"I am scared of going to rehab' - Majek Fashek says

Reggae star, Majek Fashek who is currently struggling with
drug addiction says he is scared of going to rehab after his
last experience in America. According to the singer who
spoke with Encomium magazine, rehab weakens a person's
mind. He said his first contact with Rehab in the US really
helped him
"Yeah, America really helped me. Most American
superstars go to rehab because they take cocaine,
heroin and the likes which makes them "too high".
So they have to go to rehab. Rehab helps calm their
brains after which they go back to their business.
For me rehab was helpful. I was high but after
rehab, I got my contract with Top Gun International.
That's Bob Marley's label. I got it through his wife
Rita Marley and an American woman, Cassandra.
Rehab calms the brain so it won't explode. It calmed
me." he said
Asked if he ever stopped taking hard drugs after Rehab,
Majek says
"I am scared of Rehab. Let me tell you what I did to
escape the rehab. God gave me different knowledge
of Orisha, babalawo knowledge. My ancestral
knowledge which is what I am using right now. I
now drink akpeteshie. It's the orisha idea i got."he
said
Asked if he preferred akpeteshie (ogogoro) to rehab, Majek
said
"I prefer akpeteshie in the sense that the white
man's drugs weakens your mind, might not even be
able to have sex" he said
Majek who has been separated from his wife, Rita, for a
while now says he will accept her back if she apologies to
him
"It's up to my wife. If she loves me. She is a
woman. She won't live forever. Nobody can except
God. If she loves her children, she will reunite with
me so I can help them. It was the celestial church
that confused her. They gave her wrong vision
about me. The celestial church can't try me anyday,
anytime. I will attack them. I am Laura, not
celestial. I will burn them. I am equipped spiritually.
you no see wetin i put there(points to a praying mat
with a huge bible and an Islamic talisman on it). If
she's she will apologize. And when she does, I will
take her back" he said

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Buhari sacks service chiefs

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday relieved the
nation’s service chiefs of their appointments.
Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr.
Femi Adesina, said this while speaking to State House
correspondents on Monday.
Adesina, who did not give more details, added that the
Presidency was preparing a statement on the sacking,
which would be made available to newsmen.
Their replacements had neither been named as of the time
of writing this report.
There has been an escalation in terror attacks by Boko
Haram militants in the country in recent times, leading to
the killing of more than 500 people in less than four weeks.

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Governor Kashim Shettima insists on Amnesty for Boko Haram

Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, yesterday once
again asked that the federal government grant pardon
through a programme of amnesty to Boko Haram members
According to Thisday , Shettima's support for an amnesty
programme for the terrorist group was re-emphasised at an
interactive session organised by his Special Adviser on
Communications and Strategy, Mallam Isa Gusau, with
selected journalists in Abuja.
Gusau said Shettima's call was scientific and had
been vindicated by a very desperate effort of Boko
Haram leaders to stop their fighters from leaving
their fold when a group of 16 members renounced
the sect's ideology in Borno State following which
they were slaughtered by the sect's leaders.
He said: "Governor Kashim Shettima was
misunderstood by many Nigerians when in his May
29 inaugural remarks revisited his stance on the
need to apply a political solution to fighting the Boko
Haram by way of granting a window to admit those
willing to surrender their arms and renounce the
Boko Haram ideology.
"Shettima has held this position from his campaign
days ahead of the 2011 elections for his first term.
He had always advocated a combination of three
approaches, which are: the military which is what
we have in place, an economic approach which is
aimed at providing jobs for people and discourage
citizens that Boko Haram terrorists are recruiting."
"It is important to note that the governor has always
advocated that the three approaches should be
applied together not exclusively. However, the
amnesty issue has been the controversial one. The
governor is not really talking about dialogue as a
start, what he is advocating is to create an opening
for those ready to abandon the sect to be able to do
so freely, so that the sect can be broken.
"He is very particular about hundreds, if not
thousands of members that were conscripted or
forced to join the sect and became killers against
their wish. If attacks on all communities can be
efficiently done, then there wouldn't be need for any
debate on amnesty but we all have seen that many
communities have continued to suffer from these
attacks because the communities are so much, not
only in Borno but round Nigeria and we don't have
the right proportion of security personnel to secure
all communities."
"When insurgents attack communities, they mostly
target male youths, they arrest them and guard
them into bushes. In most cases, even before taking
them out of the towns they attacked, they preach in
support of their ideology with promises of heaven
for adherents and then openly ask aloud if any of
the youths is willing to join them or not and whoever
said he is not ready to join them, they slaughter him
right there sometimes in the presence of his parents
or they lay them on row and shoot all of them in
matter of seconds targeting their skulls.
"We have seen many of these instances in videos
recorded in Gwoza and other parts of Borno State.
Now, what Governor Kashim Shettima has been
saying is that hundreds of these forcefully arrested
and initiated young men may want to run away and
drop their arms and there should be a policy and
programme to admit them so that insurgents lose
members and their strategy of arresting youths and
forcing them to join them which is what they apply
in sustaining their membership, can be deflated and
I think the governor's call on May 29 has been
vindicated less than two weeks ago.
"You might have read it on most news platforms
that on Friday, July 3, 2015, Boko Haram insurgents
beheaded 11 of its members who renounced their
ideology. According to accounts by some locals,
what happened was that some members of the sect
who are indigenes of some villages in Damboa
Local Government Area indicated interest in
abandoning the ideology but most of them were
afraid of the consequences. Out of them, 16
summoned courage to renounce the ideology and
they moved to Miringa village in Biu Local
Government Area of Southern Borno. They wanted
to join some communities like Ajigin and Talala in
Damboa.
"The 16 insurgents went to Miringa on Friday, July 3
according to locals, then at night, commanders of
Boko Haram sent a team to Miringa to fish out the
16 members that denounced the sect. The team
went from house to house and got the 16 members
intact. They didn't fire any shot in order not to
attract soldiers. They took the members out of
Miringa and slaughtered 11 of them and went away
with five. The bodies of the 11 executed members
were found the following day while the other five
were not seen," he said.
Culled from Thisday

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SERAP seeks probe of N’Delta amnesty programme

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project has
raised the alarm over alleged corruption being perpetrated
within the Niger Delta Presidential Amnesty Programme.
The organisation, which said complaints of corruption
within the Niger Delta Amnesty Programme had come to its
notice, is seeking an urgent probe of the programme by
President Muhammadu Buhari.
In a petition dated July 10, 2015 and addressed to the
President, SERAP said based on the complaints that it
received, the organisation was concerned that accrued
allowances to some of the participants in the programme
“might have been stolen, diverted or mismanaged.”
According to the organisation, some of the victims of the
alleged corruption are one Sukore Daniel, Ekperi Abel,
Enodeh Eniyekperi, Ebaretonbofa Keme, Akperi Tamaraebi
and Godspower Desmonds all of Patani Community in Delta
State.
SERAP said the complaints it received from petitioners
could be representative of widespread corruption within the
Niger Delta Amnesty Programme resulting from what it
described as the failure of the previous government.
The petition signed by SERAP’s Executive Director,
Adetokunbo Mumuni, read in part, “The petitioners alleged
that they have gone through the required training under the
Amnesty Programme by the Federal Government. Although
the Amnesty Office has issued identification cards to the
petitioners and the office has collected their bank details,
the petitioners have not received their monthly payment of
N65,000 due to them under the Programme from
November, 2011 to date.
“We are seriously concerned that the accrued allowances to
the petitioners might have been stolen, diverted or
mismanaged. We fear that these cases may not just be
isolated incidents and that they are likely to be a broader
pattern of corruption and impunity, and are in large part the
consequence of the previous government’s failure to
address it.
“We believe that the President can play a leadership role in
helping to address the problem and ensure justice and fair
play to those affected. Doing so will be entirely consistent
with the anti-corruption policy of this government.”

