EU grants Ivory Coast 115 million euros budget support

Ivory Coast's President Alassane Quattara talks with European Commission President Barroso during his visit at the Presidential Palace in Abidjan October 25, 2012. Image: Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters

ABIDJAN (Reuters) - The European Union granted Ivory Coast 115 million euros in budget support on Thursday, aiming to help the West African nation back on its feet following a decade of political crisis that ended in a brief war last year.

The world's top cocoa grower, Ivory Coast suffered from years of stagnation during the conflict which saw the country divided between northern rebels and southern government loyalists.

President Alassane Ouattara's government has received strong support from foreign partners since fighting ended and the economy is expected to record growth of 8.6 percent this year, following a 4.7 percent contraction in 2011.

"The European Union will remain beside Ivory Coast to help it quickly become once again a pillar of stability and growth in West Africa," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told journalists in Abidjan following the signing of the accord.

The EU, one of the West African nation's top donors, has mobilised 430 million euros to aid Ivory Coast's reconstruction since April 2011. The first disbursement of the new funding is expected before the end of the year.

Ivory Coast increased spending by 17 percent in a 3.814 trillion CFA franc 2013 budget adopted by the cabinet earlier this month that targets long-neglected infrastructure, power production and agriculture.

Delta Govt Official Removed for Alleged Embezzlement of Flood Victims' Funds

Asaba — A staff of Bureau for Special Duties in Delta State has been removed from the Illah Camp for flood victims in Delta State for allegedly embezzling funds meant for the victims. The order for his removal was given by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan who also directed that the suspect refunds such fund without further delay.

The governor gave the order during a routine meeting aimed at reviewing the management of the flood situation with political office holders at Government House Asaba. The exact amount embezzled was, however, not immediately known.

The governor, who was visibly angry, rained invectives on the said official saying, "Any official misappropriating money for flood victims was doing so at his/her own peril.

"It is inhuman and unfair for anyone to deprive the victims of food and people doing this will reap the reward. If it does not affect you now, it will certainly happen somehow, someday. You cannot short-change the flood victims to make money for yourself because such money will never be useful to you. You can never use it well for yourself."

The state Commissioner, Bureau for Special Duties, Dr. Tony Nwaka, was thereafter directed by the governor to enforce the order without delay.

........AUGUSTINE OGWUDA/VANGUARD, OCTOBER 26, 2012

Algeria accepts last-resort Mali intervention - sources

PARIS/ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria has given its tacit approval for an Africa-led military intervention in northern Mali to rout Islamist militants despite reservations the operation could spill over into its territory and neighbouring countries, Algerian and French sources said.

Africa's biggest country and a top oil and gas exporter shares a 2,000 km (1,242 mile) border with Mali and sees itself as the major regional power, wary of any outside interference.

It fears military action in Mali could push al Qaeda militants back into southern Algeria as well as triggering a refugee and political crisis, especially among displaced Malian Tuaregs heading north to join tribes in Algeria.

Although Algiers would not be able to veto an operation, it would be diplomatically risky for African countries backed by Western powers to intervene in Mali without Algeria's consent, especially as the conflict could drag on for many months.

However, after weeks of diplomatic cajoling led by former colonial power France, Algiers has now reluctantly agreed that foreign troops will be needed to eradicate the Islamist threat. It continues to rule out any direct support to the mission.

"At the end of the day, we won't oppose a military intervention in Mali as long as foreign troops are not stationed on our soil," said an Algerian source informed about discussions on Mali.

With six hostages held by the Islamists and fearful of an attack on home soil, France is eager for swift action.

"Algeria now accepts the principle of a military intervention, which wasn't the case before," a senior French diplomat said.

He said the change in position came after a high-level meeting in the Malian capital Bamako on October 19 that brought regional and international players to the negotiating table.

A French defence ministry source said there was "tacit" agreement and that Paris did not expect more from Algiers.

Algeria has repeatedly advocated a diplomatic solution in Mali since Tuareg rebels and Islamists captured two thirds of the country after an army coup in Bamako in March. The Islamist militants, some linked to al Qaeda, later hijacked the revolt.

The Bamako meeting followed a French-drafted U.N. Security Council resolution urging Mali to engage in dialogue with Tuareg Islamist rebels Ansar Dine if they cut links with radical groups, a move that satisfied Algiers' calls for dialogue.

Paris had until now considered Ansar Dine among the al Qaeda-linked groups and refused to negotiate with them.

The resolution also asked African states and the United Nations for a Mali military intervention plan within 45 days.

A second Algerian official said Algiers would do its best to find a diplomatic solution, but could also potentially support Malian troops by providing weapons for a future operation.

