LIONFACE NEWS INTERNATIONAL

The term tsunami comes from two Japanese words that mean "harbor" and "wave." A tsunami is a series of large waves generated by an abrupt movement on the ocean floor that can result from an earthquake, an underwater landslide, a volcanic eruption or - very rarely - a large meteorite strike. However, powerful undersea earthquakes are responsible for most tsunamis. Seismologists say only earthquakes measuring greater than 7.0 on the Richter scale can produce a major tsunami. Most earthquakes that generate tsunamis - including Friday's jolt off Japan's eastern coast - occur in areas called subduction zones, where pieces of the Earth's crust press against each other.  Subduction means that one tectonic plate slides beneath another and sinks deep into the Earth's mantle.  The friction between two slow-moving plates of the Earth's crust creates vast amounts of seismic energy which is released in the form of an earthquake. When a strong underse...

Lionel Messi The conviction of the iconic footballer, Lionel Messi and his father Jorge, has drawn attention to the seriousness of tax evasion in Europe. But how serious is the crime of tax evasion in Nigeria?    On July 6, 2016 Barcelona superstar, Lionel Messi, was given a 21-month jail sentence for tax evasion. Messi and his father, Jorge, who is also his representative, received the same sentence because they were found guilty of failing to pay tax on income earned by the world footballer of the year.According to the prosecution, the Messi defrauded Spain’s tax authorities a total of £3.19m from 2007-09. Aside the jail term, Messi was also ordered to pay a fine of around £1.7m and his father to pay £1.27m. The pair was accused of using tax havens in Uruguay and Belize to hide more than £3m in earnings from image rights from the Spanish tax authorities.The case involved image rights and agreements between 2007 and 2009, which the footbal...

In Edo State all actions and permutations dwell on or about September 10, 2016. The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have chosen the ‘David and Goliath’ electoral showdown. Those on the ringside appear to be directing the show. The outgrowing Comrade Governor hardly transacts government business these days without situating the criticality of the forthcoming governorship election in the state. Governor Oshiomhole has succeeded in taking centre stage in the electioneering. Recently the governor took to the podium to lambast the arrow bearer of PDP, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu. And when the former PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Chief tony Anenih, added his voice to the impending showdown, it was to complain about Oshiomhole’s antics to sideline his clan from the political scheme of Edo State. But state chairman of the party, Dan Orbih, raised an alarm about how Oshiomhole was planning to rig the September 10 poll o...

Reno Omokri has reminded Vice President Yemi Osinbajo of a statement credited to him countdown to the 2015 election, where he said “Jonathan was leading a visionless government.” Omokri, who took to his Facebook page yesterday, asked Vice President Osinbajo if he may now have seen that leading a nation like Nigeria was not easy, particularly given the state of the nation under the current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari. Osinbajo was said to have made the scathing statement in a series of tweets via his verified Twitter handle @ProfOsinbajo on December 22, 2014. The Vice President referring to the Jonathan’s administration then, wrote: “Nigeria is great and her citizens give so much, yet get nothing in return from today’s inadequate and visionless leadership.” But in a flashback yesterday, Omokri wrote: “After a year in power, Professor Yemi Osinbajo may now see it is not easy to lead a nation. “Does he still maintain this accusation against Goodluck Jonatha...

Govs’ meeting with Buhari looks like the familiar ‘family affair’ By: Tunji Adegboyegaon If I had known on time, I would have sent an item for possible consideration at the meeting between President Muhammadu Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress’ (APC) governors under the aegis of the Progressive Governors Forum at Aso Rock on Tuesday. Unfortunately, I read about the meeting in the papers less than 24 hours to the parley.  But, did anyone frown out of the meeting? It is important we have an answer to this question because, if everybody came out all smiles, something must have gone wrong. It means they did not tell themselves some home truths. A meeting at that level and at this point in time ought to produce frank talks. And if indeed truth is bitter, when it is told, it must necessarily provoke anger in some of the participants at the meeting. Most of the pictures of the meeting that were published did not reflect that frank discussions took place abo...

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at the weekend renewed his call for the restructuring of the country positing that it has become inevitable. Presenting a paper at a memorial conference in honour of the late Military Governor of defunct Northern Region, Gen. Hassan Usman Katsina, which held at the Indoor Sports Hall, Murtala Square, Kaduna on Saturday, he urged Nigerians to support calls for the restructuring of the federation in order to strengthen its unity and stabilize its democracy. “I believe that restructuring will eventually happen whether we like or support it or not. The question is whether it will happen around a conference table, in a direction influenced by us and whether we will be an equal partner in the process. Or will it happen in a more unpredictable arena and in a manner over which we have little influence? It should be at a table and we need to be at that table. A nation is an organism; it grows, it evolves, it changes, it adapts. And like other organi...

