Monday, december 22, 2014 binder12334567890 by Newtelegraphonline

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Vol. 1 No. 307

Monday, December 22, 2014

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N150

N10bn jet: Reps to appeal stoppage of Alison-Madueke's probe}6

IOCs consider cost-saving plans Adeola Yusuf

he continuous fall in the price of crude oil at the international market has compelled in-

ternational oil companies (IOCs) to mull adopting some cost-cutting measures to safeguard their continued profitability, New Telegraph has learnt. The price of crude oil,

which fell to $58 per barrel last Friday, has dipped by over 50 per cent since June, throwing the economy of Nigeria and other oil producers into crisis. This has forced Nige-

ria to among other monetary measures, slash its 2015 budget, reduce the oil benchmark on which to anchor revenue projection as well as devalue the CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

NEW TELEG

RAPH MOND AY, DECEM

Money Line

BER 22, 2014

Banks cut, restructure to oil secto exposure r

Stock Wat ch

Berger Paint Tough milieus Nigeria: cuts profit

Insurance

FG hinge s slow grow consumer th on poor trust

Business Job lo 38

WhAt'S NeW S

Nigeria acco 11% of N13 unts for road, rail 4trn MEA projects A new

report Constructio issued by Timet ric’s has estim n Intelligence Centr billion of ated that about $791 e road and projects rail relate are being d or under way in 21 planned countries including Nigeria.

APPREHEN SION The affec ted work ers have been tidyin g up with a view to leaving their posit ions in January

Wole Shad are

Interview

Fall in oil price, prosp ect developme nt, says Obarofor

42-43

Page 21

sses continue to in aviatio personnel, n others to go in Jan

Skilled

alpable fear the aviat has gripped over imm ion industry of retire professioninent sack of ment stipu ers in the are als and p.22 sector. oth- firstto leave the agenlated by law Aside cies in the up with a view week of to have people who were to leavi positions The affec January 2015. ng their next ted work Fresh cris ployed been ‘illegally’ said was learn ly air traffi Investigat month. by ers, emt, have Aviation, former Mini c contr been tidyi it graph indic ion by New affected ster of ollers, NITEL saleis rocks Stell Teleng 15 by the a Odua former technical ated that at least policy. governmeare h and Acting Direc personnel, $252.25m s for al of the nt tor-Gener-a Nige majorAuthority ria Civil Aviat The sale CONT INUED Adeyilkek (NCAA), Bene ion of ON PAGE Nigerian Nigeria’s state-own dict 22 been slate a, more peop Telecommu ed le have d Limited nications (Nitel Penultimafor retrenchm ent. arm, Mobil ) and its mobil te week NCAA , over 187 workers (Mtel), is eTelecommunicatie of their were reliev once again ons jobs down in ed employed for allegedly confusion. bogged being by Adey without due proce ileka Aviation in three mont ss hs. Minister, Chidoka, Osita the high recently lame rate of nted in the secto employme nt p.36 ation wherr, saying that a far outw e supportiv situeighs techn e staff is not perm ical staff He told issible. holders a gathering of that stakerecurrent a situation where persedes expenditure far could leadcapital expenditusuof facili to lack of provi re ties sion L-R: A sour for the industry The Business Consular . the Nige ce who work Nigeria Limite General, United Desk s States of d, Mr Adeola Ayodele Aminu America agement rian Airspace with Seven-Up Adeluyi; Embassy Bottling Deputy Editor Manag in Nigeri Company New TelegAgency (NAM Man(Busine a, Mr Jeffery Plc, Mr Sunil ing Director/CEO A) Bayo Akomo ss) Hankin , Airtel that the raph at the week told Sawhney, lafe austerity at the launch Nigeria, Mr Oluseg s; Managing Direct Asst. Editor end the Fede (Maritim un Oguns or, Cocaof Airtel ral Gove measure that anya and Cola Touching Sunday Ojeme e) to intro rnment Managing Lives TV duce next plans Series Asst. Editor Director, see to the (Insurance) year could PHOTO: GODWI in Lagos. Godson Ikoro N IREKHE of work lay-off of majo ers. Asst. Editor rity (Money Market The sourc ) e, who Dele Alao der the condition spoke unIndustry & ity, said Agric of anon that ymDayo Ayeye Editor already general mi , over mana Property Editor three majo gers acros 40 Adeo la Yusuf s the r aviat Adeola Yusuf cies - the ion agen Energy Editor Airports NAMA, the Fede fall in oil uture oil prices in Wole Shada (FAAN) Authority of Nige ral tiona the re ments of and gas inves and the Aviation Editor t- said. l market, Gold inter na- of Aviation Nigerian ria $930 billio man Sach Nige 2020 prod Chris Ugwu uctio s lion who have Authority (NCACivil producin ria and othe n in In its Top bpd of 2025 n and 7.5 milr oil Capital Market g natio 400 analy their posit spent eight yearsA) - a new ns are unde world prod three threa AbdulwahabEditor in r field ’s largest new sis of the cent per cent and uction, or to hit the ions but who This is t. Isa oil and gas s, Gold eight per of curre mandatory are yet nies beca Finance Editor nt globa that pre-s man Sachs are plann use oil comp 60 years l oil defound mand. ancti Kunle Azeez aing proje cellation These cts can- are uneconom on fields that Senior Corresp due to the ic at $70/b rel Bren accordingfuture investmen ondent persi stent Chuks Onuan to the ts, million t crude represent ar- 15 resea yin December barrels INFLA rch note 2.3 Energy per day published October 2014.. TION RATE (bpd) Nnamdi Amadi by Rates September ..........................8.1 CONT INUED LENDING Dashbo Reporter % 2014............ RATE ON PAGE InterBank ard Johnson Adeba August 2014.. .........8.3% 22 Rate.. ..................12 yo .................... Prime Lendi Asst Produc EXCHANGE .57% ......8.5% tion Editor ng Rate.. RATE (Parallel .........1 Maximum As at Dec. USD . . . . Lending Rate.. 7.93% 19) EXCHANGE . .26.83% Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RATE N193 . (Official As Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .N295 at Dec. 19) USD l Foreig . . . . . ... ......... n Reserv . . . . N23 Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . es – $35.19 4 . N169 . bn as at 18/12/2014 Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .N263 ......... Source: CBN . . . . . . N207. .78 20

12 pages of incisive Business

Crush them now Nigeria, ot hers mul gas projec ts annulml $930bn oil, ent F

lGen. Danjuma says war against Boko Haram taking too long }5

Ogun State Governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun (middle), his wife, Olufunso; Secretary to Ogun State Government, Mr. Taiwo Adeoluwa; Head of Service, Mrs. Modupe Adekunle and other government officials at the children's Christmas party in Abeokuta...yesterday

Travel Advisory Your guide to local and international flights 4

How Obasanjo failed to influence choice of Buhari's deputy lJonathan begs aspirants not to defect Donald Ojogo and Anule Emmanuel Abuja

acts have emerged on how former President Olusegun Obasanjo schemed to influ-

ence the choice of All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate and running mate.

New Telegraph learnt at the weekend that the former president had tacitly CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Quick Read

Editorial

Terrorism and security in schools }19 FG releases N230bn to federal varsities }8

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Travel Advisory

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

International Flight Schedule

Local FLIGHT SCHEDULE FIRST NATION AIRWAYS LAGOS-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 06.50; 09:30; 11:45; 16:00 (SAT) 06:50; 11:45 (SUN) 11:45; 16:00 ABUJA-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 09:00; 11:30; 13:40;18:30 (SAT) 09:00; 13:40 (SUN) 13:40; 18:30 LAGOS-PORT-HARCOURT (MON-FRI) 14:45 (SAT) 16:15 (SUN) 14:45 PORT-HARCOURT-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 16:50 (SAT) 18:20 (SUN) 16:50 AEROCONTRACTORS LAGOS-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 06:50; 13:30; 16:30; 19:45 (SAT/SUN) 12:30; 16:45 ABUJA-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 07:30; 13:00; 19:00 (SAT) 12:30 (SUN) 15:30 MEDVIEW AIRLINES LAGOS-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 07:00; 08:50; 12:00; 15:30 (SAT) 10:00; 15:00 (SUN) 17:30; 18:30 ABUJA-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 09:00; 14:00, 15:00; 18:30 OVERLAND AIRWAYS LAGOS-ILORIN (MON-FRI) 07:15 LAGOS-IBADAN (MON-FRI) 7:00 IBADAN-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 08:00 IBADAN-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 16:30 ILORIN –ABUJA (MON-FRI) 08:30 ILORIN –LAGOS (MON-FRI) 17:00 ABUJA-ASABA (MON-FRI) 10:00 ASABA-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 14:15 ASABA-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 11:30 LAGOS-ASABA (MON-FRI) 13:00 ABUJA-ILORIN 16:00 ABUJA-IBADAN 15:00 ARIK AIR LAGOS-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 07:00; 08:00; 09:00; 11:00 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00 (SAT) 07:00; 09:00; 11:00; 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00 (SUN) 11:00; 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00 ABUJA-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 07:00; 09:00; 11:00; 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00; 20:00 (SAT) 07:00; 09:00; 11:00; 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00 (SUN) 09:00; 13:00; 15:00; 17:00; 19:00 LAGOS-PORT-HARCOURT (MON-FRI)07:00; 09:30; 11:00; 13:30; 15:00; 17:30 (SAT) 07:00; 11:00; 15:00 (SUN) 09:30; 11:00; 13:30; 15:00; 17:30 PORT-HARCOURT-LAGOS (MON-FRI) 07:30; 09:00; 11:30; 13:00; 15:30; 17:00 (SAT) 07:30; 11:30; 09:00; 13:00; 17:00 (SUN) 11:30; 13:00; 15:30; 17:00 ABUJA-PORT-HARCOURT (MON-FRI) 06:45; 10:10; 13:30; 16:50 (SAT/SUN) 06:45; 10:10; 13:30 PORT-HARCOURT-ABUJA (MON-FRI) 08:30; 11:50; 15:10; 18:30 (SAT/SUN) 08:30; 11:50; 15:10 AZMAN FLIGHT SCHEDULE WEEKLY SCHEDULE Kano-Lagos 8:00am Lagos-Abuja 10:30am Abuja-Lagos 12:40pm Lagos-Abuja/Kano 4:00pm Abuja-Kano 5:45pm Kaduna-Lagos 8:00am Lagos-Kan 10:10am Kano-Abuja/Lagos 12:40pm Abuja-Lagos 1:00pm Abuja-Lagos 2:40pm Lagos-Kaduna 5:00pm WEEKEND SCHEDULE SATURDAY Kano-Lagos 8:00am Lagos-Abuja 10:30am Abuja-Lagos 1:00pm Lagos-Kano 4:00pm Kaduna-Lagos 8:00am Lagos-Kano 4:00pm Sunday Kano-Lagos 8:00am Lagos-Kano 10:30am Kano-Abuja/Lagos 1:20pm Abuja-Lagos 2:40pm Lagos-Kaduna 5:00pm

Air France

Destination Abuja- Paris Paris-Lagos Paris-PHC PHC-Paris Paris –Abuja Lagos –Paris

Flight No. AF 513 AF 3822 AF514 AF513 AF514 AF3849

Departure 23.55hrs 10.55hrs 11:00hrs 21:20hrs 11:00hrs 23:55hrs

Arrival 6:05hrs 17:15hrs 19:15hrs 6:05hrs 17:00hrs 6:20hrs

Amsterdam-Lagos Lagos-Amsterdam

KL587 KL588

13:15hrs 23:05hrs

20:00hrs 05:50hrs

Lagos-New York New York-Lagos Lagos-Abuja-Dubai Dubai-Abuja-Lagos Johannesburg-Lagos Lagos-Johannesburg Lagos-London London-Lagos

W3 107 W3 108 W3 105 W3 106 W3 738 W3 737 W3 344 W3 345

23:35hrs 12:00hrs 9:40pm 12:10pm 09:35hrs 01:00 hrs 12:45hrs 21:30hrs

05:30hrs 16:00hrs 5.40:hrs 17:10pm 14:44hrs 08:05hrs 18:30hrs 05:15hrs

London-Lagos Lagos-London Abuja-London Abuja-London

BA075 BA074 BA 082 BA 083

17:55hrs 00:00hrs 09:00hrs 22:40hrs

11:55hrs 5:50hrs 14:35hrs 06:00hrs

Lebanon-Lagos Lagos-Lebanon

MEA 571 MEA 572

3:00hrs 14:00hrs

8:00hrs 19:00hrs

Lagos-Dubai Lagos-Dubai Dubai-Lagos Dubai-Lagos Abuja-Dubai

EK 7821 (Sun-Sat) EK 7822 EK 7831 EK 7811 EK 761

21:30hrs 14:40hrs 07:35hrs 14:20hrs 23:55hrs

07:40hrs 01:05hrs 12:50hrs 19:45hrs 10:30hrs

Lagos-Doha Flight Doha-Lagos Flight

QR 1414 (daily) QR 1415

14:55hrs 07:20hrs

23:45hrs 13:35hrs

Lagos-Atlanta Atlanta-Lagos

DL053 DL 054

22:15hrs 5:15hrs

05:32hrs 16:15hrs

KLM

ARIK AIRLINES

BRITISH AIRWAYS

Middle East Airlines (Two flights weekly (Tues & Friday) to Lagos) EMIRATES AIRLINES

QATAR AIRWAYS DELTA AIRLINES

Destination Lome to Abuja Abuja-Lome- Kinshasa Kinshasa-Abuja Abuja-Lome Lome-Lagos Lagos-Libreville Libreville-Kinshasa Kinshasa-Libreville Libreville-Lagos Lagos-Lome Lome-Lagos Lagos-Libreville Libreville-Brazaville Brazaville-Libreville Brazzaville-Lagos Lagos-Lome

air maroc

Lagos-Houston Houston-Lagos

UA 143 UA 142

10:10hrs 19:10hrs

6:05hrs 15.15hrs

Lagos to Addis Ababa Addis Ababa to Lagos Abuja to Addis Ababa Addis Ababa to Abuja Enugu to Addis Ababa Addis Ababa to Enugu Kano to Addis Ababa Addis Ababa to Kano

ET900 ET901 ET910 ET911 ET930 ET931 ET930 ET931

13:15hrs 09:00hrs 13:40hrs 09:40hrs 12:00hrs 09:20hrs 14:05hrs 09:20hrs

20:25hrs 12:15hr 20:10hrs 12:20hrs 20:50hrs 11:15hrs 20:50hrs 13:20hrs

Lagos-Madrid Madrid-Lagos

IB 3337 IB 3336

22:55hrs 16:00hrs

05:25+1hrs 20:20hrs

ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES

Flight No. KP 032 (Tue-Fri) KP 032 ( Tue-Fri) KP 033 (Wed-Sat) KP O33 (Wed-Sat) KP O40 (Sun-Sat) KP 040 (Sun-Sat) KP 040 (Sun-Sat) KP041 (Tue-Sat) KP 041 (Tue-Sat) KP 041 (Tue-Sat) KP O44 (Tue-Fri) KP 044 (Tue-Fri) KP 044 (Tue-Fri) KP O45 (Wed-Sat) KP 045 (Wed-Sat) KP 045 (Wed-Sat)

Departure 14:00hrs 16:30hrs 8:20hrs 10:35hrs 13:00hr 14:40hrs 17:00hrs 7:15hrs 9:35hrs 11:55hrs 13:10hrs 14:50hrs 17:10hrs 07:00hrs 09:20hrs 11:40hrs

Arrival 15:55hrs 18:15hrs 10:00hrs 12:20hrs 14:00hrs 16:30hrs 18:45hrs 08:55hrs 11:25hrs 12:45hrs 14:10hrs 16:40hrs 18:50hrs 08:40hrs 11:10hrs 12:30hrs

Lagos-Casablanca Casablanca-Lagos

AT738 AT 737

06:25hrs 02:15hrs

09:55hrs 6:00hrs

Lagos-London London-Lagos

VS 652 VS 651

11:00hrs 22:40hrs

17:00hrs 4:40hrs

Lagos- Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi-Lagos

EY 0672 (Sunday) (Monday) (Saturday) EY 955

20.45hrs 09:50hrs 09.20 hrs 06:30hrs

07:00hrs 20:05hrs 20:10hrs 11:45hrs

Lagos-Cairo Cairo-Lagos

MS 876 MS 875

14:25hrs 08:30hrs

22:20hrs 13:30hrs

Lagos-Nairobi Nairobi-Lagos

KQ 533 KQ 534

12:30hrs 18:00hrs

19:35hrs 23:45hrs

Lagos-Kigali

AWB 201 11:15hrs (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun) AWB 202 14:00hrs (Tue, Thur, Sat, Sun)

16:45hrs

332 333

06:00hrs 21:20hrs

VIRGIN ATLANTIC ETIHAD AIRWAYS

EGYPT AIR

KENYA AIRWAYS RwandAir

Kigali-Lagos

UNITED AIRLINES

IBERIA

ASKY AIRLINES

Turkish Airlines

Lagos-Istanbul Nairobi-Lagos

22:35hrs 15:10hrs

17:30hrs

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News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Crush Boko Haram now

Emmanuel Onani, Tunde Oyesina and Hassan Jirgi

ormer Minister of Defence, Lt-Gen. T.Y Danjuma, at the weekend called on the Federal Government to be more decisive in tackling Boko Haram by doing all it takes to rush the insurgents. Danjuma, who chairs the Fund Raising Committee for Victims of Terror, expressed concern about the ongoing war against the insurgents, which he said was taking too long to overcome. Danjuma, at the 2014 Abuja Festival of Praise in Abuja, at the weekend, called for an urgent solution to the insurgency. He spoke just as Boko Haram attacked Gaidam Local Government Area of Yobe State, where the Governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Gaidam, hails from. The former minister, just like former Head of State, General Yakubu Gowon, urged Nigerians to fervently pray for peace in the country, especially as an election year approaches. They asked God to take away every problem of the country and restore peace. Danjuma, who is the convener of the programme, said: "We need peace in Nigeria. Nigeria is at war and it is lasting too long. All should spare a thought for over hundreds of thousands displaced persons who cannot spend Christmas, the way we are doing. "I was made the chairman of the terror victim fund raising committee, last week, we launched our first operation here in Abuja. There is a village called Waro here in Abuja where hundreds of thousands who were displaced from Gwoza reside", he added. Earlier, Gowon had called for intense prayer for Nigeria, adding that it is only prayer that can change the situation. "We have talked to the Federal Government, but our prayers will assist them in doing what they are supposed to do", he stated. Also yesterday Boko Haram attacked Gaidam Local Government Area of Yobe State, forcing many residents to flee into the bush. A resident who escaped the attack told New Telegraph on phone that the attackers stormed the town around 6:12 pm and unleashed terror on the residents He said: "We got prior information since last week that Boko Haram

would attack our town but no measure was taken by security agents in the area to protect us. That's how I escaped into the bush with my two wives and four sons. But as we speak, there are gunshots going on." Another resident who escaped from the area, Mustapha Kyari, said many people, including women and children, had fled to

the nearby bush and others to Mino village in Niger Republic. The state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Marcus Danladi, confirmed the attack but said he had no further detail. "As am talking to you now, I cannot tell you the number of casualty and the palaces that were torched by Boko Haram. What I can tell you is that

we have sent our men who are engaged in a joint patrol with the military," Marcus said. However, Cameroon yesterday ramped up efforts to tackle Boko Haram as its army announced it had broken up a Boko Haram training camp in the Mayo-Danay district in the country's Far North region. The army was look-

ing for other hideouts in the area, said Jean-Pierre Mbida, a soldier with the Rapid Intervention Battalion tasked with fighting the insurgents. "We will continue monitoring the area in the hope of uncovering any other Boko Haram hideouts and training grounds," he added. Meanwhile, barely a week after a General-Court

Martial (GCM) sitting at the Army Headquarters (AHQ) Garrison, Abuja sentenced 54 soldiers to death by firing squad and acquitted five others, the Army is set to pronounce judgement on another set of soldiers and officers. The officers and soldiers are among the 96 personnel, arraigned before the Brig-Gen. Musa CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

L-R: Chief Software Architect, Slim Trader, Chris Teizel; Managing Director, Arik Explorer, Kencho Omojafor and Deputy Managing Director, Arik Air, Captain Ado Sanusi, at the launch of Arik Air Explorer in Lagos…at the weekend. PHOTO: ADEYANJU OLOWOJOBA

2015 will be worse than 2011 elections –Akinyemi lSays Jonathan, Buhari must sign MoU on violence

Ayodele Ojo

he attendant violence that will follow the 2015 general election will be horrendous and worse than the aftermath of the 2011 elections, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi, has predicted. He hinged his forecast on the illegal massive importation of arms and ammunition. He stated this in a letter dated December 16 and addressed to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential flag bearer, and former Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a copy of which was made available to New Telegraph,. The Deputy Chairman of the 2014 National Conference said that irrespective of whoever wins the 2015 presidential election

between Jonathan and Buhari, there will still be violence. He said: “The violence of 2015 is going to be horrendous and worse than the one of 2011 for the simple reason that the illegal massive importation of weapons into the country has reached such alarming proportions that I really wonder which is better armed, the militias on one hand or the official armed forces on the other hand. “For the avoidance of doubt, I am not imputing the illegal importation of arms to any particular zone. Some years ago, some Iranians were arrested for bringing in a shipload of weapons into Lagos harbour. They were tried and jailed and then smuggled out of the country. Some months ago, sophisticated weapons were discovered buried in the basement of a Kano house. All these have now fallen below the radar. These are the ones we know about. How many

do we not know about? “There are states and movements out there, African and non-African, which do not mean well for the Nigerian state, which wish Nigeria to dissolve into a theatre of bloodshed, gore and instability. They will succeed if we continue the politics of making enemies of ourselves and friends of our enemies.” Hundreds of people died while several properties were destroyed in the North following the declaration of President Jonathan as the winner of the 2011 presidential election. Buhari, the candidate of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), lost the election. Akinyemi stated that Nigeria is back at the crossroads more precarious and dangerous than the 2011. His words: “Now we are back at the same crossroads again, except this time is more precarious and dangerous than the last time. Firstly, we have

this very notorious prediction from United States semi-official sources that the world is expecting a cataclysmic meltdown of the Nigerian nation come 2015. Of course, most Nigerians have taken umbrage at this prediction for their country. But there are Nigerians who are indifferent to the outcome of this prediction. “Secondly, the certainty of violence after the 2015 elections is higher than it was in 2011. If President Jonathan wins, the North would erupt into violence as it did in 2011. If General Buhari wins, the Niger Delta will erupt into violence. I don’t believe that we need rocket science to make this prediction.” Akinyemi said similar situation arose in the build up to the 2011 elections. According to him, “Shortly after his appointment as National Security Adviser, General Patrick Aziza... I was sure that

there would be violence on a massive scale and I made some suggestions to him about how I thought the violence could be contained. My suggestions were not acted upon. The elections occurred, President Jonathan won and all hell broke loose. Missing were the conflict-controlled measures which I had discussed with General Aziza.” Akinyemi suggested ways out of the impending danger. According to him, the first step forward is for the two presidential candidates to meet and sign a Memorandum of Undertaking (MoU) that will commit both to: A civil and peaceful campaign, devoid of threats; a commitment to preach peaceful elections to their supporters; a commitment to control their supporters after the elections. Supporters of whoever loses should be entitled to peaceful protests but not to violent protests.

News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

N10bn jet: Reps to appeal stoppage of Alison-Madueke's probe Philip Nyam Abuja

he House of Representatives is to appeal against the judgement of an Abuja High Court nullifying the invitation to the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to appear before the investigative committee probing the N10 billion spent on jet hire and maintenance. Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Hon. Zakari Mohammed, at the weekend described the judgement as "shocking and disturbing," expressing hope that the House's lawyers would appeal appropriately. "We viewed that judgement with shock and it is disturbing. But I believe our lawyers are studying the judgement and will definitely appeal against the judgement," he added. According to Mohammed, if the judgement is allowed to stand, it will amount to preventing the House from exercising its constitutional responsibility. "One of the principal functions of the House is

TODAY’S WEATHER FORECAST LAGOS

31o C 25oC Thunder Storms

ABUJA

37 C

21 C

20o C 17oC Heavy Showers

KANO

29oC

12oC

Sunny

ENUGU

36oC

21oC

Partially Cloudy

IBADAN

35oC

24oC

Partially Cloudy

CALABAR

22oC

19oC

Windy

MAIDUGURI

ONITSHA

29oC 13oC Sunny

20o C 17oC Heavy Showers

Madueke and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to appear before its investigative panel over allegations that they spent N10 billion hiring a private jet. Determined not to honour several invitations extended to them by the House, the minister and NNPC had approached the court, praying it to restrain the legislature from probing allegations that they spent over N10

billion on a chartered aircraft. In his judgement, Justice Ahmed Ramat Mohammed, held that the House has the constitutional and statutory power to summon any public officer irrespective of his or her position to appear before it to render an account of how he or she has managed public property in his or her care. But he ruled that it was wrong to argue that the

House could not summon the minister without the consent of the president on matter relating to a private jet, stating that the issue of private jet is not of such confidentiality and therefore not among issues that she needed to obtain permission from the president before responding to. The judge, however, held that the legislature, in exercise of its power to summon, must comply

with its own rules, else its summon becomes invalid and nugatory. The judge held that the House did not follow due process in inviting the plaintiffs' in this instant case The court also held that the House ought to have presented before the court the resolution of the meeting published in a gazette or a journal where it agreed to invite the minister and NNPC.

L-R: Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio; United States human rights activist, Rev Jesse Jackson and the governor's wife, Ekaete, during the 9999 annual Christmas carol in Uyo…at the weekend

How Obasanjo failed to influence choice of Buhari's deputy CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

Sunny

PORT HARCOURT

oversight and if the court is saying we cannot invite a minister of the government to give account of her stewardship, then there is something wrong with that. "The House is only performing one of its primary responsibilities. We are not witch-hunting anyone," he stated. The Abuja High Court had last week set aside the letter of invitation sent by the House to Alison-

endorsed one of the presidential aspirants of the party and Kano State Governor, Dr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, for the opposition party's ticket. Although Obasanjo belongs to PDP, he is opposed to the re-election bid of President Goodluck Jonathan, saying it is a breach of his promise to serve only one term. It was learnt that in promotion of the Kwankwaso's candidacy, Obasanjo had spoken to some Northern states' governors in APC to rally support for his former minister of defence. However, sources familiar with the horsetrading that preceded the emergence of former Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as his running mate, told New Telegraph that when Obasanjo's endorsement of Kwankwaso did not fly following counter moves by APC National Leader, Senator Bola Tinubu, who threw his weight behind the party's candidate, the former president had also

recommended one or two of his associates in the APC as running mate. As part of consultations with critical stakeholders in the polity, APC leaders had visited Obasanjo at his Abeokuta home to solicit his support for the party. Obasanjo was said to have been given an opportunity to anoint one of the aspirants, particularly among Buhari, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar and Kwankwaso. While Buhari won the ticket, Kwankwaso emerged the running up with Atiku coming third in the race. Although he was said to have feigned indifference, he had reportedly warned against fielding his former deputy even as he suggested the Kano governor through an emissary Tinubu. According to a party source, although the former president was "evasive, indifferent and ambivalent" when Tinubu visited him on November 14, he invited Kwankwaso to Abeokuta a week later to brief him and advised the

governor to get Tinubu’s support before the presidential primaries. It was gathered that but for the last-minute horsetrading between Tinubu and the APC governors a few hours to the convention, Kwankwaso had already garnered enormous support from the ranks of the governors because of Obasanjo’s endorsement. The former president was said to have spoken with each of the governors, especially those from the North, before the primaries to make a case for Kwankwaso. The source said: “The whole thing was like a drama because the governors had already made up their minds to go for the Kano governor on the strength of Baba’s (Obasanjo) intervention for the man a few days to the convention. One, they saw him as a younger person to both Buhari and Atiku; secondly, he was seen as the man in charge of a state with very massive votes, and you know numbers count a lot. "I think words may have gone to the Lagos

cartel that the governors, with the connivance of some powerful hawks, especially some governors, were already making the Kwankwaso candidature very potent to be beaten. So in his wisdom, Tinubu had to call all the governors and begged them to support Buhari on the premise that it would be wrong for him to be used to consummate a merger and be dumped for a new comer (Kwankwaso). “But by and large, most of the legacy governors saw reasons with Tinubu as it dawned on them that it was politically unwise for them to place the presidential ticket in the hands of a PDP element within the APC. I think it was immediately after the meeting that some of the governors from the PDP hinted the former president and he promised to ensure the emergence of one of them as possible running mate to Buhari but that appeared late because if Baba was not evasive, indifferent and ambivalent when Tinubu visited, something concrete would have been achieved.

“But unfortunately, that (running mate) did not also materialise; from all indications, while we need change at the centre next year, some powerful forces within the APC do not want fresh ideas; they do not want space for those of us who came from the PDP and it is not a pleasant experience at all because like I said earlier, numbers count in politics and under this circumstance, how do they want Baba to play any meaningful role?, he might not say it but certainly, he is unhappy with the APC leadership” the source said. It was gathered that the agreement reached between Tinubu and the governors prior to the presidential primaries was to allow Buhari clinch the presidential ticket while one of the governors, either from the SouthSouth or South-West will be picked as his running mate. This, according to the source, was the reason for the former president’s push for either Rivers State Governor, Mr. Rotimi CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Mutiny: Another set of officers, soldiers know fate today CONTINUED FROM PAGE 5

Yusuf-led GCM on offences bordering on mutiny, criminal conspiracy to commit mutiny, and other offences against service rules. The offence is contrary to and punishable under Section 52 (1) (a) of the Armed Forces Act Cap A20, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004. A military source told New Telegraph that judgement notices had since

been sent to accused soldiers and their lawyers. He expressed the hope that the GCM may conclude its assignment before Christmas to enable those that may be discharged and acquitted to celebrate with their loved ones. "There will be judgement by the court-martial tomorrow (today) for some of the few officers facing trial and many accused soldiers as well.

"I believe that by Tuesday they may round-off sitting to help the accused persons know their fate. "I think they want a situation whereby anyone who is discharged and acquitted and who may be a Christian can merry with his people. "In fact, apart from that Wednesday's judgement, where 54 of our boys are to die by firing squad, the court-martial discharged

and acquitted three Lance Corporals last Friday. "Let me also tell you that a serving Lieutenant Colonel, who is standing trial for alleged breach of channel of communication will have his case decided today," he said. On what the Army will do with the convicted soldiers, pending the confirmation or otherwise of the judgement by the Army Council, the source

said: "Well, you know the Nigerian Army is a wellorganised institution that respects the law as well as the rights of its officers and soldiers. "Pending the decision of the Army Council or that of the Chief of Army Staff if you like, they (condemned soldiers) will be taken to well-fortified prison facilities, which I dare say, will not be known to you. "The law allows that they be held as such and so the Nigerian Army will definitely spread them across," he added. The judgement is coming as more criticisms trailed the conviction of 54 soldiers as a Senior Ad-

vocate of Nigeria (SAN), Abubakar Malami and a lawyer, Kayode Ajulo, yesterday told New Telegraph in Abuja the conviction and sentence to death of the soldiers were a nullity. According to Malami, the argument is whether the soldiers are entitled to the benefit of constitutional security and facilities of self-defence which a government is bound to provide. In his own reaction, Ajulo stated that there was no trial in the first place, for a matter that is about life and death. He added that it is expected that the procedure should be in adherence to the constitution and natural justice.

IOCs considers cost-saving plans CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

L-R: Vice-President Namadi Sambo, President Goodluck Jonathan and National Chairman, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji PHOTO: TIMOTHY IKUOMENISAN Adamu Mu'azu, at the party’s fund raiser in Abuja…at the weekend.

Jonathan begs aspirants not to defect CONTINUED FROM PAGE 6

Amaechi or former Osun State Governor, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, as Buhari's running mate. It was gathered that the leadership of the APC was planning to present both Buhari and Osinbajo to Obasanjo next week. However, the National Vice Chairman (SouthWest) of the APC, Mr. Segun Oni, has expressed optimism that the former president will support the ‘much-need change as symbolised by the BuhariOsinbajo ticket. The former governor spoke after efforts to get the APC National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, to speak proved abortive as he insisted on knowing the identity of New Telegraph's source. “Reveal your source to me or no reaction to rumours”, Mohammed had said. Oni, one of Obasanjo’s loyalists who left the ruling PDP after protracted crises that led to the forced exit of most men perceived to be close to the former president, told New Tele-

graph that his political benefactor did not play any ‘visible role’, either in the choice of the presidential candidate or the running mate. “All the stories you have been seeing or reading are all mere rumours because the former president is a nationalist and a father figure to all; he is not just an ordinary figure and factor. The first thing on his mind is Nigeria, the second is also Nigeria and so on, so it absolutely incorrect to say that because he wanted certain persons and they are not there he will not support change that Nigeria needs now. “Let me tell you clearly, like other well-meaning Nigerians, the former president will desire a change of government at the centre because the madness going on under the PDP cannot be allowed to go beyond 2015; there must be an end to hopelessness. So it is not about persons he wanted to be this or that, it is about his patriotic zeal which desires a change for the better,” Oni said. Meanwhile, Jonathan has urged aggrieved PDP

aspirants not to dump the party for the opposition as a result of the outcome of its just-concluded primaries. He said at a fund raiser organised by the PDP in Abuja that the party leadership was working hard to resolve the conflicts thrown up by the primaries in many states. Some PDP aspirants who contested for the party's tickets at different levels during the primaries, including five of the president's former ministers, lost to power play in their states. The situation has led to some party stalwarts leaving the PDP or threatening to leave for APC. Former Minister of State, Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Samuel Ortom, has already picked the APC governorship ticket in Benue State after he was schemed out in PDP. But Jonathan said it was better for aggrieved party members to remain in the system to correct the wrong in the party than defecting. He said: “We all appre-

ciate that throughout the congresses where primary elections were conducted, there have been some outstanding issues. “The party is working to resolve these issues. Definitely, in such situation, all may not be resolved to the satisfaction of everybody. “But my plea to party members is to remain committed to the party; stay with the party. I know other parties are wooing some of you to contest elections on their platforms, but if you believe in democracy then you will contribute to strengthening it. “The only way you can strengthen democracy is for you to stay in your party. If there are some issues you feel are not too correct, it behoves on us to stay together and correct them. That is the only way we can grow democracy. “If out of anger or frustration, you leave the party because you didn’t get what you wanted, then you are not contributing to the growth of democracy.” A total of N21.27 billion was realised at the fund raiser.

naira, which has lost 15 per cent of its value this year. Given these developments, oil firms, according to an industry source, have developed various means to save costs and cancelled many projects that they consider to be “uneconomic.” Also, the sliding fortunes of crude oil may also affect giving permanent employment status to some 10, 000 contract staff on the payroll of the IOCs and local crude producers. The contract staff work for the oil firms either through proxies or direct engagements. “The hope by these contract staff that they may get direct employment has now been dashed. Over 10,000 staff will remain contract staff, if they do not even lose their jobs in 2015 if the trend of this falling oil price continues in 2015. “As I am talking to you now, some projects that are considered uneconomical will not fly again. In fact, most of oil projects would be cancelled if the falling price continues into 2015,” the source said. A management staff of one of the multi-nationals had earlier said IOCs operating in Nigeria had placed embargo on employment. This, he said, was caused by the difficult time that the oil companies were going through in Nigeria. “No employment in Nigeria for now,” he said, adding that they now rely “on the services of contract staff to do most of their works.” Blaming the government for the dwindling investments in the country’s oil and gas industry, he added that the country now ranks among the top

five most difficult countries to secure oil and gas contracts in the world. He said: “Government is the stumbling block for us. I don’t want to stress this and I will crave anonymity on this because we are waiting for approvals, but the contracting procedure is killing business in Nigeria. Because of this, there is an embargo on employment in oil industry. “Nobody will say it but what we are going through is tough. It is really unfortunate. The investments are capital intensive. For instance, $60 million is still needed to drill oil well in Nigeria but the average contracting cycle in the country is three to four years. It is really unfortunate.” He also identified the delay in the passage of the 14-year-old controversial Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) by the National Assembly as one of the ways the government is stifling the oil and gas business. Meanwhile, oil prices have continued the slip at the weekend, prompting a trader to say that the “market is in disaster mode. There is just no demand for these Nigerian grades at the moment. There is too much oil to choose from. Even the Azeri Light values are coming crashing down." Fitch Ratings has said growth in Nigeria and Angola, the only sub-Saharan African members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), will slow next year because of weaker crude prices. Fitch’s 2015 growth projection for Nigeria, Africa’s largest economy and oil producer, was revised down to 5.2 percent from 6.4 percent.

News

NATIONAL

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

FG releases N230bn to federal varsities Babatope Okeowo AKURE

he Federal Government has released N230billion to all the federal universities in the country as special intervention fund for capital projects and to clear the arrears of earned allowances to all categories of staff. President Goodluck Jonathan, who disclosed this at the weekend, during the convocation ceremony of Federal Uni-

versity of Technology, Akure (FUTA) said the revitalization of universities in the country was one of the transformation agenda of the present administration in the country. While N200 billion was meant for the special intervention fund, N30 billion was for the payment of earned allowances that have had been generating crisis between university management and labour unions in the institutions.

