FASHOLA COMMISSIONS 8.8 MEGAWATTS MAINLAND INDEPENDENT POWER PROJECT

 …Says competence, ability to deliver not religion or ethnicity should guide the choice of Nigerians as elections approach.


Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, SAN on Wednesday formally commissioned the 8.8 Megawatts Mainland Independent Power Project, charging Nigerians not to accept any excuses for the inability of the government at the centre to provide stable electricity.
The Governor who spoke at the State Electricity Board, Old Secretariat, Ikeja location of the Power Plant noted that those who promised steady power supply in the past four years have shown that their best is simply not good enough having failed to deliver on the promise.
He described the successful completion of the Mainland Independent Power Project as a demonstration that the present Government is one that makes a public commitment and is duty bound to ensure that it stands by it.

The Mainland Independent Power Project would serve agencies like the Lagos State Electricity Board, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Area F Police Command, the High Court, the Office of the Chief Judge, the Code of Conduct Bureau, the State Water Corporation, the Old Secretariat complex, the State Ministry of Housing Estate and Eko Engineering Limited.

Others include street lights covering a stretch of 20 kilometres from the Old Secretariat, the Ikeja Flyover, Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Agege Motor Road, Ikorodu Road, Jibowu to Maryland, Palm Avenue in Mushin and Ikeja GRA.

Fashola stated that as it is currently constituted, the State Government has operated within the limits allowed states and has clearly demonstrated that steady power supply is indeed deliverable to the people.
According to the Governor, “if tomorrow, the National Assembly legislates that States should generate and distribute power, a state like Lagos will conveniently generate its own electricity and distribute same to its residents”.

Pointing out that there are many lessons to learn from the success which Lagos State has made of its Independent Power Plants, the Governor noted with regrets that Nigeria is the only country with oil and gas that is without steady electricity.
According to him, nations like Gabon, Ghana which also have oil and gas in Africa do not have electricity problem just as the whole of Europe depends on Russia for her gas supplies but has never experienced electricity difficulties.

He reiterated that when the administration gave a commitment that the Mainland Independent Power Project would be commissioned in 2014, it was conscious that this must be accomplished adding that the promise was made then from an informed position.

Noting that some politicians would soon approach the people seeking their votes, the Governor said the possibility of steady power supply would not be achievable if the political mandate is given to a set of people who could not make steady power supply possible after so many years of promising.

He advised the people not to listen to those who would use religion or ethnic affiliation as a basis for campaigning for the peoples’ votes adding that the religion of the various personnel at the helm of affairs of the Ministry of Works and Energy who midwived the IPPs in the state played no part in its success.
“In Lagos, the language anyone speaks does not matter, but what matters is the capability and the competence of the person or agency”, he said, adding that most of the supplies carried out for the projects were not handled by people of Lagos origin.

“If anyone comes to you, saying, please vote for your brother, what should be uppermost is that your so called brother may not be able to provide you with electricity and good roads but you should be more interested in voting for the person who has the capability to deliver the goods”, he stressed.
The Governor, who also spoke on the focus on young people to power the energy sector, said the present administration is committed to harnessing the undying spirit of the young people to develop the sector adding that although the wisdom of the elders would also be needed in forging ahead, space must be opened for the young ones to participate.

“Nigerians as a people must also agree on the fact that there is a need to conserve energy because it is practically impossible to have unfinished energy”, he said adding that just as Nigerians have introduced the word ‘flash’ into the telecommunication lexicon to conserve, the same should be done with electricity too.
Governor Fashola added that from the time of Ehingbeti Summit earlier in the year, the Government knew that the way forward was in solving the energy problem and was committed to doing that.

The Governor, who also sought to know why a Power company like CET Power, with its proven record of success with building power plants, did not qualify as a preferred bidder in the privatization process of the Power Sector by the Federal Government, pointed out that if the best companies participated and did not win, it simply means something is wrong with the process.

He said by October 2015 when the next energy Month would hold, he would have served out his tenure as Governor of Lagos State adding that the several Power programmes under the Energy Month initiative would only continue through the choices that residents of Lagos make at the polls next year.

“Let me remind you that you would be voting in the fifth largest economy in Africa, it is not a place for beginners and it is not a place for experiments”, he said.
Earlier in his address of welcome, the State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Engineer Taofiq Tijani, said the Mainland Independent Power Project is the fourth power plant to be commissioned by the present administration.

He also informed that the on-going Conserve Energy, Save Money (CESM) campaign has run on full steam throughout the month of October and that people could now download the first ever consumer focused household energy calculator from mobile App store.

He said the 8.8 MW Power plant has been made possible through a Public Private Partnership between the Lagos State Government and a consortium of Mainland Power Limited, CET Power and Solad Electric Limited.

Giving a project overview, the Managing Director of CET Power, Mr Obiora Nwizu, said the 8.8 Megawatts Power plant has 5.8 MW as the primary power that is produced by natural gas while the 3 Megawatts standby is driven by diesel.
He said the Mainland Independent Power Project would serve agencies like the Lagos State Electricity Board, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Lagos State University College of Medicine, Area F Police Command, the High Court, the Office of the Chief Judge, the Code of Conduct Bureau, the State Water Corporation, the old Secretariat complex, the State Ministry of Housing Estate and Eko Engineering Limited.

Others include street lights covering a stretch of 20 kilometres from the Old Secretariat, the Ikeja Flyover, Mobolaji Bank Anthony Way, Agege Motor Road, Ikorodu Road, Jibowu to Maryland, Palm Avenue in Mushin and Ikeja GRA.

Nwizu stressed that there is also a provision to transfer the power plant to Lagos State after 10 years of operation adding that there is also the capacity for expansion of the Mainland Power Plant to 25 MW if the State Government so desires.

The General Manager of the State Electricity Board, Mrs Damilola Ogunbiyi, said the state has so far commissioned four IPPs and each of them is helping the State Government to conserve and save money.
She noted that it was not enough for people to sit at home and complain about inadequacy of power but should work at calculating their energy use and converting to energy bulbs as the State Government has done at the State Secretariat.

In a goodwill message, the Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Dr Sam Amadi, who was represented by Dr Uche Okoh, described the Mainland IPP as symbolizing the future of electricity generation in Nigeria.

Also speaking, the Executive Director of Fidelity Bank, Mr Ikey Mbagwu, thanked the Lagos State Government for keeping faith with the Fidelity Bank in the provision of Independent Power Plants.
The Governor later undertook a guided tour of the Independent Power Plant alongside some of the dignitaries that included the members of the State Executive Council notably, the Deputy Governor, Hon (Mrs) Adejoke Orelope–Adefulire, Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr Obafemi Hamzat and his Environment counterpart, Mr Tunji Bello and other notable personalities.

Ebola crisis rekindles concerns about secret research in Russian military labs

The Siberian complex known as Vector was a top Soviet research facility for bioweapons.  Today, its scientists study defenses against Ebola and other pathogens. A lab worker accidentally contracted Ebola in 2004 while working on vaccines. (Joby Warrick/The Washington Post)

She was an ordinary lab technician with an uncommonly dangerous assignment: drawing blood from Ebola-infected animals in a secret military laboratory. When she cut herself at work one day, she decided to keep quiet, fearing she’d be in trouble. Then the illness struck.

