A report in the Punch has painted the picture of a furious President Jonathan who wants Ministers, Senators and Chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to show what they did with all the money received for the 2015 election campaigns. Trillions of Naira were disbursed to ensure the President won a re-election bid but he still lost to Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Punch reports that; sources within the party and government told our correspondents that President Jonathan was disturbed that despite giving campaign coordinators, ministers, special advisers, close aides and friends, support groups and traditional rulers over N2trn in cash, most of them could not deliver their polling booths and local governments.
The President was said to have been further irked by the results of an investigation he ordered. The probe showed that some coordinators used campaign funds to buy very expensive properties, especially in Abuja, and luxury cars. Some of the funds have also been traced to the bank accounts of senior party and government officials who were charged with the disbursement of funds to voters and groups.
Ministers were said to have received some N20bn each and campaign co-coordinators in Lagos received as much as $150m to deliver their constituencies. The President is irked that some Ministers and campaign coordinators could not even deliver their polling booths even after receiving all that money. Monies were disbursed to acquire campaign materials and phones bearing the President's image; but the sums were sparsely used for the intended purposes.
The Punch quotes a presidential source as saying:
"Some ministers did not get less than N20bn each. None of them can deny it because this fact isn't hidden within government circles. The only problem with such monies is that there is no receipt to show that they collected money. The sad part is that almost all of them performed woefully. Even in the states where the PDP won, some ministers could not deliver 100,000 votes. They could not mobilise their people to come out. The President is not happy. They all went property and car shopping. This was the most expensive election in the history of this country, yet there was no result.
"The sad part was that even after the President lost on March 28, more money was given to all of them to make up for the dismal outing by winning their states during the April 11 elections. But that turned out to be a bad decision because apart from losing the governorship election, we didn't perform well at the National Assembly and House of Representatives polls.
"They must give an account of the money since they didn't use it for the election. The President is not particular about the funds spent on genuine campaign needs like the hiring of jets, advertisements and the rest that also cost billions of naira. His focus is on the individuals that collected billions to deliver their states but couldn't even win their polling booths."
The report tells the story of a splurge in Naira and Dollars on the President's failed reelection bid.
Source: Ekekeee
"In the three years of the war, necessity gave birth to invention. During those three years of heroic bound, we leapt across the great chasm that separates knowledge from know-
how.
We built rockets, and we designed and built our own delivery systems. We guided our rockets. We guided them far, we guided them accurately. For three years, blockaded without hope of import, we maintained all our vehicles. The state extracted and refined petrol, individuals refined petrol in their back gardens. We built and maintained our airports, maintained them under heavy bombardment.
Despite the heavy bombardment, we recovered so quickly after each raid that we were able to maintain the record for the busiest airport in the continent of Africa. We spoke to the world through telecommunication system engineered by local ingenuity; the world heard us and spoke back to us! We built armoured car tanks. We modified aircraft from trainer to fighters, from passenger aircraft to bombers. In the three years of freedom we had broken the technological barrier.
In three years we became the most civilised, the most technologically advanced black people on earth."
Ojukwu, with those few lines, defined the ingenuity and never-say-die spirit God has embedded in the marrows of the Igboman. But my question for Ndigbo is, where has this ingenuity for which the entire world has given them a standing ovation, gone?
Why can't it be used today to enhance the cause of Ndigbo? Can't we re-enact the same war time feat to launch ourselves back to reckoning again in Nigeria and in the entire black world?
Since Ojukwu died, Ndigbo have been like sheep without a shepherd. Those who we thought could take up the mantle of leadership are nothing but selfish entities who care for nothing but their personal interest.
As I am writing this article, I just got words that a senator in Imo State has been discovered as a saboteur working against the interest of his people because he has been promised to be made Senate president in the new political dispensation which begins on May 29. What is it with Ndigbo and greed?
How long are we going to kill ourselves? Isn't it a gargantuan shame that a tribe as populous as Ndigbo can't provide a single individual that is seen to be credible enough to be elected president of Nigeria?
A casual observation of the performances of the governors of the south eastern states will reveal their level of under-performance since 1999. Case point, take Aba which has failed to enjoy any meaningful development since the 1929 Aba women riot. The place is a total mess.
What have the governors done with what has been accruing to the state in the last 16 years of democratic rule? The fact that these individuals who have mismanaged fortunes of the state consider themselves fit to even contest election is a slap on the faces of Ndigbo. Ndigbo, are we cursed?
The red-cap goons known as Ohaneze do nothing but crawl from one place to another offering themselves for sale and for use. This has been their money-making scheme for too long and it can no longer hold water. Can't we take a cue from the style Dangote adopted and made a kill? The Yoruba have already adopted it and it is working. We have to restrategise to become that economic power house we crave.
