Nigerian striker Osita Henry Chikere will undergo trials at Moldovan club FC Sheriff Tiraspol for a possible winter transfer.
AfricanFootball.com gathered from a source close to the Vikings striker that he will earn a contract, if he passed the trial.
“Chikere will begin trials with FC sheriff of Moldova on January 20th. If he passed, he will earn a deal,” he told AfricanFootball.com. The 23-year-old Chikere has been with Vikings since 2013.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has selected former Governor Modu Sherrif as its Borno Central senato-rial candidate for next year’s election.
The party explained that Senator Sherrif emerged as a consensus candidate, following consultations among stakeholders.
He was given the ticket after he was cleared by the Department of State Security Services (DSS) on the allegation sponsoring Boko Haram activities.
To forge unity in the chapter, the party also resolved to select other candidates through consensus to prevent post-primary crisis.
Sheriff was absolved of complicity in Boko Haram activities. Also cleared was the former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika (rtd).
During the investigation by security agents, another controversy broke out, when the photograph of Sherrif with President Goodluck Jonathan and Chadian President Idriss Derby in D’Jamena, the Chadian capital, appeared in the social media.
The pictures provoked debate and condemnation by critics and opposition political parties.The Presidency explained that Sheriff was not part of Dr. Jonathan’s entourage, adding that he received the visiting President like other Nigerians resident in Chad.
Last week, the DSS paraded seven suspects, including Junaidu Khadi, former Special Adviser to the former governor, on allegation of conspiracy to frame up his former boss.
However, Governor Kasim Shettima’s spokesman, Malam Isa Gusau, pointed out that the DSS failed to allude to the fact that Khadi served as a special adviser under Sherrif in 2010.
He also recalled that the former governor mounted pressure on his successor to re-appoint Khadi as a member of the State Executive Council. Gusau emphasised that Khadi was sacked by the governor before his arrest, adding that he was not working with Shettima when he was arrested.
Sheriff had earlier endorsed his associate, Alhaji Mohammed Imam, for the Senate, following his failed governorship bid. Imam lost to Alhaji Gambo Lawan during the selection process. While Imam enjoyed the support of the former governor, other PDP leaders preferred Gambo.
Sheriff had contested for the Senate in 2011 on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), but he lost to Ahmed Zanna of the PDP, a relatively unknown politician.
A source said that Sherrif has promised to get ministerial or ambassadorial position for Imam, if the President gets a second term.
However, many stakeholders are jittery because of the soaring popularity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the rising profile of its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. In their view, the PDP may not bounce back, if the APC sustains the current tempo of mobilisation across the six geo-political zones.
There was no comedy of errors, even if it almost pillaged your ribs. On the surface, you thought it was a comedy. If it was, it amounted to a sour and dark drama. Never mind that the one whose name was sheriff was supposed to be the don. The real sheriff acted as though he was neither don nor sheriff.
But then there were no errors. We had what might have been a great and historic mistake. If it was a mistake, it cost his country dear in terms of prestige and moral respect.
So it was that the sheriff, the real commander of the troops and the custodian of safety in the land soared on his aircraft out of town and out of country.
The land broiled in pious carnage. He meant to do something about it and traveled to his counterpart in a neighbouring land where a sort of solution might be brokered. He had been under the gun as a weak and bumbling sheriff. Recently a white man with a clergy’s bona fides had accused a certain man of stocky build and defiant visage. His name was sheriff and he was fingered as one of the dons behind the carnage of dubious believers. Of course the clergy accused one of the real sheriff’s own chiefs. His own former chief under the gun for gun running had denied as well as the man whose name was sheriff.
Now, many have said he did not know how to run anything except sit idle in office, sign juicy contracts and enjoy the sweet languor of high office. Maybe he wanted to prove everyone wrong. But the story of his meeting turned more a drama than solution, if ever there was one.
Picture did not lie. Not this time. The sheriff of safety sat with the man named sheriff who should be named don, according to accusations. Neither betrayed an air of discomfort at the other’s company. In between them sat the host. So, what happened? Was the sheriff supping with the enemy? That was the question. The media and the civil society quaked with questions.
The answer was as puny as the logic of the picture. The sheriff of safety did not anticipate the presence of the sheriff who was don. They merely met at the airport lounge. The counterfeit sheriff did not take part in the real dialogue.
