Gists in Nigeria

Gov. Ahmed

So another crude oil has been discovered in Nigeria. Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed of Kwara State revealed that Aran Orin in Irepodun Local Government Area of the state accommodates oil. Daily Sun says the ministry officials not only confirmed the substance as crude oil but identified the blend as Bonny Light, a high-grade of crude oil preferred by European and American refineries due to its unique properties.
Good news, isn't it? In a country where blessing is misused and self-destruction is our second name, my feelings are mixed. I think politicians are surely the ones to benefit. It is hardly a surprise that crude oil could be discovered here. This country is very blessed. I pray this country changes, and realizes its potentials. I pray.

A woman who underwent a full face transplant in May after being mauled by a chimpanzee in 2009 revealed her new face in a photo released on Thursday.
Charla Nash, 57, who was photographed in her hospital bed at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, appears dramatically different with a new nose, lips and facial skin.
"I will now be able to do things I once took for granted," Nash said in a statement.
"I will be able to smell. I will be able to eat normally. I will no longer be disfigured. I will have lips and will speak clearly once again. I will be able to kiss and hug loved ones."
Nash was hurt after a friend's 200-pound (91 kg) pet chimpanzee went on a rampage two years ago. She lost her hands, lips, nose and eyes, leaving her blind and disfigured after the attack. The animal was eventually shot and killed by police.
After undergoing a grueling 20-hour full face transplant at the hospital in May, Nash in the photo now has a fair, almost blushing, complexion.
Prior to the surgery, Nash was often photographed wearing a veil to hide her disfigurement.
Nash's full face transplant was the third surgery of its kind performed in the United States, all at the same hospital.
An anonymous female donor provided face, hands and other tissue material that made the surgery possible. The hand transplant was deemed successful but the hands did not thrive after complications from pneumonia and were removed.
Another hand transplant could be attempted if a suitable donor is identified, doctors have said.
Nash's face was rebuilt by a medical team of more than 30 physicians, nurses, anesthesiologists and residents in a challenging surgery made more complex by the double hand transplant.
The world's first full face transplant was completed in Spain in 2010.

*culled from Yahoo!*

When I got the news, I was shocked to the marrows! Here were people travelling to the north on Chisco bus, stopped by thieves, told to lie down, and were subsequently crushed in gory fashion by some moving vehicles while lying down. Horrible!
It's that bad. What a sad story! Very sad story.

Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (or is it Lamido Sanusi Lamido), a very intelligent man, has got a lot of criticisms on his Islamic Banking proposition. But the worst of them all was being called a liar.
While explaining the need for the now much talked about Islamic banking to the House of Representatives, he reportedly revealed that Anambra was the first state to ask for loan from this Islamic development bank. However, a member representing Anambra, the pretty Uche Ekwunife, in a letter, denied this, and demanded an apology from Sanusi.
My question is, why would Oga Sanusi lie, and why would Anambra of all states, be his target? Why not Kano, or Borno, Bauchi or Zamfara? I get it. He's trying to say, "yes, even the christians who don't want it have already benefitted from it". Fantastic one, I must add.
From his explanation to the House, maybe the non-interest banking isn't a bad idea. But why use the 'Islamic' knowing some people wouldn't accept it? This is a nation divided violently by religion. So why tow that path?
Fair enough, the house has clarified itself. It never accepted Sanusi's presentation. It is still open for review.
Whether or not it would be accepted is not an issue. Maybe the name it bears is the problem. If they had used another tag that affects neither group negatively or positively, probably it wouldn't have generated much dust.
Call Obama Odinga, and it may not be news (even Jonathan, Ebele), but call Obama Osama and the whole world would shout!

You might like this. Just read...

