Category: Uncategorized

By Abel Leonard Nzwanke

Suspected armed robbers have attacked the convoy of the deputy governor of Nasarawa State, Emmanuel Agbadu Akabe, killing five policemen.

The robbers were said to have laid ambushed on the convoy, killing the policemen and taking away all their rifles.

The incident which also claimed the life of a civilian driver was said to have happened around 8 pm yesterday as the deputy governor was heading to Abuja for the swearing-in of ministers scheduled to take place on Wednesday.

“When the escort commander was informed that there were suspected gunmen on the road, he stopped the convoy and took two other mobile police officers with him alongside the civilian driver to fend off the gunmen and open the road.

“Upon hearing gunshots from an oncoming Hilux van, the gunmen took cover and ambushed the police officers and the driver killing all four,” a source said.

As at the time of filing this report, the corpses of the slain policemen and the driver were deposited at the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital in Lafia.

When contacted, the Police spokesman in the state, Othman Ismaeel said the state police commissioner and other senior officers were at the scene of the incidence as he was yet to be briefed.

By Abel Leonard Nzwanke

Peace is expensive, it has a higher price tag where it is elusive. In Nasarawa peace takes a double price for the fragile diversity of our tribes and for the veracity of our polity. All that is lost to the waves of crisis, life and property so far is not the only one we have to pay for the public peace we pursue. The road to peace is still long it is not pessimistic; it is the realistic atmosphere in Nasarawa state.
According to Albert Einstein, “our problems cannot be solved by the same level that created them” He is right but what was missing in his assertion is that indigenous problem demands indigenous approaches to solving them. The problem and the solution to what we see and feel today is in our own hands. We have to give ourselves the peace we need.
To seek peace means to change, to move from one unit to another, it is also a manner of doing things to a better way of doing the same. But change is different because the new is always scary but then change is not expensive what we see is not as expensive compared to the peace we cherish. It does not need a ten-year Nasarawa budget or the salary of our civil servants to execute it.

In this type of “Next Level,” we seek individual transformation and collective understanding. It is time to do this for the common fate we have for our state.
In all that is happening to us and near us, everyone is affected in some ways, we know that the state is not Nasarawa, but it stands on all Nasarawa homes. If it fails today, it will fall on all families, this is the reason we reach out to hold peace.

In history anytime is long but the destination of peace should not be difficult for anyone to determine. We need to redefine our life from the micro abstract look at things to the macro. Shelve out tiny habits in individual life and living and relate them to the shared values that hold all of us together.
We will all agree that the major problem of our dear state is the dislocation of the system which is the result of greed. Greed should be redefined in Nasarawa state as the careless and immodest want and waste of what is needed by the desperate majority. This is a personal flare, corruption involves everyone in every way.

In the words of His excellency Engr. Abdullahi Sule the Executive governor of Nasarawa State who disclosed that “Oftentimes, we blame it on the system (government) to shift responsibility because the system and the people are abstractions referring to no one. We accepted to lean under leaders, we serve as followers. The problem with us is the overriding selfish ulterior motives of the individual in us due to indiscipline or disregards to others with an equal amount, value and needs of life”.

He further said that “Greed and want to blindfold us from thinking, choosing and delivering the just, the fares and the good for everyone. The people of Nasarawa are all involved in the failure. We need to do well for the collective good, however, knowing the right thing to do and doing it is an individual difficulty, not just the system”.
The present government under the able leadership of Eng. AA Sule to perform effectively requires the individual system, not the government system. There is a limit or the elasticity of the human mind coupled with the conditioned Nasarawa indigenes who have the mind of mistaking anything wrong to be good.

The personal and social approval among a people of class religiosity is not just sad, it is a curse. Only in Nasarawa State where Gods order and wish are personalized, reinvented and interpreted through the rhetoric of self-styled preachers who overtake the serious social problems affecting all and dig the deep wounds of division, hatred and disrespect just to gain cheap recognition and power over powerless followers.

