With an unwavering commitment towards the promotion of diverse rich cultural heritage of the different ethnic groups in Nigeria, on-air personality, media trainer, and accomplished civil servant, Mrs Funke Durodola presented to the public, her book, Memories of Grandma. The book presentation which took place last week at the Freedom Park, Lagos, attracted a mixed audience which includes, journalists, politicians, academics as well as the religious.
Memories of Grandma, a memoir, reminiscent of the days when moral values were held in high esteem, with the extended family system breeding a crop of individuals that make up a society with high moral standard, was published with the view to sensitising the young ones on the need for a cultural revival. The event presented an opportunity for those in attendance, to lend their voices on the need for a cultural revival through publication of more books aimed at preserving and promoting rich traditions as well as cultural values of the people.
The book event featured reading by Miss Inioluwaniyi Akintoye. She read from chapter 14 of the book, entitled The Twins, to the admiration of all present. Akintoye gave an outstanding reading and rendition of the songs contained in the portion she read, thereby, bringing to the fore, the importance of reviving the reading culture of Nigerians by catching them young.
Reviewing the book, Dean, Faculty of Arts, University of Ibadan, Professor Aderemi Raji stated that “I am one of those village boys who had trepidation in their heart, when they want to come to Lagos. …the experience presented in this book is what a typical Lagosian boy or girl will want to refer to as fiction. But this is not fiction. This is something very autobiographical, and we must thank Durodola for giving us this.
It is also sociology because it tells us about family, relations; and for me, most importantly, is the linguistic competence of someone who claims to be writing her first book. This book cannot be a first book. Funke must have been writing other books that she didn’t let us read, because this is a very mature work.”
Commending the author for publishing such material capable of transforming the society, the Executive Director Programmes, Nigerian Television Authority, Mrs Eugenia Abu noted that “As a broadcaster, she breaks the bank to bring it time and again, as a trainer, she believes it’s the best thing, to impart, impact and show by example, now as an author, she brings us all to tears with her new beguiling book, Memories of Grandma.
Abu who was represented by Mrs Helen Odeleye described Durodola as a broadcaster after her heart, who has followed in the footsteps of her forebears. According to her, “Funke Treasure Durodola is a broadcaster after my heart, following in the footsteps of her forebears, drinking deep of the wisdom of her mentors and becoming herself a formidable product of an incredible Nigerian Broadcast Tradition. I recommend this book to everyone.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Africa’s Triple Heritage thesis first proposed by Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah but given its strongest advocacy by late Prof. Ali Mazrui resonates with a forcefulness that speaks to Africa’s and Nigeria’s postcolonial development quandary. According to the thesis, Africa’s future lies within the framework by which she is able to traverse the dynamics of her Euro-Christian, Islamic and traditional heritage.
Due largely to Arab and European colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries, Africa inherited an incendiary mix of non-traditional religious ideals and sentiments that has done a lot to nuance its sociological and continental futures. This informed perspective explains the fundamental contradictions from which a new Nigeria (and Africa) must emerge.
It is against this background that Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka’s recent curious endorsement of General Muhammadu Buhari’s presidential bid can be usefully deconstructed. In what Soyinka proposed as a ‘Leap of Faith’ he told Nigerians why he did a 360-degree summersault to pitch for Buhari’s election over the incumbent, President Goodluck Jonathan.
The necessity for this analysis keys into Soyinka’s longstanding antagonism against Buhari who he had consistently dismissed as an unrepentant dictator with blood on his hand. Clearly, Nigeria remains a disputed project notwithstanding the compelling exertions of its founding icons and despite the denial mode many have currently chosen to hide under. Soyinka is not a neuro-scientist but a specialist in the literature genres of drama, novel and poetry.
The citation read by the Swedish Academy in 1986 during the Nobel award ceremony made this clear when it stated that Soyinka “who in a wide cultural perspective and with poetic overtones fashions the drama of existence.” If Soyinka’s Nobel was in medicine and not literature then there would have been scientific bases to measure or validate his major positional sea-change from consistently writing off Buhari to prescribing him now to Nigerians.
Neuro-science studies the thought processes and internal architecture of the human brain and could predict and explain changes in that arcane theatre. On the other hand, if the Nobel laureate were an Ifa high priest with powers of divination, his recent summersault would perhaps have enjoyed some measure of populism given the subsisting environment of significant local fetishism. But he is neither a neuro-scientist nor an Ifa priest.
