Giant Rat That Terrorized Swedish Family Killed At Last

by  David Moye

Family Finds 15-Inch 'Ratzilla' In Their Home

A Swedish family's three-week nightmare is over: Ratzilla has been killed.
The gigantic rat that invaded the home of Erik Korsas and Signe Bengtsoon and set up shop under their kitchen sink was dted there was some kind of animal invader, but they didn't imagine an oversized rodent was in their midst.
"We thought it could be a little mouse, but after a while we figured it couldn't be because it was making too much noise," Bengtsson told The Local.
She got the shock of her life a few days later when she discovered the mutant gulping down leftovers under the sink.
"It was right there in our rubbish bin, a mighty monster. I was petrified. I couldn't believe such a big rat could exist," she told the website. "I couldn't help but do the old classic and jump on the kitchen table and scream."
The pest apparently got into the kitchen through a ventilation pipe, after gnawing through cement and wood.
Ratzilla was so horrifying that the family cat refused to enter the kitchen, the BBC reports.
RATZILLA (Story continues below)



Exterminators were called to the couple's home in Solna, Sweden, and they set thee rat traps for the monstrous rodent.
Eventually, the rat was trapped by its neck, but took its sweet time dying, preferring to crawl behind the dishwasher for its final moments on Earth.
The carcass measured about 16 inches in length, not counting the tail, and weighed around 2.2 pounds.
"The kids were afraid it would come back to life as some sort of zombie rat. They didn't want to touch it," Korsas told The Local.
HuffingtonPost

Unknown Gunmen Abduct Bauchi Businessman

Obed Minchakpu

Less than four hours after President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan left Bauchi after attending a Peoples Democratic Party Rally, unknown Gunmen have kidnapped a popular business man in the state, Alhaji Manu Soro in Soro town of the state.
Manu Soro of Soro town in Ganjuwa Local Government Area, sources told Leadership in Bauchi, was on Saturday, 29 March, 2014, at about 8:10 pm kidnapped by the Gunmen as he was moving out of a mosque after the evening prayers.
The source also told Leadership that the gunmen shot into the air as they made away with the businessman and it is not yet clear whether Manu Soro was shot by the gunmen or the gun shots were meant to only to scare people around.
Haruna Mohammed, DSP, the Police Public Relations Officer of the Bauchi State Police Command when contacted, confirmed the abduction of the Bauchi businessman.
Mohammed said the Businessman was abducted by the gunmen at about 8:10 pm Saturday 29th March, When he came out of the mosque behind his house at Soro town.
The police spokesman assured that effort is ongoing to rescue the businessman and arrest the gunmen.
Leadership

