Osun: I’m not surprised - Fani-Kayode

Reactions have continued to trail the sacking of the former Governor of Osun State, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola by the Appeal Court sitting in Ibadan on Friday, with former aviation minister and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP governorship aspirant in the state, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, saying he was not entirely surprised by the outcome of the legal battle.

Speaking during a telephone interview with Daily Sun, shortly after the court pronouncement, Fani-Kayode, who is among PDP governorship aspirants who had vowed to resist any attempt by some elements within and outside the party in the state to impose an “unpopular and uncultured” candidate on the party, ahead of the 2011 polls, noted that the party in the state had always acted as if all was well, when according to him, all was not well, as the party was sharply divided.

While congratulating the new governor and his party, the former Aviation minister further noted that to win back Osun, and indeed the entire South west, the PDP must muster the courage to go back to the drawing board, with a view to analysing where and how it went wrong, and prepare for the challenges ahead by ensuring that only enlightened and well educated persons occupy leadership positions in the State and in the region.

“I am not entirely surprised by the verdict. Our party is badly divided now and the truth is that if we want to win back Osun and indeed the entire Western region, we have a lot of work to do. “Just look at the quality of leaders that the ACN keeps, coming up with in the various states, and yet we in the PDP keep on acting as if we don’t need to do anything to better ourselves and bring in fresh, bold, enlightened and well educated persons into positions of leadership in our party in the west.

“I congratulate Governor Rauf Aregbesola on his victory at the court and I wish him well and I commiserate with ex-Governor Oyinlola. I sincerely hope that the PDP now finds the courage to look inwards and indentify where, how, why and when we went so badly wrong and alienated so many of our members. We need to go back to the drawing board and establish a new and fresh leadership for the party in the State, otherwise, we are finished,” Fani-Kayode warns.

Nigerians arrested in UK over 'arrangee' weddings!!!

It was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives. But instead of walking down the aisle with bouquets of flowers in their hands, two brides and their grooms were handcuffed and taken to a police station.

The grooms, whose identities have not been disclosed, are Nigerians, who engaged their Slovakian brides in a desperate bid to live in the United Kingdom (UK).

Their arrests were part of a coordinated operation to curb an international marriage scam. Such bogus marriages allow immigrants to stay in the UK.

If found guilty, the suspects could be sentenced to seven-year jail terms.

A combined team of police and immigration officers raided two homes and arrested the Slovakian brides and Nigerian grooms before they arrived at churches on Tuesday.

According to the Mail Online, four other men from Nigeria, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, who are believed to be making up to £15,000 per sham wedding, were also arrested.

It was learnt that six Nigerian men were also being detained on suspected Immigration offences.

The arrests were centred around two gangs in Manchester and Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Immigration officers waited until the Nigerian gang members drove from Manchester to Bradford before their arrests in a fuel station, just hours before the two weddings were to take place.

Detective Sergeant Peter Gallagher, who led the operation, said: “We believe we have cracked an organised conspiracy in which marriage fixers and European brides were making money from Nigerian grooms desperate to find a way to stay in the UK.”

The churches, believed to have been targeted by the gangs are: St Philip and St James in Scholes, South Yorkshire, and St Lukes in Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire.

UK Border Agency regional director, Jeremy Oppenheim said: “We will not tolerate Immigration abuse and will punish those who break the Immigration laws.

“Over recent years, we have clamped down on sham marriages introducing Certificates of Approval, family permits and encouraged registrars to highlight suspicious cases.

“That’s why suspected sham marriages fell from over 3,500 in 2004 to under 400 in 2008. Under the tougher rules, anyone trying to play the system can expect to face imprisonment for up to seven years.”

The arrest came on the heels of the arraignment of a vicar over alleged conspiracy to aid unlawful entry to the UK by helping to organise more than 180 ‘sham’ weddings for illegal immigrants earlier this month.

Reverend Alex Brown, 60, was arrested in a dawn raid on his rectory home in St Leonards, East Sussex, and his church, St Peters, 200 yards away.

He was accused of holding a ‘conveyor belt’ of services to allow African and Eastern European immigrants from outside the European Union (EU) to marry those with the right to stay in the UK.

When migrants complete bogus marriages, they can remain in Britain and move freely within the EU.

Those with residency rights in the UK, often from other EU countries, are paid up to £2,000 a time to take part in the sham weddings.

