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IN PURSUIT OF A NEW ORDER AND A BETTER ONDO STATE

If the wave of political currents and economic realities in the State are anything to go by, then the next occupant of the Alagbaka Government House must be less political, economically creative with the special capacity and competency to undertake a complete turn-around of the financial base and economic super-structure of Ondo State while emplacing programmes to cushion the effects of the technical recession that the country is going through. He or she must also be a proven goal-getter with a clean record in both public and private life. These ideals have become necessary in view of the quagmire in which we have found ourselves as a people.

It is only individuals with such upbringing and propensities that can attract the followership and support that will help achieve targets of happiness, sense of belonging and fulfilment. We are tired of failed promises. We need people who can translate good words into good deeds at all levels.

Oladare Amuda
popularly known as Ola Amuda: One of the best hands in the public service of
Ondo State has voluntarily retired. He retired at the age of 55 years based on
this personal conviction over twenty years ago that he would retire from the
service at that age. His retirement is also meant to pave way for the pursuit
of the political vision he received many years ago.

Oladare Amuda

Ola Amuda is the governorship candidate of Accord Party in the
November 26 governorship election in Ondo State. the Ogbagi-Akoko born
administrator speaks on his blueprint for the state if elected.

Why do you think you’re the best to lead Ondo State at this time?

I have worked as a technocrat for about 28 years and I have worked with
several governors at key positions. The last administration of Olusegun
Agagu, I was his SA on Administration. All the policies and programmes
that we put together, I was very key to them.

With the service throughout my career, I have developed the skills of
honesty, integrity and hard work. I am quite espoused to governance
even at that particular level.

Again, when you consider the aspirants that we have today, some of
them are foreigners in Ondo State. I have lived virtually a greater
percentage of my life in Ondo State. I know over 200 towns and villages
in Ondo State, I know roads linking towns and villages. I know the roads
that are good, the roads that are bad, I know the economic inclination
of various sectors in our society. So, with the background knowledge
that I have, I can deliver more for the people.

My life has also been
propelled by visions. I have had five of such visions and as of today,
four had been fulfilled, remaining the one relating to governorship. And
I know that God who has been helping me to fulfil the other visions can
also do this. Academically, I have about four different degrees.
Age-wise, I am qualified and competent. And I know that with the
experience that I have had before, that will propel me. Governance is
not politics. When you bring politics to governance, it will destroy the
entire system. So, we are talking about propelling the state government
through administrative structure. And if I am elected as governor; it
is not that I am saying that I have the monopoly of knowledge but I will
gather people together. For instance, we are trying to gather economic
team together. Even before we start, there will be a blueprint on the
economy, especially in Ondo State.

There is economic recession in the country. And states like Ondo – an
oil producing state – is among those worse affected. What will you do
for the state in the immediate term to get the state out of recession?
In our manifesto, we have two solutions: immediate and long term. The
immediate term solution is that we will look at agriculture and see
those products that can easily generate returns within three months, six
months and one year. Yoruba people say that when you dry the meat of a
dog, it is very sweet. But what are you going to eat before that dog
gets dried? So, what we are going to do is that there are some projects
that you need to do, especially relating to agriculture that can
generate production within three months and one year. For example, we
will put in effort on corn production, plantain production that can
yield result immediately. Once we have food in our society, a lot of
problems will be solved.

Secondly, we also look at area of wastages. Sometimes, government may
have resources but once these resources are being wasted, you find out
that they can’t make ends meet. Our own government shall not be a
ceremonial government. Because when you use government resources to do
ceremonies, there is no economic feedback that you will get from that
place.

Thirdly, we are going to look at the economic aspect of budget,
especially capital projects. I am going to divide my capital projects
into two: we will have the social and economic aspect. If I put in
N5billion into a capital project, what economic return will it bring?
There are other social areas you don’t expect any return. But you cannot
use all your budgets on social areas of budgeting but also the economic
aspect.

What edge do you have over the two governorship candidates of APC and PDP?

The two candidates, Rotimi Akeredolu and Eyitayo Jegede, are
foreigners in Ondo State. They came by virtue of the fact that they
wanted to contest or this administration brought one of them to become a
Commissioner. So, they don’t know the nitty-gritty of the state. I have
the privilege and I have worked in the public service for 28 years. My
name is a household name in the public service. So, I have the privilege
of carrying the public servants along. I was a Protocol Officer and
officer in charge of village meetings during Bode George. So, we
travelled from one village to another.

