Nigeria’s anti-corruption agency falling far short – Human Right Watch

On August 25, 2011 · In News

LAGOS-(AFP) – Nigeria’s main anti-corruption agency has been hobbled by incompetence, internal graft allegations and suspicions of political interference, according to a report by Human Rights Watch released Thursday.

The report examining the work of the country’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) paints a bleak picture when it comes to prosecuting high-profile politicians in one of the world’s most graft-ridden nations.

It says the commission has only managed four convictions of nationally prominent political figures since it was established in December 2002, and those convicted have faced little or no prison time.

“Other senior political figures who have been widely implicated in corruption have not been prosecuted,” the report says.

“Despite its promise, the EFCC has fallen far short of its potential and eight years after its inception is left with a battered reputation and an uncertain record of accomplishment.”

The US-based rights group also points out that the commission faces enormous obstacles in carrying out its work in Nigeria, where corruption is deeply rooted and part of everyday life in all levels of society.

“At a fundamental level, Nigeria’s political system continues to reward rather than punish corruption,” it says of Africa’s most populous nation and the continent’s largest oil producer.

It restates the claim by former EFCC chairman Nuhu Ribadu that more than $380 billion was lost to graft and mismanagement from independence in 1960 to the end of military rule in 1999.

Eric Guttschuss, the rights group’s Nigeria researcher, cited the case of prominent ruling party figure Bode George while addressing journalists at the launch of the report in Lagos.

George, who was also chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, was the only one of the four nationally prominent EFCC convictions to be obtained at trial, receiving a sentence of two-and-a-half years in prison. The other EFCC convictions came through plea bargains.

But when he emerged from prison earlier this year, some of the country’s top politicians welcomed him back.

“The positive example of his conviction was diminished however when he was treated to a rapturous reception by key ruling party figures, including ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, who ironically established the EFCC,” he said.

The report makes reference to graft allegations against the EFCC under the current chairwoman, Farida Waziri, as well as the widespread perception that she has been ineffective.

It says it could find no concrete evidence of corruption, but calls for President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration to examine Waziri’s performance.

Reacting to the report, EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi said its finding that the commission has secured only four convictions of high-profile political figures was too narrow.

He argued that certain convictions of business people as well as heads of state agencies should also qualify as high-profile, pointing in particular to Oceanic Bank ex-chief Cecilia Ibru.

Ibru, from one of the country’s most prominent families, was sentenced to six months in prison last year and ordered to forfeit funds and assets worth some 1.2 billion dollars.

Babafemi declined to comment in detail on the internal graft allegations, saying they were rumours with no proof.

“Some of these allegations are made by people who are either being investigated by the commission or made by people who have one grievance or another against the commission,” he told AFP.

22 August 2011 Last updated at 00:00

Nigeria: Where religion is big business

By Tomi Oladipo BBC, Lagos

Chris Okotie preaching at his church in Lagos, Nigeria

An increasing number of Nigeria's 70 million Christians are followers of the prosperity teachings - the belief that prosperity is a sign of spiritual blessing. Services are held in megachurches that hold thousands, with millionaire pastors preaching the word.

A lady scrolls down the screen of her tablet PC as she reads the Bible along with the rest of the congregation, a huge diamond-encrusted ring shining on her finger.

Hanging from the ceiling of the Household of God Church are several chandeliers, lighting up a plush 5,000-seat auditorium.

A water fountain hisses in the distance, though it is only heard when the dazzling character on stage singing passionately and occasionally speaking in tongues falls into silence.

This is the Reverend Chris Okotie, a former pop star turned pastor, businessman and politician.

A recent Forbes rich list included him among Nigeria's five wealthiest pastors, with assets of anywhere between $3m and $10m. But is he truly this rich?

"Possibly," he replies, with his giant multi-coloured Jacob & Co brand wristwatch shining from the end of his sleeve.

Private jets

Mr Okotie is one of several millionaire pastors leading churches in Lagos that are rapidly expanding across Nigeria, the rest of Africa and the US, Europe and Asia.

One of the key messages these churches preach is that financial prosperity is a sign of God's favour.

As they have grown in popularity since the early 1990s, so has the wealth of their pastors.

Many of them own luxury cars, while a few even travel in their own private jets.

Mr Okotie argues that prosperity is an integral part of the gospel.

"It is written about Jesus, specifically, that he became poor so that the believer might become rich, because he recognised that poverty is not part of God's plan for man," he says.

The head of another church, David Oyedepo, is said to have a net worth of up to $150m.

His Living Faith Church - also known as Winners Chapel - hosts three services every Sunday in Lagos, in a 50,000-seat church, and has branches in Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Ivory Coast, South Africa, Gambia, the UK and the US.

He also runs a publishing house, a university and a secondary school.

But it is another popular church, the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), which leads the pack, having thousands of outposts around the world - including at least 2,000 in Nigeria, and close to 400 in the UK.

Large donations

The churches earn money from sales of books written by the pastors, and CDs and DVDs of the sermons, but the bulk of their revenue is said to come from donations from the congregation.

Some people find the idea of churches amassing such wealth problematic.

Local press reports that David Oyedepo was selling two of his church's private jets led to accusations of extravagance, although his church insists the planes were used by senior staff for work.

Nigeria's anti-corruption agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, recently said that churches needed to find out the sources of larger donations, to ensure the money was legitimately earned, if the country's fight against corruption was to be successful.

The head of the commission, Farida Waziri, insists that the church's prosperity "must come legitimately".

"A responsible pastor should know where the tithe of his worshipper is coming from," she says. "How and where did you make the money that you are bringing in as tithe? It is not enough for your member to bring in a huge amount and you say 'God bless you.'"

Some Nigerians want to see a clearer line drawn between the churches' possessions and those of their pastors.

Chris Okotie says his personal wealth comes from his previous career as a musician and from his other business ventures.

But critics accuse the pastors of taking advantage of needy congregations, by telling them to give money to the church in exchange for financial and spiritual rewards from God.

These churches are "big-time businesses being managed by entrepreneurs", says Leo Igwe of the Nigeria Humanist Movement.

"It's as a result of poverty, social and economic collapse problems. Nigerians have become desperate, and gullible, and these churches service this market."

"No! No! No!" responds Prince Okpaku, a member of Chris Okotie's congregation.

"It is God that has brought us thus far, and He's not even interested in offerings. The offering is strictly for benevolence assistance," he says.

Still, the churches continue to expand and, as more branches open around the world, they are proving to be among Nigeria's most successful exports.

Echoes of Senate probe of BPE, Written by Ayodele Adesanmi Thursday, 18 August 2011

Echoes of Senate probe of BPE

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Written by Ayodele Adesanmi Thursday, 18 August 2011

Senator David Mark, Senator Ahmad Lawan, Bola Onagoruwa and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai

In this report, Ayodele Adesanmi presents the revelations, accusations and counter-accusations as they unfolded during the one-week public hearing conducted by the Senate on the activities pf the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

Ordinarily, privatisation and commercialisation of public enterprises is a policy meant to relief government of liabilities and waste. It was also aimed at ensuring efficiency in the running of enterprises. Those who hold this view believe that privatisation would enlarge the scope for private sector to operate.

The proponents of the privatisation also insists that it was an economic strategy aimed at reducing the role of government in economic activities believing that public enterprise have consumed a large proportion of national resources without people benefitting from the large investment. In Nigeria, it was reported that in 1998 alone, over N268 billion was spent on public enterprise in subsides and waivers, the amount that would have assisted tremendously if invested in education, health, and other social sectors.

To many Nigerians, the experience so far has been uninspiring as many of the companies sold or privatised have remained moribund. To many observers, privatisation and commercialisation of public enterprises in Nigeria mean more like enriching the few at the expense of the majority. They also see it as amounting to selling off of the common wealth of the nation to a privileged few.

The government, therefore, set up the Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) to privatise and commercialise, as the case may be, public enterprises with the objective of reducing or eliminate the drain on public treasury. It also seek to reducing corruption, modernise technology, strengthen domestic capital markets, promote efficiency and better management, reduce debt burden and fiscal deficit, resolve massive pension funding problems, broaden the base of ownership of business. Others include generating funds for the treasury, promoting governance, attracting foreign involvement and attract back flight capital. Whether the BPE has met and realised these objectives is a matter that is open for debate.

In the face of the widespread failure of many of the privatised companies, many are quick to say that the exercise had failed. One of such Nigerians is Senator Ahmad Lawan, former Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Accounts who moved a motion on the floor of the Senate to draw attention to the activities of BPE in the last 12 years. Lawan, alongside 25 other senators, had moved the motion in July, seeking a probe of the activities of the BPE as regards privatised companies. The senators contended that the Federal Government embarked on the privatisation and commercialisation of federal public enterprises through the enactment of the Privatisation and Commercialisation Act No 25,1988, the Bureau of Public Enterprises Act No 78, 1993 and the Public Enterprises Act, 1999.

Lawan, who moved the motion, recognised that the primary and fundamental purpose of privatisation by the Federal Government is to divest and free the subsidies that were paid into the operations of the enterprises, in order to better fund the provision of critical and crucial infrastructure. He said that the senators were surprised that the chairman of the National Council of Privatisation (NCP), Vice-President Namadi Sambo, told the nation that 80 per cent of government companies that have been privatised have failed to operate properly due to lapses in the privatisation process. He observed that, due to the collapse of the privatised companies, there are massive loss of jobs and colossal loss of financial returns to the national economy, giving the example of the steel sector that used to employ up to 20,000 workers, but now with less than 4,000 workers.

