4 Main Reasons Why Buhari Is Visiting Germany Today

Starting today, October 13, President Muhammadu Buhari will be leaving Nigeria for his visit to Germany till October 16.

This is the second time since his 2015 visit to Germany to attend the G-7 meeting, accompanied by a 20-person delegation including former Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State.

This visit which begins today is scheduled to end on October 16, 2016. Below are the reasons for the visit:

1. Security

Following his visit with Angela Merkel, President Buhari will meet with President Joachim Gauck to discuss how to attract foreign investment to Nigeria.

Femi Adesina said in his statement: “Thereafter, the President, who will be accompanied by Governors Kashim Shettima of Borno State and Rochas Okorocha of Imo and representatives of the National Assembly, will meet with Federal President Joachim Gauck.”

It is important to note that in February 2016, Mr Joachim Gauck visited Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos state, pledging that Germany will assist Nigeria with the technical know- how to successfully fight terrorism. This will also be part of the discussion with President Buhari.

2. Nigerians in Germany

Before returning to Abuja on October 16, President Buhari will round up his visit by meeting with representatives of the Nigerian community in Germany.

This will help to deepen relations with Germany and build on the very cordial relations both countries enjoy in several areas of bilateral cooperation including the fight against terrorism, economic relations, rebuilding of the North east, support for IDPs, vocational training, energy partnership and cultural relations.

The visit hopefully will have a hugely positive impact on Nigeria, its security and economy.

3. Cooperation between two nations

One of the aims of the visit is to meet with German Chancellor, Angela Merkel on issues that border on better cooperation between Germany and Nigeria.
Femi Adesina, the special adviser on media and publicity to the president had this to say about that part of the visit:

“The president will confer with Chancellor Angela Merkel on issues of shared interests between Nigeria and Germany, including further cooperation on security, the humanitarian situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and rehabilitation of the North-East, as well as trade and economic relations between both countries.”

The problems of IDPs, Boko Haram attacks and the economic recession are ones Nigeria will find hard to solve without support, this will feature prominently in the discussions between the two heads of state.

4. Foreign investment

The forth objective of the trip is stated thus by Adesina:
“In furtherance of the administration’s objective to attract more foreign investment and create economic opportunities in the country, President Buhari will participate in a Business Forum in Berlin with leading German companies already active in Nigeria and other prospective investors.”
The Business forum in Berlin will likely include companies like Siemens, a multinational technology company in Nigeria and several others.

The visit hopefully will have a hugely positive impact on Nigeria, its security and economy.

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Breaking News: Boko Haram Released 21 Chibok Girls

At least 21 Chibok girls that were abducted by the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist group have reportedly been released.

According to Sahara Reporters , the girls were released in the early hours of Thursday, October 13.

More than 200 girls were abducted from their schools in Borno state in 2014 by the terrorists and while some of them had reportedly died, the rest remained held by the terror group.
Sources disclosed that the girls were picked up by military helicopter from Banki area of Borno state where Boko Haram militants dropped them off earlier on Thursday.

The release of the 21 girls came as President Buhari began a three-day trip to Germany to discuss assistance for the rebuilding of the northeastern part of Nigeria which has for years been ravaged by Boko Haram.
The names of the girls released were however not disclosed.

Senior Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Shehu Garba confirmed the release on his twitter handle on Thursday.

Naij said that the girls's release would be "cheering news not only for their parents but also for many Nigerians who day and night have prayed for their safe return".

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Waku wants judiciary sanitised, Obasanjo probed

Joseph Waku, a former senator representing Benue North-West Senatorial District, has praised the Federal Government for looking into the deep corruption existing in the judiciary.

 He praised them for the act and told them to extend it to the regime of a former president of the Federation, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Below is what Maku said in an interview yesterday with newsmen.
“We need to sanitise our judiciary; if the arm of government that we know is the last hope of the common man is enmeshed in corruption, then where lies the hope of the commoners?

This is why I strongly support the clampdown on the judiciary, provided it is not a witch-hunt, but one aspect I object to is the manner of arrest, I think the law provides the way of arresting suspected corrupt persons. You have to invite the suspect and if he fails to respond to your invitation then you adopt minimum force. Continue…
“But swooping on suspects as if they have already been pronounced criminals is tantamount to criminality on the part of the security operatives.

