While addressing some PhD graduates of the Covenant University (CU) in Ota, Ogun state, Oyedepo urged people to come up with innovations that can solve problems plaguing the society.
The Chancellor, told them their inability to do so would mean their research programme was useless. Bishop Oyedepo promised to make funds available to them to identify problems and find solutions.
Speaking at a meeting with the young scholars, Oyedepo said Nigeria has been unable to address its challenges because of a lack of capacity to get the job done.
He decried situation in which PhD holders seemingly lacked the thinking capacity. He said: “I have come to provoke your potential. There is more inside you than the earned certificate. If you cannot think out solutions to problems, your PhD is a complete waste.
“When we say Doctor of Philosophy, we are saying master of thinkers; someone committed to finding solution to life’s problems. And until our learning translates to thinking, our PhD is zero.
“All that we have done going through the rigour of PhD is to ignite our thinking capacity. It’s so important that we have what it takes to recreate our country and the world.
"Hinting that Nigeria has more PhDs than four European countries, Oyedepo wondered why Nigeria was not getting similar result as the Europeans.
“The gas turbine (at CU) was not working because Shell was on strike. So why can’t students of Chemical Engineering build reserves? Why do we look at problems as if we are not concerned?”
Oyedepo said the scholars must learn to manage themselves, time and task, to be able to provide solutions to problems. He noted that the scholars must learn to manage themselves, for qualitative production.
Long-hidden annotations in a Henry VIII-era Bible reveal the messy, gradual process of the Protestant Reformation.
The handwritten notes were just discovered in a Latin Bible published in 1535 by Henry VIII's printer. There are only seven surviving copies of this edition, which features a preface by the king himself. The version with the annotations is in the Lambeth Palace Library in London.
"This Bible at first glance seems like a blank copy, so nothing interesting there, and very clean, which is the opposite of what we want it to be," said Queen Mary University of London historian Eyal Poleg, who is writing a book on the history of the Bible in England and who uses handwritten notes in Bibles to learn about how they were used.
But a closer look revealed that heavy paper had been glued over the margins of the Bible, hiding writing beneath. That writing would turn out to illustrate the Reformation in a nutshell. [See Images of the Annotated Bible Printed by Henry VIII]
Religious history
The 1535 Bible was published in a transitional time for religion in England. The Protestant Reformation was in full swing. Possessing an unlicensed translation of the Bible in English was a crime punishable by death. English scholar William Tyndale had nevertheless been working on a translation from Hebrew and Greek since the 1520s, a feat that earned him an execution by strangling in 1536. (Translating the Bible had long been dangerous work. John Wycliffe was the first person to attempt a full English translation, in the 1380s. At least one of his followers was burnt at the stake, the fire lit with manuscripts of the English pages. Wycliffe himself died of natural causes, but his bones were later removed from consecrated ground, burned and cast into the river by the order of the Roman Catholic Church's Council of Constance.)
The Latin title page of the 1535 Bible.Credit: Copyright Lambeth Palace Library
Only a few years after publication of the 1535 Latin Bible, Henry VIII showed signs the Church of England was moving away from the authority of the Roman Catholic Church — called the English Reformation. He was already on the outs with the Roman Catholic Church after the dissolution of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, had declared himself the supreme head of the Church of England, and was well on his way toward dissolving England's monasteries, a process said to have funded Henry VIII's military campaigns. [Family Ties: 8 Truly Dysfunctional Royal Families]
Poleg's discovery of the annotations written during this period was mere happenstance. He was at the Lambeth Palace Library in order to examine one of the two 1535 printed Latin Bibles there. But he accidentally ordered the wrong one. While he was waiting for the librarian to retrieve the version he'd meant to order, he took a closer look at the volume in his hands. In the margins of one page, he noticed something odd.
"I saw there was a very small hole, and a few letters were peeking out," Poleg told Live Science. Someone had pasted heavy paper over the margins.
