Army foils Boko Haram attack in Borno

PRESS RELEASE

ARMY FOILS  BOKO HARAM ATTACK IN GUDUMBALI BORNO STATE

1. Troops of Sector 3 Operation LAFIYA DOLE deployed at Gudumbali, Guzamala Local Government Area of Borno State on Friday 17 September 2018 foiled an attempted attack by the Boko Haram terrorists on their location.

2. The insurgents who came to extort, terrorize law abiding citizens as well as to attack the military base in the town met a serious resistance by the gallant troops.

3. The troops also inflicted  overwhelming casualty on the terrorists due to superior fire power while some of the terrorists fled  to the fringes of Lake Chad.

4. Efforts are on by the troops to get other fleeing members of the terrorists group.

5. Addressing the troops, the Commander Sector 3 Brigadier General Uwem Bassey, while on the spot assessment visit to Gundumbali commended the troops and urged them to continue to remain courageous while confronting the insurgents.

6. Members of the  public and residents of the area in particular are therefore advised to be vigilant and  carry out their legitimate businesses in their communities as well as  report any suspicious movements or activities to the nearest military base.

7. You are please requested to disseminate this information through your reputable medium to the general public.

8. Thank you for your kind cooperation.

TEXAS  CHUKWU
Brigadier General
Director Army Public Relations

You must be a Nigerian

KEN UGBECHIE

The story was told of a Nigerian journalist who was posted to Ghana by his newspaper. On his first day in office, he worked late. Journalists work late; that’s no problem.  Tired and worn out, he hurled himself into a cab for a short cruise to his hotel. And suddenly, they got to the traffic light. The Ghanaian cab man dutifully waited for the red light to switch to green. That’s a lawful thing to do. Because it was late, traffic was lean and no vehicle was in sight from any direction. Yet, he obeyed simple traffic rule.
Such ‘silly’ behaviour of obeying traffic light even when the road was free angered our Nigerian brother whereupon he yelled at the cab driver to “move now!” In his country, Nigeria, it is ridiculous to obey a silly machine called traffic light at night when there are no vehicles in view. But not in Ghana. After our brother had finished yelling at the driver to ‘move now’, the cab man gently turned towards him and delivered the solemn but embarrassing message: “You must be a Nigerian”. It was at that point that our brother came to himself. He realized that he was not in Nigeria, in Lagos or anywhere in the country where laws are stood on their head. He became a heap of embarrassment right inside the cab and never uttered a word until he hopped off at his hotel. The journalist is a university graduate with many years’ experience on the job. The cab driver is not a university graduate but he was more law-abiding than the man who should be educating him on basic etiquettes and laws.
But this has been the lot of Nigerians. We tend to do things differently even when it is both absurd and unlawful. Let’s just consider a few of the many things that make us Nigerians.
If you are the type that obeys laws including traffic rules in other countries but spurn the same in your own country then you must be a Nigerian. If you are a youth and all you do politically is to drain yourself of youthful energy campaigning for those in the winter of their lives, grandpas and grandmas, who in saner communes ought to have retired to old people’s home, then you’re a Nigerian.
If you are a wailer bemoaning the looting of your national treasury but end up still supporting and rooting for the same company of looters who stole your future and that of generations to come, please take a bow, you’re a Nigerian.
And if you are a hailer, very adept at hailing leaders whose obvious incompetence and cluelessness has kept you tethered to the stump of underdevelopment, yet you have not ceased to hail them, take a seat, you must be a Nigerian. If you are a man or woman of great learning, scholarship and cerebral gravitas but you conspired with your ilk to elect a leader whose secondary school certificate is still a subject of debate, clap for yourself, you’re a true Nigerian.
If you are a youth with knowledge of good and bad but you spend all your energy and time defending the tribe of thieves who stole blindly from the national till, buy up estates in exotic places around the world with money meant for roads, hospitals and basic amenities and you’re actively engaged on social media defending them, you’re a true Nigerian.
If your president is frail, weak, sickly and has been on hospital bed more than he has been in his office but you’re still stuck to him fanatically defending and supporting him, I rejoice with you for you must be a real Nigerian. If you’re a youth, in the prime of your life and you cannot team up with your fellow youths to take back power from an underperforming horde of geriatrics but dissipate energy fighting among yourselves to the joy of the clan of grey-haired grumpy oldies in power, shout for joy my dear, you’re all Nigerians.
Yes, yes, if you are the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, the chief security officer of the nation with unfettered access to the very best and most modern arms, ammunition and weaponry but you cannot tame a rag-tag army of Islamic insurgents and killer herdsmen but tells us to pray for national security, then you must be a Nigerian.
Peradventure you are the type that endlessly complains about poor leadership but on the day of election, the only day you have the power to boot out bad leadership and all you do is sit at home, TV remote in hand, sip a drink and scour through all the channels on your TV, you must be a Nigerian.
Again, if you’re a hailer or wailer in a country where you should all be angry mourners with collective fury and zeal to break from a roguish past and an even more roguish present with a tinge of bloodiness, you deserve your diadem of a free-born Nigerian. You really are.
If you’re reading this and you feel in a sense convicted for your vicarious conspiracy to tolerate bad leadership for a good 58 years after independence, then you’re a Nigerian. The good news is that you can do something about it. Get up, gird your loins and join the train of angry, willing and determined youths working the anvil to rescue their dear nation from the nadir of retrogression.
For as it is now clear, neither the ruling party, the APC, nor the grieving party, the PDP, has the capacity to beget a new order. They are just six and half a dozen: same of same. It’s like flipping through the closing chapters of George Orwell’s classic, Animal Farm, where it became difficult to tell the difference between the pigs and man, between wailers and hailers, between animals with two legs and animals with four legs. For at the end all animals are equal but some are more equal than others.
A corollary: All politicians are the same, whether APC or PDP or ADP, it’s just that some are more cunning and craftier than others. The only loser is the one who keeps wailing and hailing while the politicians dance animatedly on the people’s early grave.
Nigerians are a peculiar lot, they cry when they should laugh and laugh when they ought to cry. It is what makes us Nigerians; a people of contradictions and quirky incongruities. But all said, I still love my country; the people, the food, the laughter, the noise, the vastness of land, the cadence of variegated cultures, the drive, the incredible capacity to cling to hope in the face of despair, the energy in the streets. What a country, what a mishmash of the poor and the rich, of the comical and serio-comic. I love Nigeria. I will always do, dearly.