Labour toughened marriage laws in February 2005 after the number of suspect ceremonies - often arranged by criminal gangs who could earn £10,000 a time - reached 3,700 per year.

Migrants were made to get a special certificate to marry if they lived outside the EU, or had only limited rights to live in the UK.

Those with only three months’ leave to remain were routinely refused on the grounds that the ceremony was performed just to avoid removal from the country.

The number of sham weddings has since fallen to around 300 a year. But the crackdown was left in tatters after the Law Lords ruled it breaches migrants’ human rights.

According to Law Lords, “forcing a migrant to prove whether a relationship is genuine is arbitrary and unjust,” even if they were getting married only weeks before their permission to stay in Britain ran out.

My barber and my dandruff!!!!!!!!

No, I don’t have dandruff. And I know I don’t have dandruff because my wife, who should be the first to complain if I have dandruff, is not complaining. And there is no itch on my head, which I understand is a symptom of dandruff. So in summary, in totality and finality, I don’t have dandruff. But my barber insists I do.

You see, my barber is quite popular with ‘honourable’ heads. At the salon the other day, I bumped into an honourable member of the National Assembly; and the other other day a couple of honourable Commissioners. So all in all, my barber does some brisk business with top heads. And because the price of a haircut is fixed, and not every customer remembers to leave a tip, my barber has to invent more ways of survival. His fundraising way with me is with my ‘dandruff’. Almost every time I go to have a haircut, the first thing he says when he reaches near my scalp is that “Alhaji, you have dandruff.”

It began like a joke. I would laugh and say, “Hey, I don’t have dandruff!” Then he would scrape my scalp and show me some powdery white stuff: my very dandruff. So I gave up resisting. The third time he said I had dandruff, I said, “Yeah, yeah, I have dandruff, and it’s killing me. What do I do about it?” He had the right remedy: a big bottle of hair shampoo which he assured would do away with the irritant in no time: “Just rub in at every shower and you are bye-bye to dandruff”, he said. So I bought the hair shampoo on which was written Head and Shoulders. (I still wonder what my shoulders had to do with it). I took it home but actually never got round to using it; so convinced I was that I had no dandruff for a start, but not for a finish. And that was the beginning of my travails.

At the next visit, he commended the healing process of my dandruff, but announced with a flourish that yet another, better, remedy had come into town. This time, it was an ointment which you would rub into your scalp after every morning shower. Rather than argue, I bought the stuff. And took it home. And put it on the side of the big bottle of shampoo on the shoulder of my bathroom mirror. Out of curiosity I one day opened the ointment bottle to smell the content; it was so strongly ghastly I nearly threw up, and so threw it away.

A couple of weeks later, I went back to my barber. All this time I had not used any of those remedies. Yet he complimented me for a job well done: my dandruff (which I knew never existed), had all but disappeared, he commended. So I was on my guard for any further recommendations he would make. Lo and behold, he offered an after-dandruff rub which, he claimed, would ensure it never came back. I bought up and gave up.

Over the few years I have been a ‘patient’ patient at this dandruff ‘surgery’, I had been coaxed into buying an ear- and nose-hair trimmer (“the perfect thing for busy people such as you Alhaji”). And he recommended a new apron, and a new set of clippers. By the time he was done with me, my bathroom had as many gadgets as he had in his show glass. Over the course of a few years, my barber has made me buy a range of hair-care products I can well do without. So far I have several shampoos, a couple of ointments, a set of brushes, two clippers, a napkin, an apron (yes, including an apron), and that ear- and nose-hair trimmer which needs batteries that I haven’t come round to buying. Simple predatory marketing, I must admit, but I was the fool for it.

So how did I fall into this trap? I am otherwise quite a thrifty person with my scarce resources, yet look at this barber who has made sure he parted me with my hard-earned money over time. He must have something which I don’t. On closer scrutiny, I found that the one who holds your head (and has a weapon to hand) brooks no argument. So it was instinctive buying.

So there is no conflict at the top of my head. As there is no conflict at the top of our national government. If the top is at peace, the bottom should fare well. So it is with concern that I warn people who look at our top man and comment, “Kai! This guy really looks ill”, to sheath their swords, or clippers, as the case may be. Who said he is unwell? Is he complaining to you? Is she complaining? So what is your own commenting where you are not required to comment? As there is no conflict on my head, there cannot be conflict at the nation’s top. People just scrape some powdery white stuff and claim it is dandruff. It is not.

