The Federal Government has declared Wednesday, May 29, as a work-free day, in commemoration of the 2019 Presidential Inauguration.
The Minister of Interior, Lt.- Gen. Abdulrahman Dambazau, (Rtd), made the declaration on behalf of the Federal Government, in a statement signed by Mrs Georgina Ehuriah, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, on Monday in Abuja, NAN reports.
Dambazau congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari for his re-election and Nigerians for the successful conduct of the 2019 elections, which were widely acknowledged as peaceful, free, fair, credible and transparent.
Dambazau called on Nigerians to support the policies and programmes of the incoming administration.
He said these policies are all geared towards the improvement of the lives of the citizens, as well as the unity, growth and development of the nation, as it moves to the next level.
He expressed confidence that, with the collaboration of all Nigerians, the nation would be transformed in the next four years to a country that would be the envy of other nations.
The minister wished the incoming administration, a most fulfilling tenure and Nigerians a memorable Presidential Inauguration Day.
President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital to commission some projects executed by the outgoing Ibikunle Amosun administration.
The president also used the opportunity to reconcile with his long time ally who was suspended from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in the aftermath of the 2019 governorship election in the state.
Governor Amosun was suspended for anti-party activities when he threw his weight behind the election of Adekunle AbdulKabir Akinlade, the APM candidate, against his party’s governorship candidate, Prince Dapo Abiodun who eventually emerged victorious.
Buhari’s presidential chopper NAF 540 touched down at Archade Ground, State Secretariat, Oke – Mosan at exactly 10:18am.
Lewis Hamilton resisted intense race-long pressure on Sunday to secure a narrow, dramatic and emotional victory for a mourning Mercedes in the Monaco Grand Prix. Mercedes’ British driver Lewis Hamilton points at the name of late Formula One legend Niki Lauda on his helmet after winning the Monaco Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Monaco street circuit on May 26, 2019 in Monaco. (Photo/ AFP) The defending five-time world champion and current series leader, who came home less than a second ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, said he survived the Dutchman’s late attacks by “fighting with the spirit of Niki (Lauda)”. ADVERTISING ADVERTISING He lifted his red helmet in tribute to the three-time champion Austrian and non-executive chairman of Mercedes who died on Monday. Verstappen, who was involved a pit-lane collision during the race, was classified fourth after taking a five-second penalty. This elevated Sebastian Vettel to second for Ferrari and lifted the luckless Valtteri Bottas to third in the second Mercedes. [READ ALSO] Mercedes Benz recharges with two new workhorses “Lewis, it’s James… Incredible drive,” said Mercedes’ strategist James Vowles before team boss Toto Wolff told him: “That was for Niki.” “That was the hardest race I think I’ve had,” said Hamilton. “I was fighting with the spirit of Niki. He’s been truly an influential person in our team and we miss him.” Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Pierre Gasly came home fifth ahead of Carlos Sainz of McLaren, Daniil Kvyat and his Toro Rosso team-mate Alex Albon. Daniel Ricciardo, last year’s winner for Red Bull, was ninth for Renault ahead of Romain Grosjean of Haas. It was Hamilton’s third win in Monaco and the 77th of his career, opening up a clear lead ahead of Bottas in the drivers’ title race. The result extended Mercedes’ run of season-opening wins to six, but brought an end to their sequence of one-two triumphs.
The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) is seeking an agreement between Nigeria and neighbouring West African countries to end the practice of Nigerian girls being used as sex slaves in Mali.
At a presentation to the ECOWAS Parliament during its First Ordinary Session on Saturday, NAPTIP Director-General Julie Okah-Donli told members of parliament that Nigerian girls were being sold for between N210,000 and N240,000 to work as prostitutes.
Presenting the report of the fact-finding mission to Mali, Okah-Donli said that after being sold, the girls were made to pay back between N1.08 million and N1.2 million, usually within eight months, to their madams.
She said that after gaining their freedom from their madams, the girls would then go into business, making money for themselves through prostitution before graduating to madams of their own.
“There are more than one million Nigerians residing in Mali. About 20,000 of these Nigerians are girls believed to be victims of trafficking and the number increases by 50 per day.
“Many victims are deceived to leave their livelihoods in Nigeria for greener pastures in Mali.
