The Brazilian striker looked set to take the football world by storm, but the untimely death of his father sent his career into a downward spiral

Former Brazil, Inter and Parma striker Adriano is one of the great enigmas of 21st century football.

Powerful, supremely talented and deadly in front of goal, he appeared to have everything necessary to succeed Ronaldo as Brazil’s next world-beating striker at the turn of the millennium.

But a sloppy work ethic and endless off-field scandals meant the forward was never able to reach his potential.

Where did it all go wrong for Adriano? What happened to the man who seemingly had the football world at his feet, only to throw it all away?

e Rio de Janeiro native had been marked out for greatness right from the beginning. At the tender age of 17, he had already forced himself into the Flamengo first team. At 19, he was on his way to Italian giants Inter in a deal worth over €13 million.

With starting opportunities scarce at San Siro, the youngster was sent out on loan to Parma, where he smashed 26 goals in 44 games, thus earning himself a move back to the Nerazzurri.

In the meantime, he had already starred for his nation, winning the Golden Boot during Brazil’s successful pursuit of the Copa America title in 2004.

But despite shining for both club and country, there were concerns over his exuberant lifestyle.

In 2006, he was twice caught partying in nightclubs and dropped by Selecao coach Dunga as a warning to straighten himself out.

"He is a champion, but he must rediscover his motivation, the right spirit and focus," he chided.

“Inter is like a national team: there are 18 champions in the squad. Every day Adriano must fight to keep his place.”

Needless to say, the warning went unheeded. Despite continuing to score goals in an Inter side that took four consecutive Scudetti between 2006 and 2009, the striker was becoming more of a liability with each passing season.

Finally, the club’s patience wore out, after a loan spell at Sao Paulo failed to reinvigorate him. The forward's subsequent return to his beloved Flamengo helped bring about a welcome return to form, with Adriano helping the club win the 2009 Brasileiro Serie a title, but going back to Serie A, this time with Roma, proved disastrous.

In the Italian capital, and later at a succession of Brazilian clubs, Adriano was little more than an expensive
embarrassment. The goals dried up and he was more often spotted in the treatment room or, much more likely, rolling out of a nightclub than showcasing his skills on the football field.

The last time the forward managed more than 10 games in a season came back in 2009; by 2016, after another abortive comeback with lower league US club Miami United, he was out of the game.

In the middle of last year, the Brazilian press descended on Rio’s Vila Cruzeiro. The neighbourhood is one of the city’s most notorious favela shanty towns, and it had a famous new occupant.

Ruined by alcohol and drug problems, with his football career over, Adriano had taken up residence there, bloated and out of shape.

The forward allegedly was forced to pay members of the murderous Comando Vermelho (Red Command) gang for protection in the favela.

It wasn't as surprising as it sounded, as, in 2010, he had been photographed wielding what appeared to be an AK47 sub-machine gun and flashing one of CV’s gang signs.
It was nonetheless a sorry sight, particularly for those who had always tried to help him.

However, Javier Zanetti, the legendary Inter and Argentina full-back who played alongside Adriano at San Siro, believes that one tragic telephone put the player that he believed was to be the next Ronaldo on a path of self-destruction.

"Adriano had a father who looked after him a lot and kept him in line. But at the start of the [2004-5] season, something unimaginable happened," he recalled to InterNews . "He got a call from Brazil and was told his father had died.

“I saw him cry. He threw the phone down and started shouting it was impossible. From that day on, Moratti and I decided to take him in like a brother and protect him.
"He kept playing, scoring and dedicating the goals to his father. But, after that call, he was never the same again.

“We would tell him he was a mix o
f Ronaldo and [Zlatan] Ibrahimovic and that he could be better than both.

"But, in spite of everything, we couldn’t do it. We did not cure his depression and that still haunts me.”

"Only I know how much I suffered," Adriano confirmed to R7. "The death of my father left a huge hole. I felt alone and I isolated myself when he died. I was sad and depressed in Italy, and that was when I started to drink.

"I only felt happy drinking, I drank everything in front of me: wine, whisky, vodka, beer... I didn't know how to hide it. I used to go to training drunk in the morning."

Could there yet be a happy ending to the Adriano story? Sadly, it seems unlikely.

As recently as this summer, Flamengo president Eduardo Bandeira de Mello reached out to the star and offered him a third spell at the club, but was turned down.
“At the 2018 World Cup, he will be 36 and he is still better than everyone else. Plus, Flamengo need an idol. But he did not accept,” he told Fox Sports.

Unfortunately, the death of his father was the moment that Adriano fell out of love with football; now, it appears he has turned his back on the game for good. http://m.goal.com/x/en/news/8/main/2017/08/10/37676562/what-ever-happened-to-adriano-the-new-ronaldo-destroyed-by-drink-

In the middle of a Russian swampland, not far from the city of St Petersburg, is a rectangular iron gate. Beyond its rusted bars is a collection of radio towers, abandoned buildings and power lines bordered by a dry-stone wall. This
sinister location is the focus of a mystery which stretches back to the height of the Cold War.

It is thought to be the headquarters of a radio station, “MDZhB”, that no-one has ever claimed to run. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades, it’s been broadcasting a dull, monotonous tone. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn. Then the drone continues.

Once or twice a week, a man or woman will read out some words in Russian , such as “dinghy” or “farming specialist”. And that’s it. Anyone, anywhere in the world can listen in, simply by tuning a radio to the frequency 4625 kHz.

It’s so enigmatic, it’s as if it was designed with conspiracy theorists in mind. Today the station has an online following numbering in the tens of thousands, who know it affectionately as “the Buzzer”. It joins two similar mystery stations, “ the Pip ” and the “ Squeaky Wheel”. As their fans readily admit themselves, they have absolutely no idea what they are listening to.

In fact, no-one does. “There’s absolutely no information in the signal,” says David Stupples, an expert in signals intelligence from City University, London.

What’s going on?

The frequency is thought to belong to the Russian military, though they’ve never actually admitted this. It first began broadcasting at the close of the Cold War, when communism was in decline. Today it’s transmitted from two locations – the St Petersburg site and a location near Moscow. Bizarrely, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, rather than shutting down, the station’s activity sharply increased.

There’s no shortage of theories to explain what the Buzzer might be for – ranging from keeping in touch with submarines to communing with aliens. One such idea is that it’s acting as a “Dead Hand” signal; in the event Russia is hit by a nuclear attack, the drone will stop and automatically trigger a retaliation. No questions asked, just total nuclear obliteration on both sides.

There are clues in the signal itself

This may not be as wacky as it sounds. The system was originally pioneered in the Soviet era, where it took the form of a computer system which scanned the airwaves for signs of life or nuclear fallout. Alarmingly, many experts believe it may still be in use . As Russian president Vladimir Putin
pointed out himself earlier this year,

“nobody would survive” a nuclear war between Russia and the United States.

Could the Buzzer be warding one off?
As it happens, there are clues in the signal itself. Like all international radio, the Buzzer operates at a relatively low frequency known as “shortwave”. This means that – compared to local radio, mobile phone and television signals – fewer waves pass through a single point every second. It also means they can travel a lot further.

While you’d be hard pressed to listen to a local station such as BBC Radio London in a neighbouring county, shortwave stations like the BBC World Service are aimed at audiences from Senegal to Singapore. Both stations are broadcast from the same building.

It’s all thanks to “skywaves”. Higher frequency radio signals can only travel in a straight line, eventually becoming lost as they bump into obstacles or reach the horizon. But shortwave frequencies have an extra trick – they can bounce off charged particles in the upper atmosphere, allowing them to zig-zag between the earth and the sky and travel thousands, rather than tens, of miles.

Which brings us back to the Dead Hand theory. As you might expect, shortwave signals have proved extremely popular. Today they’re used by ships, aircraft and the military to send messages across continents, oceans and mountain ranges. But there’s a catch.

