Finally the ghost of the controversial 2004 edition of the star studded Nigerian  Breweries PLC sponsored Star Mega Jams concerts was put to rest Sunday, at  the La Cachette Restaurant venue of the album launch of the musical group,  The Pulse.

The musician at the centre of the controversy that trailed the cancelled concert, Eedris Abdulkareem  chose the album launch venue to apologise to some management staff of the Iganmu, Lagos based brewing company for his unwarranted outbursts and embarrassing posture that caused millions of Nigerians the opportunity to see the much hyped America superstar rap artiste, 50 Cents perform.

And for the first since the former member of the defunct Remedies group began his petty war against the brewing giants, Eedris who had consistently denied ever reaching agreements with Town Criers, the event company that handled the botched concert over performance fees, agreed publicly that he was paid N3million.

Accompanied by the boss of Kennis Music, Kenny Ogungbe, the very humbled musician who became a cult hero with his hit song Jaga Jaga apologised to a stunned audience while also thanking NP PLC for giving his career a lift when he needed it most.

Although no statement has been made by NB PLC, an excited official of the company however told Showtime that “the move was the right thing to do. I’m sure the management will forgive him. That explains why he was allowed to perform on our platform tonight”.

Our reporter recalled that Eedris had been banished from performing on the platform of any concerts organised by the brewing company.

The action followed his unruly conduct at the 2004 edition of the company’s sponsored Star Mega Jams concert.
Apart from composing a song against the brewing giants, he also went further to lampoon 50 Cents in far away South Africa,  accusing the American of calling Nigerians Monkeys, a claim many knew was false.

In addition, he denied ever reaching agreement with the event companies over his performance fee claiming that he had asked to be treated on the same platform with the visiting American.

Now that apologies have been tendered did, I hear someone say let the music play Nigerian Breweries?

Generally, we Nigerians are known to be very prideful, I have seen many people criminate us as the haughtiest swaggerest set of people walking the face of the planet. Is this pride justified? Or does this pride spring out of our characteristic lifestyle/culture of faking reality? Let us examine

Most philosophers and social psychologists remarked that “PRIDE is a complex secondary emotion which requires the development of a SENSE of SELF (emphasis added) and the mastery of relevant conceptual distinctions through language-based interaction with others”. Some identify it as “linked to a signal of high social status”. According to St. Augustine of Hippo, pride “is love of one’s own excellence”. Pride can also manifest itself as a high opinion of one’s nation and ethnicity.

It beggars curiosity what it is that justify our pride. We certainly have great fundamental cultures and esteemed values from Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, and other ethnics. Our languages are dynamic, and, especially Yoruba language with all its sub dialects, are very expressive, fluid, and receptive to change. These are worth being prideful of, but we Nigerians have deviated from these cultures and languages; it seems we have adopted another culture–worshiping others. We constantly yearn for western lifestyles and languages to the point of deriding, as not being hip, any of us that keep fidelity to our own languages and norms.  Our school system encourages us not to speak, develop, and perfect our indigenous languages, and also go as far as imposing English language in every corner. It is almost everywhere in our space to see households where the children are told and taught never to speak their indigenous language and never to engage in any native cultural festival or even study the geographical landscape of Nigeria. It seems to have taken some sorts of vogue to blurt out that you cannot speak in your own mother’s tongue. However, at any slightest chance, we are jocular about any of us who “murders” the English language.

The same can be said of accent and elocution; nigh on every Nigerian I have met has a sort of an unease disposition toward Nigerian accents, hence they grossly deform the intonation of their own names trying to put on it, an America/English accent as to make it pronounceable to westerners; Seun (enunciates as /shay hun/ in Yoruba) becomes intoned as “Shawn,” Tope (enunciates as /taw peh/in Yoruba) becomes intoned as “Top”, Ngozi (enunciate as/n gaw ze/ in Igbo) becomes intoned as “Gozy”, Emeka (enunciates as /a may kah/in Igbo) becomes “Meks”, Omisore (enunciates as /o me show ray/in Yoruba) becomes intoned as “Omi-shaw.”  I recognize the contention of the need to be easily and clearly understood, however this should not come at the expense of completely stripping your name of its meaning by applying to it, a deviated cadence so someone of different background may pronounce it. When we do this, we completely erode or silent our sense of self for sense of others; this is nothing short of complex. I was listening to one Naija show the other day and everybody and their mama were speaking in British accent, I could not believe my ears, upon further investigation, which I find out some of these people, have never left the shores of Nigeria. Have you ever seen any white person struggle to copy a Nigeria accent? They believe in their own excellence, that’s why they couldn’t give a hoot about anything beyond their enclaves. When we strive to be like them or communicate like them at the expense of our own, we are indirectly showing ourselves not to be good enough and that we are a second rate denizens of the World.