TERRORIST DENS

In Washington, U.S. Defence Secretary Leon Panetta voiced concern about the presence of al Qaeda's North African arm, AQIM, in Mali, but stressed the need to work with countries in the region to address it.

"We need to work with the nations in the region. They all agree that we're facing the same threat there from AQIM," Panetta said, adding any future operations would have to be developed and executed "on a regional basis."

"And so our goal right now is to try to do everything we can to bring those countries together in a common effort to go after AQIM."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to visit Algeria early next week before a trip to the Balkans, and is expected to press her hosts on Mali.

"Mali is one of the subjects that the secretary does want to talk to Algerian officials about," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said. "So we look forward to continuing that discussion when we're there on Tuesday."

Diplomats say any intervention in northern Mali is still some months away with a three-phased plan likely to consolidate the south first, followed by an operation to re-take northern cities and finally a mission to go after militants.

In anticipation, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal told lawmakers extra troops had been sent to secure Algeria's borders.

"We won't allow any threat to harm our nation," he said. "Algeria wants to avoid having terrorist dens at its frontiers."

The change in Algeria's position comes amid an improvement in ties with France 50 years after it gained its independence.

In a symbolic gesture before a state visit to Algeria in December, President Francois Hollande acknowledged for the first time last week that Algerians were massacred at a 1961 pro-independence rally in Paris. Historians say more than 200 may have been killed in the police action.

Four French ministers, including the foreign and interior ministers, have travelled to Algiers in recent weeks to pave the way for the trip aimed at normalising relations and ensuring the visit is not clouded by differences over the Mali crisis.

"This changes things considerably for Hollande's trip. We are no longer at risk of a discord over Mali," said a French diplomatic source. "It's no longer the idea of a bellicose France demanding intervention and the Algerians saying never."

Riccardo Fabiani, North Africa analyst at Eurasia Group, said there was still a clear red line for Algeria which was that it would not intervene or commit troops.

"They are adopting a sort of benevolent neutrality. The Algerians are going to stand by and watch. I can't see collaboration at any level other than intelligence sharing."

BY JOHN IRISH AND LAMINE CHIKNI/REUTERS

(Additional reporting by Phil Stewart in Washington; Writing by John Irish; Editing by Alistair Lyon and Mohammad Zargham)

African Union Seeks Western Funds To Combat Mali Insurgency

The African Union is gearing up to ask United Nations Security Council members for funding to launch an offensive against radical Islamist insurgents in northern Mali.

A plan from the AU should be presented to the Security Council by the end of November, and an offensive will likely not get underway until early 2013.

One anonymous African diplomat told the Telegraph that the offensive will probably require a force of about 3,200 soldiers, most of them from West Africa.

“We know that we will need help from our brothers and sisters in the West to pay for it,” said the source.

“All of us have the same goal, which is to stamp out the threat of terrorist outrages emanating from this now ungoverned part of Africa.”

In efforts to include the weak Malian government in these efforts, the AU lifted a suspension against the country, which had been imposed in March when an army coup deposed the civilian government.

That coup helped Islamist extremists overtake northern Mali early this year, and the seized territory has become a base of operations for militant groups linked to al-Qaeda.

The groups are imposing a harsh version of Shariah, or Islamic law, on communities in northern Mali including Timbuktu, Gao and Kidal. Their presence has effected a humanitarian crisis there, displacing hundreds of thousands of native Malians and hindering the access of aid organizations in a region plagued by food scarcities.

African leaders have been working for months to come up with a plan for joint military action to oust the insurgents. But in order to secure funding they must gain approval from the U.N. Security Council, which has already turned down plans that were not sufficiently specific.

The long-awaited offensive now appears to be on the horizon, with leaders from France Germany and the United Kingdom pledging logistical support. (No Western countries have promised to send troops.)

Meanwhile, Islamists in Mali appear to be fortifying themselves. Residents there have reported that training exercises have increased, rebel vehicles have been painted over with camouflage patterns, and trucks full of militants have begun rolling in from the Sahel, a tract of semi-arid land just south of the Sahara Desert.

AU Commission Chairwoman Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is in communication with all parties involved to solidify plans for the upcoming offensive.

“We are working… to finalize the joint planning for the early deployment of an African-led international military force to help Mali recover the occupied territories in the North,” she said, according to Reuters.

“At the same time, we will leave the door of dialogue open to those Malian rebel groups willing to negotiate,” she added.

BY JAYCEY FORTIN/INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES

With New Tablet, Microsoft Faces a Balancing Act

BY NICK WINGFIELD/NEW YORK TIMES, OCTOBER 25, 2012

Microsoft, the world’s best-known software company, is now in the business of making its own computers. That could get complicated.

