NEWISSUES MAGAZINE

The connived to link me with Boko Haram - Asari

I can’t go home - Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim

NEWISSUES www.newissuesmagazine.com December 2014 Vol.1 . No. 4 N400

Jega’s Dilemma Is free and fair election possible in a Nigeria where every politician is planning and willing to rig?

SPECIAL PROJECT OF BAUCHI STATE

Shukura Coral Hotel, Sokoto Standard Room Suites (Rooms & Living Rooms) Gymnastics Restaurant

POLITICS

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t was all over that the Chairmen in Benue South Senatorial District, Zone C, all donated money to buy the PDP nomination form for Senator David Mark. This is so ridiculous as everyone knows the script being played out. This is an attempt to muscle Senator David Mark on a people who said they are tired of the man and want power rotated to another person. The circus being played out in Benue South Senatorial District is an insult to the people's intelligence and a disgrace to d e m o c r a c y .

The Abuse of Democracy in Idoma Land Victoria Daniel

David Mark can afford to buy his form and test his popularity instead of this shameless naked dancing in public. We know the chairmen all want to come back and they believe that David Mark will make them stay at the interim. Some who have cases with EFCC believe that the Senate President would help them out with the anti-corruption body. The Chairman of Ado Local Government was beaten up severely by youths for attempting to influence delegate in favour of David Mark.

From all indication it looks like there is an attempt to systematically rig the election through selecting delegates who will favour the senate president who they believe will keep them on the post. But if David Mark is popular why is he desperately trying to do everything to abuse the process.

Mark

Chief Mike Okibe Onoja, the man contesting against David Mark believes he will defeat Senator David Mark if the process is free and fair.

With all the muscling and attempts to pervert the process, it doesn't look like there will be free and fair election i n B e n u e S t a t e .

The crowd at Oturkpo when Chief Mike Okibe Onoja declared his intention to contest says much about the people's disenchantment with Senator David Mark. NEWISSUES correspondents who went to Oturkpo to cover the story have it that the Senate President may be popular outside Idoma land but very unpopular in Idoma. Nobody knows it better than David Mark, that's why the process has to be perverted for fear that he may lose woefully if he did not manipulate the process.

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3

GUEST COLUMNIST

Putain de merde!

By Professsor Pius Adesanmi

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utain de merde! I exclaim in absolute contempt as I hand over my passport to the French police officer. That's an unthinkable vulgarity!

It is the father of vulgarities in French, guaranteed to catch the attention of the French policeman who now holds my passport, lost in a few seconds of confusion. His colleagues in the ongoing process of stripping Nigerians of their human dignity also stop sharply in their tracks, all eyes on me. I have them where I want them. I want all four French police officers to hear me use a vulgarity that no White French man or woman can get away with using in the presence of a French policeman in the best of circumstances, let alone an African with a black ass getting off the plane - and from Nigeria of all places!

In the thirty seconds of their confusion, I can visualize what is going on in their minds. Their job, to stand right at the door of the plane, look mean and unfriendly, and scrutinize the passports of all passengers arriving from Nigeria, before such passengers proceed to face further humiliation at immigration and passport control, has conditioned them psychologically to face docile, frightful, and suppliant Nigerians pouring out of Air France flights weekly from Abuja or Lagos. Only for this six-foot-two-inchmale to hand over his passport with an air of supreme confidence bordering on intolerable arrogance and to ice that cake of hubris with unbelievable

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pottymouthed vulgarity.

What to do with this pompous Nigerian? Well, he did say “putain de merde,� right? It's not just that he said it. It's the way he said it: 100% Parisian French, complete with the accent.

Nobody says it like that without being in perfect command of the French language, culture, and civilization.

Nobody says it like that without having lived in Paris, without having crawled the streets of Barbes and Chateau d'Eau, without having been a habitual crawler on the platforms of Les Halles.

This arrogant chap is one of us. He knows us inside out. He must have once lived here with us. He is us. He is doing this deliberately to provoke a reaction.

If this is the thinking of these French police officers, they are absolutely right on the money. Unfortunately for them, the passport I present while spewing my vulgarity is Canadian, not Nigerian. It works! I can sense their disappointment, their frustration. The only one who has dared to confront them has to go and present the passport of a fellow Western power! I can visualize the one million and one things they would have done to me if I was travelling on my Nigerian passport. Of course, my intention, the moment I saw them on stepping out of the plane, is to hide behind the strong arms of Canada and fight for my Nigerian humanity and dignity. Those of us who live transnational lives often have to do that

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much to our displeasure. I shouldn't have needed the might and power of Canada to shield me from the scorn, humiliation, and racism of these French police officers. My Nigerian passport should have been enough to do the magic. And that is why I am writing this piece in anger.

The officer looks at my Canadian passport, scrutinizes the photo in it to make sure it's me black folk have this annoying habit of all looking alike, all looking the same and smiles in helpless submission to the power of the Western essence of that passport. Then he asks a few friendly questions about my time in France. For a Nigerian, your French isn't something one encounters every day, he says. How did you learn French? When did you leave France for Canada? Then he waves me on with wide smile. I leave after registering my protest over what he and his colleagues are doing. I am not fooled by the friendliness. I fear for my compatriots still waiting on the line with Nigeria's notorious passport behind me. Once the good behaviour and amiable mien imposed on these police officers by Canada wears off, they will snarl at first sight of the next Nigerian passport and return to character. They will resume hostilities. Whoever steps up after me with a Nigerian passport will pay the price of my rudeness. Transferred aggression.

Above is a summary of what happened as I stepped off the plane from Abuja last week to Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. I was on my way back from a busy week of lectures in Nigeria and was going to take a connecting flight to Ottawa. As the plane taxied to a stop at the gate, the captain announced that there would be an additional police check and passport control just outside the door of the plane. That was the beginning of my anger. I hadn't flown

4

GUEST COLUMNIST

Putain de merde!

Air France since the 1990s. In fact, the last time I did business with Air France was back in 1998 and that demeaning, dehumanizing, and patently racist policy of an extra passport check on passengers arriving from Nigeria had just begun. It was a fallout of the draconian racist policies of a French politician and government official called Charles Pasqua who pretty much spent the 1990s hunting and hounding African immigrants and enacting racist policy and racist policy when he served as Minister of Interior. Nicolas Sarkozy's subsequent hounding of Africans and immigrants who he called scum was a Pasqua hangover.

The National Front of Jean-Marie Le Pen and his loquacious daughter are boy scouts in the province of French racism and intolerance. The real deal was Charles Pasqua and his 1990s laws.

How the French moved from their usual suspects, their usual victims Malian, Burkinabe, and Senegalese immigrants to focus on Nigeria as an even greater object of their scorn, contempt, and racism beats me. But the profiling and extra checks began in the 1990s. Since I stopped flying Air France in 1998, all my trips to France, all my holidays, all my summer writing retreats in Paris had been from Canada or the United States, so I had no way of knowing that the practice of profiling Nigerians arriving on Air France from Abuja or Lagos had continued all these years. It was in Abuja that I first got an inkling of what lay ahead. Boarding Air France from Nigeria is like attempting to clear security and see President Obama in the White House. In fact, it is easier to see Obama as you can always scale the fence of the White House these days. Air France officials check and recheck your passport. Layers and layers of checks. Just before you board, they queue you up again and bring electronic passport scanners in big boxes looking like INEC machines.

Checks, checks, and checks. They already got on my temper in Abuja.

Only to arrive in France and have stern police officers waiting right outside of the door of the plane for alas another layer of dehumanizing passport control. Mind you, the passengers whose final destination is France are still going ahead to immigration and passport control!

Just a week earlier, I had used this same airport on my way from Canada to Nigeria. When my plane landed from

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Montreal, nobody did any additional passport check. Nobody was waiting at the door of the plane. I just entered and went on to the gate of my connecting flight to Abuja unharrassed, unmolested. Seven days later, I am coming from Abuja same me, same passports and everything changes.

Checks, checks, checks. What has changed?

That extra passport check of passengers arriving from Nigeria after all the pre-boarding checks and verification in Nigeria and the regular customs and immigration check they will still face in France - by French police is a flagrant act of racist humiliation and discrimination that should be resisted by the Nigerian Government. That nonsense started in the 1990s and I am surprised that the Nigerian Government has allowed it to last this long. Part of my frustration with the Nigerian authorities is that they don't always know when and how to wield Nigeria's immense economic weight against misbehaving European powers. France is of zero economic benefit to Nigeria. How many Nigerian businesses are in France? How many Nigerian conglomerates and multinational corporations are in France? Whatever we make from trade with France is guguru and epa money.

On the contrary, Nigeria is of massive economic benefit to France. Total is in Nigeria. Peugeot is in Nigeria.

Schlumberger is in Nigeria. So many French corporations are in Nigeria making a killing. Air France operates weekly flights to Lagos, Abuja, and Port Harcourt.

There is nothing France can do to Nigeria because she is of little or no economic value to Nigeria. The sky will not fall if Nigerians don't consume brie, camembert and other French cheese (we have wara). The sky will not fall if Nigerians don't consume French wine (which they know zero about anyway. A Nigerian pretending to know French wine is usually just forming). The sky will not fall if we don't drive Peugeot (Japanese cars are there to ensure that we don't miss Peugeot). On the contrary, if Nigeria sneezes, France will catch an economic cold. We are that important to the economy of France.

In essence, France is in no position to humiliate and discriminate against Nigerians with that nonsensical extra passport check by police waiting outside the door of a plane in Paris

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creating the impression that they are about to sort through a bunch of potential and actual criminals. What sort of profiling is this in the 21st century?

I wrote an article praising Viola Onwuliri a few months ago. Minister Onwuliri was handling career profilers of Nigeria at the international level in a way that made one proud to be a Nigerian. I even temporarily suspended my remembrance of her ignominious role in Occupy Nigeria because of the way she was doing the business of Nigeria at Foreign Affairs. The Ambassadors of India and Egypt will not forget her quickly. I think it is time for the Ambassador of France in Nigeria to be summoned to Foreign Affairs for an encounter with whoever has succeeded Viola Onwuliri. A clear, muscular, and unambiguous message needs to be sent to the Elysee in Paris.

The message should be backed with threats. If the French do not stop their misbehaviour, we must threaten to ban Air France and even ban Total and Peugeot from operating in Nigeria.

Nothing is more important than the human dignity of the Nigerian citizen.

If the French state cannot respect that, they have no business doing business in Nigeria and raking in billions.

A note to the Nigerians who have been patronizing Air France since the 1990s.

So, this practice has continued since the 1990s when I last flew Air France and una jus keep quiet dey tolerate am? This is why Nigerians dey taya me. This followership thing. This is why your rulers get away with everything they do to you. You just keep taking it. You take it from your rulers. You take it from Air France. You take it from South African Airways. You take it from Egypt Air. That is why Egypt Air felt emboldened to maltreat that Nigerian boy until Viola Onwuliri stepped in to deal with them.

If, tomorrow, Air Rwanda starts to profile and maltreat you, you will take it from them.

Yeah, I know. I've heard it. If our rulers weren't as useless and irresponsible as to kill Nigerian Airways, if we had our own national carrier, bla bla, and bla.

That, my friend, is a yeye argument.

That your system killed Nigerian Airways is no excuse for you to be treated anyhow by other airlines taking your hard-earned money. If they treat your money with dignity, they and the governments which own them must treat your body and person with dignity.

End of story!

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GUEST COLUMNIST

Defecting Speakervs Vindictive President

By Jaafar Jaafar

A

s President Goodluck Jonathan of Nigeria clocked 57 years today, Nigerians witnessed one of the worst abuses of the nation's democracy in history. Members of parliament were teargassed and denied access into the House of Representatives chamber in order to prevent the speaker, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, from presiding over the sitting.

For goodness' sake, value of Naira is not appreciating against the dollar and the price Uncle Ben's rice is not crashing below the price of Garri if the presidency allows the speaker to preside over the sitting. Again, the speaker will not return to PDP because of this -- at least at the moment. But why are the ideals of our democracy toyed with in order to satiate one's vindictive ego?

The speaker's defection from the ruling PDP to oposition APC had sparked uproar that led to the unconstitutional withdrawal of his security aides by the Inspector General of Police, Sulaiman Abba. In a sane democracy, the IGP will be sanctioned for this, but in Nigeria, the IGP's appointment was confirmed by the president the day he ordered the withdrawal of the speaker's security. As I once said, Nigeria is not just banana republic but Tsamiyar Biri (dialium guianense) republic! You can call us Goriba (doum palm) republic.

But today's show of shame tells one that President Jonathan is determined to take revenge and make the speaker pay for it.

His action today was not meant to make Ajaokuta Steel Company work or make Nigeria Airways fly again.

It was just ego war. What we witnessed today was a reminder to cynics that we are practicing something else but not democracy.

On the surface, the president appears non-committal. Jonathan always wears a benign demeanor that belies his trenchant malignance to political foes.

The president cut that image of a harmless tot, slobbering over his bib but beneath that demeanor lies a decisive persona.

The president is too eager to mete out the treatement of ex-governors Timpreye Sylva, Murtala Nyako and former governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Speaker Tambuwal. Sylva

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was unconstitutionally denied second term ticket, forced out of his party and subsequently humiliated by the EFCC. The president's hand in Murtala Nyako's removal was as visible as his hand in the affairs of Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria (TAN). Any need to expatiate? No. I was one of those who faulted Nyako's acerbic letter but I believed there was undercurrent behind his removal from office. The president's unconstitutional removal of the former CBN governor, subsequent seizure of his passport despite a court order barring authorities from confiscating his passport and deployment police to block the Kano Emir's Palace were examples of settling scores by the president.

Security details of Kano State governor were withdrawn in June following the governor's appointment of the president's percieved enemy as the emir of Kano. The security of the governor is yet to be fully restored five months after.

In September, 2013, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State was prevented by a detachment of heavily armed policemen on the orders of the then Rivers State police commissioner Mr Mbu J. Mbu from gaining access into the Rivers State Government House. CP Mbu is now promoted to AIG. Also under the Jonathan presidency, Borno airport was closed due to 'security reasons', forcing the governor and other people in the state to travel by road despite the attendant danger.

When even Borno pilgrims were compelled to travel to Kano to board plane to Mecca, the airport was suddenly opened for ex-governor Ali Modu Sherrif to land shortly after he defected to PDP. Only last week, troops were sighted escorting Ali Modu Sherrif to Maiduguri for a rally. What manner of leadership is this? I'm really tired.

Under President Jonathan, airports were once shut down in order to prevent oposition politicians from attending rallies. Some governors who opted to travel by road were waylaid by the police and asked to go back at the same time the convoys of Minister of Police Affairs and the Minister of State for Defence sped past unhindered.

