The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is now investigating timer violations by the MTN, the Globacom and Etisalat with a view to taking what it called enforcement actions.
The NCC, through preliminary investigations, found the three service providers guilty of violating the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) process time obligations in the third quarter of 2015.
The commission which made it findings known in its `2015 3Q Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Report said that in order to address the increasing cases of port request rejections, it had resolved to monitor operators and take appropriate actions.
“Consequent upon the above, series of compliance checks were carried out regarding timer violations by donor operators with respect to `validation and deactivation responses’, which have timelines of two hours and an hour respectively,’’ the commission said.
It said that during the compliance check in the quarter, it was observed that there was a timer deactivation violation by Etisalat, regarding a Corporate Port request of over 63 lines belonging to Neoconde Energy Limited.
NCC said that the company had initiated a corporate port out request from Etisalat to Airtel on Aug. 7, 2015 at 9.13a.m., but was partially completed as at 1.52p.m. on the same day.
“As a result, these 63 subscribers were unable to receive calls from Etisalat’s network,’’ it noted.
The commission also said that a timer deactivation violation was noticed from MTN, regarding a Corporate Port request of over 109 lines belonging to Nigerian Breweries Plc.
According to NCC, the company initiated a corporate port out request from MTN to Glo via lead MSISDN: 07036735494 on Aug. 11, 2015 at 1.20p.m., but was partially completed as at 11.22a.m. on Aug. 14, 2015.
“As a result, these subscribers were not able to receive calls from MTN subscribers.
“In the same vein, a timer validation violation by MTN regarding four individual Port requests from MSISDNs: 08139382308, 08143810152, 08135485305 and 08162108093.
“MTN breached the timer of two hours for validation of four port requests from the NPC as stated in the MNP Business Rules,’’ it added.
The telecoms umpire said that a timer validation violation was observed from Globacom, regarding 11 individuals and one corporate Port request.
NCC said that Glo had breached the two hours allowable for validation of six port requests from the NPC, as stated in the MNP Business Rules.
It said that Globacom validated one of these port requests over nine hours after receipt from the MNP adminsitrator.
“Glo also breached the one allowable hour for the Donor to deactivate 147 Ported out lines belonging to Reckitt Ltd consistent with provisions of the MNP Business Rules.
The regulatory body said that its compliance activity was consistent with Section 89 of the Nigerian Communications Act 2003.
It said that the section mandated the commission to monitor all significant matters relating to the performance of all licensed telecoms service providers and publish annual reports at the end of each financial year.
NCC said it had developed `Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement’ strategies to prosecute the above mandate and achieve its objective of fair competition, ethical market conduct and optimal quality of service in the Nigerian telecommunications industry. [myad]
The defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the general election early this year has left the party in a most uncertain situation. Such is the uncertainty that all manner of emergency leaders, attention seekers, carpet baggers and new godfathers who are masquerading as political reformers are on the prowl, struggling to seize control of the party. At the last count, over seven different groups, pretending to a ‘reformist’ mission, have been holding one conference or the other in the name of PDP – all in an attempt to seize control of the party in preparation for 2019. The recent outing of Chief Raymond Dokpesi, a media mogul, under the auspices of PDP Conference Committee, fits well into this pattern of emergency party leaders and political deception.
In promoting the so-called PDP Conference, which in fact was his pet project, Dokpesi had shocked the world by “apologising to Nigerians” on behalf of the PDP for fielding the former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as the PDP presidential candidate in the 2011 presidential election. In Dokpesi’s reductionist reasoning, PDP lost the 2015 general election simply because it fielded Jonathan in 2011, thereby depriving the North their “turn” to complete the remaining years of the Umar Yar’ adua’s presidency.