At the end of the day, the entire Senate supported the motion and an ad hoc committee was subsequently set up to investigate the activities of the BPE from 1999 to date. The committee, which has two weeks within which to submit its reports, has Senator Lawan as the chairman with Senators Babafemi Ojudu, Alli Ndume, Philip Aduda, Infeanyi Okowa, Hope Nzodima and Mohammed Magoro as members. According to its terms of reference as spelt out by Senate President David Mark, the committee is to investigate the process through which the BPE privatised the companies and establish the agreements and conditions upon which the privatisation was consummated. The committee would also determine how much was realised from the sale of the companies and where the proceeds were paid into; determine how many jobs were lost and gained after the privatisation exercise and identify factors that are militating against the expected improved and good performance of the privatised companies.

The Senate President, during its inauguration, said; “the purpose is to find out why the privatisation has not gone the way government intended it to go. Let me say, straight away, that it is not to witch hunt anybody, nobody is a target. Government may have made some mistakes in the process. The idea is to find out where the mistakes are, rectify them and see whether we can put them back. We represent the people and we hear the grumblings and the pains of the people, which is, indeed, the feelings of Nigerians. That is what we are expressing here today and that is why we set up this committee to look at what has happened with all the privatised companies.”

Stating that no position has been taken yet, Mark said “Senate has not taken any decision until the committee completes its findings. The finale position would be the outcome that would emerge at the end of the exercise. There is no doubt that you will be under tremendous pressure because you are dealing with powerful people and organisations. You will be exposed to temptations and if you do not give in, there would be blackmail but you should be courageous in your findings”.

The Ahmad Lawan-led committee immediately set for work and called for memorandum. It also set aside six days for public hearings on the steel rolling mills, the automobile assembly plants, ALSCON and EMCON; the cement, gas and oil and marketing companies and the Eleme Petro-Chemical Company Limited. Also on the list of schedule for public hearings are hotel and insurance and sugar companies, former government-owned media, mining companies, the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS), the LITC and paper mill companies, as well as the sea ports, aviation industry and fertilizer companies. The sitting lasted from Monday to Saturday.

Incumbent BPE Director-General, Ms. Bolanle Onagoruwa, was the first to face the panel. She agreed that there is clear evidence that public enterprises in Nigeria have failed woefully to live up to expectations, noting that ”most rational Nigerians, including this distinguished committee, have recognised that privatisation is desirable and inevitable – state capitalism has failed, is outdated and unsustainable.”

She revealed that the BPE had privatised 122 enterprises from 1999 to date and that the percentage of performing privatised enterprises, vis-a vis the non-performing ones is 66:34, despite the difficult operating environment. She insisted that policy inconsistence, failure of government to perform its own obligations and infrastructure deficits are some of the critical challenges facing the privatised enterprises.

Onagoruwa, while failing to give the gross total amount got as proceed from the privatisation exercise, said; “from the 122 enterprises that have been privatised so far, N146 billion has been realised from the sales. 33.6 per cent of them are doing poorly while 66.3 per cent are doing well. The privatisation and labour expenses are deducted before the balance is remitted for effectiveness. It is the net sum that is remitted and that is in line with the guideline approved by the National Council on Privatisation (NCP). What we are trying to do is to nurture the companies to growth. It is not that the investors have not made efforts, but there are constraints. We try to look at policy issues to see where we can help them. If we are discipline on the policy issue, we will make progress.”

However, Senator Lawan cited Section 19 (1) of the Privatisation and Commercialisation Act to fault the BPE DG’s claim, declaring that the lodgments of the sales proceeds in commercials banks are illegal. He also pointed out that Section 80 (2) and (3) of the 1999 Constitution allows the BPE to only carry out expenses based on the appropriation of the National Assembly. Querying why the BPE should operate any other account outside the law which provided for only an account with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Lawan directed the BPE DG to furnish the committee with details and list of all the banks where the sales proceeds have been lodged, including the interests yielded from 2000.

Asking which part of the 1999 Constitution or the Act empowers the BPE “to open these accounts in commercial banks?”, he said; “Just calm down, if you don’t have the figure for the gross sales now, you can give us later. But that information is essential. Nigerians need to know the total amount before any deduction was made. Provide all the accounts, the proceeds amounts and all the interests yielded so far.”

The committee was told, on its first day of sitting, that the Aluminum Smelter Company of Nigeria (ALSCON) was sold at the sum of $250 million and that $120 million is yet to be paid. The Deputy Managing Director of ALSCON, a Russian, Vitally Kuznetov, was ordered by the committee to immediately arrange for the payment of the balance of $120 million as it has no justification to continue to hold on to the money. The committee also discovered several irregularities in the sales and commercialisation of many public companies. It faulted the realisation of N146billion from the sales of 122 companies, noting that the fund amounted to nothing after deducting expenditure incurred in the exercise.

The committee also summoned Musa Sada, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, to explain how Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill was sold. This was sequel to the denial by Ms Onagoruwa of any knowledge of the sale of the company.

On the second day of its hearing, the committee discovered that BAU Group of Companies originally bided and emerged the preferred bidder for the Delta Steel Company, Aladja, Delta State. It immediately advised the BPE to return the ownership to the company.

The DG, during the sale of the steel company, Dr Julius Bala, said the winner of the bid was BUA Group, but the then Federal Government preferred Global Infrastructures. He said, “There was a bid and BUA Group emerged winner and when they were submitted to the National Council on Privatization (NCP), they directed that the DSC must not be sold for anything less than $25million.

Bala, who admitted that he signed the Share Purchase Agreement (SPA) for the purchase, denied ever signing the letter which gave BUA Group the approval to pay for purchase of DSC. “Before the DG signs any agreement, there has to be approval from the chairman of the NCP. So there was approval given to me to sign by the NCP. I signed the agreement as the DG against the background of the political situation and despite the fact that it was made known to me that I was leaving. I was made to sign the agreement but I was not blackmailed.”, he said.

It was also discovered that Indorama has 75 per cent shares in the Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has 10 per cent, the host communities have 7.5 per cent, workers in the company have 2.5 percent, while the Federal Government has five per cent.

The committee, however, directed the BPE to suspend further transactions on the sale of the Federal Government shares in the company. Equally the BPE was asked to return the sum of four billion naira, being the five per cent of the total amount paid by Indorama to buy the petrochemical company because it was illegal since it is by law reserved for the Federal Government. Indorama, which bought the company at the sum of N3.2 billion in 2006, was asked to further pay for the reserved five per cent.

Meanwhile the adhoc committee, on Wednesday, asked the BPE to make available records containing total earnings of all privatised companies since 1999, as well as all the bank accounts and interests accruing to the government. The committee was also told of the demand by the Bachana community in Adamawa State which is demanding the cancellation of the privatisation of the Savannah Sugar Company, Numan, to Dangote Group. The community had submitted a petition through the former president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Pascal Bafyau, to that effect.

The community said that Dangote Group had defiled the terms of agreement leading to the privatisation and that it has refused to expand the sugar company, even when the community had volunteered lands.

Former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Thursday, told the committee that political interference was the cog in wheel of the successful privatisation exercise in the country. el-Rufai, who was the DG of the BPE between November 1999 to June 2003, disclosed that the mess in the BPE started with the appointment of his successor from outside the bureau against his recommendation.

He said that he had wanted the appointment to come from within the Bureau because of the huge amount of money spent on training of the officers and their knowledge about the privatisation process and the technical nature of the process.

“But the government employed someone that was literarily fired from the BPE. We have never investigated anybody for corruption, but the only person that we had course to have investigated ended up being the DG of BPE. I knew everyone that work with me, their capability and competence. The public hearing will not be completed without speaking about the staff of the BPE. I worked with them and knew each of them by the first name; they were only 180 staff. I am very proud of the BPE because my years there are my very best. But unfortunately one of the people we investigated ended up being the DG,” he said.

According to him, the government was losing N265 billion to support inefficient and corrupt enterprises before privatisation, adding that the objective of the privatisation in Nigeria was not to create job, but to make those companies functional. He added that 23 companies were privatised, out of which 22 were concluded before his exit, adding that he paid into the government treasury the sum of N57 billion within the period, noting that Nigerians should be grateful to the BPE for saving them the pains of running inept public enterprises.

The Stakeholders Forum on the Concession of Lagos International Trade Fair Complex also accused the Federal Government of conniving with AULIC Nigeria Limited to acquire the entire trade fair at a reduced cost of N10 billion. The forum was reported to have invested about N70 billion in the Trade Fair complex. Stakeholders who presented petition to the Senate Committee said, despite the court decision ordering AULIC Nigeria Limited not to tamper with the area occupied by the traders, Nick Eze, who is the owner of AULIC, was adamant and has continued to collect rent on the complex in contravention of the agreement.

The battle for the ownership of the Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) also took the centre-stage with the preferred bidder, Folio Communication Limited, insisting that it fully paid the sum of N1.2 billion for the company in 2004 and received the approval of the BPE to sell some of the assets of the company. The Managing Director of the company, Mr Seminu Makanjuola and Chairman of Folio Communication, Mr Fidelis Anosike, both tendered documents to buttress the position of the company. But representative of DSV, business partner to Folio, Senator Ikechukwu Obiora, told the committee that Anosike should not have emerged core investor on the ground that he initially did not put any money down but used part of DTN assets to obtain loan to pay for the company.