Lamenting over the ruling party's fascism, the national chairman of APC,

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Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, said in June "Several APC Governors were prevented from attending the rally. The helicopter that was to ferry Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State from Benin to Akure was denied permission to take off by the aviation authorities apparently acting on �orders from above�

Nigerians still didn't forget the day opposition governors were once asked to disperse and stop their meeting at Kano Governor's Lodge at Asokoro, Abuja by a Divisional Police Officer.

One of the biggest problems with Jonathan presidency is eroding the traces of unity Obasanjo administration bequeathed to him. The president once told the gaping nation that a particular section of the country did not vote for him. States controlled by the ruling party were given N2 billion each by the president in the guise of 'ecology fund' while states controlled by the opposition parties get naught.

The recently concluded 'no-no-go-area' National Conference, the appearance of 'union' instead of 'unity' in some of the president's speeches, the introduction of religious division in party politics, are a good examples of disunity. It seems Boko Haram terrorists are, by default, helping the president redraw the Nigerian map the conference was unable to.

The refusal by the president to reinstate Justice Ayo Salami when NJC gave him a clean bill of health in May 2011, and refusal to reinstate Olagunsoye Oyinlola as secretary of the PDP against court orders in November 2013 are examples of the ruling party rape of democracy.

In this misdemeanor, Obasanjo set the precedence and blazed the trail in corruption, impunity, brigandage, military brutality and brazen desecration of the nation's constitution. What is new in Nigeria today is absence of unity and escalation of terrorism, leading to the taking over towns, villages, police and military barracks by Boko Haram terrorists. One thing Obasanjo followed and adhered to religiously was the unity of Nigeria, which the present administration is determined to erase its vestige from our heart.

Of this, no thanks to vindictive president.

6

GUEST COLUMNIST

Election Promises: How to know the best candidates Na-Allah Mohammed Zagga

E

lection Promises: Why We Should Grill Aspirants About Details.

Before getting to that point, however, here is Wikipedia's definition and interpretation of election promises: "An election promise is a promise or guarantee made to the public by a politician or other elected official who is trying to win an election.

Election promises are usually made long before an election day and are instrumental in getting an official elected to office. Election promises, however, have been increasingly viewed with skepticism due to the nature of a politician to break them once in office.

Elections promises are a large part of an election platform, which includes several ideas with differing specificity.

These ideas of a political platform include general policies, but politicians make sure to also include actual promises that they intend to keep once elected.

They are an essential element in getting people to vote for a candidate. For example, a promise such as to cut taxes or to introduce new social programs may appeal to voters." Politicians everywhere make fantastic promises because the voters don't want to

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hear the truth. The American statesman, Bernard Baruch, famously advised that we should vote for the politician who makes the least promises because he may be the least disappointing!

Currently, our political aspirants are making fantastic promises to improve national infrastructure, especially the notoriously erratic power sector.

Former President Obasanjo and his successor, the late Umaru Musa Yar'adua, had both promised to fix the electric power problem, but failed to keep their promises.

Obasanjo promised to increase power generation to 10,000 megawatts by the end of 2007.

However, until he left office, power generation was fluctuating between 2,000 megawatts to 3,000, plus a combination of natural factors such as an increase of water level at the Kainji dam. Then, Umaru Musa Yar'adua took over from Obasanjo and promised to raise power generation to 6,000 megawatts within six months.

But when the deadline came, both Obasanjo and Yar'adua couldn't keep their promises on the grounds that they had under-estimated the magnitude of the challenge. Both President Goodluck Jonathan and his APC challengers are making the www.newissuesmagazine.com

same fantastic promises to fix our inefficient power sector to woo voters for the 2015 elections. A politician can promise you anything! The late French President, Charles de Gaulle, said politicians don't believe what they say, and they are surprised when people believe them!

Elections campaigns should be run on issues and potential voters should be afforded the opportunities to assess individual aspirants in terms of their capacity and commitment to deliver their promises. When politicians make fantastic promises, we should be able to ask them about the details or how their own plans would be more workable than their opponents'. Political parties should encourage public debates between aspirants and candidates to enable potential voters size them up in terms of their capacity, grasp of the issues and their sincerity. If a man says he will fight corruption, we should ask him questions about collecting donations from people whose sources of income he isn't sure about or does not want to know.

Politicians should be able to explain and defend their election promises.

To win our trust, aspirants should be able to convince us of their ability to do the job better.

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War against Insurgency: Supporting the Internally Displaced People

T

he refugee crisis caused by the Boko Haram menace is alarming. Displaced Nigerians have force out of their homes all over the North East. Some have left and are in neighbouring countries of Niger, Chad and Cameroun. Stories coming out of the humiliation and suffering of this people is just unimaginable. The voice of refugees and displaced people is often not heard. Government easily forgets them when we spend millions of naira on other things that may not even benefit the nation.

Meanwhile, an estimated 650,000 people remain internally displaced in north-eastern Nigeria due to the insurgency.

The Nigerian case is becoming rather alarming.

Towns like Bama, Baga, Gwoza, Mubi, with tens of thousands of people have been sacked and attacked

by Boko Haram. Unaccountable number of Villages are been deserted. And thousands have been massacred by Boko Haram or caught in the imbroglio.

We urge the Nigerian government to do more in ensuring internally displaced people are taken care of and we urge those who are responsible for taking care of such cases to do their job humanely as this is a service to humanity. When the earthquake happened in Haiti, people all over the world were mobilized by donate to help Haiti. Nigerian government has done that by fund raising to help people affect by the Boko Haram crisis. How the money will be used is what most people are worried about in a very corrupt nation like ours. However, common Nigerians can also be mobilized to donate as little as they can. It will go a long way is helping those affected by this madness.

NEWISSUES is aware that the Nigerian government and agencies responsible for taking care of displaced people are not doing much for them. A lot of them have been neglected and they cannot go back to their home as Boko Haram continues their aimless, senseless and utopian war.

The Nigerian government should do all it can to stop the Boko Haram menace. Nigerian leaders must all work together to do so, both opposition parties and the ruling party, opinion leaders and religious leaders, including the media must stop playing politics with this issue.

UNHCR has it that the ongoing refugee crisis has seen more than 100,000 people spill over into Niger's Diffa region since the beginning of 2014, while Cameroon is currently hosting some 44,000 Nigerian refugees. According to authorities, another 2,700 have fled to Chad.

Until Boko Haram is done and over with the refugee crisis will definitely continue to worsen. Nigeria must act fast. The masses don't care how this problem is solved, what they care about is to go home and live their normal lives and those who had their children abducted want their children home.

NEWISSUES DECEMBER 2014 www.newissuesmagazine.com Who will take on Jonathan in the APC?

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www.newissuesmagazine.com October/November 2014. Vol.1 . No. 3

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Dr. Aliyu Jibia Chairman, Editorial Board Lucky Otsoge O. Executive Editor Yusuf Ali Managing Editor Remi Adebayo Editor George Onmonya Daniel Editor-at-Large Correspondents Isaac Ikpekha Daudawww.newissuesmagazine.com Mbaya Husseini Girgi Ibrahim (Mista) Ali Kayode J. Adden Columnists Paul Udenyi Prof. Pius Adesanmi Prof. Moses E. Ochonu Dr. Bisi Adebayo Henry Iwuanyanwu Jolade Adebayo Na-allah Mohammed Zagga Haruna Yusuf Head, Special Project

Abuse of democracy in Idomaland

3

Putin de Merde

4-5

Defecting Speaker

6

Election Promises

7

Understanding Boko Haram

12 - 13

Jega’s dilemma

16 - 19

Insurgency and Emir

20 - 21

“I can’t go home”

22

SPECIAL PROJECT ON BAUCHI

23 - 30

Wamakko: His legacies

31 - 34

Asari Dokubo’s interview

35 - 38

Borno: Another war

39

Four years of unbroken promises

40 - 45

Saleh AGM: Gone too soon

46

Sports

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We the peoples

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9

BRIEF ISSUES

Even the opposition praise Dankwanbo performance

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overnor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwanbo is being praised even by members of the opposition in Gombe State for his performance in all sector of government since becoming governor in 2011.

NEWISSUES spoke to people in Gombe who are all saying the governor will easily win the second term without much campaign because his performance has done that already for him. The governor is being rated as one of the best governors in Northern Nigeria.

Everybody has some good word for Dankwanbo despite power tussle between him and his predeccessor, Senator Goje. Goje has a lot of influence but not even that can change the fact that the people without doubt want Dankwanbo back.

Governor Dankwambo

PHOTO OF THE MONTH

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10

BRIEF ISSUES

Muhammadu Buhari: The new image of a man misunderstood

George Onmonya Daniel

M

uhammadu Buhari is not a religious bigot.

That I know. But his utterances and silence on some critical national issues has sometimes been miscontrued. The fact is that some of his utterances were careless.

It is typical of Nigerian politicians to talk without thinking. Muhammadu Buhari isn't the only guilty party, only he made some of these statements at very wrong times in the recent turbulent history of Nigeria.

His publicists, I don't know if he had one then, have never really worked on these utterances until pretty now.

And now that guy Jasper Azuatalam, that Buhari youth leader's combination into the APC team has helped. I don't know if it is Jasper Azuatalam that contributed into this change of outfit idea to the Buhari campaign team. I like to believe it is Jasper.

Just see what dressing can do to a man. Buhari suddenly looks like everybody. He looks Igbo, Yoruba, Western and Hausa. That's what Nigeria should be about. The person who convinced Buhari on

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this change of outfit idea has really done well. The question is that is it a little too late?

Honestly the APC has every advantage to win 2015, but I don't know if they have squandered it by their obsession with abusing Goodluck Jonathan instead of discussing what they would do for Nigeria. They have not been able to convince a lot of voters that the party is multi-religious party. A lot of Christians see the APC as more of Muslim party still, no thanks to people like Femi Fani-Kayode. Now you may call Femi Fani-Kayode whatever but he is popular with his fans who take him quite seriously. The image of Buhari as anti-Christian and a religious bigot is still very strong in some quarter and the story that he is quite old and should step down for a younger person is popular nowadays, even in his party. I don't know how far this change if outfit to look all Nigerian will achieve but I believe it has achieve a lot. Little things like this are big in politics. If his image makers had done more of this six months before now they would have achieved a lot.

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GUEST COLUMNIST

Boko Haram: Toward A Better Understanding

By Professor Moses E. Ochonu

S

ince they kidnapped more than two hundred schoolgirls from Chibok, Northeastern Nigeria, Nigerian Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, have become the object of global outrage. But the group's atrocities had been going on since at least 2008, escalating into a full scale Islamist insurgency about four years ago.

Anti-Boko Haram activism, although justified and commendable, is often animated by a facile understanding of the group and its entwinements in deeper societal realities. To understand Boko Haram and the foundations of its rage, one has to understand two phenomena associated with the group's rise.

One of these is historical, going back to the relationship of the Muslim Hausa, Fulani, and Kanuri peoples of Northern Nigeria with Western education and occidental modernity both initially conveyed to the region by British colonialism. The other is what one would call the de-legitimization of the Nigerian state, an acute postcolonial problem of which Boko Haram is one symptom.

Translated from Hausa, Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden.

The name references the theological opposition of the group to Western education and other signs and symbols of Western modernity. The group's theology an eclectic collage of beliefs cobbled together from controversial medieval Wahhabi and Salafi sources, from expedient idiosyncrasies, and from ideologies modeled by the Afghan Taliban forbids Western education.

Boko Haram sees secular Western ideas, acquired in the formal setting of Nigeria's Western education system, as as the foundation of many sins and problems.

In Boko Haram's heterodox theology, Western education begets mannerisms, institutions, technologies, and forms of recreation and entertainment that are haram antithetical to pious Islamic living and outside the moral and judicial permissions of Sharia law.

This implacable opposition to secular education throws up a contradiction.

Although Boko Haram decries the expansion of Western education in its Northeastern Nigerian stronghold and blames this for all of society's undeniable

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ills corruption, maladministration, and poverty these problems are more plausibly connected to the paucity of Western education in that part of the country, not to its influence.

Access to Western education for Northern Nigeria's youth has not kept pace with population growth. Boko Haram's complaint about the ubiquitous evils of Western education is thus rather ironic, since large swathes of Muslimmajority states in the region have actually escaped the influence of Western education and the modernity associated with it.

One could stretch this point even further. Preeminent in Boko Haram's leadership are men without Western education, men possessing only Quranic learning. Given this reality, it is easy to see the source of the group's ideological insularity and cultural parochialism. The acquisition of some Western education might have moderated the group's disdain for it or caused its leaders to appreciate its instrumental usefulness even in a Muslim-majority society such as Northern Nigeria. At the risk of advancing a counterfactual, then, one could argue that there might not be a Boko Haram as we know it if these men had been exposed to Western education.

Moreover, Boko Haram's foot soldiers are largely young men without Western education, who were driven to the insurgency by economic

Access to Western education for Northern Nigeria's youth has not kept pace with population growth www.newissuesmagazine.com

disenfranchisement in a society where credentialed Western education and secular knowledge are requirements for upward socioeconomic mobility. It is thus doubtful if these young men would be in Sambisa Forest fighting for Boko Haram if they had had the opportunity to acquire Western education, its credentials, and its trappings.

It is no coincidence that Northeastern Nigeria, Nigeria's least Westerneducated region, is also arguably the country's poorest constituency. This makes the area a fertile ground for both the populist and nihilist messages of Boko Haram. Educational deficit, the resulting poverty index, and extremism are intricately connected in a causal cycle, reinforcing one another.

Contrary to the claims of Boko Haram then, Western education is not the problem but part of a menu of solutions to problems such as unemployment, poverty, and crime, which the group's leaders highlighted during its preaching, proselytizing phase. A legitimate question to pose then is whether extremist ideologies like Boko Haram would find positive reception and recruits if Western education had been more democratized and access to it subsidized for Northern Nigeria's poor Muslims.

The dearth of Western education afflicts all Muslim-majority areas of Northern Nigeria, where a combination of British colonial policy on education and a strong suspicion of both secular and C h r i s t i a n m i s s i o n a r y We s t e r n educations severely restricted the spread of secular schools.

Northern Nigeria became a British Protectorate in 1900 and colonial control was consolidated between then and 1907. Unwilling to offend the Muslim populations of many provinces, and wary of alienating Muslim elites the colonizers were cultivating as allies in their rule, British colonial authorities decreed a ban on Christian missionary activities in the Muslim emirates, cutting off these regions from the missionary educational enterprise, the major instrument for the spread of Western education in much of Nigeria and Africa.

