There Is Still A Country

Controversy continues to trail Chinua Achebe's latest memoir, entitled 'There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra,' the book which focuses on the Nigerian Civil War. Devils remain in the petty details of this singular memoir by the celebrated author of Things Fall Apart and The Trouble with Nigeria among others.

For as long as it is read, there is no doubt that these details will provoke more controversy which in turn must rightly task our objectivity and sincerity of purpose for nation-building. However, instant lively controversy (albeit binary and divisive) that has trailed this book so far, has paradoxically diminished the value of what could passed for an important memoir. By its Nigeria-pessimism post humus title There Was A Country, the author appoints to consign Nigeria to some unmerited dust-bin of history; There was a country.

Indeed the book, its author, its critics and admirers alike have shown that contrary to its dead-end title there is indeed still a vibrant country called Nigeria, with considerable passions, arguments for and against. Chinua Achebe is certainly not one Karl Maier who entitled his provocative apocalyptic book about Nigeria: 'This House Has Fallen' over a decade ago (2000) when he was grabbling with 'Nigeria in crisis'. Maier's is a typical true-to-type Western intellectual smear and snobbery: what you cannot explain in Africa, simply bury it! While Meir typifies a kind of Afro-pessimism without a human face, if you like, Achebe's Nigeria-pessimism is borne out of a lived experience, inclusive of a deadly civil war that sadly consumed over a million people as an anti-climax! To that extent we must tolerate Achebe even as we must interrogate and question his facts and his literary assumptions.

Achebe himself was once upbeat before he descended into total despair and wholesome disillusionment which he modestly attributes to nothing but the unfortunate Biafra war civil war. According to him ". Nigeria was once a land of great hope and progress, a nation with immense resources at its disposal - natural resources, yes, but even more so, human resources. But the Biafran war changed the course of Nigeria. In my view it was a cataclysmic experience that changed the history of Africa. There is some connection between the particular distress of war, the particular tension of war, and the kind of literacy response it inspires."

Since Achebe has confessed the source of his agony he verily deserves our understanding even while we must contest his historic claims to justify false conclusions and sheer literary posthumous terrorism against the dead such as his smear comments against great and tested statesmen like Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Sir Ahmadu Bello who today are not in position to reply. Indeed we will do better if having read the book, we encourage the legendary story teller to rather stop agonizing and organize his thoughts for a better Nigeria not a failed state.

The truth of the matter is that, this House (read: Nigeria!) has not fallen. Indeed there was truly a Nigeria, there is a Nigeria that features the likes of Achebe as its own and definitely there will still be a Nigeria contrary to the doomsday scenario and its day enthusiastic supporters that must not include a literary giant like Chinua Achebe. Of course the Nigeria's crisis persists, even deepens and definitely tasks any writer and patriot any day. But which country is immune from varying crises of different dimensions? And how many patriots would despair as Nigeria's intellectuals like Achebe do? Yours sincerely is encouraged that Chinua Achebe writes his controversial memoir "for the sake of the future of Nigeria, for our children and grandchildren". Am even more impressed that he recommends Nelson Mandela leadership model for Nigeria.

All we must do is to encourage Chinua Achebe to work his literary prose. Archbishop Desmond Tutu is right to say there is no future without forgiveness. Nelson Mandela never spends a day agonizing about the historic burden of apartheid or putting blames of the dead but courageously move to organize and organize South Africa towards unprecedented racial reconciliation.

Nigeria had the best post war recovery and reconstruction that even preceded that of South Africa (indeed we liberated South Africa). This means Nigeria's civil war was unfortunate and artificial with many lives avoidably lost no thanks to military adventurers of the 60s. Let nobody reinvent a dead chapter in the nation's history. Authors with their pens must unite the country better than footballers running around round leather ball, but that is if we raise hope in place of despair. By the way, congrats to the Super Eagles for raising the banner of hope at the weekend. There is certainly still a country.

