Crisis has once again hit the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), as two factions are currently laying claim to its presidency after two parallel conventions. The first is Mr. Lawal Damilare, a student of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo State, who was elected on Sunday at the Yaba College of Technology (Yabatech), Lagos.

The other faction is led by Mr. Fani Osabinu, also a student of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), who was elected at the old parade ground, Abuja on 4 June, 2006. Briefing newsmen at the office of the Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO) in Ikeja, yesterday, the faction led by Mr. Damilare accused the other faction of being sponsored by Aso Rock. Speaking further, he alleged that Mr. Andy Uba, President Olusegun Obasanjo's Special Assistant on Domestic Affairs, gave Osabinu’s faction N6 million to organise what he called a "Kangaroo election because they are members of the PDP Youth wing."

It will be recalled that the student body had been entangled in the web of controversy since the former President, Kenneth Hembe, openly endorsed the third term agenda of President Obasanjo and his subsequent impeachment by the association's Senate at the Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO) in March this year.

Culled from PM. News Nigeria

Over the years, Nigerian students at the tertiary level have been suffering several deprivations aside financial problem. These problems include inadequate accommodation, erratic power supply, scarcity of food and water and lack of other basic amenities that make life easy. But lately, these difficulties have been further compounded by incidence of corruption and fraud among lecturers.
I will give you an insight into the atrocities committed by these lecturers, and they have to be given the tag “fraudsters”. Is it not fraudulent, or is it not illegal for them to compel students to buy their books even when it is very glaring that the books are neither extensive nor intensive?

Most of these textbooks forced on students are not comprehensive, the major concern of the lecturers is money, especially when their salaries are delayed by the government.

The teachers are discouraging hard work and diligence and in the process condoning laziness for they demand bribe from students by promising to award them undeserved marks and grades.

These institutions should organise workshops and seminars at intervals for the university staff to enlighten them on the bane of corruption and other related offences.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria should beam its search light on these university members of staff.

LIKE SADDAM, LIKE OBASANJO

Saddam Hussein is different thing to different people. He is to some a villain while to some others he is a hero of some sort. But whichever way one looks t the man the one fact that cannot be taken away from his personae is that he came to this world with a heart of stone. And he has not shown in any instance shown that he is ready to drop that barbaric coat of a terror. The man is simply unrepentant; but I know that some day soon, even members of his own family will begin to see him the way the rest of the world sees him.

For over thirty years he held his people hostage and the rest of the world, spellbound. He barked, jeered, bullied, threatened, kidnapped, arrested, detained, tortured and killed thousands of innocent Iraqi’s. He takes delight in seeing people groan and cry in pin. The closest word to sanity that one could describe him with is a ‘saddist’. He is also a dreamer and an adventurous man who delights in taking risks, big risks.

But even when the larger world sees him as a villain, there are still some die-hard followers who believe in him and would put their lives on the line to prove their loyalty to him. Most of Saddam’s men were more loyal to him that they were to Iraq. And this is quite understandable because, the man’s notoriety at pulling the trigger at the head of any opposition, even at the slightest provocation, is very legendary. Saddam had always been a sad man; and here one easily make out the correlation between his name and his mien. He remains one of the world’s most dreaded war criminal who took a passionate excitement in extra judicial killings.

I am one of those who still haboured a deep feeling of disgust and disappointment at the ease with which Saddam was apprehended by the American-led allied forces at the fall of his reign. One thing that came out of the gulf war is that the Iraqi people were really dying in silence in their country. Nobody dared cry out else the result obviously, is death. I have herd people advance the argument that the Iraqi people were happy with Saddam because, during his time the people were living well. Some people here who had not even ventured past Murtla Muhammed International airport are ready to put up robust argument that Iraqi’s had access to free accommodation, good jobs, medi-care, and even free cars for graduates; but its all lies. We only needed the pulling down of his government to see the poverty behind the curtains that shielded us from the real situation on the ground.

