ZUMA TAKES WIFE NUMBER 3

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress says there is “nothing sinister” in its leader Jacob Zuma wishing to take a third wife. Local media have reported that his fiancee, Thobeka Mabhija, has made a traditional gift to his family, as part of the wedding preparations.

Mr Zuma married his second wife in January last year. He is the strong favourite to become South Africa’s next president, after elections due in the coming months.

Correspondents say it is common for leaders in Mr Zuma’s Zulu community to have more than one wife.

After initially denying the reports of a new wedding, the ANC on Tuesday issued a new statement which reads: “We see nothing sinister in Comrade Zuma wishing to enter into matrimony in line with African customary and traditional practice.”

The statement also stresses that it is a private matter. The Mercury newspaper reports that the family of Ms Mabhija, 34, delivered gifts including a goat, sheep and vegetables to Mr Zuma’s family home, as part of the Zulu umbondo tradition ahead of a wedding.

This will be the fifth time Mr Zuma, 65, has been married. He wed Nompumelelo Ntuli a year ago and has been married to Sizakele Khumalo since 1959.

He is divorced from Foreign Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, while Kate Mantsho Zuma died in 2000. Mr Zuma was acquitted of rape in 2006 and still faces corruption charges.

SOURCED FROM BBC

NIGER DELTA MILITANTS SEIZE FRENCH VESSEL

Pirates have seized a ship owned by a French company off the Nigerian coast, taking nine crew members hostage. The company – Bourbon – said the captain had assured them that all crew members were unharmed.

Bourbon – which provides specialist boats for the oil and gas industry – said it was working to free the crew. The hostages are from Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon and Indonesia. Piracy is common in Nigerian waters, often linked to militants targeting oil companies.

Militants attack vessels and strip them of valuables, taking hostages for ransom. The hostages are usually released later.

Militants are holding two British hostages taken from another oil services vessel in September last year. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend) say they will only be released if one of their leaders, currently on trial, is freed.

Militants say they are fighting for a bigger share of the country’s oil wealth, but many attacks are carried out by criminal gangs looking to extort money from oil companies, the government says.

Nigeria’s oil production has been cut by around a fifth since 2006, partly as a result of the violence. Boats in waters of neighbouring Cameroon have also been attacked.

The weekend attack comes as pirate hijackings increase, particularly in the waters off the coast of Somalia.

A French navy vessel captured 19 suspected pirates and foiled two attacks on Sunday targeting cargo ships in the Gulf of Aden.

In 2008, pirates attacked 111 ships off Somalia, hijacking 42 of them, and receiving tens of millions of dollars in ransoms.

SOURCED FROM BBC

LAGOS STATE GOV. CONDEMNED TO SUCCEED

His mantra throughout the electioneering campaign two years ago was ‘EKO O NI BAJE O’ which literally means Lagos will not be destroyed. Two years and Governor Tunde Fashola is perhaps doing the best solo cabaret Nigeria’s commercial capital has seen in a long while. Oshodi, a slum settlement in the state’s centre is feeling the brunt of the Governor’s ram-rod desire to transform Lagos into a mega city and perhaps 1 of 20 most important and influential global cities by the year 2020.

On the eve of the first working day of the year, thousands of street vendors were served cold pottage for supper as several makeshift shelters gave way to the flames of the state’s planning authorities as it embarked on an unprecedented clean-up exercise. The following morning, mouths wide open and hands over heads, several peddlers could only gape in awe at the loss of their businesses. The show only picked up when several local TV news crews arrived. ‘They’ve stolen my livelihood’ ‘I am the bread winner of my family, where does this Government want me to go?’ and yet another said ‘they’ve only given a reason for criminals to flood the streets’. And the cries continued unabated despite calls for calm and restraint from some market union leaders

But the street merchants had this coming long ago, nearly six months ago they had been asked to leave; being illegal squatters they were not obliged to receive compensation for the loss of their shops. However like many unheeded Government laws many smart Alecs preferred to play mute like the Biblical Zacharias. Hence their burnt shops have served as sacrifices on the altar of Lady Justice.

Yesterday several commuters in a bus derisively shouted ‘EKO BAJE’ a pun on the Governor’s mantra this time meaning ‘Lagos is destroyed’. The truth is the Governor knows unearthing Midas in Lagos requires urgency and sternness. His predecessor Bola Tinubu spent eight years chasing political shadows; gross infrastructural decadence and urban blight reigned supreme and the state slowly slipped down the abyss of a Tyranopolis.

It is in this year that the Governor intends to leap frog the state’s epileptic and chaotic transport system with a light railway system. But then Tunde Fashola is condemned to succeed. Bola Tinubu had embarked on an ambitious independent power project when the National electric power grid could no longer feed the state’s burgeoning power demand levels. A messy spat with the federal Government after ENRON; the state Government’s project consultant spectacularly collapsed, leaving the state a huge debt profile and off course pervasive darkness prevailed.

Once again the odds are stacked against the Governor; the Federal Government’s light rail project is enmeshed in a corruption scandal which isn’t ebbing and hell would most likely freeze over before any rails vibrate. The Governor has continually argued that the mega city dream of Lagos belongs to everyone, divining that if Lagos fails, Nigeria fails. Sadly more markets and houses would have to give way to the paraphernalia of a modern city like the light railway, this is a reality.

However this time something tells me he’s got the right cards, and for Lagosians, perhaps it’s to remember that popular work-out sing-along ‘no pain, no gain’

aghogho, CONNECTAFRICA