In what appears a hesitant excursion into uncertain territory, Soyinka observes that, “It is pointlessly, and dangerously provocative to present General Buhari as something that he probably was not. It is however just as purblind to insist that he has not demonstrably striven to become what he most glaringly was not, to insist that he has not been chastened by intervening experience and – most critically – by a vastly transformed environment – both the localized and the global.”
Soyinka puzzlingly wants company in his astonishing leap of faith. His current position, in effect endorsing Buhari, contrasts violently with the position he passionately espoused on the cusp of the 2007 presidential election on the same general – and even until recently. Hear Soyinka: “The grounds on which General Buhari is being promoted as the alternative choice are not only shaky, but pitifully naive.
History matters. Records are not kept simply to assist the weakness of memory, but to operate as guides to the future. Of course, we know that human beings change. What the claims of personality change or transformation impose on us is a rigorous inspection of the evidence, not wishful speculation or behind-the-scenes assurances. “Public offence, crimes against a polity, must be answered in the public space, not in caucuses of bargaining.
In Buhari, we have been offered no evidence of the sheerest prospect of change. On the contrary, all evidence suggests that this is one individual who remains convinced that this is one ex-ruler that the nation cannot call to order.” Juxtaposing the two positions raises some posers. Is Soyinka trying to exonerate Buhari through denial and without evidence of remorse or restitution by the erstwhile military supremo?
At the risk of being accused of intellectual vagrancy, is Soyinka attempting historical revisionism? Is he deploying literary sophistry to market a hugely suspect product with specific anti-democratic records? Is Soyinka’s new conviction triggered by an apparent reaction to the wide publication in advertorials of his bruising candid positions on General Buhari’s dictatorial past – a kind of revisionist make-good – burnishing a former harsh dictator’s image?
Cagily denying that he is not speaking of time as a dulling agent of painful memory Soyinka tells Nigerians that “while facts remain constant, the environment evolves, and may play a tempering role in the very evocation of a record of the condemnable acts of governance.” Shaping his argument on why Buhari has become his Prince Charming and should be an acceptable product now he observes that, “Of the two however, one is representative of the immediate past, still present with us, and with an accumulation of negative baggage.
The other is a remote past, justly resented, centrally implicated in grievous assaults against Nigerian humanity, with a landscape of broken lives that continues to lacerate collective memory. However – and this is the preponderant ‘however’ – is there such a phenomenon as a genuine “born-again”? Soyinka’s new position would have hugely benefited from his new principal had Buhari borrowed a leaf from a few African dictators that accepted their errors and recanted and were accepted back by their folks.
Some examples include – Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings of Ghana and Mathew Kerekou of the Benin Republic who publicly recanted their crimes against humanity during their tenures as dictators. They were subsequently forgiven and given democratic mandates. Buhari has not done the same thing and his body language suggests such a course is against his nature.
The Nobel laureates reference to a “transformed environment,” ostensibly meaning a democratic milieu does not hold much water. Here is why. German Chancellor Adolf Hitler was elected by democratic vote. General Obasanjo who has joined Soyinka in their new joint project almost deleted Odi and Zaki Biam under democratic environment. Egypt’s General Asisi, democratically elected hardly represents a shining example of democratic governance. Against the background of these facts, why should Buhari become a transformed man because he may become a tenant in Aso Rock?
Soyinka further rather weakens his case when he proclaimed he had studied Buhari from a distance and come to the conclusion that he will be a good democratic ruler this time around. An intellectual of Soyinka’s repute ought to have delivered a much better proposition. His words:”I have studied him from a distance, questioned those who have closely interacted with him, including his former running-mate, Pastor Bakare, and dissected his key utterances past and current.
And my findings?A plausible transformation that comes close to that of another ex-military dictator, Mathew Kerekou of the Benin Republic.”. Soyinka with this rather tenuous and naïve position reinforces the accurate perception that his forte is truly drama and not realpolitiks and raises veiled issues about his true motive of antagonizing President Jonathan on the cusp of a crucial presidential poll.