Even if I had dandruff, come to think of it, was I complaining? But the barber had this scary theory that, left untreated, dandruff can descend into one’s eyes, and one’s teeth. Fie! If dandruff can sit unobtrusively on my head without the head-owner complaining, why can’t our top guy sit safely on his seat? The nation is not complaining of any itching and/or scratching on its head. The head is perfect.

Therefore, O my barber, just leave my dandruff alone. I am not complaining. We are not complaining whether the top man looks ill or doesn’t; whether he is up and doing, or down and undoing. There is no conflict whatsoever. My dandruff only affects me. So let him be. And let my dandruff be.

Two people stoned to death in Benue State over ritual killing

Two people in Benue State were stoned to death by a mob for the killing of a man for ritual purposes.

The man was suspected to be have been killed by unknown ritualists. The ritualists are said to have removed his heart and left his body by the road and then taken away his motorcycle.

Youths in the area are then said to have been searching for the ritualists and arrested the two men who they then stoned to death.

NAIJA SIXTH ON WORLD"S KIDNAPPING!!!!!

HAITI – Being the least developed country in the Americas, it’s only natural that the Haitians make up for their low income with kidnapping. Furthermore, 80 per cent of the population is living in poverty and over half of the country’s inhabitants are illiterate. Haiti remains an unsafe place to visit, even considering the presence of the UN stabilization force. Kidnappers and street gangs are thriving in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince.


The targets include rich Haitians, diplomats, aid workers and, of course, foreign tourists. If you’re willing to leave that aside, Haiti is a place of colorful art, fascinating traditions, vibrant music and spiritual people.

9. Iraq – Made by the Sumerians and Babylonians the centre of the ancient world, Iraq has been under turmoil since the American’s invasion in 2003.

It doesn’t come as a surprise, considering the widespread civil violence, that Iraq isn’t one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Violence and kidnappings occur on a regular basis and are mainly aimed at foreigners. Once the home to the most ancient civilizations, Iraq is now a place where several distinct forces are competing for control.

8. Afghanistan – Once known as the centre of ancient empires or, in recent years, as a country with a great backpacking circuit, Afghanistan has been experiencing a lot of turmoil in the wars that have been waging for over 25 years. Presently, several areas of the country remain unsafe for travelers, particularly during the NATO-led operations against the Talibans and Al-Qaeda. Attacks targeting foreigners are ever frequent, especially suicide bombings concentrated around foreign embassies. Visitors are recommended to avoid gatherings, avoid travelling alone or at night. Afghanistan presently has one of the most volatile situations.

7. Chechnya – Ever since the Russian empire collapsed in 1991, southern Russian has been marked by the conflict between the Chechen separatists and the Russian forces, thus reducing almost most of the province to sad ruins of a long war. Rich in petro-chemicals, natural gas and oil, the country’s economy and infrastructure have been experiencing a serious crash, due to the on-going conflicts. Leaving that aside, Chechnya has a surprisingly beautiful mountainside, with its mineral waters, making it a great spa centre.

6. Nigeria – Africa’s most populous nation has a fascinating mixture of over 200 ethnic groups that, coupled with an unstable economy, often leads to a volatile situation. According to news reports, over 200 foreign oil workers have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta, most situations being resolved with a ransom.

5. Philippines – The archipelago consisting of 7,107 islands is a fascinating, laidback natural paradise, with friendly, engaging people. But there’s a reason we included Philippines among the countries most likely to get kidnapped. North Cotabato, Mindanao, Zamboanga peninsula, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and the Sulu archipelago are just a few areas that a traveller should necessarily avoid. Apart from the usual robberies and kidnappings, foreigners also risk having a drug put in their drink that knocks one out immediately. Tourists are then either robbed, raped or have their kidneys taken. 10 hours are needed to wake up from the drug and another three days to remember what happened.

4.Venezuela – With some of the most spectacular landscapes and the longest waterfall in the world, Venezuela truly is a sight not to be missed, if you’re willing to leave aside street crime, kidnappings or political turmoil. If not, know that street crime is present on a daily basis throughout the country. Tourists in Venezuela are the easiest target for pickpockets; so try to look like anything but a tourist. Don’t wear jewelry, watches, avoid unfolding maps, taking pictures and stay away from poor areas. To avoid problems, simply stay in the touristic areas.

