Bombshell From El-Rufai’s New Book: “Whoever Wins, I’ll Run Aso Rock From My Farm” – Obasanjo

Just saw this on Leadership…don’t know how credible this piece of news is so I can’t endorse it but it has gone totally viral on many Nigerian news sites. Its about what former  FCT Minister, Mallam Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai wrote about former president Olusegun Obasanjo in his soon to be released book. We’ll just have to wait until the book is out to find out. 😉

PLEASE READ: 

After Olusegun Obasanjo failed to secure a third term in office, he boasted that 2007 and 2011 would be a “transition period”, as he would run the affairs of the country from his Ota Farm, irrespective of the fact that there would be a sitting president.

This has been revealed in a recently published memoir of an Obasanjo confidant and former minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Nasir Ahmad el-Rufai, entitled, “The Accidental Public Servant”.

The book recounts that though former president Obasanjo had singlehandedly ensured that the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua succeeded him in 2007, he nevertheless planned to administer the country from his Ota Farm. He described the 2007-2011 period as a transition because all his pointsmen, including the “economic team” would remain in office.

El-Rufai recalls the former president telling him thus: “Well, nothing will change, you know. I will be in Ota but we will be running things. Everything will remain the same, you know. You will remain in the government, the economic team will remain. Nothing will change. Only I will move to Ota and Yar’Adua will be here but we will be running things.”

When el-Rufai informed Obasanjo that he intended taking at least two years’ break from government business, the former president responded: “OK, well I just thought I should call you and explain to you that the next four years is just a transition period. The real change in government will happen in 2011. Not now.”

Obasanjo begged Atiku on his knees
El-Rufai also said in his seminal book, which will be launched at 10:30am on February 7, at the Yar’Adua Centre, Abuja, that the former president begged his deputy on “bended knees,” for his political survival.

In the 627-page book, El-Rufai said on page 151, “The stakes were high enough for Obasanjo to swallow his considerable pride and go to Atiku on bended knees.

“Obasanjo had no problem going down on his knees to beg for what he thought was impossible to obtain any other way.”

This rare and calculated display of meekness came around 2003 when Obasanjo feared he could lose the People’s Democratic Party’s re-nomination bid, if he did not make peace with Atiku.

The book recounts that faced with the possibility of losing the PDP ticket to Atiku, who had rallied all the governors on the platform of the party, the former president paid his deputy an unscheduled visit in 2003.

“The political bricksmanship got so bad that Obasanjo had to visit Atiku’s residence unannounced to plead for Atiku’s support.

Upon arriving at his deputy’s residence, he reportedly knelt before Atiku and begged the vice-president to remain onside, thus guaranteeing the support of the 17 PDP governors. In return, Obasanjo had to agree to retain Atiku as his running mate (he was rumoured at the time to be considering an alternative),” the book revealed.

In his book, el-Rufai also queries the leadership recruitment processes, noting that it is at the root of the nation’s problems, as it sacrifices merit. He said that the choosing of the late Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as president and vice-president by Obasanjo was “the final nail in the coffin of any meritocracy or track record of governance in Nigeria.

“President Obasanjo chose Umaru Yar’Adua whose ill-health, among other challenges, was known already constituted a serious impediment to the possibility of any inspired and energetic leadership. The view of many well-informed Nigerians is that Yar’Adua and his deputy, Goodluck Jonathan, emerged for no other discernable reasons than being ‘weak’ governors sympathetic to the ‘Third Term’ project and therefore handpicked as payback.

“The subsequent electoral imposition of Goodluck Jonathan as president in 2011 via military occupation and rigging has been unhelpful in raising leadership quality. Jonathan went into a presidential contest without a campaign manifesto, boasting of no experience, merit and any track record of previous performance other than wearing no shoes to school and his ‘good luck’.”

 

 

 

Culled From: Leadership

Photographers, Markus Klinko and Indrani Compile Their Most Iconic Celebrity Photoshoots Over 17 Years In A New Book

Photographers Markus Klinko and Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri 

For 17 years, photography icons,  Markus Klinko and Indrani have been partnering together to shoot just about every celebrity you can think of.

And now, for the first time in their 17-year career, they have brought together more than 150 of their quirky and dreamlike photos in a new book which they’ve titled Icons: The Celebrity Exposures of Markus and Indrani.

Some of the standout images include a sizzling portrait of Beyonce from the cover of her solo album Dangerously in Love, singer Lady Gaga in a colourful soft-toy dress, and a smouldering Katie Holmes.

Fern Mallis, the founder of New York Fashion Week, who wrote one of the forewords for the book, told the Huffington Post: ‘The transformation of the celebrities or models that they shoot is staggering.

Icons by Markus & Indrani is available from Waterstones,  and cost £16.99

View their book cover and some of their iconic works below.

                                     Lady Gaga

                                                   Beyonce

                                 Katie Holmes

                                    Dita Von Teese

                                    David Bowie

                   Jay Z                                  Eva Mendes

                                       Naomi Campbell

                Kate Winslet                    Pamela Anderson

                                    Ronnie Wood

                                 Anne Hathaway

                Britney Spears               Eva Mendes

                                         Beyonce

         Lady Gaga                           Dita Von Teese

Source: DailyMailUK

Charles Novia’s Tell-All Book Rats on Omotola, Genevieve and Stella Damasus

Anytime I hear of a celebrity publishing a tell-all book, I’m like “what the heck!” Turns out a lot of people love to read these books. If not for anything, to know what dirty laundry the stars are airing this time.