“By the time she turned to a doctor for help, it was too late,” one of her overseers, a former bio­weapons scientist, said of the accident years afterward. The woman died quickly and was buried, according to one account, in a “sack filled with calcium hypochlorite,” or powdered bleach.

The 1996 incident might have been forgotten except for the pathogen involved — a highly lethal strain of Ebola virus — and where the incident occurred: inside a restricted Russian military lab that was once part of the Soviet Union’s biological weapons program. Years ago, the same facility in the Moscow suburb of Sergiev Posad cultivated microbes for use as tools of war. Today, much of what goes on in the lab remains unknown.

The fatal lab accident and a similar one in 2004 offer a rare glimpse into a 35-year history of Soviet and Russian interest in the Ebola virus. The research began amid intense secrecy with an ambitious effort to assess Ebola’s potential as a biological weapon, and it later included attempts to manipulate the virus’s genetic coding, U.S. officials and researchers say. Those efforts ultimately failed as Soviet scientists stumbled against natural barriers that make Ebola poorly suited for bio­warfare.

The bioweapons program officially ended in 1991, but Ebola research continued in Defense Ministry laboratories, where it remains largely invisible despite years of appeals by U.S. officials to allow greater transparency. Now, at a time when the world is grappling with an unprecedented Ebola crisis, the wall of secrecy surrounding the labs looms still larger, arms-control experts say, feeding conspiracy theories and raising suspicions.

“The bottom line is, we don’t know what they’re doing with any of the pathogens in their possession,” said Amy Smithson, a biological weapons expert who has traveled to several of the labs and written extensively about the Soviet-era weapons complex.

At least four military labs have remained off-limits to any outside scrutiny since the end of the Cold War, even as civilian-run institutions adopted more transparent policies and permitted collaborations with foreign researchers and investors, U.S. officials and weapons experts say. Even acknowledging — as most experts do — that Russia halted work on offensive bio­weapons decades ago, the program’s opacity is a recurring irritant in diplomatic relations and a source of worry for security and health experts who cite risks ranging from unauthorized or rogue experiments to the theft or accidental escape of deadly microbes.

Enhancing the threat is the facilities’ collection of deadly germs, which presumably includes the strains Soviet scientists tried to manipulate to make them hardier, deadlier and more difficult to detect, said Smithson, now a senior fellow with the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a research institute based in Monterey, Calif.

“We have ample accounts from defectors that these are not just strains from nature, but strains that have been deliberately enhanced,” she said.

Other countries, including the United States, also conduct military research on defending against biological threats, including Ebola — a fact that draws criticism from some health experts and charges of hypocrisy from Russia. Pentagon officials counter that U.S. bio­defense laboratories are subject to oversight and regular inspections by outside agencies.

Russian officials defend their right to military secrecy and point to tangible benefits from years of Ebola research. This month, Russian officials announced experimental Ebola vaccines developed by the same two labs that lost workers to Ebola accidents: the Defense Ministry’s Microbiology Research Institute at Sergiev Posad and the Vector Center for Virology and Biotechnologies in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk.

“Vaccines are ready,” Valery Chereshnev, chairman of a science committee in the Russian parliament, told the news agency Tass last week.

Two Ebola accidents
The Sergiev Posad lab was the site of the first of the two Ebola accidents, which today remain the only known cases in which lab workers died from inadvertent exposure to the virus. Similar exposures occurred in labs in the United States, Germany and Britain, but in those cases the victims survived.

In the 1996 incident, first documented in Russian-language news accounts and later described by author David Quammen in his 2012 book, “Spillover,” a worker named Nadezhda Makovetskaya cut herself at a facility that was developing an experimental treatment for Ebola derived from blood serum from horses.

The job was unusually risky because of the test animals’ size, Lt. Gen. Valentin Yevstigneyev, a Defense Ministry official overseeing bio­defense work, was quoted as telling Russian journalists.

“It is difficult to describe working with a horse infected with Ebola,” he said. “One false step, one torn glove and the consequences would be grave.”

Despite wearing layers of protective clothing, the woman suffered a cut that penetrated her gloves, he said. Makovetskaya hid the accident from her bosses­ until it was too late, he said. Her death would be noted in records of the World Health Organization as the first Ebola fatality stemming from a laboratory accident anywhere in the world.

In the second incident, a Russian lab worker contracted Ebola in 2004 while working with infected guinea pigs in the Vector virology research center outside Novosibirsk. The victim, Antonina Presnyakova, 46, was drawing blood from one of the animals on May 4 when she accidentally pricked her left hand with a needle that pierced two layers of gloves.

Presnyakova was immediately hospitalized, but despite medical treatment she contracted the disease and died two weeks later.

A notorious past
The facilities that reported the accidents have a notorious past, having once been part of a larger complex of Soviet laboratories and testing facilities devoted to the science of biological warfare.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin confirmed the existence of the secret program to top U.S. officials in the early 1990s after declaring an end to bio­weapons research in the months after the Soviet Union’s dismantling. Afterward, successive U.S. administrations dispatched experts and resources to the former Soviet republics to help secure dangerous pathogens and support the transition to peaceful research at civilian-run labs, including Vector, one of two known repositories for the smallpox virus.

U.S. experts collected first-person accounts of the research and visited outdoor testing facilities where dogs, monkeys and other animals were exposed to deadly pathogens, encounters described in the Pulitzer Prize-winning history “The Dead Hand,” by former Washington Post editor David Hoffman. But Russian officials refused to grant access to military laboratories and never offered a full accounting of past weapons research or described how they disposed of weaponized biological agents.

But more recently, new historical scholarship, drawing from Soviet-era records and interviews with Russian scientists, has offered deeper insight into Soviet efforts to make weapons out of a wide range of pathogens, from anthrax bacteria to the viruses that cause Marburg fever and Ebola.

According to these accounts, much of the Ebola research appears to have been devoted to developing vaccines to protect Red Army troops against the disease. But scientists also ran experiments intended to optimize the virus’s growth and isolate the parts of its genome that make it deadly, said Raymond Zilinskas, a microbiologist and co-author of “The Soviet Biological Weapons Program,” an exhaustive history published in 2012 by Harvard University Press.

As Soviet scientists worked in secret to manipulate the virus, other teams constructed large fermenters and production facilities that could reproduce the altered pathogens on an industrial scale, Zilinskas said.

“There is only one reason why you would have a large production of these viruses, and that’s for offensive purposes,”said Zilinskas, who, along with co-author Milton Leitenberg, spent more than a decade interviewing Russian scientists and other officials with direct knowledge of the program.

In the years just before the Soviet Union’s collapse, the program’s managers plunged into novel experiments — with code names such as “Hunter” and “Bonfire” — that sought to create super­bugs that would resist common antibiotics, or combine elements of different microbes to increase their lethality. Sergei Popov, a former Vector scientist who defected to the West, described work on creating a “completely artificial agent with new symptoms, probably with no ways to treat it.”