......Issa Aremu/Daily Trust Nigeria

Robbers Raid Journalist, Kill Own Two Gang Members, Three Others

With Christmas barely nine weeks away, the spate of armed robberies is getting fiercer, as robbers not only organise mass raids, they have also become rather bloodthirsty. Last Saturday, no fewer than four persons were shot dead and several others injured at Anglican Road in Sango Ota, Ogun State when a 12-man armed gang stormed the area in the wee hours of the day. But as it would happen, the robbers erroneously shot dead two members of the gang, taken for residents of the neighbourhood.

The Ota area is said to be the new haven for robbers chased out of Lagos State. They (robbers) have thus carried out several operations within the area, sometimes even on the Lagos-Abeokuta highway, without as much a confrontation by the police.

In their latest raid, the armed gang stormed the street at about 1.45am and first shot the security dog dead to prevent it from alerting people of their presence with its barking.

Next, the gang attacked and eliminated the two security men on the street, Tunde Olejesu, and one Kolade Kehinde, after which they headed for the home of their victim, a former member of staff of The Guardian and presently a Director with Environment Rights Action/ Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi. He was lucky to have escaped their bullets.

Speaking to THISDAY Sunday, the victim's colleague, Mr. Tunji Buhari, said the robbers stormed the house at about 1.45am armed with Ak47 rifles and other weapons.

Narrating what transpired he said: "It all started on October 12 at about 1.45am when some heavily armed men, numbering about 12, stormed Mr. Akinbode Oluwafemi's house.

"First, they shot at our security man, Tunde Olajesu, at the gate to prevent him from alerting us. He was, however, fortunate as the bullet hit his hand and not a more dangerous part of the body.

"Wisely, he pretended that he was dead so they left him in a pool of his own blood taking him for dead. They stormed Oluwafemi's building, a duplex and shot Oluwafemi's brother-in-law, Kolade Kehinde, who lives on the ground floor."

THISDAY gathered that Kehinde was the only son of his mother and had come to Lagos from Ekiti State to look for a job. Now his dream has been terminated by the hot bullets of a rogue gang.

Before the robbers could break into the house, the Oluwafemis, sufficiently frightened, had managed to contact a few persons to help them call for help. But none came.

Speaking to THISDAY on strict conditions of anonymity, one of the persons contacted said he put a call across to Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, an Assistant Superintendent of Police in the Ogun State Police Command, at about 2am to alert him on the robbery and he promised to send his men but he never did.

He said: "To give him credit, he picked (his call) when I called him at about 2.00am. He promised to send his men but he did not. If he did, I am sure some of the robbers would have been apprehended. In fact, till the robbers were done, no police presence was felt.

"It was even Oluwafemi and some people that went to the station to report the incident. It was only then that four policemen were assigned to follow Oluwafemi back to the house; a classic case of medicine after death."

Meanwhile, the gang who had come prepared used an iron cutter to cut open the protector doors despite the assurance from the family that they would open the door willingly.

Tunji narrated: "When the robbers hit the door repeatedly, Oluwafemi appealed to them that he would open the door peacefully, which he attempted to do but he was forced to run back to lock himself in the toilet when the gang released hails of bullets into the house.

"Having succeeded in scaring them, the gang forcibly entered the house and dragged them out from their hiding places and demanded money, including hard currency.

"They robbed us, scraping off whatever money that was in the house. Not satisfied, they ransacked the entire house and made away with valuables like laptops, camera, four phones, gold, children's cloth, shoes and even foodstuffs. While they were doing this, they sporadically released volleys of bullets riddling the walls, property and ceiling with hot leads."

Tunji noted that it was after the robbers had left that they discovered the body of another unidentified person in the gutter. It was then they set out to the Sango Ota Police Station to make their report.

With the four policemen, they returned and removed the body of the man from the gutter.

"When we lifted him from the gutter, he was clutching something in his hands. When it was forced open, we discovered that it was his prayer beads. He was praying when he was killed and thrown into the gutter.

"We used one of our cars to take him to the nearby mortuary. It was even later that we discovered that the gang had mistakenly killed two of their members," he said.

Also speaking to THISDAY, a resident of the street who was simply identified as Biodun said the robbery was premeditated as the robbers did not visit any other person in the neighbourhood.

He said: "From all indications, the robbery was planned and neatly executed. First, they came with iron cutter, which they used to cut the barbed wires to gain entrance into the compound.