Drug Baron, Buruji Kashamu To Spend N1bn On Fayose…He Is Our Mobilizer, Says PDP

Buruji Kashamu

Indicted drug baron, Buruji Kashamu, is planning to spend N1 billion to ensure the return as governor of indicted former Governor of Ekiti State, Mr. Ayo Fayose..
Kashamu is the man against whom former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, warned President Goodluck Jonathan in his famous letter in December 2013, calling him “a certified unashamed criminal.”
Obasanjo wrote: “Putting a certified unashamed criminal wanted abroad to face justice and who has greatly contributed to corruption within the judiciary on a high profile of politics as you and your aides have done with the man you enthrone as PDP Zonal leader in the South-West is the height of disservice to this country politically and height of insult to the people of South-West in general and members of PDP in that zone in particular.”
Last Friday, Buruji was present when Fayose went to the National Headquarters of the People's Democratic Party in Abuja to collect his certificate for winning the party's governorship primaries.
Women hired for the occasion were brought in three buses bought by Kashamu for the campaign and they arrived to sing the praises of the drug baron.
Kashamu was said to have provided the funds with which Fayose bribed the leadership of the party at the state and national levels in order to emerge as the winner.
It was the same Kashamu who also priced the logistics that dislodged a majority of the 13 aspirants from gaining access to the venue of the primaries.
As a form of loyalty, Fayose paid tribute to Kashamu and assured him that he would remain loyal to him if he wins the election.
A close confidant of Kashamu said, "Our chairman has vowed that he is ready tis spend N1bn to oust the Governor of the state, Dr. Kayode Fayemi and install Fayose.  He means it. He has bought vehicles, and also gave some money to Fayose."
The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Chief Olisa Metuh, referred to Kashamu as the leader and mobilizer of the party in the zone.
"Our mobilizer in South-West, a great mobilizer, we welcome you," Metuh said.
Analysts say, however, that Kashamu’s emergence and pride of place in the PDP is a measure of how much the politics of ruthlessness persists in the party and how much it is prepared to win at all cost.
Below is the full text of the comments made about Kashamu by Obasanjo in his letter to Jonathan:
Putting a certified unashamed criminal wanted abroad to face justice and who has greatly contributed to corruption within the judiciary on a high profile of politics as you and your aides have done with the man you enthrone as PDP Zonal leader in the South-West is the height of disservice to this country politically and height of insult to the people of South-West in general and members of PDP in that zone in particular.”
For me, my politics goes with principles and morality and I will not be a party to highly profiling criminals in politics, not to say one would be my zonal leader. It destroys what PDP stands for from its inception. By the government not acting positively and promptly in the case of Kashamu wanted in the US for drug trafficking and money laundering crimes, it is only confirming the persistent reports of complicity or involvement of high-level political figures in drug trafficking and condonation of the crime for political benefit. Whichever way, it is a very dangerous development for Nigeria.
Sooner than later, drug barons will be in control of large real estates, banks and other seemingly legitimate businesses; in elections, they will buy candidates, parties and eventually buy power or be in power themselves. It may be instructive if I quote fairly extensively from Lansana Gberie’s recent paper titled, ‘State Officials and Their Involvement in Drug Trafficking in West Africa’:
“...The controversial and puzzling case of Buruji Kashamu, a powerful figure in the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), suggests that a successful and wealthy politician’s association with drug trafficking is hardly disabling.
Kashamu was indicted by a grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois in 1998 for conspiracy to import and distribute heroin to the United States. The indictment named him under his own name as well as two supposed aliases:
‘Alaji’ and ‘Kasmal’. His whereabouts were unknown at the time, however, and his co-accused were tried and convicted. Later that year, he was found living comfortably in England, and, on receipt of an extradition request from the US, the UK authorities arrested Kashamu. After a very protracted proceeding lasting until 2003, however, an English Judge refused to extradite Kashamu on grounds of uncertainty about his true identity.
Kashamu triumphantly returned to Nigeria and soon after became a key political figure. He is now believed to be very close to President Goodluck Jonathan, because of his ability to mobilise votes in key States in Western Nigeria. The US government reviewed Kashamu’s case, with the famous Judge Richard Posner presiding.
Posner concluded that while Kashamu’s identity remains murky, there is little doubt that the figure now exercising authority in Nigeria’s PDP is the same as Kashamu the ‘Alaji’ who was indicted for conspiracy to smuggle illicit drugs into the United States. Despite this, the Nigerian government has persistently ignored calls by civil society groups to investigate Kashamu and extradite him to the US.
On 2 July 2013, the Federal Court in Lagos determined that Kashamu should be extradited to the US. Kashamu immediately appealed against this decision, yet in November 2013, a new Panel of Judges constituted by the President of the Court of Appeal unanimously held that his appeal lacked merit, and that Kashamu should be extradited. His extradition to the United States will certainly set an important precedent... unless, of course, he uses his political skills and contacts to continue avoiding it...”
 Saharareporters

The Creepy Way Fathers Across the Country Are Controlling Their Daughters' Virginity

By Julianne Ross

"At this point, you're married to the Lord, and your father is your boyfriend." 

So says Pastor Ron Johnson to his 12-year-old daughter Caroline, before placing a ring on her left finger. Johnson and his family are the subject of a recent Nightline Prime investigation of Purity Balls, a "full-fledged national phenomenon" that has reportedly spread across 48 states and 17 countries. Despite the thought that first popped into my head, these balls are not some ironic term for Ben Wa sex toys, but rather formal father-daughter dances during which young girls pledge to abstain from all sexual activity until marriage (this includes kissing and dating). They also symbolically entrust their fathers — the "high priest" of the home — with their maidenheads for safekeeping.

The special was filmed back in October 2013, when Nightline reporters headed to the 14th annual "Super Bowl of Purity" (only in America, folks) to document the chaste event. As the cameras rolled, 60 father-daughter couples arrived at the Grand Ballroom of Colorado's Broadmoor Hotel to "celebrate the beauty of [their] daughters and the glory of their fathers."

Creeped out yet? You should be. Purity Balls might seem like a quirky, inoffensive ritual of uber-religious middle America, but they're emblematic of some very messed up attitudes about women and their sexuality that have serious implications beyond these communities.