Democracy would lose its defining egalitarianism if it foreclosed freedom of choice and expression by its adherents. This enduring footing accommodates often unreasoned perspectives by forces that seek to diminish and divide. Against this backdrop, public figures who by dint of self-discipline and diligent application of the power of thought have achieved that delicate, firm balance between researched positions that informs and leverages society should be appreciated. It is within Soyinka’s right to decide who to vote for but he should not forget Dennis Brutus’ counsel that “writers must not live a lie.”
– See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/02/on-soyinkas-new-leap-of-faith/#sthash.inKgR6CS.dpuf
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State yesterday reacted to President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement that victory for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in the forthcoming elections would free Lagos residents from oppression, saying “Lagos is not in bondage.”
Meantime, Fashola stunned a gathering in Lekki axis of the state when he said he bought his own vault where he will be buried after his demise four years ago.
The governor while reacting to the Presidents statement said “It is an un-presidential statement made in an act of desperation.”
It will be recalled that Jonathan made the statement during a meeting with leaders of market women groups, “Iyalojas”, in Lagos.
According to him, “the question to ask him (Jonathan) is that if he had come to free residents of Lagos from bondage and he lived here for five days meeting with people and distributing money in dollars. That means he lived in bondage in five days while trying to free people.
“If he can live here for five days moving with patrol vehicles that we paid for, let him go and spend five days in Chibok and he will know what bondage is,” he added.
On his vault
The governor said death is a necessary end that will come when it will come, saying there is need for people to prepare for it.
According to him “we are here to inspect a cemetery , we often don’t like to talk about but there is a need for it because the population continue to expand and the Lekki Sub- region is growing very fast.
“If you look at it the Ikoyi Cemetry, the Abari and all of that are more tha a 100 years old and they were built by colonialists and left behind for us and when you look at the way they have also managed them , many families cannot even visit the vaults where their loved ones are resting.
“We have this strategic partnership now with private sector and they are going to deliver a cemetery like no other. They will manage it and make the cost also competitive. There will be high, medium and low density vaults for people who really want to make a statement at their exit .
“It is the truism of life everyone who comes must go so as we are building hospitals , roads , schools imbibing survival strategy we must also plan for the end .
“This sounds as something people don’t want to discuss. I have bought my vault . It surprises people. I paid for it four years ago . As I always tell people if you come here for life you must plan to go. Those who don’t want to go should not come.”
ON Court of Arbitration
Fashola said the first West African Court of Arbitration would be ready next month (March).
He noted that the compelling need to resolve trade disputes locally rather than travelling abroad informed the sitting of the center in Lagos.
The governor lamented that the country and other West African countries “lose a lot of funds to other countries in terms of arbitration. For instance, whenever any dispute arise in the country, the preferred place is either Paris, France or London, United Kingdom. And there is nothing special there.
“All we need is to create a centre that will have the necessary reputation. We have the personnels because some of the best arbitrators in the continent are Nigerians.
“We already have the international recognition for this. All that is left is to complete the project. We have received some arbitration funds also. And the next three weeks, the building will be ready for commissioning. We have atleast 11 rooms here.”
“Also, we have the economic for the arbitration because a lot of construction, developmental and Public Private Partnership,( PPP) projects are ongoing. And dispute from there could be resolved here.
“With this (Lagos Arbitration centre); We would save a lot of money and create employment,” the governor added.
Fashola explained that through the initiative the state government has created a local destination for the sub-region, saying the court will be the destination for arbitration for West Africa.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Ekiti State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose has challenged the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Major General Muhammadu Buhari to swear with the Holy Quran if he did not visit any hospital for medical attention during his visit to United Kingdom.
Fayose ask Buhari to swear with the Holy Quran if he did not visit hospital in UK
Fayose accused the APC leadership for not being fair enough to the nation by hiding the health status of the former military ruler.
In a statement signed in Ado Ekiti yesterday by his Special Assistant on Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka said Buhari will never be the president as he would dash the hope of his followers.
“Buhari will never be Nigeria president again because some APC stalwarts want to ride on his back by seizing power at all cost.
Fayose , however clarified that he was not wishing Buhari dead but just to save the country from unnecessary embarrassment
“I wish they can see spiritually what I am talking about that Buhari, despite the hullabaloo will never be president.
” I predicted my return as Ekiti State Governor and I am saying it again that Buhari will never rule Nigeria again.
”After President Goodluck Jonathan, there will be a young element in his late 50s from the North that will be Nigeria’s president. I want to liken this revelation to the story of Elijah and Elisha. I am the Elijah while my followers are Elisha.”
