WOODPECKER BLOG

Gunmen Storm Owerri High Court, Rescue ‘Vampire’, Notorious Kidnapping Kingpin, Others January 28, 2017 By Amby Uneze in Owerri   The unexpected happened, Friday morning at the Owerri high court premises as  gunmen stormed the complex in a commando style, sent people scampering for safety with sounds of sophisticated weapons and rescued a notorious kidnapping kingpin, Henry Chibueze, (alias Vampire) and two others.  In the ensuing melee, about five prison officials who led the suspects to the court received gun shots wounds and were rushed to the hospital. The suspect who was arrested by the Department of Security Services (DSS) in 2015 after about five years of unsuccessful manhunt has been remanded in prison custody since the case was charged to court. According to an eye witness, the gunmen laid siege on the court premises waiting for the arrival of their target and as soon as the vehicle arrived, the suspects alighted and were about to be led to the co

  Cleansing the Augean stables, Nigeria, circa 2016 CE (4) Higher education and a different kind of corruption, a different order of corruptibility A mind is a terrible thing to waste.  Famous United Negro College Fund slogan                                                                                              Compared with Law, Politics and Governance and Religion, the other institutional locations of epic corruption that I have either been exploring or will explore in this series, Higher Education (HE) presents us with a relatively much “cleaner” profile than the perceptible “norms” of corruption in Nigeria. Dear reader, please do not get me wrong, for I am neither saying that corruption is rare in our universities and polytechnics, nor am I arguing that lecturers and professors are more honest than lawyers, judges, politicians and our fraternity of jet-set evangelists of wealth and opulence. Nothing could be further from the truth and I would be the f

UGOCHUKWU EJINKEONYE 2017 10:42 AM PST By Egwuchukwu Hilary Ejikeme   This country as it is presently organised does not hold any future, whatsoever, for our children. Never in the history of mankind has so much been owed so many by so few. Even though we were ignorant of it, the battle-line was drawn, ab initio , between the only two quasi-political parties I could distinguish in Nigeria : The very rich versus the poor masses, the leadership as against the people, the Bourgeoisie lined up against the Proletariat. *President Buhari  Whether as members of the Armed Forces or the business moguls or the politicians, leadership at once becomes a melting pot of sorts. At the very top, there is no tribe, no religion, no profession, and no division. The rest of us: Police, Army, Air Force, Navy, all other Nigerian workers – public/civil servants, artisans, drivers, petty traders and what not, must

Court Orders Forfeiture of Diezani’s $153m to FG January 7, 2017 Former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke Davidson Iriekpen A Federal High Court in Lagos friday ordered the temporary forfeiture of the sum of $153,310,000, which a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, allegedly siphoned from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and stashed in three banks in the country. The presiding judge of the court, Justice Muslim Hassan, made the order in favour of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) which appeared before him with an ex-parte application seeking the temporary forfeiture of the funds. Out of the allegedly stolen $153.3 million, a sum of N23,446,300,000 (after convertion to Naira) was kept in Sterling Bank Plc, an

Give me liberty or give me death! – by Femi Fani-Kayode Written by Femi Fani-Kayode   Opinion Published: 07 January 2017 Give me liberty or give me death! – by Femi Fani-Kayode “For the voiceless, oppressed, cheated, marginalised and afflicted people of Nigeria the bells of freedom are ringing and it is either liberty or death.” For those that are troubled, that are grieving, that are suffering, that are deeply concerned and that are in a state of utter despondency and despair about what is happening in our country today and what the future holds, keep hope alive and hear this loud and clear.  Many years from now history will record that it was not the tyranny and bondage of President Muhammadu Buhari, his minions and his government or the curse and affliction of Boko Haram, the Fulani militias and herdsmen or the almighty Caliphate that the oppressed people of Nigeria were up against. These people are not the enemy.  They are merely the re