The plan of the Federal government by 2018, according to the President, who was represented by Prof Azikwe Nwalu, from the National University Commission (NUC) is for the total transformation of the universities in the country with the planned injection of N1.2 trillion for infrastructural development and capacity building. The President tasked the institutions and other stakeholders to reciprocate the gestures of the

Federal Government by fulfilling their mandates. His words: “If the government is going extra miles to meet the needs of our higher educational institutions, the institutions in turn are expected to reciprocate these gestures by ensuring the fulfilment of their mandates. “While I urge the leadership of our universities to ensure prudence, accountability, transparency and delivery of value for money all the time, I implore the staff

to be committed to the highest levels of performance engendered by patriotism, dedication and selflessness. “More importantly, there is the need to always partner with the administration and government to ensure crisis-free campuses and a stable academic calendar. In the same manner, I urge our students to eschew violence and all forms of anti-social activities and to ensure an all-time concentration on their studies.”

Arewa group moves against Buhari Yekeen Nurudeen ABUJA

espite his huge followership in the North, a Northern socio- cultural group, Arewa Youth Integrity Forum has kicked against the candidacy of former head of state, General Muhammadu Buhari as the presidential flag bearer of All Progressives Congress (APC) describing him as old and weak to lead the nation. The forum particularly accused a cabal within APC of hatched plan to short change the Northern geo-political zone for another eight years by planting Buhari, who is already running out of age and weak to coordinate the affairs of the nation. It noted that the plan was to pave the way for his running mate, Pastor Yemi Osibanjo, who is much younger, active and belongs to the cabal to take over power, thereby making it possible for power to return to the North again for another eight years.

2015 budget can’t grow economy, says Senator Chukwu David L-R: Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Education, Hon. Aminu Suleiman; Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Education, Dr. Macjohn Nwabiola; Chairman, Board of Trustees, Tetfund, Dr. Musa Babayo and his Executive Secretary, Prof. Suleiman Bogoro, at the Tetfund's long Service award/End of the year dinner in Abuja…at the weekend. PHOTO: ELIJAH OLALUYI

ABUJA

TETfund spends N19bn on Saraki to FG: Stop tax rebate to oil companies T lecturers' training in 2014 Biodun Oyeleye ILORIN

Yekeen Nurudeen ABUJA

he Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) has disclosed that it has expended a total of N19billion to facilitate academic staff programmes for selected lecturers drawn from all the public tertiary institutions across the country. While disclosing this, the Chairman, Board of Trustees of TETfund, Dr. Musa Babayo, said that the fund, beyond its infrastructural development role in universities, polytechnics and Colleges of Education, is also committed to capacity development of lecturers. The board chairman stated this at the 3rd long service award ceremony organised to honour staff of the agency, who had clocked 10 years and above in the service. Babayo, who described the outgoing year 2014 as a fulfilling one, going by the agency's level of interventions in the education sec-

tor, said the Fund's efforts at human resources development was informed by the need to shore up intellectual capacities of some of the academics. He added that sooner than later, Nigerians would begin to feel their impact within the academic system. Babayo said academic staff training and development program represents the single largest capacity building program ever funded by a public sector such as TETFund. "We have to date invested from January to get along over N19billion on capacity building across all the 71 federal and state public universities , the 51 federal and state public polytechnics, the 61 federal and state Colleges of Education,"he stated. To revamp technical education at the tertiary level, the Board chairman said N15.4billion went into the construction and equipping of laboratories in state and federal polytechnics nationwide.

he Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Bukola Saraki, has asked the Federal Government to stop tax rebate being enjoyed by oil multinationals. Saraki also called for a review of waivers earlier granted some individuals and firms operating in the country. He spoke with newsmen in Ilorin, Kwara

State over the weekend. He lamented the absence of the political will to take pragmatic decisions on the national economy when the going was good and tasked the Federal Government to give Nigerians details of how it plans to cope with dwindling oil revenue in the 2015 fiscal year. His words: "I think it is time we should just stop fooling Nigerians because if when oil crude price was N110 you could only do 10-14 per cent, at N65 or less what kind of imple-

mentation are you going to do? This is just simple common sense and so we should be asking them the question. "How can we still be giving people tax rebate now that we are losing money? That is not justified. What level of seriousness does that show? We are still giving oil companies rebate on royalty. It has never happened in the history of the country and these kind of things make you to wonder where is the political will."

FG: Gas price increase will improve power supply

he Federal Government has said that the recent increase in the price of gas to power generation plants will lead to a corresponding improvement in the supply of electricity, The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, disclosed this during a media chat in Abuja on the status of the power sector. He said that the increase in gas price would warrant a rise in the sup-

ply of the commodity to Gencos so as to enable them fire their various power generating turbines adequately. The minister said, “The increase (in the price) of gas from $1.5 to $2.5, with $0.8 in for transportation, making it $3.3, is a milestone. This is because gas producers were not only not being paid, they had no other incentive as the price was so low. “Now there is no rea-

son for them not to develop their gas resources and hopefully more gas will be coming to fire the turbines because one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity is to use gas turbines.” Last month, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission stated that beginning from December 1, 2014, the $1 increase in gas price to power plants will become effective.

he Senator representing Ebonyi South Senatorial District and Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Sonni Ogbuoji, yesterday said that the capital component of the 2015 budget proposal presented to the National Assembly last week would not be able to grow the economy as required in the next fiscal year. Ogbuoji, who spoke with New Telegraph in a telephone interview, noted that, although the capital budget, which is N627 billion was on a low side, and should not be expected to bring meaningful growth to the economy, it was more realistic than the previous years' budgets in view of the subsisting falling crude oil price at the global oil market. The Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, had on Wednesday last week presented a N4.4 trillion budget proposal to the National Assembly for the 2015 fiscal year. A breakdown of the figure shows that Government proposed N627 Billion for capital expenditure and N2.622 trillion for recurrent expenditure.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

News

NATIONAL

Buhari will lose to Jonathan again, says Moro COCKSURE

Defeating a sitting president, a Harculean task, boasts Minister Johnchuks Onuanyim ABUJA

he Minister of Interior, Comrade Abba Moro, over the weekend, stated that the much General Muhammadu Buhari could achieve in this dispensation was to become a presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress. Moro, who spoke with

Yuletide: Mark calls for prayer Chukwu David ABUJA

resident of the Senate, Senator David Mark, has urged Nigerians not to be discouraged by the multifarious socio-economic challenges facing the country, but should rather renew faith in God through prayers and cooperation with each other in order to surmount the problems. He said the situation at the moment did not call for blame games, but a unity of purpose and support to authorities to overcome these challenges. Mark praised the indomitable spirit of Nigerians in the face of the challenges and urged them to use the season of Christmas to spread the message of love, peace, sacrifices and care for one another, which Jesus Christ symbolizes. Mark’s admonitions were contained in a message he sent to his Benue South Constituents in Agatu, Apa and Ohimini Local Government areas, when he distributed foodstuffs through his wife, Helen Mark under his end of year reach out to the people programme 2014. He urged the people to remain steadfast in prayers and support to the present administration saying, "we must continue to maintain peace and order . We must re-dedicate ourselves to the onerous task of building a progressive and United Nigeria of our dreams. "What our nation is experiencing presently is the fallout of the deficiency of love and tolerance. We must come together in one accord to confront all forms of socio-vices and insurgency ravaging our land".

journalists in his office in Abuja, stated that it would be a Herculean task for anybody to defeat President Goodluck Jonathan in the February 14 Presidential election. Also, he stated that those that left the Peoples Democratic Party to join other political parties for their political ambitions during the primaries would lose since they did not leave PDP on ideological grounds. Using his state, Benue, as example, the Minister of Interior said, "Senator Barnabas Gemade and Dr. Samuel Ortom did not move out of PDP on ideological grounds. Therefore, they would lose their elections. Senator Gemade left the PDP when it became obvious that he was not going to get the senatorial ticket of the party and joined APC. Also, the APC governorship candidate in Benue State, Dr. Ortom left PDP to join APC when he

lost the PDP governorship ticket.” Moro, analyzing why Buhari will lose, stated that having being a permanent candidate for the past 16 years, Buhari will continue to be a permanent loser, noting that any upset in the present political situation would be retrogressive to the country, instead of consolidating on the massive achievements the current government has recorded. This is the fourth time General Buhari will be contesting for presidential election, having contested in 2003, 2007 and 2011. Fielding questions on the chances of Buhari against his boss, Moro said, “No. Gen Buhari will never be a threat to President Goodluck Jonathan’s re-election. I said this with due respect to the person of Buhari, but it is very difficult in our democracy to suddenly wake up from the wrong side of the bed to rewrite history.”

“From 1999 till today, certain persons have become permanent candidates for particular elections and as long as you remain a permanent candidate in elections, you will continue to be a permanent loser. “No matter the language you use in bringing it about, the fact is that a winner will never continue to be a permanent candidate since our democracy is tenured. No candidate can contest for more than 16 years. In the case of Gen Buhari, he is a permanent loser. If he is a candidate for more than 12 years, the tendency is that he will still lose. The person who has continued to win will continue to win". Defending the candidacy of the incumbent president, Moro said: “In President Jonathan, we have a candidate who since assumption of office has left nobody in doubt about his passion for developing the Nige-

ria project and taking the country to the next level of development. “Under his watch, Nigeria has recorded tremendous achievements in spite of the teething challenges facing the country especially in the security area. It takes a man of vision and focus to refuse to be distracted by the challenges of insurrection and insurgency on the land to record modest achievements in transforming the country. “From whatever angle we look at the country, certain modest achievements have been recorded. Whether it is in railway, aviation, education, road transport, name it. The truth is that Nigeria has moved from the decay this government inherited to the level we are today. I can assure you that any person contesting against Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, in 2015 presidential election definitely has a Herculean task to unseat him.

2015: Group sues PDP, APC over election budget Akeem Nafiu

civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to a Federal High Court in Lagos over failure to disclose their sources of spending on their respective electoral campaigns and other operations linked to the February 2015 general elections. The suits were sequel to a Freedom of Information requests dated November 18 2014, which was sent to PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Ahmadu Adamu Mu'azu and APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. The originating summons against the PDP with suit number FHC/ CS/1969/2014 and against the APC with suit number FHC/CS/1968/2014 were brought pursuant to section 4(a) of the Freedom of Information Act, and signed by SERAP Senior Staff Attorney, Olukayode Majekodunmi.

OMFIF admits Moghalu, others to board Adeola Yusuf

Director, Artkora Combine Art gallery, Mr. Bassam Moukaim (left), presenting Press award to Arts Editor, New Telegraph, Mr. Tony Okuyeme, at the Fund Raising Induction Awards/Gala Night 2014, by the Society of Nigerian Artists, Lagos Chapter, in Lagos…at the weekend. With them is the Chairman, Society of Nigerian Artists, Lagos Chapter, Mr. Dotun Alabi. PHOTO: TONY EGUAYE

We will ensure Jonathan's victory — Kalu

ormer Governor of Abia State and founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Orji Kalu, has pledged his total support for the re-election bid of President Jonathan. Kalu made the remarks last week after a private meeting between President Jonathan, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Adamu Muazu and himself. According to the former governor, the accomplishments of the transformation agenda was visible in all sectors of the Nigerian economy. Kalu said, " Our party, PDP is a political party

with a human face and Mr. President has been keeping to the party's manifesto for the betterment of the nation. In spite of the security challenges facing the country, which I believe is politically motivated, we have all reasons to celebrate the present administration for making life meaningful to the masses through poverty alleviation initiatives". "As a pioneer member of the ruling party, I have no option than to give unflinching support to the party, especially at the national level. I have met and discussed with Mr. President and we will continue to galvanise and mobilise support for him

across states". As a bridge builder, I would personally take the re-election campaign of Mr. President to all geographical regions in Nigeria. We all need to rally round and give the present administration moral support to consolidate on the good foundation it had built in the past four years,” he added. Kalu used the opportunity to call on politicians, irrespective of political parties, to be conscious of their utterances in order not to overheat the polity. While urging the electorate to protect their votes, he called on them to vote enmasse for Presi-

dent Jonathan in the forthcoming election.

fficial Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF) has appointed the immediate past deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Kingsley Chinedu Moghalu, and two other international experts to its advisory board. The global financial institutions forum, which announced this in a press statement, listed the two others to include the chairman of Italy's largest development bank, Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Franco Bassanini and former United Kingdom (UK) minister for schools and transport secretary under Prime Ministers Blair and Brown, Mr. Lord Andrew Adonis.

PUBLIC NOTICE

GLO EVA MINISTRY

The general public is hereby notified that the above mentioned MINISTRY has applied to the Corporate Affairs Commission for registration in accordance with Part C of the Companies and Allied Matters Act LFN (cap 20). The Trustees are: 1. Prophet Ezekiel Olalere Bamigboye – General Overseer 2. Mrs Esther Morenike Bamigboye 3. Mrs Elizabeth Olaitan Opoosun 4. Mr Odubitan Abayomi 5. Chief Lola Amoran 6. Pastor Peter Kola-Omiyale 7. Mr Ayo George - Secretary AIMS AND OBJECTIVES: 1. To preach the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 To preach love, fellowship, respect and peaceful co-existence among members 3 To deliver the oppressed, heal the sick and set the captive free. Any objection to the registration should be forwarded to the RegistrarGeneral, Corporate Affairs Commission, plot 420 Tigris Crescent, off Aguiyi Ironsi Street, Maitama, Abuja within 28 days of this publication.

Signed: TRUSTEES

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Metro

Traveller killed in police, robbers’ shootout CROSSFIRE A woman travelling for Christmas is caught in the exchange of fire by police and suspected robbers Dominic Adewole ASABA

female traveller reportedly lost her life yesterday during a shootout between men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and suspected robbers. The incident occurred at the Niger Bridge head in Asaba, Delta State. Hundreds of other travellers had a tough time crossing the Niger Bridge as a five-man gang laid siege to the bank of the bridge. The gang had waited for unsuspecting travellers for Christmas from the South-West geopolitical zone of the country. The hoodlums hid near the motor park of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), waiting to unleash terror on the travellers. But SARS men from Onitsha, Anambra State raced to the area and engaged the hoodlums in a shootout which lasted for almost 25 minutes.

This forced commuters to scamper for safety while many lay flat on the ever-busy Benin-AsabaOnistha Expressway in a desperate bid to escape stray bullets. The commotion which ensued thereafter turned the popular Toll-Gate motor park to a graveyard while the robbers used an 18-seater bus as a shield. Although the hoodlums escaped with bullet wounds, one of them was not that lucky. A witness said one of the wounded robbery suspects was arrested by the police. “The robber was caught while trying to flee the scene with bullet wounds and was taken to the ‘C’ Divisional Police Headquarters. “One of the tyres of the fullyloaded 18-seater bus, which the gang was using to protect themselves from police bullets, was punctured while a female passenger was hit by bullets from the robbers. The woman died on the spot,” the witness said. He added that officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) deposited the body of the victim at a morgue in Asaba. The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Celestina Kalu, could not be reached for her comment on the incident.

File picture of policemen on duty

Ebola may resurface in Nigeria, Lagos warns Muritala Ayinla

agos State Government has called on the residents to notify the health authorities of anyone coming from any West African country into their communities to avert fresh outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in the state. The Commissioner for Health, Dr Jide Idris, who said this, also warned the residents to be mindful of what they do, eat and drink during the Yuletide. According to Idris, since Christmas is noted for wining, dining and visits by relations and friends, particularly those coming from other countries, it becomes imperative for them to be on the alert. The commissioner urged

ABIODUN BELLO FEATURES Editor

abiodun. bello@newtelegraphonline.com

the people to observe good personal and environmental hygiene and follow advice given by the government on the prevention of EVD. He said: “Presently, there is no active case of Ebola in the country. But Ebola is still a threat as its presence in neighbouring West Africa countries puts the nation at risk. “This is why we need to be on the alert and observe a high degree of personal and environmental hygiene especially during this season of celebrations to prevent the disease from resurfacing in the country again.” Idris charged the people to take basic precautionary measures against the disease by regularly washing their hands with soap and water, particularly after touching sick people; avoiding direct contact with body fluids like saliva, vomit, stool, semen, vaginal fluids and urine of suspected persons and avoid eating fruits half eaten by animals. The commissioner also urged the citizens to cook all food items particularly meat thoroughly before eating, clean all surfaces that have been contaminated with body secretions with bleach or detergents and desist from shar-

ing sharp objects such as needles and razor blades. He said: “Please, do not defecate or urinate indiscriminately and notify the health authority of anyone coming from any West African country into your community. “Be assured that the Lagos State Government is still carrying out active search for cases while follow-up on rumoured cases are ongoing and we will keep providing you with update and disease prevention messages.” According to him, Ebola is caused by a virus that is transmitted to man by fruit bats and wild animals. The commissioner added that it is spread by handling or undercooking infected meat and having close contact with secretions like blood, urine, semen, saliva, vomits and breast milk of an infected person. Idris urged health workers to keep observing the universal safety precautions when dealing with patients, noting that early detection of the disease and care could save lives. “Do not attempt to care for any suspected case on your own. Please call the Ebola Help line 0800-EBOLAHELP or 0800-

NIS repatriates 430 illegal immigrants

Idris

32652-4357 or the local government nearest to you for help. “With your cooperation, we can achieve a healthy population next year and beyond,” he warned. According to him, signs and symptoms of the disease include unexplained fever that does not respond to usual treatment, intense weakness, rashes, vomiting and diarrhoea which may be accompanied by bleeding from body openings like the ear, nose, mouth and anus.

he Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) said it arrested and repatriated 430 illegal immigrants in Jigawa State between January and November. The service also said its personnel seized temporary and permanent Nigerian voter cards from nationals of Niger who entered Nigeria illegally. The state Comptroller of NIS, Isa Jere, made the announcement on Saturday in Dutse, the state capital, while parading seven illegal immigrants from Niger and one from Mali. Jere, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said 90 per cent of the arrested immigrants were from Niger Republic while others were from Cameroon, Chad and Mali. According to him, the service has intensified its mop-up operation to get rid of illegal immigrants in the state before the commencement of the 2015 general election. He said: “We are committed to repatriating illegal immigrants in our midst because they don’t have right or have any business to participate in our elections.” The comptroller also said that the state command had seized 20 voter cards from Nigerien immigrants.

Metro 11

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

LUTH not responsible for patient’s death –CMD 1,800 poultry birds

he Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, has described as unfounded, the accusation that one of its patients, Mrs Folake Oduyoye, died because of its negligence. The Acting Chief Medical Director of LUTH, Chris Bode, made the assertion on Saturday in Lagos at a news conference. The Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre (WARDC) had on Friday, petitioned the management of LUTH over Oduyoye’s death. The husband of the deceased, Adeyemi Oduyoye, had in the petition, claimed that the hospital detained and abandoned his wife without adequate medical care because of his indebtedness to the hospital. But Bode, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), said that the woman was admitted unconscious on September 17 as an emergency case, following complications from a caesarian operation earlier performed in a private hospital. The acting CMD said that examinations showed that the patient was in shock with possibility of intra-abdominal collection

confirmed to be abscess. He said: “This lady came into LUTH in critical condition, unconscious and infected from caesarian operation performed in another hospital. “She underwent a major operation at which plenty of pus was evacuated from her abdomen. “She underwent a tracheotomy, creating a hole on her neck to enable her breath and stay alive. “She was admitted into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with multiple organ failure. For one month, she was on ventilator, a machine which was breathing for her. “She also developed two episodes of cardiac arrest from which she was rescued. “She also developed renal failure for which she underwent four sessions of haemodialysis.” Bode added that contrary to other opinions, the healthcare team efforts kept the woman alive, despite the strike embarked on by health workers. He said that numerous surgeries, specialised tests, interventions, dialysis, drugs and other consumables committed in treating the deceased amounted to N1.5

die in Edo auto crash Cajetan Mmuta BENIN

ore than 1,800 poultry birds were crushed to death at Ugbowo end of the BeninLagos Expressway in Edo State yesterday. The accident involved a heavy duty truck. It was learnt that the driver of the truck had travelled throughout the night on the Benin-Ore-Lagos Expressway.

Family Club urges caution at Christmas

The late Mrs. Oduyoye

million. According to him, the family only paid N300,000 and requested for a waiver of N1.2 million He said: “She was discharged on November 9 when she was deemed fit to go home while the husband was sourcing for money to defray bill. “Her relations, who wanted the hospital to let them walk away without paying for the services she

received, abandoned her. “The husband requested to pay in instalments of N15,000 per month and this was accepted, but he could not bring anyone to stand as guarantor. “However, the condition of Oduyoye became suddenly poor and she died of pulmonic complications on December 13. A postmortem examination is to be performed to ascertain cause of death.”

Bauchi raises committee on child labour Mohammed Kawu BAUCHI

auchi State Government has set a committee to abolish child labour and other forms of child abuse in the state. Inaugurating the Steering Committee on Child Labour at the Federal Secretariat, Bauchi, yesterday, the state Head of Service, Mr Abdon Gin, said the government was not happy with the rampant cases of child abuse in the state. Gin, who was represented by a Permanent Secretary in his office, Alhaji Hashimu Abubakar Dori, said the government,

through its relevant ministries, would support the committee to eradicate the menace of child labour. Earlier, the Chairman of the committee, Alhaji Muhammad Sule, had disclosed that an estimated 215 million children were engaged in child labour worldwide while 100 million of them were doing hazardous jobs. Sule, who quoted the National Child Labour survey, said over 15 million children under the age of 14 years were undergoing different forms of child abuse in the country. According to him, out of the figure, six million do not attend school. He enumerated respon-

sibilities of the committee to include ensuring zero tolerance to child labour and monitoring of all ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) saddled with the responsibility of eradicating child labour. This, the chairman said, was to ensure that the MDAs perform their statutory role effectively as well as sensitising the public to the negative effects of child labour. Also speaking, the acting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education, Alhaji Nasir Muhammed Yelwa, commended the Federal Government for the introduction of measures towards eradicating child labour.

Akure

he lawmaker representing Ondo South Senatorial District, Boluwaji Kunlere, has donated 13 Hilux patrol vehicles worth N109 million to the Ondo State Police Command to combat crime and criminal activities. Kunlere said that he procured the vehicles with his 2014 constituency project fund to support the security operatives in his constituency to reduce crime and criminal activities. He said though the state had been adjudged the

most peaceful state among the nine states within the Niger Delta region, kidnapping activities had been the order of the day in the South Senatorial District. The lawmaker commended the state police command for its effort in eradicating crimes. He, however, said the gesture was not to score cheap political points but a practical demonstration to fulfil his promise to the people. According to him, it was part of efforts to give effective and efficient representation in all spheres to ensure a secure environment for the people’s day-to-day

legitimate activities. He said: “As part of our demonstration towards reducing crime rates and ensuring a secure environment, we have chosen to empower all the 13 police divisions in the Ondo South Senatorial District. “Apart from our support to security, we can boldly say that in the last three years, our constituency projects’ impact covers areas such as construction of classroom blocks, provision of furniture to school, solarpowered boreholes, erosion control and school computer outfits. The impact is being felt in almost all the six

he 35-year-old Family Club of Nigeria has called for extraordinary caution and moderation during Christmas and in the New Year. In a statement, its National President, Prof Oluwole Osonubi, urged all families to avoid excesses such as drunk driving, reckless driving and late night travels as well as in every other thing they do this season. He said: “As elections are drawing near in the New Year, politicians are admonished not to preach words of war but focus on issues that will move Nigeria forward.

“Nigeria should not be pushed to a situation that may lead to break down of law and order which may engender dire consequences including possible displacement of families and attendant woes.” The Family Club of Nigeria, with chapters throughout the country and beyond, is an association of renowned academics, professionals and industrialists that has had a 35-year history of commitment to family issues, the promotion and propagation of marital virtues, and the sacredness of family unit as the bedrock of every society.

Obiano to inaugurate Emeka Okwuosa Foundation’s projects

Gov. Isa Yuguda

Senator donates N109m patrol vehicles to police Babatope Okeowo

The driver, said to have dozed off, lost control of the vehicle and crashed at the popular Adolor junction in Egor Local Government. A witness, who gave her name simply as Ms Amenze, a trader, disclosed that the truck ran into a ditch and somersaulted and killed the birds in the process. No life was lost in the lone accident but the driver sustained injuries.

local governments within the senatorial district.” Kunlere disclosed that work was ongoing on some projects within his district which would be delivered soon. But the lawmaker frowned at the removal of his name from some of the projects which he executed in some of the areas. He, however, disclosed that he had reported the development to the appropriate quarters. Appreciating Kunlere’s gesture, the Commissioner of Police, Isaac Eke, said the vehicles would help in combating crime in the district.

overnor Willie Obiano of Anambra State will on Wednesday inaugurate community projects sponsored by Emeka Okwuosa Foundation. The foundation was set up by foremost engineer, administrator, entrepreneur and philanthropist, Sir Emeka Okwuosa. The projects are located at Irefi Oraifite in Anambra State. The governor is also expected to kick off the construction of other proposed developmental projects. Mr Innocent Osita Nwokolo said in a statement issued on behalf of the foundation that the projects to be inaugurated included the 1.5 kilometre Dame Irene Nneka Okwuosa Road, a tarred road incorporating modern drainage and erosion control system, the Umunzalu Town Hall/ Community Civic

Centre and the O.5km Eze Okpuzo Road, also a tarred road. Others, according to Nwokolo, are a garri processing factory, the foundation laying ceremony of Dame Irene Nneka Okwuosa Medical Centre, a modern medical centre that will be equipped with the necessary medical facilities for dialysis to address kidney-related problems and also the foundation laying ceremony of the Secretariat of the Sir Emeka Okwuosa Foundation. He said: “These projects are part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes designed and executed by Sir Emeka Okwuosa Foundation, a foundation that has been at the forefront of providing various socio-economic programmes for people especially women and children in this fortunate community chosen.

News

NATIONAL

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Okupe blasts APC over comment on N21bn campaign fund Mojeed Alabi

he Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, yesterday described as ignorance and lack of ideas, statements credited to the opposition All Progressives Congress and its Presidential Candidate for the 2015 general election, General Muhammadu Buhari, that the money raised for the re-election of President Goodluck Jonathan by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, should be expended on the ailing power sector. Okupe, in a statement issued yesterday and made available to New Telegraph, said the

comment has further portrayed APC as an unserious, unfocused, and defective organisation with no reasonable alternative solutions to the nation’s problems. He said: “Even though we have always known them to be a party with no clear directions, we never thought they could descend so low in exhibiting clear mischief and folly on a critical national issue. We wish to reiterate that this government and the PDP will not engage in a dubious practice of collecting money from private individuals and corporate organisations for a purpose only to divert such money to other purposes.

“For the avoidance of doubt, the power reform programme initiated by President Goodluck Jonathan is not run on a knee-jack finance arrangement. It is a properly envisioned road map which is being diligently executed in line with best global practices.” On the allegation that the governors who donated to the fund had not paid their workers’ salaries, Okupe said it was all lies and advised the party to call on the Director of its presidential candidate’s Campaign Organisation and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, to pay eight months salaries of about 13,000 teachers he is allegedly owing.

Choice of Osinbajo, a masterstroke, says Gbajabiamila Philip Nyam ABUJA

inority leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila has described the choice of Prof. Femi Osinbajo as running mate of the APC presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari as a master stroke. Gbajabiamaila, who stated this in a statement yesterday, said the choice

showed that the integrity of Buhari was unassailable and it has been proven overtime. He said: "To now add excellence to the bottom of the ticket in the person of Prof Yemi Osinbajo leaves Nigerians with a clear choice and perhaps with no choice when both tickets of the PDP and APC are stacked against each other". According to him: "The choice of Prof. Yemi Osin-

bajo is indeed a political masterstroke, from perhaps the best political strategist in modern day Nigeria and of our time, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu. "I have known Prof. Osinbajo for over 40 years, right from my secondary school days, when he was my senior in college to my university days, when he was one of my law lecturers. A gentleman and academician per excellence, they don't come any better.

Youth members of Motailatu Church Cherubim and Seraphim Worldwide, Restoration Parish, Akute, Ogun State, during a Christmas carol, entitled: 'God, let peace return to Nigeria' at the church’s premises...yesterday.

Physically-challenged gets wheel chairs in Abuja Yusuf Shuaib ABUJA

charity home for the poor, “Friendship with Christ,” based in Kubuwa, a satellite town on the outskirts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, has donated wheelchairs to disabled persons as a way of showing love to them this yuletide. The Founder of the home, Dr. Tochkwuku Anojulu, who was in New Telegraph’s office in

Abuja, said the home is designed to take care of the less privileged, especially aged people. Anojulu, however, argued that before her call to render such services to the poor, she has had the passion to assist the less privileged - the aged, widows and children whom their parents cannot afford to pay their school fees. According to her, the home is actually focusing on any particular age or set of needy group, but that her call was to reach

out to the poor, if not the poorest poor; just as it was done by Mother Theresa of those days. “We provide financial support to the poor in the areas of hospital bills and giving out wheel chairs, crutches as well as cash to the physicallychallenged. We also give material support when we go on visitation to orphanage homes, as well as free professional academic counseling to, especially students with learning disabilities, Anojulu added.

2015 is year of God's visitation — Kumuyi FG reviews road, bridge design specifications "God will visit you in present and past crises, Temitope Ogunbanke

he General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, Pastor William Folorunsho Kumuyi has declared that 2015 is the year of God’s visitation. Speaking during the church’s 2014 National December retreat held at the Deeper Life Conference Centre (DLCC), Km 42 Lagos/Ibadan Expressway at the weekend, Pastor Kumuyi declared that God will give His people cause to celebrate in the New Year.

the New Year; of everything holding you down, the Lord will break it. You will step into your Promised Land. “Things will turn around in your life. It is not what you see yesterday, it is not what you see today, a brighter day is coming; the coming days for you will be better than the good old days. The things of the past may be wonderful, the things of today day will more wonderful" he declared. Pastor Kumuyi urged Nigerians not to magnify

but rather magnify the promises and plan of God. He also strongly admonished his teeming adherents and other sincere seekers across the world to take insightful look into their lives and prepare for life beyond now; according to him, the return of the Lord is imminent. He advised all people, especially Nigerians not to seek powers outside the confines of the word of God, saying that people do not need to kill themselves to have worldly and ephemeral powers.

Eschew sins, ungodliness, Adeboye admonishes Nigerians

he General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor Enoch Adeboye, has admonished Nigerians and those in the position of authority to distance themselves from sins and all forms of ungodliness but to maintain perfect relationship with their Creator. Adeboye gave the admonition during the annual Christmas Carol Service organized by the Oyo State Government at the Agodi Resorts and

Conferences, Ibadan at the weekend. The General Overseer described Jesus Christ as the harbinger of good news to the world, stressing that His birth had brought freedom to those in bondage and salvation to the sinners. The cleric, in his sermon entitled: “For unto us a Child is Born’’ said that the birth of Christ was meant to liberate the world. He seized the occasion to bless the state and the

people from all walks of life who attended the service. In his own remarks, the Oyo State Governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi described Christmas as tenderness for the past, courage for the present and hope for the future. While reiterating his belief in the imagination of possibility, he called on the people to live with the fire of possibility, stating that his vision was to make Oyo one of the best states in Nigeria.

Yusuf Shuaib ABUJA

n an effort to have a comprehensive statutory document for the delivery of quality and durable highways, the Federal Government has inaugurated a committee to review the specification on roads and bridges design in the country. Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, who inaugurated the committee in his office, said the review is long overdue and that the last review

was carried out in 1994. The Minister, who was represented by the Director, Highways Planning and Development (DHPD), Bala Danshehu, explained that the need to update the statutory document is based on the fact that the nature of some aspects of the General Specification is outdated and there was the need to incorporate modern technologies, new methods, materials and approach to designs that is comply with international agreements. “The terms of reference of the committee

include the careful study of the Federal Ministry of Works General Specifications (Roads and Bridges) and identifying the sections that are obsolete and in need of review and update in line with modern developments and best practice,” the minister said. Other terms of reference include to update the code of practice, which will take into consideration local environmental peculiarities and to guide professionals in effective specification of construction materials.

APC women leader hails Buhari, Osinbajo Yusuf Shuaib ABUJA

he National Women Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hajia Ramatu Tijani Aliyu, has welcomed the emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari and Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as the party’s presidential candidates, just as she argued that Buhari is capable of saving Nigeria from its current woes.

Aliyu, who spoke on telephone with New Telegraph in Abuja, expressed happiness about the candidacy of Buhari and his running mate, Osinbajo. “As much as the party is ready to wrest power from the Peoples Democratic Party in 2015, it has also not rested in its effort to set up a reconciliation and campaign committee across the country,” adding that such committee would reconcile all ag-

grieved members and aspirants who lost in the just concluded primaries. He said the measure would further strengthen the party in the states. “APC primaries was conducted in a more matured way and I am sure that APC will govern the country more better than what the incumbent leader is doing.” She stressed further that the APC is a party that has capability to wrest power from the PDP in 2015, she added."

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Imo 2015

Okorocha, Ihedioha, Iheanacho race to Douglas House

Rivers

Wike, Peterside jockey for Amaechi’s seat

Kwara Guber

Primaries

APC, PDP test might with Ahmed, Ajibola

Enugu guber: The case against Ayogu Eze

Politics

BATTLE FOR GOVERNMENT HOUSE

Barrack Boys battle for Aliyu’s seat In Niger State, the February 28, 2015 governorship election will be strictly between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). DAN ATORI x-rays factors that will determine the outcome of the governorship poll

n Niger, two frontline candidates in the governorship race, Abubakar Sani Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Umaru Mohammed Nasko of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are both sons of retired military officers. Abubakar, otherwise known as Abu Lolo, is the son of Col. Sani Bello (rtd), former military governor of old Kano State and also the son in-law of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar. Nasko is the son of a retired Army General and former Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Minister, Gado Nasko. The PDP is the ruling party in the state and the party has strongholds in Zones A and B unlike the APC which has stronghold in only Zone C. The hold of the parties on the zones is a factor that will determine who goes to the Government House by May 29, 2015. The APC may pull a surprise with a lot of people in the state seeking for a change. Umaru Nasko: The anointed He is the PDP governorship

AYODELE OJO

DEPUTY Editor, POLITICS ayodele.ojo@newtelegraphonline.com

Nasko

flag bearer and immediate past Chief of Staff to Governor Babangida Aliyu, whose campaign billboards, produced by Evergreen Mandate Group, his political platform, have been erected in virtually all parts of the state. Chances: He is the anointed candidate to succeed the incumbent governor. So many analysts believe that Umar will bring development to the state considering his developmental initiatives and his performances as Commissioner for Environment, Parks and Gardens. The 39-year-old Nasko ensured the training of thousands of youths both in the agricultural and environmental sectors with the Green Guard (his initiative). Many youths who are craving for change believe Umar is the right choice because he can be approached at any given time. He has gotten a lot of endorsements from royal fathers and elders who believe in his father, the PDP, youths, women and social groups. He is enjoying his father’s goodwill. He is the preferred candidate of Aliyu, which explains the massive support he has enjoyed from the state government. Though, five aspirants from the PDP protested his emergence on the perceived irregularities during the primaries. Looking at his finan-

Bello

The youthful and vibrant Nasko remains the guber candidate with the highest number of petitions from within and outside the ruling party challenging his candidature

cial background, Nasko is solid. Challenges: The youthful and vibrant Nasko remains the guber candidate with the highest number of petitions from within and outside the ruling party challenging his candidature. He is being viewed as a babyaspirant whom they believe cannot run the affairs of a state as big as Niger. There are fears that the younger Nasko may face stiff battle in Zone C where he comes from because they are believed to always be opposition to ruling party. Even the royal fathers, it was reliably gathered have disclosed that they will not have him as governor because they cannot afford to pay homage to a ‘little boy.’ He will have to contend with those he defeated at the primaries to emerge as the PDP candidate, especially actors from zone C, where the governorship seat was zoned to by the ruling party, including the deputy governor, Hon. Ahmed Musa Ibeto, Senator Nuhu Aliyu (who stepped down), Dr. Mustapha Bello, Alhaji Saleh Darangi, as well as Col. Aminu Isah Kotangora, Peter Gana and Mohammed Dukku. Sani Bello: APC hopeful Bello, popularly known as ‘Abu Lolo’, born in Kontagora, but raised in Lagos Army Children School, Ikeja. He is a wealthy businessman and a former Commissioner for Commerce and Investment in the Governor Aliyu

administration. He sits atop a multi-billion naira family business. He is a political greenhorn who served under the cabinet of Governor Aliyu as Commissioner but fell out with him years ago over issues of policy that endeared him to the people. Chances: After winning the Niger State APC gubernatorial primary election with 3,829 votes, with the mammoth crowd that were at his declaration in Kotangora and the support from virtually the whole of zone C, analysts in the state believe Abu Lolo stands a better chance considering his relationship with General Abdulsalami. Bello will get all the moral and influential support from his father in-law who can pull some strings for him; and garner all the muscle to wrest power from the ruling party to emerge victorious. Weaknesses: Bello resigned from the administration few months after he was appointed Commissioner for Commerce and Investments by Governor Aliyu at the inception of the current dispensation. His claims was that serving as a Commissioner cannot fetch him the kind of money he wanted to control compared to what he was making as a businessman of international repute. To be linked with such comments, critics question what kind of administration he would preside over if voted into power in the coming dispensation. Many fear that his administration will be characterized by leadership on proxy as there is the possibility of him piloting affairs of the state from abroad as he may not be a good manager of limited state resources. Bello, after he emerged the APC’s governorship flag bearer told journalists that he is not a messiah for the people, but that he is desperate to win the governorship election and lead his people. This is, however, viewed by many as a point against him as the people of Niger State are crying to God for a messiah. Bello had won the Niger State APC gubernatorial primaries with 3,829 votes; leaving Senator Ibrahim Musa with 61 votes and Salihu Mohammed Alooma scoring 24 votes. Political watchers, however, expect a tough governorship race in Niger State, going by the antecedents of the candidates.