The Clerk of the Committee on Appropriation, Dr. Abel Ochigbo, and his staff could not access the secretariat of the committee yesterday as security agents prevented them from doing so. Yesterday’s development followed the face off between the Speaker of the House, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, and the erstwhile Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Jibrin Abdulmumin, over allegations of budget padding leveled by the latter against the speaker, key leaders of the House and some committee chairmen. The denial of access implied that the Secretariat of the committee may have been sealed off as claimed by Abdulmumin through his twitter handle earlier on Saturday. Abdulmumin had accused Speaker Dogara of ordering the computers in the Committee’s secretariat be moved to his office in a view to tapering with evidence. The lawmaker had also alleged that there was an attempt to break into his office, Rm 1.05. In one of his tweets on Saturday, he said: “On the request of my lawyers, the security age...

While it is acceptable for him to be interested in who succeeds him as governor, his conduct is beginning to reminiscence the do-or-die approach of former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he went all out to ensure that Late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded him. In his desperation, Obasanjo did everything inconceivable, resulting in the election being discredited by many credible independent observers. Even the beneficiary of the unpolished tactics employed by Obasanjo self-confessed that the election was blemished By Charles Igbinidu Last week, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) released the names of candidates of the different political parties in the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State. From the names released by the electoral umpire, Mr Godwin Obaseki and not Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC). It is also a well-known fact that even if he is interested in continuing as the governor of...

Col. Sani Usman Director of Army Public Relations (DAPR) , Prospects of a confrontation between Niger Delta militants and the military heightened yesterday as the Nigerian Army announced that its Special Forces had started exercises in preparation for combat in the restive oil rich region. The Army in a statement by its Director of Public Relations (DAPR), Col. Sani Usman, said it had started conducting exercises for its Special Forces on maritime warfare. “The Nigerian Army will from this weekend commence another training exercise code named ‘Exercise Crocodile Smile’ in 82 Division and part of 2 Division areas of responsibility traversing the South-south geo-political region,” he said. But Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson wednesday met with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja and said force was not the solution to the problem that had massively constrained the country’s crude oil production output. The Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt-Gen. Tukur Bur...

Aguiyi-Ironsi The after-effects of the January 1966 coup are still haunting Nigeria today, 50 years on. Among other things, it set in motion a set of events that plunged the country into the 30-month civil war, over three decades of military rule and a heightened sense of tribalism. Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI examines the role played by the late Head of State and one of the victims of the July 29, 1966 counter-coup, Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi. This week marks 50 years of the death of Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the senior military officer who seized power in the ensuing chaos that followed the January 15, 1966 military coup. Aguiyi-Ironsi was reputed to be a good soldier. He did not take part in the bloody January coup executed mostly by young, idealistic officers of Igbo extraction. By virtue of his seniority in the armed forces, he suppressed the coup. But, rather than hand power back to the civilian authorit...

The Ndokwa ethnic militant group(NEM) , said it did not mandate the Niger Delta Dialogue Contact Group, NDDCG, led by former military governor of old Rivers State, HRM King Alfred Deitte Spiff, Sen. Florence Ita Giwa, or Chief Mrs. Chinoye Aliyu to negotiate on their behalf with the Federal Government. In its reaction to a recent statement by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, that NDDCG would act as a clearing house for “all mushroom and internet-based militant groups in the region,” Onyechukuyenife Chukubuzor, told the Federal Government particularly the National Security Adviser, NSA, and all relevant authorities that the self-styled Niger Delta Dialogue and contact committee, coordinated by Dr. Ajuni and chaired by Diette-Spiff does not have the mandate to negotiate for the Ndokwa region. He stressed that dialogue team code named Aaron 2 as compiled by MEND only has Ijaw agenda and do not accommodate other ethnic nationalities in the oil...

  By Dele Sobowale  “Love and business and family and religion and art and patriotism are nothing but shadows of words when a man is starving.” O. Henry, 1862-1910, Nigeria is descending to a new low in barbarism, which if left unchecked will define the new era of politics. Parents, presumed to be sane, but obviously callous and distressed, now sell their kids to procure food for the rest of the family. Whether the evil is perpetrated with a heavy heart is difficult to say until we conduct a study into the motivations of the few known examples to date. And, the sooner the better, because this trend might gain momentum and become irreversible for a long time to come. It is difficult to imagine how parents would determine which of their kids to be sold. That they don’t particularly care what fate befalls that child is obvious. That they don’t consider that the sale of one child for a pittance will not solve their problems permanently is also clear. They ...