Social Housing Scheme: Dangote, Bua, Lafarge Cut Cement Price To N2,600

Africa Housing News With over two thousand hectares of land and titled documents released by 24 States for the Federal Government’s Social Housing programme, Dangote Cement, Bua Cement and Lafarge Cement have agreed to discount their products to N2600 per bag for the projects. The development came was after a review meeting on the Economic Sustainability Plan implementation which was presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, and the three major cement manufacturers in the country. Also, a total of 17 States have also indicated interest to participate in the Solar Power programme, another important element of the ongoing Economic Sustainability Plan, through which the Buhari administration intends to create more jobs while improving access to power and affordable housing for majority of Nigerians. Highlighting the progress so far, the Vice President assured that the Federal Government will ramp up efforts to so more Nigerians have access to electricity and affordable housing. According to the presentation made by the Managing Director of the Rural Electrification Agency (REA), Ahmad Salihijo, the Solar Power Naija team has had engagements with six states who have identified private sector developers and has also selected Akwa Ibom, Ekiti and Kano as pilot states for the state-guaranteed transaction model for the solar power programme. He explained that, “REA is currently tracking transactions worth N55 billion, potentially contributing the first two million connections in Nigeria and providing thousands of jobs. “For instance, the programme is currently tracking four transactions in the commercial bank upstream channel contributing 3,500 jobs and 100,000 connections,” Salihijo said. The MD added that nine participants have submitted applications for over N4 billion of the N20 billion allocated with three companies close to receiving disbursements. According to the MD, “Bleu Camel Energy with a loan amount of N3 billion is targeting to create 600 jobs; Sunking, another investor with a loan amount of N3 billion will create 1,500 jobs; Auxno Solar with N300 million loan amount targets 100 jobs while Emerald Industrial Co. is seeking N3 billion funding to manufacture 100,000 Solar Home Systems and smart meters.” In the same vein, the Managing Director/CEO of the Family Homes Fund Limited (FHFL) – the implementing agency for the Social Housing scheme, Femi Adewole, stated that 17,584 units across 16 locations are now in the pipeline. “We are having a successful push in assembling land to feed the housing construction. So far about 2156.4ha have been assembled ready for development. This has the capacity to accommodate about 65,000 homes,” he said. Adewole further said that under the ESP Social Housing programme, Nigerians would be given at least a 15-year period with a monthly payment at six percent interest rate to pay for each housing unit. While the rates are significantly low, the MD noted that this period can also be extended through refinancing. “This will help to improve access to housing for low-income people in the informal sector who-(otherwise) will not have an opportunity to access a mortgage,” he stated. He further said that in addition to the typical 2, 3, and 4-bedroom housing units, the FHFL was considering a “Students and Young People’s Housing – to address the needs of young people.” An agreement with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), has now been finalized and signed by Family Homes Funds, he disclosed, while drawdown is subject to a guarantee from the Ministry of Finance. It would be recalled that the CBN had committed to a N200 Billion facility with a guarantee by the FG via the Finance Ministry for the Social Housing scheme. Speaking further, the FHFL MD noted the agency has struck partnerships with Dangote Cement for the provision of cement at subsidized rates to construct the ESP homes, adding that “we expect to reach a similar agreement with the other two majors shortly.” He added that the FHFL has signed an MoU with the ESP Solar Power project including 3 suppliers to provide low-cost solar panels to the homes. Adewole stated that the delivery of the units would be through SME Delivery Partners – who are being encouraged to register on the Housing Portal. He said: “So far, about 7,333 SME groups and individuals are registered on the online portal. Up to 2,000 of these will be involved in current projects. “We will be drawing from ongoing experience on our project in Yola where the construction of 3,600 homes are ongoing and a partnership between FHFL and the Ministry of Housing is implementing a large-scale youth employment scheme currently employing 1350 young people. “The young people are manufacturing interlocking tiles, paving, screeding, etc.” For the ESP Social Housing Adewole said “about 228 Manufacturers of Building Components have expressed interest in supplying inputs including doors, glazing, paint, roofing sheet, etc. We are now engaging with these to secure bulk supply of key materials which in turn will provide opportunity to grow their production capacity.” Already sites for early start projects have been identified in all the 6 geo-political zones in addition to the FCT. The sites include those in Ekiti and Ogun in the Southwest, Enugu, and Abia in the Southeast, Delta, and Edo in the South-south, Yobe, and Bauchi in the Northeast, Kaduna, and Katsina in the Northwest and Nasarawa and Plateau in the North-central. Sites have also been identified in Abuja, including at Dei Dei where the VP earlier visited to see the sample designs of the Social Housing homes. Speaking specifically on the mass housing scheme, Osinbajo emphasized that the focus must be on providing affordable housing for the masses. According to him, “if the Federal Government is going to intervene in housing, most of it should be social housing. Everybody else, including the private sector, can build N9.6 million worth houses, but nobody else will do social housing. “All over the world, when government intervenes, it is social housing. Those who cannot afford housing are the ones we must focus attention on. “I think that we have enough problems with finding homes for the vast majority of Nigerians who cannot find a home. The people who are poorest who have no houses are the people we should target because that is what government should do. Let’s focus on this social housing.” The Vice President added that the Federal Government will continue to collaborate with States to ensure more Nigerians benefit from the Social Housing scheme. Under the Social Housing Programme, the Federal Government plans to support 1.5 million Nigerians to acquire low-cost houses through mortgage options and also Rent to Own option. The scheme is expected to also generate 1.8 million jobs and deliver houses to about 1.5 million Nigerian families. The houses are to be priced around and about N2m and N4m each putting it within the reach of the low-income earners, depending on the number of rooms. There are one, two- and three-bedrooms options. Source : Inside Business

