North will continue to drag Nigeria backward –Barigha-Amange

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Dr. Junaid Muhammed in a recent interview said the northerners fought and died to create South-South states. Do you agree?

I believe that Junaid Muhammed must have been misquoted. If he said northerners fought and died to create South-South states, the statement is not clear. The issue here is that without the South-South, Nigeria would not have been one today. When you talk of South-South, two thirds of South-South are in Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states. And they were supposed to join the South East to form the Republic of Biafra but because those four states opted out and wanted Nigeria to remain one, that is why Nigeria is one today.

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Nigerians To Continue spending Dirty and mutilated notes

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Nigerians may continue to use dirty and mutilated notes if findings by Saturday Punch are anything to go by. 

Nigeria's currency, the Naira, in all its denominations, has been severely mutilated, overused and over-circulated such so it is becoming a dilemma of luck to stumbled upon a clean note.

US wants to rule Ukraine and continue their NATO encroachment against Russia- expert

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Missile destroyer USS Ramage and command ship USS Mount Whitney took position off the Ukrainian coast outside Russian waters to "assist in case of terror attacks", but as Christoph Hörstel, Government Consultant and Publicist, said in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia, American main concern is to continue their NATO encroachment against Russia 

We have US war ships that are off the coast of the Ukraine. Supposedly the idea that they are there to help assist Russia if there is a terrorist attack in the resort city of Sochi of course, but could the mission really have two? Could these ships really be on two different missions? Number one- in case there is a terrorist attack and number two- maybe sometime during the Olympics there could be sanctions placed against Ukraine? And with that in mind my question is are sanctions against Ukraine likely to be adopted during this EU Council session?

US drones continue killing "suspects" Without trial in Yemen

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According to local media reports US drones strikes killed five people whom the U.S. suspected were Al-Qaeda militants Saturday after their vehicles were hit by U.S. missiles in the southern part of the Yemen.

The target of the air raid was a supposed "Al-Qaeda convoy" of two pick-up trucks in the east of the Lahj province, the Xinhua news agency reported Sunday, quoting an unnamed Yemeni security official.

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FULL UPDATE: Brazil protests continue despite president’s plea

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Massive rallies continued into the night in Brazil’s Belo Horizonte, Salvador, Sao Paolo and dozens of other major cities following a hike in transport fares, media report.

Across Brazil police estimated about 60,000 demonstrators to have gathered in downtown Belo Horizonte, 30,000 shut down a main business avenue in Sao Paulo and another 30,000 rallied in the city in southern Brazil where a nightclub fire killed over 240 mostly university students.

Demonstrators took to the streets in the cities hosting Confederations Cup matches despite President Dilma Rousseff’s plea for peace as she vowed to introduce a package of reforms, including a draft plan to benefit public transport and allocate all oil royalties to education.

A crowd reportedly tried to break through a perimeter set by the police around Belo Horizonte’s Mineirao stadium, where Mexico and Japan faced off in the Confederations Cup. The trouble escalated after dark when car dealers had windows broken, some shops were looted and protesters set fire to a car and several other objects on the streets.

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Intrusions In Privacy Will Continue Despite PRISM Being Uncovered - Expert

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This weekend the leaker of classified documents from the NSA revealed himself to the public. It turned out the person behind the leak was Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old ex-technical assistant for the CIA. Paul Rozenzweig, a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and Patrice McDermott, an executive director of OpentheGovernment.org, gave their exclusive comment to the Voice of Russia regarding the Snowden case and the overall scope of surveillance in America.

Over the weekend Ben Rhodes, Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting defended and clarified President Obama's stance on the program, known as PRISM.

“He expressed concern about some of the lack of oversight and safeguards associated with programs in the past – for instance, when you had warrantless wiretapping that did not have that full oversight of a judge. What he's done as President is say which programs are necessary, which capabilities are necessary to protect the American people and which aren't.”

Under President the government has been collecting vast amounts of data from Verizon phone records as well as web services.

Government Will Continue To Dialogue With You Until You See Reasons Why Subsidy Must Go – Jonathan

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President Goodluck Jonathan has insisted that there is no going back on total subsidy removal. However, he said the government would continue to dialogue with Nigerians, to make them reason with the government on why the proposed removal is necessary.

The president made this known during the Nigeria Summit 2013, organised by The Economist, in Lagos, on Tuesday. He said it did not make economic sense to continue to waste resources meant for greater number of Nigerians to subsidise the rich in the society, stressing that his government would continue to enlighten Nigerians on the need to remove the subsidy.

In the words of the president: “We cannot continue to waste resources meant for a greater number of Nigerians to subsidise the affluent middle class, who are the main beneficiaries.”

Recall that the announcement of partial removal of the subsidy on January 1, 2012 led to a week-long strike and civil unrest.

How Can One Nigeria Continue To Exist?

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Caging ourselves in disunity or do we need common respect (identifying all and sundry as "us", as shared Nigerians) living happily in alliance? It's our take.

The recent series of bombings by the Boko Haram crew in Nigeria has cast a new layer of lack confidence in to the portfolio of the cynic's mind questioning whether the nation conceived in alliance can survive. I agree to disagree that it cannot. The preceding journeys that our founding fathers had ushered us around, can never be gone despite the fact that it's being distracted by the present. Our future is tied to their sweat, enduring labor. A nation that continue to lives colonialism, and civil war can endure ethnicism, and Boko Haram. The following can help Nigeria continue to live as one single entity:

Land Dispute: Battle Of The First Ladies Continue As Peace Talks Collapse

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The dispute between First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan and wife of late President Umar Musa Yar’adua, Turai, over a piece of land in the nation’s capital, is far from over as the out of court settlement on the matter has broken down. The land, 1.84 hectares, located at plot no. 1347 Cadastral Zone AOO, Central Business District, Abuja, FCT, was initially allocated to Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation (WAYEF) when Turai was the First Lady. 

“Osaze Lacks Respect!!! We Can’t Continue To Babysit Him” – Yobo Joseph

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Super Eagles player, Yobo Joseph has lashed back at fellow player, Osaze Odemwingie, effectively telling him to grow up.  Odemwingie had severally complained on the social networking site, Twitter, about his non-inclusion in the Super Eagles team blaming the team coach, Stephen Keshi for his woes. Responding to Odemwingie, Joseph described the player as “reckless and disrespectful.”