'You Are Not My Prefect' -Amaechi Replies Jonathan

Gov. Rotimi Amaechi

Rivers State Governor Chibuike Amaechi, has reminded the Presidency that President Goodluck Jonathan is not his ‘Prefect’ and thus, could not threaten him of sanctions for criticizing the President for neglecting the state.  Certainly, the fallout of the mega rally organised by the Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi last Saturday, is yet to go away.

President Jonathan

The Presidency had angrily reacted to a claim made by Amaechi that the cause of the frosty relationship between him and the President was because President Goodluck Jonathan hates Rivers people that is why he ceded Soku oil wells in Kalabari to Bayelsa and 40 Etche oil wells also in Rivers to Abia state.

Amaechi had said at mega rally that President Jonathan had claimed that All Progressives Congress, APC, exists only on billboards in Rivers at the South-South PDP rally in Ogbe Stadium, Benin with 20,000 capacity. Amaechi said he decided to test his popularity by organising the rally in the 40,000 capacity stadium he built.

Amaechi said this in response to the statement from the office of President Jonathan, which accused him of “Political rascality”.

The statement was signed by Dr. Reuben Abati.

The Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Ibim Semenitari said Governor Amaechi is an elected official and not a mere prefect.

Semenitari also faulted Abati, for failing to get his facts right before publishing the statement despite his wealth of experience.

She added that Amaechi never mentioned the name of the President nor his wife during his speech at the rally.

Semenitari said, “I would want to say that the Presidential Spokesman should be careful for the kind of threats he issues to an elected Governor.

“He should remember that the President is not a prefect of the governor. He was elected as President just as the Governor was elected as a governor, and Nigeria is a federation.

“And please, Abati should know his limits and need not attempt to cross his boundaries.

“It is a bit strange to hear the kind of comments coming out of the Presidency and this showed that that statement was already prepared before governor Amaechi spoke.

“At no point in his speech did Governor Amaechi make any references. His wife was not even discussed because she is not an official of government.

“I do not understand where or how Mr. Abati got his story, so we just take it that this is one of those clear indications of rascality within the Presidency trying to call a dog a bad name and hang it”. 

Original story written by Okafor Ofiebor for TheNEWS magazine  

Manly Men Are Not Always the Best Choice, Study Says

It’s a Hollywood stereotype: Men prefer to partner up with feminine-looking women, and women favor masculine men. But even when you allow for same-gender couples and variations in personal preference, plenty of research suggests that the proposition is generally true. 

“It’s been replicated many times across different cultures,” says Isabel Scott, a psychologist at Brunel University in Uxbridge, on the outskirts of London. “So people tend to assume it’s universal.” 

A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences challenges that thinking, however.

Historically, human studies have shown that women with more feminine faces tend to have higher estrogen levels, which are in turn associated with reproductive health. In men, the argument is that masculine-looking faces are associated with stronger immune systems—always a good thing in a mate, especially if that trait is passed on to the kids. Masculine appearance may also a sign of a dominant and aggressive personality, but our distant female ancestors might plausibly have gravitated toward these men anyway, for the sake of their children’s health.

These theories fall under the rubric of evolutionary psychology—the idea that many of our fundamental behaviors have evolved, just as our bodies did, to maximize reproductive success. But as in many cases with evolutionary psychology, it’s easier to come up with a plausible explanation than to demonstrate that it’s correct. In this case, says Scott, “the assumptions people were making weren't crazy. They just weren't fully tested.”

To correct that, Scott and the 21 colleagues who put together the new study used computer simulations to merge photos of men’s and women’s faces into composite, “average” faces of five different ethnicities. Then they twirled some virtual dials to make more and less masculine-looking male faces and more or less feminine female versions. (“More masculine” in this case means that they calculated the specific differences between the average man’s face and the average woman’s for each ethnicity, then exaggerated the differences. “Less masculine” means they minimized the differences. Same goes, in reverse, for the women’s faces.)

Then they showed the images to city-dwellers in several countries and also to rural populations in Malaysia, Fiji, Ecuador, Central America, Central Asia and more—a total of 962 subjects. “We asked, ‘What face is the most attractive’ and ‘What face is the most aggressive looking,'” says Scott.

The answers from urban subjects more or less confirmed the scientists’ expectations, but the others were all over the place. “This came as a big surprise to us,” Scott says. “In South America,” for example, “women preferred feminine-looking men. It was quite unexpected.”

If these preferences had an evolutionary basis, you’d expect them to be strongest in societies most similar to the ones early humans lived in. “These are clearly modern preferences, though,” Scott says, which raises the question of why they arose.

