Anambra State Government today presented cheques for one million naira each to the six students of Regina Paecis that won the World Technovation Challenge held recently in San Francisco, USA.
nnewi
The remaining girl held captive by the deadly Boko haram has spoken from captivity. L eah who spoke in Hausa pleded wih President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene in her situatttion.
According to an audio obtained by news website The Cable.ng, she spoke in Hausa in a 35 seconds audio. Reproduced below is the transcript of the audio in English:
“I am Leah Sharibu, the girl that was abducted in GGSS Dapchi. I am calling on the government and people of goodwill to intervene to get me out of my current situation,” she said.
“I also plead to the members of the public to help my mother, my father, my younger brother and relatives. Kindly help me out of my predicament. I am begging you to treat me with compassion, I am calling on the government, particularly, the president to pity me and get me out of this serious situation. Thank you.”
ANAMBRA STATE HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY ELECTION: TOBE OSIGWE WITHDRAWS
In the build-up to the race for the seat of the Nnewi North at the Anambra state house of assembly in the forthcoming 2019 elections, a frontline aspirant under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mazi Tobe Osigwe has withdrawn from the race.
Mazi Tobe Osigwe who made this known in a release signed titled ‘WHY I AM NO LONGER INVOLVED’ on his Facebook page, cited several reasons for his decision.
WHY I AM NO LONGER INVOLVED
It is with deepest regret that I announce my withdrawal from the race of contesting the Anambra State House of Assembly election representing my constituency, Nnewi North. This hard decision was taken after factoring some irreversible realities. I know this might come as a shock to so many of my teeming supporters and party faithfuls who believe and look forward to the manifestation of my political ideology : educational revolution. However, it is necessary I take this bold step to ensure future victories.
I would like to state unequivocally that presently, as far as the Fourth Republic exist there is no room for any sane man to remain in the political arena without compromising on eternal principles. Perhaps, a Fifth Republic will pave the way to correct certain grave political errors which have solidified into our political culture. If there is no Fifth Republic for us to start on a clean slate then we are of all men most miserable. But the good news is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, therefore, it becomes wise I save my strength for this new dawn.
Please I will like to use this medium to implore all, especially close friends, associates, family and party loyalists to give me a breather. In the fullness of time I will call or come to your respective houses to explain better why this route is the most reasonable step to chart in achieving a better future.
Finally, I want to thank all true patriots for their understanding as I reassure them that this is not an end but a beginning. This is the beginning of the NEW ERA.
Mazi Tobe Osigwe.
Awka, Anambra State.
Nzuko Ora Responds to Obi Nnewichi, “We Are Not Push Arounds”; Accuses Monarch of Double Speaking
The Nzuko ora Nnewi has responded to the latest outburst by the Obi Nnewichi, Obi George Onyekaba, by discountenancing the stance of the Obi on the ongoing crisis emanating from the zoning agreement of the seat of Nnewi North at the Anambra State House of Assembly.
This response was part of a communique released by the group’s Publicity Secretary, Hon. Onyedikachi Ikedoji after the maiden Nnewi Media Summit held yesterday the 26th of August 2018 at the Kings Palace Hotel Nnewi.
Below is the communique
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NNEWI MAIDEN MEDIA SUMMIT HELD ON 26TH AUGUST 2018 IN KINGS PALACE HOTEL MAIN.
125 delegates were strictly invited and 108 attended, including representative of 51 administrative wards delegates.
Hon. Boniface Obi, the PG Otolo Quarter doubled as the Chairman of the occasion.
The PG Nzuko-Ora Nnewi read his opening remarks which will be published later.
The Publicity Secretary Nzuko-Ora Nnewi, before his keynote address moved before Nnewi delegates that the outcome of the sister First Nnewi Political Summit is only binding on registered members of Nnewi Professionals and it was unanimously approved with only one objection. Majority carried the day. He then itemized the following agenda in his keynote address:
1. The Nnewi Shopping Mall
2. The non-indigene factor in Nnewi
3. Need for Nnewi cemetery
4. Waste management in Nnewi
5. Drainage and Erosion Challenge
The chairman now called for meaningful question and comments on the key points.
Col. Charles Onwujuba briefed us on his package on management of the strained relationship between police and motorcyclist in Nnewi.
Crown Prince Obi Orizu presented the Pillar Nnewi Media award to Bro. Bertrand Onwunzo (Ezi Uzo) and defined it as well deserved.
