Nigeria Content Online

The presiding judge of the Kano High Court, Haliru Abdullahi has
ordered a stay of proceedings on a libel suit instituted against the
multinational drug outfit, Pfizer.

Idris Mohammed, a professor of medicine had alleged that he had
been defamed by the content of Pfizer’s statement of defence in a suit brought
against the company. In the libel case filed against the company he is
demanding ₦120 million as damages against Pfizer.

Mr. Mohammed was mentioned severally in the statement of defence
filed by Pfizer as a result of the 1996 Trovan clinical trial in the outbreak
of meningitis epidemic in some northern states.

Prayer granted

Justice Abdullahi ruled in favour of Pfizer’s application for a
stay of proceedings on the matter pending when the Federal Court of Appeal in
Kaduna rule on an appeal filed by Pfizer’s lawyers on September 22 last year.

The decision came after Ado Balarabe Mahmoud who stood in for
Mr. Abdullahi prayed the court not to fall for Pfizer’s delay tactics in the
case at the Kaduna Court of Appeal.

Nelson Uzuegbu, who stood in for Pfizer, had in a 10 paragraph
affidavit applied for a stay of proceedings pending the determination of the
substantive suit at the court of appeal. He cited order 8, rule 47 and section
36 of the constitution to justify his demand.

Mr. Uzuegbu enjoined the judge to preserve the integrity of hierarchy of the
court since the appeal court is yet to determine the issue bordering the
substitution of the name of Pfizer in the libel case.

Two members of the House of Representatives have denied
knowledge of summons of the Libyan envoy to Nigeria, said to have been invited
by the House in the aftermath of Mr. Gaddafi’s call for Nigeria’s split.

After Mr. Gaddafi’s comments last week, the House, as part of a
series of resolutions last week, had urged the Federal Government to recall
Nigeria’s envoy to Libya for consultations, while his Libyan counterpart to Nigeria
was due to be summoned to the House, in protest.

Umar Bature, whose Foreign Affairs committee was expected to
conduct the planned talks with the envoy, and Halims Agoda, the sponsor of the
last Thursday’s motion, said they were unaware of such invitations to the
Libyan Ambassador, although it has been widely reported by the media.

Mr. Bature (PDP, Sokoto State), responded to inquiries by NEXT
on the date of such summons, saying, “To my knowledge, there is no such
invitation.” He said the House “only” condemned the comments of Mr. Gaddafi,
without enlisting further prayers.

Mr. Agoda, the House Air Force committee chairman, said although
they resolved to do more than “condemn” Mr. Gaddafi’s controversial remarks,
the prayers excluded summons on the envoy.

“We urged the Federal Government to recall Nigeria’s ambassador
for consultations which it has done, and also to liaise with the African Union
to investigate the link between the comments and the source of the infiltrators
who have been killing our people,” he said.

No formal rebuttal

During last Thursday’s session, Mr. Agoda, who sponsored the
original motion, had called for the condemnations on Mr. Gaddafi’s remark and
the investigations on the source of the attackers in recent violence in Jos,
Plateau State.

However, during the debate carried live on national television,
other members amended part of the prayers and called for the recall of Nigerian
ambassador to Libya and the summoning of Libyan envoy to Nigeria.

The House has made no formal rebuttal of the decision, even
after wide media reportage. Many of its resolutions sponsored by members have
been seen as largely routine and bearing no enforcement. According to the House
Legislative compliance committee, the level of adherence to such adoptions,
particularly by the executive arm, exceeds a little above 30 per cent by June
2009.

If last week’s resolutions are listed in the Votes and Proceedings, the
denials by the members will highlight such low compliance, which at times, even
the sponsoring members are accused of.

Residents of Plateau State who were displaced during the
violence in and around Jos city have been hit by diarrhoea and other forms of
diseases at their camps in Boto, Bauchi State.

Bala Yakubu, the Bauchi State Search and Rescue officer
disclosed this in Abuja.

He said the camps are facing an acute shortage of drugs to
combat the diseases.

According to him, medical personnel at the camps have run out of
drugs that were provided by the state government.

There are currently four camps operated by the State Emergency
Management Agency in Boto.

In Camp A, there are 1, 673 refugees, 170 in Camp B, all of
whom, he said arrived after the crisis in Jos .