The British went even further,

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GUEST COLUMNIST

Understanding Boko Haram establishing a two-tiered educational system that made colonial education an elitist affair, reserved for a few privileged Northern Nigerians. The first school system, exemplified by the prestigious Katsina College founded in 1921, catered exclusively to the sons of Muslim aristocratic allies of the British.

The declared aim of the school was to educate potential emirs and aristocrats who would succeed their parents and continue to help the British administer their constituencies while British officers supervised a colonial system called indirect rule.

The other branch of the colonial school system consisted of a few schools reserved almost exclusively for the sons of non-Muslim chiefs and big men who also played a supporting role in colonization. This group of schools was designed to train teachers, clerks, and workers for the colonial civil service.

While missionary education was restricted to a few non-Muslim provinces of colonial Northern Nigeria, and the exclusive state-funded schools educated a select group of privileged boys, the vast majority of Muslim Northern Nigerians remained without any form of Western education. This educational lag also persisted because there was suspicion in the Muslim emirates that Western education was a vector for ideas and practices deemed un-Islamic.

The region's educational disadvantage remained until independence in 1960 when its leaders began to play catch up.

To this day, the educational gap between Southern Nigeria and Northern Nigeria is visible and is captured in Nigerian policy parlance by the designation of many Northern Nigerian states as Educationally Less Developed States (ELDS). The educational needs of these states remain huge.

This educational heritage, or lack thereof, provides an important context for understanding the rise of Boko Haram. Boko Haram's name and mission suggest that the root of Northern Nigeria's many challenges is Western education. The truth is that the problem is inadequate Western education, not its presence.

The second issue that helps explain the rise of Boko Haram is twofold. The Nigerian state erodes its own legitimacy by failing to fulfill the most rudimentary obligations of a modern government.

There is also a tendency by groups in both North and South to portray the state as illegitimate in order to justify their

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Corruption is one of Nigeria's main challenges and has in fact hampered the military effort to combat Boko Haram efforts to undermine it.

When militants in the oil producing Niger Delta launched an insurgency to fight for resource rights a rebellion sporadically infested with criminality and carnage they justified their struggle with the claim that the state was an illegitimate imposition, fair game for attacks.

Corruption is one of Nigeria's main challenges and has in fact hampered the military effort to combat Boko Haram.

This corruption thrives partly because many citizens and groups understand the state to be illegitimate, undeserving of loyalty, an entity whose resources can be appropriated for personal gratification.

This belief finds expression in various acts of malfeasance across the country and in multiple religious settings. There is, however, a distinctly Islamist variant of it that is prevalent in Northern Nigeria. In an essay published in 2009, when Boko Haram was beginning its campaign of violence against the state, Aliyu Tilde, a prominent Northern Nigerian Muslim pundit, described a phenomenon in which some Islamic clerics teach their followers that the secular Nigerian state and its governmental organs are haram, illegitimate.

The theological end-point of this Islamic teaching, Tilde argued, is the assertion that “public property and finances belong to nobody, so they can be looted whenever possible.� Many Nigerian Muslims, like many of their Christian compatriots, see the state and the patrimony it superintends as zones of easy largesse perhaps even a site of divine favor where God authorizes his worshippers to profit at the expense of the government.

People who try to stand in the way of this systematic undermining of the state

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through theft and sabotage are taunted with the words, na ya papa money?/is government money your father's property? It is a not so subtle threat to back off. It is also a profound enunciation of the notion that the state is an illegitimate orphan, belonging to no one, to be used when needed and destroyed when it stands in the way of one's parochial agenda.

This view of the state removes any moral constraints on individuals and groups determined to attack or plunder the state.

If government is haram and its assets, including military resources, can be legitimately stolen to promote personal and religious interests, undermining that government through violence and sabotage is halal, not only permitted but a legitimate religious obligation.

Boko Haram's anti-government insurgency is partly driven by this belief that the secular Nigerian government is, by virtue of its illegitimacy, a legitimate target of violence a sacrilegious entity that should be replaced by a state governed by Sharia.

Although also contemptuous of the state's legitimacy, many Nigerians do not necessarily wish to have it replaced because that perceived illegitimacy helps to justify their appropriation of state resources for themselves. Boko Haram on the other hand considers it a religious duty to remove and replace the illegitimate state.

The conundrum outlined above calls for a two-pronged approach. One approach is to gradually reduce the number of Muslim youth susceptible to the macabre allure of violent extremism.

This will require massive investments in Western and instrumental Islamic education as well as the expansion and diversification of the economies of the affected regions.

The second approach, institutional and constitutional, is to reinvent the legitimacy of the Nigerian state by devolving considerable power and control over developmental initiatives, natural resources, revenue generation and allocation, and law enforcement to states and local governments, or to some other new, more locally entrenched and thus legitimate entities.

Moses Ochonu is Associate Professor of African History at Vanderbilt University and is the author, most recently, of Colonialism by Proxy: Hausa Imperial Agents and Middle Belt Consciousness in Nigeria (Indiana University Press, 2014).

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Atiku cancelled Birthday to honour Kano Mosque Victims

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Atiku A presidential aspirant on the platform of All Progressive Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar cancelled his 68th birthday celebration dinner, in honour of victims of the recent bomb blast in the city of Kano.

The former Vice President stated that he could not in good conscience continue with the celebration when the national mood is that of mourning.

According to Atiku, "There will be many more years to celebrate birthdays, but tonight is a very sad and sober one for Nigeria. It's best we just pray at home. I would appeal to all who are able, to send donations in cash and kind to the victims of the bomb blast and Internally Displaced Persons in the North East."

After Christian and Muslim prayers were said for the victims of the bomb blast and terror attacks, Atiku left the venue. The supposed celebration event became a prayer session for the repose of the souls of those who lost their lives and the injured victims of the terror and safety of the country at large.

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14

PHOTO NEWS

Bayero University, Kano (BUK) Alumni Newly inaugurated Abuja Branch on courtesy visits BUKAA EXECUTIVES: Chairman, Muhammed A. Gumel , Vice Chairman, Hajia Amina BBY Farouk, Secretary, H\amza I. Baba, Asst. Sec. Bala Muhammed, Treasurer, Mariam Shettima, Fin. Sec; Aminu Kankara, Legal Sec; Sanusi Musa, PRO, Abdulaziz Abdulaziz and Social Director, George Onmonya Daniel.

Muhammed AlHassan Gumel, Chairman, (BUKAA) delivering letter of introduction to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs & Supervising Minister of Information, Dr. Nurudeen Muhammed

BUKAA Exco with Jemila Tangaza (Third Right) of the Abuja Geographic Information System (AGIS).

Exco with Dr. Shehu Garba, (third right) Spokesperson to an APC presidential aspirant, Atiku Abubakar in his office.

BUKAA exco with Dr. Nurudeen Muhammed, Minster of Foreign Affairs & Supervising Minister of Information.

BUKAA exco with Hajia Aisha Minjibir, (sitting left), an Abuja based travel and estate agent.

With Hajia Umma A. Musa, Executive Director Services, PPMC in her office.

Exco with boss of the International Institute of Journalism and prominent member of the BBOG Movement, Dr. Emma Shehu (left).

Exco with Nollywood actor, Osita Iheneme popularly called Pawpaw.

Exco with Nollywood actor, Osita Iheneme popularly called Pawpaw.

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15

COVER STORY

Jega’s Dilemma Is free and fair election possible in a Nigeria where every politician is planning and willing to rig?

George Onmonya Daniel

Jega

P

rofessor AttahiruJega, the Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has a daunting challenge ahead of him in 2015, that's the task of conducting a free and fair election in a country where every politician plans to rig election at all cost. In fact, OlusegunObasanjo, former Nigerian President, best described this phenomenon in 2007 during the presidential election campaign when he declared that winning the election by his People Democratic Party (PDP) would be “do or die affairs.”Obasanjo said even Jesus Christ cannot conduct a free and fair election in Nigeria, as a figurative expression to describe how difficult it would be for an umpire, aptly capturing the image of the Nigerian political terrain, even today.

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A lot of people know AttahiruJega as an uncompromising radical. When Goodluck Jonathan nominated him as INEC Chairman on 8th June the Daily Trust newspaper headline of June 10, 2010 screamed, “A Radical as INEC Chairman.”

That simply explained it. Not even the cynical Nigeria press could fault Goodluck Jonathan's nomination of Jega after what the whole nation had perceived as the abysmal failure of his predecessor, Maurice Iwu. Everyone agreed that Jega was the best man for the job.

When Jega presented how much money he needed, a whopping sum of N55.6 billion to compile a

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COVER STORY

Jega’s Dilemma

Jonathan substantially more credible voter's registration exercise, the Federal Government made sure he got what he wanted despite blistering attacks from some quarters that the money was too much. Goodluck Jonathan promised Nigerian free and fair election, so he made sure Jega got all the support he needed.

The 2010 INEC voters' card registration exercise was a litmus test for Attahiru Jega, the radical professor who had always been in the University came face to face with what he used to teach his students, that is the reality, and this time not theories or assumptions.

Despite all the support by the Federal Government in making sure INEC got whatever it demanded, a lot of problems surfaced everywhere, some due to INEC's oversight and lack of adequate preparations; others were caused by politicians who wanted to manipulate the whole process from the beginning so that they can make it easy for themselves to rig election.

The registration exercise was slow and as dateline elapsed, a lot of Nigerians were disenfranchised. In many areas of the Federal Capital

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Territory (FCT), small settlements have quadrupled and turned to very large towns with population explosion. INEC completely lost it as it didn't carry out feasibility studies before the registration exercise. These problems weren't just peculiar with the FCT but all over the nation, especially in urban areas. In many places INEC officials were intimidated, forced or bribed to register underage children. Foreigners were encouraged to register in areas where politicians think they can use them to gain advantage over their opponents. INEC registration machines were stolen by politicians planning to rig election and over twenty were recovered by INEC in December, 2010, as INEC assured the public that stolen machines would not affect the election. The registration exercise opened Jega's eyes to realities and difficulties of the job.

The 2011 election was one of the most problematic in the history of Nigeria. Desperate politicians poisoned and heated the polity.

The PDP had an internal crisis after President Umar Musa Yar'adua died and his assistant Goodluck Jonathan was sworn in as president. The power tussle that www.newissuesmagazine.com

Obasanjo

Buhari

Atiku 17

COVER STORY

Muazu ensued was if Goodluck Jonathan would contest in 2011 presidential election, considering an agreement within the party that it was the North's time to spend two terms of eight years in power. President Umar Musa Yar'adua was in his first term when he died in office.

Some powerful Northern Nigerian politicians in the PDP insisted that Goodluck Jonathan shouldn't contest the 2011 election after Yar'adua's first term elapse. Some of these powerful names were former military president, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (1985 19892), former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar (1999-2007), former NSA boss and now Minister of Defense, Lieutenant General Aliyu Gusau and Senator Olusola Saraki, being led by Adamu Ciroma's Northern Alliance. At last Adamu Ciroma's Northern Alliance chose Atiku Abubakar to represent the North in challenging Goodluck Jonathan ahead of IBB, Saraki and Gusau.

Atiku lost the primaries at the convention to Goodluck Jonathan who was being backed by powerful PDP chieftains, notably Olusegun Obasanjo.

The venomous campaign of vicious calumnies inside the PDP left large number of the populace in the North angry and feeling cheated. That was the perception created by Northern Alliance of what they are fighting for. Majority of Muslim North shifted allegiance

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to Muhammadu Buhari of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) immediately Atiku Abubakar lost at the PDP convention to President Jonathan.

The South saw the Northern Alliance aggressive move to replace Goodluck Jonathan with a Northern Nigerian candidate as North's obsession with power. The predominantly Christian Middle Belt that had been at war with Muslim North since 1999 after the introduction of Sharia that snowballed into sectarian violence was bent on voting a Christian candidate out of fear that Muslim candidate would not represent them and protect their interest. It was obvious that there would be serious trouble. Femi FaniKayode posted a month before the 2011 election on Facebook that if Muhammadu Buhari loses the North would mobilize its youths to go on rampage to unleash mayhem. Professor Attahiru Jega confirmed that text messages were being sent to him threatening that INEC workers would be target for attacked. INEC offices were being targeted for bombing. It was in this atmosphere of hate, suspicion and fear, caused by virtuperations of desperate politicians that April 2011 arrived.

The federal and state legislative election of 2011 was rated as one of the best election in the history of Nigeria, by the media and both www.newissuesmagazine.com

Oyegun local and foreign observers.

Professor Jega's INEC was applauded, even by political parties who participated in the election. However, the presidential election that followed was problematic. Supporters of the CPC alleged the presidential election was rigged as Goodluck Jonathan was leading. The first sign of problem started in Katsina where a policeman accidentally shot on young man when voting was still in process. Even though the incident had nothing to do with the election , an angry mob descended on empty churches in Katsina and vandalized whatever they could get their hands on.

The anger in the North was obvious. It was as a result of the internal crisis in the PDP over zoning that left the North feeling robbed of their right to produce the president who would continue Umar Musa Yar'adua eight years in office. Politicians from both the ruling PDP and the opposition knowing fully the miasma of anger, hate and fright in the air could explode, did nothing about it.

In fact they exploited it. As usual with elections in Nigeria, the whole of it exploded in a volcanic rage as President Goodluck Jonathan was announced as leading with wide margin and many Nigerians were consumed in the lava of hate all across Northern Nigeria. Attahiru Jega'sINEC 18

GUEST COLUMNIST

Insurgency and the Emir's Prescription

By Olusegun Adeniyi

W

hile he was delighted to see me, the first time we would be meeting since he ascended the throne of his forefathers in June this year, it was also evident that he looked somehow troubled and I did not have to wait for long to know what the problem was. With the exchange of pleasantries dispensed with, the Emir of Kano, Mallam Muhammad Sanusi II, broke the sad news: “A bomb has just exploded at a fuel station very close to where you are lodged. I am still waiting for the details but there are fatalities.”

When last Friday I found myself in Kano, I considered it appropriate to send SMS to the former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and current Emir of the ancient city that I was within his domain and he replied that I should come to the palace by 8pm. I arrived as scheduled but unknown to me, a tragic drama had occurred at a filling station about 30 minutes earlier. As the Kano State Commissioner of Police, Mr Aderinle Shinaba, would later explain, a suicide bomber went into the ever-busy Magarsiku Filling Station along Maiduguri road, pretending to be buying petrol, before detonating the bomb which was hidden inside his car, killing six people on the spot. That tragedy would set the tone for my conversation with the Emir who, I must add, has settled in nicely to his new role.