National and common issues are trivialized in the roots of Gods own houses with much quantity of information more than before we still stagnate behind the changing fortunes of other states in Nigeria. Part of the problem with us is not understanding between the shift in life and the fix in mind, the dynamism of the society is unachievable, more so in a postmodern world where information is the first commodity on top of the hierarchy of the human needs.
Next level demands that we move away from hitherto frames that misled us, to set ourselves to serve. One way to describe this is its stereotypical mediation of issues in the state. A stereotype is the use of limited information to wrongly generalize collective information for the good of the people. We speak and write too much often without facts and evidence which open wounds and incite further crises in the state.

Similarly, in an information-based society where information should be the human resource for development, it is callous to find information as an antidote to collective fate. In a diverse society of professionals who should know the impact of stereotype and guard the rest against it, We made information purposefully scarce. We limit both intention and effort at getting information about ourselves and others in the state.

Religiosity has an exceptional definition in Nasarawa State. It is the attendance of worship places in mad rush, days and weeks, without commensuration God pleasure for our worship. And we fail for the umpteenth time to see the signs of God’s displeasure in the compose of our life; even by our most godly, most learned, and the wisest.
We have bastardised values of honesty and selfless service and took them away from the honest and the sincere sold them to thieves and the corrupt. We have turned worship places into centers for approving wrongs.
In a religious society like ours, determining right and wrong should not be hard to do. For us, it has been easy to change wrongs into rights and rights into wrongs.

Our religiosity is also misled into the faith that God will have to descend to earth to effect proper changes for us in the state totally debugging the social change process that humans are agents of change and valuable humans can be ‘magic multipliers’ of that capacity for change.

Instead, we left the target of social collapse of our system and is eating everyone. This is why any attempt at rationalizing the current waves of violence by anyone is just hard to believe. In a society like ours too polarized over its collective problems, no one can understand the truth of the problems. It is time to talk about it again.

By Abel Leonard Nzwanke Lafia

The governor of Nasarawa state Eng. A. A Sule has observed that there are over 10 million Almajiris in the northern parts of the country and called on his colleagues to take urgent steps against it as the system is largely misunderstood.

He spoke in his office while granting audience to government house correspondents in Lafia the Nasarawa state capital.

He noted that the Almajiri system “is a system where children leave the comfort of their homes and parents to go out to acquire knowledge and to understand the culture of other people”.

However, according to the Nasarawa state governor, the Almajiri system is now completely compromised with begging on the streets which is now causing menace in various places. he observed that more than 10 million children are operating the system in the entire northern states. Most of them are serving as beggers which is contrary to the set goal of the system.

A.A Sule also expresses his feelings that most of the children who leave their home for the system do it with the consent of their parents.

Reacting to what should be done about the situation, the Governor Said “Well I don’t think the northern governors’ forum have not approach it but like I said, it is time we approach the issue more vigorously, we must not back out. We are establishing a law that will ensure that these children are protected, but when we say education is free, we must enforce it by making sure that parents are responsible for their own children? We have to collectively solve this problem”.

He further emphasised that the Almajiri system is for the acquisition of knowledge not for street begging “no government in the world can say you cannot acquire Islamic education, what the government probably should do is to abolished street begging. As far as Nasarawa state is concerned, we are going to make it actually a crime for a child to be begging on the streets as Almajiri, if it makes me unpopular, so be it”. He said.

He also disclosed that the right of children must be protected in Nasarawa state noting that his administration is ensuring that all those who graduated from school get jobs through agriculture and become employers of labour.

He also drew the attention of the people of Nasarawa state on the efforts of his administration to open up areas for agriculture, the sugar production, livestock and milk production scheme among others. In the area of education, the governor made it very clear that people will be giving technical and vocational skills so as to effectively become employers of labour.

“IN THE GULF the ladies want a big butt and a big vagina. Not the Lebanese. They want smaller vaginas. They are more like the Europeans: they want the labia inside.”

So says Dr Hussein Hashim, a plastic surgeon in Beirut, as he sits behind a desk scattered with buttock implants. He and his colleagues perform surgeries with names like “The Barbie Look” or “The Beverly Hills Rejuvenation”—operations that trim the inner labia, tighten the vagina or reduce the fold of skin covering the clitoris.

