And the norm says white girls can’t dance and I’m here wondering what went wrong here or whether these ones painted white on their body.
The choreography is totally off the hook and even Yemi Alade had to post it on her IG. Watch the dance on her IG post below:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BJ7hivZgyjt/?taken-by=yemialade
The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, says given the challenges and malpractices that have marred elections both in the past and in recent times in the country, the commission cannot guarantee that the general elections in 2019 will be conclusive.
He said any attempt to give such assurance at this time would be second-guessing the outcome of the election, noting that it had become inevitable for the commission to declare some elections inconclusive.
The INEC boss, who spoke on Friday, stated that if everyone, including the staff of the commission, the voters, politicians and other stakeholders, play by the rules, there would be no inconclusive election.
He said, “We can’t second-guess to say this is the outcome of an election before it happens, unless we are not conducting elections. We hope it won’t lead to that, but if it happens, the constitution has a way out of it.
“There is no way the commission will declare any election conclusive where the threshold is not met. We can only declare an election conclusive when we are satisfied with the law and electoral act because all elections are governed by constitutional provisions, provisions of the electoral act and our guidelines. This is the challenge that we face, but we must express it because we (INEC) will not compromise.
“The constitution of this country provides condition for making return in an election. If that threshold is not met, can INEC make a declaration? We can’t, under the law, and if you do so the court will nullify the election and then we incur costs to do the election again.
“As to what will happen in 2019, only God knows, but we will abide by the provisions of the constitution, the electoral law and our guidelines in making declarations. We can only hope for the best.”
The INEC chairman, who spoke extensively while responding to questions on the inconclusive elections conducted by the commission, explained that majority of the 137 elections conducted by the commission in the past eight months were conclusive, dismissing insinuations that the commission had been organising inconclusive elections.
He explained that people had been used to conclusive elections on first ballot, pointing out that the political terrain has changed completely. He added that most of the elections were a product of the 2015 general elections and that there were no less than 680 court cases emanating from the 2015 general elections.
Read More:
http://punchng.com/inec-cant-guarantee-conclusive-elections-2019-chairman/
Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) yesterday called the bluff of the Nigerian military, saying no amount of intimidation can make them abandon their struggle for the restructuring of Nigeria.
They accused the military of deceiving Nigerians by showing false videos of how they carried out bombardment of some illegal bunkering camps in the Niger Delta region.
The militants described the military’s action “as unprofessional and a ploy to intimidate them with scrap jet bombers”, adding that they would not be intimidated, even if more jet bombers were deployed to the region.
“They can deploy fourth generation jet-bombers but that will not stop us from fighting for our people. We, hereby, challenge the military to share with the public the militants killed in the so-called air strike. We are very sure that they won’t share the images of militants killed because non was killed except innocent women and children,” NDA spokesman, Brigadier General Mudoch Agbinibo, said.
“What we are saying is that the country should be restructured. The call for restructuring of Nigeria has gone beyond the NDA. The only group of persons against the restructuring is the Aso Rock Villa. The Federal Government should just listen to the voice of the citizens, instead of playing the deaf ear game,” the militants added.
“We are saying that @agbiniboND is our new official twitter account handle. Twitter can block or suspend our account but they cannot stop or block our struggle,” they further said in a one-page statement made available to newsmen.
The militants, however, vowed to bomb more oil pipelines in the region and urged President Muhammadu Buhari “to listen to voice of reason, instead of threatening us on the pages of newspapers.”
Credit: Sun
The House of Representatives Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions says it is awaiting a petition from a former chairman of House Appropriations Committee chairman, Abdulmumin Jibrin, who has accused the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara, and other members of massive corruption.
The chairman of the ethics committee, Nicholas Ossai (PDP-Delta), sais by phone on Friday that it would need a petition to investigate weighty allegations of budget fraud against Mr. Dogara; deputy, Yusuf Lasun; deputy majority leader, Ahassan Doguwa; and minority leader, Leo Ogor.
He however said it was wrong for Mr. Jibrin to claim that lawmakers “padded” the 2016 budget. He said the budget was merely “amended”.
Mr. Jibrin, who was removed from his position last week, said the speaker, Mr. Dogara, and the other three principal officers, inserted layers of fictitious projects worth N40 billion into the budget for fraudulent reasons.
He has called for their resignation.
“In legislature, you don’t talk about padding,” Mr. Ossai said. “Budget is an appropriation bill and is like other bills that you amend. You know in bills you talk about clauses. Every head in the budget is a clause. So legislators have power to amend it.”
He said lawmakers were allowed to introduce constituency projects as “effective representatives” of the people.