The Emir said he has been in conversation with many traditional rulers in the North on the necessity for self-defence against the Boko Haram marauders who now invade seemingly defenceless towns and villages to kill, rape, maim and destroy the people's means of livelihood. As you would expect of a traditional ruler of his status, Emir Sanusi had clear insights about the nature of the recent attacks by the insurgents, the response (or lack of one) from our military authorities as well as the manner in which Boko Haram operated during and after invading the communities. After evaluating the situation, the Emir concluded that the insurgency would be defeated the moment there is a national will to do so.

However, in the absence of any clear military strategy on how to deal with the insurgency, and with the list of casualties and victims growing, the Emir argued that the traditional authorities in the North, working with their states governments and other critical stakeholders should mobilise the hunters

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to confront the menace. Even when he understands that providing security of such nature is the exclusive preserve of the state, a desperate situation, the Emir contends, deserves a desperate response.

As I would later learn, Emir Sanusi had propounded that same thesis earlier that morning at the closing ceremony of the weekly recitation of the Holy Quran as part of prayers for peace in the country, where he urged religious and community leaders to undertake the immediate task of reinventing courage in their people, particularly the youth, in preparation for self-defence against Boko Haram attacks. Speaking in Hausa, Emir Sanusi reportedly said: “people must stand resolute in the face of attack and not abandon their towns, women and children…These people (referring to the Boko Haram insurgents) when they attack towns, they kill boys and enslave girls…

People must stand resolute. People must not assume that the crisis will not reach their area…If it comes, we are asking God to give us fortitude, but if He wishes to take martyrs from amongst us, we should be ready to give our lives.

People must not wait for soldiers to protect them. There are even instances where soldiers on ground ran away in the face of attack.”

Anybody who has read the literature that perhaps best captures the Nigerian dilemma today vis-a-vis the Boko H a r a m i n s u rg e n c y c a n n o t b u t appreciate Emir Sanusi's position. I am sure many of our military commanders must have read the “History of the Peloponnesian War”, by Thucydides and if they have not, I strongly recommend it not only for them but also for the political authorities in our country today. The encounter between

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the citizens of Athens and those of Melos, a small island not too far from Sparta, as recounted in the book, vividly illustrates why the recent “ceasefire” agreement between the federal government and Boko Haram easily unravelled and why we must confront the situation with much more seriousness lest we lose our country.

In the dialogue in question (apparently reconstructed by the author's fertile imagination), the all-powerful Athenians who were at war with Sparta had demanded that the Melians surrender their town and pay tributes to them. But the Melians, who believed they had a right to neutrality in the war pleaded with the Athenians to allow them be. The response from the Athenians was that “might makes right, and by the necessity of their nature, men always rule when they have the power…the powerful exact what they can, while the weak yield what they must”. Unable to make the Melians see reason with them, the Athenians invaded their community, killed the men of military age and starved the remaining citizens into surrender.

That exactly is what Boko Haram is doing in many Northern towns today in what has become a game of violent hideand-seek with the Nigerian authorities.

The insurgents understand the fact that in the process of consolidation, they need some identification symbols and that is why Abubakar Shekau, whether he is a man or a myth, is projected as invincible and to the extent that our military authorities keep bungling from one misadventure to another, it only helps to strengthen the resolve of the Boko Haram fighters. The question, however remains, is the proposition by the Emir, which is a desperate response to a perplexing situation the answer to the challenge of insecurity in a vast section of our country today?

Before I attempt an answer, it is important for us to understand the political dimension to the Boko Haram challenge and nobody has broken it down for me as succinctly as Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, who I met shortly before leaving for the airport on my way back to Abuja last Saturday morning. According to Kwankwaso, there are two theories for the Boko Haram insurgency in the North. “If you talk to many people on the streets, they will tell you it is the Federal Government that is behind the insurgency to destroy the North. As ridiculous as it may sound,

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GUEST COLUMNIST

Insurgency and the Emir's Prescription those who say that actually believe it.

The second theory by those who choose to be more charitable is that while the presidency may not be instigating the violence, it has the capacity to deal with it but refuses to do so because it simply doesn't care whether or not the North is destroyed,” the governor said.

However, what compounds the situation, according to Kwankwaso is that there is also a counter-narrative for the insurgency from the presidency.

“Now, if you go to the Villa, the theory there is that it is we Northerners that created Boko Haram and are instigating all the violence against our own people, killing thousands, destroying the means of livelihood of millions of our people and causing all these mayhem just because we don't like President Jonathan. While that is also ridiculous, many people believe such nonsense, and it may actually inform the lack of adequate response to the madness that is now destroying our country.”

To buttress Kwankwaso's position, the South-South Consolidated Forum (SSCF) on Tuesday in Calabar accused the Northern elite of sponsoring the violent activities of Boko Haram in its bid to destabilise the administration of President Jonathan. According to the group, “it is not out of place to say that the insurgents are being sponsored by some highly placed desperate ambitious politicians from the North, who felt that the presidency is their birth-right. They do this just to discredit the efforts of the federal government. Unfortunately for them, their evil plans have failed and will continue to fail. The Northern Leaders and Elders Forum need to tell the world the truth and rise to the occasion to put an end to this national genocide against innocent Nigerian citizens.”

Given such mindset on both sides of the political divide on the Boko Haram insurgency, it is very clear that the defeat on the battlefield begins from the political front since the insurgents, having divided us, now find it easy to conquer our people. What flows from that therefore is that until we deal with that political problem borne out of mutual ethnic/religious distrusts, it will be difficult to defeat Boko Haram on the battlefield. But it is the political authority that must take the charge if we are ever going to successfully tackle the insurgency.

In his book, “Man and His Government: An Empirical Theory of Politics”, the

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late Harvard Professor and one of the greatest scholars in political science,Carl Joachim Friedrichargued that the defense of any community (state) is the primary responsibility of the political authority and to that extent, wars are won and lost at that level.

According to Friedrich, in war, “political and military considerations are intertwined in complex ways, but in the last analysis, the political must and will prevail, even in the military field”.

Friedrich had relied on the thesis of his 19th century German compatriot and military strategist, Carl von Clausewitz, generally regarded as the foremost authority on war. National defence preparedness, according to Clusewitz, presupposes “an army which is soundly trained for war, a military leadership which does not await enemy in perplexed and confused uncertainty, but with quiet determination…and finally a healthy nation which does not fear its enemy any more than it is feared by the enemy.”

That Nigeria has for years been a state in retreat is not in doubt given the way government is becoming removed from our lives. It started with public utilities in which people began to buy generator to provide their own electricity and then we moved to digging boreholes to provide our water. Then we subverted the public schools and health institutions. Of course, everybody also started providing his own security by erecting iron gates and employing security guards with communities relying on Vigilantes. Now, with our people losing faith in the ability of the armed forces to defend the territorial integrity of our nation, it is hunters that we are calling upon to rescue us. If there

...It is very clear that the defeat on the battlefield begins from the political front since the insurgents, having divided us, now find it easy to conquer our people www.newissuesmagazine.com

is anything that points to state failure, I cannot see any better evidence than that.

It is within that context that we should interrogate Emir Sanusi's position which derives from the desperation of a traditional authority who finds it difficult to reconcile himself to the fact that his people, who are increasingly becoming sitting targets for extermination by Boko Haram insurgents, are practically abandoned to their fate. That then explains why the role which should ordinarily reside in the national sovereign is being thrown back to primordial authorities. Yet the recourse to hunters and other crude modes of collective defense to counter Boko Haram is not only a further indication of the incremental collapse of the military as the security backbone of our nation, it is a solution that cannot endure. So what we should all advocate is that the state should be more alive to what is actually its core responsibility: securing the lives and livelihood of the citizens.

Interestingly, the notion of deploying unconventional troops to fight on behalf of a state is not new but the result has never been worthwhile. While Niccolo Machiavelli is usually remembered for his political discourses such as “The Prince” and “The Art of War”, he was also an official of the “Florence Republic” that lasted only 14 years between 1498 and 1512. Appointed secretary of war in 1507, Machiavelli established a citizen-militia that would be in a state of combat-readiness against foreign enemies but the idea which is no different from that of deploying hunters to fight insurgency ultimately failed.

The pertinent question is: How can such a force that is not trained in discipline and would have no serious command and control structure be able to fight a deadly insurgency whose men are not only prepared to kill but also to die?

Therefore, while I appreciate the concerns of Emir Sanusi, and as much as I agree that mobilizing hunters to deal with the immediate challenge is a pragmatic approach in the current circumstance, the only enduring solution lies in reforming/repositioning our armed forces and the security agencies in such a manner that they would have the capacity for dealing with the challenges of the 21st century. That of course will require leadership, at some critical levels. Unfortunately, we have not seen any demonstration of that in recent times.

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INTERVIEW

“I can’t go home” - Senator Abba Ibrahim

Y

our Excellency, thank you for having us.

Thank you.

Sir your convention is near, the APC convention, there is a lot going on in the APC right now. Buhari is out for the presidential ticket, there is Atiku A b u b a k a r, t h e r e i s R a b i u Kwankwaso…is there going to be a problem as no one is willing to step down for the other amongst the three of them?

APC has something between forty million members, so if three people come out to contest presidential election it is not unusual. In fact they are one or two more candidates. Rochas Okorocha is on his way, and there is Sam Nda Isaiah. We are going to have at least five presidential aspirants. That's ok. That's very ok for a party of our size. I don't know whether it is going to be direct primary or indirect primary, whichever way it takes it will end well insha Allah.

Now as you see me now, I am going home to attend the declaration of my governor who is seeking re-election for the second and his final term.

Sir, the issues of crisis in Yobe State has calmed down now. How did you people do it?

Which crisis are you talking about?

The Boko Haram crisis. We haven't heard attacks in Yobe in a while now.

While it is calming down. But it hasn't died down completely. There are pockets of challenges here and there. I can't go home now for example. I cannot go to my local government. I cannot go to my hometown. My local government and another local government are one hundred percent under the control of Boko Haram as I talk to you now. So, Boko Haram is still around even though their activities have much more reduced as it used to be. Unless and until we have total and complete peace we wouldn't say Boko Haram issue is gone away.

The issue of negotiation between Boko haram and the Federal government, are you people aware of that, you people in the APC? While, according to my latest information, the negotiation between Boko haram and the federal government of Nigeria is still going on. We have not concluded.

There are still on it and we are hopeful and prayerful that it will come to a success.

There is negotiation going on which

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One on one with former Governor of Yobe State and now Senator representing Yobe South Senatorial District, Bukar Abba Ibrahim, in this short interview in his Maitama residence. Haruna Yusuf talks to Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim on the politics of the APC, Yobe State and the issue of Boko Haram. haram still attacking communities in Adamawa State, in fact this morning we are hearing Mubi is under siege?

I cannot answer that question on behalf of Boko haram, I wouldn't know, you know. You see this issue of negotiation, unless the issues are completely finished, concluded, agreement signed, prisoners or whatever exchanged, you cannot say it is all over. So there may be small pockets of Boko Haram who are not neccessarilly well informed about what is happening at the center.

After all they are not meeting with all the Boko haram groups.

There may be a few dissenting groups here and there but if the major part of Boko Haram ceases to exist and have peace with the federal government of Nigeria, it will not be difficult to deal with the dissenting voices here and there.

Sir the issue of refugee, I mean

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displaced people in these areas, how well and how much is your governor doing to ensure vulnerable people who lost their houses, farms and families are being taken care of?

People have been assisting, we all have assisted. NEMA has assisted, federal government has assisted, state government is assisting, individuals are also assisting, but the magnitude of the internal displaced people is such enormous we cannot say that they have been taken care of adequately. All the o rg a n i z a t i o n s , i n d i v i d u a l s a n d companies, government and everybody we have spoken to, will have to continue to do more for them to have reasonable and adequate care for the internally displace persons.

Are you seeking for re-election into the senate sir?

Yes, I am. As you can see my posters are out there.

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Special Project On Bauchi State

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Isa Yuguda Expanding the Frontiers of Creative Governance

Special Project On Bauchi State

T

he history of how Mallam Isa Yuguda became governor of Bauchi State is marveling and amazing.

You cannot talk about the recent history of Bauchi State without making reference to how he came into power.

His predecessor, Adamu Mua'azu, now the Chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) preferred Nadada. From

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out of nowhere stories came out that Isa Yuguda was a not an indigene of the Bauchi State in this turbulent political history of Nigeria just to stop him from contesting. Nadada eventually won the PDP nomination.

Mallam Isa Yuguda had no choice than to join the ANPP to contest.

Even though the incumbent was behind Nadada, the whole people of Bauchi State came to

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support their son, the son of the soil, Mallam Isa Yuguda, who won the election overwhelmingly. The people of Bauchi State decided who they wanted because they know the man they wanted. This remarkable turnaround in Bauchi State politics still gives hope to people all over Nigeria in a country where most times the voice of the people and their votes doesn't count.

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Special Project On Bauchi State And Governor Isa Yuguda didn't disappoint his people.

Despite the politics of calumny and canard that has become the culture in Nigerian internal politics; Governor Isa Yuguda's landmark will never be forgotten in Bauchi State. From security to peaceful coexistence between all the people of Bauchi State and dividend of democracy to every inhabitant of Bauchi State, the governor has performed well.

Security is dividend of democracy in a clime where insecurity has become order of the day.

AGRICULTURE: In the area of Agriculture, Governor Isa Yuguda has done well in ensuring fertilizer gets to every farmer in the state.

30,000 metric tons of fertilizers were procured for the 2008l2009 farming season alone at 40 percent subsidy. 23 new tractors were purchased from the federal government while 1,200 Power Tiles were also purchased from Steyr Nigeria Limited, Bauchi, to boost mechanized farming in the state. Promotion cotton, sesame and groundnut also promoted. Renovation of 22 Farm service centers and construction of five new fertilizer stores. 10, 000 farmers were trained on Sasakawa Technology by BAADP on rain fed and dry season crops such as usage of Organize Fertilizers Promoted.

Government has re-introduced annual vaccination programme for cattle. Boto Grain silos completed. 16,000 metric tons of assorted grains purchased and sold to members of the Public at subsidize rate. 2,000

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Special Project On Bauchi State

youths trained by BSADP as contract sprayers and trained youths were given a knapsack sprayer each on loan basis.

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Education: Education is everything. “Give a man fish,” they say, “you feed him for a day,” Educate a man and you feed him forever and www.newissuesmagazine.com

feed a whole community and the whole nation. The Bauchi State University is a landmark which has immortalized Governor Isa Yuguda in a nation 26

Special Project On Bauchi State where higher education is in high demand. The education sector has witnessed a tremendous transformation.

Increment of student's feeding allowances to 300 percent.

