Haliburton case to be re-opened.

A security source close told Saturday Tribune that the U.S. government had threatened that unless those culpable in the case were brought to book, about $140 million of the bribery recovered and still in the coffers of the US government, won’t be repatriated to Nigeria.
“Following this development, President Buhari has directed the investigation committee made up of representatives of all security agencies to dust off the file and complete the investigations and charge those indicted to court,” the source said.
The case was investigated four years ago by a security panel headed by retired Assistant Inspector General of Police, Ahmadu Ali, who charged a former personal aide to a former president to court at the end of the case but the case was later thrown out by the court due to lack of diligent prosecution.
One  of the culprits in the case, American citizen, Jeffry Tesler, who was the middle-man in the payment of the bribes paid to secure the contract for the final phase of the National Liquefied Natural Gas project was sentenced to 21 months in prison and forfeited $148.964 million from his Swiss accounts to the United States government. Tesler has however served out his prison sentence.
A report on the Halliburton bribery scandal by the US government had indicted three former Nigerian leaders, a former vice president, a minister, some intelligence chiefs and a few corporate entities as beneficiaries of the bribes.
One of the companies later opted for plea bargaining and paid the sum of $25 million to the government.
READ ALSO: Halliburton Bribery Scandal Indicts More Nigerians
The security source said further, “the case file would soon be reopened and all those who were invited during the investigation will soon appear again.”
“My brother, this is a serious case now because the government of the day is very eager to prosecute anybody indicted in it so as to serve as a deterrent to others”, the source added.
Just last week, the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers made Halliburton to stop its operations in Nigeria because of its move to sack some of its workers.

Source:naij.com

Pesident Buhari move to slash down his allowance and that of his vice.

President Muhammadu Buhari

It was gathered that the president expects his vice and all other political appointees to do like wise.
According to Punch, the president would have made his decision public but chose to consult with his close associates on how best to approach the issue without being seen as dictatorial.
President Buhari according to the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission,  will earn a monthly salary of N3, 514, 705, his allowance N1,757,350.50( 50% of his salary).
There is no information yet as to what percentage of the president’s salary will be reduced. But sources say that the president will reduce the State House budget.
The president also plans to slash the appointment of aides and possibly implement the report of the Stephen Oronsaye-led Presidential Committee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of Federal Government Parastatals, Commissions and Agencies.
President Buhari who in his inaugural speech, said that Nigeria’s economy was in deep trouble, might not increase the number of special advisers from 15 as part of the measures he his taking to cut down the cost of governance.
A top chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC), said that the president had concluded plans to submit some bills to the National Assembly for the implementation of some cost-saving measures.

 Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, a polical associate of the president told Punch that an area likely to be affected is the Presidential Air fleet which is said to have about 10 air crafts. He said the cost of maintaining these air crafts may get the president’s attention.
Adding that President Buhari who has experienced governance is not one to do things without consultation.


It would be recalled that former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration made a provision of N348, 342,741 as honorarium and sitting allowance for the State House in the 2015 budget.
The provision made for travel and transport showed that the president will be spending N1, 306,834,350 on local travels and transport and N621, 067,913 on international travel and transport.
In 2014 the travel bill of the president was higher than the provision made. The budget made a provision of N2, 378,862,017 for the office of the president for local and international travels.
For food supplies, a provision of N142, 472,537 was made for the office of the president.
The State House received a lesser provision of N122, 855,267 for fuel and lubricants.

The 2015 budget proposal included a provision of N131, 911,315 for fuel and lubricants for the State House. The breakdown showed that plant/generator fuel will consume N35, 344,855; motor vehicle fuel will consume N85, 843,802 while cooking gas/fuel will consume N10, 102,858.
In 2014 the provision of N60, 847,647 was made for the office of the president for advertisement and publicity.
For the State House, N287,514,283 provision was made for welfare packages; N174,537,975 for refreshment and meals; N215, 635,715 for food stuff and catering services; N31,582,475 for medical expenses; and N35,495,233 for publicity and advertisement. These provisions are likely to be reduced.
Kaduna State Governor, Malam Nasir El-Rufai, a close associate of the president in his inaugural speech, announced a fifty per cent cut in his salary and that of his deputy till when the economy of the state was better.
Source:http://www.naij.com/454219-buhari-plans-to-cut-his-own-salary-and-allowances.html.

Live: Happening @ the Succesor generation innaugrations

Latest World Ranking on Education based on Science and Mathematics.

