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Sunday, January 11, 2015

Ani Ahaba Hero’s Award 2014, Second Edition





LIST OF AWARDEES

The Leadership and Management of Foto-Sofia Foundation,  Proud Publishers of Asaba Post News Wire wish to announce that they have painstakingly through various online and offline opinion polls and information gathering come up with the list of awardees for the second edition of the annual Ani Ahaba Hero’s Award.

We are grateful to all Ani Ahaba Sons and Daughters who made their kind and free will opinion on their choice of Ani Ahaba children to be thus honored as HEROES for the 2014 Award.

The complete list will be pasted on our Asaba Post News-wire web site at www.asabapost.blogspot.com for 12 months, starting from January 2015 through December 2015, Some of those who made the list last year will be honored on the list of our HALL OF FAME section, which we are working on now.

We sincerely appreciate our second edition HEROES, we thank you for the wise choice you all made to impact upon Ani Ahaba, through our annual Ani Ahaba HEROES award, we modestly say thank you and believe that you will be guided and have your coast and endeavor  increased.

Our letter of notification to the awardees will reach them soon and we will publish here online details of our engagement with them. We at Foto-Sofia Foundation and Asaba Post News-Wire heartily appreciate Ndi Ani Ahaba for all your support since we started operation since 2010.

Kindly find below the list of the awardees.

*Obi Dr. P.I. NWAMU, Odogwu Ahaba,  ANI AHABA MAN OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014
*Chief Prof. Epiphany Azinge ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH ENTREPRENURSHIP AWARD
 
*Chief Alban Ofili Okonkwo ANI AHABA COMMUNAL DEVELOPMENT AWARD 2014
*Joe Dansaba (TEXAS), Administrator , Texas Sports Academy ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SPORTS & TALENT DISCOVERYAWARD

*Peter Okwuniazor ANI AHABA TRADITIONAL WRESTLING PROMOTER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014

*Nwanze Oduah ANI AHABA YOUTH LEADER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014

*Bridget Anyafulu ANI AHABA WOMAN LEADER OF THE YEAR AWARD 2014

*Brenda Nnebuogo Ogosi Bepeh ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH LEADERSHIP & PEACE INITIATIVES

NON- INDIGENES CATEGORIES
Within the year under review some non-indigenes partnered with one of our awardees at improving the lot of ANI AHABA YOUTHS, as such we are seizing this opportunity to honor them and they include:

*Hon Evan. Mrs Onyemaechi Mrakpor (ADA ANIOMA) Matron, Texas Sports Academy ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SPORTS, LEADERSHIP & TALENT DISCOVERY

*Umunna Davidson, Staff of Guinness Nigerian Limited,
ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AMBASSADOR

*Aruna Sezeniyu, Staff of Guinness Nigerian Limited,
ANI AHABA YOUTH DEVELOPMENT AMBASSADOR

Congratulations to our 2014 ANI AHABA HEROES, you have indeed made ANI AHABA great and we are proud of you, thanks.
 





Thirty Achievements of Goodluck Jonathan Administration







Naij.com guest contributing writer, social commentator Chinedu George Nnawetanma enlists the achievements of the Goodluck Jonathan administration, saying the Nigerian media shouldn’t only focus on failures but document positive changes as well.

The official campaigning for the 2015 general and presidential elections in Nigeria starts soon. Already, Nigerians have started discussing prospective candidates, Nigeria’s unity, and performance of the current President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

The Goodluck Jonathan administration has been charged with the leadership of a large and diverse entity that is Nigeria, Mr. Nnawetanma starts. In the four years that the Goodluck Jonathan administration has been in power, there have been flaws, successes and giant leaps.

 Sadly, Mr. Nnawetanma notes, the Nigerian media tends to focus more on the setbacks. That is why getting a comprehensive list of achievements is a “rather daunting task,” according to Mr. Nnawetanma.

The Goodluck Jonathan administration has been “silently transforming Nigeria from its dark ages of underdevelopment to a 21st century economic and political force,” Mr. Nnawetanma writes.
Mr. Nnawetanma has completed a list of implementations of the Goodluck Jonathan administration he considers to be a progress.

1. Promotion and practice of true democracy by creating an enabling environment where people from diverse backgrounds and with divergent views and opinions can be accommodated. Under the watch of Goodluck Jonathan administration, the APC was registered by INEC as a mega opposition party big enough to challenge the PDP at both state and national levels. This would have been unthinkable some years back.