However, in his presentations, Anosike told the committee that he won the bid for the company and was duly given the company by the BPE which also approved his moves to secure credit from a commercial bank to pay for the company.

The final day of the committee was equally revealing as it was disclosed that the privatisation exercise was disrupted by the feud between President Olusegun Obasanjo and his deputy, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. The former DG of BPE, Irene Chigbue and the present DG agreed that Obasanjo and Atiku Abubakar had in 2005 engaged in bitter crisis of confidence which disrupted the success of the privatization exercise.

It was made known that, at a particular point during the rift, the former vice-president, was also the Chairman of the National Council on Privatisation, was by-passed by the BPE on issue critical to the exercise and was directly dealing with Obasanjo.

However, a Lagos-based lawyer and human rights activists, Mr Femi Falana, informed the committee that Nigerians have been short-changed, based on the revelations, saying that privatisation was “just to invite the foreigners to come and steal.” Falana asked the committee to summoned Obasanjo for violating the due process, noting that BPE should be prosecuted for ‘selling’ Nigeria illegally.

At the end of the hearing, the chairman of the committee, Senator Lawan, said that despite the closing of the hearing, the committee would still be receiving presentation. He said the committee would use the next two weeks to sit down and analyse all the submissions, after which it would travel to go and inspect, first-hand, all the companies to assess and see the state of development. He assured that after concluding, the committee would submit its report to the Senate at the plenary and that no government would set aside the outcome of the committee, but “we will ensure that all the recommendations would be implemented.”

The unluckiest men in history,

The unluckiest men in history

By

Hugh Wilson, contributor, MSN Him, 03/08/2011 09:14

From time to time, you might think you've fallen victim to bad fortune, but your trials and tribulations cannot compare to those inflicted upon the unluckiest men in history.

You pour out some cereal, and realise you've run out of milk. You open the front door and see a clear blue sky, and the heavens open as soon as you step through it. Your train is late, and when you get to the office you remember it's a bank holiday.

And then you lift your head to the gods and cry: "Am I the unluckiest man in the world?"

To which the only answer is, no, no, and thrice no. Here are some of the unluckiest men in history. You're nowhere close.


Major Summerford

Major Summerford was fighting on the fields of Flanders during the first world war when a bolt of lightning threw him from his horse.

Years later, in 1924, lightning struck the tree he was sitting under. In 1930 he was hit again as he strolled in a park.

The Major died two years later. Four years after his death, during a fierce storm, a gravestone was struck by lightning and smashed into pieces. Guess whose gravestone it was?



Tsutomu Yamaguchi

Last year death finally came to claim poor old Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only man to be caught up in two atomic bomb blasts.

In 1945 he was on a business trip to Hiroshima when an American atomic bomb detonated above the city, killing 80,000 people in an instant (and many more from the effects of radiation later). He was knocked to the ground and suffered serious burns, and spent a terrible night in an air raid shelter among thousands of his screaming, dying, mutilated compatriots.

In the morning he negotiated his way through the ruined streets and caught a train back to his home - the city of Nagasaki. Heavily bandaged, he reported to work a day later, and was just relaying the terrible events of Hiroshima to colleagues when he witnessed once more the terrible flash of an exploding atomic bomb.

Again, he survived, but being present in the only two cities ever to be attacked with atomic weapons must make Tsutomu Yamaguchi the unluckiest survivor of all.

On Bing: read more about the experiences of Tsutomu Yamaguchi


John Lyne

Dubbed 'Calamity John' by the press, John Lyne must surely be Britain's unluckiest man.

In 2006 he fell down a manhole at work, injuring his back, his leg and both knees, but by his own standards the accident was hardly worth mentioning.

By that point the 52-year-old had suffered 16 major accidents, including - as a child - falling off a cart and being run over by an oncoming van. As a teenager, Lyne broke his arm falling out of a tree, and broke it again when the ambulance taking him home from hospital crashed.

On Bing: read more about 'Calamity' John Lyne


William "Bud" Post

William Post felt pretty lucky when he scooped $16.2 million on the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988, but not for long.

His brother hired a hitman to try and kill him and an ex-landlady successfully sued him for a share of the loot, claiming Post had agreed to split any winnings.

Other siblings pestered him to put money into businesses that were no better than money pits, and he incurred the expense of six divorces. By the end of it all Post was $1 million in debt and living on food stamps. "I was much happier when I was broke," he moaned. He died in 2006.

On Bing: lottery winners who ended up broke


Wilmer McLean

Wilmer McLean's farm in Prince William County, Virginia, was being used as a Confederate headquarters when a Union cannonball - one of the first shots fired in anger in the American civil war - came through his fireplace.

Wilmer McLean's home was repeatedly ransacked owing to its significance to the start of the American civil war

McLean moved his family 140km north to Appomattox County where, four years later, his parlour became the scene for the surrender of Confederate general Robert E Lee to his Union counterpart Ulysses S Grant.

Confederate-supporting McLean said that the war, "started in his front yard and ended in his front parlour." He later lost his home because he couldn't keep up payments on the mortgage, in part due to the pillaging of furniture and furnishings by Union forces anxious for mementoes of the triumphant occasion.


Henry Ziegland

The story goes like this. In 1893 Texan Henry Ziegland broke off his engagement and his heartbroken girlfriend shot herself. Her brother then shot Ziegland before turning the gun on himself. But the bullet had only grazed lucky old Henry, before lodging itself in a tree.

Twenty years later, Ziegland's luck changed. He wanted the huge old tree removed and decided to use dynamite. The force of the explosion dislodged the bullet and shot it across the yard, hitting Henry in the head and killing him - as it was meant to do 20 years before.

Some people claim the story is too remarkable to be true, but it has been reported in serious news media for years. And is it really less believable than the following (100% verified) story?


Frane Selak

Is Frane Selak - a Croatian music teacher - the world's luckiest or unluckiest man? He's suffered enough accidents to suggest he's cursed by bad fortune but the fact that he has survived them all makes him extremely lucky too.

In 1962 Selak survived a train crash that killed 17 passengers, though he ended up with hypothermia, shock, bruises and a broken arm. A few years later the door of the aeroplane he was flying on blew off and he was sucked out of the cabin. He landed on a haystack while 19 of his fellow passengers lost their lives in the subsequent crash. In 1966, the bus he was travelling on skidded into an icy river, killing four while Selak again survived.

By 1970 he'd obviously had enough of public transport, but the car he was driving burst into flames on the motorway. He fled the stricken vehicle moments before the fuel tank exploded.

After a couple of more minor mishaps his final death-defying moment came in 1980, when his car careered through a crash barrier and down a 300ft ravine. He managed to throw himself clear moments before impact and watched from a tree as the car exploded.

And then, in 2005, he won the lottery with his first ever ticket, the lucky so-and-so.


John Wade Agan

Florida resident John Wade Agan was taken to hospital earlier this year after suffering a lightning strike - in his own home. He was talking on the telephone at the time.

Previously, Agan had been robbed at gunpoint in his taxi and locked in the boot, stabbed in the chest with a butcher's knife and bitten by two poisonous snakes - at the same time.


Roy Sullivan

There have been several mentions of lightning in this list already, but nobody could attract lightning like Roy Sullivan, a ranger in the Shenandoah national park in Virginia. You have about a one in 10,000 chance of being hit by lightning once in your life.

Roy Sullivan, the national park ranger struck by lightning on seven separate occasions

Roy Sullivan, the national park ranger struck by lightning on seven separate occasions

The chances of getting struck by lightning seven times, as Sullivan was, is about 22 septillion to one against. In other words, it almost defies belief.

And yet it happened to Sullivan, whose ill luck earned him a place into the Guinness Book of Records. It didn't end with lightning though. Sullivan shot himself, aged 71, over an unrequited love.


Adrian Campbell

Chichester man Adrian Campbell was a keen basketball player before he was struck down with myasthenia gravis, a muscle-wasting illness that effects just one in 7,000 people. While recovering from that, Campbell was afflicted with neuromyotonia, a condition that weakens neck muscles and has a hit rate of only one in 100,000.

Despite these misfortunes, Campbell was making progress in his recovery and getting his life back on track... right up until he was struck down by Morvan's syndrome, a disease that can affect short-term memory.

There have been only 14 recorded cases of Morvan's syndrome in the world. Campbell is now slowly recovering from a rash (sorry!) of medical bad luck that doctors reckon carries odds of 700 million to one against

Nigeria dead trap roads

This is what it looks like on Nigeria roads during raining season

http://youtu.be/ZP8uLyXl9p4

Nigeria’s Promise, Africa’s Hope. By Chinua Achebe, a professor at Brown University, is the author of “Things Fall Apart.”

AFRICA has endured a tortured history of political instability and religious, racial and ethnic strife. In order to understand this bewildering, beautiful continent — and to grasp the complexity that is my home country, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation — I think it is absolutely important that we examine the story of African people.


