SUMMARY OF THE HUNGER GAMES BY SUZANNE COLLINS

The nation of Panem, formed from a post-apocalyptic North America, is a country that consists of a wealthy Capitol region surrounded by 12 poorer districts. Early in its history, a rebellion led by a 13th district against the Capitol resulted in its destruction and the creation of an annual televised event known as the Hunger Games. In punishment, and as a reminder of the power and grace of the Capitol, each district must yield one boy and one girl between the ages of 12 and 18 through a lottery system to participate in the games. The 'tributes' are chosen during the annual Reaping and are forced to fight to the death, leaving only one survivor to claim victory.

When 16-year-old Katniss's young sister, Prim, is selected as District 12's female representative, Katniss volunteers to take her place. She and her male counterpart Peeta, are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives. , she sees it as a death sentence. But Katniss has been close to death before. For her, survival is second nature.

SUMMARY OF A MERCIFUL DEAD BY KENDRA ELLIOT

FBI special agent Mercy Kilpatrick has been waiting her whole life for disaster to strike. A prepper since childhood, Mercy grew up living off the land—and off the grid—in rural Eagle’s Nest, Oregon. Until a shocking tragedy tore her family apart and forced her to leave home. Now a predator known as the cave man is targeting the survivalists in her hometown, murdering them in their homes, stealing huge numbers of weapons, and creating federal suspicion of a possible domestic terrorism event. But the crime scene details are eerily familiar to an unsolved mystery from Mercy’s past.

Sent by the FBI to assist local law enforcement, Mercy returns to Eagle’s Nest to face the family who shunned her while maintaining the facade of a law-abiding citizen. There, she meets police chief Truman Daly, whose uncle was the cave man’s latest victim. He sees the survivalist side of her that she desperately tries to hide, but if she lets him get close enough to learn her secret, she might not survive the fallout

NASS siege: Why I ordered invasion of National Assembly – Daura

The sacked Director General of the Department of State Security Service, Lawal Musa Daura, has now revealed why he deployed hooded operatives of the secret service to the National Assembly on Tuesday.

The ex-DSS boss said he acted based on intelligence report that unauthorised persons were planning to smuggle dangerous weapons and incriminating items into the complex.

Daura’s confession was contained in the interim investigation report submitted by the Inspector General of Police, IGP Idris to the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo. IGP Idris argued in the report that Daura carried out the siege on the National Assembly without the approval of the acting president.

“The former Director-General, Department of State Security Service, Mr Lawal Musa Daura acted unilaterally without informing the presidency. He did not share or intimate other security agencies on the unlawful operations,” Idris was quoted to have said in the report obtained by Daily Trust.

The police boss also said the purported intelligence report by Daura cannot be substantiated as the personnel deployed were not EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) experts or specialist in this regard.

DAILY POST reported last Tuesday that armed DSS officials stormed the National Assembly as early as 6:am and blocked the entrance and exit points.

The Acting President, hours later, dismissed the DSS boss.

Ex-governor Barka tells PDP Chairman why he will soon dump APC

Former Acting Governor of Adamawa State, James Barka, on Friday hinted on dumping the All Progressives Congress, APC for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Barka explained that his planned defection to PDP was “because of its plethora of failed promises and lack of credible leadership”.

He made the disclosure while receiving Tahir Shehu, the Adamawa State PDP Chairman, and other leaders at his residence in Yola, the state capital.

Barka was a two-time Speaker of Adamawa State, who later became Acting Governor of the state when Governor Murtala Nyako’s first tenure was nullified in 2008.

Addressing the PDP delegation, Barka said, “APC has failed Nigerians in a number of ways.

“We left the PDP back then in 2014 because of impunity, but surprisingly, APC has become worse off when it comes to impunity.”

He also scored the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government low in the area of security.

According to Barka, “People should be people of integrity; when you say A, it should be A.

“When you say Chairman, let’s meet tomorrow by 11am, it should be so.

“This is a government I helped to build, spending my resources and time, but today they hardly recognize whether we exist at all.”

Must Read: The Cabal Mentality

From the coziness and snugness of his London apartment, holidaying President Muhammadu Buhari watched the sickening siege on the National Assembly complex in Abuja as it played itself out on TV.

Commandeered masked men from the Department of State Services hedged off all entrances preventing the federal lawmakers from accessing their offices. Order came from Lawan Daura, a serial breaker of commonsense rules. Daura was the man in charge at the DSS command post. The ugly event that occurred a few days ago was an affront and assault on our burgeoning democracy.