The lofty layer isn’t so much a flat mirror, but a wave, which undulates like the surface of the ocean. During the day it moves steadily higher, while at night, it creeps down towards the Earth. If you want to absolutely guarantee that your station can be heard on the other side of the planet – and if you’re using it as a cue for nuclear war, you probably do – it’s important to change the frequency depending on the time of day, to catch up. The BBC World Service already does this. The Buzzer doesn’t.

Another idea is that the radio station exists to “sound” out how far away the layer of charged particles is. “To get good results from the radar systems the Russians use to spot missiles, you need to know this,” says Stupples. The longer the signal takes to get up into the sky and down again, the higher it must be.

There is a station with some striking similarities

Alas, that can’t be it either. To analyse the layer’s altitude the signal would usually have a certain sound , like a car alarm going off – the result of varying the waves to get them just right. “They sound nothing like the Buzzer,” says Stupples.

Intriguingly, there is a station with some striking similarities. The “Lincolnshire Poacher” ran from the mid-1970s to 2008. Just like the Buzzer, it could be heard on the other side of the planet. Just like the Buzzer, it emanated from an undisclosed location, thought to be somewhere in Cyprus. And just like the Buzzer, its transmissions were just plain creepy.
At the beginning of every hour, the station would play the first two bars of an English folk tune, the Lincolnshire Poacher.

“Oh ‘tis my delight on a shining night
In the season of the year

When I was bound apprentice in famous Lincolnshire

‘Twas well I served my master for nigh on seven years…”

After repeating this12 times, it would move on to messages read by the disembodied voice of a woman reading groups of five numbers – “1-2-0-3-6” – in a clipped, upper-class English accent.

To get to grips with what was going on, it helps to go back to the 1920s. The All-Russian Co-operative Society (Arcos) was an important trade body, responsible for overseeing transactions between the UK and the early Soviet Union. Or at least, that’s what they said they did.

In May 1927, years after a British secret agent caught an employee sneaking into a communist news office in London, police officers stormed the Arcos building. The basement had been rigged with anti-intruder devices and they discovered a secret room with no door handle, in which workers were hurriedly burning documents.

It may have been dramatic, but the British didn’t discover anything that they didn’t already know. Instead the raid was a wake-up call to the Soviets, who discovered that MI5 had been listening in on them for years.

“This was a blunder of the very first order,” says Anthony Glees, who directs the Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham. To justify the raid, the prime minister had even read out some of the deciphered telegrams in the House of Commons.

The upshot was that the Russians completely reinvented the way messages are encrypted. Almost overnight, they switched to “one-time pads”. In this system, a random key is generated by the person sending the message and shared only with the person receiving it. As long as the key really is perfectly random, the code cannot be cracked. There was no longer any need to worry about who could hear their messages.

Enter the “numbers stations” – radio stations that broadcast coded messages to spies all over the world. Soon even the British were doing it: if you can’t beat them, join ‘em, as they say. It’s quite difficult to generate a completely random number because a system for doing so will, by its very nature, be predictable – exactly what you’re trying to avoid. Instead officers in London found an ingenious solution.

They’d hang a microphone out of the window on Oxford Street and record the traffic. “There might be a bus beeping at the same time as a policeman shouting. The sound is unique, it will never happen again,” says Stupples. Then they’d convert this into a random code.

Of course, that didn’t stop people trying to break them. During World War Two, the British realised that they could, in fact, decipher the messages – but they’d have to get their hands on the one-time pad that was used to encrypt them. “We discovered that the Russians used the out-of-date sheets of one-time pads as substitute toilet paper in Russian army hospitals in East Germany,” says Glees. Needless to say, British intelligence officers soon found themselves rifling through the contents of Soviet latrines.

Now North Korea are getting in on the act, too

The new channel of communication was so useful, it didn’t take long before the numbers stations had popped up all over the world. There was the colourfully named “Nancy Adam Susan”, “Russian Counting Man” and “Cherry Ripe” – the Lincolnshire Poacher’s sister station, which also contained bars of an English folk song. In name at least, the Buzzer fits right in.

It also fits with a series of arrests across the United States back in 2010. The FBI announced that it had broken up a “long term, deep cover” network of Russian agents, who were said to have received their instructions via coded messages on shortwave radio – specifically 7887 kHz.
Now North Korea are getting in on the act, too. On 14 April 2017, the broadcaster at Radio Pyongyang began: “I’m giving review works in elementary information technology lessons of the remote education university for No 27 expedition agents.” This ill-concealed military message was followed by a series of page numbers – No 69 on page 823, page 957 – which look a lot like code.

It may come as a surprise that numbers stations are still in use – but they hold one major advantage. Though it’s possible to guess who is broadcasting, anyone can listen to the messages – so you don’t know who they are being sent to. Mobile phones and the internet may be quicker, but open a text or email from a known intelligence agency and you could be rumbled.

It only becomes a numbers station in moments of crisis, such as if Russia were invaded

It’s a compelling idea: the Buzzer has been hiding in plain sight, instructing a network of illicit Russian spies all over the world. There’s just one problem. The Buzzer never broadcasts any numbered messages.

This doesn’t strictly matter, since one-time pads can be used to translate anything – from code words to garbled speech. “If this phone call was encrypted you’d hear “…enejekdhejenw…’ but then it would come out the other side sounding like normal speech,” says Stupples. But this would leave traces in the signal.

To send information over the radio, essentially all you’re doing is varying the height or spacing of the waves being transmitted. For example, two low waves in a row means x, or three waves closer together means y. When a signal is carrying information, instead of neat, evenly spaced waves like ripples on the ocean, you’re left with a wave like the jagged silhouette of an ECG.

This isn’t the Buzzer. Instead, many believe that the station is a hybrid of two things. The constant drone is just a marker, saying “this frequency is mine, this frequency is mine…” to stop people from using it.

It only becomes a numbers station in moments of crisis, such as if Russia were invaded. Then it would function as a way to instruct their worldwide spy network and military forces on standby in remote areas. After all, this is a country around 70 times the size of the UK.

It seems they’re already been practicing. “In 2013 they issued a special message, ‘COMMAND 135 ISSUED’ that was said to be test message for full combat readiness,” says Māris Goldmanis, a radio enthusiast who listens to the station from his home in the Baltic states.

The mystery of the Russian radio may have been solved. But if its fans are right, let’s just hope that drone never stops.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170801-the-ghostly-radio-station-that-no-one-claims-to-run

By Dr. Francis Akin-John
Growing to their full Potentials Effective ministers grows person-ally, spiritually and professionally.

3. Transformed and changed lives.
Changed lives and destinies are the hallmark of effective ministries.

4. Raising people for their ministries.
Effective pastors coach and mentor people for ministries in the local church and in the world. Effective pastors have Timothys’ and Titus in ministry.

5. Raise a godly family.

Your family is your first ministry. Effective ministry always starts at home. If it doesn’t work at home, it will not work anywhere else.

To be an effective minister is to be able, capable and competent. It is to be an able minister of the New Testament. II Cor. 6:3-10. He is someone who had been with Jesus. Mark 3:13-14: grow into Christ-likeness. Heb. 7:26 and maintains a vital relationship with Christ.

Permit me to examine the factors that will greatly help you to become an able minister of the New Testament so as to achieve ministerial success.

1. The Making of an Effective Minister (II Cor. 3:6; Mal. 3:3).

First and foremost, you cannot become an effective minister if God did not make you. If God did not make you, you can’t make anybody. The making of God is a process, not a programme. God makes His ministers in slow-cooker, not in a microwave oven. You must be in the furnace of God -Malachi 3:3. You must be clay in the Potter’s hand Isaiah 64:8;

Jer. 18:1-6. Surrendered and pliable in His hand. God makes his ministers through the followings:

* Test and trials -Deut. 8:1-3.