Punch online

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You’re ingrates, PDP tells defectors

The Peoples Democratic Party, Bayelsa State chapter, has
described the decision of Chief Alex Ekiotenne and his
followers to dump the party for the All Progressives
Congress, as not only embarrassing, but disgraceful.
The PDP said such defection was motivated by greed,
stressing that Ekiotenne and his supporters were people
who had benefitted immensely from the Seriake Dickson
administration in the state.
However, the party in a statement by its Publicity Secretary,
Mr. Osom Makbere, described Ekiotenne as a self-centred
politician.
He stated that Ekiotenne, who is the Publicity Secretary,
Bayelsa Peoples Consultative Assembly, had allegedly
benefitted so much from the present administration, in
terms of award of contracts and appointments of his
siblings, relations and close associates.
Calling on him to tell Bayelsans the truth and the main
reasons for his sudden cross carpeting, the party said his
action was being influenced by greed and selfishness.
It noted that the self-styled spokesman of BPCA was
defecting to the All Progressives Congress because the
Governor turned down his request to hire one of his guest
houses for a monthly fee of N150m, as was the case during
the previous administration in the state.
The State Governor, according to the statement, saw the
hiring of the said guest house as unnecessary and a waste
of the scarce resources of the state and turned it down.
It pointed out that it was for this reason that Ekiotenne
abandoned the PDP for the APC.
The BPCA spokesman had, during a news conference
during the week, accused Dickson of poor management of
the state’s resources.
Ekiotenne who, until the news conference, was Honorary
Special Adviser to Dickson, alleged that lack of strategic
planning, prioritisation and a result-oriented advisory
system had given productivity and sustained performance
of Dickson’s administration as serious impairment.
He had also alleged that Dickson’s administration had
squandered its political capital and that the psyche of the
people of the state had broken down irretrievably under the
governor.
He had stated, “While productivity was expected to rise,
there was a steady decline in productivity and good
performance of government in almost all sectors, which has
inexorably led us to the present state of gloom.
“The decline in federal revenue is a universal issue that all
states have to grapple with as a result of the drop in oil
revenue. But can we justifiably attribute all our woes to the
drop in federal allocation? Successive governments of the
state got carried away with the fat federal allocations over
the years and so did not think of developing the industrial,
agricultural and commercial sectors of the economy that
would have been able to promote internally generated
revenue in leaps and bounds.
“Bayelsans believe that if consultations and strategic
planning, including prioritisation had been sustained, we
would not have found ourselves where we are today.

Source punch

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President Buhari recalls ambassadors

President Muhammadu Buhari has recalled Nigerian non-
career ambassadors in foreign countries.
It was learnt that the ambassadors were recalled as part of
efforts to reposition the country’s foreign policies.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and
Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, confirmed the recall.
Adesina said only non-career ambassadors are affected in
the recall.
“Yes, I can confirm to you that non-career
ambassadors have been recalled by the Federal
Government,” the presidential spokesman said.

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Nigerian embassy in Saudi Arabia snubs president Buhari's family?