“Some of the victims are abducted from Nigeria, including those that arrive in school uniforms.
“On arrival at the border town between Burkina Faso and Mali, many of the girls are sold off for CFA 350,000 to 400,000; their new owners then make them pay back about CFA 1.6 million to CFA 2 million with one CFA being 0.6 Naira,” she said.
Okah-Donli said that as part of efforts to curb the trend, the mission recommended among other things, that Nigeria should develop a Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, Guinea and Senegal.
The mission further recommended that all motor-parks through which the girls were trafficked should be sanitised and efforts made to stop extortion of Nigerians travelling to or through the aforementioned countries, she said.
“There is need for comprehensive sensitisation of rescued victims before repatriation and a comprehensive blueprint worked out for tracing, empowerment and rehabilitation of victims,” Okah-Donli said.
She said NAPTIP was ready to give technical support to Mali if it sought to establish an anti-human trafficking agency.
For the ECOWAS Parliament, the mission recommended that the protocol on Free Movement of persons and goods be properly implemented such that other nationals are not harassed in other ECOWAS countries, the director-general said.
Throwing more light on the findings of the mission, Okah-Donli said that efforts to repatriate girls were usually foiled through the complicity of Malian security forces, coupled with the willingness of many girls to return to the ‘sex-for-gold’ trade.
She said that there were some of the girls who were trafficked to the northern parts of Mali where they not only offered sex but were radicalized.
She said that many of the victims who were rescued in 2011 and some others in 2017, came back to Nigeria only to return with more girls.
The director-general further said some of the sex slaves were made to sleep with numerous men without protection while also being made to pay huge taxes by the complicit Malian authorities.
She raised the alarm that there was now a growing possibility of xenophobic attacks as Malian women were already grumbling that Nigerians were taking their men.
“The Malian authorities collect taxes from the victims on a weekly basis and sell condoms and other medications compulsorily to their victims every month.
“Malian women are already grumbling that Nigerian girls are taking their men, and there are fears of imminent xenophobic attacks.
“Three Nigerian girls were killed between November and December 2018,’’ Okah-Donli said.
She said that efforts to stop the trade at the borders had not been encouraged by border security as they had not made efforts to arrest the traffickers in spite of all information given to them.
“The border point between Nigeria and Seme-Krake and Burma Fas/Mali are notoriously porous, and despite numerous reports and pictures of traffickers sent to law enforcement agencies at the borders, no arrests or rescues have been made.
“The traffic madams are well known to the Nigerian community but they are afraid to report them because of the complicity of the Malian security agencies in human trafficking, especially the gendarmerie who assist the traffickers to carry out their activities.
“Nigerian victims are way-billed from a motor-park in Cotonou, dropped at Sikasso near the border with Burkina Faso, from where they are picked by Malian gendarmerie for delivery to their madams,” she said.
The director-general added that the Nigerian sex slaves lived in about 300 settlements in Malian bushes, with each settlement holding 100 to 150 girls.
The girls, aged between 16 and over 30, hang around bars and night clubs to display for their clients who take them into their huts made of polythene, Okah-Donli said.
As part of effort to curb the menace, she said the team met with the Ministry of Justice in Mali to find solution to the menace.
She said that the Malian Justice Ministry had called on NAPTIP to come up with an MoU that would provide a proper framework to end the trafficking and repatriate those already trafficked.
Why does Asiwaju Bola Tinubu want to learn from a mistake instead of learning from history? History does not repeat itself. Men repeat history and that is a mistake. How can Tinubu be so naive to expect that even if the All Progressives Congress gives him its ticket in 2023 (possible, but iffy) that Northerners will leave prominent Northerners in the Peoples Democratic Party, like Atiku Abubakar, Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Aminu Tambuwal and Sule Lamido to vote for him?
If Tinubu thinks that what happened to the late chief MKO Abiola will happen to him, then he is allowing hubris blind his judgment.
I recommend to him the biography of Shehu Musa Yar’adua, titled ‘A Life of Service’, and written by Miss Jacqueline Farris.