Fear grips 12 Edo Assembly members-elect as INEC okays bye-election for Kaduna absentee lawmaker. Felix Khanoba

The decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct bye-election for Sabon-Gari Constituency in the Kaduna State of Assembly has sparked fears in members-elect of Edo Assembly. INEC had in a statement on Friday said it will conduct the bye-election for the Kaduna Constituency on 19 June 2021, as a result of the absence of the lawmaker representing the area from legislative activities. “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has received a communication from the Kaduna State House of Assembly which declared the seat of the Member representing Sabon Gari State Constituency, Hon. Aminu Abdullahi Shagali, vacant. “According to the State Assembly, the vacancy occurred as a result of the Hon Member’s absence without just cause from one-third of the meetings of the Assembly for one year in contravention of Section 109 (1)[f] and (2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended),” the statement issued by INEC spokesman Festus Okoye, said. READ ALSO :Voter registration : INEC speaks on NIN A source told PlatinumPost that the move by INEC to conduct bye-election for the Kaduna seat would be replicated in Edo to replace the about 14 seats that have been vacant for almost two years. The source, who craved anonymity said the electoral commission has put mechanism in place to address the various legal issues before announcing the date for the Edo Assembly’s bye-election. PlatinumPost reports that the seats of 12 members-elect of the Edo State House of Assembly were declared vacant by the leadership of the Parliament in December 2019 following their refusal to be inaugurated. The affected lawmakers-elect, all members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and strong loyalists of former Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, had challenged the mode the Assembly was inaugurated at night, calling on the governor to issue a fresh proclamation letter. The move by the members-elect not to show up for inauguration after several invitations, prompted the then Speaker of the House, Frank Okiye, to declare the seats vacant. The seats declared vacant also included those of two others who did not meet the mandatory sitting requirement to continue as members of the House. The affected 12 members-elect are Vincent Uwadiae- Ovia North-East 2; Ugiagbe Dumez -Ovia North-East 1; Washington Osifo-Uhunmwode; Victor Edoror-Esan Central; Kingsley Ugabi- Etsako East; and Michael Ohio-Ezomo Owan West. Others are Sunday Aghedo-Ovia South-West; Chris Okaeben-Oredo West; Crosby Eribo-Egor: Aliyu Oshiomhole-Etsako West 2; Oshomah Ahmed -Etsako Central and Ganiyu Audu-Etsako West 1. The Assembly after declaring the seats vacant called on INEC to conduct bye-elections for the affected constituencies within 90 days, but INEC had ignored the call, saying its decision was based on court cases instituted by the affected lawmakers-elect.

Aregbesola: Nigerians in diaspora with expired passports can renew at airports.