“I owe it a duty to Nigeria and its people to expose the antics of the APC cabal whose only interest is to seize power to further their selfish interests.
”Without doubt, it is obvious that these cabal in the APC are trying so hard to deceive Nigerians on Buhari’s health status. That’s the reason they have been using ‘Photoshopped’ pictures to defend their lies on Buhari’s UK trip.
”First, they used a March 5, 2013 picture, claiming that Buhari was taking a walk in London on Thursday. Later they came up with another poorly cropped picture of Buhari with former British Prime Minister,Tony Blair.
”The same people who lied in September 2012 that they received a gold card invitation to attend the Democratic National Convention in the United States of America are behind the robing of Buhari in the garment of lies and I challenge Buhari to swear by the Holy Quran that he did not visit any hospital in the United Kingdom last week.
”However, I want to disappoint this selfish cabal. Buhari is only raising their hope and that hope will be dashed.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
LAGOS — PRESIDENTIAL candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has said that he would inherit a huge debt profile and empty treasury if elected president, expressing confidence that his wealth of experience would assist in turning the situation around.
He also stated that his party’s economic policies are conceived to be people-centred, adding that the country would for the first time in over three decades experience a truly pro-people Federal Government if elected.
Buhari said this in a statement by the Director of Media and Publicity of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation, APCPCO, Malam Garba Shehu.
His words: “It is crystal clear that our revenues are dwindling by the day and if we must survive, we cannot continue on this path of near absence of accountability, mismanagement, outright waste and jamboree that has characterised the management of public resources under the Jonathan-led PDP government.
“We can assure the mass of Nigerian people that help is on the way. We know that an APC controlled Federal Government will obviously inherit a huge debt profile and an empty treasury from this PDP Federal Government. We are confident of turning the situation around.
“It is apparent that the Federal Government has suddenly found itself in a bind with plummeting crude oil prices in the international market, but typical of a team that lacks capacity for anticipatory actions, the Federal Government has been running from pillar to post in a vain bid to stabilize the economy.
“Unfortunately, all conceived palliatives applied to save the nation’s declining economic indicators have merely scrapped the surface of the problems leaving the mass of Nigerians desperate, confused and hungrier.
“With external debt standing at more than $10 billion and our internal debts at more than $50 billion, it is without doubt that President Jonathan is driving Nigeria into economic wilderness. This should be a cause for concern for all well-meaning Nigerians, more so when the Federal Government responses to these rising economic challenges have, at best, been casual.
“Emblematic of this casual, non profound approach to the management of the national economy is the Central Bank of Nigeria’s devaluation of the national currency in November 2014 while retaining the Retail Dutch Auction System (RDAS).\
“Dramatically, just under three months after that devaluation, the CBN, obviously buffeted by unanticipated dynamics in the foreign exchange market, announced the closure of the RDAS and the Wholesale Dutch Auction System (WDAS). This shows clearly an uncoordinated template in the management of the national economy.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Former Prime Minister and UK envoy to the Middle East, Tony Blair, has confirmed he held a private meeting with the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate, Gen Muhammadu Buhari(retd) in London, weekend.
Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State had claimed Gen Buhari was not in any meeting with Tony Blair, but that the former head of state had checked into a London hospital. He claimed the APC photoshoped a photo showing Tony Blair, Buhari, Governor Amosu of Ogun State and former Kwara State Governor, Bukola Saraki.
Vanguard contacted Tony Blair’s office and got confirmation that the former Prime Minister did had a meeting with the APC candidate.
From Left; Gov Amosun of Ogun State, Gen Buhari, Mr. Blair and Sen. Saraki in London.
In an e-mail response to Vanguard’s inquiry, Rianne Buter, Senior Media Manager at The Office of Tony Blair, said: “ Mr. Blair had a private meeting with General Muhammadu Buhari in London,” adding that “Mr. Blair hopes to visit Nigeria shortly when he will see the President.”
It will be recalled that Fayose had claimed the photo of Buhari meeting with Blair was photoshopped.
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Communication and New Media, Lere Olayinka, Fayose said, ”Without doubt, it is obvious that these cabal in the APC are trying so hard to deceive Nigerians on Buhari’s health status. That’s the reason they have been using ‘Photoshopped’ pictures to defend their lies on Buhari’s UK trip.