Scholarship for indigenous students in tertiary institutions at home and abroad. Thirty six secondary schools and AD Rufai College for Legal and Islamic studies, Misau, were either renovated or constructed for over N2bliion with text books and exercise books distributed pupils, students free of charge.

Construction of Sa'adu Zungur Model Primary School with 80 class rooms to accommodate 4,000 pupils. Twenty-three daughters and 15 sons of

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Bauchi State sent to Egypt to study Medicine while 24 others were trained as Pilots/Aeronautics engineers at the United States.

Nomadic education given a boost with children of pastoralists in Bauchi State heaving a sigh of relief and given free text books worth N30million. Budgetary provision of N60 million in 2008 fiscal year was raised to 110 million. Replication of Grid Education Programme (GEP) in all the 24 LGAs to improve enrolment, retention and completion of girls' education. Implementation of Teacher's Service Scheme (TSS) that raised teacher's pay by 27.5 percent.

Primary Education given a boost through increased funding, provision of infrastructure, instructional materials and capacity building of teachers. Training of over 1000 unqualified teachers to meet minimum national NCE qualification by SUBEB, in collaboration with National Teacher's Institute (NTI) Kaduna.

Twenty vehicles were procured and presented to the state ministry of education for effective school's supervision and control. Six secondary schools for married women, with each in the six Emirate being planned while Teacher's Academy with view to improving the quality of

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Special Project On Bauchi State teaching in the state is to be established.

INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENT: The commissioning of Bauchi State international Airport finally grounded the legacy of Governor Isa Yuguda. The construction of the first class airport cost the Bauchi state government about N13billion.

The Isa Yuguda administration paid for most of the urban and two kilometer LG road projects awarded by the previous administration. Provision of portable water in 28 hospitals and 54 secondary schools across the state at 1,353 billion.

Construction of water schemes at Goloko, Kari and Bogoro.

Construction of 20 new solar powered water scheme in some local government areas and drilling of 200 hand pumps borehole in 20 LGAs. Bauchi State government has released has released 200 million naira counterpart funding for the Construction Grand Scheme (CGS) at one billion Naira from federal government for the provision of 200 hand pumps boreholes under MDGs activities. Linking of 9 LGAs in the Northern part of Bauchi State with new 133KVA Power substation at Azare. Six rural roads constructed at about N10billion while 10km urban road in Bauchi metropolis.

There is Darazo Drainage at N800 million, rehabilitation of State House of Assembly. There are also several cancer vans, Macopolo 18 seat buses to boost Bauchi State Transport Company.

State has done a great deal of transformation job in Human Capital Development.

Human Capital Development.

Provision of car loans to civil servants to which 1,000 purchased Chevrolet Opera cars were distributed to civil servants on salary grade 14 and above on loan basis at 50 per cent subsidy. Purchase and distribution of 5,000 motorcycles to junior civil

servants on loan basis of 20 percent subsidy. Payment of pension arrears to tune of 600 million naira inherited from the previous administration and upward review of pension by 50 percent from what the government inherited. .

Owner-Occupied Housing Scheme was also introduced where civil servants are encouraged to own houses at a

Human and Capital Development The Government of Bauchi

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Special Project On Bauchi State

subsidy of 30 percent offered to the beneficiaries. Abolition of Bauchi formula by reviewing upwards of salaries/allowances of civil servants in Bauchi state., first of its kind in the State. 120 KVA was installed at Abubakar Umar Secretariat to boost the epileptic power supply to the secretariat. Ultra modern electronic/automatic Trading Floor of Nigerian Stock Market opened in Bauchi

to boost investment opportunities. A debt management office was established was established to handle all debts related matters in the state. Implementation of Bauchi State Economic and Empowerment Development Strategy (BASEEDS) which is a road map to sustainable growth and development of the state.

2 Billion naira soft loans given

to traders, the first of its kind in the history of the Bauchi state.

500 million released as first installment payment. 250 million granted to Community Banks in different LGAs to enable them secure license to commerce operations as Microfinance Banks. .

Renovation of 22 Farm Services Centers and Construction of five new Fertilizer Stores. 10,000 farmers trained on Sasakawa Technology by BSADP on rain fed and dry season crops such as Usage of Organize Fertilizer promoted. Production of cotton, Sesame and Groundnut also promoted. Government has reintroduced annual vaccination programme for cattle.

Sports and Recreation Over 20 billion naira spent on the upgrading of the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Stadium (ATBS) Bauchi and Zanranda Hotels, a five star hotel to meet FIFA standard, resulting into Bauchi successfully hosted World Youth Under-17 Soccer Championship.

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Special Project On Bauchi State Culture and Tourism MajoCulture and Tourism he Governornment of Bauchi State has demostrated a serious quest for total transformation of the state through effective human and capital development across all sectors of the economy. He has been applauded by many international organisations and evaluation teams for his outstanding performances in award of contracts and economic empowerment to the people of Bauchi State.

which are being upgraded in phases. ntre. Daily safari trips depart at least twice from the camp. The museum in the camp is well stocked with a variety of skins, tusks, bones and fully mounted stuffed game from the park. It is educational while also acting as a conservation centre.

Rehabilitation of Yankari Game Reserve.

The “Wikki Camp� is the tourist centre of the Park.

Located about 42 kilometres from the main entrance gate, the camp is built beside, and named after, the Wikki warm spring, which is open for swimming 24 hours a day.

There are 110 furnished chalets with varying size and quality, ranging from the ''presidential'' suites to the youth hostel, all of

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Aliyu Magatakarda

WAMAKKO His Legacies, His Politics Remi Adebayo.

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DEVELOPMENT

Wamakko: His Legacies, His Politics

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he approaching 2015 political contest is a pointer to different political channels that would be opened to determine the political destinies of many Nigerian politicians, depending on their ambitions.

Among such individuals is the Sokoto State Governor, Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko. Alu, as he is fondly called, is loved and admired by his people across all the local government areas in the state. The admiration was not a mere political gimmick to hoodwink followers as political façade but a deep rooted affection for a man, loved for his passion, his love and integration among with his people proven by series of physical development and his performance that cut across the land.

Born in Wamakko, Sokoto State on March 1, 1953, Wamakko taught for five years between 1968 - 1972 at the Sokoto Teachers' College. After graduation, he worked as a teacher from 1973-1977 before gaining admission into the University of Pittsburgh in the United States of America where he graduated with a B.Sc. in August 1980.

On his return to Nigeria, he taught at Sokoto Teachers C o l l e g e .

He worked as Principal Assistant Secretary of Zurmi Local Government Area, but later promoted to Acting Secretary; he moved later to Kaura Namoda until he was later appointed Chairman of the Sokoto Local Government in 1986. He became General Manager, Hotel Management and Tourism Board, Sokoto. He was promoted to Director-General, Careers and Special Services, Governor's Office, Sokoto in March 1992.

Wamakko's road to the Government House began with his election as Deputy Governor of Sokoto State on a joint ticket with Governor Attahiru Bafarawa in 1999, on the platform of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).

He was re-elected Deputy Governor for a second term in April 2003 but resigned on 15 March 2006.

In April 2007 Alu ran contested as Governor of Sokoto State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he won and assumed office on 29 May 2007.

His election was annulled following an appeal that he was still a member of the ANPP when he got the PDP nomination but Wamakko won a re-run and regained his seat in May 2008.

Since his electoral victory at the polls and reclamation of his mandate, it is the vintage Alu that has proved cynics wrong on his redemptive mission in the running and transformation mission in the state with the Seat of Caliphate as its pride.

Abounding evidences in all the crooks and crannies of the state are indisputable, that even Wamakko's opponents have come to terms with. For a state running what could be referred to as progressive policies without access to special revenue aside the federal allocation and ingenuity in the internally generated revenue (IGR), the driver on the seat must be extraordinary.

When NEWISSUES visited Sokoto State in January 2013, the impressions that subsisted till another visit in the second quarter of 2014 are clear manifestations to the creative administrative prowess exemplified by a resourceful public manager like Wamakko.

His Legacy It is no longer news that this quintessential Governor was the brain behind the establishment of the Almajirin model

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school initiative, which was later adopted by the Federal Government as bridge between shortfall in the educational bridge between the indigents and children from average homes.

The Almajirin Model Schools were established in different locations within the state to cater for the education of these once deprived children; inculcating in them curriculum designed to infuse both basic and Islamic education for the overall development of every Sokoto child.

Governor Wamakko has laid solid foundation for the educational independence and future of Sokoto State. In an unprecedented manner, he embarked on the establishment of the Sokoto State University, a project his detractors initially wrote off as big elephant. The university is a masterpiece and has commenced teaching.

These did not in any way diminish his interventions in the post primary and other tertiary institutions in the state. Alu is just a lover of education and he showed that by his commitment to it.

Since health is wealth, when Wamakko will be leaving the stage next May, the Sokoto State's health sector will be on solid footing. With the Sokoto State Orthopedic Hospital and many other in the line; together with building more General Hospitals and Primary Health Care centres in the state, Sokoto State is already in the healthy mode.

These hospitals have either been newly built or upgraded and equipped with most sophisticated available facilities, aimed at making comprehensive healthcare available to citizens at all time, at affordable or no cost and within the reach of an average people.

The Sokoto State Rural Urban renewal projects are numerous; the road projects within Sokoto, the state capital and other towns and villages attest to the relentless desire of the Wamakko led administration to see a new phase emerging in its history.

In this light, many roads rehabilitation and expansion projects are being embarked upon, completed and commissioned, including the first ever bridge designed to ease transportation gridlock within the Sokoto metropolis.

All through the state, reaching far into farthest local government areas, Wamakko continues to stamp his legacy on the sand of time; connecting towns and villages together with good roads and building indestructible infrastructures.

The Sokoto State Independent Power Project, conceived to compliment the country's power generation and distribution drive is one project too many; seeing that

‘

It is no longer news that this quintessential Governor was the brain behind the establishment of the Almajirin model school initiative

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DEVELOPMENT

Wamakko: His Legacies, His Politics electricity supply serves as catalyst for economic revival and growth.

The project which is one of the Governor's priority projects is at completion as it attained more than 80% by May 2014. It is hopeful that when finally completed and added to the national grid, in collaboration with the 30mw solar photovoltaic (PV) devices Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) project entered into between the state and Nigerian-German energy partnership, Sokoto State would attain sufficiency to meet its electricity needs.

These of course are complimentary to different rural electrification projects scattered across the state which is a departure from the previous status of discomfort associated with darkness and associated basic needs of the people.

The Asare Water Scheme is one water project for which the people will remain grateful for a long time and a laudable legacy. Armed with understanding of the water difficulties faced by people in the Sokoto area, the commissioned water project will continue to rescue the people from the clutch of diseases associated with dirty and infected water that was the bane of the people before Wamakko mounted the saddle. Other water schemes in different locations are all there for all to all to see.

There is not a sector that misses out Wamakko's touch; from Agriculture, health, housing, sports and environment, Dr. Aliyu Magatakarda will continue to be held in highest possible esteem as one man whose footprint on the development of Sokoto State cannot by any means be wiped no matter how long it takes.

His Politics Many had foreclosed the possibility of the successful merger of then opposition parties; the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP) and a splinter group within the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) led by the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha.

Those that waved the possible alliance then have been proven wrong; not only did the merger scale through, the new party equally succeeded in harvesting

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The bridge built by the Wamakko administration in Sokoto. from the progressive figures within the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Prominent among the eminent personalities who swelled the ranks and acceptance of the APC in the country together with Dr. Aliyu Wamakko, are his counterparts in Kano State, Engr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, Kwara State, Abdul Fatai Ahmed, Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Ameachi and impeached former Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako.

Judicial plans by the ruling PDP to rely on Sections 177 and 222 of the 1999 Constitution to scuttle the entrance of the five governors into the foremost opposition mainstream have

failed so far.

Roles played by the Sokoto State Governor to build the APC and stabilize the party, to become the national beautiful bride it currently enjoys cannot in any way be overemphasized.

Wamakko has continued to work both behind the scene and publicly to align with the aspiration fellow compatriots to build a political consensus across the nation to give the ruling PDP a serious fight; first of all, to maneuver the country off the dangerous path of a one party system.

It is also to his credit, and of course, working in collaboration with other progressives in the APC that spirited efforts are being made to articulate

The Asare Water Scheme. www.newissuesmagazine.com

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DEVELOPMENT

Wamakko: His Legacies, His Politics

One of the various road dualization and rehabilitation projects. alternative government at both states and federal levels through democratic change during the 2015 general elections.

Pundits predicted for long, that the defection of Wamakko to the APC was indicator of the imminent defection of Wamakko's political godson and Nigeria's Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Waziri Tambuwwal. The political turf has witnessed renewed strife and new permutations since the defection of Tambuwwal.

As Wamakko left the ruling party, he seemed to have burned the structure of the party along; this is more attested to with the arrays of government officials, legislators and chairmen of local government areas that followed suit, safe for his deputy, Alhaji Mukhtar Shagari, who himself is a governorship hopeful to the seat of the Governor.

Although not gunning for higher office, there are indications that the admired Governor may have been

asked by his immediate constituency to represent them at the Red Chambers of the National Assembly in the 2015 general polls.

Humble, approachable and humane; politics to this amiable governor is not an end; it is means and a channel through which service could be rendered to the people and a platform for meeting the needs of the people.

He once said there must not be gap between the needs of the people and interventions of government.

Wamakko's politics has far grown beyond his state, the Governor is a leading light in stabilizing the polity, a build-builder across the country and one of the forces to determine nature of change to occur within the ranks of the APC and the nation as 2015 paces in and even thereafter.

Despite his dignity and herculean schedule attached to his revered office, Wamakko still lives among his people; an indiscriminate abode, a gesture confirming his connection with his people, who daily throng his abode for political direction, leadership and many other purposes.

The pressure associated with his office notwithstanding, his humour and smiles are disarming weapon from which affectionate disposition and warmth are all woven into his personality, his leadership and indeed, his politics.

The administrative building of the Sokoto State University built by Governor Wamakko.

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“They convinced Interpol with curious and false reports that I am linked to Boko Haram�

- Asari Dokubo NEWISSUES Magazine caught up with Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, leader of the Niger Delta People's Volunteer Force, at his suite in Transcorp Hilton, Abuja, just immediately after he arrived from Saudi Arabia after he was accused by some people and groups of being in the CAN president's private jet that was revealed to be carrying $9.3 million dollars, which the Nigerian government later said was money meant to buy arms and ammunition to fight terror group, Boko Haram. Read what Alhaji Asari Dokubo said about it and much more as he spoke to George Onmonya Daniel, Editor-at-Large.

“They convinced to link me to Boko Haram”

T

hank you for having us in such a short while.

