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Nigerians from all backgrounds will
converge in New York on Saturday, September 25, at La Guardia Marriott
Hotel, under the auspices of the Nigeria Peoples’ Parliament in
Diaspora (NPPiD), at its 3rd parliamentary session.

The session will be devoted to
reflecting on Nigeria’s trajectory after 50 years of existence as a
post colonial entity, with the theme: “Nigeria at 50: Problems,
Progress and Prospects”. Topics to be discussed include: Nigeria’s
nationhood and federalism as a panacea for Nigeria’s lack of cohesion,
growth and development and the Niger Delta Issue. Other topics are the
critical relationship between poor leadership and unrealized
citizenship as components in Nigeria’s crisis; the significance and
challenges of the 2011 elections and the search for a credible
electoral system.

The NPPiD was born out of a desire by many Nigerians abroad to
create a forum where they can discuss their nation’s affairs and
generate solutions for the multifarious crises plaguing their country.

Bukola Saraki, the Kwara State governor, yesterday
returned his Expression of Interest and Nomination forms to the Peoples
Democratic Party (PDP) just as he declared that he has the capacity to
lead the country if elected as president, next year.

Mr Saraki, who was accompanied by supporters to the
party’s national secretariat, told journalists that the time had come
for Nigerians of his generation to step forward to save our country,
adding that he would repeat the feat he achieved in Kwara State at the
federal level.

“I came here to submit my expression of interest and
nomination forms, to contest the presidential election on the platform
of the PDP,” he said. “Indeed it is an historic moment and I believe
that it has come to a moment where in Nigeria’s history, we are about
to create a generational change. After 50 years of Independence, we are
about to start another 50 years.

“We believe that some of us, with our capacity,
energy, ability, resourcefulness and knowledge, that we can transform
Nigeria, make it more effective, do some of the things we were able to
do in our states, address the things that matter to our people such as
food productivity, jobs. So, what I am saying is that we have to get it
done. And it is time for our generation to step up and move Nigeria
forward and I believe I have what it takes to do that and I have
started the journey.”

His chances

Asked about his chances in the race in which the
current president, Goodluck Jonathan; former military president,
Ibrahim Babangida and former vice president, Atiku Abubakar are
participating, Mr Saraki said it is about what each of them can offer
Nigerians.

The chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF)
said he has transformed Kwara State in the last seven years he has been
governor, adding that he would do the same for Nigeria.

“My chances are very bright because Nigeria will
decide who has the best policies,” he said. “This is about what each of
us can deliver to Nigerians. I have done things that had been
impossible, transformed my state and made the Kwara people proud and I
believe I will do the same for Nigeria. The issue of governance is how
to deliver leadership and I believe I have the capacity to deliver.”

Apart from Mr Saraki, others who were at the PDP
national secretariat to either pick or return the Expression of
Interest forms include: the Osun State governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola;
his counterpart in Sokoto, Magatakadar Wamakko; Iyiola Omisore, a
senator; Sylvanus Ngele and Sarah Jubril; some members of the House of
Representatives: Lanre Agoro, Henry Dickson and Ishaq Kamaldeen Adeyemi.

Mr Oyinlola, we learnt, wants to run for the Senate, while Mr Omisore is angling to succeed the governor.

Nuhu Ribadu, the Presidential aspirant and former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, will register as a member of the Action Congress of Nigeria on a date later than the September 23 earlier planned.

Announcing the postponement in a press statement yesterday, Mr. Ribadu’s campaign organisation said the decision was taken in honour of Mahmud Waziri, who died in Saudi Arabia on Sunday.

Mr. Waziri, a former senator and chairman of the defunct All People’s Party, hailed from Adamawa State as the presidential hopeful and is believed to be related to the Ribadus.

The spokesperson of the campaign organisation, Chido Onumah, said, “The former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, yesterday declared he will run for president under the newly formed Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and was to pick his party card in his ward in Yola, Adamawa State, as soon as the registration process began”.

The group did not disclose a new date for the event.

Goodluck Jonathan
has accepted the resignation of the National Security Adviser, Aliyu
Mohammed Gusau, a retired Lieutenant General, the presidency confirmed
yesterday.

A four-paragraph
statement by the special adviser to the president on media and
publicity, Ima Niboro, stated that Mr Gusau had in a letter to the
president dated Thursday, September 16, 2010, “informed the President
of his desire to play an active part in the 2011 electoral process.
Consequently, he requested the President’s permission to vacate the
Office of National Security Adviser.” Mr Gusau, who said all
de-briefing had already been done by Friday last week and only the hand
over note to his successor was waiting to be delivered, added that his
step towards resignation was the right thing to do.

