Science & Technology 5/13/02

After the fall:  What went wrong, what went right, and

what can be learned from the twin towers' collapse?

By Avery Comarow

For months the World Trade Center has stood trial while a 26-member panel of engineers judged its complicity in the deaths of more than 2,500 office workers and rescue personnel on September 11. Last week the team released a 296-page report on why the towers fell and why so many died. It concluded that the buildings in fact held up extraordinarily well to the impacts and the raging fires that ultimately destroyed them, saving lives by remaining upright for many minutes while occupants streamed to safety. "Buildings are not designed to withstand any event that could ever conceivably occur," the report noted.

But the experts also acknowledged that there was much they did not know about the fall of the buildings and whether changes in design might have saved still more lives. "We didn't have time and resources," W. Gene Corley, a structural engineer and the team's leader, told Congress. They didn't have enough data to put together a computer model that would have shown the interior damage caused by the impacts of the jetliners. They couldn't model the spread of the fires. They couldn't say for sure how much of the sprayed-on fireproofing meant to protect the structural steel was torn off by the crashes.

What they did say was that answers to these and other questions are desperately needed to protect other buildings that might be terrorist targets. President Bush agrees; he has promised $16 million to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency better known for atomic clocks and weights and measures, for a two-year follow-up on the engineering report. (Details are available at www.nist.gov.) A bipartisan effort in Congress would also give NIST instant-response powers, like those the National Transportation Safety Board can call upon in airplane, train, and ship crashes, for probing future building disasters.

Hampered. Outrage in Congress over the obstacles the World Trade Center team encountered fueled the proposal. Government agencies fussed over funding and which agency the team would report to. Much of the structural steel was removed from the site, cut up, and sold as scrap before it could be examined. The investigators never got tapes of emergency calls to 911 from inside the towers, which might have helped track the spread of the fires.

The team didn't even get a full set of building plans for several months. So it wasn't until February that team member John Fisher of Lehigh University realized that the floor supports were primarily attached to the exterior columns with strong welds–not, as team members had thought (and some outsiders still claim), with relatively small bolts.

In the end, they learned enough to know that the towers were built well and built to code, enabling them to withstand massive physical assault. But no one minimizes the questions that remain:

Could some of the people trapped above where the aircraft hit have escaped if the stairways had been separated instead of being clustered in the core? Debris blocked all three stairs in the north tower and two out of three in the south tower.

Would the structure have withstood the fire longer if squared-off angle bars had been used in the floor supports, as lead engineer Leslie Robertson originally specified, rather than round rods? It's harder to spray fireproofing material onto round rods.

Should the elevators and stairs have been walled off with material more robust than three layers of 5/8-inch gypsum board, still standard in tall office buildings?

Robertson himself, now 74 years old, grieves for the buildings he designed nearly 40 years ago. And he is haunted by the human tragedy. "Thoughts of the thousands who lost their lives as my structures crashed down upon them come to me at night," he wrote last month in The Bridge, an engineering journal, "rousing me from sleep, and interrupting my thoughts at unexpected times throughout the day."

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GUARDIAN  -  Tuesday, April 2, 2002.

Britain plans N25b health reforms in Nigeria

From Segun Ayeoyenikan, Abuja

THROUGH a non-governmental organisation, Change Agent Programme (CAP), the British government is putting in well over N24 billion (about $172 million) to health sector reforms and governance in Nigeria for this year and beyond.

The health adviser in Nigeria to the British Department for International Development (DFID), Dr. Liz Tayler, who disclosed this in Abuja at the weekend, said that the fund "forms part of the new phase of programmes of assistance to Nigeria for which U.K. government has announced an approved budget."

The CAP, which was formally launched in Abuja at the weekend, is for reform in the health sector, immunisation and good governance in the country.

The group's Director in Nigeria, Professor Tayo Lambo, who retired at the World Health Organisation (WHO), said at the news briefing held jointly by CAP and DFID that "the basic assumption of this initiative was that substantial change in the present health service was needed, and that this change could only be achieved through Nigerians, who can take a lead in the change process."

Again, he said: "Most of health expenditures in Nigeria currently is not from public funds but they are paid directly by patients for drugs and other services, and therefore they have a right to expect values for their money."

CAP's aim is to provide support and encouragement to 24 selected individuals working in the health sector generally, and 24 working specifically in the field of immunisation.

These selected individuals will be able to experience other countries' efforts to improve their health services.

The countries which participants will visit include South Africa, Ghana, and Uganda.

On their return to Nigeria, they will apply what they have learnt to the Nigerian situation and identify improvements they would like to initiate.

At the two-day workshop, which followed the news briefing held at the Sheraton Hotels and Towers, Abuja, the formal launching of CAP and the first stakeholders meeting was convened.

Technical participants, who also presented papers included Tayler, National Coordinator, National Programme on Immunisation (NPI), Dr. Dere Awosika; Director, Ghanaian Health Service, Dr. Frank Nyonator and a Health Consultant from South Africa, Nicholas Crisp

Also in attendance were Senator Dalhatu Sarki Tafida and Chairman House of Representatives Committee on Health, Dr. Willie Ogbeide among others.

Six states: Benue, Jigawa, Ekiti, Enugu, Lagos and Abuja have been designated for the commencement of the pilot scheme for CAP.

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GUARDIAN  -  Tuesday, April 2, 2002.

Britain begins mourning for Queen Mother

From Tunde Oyedoyin (London) with Agency reports

THREE days after the death of Queen Mother, the United Kingdom yesterday began formal mourning for the royal matriarch, who died in her sleep at the age of 101 on Saturday.

As preparations continue this week for her funeral slated for April 9, gun salutes will be fired throughout the country on Monday next week.

Earlier on Sunday, a private royal grief and a modest display of public sorrow was held as part of activities marking the death of a woman feared by her foes including the likes of dreaded Adolf Hitler of Germany, who branded her "Britain's most dangerous woman."

Queen Elizabeth, her elder and surviving daughter, made her first public appearance on Sunday since her mother's death. Dressed in black, the 75-year old monarch, led her family in prayers at the coffin of the Queen Mother in Windsor's Royal Chapel of All Saints.

Her coffin will be moved the short distance from Windsor to St. James' Palace in central London tomorrow.

On Friday, it will be taken to Westminster Hall, part of the Houses of Parliament, where it will lie in state until the day before the funeral at Westminster Abbey across the road.

The coffin will then travel back by road for a private burial later that day at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, where the Queen Mother will lie beside her beloved husband, King George VI, who died in 1952 at the age of 56.

Though dominating British media, her death has not led to the same public outpouring of grief that followed the sudden death in 1997 of Princess Diana, when thousands flocked to her London home, laying a sea of flowers.

The nation almost ground to a halt for the funeral of the former wife of Prince Charles, Queen Elizebeth's son and heir.

The Queen Mother's death came just seven weeks after that of her younger daughter, 71-year-old Princess Margaret, whose ashes will be placed alongside her parents.

Seen by many as the most popular member of the House of Windsor, the Queen Mother was feted as the plucky little woman who stood up to the Nazis by staying in London with her husband during the German blitzkrieg bombing of the British capital in 1940. Adolf Hitler branded her Britain's most dangerous woman.

The doughty "Queen Mum" kept the royal family together through seven tempestuous decades - from the 1936 abdication crisis that propelled her shy husband onto the throne vacated by his wayward elder brother, King Edward VIII, to Prince Charles's bitter divorce from Diana in 1996.

Across Britain, flags on public buildings will fly at half staff until April 9, the end of the national period of mourning for a woman widely seen as representing the "best of British."

Artillery salutes will be fired at noon (1000 GMT) on Monday. Parliament is being recalled tomorrow so members can pay respects to the nation's favourite grandmother.

Minute's silence were held at Easter Monday soccer matches while at race meetings jockeys would wear black armbands in special tribute to a woman who had a passion for horses.

Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace and Clarence House, the Queen Mother's official London residence, are providing a focus for restrained public mourning.

Flowers were laid at the gates of Buckingham Palace and teddy bears stuffed through the bars. One scrawled tribute said: "Our nation lost its grandmother today."

Under a grey sky at the weekend, Britons caught their first glimpse of the coffin. Draped in her personal standard and topped with pink flowers, it was carried through a corridor of golden daffodils to the small Windsor chapel.

Behind the coffin walked members of the Queen Mother's staff. One carried a potted jasmine given as an Easter present to the Queen Mother by her favoured grandson, Prince Charles.

Charles, who is said to be "absolutely devastated by the death of his grandmother, and his two teenage sons flew back from a skiing holiday in the Swiss resort of Klosters.

In a break with custom, the Queen allowed the three to fly on the same plane, something usually avoided by the royal family for security reasons.

After the song service at the chapel where the coffin had been placed, Charles and his sons left Windsor for their Highgrove home, affording the heir to the throne some time to mourn his grandmother. The two were particularly close.

Prince Charles yesterday paid an emotional and highly personal tribute to his "magical grandmother," praising the Queen Mother for her strength, grace, sense of duty and mischievous spirit.

For the heir to the throne, the death on Saturday of the matriarch of the British monarchy, as well as his personal mentor, was a major blow.

Wearing a dark blue suit and black tie, the 53-year-old Charles made a public television address during which he looked sad and shook his head frequently, and at one point appeared to struggle to keep his voice steady.

"For me she meant everything, and I had dreaded this moment... somehow I never thought it would come," he said.

"She seemed gloriously untoppable. And ever since I was a child I adored her. She was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have and I was utterly devoted to her," Charles added from his Highgrove home in southern England.

He recalled her sense of humour and remembered her decades of service to the British people.

"She understood the British character, and her heart belonged to this ancient old land and its equally indomitable and humorous inhabitants, whom she served with panache, style and unswerving dignity for very nearly 80 years," he remarked.

The Queen Mother gave Charles a lifetime of loyal support. She taught him to fish and gave him a taste for classical music.

He said her death would leave "an irreversible chasm in countless lives.

"But thank God we're all the richer for the sheer joy of her presence and everything she stood for."

Throughout her life, the Queen Mother never gave interviews to journalists but she was in touch with ordinary folks. She is known to be indefatigable and during Princess Margaret's funeral on February 15, she made an unexpected appearance against the advise of both the Queen and her doctors. Even when she had ill-health, she never gave up working.

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BBC NEWS   -  Monday, 1 April, 2002, 20:19 GMT 21:19 UK

Nigeria goes mad for mobiles

By the BBC's Dan Isaacs -   Lagos

No need to trail across town to reach customers  Africa's most populous nation, Nigeria, is in the grip of mobile phone fever.

Investors have long recognised the growth potential for mobile phones on a continent where existing landline networks are limited. But nowhere is the potential greater than in Nigeria. The state-owned telecoms company, Nitel, has only 400,000 lines for a population of 120 million - one of the lowest connectivity rates in the world.

[You see people in public transportation, private vehicles, restaurants, water closets. They're talking 24 hours a day. Ladi Akeredolu-Ale]

Since two private companies with GSM licences started operating in Nigeria last year, sales of mobile phones have soared.

Pent-up demand

Econet, from Zimbabwe, and MTN, from South Africa, have provided 600,000 lines since they began operation in August 2001- already substantially more than all of the landlines in the country.

MTN's boss in Nigeria, Adrian Wood, says its the fastest take-off of any country, and that the target is more than 10 million users within 5 years.

Mobile phones are particularly welcome in Nigeria's commercial capital, Lagos, a bustling city with the

unenviable reputation of having the worst traffic jams in the world.

More than 12 million people live here, and sometimes it seems as if all of them are on the move at the same time.

Until last year, a trader who wanted urgently to talk to a supplier across this seething mass of a city had to get there herself.

Now communications are much easier for those who can afford a mobile phone.

Ubiquitous

"Everybody wants one," says Ladi Akeredolu-Ale, a local television journalist. "I suppose the only thing standing in the way of most people is the cost."