He said the latest crisis caused an influx of 4,565 people,
mostly women and children who are now in Camp D.

Responding, the Director- General of the Governors’ forum, Bayo
Okauru, promised that the secretariat would look into how to provide more
relief materials to the camps and reach out to the governor, Isa Yuguda .

Mr.Okauru also told Mr. Yakubu to give him a list of what they
need so that he can forward it to the state governor.

It is great being an expatriate. You are away from the societal
pressures of your home country, and the ‘ties that bind’. You are free to
reinvent yourself as you wish. All the people who knew you growing up and who
had pegged and pigeonholed you as a certain type of person are no longer there
to force you to conform to the way you previously defined yourself. You are
liberated from those shackles.

At the Moorhouse Hotel on Sunday, I witnessed two French
expatriates here working technical jobs, pursuing their true vocations as ‘cool’
musicians playing the guitar, the saxophone and the flute. They were part of a
trio of jazz musicians who treated the brunch crowd to Bossa Nova standards,
Desafinado, and French Jazz classic, la vie en rose. The third person was
Nigerian, a gifted guitarist. It was a wonderful and energising time out.

It is great to be an expatriate regardless of your gender. For
the men, be you 28 or 68, you are forever young. Starting new jobs, engaging in
new responsibilities, taking on new pursuits, and entering new relationships
with mature and adventurous fellow world travellers or with young, beautiful,
ambitious and exotic local girls. Ah, la vie est belle! Just this weekend, I
heard from one of the arm-candy girls that the expatriate men are experts at
managing the balancing act of those relationships with young girls.

Venezuelan men are hard to tempt. Their girls back home are as
feline and assertive as ours, and have beautiful faces and bodies too. Germans,
Americans, and Englishmen are true connoisseurs of the West African beauty.
Women are women are women – they are looking for the same qualities that they
seek in a woman back home, plus that ‘je ne sais quoi’ exotic quality that
stands them out in a crowd, and makes them feel the way ‘true men’ are supposed
to feel. It has to be love, though.

Frenchmen, on the other hand, are reputedly tricky!!!! The word
on the street amongst the girls is that the men initiate those relationships
purely to have fun! ‘Quelle horreur!!’ There are exceptions, of course. I hate
stereotypes as a rule, but I have to be true to the reports I have received.
The French dangle a journey to Paris on one hand and the possibility of
marriage on the other, stringing the lady along for years sometimes, before
neither materialise. The francophone girls are NOT amused!!! They believe that
a Frenchman is more likely to marry an elegant and exposed black girl bred in
France than one from our shores.

Gentlemen, is this true?

As for the expatriate ladies, it is both a wonderful and
terrifying experience, but it is never dull!!! How many of us working women or
even housewives would love to leave it all behind and take off to a country
where your husband’s skills (usually), sometimes your own, are needed. You are
an expert, you are valued, you are treasured and looked after and pampered.
Your health and your recreation are the focus of meetings by managing directors
and HR directors of multinational companies.

Nothing less than a three-bedroom apartment in a complex with a
playground and swimming pool is good enough for you. You are assigned a driver
to take you shopping and convey you anywhere you wish to go. You are assigned a
cook/steward to ensure that you do not strain yourself seeking to feed yourself
and your family, and so that you can immediately become an expert hostess for
the inescapable social round of parties, teas, cocktails and dinners to further
your partner’s career. If you have children, you MUST have a nanny so that you
can focus on your health and beauty and QUALITY time with the children. You can
let someone else do the routine stuff. What a hardship! What is lovely is that
you get the time you need to further your interests, whether in philanthropy,
fashion, education, art or sport. Many expatriates who spent time in Nigeria learnt
to sail in Lagos Lagoon, according to John and Jill Godwin, the notable
architect couple who can proudly call themselves Nigerian-British after
residing here for over 50 years. Many have also picked up golf and discovered
unimagined and rewarding new skills and talents here.

This is where the terrifying part of being an expatriate partner
comes in. You really do need to stay healthy, beautiful and active.

You had better play golf and tennis and keep your bikini body
looking good, or work towards those two-pack abdominal muscles (six-pack may be
asking for too much) because you and your partner are ordinary to each other,
in an unusual environment. Yet you are each viewed as unusual and desirable in
the eyes of others. Which regard would YOU prefer? To retain your partner’s
affection, you have to compete with all the colleagues, subordinates, service
providers, and young men and women seeking the favour and the liquid currency
of your partner.