In my mind, there are two parts to the story of the African peoples ... the rain beating us obviously goes back at least half a millennium. And what is happening in Africa today is a result of what has been going on for 400 or 500 years, from the “discovery” of Africa by Europe, through the period of darkness that engulfed the continent during the trans-Atlantic slave trade and through the Berlin Conference of 1885. That controversial gathering of the leading European powers, which precipitated the “scramble for Africa,” we all know took place without African consultation or representation. It created new boundaries in ancient kingdoms, and nation-states resulting in disjointed, inexplicable, tension-prone countries today.

During the colonial period, struggles were fought, exhaustingly, on so many fronts — for equality, for justice, for freedom — by politicians, intellectuals and common folk alike. At the end of the day, when the liberty was won, we found that we had not sufficiently reckoned with one incredibly important fact: If you take someone who has not really been in charge of himself for 300 years and tell him, “O.K., you are now free,” he will not know where to begin.

This is how I see the chaos in Africa today and the absence of logic in what we’re doing. Africa’s postcolonial disposition is the result of a people who have lost the habit of ruling themselves, forgotten their traditional way of thinking, embracing and engaging the world without sufficient preparation. We have also had difficulty running the systems foisted upon us at the dawn of independence by our colonial masters. We are like the man in the Igbo proverb who does not know where the rain began to beat him and so cannot say where he dried his body.

People don’t like this particular analysis, because it looks as if we want to place the blame on someone else. Let me be clear, because I have inadvertently developed a reputation (some of my friends say one I relish) as a provocateur: because the West has had a long but uneven engagement with Africa, it is imperative that it also play an important role in forging solutions to Africa’s myriad problems. This will require good will and concerted effort on the part of all those who share the weight of Africa’s historical albatross.

In Nigeria, in the years before we finally gained independence in 1960, we had no doubt about where we were going: we were going to inherit freedom; that was all that mattered. The possibilities for us were endless, or so it seemed. Nigeria was enveloped by a certain assurance of an unbridled destiny, by an overwhelming excitement about life’s promise, without any knowledge of providence’s intended destination.

While the much-vaunted day of independence arrived to much fanfare, it rapidly became a faded memory. The years flew past. By 1966, Nigeria was called a cesspool of corruption and misrule. Public servants helped themselves freely to the nation’s wealth. Elections were blatantly rigged. The national census was outrageously stage-managed to give certain ethnic groups more power; judges and magistrates were manipulated by the politicians in power. The politicians themselves were corrupted by foreign business interests.

The political situation deteriorated rapidly and Nigeria was quickly consumed by civil war. The belligerents were an aggrieved people in the southeast of the nation, the Biafrans, who found themselves fleeing pogroms and persecution at the hands of the determined government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which had been armed to the teeth by some of the major international powers. My fellow Biafrans spent nearly three years fighting for a cause, fighting for freedom. But all that collapsed and Biafra stood defeated.


It had been a very bitter experience that led to the hostilities in the first place. And the big powers got involved in prolonging it. You see, we, the little people of the world, are constantly expendable. The big powers can play their games, even if millions perish in the process. And perish they did. In the end, more than a million people (and possibly as many as three million), mainly children, died either in the fighting or from starvation because of the Nigerian government’s economic blockade.
Related


After the civil war, we saw a “unified” Nigeria saddled with an even more insidious reality. We were plagued by a home-grown enemy: the political ineptitude, mediocrity, indiscipline, ethnic bigotry and corruption of the ruling class. Compounding the situation was the fact that Nigeria was now awash in oil boom petrodollars. The country’s young, affable head of state, Gen. Yakubu Gowon, ever so cocksure following his civil war victory, was proclaiming to the entire planet that Nigeria had more money than it knew what to do with. A new era of great decadence and decline was born. It continues to this day.

What can Nigeria do to live up the promise of its postcolonial dream? First, we will have to find a way to do away with the present system of political godfatherism. This archaic practice allows a relative handful of wealthy men — many of them half-baked, poorly educated thugs — to sponsor their chosen candidates and push them right through to the desired political position, bribing, threatening and, on occasion, murdering any opposition in the process. We will have to make sure that the electoral body overseeing elections is run by widely respected and competent officials, chosen by a nonpartisan group free of governmental influence or interference.

And we have to find a way to open up the political process to every Nigerian. Today, we have a system where only those individuals who can pay an exorbitant application fee and finance a political campaign can vie for the presidency. It would not surprise any close observer to discover that in this inane system, the same unsavory characters who have destroyed the country and looted the treasury are the ones able to run for the presidency.

But we must also remember that restoring democratic systems alone will not, overnight, make the country a success. Let me borrow from the history of the Igbo ethnic group. The Igbo have long been a very democratic people. They express a strong anti-monarchy sentiment with the common name Ezebuilo, which translates to “a king is an enemy.”

There is no doubt that they experienced the highhandedness of kings, so they decided that a king cannot be a trusted friend of the people without checks and balances. And they tried all kinds of arrangements to whittle down the menace of those with the will to power, because such people exist in large numbers in every society. So the Igbo created all kinds of titles which cost very much to acquire. In the end, the aspirant to titles becomes impoverished in the process and ends up with very little. So that individual begins again, and by the time his life is over, he has a lot of prestige, but very little power.

This is not a time to bemoan all the challenges ahead. It is a time to work at developing, nurturing and sustaining democracy. But we also must realize that we need patience and cannot expect instant miracles. Building a nation is not something a people do in one regime, in a few years, even. The Chinese had their chance to emerge as the leading nation in the world in the Middle Ages, but were consumed by interethnic political posturing and wars, and had to wait another 500 years for another chance. America did not arrive at its much admired democracy overnight. When President Abraham Lincoln famously defined democracy as “the government of the people, by the people, for the people” he was drawing upon classical thought and at least 100 years of American rigorous intellectual reflection on the matter.



Sustaining democracy in Nigeria will require more than just free elections. It will also mean ending a system in which corruption is not just tolerated, but widely encouraged and hugely profitable. It is estimated that about $400 billion has been pilfered from Nigeria’s treasury since independence. One needs to stop for a moment to wrap one’s mind around that incredible figure. It is larger than the annual gross domestic products of Norway and Sweden. This theft of national funds is one of the factors essentially making it impossible for Nigeria to succeed. Nigerians alone are not responsible. We all know that the corrupt cabal of Nigerians has friends abroad who not only help it move the billions abroad but also shield the perpetrators from persecution.
Related


Many analysts see a direct link between crude oil and the corruption in Nigeria, that creating a system to prevent politicians from having access to petrodollars is needed to reduce large-scale corruption. For most people, the solution is straightforward: if you commit a crime, you should be brought to book. But in a country like Nigeria, where there are no easy fixes, one must examine the issue of accountability, which has to be a strong component of the fight against corruption.

Some feel that a strong executive should be the one to hold people accountable. But if the president has all the power and resources of the country in his control, and he is also the one who selects who should be probed or not, clearly we will have an uneven system where those who are favored by the emperor have free rein to loot the treasury.

Nigeria’s story has not been, entirely, one long, unrelieved history of despair. At the midcentury mark of the state’s existence, Nigerians have begun to ask themselves the hard questions. How does the state of anarchy become reversed? What measures can be taken to prevent corrupt candidates from recycling themselves into positions of leadership? Young Nigerians have often come to me desperately seeking solutions to several conundrums: How do we begin to solve these problems in Nigeria where the structures are present but there is no accountability?

ONE initial step is to change the nation’s Official Secrets Act. Incredible as it may seem, it is illegal in Nigeria to publish official government data and statistics — including accounts spent by or accruing to the government. This, simply, is inconsistent with the spirit and practice of democracy. There is now a freedom of information bill before the National Assembly that would end this unacceptable state of affairs. It should be passed, free from any modifications that would render it ineffectual, and assented to by President Goodluck Jonathan. This can and should be achieved before the presidential election in April.

In the end, I foresee that the Nigerian solution will come in stages. First we have to nurture and strengthen our democratic institutions — and strive for the freest and fairest elections possible. That will place the true candidates of the people in office. Within the fabric of a democracy, a free press can thrive and a strong justice system can flourish. The checks and balances we have spoken about and the laws needed to curb corruption will then naturally find a footing.

And there has to be the development of a new patriotic consciousness, not one simply based on the well-worn notions of the “Unity of Nigeria” or “Faith in Nigeria” often touted by our corrupt leaders; but one based on an awareness of the responsibility of leaders to the led and disseminated by civil society, schools and intellectuals. It is from this kind of environment that a leader, humbled by the trust placed upon him by the people, will emerge, willing to use the power given to him for the good of the people.

Learn ABC

This is how our children may end up learning the alphabets:


A – Apple
B – Blackberry
C – Chatting
D – Download
E – Email
F – Facebook
G – Google
H – Hotmail
I – iTunes
J – Java
K – Kapersky
L – Laptop
M – Microsoft
N – Nintendo
O – Outlook
P – Playstation
Q – Quicktime
R – RapidShare
S – Skype
T – Twitter
U – USB
V – Vista
W – Wikipedia
X – XP
Y – YouTube
Z – Zorpia

My name is Nigeria !

My name is Nigeria !

I need Re-Building and not Re-Branding.

I am Nigeria !! . I am divided into 36 unequal states, plus my capital territory, christened ABUJA . I have millions of acres of arable land and billions of cubic litres of water, but I cannot feed myself. So I spend $1 billion to import rice and another $2 billion to import milk. I produce rice, but don't eat it. I have 60 million cattle but no milk. I have the capacity to feed the whole of Africa but I import most food instead.