What lies beneath
Poleg had to figure out how to see beneath the pasted-on paper — as removing the sheets would damage the original pages below. He used a light sheet, essentially a thin, paper-sized lamp that can slide under a page and illuminate any writing that might be hidden. The light sheet let him see that there was writing below the glued-on paper. It also let him see watermarks dating the paper to about 1600. But the printed text on the backside of the page showed through, too, making it impossible to read the handwritten notes.
"That's where I got stuck for about six months," Poleg said.
Finally, he turned to Graham Davis, an X-ray specialist at Queen Mary University of London's School of Dentistry. Davis took two long-exposure images of the pasted-over pages, one with a light sheet underneath the pages so that the annotations could be seen, and one without a light sheet. He then wrote a software program to virtually "subtract" the printed text, leaving the annotations behind. Suddenly, the hidden words were readable.
Transitional time
The annotations turned out to be tables of lessons, which are liturgical notes explaining which part of the text to read on particular days throughout the year (Advent, Easter and so on). The surprising discovery was that these tables of lessons were printed in English.
Further study revealed that the tables of lessons were copied from the "Great Bible," the first authorized English translation of the book, commissioned by the king's secretary Thomas Cromwell. The Great Bible was printed in 1539. The annotations were made at some point between then and 1549, Poleg said.
The presence of these English scribbles in a Latin book reveals how the Protestant Reformation happened on the ground, so to speak. By 1539, Henry VIII had issued legislation requiring all liturgy be given in English, not Latin. But "how people actually prayed, we don't know enough about that," Poleg said. "And this Bible tells us something."
"A lot of it is grayscale," he said. "It's not about going against Henry, or either Latin or English, but it's both Latin and English, both trying to do something they knew before, but not going head-to-head with legislation or the reigning monarch."
Other covered-up scribbles on the Lambeth copy of the Bible were less religious in tone. On the back page, Poleg found a handwritten promise by a Mr. James Elys Cutpurse of London to pay 20 shillings to a Mr. William Cheffyn of Calais. If Cutpurse (slang for "pickpocket") didn't pay, he'd be sent to the Southwark prison of Marshalsea.
Poleg tracked down Cutpurse's history and learned from a Londoner's diary that he had been hanged in July 1552. That means the handwritten promise had been made before then. Thus, the Bible tracks 17 years of tumultuous Reformation history in one document: It started as a royally decreed book, the first printed Latin copy of the Bible in England, then became a study guide on the shift from Roman Catholic Latin to Protestant English, and finally moved into secular hands, its use becoming more like a religious "talisman" than a liturgical text, Poleg said.
"Henry's breaking the religious establishment and their books are moving out of the church to all sorts of places," he said.
On architects’ drawing boards right now, there are housing estates with lots of trees, lawns and flower beds but no garages or parking spaces.
So what about your car? The futuristic planner explains: “You input a number on your mobile phone and your car leaves a nearby multi-storey car park and arrives at your front door.” There is nobody behind the wheel, of course, for this is a driverless vehicle.
In what has been described as “the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the petrol engine,” the government is to allow driverless cars onto a small number of British roads next year. If the experiment proves successful, they will move to 70mph motorways.
Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne believes automated private cars and public transport will revolutionise motoring by 2020. He said last week, “At a time of great uncertainty in the global economy, Britain must take bold decisions now to ensure it leads the world when it comes to new technologies.”
The change will be more evolutionary than revolutionary, said Mr Tim Armitage of the Autodrive consortium. He said there was a perception that driverless cars came without a steering wheel. In fact, they must have a manual driver behind the wheel who can take over if the computer-driven system fails.
ENTIRELY AUTONOMOUS
Eventually, experts believe, vehicles will be entirely autonomous and come at your beck and call. After dropping you at home, the car — either your own or a taxi — will return to its parking space in the multi-storey building or go on to its next job.
If the reaction of television viewers is anything to go by, the man in the street is less enthusiastic than the government. Reactions to a Sky News story ranged from: “A disaster waiting to happen,” to “This is insane.”
