Flowerbud News

Month: October 2023

  • Abba Kyari Not In Charge Of Ministers – Presidency Explains

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS)  The functions of the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mallam Abba Kyari, with respect to ministers has not changed the Presidency says.

    Reacting to media criticisms of President Buhari’s directive to ministers to channel all correspondence through the Chief of staff, the Presidency stressed that it was just a verbalisation of the same role performed by Kyari in the first term of President Buhari.

    According to a statement issued by Garba Shehu, SSA to the President on Media, the presidency said that Buhari merely pronounced one of the primary functions of the Chief of Staff.

    “Recent media and social media reports on the responsibilities of the Chief of Staff to the President have suggested that the role has changed. This is not the case”, Garba said.

    “Today, under the Buhari II administration the role of Chief of Staff remains the same as it was under Buhari I.

    “It is worth stressing that the role and responsibilities of the Chief of Staff and the method of communication and arranging scheduling between Cabinet members and the President are, in Nigeria, based on the US model, where the same system operates – and has done for decades – in precisely the same way.

    “That role is to act as the head of the presidential administration at Aso Rock; to be an adviser to the President on any and all matters; to be the line manager for all staff at Aso Rock; and to manage appointments and scheduling for the President.

    “In the traditional presidential system, it is a primary function of a Chief of Staff, which may vary according to the needs and desires of each President, to supervise key State House Staff, control access to the office and the person of the President, manage communications and information flow and this includes that which binds the relationship with the two other arms of government.

    “During the President’s first term those were the responsibilities of the Chief of Staff, and they remain the same responsibilities today. There is no change.

    “When President Buhari explained to ministers that they would be expected to communicate with him and arrange scheduling to meet with him primarily via the Chief of Staff, he did so as many of the Buhari II Cabinet ministerial appointments are new appointments and cannot therefore be expected to know how matters of liaising with the President operate.

    “This is to stress that access to the President is open to ministers. It is not true that this is denied them in the Second Term.

    “The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) on the other hand is responsible for ensuring the effective coordination and monitoring of the implementation of government policies and programmes. All cabinet matters must go through him.

    “Under this dispensation, a performance evaluation of ministers and Permanent Secretary will be maintained by the SGF. Two weeks after assuming office, they are expected to sign mandate acceptance documents.

    “It is time to end the unnecessary controversy, for the key appointees of the President to carry out their jobs.”

  • Police says none of its stations was burnt in Enugu

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS)  The Police Command in Enugu State said no police station was burnt in the state as being speculated in the social media.

    The Command’s Public Relations Officer, SP Ebere Amaraizu, said this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu on Sunday.

    Amaraizu, however, said that some hoodlums that pretended to come to report a matter in Ikirike Police Station, suddenly attacked the station located within Enugu South Local Government Area at about 8 a.m.

    “It was ay some people suspected to be hoodlums, who had come with the pretence of laying complaint in the early hours of today. Under that guise, they attacked our men.

    “Although, there was no death among police personnel on duty in the station, but our injured personnel are responding to treatment.

    “The quick intervention of reinforcement team as dispatched by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr Sulaiman Balarabe, could not give the hoodlums the opportunity to have the upper hand,’’ he said.

    The police spokesman said the commissioner had directed an investigation into the incident with a view to unmasking the culprits. (NAN)

  • Iranian Women Will Watch Football In Stadium

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) Iranian women will be allowed to attend a men’s football World Cub qualifying match in the Islamic Republic of Iran in October, the official IRNA news agency quoted a Sports Ministry official as saying on Sunday.

    While foreign women have been allowed limited access to matches in Iran, Iranian women have been banned from stadiums when men’s teams are playing since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

    FIFA wrote to the Iranian Football Federation in June asking it to provide a timeline towards women being able to buy tickets for the qualifiers, or face consequences.

    “Women can go to Tehran’s Azadi stadium to watch the match between Iran’s national team and Cambodia in October for the Qatar World Cup qualifier,” Deputy Sports Minister Jamshid Taghizadeh said.

    The Asian football governing body (AFC), which has 47 members including Iran, said it was working to help FIFA find an “amicable solution” that would allow Iranian female fans to attend future games in Iran.

    “There is no legal ban for women to watch the football matches in the stadium. The activation of the infrastructure is underway,” Taghizadeh said.

    Iranian female fans have long campaigned to be allowed to watch men’s football and occasionally a limited number of women have been allowed into the stadium.In June, some women were detained by security forces when they went to the Azadi Stadium for a friendly against Syria.Last year, some women risked arrest by donning fake beards and wigs to attend a major game in the stadium. Their pictures and videos were posted on social media.

    The 2022 World Cup will be held in Qatar.