If this was no comedy, if it was no error, the best it can be was a mistake. And what a mistake it was. But was it that the sheriff of safety and his team, after a normal full term in office, did not know the implication of a photo op with the enemy? As a writer once said, could he not have told the don not to appear with him, or even his host that this protocol presaged disaster back home?
But speaking of protocol, did the sheriff of safety not have an advance party that certified the coast was clear, and the big boss would be safe in limb and name. Well, he was safe in limb. But more important than limb, his name was soiled. He visited because many of his subjects had lost limbs and name because the sheriff as don stood accused.
Even while on the aircraft after landing, they could have told the host to ask the sheriff of accusation to leave. If that did not happen, what else could we believe? That both sheriff the real and sheriff the false were false together in the right to fight against terror?
It is in tradition that sometimes a leader can work with an enemy as leverage to defeat the enemy. In crime, it is standard practice. Even that is not done in the incriminating flare of the public camera. It is brokered out of sight, like in a studio’s dark room. After victory, the picture blooms to public gratitude. Even the sheriff and his team deny this. So what can we make of this than that a man who is accused of burning the country is a friend of the man charged to defend it. The friend of our enemy is our leader. What paradox.Why had the sheriff of safety not punished anyone for not alerting him? Does it not show that he was comfortable with this don as sheriff?
The case is not helped by the story that the same sheriff was allowed to play don in his home town when about 200 troops guarded him from airport to his home. This was a few days after the so-called chance meeting.
So who gave him the soldiers? Does it show that the man has been legitimated by sheriff the leader? No one gets so many troops on his command without authority, an authority as high as the former chief who was under the gun for gun running.
So were people right then to say that the border blurs between the sheriff’s government and the carnage engine going on in the northeastern territory in the guise of a god. Are we witnessing a conspiracy of silence or a naivety of conspiracy? Somebody needs to explain to the people of the land. Anxiety chokes the residents as days dovetail into weeks with blood and death.
In this war, residents are yet even to get an answer where an aircraft belonging to the head of clergies is caught with enough money to train a thousand poor kids into geniuses of true transformation. But the sheriff of safety is in league with the heavenly messenger. They say it was meant to get arms to tackle the carnage demons. What happened to e-finance championed by sheriff’s government? But some said the aircraft story was not a mammon against demons, as they claim. It was a case of demons stealing mammon in the name of God and country. The clergy who had heralded his entry into the aircraft league had announced it as a chariot of evangelism. Now, how did it become a carrier of filthy lucre?
It might be that the sheriff of safety does not know much about how to keep his people safe, and that would be a grave allegation. But that will be a trifle charge compared to when we say he knows how to do the job, but he does not want to do it but undo it.
Mbu the lion versus Amaechi the leopard
Recently, the former police commissioner said he was a lion that caged a leopard. He was referring to his tour of duty in Rivers State where he made a travesty of the calling of a police officer. He referred to Governor Rotimi Amaechi as a leopard. It was good comedy, except the former CP just confessed he was the slave of Dame Jonathan and that as CP, he was playing politics. It is a pity that after that shameless effusion he gets nods instead of knocks from his bosses. But what concerns me is his abuse of the metaphor of the animal kingdom. The lion, as we know, guards its territory. Others scurry away when it marches, roars and bares its savage incisors. In Mbu’s violation, it is the lion that vacates the territory for the leopard. What kind of lion shrinks away from a leopard if not an empty and counterfeit one?
A non-governmental organisation, the Borno Coalition for Good Governance, has called for an Independent Investigation into the alleged role by Senator Ali Modu-Sheriff in the sponsorship of Boko Haram.
The group spokes in a statement yesterday by its Project Manager Modu Wulgo and Secretary John Ndirbula, in reaction to the claim by Australian negotiator Stephen Davis that the ex—Borno State governor was a sponsor of the sect.
Asking the International Criminal Court (ICC) to intervene, the group raised some posers:
“Why did Buji Foi, the late commissioner for religions affair seek to have audience with Governor Sheriff before was he executed in 2009.The soldiers honoured of Buji Foi’s wish , but on hearing that the late commissioner wanted to see him, Sheriff quickly drove out of Government House, Maiduguri on that fateful day. When the soldiers brought Buji Foi in a Toyota Hilux van in handcuff twenty minutes later, Sheirff was nowhere to be found.
“Why did late Mohammed Yusuf throughout his preaching in 2009 and after his arrest continue to accuse Sheriff of betraying him. “Why Sheriff did quickly ask the police to execute Mohammed Yusuf?”
