Military Troops Storm Sambisa Forest To Flush Out Boko Haram

Reports says that a detachment of the Nigerian military has commenced an operation in the dreaded Sambisa Forest to flush out members of the Boko Haram insurgents.

The operation is meant to flush out Boko Haram sect in a bid to make the North East safe for the general elections.

Nigerian Air Force pilots, it was learnt, started the raid on Sambisa forest on Monday.

A source told The Punch that: “The military has started the operation in the Sambisa Forest; the operation started on Monday.

“For now, there is no specific cases of arrest, we don’t have that information now. The Air Force has been operating in the area since Monday. It is after that that the ground troops who are on red alert would move in.

Sambisa Forest is believed to be the hideout of the insurgents and was also used as the holding place of the over 200 schoolgirls, kidnapped from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno, on April 14, 2014.

FG plans to redevelop National Theatre into Entertainment City

The Federal Government of Nigeria has revealed plans to completely renovate and restructure the National Teathre, Iganmu, Lagos, and completely transform the large, under-utilized area of land around the

iconic theatre.

In a short video released on YouTube tagged: ‘The Nigeria Entertainment City,‘ the government says a Public-Private Partnership model is being deployed to actualise this massive project which will see the current theatre mainbowl fully upgraded, and the adjoining land around it developed into complimentary facilities which will be known as the ‘Nigeria Entertainment City’.

Facilities in the entertainment city will include a 5-Star Hotel, ultra-modern office buildings, a multi-level car park, shopping and retail facilities, and an amusement park.

According to the video, the objective of this project is to make the edifice economically viable, create a one-of-its-kind park in Africa, and make it a tourist attraction which will inevitably rub off positively on the country’s economy as a whole.

Photos: Basketmouth Arrives London For His Comedy Show

Popular rib-cracker, Basketmouth have arrived London for his annual comedy show billed to hold on Valentine's day. 

See more pics after the cut....

Kim Kardashian: My Sex Tape Didn't Make Me Famous But....(Read)

Reality TV star, Kim Kardashian in a recent chat with model, Cara Delevingne, 22, said she’s fed up of people suggesting she doesn’t deserve her success because of her lack of talent.

“When someone asks me, ‘What do you do?’ under my breath I want to say, ‘Ask my f**king bank account what I do.’ But I would never say that to someone’s face. We’ve had more episodes than ‘I Love Lucy!’ And I’m proud that we give so many people jobs.

“Like when they ask, ‘What do you do?’ I mean, what an uneducated question! And I just want to help change the perception that being on a reality show is such a negative thing.”

The 34-year-old mother of one doesn’t think the explicit video she made with ex-boyfriend, Ray J in 2003 made her famous and wishes she could show her critics her enormous bank balance.

“If I do have one regret in life that’s it. Maybe that’s how some people heard about me but I didn’t launch my career off of that. That was 12 years ago, no 13 years ago now, so I just try to move on and put it in the past because I think that everyone in life does things they’re not proud of but you can’t sit and dwell on them forever,”she stated.

Badluck Jonathan? See The Al Jazeera Article On GEJ That's Got Everyone Talking

The article is an opinion piece by Solomon Ayele Dersso, a legal academic and analyst of African affairs who regularly writes on African issues. He is head of the Peace and Security Council Report at the Institute for Security Studies, Addis Ababa office. Click here to read the  article titled Badluck Jonathan. 

So Al Jazeera did this to our president. Hope they won't be sanctioned?

Court affirms Jonathan’s eligibility for 2015 election

Remember the man who dragged President Jonathan to court seeking to disqualify him? Well, the President has won the case.

A Federal High Court in Abuja has struck out a suit seeking the disqualification of President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the 2015 presidential election.

The suit was based on the argument that Mr. Jonathan had taken the oath of office twice, and was by law ineligible for a third, should he win.

Mr. Jonathan took the oath as president when he took over from the late President Umaru Yar’Adua in 2010, and again when he won his election in 2011.