  • National Parks ready for fun seekers, holiday – CG

    (FLOWERBUDNEWS)  Alhaji Ibrahim Goni, Conservator-General (CG), National Parks Service (PKS), says the seven National Parks across the country are fully equipped and prepared for fun seekers and persons wishing to have enjoyable holiday.

    “The parks are ready; they are being upgraded to meet international standards. Nigerians seeking fun are welcome,” Goni told the Nigeria News Agency , on Saturday in Abuja,.

    Goni spoke further: “We have facilities that will make visitors comfortable at Gashaka Gumti, Cross River, Kamuku, Okomu and Old Oyo parks.

    “Oli Tourist Camp at Kainji Lake National Park in Niger State covers an area of 5,340.82sq.km with 52 standard chalets. We boast of 24-hour electricity supply, a conference centre, two swimming pools, a restaurant and bar.

    “Chad Basin National Park, located in the extreme North-East of Nigeria between Borno and YobeStates, has 12 chalets well furnished, en-suite facilities for people out for sport fishing, boat cruising and bird watching at night.

    “Our facilities at the Cross River, Kamuku, Old Oyo and Okomu National Parks are also superb. We have same facilities that showcase nature at its best,’’ he said.

    He said that the parks were good for summer holidays, urging Nigerians to rethink their tendency to undertake trips abroad this summer and turn to any of the National parks to enjoy the ambience of nature that God had blessed Nigeria with.

    According to him, patronising the parks will go a long way to help develop them to acceptable global standards.

    “It will also enhance the revenue drive of the parks and contribute to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

    “We are working to preserve and protect the nation’s natural heritage and the cultural edifices for unborn generations. If we don’t patronise them, they will go moribund,” he said.

    He assured Nigerians that despite the security situation in some parts of the country, the parks would continue to serve as an embodiment of the nation’s biodiversity conservation and ecotourism destinations.

    “I assure Nigerians that adequate security has been put in place to ensure the safety of visitors and tourists intending to visit the national parks during the celebrations.

    “We have adequate security and surveillance patrol at all the national parks in the country, so they won’t become hiding places for criminals this season of celebration.

    “Our intention is to rid the parks of criminals and hoodlums who may want to take advantage of the Sallah celebrations to perpetrate nefarious activities in and around the parks,’’ he said.

  • Indonesian President Announces Relocation Of New Capital

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Monday announced the relocation of the new national capital to replace sinking and traffic-clogged Jakarta.

    Widodo said the country’s new administrative centre will be built in a forested area that straddles the border between the districts of Kutai Katanegara and North Penajam Paser in East Kalimantan province near the city of Balikpapan.

    “The location is strategic because it’s in the centre of Indonesia,’’ he said.

    Risks of disasters such as flooding, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions are minimal, he added.

    He said a draft law on the new capital would be submitted to the legislature on Tuesday.

    The president said Jakarta was bursting at its seams because of its status as the administrative and commercial centre of the country and Java Island.

    The government wants to start moving to a new capital by 2024, at the end of Widodo’s second five-year term in office.

    Officials said the move is expected to cost up to $33 billion.

    Funding will involve allowing developers to manage government-owned property in Jakarta in return for helping build the new city, the government said.

    A study by the Bandung Institute of Technology found that as much as 36 per cent of Jakarta could be lost underwater by 2050.

    Mass extraction of groundwater by office buildings, shopping, apartment complexes and residents are to blame, experts say.

    About 630 million cubic metres of water are pumped from the ground each year, according to the city government.

    The government has said economic losses caused by the city’s traffic jams are estimated at 100 trillion rupiahs ($7 billion) a year.

    Some environmental activists have criticised the planned move, warning that building a new city in the middle of a forest could harm the environment. (dpa/NAN)

  • Sen. Dino Melaye Talks Tough After His Election Annulment

    (FLOWERBUD NWEWS)  Senator Dino Melaye said on Friday that he will appeal the judgment of the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal which nullified his election as senator representing Kogi West in the Nigerian Senate.

    It would be recalled that Melaye was declared the winner of the Kogi West Senatorial election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in February but the tribunal nullified it on Aug. 23 (Friday) and ordered for fresh election.

    A three-man panel led by Justice A. O. Chijioke in a unanimous judgment ruled in favour of Adeyemi’s petitions and ordered for reelection into the Kogi West senatorial district.

    However, Melaye in a tweet shortly after the annulment by the tribunal vowed to appeal the judgment noting that his challenger would have also challenged the ruling if he was in his shoesr.

    “On Tribunal judgment: No cause 4 alarm at all. Even if it went my way they will still go to the Appeal Court. Our mandate cannot be taken.

    “We will get judgment at the Appeal Court. There will be fresh election in Kogi West bc I will be Governor. For my Senate mandate no shaking.”