Politics

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

BATTLE FOR GOVERNMENT HOUSE

Okorocha

After months of planning, consultations and soliciting for votes from party delegates across the state, the governorship candidates of various political parties in Imo State have emerged. The focus has now shifted to the real contest of party flag bearers on February 28, 2015, writes STEVE UZOECHI Emeka Ihedioha The deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Emeka Ihedioha was declared winner of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship primaries and is presently flying the flag of what has become the strongest political platform in Nigeria since 1999. Ihedioha is one of the few third-term members of the House of Representatives. Nobody wins three successive federal constituency elections by chance without a stroke of ingenuity, experience and dexterity in the electioneering process. A strong party man who was earlier perceived as not having any political structure outside his federal constituency, the recent party primaries revealed a network of party faithful from across the 27 council areas of Imo State, loyal to Ihedioha. To his advantage, Ihedioha has over the years instituted structures to empower members of his federal constituency and had sustained and spread same long before voicing his desire to govern Imo State. He has leveraged on his position to impact his constituency with various developmental projects. Ihedioha has what it takes to run a robust campaign and engage the incumbent even in his own turf. Over time, he has shown depth in the knowledge of the core needs of Imo State and the basic modalities that should be set in place to ‘reclaim Imo.’ Ihedioha comes from the very populous Mbaise axis of Owerri zone, an area known over the years as his strongest fort. The Mbaise nation is known for casting the largest bulk votes for any of its choice candidates. The deputy speaker’s biggest challenge is how to rally aggrieved aspirants of the PDP to close ranks and work together with him. The truth remains that

Ihedioha

Iheanacho

Okorocha, Ihedioha, Iheanacho race to Douglas House if the 27 other governorship aspirants that ran for the party’s governorship ticket with Ihedioha remain averse to his candidature. It would be an uphill task for him to win the governorship election no matter how much planning and resources he ploughs into the race. Working at cross-purposes with these 27 other aspirants, Ihedioha cannot be certain of winning election in their various communities where they are leaders in their own right. Much the same way his vote haul at the primaries took a big hit from the impact of some of his

EMMANUEL MASHA writes on the two-horse governorship race in Rivers State

he 2015 governorship election in Rivers State promises to be a tough contest. Two prominent figures in the first term of Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s administration are in for a battle. Former Minister of State for Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike, is the flag bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while Hon. Dakuku Peterside is the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Wike was Amaechi’s Chief of Staff while Peterside was Commissioner for Works. In reality, the battle is that of Governor Amaechi. He has to prove his relevance in Rivers politics with the election. His political future largely depends on the governorship election, since his defection to the APC. Wike: Confronting Amaechi When the former Minister of State for Education, Barr. Nyesom Wike emerged the governorship candidate of the PDP, he did it in style by almost clearing the votes of party delegates from the 23 local government areas of Rivers State. It was as if he was the only one prepared for the election, while the remaining five candidates escorted him to the venue. Originally, there were supposed

kinsmen in the race (Bright Nwanne, 46; Chris Anyanwu, 10; Emma Ojinere, 4 and Mike Ahamba, 2) while winning the election with a narrow 10-vote margin; Ihedioha’s chances in the governorship election of February 2015 would be largely threatened if the PDP family goes into the election without putting its house in order. Be that as it may, Ihedioha is a force to reckon with in the Imo 2015 governorship election and his impact at the primary election, may be a pointer to the shape of things to come in 2015. Rochas Okorocha With his misadventure at the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential

primaries, the APC ticket for the Imo governorship race is Rochas Okorocha’s only path to retaining his seat and remaining relevant in the politics of Imo State. Little wonder, in a matter of hours after he lost the presidential primaries, the process to re-launch him as the party’s governorship candidate for Imo was set in motion with his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, who only days ago was declared governorship candidate of the party, stepping down for the governor citing family and personal reasons. Okorocha, as the incumbent governor, enjoys a good measure of support from a CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

Wike, Peterside jockey for Amaechi’s seat to be 24 aspirants, but they shunned the election in protest. Only Wike and four other aspirants contested. Despite the protest of the candidates, Wike has demonstrated that he is popular among party faithful, just as he has proved that he meant business while he dismissed other aspirants as politicians whose popularity starts and ends on the pages of newspapers and on televisions. Wike had promised that the PDP will reclaim the state from the All Progressives Congress (APC) come 2015, but has equally noted that only a strong PDP candidate can defeat the APC governorship candidate. He said: “We must allow it to be open, to allow the person with capacity to face Amaechi’s government/APC’s governorship candidate. The PDP in Rivers State said we could not do zoning. Some persons are saying upland/riverine, ethnic group or senatorial district, depending on where they find themselves. All the PDP leaders in and out of Rivers State are with me.” The biggest obstacle confronting Wike’s governorship is the argument that it is wrong for him to succeed Amaechi, a fellow Ikwerre from the same senatorial district. While Peterside, the APC candidate enjoys the strong support of Amaechi, the

former Minister of State for Education is backed by Sir Peter Odili, a former Governor of the state. Odili, who led the delegates from Ogba/ Egbema/Ndoni local government to the primaries that produced Wike, said that it was clear that he will become the next governor of the state. “It is a process that I have been involved over the years. I can tell you that whoever wins this primary election is the next governor of Rivers State,” he said. Wike, who spoke shortly after his victory at the primaries said that, “since 1999, Rivers has been a stronghold of the PDP until the era of rascality emerged,” adding that the doctrine of impunity has eaten deep into the state. Wike, who accused the administration of Amaechi of padlocking the judiciary, thus creating security challenges for the state, said he has a new agenda to rescue the state from infrastructure decay and deliver the dividends of democracy to the people. “We have set up a reconciliation com-

Politics

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

BATTLE FOR GOVERNMENT HOUSE The 2015 governorship election in Kwara State has been zeroed to Kwara South where the incumbent governor, Abdulfattah Ahmed of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his main challenger, Senator Simon Ajibola of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), both hail from. BIODUN OYELEYE reports on the factors that will shape the election Abdulfattah Ahmed: On a return journey Since the APC leader in the state, Senator Bukola Saraki openly endorsed Governor Ahmed, it was clear he would be the only aspirant, given the consensus principles enunciated with the Saraki political structure. Strength: The support of his political structure, the fact that APC is in power in the 16 local government areas, controls majority of the assembly seats and has been continuing with the programmes and policies of the previous administration thereby leaving no room for abandoned projects are all factors in favour of the incumbent governor. Ahmed is considered humble and loyal. The KWABES programme that provides stop-gap jobs for youths, the Community Health Insurance Scheme and various empowerment programmes are all considered as strong points for the governor in the election. So, also is a recent upgrading of traditional stools and some rural electrification projects. Weakness: His loyalty to his political leader, Saraki, is seen by some as

Kwara: APC, PDP test might with Ahmed, Ajibola

Ahmed

‘too much’ particularly by those who want a new order in the state. He is said to have a lot of ‘promissory notes’ to settle especially to associates who also are angry that he neglected them after assuming office. His opponents also condemn him for allegedly not having been able to start a new project under his own name since assuming office as well as accused him of running his government by propaganda. State of the APC: The APC is in firm control of the state with all elective offices on its platform except Kwara South senatorial seat where the PDP gubernatorial candidate

Peterside

Wike

mittee to ensure the electoral success of the PDP,” he said, promising to carry everybody along if he becomes governor. If elected as governor, he has promised to address the issue of insecurity, which he noted has prevented the state from reaping from the revenue that comes from tourism. He cited example of some countries in Africa whose net worth is not as high as Rivers, but are making a fortune in tourism. PDP may not be the ruling party in Rivers, but it remains a force, considering the sympathy many in the state have for President Goodluck Jonathan, which could also affect how they vote in the governorship election. There is also the possibility of

the Ikwerre voting for Wike. Peterside: Amaechi’s protégé Hon. Dakuku Peterside emerged as Rivers governorship candidate under the platform of the APC to the surprise of many, who never gave him a chance. They thought he stood no chance of being endorsed as the party’s consensus candidate ahead of Senator Magnus Abe, who is from the same senatorial district the party zoned the ticket to. But some, had for long pencilled him down as a popular choice, based on his performance as Commissioner for Works during Amaechi’s first term. It was under the watch of Peterside,

Ajibola

hails from. Unlike PDP, it has been able to manage the process for the emergence of candidates such that those who were dropped are not fighting back against the system. In the southern district, it has hearkened to the yearnings of Christians to have candidates from the zone and has redistributed offices to cater for zoning and electoral value addition. Simon Ajibola: From Senate to who now represents Andoni/Opobo Nkoro Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives that the state government embarked on massive road construction and rehabilitation projects. His admirers observe that it was the good work he did as commissioner that opened the door to the National Assembly, where his is the chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Downstream). One point that could work strongly in his favour is the fact that he is from the riverine area, which has been clamouring for the Government House. By May 29, 2015, the people from the upland will have governed the state for 16 uninterrupted years, a reality that some elders see as an abnormality. So, Peterside may likely get the votes of those who face the harsh reality of living in the riverine communities, people who feel that it is only somebody from the area can adequately drive development to them. That the party believes in the delivery of the Peterside brand to the electorate in 2015 is hinged on the party’s conviction that it chose a popular candidate, who has the interest of the people at heart. According to the party chairman, Dr. Davies Ikanya, the next governor of the state will definitely come from the APC. However, he knows he has an uphill task ahead, considering that he is up against, Wike, the PDP candidate, who has been campaigning in the last few months – moving from one local government area to the other with members of his Grassroots Democratic Initiative (GDI).

Government House? Senator Ajibola, a ranking senator from Kwara South, won the PDP ticket in a tight race that first witnessed much acrimony and violence. He polled 144 votes to beat Mr. Dele Belgore (SAN), who was considered as the presidency’s man in the race, who scored 132 votes at the primaries. Strength: He is a grassroots politician, a ‘strategist’, as one insider put it, with penchant for winning where he is considered an underdog. When he contested the Senate seat during the transition programme by late General Sani Abacha, on the United Nigeria Congress Party (UNPP), he was regarded as an underdog, but he went ahead to win. In 2003, he ran for Senate again on the ticket of the PDP, Makanjuola Ajadi, candidate of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP), was declared winner. Yet in a surprise turn of event, Ajibola won the legal battle he instituted to claim the senatorial seat. Since then he has been in the Senate. He is a Christian, from the southern district and though religion is not an issue yet, it could work in his favour given the recent face-off between the state government and Christians in the state over the running of missionary schools. Besides, Kwara has not had a Christian governor since the days of Chief Cornelius Adebayo who ruled for only three months in 1983. He is also easily accessible. Weakness: Many see Ajibola as tight fisted and that unlike his contemporaries from the state, he has not been a visible legislator. His kinsmen almost rejected him in 2011 during his third run for the Senate because of this, but for the intervention of then Governor Bukola Saraki. While the factor of religion may help him in his senatorial base, it might work against him in the central district which incidentally has the highest number of votes and had sought the ticket to use its numerical strength to advantage during the election. State of the PDP: Unless something is done immediately to calm frayed nerves, the PDP will be prosecuting the election with a much divided house. In the build up to the primaries, 11 of the contestants stood against Dele Belgore and those they claimed were his supporters; Hajia Muina Shagaya, Minister of National Planning, Dr. Suleiman Abubakar and the party’s chairman, Akogun Iyiola Oyedepo and thus by extension the Presidency. The state executive committee of the party is currently divided with few members following Oyedepo and the rest standing with the 11 former aspirants. Indeed, few hours to the eventual primary election, the rumour mill was agog about a planned vote-of-no-confidence to be cast against Oyedepo by some members of the executive. The Elders’ Forum of the party also stood with the 11 aspirants during the crisis. Ilorin West which is the major focus of every election given its size and being the home of the Sarakis, is divided into two major camps belonging to Shagaya versus Gbemisola Saraki and Prof. Wahab Oba and they are not working together.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Politics 17

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

BATTLE FOR GOVERNMENT HOUSE Desmond Ekwe

o many political pundits who gauged Enugu’s volatile political temperature in the run up to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) congresses and primary elections, the state was one potential flashpoint, a disaster waiting to happen. Their permutations could not be faulted given the rising political tension occasioned by the fierce power contest between forces loyal to Governor Sullivan Chime and the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu. However, the PDP congresses and primary elections have come and gone, and Enugu State, especially the PDP, remains one, peaceful, and waxing stronger. The greatest credit goes to the big masquerades who opted for dialogue and sacrifice to move both the state and party forward. I was moved seeing Chime surrender his senatorial ambition to allow Ekweremadu, who has higher prospects in the legislature to continue his good work as a tested hand. There are those who say that he had no choice having been outwitted in the struggle for structures for the primary election by the Ekweremadu group. But I totally disagree. He could have opted for another party as rumoured and that would have caused the PDP a lot of trouble. I was even moved all the more watching Ekweremadu on television dedicate his fourth term PDP ticket to Chime. Virtually all the other gubernatorial candidates like Chinedu Onu and Anayo Onwuegbu withdrew from the race in support of the highly favoured candidature of Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, even the Speaker of the Enugu State House of Assembly, Hon. Eugene Odo who went the whole length, but lost to Ugwuanyi never complained about the process. All these are acts of political maturity uncommon in our clime. It is against this background that PDP supporters in Enugu were taken aback when Senator Ayogu Eze, a few minutes into the governorship primary election at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, Enugu, took to the media to declare himself Enugu PDP governorship candidate. Finding faults with the delegates’ list, which he claimed was not the same one “certified” by a Federal High Court in Abuja, Eze said: “I was heading to the venue of the primary election when these frustrated delegates called me to address them at Filbon Hotel, New Haven, Enugu, where they had already assembled to ponder their next move. “Once I arrived at the venue they insisted they must conduct the primaries. They went ahead to elect me the PDP candidate. “The electoral panel commenced their work at the so-called primary election venue…They filled the stadium, venue of the supposed primary election, with non party members. It was an assemblage of passers-by, touts, cheerleaders and office messengers who were hurriedly railroaded to the venue as a face saving measure.” With due respect to Senator Eze, his polemics and tales are rather condescending and unbefitting. At least, even if his incredible tales deceives a few, critical minds and party faithful who were at the primary election venue could not be deceived. One, he admitted that he was “heading to the venue of the primary election when…” Thus, he is in agreement that there was only one official venue recognised by the state and national PDP, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), delegates and other key participants enunciated in the PDP

Eze

Ugwuanyi

Enugu guber: The case against Eze constitution, the Electoral Act, and the 1999 Constitution. This naturally explains why PDP National Electoral Panel led by King Asara Asara, the INEC observation team led by its Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Enugu State, and bonafide delegates were all present at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium rather than Filbon Hotel to perform their respective roles climaxing in the emergence of Ugwuanyi as the party’s governorship election candidate with 937 out of the 983 votes cast. On the other hand, I am not aware that the 1999 Constitution or the Electoral Act or the PDP Constitution permits delegates to conduct primary elections, even if you claim they are the “authentic delegates”. This validates the critical questions raised by the Enugu PDP denouncing Eze. It questioned: “Since the bodies authorised by the party, the 1999 Constitution, and the Electoral Act 2010 to organise/supervise/observe primary elections were all absent, which ballot papers, result sheets, and certificate of return did Senator Ayogu Eze use? “Who certified and accredited the delegates? Do our laws, party constitution and guidelines for primary elections permit aspirants to just assemble a handful of rented passers-by to assume both the roles of delegates, election organisers, returning officers, INEC, etc. and declare themselves winners?” It also beats my imagination how Eze could describe a gathering of who-is-who in Enugu PDP as “an assemblage of passers-by, touts, cheerleaders and office messengers who were hurriedly railroaded to the venue as a face saving measure.” The state chairman of the party who has the power to convene a congress of the party as well as his deputy and all the state executives were present. The statutory delegates of the Enugu State Chapter of the PDP, including Governor Chime and Deputy Governor Ifeanyi Nwoye, the Deputy Senate Presi-

dent, Ekweremadu, all National Assembly members of Enugu State extraction (with the exception of Senator Eze) as well as the members of the Enugu State House of Assembly led by the Speaker who was a gubernatorial aspirant, Eugene. Other statutory delegates who participated in the primary election included all the local government council chairmen and local government party chairmen; Board of Trustee members, including the former national chairman of the PDP, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, and other bigwigs. I personally saw Chief Anayo Onwuegbu and Hon. Chinedu Onu who had earlier withdrawn from the race and endorsed Ugwuanyi. This array of respected men and women do not appear to me as touts or people who would all congregate with touts. I challenge Senator Eze to name just one statutory delegate or state exco present at his 15-minute charade. On the list of delegates, I believe the PDP, being a law-abiding and responsible organisation, must have taken all legal and political imperatives into consideration before sending the panel on the assignment with a list of delegates. It could not have used any illegal list. Rather, the panel mitigated the confusion and anarchy that would have ensued. Imagine a situation where the King Asara-led panel had accepted and worked with lists from other candidates rather than the authentic one handed them by the party, which, by the way, sent them on the assignment. The reason appeal panels are set up is to address grievances, making/recommending redresses where necessary. Thus, the responsible step Ayogu Eze should have taken was to participate in the primary election and thereafter petition PDP’s Appeal Panel for the Enugu gubernatorial primary election, rather than run to the media to impugn a party that has brought him fortune and power since 1998. As it stands now, Eze has no case and is certainly pushing his luck too far by dragging the party to the court. The position of the law is that to con-

test the outcome of a primary election, you must have participated in the said election. He has already admitted that he did not. A panel constituted by the NWC of the party must conduct the primary election at a designated venue presided over by the party. It must also be observed by the INEC. Eze’s hotel charade did not meet any of the conditions. So, there is nothing like parallel primary election. It is either a primary election or a charade. Worse for him, the Supreme Court of Nigeria has already established in Senator Lado v. Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) that where there are two purported primaries, the court lacks the jurisdiction to choose for the party. It is entirely the party’s business. Now, tell me, will the PDP jettison the primaries conducted by its panel and state excos, and attended by all its statutory and ad hoc delegates and observed by the INEC for one purportedly conducted by mere passers-by at an illegal venue? Already, the Enugu Chapter of the party has petitioned the Commissioner of Police, Enugu State Command alleging that Ayogu Eze forged the PDP result sheets he filed in the suit he instituted against the PDP and Ugwuanyi at a Federal High Court, Abuja. Providing graphic descriptions to support its case, the state party chairman, urged the police to “investigate the facts stated and therefore take necessary steps to arrest and prosecute Senator Eze for uttering and forgery of PDP Result sheet in accordance with the dictates of the law.” Political sagacity entails knowing when to stop, whether in victory or in defeat. It entails magnanimity in victory and sportsmanship in defeat. My humble take is that the longer Eze drags this, the more he losses relevance and sympathetic considerations in the scheme of things as well as the chances to cut a good political deal. It is sad that he has already thrown away the opportunity of returning to the Senate, flatly refusing a return ticket reportedly facilitated by Ekweremadu, Senator David Mark, and some national leaders for the party before the primaries. It was a good soft-landing, by my calculations, especially given that he is no match for Ugwuanyi in terms of goodwill and acceptance by the masses and political bigwigs in Enugu. Can Ayogu stop pushing his luck too far? •Ekwe is a public affairs analyst based in Enugu

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Opinion Gambari: Quintessential diplomat at 70 Badejo Adedeji Nurudeen

t is significant that a few days before Professor Ibrahim Agboola Gambari’s 70th birthday, he was on November 20th appointed as Co-Chair with Mrs Madeleine Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State and Ambassador to the United Nations, to lead HighLevel Commission on Global Security Justice & Governance. The commission is to release recommendations in advance of U.N’s 70th anniversary in September 2015. Also, it is to find better mechanisms to prevent and resolve armed conflicts, address the human security impacts of climate change, and prevent future cross-border economic shocks. With membership drawn from far and wide, the array and caliber of membership of this commission is a confirmation of Gambari’s resourcefulness and acceptance in the international community. Gambari, a distinguished Nigerian and world citizen turned 70 on November 24. His life in the past 31 years has been devoted to public service and indeed service to mankind. Gambari needs no introduction, having held office as Foreign Affairs Minister after the collapse of the Second Republic. He holds the record of being the longest serving Ambassador/Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations (January 1990 to October 1999), and altogether served under five Heads of State and President. He was born in Ilorin, now Kwara State, Nigeria, in 1944, and his aristocratic background must have played a role in his devotion to service. He left indelible imprints in the world politics and international system. I met Gambari during my undergraduate years in my insatiable quest for knowledge. I was in need of a copy of his book, Theory and Reality in Foreign Policy Decision Making. Knowing full well that he does not reside in Nigeria, I was faced with an uphill task. With his email address, I was able to start what is now a lifelong friendship with Gambari from then till this present moment. In spite of his commanding heights as an international civil servant, he attended to my request with dispatch and sent the book from his US base through his son (who has since then become our reliable courier). You are bound to be touched by Gambari’s humility. Gambari’s appointment as Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) was the beginning of his involvement in Nigeria’s foreign policy in its entirety. To assert that he was prepared for this challenge will be an understatement, for having received M.A. and Ph.D. both in Political Science/ International Relations from Columbia University, he came fully prepared. He was in this position till his ap-

pointment as the Minister of External Affairs following the December 1983 military change of government. His tenure in office witnessed the high point of Nigeria’s engagement in international politics, and chiefly the Dikko affair (a foiled attempt to return the erstwhile Minister of Transport, the late Alhaji Umaru Dikko to the country from London in a crate), which was handled with utmost professionalism. Based on principle, he rejected the position of Minister of Education at the end of his tenure in August 1985 because his former bosses were still in detention. Writing extensively on Nigeria’s foreign policy, regional economic integration and International politics, he has captured his rich hands-on experience in numerous books. As an academic, and in spite of his diplomatic calling he has published and continues to publish articles in national and international scholarly journals. As Nigeria’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Gambari was a senior member of the Nigerian Delegation to ten consecutive sessions of the General Assembly (44th to 54th); he also served as President of the Security Council on two occasions (May 1994 and October 1995). He has chaired the UN Special Committee Against Apartheid, which successfully saw the fall of that long-standing social injustice and the establishment of democratic rule in South Africa. He led several United Nations Missions, including the Special Committee Against Apartheid Mission to South Africa and the Security Council Missions to South Africa, Burundi, Rwanda and Mozambique. Gambari chaired the UN Special Committee on Peace-Keeping Operations. He served as member, Board of Trustees of the United Nations Institute of Training and Research (UNITAR) and also President, Executive Board of UNICEF. He later served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Mission to Angola (UNMA), and in that capacity helped to bring the peace process under the Lusaka Protocol to a successful conclusion. Upon completion of his mission assignment as Nigeria’s Permanent Representative in 1999, the UN, in recognition of his expertise offered him yet another appointment as Under-Secretary/Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on African Affairs. He later became the Under-Secretary/ Head, Political Affairs Dept of the UN- the most important office after that of the Secretary General. Gambari served the UN as Under-Secretary/ Special envoy of the UN Secretary-General to the troubled Myanmar where his mediatory efforts yielded fruits, and led to multi- party democracy and the release of Aang Sun kyi from house arrest after close to two decades, and

her election into the parliament. The career of this seasoned diplomat in the UN cuts across important committees, commissions and special assignments including the chair of UN Security Council, UN committee on Apartheid, the head and special representative of UN Secretary –General to Cyprus, International compact with Iraq, UN special envoy to Myanmar (formerly Burma) and until recently joint UN-AU special representative to Darfur. Among the highpoints of his illustrious career was his role as the last chairperson of the UN Committee against Apartheid, under which aegis he presented UN’s congratulatory letter to the legendary Nelson Mandela during his inauguration as president of South Africa in 1994. In connection with this role, Gambari was in October 2012 honoured by the government and people of South-Africa with the highest decoration reserved for foreign recipients. He was in 2013 appointed the pioneer Chancellor of Kwara State University, (KWASU) Malete, by Governor Abdul Fatah Ahmed, and he was a member of the just concluded Constitutional conference. Widely travelled, in recognition of his distinguished diplomatic and academic careers, he was the first African in 1985 to be conferred with the title, Honorary Professor by Chugsan University (founded by and named after Dr. Sun Yat Sen, leader of the 1911 Peasant Revolution and first President of Nationalist China); the University of Bridgeport (USA) in 2002 awarded him the Doctor of Humane Letters degree (honoris causa); in 2002 Johns Hopkins University elected him to membership of the University’s Society of Scholars; and the Government of Nigeria in 2003 awarded him the national honour, Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR). His commitment to peace and security of the world inspired him establish the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development, a non-governmental “think-tank” based in Abuja, Nigeria. The centre is devoted to critical analyses of and solutions to the problems of conflict prevention, management and resolution; democratization and sustainable development in Africa. Gambari’s greatest attributes are listening, patience, writing, reading voraciously and power of retention, humility and promotion of friendship. He has touched the lives of so many people and has made a significant difference in many of those lives, be it through mediating in a conflict or by helping to maintain the thin social fabric that conflicts so often tear apart. Gambari’s compassion and deep respect for the human person regardless of their background is widely acclaimed. • Nurudeen wrote in from Lagos (08060205914)

Mark, an exceptional statesman Samuel Ebo Adikwu

is greatest sermon that always attracts me to his temple to worship is the fact that he is an ardent peace mogul and subscriber to the principle of peace and unity among leaders whose responsibility is to pilot the affairs of this nation and give vision to younger ones as a tool for effective utilization of our untapped resources. As a tactful and pragmatic leader, he is decisive on his core objectives, tolerant with his followers and takes cognizance of the assertion that no great achievement will ever be made on a solitude terrain. As a team player, he is much unperturbed about who gets kudos on an accomplished task with the mindset that a personal ambition is proficiently achieved on the platform of cooperation, assistance, communication and encouragement he receives from friends and relations. Descending from a military background, I thought the gene of autoc-

racy, dictatorship, capricious tyranny which are the modus operandi and hallmark of the military government will manifest in his political administrative assignment, but ironically and to my utmost amazement, he is very calm, cautious, tactful, slow to anger and meticulous with his words while discharging his core obligations without belly aching his peers. He is a political emperor and a pillar of democracy who has foreseen the act of disunity and rancour as luggage too expensive to carry. As the senate president, he advocates tenaciously the spirit of teamwork, peaceful alluring dialogue and harmonious relationship as tools for political stability and conflict resolution. His administrative and oratorial skills have always left his audience with hope, inspiration, and good sense of humor but he never failed to make a serious point on ethics, discipline, respect for human rights and privileges whenever and wherever he communicates. Another hallmark of his sermon that revolves me round his orbit is his

vehement, unperturbed, unpretentious demeanour towards ungodly, unhealthy, uncultured and unhygienic social debris called gay marriage,( same sex marriage) which is seen by all religious stakeholders as not only morally decadent but also a colossal character bankruptcy. In my candid view, his firm position on the issue is a clear exhibition of a quintessential leader. He is a man who has fortified his intellect and temperament with carapace of humility, uprightness, virtues, audacity, radiating charisma, tenacity of purpose and resilient hope for change. He provides ample, veritable, epoch-making platform for employment and destiny reformation. He has the oil of kindness for the emancipation of mankind flowing in his vein. He is a sport lover and his sporting activities such as golf tournament, Mark “D Ball” Basketball is a great Midas touch and a vehicle that conveys unemployed youths from the idle-mindedness, societal mayhem, juvenile prostitution and inculcate in them moral values, creative character and also create for them

career opportunities. As an uncommon statesman per excellence, I salute his courage and passion for staying focused in the pursuit of his dreams despite the enormous challenges, oppositions and confrontations he encountered in his quest towards realizing his noble objectives. I wish to use this platform to appreciate Chief Mike Onoja for paying the price of friendship and for considering the interest of Idoma nation by stepping down for senate president David Mark during PDP primary election to enable him continue his indellible works in the upper chamber. My candid prayer is that may God develop a strong hedge of protection over him and endow him with the wisdom and courage to enable him withstand the storm and bequeath to this great nation an egalitarian society where history will be kind to him. My clarion call is for all sons and daughters of Idoma nation to support his good works come 2015. •Adikwu (07064773479) is a public affairs analyst.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

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Terrorism and security in schools

chools these days seem to be some of the choice targets of terrorists around the world. Just on Tuesday December 16, 2014, Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, killing at least 84 people. Pakistani officials described it as the worst attack to hit the country in over a year. According to reports, the overwhelming majority of the victims were pupils at the army public school, which has children and teenagers in grades 1-10. Time and again, terrorists have shown that they have scant regard for human lives, irrespective of age or gender. All over the world, terrorists have adopted soft targets for attacks, perhaps to drive fear into the hearts of people. The ripples over the invasion of the Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State on April 14, 2014 by Boko Haram terrorists continue to reverberate. It is now over 200 days since about 276 innocent schoolgirls were forced out of their beds in the dead of the night and taken to an unknown location. Since then, efforts by the Nigerian government and its

Time and again, terrorists have shown that they have scant regard for human lives, irrespective of age or gender. All over the world, terrorists have adopted soft targets for attacks, perhaps to drive fear into the hearts of people foreign allies to locate the schoolgirls and others similarly abducted from various locations in the North-East have failed to yield fruit. The abduction of the pupils came over a month after the gruesome murder of more than 40 school boys at Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State by Boko Haram terrorists. These mindless murderers had last year burnt hundreds of schools in the North-East in pursuit of their warped agenda to discourage Western education. Their rapacious acts have led to the displacement of thousands of pupils in some

states in Northern Nigeria, disrupting the school calendar and frustrating efforts to reverse years of decline in the enation’s education sector. Despite assurances by the Federal Government and the Nigeria Police Force of the provision of adequate security in schools nationwide, it still does not appear that that is the case. We are not unmindful of the huge implication of providing security for thousands of schools across the length and breadth of Nigeria. Therefore, it has become imperative for government to consider the full implementation of community policing in respect of provision of security in schools. Given the oft-acknowledged efforts of local vigilantes and hunters in the success of the war against insurgency, it bears saying that government should reach out to such groups nationwide to join in the efforts to secure our schools. The community policing initiative should incorporate existing security effort by local vigilantes as well as regular securitymen in schools. Government should also adopt a citizen security cooperation policy, which ensures that every law-abiding Nigerian is inspired to join the efforts to secure our schools.

Each one should look out for the other by providing timely information and intelligence tips to security agencies about suspicious activities which may threaten the security of schools. Also, it is necessary for security agencies to vet the private security personnel employed by schools to identify unfit characters among them. Again, it is necessary for security agencies to intensify patrols of schools nationwide to check any likely attack. Since terrorist groups usually take a cue for their evil activities from their counterparts, government should take proactive steps to ensure that the Pakistani attack does not occur in Nigeria. Parents should also help in the effort to secure our schools by teaching their children basic security tips. For terrorists to have invaded a military-run school in Pakistan gives room for suspicion about insider involvement. Therefore, security agencies should regularly audit their personnel and ensure that officers with sympathies for Boko Haram are identified and dismissed. The fight against terrorism is a collective one and should be embraced by all Nigerians for the good of everyone. A stitch in time saves nine!

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Politics

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

BATTLE FOR GOVERNMENT HOUSE

Okorocha, Ihedioha, Ihenacho race to Douglas House CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14

good portion of the lower class in society but has evidently lost the Imo upper class who dictates politics and business in the state. Within the period in office, Okorocha has shown himself as being spontaneous and overtly disinclined to due process. Long term strategic planning is not Okorocha’s strong point but he has been able to put some landmark structures in place – whether qualitative

or not; people-oriented or not; purpose-driven or egodriven; futuristic or impulsive – there are some new infrastructures in place in Imo that people can give credit to Okorocha for. Much as some extol the governor for this, very many others would easily accuse the governor of indiscriminately erecting structures that bear little or no relevance to the welfare of the people. Okorocha is a daring politician with a heart large enough for adven-

ture. He understands the intricacies and manoeuvrings of the electioneering process. A dominating personality with immense oratorical power, the easiest way to lose an election to Okorocha is to take him for granted. He understands street life and ordinary people and is adept at weaving compelling political sentiments to his favour. One of the things that

would work against Okorocha is the zoning question in the state popularly referred to as the Imo Charter of Equity In 2011, Okorocha demolished the perceived zoning arrangement in the state by emerging governor soon after his kinsman; Chief Achike Udenwa had served as governor of the state for eight years. Both Okorocha and Udenwa are from the Orlu zone of the state, while the Owerri zone is yet to get a shot at the governorship

seat since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999. With Okigwe zone also kicking that they are yet to have a full share, zoning will definitely be an issue in the 2015 governorship election in Imo. Though the governor has tried severally to dismiss zoning as fostering mediocrity, it definitely remains one of Okorocha’s major disadvantages in the forthcoming governorship election in 2015. Whatever is the case, Governor Okorocha is in

the 2015 Imo governorship race for good and propaganda alone cannot unseat him. It will take immense effort in strategic planning, coordinated sensitisation of communities and mobilisation of qualitative human and material resources to oust him. Emmanuel Ihenacho Captain Ihenacho worked himself into the psyche of Imo people during his brief stint in the federal cabinet as Minister for Interior. The shipping magnate did not miss the opportunity provided by his appointment as minister to brand himself into the minds of the middle class. Ihenacho like none other before him, leveraged on his position as minister to gainfully employ scores, if not hundreds of Imo citizens and this cannot be forgotten in a hurry. Since leaving office, he has sustained his empowerment programmes reaching out to his people and conveying his empathy for their plights. Ihenacho may not be a regular politician but his humanitarian approach to politics has gained him large space and followership in the Imo political landscape. For him, credibility and competence is everything. He maintains that Imo is so blessed with qualitative human resources to be ruled by what he described as ‘emergency governors’. The business magnate is believed to be clear-sighted on his vision and leadership trajectory for Imo. A vast majority of the Imo electorate perceive him as sincere and committed to the rejuvenation of Imo across all sectors as he has promised. Ihenacho is well able to fund his project without mortgaging state fund, if he is voted in. It is believed that in a free and fair poll, Ihenacho should be the man to beat come 2015. His major challenge, however, is the fact that his party, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) is deeply enmeshed in crisis. Though the Victor Umeh faction of the party insists that he is the candidate of the party, the Maxi Okwu faction is parading Senator Sylvester Anyanwu as their candidate while Chief Okey Ezeh is kicking at an Ihenacho candidature with everything he has. A divided house is the surest way to political defeat for a party like APGA especially when it is up against more powerful parties like the PDP and APC.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Banks cut, restructure exposure to oil sector

Stock Watch

Berger Paints Nigeria: Tough milieu cuts profit

Insurance

FG hinges slow growth on poor consumer trust

Fall in oil price, prospect for development, says Obaro

42-43

Money Line

Interview

Business Job losses to What's news

Nigeria accounts for 11% of N134trn MEA road, rail projects

A new report issued by Timetric’s Construction Intelligence Centre has estimated that about $791 billion of road and rail related projects are being planned or underway in 21 countries including Nigeria.

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Fresh crisis rocks NITEL sales for $252.25m The sale of Nigeria’s state-owned Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel) and its mobile arm, MobileTelecommunications (Mtel), is once again bogged down in confusion.