"You see people in public transportation, private vehicles, restaurants, water closets," he adds. "They're talking 24 hours a day."

"You see people in public transportation, private vehicles, restaurants, water closets," he adds. "They're talking 24 hours a day."

The two competing phone companies are desperately trying to keep up with demand.

It's not just the wealthy and fashion conscious that have taken up the challenge.

On the hunt for a mobile user in a busy Lagos market, I found Mabel Ogunleye, selling crates of soft drinks and dealing with a customer on the phone.

"It has really enlarged my business," Mabel says.

Out of control

Clearly, starved of effective communication for so long, Nigerians can take the mobile phone craze too far.

"I have a colleague who has 4 phones and a personal assistant who has no job other than to carry those phones from place to place to answer all of them," says journalist Ladi Akeredolu-Ale.

And some unwanted callers sometimes get the brush-off, Nigerian style.

"Hi this is Ladi," Akeredolu-Ale says into his phone. “I'm not available right now. I'm out partying, so why don't you just leave your number and when I get over my hangover I'll give you a call.” 

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© Copyright 2002 Pat Nsionu - Millennium Movers.

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Bin Laden’s ‘deputy’ captured

UNITED States authorities are holding a man captured in Pakistan who is believed to be a senior member of the al-Qaeda terror network, an official has said.

The man is thought to be Abu Zubaydah, a key deputy of Osama Bin Laden, the man suspected to have masterminded the 11 September attacks in America.

"It appears that he is Abu Zubaydah but we’re not 100 per cent certain of that at this point," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The individual is now in US custody," senior Pakistani Interior Ministry official Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

The official said the man was shot several times by Pakistani security officers as he tried to escape one of the raids.

He has been receiving medical treatment, but his current condition is unclear.

If the man is Abu Zubaydah as the US authorities believe, he would be the highest ranking member of al-Qaeda to fall into American hands since 11 September.

Investigators used "a variety of means" to confirm the man was Zubaydah, including showing photos to some of his past associates, a US official said.

Zubaydah - also known as Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husain and Abd Al-Hadi Al-Wahab - serves as Bin Laden’s senior field commander.

He is thought to have been born in Saudi Arabia, but has strong connections with Jordan and Palestinian groups.

Abu Zubaydah has been sentenced to death in Jordan, and is believed to have links to many of al-Qaeda’s anti-US operations.

When Bin Laden and his inner circle called for an attack, it was Zubaydah who would contact the cells in the field to conduct them, the US authorities said.

US officials say he organised several attacks on US interests, including the millennium plots to blow up Los Angeles International Airport and a hotel in Jordan frequented by American tourists.

Zubaydah is also alleged to have worked in Pakistan recruiting and vetting al-Qaeda volunteers, arranging their training and assigning them to terrorist cells

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U. S. NEWS  &  WORLD REPORT  --    Cover Story 5/13/02

War profiteering
Cashing in on the post-9/11 defense build-up

By Julian E. Barnes

"Spartacus" speaks
A veteran congressional aide has written a white paper under the pen name "Spartacus" attacking projects that have been inserted in the defense- spending bills since 9/11.

• The complete text is available at www.d-n-i.net.

At 12:42 p.m. on Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, John McCain strode to a podium on the Senate floor. In his hand was a list of 245 items that had been added into the 2002 defense appropriations bill. Among his colleagues, McCain had a reputation as an acerbic critic of wasteful Pentagon spending. The reputation was richly deserved. In the past year, McCain had delivered 18 speeches on the Senate floor decrying his colleagues' seemingly insatiable appetite for pork. Over the years, the former prisoner of war had made hundreds of such speeches, flaying senators for the pet projects his sharp-eyed staffers ferreted out of the massive defense-spending bills. Even to McCain's jaded eye, however, the spending bill before the Senate that day was especially disturbing. Many of the 245 items on his list, he believed, were egregious. But one in particular stood out. It was a $20 billion Air Force plan to lease 100 refueling tankers from the Boeing Aircraft Co. The planes would cost $150 million apiece. The lease would run for 10 years. Then the Air Force would pay $30 million to reconfigure each of the 767s for commercial use and give the planes back to Boeing. In his 15 years in the Senate, John McCain had never seen such audacity. "This is the wrong thing to do," he intoned, leaning into the podium. "We are going to spend $20 billion plus over a 10-year period and 10 years from now are going to have nothing to show for it." Some senators, however, knew they would have plenty to show. The Boeing planes would be built in Washington State, converted to tankers in Kansas, and, possibly, based in North Dakota. In due course, just as day follows night, senators from those three states rose to endorse the tanker deal. Washington's Patty Murray spoke feelingly about the impact of all the new jobs the Boeing contract would bring to her state. Kansas's Pat Roberts reminded senators how important the new planes would be in the war in Afghanistan–never mind that not a single one would be ready to fly before the war on terror moved on to other venues. It fell to North Dakota's Kent Conrad to take on McCain directly. The Arizona senator's math, Conrad said, was "sheer nonsense." Conrad didn't deign to say why McCain's numbers were wrong and his right. He knew where the votes were.

Off the Senate floor, in the storied cloakroom where Robert Taft and Everett Dirksen had long ago perfected the art of the deal, a hearty septuagenarian went quietly to work. Ted Stevens is the senior senator from Alaska and the ranking Republican on the Appropriations Committee. Slowly, he prowled the room. Rick Santorum, the junior senator from Pennsylvania, turned to Stevens, his fellow Republican. Why couldn't the Air Force keep the 767s, he asked his older colleague, after the lease was up? Stevens, wearing his favorite Incredible Hulk tie, shook his head. "We can't do that," he said. "It will queer the deal." Santorum dropped the question. Stevens moved on. Later that day, appropriators slid five Santorum amendments into the appropriations bill. The amendments added $18 million in defense projects. All were earmarked for Pennsylvania.

That wasn't the end of it. Stevens and his colleagues didn't finish adding amendments to the $318 billion appropriations bill until nearly midnight, after a mammoth round-the-clock session of horse-trading and arm-twisting. When the senators were finally through, they didn't even bother to call the roll. The measure passed on an unusual voice vote, meaning the names of the senators who supported it were not recorded. Less than two weeks later, the final version of the bill passed the House. The vote was 408-6. In the Senate, the tally was 94-2; McCain and Phil Gramm of Texas voted no.

Shades of Ike. Dwight Eisenhower, in his valedictory address to the nation, warned famously of the perils of ignoring the influence of what he christened the military-industrial complex. Ike's words have been repeated endlessly, and there have been countless editorials decrying "beltway bandits" and their predilection for waste, fraud, and abuse. But there is no gainsaying the value of the billion- dollar corporations that have provided America with the most powerful military in the world. The weapons deployed in the war in Afghanistan, for example, are many times superior to the smart bombs and surveillance planes of the Persian Gulf War just a decade ago.

There's another side of the coin, however. Before September 11, government contractors regularly paid bribes, cut corners, and delivered high-priced hardware that didn't work. Instead of being sanctioned or barred from competing for future government contracts, many of these same companies–and often, the largest of them–returned to the bidding room and walked away with new contracts many times bigger and fatter (related story).

It's not just contractors who have managed to game the system, however. Members of Congress have long been eager enablers of the binge drinking that often passes for government spending in Washington–especially when they can ensure that lots of that spending happens back in their home states and districts. The larding of pork into legislation is a time-honored tradition. But what has dismayed pork-watchers is how even after September 11 lawmakers, lobbyists, and government contractors continue to use the defense budget for all kinds of new spending schemes (related story).

In overwhelming numbers, Americans support President Bush's decision to prosecute the war on terror. But it is not immediately clear how a new gym in Texas, a harbor cleanup in California, or raising a Civil War-era ironclad in Virginia do much to advance that war. A veteran congressional aide who specializes in defense issues has written a white paper under the pen name "Spartacus" attacking projects like the Boeing deal that have been inserted in the defense- spending bills since September 11. McCain has demanded investigations of the Boeing deal. "This is clearly war profiteering," he says. "It is obscene."

Done deal. It is also, in all likelihood, going to happen. James Roche, the Air Force secretary, says the cost comparisons between a lease and a purchase agreement for the Boeing planes are premature and simplistic. A lease deal, Roche says, would allow the Air Force to pay for the planes more slowly while acquiring them more quickly. The Air Force would reap billions of dollars in savings from retiring old tankers and avoiding big maintenance costs, Roche adds, by flying more-modern, fuel-efficient aircraft. "We want to be transparent as we can be," Roche said. "We are not blowing smoke up anyone's nose." The Air Force and Boeing declined to provide new cost estimates for a lease or a purchase.

For Boeing, obviously, the deal is, if not a lifesaver, an awfully well-timed windfall. The September 11 attacks resulted in a huge drop-off in air travel, and airlines canceled millions of dollars in orders for new planes. On September 18, Boeing announced that it would lay off up to 30,000 people. Soon after, Congress lined up behind a $15 billion bailout for the airlines. Boeing was already in the hunt for its own aid package. The aircraft maker has plenty of friends on Capitol Hill. Since 1997, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, Boeing's executives and political action committees have given Democrats $1.9 million and Republicans $2.6 million. By late September, Rudy de Leon, Boeing's chief lobbyist and a former deputy secretary of defense, met with Stevens.

An acknowledged master of the arcane appropriations process, Stevens quickly breathed new life into Boeing's proposal for the Air Force to acquire a new fleet of 767s. The senator called Air Force officers and told them he wanted the service to explore "creative funding" to acquire new Boeing planes to replace the aging KC-135 tanker refueling fleet, according to a congressional defense aide. Stevens told Air Force officials what he had in mind was a lease. "It was my idea to start replacing the fleet," Stevens says. "And my idea to use the leasing."

The lease deal, Stevens says, expands the amount of money available for new weapons systems by not dipping into the Pentagon's procurement budget and by tapping its operations and maintenance funds instead. But that budget is normally used to pay for training and to buy bullets, bombs, and spare parts. With the arsenal depleted from the Afghanistan war, some in the Pentagon say, now is not the time to raid the operations budget.

Not to worry, proponents of the lease deal counter. Stevens says that the savings from retiring old planes that need constant maintenance will offset some of the costs. Marvin Sambur, the Air Force assistant secretary for acquisitions, says the Pentagon can always move money from other parts of the budget. "It will not hurt readiness," Sambur says, "because, obviously, if the need be, we will have to put more money in the operations-and-maintenance budget.''

Low priority. If the refueling tankers were as important as the Air Force says, the service certainly hadn't made much of a fuss about them before Congress got into the act. It wasn't until October 9 that Roche wrote Rep. Norm Dicks, a Washington Democrat, to ask for the tankers. The Air Force hadn't mentioned them in the Quadrennial Defense Review, a key budget document published just a few weeks before Roche's letter to Dicks. They also weren't mentioned in the Pentagon's classified Future Years Defense Plan. Even after Roche's October 9 letter, the tankers weren't added to the Air Force's list of 60 unfunded priorities submitted to Congress, on October 22.

Just because the Air Force didn't ask for the tankers, however, doesn't mean it didn't need them. As far back as 1996, a General Accounting Office study criticized the growing repair costs for the aging KC-135 tankers. The average age of the KC-135 fleet is 41 years. Sambur says the extensive use of the tankers in the Afghan war really revealed the stresses on them. "The only time when you really think of tankers," he says, "is when you are in a war-type environment."

Pentagon and congressional aides say the tankers never made the Air Force wish lists because the brass worried that adding them would mean cutting F-22 fighters and C-17 cargo planes. Critics say the C-17 is too expensive and believe the F-22 is designed to meet a threat that no longer exists. The Air Force wants both–badly. "If they highlighted that the tankers were a problem," a Pentagon analyst says, "Congress might have jumped on it and taken money from the C-17 and F-22." The lease deal, in other words, could allow the Air Force to have its cake and eat it, too.