Purity Balls stem from purity pledges, a practice that developed in the late '80s and early '90s in response to increased sexual liberation, the AIDS epidemic and rising rates of STDs and teen pregnancy. In 1998, five years after the Southern Baptist group True Love Waits popularized the first purity pledge cards, Randy Wilson and his wife Lisa held the inaugural Purity Ball.

Wilson is not a minister, but he is very concerned with young women's sexuality. As the father of five daughters, he started the balls in an effort to control what he deems a tumultuous transition from "girlhood to womanhood."

"What I hear from these young ladies is that there's this need for that physical touch, and from a male being," he tells Nightline. "I believe that's what the father's role is."

Girls typically take the purity pledge at the balls around age 12 or 13, not coincidentally around the same time they start getting their periods; however, young women of all ages can attend. The ceremony itself is rife with symbolism — some of it intentional, like when ballerinas clad in virginal white carry a large wooden cross to the middle of the dance floor:

And some of it not, like when two men then stand before the cross, each holding out a sword:

After fathers and daughters walk beneath these crossed swords, daughters lay white roses at the cross to silently commit to living "pure lives before God." Then everybody foxtrots.

The Wilsons are part of an evangelical community that views both hookup culture and the media's messages surrounding sexuality as deeply troublesome. So it's ironic that the method they've chosen to combat the hypersexualization of girlhood is, well, the hypersexualization of girlhood.

When you get down to it, Purity Balls are literally all about sex. If your worth as a human being is invariably tied to what you do with the parts between your legs, who you are becomes defined by your sexuality; you're either pure, or impure. Madonna, or a whore. As Jessica Valenti puts it in The Purity Myth:

"What's the difference between venerating women for being fuckable and putting them on a purity pedestal? In both cases, women's worth is contingent upon their ability to please men and to shape their sexual identities around what men want."

Let's be clear: What consenting adults do (or don't do) between the sheets isn't anyone else's business, and there's nothing wrong with a personal decision to practice abstinence. But that's not what this is.

In giving fathers (and by extension, future husbands) dominion over their daughters' virginity, Purity Balls both commodify female sexuality and completely rob women of sexual autonomy, instead granting power to men who, if Wilson's comments about "male beings" are any indication, have very little understanding of what it actually feels like to be a young woman.

And since purity pledges and abstinence-only education have both repeatedly been shown to be ultimately ineffective in preventing teens from having sex, what happens to those who inevitably slip, having been taught that their entire moral value is so contingent upon their sex lives (or lack thereof)?

Seventeen-year-old Katie Johnson, another of Pastor Johnson's daughters, has worn a purity ring for four years. She recognizes the difficulty of her chosen lifestyle, saying she would probably "give up" without the support of her church-going friends. But there are plenty out there who may not have such a supportive group, or who may give up in spite of it (and understandably so, since fighting against the biological impetus to use what God gave you isn't easy). Even if the community welcomes them back pending repentance, multiple studies have shown that teens who vow abstinence are less likely to use contraception than their peers, making them vulnerable to unwanted pregnancies and STIs.

Even worse, fostering a sense of dirtiness and shame surrounding sex can prohibit the reporting of sexual assault, as well as the healing process. Not to mention the fact that these balls completely ignore the existence of homosexuality, and that a universal definition of virginity arguably doesn't even exist in the first place.

At the end of her Purity Ball, Caroline Johnson looks ecstatic. "I felt like a princess with my dad," she says, revealing a mouth full of braces as she grins at the camera. "This is the moment I've been waiting for, to get my purity ring." Other Purity Ball attendees have expressed similar sentiments, asserting that the event and pledge are a way to encourage invaluable bonding between fathers and daughters.

That doesn't change the fact that sex does not define who you are, whether you're having a lot of it or none at all. Your daddy does not own your virginity, and neither does your husband. You do. This is just misogyny, dressed in white and foxtrotting around a cross. 

PolicyMic

PDP promised us millions to dump APC – NIPF

Commissioner Barr Chuma Chinye boosts Forum with donation of a bus

Ehi Ekhator
The Non-Indigenes Political Forum (NIPF) of the Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has warned the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the State to desist from luring its members.
NIPF Coordinator, Chief Uchenna Okokoba, issued the warning yesterday during a meeting of the Forum held at the State APC Secretariat in Port Harcourt.
He said that the warning had become necessary following reports reaching him that PDP leaders in the State had been making overtures to NIPF members with a view to luring them away from the ruling APC. 