Another aspect of our lives guilty of this is our Igbo movies. They have taken some of this pretentiousness and faking reality characteristics to another level. Hardly are you going to see any lead character name in Igbo movies given Igbo or other indigenous (Calabar, Ijaw, etc) names, instead of promoting our language and our names like Emeka, Chudi, Onyi, Ibinabo, Ofonime and so on, they‘ll rather use English names like Ethan, Lampard, Steve and so on.

On top of this, we run the most “copy-cat” and visibly inept government ever. None of our governing documents contain any indigenously grown philosophy; we just facsimile, without fine-tuning, whatever “Oyinbo” does and slap it on our local dynamics, and expect to see progress. Basically we have perfected the art of living in other people’s world and playing them than living in our world and playing ourselves. This seems to be our new culture, culture of always giving preference and deference to western culture and language and directly extirpating everything that made us, us. Can this justify our pride?

Virtually every nation that is reputed for being prideful can point to tangible things that beseech their pride. USA’s pride and its reasons are axiomatic; England is known for its arrogance, but they can quickly point to many things they have imported to the world, among which are their language, system of government, and soccer. French can easily boast and justify their pride by pointing to their wines, philosophy of egalitarianism, and of course their aesthetically great city of Paris. Pray do tell what tangibles beget our pride? We are a producer of nothing but a consumer of everything.

I was chatting with a friend (who lives in Lagos) the other day and I asked about his daughter, he quipped, “she is at crèche”, I was taken aback and proceeded to ask him, “what the hell is called crèche?” he retorted “jelesimi otherwise known as kindergarten school” Then I asked him, why not just call it “Jelesimi” (since that is the Yoruba word for such school, the word is a derivation of Je ki ile simi (let the house rest…basically meaning; since children are so restless and always playing with whatever it is in the house, take them to somewhere like school where they would be, in order for the house to be undisturbed)). This friend told me Jelesimi is now called “crèche” (the French word for such thing) because crèche word is hip while Jelesimi is not and if you want to be hip, you call it crèche instead of Jelesimi. This is what we do to ourselves and it seems we don’t realize it at all. This is not a development of sense of self, this cannot be called love of one’s own excellence, and certainly this cannot be called high opinion of one’s nation and ethnicity, so what then justifies our pride?

Storm 360 artist, General Pype, has done something that's never been done before. His massive hit song 'Champion' is now the official theme song of Super Sports - The channel of champions. A deal which is said to be one of the first of its kind done by a locally based Nigerian artist for international release.

General Pype is the emerging Dancehall Champion of the African Urban Scene and this song is now on rotation on BBC 1 extra and has also been on heavy rotation all over Nigeria and Africa. He's elated about this deal as it will promote his brand of music to an even larger audience.

In the meantime General Pype's Debut Album has a tentative release date for October 1, Champion and the remix are available on itunes, yahoo, amazon.com and all major media stores so please get your copy and support quality Music from the heart of Africa; Nigeria.

Nelson mandela’s ex-wife, winnie mandela might be bringing back the old African culture where a warrior who who has fought for his nation gets the king’s daughter as reward. Mandela is an icon in africa, lets call him the king. Boateng who has fought for a place for africa in the world at the on-going world cup can be called an african warrior. Mandela’s ex-wife must have been dreaming of the ghanaian-german black stars’ player as the perfect man for granddaughter. She has gone so far as to offer her willing granddaughter to the 23 year old player. At first, Winnie might have gotten a knee-response from the player considering the value of such offer.




