Ehirim Files News Desk Sunday, May 06, 2007

Search and rescue team are still searching for debris of the Kenyan Airways plane carrying 114 passengers. The Boeing 737 was carrying 106 passengers, eight crew members and a flight engineer. The plane which took off during a midnight storm crashed early Saturday after sending out a distress signal over remote Southern cameroon, officials said. Meanwhile President Kibaki of Kenya has dispatched top government officials led by the Minister of Transport, Mr Ali Chirau Mwakwere to Cameroon to help coordinate with the families of the crew and passengers.

According to the Guardian report, "an unconfirmed Kenyan Aviation source said while Cameroon might have lost 55 of her nationals, six Nigerians might be among the people on board. Among those feared dead are the nine Kenyan crew members."

Fire has destroyed Anambra State Board of Internal Revenue headquarters. "Fire fighter's" efforts to contain the blaze was proved abortive as the office building was thoroughly burnt. Documents worth about 13 million Naira was said to have been destroyed.

From the Vanguard Group of Newspapers, EFCC Chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu "had been meeting other security agencies to map out strategies to ensure that indicted governors do not escape from the country" According to sources, Ribadu met with State Security Service and Nigerian Immigration Service. Outgoing governors who had hoped to install their friends as council chairman had been dealth a big blow as Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) postponed the election until after June when the governors must have left office.

Also, the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) in Imo State has indicated there was no deal with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that resulted in the "emergence of Ikedi Ohakim as governor-elect." Ohakim also disclosed that zoning had nothing to do with his emergence as governor-elect. That his victory came about "from the wealth of knowledge he has about the state and the requirement to move the state to a level beyond where it is now."

Ohakim's own words on his vision for the state: "I have plans to transform Imo into a modern, model state with strong diversified manufacturing-based economy, anchored on the emerging skills mid-wifed by science and technology with guaranteed employment opportunities. I also hope to create economic environment suitable for the introduction of partial ;welfare state' where education and healthcare delivery can be made available to all who cannot afford it free; a model state that would place premium on entrenchment of law and order, peaceful co-existence and challenge the entrepreneurial and competitive spirit of our people which is the touch stone of Igbo high achievement. Besides, I hope, above all, to add value to leadership through accountability and responsibility in government."

Second Republic impeached governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, has said that the Yar'Adua "regime" would not last, citing "military coup d'etat and arms struggle as factors that will likely overthrow the regime which he described as 'illegitimate.'"

The Secretary to the Federal Government, Chief Ufot Ekaette, lost his bid to stop a Federal High Court in Lagos from pursuing a case against him "to appear before the court with the Pius Okigbo Investigation Report on Re-organization and Reform of the Central Bank of Nigeria." Ekaette had asked the court to "vacate" the subpoena on the ground "he was not served the order personally."

Elsewhere, Vice President-elect, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan is going back to school. He will be attending the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University for a public policy development program.