That is what Leadership newspaper is claiming. According
to the report, the Nigerian embassy in Saudi Arabia this
week side-stepped protocol by giving preference to former
Vice President Namadi Sambo and his entourage of 15
family members over that of President Buhari when both
arrived for the lesser Hajj (Umrah) in Saudi Arabia.
The Umrah is performed by Muslims from all over
the world who converge on the holy city of Mecca to
observe the ritual, which can be undertaken at any
time of the year but mostly observed during
Ramadan.
The pilgrims perform a series of worship activities
symbolising the lives of Prophet Ibrahim (AS) and
his second wife, Hajara.
Leadership gathered that both families arrived in Saudi
Arabia this week for Umrah and while Aisha Buhari and her
five children were allotted two-bedroom accommodation,
the former vice president was allotted an eight-room
apartment.
Leadership also learnt that while not a single protocol
officer and vehicles were posted by the embassy to attend
to the president’s family, a protocol officer and vehicles
from the embassy were attached to the former vice
president and his family.
An embassy source revealed that Buhari’s wife had
travelled to Saudi Arabia via Emirate Airline instead of the
presidential jet, as was the practice in the previous
administrations, and had decided to seek alternative
accommodation by herself at her own expense, to
accommodate her and her children.
However, it was gathered that the government of the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia provided an official vehicle to
convey the Nigerian president’s family around as it is done
for the families of all visiting heads of state.
The source further revealed that the consular-general,
Ahmed Umar, still sees himself as being more beholden to
the former vice president than anyone else because Sambo
it was that was instrumental to his elevation and posting to
Saudi Arabia. He still sees himself basically as Sambo’s
protege, a staff member of the embassy told Leadership.
The source added that even the two-bedroom apartment
allotted to the president’s family was a result of the efforts
of the ambassador, Alhaji Abubakar Bunu, and not the
consular-general.
While the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was in power,
Buhari and his family were denied any privileges by the
Nigerian embassy in Saudi Arabia, even those due to a
former head of state because he was in the opposition.
Sambo and his family had last year embarked on a widely
publicized Umrah.
-Leadership

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EFCC arrest former Gov. Sule Lamido and his two sons

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has
arrested the former Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule
Lamido, for alleged money laundering-related offences.
Investigations revealed that operatives of the anti-graft
agency picked up the former governor and his two sons,
Mustapha and Aminu in the early hours of Tuesday in
Abuja.
It was learnt that the EFCC leadership ordered a crack team
of detectives to fly them to Kano by 2.30 pm to prepare
them for their arraignment for alleged fraud that amount to
billions of naira.
The source said,
“The former Governor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule
Lamido, and his two sons, Mustapha and Aminu,
were arrested this morning by operatives of the
commission.
“They were actually arrested very early this
morning, they were with us for hours before they
were flown to Kano for possible arraignment on
Wednesday (today).
“They left Abuja Airport around 2.30pm. It is most
likely that they would be arraigned tomorrow
(Wednesday), that I can tell you.”
The EFCC had arrested the two sons of the governor in
November 2014, over alleged misappropriation of billions of
naira belonging to the Jigawa State Government.
Operatives of the commission investigating Lamido and his
sons alleged that billions of naira that belonged to the state
government was traced into the accounts of companies
owned and run by the governor and his two sons.
The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson
Uwujaren, confirmed the arrest of the former governor and
two of his sons.
He said,
“I can confirm to you that the former Governor of
Jigawa a State, Alhaji Sule Lamido and his two sons
are with the commission.”
Punch

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20 killed in bomb blast at government lodge in Zaria, Kaduna state

There was a bomb explosion at the government lodge in
Sabon Gari, Zaria, Kaduna state this morning. There was a
verification exercise for civil servants going on at the lodge
when the bomb exploded. Most of the people killed were
civil servants. According to the state governor, Mallam El
Rufai, at least 20 people were killed in the terrorist attack.
Sad!

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We may negotiate with Boko Haram, says Presidency