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The Business Desk Ayodele Aminu

Deputy Editor (Business)

Bayo Akomolafe

Asst. Editor (Maritime)

Sunday Ojeme

Asst. Editor (Insurance)

Godson Ikoro

Asst. Editor (Money Market)

Dele Alao

Industry & Agric Editor

Dayo Ayeyemi Property Editor

Adeola Yusuf Energy Editor

Wole Shadare Aviation Editor

Chris Ugwu

Capital Market Editor

APPREHENSION

The affected workers have been tidying up with a view to leaving their positions in January

Wole Shadare

alpable fear has gripped the aviation industry over imminent sack of professionals and others in the sector. Aside people who were said to have been ‘illegally’ employed by former Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah and a former Acting Director-General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Benedict Adeyilkeka, more people have been slated for retrenchment. Penultimate week, over 187 NCAA workers were relieved of their jobs for allegedly being employed without due process by Adeyileka in three months. Aviation Minister, Osita Chidoka, recently lamented the high rate of employment in the sector, saying that a situation where supportive staff far outweighs technical staff is not permissible. He told a gathering of stakeholders that a situation where recurrent expenditure far supersedes capital expenditure could lead to lack of provision of facilities for the industry. A source who works with the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) told New Telegraph at the weekend that the austerity measure that the Federal Government plans to introduce next year could see to the lay-off of majority of workers. The source, who spoke under the condition of anonymity, said that already, over 40 general managers across the three major aviation agencies - the NAMA, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) who have spent eight years in their positions but who are yet to hit the mandatory 60 years

continue in aviation Skilled personnel, others to go in Jan

of retirement stipulated by law are to leave the agencies in the first week of January 2015. The affected workers, it was learnt, have been tidying

up with a view to leaving their positions next month. Investigation by New Telegraph indicated that at least 15 technical personnel, major-

ly air traffic controllers, are affected by the government policy. CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

L-R: Consular General, United States of America Embassy in Nigeria, Mr Jeffery Hankins; Managing Director, Coca-Cola Nigeria Limited, Mr Adeola Adeluyi; Managing Director/CEO, Airtel Nigeria, Mr Olusegun Ogunsanya and Managing Director, Seven-Up Bottling Company Plc, Mr Sunil Sawhney, at the launch of Airtel Touching Lives TV Series in Lagos. PHOTO: GODWIN IREKHE

Nigeria, others mull $930bn oil, gas projects annulment Adeola Yusuf

uture oil and gas investments of $930 billion in Nigeria and other oil producing nations are under a new threat. This is because oil companies are planning projects cancellation due to the persistent

fall in oil prices in the international market, Goldman Sachs said. In its Top 400 analysis of the world’s largest new oil and gas fields, Goldman Sachs found that pre-sanction fields that are uneconomic at $70/barrel Brent crude represent 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd)

of 2020 production and 7.5 million bpd of 2025 production, or three per cent and eight per cent of current global oil demand. These future investments, according to the December 15 research note published by CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

Abdulwahab Isa Finance Editor

Kunle Azeez

Senior Correspondent

Chuks Onuanyin Energy

Nnamdi Amadi Reporter

Johnson Adebayo

Asst Production Editor

Rates Dashboard INFLATION RATE October 2014............................8.1% September 2014.....................8.3% August 2014............................8.5%

LENDING RATE InterBank Rate....................12.57% Prime Lending Rate...........17.93% Maximum Lending Rate...26.83%

EXCHANGE RATE

(Parallel As at Dec. 19)

USD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N193 Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N295 Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N23 4

l Foreign Reserves – $35.19bn as at 18/12/2014

Source: CBN

EXCHANGE RATE (Official As at Dec. 19)

USD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N169 Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N263.78 Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N207.20

Business | News

INVESTMENT Federal Government attracts large investment and participation from overseas Sunday Ojeme

new report issued by Timetric’s Construction Intelligence Centre has estimated that about $791 billion of road and rail related projects are being planned or underway in 21 countries including Nigeria. From the estimate, Nigeria is accounting for $108 billion (N17 trillion) representing about 11.1 per cent. According to the report, rail projects account for $490 billion of the total projects valued, with large-scale rail and metro developments

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Nigeria accounts for 11% of N134trn MEA road, rail projects driving the second and third placed markets of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. The top 11 countries of Algeria, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Republic of Guinea, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and the UAE account for $645 billion (82 per cent) of the total projects value. The report added that major rail projects had been planned for Nigeria, Iraq and Qatar, with Iraq’s planned National Rail Network worth $70 billion and Nigeria’s West Coast High Speed Rail worth $59 billion. Qatar is undertaking an Integrated Rail Network worth $43 billion. The largest value road developments were found in Algeria and Qatar, with

high value projects including the $11.2 billion East – West Highway Development in Algeria and the $5 billion Qatar – Bahrain Causeway. “Investment in railways and metro projects in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) is outstripping road investment, with governments attracting large investment and participation from overseas, particularly from China in African countries where

huge funding has been forthcoming,” said Neil Martin, Manager at Timetric CIC. He added: “The US, following the efforts of Europe and China, is now promising more funding and participation in the development of infrastructure in African countries, as demonstrated by the August 2014 US summit with African heads of state, when large investment was pledged for the con-

tinent.” Nigeria in recent time has embarked on an aggressive railway construction, rehabilitation and modernisation projects as well as foray into new roads construction, rehabilitation and expansion. Besides the series of agreement the Federal Government had signed in the past, the stateowned China Railway Construction Corporation Limited (CRCC)

last month signed about $12 billion agreement to build a railway along Nigeria’s coast. The project has been described as China’s single largest overseas contract. The Nigerian railway will stretch for 1,402 kilometres (871 miles) along the coast, linking Lagos, the financial capital of Africa’s largest economy and leading oil producer, and Calabar in the east, according to the report.

More jobs to go in aviation CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

The breakdown shows that no fewer than 50 workers in FAAN would be caught up with the policy. The Nigeria Meteorological Agency (NIMET) and the Nigeria College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria, are also to be affected by the purge. Most of the departments that would be affected by the policy in the next few days are ATC, Legal, Information Communication Technology,

ICT, Communications, Medical, Aviation Security, Aviation Security (AVSEC), and others. Besides, a source close to the Ministry of Aviation, who preferred anonymity, said the policy was a clear contradiction of the condition of service in the public service rule. The source said that for disengagement of workers, such a staff must have spent 35 years CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

Nigeria, others mull $930bn oil, gas projects annulment CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

Bloomberg, include shale developments, where the concept of pre-sanction/ post-sanction is more blurred. “In order to bring these projects back into profitable territory at $70/barrel Brent, costs would need to come down by 20 per cent to 30 per cent,” said Goldman Sachs’ analysts. “This is consistent with our view that CAPEX needs to come down by around 30 per cent for Big Oils in order to restore an acceptable level of free cash flow generation (4.5 per cent free cash flow yield, in line with the long-term average) at $70/barrel Brent.” Goldman Sachs found that less than one third of the Top 400 cost curve is profitable at current oil prices. The environment of project deferral and cost deflation will be extreme-

ly challenging for oil service providers, especially capital-intensive companies that require high asset utilisation, such as drillers, subsea construction and seismic. Oil prices have sunk in recent months due to concerns that global oil supplies will outweigh sluggish demand growth. United States oil prices brought a four-session losing streak after posting big swings earlier in trading, but few traders believe the recent strength in the oil market suggests a sustained rebound, the Wall Street Journal reported at the weekend. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude exporter has many projects, which she is yet to take Final Investment Decision (FID) on. The projects include the Brass LNG, The Olokola LNG, and The Train seven of the Nigerian Liqueified Natural Gas (NLNG).

L-R: Head Savings, Fidelity Bank Plc., Janet Nnabuko, Branch Leader, Corporate Branch, Fidelity Bank, Pascal Nzeribe, Executive Director, Lagos and South West, Fidelity Bank Plc., IK. Mbagwu, Star Prize Winner (Lagos) Chukwujekwu Osai, Head, Retail Group, Fidelity Bank, Richard Madiebo and Head, Branch Coordination, of the bank, Onyinyechi Ekwereonu at the Fidelity Bank Save4 Scholarship Savings Promo Prize Presentation in Lagos.

Local wheat production threatened as demand hits 4.75m tons SUPREMACY United States’ wheat displaces Nigeria’s Soft Red Winter (SRW) variety Bayo Akomolafe

espite the Agriculture Transformation Agenda (ATA) of the Federal Government aimed at increasing wheat production and other key crops, there are indications that Nigeria may not meet about 68 per cent of its local wheat production, as import rose to 4,750,000. Also, Nigeria’s domestic wheat production has dropped 20 per cent from 100,000 tons to 80,000 tons. The problem was traced to unfavorable local climate requiring expensive irrigation. Wheat cultivation in the country covers mainly the Sahelian zones of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi and Adamawa states, where commercial wheat production is possible through the use of

expensive irrigation. To cut wheat imports and save foreign reserves for the country, government in 2012 introduced a 15-per cent levy on imported wheat grains, thereby raising the total tariff from five to 20 per cent in 2013. However, the tariff and levy have not yielded any positive result, as 80 per cent of exports are still sourced from United State at the cost of $300 per metric tons. A report from the United States Department of Agric (USDA) said that exports to Nigeria from US has been jacked up from 2.9 million to three million metric tons per annum. The report noted that Nigeria was one of the top three global markets for US wheat with exports averaging three million tons. The US Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat is considered a high quality product and sells at premium. Besides, Nigeria also sourced the commodity from Russia, Australia, Canada, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and others.

In the last few years, Nigeria imported between 3.8 million and four million tons of wheat per year, but it was increased to 4.1 million tons in 2013. This year, Nigeria’s wheat import rose to 4,750,000 metric tons, raising the commodity import by 4.40 per cent. The USDA report noted that the country was using the Soft Red Winter (SRW) wheat for cookies production and Hard White Wheat (HWW) wheat for bread and noodle production. But from 2015, it was learnt that demand is expected to reach over 5.6 million tons as consumer demand for wheatbased foods continues to climb in response to changing tastes in domestic supplies of other substitute staple products within Nigeria and neighboring countries. The report explained that high demand for wheat flour for the production of wheat, noodles, pasta and biscuits had contributed to Nigeria’s wheat market being worth approximately $1 billion in US exports.

INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

In collaboration with

Sanctity of Truth

Militants Offered New Start At Home By ANDREW HIGGINS

AARHUS, Denmark — In many parts of Europe, he would now be in jail. But here in Denmark’s second-biggest city, the young man, a 21-year-old of Turkish descent who spent 13 months in Syria fighting in the name of Islam, passes his days playing soccer, working out at the gym and waiting anxiously to see if he has secured a place to study engineering at a well-regarded local university. “I feel at home. I have no problems here,” the former jihadist warrior, who spoke on the condition that he be identified only as Osman, said. Since his return to this tranquil port city, he has been part of a pioneering program that treats onetime fighters not as criminals or potential terrorists but as wayward youths who deserve a second chance. The program, closely watched by authorities around Europe, involves counseling, help with readmission to school, meetings with parents and other outreach efforts. It was first developed in 2007 to deal with far-right extremists linked to an Aarhus soccer club. Now, with neo-Nazi hooliganism on the wane and alarm over European jihadists on the rise, it has been redeployed to address one of Europe’s most hotly debated issues: How to deal with hundreds of young Muslims who have gone to fight in Syria and have now returned home. In much of Europe, the answer has been to lock them up, or at least put them under investigation by prosecutors. Belgium,

Continued on Page 26

JAN GRARUP FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Oussama el-Saadi leads a mosque that is cooperating with the authorities in Aarhus, Denmark.

INTELLIGENCE

Two sides of the torture debate in U.S. PAGE 24

MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Harvesting maca, a vegetable said to be an aphrodisiac. It has drawn Chinese with suitcases full of cash to Peru.

A Root Sets Off a Gold Rush By WILLIAM NEUMAN Junín, Peru

THIEVES RECENTLY BROKE into a storehouse in this farming town high in the Andes, knocked the manager over the head and made off with 1,200 kilograms of contraband. Trucks have been surreptitiously crossing the border, laden with an illicit substance bound for China. And with the price of their signature crop soaring, once-poor farmers bounce along the unpaved roads in shiny new vehicles. The precious stuff that has provoked sudden larceny and luxury here is not drugs, gems or precious metals. It is a pungent, turnip-like vegetable called maca, heralded as a cancer-fighting superfood and sold on the shelves of natural-foods supermarkets in the United States, Europe and Asia. It is so popular in China for its perceived aphrodisiac effects that this year Chinese buyers showed up here with suitcases full of cash to buy up the harvest, inciting a gold rush and setting off alarms in Lima.

WORLD TRENDS

Who will take Ebola’s orphans? PAGE 25

As maca booms, some Peruvians fear that they are losing control of a valuable crop with a history that goes back long before the time of the Inca empire. Officials say that many Chinese buyers smuggled the root out of the country in violation of a law that requires maca to be processed in Peru before it can be exported — a measure intended to protect local businesses. They say seeds were also smuggled out of the country illegally, despite a ban meant to prevent the root from being grown anywhere else.

“Thousands of acres are being grown outside the country without authorization,” said Andrés Valladolid, the president of Peru’s National Commission Against Biopiracy. Oswaldo Castillo, a maca grower and processor, worried that the Chinese “will get a monopoly over maca and be able to set the price on the world market.” He warned that some farmers had sold maca seeds to Chinese buyers. “We can’t let the seeds leave the country,” he said. “Maca is our ancestral food. It’s our pride.” The Chinese buying spree and the clandestine export of whole maca and seeds have led to questions about the ability of developing countries to control access to native species. But they have also stunned buyers of the root in the United States, Europe and Japan, who suddenly saw prices of processed maca shoot up, or were told that there was simply

Continued on Page 26

MONEY & BUSINESS

ARTS & DESIGN

In Brazil, pawnshops act as banks. PAGE 30

A cultural center grows in the desert. PAGE 34

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

O P I N I O N & C O M M E N TA RY The international community is expected to offer shelter and support to more than 100,000 additional Syrian refugees, who have been forced from their homes by their country’s bloody civil war. That is progress — but it is not nearly enough. Since the start of the conflict in 2011, fewer than 191,000 Syrians have been accepted for resettlement in countries outside the region. At a recent conference in Geneva, the United Nations refugee agency said 28 countries had made firm commitments to accept 66,254 Syrian refugees, and 11 other countries were preparing to expand existing programs or were considering expanding them, bringing total new resettlement slots to above 100,000.

ED I T O R I A L O F T H E T I M ES

Still Failing Syria’s Refugees The agency’s goal was to have countries accept 130,000 additional Syrian refugees in 2015 and 2016, and international aid agencies had pushed for an even higher total, 180,000 or more. Those figures are small when one considers that Syria’s civil war, now in its fourth year, has forcibly displaced millions of civilians, inside and outside the country. The overwhelming burden is borne by Syria’s neigh-

bors — Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt — which together have absorbed roughly 3.8 million Syrian refugees. The situation is not only financially costly but politically destabilizing. And the refugee problem can only become more acute since there is no end in sight to the war. Clearly, more countries need to step up and share this load. Many have refused to take in a single refugee, thus failing any reason-

able test of international citizenship and basic compassion. They include China and Russia and wealthy Gulf states like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The refusal of China and Russia to reach out is especially galling, since they consider themselves world leaders and have fueled the conflict through resolute support for Syria’s dictator, Bashar al-Assad. The Gulf

states have also played a role by backing various militant groups in the war. Even in Europe, which has more of a tradition of offering refuge to those fleeing conflict, only Germany and Sweden have responded in a generous way. Other European countries — Britain, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal — have fallen far short. The United States, the biggest donor of humanitarian aid to alleviate the Syrian crisis at $3 billion, has taken in only 300 Syrian refugees so far. Most Syrians will not choose to leave the region. But some of them wish to get on with building new lives and would like to leave. World leaders should listen to their pleas.

INTELLIGENCE/TIMOTHY EGAN

GAIL COLLINS

A War Hero and a Chicken Hawk

It’s Cruel. It’s Useless. It’s the C.I.A.

They’re old men now, one unable to dress himself without help, the other living with a transplanted heart. Old men with stories to tell and tailor for posterity, stories that might still bend history. When they were young men, they had choices to make, and those choices shaped what they said this month about an awful breach in American values. John McCain was the impetuous one, though duty-bound by family to serve. He fought in the unpopular war, was shot down, captured by the enemy and tortured. Everything he knows about what coercion and pain do to the truth, he learned in a cell in Vietnam. Dick Cheney took a more calculated route. He dodged the war with five draft deferments; he said he “had other priorities in the ’60s than military service.” Early on, he learned how easy it was to evade responsibility. This may be the last big fight of the two old men: a struggle over the accepted narrative of a time when a nation lost its way because of fear. It’s old news, you say. Torture again? Dog collars and waterboarding. Didn’t we see it all in “Zero Dark Thirty,” the film that implied — wrongly — that putting people in cages and stringing them up for days led to the break that caught the world’s most wanted terrorist? Old news it may be. But what happened in the first decade of this century will be chiseled as truth, in some fashion, and passed on in lesson form to Americans yet unborn. Cheney has long backed torSend comments to intelligence@nytimes.com.

ture, blithely supporting techniques that were called war crimes when used by Imperial Japan or Nazi Germany, and outlawed in treaties signed by most civilized nations. His central claim — not supported by a phone-book-thick body of evidence — is that torturing terrorists produced “phenomenal results,” including “the intelligence that allowed us to get Osama bin Laden.” Without having read the Senate Intelligence Committee report, he was quick to say that the barbarism committed in our name was “absolutely, totally justified.” And of course, he would do it all again, without hesitation. Two days later, he was the petulant child caught and cornered. Confronted with evidence that 26 detainees were wrongfully held, with examples of “rectal feeding” (rape by another definition), or induced hypothermia that most likely killed one suspect, he proclaimed the exhaustive inquiry “full of crap.” He still had not read the report. It’s impolite to call somebody a liar. So take it from the rare blunt headline recently in Politico: “Dick Cheney Was Lying About Torture.” This was a piece written by Mark Fallon, who was the special agent in charge of a task force that sought information from numerous terror suspects. What Fallon concluded is what any fair-minded reader of the Senate report will conclude: that “at no time” did the torture program produce intelligence that averted a terrorist threat. Nor did it lead to Osama bin Laden. That break came from a detainee, Hassan Ghul, who “sang like a tweetie bird” from the outset, as one officer said. Cheney cannot accept this,

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and probably never will. To do so would open him to more truth seeking — mostly about a war in Iraq built on misinformation. He speaks for many torture apologists in his party. The exception is John McCain. His principles, the straight talk that made him the hope of independent-minded voters some time ago, were missing in the years since Republicans abandoned mainstream ideas. He’s been too fast to give war a chance all over the globe. But on the singular point that defined McCain the warrior, he has been consistent: We don’t have to become bad guys to fight bad guys. And if that argument is not persuasive enough, consider the record on torture’s efficacy: It doesn’t work. When the former prisoner of war took to the Senate floor to address the issue, he gave one of the best speeches of his life. “I believe the American people have a right — indeed a responsibility — to know what was done in their name,” he said. Does anyone doubt this? Yes. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, said releasing the report was “a terrible idea.” Here’s McCain’s response: “The truth is sometimes a hard pill to swallow. It sometimes causes us difficulties at home and abroad. It is sometimes used by our enemies in attempts to hurt us. But the American people are entitled to it, nonetheless.” What happens to a country that gives up its values when gripped by fear? “Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights.” When McCain was done speaking, Senator Dianne Feinstein of California kissed him on the cheek. It was a way of saying thanks to a war hero whose words, if this country believes what it preaches, will outlast the scowling remarks of a chicken hawk.

We learned a lot from that big Senate Intelligence Committee report on Central Intelligence Agency interrogation tactics after September 11. One of the most unnerving parts involves the fact that the waterboarding, ice baths and wall-slamming were conducted under the direction of an outside contractor. It isn’t the first time the government turned to private enterprise and wound up with a human rights disaster — think Abu Ghraib. Or Blackwater. But this seems like an excellent place to demand a cease-and-desist. The specialists’ names are James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. Like many contractors doing work for the government, they’re former government workers themselves — in this case, military psychologists. And like virtually all contractors doing work for the government, they were making a heck of a lot more than they’d have gotten as federal employees. In this case, about $80 million. Mitchell and Jessen had acquired their expertise by teaching Air Force officers how to resist brutal Cold War-style interrogations. They had no experience as actual interrogators, did not speak any of the detainees’ languages and had no particular knowledge about Islam or Al Qaeda. They did have some theories about other psychologists’ work subjecting dogs to electric shocks until their will to resist was completely broken. Mitchell and Jessen set about applying the theory to prisoners the C.I.A. had collected. Some of them had been cooperating with interrogators. Others turned out to have had no involvement with Al Qaeda. Others, undoubtedly, were bad people with information the C.I.A. needed, who had resisted talking under nonviolent interrogation. The question then becomes whether they co-

operated better under “learned helplessness” or simply made up stories to placate their torturers and send the C.I.A. off in the wrong direction. The recent Senate Intelligence Committee report concludes that all the torturing produced very little information that was useful and possibly quite a bit that was madeup. While we would love to believe that the human rights angle would be most effective in shocking the American people, polls show that when it comes to suspects with possible terror involvement, the public attitude toward torture is kind of ambivalent. So, wisely, the committee’s big point was useless/counterproductive. “It’s wrong enough that one shouldn’t do it period. But wrong and useless is a tough combination,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He was on the Intelligence Committee when the report was being prepared. And why the private contractors? Maybe because the actual government interrogators didn’t believe torture worked either. What made the C.I.A. decide that these guys were a good plan? Tim Shorrock, the author of “Spies for Hire,” believes it’s just a way to hide things: “The activities of contractors are so easy to conceal in budgets.” Naturally, defenders of the C.I.A. are rising up to challenge the report’s findings. The Associated Press got hold of James Mitchell himself, who said that the report was “just factually, demonstrably incorrect,” then declined to say exactly what the inaccuracies were. Citing a secrecy agreement with the C.I.A., Mitchell didn’t share much else, except that being waterboarded was still better than being killed by a drone.

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

WORLD TRENDS

Mexicans Are Losing Faith With the Political Class By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD

MEXICO CITY — As the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded in Oslo earlier this month, a young man dashed on stage, unfurled a Mexican flag streaked with red paint and begged for help for his country because more than 40 college students have been missing for months after clashing with the police. At the Latin Grammy Awards ceremony in Las Vegas in November, the big winners, Calle 13, shouted solidarity with the victims as they performed. At home, mass marches have regularly filled Mexican streets with angry calls for the government to act against corruption and crime. But is the country’s political class listening? Mexico is expected to name a special prosecutor, who is supposed to root out bribery, favoritism and kickbacks and reveal the kinds of organized crime that prosecutors say were at play in the case of the missing students. That kind of determination

may be what the public demands. What it is getting, however, is a prosecutor with little of the independence necessary to carry out the stated mission, government watchdog groups say. The new position will operate under the attorney general’s office — headed by an ally of President Enrique Peña Nieto, who will have veto power over the Senate’s nominee. But the president himself is facing accusations of conflict of interest over a house that his wife tried to buy from a government contractor. And so, in a time of widespread tumult over the missing students, presumed dead at the hands of authorities working with drug gangs, Mexico faces a breach between the political class and the demands for change. Mr. Peña Nieto’s governing Institutional Revolutionary Party has a legacy of corrupt rule, and polls show a lack of faith in him. The left-leaning Party of the Democratic Revolution is in power in the violent state and city

Laments for murdered students are largely ignored. where the students disappeared. And the conservative-leaning National Action Party still gets criticized for failing to control the drug violence that soared when it held the presidency before Mr. Peña Nieto. “What has been proposed as solutions are like treating cancer with an aspirin,” said Juan Pardinas, a political analyst at the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a research group based here. “There is a kind of deafness on their part without recognizing the huge opportunity to change things in Mexico.” Some see the disconnect as willful. “It is a historic breach here,” said Mauricio Merino, an analyst at CIDE, a Mexico City

The Many Orphans Of Ebola

Sweetie Sweetie, on the floor in a group home, and 10,000 others have lost their parents to Ebola.

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

PORT LOKO, Sierra Leone — Sweetie Sweetie had no choice. Her father had just died of Ebola. So had her sister. Her mother was vomiting blood and fading fast. When the ambulance arrived, Sweetie Sweetie climbed in, too. With nowhere else to go, she followed her mother to an Ebola clinic and spent more than two weeks in a biohazard area where the other healthy people were wearing protective suits. As her mother grew sicker, Sweetie Sweetie urged her to take her pills. She tried to feed her. She washed her mother’s soiled clothes, not especially well, but nurses said they were moved by the effort. After all, they think Sweetie Sweetie is only 4. Health care workers did not know her real name, which is why they called her Sweetie Sweetie. After her mother died, the young girl stood outside the clinic’s gates looking around with enormous brown eyes. There was no one to pick her up. She was taken to a group home, whose bare, dim hallways she now wanders alone. Social workers are trying to find someone to adopt her. On a recent day she asked a visitor: “Do you want me?” Ebola has been wretched for children. More than 3,500 have been infected and at least 1,200 have died, United Nations officials estimate. Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea, the most-afflicted countries, have shut down schools in an attempt to check the virus, and legions of young people are now being drafted into Daniel Berehulak and Jaime Yaya Berry contributed reporting.

DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

hard labor by their impoverished parents. Little boys who should be in classrooms are breaking rocks by the side of the road; little girls struggle under gigantic loads of bananas on their heads. But the worst off, by far, are the Ebola orphans. The United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef, says that across the region there may be 10,000 of them. Many are stigmatized and shunned. People in hard-hit Ebola areas see children as mini time bombs. They do not wash their hands very often, they constantly touch people, they break all the Ebola rules. Something as simple as changing a diaper becomes a serious risk because the virus is spread through bodily fluids. Sierra Leone, which now has more cases of Ebola than anywhere else, was already a profoundly difficult place for a child. Nearly a fifth of children do not make it to 5. Child advocates say that rate is likely to increase because of reductions in immunizations and all the Ebola deaths. It is a miracle that Sweetie Sweetie survived. She slept in a bed next to her sick mother in a crowded unit with people dying all around her. She was never given a protective suit. She made her bed every morning and tried to keep her mother’s spirits up. So far, Sweetie Sweetie has not shown any symptoms. The social workers believe her father was a medicine man and her name might be Mbalu Kamara. The only family member

social workers have been able to find was a man they described as an uncle. They said he was an alcoholic and not fit to raise her. She continues to live in a group home with nine other children. Twice a day their temperatures are taken to make sure they are not coming down with Ebola. One infant was sucking on an empty box of milk. The house smelled like dried fish. The children spend a lot of time sitting in plastic chairs. Occasionally they play a game like Simon Says. “Watch this,” one of the social workers said. He waved over Sweetie Sweetie. “Ebola says,” he announced. Sweetie Sweetie answered: “Don’t touch.” The person most interested in adopting Sweetie Sweetie is a young health care worker who treated her mother and said the mother’s dying wish was for him to look after the little girl. His name is Usman Koroma. He explained how he had fed her extra portions of rice, oranges, soup and cassava porridge in the clinic, to boost her immunity. “I loved the child,” he said. Musa Conteh, a social services officer, said that the authorities had to be on guard for any signs of strangers adopting children for the purposes of trafficking. But the more he listened to Mr. Koroma, the more Mr. Conteh seemed reassured. “We will keep investigating,” he said. “But this man is educated. He can give her a new life.”

policy institute and one of 80 intellectuals and representatives of watchdog groups who called on political leaders recently to jettison the proposal for a single special prosecutor and instead create an independent body to fight corruption. “The political class has the power, and they are trying to keep it,” he said. New polls have shown Mr. Peña Nieto with the lowest popularity ratings of his two years in office. Dragging down the public mood are cases questioning the integrity of the state. First came the abduction of the 43 students. Then details emerged about a luxurious house that Angelica Rivera, the first lady, was buying on credit from a contractor with close government ties. The owner of the firm that built the house was part of a Chinese-led consortium that had won a government contract, that was caneled later, to build a highspeed train. Ms. Rivera backed out of the house deal.

Mr. Peña Nieto announced a 10-point plan this month that essentially included disbanding the 1,800 local police departments, putting state police departments in charge and giving the federal government the power to dissolve local governments that show signs of corruption. But analysts said it lacked concrete proposals to address the corruption in the justice system and the political parties. Many of the younger generation hope a “Mexico spring” will flower from the anger, but already a recent protest fell short of the large numbers of previous marches, and the demonstrators have lacked clear goals. But for a president who has shown careful attention to his public image the protest message may be beside the point. Hugo Sanchez, a professor at the National Autonomous University, said, “We are witnessing a political exercise that is completely detached from the population.”

After Decades, Bananas Rebounding in Somalia By ISMA’IL KUSHKUSH

AFGOOYE, Soma lia — Armed with machetes, the men push their way through the densely packed rows of trees, emerging every few minutes with large bundles of green bananas. A guard cradles a rifle and scans the tree line for intruders as the men throw the bananas on a trailer before dashing back for another load. After years of warfare that decimated an industry that was once the largest in Africa, the banana is making a comeback in Somalia. “Last April we exported to Saudi Arabia for the first time in 23 years,” said Kamal Haji

DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Civil war destroyed Somalia’s banana industry, worth $96 million in 1990. Nasir, 30, whose father owns this plantation in Afgooye, a town about 45 minutes’ drive from Mogadishu. “We are excited and hopeful.” For more than two decades, Somalia has been a country rife with war, anarchy, famine, piracy and terrorism. Many problems persist — there has been a surge in attacks by Shabab militants, the government is riven with infighting and there is a risk of famine — but the country has made some progress. Somalia elected a new presi-

dent and adopted a constitution in 2012, bringing some stability, and attracting pledges of aid from international donors. The Shabab have lost their grip over many towns. That stability has allowed farmers like Mr. Nasir to return to a business that has been in his family for four generations. Ba na na fa r m i ng wa s brought to the country by Italian colonists in the 1920s. Soon, bananas became a major staple of Somali cuisine and farmers began exporting to Italy and the Middle East. In 1990, Somalia’s banana exports were worth $96 million, according to the World Bank. That came to a halt when civil war broke out in 1991. Warlords and Islamic extremists vied for control. Rival warlords fought to control exports of the fruit as a source of hard currency. As the security situation began improving, banana farmers repaired irrigation systems and hired workers and security guards. In 2011 they established a company, FruitSome, to market and export their bananas. Banana aficionados say the ones from Somalia taste great. “Sweet, slightly sour, creamy vanilla,” is how Edward Baars, an agricultural engineer, described them. Jose Lopez of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said the country needed to attract more private investment to rebuild the industry. Omar Farah, a FruitSome representative, however, said he was optimistic about the future. “When you try a Somali banana,” he said, “you can tell the difference.”

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

WORLD TRENDS

A Root Rated as a Superfood Sets Off a Gold Rush in Peru Continued from Page 23 no maca left to ship to them. Zach Adelman, the founder of Navitas Naturals, based in Novato, California, one of the top importers in the United States, said that his company previously paid about $7.50 a kilogram for maca powder. Now some suppliers are asking for more than $40. “It doesn’t look like it’s coming down or stabilizing even,” Mr. Adelman said. Next year, he said, shoppers will pay up to $160 a kilogram. Some scientific studies claim to show a link between consuming maca and an increase in libido. Such beliefs go back centuries. One historical account says that the Inca emperor fed maca to his troops to give them energy but removed it from their diet after victorious campaigns to tame their sexual desire. Maca had all but disappeared as a crop by the 1980s but began a comeback in the 1990s, promoted by the government and aided by its reputation as an aphrodisiac. According to Peru’s Ministry of Agriculture, there were 2,520 hectares planted with maca in 2012, up from 1,300 in 2010. The amount appears to have grown significantly since then, and farmers said they planned to increase their plantings even more to meet the new Chinese demand. In June, as the harvest started, Chinese buyers arrived in this town of 10,000 people, which sits at 4,100 meters above sea level on a bleak plain surrounded by dun-colored hills. Within weeks, the vegetable, Andrea Zarate contributed reporting from Lima, Peru.

For maca farmers, new pickup trucks and larger houses.

MERIDITH KOHUT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Peruvian officials fear maca seeds were smuggled to China. Workers sorting dried maca. a member of the mustard family with a pungent smell and taste, soared in value, from about $4 a kilogram to more than $22 a kilogram for the most sought-after variety. Fortunes were made overnight. “It has changed my life,” said Pilar Cóndor, 25, standing beside her new black Toyota HiLux pickup truck, her 7-month-old baby, Kenny, wrapped in a colorful shawl on her back. “Not many people my age can buy a pickup truck based on their work.” She said that her family, which together farmed about 100 hectares of maca this year, also built

ONLINE: GROWING A SUPERFOOD

A slide show on the farming of maca in Peru: nytimes.com Search maca

an addition to their house and bought a truck to transport harvested maca. A day earlier, she said, they sold eight metric tons of maca for about $16 a kilogram, making more than $140,000. Peruvian officials are concerned about reports that farmers in China have begun growing maca. Mr. Valladolid, the biopiracy official, said those plantings could have been started only

with seed smuggled out of Peru illegally. Because maca rapidly depletes the soil, farmers typically plant a field for only two years, after which it must lay fallow for as long as 15 years. That has forced farmers to go farther and farther away to find land to plant. That is the problem faced by Hugo Arias, 53, considered the maca king for his extensive plantings. This year, he farmed more than 250 hectares and said he would increase that 20 percent for next year’s crop. He said he had used much of this year’s profit to buy farm equipment and rent more land. He is also building a

large new house in town. On a recent day, Mr. Arias exhorted about 200 workers harvesting maca, in a field at 4,500 meters, to work harder. “They say I’m exploiting people,” said Mr. Arias. “I don’t exploit anyone. I give people work.” Out of earshot of Mr. Arias, some workers said that despite receiving a raise this year they were not benefiting enough from the stunning rise in maca prices. They are paid $11.37 a day, they said, up from $9.65 last year. “A kilo of maca is how high?” said Victor Parra, 56, one of the workers. “So why do they pay us so little and treat us badly?” Maca's price jump has also brought trouble. Growers said they were staying up at night to guard drying tents and storehouses. Their worries increased after thieves struck the storehouse of a Japanese buyer. The thieves hit him on the head, then loaded sacks of dried maca into a pickup truck. Junínos, as residents here are called, typically consume maca two or three times a week, at breakfast. They boil the root and blend it with milk, fruit and sugar, turning it into a hot drink called maca juice. But with the rising price, many now forgo the staple. “The poor person in Junín can’t eat maca anymore,” said Olga Rapri, 48, who has a clothing shop in town. “Now you have to be rich to have maca.”

Militants Get a New Start in Denmark Continued from Page 23 Britain, France, Germany and Norway have all detained many returning fighters, on suspicion that they either joined a terrorist organization abroad or violated restrictions on travel to Syria. The Netherlands has barred some Syria fighters from returning, and ordered those who face trial to wear ankle bracelets. Belgium, the country with the highest number of Syria fighters per capita, has not only targeted returnees but also prosecuted people who stayed at home and encouraged others to go to fight. Denmark, with the second-highest number of foreign fighters per capita, has gone in the other direction, shunning punishment in favor of rehabilitation. “We cannot afford not to include them back in our society and make sure that their path of radicalization is changed, so they can be an active part of our society,” said Jacob Bundsgard, the Social Democrat mayor of Aarhus, a city that is the pioneer of the softer approach. According to the police, 31 Aarhus Muslims, all of them under the age of 30, have traveled since late 2012 to Syria to support forc-

es battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, but only one of them went this year. Five of these are believed to have been killed, including two women, and 16 have so far returned home. “What we are doing seems to be working,” said Jorgen Ilum, the chief of police for the region, describing the program as a “crime prevention” exercise that seeks to “protect society from extremists,” not to go easy on ji-

Rehabilitating those who return from Syria’s fight. hadists. The police chief acknowledged that full “rehabilitation” of returnees is extremely difficult, and that “none of them are completely normal,” but added that none had veered off into militancy since coming home. Fears that former fighters may run amok in their home countries have been intense since Mehdi Nemmouche, a 29-yearold French Muslim, killed four

people at the Brussels Jewish Museum in May after spending a year in Syria. In Aarhus, the returnees are screened by the police with help from the domestic security service, known as P.E.T., but so far none of the 16 who came home have been arrested. Instead, they have been offered a “mentor” whose task is to convince them that militancy has no place in mainstream Islam. Erhan Kilic, a Turkish-born Aarhus lawyer and observant Muslim who acts as a mentor, noted that young recruits to militant Islam often know little about their faith and pick up their views from watching videos on YouTube or from schoolyard chatter. The shift in focus from neo-Nazis to Muslim extremists in Aarhus has led to some controversial revisions to the original program, including an initiative by police to open dialogue with a local mosque that critics say is a breeding ground for radical views. The mosque, attended by 22 of the 31 who have gone to Syria from Aarhus, promotes a fundamentalist Salafi strain of Islam. Right-wing politicians have demanded that it be shut down. The mayor, Mr. Bundsgard,

JAN GRARUP FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

The police in Aarhus, Denmark, say 31 young Muslims from the city’s outskirts have left to join militants in Syria. said the mosque, Grimhojvej, “is a problem” that is “not doing the local community or the Muslim community any good.” But closing it without any evidence of illegal action, he said, was not an option. “In an open society,” he asked, “how do you challenge without compromising your fundamental principles the fact that some disagree with these fundamental principles?” Oussa ma el- Sa ad i, t he mosque’s chairman, said he agreed to allow the authorities in Aarhus to bring their program into the mosque after winning an assurance that officials did not want to meddle in religious mat-

ters and would “show respect” to the mosque’s take on Islam. Toke Agerschou, a local official who helps with the program, said putting returnees from Syria in jail "is easy" but will only expose them to further radicalization, while “integrating them back in society is very hard” but has a higher potential payoff. While proud of the results so far, some caution that the real test will come if more hardened fighters who have joined the Islamic State militant group start coming home. Mr. Ilum said, “If they have returned to Denmark already, they are not real extremists.”