And inevitably, the pub question: “If you have one of these cars and you go down to the pub, do you have a few beers or do you refrain just in case the computer fails and you have to drive home? What’s the point of having a driverless car if you can’t have a few beers?”
***
Last week, this column reported how a Nigerian-born British businessman was arrested when someone saw the word “prayer” on his mobile phone and concluded that he was a terrorist. He complained that this sort of irrational panic was just what the terrorists wanted.
A week later it happened again, but this time even dafter. A boy aged four drew a picture of his dad at work in the kitchen with a large knife. The people at the boy’s Luton nursery asked him what the picture showed, and thought that he replied a “cooker bomb.” They promptly called the police. What the boy was trying to say was “cucumber.” His dad was making cucumber sandwiches.
***
It is widely accepted that children these days are less active, and therefore fatter, than their parents were because they spend so much time in their bedrooms playing computer games. Medical experts say obesity is a real problem with the younger generation.
Are things about to get worse? In America, there is a move to stop under-18s from heading the ball when they play football for fear they might sustain a brain injury. And here in Britain, there are calls for an end to body tackles in boys’ rugby.
GETTING THROWN DOWN
Needless to say, the cold-shower brigade is outraged, as evident by these reactions in my local paper:
Richard Robson: 100 years ago, kids were getting thrown down a mine for 12 hours without any light. Now they mustn’t head a ball. Get a grip!
Cheryl Abdul: No heading, no tackling, no wonder we can’t win anything.
Darren Frazer: Maybe they should wear steel-capped boots in case they hurt their toes.
Abi Hill: I fell off horses regularly from the age of three until 15. I turned out OK.
***
Claire Derbyshire, 36, suffocated her ailing father with a plastic bag, claiming it was part of a failed suicide pact. The jury found her guilty of murder and, last week, she was jailed for life with a minimum of four years.
The judge said the daughter believed it was an act of mercy but failed to establish that her father had agreed.
***
Things NOT to say to a policeman when he stops you on the highway:
“Look here, my good man, I pay your salary.”
“I can’t reach my licence unless you hold my beer.”
“Gosh, officer, that’s nice of you. The last policeman who stopped me only gave me a warning, too.”
“No, I don’t know how fast I was going. The little needle only goes up to 110mph.”
“Hurry up and write the ticket, the bars close in 20 minutes.”
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The jury in the inquest into the death of a pregnant mother-of-two, who was maintained on life support for 24 days after she was declared brain dead, has returned an open verdict.
Earlier, a consultant neurologist told the inquest into the death of the 26-year-old that she had an exceedingly large cyst on the left side of her brain.
He said when she arrived at Beaumont Hospital after becoming unconscious on the night of 29 November 2014, the signs were that she was extremely unlikely to survive.
The consultant, who examined her in Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar earlier that day, told the inquest that the young woman was in no obvious distress and she had no concern that she was suffering from anything more than very severe morning sickness.
Consultant neurologist Stephen McNally said a CT scan carried out on the young woman after she had become unconscious showed a very large cyst.
Mr McNally said this would have caused a build-up of fluid, a rapid rise in pressure and deprived the brain of oxygen.
It is impossible to diagnose the type of cyst due to the type of scan and the condition of the woman's body at the post-mortem examination, he said.
He added it was most likely she was clinically dead when she arrived at Beaumont Hospital but that could not be proved without further tests and said it was unbelievably rare to bring someone back from that situation.
Mr McNally said medical staff in Beaumont Hospital treating the woman were unsure about the law in relation to her foetus and they did not get strong advice.
He said on the available evidence they felt they had a duty of care to the foetus and that is why they maintained the woman on a ventilator while they requested legal clarification.
The consultant who examined her in Mullingar the previous day told the inquest she was in no obvious distress.
Hilary Cronin said in the early afternoon of 29 November, the woman was lying flat on her bed with a magazine in her hand and looked well.
She said she examined her and spoke to her and said her firm view at that time was that she had hyperemesis gravidarum, or severe morning sickness.