“Imagine, security operatives invading judge’s house with maximum force, what do you think would have happened if the security men attached to the judge reacted negatively?
“The consequence would have been grave. So, that is why I strongly object to the method of the arrest, let them be civil in their approach.

“I strongly support the fight against corruption especially in the judiciary, because the perception of people on this arm of government is that there is a lot of rot there. Let the noise not die like that, those accused should be taken to court for prosecution and if found guilty should be convicted and punished.”
Waku also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to extend his anti-corruption fight to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s regime.

He said, “The corruption fight of Buhari will be meaningful if he can extend it to Obasanjo, corruption is not only when you take bribe or embezzle our commonwealth, election rigging is also corruption or using your office to conscript people to donate to your personal thing is corruption.”
When asked whether his hatred for Obasanjo was not responsible for his call for his prosecution, Waku said no.

“No! If you have personal contact with Obasanjo, you will know that he his humorous, I like him as a person, and besides, he is my elder, he was my commander in chief for 11 years. I cannot inherit anything from him, he cannot also inherit anything from me, Chief Obasanjo is a great man, there is no doubt about that.

“But the fact remains, let him be probed, it may even serve as a blessing to him, if his administration is probed and he is eventually found innocent, that will exonerate him from the eyes of the public and to some of us, Obasanjo remains the most … president Nigeria ever had until proven otherwise.”

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Presidency Reveales How Over 200,000 Unemployed Graduates Will Get Jobs Before End Of The Month.

The V.P has revealed yesterday 11 Oct 2016 that the implementation plans for the effective commencement of a number of the social investment programmes has reached advanced stages for the selection of the first 200,000 unemployed graduates to get jobs.

While speaking with a small group of radio journalists and producers at the Presidential Villa Abuja, on Tuesday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said that the implementation plans for the effective commencement of a number of the social investment programmes has reached advanced stages as the selection of the first 200,000 unemployed graduates to get jobs is now being completed.
According to Premium Times, the VP said that:-

“we expect that before the end of the month, we will engage 200,000,” out of the 500,000 unemployed graduates the Buhari administration plans to hire in the N-Power jobs programme.

He revealed that the direct government jobs is meant “to keep this young people occupied, pay them some amount of money and also give them a device, which will also help them to learn several skills that they can develop as time goes on.”

“we expect that before the end of this month, we should have engaged 200,000 of them and we are hoping that before the end of the year we should have engaged more.”

Speaking further, the former Lagos state commissioner of justice, disclosed that the Home-Grown School Feeding programme is set to kick off in several states this month.
“Definitely before the end of this month, we expect that several states would have come on stream with their Home-grown School Feeding Programmes,” the Vice President noted.

He added that the Home-Grown School Feeding programme “will energise agriculture in the different states because it is what you plant that you feed the children with, we will be hiring caterers, cooks, etc in each state because it will be Federal Government funded from Primaries 1-3 and the state governments hopefully would be able to cater for the other classes.”

According to the Vice President, the Home-Grown School Feeding programme is another section of the Social Investment programmes that impact directly on the lives of Nigerian children and families. He said several states will start implementing the Home-grown School Feeding Programme before the end of October.

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BREAKING NEWS!! Buhari Fulfills His Promise, Begin Payment Of N5,000 To Jobless Youths

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme with biometric capture and account opening for the monthly stipend has started in Borno camps for Internally Displaced Persons (IDP), Naij reports.

The exercise is part of the scheme under the ‘Social Investment Programmes’ of the government of Muhammadu Buhari under which one million extremely poor Nigerians will be paid N5,ooo monthly stipend.
This brings to fulfilment one of the promises made to Nigerians by the All Progressives Congress, APC, during the last Presidential campaign.

According to the news media, Laolu Akande, the Special Assistant to the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, clarified that for the Conditional Cash Transfer the money would be paid directly to the recipients through a payment system that was being worked out.

Osinbajo’s aide said World Bank and the Bill Gates Foundation were also cooperating with the Federal Government to develop an efficient payment system.