Although the lease plan won admirers among top Air Force officials, elsewhere in the Pentagon there were doubters. According to a Defense Department cost assessment, the Pentagon found that the lease would cost an extra $11.8 billion. Pete Aldridge, the Pentagon acquisitions chief, says leasing lowers initial costs, but he acknowledges the drawbacks. "Leasing will always exceed the price of purchasing," he says. Boeing, he believes, will eventually try to extend the lease, "which is a good deal for the company. It is not such a good deal from a total point of view for the military."

Because of that, some in the administration hate the deal. On November 2, Mitchell Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote a two-page letter to Conrad, the Senate Budget Committee chairman. Past leases had led to cost overruns, the letter said. Because of those abuses, OMB required the Boeing deal to be accounted for like a normal purchase. "I believe it is more important than ever," Daniels wrote, "that we properly record the obligations and costs of the government."

To get around Daniels's objections, appropriators decided in November to change the deal. If the Air Force gave the planes back at the end of the lease, or had to pay a substantial residual payment to keep them, the deal could be considered an operating lease. That meant appropriators could spread the costs out over many years. The compromise met the letter of the budget rules, but it also made a bad deal worse, because after the 10-year lease ended, the Air Force would be left with no planes. And now, U.S. News has learned, the proposal could get worse still. Pentagon, Boeing, and congressional sources say the lease will last only five to seven years. That will reduce the expense but means the Air Force could get even less use from the tankers. And a GAO study released last week says a lease could leave the military with a tanker shortage in 2015.

Opponents of the lease have not given up the fight. Daniels notes that the final agreement between Boeing and the Air Force has not been signed yet: "You haven't seen any planes delivered." McCain says he'll try to put a measure in the new defense authorization bill that would force the money for the lease to come from the procurement budget, not from maintenance funds. "We need to focus attention on one of the great rip-offs in the history of the United States of America," he said. "And I don't say that lightly."

Air Force brass, unsurprisingly, don't see it quite that way. Sambur, the Air Force acquisitions chief, pledges he won't sign any agreement that hurts taxpayers: "We want to make sure this deal is good for America."

With Noam Neusner and Mark Mazzetti

CROSS HAIRS
Hardened target

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has pledged to kill unnecessary Cold War-era weapons and spend money on new technology. His first target: the Army's Crusader howitzer, an $11 billion, 42-ton tracked gun originally developed to fight the Soviet Union.

But the Army wants to save the program. And since the Crusader would be built and tested in Oklahoma, powerful Republican lawmakers Rep. J. C. Watts and Sen. James Inhofe will fight the fight on Capitol Hill. Frank Carlucci, a former defense secretary and president of Carlyle Group, whose subsidiary United Defense Industries is building the gun, can also be expected to lobby to keep Crusader off the chopping block. – M.M.

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Obasanjo expresses regrets over loss of parents

VANGUARD  -  Friday 31st May, 2002

By Rotimi Ajayi

ABUJA—PRESIDENT Olusegun Obasanjo has expressed regrets that his parents are not alive to see his achievements today.

President Obasanjo expressed the regrets Wednesday night at the public presentation of a documentary film on his life.

He lost his parents in 1959, a year after he enlisted in the Nigerian army.

The film was entitled, “From Prison to Presidency.”

The president said, “I wish my parents were alive to say something in the documentary. “They made their own contributions to my being what I am today.”

He noted that his joy would have been greater if his parents were alive to witness his national and international status. He also regretted that he has not been able to re-unite with his head-teacher in primary school, simply known as Mr. Ayegbusi.

He noted that the teacher contributed immensely to his acquiring tertiary education.

He narrated that the head-teacher intervened on a very critical occasion when his education was endangered.

According to him, on the first day he was enrolled in the school, it took the intervention of the head teacher to plead for him when he (the president) slapped the enrolment teacher for demanding to know his surname.

He disclosed that he had considered the teacher’s question as an insult to his father.

In his remarks, the Vice President Atiku Abubakar who supervised the production of the film stated that the idea of the film started as soon as the president won the election in 1999.

He disclosed that the 80-minute film, was private sector funded.

The film features 46 contributors including former South African President, Nelson Mandela, Mr. Kofi Annan, the first and his present wives, his military colleague, Benjamin Adekunle and his former prison inmates.

Not less than 60 million naira was realised at the public presentation of the film, with the highest donation of N15 million made by Sir Emeka Offor, Bullet Construction N10 million , Chief Mike Adenuga N5 million, Works Minister N5 million and South-South governors N5 million.

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Star-Telegram  -  Posted on Mon, Apr. 01, 2002

5 Abilene students killed in car wreck

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

WEATHERFORD - Five Abilene Christian University students from Nigeria were killed when their Isuzu Rodeo veered off Interstate 20 and slammed onto a

 

concrete embankment near Weatherford on Sunday, the Texas Department of Public Safety said.

Their names were being withheld until their families can be notified, said Cindy Choate, a Mineral Wells-based DPS dispatcher.

The reason the sport utility vehicle went off the road was under investigation Sunday night.

The 1994 Rodeo was headed west and about to go over a highway bridge when it left the road, flew across the creek that runs under the bridge, and crashed onto the embankment 30 feet below, Choate said.

"It landed on its top when it hit," she said. All died at the crash site, she said. Two men in the front seat were wearing seat belts, and three women in the back were not, she said.

"The way the vehicle hit, it probably would not have made a difference," Choate said.

The vehicle was little more than a pile of twisted red metal and wheels. It was almost flattened and bore little resemblance to a vehicle.

The bodies were taken to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner's Office in Fort Worth, Choate said.

The tragedy stunned the university, Abilene Christian Provost Dwayne VanRheenen said.

"These were some of the best and brightest, and they always had a desire to study in America," VanRheenen said. "This is a great loss for our school."

Almost 200 people attended an impromptu service Sunday night in a campus chapel. Some students sobbed and hugged each other as university officials talked about the victims, and prayers were offered for their families and friends.

Four of the students were freshmen, and one was a sophomore, said Wendy Kilmer, a university spokeswoman. The students appeared to be taking advantage of a three-day Easter weekend that began Friday, but it was not known where they had traveled, Kilmer said.

"We have no idea what they were doing at the time," Kilmer said.

A time of prayer and mourning for the victims was planned for today at the university's daily chapel assembly.

The university was working Sunday to reach the students' relatives, said Kevin Kehl, associate director of Abilene Christian's Center for International and Intercultural Education. The task was complicated by distance, time differences and difficult international telephone connections, he said.

The university has about 4,700 students, including about 27 Nigerian students, Kehl said. Even though the names have not been released, it was likely that by Sunday afternoon, other Nigerian students knew which students died in the accident, he said.

"They are probably aware of who traveled with who, and they are able to put things together," Kehl said. "I know there is some confusion and some mourning at this time. We are assembling a team of counselors and are providing any kind of support services needed."

Kehl said he knew the students personally and was acquainted with their immediate families, including their parents. He said he spoke with one of the students a few days ago.

"We spoke about his family," Kehl said. "We had spoken about his brother and something about his school, and some of the issues facing international students and specifically Nigerian students."

Kehl described the students as religious. Some wanted to go home to Nigeria after graduating, and others wanted to stay.

Kehl said the two young men were involved in intramural sports.

"They'd try to get a game anytime they could," Kehl said. "They were good athletes, good soccer players."

The deaths will leave a noticeable void in the university community, he said.

"I feel a great deal of loss," Kehl said. "I don't really know what to say. My concern is for the other Nigerian students here."

Jason Mida, president of the university Students' Association, was in California on Sunday on a student association trip, but said in a telephone interview that he was saddened by the news. He did not know the names of any of the students, he said.

"We're pretty flustered right now," Mida said. "We're all a little shaken up because No. 1, that this has happened, and No. 2, we don't know anything. Our main focus is to get back to Abilene so we can be there and provide some support.

"Regardless of who they might be, it's a great loss for the city of Abilene and for the Church of Christ-affiliated schools."

This report contains material from The Associated Press.

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[MSNBC] – April 2, 2002

Abilene college mourns five students killed in crash  -  AP

ABILENE, Apr. 1 - The roommate of two of five Abilene Christian University students killed in a wreck says he's having a hard time believing his friends won't return from Easter break.

Sunday Amani, 26, a computer science major, says he keeps hoping Kolawole "Kola" Sami, 18, and Olutomi "Tomi" Aruwajoye, 17, will walk out of their rooms of their campus apartment and ask him to play soccer or help cook dinner.

"I seem to hear their voices," Amani, of Lagos, Nigeria, said Monday.

The university identified the other victims as Iyadunni "Dunni" Bakare, 18, a biology major; Abimbola "Abola" Orija, 19, a management major; and Toluwalope "Tolu" Olorunsola, 18, who had not declared a major. All were from Lagos, Nigeria.

The two men and three women died instantly Sunday about 6:35 a.m. when their sport utility vehicle veered off Interstate 20, then landed on its roof on a concrete embankment about 30 feet below, authorities said.

Sami, the driver, probably fell asleep, said Department of Public Safety Trooper Jeremy Smith. Weather likely was not a factor in the crash near Weatherford, about 110 miles east of Abilene, Smith said.

The school had been closed since Friday for Easter break, and the group was visiting friends across the state. The students left Houston late Saturday and drove all night, apparently trying to return to Abilene for Sunday morning church.

The deaths have shaken up this closeknit campus, especially the 230 international students from 60 countries. Abilene Christian, founded in 1906 and affiliated with the Church of Christ, has 4,700 students.

"This tragedy reminds us ... the words of Scripture that life is like a vapor that appears for a time, then vanishes away," university Provost Dwayne D. VanRheenen said Monday during the daily chapel service.

He urged students to find comfort in their faith, believing that death is not the end. During the service, students sang hymns and read from Psalms. Many wiped away tears.

A campus memorial service for the victims was being planned for Thursday.

Amani said he shared a closeness with his roommates, despite the age difference. He also knew the three women well.

Aruwajoye was described as gentle, kind and easy going, who loved playing soccer but also was serious about his studies.

Sami was majoring in industrial technology in hopes of taking over his father's business in Nigeria someday.

"It's a very hard reality for me," Amani said. "These guys are just getting to know life. They were full of hopes and expectations. All of a sudden, things are shattered."

Bakare was a loving, vivacious person who always smiled, friends said. Her father owns a pest-control company in Lagos, said Kevin Kehl, associate director of the university's Center for International and Intercultural Education.

Orija was soft-spoken and respectful, and she'd been trying to get her brother to transfer to ACU, Kehl said. She had developed a friendship with the provost's wife, who often took her and some other Nigerian students shopping.

Olorunsola, known for her kindness, went to the county jail last month as part of an outreach program for her Bible class. Just last week she volunteered to return because she enjoyed visiting the inmates, professors said.

News of the wreck spawned hundreds of sympathetic e-mails and calls from across the world, school officials said.

Chido Nwangwu, Houston-based publisher of usafricaonline.com, did not know the victims.

"It's extremely saddening to our community of Nigerians and Africans, and as Christians also, that the promise of those young and dedicated lives were wasted on a very glorious day of redemption, a day of Easter," he said.

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PM News (Lagos)   -  April 2, 2002

More Trouble for Lagos Criminals: Police Arrest 208
Posted to the web April 2, 2002

Gabriel Orok & Soji Oyeranmi   -   Lagos

There appears to a be no let up in the current ouslaught launched by the new police administration against criminals in Lagos State as not less than 208 men of the underworld were arrested during the Easter period at various locations.

New police Inspector-General, Mr. Tafa Balogun, had on assumption of office promised hell for robbers in the state, saying they will have no place to hide.

Three weeks ago, 60 of the criminals were arrested by crack detectives at different black spots in the state.

