015 should be revisited and resolved amicably.

“I can tell you that the meeting was very frank . We all spoke our minds, including the President and his deputy (Namadi Sambo). So, we wait to see the implementation of the resolutions reached.”
The other aggrieved governors, who were also pillars of the New PDP at the meeting were Amaechi (Rivers), Rabiu Kwankwanso (Kano), Murtala Nyaho (Adamawa), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), and Abdulfatah Ahmed (Kwara).

A statement read by Aliyu at the end of the talks stated that the parties agreed to avoid inflammatory remarks, pending the final resolution of the crisis.

The statement added that further talks would continue on October 7.

On Monday Jonathan held secret talks with Wada, Benue State Governor Gabriel Suswam and other PDP governors loyal to Tukur at the Presidential Villa.

The identitities of the other governors were not known as they arrived in the Villa in vehicles with security number plates.

A source in the Villa described the meeting as “consultative.”

Earlier on Monday, Akpabio and Anenih were also sighted in the Villa. Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the leadership of the PDP was happy that the problems bedevilling the party were being resolved.

Metuh said, “We are very happy and grateful to the President, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, the chairman of BoT and other elders of the party.

“We are also happy with our governors. We are happy that the party has shown that it is capable of resolving its crises.”

In spite of the ‘no inflammatory comment order’, the Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Mr. Ahmed Gulak, boasted on Monday that nobody could intimidate the President into not contesting in 2015.

“The 1999 Constitution gives Mr. President the right to offer himself for second term if he so chooses and no individual or group can abridge his constitutional right. If he decides not to contest, let it be on his own volition not because he is intimidated or cajoled into doing that, ” he told State House correspondents in Abuja.

Gulak, who added that peace was gradually returning to the party, said that Tukur would survive the crises.

He said, “The national chairman has no problem. He was elected and I always say that as there are processes for election, there are processes for removal or resignation. So nobody can cajole anybody to say the national chairman will not survive. Nobody is against the national chairman.”
The Presidential aide dismissed claims that the crisis would mark the end of the ruling party, saying it (PDP) has internal mechanism for resolving its problems

“We have entered into dialogue. Peace is gradually returning to the PDP in accordance with the constitution of the party and in accordance with the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. These two documents are our guides. We abide by them and we dialogue in accordance with the provision of the constitution,” he said.

Gulak explained that the President would consider the demands of the aggrieved governors based on the constitution

He also said that the President would never ask the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission not to perform its duties.

ASUP Strike: FG Agrees To Meet Poly Lecturers’ Demands

Minister of State for Education, Chief Nyesom Wike

The Federal Government on Monday met with the leadership of the Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics behind closed doors and agreed to meet the demands of the union.
The Minister of State for Education, Nyesom Wike, and the Labour Minister, Emeka Wogu co-chaired the meeting while ASUP President, Chibuzo Asomugha, led the union team.
None of the parties, however, spoke with journalists after the brief meeting held at the Federal Ministry of Education in Abuja.
However, a source at the meeting, who confided in our correspondent, said the union obtained a strong commitment from the government.
He said, “The union tabled three key issues at the meeting. One is the need to constitute the governing councils of the remaining seven polytechnics. Wike was said to have informed the union that the Federal Government had agreed to constitute the remaining governing councils. He promised that the list would be out by this week and the union was happy about it.
“He also promised that the white paper on the visitation panel to the polytechnics was almost ready and would be released soon.
“On the CONTISS 15, Wike promised to work with the Minister of Labour to get the circular ready from the Head of Service having got commitment from the Presidency to work out the modality on the migration to CONTISS 15 for the polytechnic teachers

Azuka Onwuka: The Injustice Done To Muslims

One thing a Nigerian hates is to hear: “Nigerians are fraudulent” or “Nigerians are drug traffickers.” Most Nigerians take offence at this unfair generalisation and stereotyping. Most Nigerians are always quick to say that it is unfair to use the activities of less than one per cent of the population to describe 170 million people. That is true.
Ironically, the same people who take offence when their nation is stereotyped do not think twice before stereotyping Muslims. To such people, there is a justification for that: Most suicide bombers are Muslims. But when you point out to them many Muslims that have never been associated with violence or religious intolerance, they tell you: “Those ones are different.” You are then left to wonder: If those ones, who are Muslims, are different, why then tar all Muslims with the same brush?
But then, many people enjoy stereotyping and taunting others that have a different culture, religion or race. It makes them feel superior.
Religion is one sure-fire means through which a person with only elementary school education can make a professor commit suicide willingly and happily. The reason is that there is no nobler act than that which is presumably done to satisfy the Almighty, thereby attracting the reward of eternal bliss to the individual.

