The controversy trailing the Will of late Biafran leader, Odumegwu Ojukwu continued yesterday with Emeka Jnr who was read as the first son describing the document as fake. He dismissed the Will presented by Barr Emeka Onyemelukwe, contesting that he is a private counsel to Ambassador Bianca Ojukwu and not that of late Emeka Ojukwu.
Speaking at his country home in Nnewi, Anambra State, Ojukwu jnr argued that he has a copy of the original Will written by his father and not what he called the fraud presented as a Will. His words: “There have been rumours up to yesterday that there is an attempt to read the will and that they intend to make changes in the original will. Well, I have not seen the will that they read.
“Now, there are issues that come to mind, why were they no members of Ojukwu family when the Will was read? They were not invited and they were not told. “She was here last Sunday when we removed the mourning cloth and since she knows that the Will would be read, she would have invited us or even put us on notice. “
Now, the lawyer that is supposedly doing all this things is not our father’s lawyer, Mr Onyemelukwe is not a lawyer that is known to the family as Ezeigbo’s lawyer.
Remember when Ezeigbo was sick, the same Lawyer went to the press to claim that Ezeigbo is getting better and that he is now on exercise and would soon come home while he was lying.
It is still the same lawyer that claimed to have custody of the will. And I told everybody that it was not true and that since my father was flown to England, he never lifted an arm or spoke a word until his death finally”.
Governnor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State flanked by the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar 111 (left) during a courtesy visit to his office with them is His Royal Highness, Alhaji Alhaji J.B Momoh.
The Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar 111 has called on Nigerians to come together in the fight against terrorism and other violent crimes in the country.
Speaking during a courtesy visit on Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, yesterday, the Sultan said terrorism, robbery, kidnapping and other violent crimes are not restricted to a particular religion or region of the country.
The Sultan who congratulated Governor Oshiomhole on his re-election said “the people of Edo State brought you back to continue your good works. The challenge is now for you to continue with the good works. When I came, I saw so many changes. I think the people of Edo State did the right thing to allow you to continue to steer the ship of state so that you could continue the good work you are doing”, he added.
On the violent crimes which have pervaded parts of the country in the recent times, the Sultan said: “some years back, we watched with amazement when we see suicide bombers and car bombers, we thought we could not have such things in our country. But we have them now. It is not a particular religion or ethnicity that specializes in such terrorist or criminal activities in the form of kidnapping or armed robbery, but I believe that we must all come together to resolve these issues the best way possible for our country”.
He stressed that the “challenges that come our way can ginger us to strengthen our resolve to meet them headlong, defeat them collectively in unity and forge a national cohesion.”
In his response, Governor Oshiomhole said the Sultan is a bridge-builder who commands respect in all parts of the country, noting that the honour on the Sultan by the Igbinedion University, Okada was well-deserved.
According to him, “I appreciate the leadership which your Eminence has continued to provide by way of building bridges across the length and breadth of the country and amplifying to all of us what unites us as a people and those values of unity, hardwork, tolerance and brotherhood. A lot of Nigerians admire you a lot and you have a lot of fanatical admirers.
“At this point in time Nigerians need leaders like your eminence on the side of truth, peace and unity to help build the nation”, he added.
In its relentless determination in making sure that Isoko nation of Delta state, South-South, Nigeria speak with one voice politically across the globe, an Isoko socio/political pressure group, Isoko Advancement Network (IAN), has concluded all arrangements to hold an enlarged interaction session with Isoko people in government and all Isoko people in general.
In a statement issued yesterday and signed by the group’s chairman, Hon. Mike Ogwah, made available to journalists in Asaba said the session which is aimed at promoting and agitating for the upliftment of Isoko land and the people will take place on Saturday, December, 8, 2012, at Regency Hall, Otunba Jobi-Fele way, MKO Abiola Gardens Hill, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, beginning at 10:00 am prompt.
According to Ogwah, it high time Isokos come together and speak with one indivisible voice and take their place in the politics of the state and the nation. “We believe in mutual interest, therefore, the progress and growth of every Isoko man is paramount to us.”
While enjoining all and sundry both far and near to attend the epoch making meeting that will no doubt bring light to Isoko nation, the group’s chairman, stated the meeting is timely and shall break all the political yoke militating against the growth and development of the land.