Labiaplasty is the fastest-growing cosmetic surgery in the world. Lebanese women, who have a penchant for biological improvement, are particularly keen on it. Only Spain and Brazil do more vaginal procedures per head.

“Beauty used to be all about the face. Now it’s about the body. Buttocks and vaginas are the big thing,” says Elie Abdel Hak of Lebanon’s plastic-surgery society.

The rise in women who want so-called designer vaginas has confounded researchers. Some say the Brazilian bikini wax has made women more conscious of their vulvae. Others blame online pornography for idealising the vagina and depressing women who think their genitals are abnormal.

They don’t want their vaginas showing through their shorts or bikinis, says Mr Hak. “They’ve become ashamed.” Tighter clothes, childbirth, irritation during exercise and insults from men also play a role, studies suggest.

In Lebanon women are often influenced by magazines featuring slim yet voluptuous women. A nip and tuck is relatively cheap (a labiaplasty costs about $1,500). Girls as young as 14 have nose jobs, often brought to the clinic by their mothers. But a labiaplasty carries risks. America’s Food and Drug Administration has warned that some of the tools used to destroy and reshape vaginal tissue are dangerous. Lasers used to “rejuvenate the vagina” may cause burns, scarring or pain during sex.

More study is needed, but in general the satisfaction rate is high and the complication rate low. Lebanese women who have undergone the procedure certainly seem happy. “It’s amazing,” says one. “I’m like a baby now.”

Culled from the Economist

By Zhong Sheng

After Washington announced that it will impose additional 10 percent tariffs on $300 billion of Chinese imports, some people in the US have again harped on the same old string by criticizing China for stealing US intellectual properties.

As a developing country, China has made rapid progress in intellectual property rights (IPR) protection and is highly praised by the international community in this respect.

Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), pointed out that the high-level IPR protection system established by China is conducive to the global promotion of the intellectual property system.

The 2018 International Property Rights Index released by the US Chamber of Commerce’s Global Intellectual Property Center not only upgraded China’s ranking by two places, but also gave positive comments to China’s effective patents and copyrights reform, the importance governments and law enforcement agencies laid on intellectual property, and the improving intellectual property awareness and the rising capability of research institutions and individuals to apply intellectual property.

No country is perfect at protecting IPR. Even the US, which claims that it leads the world in building a complete legal system for IPR and intensifying efforts to protect IPR, sees a considerable number of intellectual property lawsuits filed between market entities.

The legal environment for IPR protection in China is maturing, which has been acknowledged by foreign companies when they seek legal support and protection in the country. China’s scheme of achieving strict, widespread, fast and equal IPR protection has been applauded by both Chinese the foreigners.

In the past five years, the number of patent applications that China has received from overseas has increased by 3.1 percent per year on average and the number of trademark applications by 10.3 percent, reaching 650,000 and 840,000 respectively.

More and more foreign companies chose to have IPR disputes solved in China, thanks to the country’s judicial fairness and transparency, according to British media.

China has become a “preferred” land for multinational corporations to launch intellectual property litigation because it saves more time and cost to fight a lawsuit in China than in the US, American media said.

The tremendous progress China has made in scientific and technological innovation is attributed to decades of research and efforts of Chinese scientists, who independently developed atomic and hydrogen bombs and a man-made satellite under extremely difficult circumstances, synthesized crystalline bovine insulin, and refined artemisinin.

Today, China’s investment in science and technology ranks the second in the world. The country owns a large number of professional scientific research personnel, and its technological innovation is transitioning from quantitative to qualitative growth.

Last year, China’s research and experimental development spending reached 2 trillion yuan ($284 billion), accounting for 2.18% of GDP. Chinese tech firm Huawei’s R&D investment was $15 billion to $20 billion. In 2017, China ranked the first in the world regarding the number of intellectual property applications filed, which is the best proof of the effectiveness of China’s scientific research.

Clamoring for the so-called “intellectual property theft” of China, some people in the US have exposed their “selective blindness” to China’s progress in intellectual property protection, showing devastating disregard for China’s independent innovation capability.