On November 18, 1978, about 920 people were killed through a combination of murder and mass suicide, ordered by Jim Jones, an American who had broken away from the Sommerset Southside Methodist Church in Indianapolis, to found the Peoples Temple Christian Church. After ordering the killing of Congressman Leo Ryan, who had visited his church to investigate claims of abuse, Jones ordered his members to commit suicide. On the evening of November 18, in Jonestown, Jones ordered his congregation to drink a concoction of cyanide-laced, grape-flavoured drink. Parents were instructed to inject their children with the same drink.

The mass suicide and killings at Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a non-natural, non-accidental disaster prior to the al-Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001.
In a similar vein, on March 17, 2000, the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda, orchestrated the mass murder of about 778 members because of revolt about the non-fulfilment of their prophecy that the world would end on January 1, 2000. Members were made to sell off or give away their possessions. When the world did not end on January I, they shifted the date to March 17, and orchestrated an explosion that killed many members. The corpses of some members were found at other sites with signs showing that they had been poisoned, stabbed or strangled before the explosion.

These examples show how religious leaders can indoctrinate and manipulate their followers to either kill others or commit suicide in the vain belief that they are executing a divine assignment.
There is no doubt that there have been many people who have engaged in terrorism or violence in the name of Islam. The most notorious of them all is Osama bin Laden. In Nigeria, such a figure is Abubakar Shekau, who took over the headship of Boko Haram after the death of the founder, Mohammed Yusuf. One would look at the blood-thirstiness of such men and ask if they are human beings at all. What is their mission? Why kill innocent citizens for a cause that people don’t understand? These and many more questions gnaw at the hearts of many non-Muslims.

But then when you look at the people who work with you or have been your friends, you discover that many of them are devout Muslims who pursue peace and love in all their dealings. Whenever there is an act of violence involving a Muslim, such peace-loving Muslims feel as sad and angry as you do, or even more, because they get condemned and cursed for being Muslims.

Before the declaration of emergency rule in Borno, Jigawa and Adamawa states, many people in the South believed that most Northerners supported the violence of the Boko Haram. It did not matter that many Northern Muslims had been killed by the extremists. Many Northern leaders were urged to vehemently condemn the activities of the sect. But it was like a Catch-22: Condemn them and get killed; keep quiet and be called a sympathiser or sponsor of the sect.

It was only when the army got an upper hand in the fight against the sect that youths of the North came out in their hundreds as “Civilian JTF” to fight against the sect. They complained that Boko Haram had killed their relatives and destroyed their communities. They mounted roadblocks and also passed information to the army regarding members of the Boko Haram. A man was even said to have invited the army to come for his Boko Haram son, and when the son was killed, the man was said to have expressed happiness that such a deviant son had been eliminated.

In retaliation, the Boko Haram members have unleashed their wrath on these youths that had risen against them. They have killed many of these youths whom they believed had made it easier for the military to smoke them out and kill them, including their leader, Shekau, whom the military announced must have died in a confrontation with the army.

It became clear that it was fear of being wiped out with one’s family that made many people in the North to keep quiet about the Boko Haram until now.

Religion is a thing of faith and belief. It comes with passion. It comes with submission. Most times you are not meant to question anything. If you ask questions, it could attract dire consequences, depending on your religion or religious leader.

In addition, most people are adherents of a particular religion because they were born into it. The percentage of people who move out of their parents’ religion is low. For example, a Christian may change from the denomination of his parents to another Christian denomination but the percentage of Christians who become Muslims or Buddhists is small, and vice versa.