“The future holds great promises for the Isoko people and the Isoko nation. So we call on all our people to join us come Saturday, December, 8, 2012. The time has come that we must take our destiny in our own hands but we cannot achieve this if we don’t put our house in order and speak with one indivisible voice.”
Prominent Isoko sons and daughters including the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Comrade Ovuozorie Macaulay are expected at the occasion.
The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) took notice of the
impeachment threat issued to the Nasarawa Governor, Umaru Tanko
Al-Makura, by the State House of Assembly on account of the violent
crisis in Agyaragu area of the state. This appears to be a
well-rehearsed plot, orchestrated by the PDP high command, in
furtherance of the political gerrymandering and destabilization agenda
of the ruling Party.
Indeed, the Governor showed his determination to tackle the problem
when he announced at a state-wide broadcast that: “it is, indeed, sad
that our state is being made to assume the status of ‘a theatre of a
communal violence, this is regrettable and unacceptable’’’. But the
State Legislators, urged on by their National Leaders, are committed
to bringing the state into unimaginable instability with their
legislative impropriety.
As a Party, we are forced to react, through this statement, to the
admonition of well-meaning individuals and institutions on the very
precipitous path the state Legislators have chosen to tread. The
Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) queried why the CPC
governor was unfairly burdened with a problem that pre-dated his
tenure and was not resolved by previous PDP-led Administrations.
Truly, on 14th April, 2000 (under a PDP-led administration), Nasarawa
state was thrown into a communal crisis in the Agyragu area because of
the location of the local Government Headquarters. Furthermore, under
the same PDP-led administration, on 18th January, 2002, the clash
between two communities in the Awe Local Government saw a few
fatalities.
What is curious is that there was never any impeachment threat on the
previous PDP governors that were helmsmen during the previous
dispensations of crisis in the State. What is more, has Nigeria ever
been enveloped under the cloud of insecurity as severe as with this
PDP-led Federal Government? Yet the President has never been
threatened with impeachment because of the intractable insecurity
within the Nation-space. But because of the massive majority of the
PDP in the Nasarawa House of Assembly, the Legislators have chosen to
thread the path of reckless partisanship and legislative indiscretion
to resolve a problem of the State. Indeed, this smacks of abuse of
legislative privilege and authority!
As a Party, we strongly believe that a noxious impeachment plot on the
state Chief Executive in a time of crisis is fore-boding and
disingenuous. On the contrary, this should be the time for greater
collaborative efforts between the Executive and the Legislature for
the greater good of the people of Nasarawa State. We therefore call on
the Legislators to tread with caution.
God bless Nigeria.
–
Rotimi Fashakin (Engr.)
National Publicity Secretary, CPC
The Chief Press Secretary [CPS] to the Taraba State governor has confirmed to 247ureports.com that the injured Governor of Taraba State, Danbaba Suntai has not suffered brain damage as widely rumored in the media. The CPS indicated that the Governor has been responding to treatment and has been able to received and make telephone calls.
“He has been talking on the telephone” said the Chief Press Secretary who added that the Governor was initially incapacitated immediately following the plane crash of October 2012 over Yola in Adamawa State. It was understood that immediately following the crash, the Governor suffered head injuries that affected his brain functions – including his ability to speak – his speech was reported to be blurred.
But a source near the activities around the Governor tell 247ureports.com that the Governor has been speaking to people on the telephone and to they visitors at the medical facility. “He is clearly improving“.
Just recently two of the governor’s aide who were victims of the October 2012 crash returned to Taraba State – following the completion of a successful treatment in Germany.
Barack Obama, former president of the Harvard Law Review and a constitutional law lecturer, should go back and review his coursework. He seems to have declined to comport his presidency to the rule of law.
Let’s focus here on his major expansion of drone warfare in defiance of international law, statutory law and the Constitution. Obama’s drones roam over multiple nations of Asia and Africa and target suspects, both known and unknown, whom the president, in his unbridled discretion, wants to evaporate for the cause of national security.
More than 2,500 people have been killed by Obama’s drones, many of them civilians and bystanders, including American citizens, irrespective of the absence of any “imminent threat” to the United States.