  • Tribunal Sacks Melaye, Orders Fresh Elections

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) The National Assembly/State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Lokoja on Friday sacked Senator Dino Melaye as the Senator for Kogi West.

    In its judgement, the tribunal ordered that fresh elections should be held in the senatorial district.

    The three man panel led by Justice A. O. Chijioke in a unanimous judgment on Friday accepted Adeyemi’s ground and order for reelection into the senatorial axis.

    Read more at: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/08/breaking-tribunal-sacks-dino-as-kogi-west-senator/

    Details later.

  • Internet Fraud: FBI Nabs More Nigerians In U.S.

    (FLOWERBUD NEWS) Scores of Nigerians have been arrested in U.S. by the Federal Bureau of Intelligence (FBI) in a major conspiracy to steal millions of dollars through fraud schemes and launder the money through a Los Angeles-based network.

    The arrest comes few days after Forbes celebrated Nigerian young billionaire, Obinwanne Okeke popularly known as Invictus Obi was arrested over $12 million internet scam.

    Okeke, named by Forbes in 2016 as one of the world’s 30 Entrepreneurs under the age of 30 to watch, was accused of milking a branch of U.S. owned Caterpillar subsidiary in the UK of $11.5m, among other fraudulent acts committed.

    Authorities in the U.S. said on Thursday that 80 people have so far been indicted in the case which is believed to be the largest in U.S. history.

    According to a statement on the twitter handle of FBI Los Angeles, the conspiracy included frauds involving business email (BEC scams), romance scams and schemes targeting elderly people.

    Victims were targeted in the U.S. and around the world, and some lost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    Fourteen defendants were arrested, mostly in the Los Angeles region. FBI agents could be seen processing suspects in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot.

    Six other defendants are believed to be fugitives in the U.S. and the others are abroad, mostly in Nigeria. Authorities said they hope to extradite them.

    The investigation began in 2016 with one victim and a single bank account, said Paul Delacourt, assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles office.

    Among the people arrested are Valentine Iro, 31, of Carson, and Chukwudi Christogunus Igbokwe, 38, of Gardena, both Nigerian citizens.

    Others are: Jerry Ikogho, 50, of Carson (who was taken into custody on Sunday), and Adegoke Moses Ogungbe, 34, of Fontana, who were indicted as illicit money exchangers for the conspiracy.

    In addition, Iro, Igbokwe, Ikogho, Ogungbe and three other defendants –Izuchukwu Kingsley Umejesi, 30, of Los Angeles, Tityaye Marina Mansbangura, 33, of Palmdale, and Obi Madekwe, 31, of Nigeria – are charged with operating illegal money transmitting businesses.

    Ogungbe and Mansbangura were also among those arrested this morning, and Umejesi is a fugitive currently being sought by authorities.

    The FBI statement also stated that Iro, Igbokwe and Chuks Eroha, 39, face additional charges for attempting to destroy their phones when the FBI executed a search warrant in July 2017.

    Iro also is charged with lying to the FBI in an interview conducted during the search.

    The complaint alleges that, when the FBI arrived to conduct the court-authorized search at Iro’s apartment in Carson, Iro broke his phone in half, while Igbokwe and Eroha threw phones from a bedroom window of the apartment.

    While Iro claimed he previously had broken the phone during an argument with his wife, the complaint details how the FBI was able to determine that the phone was operational until seconds after the FBI knocked on Iro’s apartment door to execute the search warrant.

    Eroha is believed to have fled to Nigeria shortly after the FBI executed the warrant.

    Read FBI’s full statements below on its twitter handle @FBILosAngeles:

  • Women Directors in Indian cinema

    The New World of Women

    Culled from CriticUnion

    Among the virtual ‘flooding’ of the ocean of directors are names like Reema Kagti who is successfully striding across mainstream cinema in recent times, having debuted with the delightfully entertaining Honeymoon Travels Private Limited,  Meghna Gulzar whose output is far from prolific but significant all the same, Leena Yadav who began with a thud with Shabd but recently drew attention with her latest film Parched, Ashwini Iyer Tiwari who drew excellent reviews for the out-of-the-box film Neel Battey Sannata followed by Bareilly Ki Barfi this year, Zoya Akhtar who made a brilliant debut with Luck By Chance followed by the thumping hit Zindagi Na Miley Dobara, Farah Khan who refuses to leave the mainstream orbit never mind whether her films click or do not but finally met her happy ending with Om Shanti Om, Nandita Das whose first film Firaaq made a lot of noise at international film festivals is being followed with Manto, her biopic on the famous author Sadat Hasan Manto and Alankrita Srivastava who raised a hornet’s nest among the CBFC higher-ups with her maiden directorial film Lipstick Under My Burkha. Konkona Sharma made her directorial debut with Death in the Gunje with great promise of better things to come which she has done with a few short films. The directors of the “New Brigade” if we call them that are educated, trained and bold enough to step both into a territory dominated by men as well as explore radical issues within the gender question. Let us take a closer look.