There was no evidence of any pressure build-up in her brain and she did not think something more sinister was going on, Ms Cronin said.
The woman was at the centre of High Court proceedings last December into whether or not her life support treatment could be withdrawn.
The woman was around 15 weeks pregnant when she was declared brain dead by doctors.
However, her family were told her life support could not be turned off due to the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which protects the right to life of the unborn.
A three-judge division of the High Court ruled last St Stephen's Day that life support treatment could be withdrawn as there was no genuine prospect of her baby being born alive.
Woman had complained of headaches
Earlier, the inquest heard the woman had been complaining of headaches from early September 2014 but it was not until 29 November that doctors in Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar discovered she had a cyst on her brain.
She had been brought to hospital two days earlier, crying about the pain and pressure in her head.
She was declared brain dead at Beaumont Hospital on 3 December 2014 and her life support machine was turned off on 27 December following the High Court's decision.
Her GP, Rosemary Cunningham O'Leary, told the inquest at Mullingar Courthouse that the woman first complained of headaches on 9 September 2014.
She had been diagnosed with severe morning sickness and a urinary tract infection.
In early November that year Dr O'Leary said the woman was suffering from severe headaches occurring once daily.
Dr O'Leary said she was not aware that doctors in Mullingar hospital discovered on 29 November 2014 that she had a cyst on her brain until sometime afterwards
Dr O'Leary said headaches would be a common side effect of excessive vomiting.
In her evidence, Dr O'Leary said it would have been totally unexpected that the cause of the woman's vomiting would have been anything else other than morning sickness complicated by a urinary tract infection.
The woman's father told the inquest that his daughter had been complaining constantly of headaches since September 2014.
He said she had been suffering from headaches, dizziness and vision impairment and had been admitted to the Midland Regional Hospital in Mullingar on three occasions.
She had been put on drips twice, he said, and her foetus had been scanned. But he said she had not been scanned for the problems she was complaining about.
He added that on 27 November her headaches were so bad that she asked her aunt to bring her to hospital.
The inquest heard the young woman texted her aunt saying she thought she was on the way out. She was crying about the terrible pain and pressure in her head.
Her father said the following evening when he saw her in hospital, she was unable to talk very much and was holding her head and covering her left eye and was complaining about headaches.
He said this was the last time he saw his daughter alive.
He spoke to his daughter on 29 November and she said that the CT scan she was expecting to have that day had been postponed until the following Monday.
Lawyers for the hospital said a decision was taken that the scan was not required on that day.
That night her father said he got a call from the hospital who told him his daughter was unresponsive.
She was moved to Beaumont Hospital where he was told that she had passed away. He said her surgeon said she was already "gone" by the time she arrived in Beaumont.
He said the surgeon told the family the woman was put on life support because her foetus had a heartbeat.
He said the surgeon told him it was due to the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution.
He said the surgeon said his hands were tied and it would be against the law to turn off the machine.
At that stage, he and the woman's fiancé decided to seek legal advice about mounting a legal challenge.
The inquest heard that after a brain stem test on 3 December, the woman was declared to be dead.
The young woman's aunt told the inquest that her niece was very distraught before she brought her to hospital on 27 November last year.
She said she was sitting at the kitchen table talking about the pain and pressure in her head and she was very unsteady on her feet.
She had texted her asking what she was going to do as she was in so much pain she thought she was on the way out, the inquest heard.
She said in hospital, her niece was not able to talk. She was staggering and crying with pain.
The aunt said she left and was texting her the next day. A CT scan had been mentioned in her niece's texts.
She added they were called to hospital on the night of 29 November and told the young woman had fallen and had later been found unresponsive in bed.
Doctors told them that night that they had found a mass in her brain. She said they were then allowed to see the young woman.
She said she was on a ventilator and she was cold. Her aunt said she believed her niece was not alive and was gone by that stage.
She was then transferred to Beaumont Hospital. She said doctors carried out a procedure to relieve pressure on her brain.