Mr Ugbechie is a Lagos based publisher and columnist

'Ehime Mbano is our project, integrity is our watchword' -Ehime Mbano

In a bid to ensure accelerated development and for the youths to speak and act as a team, youths from all the autonomous communities in Ehime Mbano LGA,  in IMO state have reiterated their commitment to work together for the greater good of Ehime Mbano people.

The youths,  numbering over 100, who met at Aba Branch recently reeidicated themselves for service to community even as they inaugurated the youth wing of a socio political cum economic outfit called Youths of Ehime Mbano.

The former supervisory councillor on finance,  Mr. Uche Iwueze in his speech commended the youths for their proactive action and enjoined them to build their ranks by massive recruitment of youths with impeccable character.

Iwueze,  who doubles as the interim coordinator of Integrity Movement noted that with team spirit and a good platform like theirs,  development will speed up even as he advised the youths to eschew violence and political thuggery which has been the bane of youth participation on politics.

In his reaction,  opinion leader from Ibeafor, Light Echenu commended the youths on the wonderful initiative noting that to make it sustainable all hands must be on deck.

Also speaking at the event,  Senior Special Assistant to the Governor of IMO state,  on Assets and Liabilities,  Mr. Chike Orjiako commended Ehime Mbano youths for their bold move and tasked them to be courageous for the journey ahead.

Orjiako while encouraging them urges them to be catalysts for change insisting that development will only come to Ehime Mbano when youths change the way they play their own politics.

Coninuing, thenfoemwr transition chairman Ehime Mbano LGA decried the snail speed at which development was taking place in the LGA even as he reiterated his commitment to join forces with the youths to bring development to the LGA.

While calling for a paradigm shift in politics, Mr Orjiako averred that with  unity and sincerity of purpose,  they group will help speak and act in one voice to fast track development in the LGA. 

According to him, 

" It is no more business as usual.  We must question statuquo. We must change the way we play politics. We must ensure that those we entrust with power now what to with it.
"I want to change your mindset. I want us to change the way politics is being done. See yourself as a catalyst for change.
"The moment we change our way of playing politics,  accelerated development will take place. It takes a conscious effort to develop Ehime Mbano. We have to step from the traditional way of doing things.
"We need to work with unity of purpose. Politics is a clarion call. If we don't donut it, our children, our generation will suffer dormitory. There is nothing like generational curse. It is what you or your generation ought to do and didn't do it.
"We need to work together. We have a unique plan to develop Ehime Mbano. Carry the message with you were have as a force. We have come with none vision -to develop Ehime Mbano. Look beyond party lines. Go to your communities and mobilise the youths. Teach them to have integrity and become ambassadors of good governance so that Ehime Mbano will be better for it".

POLITICAL PARTICIPATION IS A MUST - Abia Youths Insist

By Chukwudi Obi

The Abia State chapter of Young Visioneers' Association of Nigeria, YVAN, a national youth  pressure group, has called on youths in the state to participate actively in both politics and the process of choosing their representatives. 