I am struck — if not particularly surprised — by the skewed use of language surrounding the attacks recently  in Norway. The Western press is largely avoiding the term “terrorist” when speaking of the blond, blue-eyed, Christian attacker, Anders Behring Breivik, who is now in custody after being picked up by the police. The term “terrorist attack” is also absent from the headlines of our country’s major media outlets. (See the lead articles on CNN, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.) Does anyone have a shred of doubt that these attacks — politically-motivated acts of violence against unarmed civilians — would be trumpeted as an “act of terrorism,” and its perpetrator as a “terrorist,” if Breivik was a Muslim?
As Glenn Greenwald writes, the reason for this glaring inconsistency is apparent: in the American press and in mainstream political discourse, “terrorism” simply means “violence committed by Muslims whom the West dislikes, no matter the cause or the target.” That someone who “looks like us” and who “believes in our god” (sarcasm) could commit an act of terrorism is, of course, to misuse the term. Christians do not engage in terrorism. It is a term reserved exclusively for Muslims, or at least that is the conclusion that one is forced to draw if one pays even a whit of attention to what our political and media elites are saying these days. Christians who engage in these types of acts are generally labeled “extremists,” not terrorists. And, indeed, that is the term that is now being deployed.
The way that our media and our political elites selectively use the label of “terrorist” — to galvanize fear of Muslim radicalism and build reliable support for our endless war on terrorism — is deplorable. The term has become so politicized and manipulated these days that it is now virtually meaningless in its present usage. Is it fair, for instance, to label (as is often done) Muslim militants launching attacks on an occupying military force as “terrorists?” Conversely, does it make sense to eschew the term “terrorist” when a blue-eyed, white-skinned, non-Muslim attacker with clear political grievances uses wanton violence to gun down nearly a hundred civilians, many of them children? I’m not sure that question really needs to be answered.

by Jeb Koogler
 

"Have you seen the Arowolo murder 'pics'?...surely, you must have. What is the latest?...do you think he actually did it?...what must have led to this?...bla bla bla"

Quite a lot of questions have come my way from people who need my opinion on the alleged murder of Titilayo Oyakhire by her husband Kolade Arowolo. Not one, not two, and not even three people have asked me what I felt.
First, I apologise for having gone off for a while. A few unfortunate events made it so. However, I feel gutted. The murder picture is probably one of the worst I have seen so far. Probably just one ranks higher. Two, there seems to be no 'latest' on this saga, as every minute throws up a new twist. Three, whether Kolade actually did it is what I can't answer. I wasn't there. The court, however, have that unenviable puzzle to solve. Four, what has led to this, we can only guess...or just imagine.
Lately, Kolade's parents confirmed the couple used to fight, and they were both hot-tempered. Titi, she said, once threatened to poison Kolade. Really? In fact, his mother even said Kolade once suffered madness (or mental illness, mildly put). That is a new twist.
Whether his parents are being sincere, or simply acting up a script written by his lawyers, we would know soon...and on this page.

Holding signs that read “This street belongs to me too”; “We won’t tolerate insults anymore”; and a banner with a verse from the Koran emphasizing the wrongness of abusing women, around 30 young Afghan women and men marched in the sweltering afternoon heat to protest the rampant and often violent sexual harassment of women and girls on Kabul’s streets.
The demonstration was the first of its kind in Afghanistan. Though small in size, its message was clear and, in Afghanistan’s extremely conservative public space, incendiary: street harassment is an attack on women’s right to coexist in society with men, and it must end.
Composed mainly of members of two local youth organizations and including several men, the demonstrators marched from the gates of Kabul University, a notorious hangout for harassers, to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission about half a mile away.
Passing through bustling streets full of food vendors and shoppers, they handed out leaflets urging their fellow Afghans to recognize the cruelty of harassing women and take action in their everyday lives to counter the abuse around them.
Keenly aware of their country’s history of peaceful demonstrations turning bloody, the organizers had initially feared violence from male opponents and hostile members of law enforcement.
Police officers stayed close to the column of demonstrators throughout the march and, in a welcome departure from recent public protests, the demonstration proceeded without interruption and concluded peacefully.
In the days leading up to the march, organizers from the newly-formed feminist group Young Women for Change received online messages of solidarity from fellow anti-harassment activists as far away as Slovenia and Yemen, as well as an outpouring of encouragement from women elsewhere in Afghanistan and in the Afghan diaspora.
Flanked by members of the Afghan and international press, the marchers knew their message would be carried to a far wider audience than the thousands who witnessed their protest firsthand.
The organizers hoped the deluge of media coverage would ignite a public discussion of the problem of sexual harassment and encourage more young Afghans, including men, to join the nascent movement to make their country’s streets safe for women.
“This is only the beginning,” one participant said afterward. “We have more actions planned.”

