NEWS

Monday 31 December 2012

Osaze — I Regret Insulting Keshi But He Wasn't Fair To Me


Estranged Super Eagles attacker Osaze Odemwingie has said he regrets his abusive Twitter comments. He claimed they were made because coach Stephen Keshi was not fair to him. He even described Chris Green, whom he had also abused, as a good man:
“I remember it was Green who settled my case with Siasia then, but I was too angry when he called me over this matter, and was impatient to listen to him.”  
“My comment was not directed at him personally, but to those who made the decision, but I think I overreacted then.”
On his face-off with Keshi, Osaze said:
“I called the coach two or three times within that period, maybe two or three days before the list was made public and told him of my commitment to be part of the Nations Cup, and have told my (club) coach I will be going to the Nations Cup.

“I told the coach I was ready to report to camp by January 3, even before other professionals start reporting to camp, if I were in his programme for the Nations Cup, and even told him to feel free to drop me, if I were not in his programme.

“I felt betrayed after that seeming heart-to-heart discussions with the coach few days to the release of the team list and he could not hint me I was not in his plan for the Nations Cup.

“I am human and open to errors by the way I may have taken the issue, and regret the whole controversy, and want to put all this behind me now and focus on my club career, while wishing the team the best of luck as a Nigerian.”

Recall that the West Bromwich striker had in the wake of the release of the Nigeria provisional team list for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations taken to his Twitter account and made disparaging comments against Keshi, the team captain and some Nigeria Football Federation officials. 

Past coaches, including Samson Siasia and Lars Lagerback, were not spared and continued days later with direct hits at ex-Nigeria international Victor Ikpeba.

However, Osaze said his mistakes were made in a fit of anger.

Chidinma Wins Kora Award Best Female Act, (West Africa)

The Kedike crooner just won the Best Female West African act at the Kora Awards going on tonight in Abidjan. Massive congrats to her!

P-Square and crew fly to Abidjan in style

They are performing at a concert tonight with Chris Brown

Omotola Jolade- Hot and sexy

Omotola said the first thing that comes to her mind when dressing is the word; “sexy” which is her image. “… everybody working with me, as stylist knows that. If they put me in anything that doesn’t make me hot and sexy, they are in trouble. I must be attractive, especially to my husband. I wear what I feel comfortable in and my hubby likes the way I dress. He’s the important one; if he doesn’t have a problem with my dressing then I am okay.”

