UN Elects 5 New Security Council Members With Nigeria Among Them

The U.N. General Assembly elects five new members to the Security Council on Thursday and the winners are virtually certain because there are no contested races — Nigeria, Chad, Saudi Arabia, Lithuania and Chile.

  


Chad, Saudi Arabia and Lithuania have never served on the U.N.’s most powerful body while Nigeria and Chile have both been on the council four times previously.
Security Council seats are highly coveted because they give countries a strong voice in matters dealing with international peace and security, such as Syria, sanctions against Iran and North Korea and the U.N.’s far-flung peacekeeping operations.The 15-member council includes five permanent members with veto power — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France — and 10 non permanent members elected for two-year terms.

Seats are allocated by region, and regional groups nominate candidates. There are often hotly contested races.
In 2007, for example, a runoff between Guatemala and Venezuela went 47 rounds before Panama was finally offered, and elected, as the Latin America candidate.

This year, there were initially two candidates for a West African seat but Gambia dropped out last week in favor of Nigeria.
To win, each country must obtain support of two-thirds of all General Assembly members present, or a minimum of 129 votes if all 193 members participate.
Because balloting is secret, there is intense lobbying for votes by candidates, even in uncontested races, to ensure they get the minimum number needed for victory.
Winners will assume their posts on Jan. 1 and serve through the end of 2015.
The five winners on Thursday will replace Azerbaijan, Guatemala, Morocco, Pakistan and Togo.

Prison Transfer Deal May See Ibori, Other Prisoners In UK Repatriated To Complete Jail Terms In Nigeria

 

As part of a prisoner transfer deal between the British and Nigerian government, former Delta State governor, James Onanefe Ibori, who is currently serving a jail term in Britain, might be among Nigerian prisoners scheduled to be transferred to Nigerian prisons to complete their jail terms according to a report by a British newspaper.
According to Mail Online, a British online newspaper, the United Kingdom prisons minister, Jeremy Wright said talks are in progress with the various governments including Nigeria on prisoner transfer deals.
If the deal pulls through, according to Wright, more than half of the 534 prisoners from Nigeria currently in UK jails will be repatriated to Nigerian prisons.
 It would be recalled that Britain had earlier promised to fund the construction of new prisons in some countries including Nigeria for the prisoner transfer deal just as the deal will see the country collecting £1 million for the upgrade of some of its prisons including the Kirikiri prison in Lagos and others across the country.

Revealed: Sex Between Female Students and Teachers In Nigerian Universities (Photo)

 

In many ways, Nigerian institutions of higher learning are no different from other such institutions around the world: They are confronted with several contending issues such as budget cuts, plagiarism, cheating during exams, alteration of data by researchers, unhealthy rivalry and tension between faculty members and between faculty and administration and between students and other echelons. These are constants within the academic community.
And of course there is the issue of séxual relationship between some students and some of their teachers, and between some stuTo be sure, there is not a teaching and learning institution anywhere in the world where such — séx between students and faculty and between students and staff — is not a concern. None! What makes the Nigerian context different is the propensity, the frequency and the severity of the aforementioned.Parents send their children to school to learn, no to be harassed and séxually molested. Young men and women come to school to learn and learn how to be contributing members of their immediate and global society. They go to school to learn to be good citizens, good human beings. They go to school to develop many skills – including critical thinking skill. And though many show up in all their naiveté and gullibility, still, it is not a reason or an excuse for them to be taken advantage of. Sadly, these are some of the horrors that happen to many Nigerian students, especially the girls.Sadder is the fact that millions of girls and young women are being abused and exploited on a daily basis. Many are denied their human and civil rights. Many have no access to education, to medical care, or to a caring home and environment. They are the “wretched of the earth.” While there are some shining examples within the Nigerian sisterhood, there could have been several millions more if the Nigerian society had taken its female population more seriously. But we don’t! For the most part, and in many settings, women are things, objects – things and objects to ignore or séxualise.
Thinking about it now, I cannot remember which came first: the súgar daddy syndrome or the séxual exploitation of students by staff and faculty members (sometimes referred to as “Bush allowance”). Long before politicians became conquerors and rulers of the maiden and their honey jars — and long before military officers freely roamed the séxual landscape — súgar daddies were the kings.
Súgar daddies paraded and patronised UNILAG, UNIBEN, BUK, UNIPORT, ABU, UI and every Nigerian university and polytechnic and college of education. And in some cases, they snuck into secondary schools and in the process committed r*pe and alarming perversions. Today, the larger Nigerian society does not worry itself with what was initially an aberration. It is now a given. Basically, súgardaddism has now become a practice, part of our cultural milieu.
Tell me: How many women, 17-37 years old, do you know who do not have one or two moneybags as a lover or séx mate? I am sure there are. But they can’t be that many. Poverty and unemployment and the general state of confusion and hopelessness have greatly contributed to the mental and psychical anarchy that now characterises the country. In the minds of many, the kingdom of God can wait. Money is the new paradise. You either have it or you don’t. In many enclaves, if you don’t have it, you don’t matter, you don’t count!
No matter how you look at it, séx between a student and a teacher or an administrator cannot be considered a relationship. This is so because there is an element of abuse and exploitation involved. What’s more, many students – especially secondary school and undergraduates — who are so abused and taken advantage of, may suffer psychological and physical damage.