If one was born to Sokoto parents, one would most likely be a Muslim. If one was born to Anambra parents, one would most likely be a Christian. If one was born to Jewish parents in Israel, one would most likely practise Judaism. Likewise, someone born to Indian parents has a high chance of being a Hindu. Nobody chose his or her parents, state or country.

Furthermore, every religion believes that it is the best: the one ordered by the Almighty. Therefore, it is futile for you to believe that you can force or cajole others to see the light and leave their religions for yours. Once in a while, someone would move to another religion, but it is impossible for all human beings to convert to one religion.

But even though the minority Muslims who have guns and bombs tend to overawe other Muslims, the peaceful majority need to also fight back, not through guns and bombs, but through a type of demarketing strategy. One key way of doing this is to mount a persistent campaign of branding the violent and extremist Muslims as enemies of Islam. The reason these people kill others and themselves is because they believe they are carrying out a divine assignment. If increasingly, they are portrayed as those working against Allah, and those who will end up in hell, it will help to make their activities less popular and attractive.

There is also a need to always identify any preacher who directly or indirectly preaches hate, and report him to the authorities. Such preachers are the ones that sow the seed of hatred in people and make them think that they have a divine duty to kill or destroy. No man is born a terrorist or a hate monger. People get indoctrinated by others.

Confession: Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho not expecting 2004 repeat

Jose Mourinho insists that nobody should expect a repeat of 2004, when he swept to the Premier League title in his debut campaign with Chelsea.

The Portuguese tactician saw his side go down to their first defeat of the season at Everton at the weekend, which means it is their worst start in the Roman Abramovich era, even though they are just two points adrift of leaders Arsenal.

Mourinho has warned that things are different for him and Chelsea nearly 10 years on from when he arrived at the club from Porto.

"No, it is not 2004 all over again," he is quoted by the Daily Mirror.

"Then we lost against Manchester City in October - our only defeat. But that is not the point. We are not unbeatable. This is a different team.

"Saturday was the story of a team with 21 shots that couldn't score a goal. That is the beauty of football."
Jose Mourinho
"I came here to work - I don't say peacefully because I am the first one that does not like to work peacefully - but to work with time, to develop the players and play the best they and we can.

"We have to be effective, be adult and not naive. That is what we have to work on. We have to transform the beautiful football we played into goals.

"We are not a club who will accept in a cool way that things will come. We're going to chase it.

"The beginning of the season was hard. Away against Manchester United, away in the Super Cup against Bayern, and away against Everton.

"But Saturday was the story of a team with 21 shots that couldn't score a goal. That is the beauty of football.

Why Nollywood marriages breakdown –Iyabo Ojo Reveals

Iyabo Ojo, Nollywood actress, is a household name and a front-liner in the Yoruba movie circle even as she maintains a crossover appeal with the English counterpart. Noted more for her girl-about-town roles, Ojo is also a film producer of class, having churned out award-wining flicks like Omo Gomina and Arinzo currently making waves, and Tembelu just waiting to be released. She spoke to Gboyega Alaka on a number of industry issues, including her latest works, the susceptibility of Nollywood marriages, piracy and her newly opened beauty clinic.

YOU are one actress who's got a peculiar swagger to your personality, especially when acting the girl-about-town roles; where did all that come from?

Well I guess that might suggest that I kind of grew up in the streets. But not at all; I'm actually a very homely girl. My grandmother is Ibo and in Ibo tradition, after school, the next thing for the woman is the kitchen. So I'm a relatively homely girl. But where did I get all the swag and charisma from? First, I'd say from God. When I started acting, I started going out a lot, to events, to nightclubs; and when I'm out there, I try to study people a lot. I see how the town girls behave, how they talk; more especially those with unusual characters.

Have you at any time suffered stigmatisation by people based on certain roles you have played?