“Nobody would recognize it. Nobody would know how to deal with it,” Popov said in an interview broadcast on the PBS program “Nova” in 2002, a few years after the scientist settled in the United States. Popov declined a request for an interview this week.

Ultimately, the effort to concoct a more dangerous form of Ebola appears to have failed. Mutated strains died quickly, and Soviet researchers eventually reached a conclusion shared by many U.S. bio­defense experts today: Ebola is a poor candidate for either biological warfare or terrorism, compared with viruses such as smallpox, which is highly infectious, or the hardy, easily dispersible bacteria that causes anthrax.

Things might have turned out differently if the Soviets had continued their work, Zilinskas and Leitenberg suggest in their account. The science of genetic modification was still in its infancy at the time Yeltsin outlawed the program, essentially freezing the research in place.

“Most, if not all, of the recombinants created in the laboratory were not close to being weaponized,” the book states. Still, it adds: “One must assume that whatever genetically engineered bacterial and viral forms were created . . . remain stored in the culture collections of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense.”

Escaping from Boko Haram and living to tell it

TV Host Patricia Amira, the girl who escaped from Boko Haram
(face blurred to protect her identity) and lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe
at the AYA Summit in Washington, D.C.

She was wearing dark glasses and trying not to call attention to herself the entire day until she bravely went on stage. Her delicate features and soft voice were deceiving. This teenager is one of the most courageous human beings I have met. You see, Saa (not her real name) escaped Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram.

Remember #bringbackourgirls? The social media campaign in which people all over the world shared their outrage over the kidnapping of 276 girls from a school in northeastern Nigeria created awareness for sure, but the nightmare continues for those who are still being held by Boko Haram. Their only crime was getting an education. Saa watched the kidnappers burn down her school and kill a Christian girl that did not lie about her religion. She got on a truck as instructed and realized she needed to escape. Her desperation was such that she chose to jump off the moving truck. She preferred that her parents have a dead body to bury than the uncertainty of never knowing what happened to her.

One of her friends jumped, too, but injured herself and couldn’t walk, so they stayed all night in the dark forest. Together they were able to make their way out of the forest until a shepherd accepted to help them. He also feared for his life, but in the end, he was courageous enough to do the right thing. Now Saa and her friend are attending school in the United States, but are still dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder.

During the AYA Summit organized by ONE in Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of meeting Saa and hearing her story. I am still trying to process what she shared both on and off the stage. However, even before I finish deciding what to do, I know more people need to learn about what is going in Nigeria. So even if I do not get every word right, I am posting this because every day that passes, more children are endangered. Not only girls are being targeted to marry them off; boys as young as 13 are being snatched from their families and turned into soldiers. Since 2009 500 women and girls have been abducted according to Human Rights Watch, which has also revealed the extent of the sexual abuse female prisoners are subjected to, no matter their age, because “Boko Haram does not consider any girls too young for marriage.”

According to CNN, the Nigerian government is under mounting pressure after another 30 children were kidnapped from a village in northeast Nigeria during the weekend, despite the announcement of a ceasefire just days before. The government says they are in conversations with Boko Haram. In the meantime, many girls have opted to stop attending school, which is exactly what Islamic extremists want. Other families are keeping silent because they fear retaliation.

I don’t want to keep quiet. I want Boko Haram to be stopped. The #bringbackourgirls campaign might have been forgotten, but the hundreds of prisoners and victims must not fall into oblivion.

Saa’s Story: How She Escaped After Being Kidnapped by Boko Haram

The Nigerian schoolgirl recalls the terrifying night she and her classmates were taken by the country’s most notorious terrorism group.

She came up onstage wearing a wig and sunglasses. I sat there stunned, slightly shivering, because the 18-year-old girl in front of us could have been anywhere but here at that moment had she not made one of the most fearless decisions anyone could ever make.

Her name is Saa (changed for her safety), and she told her story to 90 of us in a room at the ONE Campaign’s AYA Summit in Washington, D.C., last Thursday. I’m sharing her story (with permission) because the resilience of the human spirit is incredible, and courage often comes in small packages. Plus, we cannot forget these girls just because the cries of #BringBackOurGirls have died down on social media.

On the night of April 14, 2014, around 11:30 p.m., the girls of Chibok Government Secondary School in Borno State, Nigeria, were in bed when they were awakened by gunshots outside. Saa called her father on her cellphone, and he told her to pray and not leave that school. The girls got out of bed and congregated in their hostel’s common area when they heard their teachers’ motorcycles get closer.

The people who entered were not their teachers, who had apparently scattered, leaving their students to fend for themselves, but men dressed in military uniforms. They were hostile and asked the girls, “Where are the boys?” The girls answered that the boys did not sleep at the school—only girls did. The men threatened to shoot everyone if they were not told the truth.

When the girls insisted that it was true, the men moved on to their next demand. “Where do you store your food?” Two of the girls showed them the food storage.

The students of the Chibok school didn’t know that their captors were part of Boko Haram until the men holding them at gunpoint said they were the ones responsible for the kidnapping of 35 girls from a town named Konduga in 2013.

The girls were surrounded by the Boko Haram members and told not to cause any commotion or everyone would be killed. They were ordered out the building onto a dirt road and made to stand under a giant tree while the men burned their school buildings and hostels. Saa said they burned everything to the ground.

The girls watched as their food was loaded onto a huge, 18-wheeler truck. Throughout all of this, Saa and her friends were holding hands and saying silent prayers. Since they were standing close to bushes, some of the girls were able to slip into the forest and run away.

After loading the food onto the truck, the Boko Haram members gave the girls two options: Get in or die. Without much of a choice, the girls climbed in and sat anywhere there was room. They had to sit on each other’s lap to fit, and three girls were left standing outside.

Saa recounted how Boko Haram asked each of the three girls, “Are you Muslim or Christian?” One said she was Muslim (true), the second said she was Muslim (false, but she wanted to protect herself) and the third admitted that she was Christian. One of the men drew his gun and said he was going to kill her, but one of his compadres told him to leave her alone. All three girls were told to run away and were warned that if they dared to look back, they’d all be shot dead.

Saa was sitting next to her friend Leme on the truck as they drove down dusty roads. As they journeyed on and made several stops, she began to think about escaping. Several girls had already jumped off, but it was a scary thought because the 18-wheeler was followed by cars and motorbikes driven by Boko Haram men.

She said, “I would rather die than be held by Boko Haram.” So she told Leme that on their next stop, she was jumping down. When it was nighttime again and the convoy stopped, Saa jumped off and her friend followed her. Unfortunately, Leme landed on a rock and sprained her ankle. They made it into the forest, but they could not go much farther because of Leme’s injury, so they sat in the bushes and waited until daybreak.

Around 6 a.m. Saa went looking for help and came across a herdsman. She begged him to help her and her friend who had escaped Boko Haram, but he was scared at first. To help them was to put himself in jeopardy, but he did it anyway. He put Leme on a bicycle and they rode to the girls’ hometown, where they found their parents and family members sobbing.