* Responsibilities and Opportunities

* Problems and Crisis

* Serving in secret and unre-cognised

* Suffering and wants – I Pet. 5:10

* Dissapointments and failures

* Faithfulness and fruitfulness in little

* Divine timing Hab. 2:1-3.

God makes us by first bringing us to Himself – You are saved, growing, allowing trials to come our way and He keeps making us until we die -Phil. 1:6. He wants to make us into real manhood. I Tim. 2:5; John 1:6. God makes a man before manifesting mighty ministry. The man is more im-portant than the ministry, position and performance. Jesus manhood was made for 30 years and His ministry 31/2 years. Ratio 10:1. A growing ministry means a grow-ing man. If you are not a God-made, God-moulded and God- sharpened man, you cannot go far in this ministry. You must allow God to continually mould, re-mould and re-make you if you really want ministerial success. God must continue to form and fashion you. If you are going to be an effective minister.

2. The Motive of the Effective Minister (Matt. 6:1)

You cannot be an effective minister if your motive is wrong. God weighs the heart and cross-check our motives. Pro. 16:2. Why do you want to be a minister? To serve or to be seen? Fulfil personal drive or God’s desire? What is your true motivation? To minister or to be ministered to? To herald the truth or just to be heard by man? Are you motivated by God’s love or lust for power, fame and name?

Motive can be described as the reason why you are doing what you are doing. It can be right or wrong. Wrong motives of being a minister and being in the ministry are: Seeking for fame; Financial lucre; Respect and honour; Self-importance and Self-worth and to Prove a point to others. Once you have any of these motives, you cannot really become an able minister.

Right motives of being a minister are: the clear call of the Lord; readiness to serve; doing the will of the Lord; fulfilling your pur-pose; desire to add value to others and contributing your own quota to Kingdom expansion.

I Cor. 16: 15.

It is your motive that will conti-nually motivate you. It is your mo-tive that will determine whether God will be with you or not . It is your motive that will determine your reward with God. Check and re-check your motives to see that they are the right ones.

3. Mandate for Ministry of the Effective Minister. Matt. 28:19-20; Acts.1:8; I Cor. 7:20.

No one can become an effective minister without a clear mandate from the Lord. There can be no ministry without a clear mandate. While the general and non-negotiable mandate is to preach the gospel, yet God must give you area to preach. You must preach the gospel according to youth, marriage, raising leaders, reach-ing gentiles, Jews, women, men, rich, poor or widows or church planting and missions.

It is your mandate that will be-come your ministry. (Col. 4:17; Acts. 20:20; II Cor. 4:1; II Tim. 4:5.) Ministry is a vision, objective and divine assignment. It is given by the Lord to individuals. There are ministries in every church, but there is no church in every mini-stry. If you are called and gifted as an evangelist, teacher, prophet, pastor, apostle,singer or inter-cessor, stay in that calling and ministry. We are:

Saved for ministry

Called for ministry

Commended for ministry

Authorised for ministry

Anointed for ministry

Gifted for ministry

Rewaded for ministry

Your ministry must be productive, proven, pure and positive. Your ministry must lead to transformations. Tranformations of lives, homes, destinies, communities and cities are the hallmark of effective ministries. Make sure you receive your mandate from God, not from men, circumstances and wrong motives.

4. Message of the Effective Minister Eph. 4:15; II Tim. 4:2; II Cor. 13:8.
There can be no message without a messenger. Every good messenger must have a clear message from the Lord. II Sam. 18:19-30. Don’t run without a clear message from the Lord. Every able minister must run with the true message of the gospel. No matter what we preach, it must revolve around the truth of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Acts. 1:1

Live the truth of the gospel

Stand in truth of the gospel

Stand for truth of the gospel

Defend the truth of the gospel

Preach a balanced, scriptural, doctrinally sound and relevant gospel of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Don’t preach only one-line-of truth,but a wholesome gospel. You may start on one line of truth, but grow to preach the whole truth of God’s word. You may start with faith, finances and grace, but balanced it with godliness, faithfulness and purity as time goes by.Ministers with only one line of truth don’t usually last long. It’s either they move into error or they are ruined by scandals. II TIm. 2:15-19. God will confirm His word,not your theories. Mark 16:20.

5. The Magnet of the Effective Minister Ecc.9:8; Acts.10:38; Ps. 92:10;
Joshua 3:7.

Every effective minister must have magnet in their lives. This speaks of the presence and power of the Lord in your life. The anointing of the Holy Spirit that draws people into your life and ministry. The Charisma of God that produce results. The workings of the Lord in you and through you that produce unmistakable and undeniable results. Acts. 2:22. This
magnet will be the seal of God’s approval over your life and ministry.

Check the following:

The supernatural power of God must flow through you.

It is the working of God in you that will attract men and money
It is the results you produce that will hasten your credibility.

An effective minister must key into God’s power through fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit, fastings, prayers, holy living and dedication to God, so as to be true channel of His unlimited power. Matt. 17:21; Roms. 8:26.

6. Mentality of the Effective Minister Heb. 11:6; Luk. 1:37; Romans 4:17-21.

Effective ministers must be men and women of possibility thinking faith. They must have positive outlook. They must possess the mentality that nothing is impossible with God. They must reject negative mindset of doubt, fear, worry, anxiety and unbelief.

Acts. 27:22-25. Positive mentality and mindset results in strong faith that:

1. Sees the invisible

2. Rejects the contrary words of men

3. Refuses to walk by sight

4. Hopes in the love and faithfulness of God

5. Believes that todays problem will lead to future praise

6. Confess his victory over satan and circumstances

7. Sees God as greater than his situations.
An effective minister maintain positive outlook in a negative world. To an effective minister, faith must drive out fear, lest fear drive out faith from the heart. Faith in God, the word of God, faithfulness, goodness and love of God is strong in the heart of an effective minister.

7. The Maturity of the Effective Minister James 3:17; I Cor. 13; Galatians 5:22-26

No one can truly be an effective minister without displaying high degree of maturity in his life and ministry. Maturity doesn’t answer to age, experience, class, status or position. It answer only to personal growth and development.

Maturity is the ability to do what is right, irrespective of how you feel. It is having the right attitude, mature in human relations and displaying heavenly wisdom. It manifests as fruits of the Spirit, Christ-like character, being dependable, steadfast, responsible and
consistency.

Heb. 14; I Cor. 14:20.

Maturity means: You are free from childishness and babyhood
Freedom from pettiness and narrowmindedness
Carnality, frivolity and unseriousness are gone
Having the ability to face and solve problems
Possessing a large heart and deep understanding
Self-control,emotionally stable and trustworthy
Knowledgeable, broadminded and accomodating.

Maturing effective ministers do not have ‘destination disease’- the feeling of having ‘arrived’ and no more, rather, they keep learning, improving, preparing and building strong character everyday. Maturing ministers embark on life-long journey of personal growth and development. Your maturity and depth will be that of your ministry.