The Federal Government has said that it is open to
negotiations with the Boko Haram sect in order to find a
lasting solution to the security crisis in the country, if the
group is willing.
This was disclosed by the Special Adviser to President
Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,
on Friday, in an interview with the BBC .
In the interview, which was monitored by our
correspondent, Adesina said the Federal Government was
not ruling out negotiations with the sect if it would put an
end to the activities of the group. He lamented that the
insurgents had attacked so many villages and killed scores
of people.
“These were very vicious attacks. People were killed in
scores and it’s so sad,” he said.
The President had during his inauguration speech said he
had launched a strategy to deal with the sect by relocating
the military headquarters to Maiduguri, Borno State.
When asked whether this would work, Adesina replied, “This
is going to work. There are machineries being put in place.
It’s going to work. The recent killings by the sect were
meant to break our resolve, to weaken it, but that will stop.
It remains a priority to him (Buhari) to deal with the group.
“You will notice that his first two weeks of administration
were dedicated to tackling the insurgency. He visited Chad
and Niger Republics and the following week, the Presidents
of those countries also visited him in Abuja.
“The President of Benin Republic and the Defence Minister
of Cameroon visited him; machinery is being put in place
and once we’re through, we will see the end of the group.
The target time for the deployment of the multinational
force is July ending; that is in a couple of weeks.”
When the BBC also asked if the Federal Government was
considering negotiations with the insurgent group, Adesina
replied in the affirmative.
He said, “If they are willing, why not? You know attempts
have been made for negotiations in the past and they didn’t
work. Every reasonable person would want to see the end
to this insurgency. So if they are willing, why not? You can’t
rule that out.”

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Aregbesola pays workers December salary

The Chairman of the Nigeria Labour Congress in Osun
State, Mr. Jacob Adekomi, said on Tuesday, that Governor
Rauf Aregbesola has approved the payment of December,
2014 salary for workers in the state.
Adekomi, who said this at a press conference he addressed
after a meeting with the government delegation led by Chief
of Staff, Mr. Gboyega Oyetola, added that the governor also
approved the payment of the 30 per cent balance
of November salaries of some workers who were yet to be
paid in full.
The NLC boss, however, said workers would not suspend
their strike despite the payment of their one month salary
out of seven months.
The Head of Service, Mr. Sunday Owoeye, also confirmed
that workers had started receiving alerts for balance of
November and December 2014 salaries.
He said this in response to an inquiry earlier sent to him by
our corespondent through text message.
Owoeye’s text read, ” They are already receiving alerts for
balance of November, and part of December, 2014. A
journey of 1000km starts with one step. The man who
removes a mountain starts by carrying stones away.”
But Adekomi explained that most workers would not get
anything from the one month salary paid because their
banks would use the meager money for loan repayment
and interest.
According to Adekomi, most workers will not have anything
left to feed themselves let alone transport themselves to
their places of work and because of this, he stressed that
the strike would continue.
The NLC chairman said, ” We appreciate the efforts of the
government to see that salary and pension arrears are
settled without further delay . Our negation with
government is that out of eight months owed us, the
minimum we can take is give months to resume work.
“As it is now, the strike continues while negotiations also
continue. I appeal to all workers in the state to continue to
stay at home until further notice.
“This payment is as good as no payment, because all
deductions must have been made by our various banks.
Because of this , there won’t be money for us to transport
ourselves to work and feed our families.
“Until we have enough money to feed and for our
transportation to work, we will not resume work. The strike
continues.”
The governor had on June 14 promised to pay workers
salaries  in a statement made available to our
correspondent by his media aide, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon.
Most workers were being owed seven months salaries but
the statement was silent on whether the governor would pay
all outstanding salaries  or he would pay part.
The statement read in part, Before the end of June, workers
would be paid their salaries.”
The governor stated that he had a great dream for the state
and that was why he was in a hurry to begin many
programmes which had earned him applause even outside
the country.
He said further, “The dream has not gone awry and it is a
clear vision that Osun must be on its feet, self-reliant and
be a reference point in Nigeria. The race to ensure
development within the first term of Aregbesola was
informed by the fear of what is happening now.
“Aregbesola wanted an Osun that is self-reliant. That Osun,
almost two decades after its creation, could not boast of
tax-paying companies speaks volume about the magnitude
of the works that awaited the Aregbesola administration.
“But he did not shy away from this task of industrialisation.
Within his first term, his government had caused investors
to bring up companies such as the Omoluabi Garment
Factory, Osogbo, Adulawo/RLG Technology company in
Ilesa.”

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