The former first lady met with boateng when she hosted the blackstars at her residence in soweto. She told boateng her granddaughter is ready to marry him and that she is ready to sponsor the marriage. Boateng has been admired by many young ladies around the world after playing at the world cup for ghana. Twitter proved it during the football match between US and ghana, when ‘boateng’ was trending: thousands of tweets emphasizing on the beauty of his face. Young ladies making a beeline for the ghanaian player to get his autograph. Kevin prince boateng who joined the ghanaian team after he was turned down by the german team might be going through a decisive moment in his life as he’s already married to jenny who resides in germany blessed with a child. Winnie had lost a granddaughter some hours before the world cup kicked off in south africa, and now, she is not ready to lose another granddaughter to just any man but boateng.

Should we call Winnie a do-gooder?. Winnie is not playing it by ear, and who knows he boateng is going to play the game the way winnie expected.

Nigerian goalkeeper, Vincent Enyeama was, in the hearts of millions of football fans across the world, one of the top goalkeepers of the World Cup. His performances between the sticks in the matches involving the Super Eagles has been attributed as the key reason why the Nigerian team was not embarrassed in South Africa, that is depending on if one doesn’t consider a draw and two losses from three games against Argentina, Greece and Korea Republic an embarrassment for a side from the world’s most populous black nation.

But the 27-year-old, who looks likely to leave Israeli league champions Hapoel Tel Aviv before the start of the new season, is not even listed among the tournament’s top ten goalkeepers in the Castrol Index as he is ranked a lowly 26th; even lower than Algeria’s Rais Bolhi, in 14th place, or Japan’s Eji Kawashima who is ranked second behind Germany’s Manuel Neuer. And the tournament’s organizers have explained why Enyeama is way down in the ranking according to the Castrol Index, which was developed in conjunction with Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger, and which uses the latest technology to objectively analyse and rank player performances.



FIFA’s explanation

“With Enyeama, part of the problem is that Nigeria went out at the group stage. As the tournament progresses, performances are rewarded more highly, since the matches tend to be more difficult. In addition, players who have not played a certain number of minutes are penalised, so players from eliminated teams will naturally drop down the rankings,” said the statement on Fifa.com. “With Enyeama, the fair comparison is to look at his ranking at the end of the group stage where he was the 22nd best goalkeeper. Maybe that is still surprising? He had made 20 saves, which was the second highest of any keeper but had conceded five goals, which was equal third worst.

So the fact he was very busy making saves meant he caught the eye but he did not keep a clean sheet. He saved 20 out of 25 shots faced, a save percentage of 80 - only the equal 14th best in the group stage which goes a long way to explaining his average ranking. With the goalkeeper ratings, we try to strip out the effect of the defence - it is not how many saves he makes but his performance once you have assessed how good or bad the defence is. This means good keepers in good teams have a chance of being top of the Castrol Index. Enyeama is an okay keeper in a team that performed disappointingly.”

National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) was recently put to task by the analysis of a psychiatrist who declared that out of every 10 Nigerians, seven displayed strange behaviour.
Mr. Dipo Lafenwa, a guest at this year’s UN International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking organized by the Ekiti State Command of NDLEA, gave the analysis while addressing the stakeholders in Ado-Ekiti.

He disclosed that it takes more years to rectify whatever damage done to a drug addict’s blood system than even the number of years the illicit drugs are consumed by the victim. Lafenwa revealed that illicit drugs consumption did not stop at the table of commercial motorists and motorbikers, but some prominent people in the society consumed and engaged in the circulation of the lethal substances.

The state Commander of NDLEA, Mr. Bamidele Akingbade, implored royal fathers to acquaint their subjects with the danger in the cultivation and consumption of the dangerous weed, Indian hemp. Soliciting the support of the state government in the fight against the menace, the commander disclosed that logistics required in carrying out their dangerous mission of stamping out cultivation and consumption of Indian hemp and other illicit drugs in the state were limited.

The state Commissioner for Health, Femi Thomas, told the stakeholders in attendance that a law had been promulgated by the state government that any land on which Indian hemp was found would be seized. He listed various damages done to the individual consumer of illicit drugs and the society at large to include brain damage, liver damage, social and psychological damages.