Rauf Aregbesola, minister of interior, says Nigerians in diaspora with expired passports can travel back home “without fear of harassment”. The minister gave the assurance at a webinar organised by Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) on Saturday. He said the establishment of front offices have been approved at Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Port Harcourt airports to help Nigerians “who arrive the country on expired passports to have their passports renewed immediately”. “It is in this regard that the NIS recently granted a waiver for Nigerians with expired passports desirous of coming to Nigeria to do so without fear of harassment by airlines,” the minister said. MAY 31 DEADLINE TO CLEAR BACKLOG Aregbesola also said he has given a May 31 deadline to clear all backlogs of passport applications. The minister said the delay in passport issuance experienced by Nigerians is one of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. He said the federal government has reached an “advanced stage” of domesticating the production of passport booklets to avert a future recurrence. He said: “The Nigerian Immigration Service in recent time has been facing challenges in passport issuing, particularly because of a shortage of booklet, both locally and abroad. The ministry and NIS have been frantically working to resolve this. “I gave a May 31st deadline to clear all backlogs of passport application. To ensure a permanent solution to the recurrent scarcity of booklet, the federal government is at an advanced stage of domesticating the production of passport booklets here in Nigeria. “So, with what we are commencing on June 1st, I am confident that we shall no longer experience any shortage of booklets and the issuance and renewal of passports will be seamless starting from the 1st of June. “To ensure efficient and effective service delivery to Nigerians, we have recently reviewed the passport issuing process with a view to streamlining the process for better performance while also eliminating the activities of touts. “All passport applications and issuance are to be made online. Effective June 1, all passport application and issuance will take a period of six weeks to enable the NIS to carry out due diligence on all applicants.” The minister added that the NIS recently approved the revalidation of all payments for passports made by Nigerians sequel to the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. “This is to enable the service conclude action on all pending passport applications,” he said. TheCable

Supreme Court Okays INEC’s Deregistration Of 74 Political Parties. By Sunday Ejike

THE Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the judgment of the Court of Appeal which upheld the deregistration of 74 political parties by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The commission had last year deregistered the parties over failures to win any election during the 2019 general elections.  In the judgment prepared by Justice Chima Nweze, the apex court said the deregistration of the National Unity Party (NUP) and the 73 others was done in line with the law and compliance with the extant provisions of the constitution and the Electoral Act.  The NUP had challenged its and the others’ deregistration by INEC at the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal. The Abuja division of the Appeal Court had on July 29, 2020 affirmed INEC’s powers to deregister political parties. Delivering the lead judgment of a panel of the court, Justice Adamu Jairo held that INEC did not err in law in deregistering the NUP which filed the appeal.  The court then faulted the judgment of Justice Taiwo Taiwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja which had earlier in May cancelled the deregistration of the NUP and the 73 other political parties for being in breach of Section 225(a) of the constitution.  The constitutional provision spells out the minimum election victory a party must record or percentage of votes it must score to sustain its status as a registered political party.  INEC, in deregistering the affected 74 political parties in February, stated that they failed to meet the minimum requirement.  After Justice Taiwo’s judgment on the NUP in May, other judges of the Federal High Court in Abuja had also upheld the deregistration of almost 40 other affected parties. tribuneonlineng.com/

