President of the most populous country in the world meets president of the most populous country in Africa

China President, Xi Jinping met with President Buhari in New York yesterday

EFCC Arrests Traders with Huge Sum of Dollars in Enugu Int’l Airport

Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) stormed Onitsha Main Market, Anambra state after arresting seven traders at the Enugu Interna­tional Airport for alleged money laundering.

A source said the arrested trad­ers who were traveling either to China or Dubai were carrying with them dollars more than the stipulated approved amount for those traveling outside Nigeria, adding that some had $100,000, while others were in possession of $60,000. The officially al­lowed maximum travel allow­ance is $5000.

The source said that upon in­terrogation, the traders were said to have mentioned where they purchased the foreign currency in the market, hence the visit of the EFCC operatives to the Main Market to arrest the dealers.

Chairman of the Onitsha Main Market Traders Union (OMMA­TU), Chief Innocent Agudiegwu who confirmed the incident, said that the traders were arrested at the airport and brought to the market where it was ascertained that they were genuine traders and not money launderers.

Saraki Begs Obasanjo To Help Talk To Buhari; OBJ Intervenes

President Mohammadu Buhari on Saturday held a secret meeting with former President Olusegun Obasanjo in New York in a bid to calm the tension going on in the All Progressive Congress (APC) over the ordeal of the controversial Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

The meeting which was held behind closed door at the Millennium Plaza Hotel in New York lasted for about 45 minutes.

Sources who were part of the meeting at its early minutes before being excused said that the former president had called the protocol officers of President Buhari to schedule the talks in order to plead for a soft landing for Saraki.

However, former Ekiti State governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, was sighted at the door of the room where the meeting took place, and all efforts to speak with him proved futile as he was busy struggling with security men who repeatedly stopped him from gaining entry.

All efforts by newsmen to speak with Obasanjo on his way to his hotel after the meeting met a brick wall as his security men prevented any interview from taking place.

Obasanjo even had to caution his security men that: “E fi won s’ile”, meaning “leave them alone”.

Photos: Meet Emir Sanusi's 18-year-old Bride, Sa’adatu Barkindo-Musdafa

Sa’adatu Barkindo-Musdafa, the daughter of the Lamido of Adamawa, is 18 years old and now married to 54 year old Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi.

She just finished secondary school, is now the Emir's 4th wife. They have a 36 years age difference. Here's a photo of her co-wives and step children.

Michelle Obama and Beyonce embrace at Global Citizen Festival

While Beyonce was performing on stage last night at the Global Citizen Festival at Central Park, US First lady was invited on stage where she happily embraced the singer who she's said so many times she respects and is a role model to other young women.

Nigerian couple who met on Twitter, wed in Lagos (photos)

A Nigerian girl named Oyinkansola replied a DM (direct message) sent by a man named Olaoluwa on twitter and 3 years later, they are now husband and wife. Olaoluwa's DM to Oyinkansola was his first attempt at sending a DM and he's now married to the first lady who replied him. Continue to see photos from their introduction which took place yesterday September 26th...Wishing them a happy married life...

 

 

Photo of Prof. Jega's brother Justice A.A. Jega who died in Hajj stampede

So sad! Photo credit: Hassan Hussain

New photos of Joseph Yobo & his family

Joseph Yobo and wife, Adaeze with their second son in new photos shared online. More when you continue..

Photos: Buhari, Obasanjo attend AU meeting in New York

President Buhari and former president Olusegun Obasanjo attended the African Union (AU) Peace and Security Council (AU-PSC) meeting held at the Permanent Observer Mission of the AU to the United Nations in New York yesterday September 26th. Others at the meeting included the National Security Adviser to the President Major General Babagana Monguno (Rtd), the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bulus Z. Lolo, DG NIA, Mr Oke and Former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr Kayode Fayemi. More photos after the cut...

'What's your dream car? Young Kenyan Billionaire asks on Facebook while posing by some of his expensive cars

His name is Darshan Chandaria, the Managing Director of Chandaria Industries. He wrote on his Facebook page: "Sundays are perfect to enjoy your toys, well that's true for me and cars! What's your dream car?" Lol. Another photo of him with Aliko Dangote after the cut...

Photos: Ambode and wife, Shade Okoya and husband attend Ojude Oba Epe celebration

Lagos state governor Akinwunmi Ambode and his wife as well as billionaire Razaq Okoya and his beautiful wife Shade, joined other Lagosians to celebrate the Ojude Oba Epe 2015 Celebration which held at the Epe Recreation Ground, Epe yesterday September 26. More photos after the cut...

SARAKI: Is This Man Really A Shameful Public Servant?

It’s blindingly obvious that the Bukola Saraki who was docked at the Code of Conduct Tribunal in Abuja on Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 is weakened, diminished and reduced to a hollow husk. His stint as Senate President has become politically untenable and morally intolerable. But rather than embracing this fact of life, he seems resolved to fight it.

And so for a while, Saraki resisted the invitation to enter the accused box. He saw the accused box as a proper coffin. He reckoned that if he stepped into that container and stayed in it, he would have actively participated in his own political funeral.

However, it was too late. He was already fatally wounded even before he was boxed.

Saraki had ruined himself 

by pursuing the fantasy of living a virtually impossible incongruence: He wanted to become the Senate President while being Bukola Saraki. Saraki highlighted this when he protested: "I am a firm believer of the rule of law. I have come here to subject myself before this tribunal. I strongly believe that I am here because I am the Senate President."