He said huge fund was expended on the rehabilitation of victims of illicit drug, besides the inglorious image it gives the country in the outside world. The psychiatrist also dropped another bombshell when he disclosed that the most productive population of the nation was neck deep in illicit drugs, taking the nation’s economy to the cliffhanger.
The NDLEA commander was, however, optimistic that the menace could be subdued if all sectors joined hands with the drug warriors in the battle against the dangerous drugs.

GHANA will join the oil producing countries soon and its leadership has vowed to learn from the failure of Nigeria’s and other African countries noted for producing oil over the years.

To also guide against Nigeria failure, the labour movement in Ghana has stated its readiness to work with relevant authorities to ensure that host communities and workers in the oil producing and marketing companies get their fair share.

The Secretary-General of Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), Kofi Asamoah, made this known in a paper delivered on Tuesday, at a workshop entitled: Strategic issues in modern trade union administration, organised for the national leadership of Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities (SSANU), at Tema, Ghana.

The five-day workshop, currently ongoing in Ghana, was jointly organised by the Michael Imoudu National Institute of Labour Studies (MINILS), Ilorin, Kwara State and SSANU.

Delivering his paper, Asamoah lamented the failure of Nigeria as a oil producing country for many years and said Ghana had no reason to fail, given the experiences and lessons from Nigeria.

If  the Criminal Law Bill currently being deliberated by the Lagos State House of Assembly sails through, then many parents in the state would face various prison terms for beating up their kids.
The bill has prescribed prison terms for various offences including the beating or flogging of children by their parents.
The bill also sees the maltreatment of animals as a criminal offence while the culprits are liable to imprisonment.
It also seeks to legalise abortion but this is limited to incidents of rape and incest.
This was made known at a public hearing on the bill for a law to enact rules on criminal conduct, regulate public order and for other connected purposes with the title: “The Criminal Law of Lagos State 2010”.
The bill, if passed into law, would also promote an orderly society, foster collective obligation and duty towards the preservation and protection of life and property.
It would also discourage and deal with conducts that unjustifiably and inexcusably inflict or threaten substantial harm to individual or public interests.
The bill also seeks to look at persons whose conducts indicate that they are disposed to commit offences.
The bill which is divided into nine parts, 48 chapters and 414 sections, classifies offences into three types namely: felony, misdemeanours and simple offences.
Section eight of the bill defines felony as “any offence which is declared by law to be a felony, or is punishable, without proof of previous conviction with death or with imprisonment for three years or more.
“All offences, other than felonies and misdemeanours are simple offences.”
However, some Lagosians who attended the public hearing advocated for the abolishment of capital punishment, life imprisonment, and called for the legalisation of abortion in cases of incest, rape, HIV/AIDS and other unusual circumstances.
According to them, the maximum prison sentence for offenders should be put at 20 years since criminals could be reformed and make meaningful contribution to the society after serving their prison terms.
Professor Adedokun Adeyemi of the University of Lagos, while commenting on the issue said, “death penalty does not affect the rate of criminality and Lagos in the 21st century should not adopt it.”

The Oyo State Police Command has commenced investigation into the mysterious death of a woman and her younger sister in the Itamaya area of Ibadan South West Local Government Area of the state on Tuesday.

The third person, also a female, who was with the deceased in their room when their corpses were discovered, is also currently receiving treatment in the intensive care unit of an undisclosed hospital in the metropolis.

Our correspondent gathered that the woman identified as Tawa Alabede, reportedly retired into her room at about 11pm on Monday with the girls, Shukura and Wuraola.

The three were said to have left their generating set running until their corpses were discovered by neighbours who waited in vain for them to come out of their room on Tuesday morning.

A source told our correspondent that neighbours who peeped through the window raised the alarm and called other people’s attention to the lifeless bodies of Alabede and Shukura with foam in their mouths.

The neighbours quickly mobilised, forced the door of the room opened and rushed them to a nearby hospital where the two were confirmed dead while Wuraola was quickly placed on oxygen.

Their corpses were later deposited at the State Hospital, Adeoyo, for autopsy.

When our correspondent visited the house, which also houses Alabede’s three liquor shops, neighbours were seen in groups discussing the incident.