The reason why we are here is to clarify an issue that has been on the social media which the APC took up and said is an issue now, the issue of where you were when this whole arms issue was going on.

I think I have the right to my privacy…ahh…and I have the rights to be where I want to be at any particular time.

It's so laughable and ...i think it is a big disgrace to Nigeria that there is a party called the APC that is so desperate for power that they cannot even verify common information which are in the public domain.

The information of who and who were on board the plane to purchase arms.

Sir, why do you think they mentioned your name…why is your name mentioned anytime you are not around? Are they afraid of you?

I think they are. They have done everything to get me out of the way. For instance…ahh…they went to the Republic of Benin, they convinced Interpol with curious and false reports that I am linked to Boko Haram and I was arrested and interrogated. The Benin Republic government and Interpol discovered that these were all lies. After that, General Buhari staged managed an assassination and somebody immediately came out and said Alhaji Dokubo-Asari bla, bla, bla, gave us five million to assassinate Buhari and they found out nothing happened, they could not pursue the case. The mother of the young man came out and said my son is mentally deranged. My son cannot be.

Neighbours came out even without me saying anything. So all the way they want Alhaji DokuboAsari to be put out of the way. But I think this is the last straw. We are going to take them up legally and by any means necessary to retrieve and cleanse our name, because they brought out a picture we took together with Pa Ayo…, I am very close to Ayo Oritsejafor, I have no apology. I am a Niger Deltan and the first people I should associate with without any apology are my fellow Niger Deltans, because they have stood by me in my hours of needs and pain. So nobody should come and tell me who my friends should be. A picture we took during the period when Yar'adua was looking for…to buy the peace in the Niger Delta…, Pa Ayo was very active in the cause to look for peace, and he persuaded people like us to take the amnesty which we rejected. We took a picture with him, myself and the spokesman of the Niger Delta People Salvation Front, the organization to which I belong, Mr. Rex Aniworo, and we were all there, and all of a sudden ehhh, one Kayode Ogundamisi , ahhh…transmuted ehhh…Rexa to become Muhammed Yusuf. And it went viral. You see, they can, they will not win. There is no way they will be close. We will disgrace them and we will win them.

And one to one, Obasanjo and others are trying to replicate what happened in Cote'd'Ivoire. What they want to do is that Jega is in arm in glove with them,

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whether Goodluck believes it or not. He will announce a result; he will announce…the whole world should listen. Jega wil announce a result where Goodluck has won that their candidate won. And after that…because they are going all over the world to garner international ehhh…opinion, ground swell against Goodluck. They go to the US, they go to UK, they go to everywhere…if you read on Facebook, ehhh… Adeyinka Grandson…, Adeyinka Grandson had gladly said that these men had gone to the US government and said that Nigeria is now shifting …ehhh…governmental policies and leaning towards China, ehh, Russia and other countries, and they are promising the United States of America that they would hand over the economy of Nigeria to the United States of America if they support them, if Obama support them to cause mayhem in Nigeria.

They are accusing people like you of being responsible for mayhem even in the North. Shiekh Gumi, you know Shiekh Gumi' has been trying to link you…

He is not a Shiekh…he is a lie and a munafik… …he has been trying to link you with Boko HaramYeah, it's all good. If we are killing them now we will kill them tomorrow. That's it. Look, no problem. I don't give a damn. They believe that we are killing them; we will continue to kill them. Why should I be apologetic about it? But he will be punished for the lies, for every lies he tells. You call him Shiekh Gumi, he is not a Shiekh. He is a liar, he is a bloody munafik.

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“They convinced to link me to Boko Haram” But Asari Dokubo, you are a Muslim and they are Muslim…

They are not Muslims please…

I mean the Hausa/Fulanis in the North.

They are not Muslims. These are bandits that came here. We have been saying it. For instance, if they call Islam 'dawa', Usman dan Fodio came here to do dawa. So when he overthrew the so called Hausa Muslims he claimed that were practicing syncretism, the core Hausa Muslims he claimed were mixing Islam with other beliefs, when he had overthrown them, why did he give power to Hausa people who are Muslims if they came for the propagation of Islam? Allah Subhannad Watahala said, “For every nation I have risen a prophet in their own tongue.” He did not raise a Fulani leader, a Fulani Mujahid for Hausa people, for Nupe people, for Gbagyi people…Allah does not make mistake.

The issue of Obasanjo, you mentioned him as been involved in a conspiracy to topple Goodluck Jonathan. Is there any substance in this story?

There is a lot of substance in the story. Obasanjo, the old buffoon, that old buffoon, that ehhh…in Africa such a man ought not to…associate, somebody his own son accused him of sleeping with his wife. His own daughters accuse him of incest, sleeping with them…such a man goes around, he went to South Africa to find out whether Alhaji Dokubo Asari was surely in the plane, so that I will be prosecuted but he failed. He has been travelling around the world, gathering International antagonism against Goodluck Jonathan. And this President Goodluck Jonathan is not aware. He is playing with them. This is not a play.

Obasanjo and Goodluck were friends some couple of years ago, he claimed that he put Goodluck there, now…

Now does Obasanjo have more than one vote?

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No, he has only one vote.

Now how did he put Goodluck there? Did he circumvent the electoral process to put Goodluck?

How can we who say we are practicing democracy make that statement? Can anybody in the US say I put Obama there?

No, nobody can say that.

Ohoo! So why would one buffoon who could not win in his ward, one old senile idiot, claim that he put somebody and call it a democracy.

Sir, do you know the problem between President Goodluck www.newissuesmagazine.com

Jonathan and Obasanjo?

I don't know. I am not in privy but I can guess. Maybe Obasanjo wanted Goodluck to do something and Goodluck refused. And he feels that his ego has been bruised, so he wants a payback. Like a godfather that has become a King Kong. He wants to destroy. If not what? Goodluck has outperformed him. Obasanjo paid billions of dollars for the railway to work. It didn't work. He paid billion for electricity in our homes and on our streets, in our offices, it did not work. And today there is improvement. So for him, every step on the way, Goodluck has

“They convinced to link me to Boko Haram” outshine him. This is a man who sold all national assets for peanuts.

For nothing. This hotel we are sitting (Transcorp Hilton) he sold it.

You seem to believe in Nigeria now from the way you are talking now.

No I don't. I don't. That does not mean I am oblivious of the things going around me. It is stupid to be oblivious of the things going around you.

Don't you think Nigeria can work together as a country?

Nigeria cannot work. How will it work when some people say they are born to rule and others must accept? When since 1966…we are saying there is this man Buhari…why does General Pinochet not come out in Chile that he wants to contest again? In Nigeria somebody who took the tax payers money, somebody who took the oil money from Itsekiri land, from Ogoni land, in Indukwa land, and planned a coup, and dispossessed Nigerians of their mandates, will be standing and telling them he wants to be elected, adding insults to injury.

Buhari just declared that he is coming out for…

That is what I am saying na. In any sane society Buhari should be in prison.

People see him as one of the most credible…

What is credibility? Fela sang NNPC money dey miss. They set up Panel, this, that, were we not here?

As if we are living in a world that they just erased everything from our memories, that 2.8 billion naira did not get missing during his tenure as Petroleum Minister. What are his legacies? What did he leave? Let him point his legacies? Somebody who in his time murdered people outside the law when his wind and caprices were law. Somebody who did something and it was not an offense when he came to power he all of a sudden made it an offense just to execute that person, took

NEWISSUES

somebody's life. Such a wicked, evil, diabolic man, is what they want to present. What credential does he have? He was governor; let him show us his legacies. What did he leave behind? Go to Dubai, I just came from Saudi Arabia, landmarks and things that I have seen. What did Buhari leave behind? He was Petroleum Minister, what did he leave behind? He was PTDF, where are the roads? They have all been dilapidated. I have been living in Benin Republic since 2008, the major road running through Cotonou has been there, I have never seen patch it since 2008. They have never patched it. The road is there. In Nigeria, Julius Berger would be constructing roads, as they are constructing they are marking some places and digging it and patching it.

Setraco will be constructing, they are patching it. Corruption is endemic. What of the 53 suite cases?

What of the 53 suite cases? What are they telling us?

People are complaining about this government, that this government is very corrupt, you have been in Benin Republic for a while and the roads are in perfect condition…

So from 1956, if they have been doing the roads and the roads have been, why is it there were no roads until 2010? Did Goodluck Jonathan come and used bulldozers to scrap

‘

Goodluck Jonathan will win; we know all the tricks they are planning. Even if Goodluck Jonathan is playing with them, we are not going to play with them www.newissuesmagazine.com

all the roads? So, what happens to the roads since 1956? Who were building the roads? Was Goodluck Jonathan there? Then in five years all of a sudden everything is Goodluck Jonathan, in less than five years, and they want us to accept it, those of us who are his people, as a Niger Deltan and as an Ijaw man I should accept it. First of all tell us what these people did from 1953.

Luckily for us, General Buhari was Head of State, alright, Goodluck Jonathan since 2010 has done nothing, show us what General Buhari did that is still there, show us.

It is like a miracle worker who goes to kano that has just left Warri. In Warri all the blind people have seen, but in Kano I have not seen any blind man who has seen. That is the sort of things they want us to believe.

So Atiku abubakar, Sam Nda Isaiah, Kwankwaso, are coming out to contest for the president under the APC to challenge Buhari for the APC presidential ticket. How do you view these men?

I don't have anything to say. They have the rights to contest election.

But I know they will fail. Goodluck Jonathan will win; we know all the tricks they are planning. Even if Goodluck Jonathan is playing with them, we are not going to play with them.

Who is 'we'?

Me! And those who are with us. We are not going to play with them. We will not wait for Goodluck. If Goodluck jonathan does not use the law against those, we will resort to self-help, to deal with these people.

Self-help to deal with these people? I don't understand.

If they soak the blood of baboon and monkeys on the streets, ahhh, we will also soak the blood of cat fish and barracudas in the river, is that not so?

(Everybody laughing).

Thank you very much sir.

Thank you.

(Laughing continued)

POLITICS

Shettima

Sheriff

BORNO: The other war Haruna Yusuf

W

hen you hear of war in Borno State nowadays, you would probably think Boko Haram; while, this war has nothing to do with Boko Haram. It is the war between the godfather and the godson. It is the war betweem Governor Kashim Shettima and former governor Ali Modu Sheriff.

Ali Modu Sheriff, popularly called SAS, and former governor of Borno State, brought Governor Kashim Shettima into the limelight and power. Shettima was working with Zenith Bank as General Manager when SAS appointed him appointed him as Commissioner of the Borno State Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in mid-2007.

He later became Commissioner in the Ministry Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Education, Agriculture and later Health under his predecessor, Ali Modu Sheriff. One can easily see why SAS picked him as his third choice as successor after Awana Ngala, former ANPP Chairman, and Engineer Fannami Gubio, both Ali Modu Sheriff relatives and his choice as governor were gunned down.

After Ali Modu Sheriff's families were targeted for assassination, the only man SAS trusted to handover to was the former banker and commissioner at various capacities in his government, Kashim Shettima.

The godfather eventually made sure the godson became governor. It is still a trend in Nigeria for politicians to force their godson on the people or successor on the people, mostly to protect the wanton looting and abuse of tax payers' money.

NEWISSUES

NEWISSUES can authoritative tell you that SAS and Governor Kashim Shettima have fallen apart, even before SAS left the All Progressive Congress (APC) to join the People's Democratic Party (PDP).

Now the war is being fought in the media and online. KSM News, a Facebook page obviously being managed by the awareness of the Borno State government, have continued to pick on Ali Modu Sheriff by attacking the former governor or promote stories that attack Sheriff.

Stories like BORNO PDP AND SHERIFF SHOULD TELL US WHAT THEY KNOW ABOUT BOKO HARAM. This Facebook page has severally accused SAS of being sponsor of Boko Haram.

The fact is that SAS defection from the APC to PDP has shaken Governor Kashim Shettima and his supporters. SAS is still very popular and has a lot of supporters in the Borno State and even though he is governor, Kashim Shettima has enemies who would want to work with SAS to ensure he loses in 2015.

What is the cause of the problem between SAS and Governor Kashim Shettima? It is like every other around Nigeria. The godfather wants to control the godson and the godson is disloyal to the godfather.

It is SAS obsession with control like all Nigerian leaders that is the cause of the cold war in Borno State. As the terrorist ravages Borno State and environ, SAS and Kashim Shettima are embroiled in the war of who takes over Borno State in 2015.

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DEVELOPMENT

GOODLUCK JONATHAN

Four years of unbroken promises Remi Adebayo

N

igerians have the demeanour of labeling each administration that preside over the nation; most time to paint a satiric picture of their perception of a particular government. Of course, some of these tags are not without misconceptions about the workings of government or totally a mischief implanted by the political class to discredit the ruling party.

Notwithstanding his obsession with the observance of the rule of law, the Late President Umar Musa Yar'Adua was christened “Baba Go-Glow;” which is a flagrant opposition to the processes involved in towing the rule of law.

The previous administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo was not spared. Nigerians labeled him “Baba No Regret.” They perceived that the former President was perceived to be decisive and would hardly rescind decisions once taken.

Considering the goodwill upon which President Goodluck Jonathan assumed the leadership of Nigeria and impeccable performance recorded so far by his administration, opposition elements have successfully spearheaded the labeling of Jonathan as a clueless leader.

The need to dismiss the diminishing appellation on the Jonathan prompted the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on Public Affairs to the President, Dr. Doyin Okupe, to rally Nigerians from all walks of life to a four day public affairs forum in Abuja recently.

According to Okupe, the forum was organised to assess where Nigeria was in 2011 and where it is in 2014; he reiterated that the meeting was necessary to x-ray administration of Jonathan in a bid to reposition the regime away from the evil politics being practiced in the country.

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Stakeholders on the forum included the Market Women and Men Association of Nigeria, Nigeria Union of Road Transport Workers, Nigeria Union of Teachers, Civil Society Organisations, media organisations and various interest groups.

Ten ministers from ten different ministries, selected after a poll conducted by a consultant were on parade on live telecast across the world to tell Nigerians, and indeed the world what the Goodluck Jonathan's administration has been able to do in their respective areas.

WATER RESOURCES First to mount the podium on the Forum was the Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe. The soft-spoken minister was unsparing in her appreciation to President Jonathan for his foresight in weaning the Water Resources ministry from the old system where the ministry was lumped together with the ministry of Agriculture.

She explained that the 37 dams had been completed while another 7 dam were upgraded with 16 of them installed with hydropower potentials.

Ochekpe said through this, 36billion cubit meter of water has been achieved. Goronyo Dam in Sokoto State has been rehabilitated; while Kashim Billa Multipurpose Dam is 87% completed with December 2014 target. The Otukpo Multipurpose Dam is 60% completed.

