BREAKING NEWS: DON JAZZY`S MOTHER AT OBALENDE MARKET

Don Jazzy’s ‘mother’ was spotted in Obalende market, with a baby strapped to her back, at least that’s what her shirt says.
If you thought I was referring to the popular singer Don Jazzy, you are so wrong…
A woman wearing a T-shirt with the Yoruba inscription, iya Don Jazzy, which translates to Don Jazzy’s mother, was spotted in Obalende.
So what do you think? Did she name her child Don Jazzy? Or is it just a random T-shirt?

Reports: Dozens killed in gas attack in Syria

Two pro-opposition groups say government forces fired "rockets with poisonous gas heads" near Damascus, killing dozens.

The two groups quote activists as saying that regime forces fired "rockets with poisonous gas heads" in the alleged attack early on Wednesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the shelling was intense and hit the eastern suburbs of Zamalka, Arbeen and Ein Tarma.

It says "tens of people" were killed, while the Local Coordination Committees said hundreds of people were killed or injured in the shelling.

Such different figures are common in the immediate aftermaths of attacks in Syria. There was no government comment on the claims and the reports could not be independently confirmed.

The death toll was collated from medical centres in the region, Bayan Baker, a nurse at Douma Emergency Collection facility said.

The attack coincides with a visit to Damascus by a United Nations team of chemical weapons experts.

The Syrian government rejected the allegations as "baseless", according to the state-run SANA news agency. 

"It is an attempt to prevent the UN commission of inquiry from carrying out its mission," SANA said.

Isolated Mashco-Piro Indians appear in Peru

FILE - This Nov. 2011 file photo, shows members of the Mashco-Piro tribe, photographed at an undisclosed

Burna boy lashed for controversial green carpet photo

Burna boy

Recently signed-on Glo ambassador Damini Burna Boy Ogulu is presently being whipped black and blue on social media since paparazzi captured him stepping out in public with nothing but his pants on.
The 21 year old, Rivers state born rapper appeared at the venue of Glo’s Slide and Bounce tour brandishing just body tattoos; an act many have described as ‘unsightly and indecent’.

Burna’s supporters have however not gone down without a fight; arguing that the stunt was simply part of Burna’s showmanship… sightly or unsightly.
The war rages on but then there are concerns from observers that such extreme displays from Nigerian entertainers who many youths see as role models in public may soon get infectious.
Burna Boy has made no comments yet about the controversial photo but you could share your thoughts on this…
Is this going too far in the name of entertainment?

Boko Haram leader Shekau may have died –JTF

Boko Haram leader Shekau

There is  confusion in high security circles over the reported killing of the  leader of the Boko Haram Islamic sect,  Abubakar Shekau, by operatives of the Joint Task Force in Borno State.

The spokesman of the JTF, Col. Sagir Musa, said in a statement on Monday that the Boko Haram leader died of gunshot wounds he sustained during the invasion of the Sambisa Forest Headquarters of the sect in June.

Curiously, the Director of Defence Information, Brig. Gen Chris Olukolade, referred our correspondent to the headquarters of the JTF  in Borno State, when he was contacted for further confirmation.

Ordinarily, the killing of the most wanted terror leader, who has a $7m  bounty on his head, would have been celebrated by all security agencies but the situation appears to be different in the absence of evidence of his death.

Musa said intelligence reports at the disposal of the JTF showed that “Abubakar Shekau, the most dreaded and wanted Boko Haram terrorist, may have died.”

The JTF spokesman said the Boko Haram leader was seriously wounded in the attack on the sect headquarters at Sambisa on June 30, by the special forces and was taken to a border community in the nation’s border with Cameroun, identified as Amitchide, for treatment.

He said Shekau did not recover from the gunshot wounds he sustained at the Sambisa Forest.

Musa added that Shekau was behind the abduction of elder statesman, Alhaji Shettima Ali Mongonu, and the French family of seven, comprising four children, at a border town between Nigerian Cameroun.

The statement said, “Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide – a border community in Cameroun for treatment, from which he never recovered.

“It is greatly believed that Shekau might have died between July 25 and August 3, 2013. He was reported to have masterminded the kidnap of the seven French citizens and that of the elder statesman, Alhaji Shettima Ali Monguno, in addition to many murders of Islamic clerics in northern Nigeria.

“He was also responsible for the bombings of many places of worship and public buildings, including police and United Nations Headquarters in Abuja.”

Musa added that a video released purportedly by the Boko Haram leader on August 13, 2013, was a deceit by a member of the sect to convince members to continue with the insurgency.

He urged members of the sect to lay down their arms and accept the Federal Government’s offer of dialogue.

 Musa added that the video was “dramatised by an imposter to hoodwink the sect members to continue with terrorism and to deceive undiscerning minds”.

However, it was gathered that the military high command in the country was bitter about the release of the statement on Shekau’s purported death because of the growing lack of evidence around it.

However, a top security source confided in our correspondent on Monday that the statement was viewed as a product of sabotage and an unnecessary contest for glory by the JTF, which prosecuted the war against terrorism.

The source said that the hurried release of the news of the killing of Shekau on the date a new division of the Nigerian Army was taking over from the JTF was rather suspicious.

N1tn spent on N’Assembly members in eight years – Ezekwesili

Dr. Oby Ezekwesili

A former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili,  on Monday said Nigeria had spent over  N1tn on  the National Assembly members   in the last eight years.

Ezekwesili, in a keynote address she delivered during one-day dialogue session on the ‘Cost of governance in Nigeria, “ added that  banks earned N699bn as interests last year  on loans secured by the government.