One idea, which she calls “extremely speculative at this point,” is that when you pack lots of people together, as you do in a city, stereotyping of facial characteristics might be a way of making snap judgements. “In urban settings,” she says, “you encounter far more strangers, so you have a stronger motive to figure out their personalities on zero acquaintance.”

-Culled From TIME

Alusa, Laveda Out of Big Brother Hotshots

Alusa

Kenya's Alusa Melvin became the first male housemate to be evicted from Big Brother Hotshots on Sunday.
Tanzanian Laveda was evicted earlier in the evening and continued the ladies' losing streak.

Laveda

With Alusa's eviction, it means Kenya has been eliminated from competing for the game's $300,000 cash prize, after his compatriot sabina left last week.

Folorunsho Alakija, Billionaire Oil Tycoon, Tops London Property Market Buyers

Folorunsho Alakija

As super-rich African oligarchs are taking their vast resources and investing them in the safe haven of London property, Nigerians have become the biggest spenders, with her wealthy nationals forking out £250million on London homes in the last three years. More than £600million spent in the capital in the past three years and £4million spent in the city every week. They favour the likes of One Hyde Park, Daily Mail of London reports.

The new wave of super-rich includes Folorunsho Alakija, a billionaire oil tycoon, fashion designer and philanthropist from Lagos, top as a big investor in the London property market. She recently bought four apartments in One Hyde Park, the super-exclusive development in Knightsbridge.

Her British-born nephew Rotimi Alakija, who also goes by the stage name of DJ Xclusive, has also invested in property in the capital.

It is thought other tycoons have also been eyeing up homes on Kensington Palace Gardens - known as Billionaires' Row.

Gary Hersham, managing director of Beauchamp Estates, revealed he has had three super-rich Nigerians enquiring about homes in the past week alone. This is despite the average person in Nigeria earning just £850 per year.

He said: "I've had an upturn in African buyers over the last few months. The situation in West Africa at present is pushing rich African buyers back into Central London at a significantly higher level than is normally experienced. While war, disease and terrorism in West Africa grab media headlines, actually for super-rich Africans its domestic wealth, cultural ties to London, general safety and education for their children that are the key attractions for buying a home in central London."

Folorunsho & Hubby, Modupe

Hersham added that these super-rich look to buy property in the 'platinum triangle' which is made up of Mayfair, Belgravia and Knightsbridge.
"Around 80 per cent spend between £15 million to £25 million on a residential property, with ten per cent spending more than £30 million. If they are not buying, they are renting luxury homes for up to £15,000-per-week and staying for between six weeks and three months per year," he added.

London's reputation for having a residential property market, which is secure and a stable investment, is one of the main reasons wealthy Africans are buying, according to Beauchamp Estates. Another reason is historic cultural and community ties. Nigeria is a Commonwealth country and there is a community of 70,000 in London. There are a similar number of Ghanaians in the capital.

The third reason is education, with King's School Canterbury, Wycombe Abbey, Cheltenham Ladies College, Eton, Harrow and Bradfield are among the favourite private schools for wealthy families from Africa.

According to the Nigerian Embassy, Nigerian nationals spend more than £300 million-a-year on tutoring, accommodation, fees and equipment at British schools and universities.

Hersham added: "It is going to be the African century. Continental African buyers or luxury tenants in London are currently where the Russians and Ukrainians were five years ago. At present virtually all the transactions are for end use, not rental investment, which indicates that the African buyer market in London has significant room for growth and maturity."

Nigerians have been long standing property purchasers in the central London market, going back to the early 1980s. However, in the 1980s and 1990s they typically purchased houses in North London, in Hampstead, St Johns Wood and Primrose Hill. Now, enhanced wealth has enabled them to move into the ultra prime market in Mayfair, Belgravia and Knightsbridge, and have been joined by affluent purchasers from other West African and French equatorial states.'

Original story culled from Daily Mail

Photo Credit: Google

Samantha Appi Is GUS X1 Last Woman Standing

Samantha

Samantha Appi has emerged as ‘The Last Woman Standing’ of Gulder Ultimate Search 11 after Evi Addoh got evicted for giving up during the ‘Bucket Trap’ task.

With that feat, Samantha has won for herself a new urban 2014 Ford EcoSport SUV in addition to the prize money for the position that she eventually finishes in.

Samantha will however have to battle it out with the remaining four male warriors: Nne Cosy Joe, Ubachukwu, Otto Canon Chinenem and Afolabi Emmanuel Olusegun in the search to retrieve the General's war helmet in exchange for N10 million and SUV.