8. The Morality of the Effective Minister I Cor.6:9-18; Matt. 5:28; Pro. 6:25.
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/08/true-pastoral-calling-ministry-3/

US spy organizations have assisted European law enforcement agencies detain five suspected Russian cybercriminals amid escalated tensions between Washington and Moscow over Kremlin’s alleged role in the 2016 US presidential election.
Donald Trump had vowed during the election campaign to officially recognize Crimea, which separated from Ukraine and joined Russia, as part of the Russian Federation.
Critics believe Trump's promise of recognition prompted Kremlin to help him win the election.
So far, however, there is no proven link between the suspected Russian hackers, Kremlin and the US presidential election.
Meantime, in the past nine months, the US orchestrated operations across Europe to identify, locate and arrest Russian hackers which Kremlin allegedly employed to help Trump win the race.
The most notorious of those arrested is Pyotr Levashov.
Levashov, 36, is described as a master spammer.
US prosecutors accuse Levashov of being "one of the world's most notorious criminal spammers."
Law enforcement and security researchers have linked Levashov, via his alias "Peter Severa," to a series of powerful botnets — networks of hijacked computers carrying names like Storm, Waledec and Kelihos and capable of pumping out more than a billion emails a day.
He was arrested in April in Barcelona by Spanish security forces.
He is currently fighting extradition to the US.
Second in line is Evgeny Nikulin.
Nikulin,29, is accused by US prosecutors of penetrating computers at Silicon Valley firms including LinkedIn and Dropbox in 2012, around the time both companies reported massive breaches affecting tens of millions of users.
He was arrested at a Prague restaurant in October and is currently appealing the decision of a Czech court to OK his extradition. Russia has lodged a counter-extradition request in a bid to bring him home.
Alexander Vinnik, 38, is accused by US prosecutors of running of major bitcoin exchange that "helped to launder criminal proceeds from syndicates around the world." He was arrested earlier this week on the grounds of his hotel near Ouranoupolis in northern Greece — an area popular with Russian tourists.
Vinnik, who was on vacation with his wife and two young children, was distracted by an innocuous question from a policeman while a second officer came up from the side and snatched his phone. The exchange he's alleged to have run, BTC-e, is currently out of commission.
Stanislav Lisov, 31, is accused by US prosecutors of developing malicious software called NeverQuest which stole information on banking clients and financial websites and caused almost $1 million in losses in the United States. Lisov, from the small resort town of Taganrog in southern Russia, was detained at Barcelona airport in January while in the middle of a European honeymoon. He has said he was formerly employed by IT company Ogetto that did work for the Russian government. Lisov had an extradition hearing in Madrid last week and is awaiting a ruling.
The fifth suspected cybercriminal wanted by the US is Yury Martyshev.
The 35-year-old is accused of running a "counter antivirus service" where cybercriminals could test whether their malware would be blocked by computer security products.
He has already been extradited to the US from Latvia after being detained on a train from Russia in April.
He recently pleaded not guilty before a judge in Alexandria, Virginia. http://presstv.ir/Detail/2017/07/29/530072/Europe-Russia-US-Hackers-Levashov

sekxy:
afonja mosslem miscreants ,, these people have the same heart as their gworo chewing masters

oloriburuku.

The first post on marriage covered the introduction to marriage and generally what Islam portrays regarding marriage.

From the topics mentioned, “If one chooses not to marry or is unable to get married” is the next topic to be discussed.

Islam is a flexible religion but has its boundaries; its flexibility allows one to adopt it as a way of life and implement its teachings into every situation; whereas its boundaries restrict man from becoming too engrossed into certain acts and therefore becoming extreme in following their desires. Flexibility and boundaries set by Islam have created a perfect balance for man to achieve good both in this world and the hereafter, it is a balance that allows man to be successful in both the worlds.
Marriage also has boundaries and flexibilities; it is a matter which has been regarded as half of one’s Imaan (religion). Marriage is taken seriously in Islam as it allows people to live in a clean and moral society where desires are fulfilled in a human and shameful manner. It is an act that increases the number of believers and will cause our beloved Prophet
ﺻﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭ ﺳﻠﻢ
to be proud by having the largest number of believers.
The Prophet of Allah
ﺻﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭ ﺳﻠﻢ
has clearly forbidden people from celibacy:
“There is no celibacy in Islam”
[Sahih al-Bukhari]

However, in life it is not always possible to adopt the Sunnah act of marriage. There come in life situations that restrict that do not allow one to get married.

Therefore, it is necessary to mention the ruling of marriage; is it Mustahab (desired/recommended), Sunnah (way of the Prophet ﺻﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭ ﺳﻠﻢ , therefore encouraged), Wajib/Fardh (obligatory).
Similarly, there will be times when marriage will be ruled as Makrooh (disliked) or Haraam (forbidden).

At this time we will deal with those rulings that concern that person who chooses not to marry or does not have the means to.
According to Imams Abu Hanifah marriage is Sunnah and recommendatory. It is an act of worship and one should strive in fulfilling this act. However, if one is in a position where he cannot control his desires then it is Wajib (necessary) for such a person to get married as he will not be able to save himself from sinning.

However, a person is excused from marrying, so much so that he should refrain from it, if he does not possess the means of supporting his wife or the capability of fulfilling her rights.

The question remains for that person who wishes to marry but does not possess the means, what should he do? Hadhrat ‘Abdullah
ﺭﺿﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻨﻪ
narrates that:
“We were with the Prophet
ﺻﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭ ﺳﻠﻢ
while we were young and had no wealth whatsoever. So Allah’s Apostle
ﺻﻠﻲ ﺍﻟﻠﻪ ﻋﻠﻴﻪ ﻭ ﺳﻠﻢ
said, “O young people! Whoever amongst you can marry, should marry, because it helps him lower his gaze and guard his modesty, and whoever is not able to marry, should fast, as fasting is a shield for him (from desires).”
[Sahih al-Bukhari]

In this Hadeeth it is clearly mentioned that one who cannot marry should fast as the fasting will act as a shield for him from his desires. However, whilst doing this one should make an effort to resolve the matters that are stopping him from marrying.

As a final note, it should be remembered that not being financially able and being in a position to provide for one’s wife means the basic essentials that are necessary. Having an elegant and extravagant wedding and inviting people is not part of ‘essentials’ and is in actual fact totally discouraged and forbidden in Islam. However, in today’s society we see people going to the extent of taking out loans to organise a ‘wedding to remember.

Insha Allah this topic will be mentioned in later posts and how choosing the correct partner will save one from committing such a grave sin from the first day of such a blessed and auspicious act of worship.
May Allah give us all the courage and strength to save ourselves from the sins of desires and may He also give those people who are in need of marriage the means and a pious partner. Aameen.

Religious alarmists are poor students of history who deliberately refuse to grow in tolerance.

1. In the late 1980s, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) claimed that a TV news reader on NTA, Hauwa Baba Ahmed's covering of her head and chest 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. Between that period and now, a lot of women news readers and presenters have worn head and chest covering scarf on national and states-owned TV stations, yet Nigeria has not been Islamised.

2. Also, in 1980s, the same CAN vehemently opposed the idea that public schools close at 1 p.m on every Friday to allow Muslims observe Jumat service. CAN claimed that such closing time for public schools 'is an attempt to Islamise Nigeria.' Between that period and now, public schools have been closing at 1 p.m every Friday, yet Nigeria has not been Islamised.

3. When Nigeria became a member of OIC, the same CAN cried wolf again that it 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. Several decades after, Nigeria is still a member of OIC, yet the country is not Islamised.

4. When the CBN was preparing to licence Islamic Banking few years ago, CAN led the media campaign against that policy with the same usual alarm that it 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. As at today, in addition to few Islamic finance houses in operation, there are some regular established banks that also have Islamic banking desks. Nigeria is still yet to be Islamised.

5. The current issue about teaching of CRK and IRK in public schools is giving CAN another opportunity to raise its addictive false alarm. The new school curiculum allows every child a freedom to be educated in religion of choice. Again CAN and other Christian leaders are saying it 'is an attemp by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'.

Advise:
CAN should be advised to learn religious tolerance from Muslims of the Southwest.
For nearly a century until recently, Muslim students at public schools in the old Western Region, and what later became southwest, including Lagos had no freedom of religious knowledge choice. Christianity was the only religious knowledge taught in public schools. In fact the assembly prayer sessions in the morning was compulsorily in Christian Lord's prayers for all students irrespective of faiths.