In a ruling Wednesday, the court quashed the case and awarded N50,000 cost to the president, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Photos: President Jonathan Takes Campaign To MTV Base

Ahead of the upcoming general elections, MTV Base and STV has taped a special pre-election programme with President Goodluck Jonathan and young Nigerian voters to discuss the burning issues facing youth in Nigeria.

Taped at Aso Villa in Abuja,"Choose or Lose: President Goodluck Jonathan" is hosted by Oreka Godis, and premieres on Friday February 13, 2015 at 6pm on MTV Base and STV.

The campaign, which utilises MTV Base's TV, digital and social media platforms, features celebrities as well as members of the public as they underline the important message of youth participation in the electoral process.

Some of the notable personalities that have already lent their voices to the campaign include: Ben Murray-Bruce, 2Face, Banky W, Ebuka Obi-Uchendu, Sound Sultan, Emmanuel Ikubese, Davido, Falz, Reminisce, Emma Nyra, Solid Star, Oreka Godis, Omalicha, Yemi Alade, Omojuwa and Stanley Azuakola.

Obasanjo Openly Endorses Buhari; Gives Reasons

Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has finally expressed his support for the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

Obasanjo, who is a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, declared his support for Buhari during an interview with the Financial Times at the launch of his controversial autobiography titled, ‘My Watch’, in Nairobi, Kenya.

The circumstances he (Buhari) will be working under if he wins the elections are different from the one he worked under before, where he was both the executive and the legislature – he knows that. He is smart enough. He is educated enough. He’s experienced enough. Why shouldn’t I support him?”

Obasanjo said he believes in Buhari’s capability to effectively tackle corruption and insecurity, adding that he would restore the morale of the military which, he said, was needed in the fight against terrorism.

He also accused President Goodluck Jonathan of betraying the armed forces by allowing corruption to scuttle their operations. 

“It is a question of leadership – political and military. I think you need to ask Jonathan how he let the army go to this extent. Many things went wrong: recruitment went wrong; training went wrong; morale went down; motivation was not there; corruption was deeply ingrained; andwelfare was bad.”

Obasanjo also reacted to the postponement of the general elections by INEC.

“Well, I don’t want to comment on that postponement yet because I was not in Nigeria. I was actually in Munich over the last weekend. But when I get home I will be fully educated about what transpired and how it transpired. In fact it was because I had a previous appointment, that is why I could not attend the meeting of national council of state, which took place I think on Thursday. So it will not be right of me to be talking about a thing I could get on the ground, for instance the statement made by chairman of INEC.”

“I sincerely hope that the President is not going for broke and saying ‘look dammit, it’s either I have it or nobody has it’. I hope that we will not have a coup. I hope we can avoid it,” he said.

 

OMG! You Need To See What They Did To Kanye West

Wao! Whoever did this, is wicked. LOL

Bobby Brown Slams False Report That Whitney Houston & Bobbi Kristina Will Share Same Death Date

While Bobbi Kristina remains on life support, conflicting stories have surfaced regarding her fate. 

Following numerous reports that the family of Bobbi Kristina would take her off life support on the third anniversary of her mother's death so they can share same death date, her father, Bobby brown has released a statement rubbishing such reports.

"God is hearing our prayers," Bobby toldABC News in a statement. "We continue to request privacy in this matter. We thank everyone that supported the vigil for Bobbi Kristina."

"We support the candlelight vigil for Bobbi Kristina. The Brown family is amazed by the love and support from all that attended," legal counsel for Bobby Brown told The Insider With Yahoo on Tuesday. "However the false reports that continue to appear in print and on the internet are egregious, false and will be dealt with at an appropriate time. In particular, the false reporting of TMZ, The National Enquirer,The Atlanta Journal Constitution and theDaily Mail (UK) citing, police sources, family sources and Bobby Brown himself, will receive my attention. The desire to be 'first' has clouded the judgment of many reporters as they forgo accuracy. This is a criminal investigation and the integrity of that process requires silence. We continue to request privacy in this matter. We thank everyone that supported the vigil for Bobbi Kristina. God is hearing our prayers."