We all assume that expatriates have more money than regular
mortals. After all, they get all kinds of extra allowances and incentives for
working away from home. They generally have most of their local bills taken
care of or are living in a place where the cost of living is much lower than
their country.

If they are renting out their own home rather than maintaining
two, as some choose to do, their income can far exceed their expenditure.
Besides which they live in good homes, drive new cars, and love doing fun and
adventurous things. There are a whole raft of people on standby and eager to
help you spend your ready cash, or keen to divert it from its rightful
recipients to themselves. So, watch out! And fellow expatriates, the
experienced ones, are experts in giving you a helpful push into that sinkhole
of expat exploitation, degradation and ruin. Hey, they need your company there
to feel good about the antics that they are up to themselves. I won’t go into
the widespread salacious and sometimes tragic stories of what happens in
expatriate compounds all over the world. The US TV series, Desperate
Housewives, and the new UK series, Mistresses, have nothing on it.

To be fair, expatriates still have a lot to learn about
convoluted love triangles, thwarted passion, agonising betrayals and extreme
measures to capture and keep a desirable partner. Our domestic movie industry,
Nollywood, can educate them in that regard and show them endings in tears,
recriminations, and broken homes.

We hear you, we empathise with you, we feel you as you face your
unique travails during your residency here. There is something called expat
culture that explains the inevitability of many of the situations you find
yourselves in. They are a function of being brought into a different
environment as an expert expat or as the companion of one. We, the locals,
don’t co-operate as we ought to either. Don’t take it personally. It is not
about you; it is about your status as a transient guest, here to sample a
facsimile of our lives and then move on, abruptly cutting the fragile ties and
dependencies that have formed.

There are more advantages than disadvantages to being an expatriate, and
Nigerian expats enjoy them and suffer them too when they are posted or hired on
contract abroad. The trick is, not all foreigners here are expatriates. If you
are one of us, enjoy the benefits but avoid the traps of the expatriate
lifestyle; and if you are an expatriate, especially you French guys….be
nice!!!!

As the sale of the Nigerian Telecommunication Plc
(NITEL) to private investors is mired in controversy, scores of the
company’s staff in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, on Tuesday, staged a
peaceful protest against an alleged clandestine confirmation of
appointment and promotion of some top management staff.

The workers called on the federal government to intervene promptly and stop the purported promotions.

According to the protesters, the promotion will
further complicate the problem of the company when it is finally handed
over to the new owner.

While pleading with the federal government to effect
the payment of a backlog of salaries and allowances, the workers
accused it of contravening a court order which compelled it to
regularise the employment of staff who have remained casual employees
for the past 15 years and pay all their entitlements.

Ganiyu Shittu, the state chairman of the workers,
said since the order was given on 6 November, 2008 the government is
yet to implement it.

The workers said 25 March will mark the 21st month since the government last paid their monthly salaries.

Selective promotion

The staff alleged that senior officers confirmed
their own appointment and embarked on “promotion of some selected staff
to disorganise them”.

Insisting that the exercise was ill-timed, the
workers called for the intervention of the Federal Government, National
Assembly and Bureau of Public Enterprises and other Nigerians in the
matter.

“We wish to draw the attention of the Federal
Government, National Assembly, BPE and other Nigerians to the recent
unpleasant decisions of the top management wherein all the top
management staff had their appointments quietly and hurriedly confirmed
immediately after the last bidding process was concluded by the BPE.

“It is worrisome that at a time when NITEL staff are
appealing daily for the payment of the 20 months salary arrears owed
them by the government and BPE, the top management believes this is the
right time for them to confirm all their acting appointments and pacify
a selected few with promotions on the eve of handling over the company
to a new core investor,” the workers stated.

They also accused the government of not being fair to them by
delaying the payment of their salaries till it gets the proceeds from
the sale of NITEL, saying such was not the case with workers of other
privatised government companies like Ajaokuta Steel Company and the
Nigeria Airways.

Justice Ramat
Mohammed of the Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, has fixed March
30, 2010 to deliver ruling over the application by the former governor
of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja, asking the court to quash the amended
charges levied against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC).