She emphasized that most of these dams were designed for irrigation and water purposes; stating that 1.4million farming families are benefitting from the irrigation projects with direct income to the farmers across the country. This has helped government to increase rice cultivation in the country by 76%

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DEVELOPMENT

compared with the previous years.

The Mimistry of Water Resources embarked on the Water Supply Reform with assistance from World Bank, French Government to assist 12 states to improve on their water facilities.

Some of these states include; Lagos, Cross River, Ogun and Kaduna States.

Others are Enugu, Oyo, Taraba, Osun, Jigawa and Yobe States. The project was to provide access to pipe water in urban areas.

The Jonathan administration is being supported by the Tutsi-Chanrai Foundation to rehabilitate boreholes in 91 local government areas across the country. Furtherance to that, local mechanics are being trained to maintain these borehole facilities while another set of locals are trained on Water Quality Sanitation and Hygiene.

Water Laboratories were established in each of the six geographic zones in collaboration with aid agencies. The National Water Resources Institute was established for capacity building for middle level and senior officials.

POWER Professor Chinedu Nebo is the minister of Power. The erudite scholar informed Nigerians on why the power sector was stalemated before the advent of the Jonathan administration; revealing that the no employment of any technical person was made in the period preceding the administration for 16 years; to redress this, Nebo said government immediately recruited more than a thousand engineers to bridge the gap in less than two years.

Ambitious to stimulate sustainable and sustained growth in the power sector, the Jonathan administration designed the National Power Reform Roadmap to make power a catalyst for industrial revolution.

The minister explained that presently, Nigeria's power generation and distribution have 70% gas and 20% hydro capacities; lamenting that with these, sabotage and vandalization in the energy sector have gravely undermined power. He explained that the National Independent Power Project (NIPP) had been largely ineffective because the gas to power initiative had been scuttled because available gas was unable to drive the NIPP projects.

However, with less than 2500MW generated in 2009, power generation increased to 3400MW in 2014 and still increasing on daily basis.

The federal government is working to correct this through the design of integrated power mix which will enable

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Abuja to Kaduna Standard Gauge Line government to generate power from available sources which include wind, coal, and solar energy.

As a result of this, the international development agencies attributed Nigeria's investment in the Power sector as the boldest attempt by any government in the world.

Initiatives aimed at achieving consistent power generation include the flagging off of the Zungeru Power Project by President Goodluck Jonathan after the project had been abandoned for more than 30 years. Government has commenced work on coal to power project with ability to generate 4000MW. Prof. Nebo lamented the snarl in the ot

transmission sector; he attributed this to overloaded transformers which could not accommodate proportional energies to the needs of citizens. He said the federal government flagged off Operation Light-up Nigeria with a pilot scheme involving Sape, Durumi and Waru in the Federal Capital Territory.

The scheme is designed to encourage interested Nigerians to provide renewable energy within a locality for transmission to the community at a cost.

The National Power Sector Apprenticeship Scheme was inaugurated on November 6 for Diploma and School Certificate graduates. 200 trainees were selected from all the states, including the FCT for

Interior of one of the coaches www.newissuesmagazine.com

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Four years of unbroken promises

Rehabilitated East/West Moles the scheme.

AVIATION According to Chiduka Osika, the immediate Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps and the Minister of Aviation, the Nigeria has for the first time, developed an aviation Master plan and road map.

Although he regretted that unlike in other climes where air transportation account for commendable injection to the national GDP, Nigeria's aviation sector merely contributes 0.4% to national earnings previously; the Minister however expressed confidence that under the current administration, sanity was being returned to the sector.

As a result, the Jonathan government is creating the Nigerian economy to include massive investment in the aviation sector whereby 22 airports have been remodeled to attract 2million more passengers in the last four years.

In addition to this and unprecedentedly, five modern international passenger terminals are under construction concurrently in Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano and Enugu.

Considering the investments and policy of government in total enhancement of safety and standard in the aviation sector, Nigeria has achieved FAA Category 1 while tremendous investment is gone into the Weather Metering System through the NIMET; this has scaled down accidents that occur from pilots' error.

In the same vein, fire-fighting infrastructure and navigational aids and instruments landing systems (ILS), including runway lights and total radar coverage (TRACON) have been provided for enhanced air safety.

Prolonged concession and lease agreement period had been shortened to 24 hours, a departure from the lengthy landing permission regime of the past.

Also, flights cancellation and delays

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have been addressed to attract penalties in favour of passengers.

Perishable cargo airports have been designated in cities with high proximity to food production in Nigeria. The Jos, Makurdi, Yola, Jalingo, Lagos and Ilorin airports have been at the pilot of this initiative.

Desired to meet the commercial participation of the aviation sector in the economic drive of the country, private sector participation is being vigorously pursued.

TRANSPORT: The Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar gave the scorecard of the Transport Ministry to include government's achievement in the Nigerian Railway, Maritime and intermordal areas.

He stressed that efforts have been made for the resuscitation and modernization of the Nigerian Railway System for the Haulage of Goods and carriage of Passengers; stating that rehabilitation of over 90 percent of the entire existing narrow gauge lines throughout the country is ongoing.

The main Western line, Lagos Kano which is 1,124km is completed and passenger services and haulage of goods flagged off in December, 2012. The rehabilitation work in the 1,657km Eastern line Port Harcourt-Maiduguri is progressing steadily with the Port Harcourt Gombe Segment and branch line from Kafanchan Kaduna billed to be completed by December 2014.

Rehabilitation of sidings and loop lines along the Western line, including connection to key industrial locations within Apapa, 74 stations and branch lines between Lagos and Kano, the 300 meter link between the Apapa Port Complex and the national line will be completed by the end of 2014, while construction of the spur line to the Kaduna power plant complex is

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expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2015.

The 326km Itakpe-Ajaokuta-Warri Standard Gauge rail line is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2015 while Idu (Abuja)Kaduna Standard Gauge rail line is over 85% (155km laid out of 187.5km) has been completed and is expected to be delivered by the end of 2014.

Lagos - Ibadan Standard Gauge 2 x 180Km has been awarded and will commence as soon as funding arrangement is concluded. A framework agreement was signed on 5th May, 2014 between the Federal Ministry of Transport and Messrs. CCECC for the construction of Coastal Railway Line, connecting ten (10) States in Lagos Shagamu Ijebu Ode Ore - Benin City Sapele - Warri Yenagoa PH Aba Uyo Calabar with another section from Benin City Abudu Agbor Ogwashi Uku Asaba Onitsha including Onitsha railway bridge.

Pilotage District have been completely rehabilitated and there is continuous dredging and maintenance of the navigable channels through established long-term structure vide Joint Venture arrangement with Channel Management Companies to deepen the channels and the berth areas.

The 1.6km dual carriageway within Apapa Port Complex with Improved ICT Infrastructure with component have also been completed for Electronic Payment Solution (E-Payment), Electronic Ship Entry Notice (E-SEN) and Port Control Management.

Rail Rehabilitation in the Apapa Port Complex has been completed while Rivers Port Complex is on-going.

Procurement processes are on-going for the rehabilitation of Escravos Breakwaters and the dredging of Escravos-Warri-Aladja-Koko Channel.

Rehabilitation of Julius Berger Terminal, Warri Port and Terminal B

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Refurbished Hopper Wagons Warri Old Port have been completed.

Phase 4 Federal Ocean Terminal at Onne Port Complex has also been completed.

Rehabilitation of TCIP quay wall and quay apron and third party projects, including Initiation and Completion of Island Berth on Lagos Channel by Oando and Eko Support Services Terminal at Bullnose, Apapa, the dredging of the Lower River Niger from Warri, Delta State to Baro in Niger State 572km has been completed.

Inland Waterways Transportation Yenagoa and Igbokoda Jetties have been completed; the River Ports at Baro at 92%, Oguta 73% and Lokoja 62% are under construction will be completed in the first quarter of 2015.

Maritime Safety In the bid to further consolidate on security of the nation's maritime environment and stem the ugly trend of piracy, armed robbery at Sea, illegal bunkering, and other sea-based crimes, the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency NIMASA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Nigerian Air Force, in addition

to an existing MoU with the Nigerian Navy, NSCDC and PPP arrangement with Global West Vessel Specialist West Africa Limited.

The first Nigeria Maritime University is being built in Okerenkoko, Delta State while Maritime Institutes have also been established in University of Lagos, Univerisity of Nigeria Nsukka, NigerDelta University Amasoma, Bayelsa State and Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Niger State.

Agriculture Nigeria's celebrated technocrat Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina described President Goodluck Jonathan as the best man he ever worked with; considering the President vision for the agricultural transformation agenda, aimed at diversifying the economy away from the oil dependency.

Akinwumi told Nigerian that the federal government saved N25 billion due to blockage of the decade long corruption in the fertilizers distribution network and that presently with the introduction of the e-wallet initiative.

With the private sector participation,

On-going Construction Works at Phase 4B Onne

NEWISSUES

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over N15 billion worth of fertizers and N1.5 billion seeds were sold directly to over 14 million farmers via their mobile phones. Over 250,000 farmers and youths are engaged in the northern part of the country engaged in all-seasons farming.

Six (6) million farmers' database is developed and periodically updated. He explained that only five (5) seedling companies were doing business before this administration; that has scaled up to eighty (80).

Nigeria has attained unprecedented 1.6 million metric tonnes combined seasons production.

With Nigeria now as largest producer of Cassava, the nation saved N125 billion from importation of wheat for bread in the period; with government encouraging large-scale investment in mechanized cassava farming. This has boosted Nigeria's non-oil sector export with China ordering for 3.2 metric million metric tonnes. 2.2 million metric tonnes of cassava chips were exported in 2012.

From 10 states previously, rice producing states have increased to 24; cultivating rice for the Nigerian market with both wet and dry season production through irrigable land. Through this, jobs created through rice farming increased from 358,000 to 751,000 in 2014.

Eighteen large scale milling firms have invested N750 billion in the sector with the Dangote Group investing $1 billion in rice production. The Federal Government is financing with N13 billion.

3.5 million cocoa hybrid seeds with maturity tenure of 2 ½ years have been freely distributed to farmers in the cocoa growing states while more states have joined the trend. The same is applicable to oil palm cultivation, where 9 million hybrid seedlings have been given to farmers. Cross River State and a private company, Presco & Okono are partnering.

T h e r e c e n t l y l a u n c h e d Yo u t h Employment in Agriculture Programme (YEAP), designed to encourage youths engagement in commercial farming is targeted to get 750,000 youths onboard by 2015.

Silos capacity has been increased by over 300% while Nigeria's food importation declined from N1.1 trillion in 2011 to N648 billion in 2014; signaling a path to food security and sufficiency.

Education Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, the Minister of Education highlighted his mission in the ministry to include drive to increase

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DEVELOPMENT

schools' enrolment at all levels, infrastructural and instructional materials provision and enhancement of e f f i c i e n c y, c o m p e t e n c y a n d resourcefulness of teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary schools.

Shekarau said 125 Almajirin schools were built for the harmonization of basic curriculum and Islamic education.

Further to that, 35 special girls' schools with boarding facilities were constructed to increase enrolment of girls in schools.

This is in addition to the construction of classrooms, laboratories with generator houses of 105 blocks of four classes in 15 states. 17,000 teacher were recruited and deployed to public primary schools in 34 states while government released N6 billion for training of teachers for capacity building.

The Federal Government also supported its education sector with provision of textbooks in Mathematics, English Language and Basic Science while 13 million library resource materials were procured for the Junior Secondary Schools across the country.

14 new federal universities have been established in states where there was none.

This was designed to reduce denial of qualified students from getting university education.

In the same way, over 36,000 school heads and principals have been trained.

In agreement with union leaders, NEEDS assessment of all secondary and

tertiary institutions was carried out. A special grant of N109 billion was released to universities, polytechnics and colleges of education to address current national challenges. Another N15 billion was given as special grant to upgrade faculties in all federal polytechnics while Entrepreneurial centres were established in all universities to develop graduates with skills to tackle unemployment.

Each Federal Unity schools are given $250,000 to upgrade and rehabilitate facilities and science laboratories. 5,867 lecturers from both states and federal tertiary institutions have been granted scholarship for further studies abroad, out of which 624 have completed their studies and returned home.

WORKS The ministry is saddled with responsibility over federal roads across the country. Works Minister, Architect Mike Onolemene was on hand to keep the nation abreast on this all important ministry.

To begin with, he informed that the ministry of Works enlisted six zonal ministerial independent monitors to oversee projects in all the six geopolitical zones.

Onolemene said 62 federal roads roads totaling over 25,000km roads have been completed, out of the 98 projects awarded; stating that 70% of Nigerian road network in now motorable and in

good condition against the 16% inherited in 2011.

He said of the 98 projects, some have been completed while some are under completion. The Works Minister stressed that among the roads under completion is the Abuja Lokoja which is 86% completed.

With SURE-P intervention in the road projects, the Architect Minister reiterated that five key projects including two major bridges across the nation's River Niger rivers are under completion.

With the Public Private Partnership initiative, 2 flatship projects with the 2nd Niger Bridge and the MMIA ApapaOshodi expressway have been designated.

In partnership with the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC), the Ministry has embarked on capacity building on safety and pedestrian bridges; including training of women on maintenance of roads.

The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), through direct labour, has rehabilitated over 22,500km roads and 80 bridges across the country.

INDUSTRY TRADE AND INVESTMENT The Ministry, with Dr. Olusegun Aganga as minister has made so much impact on the investment drive of this nation towards generation of jobs and massive investment into the Nigerian economy.

Refurbished Covered Wagons

Track Inspection & Maintenance Vehicles

New Pressurized Tank Wagons

Various passenger coaches

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DEVELOPMENT

The automobile sector appears to be one of the most impacted of the ministry with over 22 companies already on the Nigerian soil to produce different brands of Nigeria Made automobiles against 4 that was on the ground in 2011.

Today, Peugeot, Innoson, KIA and other companies are producing both vehicles and spare parts to support production and servicing. Dunlop is already on the path of tyre production in the country.

Production in that sector has been increased with 40%.

Sugar importation used to be 97% before the Jonathan administration. Due to the PPP drive, the Dangote Group is investing $2 billion into the sugar production while employing over 150,000 people. More than $3.2 billion investment has been stimulated in the sector.

The cement sector had 16.5 million capacity in 2011 but now the sector has 39.5 million MTPA with $15 billion investment that has attracted 2.2 million jobs. This has led to the reduction in the price of cement from between N1, 000 and N1,150 market rates.

