There is a breaking news out of Africa, in a country called Nigeria, a Satellite worth several millions of dollars has just failed less than 18months after it launched into orbit? Nigerian Communication Satellite (NIGCOMSAT) Limited in conjunction with a Chinese company embarked on this white-elephant project, fully seized of the fact that it was ill-timed, ill-conceived, ill-equipped, ill-constructed by unskilled artisans, manufactured of sub-standard materials, ill-managed, not space-worthy, defective and not what the Nigerian populace needs at this time of abject hunger, joblessness, insecurity, election-rigging and general malaise pervading the country.Icheokudotcom asks, what were the master-minds of this venture trying to prove when ordinary electricity is utopia, fantasy and a pure luxury in a country dreaming to be 'so great' by 2020? Icheokudotcom says that the reason why so many countries in Africa like Nigeria is stunted in their growth is that their supposed "leaders" are vision-less and lack a clear set objective or destination about where they want to lead their country to? This purposeless leadership culminates in the all over the map nature of governance in Africa and in Nigeria in particular. Their governments are always without a clearly defined mission statement. This is the reason they are perpetually in the dark, groping, fidgeting and fiddling as to what their priorities should be. They gamble with the destiny of a nation of over 120 million people. It is akin to a blind man leading a nation, resulting in their constant stumbles, falls, via off courses sometimes into the bushes or ditches and their failure to change the trajectory until their cliff-bound, death-journey becomes irretrievably doomed like the satellite under advisement, resulting to the so many failed states throughout the continent of Africa. Peradventure Nigeria may soon make the list of such failed states in Africa, baring a miraculous sense of purpose by her usurping "leaders".
NIGCOMSAT is a public private partnership company under the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Science Technology whose dream mission is to be the leading communication satellite operator and service provider in Africa. It is envisioned to manage and operate the first geostationary communication satellite in Sub-Saharan African under the technical name of NigComSat-1, which has C, Ku, Ka and L bands. NIGCOMSAT is expected to effectively delivery secure, qualitative and value-added satellite services to Africans. NIGCOMSAT is expected to provide comprehensive transmission and application services through digital and/or analog system, operating same by either fixed or mobile satellite, direct broadcast satellite services, end-to-end solution and also to engage in transponder leasing services. However, the multi-million dollar Nigerian satellite NigComSat 1 meant to be the mother-ship of this "dream" project, has just failed. It was shut down due to power trouble leading to fear that it may fall out of space, spin out of control and possibly damage other equipments in orbit. This crippled Chinese-built NigComSat-1 cost Nigeria a whopping sum of thirty-four (34) billion Naira; about $340million dollars USD or £228million British Pounds Sterling. What a misapplied fortune, yet this nation, Nigeria cannot supply power to her people and industries!
The Nigerian government under the headship of this conman here left in the picture, the illegitimate president of Nigeria, Umaru Yar'Adua holding a cell-phone, in a face-saving bare-faced lie, claimed that insurance would cover the loss. But they failed to tell Nigerians which insurance company is carrying the loss and under what terms? Icheokudotcom used 'con-man' because Umaru Yar'Adua stabilized his hijacked presidency by floating the idea of return to rule of law in Nigeria; but has recently metamorphosed into a 'press and media' witch-hunter. Umaru Yar'Adua has put on the jack-boots and today, the fifth-estate is his marked enemy for extinction, just for reporting what is happening in Nigeria under his very inept government. Nigerians heaved a sigh of relieve after the Olusegun Obasanjo eight years of gestapo-like vice-hold on Nigerians, with the new mantra of law and order; but recent events shows that this Umaru is transforming into a cheat, a conniving and contriving little despot. The alleged insurance coverage for this failed satellite may simply be a ruse just to distract Nigerians from asking the hard questions about this satellite mega-drama. Icheokudotcom says it smacks of a cover-up and like the Sani Abacha "recovered" loot, nobody in Nigeria may eventually know the real deal about this satellite. It may likely be swept under the carpet just like many other non-concluded matters in Nigeria.? Where is the warranty for this satellite and what is the track, proven record of the Chinese company in satellite expertise; except for the known fact that the Chinese tries to steal infantile piece-meal technology from the Americans through espionage and moles? It is on record that this NigComSat1 was the first time for China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) to deliver a satellite, launch the service as well as provide ground operating system in one package to any international customer. Nigeria was a gamed-sucker for this Chinese mumbo-jumbo junk. According to some