 Excerpts of The Guardian interview

Kenyans dominate the most influential Africans list


Equity Bank CEO Dr. James Mwangi.
Equity Bank CEO Dr. James Mwangi.
iebc on tender
IEBC chairman Ahmed Isaack Hassan during a press conference on the tendering of the voter registration contract yesterday.Photo/Charles kimani
Proffessor Calistus Juma
Proffessor Calistus Juma speaking at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi. 27-06-2012.chrispinus wekesa
Kenya has produced 10 of the 100 most influential Africans in the just released December issue of the New African magazine.
The 100 were chosen on the basis of what they did, said and also due to their increasing global influence with a special emphasis on those that have made mostly a positive difference this year.
According to the magazine, putting together a list of a 100 people from a continent of 54 countries was not an easy task due to the existence of more inspirational figures than the continent is generally credited for.
The politics category saw Ahmed Isaack Hassan, chairman of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission, whose objective is to oversee a free and fair election in 2013, named alongside Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame, Senegal’s President Macky Sall, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma, Ghana’s Kofi Annan and Gambia’s ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda among others.
Hassan was termed as a safe pair of hands having served on the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission from the year 2000 to 2005 and as a legal consultant in the constitution-making process in Somalia.
“The new Kenya constitution has laid a good framework, a good foundation. The way we conduct and manage the elections will also be very critical in how we make sure we have peaceful and credible elections,” Isaack said.
Among the nine Kenyans are Equity Bank’s CEO and MD James Mwangi who has been honoured twice with presidential national awards, sits on the Board of the African Leadership Academy in South Africa and was named the Ernst and Young World Entrepreneur of the year 2012.
Mwangi, who has over 22 years of management experience, is currently the chairman of Kenya’s Vision 2030 delivery board and is charged with the responsibility of ensuring Kenya becomes a middle income country by 2030.
Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg who is the founder and executive director of Akili Dada, an international organisation based in Nairobi and officially registered as a non-governmental organisation, was named in the civil society category.
Akili Dada is an award-winning leadership incubator nurturing a generation of young African women and for Wanjiru, Akili Dada is the realisation of her vision for an organisation that makes it possible for other young women to get the educational opportunities she has been so fortunate to experience.
“Women are really not being engaged in decision-making. Part of what we are trying to do is to make sure there are women at the table, who are well equipped to make a valuable contribution in positions of influence and ensure they are educated, articulate and prepared,” Wanjiku said.
She is driven to make the resources that are so plentiful in the US available to deserving young women in Africa and to empower the women on the continent so that they can take their proper place at the decision-making table.
Salim Amin, the son of the world renowned Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin, began his career in 1992 in Somalia during the now infamous Operation Restore Hope.
He later became the Managing Director of Camerapix in 1996 after the death of his father and in memory of Mo, Salim founded The Mohamed Amin Foundation in 1998, now Africa's premier broadcast training school.
With 10 years experience in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, Salim is now branching out to Europe and America in joint ventures and co-productions with leading international broadcasters and has managed to turn his father’s small studio in Tanzania into a multi-faceted media and production company.
Today, Camerapix employs over 30 media professionals who operate out of its headquarters in Nairobi and an office in London.
Camerapix offer its clients a wide array of media services including television production, publishing and photography. Amin, who has helped Chinese state television shape Africa’s perception, was named in the media category alongside Nigeria’s Omoyole Swore who is the figure behind the online news website Sahara Reporters in 2006, Senegal’s Amadou Ba, co-founder and chairman of the online news portal All African.com, and South Africa’s Koos Bekker, already a leading figure within Africa’s publishing industry.
Calestous Juma, a professor of the Practice of International Development and Director of the Science, Technology and Globalisation Project at Havard Kennedy School, has led international experts in outlining ways to apply science and technology to the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals arising from the UN Millennium Summit in 2000.
Together with Juliana Rotich, who has taken computing to a new level through Ushahidi Inc, were named in the religion/traditional category.
Juma has established himself as a world leader in policy research on biotechnology. He directs the school's Agricultural Innovation in Africa funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation while his continuing original work focuses on analysing the dynamics of evolutionary technological change and applying the results in advancing science and technology policy research, providing high-level science and technology advice and promoting biodiversity conservation.
Rotich, a public speaker, is known for her commentary on technology in Africa and voicing concerns about the loss of indigenous forest and water catchment areas in Kenya.
“We started in one country in Africa and now the platform is used in 132 countries. Let’s explore what the future of real time data can be,” she said.
Ushahidi, which is a Swahili word for testimony, was first put into practice during the 2007-2008 post-election crisis and has since been used in Chile, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan and Haiti and this year saw it grow into a strong international organisation with worldwide branches.
Michael Joseph, the former CEO of Safaricom and currently the MD of mobile money at Vodafone, was named in the science category.
“Mobile changes lives. It also transforms societies and economies. A 10 per cent increase in mobile penetration in a country equates to a 1.2 per cent increase in GDP,” he said.
Joseph, who spent a decade as chief executive of Safaricom, championed one of the truly remarkable African revolutions in recent memory.
“I think I am breaking stereotypes and putting dark-skinned girls like me on the map. I represent all the dark little African girls who have low self-esteem and feel they have to be light-skinned to be accepted and beautiful,” Ajuma Nasenyana said.
Her first foray into modeling was in the Miss Tourism Kenya competition in 2003, where she was crowned Miss Nairobi and is today an African supermodel who has managed to work with some of the biggest names in prime fashion.
In 2011, she was named African Fashion International's top model and the Africa Fashion Week Model of the Year 2012. She was feted in the arts and culture category.
David Rudisha and Tegla Lorupe were named in the sports category alongside Ethiopia’s Tirunesh Dibaba, Uganda’s Stephen Kiprotich, South Africa’s Oscar Pistorius and Cote d'Ivoire Didier Drogba among others.
Rudisha, the current Olympic and world record holder in the 800 metres as well as the current World and Olympic Champion at the distance, became the first human being to run the 800 metres in under 1.41 for the event.
On August 9 at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Rudisha led from start to finish to win gold in what was acclaimed 'The Greatest 800 Metre Race Ever'. “It was easy for the others to get fast times because they just have to follow. I was pacing them the whole race,” Rudisha said.
Lorupe, who is now retired, holds the world records for 20, 25 and 30 kilometres and previously held the world marathon record.
In 2006, she was named a United Nations Ambassador of Sport by Secretary General Kofi Annan, together with Roger Federer, tennis champion from Switzerland, Elias Figueroa, Latin American soccer legend from Chile, and Katrina Webb, Paralympics gold medalist from Australia. She is an International Sports Ambassador for the IAAF, the International Association of Athletics Federations, and for Unicef.
“It seems the world has forgotten to realise what is important and about the true meaning of sharing,” she said. She has established a school, Tegla Loroupe Peace Academy and orphanage for children, in Kapenguria.  
YOU ARE HERE:HOME

No Sex, no Fish

Scientist in plan to investigate source of lake Victoria.
Lake Pollution, local go about their domestic business oblivious of the polluted lake, scientist have launched a plan to investigate the source of the lake pollution.
The HIV/Aids prevalence rate in Mbita district currently stands at 26 per cent against the country’s seven per cent. Habil Onyango explains why this is the case and the efforts to stem new infections.