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

WORLD TRENDS

Backing Agency, But Not Torture

Making the Most Of Our Stories

By PETER BAKER and MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Just hours before he responded this month to the Senate Intelligence Committee report accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of torture and deceit, John O. Brennan, the agency’s director, met with President Obama. The messages delivered later that day by the White House and Mr. Brennan were synchronized: After six years of partnership, the president was standing by the spy chief even as fellow Democrats called for his resignation. Few presidents have had as close a bond with their intelligence chiefs as Mr. Obama has forged with Mr. Brennan. Their relationship has shaped the policy and politics of the debate over the nation’s war with terrorists, as well as the agency’s struggle to balance security and liberty. The result is a president who denounces torture but not the people accused of inflicting it. “The quandary that Brennan faces is similar to the quandary that Obama faces,” said David Cole, a national security scholar. “Both are personally opposed to what went on and deeply troubled by what went on and agree that it should never happen again. And both are ultimately dependent on the C.I.A. for important national security services.” Indeed, rather than give his own speech on the report’s accusations against the C.I.A., Mr. Obama left it to Mr. Brennan to be the administration’s public face. In responding to the report, Mr. Brennan walked a line between his president and his agency. He embraced Mr. Obama’s decision after taking office to ban interrogation techniques like waterboarding and sleep deprivation. But he criticized only the “limited number” of C.I.A. officers who exceeded Justice Department rules governing interrogations. He rejected the committee’s contentions that the interrogation program was not central to thwarting terror plots and that the agency had misled the public about its effectiveness, yet he said it was unknowable whether detainees talked specifically because of the brutal methods. Colleagues said Mr. Brennan had an institutional responsibility to guard his agency. But that is a markedly different role than Mr. Brennan played as Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser in the first term, when he helped try to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and reined in perceived excesses. “On all of the debates, he was on our side on almost all of them,” said a former White House official, who like others did not want to be named. Mr. Brennan, 59, spent much of

PETE SOUZA/THE WHITE HOUSE

At the White House, with President Obama in 2012, John O. Brennan managed ‘‘kill lists’’ for drone strikes. his career as an Arabic-speaking C.I.A. officer. After September 11, 2001, he helped set up the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, later reorganized as the National Counterterrorism Center. But he was not made its director and, disaffected with President George W. Bush’s administration, he retired in 2005. When Mr. Obama took office, Mr Brennan was his choice for C.I.A. director, but that unraveled when Democrats protested over his close association with George J. Tenet during Mr. Tenet's leadership of the C.I.A. Mr. Brennan has said he opposed waterboarding during Mr. Bush’s tenure, but not every brutal interrogation method. In the end, he had to settle for the White House job. In a basement office next door to Denis R. McDonough, who would become White House chief of staff, Mr. Brennan had an outsized role running the war on terror-

The president and his intelligence chief walk a fine line. ist groups. He managed “kill lists” for drone strikes and could order air attacks in Yemen. He was identified with the escalation of America’s secret war in Yemen and the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, but he was also an ally of those resisting more hawkish policies in Afghanistan and Libya, and advocated freeing wrongly held detainees at Guantánamo. He made it easier for the president to restrain C.I.A. adventures; he could grill the agency as no other Obama adviser could. But he was also protective of C.I.A. interests. When Leon E. Panetta, who became Mr. Obama’s C.I.A. director, negotiated an agreement with the Senate Intelligence Committee for an inquiry into torture, Mr. Brennan erupted. “It did not take long to get ugly,” Mr. Panetta recalled in his memoir. “Brennan and I even exchanged sharp words.” Since becoming C.I.A. director

ONLINE: FROM THE DIRECTOR

John O. Brennan responds to a scathing report on C.I.A. tactics: nytimes.com Search Brennan last year, Mr. Brennan has fought with Democrats on the committee over the torture report. During one meeting, he pounded his fist on a table. “The C.I.A. is not a rogue organization,” he declared. Relations worsened when senators accused the C.I.A. of penetrating a computer network designated for the committee’s use and reading staff emails to find out how the committee might have obtained an internal C.I.A. study of interrogations ordered by Mr. Panetta when he was director. The C.I.A. inspector general admonished five agency officers and Mr. Brennan apologized, but relations remained raw. Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat on the committee, said on December 13, that he had yet to receive answers about Mr. Brennan’s exact role in the episode. “To stonewall about getting information about what he knew and when he knew it is really unacceptable,” he said. Several Obama advisers said privately that Mr. Brennan made a mistake by letting the situation grow so toxic. In October, Mr. McDonough flew to California to smooth things over with Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the committee chairwoman, and negotiate redactions to the torture report. Now, with the report, Mr. Brennan has become the agency’s defender, much to the chagrin of some of the president’s allies. “Brennan may be showing loyalty to the agency by trying to make sure none of his people are in legal peril," said Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an advocacy group. But “leadership would be if he used this crisis as an opportunity to make clear what the standards are going forward.” As for Mr. Obama, advisers said they doubted he believed the interrogation program yielded useful intelligence, but he made sure the C.I.A. got what it needed: cover against its critics.

Everyone has a story to tell. It might be a grand adventure, a comical mishap, or simply a life with its ups and downs. And how well you tell your story can LENS affect whether you get that job you really want, or whether you secure funding for your dream business. This, as Alina Tugend wrote in The Times, is where story coaches come in. “The specifics of storytelling are relatively easy to articulate,” said Andrew Linderman, who leads workshops and one-on-one training, and whose clients include American Express, the publisher Random House and a public television network. “It’s the nuances that make a story distinct.” For one thing, your story should use specific examples to illustrate your points. One problem people encounter, Mr. Linderman said, is that adults often analyze and explain an experience rather than describe events. So instead of relaying a judgment like “My boss is a jerk,” it is more effective to show with specific examples why this is so. It is also important to have a beginning, a middle and an end, as Ms. Tugend wrote: “Act 1, scene setting; Act 2, rising action; Act 3, the turning point; Act 4, the falling action; and Act 5, the denouement or release.” This pattern was tested by Keith Quesenberry, a lecturer at the Center for Leadership Education at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. With the help of his graduate students, he studied two years’ worth of Super Bowl commercials. They found that audiences connected with the commercials that had the most “acts,” and shared them more on social media. Knowing your audience is likewise an essential part of storytelling. Michael George Patterson, who told his story to The Times, is a case in point. A Native Alaskan, he uses his For comments, write to nytweekly@nytimes.com.

experiences to help others in his ethnic group avoid the mistakes he made. Mr. Patterson, 59, started smoking at 9, and is now at risk of dying from the effects of those years spent smoking despite quitting seven years ago. Along the way, he also lived through depression, violence and homelessness. And he is not alone: About 27 percent of American Indians and Native Alaskans smoke, the highest rate of any ethnic group in the United States. But rather than dwelling on dying, Mr. Patterson has chosen to spend the rest of his time trying to inspire others to make better decisions with their own lives. Addressing high school students in Juneau, Alaska, he spoke about his daughter and her two children, and his regret that he will probably not be around to see them grow into adulthood. He also told of their grandmother’s death in her mid-50s.

Not dwelling on dying, a man opens up to save others. She had been a smoker, too. “Michael telling his personal story is one of the most powerful things that can be done,” Dr. Tim McAfee, the director of the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Times. The organization selected Mr. Patterson in 2012 for a national antismoking campaign. So how can you tell your own story? Writing on a Times blog, Michael Gonchar offered a list of 500 prompts intended to spark ideas for narrative and personal writing. Among the suggestions: What objects tell the story of your life? Who is your family? What is your favorite place? What motivates you? When in your life have you been a leader? What are you good at? With some thought and a little practice, you can learn to tell your own tale. TESS FELDER

BEN HUFF FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Michael George Patterson started smoking at 9. Showing surgery photos in an anti-smoking campaign.

Sanctity of Truth

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

WORLD TRENDS

ISIS Rule Yields Chaos in Mosul

Iranians Keep Hope Of a Thaw By THOMAS ERDBRINK

TEHRAN — The text message, received as the deadline for nuclear talks was expiring, gave Fatemeh Moghimi a thrill she had been waiting years for. “The deal,” it read, “was done.” Ms. Moghimi, the owner of a leading trucking company, recalled that after she absorbed the news, she screamed to herself, “We’re in business!” But the message was a bad joke, and instead the nuclear negotiations were extended for seven more months — bad news for Iran’s battered economy. But Ms. Moghimi was unfazed. “I’m not giving up hope,” she said. “It is going to be over soon. It is as if the sun is peeking through the clouds after a terrible rainstorm.” Ms. Moghimi’s optimism, shared by many top businesspeople here, was dented briefly last month when nuclear negotiators agreed to a second extension of the talks without even a framework for further negotiations. But it is almost an article of faith in business circles that the latest extension is only the postponement of an inevitable thaw between Iran and the rest of the world. “The world needs this deal; we need this deal,” Ms. Moghimi said. “It will happen.” Both moderates and conservatives have expressed concerns about the rise in expectations that a deal will be cinched. They have been warning that the enthusiasm could turn to disappointment if the negotiations should fail, possibly

NEWSHA TAVAKOLIAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Many in Iran are optimistic that a nuclear deal will happen soon and will open economic opportunities for them. touching off unrest. “The prospect of a better future is enough to make them forget their problems for now,” said Farshad Ghorbanpour, a political analyst. The confidence is beginning to take on a life of its own, with executives in the major export industries — oil and gas, transportation and carpets — feverishly preparing for what they envision as gloriously prosperous days ahead. Meeting with foreign businesspeople at the conferences that are springing up regularly in Tehran, they are producing memorandums of understanding and other nonbinding agreements and even some contracts — all with caveats saying sanctions must be lifted first. “I have signed contracts with Europeans and Arabs to design five refineries,” said Mohammad Javad Hassannejad, the chief executive of an oil and gas consultancy, Petrosadian. He said the contracts could be worth millions of dollars for his company and would inject billions of dollars into the stagnant Iranian economy.

Tehran’s Chamber of Commerce is organizing an international conference for investors. When Ms. Moghimi thinks of Iran’s future she sees a thriving nation at the heart of the crossroads between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Her fleet of trucks will grow beyond imagination, she said, and she predicted that foreign companies would choose not the glitter of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, but the future boomtown Tehran for their regional headquarters. The wave of optimism began with the election of a moderate president, Hassan Rouhani, who promised to mend Iran’s ties with the world. Mr. Rouhani continues to encourage that thinking, saying recently that the “nuclear issue would be brought to its destination.” His foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, Mohammad Javad Zarif, promised after recently that a nuclear deal could happen “within weeks.” “Spirits are high,” Mr. Hassannejad said. “There is growing confidence. After the deal we will witness an unbelievable boom.”

Virginity Tests Upset Female Recruits By JOE COCHRANE

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Colonel Sri Rumiati made her career in the Indonesian National Police, but the day she was tested for it, in 1984, is one she would rather forget. During a mandatory physical examination, a doctor administered a so-called virginity test, inserting two fingers to see if her hymen was intact. “I was not comfortable with the test,” said Colonel Rumiati, who is now a police psychologist. “The test can be stressful on women and embarrassing.” It mattered little that the doctor who tested her was a woman. It felt like a violation, she said, one that does not determine virginity, that has no comparable equivalent for male police recruits, and that does not achieve its ostensible goal: evaluating a recruit’s morality. “You learn about the morality of a candidate from prosocial behavior testing,” or evaluating a person’s actions, she said. “It’s not about virginity.” Women who apply to be police officers in Indonesia have been subjected to virginity testing since at least 1965, when the po-

A practice dating to 1965 embarrasses policewomen. lice force was placed under the command of the military. But the issue has set off debate here since Human Rights Watch released a report last month with evidence that the policy was still in force. The organization said it had interviewed eight current and former female police officers and applicants. Married women are not eligible to become police officers. Indonesian state doctrine encourages women to be homemakers and caregivers to their children. The National Police chief said last month that female recruits did not undergo virginity tests. But hours later, two high-ranking National Police officials in Jakarta were quoted by the local news media confirming that the police force conducts the tests. While failing the virginity test does not disqualify a police applicant, she “may get fewer points if

her hymen is not intact,” Brigadier General Arthur Tampi told The Jakarta Post. Local women’s and human rights groups have demanded an end to the practice. Last year, the head of a local education office in South Sumatra Province suggested conducting virginity tests on high school girls to discourage promiscuity and thwart teenage prostitution. Thousands of Indonesians took to social media sites to criticize the idea, which was quickly dismissed by national government officials in Jakarta, the capital. Colonel Dede Rahayu, who runs the Police Women’s School in Jakarta, said she had never heard of any of her students or staff members having to undergo the test. The policewomen “who said they had that test didn’t understand what a virginity test is,” she said, noting that all applicants undergo a rectal exam and that they may have confused the two. “Or maybe they want people to think they were still virgins when they joined,” she said, half in jest. “A single woman not being a virgin is taboo in Indonesia.”

By BEN HUBBARD we say they are the state.” The Islamic State has used ERBIL, Iraq — As the school similar means to shape life in year began in Mosul, the exother cities it controls. Many tremists sent a message to of Falluja’s residents have fled teachers: Report for work or since the militants took over lose your jobs. this year, and services are Then, directives bearing the minimal. But morality police group’s black flag and hung in patrol, and recently castigated schools dictated the new order. young men for swimming in the Males and females were split Euphrates River because womup. Girls were to swap their skirts and blouses for black en might see them. The group gowns and veils that covered has made the most progress in their faces. Sports were only the Syrian city of Raqqa. But for boys. At the University of the United States and its allies Mosul, the schools of fine arts, often bomb its bases and oil fapolitical science and law were cilities near the city. And the deemed un-Islamic and closed. Syrian government bombs the Six months after the Islamcity itself. In Mosul, the group’s fightic State seized Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, its efforts ers have become less visible to overhaul the school system since the United States and reflect the limits of its efforts its allies launched an air camto build a self-governing capaign in August. This month, the group instituted a “sponliphate in Iraq and Syria. Although the group, also known sorship” system, whereby as ISIS or ISIL, presents itself anyone wishing to leave must as a liberating, governing register with a “sponsor” who force for the region’s Sunnis, would remain in the city and it has largely failed to provide could be arrested if the traveler civilian services, instead fodid not return. The group maintains some cusing its manpower on social local support. It has recruited control. men from Mosul’s poor hinterThe result has been a life of deprivation, fear and confusion lands for its Islamic Police, givfor the city’s one million remaining residents, according to interviews with people reached by phone in Mosul, whose full identities have been withheld. Electricity has been cut off for months, and the tap water is undrinkable. Residents now chlorinate it, boil it or filter it. The Islamic State trucks REUTERS in fuel from Syria, Militants find recruits for their but it is expensive Islamic Police in poor rural areas. A and fills the street with black smoke. police station in Mosul. Shops sell food, but prices are up because the Islamic State taxes ing them guns, salaries and artrucks entering its areas. Alranging their marriages. Other residents distrust Baghdad and though the Islamic State has its heavy reliance on Shiite mivowed to erase the Iraqi government, it relies on Baghdad litias. “The question is: If not to pay doctors, nurses, teachers ISIS, then who? The militias and others who keep civil instiand the military?” asked Haidtutions running. ar, a shopkeeper. “People say it In hospitals, factories and is better to have ISIS.” schools, the Islamic State has Mosul is largely free of the appointed “emirs” to oversee bombs that shake other Iraqi operations. From his office in cities, although the Islamic the Islamic State-occupied State broadcasts videos of education administration, an battles and executions at interEgyptian known as Thu al-Qasections and mosques. Checkrnain has called for wide-rangpoints appear randomly. Guning changes, including striking men check identification cards the word “Iraq” from textand search men’s cellphones, looking for secular songs or books. chats with girls. Punishments But implementation has been range from religious lectures to inconsistent, said Mohammed, fines to lashings. a high school teacher, because One man, Khalid, said that the Islamic State lacks persongunmen came to his house in nel. Gunmen near his school July and arrested his father, ensure there is no gender mixalong with other men from the ing, but there are too few to reneighborhood. His neighbors dact material in textbooks or went to a Shariah court to ask to monitor classes. “They are about their relatives. too occupied with their war,” “They never responded,” he Mohammed said. “The most said. “All of their talk is lies, important thing for them is that lies, lies. They said that he’d be back in a few days, but there Yasir Ghazi contributed has been no news.” reporting.

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MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Sanctity of Truth

MONEY & BUSINESS

Candace Campos, an American interior designer, brought Western aesthetics to Hong Kong. An exhibition at the PMQ center, right.

Hong Kong Recast as Hub Of Creativity By DANIELLE BELOPOTOSKY

HONG KONG — When Candace Campos moved from the United States to Hong Kong six years ago, she encountered few hurdles to opening her own interior design company. She started small, transforming her 70-square-meter home from a gutted commercial rental into a bright living space styled like a New York loft. A 2008 cover piece featuring her apartment in the Hong Kong magazine Home Journal drew interest from expatriates who wanted to bring Western aesthetics into their Hong Kong homes. “The idea of leaving pipes exposed, beams and columns raw, and floors as concrete was not a design aesthetic found in Hong Kong,” said Ms. Campos, 34. “So it was easy to stand apart from other designers.” Her company, ID Interiors & Identity Design, has produced designs for restaurants like the Michelin-starred Tate Dining Room & Bar and a boutique hotel in the city’s Kowloon district. Be-

yond her aesthetic, Ms. Campos said the absence of homegrown talent has given her an advantage. Her biggest competition, she noted, comes from other expatriates. But Hong Kong, known more for its cargo ports and financial sector than for a vibrant cultural or creative scene, is working to move past an economy based on manufacturing and reproduction of goods to one based on innovation, branding and design, said Stanley Chu, 64, the founder and chairman of the Adsale Group, which organizes international trade shows in Asia. The creative industries could be “the next economic locomotive of Hong Kong,” he said. In 2009, the government established CreateHK, an office dedicated to developing creative industries, which broadly include advertising, architecture, design, cultural heritage, the performing arts and film. The office has also worked with the local educational system, from primary schools to colleges, to develop

PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAM YIK FEI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

curriculums for teaching film, animation and architecture. The initiatives are starting to pay off. The contribution of the creative industries to the territory’s gross domestic product increased to 4.9 percent in 2012 from 3.9 percent in 2007, according to the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department — about

Moving a city’s economy beyond cargo and finance. 97.8 billion Hong Kong dollars, or $12.6 billion. The number of people employed in those fields also increased by 20,000 from 2007 to 2012, to 200,370. Private investors are working with the government to nurture local talent. The former Police Married Quarters, barracks from the colonial era, were trans-

formed under a conservation plan. The site, now known as PMQ, opened in April and now houses studios for more than 100 entrepreneurs in the creative industries, many of whom are product and fashion designers. It holds workshops on marketing and branding and has received more than 1.5 million visitors since it opened. Mr. Chu, who is also the chairman of PMQ, said its mission was to “raise the creative appreciation of the public.” His foundation, the Musketeers Education and Culture Charitable Foundation, donated 100 million Hong Kong dollars to the project. He said it was time for a broader change in Hong Kong. “In the future, why couldn’t it be ‘Designed in Hong Kong and manufactured in China’?” Mr. Chu said. Executives in creative fields say that although the local talent pool may be deepening, customers’ views on creative work can remain stuck in the past. The Savannah College of Art

and Design, an American university, is joining other efforts to bring credibility to the creative fields in the territory, said Robert Dickensheets, the college’s vice president in Hong Kong. It opened its Hong Kong campus in 2010. Enrollment increased to 600 in this year’s incoming class from 141 in 2010. Lucia Ho, 21, who attended the university, works full time for Peninsula Merchandising Limited, which produces merchandise for the Peninsula hotel chain. Ms. Ho helped design the packaging for the hotel’s mooncakes. She noted that of the 13 graphic design majors in the school’s first class, 11 had job offers before graduation in June. As more people like her find work in the nascent creative industries, they will begin to change the general perception of such work in Hong Kong, Mr. Dickensheets said. The long-term goal for Hong Kong, he said, is to create a culture in which “the designer can be valued as much as a banker.”

There’s Cash to Be Made in Idle Times By NICK WINGFIELD

SEATTLE, Washington — Last week, I had a few minutes to kill so rather than blow it on Facebook or Twitter, I made a little cash. I installed an app called Spare5 on my iPhone and, moments later, was using it to describe women’s shoes for the Internet retailer Zulily. After 12 minutes of tagging photos with words like “sandal” and “flats” I prepared to see my earnings. My payout: 26 cents. Internet companies have figured out ways to help people make money by sharing their cars or renting out their apartments. Now they want to give them a way to monetize downtime, the brief interludes when they’re sitting in a waiting room or riding the bus. The first generation of companies in the field — TaskRabbit, Lyft, Airbnb and Fiverr — turned

An app that allows the masses to earn in their spare time. people into microentrepreneurs, giving them the ability to profit from their skills and property. An app called Spare5 turns them into something else — call them nanoentrepreneurs. It isn’t a substitute for a job. It’s a substitute for playing Candy Crush and liking pictures on Facebook. “We all have this Pavlovian response, if you’re in an elevator or have a few minutes, we all pull out our phones and do something,” said Matt Bencke, the chief executive of Spare5. The idea behind Spare5 is to use that time more productively. The company’s corporate cli-

ents are harnessing the masses to help with a problem that has no great solution today: describing big libraries of photographs so that they are more easily discoverable through Internet search. Getty Images, the big distributor of photographs, is starting a program with Spare5 to help improve the quality of metadata on its photographs so that the most relevant images pop up first when its customers search for them. The other option for companies like Getty is to hand over their image tagging to low-wage countries like India. Steve Heck of Getty said it was challenging to train outsourcers to do the work well. An appealing part of Spare5’s pitch, he said, is it will use people who are qualified to do so to tag his images. One of them is Courtney Dale, a designer at an

The app Spare5 aims to be a more productive substitute for playing Candy Crush or liking photos on Facebook. architecture firm in Louisiana who made about $250 in about two weeks by using the app two to three hours a day. “It does make you look at what you do when you’re just sitting around doing nothing,” Ms. Dale, 25, said. There is something concerning, though, about the idea that unpaid spare time is time squandered. Arun Sundararajan of

New York University’s Stern School of Business says that services like Spare5 can be empowering to people who want more control over when and how they work, even if it’s for peanuts. But he says that can be taken too far. “Spare time is a good thing to have,” he said. “You don’t want to spend every minute making money.”

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Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

MONEY & BUSINESS

In Brazil, Lifeline at Pawnshops By DAN HORCH

ALESSANDRO GRASSANI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Yoox fills three million orders for luxury goods each year.

Success Begets Rivals For Luxury E-Retailer By NICOLA CLARKE

BOLOGNA, Italy — In a warehouse on the outskirts of Bologna, a three-story-tall robot is mining for a gem: a $980 sleeveless cocktail dress from Armani, in French size 42. This is how things work, behind the scenes, in the global electronic-commerce market for luxury goods — one of the last retail industries to drop the merchant’s veil of mystery and bow to digital efficiency. From this warehouse, the Yoox Group, an Italian company that has emerged as a global leader in online luxury, fills three million orders a year from customers in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. Helping fulfill those orders will be Yoox distribution centers in Tokyo, Shanghai and New Jersey. In the past, the inventory inside these drab walls could only be found on the racks of glittering boutiques of Fifth Avenue in New York, the Ginza district in Tokyo or Avenue Montaigne in Paris. But Yoox convinced the luxury designers that there could be an online market for their last-season lines and overstocked items. “Basically, we are bridging two worlds,” said Federico Marchetti, 45, the chief executive of Yoox. “E-commerce is a very analytical and process-driven business, while luxury is very visual — it’s all about creativity, the content and image.” Luxury goods were slow to go digital. The makers feared — besides a loss of cachet — that customers might doubt the authenticity of designer wares sold online. Although online sales still generate less than 5 percent of the $270 billion in annual luxury revenues today, global e-commerce in luxury is growing at a 30 percent rate a year, according to Altagamma, a Milan-based trade association for the luxury industry. “We are at an inflection point,” said Luca Solca, a luxury analyst in London. In the next few years, he said, “you are probably going

to see a very significant surge in digital engagement by luxury brands.” And that presents an opportunity and a challenge to Yoox, as well as to competitors like Net-aPorter, a British fashion vendor, and members-only flash-sale sites like Vente Privée of France or Gilt.com, which is based in New York. The e-luxury sites have grown by serving as online merchants for the designer brands. But Yoox also makes about one-third of its revenue — which totaled 456 million euros last year — by providing the back-end technology for the designers’ own websites, including Valentino, Alexander Wang, Dolce & Gabbana and Jil Sander. The risk, though, is that as more luxury brands recognize the possibilities of online commerce, they will elect to take that

Helping exclusive brands overcome a dread of the digital. business in-house, rather than farm it out to Yoox. Generalist e-tailers like Amazon and T-Mall in China are eager to grab a slice of the lucrative luxury pie. Still, Yoox remains one of the few online luxury players to turn a profit throughout the downturn in the Euro zone. Its net earnings rose 24 percent in 2013, to 12.6 million euros, and the company expects sales and operating profit to increase by 20 percent for full-year 2014. Mr. Marchetti said that, to try to keep a step ahead, Yoox was offering consulting services that now include digital marketing, social media strategy and advanced customer analytics. “We are someone to leverage on,” Mr. Marchetti said. “We provide the car, but for us the best thing is if we have a great driver. And the driver is the brand.”

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Interest rates in Brazil would make a loan shark blush. Credit cards charge more than 240 percent a year. Bank loans top 100 percent. For a number of consumers in need of cash, a pawnshop is the better option. When Angela Pereira, a stayat-home mother in São Paulo, needed extra money to buy her daughter school supplies, she pawned a gold chain to get 530 reais, or about $210. Adjusting for the country’s high inflation, she is paying interest of around 19 percent a year. “It’s accessible and cheap,” she said. The swelling Brazilian middle class helped feed the broader economy for years. But growth is slowing, and consumers are struggling to pay their bills. While still a relatively small portion of lending, the pawnshop business has been booming. Pawnshops in Brazil are regulated at the national level and are operated by a government-owned bank, Caixa Econômica Federal. Like any other bank, Caixa’s branches have desks for new savings accounts and loans; and rows of tellers for deposits and withdrawals. But in 463 of Caixa’s branch offices, one row of tellers has scales and jewelers’ kits to weigh and test precious metals and jewels. After the inspection, the teller offers a loan, generally equal to 85 percent of the item’s value. The teller does not ask about income or credit history — just name, address and tax identification number. João Régis Maga lhães, Caixa’s national superintendent of consumer finance, said it was logical that pawn loans should charge lower interest rates than other loans: “The risk is very low because we have a guarantee that we will get our money back.” From June 2004 to June 2014, consumer credit in Brazil rose 658 percent to $297 billion, according to the country’s National Association of Executives in Finance, Administration and Accounting. Caixa’s pawn loan portfolio has more than doubled in the last four years to $670 million, with 1.3 million loans outstanding. The central bank reports that 6.7 percent of personal bank loans and 26.3 percent of credit card accounts are in default. By comparison, Caixa said that only 0.6 percent of pawn customers missed their payments. It is planning to double the number of branches that offer such loans by the end of 2015. Marianne Hanson, an economist with the National Confederation of Commerce, said many low-income households, for whom credit was a novelty a few years ago, “are now learning how interest works and that they have to look for the cheapest alternative.” Credit that requires some kind of collateral, like a pawn loan, fits that bill, she said. And even middle-class households are turning to pawnshops to try

to break the cycle of debt. Arianna França, who works for the São Paulo state court system, faced an emergency. Her father’s health insurance did not cover all the procedures to treat his cancer. As a civil servant, Ms. França has the option to use so-called consigned credit, where the amount owed is deducted from the borrower’s paycheck, and the rate is about the same as on pawn loans. But she was already spending more than 30 percent of her income on consigned-credit payments — the limit permitted by law. So she pawned her jewels and raised 40,000 reais to pay off her credit cards. The interest is low enough that she is now paying

Using jewelry to avoid high-interest credit cards. down her principal and expects to have her jewels back next year. While pawn loans can provide a needed lifeline, they also pose risks. For years, Valéria Ferraz, a holistic therapist in São Paulo, has pawned her jewels to help pay the bills when business is slow, then redeemed them when clients return. “It’s so easy to get extra money, sometimes I do it even if I don’t really need it,” she said. Ms. Ferraz admitted that she had once lost a ring because she had failed to make her payments.

When a consumer defaults, Caixa displays the pawned item on its website. Interested parties bid, and if the amount raised in the auction is greater than what the client owes, the client receives the difference. But because Caixa values jewels based only on their raw materials, without taking craftsmanship into account, the auction price rarely reflects the full value. Reinaldo Domingos, president of the Brazilian Association of Financial Educators, said pawn loans might be cheaper than other options but they are still not cheap. “For many people, the snowball of debt keeps growing,” he said. Yet for those who keep their borrowing under control, pawn loans can replace high-interest credit cards. Carmelita Valente, a retired administrative assistant in São Paulo, pawned rings, necklaces, a pendant and earrings to help with household expenses after her husband died in 1992. She has never defaulted. But she also has not redeemed her valuables. Instead, for the last 22 years, she has used her pawn account as a line of credit. Caixa lets her borrow up to 4,000 reais, but it is rare that she owes that whole sum. “A few months ago I had some money, so I paid off 1,200 reais. Last month I took out 600 to pay for repairs in my home. It depends on what I need each month,” she said. She currently owes 2,300 reais. “But with God’s help, I’ll redeem my things, someday,” Ms. Valente said. “I couldn’t bear to let them go. They’re part of my family history.”

PAULO FRIDMAN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

A government-owned bank operates Brazil’s pawnshops, keeping interest rates low.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

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Sanctity of Truth

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Rover Finds a Clue to the Existence of Life on Mars By KENNETH CHANG

SAN FRANCISCO — Life on Mars? Today? The notion may not be so far-fetched after all. A year after reporting that NASA’s Curiosity rover had found no evidence of methane gas on Mars, all but dashing hopes that organisms might be living there now, scientists have reversed themselves. Curiosity has now recorded a burst of methane that lasted at least two months. For now, scientists have just two possible explanations for the methane. One is that it is the waste product of certain living microbes. “It is one of the few hypotheses that we can propose that we must consider as we go forward,” said John P. Grotzinger, the mission’s project scientist. The scientists also reported that for the first time, they had confirmed the presence of carbon-based organic molecules in a rock sample. The so-called organics are not direct signs of life, past or present, but they lend weight to the possibility that Mars had the ingredients required for life, and may even still have them. “This is really a great moment for the mission,” Dr. Grotzinger said. Calculations indicate that sunlight and chemical reactions in the Martian atmosphere would break up the molecules within a few hundred years, so any methane there now must have been created recently. A geological process known as serpentinization, which requires both heat and liquid water, may have been responsible for it. Or it could be a product of life in the form of microbes known as methanogens, which release methane as a waste product. Even if the explanation for the methane turns out to be geological, the hydrothermal systems would still be prime locations to search for signs of life. The new findings, which are described in detail in a paper in the journal Science, are a reversal from a year ago, when scientists said Curiosity had

A Hubble telescope image of Mars. NASA’s rover, left, recorded methane; scientists believe it may have been the waste product of microbes. ONLINE: 28 MONTHS ON MARS

An interactive feature on the rover’s exploration of Gale Crater: nytimes.com Search 833 Sols

PHOTOGRAPHS BY NASA

Methane may have come from living organisms. found no signs of methane. Since then, the scientists refined their measurements, detecting a background level of methane of 0.7 parts per billion. That is half of what was predicted, raising another mystery that somehow methane is also being destroyed. But in November 2013, two months after the scientists reported the absence of methane, the rover measured methane levels 10 times as high. “It was an ‘oh my gosh’ moment,” said Christopher R. Webster of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the lead author of the Science paper. The methane levels stayed high through at least the end of

at the edge of the instruments’ capabilities, and the methane appeared to disappear two years later. If true, that meant not only that was something creating methane on Mars, but also that something else was quickly destroying it. Many Mars scientists decided that a simpler solution to the methane mystery was that the measurements were mistaken, a conclusion bolstered by the absence reported by the Curiosity team last year. Now, Dr. Grotzinger said, “It’s back on the table.” Michael J. Mumma of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led one of the teams that reported large methane plumes in the Mars atmosphere in 2003 based on measurements from Earth — and has found no methane since 2005 — said the new data was “pleasant” after years of doubts from critics. The new Curiosity measure-

NEWS ANALYSIS

By BENEDICT CAREY

Protests are flaring up in the United States against the proliferation of standardized tests. For many parents and teachers, school has become little more than a series of workout sessions for the next assessment. And that is exactly backward, research shows. Tests should work for the student, not the other way around. In an experiment published late last year, two University of Texas psychologists threw out the final exam for the 900 students in their intro psych course and replaced it with a series of short quizzes that students took on their laptops at the beginning of each class. “They didn’t like it, at least at first,” said one of the professors, James W. Pennebaker. The other professor, Samuel D. Gosling, added, “For the first few weeks, every time their friends went out drinking, they couldn’t go

January. An earlier measurement in July had also been high, although it dropped by half a week later, and the margin of error made it unclear what was going on. Curiosity made no methane measurements between July and November 2013. Sushil K. Atreya of the University of Michigan, a member of the science team, said it was possible that elevated methane levels lasted from July through January. “It could have been over six months,” he said, “but we don’t know that.” Given its quick appearance and quick disappearance, the newly discovered methane was a relatively small burst, mission scientists suspect. A decade ago, three teams of scientists reported that they had detected methane in the Martian atmosphere — two using observations from Earth, one using the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter. All of the measurements were

Studying for the Exam by Taking It — they had yet another quiz the next day.” But they did significantly better than a comparison intro psych class, both in their grades and on a larger quiz that included 17 of the same questions that appeared both in the quizzes and on the other class’s midterm. The quizzes were especially beneficial for the type of students — many from low-performing high schools — who don’t realize how far behind they are until it’s too late. One leading researcher in this field, Henry L. Roediger III of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, argues that tests of varying scale and intensity can deepen learning. “We now know that testing, including

self-testing, is an especially powerful form of study,” said Dr. Roediger, co-author of the book “Make It Stick.” How so? Because retrieving facts, formulas or concepts is a threefold mental act: finding the sought-after information in the vast catacombs of the brain; bringing it consciously to mind; and finally, storing it. That newly stored memory will be embedded in a host of additional associations and connections and be much easier to recall later than if you’d merely read it again. The beauty of broadening testing beyond basic assessment is that the approach can be applied at home, easily, for students of all ages. Most young

children squirm through their homework, but many love to play teacher. By cutting short “study time” and asking them to be the teacher, parents can make the session more fun, more interactive and a richer learning experience. Teaching is self-testing of an especially potent kind. Ditto for making an outline of a chapter (with the book closed), or discussing the material with a friend or roommate. One reason scientists suspect that studying in pairs or groups can be helpful is that students are forced to talk to one another about the material — or better yet, argue about it. These are all forms of self-examination, and as such deepen learning. The brain is an exotic learning

ments “confirmed this startling reality that methane is being released, sporadically, and it is being destroyed quickly,” he said. “Both events are surprising.” As for the organic molecules, they showed up in a mudstone nicknamed Cumberland that Curiosity drilled in May 2013. Within Curiosity is a miniature chemistry laboratory that detected significant amounts of the organic molecule chlorobenzene, in much higher concentrations than had been seen in other rocks it had examined. Scientists spent months analyzing whether the organic compounds came from Cumberland or contamination Curiosity had brought from Earth. “You don’t want to be faked out,” Dr. Grotzinger said. The scientists are still unsure whether Cumberland contained chlorobenzene, which is not a naturally occurring compound on Earth, or if that was the end product of chemical reactions involving other organic molecules in the rock as it was heated. But they convinced themselves that the organic carbon is Martian. “In part, Curiosity was built to explore for organics,” Dr. Grotzinger said, “and we found them.”

machine. It does not take orders well. You can tell it to remember the major players in history, stress how crucially important that is, and on the test a week later very little comes back. And yet you might remember nearly every player in every team that took part in the elimination rounds of the last Champions League. Why? Because the brain doesn’t listen to what you say; it watches what you do. And thinking often about Cristiano Ronaldo’s or Lionel Messi’s goals and assists, arguing about the players: These are mental actions, as well as subtle forms of testing knowledge. Testing in all its permutations, subtle and otherwise, convinces the brain the knowledge is useful, and important. And by varying one’s testing strategies, the actual final exam — the dreaded assessment — isn’t nearly as scary.