As Justin Elliott of ProPublica wrote: “Under Obama…only 13 percent (of those killed) could be considered militant leaders – either of the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, or Al Qaeda.” The remaining fatalities, apart from many innocent civilians, including children, were people oppressed by their own harsh regimes or dominated by U.S. occupation of their country. Aside from human rights and the laws of war, this distinction between civilian and combatant matters because it shows that Obama’s drones are becoming what Elliott calls “a counterinsurgency air force” for our collaborative regimes.
The “kill lists” are the work of Obama and his advisors, led by John O. Brennan, and come straight from the White House, according to The New York Times. Apparently, the president spends a good deal of time being prosecutor, judge, jury, executioner and concealer. But he does so quietly; this is no dramatic “thumbs-down” emperor.
Mr. Brennan spoke at Harvard Law School about a year ago and told a remarkably blasé audience that what he and the president were doing was perfectly legal under the law of self-defense. Self-defense that is defined, of course, by the president.
It appears from recent statements on The Daily Show that President Obama does not share the certitude boldly displayed by Mr. Brennan. On October 18, President Obama told John Stewart, and his audience, that “one of the things we’ve got to do is put a legal architecture in place, and we need Congressional help in order to do that, to make sure that not only am I reined in but any president is reined in terms of some of the decisions that we’re making.”
So in the absence of “a legal architecture” of accountability, do presidents knock off whomever they want to target (along with bystanders or family members), whether or not the targeted person is actually plotting an attack against the United States? It seems that way, in spite of what is already in place legally, called the Constitution, separation of powers and due process of law. What more legal architecture does Mr. Obama need?
Obviously what he wants is a self-contained, permanent “Office of Presidential Predator Drone Assassinations” in the White House, to use, author, scholar and litigator Bruce Fein’s nomenclature. According to The New York Times, President Obama wants “ explicit rules for targeted killing…. So that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures.” Mr. Fein notes that “clear standards and procedures without accountability to the judiciary, Congress, or the American people” undermine the rule of law and our democracy.
Indeed, the whole deliberation process inside the Obama administration has been kept secret, a continuing process of morbid over-classification that even today contains secret internal legal opinions on targeted killings. The government refuses even to acknowledge that a drone air force operates over Pakistan – a fact that everybody knows including the hundreds of injured and displaced Pakistanis. This drone air force uses, what The New York Times called, “signature strikes against groups of suspected, unknown militants.”
Predictably, these strikes are constantly terrorizing thousands of families who fear a strike anytime day or night, and are causing a blowback that is expanding the number of Al Qaeda sympathizers and affiliates from Pakistan to Yemen. “Signature strikes,” according to the Times, “have prompted the greatest conflict inside the Obama administration.” Former CIA director under George W. Bush, Michael V. Hayden has publically questioned whether the expansion in the use of drones is counterproductive and creating more enemies and the desire for more revenge against the U.S.
Critics point out how many times in the past that departments and agencies have put forth misleading or false intelligence, from the Vietnam War to the arguments for invading Iraq, or have missed what they should have predicted such as the fall of the Soviet Union. This legacy of errors and duplicity should restrain presidents who execute, by ordering drone operators to push buttons that target people thousands of miles away, based on secret, so-called intelligence.
Mr. Obama wants, in Mr. Fein’s view, to have “his secret and unaccountable predator drone assassinations become permanent fixtures of the nation’s national security complex.” Were Obama to remember his constitutional law, such actions would have to be constitutionally authorized by Congress and subject to judicial review.
With his Attorney General Eric Holder maintaining that there is sufficient due process entirely inside the Executive Branch and without Congressional oversight or judicial review, don’t bet on anything more than a more secret, violent, imperial presidency that shreds the Constitution’s separation of powers and checks and balances.
And don’t bet that other countries of similar invasive bent won’t remember this green-light on illegal unilateralism when they catch up with our drone capabilities.
Less than 24 hours after it was read in the Enugu High Court in Nigeria’s South-East, the will of late Igbo leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, has been dismissed as strange and unreliable by one of his closest confidants.
The name of Chief Sylvester Debe Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the 56 years old lawyer reported to be Ojukwu’s first son but who has had running battles with other family members since the old man’s death on November 26, 2011, is conspicuously missing from the will. Recognised as Ojukwu’s children in the will are Chukwuemeka Jnr, Mmegha, Okigbo, Ebele, Chineme, Afam, Nwachukwu and one Tenny Haman, who was previously unheard of.
