Finally, Leonardo DiCaprio wins an Oscar

DiCaprio

 Leonardo DiCaprio has finally won an Oscar. The 41-year-old was named best actor at the 88th Academy Awards, with Brie Larson named best actress for Room.

Spotlight took home the best picture Oscar with Mad Max: Fury Road picking up six accolades, the most awards of the night.

It took DiCaprio five tries and 23 years and to win the coveted trophy. In the past he had been nominated for best actor in Titanic, The Aviator, Blood Diamond and The Wolf of Wall Street. And when he took the Best Actor Academy Award last night, Twitter almost went into a meltdown as fans heaved a collective sigh of relief.

DiCaprio’s win for The Revenant generated more than 440,000 tweets per minute, the social media site said this morning. That makes it the most-tweeted minute of an Oscars telecast ever.

The Revenant won three of the 12 awards for which it was nominated. Apart from best actor, the film also picked up the statuettes for best director for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu — his second in a row — as well as for best cinematography.

The ceremony had been boycotted by some Hollywood personalities who protested the lack of ethnic diversity among this year's nominees. All 20 nominees in the best acting or supporting acting categories are white and an angry social media backlash under the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite has grabbed the awards season headlines.

Predictably, the night was overshadowed by the simmering race row, and host Chris Rock – who is black – delivered a series of sarcastic jokes targeting the Academy’s overwhelmingly white male membership.

“Well, I’m here at the Academy Awards — otherwise known as the white People’s Choice awards,” joked Rock who hosted the show despite calls for him to join the boycott.

“You realize if they nominated hosts, I wouldn’t even get this job. Y'all would be watching Neil Patrick Harris right now."

DiCaprio thanked filmmaker Martin Scorsese, with whom he has collaborated in five films. He also thanked a host of other people who have helped him in long and accomplished his career. Then he delved into his passion — climate change.

“Climate change is real. It is happening right now. It is the most urgent threat facing our entire species and we need to work together and stop procrastinating,” DiCaprio said to applause.

A dedicated environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for his activism. In 2014, he was appointed as a United Nations representative on climate change.

Some fans took notice of a photo from the ceremony that appears to show DiCaprio subtly showing his middle finger to the crowd. The image quickly started getting reblogged on Tumblr. And many people who noticed it made jokes about the Academy for making DiCaprio wait over 20 years for his first Oscar win.

APC Bigwigs Want Oyegun Out

Oyegun

      The National Chairman of the ruling the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, may soon be relieved of his exalted post, according to The Guardian.

The influential newspaper writes that after a recent meeting of the party’s officials, presided by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Oyegun was berated for failing to ensure that the party’s preferred candidate emerged as President of 8th Senate on June 9, 2015. The situation, according to the newspaper, is said to have damaged the image and reputation of the party.

Oyegun, who is proceeding on a 10-day leave, was accused by a notable figure from the north central of not enforcing the party’s choice in the selection of floor functionaries of the National Assembly.

“You would recall that on that fateful Tuesday, a meeting was convened at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. When the national chairman was told of the meeting, he asked whether the letter for the inauguration of the National Assembly had been withdrawn.

“Even when he was told that the Inspector General of Police was mandated to ensure that no one gets into the Assembly complex pending the conclusion of the meeting, it was alleged that Oyegun allowed inquiries to President Buhari, who denied making any such orders,” the source explained to The Guardian.

The source disclosed that it was partly because of the roles Oyegun failed to play in the emergence of NASS leaders that some powerful forces in the party insisted he should give way to a vibrant person.

He claimed that although the national vice chairman for the north, Senator Lawani Shuaibu, may act in Oyegun’s absence, pending the next national convention, incumbent Edo governor, Adams Oshiomhole, may be the ultimate beneficiary.

The source said Oyegun courted the grouse of another powerful politician from the north by disclosing to some members how the former Lagos State governor, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, had assured that the issue of consensus was not necessary, since the south west had resolved to vote for Buhari during the presidential primary.

“All these, as well as the issues of Kogi and Bayelsa governorship election and utterances over the Supreme Court judgments, are what culminated in the decision to ease the national chairman out of the party,” he disclosed.

The national chairman, however, told journalists that after guiding the party for the last two years, he deserved the “10-working day leave to rest”, adding that it had been a very intense period building the party and “putting government together up to this point”.