 “Since 2005, the National Assembly members alone have been allocated N1tr,’’she said while also lamenting that “82 per cent of Nigeria’s budgetary cost goes for recurrent expenditure.”

 To buttress her claim that  much was being spent   servicing those in government, she said that   “ a research conducted in the United Kingdom identified Nigerian legislators as being the highest paid in the world.”

Although she was applauded by participants at the session organised in Abuja by the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre with support from Federal Public Administration Reform Programme in the UK, she drew flak  from  the National Assembly members, who said  her claim amounted to blackmail.

But Ezekwesili, who was also a former minister of Solid Mineral and World Bank Vice-President for Africa Region, challenged civil society  groups to demand a mini-national dialogue that centres on good governance  and the the release of the Steve Oronsaye report on Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.

“There should be effective demand by civil society groups of the report of the   Oronsaye report. You should also demand  a mini-national transparent dialogue because it touches on the heart of  good governance”, she stated.

 She also pointed out that  one of the greatest mistakes of the Olusegun Obasanjo administration under which she served twice as a minister was that Nigeria delved into democracy without necessarily doing away with a  military mindset.

“There is a drawback to the military era.  One major mistake of the government under which I served was that we simply got into democracy and did not spend reasonable time  getting   every citizen;  every leader and every institution to do away with    militaristic ethos and principles from their minds,” Ezekwesili added.

According to her, the social dilemma which the country  currently finds itself would be overcome if stakeholders, especially lawmakers,   consider  part-time legislation as a means of  bringing  down the cost of governance.

She said  part-time lawmaking  would  ensure that the right people got into governance.

“Things will improve through part-time legislation. It will also reduce  the number of people who will go into the National Assembly. You must have means of livelihood so that you won’t have to depend on public funds, ”she said.

The former minister argued  that Nigeria’s problem was not the system of  governance  but  more of the kind of people managing it.

Ezekwesili said while other countries were  moving forward technologically, Nigeria was trapped by oil, a natural resource which it loses a revenue of about  $1.6bn annually.

She said, “When I was in government, I was totally  debating  public  policies. We must debate public policies as a nation because if we don’t do so, we will make silly mistakes because we don’t involve the stakeholders. So policy debates must be encouraged.

“The culture of personalising policy dialogues must stop. When you have a problem, you don’t leave the problem and begin to chase other matters.

“I feel sorry for any person who is fairly okay in this nation and doesn’t care about the poor because there will be an implosion. Whatever treatment that is given to the poor and vulnerable in the society must matter to everybody because except we have social inclusion in the society, we stand the danger of implosion.  This  has happened in other countries which ignored the vulnerable people.”

In his speech, the Executive Director of CISLAC,  Ibrahim Rafsanjani, condemned the cost of governance in Nigeria.

He said, “There is  recent media report of our National Assembly members being the highest paid in the world. The size of the  cabinet at the executive level, including the retinue of superfluous aides and special assistants,   is alarming. The fact that the  10 planes  in the Presidential fleet   gulp N9.08bn annually is something that must be looked into.”

But the   Senate, through its Majority Leader,   Victor Ndoma-Egba(SAN),  described the statement by the former minister  as another blackmail  against the National Assembly.

Ndoma-Egba told one of our correspondents that the National Assembly received  far less than what the other arms of government were allocated in the national budget.

He said, “I don’t know how she arrived at the figure. But what is allocated to the National Assembly is known to the public. In the last four years,  the National Assembly has been allocated N150bn, which has been the highest since 1999. It is another attempt to blackmail the National Assembly.

“They are saying cost of governance is high, what was  the overheads when she was minister. Let her say it.

“Pick the budget and look at it without sentiments and compare the overheads of the Executive with that of the National Assembly. Nobody is saying anything about that.

“When President Goodluck Jonathan said there should be a reduction in the cost of governance, the National Assembly reduced its overheads, none of the other arms of government did that.

“If we say that cost of governance is high, we should sit down and look at all the aspects, instead of castigating the National Assembly.”

 The  House of Representatives also  dismissed the former minister’s comments as “blackmail, which sole aim is to seek headlines.”

The House argued that her figure appeared to have been “conjured up for fancy as it simply does not add up.”

The Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Mr. Victor Afam-Ogene, who spoke for the legislators, said that in the last three years, the budget of the “entire National Assembly, including the bureaucracy and the National Assembly Commission, had remained at N150bn.”

He added that this meant that prior to 2010, the budget could have been less than N150bn.

“Now, a simple check will tell you that even at N150bn per year from 1999 till date will not give you anything near over N8tn. It, therefore, means that her figure is fallacious”, Afam-Ogene stated.

He expressed surprise that each time people talked about reducing the cost of governance, they only complained about the National Assembly and not the Executive arm.

Afam-Ogene  asked,  “What is the percentage of N150bn in a budget of N4.9trillion (2013 budget)?

“People think that this N150bn is just for salaries and allowances of legislators. This   is not correct.

“It is for the entire institution of the National Assembly, including the capital projects for all the organs therein. We have always called for cutting cost of governance and the problem really is with the Executive. That is where the waste we often complain about is. But, nobody looks that way.

“Today(Monday), some papers reported that ministers were spending N2bn on air tickets alone. That is the waste we talk about.

“People always want to blackmail the National Assembly, the core of democracy, and leave out the real issues.”

MTN Signs Don Jazzy & D’Prince As Brand Ambassadors

MTN Signs Don Jazzy

Don Jazzy has joined the league of telecommunication ambassadors as he and D’Prince got signed to MTN as brand ambassadors along side Tiwa Savage, Davido, Iyanya, Chidinma, Praiz and more.
The Mavin expressed his excitement while making the announcement on twitter today..