APC Presidential aspirants short profile

The All Progressives Congress, APC recently, released short professional profile of it's five presidential aspirants; The former head of state, General Mohammadu Buhari; former Vice President of the country, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; Governor of Kano State; Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso; Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha and Publisher of Leadership Newspaper Group, Sam Nda-Isaiah. 

Atiku Abubakar

Businessman, administrator and former Vice President , Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was born on the 25th of November 1946 in Jada village, Adamawa State. He was admitted to Adamawa Provincial Secondary School in Yola in 1960. He graduated from secondary school in 1965. He worked briefly as a Tax Officer in the regional Ministry of Finance, from where he gained admission to the School of Hygiene in Kano in 1966.
He graduated with a Diploma in 1967. In 1967, he enrolled for a Law Diploma at the Ahmadu Bello University Institute of Administration, on a scholarship from the regional government. After graduation in 1969, he was employed by the Nigerian Customs Service.

His assignments at the Customs included Idi-Iroko, Apapa Ports (1974), Ibadan Customs Command (1975), Kano Command (1976), Maiduguri (Area Comptroller, 1977), Kaduna (1980) the Apapa Ports in 1982 and Murtala Muhammed International Airport He won the Adamawa State governorship elections in December 1998, but before the inauguration date, he was named the vice-presidential candidate to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo. He served as the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007.
Alhaji Abubakar contested the 2007 presidential election on the platform of the then Action Congress.
He is married with children.

Alhaji Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso
Alhaji Mohammed Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, politician, administrator and currently governor of Kano State was born in Kwankwaso village in Madobi Local Government Area of Kano State in 1956. He attended Kwankwaso Primary School, Gwarzo; Wudil Craft School and Kano Technical College before proceeding to Kaduna Polytechnic for his tertiary education. He also did his post-graduate studies in the United Kingdom. 
He started work in 1975 with WRECA. He joined partisan politics in the aborted Third Republic where he contested elections to the House of Representatives. He became the Deputy Speaker. 

Kwankwaso was elected Governor of Kano State in 1999 and led the state between 1999 and 2003 with a massive focus on educational development of the state.He lost his re-election bid in 2003. He was however re-elected as Kano state governor on 27 April 2011 and sworn in on 29 May 2011 for a second term in office.
Prior to his second coming as Governor of kano state, Alhaji Kwankwaso served as Minister of Defence in President Olusegun Obasanjo's cabinet in 2003. In 2007, he was appointed as the Presidential Special Envoy to Somalia and Darfur by the federal government.

He is married with children.

Maj-Gen Muhammadu Buhari
Former head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari was born December 17, 1942 in Daura, Katsina State. He joined the Nigerian Army in 1962. Buhari first came to widespread public attention in 1976 when he became the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources. He had earlier served as Governor of the then North-Eastern State.

Buhari served as the Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), a body created by the government of General Abacha, and funded from the revenue generated by the increase in price of petroleum products, to pursue developmental projects around the country. 

He contested the presidential election in 2003 and 2007 (under the platform of the All Nigerian People’s Party (ANPP). He also contested the 2011 presidential election under the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC). 

Gen Buhari is well regarded as a highly disciplined leader and statesman who abhors corruption. His politics is defined by integrity.

He is married with children.

Owelle Rochas Anayo Okorocha 
Businessman, administrator and philanthropist, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, currently the Governor of Imo State was born on September 22, 1962, in Ogboko, Ideato South, Imo State. He attended Juladaco High School, Jos (1976-1981). He studied at the University of Jos (1990-1991), obtaining a diploma in Public Administration. He returned to the University of Jos (1993-1994) to obtain an Advanced Diploma in Public Administration. 

He has held position as President, Nigeria Red Cross Society, President/Founder, Rochas Foundation Inc, President, Rochas Group of Companies Limited, Pro Chancellor, African Business School among others.
Okorocha left the PDP for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) on whose platform he contested the 2011 governorship election. He defeated the then incumbent Governor Ikedia Ohakim to emerge winner.
His pragmatic leadership style and huge investment in infrastructure and education has endeared his administration to the people of Imo State.

In 2013, his colleague governors in the APC elected him as the Chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum.

He is married with children.

Sam Nda-Isaiah
Pharmacist, Newspaper Publisher and entrepreneur, Sam Nda-Isaiah was born in Minna, Niger State, on May 1, 1962. He attended Christ Church School, Katsina Road, Kaduna, between 1968 and 1974; Government College, Kaduna, 1974–1979; and the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, 1979-1983, where he studied Pharmacy. On graduation, Sam worked at the Minna General Hospital, after a stint at the Kano Specialist Hospital. He did his NYSC at the General Hospital, Ilawe Ekiti, and the State Hospital, Ikere Ekiti, both in Ekiti State, in 1984. In 1985, he joined Pfizer Products Limited where he worked until 1989. He resigned and launched into serial entrepreneurship.