-Words by FUNSHO AROGUNDADE

Nigeria’s Super Falcons: The New African Queens

The winning queens

Two years after they lost the title, Nigeria's national women’s team, Super Falcons, have reclaimed the African title after they beat the Cameroonians by two goals to nil on Saturday in Windhoek, Namibia. The two goals, scored in the first half of the action-filled game, were scored by both Desire Oparanozie and Asisat Oshoala.

The Super Falcons

With the result, Nigeria will now fly the flag as Africa champion at the Canada 2015 World Cup.While Francisca Ordega was voted best player of the match, striker Desire Oparanozie won the golden boots award after scoring five goals and Oshoala again was voted the Most Valuable Player..

The Falcons won all their matches in this tournament scoring 16 goals and conceding just three goals in the process.

Words by Funsho Arogundade

Ebola and the Global Lack of Respect for Africa

Nigerian American writer Nneka M. Okona says the recent outbreak of the devastating virus once again reveals the failure of the world to treat Africans with dignity 

Liberian health workers 

The first time I remember hearing about Ebola was in 1996, which just so happened to coincide with the Olympic summer games which were in Atlanta, my hometown. I was only 11 years old, so my understanding and attention I paid to Ebola, formerly known as Ebola hemorrhagic fever, was minimal. As a child, I simply didn’t care.

The particular Ebola outbreak I’m referencing, as there have been several since the disease’s first emergence in 1976, occurred in the central African country of Gabon, bordered by Cameroon, Congo and Equatorial Guinea, in 1996. A film preceded it-Outbreak, starring Morgan Freeman, Patrick Dempsey and Cuba Gooding Jr. It was one of those horrible, sensationalized movies which muddled scientific facts, caused a palpable sense of fear and unfortunately, for many, became an unreliable reference point to where we are now.
In the past few months as Ebola has affected the west African countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria, I’ve watched slews of ignorant banter on social media— Facebook, Twitter and yes, even memes on Instagram — ensue with a sense of hysteria, the same hysteria which accompanied those who naively watched “Outbreak” in the 90s and upheld it as scientific gospel. I’ve seen people I previously respected give commentary on why those aid workers who risked their lives to help those in need affected by Ebola should “stay where they are” and cowered in fear once it was reported they were transported back to the States to receive much needed treatment to become well again.
 
I’ve held my opinions close to my chest, part composure, part not knowing how to feel, how to properly articulate my anger, sadness and mass of complicated feelings. For me, as a Nigerian American woman, this isn’t just another health scare which will blow up news waves for months on end then disappear from headlines once no one really cares anymore.
This is personal.
There’s the stress and the distant sense of worry which I can do very little to resolve. I have aunts and cousins in Lagos, Nigeria. Each morning when I wake up and am bombarded by the growing number of deaths due to this disease, I wonder if a family member will be next. I wonder each day if they’re safe or if they’ve succumbed to any of the telltale symptoms of the disease’s presence in a human body. But there’s nothing I can do except maybe pray and hope for the best.
There’s the anger which seems never-ending and snowballing with each insensitive tweet, loaded news headline and rant from those committed to giving the face of Ebola a racist spin. Most recently was a tweet from the Associated Press which identified an Ebola patient in Madrid, Spain as a “Africa patient” which sent me over the edge.
As an African woman, it’s frustrating and disheartening to constantly feel as if mainstream media and even Black Americans are committed to painting Africa as the golden land where all of us are lumped together in one category, who aren’t even deserving of designation of country origin. Never mind that Africa is a vast continent with 53 countries, people with different experiences and representations of culture, language, tradition and food. Nothing about Africa is as simplistic to portray it as a monolithic existence.
 
It’s also downright infuriating and insulting to continuously typecast the Africans who have been infected with Ebola as mere nameless, voiceless, to be pitied carriers of the disease, with no extension of the respect each and every human should receive. These are people, people who are living and breathing, not sick monsters who are to be feared, cast out and treated as insignificant and unimportant. Will we ever know their stories?
Ebola is not an African issue. It’s not a disease “over there” which any of us can afford to be silent or ignorant about. It’s a serious world health problem and a humanitarian crisis. It is something which can have a ripple effect if not handled properly, if the prejudice, racism and bias to the brown faces it is mostly affecting aren’t discarded.
But we’ve seen this already play out at least once very publicly — the ignorance, the insensitive comments, the othering —  in the treatment of Thomas Eric Duncan, who was from Liberia.
I choose to think of Duncan as a person. A human being. A person who had family and friends. Someone who had hobbies and things he liked to do. Someone who had a story. He was someone who while alive was deserving of respect and common decency and someone, who I hope, in the memory of his death, will be afforded the same.
I hope you can join me in thinking of him in this way, too.
 
Original story was written by Nneka M. Okona, a writer based in Washington, DC for Ebony Magazine