APC vs PDP

“The PDP leadership in Rivers State has approached some of us, requesting us to dump our great party and switch camp to them, assuring us that we will be paid in millions of Naira if we switch camp. What they forget is that we are not in this project for money but to ensure that Rivers State is blessed with good leadership under an APC government. We are committed and ready to ensure that our goals, vision and mission for Rivers State are actualised no matter the odds,” Chief Okokoba said in his welcome address.
He disclosed that based on their rejection of the overtures from the PDP leadership, the party in its desperate efforts to make a presence in the State has contacted one Dr. Peter Okoye residing in Nnewi in Anambra State to help it establish a sister body of non-indigenes in Rivers State to be named “PDP Rivers State Non-Indigenes Movement”. “We wonder why a fellow who is not residing in Rivers State should be contacted to form a political body in the State. We have instructed our people not to have anything to do with such a body when finally formed,” Okokoba stated.
The NIPF Coordinator, Chief Okokoba presented the final report from the 21 Local Government Areas of Rivers State, indicating that 148,497 non-indigenes registered with APC at the end of the recent registration of new members of APC in the state. This new figure, he noted, is far above the 100,000 registrants contained in the group’s preliminary report. Giving a breakdown of the figures, Okokoba said that Port Harcourt registered the highest number of 15,156 non-indigenes; followed by Ikwerre, 10,931; Obio-Akpor, 10433; Etche, 10,112; Eleme, 9,915;, Etche, 7,280; while Asari-Toru Local Government came last with only 2,090. The results of other Local Government Areas are as follows – Abua/Odua, 3,520; Akuku Toru, 4,560; Ahoada East, 5,612; Ahoada West, 4,991; Andoni, 8,931; Bonny, 6173; Degema, 2,860; Emohua, 10,112; Gokana, 4,131; Khana, 8,921; Ogun/Bolo, 2,920; Okirika, 2,550; Omuma, 4,272; ONELGA, 6,832; Opobo/Nkoro, 5,168; Oyigbo, 6,860 and Tai, 4,390 making the grand total of 148, 497 non indigenes that have registered with our great party, APC. He said that more non-indigenes would have been registered if not for the violence introduced by the PDP leadership during the exercise. The full list of Local Government by Local Government registration of non indigenes in Rivers State during the just concluded registration exercise is attached for doubting ‘Thomases’ who were at a loss on how the non indigenes are indentifying with the aspiration and vision of APC in Rivers State in such a large and massive number.
NIPF Leader, Barr. Chuma Chinye, who is also the Rivers State Commissioner of Commerce and Industry, surprised the meeting by donating a brand new air-conditioned Coaster Bus to the group. Chinye, said he made the donation to make it easier for NIPF to mobilise non-indigenes in the state to contribute optimally towards making APC the leading political party in the State. Barr. Chinye declared that the Forum stands on a firm ground, assuring the members that the era of non-indigenes being excluded in the affairs of the State is gone for good “as we have done much in contributing to the development of Rivers State through payment of our taxes and participating in good governance of the state.”
He charged the NIPF leadership and members not to feel intimidated by the acts and antecedents of the PDP leadership in the State as they have nothing good to offer them and the state in general. “To us in Rivers State, PDP is history as Governor Amaechi departed with the soul of the party leaving a mere corpse of the party in the hands of some confused and misguided elements to handle”. He concluded by urging other well-to-do members of the Forum to assist in any way possible to put the Forum on a solid footing.
An elated NIPF Coordinator, Chief Uchenna Okokoba, commended Barr. Chinye for his avowed commitment towards the Forum, assuring him and the revolutionary Governor of Rivers State, Rt. Hon. Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi that NIPF would work hard to ensure that both non-indigenes and the entire Rivers State elect an APC Government come 2015.
Other leaders of the Forum present at the meeting were Chief Ade Adeogun, Chairman of Rivers State Sanitation Commission, Mr. David Iyofor, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Amaechi, and Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze, Alh. Yusuf Tanko, NIPF Secretary, Chief Joseph Udoh, Leader, Akwa/Cross, Chief Solomon Nwnoye, NIPF Igbo Leader, Chief Joseph Ijede, Edo/Delta Leader, Alh. Ahmed Adisa, Youth Leader, Alh. Halliru Imam, Hausa Leader, Hausa Leader among others. (4)

NaijaNews

Lagos Refinery: Dangote’s Police-on-Demand Beat, Hound Villagers Out of Their Homes