Our Olympus Is Falling: Who Can Rouse the General? By Ugoji Egbujo

The presidency is in a dithering mode. Premium Times Today all our chickens are coming home to roost. We have been on the brink many times. Siddon-look looks dangerous. Many rural communities in the North are now desolate. The South-East is slipping. Fatwas are flying around. Anambra governorship election, due in a few months, is in clear jeopardy. Our last hopes are crumbling. Who can rouse the president? Buhari’s aura has dimmed. Our lion looks castrated. Once tall, rigid and fearless. He is now slow and timid. The lion we had run to for protection now watches wild goats eat palm fronds on our head. Even with the fangs of the presidency, our bold lion now lets hyenas feast on our cubs. When he roars, we hear a whimper, the one who chased the wild dogs of Maitatsine into oblivion. Why does he watch our slow dismemberment? Our lion looks castrated. If the gods are not to blame, how did our lion become a lame squirrel? He had sworn he wouldn’t let corruption kill us. Let us say corruption is a ghost. But how can’t a General trained to protect by killing our enemies, watch bandits and terrorists desecrate our sacred educational temples, slaughter the young and the old? The devil has gone footloose. We pampered the bandits in Zamfara and Katsina and incentivised organised crime. We let Sheikh Gumi trivialise terrorism and sow seeds of discord in the military. He even suggested the bandits were only asking for a piece of their denied national pie in ransoms. But had our lion not become drowsy and allowed cockroaches to grow teeth, who would have bothered with the apparent drunkenness of Gumi. After waiting in vain for a military onslaught to scorch the scourge, governors started cuddling terrorists. Schools in the north, out of caution, complied with the philosophy of Boko Haram and shut down. We should hide our faces in shame. The ransoms we paid have instigated a bloom of evil. More groups have joined the gold rush. Who would have believed it? But if we didn’t pay ransoms, how would we have collected 300 corpses of young school children of Kankara? We had thought a General would contain all such nuisance. We didn’t know a General could give written warnings to terrorists, let alone issue twenty such sissy notices in a single week. We are now surfeited with bafflement. They have beat their drums of war and taken the sleep of women and children but our lion can’t be startled. Direct death threats have been issued to governors and traditional rulers, and nothing happened. Oh, sorry, somebody jumped out of the presidency to remind a bemused public that those crimes are not federal crimes. You need not laugh. Perhaps that’s why the federal Attorney General is aloof. The chief law officer of a nation sliding into anarchy. In Niger State, a certain community has taxed members and paid bandits for a slice of peace. Nobody knows when their payment would expire and if the bandits in Niger would seek to renew the agreement, and at what fee? Niger, perhaps, has the fastest-growing terrorism industry in the world. Somewhere in Borno, some people had tried a brigade of prayer warriors. Now our politicians are openly begging for foreign mercenaries. My grandmother used to describe certain absurdities as humorous evil. Under the watch of the great lion, a bunch of armed robbers, you can call them unknown gunmen, sourced and found the audacity to visit a governor’s home at 9 a.m. on a Saturday. They killed police officers and burnt the house. When President Obasanjo allowed one funny chap in Anambra to kidnap a sitting governor, we said we had reached the depth. But perhaps, just perhaps, we could soon have a situation where a sitting president could be negotiating with some unknown gunmen to release a sitting governor kidnapped from a government house. These things would have made a blatantly preposterous Nollywood script six months ago. The presidency is in a dithering mode. The picture is of a scarecrow filled with air, fluttering in the wind, bobbing its head and watching some wild birds, accustomed to its impotence, defy its flailing hands, and devour precious crops. Direct death threats have been issued to governors and traditional rulers, and nothing happened. Oh, sorry, somebody jumped out of the presidency to remind a bemused public that those crimes are not federal crimes. You need not laugh. Perhaps that’s why the federal Attorney General is aloof. The chief law officer of a nation sliding into anarchy. The Foreign Affairs Minister is too urbane, too suave, to attend to threats against the country coming from foreign lands. So, who would blame state governors who have become chickens? The rumours that some state governments have begun paying protection monies to organised crime groups masquerading as freedom fighters might, after all, not be unthinkable. If the government thinks the chaos is the handiwork of its political opponents, it has not fought like a schoolchild from whom a cookie is being snatched. By the standards of African cabals and kitchen cabinets, this Buhari cabal must be the most spineless. Even for self-interested reasons, why can’t they bring in muscular effort to protect their government against worms and pests? “Shoot on sight everybody found with assault weapons.” That was the president’s last whimper. Since then, an entire State police command and prisons have been sacked and burnt by hoodlums. A governor’s house burnt. But all he has done is to issue warning to criminals not to mess around with him. Is he now desperate to be seen as a born-again democrat? Our fate is bleak. Schools are shut in the North. Police stations are sitting chicks for hawks in the East. And now some university students in Okigwe have been abducted. At first sight of violence, we didn’t put our foot down. Perhaps we had left it to our lion. He deterred and deterred and whined about the cattle right of way. Who would have thought that we would see a respected legal luminary, who bears no animosity towards the president, come on national TV and advise the president to hand over to a military regime stylishly? And he said it with all the patriotism an 83-year-old man could conjure. Nearly a week after he made the strange plea, nearly a week after a National Security Council resumed a frantic meeting, nothing, no practical reassuring changes have been effected. The aura of the lion is what keeps his adversaries away. That aura is built by his conquests, muscularity, roars, mien and alertness. That aura deters the forest and saves him a thousand fights. The glory of our lion is fading. Not because he has tried to bite and failed to tear and crush. But because he has picked his teeth and watched goats eat palm fronds on our heads. So even scrawny hyenas are gathering and nibbling at him, on the tail. His time is running out. Our last hopes are crumbling. His legacy is in peril. We are in shambles. We know the goats eating palm fronds on our heads will grow canines. When the palm fronds are finished, they might chew our heads and tear us apart. Yet we hope. Because what would it take the lion to whom the gods had given all our fangs to use and pounce. Schools are shut in the North. Police stations are sitting chicks for hawks in the East. And now some university students in Okigwe have been abducted. At first sight of violence, we didn’t put our foot down. Perhaps we had left it to our lion. He deterred and deterred and whined about the cattle right of way. He didn’t fume against people marching through the forests with AK 47s, massacring whole villages in reprisals for cattle. We legitimised militias when we made ordinary citizens feel helpless and hopeless. Today all our chickens are coming home to roost. We have been on the brink many times. Siddon-look looks dangerous. Many rural communities in the North are now desolate. The South-East is slipping. Fatwas are flying around. Anambra governorship election, due in a few months, is in clear jeopardy. Our last hopes are crumbling. Who can rouse the president? Ugoji Egbujo is a member of the Board of Trustees of Centre for Fiscal Transparency and Integrity Watch. Premium Times