As Saa told her story, I felt myself holding my breath. I am not sure why I thought my breathing would affect what she was saying, but I think I was just bracing myself for the worst.  

She spoke about how all she wanted was to get her education so she could become a doctor. She said she wanted to go back one day and help Chibok and Borno State prosper. But for now she was happy to be in the United States because she felt safe at school.

I spoke with Saa one-on-one afterward and asked her how she was adjusting to life in the United States. I told her that I was born and raised in Nigeria, so I knew how the culture shock could be. Her smile was very warm and she laughed easily. I didn't take a picture with her or of her because it just didn't feel right for me to do so, and I didn’t want her to feel even more vulnerable than she already might feel.

I cannot imagine the trauma of being kidnapped by the most notorious terrorists in Nigeria. I cannot even fathom how she could process how close to harm she was. She used to wake up from nightmares screaming. She is finally feeling safe again.

Saa is one of four kidnapped girls who escaped their captors and have been brought to the United States to continue their education under the Jubilee Campaign’s Education After Escape Fund. Although getting them here has not been easy, more of them will be brought soon (visa and financial issues have slowed down the process). You can help bring more of the girls here by donating to the campaign.

AFTER OSUN VICTORY APC NEEDS TRANSPARENT PRIMARIES FOR 2015

With the successful conclusion of the Osun governorship election and the well deserved victory of incumbent Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and the APC, all focus is now on the coming 2015 general election. Special focus is on the 2015 presidential election where the APC has staked a historical challenge to rescue Nigeria from the obvious disaster, which the PDP handling of Nigeria has turned out to be in the last fifteen years. At no time is the rescue of Nigeria so ripe than now when the country has been crumbled by the sheer incompetence and the wholesome laundering of corruption by the PDP government.

Whereas we must acknowledge that APC is not the totality of the ideal party we envisage in an ideal Nigeria, yet we hold APC as the very best available option in the current Nigerian reality. APC presents better hope for some positive change in Nigeria.

To say that Nigeria is in dire straights with the PDP misgovernance is to state the obvious. Infrastructures have almost completely broken down; poverty is so endemic that a respected international economic agency has stated that Nigeria would be the country with the largest number of poor people in the world by 2015.

Unemployment is so rife that the advertisement of 3,000 vacancies at the Nigerian Immigration Services recently turned deadly as more than one million eager unemployed youths turned up nationwide. Stadia and all public places were filled to the brim and more than twenty youths were trampled to death in the ensuing struggle.

Corruption is so pervasive that stories of trillions of Naira disappearing from the national treasury are no longer news today. Impunity is so rife and the use of soldiers as enforcers of PDP’s electoral interests seems to be the ace the PDP has discovered for its impending electoral woes. We are now in a situation where all manners of PDP thugs, enforcers and scum bergs are armed with limitless state funds to unleash mayhem and brigandage in any state they are not controlling for the purposes of annexation.

Do we talk of the general state of insecurity where militants and Boko Haram insurgents have taken over some parts of the country while a sitting government busies itself with finding scapegoats on those that challenge its tenuous hold on power? A general state of insecurity has made Nigeria so unsafe that life has become so cheap and worthless.

These are legacies of PDP’s woeful governance for the past fifteen years and Nigeria is practically down in its knees as the party uses every foul means to cling to power.

It is pictures like the above and many other rots in the polity that necessitated the amalgamation of political forces in the opposition and disenchanted forces in the PDP to pull together and form the All Progressives Congress (APC). It is apt to state that since the APC came on stream, the PDP has not enjoyed a good sleep because it sees the danger the APC poses to its inordinate desire to hold irresponsible power till eternity. It tried first to register a fake APC to block the APC acronym but failed woefully and as the APC was registered, the PDP dug deep into its bag of tricks to contain the APC threat. On a single day, five sitting PDP governors decamped to the new APC and this was enough to warn the PDP, which had grown so arrogant with power, that there was indeed fire on the mountain.

As the 2015 general election approaches, PDP’s knee-jerk response to the APC challenge is getting more desperate. It is today seeking to make the APC the issue rather the quality of governance it had rendered in fifteen years. Its evil propaganda is on full course and its intent is to blame the APC for its failings, its incompetence and its intentional plots. In doing this, PDP takes Nigerians as fools who cannot discern and who are barely aware of its well known shortfalls. It is deploying rice and salt, amala and gbegiri to do the rest among a malnourished, hungry and poor people it had devalued their humanity through fifteen years of relentless negative leadership. These have been its response to the APC challenge and the results of the Osun election shows that Nigerians are not the fools the PDP takes them to be. They indeed know the truth of where the rain starts beating them. They know, despite the rice and stew politics of the PDP that the party has squandered and looted over N100 trillion since 1999 growing a fat coterie of fat cats who are at the front row of PDP’s desire for eternal power. They are determined to use their votes to enforce a change in their fates. That was the central lesson of Osun election and the expectation is that the APC will utilize this rich harvest to bring the desired change Nigeria needs.

Baring any unforeseen circumstances, the primaries for the selection of candidates that will fly the APC fly in the coming presidential, governorship, senate, house of Representatives and state assembly elections will commence. The party leadership has come out to say to Nigerians that it hopes to adopt an open, transparent and credible process in selecting candidates to fly its flag in the various elections. This is a cheery departure from the PDP process of godfathers, godsons politics of anointing and imposition. This is a good start the APC needs to promote enroute the coming general election.

It is our desired wish, here at bioreports, that the APC primaries should be transparent, free and fair to select the best candidates to dislodge the failed PDP from power, especially at the center. The party must work harder to ensure that a process that not only leads to the selection of a candidate competent to lead Nigeria to the desired promised land emerges from the APC primaries but also that the process should be free from the rancor usually associated with primaries in Nigeria where only one person is expected to emerge among various other processes. We believe that the leadership and members of APC know that it is on the great party that Nigerians now anchor their expectations of a walk away from the failed present. It is therefore germane to remind them that they want the candidates of the party to emerge through a very transparent process all Nigerians should be proud of.

It is good that the party leadership has announced that the party will adopt a modified open ballot process whereby the candidates of the party, especially the president candidate, would be elected freely by party members all over the federation. This is a heart lifting development that stands to flag off the real process of effecting change from the decadent order the PDP has been superintending for the past fifteen years. This is a needed elixir to the search for a credible change agent that will rescue Nigeria from the clutches of desperadoes masquerading as leaders.

This is a needed impetus for positive political change which Nigeria badly needs today. The essence of this bottom-up process is to ensure that whoever emerges at every level to fly the flag of APC emerges from the people and has the universal mandate of the members to represent the party in elections. This is commendable and a right step in the right direction.

We charge APC leaders, nationally and at the state level, to ingrain the process of the primaries in members all over the country.

We want them to simplify the process to make for easier understanding and grasping. We want the machineries for smooth delivery to be put in place and we want all hands to be on deck to ensure that the most popular and most credible and competent candidate emerge to challenge the decadent PDP order in place.