WAEC Clears The Air On Buhari's Certificate

The West African Examination Council (WAEC) took an advertorial in the Guardian Newspaper concerning the Bugari certificate saga. The message was from the Ghana National Office which was in response to a civil society, MoveOnNigeria and the Council said they do not keep records of candidates in a central location but in the candidates’ individual countries.

They reiterated that any of such enquiries should be forwarded to the Nigerian National Office as the exam Buhari wrote was in Katsina, Nigeria

Nigeria’s postponed election is an embarrassment of bad choices - Chimamanda Adichie

Read Chimamanda Adichie' views on postponement of general elections below.

Last week, Victor, a carpenter, came to my Lagos home to fix a broken chair. I asked him whom he preferred as Nigeria’s next president: the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, or his challenger, Muhammadu Buhari.

“I don’t have a voter’s card, but if I did, I would vote for somebody I don’t like,” he said. “I don’t like Buhari. But Jonathan is not performing.”

Victor sounded like many people I know: utterly unenthusiastic about the two major candidates in our upcoming election.

Were Nigerians to vote on likeability alone, Jonathan would win. He is mild-mannered and genially unsophisticated, with a conventional sense of humor. Buhari has a severe, ascetic air about him, a rigid uprightness; it is easy to imagine him in 1984, leading a military government whose soldiers routinely beat up civil servants. Neither candidate is articulate. Jonathan is given to rambling; his unscripted speeches leave listeners vaguely confused. Buhari is thick-tongued, his words difficult to decipher. In public appearances, he seems uncomfortable not only with the melodrama of campaigning but also with the very idea of it. To be a democratic candidate is to implore and persuade, and his demeanor suggests a man who is not at ease with amiable consensus. Still, he is no stranger to campaigns. This is his third run as a presidential candidate; the last time, in 2011, he lost to Jonathan. 

This time, Buhari’s prospects are better. Jonathan is widely perceived as ineffectual, and the clearest example, which has eclipsed his entire presidency, is his response to Boko Haram. Such a barbaric Islamist insurgency would challenge any government. But while Boko Haram bombed and butchered, Jonathan seemed frozen in a confused, tone-deaf inaction. Conflicting stories emerged of an ill-equipped army, of a corrupt military leadership, of northern elites sponsoring Boko Haram, and even of the government itself sponsoring Boko Haram. 

Jonathan floated to power, unprepared, on a serendipitous cloud. He was a deputy governor of Bayelsa state who became governor when his corrupt boss was forced to quit. Chosen as vice president because powerbrokers considered him the most harmless option from southern Nigeria, he became president when his northern boss died in office. Nigerians gave him their goodwill—he seemed refreshingly unassuming—but there were powerful forces who wanted him out, largely because he was a southerner, and it was supposed to be the north’s ‘turn’ to occupy the presidential office.

And so the provincial outsider suddenly thrust onto the throne, blinking in the chaotic glare of competing interests, surrounded by a small band of sycophants, startled by the hostility of his traducers, became paranoid. He was slow to act, distrustful and diffident. His mildness came across as cluelessness. His response to criticism calcified to a single theme: His enemies were out to get him. When the Chibok girls were kidnapped, he and his team seemed at first to believe that it was a fraud organized by his enemies to embarrass him. His politics of defensiveness made it difficult to sell his genuine successes, such as his focus on the long-neglected agricultural sector and infrastructure projects. His spokespeople alleged endless conspiracy theories, compared him to Jesus Christ, and generally kept him entombed in his own sense of victimhood.

 The delusions of Buhari’s spokespeople are better packaged, and obviously free of incumbency’s crippling weight. They blame Jonathan for everything that is wrong with Nigeria, even the most multifarious, ancient knots. They dismiss references to Buhari’s past military leadership, and couch their willful refusal in the language of ‘change,’ as though Buhari, by representing change from Jonathan, has also taken on an a historical saintliness.