Yeah, a lot of that happens. I know I regularly play town-girl, bad babe, armed robber, criminal; and some people unfortunately tend to see me in that light, probably because of my look or because I play it well and maybe because I also have tattoos on me. I know people tend to regard those of us wearing tattoos like, 'Oh, she has tattoos, so she must be a very baaaaad girl.' However, when they have the opportunity of getting close to me, the equation usually changes and the next thing is 'Iyabo, are you always this quiet?'

Your latest film, Arinzo, has all the trappings of a blockbuster, what has been the response in the market?

It's been wonderful. Even up till this moment, I keep getting messages from my fans and they're just loving it. The good news is that the concluding part is going to be out this September and I'm sure they can't wait to see it. This is the first time I'm dividing my films into two, which is a way of combating the piracy menace; but I'm glad they're looking beyond that.

Aside Arinzo, what other films have you produced?

I have Tembelu. It's the first old school comedy in Yoruba. The promo is already out; but we want the concluding part of Arinzo to hit the market before we release it. And there is Enu Orofo which I shot for Gbeminiyi Adegbola, who has been my P. A. for over nine years. She's the producer, but I am the executive producer. Of course, I have talked about Omo Gomina. Timbale is in the studio, as we speak, and once that is out, I'll be going on location again to shoot another movie.

What were the challenges making that movie, considering that it is a Yoruba movie, shot mainly in Ghana and featuring some Ghanaian acts as well?

What I do usually before I go into any production is plan ahead. It took me a year before I got myself ready to shoot Arinzo, going back and forth to Ghana to get the right person to stand for me and co-ordinate activities. And once I got that person, she took charge and made sure all logistics worked well for a smooth shooting. However, it was capital-intensive, but because we had planned it ahead, it wasn't outrightly difficult to accomplish.

When you shoot a film outside Nigeria, do you have to pay some kind of fee or you just move in and shoot?

Of course we pay, like when I went to shoot the film Omo Gomina in South Africa. I also had a co-ordinator on ground, who took care of all the fees, while I just made the fund available. In Ghana, we had to pay for the fact that we were coming to shoot in the country. We also paid for the airport that we used in the film; we paid for the police because we used real policemen and their vans and their guns. We even had to fill a form; we had to send a letter ahead, even to the university that we used, for approval – the university didn't take a dime.

Tell us of the challenges of being an actress?

The major challenge that comes with being an actress is that people tend to have a different opinion about you based on what they watch. Aside that, a lot of people want to be your friend, or want you to be their mentor. And if you don't respond the way they want – because you can't respond accordingly to everybody's expectation – it becomes a problem. There is also the part where people violate your privacy and write a lot of things about you that may or may not be true. Apart from these, being an actress is just an interesting experience. It can be very tasking and strenuous but you learn to manage that.

Nollywood is replete with cases of broken marriages, and here you are too, a single mother who was once married….

I wasn't even a star when I got married. And when I got out of my marriage, I still wasn't a star. Up until I got married, I'd only featured in one film, Satanic, and I pulled out of the industry the moment I got married. So I wasn't acting in those years that I was married. I was a full-time housewife and businesswoman. And so if I had problems with my marriage, it had nothing to do with my acting profession. I actually chose to come back into acting because I had started having issues with my marriage and knew it wasn't making me happy. And I knew that wasn't the way I wanted to live my life. Yes, there are lots of problems in celebrity marriages; and the reason is that as celebrities, we live in our own world. We work hard a lot, moving from one location to the other; and usually when a female in the industry meets a male guy who just comes from the blues, he usually comes with a lot of loaded lies and sweeps some of these colleagues of mine off their feet. And they in turn are not patient enough to study these guys well enough, because 'society expects them to be married.' So people tend to marry for specific reasons, and as far as I am concerned, you mustn't be able to define the reason you love someone to the extent of marriage. Once you get married for a reason, then there is a problem. I got married because I was pregnant. That was a reason. My husband married me because I was pregnant for him. That was also a reason. Most men get married to ladies in the industry because of the celebrity aura around them, only to realise that there is a lot to marriage than that. They also discover that in reality, these ladies aren't as perfect as the screens project them. And then the men cannot get used to the ego that comes with the profession and typically want to be the man and break those wings. And if the woman is such that wouldn't be tamed, then there is a crisis and a collision.