The Divisional Police Officer in charge of the Central Police Station, Iyaganku, Mr. Teslim Ogunmefun, led policemen to the scene to retrieve the corpses.

Ogunmefun, a Chief Superintendent of Police, confirmed that investigation into the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the victims had commenced.

Niger Delta militants protesting against non-registration and non-payment of their allowance reportedly blocked the Abaji-Gwagwalada end of the road to Abuja, leaving thousands of commuters stranded on the busy highway.

The militants who were prevented from entering Abuja by policemen vented their frustration by taking over the road and causing serious traffic gridlock that lasted for hours.

Only last week, some militants in Cross River state, rough-handled Alaibe at the ”peace training” camp in Obubra, near Calabar, over the same issues.

A woman who claims to be the wife of the  late General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua,  Hajiya Asabe has been arrested by men of the Nigeria  Police in Lagos for allegedly defrauding several members of the public through visa scam.

Hajiya Asabe Yar-Adua was arrested in her home yesterday following several petitions to the police by members of the public over her fraudulent activities.

Police sources told our reporter that she was interrogated for several hours at the state criminal investigation department SCID, Panti, yesterday and may soon be charged to court for fraud.

The late Shehu Musa Yar'Adua.

Although our reporter could not confirm if Hajiya was truly the wife of the late Shehu Musa Yar-Adua, he was able to obtain a copy of one of the petitions that led to her arrest.

In the petition dated June 3, 2010, the petitioner, Liberty Chambers, acting on behalf of their client, Mr. Chijioke Onyekwuluje alleged that  at various times collected over N4.5 million from him under the pretence that she  was going to procure visa for him.

In one of the instances, the chamber alleged that Hajiya claimed to be the matron of the Nigerian Football Association (NFA) and promised to secure a visa to Shenge countries for their client at a cost of N650, 000.

According to the chamber, Hajiya never made good her promise but rather seized the passport of their client with a threat to deal with him if he reported the matter to the police.

The chamber said their client was only able to get back his international passport after Hajiya Asabe was remanded in prison custody sometime last year by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on  a separate allegation of fraud.

The police said in Lagos on Tuesday that they have arrested an employee of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and a contractor for allegedly being in possession of 62 corpses of babies.
The command’s spokesman, Mr. Frank Mba, disclosed this while parading the suspects in Ikeja.
He said that the suspects were arrested on Saturday while trying to inter the bodies at Ikorodu.
According to him, the contractor claimed that he worked with LUTH officials who allegedly contracted the evacuation and burial of unclaimed bodies to him.
“The contractor claimed that he was arrested at Ikorodu area on his way to burying the unclaimed dead bodies which he usually buries at Atan cemetery.
“He claimed that about N180,000 was allegedly approved by the hospital authorities to evacuate the dead bodies while he spends between N90, 000 and N100, 000 to bury them at Atan cemetery,’’ Mba explained.
Mba said that the suspects, in a bid to maximise profit, had resorted to dumping the corpses in the bush in Ikorodu.
The spokesman said that investigation into the matter had begun, adding that the suspects would be charged to court soon.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that only the photographs of the corpses concealed in “Ghana-must-go’’ bags were displayed by the police.

The company started as Econet Wireless Nigeria (2001); Vodacom Nigeria (2004); and the same year to V-Mobile Nigeria; Celtel Nigeria (2006); to Zain Nigeria (2008) and now Bharti Airtel Nigeria.

According to Manjo Kohli, the Africa group chief executive officer of Bharti Airtel, the new brand name would coincide with the 50th Independence anniversary of Nigeria on October 1.

"We will invest $600 million in Bharti Airtel Nigeria in the next three years. Fifty per cent of that amount would come up in the first year. We have looked that the Nigerian telecom industry and have discovered three issues: quality of service, freedom to make calls and affordability of service which we would work on to provide quality service to consumers," added Mr Kohli.

Subscribers are, however, concerned about the quality of service following another name change. Deolu Ogunbanjo, the president of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS) said via phone, "Somehow, I do not expect that the new change in name would affect them because of their subscriber's volume but may affect them if their quality of service becomes bad.