I am hungry, please help and re-brand me.

I drive the latest car in the world but have no roads neither can I boast of
manufacturing a bicycle's tyre. I lose family and friends everyday on my roads for which funds have been allocated to build and rehabilitate but the fund has been looted. I lose my young, my old, and my most brainy and productive people to the potholes, craters and crevasses they travel on everyday.

I am in permanent mourning, please re-brand me.



My school has no teacher and my classroom has no roof. I take lecture notes through the window and live with 15 others in a single room. All my professors have gone abroad, some of the rest are awaiting visas. Those that remain, depends on money raked from the sales of hand-outs to students.
My students receives lectures for a maximum of 3 months in a year due to lecturers' strike or students' boycott of lectures because of lack of better condition of service and deplorable condition on campus. That explains why I have university graduates, who are semi- illiterates.

I want a future, please re-brand me.

Malaria, typhoid and many other preventable diseases send me to hospitals which have no doctors, no medicines and no power. So my wife gives birth by candle light and surgery is performed by quacks. All the nurses have gone abroad and the rest are also waiting to go. I have the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world and future generations are dying before me.

I am hopeless, hapless and helpless, please re-brand me.

I wanted change so I stood all day long to cast my vote. But even before I could vote, the results had been announced. When I dared to speak out, silence was enthroned by bullets. My rulers are my oppressors, and my policemen are my terrors. I am ruled by men in mufti, but I am not a democracy.

I have no verve, no vote, no voice, please re-brand me.

I have over 50 million youths with no jobs, no present and no future. So my sons in the North have become street urchins and his brothers in the South have become militants. My nephews die of thirst in the Sahara and his cousins drown in the waters of the Mediterranean . My daughters walk the streets of Lagos , Abuja and Port Harcourt, while her sisters parade the streets of Rome and Amsterdam .

I am inconsolable, please re-brand me.

My people cannot sleep at night and cannot relax by day. They cannot use ATM
machines, nor use cheques. My children sleep through the staccato of AK 47's, see
through the mist of tear gas, while we all inhale Carbon Monoxide, poisonous
CO-2 from popular 'I big pass my neighbour' (portable generators) and 'Okada' (motorbike taxis)
The leaders have looted everything on ground and below. They walk the land with haughty strides and fly the skies with private jets (28 of which were bought in the last 12 months). They have stolen the future of generations yet unborn and have money they cannot spend in several lifetimes, but their brothers die of hunger.

I want justice, please re-brand me.

I can produce anything, but import everything. So my toothpick is made in China; my toothpaste is made in South Africa; my salt is made in Ghana; my butter is made in Ireland; my milk is made in Holland; my shoe is made in Italy; my vegetable oil is made in Malaysia; my biscuit is made in Indonesia; my chocolate is made in Turkey and my table water made in France.
My taste is far-flung and foreign. I no longer cook at home but take pride in eating at take-away outlets fashioned after the Western style of living.
Anything made in my land is inferior; I prefer those made in England , America or Europe . To crown it all, items made in my land but specifically sent abroad with made in England labels are bought back from 'Oyinbo' land at 5 times the original price it would have gone for had it been sold as home made,
please re-brand me.

My people are cancerous from the greed of their friends who bleach palm oil with chemicals; my children died because they drank 'My Pikin' with NAFDAC
numbers; my poor die because kerosene explodes in their faces; my land is dead because all the trees have been cut down; flood kills my people yearly because the drainage is clogged; my fish are dead because the oil companies dump waste in my rivers; my communities are vanishing into the huge yawns of gully erosion, and nothing is being done. My livelihood is in jeopardy, and I am in the uttermost depths of despondence,

please re-brand me.

I have genuine leather but choose to eat it.. So I spend a billion dollars to import fake leather. I have four (4) refineries, but prefer to import fuel, so I waste more billions to import petrol. I have no security in my country, but would rather send troops to keep the peace in another man's land. I have 160 dams, but cannot get water to drink, so I buy 'pure' water that broils my inwards. I have a million children waiting to enter universities, but my ivory dungeons can only take a tenth (10 %). I have no power (electricity) , but choose to flare gas, and vote billion of dollars every year to generate electricity but not a single watt has come from it. So, my people have learnt to see in the dark and stare at the glare of naked flares.

I have no direction, please re-brand me.

My people pray to God every morning and every night, but commit every crime known to man because re-branded identities will never alter the tunes of inbred rhythms. Just as the drums of heritage heralds the frenzied jingles, remember - the Nigerian soul can only be Nigerian - fighting free from the cold embrace of a government that has no spring, no sense, no shame. So we watch the possessed, frenzied dance, drenched in silent tears as freedom is locked up in democracy's empty cellars.

I need guidance, please re-brand me.

But then, why can I not simply be me, without being re-branded?

Or does my complexion cloud the colour of my character?

Does my location limit the lengths of my liberty? Does the spirit of my conviction shackle my soul?

Does my mien maim the mine of my mind? And is this life worth re-branding?

Is it re-branding that I need or complete re-building?

Others blame my calamities on the colonial master that has left my shore some 49 years ago. Without deceiving myself, I know I have problems, who will deliver me?

May be what I need is to be re-born, Christians call it being born-again.

Turning to a higher authority or changing direction. I mean to sincerely own up and turn to the man up-stairs, may be, just maybe solution will come from there.

To re-build a wobbling structure, there is need for dismantling of existing one (remember, if the foundation can be destroyed, what can the righteous do?)..
Shall I then consider the idea muted by some of my own who have fled abroad?
Some call for 'Separation for Co-operation' , others call for true Federalism - while others are yet asking for the return to Parliamentary system.

Which way do I go? on October 1, 2010, I will celebrate my 50th birth day.

I do not want to enter my golden age without direction,

... so, please, help me God. Re-mould and Re-Build me.

EFCC’s Advisory List of corrupt officials

EFCC’s Advisory List
10.24.2010

NAME

TRIAL COURT

CASE STATUS

AMOUNT INVOLVED

STATUS OF SUSPECT (S)

REMARK


Ayo Fayose (Former
Governor of Ekiti State)

Fed. High Court, Lagos. Case now transferred to Ekiti for trial after the accused opposed his trial in Lagos

Arraigned on 51 state counts. Plea already taken but defence lawyer keeps filing frivolous applications for long adjournments to frustrate and prolong trial.

N1.2 Billion

granted bail by court since 2007

Inherited Case filed since 17th Dec.2006


Adenike Grange
(Former Minister of Health)


FCT. High Court Maitama

Arraigned on 56 state counts. Plea already taken. Defence lawyer often seeks long adjournments to prolong trial. Matter adjourned to Oct 27

N300
million

granted bail by court since 2008

Inherited Case filed since 2nd April.2008



Joshua Dariye (Former
Governor Plateau State)

FCT High Court Gudu

Arraigned on 23 state counts. Plea already taken but defence lawyer challenged court jurisdiction.But Appeal court threw out application and case now fixed for continuation of trial on Oct. 27, 2010.

N700 Million

granted bail by court since 2007

Inherited Case filed since 13th July 2007



Saminu Turaki (Former
Governor, Jigagwa State)

FCT. High Court Maitama

Arraigned on 32 state counts. Plea already taken but defence lawyer challenged court jurisdiction. Case stalled at HC while seeking stay of trial at appeal court.It is part of usual attempt to frustrate and prolong trial

N36 Billion

granted bail by court since 2007

Inherited Case filed since 13th July 2007



Orji Uzor Kalu (Former
Governor, Abia State)

Fed. High Court Maitama

Arraigned on 107 state counts. Plea already taken but defence lawyer raised preliminary objection against charges. Lost at trial court but has gone on appeal to stay trial. It is part of usual attempt to prolong trial.

N5 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Inherited Case filed since 11th June 2007



James Ibori (Former
Governor, Delta State)

Federal High Court Asaba

Arraigned on 170 state counts.Defence lawyer challenged Kaduna Fed. court jurisdiction, lost at trial court but won at appeal court.Case re-assigned by CJ to Asaba FHC. Without taking plea, suspect applied to quash charges, prosecution opposed application but trial judge quashed the charges Dec. 19. EFCC filed appeal Dec. 23, 2009 and Jan.8, 2010.

N9.2 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Inherited Fresh charges filed In August 2009


Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello
(Serving Senator)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 56 state counts.Plea already taken but case stalled as defence lawyer filed to challenge charges.Application pending for determination.This is part of frivolous applications to delay trial .

N10 Million

granted bail by court since 2008

Inherited Case filed since April 2 2008


Lucky Igbinedion
(Former Governor of Edo State)

Fed. High Court, Enugu

Arraigned on 191 state counts. Applied for plea bargain &Convicted but EFCC has appealed the judgment to seek for stiffer sanctions.

N4.3 Billion

Case determined 2008

Inherited Case filed on 23rd Jan.2008


Gabriel Aduku (Former
Minister of Health)

FCT. High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 56 state counts.Court ruled on no case against suspect

N300 Million

Case determined in 2008

Inherited Case filed on April 2nd 2008


Jolly Nyame (Former
Governor of Taraba State)

Fed. High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 41 state counts. Plea already taken and trial begun after all applications filed by the accused to stall trial have been dismissed by the supreme court. Trial fully commenced and on-going at FCT HC.