P.M.News investigations revealed that about 120 suspected criminals were picked up at Oworonshoki, Bariga, Ajegunle, Orile Iganmu, Maroko, Isale Eko, Ajangbadi, Okokomaiko and Ikotun.

The raids were jointly launched by a combined team of crack detectives from Lagos State Police Command, Zone 2 Command, Federal Anti-robbery Squad and the newly launched crime squad, Fire-for-Fire.

"Our fresh strategy is to attack their enclaves at the planning stage and nip their activities in the bud. The raids will be sustained for as long as possible until the hoodlums are forced to find a decent means of livelihood", a top police chieftain stated.

P.M.News investigations also revealed that armed bandits who raided Inter-continental Bank in Lagos Island recently have been arrested by detectives from Zone 2 Police Command. Some of the robbers were arrested in Lagos while the others were arrested in Calabar and Enugu. Police report also confirmed that another 58 criminals were arrested by men of Operation Fire-for-Fire in conjunction with policemen from the Lagos police command.

The criminals were picked up at Agege, Ilupeju, Oshodi, Ikotun and Ikeja. They were later arraigned at an Ikeja Magistrate Court charged with criminal offence punishable under Section 417 (b) of the Criminal Code Cap 31 Vol. II Laws of Lagos State.

Commenting on the ouslaughts, Lagos State Police Command spokesman, Victor Chilaka, said Lagos robbers are in trouble. He assured that in no distant future, Lagosians will not only be sleeping with their two eyes closed but also with their doors widely opened.

Also arrested in the current wave of mass arrest of criminals (including Area Boys) in the state is the father of the most wanted Lagos robber, Oseni, popularly called Baba Ibeji at Bariga.

The man, according to police sources, had been the brain behind his son's robbery exploits because of his prowess in juju and was also the custodian of the various arms used by his son and members of his gang. Many members of Oseni's family are said to be in hiding for fear of being arrested.

During the raid on Oseni father's hideout and black spots in Bariga about 30 other suspected criminals were arrested. They are currently being detained at the state Crime Investigations Department.

It would be recalled that Oseni was recently killed after he sustained injuries during the raid on his hideout by the police.

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Culture & Ideas 5/13/02  (A Preview of U.S. News & World).
An Older Order
Will more mature clergy save the Catholic priesthood?

By Michael Schaffer

HALES CORNERS, WIS.– In many ways, Tom Mescall cuts the classic figure of a junior seminarian. Earnest and thoughtful, Mescall grew up in the Roman Catholic Church. As a youngster, he served as an altar boy. Since then, he has helped out around the parish whatever way he could. He admits that he struggles with his studies but not with the faith that brought him to a life of prayer and scholarship at suburban Milwaukee's Sacred Heart School of Theology. After ordination, Mescall hopes, parishioners back in Chicago will see him as just another priest, a good man doing good work.

But Mescall will also understand if the congregation sees its brand-new priest as something not quite so ordinary. After all, Mescall is 54. He has spent 27 years as a lawyer, including 17 years as a judge. And then, of course, there's the small matter of his children: He has two of them, products of a marriage that dissolved in 1981, after 11 years. "I feel like I've led a full life," he says.

If that life has left Mescall's hair grayer than the average seminarian's, it has also given him an outlook that he says will make him a more compassionate priest. "I hope I have a much less romantic idea of the church," says Mescall, who first considered the priesthood as a teen. "I hope it's a much more realistic conception now. Life has challenged me, made me much more open, made me see the Gospel in a much more inclusive way."

Most Catholics aren't used to fathers who are also grandfathers. But that may soon change. The reason: so-called second-career vocations like Mescall and 115 colleagues at Sacred Heart, the largest of three U.S. seminaries that specialize in training aspiring priests who have come late–often very late–to the ministry. Even as the American Catholic Church grapples with a scandal that has turned clerical collars into marks of suspicion, a quieter transformation has also taken place: Just who's joining the priesthood has changed dramatically since the priests snared by today's scandal were first ordained. And nowhere is that change as noticeable as at Sacred Heart, which first began training older seminarians just 30 years ago. Back then, says the Rev. James Brackin, the seminary's rector, "few people even knew it was possible" to become a priest after spending decades in the secular world.

 Today, the growing number of aspirants who have traded in their living-room La-Z-Boys for the small beds of Sacred Heart's 12-by-9-foot dorm rooms includes a marketing executive, a printing company owner, and a pilot. There are blue-collar workers and retirees, M.B.A.'s and military men. At least 14 are divorced (all of them have received annulments). Seven are widowers.

In part, the growing popularity of places like Sacred Heart reflects a trend that crosses religious lines. Nationwide, most new seminary graduates are over 30, and a quarter are over 50. But in the Catholic Church–where a clergy shortage has left thousands of churches without priests–this change is particularly significant. A generation back, most aspiring priests entered seminaries as teens. Older arrivals were called "retarded vocations." Now even ordinary Catholic seminarians arrive with a college degree and an average age of 30.

Longer records. Second-career vocations, says Sister Katarina Schuth of the St. Paul (Minn.) Seminary School of Divinity, who has researched priestly training, have become much more popular–though they're no solution to the priest drought. "It's something the church never took advantage of," she says. And as for the sexual-abuse scandals, Brackin says a 30-year career is no guarantee that someone isn't a pedophile. But, he says, "there's a much, much longer record to look at" in background checks.

Once they arrive, though, seminarians at Sacred Heart face just the same program as anyone else. Early on a Tuesday morning, Joe Loftus, 62, a burly onetime IRS agent, distributes the mass program outside the chapel. It's a little before 7:30, but Loftus has been awake for a few hours–a rare chance for private time. From mass, he'll go to breakfast, a day full of classes, an evening service, and dinner. Then he'll hit the books. "It's not an easy life," says Loftus. "You work hard; you sure do."

 Most seminarians spend four years at Sacred Heart; aspirants who arrive without a degree spend an extra two years at a nearby Catholic college. (Thirty-eight dioceses–each with its own rules and standards–send priests to Sacred Heart, picking up the $16,350-a-year tab with the expectation that ordained seminarians will return home for the rest of their careers.) Classes include biblical history as well as professional skills, like how to give a sermon. But seminarians–especially those with advanced degrees–say the hardest classes make them turn away from the concrete matters that dominated previous lives. "I wasn't used to talking about philosophy," says Ken Valka, 53. "Coming from a law practice, you're trained to be cautious and closed. When you come here, it's the opposite."

A former managing partner of a Texas law office and mayor of a Houston suburb, Valka says unlearning his business-world skills is well worth it. "The issue isn't 'are we having fun?' " he says. "It's 'is our life meaningful?' " Valka recalls driving home from a South Texas deposition one night and wondering what his life was all about. "I looked up and there was a large sign: 'Consider the Priesthood.' " Two years later–local dioceses spend a long time vetting would-be seminarians–he was off to Wisconsin. When he told his two kids about his decision, they weren't surprised. "They just said, 'We just knew,' " Valka says.

The seminary, though, was a little more of a surprise. In a church rocked by scandal, and in a world where celibacy remains a constant struggle, seminary programming now includes extensive discussions about intimacy. And if talking philosophy is new to most seminarians, talking sex is downright alien. "We come right out and ask them what their sexual orientation is," says Father Marty Barnum, who runs the seminary's spiritual formation programming. "We're looking to see if they have a healthy understanding of who they are."

OK to celibacy. For people who've been married, or even for those who've been outside the priestly culture, the notion of celibacy takes on a different form. "At 21 or 18, being celibate would have been something I wouldn't have wanted," says seminarian Mike Campbell, a retired Air Force officer. "I'm 52 now. I've been celibate for a while. It's different." Never married, Campbell says he's more worried about being lonely and old than about going without sex.

But despite their uncertainties–many seminarians are not yet sure they'll take the final plunge–they're not worried that colleagues will wind up in future church scandals. Because they've spent so many years out in the litigious world that is secular America, Sacred Heart's seminarians have an easier time absorbing modern lawsuit-proofing lessons, like never being alone with young parishioners. And though seminarians pronounce themselves disturbed by both the moral and managerial failures of the priestly sex-abuse scandal, the consensus is that the frankness of the modern seminary–combined with the self-knowledge that comes from a long life of ups and downs–means a repeat is unlikely. "The people involved in that, they went to high school seminary from when they were young," says Daniel Cisneros, 65, a grandfather of five from southern Texas. "They didn't have the maturity."

At 5:15 on a foggy evening, seminarian T. Patrick Maher begins the singing at Sacred Heart's evening vespers. Everyone in the cavernous chapel–all men, except for a few female seminary staffers–sings along, in full-throated unison. In two months, Maher, 41 and divorced, will be ordained and will lead a Michigan church whose parishioners will surely sing much less eagerly than his colleagues here. He says he's ready for all of that, and more. "There's a point in falling in love where you grow from the romantic ideal to the reality," he says. "We've been there in life, and it's where we are here now. And it's still great."

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Let's celebrate Global Friendship Season at every opportunity.

Show your friends how much you care. Refer my websites to everyone you consider a FRIEND. If the referral comes back to you, then you'll know you belong to the circle of friendship.

THANKS!!!  REMEMBER to go back to my websites & SIGN THE GUESTBOOKS:

http://www.millenniummovers.homestead.com/patswebsite.html

http://www.agnesnsionu.homestead.com/agnesnsionu.html

Sealed with Love & Prayer - Patrick Nsionu - New York - 2002+.

If you have a great line, story, or joke, please let me know at :

PNsionu@aol.com  or  Nsionu@Fordham.edu   and  PatNsionu@Juno.com

(-: One little smile can fill a large room with sunshine :-)

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THE GUARDIAN
CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH
LAGOS. NIGERIA.     Thursday, May 16 2002

 

JAMB scratch card

SIR: My intention has been drawn to the recent computer technological device of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAM). The latest device termed "JAMB On line Information Service" enables candidates under JAMB to check for their examination centres and results with ease and promptness. Fine as this device may be (thanks to the Internet), we see the JAMB approach to this device as not only questionable but also fraudulent as we shall show.

What JAMB does is to instruct the candidates to buy what it terms "Scratch Card" at various banks and post offices, scattered all over the federation at the cost of N230. The candidates are asked to scratch the card, enter the PIN numbers with their registration numbers and then download their centre numbers or JAMB results.

The question is, having bought the UME forms for N1,650 and having filled the forms, enclosing the mandatory four self addressed envelopes (SAE), are the candidates not by contractual right, entitled to have their centre numbers and results sent to them? Is it not fraudulent to ask the over 800,000 candidates who have already paid for their forms to now pay N230 for the purpose of getting their exam centre numbers and results, which JAMB is under a contractual duty to release to them? Is JAMB, no more a statutory body? When has JAMB turned into a Plc? Is JAMB not by Decree No 33 of 1989 saddled with the duty of notifying candidates of their exam centres.

What this means is that JAMB would now be making an additional N184 million if 800,000 candidates buy the scratch card aside from the N1.7 billion they would be making from the sale of forms. This is unfair.

We call upon the JAMB authorities to desist forthwith from the sale of the scratch card since by contractual right, the candidates are entitled to get their centre numbers and results free without charges.

Osuagwu Ugochukwu,   Lagos.

Copyright 2002 @ The Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved).

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THE GUARDIAN
CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH
LAGOS. NIGERIA.     Thursday, May 16 2002

JAMB and university admissions

AS part of its efforts towards ensuring that the nation's universities become autonomous both in deed and word, the Federal Government has sent a Bill to the National Assembly which would place admissions squarely in the hands of the universities. If the Bill passes through the Federal Legislative House, the National Universities Commission (NUC) would only serve as a clearance house, different from its present role of running and formulating policies for the nation's 40 odd universities. As for JAMB, it would only conduct matriculation examinations, leaving the more critical function of admitting students to individual universities. By this action, the government has shown that it feels the pulse of the country, particularly as it affects education. JAMB has become an indication of the adverse effect of over-centralisation in a country as diverse and big as ours.