Though Oyegun revealed that in his absence, his deputy, Engr Segun Oni, “will cover my beat”, sources said Senator Shuaibu was preferred to Oni, based on capacity, charisma and human communication. Some south west leaders, The Guardian said, see Oni as an outsider to the progressive ideas of the party.

Road construction: Okupe says Osinbajo is spreading falsehood

Dr Okupe

Prof Osinbajo

Dr. Doyin Okupe, former Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to ex-President Goodluck Jonathan, has accused Vice President Yemi Osinbajo of propagating “absolute falsehood” with his recent claim that in the last 10 years, the federal government did not build a single road.

The Vice President made the statement weekend, during his speech at the retreat of pastors of the Fountain of Life Church, Ilupeju, Lagos.

“The federal government in the past 10 years could not build a single new road, not repairing existing ones alone” he said.

The period in question was presided over by Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Vice President Osinbajo is a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Debunking the claim on his Facebook page, Okupe said it was unfortunate that Osinbajo, whom he holds in “very high esteem,” could make such “blunder”.

“This statement is a lie and an absolute falsehood. Many people have said so. But this is not why I am writing this,” he wrote.

“It was a wrong statement made in a wrong place and before a wrong audience. This is perhaps one of the most difficult posts I have made to date.

“Yemi Osinbajo and I have a few things in common. He is a professional in politics like me. He is a practising Christian and a revered Pastor. I am a practicing Christian and an aspiring Evangelist. We both are alumni of Igbobi College, Yaba, Lagos.

“His younger brother and mine were classmates at Igbobi and are both pastors of the Fountain of Life Church, Ilupeju, where I became grounded in Christianity under the mentorship of the celebrated and revered man of God, Pastor Taiwo Odukoya.

“My concern is the erroneous assumption that just because the VP is a Christian therefore every Christian is APC. The Church must also be sensitive and mindful of the danger in bringing politics into the Church.

“For Prof Osinbajo, if only he remembered the Igbobi College motto ‘omnes unum in domino’ meaning ‘all are one in the Lord’, he would not have committed such a blunder. Our God is God of APC, PDP, Labour etc.

“Having said this, the Vice President is someone I hold in very high esteem and he knows this. I am also proud of his role in this administration.”

Corruption is not caused by a few individuals – Osinbajo

Osinbajo

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo believes that corruption in the country was not caused by a few individuals, but that the entire system was built around lack of integrity.

Speaking at the pastors and leaders retreat of the Fountain of Life Church in Ilupeju, Lagos, the Vice President expressed confidence that the country would be great again. However, he stressed that the foundation for the greatness had to be laid with a lot of pain.

“Unless we tackle graft, we may not be able to achieve something,” he said.

“Nigeria lacks the capacity to get things done, which is difficult to understand, but with God on our side, our country will set the pace for Africa. Our people are ready to do it and they can do it but they are waiting for the right kind of leadership.

The VP lamented that the federal government did not build “a single new road” in the last 10 years. Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Jonathan presided over the country within that period.

“The federal government in the past 10 years could not build a single new road, not repairing existing ones alone.

“Now we have a president who will not steal money and who will not allow anybody to steal money.”

Commenting on the N6 billion that the last administration spent on a new residence for the vice-president, he said Aguda House, the current official residence, is up to standard and should not be abandoned.

“There is no need for a new vice-president’s house; it is a kind of waste; we are now in a situation where we cannot abandon it; it has to be completed and used for a different thing,” he said.

Osinbajo also spoke on the controversy surrounding the State House Medical Centre, which he said was not only for workers at the state house.

He said it is a general hospital with a lot of facilities to serve all Nigerians, adding that he would prefer that it be further equipped to provide higher medical services to those in need.

Osinbajo debunked suggestions of lack of data in the country, saying that the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) had huge data, which had been rated highly by the World Bank and other international agencies.

He said the intention of government was to aggregate the scattered data in INEC, CBN, and National Population Census Commission into one by the National Identity Card Management Commission.

He also added that the education sector lacked not only standards but also adequacy of institutions, which has forced Nigerians into sending their children abroad for tertiary education.

He revealed that the government would convert many of the existing universities into centres of excellence and support the private sector in the running of universities to enable more Nigerians to have access to tertiary education.

The country, he said, needs truth and integrity, which the church should spearhead.

“The church is where the truth is; the church has the answer to the nation’s problems; one of the problems of our society is integrity,” he said.

 “I know why you are praying for us, and it is because you know that this is a good opportunity to get it right and we don’t want to miss this chance.”