Ezi Uzo in his brief reply said he didn’t know is such a big function that he would have invited friends and well wishers. He however assured Nnewi of his availability. He gave a cash support.
Different questions and contributions were made on the key points and a communique aimed at addressing the issues will be released.
However, after several decline by the PG to comment on the House of Assembly issues, Ifeneti made a shocking revelation today that amazed the DELEGATES:
1. Following the motion moved by PG Uruagu on June meeting to review the old rotation formular of the House of Assembly, which was unanimously approved. On 2nd September 2017, which was a Saturday morning. I presented the unsigned Executive Motion to Igwe and three Obis in our meeting. I told them we will be signing it this evening.
Igwe was rushing to another meeting and gave his copy to the Prince.
2. Obi George Onyekaba (Obidiugwu) Obi Nnewichi took me outside and read through his copy from start to finish. He said we should go ahead and sign that it’s wonderful and only requires four years patience and Nnewichi will go for eight years. He said he will be traveling to Lagos the next day, but assured me that he will order his PG to sign.
3. 2nd September 2017 all the PGs; Otolo, Uruagu, Umudim and the BoT Chairman were present save PG Nnewichi who was out of town. Others were VP and SG Nzuko-Ora Nnewi including the Publicity Secretary.
After reading through we all agreed and signed the document.
4. On 3rd September 2017, which was first Sunday at about 12noon I received a call from PG Nnewichi that he is trying to reach my Publicity Secretary to get him the documents to sign. I immediately reached out to Publicity Secretary and he rushed to Nnewichi and PG Nnewichi signed. Barely 45minutes to Nzuko-Ora Nnewi meeting.
5. PG Nzuko-Ora Nnewi challenged Obi Nnewichi before the media: NTA, Odenigbo, Blaize FM, National Link Newspaper, Outlook, Pilot, Vintage among others to oath taking. Obi Nnewichi bia ka anyi nuoo inyi ma oburu n’ihe nkwuru aburu eziokwu.
Everybody was calm and amazed and all agitation were put to rest.
NB: I wasn’t given the opportunity to add my own version because I was involved. Before PG Nnewichi signed the document he gave a condition that after Hon. K. Anazodo completes the remaining four years, he will hand over to him in Nnewichi. Do not be surprised anymore why your PG signed the document despite pressure on him not to as the only left signatory to validate the document.
PG Nzuko-Ora Nnewi stated clearly that we are not a push around executives, and caution Obi Nnewichi to stop blackmailing him else he will say more.
Nzuko-Ora Nnewi are done with that document and have faced other aforementioned challenges.
He said, one is at liberty to collect from both sides, but not at liberty to talk from both sides of the mouth.
Nnewi cannot continue to be floor members in the House of Assembly.
Boniface Obi the Chairman amidst calm and surprise about the shocking revelation took us back to deliberate on the itemized topics.
Stay tuned for more release from the fruitful media summit.
Thanks
Ikedoji O.A (M.A) Publicity Secretary Nzuko-Ora Nnewi/Editor-in-Chief Nnewi Rings Newspaper.
Visitors Flood the Ndozi Odinala Igbo Cultural Heritage Centre
BREAKING: AFIA OLU NNEWI TURNS BLOODY AS MASQUERADE STABS MAN TO DEATH
Afia-Olu Nnewi: Nzukora Nnewi Proscribes Masqueraders
The Nnewi town union, Nzukora Nnewi has mandated security agencies in Nnewi metropolis to arrest any individual who is seen carrying whips or weapon or obstructing the road without a masquerade.
In a statement released today, through its publicity secretary, Ike Edoji, the group condemned the activities of individuals perpetrating vicious acts in the community in the name of Afia Olu.
The group in the same statement, condoled with the family of the victim of yesterday’s incident and said that those behind the dastard act will be brought to book.
NZUKO-ORA NNEWI AFIA-OLU EMERGENCY PRESS RELEASE
Our attention has been drawn to the reckless abuse of Afia-Olu Nnewi festival by individuals who are not masquerades or part of its entourage.
Therefore, I have been directed to inform us that effective immediately, if you are caught handling cane; blocking roads, interfering with the movement of motorists or bearing any form of arm in the name of Afia-Olu Nnewi festival, you will be arrested.