It insisted that the ICC must be involved
The Council of Babalawos in Northern Nigeria has urged the Federal Government to probe the claim that former Borno State Governor Ali Modu Sheriff and former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Azubike Ihejirika are sponsors of Boko Haram.
In a statement by its Chairman, Fabunmi Aiyesoro, and Vice-Chairman Ogunwale Ogunshola, the group said the matter must not be swept under the carpet.
Rising from a meeting in Bauchi State at the weekend, the group said if no probe was conducted after 40 days; it would “pursue legal action against Sheriff and Ihejerika for the destruction of our shrines in three states and claim monetary compensation for the destruction of forests which serve as a source of livelihood for our members. From 2011 to date, 48 members have lost their lives in the hands of Boko Haram members and their families are suffering untold hardship due to the loss of their breadwinners”.
It added: “The Council of Babalawos in Northern Nigeria has suffered unquantifiable human and material loss as a result of the Boko Haram insurgency like other Nigerians and feel deeply pained that Boko Haram is gradually forming another country within the Nigerian state.
“Our members source herbs from forests like Sambisa, Biu, Gwoza and Hong and the taking over of these areas by this retrogressive group has denied us the opportunity of treating our clients.
“We call on the Federal Government to dislodge Boko Haram members from all towns and forests in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states. This will restore our member’s right to freedom of worship as enshrined in the 1999 Constitution. Babalawos are Nigerians and deserve the same recognition accorded imams and pastors by the government. Many churches and mosque have received compensation from state governments for the destruction of their place of worship, but not one Babalawo has received a condolence message or any form of monetary compensation since the Boko Haram problem started three years ago.”
I asked a chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Maiduguri his reaction to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff’s dumping of All Progressive Congress (APC) for PDP. He was quick to answer saying “for now I have stepped aside. I am neither in PDP or APC. Let me watch events unfolding”. This is not far from the scenario playing out in Borno since Ali Modu Sheriff, alias SAS, announced in Maiduguri that he had bid farewell to APC for PDP. Most PDP members, especially the chieftains now adopt “Siddon look,” watching if not observing.
No doubt, SAS dumping APC for PDP will alter Borno political landscape. The change could be for better, the change could be for worse. What is however certain is that henceforth, events in the political field of Borno will not be the same again. SAS change of party will raise questions. Some questions will get immediate answers, some will get response later and other questions will never get answered. Here comes one of such questions. What are the implications of SAS leaving APC for PDP?
The implications of SAS dumping the APC for PDP are multi-dimensional. This is all embracing as it will affect the PDP, APC and the people both positively and negatively. For the PDP, it has hit a jack pot. SAS will come with his supporters in APC to PDP. He will plough his resources for the possible success of the PDP in the state. In his Machiavellian disposition, he would do what it takes to ensure victory for PDP his new found love. In this circumstance, SAS is indeed an asset for PDP. However the disposition and willingness of SAS to open his door of fortune depends on the degree of his acceptance by the generality of the Borno State PDP and not necessarily the blessing and endorsement by the presidency. The question that readily comes up now is how acceptable is SAS to the Borno State PDP? The present Borno PDP is made up of the Mohammed Gonis, the Shettima Mustaphas, the Architect Ibrahim Bunus, the Abba Gana’s, the Abba Ajis, the Kumaila’s, the Asheik Jarmas, the Mahmud Ahmads and a host of other juggernauts. Of all these, the Abba Aji’s, the Kumaila’s and the Ibrahim Bunus who, before joining the PDP years back, were members of the ANPP and had to leave the latter for the former as a result of the conflict between them and SAS who was then both the leader of the state ANPP as well the state governor. The question is will they readily and willingly accept SAS in PDP in the present dispensation?
The news report in Daily Trust, July 18, 2014, page 18 with the title “Disquiet in Borno PDP over Sheriff” reads: “There is crack in the ranks of founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Borno State following the resolve of former Governor Ali Modu Sheriff to join the party. There are indications that some PDP members who are “aggrieved” with the development would dump the PDP. A source said some of them would not have the patience to sit with Sheriff under the same roof because of the fierce political rivalry they had with him in the past”.
“However, secretary of the PDP Youth Forum in Borno State, Umar Sanda said they are tired of playing what he called “Second Fiddle” in national politics. We are aware that most of the chieftains of PDP in Borno State are not happy that Sheriff is joining us but that is their personal opinion. As far as the youths are concerned, he is warmly welcome”, he said.