The delicate balancing act Microsoft must now perform was apparent at two events it held Thursday in New York to mark the introduction of two major new products. At the first, Microsoft showcased devices made by Samsung, Dell and many other important hardware partners that run Windows 8, a version of its flagship operating system redesigned to accommodate touch-based devices like tablets.

An hour later in a different area of the same venue, a huge pier in the Hudson River, Microsoft focused entirely on Surface, a Windows tablet of its own design and the first computer the company has made in its 37-year history.

The split allowed Microsoft to spotlight devices made by others without awkwardly upstaging them with Surface. But Microsoft executives left little doubt as to which computer was their favorite. At the Surface event, Steven Sinofsky, president of Microsoft’s Windows division, described the product as the best tablet and laptop he had ever used. (The company is selling a magnetically attached cover for Surface that doubles as a notebook-sized keyboard.)

“We decided to do Surface because it’s the ultimate expression of Windows,” Mr. Sinofsky said. “It’s a stage.”

Microsoft’s move into the hardware business has perturbed many of its traditional partners, with implications that are still unclear. The company was to start selling Surface at midnight at about 60 Microsoft-operated stores around North America, a move that has annoyed retailers who will be deprived of a high-profile electronics device backed by a big marketing campaign.

There’s grumbling, too, a lot of it private, from the company’s hardware partners about Microsoft competing with them for sales. But there aren’t many compelling software alternatives to which Microsoft’s partners can jump.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Gartner, said Windows 8 was too critical for the company to leave just to its partners, who often churn out uninspired designs. “This is Windows the way Microsoft wants you to see it,” he said of Surface, which has an eye-catching magnesium case. (The first version of Surface will run a variation of Windows 8 called Windows RT that cannot run older Windows applications.)

Things could get even trickier for Microsoft and its partners in the future. Steve Ballmer, Microsoft’s chief executive, has left open the possibility of making more hardware products, with analyst speculation focusing on a possible smartphone.

In a rare joint interview on Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer and Michael Dell, the chief executive of Dell, one of Microsoft’s oldest partners in the PC business, played down any fallout from Microsoft’s move into hardware. Mr. Ballmer said Mr. Dell was the first person he ever showed a Surface device to, prior to the announcement of the product in June. He said he flew to Chicago with one of the devices to meet Mr. Dell, who was on his way to Lagos, Nigeria.

Mr. Ballmer said it was important for him to show the device and explain it to Mr. Dell in person because he expected his initial reaction to be: “What the heck? This is different.”

Mr. Dell, for his part, said he did not have a problem with Microsoft making Surface. “As I’ve understood Steve’s plans here, if Surface helps Windows 8 succeed, that’s going to be good for Windows, good for Dell and good for our customers,” Mr. Dell said.

Of course, if Surface flops, its partners will likely find it easier to ignore. The company still has to convince customers, including businesses, that the product is as compelling and reliable as Apple’s iPad, a product that has had several years to develop.

Rich Adduci, chief information officer of Boston Scientific, a medical devices company, has more than 20,000 PCs at his company running older versions of Windows. But Mr. Adduci has also deployed more than 5,500 iPads to salespeople and other employees.

“Candidly, Surface is going to have a long hard road ahead of it, given the marketplace and how it has matured with iPad and Android devices,” he said. “There’s a very high bar for Surface that it’s going to have to hit initially for it to have a real chance.”

Book Review: Lincoln’s Hundred Days by Louis P. Masur

BY ED VOVES, CALIFORNIA LITERARY REVIEW

Lincoln’s Hundred Days: The Emancipation Proclamation and the War for the Union

by Louis P. Masur

Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 358 pp.



NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

Like many Americans interested in our nation’s Civil War, I have visited a number of the sites which figured in the great drama that led to “a new birth of freedom.” I have stood on the ramparts of Fort Sumter, surveyed the “landscape turned red” at Antietam, Maryland, and climbed to the summit of Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. And I’ve journeyed to Gettysburg at least five times, ever more intrigued at the way that the Union forces made clever use of the terrain to halt the advance of Robert E. Lee’s previously unbeatable Confederate army.

Try though I might, I’ll never find a way to gain insight into the most important event that took place during the Civil War by studying the “lay of the land.” Indeed, there is no specific locality, no battle-scarred landmark like Little Round Top or Burnside’s Bridge on which to stand and say, “So this is where the Emancipation Proclamation took place.”

As historian Louis Masur shows in his recent book, Lincoln’s Hundred Days, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was the single most important event to occur during the American Civil War. Never-the-less, the Emancipation Proclamation defies easy analysis. Because it encompassed the whole nation, particularly the break-away southern states, President Abraham Lincoln’s policy statement did not have the kind of geographic focus of a battle like Gettysburg or a strategic strong point like Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, site of John Brown’s “raid” in 1859.