This is wishing former Biafran warlord, the Ikemba of Nnewi, father of Igboland, husband to the prettiest lady in Nigeria, the bravest man in the land, the most-feared and listened-to man, he who exudes fear and confidence, the father of those who need strength, the most handsome soldier, the man who says what he means, the man who would soon be the 'Nelson Mandela' of the South, all the best as he recovers.
When I heared of his second stroke, I almost wept...well, I wept. We wish him all the best as he recovers. The country still needs him. He still has a role to play.

South Sudan got what they always wanted - Independence. Now, they have become their own country and fights should be over...or so it seems. Despite Amanda Hsiao's fears that the problems may not be over, I still feel the right thing was done. justice has prevailed.
In early June, violence broke out between Sudanese government forces and fighters in South Kordofan, a region that sits atop the North-South Sudan border. Reports trickling out from the ground describe government forces targeting civilians based on political sympathies and ethnic affiliations, searching house-to-house for opposition, and indiscriminately bombing large areas. “These acts could constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity,” said U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice in remarks at a Security Council briefing. All these are a thing of the past.
While expressing her fears, Hsiao insinuated that Hostilities between North and South Sudan may not be over either. In May, the Sudanese government sent its troops to forcibly take over Abyei, a border area claimed by constituencies on both sides, even though negotiations over its status were ongoing. Peacekeepers are arriving to secure the area, but how the South Sudanese government will respond once it has acquired sovereignty, is unclear. The two governments have not agreed on how they will split oil revenues after separation. Most of the oil lies in the South, but the infrastructure for exporting the oil lies in the North, an interdependence that should demand cooperation and peace between the two states. 
Despite all these talks by 'those who claim to know, I think Sudan has done what should be done. Should Nigeria follow suit? Wikileak predicted 2015 as the time it would happen? Would everyone feel happy? With the series of killings and ethnic and religious violence going on here, thge answer has to be yes. Sudan has started. Let Nigeria follow.

Last weekend would perhaps be one to forget for a lot of people. Everywhere in the country, there was intense rainfall and flooding. Lagos was most affected, as flooding took a heavy dimension. In fact, governor Fashola has advised kids to stay at home. In Ibadan, it was almost the same. In Katsina of all places, it was bad on Friday. And in the Eastern part of the country...well, you could imagine. Non-stop rainfall.
This is real blessing in abundance, isn't it? Seriously, I pray this sort of rainfall, as intense as it was, would never be witnessed any longer...a lot of people were rendered homeless...and carless...lol.

Yes, Laurent Gbagbo has left and Allassane Ouattara has taken his rightful place, but it is not over yet.The last few days have been full of bad news from Ivory Coast. On June 6, an independent inquiry appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council noted that a number of atrocities had been committed during the previous half year of turmoil, some of them likely war crimes. Worse, months after the political crisis in the Ivory Coast came to an end, the violence continues in pockets of the country, according to new testimonies collected by Medecins Sans Frontiers and statements by officials at the United Nations mission in Cote d’Ivoire.
What we cannot forget is that Ivory Coast, like Nigeria, is so divided by ethnicity. As at June 17, there were some 142,331 Ivorian refugees living in Liberia. In Abidjan, armed men still roam the streets, and mercenaries, some from neighboring states, are still to be found crossing in and out of the country.
As Elizabeth Dickinson, a writer noted, ''some 50 members of the Gbagbo administration — including the former prime minister and former minister of foreign affairs — are being held without charge.''
Expect more crises on the way.

Of all restrictions on women in the Arab world, driving ban baffles me. They have been restricted from driving, and expected to adhere to it. But, surprisingly, they have said no, and chose June 17 to protest.
In a world where women have no say, they have proved they are really evolving. In those days, they did what they were told to, and that would be it. Even if they were told to move around the streets nude (which would be the last thing they would be told to do, anyway), they would obey. But not again.
"This is only the beginning," said Eman Al Nafjan, a female blogger, who is an unrepentant June 17 driving protester. "The whole idea behind the campaign was that June 17 is the start date. It is not the only day. It's the date when women will start to drive."
This is significant.