"Then they eliminated the security dog and the security guard before storming the house. Throughout the robbery operation, they were demanding that Oluwafemi bring out the money."

Tunji lamented that the police were yet to come up with anything neither has any arrest been made. As at press time, efforts made to contact the Ogun State Police Command spokesman were unsuccessful.

.........CHIMELIE EZEOBI/THIS DAY

Father, Two Kids Among 20 Killed in Kaduna Attack

No fewer than 20 people were yesterday killed by suspected bandits at Dogon Dawa village, Birnin Gwari Local Government area of Kaduna State.

At least, 18 others were said to have escaped with various degrees of injuries.

A source said those killed were cornered in a mosque but Kaduna State government and the state police command said in a swift reaction that nobody was killed in a mosque.

The police, however, said 12 persons were killed in the attack but gave no details.

Among those killed were a man and his two children, while his wife's hand was crudely amputated by the bandits.

The incident was said to have occurred when the gunmen, said to have been responsible for series of robbery operations in the area in the past, struck.

The bandits were said to have visited their anger on the community for allegedly killing some of their members.

A source told Vanguard that the bandits had formed a camp near Dogon Dawa, about 90 minutes drive from Kaduna town.

Said the source: "They were chased out by the Zamfara State government three months ago and came to settle in a bush near our village. They have been involved in many robbery incidents here.

"About two months ago, two of the bandits were caught and beaten to death and their camp was sacked. We rejoiced that they have left, only for them to return around 5am yesterday."

He said on their arrival at the village, the bandits went to a house whose owner they suspected to be responsible for identifying their members and killed him and two of his children, while one of the wife's hand was chopped off.

According to him, 17 people who were just coming from early morning prayers were killed by the gang.

Another source told Vanguard that in the wake of the insecurity faced by the villagers, a committee was formed to find ways of solving it.

"The criminals must have fled the village when they discovered that they no longer had a base there. But this morning, they came back and went to the house of the man they suspected to be responsible for identifying them, killed him and two of his children and cut the hand of his wife.

"They also killed 17 other people in the village. Those people they killed were just coming from the early morning prayers.

"I can confirm to you that it was not a robbery operation, but it was the criminals themselves that came for a reprisal attack because the people have been identifying them.

"The criminals had earlier sent messages that they were coming to attack the village, but their threat was not taken seriously."

However, when contacted on telephone, Kaduna State Commissioner of Police, Olufemi Adenaike, said he would address the press on the matter, but could not do so at the time of this report.

He, however, said: "I heard some villagers arrested armed robbers, then some robbers came back today (Sunday) and killed 12 people in a reprisal attack, while the villagers killed two of them.

"The rumour going on that 20 people were killed while coming from mosque is not true, but I will get back to you when I get full details."

Also, Kaduna State governor, Mr Patrick Yakowa, speaking through his media aide, Mr. Reuben Buhari, said: the reported incident at Dogon Dawa did not take place in a mosque as reported by some news channels.

"That is far from the truth. The police would soon give a correct detail of what happened."

.........VANGUARD NIGERIA

Lawyer To Be Arraigned For Diverting Judgement Money Paid Out To Client

The immediate past Vice President of the Nigeria Bar Association, Barrister Blessing Emonena Ukiri, will today, Monday, October 15, 2012, arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, for allegedly embezzling a total sum of thirty-five million naira paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria to a client.

Following a court order issued by Justice U.N. Agomoh of the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt on Thursday, October 11, 2012, Ukiri was arrested at his D/Line, Port Harcourt office on Friday, October 12, 2012. Ukiri will be facing a three count charge of stealing, fraud and money laundering, for using judgement money paid by the Central Bank of Nigeria to his client, Samuel Onowighose.

According to statements released by Wilson Uwujaren, the Acting Head, Media & Publicity of the commission, Ukiri had used some of the money to purchase one hundred and fifty units of shares from First Bank of Nigeria.