Stunning and shocking it was to the Presidency that Daura’s move was not protocoled through a supervising Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. Despite the enormous power entrusted in him through Section 145 of the Nigerian constitution, Osinbajo had no clue what was about to happen.  Daura dissed the Acting President and went rabidly rogue. In government, and with overzealous security operatives who suddenly get drenched with power, this is just a horror movie replaying itself.

In 2010 when ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua was in office, his Chief of Army Staff, Abdulrahaman Dambazau, had reportedly ordered the deployment of two battalions onto Abuja streets. The same constitutional provision that gave Osinbajo legal leverage to command was also applicable to Yar’Adua’s Vice President, Goodluck Jonathan. But clearance was not sought with the Vice President. The idea behind the furtive move was to shield the return of Yar’Adua’s sick body into the country from Nigerians. Under the cover of darkness, Abuja nook and cranny were littered with soldiers armed to the teeth.

Government apparatuses in Nigeria are run in shrivelled caucuses and cabal assemblages. Daura as the DSS supremo was a member of the powerful cabal in Buhari’s government. He did not just wake up after drinking a bowl of fura-de-nunu ordering tanks and men to the entrance of the National Assembly without the know of a few concurring fellas in government who believe they are bigger than the man who is acting as President. Daura was sneaked into Buhari’s government by the very powerful member of the cabal, Mamman Daura, who has the ears of the President 24/7. Cabals always believe that they are more relevant to the Presidency than the Acting President. Aren’t they?

Osinbajo wasn’t having the nauseating behaviour of a man who took his diminutive bodily size and humility for granted. He gave Daura the boots. It took immediate effect. Are you shocked? No, not me. But the Acting President had once told us publicly about his disciplining style. Erring government employees under his authority can’t get away with infractions.  He has done in times past what he just did in the Presidency. On Wednesday, October 14, 2015 at the 21st National Economic Summit in Abuja, the Vice President had forewarned about lawlessness and sacred-cow stinking thinking of some administration personnel. “…I find that everybody will like the rules to be applied so long as it will not apply to himself. We can’t apply the rules except we apply the rules to all of us; there should be no sacred cows… I’ve had the experience in public service and don’t mind being the tough guy. I’ve sacked people that needed to be sacked. So, there are no sacred cows. The rules will be applied anyway”, Osinbajo said. It was obvious that nobody, especially the likes of Daura and members of his cabal, took the VP seriously.

Big men and women occupying big positions in Nigeria are wont to sidestepping legal authorities and embracing their artificially scripted power cliques to carry out moves that suit only their worldviews and agenda, but not the law. It is the cabal mentality. With a cabal mentality, a few men in top positions believe they are next to the President in hierarchy, or even more powerful than the man who appointed them. These analphabetic security operatives and occupiers of powerful positions think they are the law that must be obeyed.

From the outset of the Buhari administration, the cabal has operated on the upwardly wayward swing. It was the enormous pressure from the cabal that pushed the President to end counting on major collaborations with men and women on whose back he rode to power in 2015. It was the cabal that shoved a wedge between the President and the APC South-West big-wig, Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The former Lagos State Governor was pushed and shoved aside for fear of the possibility of wielding too much power. But a voice of reason from First Lady Aisha Buhari intervened.  “We will not be talking about my husband becoming the president if not for Governor Tinubu”,  she had once said in a public forum.

Suddenly, on Tuesday July 14, 2015, Tinubu showed up in Aso Rock to break the Ramadan fast with the President. He denied any rift. We knew there was one, the handiwork of the electorally valueless cabal. Aisha too raised some dust about the cabal characters who have hijacked her husband. They control plum slots in government but never lifted a finger to make Buhari President. It was the cabal that was responsible for tearing up the list of ambassadorial nominees from state governors and party men across the nation replacing it with one full of their cronies in the extended cabal kingdom.

Cabals are no respecter of persons. They think the world is in their hands and the buck stops with them. Secretary to the Government of the Federation, David Babachir, once asked Nigerians; “Who is the Presidency?” That’s the cabal mentality.  Men who were not voted for seem to be in charge of Nigeria today. They are fully entrenched in the spine of Nigeria’s government. To the cabal, men with solutions to Nigeria’s problems are the problems. Buhari’s main problem now is the cabal of self-serving corn artists who yield to no voice of reason.

The President obviously trusts these people.  But If you trust your enemies with your life and living, one day, they will thrust you into obfuscation and obliteration. If you trust them with your business, one day, they will thrust you out of business and into beggary. Granting members of the cabal too much freehand and freedom to operate in government is a political personality disorder. Mr. President is either snacking in naivety or grinding in gullibility. Cabals pursue no other agenda but their selfish own.