Allegations against defendants

Mr. Ladoja,
alongside Waheed Akanbi, his former aide, are in court on account of
allegations levied by the prosecution stating that the defendants
conspired to convert properties and resources derived from an illegal
act, with the aim of concealing the illicit origin of the properties
and resources. The defendants were accused of committing fraud in the
sum of N1, 932, 940, 32. 48. They were alleged to have used as conduit
pipe a company, Bistrumm Investment, to siphon the sum of N77. 8
million for the purpose of purchasing a building for him, while Mr.
Ladoja was also alleged to have fraudulently transferred a sum of
600,000 pounds to one Bimpe Ladoja, amongst other allegations.

Counsel adopt written addresses

At the resumed
hearing, the counsel in the matter, Wole Olanipekun for Mr. Ladoja, and
Vitalis Amaotu for the commission, adopted their written address, on
the application by Mr. Ladoja.

In the application
filed on behalf of Mr. Ladoja by his counsel, Wole Olanipekun, the
applicant urged the court to dismiss the charges levied against him on
the ground that the court has no jurisdiction to adjudicate on the
counts as framed.

Mr. Olanipekun
argued that the allegations against the applicant are vague and do not
link him with the commission of any crime to warrant his arraignment
under any written law. He also contended that the proof-of-evidence
placed before the court by the prosecution has no connection with the
charge and that it does not disclosed any prima facie case against the
applicant.

Star witness is a tainted witness

Speaking on the
issue of proof-of-evidence, Mr. Olanipekun said it is wrong for the
prosecution to use the same proof-of-evidence for both the old and
amended charge. He also noted that the evidence of the star witness
(Adewale Atanda) in the old charge was given while he was an accused
person, noting that it is wrong for the prosecution to use Mr. Atanda
as a witness against Mr. Ladoja.

Previously, Mr.
Atanda was charged along with the defendants in the initial charges
preferred against the defendants. The commission had on March 25, 2009,
re-arraigned Mr. Ladoja alongside Mr. Akanbi, based on an amended
charge, as opposed to the initial charge wherein Mr. Atanda, a the
former commissioner of finance with Oyo State, was charged along with
the duo.

The counsel further
noted that Section 27(3) of the evidence act does not permit the court
to admit such evidence, from a person classified as a tainted witness.
“Adewale Atanda remains an accused person and a tainted witness in as
much as the EFCC is relying on his statement”, he said.

Mr. Olanipekun
further observed that the prosecution has failed to appreciate Section
14(1) of the money laundering act upon which his client was charged to
court. He said the section only talked about offences relating to
narcotic drugs and other substances.

He also noted that
if the amended charge has truly supplanted the original charge, then,
there is no proof of evidence before the court.

EFCC responds

In his response,
EFCC’s counsel, Vitalis Amaotu, urged the court to dismiss the
application of the applicant. He stated that a look at the applicant’s
reply to the prosecution’s submission shows that the applicant
re-argued his case.

He noted that the
offence alleged to have been committed by the 1st defendant amounted to
an offence at the time the offence was committed and that the charges
against him was brought under an existing law.

Mr. Amaotu maintained that the amended charge has supplanted the old
charge. According to him, the star witness (Mr. Atanda) is not an
accused before the court since the prosecution has withdrawn the charge
against him.

Investors got one more reason to do
business in Lagos State yesterday as the Commissioner of Justice and
Attorney General, Supo Shasore, presented the amended version of the
Partnership Law of Lagos State.

This presentation took place at a
breakfast meeting with lawyers, professionals and journalists at the
Eko Hotels and Suites, Victoria Island.

Dignitaries in attendance included the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Ben Akabueze.

What has changed?

This new law contains the amendments
creating Limited Liability Partnerships (LLP) in business. This means,
investors that register their businesses under this law enjoy reduced
responsibility if the partnership breaks up or the venture fails.

It also means the partners are immune
to lawsuits, if an entity decides to take their company to court. The
Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola, assented to it in March 2009,
although work began on its formulation in 2003.

In the original model, partners could
be sued along with the company they set up, and had to pay shareholders
out of their pockets if the business winds up.

The desire to protect investors and
keep the trend in growing economies around the globe encouraged the
Lagos government to push for the law’s creation. The Registrar of
Partnerships and Director of Commercial Law, Funlola Odunlami, said,
“The newly-amended law is especially a bigger vehicle for the execution
of partnerships, who intend to engage in joint trade or business for
profit, while enjoying most of the benefits accruable to limited
liability companies.”