He has gone down from being a dreaded dictator to a prisoner undergoing trials at a special war crimes tribunal. And having realised that his rating has gone down pretty drastically, after his cheap arrest by American forces, he is trying to throw up every stunt to impress the world that he is not coward after all. Thus the stubbornness he is putting up at the trials can be understandable, he needs to prove that soldier is always a soldier. But too bad, nobody is fooled.

Like Saddam Hussein, our President, Mathew Aremu Okikiola Olusegun Obasanjo is also not one man I think Nigerians would describe as their hero. Not even in his first coming did our people consider him a wonderful person, it only happened that he took over from where Murtala left off and merely carried that mans agenda through. And by that he became the darling of the western world. The popularity OBJ enjoyed when he handed over power to civilians in 1979 was more like an inherited glory.

We can all see that too well now that he is playing politics all on his own. We can see that he would not have gone back to his farm so soon were the 1976 putsch his own plot. Like Saddam, Mr. President had his own record of high volume human rights abuses. Poverty level under his rule has also been on the rise since he assumed office as civilian president, and even now that Nigerians were supposed to be warming up to bid him fare-thee-well from Aso Rock, the Balogun of Owu is adamant. He wants to stay on for another term; he wants to sit-tight!

Like Saddam, he is unrepentant; like Saddam, he is stubborn; like Saddam our dear president is failing to look beyond the high walls of Aso Rock and see that Nigerians are tired, disgusted, and terrified of his rule. Like Saddam Hussein, President Olusegun Obasanjo is daring Nigerians. And he is also daring God!

I disagree that there should not be any basis to compare both men. Though OBJ might look hesitant in applying gas as a form of torture, he equally has the capability to inflict pain on any form of opposition. A good example is what he is doing to rubbish the name of any politician whom he considers threat to his third term agenda. Like Saddam, he is not a listening statesman else, the masses would not be finding it excruciatingly difficult to feed and he would be saying the economy is buoyant. That to me is the height of insensitivity.

But what is repulsive in all of this is that Mr. President thinks that he has friends and supporters who will put their lives on the line for him. Here sir, you are very wrong! In fact, he would be shocked by the time he leaves office that he has no friends after all. He would be amazed how his Ota home -which is today a beehive of political activities every weekend- will become a deserted enclave on his exit from the presidential villa. I expect Mr. President as a retired military man to know that he has no true loyalist in this game called politics.

He may stubbornly overlook this piece of genuine observation but, I can bet that starting from sometime in January 2007 he will begin to see that in deed, he has no true loyalist among the contractors and jobbers who swan around him today, as politicians, supporters, and political godsons.

Like Saddam, Obasanjo might spend his last days out of office a continual battle to want to be relevant and taken seriously.

SOURCE:- GLOBAL EXCELLENCE MAGAZINE

"In all his dealings with us God is at work for our good: In prosperity, he tests our gratitude; in mediocrity, our contentment; in misfortune, our submission; in dartkness, and at all times, our obedience and trust in Him."


"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game "

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end. "
Jeremiah 29: 11 (KJV)

"If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.
But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed."
James 1: 5 - 6 (KJV)

"Identity is the sum of characteristics that I use to compare and contrast myself with those around me in order to find my purpose and place in the world"
Unknown

1. The Lord na my shephard, i dey kampe.
2. E make me sidon for where betta dey flow and come put me next to stream make mai bodi thermacool.
3. E panel beat mai soul come spray am white, come dey lead me dey go through express road of righteousness sake of Hin name.
4. Walahi !, if I waka pass where arm robber, 419 and juju people boku, come even join okada reach valley of the shadow of death sef, mai bodi dey inside cloth. Your rod and staff nko ? Na so dem dey like back bone dey comfort me.
5. You don prepare Egusi and Pounded yam make I chop. All mai enemies dey look waa waa. You rub me for head wit vaseline intensive lotion. mai cup na River Niger wey overflow hin bank.
6. True true, betta life and mercy go gum mai back till I quench. And man pikin go tanda for God house from lai lai to lai lai.

GOD ALMIGTHY NA YOU BIKO
AMEN.