JAMB was set up in 1978 as a central body charged with conducting concessional examinations into the nation's universities. Decree No. 2 of 1978 (amended by Decree No 33 of 1989) empowered the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board to conduct Matriculation Examination for entry into all degree awarding institutions in Nigeria; and fix suitably qualified candidates in the available places in the institutions. Hitherto, each university conducted its own examination and prescribed its minimum standards for candidates, screening them and choosing the best material into the various disciplines. JAMB conducted its first examination in 1978, placing students who had passed the examination in universities. At this time, the number of candidates was manageable. Over the years, the number of persons seeking admissions into universities has gone up astronomically, thereby over-stretching the facilities of the organisation. For example, by 1969, after 20 years of existence, the University of Ibadan had a total population of 4,000. In contrast, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, had a students' enrolment of close to 40,000 after 20 years.

There have been allegations of cheating and fraud in the qualifying process, often with the connivance of invigilators. In some centres, particularly the private ones, parents are obliged to pay a little more so that their wards would benefit from the fraudulent assistance offered by the owners of the centres. Although JAMB has taken some steps towards reducing the incidence of fraud and impersonation, the overall impression is that a lot more has to be done if the matriculation examination must be taken seriously. Some of the placed candidates have fallen short of the standard claimed in their performance. The government's initiative therefore needs to be commended. However, some questions arise from the modalities being proposed. Is it necessary for JAMB to still conduct examinations? Would it not be tidier to allow each university to set its own criteria for admissions, if we truly want to decentralise and work according to the spirit of true federalism and the principle of autonomy? Would it not be better to allow candidates apply to as many universities as possible in order to ensure a degree of flexibility?

Currently, while some universities are over-subscribed owing to their location and stability of academic calendar, others barely get enough students to fill existing vacancies. To avoid this kind of scenario, candidates should be allowed to have a wider range of choices by applying to as many universities as possible. It may be apposite to observe that autonomy carries with it a lot of responsibilities, particularly in the area of generating funds for research and emoluments. In order to make the best of autonomy, the different governing councils must use their contacts and goodwill to attract grants from interested individuals and organisations abroad and within the country. Certainly this is a clear signal for our universities to join their counterparts in the wider world to attract funding from private sources. As for fears about the government emasculating the unions in the university system, it does need reiteration that no law would be passed which would be inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the 1999 Constitution. We therefore call for a speedy passage of the bill to help alleviate the awesome problems which currently confront the nation's universities.

The surgery at OAU teaching hospital   -  OVER the past several decades, particularly since the second half of the century, the world has witnessed spectacular breakthroughs in medical practice - from new diagnostic techniques to organ transplants, micro-surgery, complicated reproductive procedures, genetic engineering and the discovery of 'wonder' drugs. Thus, against the backdrop of the current advancement in medical science and revolutionary surgical procedures, the recent feat of the separation of Siamese Twins by a team of doctors at the Obafemi Awolowo University Teaching Hospital, Ile-Ife may appear insignificant and even commonplace. The effort is however worth commending and celebrating as an expression of the latent talent that lies within the bowels of this great country. The feat equally represents an idiom of the state of health of our collective orientation towards national development.

Our propensity to mismanage resources is legendary and evident in our tattered health care delivery at all levels and particularly at the tertiary level. Our medical personnel operate under miserable working conditions with poorly maintained and often antiquated facilities, where available. This sorry state is not for want of competent medical professionals. The population of Nigerian medical professionals abroad can be counted in their tens of thousands, serving the health needs of other lands, from the United States to Saudi Arabia and from Zimbabwe to Chile. Our medical personnel, qualified and specialised in every field of medical endeavour are as knowledgeable, competent and skilful as can be found anywhere. The endowment of native intelligence is universal and not the exclusive preserve of the developed world.

The handicap of poor facilities, perhaps far more than the search for greener pastures, has been largely responsible for the brain drain that has pauperised our health sector. It is equally responsible for the exodus of the rich and privileged who frequently seek medical treatment abroad. The effect of this on the national economy is substantial. Foreign exchange that could otherwise be invested in improving and modernising our health infrastructure and the training of personnel is thus lost to the country.

A major deficiency in our health care delivery is the absence of a coherent, formidable and workable national health insurance programme. Although such a programme has been on the drawing board for over 30 years, it is yet to see the light of day. Common medical needs are thus well beyond the reach of the teeming poor in Nigeria, not to talk of the calls for specialised surgical procedures.

In the face of this daunting scenario, the separation of the Siamese Twins in Ife is worth our commendation and celebration, just as the many other bold surgical efforts made in our other health institutions, such as the recently celebrated open heart surgeries at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) at Enugu. We salute the courage and ingenuity of our medical personnel in taking up the challenges posed by our moribund health regime and achieving notable results. We call on the nation's leadership in collaboration with the private sector, to show greater commitment to developing a credible health insurance policy and to transforming the image and substance of our national health care delivery. It is well within our nation's resource capacity and professional competence so to do.

Copyright 2002 @ The Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved).

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THE GUARDIAN
CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH
LAGOS. NIGERIA.     Thursday, May 16 2002

U.S. increases visa fees, others

A NEW regime of fees charged for processing visas, passports and some other services to American citizens overseas has been released by the United States (U.S).

According to the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. embassy in Lagos yesterday, the new fee for visas would take effect from June 1 while the fee charged for passport services is scheduled to come into operation on August 19.

Under the new arrangement, the fee for a non-immigrant visa (NIV) or machine readable visa fee (MRV) is pegged at $65 as against $45 which it has been for several years. The fees, which are non-refundable, are also payable in the local currency.

According to the announcement, applicants for immigrant visas (IV) will henceforth pay $335 or its naira equivalent.

Meanwhile, the embassy will be closed today for the observance of the Eid-El Maulud holiday. All immigrant and non-immigrant visa appointments scheduled for today have been postponed to June 5, the embassy said.

 

Copyright 2002 @ The Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved).

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 WORTHY NEWS   -  HEADLINE

Nigeria's Defense Minister Says Muslims Plan to Wipe Out Christianity
Katsina State Stops Christian Religious Education
by Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria (Compass) -- Muslim leaders aim to eradicate Christianity in northern Nigeria, says Nigeria's Defense Minister, Lt. General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma.   Danjuma told a gathering of the Northern (Nigeria) Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF) on April 20 in Abuja, the federal capital, that Christians are now under severe pressure. He urged the Christian leaders assembled at the All Saints Anglican Church not to be intimidated.

"Our religion is under assault in our country. If Christians are not careful, there will be a time that the propagation of the teaching of Jesus Christ will become an offense," Danjuma said. "We know that we are minority in the north, but if we are not careful, we will be wiped out of existence in the north."

He said the only way out is for the church and its leaders to ensure that indigenous citizens of northern Nigeria are massively recruited into the pastoral ministry so that they can effectively reach their Muslim brothers with the gospel.

"We want full indigenization of the clergy in all the cities and the rural areas so that … when there is any religious crisis in such places, there will be people that can not run away because such have no second home."

He lamented that thousands of Christians had been killed in northern Nigeria in the past three years, and thousands of others were forced to relocate to the southern parts of the country for fear of being killed by Muslim fundamentalists.

"Many of our brothers and sisters have had cause to run away from Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi, to Jos and Abuja. But with the recent attack on them in Jos, those who could not go down south had resettled in Abuja," he observed.

He likened what is happening in northern Nigeria to what happened in Egypt and other North African countries, where he said Christianity flourished as a faith and was later wiped out by Islam.

Danjuma also told the NOSCEF attendees that the incessant attacks on Christians by Muslim fundamentalists and the implementation of the Islamic legal system by Muslim governors in northern Nigeria were just two of many strategies to wipe out Christianity in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the government of Katsina state in northern Nigeria has cancelled the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge by removing its curriculum from all public primary and secondary schools, while making the teaching of Islamic Religious Knowledge compulsory.

An official statement issued on April 30 stated, "The government's decision was in line with its policy of tailoring programs that are in tune with the Islamic system we envisaged and can bring about rapid development."

Rt. Rev. James Kwasu, the Anglican Bishop of Katsina, told Compass that the decision is a continuation of Islamization in the state.

"It is a tactful way to curtail our religious liberty, hoist Islam on us, and ensure that Christians are eliminated from Katsina state," Kwasu said. He explained that Nigeria's national policy on education provides for the curricula of both Islamic and Christian religious studies to be taught in all schools.

Katsina state, with a population of 3.7 million people, has a minority Christian population of about 30 percent. The state is one of 12 states in northern Nigeria that has adopted and is implementing Islamic law.

Copyright 2002, Compass News Direct.  Used with Permission.
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BIAFRA FOUNDATION
733 15TH ST NW, SUITE 700
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
PHONE (202) 347-2983;   FAX (202) 347-2984
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Washington, DC.  March 3, 2002 {
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 PRESS RELEASE MEMORIAM TO GENERAL AGUIYI IRONSI.
General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, born on March 3, 1920 would have been 82 years old today. For his vision of a truly united Nigeria, where centrifugal forces reigned to the detriment of the polity, he was murdered. General Ironsi's gruesome murder and the massacres unleashed on his fellow Igbo people and other former Eastern Nigerians by, primarily, northern Nigerians were major factors leading to the Biafra-Nigeria War. That northern army officers, including officers appointed to sensitive positions by Ironsi, and the northern elite conspired and executed the horrible deeds are unassailable facts of Nigeria's bloody history. Now, some among the northern elite are attempting a revisionism of the most shameless kind, as when Alhaji Liman Ciroma, in a paper presented at the Nigeria War College, accused the martyred general of causing the "Nigerian Civil War."
The Biafra Foundation condemns Alhaji Ciroma's provocative, tarnishing of General Ironsi's honor.
On this his 82ND birthday, were he alive, it is befitting to honor the fallen general by highlighting his exemplary military career, provided in excepts of a tribute eloquently delivered by General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu on August 2, 1986, twenty years after Ironsi's murder. Ironsi, Ojukwu stated, had "a military career studded with firsts-first Captain, first Major, first ADC to the Governor General of Nigeria,
first equerry to the Queen, first Lieutenant Colonel, first battalion Commander, first Brigadier, first psc, first military attache to a Nigeria Diplomatic Mission, first Nigerian Commander of a UN battalion, first Major General.commanded the United Nations Force in the Congo. Appointed the first Nigerian General Officer commanding the Nigerian Army in 1965." General Ironsi was also a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and a Member of the Victorian Order, an honor bestowed on him by Austria for his valor in the rescue of Austrian nationals during the Congo crisis. May the soul of General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi rest in perfect peace.

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NIGERIAWORLD.COM  --  Friday, May 24, 2002

Anambra State suffers unending economic strangulation -  Maduozu Lumba maduozulumba@netzero.net

For the past few months, the stories emanating from Nigeria suggests a rancous head wind into the local government elections scheduled for August this year, and the legislative and upper executive elections scheduled for early next year.

As politicians jockey for vantage positions to ensure their reelection, the masses of Eastern Nigeria and Anambra State in particular continue to suffer untold hardship brought about by a combination of dumb leadership of the executive governor, a ruthless business man in the name of Sir Emeka Offor whose deft political moves against an elected governor to ensure that he never saw the light of a reelection possibility, and a gloating President and Presidency who could not hide his ebullient joy in suffocating the Anambra State governor to momentarily forget his mission and advocacy for a Nigerian President of Igbo Origin come 2003 elections.

The stage was clearly set for the tripod titans when Chief Offor, who largely financed the election aspirations of Governor CC Mabdinuju of Anambra State in May 1999 found himself shut out of the state governments power corridor. By a stroke of the pen, our inexperienced governor contracted to reward Chief Offor by agreement to appoint Offor's nominees to sensitive State cabinet positions. To Chief Offor who boasted that he was and is never interested in the lucrative non transparent contracting practices of State government funded projects, claimed that he only intended to bring sound accounting methods to the state contract awards and expenditures.