Let it be pointed out that Dokpesi’s self-serving argument of the abandonment of zoning by the PDP in 2011 is not close to the reasons behind the electoral setbacks that the party suffered at the polls this year. In any case, Dokpesi and his sponsors have failed to explain why, in spite of the zoning principle, Jonathan went ahead to defeat the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, at the PDP presidential primaries and later won overwhelmingly in 2011 presidential election when Nigerians chose to uphold the constitution of the Federal Republic against a narrow party rule. Make no mistakes about it, zoning remains an integral principle to promote equity, justice and fairness in the sharing of political positions and that explains why the founding fathers of the PDP enshrined it in the party’s constitution. PDP has been faithful to that principle since 1999 until 2011 when the party was faced with a strange situation when its own constitution came in conflict with the Nigerian Constitution and the latter had its way as the law prescribed. And so Dokpesi and his co-travellers, now taking advantage of the weak leadership of the PDP and pretending to be founding fathers of the party, have nothing to teach discerning members on the principle of zoning!
Again, if one may ask, who is Dokpesi in the PDP to speak for the party? This clearly shows how low, the clueless, corrupt leadership at Wadata House has fallen since it threw away the mandate Nigerians had entrusted with the party since 1999. Dokpesi is not a member of any of the principal organs of the PDP; he is not a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) and neither is he a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC). Yet, in his desperation for relevance and, perhaps, to perfect his scheming with those whose drumbeats he is dancing to, Dokpesi got himself to chair the committee for the e-registration of party members, a project which he claims is geared towards returning the PDP to the grassroots members and eliminating godfathers. And who will argue with any initiative to increase internal democracy and whittle down the overbearing influence of godfathers and mothers in the PDP, which is part of the reasons for losing the 2015 general elections? Yet the manner, in which Dokpesi has carried on especially with his recent unsolicited and even scandalous apology purportedly on behalf of the PDP, raises new doubts about the real intentions behind the PDP e-registration being championed by him! It is more so as Dokpesi has declared his intention to retire PDP leaders of seventy years and above to make way for younger people with persons like him below the age of seventy as the new party leaders. For all intents and purposes, Dokpesi is not really against the presence of godfathers; what he wants is to replace the “old godfathers” with himself and his ilk. He certainly does not need to descend to an ignominious low to achieve this.
It is not curious that Dokpesi, his clownish followers and masked sponsors do not have any problems with Jonathan as the PDP candidate in 2015, the election that he lost, but are raising all kinds of issues with the Jonathan candidature in 2011. Dokpesi is simply at his sycophantic best because in the build-up to 2011 presidential race, the Agenebode High Chief was working for some northern politicians under the aegis of an amorphous group, PDP Reformers. Lest it be forgotten that the main objective of the group was to ensure that power stayed in the North even if it meant destroying the PDP by denying a sitting President Jonathan the constitutional right of seeking his party’s presidential ticket. Some of Dokpesi associates in that group like Nasir el-Rufai had moved on to join the opposition party then while people like Dokpesi were apparenty left strategically behind to decapitate the PDP from within as was seen in the last election. So for those who can read between the lines, Dokpesi’s purported apology is in complete sync with the hatchet job he was recruited to do by certain northern politicians some years back.
Dokpesi and his ilk flying all sorts of kites for politicians, some of whom have disowned him, are doing so because a compromised NWC that led the party to a disastrous election is still disgracefully hanging on to the leadership of the party. Apart from the fact that this NWC gave away the power that PDP had been holding in trust for Nigerians since 1999, it is undeniable that this group will go down in history as the worst in performance, integrity and sagacity. They are more interested in sharing money and that may explain why, after losing a major election, their best thought was to pay out to themselves unjustifiable millions of Naira as allowances after destroying their party by selling tickets to the highest bidders. Apart from losing the Presidency, the loss of Benue, Plateau, Adamawa and perhaps, Taraba States, will continue to haunt Adamu Mu’azu and Uche Secondus!
PDP remains a formidable political platform and, in many senses, stronger than the ruling APC. And that is why some forces are using the likes of Dokpesi to seek to destroy the party. There is nothing to be ashamed of by fielding Jonathan as PDP’s candidate in 2011 and in 2015. Jonathan and the PDP lost the election not necessarily because of what the President did but more for what he did not do. And this includes not keeping dangerous enemies who were pretending to be his friends like Dokpesi and a saboteur- NWC at arm’s length. The task before the real leaders of the party now is to flush Uche Secondus and his corrupt NWC out to enable the genuine rebuilding necessary for the challenge in 2019!