Shuttle Endeavour Arrives Final Destination

California Science Center: The Shuttle Endeavour finally arrives to its new home sitting in front of The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Shuttle Display Pavilion Sunday, October 14, 2012, where it will be housed until the Air and Space Center is completed which is now in Phase 3. With the Shuttle Endeavour at its centerpiece, the center will encourage guests, researchers and scholars to investigate scientific and engineering principles related to atmospheric flight and the exploration of the universe. The Display Pavilion will be open to the public October 30, 2012. Location: California Science Center, Los Angeles.

Television trucks from all area networks positioned for eyewitness news-related reports on Shuttle Endeavour's arrival through Bill Robertson Lane at the California Science Center Sunday, October 14, 2012.

LAPD patrol cars on alert and surveillance truck with microwaves and satellite receptions (not shown) sits on the yellow-taped and off-limits section of the Ralphs Supermarket on the Crenshaw Corridor in Mid-City, while the Shuttle Endeavour embarks on its final trip to its permanent home at the California Science Center.

2013 African Cup Of Nations Finalists Emerge

The 2013 African Cup of nations tournament scheduled to take place in South Africa has been made up with the Indomitable Lions of Cameroon out from the scene despite the return of the nation's key striker, Samuel Eto'O. Cameroon was knocked out by Cape Verde. However, cameroon celebrated its lone goal scored by a product of the Samuel Eto'O Foundation, sixteen year old Fabrice Olinga in his national debut, earning him the youngest on his country's senior national team.

On the other scoreboards, Emmanuel Adebayor of Togo lifted his country with the decisive goal in a 3-2 victory against Gabon, while Ethiopia for the first time since 1982, defeated Sudan 2-0 for its formal entry.

The match between Senegal and Cote d'Ivoire at the Stade Leopold Sedar was abandoned fifteen minutes to the final whistle as a result of a severe troubling crowd when the China-based Didier Drogba scored his second goal from the penalty box.

The final qualified countries for the tournament in January and February are: host South Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, defending champions Zambia, Nigeria, Niger, Ghana, Mali, Togo, Burkina Faso, Angola, Cape Verde, Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia.

CANADA: Hope, smiles and tears at settlement open house

BY JON WELLS/THE HAMILTON SPECTATOR

Rose MacGowan, lead hand for the City of Hamilton, shoots a photo of Mary Onyia, grandmother to Prince Onyia, 13, and Nation Onyia, 6, from Nigeria, along with Joana Fejzaj from Albania and Mustafa Hashem, 12, from Iraq. Image: Kaz Novak/The Hamilton Spectator.

The woman from Iraq with a tiny Canadian flag sticking out of her purse spoke halting English.

She turned to her interpreter for help. But first he had to finish a mouthful of pizza.

He is 12 years old.

“I like Canada. It is very nice. There is no killing in the streets. I like the rules — the laws,” said the boy, whose name is Mustafa.

He was translating for his mother, Baadi, at City Hall.

They attended an open house Saturday aimed at helping new immigrants and refugees learn of the community services available to support their settlement in Canada.

More than 40 booths were set up representing groups ranging from the Hamilton Police Service to the Y to the Muslim Council of Hamilton and Hamilton Chinese Alliance Association. Organizers said about 150 people attended.

Young Mustafa might want to consider setting up his own booth next year. He is a Grade 7 student at Ryerson Public School. His sister, Zubaida, 13, was also there.

Zubaida wants to be a doctor someday. Mustafa? “A policeman and a soccer player.”

For refugees like their mother, the road to feeling at home in Canada can be a challenging one. But the two kids are proof of the maxim that youth adjust quickly to most anything.

The trio arrived in Hamilton from Iraq two-and-a-half years ago. The kids knew no English but now appear to speak it fluently.

Baadi, too, knows some of the language — she has been studying it in school — but is hesitant to use it when a journalist approaches out of the blue.

She did say on her own that she has enjoyed services offered in the community by the library and the Y.

“Things are very good here.”

The future is more uncertain for another recent refugee who dropped by the open house. Karol Pulgarin picked up some pamphlets while pushing her five-month-old, Bella, in a stroller.

Karol, her husband, Mauricio, and their daughter have been in Hamilton for two years. They hail from Colombia. They have applied to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds but Canadian immigration officials have not yet approved their request.

She said two of her husband’s family members have been murdered in Colombia. She fears more violence if they are forced to return.