She said the law made it more convenient to do business.

New law

Mr. Shasore said the Partnership Law
had undergone much change in the past, and this was another level in
its evolution. The last part of the four-part law is dedicated to the
workings of the LLP.

He said the new law come about because
of the government’s “quest to do business in a seamless and convenient
way.” He also said parts of the concept were borrowed from other
countries like Singapore and the United Kingdom.

“The law doesn’t seek to incorporate
any entity,” he warned. “You must first of all have a partnership
before you can approach this law. When you file on the provisions of
the law at the registry, what you are seeking to do is not to
incorporate an LLP; what you are seeking to do is register a
partnership and give it limited liability.”

During the question and answer session, Mr. Supo assured Lagosians that the law would become universal.

He said states in the United States would soon have a unified law on Limited Liability Partnerships.

“Embrace it”

Lawyers at the event were encouraged to take advantage of the law to form larger law firms.

Speaking after the event, Mr. Akabueze said the business community would welcome the law.

“They will embrace it. It presents part of our efforts to expand the
frontiers of business relationships and grow partnerships as a
veritable alternative to structuring large businesses. Before now,
there’s been a notion that partnerships necessarily have to be small
operations. By this law, they can become very large.”

Airlines in our
country on Tuesday commenced flight operations by airlifting passengers
from various airports to their respective destinations. This came after
about 24 hours of complete flight cancellations by airlines, following
the “hazardous weather conditions” experienced in the country.

Though there were
flight delays especially to northern states, as a result of the weather
situation, the Murtala Mohammed Airport (MMA), Lagos, witnessed series
of aircraft take-offs and landings.

“Passengers can now
fly based on instructions from the control tower, and this is because
the weather, though fair, has not cleared completely,” said an officer
with Aero Contractors, who asked to remain anonymous. The source
disclosed that the bad weather affected carriers in the country
negatively, stressing that during yesterday’s severe hazy weather, some
passengers demanded the refund of their fares “without considering the
airline.”

“Airlines lost
millions to that incident yesterday, but some passengers refused to
understand that it was not the fault of airlines,” the source said.

Meanwhile, the
sales of tickets by ticketing officers at the Murtala Mohammed Airport
2 (MMA2) and the General Aviation Terminal (GAT) went on as usual, and
passengers embarked on their flights with various aircrafts departing
the airports.

Onn Monday, we
reported that hundreds of passengers were stranded at different
airports in our country, following the fog that impaired visibility
across our nation’s airspace.

Earlier, the
Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), while reacting to the
situation, directed airlines and their flight crews to enlighten
travellers about the situation, adding that the cancellation of flights
was for the good of the passengers, as safety is the highest priority.

Harold Demuren,
director general of the aviation authority, implored pilots to carry
out intensive pre-flight briefings for weather conditions before
embarking on any flight.

According to Mr. Demuren, Nigeria experiences regular harmattan that reduces the visibility of pilots during flight operations.

“Pilots should
carefully review the procedures for their operations whenever a
forecast shows that reduced visibility or adverse weather conditions
might exist for any portion of the flight,” he said.

“Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) will close airports to
arrivals and departures when the runway visual range is measured at
less than 800 metres, and pilots must be prepared to postpone flights
or divert to alternate airports in the circumstances.”

Former Managing
Director of Bank PHB, Francis Atuche, along with a former official of
the same bank, Charles Ojo, were on Tuesday re-arraigned before a
Federal High Court sitting in Lagos, based on an amended 45-count
charge levied against them by the Economic and Financial Crimes
Commission (EFCC).

This was sequel to
the ruling delivered by Akinjide Ajakaiye, wherein he dismissed the
applications by the defendants, asking the court to quash the charges
levied against them on the grounds that the allegations in the charges
are incompetent, frivolous and defective.

Justice Ajakaiye also dismissed the application by Mr. Atuche asking for an order striking out his name from the charge.

Court dismisses applications

While delivering
the ruling, Justice Ajakaiye identified two issues for determination:
whether there are sufficient bases to try the defendants on the charges
preferred against them by the commission and whether the applicants
(defendants) have made out a case for the charge to be dismissed.