Once the governor ascended his executive office, cracks soon appeared and before long, he sacked the Offor boys from his government, but not before he used Offor further to secure huge loans from commercial banks at exorbitant interest rates in order to take off with his capital and non capital projects all around the state. This singular act, as we shall see, have set the entire achievements of the Governor on a tailspin. The beneficiaries of these contracts did not waste any time to seek mobilization fees to start the projects largely acclaimed to have recorded insignificant success, compared to the tune of millions of the contract value. The bazaar was on. The blazing governor rode as high as he could, speaking with swagger as he targeted security and safety as his prime target. Soon, his Bakassi boys enthralled the state and nation by their brazen, crude, barbaric, yet effective crime busting techniques by openly beheading petty thieves, armed robbers, witch craft doctors, fetish doctors and sometimes political opponents. Criminals found Anambra State too hot to live in as decaying corpses littered major roads in Anambra state.

The Governor scored higher points when he was elected Chairman of South eastern governors association during which he proclaimed that the southeast must produce the next president of Nigeria, in 2003. OBJ went mad! How can this Igbo governor make such statement? In a series of harsh comments from President Obasanjo, he questioned the sanity, purity and impunity of the commentators who clamored for an Igbo President. The Governor was from henceforth marked for political liquidation. Afterall, Governor Mbadinuju did not support OBJ in Jos convention that produced Chief Obasanjo as the PDP Party flagbearer.

 

While the governor dogged bullets from the increasing spikes of the APF, a faction of his PDP Party sponsored by Chief Emeka Offor to wrest the machinery of the Anambra State's PDP from the Governor, the Governor further suffered migraine headaches from the massive defection from his political control, of influential Anambrarians who reckoned that the political ship of the maverick Governor may be headed for the rocks and sought shelter from alignment with the President's Federal arm and its attendant crumbs of political bread. The Abuja boys swelled in numbers. Soon, attacks from Igbo and Anambra citizens increased as the Governor found no shelter to hide from the snipers.

The commercial banks came calling for repayment of the millions they had given to the State Government in loans which had been defaulted and in accordance with the irrevocability clause of the contract signed by the Governor, the banks were directed to be paid straight out of the Federal monthly allocation due Anambra State upon default. In exercise therefore of this clause, the Federal Government had been deducting close to 600 million naira a month to pay the commercial banks. As a result, today, Anambra state had been unable to pay its teachers and workers for almost six months. The state is paralyzed! OBJ was smiling when the Anambra State Governor, who had proclaimed to fight for an Igbo President, became one of the first groups of people that went to Ota, the Presidents village, to beg him to run for a second term. Tufiakwa!!

These days, you could hardly see OBJ without ODERA close by. The governor had so much forgotten his fight for Igbo Presidency that today; he openly campaigns for OBJ's return to Aso Rock. Do you think he is really sincere? The political reality dawned on Odera that he must as well survive. To do this, he supported OBJ and in turn, so far in hushed principle, OBJ had also supported the renomination of the incumbent governors for a second term.

The people of Anambra State are desirous of a good leader, but could hardly make sense out of the political summersault of the maverick governor. Recently, the Nigeria Labor Council (NLC) in an open service/protest held a mock burial of the governor at Awka in sympathy for their fellow Anambra workers who had not been paid their salaries for months. The NLC Leader comrade Oshiomole had inadvertently targeted the effect of the non-payment, not the cause. On which legal principle does the Federal Government stand in withholding funds due to a state because of the State's default of a commercial loan?

Has the IMF seized Nigeria's oil sales/revenue because of our billions of Dollars owed? Does the Anambra State Government not realize that the withholding is illegal? Regardless of the irrevocability of the contract, would the State's Attorney General not find good legal ground to seek injunctive remedy from the courts of the land against draconian enforcement of a seemingly breach of contractual obligation? The court must be the final, if not the only arbiter to interpret the breach as it is empowered to balance the mitigating factors that caused the breach and prescribe appropriate payment plan.

The Presidency's action in withholding almost 90% of funds due a State, and thereby subjecting our citizens to undue hardship is reckless and dehumanizing. Governor Mbadinuju should employ judicial remedy to his problem rather than the new desperate alliance with OBJ and his new directive to his commissioners to raise Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from poor Okada operators and petty traders in a veiled effort to revamp his dwindling political fortunes in the state.                                  RETURN TO HOME PAGE

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DAILY TIMES   (accessed July 19, 2002)

Bishops storm state Assembly, seek better life for citizens

TONY OKAFOR, Awka

ANGLICAN and Catholic bishops in Anambra State on Wednesday stormed the State House of Assembly over the hardship and insecurity of lives and property in the area.

The bishops, who described the condition in the state as worse than a war situation, met with some prominent members of the House of Assembly for more than one-hour in the office of the Speaker behind the camera.

Speaking with newsmen later, the spokesman of the Bishops, the Catholic Archbishop of Onitsha, Rev. Albert Obiefuna said they were sad over the difficulties the people of the area were going through.

He said the situation in the state had made a destitute of many who now disturbed the church for food.

The bishops said their mission was to stir members of the House to be alive to their constitutional duties.

The clerics said: “We want to know what is happening? What they (legislators) are doing, and what they intend to do?”

“We want all categories of workers in the state paid. We want our secondary schools reopened,” the bishops stated.

Apparently not comfortable with the complacence of the members of the House, the bishops said the people of the state had not felt the impact of the State Assembly.

Responding, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Chief Barth Onugbolu, said the bishops’ petition was proper, stressing that within one week, the House would respond to the bishops, protest and make it public.

Elsewhere in the state capital, hundreds of teachers protested against the chairman of the State Primary Education Board (SPEB), Mrs Rose Nwankwo.

According to the protesters who carried placards with unprintable inscriptions the SPEB chairman should account for milliosn of naira meant for their leave allowances.

They alleged that the board’s chairman connived with the state government to “meddle” with thier 2001 leave allowances.

In a similar development, member of the Anambra State Vigilance Service (AVS ) a.k.a Bakassi Boys stormed the State’s Government House, demanding the removal of their chairman, Mr. Camilius Ebekwe.

The group which accused the chairman of inefficiency and high-handedness, threatened that if the state government failed to remove Ebekue soonest, they would be force dto take ugly steps against him.

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Eve Raps Lagos to a Stand Still
Concert - Dateline: 09/05/2002 02:06:49

The delectable queen of American rap, Eve, was at her best last weekend during the Econet sponsored COJA 8th All African Games Music Fiesta, which took place at the Ikoyi Polo Club, Lagos.

Appearing on stage at about 1:00 a.m., Eve was the first to perform in a concert, which ought to have commenced seven hours earlier. She began with "Ladies", which according to her, is a track dedicated to ladies 'who's got men'. She continued with "This City", "Love Is Blind", "Wet", and "Who's That Girl?"to send the mammoth crowd wild with excitement.

Two tracks that took the crowd to the highest crescendo were "Love Is Blind" and " Who 's That Girl ? ' They threw their hands high up in the air with excitement, waving their hands, singing, and dancing at the same time to Eve's scintillating raps.

DJ Jimmy Jatt, who has already become an institution in Disc Jockeying, was readily available to supply music mixed with scratches from his Jukebox at interludes. Each time he blared out music from his turntable, the whole place was turned into a party scene and the atmosphere became upbeat. At a time many started wondering if it would not be appropriate to leave Jimmy Jatt to continue with his scratches and mixes, but the contract with live artistes performances still needed to be honoured, so DJ Jimmy Jatt's party had to be cut short to allow the artistes who had been billed to perform take over the stage.

Tony Tetuila then came in after the musical interlude by DJ Jimmy Jatt. He rendered such hit tracks as "It's Morning Time", "Omode Meta", and "My Car" with frenzy, the crowd responded "Owo repete" (lots of money), when Tony sang "You don hit my car..." As always, Tetuila was a thriller on stage.

K-Ci and JoJo, the duo of American R & B masters were the third to perform to the capacity-filled Polo turf of Ikoyi Club at the Lagos venue of the COJA 8th All African Games Music Fiesta. The duo, no doubt, stole the hearts of the audience away as the atmosphere of the venue became enveloped with love when they rendered their soul-soothing hit tracks. "Last Night ", "Wait Until Tonight " Play On ", "Thinking About you", and "Me & You" were amongst the eleven songs delivered during the event. An adaptation of Steve Wonder's "Man many wishes" sent the crowd into the widest ecstasy of the early morning as they sang and danced along.

Just like during the Star Mega Jam last December, Ras Kimono, who performed after the duo was saddled with the responsibility of maintaining the high tempo created by K-Ci and JoJo. Much as he tried to impress the crowd, it was a tall challenge for him. Idris

Abdulkarim and Sunny Nneji also performed in that order after Ras Kimono. They also tried the best they could to impress the audience. But then there was nothing like te imported stars. Probably for the fans, they knew their local stars too well that they took them for granted.

COJA 8th All African Games Music Fiesta was put together by Allianz Nigeria Limited and sponsored by Econet Wireless Nigeria. According to Lionel Naude, Chief Marketing Development Officer, Econet Wireless, the show was organized to create massive awareness campaign for the up coming event to be held in Nigeria next year

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AllAfrica.com     --    Okoya's Party Mania  --  Tempo (Lagos)

May 9, 2002
Posted to the web May 8, 2002

At 62, Razak Akanni Okoya is showing no signs of slowing down. On every front, Okoya's ascent remains steep and at a high velocity.

Eleganza Industries, the umbrella of his business empire of six companies, keep the money rolling in.

In turn, the money - tonnes of it - has ensured that Okoya remains visible, influential and attractive. Attractive? Yes. And this finds an eloquent testimony in a string of wives, the latest of which is Folashade, a dishy undergraduate of the University of Lagos.

But more than his business success, parties - grand, almost garish - are what have kept Okoya regularly in the headlines.

As a matter of fact, Hollywood - America's capital of jaw-dropping parties, with its cast of immodestly opulent fun lovers - must be missing a genuine candidate.

Such is the magnitude of Okoya's parties, each of which remains a major topic of discussion until he throws another one to dislodge it. It is only another of his parties that can banish one earlier thrown by him. No one else's. It is not just the scale of the parties that amazes the public. So does the frequency.

This year alone, the Okoya household has thrown half a dozen parties and, no one who attended any of these left the venue the same: they were stupefied.

On 19 January, Okoya's daughter, Biola Okoya-Johnson, turned 36. The birthday presented a chance for the businessman to roll out the drums. Invitations went out to the celebrant's friends to converge at her father's seaside estate on Ikoyi Crescent, off Osborne Road. Those who attended knew they were in a top-tier party.

Little thatched huts were constructed to provide idyllic, almost natural backdrop. Fire works exploded ceaselessly like it was a rock concert. There was also a boat regatta to entertain guests soaked in the music of Seun Anikulapo-Kuti and Dede Mabiaku.

A week earlier, Okoya's last child, Oladimeji, had turned one on 12 January. Sure cause for a party. There was, however, a bigger cause for celebration. Okoya and his youngest son are birthday mates. A two-in-one affair beckoned.

One Okoya party is usually like ten parties rolled into one.

Two on the same day simply knocked the public out. Celebrity journals ran out of adjectives. Wacky, wild, etc. They just could not adequately capture the magnitude of the party.

It was not too difficult to know why. It wasn't like the other Okoya parties (one never is a repeat of the other anyway). The scenes from it could easily have been taken from a movie on the life of a hedonistic tycoon.

Celebrating with Okoya was an A-list cast featuring top politicians, businessmen and his friends from other walks of life. There, Okoya stunned the public, ditching the cumbersome Agbada for a sleeveless shirt atop a pair of shorts and a black bowler hat.

