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Kogi guber: SDP, Ajaka under fire over ‘mindless blackmail, attacks against Judiciary’—-‘Court cases are won with evidence, not sentiments, propaganda’

Civil Society Organisations, INEC accredited observers in the November 11, 2023 Kogi governorship election as well as indigenous people of the state have raised concerns over what they described as mindless blackmail and “propaganda taken too far” by the Social Democratic Party and its candidate, Muritala Ajaka, aimed at putting undue pressure on the Judiciary.

According to them, the needless attacks on the Judiciary after every judgement, shows crass ignorance on the part of both the SDP and its candidate, “who are not being properly guided by their lawyers for obvious reasons”.

The groups specifically noted that the continuous attacks on critical stakeholders, especially the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Judiciary without evidence should be seriously condemned by well meaning Nigerians as an attack on Nigeria’s democracy and the rule of law, stressing that such attacks should not got without security agencies arresting and investigating people behind it.

At a joint press conference on Monday in Abuja, the Coalition of CSOs, INEC-Accredited Observers in the Nov. 11 Polls, and the Kogi Indigenous People Initiative said it was condemnable that despite an ongoing court process after the election, the SDP had resorted to self-help by deriding and ridiculing the Judiciary in the public space.

They, however, reminded the SDP and its candidate, Ajaka, that court cases are won with facts and evidence, not through propaganda, intimidation and name dropping.

Speaking on behalf of the CSOs, the National Coordinator of the Coalition of Civil Society of Nigeria, Ohalete Wisdom Kelechi, said the INEC and the Judiciary were two critical institutions of government that must be protected from the prejudice of political interests.

He said, “We are concerned that some political interests have continued to stoke embers of hate, further heightening the tension in the land.

“It must be clearly stated that those who have continued to abuse, harass, lampoon, insult and event attempt to induce officers of the judiciary do not mean well for our country.

“When the electoral body and the judiciary come under fierce attacks, coordinated propaganda and mindless blackmail, the pillar of democracy hangs in the balance and good governance will take a back seat.”

Also speaking on behalf of some of the observers accredited by INEC for the election, Mr. Emmanuel Oluwasegun, commended INEC for conducting what many described as the freest and fairest election since the creation of Kogi State.

He said while the SDP performed well in the Senatorial District of its candidate but poorly in the two other senatorial districts making up the state, its key leaders had continued to pollute the political atmosphere over their failure to secure victory.

Oluwasegun said, “It is important to note that there was an election which was credible in all its ramifications. INEC officials were at their best from what we witnessed and from report by foreign observers.

“The SDP won in local governments where its popularity is organic. It was able to mobilise people to vote for the party. The APC utilised its popularity in the state to mobilise the needed support in all the local governments. It did very well in both the West and Central districts, winning overwhelmingly in the district of its candidate. This resulted in about 190,000 votes difference between it and the closest rival.”

“No one is saying political parties cannot go to court to test their luck or seek justice if they think they have a case, but the resort to name calling, character assassination and propaganda against the Judiciary is seriously off the line and must be rebuked. The Judiciary doesn’t yield to intimidation. Prove your case with facts and in line with the Electoral Act,” he said.

Also in his remarks, the leader of the Indigenous People of Kogi State, Oguche Benjamin PhD, who is also from Kogi East, said some politically exposed persons had caused a wide division between the ethnic and religious divides in the state, which had led to avoidable tension, urging them to exercise caution in their utterances.

Dr. Oguche accused the SDP of promoting ethnic divisions, hate and violence against non SDP members in Kogi East LGA. He said several high profile government officials were hounded by SDP sponsored and known Igala military personnel who were sent home on specific assignments to arrest, beat, illegally detain and torture known APC leaders and stakeholders.

He insisted that the violence, intimidation and attacks meted on APC members, which he witnessed, first hand, were “unimaginably unjustifiable and unacceptable”, adding that despite all that, the APC still won the election convincingly.

“The lower tribunal and appeal courts gave the same judgement, in line with what local and international observers saw. Why concocting non-existent figures all in the name of desperation and for propaganda? The law is blind to sentiments or hooliganism. What matters is proving your case in court beyond reasonable doubt and nothing but that,” he said.

