HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS MORNING

Good people, good morning. I bet you all had excellent nights. It is Monday again. The dreaded Monday (for some). Hope you offered prayers for peace in the world.

Needless to say, this was a very eventful weekend both nationally and throughout the world.

At home, Kogi state governorship elections held and the results, though inconclusive have been given the back seat as the candidate of the APC, Audu Abubakar died before an outright winner could be announced.

HERE'S A FEW OF WHAT MADE NEWS TODAY

Good morning beautiful people, by now I believe you have made it a habit to include Nigeria and the whole world in your prayers every morning. We will pray this country back to health. While we do that though, it is noteworthy to remind us that the answers to our prayers will not come in one day, but they will surely come.

Mali Hostage Crisis Ends With 27 People Dead, Including Five Attackers, Military Officials Say

Soldiers in Mali’s capital shot their way into a Radisson Blu hotel, liberating scores of hostages in a seven-hour siege that military officials said left 27 people dead, including five attackers, and ended one of the biggest hostage standoffs in recent years.

Troops from France and the U.S., alongside United Nations peacekeepers, blocked off roads while Malian soldiers fought their way to the seventh floor of the hotel in Bamako, where gunmen had been holding 170 hostages, according to officials and witnesses.

PRAYER ALONE WILL NOT FIX THE WORLD

I choose to pick the words of a great man, the Dalai Lama as my headline for today for many reasons, but most importantly because they are wise and true. It is a very Nigerian thing to pray rather than act when confronted with a problem, and it is a mentality we need to change.

When asked about the necessity of praying for Paris in the wake of last Friday’s attacks, he said, "People want to lead peaceful lives. The terrorists are short-sighted, and this is one of the causes of rampant suicide bombings.

We cannot solve this problem only through prayers. I am a Buddhist and I believe in praying. But humans have created this problem, and now we are asking God to solve it. It is illogical. God would say, solve it yourself because you created it in the first place.

We need a systematic approach to foster humanistic values, of oneness and harmony. If we start doing it now, there is hope that this century will be different from the previous one. It is in everybody's interest.

So let us work for peace within our families and society, and not expect help from God, Buddha or the governments".

Another set of people who need prayers this morning is MTN, as Governors of Nigerian states have commended the NCC on the record – breaking N1.04tn fine imposed on the telecommunications giant and insisted that the South African company must pay for their disregard for the laid out instructions.

International analysts think this will scare off investors, but I doubt if most Nigerians care. Sometimes you find yourself feeling bad for MTN, then you try to browse the internet and the network is as slow as an injured snail, you feel like killing MTN, but you realize that murder is bad but a fine is better.

Worse still for MTN, they have been fined $622,000 by the Ugandan Government.

Moving on to other issues, morning routines have now been altered; after your morning prayers (where I’m sure you prayed for your country), the next thing to do is to go look for fuel. The prices are rising; everybody at the station thinks they know who is to blame; you just keep quiet and wait for your turn, panic – buy as much as you can afford; go home, return to your routine.

More news, The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Thursday that the population of Internally Displaced People (IDP) in the North East had risen to 2.2million due to the activities of you – know – who (Boko Haram).

Facebook is in the news today, the social networking giant has activated its famous “safety check” for Nigeria. This feature helps users to know if their friends are family members are safe in the event of an explosion.

Kogi state goes to the polls tomorrow to elect a new governor, and while we pray for hitch – free, peaceful and fair elections; Kogites however, must not pray for the result but go out and vote for candidates of their choice.

This big aunty from FRSC on TV just said ABS light on your car means your Airbag needs maintenance. I used to think this meant Antilock Braking System and SRS for airbags – but I’m not the expert, am I?

Robbers reportedly killed six people in Ibadan yesterday, among them a pregnant woman and two policemen. The police have however confirmed the death of only one officer.

It is another morning bearing plenty bad news; but it will get better and not just by praying, but by also making efforts – good efforts.

Facebook Activates 'Safety Check' for Nigeria

Facebook Inc has activated its “Safety Check” feature, after deadly blasts in Nigeria late on Tuesday.

A report on Wednesday in London by Reuters, stated that this was as a result of criticism from users that the social network was being selective.

Facebook usually activates the feature, which allows users to mark themselves as safe, after natural disasters, but not bombings or attacks.

It said the social network, however, activated the page after Friday’s gun and bomb attacks in Paris.

It said it drew criticism from some users because the feature was not activated for suicide bombings in Beirut a day earlier.

Both the Paris and Beirut attacks were claimed by Islamic State militants.

Meanwhile, Facebook Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, has said in a post on his Facebook page that the feature would now be used more frequently.

He said it was decided after the Paris attacks last week, to use Safety Check for more tragic events like this going forward.

RANDOM MUSINGS ON TODAY'S EVENTS

What a day this has been. More eventful and tiring than most, I must admit; saw things, heard things, did things.

I had always had a neutral outlook on the case of big Uncle Dasuki in this whole period of trials and probes happening to him. But a panel just revealed that he was dubiously awarded arms contracts to the tune of N333bn. Every day I keep wondering why the amounts these suspected looters are accused to have siphoned always exceed all logic. It is hard to imagine what one man (and one at such and age) would need that much money for. Anyways, we pray that justice prevails and hopefully the money is not re – looted again if recovered.

In more interesting news, the acting Vice Chancellor of LASU Prof. Fidelis Njokanma has abandoned his office at the institution over charms surrounding the administrative block and the Senate Building of the institution, Punch reports. This is the part where I say something about it, but there's really nothing to say. I do hope it is fixed soon though because in the end, things like this always have their ways of coming back to bite the students in the butt.