As many universities in the western world have come to understand, there is “power imbalance between the parties” that makes such a liaison unsound and injurious. The University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees recently voted against “séxual interactions between students and professors.” Similar measures are in place in many universities.
One does not know what the policies are in Nigerian universities and other institutions of higher learning. What seems clear – very clear – is that a whole lot of r*pe and abuse and exploitation and blackmail are taking place. But really, the complaints are just too many: teachers who demand séx for better class grade and other favours; and teachers who pimp students for financial and non-financial gains. Séx-for-grade or grade-for-séx is indeed a mess, an epidemic that’s been threatening, along with other vexing issues, Nigeria’s educational environment.
To whom do aggrieved female students lodge complaints when many of those in positions of authority are committing the same or similar offence? Do you complain to the Vice-Chancellor, the Dean, the Head of the Department, or to the Faculty Senate? I do not mean to say that the entire rank and file of the Nigerian academics is guilty of these abuses and exploitation. No, not at all! But the fact is that the number of those involved in such inhumanity outweighs the innocent and pious ones.
Are there cases where female students lodged false protests against innocent teachers? Yes, of course! Are there cases where rival teachers used séx to trap and blackmail other teachers? Yes, of course! And are there cases where female students séxually pursued their teachers? Yes, without a doubt! But such incidences are small, very small.
In the end, I wonder if there are academic studies that gauge the impact of séx-for-grade on our educational system, and how they impact the lives of our young women. Even so, these practices and transgressions cannot be good for the country’s culture and educational system. It could be that these injuries cannot be wiped out, but they can be substantially minimised.
No one sends his or her daughter to school to be abused and exploited by depraved minds. Consequently, the learning environment should be a safe and enriching one for all. No society can be great and prosperous if that society refuses to treat her women population with love, respect and dignity. A healthy learning-teaching environment is a human and civil right for all — especially for our young women.
dents and some members of the administrative staff…

Nigerian Mom Living In The UK, Stabbed To Death By Her Son

This Nigerian woman, Tolu Kalejaiye (click on story to view) was allegedly murdered by her son in the UK. British police arrested her son on September 26, 2013 on suspicion of murder after his mother was found dead in their home.
Mrs Kalejaiye, a 46-year-old accountant, lived in a large £350,000 four-bedroom property in Wickford, Essex…where her body was found by police who were notified of her death. Neighbours said they had been told the mother was stabbed to death, by her 21-year-old son; but it was not confirmed how she died.
More than 10 of Mrs Kalejaiye’s friends and family stood in tears that afternoon outside the family home, which was cordoned off with a team of forensic officers working inside the property.
Her neighbour, Michael Day, 57, described Mrs Kalejaiye as ‘pleasant’, saying that he would only usually see her on Sunday mornings when she went to church. ‘She would wave when she saw me,’ he added.
According to her Facebook profile, Mrs Kalejaiye is engaged, studied accounting and finance at Middlesex University in Hendon, north London, and is originally from Abeokuta in Nigeria.
May her soul rest in peace.

Mrs Kalejaiye’s friends mourn outside her home as police carry out investigation

Mrs Kalejaiye’s home

Who Is Sara Baartman? Every Black Woman Should Know Her Name

I first read about Sarah Baartman, very casually and in passing, many years ago. I didn’t know her by her real name. Rather, I knew her as the ‘Hottentot Venus.’
Not until recently, when I stumbled upon a historic film about her, was I filled with rage about the injustice she suffered in the hands of the Europeans. Sometimes, I find it difficult to imagine why the early Europeans saw us, Africans as savages…when indeed they were the true perverts and savages. You need to see the way those white men leered at her with lustful eyes.
I have taken time to research on Sarah Baartman. The most comprehensive report comes from SouthAfrica.Info. I have taken the liberty of culling their report so that we could all learn about this incredible South African woman from the Khoisan tribe who was mistaken for a freak because she had very big hips, buttocks and an enlarged VJJ.
Culled From, SouthAfrica.Info:
Sarah Baartman, displayed as a freak because of her unusual physical features, was finally laid to rest 187 years after she left Cape Town for London. Her remains were buried on Women’s Day, 9 August 2002, in the area of her birth, the Gamtoos River Valley in the Eastern Cape.
Baartman was born in 1789. She was working as a slave in Cape Town when she was “discovered” by British ship’s doctor William Dunlop, who persuaded her to travel with him to England. We’ll never know what she had in mind when she stepped on board – of her own free will – a ship for London.
But it’s clear what Dunlop had in mind – to display her as a “freak”, a “scientific curiosity”, and make money from these shows, some of which he promised to give to her.
Baartman had unusually large buttocks and genitals, and in the early 1800s Europeans were arrogantly obsessed with their own superiority, and with proving that others, particularly blacks, were inferior and oversexed.
Baartman’s physical characteristics, not unusual for Khoisan women, although her features were larger than normal, were “evidence” of this prejudice, and she was treated like a freak exhibit in London.