All security agencies in Nnewi take note. Arrest those who will not comply with these executive directives and “bring them to book”.
Henceforth, only masquerades are free to use “Anyasi”, for entertainment purposes only.
We regret the loss of our brother from Obiofia Nnewichi yesterday and the security agencies have assured us that perpetrators of the heinous crime will not go unpunished.
AFIA-OLU Nnewi is a festival of joy, not bloodshed. Beware, be warned, don’t fall a victim.
On behalf of Nzuko-Ora Nnewi, I wish us a happy 2018 Afia-Olu Nnewi festival.
Thanks.
Ikedoji O.A (M.A)
Publicity Secretary Nzuko-Ora Nnewi/Editor-in-Chief Nnewi Rings Newspaper.
Political impasse in Nnewi over Constituency Representation
By Reno Omokri
On the 15th of August 1945, the axis nations fighting in the Pacific theatre defeated imperial Japan and two weeks later, Japan formally surrendered to allied forces led by the U.S. General, Douglas McArthur, who formally accepted the signed articles of surrender.
But though the U.S. defeated Japan, they never decimated Japan’s great technological and industrial complex. They were visionary enough to distinguish these from Japan’s military-industrial complex, which they scrapped.
Realizing that Japan was decades ahead of the West in many technologies, the allied powers, led by the US, allowed those industries to remain as a going concern and took the unique step of enacting legislation and policies to enable them to flourish.
What they did in Japan, they also did in Europe. In Europe, the US, acting unilaterally, even went a step further by introducing the Marshall Plan through which America sent financial and other types of aid to help Europe (and especially Germany) recover from the ravages of the Second World War.
The point of the allied and American actions in Japan and Europe is that technological advancement belongs to the human race and should not be allowed to suffer because of a quarrel or war amongst humans.
This lesson was thoroughly established in 642 AD when the Library of Alexandria was burnt to the ground during the Muslim conquest of Egypt.
It has been argued that that act set the world several centuries back in technological advancement and has become something to watch out for during the prosecution of a war.
A war is a quarrel between or amongst people that is settled by means of violence. It is not a quarrel between or amongst technology, so civilized nations have pursued the policy of fighting wars while preserving technology.
Gone should be the days of the scorched earth policy which is why despite the bestiality of the apartheid regime, President Nelson Mandela did not do a Mugabe, but rather left intact White owned farms, industry and universities and only insisted that they be opened to Blacks and other races.
This brings me to Nigeria. I would like to state a fact that will be argued against, but still a fact that even those who would argue against it know to be true.
The Igbo (or Ibo) ethnic nationality of Nigeria are the most technologically advanced Black race on planet earth, bar none!
This is a fact. A fact that was proven to be true for 30 months while they were landlocked in their constantly shrinking enclave known as Biafra.
Cut off from the rest of the world, the ingenuity of the Igbo came to the fore during the civil war as they constructed the Uli airstrip and when that airstrip was bombed, they repaired it in record time and under the most trying circumstances. They would go on to repair Uli not once and not twice.
The Igbos refined petrol from a variety of non fossil fuels, including from but not limited to palm products (from which they also produced diesel) and manufactured surface to air missiles which they also adapted to surface to surface missiles (the Ogbunigwe).
They converted commercial planes to fighter jets and weaponized them. That was no mean feat in 1967.
In fact, when in 2012, the Nigerian Army rolled out the igirigi and promoted it as the first indigenous armoured personnel carrier, they were wrong. I am not a Biafran. I am proudly Nigerian. And beyond that, I am a proud dark-skinned Black African yet I make bold to say that the igirigi is not the first indigenous APC.
In fact, the first indigenous armoured personnel carrier in Black Africa is the Red Devil, built by the Igbos during the Nigerian Civil War.
The Nigerian Civil War ended in January 1970 and the Nigerian Army unveiled the igirigi in July of 2012. If they had converted the Red Devil to their own use, they would probably be talking about a greater feat in the year 2012.
My question is what happened in the intervening 42 years between 1970 and 2012? Why didn’t the Nigerian Army integrate the military industrial complex of Biafra into its Defence Industry Corporation of Nigeria, DICON?
Why did we have to reinvent the wheel at great cost in terms of time and money?
The Nigerian Civil War ended on a note of ‘no victor no vanquished’. That was a watershed moment inspired by the Christlike mind of General Yakubu Gowon. That gesture is to be applauded.