An unknown substance is said to have gone off in the ancient city of Kano today. The substance, believed to be a bomb, exploded at the Kano GSM market around farm centre. Details of the incident are still sketchy.The incident came less than 24 hours after a similar explosion in a crowded park in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, left at least 34 people dead and 80 injured. 20 people are already confirmed dead, now there's a new city to add to tonight's prayers. #PrayForTheWorld.

Still on Paris, chants of 'Allahu Akbar' were reportedly heard in Istanbul as some Turkey fans shamefully booed a pre-match minute's silence for the victims of the Paris attacks.

The friendly itself against Greece was largely forgettable as the action finished 0-0 at the Basaksehir Fatih Terim Stadium.

But the game was tarnished before it even started as a video emerged suggesting some of the Turkish faithful were voicing their dissent towards tributes for the 129 victims who were killed in last Friday's atrocities in Paris. Our world is indeed messed up.

We mustn't forget that the fuel scarcity is still biting harder , transport costs have gone up, the crowds at filling stations keep getting bigger; yet we keep hearing on TV that there is no scarcity, " avoid panic buying" they say. But they do not feel the scarcity, do they? To Whom It May Concern, whenever we find a filling station that has fuel and it gets our turn to buy, we will panic – buy and you will do nothing about it.

And they are saying that they will start paying unemployment benefit by 2016 from the TSA (I think that means Treasury Single Account). Big daddy Jega has also come out to say that TSA is a “Recipe for Electoral Disaster”. Big English that is always difficult to understand.

Today also dropped its fair share of lessons, they include

·         a. People are ungrateful.

·         b. Older people always feel that the younger generation is doing things wrong.

·        c. Children grow so fast these days.

·        d. Running into old friends always make your day.

·        e. CHANGE HAS NOT COME. At least I haven't seen it.

You may want to know...

Good morning good people. Hope you all prayed for Nigeria this morning.
I'm sure most of us have participated in the daily ritual of going through our phones to see what issues have made news since yesterday.

Not much has happened really, our Edo uncles are still at it; but we won't get on their case, they're starting to look like school girls craving attention.

What's bigger news is Adele dropping another track off her upcoming album. The song, "when we were young" will take you down memory lane; one reviewer even said it will burst your heart open. Let's just keep calm and remember its just a song and refrain from poking the past in the backside (like you did with Hello) although I'm quite sure there won't be a" when we were young challenge". More importantly, it further buttresses what we've known for some time now, Adele is good.

The most interesting news item to me this morning is the #20000(twenty thousand Naira) paid to our world conquering Golden Eaglets. To further spread salt on such injury is the $40000 Governor Nyesom Wike would have to pay the Super Eagles as he promised, for scoring two goals against Swaziland.
This is a very funny country, our president recently promised to redeem the promise made to the Eaglets team that won us the first U17 title on 1985. Guess who was Head of State at that time. Although it can be said that it happened for unavoidable reasons, the President is just set to redeem his own promise 30 years later.
So what do we expect the Eaglets to do with #20000 (it's not even enough for a plane ticket to take them home). They certainly deserve more, and perhaps Gov. Wike could have made better use of his money by spending it on a more deserving set of people.

Back to the world stage, it's no more news that a potential cracker of a match between the National teams of Germany and Netherlands had to be cancelled yesterday due to a bomb threat. This is coming days after the deadly Paris attacks that left hundreds dead. Luckily the cancellation of the game was a pre-emptive measure and no damage whatsoever occurred.

A few of us must have heard bits and pieces about a group simply known as" Anonymous". They declared war on ISIS few days ago with the promise to bring them down, and in that light they released some information about some purported members of the group. This development is truly welcome and much needed.

Finally, our own sons of Belial; I'm talking about Boko Haram struck again. Al Jazeera reports that a bombing occurred in a popular fruit market in the Jimeta area of Yola, Adamawa state of Nigeria. Let us pray for the dead who have successfully become statistics (again). And let's keep praying for Nigeria and the world.

YAYA TOURE BLASTS AFRICAN PLAYERS FOR LACKING HUNGER

Ivory Coast and Manchester City midfield maestro, Yaya Toure believes that African players need to exhibit more desire to show that they deserve to be at the top level of the Beautiful game.
Toure, 30, is in the running to win the African Footballer of the Year award for a fifth time after the list of nominees was cut to a 10-man shortlist earlier this week.
“I admit that I see too many of them acting casually,” he told France Football. “You’d say that they’re not always very hungry. Not hungry enough, for my taste. They’re not conscious enough of the effort required to get to the very top.
Of course it can go quite quickly at the start. Too quickly, without a doubt. But when it comes to climbing the final steps to get to the very top with [Lionel] Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, there’s no longer anyone left.”
Toure who is also the only African on the shortlist for the FIFA Ballon d’Or award for the fourth year in a row continued by suggesting the problem was that players like himself, compatriot Didier Drogba, former Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o, Ghanaian midfielder Michael Essien and ex-Nigeria attacker Jay-Jay Okocha had set the bar very high for those following them, He also believes the current crop could be lacking ambition.
“It’s possible,” he said. “They let themselves go too quickly sometimes. They’re in their world. They think they’ve arrived — the most beautiful, the strongest — but they don’t understand that there are other steps to climb to get to the top. Unfortunately a lot of them only see the good side in this job: easy money, girls, nights out, nice cars, nice clothes. They abandon the idea of catching the best too quickly. They don’t always know how to suffer.”
The former Barcelona player also believes nothing should stop players from targeting becoming the very best.
“There are no extraterrestrials among the best players on the planet,” he said. “Just guys who want it a lot more than the others. Everything starts from there — I’m convinced of that.”