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Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Studying The Way A Gecko Climbs

In Science of Aging, Hope and Hucksters By TRACEY SAMUELSON

For thousands of years, people have sought to escape or outrun their mortality with potions, pills and elixirs. Despite this enduring quest, most scientists say we are no closer to eternal life today than we ever were. Conversations about longevity, however, are an entirely different matter. Researchers are optimistic about recent efforts to delay the effects of aging and, perhaps, extend life spans. But at the same time, the scientific community is wary of how quickly these findings are packaged and resold by companies promising a fountain of youth. “It’s probably worse today than it’s ever been,” said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “As soon as the scientists publish any glimmer of hope, the hucksters jump in and start selling.” Understanding the process of aging and developing treatments that might slow the rate at which people grow old could help doctors keep patients healthy longer. We won’t be able to stop or reverse aging, but researchers are interested in slowing its progress, such that one year of clock time might not equal a year of biological time for the body. That could delay the onset of diseases like cancer, strokes, cardiovascu-

An industry that makes billions on ‘fixes’ for old age.

in peer-reviewed journals and that he knew of about 20 others that appear to affect life span or health span in mice. The goal is to see if those benefits can be translated into humans to increase their longevity, “to find interventions that we can use in people that might, say, make a person who’s 90 feel like they’re 60 or a person who’s 70 feel like they’re 40 or 50.” Dr. Nir Barzilai of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York said, “Intuitively, we understand that we age at different rates so the question is, really, ‘What’s the biological or genetic difference between those who age quickly and those who age slowly?’ ” Drugs that mimic the effect of those genes might be beneficial to the rest of the population not born with them. The global anti-aging industry was worth $195 billion in 2013 and was projected to grow to $275 billion by 2020, according to the market research firm Global Industry Analysts. Products include beauty creams, Botox, dietary supplements a nd prescr ipt ion medications, not all of which seek to reverse aging as much as minimize its visible effects. D r. Olsha nsky points to resveratrol supplements a nd human growth hormones as products that are marketed as having anti-aging benefits soon after initial scientific studies MICHAEL APPLETON FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES suggest promising reResearchers are developing drugs to sults. But resveratrol, increase our ‘‘health span,’’ the period often made from the when people can live independently. skin of red grapes, is still being studied and commercially availlar disease and dementia, which able products are premature, become more prevalent as people he said. Growth hormones are age. a more severe risk, he said, be“By targeting fundamental cause they can actually be danaging processes, we might be gerous for those who take them. able to delay the major age-re“People are aware of the aglated chronic diseases instead ing process, and they want to of picking them off one at time,” interfere,” Dr. Barzilai said, but said Dr. James Kirkland, a prohe said he thought it was a misfessor of aging research at the take to turn to Internet remedies. Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. “For “Some are causing harm. Some, example, we don’t want to have maybe, you couldn’t care less, a situation where we, say, cure and some might be even good, but cancer and then people die six we don’t know that.” months later of Alzheimer’s It is a message Dr. Olshansky disease or a stroke. It would be echoes — instead of spending better to delay all of these things money on aging “fixes,” he sugtogether.” gests that people accept the This is where the field known bland prescription doctors have as the biology of aging is movbeen offering for decades: a healthy diet and exercise. “You ing — to develop drugs that will don’t need to spend money,” increase life span and what rehe said. “Maybe a good pair of searchers refer to as health span, running or walking shoes would the period of life when people are work. Exercise is roughly the able to live independently and only equivalent of a fountain of free from disease. youth that exists today, and it’s Dr. Kirkland said that at least free to everyone.” six drugs had been written up

By JAMES GORMAN

An irresistible attraction to gecko feet is an occupational hazard for engineers who study how one thing sticks to another. Geckos can climb just about anything, including glass, and in 2002 scientists identified the force of molecular attraction that bonds dry gecko foot pads to a surface. Engineers copied nature’s invention with synthetic gecko-inspired materials, but the artificial materials didn’t work well with heavy loads like the roughly 70-kilogram body weight of Elliot W. Hawkes, a graduate student in mechanical engineering at Stanford University in California. He was part of a team that developed a climbing rig that had gecko-inspired sticky pads. And he is in a video demonstrating them ascending a short distance up a glass surface. He readily acknowledges that he looks nothing like Spider-Man. “The whole idea of a Spider-Man suit just ignores ergonomics,” he said. “We don’t have the upper body strength that a gecko has.” In the rig the group developed, the pads on Mr. Hawkes’s hands

Copying nature’s invention works, up to a point. are made of a number of small patches of an existing synthetic material based on gecko feet. Cables run from the pads to foot platforms so that his body weight is on his legs and he is leaning forward. But what made the rig work, the researchers say, is the way they attached many small patches of adhesive material to the full hand pad, using degressive springs, which evenly distribute the weight of a human climber so that every small adhesive patch carries an even part of the load. The research arm of the United States Defense Department created a functioning climbing rig a couple of years ago, the Stanford team said, but did not publish all the details of how it was done. The Stanford team, which included Eric V. Eason and David L. Christensen, graduate students, and Mark R. Cutkosky, a professor of mechanical engineering, reported their work November 19 in The Journal of the Royal Society Interface.

Elliot Hawkes using his gecko-inspired climbing rig at Stanford University in California. Top, a gecko’s foot.

ONLINE: GECKO MAN

Adhesive pads inspired by the gecko: nytimes.com Search gecko

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Sanctity of Truth

N E W YO R K

From Ground Zero Up, and Down Cost Overruns and Delays for Transit Hub

A Tower That’s Tall and Shiny, But With Little Else to Inspire The observatory, with the wraparound, nosebleed views, is not finished. Almost half the office space isn’t leased yet. But 13 years after September 11, 1 World Trade Center is up and running. “It’s not so bad,” said an architect who has a window facing the building. Alas, it is. REVIEW Like the corporate campus and plaza it shares, 1 World Trade speaks volumes about political opportunism, outmoded thinking and upside-down urban priorities. It’s what happens when a commercial developer is pretty much handed the keys to the castle. Tourists will soon flock to the top of the building, and tenants will fill it up. But even a tower with an outsize claim on the civic soul needs to be more than tall and shiny. The building’s mirrored exterior is opaque, shellacked, monomaniacal. An abbreviated obelisk, the building rises to 104 stories atop a square, 20-story, concrete bunker, only partly disguised behind butterflylike louvered glass panels. The tower’s thick, chamfered corners produce octagonal floors and a facade of steep, interlocked triangles. From any direction, the building looks the same. It stops at about 420 meters, the height of the former twin towers, achieving its target number — at 541 meters — by virtue of a skinny antenna, making it the tallest in the Western Hemisphere. Replacing the twin towers with another giant office building was somehow supposed to show New York’s indomitable spirit: the defiant city transfigured from the ashes. Instead, 1 World Trade implies (wrongly) a city bereft of fresh ideas. It looks as if it could be anywhere, which New York isn’t. Its widely respected architect, David Childs, from the mega-firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, also designed 7 World Trade, across the street, an elegant, glazed trapezoid, with a profile that shifts as you move around it. It’s a skyscraper that attends to what’s happening on the ground, where Lower Manhattan has been coming back to life. There had been talk after September 11 about the World Trade Center development including housing, culture and

MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

By MOSI SECRET

Amid the giant billboards of Times Square, the small neon signs seem almost quaint — one with an outline of a naked woman in repose, and others blaring the store’s attractions. Adult DVDs. Private viewing booths. All male selection. There was a time when such places were countless in New York, when Times Square was a panorama of sex and grime. Now there are fewer than a dozen here, relics of zoning changes and of pornography’s migration to the Internet. And for those that still exist, like the Playpen, even fewer offer the rarest of spectacles: the live peep show. The six booths on the Playpen’s third floor lead not to a screen, but to a glassed-in view of a small room

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

retail, capitalizing on urban trends and the desire for a truer neighborhood. But the idea was brushed aside by the political ambitions of former Governor George E. Pataki of New York, a Republican, and the commercial interests of Larry Silverstein, the developer with a controlling stake at the site. Stripped of prospective cultural institutions, as well as of street life and housing, the area is destined to die at night. On the plus side, the place is state of the art, with supersonic elevators, and a whitewashed, vaulted lobby behind blast walls masked by cheery abstract art. Many New Yorkers hated the twin towers, but their sculptured corners captured sunlight at dawn and dusk, creating ribbons of orange and silver that floated up toward the ether. The towers changed, depending on where you stood, at what hour. The space between them shifted, too; it opened or closed as you moved around the city. At 1 World Trade, there’s no unraveling of light, nothing to hold your gaze. By comparison, Britain’s tallest tower, the 95-story Shard in London, by Renzo Piano, dissolves and shimmers as day passes into night. With its hotel, offices, restaurants, apartments and observation deck, the Shard is also an all-in-one mixed-use development, built on a busy transit hub. The point is that something better was possible in Lower Manhattan. That said, one day shops may flock to the office towers, and the memorial plaza may become more like a park. Life has a way of taking over even the most unpromising places in New York. Until then, 1 World Trade is a cautionary tale. The public had a big stake in making it great. That stake wasn’t leveraged. Not so bad should never be good enough.

With its long steel wings poised sinuously above the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub has finally assumed its full astonishing form, more than a decade after it was conceived. Its colossal avian presence may yet guarantee the hub a place in the pantheon of civic design in New York. But it cannot escape another, more ignominious distinction as one of the most expensive and most delayed train stations ever built. The price tag is approaching $4 billion, almost twice the estimate when plans were unveiled in 2004. Even the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which is developing and building the hub, conceded that it would have made other choices had it known 10 years ago what it knows now. “We would not today prioritize spending $3.7 billion on the transit hub over other significant infrastructure needs,” Patrick J. Foye, the authority’s executive director, said in October. The hub, or at least its winged “Oculus” pavilion, could turn out to be more of a high-priced mall than a travel nexus. The company operating the mall promises in a promotional video that it will be “the most alluring retail landmark in the world.” But whatever its ultimate renown, the hub has been a project plagued by problems far beyond an exotic design by its exacting architect, Santiago Calatrava. The soaring price tag has also been fueled by the demands of politicians whose priorities outweighed worries about the bottom line, as well as the Port Authority’s questionable management and oversight of contractors. George E. Pataki, a Republican who was then the governor of New York, was considering a run for president and knew his reputation would be burnished by a train terminal he said would claim a “rightful place among New York City’s

TODD HEISLER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

DAMON WINTER/THE NEW YORK TIMES

The World Trade Center train terminal, with its winged pavilion, is nearing $4 billion in cost. most inspiring architectural icons.” The authority had to build under, around and over the Number 1 subway line, which runs through the site, at a cost of $355 million. Michael R. Bloomberg, who was then the mayor, demanded in 2008 that the memorial be completed by the attack’s 10-year anniversary. That meant part of the hub’s roof had to be built first, adding about $75 million to the budget. Mr. Calatrava, a native of Spain, was at the top of his game when chosen for the project in 2003. His train stations, bridges and cultural buildings were sensations, though some have since been criticized for their cost and design. Going beyond what the authority had sought, he designed all of the hub, including the underground mezzanine, train platforms and concourses. Mr. Calatrava insisted on curvilinear steel elements that could only practicably be manufactured abroad. One factory in Italy produced one-third of the 33,000 metric tons of steel in the hub. The entire steel bill was $474 million. The design’s boldest gesture called for a roof that could open to the sky. It would take four years to kill this exorbitant idea. Despite the cost overruns and delays, Mr. Foye predicted the hub would be a “world-class transit gateway” that would “help transform Lower Manhattan into a thriving 24/7 neighborhood.” It is intended for up to 160,000 commuters daily. The authority expects to open the hub next year. What did nearly $4 billion buy? Certainly an arresting structure, but one whose details do not match the shimmering images that Mr. Calatrava used to seduce officials a decade ago. The ribs of the mezzanine looked sleek in the renderings, for instance, but have the texture of stucco because of a fire-protective coating. Asked why no one had smoothed the surfaces, Mr. Calatrava’s office answered, “The client was not prepared to spend the additional money.”

Peep Show, a Relic of a Sordid Past where a dancer like Anastasia awaits. Two decades ago, when she first started performing in peep shows, Anastasia recalled how she would earn $600 on good days and $200 on slower ones. These days, she said, if she makes $100 during a shift, she is happy. “It’s kind of like a joke now,” she said. “Men come in now and they’re like, ‘They still have this?’ ” In 1995, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani began a campaign to close sex-oriented businesses, using zoning regulations to strictly limit “adult establishments.” The regulations were loosened after court challenges in the late

1990s, but only 10 adult businesses remain in the Times Square district, according to a group that promotes business in the area. Nine or 10 people work at the Playpen, handling sales, minding the security cameras and cleaning out the booths. The women who work upstairs, are considered independent contractors. The workers asked that their names not be used. Each of the booths is the size of a small closet and divided by a wall with a panel that lifts to reveal a window. The panel rises when patrons put $10 in a machine and then pay an additional tip to the dancer. Most women

will do a striptease for $20, and masturbate for $30. Anastasia learned to like her job, because it was easy and the money was good. Business has dwindled, but her regulars save her. She has names for them: “Stockings guy — he likes me to wear stockings. I have cigarette guy, who I smoke for. I have tape recorder guy, who I haven’t seen in forever. Him I have to tell stories into a tape recorder.” During the middle of the day, the busiest hours, middle age or older men walk in toward a familiar product or toward the booths. “Everyone who comes through the door, they walk in with one

thing on their mind, which is sex,” a porter said. “You can’t have a conversation with them. You can’t really talk with them. You lose touch with humanity.” Although Anastasia said she is miserable, she sees a bright side. “We want to leave,” she said. “But at the same time, this job afforded me a lifestyle that I wouldn’t have been able to have. I don’t have skills. I am a high school dropout. I was a teenage runaway. My kids had $500 birthday parties and Jordans.” She is thinking about returning to school in the hopes of starting a new career. The porter would love to be a doorman. But until then, they will keep reporting to the Playpen, even as it loses customers. “I can’t compete with the Internet,” the porter said.”

Sanctity of Truth

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

ARTS & DESIGN

New Art Capital Finding Its Voice

A rendering of Frank Gehry’s planned Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, which includes huge cooling cones.

By CAROL VOGEL

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — The site of the future Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is desolate these days: just arid land and concrete pilings jutting out over a peninsula on Saadiyat Island, north of the city’s urban center. But it is poised to become an international tourist attraction in about three years, when a stunning museum designed by Frank Gehry, a tumble of giant plaster building blocks and translucent blue cones, is scheduled to open. The $800 million museum will be about 42,000 square meters, or 12 times the size of the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright landmark in New York and will showcase art from the 1960s to the present. The collection is being done by Guggenheim curators. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is one of three museums under construction that are being financed by the government of Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. A branch of the Louvre, designed by Jean Nouvel, is opening next year. And the Zayed National Museum, lionizing a former ruler, designed by Norman Foster and created with the British Museum as a consultant, is expected to open its doors in 2016. “We have to begin somewhere,” said Zaki Anwar Nus-

GEHRY PARTNERS

seibeh, a cultural adviser at the emirates’ Ministry of Presidential Affairs. “Hopefully, in 20 or 30 years’ time, we will have our own cultural elite, so our young people won’t have to go to London or Paris to learn about art.” As recently as the 1950s, Abu Dhabi was little more than a cluster of tiny villages and date farms populated by fishermen, pearl hunters and nomadic Bedouins. It wasn’t until the advent of oil production in the 1960s that the emirate got its first paved roads; later, hospitals and schools arrived. Abu Dhabi announced the museum projects eight years ago, but economic fears and political unrest froze work by 2012. “All the pilings were in, and then everything just stopped,” Mr. Gehry said. “Everybody was silent.” A year ago, he heard from a new group at the development company that was determined to see the projects through. More recently, the region has been at the center of a worker-abuse scandal, focused on the New York University campus in Abu Dhabi, which was built by migrant laborers. The group Gulf Ultra Luxury Faction has led several protests at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Before the protests, Mr. Gehry said, he was contacted by Human Rights Watch. “I spoke to the emirates,” Mr. Gehry said. “And they’re concerned about it, too. We’re going to make sure everything is done properly.” Abu Dhabi has been modest in its acquisitions. People close to the museum say it has a budget of $600 million. About 250 works have been purchased so far. About 10 million tourists came to the region last year. The local airport is undergoing a major expansion so that by 2017, it will be able to handle 45 million passengers a year from Africa, Asia, India and Pakistan. To address this mix of cultures, said Richard Armstrong, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, curators have been forced “to get away from the bipolarity of seeing art history from the point-of-view of America and Europe.” Instead of calling the museum global, they describe it as transnational, to reflect “the rich fabric of information being shared among cultures in the Middle East,” Mr. Armstrong said. The museum will consist of four levels, the first primarily for the permanent collection and the others dedicated to spe-

cial exhibitions. The museum will also have different kinds of spaces, including giant exterior cones that provide shade for visitors. Mr. Gehry said he had devised them after spending time in the Middle East. “I noticed that even though it’s hot, the men tended to hang out outdoors because the air-conditioning is so strong,” he said. His system of cones, somewhat like a tepee, vents hot air out the top. Seeing Through Light: Selections From the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Collection,” an exhibition of 19 artworks intended for the new museum, opened last month at Manarat, a visitor center on Sadyiaat Island. It explores artists’ use of light and includes one of Yayoi Kusama’s “Infinity Rooms,” a blackened galaxy of water and mirrors lit by minuscule handblown LED lights; a hanging light ball by Otto Piene, of the German Zero group; and a bronze sculpture by the Egyptian-born artist Ghada Amer. “We’re trying to look at popular culture across time and space,” said Valerie Hillings, who is leading the curatorial team. “These are different points of reference, yet each is universal.”

Repairing the World With Design Activism By ALICE RAWSTHORN

TOKYO — As odd as it is to see an exquisite 17th-century Japanese bowl in a contemporary design exhibition, it seems odder still to discover that it is there because of the skill with which it was repaired during the late 1800s. Tsukuroi, or the art of repair, is so revered in Japan that it is believed to create a new form of beauty. In “The Fab Mind: Hints of the Future in a Shifting World,” an exhibition here, the bowl acts as a prelude to a display of work by the Fixperts. This international network of contemporary designers and makers experiments with digital tools and ancient techniques to customize new objects and repair damaged ones. The Fixperts, founded in 2012, are among several dozen design groups from different countries whose efforts to devise ingenious solutions to social, economic and environmental problems are explored in the show. The exhibition focuses on the new wave of design activists, who treat design as a means of pursuing political objectives or

as a medium for research, rather than as a commercial discipline. They are able to do so thanks to the technological advances that have made it possible for them to operate independently — by exchanging ideas on knowledge-sharing platforms, financing projects through crowdfunding campaigns, testing inexpensive digital production systems (like 3-D printing) and raising awareness of their work via social media. (The “Fab” in the title alludes to the “fabulous” ingenuity of their experiments with new forms of fabrication.) Designers are using new technological tools to anticipate the future, often with ominous results. Takram, a Japanese design engineering firm, has produced a visualization of the impact of rising sea levels and dwindling resources on Earth 100 years from now. “The Fab Mind” also illustrates a gentler aspect of radical design practice: celebrating neglected aspects of daily life. A project by the Dutch designer Christien Meindertsma pays tribute to the skill and dedication of Loes Veenstra, a wom-

an who spent 60 years knitting over 500 sweaters, none of which were worn. In addition to making a book about the sweaters, Ms. Meindertsma organized and filmed a flash mob of people, each wearing one, near Ms. Veenstra’s home in Rotterdam. Bread making is the theme of an installation by the Swedish

Lamp shades of plastic and stools made from cans. designer Josefin Vargo, who has assembled an archive of people’s sourdough starters together with their reminiscences of using them. Many of the exhibits embrace two important strands of design activism: conserving resources and helping those in need. The Spanish designer Alvaro Catalán de Ocón developed a series of lamps with colorful

shades woven by artisans in Colombia and Chile from shredded plastic bottles and other waste materials. And Studio Swine, a British-Japanese design group, has built a mobile foundry with which the catadores, who subsist by selling trash in the Brazilian city of São Paulo, can earn more money with stools made from aluminum cans. One of the most compelling exhibits is the work of someone with local knowledge: Massoud Hassani, who now lives in the Netherlands but was raised in an area of Afghanistan riddled with unexploded land mines. He designed an inexpensive metal and bamboo device, the Mine Kafon, which is blown across the ground by the wind, like a tumbleweed, to set off mines. He funded its production by raising over 150,000 euros, or about $184,000, on Kickstarter. More design activists will undoubtedly emerge in the future. Exhibitions like “The Fab Mind” play an important role in illustrating the possibilities, while reminding aspiring design radicals that not everything they do is new.

Pippi Ignites A Debate On Race By RACHEL DONADIO

STOCKHOLM — Since she burst onto the scene in 1945 with her mismatched socks, abundant freckles and two red braids sticking straight out of her head, Pippi Longstocking, a rambunctious, joyful girl strong enough to lift horses, has become a touchstone for generations of children who have read her in 65 languages. In Sweden, Pippi is something more: a national treasure and embodiment of the country’s egalitarian spirit. So when the Swedish national broadcaster announced this fall that it would edit two scenes that it considered offensive in a 1969 television series about Pippi — including one in which she says her father is “king of the Negroes,” using a Swedish word now viewed as a racial slur — it caused an uproar. The series was based on the Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren, the first of which were published between 1945 and 1948. Defenders of the decision, including the heirs of Ms. Lindgren, who died in 2002, said the change respected the spirit of the author. Even in 1970, she had called the term outdated and said she had not meant to offend. But many others — including tens of thousands of people who answered a Facebook poll on the website of Sweden’s largest daily newspaper this fall — said they opposed the revision. Coming just weeks after a hard-right party with skinhead roots won an unprecedented 13 percent of the vote in national elections, the Pippi controversy has tapped into a growing and often uncomfortable debate. It concerns ethnicity in a country that prides itself on its egalitarianism but in which ethnic minorities, a small percentage of the country’s nine million people, have only recently begun to have a voice. “When it comes to feminism, we’re better; when it comes to racism, we’re behind,” said the Swedish playwright and novelist Jonas Hassen Khemiri. Mr. Khemiri said that in an increasingly globalized world — and after the country had taken in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and asylum seekers in recent years — some Swedes were using Pippi to hold on to a traditional idea of Swedishness. Nils Nyman, 50, the chief executive of the family company that oversees the lucrative rights to Ms. Lindgren’s work, said that not making the changes risked distracting from the books’ broader message of “girl power before it was known” as such. In one scene, the racial slur has been removed so that Pippi now says, “My father is the king!” In the second, Pippi no longer pulls her eyelids upward, pretending to be Asian, yet still sings a mock Chinese song. Baker Karim, an Afro-Swedish film director, summarized the debate as one in which Swedes said: “ ‘We’re not racist! So could we just keep these racist stereotypes alive because we’re not racist?’ ”

Business | Money Line

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Banks cut, restructure exposure to oil sector RISK Oil companies account for 25 per cent of bank lending in Nigeria Stories by Godson Ikoro

s the nation’s currency, the naira continues to be under pressure due to the volatility of oil in the international market, Nigerian lenders who are exposed to the sec-

tor are cutting down and restructuring their exposures, the Managing Director of Sterling Bank has said. Adeola, who was fielding questions from finance correspondents in Lagos last Thursday, argued that generally, the fundamentals of the oil market does not justify the sharp reactions, saying that what has happened is “purely political.” The price of Brent Crude, Nigeria’s top brand, had nose-dived by 50 per cent to about $61 per barrel, putting Nigeria’s economy into jeop-

ardy and compelling the country to devalue her currency, raise interest rates, cut growth forecast as well as slash the 2015 budget. He insisted that after about six months, the situation will bottom out and oil prices will start to bounce back, noting that in 2008/2009 the oil prices went down and later rebound. Adeola said that the entire gamut of the oil price crash smacks of politics between the United States and the gulf region, which will soon ebb. He said: “But the truth

is that in advanced countries, banks do not panic when the price of crude goes down. The asset is there and it is permanent. For as long as you have proven reserves, what you simply do is to restructure the tenure of loans. “ So, if I had given a facility for five years, based on oil asset and the price goes down, I will restructure it to10 years. That is the general rule.” First Bank, Nigeria’s largest lender, and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc are among banks with the most at stake in the oil

FG sells N195.5 in T-bills, yields rise

he Federal Government at the weekend raised the sum of N195.56 billion ($1.06 billion) worth of treasury bills with maturities ranging between three months and one year at higher yields. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) sold N33.87 billion in 3-month treasury bills at 11 percent, compared with 9.99 percent at the Nov. 19 auction. A total of N51.30 billion worth of the six-month bill was

sold at 13.84 percent, against 10.8 percent previously. In the one-year tenor bill, the bank sold N110.39 billion worth at 15.99 percent, compared with 12.48 percent at the last auction. Meanwhile, the Nigerian interbank lending rates eased to an average of 15.25 percent at the weekend, from 42.5 percent last week, after some lenders rediscounted their treasury bills to access some cash

and dealers anticipated a budget disbursal. The overnight lending rate had climbed to 80 percent on Tuesday, as banks scrambled for naira cash to pay for their foreign exchange purchases and meet other obligations. “Many banks rediscounted their treasury bills holdings to get some cash support ... and this helped to ease the pressure on the market,” one dealer said to Reuters. The CBN last month

hiked the Cash Reserve Ration (CRR) on private sector deposits with commercial lenders to 20 percent, from 15 percent, to support the local currency. It also raised interest rates by 100 basis points to 13 percent. Dealers said cash from monthly disbursal of budgetary allocations to government agencies is expected to hit the banking system by close last weekend, which should further increase available cash.

Economic Indicators As at M2* CPS* INF IBR MPR 91-day NTB DPR PLR Bonny Light Ext Res**

N14,737,618.7m N16,509,472.5m 8 0.0000 12 10.899 7.96 17.01 US$109.9 US$42,604,781,796.6

Description

TTM

4.00% 23-Apr-2015 13.05% 16-Aug-2016 15.10% 27-Apr-2017 16.00% 29-Jun-2019 16.39% 27-Jan-2022 10.00% 23-Jul-2030

1.21 2.53 3.22 5.39 7.98 16.47

Tenor (Days) Call 7 30 60 90 180 365

Rate (%) 11.9167 12.3333 12.6667 12.9167 13.2167 13.5000 13.7500

NIBOR

Dec, 2013 Dec, 2013 Dec, 2013 2/5/2014 1/20/2014 11/6/2013 Dec, 2013 Dec, 2013 1/20/2014 2/5/2014 Source:CBN

FGN Bonds Bid Price 90.20 99.25 104.10 109.35 114.15 76.60

Offer Yield 13.01 13.40 13.47 13.49 13.44 13.59

Price 90.35 99.40 104.40 109.65 114.45 76.90

Tenor (Months) 1 2 3 6 9 12

Rate (%) 12.1827 12.2737 12.3744 12.8521 12.8535 13.8443

Treasury Bills Maturity Date 08-May-14 07-Aug-14 22-Jan-15

Bid 12.10 12.10 12.05

Bid Spot ($/N) 163.28 THE FIXINGS –NIBOR,NITTY and NIFEX of February 6,2014

NITTY

Yield 12.86 13.33 13.35 13.42 13.38 13.53

Money Market Offer 11.85 11.85 11.80 Offer 163.38

Open-Buy-Back (OBB) Overnight (O/N)

Rate (%) 11.33 11.63

NIFEX Spot ($/N)

Bid 163.4000

Offer 163.5000 Source: FMDQ

market. According to reports, First Bank has structured its oil loans, which form 40 percent of its portfolio, so that they can be serviced “at prices well below current market rates,” said Chief Risk Officer Abiodun Odubola. Similarly, Guaranty Bank’s lending to the oil industry has dropped from 28 percent to 22 percent since the end of September, spokesman Lashe Osoba said. And Skye bank, which has almost a third of its loans with petroleum companies, doesn’t expect defaults to increase at current prices, said spokesman Rasheed Bolarinwa. According to the vice president of banking services, Renaissance Capital Mr. Adesoji, the outlook for Nigerian banks is much linked to what happens to oil prices, which eventually feed through to the banks. Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, derives almost all export earnings and 70 percent of government revenue from oil.

The Nigerian Stock Exchange Banking Index has dropped 30 percent this quarter, reflecting investor concerns that petroleum companies may struggle to pay debt. Non-performing loans will climb to between 5 percent and 10 percent by the end of 2015 from less than 3 percent now, Fitch Ratings Ltd. said in a note yesterday. Bloomberg quoted Olalekan Olabode of Vertiva Capital Management limited as saying that oil companies account for 25 percent of bank lending in Nigeria. That’s even higher than in Russia, the biggest oil producer. Among the three largest Russian banks, OAO Sberbank relies on the industry for 2.2 percent of loans, VTB Bank OJSC 8.1 percent and Gazprombank OJSC 16 percent, company filings show. The country’s lenders form sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest banking industry after South Africa, with about $155 billion of assets, according to Exotix Partners LLP.

Foundation, IFC to create $90m fund for emerging markets

he Rockefeller Foundation and International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, said they are launching a project development facility aimed at unlocking private sector investment for infrastructure that helps build resilience across emerging markets. The organisations intend to raise US$ 90 million for the project. Both global institutional investors said they are keen to invest in infrastructure, but there aren’t enough well structured projects. In a statement issued at the weekend, both investors said, the Rockefeller Foundation is committing $10 million to this new facility. It stated further, that the facility would provide grant funding to support legal, technical, and financial advice to governments working with IFC on infrastructure projects that help cities build resilience and support poor and vulnerable people. This will accelerate the development of projects, and increase the number of bankable projects that reach financial close. The Foundation and IFC will aim to jointly raise an additional $40-

$90 million from other partners, which could help the development of up to 80 medium-to-large scale projects globally. Furthermore, it said the major challenge lies in the early stages of project development and lack of governments lack the capacity to structure, negotiate, and manage complex infrastructure transactions. This is a critical bottleneck, according to the statement, delays and often stalls the development of projects and culminate in not enough projects are coming to market. “Governments often need sound advice to navigate complex agreements when they work with private sector companies to develop infrastructure projects,’’ said Karin Finkelston, IFC’s Vice President for Global Partnerships. “This partnership provides a crucial link that can help accelerate the development of bankable infrastructure projects across the world.” This facility is part of a broader collaboration effort between The Rockefeller Foundation and the World Bank Group to expand financing solutions for resilience and infrastructure across emerging markets.

Business | News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Fresh crisis rocks NITEL sales for $252.25m DELAY The court case trailing the sale of the telecoms entities might create delay Kunle Azeez

he sale of stateowned Nigerian Telecommunications Limited (Nitel) and its mobile arm, MobileTelecommunications (Mtel), is once

again bogged down in by confusion. This followed allegations that government sold the company below the value offered by another willing buyer, according to PC World. The NATCOM consortium, headed by a Nigerian, recently emerged as winner of the bidding for the company, on an offer of $252.25 million. However, fresh controversy has emerged, with Arabian Amlak for Investment taking the matter

to court. Arabian Amlak is challenging government’s so-called guided liquidation process, via which Nitel is being acquired for far less than the $920 million the company claimed it offered. In the guided liquidation process, government is selling the company on the assurance that the buyer will continue to operate the company, rather than buying it and potentially selling off pieces. Government originally tried to sell the

company about 12 years ago through a typical competitive bidding process. But tentative deals struck though normal bidding all fell through for various reasons. Arabian Amlak then struck a tentative deal with government in a so-called “willing buyer, willing seller” agreement, in which a prospective buyer and a seller agree on a fair market value for a company. Under this process, Arabian Amlakwas pre-qualified

and was given a letter of acknowledgement by the Public Bureau ofEnterprise (BPE). Though the Nigerian government verbally requested that funds be transferred for the acquisition to go through, it effectively abandoned the deal after it received a request for documentation for the arrangement, according to Arabian Amlak. Now Arabian Amlak wants the court to stop the sale of Nitel. NATCOM was expected to revamp

Nitel’s operations in order to win back public confidence and be able to compete with private operators. However, with new issues surrounding the sale of the company, nothing is expected to happen until the court clear sup the legal wrangling. As has been the case of over the past 12 years, if the legal fight continues, NATCOM is expected to back out of the deal, BPE spokesman Chigbo Anichebe has told the media. “Arabian Amlak Investment has no case because they solicited for the bid but lost out. We don’t accept unsolicited bid.”

More jobs to go in aviation CONTINUED FROM PAGE 22

in service or attained the age of 60 years. The Federal Government had in 2009 introduced the tenure policy through the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye, for all civil and public servants who had attained Grade Level 17 and above or spent eight years in a management position. The policy had generated more controversies among the aviation agencies in the past. For instance, a document obtained by our correspondent from the Common Services Office with the reference number: HCSF/LU/ MCA/T/133/9, dated 20th October, 2009 and signed by the Permanent Secretary for Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mr Edugie Abebe and addressed to the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Aviation, Alhaji Idris Kuta, stated that the policy was restrictive to permanent secretaries and directors who had spent eight years on the post. The circular stated: “While noting that these institutions are established by laws with varied mandates, specialisation, remunerations and other conditions of service that are regularly updated, they are all under the larger public service. It should also be noted that this amendment affects officers on G.L. 17 or its equivalent in the departments and agencies. Accordingly, they are to operate within the framework of the 2008 public service rules (official gazette No. 57, Vol. 96 of 25th August, 2009).