More to the point, the Emancipation Proclamation lacked any kind of immediate, world-changing effect. Incredibly, not one African-American slave was actually liberated by the decree, when it was officially signed by Lincoln on the afternoon of New Year’s Day 1863.

Lincoln’s historic measure freed only the slaves in Confederate hands, largely as a military policy initiative to deny the use of slave labor to the Confederate government. By the autumn of 1862, when Lincoln first announced the Emancipation Proclamation, the advance of the Union armies was stalemated far from the “cotton belt” where the vast majority of African-Americans lived in bondage. Furthermore, slave-owning Border States like Maryland and Kentucky were still wavering in their allegiance. During the early years of the war, Lincoln did not dare to emancipate the slaves in the few areas below the Mason-Dixon line that that the Union forces actually controlled, lest pro-Union slaveholders transfer their loyalty to the Confederacy.

Students of history might therefore be forgiven for regarding the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863 as a political gambit at best or a “dud” shell at worst. Masur’s astute reading of the events surrounding the Emancipation Proclamation shows that it was neither. Rather, it was a turning point in American history of immense significance.

The one hundred days that Masur alludes to in the title of his book was the span of time between September 22, 1862, when Lincoln issued the preliminary decree and January 1, 1863, when he signed the formal proclamation. The three-month interim was stipulated to give the Confederate states an opportunity to return to the Union. Since there never was much of a possibility of that happening, the three-month interval was really designed to allow discussion and debate in the states loyal (or neutral) to the Union cause and to facilitate damage control in the upcoming mid-term elections in November 1862.

Masur goes to great lengths to discuss the vast array of problems and issues that Lincoln – and the entire American nation – faced in granting the freedom to African-Americans that had cruelly been denied them since the first slave ship made landfall in Jamestown Colony in 1619. Once the Emancipation Proclamation actually began to function as the Union armies moved south, the future status of the former slaves would have to be addressed. Hundreds, eventually thousands, of African-Americans fled to the safety of the Union lines. The nickname of “contraband” was almost universally applied to the escapees. But if these fugitives were no longer the property of their Southern masters, where were they to live?

Early in his political career, Abraham Lincoln had become a great admirer of Henry Clay. “The Great Compromiser” had founded the American Colonization Society in 1816 on the premise that free African-Americans needed to re-locate to colonies in Africa or the West Indies. Clay maintained that this was a humane course of action and the young Lincoln approved. He seems not to have realized that Clay’s colonization scheme was actually a cunning move to prevent the formation of an educated, emancipated class of African-Americans who would serve as an example to those still chained to the plantation economy.

When Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, this colonization scheme was one of the talking points. Lincoln was quite serious about re-locating freed African-Americans away from the United States. At one point, he informed Congress, “I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization.”

Northern abolitionists were appalled at the idea that once freed from slavery, African-Americans would be enticed into lives of exile. William Lloyd Garrison, ignoring the counter-veiling hostility of many in the Union states to an exodus of liberated slaves to the north, targeted Lincoln with particular venom. Garrison derided the lanky president, declaring that Lincoln, “If he is 6 feet 4 inches high, he is only a dwarf in mind.”

An escaped slave himself, Frederick Douglass cogently responded to the war of words unleashed by the Emancipation Proclamation. What should be done with the liberated African-Americans?

“Do nothing with them; mind your business, and let them mind theirs,” Douglass exclaimed. “Your doing with them is their greatest misfortune. They have been undone by your doings, and all they now ask, and really have need of at your hands, is to just let them alone.”

Unfortunately, Douglass’ good sense and Garrison’s invective both ran aground on the submerged shoals of the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was not mentioned in the Constitution, but property was. Property, in the shape of millions of African-Americans, was chained down by the legal guarantees of the Constitution. Lincoln could only evade sinking the Union or gutting the Constitution by issuing the Emancipation Proclamation as a presidential war measure. And even with that he was denounced in northern newspapers like the New York Express for changing “the character of our civil, Constitutional Government, into a mere Abolition Military Despotism.”

Observing the controversy in the United States from distant Europe, Karl Marx wrote favorably of Lincoln’s actions, including the transformative effect it would have on the U.S. Constitution. Lincoln’s decrees, Marx noted perceptively, all tended to look like “routine summonses sent by a lawyer to the lawyer of the opposing party.” Behind this smokescreen, lurked a mighty political achievement. Marx declared that “the manifesto abolishing slavery, is the most important document in American history since the establishment of the Union, tantamount to the tearing up of the old American Constitution.”