The ‘Hottentot Venus’

She was called the “Hottentot Venus”, ‘Hottentot’ being a name given to people with cattle. They had acquired these cattle by migrating northwards to Angola and returned to South Africa with them, about 2 000 years before the first European settlement at the Cape in 1652. Prior to this, they were indistinguishable from the Bushmen or San, the first inhabitants of South Africa, who had been in the region for around 100 000 years as hunter-gatherers.
Khoisan is used to denote their relationship to the San people. The label “Hottentot” took on derogatory connotations, and is no longer used.
Venus is the Roman goddess of love, a cruel reference to Baartman being an object of admiration and adoration instead of the object of leering and abuse that she became.
She spent four years in London, then moved to Paris, where she continued her degrading round of shows and exhibitions. In Paris she attracted the attention of French scientists, in particular Georges Cuvier.
No one knows if Dunlop was true to his word and paid Baartman for her “services”, but if he did pay her, it wasn’t sufficient to buy herself out of the life she was living.
Once the Parisians got tired of the Baartman show, she was forced to turn to prostitution. She didn’t last the ravages of a foreign culture and climate, or the further abuse of her body. She died in 1815, at the age of 25.
The cause of death was given as “inflammatory and eruptive sickness”, possibly syphilis. Others suggest she was an alcoholic. Whatever the cause, she lived and died thousands of kilometres from home and family, in a hostile city, with no means of getting herself home again.
Cuvier made a plaster cast of her body, then removed her skeleton and, after removing her brain and genitals, pickled them and displayed them in bottles at theMusee de l’Hommein Paris.
Some 160 years later they were still on display, but were finally removed from public view in 1974. In 1994, then president Nelson Mandela requested that her remains be brought home.
Other representations were made, but it took the French government eight years to pass a bill – apparently worded so as to prevent other countries from claiming the return of their stolen treasures – to allow their small piece of “scientific curiosity” to be returned to South Africa.
In January 2002, Sarah Baartman’s remains were returned and buried on 9 August 2002, on South Africa’s Women’s Day, at Hankey in the Eastern Cape Province.
Her grave has since been declared a national heritage site.
Marang Setshwaelo, writing for Africana.com at the time, said Dr Willa Boezak, a Khoisan rights activist, believed that a poem written by Khoisan descendant Diana Ferrus in 1998 played a major role in helping bring Baartman home. Boezak said: “It took the power of a woman, through a simple, loving poem, to move hard politicians into action.”
Whatever the reason, Sarah Baartman is home, and has finally had her dignity restored by being buried where she belongs – far away from where her race and gender were so cruelly exploited.

Baartman objectified: an early nineteenth century French print titled, ‘La Belle Hottentot’

Why Africa Needs To Be Careful With Chinese Trade Agreements By Sola Ademiluyi

The Chinese population was growing at an alarming rate and this made the authorities in 1978 to come up with the one child policy to stem the tide. The need to take care of the ever growing population must have made them think beyond China and do a critical review of their communist economic model. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic crisis in Cuba and North Korea must have been enough food for thought!



Africa became their sudden new bride and they moved in with swift ferocity. The beleaguered continent was fed up with the paternalistic relationship it had with Europe and America and desperately needed a breath of fresh air which the Chinese symbolised.



With a volume of $200 billion, they have displaced Uncle Sam as the continent’s largest trading partners. It is a well known fact that their ability to lift about 600 million of their countrymen out of the scourge of poverty can be traced to their trade with the continent which also indirectly accounts for the fact that it is the current fastest growing economy in the world. There are currently a million Chinese residents in Africa and the figure may grow exponentially.



China is Sudan’s largest economic partner and has access to 40% of its crude oil. They sell arms to the Nation as well and were accused of not intervening in the Darfur crisis because it may hurt their arm trade.



They were also accused of supplying Zimbabwe with jet fighters, vehicles and other military equipments. Worldwide criticism made them declare in 2007 that they were dropping all forms of assistance and only limiting it to humanitarian aid. In 2008, they told President Robert Mugabe to behave.