"Once they zero their mind on the quality of service and cheaper tariffs, then they would be able to survive the change. Considering the volume of subscribers Bharti Airtel has around the world and its history, it would be able to bring down Nigerian tariff."

Frank Okafor, a subscriber said, "I am not concerned about their change of name but about the quality of their service which I hope improves soon or they will lose subscribers."

Following the acquisition of Zain Africa in 15 countries, Bharti Airtel becomes the fifth largest mobile company in the world with over 180 million customers across its business units.

WHEN the Founder/General Overseer of Word of Life Bible Church, Warri, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor announced the presence of certain musicians at the second service of the Church penultimate Sunday, many members who stayed behind were not initially surprised.

That addition still did not attract the needed attention because it is commonplace to receive different gospel musicians in any big church to entertain to the congregation any way.

The charismatic preacher who doubles as the National President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN and who had collaborated with different persons and organisations to uplift the living standards of youths in the Niger Delta area, proceeded to ask the guests to file out and move to the podium of the 35,000-seater International Gospel Centre in Ajamimogha area of the oil city.

As soon as they started filing out led by the Delta State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Mr. Richard Mofe Damijo and immediately followed by the Faze, 2Face, J Martins, Maleke, Kaha, Flavour and Durella, the congregation roared.

For a long moment the congregation was spell bound and Papa Ayo, as the fiery preacher is fondly called in the Warri, ordered the musicians to sing praise and worship one after the other.

As they took their turn to praise God, the church sang along, danced and heartily  rejoiced to see these popular Nigerian acts live in their midst and throughout the service all attention was on the area where they sat.

The duo of Faze and Tu Face as well as J Martins specially drew a lot of applause as the young worshippers easily identified with the familiar voices of the threesome who had taken the nation’s music by storm. They sang along assisting the musicians wherever they appeared to have slacked a bit.

Showtime later learnt that the musicians had jetted into town at the invitation of a Warri-based businessman and a strong member of the Word of Life Church, Mr. Ayiri Emami, who was dedicating his child that Sunday.

A total of 59 Nigerians were deported from Spain to Nigeria aboard a chartered flight, Air Europa, at about 4:20pm on Friday.

The deportees were said to have been involved in drug related offences, crimes and immigration offences.

The charter flight marked AEA 911, which came through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport , Lagos , also had on board some foreign security officials.

Security sources at the airport, who confirmed the report, said the 59 Nigerians were deported for various offences.

According to sources at MMIA, two of the 59 deportees were arrested for drugs-related offences; one person was for crimes; while the rest had violated some immigration offences.

Officials at the Hajj and Cargo Terminal in MMIA said some of the deportees were seen waving down cabs along the airport road.

Eyewitnesses also said that some of the female deportees, who claimed to reside outside Lagos and lacked money to lodge in a hotel, joined some cargo workers to their houses.

Immigration sources said, several Nigerians were being deported from overseas on a weekly basis.

In recent weeks, hundreds of Nigerians were deported from Libya, United Kingdom, United States of America, Ireland, Holland and Spain.

Immigration sources said the increasing dimension of human trafficking, had contributed to the bad trend.

Hundreds of Nigerians were recently deported from Libya.

The police on Monday arraigned a 26-year-old commercial sex worker, Chetachi Nwokedi, before an Apapa Chief Magistrate's Court, Lagos, for allegedly slashing a colleague's left Bosom  with a razor, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Nwokedi is standing trial on a one-count charge of assault before Chief Magistrate Oluyemisi Adelaja.

The prosecutor, Corporal Joseph Ameh, alleged that Nwokedi, on June 25 in Badiya, used a blade to inflict deep cuts on the neck and left Bosom  of Endurance Aghalokpe, resulting in bodily harm and subsequent admission in a hospital.

Ameh said that the offence was contrary to and punishable under Section 335 of the Criminal Code, Cap.17, Vol. 2 Laws of Lagos 2003.

Nwokedi, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Her counsel, Mr. Nnadi Uche, pleaded with the court to grant her bail on liberal terms.

In her ruling, Adelaja granted the accused bail in the sum of N100,000, with two sureties in like sum.

She said that the sureties must show evidence of gainful employment in reputable organisations.