What Karl Marx could publically state, Abraham Lincoln could not. And so the hundred day campaign proceeded cautiously, with Lincoln quietly jettisoning colonization, until the date of signing the Proclamation loomed on New Year’s Day of 1863. Masur charts the course of this crucial period, brilliantly inter-weaving the words and thoughts of hundreds of politicians, writers, religious figures, soldiers and citizens with the events of the war. He also widens the playing field by analyzing the diplomatic maneuvers taking place in Europe, as Britain and France watched to see whether the Emancipation Proclamation was a measure of Lincoln’s strength or of his desperation.

Masur’s narrative produces a couple of surprises along the way. One is the degree of dread in the Union camp that the Confederacy would launch a pre-emptive abolition of slaves in the south. Thousands of gray-clad African-Americans would win their freedom, according to this scenario, by fighting against their would-be liberators. What sounds far-fetched today was a very real fear in 1862.

Wendell Phillips, a prominent Abolitionist, envisioned the Confederacy passing an emancipation bill to gain the support of Great Britain.

“It is to-day a race between Abe Lincoln and Jeff. Davis which will arrive at emancipation first,” Phillips declared early in the war, “and which does will succeed in the end.”

Phillips was correct only about the final success contingent upon the abolition of slavery. But there was never a race between Union and Confederate governments to free African-American slaves. The internal divisions and lack of coherent strategy that characterized the Confederacy made it a poor rival to the “terrible swift sword” of Union power, political and military, that Lincoln wielded to achieve victory.

The second revelation to emerge from Masur’s exhaustive research is the growing political sensitivity of the rank and file of the Union forces in relation to the Emancipation Proclamation. It is often held that most Union soldiers were motivated to fight from a mixed bag of emotions and objectives. Support for preserving the Union, regional pride in their state’s role in national affairs, the determination to stop the economic threat imposed by the “Slave Power” to free labor, even a desire to experience a sense of the war’s adventure, “to see the elephant” in the peculiar phrase of the time, these were the factors that sent Billy Yank charging into battle at Antietam and Gettysburg. Or was there something else as well?

The determination to end slavery may not have figured initially as a Union war aim for most of the young men in Blue who did the fighting and dying. But Masur quotes from numerous soldier letters and diaries to prove that many Union troops were horrified by the conditions that they found in the south, particularly the enslavement of children fathered by their own “masters.” A soldier from the 8th Maine, Daniel Sawtelle, sent a letter home with these telling remarks:

There is one thing that I shall be glad I enlisted for. It is that I have had a chance to learn something about the institution of slavery. If I disliked it before, I utterly detest it now and I am not alone. Men that call themselves negro haters a while ago are compelled to say they are better than they thought they were. And why should not some of them (with the same advantage) be our equals.

In the same letter, Sawtelle also praised the courage of African-American soldiers in action against skirmishing Confederate troops. But the sentiments quoted above are of vaster importance because they show how the Emancipation Proclamation really took effect. The realization of Union soldiers, some of them “negro haters,” that African-Americans were “better than they thought they were” was the true moment of emancipation. And it freed white Americans from the shackles of their racial bias as readily as it struck the chains of bondage from the wrists of African Americans held in captivity in their own native land.
It was at that moment, movingly depicted by Masur in this splendid book, that the Emancipation Proclamation ceased being a military measure set forth in legalistic terminology. It was at that moment that it became the “Battle Cry of Freedom.”

Police arrest principal, teacher for student's death

The student was flogged to death for failing to do her assignment

A teacher and the school principal accused of inflicting injuries believed to have led to the death of a student, Chidimma Ukachukwu, have been arrested by the Anambra Police Command.

The duo, Njideka Imoka and Phil Odenigbo, are staff of St. John of God Secondary School, Awka.

The spokesman of the command, Ralph Uzoigwe, announced the arrest at a news conference in Awka on Wednesday.

Uzoigwe said that after the arrest, the principal and the teacher were taken to Central Police Station, Awka, for interrogation and subsequent detention.

The teacher, Imoka, admitted flogging the deceased alongside other students for failing to do an assignment.

She added that it was much later that she was alerted by other students that the girl was not feeling well and that she was rushed to Regina Caeli Hospital, Awka, where she died.

Addressing journalists, the Deputy Senate President of the National Association of Nigerian Students, South East zone, Nwachukwu Okpalaoka, described Ukachukwu's death as unfortunate.

Okpalaoka said it was the association that asked the state’s Commissioner for Education, Uju Okeke, to close the school, following the death of the girl, as a mark of respect.

