Jean-Marie Le Pen charged over apparent anti-Semitic pun…Read full details

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Marine Le Pen, head of the French far-right party Front National (FN) and candidate for the presidential elections, arrives to visit the police station of Juvisy-sur-Orge on February 7, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / ALAIN JOCARD

The founder of France’s far-right National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, has been charged with inciting hatred for alleged anti-Semitic remarks in 2014, his lawyer said Saturday.

Frederic Joachim said the remarks by his client had been misinterpreted and his comments cut short.

The situation goes back to June 2014 when Le Pen in a video clip posted on the FN website railed against a number of critics including pop star Madonna and Yannick Noah, the French singer and former tennis champion.

When asked about another critic — French singer Patrick Bruel, who is Jewish — Le Pen said then that he would be part of “a batch we will get next time,” using the word “fournee” for “batch”, evoking the word “four”, which means “oven”.

SOS Racisme called it “the most anti-Semitic filth”, a pledge by the FN founder to put his critics in their place using a pun suggesting Nazi gas chambers.

The remarks were also denounced by the FN and his daughter, Marine Le Pen, who took over the party leadership and is now the FN presidential candidate in this year’s election.

“The word ‘fournee’ that I used has no anti-Semitic connotation, except for political enemies or imbeciles,” Jean-Marie Le Pen responded.

The now 88-year-old former paratrooper, who has had multiple convictions for inciting racial hatred and denying crimes against humanity, once described Nazi gas chambers as a “detail” of history.

The European Parliament, of which the elder Le Pen is a member, in late October lifted his parliamentary immunity in the case.

In 2015 Le Pen was booted out of the party he founded for his views on the Nazi gas chambers and for defending France’s collaborationist wartime Vichy regime.

Last November a French court upheld the FN’s decision to strip him of his membership but in a small victory for the elder Le Pen it ruled he should be allowed to remain as the party’s honorary president.

Vía Uzomedia http://ift.tt/2kjkthm

In Pictures: See the new buses that will replace yellow-danfo in Lagos (see photos)

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The Governor of Lagos state, Akinwunmi Ambode, on Monday said there were plans to remove yellow buses, popularly known as danfo, from Lagos roads.

Ambode explained that danfo would give way to a more efficient, well-structured and world-class mass transport system that would facilitate ease of movement within the city.

See the buses below.

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MOSOP decries prolonged delay of Ogoni cleanup (Read full details)

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Ogoni

Eight months after its ceremonial kick-off by Federal Government, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) says it is gravely disturbed by the slow pace of the implementation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report.

Spokesperson to MOSOP president, Bari-ara Kpalap, told The Guardian at the weekend in Port Harcourt that Ogoni people were no more comfortable with the delay, as environmental pollution was deepening.

His words: “Government should expedite action on the implementation because environmental pollution in the area is not abating but deepening. The more it remains, the more we continue to die. If you do not hasten the process and actually implement the cleanup, it means that by the time you will start, probably we must have all been dead. And that is why we are insisting that this thing should start.

“Our people are beginning to get very worried about the delay. We are becoming more concerned about this whole process.”Kpalap noted that the initial delay was blamed on the non-appointment of the project coordinator, an exercise that was effected last December, adding that the process of appointing the other departmental heads should not take eternity.

According to him, further delay by the project coordinator to design a programme for the consideration of the governing council would worsen the environmental condition of the oil-rich settlement.

MOSOP said although the government had given assurance that a number of things would commence in the first quarter of this year, it, however, noted that not much had happened in terms of the commencement of the exercise.

Admitting that institutional structures and frameworks needed to be in place for a seamless implementation regime, the spokesman nonetheless frowned on the snail speed pace.

He added: “However, we need to put everything in place so that we do not make any mistakes. But we are very concerned about the prolonged delay in the actual commencement of the cleanup.”

Kpalap revealed that MOSOP had intensified campaign against artisanal refining commonly practised in most of the oil-producing communities of the Niger Delta.

Kpalap further said: “We have been going from community to community to sensitise the people on the dangers of artisanal refining and we think that the people are keying in. The phenomenon is a whole Niger Delta issue. It is something that is happening in every place and it is not Ogoni-specific.”

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Ibori arrives, treated to heroic welcome in Delta

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Allegedly Met With DSS

Former governor of Delta State, James Ibori, yesterday arrived the country aboard the British Airways, after serving his jail terms in the United Kingdom over charges bordering on corruption and money laundering.

Agency reports quoting an official of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, said British Airways plane conveying Ibori touched down in the airport early in the morning.