The Kogi Indigenes therefore advised the SDP candidate to rebrand his politics away from hate peddling and outdated propaganda if he wants to try his luck at the next governorship election in the state.

“This strategy is outdated and cannot sway the learned community, and definitely not the Judiciary,” they stated.

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Fire Razes Ajah Market Destroys Goods Worth Millions Of Naira

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Ajah Market

Fire Razes Ajah Market Destroys Goods Worth Millions Of Naira—-A devastating fire broke out on Sunday evening at Ajah Market near Alesh Bus Stop in Lekki, Lagos, causing extensive damage to shops and goods worth millions of naira.

The blaze, which began around 9 p.m., tore through several stores containing highly flammable materials, intensifying the destruction.

Dr. Femi Oke-Osanyintolu, Permanent Secretary of the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA), confirmed that LASEMA, alongside the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Services, responded promptly to contain the fire.

Fortunately, no casualties or injuries were reported, as the market was closed for the day, and traders were absent.

While the cause of the fire is still under investigation, authorities are assessing the extent of the losses.

“The LASEMA Response Team, along with the Lagos State Fire and Rescue Service, managed to prevent the fire from spreading to neighboring buildings,” Oke-Osanyintolu reported. “Efforts are ongoing to completely extinguish the fire and salvage remaining valuables.”

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American Music Heavyweight Quincy Jones Dies Aged 91

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Quincy Jones

American Music Heavyweight Quincy Jones Dies Aged 91—-QUINCY Jones, the man known simply as “Q,“ was a huge influence on American music in his work with artists ranging from Count Basie to Frank Sinatra and reshaped pop music in his collaborations with Michael Jackson.

Jones died on Sunday at the age of 91, his publicist said.

There was very little Jones did not do in a music career of more than 65 years. He was a trumpeter, bandleader, arranger, composer, producer and winner of 27 Grammy Awards.

A studio workaholic and a virtuoso at handling delicate egos, he shaped recordings by jazz greats such as Miles Davis, produced Sinatra, and put together the superstar ensemble that recorded the 1985 fund-raiser “We Are the World,“ the biggest hit song of its time.

Jones also was a prolific writer of movie scores and co-produced the film “The Color Purple,“ as well as the 1990s television show “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,“ which launched the career of Will Smith.

Jones’ circle of friends included some of the best known figures of the 20th century. He dined with Pablo Picasso, met Pope John Paul II, helped Nelson Mandela celebrate his 90th birthday and once retreated to Marlon Brando’s South Pacific island to recover from a breakdown.

Everything he did was stamped with his universal and undeniable hipness. U2 frontman Bono called Jones “the coolest person I’ve ever met”.

Jones’ most lasting achievements were in collaboration with Jackson. They made three landmark albums – “Off the Wall” in 1979, “Thriller” in 1982, and “Bad” in 1987 – that changed the landscape of American popular music. “Thriller” sold as many as 70 million copies, with six of the nine songs on the album becoming top 10 singles.

MUSICAL BREAK-IN

Quincy Delight Jones Jr. was born March 14, 1933, in Chicago. As a boy, he aspired to be a gangster like those he saw in his rough neighborhood. He was 7 when his mother was taken to a mental institution. His father, a carpenter, remarried and moved the family to Bremerton in Washington state, where young Quincy pursued a life of petty crime.

Jones said his interest in music bloomed in Bremerton, when he and some friends found a piano after sneaking into the community center in the segregated wartime housing project where they lived.

He experimented with different instruments in the school band before settling on the trumpet and by 13 was playing jazz, popular music and rhythm-and-blues in nightclubs. In Seattle at age 14, Jones met 16-year-old Ray Charles, not yet famous, who taught him to arrange and compose music.

Basie and trumpeter Clark Terry also would be mentors to the young Jones and he won a scholarship to what would become the Berklee School of Music in Boston. He gave it up, however, to go on the road with Lionel Hampton’s band as a teenage trumpet player in the early 1950s.