“It was the right
thing to do for my family,” he said. “As for the future, we leave
everything to the will of Almighty God,” he said, confirming his
resignation to NEXT in a brief telephone discussion on Sunday.

The statement from the president’s spokesman added that “His resignation takes effect from Monday, September 20, 2010”.

Mr Gusau, who was
recalled as NSA during the Olusegun Obasanjo regime, was appointed in
April this year by Mr Jonathan for the fifth time to serve in the same
capacity, taking over from Sarki Mukhtar, had nursed his presidential
ambitions since 2007.

Democracy works

Shortly after the
presidency confirmed his resignation, Mr Gusau was seen coming out of
his office at the presidential villa with his ex-deputy. He was
accosted by journalists who wanted to know why he chose to go against
his friend and now ex-boss Mr Jonathan and what he intends to do for
Nigeria.

Speaking on his
next move, he said though he contested and lost the primaries in 2007,
“I consider that now that I have a chance, I will give it a shot again”.

Mr Gusau, when
asked why he chose to contest against Mr Jonathan, his close friend,
said, “No, no. This is democracy and that is to show you how democracy
works”. He was confident that he would not be on the losing side at the
primaries, as he said, “We will go there and I can’t say I am going to
lose”.

When asked of his
previous association with Babangida, who is also contesting on the same
platform, the former military general said, “If you go to England, you
find Ed Milliband and David Milliband, of same parents, contesting
against each other”. On what makes him want to go through the route
again after losing, he said he had gone through it before and now knows
how rough it is.

Mr Gusau said his vision for Nigeria will be unveiled when he has an open declaration.

Nigerian Breweries Plc has unveiled 12 contestants, instead of 10 usually selected, for participation in its annual television reality show, the Gulder Ultimate Search

The event was held at the at the main hall of the Lagoon Restaurant, Victoria Island. Out of the 41 youth shortlisted after a three week search across the country, only 18 were called on stage. The moderator, under the watchful eyes of guests and the organisers, was saddled with the task of pruning down the first list of 41 hopefuls to 18. His task became more difficult when he had to come up with the final list based on requirements.

After engaging the 18 in mental tasks and observing other laid down criteria, the moderator came up with the final 10. However, the management of Nigerian Breweries Plc, through their representatives at the event, communicated to the moderator on stage, to keep hope alive for the 8 others who had failed to make the final list. The moderator announced that, in the spirit of the 40 year anniversary of the Gulder in Nigeria, being celebrated this year, the owners of the brand has decided to increase the number to 12, instead of the traditional 10 that usually made it to the jungle for the search.

The last man standing will go home with a cash prize of N7Million, an SUV worth N10Million, and N500, 000 wardrobe allowance; while others will go home with consolation cash prizes ranging from N450, 000 to N2.5million.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday announced minor adjustments to its guidelines and congresses.

The guidelines and schedules for congresses and
national convention were released by the party during its National
Executive Committee (NEC) meeting on Wednesday last week. According to
the party’s spokesperson, Rufai Alkali, in Abuja, the National Working
Committee (NWC) at its emergency meeting last Sunday approved the
changes.

He said that the ward congresses for the election of
three ad-hoc delegates earlier scheduled for today are now to hold
nationwide on Saturday this week, while the local government congresses
for the election of one national delegate per local government area
previously fixed for Thursday will now hold on Monday next week.

Mr Alkali said the adjustments were necessitated by
the need to allow aspirants to obtain and return their nomination forms
for the congresses without undue stress.

Nomination fees

He also said that the NWC approved N100 as nomination
fee for both ward ad-hoc and national delegate nomination forms,
payable in cash at the party’s state, national and Federal Capital
Territory secretariats.

“The decision to include the national secretariat for
obtaining and return of ad-hoc nomination forms is informed by the
commitment of the party leadership to safeguard against the exclusion
of any member at any level from fully participating in the forthcoming
exercises,” the PDP spokesman stated.

Mr Alkali also announced that the sales and return of
Expression of Interest and Nomination forms for the House of Assembly,
National Assembly (House of Representatives and Senate), gubernatorial
and presidential elections have now been extended to 24 hours before
the screening deadlines for the various offices, as set out in the
timetable.

The NWC, according to him, warned state chapters of
the party not to charge any additional fees to aspirants regarding the
purchase of Expression of Interest and Nomination forms, outside the
prescribed fees as approved by NEC.