When Dr. Saraki intuited that ’’ I am here because I am Senate President,’’ he made a correct self-diagnosis. But, he was still strangely unaware of the vein of truth that ran beneath his remonstration.

Saraki was trying to allude to political persecution. He had intended to assert that the charges of false assets declaration and anticipatory assets declaration filed against him were a mere pretext to punish him. He figured that the Presidency was bullying him for daring to become the President of the Senate.

Unbeknownst to Saraki, his ‘’I am here because I am Senate President’’ captures the real reason of his travail: Which is that he tried to be Senate President... while being Saraki!

Saraki, indeed, chose the most inopportune time to launch himself into national limelight. It should have been clear to him that he would be unable to survive.

Saraki, by the virtue of being Saraki, a living museum of baggage, should have never have attempted to vie for Senate President. He should have known that the burden of scrutiny would crumble him.

The siren of ambition drove Saraki. He wanted to be Senate President, the third most powerful man in Nigeria. But the crisis he failed to anticipate was the natural character comparison that would result from his proximity to the upright duo of Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osibanjo in the power echelon.

‘’Senate President Bukola Saraki’’ is a proper oxymoron. The merger of the position of Senate President and person of Bukola Saraki represents a conflicted tension of meanings. His pathetic demeanor since he became Senate President Saraki shows that the title and the man coexist in mutual attrition.

If Saraki were to resign today, he would be doing himself a favor.

Saraki has always labored under the illegitimacy of his ‘’emergence.” His Senate Presidency was conjured out of forged Senate rules and a flawed procedural format. Also, reinforcing the scam, is the fact that he was elected ‘’unopposed’’ in an exercise where half of his colleagues, members of his own political party, were bodily absent.

To date, half of the Senate membership considers him as an impostor. Half of the people he is supposed to be leading are in court, challenging the validity of his claim to be the ‘’Senate President.”

Saraki is not embarrassed by the contempt of half of his House. He carries on, even though the eighth Senate remains stuck in the strictures of his emergence. Apparently, the status of the Senate President, or its close approximation - pretender to the seat of the Senate President - matters more to him than the requisite credibility capital needed to do the job.

Saraki has been playing the nominal part of the Senate President – answering to the title of the Nigerian parliament, sitting on the lofty chair during the Senate session and hitting the gavel, but in reality he has been no more than an infatuated mother rocking the cradle of her stillborn:

His Senate Presidency and Senate never really begun. Much worse than that, his Senate and his Senate Presidency may never ever begin.

Saraki seems incapable of winning the respect of a sizeable number of his colleagues and of procuring the promise of their tolerance of his person. He seems to emit an aura that they find abominably repulsive.

Now, the Nigerian Senate is not the congregation of honest people. In fact, it has – almost as a default configuration – a quota of characters that represent the cream of criminality. Today’s Senate boasts a pedophile (Sani Yerima) and a fugitive drug baron (Buruji Kashamu) as ‘’distinguished’’ members. The makeup of Saraki’s Senate is not much different from the one that had prompted ex-Deputy Inspector General of Police, the late Nuhu Aliyu, to lament, in the midst of a plenary session, that he was forced to share camaraderie with the fraudsters he investigated while in service.

Saraki, from his central role in bankrupting his daddy’s bank to his two terms as Governor of Kwara State, had accumulated a streak of blemishes that makes him an anathema.

The measure of the man’s complexity is that his present distress could grow worse. He is a mine that has only been shallowly researched. He remains a promising ‘’The More You Look, The More You See’’ prospect.

Saraki is possessed of the delusion that he can wait this Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) saga out. He believes that if he stays resilient, the storm will fade eventually. And he will convalesce from the nightmare strong and ready to win the Presidency in 2019!

Saraki has always wanted to be President. He has come close to it as the Senate President, the number three man. He reasons it would be easier to snatch the ultimate seat from this vantage spot.

This is hoping against hope. The reality is that his days in national prominence have expired.

On June 9, 2015, Saraki – according to the horse’s own mouth – ingeniously smuggled himself into the National Assembly Complex at 6.00 am and hibernated at the car park, a clear four hours ahead of the scheduled commencement of the inauguration of the eighth Senate.

If Saraki has lost his understanding of the time and a sense of propriety, I am glad to do the charity of alerting him: It’s high time he resigned!

The thirteen count charges against him and his tangential conjugal culpability in his wife’s alleged fraudulent conduct as First Lady of Kwara State have effectively obliterated any vestige of Saraki’s fitness for office. He just can’t continue in his present post.

As a public servant, Saraki needs to exit the Office of the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria without delay. In his current position, Saraki has become public nuisance, a shameful cynosure.

His continued association with the headship of the legislative arm of Nigeria pu forths his battle with the law on the screen of national cinema. And this compels the whole nation to watch the plague metastasize in the news cycle.

We need a break from Saraki’s intrusive movie. We can’t keep on watching the saturation coverage of the criminal trial of the ‘’Senate President.” He needs to separate himself from that title and sort himself out. An entire nation cannot continue to pay him the tribute of compulsory attention.

Even if he doesn’t care about the sensibilities of the public, Saraki should resign as a personal favor to himself. He increasingly humiliates himself as he struggles to retain relevance amidst serious charges.

He needs to resign urgently. While clinging to his leadership position, Saraki, the accused, drags the Senate along - like the tortoise dragging its shell - and uses the institution as his shield.

He needs to step aside and defend himself against accusations of wrongdoing.

But being the central character in his own tragedy, Saraki seems fated to persist in processing his ruin until he consummates his self-destruction.

Written by Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu

@emmaugwutheman