In that book, he will read that the late Chief MKO Abiola was a political sacrifice by the Northern political elite of the Social Democratic Party, led by the late Tafida of Katsina (Shehu Musa Yar’adua) who knew beforehand (from intuition, not conspiracy) that General Babangida was going to annul the June 12, 1993 elections and only decided to support Chief MKO Abiola so that they could use Babangida to destroy Abiola and use Abiola to destroy Babangida, leaving the coast clear for them.
As a matter of fact, when prominent politicians asked Shehu Yar’adua why he was supporting Chief Abiola, he responded by saying that if he supported a Northerner, the Northerner would win, but Babangida would annul the election and the North would accept it because they were both Northerners. But if he supported a Southerner, like Abiola, when Babangida annulled the election, the South would rise up against him and he (Shehu Yar’adua) and his movement, will support the South and in one fell swoop, they will be rid of both Babangida and Abiola.
Let us face the truth, the North is by far more politically sophisticated than the South of Nigeria. Only one Southerner, to my knowledge, has been able to outflank the North, and that is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Bola Tinubu does not have what it takes. He is being led by the nose, hopefully, not to his doom, but to his disgrace.
Recently, Nasir El-Rufai was in Lagos at the behest of the Bridge Club, which put up a hastily arranged, and probably custom-designed occasion tagged, “An evening with His Excellency Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
It was a moment where El-Rufai delivered the general thinking of the Northern elite as regards Bola Tinubu.
At that event, El-Rufai, who had once knelt down for Tinubu, flippantly remarked “Godfatherism. This is Lagos. Let me tell you something sir; you know, Kaduna State used to be like that. There were three or four politicians in Kaduna that you could not become anything unless you had them on your side. Those were the godfathers of Kaduna politics and you had to carry them along and you know, the three words, ‘carry them along’ mean paying them regularly. “But we chose a different path and the long and short of it now is that after this election in 2019, we have retired all of them; we had to.”
Mr. El-Rufai then went on to give Lagosians tutorials on how to defeat their own ‘godfather’.
Defeat, is what the North has planned for Bola Tinubu!
And the problem with Bola Tinubu is that, unlike Obasanjo, he is a coward. The North knows that they have finished using Tinubu. After Buhari’s re-election, they see him as being as useful as a used sanitary pad. In their eye, he is only as relevant as the ‘p’ in psychology. They also know that he is too cowardly to stand up to them and so they are toying with him and disrobing him before his own people. They intend the complete and total demystification of the bullion van-loving lion of Bourdillon.
The drama between El-Rufai and Bola Tinubu just serves to expose the servile and bootlicking nature of Bola Tinubu. It is almost like an episode of Game of Thrones. In this episode, Nasir El-Rufai insulted Bola Tinubu. But rather than face his SLAVE MASTER, who insulted him, Bola Tinubu rather PROJECTED his anger in an UNPROVOKED attack on the Peoples Democratic Party, calling them all sorts of names.
This is what they call TRANSFERENCE in psychology, where a PSYCHOLOGICAL PATIENT transfers his aggression on another person because he is too COWARDLY to face the real object of his anger!
I urge the leaders of the Southwest to look at the man who parades himself as their leader. Surely, they cannot trust the fate of 40 million Yoruba to such an anodyne creature!
A man that can be insulted so irreverently by Nasir El-Rufai and just takes it. Say what you will about Olusegun Obasanjo, but this could never have happened to him.
Bola Tinubu once said this about Obasanjo in a March 25, 2012 interview with Vanguard newspapers:
“If you underestimate Obasanjo, it is at your own peril because he has the character, strategy and will to destabilize you and you are gone to the bush, you are gone to the rubble. Very deceitful.”
The above assessment is very correct. This is the type of leader the Southwest needs to plot their political ascendancy post 2019, not a servile bootlicker that can be toyed with by Nasir El-Rufai. Not at all.
Bola Tinubu is nothing but a Quisling. He is not fit to stand beside Olusegun Obasanjo, perhaps the greatest leader to have come out of Africa. It is just a pity, that it is the North that knows this man’s worth more than the South and more than his own people.
But in an attempt to make them appreciate the blessing that God gave them, let me just talk a little about Obasanjo.
Before Olusegun Obasanjo became Nigeria’s military head of state in 1976, Nigeria had had four previous leaders. They were Prime Minister Abubakar Tarawa Balewa, Major General Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi, General Yakubu Gowon and General Murtala Mohammed.