 I know virtually all ministries,
departments and agencies of government, I know their operations and what
they do. And sometimes all these MDAs, there may be one or two that may
be performing the same function, we will try to annex them and put an
effective government in position. This is the edge that I have over the
other candidates. So, you will find out within three months, what I am
going to do will surprise you.

Comrade Bonny Okonkwo.

My Dear President: All Nigerian people are happy that you are taking the
nation in a new direction after decades of a culture of impunity.  Your
directive that the police respect the dignity of the human person of
all our citizens could not have come at a better time. We are enamored
of your directive that the police review their indiscriminate allotment
of orderlies to non-state actors who are just wealthy men. I am one of
the several victims of the use of the police hierarchy by a private
individual in our hometown of Oraifite in Ekwusigo Local Government Area
of Anambra State, to humiliate, intimidate, brutalize and falsely
imprison innocent citizens for several months.

On July 13, 201,
while attending an early religious service in Lagos, I received a
telephone call from my son who was being held captive in my house by
the Anti-Robbery Squad from the then Inspector General of Police. He
told me that the Federal SARS needed me immediately. My apartment was
also thoroughly searched before I got home.
On my return, I was
promptly arrested, beaten up, my two BlackBerry phones taken from me by
policemen who then handcuff me before and whisked me away in the boot of
their Toyota Prado vehicle. I was taken to the Lagos State Police
Command headquarters in Ikeja, where I was forced to write a statement
over the so-called defamation of a private citizen, Emeka Offor. After I
wrote the statement, they took me to the Adeniji Adele Special Anti –
Robbery Squad cell meant for armed robbers, hired assassins and
kidnappers and detained for 7 days. On the eight day, they transferred
me to the Agboju Police Station cell where I spent one night before they
bundle me into the boot of the same Toyota Prado and drove me all the
way to Abuja in chains on July 12, 2013. I was to be detained at the
Gariki police station till July 30, 2013.

 Mr President, it is
now two years and a half since Mr Justice Peter Afere of the Federal
Capital Territory (FCT) High Court 25 sitting in Apo, Abuja, on Monday,
April 7, 2014, gave judgment in a suit I brought against the then
Inspector General of Police, M. D. Abubakar, for gross abuse of my human
rights. The learned judge agreed that I was subjected to acute human
indignity and I was accordingly awarded five million naira in damages.
Though the compensation pales compared with the N50m awarded the
immediate past Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi who is now
the Emir of Kano, by the Federal High Court in Lagos on April 3, 2014,
for the harassment suffered at the hands of the secret police which
lasted a few hours on February 20, I was nevertheless consoled that an
important point has been established by the judicial pronouncement and
decision.

Most Nigerians still find it difficult to believe, but
it is true that the only offence I was accused of by the police was
that I had the effrontery to write an article in an online newspaper
published by my townsfolk in which I suggested that the one million
dollars pledged by Emeka Offor, the controversial Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) chieftain and government contractor from my hometown,
to give to Rotary International to fight polio in India and Pakistan
should have been utilized to rehabilitate people dying of hunger in our
place, or pay off depositors who put all their life savings at Offor’s
owned Afex Bank which collapsed in 2006 principally due to
unconscionable insider dealings.

 The charge of character
assassination is intriguing, to put it very mildly. We live in a country
where citizens daily and freely criticize top government officials,
including you who hold the position of President and Commander in Chief.
Why a mere suggestion concerning a private individual should attract
this kind of brutal response against me from the police personally
assembled by the then IGP remains a mystery. It shows how low Nigeria
sank in the Goodluck Jonathan days. Jonathan may not personally have
been involved in scandalous acts, but he allowed his officials, friends
and contractors to run riot. There was no discipline, no order. Jonathan
provided the kind of leaders known in leadership theory as laissez
faire leadership. Everyone behaved as he or she liked. No control.

As
I have already indicated at the beginning of this open letter, Mr
President, I was not the only victim of police brutality sanctioned
right from the very top during the Jonathan years. My hometown of
Oraifite became practically a wasted land –all because the PDP
government and the police allowed themselves to be used to make their
barely literate contractor and agent feel good. Let me cite a few other
instances.