2. Conduct of free and fair elections in the country, including the 2011 poll which was adjudged to be the most credible election of its magnitude that has ever been conducted in the country, though it was not without its flaws. Unlike in other administrations, the Goodluck Jonathan administration has given a free hand to the country’s electoral umpire, INEC, to perform its statutory duties.

3. Relative non-interference with electoral and judicial matters. This is evident in the number of governorship elections that have been won both at the polls and in the court by opposition parties in Anambra, Imo, Osun states, among others.

4. Liberalization of the press and guaranteeing the freedom of speech in a country where the stifling of the press and suppression of the citizens’ right to freedom of speech used to be the norm, a legacy of over 30 years of military rule. The existence of vocal anti-government media houses and critics would have culminated in some high-profile assassinations some years back, but today citizens are free to air their views whenever and wherever they like just like any other sane country.

5. Opening up of Nigeria to the global business community and becoming Africa’s number one destination of foreign investors. In the first six months of 2014, a total of US$9.70 billion or N1.51 trillion flowed into the national economy as foreign direct investments (FDI).

6. Under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, Nigeria rebased it’s GDP for the first time in over a decade to become the largest economy in Africa, overtaking South Africa and Egypt in the process.

7. Proceeds from Nigeria’s non-oil exports rose to 2.97 billion by the end of 2013, up from 2.3 billion in 2010.

8. Initiation of the YOUWIN program in 2011. The Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YOUWIN) program aims to generate over 100,000 jobs for innovative unemployed youths across the country in the course of three years. It is currently in its third year.

9. Nigerians are now a step closer to being fully integrated into the international e-commerce community with the approval and reinclusion of Nigeria as one of the Paypal-compliant countries after being banned from using the service at the peak of the advanced fee fraud (419 scams). With Paypal, Nigerians can now pay for goods and services online from anywhere in the world.

10. Goodluck Jonathan administration is the one behind the revival of the dead automotive industry in Nigeria. Global auto giants like Peugeot, Nissan and Hyundai now either assemble or wholly manufacture small cars, Sport Utility Vehicles, trucks and buses at various locations in Nigeria. In addition to that, Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company (IVM), Nigeria’s flagship indigenous automaker, has begun the sale of their first made-in-Nigeria cars and SUVs in August 2014.

11. Under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, Nigeria became the first country in West Africa to host the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2014. It was also the most successful World Economic Forum for Africa (WEFA) in history, boasting of a global reach of 2.1 billion people according to estimates.

12. Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote’s net worth increased from US$2.1 billion at the start of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan’s administration to US$23 billion in 2014, making him Forbes’ richest black person in the world and the overall 26th richest in the world. He attributed this mammoth increase in his monetary worth to Goodluck Jonathan administration favourable economic policies.

13. Construction and beautification of many federal roads in the country, including the Lagos-Benin expressway, Abuja-Lokoja expressway, Enugu-Abakiliki expressway, Onitsha-Owerri highway and most parts of the Enugu-Port Harcourt expressway. Also, construction of the second Niger Bridge between Onitsha and Asaba to relieve the pressure on the old Niger Bridge which was completed in December 1965.

14. Revival of the comatose railway system of transportation in the country is happening under the current Goodluck Jonathan administration.

15. Remodelling, beautification and standardization of airports across the country. In addition to that, aircraft from Nigeria are now allowed to fly directly to the United States of America instead of going through many stopovers in Amsterdam and some other European cities along/in the route. The Akanu Ibiam Airport in Enugu was upgradede into an international airport, directly connecting the South-East region of the country to the outside world for the first time since independence.

16. Establishment of nine federal universities across the country in states which previously had no federal degree awarding institution.

17. Computerizing education in the country with the introduction of the computer-based test (CBT) which will be mandatory for all UTME candidates from 2015.

18. Introduction of the Almajiri system of education in the academically disadvantaged Northern parts of the country.

19. Arresting the outbreak of the deadly and highly contagious Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in record time, though it unfortunately claimed some lives at the onset.

20. Transformation of the agricultural sector, so that, in the words of Agriculture minister Akinwumi Adesina, “Nigerians will stop thinking of agriculture just as a means of livelihood, but more as a business.”

21. Nigeria has reduced its food imports by over 40% as of 2013, moving the country closer to self sufficiency in agriculture.

22. Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of cassava with an output of over 45 million metric tonnes in 2014 according to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

23. Due to favourable economic policies, Internet penetration in Nigeria has now increased from about 45 million in 2011 to 63 million in 2014, overtaking countries such as the United Kingdom and France in the process. What this means is that more people now use the internet in Nigeria than in the UK and France.