By Saharareporters, New York
A Mobile Police officer, Tajudeen Sodiq, one of those deployed to the Pankere Village in Idasho community by businessman, Aliko Dangote, has provided confirmation they have the orders of the wealthy businessman to “clear” out the villagers for his refinery project, telling the displaced villagers of the nature of their instructions after chasing them out.
Some of the women who were molested by the policemen yesterday were taken to a hidden place and beaten with nail-tacked clubs.
“They said they would not shoot gun at us because it may not penetrate. So they tacked nails on woods and beat us mercilessly,” said one woman who was released by the policemen last night. Two other women taken away by the policemen had still not been found as at press time.
Policemen from the local station had defied Mr. Dangote’s call to carry out the “clearing” away of people, pointing out that the disputed land was in court.  However, the residents say some of the new policemen who told them they were invading at the demand of Mr. Dangote, are from the Lagos Police Command, apparently obliging the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola.
Curiously, the residents also said they recognized some of the new “policemen” who arrived at the village today as touts from the area town.  They said they were shocked to see well-known touts wearing police uniforms and entering the village to clear out any residents who may want to return to their homes.  This suggests that even deeper under-handed methods are being employed by the businessman and the governor in the effort to appropriate the land.
“Presently, we are homeless and we are just squatting. We want to go back to our homes but the policemen are threatening to kill us at sight,” the homeless villagers said.
A few weeks ago, policemen fired shots into a house and injured an old man as they chased the residents out of their homes.
Governor Fashola had threatened to deal with the villagers without compensation if they resisted his quit order. Messrs. Fashola and Dangote are accused of shunning court processes, refusing to wait for the suit in court over the disputed land to be disposed of.
Video link to Mr. Fashola’s threat to the villagers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo4jCXuMCrk

Fashola and Dangote conspiring at a town meeting some weeks back

A local chief of the Panseke village in Idasho, Julius Samuel, said he visited the Police Station to complain about hoodlums appearing in police uniforms to terrorize his village, but that the police only promised “to do something about it.”  He said the police advised them not to return to their homes so as not to provoke the hoodlums.
Although Mr. Dangote claims he had paid to take over the village, the villagers, including their chiefs, said they were not contacted or paid by anyone for their land.