His dressing at that party set the tone. His youngest wife, Folashade, wore a lace-up, strapless leather dress. Okoya, obviously, was feeling like a spring chicken. Whatever Folashade's dress revealed was tame in comparison to what many of the Okoya girls wore.

They were simply cleavage-happy. The party itself was a two phase thing. The police band entertained guests in the afternoon while Afrobeat star, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti, entertained guests from sundown to sun up.

More than the characteristic munificence of his party tables, the dressing of Okoya's daughters at his birthday attracted a wide range of comments. Many watchers wondered why a father, who is also a Moslem, would be comfortable with the body-baring dressing of his daughters.

But that is the party mood, which, perhaps, apart from money, gives Okoya the greatest buzz. Those who attend the Okoya parties usually lose - literally - their minds to the unbelievable grandeur. But they get something in return.

They go home with all kinds of gifts. At Oladimeji's birthday, guest went away with wall clocks with Okoya's photograph printed on them.

Weeks after the double birthday bash, another party was thrown. Tunde Okoya, one of his sons, got married on 3 February. Again, the venue was his father's estate. This time, music was supplied by one of the best in the business, Juju maestro, King Sunny Ade (KSA). KSA had a hard time dealing with the bails of N500 notes Okoya was pasting on his forehead.

The tycoon was ably assisted by other members of his clan, who almost drowned the juju star in a flood of naira notes.

Then came April and another party was due. This time, it was Bolaji, another of Okoya's sons who was planning his marriage. Bolaji is said to have had two children from a previous liaison. The engagement began with a grand party on 25 April, at the Muson Centre, Onikan.

Two days later (last Saturday), Lagosians were treated to another of Okoya's specials. The venue was not the usual one. It moved to Ajah, the location of Okoya's new multi-million naira estate.

Everything about the wedding reeked of money. The shopping for the weeding was done abroad. The bridal gown and accessories were said to have cost about N500,000. The same also applied to the dress worn by those in the bridal train. Bolaji's suit was said to have cost about N200.000.

The wedding cake gulped N300.000. About N200.000 was expended on security.

But the opulence of the Okoya's really came to play with the way they provided food for all their guests.

Although Nigeria Foods Catering Services, headed by one Mrs. Fadipe got N1m for providing food, Astoria Foods, another catering outfit, got N1.5m.

The same amount was charged by Pieces Catering Services.

Oranges, pineapples and apples were all squeezed fresh for guests by Winnies Fresh Juice, which charged N120.000.

Drinks were in abundance, soft drinks, choice wines, bottled and canned beers were in abundance. The expensive **** domed canopies used for the wedding had red carpet aisles between them. King Sunny Ade returned to the bandstand for an appearance fee of N500.000 and a lot more through the hands of the 'sprayers'. Okoya's wives wore identical lace materials said to have been imported from Switzerland.

Bolaji and his wife, Pipolola, stood out despite being in a sea of opulence.

Their wedding was a pluralistic one, held in both Christian and Islamic ways.

The nuptial started with a Christian service conducted by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG). The Nikkai ceremony was conducted immediately after the Christian worship. This, sources claim, was at the insistence of the groom's father who, as a Moslem, did not want to play second fiddle at his son's wedding. The third leg of the wedding followed. It was the court session, but unlike any other such weddings, it was the mountain that came to meet Mohammed, as the registry of the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, was shifted temporarily to the Okoya estate.

For now, this is the last of Okoya parties. A sequel, sources say, will soon follow as the industrialist has started handing out invitations and aso oke for a party to celebrate his marriage to Folashade, his 24-year-old wife. A sequel to that shouldn't take too long in coming.

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Nigeriaworld News Headline

From the Bar, a dinner for the famous
Nigerian Lawyers in New York hold

first annual dinner and merit award

By Laolu Akande
New York, NY, USA

 Bayo Ogunlesi was the highlight of the first Annual dinner of the Nigerian Lawyers Association held in New York last Saturday evening May 4th.

And that was not because Ogunlesi himself is a Harvard trained lawyer or because this was the son of that legendary teacher Joel Ogunlesi, who for a long time was leader of the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT. Actually one of Pa. Joel Ogunlesi's students was also in attendance at the dinner. That was Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States, influential and notable Professor Jubril Aminu, who delivered a keynote address after the dinner.

February 20, Bayo Ogunlesi was named the head of global investment banking at Credit Suisse First Boston, one of America's top 6 Wall Street investment institutions. Ogunlesi, who also happens to have worked briefly with the Shagari administration as adviser and also working in same capacity with the current civilian administration, became a toast of the US media including the New York Times when he was named to that exalted position in the world of investment.

Ogunlesi's resume is simply outstanding. He graduated first class from Oxford University and later received his J.D. in law from Harvard and then an MBA from the same university. At the CSFB, he is a member of the firm's Executive Board and Operating Committee, and has been involved in transactions pertaining to oil and natural gas, petrochemicals, power generation, airlines, mining, natural resources and infrastructure all across the globe. He also taught at the Harvard Law School and at Yale and was once in 1981 a clerk with the US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall.

At the dinner, the story was told of once while Ogunlesi was clerking to Justice Marshall and time came to deliberate over a case, which the US Supreme Court Justice brought before his team of clerks. Everyone took one position and Ogunlesi alone took the opposing view. Even Justice Marshall opposed Ogunlesi. But Ogunlesi did not back down. However when it was time for Justice Marshall to read his opinion in the open court, to the surprise of all, what he read was Ogunlesi's version of the debate.

And so it was no herculean task for the members of the Nigerian Lawyers Association, NLA to recognize such a Nigerian who has brought immense honor to a nation that is regularly vilified in the US press. The lawyers awarded their NLA merit award to the Nigerian "star", who is by far the rave of the moment now in the US especially among the African/Black community.

" This is the first award I received since I got the CSFB job, and very much deliberately so," Ogunlesi began once he received the plaque from the leaders of the NLA. He said it was important that Nigerians here in the US should have examples to counter "much of what we read in the media about our country which is unknown to many of us."

To the thunderous applause of the audience, Ogunlesi said he can trace his success to the "terrific education" he got back in Nigeria, as he turned around asking, "there must be some people here who went to King's College, Lagos?" Certainly, as Professor Ibrahim A. Gambari, one of the prominent guests at the dinner, proudly identified himself later as a product of King's College as well. And it was as if the night was meant for KC products when the MC described Gambari, who is the UN Under Secretary General and Special Adviser for Africa, as the "number 2 man in world, after Kofi Annan." Gambari who came with his wife, promptly thanked the MC and explained that describing him as "number 2 man in the world" was such a thoughtful thing but flatly inaccurate!

Back to Ogunlesi: "A belief in oneself was one thing we got from our education and it stood me well in my career. If you believe in yourself, there is almost nothing you cannot achieve." Then he recalled the tremendous outpouring of support he has received since he was named to the top Wall Street job from all over the world including from President Olusegun Obasanjo. "People I don't know send me emails, and call me," he said with a tinge of satisfaction. He then went on to say he shared the award with "all Nigerians around the globe…Everything I do, I carry Nigeria with me and will do my best never to let Nigeria down"

Ogunlesi's international clout would perhaps have been incomplete if not for his beautiful wife who hails from Ghana. He paid tribute to his wife who also graced the occasion, telling the audience, which parked the Grand Ballroom of Crowne Plaza Hotel in New York, how his 2 sons age 16 and 12 have had to decide who to support whenever Nigeria and Ghana square up in a soccer match. "Well, now that Nigeria qualified for the World Cup it won't be difficult for them to support Nigeria," he said jokingly to an uproar of laughter among his listeners.

In delivering his speech, Professor Jubril Aminu was fair enough to insist that people should be served dinner first before he would read the speech. As he explained later in his speech, this was because "I know that there is nothing more oppressive than making an after dinner speech like having to listen to it."

Aminu waxed real whimsical in his speech surprising some that had expected the controversial politician to be all stiffened up. Listen to him talking about lawyers and the term 'bar': "The attorney is very versatile as soon as he or she is called to Bar, although I do not know exactly what "Bar" stands for, whether for cocktails or for a high jump."

He said "lawyers, through Constitution crafting and through making laws, have advanced their own profession to the position of power and authority in any country with the rule of law. Most of the leaders in modern democratic countries, like the United States of America, study law. In addition, Chief Justices and Attorneys General are powerful in every country. The lawyers have beaten even the political scientists in the game of politics and I am told that Washington DC has the highest attorney per capita status in the world."

But the ambassador who is a doctor had a consolation for his profession. "All we can do now is to wait for this power and glory to take its toll on the health of the lawyers, then we have our turn."

The president of the NLA Ms. Beatrice A. Hamza had said in her own welcome address that the lawyers association, which was formed in 1999 is made up of Nigerian lawyers and aims to "serve the needs of the Nigerian legal community as well as the Nigerian community as a whole in their understanding and access to the law" The association, she adds also supports Nigerian lawyers seeking to sit for the bar exam in the US and those trying to find their feet.

According to her the NLA "also keenly follows events in Nigeria and does not hesitate to speak out when the situation warrants." She gave an example: "when the NLA met with the late attorney general of Nigeria, Chief Bola Ige when he was in New York in November 2001, the NLA presented a letter voicing its concerns regarding certain human right violations in Nigeria."

And Hamza also recalled that the "NLA was the first professional body to make a public statement condemning the assassination" of Chief Bola Ige and also demanding for justice in the matter. She promised that a portion of the proceeds from the dinner served at $100 a plate would be "donated to victims of the blasts that occurred at an army depot in Ikeja, Lagos."

The blaring of a variety of Nigeria music oozing out from the DJ signaled the end of the formal part of the dinner and the beginning of a dance party to which the lawyers and several of their guests, including diplomats, judges, politicians, journalists, all loosened up, and gladly partook.

Dignitaries at the dinner included Ambassador and Nigeria's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Segun Apata, Consul General Taofiq Oseni, Information Attaches at the Nigerian Consulate Mrs. Odirri and Nura Ishaq, Chief Jumoke Ogunkeyede, Mr. Dan Salami, himself an attorney who said the opening prayer, among others.

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NIGERIAWORLD.COM  --  Friday, May 24, 2002

Anambra State suffers unending economic strangulation -  Maduozu Lumba maduozulumba@netzero.net

For the past few months, the stories emanating from Nigeria suggests a rancous head wind into the local government elections scheduled for August this year, and the legislative and upper executive elections scheduled for early next year.

As politicians jockey for vantage positions to ensure their reelection, the masses of Eastern Nigeria and Anambra State in particular continue to suffer untold hardship brought about by a combination of dumb leadership of the executive governor, a ruthless business man in the name of Sir Emeka Offor whose deft political moves against an elected governor to ensure that he never saw the light of a reelection possibility, and a gloating President and Presidency who could not hide his ebullient joy in suffocating the Anambra State governor to momentarily forget his mission and advocacy for a Nigerian President of Igbo Origin come 2003 elections.

The stage was clearly set for the tripod titans when Chief Offor, who largely financed the election aspirations of Governor CC Mabdinuju of Anambra State in May 1999 found himself shut out of the state governments power corridor. By a stroke of the pen, our inexperienced governor contracted to reward Chief Offor by agreement to appoint Offor's nominees to sensitive State cabinet positions. To Chief Offor who boasted that he was and is never interested in the lucrative non transparent contracting practices of State government funded projects, claimed that he only intended to bring sound accounting methods to the state contract awards and expenditures.