This is even as the group has rolled out activities to ensure massive public enlightenment and mobilization of youths at the grass root level. 

Speaking during their monthly general meeting in Umuahia, the state capital recently,  State Coordinator of the group, Comr Stanly Nwankwo reiterated the group's commitment to ensuring active youths participation in the electoral process in the state. 

Comrade Nwankwo who stressed the need for more young people to be actively involved in politics, noted that part of their enlightenment campaign will focus on building the capacity of the youths such that they can hold elective positions as well as hold elected officials accountable apart from participating actively in the electoral process in the state. 

According to Nwankwo who urged youths to shun selling their votes for any amount of money, the best way to enthrone true democracy in the state is to ensure that all stakeholders including the youths are active participants in the process of electing their officials. 

Nwankwo, however lamented the nonchalant attitudes of many youths in the state to the on going voter registration exercise across the country adding that the figures peddled on some social media platforms indicate that the south east has the lowest number of registered voters. 

In his own speech, the state Publicity Secretary of the group,  Ambassador Duke Imandu averred that the group will embark on the sensitization campaign as part of its community mobilization project, insisting that youths who have not registered for their voter's card will be encouraged to do so. 

In his words, "YVAN will select some local government areas in Abia that will be visited in the first phase of the sensitization campaign. After that, another group of LGAs will be selected for the next batch."

The Publicity Secretary added that the campaign will expose the youths to the benefits of political participation and dissuade them from being paid agents or mercenaries of desperate politicians whose wish is to kill and maim in order to win elections. 

Ambassador Imandu opined that the enlightenment programme will also offer opportunity for the youths to learn financial intelligence, budget tracking and good governance apart from teaching them leadership and management skills even as he hinted that the group will liaise with the Abia State INEC Commissioner and other officials at Local Governments level to ensure a hitch free voter registration exercise in rural communities.

#WAIC UPDATE

NNPC filling station located along Ohokobe, Ikot Ekpene road,  Umuahia, selling Premium Motor Spirit (petrol)  at N180 instead of N145.00

NATIONAL YOUTH GROUP APPOINTS ABIA CHAPTER INTERIM EXCOS  - Maps out strategies for massive mobilization of youths 

All is set for a national youth group, Young Visioneers Association of Nigeria, Abia State Chapter, to pay familiarization visits to some of the security agencies and justices in the state.

The visits, it was learnt are to solicit for support and partnerships for its campaign on youths involvement in politics, campaign against youth indiscipline and corruption, youths registration for voter's card and campaigning against youth involvement in electoral violence.

This is even as the group has appointed interim officers to fill in vacant positions to help reposition the group in a bid to break new grounds.

These formed part of the highpoints and resolutions taken at the group’s monthly meeting recently held in Umuahia, the Abia State Capital.

The new appointees include:
Comrade Stanley Nwankwo – State Coordinator, Amb. Duke Imandu- Deputy State Coordinator / Publicity Secretary and
Comrade Ikpengwa Uchenna - Secretary.

Others are Comrade Eziaha Odinkenmere – Treasurer, Comrade Yakubu Akofe Mutiu - Organising Secretary, Comrade Clifford Egwu - Welfare Director, Comrade Iyke Atumah - Financial Secretary and Comrade Amos Ocholi - Umuahia South Coordinator.

Some of the resolutions taken at the well attended meeting to ensure the group realize its vision to be a force to reckon with in the state include massive grass root mobilization and sensitization, courtesy visit to members of the judiciary and paid advertisements in radio stations and on social media platforms.

Young Visioneers Association of Nigeria (YVAN) is a national youth pressure group whose aim is to restore the fallen moral standards in the society apart from charting a new course for youths who have a blurred vision of life.

National Id Card for sale in Abia

Welcome to the NIN enrollment office In Umuahia North Local Government where for you to get your identity card,  you will pay the sum of five hundred natural only (N500.00).

I had escorted my friend Precious (surname withheld)  to the office to get his own id card. I stayed outside for a while before he called me inside.

"Nna I don buy fuel like this", he said.  "The lady (the lady wearing a red top in the picture)  said I will buy fuel that they don't have electricity so they are using their generating set.  She said I would pay N500 and that if I don't pay,  no service no id card", he finished. 

I had to part with N500 to pay for the fuel so that they can issue the registration form to him.

The management of NIMC have on several occasions reiterated the fact that the national identity card was totally free. They also added that there could be administrative cost that will be charged if the process is being undertaken by a Business Centre.

However the case of Umuahia North LGA is different as these are employed staff under the payroll of the local government. 

Though investigations indicate that Umuahia North LGA has not had electricity for many months, many people who came to collect their id cards frowned at the idea of extorting money from them even when FG has directed that this document is free.