NewsRescue

By The Way, What Is SLS Doing About Reno Omokri? By Pius Adesanmi

I am not done with Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s post-suspension politics yet. I stated last week that he is poorly served by the combination of his advisers and his personal arrogance and this explains why he has been travelling on the dead-end road of justifying and rationalizing the one area of his service in which his judgment collapsed tragically and completely instead of focusing on the areas in which he is the undisputable owner of the moral high ground.
Instead of disturbing us with insulting rationalizations of his reckless and wasteful intervention funds regime, he should go after the masquerades of authority stealing he exposed and provide public leadership in a sustained crusade to keep that issue on the national front burner until specific culprits are identified and punished to the full extent of the law. Thanks to Sanusi Lamido Sanusi’s patriotic but belated whistleblowing, President Jonathan, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Mrs. Diezani Allison and Madueke, and other as yet unidentified heist facilitators in NNPC stand indicted for supervising the greatest heist in the postcolonial history of this country and SLS should not allow them to continue to sleep easy.
The ill-educated yobs who have been all over our national airwaves saying that the said monumental heist should be rolled under the carpet because Sanusi Lamido Sanusi kept throwing out conflicting figures should be ignored and their Stockholm Syndrome attitude to the missing $20 billion – defend the indicted who stole from them, deny that money is missing – should attract only one reaction from us all: contempt.
While fighting on the missing funds front, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi should also consider coming down from his perch on Mount Olympus to do something about Pastor Wendell Simlin alias Reno Omokri alias Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Facebook and Twitter. Apart from reiterating the fact that an ethically-challenged and thoroughly dishonest fellow who brought the institution of the Nigerian Presidency to disrepute by committing such a monumental fraud in her name ought to have been fired a long time ago, we need not rehash the details of the Reno Omokri tragedy. If you missed that news cycle, check it out here on BBC: (http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-26481508).
What needs to detain us here is why the principal target and victim of Reno Omokri’s wickedness and fraud, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, has done absolutely nothing about it when he has limitless resources to dig further than patriot Feyi Fawehinmi and the BBC, assemble evidence, and sue Mr. Omokri. We know from his antecedents that President Jonathan thrives in the company of such fraudulent characters and moves against them with great reluctance and only after sustained public outcry. His presidential instinct is always to wait out public outcry against any of the fraudulent characters around him, assured that the Nigerian public has no staying power over any issue. He moved against Stella Oduah only because the Nigerian public uncharacteristically sustained the outcry in that one instance.
Like his boss, Mr. Omokri’s crisis strategy has been to quietly retire Pastor Wendell Simlin from active public service and wait out the public outcry. Mr. Omokri knows his people. We have since moved on with our lives to other issues. Knowing all of these, why has SLS not moved against such a fraudulent, devious, and vindictive character who was doctoring documents to link him to mass murder? Is there any difference between trying to assassinate you and trying to link you to terrorism and mass murder? Why would a victim of such unspeakable wickedness not lift a finger against somebody who wished him dead? Besides, does it not stand to reason that anybody who successfully sues any of the fraudulent characters in Aso Rock and hurls the ass of such an offender to jail would have performed an invaluable service to the Nigerian people by fumigating that festering space of fraud and corruption called the Nigerian presidency?
I want to submit that the reason SLS has not moved against Pastor Wendell Simlin is not dissociable from the reason he met the President’s initial call for his resignation with rudeness and condescension: caliphal hubris. In his heavily pro-Sanusi essay this week, my good friend, Segun Adeniyi, regretted Sanusi’s insubordination and rudeness to the President but was careful to avoid going into where that attitude to the President – and by extension to Reno Omokri – was coming from. Also, many Nigerians wondered – and still do wonder – why and how SLS could have been so openly rude to the President, looking down on him, thumbing his nose at him, and boasting that he cannot be sacked, almost elevating the office of CBN Governor into a parallel and superior Presidency within the same Republic.
Those Nigerians wonder because they may be aware of the immense power of the Caliphate in its present political ramifications, they are much less aware of that abstraction that I am calling caliphal hubris and how they feature within it. They are not aware of it because not very many of them would have read Chapter 20 of the collected essays of Professor Adiele Afigbo entitled, “In the Shadow of the Caliphate: Culture and the Politics of Structure and Administration in Nigeria.” The caliphal self, we must note, is not to be reduced to the geographical space of the old Sokoto caliphate. It radiates beyond it.
Let’s just say that in the caliphal mental map of Nigeria, the time shall never come when any political or other institutions of civic and secular essence shall not be deemed inferior to the caliphal self. The only relationship that can exist between this caliphal self and the rest of Nigeria is that of the horse and its rider. It is even more frustrating that these master-servant sentiments between you and the rest of Nigeria can no longer be expressed openly – it used to be possible to express such sentiments in the past – but can now only be discussed in hushed tones behind high fences in Kaduna, Kano, and Sokoto. Sometimes, long repressed caliphal hubris bursts out in the inconsequential public noisemaking of Professor Ango Abdullahi and Dr. Junaid Mohammed and they begin to give orders to the rest of the country about who they have decided can and cannot rule Nigeria in 2015.
When you are a scion of caliphal hubris, it must have seemed to you like the end of the world that somebody from the backwaters of Otuoke could purport to have fired a scion of the throne of Kano! Not even if he is President! At any rate, in your mental map, the Nigerian Presidency is inferior to the throne that sired you. The idea of being sacked must have seemed to you like a huge joke. This is the origin of all that rudeness, all that insubordination that Segun Adeniyi identifies. However, sympathy for and kindness to SLS would not let Segun go beyond mentioning the insubordination. Having placed a patriotic finger on the heist, the logical thing to have done, as Pastor Tunde Bakare opined in his essay, was resign and lead a principled fight from the outside. What stood in the way was caliphal hubris. And if somebody looked down on the President, it is not too difficult to imagine that a junior aide like Reno Omokri is way too low to be reckoned with, too small a fly to swat. He is not even a needle in a haystack. He does not exist. The novelist, Amadou Kourouma, would say that he is not worth the fart of a hyena.
In a funny, ironic way then, Mr. Omokri is benefitting from caliphal hubris because his fraud and wickedness have been completely ignored on account of it. Yet, Sanusi and his strategists are wrong to pass on this opportunity to make an example of a fraudulent Presidential aide in a competent court of law. If nothing, by assembling evidence against Mr. Omokri with a view to suing and prosecuting him, they’d be sending a clear message to the President that every opportunity to fumigate the pestilential environment he has created around himself Aso Rock shall be seized and exploited to the full by the Nigerian people. That is one more way in which SLS could be of service to Nigeria.

NewsRescue