Business | Stock Watch

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

FLUX The firm is experiencing a mixed fortune due to mounting economic challenges Chris Ugwu

oday’s marketing environment and consumption patterns among various marketing segments especially paint companies have become more turbulent. This is because just like any other sector of the economy, security challenges in some part of the country with the attendant consequences of loss of lives and properties, domestic constraints such as depletion of fiscal buffers, dwindling foreign reserves, erratic supply of public electricity, poor infrastructure, among others, have remain a thorn in the business operating environment especially the real sector of the economy. However, while it was accepted generally that the overall economic and business climate was a mixed fortune due to mounting economic challenges, Berger Paints Nigeria Plc was not insulated, though its share price movements have fairly maintained an upward trend, it remains susceptible to the challenges facing the manufacturing businesses in Nigeria. The company’s bottom-line had soared during the financial year ended 2013, but began to dwindle during the third quarter of 2014 to what market watchers attributed to stiffer competition and lack of accessibility to key markets in the Northern part of the country coupled with increased financing cost which have resulted in slow growth of many fast consumer goods companies. However, a market sentiment for the shares of the company has remained firm not only on the back of improved product rebranding but also on increased market penetration. Stockbrokers attributed investors’ sustained confidence in the stock to continued sales; marketing and distribution efforts as well as its strong presence across Nigeria. The share price which closed at N9.05 per share in January 31, 2014 has recorded a leap in growth that when the closing bell rang on Friday, the company’s share price stood at N9.00, a decrease of 5 kobo per cent or 0.5 per cent year to date. Corporate profile Founded on January 9, 1969, Berger Paints Nigeria Plc is a leader in the manufacturing, development, distribution and sale of paints and coatings to professional, industrial, commercial and retail customers in Nigeria. It operates in five business segments; Decorative, Industrial coatings, Marine and Protection coatings, Automotive/Vehicle refinishes and Wood Preservers and finishes. Its portfolio includes well known brands such as Luxol,Texcote and Superstar. With 18 depots, colour world

Berger Paints Nigeria: Tough milieu cuts profit Share price movement of Berger Paints Nigeria Plc 2014

Nygard

centres and a countrywide distribution network of dealers/ distributors in strategic locations spread throughout the country, Berger Paints remains at the forefront of the paint and allied industry in Nigeria. Its commitment to manufacturing and supplying quality products; earned it ISO 9001.2008 Quality Management System Certification. In 2012, Berger Paints entered into a partnership arrangement with the biggest paint company in South Korea, KCC, to jointly serve the Nigerian paint and coating market. The partnership affords its customers the quality and durability that marine and protective market have found synonymous with the KCC brands. Berger Paints has demonstrated its commitment to its consumers for over 53 years, by offering its varied range of high performing quality products backed by highest level of customer service. Financials Berger Paints had ended the 2013 financial year on an impres-

To regain its dominance in Nigeria and then reach out to other markets in West Africa, plans have been concluded by the company to build a fully automated paint

Jan 31

N9.05

Feb 28

N9.87

Mar 31

N8.90

Apr 30

N8.75

May 31

N10.00

Jun 30

N9.00

Jul 31

N8.60

Aug 31

N9.00

Sept 30

N8.60

Oct 31

N8.00

Nov 30

N8.70

Dec 19

N9.00

sive note as it posted a 33 per cent growth in profit during the financial year ended 2013. The unaudited financial result of the company showed a growth profit before tax of N379 million in 2013 as against N285 million recorded in the comparable period of 2012, representing an increase of 33 per cent. Operating income also showed an increase of 33 per cent, from N154 million in 2012 to N205 million during the year under review while turnover also grew to N2.709 billion in 2013 from N2.691 billion in 2012. The company also began the 2014 year on a positive note to record a 37.3 per cent growth in its pre-tax profit during the first quarter ended March 30, 2014. In its filings with the Nigeria Stock Exchange, the company’s pre-tax profit firmed up by 37.7 per cent to N70.384 million in the Q1 of 2014 from N44.145 million in the preview period of 2013. Also, post-tax profit equally increased 37.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2014 as the company declared N47.861 million compared to N30.018 million reported in same period of 2013. However, revenue dropped marginally by 3.09 per cent from N606.042 million in the Q1 of 2013 to N587.852 million in the review period of 2014. The profit line continued during the half year as the company posted six per cent growth in profit after tax. The company in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange said its half-year net earnings rose from N100.874 million in 2013 to N107.438 million accounting for an increase of six per cent. Its pre- tax profit equally rose to N157.999 million up six per cent from N148.344 million in the same period last year. However, the company’s dwindling fortune set in with the third quarter of 2014 as earn-

ings were compressed by weak sales leading to a dip in pre-tax profit by 41.2 per cent during the nine months ended September, 30 2014. The company in a filing with the Nigerian Stock Exchange said its third quarter net earnings decreased from N154.464 million in 2013 to N109.407 million accounting for a drop of 41.2 per cent. Its pre- tax profit equally fell to N160.892 million down 41.2 per cent from N227.15 million in the same period last year. Turnover decreased by 5.7 per cent to N1.817 billion during the nine months to September 30 from N1.921 billion recorded during the comparable period of 2013. Looking ahead Addressing stockbrokers and investment community at the company’s fact behind the figures recently, the Managing Director, Berger Paints Nigeria Plc, Mr. Tor Nygard, noted that with the aim to regain its dominance in Nigeria and then reach out to other markets in West Africa, plans have been concluded by the company to build a fully automated paint manufacturing plants in its Oba Akran premises in Lagos. The manufacturing plant, which according to him, will be the first of its kind in Nigeria and West Africa and commissioned towards the end of 2014 would produce the same high quality paints which are imported by others into Nigeria. Nygard explained that in 2012, the company entered into commercial arrangement with the biggest heavy duty coating manufacturing company in South Korea, KCC Corporation, to jointly serve the Nigerian and West African Marine and protective coatings market. “This arrangement complies with the provisions of the local content act and the requirements of the content registration board of Nigeria. This partnership creates an opportunity for transfer of much needed knowledge and training in the marine coatings sector to Nigerians, improving local knowledge in the onshore, offshore and shipping,” he said. Nygard noted that in August 2013, Berger Paints floated a right issue to raise funds for some of its strategic projects which, according to him, the right issue was oversubscribed and helped the company to raise N543 million. He said with the investment in a state of the art modern factory, creating the colours world centers across Nigeria and the Berger/KCC partnership, the company was well poised to bring cutting edge yet environment friendly products to beautify homes and support project investments.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Mansard to acquire Penman Pensions p.39

DISTRUST Many Nigerians hold a negative perception of the industry

Sunday Ojeme

ollowing unending poor performance of the insurance sector of the nation’s economy, the Federal Government has advised the industry operators on the need to boost the confidence of the insuring public as lack of consumer trust still poses a major challenge. The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, while giving the advice during the last insurance summit, also identified fragmentation of the industry, low enforcement of Compulsory Insurance policies, lack of professionalism on the part of some agents and brokers as well as a general shortage of skilled professionals in the entire industry as some of the challenges militating against the growth of the sector. The minister said for the sector to grow and realise the elusive N1 trillion gross premium income, the operators must work harder and harness the potential in the industry alongside tackling the challenges head-on. She observed that lack of consumer trust was making many Nigerians skeptical and holding a negative perception of the industry. Iweala said, I would want to touch on the low levels of enforcement of compulsory insurance in the country. And in this case, the regulator and most of our government agencies have more work to do. “If you take the case of compulsory motor vehicle insurance (third-party liability), only one in eight Nigerian cars (13 per cent) have genuine insurance. Compare this to Ghana, where the compliance rate is reportedly about 60 per cent. Or take the case of mandatory group life insurance for large businesses and organisations; again only a few large corporates in the oil and gas sector, the Federal Civil Service and the Police service are compliant. Many of our CAC-registered businesses do not comply with the law. “There is also the third problem of a general lack of skilled professionals in the industry –from underwriters, to brokers, to regulators and so on. I am informed by NAICOM that we currently have less than 10 professional actuaries in the country. This is grossly inadequate for the type of insurance industry we want to build in Africa’s largest economy.” While not losing hope of the situation, the honourable minister predicted that the Nigeria’s insurance industry was set to

Insurance

A.M. Best assigns ratings to Wapic Insurance p.39

FG hinges slow growth on poor consumer trust …as Nigeria’s investment risks remain high

Commissioner for Insurance, Fola Daniel

Okonjo-Iweala

Managing Director, Mansard, Yetunde Ilori

DG, NIA, Sunday Thomas

take-off, stressing that just like the banking industry reforms, a time would be when the insurance industry players would become strong, robust, and even begin international expansion. According to her, a time when the domestic insurers will begin to fully underwrite policies for the local oil and gas and heavy infrastructure sectors; when this industry will develop skilled actuaries and underwriters who can meet the highest international standards. She noted that to develop the potential of the industry, all stakeholders would need to work together to address the several challenges, stating that the Federal Government had an important role to play in the sector and that it would need to get better at enforcing compliance for some compulsory classes of

Certainly in terms of traditional kidnap exposure, Nigeria would be the number one place for us

10 insurance such as for motor vehicle insurance and group life insurance. She said the government would also need to clarify various regulations, for example on bancassurance and the use of corporate agents. Meanwhile, data from global risk consultancy, Control Risks, have identified Nigeria as hotspot for political risks ahead of Latin America, whose share of cases has dropped markedly over the past five to 10 years. According to the data, the proportion of global nominal output generated by countries with medium to high political and security risk are doubling in the past 10 years. Whether it be war, acts of terrorism, protests, or kidnapping, political and security risks are inherently unpredictable, as recent events in Hong Kong and

Ukraine have shown. “It is very much a moving target on a week-to-week basis depending on what is happening around the world,” says Michael Lincoln, National Underwriting Manager for Crisis Management Solutions at Liberty International Underwriters. Kidnapping has long been a significant risk faced by companies operating in volatile locations, but getting accurate statistics is difficult. “There have been so many kidnappings in East Asia, for example, that have not been reported in the public domain. Some of them aren’t even reported to police,” says Neil Fergus, Chief Executive of security consultant firm Intelligent Risks. Of the cases that are reported, Nigeria and West Africa in general have emerged as a global hotspot, while Latin America’s share of cases has dropped markedly over the past five to 10 years, according to figures from Control Risks. “Certainly in terms of traditional kidnap exposure, Nigeria would be the number one place for us, and that has particular relevance to Australian oil and gas companies working there,” says Dan Collinson, Australasia K&R Manager for AIG. The Gulf of Guinea has also overtaken the waters off Somalia as a global hotspot for piracy and hijackings, according to statistics from the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre. In the Asia/Pacific region there is some exposure to kidnapping risk in the southern Philippines in areas controlled by the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group, as well as in Papua New Guinea and West Papua. “There’s some exposure in Asia-Pacific, but it’s not as severe as in, for example, Afghanistan and Nigeria and other parts of the world,” Lincoln says. In response to such risks, insurers say more Australian companies are looking at political violence and terrorism polices to insure their international operations. “We’ve certainly had a big increase over the past six months of people inquiring about PVT coverage,” says Richard Cook, head of Marsh’s Political Risk practice. There hasn’t been as much interest in cover for kidnap, ransom and extortion, but the market penetration of KRE policies is up compared to five or 10 years ago.

Business | Insurance

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

A.M. Best assigns ratings to Wapic Insurance GROWTH More premium growth is anticipated in the medium term Sunday Ojeme

.M. Best has assigned the financial strength rating of B- (Fair) and the issuer credit rating of “bb-” to Wapic Insurance Plc (Wapic) (Nigeria), the operating holding company of the Wapic group of companies. The outlook assigned to both ratings is stable. The ratings of Wapic reflect its developing business profile in the Nigerian market, tempered (near-term) earnings prospects due to its

high expense base and solid risk-adjusted capitalisation. Wapic has been operating under new management since 2013, following its divestment by Access Bank. Wapic is a domestic non-life entity, which wholly owns a life insurer in Nigeria and a non-life insurer in Ghana. The group reported consolidated gross written premiums of N3.0 billion in 2013. Under Wapic’s new strategy, rapid premium growth in excess of 25 per cent per annum is anticipated in the medium-term as the group seeks to strengthen its competitive position by developing its profile within the corporate segment of the market and increasing its underwriting of

compulsory lines. The successful execution of its strategy is largely dependent on the group increasing its profile in the low penetrated and highly competitive markets of Nigeria and Ghana, and requires significant development of its direct distribution channels. As such, A.M. Best believes that Wapic faces challenges in implementing its plans and will continue to monitor the progression of this expansion over the medium term. Despite the relatively low claims environment in Nigeria, Wapic’s projected earnings are expected to be dampened by its substantial fixed

costs as the group establishes its operating infrastructure to support expansion. For 2014, Wapic is expected to produce a combined ratio in excess of 100 per cent, significantly lower than the 205.3 per cent reported in 2013, which was also affected by legacy claims issues that have now been settled. Although the company is anticipated to break even in 2014, Wapic will need to achieve significant scale within its operations to support meaningful contributions from its underwriting to overall earnings going forward. Wapic’s risk-adjusted capitalisation is expect-

ed to be maintained at a solid level, based on its performance forecasts. Wapic maintains a substantial surplus within its risk-adjusted capitalisation following a N7 billion capital raise in 2013. Medium-term growth in Wapic’s surplus base is expected to be underpinned by the full retention of earnings. Wapic’s balance sheet strength is supported by a conservative investment portfolio consisting mainly of cash deposits and fixed income investments and a panel of predominantly highly rated reinsurers. Positive rating actions could occur if Wapic successfully implements its business plans. This in-

cludes demonstrating a track record of solid underwriting performance whilst maintaining a strong level of risk-adjusted capitalisation. Worse than expected underwriting results, a decline in the quality of its investments or reinsurance protection, or a deterioration in riskadjusted capitalisation could result in negative rating actions. The methodology used in determining these ratings is Best’s Credit Rating Methodology, which provides a comprehensive explanation of A.M. Best’s rating process and contains the different rating criteria employed in the rating process.

Mansard to acquire Penman Pensions

ansard Insurance Plc has concluded plans to acquire 60 per cent of Penman Pensions Limited, a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA). In a notification to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Mansard said it intended to acquire the PFA and operate it as its subsidiary in the pension industry. The insurer has obtained regulatory approvals from the National Pension Commission (PenCom), the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is in the process of completing the transaction. The planned acquisition is seen as another positive development

for Mansard days after French group, AXA acquired 77 per cent stake in the insurance firm. AXA acquired 77 per cent Assur Africa Holding Limited (AAH)’s stake in Mansard Insurance Plc. The French group is already in Morocco, the second-largest African insurance market, and several other Frenchspeaking countries. This transaction would allow AXA to enter the highly attractive Nigerian market while Mansard would be able to capitalise on AXA’s extended distribution knowledge, unique product skills and actuarial know-how, to accelerate further its development and leverage its competitive advantages.

AXA to sell insurance operations in Romania

rench insurer Axa SA said it had agreed with Certinvest and SIF Transilvania to sell its Life & Savings insurance operations in Romania and exit the Romanian market. The parties agreed not to disclose the terms and conditions of the deal. As per the terms of the agreement, Certinvest would acquire a 70 per cent stake in AXA’s Romanian division, AXA Life Insurance S.A., while SIF Transilvania would acquire the remaining stake of 30 per cent. Certinvest is an independent asset manager

in Romania. SIF Transilvania is a financial investment firm listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. Completion of the deal is subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals. Earlier last month, Principal Financial Group, Inc. (PFG) agreed to acquire Axa’s Mandatory Provident Fund and Occupational Retirement Schemes Ordinance pension business in Hong Kong for about $335 million. The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.

L-R: Director, Mutual Benefits Assurance Plc, Mr Michael Gowan; Group Managing Director, Dr. Akin Ogunbiyi; Chairman, Mr Akin Opeodu and Company Secretary, Miss Ejoke Oghene, at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Lagos. PHOTO: GODWIN IREKHE

Lack of insurance leaves South African family struggling

South African brother and sister in the UAE are hoping to raise hundreds of thousands of dirhams to cover four months of his medical bills. Scott Matthews, a 29-yearold from Pretoria who had been working as a restaurant manager, was admitted to hospital in late July with multiple organ failure. By October he had accrued more than Dh400,000 in hospital bills that involved eight operations. Scott’s sister, Mignon, 31, said her brother’s condition was caused by living an unhealthy lifestyle and being unaware that he had diabetes. Despite being unaware of his illness, he continued to drink alcohol while being overweight and working long hours.

Mignon said they were told that his insurance company would not cover the cost because it considered his condition self-inflicted. A representative of Metlife Alico said that a provision in its policy stated that it did not cover conditions related to alcohol use. It also covered pre-existing conditions for up to Dh300,000 and chronic conditions up to the policy limit. As the costs for Scott’s life-saving care mount, the siblings are daunted by the amount. “It’s the price of an average house in South Africa,” she said. Mignon said that she and her mother, who is 62, were struggling to meet the costs. “I have no other family and no one who can help us out of financial stress caused by

these medical bills,” she said. Scott, who was first taken to Al Noor Hospital, is now in recovery at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City, and has lost 30kg over five months. His sister helps him with his physical therapy so that he can walk again and leave the hospital. Mignon said she had left her life in South Africa, where she was a lawyer, to relocate here and find a job so she could help to pay his medical bills.“My brother means more to me than anything,” she said. Mignon said Scott became depressed last year after his father’s death in April from oesophageal cancer. Scott was close to his dad, Mark, but could not visit him during his illness. He was on his way home for a visit when his father died.

Business | Financial Market News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

FMDQ Daily Quotations List

19-Dec-14

The DQL contains data relating to, amongst other things, market and model prices, rates of foreign exchange products, fixed income securities and instruments in the financial market (the “Information”). The Information does not constitute professional, financial or investment advice. We attempt to ensure the Information is accurate; however, the Information is provided “AS IS” and on an “AS AVAILABLE” basis and may not be accurate or up to date. We do not guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, completeness, performance or fitness for a particular purpose of any of the Information, neither do we accept liability for the results of any action taken on the basis of the Information.

Bonds FGN Bonds

Price

Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description 4.00 23-APR-2015 13.05 16-AUG-2016 15.10 27-APR-2017 9.85 27-JUL-2017 9.35 31-AUG-2017 10.70 30-MAY-2018 16.00 29-JUN-2019 7.00 23-OCT-2019 16.39 27-JAN-2022 14.20 14-MAR-2024 15.00 28-NOV-2028 12.49 22-MAY-2029 8.50 20-NOV-2029 10.00 23-JUL-2030 12.1493 18-JUL-2034

Issue Date

Coupon (%)

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

23-Apr-10 16-Aug-13 27-Apr-12 27-Jul-07 31-Aug-07 30-May-08 29-Jun-12 23-Oct-09 27-Jan-12 14-Mar-14 28-Nov-08 22-May-09 20-Nov-09 23-Jul-10 18-Jul-14

4.00 13.05 15.10 9.85 9.35 10.70 16.00 7.00 16.39 14.20 15.00 12.49 8.50 10.00 12.1493

535.00 573.89 452.80 20.00 100.00 300.00 351.30 233.90 600.00 396.68 75.00 150.00 200.00 591.57 150.00

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

4,730.13

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

4,366.73

Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description

Maturity Date

TTM (Yrs)

23-Apr-15 16-Aug-16 27-Apr-17 27-Jul-17 31-Aug-17 30-May-18 29-Jun-19 23-Oct-19 27-Jan-22 14-Mar-24 28-Nov-28 22-May-29 20-Nov-29 23-Jul-30 18-Jul-34

0.34 1.66 2.35 2.60 2.70 3.44 4.53 4.84 7.11 9.23 13.94 14.42 14.92 15.59 19.58

Bid Yield (%)

Offer Yield (%)

Bid Price

Offer Price

13.01 15.52 15.41 15.38 15.39 15.44 15.52 15.48 15.32 15.11 13.32 13.15 12.98 14.07 14.64

12.55 15.41 15.33 15.30 15.31 15.32 15.43 15.37 15.25 15.04 13.28 13.11 12.92 14.01 14.59

97.01 96.45 99.35 88.46 87.04 87.66 101.50 71.79 104.50 95.50 110.47 95.73 70.75 74.50 84.00

97.16 96.60 99.50 88.61 87.19 87.96 101.80 72.09 104.80 95.80 110.77 96.03 71.05 74.80 84.30

Issue Date

Coupon (%)

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

Maturity Date

Avg. Life/TTM (Yrs)

Risk Premium (%)

Valuation Yield (%)

Indicative Price

24-May-12 03-Apr-12 09-Dec-11 20-Apr-12 06-Jul-12

0.00 17.25 0.00/16.00 0.00/16.50 0.00/16.50

24.56 3.00 112.22 116.70 66.49

24-May-15 03-Apr-17 09-Dec-16 20-Apr-17 06-Jul-17

0.43 1.17 1.97 2.34 2.55

2.63 2.27 2.00 1.00 1.00

15.54 19.19 17.45 16.39 16.37

93.72 98.00 97.68 95.04 91.91

Agency Bonds FMBN ***LCRM

0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 09-DEC-2016 0.00/16.50 LCRM II 20-APR-2017 0.00/16.50 LCRM III 06-JUL-2017

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

322.97

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

307.60

Sub-National Bonds A+/Agusto

KADUNA

12.50 KADUNA 31-AUG-2015

31-Aug-10

12.50

8.50

31-Aug-15

0.70

4.44

19.09

95.82

A/Agusto

*EBONYI

13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015

30-Sep-10

13.00

4.18

30-Sep-15

0.54

3.23

16.41

99.12

A-/Agusto

*BENUE

14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-11

14.00

6.27

30-Jun-16

0.82

4.46

20.24

94.64

A+/Agusto

*IMO

15.50 IMO 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-09

15.50

7.37

30-Jun-16

0.83

3.48

19.30

96.77

A+/Agusto; A+/GCR

LAGOS

10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017

19-Apr-10

10.00

57.00

19-Apr-17

2.33

5.59

20.98

80.48

A-/Agusto

*BAYELSA

13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017

30-Jun-10

13.75

29.92

30-Jun-17

1.38

1.00

17.32

95.43

A/Agusto

EDO

14.00 EDO 31-DEC-2017

30-Dec-10

14.00

25.00

31-Dec-17

3.03

1.79

17.20

92.65

A+/Agusto; A+/GCR

*DELTA

14.00 DELTA 30-SEP-2018

30-Sep-11

14.00

34.14

30-Sep-18

2.21

1.80

17.20

94.59

A-/Agusto; A-/GCR

NIGER

14.00 NIGER II 4-OCT-2018

04-Oct-11

14.00

9.00

04-Oct-18

3.79

1.00

16.47

93.17

A/Agusto; A-/GCR†

*EKITI

14.50 EKITI 09-DEC-2018

09-Dec-11

14.50

13.73

09-Dec-18

2.41

1.00

16.38

96.55

A-/Agusto

*NIGER

14.00 NIGER III 12-DEC-2018

12-Dec-13

14.00

10.20

12-Dec-18

2.41

4.78

20.16

89.16

A/Agusto; A-/GCR

*ONDO

15.50 ONDO 14-FEB-2019

14-Feb-12

15.50

27.00

14-Feb-19

2.59

1.00

16.38

96.35

15.50

16.23

02-Oct-19

2.84

1.00

16.40

98.27

A/Agusto; A-/GCR

*GOMBE

15.50 GOMBE 02-OCT-2019

02-Oct-12

Aa-/Agusto; AA-/GCR

LAGOS

14.50 LAGOS 22-NOV-2019

22-Nov-12

14.50

80.00

22-Nov-19

4.93

1.00

16.48

93.47

A/Agusto; A-/GCR

*OSUN

14.75 OSUN 12-DEC-2019

12-Dec-12

14.75

26.62

12-Dec-19

2.90

2.74

18.14

92.84

A/Agusto

*OSUN

14.75 OSUN II 10-OCT-2020

10-Oct-13

14.75

11.40

10-Oct-20

3.36

1.00

16.44

95.89

Aa-/Agusto; AA-/GCR

LAGOS

13.50 LAGOS IV 27-NOV-2020

27-Nov-13

13.50

87.50

27-Nov-20

5.94

1.00

16.36

89.36

A-/Agusto; BBB+/DataPro

KOGI

15.00 KOGI 31-DEC-2020

31-Dec-13

15.00

5.00

31-Dec-20

6.03

1.94

17.29

91.61

A/Agusto A-/GCR

*EKITI *NASARAWA

14.50 EKITI II 31-DEC-2020 15.00 NASARAWA 06-JAN-2021

31-Dec-13

14.50

4.78

31-Dec-20

3.52

1.44

16.89

93.99

06-Jan-14

15.00

4.79

06-Jan-21

3.55

1.95

17.40

94.01

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION Corporate Bonds

468.62 430.11

Nil

17.00 NGC 31-DEC-2014

01-Apr-10

17.00

2.00

31-Dec-14

0.03

8.71

23.02

99.75

Bbb-/Agusto A-/Agusto

*UPDC

10.00 UPDC 17-AUG-2015

17-Aug-10

10.00

3.61

17-Aug-15

0.42

4.88

17.81

96.96

*FLOURMILLS

12.00 FLOURMILLS 9-DEC-2015

09-Dec-10

12.00

9.34

09-Dec-15

0.73

1.00

15.92

97.54

BB+/GCR

*CHELLARAMS

14.00 CHELLARAMS 06-JAN-2016

06-Jan-11

14.00

0.60

06-Jan-16

0.57

2.63

16.11

98.82

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

NAHCO

13.00 NAHCO 29-SEP-2016

29-Sep-11

13.00

15.00

29-Sep-16

1.78

1.00

16.67

94.49

A-/Agusto

FSDH

14.25 FSDH 25-OCT-2016

25-Oct-13

14.25

5.53

25-Oct-16

1.85

1.34

16.93

95.83

A/GCR

UBA

13.00 UBA 30-SEP-2017

30-Sep-10

13.00

20.00

30-Sep-17

2.78

1.00

16.39

92.60

BBB-/GCR

18.00 C&I LEASING 30-NOV-2017

30-Nov-12

18.00

0.64

30-Nov-17

1.80

1.88

17.52

101.60

Nil

*C & I LEASING *DANA#{r}

MPR+7.00 DANA 9-APR-2018

09-Apr-11

16.00

6.30

09-Apr-18

1.80

3.48

19.12

95.76

A-/DataPro†; BB-/GCR

*TOWER#

MPR+7.00 TOWER 9-SEP-2018

09-Sep-11

18.00

2.90

09-Sep-18

1.97

5.20

20.65

96.24

NGC

AAA/DataPro†; A+/GCR

*TOWER

MPR+5.25 TOWER 9-SEP-2018

09-Sep-11

16.00

0.80

09-Sep-18

1.97

5.06

20.51

101.84

A/Agusto; A/GCR

UBA

14.00 UBA II 22-SEP-2018

22-Sep-11

14.00

35.00

22-Sep-18

3.76

1.35

16.82

92.32

Bbb+/Agusto; BBB+/GCR

*LA CASERA *CHELLARAMS#

15.75 LA CASERA 18-OCT-2018

18-Oct-13

15.75

2.40

18-Oct-18

2.08

2.29

17.70

97.05

MPR+5.00 CHELLARAMS II 17-FEB-2019

17-Feb-12

17.00

0.41

17-Feb-19

2.16

6.11

21.51

92.78

BBB-/DataPro†; BB+/GCR

#{r}

Nil

*DANA

16.00 DANA II 1-APR-2019

01-Apr-14

16.00

4.50

01-Apr-19

3.03

2.16

17.57

96.56

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

NAHCO

15.25 NAHCO II 14-NOV-2020

14-Nov-13

15.25

2.05

14-Nov-20

5.90

2.76

18.12

89.79

A/GCR

STANBIC IBTC

182D T.bills+1.20 STANBIC IA 30-SEP-2024

30-Sep-14

11.93

0.10

30-Sep-24

9.78

1.00

15.70

81.41

A/GCR

STANBIC IBTC

13.25 STANBIC IB 30-SEP-2024

30-Sep-14

13.25

15.44

30-Sep-24

9.78

1.00

15.70

87.91

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

126.63

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

118.35

Supranational Bond AAA/S&P

IFC

10.20 IFC 11-FEB-2018

11-Feb-13

10.20

12.00

11-Feb-18

3.15

1.00

16.42

85.13

Aaa/Moody's; AAA/S&P

AfDB

11.25 AFDB 1-FEB-2021

10-Jul-14

11.25

12.95

01-Feb-21

4.37

1.00

16.51

84.52

Bid Price

Offer Price

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

24.95 21.16

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description

Issue Date

Coupon (%)

Outstanding Value ($mm)

Maturity Date

Bid Yield (%)

Offer Yield (%)

6.75 JAN 28, 2021

07-Oct-11

6.75

500.00

28-Jan-21

6.53

6.13

101.11

103.13

5.13 JUL 12, 2018

12-Jul-13

5.13

500.00

12-Jul-18

5.50

5.11

98.80

100.06

6.38 JUL 12, 2023

12-Jul-13

6.38

500.00

12-Jul-23

6.70

6.50

97.91

99.21

FGN Eurobonds

Prices & Yields

BB-/Fitch; B+/S&P BB-/Fitch; BB-/S&P

FGN

BB-/Fitch; BB-/S&P

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

1,500.00

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

1,489.04

Corporate Eurobonds B/Fitch; B-/S&P

AFREN PLC I

11.50 FEB 01, 2016

01-Feb-11

11.50

450.00

01-Feb-16

8.29

103.30

B+/Fitch; B+/S&P

GTBANK PLC I

7.50 MAY 19, 2016

19-May-11

7.50

500.00

19-May-16

4.70

103.75

B+/S&P

ACCESS BANK PLC

7.25 JUL 25, 2017

25-Jul-12

7.25

350.00

25-Jul-17

7.47

99.48

B/Fitch; B/S&P

FIDELITY BANK PLC

6.88 MAY 09, 2018

09-May-13

6.88

300.00

02-May-18

10.95

10.46

88.73

90.01

B+/Fitch; B+/S&P

GTBANK PLC

6.00 NOV 08, 2018

08-Nov-13

6.00

400.00

08-Nov-18

7.94

7.08

93.62

96.40

B/Fitch

AFREN PLC II

10.25 APR 08, 2019

08-Apr-12

10.25

300.00

08-Apr-19

9.66

102.00

102.00 95.50

B+/Fitch; BB-/S&P

ZENITH BANK PLC

6.25 APR 22, 2019

22-Apr-14

6.25

500.00

22-Apr-19

7.48

95.50

B/Fitch; B/S&P

DIAMOND BANK PLC

8.75 May 21, 2019

21-May-14

8.75

200.00

21-May-19

12.50

12.11

87.54

88.74

B-/Fitch; B/S&P

FIRST BANK PLC

8.25 AUG 07, 2020

07-Aug-13

8.25

300.00

07-Aug-20

8.54

98.00

6.63 DEC 09, 2020

09-Dec-13

6.63

360.00

09-Dec-20

10.73

82.25

9.25/6M USD LIBOR+7.677 JUN 24, 2021

24-Jun-14

9.25

400.00

24-Jun-21

10.91

10.63

92.63

93.88

8.00/2Y USD SWAP+6.488 JUL 23 2021

23-Jul-14

8.00

450.00

23-Jul-21

10.64

87.00

8.75 AUG 14, 2021

14-Aug-14

8.75

250.00

14-Aug-21

9.94

8.99

93.52

98.00

B-/Fitch; B/S&P

AFREN PLC III

B-/Fitch; B/S&P

ACCESS BANK PLC II

B-/Fitch; B/S&P

FIRST BANK LTD

B-/S&P

ECOBANK NIG. LTD

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

4,760.00

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

4,516.93

**Treasury Bills DTM 13 20 27 34 41 48 55

Money Market

FIXINGS Maturity 1-Jan-15 8-Jan-15 15-Jan-15 22-Jan-15 29-Jan-15 5-Feb-15 12-Feb-15

Bid Discount (%) 14.40 14.90 13.55 13.68 14.58 14.01 14.15

Offer Discount (%) 14.15 14.65 13.30 13.43 14.33 13.76 13.90

Bid Yield (%) 14.47 15.02 13.69 13.86 14.82 14.27 14.46

NIBOR Tenor O/N 1M 3M 6M

Rate (%) 15.1717 15.9053 16.4141 17.0418

Tenor

Rate (%)

OBB

15.50

O/N

16.67

Tenor Call

REPO

Rate (%) 15.67

Foreign Exchange (Spot & Forwards) Tenor

Bid ($/N)

Offer ($/N)

Spot 7D 14D 1M 2M

184.50 184.84 185.12 185.80 187.06

184.60 184.94 185.27 186.26 188.04

Rating/Agency

Description

Issuer

Issue Date

Coupon (%)

24-May-12 03-Apr-12 09-Dec-11 20-Apr-12 06-Jul-12

0.00 17.25 0.00/16.00 0.00/16.50 0.00/16.50

(N'bn)

Maturity Date

Avg. Life/TTM (Yrs)

24-May-15 03-Apr-17 09-Dec-16 20-Apr-17 06-Jul-17

0.43 1.17 1.97 2.34 2.55

Premium (%)

(%)

Price

2.63 2.27 2.00 1.00 1.00

15.54 19.19 17.45 16.39 16.37

93.72 98.00 97.68 95.04 91.91

Agency Bonds 0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 09-DEC-2016 0.00/16.50 LCRM II 20-APR-2017 0.00/16.50 LCRM III 06-JUL-2017

FMBN ***LCRM

24.56 3.00 112.22 116.70 66.49

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

322.97

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

307.60

Business | Financial Market News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 Sub-National Bonds

A+/Agusto

KADUNA

12.50 KADUNA 31-AUG-2015

31-Aug-10

12.50

8.50

31-Aug-15

0.70

4.44

19.09

95.82

A/Agusto

*EBONYI

13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015

30-Sep-10

13.00

4.18

30-Sep-15

0.54

3.23

16.41

99.12

A-/Agusto

*BENUE

14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-11

14.00

6.27

30-Jun-16

0.82

4.46

20.24

94.64

A+/Agusto

*IMO

15.50 IMO 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-09

15.50

7.37

30-Jun-16

0.83

3.48

19.30

96.77

A+/Agusto; A+/GCR

LAGOS

10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017

19-Apr-10

10.00

57.00

19-Apr-17

2.33

5.59

20.98

80.48

13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017

30-Jun-10

13.75

29.92

30-Jun-17

1.38

1.00

17.32

95.43

14.00

25.00

31-Dec-17

3.03

1.79

17.20

92.65

14.00

34.14

30-Sep-18

2.21

1.80

17.20

94.59

15.00

29-Sep-16

1.78

1.00

16.67

94.49

5.53

25-Oct-16

1.85

1.34

16.93

95.83

20.00

30-Sep-17

2.78

1.00

16.39

92.60

0.64

30-Nov-17

1.80

1.88

17.52

101.60

6.30

09-Apr-18

1.80

3.48

19.12

95.76

2.90

09-Sep-18

1.97

5.20

20.65

96.24

0.80

09-Sep-18

1.97

5.06

20.51

101.84

35.00

22-Sep-18

3.76

1.35

16.82

92.32

2.40

18-Oct-18

2.08

2.29

17.70

97.05

14-Aug-21

9.94

8.99

93.52

98.00

CBN’s dollar policy destabilises investors A-/Agusto

*BAYELSA

A/Agusto

EDO

14.00 EDO 31-DEC-2017

30-Dec-10

A+/Agusto; A+/GCR

*DELTA

14.00 DELTA 30-SEP-2018

30-Sep-11

A-/Agusto; A-/GCR

NIGER

A/Agusto; A-/GCR†

*EKITI

A-/Agusto

*NIGER

A/Agusto

*OSUN

Aa-/Agusto; AA-/GCR

LAGOS

A-/Agusto; BBB+/DataPro

KOGI

DILEMMA

A/Agusto; A-/GCR Concerns mount *ONDO over easy A/Agusto; A-/GCR *GOMBE Aa-/Agusto; AA-/GCR LAGOS exit A/Agusto; A-/GCR *OSUN

Stories A/Agusto by Chris Ugwu *EKITI

F A-/GCR

*NASARAWA

investors TOTAL oreign OUTSTANDING VALUEin Nigeria are concerned TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

that measures taken by the Central Bank NGC Nil of Bbb-/Agusto Nigeria (CBN) to prevent *UPDC A-/Agusto speculation against*FLOURMILLS the falling BB+/GCR *CHELLARAMS naira will hinder their chancCorporate Bonds

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

NAHCO

A-/Agusto

FSDH

NIGER II 4-OCT-2018 es of 14.00 selling investments in 14.50 EKITI 09-DEC-2018 the country . 14.00 NIGER III 12-DEC-2018 According to Bloomberg 15.50 ONDO 14-FEB-2019 GOMBEof 02-OCT-2019 News,15.50 Head African StratLAGOS 22-NOV-2019 egy at14.50 Standard Chartered Plc, 14.75 OSUN 12-DEC-2019 Samir14.75 Gadio, said “The reality OSUN II 10-OCT-2020 13.50 IV 27-NOV-2020 is that if LAGOS you have $100 million 15.00 invested KOGI 31-DEC-2020 dollars in Nigeria, 14.50 EKITI II 31-DEC-2020 in the current environment 15.00 NASARAWA 06-JAN-2021 it would probably take you a year to source that foreign exchange. Some people would argue17.00 that the lack of foreignNGC 31-DEC-2014 exchange liquidity 10.00 UPDC 17-AUG-2015these meaFLOURMILLS 9-DEC-2015 sures12.00 cause could implicitly 14.00 CHELLARAMS be compared to 06-JAN-2016 capital con-

04-Oct-11 14.00 trols, although they’re not 09-Dec-11 14.50 formally.” 12-Dec-13 14.00 The 14-Feb-12 CBN issued a 15.50 circular 02-Oct-12 15.50 on its website last Thursday 22-Nov-12 14.50 that any dollars bought from 12-Dec-12 14.75 banks in the interbank 10-Oct-13 14.75 mar27-Nov-13 ket had to be used13.50 within 31-Dec-13 15.00 48 hours or sold back to the 31-Dec-13 14.50 Abuja-based regulator. This 06-Jan-14 15.00 followed a rule that cut banks’ maximum foreign-exchange net-open position at the end of each01-Apr-10 business day17.00 to zero from one per cent of10.00share17-Aug-10 09-Dec-10 holders’ funds, which12.00 brought 14.00 trading06-Jan-11 to a near halt.

