BELIEVE

Dis Generation: Youth as active Participants in development

Though the war of words between Nigeria’s former rulers, General Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida had left the nation gasping for breath, we may not have seen the last of the verbal missiles. Ex-military President Babangida, through his spokesman, Kassim Afegbua, is still smarting from the many ways Obasanjo betrayed him in his eight years in office. Below are excerpts from what he told the Sunday Sun. Yes, IBB regrets supporting Obasanjo Looking back now, it was obviously not the right step. In his eight years in office, the revenue that accrued to the nation surpassed what Nigeria ever received in all the years between 1960 and 1999. Under Obasanjo, the annual budget moved into the trillion digits. He had budgets that went all the way up to N2trillion but what has the country got to show for it? There was no impact on the standard of living of Nigerians. The indices are there. Every Nigerian has seen and read of the Obasanjo years of wastage and plundering. We have all se

OBJ Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday responded to General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s dismissal of his eight-year rule as a failure, describing the former military president as a fool at 70. Babangida had on Tuesday in Minna, Niger State on the occasion of his 70th birthday, described Obasanjo as lacking in foresight and imagination. Barely 48 hours after, Obasanjo replied him. He had conducted a team from the United States (US) round the Olusegun Obasanjo Library in Abeokuta,Ogun State. He told reporters that Babangida’s description of him as a failure was not only the ranting of a drowning man, but that of a fool at 70. The ex- president, who was dressed in a blue guinea brocade and a cap to match, was initially hesitant when journalists who learnt of the inspection few hours earlier, asked him to react to Babangida’s comment. His words: “I did not believe my ears when the news came to me until I read it in some national dailies.” Quoting from the bo

S am Loco Efe  is one of the most talented actors of contemporary Nigerian theatre. He has for many years distinguished himself as a rare talent for both Television (TV) and stage drama. I am Sam Loco from Benin in Edo State. Many people misplace my surname for a Delta man. Efe is a Benin name although the Urhobo people popularised it. Efe means Wealth in Benin as it also means in Urhobo but it means Cloth in Ibo. My surname is fully pronounced    Efeeimwonkiyeke, meaning ‘wealth has no time limit.’ One can be wealthy at 90 when people must have lost hope. What actually happened was that my grandmother was having only female children and after so many years, she gave birth to my father at an old age and when he arrived, the name given to him is "you see now my wealth has finally arrived." I later inherited this from my father as I was the last of my parents’ children and the only male child. The beginning I was born here in Enugu, but I spent my childhood in Abakaliki an

Lagos is a very low lying State, relatively flat in topography, near the Coast (Atlantic Ocean) and is served by many Rivers as well as lagoons. Under normal circumstances, when water is to flow by natural means, (that is under the force of gravity), it does so from a higher level to a lower level.  It is now no doubt that a heavy downpour of rain would cause flood.  Nevertheless, Lagosians are the major cause of the present state they find themselves. You ask me why, that is because they never stop dumping refuse into the drains, which sometimes do not get cleared as often as they should. Also people construct buildings along natural drainage routes and on flood plains.  More so , many Nigerian roads have challenges of poor materials utilised for construction, poor design as well as poor supervision of coordination.  There is the need to let people know that they have to change their orientation towards waste disposal. There should be enlightenment campaign to this effect. Drainage

  The first weekly meeting  of Federal Executive Council, since the election of President Goodluck Jonathan kicked off on Wednesday morning with Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala still conspicuously absent. This followed the swearing in of the last batch of ministerial appointees by the President last Thursday. Okonjo-Iweala had returned to Washington to finalise her disengagement from the World Bank where she was a managing director immediately after she was cleared by the Senate about three weeks ago. She was also not among the last batch of nine ministers sworn in last Thursday by the President. The presidency had earlier indicated that the former finance minister in the administration of ex President Olusegun Obasanjo had gone back to Washington to clear her desk before resuming her duties in the Nigerian cabinet. Though it has not been officially announced, it is however open secret that Okonjo-Iweala will take the finance portfolio in the cabinet. The President has already appointed a j

   Contrary to our story on Friday, that eight politicians were allegedly drugged and abducted in Lagos, the true story is that nobody was drugged or abducted. The politicians, during a news conference at the Bariga Local Council Development Area of Lagos State at the weekend, said they were not kidnapped as was thought by the police and the public. Speaking on behalf of the others, at the briefing, Mr. Jimoh Ajibola, Chairman Ward A, Bariga LCDA, said it was carbon monoxide from the exhaust pipe that was broken and kept inside the vehicle they were driving in that led to their drowsiness. According to Ajibola, they had gone to AM To PM Hotel at Ibafo, Ogun State, where they were supposed to have a meeting with the Chairman of Bariga LCDA, Akeem Sulaimon, on the way forward for grassroots politics in the area. He said the chairman was not aware of their coming to the hotel but that while they were there, they called him, but was then at a state meeting, adding that because of the bad