“Canada feels like my home and I’m so proud my daughter was born here. We want to raise her here.”

She held Bella in her arms and started to cry.

“We want to stay. It is a wonderful country.”

Deadly attack hits north Nigeria mosque

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Gunmen armed with rifles and machetes attacked a rural village Sunday in northern Nigeria, killing at least 12 people, including worshippers leaving a mosque after prayers before dawn, officials said.

The attack happened in Dogon Dawa, a village deep in the pasturelands of Kaduna state where police and security forces maintain only a light presence. The number of dead could be higher as emergency responders acknowledged that estimates of those killed in the attacks varied wildly and few eyewitnesses could be directly reached after the attacks. Police and soldiers also cut off access to the region Sunday, limiting the response of aid agencies.

A rescue official in the state who lives near the village told The Associated Press the attacks began in the early morning under the cover of darkness, with as many as 50 gunmen surrounding the village and its surrounding farmlands. The majority of those killed appeared to be leaving the village's main mosque after the early call to prayers, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of being targeted by those who carried out the attack. Kaduna state police commissioner Olufemi Adenaike later said 12 people were killed in the attack, though police in Nigeria routinely downplay casualties.

"We cannot ascertain the (total) number of people killed for now, and more over we cannot say what or who was responsible for the attack," Adenaike said. "We couldn't get immediate information from the area because the (mobile phone) network there is very poor."

While police routinely have many officers stationed throughout major cities in Nigeria, police presence in villages can sometimes be a single officer working out of someone's home.

The reasons for the attack remained unclear Sunday. The emergency official said locals already had blamed a gang of robbers who recently arrived from neighboring Zamfara state and had begun attacking villages and robbing people along the road. Dogon Dawa had formed a local vigilante committee to patrol their area and that group and the robbers had been killing each other over the course of the last weeks, the official said.

"This time around they decided to launch a reprisal attack," the official said.

However, activist Shehu Sani, who leads the Kaduna-based Civil Rights Congress, said it appeared the attack was between Muslim farmers and Muslim nomadic cattlemen who graze in the area. Tensions and violence spring up between the two groups over land rights, though not often with such an intensity.

"The spasm of violence and senseless bloodshed in the northern parts of Nigeria has reached an alarming and unacceptable level," Sani said.

Kaduna state sits on the fault line running between Nigeria's largely Christian south and Muslim north, where mass killings and violence have occurred over the last decade. After the April 2011 presidential election, protests over Christian Goodluck Jonathan winning quickly turned into ethnic and religious violence that saw hundreds killed in that state alone. There also have been church bombings and suicide car bomb attacks in the state as well, some carried out by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, which has killed more than 690 people across the country this year alone, according to an AP count.

In the northeast city of Maiduguri on Sunday, a bomb exploded near a neighborhood where a lieutenant was killed last week. That killing had set off a reprisal attack by soldiers stationed there that saw more than 30 civilians killed, locals said. The blast targeted those trying to go to a church nearby, military spokesman Lt. Col. Sagir Musa said. He did not say if anyone was injured in the blast.

Meanwhile, a traditional ruler in the city who helped gather others together in a conference calling for an end to attacks by Boko Haram was shot dead in his home Sunday afternoon, a security official said. The official said he believed Boko Haram gunmen targeted the ruler named Mala Kaka. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to journalists.

The violence has embittered many living in the region and exposed the inability of Nigeria's weak central government to provide basic security in the nation of more than 160 million people.

Responding to the latest attack in Kaduna state, Sani said: "We have become a nation of unknown gunmen and absentee leaders."

Associated Press writer Haruna Umar in Maiduguri, Nigeria, and an AP writer in Kaduna, Nigeria, contributed to this report.

Asian American vote could swing tight elections

LOS ANGELES – The Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC), determined that more Asian Americans are voting than ever before.

In a paper entitled Asian Americans at the Ballot Box: The 2008 General Elections in Los Angeles County, the APALC said that the number of Asian Americans voting in the elections climbed steadily in the past 10 years. In LA County alone, a record total of 283,000 Asian Americans cast their votes in the 2008 elections.