The idea that every Igboman who makes money whether through his ingenuity or by accident becomes misguided and begins to push for political office even though they are clearly not professional politicians should be discarded.
We hear of Dangote, the Dantatas, Otedola, Mike Adenuga, the Okoyas, where are the Igbo equivalent in terms of their organisational set-up? Most of our businesses are largely one-man businesses and whenever the founder dies, the whole thing dies.
Ndigbo must do away with their selfishness and personal greed, otherwise we will continue to languish as a people. We must redirect our thoughts away from the deeply engrossed notion of "to make it in life," "we must make money at all cost." What Ndigbo should learn from the just concluded elections is that without a harmony of opinion, all our efforts will yield nothing. Igbo kwezuenu.
Who agrees with Etcetera on this one?
The desperate parents of a boy whose head hangs at a 180-degree angle have admitted they would rather he died than continue to suffer.
Mahendra Ahirwar, 12, from Madhya Pradesh in central India, suffers from a rare condition that makes his neck bend and his head hang from his body. His weak backbone means he can't stand or walk and is restricted to a sitting position. Mahendra can just about crawl but needs help to eat and go to the toilet.
According toDailyMail, his father Mukesh Ahirwar, 40, and mother Sumitra Ahirwar, 35, who both work as labourers when they can, say they have consulted more than 50 doctors across India but none
could diagnose his condition.
'I cannot see him suffer anymore,' said Sumitra. 'Watching his life is devastating.
'He cannot do anything by himself. He just sits in a corner of the room all day. It's no life. I have to carry him like a baby everywhere but he is 12 years old, how will I carry him when he grows even older?
If doctors cannot treat my son it is better that God takes him.'
Shockingly, members of the community have blamed Mahendra's condition on Mukesh's past sins and believe he is to blame for his son's disability.
Sumitra, who also has healthy 16 and 10-year-old sons and a 14-year-old daughter, did not visit a doctor when she was pregnant with Mahendra. Mukesh said:
'Our other children had all been born normally with no problems so we never thought to consult a doctor or have an ultrasound done with Mahendra, and he was born at home just like his siblings.'
The couple only noticed their son's head was starting to hang when he was about six months old.
'At first we thought he was just a little weak and he'd be fine in time, but by his third birthday he wasn't able to keep his head upright at all,' his father explained.
Mukesh, who earns about Rs200 (£2) a day on construction sites, has borrowed money from his friends and relatives to help find medical treatment for his son.
But he said two years ago he decided to stop taking Mahendra to see any doctors, adding:
'I took him to all the hospitals that I could afford. Even India's premier hospital, All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, but after spending two weeks there doctors failed to tell us if my son could be treated.
With a broken heart we returned home and decided to raise him and try to give him as comfortable a life that we can.'
Mukesh added:
'People say bad things about him, and they often laugh at him. It really hurts us.
'We cannot tolerate people's attitudes and discrimination. They say I must have committed some terrible sins and this is why he is suffering, it's awful.'
Mahendra doesn't go to school so his only friends are his siblings and his cousins.
Dr Shashidhar Tatavarthy, an ear, nose and throat consultant at Delhi's Artemis Hospital, thinks Mahendra has a muscular disorder.
He said:
'This is one of the rarest of rare cases. His condition could be due to a spine anomaly or muscular disorder, but it can only be concluded after a thorough investigation.'
Mukesh is still hoping for a miracle.
'If doctors can treat babies born with severe disabilities like two heads and give them lifesaving operations then why not my son?' he said.
I still have so many hopes and dreams for him. I want to see him go to school and play with other kids. I want to see him living a normal life and I am hoping that my wish will be fulfilled one day.'
Photos: Daily Mail UK
It sounds unbelievable, but from the account of 19-year-old Kehinde Adegoke, it really happened. The teenager who is an indigene of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, but whose parents live in Minna, Niger State, has told Sunday Tribune how she had sex with a snake in her dream for four years and eventually got pregnant without any physical relationship with any man.
Not only that, Kehinde was delivered of a baby boy in the early hours of March 28, 2015. The baby, however, brought strangeness as he had two teeth protruding from the gum in its lower jaw. He
however died on Sunday, March 29 without any ill health pinned to him.
For four years, Kehinde said she had to deal with a strange spirit which always came to her in a dream in form of a snake. She said the snake would turn into a Fulani man who would have sex with her, and afterwards transform into a snake, before crawling away.
She disclosed that she had to leave Niger State in October 2014 for Ogbomoso, when she suddenly found herself pregnant without having physical intercourse.