     

    Nandita Das

     

    “The journey of making Firaaq gave me the opportunity to express my concerns and beliefs. It has been a cathartic experience. It has pushed my boundaries and helped me grow both professionally and personally. I chose an ensemble structure because in mass violence there are no individual heroes or villains. When thousands have suffered, the suffering of only one person cannot be glorified. I wanted to explore the conflicting and complex emotions of fear, anxiety, prejudice and ambivalence in human relationships during times of crisis.  The challenges for me lay in making a rooted and contextual film and yet garner a universal audience. I wanted to provide the necessary realism and the universality of emotions that would make people across cultures relate to it,” said Nandita Das, who evolved from being an actress across cultures and directors, about her rationale for making a film on such a sensitive issue.

    Firaaq is like a celluloid anthology that carves a niche in the minds of the audience for capturing and freezing in time, moving images of the anger and anguish of personal responses to the Gujarat catastrophe. A recurring motif through Firaaq is the uncertainty that dogs the Muslim identity. It is not a happy metaphor, but one cannot escape its reality. Firaaq scans the lives of a few people over 24 hours, one month after the Gujarat carnage took place in March 2002 taking away between 3000 and 5000 lives. It exposes the underbelly of a city on the verge of moral and physical collapse where, Hindu or Muslim, some minds and many bodies are damaged forever. A few look around to take stock of their bearings in this changed scenario of hate, danger and uncertainty to move ahead, come what may.

    In her second film Manto, she takes a big leap to excellence and international recognition what with the film having been screened at the Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. Manto is based on a segment of the life of Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the most controversial writers who migrated to Pakistan and died at a relatively young age. Nawazuddin Siddique has firmly entrenched himself in the film in the title role of Manto.  “But he did a significant role in my first film Firaaq when no one knew him,” says, Das. She has given him a completely new look with a wavy haircut and period pair of glasses. Those who have watched the film, heap praises on it.

    Konkona Sen Sharma

    Aparna Sen’s daughter Konkona Sen Sharma is a brilliant actress. She stepped into films to become a director but found herself turning into an actor of no mean merit. It took her years to make her directorial debut with A Death in the Ganj. The director, on a nostalgic trip back to her childhood, revisits a small town called McCluskieganj where she would join her parents for brief holidays till they sold the house. The time-frame is seven days just before the New Year way back in 1979.

    The director structures the film opening with two young men with 1979 haircuts and jackets discussing without emotion how to pack a dead body in the dickey of their old Ambassador. The camera’s perspective is from inside the dickey as if the dead person is looking at them from below. The film closes with the two men inside the car driving away. ’

    A Death in the Ganj is lyrical in its portrayal of a small town distanced from the madding crowds, yet it conveys a palpable sense of imminence. It involves a constant sense of motion – emotional, psychological and at times, even physical that follows the track towards the unavoidable tragedy in the end. Take a bow Konkona, you have given us a niche film targeted at a niche audience, true; but you have not tried to shy away from your refusal to compromise and making a film that is entirely “out of the box”.

    Meghna Gulzar

    Born to two distinguished parents Gulzar and Raakhee, Meghna Gulzar has the cinema in her genes and has made a mark with her somewhat radical subjects. Her first film Filhaal (2002) explored the rather fragile issue of surrogate motherhood. Though it had reasonably good actors, it did not do well at the box office but established Meghna as a director who thinks and treats her films differently. Her short film Puranmasi (2007) a part of Dus Kahaniyan, was a touching story of an innocent mother’s tragedy for being misunderstood by her own daughter.

    Just Married (2007) was quite mainstream with some lovely songs but somehow, it failed to get the message of arranged marriage across and did not do well at the box office. Talvar(2015) had a political agenda. Though it was a professionally sophisticated and enriched with excellent acting, in essence, it appeared to be a planned strategy to whitewash the guilt of the parents of a teenaged girl who were imprisoned for having murdered their only child. This was based on a true story that was covered by the media extensively. Soon after the release of the film, the parents were released and cleared of the accusations of murder. The film was slickly made and shot inside an apartment with very little camera movement outdoors.

    Meghna’s most outstanding film is Raazi released recently to rave reviews and packed theatres. Packaged glamorously and mounted lavishly, Raazi is technically a finished product. But what enriches the audience is the story of the diabolic and strategic manipulation of a young girl to initiate her into espionage, brainwashing her with the dictum “motherland first and then yourself.” The realistic acting is mind-blowing especially when the young woman stands confused between her responsibility as a spy and her growing love for her unsuspecting husband. Even the marriage is a manipulation where the girl, based on a true story, is not even asked whether she would like to become a spy or not even by her own father!