Abdullahi, political analyst and public affairs commentator, contributed this piece from Abuja. [myad]
As I celebrate with the former president on the occasion of his 58th birthday, it is also important that I render a dispassionate analysis of the most defining legacy he left for Nigeria— a legacy of free and fair elections. A feat that is rare in Africa and rarer still in Nigeria. In March 2015, former President Goodluck Jonathan lost in the somewhat controversial elections, congratulating the presumed winner even before the full results had been announced and abdicated his right to contest the outcome of the election in a court of law. By so doing, he became the first incumbent president to lose election in Nigeria’s history and the first major presidential candidate since the fourth republic to decline any legal challenge of his loss in court. Not many in the whole of Africa, wielding so much power as incumbents have ever so willingly surrendered their mandates.
Indeed, contrary to what many think, a walk through history would clearly suggest that incumbents have lost elections in Nigeria before, the only difference being that the incumbents rigged the elections and used that fraudulent premise to remain in power. Factually, Nigerians have never really been democrats. From the 1st republic, almost as soon as democratic elections were introduced by the colonial administration, harassment, intimidation and much later outright rigging became the stuff of Nigerian elections. The call for the scrapping of the then “Native Authorities Police” was engendered by the use of the police to intimidate and harass supporters of opposition parties in the then Northern region, some of which led to sustained periods of violence in Tivland in 1960.
At the end of the 1959 parliamentary elections, it became obvious that a coalition between Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe’s NCNC and Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s AG could form a majority government with their combined seats of 89 for NCNC and 75 for AG totalling 164 seats in a federal parliament with 312 seats of which Tafawa Balewa’s NPC had won 148 seats. For reasons of nation building Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe chose to enter a coalition with the NPC and a government in which Balewa emerged prime minister was formed. But by the time the next elections became due in 1964, relations between Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa had collapsed irreconcilably. The lingering crisis brought Dr Nnamidi Azikiwe’s NCNC and Chief Awolowo’s AG together who for the first time merged their parties and registered a new party then known as UPGA. A merger between the NCNC and AG was sure to lead to electoral defeat for Tafawa Balewa. To forestall that he entered a coalition with Ladoke Akintola and they both orchestrated a massive electoral heist primarily in the Western region and parts of the North. The heist gave both Tafawa Balewa and Akintola a rigged victory in an election they surely would have lost had it been free and fair. The sham elections subsequently set off a wave of violence (wetie) in the Western region that eventually truncated the 1st republic.
The 2nd republic didn’t fare much better as Shehu Shagari’s NPN rigged elections all the way. By 1983 the art of rigging had been perfected by the Shagari administration with an electoral heist that gave him total victory. The crisis emanating from the rigged elections led to the military coup that ousted him in December 1983. Again like the 1st republic, if free and fair elections had been held Shehu Shagari would probably not have been re-elected. With the annulations of the still born June 12 1993 elections, Nigeria commenced another democratic experiment in 1999. Like all previous republics, the 4th republic under the presidency of Olusegun Obasanjo who in his own words determined elections to be a “do-or-die” affair was notorious for election rigging, godfatherism, thuggery and lawlessness. Obasanjo had himself originally emerged the candidate of the party in 1999 through rigging, when after having lost the primaries in his ward—at which stage he should have dropped out—his military backers rigged him into power. Once in power, Obasanjo worked with the electoral umpire to unleash a rigging campaign across the country. It was in the Obasanjo era that a notorious godfather; Lamidi Adedibu so brazenly used thugs to remove an elected governor, Rashid Ladoja in Oyo state. Earlier attempts to remove Chris Ngige in Anambra state with thugs had failed.