According to the reports, the former governor was picked up by some people to an undisclosed place. The identity of those who received him was not disclosed, but it was rumoured that he was briefly taken to the office of the Department of State Security Service for debriefing, before being allowed to leave for his home state.

At his home state, Delta, it was celebration, as his loyalists and notable personalities trooped to Osubi Airstrip, Warri to welcome home their hero.
They had massed at the airstrip as early as 9am, singing and dancing to give him a befitting heroic welcome.

Some of the personalities at the airstrip were former commissioners who served under Ibori, party leaders from various local councils and several hundreds of youths who happily branded themselves “Ibori Boys”.

At about 10 am, news filtered in that Ibori was already airborne and on his way to Warri. Every plane that landed was thought to be conveying the former governor; many loyalists were restrained by the airstrip personnel from running towards landing planes.

At about 2:27 pm after many people had waited for over six hours, the news filtered in again that Ibori’s flight had been diverted to Benin. A sudden feeling of disappointment immediately enveloped the airstrip. People lamented that they had been made to spend a lot of time at the strip, only to be told that Ibori would arrive through the Benin Airport.

As they made to leave, a commotion ensued when another plane landed and words quickly spread that it was Ibori’s flight that landed. Cars and jeeps started making a U-turn only to discover that it was a hoax and that indeed Ibori would land at the Benin Airport.

At Benin airport, he was shielded from the prying eyes of journalists who had besieged the airport as early as 9am, when news of his arrival filtered into the state.

At exactly 2.20pm, a private jet with black and red stripes marked 5N-IZY landed and Ibori and few persons believed to be family members alighted amidst tight security of highly kitted, stern looking and heavily armed mobile policemen and plain cloth operatives.

Indication that an eminent personality was being expected started when two unmarked Toyota Land Cruiser jeeps, an orange colour Murano jeep drove to the parking lot at the VIP wing of the airport, the occupants briefed other persons believed to be members of the entourage.

Few minutes later, an additional four other unmarked black Toyota jeeps and three Hilux vans, all loaded with security personnel drove into the airport complex.

Some persons believed to be aides, dressed in black jacket were the first to alight from the jet, then Ibori himself, who wore a black top on a black jeans came down and was accompanied into the VIP waiting room.

He was shielded into one of the stationed jeeps.The battle ready security men whose hands were on the triggers were apparently drafted to keep the few journalists around from getting close and taking photographs of the private jet and Chief Ibori.

Many of the airport staff and security were not aware of the arrival of Ibor. The convoy drove off at about 2:47pm on at speed with Chief Ibori’s vehicle leading the way.

It was learnt that the Benin airport was used as a decoy to divert attention of the mammoth crowd of family members, political associates, friends and well-wishers, who converged at the Osubi airport to receive him.

Meanwhile, his media aide, Tony Eluemunor, said the former Governor arrived his village Oghara at about 4:40pm local time to a well-planned welcome ceremony put together by his kinsmen.

Ibori was released from British prison in December after serving half of his 13-year sentence, taking into account pre-trial detention. Born on Aug. 4, 1959, Ibori was the governor of Delta from May 29, 1999 to May 29, 2007 on the platform of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP)

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2l5Zd3E

Excuses don’t get things done: Be stronger than your excuses

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“If you wait for perfect conditions, you will never get anything done”- Ecclesiastes 11:4

“Where there’s a will there’s a way”
– English proverb

It is victim’s mentality to hold others responsible for the situation in your own life. Niccolò Machiavelli once said, “Where the willingness is great, the difficulties can never be great”. In life, when you refuse to make excuses, you make something incredible happen in your life. People that will make maximum impact in life make minimum excuses. They understand that excuses don’t get things done. There is no use for a life full of excuses. Benjamin Franklin said ‘’I never knew a man who was good at making excuses who was good at anything else.’’ There are two things to make in life; it is either you are making excuses or you are making progress. In life, it is impossible to give excuses and still have results. Excuse empowers; it empowers our inadequacy. It empowers us to fail!

“An excuse is worse than a lie, for an excuse is a lie, guarded”-Alexander Pope
A victim mind-set causes people to focus more on what they cannot control to the detriment of what they can control. It is a recipe for recurring frustration and failure. Nobody must be the reason why you fail in life. Stop attaching your frustration and failures to the Nigerian system; rise beyond your excuses, rise beyond your background; determine the one thing you were created to be and be willing to pay the price to be it. Don’t use your situation to excuse yourself out of your rightful position in life and eternity. It is easy to discern victims; they are full of excuses, they keep focusing on problems rather than solutions, they are fault-finders rather than path finders. If life is so important to you, you will find a way, if not, you will find an excuse.