24. As of the second quarter of 2014, the number of registered active telephone lines in Nigeria stood at 130 million out of a total of over 170 million telephone lines.

25. Introduction of the Nigerian electronic identity card (e-ID card), one of the most secure in the world d the largest in Africa. The e-ID card serves as both an international identification module and an electronic payment solution.

26. Introduction of the cashless system which aims to encourage the use of e-payment systems in the country and reduce the volume of physical cash in circulation.

27. Unbundling of the dysfunctional Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) into about 18 profit-driven successor companies.

28. Under the watch of President Goodluck Jonathan administration, Nigeria won the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 19 years in South Africa in February, 2013.

29. Nigeria ended up with 11 gold , 11 silver and 14 bronze medals at the recently concluded 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, finishing 8th in the overall ranking.

30. Women in politics have been given more prominent roles in the current President Goodluck Jonathan administration. A large number of the federal appointees of the Goodluck Jonathan administration are women. They include, but are not limited to, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Miriam Aloma Mukhtar, Nigeria’s first female Chief Justice; Diezani Alison-Madueke; ex-aviation minister Stella Oduah, Joy Ogwu, Nigeria’s representatives at the United Nations; Sarah Jibril; and Viola Onwuliri.








31 REASONS WHY BUHARI DOES NOT DESERVE YOUR VOTE






In my books, Buhari is a pretentious anti-corruption fighter. The trajectory of a man's journey in public life matters. For the following reasons I cannot vote for Buhari:

1. He is an oligarch who does not believe in equality before the law. The way he jailed Lateef Jakande, Jim Nwobodo, Ambrose Ali, Pa Adekunle Ajasin, Chief Ayo Ojewumi on cases that had no foundation and allowed Awwal Ibrahim, the then Niger State governor, who was arrested in Heathrow Airport in London with 14 million pounds sterling and several millions of Niara and dollars to be put under house arrest is my evidence. He also allowed Shehu Kangiwa, Sokoto State Governor who conducted and supervised the famous Bakolori Massacre of poor peasant farmers who's land were appropriated without compesation to remain under house arrest.

1(a) Ayo Ojewumi became blind as a result of his imprisonment over false charges and died shortly after.

1 (b) Prof. Ambrose Alli also became blind as a result of this false imprisonment. When he died, he had only one undeveloped plot of land to his name.

1© Pa Adekule Ajasin was never the same after his eventual release and remained sickly for the rest of his life. Whe he died, he never had any property anywhere in the world except the one he had built from his sweat as long term teacher and school principal in Owo township.

2. He put in place a retroactive law that killed three men, innocent men in my book, by public execution.

3. He jailed Ndukar Irabor and Tunde Thompson of the Guardian on stories that were factually true under Decree 4. He had told the Nigerian journalists then that it did not matter whether the story reported was true or not, if his regime did not like it, the writer would go to jail.

4. He supervised the smuggling of 53 suitcases filled with cash through the MMA against the protests of General Tunde Idiagbon and ironically, Abubakar Atiku, the then Director General of the Customs who later became the Vice President and a compromised politician himself. This smuggling of the suit cases was supervised by his ADC, Col. Mustapha Jokolo.

5. He jailed Fela Anikulapo -Kuti on trumped up charges under an emergency law which prompted the sentencing judge to confess that he was ordered to do so and apologised to the late musician. It was Buhari's administration that said it has "decided to deal with this Fela problem once and for all."

6. He convinced all the northern political leaders against allowing the National Identity Card program because according to him, this would unravel the myth of a Northern population majority

7. He is an Islamic fundamentalist, the Bin Laden of Nigeria, who told his northern followers never to vote for anyone who was not a muslim.

8. He is a coup plotter.

9. He has never been able to account to Nigerians what he did with the 20 billion Naira of the Petroleum Trust Fund of which he was the chairman under Sani Abacha.
9(a) He has not been able to point to any project that he prosecuted outside the Northern Nigeria with the so-caled trust fund.

10. He was in full support of all the atrocities of Sani Abacha against the Nigerian people. There is no single record of his criticism of Sani Abacha during those dark days when Nigeria was on precipice. It shows that he is a patriot of convenience and as such unfit to lead the country.

11. Buhari, as part of his tribalistic practices placed President Shagari under house arrest inside a palatial mansion in Ikoyi while he locked up Shagari's Vice, Alex Ekwueme in Kirikiri Prison. Shagari is Hausa/Fulani like him while Alex Ekwueme is an Igboman.

12. Ikemba Emeka Ojukwu, another Igboman who returned from 13years exile just a little over a year then was as well locked up in KiriKiri Prison by mean-hearted Buhari.Up till today we are not told what was Emeka's offence.