They believe that only by “stealing” US intellectual property rights can China have the opportunity to achieve such great achievements in technological innovation. However, the fact is that China has more and more technological innovations that the US does not have, smashing such rumors again and again.

China has both the ability to create intellectual property rights and the determination and actions to protect them. The fact that more and more multinational companies have built regional headquarters and R&D centers in China is the most convincing proof.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)

By Zhong Sheng, People’s Daily

Some US officials are interested in discrediting China with the so-called “forced technology transfer” accusation and it seems that they’ll never get bored with it. Though their remarks were doubted internationally and domestically, and despised by the US business circle, these officials just couldn’t resist stirring things up.

China made a clear commitment that it would not require foreign investors to commit to technology transfer into China in its WTO accession protocol. The WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights sets high standards of intellectual property protection and China did more than it was required through making the commitment. In fact, most WTO members did not made such a promise under the multilateral trading system.

In China, there is no law that requires foreign companies to transfer technologies to their Chinese partners, and technology transfer between enterprises is a normal business practice in international economic cooperation.

What foreign companies and their Chinese counterparts do, such as carrying out technological cooperation in accordance with market principles and signing legally binding agreements on the basis of equal consultation, is a choice independently made by market players for mutual benefits and win-win results.

The enterprises are free to make reasonable demands in negotiations considering cost effectiveness, which is within their rights of bargaining and should be protected.

Foreign investors have every right to file appeals and lawsuits against monopoly on the basis of international rules if they believe that the Chinese companies are abusing their dominant power in the market.

No company wants to do unprofitable or forced business in China. Insightful people in the world pointed out that the so-called “forced technology transfer” accusation not only violates business ethics, but also insults the intelligence of foreign entrepreneurs.

Input and output have always been correlated. Technological innovation and exchanges drive the advancement of productivity forces. By transferring some technologies, the corporations could effectively recover the cost of innovation and open up the market, which provides follow-up support for them to develop new technologies. This is the normal operation mode of multinational companies.

What’s more, under the highly competitive market environment where only the fittest survives, a company will not possibly share the market and make profits without advanced technologies.

It is odd that some people in the US could stir up trouble from such a simple market rule and economic knowledge.

Daniel Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies, pointed out that China’s technological progress is an important reason why certain people trumpeted “forced technology transfer”.

“Previously, Western companies were more willing to transfer their technology, based on the expectation that Chinese competitors would be unable to adapt and master it, anyway. With China now producing more graduates with bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering than the US and Europe combined, that expectation is no longer tenable.” Gros said.

China has a huge market with nearly 1.4 billion and the world’s largest and fastest growing middle-income group. The country welcomes foreign investment and did not and will not set a threshold of technology transfer for foreign companies.

Foreign companies and their Chinese partners cooperate in scientific research and transfer technologies driven by market rules and mutual interests, instead of being forced. Their purpose is to occupy a larger share of the market and make more profits.

It is pure nonsense to say that China forces foreign companies to transfer technologies. In fact, it is the US that has blocked Chinese companies from investing in the American technology enterprises, restricted the export of high-tech materials to China and employed political power to impose pressure on China’s private companies.

Some people in the US wish that they could enjoy the benefits on the foreign market and maintain dominance in high technology, cornering other countries to the lower end of the global value chain.

The truth will finally reveal itself and justice always inhabits people’s hearts. Some people in the US really need to stop spreading rumors and looking for troubles. Even though they are good at chopping logic and staining others’ reputation, their nonsense will eventually be revealed to the entire world.

(Zhong Sheng is a pen name often used by People’s Daily to express its views on foreign policy.)

By Mary Blaise

As the two-day retreat for ministerial nominees comes to an end,President Muhammadu Buhari according to reliable sources will today announce the portfolios of Ministers-designate.

This would be coming three months after he took his second oath of office and six months after he won the presidential elections.

The Ministers-designate will be sworn in at the State House, after which they will be allocated portfolios by the President.

Following the swearing-in, each Minister will be given a Mandate, based on the assigned Ministry, and which will spell out priorities, deliverables and timelines. In addition, a robust monitoring and evaluation framework will also be put in place to track the implementation of all policies and programmes over the next four years.