Once the governor ascended his executive office, cracks soon appeared and before long, he sacked the Offor boys from his government, but not before he used Offor further to secure huge loans from commercial banks at exorbitant interest rates in order to take off with his capital and non capital projects all around the state. This singular act, as we shall see, have set the entire achievements of the Governor on a tailspin. The beneficiaries of these contracts did not waste any time to seek mobilization fees to start the projects largely acclaimed to have recorded insignificant success, compared to the tune of millions of the contract value. The bazaar was on. The blazing governor rode as high as he could, speaking with swagger as he targeted security and safety as his prime target. Soon, his Bakassi boys enthralled the state and nation by their brazen, crude, barbaric, yet effective crime busting techniques by openly beheading petty thieves, armed robbers, witch craft doctors, fetish doctors and sometimes political opponents. Criminals found Anambra State too hot to live in as decaying corpses littered major roads in Anambra state.

The Governor scored higher points when he was elected Chairman of South eastern governors association during which he proclaimed that the southeast must produce the next president of Nigeria, in 2003. OBJ went mad! How can this Igbo governor make such statement? In a series of harsh comments from President Obasanjo, he questioned the sanity, purity and impunity of the commentators who clamored for an Igbo President. The Governor was from henceforth marked for political liquidation. Afterall, Governor Mbadinuju did not support OBJ in Jos convention that produced Chief Obasanjo as the PDP Party flagbearer.

While the governor dogged bullets from the increasing spikes of the APF, a faction of his PDP Party sponsored by Chief Emeka Offor to wrest the machinery of the Anambra State's PDP from the Governor, the Governor further suffered migraine headaches from the massive defection from his political control, of influential Anambrarians who reckoned that the political ship of the maverick Governor may be headed for the rocks and sought shelter from alignment with the President's Federal arm and its attendant crumbs of political bread. The Abuja boys swelled in numbers. Soon, attacks from Igbo and Anambra citizens increased as the Governor found no shelter to hide from the snipers.

The commercial banks came calling for repayment of the millions they had given to the State Government in loans which had been defaulted and in accordance with the irrevocability clause of the contract signed by the Governor, the banks were directed to be paid straight out of the Federal monthly allocation due Anambra State upon default. In exercise therefore of this clause, the Federal Government had been deducting close to 600 million naira a month to pay the commercial banks. As a result, today, Anambra state had been unable to pay its teachers and workers for almost six months. The state is paralyzed! OBJ was smiling when the Anambra State Governor, who had proclaimed to fight for an Igbo President, became one of the first groups of people that went to Ota, the Presidents village, to beg him to run for a second term. Tufiakwa!!

These days, you could hardly see OBJ without ODERA close by. The governor had so much forgotten his fight for Igbo Presidency that today; he openly campaigns for OBJ's return to Aso Rock. Do you think he is really sincere? The political reality dawned on Odera that he must as well survive. To do this, he supported OBJ and in turn, so far in hushed principle, OBJ had also supported the renomination of the incumbent governors for a second term.

The people of Anambra State are desirous of a good leader, but could hardly make sense out of the political summersault of the maverick governor. Recently, the Nigeria Labor Council (NLC) in an open service/protest held a mock burial of the governor at Awka in sympathy for their fellow Anambra workers who had not been paid their salaries for months. The NLC Leader comrade Oshiomole had inadvertently targeted the effect of the non-payment, not the cause. On which legal principle does the Federal Government stand in withholding funds due to a state because of the State's default of a commercial loan?

Has the IMF seized Nigeria's oil sales/revenue because of our billions of Dollars owed? Does the Anambra State Government not realize that the withholding is illegal? Regardless of the irrevocability of the contract, would the State's Attorney General not find good legal ground to seek injunctive remedy from the courts of the land against draconian enforcement of a seemingly breach of contractual obligation? The court must be the final, if not the only arbiter to interpret the breach as it is empowered to balance the mitigating factors that caused the breach and prescribe appropriate payment plan.

The Presidency's action in withholding almost 90% of funds due a State, and thereby subjecting our citizens to undue hardship is reckless and dehumanizing. Governor Mbadinuju should employ judicial remedy to his problem rather than the new desperate alliance with OBJ and his new directive to his commissioners to raise Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) from poor Okada operators and petty traders in a veiled effort to revamp his dwindling political fortunes in the state.

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DAILY TIMES   (accessed July 19, 2002)

Bishops storm state Assembly, seek better life for citizens

TONY OKAFOR, Awka

ANGLICAN and Catholic bishops in Anambra State on Wednesday stormed the State House of Assembly over the hardship and insecurity of lives and property in the area.

The bishops, who described the condition in the state as worse than a war situation, met with some prominent members of the House of Assembly for more than one-hour in the office of the Speaker behind the camera.

Speaking with newsmen later, the spokesman of the Bishops, the Catholic Archbishop of Onitsha, Rev. Albert Obiefuna said they were sad over the difficulties the people of the area were going through.

He said the situation in the state had made a destitute of many who now disturbed the church for food.

The bishops said their mission was to stir members of the House to be alive to their constitutional duties.

The clerics said: “We want to know what is happening? What they (legislators) are doing, and what they intend to do?”

“We want all categories of workers in the state paid. We want our secondary schools reopened,” the bishops stated.

Apparently not comfortable with the complacence of the members of the House, the bishops said the people of the state had not felt the impact of the State Assembly.

Responding, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Chief Barth Onugbolu, said the bishops’ petition was proper, stressing that within one week, the House would respond to the bishops, protest and make it public.

Elsewhere in the state capital, hundreds of teachers protested against the chairman of the State Primary Education Board (SPEB), Mrs Rose Nwankwo.

According to the protesters who carried placards with unprintable inscriptions the SPEB chairman should account for milliosn of naira meant for their leave allowances.

They alleged that the board’s chairman connived with the state government to “meddle” with thier 2001 leave allowances.

In a similar development, member of the Anambra State Vigilance Service (AVS ) a.k.a Bakassi Boys stormed the State’s Government House, demanding the removal of their chairman, Mr. Camilius Ebekwe.

The group which accused the chairman of inefficiency and high-handedness, threatened that if the state government failed to remove Ebekue soonest, they would be force dto take ugly steps against him.

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THE GUARDIAN
CONSCIENCE, NURTURED BY TRUTH
LAGOS. NIGERIA.     Thursday, May 16 2002

U.S. increases visa fees, others

A NEW regime of fees charged for processing visas, passports and some other services to American citizens overseas has been released by the United States (U.S).

According to the Public Affairs Section of the U.S. embassy in Lagos yesterday, the new fee for visas would take effect from June 1 while the fee charged for passport services is scheduled to come into operation on August 19.

Under the new arrangement, the fee for a non-immigrant visa (NIV) or machine readable visa fee (MRV) is pegged at $65 as against $45 which it has been for several years. The fees, which are non-refundable, are also payable in the local currency.

According to the announcement, applicants for immigrant visas (IV) will henceforth pay $335 or its naira equivalent.

Meanwhile, the embassy will be closed today for the observance of the Eid-El Maulud holiday. All immigrant and non-immigrant visa appointments scheduled for today have been postponed to June 5, the embassy said.

 

Copyright 2002 @ The Guardian Newspapers Limited (All Right Reserved).

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 Worthy News –Headline News   (from http://www.worthynews.com)

Nigeria's Defense Minister Says Muslims Plan to Wipe Out Christianity
Katsina State Stops Christian Religious Education     -    by Obed Minchakpu

ABUJA, Nigeria (Compass) -- Muslim leaders aim to eradicate Christianity in northern Nigeria, says Nigeria's Defense Minister, Lt. General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma.   Danjuma told a gathering of the Northern (Nigeria) Christian Elders Forum (NOSCEF) on April 20 in Abuja, the federal capital, that Christians are now under severe pressure. He urged the Christian leaders assembled at the All Saints Anglican Church not to be intimidated.

"Our religion is under assault in our country. If Christians are not careful, there will be a time that the propagation of the teaching of Jesus Christ will become an offense," Danjuma said. "We know that we are minority in the north, but if we are not careful, we will be wiped out of existence in the north."

He said the only way out is for the church and its leaders to ensure that indigenous citizens of northern Nigeria are massively recruited into the pastoral ministry so that they can effectively reach their Muslim brothers with the gospel.

"We want full indigenization of the clergy in all the cities and the rural areas so that … when there is any religious crisis in such places, there will be people that can not run away because such have no second home."

He lamented that thousands of Christians had been killed in northern Nigeria in the past three years, and thousands of others were forced to relocate to the southern parts of the country for fear of being killed by Muslim fundamentalists.

"Many of our brothers and sisters have had cause to run away from Kano, Kaduna and Bauchi, to Jos and Abuja. But with the recent attack on them in Jos, those who could not go down south had resettled in Abuja," he observed.

He likened what is happening in northern Nigeria to what happened in Egypt and other North African countries, where he said Christianity flourished as a faith and was later wiped out by Islam.

Danjuma also told the NOSCEF attendees that the incessant attacks on Christians by Muslim fundamentalists and the implementation of the Islamic legal system by Muslim governors in northern Nigeria were just two of many strategies to wipe out Christianity in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, the government of Katsina state in northern Nigeria has cancelled the teaching of Christian Religious Knowledge by removing its curriculum from all public primary and secondary schools, while making the teaching of Islamic Religious Knowledge compulsory.

An official statement issued on April 30 stated, "The government's decision was in line with its policy of tailoring programs that are in tune with the Islamic system we envisaged and can bring about rapid development."

Rt. Rev. James Kwasu, the Anglican Bishop of Katsina, told Compass that the decision is a continuation of Islamization in the state.

"It is a tactful way to curtail our religious liberty, hoist Islam on us, and ensure that Christians are eliminated from Katsina state," Kwasu said. He explained that Nigeria's national policy on education provides for the curricula of both Islamic and Christian religious studies to be taught in all schools.

Katsina state, with a population of 3.7 million people, has a minority Christian population of about 30 percent. The state is one of 12 states in northern Nigeria that has adopted and is implementing Islamic law.

Copyright 2002, Compass News Direct.  Used with Permission.
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 BIAFRA FOUNDATION
733 15TH ST NW, SUITE 700
WASHINGTON, DC 20005
PHONE (202) 347-2983;   FAX (202) 347-2984
E-mail: Biafrafoundation@yahoo.com
Washington, DC.  March 3, 2002 {CONTACT: BOARD OF DIRECTORS}

 PRESS RELEASE MEMORIAM TO GENERAL AGUIYI IRONSI.
General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi Ironsi, born on March 3, 1920 would have been 82 years old today. For his vision of a truly united Nigeria, where centrifugal forces reigned to the detriment of the polity, he was murdered. General Ironsi's gruesome murder and the massacres unleashed on his fellow Igbo people and other former Eastern Nigerians by, primarily, northern Nigerians were major factors leading to the Biafra-Nigeria War. That northern army officers, including officers appointed to sensitive positions by Ironsi, and the northern elite conspired and executed the horrible deeds are unassailable facts of Nigeria's bloody history. Now, some among the northern elite are attempting a revisionism of the most shameless kind, as when Alhaji Liman Ciroma, in a paper presented at the Nigeria War College, accused the martyred general of causing the "Nigerian Civil War."
The Biafra Foundation condemns Alhaji Ciroma's provocative, tarnishing of General Ironsi's honor.
On this his 82ND birthday, were he alive, it is befitting to honor the fallen general by highlighting his exemplary military career, provided in excepts of a tribute eloquently delivered by General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu on August 2, 1986, twenty years after Ironsi's murder. Ironsi, Ojukwu stated, had "a military career studded with firsts-first Captain, first Major, first ADC to the Governor General of Nigeria, first equerry to the Queen, first Lieutenant Colonel, first battalion Commander, first Brigadier, first psc, first military attache to a Nigeria Diplomatic Mission, first Nigerian Commander of a UN battalion, first Major General.commanded the United Nations Force in the Congo. Appointed the first Nigerian General Officer commanding the Nigerian Army in 1965." General Ironsi was also a Member of the Order of the British Empire, and a Member of the Victorian Order, an honor bestowed on him by Austria for his valor in the rescue of Austrian nationals during the Congo crisis. May the soul of General JTU Aguiyi Ironsi rest in perfect peace.

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