The biggest ever global school rankings have been
published, with Asian countries in the top five
places and African countries at the bottom.
Singapore heads the table, followed by Hong Kong,
with Ghana at the bottom.
The UK is in 20th place, among higher achieving
European countries, with the US in 28th.
The OECD economic think tank says the
comparisons - based on test scores in 76
countries - show the link between education and
economic growth.
"This is the first time we have a truly global scale
of the quality of education," said the OECD's
education director, Andreas Schleicher.
"The idea is to give more countries, rich and poor,
access to comparing themselves against the
world's education leaders, to discover their relative
strengths and weaknesses, and to see what the
long-term economic gains from improved quality
in schooling could be for them," he said.
iFrame
The top performer, Singapore, had high levels of
illiteracy into the 1960s, said Mr Schleicher,
showing how much progress could be made.
In the UK, the study shows about one in five
youngsters leave school without reaching a basic
level of education - and the OECD says that
reducing this number and improving skills could
add trillions of dollars to the UK economy.
"I think it's partly a mindset, an expectation. There
are plenty of examples of schools that have raised
the bar dramatically," said education minister Lord
Nash.
The analysis, based on test scores in maths and
science, is a much wider global map of education
standards than the OECD's Pisa tests, which focus
on more affluent industrialised countries.
Hi-tech vision of the future: Experimenting with
technology in Singapore
This latest league table, ranking more than a third
of the world's nations, shows how countries such
as Iran, South Africa, Peru and Thailand would
appear on an international scale.
It shows once again the poor performance of the
United States, slipping behind successful European
countries and being overtaken by Vietnam. It also
highlights the decline of Sweden, with the OECD
warning last week that it had serious problems in
its education system.
iFrame
Figures mapped above show estimated growth in
GDP over the lifetime of pupils. The figures
assume that all pupils are enrolled in schools and
that they achieve at least basic skills.
More stories from the BBC's Knowledge economy
series looking at education from a global
perspective and how to get in touch
The rankings are based on an amalgamation of
international assessments, including the OECD's
Pisa tests, the TIMSS tests run by US-based
academics and TERCE tests in Latin America,
putting developed and developing countries on a
single scale.
The findings will be formally presented at the
World Education Forum in South Korea next week,
where the United Nations is to convene a
conference on targets for raising global education
by 2030.
'Every student to succeed'
The top five places are all taken by Asian countries
- Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and
Japan.
The five lowest-ranked countries are Oman in
72nd, Morocco, Honduras, South Africa and Ghana
in last spot.
"If you go to an Asian classroom you'll find
teachers who expect every student to succeed.
There's a lot of rigour, a lot of focus and
coherence," says Mr Schleicher.
Vietnam has overtaken the US: An Italian
scooter company's factory near Hanoi
"These countries are also very good at attracting
the most talented teachers in the most challenging
classrooms, so that every student has access to
excellent teachers."
The report, published by the OECD and written by
Eric Hanushek from Stanford University and Ludger
Woessmann from Munich University, argues that
the standard of education is a "powerful predictor
of the wealth that countries will produce in the
long run".
Take the test: How would your maths skills
compare with the world's teenagers?
"Poor education policies and practices leave many
countries in what amounts to a permanent state of
economic recession," says the report.
Millennium targets
Improving education would produce "long-term
economic gains that are going to be phenomenal",
says Mr Schleicher.
If Ghana, the lowest ranked country, achieved
basic skills for all its 15-year-olds, the report says
that it would expand its current GDP by 38 times,
over the lifetime of today's youngsters.
The first "truly global" measure of education
standards, says the OECD's Andreas Schleicher
The report will provide evidence for next week's
World Education Forum of how achieving education
targets can deliver economic gains.
The milestone conference, under the auspices of
the United Nations, will mark 15 years since the
setting of education targets by world leaders.
These millennium targets for education, such as
providing all children with a primary education,
have not been fully achieved.
But the World Education Forum will set another
round of global targets for the next 15 years.
Countries ranked on maths and science
1. Singapore
2. Hong Kong
3. South Korea
4. Japan (joint)
4. Taiwan (joint)
6. Finland
7. Estonia
8. Switzerland
9. Netherlands
10. Canada
11. Poland
12. Vietnam
13. Germany
14. Australia
15. Ireland
16. Belgium
17. New Zealand
18. Slovenia
19. Austria
20. United Kingdom
21. Czech Republic
22. Denmark
23. France
24. Latvia
25. Norway
26. Luxembourg
27. Spain
28. Italy (joint)
28. United States (joint)
30. Portugal
31. Lithuania
32. Hungary
33. Iceland
34. Russia
35. Sweden
36. Croatia
37. Slovak Republic
38. Ukraine
39. Israel
40. Greece
41. Turkey
42. Serbia
43. Bulgaria
44. Romania
45. UAE
46. Cyprus
47. Thailand
48. Chile
49. Kazakhstan
50. Armenia
51. Iran
52. Malaysia
53. Costa Rica
54. Mexico
55. Uruguay
56. Montenegro
57. Bahrain
58. Lebanon
59. Georgia
60. Brazil
61. Jordan
62. Argentina
63. Albania
64. Tunisia
65. Macedonia
66. Saudi Arabia
67. Colombia
68. Qatar
69. Indonesia
70. Botswana
71. Peru
72. Oman
73. Morocco
74. Honduras
75. South Africa
76. Ghana
Source: BBC