Commenting this morning on the will, Uche Ezechukwu, Ojukwu’s biographer and one-time media aide, said: “Ojukwu’s will has been read and it gave nothing to his sons and almost everything to his widow. Is that not strange?
“Could Ojukwu, who was blind for four years before his death and had all but lost his memory, have written such a will with his senses intact? Just thinking aloud!”
Ezechukwu, a seasoned journalist and public analyst whose book ‘Ojukwu, the Rebel I Served,’ has received much praise, insisted that he knows all of Ojukwu’s children and that Sylvester is one of them.
According to the man who served as Ojukwu’s Speacial Assistant on Media for some two years: “The Ikemba had the following children: Sylvester, from an Udi woman when he was an Assistant Divisional Officer there; then Emeka Jnr, Mmegha (the first daughter) and Mr. Okigbo from Njideka (Ned Onyekwelu); Ebele from Stella (née Onyeador) and then the three kids from Bianca.”
Responding to questions and observations made by some of those who responded to his Facebook post, Ezechukwu said: “Accordingly, the will gave the family compound to Emeka. The Ikemba I knew understood Igbo culture very well and knew that you can’t will out your traditional compound as it automatically goes to the first son, who holds it in trust for the family. It continues to be held in trust by every first male child. So in practical sense, Emeka got nothing! Very abnormal!
“A man’s ancestral house is not part of the will. The first son automatically inherits it. That is the house you say he willed to Emeka. What of Okigbo and Sylvester?”
Ezechukwu, who is also Coordinator of the League of Anambra Media Professionals, advised that “the nation should get ready for perhaps the longest playing soap opera that will rubbish and dwarf all those acclaim we have had for Ojukwu.”
“I knew this rumpus would erupt and when I was writing my book on him, I dodged everything about his family,” he wrote. “I was there and knew his relationship with all his children before Bianca came. I didn’t want to become the source of the storm that started breaking even before the mourning dress was shed.”
Yesterday, Thursday 30 November, in Warri, Delta State, Chief Government Ekpekpumpolo, aka Tompolo, proved that greatness does not die as a caterpillar, but continually evolves and redefines itself until butterflies colour the sky, as he unfolded evidence of his ongoing social responsibility endeavours towards educational prowess of children in our creeks and at the grassroots, even as he launched The Tompolo Foundation formally!
The Presidency was there; Royal Fathers graced the ceremony; State Governors too; also, Finance and other corporate moguls flocked the venue; as well as did the living pioneers and ongoing leaders of the Ijaw/Niger Delta struggle!
It was a grand, and humbling, event, as we all were feted by comedy from the joke-maestro Gordons, history by our own indomitable K3, future possibilities by Education Minister of State Nyesom Wike, astounding potentials by VERY articulate pupils of an Oporoza primary school, and speakers representing Nigeria’s major ethnic groupings!
Rarely have I witnessed such humility and philanthropic enterprise in a young man, such as exhibited by this GREAT GOC of men; and, even more rare was the un-orchestrated outflow of love, respect and solidarity (evidenced in the about half a billion naira cheerfully donated by groups, individuals and corporate bodies, all of which told stories of how Tompolo had impacted them directly and positively!)
Great Tompolo, I hail you!
Shalom
Tony Ipreye Uranta
Information reaching 247ureports.com through sources in Taraba State indicate that the Governor of Taraba State may be recovering slower than earlier thought. According the former governor who critically injured himself following a plane crash aboard his private jet over the State of Adamawa near the Yola airport – may have gone into brain-damage induce coma.
The information indicates that the head injury sustained during the air crash – in addition to heavy blood loss – resulted the diagnosis of brain damage.
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has commiserated with former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd.) on the death of his eldest daughter, Zulaihatu yesterday
In a condolence letter to General Buhari, President Jonathan prayed that God Almighty would comfort him, and grant him and members of his family succour from the pain of losing a beloved child who has been nurtured and raised to adulthood.
“I write to extend very sincere commiserations to you and your family on the death of your eldest daughter, Zulaihatu yesterday November 29th, 2012.
“I can well imagine the profound pain, sadness and sorrow brought upon you by the tragic loss of a beloved child whom you have nurtured and raised to adulthood.
My heart goes out to you as you mourn Zulaihatu. I pray that God Almighty comforts you and grants you and your family succour at this very traumatic time for all who knew and loved her,” President Jonathan wrote.