Rigging, lawlessness and recklessness in Obasanjo’s era was so widespread that the 2007 elections was described by international observers as the worst they had ever supervised anywhere in the world. The short-lived Shehu Musa Yar’Adua administration continued with the Obasanjo rigging system until his demise. It was only when President Goodluck Jonathan came to power in 2010 with clear promises of electoral reforms that Nigeria’s electoral landscape radically began to change. For the first time incumbent governors and individuals lost in free and fair elections to popular candidates. Professor Atahiru Jega widely reputed to be credible was appointed INEC chairman. In 2011, President Goodluck Jonathan stood for and won elections adjudged by international and local observers to be one of the freest and fairest elections ever conducted in Nigeria. As the 2015 elections approached the apostles of “do or die” democracy and election rigging that dot the landscape, sensing his disadvantage put all kinds of pressure on him to manipulate the elections but he refused.
Even as the clouds of defeat became increasingly ominous, he still refused to interfere or manipulate the electoral process declaring as he always did that his personal ambition was not worth the life of any Nigerian. In the end, in spite of every possibility to change the course and outcome of the elections, he opted for a free and fair election and congratulated the winner even before the final results had been announced. For a country where all preceding leaders since the 1st republic had rigged elections and for a continent where leaders most often rig elections and remain as president for life, Goodluck Jonathan is the first Nigerian and one of Africa’s very few democratic presidents.
He achieved a rare feat, defying monumental pressure from pro-rigging hawks in a country whose people are fundamentally undemocratic. Anyone who still harbours any doubt about the undemocratic nature of the Nigerian society should closely review the 2015 elections and witness the intimidations, bigotry, abuse, violence and even threats of genocide that went along with it. Even with a Buhari victory and in spite of the change slogan, the post-election period has continued to be clouded with recriminations; winner takes all triumphalism, hate speech and exclusion of those who didn’t vote for Buhari/APC. It is in this kind of patently undemocratic Nigerian environment and the added hailstorms of Nigeria’s ethno-religious contradictions that Goodluck Jonathan an incumbent president with immense powers, stood against the buffeting winds and organised free elections leaving an indelible legacy as Nigeria’s first democratic president in the country’s chequered history.
Many do not yet appreciate the full scale of this selfless sacrifice in attempting to end Nigeria’s circle of electoral corruption, but when all the heated emotions have died down, the myths/lies laid bare and the dust have cleared from our eyes, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan would indeed have his place in history as Nigeria’s first democratic president.
Reports reaching Greenbarge Reporters from the governorship election conducted today in Kogi state showed that thugs snatched a ballot box in Dekina even when voting had not started. Also, unknown thugs tore the result sheets of the election in ward, 27, at Anyigba. The two incidences, among many occurred at the Eastern Senatorial Area of the state from where the candidate of the two giant parties: Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) emerged.
Confirming the incidences the Deputy Director of Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Nick Dazang said: “There was also an incident in Dekina where a ballot box was snatched even when voting had not started. There was also one ward, 27, at Anyigba, where ballot and result sheets were torn.
He said however that apart from these incidences and other few challenges, card readers’ performance, security, accreditation and voting processes were successful. He explained that
there were some minor challenges of the card readers malfunctioning but disclosed that mechanism were immediately deployed to correct them.
Dazang said that the incidence of violence that was anticipated during the poll was not much, when compared with the cases in previous elections in the state.
“In the time past, we had situations where our staff were abducted, people were killed. There is no incident of violence at that level. We have not heard about anybody’s death or abduction.
“There is an improvement compared to previous elections in the state, which is considered to be volatile.”
Dazang said that efficiency of the card reader was above average on Saturday as the uses of incident form were negligible, adding: “there was one particular area in Dekina where our officials were not proficient in the use of card reader and we are investigating what happened.
“Otherwise, I think generally, the election went on well.
“We have technical teams in all the 239 wards and in all the wards, we have ICT staff moved in to troubleshoot any experienced challenges.”
Dazang said the claim of the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Governor Idris Wada, that the card readers were not working and that there were inadequate incidence forms at polling units did not correspond with the real situation.
“I don’t think what he said tallies with what we have seen and what we have monitored. The card reader was much successful. The incidences where we have that failure were very few.”
The deputy director added that in all the cases where there was card reader failure, there were sufficient incident forms.
In the area were ballot box was snatched before the commencement of the election, Dazang said the snatcher wasted his time as it would not affect the election.
