Certificate Saga:My critics should go to court and remain there-Gen. Muhammadu Buhari

           

The presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress in the February 14 presidential election, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), on Tuesday said that Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has nothing new to offer if given another four years as the party has failed to deliver on promises it has been making to Nigerians for almost 16 years.

Buhari said this while receiving in audience a delegation of members of the Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) who were in his office to adopt him as their candidate for the 2015 presidential election.

According to him, whether or not the Nigerian elite is willing to admit it, the 2015 elections represent a watershed in the nation's political history.

He said, 'What you have said summarises the problems of this country. You have looked carefully and found out that this year, 2015, whichever way politicians and the elite look at it, is another time or watershed in our political system.

'If we get it wrong this time, and allow the PDP to go again for the next four years, this country is going to be in trouble. Right now, with the unfortunate event of crumbling oil price, the economy is really in a mess. Coupled with insecurity, it is only a country like Nigeria that can survive and get out of this situation we are in. A lot of countries will just disappear either from the map or from the political equation of nation states. But Nigerians are so resilient to the extent that there are international personalities who could not understand why Nigeria still exists.

'There was a former UN Secretary General who said that if he retires, he will go to Nigeria because, according to him, what is happening to Nigeria, no other country can go through it and survive.'

Buhari added, 'The 16 years of the PDP has been hell. Remember that we use to have Nigeria Airways, Nigeria Railways, Nigeria Shipping Line. Try and find out how much we have spent on power in the last 16 years from the vast resources we accumulate over that period because the price of oil went up to 142 dollars per barrel.

'What did we do with that money? We said that we paid debts with billions of Naira. If that amount was put into infrastructure such as power, roads, railways, farming etc, the amount of job it will create would be enormous. Today, some of our youths have become danger to the society because of lack of jobs. I hope the elite will properly document these 16 years as presenting the worst leadership this country has ever witnessed.'

Buhari noted that for Nigeria to develop, there must be a conscious effort to plan for the youths who, he said, constituted 65 per cent of the nation's population.

He also said that the decision of his opponents to resort to personal attacks did not come to him as a surprise because 'this is Nigeria.'

The candidate said, 'I am not surprised. This is Nigeria, if people are serious about this (certificate) issue; they ought to have listened to the legal adviser of INEC.

'This is the fourth time, I'll run for this office and INEC by law have got those documents. They (INEC) said they have got them. Anybody who has any different idea should go to court. They are now in court, let them remain there.'

Buhari also commended the PDM for coming out to join him in his quest to rescue Nigeria.

He told the delegation that he was delighted that the political family which former Vice President Atiku Abubakar was leading had formally declared support for him.

He revealed that he had tried to get them on board through Atiku who he described as 'your senior colleague, the Turakin Adamawa.'

Earlier, the leader of the delegation, Bashir Ibrahim, who is also the national chairman of the party, said the delegation took the decision to support Buhari at a National Executive Committee meeting.

He said, 'The NEC of our party, at its meeting of January 22, 2015 noted that the party has no presidential candidate for the election of February 14. It considered and accepted the need to support a candidate in order to save Nigeria for imminent collapse and give it a new lease of life.'

Meanwhile, the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation has alerted the nation's security agencies of a plot to use thugs to embarrass Buhari.

According to the APC campaign, the plot is aimed at disrupting the campaign rally of its candidate scheduled to hold in Taraba State on Wednesday (today).

This was contained in a statement issued by the Directorate of Media and Publicity of the Campaign organisation.

It was signed by its Director, Mallam Garba Shehu. He said the APC Campaign got wind of a plan to use thugs to throw stones and sachets of water at the Buhari team when it visits the state.

