Mad Rush for Dstv Explora!

It's been a mad rush to Multi-Choice offices across Lagos, as Lagosians take advantage of the =N= 30,000 Dstv Explora promo to purchase their Exploras. 

DSTV explora which usually sells for =N=70,000 has been on a give away price of =N=30,000. 

The promo ends on Monday, 29th February. 

Swedish Teenage Rescued From Isis Back In Sweden!

Swedish Foreign Ministry says that Marilyn Nevalainen, the pregnant teenage girl who traveled to Syria on her own accord on trains and buses with her then 19-year-old boyfriend, a Muslim who become radicalized,  and whom she met in Sweden in 2015, has been rescued. Nevalainen and her boyfriend traveled all the way to Mosul, an the Islamic State-controlled city in Iraq.

Authorities could not give the actual location of Nevalainen in Sweden since her rescue, it was however gathered that the teenager who lived in a foster home in Mark, a town in the snow-sprinkled flatlands of southwestern Sweden, as in cases that involves minors, is being held for questioning by the police. The boyfriend has not been publicly identified, and  the status of Nevalainen's child is at the moment not clear.

Photo credit: Mirror

Infantino Elected FIFA President!

Swiss born Gianni Infantino was on Friday, February 26, elected to succeed Sepp Blatter as FIFA president,  Infantino defeated Sheikh Salman of Bahrain in the second round of voting with 115 votes in Zurich - Switzerland.

Gianni Infantino has been the general secretary of UEFA since 2009, he holds both Italian and Swiss nationality.

Shehu Shagari Clocks 91!

Second president of Nigeria's Second Republic, Shehu Shagari Usman Aliyu Shagari, Turakin Sakkwato clocked 91 on Thursday, February 25.

After the handover of power by General Olusegun Obasanjo's military government, Shehu Shagari was Nigeria's President between 1979–1983. His adiministration was toppled by the Muhammadu Buhari's military government.

Al Mann Dies At 90!

Jewish- American Billionaire, pioneering entrepreneur and philanthropist whose companies developed breakthrough medical devices including the first rechargeable pacemaker and Second Sight Medical Product, an artificial retina that allows the blind to see,  Alfred E. Mann,  also known as Al Mann, is dead. 

Mann passed in Las Vegas, where he had spent the majority of his time over the past several years on Thursday, February 25, at the age of 90. 

Alfred Mann founded 17 companies in aerospace, pharmaceuticals, and  medical devices fields, including MannKind Corporation, a Valencia, California, based biopharmaceutical company which  is focused on the discovery, development, and commercialization of therapeutic products for diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

2016 Budget Brouhaha!

Welcome to another edition of our dialogue...this time, we take on the recently rejected 2016 budget, a budget faulted for being wasteful considering the austere period the country is currently undergoing.
It was recently reported in the dailies that the two arms of the National Assembly, NASS, declared that the 2016 budget was full of errors, adding the document could no longer be passed on February 25 as expected.  



Scene inside a commuter bus in one of the major cities of Nigeria, the topic of discussion is the 2016 budget as presented by the President: 

Passenger 1: ....Can you imagine...a whooping 89.1 million allocated to buying kitchen equipment, unbelievable....will the whole country be cooking in there??? 

Passenger 2: For this hard time wey money no dey, our Naira just dey fall like humpty-dumpty, prices of foodstuff getting higher by the day...

Passenger 3 (a Woman) cuts in: Go to the market everything is now expensive...fish, vegetables and pepper sellers blaming it on dollar...

Passenger 4: I tell you...alarming naira, dollar and pounds exchange rates, lack of electricity supply...and the administration needs =N=89. what?...for what una call am again? ...they cant be serious.

Passenger 5: They are seriousooo, dey there...When it comes to money matters, I assure you our governments don't joke ...no matter how ridiculous it sounds.

Passenger 1: What about the kitchen equipment the immediate past administration used, that one wey I hear say dem use =N=237m buy for 2015?

Old man in the bus:That one has expired naw...which government makes use of a past administration's property, when they all behave like new wives...when a new one comes in, she discards all the properties of the former wife, even the decorations like virus. What worries me is that all these  non-essential things they purchase is at the expense of some vital areas the resources could be channeled to. 

Passenger 5: Kitchen cabinet is a vital areaoooo...maybe not to you...but to them....(everyone bursts into laughter)

Passenger 2: People dey find work to do, no jobs, from childhood our parents endevoured to send us to school so that we could have a better life than theirs, you go school finish, no job, you divert to create job for your self and others through SMEs, no loan for start-ups, and in situations where there is loan, the rigorous process of securing one can be so frustrating and discouraging. 

 Passenger 1: Meanwhile the fund is there...banks just sit on it and be waiting to loan to private organizations and individuals with high interest rates, and some of them end up not paying back...

Old man: You didn't talk of tax...I think we have one of the most unfavorable atmosphere for Start-Ups and Entrepreneurship development. There are all partners in this, there is no way you will convince me that the government does not know about this, yet they turn their eyes the other way, give a deaf ear...and keep disbursing money to banks for so called SME loans...

Everyone echoed: That is part of the corruption we are talking about naw...

Passenger 3: What about all the young people trying to make some thing out of their lives, no government jobs, no money for start-ups, they opt to street hawking...instead of the government to provide shopping spaces for them at very affordable rents, and flexible payment modes to get them off the street so that hoodlums don't take advantage of the situation to rob people in traffic, they whisk them away in 'black-maria' instead like criminals. They should provide alternatives first...

Passenger 5: But they did provide an alternative

Every body asks unanimously: What alternative?

Passenger 5: (straight face) Go back to your village...

Passenger 4: And do what? 

Passenger 5: Farm...fish...turn to the village nuisance or marry, have children...at least be useful and help increase the population for election times...do what ever you want to do...join militancy...or insurgency...

(everyone bursts into laughter) shakes head...you cant be serious

Old man: But he is talking some sense here, when even in the rural areas you are not empowered...what else is left to do when you'v been deprived of your entitlements as a citizen of a state? It all boils down to getting our priorities right in this country...an expenditure channeled in the wrong direction can cause so many damages in the society...because key areas that need some attention will not be getting any...

Light out....

Dialogue copyright: Oby Denis

Show - Down Spoiling In Nigerian Senate?

From the look of things, all seems not to be too well in the Nigerian Senate especially since the presentation of the infamous '=N=89.1 kitchen equipment' budget.

Senator Kabiru Marafa, who represents Zamfara Central in Zamfara State, North-west Nigeria, has alleged that the 2016 budget proposal controversy had something to do with the trial of Saraki at the CCT which as endorsed by the Supreme Court on February 5, 2016. According to Marafa, the controversy was induced by the Senate President, Bukola Saraki to blackmail President Muhammadu Buhari.

Marafa also faulted the proposal by the 8th Senate to purchase vehicles worth N4.7billion and the continuous shrouding of the National Assembly accounts in secrecy; an allegation which prompted the Senate to direct  its Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions to launch an investigation on the Senator.

In the meantime, the National Assembly has postponed voting on the 2016 budget on the grounds what it termed citing inherent errors, ambiguities and rampant cases of budget padding discovered in the draft budget.

The Nigerian 2016 budget was faulted for being wasteful considering the austere period the country is undergoing with escalating =N=/$/£ exchange rates and little money in circulation, masses barely getting enough to feed on, an almost 0% electricity supply with an alarming electricity bills, for the Senate to request for =N=89.1m to purchase kitchen equipment, when the previous administration spent =N=237m in 2015 to purchase same 'kitchen equipment'  is unbelievable. 

We keep our fingers crossed....