telecommunications experts, the Nigerian government pulled a fast one on her citizens with the morbid satellite project that was dead upon launch. In their own very words, the NigComSat1 was a "white elephant in space" stating further that the whole operation was just a sham or debacle". The NigComSat 1 satellite which was meant to provide communications for government agencies and broadband Internet services was however limited in capabilities because of the type of frequency it used and was configured with. The satellite was amenable to atmospheric weather fluctuations including being disturbed by clouds, air-pressure and wind. It also did not work properly in Nigeria's rainy season and during the Harmattan season when clouds of dust blow down from the Sahara desert. The satellite also operated on frequencies already allocated to other companies and interfered with other providers' equipment. Icheokudotcom says, with all these available known facts and data to negate the viability of the satellite project, yet the Nigerian authorities went ahead with
it full stream, anyways? We unequivocally say that if this is not a scam on a grand scale, nothing else so qualified the definition of a scam. Where is the EFCC on this criminal defraud of the Nigerian people by her government and the Chinese collaborators? Now take a serious look at the picture here left. You are seeing one of the masterminds of this grandiose scam. Wearing eye-glasses is Ms. Grace Ekpiwhri, the Nigerian Minister for Science & Technology; whose ministry supervises the NIGCOMSAT!Padding this conspiracy theory, is the Nigerian Minister of ''Mis-Information'' John Odey who, while carrying water for his masters in Abuja, insisted that the satellite was a worthwhile investment and that "No technology can be a waste of money". To which Icheokudotcom says that 'a white-elephant technology is a waste of money' and that there are other more credible projects this amount of money could have been more prudently invested in for maximum beneficial result to impact on the fortunes of Nigerians. This fella, John Odey, has lied through his teeth to the Nigerian public and ought to resign his office immediately. Continuing his rantings, John Odey asserted that "Nigerians should see the satellite as desirable and that it has served a purpose." Icheokudotcom rejects this claim as baloney and states that desirability is not synonymous with a need; and that a whopping $340 million dollars investment should not be stupidly and thoughtlessly wasted by a government, simply to serve a purpose!
To see the depth of misinformation in Nigeria, a junior minister in the Science & Technology ministry Alhassan Zaku told Nigerians that their satellite had lost power and had to be "parked, like you would park a car". To which Icheokudotcom asks, what planet are these Nigerian "leaders" from, to bold-facedly lie to Nigerians that you can park a satellite in space, motionless, like you would a car? Don't this dido-head know that space is a void and things therein including other celestial-debris are in perpetual motion. Shameless government officials? Another mallam from a sharia school, maybe?
Do not let his boyish, clean-shaven face disarm you as you are staring into the eye of another co-conspirator to this satellite scam. His name is T. Ahmed Rufai - the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NIGCOMSAT. His resume and space-technology working experience is known only to his fellow mallams who put him in charge of such a highly, technical, rocket-science based enterprise like a space program
Icheokudotcom while adopting some analysts' conclusion that despite that Nigeria has made nearly $2 trillion in oil revenues over the last 30 years, her population are mostly poor; wonders aloud, how a nation that lacks basic infrastructure that make life livable like power and water, would embark on a satellite ego-trip? This smacks of a government which did not set its priorities right.
The most laughable of this shameful escapade in space is that the Chinese contractor, China Great Wall Industry Corporation, was yet to handover the management of the doomed NigComSat1 to the Nigerian owners/operators; which proper handover was officially scheduled for a yet to come date, May 13, 2009, before the satellite died. Maybe a still-birth satellite? The Chinese in addition to building the satellite, entered into a technical management agreement with the Nigerian owners/operators for a period of 15 years, effective May 14 2007 when the satellite was launched.
The NigcomSat-1 Satellite In-orbit Delivery Contract between Nigeria’s National Space Research and Development Agency (NSRDA) and China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) was signed on December 15, 2004, in Abuja, Nigeria. According to the terms of the contract, CGWIC shall deliver the NigcomSat-1 satellite based on the DFH-4 platform with multiple bands transponders on-board. The satellite will serve Nigeria in the fields of telecommunications, broadcast and broadband services. The LM-3B launch vehicle is going to launch NigcomSat-1. In addition, two ground stations in Abujia, Nigeria and Kashi, China will provide satellite operations support service and China will train Nigerian technical personnel. Icheokudotcom now asks, who in Nigeria ensured compliance on the part of the Chinese company to this contract regarding specification, configuration and training?
It is highly significant that a 15 years life-span satellite barely made it through 18 months! NigComSat-1 was launched on May 14, 2007 and died on November 10, 2008! What a feat by the Nigerian Authorities and their Chinese counterparts? Bravo!