We want the rules to be well defined and the enlightenment to be well carried out so that at the end of the day, the primaries will not only meet the expectations of Nigerians, the teeming members and supporters of the party but will signal the long awaited demise of PDP and its debilitating process.

There is not much time left. All hands should be on deck and the focus should be the change that is promised and long overdue in 2015.

8 crushed to death in APC accident

Five civilians were reportedly killed while three soldiers were injured in an accident involving Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) yesterday at Ahmadu Bello Way in Mubi town of Adamawa State, residents disclosed.

The accident which occurred yesterday afternoon happened when one of the tyres of the APC burst as a result of which the vehicle skidded and rammed onto a commercial tricycle taxi commonly known as Keke Napep before it headed into the nearby meat seller’s shop and another welding shop resulting to the death of five civilians while three soldiers in the vehicle sustained injuries alongside several other people.

Eyewitness said the APC was moving on a high speed before the incident happened as a result of which the driver could not control the vehicle leading to the gravity of the accident.

“The APC was moving on a high speed before the tyre burst and the driver could not effectively control it as it wobbled before ramming into the Keke Napep as well as the adjoining welding and meat selling points,” he said.

A Keke Napep operator, Mallam Ahmadu Sani in a telephone chat said soldiers seem to be above the law whenever they are on the roads as they pay scant attention to the rights of other road users adding that they have caused a lot of accidents before and have been constituting nuisance on the roads.

“The soldiers operate with scant regard for highway codes.”

COURT ADJOURNS FANI-KAYODE’s MONEY LAUNDERING TRIAL

A Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday adjourned till November 11 the trial of ex-Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, on charges of money laundering.



Mr. Fani-Kayode, a former Minister of Aviation, is being tried for an amended 40-count charge on money laundering by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.



The suit which was earlier fixed for the hearing of addresses of counsel, on Tuesday suffered another adjournment.



No reason was, however, given for the adjournment.



The court’s registrars only informed parties that the suit had been scheduled for a further date.



The EFCC opened its case on March 10.



It called six witnesses including Investigating Police Officers, bank legal officer, relationship officer and a former aide to Mr. Fani-Kayode.



All witnesses had given testimonies as to their relationship with the accused as well as the manner of investigations conducted on him.



The EFCC closed its case on July 10, while counsel to the accused, Wale Akoni, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, informed the court of his intention to file an application for a no-case submission on behalf of the accused.



The judge had adjourned the case to take addresses from counsel.



Mr. Fani-Kayode was first arraigned sometime in December 2008 before Justice Ramat Mohammed on a 47-count charge.



He pleaded not guilty to the charge and Justice Mohammed granted him bail in the sum of N200 million with two sureties in like sum.



He was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako following the transfer of Mohammed from the Lagos Division.



The accused was again re-arraigned before Justice Ajumogobia on February 11, 2013 after the transfer of Ms. Murtala-Nyako.



On March 6, he was re-arraigned before Mr. Ajumogobia following the amendment of the 47-count charge to 40-count with the EFCC dropping seven of the counts.



Mr. Ajumogobia is the third judge to handle the case in the last five years.



In the charge, the accused was to have carried out transactions with funds exceeding N500, 000 without going through a financial institution.



The accused was also alleged to have accepted cash payments to the tune of N100 million, while he held sway as Minister of Aviation and Minister of Culture and Tourism respectively.



The offences contravened the provisions of Sections 15(1), (a), (b), (c), (d) and 15 (2) (a), (b) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2004.

(NAN)

Boko Haram strikes again; razes police station, over 300 vehicles in Borno

Suspected Boko Haram insurgents on Monday stormed Kukawa town, the headquarters of Kukawa local government area of Borno State, torching the Kukawa police station, government lodge and other public buildings in the town. No fewer than 250 vehicles were also reported to have been set ablaze during the invasion.

An eye-witness, Kanembu Sumandi said the terrorists invaded the town in several Hilux vehicles and motorcycles and headed straight to the police station, where they began shooting sporadically at residents, using Rocket Propelled Launchers and AK47 rifles.

According to him, “the Kukawa Divisional Police station was burnt to ashes by the militants along with public buildings in the town. It would be difficult for me to tell you the exact casualty figure because we had to flee the town for our dear lives when they came.”

Corroborating Sumandi’s account, another resident of the town, Mafindi Abor, said the attack caused them to flee the town as the insurgents killed three civilians and burnt down Kukawa police station, government lodge, many houses and other public buildings including clinic and vehicles of the company exploring oil in the Chad Basin area.

He disclosed that the incident occurred between 4am and 10am on Monday while the gunmen fled the town after killing lots of people and razing over 200 houses and vehicles.

In Mafindi’s words, “the attack is believed to be a reprisal to an earlier attack by operatives of the Nigerian police Force, who were on routine patrol in the area in which they opened fire on the insurgents. The insurgents immediately responded by killing two policemen, and abducted two others while two policemen escaped into the bush.”

The caretaker chairman of Kukawa local government area, Alhaji Modu Musa, in confirming the incident, said the insurgents invaded the town killing many people, and setting fire on several houses. He gave the number of vehicles destroyed in the attack as exceeding 300.

Oduduwa Republic: Yoruba secessionists to hold Sovereign National Conference

The dream to actualize Oduduwa Nation is waxing stronger daily as one of the group championing the course has announced that the Yorubas home and abroad will soon hold her Sovereign National Conference to determine the future of over 50million Yoruba across Nigeria.

A group identified as Movement for Oduduwa Republic (MOORE) through its national mobilization officer, Comrade Makanjuola Adigun Muhammed posted as public announcement informing Yoruba home and diaspora of the Sovereign National Conference.

Below is the public announcement posted by the group on facebook:
adigun

Read full post here

NOTICE! NOTICE! NOTICE!

TO ALL YORUBA GROUPS WITHIN THE YORUBA NATION AND THOSE ABROAD, AND THOSE INDIVIDUAL INTERESTS, INTERESTED IN WITNESSING THE ACTUALIZATION OF A FREE ODUDUWA SOVEREIGN COUNTRY, TO PREPARE TO SEND THEIR ELECTED DELEGATES, TO THE FORTH COMING YORUBA SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE, THAT IS GOING TO DETERMINE THE PRACTICAL CONSTIUENT MODALITIES, TO RESOLVE THE YORUBA QUMAIRE IN FAILED ONE NIGERIA..

THE CONFERENCE IS EXPECTING 1000 DELEGATES ALL ACROSS THE VARIOUS CONSTITUENT SUB- DIALECT GROUPS WITHIN YORUBALAND, AND WHATEVER CONCLUSIONS AND COMMUNIQUE, THAT IS ARRIVE AT, AT THIS YORUBA SOVEREIGN NATIONAL CONFERENCE,WOULD BE FORWARDED TO THE UNITED NATIONS.

PRIOR TO THIS CONFERENCE,A MEETING INVOLVING THE LEADERSHIP OF VARIOUS GENINUE YORUBA GROUPS, ALL ACROSS NIGERIA AND ABROAD WOULD BE HELD TO DETERMINE THE GENERAL FRAMEWORK OF THIS CONFERENCE.