Of the four, three were murdered. The one who was not murdered (Yakubu Gowon), was overthrown.
Olusegun Obasanjo is the first Nigerian leader to have had a natural tenure uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. Think about that.
And then between 1979, when he handed power to President Shehu Shagari, and 1999, when he returned as a democratically elected President, Nigeria had six leaders.
They are the late President Shehu Shagari, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, General Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Ernest Shonekan, General Sani Abacha and General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
Of these six leaders, four of them were removed either by a coup, civil unrest or with a gun pointed to their head. One of them died as a victim of a conspiracy whose plotters we still do not know. And the last one, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, hurriedly hashed over before the fate of his predecessors befell him.
Olusegun Obasanjo, who returned as a democratically elected President on May 29, 1999, is the second Nigerian leader to have a natural tenure, uninterrupted by coups, death or tragedy. Think about that again.
He is the author of six books. Is an intellectual. Is able to speak truth to power and go to prison for doing so.
This man was so courageous that when he was informed in Copenhagen by then US ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, that General Sani Abacha would arrest him if he returned home, he chose to return home. This is even where he had been offered asylum by the West.
But let us come back to reality. Let us face the present. All over Nigeria, and also in the Southwest, herdsmen of Fulani heritage have been killing Nigerians without the Buhari administration doing anything tangible to stop them or bring them to justice.
Almost everyone has been afraid to speak up and hold the Buhari government to account. That is until Obasanjo spoke on the matter on May 19, 2019 when he slammed the Buhari administration and said that the herdsmen and Boko Haram killings are “no longer an issue of lack of education and lack of employment for our youths in Nigeria which it began as, it is now West African fulanization, African Islamization”.
Four days later, Nobel laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, put aside his well-known animus for former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to agree with him on his comments on herdsmen and Boko Haram and their Islamisation agenda, and condemned the Buhari government.
That took courage! The type of courage that Bola Tinubu, sadly, does not have. What is Tinubu doing as herdsmen kill his people? He is licking the boots of the Grand Patron. Igbo man say tufiakwa!
Liverpool midfielder Naby Keita has been included in Guinea’s 25-man provisional squad for next month’s Africa Cup of Nations, despite it not being clear whether he will be fit for the tournament.
It comes two days after the Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp revealed Keita was ahead of schedule in his recovery from the thigh injury he picked up at Barcelona in the Champions League on 1 May.
Keita, 24, is part of Liverpool’s 26-man squad currently in Spain ahead of next weekend’s Uefa Champions League final against Tottenham, although Klopp told the Liverpool FC website that the midfielder will only return to action if he is “100 per cent fit”.
Other key players included in Guinea’s squad are in-form Bordeaux striker Francois Kamano, Napoli midfielder Amadou Diawara and the Syli National skipper Ibrahima Traore who plays for Borussia Monchengladbach.
Three players with dual nationality are called up for the first time. They are France-born Brentford defender Julian Jeanvier, former French youth international Fode Koita and Mikael Dyrestam who has featured in two friendly internationals for Sweden’s national team.
Two players who committed their international future to Guinea during the 2019 Nations Cup qualifiers, Simon Falette and Ernest Boka Seka, are also included in the squad.
Defender Mohamed Aly Camara, who recently won the Swiss League with Young Boys, is left out due to injury.
Lass Bangoura who plays for MLS club Vancouver Whitecaps and the Pogba brothers Mathias and Florentin continued to be overlooked by coach Put who will unveil his final 23-man squad on 14 June.
A further list of six players have been put on standby by the Syli National coach.
Guinea will begin their Nations Cup preparations on 28 May in Conakry and will then head to Marrakech for a two-week training camp when they will play warm-up matches against The Gambia on 7 June and Benin four days later.
Their third and final preparation match will be against Nations Cup hosts Egypt in Alexandria on 16 June.
Guinea have been drawn in Group B with three times African champions Nigeria and debutants Madagascar and Burundi.
They will face Madagascar in their opening match on 22 June before facing Nigeria four days later.
Guinea will wrap up their group campaign with a match against Burundi on 30 June.