Nigeria is sleepwalking into war. Punch Editorial Board

6 May 2021 SLOWLY but steadily, Nigeria is sliding into war. Shortly after bandits slaughtered three of the kidnapped 23 undergraduates of Greenfield University, Kaduna, Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, captured the moment explicitly in a statement entitled, ‘Endless Martyrdom of Youth.’ He said, “This nation is at war, yet we continue to pretend that these are mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity.” Seriously, Nigeria is on the brink of catastrophe because of the bloody violence that has ensnared it on the watch of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). Soyinka’s perspective on the current “cowardly savagery” coincides with other notable voices, all calling on Buhari to seek help, review the impotent security system or return Nigeria to true federalism. But there is a sense of doom with Buhari in charge. The President has not shown the willpower to steer Nigeria out of violence. State failure is playing out extensively. Before the ink dried on Soyinka’s warning, the bandits, who demanded a ransom of N800 million, had killed two more of the Greenfield students. Their audacious threat to massacre the remaining 17 students in their custody is foreboding. Plainly, Buhari has lost control of non-state actors; Nigeria is at war in many theatres. The human and economic costs of this anarchy are simply unsustainable. In the North-East, Islamic terrorists have regained the upper hand over the military. Boko Haram, which has killed more than 100,000 persons and displaced millions, is better armed than the military. Insurgents are recapturing territories, with Geidam, Yobe State, and southern Borno State their latest prizes. Hitherto relatively safe, bandits have seized control of the North-West. Mass abduction at schools and random killings are their signature atrocities. Apart from the deadly mission to Greenfield, bandits abducted scores of students at the Forestry College in Kaduna. In the Sahel region, writes Larisa Brown, The Times (London) Defence Editor, jihadist insurgent groups are also becoming “blurred” with bandits who steal cattle and money from local people, making it extremely difficult to distinguish who is working for whom. The Kaduna State Government said 393 persons lost their lives in the first three months of 2021; 926 were kidnapped. Despite the presence of the military in internal security operations in 34 states, 741 Nigerians were killed and over 1,000 kidnapped in the first 96 days in office of the new Service Chiefs. That excludes the deaths and destruction of property from communal strife. This is nothing but a descent into war. In Israel, where 44 people died in the annual Lag B’Omer religious festival stampede last weekend, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promptly visited the site and declared a national day of mourning. The North-Central is bleeding blood again. Eleven soldiers were butchered early in April in Benue State. Between late April and early May, bandits and Fulani herdsmen slaughtered 70 people in an IDP camp in Makurdi. Before this died down, 19 others were massacred on Monday in the Gwer LGA of the state. The bloody frenzy has spread to Nasarawa, Plateau, Taraba and Kogi states. Its more deadly version occurs in Niger State, where Boko Haram has hoisted its flag in 50 villages in two LGAs. Various international reports categorise Nigeria among the world’s three most terrorised countries. Those making inciting statements plotting to destroy Nigeria – DSS The South-East is at the point of anarchy. Police, soldiers, and government institutions have been attacked since March. Attacks on the Imo State Police Command HQs, the prisons, military checkpoints, and police stations in Abia, Ebonyi and Enugu states depict the weakness of the Nigerian state in arresting the slide into internecine war. In Anambra State, there is hardly a day that goes by without loss of lives from cult-related clashes, especially in Awka. The Imo State governor, Hope Uzodimma, lost his country home in Oru to invaders. Offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission are under serial attacks in the South-South and South-East. Lives are being wasted in Rivers State. Beyond empty rhetoric, the security agencies rush to blame the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra as the mastermind. Insecurity is ravaging Ogun, Oyo, Ekiti, Ondo, and Osun in the South-West. A duo was abducted in Ofada, Ogun State, last weekend. A group of ranch owners was abducted in Ibarapa, Oyo State, where Fulani herders are rampaging freely. ‘Freedom fighters’ and self-determination groups are emerging from the chaos. The United States Embassy has just issued an advisory, warning American citizens to be careful of traffic robbers in Lagos. Kidnappers are moving to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the adjoining areas without any serious pushback from security agencies. With an uncontrolled influx of commercial motorcycle riders, it is a matter of time before criminals seize control of the megapolis. All over, the threat level is higher than what triggered the Civil War in 1967. Several factors are to blame, some of them self-inflicted. The Buhari regime is mistrusted by the other regional groupings because of its divisive, clannish appointments into the security apparatus. The police are short-handed, their plight aggravated by the deployment of a third of the force in illegal VIP duties. Any President serious about security will clamp down on this anomaly and initiate a decentralised police system. The military is poorly armed, under-motivated and lacks inspiring leadership in a time of war. Unnecessarily obdurate, the Buhari regime endangers the corporate existence of Nigeria by rejecting the agitations for a just restructuring of the political system. Today, the country faces a break or save dilemma. As society breaks down, the breakup of the state is a foreboding reality. It will be dangerous to allow Nigeria to slide into a war it can ill afford. The readiness of the state governors to maintain law and order without fear or favour will help stanch the slide to chaos. As an immediate step to counter this trend, the President should declare a state of emergency on security, initiate security reforms and take necessary measures towards running an inclusive government. Eventually, fashioning a constitution that truly reflects the plurality of Nigerian society remains the only viable option to prevent the country from falling apart. Copyright PUNCH.