In a Western Region of that era and even later decades of the 1970/80 that had Muslims and Christians almost evenly spread, the Islamic leadership of the region were tolearnt of the Christia faith. The Muslim leaders did not raise aalarm over Christinisation of Nigeria.

CAN and other Christian groups should be told in clear language that Nigeria is multi-ethnic-religious nation. And no sIngle group can blackmail the other to submission by raising false alarm.

God Bless Nigeria. Amen.

BY:
*Arowolo Jelil Olasunkanmi*

Religious alarmists are poor students of history who deliberately refuse to grow in tolerance.

1. In the late 1980s, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) claimed that a TV news reader on NTA, Hauwa Baba Ahmed's covering of her head and chest 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. Between that period and now, a lot of women news readers and presenters have worn head and chest covering scarf on national and states-owned TV stations, yet Nigeria has not been Islamised.

2. Also, in 1980s, the same CAN vehemently opposed the idea that public schools close at 1 p.m on every Friday to allow Muslims observe Jumat service. CAN claimed that such closing time for public schools 'is an attempt to Islamise Nigeria.' Between that period and now, public schools have been closing at 1 p.m every Friday, yet Nigeria has not been Islamised.

3. When Nigeria became a member of OIC, the same CAN cried wolf again that it 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. Several decades after, Nigeria is still a member of OIC, yet the country is not Islamised.

4. When the CBN was preparing to licence Islamic Banking few years ago, CAN led the media campaign against that policy with the same usual alarm that it 'is an attempt' by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'. As at today, in addition to few Islamic finance houses in operation, there are some regular established banks that also have Islamic banking desks. Nigeria is still yet to be Islamised.

5. The current issue about teaching of CRK and IRK in public schools is giving CAN another opportunity to raise its addictive false alarm. The new school curiculum allows every child a freedom to be educated in religion of choice. Again CAN and other Christian leaders are saying it 'is an attemp by the FG to 'Islamise Nigeria'.

Advise:
CAN should be advised to learn religious tolerance from Muslims of the Southwest.
For nearly a century until recently, Muslim students at public schools in the old Western Region, and what later became southwest, including Lagos had no freedom of religious knowledge choice. Christianity was the only religious knowledge taught in public schools. In fact the assembly prayer sessions in the morning was compulsorily in Christian Lord's prayers for all students irrespective of faiths.

In a Western Region of that era and even later decades of the 1970/80 that had Muslims and Christians almost evenly spread, the Islamic leadership of the region were tolearnt of the Christia faith. The Muslim leaders did not raise aalarm over Christinisation of Nigeria.

CAN and other Christian groups should be told in clear language that Nigeria is multi-ethnic-religious nation. And no sIngle group can blackmail the other to submission by raising false alarm.

God Bless Nigeria. Amen.

Tension's over nuclear weapons have been raised further after North Korea claimed to have successfully test-launched an intercontinental ballistic missile.

This latest move comes amid increasing concern over North Korea's military capabilities, with the new US administration upping its rhetoric in response.

While the Pyongyang regime increases the frequency with which it is conducting missile tests, Donald Trump's defence secretary Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis has warned North Korea of an "effective and overwhelming" response if Pyongyang used nuclear weapons.

Elsewhere, rhetoric hints at a return of the expansion of nuclear arsenals across the world. In December, Russian President Vladimir Putin told a
meeting of defence chiefs that strengthening nuclear capability should be a key objective for 2017. Donald Trump then took to Twitter to respond, vowing to do the same.
The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

Such rhetoric has led to concerns about the world's nuclear capacity and the unpredictability of those in charge of the warheads.

It seems the world is a long way from "coming to its senses" - with millions of kilotons already in military service around the world.

Between them, the world's nuclear-armed states have around 15,000 warheads - the majority of which belong to the US and Russia.

It is estimated that just under 10,000 of these are in military service, with the rest awaiting dismantlement, accordingly to the
Arms Control Association .

which countries have nuclear weapons?
There are five nuclear-weapon states in the world: China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States. These are officially recognised as possessing such weapons by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

This treaty acknowledges and legitimises their arsenals, but they are not supposed to build or maintain them forever. Indeed, they have committed to eliminate them.

There are also four other countries that have nuclear weapons: Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea. These countries didn't sign the Treaty, and together possess an estimated 340 nuclear weapons.
But it's Russia and the US that have by far the most in the world - dominating all other countries by collectively sharing 88 per cent of the world's arsenal of stockpiled nukes. This figure increases to 93 per cent when we consider retired nukes.

How deadly could these nuclear weapons be?

The world's current collection of 14,900 nuclear weapons possesses enough power to kill millions of people and flatten dozens of cities.

According to Telegraph research, it is estimated that the US and Russian arsenals combined have power equating to 6,600 megatons. This is a tenth of the total solar energy received by Earth every minute.
According to the NukeMap website , the dropping of the B-83, the largest bomb in the current US arsenal, would kill 1.4m people in the first 24 hours. A further 3.7m people would be injured, as the thermal radiation radius reached 13.km.

Likewise, the "Tsar Bomba" is the largest USSR bomb tested. If this bomb was dropped on New York, it is estimated that it could kill 7.6m people and injure 4.2m more. The nuclear fallout could reach an approximate area of 7,880km on a 15mph wind, impacting millions more people.
Both America and Russia's arsenals are regulated by several treaties that place limits on the numbers and kinds of warheads and delivery systems they have.
If either country were to expand their nuclear capacity even further, as Trump and Putin have hinted at, it could shatter these agreements and plunge the world into a new Cold War.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-nukes-world-could-destroy/

t

The Internet has over 5 billion users and in a matter of 60 seconds a lot really happens but most of us don't know what's actually happening.
Some people make posts on social media and feel like everyone should be part of their lives and it can be quite annoying. These set of people end up being trolls. So In case someone starts feeling too special, just let them know that.
Every 60 Seconds..
1.900 million people log in to Facebook.
2.People Search Google 3.5million times. 3.$751,522 is spent online.
4.452,000 tweets are sent.
5.1.8 million snaps are created.
6.156 million emails are sent
7. 4.1 million YouTube videos are watched
8.15,000 GIFs are sent on Messenger.
9. 342,000 Apps are Downloaded
10. 46,200 posts are made on Instagram..
The infographic below will show you more. Don't forget to share .

keogu Oke
This is one of my several interventions in the public space urging the National Assembly to recognise the need to put national interest first in its actions. One of the previous interventions was entitled “Of Power Probes and National Interest” and published in most of our dailies. It was inspired by the National Assembly trivialising power probes in my opinion and making what I considered to be unfounded allegations about the country’s power sector reform. Also, the allegations could have portrayed our country in a bad light and discouraged investors and so amounted to involuntary economic sabotage.

The probe was flagged in a story published on page 8 of Vanguard of October 15, 2015. Had it taken place, it would have followed another power probe in two weeks whose result was still unknown. And I thought the House needed to do more than give Nigerians the impression that its mandate was to engage in such incessant probes that seemed fruitless and driven by self-interest.

More interestingly, the story stated that, “the house, in a resolution on the motion entitled Alleged Non-transparent and Fraudulent Sale of Power Assets…, bemoaned what it called lack of openness in the processes leading to the sale of power infrastructure to private investors.” Also, that the house “resolved to … investigate the processes and sale of all aspects of power assets … to determine if there were malpractices and misconduct in the exercise.”

The story gave the impression that the House blurred the gap between suspicion and proof of misconduct in the sales. I also came under the impression that the choice of words could have been more prudent, as it exposed the power sector to the risk of disinvestment by people, especially foreigners, who might interpret it as indicative of the sector’s unreliability for investment.

Another intervention was entitled “Lessons from Senate Probe of the Power Sector” (The Guardian, October 26, 2015, p. 20). Before I attended the Senate probe to which it was a response, I had noted a report on page 25 of This Day of September 22, 2015.
The report was entitled “Power Probe: Another Legislative Sham”. It made a critical observation about a previous power probe by the Senate, namely, that the presiding committee showed “its lack of up-to-date knowledge of the sector it is probing”, with obvious implications for the credibility of the probe.