In an election that might turn out to be a tight race to the finish, different ethnic voter groups, like the Asian American Pacific Islanders (AAPI), might just swing the tide and win the presidential seat for either President Barack Obama or Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

An increase in efforts to reach out to these AAPI groups could prove to be the shot in the arm that would power either candidate to victory, come November.

AAPI population could turn the tide.

An argument for the AAPI population could be made, in the sense that their growing numbers have reached “tipping-point” population levels in battleground or swing states, according to a report by NBC’s Richard Lui.

In Lui’s report on NBCNews.com, he used Florida as an example, a state where AAPIs are 3 percent of the total population, according to information from the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice. It’s a relatively small number but Obama won Florida in 2008 by only 2.5 percentage points.

Likewise, in Nevada, where AAPIs are only 9 percent; Obama won by 12.4 percentage points. In Virginia, where the Asian Americans number to around 7 percent, Obama won by only 6.3 percentage points.

Lui laid out another perspective with which we could examine the impact of the growing AAPI population in the election. In the nine battleground states covered by NBC News in 2008, Obama won by a popular margin of victory of almost 1.6 million votes.

The Asian American population in those states in 2010, said Lui, was pegged at 2.3 million. Even after taking out from the equation the AAPIs below 18 years old, or roughly 25% of the 2.3 million,that leaves us with 1.73 million voters – a number that is still larger than Obama’s margin of victory in those crucial states.

These numbers, as explained by Lui, emphasize the fact that the growing numbers of AAPIs in America are capable of delivering the deciding votes in a closely-fought election – which is what the November polls are shaping out to be.

Among the existing and emerging Asian American communities in the country, the number of AAPIs in the US continues to grow. Amounting to nearly 15.5 million people nationwide, Asian Americans comprise 5 percent of the total population.

According to the 2008 population estimates of the US Census Bureau, the largest community of Asian Americans can be found right here in Los Angeles County.

In APALC’s Asian Americans at the Ballot Box paper, it was found that the number of AAPIs voting in both the Presidential and Gubernatorial Elections across the Los Angeles County has steadily increased over the past decade. From 211,181 voters in the year 2000 Elections, an increased number of 293,043 Asian Americans cast their votes in the 2008 Elections.

Fil-Ams show significant degree of involvement

APALC noted in their paper that Filipino-Americans, the second largest Asian American electorate in LA County, voted in large numbers in cities across the county -- including Los Angeles, Carson, and Long Beach.

The LA County Voter File from the LA County Registrar of Voters note that of the 293,043 Asian Americans who cast their ballots in the 2008 General Elections, 24 percent of that are Filipinos – second only to the Chinese who made up 29 percent of the voters.

This high degree of voter turnout among Pinoys is pegged at 76 percent, a number that closely matches the turnout of all registered in the county, which is at 78 percent.

Among all Asian American communities, Filipinos were rated as the most politically involved segment of the AAPI population in LA County during the 2008 Elections. Following second are the Asian Indians, with 75 percent of their number casting votes. The turnout rate for the entire Asian community in LA County is rated at 71 percent.

Given these numbers, Mee Moua of the Asian American Center for Advancing Justice in Washington, D.C. said in an interview with NBCNews.com that Asian Americans need to be closely considered by the candidates for the upcoming elections.

“As we head toward election day, candidates and political parties will step up their voter engagement efforts,” Moua told NBCNews.com, “Those who want to succeed will recognize the importance of the Asian American voter. Those who ignore us, do so at their own peril.”

.......MICO LETARGO/ASIAN JOURNAL, LA WEEKEND OCTOBER 13-16, 2012

LAGbook Founders Set to Launch Online Game Development Company Naija Arts in 2013

PRESS RELEASE

Lagos, Nigeria, October 13, 2012 -- Founders of prominent African social networking website, Ladies And Gentlemen book, popularly known as LAGbook, today announced they'll be launching Naija Arts, an online game development company after LAGbook hits the 1,000,000 member-mark in 2013.

Naija Arts will be founded with LAGbook's Chief Financial Officer, Josh Osemwegie, and will focus on online game contents (HTML5) that will made available on the LAGbook social discovery platform, and the Naija Arts website using the HTML iframe technology.