N1.3 billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Inherited Case filed since 13th July 2007


Chimaroke Nnamani
(Former Governor of Enugu State)

Fed. High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on 105 state counts. Plea already taken but case is stalled as defence lawyer filed to transfer case to another judge on allegation of bias against trial judge even as counsel has again filed to challenge court jurisdiction.This is equally an attempt to prolong trial.

N5.3 Billion

granted bail by court since 2007

Inherited Case filed since 11th Dec.2007


Michael Botmang
(Former Governor of Plateau State)

Fed. High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 31 state counts. Plea already taken but trial stalled due to suspect’s ailment, on dialysis.

N1.5 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri on 18th July 2008



Roland Iyayi (Former
Managing Director of FAAN)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 11 state counts. Plea already taken.Trial on-going
Court taking prosecution witnesses testimony

N5.6 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in June 2008



Nyeson Wike (Serving Chief of Staff to Governor of Rivers State)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on state counts. Court quashed charges.EFCC already appealed judgement. Appeal pending at appeal court.

N4.670 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri on Oct.9 2008


Eider George (Austrian
Business man)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 11 state counts. Plea already taken and trial on-going. Prosecution witnesses undergoing cross-examination. Court granted suspect leave to travel abroad for medical treatment.



granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in June 2008



Kenny Martins (Police
Equipment Fund)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 28 amended state counts. Plea already taken and trial on- going. Witnesses under cross- examination. Continuation of trial fixed for Nov.9

N774 Million

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in June 2008



13 Filipinos (Charged for
Oil Bunkering)

Fed. High Court, Benin

Arraigned on state counts, convicted at the close of trial and sentenced to 65 Years altogether

N300 Million

EFCC returns to court to seek forfeiture of vessel used for oil theft.

Commenced by Waziri in 2009



6 Ghanaians (Charged for
Oil Bunkering) and Nigerian accomplice.

Fed. High Court, Benin

Arraigned on state counts and trial Commenced. Prosecution closed case, matter adjourned for defence to close.

N250 Million

granted bail by court in 2009. All 7 accused sentenced to 112 years imprisonment April 30, 2010

Commenced by Waziri in June 2009



Patrick Fernadez
(Indian Buisnessman)

Fed. High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on 56 state counts. Plea already taken and trial commences Nov.

N32 Billion

granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri in 2009



Prof. Babalola Borishade
(Former Minister of Aviation)

FCT High Court, Maitama

Arraigned on 11 state counts. Plea already taken and trial on-going (N5.6 billion)
Prosecution witnesses under cross-examination.

N5.6 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in June 2008



Boni Haruna (Former
Governor, Adamawa State)

Fed. High Court Maitama

Arraigned on amended 28 state counts. Plea taken. Adoption of motion slated for Nov

N254 Million

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in 2008



Femi Fani-Kayode
(Former Minster of Aviation)

Fed. High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on 47 state counts . Plea taken but case stalled as a result of trial court’s refusal to admit e-print of suspect’s statement of account as evidence. EFCC won appeal against the decision. Defence on appeal at supreme court.

N250 Million

granted bail by court in 2008

Commenced by Waziri in 2008



Prince Ibrahim Dumuje (Police Equip-ment Fund)

FCT High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 28 amended state counts. Plea taken and trial on-going. Prosecution witnesses under cross-examination. Continuation fixed for Nov.9

N774 Million

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri in June 2008




Bode George (Chieftain of
the ruling party, PDP)

Fed. High Court. Lagos

Arraigned on 68 state counts. Plea taken and trial concluded. Accused convicted and sentenced to 2 years. Convict on appeal while serving jail term.

N100 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008. Has been in jail after conviction in Oct 2009.

Commenced by Waziri in Dec.08




Rasheed Ladoja (Former
Governor of Oyo State)

Fed. High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on 33 state counts. Plea taken and trial on- going
Prosecution witnesses slated for cross-examination in Nov.

N6 Billion

granted bail by court since 2008

Commenced by Waziri



Four Snr Zenith Bank Managers

Fed. High Court, Port Harcourt

Arraigned on 56 state counts. Plea taken but case stalled over an injunction by Rivers State Govt, which is a party in the case to stop EFCC. Injunction being challenged at appeal court

N3.6 Billion

Granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri



Mallam Nasir El-Rufai
(Former Minister of Federal Capital Territory)

Fed. High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 8 state counts.Suspect charged for corruption and abuse of office.Plea taken and case adjourned for trial but accused challenged jurisdiction of court as a ploy to delay trial. Case adjourned.



Suspect at large but returned to the country. Interrogated on May 4, 2010 and arraigned on May 12

Commenced by Waziri in 2009.



Sen. Nicholas Ugbade, (Serving Senator) Hon. Ndudi Elumelu Hon. Mohammed Jibo,
Hon. Paulinus Igwe,(Serving Members of House of Rep)
Dr Aliyu Abdullahi (Serving Fed.Perm.Sec) Mr. Samuel Ibi. Mr. Simon Nanle,
Mr. Lawrence Orekoya, Mr Kayode Oyedeji,
Mr. A. Garba Jahun

FCT High Court Abuja




(This is the Rural Electrification Agency Case involving a serving Senator, 3 serving members of the House of Representatives , the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Power and other high profile public officers)

Arraigned on 158 state counts. Plea taken while prosecution has filed more charges against suspects. Suspects filed to quash charges but application thrown out by court.

N5.2 Billion

Remanded in Prison Custody and later granted bail Court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri in May 2009



Prof B.Sokan, Molkat
Mutfwang, Michael Aule, Andrew Ekpanobi, (All Directors) Alexander Cozman(MD,In termarket Ltd). (This is the UBEC case where high profile public servants connived with an American, Alexander Cozman) to defraud the Government.

Federal High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 64 state counts. Plea taken while more charges were filed against suspects due to appearance of Prof Sokan. Matter adjourned to Nov 9 for suspects to take plea on amended charges

N636 Million

Suspects remanded in prison custody and later granted bail by court in 2009.

Commenced by Waziri on May 19 2009



Dr Ransome Owan, Mr. Abdulrahman Ado, Mr. Adulrasak Alimi, Mr. Onwuamaeze Iloeje, Mrs Grace Eyoma, Mr. Mohammed Bunu,
Mr. Abimbola Odubiyi

Federal High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 196 state counts. Plea taken. Trial billed to commence while more charges were filed against suspects. Further hearing slated for Oct 29. But the FG has withdrawn charges against the accused persons who were consequently discharged by the court on Sept 16,2010

N1.5 Billion

granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri on April 22 2009



Tom Iseghohi, Muhammed Buba, Mike
Okoli,(GM&M anagers of Transcorp Group PLC)

Fed. High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 32 state counts. Plea taken. Matter adjourned for commencement of trial Nov 9.

N15 Billion

Suspects Remanded in Kuje Prison and later granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri in May 2009



Dr Albert Ikomi, rtd perm sec, his firm, satelite town dev co Ltd

Fed. High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos

Arraigned on 4 state counts. Plea taken and Matter adjourned for hearing

N43 Million

Suspects Remanded in Ikoyi Prison and later granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri in 2009



Dr Yuguda Manu Kaigama,
Chairman, Taraba State Civil Service Commission

Taraba State High Court 5, Jalingo

Arraigned on 37 state counts . Plea taken and Matter stalled as suspect dropped dead.

N17 Million

Suspect remanded in prison custody. Co-accused, Yakubu Danjuma Takun, at large.

Commenced by Waziri on Oct.10 2009


Chief Joe Musa, DG
Natioanl Gallery of Art, Olusegun Ogumba, Chinedu Obi, Oparagu Elizabeth, Kweku Tandoh, (All Directors of NGA).

FCT High Court, Lugbe (Justice Olukayode Adeniyi)

Arraigned on 12 state counts . Plea taken and defence lawyer filed applications to stall trial but lost the bid. Matter adjourned for trial Nov 19/20, 2010

N1.012 Billion

Suspects Remanded in Kuje Prison and later granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri in July 20 2009


Dr Dayo Olagunju,
Ex. Sec. National Commission for Mass Literacy, Adult & Non-Formal Education. Joshua Alao, Alice Abang, Jibrin Waguna, Ahmed Abubakar, Shehu Abdullahi, Dr Victoria King- Nwachukwu, Adamu Khalid, Moses Oseni, Francis Awelewa & Bashir Suleiman

Fed. High Court, Abuja. Justice Anuli Chikere

Arraigned on 17 state counts.Plea taken and Matter adjourned for commencement of trial Oct 22, 2010

N479 Million

Suspects Remanded in Kuje Prison and later granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri 24 July 2009


Hamman Bello Hammed, Ex-
CG Customs, Hannatu Sulaiman, Tajudeen Olalere, Lukman Hussain, Popular Foods Ltd & Silver Maritime shipping coy ltd

Fed. High Court , Lagos. Justice Ramat Mohammed

Arraigned on 46 state counts. Plea taken Matter adjouned to Nov for trial but FG filed to withdraw charges.

N2.5 Billion

Suspects Remanded in Kirikiri & Ikoyi Prisons and later granted bail by court in 2009.