Hadiza Bala Usman..The Descent And Sad End Of A 'Painted Devil'. As President Buhari Approves Panel To Probe Her - By Pius Ogundimu

It is the eyes of a child that fears a painted devil, so goes a popular saw, but when the painted devil is a ravishing female sitting atop Nigerian Ports Authority, she becomes an enigma of sort. If by virtue of her sass and unrivalled wiles, she wins the heart of Mr Minister, she succeeds getting him to wag his tail in utter submission to her craziest whim. If she is devious enough, she exploits her position to amass great fortune for herself, often at the nation’s expense. With unparalleled dexterity and finesse, she wields power like a utility weapon; sometimes like a hideous cloak, often like a deadly dagger. She adds inordinate vile to her already chilling nature and thus becomes terror to the most valiant of men. She is Hadiza Bala Usman, the former NPA head honcho, and she could ruin a man with an imperceptible smile. Yes, Hadiza is as scary as that. And men and women who had been on the receiving end of her Machiavellian and ruthless plots have only gory stories to share. The several victims of Hadiza are however, ecstatic over her suspension. That puts paid to her reign of terror; prior to her dire straits, Hadiza had mindlessly bullied and treated with disdain anyone who dared cross her path. However, not all of Hadiza’s victims can confidently say that they have survived her cutthroat plots against them There is no gainsaying Usman is manically haughty and high-handed. Many of her staff claim that she is a control freak who brooks no confrontation from anyone no matter how highly placed the fellow is; once you cross her path or incite her wrath, you are get in serious trouble and she always supported by the power that be. Interestingly, like a dull actress that persistently forgets her part, Hadiza has exhausted her bounds of grace. As you read, reality bites her in vicious mouthfuls, the time for humouring her haughty bulk is unarguably over. Now, she understands the actual difference between being everybody’s darling and a social pariah of sort. Hadiza will finally understand and come to terms with the cold, bitter truth, that, it’s not actually her person that commanded the power she enjoyed but her office. However, to Hadiza, love was the thorn that pricked her strides in the valley of marriage. She hurt and bled from sting. Since her celebrated marriage to Taminu Yakubu, the former chief economic adviser to late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, crashed, she has put her heart under lock and key.