13. Busari Adelakun died of ulcer because Buhari refused him to be taken out of prison for immediate medical attention.The then Governor of Ogun State,Bisi Onabanjo suffered similar fate which we were told led to his untimely death.

14. Buhari ransacked the house of our late sage, Obafemi Awolowo and confisticated his International passport. Which civilized democratic society would elect the likes of Buhari as President,the same individual who overthrew an elected President? Never!

15. Plus Buhari having Sam Mbakwe in jail, went for one of Mbakwe's wives. He established himself again for what he was/is letting Mbakwe receive in jailhouse news of the death of another of Mbakwe's two wives. One (I can't remember his name now; Odenigbo?) also died in jail.

16. Buhari's henchman and sponsor, CPC governorship candidate for Kano State, is Mohammed Abacha, the same person that had/ran a personal killing squad, coordinated the killing of Kudirat Abiola & attempted to kill Ibru; and also stashed money in underground tanks, all less than 13 years ago, Nigerians have very short selective memory. Shame

?17. Buhari discriminated against persons from other ethnic groups/faiths; and that as PTF Chairman, he employed an overwhelming number of Fulani/Hausa/Moslem people at the detriment of other groups and concentrated PTF projects in the Nort, h. If in doubt read El Rufai's testimony where he wrote about Katsina boys who used the money they made at PTF to bankroll Yar'Adua's election in 1999.

18. Buhari is unforgiving. When he "took over" by coup in 1983, he even remembered an article written a very very long time ago by Bisi Onabanjo ('The Mallams are coming') and a later one in which Onabanjo wrote that people should watch out for that "gangly officer from the north" after Buhari gave a no holds barred speech at some Army functions where he was reported to be very openly pro Fulani and pro Islam to the exclusive of all else and also talked about termination of democratic rule. For that, Onabanjo got one of the harshest jail terms and treatments.

19. Buhari intolerance is worse than Obasanjo's. When he was adopted as the ANPP's candidate on the night of the party's Primaries without prior warning to the other candidates (and a few of them protested), Buhari got up and made a speech that those people must be disciplined. I subsequently saw him on BBC's "hard talk" and he frightened me and the interviewer with his archaic and fundamentalist intolerant views. His understanding and articulation is very much in doubt.

20. The evil genius, IBB and his crew similarly ran rings around Buhari. On the 10th anniversary of Abacha's demise, Buhari said that Abacha stole nothing from Nigeria! Despite millions of Dollars recovered from banks around the world and the Abacha family signing a formal agreement to return over $1 billion dollars, Buhari still said that Abacha's stealing remains an unproved allegation!!!! Why? Because Abacha set Buhari up like an emperor and let him use oil money from the Niger Delta to develop the North without supervision or questions.

21. Buhari snubbed the same Nigerians he now wants their votes by refusing to appear before Justice Oputa Truth and Reconciliation Panel. Despite the fact that Buhari knew how inportant reconciliation is to the stability of democracy. Buhari has never apologised at anytime.

22. Buhari executed Lawal Ojuolape (30), Bernard Ogedengbe (29) and Bartholomew Owoh (26). To put it quite plainly, one of those three – Ogedengbe - was executed for a crime that did not carry a capital forfeit at the time it was committed. and At the time Ogedengbe committed the crime it did not carry that punishment. If we must live as civilised citizens we must go by the rules. Article 11.2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights reads: "No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission WHICH DID NOT CONSTITUTE A PENAL OFFENCE, under national or international law at the time when it was committed. NOR SHALL A HEAVIER PUNISHMENT BE IMPOSED THAN THE ONE THAT WAS APPLICABLE AT THE TIME THE PENAL OFFENCE WAS COMMITTED. Killing people with retroactive laws is not the civilised thing to do - and for as long as we will have people who refuse to see the truth only because their heroes are inching to rule when they have not purged themselves we will continue to wallow in misery.

23. Let’s informed Buhari that Lateef Jakande’s $60 million metro rail project for Lagos, which he cancelled immediately after he over-threw the Second Republic, has now accumulated a debt profile of over $3 billion for Lagos State, making the state the most indebted state to Paris Club in the federation.