“In any case, even if there were ballot papers and he snatched them, the ballot papers cannot be counted when returned.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has acknowledged that some issues of agitation by some groups and sections in the country, with reference to, among others, the agitators for Biafran Republic out of Nigerian and Boko Haram,, could not be ignored. The President said however that the answer to such agitation and effort to reduce tension is the creation of employment opportunities for all.
Buhari spoke through Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the graduation of Senior Executive Course 37 of the National Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies in Kuru near Jos.
The President however asked persons and interest groups within the country to submit to peaceful means of expressing themselves without violating the laws of the land.
He reminded the citizens of his resolve that Boko Haram and other such insurgent groups around the country would soon be consigned to history, even as he gave good tiding that Nigeria had entered its glorious era in spite of insecurity and economic challenges.
He charged the institute to conduct comprehensive study on causes of insurgency and how to build civil capacity to defeat mindless violence.
“I want the Institute to come up with policies which integrate needs of the vast majority of the populace and not just based on GDP projections.
“MNIs end up in their offices after their course of study at NIPPS, without the required enthusiasm to enforce implementation of the policies they made. I think we must encourage ourselves and take ourselves seriously instead of doing this just to take a title.
“The institute will find a way of monitoring members instead of just producing high quality results, which just die here. Let’s make efforts to see that those who implement policies use them.”
The President said that his administration would support the Institute with funding, but that corruption is still the bane of the nation’s development.
“What has eluded our leadership is not lack of good policies but strength of character to implement them.
“Our problem is not legislative, but lack of political will and weak legal process, delay in the judiciary and suppression of the entire legal system.”
Buhari, however, said his administration would address this and other distortions in the system on which corruption of leadership thrived.
No fewer than 63 persons graduated as Members of the National Institute at the ceremony, bringing the total number of its granduands since inception in 1979 to 1,784.
President Barak Obama of the United States of America has said that the terror attack in Bamako, Mali is a wake-up call on the nations of the world to rise up against the blood-letting group. Obama, who expressed condolences to the families of 21 victims, including at least one American, who died when terrorists stormed a hotel in Bamako, stressed that the terrorist attack on a hotel in Mali only stiffened the international community’s resolve to fight the global scourge of terrorism.
He called Friday’s attack another awful reminder that the scourge of terrorism threatened so many nations.
“This barbarity only stiffens our resolve to meet this challenge and with allies and partners, the United States will be relentless against those who target our citizen.
“We will continue to root out terrorist networks and we will not allow these killers to have a safe haven.”
Obama called on nations around the world to unite in their determination to protect against extremism, stressing that it will involve pushing back on hateful ideologies that fuel terrorism and standing up for the universal values of tolerance and respect for human dignity. [myad]
The Rivers State Chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), has described the recent compulsory retirement of 14 Permanent Secretaries in the Civil Service of the Rivers State Government by Governor Nyesom Wike as an act of vendetta. The party argued that it was an act conceived and executed in bad faith to punish people, relations or spouses of those perceived to have worked for the former governor of the state, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi or those who were sympathetic to the APC. “Whereas these individuals toiled to keep the civil service of the State, which is the engine room of government, working for the good of the people, Nyesom Wike has decided to punish them for doing their legitimate duties as civil servants. Instead of acknowledging and rewarding them with recognition, the vengeful governor decided to summarily send them away on compulsory retirement just to exact needless pound of flesh.” A statement by Spokesman of the party, Chris Finebone accused Governor Wike of also shutting down the Rivers State Sustainable Development Agency [RSSDA]. “Instead of the governor tasking his intellect for once to find an acceptable solution to the matter or doing the very basic thing of paying the seven months salaries owed the RSSDA workers from the numerous bank loans he has collected, he rather chose the primitive option of closing down the agency and had the shameless audacity to formally announce the mean decision yesterday. “The APC condemns these wicked decisions by Wike and urge those directly affected to remain strong and prayerful as God will ultimately see off the Wike rogue regime. There is no doubt at all that God will complete what he has started by getting the so-called election of Governor Nyesom Wike finally dumped into the abyss of history very soon.” [myad]
The controversial Nollywood bad boy, Jimi Iyke, has confessed that he kisses any woman that comes his way, including his sisters.