By Samuel Itsede

Mrs. Isabella Oshodin, a United States based Nigerian has been arraigned before a Federal High Court in Abuja on a 25-count charge bordering on money laundering to the tune of N22,964,228,414.

Mrs. Oshodin, alongsidd her company, Oshodin Organisation Ltd, are accused of unlawfully receiving the money from the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), while Colonel Mohammed Sambo Dasuki (rtd) held sway.

In the case brought against Mrs. Oshodin by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), it was alleged among others, that she, on 16 occasions, received N500,000,000; N750,000,000; N125,000,000; N350,000,000; N170,000,000; N85,000,000; N60,000,000; N50,000,000 and others which totalled N2,366,000,000 from the office of the NSA.

The EFCC also alleged that the defendant, on eight occasions received from the office of the NSA funds amounting to $57,217,301.15 into the Escrow accounts of Bob Oshodin Organisation Ltd.

A count in the charge reads: “That you, Mrs. Isabela Mimie Oshodin, Bob Oshodin Organisation Ltd and Mr. Robert (Bob) Oshodin (still at large) on or about 22nd June, 2014 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this honourable Court directly transferred the sum of $7,712,598 (Seven Million, Seven Hundred and Twelve Thousand, Five Hundred and Ninety-eight Dollars) to one Portfolio Escrow Company with account number 3102004330 domiciled in California Republic Bank, United States of America which sum you reasonably ought to have known to be proceed of an unlawful act of Sambo Dasuki (rtd), the then National Security Adviser to wit: criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15 (2) (b) of the Money Laundering (Provision) Act, 2011as amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.”

The defendant pleaded not guilty when the charge was read to her on Monday, following which her lawyer, Osahon Idemudia informed the court about a pending bail application filed by the defendant.

Upon the court’s permission, Idemudia moved the bail application, during which he stated that the prosecution was only trying to portray a purely civil contract transaction as a criminal matter.

Idemudia said: “This has to do with a civil contract transaction. It is either a misunderstood commercial transaction or someone is being mischievous.

“The defendants sold their furniture factory to the Federal Government for $55million.

“They have only paid half of the money, which the prosecution has calculated as N22.9b.

“The money stated in the charges, which they claimed is money laundering, is actually payment for the purchase of the furniture factory.”

Idemudia noted that a copy of the contract for the sale of the factory has been exhibited before the court, and that the prosecution admitted its existence in the counter-affidavit it filed.

The defence lawyer prayed the court to grant his client bail on liberal terms on the grounds that she was a decent person, who is troubled by the current turn of event.

He denied the prosecution’s insinuation that the defendant may not be available for trial if allowed on bail.

“She is not a flight risk. She is available to stand trial. She is someone, who is ready and eager to clear her name,” the lawyer said.

Idemudia, who told the court that his client was suffering from some health conditions and needed medical attention, having been kept in custody for 70 days by the EFCC, drew the court’s attention to the order it made on August 9, 2019 directing that the defendant be taken to a medical facility.

He said the EFCC was yet to comply with the order and sought the court’s intervention in that regard.

Prosecution lawyer, Mrs. Aisha Habeeb, faulted Idemudia’s argument and urged the court to be guided by the need to ensure that the defendant was available to stand trial.

Mrs. Habeeb noted that Mrs. Oshodin’s husband was in America, and argued that it could be difficult to have the defendant return to stand trial if proper precautionary measures were not taken and she is granted bail and allowed to travel to the United States.

After listening to arguments from both lawyers, Justice Taiwo Taiwo ordered that Mrs. Oshodin should be taken back to the custody of the EFCC pending the ruling on the bail application, scheduled for August 21.

Justice Taiwo rejected Idemudia’s suggestion that Mrs. Oshodin be taken to a medical facility, in furtherance of the court’s August 9 ruling, where she should remain until the day set for ruling.

Instead, the judge directed that both lawyers should work out ways of ensuring that the August 9 order is complied with by the prosecution pending the date set for ruling.