Governor Akinwunmi Ambode has stated that his administration of four years has turned things around in the city of Lagos State.
The governor made this known while speaking to newsmen shortly after inaugurating the 400-seater Lagos theatre on Friday night in Epe area of the state.
Reviewing his tenure which will end on Tuesday, Ambode expressed gratitude to God for giving him the grace to serve Lagos.
“This is more of a fulfilling day for me. If there is anything for me to say, it’s that I am fulfilled that a day like this can come in the history of this town.
“Four days to go in four years, we have turned things around.
“God has given us the grace that I can come back here and actually spend my last weekend of those four years with my people.
“We are very delighted that, among the theatres that we have established, we have the opportunity to come and inaugurate the one in Epe.
“I am very grateful to God. You never planned what you met on the way. Having had that opportunity to be elected as governor and for four years, one is able to do it in good health and mind. To God be the glory.
“The main purpose of governance is giving back to humanity and serving selflessly. All that put together, I am happy I was able to do that and God gave me the grace.
“The fact that I am also leaving in good health is a sort of fulfillment for me,” he said.
Ambode said governance is a continuum and expressed the hope that his successor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, would continue where he stopped.
The governor added that the new edifice will help to promote tourism and hospitality both at Epe and in Lagos in general.
Theresa May announced on Friday that she would resign on June 7 after a turbulent week for the Prime Minister which saw a resignation from her Government and many of her own MPs demanding she stands down. US President, Donald Trump, who is scheduled to travel to the UK in the first week of June for an official state visit, claimed her decision is for the “good of her country”. Mr Trump added that he “felt bad” for Mrs May, insisting “she is a good woman”.
“She worked very hard. She is very strong.
“She decided to do something that some people were surprised at, some people were not. It is for the good of her country.
“But, I like her very much. In fact, I will be seeing her in two weeks.”
The Prime Minister ended her resignation speech nearly in tears as she spoke about the country “I love”.
Mrs May began tearing up and her voice broke as she ended her speech and said: “I will shortly leave that has been the honour of my life to hold. The second female prime minister but certainly not the last.”
Before walking off, Mrs May added: “I do so with no ill will but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.”
During her speech on Friday morning, Mrs May also said: “I negotiated the terms of our exit and a new relationship with our closest neighbours that protects jobs, our security and our union. I have done everything I can to convince MPs to back that deal.
“Sadly, I have not been able to do so. I tried three times. I believe it was right to persevere, even where the odds against success seemed high. But it is now clear to me that it is in the best interests of the country for a new prime minister to lead that effort.
“So I am today announcing that I will resign as the leader of the Conservative and Unionist Party on Friday 7 June so that a successor can be chosen.
“I have agreed with the party chairman and with the chairman of the 1922 committee that the process for electing a new leader should begin in the following week. I have kept Her Majesty the Queen fully informed of my intentions and I will continue to serve as her Prime Minister until the process has concluded.
“It is and will always remain a matter of deep regret to me that I have not been able to deliver Brexit.”
A renowned filmmaker and media practitioner, Salisu Muazu, has been abducted by some armed men on Thursday evening along the Kaduna-Jos road.
Confirming the incident to NAN on Friday, the elder brother of the victim who is also a filmmaker, Sani Muazu, said they were travelling together with two other persons at the time of the incident.
“We were returning from a conference in Kaduna when we were stopped and robbed by some armed men around Jengre village.
“They robbed us and I was able to escape, yet they went away with my younger brother Salisu and two other guys we gave a ride.
“They got in touch this morning seeking for a N10m ransom to process their release.”
Muazu appealed to Nigerians to offer prayers for the safe return of his brother and the other victims.
Manchester United have made an offer in excess of €40million for Lyon striker, Moussa Dembele, Goal reports.
Dembele enjoyed a productive first season with the Ligue 1 side, scoring 23 goals in all competitions, since his move from Celtic.
United have been following the player since his youth days at Paris Saint-Germain, with club ambassador Eric Cantona having endorsed the move for his fellow Frenchman.
Dembele is contracted to Lyon until 2021, meaning the Ligue 1 side who secured Champions League football for next season, are in a strong position in negotiations.
It remains to be seen how attracted the 22-year-old is to a move to Old Trafford, with Europa League football on offer.