”First, they used a March 5, 2013 picture, claiming that Buhari was taking a walk in London on Thursday. Later they came up with another poorly cropped picture of Buhari with former British Prime Minister,Tony Blair.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Much as year 2015 is expected to witness great stage performances, theatre lovers are billed to witness what can be described as the mother of all drama as an international theatrical ensemble Hamlet Globe to Globe from United Kingdom hits the city of Lagos with William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’. The Hamlet Globe to Globe tour which opened at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, on 23 April 2014, is scheduled to tour every single country on earth for over 2 years, now berths Nigerian soil on 4th and 5th March 2015 at the Muson Centre, Onikan and St. Saviour’s School, Ikoyi, Lagos.
Hamlet Globe to Globe tour is a drama composition of British born Bill Barclay, designed by Jonathan Fensom and directed by Globe’s Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole and Bill Buckhurst. It is a seventeen man cast and crew comprising twelve actors and five stage managers with a Nigerian actor, Ladi Emeruwa, who shared role of Hamlet together with international cast and crew that has traveled by boats, train, jeeps, tall ships, buses and aeroplanes across 7 continents to perform over 2 dozen parts on a stripped-down booth stage.
The cast is using a completely portable set to stage a Hamlet that celebrates all the exuberance and invention of Shakespeare’s language in a brisk two hours and forty minutes play. In the play, “Prince Hamlet who was away, learning of his father’s death comes home to find his uncle married to his mother and installed as a king on the Danish throne. At night, the ghost of the old king appeared to Prince Hamlet and demands that he avenge his ‘foul and most unnatural murder.”
Ladi Emeruwa playing the role of Hamlet is a Nigerian born British actor who studied law at University of Bristol U.K before pursuing a career in acting at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA). He recently starred as Brutus in LAMDA’s another Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar at Wilton’s Music Hall and tour in Paris.
His entrant into Nigeria soil leading the Shakespeare’s Globe theatrical ensemble with the strong language of Shakespeare’s political intrigues, sexual obsession, philosophical reflection and violent actions embedded in the play coincided at this point in time the current political situation in the country today. The second performance at St. Saviours’ School Ikoyi which is Ladi’s alma matter is much a welcome back fete for the school and students he adore much.
Hamlet Globe to Globe tour which opened at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, in April 2014 has performed in almost 80 countries across the America, Europe and Africa to more than 70,000 audiences. It is scheduled to tour every single country on earth for a period of 2 years and will end on the April 23, 2016, marking the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
The first African performance was held in Algeria’s National Theater followed by subsequent shows in Egypt, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya and Uganda. Nigeria’s appearance is the 79th out of 205 countries billed to host this nolstagic epic stage.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
It is going to be a real showcase for South Africa’s and the continent’s fast growing and vibrant contemporary art economy as the 2nd edition of the Cape Town Art Fair kicks off in South Africa. And in line with its mission of ensuring sustainable presence for African art within a global context, one of the leading art gallery in Nigeria, Omenka gallery will from February 26 to March 1, participate in the Art Fair scheduled to hold at the Avenue, V & A Waterfront, Cape Town.
Omenka will present recent works by four leading contemporary African artists Joel Mpah Dooh (Cameroon), Duke Asidere (Nigeria), Gerry Nnubia (Nigeria), and Ndidi Emefiele (Nigeria). The four artists differ in their primary point of investigation.
Among them, Joel Mpah Dooh is preoccupied with experimentation and has enjoyed international critical acclaim with his paintings and multi-med
ia works.
The artist is inspired by the tactile reality of his environment though he is mostly an inner traveler. Mpah Dooh works on paper, canvas, corrugated iron and most recently acrylic sheets, while incorporating earth, paints, clay, packaging, wood, and chalk to explore the fragility of individual human identity and how we reinvent ourselves while moving and evolving in the city.
Asidere’s work engages contemporary African politics. Through visual metaphors, the artist comments on the everyday human drama that surrounds him; political, social, psychological or cultural. Furthermore, he adds an element of surprise to these sketches of human drama by infusing them with irony and humour.
Asidere’s broad oeuvre ranges from headless or limbless figures and faces of strangely hybrid beings to densely populated urban landscapes, accentuated with thick strokes of vivid colour.