PLEASE SEND THE NAMES OF YOUR GROUPS, MEMBERS, E-MAIL AND TELEPHONE CONTACTS TO oduduwarepublic2014@gmail.com.

www.oduduwanation.org

BE ON THE LOOK OUT,IF YOU AN ODUDUWAN.

Rev. Father admits having sex with teenage girl; hangs self to death in Sacristy

An Italian priest who admitted to sexually abusing a young teenage girl hanged himself in the sacristy — the cleric’s changing room in his church — the diocese of Santa Croce in northern Italy said Wednesday.

The priest, 48, who belonged to the Slovenian community in Trieste, had been accused of committing “grave acts” years earlier with a then 13-year-old girl.

He confessed to his bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi that the reports were true and asked for two days to prepare a letter asking for the forgiveness of God, the Church and the victim.

But when Crepaldi arrived Tuesday afternoon to officially strip him of his priestly duties and inform him an enquiry would be launched into his actions, he found the priest hanging in the sacristy.

THE BUHARI WE KNOW: TESTIMONY OF FORMER PRESIDENT OLUSEGUN OBASANJO

”Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is an upright man. Not many people know that his first daughter is married to an Igbo man from Anambra. He exempted Christians from
performing duty on Sundays.

When his Muslim soldiers asked him to exempt them from duty on Friday, he told them the bible says Christians should rest on the 7th day, the Muslims should show him where the Koran says they should rest on Fridays.” – OBASANJO

FACTS

As Head of State he slashed the number of Muslim going on pilgrimage by 50%. His driver and cook for the past 10 years plus are Christians yet some uninformed Nigerians say he is a bigot. It is a pity that some people failed to understand that PDP deliberately capitalised on the gullibility of Nigerians to paint him black. This they did in order to keep their loot and ensure that he never gets the opportunity to send them to gaol.

How many Nigerians would hold the appointment of government, minister of petroleum, PTF chairman and head of state yet don’t own a house in Abuja? He has only one house and never kept a foreign account. Love him, hate him you cannot take his integrity away from him.”

AIT Retracts False Osun Tribunal Story

The African Independent Television, AIT has retracted a story in which it claimed that tribunal counting showed that the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP candidate, Iyiola Omisore secured more valid votes than incumbent governor Rauf Aregbesola in the recently concluded Osun governorship elections.

The retraction which was posted on the AIT page today read, "The management of DAAR Communications wishes to retract and apologise for a news story posted earlier today on our website at www.aitonline.tv titled 'Osun Election Tribunal: PDP Aspirant Gets More Valid Votes'.

We sincerely apologise for any embarrassment the story might have caused to any group or individuals affected.

Do accept our sincere apology".

#AIT #Osun #PDP #Omisore #Aregbesola

Boko Haram Submits List of Men It Wants in Exchange for Chibok Girls

It is believed that representatives of the Boko Haram insurgents may have given the FG a list of men it wants in exchange for the abducted Chibok girls , PUNCH is reporting.

The status of the men on the list is now being verified, and this verification is needed to ascertain the health conditions of the Boko Haram men.

The report says that the ongoing talks with the insurgents is progressing nicely, and that there have been other meetings held in three different locations for the same purpose.

“We have made a big progress, a very big progress on the issue of the on-going negotiations. But these are not the right time to discuss details”, the source said.

ULTIMA LIMITED PARTNERS WITH 960 MUSIC GROUP TO PROMOTE GEOFFREY OJI.

Ultima Limited in conjunction with “The 960 Music Group” have finalized partnership deal to give MTN Project Fame West Africa Season 7 winner- Geoffrey Oji a smooth ride into the highly competitive music industry.
According to the press release, the alignment would focus on the A&R, promotion, marketing, distribution and monetization of Geoffrey’s musical content. It will also provide him the opportunity to gain real-world experience after the show.
To initiate this partnership, Geoffrey will be performing at “Industry Nite” holding at Spice Route, Victoria Island on Wednesday, October 29th.

#projectfamewestafrica

OAU tops in Webometrics Ranking

A recent Webometric ranking has placed Obafemi Awolowo University as the best university in Nigeria.

Covenant University and the University of Ibadan followed after. At the bottom of the list is Tai Solarin University of Education.

It is probably noteworthy that several people consider the webometric ranking non-universal and sketchy.

Read the list of top 50 universities in Nigeria:

1 Obafemi Awolowo University

2 Covenant University Ota

3 University of Ibadan

4 University of Lagos

5 University of Ilorin

6 Ahmadu Bello University

7 University of Agriculture, Abeokuta

8 Landmark University

9 Federal University of Technology Akure

10 University of Nigeria

11 University of Benin

12 Madonna University Nigeria

13 Federal University of Technology Minna

14 University of Jos

15 University of Port Harcourt

16 Auchi Polytechnic

17 Federal University Oye Ekiti Ekiti State

18 University of Calabar

19 Yaba College of Technology

20 National Open University of Nigeria

21 Federal University of Technology Owerri

22 Lagos Business School

23 Bayero University Kano

24 University of Uyo

25 Ladoke Akintola University of Technology

26 Nnamdi Azikiwe University

27 University of Maiduguri

28 Bingham University New Karu

29 Osun State University

30 Babcock University

UI Releases Admission List of All 2014/2015 Successful Candidates – Check Here

The Authorities of the University of Ibadan has release its First Choice, Second Choice, Change of Course and Direct Entry admission list of successful candidates who have been offered provisional admission into various degree programmes of the University of Ibadan for the 2014/2015 academic session.

Candidates involved can now check their admission status online at the school portal by CLICKING HERE




To check your admission status, enter your Jamb Registration number and PIN on the spaces provided on the website.

Note: Only candidates who have been offered provisional admission will be able to login



#UI #Ibadan #Nigeria #Admission

Osun Election Tribunal May Unseat Aregbesola

There are indications that the Osun state election tribunal may overturn Governor Rauf Aregbesola's victory in the recently concluded gubernatorial election and order the swearing in of Senator Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

According to AIT, the tribunal's manual inspection and re-counting of ballot papers used for the election revealed that Omisore secured more valid votes in the Osun state governorship election and once the Tribunal members confirm the re-counted results, Osun state will surely be having a new governor in couple of weeks to come.

The tribunal is currently on recess till October 30. 

Desmond Elliot Defends Use Of Yoruba Name For Lagos Campaign

 Desmond Elliot, Nollywood actor and Globacom ambassador turned politician has explained the root of his Yoruba name and why he intends to stick with in the 2015 political dispensation following the recent wave of criticism that greeted his decision to flaunt his Yoruba name, Olushola.

In an interview with City People, Desmond Elliot explained:

"I am from Lagos state. My father is from Olowogbowo in Lagos Island but my mother is from Delta state. I refer to myself as being a Pan-African. People don’t believe I am a Lagosian because I seldom act in Yoruba movies. And I didn’t include the Shola in my name then because my surname is also English, many couldn’t differentiate..."



The actor has since declared his intention to represent Surulere constituency in Lagos State House of Assembly under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Will this be enough for the actor to clinch his desired office come 2015?