On Thursday, March 27, 2014, the Anambra State
Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) arrested Chief Arthur Eugene Nworah, a
successful businessman from Oraifite with a base in Onitsha. The team
was led by Chief Superintendent Nwafor from the SARS office at Awkuzu in
Oyi Local Government Area. Like in my own case, Chief Nworah was denied
access to his wife and lawyer for two weeks and kept in a cell for
hardened criminals. His sole offence was that he published an article in
our local online newspaper narrating how Offor caused him to lose seven
20-feet containers worth N970m to the Customs Service. When he went to
court, the police fabricated childish stories claiming that Chief Nworah
engaged in kidnapping and gun running. Of course, he was set free by
the court, which had harsh words for the police authorities.

SARS
operatives arrested and detained three brothers for four months on
Offor’s instructions. The three siblings, Ifeanyi, Tochukwu and Chinedu
from the Igboanuzue family in Oraifite, were not happy how their sister
named Joy died on December 5, 2013, apparently out of neglect. They made
their feeling known to their elder brother based at
home,Sunday Igboanuzue, an ally of Offor’s in town union politics. They
were quickly thrown into solitary confinement for a whole four months
till the court ordered their freedom on Friday, March 21, 2014.

SARS
men also arrested two cousins, Ifeanyi Nwokolo and Muozube, on Offor’s
instructions and threw them into a cell for violent criminals. They were
quarrelling over land ownership, and the verbal altercation was near
the palatial home of Emeka Offor; the noise was considered capable of
disturbing the wealthy government contractor! They were actually
forgotten in detention until the court ordered their release. In a
similar vein, members of the village Ayaka cultural troupe were arrested
by SARS men from the state headquarters and kept in cells for months
with tough, callous criminals. Their offence was being suspected of
having a hand in a publication in an online town newspaper, which was
considered unflattering to Emeka Offor. Yet, these are old village
peasant entertainers who can barely read or write. They were left in
detention to die until the court came to their rescue.

It is
clear that our hometown is not the only place where Offor used the
police top hierarchy to settle personal scores. On Thursday, May 1,
2014, The Guardian published a report filed by its correspondent in
Awka, Chuks Collins, where the president general of the Oko Town Union
in Anambra State, Cyprian Nwammuo, asked IGP Abubakar and the then State
Commissioner of Police, Usman Gwary, to stop being Offor’s stooges in
the crisis between the governing council of the Federal Polytechnic and
its host community. Nwammuo narrated how Offor, a former truck driver
with Julius Berger, thoroughly abused the traditional ruler of the town,
Professor Laz Ekwueme, a laureate of the Nigerian national Order of
Merit (NNOM), the nation’s highest honour for intellectual attainment.
According to the town union president, Professor Ekwueme was on April
13, 2014 queried by Offor for having the temerity to challenge the
action of a governing council put in place by him! Interestingly, the
polytechnic was built personally by Professor Ekwueme’s elder brother,
Dr. Alex Ekwueme, and handed over to the government before he became the
country’s vice president in 1979.

Our highly respected
President, history will be kind to you if you use your good offices to
find out how, during the Jonathan presidency, a controversial private
individual pocketed the leadership of the Nigeria Police Force and used
it to terrorize his own people at Oraifite in Anambra State.

Assurances of our highest regards.

Comrade Bonny Okonkwo.

 Source: Sahara Reporters

The incident had reportedly forced many residents to flee the community.
Our correspondent gathered that the Tuesday incident which occurred around 9am was accompanied by a heavy vibration.

An earlier tremor had taken place on Monday around 3am.
 Following the incidents, schools in the city were shut down and
students, who had just resumed from the long vacation, were asked to
return home.

Many of the residents too had started fleeing the community.
A resident of the community,  Ayuba  Nok, in a chat with our
correspondent described the Tuesday incident as more serious than the
earlier ones.

Nok said, “Today’s tremor was very loud. It was louder than the
previous ones. Some schools were forced to close. They sent their
students back home.

“Mallam Maude School, LEA Central Primary School and Sabzuro Primary
School were some of the schools which were forced to close as a result
of the sound of the tremor. They were afraid that something worse might
happen.