Both interventions came to mind as I read some publications resulting from the objection by the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, to the National Assembly’s alleged alteration of the 2017 budget after its defence. This is reminiscent of the widely condemned “padding” of the 2016 budget by the National Assembly. Major in the alleged behind-the-scenes alterations is the reduction of the budgetary allocations for such projects of national significance like the 3,050-megawatt Mambilla hydroelectric dam and the Second Niger Bridge to create a budget for the National Assembly members’ “constituency projects” such as boreholes, primary health care centres and street lighting.

And so, in a country that has long bemoaned its underdevelopment due to chronic power scarcity, we could have an absurd situation where the constituencies of its federal legislators would be littered with such new facilities with no electricity to run them because their having undercut the Mambilla budget could prevent the timely completion of the dam.

Need I ask who will manage the budget for those “constituency projects” or if this does not reflect a conflict between personal and national interest among the legislators in which they put their personal interest first in a manner that suggests abuse of privilege?
Fashola’s objection is not only that the alternations were made after the budget defence but also that they were not brought to the notice of the Ministries, Departments and Agencies that had made the defence before the National Assembly passed the budget. Shouldn’t this have been the case for a legislature one of whose cardinal responsibilities is “oversight”, with its implication of championing transparency, if it wishes to lead by example?

Or could it be that the National Assembly is resisting change in that, being used to “padding” the budget or altering it arbitrarily to serve the interest of its members, and having drawn public outcry over the 2016 episode, it would rather continue the practice by stealth than end it?

In the continuation of a front page story entitled “Senate Attacks Fashola” on page 4 of Daily Trust of June 25, 2017, the Minister points out that there is nothing in the Constitution like “constituency projects”. This suggests that the country may be funding illegal projects at the expense of major developmental projects like the Mambilla dam and the other projects affected by the budget alteration.
In the publication, the Senate, surprisingly, does not counter the Minister’s allegation despite its hint at serious moral and procedural infractions. Rather, it speaks through its mouthpiece, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, to accuse the Minister of “spreading wrong information and half-truth about the 2017 budget”.

Senator Abdullahi also insinuates that the Minister’s objection was inspired by self-interest. For instance, for the Lagos-Ibadan expressway whose budget the Minister also alleged its alteration by the National Assembly, he said the Minister “would prefer an arrangement that allows the Ministry to continue to award contracts and fund the project through government budgetary allocation at a time when the nation’s revenue is dwindling and at an all time low”, and despite the existence of an agreement to fund the project by “Public Private Partnership… using … Private Finance Initiative”.

Perhaps the dwindling of the nation’s revenue which Senator Abdullahi so patriotically pointed out does not apply when he and his colleagues spend part of the same revenue on their “constituency projects”.

On his part, Fashola has denied the allegation of his “spreading wrong information and half-truth” in a front page story in The Punch of June 27, 2017, entitled “Fashola Attacks N’ Assembly”. He also attributed the National Assembly’s attack on him and its claim of the existence of an agreement to finance the Lagos-Ibadan expressway project with private funds to a knowledge gap “about the facts of what they were getting into”. This harks back to the observation made by the writer of the This Day article I had referred to about a Senate presiding committee showing “its lack of up-to-date knowledge of the sector it is probing”. It also shows, with this new budget controversy, how things may have remained the same with the National Assembly in terms of tinkering with the budget and acting contrary to facts.

We learn from all this how those willing to exercise the political will to bring about lasting change in our country like Fashola may be antagonised by vested interests within the system. Yet we wonder why our country hardly makes progress despite much exertion. The gears of national progress often turn to cancel the efforts of one another, yielding futility.
– Oke is a poet and public affairs analyst
http://leadership.ng/2017/07/03/fashola-national-assembly-national-interest/

Names seem to play an important role in a society. Most Muslims who come from the Middle East tend to use or already have Arabic or Islamic names, which may have roots in the Arabic language.
However, there's a growing number of Muslims in the western world, who either reverted to Islam or were born there to Muslim parents and got English names.
So if the two categories have English or Yoruba names (as is the case with my name: Olusegun), can they keep them or should they change them to some sort of Islamic ones? If the case of changing applies, does it also apply to people who come from other countries such as Yoruba,Igbo etc? I am pretty sure those people have their own names rooted in their local culture or language.PLS I DON'T MIND ANY SOURCE FROM THE QUR'AN OR HADITH.

stephleena:
lol..Evans missing rib..

are u married or can I take you out.

naturefellow:
Mind your words. OK?

oga kiss d truth, Satan don sit down for Africa.

Satan don finally carry chair sit down for Africa.This black skin is a curse.

UnchangeableGod:
I just hope he gave his life to Christ and died in the Lord. That is a lesson for you and I. Let each of us repent from sin and make our ways right with our Creator today. Nobody knows who is the next to face eternity. Our education, achievements, fame, wealth, pedigree etc will not matter any more. Dying without Christ and the Salvation He procured at Calvary for sinful humanity means endless misery in hell fire. May you and I never go there I J N, Amen.

oga park well,Jesus that can't save himself on the cross.

wetin concern me

OZAOEKPE:
There are three Yoruba's I respect so much namely:

1. Fayose

2. Femi fani kayode

3. Femi Aribisala

oga park well, small boy.I wonder wetin dey inside ur brain sometimes.

Nigerians have criticised Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo of Kingsway International Christian Center after he was caught telling his church members to donate money according to their ages.
Nigerian pastor, Matthew Ashimolowo
A Nigerian pastor, Matthew Ashimolowo who is worth over $10 million has been caught on tape telling his church members to donate for a fund raising according to the number of years they have lived on earth.
Ashimolowo is the founder of Kingsway International Christian Center located in the United Kingdom with branches in Nigeria.
In the video which was shared by Nigerian radio personality, DaddyFreeze, Ashimolowo urged his members to give money according to the number of years they have lived on earth.
Nigerians have however condemned the act saying that such a thing was unheard of in the Bible and is another way of fleecing the poor church members of their hard-earned money.

OAP Freeze wrote: "Nigerians, their IQ of 67 and their men of God.Come and give a thousand dollars for every year you have lived??"

"Can you show me anywhere in the Bible where Jesus used this ‘fund raising’ approach? I remember 5 loaves and 2 fishes but 1000 dollars?"

"Someone commented: "Let’s see who will still defend this act, I’m waiting for that person…. so the Poor ones that don’t have 1k$ or Naira will go to hell abi ?"
"Wetin dey pain me pass be sey if you go to these Pastors for help, you won’t even gain access to them and when you eventually do, they will put you on a long thing. " another added.

"Instead of me to go to church. I swear make I die for beer parlour with my beer in my hand and go to hell fire." someone else commented.

Another said: "Wow even pastor Ashimolowo Kai my fav pastor .."
"Dis one shock me, it s well wit us." then another added.

See more of the comments below:

"He is even nice. A Pastor once said calculate the age of everyone in your Family in $… i can never forget that day. My sis & I jst dey look like zombie. I aint falling for that trick. Igbala is freeeee."

"And this is supposed to be a renowned pastor? Those of you calling for Daddy Freeze head shey you can see. This is supposed to be a High rated man of God.

Tufiakwa. This brainwashism is something else."
"Get rich or die trying. You wanna be rich, right? Build a big beautiful Church, be eloquent, be smart and perform fake miracles. Lobatan!!! And the Lord shall bless you according to his riches in heaven."