3. Colombia – National parks, high mountains, cruise boats or soaring skyscrapers are just a few of the numerous attractions Colombia has to offer. Even though it might sound like an untroubled paradise, Colombia has its fair share of drug dealers, robberies and kidnappings. Even though safety has improved in recent years, Colombia still suffers from high kidnapping and homicide rates in urban areas. The extra violence is provoked by the guerrillas which operate mainly in rural areas – the places to be avoided are the border areas with Ecuador and Venezuela.

2. Brazil – The largest country in South America, teeming with beaches and untamed forests, Brazil is one of the most vibrant and colorful places on the continent. As with the other countries on the list, the downside is the street crime present in big cities, where attacks against tourists have become frequent. Apart from the usual kidnappings, there are also a high number of muggings; so simply leave your valuables at the hotel and take with you only a small amount of money. To top it all off, Brazil experienced an increase in the number of yellow fever and dengue fever cases, so be sure to have your shots before entering the country.

1. Mexico – With a mix of modern city life and a reminiscent ancient civilization, Mexico is one of the liveliest, yet most dangerous countries on the list. You’ll come across plenty of corruption and the usual street crime that comes with every big city. Kidnapping for ransom is fairly common, especially in border cities such as Tijuana, Nogales or Juarez. As with other cities on the list, try not to look like a tourist, avoid flashing shiny, expensive objects and you should be fine.

Detectives trail fraudsters using Osun StateGovernor Oyinlola’s number!!!!!!!

Detectives are on the trail of fraudsters using the phone number of Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, in their attempt to dupe the state government and some banks.

A statement from Oyinlola’s Special Adviser on Media and Chief Press Secretary (CPS), Lasisi Olagunju, advised members of the public including corporate organisations not to transact any business with anybody using any of the governor's telephone numbers or those of his aides, without personally clearing it with the governor.

The fraudsters had last week Tuesday, sent text messages to the State Accountant General, using the governor’s MTN No, 08034040527 asking him to pay the sum of N15 million into bank accounts in Afribank and UBA.

The first text message reads, “AG, make a cash deposit of N15 million in favour of MORRIS DAVID NIG.ENT. Afri bank, 2086303335616 and Anthony Ejieji, UBA 00220520135918. Split seven and eight million respectively. Ensure utmost confidentially (sic) and act very urgent. Governor.”

It was followed hours later by two others from the same MTN number querying the Accountant General's delay to effect the order.

“What is the delay for? Do the deposit and get back to me. I will talk to you later in the evening concerning this. Governor,” the second text message read and was followed by a third one, “Why the delay? do the deposit and test(sic) me. I will talk to you in the evening. Governor.”

Again on Sunday December 28, 2008, another text message was sent from the same number, to an Executive Director of WEMA Bank, asking him to pay some money into Bank PHB Account No 124200001979 belonging to one Edward Duru.E.

The matter had since been reported to the police.

Osita Iheme, Kanayo O. Kanayo besiege Imo govt house for appointment!!!!!

FOLLOWING the recent appointment of actor and ace comedian, McAnthony Onyegbule (Okey Bakassi) into the Chief Ikedi Ohakim-led government and the looming cabinet reshuffle, the Imo State Government House has become a Mecca of sort to movie actors and actresses who under one guise or the other have continued to frequent Government House in search of appointments in the next cabinet shake up . But for the fact, that most of them are known faces, one man have mistaken them for contractors who frequently come to lobby for mobilization or full payment of job done for the government . Trend'tainment gathered that most of them are still clutching their heavily padded resumes about , while others have already sent across their tinkered curriculum vitae to some persons in the Government House believed to have the ear of the Governor. As at press time, two names are loudest in the desperate hustle to secure government appointment .They are Osita Iheme of the “Aki and PawPaw” fame who is said to be angling for appointment as ... wait for it , a Commissioner. Of all people also, is Kanayo O. Kanayo , who is said to be scheming for a Special Adviser position.

Tactically, Kanayo may have lost the slot to his kinsman, Okey Bakassi but be that as it may, flooding the Government House with actors and actresses may set the stage for an administration hinged on make-belief. Well, yours sincerely cannot entirely put them all down because if Barack Obama could be the President of America, then Osita Iheme can as well be a Commissioner in Imo State!