24 let also remind Buhari that Gbolahan Mudashiru, his Military Administrator for Lagos State, alerted him on the clause in the contract agreement that would yoke the state to this debt, if the contract was cancelled unilaterally, and that he replied Mudashiru, that he didn’t care a damn.Though the fund for the execution of that project which would have given the people of Lagos an intra-city light train transport system would not have come from Buhari’s Supreme Military Council, General Buhari, as Military Head of State, cancelled this wonderful project of the state government, with ethnicity on his mind.
25. Let us again tell him that his action of jailing Dr Alex Ekwueme, then Nigeria’s vice president, from Anambra, and keeping President Shehu Shagari, from Sokoto State in a house arrest in Ikoyi was also ethnically fired.

26. So also was the shorter end of the stick he handed the South, as chair of Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), in the execution of projects.

27. Shagari’s regime (1979-1983), incurred Buhari’s wrath when it decided to investigate the US$2.8 billion that disappeared from the Midland Bank, London account of the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, (NNPC), during General Obasanjo’s era as military head of state that preceded Shagari’s. Dr. Olusola Saraki, Turaki of Ilorin, was the majority party leader of the Senate at the time and he headed the Senate Committee set up to trace the stolen money after some three years of clamour for such an investigation by members of the civil society. The money was traced to the Midland Bank London branch fixed account of Buhari, Obasanjo’s appointee as military head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. The Committee’s report was presented to the Senate during the tail end of Shagari’s regime in 1983, so the House decided to deal with the matter soon after the 1983 general elections.

28. He locked up without trial, politicians and critics including Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, notorious for clamouring for the exposure of the oil money rogue. Vera Ifudu, who was an NTA reporter then, was sacked through his prodding as military ruler, for reporting what Dr. Olusola Saraki had told her in an interview about how the missing money was traced to Buhari’s account at a Midland Bank London branch. Vera eventually won her case of wrongful dismissal in court against the NTA and was financially compensated.

29. Abacha rehabilitated Buhari with the chairmanship of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) before he (Abacha) died in 1998. When Obasanjo returned to power in May 1999 as civilian president, he found that over 2.5 billion naira had not been properly accounted for in the PTF and that there was not much on the ground to show for the colossal expenditure the agency was claiming. On the day Obasanjo announced the scrapping of the PTF, a non-staff brother-in-law of the boss, allegedly serving as his conduit on some PTF projects, died suddenly from what appeared to be heart failure.

30. Buhari’s conflicting statements on the money laundering charges involving his ADC in 1984 on the 53 suit cases saga, has indicted him.

31. He should reveal to us his health status… Buhari at 69 yr old is a clear liability on Nigeria and Nigerians is Nigeria a health insurance scheme?




Mazi Odera
Truth is our standard,accept it in good faith or
we shove it down your throat.The Choice is yours.



APGA warns against the ‘convenient’ use of Igbo heritage for political expediency





The ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA) Nigeria, has warned politicians and prominent individuals against the convenient use of ethnic and cultural heritage for political horsetrading while pretending to represent the Igbo Nation, when fully knowing that the Igbo peoples’ issues are distant from their radar, and of no concern.

Being Igbo cannot be a convenient political stance. While we recognize that all are welcome and entitled to the Igbo cultural heritage, we however warn those with similar nomenclatures to the Igbo, to be careful of how they conveniently introduce such in their utterances at the greater political and economic arena, which while self-serving and has no bearing on the greater reality, is however interpreted by others as a stance by the Igbo, with implications against the greater Igbo Nation, when such stance fails.

Unfortunately also, the bearers demonstrate poor astuteness in standing by their previous messages.
The Igbo do not tolerate cowards, or cowardice. You cannot be one thing today, and tomorrow another. Nigerians hate the inconsistency. Be proud to consistently say your name, where you come from and who your kith and kin are.

We, at the ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA), are of the opinion that Truthfulness, Consistency and Faithfulness to the fatherland, are part of the Igbo cultural heritage and ethic, and should be demonstrated on a daily basis, not at whim. We charge all to reflect same consistency, in thought, presentation, word, and deed, especially during this election period. We do not have convenient Igbos.

Say who you are. Everywhere. Let all know. No ambiguity, irrespective of Geographical location. Be proud of your heritage. Fellow Nigerians will exactly know who they are dealing with. There are no watered down Nigerians. We all have a distinct orientation. That is why the Nigerian cultural melting pot is one the richest in the whole world.

We, at the ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA) Nigeria, caution that people must demonstrate a sense of discipline and consistency in their stance and utterance as the greater Igbo population, nay Nigeria, is affected by it.

Because at The ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA), Nigeria, We continue to be our brothers and sisters keepers, looking out for the welfare of our electorate.

Sgd:
Okwukwe Ibiam
National Publicity Secretary
ALL PROGRESSIVES GRAND ALLIANCE (APGA)
NIGERIA.