“Music was the one thing I could control,“ Jones wrote in his autobiography. “It was the one world that offered me freedom … I didn’t have to search for answers. The answers lay no further than the bell of my trumpet and my scrawled, penciled scores. Music made me full, strong, popular, self-reliant and cool.”

In the late 1950s he went on U.S. government-sponsored tours around the world with a band organized by bebop jazz pioneer Dizzy Gillespie. Jones then led his own band through Europe. He was deeply in debt in the early 1960s when he took a job at Mercury Records in New York, becoming one of the first Black executives at a white-owned record company.

There, Jones ventured out of the jazz genre and produced his first hit single, “It’s My Party,“ a Lesley Gore song that topped the U.S. pop chart in 1964.

Jazz purists called him a sell-out for making pop music but Jones later told Rolling Stone: “The underlying motivation for any artist, be it Stravinsky or Miles Davis, is to make the kind of music they want and still have everyone buy it.”

At Mercury, Jones got his first movie-scoring job, Sidney Lumet’s “The Pawnbroker.” He went on to score nearly 40 films, including “In the Heat of the Night,“ “In Cold Blood,“ “Mackenna’s Gold,“ “The Wiz” and part of the television mini-series “Roots”.

The people Jones worked with would populate a jazz or R&B hall of fame – Basie, Gillespie, Tommy Dorsey, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan, Aretha Franklin. But he also produced in other genres with, among others, Paul Simon, Amy Winehouse, Barbra Streisand, and Donna Summer.

He arranged Sinatra’s hit “Fly Me to the Moon” that astronaut Buzz Aldrin played a cassette recording of during the first moon landing in 1969. Years later, Jones told GQ magazine that Sinatra “called me up, and he was like a little kid: ‘We got the first music on the moon, man!’”

His own recordings were just as eclectic, veering from jazz to soul, African to Brazilian. In 1991 his “Back on the Block” record won the Grammy for album of the year and also Grammys in the rap, rhythm and blues, jazz fusion and instrumental categories.

Jones’ work with Jackson was historic, although Jackson’s record company initially thought Jones was too jazzy to be his producer. They started in 1979 with “Off the Wall,“ after the singer had split from his brothers in the Jackson 5 and put together a mix of dance tracks and ballads. The album featured four songs that became top 10 hits.

Their 1982 collaboration, “Thriller,“ became a cultural touchstone of the 1980s. Jones and Jackson wanted to broaden Jackson’s fan base so they added rock elements, getting guitarist Eddie Van Halen to play a blistering solo on “Beat It,“ which became one of Jackon’s biggest hits ever. Complemented by dazzling videos featuring Jackson’s mesmerizing dancing just as MTV was coming of age, “Thriller” made the entertainer one of the biggest stars in the world.

DIVINE COLLABORATION

Hits like “Beat It,“ “Billie Jean” and the title song made “Thriller” the biggest selling album of all time. It won three Grammys for Jones and seven for Jackson.

They followed that in 1987 with “Bad,“ which had five No. 1 hits, including “Smooth Criminal” and “Man in the Mirror.”

In 1985, Jones, Jackson and singer Lionel Richie organized “We Are the World,“ a record to raise money for fighting famine in Ethiopia. The huge all-star chorus featured Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, Diana Ross, Bruce Springsteen and Smokey Robinson. Jones set the tone for the recording session with a sign that said: “Leave your ego at the door.”

Jackson died in 2009, and Jones later sued the estate, testifying that he was “cheated out of a lot of money” in royalties. In July 2017, a Los Angeles jury awarded Jones $9.4 million.

Jones started his own record label, Qwest, as well as Vibe, a magazine that covered the hip-hop world, and had various foundations and humanitarian projects.

He kept launching new projects well past the traditional retirement age. In 2018, Jones, then 84, told GQ magazine: “I never been this busy in my life.”

Jones was married three times. His first wife was his high school sweetheart Jeri Caldwell with whom he had one daughter; his second wife was Swedish model Ulla Andersson with whom he had two children, including Quincy III, who became a hip-hop producer.

His third wife was “Mod Squad” actress Peggy Lipton, with whom he had two daughters, including actress Rashida Jones. He had two other children outside his marriages, including one with actress Nastassja Kinski.

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