“The NWC wishes to reiterate that no state chapter should charge any
additional fees to aspirants regarding the purchase of Expression of
Interest forms and Nomination forms outside the prescribed fees as
approved by the National Executive Committee,” Mr Alkali said.

The political
atmosphere is getting heated up as the 2011 elections draw close; the
intrigue, drama and mudsling synonymous with politicking are beginning
to surface.

As thousands of
party faithful, praise singers and hangers-on flooded the Eagle Square
venue formal declaration of Goodluck Jonathan’s intention to run in the
January presidential election, little did they know that the speech
they all cheered and applauded was to become an object of ridicule and
controversy.

Barely 72 hours
after Mr. Jonathan delivered his speech to his vociferous supporters at
the Eagle Square, reports have it that a paragraph of that speech that
nearly drove his supporters into a frenzy was actually lifted from
former Vice-presidents Atiku Abubakar’s presidential declaratory speech
written in 2006.

Mr. Jonathan had told his supporters last Saturday that:

“Our country is at
the threshold of a new era; an era that beckons for a new kind of
leadership; a leadership that is uncontaminated by the prejudices of
the past; a leadership that is committed to change; a leadership that
reinvents government, to solve the everyday problems that confront the
average Nigerian.”

Some believe that
the similarity of the above statement to paragraph nine of Mr. Atiku’s
2006 speech more than just coincidental. Mr. Atiku had said in 2006
that:

“Today, as we stand
on the threshold of a new era Nigeria requires a new kind of
leadership, a leadership committed to this change process. We need a
leadership that is not hampered or constrained by the regressive
politics of the past or the unproductive ideologies of the present.
Nigeria deserves a proven, committed and experienced leader who knows
how to reinvent government to help solve the real problems our people
today.”

Shehu Garba,
spokesperson for the Atiku Campaign Organisation makes light of the
claim. According to him the Atiku Campaign Organisation has been too
“preoccupied with the coming party primaries so we have not paid
attention to that speech”. He however said if “the charge is true, then
it is unfortunate”.

“Change you can Xerox”

The accusation of
plagiarism between political opponents is obviously not a new thing. In
2008, during the Democratic Party presidential primary, United States
secretary of state Hillary Clinton, (then a democrat presidential
aspirant) had accused Barak Obama of plagiarism. According to Mrs.
Clinton, Mr. Obama had lifted from Deval Patrick, the governor of
Massachusetts.

Mr. Obama had dismissed the accusation as diversionary.

“The notion I had
plagiarized from someone who is one of my national co-chairs who gave
me the line and suggested I use it I think is silly. This is where we
get into silly season in politics and people start getting discouraged
about it.”

Mrs. Clinton, however, refused to handle the issue with same levity as Mr. Obama.

“If your candidacy is going to be about words, they should be your
own words,” said Clinton. “Lifting whole passages is not change you can
believe in, it’s change you can Xerox.”

The re-election
bid of the Delta State governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, may have suffered a
major setback, as a faction of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in
the state has rejected his candidacy.

At a press
conference in Abuja on Monday, Godwin Eboma, spokesperson for a faction
of the party led by former minister of information, Edwin Clark, said
the governor did not support the region’s interests.

“The constant
disclosures in the media that Delta State PDP is not supporting Mr
Jonathan’s candidacy is embarrassing, unpatriotic and insulting to the
good people of the state who actively support the Goodluck Jonathan
ticket,” Mr Eboma said.

Mr Eboma said that
the governor controls less than 20 per cent of the PDP’s state
membership while the Mr Clark’s group controls more than 80 per cent.

“This was loudly
demonstrated at the rally in Effurun, Warri, which was attended by over
50,000 party supporters for Goodluck Jonathan,” he said. “The rally
outrightly rejected the candidacy of Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan in the
forthcoming elections and highlighted the insignificance of his group
in PDP politics in Delta State.”

Party politics

However, an
official with the Delta State governor’s office, who requested
anonymity, denied that there was any enmity between Mr Clark and the
governor. He said the former national chairman of the party, Vincent
Ogbulafor, had called a meeting at the party secretariat in Abuja to
resolve the crisis.

“The issue of the executive of Delta State PDP has been resolved by the National Executive Committee,” he said.

In a petition to
the president, the faction said the party executive in the state led by
Peter Nwaoboshi, was an illegal body, and called on the president to
dissolve it. It also accused the party’s National Working Committee
(NWC) under Mr Ogbulafor of colluding to destabilize the party in the
state.

