Another bomb blast kills 11 in Maiduguri as Nigerian commander heads coalition forces against Boko Haram Read more at: http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/181416/1/another-bomb-blast-kills-11-in-maiduguri-as-nigeri.html

An explosion that thundered across the city killed at least 11 people in the city of Maiduguri on Wednesday as a Nigerian general took command of a multinational force fighting the extremist group Boko Haram.

Panicked soldiers fired into the air, witnesses said, adding to the fear and confusion during the rush hour attack on Baga Road. The blast was followed by a blinding sandstorm and then the first rains of the year, hampering rescue efforts.

Witness Issa Audu said he counted 11 bodies before he fled.

Maiduguri, the city where Boko Haram was created, has suffered daily attacks that have killed more than 50 people since the weekend. They include suicide bombs, planted bombs and rocket-propelled grenades fired into homes as people slept.

The attacks started after newly inaugurated President Muhammadu Buhari announced on Friday he is moving the command center for the fight against Boko Haram to Maiduguri, at the heart of the war zone against Nigeria’s home-grown Islamic extremists.

Earlier Wednesday, the defence ministry announced that Maj. Gen. Tukur Yusuf Buratai has taken charge of the multinational force fighting Boko Haram. That takes the lead role away from neighbouring Chad.

The Nigerian army “remains a virile fighting force … capable of routing Boko Haram,” Buhari declared Wednesday on a visit to Niger, which is contributing troops and hosting hundreds of thousands of Nigerian refugees from the violence.

The appointment came the day before he is scheduled to visit N’Djamena, the Chadian capital that is the headquarters of the multinational force.

Before his election, Buhari, a retired major general who was briefly a military dictator in the 1980s, had said the presence of foreign troops on Nigerian soil was “a national disgrace.”

He has promised to cooperate fully with Chad and Niger, which had complained that a lack of cooperation was hampering the war.

Chadian troops took the lead in an offensive this year that drove Boko Haram from northeastern towns where the extremist group had declared an Islamic caliphate.

But the Chadians several times have had to retake some Nigerian towns seized back from Boko Haram because Nigerian troops did not arrive to secure them.

The insurgents continue hit-and-run attacks and suicide bombings from the Sambisa forest stronghold.

Some 13,000 people have been killed and 1.5 million driven from their homes in the nearly six-year-old uprising that spilled over Nigeria’s northeastern borders. - Agency report.

Support for Jonathan: Why S-East won’t succumb to blackmail — Sen Uzodinma

Senator Hope Uzodinma is returning to the Senate for a second time on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to represent the Imo West Senatorial District.

Uzodinma, who is the outgoing chairman of the Senate Committee on Aviation and a leader in the PDP in this interview, speaks on the fate that befell the party and how it can be repositioned for higher goals. Excerpts:

What would you advise the new administration to do in this regard?

It would not be really much of advice because the people there now are also very experienced. We do not need classroom pontifications to be able to reposition our country. Do this, don’t do that. But having said that, I think what the new administration should tackle is to restore order in the society. The society is very disorderly. There is a lot of impunity. And let me hasten to say that this is not limited to only those in power. There is disorderliness even in our private lives. It does not need coercion to do that but a reorientation of Nigerians to love and trust each other. If we restore brotherly love among ourselves, then the other problems, about economy, about security and what have you, will be half way solved. We are having problems because Nigerians do not co-operate with one another. But I can see silver lining in the horizon. With the enthusiasm shown by Nigerians to the just concluded transition, I believe things will be better.

You are a key player in the nation’s politics and top member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is this not an indictment of your party which has been in power for 16 years?

Hope Uzodinma

It is not an indictment because the thing I am talking about is about attitudes, some cultural, some even religious. It is not only politics. It is to the credit of PDP that we have come this far, to the stage where we can hold elections peacefully and follow it up with a smooth transition. Before the last general election, there were talks that Nigeria was going to disintegrate following the 2015 election. It is to the credit of the PDP that that did not happen. The other day, President Muhammadu Buhari acknowledged publicly that the telephone call he received from Dr. Goodluck Jonathan even before all the results of the Presidential Election were announced was one single act that saved the nation from crisis. That is to the credit of PDP of which the former President is a product. The PDP has succeeded in stabilizing the country so far. So, we expect the new administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to make progress from where the PDP stopped.

What role do you see your party playing in that regard?

The PDP will, of course, play the role of contributing in further stabilizing the polity. You guys in the media say PDP is now an opposition party. Well, in ordinary political parlance that may be right. But I can assure you that the PDP will not be involved in the conventional rabble rousing opposition. It will do it maturely, not like a party desperately wanting to grab power. After 16 years in the saddle, the party and its leaders have seen it all. But beyond that, the PDP is there to avail Nigerians the experience it had garnered over the years. Happily, the President has said he will make use of those who can help his administration no matter which political party they belong to. Beyond that, you will agree with me that it is in the interest of the country that the PDP remains strong in order to offer credible opposition though not in the conventional way of rhetoric. The PDP is now a college of highly experienced people who can still play critical roles in shaping the destiny of our country.

You are from the South-East whose people generally gave more of their votes to the former President. Do you see any problems with your people getting integrated into the new system?

There is no such problem as far as I am concerned; both from the side of the people of the South-East and that of the administration of President Muhammdu Buhari.The body language and utterances of the President do not in any way suggest that he will discriminate against any section of the country. He has stated that in black and white.

It is impossible to have everybody vote for one political party or one candidate in an election, especially in a plural society like ours. I think we should stop raising the issue of how the South-East voted. It is not an issue at all. Those abusing Igbo for voting the way they did in the last general elections have failed it completely.

It is unnecessary blackmail because apart from that the APC got a lot of votes in the South-East. This is not the first time Igbo have shown steadfastness in their preferences. They did it in 1993 when they voted massively for the late MKO Abiola despite that they had their highly respected son, Sylvester Ugoh, as Vice-Presidential candidate of the rival party. Why have we forgotten all that? The Igbo will of course give support to President Muhammadu Buhari and his administration.

How Charly Boy’s Wife Turned Him Into Her 18 Carat Gold ‘Mugu’

Area Fada and controversial media personality, Charly Boy has just shared a vivid description of how his wife of 37 years, Lady Di warmed her way into his heart and turned him to her 18krt gold ‘mugu’.

I got hooked to a woman I never saw coming and a woman I will never let go. When I met my wife, she was not even a girlfriend or a lover. I liked her physically, because she had and still have curves that men would die for, but she was never my idea of a wife. I guess too many failed relationships and marriages can leave one with more questions than answers. She kept hanging around me like other beautiful women, it was more or less a platonic relationship. All the time I didn’t know I was under the microscope of the FBI and the CIA. She was to tell me all this after our marriage. Even though we dated for a while, in my wildest dream I never saw her coming till one morning after sleeping over, she woke me up, looked me straight into my sleepy eyes and demanded that I marry her in the next few days or she will leave me. Wow! Before then, no one ever treatend me like that, no one ever gave me ultimatums. Who born them. Me CharlyBoy? Little did I know that this woman for long has been researching on me, this woman has seen me finish, figured out how best to arrest and deal with me. When I was much younger, I had a very violent temper, I was obnoxious. And she had witnessed me a few times in my rage with other women. “Ain’t you afraid that I will hurt or harm you” to that she answered, “you can never hurt or harm me because I will never give you a reason to” hummmmmm!!! Oh! See finish. 37yrs later I have become her bonafide 18krt gold Mugu. Kai!