Holocaust Memorial Day: commemorating the liberation of Auschwitz

 
On Sunday Gavin spoke at Luton’s Holocaust Memorial Day observance service, with the theme of keeping the memory alive. Today marks 70 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Read his address from the service below.
This time last week I stood in a land of great lament. A land with a rich oral history. I was in Israel. And, today, I am struck by the power of choosing to tell the stories of our past – so they’re not forgotten and so they can shape our future.
Today we gather to remember. Because the alternative is to forget.
And when confronted with such pain, to forget almost becomes logical. To ignore can become rational. To deny, conversely, can become plausible.
This is human nature. But that is why, today, we stand here, in this room. Why we, here in this place, choose to remember, despite the pain it confronts us with. The shocking truth we must face.
That man can do this unto man; that we – each of us – bear not only the perceived imperfections that could lead us to find ourselves the concentration camp inhabitant; and the corrupted and defaced human power to be the concentration camp guard.
The theme of this year’s HMD commemorations is to keep the memory alive. It asks us to stand still and experience the dissonance, the confusion, and the reality of what we do to us; of what humanity is capable of.
It is a time when we seek to learn the lessons of the past and to recognise that genocide does not just take place on its own. That it’s a steady process which can begin if discrimination, racism and hatred are not checked and prevented. And in this time of hate; of easy answers and of identifiable groups to blame; it asks us to remember.
There is nothing more powerful than telling the stories that shape our today-history; our cultural conscience. Let this be our oral history.
1941: HOLOCAUST (1)
Between 1941 and 1945, the Nazis attempted to annihilate all of Europe’s Jews. It was systematic and planned. From the time they assumed power in 1933, the Nazis used propaganda, persecution, and legislation to deny human and civil rights.
They used centuries of anti-Semitism as their foundation. By the end of the Holocaust, millions of Jewish men, women and children had perished in ghettos, mass-shootings, in concentration camps and extermination camps.
Nazi beliefs categorised people by race; their opposition to racial mixing was part-justification for their hatred against Jews, Gypsies (Romani), Slavic and Black, disabled and gay people who lived in Germany.
1975: CAMBODIA (2)
The radical communist Khmer Rouge, under their leader Pol Pot, seized power in Cambodia in 1975. The population was made to work as labourers in one huge federation of collective farms. The inhabitants of towns and cities were forced to leave. The ill, disabled, old and very young were driven out, regardless of their physical condition. Children were taken from their parents and placed in separate forced labour camps. Lawyers, doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists and professional people in any field were murdered, together with their extended families.

Together with Kelvin Hopkins MP, Gavin attends Luton’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations

It was possible for people to be shot simply for knowing a foreign language, wearing glasses, laughing, or crying. Civilian deaths in this period, from execution, disease, exhaustion and starvation, have been estimated at well over two million.
1994: RWANDA (3)
In 100 days in 1994 approximately one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in the genocide in Rwanda. The genocide took place following decades of tensions between Hutus and Tutsis, and a recent history of persecution and discrimination against Tutsis. Extremist Hutu leaders accused Tutsis of killing the President, and Hutu civilians were told by radio and word of mouth that it was their duty to wipe out the Tutsis.
This genocide was carried out almost entirely by hand, usually using machetes and clubs. Frequently the killers were people they knew – neighbours, workmates, former friends, sometimes even relatives through marriage.
Each of these stories is shocking. But perhaps more so is what is going on today. Remembering forces us to engage the shocking part with the urgent now. For genocide is a fact of our world, and not just history
GENOCIDE TODAY (4)
IRAQ
In Iraq, today, IS fighters, who have already driven out Christians from their ancestral homes in northern Iraq been especially targeting the Yazidis. The Yazidis are the latest victims of the brutal advance by the Islamic State, formerly the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, whose Sunni Muslim fighters have been targeting Iraq’s Christians and other minority groups, as well as Shiite Muslims.
ISIS captured the Yazidi towns of Sinjar and Zumar, killing nearly 2,000 and forcing 200,000 to flee into the nearby mountains without food and water. Other atrocities include beheadings, rapes, and being sold into slavery.
MYANMAR
The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic minority of one million people that has lived in Rakhine state for centuries, but they face systematic religious and ethnic discrimination there. The Rohingya are not a recognized ethnic minority and are, therefore, robbed of the rights inherent in citizenship.
During 2012, violence increased against Rohingya and other Muslims in the Rakhine State, and the Pullitzer Center on Crisis Reporting said the Rohingyas have become one of the most oppressed ethnic groups in the world.
NIGERIA
Boko Haram (literally translated as “Western Education is a Sin”) is a genocidal criminal movement, who has vowed to destroy every Christian school in Nigeria, and to carry out terrorist attacks on Nigerian government police and government officials.

In Borno state, northeastern Nigeria, Boko Haram has murdered over 1,500 people in the past year, and over 3,000 in the past five years.  It kidnapped over 200 girls from a Christian school in April 2014 and despite the Nigerian government’s efforts, none have been found.
The leader of Boko Haram has taken “credit” for the kidnappings and says more Christian girls will be kidnapped and sold into sex slavery in neighboring Cameroun.  In May 2014 it began a new wave of kidnappings and bombings.  The leader claims that he is Muslim, but he has been denounced by every Muslim leader in Nigeria.
This is the reality of Genocide today; so what may be our response?
We come back to remembering; for in remembering, we see the age old patterns of human nature – and our ability to dehumanise. The great power we have to create, and the shocking power to destroy. We see parallels in the past time – and our own time. Heroes who find the grace and bravery to oppose scapegoating. Men and women of planned evil. Most of us, caught between the high calling of opposition, and the cost.
But it is not just history. It is defiance. Our act of remembering today is not some passive pastime, but an activity of defiance. A stance: a statement.
This time last week, I stood in Jerusalem – overlooking some of the most holy sites of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths. Its history is one of capture and recapture. Of conflict and division. But in the surrounding litter of buildings, of subverted ownership, there lies hope – even today.
These places stand on a testament to a history – a hope even – that despite our humanity’s nature; the divine is sought. We stand humbly today and ask for long memories, keeping short accounts, and asking for hope – and peace at last.
 