Besides, a group designated as “Original Borno PDP” has made it point clear in Advertorial recently that it would only concede the deputy governor position to Senator Ali Modu Sheriff stating unequivocally that the position of governor remains the exclusive preserve of the Original PDP in the coming elections. What will be the position or status of SAS in relation to the existing structure of PDP in the state? Certainly, SAS coming into PDP with his already laid down party structure will not like to play the second fiddle. Besides will SAS allow the party structure he came with from APC into PDP be swallowed by PDP without adequate compensation?
Coming to APC, the exit of SAS will certainly create a vacuum. However, since coming into power as the state governor, Alhaji Kashim Ibrahim through his skilful diplomacy, humility, tolerance, open-door policy, non-discriminatory policy, mass-oriented programmes, laudable poverty alleviation programmes, exceptional humanistic approach in the handling of the victims of the insurgency and his philanthropic disposition has endeared him to all, including the rank and file of the state PDP. Governor Shettima’s incontrovertible records of achievements attest to good governance that mesmerizes the people to his administration. According to an observer, “we now know those who used political power for good or for evil, for the people’s happiness or for oppressing them”
Though, APC will lose some supporters to SAS, the good governance of Governor Shettima may check the leakage. Wittingly, it appears Governor Shettima as the leader of APC in the state is in control of the party machinery judging from the outcome of the last party state congress and this appears a plus for him in galvanizing APC into further strength. His humility and cautious approach to issues may help swell the population of APC as the likelihood of more supporters from other parties, including PDP is obvious.
The coming into PDP by SAS may break the dominance of the state by APC. Future elections in the state will be competitive and may not be violent free. This is the fear of many. The good people of Borno will have the final say provided there is free and fair election.
Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima said yesterday that he has reconciled with his predecessor, Ali Modu Sheriff.
Shettima spoke in Maiduguri after an All Progressives Congress (APC) meeting in the capital city.
He said: “I want to announce that we have resolved to bury our differences as a family in the interest of our great party, the APC and the people.
“The APC is a big family and quarrels or disagreements are inevitable in any human endeavour.
“I want to assure you that we have decided to bury the hatchet and come together as a team.
“By the grace of God, this is the last time you will hear of any inter-party squabbles among members of APC in Borno.
“We may have had hiccups but I can assure you that we have been able to resolve it by burying the hatchet so that we can meet the challenges as a people and as a community.
“I tell you APC is a big family where quarrels are inevitable but with maturity, we can be at peace with each other. That is why I can report to you now that all is at peace in our ranks.
“The truth is that we cannot afford to continue to fight endless wars at this critical time of our history, which is why we have applied the principle of consensus for elected positions of our party faithful.
“Elections will be considered only in the event where consensus is not reached among the stakeholders involved.
“Borno is a traumatised society on the brink of extinction, which is why we cannot continue the bickering with so many challenges staring us in the face of insurgency.”
He said all members of the party would form a common front toward winning the 2015 elections.
Sheriff said the problem was caused by mischief makers who spread rumours among party members.
“I don’t have any problem with the governor, because I have lots of respect for him.
“I have never discussed the issue of replacing him as the APC governorship candidate for the 2015 polls as being rumoured.
“I am a national leader of the party whereas Shettima is the Borno leader of the APC.
“We do not have any differences here. However, when Shettima becomes governor again, I want him to recognise that he must accommodate every opinion and carry them along. Please note that I have never said that I would dislodge him.
“I do not need to control the party at the state level because it is not my role,” he said.
He said a committee had been set up under the leadership of Shettima, to conduct APC congresses in places where the events were marred by crises.
The governor described a former governorship aspirant, Kashim Imam, as a prophet of peace, who means well for the people.
Imam, a major stakeholder in the reconciliation, described Sheriff as the founding father of the APC in the state.
“I tell you we do not have any major difference anymore as far as the state is concerned. If you hear any contrary view; be sure it is coming from Abuja or elsewhere surely not from stakeholders on ground.”
Present at the meeting were APC Interim Chairman Kaka Yale, Deputy Governor Zanna Mustapha and Acting Commissioner for Information Mohammed Bulama.
Others are Speaker of the House of Assembly Abdulkarim Lawal, some lawmakers and a women leader, Fatty Kakina.