Jim Iyke, who openly kissed actress Joselyn Dumas on a live show made it clear that he has kissed not less than 200 actresses while on different movie sets.
Iyke was a Special Guest on AfricaMagic programme, which was anchored by Dumas.
Responding to a question on why he had to kiss Nadia Buari, upon the latter’s arriving Dubai during the last season of his reality TV show, Jim Iyke said that he has a habit of kissing women openly, including his sisters.
He narrated a situation where he had to kiss three European ladies who accompanied his girlfriend to the airport to welcome him during one of his foreign trips, adding that he doesn’t see anything wrong with it.
Jim Iyke painted another scenario where he had to kiss four actresses in the presence of their boyfriends, adding: “I have once kissed them on set and so when I walked into the room where two of them were with their boyfriends, I kissed them one after the other and their boyfriends were mad at me.
“I have also kissed over 200 actresses on set and nobody is talking about it.”
Iyke, however, declined to comment on his relationship with Nadia Buari.
But there are indications that the two unconfirmed love-birds may be hitting your TV screens again for the second season of Jim Iyke Unscripted.
Iyke disclosed that the reality show will soon hit the screens again.
Explaining the idea behind the show, Iyke said he needed to present a true picture of who he is to the world.
He said: “”I have to be introspective.
“Many times, a lot of negative things have been said about me in the media.
“It is not basically about what they say about you, it is about you believing in yourself.
“The first thing is: what I believe in.
“What people say about me is secondary.
“I have always been particular about paparazzi.
“I was very sceptical to allow cameras into my life, into my home and family.
“The argument was superior: it was like all these years, everybody has different opinions about you.
“Why don’t you give them a clear picture of who you are.
“So I decided to start the TV reality show.”
Jim Iyke Unscripted debuted in 2013 on DStv, showcasing the uncut lifestyle of the actor.
The series, which ran for 13 weeks, presented the other side of the controversial actor. [myad]
The name of Halima, wife of Captain Idris Wada, the Governor of Kogi State, was missing in the voter’s register when she turned up to register to cast her vote in the ongoing governorship election in the state. this was even as the governor himself found it difficult to vote as the card reader rejected his finger-print.
Reports reaching us indicated that while the card reader could not read Wada’s finger print, the name of his wife was missing from the voters register. From Ajetachi, a town in Dekina Local Government Area, comes a report that hoodlums are wreaking havoc and attacking voters. Soldiers have been drafted in to contain the situation. [myad]
Hasna Aitboulahcen, 26, a female suicide bomber was described as hardly a model Muslim before she became an ISIS suicide bomber. She was said to be into drinking booze, hanging out with drug dealers and posing for naked photos in a bubble bath. Before-and-after photos of Paris terrorist attack shows her radical transformation from a hard-partying club-goer nicknamed “Cowgirl” into a violent Muslim extremist. In one picture obtained by DailyMail.com, she is seen soaking nude in a tub, covered by only a necklace and bubbles. Another shows her lounging in a tank top wearing heavy makeup while pouting at the camera. Her brother, Youssouf Aitboulahcen, said his estranged sister preferred the Internet to Islam — and first put on a veil just a month ago. “She was living in her own world. She was not interested in studying her religion. I never saw her open the Koran. She was permanently on her phone, looking at Facebook or WhatsApp,” Youssouf Aitboulahcen told DailyMail.com. Neighbours told the Times of London that Aitboulahcen was considered a bad Muslim, and a female friend said she once caused a scene while wasted in a German nightclub. “She got very drunk and sprayed tear gas around the whole place,” the pal said. “Basically, she just got angry with a guy who was trying to chat her up and became furious.” “I think she had a very disturbed childhood, and she had a lot of problems. She really did drink a lot,” the woman added. Another friend, Amin Abou, 26, described her as a “party animal who loved clubbing.” “She drank alcohol and smoked and went around with lots of different guys,” he said. “She had a bad reputation. She had lot of boyfriends, but nothing serious.” On Wednesday morning, Hasna Aitboulahcen tried to lure French cops to their deaths by screaming: “Help me! Help me!” as more than 100 anti-terror forces stormed an apartment building north of Paris in pursuit of Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind Friday’s terror attacks. The two have been identified as cousins and the Times reported that “it is believed that she was