"Probably those ones who have dollars would stay in estate heaven and those ones with naira would just stay in pako heaven! SMH and the congregations are still busy making nonsense noise at the background when a man clearly wants to make you go bankrupt!"
http://www.gltrends.ng/2017/06/pay-dollars-pastor-matthew-ashimolowo-beg-church-members-make-dollar-donationsvideo/

laugh wan kill me,oh Nigeria my country.
Everybody be scammer for this country,gov scamming citizens, citizens scamming their self. Abeg who be MUMU out of una.

Our people say a toad does not wander about in the afternoon for no good cause. This is why we must examine the personal attacks that have been leveled against Professor Yemi Osinbajo, purportedly showing the disaffection of the “North”. Like all things crooked, the more you look, the less you see! The more you look at the allegations that the promoters have maliciously published and disseminated on various social media platforms, the less you see any truth or coherence in their work. Without more, this is a hatchet job! To tag their battle as a destruction of Prof Osinbajo’s “sainthood”, you must go back a long way to see that Prof did not just acquire the cloak of integrity overnight or in just 2 years as VP. His reputation for integrity, diligence and rendering humanitarian social service precedes his occupation of the Vice-President’s office. As Attorney-General of Lagos State, his integrity in public office is very well known, just as his reform of the justice sector is still being replicated across the country.

First, we know Dr Ismaila Farouk from Zamfara is a phony and not very well-thought-out alias. As you can imagine, one would expect an “Ismail” not “Ismaila” from Zamfara. So Dr. Ismaila, the paid underground media, and all other paid toads are only out in the afternoon to display the deadly fangs and teeth of their sponsors. If you are patient to read through to the end, you may get to discover who these sponsors really are. It’s a mix between “corruption striking back” and political jobbers grappling for personal relevance and power

Their first bite is Dr. Enelamah- an Igbo man. So, Dr Ismaila and his sponsors have an issue with Mr. President for picking a notable South-Easterner as his Minister for Industry, Trade and Investments. It is a well-known fact that Dr. Okey Enelamah, a graduate of the prestigious Havard Business School, and the Federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Investments is the pioneer chief executive of African Capital Alliance, Nigeria’s biggest private equity firm with over $1 billion in management and direct investments in Nigerian private companies. Dr. Enelamah who is well known in Nigerian investments circles, (including to the President’s Chief of Staff, Chief Abba Kyari, who was once an Executive Director at UBA) for leading investment into MTN Nigeria and other blue chip companies, was nominated by the President himself. Dr. Enelamah has done more to sustain the Nigerian project far more than the self-absorbed sponsors of this smear campaign as he has directly invested in small and big Nigerian companies that employ Nigerians from both North and South.

The lack of commonsense in this power play and diversionary tactic belies reason when we have just seen how the sit-at-home exercise by the agitators of Biafra proved effective. Now Dr Ismaila’s sponsors question a qualified Igbo man amidst the ongoing agitation. Please for God’s sakes, do not push Nigeria over the wedge for your evil and selfish aims. One can perceive the evil intentions of the sponsors in trying to create contention in identifying Mr. Wale Edun as Tinubu’s pick for Minister of Finance. First, it’s the President’s prerogative to consult with people and identify those that take up ministerial positions. Secondly, Babatunde Fashola represented Lagos State. So, how could the VP have been angling for a particular cabinet position against an individual who was not on the ministerial list? Also, to the extent that he is being tribal won’t the choice of Kemi Adeosun for finance from Ogun State be his obvious preference? So why Ismaila’s inconsistency that he preferred an Igbo man? Obvious mischief!

It is this old order that President Buhari came to fix when in repeated campaign speeches he promised to assemble a team of honest and competent professionals to move Nigeria forward.

As everyone recollects what is not a very distant past, the Cabinet Ministers were appointed long after the President and the Vice-President picked their aides. So, how can people be coming to terms with the choice of Dr. Enelamah when the Chief of Staff and Deputy Chief of Staff were appointed long before the ministers? The choice of Mr. Ade Ipaye as the Deputy Chief of Staff speaks to the interest of both the President and Vice President in competence and character. Mr Ipaye is a seasoned public servant and one of Nigeria’s foremost tax practitioners and was the immediate past Attorney General of Lagos State. A devout Muslim who goes about his work with extreme diligence and without fuss and the common airs of the Nigerian big man, was vetted by the President as suitable for administering the chunk of work for the Vice President within the Presidency. Anyone who knows Mr. Ipaye can see why Prof. Osinbajo, a man of similar ilk, will support a man with a humble and diligent disposition. Alluding to his descent from Ogun State (although he doesn’t even hail from Ogun State) as an indication of nepotism, without reference to his qualities as a professional and a decent man, shows you the reprobate hearts of the sponsors of this smear campaign.

The evil sponsors, somehow and conveniently, failed to mention that the biggest focus of this administration, which is the Social Investments Programme is being handled by Mrs. Maryam Uwais, a Muslim woman from Kano. Mrs. Uwais, a seasoned legal practitioner with years of experience in tackling social developmental issues is the Special Adviser to the President on Social Investments and works in the Vice President’s office. Like all other Special Advisers and other political appointees, Mrs Uwais was appointed on the basis of merit and her character. The Vice-President is a man that pays attention to diversity and has given opportunity to women and youth. Particularly, Dr Balkisu Saidu, a female northerner is the Senior Special Assistant on Legal Matters. Also, Gambo Manzo, Hafiz Ibrahim, and Murtala Aliyu are all close aides of the Vice-President who hail from the North.

Somehow, the malicious sponsors of this smear campaign intend to taint the character of the VP by fabricating a falsehood about Simmons Cooper Partners (which was Prof Osinbajo’s previous law practice he resigned from to be Vice-President) obtaining “juicy” or any work from Federal Ministries and agencies. This is untrue. Everyone is aware of the requirements of the Public Procurement Act. An enquiry directed to the concerned ministries or agencies will show or disprove if there has indeed been any procurement of service that has been awarded or manipulated in favour of SimmonsCooper Partners.

As regards the appointment of Babatunde Irukera, the sponsors may choose to enquire from the consumer protection circles as to who is a more qualified professional who has contributed immensely to the body of consumer protection work . It is well known that Mr Irukera, who is from the North, has for decades now advocated for consumer protection rights, including formulating policies and regulations in consumer aviation and other sectors. The sponsors don’t ask the most relevant question for public service- Is he qualified and competent? No, they are only interested in their hatchet job. The same goes for Mrs. Yewande Sadiku who is very well known in investment banking circles. Many of these professionals are serving in these positions, not because of any pecuniary benefits but bringing their experience, knowledge and skills to bear for the public good.

Besides, the supervisory Ministers in charge of these agencies are mostly responsible for selecting the relevant chief executive. So why castigate and malign the VP? In most instances and as in the cases identified, the supervising Minister presents an appointee who is then evaluated and approved by the President. The assertion that the VP has appointed persons on the basis of their religious affiliation is disingenuous, malicious and untrue. The reference to Mr. Okoh’s relationship with the VP demonstrates the nature of the evil Nigeria is contending with. They rightly assert that Mr. Okoh (from the South-South) is a former CEO of a bank, but the claim that NNB (that consolidated in 2005 and ceased to exist then) had a retainer with Simmons Cooper is patently false. It is well known in legal circles that Simmons Cooper came into existence in the year 2006 and Professor Osinbajo joined the firm in 2007 after serving as Attorney General of Lagos State from 1999-2007. The vile sponsors of this smear campaign will stop at nothing- lies, falsehood and uncreative imaginations. Beyond innuendo, there’s no truth, accuracy or sense in the allegations of contracts, and taking over the work of the Ministry of Niger-Delta. Obviously, the President needed leadership to ensure that restiveness in the Niger-Delta was tackled, which was why he delegated the role to the VP. We are all witnesses to the effect of the VP’s engagement with the Niger-Delta.