Learn to take responsibility and ownership of your future. The best way to predict the future is to design it. Don’t attach your life to the government. Don’t attach your life to your salary or pension. Yes, you need government to provide some things but government can’t provide you vision, purpose and direction for your life. Albert Einstein said, “If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” The Nigerian nation seems to be full of people passionate about justifying their situations and circumstances rather than finding real solutions to problems. A victim’s mentality is an illness of the mind, its antidote in one dose: take responsibility for your life and stop excusing your inadequacy.

‘’Excuses are well planned lies.’’ –Dani Johnson
One of the most prevalent habits among the youths is their penchant for excuses. Some make excuses as if their lives depend on it. Until you cultivate the habit of living above your excuses, you will continue to live an inferior life. We really start to live, the moment we develop the strength that is stronger than our excuses. So many people, by rejecting and excusing themselves out of taking responsibilities, have actually eliminated themselves out of any opportunity to grow. It is easier to go from failure to success than it is from excuses to success.

So many people have risen beyond their ‘shabby’ backgrounds to become people of substance and great impact. Charles Dickens was lame, Helen Keller was the first deaf-blind person to earn a bachelor of Arts degree, Plato was a hunchback, Sir Walter Scott was paralyzed, Albert Einstein could not speak until he was four years of age, Franklin Roosevelt was crippled by polio and became the first president to be wheeled into the white-house on a wheel chair!

“Quit the excuses to live a life that you want”-Anonymous
I will be sharing with us a story that illustrates the need to take full ownership of our lives regardless of life’s verdict. A young chap went to a soothsayer to inquire about the hope of his future. Right before his eyes, the soothsayer drew two circles; one in white and the other in black. He then put a millipede in between the circles, saying, “if the millipede crawls into the white circle, your future will be bright and very great, but if it crawls into the black circle, then you are finished and doomed! No future at all!”

As soon as the insect was dropped in between the circles, it began crawling towards the white circle. This chap was super-excited. But suddenly, as it got to the edge of the circle, it turned back and began crawling away from the white circle towards the black one. The boy watched as the insect progressively moved farther away from his desire to his doom. Then, just when the insect got to the edge of the black circle, this chap stretched his hands, picked it up and quickly but carefully dropped it in the white circle.

“You can have results or excuses. Not both”-Anonymous
The soothsayer in shock, never seen anyone intervened in his own matter, watching all the while, asked the chap what he did and why he did it. The boy smiled and simply replied by saying, “I cannot sit and watch my destiny go down the gloom doom while I can still do something about it and to change its course. My destiny is in my hands”. He got up and left. Many of us are behaving like the flip side of this chap. We leave too many things to chance. We are laid-back. We watch things being messed up right under our nose and we do nothing to change the course of what we can help. Many pray without a corresponding and conscious effort, forgetting that faith without works is dead. What you don’t want, you don’t watch; if you do nothing, nothing will happen.

“When I lost all my excuses, I found my results”-Anonymous
In the candid charge given by the honourable Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, at the 2017 University of Lagos Convocation lecture: “Building a Succession- Generation: Reflections on Values and Knowledge in Nation Building,” Dr. Fayemi urged Nigerian youths to “quit whining” and that nobody owes them anything. Fayemi who went down memory lane told the graduating students of his Alma Mater that, as a UNILAG graduate and a post-graduate student in the United Kingdom, for him to survive, he drove taxis and worked as a security guard, among several other menial jobs. He said,
“the last lesson I want to talk about is the debilitating entitlement mentality that is commonplace among young people today. The earlier we realise that no one owes us anything, the better for us, and the more prepared we would be to face life’s challenges.”

”He who excuses himself, accuses himself”-Gabriel Meurier
Mark Rebel said: “Success occurs when your dreams get bigger than your excuses.” If you are an entrepreneur, realise that people don’t pay for excuses; people pay for services. You can make excuses or you can make progress, the choice is yours. Once you realise that you are the only one holding yourself back, you’ll stop making excuses and you will start making changes. Nobody owes you anything; you will have to earn it. There are no failures in life, only excuses. My fellow Nigerians, let’s ask not what the country can do for us, let’s ask what we can do for our country!

Vía The Guardian Nigeria http://ift.tt/2jJl54J

National Assembly invites Fashola over change in leadership of TCN