I remember the Buhari years as a blur of bleakness. I remember my mother bringing home sad rations of tinned milk, otherwise known as “essential commodities”—the consequences of Buhari’s economic policy. I remember air thick with fear, civil servants made to do frog jumps for being late to work, journalists imprisoned, Nigerians flogged for not standing in line, a political vision that cast citizens as recalcitrant beasts to be whipped into shape.

Buhari’s greatest source of appeal is that he is widely perceived as non-corrupt. Nigerians have been told how little money he has, how spare his lifestyle is. But to sell the idea of an incorruptible candidate who will fight corruption is to rely on the disingenuous trope that Buhari is not his party. Like Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party, Buhari’s All Progressives Congress is stained with corruption, and its patrons have a checkered history of exploitative participation in governance. Buhari’s team is counting on the strength of his perceived personal integrity: his image as a good guy forced by realpolitik to hold hands with the bad guys, who will be shaken off after his victory.

 In my ancestral home state of Anambra, where Jonathan is generally liked, the stronger force at play is a distrust of Buhari, partly borne of memories of his military rule, and partly borne of his reputation, among some Christians, as a Muslim fundamentalist. When I asked a relative whom she would vote for, she said, “Jonathan of course. Am I crazy to vote for Buhari so that Nigeria will become a sharia country?”

Nigeria has predictable voting patterns, as all democratic countries do. Buhari can expect support from large swaths of the core north, and Jonathan from southern states. Region and religion are potent forces here. Vice presidents are carefully picked with these factors in mind: Buhari’s is a southwestern Christian and Jonathan’s is a northern Muslim. But it is not so simple. There are non-northerners who would ordinarily balk at voting for a ‘northerner’ but who support Buhari because he can presumably fight corruption. There are northern supporters of Jonathan who are not part of the region’s Christian minorities.

 Last week, I was indifferent about the elections, tired of television commercials and contrived controversies. There were rumors that the election, which was scheduled for February 14, would be postponed, but there always are; our political space is a lair of conspiracies. I was uninterested in the apocalyptic predictions. Nigeria was not imploding. We had crossed this crossroads before, we were merely electing a president in an election bereft of inspiration. And the existence of a real opposition party that might very well win was a sign of progress in our young democracy.

 Then, on Saturday, the elections were delayed for six weeks. Nigeria’s security agencies, we were told, would not be available to secure the elections because they would be fighting Boko Haram and needed at least another month and a half to do so. (Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram for five years, and military leaders recently claimed to be ready for the elections

Even if the reason were not so absurd, Nigerians are politically astute enough to know that the postponement has nothing to do with security. It is a flailing act of desperation from an incumbent terrified of losing. There are fears of further postponements, of ploys to illegally extend Jonathan’s term. In a country with the specter of a military coup always hanging over it, the consequences could be dangerous. My indifference has turned to anger. What a staggeringly self-serving act of contempt for Nigerians. It has cast, at least for the next six weeks, the darkest possible shroud over our democracy: uncertainty. 

 

 

 

Media Take Out calls Dencia a Nicki Minaj wannabe (READ)

MediaTakeOut refered to Dencia as Nicki Minaj wannabe. According to the site, Dencia reportedly spent over N19million trying to look like award winning singer/rapper, Nicki Minaj.
Well, we can't really blame them, Dencia dresses like Nicki, same blond hair, and does things like her.
The Cameroonian-Nigerian singer turned entrepreneur was said to have spent it on weaves, implants, butt shots and bleaching products just so she can look like Nicki Minaj.

According to MTO; ‘Two years ago, West African singer Dencia was a brown skinned thin beauty – with a great voice. Well she changed that ALL UP. First she BLEACHED HER SKIN – and opened up a new LINE OF SKIN PRODUCTS, called Whitenicious. She’s now undergone MASSIVE reconstructive BREAST and BOOTY surgeries – in an attempt to “look like Nicki Nimaj.” What do you think . . . did she accomplish her goal. She looks very FRAUDULENT to us . . .but we know how some of y’all LIKE ISH LIKE THAT!!!’

Dencia has been mistaken for Nicki on few occasions at International events.

What do u think?