Belief in the Nigerian State is characterized both by action and statements. The VP’s responsibility to all Nigerian people in his actions and statements is clear to all, except for the sponsors of this evil plot who have other sinister intentions in undertaking this hatchet job. From children to youth, to women, to the vulnerable in society, the VP demonstrated sense of empathy is apparent. Again, the allusion to a quarrel or tussle emanating from travel concerns to Lagos between the Chief of Staff and the VP is manifestly devious. The President and Vice President have enjoyed a cordial, symbiotic and brotherly relationship since they campaigned and got into office. The appointment of aides and political appointees within the presidency has never minimized or diminished this relationship. It is apparent that the VP continues to maintain a healthy relationship with the Chief of Staff. Anyone who knows the VP knows he is not given to frivolity and will not undertake needless travel nor run up expenditure. Prof. Osinbajo is focused on his job- that is to serve the Nigerian people in partnership with Mr. President who obviously continues to repose trust in his character and competence to deputise for him and deliver their promises to the people. The attempt to impugn his character is to stop the good work of all Nigerian people regaining confidence in the Nigerian State.

The big picture purpose of this smear campaign is not only to tarnish the image of the VP but also to derail Nigeria’s progress. This is the handiwork of the evil that has held Nigeria back. The evil axis of those drunk and made blind by the allure of power, permutations of 2019 and those struggling with corruption cases have found in the VP a stumbling block. They know he will not bend to their whims on relaxing the stance of Government on corruption. Do not be fooled. This is not the North! It’s corruption striking back. It’s personal parochial interest versus the people. This great evil must be resisted by all of us.

http://newsrescue.com/afraid-prof-osinbajo-musa-alhassan/

h

Around the world, Western aid is failing to fulfil its stated objectives. Nowhere is this more flagrant than Haiti, where despite billions flowing in to the ravaged country, little progress has been made since the 2010 earthquake. A former UN development expert has suggested the country – and others – may well fare better without.

In the immediate aftermath of the quake, US$5 billion was donated by the international community — but a large proportion never even got close to helping affected citizens and infrastructure in the country, as it was guzzled by covered operational costs — at least 10 percent was taken by the Haitian government as "budgetary support" and the rest absorbed by international humanitarian groups for uncertain purposes. In the end, not even one percent was taken by local NGOs.

Summing up the state of play in Haiti seven years on, Joel Boutroue, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations for the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti between 2006 to 2009, was unambiguous — the country would be "better off" without aid. Noting Haiti has been described as an "NGO republic," Boutroue added that NGOs operating in the country financed by international state donors pay very little heed to the Haitian state itself, marginalizing the government and weakening its power.

Often, he said, this is because donors' priorities are not aligned with recipient countries' — this effect was highlighted in the World Bank's
2017 report on governance and law, which highlighted how donors, often out of cynicism, tended to pursue short-term interests. Moreover, corrupt or inept governments are often happy to sit back and skim cash from donations, without undertaking vital reforms — the report also highlighted countries that receive the most aid made the least effort to conduct necessary improvements..

The ineffectiveness of Western aid in achieving positive, lasting change is nowhere writ larger than Sub-Saharan Africa, which receives US$134 billion each year in loans, foreign investment and development aid from Western governments, yet remains one of the poorest, most corrupt regions on Earth. The answer behind Western aid's seeming futility may lie in its motivations — for often, despite its humanitarian label, aid has an ulterior purpose, that often serves corporate or state interests.

Many within the charity sector are wise to the political and commercial dimensions of Western aid — John Hilary, Executive Director of War on Want , produced a study documenting how the International Monetary Fund opened up the Ghanaian poultry market to international exploitation — and subsequent collapse. This is but one example — aid has been used to exert control and influence by governments and corporations alike perhaps as long as it has existed.

NGOs have also demonstrably been covert tools of regime change, under the aegis of "democracy promotion." While NGOs, many of which are funded by shadowy billionaire "philanthropist" George Soros, have sought to subvert regimes in every corner of the world, since the fall of the Soviet Union much of this focus has been planted firmly in and around the Russian Federation. In 2005 for instance, the Soros Foundation launched its "Wider Europe" program, under which Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine were targeted as future "partners" to the European Union, with the launch of facilitative educational, legal and political initiatives.
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201705311054168026-ngos-aid-western-interference/

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Political leaders are powerful . Yet, many of them drop the air around them whenever they go to places of worship. The general belief is that at places of worship , there is a higher being who deserves more respect that any political leader .

On many occasions, even leaders with different political ideologies or other differences set such aside while they are in places of worship.

The late Albanian- Indian Roman Catholic nun and missionary , Mother Teresa once said : “ There is only one God and He is God to all ; therefore it is important that everyone is seen as equal before God . ”
Ask the paparazzi , they can attest that the most humble photos of powerful people they have in their galleries were taken in places of worship.

However, the recent anointing service drama involving the wife of Lagos State Governor ,
Bolanle Ambode and the Presiding Chaplain of Chapel of Christ the Light , Alausa, Lagos State , Venerable Femi Taiwo , calls for the re- examination of such facts in Nigeria .
Here are six photos of world leaders who kept their calm in places of worship…

Russian President Vladimir Putin stands amidst other congregants at the Christmas service at the Church of the Intercession of the Holy Virgin in the village of Turginovo , Tver Region .

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sits on the floor while sharing with Muslim community during Ramadan .

Former US president Barack Obama and his family stand with congregants as he attended church service at Washington ’ s Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church , about six blocks from the White House .

Former Prime Minister of United Kingdom David Cameron bows down alongside other worshipers at a Sikh Temple .

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf sings a hymn with other congregants during worship service at the First United Methodist .

German chancellor Angela Merkel shows reverence as she attends a memorial service http://punchng.com/anointing-service-drama-how-world-leaders-behave-in-places-of-worship/

Date Currency Buying(NGN) Central(NGN) Selling(NGN)

5/25/2017
US DOLLAR 304.4 304.9 305.4

POUNDS STERLING 394.4415 .395.0894 395.7373

EURO 341.3542 341.9149 342.4756

SWISS FRANC 312.9434 313.4574 313.9714

YEN 2.7239 2.7284 2.7329

CFA 0.5013 0.5113 0.5213

WAUA 420.4175 421.108 421.7986

YUAN/RENMINBI 44.309 44.3822 44.4554

RIYAL 81.1647 81.298 81.4313

SOUTH AFRICAN RAND 23.5626 23.6013 23.64

DANISH KRONA 45.8752 45.9505 46.02
http://www.cbn.gov.ng/rates/exchratebycurrency.asp

Dollar to Naira Exchange Rate Today Black Market.

Buying = N375.
Selling = N381.

Dollar to Naira Bank Rate Today.
Buying=N315
Selling=N382

Western Union Dollar to Naira Rate.
Sending=N375
Receiving=N355

Money Gram Dollar Naira Rate.
Sending=N378
Receiving=N353.23.

Looking back at the dollar naira exchange rate history, it shows the NGN has not been doing great. The rate was 1 $ = N21.89 in 1999, today (2016/2017) the rate is 1$ = 315 Naira.

Date Currency Buying(NGN) Central(NGN) Selling(NGN)
5/25/2017 US DOLLAR 304.4 304.9 305.4
POUNDS STERLING 394.4415 .395.0894 395.7373
EURO 341.3542 341.9149 342.4756
SWISS FRANC 312.9434 313.4574 313.9714
YEN 2.7239 2.7284 2.7329
CFA 0.5013 0.5113 0.5213
WAUA 420.4175 421.108 421.7986
YUAN/RENMINBI 44.309 44.3822 44.4554
RIYAL 81.1647 81.298 81.4313
SOUTH AFRICAN RAND 23.5626 23.6013 23.64
DANISH KRONA 45.8752 45.9505 46.0259
http://www.cbn.gov.ng/rates/exchratebycurrency.asp