But she said the surgeon told them she had not responded and there was no hope for her.
Senior Counsel Adrienne Egan said the young woman had told doctors on that day that she was pain free.
She had also been sleeping well.
Her aunt rejected a suggestion that she had been sitting up in bed, reading a magazine with the television on.
Her aunt told the inquest she was so sick she would not have been capable of doing that but accepted that she had not seen her that day.
A very good friend of the family told the court that she had seen the young woman in hospital on the evening of 28 November. She said she was holding her head.
She said in hindsight she wished she had called someone but she trusted that she was being looked after by professionals.
She also said that when she saw her on 29 November after she had become unresponsive in hospital, her gut feeling was that she was already dead.
The jury has now retired to consider its verdict.The coroner told them the cause of the young woman's death was fluid on the brain secondary to a large cyst.
He said the official time of death was on 3 December 2014 when the main brain stem function test was carried out in Beaumont Hospital in Dublin.
The coroner said if they felt something more could have been done to save the woman's life then they should return a verdict of death by medical misadventure.
If they felt the medical staff had done all they could under the circumstances they should return a verdict of death by natural causes or if they could not decide they should return an open verdict, he said.
CREDIT:http://www.rte.ie/news/2015/0922/729494-inquest-pregnant-unborn/
In 2013, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar invited us for a meeting at the Yar’dua centre in Abuja, the meeting was to discuss happenings in the polity and the way forward for his political future having contested the presidency twice and lost.
The debate was centered around whether he, Atiku should remain in PDP or move out to another platform and whether he should contest again or not.
When I asked Atiku why will he consider leaving the PDP again having left twice before and back? He said the PDP cannot be “reformed” because, he said some people have hijacked the party and are bent on keeping it to themselves, Atiku left the party for APC after enormous consultation across all zones of the federation and his new party came over to win the presidential election even though Atiku lost at the primaries.
Atiku’s comment then remains valid till date that the PDP has forced itself into opposition. How could a party that wishes to reform itself go to hire a man with excess baggage like Ali Modu Sheriff to be it’s face of reform , isn’t that a movement from reformation to deformation? I have nothing against Senator Sheriff, his doggedness and stupendous wealth is not in doubt but that is not what PDP needs now, the PDP needed to reform itself against the image of a corrupt party of crooks who people believe instead of standing with them in times of their grief, aided aided and abetted in the unleashing of such grief by squandering resources marked for the fight against terrorism. Rather, the party chooses a person whose name keeps coming up in the complicity of the same crime that pushed it out of power to be it’s reformer. As if that is not enough the leadership of the party out of insensitivity to its members and plight of the general public decides to extend the tenure of it corruption infested members of the executive by another month, I doubt if before the end of the Dasukigate there will be any executive member left who will have no question to answer especially now that there is a question of how over 900 billion of the party funds were utilised. Yet the party is owing staff salaries from the national to the state level the same replete cases of recklessness, I guess this is why they most have drafted in Ali Modu Sheriff to help oil the greedy and inordinate life of spending which cannot continue out of power.
Political parties across board in Nigeria are formed not based on any tangible principles and objectives, mostly they are formed just for the purpose of winning elections and thats all.
But for politicians with a vast knowledge of politics, like Atiku; he knew that it will only take time the ruling party will crash especially that it has veered of course and not willing to “reform”.
Several members of a political parties in Nigeria are strange bed fellows whose only interest is how to feather there nest, this includes the ruling APC where there is no single clear agenda as to what the party seeks to achieve after winning the election, this is why a president could could just waive off a campaign promise as a party manifesto but not his promise, that only shows one clear message that the president either does not believe in the party since the party manifesto is a bond with the electorates or the party choosed the wrong candidate to fly it’s flag, it also beggers a question as to which is greater the part manifesto or the candidate’s campaign promise?
It bothers me a lot that you cannot my the tip of your finger differentiate between the democratic party I.e PDP and the Progressive party APC, what is democratic about PDP and what is progressive about APC?