But why did we as a nation not go the whole hog and take advantage of Biafra’s technological advances and integrate her scientists into our Research and Development sector much like the US did with German and Japanese scientists?
That is where we failed as a nation.
I remember growing up as a child and how other Nigerians scoffed at ‘Igbo made’ electronic products. There was hardly anything including electronics, pharmaceuticals, spirits and wines that the Igbos could not counterfeit.
And rather than our leaders see the potential in those products, we all scoffed at them. Igbo made products were a pariah.
Did it ever occur to any of our leaders that if the government had supported these technological advancements, Nigeria could have become an industrialized nation today and Igbo made products would have been exported abroad as made in Nigeria products?
It would surprise many that a number of the greatest technological advancement and products that came out of America after the Second World War was the work of German or Japanese scientists!
In an operation code-named Operation Paperclip, 1500 German scientists, engineers and technicians were airlifted to the United States and given US permanent US residency and citizenship immediately after the defeat of Germany in 1945. The primary aim of Operation Paperclip was to prevent these skilled men and women from falling into Soviet Russian hands.
Hans Erich (Eric) Hollmann who was one of the fathers of radar technology was one of such scientists airlifted to America.
Kurt Lehovec the pioneer of the integrated circuit systems in electrical engineering is another. He was airlifted to America in 1945 where he became a Professor at the University of Southern California and passed on his knowledge to America’s next generation of scientists.
The allies had been having issues with the jet engine and were not able to develop planes like the German Messerschmitt Me 262. But after the defeat of Germany, US forces gave safe passage to Rudi Beichel who went to the US and became an adviser to the US army on liquid propulsion. Other German scientists such as Magnus “Mac” Freiherr von Braun and his brother, Wernher Von Braun helped reverse engineer German jets which led to the development of the US American F-86 Sabres, a plane that helped the US dominate the air during the Korean War.
More importantly, Wernher Von Braun provided much of the know how that helped America build the Apollo spacecraft which allowed America beat Russia as the first nation to get to the moon.
Methamphetamine was invented by Japanese a Japanese chemist, Nagai Nagayoshi and the drug was shared with their German allies and helped their soldiers stay awake and focus. After the war, German scientists helped American scientist synthesize the drug which revolutionized the US health industry.
Why can’t we do the same in Nigeria? Can you imagine what our technological base would have been if we as a nation had a policy of patronizing the so called Igbo made products right from the end of the war till today? What if we had absorbed the the Research and Production Organisation of Biafra (RAP as it was then known) into the Nigerian Army Corps of Engineers?
By now, we may have been manufacturing jets and we would not be dependent on foreign nations for weapons to fight terrorists.
This is why I was so disgusted with the minister of science and technology, Ogbonnaya Onu for aspiring, on Nigeria’s behalf, to produce pencils by 2018!
I mean this man is the first civilian governor of the old Abia state which today encompasses both Abia and Ebonyi states.
Right there, under his own nose, Nigerians of Igbo extraction, without ANY governmental support, are manufacturing electronics and heavy machinery components and Onu is caught up on pencils!
Onu should visit Nnewi if he knows where it is. Right there he would see a city that does not wait for government. Nnewi people are so industrious that after years of waiting endlessly for government to provide basic amenities, they have built their own roads, have their own power stations and their own water works.
Just like Japan, Nnewi has manufacturers of such things like batteries, pistons, automobiles and other products. These Nnewi manufacturers have built schools for the kids of their workers on site, just like in Japan.
You just need to visit Nnewi or Aba to see what is going on in Nigeria. These guys are Nigeria’s most guarded secret because even the federal government is not aware of them.
And the reason why this is so is because these people are Igbos!
It is time for Nigeria to forgive the Igbos for being Igbo and accept them as full partners and equal partners in the Nigerian project and use the entire strength of the Nigerian federal government to provide them the support to fulfill their destiny as the Black African people that are nucleus of the technological advancement of Africa.
Notice I say Africa, not just Nigeria. I don’t say this lightly. All over West and Central Africa, Nigerians of Igbo extraction are the backbone of the commercial and technological sectors.
I can say what I have said above without any accusation of self or group interest promotion because I am not Igbo neither am I married to one. I have said the truth as my conscience sees it because I am committed to advancement of the Black Race because as a proud Black man, I know that no black African tribe is as great as the Black Race when it is united.