Wycliffe Odhiambo* has been a fisherman at Rombo beach within Mbita district for the last eight years after spending over a decade in the neighbouring Remba Island. Odhiambo, 32, a father of six, barely visits his family back in Ugenya. Reason? He gets everything he wants at the beaches.
“Why should I keep on going home every now and then while all the stuff I may need are readily available at the beach?” Odhiambo asks. Odhiambo, whose work begins at 6pm and ends between 8 and 9am, has been in the business for 20 years.
Due to his busy schedule, Odhiambo barely get time to go to hospital for voluntary counselling and testing and whenever he gets time, the queue at various health facilities drive him away. “The last time I tried to go for VCT, I found a very long queue which made me to return home without testing."
Odhiambo is just one of the fishermen who have neglected their families at their rural homes and engaged in risky sexual behaviour at their places of work.
According to Nicholas Ouma*, who is a fisherman at Rombo beach, going for VCT takes a lot of their time. “We always come from the lake at around 8am. At that time we need to sell and preserve the remaining catches, and we hardly get anytime to attend to other issues,” he said.
“At the same time, we must catch a little nap in readiness for the night job, and we rarely get enough time to attend to go for testing.”
Ouma, who revealed that he has been involved in unprotected sex with numerous sex workers, says he has never checked his HIV status. “I have never gone for any testing; queues are always long and I cannot waste my time waiting,” he said.
The father of four, who left his family at Kawabwai in Ndhiwa, disclosed that even his wife has never been tested yet he sees her once or twice a month.
Ronald Ochieng, 28, a fisherman who tested HIV positive two years ago has since defaulted taking the prescribed ARVs and his health keeps on deteriorating day by day.
Ochieng, who is based at the neighbouring Ngodhe Island, says the long distance to the nearest health facility and his busy schedule made him discontinue his medication. “Sometimes back I went for the drugs but I was discouraged by the large number of patients. I had to wait for several hours in Mbita before I could get back to the island which made me lose hope,” he said.
There are only two major hospitals, based in Mbita and Rusinga, which serve the population living in over 100 beaches and several islands.
However, the situation might change after the commissioning of a drop-in centre for the fisherfolk at Tom Mboya Health Centre within Rusinga Island.
The centre is tailored-made for the fisher community where its members get tested, counselled and receive drugs within the workplace.
The facility, which has been sponsored by the Ministry of Public health, DEVLINK-AFRICA, an International NGO, and the local community, will serve the fishing community and their families
It has been initiated due to the need for effective tackling of the disease among fisher folks, a group considered most at risk of HIV/Aids infection.
The facility will provide services such as VCT, VMMC, TB testing, guidance and counselling and will distribute ARV drugs. Esther Soti, the NGO's director, said the facility will help reduce the HIV prevalence rate in the region.
She says they came up with the integrated HIV prevention strategy which includes biomedical, behavioral and structural approach to help minimise the gaps that lead to new infections among the fisher folks.
“A fisherman goes to the lake at night, comes back in the morning; he needs to prepare the catch, sleep, sell the fish, when he goes to the hospital for treatment or testing he finds a long queue, finally he loses hope,” Soti said.
The facility will be independently operated and fishermen will voluntarily visit for peer support, treatment, testing and counselling services.
“The fisher folks have their peer educators who know their colleagues and whenever any feels like visiting the facility, he will be issued with a referral letter which will not include whatever he is suffering from,” she said.
Soti said the patient will be tested and treated free of charge and in case they cannot handle the complication, they will refer him or her to their partners who deal with the relevant condition.
The project was initiated after a case study in two locations in Mbita district within Homa Bay county. “The survey helped us to get the data on the characteristics, sexual behaviour, other risk factors and estimates of population sizes of the fisher folk within the beaches of Rusinga Island,” Soti said.
"This will guide the development and implementation of the effective intervention measures and address the critical information gaps that are contributing to the new HIV infections,” she added.
According to the District Aids and STIs Coordinator Joseph Onyango, the HIV/Aids prevalence rate in Mbita district currently stands at 26 per cent against the country’s seven per cent. He says the care-free lifestyle and the 'floating' money are the major causes of the rising cases of HIV/Aids infections in the area. “Fishermen engage in unsafe sex without considering the dangers they are putting themselves in,” Onyango said.
He says with their tight schedules, very few get the time to go for VCT and even those who have already tested positive never return for the drugs.
Onyango said with the introduction of the drop-in centre, the second one in the district, they expect more fishermen to get access to various services. “The services will always be readily available to the fishermen and their families; they will be accessing it any time,” Onyango added.
Mbita Health ministry's Mathew Ajwala said they have already attached two trained nurses to the centre. He says depending on the number of clients, they will consider increasing the number of nurses.
Ajwala said the “fish for sex” trade is fuelling the new infections in the region. “Due to the high demand for fish within Homa Bay County due to the water hyacinth which has covered parts of the lake, some fishmongers are forced to exchange fish for sex. Sadly very few use protection," he said.
Asca Anyango*, a fishmonger who transports the catch to Nairobi, says they are sometimes forced to give in to sex in order to get the fish.
“For one to maintain the high demand for fish, we must create 'concrete' relationship with the fishermen which automatically leads to sex,” Anyamgo said.     YOU ARE HERE:HOME