No democratic party will in anyway block other candidates from contest in its primaries especially when it was glaring that it’s incumbent was grossly faulty and on the flip side, no true progressive party will combine Buhari, Tinubu, Saraki Atiku, Nyako, kwankwaso, Ameachi, Sylva and many other strange bed fellows under the same canopy and didn’t even stop there but went ahead to field a 73 year old man who retired 30 years ago, that is why he will ask what kind of fruit is “blackberry”?
Apologies to El-rufai.
Politicsl parties in Nigeria should represent what truly they bear in spirit and in action but hell no! They are just a bunch of people fighting for themselves and not for the people and when they loose, they run to form another party, form alliances or mergers and the circus continue again just like the APC has continued where PDP stopped, intrigues, bickering, mudslinging, backbiting, Inpunity, vested interest and even corruption and maladministration.
Twitter: @boyemdee
In the difficult moments of our history, looking precisely at the period of Nigeria’s war of unity 1966-1971, Egypt proved to be a strategic partner from helping to train our military to support with equipment and aircraft maintenance.
This 24-hour visit to to the Red Sea resort of Sharm Al-Shaikh was not just a ‘trip to Egypt’ as it has been wrongly portrayed, as if it were primarily bilateral in nature or a ritual courtesy call on President Sisi. The purpose was to promote investment and job creation in Nigeria and throughout West, Central and East Africa, together with other African leaders
The Sharm el-Sheikh ‘Africa 2016’ conference aimed at tearing down trade barriers between North and sub-Saharan Africa – a partnership anchored by the continent’s biggest and third-biggest economies (i.e., Nigeria and Egypt) by the injection of life into a 26-nation free-trade pact signed by half the number of countries on the continent a year ago.
The organizers brought together more than 1200 delegates to Sharm el-Sheikh, included among these the eight Presidents and Prime Ministers, ministers of trade and investment, representatives of global financial institutions, businessmen and investment executives.
It is expected that this new pan-African initiative will directly benefit Nigeria in its efforts to expand and diversify jobs and exports beyond the oil industry – a core component of President Buhari’s economic vision for the country. Knocking down trade barriers within Africa will create new markets for Nigerian farmers, manufacturers and other businesses.
In his opening remarks, Egypt’s President El-Sisi said that the forum aimed at “pushing forward trade and investment in our continent to strengthen Africa’s place in the world economy.”
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari who touted an extensive economic agenda said that this is not without challenges.
“The new problem affecting investment is international terrorism…lots of resources that could be used for development are being diverted to address security issues.”
As he and many others noted, the only way this can be redressed is by widening the participation of the private sector in African economies, the very idea behind the conference in Egypt.
One shining example of how this could be done came from the African Development Bank, ADB which announced through its President, Nigeria’s Akinwumi Adesina that the bank would be investing 12 billion Dollars in the energy sector in the coming five years to provide access to electricity.
There are 645 million Africans without access to electricity.
President Buhari’s visit to Egypt wasn’t limited to the business of “Africa 2016” in its success, as it turned out to be one that is a remarkable watershed in bilateral ties between the two states.
While it was not surprising that El-Sisi rolled out the red carpet for President Buhari in line with what many say is a plan by Egypt to rebuild the country’s money-spinning tourism industry in tatters since the mid-air bombing in October of a Russian plane, killing all 223 tourists and crew, the truth is also that these two of Africa’s three biggest economies had been too far apart when it comes to trade. The two leaders also bonded well with each other at their first meeting in Addis Ababa early in the new year.
By the last count, bilateral trade between the two states amounts to a meagre USD 100 million, with Egypt drawing about 80 percent of the benefit.
Egyptian pharmaceutical companies are making good sales in Nigeria. Egypt is Nigerians’ preferred destination for medical tourism.
Linked to this is their successful airline business trade in Nigeria. Egypt Air makes seven weekly flights to Lagos, and six each to Abuja and Kano.
There is little or nothing to show from the Nigerian side and this one of the things President Buhari wants to change.