......IKECHUKWU ONYEKWERE/DAILY TIMES, OCTOBER 25, 2012

Women To Get 60% Of N220bn Microcredit Fund

Governor of Central Bank, Lamido Sanusi

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has assured that 60 per cent of the N220 billion the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Fund (MSMEDF) to be launched before the end of this year, would be used to provide long term funding at single digit interest rate to businesses owned and managed by women.

This is as Nigeria would need to tackle the problems reducing the high cost associated with accessing financing in the country in order to make appreciable progress in achieving the goals of the National Financial Inclusion Strategy launched by President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday.

The United Nations Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance for Development, Princess Maxima of Netherlands, described the challenges facing the achievement of financial inclusion in the country as enormous, emphasising the need for all stakeholders to collaborate to ensure the success of the strategy.

Speaking during an interactive session with Journalists in Abuja, yesterday, Princess Maxima listed some of the key challenges of the financial inclusion strategy to include reducing the cost of financing, which means having better access to finance by microfinance institutions; setting up a collateral registry for mobile phone access, that would actually improve access to finance for small and medium scale enterprises; as well as unifying or at least having a common credit bureau that would lower the cost of checking the credit history of the potential people asking for loans borrowers.

She also identified the issue of Identification as a major challenge that is capable hindering the financially excluded people from opening accounts.

Also, the issues of interoperability among the difference mobile telecom operators as seen as a key challenge that also requires urgent attention to fast -track the use of mobile banking services.

These, she said, are technical issues mixed with regulation and requiring urgent attention to ensure that all the regulation that would drive the process has the right incentive for the right player and the right stakeholder to really push service providers to provide the best level of services that would grow that market.

The CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido who also spoke during the session with journalists, said the N220 billion MSME Fund was currently at the stage where all stakeholders are looking at it and giving their own inputs into the structure.

“The fund that we were supposed to launch yesterday , which we hope to launch hopefully before the end of the year, specifically provides for about 60 per cent of the amount to be targeted at businesses owned and managed by women, and the objective is to help them get long term funding at single digit interest rate so there is specific incentives there for the women.”

NSE-ANTHONY UKO/LEADERSHIP NEWSPAPERS NIGERIA, THURSDAY, OCTOBER 25,2012

Ike "The President" Ibeabuchi

Ike with HBO Boxing analyst Larry Merchant after the fight with Chris Byrd.

Ikemefula "Ike" Charles Ibeabuchi was born in Okigwe, in post-Civil War East Central State, Nigeria, on February 2, 1973. He defeated highly ranked contender David Tua and future heavyweight titlist Chris Byrd. With ring name "The President", and after compiling a record of 20-0 with 15 knockouts, he was sent to jail following charges that he tried to rape a woman in Las Vegas in July 1999.

Ibeabuchi planned on joining the Nigerian military before he witnessed Buster Douglas knock out Mike Tyson in 1990. Inspired by the fight, Ibeabuchi started boxing.

Ibeabuchi twice defeated countryman and eventual 1996 Olympic bronze medalist Duncan Dokiwari. He emigrated to the Dallas area with his mother in 1993 and won the Dallas and Texas Golden Gloves tournaments in 1994.

Under the guidance of former world welterweight champion Curtis Cokes, Ibeabuchi made his professional debut with a second round knockout of Ismael Garcia on October 13, 1994.

After winning 16 straight fights against club fighters and journeymen, Ibeabuchi made a big jump in competition and fought undefeated prospect David Tua for the WBC International Heavyweight title on June 7, 1997. Tua was 27-0 and considered by many analysts to be the "next Tyson."

The fight was nothing short of spectacular. Both threw bombs and neither took a backward step all night. They set a heavyweight record with 1,730 punches thrown. Ibeabuchi also set the individual record by throwing 975 punches and averaging 81 per round. The heavyweight average is around 50. Ibeabuchi won by a unanimous decision with scores of 117-111, 116-113, and 115-114. The fight established Ibeabuchi as a top contender.

Immediately after the fight with Tua, Ibeabuchi began complaining of a terrible headache. He was taken directly to the hospital where he underwent several tests, including an MRI. From what the latest advances in scientific technology could detect, there was nothing at all wrong with him. He showed no evidence of brain bleeds or swelling. Nothing was found and he was sent home with a clean bill of health.

After being released from the hospital, Ibeabuchi began to swear that he was being plagued by demons; evil spirits that only he and his mother could see.

A couple of months after the Tua fight, distraught over a perceived snub in the WBC rankings, Ibeabuchi abducted the 15-year-old son of his former girlfriend and slammed his car into a concrete pillar on Interstate 35 north of Austin, Texas. According to the criminal complaint, the boy suffered "numerous injuries" from the accident "and will never walk normally again." Ibeabuchi was charged with kidnapping and attempted murder, but the courts concluded he was trying to commit suicide and he was sentenced to 120 days after pleading guilty to false imprisonment. He also paid a $500,000 civil settlement.