Piracy continues to be a problem in Nigeria. As a major player, how do you view the menace?

It's annoying. It's frustrating. You know Arinzo came out on a Monday; now by Tuesday the following day, a friend of mine went to the market and bought a pirated copy. Now, the CD didn't just contain Arinzo alone, but two other films were added and sold at a hundred naira. It's that bad. Now some of us want to shoot good movie, but when you spend so much money on a film and you don't make that money back, then you get discouraged. And that's why we keep saying that the government need to set up a task force with a primary responsibility of dealing with this menace, just as they have KAI Brigade dealing with people who cross the highways.

Let's talk about FESPRIS, your new beauty clinic.

FESPRIS is a combination of my two children, Festus and Priscilla. It opened officially on August 11, 2013 and it's basically a beauty clinic where we have a spa, do scrub, facials; we also have the salon where you do your hair, nail studio for nails, manicure and pedicure; the tattoo section, where you can have your tattoos and piercing. I also have my office here from where I run my business, because I'm also into events management. I have ushers, I have models and I also do bridal beads, bridal make-up; and cakes of all sorts.

Nigeria, 18 Others Barred From US Visa Lottery

Nigeria and some other countries will no longer be eligible to participate in the America Diversity Visa lottery programme.

Information from the United States Department of State sighted on Sunday said Nigerians and citizens from few other countries were not eligible for DV-2015

The department said Nigeria was excluded since over 50,000 Nigerians had immigrated into the United States in the last five years.

The department listed other countries not eligible as Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, China (mainland-born), Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador and Haiti.

Others are India, Jamaica, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, South Korea, United Kingdom (except Northern Ireland) and its dependent territories, and Vietnam

However, many African countries would continue to enjoy the programme.

Some of them are Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cote D'Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia and Ghana.

Others are Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Seychelles and Sierra Leone.

Diversity visas are said to be distributed among six geographic regions, while no single country could receive more than seven per cent of the available space in any year.

Already, advertsiements for the 2015 US DV lottery have started with several businesses inviting Nigerians to apply for the program.

Applications for the 2015 US DV lottery is expected to take off from October 1, 2013.

In 2012, 14,769, 658 persons were said to have qualified worldwide for the US DV lottery among the 19, 672, 269 which applied.

ASUU Strike: Baraje Led PDP Faction Begins 7 Days Fasting And Prayer

Worried by the prolonged strike by members of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, the Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led new Peoples Democratic Party, nPDP, has commenced a seven-day fasting and prayer starting from today.

To make it very effective, the new PDP has requested all its members worldwide to embark on the exercise, adding that the spiritual intervention was as a result of the concern of the Baraje-led PDP for the plight of parents and university students due to the continued closure of public universities following the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU.

It added that the move was designed to protest what it described as the Federal Government's failure to keep the agreement it signed with the union in 2009.

Meanwhile, Alhaji Baraje has set up a four-man Committee with Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State as Chairman to advise the party on the best way to get the Federal Government's negotiating committee and the leadership of ASUU to reach an agreement on the issues at stake and thus end this three-month-old strike.

Other members of the committee are Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, Chinwo Ike, President of UNIPORT Alumni, and Mr. Timi Frank, the nPDP National Youth Leader.

The group said: "We sincerely solicit the patience of Nigerians while appealing to the Federal Government and the leadership of ASUU to end this imbroglio so that our children may go back to school instead of engaging in acts inimical to their future.

"The need for this has become urgent as reports reaching us indicate that many of these students have out of frustration and boredom turned to prostitution, armed robbery and other vices due to the prolonged strike.

On its secretariat that was sealed by the police, Eze said: "To the glory of God, contrary to the prayers of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur's faction of PDP, a Federal High Court in Abuja onSeptember 13, 2013, ruled that the Baraje faction of PDP should be allowed to operate without any further harassment or inhibition as it is not breaking any known law. Justice E.S. Chukwu in his ruling held that there was no evidence before the court to show any tardiness on the part of Baraje's faction as claimed by the Tukur-led faction, which requested it to stop the Baraje-led PDP from operating."