In welcoming our President to the bilateral discussion, the Egyptian leader did not hide his joy at the acceptance of the Nigerian leader to visit.
The two leaders agreed to strengthen ties between their two states, to re-establish that historical closeness which helped Nigeria remain a single country decades ago.
They talked about doing this through enhanced partnership and cooperation in the areas of trade, security and defense.
President Buhari welcomed Egypt’s decision to strengthen strategic cooperation and intelligence sharing with Nigeria and from this, a framework for dealing with terrorism would emerge. For this, he gave instructions to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to follow up with a meeting. Further progress is expected to follow on security and trade issues. In addition, the President requested El-Sisi to promote Egyptian investment in education in Nigeria.
The two leaders also discussed a range of regional and global issues. As to be expected, terrorism topped them all.
They both expressed concern that the anarchy in Libya, a disturbing situation that had provided a great impetus to terrorism in areas far and around the failed state.
The leaders also emphasized their cooperation on climate change and energy issues.
Experts in the field of diplomacy say that personal bond between two leaders can help pave the way for better relations among states.
In Nigeria and Egypt relations, there is a good chance of this working to the benefit of the two states.
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Visible Minority Radio and TV Network (VMRTN) is a registered not-for-profit corporation with headquarters in the beautiful and fast-growing Town of Oakville and satellite locations and partnerships in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The aim is to cater to the communication and developmental needs of the nation’s ever-growing visible minority groups in a unique, all-purpose setting, along the way helping to fill the communication gaps among the sundry communities.
Research has shown that the mainstream media are not doing justice to the needs of these groups, thereby leading to lack of understanding between these groups and the mainstream population, and even among the communities themselves. Furthermore, there is a need to give our native languages a pride of place in the community while helping our younger ones, especially foreign-born, to imbibe the richness, history and value in our languages and cultures.
To this effect, we particularly aim to use the broadcast media of radio and television to further project the following social and capacity-building activities that form part of our mandate: Senior and Elderly services; Newcomer Referral and Information; Supportive and Peer Counseling; Age/ Sex-appropriate social programs; Drugs/ HIV / AIDS programs; Environmental Awareness; After-school program for kids; Crime Prevention; Single Mothers; etc.
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-IF by tomorrow Nigerians wake up to another revelation of how former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col Sambo Dasuki allegedly allocated part of the $2.1billion arms fund, the revelation would likely not raise too much eyebrow. Most people have learnt to take most of the revelations in their stride and like someone said, Nigerians are becoming inured to the different ‘revelations’or to put it simply, It is becoming jaded.
I have tried to put myself in the shoes of the former NSA since his incarceration, what goes on in his mind as the Department of State Security (DSS) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission ( EFCC) come up with all the cases against him? While not in support of people corruptly enriching themselves at the expense of all of us, it is essential to draw the line when prosecution becomes persecution, which the Dasuki case is tilting towards.
In all I have heard concerning the disbursement or should I say allocation of the arms fund, a case of the former NSA diverting the money into his private pocket has not been established.
It has always been that Dasuki gave the money to this or that person. It has not been said the money went into his personal pocket. That brings me to the question; Was Dasuki acting on his own or was he acting on instruction?
As NSA, he was answerable to the president, but the disbursement of the money by Dasuki could not have been the decision of the president alone. Members and different chieftains of the former ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) must have sat to determine who gets what and to what purpose before instruction gets to Dasuki to disburse.
Are we saying Dasuki took the decision to divert the money without recourse to a higher authority? That is clearly impossible. Another issue is whether those who got the money actually executed the project for which the money was given and whether the money was way above the project it was meant for. But that is another issue entirely. Pray, would Dasuki have disobeyed the command of the president to disburse money? Would he have been able to disobey the order of his superior? I doubt.
Now if money was found in Dasuki’ possession, as the DSS claimed when his house was raided, should that be a surprise, who among our leaders do not have huge sum of money in their houses at different times for the purpose of patronage peculiar to politicians and public office holders?