The composite picture shows the Chinese made CZ-3B Launch vehicle blasting off into space, laden with the NigComSat1 on May 14th, 2007, at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province China. About 26 minutes after launch, the NigcomSat-1 satellite entered into the pre-determined Geostationary Transfer Orbit with an apogee of 41,951 km, a perigee of 209 km and an inclination of 25°. NigComSat1 was developed by China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a subsidiary to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC); the three-axis stabilized NigcomSat-1 satellite is based on the DFH-4 satellite bus and has a launch mass of 5,150 kg and a service life of 15 years. It is equipped with four (4) C-band , 14 Ku-band transponders, eight (8) Ka-band and Two (2) L-band transponders. The CZ-3B launch vehicle was developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a subsidiary of CASC. However the contraption failed just after 18 months.
The composite picture shows the Chinese made CZ-3B Launch vehicle blasting off into space, laden with the NigComSat1 on May 14th, 2007, at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan Province China. About 26 minutes after launch, the NigcomSat-1 satellite entered into the pre-determined Geostationary Transfer Orbit with an apogee of 41,951 km, a perigee of 209 km and an inclination of 25°. NigComSat1 was developed by China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), a subsidiary to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC); the three-axis stabilized NigcomSat-1 satellite is based on the DFH-4 satellite bus and has a launch mass of 5,150 kg and a service life of 15 years. It is equipped with four (4) C-band , 14 Ku-band transponders, eight (8) Ka-band and Two (2) L-band transponders. The CZ-3B launch vehicle was developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), a subsidiary of CASC. However the contraption failed just after 18 months.As a stop-gap measure to cushion the hardship of the failed satellite, T. Ahmed Rufai said NigComSat will migrate its customers to other leased satellite pending a new satellite. According to him, his company was ready to lease four or five transponders (satellite circuits) to enable its customers return to business. Icheokudotcom says, satellite technology is for most part, a private company venture and that the patently incompetent Nigeria government has no business dabbling or meddling therein and better still should have only leased circuits and pay as per use. For a competent government, it is laudable but not Nigeria as it today stands where nothing has been beneficiary and profitably managed successfully.
However the spokesperson for Chinese Great Wall Industry Corporation, Ku Geng, explaining what happened to the NigComSat 1 said that "the solar wing malfunctioned, which led to exhaustion of electric power and then the satellite failed."
The DFH-4 bus platform can be used in high capacity broadcast communication satellite,
new generation direct broadcasting satellite, new generation tracking and data relay satellite, regional mobile communication satellite, etc. The platform comprises propulsion module, service module and solar array. It has a payload capacity of 588 kg and an output power of 10.5 kW by the end of its lifetime. Its design lifetime is 15 years and its reliability by the end of lifetime is more than 0.78. Based on versatility, inheritance, expandability and promptness principles and mature technology, the platform will reach world advanced level to meet the needs of international and domestic large communication satellite markets. The Nigerian authorities failed to study extensively the failure rate of the DFH-4 Bus technology which was used in NIGCOMSAT1. The Nigeria authorities also failed to note that the DFH-4 technology is a work in progress which has recorded many failures including the Chinese Sinosat 2 satellite; which equally failed to deploy its solar arrays in orbit before the catastrophic failure of the same DFH-4 Bus based technology NIGCOMSAT 1 of similar defect in November 2008.
The dead upon lunch NigcomSat-1 was supposed to play an important role in Nigeria telecommunications - providing urban and rural telephony, trunking and relay services, mobile and paging services, corporate and VSAT networks as well as inter-carrier services. It would have also been used for broadcasting high-definition TV and DTH services, multimedia, video streaming, audio and sound services, internet and multimedia services of video conference, solutions for virtual private networks and VoIP protocols, real time monitoring services, navigation and global positioning coverage. Icheokudotcom says that there are other more pressing matters these Nigerian air-heads in government would have concentrated their effort at and which could have been a better utilization of this wasted money. How can a country which cannot even feed her populace, supply her populace with much needed but never available power and energy, which cannot tar or pave her roads to make them motor-able, which cannot build or rebuild existing but dilapidated bridges, which cannot find jobs for the over 45% unemployed manpower, which cannot equip and competently train her police-force to combat the high insecurity problems militating against everything in NIgeria, which cannot build and/or maintain a functioning medical center of excellence that her president is always in one overseas hospital bed of one country after another, which cannot pay salaries etc, have the guts or misplaced audacity to embark on space satellite technology, if not to create an avenue to loot the treasury? 