Congo holds half of the world’s cobalt reserves and has vast reserves of high-grade copper and tin. A ton of copper has risen from $1700 to $8000 presently which makes it a goldmine for them. The local residents complain that the foreign guests do not bother to mix with them – they feel a tinge of contempt and their activities hurt the local market. Blackberry phones can be purchased at a third of the market price. This trend of cheap Chinese goods is a continental one and who suffers? Of course it is the local industries as they cannot compete effectively. Nationalistic sentiments wouldn’t make Africans ditch cheaper goods for more expensive ones.



China has been accused of having lots of sweat shops and they have brought this to Africa. In Nigeria we can still recall the Chinese factory which locked its staff during working hours and a fire outbreak killed some of them. Field workers working without basic safety apparel is a norm and their wages are highly pitiable – starvation wages as a friend calls them. They have a trend of bringing in most of their workers from China thereby denying the much needed technological transfer to Africans.



The Republic of Niger is currently locked in a battle with them for better oil deals with them. An independent audit revealed bloated costs and unfair charges in a partnership agreement with the China National Petroleum Corporation. They are pressing for a fresh agreement as tens of millions of dollars has already been saved. The Minister of Oil in Chad shut down Chinese operations when they discovered they were massively dumping excess crude oil in ditches south of the capital, N’Djamena. In Gabon, the government withdrew a permit for an oil field from a subsidiary of the Chinese owned Sinopec.



It is tragic that Africa has always been at the receiving end from other continents. We had the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, the scramble for and partition of Africa which brought about colonialism, neo-colonialism or imperialism by the West and now its continuation by the Chinese. The hydra-headed monster of corruption has always made her leaders turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by these foreigners in the name of foreign investment. While we commend the patriotic actions by the officials of Niger, Chad and Gabon who put their countries first and could have easily made a killing via corrupt deals with them, other leaders have to do more to ensure that these relationships are not one-sided.



We must have a long term agenda of economic independence of the continent. Issues of technological transfer, better working wages and conditions for workers, more use of locals for technical assignments have to be addressed. We remember the eternal words of Osaygefo Kwame Nkrumah who boldly declared that political independence without economic independence is a great misnomer. Political interference in the affairs of African States must never be tolerated no matter the circumstances. We have had enough from the West and it would be a monumental tragedy if Beijing becomes the novel Imperialists.



We need a new clone of Nelson Mandela in form of economic visionaries as the partnerships must be skewed on the long run to one of mutual relationships. It is high time Africa demanded a greater share of the world’s pie and this can only be done through a deep introspection of our innate strengths and channelling our human capital to its actualisation. No Foreigner will ever do what we cannot do for ourselves.



It is foolhardy to expect Africa to operate in isolation but it is more foolish to subtly allow a grab culture of her natural resources and its being a fertile ground for the dumping of excess goods which has the potential to perpetuate her economic dependence. Let us not forget the Malaysia tale when they came to freely obtain our palm kernels in the 1960’s only for them to sell them back to us in the 1990’s.

70-Year-Old Woman From Florida Charged In Murder-For-hire Plot

A 70-year-old woman in Florida was arrested after she solicited an undercover detective to kill her daughter-in-law, authorities said.
Diana Reaves Costarakis, of Middleburg, was being held without bond in the Duval County Jail on Saturday on charges of criminal solicitation and criminal conspiracy, both capital felony crimes, jail records show. She was scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 31. The records did not list any attorney for her.
According to a police report from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, Costarakis offered an undercover detective $5,000 on Wednesday when they first met at a Home Depot. She gave him $500 as the first payment as well as a photo of the daughter-in-law, her address, and a description of her car, the report said. Costarakis gave the detective another $1,000 on Thursday and told him her daughter-in-law wore diamonds and other expensive jewelry that could be stolen and sold, with the proceeds being used toward the final payment. The diamonds could not be traced, she told the detective, according to the report.
When asked if Costarakis wanted her daughter-in-law dead, she said, “If you don’t, I will,” according to the police report.
She was later taken into custody.

Costarakis told police that her daughter-in-law was a drunk and a bad mother to her 6-year-old granddaughter, the police report said.
Angela Costarakis told WJXT TV on Friday that she did not know why her mother-in-law would be so angry with her.
“I am beyond sad and it breaks my heart because it messes up the family,” she said. “I have compassion. I don’t want to see anyone spend the rest of their life in jail. However, I am still just dealing with it. I just found out. I have not wrapped my head around it.”
The police report said Diana Costarakis claimed her daughter-in-law was leaving her son and moving to Denver with her granddaughter. Angela Costarakis told WJXT that wasn’t true.