Source: CityPeople

El Rufai: Buhari Should Stick To Facts

 The attention of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has been drawn to statements from Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida purporting to be responses to the advice he gave both men to retire.








 The attention of Mallam Nasir El-Rufai has been drawn to statements from Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida purporting to be responses to the advice he gave both men to retire.

 Since Babangida libelled whole generations of Nigerian youth as being unfit for leadership, age has become an issue in the coming elections. While it is true that neither youth nor age supplies wisdom on their own, it makes sense to ask those who have been recurring decimals in our country’s sorry history to leave the stage. That is all El-Rufai asked of these men who seem to think that their failure to do their best for Nigeria when they had the chance qualifies them for a return to office. Our people surely deserve better.

 El-Rufai is amazed that General Buhari cannot debate this matter without scurrying to the gutter, making claims that are baseless and unsupported by any facts. Mallam El-Rufai’s tenure as FCT minister was a period of stellar performance in remaking our federal capital.  Despite the difficult decisions that had to be taken to restore Abuja, Mallam El-Rufai continues to receive deserved praise and recognition for his achievements in restoring the Abuja master plan, introducing Nigeria’s first computerised land registry and helping thousands of Nigerians achieve their dreams of home ownership in the federal capital. Buhari is perhaps one of a tiny few blinded by their prejudice from recognising the quality of El Rufai’s service.

 That same prejudice accounts for the baseless claims of corruption Buhari levels against El Rufai. The fact is that Mallam El-Rufai served Nigeria with integrity and has never been convicted of any corrupt act. He is boldly contesting the false charges which the Yar’Adua government filed against him in court. It is strange that a Buhari who protests when unproven claims of N2.5 billion (about US $3billion in those days!) missing oil funds are levelled against him can gleefully elevate similar claims into facts when it concerns another. How would Buhari feel if the corruption allegations made against him by Group Captain Usman Jibrin, then a board member of PTF, are today reported as if they were proven facts? So much for “corrupt background” and “shoddy performance”.

 Mallam El-Rufai wishes to remind General Buhari that he has remained perpetually unelectable because his record as military head of state, and afterwards, is a warning that many Nigerians have wisely heeded. His insensitivity to Nigeria’s diversity and his parochial focus are already well-known. In 1984, Buhari allowed 53 suitcases belonging to his ADC’s father to enter Nigeria unchecked at a time the country was exchanging old currency for new.  Against all canons of legal decency, he used retroactive laws to execute three young men for drug-peddling after they were convicted by a military tribunal and not regular courts of law. Buhari was so high handed that he gave himself and his officials immunity even from truthful reporting. That obnoxious Decree 4, against which truth was no defence, was used to jail journalists and attempt to cow the media as a whole. That tyrannical legislation shows the essence of his intolerance. These are facts of recent history.

 The story of counter-trade and import licensing, the cornerstone of Buhari’s stone-age economic strategy and those whose interests it served, is a tale for another day.

 Mallam El-Rufai respects both Generals Buhari and Babangida as elder statesmen. He believes their age, experience and guidance may contribute to the success of any future government. El-Rufai however believes that it is time for a new generation of leaders with new thinking and wholesome democratic attitude to move our nation forward. The vicious response by the Buhari camp to a simple statement that their almost-70 principal should retire  is proof enough that a Buhari, the new Democrat, tolerant of views different from his own, is yet to evolve. And that is sad, for his fledgling party and its leadership. Buhari and his cohorts may wish to reflect that it will take more than attacks on personalities to become electable. Having seen his version of discipline, Nigerians are not likely to cherish an encore. But they will welcome an engagement with the issues and problems of everyday life that have hobbled the peoples of this land.

#saharareporter

GENEVIEVE NNAJI SET TO DUMP NOLLYWOOD FOR HER MUSIC CAREER

Though, It has been speculated that Nollywood star actress Genevieve Nnaji had put her singing career to rest. But going by her recent interview, it seems she isnt ready to quit. She said in a new interview that if she finds the right song, she will sing again. Speaking with Channels TV at the relaunch of her clothing line in Lagos on Sunday, Genevieve said;   “I think everything comes at its own time. Fashion is here at its own time. I don’t believe I must do everything but if the right song comes and the right situation arises for me to lend my voice, I would definitely. So no, singing is not ruled out(don’t worry)” she said

The actress also says that revamping her clothing line will not in anyway affect her acting career

“Nothing affects my acting. Acting is something I do with my soul so it embodies a lot of things. For me, I don’t know about anyone else, acting is spiritual, so if I do not embody a character or a story or a script, it’s going to be extremely difficult for me to be convincing and I don’t like that because I am somewhat of a perfectionist” she said

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo Cautions APC About Muslim-Muslim Ticket

Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has warned political parties not to toy with the idea of selecting a Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian ticket in the upcoming election. The former Nigerian leader was tacitly referring to an interview granted by the likely presidential candidate of the All Progressives congress where he stated that he was not opposed to a Muslim-Muslim ticket.

 Former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo has warned political parties not to toy with the idea of selecting a Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian ticket in the upcoming election.

The former Nigerian leader was tacitly referring to an interview granted by the likely presidential candidate of the All Progressives congress where he stated that he was not opposed to a Muslim-Muslim ticket.


 In a brief press statement, Obasanjo said it will be absurd for any party to make the costly mistake of choosing both top candidates of their party from the same religious background.

See full text of Obasanjo’s statement below:

Sensitivity is a necessary ingredient for enhancement of peace,
security and stability at this point in the political discourse and
arrangement for Nigeria and for encouraging confidence and trust.

It will be insensitive to the point of absurdity for any leader, or any
political party to be toying with Muslim- muslim or
Christian-Christian ticket at this juncture.

Nigeria cannot at this stage raise the spectre and fear of
Islamization or Christianization. The idea of proselytization in any
form is a grave danger that must not be contemplated by any
serious-minded politician at this delicate  situation in Nigeria, as
this time is different from any other time.

Therefore, disregarding the fact that there are fears that need to be
allayed at this point will amount not only to insensitivity of the
highest order but will also amount to very bad politics indeed.

Chief Olusegun Obasanjo

Oct. 28, 2014

Meet the man who tamed Nigeria's most lawless city

Babatunde Fashola, governor of Lagos, has transformed the city - and helped halt the spread of Ebola in Nigeria

Babatunde Fashola has won near-celebrity status for transforming west Africa's biggest city Photo: AFP/Getty Images

He famously claims to be "just doing his job". But in a land where politicians are known for doing anything but, that alone has been enough to make Babatunde Fashola, boss of the vast Nigerian city of Lagos, a very popular man.
Confounding the image of Nigerian leaders as corrupt and incompetent, the 51-year-old governor has won near-celebrity status for transforming west Africa's biggest city, cleaing up its crime-ridden slums and declaring war on corrupt police and civil servants.
Next month, he will come to London to meet business leaders and Mayor Boris Johnson's officials, wooing investors with talk of how he has spent the last seven years building new transport hubs and gleaming business parks.