also married to him.” When a cop yelled out: “Where’s your boyfriend?” she answered, “He’s not my boyfriend!” according to a recording that also captured the sound of roaring gunfire. Aitboulahcen then emptied the magazine of a Kalashnikov assault rifle before blowing herself up and becoming Europe’s first female suicide bomber. The explosive vest she triggered killed a police dog named Diesel and ripped her to shreds, sending her head and spine hurtling out a window. “After a long firefight, we heard a loud explosion,” French police chief Jean-Michel Fauvergue told the Daily Mirror. “The windows of an apartment were shattered, blown from inside to out . . . That’s when we saw a human body, a woman’s head, fly through the window and land on the pavement — on the other side of the street.” Abaaoud, who had mounted several failed terror plots prior to the coordinated strikes that killed 129 people last week, also died during the seven hours of fighting, during which cops fired 5,000 bullets. Eight other people suspected of plotting a second wave of attacks were arrested, including a man who was hauled away naked from the waist down. Aitboulahcen’s parents immigrated to France in 1973, and she was born in 1989 in the Parisian suburb of Clichy-la-Garenne. She was raised by a foster family, her brother said, and a neighbour described her to the Times as a “tomboy” who was “not afraid of anyone.” Aitboulahcen had been put under “triple surveillance” by French intelligence, judges and police for drug- and terror-related activities, according to the Telegraph. Meanwhile, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton admitted that his cops may not be able to stop a Paris-style attack on the Big Apple, saying: “The whole city is a soft target.” “Even with 35,000 cops, we cannot be everywhere,” he said during a Manhattan Institute luncheon at 7 World Trade Center. “The reality is that we’re a huge city. We can’t protect everything all the time with the significance that we do at Times Square or here at the World Trade Center.” . New York Post. [myad]
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The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) is now investigating timer violations by the MTN, the Globacom and Etisalat with a view to taking what it called enforcement actions.
2019: Rescuing PDP From The Vultures, By Mustapha Abdullahi
The defeat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the general election early this year has left the party in a most uncertain situation. Such is the uncertainty that all manner of emergency leaders, attention seekers, carpet baggers and new godfathers who are masquerading as political reformers are on the prowl, struggling to seize control of the party. At the last count, over seven different groups, pretending to a ‘reformist’ mission, have been holding one conference or the other in the name of PDP – all in an attempt to seize control of the party in preparation for 2019. The recent outing of Chief Raymond Dokpesi, a media mogul, under the auspices of PDP Conference Committee, fits well into this pattern of emergency party leaders and political deception.
In promoting the so-called PDP Conference, which in fact was his pet project, Dokpesi had shocked the world by “apologising to Nigerians” on behalf of the PDP for fielding the former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, as the PDP presidential candidate in the 2011 presidential election. In Dokpesi’s reductionist reasoning, PDP lost the 2015 general election simply because it fielded Jonathan in 2011, thereby depriving the North their “turn” to complete the remaining years of the Umar Yar’ adua’s presidency.
Let it be pointed out that Dokpesi’s self-serving argument of the abandonment of zoning by the PDP in 2011 is not close to the reasons behind the electoral setbacks that the party suffered at the polls this year. In any case, Dokpesi and his sponsors have failed to explain why, in spite of the zoning principle, Jonathan went ahead to defeat the former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, at the PDP presidential primaries and later won overwhelmingly in 2011 presidential election when Nigerians chose to uphold the constitution of the Federal Republic against a narrow party rule. Make no mistakes about it, zoning remains an integral principle to promote equity, justice and fairness in the sharing of political positions and that explains why the founding fathers of the PDP enshrined it in the party’s constitution. PDP has been faithful to that principle since 1999 until 2011 when the party was faced with a strange situation when its own constitution came in conflict with the Nigerian Constitution and the latter had its way as the law prescribed. And so Dokpesi and his co-travellers, now taking advantage of the weak leadership of the PDP and pretending to be founding fathers of the party, have nothing to teach discerning members on the principle of zoning!