On the first issue,
the judge noted that the defendants based their argument on the premise
that they were indicted by way of information. Citing section 33 of the
criminal procedure act, Justice Ajakaiye noted that criminal
proceedings are conducted summarily and do not require a
proof-of-evidence.

“As against the
trial by information where there is need for proof-of-evidence, in a
summary case, the proof-of-evidence is not required so I agreed with
the prosecution that all the proof-of-evidence needed to show is
possibility and not certainty.

“Certainty comes in
after evidence has been adduced. I am satisfied that the proof of
evidence filed consists of high profile documents related to the charge
and the statement of the accused, also the statement of the witness
incriminates the accused person.”

The judge then dismissed the applications and asked that the plea of the defendants be taken.

Mr. Atuche and Mr.
Ojo, pleaded not guilty to the amended 45-count charge, which borders
on money laundering and granting of reckless loans. They were asked to
remain on their initial bail condition, while the matter was adjourned
to June 7, 2010, when their trial will begin.

History

Mr. Atuche and Mr.
Ojo are facing trial over an alleged N80 billion fraud. They are also
facing trial for their roles in granting a credit facility of N45
billion without any collateral.

The two men were on
October 28, 2009, arraigned on a 26-count charge of granting loans
without security, granting loans above approval limits, as laid down by
the regulations of the bank, acquisition of share capital without prior
approval from the Central Bank of Nigeria, and also of not taking steps
to ensure the correctness of the June, 2009, BankPHB monthly bank
returns.

They had been granted bail before the prosecution filed the amended 45-count charge against them.

Muammar Gaddafi is
a newsmaker any day and anywhere he goes. He is not like other leaders
who do not give journalists interesting quotes. I am yet to get over
the surprise that his tenure as chairperson of the African Union, a
post he had very much desired, lasted without any much drama. The only
controversy during the time was his attempt to elongate his tenure as
the AU’s head, perhaps viewing the organisation as an extension of his
Libya where he has held power since 1969. African leaders, knowing this
would send a wrong signal across the world, rejected his plan.

Now, he has jumped
into a new controversy. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) last
week quoted Mr. Gaddafi as offering what he thought, in his fertile
imagination, was the best solution to the crises of relationship which
seem to have embroiled Nigeria in the last few years.

According to the
report which the BBC credited to the Libyan news agency, the maverick
leader of Libya said the best way to solve this problem was to severe
Nigeria into two and let the Muslims go their way and the Christians to
their tents. To back his argument, he, reportedly, pointed to what was
done to India and Pakistan shortly before independence by allowing the
Muslim dominated Pakistan to go its way and the Hindu dominated India
the other way.

But has the
separation solved the problem between the two countries? Are Pakistani
Muslims and Indian Hindus not fighting between themselves? If religion
is the basis on which people would no longer fight one another, why are
the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in Iraq always engaged in internecine
wars? Is Libya, which boasts of being an Islamic country, free of
strife among its Muslims?

The Libyan leader
has by this simplistic and out rightly stupid outburst shown that he is
not the kind of leader that the continent should look forward to. As
the Yoruba people say, cutting off the head is not the cure for a
nagging headache! No sensible person would think that the solution to
the senseless killing going on in northern Nigeria is to apply the
Gaddafi recipe. I am not by any stretch of imagination a supporter of
getting people divided along religious or tribal lines. It is bad
enough that Africa’s colonial masters divided the continent along
tribal and ethnic lines why then should the Gaddafis of this world want
to further polarise it along religious cleavages?

Tribal and ethnic
wars are usually easy to overcome. Religious divisions are the worst
kinds of differences and should not be allowed to fester. What is
happening in Nigeria has not gone too bad as to desire or require the
dangerous recipe that Gaddafi has proposed. He should leave Nigeria
alone and concentrate on his selfish expansionist ambition in his
spheres of the Arab world.

The condemnation of
his recipe by Nigeria’s Senate President, David Mark, who dismissed him
saying he is ’mad’’, might be harsh on a leader of another country but
what do you call a man who does not weigh his words before throwing
them around?

The African continent is unlucky to be inflicted with men who spew
nonsense and behave irrationally. Finally, however, no matter how much
condemnation we heap of Gaddafi, we must tell Nigerian leaders to wake
up to their duties to the traumatised populace and save us from being
killed by some marauding bandits who hide under the guise of religion
to shed innocent blood.