"It was a very frustrating case because what he did wasn't as clearly criminal as what I expected him to get involved with down the line," said District Attorney John Bradley, who prosecuted Ibeabuchi. "I fully expected that his contact with the criminal justice system had not ended with our county. We weren't able to get him examined, but it sure seemed to me -- even if he was a heavyweight boxer looking at making millions of dollars -- that he should have been committed to a psychiatric community and treated."

Ibeabuchi developed a new persona based on his nickname, "The President." At times when he was being churlish or refusing to complete a simple requirement such as attending a weigh-in, his handlers would appeal to The President's regal nature by convincing him it was the noble thing to do. "There were times when he thought he was really a president," boxing promoter and former HBO Sports executive Lou DiBella said. "He would get into these mental states where he insisted on people calling him The President. It was his alter ago, where 'I am The President,' not of the United States, but maybe the world."

Promoter Cedric Kushner said Ibeabuchi on two occasions had to be literally dragged onto airplanes before fights because of perceived demonic forces.

Once Ibeabuchi wielded a knife during a dinner meeting in New York to discuss a possible three-fight HBO deal. "We were having a fine meal at a nice restaurant," Kushner said, "and mid-course Ike picked up a big carving knife, slammed it into the table and screamed 'They knew it! They knew it! The belts belong to me! Why don't they just give them back.'" "That was a peculiar experience," Kushner said. "That wasn't the type of conduct I expected to romance the guy from HBO. (Ibeabuchi) was like a Viking."

Ibeabuchi returned to the ring after thirteen months of inactivity and scored a first round knockout over journeyman Tim Ray in July 1998. Two months later, he stopped journeyman Everton Davis in nine rounds.

Ibeabuchi's next fight would be against Chris Byrd in March 1999. Byrd, a 1992 Olympic silver medalist and a future world heavyweight champion, was a quick and slick southpaw with a record of 26-0.

While training for the Byrd fight, one of Ibeabuchi's sparring partners, Ezra Sellers, cut him during a sparring session.

The cut was on the left eyelid and would take four stitches. Sellers had his gloves and handwraps removed by Jay Wilson, Ibeabuchi's assistant trainer. Afterward, Sellers retrieved his wedding ring from his gym bag and went over to apologize.

Ibeabuchi spotted the ring and accused Sellers of intentionally cutting him. Sellers said Ibeabuchi then kicked him in the right knee.

"As I was falling, I grabbed him and he wound up on top of me, straddling me, and he was punching my head and then he was choking me, and finally they pulled him off me," Sellers said. "I said, 'Your own trainer wrapped my hand,' and that sent him off after (Wilson)."

Sellers left the gym to find a policeman. That's when he realized he couldn't walk and took a cab instead to a hospital. He was told to forget a March 12 boxing date because of torn knee ligaments.

After leaving the hospital, he filed charges. So did Wilson.

A former Kushner matchmaker, Bill Benton, was dispatched by the promoter and HBO to check on Ibeabuchi. Benton said the Sellers incident was "just a gym skirmish" and the fight with Byrd went off as planned.

After four rounds, the three judges had the fight scored even: 38-38, 39-37 for Ibeabuchi, and 39-37 for Byrd. In the fifth, Ibeabuchi landed a devastating left hook that sent Byrd to the canvas. Byrd made it back to his feet but was quickly sent back down. Byrd once again rose, but was trapped against the ropes and taking punishment as the referee waived it off at the 2:59 mark.

Following the win over Byrd, Ibeabuchi turned down $700,000 to fight fringe contender Jeremy Williams and $1 million for a showdown with the undefeated Michael Grant.

In July 1999, Ibeabuchi was staying at The Mirage Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas when he phoned a local escort service and had a woman sent to his room.

The 21-year-old woman said she was there to strip and nothing else. She claimed he attacked her in the walk-in closet after she demanded to be paid up front.

"He invites her up to his room and begins to get physical with her," said Christopher Lalli, a Clark County chief deputy district attorney. It got loud enough that people in the adjoining room notified hotel security.

"When they enter the room," Lalli said, "a woman, naked from the waist down, is running toward them."

Ibeabuchi barricaded himself in the bathroom, and police discharged pepper spray under the door to coax his surrender.

Ibeabuchi's defense faced the further difficulty of the Clark County DA's reopening of a similar sexual assault allegation from eight months earlier that took place next door to The Mirage, at sister-property Treasure Island Hotel and Casino.

He was released on bail and placed on house arrest—able to train and fight again until his trial—but he was remanded after two more sexual-assault allegations surfaced in Arizona.