Again, if one may ask, who is Dokpesi in the PDP to speak for the party? This clearly shows how low, the clueless, corrupt leadership at Wadata House has fallen since it threw away the mandate Nigerians had entrusted with the party since 1999. Dokpesi is not a member of any of the principal organs of the PDP; he is not a member of the National Working Committee (NWC) and neither is he a member of the National Executive Committee (NEC). Yet, in his desperation for relevance and, perhaps, to perfect his scheming with those whose drumbeats he is dancing to, Dokpesi got himself to chair the committee for the e-registration of party members, a project which he claims is geared towards returning the PDP to the grassroots members and eliminating godfathers. And who will argue with any initiative to increase internal democracy and whittle down the overbearing influence of godfathers and mothers in the PDP, which is part of the reasons for losing the 2015 general elections? Yet the manner, in which Dokpesi has carried on especially with his recent unsolicited and even scandalous apology purportedly on behalf of the PDP, raises new doubts about the real intentions behind the PDP e-registration being championed by him! It is more so as Dokpesi has declared his intention to retire PDP leaders of seventy years and above to make way for younger people with persons like him below the age of seventy as the new party leaders. For all intents and purposes, Dokpesi is not really against the presence of godfathers; what he wants is to replace the “old godfathers” with himself and his ilk. He certainly does not need to descend to an ignominious low to achieve this.
It is not curious that Dokpesi, his clownish followers and masked sponsors do not have any problems with Jonathan as the PDP candidate in 2015, the election that he lost, but are raising all kinds of issues with the Jonathan candidature in 2011. Dokpesi is simply at his sycophantic best because in the build-up to 2011 presidential race, the Agenebode High Chief was working for some northern politicians under the aegis of an amorphous group, PDP Reformers. Lest it be forgotten that the main objective of the group was to ensure that power stayed in the North even if it meant destroying the PDP by denying a sitting President Jonathan the constitutional right of seeking his party’s presidential ticket. Some of Dokpesi associates in that group like Nasir el-Rufai had moved on to join the opposition party then while people like Dokpesi were apparenty left strategically behind to decapitate the PDP from within as was seen in the last election. So for those who can read between the lines, Dokpesi’s purported apology is in complete sync with the hatchet job he was recruited to do by certain northern politicians some years back.
Dokpesi and his ilk flying all sorts of kites for politicians, some of whom have disowned him, are doing so because a compromised NWC that led the party to a disastrous election is still disgracefully hanging on to the leadership of the party. Apart from the fact that this NWC gave away the power that PDP had been holding in trust for Nigerians since 1999, it is undeniable that this group will go down in history as the worst in performance, integrity and sagacity. They are more interested in sharing money and that may explain why, after losing a major election, their best thought was to pay out to themselves unjustifiable millions of Naira as allowances after destroying their party by selling tickets to the highest bidders. Apart from losing the Presidency, the loss of Benue, Plateau, Adamawa and perhaps, Taraba States, will continue to haunt Adamu Mu’azu and Uche Secondus!
PDP remains a formidable political platform and, in many senses, stronger than the ruling APC. And that is why some forces are using the likes of Dokpesi to seek to destroy the party. There is nothing to be ashamed of by fielding Jonathan as PDP’s candidate in 2011 and in 2015. Jonathan and the PDP lost the election not necessarily because of what the President did but more for what he did not do. And this includes not keeping dangerous enemies who were pretending to be his friends like Dokpesi and a saboteur- NWC at arm’s length. The task before the real leaders of the party now is to flush Uche Secondus and his corrupt NWC out to enable the genuine rebuilding necessary for the challenge in 2019!
Abdullahi, political analyst and public affairs commentator, contributed this piece from Abuja. [myad]