Yet arguably his biggest achievement in office took place just last week, and was done without a bulldozer in sight. That was when his country was officially declared free of Ebola, which first spread to Nigeria three months ago when Patrick Sawyer, an infected Liberian diplomat, flew into Lagos airport.

Health officials had long feared that the outbreak, which has already claimed nearly 5,000 lives elsewhere in west Africa, would reach catastrophic proportions were it to spread through Lagos. One of the largest cities in the world, it is home to an estimated 17 million people, many of them living in sprawling shanty towns that would have become vast reservoirs for infection. To make matters worse, when the outbreak first happened, medics were on strike.

Instead, Mr Fashola turned a looming disaster into a public health and PR triumph. Breaking off from a trip overseas, he took personal charge of the operation to track down and quarantine nearly 1,000 people feared to have been infected since Mr Sawyer's arrival.

A school official takes a pupil's temperature in front of the
school premises in Lagos (Reuters)

Last week, what would have been a formidably complex operation in any country came to a successful end, when the World Health Organisation announced that since Nigeria had had no new cases for six weeks, it was now officially rid of the virus.
"This is a spectacular success story," said Rui Gama Vaz, a WHO spokesman, who prompted an applause when he broke the news at a press conference in Nigeria on Tuesday. "It shows that Ebola can be contained."

The WHO announcement was a rare glimmer of hope in the fight against Ebola, and even rarer vote of confidence in a branch of the Nigerian government, which was heavily criticised over its response to the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls by the Boko Haram insurgent group in April. As a columninst in Nigeria's Leadership newspaper put it last week: "For once, we did not underachieve."
For Mr Fashola's many supporters, it is also yet more proof that the 51-year-old ex-lawyer is a future president in the making, a much-needed technocrat in a country dominated far too long by ageing "Big Men" and ex-generals.

"He is the best governor we have ever had," said Odun Babalola, a Lagos-based pension fund portfolio manager. "He's made a lot of progress in schools, railways, and infrastructure, and unlike a lot of politicians, who are corrupt, he's a good administrator."

True, the successful tackling of the Ebola outbreak was not Mr Fashola's doing alone. For a start, the doctor's strike that was under way when Mr Sawyer collapsed at Lagos airport turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Rather than being taken to one of Lagos's vast public hospitals, where he might have languished for hours and infected numerous fellow patients and staff, he was instead admitted to a private clinic. There he was seen by a sharp-eyed consultant, Stella Adadevoh, who spotted that his symptoms were not malaria as had been first thought.

Patrick Sawyer (AP)

She then alerted the Nigerian health ministry, and along with other doctors physically restrained Sawyer when he became aggressive and tried to leave the hospital to fly to another Nigerian city. Her quick thinking help stop the virus being spread more widely, but also cost her her life: she caught Ebola herself while treating Mr Sawyer, and has now been recommended for a national award.



But even by the time Mr Sawyer had been isolated, the virus was already on the loose. Knowing that he had passed through one of the busiest airports in west Africa, health officials had to try to track down every single person who had potentially been infected by him, including the other passengers on his flight. The list started at 281 people and grew to nearly 1,000. as eight others whom he turned out to have passed the virus to subsequently died.

That was where Mr Fashola stepped in. He broke off from a pilgrimage to Mecca, flew home and then helped set up an Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, which spearheaded the mammoth task of monitoring all those potentially infected. A team of 2,000 officials were trained for the task, who ended up knocking on 26,000 doors. At one point the governor was being briefed up to ten times a day by disease control experts. He made a point of visiting the country's Ebola treatment centre, a way of communicating to the Nigerian public that they should not panic needlessly.

"Command and control is very important in fighting disease outbreaks, and he provided effective leadership," said Dr Ike Anya, a London-based Nigerian public health expert. "He also said exactly the right things, urging for the need to keep calm. Regardless of whether you support his politics, he has been very effective as a governor and I would be happy to see him stand for leadership."

Born into a prominent Muslim family but married to a Christian, Mr Fashola trained as a lawyer and went into politics after being appointed chief of staff by the previous Lagos governor, Asiwaju Tinubu, a powerful politician often described as Mr Fashola's "Godfather". But while he has long enjoyed the backing of a political "Big Man", is his role as a rare defender of Nigeria's "Little Men" that has won him most support.
Once, while driving through Lagos in his convoy, he famously stopped an army colonel who was driving illegally in one of the governor's newly-built bus lanes, berating him in front of television cameras.


"The bus is for those who cannot afford to buy cars," he said. "I want a zero tolerance of lawlesness, and those who don't want to comply can leave our state."
It was one of the first times Nigerians had ever seen a civil servant confronting a member of the security forces, whose fondness for committing crime rather than fighting it has long contributed to Lagos's legendary reputation for lawlessness.

Armed robberies - sometimes by moonlighting police - used to be so common that few people ventured out after dark. Foreign businessmen would routinely travel with armed escorts, and the few willing to live there would stay mainly in a heavily-guarded diplomatic area called Victoria Island, a rough equivalent to Baghdad's Green Zone. Add to that the suffocating smog, widespread squalor and regular three-hour traffic jams, and it was no suprise that the city had a reputation as one of the worst places in the world to live.

Lagos, Nigeria (AP)

Today, much of the problems remain. But members of the vast Nigerian diaspora say they now notice big changes whenever they go back. "When you return you see an absolute difference - things have improved 100 per cent," said Nels Abbey, a London-based Nigerian journalist and businessman. "Traffic is not what it used to be, bus lanes have been introduced, and it feels a lot safer. Fashola has been like a Tory mayor for Lagos - he is trying to make it attractive to the well-off."

Styling himself as Lagos's answer to Boris Johnson has not endeared him to everyone. As well as laying plans for a vast offshore business park intended as an "African Dubai", he has accelerated programs to clear the ever-expanding shanty towns, ordering their occupants to return to their homes in Nigeria's poorest east and north. That has led to criticism from human rights groups, although others say it is hard to see how Lagos will ever improve otherwise. "Do I endorse it?" said Mr Nels. "I am afraid it is a bit of a necessary evil."
Another big achievement has been increasing tax revenues, vital in a city where the GDP of $43 billion makes it the fifth-biggest economy in sub-Saharan Africa. Mr Fashola has tried to sweeten the pill by putting up signs on all new infrasructure projects, saying "paid for by your taxes". It is a rare acknowledgement of gratitude in a country where a guaranteed stream of state oil wealth has historically allowed rulers to remain aloof from the ruled.

However, despite being relected with 80 per cent of the vote in 2011, the main hailed as Nigeria's brightest political hope in years is far from guaranteed a life in office. Having served two terms in office already, he is not allowed to run as Lagos governor again. And as a member of a minority tribe and the country's opposition All Progressives Congress, he currently lacks the political backing to go head to head against Goodluck Jonathan in next year's elections.

In the meantime, fresh from ridding Lagos of Ebola, he is focusing on an arguably even tougher challenge, launching a new initiative to stop motorists stuck in traffic jams from blasting their horns all day. As he put it: "If we can overcome Ebola, then we can overcome noise pollution."