“Ogbulafor did not listen to us. Even when we told him that those he
was trying to impose on the people were not qualified for the position,
he did not care about our arguments,” read the letter. “We are not
going to allow that. We will fight it constitutionally.”

There’s a trillion-dollar time-bomb in Washington that’s been ticking for nearly ten years and it’s about to explode.

“We don’t have more time for any more games,” President Barack Obama said this week.

The countdown started with a sweeping set of tax cuts championed a decade ago by then-president George Bush.

The cuts saved
millions of American taxpayers a lot of money. Rich Americans, who pay
the most taxes, got the biggest savings but over the long term, all
Americans will get the bill: 1.7 trillion dollars in revenue that the
government didn’t collect, had to borrow and will ultimately have to
pay back.

To keep the
official cost down, the cuts were only enacted for ten years. Unless
President Obama and Congress can agree on a long-term plan, the cuts
expire at the end of the year and Americans will see their taxes
suddenly snap back up again.

Many economists say that would be a big blow to the U.S. economy, still inching away from recession.

Adding to the
pressure, this is campaign season in the United States, with voters
going to the polls in November to elect a new set of lawmakers for
Congress. It’s a bad time to talk about higher taxes.

Republicans are
campaigning to extend the Bush tax cuts, arguing that they will both
help America’s families make it through tough times and spur the
recovery by the entire U.S. economy.

President Obama
says rich Americans don’t need money that could be better spent
elsewhere and plans to extend the the tax cuts only to families making
less than $250,000.

Obama’s Democrats – down dramatically in the polls and facing a tough re-election campaign – are split.

In the weeks ahead, the Democrats and some Republicans have to agree on a plan the president will support.

If they can’t
agree, almost every American who sends tax money to Washington will
have to send more.The tax cuts they’ve grown accustomed to over the
last decade will simply expire. Or to put it another way, they’ll
explode.

The United States government yesterday removed Nigeria from the major drug list.

According to a statement released by
the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the US President,
Barack Obama, said that this was the first time that Nigeria would be
delisted from the drug majors list since 1991. The anti-narcotics
agency stated that Mr Obama said that Nigeria was a onetime drug
trafficking focal point but that the country had taken a lot of drastic
steps to make counter narcotics a top national security for the
country. He said that international data showed that there was a
strengthening of illegal drug trafficking between Latin America and
West Africa, especially via Brazil and Venezuela, with a considerable
portion of illegal product destined for Europe.

According to the report, Nigeria,
Brazil, and Paraguay were recently removed this year from the list
because they no longer meet the criteria for the list according to US
law. Reacting, Ahmadu Giade, the Chief Executive of the NDLEA, said
that Nigeria had gotten a well deserved honour. He noted that the
removal of Nigeria from the majors drug list was an endorsement of the
collective efforts of the agency to combat drug traffickers with the
aim of having a drug free society. According to him, the honour given
to Nigeria by removing her from the drug list was as a product of
dedication, transparency, hard work, and cordial working relationship
between Nigeria and United States in controlling drug trafficking in
the country.

The NDLEA is happy

“I appreciate President Barack Obama
and Americans for this candid and credible assessment,” he said. “The
removal speaks volumes concerning our impressive scorecard and
determination to address the drug problem. Illicit trade in narcotics
transcends national boundaries. Our foreign collaborators also have a
way of monitoring most assiduous efforts. All exit entry points will
remain invincible to drug criminals through effective drug
interdiction.” The NDLEA boss also thanked President Goodluck Jonathan
for his anti-drug policies, and other stakeholders for their
unrelenting efforts. He promised that no drug baron or major drug
trafficker would go unpunished in the country, adding that NDLEA was
one of the best anti-drugs agencies in Africa and that the agency
is prepared to make sacrifices to sustain and improve on its drug
control performance “Our level of professionalism shall be further
consolidated on the tripod of transparency, anti-corruption and respect
for the rule of law,” he said. “It is a call to duty that demands
higher commitment on our part. We shall continue to partner with the
United States and other stakeholders. No stone will be left unturned in
our quest for a drug free society.”

According to the agency, the 20 countries on the list this year are
Afghanistan, The Bahamas, Bolivia, Burma, Colombia, Costa Rica,
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, India,
Jamaica, Laos, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Peru and Venezuela.
A major drug-transit country is defined as a significant direct source
of illicit narcotic or psychotropic drugs or other controlled
substances significantly affecting the United States; or a country
through which such drugs or substances are transported.