“The heavy vibration of the tremor happened around 9 am today. It
also occurred on Monday around 3am. The sound of Monday’s tremor was not
as loud and devastating as the one of this morning.
“The Chairman, Mr. Ben Kure, is saying that people should be calm and
stay where they are. But, the people are already frightened and they
are in shock.

“When the incident happened again today, many of us who were thinking
otherwise before decided to leave the town, especially the women and
children. This is because we don’t know probably the whole town may sink
when another one happens. And the government is not doing anything for
now to evacuate people.”
Meanwhile, the Head of Geography Department, Kaduna State University,
Dr. Idowu Abbas,   said  the constant incident of earth tremor in Kwoi
town might lead to a major earthquake, urging the government to place
the community on a watch list for a possible evacuation.

He said, “It is unfortunate that the tremor happened but it is not
unusual. This is because it can happen anywhere and at any time as long
as there is movement underneath the earth surface. It can happen
anywhere, it is just unfortunate that it happened in Kwoi.

“The tremor could be a signal of a bigger incident in Kwoi. And it
still depends on what happens within the earth surface. I think the
Nigerian Space, Research and Development Agency is already looking into
that.  Honestly speaking earth tremor is a small earth quake, the major
earth quake can come.”

Meanwhile, a Non-Governmental Organisation, the Environmental Right
Action and Friends of the Earth Nigeria, has condemned the relevant
authorities for failing to institute a probe to ascertain the causes of
the earth tremors that took place in some communities in Bayelsa and
Rivers states.

Communities such as Mbiama and Okaki in Ahoada West local Government
Area of Rivers State and Igbogene, in Yenagoa LGA of Bayelsa State were
hit by earth tremors in July 2016.
The ERA observed in a field report after visiting the affected
communities that findings from the residents of the communities
confirmed that the incidents were real.

The report which was made available to reporters in Yenagoa on
Tuesday indicated that there was need for the relevant authorities to
institute a body of experts to ascertain the immediate and remote causes
of the earth tremor to avoid future occurrence.

The 20 year old model took to her website yesterday to explain why she exposes her boobs in public and how she does it. She wrote;

“Lately, it’s like I’m either braless or
I have my bra out, lol. I’m all about freeing the nipple! I just think
it’s cool to show off what’s under your shirt—whether that’s a cute
bralette or just skin. ;)’

She achieves the look with a Monrow Tissue Tee, a Calvin Klein Modern Cotton Bra, an American Apparel Geo Lace Tank Bodysuit and an Annie Bing
Striped Mesh Bra

A man, identified only as Jose David N, was caught throwing his
3-year-old stepdaughter in a hotel swimming pool in Mexico multiple
times, causing her to drown. This happened on the 12th of August 2015
while the little girl’s mother was sleeping in their hotel room.
Shocking surveillance footage which caused outrage in Mexico when
released, showed David N throwing the girl into the water at a hotel in
the city of Morelia, Michoacan in August 2015.

She is seen battling to keep herself afloat, while the murderer stands
at the side of the pool doing nothing. The helpless little girl could
not swim, and others around did nothing to try and save her. At one
point he throws her in and walks away before returning and tossing her
back in when she is fully-clothed.

He then held her tiny body in such a position that she was unable to
breathe. He later threw a flotation device at her even though he knew
she wouldn’t be able to reach it.

The girls mother, who is a nurse, did not realize her child was dead
until she saw the lifeless girl in front of the TV and rushed her to
hospital. She died a short time later. Autopsy showed she died from
secondary drowning.

The mother claimed she did not know her daughter was being mistreated until she saw the shocking video clips.

The stepfather was arrested, detained by the police and arraigned in court.

After deliberation, judges Juan Salvador Alonso Mejia, Ana Lilia Garcia
Cardona and Noe Reyes Millan found him guilty of aggravated murder.
Although the defence had tried to suggest that the little girl had died
outside the pool and not in the water, this was rejected by the judges.

He has also been been jailed without a chance of parole.

“Alhamdulillah…. Fatima (binta) Umar is free at last. she was
released last night by her abductors. we are really grateful for ur
prayers, support and concern. Thanks a lot.” he wrote.