"We want Naija Arts to be Africa's equivalent of Miniclip. Initially we registered Naija Arts last year, and started working on Oleku, a 3D computer game for Windows. Oleku was to be a street (crime) life and survival game with features of famous locations in Nigeria. But the piracy issue in Nigeria became too disturbing," said Chidi Nwaogu, Co-founder of LAGbook.

Chidi continued, "We tried our hands on creating free trial versions that will need paid licensing after 15-days of pay, but then we realized the license key(s) could be distributed along with the free trial versions for payment. Which ever way we turned, there was a counter piracy attack. This inhibited the project, and finally the development came to a halt."

"We figured out that online gaming contents was the only way to prevent piracy. We'll make money off the ads placed on the web pages in which the games are embedded on using the HTML iframe technology. But then, we needed a huge traffic, and a ready database of potential gamers. So we decided to pour more energy into the growth of LAGbook, and introduce our online game contents once our user size is robust and impressive," said Chika Nwaogu, CEO and President at LAGbook, Inc.

Chika continued, "LAGbook is now what we have always wanted it to be; a fast growing social networking website, and this has rekindled our dream for Naija Arts. Once LAGbook hits the one million member-mark extrapolated to be in the early months of 2013, we'll be releasing Boko, a 3D adventure game based on the Boko Haram menace in Nigeria."

"We thought Nigerians want to play Boko, more than they would want a survival game like Oleku. So we will be debuting with Boko, and Oleku follows subsequently. Boko will be the first three dimensional computer game born out of Africa, and we'll be blessed to break that record," said Chidi

"I'm glad to be a co-founder of this project. I intend contributing with early investments, and financial planning. I'll be Co-founder and CFO at Naija Arts, and you don't know how much that means to me," said Josh Osemwegie, CFO at LAGbook, Inc.

LAGbook is Africa's largest and fastest growing social networking website with about 500,000 registered users and 6,000 daily signups. LAGbook is most popular in the cities of Yaba in Lagos-Nigeria (where it was incepted and ranks #2), Hirtshals and Sindal in Denmark (where it is ranked #37 and #28 respectively), and Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong (where it is ranked #27).

LAGbook Inc.

Nosa Ilegbinehi

+2348183042794

LAGBOOK

EFCC Traces N1 Billion Property to Former Bayelsa Governor

North — Two choice property said to belong to the former Bayelsa State Governor, Timipre Sylva, have been uncovered by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, which is currently in court with the suspect over a case of corrupt enrichment while in office.

A competent source in the commission told Saturday Vanguard last night that the property which worth over N1 billion were traced to companies owned by Sylva.

The source said that the property, which are located in choice areas of Abuja, were discovered in the ongoing investigation into how Sylva looted Bayelsa during his tenure as the governor of the state.

The source added that the anti- graft agency had also uncovered a network of fronts through which the former governor acquired choice property in major cities especially Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.

One of the properties linked to the former governor is a duplex valued at N310m situated at Cachez Estate, Mpape, Abuja while the other is a mansion valued at N700m located off Ademola Adetokunbo Crescent in high brow Wuse 2, Abuja.

The Wuse mansion was acquired in the name of Marlin Maritime Limited, a company owned by Timipre Sylva.

The managing Director of the Company, Gbenga Balogun, is said to have fled as EFCC operatives closed in on him in the course of investigation of the Sylva era in Bayelsa, during which billions of naira is said to have been looted by him and his officials.

In spite of the escapee of the fronts, the operatives of the commission are reported to be working round the clock to arrest the culprits and bring them to account for the public funds.

Several accounts have already been traced to the front (name withheld) who allegedly opened many of them in his name using different passport photographs. The front, (name withheld) is currently on the run. Meanwhile, Sylva is already standing trial before a Federal High Court in Abuja on a six-count charge bordering on fraud and money laundering.

But in a swift reaction, the spokesman for Timipre Sylva, Mr. Ola Doife, challenged EFCC to stop trying the former governor in the media but to collate any evidence at its disposal and present it in court since the matter was already pending.

Doife maintained that Sylva remained innocent of the charges until proved otherwise by a competent court of jurisdiction in the land.

..........SONI DANIEL/VANGUARD, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2012