The above is just the least of my concern here. My main concern is whether in the bid to nail the former NSA, his fundamental human rights is not being trampled upon.
Most of us have continued to hang the guilty verdict on him already since he had been taken to the court of public opinion.
If Nigeria’s judiciary is such that the case had to go to a body of jurors, it would have been difficult to get untainted jurors or a prospective juror that had not heard about the matter. Indeed, empaneling impartial jurors would have constituted a problem because the former NSA had been put on public trial for a long time and had been pronounced guilty before his trial.
On several occasions, the courts had granted him bail only for him to be re-arrested. When one looks at the way the two agencies of government have gone after Dasuki, one wonders whether there was no other motive behind all that is happening. Has Dasuki been found guilty of misappropriation of public funds by a court of competent jurisdiction? No. In any criminal case, an accused person also has his rights under the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is, he’s innocent until proven guilty.
It is however curious to note that not only is Sambo Dasiki being treated like a common criminal, his case is being tossed from one security agency to the other while the court orders for bail have been denied (thrice he had been granted bail and thrice, he had been denied freedom.
His request for medical check has been largely ignored because as one government agent is ordered to release him , the other is picking him up.
That’s why I asked, what really is Dasuki worth? Do we want him alive or dead? Would his death be of any benefit to anybody?
Definitely not. That is why he should be availed the opportunity of medical attention. His request for medical attention should not be ignored.
Let’s assume he is a criminal, is a criminal not entitled to medical attention? President Buhari is strict, he is upright all which we know, on the other hand nobody has ever said he is an unfair leader. Dasuki should be treated fairly like all other people involved in this saga.
The first round of interrogation was conducted in Abuja on Friday with the second round due to follow tomorrow, The Nation gathered yesterday.
Aluko, speaking on Channels Television last week, alleged collusion between the PDP, Fayose and security officials in rigging the election. Of note is the allegation that former President Goodluck Jonathan released $37million to Fayose for the prosecution of the election wich Fayose won, defeating the then incumbent Dr. Kayode Fayemi.
$2 million of the sum was allegedly released for the PDP primaries which Fayose won conveniently and the balance of $35million for the election proper. The former PDP scribe had earlier appeared before the Nigerian Army Board of Inquiry chaired by Maj.-Gen. Adeniyi Oyebade, which investigated the roles played by its officers and men where he gave evidence and tendered sensitive documents.
Aluko was grilled on Friday by the DSS on all he knew about the alleged compromise of the Ekiti governorship election.
A source as the DSS office in Abuja confirmed yesterday that Aluko tendered many documents, which would assist the security agency in its investigations especially on “issues bordering on state security.”
The source said an interactive conference has been scheduled for tomorrow during which Aluko will face a larger panel of investigators to shed more light on the issues surrounding the alleged compromise of the poll.
The source said: “Dr. Aluko was invited by the DSS High Command in Abuja to make clarifications on his allegations and give details on what transpired before, during and after poll.
“Dr. Aluko is now in the DSS custody and he is okay there as he sees this as his patriotic duty to the nation especially in his desire to let Nigerians know that the Ekiti governorship poll was neither free nor fair as the world was made to believe.
“There are so many issues to shed light on. His interrogators want him to dot the i’s and cross the t’s most especially issues bordering on state security about the Ekiti governorship election.
“After the preliminary interaction with Dr. Aluko, the DSS officials are planning an interactive conference with him on Monday which may involve a larger team of investigators.
“From the way things are going, Dr. Aluko may be the guest of DSS till Tuesday because the Monday’s interactive conference may last a whole day.
“The DSS officers were not hostile but they were very inquisitive asking so many questions with details.
“The federal government is monitoring the situation because it has gotten so many messages from the revelations of Dr. Aluko since the news broke.”
In an interview with BBC this morning, President Buhari described the importation of toothpicks, rice and tomato paste by Nigeria as shameful.
See more of what President Buhari said during the interview in screen shots below as shared by BBC’s correspondent Sam Piranty.