She was, however, full of joy that she received deliverance from demonic possession through the prayers and deliverance sessions she went through at one church in Ogbomoso. She expressed appreciation to the founder of the church, Apostle Johnson Olayinka Afolabi a.k.a. Okoto Jesu, that God used him to set her free from satanic bondage.
Narrating her story, Kehinde told Tribune:
"My parents live in Niger but I am from Ogbomoso, Oyo State. I was troubled by an unseen spirit. I would see the snake beside me. The snake would then turn to a Fulani man who would have intercourse with me. It started about four years ago.
After the intercourse, the Fulani man would turn to a snake again and leave. Whenever I woke up, I would not see any semen indicating that I had sexual intercourse. But in the dream, he would climax and release in me.
I have never had any man who wooed me in real life and looked like the man. His face was strange. The Fulani man also used to appear to me in real life, but I was the only person who would see him. He dared not see me with any man, even if the person was my brother. He would frown and warn me off the man. This would make me change my countenance to whomever I was talking with.
Also, if I wanted to tell my parents what I was experiencing, he would appear and warned me against revealing anything. That was why the experience I was having spanned some years."
Her life story changed when she discovered she was pregnant towards the end of 2014. According to her,:
"I noticed that I was pregnant in October 2014. My stomach started protruding and the change in me was noticed by my mother and neighbours. They asked whether I was pregnant and I said no. Though I did not see my menses, my thinking was that it was a temporary reaction and that it would still come since I didn't have sexual intercourse.
When I went to a hospital to carry out a pregnancy test, it was positive.
I was surprised because I did not have intercourse with any man. My parents did not believe me and were furious with me. I was so confused that I left Minna for Ogbomoso in Oyo State.
At Ogbomoso, someone told me about a church. I met the founder, Apostle Johnson Olayinka Afolabi a.k.a. Okoto Jesu. He asked me to go through marathon and dry fasting which spanned 41 days.
After the fasting, I did not feel anything in my tummy again. All I noticed was that my stomach would be flat whenever I woke up in the morning but it would protrude immediately I ate. I went through another fast in March after which I experienced my miracle."
The alleged miracle happened on March 27.
"At about 9 a.m., I started feeling stomach pain. Nothing was moving in me. I took some drugs and the pain subsided. It started again and I had to go to Prophet Afolabi . He prayed into water which he asked me to drink. The pain did not subside.
By evening, the pain had become unbearable. Prophet was told and he blessed water again and sent it to me through one of his pastors. After drinking the water the second time, I vomited. The vomit was smelly. That was all I knew as I passed out.
I did not know how I got to the hospital.
I learnt Okoto Jesu poured water in the church bell and rang the bell seven times, commanding all evil spirits in me to vanish in the name of Jesus. I was then taken to a private hospital (names withheld).
I became fully conscious of my environment during delivery. The baby was also changing its skin to different colours after birth. My mother was present in the hospital. I noticed that the baby had two teeth in the lower jaw.
I did not breast-feed the baby. But he died on Sunday, March 29.
Since then, I have been delivered and free from manipulations of the spirit world. I no longer see the snake or the Fulani man."
Kehinde also disclosed that she had familiar spirit and belonged to a group of destroyers (egbe abatenije), though she went through deliverance in 2011. Before the deliverance, she said she used to see herself in the midst of other children, with all of them adorning black garments.
She also revealed that she was initiated into a demonic group by four women whom she knew physically, though saying that two of them were dead. But all that had become a thing of the past, she stated.
The account of the girl was corroborated by Prophet Afolabi who is popularly called Okoto Jesu. According to him:
"When Kehinde was brought to our church, we pressed her stomach but couldn't feel any pregnancy. We told her to go through dry fast.
She fasted for three days three times making a total of nine days and she did it without any adverse effect, which could not have been so if she was pregnant. She also observed white fast. The prayers offered her and the water given to drink turned the demons in her into a human form which came out as a baby.
Even when she was taking to the hospital, the nurse who examined her said she was still a virgin, which confirmed that she was indeed possessed. It was simply God at work." Okoto Jesu said that a case like that of Kehinde had never happened in his church "though we have had cases of women who were pregnant for six, seven years but delivered when they got here."
Kehinde's mother, Mrs Adegoke, told Sunday Tribune that Kehinde was a strange child right from when she was in her womb, saying that the twin brother died at birth.
She disclosed that when Kehinde was undergoing deliverance session in 2011, she was rolling on the ground and screaming that witches should leave her alone as she was no longer willing to be their tool.
This tune is banging ,Guys check out this KoKo jam by Saint Atunnise Olaoluwa aka Saint is a songwriter/singer claims whose aim is to deliv...