Other inclusive initiatives have been set up to involve ordinary Nigerian in accessing funds to operate small and medium scale enterprises. In that regards, the National Enterprise Development Programme (NEDEP) was launched where 55,000 cooperative societies were established with 15 members in each unit across the 774 local governments; empowering 825,000 people.

HEALTH The health ministry has through its intervention improved access to primary heathcare and under the Saving One Million Lives project, it has saved over 433,650 lives from November 2012 and June 2013 through reduction in the risks of Maternal & Child Health, Nutrition, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV, Malaria control, immunization and polo eradication.

Similarly, 1500 primary healthcare facilities were refurbished and equipped along rehabilitation and modernization of some teaching hospitals; among them are the Obafemi Awolowo Teaching Hospital, Ile0-Ife and the University of Benin Teaching Hospital.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control was established and malaria has been drastically reduced in children. The Open Heart surgeries have resumed at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu with 25 patients successfully operated in 2013.

NEWISSUES

Rehabilitation of Railway Track Western Corridor

CSR Diesel Multiple Units (DMUs) University College Hospital, Ibadan has followed suit. Kidney transplant capacity has been strengthened as the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital and Lagos University Teaching Hospital came on board.

Coverage for the National Health Insurance Scheme widened from 6% in 2011 to 8% in 2013 and coverage for the National Immunization increased from 38% in 2012 to 82% in 2013. Under this period, guinea worm was stamped out totally while 11,300 frontline health workers were recruited in 2013.

Lastly, the federal government, with support from the Lagos and Rivers State governments, and with full support to the media and the Nigerian people successfully ward off the Ebola Disease Virus (EDV) when it was imported by a foreign national into the country in August 2014.

FINANCE The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Professor Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala told Nigerians that for the first time in about 25 years, the Nigerian economy has been rebased and that this is increasing investment from China, Europe and other countries of the world to Nigeria.

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She stressed that Nigeria has huge responsibility to itself and the African continent and the world at large since Nigeria alone accounts for 77% of Africa's GDP. In the period under review, Nigerian economy has been stabilized with stable exchange rate; micro economic stability and drop in inflation rate from 12% to 8% in 2014.

Equally, Iweala said fiscal deficit has narrowed to about just 1% and borrowing by government reduced from N1.3 trillion in 2010 to N571 billion.

Government has stimulated policies and initiatives aimed at diversifying economy.

The Federal Government launched the Housing Finance Revolution with N300 billion start off. This grant will allow government workers to have access to mortgage finance that is payable in 10 to 20 years. This scheme is expected to accommodate 200,000 deliverable housing units.

According to the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics, government needed to create 1.8 million jobs annually to respond to the growing population, 1.4 is already created in 2014.

Import Waiver policy was instituted for key sector targeted to stimulate fast economic input.

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ENTERTAINMENT

Gone too soon: SALEH AGM The man behind some of Kannywood's most fantastic movies

George Onmonya Daniel

M

ost Nigerians don't know the people behind the scene who make the movies they watch possible. The people who write these stories that makes up Nollywood and Kannywood. Saleh AGM was one of the most brilliant and passionate young men behind the scene, one of the most promising film makers in Northern Nigeria. I met Saleh AGM few years ago when he was in Abuja to direct a film. I was overwhelmed after watching him work. He was thorough and detail, almost a perfectionist. From a jovial and an amiable young man, when on set Saleh AGM transform into a very serious no-nonsense businesslike director. You would barely recognize him. He was a leader. After work you would barely recognize that this easy going, respectful and even funny young man was the director.

The Director, as he was popularly known, was in Abuja to direct the movie 'Mallakamin Dukiyarki' featuring Ali Nuhu, Yakubu Mohammed, Sani Sadiq, Tijanni Faraga, Al-Amin Buhari, Rahma Sado, Fati Washa and Hadiza Muhammad. Saleh AGM scripted and co-wrote the story.

Kannywood and Nollywood superstar, Ali Nuhu, paid his last respect by simply posting his picture and Saleh AGM taken on the set of Mallakamin Dukiyarki with the message, “With my Director, Late Saleh AGM, a day after it was confirmed that the Director has died suddenly in an auto-crash on his way to Maiduguri from Kano on 14th November, 2015. The producer, Bulama, who was driving the 406 vehicle, told NEWISSUES that they were near Maiduguri when the car entered a pothole, swerved and hit a culvert. Saleh AGM who was sitting in front with the producer was flung out of the car through the window and thrown out where he smashed his head.

He was unconscious and died fifteen minutes later never regaining conscious.

Actors Guild of Nigeria Chairman, Agility Onwurah, who was a friend to the Director, said he was shocked to hear the story. Agility said Saleh AGM was a great film maker, a fascinating story teller and a fantastic script writer. He said the movie industry will really miss the Director. Agility who was in Calabar said he was with Saleh a day before he died in Abuja and gave him his short story to help him edit in Kano. The film industry is bereaved, he added.

NEWISSUES

Saleh AGM, the director on set of Mallamin Dukiyarki.

Saleh AGM, having fun on set before his demise.

L-R: Yusuf Muhammad, Rahma Sado and Ali Nuhu, actors in the last film directed by Saleh AGM.

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VIBES

WOLE SOYINKA “I want to appeal to the Americans to please stop laughing at us. They should stop ridiculing this nation. The government claimed that it asked for Cobra helicopter. The government of Jonathan asked for little weapons to destroy the enemies. We’re in a situation of destroy or be destroyed...”

BLACK FRIDAY Pope, CAN, Sultan condemn attack

Attack is extremely serious sin against God - Pope Francis NEWISSUES

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SPORTS

Stephen Keshi: Hanging his hope on Nation's Cup win

George Onmonya Daniel

A

meju Pinnick, the NFF Chairman, has suddenly changed his position from that of sacking Stephen Keshi to calling Keshi a Nation's Cup winning hero. In fact that's why Stephen Keshi is still Nigerian coach in the first place.

It was obvious that the NFF had made up their mind to sack Keshi but some powerful hand which NEWISSUES learn is President Goodluck Jonathan, asked that Keshi should be left as coach, even though Pinnick denied any influence or interference in decision making from outside.

Stephen Keshi will stay as the Super Eagles coach. The NFF is

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talking of training for Keshi and talking of training a match reader at the same time. The fact on ground now is that Stephen Keshi is staying despite Super Eagles draw in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, that sealed the faith of Nigeria not qualifying for the Nation's Cup as defending Champions.

A lot of Nigerians still believe that the problem in the Glass House, Abuja, the dirty politics and confusion by Nigeria's football administrators has affected the preformance of the Super Eagles and has always affected Nigerian football over the years and Keshi is not really the problem. The new NFF Chairman, Ameju Pinnick, has asked media to blame him for the www.newissuesmagazine.com

failure of Super Eagles not qualifying for the Nation's Cup being the man in charge of football in Nigeria. That's quite different from the Nigerian attitude of passing bulks and exonerating self from all blames. Ameju is an idealistic man, a creative and confident man who is realistic and pragmatic in the ways he talks about the changes he intends to bring to football in Nigeria. It looks like he is the right man for this job, but running the NFF is not an easy job.

For now Keshi will stay as Super Eagles coach and his staying is wrapped around winning the Nations Cup. You cannot just push out a hero even in Nigeria.

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SPORTS

Q

atar's grip on the 2022 World Cup was loosened this morning as evidence of the potential ''smoking gun'' that could bring a FIFA re-vote was uncovered.

Documents seemingly proving disgraced former FIFA executive Mohammed Bin Hammam paid crooked Trinidadian Jack Warner millions as payment for his support in the controversial vote in 2010, appeared likely to be the key the unlocked the door to a change of venue.

FIFA's investigations chief, former United States Attorney Michael Garcia, has to find evidence of corruption before the validity of the vote is questioned by the world governing body.

But the apparent confirmation that Bin Hammam – like Warner a former acolyte of Sepp Blatter who was also dumped when he plotted against the FIFA - gave the disgraced former Trinidadian government member a $2million kick-back just two weeks after the vote in Zurich opens the door for Garcia to follow the paper trail.

Warner's payment for "professional services over the period 2005-2010" looks more than slightly shady, especially as questions over the legality of the payment saw Cayman Islands banks refusing to process the request.

With the FBI now investigating Warner – one of his sons is seemingly ready to cut a deal and provide evidence against his father to avoid prosecution – the Qatari organisers are firmly on the back foot.

Last night, under pressure to respond, a spokesman for the Qatari's opted for a bland and less than full answer.

The Qatari's said: ''The 2022 Bid Committee strictly adhered to FIFA's bidding regulations in compliance with their code of ethics. ''The Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy and the individuals involved in the 2022 Bid Committee are unaware of any allegations surrounding business dealings between private individuals."

Qatar are now desperately trying to distance themselves from Bin Hammam, thrown out of FIFA two years ago - a year after Warner was shown the door – over different corruption claims.

But if the FBI are involved, the Qataris will be under pressure to submit ball relevant documents to Garcia, including

NEWISSUES

Qatar's staging of the 2022 World Cup under threat due to 'new evidence of corruption’ Documents have been uncovered, appearing to show former FIFA executive Mohammed Bin Hammam paid Jack Warner for his support in the controversial vote

By Martin Lipton those which might already by in the possession of the authorities. Any attempts at concealment will be a huge issue.

Garcia is due to report on the progress of his investigation by the end of the year, after the World Cup in Brazil.

Now, with a new line of enquiry to follow, the final shape of the 2022 events is under more doubt than ever before.

Blatter, who initially voted for Australia and then switched to the USA in the second round, was unhappy that Qatar were the winners although he was forced to accept the majority decision.

Since the vote, though, FIFA has been buffeted by the reality that the 50 degree

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heat of June and July makes a summer tournament infeasible, meaning the European calendar stands to be disrupted for at least three years either side of the tournament.

Under rule changes brought in by Blatter in 2012, future votes for World Cup hosts will be taken by the Congress of all 209 member associations, rather than by the executive committee, which had the say over both the 2018 and 2022 decisions.

That would increase the prospect of the USA being awarded the 2022 tournament if Garcia's investigation finds there is sufficient evidence to nullify the original decision.

Culled from www.mirror.co.uk

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GUEST COLUMNIST

We the Peoples‌ Dr. Bisi Adebayo

R

ubbing salt on injury is a phrase used to describe the onslaught of an insult or an additional mishap in the face of an already aggrieved situation. This is my take on the recent 'situation' regarding our elected representatives of the National Assembly. The conduct of the Inspector General of Police before the National Assembly hearing to say the least is 'rubbing salt on an injury'.

The Nigerian Police force is entrusted with the protection of citizens of the country and is bound by an oath of office to ethical good conduct. I often times wonder at the depth of the understanding of our police force of the ethical values and principles of their call to duty. Without mincing words, the Nigerian police force have failed Nigerians in numerous ways, examples abound in the manner they conduct themselves at road blocks, more importantly their failure to protect people of Gombe, Adamawa, Borno, Yobe to mention a few.

Growing up as a young member of the 'Girls Scout Brownies' was an honourable thing for me. Wearing the uniform imbibed in me feelings of pride. I got elated with joy and practically bounced with pride like I am walking on moon. I don't know if everyone in Uniform feels the same way. I know I didn't get the same feeling from wearing my school uniform though.

Probably, my emotions with the 'Brownies' uniform stemmed from the sense of responsibility inculcated in the members of the club by the leaders on the meaning of wearing the uniform.

This cannot be totally divorced from the Guiding principles of the movement which we recite as a pledge at the beginning of each meeting, not forgetting the rituals associated with these meetings. We were taught to always be ready to do a good turn everyday and to consciously seek ways to do this.

For instance as Brownies, we recite the pledge by raise our index finger up in the air and promise to do our best, to do our duty to God, to serve our country and help others while keeping the Guide law. This promise stuck on my mind and as young as I was back them, I would go out of my way, especially on the meeting days when I am in the Brownie uniform, to help others.

For those who may not know about the

NEWISSUES

'Girl Guide Brownies', this group is a part of the Scouting movement targeted at 7 to 10 years old girls before they are allowed to become a part of the mainstream Girl Guides movement.

The Brownies work together in a circle of friendship playing age appropriate fun games and activities. They also earn the Girl Scout Brownies Awards.

They wear a burnt brown uniform, with a belt, yellow scarf and Girl Scout Brownie pin.

Why then do people desecrate the uniforms they wear by not upholding the principles of the organizations they represent?

Wikipedia describes wearing of uniforms as 'an effort in branding and developing a standard corporate image'.

Wearing of uniforms is also purported to have effects on employees wearing the uniform. This could also partly portray me as a young Girl Guide Brownie in the Brown Uniform. We were indoctrinated to honor the uniform and the uniform is incomplete without the neck-tie or the beret.

The Nigerian police force is the nation's law enforcement agency. It has the duty and responsibility to protect the citizens of the country in a respectful manner within reason, ethics and values of the force. This culture is essential to building respect and trust. What then can we say about a police force where its members conduct themselves in horrible manner?

In order to enlist trust from the populace, any law enforcement agency

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including the police force have to operate effective policing practices consistent with the essence of police integrity fundamental to public respect and effective crime control. Indeed, a culture of integrity amongst the stream is an essential factor in building culture of mutual respect and trust between the police and the citizens.

The leader of a force must act and conduct him/herself with high standards by laying good examples. In short he should lead by example. Such a leader is more than a Director, he is also there to encourage, inspire and more importantly influence. Did the IG display these traits before the Panel over the National House of Assembly saga? A lot of Nigerians, including myself, don't think so. The general thinking is that he was partisan and failed to display integrity or respect for his uniform, his call of duty and indeed for all Nigerians. He not only rubber stamped the general poor conduct of the force and their total disrespect for Nigerians as a whole, by disregarding the oath of allegiance to his call of duty.

Should such practices be condoned? As a people we should continue to make our intolerance for such mannerisms very clear? As a people, we need to continue to voice out, our negative and very low opinion of the conduct of the Inspector General of Police. This could partly explain his failure to combat and curb the continuing onslaught of terrorists attacks on innocent villagers and his failure to maintain security in the Nation. It is indeed 'rubbing salt to injury'. Instead of feelings of patriotism, respect, ethics, principles and values, members of the Nigerian Police Force continue to display arrogance of uniform and indeed abuse of power.

We the people of Nigeria, call for an indictment of the actions of the IG and his team in the manner in which they conduct themselves. Hmmnn.‌.on second thought, can him and the rest of his team be blamed? The endemic culture of 'politics of the belly' or 'stomach infrastructure' as it has also been referred to lately, is gangrene in our rotten system. I see its leprous finger - prints all over this current disappointing situation.

Dr. Bisi Adebayo, an International Development expert writes from Geneva, Switzerland.

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Giginya Coral Hotel, Sokoto.