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How Can You Say You Used N270m To Clear Grass At IDP Camp? – Reps Probe SDF Lawal

House of Reps committee investigating alleged diversion of funds and materials meant for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS), especially the alleged use of N270million just to clear grass by the office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF) said it was being frustrated by the refusal of the SGF, Mr Babachir Lawal, to appear before it.

The Committee on IDPs and the North-East Initiatives, mandated to investigate the allegation had invited Lawal to explain how his office spent about N12billion allocated for the IDP issues.

The committee is also investigating the expenditure of N270m by the Presidential Initiative on the North-East (PINE) “on just clearing of grass’’. Also being probed by the committee is the purported allocation of N188.69 million for Nigerian refugees living in Minawao, Republic of Cameroon.

Expressing disappointment with the attitude of the SGF towards the committee, Chairman of the committee, Rep. Sani Zorro, said “The SGF who was slated to have appeared hasn’t showed up. He did not write to intimate us on why his office would not come to explain why issues of internally displaced persons have remained un-encouraging, in spite of the billions of naira claimed to have been spent.

“The PINE officials said he’s at the villa. But, as the secretary to the government under whose office the rehabilitation of the North-East was placed, we had expected him to come to throw light on the financial expenses made by his office.
“We also expected him to explain the implementation framework being used to spend money.

“We have been inundated by reports of diversion of materials and funds meant for the rehabilitation of the IDPs, and the North-East and the scandal had led to international embarrassment for Nigeria.
“Given the issues of credibility and integrity raised against the agency in charge of the North-East Initiative (PiNE) which falls under the SGF office, we had expected him to respect the invitation.”

THE DEFENCE

Testifying before the committee members, Executive Secretary in charge of the Presidential Initiative, Mr Umar Gulani, said that N270m was awarded as contract. He said the contract was for the removal of 250 kilometres of “invasive plant species along river channels and simplified village irrigation scheme (phase II) in Komadugu Basin in Yobe’’.
In reaction, Zorro expressed dissatisfaction with the explanation, saying, “we are of the opinion that the expenditure of the magnitude you have made is not justified.

“ It’s not acceptable that you spent such a huge amount of money on the clearing of weeds while 2.5 million internally displaced victims of terror go hungry. They have no shelter and medical care.”

The committee, therefore, demanded further details from PINE, to be submitted to it without delay.

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How To Successfully Apply For Federal Civil Service Commission (FCSC) Recruitment.

Since the opening of the Federal Civil Service Commission recruitment portal on 19 September 2016 applicant have been having difficulties in registering and receiving of verification email to enable them proceed with their applications.

In fact a lot of new email accounts will be created during this registrations period due to email
rejection Issues on the portal, Nevertheless some applicants were able to apply successfully and others are still finding it difficult to register.

My understanding on how the recruitment portal works is that for you to register successfully, you must avoid using mobile phone to register instead use strong browser like google chrome on laptop or desktop computer. Some feature will not appear on mobile phone even though the FCSC portal website functionality was optimize for easy access by applicant but the site is still under strong security protection that is why a lot of applicant are having problem to register.

How to Register Successfully

1. go to
http://vacancy.fedcivilservice.gov.ng

2. Click on Register an Account to start filling in your information on the box provided and once you are done, click Register .

3. You will receive the following success message:
"Your registration is successful, check your email inbox to activate your registration"

4. Then open your mail box for the activation email sent to you. Check both your inbox and spam mail. If you didn't receive any email, please don't panic. Just wait for a couple of hours and keep checking your email inbox and spam.

5. If you still haven't received your activation email, download Google Chrome on your mobile phone from Google play store, open the Federal Civil Service Commission recruitment portal, try logging in with your email address and the password. You'll see the following message "your account is not activated ". It will also give you an option to resend confirmation? Click on resend confirmation and they will send the link to your mail immediately! This should work!

6. When you finally receive the activation email in your inbox click on it, it will lead you to FCSC Recruitment login page , login with your
Username which is the email you register with and password.

7. When you successfully login, check for the available position you want to apply for and click on apply button it will take you to the next page to start filling your information. There are 18 form pages which you will have to fill.

