Yar Adua is SHRINKING – Please help

Below is a picture from todays issue of the Nigerian Tribune.

Can someone please tell Uncle Yardy that being Mr. President is not by force. As much as he loves Nigeria, he should take care of himself.

Mrs Turai is planning on doing a Mrs. Clinton. If only someone from the Presidency stumbled on my former Nigeria is sick post, perhaps, Mrs. Rebranding could have started her mission using a top down approach, instead of an everywhere-nowhere agenda.

 

re – Bode George Rejects Prison Food

Bode George Rejects Prison Food
October 29, 2009  
By Astro Jewoola

The jailed  former National Vice Chairman (South West) of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olabode George, has rejected meals served the inmates of Kirikiri Maximum Prisons, Apapa, Lagos, where he is currently serving his sentence.

Instead of eating the food served all inmates of the prison, his wife,  Roli, has been bringing him meals, bottled water and other needs from home.

When P.M.News visited Kirikiri yesterday, Roli was seen with a big cooler

Some PDP big wigs were also seen at the prison.  The expensive cars they drove to the prison gave them away. P.M.News learnt that they were at the prison to console their political godfather and to brief him on party affairs.

They were believed to have held a closed door meeting with George.

The details of the discussion between George and the party faithful could not be ascertained. But a source close to the Kirikiri prison hinted that it has to do with the steps being taken by the party to bring him out of prison.containing the PDP leader’s food, some bottled water, a big leather box loaded with his clothes, blanket, bed spread and other items.

A reliable source informed P.M.News that Bode George has not yet come to terms with his present predicament.

“When he was first shown his cell room on Monday after he was jailed, he stood for some time, shook his head and was almost weeping,” the source in the prison said.

“Though his cell room was kept neat, even neater than some others, it has a single bath and a fan, Bode George continuously shook his head,” our source further explained.

Another source confirmed that preferential treatment was given to him. The prison officials took cognizance of his status in dealing with him.

Said the source: “We cannot keep him together with those hardened criminals.  We have to be careful in dealing with an inmate of his status.”

George, former Chairman, Board of Directors, Nigerian Ports Authority, was found guilty of corruption in the N84 billion fraud charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). With five other members of his board, George was sentenced to two years jail term.

Justice Olubunmi Oyewole, sitting at an Ikeja High Court in Lagos, found them guilty on Monday.

Others jailed along with George are Aminu Dabo, O. Abidoye, Abdullahi Aminu Tafida, Zanna Maidaribe and Sule Aliyu.

EFCC had charged the six accused persons before the court on a  163-count of contract splitting, abuse of office, disobedience to lawful authority by awarding contracts above the approved level and contract inflation, among others.

P.M. News gathered that George and other convicts have directed their lawyers to file an appeal against their conviction.  But they would remain in Kirikiri until their appeal is argued.

Lagos lawyer, Festus Keyamo, who was EFCC’s prosecutor, has also vowed to pursue the case up to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, P.M. News gathered that the prison uniform Bode George and others would wear may be ready on Friday, as the prison tailor had already taken his measurement.

source: click here

Why should Bode George reject prision food? why should he be allowed to wine and dine privately. And what makes him different from all those other ‘hardened criminals’ who have no respect and no privacy of their own. Because he stole 84–billion Naira, and all those others stole less? why was he given a cell of his own? because hes a PDP chief? After misappropriating public funds for his own pocket, baba George is put into a cellroom with a fan, and then he refuses to eat eat prison food.

If all those other ‘hardened criminals’ had the where-withal – financially, they won’t eat prison food. In fact, if they all had the cash, some of them would have left prison a long time ago, and others would have had their sentences reduced.

Forgive my opinion, but the jail sentence handed to Bode George was too soft. What the court and the EFCC are telling the general public is that any Nigerian that is ever found guilty for corruption, for as much as 84billion Naira(for which Bode George was found guilty) would get a maximum of a 2–year jail term – as Bode’s case has become a reference for the next Lawyer in town. And by the time Bode George comes out of prison, he will go back to his bank account manager, and buisness continues as usual.

Besides, with a ‘concurrent’ jail term, Bode George would just be spending about 6months in prison. Is 6–months commensurate to the number of people dying destitute of their daily food – if there was an extra 84–billion Naira they could have received a loan from?

your opinions are welcome

MPMP website discovery -1: Living Without Money

Today, I commence a new series to share information on websites I find on the internet that are cool, unique, neat, out of this world and ‘have something to offer’ as far as information is concerned.

The first of these is LivingWithoutMoney.

I am presently reading through the FAQs provided by a man that who has been living without money for 9–years(since 2000). This is what he has to say:

I’ve been living without a cent to my name since the autumn of 2000 (with a month’s exception during my first year). I don’t use or accept money or conscious barter, and I don’t take food stamps or other government dole (not that I think those things are bad or that those who use them are in any way inferior).
 
And, after years of doing this, to my joy, I’ve learned there are other people in the world doing the same.
 
Why? I simply got tired of acknowledging as real this most common world-wide belief called money! I simply got tired of being unreal. Money is one of those intriguing things that becomes real because you believe it is real.

Wild Nature, outside civilization, runs on gift economy: “freely give, freely receive.” Thus it is balanced. Commercial civilization runs on consciousness of credit and debt (knowledge of good & evil); thus it is imbalanced. What nation on earth can even balance its own budget or environment? Gift Economy is Faith, Grace, Love – the message at the heart of every religion, though rejected by virtually every religious institution.  The proof is inside you: Wild Nature is your True Nature, crucified by commercial civilization.

Our guy is living his life without money? can you believe this? Check his blog: http://zerocurrency.blogspot.com/ and his website at: http://sites.google.com/site/livingwithoutmoney/. I would really like to live without money, especially in Africa.

question: Is it possible to live without money in Africa?

and hey, ideas are running through my head already:

• Electricity: Nigeria has been battling with electricity since 1960, average Nigerians have been living without it, so whats the use of the PHCN?
• Water: has been a major National problem and Nigerians have been digging wells on every square meter, so whats the use of the National Water board,
• Earth: we are so blessed ‘earth-wise’, anything can grow on African soil, so – we can farm what we eat.
• Transport: do we really need cars? can’t we do without it? Someone said on radio this morning that in Lagos state, when it rains, theres no difference between the person driving a car and the other person walking through the floods. He said we have moved from pothols to wells in the middle of highways. I once met a man who told me of how he trecked from Nigeria to Germany, and came back to Nigeria years later an accomplished buisnessman. Besides everyone has his/her own Legedez Benz. There are still many places in Nigeria where people still ‘trek’.
• GSM just arrived in Nigeria a couple of years ago – Nigerians, Africans have been living comfortably without it
• Health: before hospitals came to town, we went the traditional way and survived.

Thought: if one is able to live without money, I do believe he or she is ‘richer’ than the person living with it.