Looming Scarcity of Fuel in Nigeria

Recently the NNPC injected a large sum of money into the production and distribution of crude oil in the nation. But it's effort has been twarthed by the scarcity of petrol in the nation for various reasons among which the fall in the global price of crude oil in the world market is one also the increase in the naira to dollars exchange rate.

Biography Of Nigeria Only Female President for the 2015 election

BIOGRAPHY
Remi Sonaiya was born on March
2nd, 1955. She began her schooling
in 1961 at St. Luke’s Demonstration
School, Ibadan, from where she
proceeded to St. Anne’s School, also
in Ibadan, for her secondary
education. She obtained a Bachelor
of Arts in French from the University
of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo
University) in 1977, graduating with
the best result in her faculty, did her
Youth Service at the Nigeria Military
School, Zaria, got married, and
proceeded to Cornell University,
USA, from where she obtained an M.
A. in French Literature. Back in
Nigeria, she enrolled for another
Masters degree program, this time in
Linguistics, which she obtained in
1984, and immediately returned to
Cornell University for her PhD
studies in Linguistics. She graduated
from Cornell in 1988 and returned to
continue lecturing in the Department
of Foreign Languages of the Obafemi
Awolowo University which she had
joined in 1982 as an Assistant
Lecturer. She became a professor of
French Language and Applied
Linguistics in 2001.
Among Remi Sonaiya’s academic and
professional distinctions are the
following:
- Member of the Project Drafting
Committee for the Establishment of
the Nigeria French Language Village,
Badagry;
- Member of the executive
committees of some of her
professional associations and of the
editorial boards of several local and
international journals;
- Conference interpreter since 1989
(including for ECOWAS);
- Recipient of various international
research grants and fellowships,
including the French Government
Grant for Advanced Researchers and
the German Alexander von
Humboldt Research Fellowship;
- First Nigerian to be appointed as
the Ambassador Scientist of the
Alexander von Humboldt
Foundation, a position she occupied
from 2008 to 2014.
Apart from her academic pursuits,
Remi Sonaiya is active in and
supports several church and para-
church organisations, including the
Nigerian Fellowship of Evangelical
students (NIFES), the Nigeria Bible
Translation Trust, Calvary Ministry,
Great Commission Movement of
Nigeria, etc. She has been a bible
study teacher in her church for many
years and is on the international
faculty of Haggai Institute, Hawaii,
USA, where she lectures on
Stewardship.
Remi has always been interested in
public affairs and is passionate about
issues of justice, equity, and African
development. She is touched by the
plight of all who suffer exclusion and
other forms of injustice: children,
women, the disabled, the poor and
the unschooled. She is concerned
that the young people of Nigeria
have to bear the brunt of the
prevailing culture of corruption and
pay for it in mass failure in their
educational pursuits, very high levels
of unemployment, and feelings of
anxiety and hopelessness concerning
their future. She therefore seizes
every opportunity for engagement,
for example, through the conduct of
her “Life Skills” Seminar.
Remi’s interest in public affairs and
development issues influenced her
decision to retire voluntarily from
her position at the Obafemi Awolowo
University in 2010 in order to devote
more of her time and resources to
those pursuits. She joined KOWA
Party and was elected its National
Public Relations Officer, a position
she still occupies. She is KOWA
Party’s candidate for the 2015
Presidential elections.
Remi contributes regularly to
Nigerian media discourse. For
example, she was a blogger for 234
Next until it stopped publishing, and
she is currently a columnist with The
Niche, a weekly (Sunday) newspaper.
She has published three books on the
Nigerian (and African) condition: A
Trust to Earn – Reflections on Life and
Leadership in Nigeria (2010); Igniting
Consciousness – Nigeria and Other
Riddles (2013); and Daybreak Nigeria
– This Nation Must Rise! (2014).
Remi Sonaiya is married to
Babafunso Sonaiya, a professor of
Animal Science, and they have two
grown children and two grandsons.
Apart from English and Yoruba, Remi
also speaks French and German (as
well as some smatterings of
Portuguese). She loves to sing, cook,
write, and travel. Source (remisonaya.com )

Prospects and challenges of Online Journalism

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