On June 12, 2015,  in my article on this page titled, “Mr President, you are holding the tiger by the tail, I forewarned Mr. President. I sounded an alarm about the attitude of belonging to nobody and hanging with everybody. I warned about Bukola Saraki. Today, the chicken has come home to roost. The evil of today is always in constant rassle and tussle with the good of the present.

In Nigeria, the evil of today is in our National Assembly. Our sitting and sinning senators invoke the spirit of the law when convenient; but legislative depravity and lawlessness run in their veins and arteries. There are many people in working relationships with Mr. President who have only come to steal, kill, and destroy. Lawan Daura may be gone, but there are still many ‘Dauras’ yet untouched.

Succour as 40,000 Alimosho residents receive free medical treatment

About 40,000 residents of Alimosho area of Lagos including women, youths and children received free medical treatment in the just concluded 2018 edition of Free Health Mission for residents organised by Mr. Adebisi Yusuff, a lawmaker representing Alimosho constituency 1, in the Lagos State House of Assembly.

The five-day annual free health mission in commemoration of the lawmaker’s birthday, at the Ipaja-Ayobo Mini Stadium, Lagos was sponsored by his foundation, Prince of Hope Turns to Reality Foundation (PHTRF) held in each of the five council areas including Mosan, Okunola, Agbado Oke-Odo, Alimosho.

The annual outreach, apart from attending to regular ailments such as malaria, typhoid, cough, cold, etc, covered eye-related issues and surgeries on hernia, lumpectomy, ganglion, keliods, among others.

Speaking to newsmen, Yusuff, the President of PHTRF said that he was motivated to invest in people’s health because God has given him sound health and that his late parents placed priority on health.

“I am also doing this because of the passion my mother had for me and my health while growing up. I am committed to the healthy living of people because health is wealth. “I have the inspiration that we should not concentrate only on close families, we must extend health services to neighbours and this is the fourth edition.

“We have improved on last year’s edition where over 30,000 residents of this federal constituency and beyond benefited, we have capture more people”, he said.

The lawmaker, who noted that something was wrong with the nation’s health system, said that he had partners from overseas countries and about 25 medical practitioners from the U.S would participate in the surgeries.

“If this number of people had been living in agonies for several years without money to seek medical attentions, government across levels and well-meaning individuals must rise up and provide affordable and quality healthcare services.

One of the recipients of the programme, Master Seyi Oladele, an18 year-old student, who came for Keloid surgery said that he had been suffering from Keloids for four years, and commended the lawmaker for the free surgery.

“I have made several efforts to get out of this mess by visiting hospitals, but my mother did not have the money to finance the bill for surgery as she is the only one taking care of us,” Oladele said.

The chairman of Ipaja-Ayobo LCDA, Mr. Sakiru Adisa, who commended the lawmaker for the gesture, said, it was part of  dividend of democracy.

2019: Uduaghan to speak on political future soon- Aide

The Media Assistant to the immediate past Governor of Delta State Dr. Emmanuel Eweta Uduaghan, Mr. Monoyo Edon has debunked a news report with the headline “I shall remain in PDP, can’t defect to a dying party, APC- Uduaghan” credited to the Executive Assistant to the Delta State Governor Mr. Fred Oghenesivbe Latimore, noting that Uduaghan will speak on his political future soon.

Edon made this disclosure in a chat with Vanguard yesterday in Warri

According to him, neither Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan nor his media office granted any interview on defection how much, one with the above headline.” Maybe Mr. Latimore in his usual element was responding to a rumour on social media, while noting that Latimore fails to realize that there is a clear distinction between propaganda and journalism”.

“With due respect to the office of the Delta State Governor, one would have expected that its staff, particularly the media arm should be preoccupied with the task of polishing the image of our Governor’s administration before the general public and handling feedbacks on his performance so far.

“It therefore becomes worrisome whether the lines between the professional ethics of a government appointee and his individual opinion has blurred to the point that it overlaps. It invariably means, with the Executive Assistant tag, Mr. Latimore writes the mind of the Governor and mirrors the body language in the camp of the Governor. Otherwise, he would have been called to order and barred from pitching his Principal with his former boss and predecessor.

“We would like to plead with our Governor Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa to call his Executive Assistant to order, otherwise we may be forced to respond directly.

‘We also want to reassure the general public, especially Dr. Uduaghan’s supporters that our Principal is very much in the senatorial race and will come out with a decision on the direction of travel of his political future after the conclusion of his high level consultations”. He added.