Sunday 30 December 2012

A house with 17 Satelite Dishes :PHOTO

Click for Full Image Size
What is one house doing with so many dishes?

Omotola answers questions from fans on Twitter

 
The Q and A is still going on as I type this. The actress is answering some very personal questions from her fans on her Twitter page. See more after the cut...







 

You can go on her Twitter page to see more Q and A. This is just some of it...

Lekki Block Party Holds Today December 29th

The Lekki Block Party will hold from 6pm today, 29th of December at Sailor’s Lounge on Admiralty Road,Lekki (Phase 1). The event will be hosted by Ay and Adams and will feature Eldee, K9, L.O.S, DRB Las Gidi, Ajebutter 22 , Uzikwendu and Sheyman. The Djs for the day are Dj Humility, Dj Caise, Dj Obi and Cool Dj Jimmy Jatt himself.

It is supported by Naija 102.7 fm, Classic 97.3fm, The Beat 99.9 fm.

Happy 35th birthday to Kemi 'Kemistry' Olisemeka

The former On-Air-Personality with Rhythm FM and Inspiration FM turned 35 today. Wishing her many great years ahead. Long Life and Prosperity!

Groups Tell Jonathan Stop Talking, Give Nigerians Reason to Trust You


Cheap talk won't do it but hard work with visible results:
“Mr. President has a manifesto to work with but has yet to fulfil his campaign promises. Rather than follow his manifesto, he removed subsidy on fuel last January and brought out problems. 
“Now that he is aware that he’s slow in performance; let him deliver all his earlier promises first before making other ones.”
Said the National Publicity Secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum, Anthony Sani, while insisting that Nigerians would continue to hold Jonathan responsible for his promises and failure to fulfill them.

Similarly, human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, challenged Jonathan to make public his plans for 2013. He said, “Now that the President has promised a new lease of life in 2013, he should tell us the areas he wants to focus on. Already, the 2013 budget is almost like that of 2012. 

"The government still has to service our national and questionable debt and run the expensive bureaucratic government structure. He should tell us how he wants to perform the miracle.”

In the same vein, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) said government should focus on security, power and employment in 2013. Its National Publicity Secretary, Lai Mohammed, said: 
“We will be more than happy, if he performs better next year. That will reduce the hardship being experienced by the masses and improve their standard of living. We will encourage and assist him to perform better.

“But the question is: Is there anything on ground for him to work with? If you want to commission a house next year, you must have acquired a piece of land by now. A better performance by him will be a pleasant surprise and we will welcome it.”

Recalled that President Goodluck Jonathan had recently admitted his slow performance and promised a better performance in 2013.

Davido, Victor Moses, JAMB, Boko Haram, most searched of 2012

What did Nigerians search for on the web in 2012? According to Google's annual Zeitgeist list,Davido, Victor Moses, Rashidi Yekini, Whitney Houston were some of the most searched people of 2012.

Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Boko Haram, Asuu strike, Vanguard News were some of the most searched terms of 2012.

See the top 10 searches and people of 2012 after the cut...



Top 10 searches in Nigeria in 2012
Jamb 
Mozat
Boko Haram
Asuu Strike
Google news
Eskimi
Whitney Houston
Vanguard news
NNPC recruitment
Facebook

Top 10 most searched people in Nigeria in 2012
Whitney Houston 
Victor Moses 
Ronaldinho 
Van Persie 
Nuri Sahin 
Usain Bolt 
Hulk 
Davido 
Eden Hazard 
Rashidi Yekini


See the full list HERE 

Meanwhile below is the top 10 most searched in Wikipedia in 2012 (in the world) 
1. Facebook 
2. Wiki 
3. Deaths in 2012 
4. One Direction 
5. The Avengers 
6. Fifty Shades of Grey 
7. 2012 phenomenon 
8. The Dark Knight Rises 
9. Google 
10. The Hunger Games