Pressed on Mr. Jibrin’s claim that besides constituency projects, chairmen of 10 committees “padded” over N284 billion through 2000 projects, into the budget, Mr. Ossai said he could not comment because “that is part of investigations”.
“We are waiting for petition and I know pages of newspapers are not petitions,” said Mr. Ossai. ”The ethics committee looks forward to receiving petition. No petition has been brought before the committee; the committee must receive petition before it dabbles into any issue.”
Asked whether his committee could not act proactively given the seriousness of the allegations, Mr. Ossai said a petition would still be better.
“Petition formalises everything. Without recourse to letter that comes from the House (after it received petition), the ethics committee can move into and investigate the matter but it is better empowered if a petition is forwarded to it,” he said.
Credit: PremiumTimes
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State has declared that the All Progressives Congress, APC, is not in a position to win an election in the state, accusing the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi of sponsoring violence to remain politically relevant.
Wike informed that with the proofs of corruption against Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation resorted to blackmailing the leadership of the APC that he would reveal to the public how much he invested in the party’s campaign if he was not confirmed as a minister.
This is even as the Senate Caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, led by Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio insisted that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, must release the collated results of the March 19, 2016 rerun elections. Speaking during a solidarity visit by the PDP Senate Caucus, Governor Wike said the Minister of Transportation lost his local government area and Federal Constituency, hence his desperation to influence the release of the results. He said: “Any person who loves Mr President won’t be causing unnecessary crisis for him. We have problem in the North East, problem in the South-East, so there is no need for another problem in the South-South .
“It is good that the elections were held so that Nigerians will know the truth about the polity. If elections are held 20 times, PDP will win”.
The governor decried the role played by soldiers during the rerun elections. He said the military were directly involved in the elections at polling units and at the collation centres in direct violation of the Electoral Act. He regretted the killing of the corps member, Samuel Okonta during the rerun elections, but stressed that investigation into the type of bullet that killed him must be made public. He confirmed that the state government will immortalise the late corps member.
Credit: Vanguard
Against the backdrop of recent deadly attacks carried out in some towns in Borno State by Boko Haram, the nation’s Service Chiefs have opened up to the leadership of the Senate why they have been unable to successfully prosecute the insurgency war.
They complained of lack of funds to buy equipment and also, lamented the failure of the Federal Government to release funds appropriated for the prosecution of war in the 2015 budget.
These factors were revealed to the Senate leadership and disclosed by the office of Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki in a statement yesterday. The closed-door meeting between the service chiefs and top senators, which lasted for about two hours on Wednesday was presided over by the Senate President.
Saraki said several issues tailored at further empowering the security agencies to win the war against Boko Haram were discussed in a frank and open exchange between the two sides.
The military chiefs, led by the Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, reportedly briefed the lawmakers on the various challenges faced by the military, particularly the state of their equipment which they said required serious upgrading and restocking.
“They also complained that their vote in the 2015 supplementary budget has not been released thereby hampering their ability to fund their operations. Other issues that came up for discussion were the need to continuously increase the personnel in the three branches of the military and the hindrance posed by the procurement process which they said is very slow,” Saraki stated in the statement.
“The military chiefs also canvassed the need for the review of some laws governing their operations so as to make them able to respond to emergency situations they now confront in the North-east zone as well as conform with global best practices,” he further noted.
Credit: Sun
As the plan by members of the National Assembly to spend N4.6 billion on vehicles continues to generate a controversy, two senators have reacted to President Muhammadu Buhari’s position.
While the senator representing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Delta North, Peter Nwaoboshi cautioned that the Senate should not by any means be mistaken as an appendage to the executive arm of government, his counterpart , Senator Abdullahi Adamu of All Progressives Congress (APC) Nasarawa State has urged critics to quote Buhari accurately on his position on the matter.
Nwaoboshi, who was the PDP chairman in Delta, said so far as purchase of the cars was within the budget of the National Assembly, it was unreasonable for other arms of government to dictate or decide for them on how to go about it.
“Although the resident had said during the media chat where the issue came up, that he was not sure about the plan and has promised to look into the issue, in any case, the said vehicles are still within our budget and if that be so, he cannot dictate to us what to do with it.”
Credit: Guardian
Waking up in the middle of the night can be a stressor for even the most laid-back people. Your mind starts wandering, thinking of how tired you’ll be in the morning if you can’t get some more decent shut-eye. When rolling over or counting livestock doesn’t work, slight anxiety can turn into full-fledged worry — worry that spills over to every issue in your life that’s now contributing to your insomnia.
Worry and stress are definitely the world’s best anti-sleeping drugs. But just because you wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a bad thing. In fact, waking up for an hour (or even a few) used to be common, and was viewed as natural, not a problem. Several studies show that the definition of “a good night’s sleep” is completely dependent upon what century you lived in, and look very different from our current standard of one eight-hour block.