Ogbomosho:8 burnt to death

                     
A diesel tanker which collided with three other vehicles earlier today left at least 8 persons burnt to death beyond recognition.

The Next President Must be Younger Than Me-GEJ

       

                                  

The president said this at the PDP presidential rally in Nassarawa state,where he also gave the  little boy pictured above scholarship for life

 

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NAFDAC Intercepts And Seizes 4*40ft & 1*20ft Containers Of Fake Drugs At Apapa

NAFDAC has intercepted and seized 4*40ft and 1*20ft containers filled with various unregistered and suspected fake drugs.

Addressing the press, the DG NAFDAC, said the four containers were sighted by NAFDAC officials at the APM terminal and the contents

1. Heragra 120mg tablets in 1 40ft container
2. Ziagra 120mg tablets in 1 40ft container
3. Diclofenac 50mg in 1 40ft container
4. Tramadol 200mg capsules 1 40ft container

Also, the DG highlighted that unregistered Zahigra and Heragra brands of sildenafil citrate tablets is usually registered in 25mg, 50mg and 100mg. However, the fake one came in at a strenght of 120mg.

In line with the above, he further stressed that the intercepted drugs can cause increase d BP, ulceration of the gastrointestinal tract etc.

Also one Akintunde Smith was arrested for faking Alomo bitters.

APC members defect to PDP in Niger,Kebbi

Thousands of members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Niger and Kebbi States.

While 2,000 members left the APC for the PDP in Suleja, 2,750 members also defected to the PDP in Koko/Besse Local Government Area of Kebbi state.

Speaking on behalf of the defectors in Suleja, Niger State, a three-time chairman of the local government area, Alhaji Abdullahi L. Suleiman, said they had to leave the APC because the party had no direction, adding that they were also made to swear by the Quran to abide by rules and directives from the party.

“APC is the only party that will make you swear with the Quran to abide by rules and directives of the party, which we did but when we discovered that it is all deceit, we had to leave the party back to the PDP where we left from.
“We had to return to the party that we can see its structures and development on ground, because there is no ward in the 25 local government councils in the state that has not received dividend of democracy through the Ward Development Project,” he explained.

He also stated that the over 2,000 decampees are from ten wards in the state adding that more would join them.

According to Suleiman, he was not financially induced to return to the PDP, adding that he returned because of his conviction that PDP has better things in stock for the people of the state.

He stated that people are worried about the continuity of some of the policies of the Niger State Governor, Dr. Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, adding that voting for the APC will mean discontinuation of the policies like paying of NECO and WAEC fees, which is difficult for some parents to pay.

Speaking after he received them into the party, Aliyu said most people, who left the PDP felt that the popularity of the APC because of the Presidential candidate was going to ‘catch fire’ but when reality dawned on them that it’s a party revolving around one person they had to come back home. “They had to come back to what they are used to.”

In Kebbi State, the spokesperson for the defectors, Alhaji Maikano Koko, told Governor Saidu Dakingari in Koko yesterday that the defection was sequel to the numerous development projects sited in the area by the current administration.

He said the PDP-led government had provided infrastructural facilities while giving attention to agriculture and youth empowerment.

Koko also said the defectors decided to join the PDP due to the equitable provision of state resources.

Also speaking, the state Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bello Doya, assured the defectors that they would be treated fairly, saying “ the PDP family cherishes honesty and fairness among members. “

Doya, who called on the new members to shun money politics, said “ we need trust worthy leaders who fear God and can impact positively on the lives of the people.’’

In his remarks, Dakingari commended those who defected and promised them equal treatment.

“Political activities are for development to take place and not primitive accumulation of wealth to the detriment of the generality of the people.

“We would sustain prudence and equity in leadership,’’ he said.

He urged the defectors to eschew violence and politics of blackmail and thuggery, stressing that peace was paramount to the nation’s existence and development.

The PDP governorship candidate in the state, Sarkin-Yaki Bello, promised to lead by example if elected.

Bello, who said he would consolidate on the gains recorded by the present administration in the state, advised those who defected to ensure that they collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs).

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), thousands of APC supporters recently defected to the PDP in Sakaba, Fakai and Shanga Local Government Areas of the state.


http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/thousands-of-apc-members-defect-to-pdp-in-niger-kebbi/200249/