Nigerians are straving and dying of common colds and malaria yet these buffoons in Abuja have the idiocy and temerity to be wasting very scarce resources, playing in a league far and beyond their capabilities and know-how? It is a shame indeed! Nigeria, a country that was rated among Brazil and India in the 60's as the countries to watch out for. Today Brazil and India has left the snail-speed Nigeria out in the loops where it is still groping for direction since her independence in 1960. Brazil is a nuclear nation, manufactures vehicles, has a viable satellite program, makes aircrafts and is almost self-sufficient in a home-grown bio-fuel. India's Chanai is the Silicon valley of the South East Asia! Their medical and pharmaceutical prowess is world reknowned, have a viable space program that Indian satellite is today mapping out the mo0n surface following a successful launch into orbit of Indian made satelillte and vehicle, India is also a nuclear power. What has Nigeria got to show for its 48 years of "independent" existence but a band of bandits and election-riggers masquerading as "leaders" where a person who did not win an election is imposed on the country as her president. Umaru Yar"Adua, resign your illegitimate presidency today because it is now indelibly tainted by this satellite scandal! That will be a good place to start the Nigeria Rejuvenation! ENOUGH of this brigandry! 
Whose Satellite is it anyway? The Chinese undertakers or the Hausa/Fulani oligarchs swindlers of Nigeria PLC? Remember Senator Jubril Aminu and the $12million dollars SIEMENS bribery scandal; yet he is still in the Nigerian Senate as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria representing Adamawa State! Only in a corruption-infested country like Nigeria will a Senator Jubril Aminu remain in the Senate instead of cooling his heels in the big house (prison) for massive corruption. But such an infamy is possible because all of the so-called leaders are tainted in corruption. Which Nigerian leader is not corrupt? None! Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida owns a private jet in addition to inumerable other assets and you wonder how else could he have gotten them if not for corruption? WHo was his daddy and which business did he do as an army officer or did he inherit any trust-fund as the source of his stupendous weath? Remember it was during his Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida's hijack of Nigeria that the $180 million dollars Halliburton bribery scandal involving Nigerian top government officials took place? Is it Sani Abacha? - some of his $500 million dollars loot, recovered under Olusegun Obasanjo, government has since developed wings and flew into yet another corrupt official's bank account. Olusegun Obasanjo is corruption personified. David Mark, the Nigerian Senate President stole to his heart's delight as Nigeria's Minister of Communication under Ibrahim Babangida's interregnum and his $33 million dollars golf course in Ireland speaks volume to that fact. Some members of the House of Representatives are, in addition to being very corrupt, 419 criminal operators as acknowledged by one of them. So corruption is the augean stable wherein many a Nigerian leader instead of fighting finds themselves wallowing in and sometimes enmeshed to the neck themselves. In Nigeria, corruption is such a vicious circle that it is so ingrained in their body-fabric that no Nigerian 'leader' or official has any moral standing to question another's corruption. However, Icheokudotcom does not blame these bandits in power or government for their abysmal perchant for corruption; no, we blame the timidity of the Nigerian people whose cowardice these leaders take full advantage of and cash in to loot Nigerian treasury dry. It is a Total Bullshit! In conclusion, we posit that this satellite project was a scam and hereby urge you to register your protest accordingly by contacting, calling, emailing, texting or through direct mails or even physical visit to the principal henchmen and a woman mentioned above; whose action/inaction caused Nigerians the loss of so much scarce resources. Please insist that these people stop henceforth any further attempt at supposedly 'launching' another contraption into space with the anything goes, once the price is right, Chinese authorities! The Nigerian Authorities can be reached via:-
NIGCOMSAT LTD.
20 Justice Mohammed Bello Street, Asokoro, Abuja, Nigeria
Phone/Fax:-+234.9.314.5759,+234.9.480.5909+234.9.314.5758
Email: info@nigcomsat.org
The Chinese contractor can be reached via:-
The Chinese contractor can be reached via:-
China Great Wall Industry Corporation
67 Beisihuan Xilu, Haidian District, Beijing 100080, P. R. China
67 Beisihuan Xilu, Haidian District, Beijing 100080, P. R. China
Tel: 86-10-8810218886-10-88102000 Fax: 86-10-88102107
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Christy 'Apena' Essien-Igbokwe , the wife of Jegede Shokoya of the New Masquerade and Nigeria's lady of songs is dead; she was 51years old. Although her family claimed that "brief Illness" killed her like so many Nigerians; Icheoku retorts that it was most likely AKwa Ibom voodoo and remote control that was used to arrest her. It is on record that she had fallen out with the governor of her native Akwa Ibiom State and have been having a relentless war for political turf with the governor? So who knows whether she was sacrificed to Ekpe cult or even Alusi-Okija as an offal; afterall African science is still very much alive and portent. May her soul rest in peace.
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