In the Nigerian film industry,  prolific film maker, actor and director, Charles Novia has decided to publish one of such tell-all books. It’s a 155-page book titled Nollywood Till November – Memoirs of a Nollywood Insider.

In the book, he talks about his fight with actress, Omotola Jalade-Ekehinde. He also mentions another fight Stella Damasus had with Genevieve.

Here’s an excerpt from the book on his fight with Omotola:

“As the recording of the movie continued Omotola somehow started getting on a lot of the crew and cast nerves. Since this is a ‘tell-it-like-it-is’ book and since I am generally known to be outspoken, I believe I have to reveal a bit of this, not in any way to disparage her person but to be candid in my opinion. Little unnecessary skirmishes with one person or the other became rampant. It got to a head one day that my Production Manager, who is usually easy-going and friendly lost his temper and came to me. ‘Sir, please this will be the last time I will ever work with you if Omotola features in your movie after this one!’ he complained.

I was taking everything in my stride and trying to calm frayed nerves when a couple of days to the end of the shoot, Omotola practically drove me crazy. I am very calm most of the time as a person and as a movie director but that day I blew my top!

I remember screaming at her and she was shocked at first but made the mistake of putting up a defence. That was when I basically warned her in a very deadly tone to be mindful of me.

I am very dangerous when I am cross, Omotola. By the time I am through with you, you will be shocked what will happen to you and your career.

Most of my crew members were shocked to see me in that mood. No one had ever seen me like that. I remember Norbert Young, Empress and Tari West calming me, while Ramsey sat coolly in a corner fiddling with his phone. Omotola seeing my mood, wisely went to her car and sulked.‘Who told you to leave my set?’ I bawled. ‘Get back here and lets shoot!’ ”

On the fight that Stella Damasus had with Genevieve, the book states:

“I remember when we went to Ikorodu village to shoot some forest scenes, it was getting late and we had one night scene left to shoot. The time was about 7.30pm and it was supposed to be the last scene for the day. Genevieve took some extra time on her make-up. Stella walked up to me in agitation. ‘Sir, please tell Genevieve to hurry up. It’s late, we are in the middle of nowhere and she’s still making up. I am a wife and mother. I have kids to attend to at home tonight. She should not waste our time.

I looked at Stella in surprise. There was an unusual edge in her voice. I could not fathom why she would sound a bit antagonistic. I knew she had a point on the time being spent by Genevieve in making up but I always assumed she had been okay with it. But she did have a point about the time being a bit late and we were actually miles away from the main town in a bush somewhere! I walked up to Genevieve who was rubbing powder on her face, while the make-up artist stood nearby, warily telling her she had over-done her face . ‘Genny, lets shoot this. Its late. Come on!’ ‘Just a minute, sir’ she replied.

She spent a few more seconds dabbing powder over a big pimple on her cheek. Stella was behind me, scowling and tapping her foot, impatiently. I took the whole incident between them as one of some brimming rivalry among actors which directors and Producers face at times on set so I did not pay much notice to it.”

Hmmm…what do you make of this book? Does it make you wanna rush out and grab a copy?

 

 

Monica Lewinsky to Publish Secret Love Letters to Clinton

Monica Lewinsky is reportedly set to write a tell-all book about her affair with Bill Clinton – including her intimate love letters to the ex-president and how he had an insatiable desire for threesomes.

The former White House intern, 39, reportedly wants revenge on Clinton, who she believes escaped unscathed while she has never been able to shake the disgrace of  their affair.

Friends claim publishers are scrambling to get their hands on the book, and after holding meetings, she has learned she could get as much a $12 million if she recounts every tawdry detail.

While she has not yet secured a book deal, her apparent attempts to cash in on the affair could rattle the Clinton marriage – and wreck Hillary’s bid for the presidency in 2016.

                       Monica Lewinsky

Speaking to the National Enquirer, her friends said the memoir could even spark further health problems for the former president, who has undergone heart surgeries.

‘Her book could be more than just revenge, it could kill him!’ a source said.

‘Monica has tried to move forward, but the nightmare of her affair with Bill still haunts her,’ a friend told the Enquirer. ‘She’s facing 40 without a man in her life, and seething about the way her reputation was destroyed as the whole world watched.’

The book will also include never-before-seen love letters that she wrote to the president – some of which were so intimate she never sent them, another friend added.

They reportedly detail her love for Clinton and how Lewinsky, then just 22, could make him much happier than his wife, Hillary, who the president called a ‘cold fish’.

Lewinsky, pictured in November 1995, claimed she had nine sexual encounters with

President Clinton in the Oval Office between November 1995 and March 1997

With his wife standing by in January 1998, Clinton insists he did not have relations with ‘that woman’,

but in August 1998, Clinton confessed on television that he did have sexual relations with her.

Why can’t this scandal just die a natural death? How does publishing a tell-all book help Monica find a man?