Sam’s entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish the LEADERSHIP Group in 2003 with less than N1million. He is highly respected for his Monday column in the LEADERSHIP Newspaper, through which he has established himself as a pro-good governance exponent.

Sam is an alumnus of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy of the National University of Singapore and also of the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University, New York.

The proprietor of LEADERSHIP Newspapers is a member of the Institute of Directors, member of the Vienna-based International Press Institute; World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and an executive member of the Newspaper Proprietors’ Association of Nigeria (NPAN). He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Edusoko University, Bida, and of the newly reconstituted Heritage University in Kaduna.
Sam is married to Zainab and they are blessed with four children.

Credit: Nigeria Bulletin

Jonathan Lambast Kwankwaso says "His Understanding his below average"

President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday lambasted the Kano State Governor, Musa Kwankwaso, saying he is a political “gambler” who is hallucinating about becoming Nigeria’s president.

Mr. Jonathan, who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES through his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Ruben Abati, was responding to criticisms by Mr. Kwankwaso that the president lacked the capacity to serve as commander in-chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces.

The governor, who is a presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had during his campaign fund launch in Abuja on Saturday made scathing remarks about the Presidency.

He urged APC faithful and Nigerians to vote for the right person to replace Mr. Jonathan, who he accused of failing to secure the lives and property of the citizenry.

But responding, Mr. Jonathan said the Kano State governor is an incompetent and clueless presidential aspirant.

“The point must be made very clearly that the kind of comment Governor Kwankwaso made at an occasion where he was doing a fund raiser for his gamble to become the presidential candidate of the APC shows that he is a very incompetent and a clues presidential aspirant,” said Mr. Abati.

“One would have expected that at an occasion where he was raising funds to promote his gamble to become the presidential flag bearer of the APC, he would project himself as a man who has a vision and an agenda for moving Nigeria forward.

“Instead, what he has done at every turn in this his new found gamble and hallucinatory ambition to become the president of Nigeria is to rundown President Jonathan at every opportunity.”

The president noted that Mr. Kwankwaso is one aspirant who believes that by pulling him down, the governor can rise.

Mr. Jonathan drew attention to how Mr. Kwankwaso poured invectives on the presidency when he declared for the presidential ticket of the APC and again at the campaign fund raising, saying the actions were unfortunate.

The president continued, “I think it is a tragicomedy because at every point he goes into this his gamble to become a presidential candidate of the APC, the only thing he does is complain about President Jonathan, instead of using the opportunity to talk about what he wants to do for Nigerians.

“It is obvious that he is clueless and an incompetent presidential aspirant and is not in a position to talk about incompetence. He is even the one that is incompetent and that is masked gross paranoia. He is complaining that President Jonathan is not doing enough to check insurgency and we are inviting countries that we have helped before to come and help us.”

Mr. Abati explained that the Federal Government did not reach out to its neighbours in the fight against insurgency out of desperation.

Rather, as a global threat, he said the only way to tackle terrorism is for countries to work together and exchange intelligence.

He, therefore, described Mr. Kwankwaso’s diatribe as counterproductive and unreasonable, saying any aspirant playing politics with insurgency lacked the basic understanding of the complexity of the problem.

“Any intelligent aspirant will see very clearly that insurgency affects all of us and what is required is for all Nigerians to walk together. Governor Kwankwaso wants to be the president of Nigeria in his dreams,” Mr. Jonathan said.

“He doesn’t understand the nature of our security challenge and I think it is most unfortunate that a person of such low level of understanding can seek the office of the president.”

On the claim that some top PDP members will soon defect to the APC, Mr. Jonathan said the Kano State governor is trapped in a drivel and should not be taken seriously.

While confirming his status as the sole presidential candidate of the PDP, having been endorsed by party members at all levels, Mr. Jonathan expressed confidence that he will emerge not only at the party’s convention, but also during the 2015 polls.

At the time he would again emerge as president, Mr. Abati noted that the garrulous APC aspirant will be nowhere to be found given the way he has so confidently and arrogantly advertised his ignorance.

“His ambition at every point ends up as a tragicomedy and the clearest illustration of the tragicomic nature is to gamble in lies. Mr. Kwankwaso doesn’t even understand what insurgency is all about or what terrorism is all about.

“He makes it seems as if the terrorism in Nigeria is a fault of Mr. Jonathan and everything must be heaped on his head,” the president said.

Credit: Premium Times

Kokomaster Begun Sale Of Koko Garri

After making the announcement on march this year that he will be introducing the Koko Garri to the market, Kokomaster D’banj has officially begun sale of his Koko Garri.

The product has now gone on sale via online shopping website,Konga and a bag of the product which weighs 18kg, goes for N5,000. Here is what is written on the site about the product;Kokogarri is made from fresh cassava tubers, very fine grain. Ideal for drinking or less making eba, (solid food). A carton has 18 packs of the 1kg pack of garri.

Source: Spyghana