The eight-hour block of uninterrupted slumber is a convention of modern times. In fact, up until the 1900s, there were other schools of thought about what rest looked like. In the 1980s and 1990s, history professor Roger Ekirch started to notice references of unique sleep patterns in his collection of texts. “First sleep” and “second sleep” were common occurrences, and it served as a signal that sleep used to happen in distinct chunks. Ekirch later went on to write a book called At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past that described how sleep patterns used to be four hours at a time, with a one- or two-hour break in between the first and second segments.
In the same way an insomniac today scans Facebook or picks through their latest book of the month, the waking hours of the night were filled with activity, Ekirch found. Generations of people who depended on sunlight for work went to sleep when night fell, then awoke around midnight or so. They filled an hour or so with reading, prayer, visiting neighbors, or sex. Then they fell asleep for another four hours before waking up to begin the next day, often at daybreak or soon after.
Read More: cheatsheet
The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, yesterday, defied the directive by the Senate to abolish the Fixed Charges, FC, introduced by the commission, noting that there is nothing illegal about the charges.
Chairman of NERC, Dr. Sam Amadi, who spoke against the background of the motion by members of the red chamber, maintained that the electricity fixed charges are legal and cannot be abolished.
It will be recalled that the Senate had, last Tuesday, directed the commission to abolish the monthly fixed charges being collected from electricity consumers by the Distribution Companies, DISCOs.
The resolution followed a motion entitled, “Unfair trade practices of Electricity Distribution Companies in Nigeria,” sponsored by Senator Sam Egwu, Ebonyi and Senator David Umaru of Niger East Senatorial District.
But Amadi maintained that any attempt to promptly abolish the fixed charges will have adverse effect on the electricity market.
This is even as the commission has urged communities that are placed on bulk billing to not only reject it, but also insist on individual meters.
The commission also revealed that it has abolished the connection of new customers without meters.
Read More: vanguardngr
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has said that no amount of “intimidation, blackmail and propaganda” by the Presidency would stop it from demanding that President Muhammadu Buhari kick-starts government and commence implementation of his campaign promises for which he was voted into office.
PDP had on Sunday said that Mr. Buhari’s first 30 days in office saw Nigeria only in motion without movement.
Mr. Buhari promptly replied the PDP saying he is taking his time to clean the rot left by the party.
The PDP, however, said the Presidency’s excuse of clearing the “so-called Augean Stable” is lame and diversionary noting that it stands by its statement that the delay is creating loopholes through which some persons claiming closeness to the President have infiltrated executive bodies, arm-twisting and conniving with unscrupulous elements in the bureaucracy to syphon the nation’s resources in the last 30 days.
The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, in a statement on Monday said the party would not in any way be cowed by threats and wild allegations by the Presidency into abdicating its responsibility of speaking out as an opposition party where the system is derailing.
Read More: premiumtimesng
The dwindling resources of states and local governments suffered a 30.6 per cent fall from federation account allocation in April 2015 when compared with what the states got in the same period last year.
Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Economic Report for the month of April said that the total statutory allocation to the state governments stood at N153.45 billion in April 2015. This was 30.6 and 22.9 per cent below the 2014 monthly budget estimate and the level in the preceding month, respectively. The dwindling revenue of federal, state and local government is as a result of falling oil prices.
Giving insight into the poor financial status of states which depends on monthly federal allocation, the CBN report for April said: “The breakdown showed that at N119.27 billion or 77.7 per cent of the total, state governments’ receipt from the Federation Account was below both the 2014 monthly budget estimate and the level in the preceding month by 29.7 and 30.3 per cent, respectively.
“At N34.17 billion or 22.3 per cent of the total, receipts from the VAT Pool Account was below the monthly budget estimate by 33.4 per cent, but exceeded the level in the preceding month by 22.2 per cent. Total receipts by the local governments from the Federation Account and VAT Pool Account stood at N88.91 billion at end-April 2015.
“This was lower than both the budget estimate and the level in the preceding month by 33.8 and 19.7 per cent, respectively. Of this amount, receipts from the Federation Account were N64.99 billion (73.1 per cent of the total), while the VAT Pool Account accounted for N23.92 billion (26.9 per cent of the total).
“At N735.07 billion, estimated federally-collected revenue in April 2015, was lower than the monthly budget estimate by 9.8 per cent. It was, however, higher than the receipt in the preceding month by 35.8 per cent. The decline in estimated federally-collected revenue (gross) relative to the monthly budget estimate was attributable, largely, to the shortfall in receipts from oil revenue during the review month
Read More: vanguardngr