Commenced by Waziri on 14th Aug. 2009



Professor Innocent Chuka
Okonkwo, fmr VC Imo state Univ, Uchechi Nwugo & Wilfred Uwakwe

Fed.High Court, Abuja. Justice Mohammed Garba Umar

Arraigned on 14 state counts. Plea taken Adjourned to Nov for trial.

N145 Million

Suspects Remanded in Kuje Prison and later granted bail by court in 2009

Commenced by Waziri on July 30,2009



Dr (Mrs) Cecilia Ibru
(Fmr CEO, Oceanic Bank PLC)

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos. Justice Dan Abutu

Arraigned on 25 state counts. Plea taken and case adjourned to Nov for trial

N160.2 Billion

Suspect convicted and jailed for 18 Months on Friday October 8, 2010 by Justice Dan Abutu of FHC, Lagos. To forfeit assets and funds worth over N191 billion.

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 31 2009



Dr Bartholo-mew (Fmr CEO, Union Bank PLC) Bassey Ebong, Henry Onyemem & Niyi Albert Opeodu (Ex- Directors, UBN)

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos. Justice Dan Abutu

Arraigned on 28 state counts. Plea taken and case adjourned to Nov for trial

N187.1 Billion

Suspects remanded in EFCC custody, But granted bail on 14/9/09

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 31 2009



Raymond Obieri,(Fmr
Chairman,Inter continental Bank PLC Hyacinth Enuha, Ikechi Kalu, C.A Alabi, Samuel Adegbite, Isyaku Umar, Sanni Adams.

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos. Justice Dan Abutu

Arraigned on 18 state counts. Plea taken and case adjourned to Nov for trial

N131.8 Billion

Suspects remanded in EFCC custody, But granted bail on 14/9/09

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 31 2009



Sebastian Adigwe, Peter
Ololo, Falcon Securities Ltd

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos. Justice Dan Abutu

Arraigned on 36 state counts. Plea taken and case adjourned to Nov for trial

N277.3 Billion

Suspects remanded in Prison custody, But granted bail on 15/9/09

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 31 2009



Okey Nwosu

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos. Justice Dan Abutu

Arraigned on 11 state counts. Plea taken and case adjourned to Nov for trial

N95.1 Billion

Suspects remanded in Prison custody, But granted bail on 15/9/09

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 31 2009



Alex Nkenchor, Ex-Bank Manager, Ebi Odeigah & GMT Securities & Assets Nig Ltd.

Lagos High Court, Ikeja. Justice M.O Obadina

Arraigned on 10 state counts. Plea taken and suspects still remanded in prison custody pending consideration of bail application.

N860 Million

Suspects remanded in ikoyi prison. Bail application for consideration Oct20

Commenced by Waziri on Oct 13 2009



Francis Atuche, Former CEO,
Bank PHB

Fed High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on a 26 count charge. Plea taken. Suspect challenged charges but court upheld charges. Matter set for trial in Nov.

N80 billion

Suspect remanded and later granted bail by court. His assets frozen.

Commenced by Waziri on Oct 28, 2009.



Adamu Abdullahi,
Former Gov of Nasarawa state.

Fed High Court, Lafia, Nasarawa. Justice I.N. Buba

Arraigned on 149 count charge. Suspect granted bail by court. Case slated for trial in Oct.

N15 billion

Suspect on court bail.

Commenced by Waziri on March 3, 2010.



Attahiru Bafarawa,
former governor of Sokoto state.

Sokoto state High Court.

Arraigned on 47 count charge. Matter stalled HC due to accused application at appeal court.

N15 billion

Suspect remanded in prison custody and later granted bail by court. Case slated for trial.

Commenced by Waziri on December 16, 2009.



Francis Okokuro,
Bayelsa state Accountant General

Fed. High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 6 count charge. Matter stalled due to accused application for stay.

N2.4 billion

Suspect remanded in prison custody till April 13.

Commenced by Waziri on March 24, 2010




Dr Charles Silva Opuala

Fed High Court, Abuja

Arraigned on 6 count charge. Matter stalled due to accused application for stay

N2.4 billion

Suspect arraigned and remanded in Kuje prison custody on April 13 till he meets bail conditions

Commenced by Waziri on March 24, 2010




Chief Osa Osunde(fmr
Chairman Afribank), and 4 directors: Jibrin Isah, Isa Zailani, Chinedu Onyia and Henry Arogundade

Fed.High Court, Lagos

Arraigned on 33 count charge. Matter adjourned to Nov for trial

N55 billion

Suspects arraigned on April 21, 2010. Remanded in EFCC custody and later granted bail by the court.

Commenced by Waziri on April 21, 2010




Mr Oladele Shittu, CEO of
Credence Investment

Fed High Court, Kaduna. Justice Mohd Shuaibu

Arraigned on 136 count charge. Matter adjourned for trial

N139 million

Suspect arraigned on March 23 2010. Remanded in Kad prison custody till July 12, 2010.

Commenced by Waziri on March 23, 2010




Mr Sunday Akinyemi,
fmr CEO Texas Connection Ferries

Lagos High Court. Justice J Adebajo

Arraigned on 30 count charge. Application for bail rejected, trial commenced.

N90 million

Suspect arraigned March 11 & April 11, 2010.Remanded in prison.

Commenced by Waziri on March 11, 2010




Hon. T Faniyi, Albert Soje &
others

FHC, Abuja.Justi ce Adamu Bello/Justic e David Okorowa

Arraigned on 30 count charge(14,10 &6), trial commenced.

N3 billion

Suspects arraigned on April 1 2010. Remanded in prison custody and later granted court bail.

Commenced by Waziri on April 1, 2010




Adeniyi Elumaro,
Rakiya Mamman, Integrated Capital Services Ltd

FCT High Court. Justice Olukayode Adeniyi

Arraigned on 22 count charge

N405 million

Suspects arraigned on Aug 12, 2010. Granted bail by court and remanded in prison pending when they meet conditions

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 12, 2010.




Dr Erastus Akingbola, fmr
MD/CEO, IBplc

FHC, Ikoyi, Lagos.Justi ce Mohd Idris

Arraigned on 22 count charge

N27 billion.

Suspect arraigned on Aug 13. Remanded in custody till Ag 23.

Commenced by Waziri on Aug 13, 2010



SaniLulu, & 3 other sacked
NFF board members

FHC, Abuja.Justi ce Donatus Okorowa

Arraigned on 10 counts. Case adjourned till Oct 5, 2010 for trial.

N1.5 billion

Suspects arraigned Sept 7, remanded in prison till 13th when court released them on bail

Commenced by Waziri on Sept 7, 2010

UK Banks Aid Corruption in Nigeria – Report

UK Banks Aid Corruption in Nigeria – Report
By Emele Onu, with agency report, 10.11.2010

A report by Global Witness yesterday said British banks, aided by lax regulation by the authoritative are exacerbating corruption in Nigeria.
According to Reuters News, the graft watchdog said Britain needs to enforce money laundering regulations more strictly after some of its leading high street banks accepted millions of pounds in deposits from corrupt Nigerian politicians.

Global Witness said in a 40-page report that five banks had taken millions of pounds between 1999 and 2005 from two former Nigerian governors accused of corruption, but had failed sufficiently to investigate the customers or the source of their funds.
Global Witness exposes the corrupt exploitation of natural resources and international trade systems, to drive campaigns that end impunity, resource-linked conflict, and human rights and environmental abuses.
It said Britain's Barclays, NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and HSBC, and Switzerland's UBS, might not have broken the law but had helped to fuel corruption in Nigeria.

HSBC said the allegations were "misguided". The four other banks and Britain's regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), declined to comment. RBS took over NatWest in 2000.
"The FSA needs to do much more to prevent banks from facilitating corruption. As yet, no British bank has been publicly fined or even named by the regulators for taking corrupt funds, whether willingly or through negligence," Global Witness said in the report, adding, "This is in stark contrast to the United States, where banks have been fined hundreds of millions of dollars for handling dirty money."

Global Witness acknowledged that British regulation might have moved on since 2005, but said there were still gaps in the system, particularly regarding funds from "politically exposed persons" (PEPs) deemed to pose a higher money laundering risk.
"As a bank that has been at the very forefront of developing global PEP guidance over the last decade, we are deeply disappointed with these misguided allegations," Reuters quoted a spokesman for HSBC as having said when asked about the report.
"Rest assured, rigorous and robust compliance procedures were followed diligently. To ignore this is to ignore the facts," he said.
Barclays, HSBC and UBS are all members of the Wolfsberg Group, an international body set up in 2000 to try to improve global anti-money laundering procedures.

An industry source said HSBC was one of the few banks to have had a PEP policy in place since 2001, before regulators introduced any such requirement.
Global Witness said its findings were based on court documents from cases brought in London by the Nigerian government to get funds returned that it said had been stolen by two former state governors, namely Diepreye Alamieyeseigha of Bayelsa state and Joshua Dariye of Plateau state.

It said some of the funds accepted by some of the banks were the proceeds of bribe payments.
“Alamieyeseigha was accused of corruption in 2005 when he was caught with almost a million pounds in cash in his London home, and was briefly jailed in Nigeria after pleading guilty to embezzlement and money laundering charges two years later.
“Dariye was arrested in 2004 in London and was found to have purchased properties worth millions of pounds even though his legitimate earnings amounted to the equivalent of 40,000 pounds a year,” Reuters recalled.