Note:
while filling your form on the recruitment portal there will be some huddles like LGA not displaying or date box not functioning try this strategies: When you click on state origin wait a little before clicking on the LGA box or click on another state origin and check the LGA then try to fill in your own state origin the LGA will show. For those who are finding it difficult to Register don't give up keep trying it will sure get through.


Vacancies  are available in the following MDAs

- Federal Ministry of Education
- Federal Ministry of Labour & Productivity
- Federal Ministry of Finance
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs
- Federal Ministry of Information and Culture
- Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing
- Federal Ministry of Science and Technology
- Federal Ministry of Transport
- Office of the Auditor General for the Federation
- Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation
- Bureau of Public Procurement.

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See Diezani Alison-Madueke’s Meriden Hotel In Port-Harcourt (Photo)

Diezani Alison-Madueke, Nigeria’s former Petroleum Resources Minister, purchased Port Harcourt’s Le Meridien Hotel for $25million from a former Rivers State military administrator, Anthony Akpo, SaharaReporters learned at the weekend.

Our sources say that the transaction was carried out using several persons, including Dauda Lawal, a First Bank of Nigeria Executive Director.

Lawal’s role, according to investigators at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), was to pick up from Skye Bank in Lagos and innocuously drop off $25million cash into a bank account at Sterling Bank PLC.
The directive to pick up the huge cash haul was coordinated by Stanley Lawson, a former group executive director of Finance and accounts at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

During EFCC interrogations, Dauda claimed he did not know that the transaction was aimed at purchasing Le Meriden Hotel in Port Harcourt, and that he was only helping a friend, Mr. Lawson, to run errands.
People knowledgeable about Mr. Lawal’s closeness to Diezani, which some say sometimes appeared to be romantic, said he may not be telling the whole truth.

Lawal was one of the bankers arrested by the EFCC in a recent fraud-related raid of high profile bankers involved in financial crimes perpetrated by Mrs. Alison-Madueke.
Others include Herbert Wigwe of Access Bank PLC, Nnamdi Okonkwo of Fidelity Bank PLC, and Yemi Adeola, the MD of Standard Bank PLC.

Le Meriden hotel was conceived as a five-star hotel. It was built in 2003 by retired Brigadier General Ukpo with the help of Julius Berger, the construction company with whom he became acquainted during his early days first as the military administrator of Rivers state and later as the Principal Secretary to former Military dictator, Ibrahim Babangida.

Ukpo sold the 87-room luxury hotel to Mrs. Alison-Madueke through a web of actors with the hope that no one would find out.
After the EFCC discovered the fraudulent sale, Ukpo reportedly offered to hand over the hotel to the federal government, but President Buhari is believed to have rejected the offer, saying the government has no business managing a hotel, and insisting that Ukpo return $25m to the federation account.
It is unclear why the former army chief has not yet been arrested.

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‘I’m In Good Health,’ Shekau Resurfaces In New Video

In the 40 minutes video, Shekau refuted claims that he was injured, saying he is in good health.

The embattled leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, has again appeared in a ‘new video’ weeks after the Nigerian Army said he is gravely wounded in a military airstrikes.
According to Vanguard, in the 40 minutes video, which Pulse is yet to obtain, Shekau refuted claims that he was injured, saying he is in good health.’

“You have been spreading in the social media that you injured or killed me,” the terrorists’ leader was quoted to have said in the video.
“Oh tyrants, I’m in a happy state, in good health and in safety.”
The army had on August 23 said that Shekau was seriously wounded in the shoulder in an air raid in which several Boko Haram commanders were killed.

Following the claim, a Boko Haram video was released on September 13 without Shekau in it, which supported the army’s narrative.
That video showed an unidentified man who said he was representing Shekau, who had allegedly been ousted by the Islamic State group to which Boko Haram pledged allegiance in March 2015.

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7 Brilliant Nigerians Working At Facebook That Mark Zuckerberg Can’t Do Without

Working at a huge multinational company that pays very well is surely the goal for most young Nigerian graduates. More specifically, working at Facebook is one plum job, many would go to great lengths to land.

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‘Son’ of Boko Haram’s founder named jihadi head

Islamic State group appointed Abu Musab al-Barnawi as the head of Boko Haram early in August, few people even recognised his name.

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