He has recently turned to car enamel paint, which he applies with a spray gun to produce emotionally charged works that retain figurative subject matter, and at the same time emphasize abstract qualities. Perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of Asidere’s style is his simplicity of form and expressive line, which he achieves with an economy of means.
Gerry Nnubia offers critical possibilities for painting, and explores the tensions between form and formlessness vital to the tenets of modernism with his “acrylic flow”. Nnubia’s technique involves the skillful manipulation of his medium to a liquid viscous flow often assimilating accidental occurrences and temperature adjustments, depending on the effect sought.
Emefiele also adopts the historic practice of using the human figure symbolically, dating back to the sculptures and paintings of ancient Egyptians, whose “god-like” pharaoh was often depicted much larger than ordinary mortals, his erect, stiff posture signifying his unyielding majesty and authority.
The heads of her female figures are large, bearing semblance to those of traditional Yoruba sculptures, carved disproportionately to other parts of the human body to emphasize its function as the seat of wisdom, upon which the destiny of an individual is carried. Here, the female body becomes a contested site and an important source of information, through which she challenges established notions of beauty.
Overall, the exhibition has a strong contemporary outlook and engages the traditions of African art history, resulting in iconic imagery that captures intense and challenging moments. Omenka is a leading art gallery in Nigeria and represents a fine selection of established and emerging contemporary African and international artists working in diverse media.
Omenka participates in major events like Art Dubai, Joburg Art Fair, Cape Town Art Fair, Cologne Paper Art, Docks Art Fair, Lyon, LOOP, Barcelona, Art14, and 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair. Additionally, Omenka encourages a cross fertilization of ideas by collaborating with leading galleries across the world to bring the work of many international artists to Nigeria, often for the first time. Omenka Gallery also organizes several workshops and residencies to encourage curatorial and professional artistic development.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Abuja – The All Progressives Congress Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) has challenged President Goodluck Jonathan, and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, to live up to their flaunted belief in the rule of law and due process, public probity and accountability, by acceding to the request of the National Assembly to submit the forensic audit report from KPMG on the missing $20 billion and go ahead to publish same in mainstream newspapers for Nigerians to assess or query the degree of transparency involved in the controversial transaction.
“Why should the President and the PDP develop the feet of clay like an immovable Colossus when the representatives of the people in the National Assembly asked for copies of the forensic audit report, which public outcry forced the government to procure in the first place?” queried Malam Garba Shehu, APCPCO Director of Media and Publicity in a signed statement on Monday in Abuja.
“So many respected experts on the national economy have condemned the wanton waste of the country’s hard currency earnings at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Worse still, those in charge have treated Nigerians with impunity by hiding the facts relating to petro-dollar trade from the taxpayers. Some of them have been gallivanting and globe-trotting around the world in luxury while their compatriots languish in poverty and squalor,” Shehu said.
The APCPCO Spokesman questioned the audacity of the President, PDP and NNPC in disobeying the NASS request to scrutinise the KPMG audit of an alleged grossly corrupt government agency (NNPC).
“Is the NNPC a sacred cow? And should the President be an umpire in a game to which he’s a contender, or a judge in his own case?” Shehu queries.
“Is the President and his Petroleum Minister telling Nigerians that no wrong has been done in terms of stealing of public funds? If corruption was established in any form, is anyone listed for punishment? It is pertinent to put all these information in the public domain for third party verification. The KPMG report funded by taxpayer’s money is itself a public property. And until this is done, the NNPC under Jonathan shall remain in public consciousness the abattoir for corruption, immodesty, dishonesty and impunity.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Reprieve came the way of the chairman of Bi-Courtney Limited , Dr Wale Babalakin and four others Monday when an Ikeja High Court presided over by Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo discharged them over alleged N4.7b fraud preferred against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
In his ruling, the presiding judge, Justice Lawal Akapo, formulated four issues raised by the defendants which he used to determine his ruling.
EFCC accused the defendants of aiding the former Delta State governor, James Ibori to siphon public fund belonging to Delta State.
The four issues raised by the defendants are: “Whether the EFCC can prosecute a defendant without fait, whether James Ibori is a public officer, whether two prosecuting authorities can jointly sign a charge and whether the charge on the surface contains sufficient information.”
Justice Akapo, however, resolved three of the issues in favour of the defendants and only upheld that the EFCC had the power to prosecute any criminal matter in court without fiat
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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