Britain's coalition government, said Reuters, plans to revamp its financial sector, scrapping the FSA by the end of 2012 and replacing it with a regulator that will operate as a subsidiary of the Bank of England; a new white-collar crime agency; and a new consumer protection and markets authority.

White man’s burden to loot

White man’s burden to loot
Owei Lakemfa Sep 17, 2010
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By Owei Lakemfa
EXACTLY a fortnight from today, Nigeria will be marking its 50th independence anniversary from colonial rule. The motives of colonialism are usually wrapped in layers of religion and the alleged sacred duty of the Whites to spread civilization.

Joseph Rudyard Kipling (1865-1930) Literature Nobel Prize Laureate famous for his poem If, has an infamous poem which rationalized and glorified colonialism; presenting it as a burden and sacrifice of the Whites. Titled: “The White Man’s Burden”, the first stanza reads:

“Take up the White Man’s burden

Send forth the best ye breed

Go, bind your sons to exile

To serve your captives’ need;

To wait in heavy harness
On fluttered folk and wild
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child”

Far from such childish and racist presentation, Joseph Chamberlain who took over the British Colonial Office in 1895 was emphatic that colonialism was a business enterprise and that the development and prosperity of Britain depended on developing the colonies.

In August 1895 he appealed to the British public: “I regard many of our colonies as being in the condition of undeveloped estates …If the people of this country are not willing to invest some of their superfluous wealth in the development of their great estate, then I see no future for these countries, and it would have been better not to have gone there”.

Lord Lugard who helped conquer and colonise Uganda and Northern Nigeria put the reasons for colonialism in a clear light. In his 1922 publication The Dual Mandate In British Tropical Africa, he wrote that “The congestion of the (European) population, assisted by the discovery of the application of steam to industrial uses, led to the replacement of agriculture by manufacturing industry, with the consequent necessity for new markets for the product of the factory, and the importation of raw materials for industry, and of food to supplement the decreased home production, and feed the increased population.

The same phenomenon was to be seen in Germany and elsewhere in Europe”. Lugard analysed that towards the end of the nineteenth century, tea, coffee and cocoa, previously unknown luxuries were the European’s “daily beverages and white bread his daily food. Sugar was cheap, and rice, sago, and other tropical products were in daily use…These products lay wasted and ungarnered in Africa because the natives did not know their use and value. Millions of tons of oil-nuts, for instance , grew wild without the labour of man, and lay rotting in the forests.

Who can deny the right of the hungry people of Europe to utilize the wasted bounties of nature(?)”

Lugard who was then the colonial governor of Nigeria declared: “Let it be admitted at the outset that European brains, capital and energy have not been, and never will be, expended in developing the resources of Africa from motives of pure philanthropy; that Europe is in Africa for the mutual benefit of her own industrial classes, and of the native races in their progress to a higher plane; that the benefit can be reciprocal, and that it is the aim and desire of civilised administration to fulfil this dual mandate”.

France, he said, was desperate to colonise “due to the belief that it was by expansion in Africa alone that she could hope to find the means to recover from the effects of the war with Germany in 1870”.

King Leopold II of Belgium who seized the ‘Congo Free State’ initially lied that his reason for colonialism was for “humanitarian and scientific research”. Later, he confessed that it was just to loot the territory, and that he owned the Congo and its riches.

He wrote in 1906: “The Congo has been, and could have been, nothing but a personal undertaking. There is no more legitimate or respectable right than that of an author over his own work, the fruit of his labour…My rights over the Congo are to be shared with none; they are the fruit of my own struggles and expenditure”.

The looting, exploitation and dehumanisation of the Indian people by the colonising British East India Company was so criminal that British Secretary of State, Charles James Fox had to take a bill to parliament in1783 arguing that the company cannot enslave 30 million Indians just to make maximum profits. But King George III intervened to stop the bill and Fox was forced out of government for two decades.

The same British East India Company in order to colonise, and for profit shipped tons of opium into China. When the Chinese Emperor Lin Zexu in March 1839 petitioned Queen Victoria that China would impose the death penalty for opium importation, sale and usage unless the British company stopped its harmful trade, the British Empire invaded China and fought what came to be known as the Opium Wars of 1839-1842 and 1856-1860.

The colonialists would not willingly allow independence for the colonies. When the Philippines which was colonised by the United States agitated for self-government, American Senator Albert Beveridge argued on the Senate floor that the Filipinos like other colonised peoples are not capable of self-government.

“Self-government is no base and common thing, to be bestowed on the merely audacious. It is the degree which crowns the graduate of liberty, not the name of liberty’s infant class, who have not yet mastered the alphabet of freedom…The Declaration (of independence) applies only to people capable of self-government.

How dare any man prostitute this expression of the very elect of self-governing peoples to a race of Malay children of barbarism, schooled in Spanish methods and ideas?”

Senator Beveridge believed that colonialism is a divine calling.

“He (God)has made us the master organisers of the world to establish system, where chaos reigns. He has given us the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the earth. He has made us adepts in government that we may administer government among savage and senile peoples.

Were it not for such a force as this, the world would relapse into barbarism and night.” Please let’s meet next week on the Black Man’s Burden to decolonize.

Goodluck Jonathan DECLARES FOR PRESIDENCY !!!!!!

Goodluck Jonathan Dear compatriots, four months ago, providence placed me at the leadership of our dear country, following the untimely death of our dear former President, my brother and leader, President Umaru Musa Yar’adua. It was a very solemn and trying moment for me personally and for the country as a whole. My immediate task and priority was and ...still remains to give the nation purposeful leadership and to focus on the priorities of our administration in order to maintain national peace and stability and pursue our key development priorities. In these few months as leader of the country, I have concentrated on managing the affairs of the nation, and resisted all efforts to respond to the drums of partisan politics which have been sounding very loud across the land. As President and leader of government, I decided not to place partisan politics above the immediate needs and priorities of our people. I came under intense pressure to make a declaration concerning my political future, but declined to do so because that would have immediately distracted us from all the development initiatives we have accomplished so far. I therefore told Nigerians to give me time to concentrate on my work and that at the appropriate time I would make a public statement on my political future after due consultations with all the segments and leaders of our nation.


Today, I confirm that after wide and thorough consultations spanning the six geo-political zones that make up Nigeria, with members of my family, my party, the opposition, civil society, the Private Sector, members of the Labour Unions, religious leaders, youths and student groups and our revered traditional institutions, I Goodluck Ebele Jonathan by the grace of God hereby offer myself and my services to the Nigerian people as a candidate for the office of President in the forth coming 2011 elections.


In presenting myself for service, I make no pretense that I have a magic wand that will solve all of Nigeria’s problems or that I am the most intelligent Nigerian. Far from it. What I do promise is this – If I am elected President in 2011, I will make a covenant with you the Nigerian people to always do right by you, to tell you the truth at all times, to carry you along and most importantly to listen to you, fellow citizens in our communities and also those of you on this page. I do not want to win your affections by giving you promises of things I would do in the future which others before me have given and which have largely been unfulfilled. Rather, I would want you to judge me by my records. Since God Almighty and yourselves permitted me to serve you in the present capacity, I have busied myself with setting Nigeria on the path of peace and progress.

My team and I made no promises on adequate fuel supply in Nigeria. We simply did what was expected of those who govern, we delivered it, and you are living witnesses to that. We made no promise to revamp the textile industry. We delivered a bailout package worth 150 billion naira that is being dispensed as I write. We made no promises of securing the highest U.S Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) aviation clearance, the Category 1 Certificate which enables Nigerian registered airlines to fly to ANY U.S city. We delivered. We made no promise to give Nigeria a brand new INEC under a proven God-fearing and incorruptible leader. We placed Nigeria first and delivered. We made no promises of protecting your loans, deposits and investments in the banking industry over and beyond what is covered under the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Scheme. We delivered it via AMCON. Rather than tell you what we could do to improve power, this administration demonstrated it by initiating a brand new national Super Grid as well as launching a concrete Road Map to the Power Sector with realistic goals tied to realistic dates. I understand from some of your mails that there has been some small improvements in electricity supply in some communities. We met an economy that was beginning to slow due to the global recession. Today, the economy has verifiably grown by 7% this half year ending in June.


I know you are tired of empty promises, so I will make only one promise to you today. The only promise I make to you my friends, fellow citizens and Nigeria, is to promise LESS and deliver MORE if I am elected. I call on you to join me to work together in harmony and synergy to forge a nation where we understand our differences instead of pretending they do not exist and work towards a perfect union founded on transparency, equity and justice. A nation that is on her way to repairing her International reputation and project to the world that things have changed and the people of Nigeria have now taken Nigeria back from a few into the hands of her people who are eager, very eager to pull her weight in the forward movement of the African continent and the world in the pursuit of peace, prosperity and happiness.


I will by the special grace of God be making a formal declaration to this effect at the Eagle’s Square, Abuja, on Saturday 18 September 2011.


I call on you my friends on this page and all Nigerians to give me your support and prayers so that together we can liberate our country from the confines and self –inflicted wounds and limitations of the past.

My dear friends and fellow citizens, to borrow an often used slogan by our youths, please join me in proclaiming: Forward Ever, Backward Never! Please let us all unite across tongue and creed to move our long suffering nation forward together. I thank you and may God bless our country Nigeria