"The troubling thing for us was this was not an isolated incident," Lalli says.

Lalli says the case against Ibeabuchi's crimes at The Mirage was solid. There was physical evidence, eyewitness testimony, a pattern of unacceptable behavior.

"It was evidence you don't have nine times out of 10 in these cases when you go to trial," Lalli said.

Ibeabuchi was deemed incompetent to stand trial and was sent to a state facility for the mentally ill. Medical experts concluded he exhibited bipolar disorder, and a judge granted permission to force-medicate him. Eight months later, 2½ years after his arrest, he was ruled cogent enough to plea.

He entered an Alford plea, conceding the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him while not admitting guilt. Had he gone to trial and been found guilty of rape, he could have received 10 years to life in prison, but instead he got two to 10 years for battery with intent to commit a crime and three to 20 years for attempted sexual assault, to be served consecutively.

Ibeabuchi was paroled on the first charge in 2001 and has been denied parole on the second charge three times. He was denied parole in August 2004, in August 2007 and again in February 2009. He was again denied parole, the fourth time, and the next parole date was set for May 14, 2013. He'll be 40 by then and hopes for his return to the ring will be slim.

Since his incarceration, Ibeabuchi has earned two college degrees from Western Nevada Community College: an Associate of General Studies and an Associate of Applied Science in General Business.

SOURCES: WIKI; IKE IBEABUCHI

Boko Haram plans “massive attacks” during Eid-El-Kabir – JTF warns

The Nigerian Joint Military Task Force (JTF) has disclosed that it had uncovered a plot by the Islamic sect, Boko Haram to carry out “massive attacks” during the upcoming Muslim festival with the help of foreign mercenaries.

In a statement signed by the JTF spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, it was said that “Information available to the Joint Task Force indicates that the Boko Haram terrorists are planning to launch massive attacks on military and civilian targets in Borno state before, during and after the forthcoming Sallah celebrations”

“The terrorists have invited foreign mercenaries to assist them in the anticipated attacks, the statement read.

“We know where they are coming from but we don’t want to disclose that because we don’t want to pre-empt our security arrangement to tackle them”. The Islamic sect has in the past carried out deadly attacks during Christian and Muslim holidays.

......CHANNELS TELEVISION

U.S.$180 Million Halliburton Scandal - FG Orders Re-Arrest of Principal Suspects

Abuja — There were indications in Abuja, Tuesday, that the Presidency has directed the Police to re-arrest the principal suspects in the $180million Halliburton bribery scandal, involving prominent Nigerians, for prosecution.

This is sequel to the insistence by the US authorities that the $130million presently in the US government coffers, will be returned to Nigeria only after the culprits were prosecuted as the Americans have done.

As a result of the directive, Vanguard gathered that the Inspector General of Police has directed the office of the Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Force Criminal Investigations Department to resuscitate the investigative report of the CP Ali Amodu-led panel that investigated the scandal and submitted its report in 2010.

Consequently, such principal suspects like the former Chief of Air Staff, Air Vice Marshal Dominic Bello; former federal Permanent Secretary and Intercellular boss, Ibrahim Aliyu; former GMD of NNPC, Gaius Obaseki; former Special Assistant to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on Domestic Affairs, Mr. Bodunde Adeyanju and a former Secretary to the board of LNG, Mrs. Anthony are to be re-arrested for prosecution.

Aside the arrest of the principal suspects in the bribery scandal, the source told Vanguard that the US government is insisting that the whereabouts of the $26. 5million returned by Construction giants, Julius Berger, in a plea bargain arrangement, should be located and handed over to the police, as until today, nobody including the police know where the money was paid or deposited.

Recall that Julius Berger was one of the indicted concerns in the $180million Halliburton bribery scandal while another indicted group was TSKJ, the Consortium of four companies that eventually carried out the construction of the Liquefied Natural Gas Company.

Vanguard had reported in 2010 that the Consortium of companies under the umbrella, TSKJ, was also interested in a plea bargain arrangement and may cough out as much as $50million into government coffers before the plea bargain will be taken seriously.

Recall that Budunde had confessed to the investigating team that he collected the sum of $6million from Chief Obaseki while he was lodging at TRANSCORP HILTON and handed the money over to Mallam Lawal Batagarawa, former Minister of State for Defence, who further handed same to Chieftains of a popular political party.

On Julius Berger's $26.5million, Vanguard had reported in 2010 that the five-man inter-agency panel that investigated the scandal, raised an alarm after Julius Berger entered into a plea bargain arrangement to exonerate it from prosecution but the money was no where to be found.

......KINGSLEY OMONOBI/VANGUARD, OCTOBER 23, 2012