13.00 NAHCO 29-SEP-2016

29-Sep-11

13.00

Atlas Mara raises stake in Union Bank to 29.9% 14.25 FSDH 25-OCT-2016

25-Oct-13

14.25

13.00 UBA 30-SEP-2017 A/GCR tlas Mara Co-invest 30-Sep-10 13.00 UBA Limited, the *Cinvest18.00 C&I LEASING 30-NOV-2017 BBB-/GCR 30-Nov-12 18.00 & I LEASING MPR+7.00 DANA 9-APR-2018 09-Apr-11 16.00 Nil ment vehicle *DANA of Bob MPR+7.00 TOWER 9-SEP-2018 09-Sep-11 18.00 A-/DataPro†; BB-/GCR *TOWER Diamond, former Barclays MPR+5.25 TOWER 9-SEP-2018 09-Sep-11 16.00 AAA/DataPro†; A+/GCR *TOWER Bank group chief executive 14.00 UBA II 22-SEP-2018 A/Agusto; A/GCR 22-Sep-11 14.00 UBA officer, at the weekend an- nisable brands in Nigeria. On his part, Diamond, 15.75 15.75 LA CASERA 18-OCT-2018 Bbb+/Agusto; BBB+/GCR 18-Oct-13 *LA CASERA MPR+5.00implied CHELLARAMSpurII 17-FEB-2019 17-Feb-12 BBB-/DataPro†; BB+/GCR *CHELLARAMS Atlas Mara’s nounced it had successfully co-founder and director of 17.00 16.00 DANA II 1-APR-2019 01-Apr-14 Nil *DANA increased its stake in Union chase price of the AMCON Atlas Mara said, “This is a 16.00 15.25 NAHCO II 14-NOV-2020 A+/Agusto; A-/GCR 14-Nov-13 15.25 NAHCO Bank of Nigeria to 29.9 per stake represents a price-tovery significant acquisition 182D T.bills+1.20 STANBIC IA 30-SEP-2024 A/GCR 30-Sep-14 11.93 STANBIC IBTC for Atlas Mara. With it, we 13.25 cent. forIB UBN of 13.25 STANBIC 30-SEP-2024 A/GCR 30-Sep-14 STANBIC IBTC book multiple will have a significant stake According to Reuters ca. 1.0x. TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE News, investment firm “I am delighted that we in a key Nigerian bank and TOTALthe MARKET CAPITALISATION also reported acquisition are increasing our stake in we will also have established Supranational Bond of AAA/S&P approximately 20.9 per such a storied institution. strategic market positions 10.20 10.20 IFC 11-FEB-2018 IFC 11-Feb-13 cent in Union BankAfDB of Ni- Expanding into Nigeria in three of Africa’s 11.25 AFDB 1-FEB-2021 Aaa/Moody's; AAA/S&P 10-Jul-14 leading 11.25 economic communities: the geria Plc, from Asset Man- has been a focal point of TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE agement Corporation of our strategy and achieving a Southern Africa DevelopTOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION Nigeria (AMCON), for a significant ownership posi- ment Community, the East of the Africa Community purchase price of approxi-Issuertion in an institutionDescription and Eco-Coupon (%) Rating/Agency Issue Date size, heritage and potential nomic Community of West mately $250 million. FGN Eurobonds With the development, of UBN represents a unique African States.” 6.75 JAN 28, 2021 BB-/Fitch; B+/S&P now owns a 07-Oct-11 Thakkar, co-founder and 6.75 the company opportunity. director of Atlas Mara said total combined interest in FGN “We know the team at BB-/Fitch; 5.13 JUL 12, 2018 12-Jul-13 5.13 BB-/S&P UBN of 29.9 per cent, con- UBN and are strong sup- is a very exciting announceBB-/Fitch; 6.38 JUL 12, 2023 ment for the company 12-Jul-13 6.38 sisting of the acquisition porters of what they have . ‘’By BB-/S&P achieved, as well as their of TOTAL the shares from AMCON increasing our stake in OUTSTANDING VALUE and the existing UBN shares identification of and focus UBN, combined with the TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION indirectly held by Atlas on what there still is to completed acquisitions of Corporate Eurobonds Mara through its subsidiary, achieve. We at Atlas Mara BancABC and ADC and 11.50 FEB 01, 2016 our pending acquisition B/Fitch; B-/S&P AFREN PLC I 01-Feb-11 ADC African Development are committed to building of 11.50 7.50 MAY 19, 2016 B+/Fitch; B+/S&P GTBANK PLC I 19-May-11 Corporation AG (ADC). a leading sub-Saharan Afri- the commercial banking 7.50 7.25 JUL 25, 2017 B+/S&P ACCESS BANK PLC The report affirmed that can financial services group operations of 25-Jul-12 BRD, we are 7.25 6.88 MAY 09, 2018 B/Fitch; B/S&P FIDELITY BANK PLC 09-May-13 6.88 asB+/Fitch; at June 30, 2014, UBN had and we look forward to conwell on the way to becoming 6.00 6.00 NOV 08, 2018 B+/S&P GTBANK PLC 08-Nov-13 approximately $6.3 billion of II tributing to the transformafinancial 10.25 10.25 APR 08, 2019 a leading African B/Fitch AFREN PLC 08-Apr-12 assets, billion inZENITH loans, tion of UBN into a Tier 1 Niwill benefit 6.25 6.25 APR 22, 2019 institution that B+/Fitch;$1.7 BB-/S&P BANK PLC 22-Apr-14 May 21, 2019 from, and contribute B/Fitch; B/S&P in deposits DIAMOND BANK PLC 21-May-14 to, the 8.75 $3.1 billion and gerian bank as an 8.75 integral 8.25 07, 2020 continued growth B-/Fitch; B/S&P in equity FIRST 07-Aug-13 $1.3 billion . It BANK is a PLC part of this strategy ,’’AUG John of rapidly 8.25 6.63 DEC 09, 2020 B-/Fitch; B/S&P AFREN PLC III 09-Dec-13 Vitalo, CEO of Atlas Mara, expanding sub-Saharan household name with one of Af- 6.63 9.25/6M USD LIBOR+7.677 JUN 24, 2021 B-/Fitch; B/S&P ACCESS BANK PLC II 24-Jun-14 9.25 said. rica,” Thakkar said. the most trusted and recog8.00/2Y USD SWAP+6.488 JUL 23 2021 B-/Fitch; B/S&P FIRST BANK LTD 23-Jul-14 8.00 #{r}

#{r}

B-/S&P

8.75 AUG 14, 2021

ECOBANK NIG. LTD

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

14-Aug-14

8.75

1.00 93.17 Markus, an 16.47 Africa strategist 1.00 16.38 96.55 at Barclays Plc’s Absa Capital 4.78 20.16 89.16 unit. 1.00 16.38 96.35 1.00 16.40 98.27 that “Our estimates show 1.00 16.48 93.47 Nigeria loses potential aver2.74 18.14 92.84 age1.00annual 16.44 export proceeds 95.89 16.36 for every 89.36 one of 1.00 $740 million 1.94 17.29 dollar decline in oil 91.61 prices. 1.44 16.89 93.99 That’s huge. The extent of 1.95 17.40 94.01 foreign-exchange measures isn’t a surprise. It suggests the risk of devaluation has increased given the 99.75 low oil 8.71 23.02 prices. They’d avoid 4.88 17.81 want to 96.96 1.00 for now, 15.92 97.54 it’s that but I think 2.63 16.11 unavoidable,” Markus98.82 said.

Asset Custodians advocate more investment awareness

2.16 n order17-Feb-19 to help galvanise 4.50 01-Apr-19 3.03 more foreign investment 2.05 14-Nov-20 5.90 into the country, the Asso0.10 30-Sep-24 9.78 ciation of Assets 15.44 30-Sep-24 Custodians 9.78 of Nigeria has said that it 126.63 would continue to work with 118.35 relevant stakeholders in the investment community to 12.00 11-Feb-18 3.15 step up enlightenment for a 12.95 01-Feb-21 4.37 better knowledge of the na24.95 tion’s capital market. 21.16 The new President of the Outstanding Value association, Mrs. AdMaturity Date Kemi Bid Yield (%) ($mm) ewole, who stated this at the second Annual General Meet500.00 28-Jan-21 6.53 a ing of the association, said better understanding of the 500.00 12-Jul-18 5.50 local bourse would ensure 500.00 12-Jul-23 6.70 inmore foreign investment flow into the country . 1,500.00 “By providing the inves1,489.04 tors with information about positive developments in the 450.00 01-Feb-16 8.29 market, they will be better 500.00 4.70 able to see 19-May-16 through the nega350.00 7.47 tive news 25-Jul-17 about insecurity 300.00 02-May-18 10.95 and other factors and realise 400.00 08-Nov-18 7.94 that they stand 300.00 08-Apr-19to get strong 9.66 returns on22-Apr-19 their investments 500.00 7.48 200.00 12.50 in the long21-May-19 run. 300.00Adewole, 07-Aug-20 8.54 who was elected 360.00 09-Dec-20 10.73 president to replace Mr. Se400.00 24-Jun-21 10.91 gun Sanni, said, “Nigeria 450.00 23-Jul-21 10.64 0.41

250.00

6.11 receives its21.51 share of 92.78 public2.16 17.57 96.56 ity and sometimes a lot of 2.76 18.12 89.79 that is negative. 1.00 publicity 15.70 81.41 So, try to do87.91 as the 1.00what we 15.70 association of Assets Custodians is to ensure that the international community does not only have a85.13 lot of 1.00 16.42 information, right 1.00 16.51 but the 84.52 information. She noted that the association always made itself available to whatever Offer Yield (%) Bidclarify Price Offer Price issues foreign portfolio invesPrices & Yields tors might have with invest6.13in the country 101.11 ing . 103.13 Adewole said the journey 5.11 98.80 100.06 of the association so far had 6.50 97.91 neither been easy nor99.21 rough, adding that the association, which was established in 2009, started at the right time in the country. 8.29 103.30 103.30time She noted that at the 4.70 103.75 the association was103.75 set up 99.48 in7.472009, a 99.48 lot of reforms 10.46 88.73 90.01 had been carried out96.40 in the 7.08 93.62 market by the Securities 9.66 102.00 102.00 and 7.48 Exchange 95.50 Commission, 95.50 12.11 87.54 88.74 Nigerian Stock Exchange, 8.54 98.00 98.00 Central Securities Clearing 10.73 82.25 System and82.25 the Central Bank 10.63 92.63 93.88 of10.64 Nigeria. 87.00 87.00

4,760.00

FMDQ Daily Quotations List

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

04-Oct-18 3.79 The central bank’s mea13.73 09-Dec-18 2.41 sures are temporary and in10.20 12-Dec-18 2.41 vestors can still enter and2.59 exit 27.00 14-Feb-19 16.23 2.84 Nigeria “very02-Oct-19 freely,” Ibrahim 80.00 22-Nov-19 4.93 Mu’azu, a spokesman for the 26.62 12-Dec-19 2.90 regulator, said. 11.40 10-Oct-20 3.36 87.50 27-Nov-20 “These measures are5.94 not 5.00 31-Dec-20 capital controls. When 6.03 the 4.78 31-Dec-20 3.52 market stabilises, they can be 4.79 06-Jan-21 3.55 reversed,” Mu’azu said. 468.62 The central bank could be 430.11 forced to devalue its target exchange rate of N168 0.03 per 2.00 31-Dec-14 dollar, plus17-Aug-15 or minus 0.42 five 3.61 9.34 cent, before 09-Dec-15 0.73in per elections 0.60 06-Jan-16 0.57 February, according to Ridle 9.00

19-Dec-14

4,516.93

The DQL contains data relating to, amongst other things, market and model prices, rates of foreign exchange products, fixed income securities and instruments in the financial market (the “Information”). The Information does not Money Market **Treasury Bills FIXINGS Foreign Exchange Forwards) constitute professional, financial or investment advice. We attempt to ensure the Information is accurate; however, the Information is provided “AS IS” and on an “AS AVAILABLE” basis and may not be accurate or (Spot up to & date. We do not DTM Maturity Bid Discount (%) Offer Discount (%) Bid Yield (%) Tenor Rate (%) NIBOR guarantee the13accuracy, timeliness, completeness, performance14.40 or fitness for a particular the Information, neither do we accept liability for the results of any action taken on the basis of the Information. 1-Jan-15 14.15purpose of any of 14.47 FGN

20 27 34 Bonds 41 48 55 Rating/Agency 62 69 76 83 97 104 111 118 125 132 NA 139 146 230 258 349

8-Jan-15 15-Jan-15 22-Jan-15 29-Jan-15 5-Feb-15 12-Feb-15 Issuer 19-Feb-15 26-Feb-15 5-Mar-15 12-Mar-15 26-Mar-15 2-Apr-15 9-Apr-15 16-Apr-15 23-Apr-15 30-Apr-15 NA 7-May-15 14-May-15 6-Aug-15 3-Sep-15 3-Dec-15

14.90 13.55 13.68 14.58 14.01 14.15 Description 14.08 13.30 4.00 23-APR-2015 14.50 13.05 16-AUG-2016 13.80 15.10 27-APR-2017 12.40 9.85 27-JUL-2017 13.71 15.50 9.35 31-AUG-2017 12.95 10.70 30-MAY-2018 13.56 16.00 29-JUN-2019 13.84 7.00 23-OCT-2019 16.50 16.39 27-JAN-2022 11.24 14.20 14-MAR-2024 15.00 11.92 15.00 28-NOV-2028 15.50 12.49 22-MAY-2029

8.50 20-NOV-2029 10.00 23-JUL-2030 12.1493 18-JUL-2034

14.65 13.30 13.43 14.33 13.76 13.90 Issue Date 13.83 13.05 23-Apr-10 14.25 16-Aug-13 13.55 27-Apr-12 12.15 27-Jul-07 13.46 15.25 31-Aug-07 12.70 30-May-08 13.31 29-Jun-12 13.59 23-Oct-09 16.25 27-Jan-12 10.99 14-Mar-14 14.75 11.67 28-Nov-08 15.25 22-May-09

15.02 13.69 13.86 14.82 14.27 14.46 (%) Coupon 14.42 13.64 4.00 14.95 13.05 14.25 15.10 12.82 9.85 14.27 16.27 9.35 13.52 10.70 14.22 16.00 14.57 7.00 17.61 16.39 11.77 14.20 16.57 13.02 15.00 18.20 12.49

Bonds

20-Nov-09 23-Jul-10 18-Jul-14

8.50 10.00 12.1493

Tenor O/N 1M 3M 6M

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

4,730.13

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION **Exclusive of non-trading t.bills

4,366.73

Risk Premium is a combination of credit risk and liquidity risk premiums

Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description

Issue Date

Coupon (%)

15.50

O/N

16.67

Tenor

Maturity Date

NITTY 535.00 23-Apr-15 573.89 16-Aug-16 Tenor Rate (%) 452.80 27-Apr-17 1M 14.1678 20.00 27-Jul-17 2M 14.5056 3M 14.8441 100.00 31-Aug-17 6M 14.9625 300.00 30-May-18 9M 15.6507 351.30 29-Jun-19 12M 15.7216 233.90 23-Oct-19 600.00 27-Jan-22 396.68 14-Mar-24 NIFEX 75.00 28-Nov-28 Current Price ($/N) 150.00 22-May-29 BID($/N) 185.7000 200.00 20-Nov-29 OFFER ($/N) 185.8000 591.57 23-Jul-30 150.00 18-Jul-34

*for the OUTSTANDING Amortising bonds, the average life is calculated and not the duration TOTAL VALUE #

OBB

Rate (%) 15.1717 15.9053 16.4141 17.0418

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

REPO

Call TTM (Yrs) 1M 3M 0.34 6M

ModifiedFMBN Duration Buckets

<3 ***LCRM 3<5

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

>5 Market

0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 Total Outstanding Porfolio Market Value(Bn) Volume(Bn) 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 09-DEC-2016 1,377.98 0.00/16.50 LCRM 1,359.94 II 20-APR-2017 996.68 0.00/16.50 LCRM 1,005.83 III 06-JUL-2017

24-May-12by Weighting Outstanding 03-Apr-12 Vol

09-Dec-11 20-Apr-1244.22

566.72

741.57

06-Jul-1231.98 23.80

2,932.48

3,116.23

100.00

0.00by Mkt Weighting Value 17.25

0.00/16.00 0.00/16.5046.37 0.00/16.5034.30 19.33 100.00

24.56 3.00 112.22 116.70 0.44 66.49 0.32 0.24

Bucket Weighting

322.97 307.60

1.00

17.48 17.78 13.01 18.85

Spot 7D 14D 1M Offer 2M Yield (%) 3M 6M 12.55 1Y

1.66 15.52 15.41 2.35 15.41 15.33 2.60 15.38 15.30 :Benchmarks 2.70 15.39 15.31 * :Amortising 3.44 Bond 15.44 15.32 µ :Convertible Bond 4.53 15.52 15.43 AMCON: Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria 4.84 15.48 15.37 FGN: Federal Government of Nigeria 7.11 Mortgage Bank 15.32 15.25 FMBN: Federal of Nigeria 9.23 15.11 15.04 IFC: International Finance Corporation LCRM: Local Management 13.94Contractors Receivables 13.32 13.28 NAHCO: Nigerian Aviation Handling Company 14.42 13.15 13.11 O/N: Overnight 14.92 12.98 12.92 UPDC: UAC Property Development Company 15.59 14.07 14.01 WAPCO:West Africa Portland Cement Company 19.58 14.64 14.59 NOTE:

Maturity Date

Avg. Life/TTM (Yrs)

% 24-May-15 Exposure_ Mod_Duration 03-Apr-17

Implied Yield

FMDQ FGN BOND INDEX

Agency Bonds

Rate (%)

Bid15.67 Yield (%)

Tenor

09-Dec-16 23.20 20-Apr-17

0.43 1.17 1.97 15.49 2.34

100.00

36.63 06-Jul-17 40.17

# Risk Premium (%)

2.63 Implied Portfolio Price 2.27

Bid ($/N)

Offer ($/N)

184.50 184.60 184.84 184.94 Price 185.27 185.12 185.80 186.26 187.06 188.04Price Bid Price Offer 188.31 189.78 192.60 195.52 97.01 97.16 201.76 207.24

96.45 96.60 99.35 99.50 88.46 88.61 NA :Not87.04 Applicable 87.19 # :Floating Rate Bond 87.66 87.96 ***: Deferred coupon bonds 101.50 101.80 72.09 †: Bond 71.79 rating expired 104.50 104.80 N/A :Not Available 95.50 {r} :Issuer in receivership 95.80 110.47 110.77 NGC: Nigeria-German Company 95.73 96.03 UBA: United Bank for Africa 70.75 71.05 74.50 74.80 84.00 84.30

Valuation Yield (%)

15.23 2.55 14.20

2.00 116.2392 1.00 119.6953 1.00 89.1580

15.54 19.19 17.45 1,104.04 16.39 1,013.53 16.37 1,042.41

14.87

110.9001

1,059.00

INDEX

Indicative Price

93.72 YTD Return (%) 98.00

97.68 10.4035 95.04 1.3534 91.91 4.2414

5.8999

Sub-National Bonds A+/Agusto

KADUNA

12.50 KADUNA 31-AUG-2015

31-Aug-10

12.50

8.50

31-Aug-15

0.70

4.44

19.09

95.82

A/Agusto

*EBONYI

13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015

30-Sep-10

13.00

4.18

30-Sep-15

0.54

3.23

16.41

99.12

A-/Agusto

*BENUE

14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-11

14.00

6.27

30-Jun-16

0.82

4.46

20.24

94.64

A+/Agusto

*IMO

15.50 IMO 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-09

15.50

7.37

30-Jun-16

0.83

3.48

19.30

96.77

A+/Agusto; A+/GCR

LAGOS

10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017

19-Apr-10

10.00

57.00

19-Apr-17

2.33

5.59

20.98

80.48

A-/Agusto

*BAYELSA

13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017

30-Jun-10

13.75

29.92

30-Jun-17

1.38

1.00

17.32

95.43

Business | Interview

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Fall in oil price, prospect for Founding Managing Director and promoter of Systems Specs Limited, Mr John Tani Obaro, is a leading light in Nigerian software development industry. He has won several accolades and is known in the industry as a consummate innovator and trailblazer who has continued to deploy unique software solutions in addressing peculiar needs of Nigerian and African corporate organisations. In this interview with Godson Ikoro, Obaro gives an update on the Single Treasury Account (STA) project which started about two years ago and other issues. Excerpts Some days ago, the naira was devalued. Using that as a peg, how will you assess the Nigerian economy in the last two years? Well, it has to be within the context of the global economy. Things are beginning to look sour and we cannot run away from that, especially as it happens with oil. The shale oil comes in roughly at $65 and that will threaten our economy which, to a large extent, appears a mono product economy. Having said that, there are different areas that we can shore up things. The fact that oil is threatened can actually be converted to an opportunity to force us to look at other areas. For some time now, government has been talking about diversification of the economy, but it appears no concrete action is being taken. Which sector should government leverage on now? One of the areas is Technology. I believe that Nigeria has all it takes to begin to make money both internally and externally in Information Technology (IT). That is one of the areas that we will begin to look at. That is your forte sir. Can you expatiate? Now, let me talk about my space. For instance, the e-payments industry, you struggle as a Nigerian firm to come up with products, but you need to work harder to be accepted. But when a foreign firm comes, not necessarily with any superior product, for the mere fact that it is a foreign product, people begin to run in different directions to be associated with these foreign brands. And I think it is time to recognise what we have, within the country and give the same level of support. By the time we begin to give that kind of support to local products, you will be amazed at what will happen, because it will also increase the ease of acceptance of Nigerian products even outside this country. As a technology company, you connect financial institutions, consumers, government agencies and businesses worldwide. What are the big ticket transactions or projects you handled that have boosted your reputation? Well, we currently handle the payroll of a number of large organisations, state governments, local governments and, in the epayment space, we are glad to be associated with the Treasury Single Accounting Project of the Federal Government which is a platform for paying all Federal Government contractors, salary earners and so on. These are some of the projects that have been of positive encouragement to us. Your organisation is handling the provision of

Obaro

platform upon which the Federal Government’s Treasury Single Account project will run. Give us an update on the project, when are you completing it and its supposed take off? Well, we actually started off about two years ago. But then the focus was on the payment leg and a good number of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAS) now make their payments through the platform. There are still some which we think should be rounded off before the end of year 2014. And then, 1st of January, they should begin to use it for collections. Recently, we completed a pilot test which was very successful, to prepare the ground for January 1, when all Federal Government’s collections (of taxes, fees, fines, received) and payments to contractors would equally made through this platform. Since you took over the handling of payroll for government, what volume of transactions have you handled? Please can we skip that? Let’s skip all those payroll questions. Why should we skip them? I want my focus on e-payments. But if you answer the payroll questions, it will highlight how much you have saved the Federal Government by the use of your electronic payroll. If you will force me to talk about Federal Government’s project, I will say we started in 2007 and the first month, we were able to save N462 million for the Federal Government. In the First month? And incidentally, somebody drew my attention to the book published by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, on the success of the project. Part of what was celebrated in that book was that the feat was accomplished by a Nigerian firm – System Specs. After he left office, there were some delays in moving to the next stage of the project. Further questions on that, you may wish to direct to the Federal Government. But you are now handling the payroll thing?

Yes, we handle payments for everything coming from the Federal Government, including payment of salaries. But as for the processing of the payroll, in their wisdom, some other arrangements that I’m not privy to, are currently in place.

We started in 2007 and the first month, we were able to save N462 million for the Federal Government

How did you conquer the civil service apathy towards the use of computer in payrolls and collection of revenues? Let me put it this way. In years gone by, people were afraid of computers; the use of computers was associated with job loss, but with time, everybody have realised that computer adds value to organisations. Even civil servants, it is not that they are averse to the use of computers so much, it is just that there is a natural apprehension on what exactly this new system will do. But more in recent times, people have come to appreciate that there is really no threat. You can actually find more proactive requests for the use of computers, even in government establishments. I am not saying that there won’t be pockets of resistance here and there, especially for people who have a different agenda. But I think we give them too much honour and glamour by exaggerating their numbers. I still believe that there are far more positivethinking people than a lot noisier, small clique of negative people. So, with good results coming in place, the positive-looking people are beginning to have their ways, even within government establishments. Given the dynamic growth of technologies in the IT world today, are Nigerian banks keeping pace with developments? I will say yes, to a large extent, in the sense that if you look at the Nigerian economy today, in terms of the use of technology, clearly, banks are still way ahead, relative to the other sectors. Having said that, a number of the banks, unfortunately, still insist on re-inventing the wheel a couple of times and that may not be the best for everybody. Because it just increases the cost of production within the economy without necessarily adding a commensurate value. Yes the banks are trying to

Business | Interview

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

development, says Obaro invoices, you do everything from the same application; you have everything tied together. So, all of that is what Remita offers. So, part of the short term things we intend to do is to create that awareness for people to know that you don’t need to continue to log into different websites and carry multiple tokens, travel wave tokens to process transactions. Remita gives a one stop application

BIODATA Educational Background: MBA - University of Lagos – 1981, BSC (Mathematics and Computer Science) Ahmadu Bello University – 1979 Work Experience Leventis Group of Companies; Head, Information Systems, International Merchant Bank (IMB); Managing Director/CEO System Specs, 1992 to date Membership of professional bodies: Fellow of Nigeria computer society; First Vice President, The Institute of Software practitioners of Nigeria (ISPON); Governing Council of Computer Profession Registration of Nigeria.

So both an individual and a bank can initiate it? An individual can log into one bank account and it will give you access because all the other accounts are tied to your bank .What this means is that you can have a one stop application. So, an individual can initiate it and make payment, not necessarily through a bank. Of course, Remita recognises that this is through a bank. When you log into Remita, we give you access to your accounts. You can give instructions to your bank to pay nominated beneficiaries and you can do this for as many banks as you have. So, you have one entry point which is Remita, but it is connected to all the banks.

keep pace with development, but they should do more collaborative work. What do you consider the greatest challenge of Nigerian banks in the area of Information Technology? Well, I guess every bank has to always be on its toes, monitoring changes, because if you have an efficient technology today, you are not sure what the competition will come up with tomorrow, which may just zero-rise whatever achievements you think you have made. So, all banks have to constantly be on the lookout to be sure that their processes are optimal. And security will always be an issue where there is money as criminals will be lurking around. Therefore, banks need to balance efficiencies with security. Compared with the developed world, are they living up to expectation? Very much so. I dare to say that some of the things that we do in the banking space today, you are not yet able to do it easily even in some of the developed countries. I believe Nigeria has done very well if you look at the type of cards. The EMV cards we use in Nigeria, it has not been that fast in the deployment, say in the United States of America, for instance, where they still have a lot of mat stripped cards which makes them more prone to fraud. But in Nigeria, within a short time, all cards were replaced to EMV. And the kinds of things we are able to do online now are getting wide by the day. So, I will say that Nigerian banks have done well in that regard. What has the technology sector gained in the last two years? What level of development do you expect to see in the next five years? Well, in the last two years, a lot of things have happened; many new firms have sprung up, with exciting value propositions. Companies and other organisations are beginning to have more efficient websites; they are able to do many things on organisations’ websites, input relevant data and hook up to payment engines. So many interesting things, the ecommerce space has blossomed in the last two years, a non-existent industry before then. Some positive things have happened in the last two years. In the next five years, I see a lot more happening. We have now gained traction; people are more comfortable now, using their mobile phones. Many things that are on the website will begin to become APPS on your phone. There will be increased use of technology within the economy. It is just the language of the new generation. Cybercrimes constitute a major threat to the epayment sector. Given your cognate experience, what strategies do you advise banks to adopt to check cybercrime?

For the MDA’s making collections, how does it work? As resident association, for instance, or an old boy of an association, if you want people to pay you money at the website, we can give you a link and you put on the website or even if you don’t have website, we can give you a link which you can send to people by email. When they click or press that link, they will be able to supply all the information you want from them.

Obaro

All Nigerian banks can receive and transfer funds on Remita. There are about 500 Microfinance institutions and companies, apart from banks, that can receive funds from Remita

Well, every organisation has its security policies. How frequently they review their security issues will check their vulnerabilities. And associations too should be sharing experiences so that when a threat is identified in any area, they will be able to quickly respond in a collaborative manner. Take the e-payment space for instance, it is not one organisation or one bank, but it is about the e-payment industry that we need to ensure that it is secured, such that people can comfortably participate in the market. It is not good enough that you think you are good, but some other players create problem in the cyber space. You need to be constantly sensitive to possible changes that will check their vulnerabilities. Remita is your flagship product, how many banks are using it. Can you explain how it works? Let’s put it this way - all Nigerian banks can receive and transfer funds on Remita. There are about 500 Micro-finance institutions and companies, apart from banks, that can receive funds from Remita. Customers of these banks and micro-finance institutions are able to initiate transactions. Like we normally say, Remita was not actually designed for banks but for banks’ customers. The relationship with the banks is that two systems share income in terms of application. Some of the banks have branded Remita, presenting it to their customers. And some are comfortable presenting it as it is. Maybe you have five bank accounts and you need to operate each one anytime you do a transaction. Remita says no. Again, for some of these organisations to withdraw their cash, they need to visit different websites, but Remita is saying no, just sign in once and you can monitor all the people making payments to you. You want to process your payroll, pay taxes, pay your housing fund, your pensions, issue electronic

Still on the MDAs, is it the same model? Is this what is going to be rolled out? For the MDAs, each person who wants to make payments would have received the reference, take it to a bank and make the payment through online banking. So, with this, governments can tell their financial positions? That was the objective of the project. And it is billed to start from January, 2015? Yes, that was the plan of the Federal Government. As a strategic player in the Nigerian e-payment space, what has been the achievements and challenges in the adoption of e-payment in Nigeria? I am not sure there is a challenge per se. There were just things that we had to pass through. What are the most significant barriers for the adopters of technology in Nigeria? Are costs still seen as the largest issue? I don’t think that cost is an issue at all. I mean, by the time you do the arithmetic, you will look at the savings all parties are making. Banks are saving; customers are saving because of efficiencies introduced. Banks can reach out to more people now without necessarily building brick and mortars branches. Individuals can transact business without going in the sun to physically visit a branch; people get value, maximum 24 hours. This is something that used to be be 28 days in some odd cases. So, there has been efficiencies all over. Now, if you are asked to pay something to ensure that structures are in place, to ensure continuity in the provision of these services, then that should not be a problem. Is there any barrier? In as much as societal knowledge has improved, knowledge is something we must always pursue. We must not rest on our oars. We must keep seeking the best way to do things in order to get optimal results at any point in time.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Leisure Arcade NUTS

By Kaycee

NTPuzzle

Halloween Word Search a g z m o n s t e r d h m o o n b v x m

MAMA LASISI

By Aliu Eroje

c o f f i n a w t u q s p i r x t c r m k t a d w t j n i m o g r b i r j i c y l y t o t e f n k w g d y o c a g c a t

MOYIN & FRIENDS

By Ayo Oyerinde

d x s o h t j k d r o i s c o x i i k v

bat boo cat coffin ghost monster moon mummy SUDOKU - Answer to No 17

SUDOKU - No 18

2 1

5 9

8 9

5 1

1 1

6 7

How to play

Sudoku

ALIU EROJE

CHIEF CARTOONIST aliu.eroje@newtelegraphonline.com

The objective is to fill a 9x9 grid so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3x3 boxes (also called blocks or regions) contains the digits from 1 to 9. A cell is the smallest block in the game. A row , column and region consists of 9 cells and the whole game consists of 81 cells. A region has thicker lines surrounding it. This simply makes it easier to play the game.

NTJokes THE DEFINITION OF A PHARMACIST Teacher: Who is a pharmacist? only Akpors raised up his hand. Teacher: So it’s only Akpors that is the most intelligent student I have in this class? Still there’s no body else to answer the question except Akpors. Tacher: Ok now Akpors, use this cane and flog them ten strokes of cane each! Akpors filled with happiness, gave all the students ten hot strokes of cane.... Teacher: oyaa my dear Akpors, tell this dumb students who a pharmacist is... Akpors: A pharmacist is a farmer who assists people. Teacher fainted...

Photo | News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

L-R: Deputy Commandant, Peace Corps of Nigeria Admmin, Lola Amoo; National Commandant, Amb. Dickson Akor and Dr. Edet Ekpeyong, at the corpâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end of the year/award in Abuja.

A cross-section of the children of the Fidelity Bank SWEETA, during their Christmas party in Lagos.

PHOTO: SULEIMAN HUSAINI

PHOTO: ELIJAH OLALUYI

L-R: Elder brother to the Chief Personal Physician to the President, Mr. Fiberesima; Chief Personal Physician to the President, (CPP), Dr. Fortune Fiberesima and the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, at the burial of Pa David Peter Fiberesima in Okrika, Rivers State.

L-R: Executive Director, Skye Bank Plc, Dotun Adeniyi; leader of Obigbo, Charles Aize; Managing Director, Sophiticat, Lanre Ogunlesi and Managing Director, House J Hotels and Resort, Bayo Fatusin, during the House J Hotels and Resort Christmas party in Lagos.

L-R: Manager, Corporate Sales (South-South/South-East), Etisalat Nigeria, Mrs Nneka Owolabi; an Etisalat Corporate Customer, Mr. Kanu Nnanna; Head, Regional Sales (South-South), Etisalat Nigeria, Mr. Enekwachi Aja and Analyst, Events, Etisalat Nigeria, Martina Ogbebor, during the December Shopping dash by Etisalat for its corporate customers at SPAR supermarket, Port-Harcourt.

L-R: Senior Pastor, House on The Rock Church, Paul Adefarasin; Head of Mission, Africa, House on The Rock Church, Pastor Goke Coker and leader of the people of Makoko Community, Mr. Ahmed Oke, at the presentation of food items to Makoko people to mark the churchâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Christmas project reach in Lagos .

L-R: Comptroller General, Nigeria Prisons Service, Peter Ekpendu; Director General, State Services, Ita Ekpenyong and Faderera 1 Laroka of Wanikin-Ife, Kole Ojutalayo, at the graduation of the Executive Intelligence Management Course (EIMC) 7 in Abuja. PHOTO: ELIJAH OLALUYI.

L-R: Wife of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Akwa Ibom State Chairman, Mrs Vivian Ekpo; wife of the PDP governorship candidate, Martha Emmanuel and Mr Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, at the 9999 Christmas carol service in Uyo.

News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

SOUTH-WEST

Clark’s wife, aspirant fight over Ogun PDP ticket Kunle Olayeni Abeokuta

former Commissioner for Health in Ogun State, Dr Bisola Sodipo-Clark, has said she remained the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for Ogun Central Senatorial District in the 2015 general elections declaring that she was duly declared winner of

5.13m

the party’s primaries. Sodipo-Clark, who is the wife of foremost Ijaw national leader, Chief Edwin Clark, said this while speaking with journalists in Abeokuta. But in a swift reaction, the Concerned Stakeholders of PDP in Ogun Central zone, in a statement signed by Adewale Sogbetun, faulted the claim that the former commissioner

The total population of women in Bolivia in 2012. Source: Un.org

ever won the party’s senatorial primary election. According to SodipoClark, the organisers of the primary election went ahead to conduct it after the initial disruption by suspected hoodlums. The ex-commissioner said she eventually won the contest by 185 votes while her opponent, Lanre Laose, polled 83 votes. She denied the allega-

74.35%

The percentage of individuals using the internet in Bermuda in 2007. Source: Itu.int

tion in some quarters that the Presidency was bent on imposing her candidature due to the influence of her husband. She said, “When the situation was brought under control and the hoodlums were cleared out of the venue, the party leaders decided to proceed with the election in keeping with the INEC schedule as expected.

£38.5m

The annual salary of Lionel Messi of FC Barcelona. Source: Paywizard.co.uk

“My physical presence was not required at the secretariat because I was not one of the organisers of the primaries. However, I was in touch with my coaspirants and when the results were announced, I spoke with them to encourage unity going forward as we are all working towards the same goal of better representation for Ogun State in the upper house.”

The number of probable cases of Ebola virus disease infection in health-care workers in Guinea as at October 19, 2014. Source: Who.int

Regional Health Manager, Sub-Saharan Africa, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo), Dr. Femi Oduneye (right) and National Director, SOS Children’s Village, Mr. Eghosa Erhumwunse, during the donation of two buses to the SOS Children’s Village, Isolo, Lagos, by NNPC-SNEPCo/the handing over of the upgraded and equipped clinic to the Village in Lagos

Fashola rallies support for Ambode Muritala Ayinla

agos State Governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, has called on All Progressives Congress (APC) aspirants who contested the governorship primaries of the party to join hands and build a formidable team to ensure victory for the party’s governorship candidate, Mr Akinwumi Ambode in the February 2015 election. Fashola, who said all

hands must be on the deck to ensure that the APC continues to govern the state, stated that there a need to rally the stakeholders in the party round its flag bearer, stating that there should be commitment on the part of everybody to build a desirable team that would ensure victory for the governorship candidate at the polls. Fashola spoke at the weekend when he hosted all the APC stalwarts

who contested the governorship primaries of the party in the state, commending their conduct during the primaries. In attendance at the meeting were the APC flag bearer, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, his Deputy and Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Oluranti Adebule. Others were the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat; former Commissioner for Special Duties,

Dr. Tola Kasal; Senator representing Lagos West, Senator Ganiyu Solomon, former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Mr. Supo Sasore; Mrs. Adetokunbo TobunAgbesanwa, Mr Abayomi Sutton and Mr. Lanre Ope. Calling on the party aspirants to kickstart campaign for the party governorship flag bearer, Fashola said: “The candidate has to get on the road. And nothing would be more enabling

and more intimidating for the opposition than to see all the aspirants in the campaign team of the party’s flag bearer.” Fashola tasked the aspirants to ensure they devote meaningful time to give all necessary support to the torch bearer, who would require their presence at electioneering campaigns as he commences the move to ensure the APC remains in power in Lagos.

Group chides Aregbesola over education policy Adeolu Adeyemo Osogbo

human rights group, the Centre for Human Rights and Social Justice (CHRSJ), at the weekend lambasted Governor Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State, over what it described as a retrogressive educational policy in the state, stating that the Governor’s policy on education has only bastardized the sector of the state since he came on board. The group, in a statement signed by its Executive Chairman, Comrade Adeniyi Alimi Sulaiman, in Osogbo stated “Aregbesola has neglected the sector and turned it to the conduit pipe where millions of Federal Government /Universal Basic Education(UBE) funds were siphoned by his cronies under the guise of building mega schools.’’ The CHRSJ boss said, “Aregbesola used to bamboozle the people, particularly the poor masses of Osun State with the hope of building mega schools across the state, not knowing that the resources used for the building of few new structures were made available by the Federal Government of Nigeria/Universal Basic Education(UBE) intervention fund. We want to ask if Governor Aregbesola can pray that his Children, grand children and great –grand Children acquire western eduction in this school, if not, who is fooling who ?.” Sulaiman revealed that failure of the both primary and secondary school students to sit for the first term examination was a result of the poor learning and education development in the state, stressing that the education sector has never had it so bad since the creation of the State in August 1991, calling on the people of the state to join hands with wellmeaning people of the State to save the future of the education sector from the hand of the Aregbesola’s government.

Akala, Folarin bicker over academic qualification Ebola: Lagos tasks citizens on hygiene at Yuletide Sola Adeyemo Ibadan

ormer Oyo State governor and the governorship candidate of the Labour Party, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, has described the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Senator Teslim Folarin, as a dubious holder of university certificates. The former governor, who recently decamped

from the PDP for LP, accused Folarin of never going through any academic course that qualified him as a holder of degree in Political Science from the University of Ibadan as claimed, stating that he should be screened for the veracity of his claim. The allegation followed the claim by Folarin that Alao-Akala, was the sole sponsor of violence in the ancient city of Ibadan and the entire Oyo State during his reign as governor

of Oyo State. Speaking on the former governor’s allegation regarding, his, Folarin’s academic qualification, the PDP gubernatorial flag bearer described Alao-Akala as petty, stating, “Everybody knows that I attended the University of Ibadan and got a degree in Political Science. How could anybody say that I do not have a university degree? Anybody can go to the university to verify. Such an allegation is petty”, he said.

Appolonia Adeyemi

n its bid to ensure that Lagos continues to remain Ebola free, the state government has called on residents to be mindful of what they do, eat and drink during the Yuletide celebrations. According to a statement from the Lagos State Ministry of Health signed by its Assistant Director, Press & Public Relations, Mr. Tunbosun Ogunban-

wo, the state government has also urged residents to observe good personal and environmental hygiene and follow advice on the prevention of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris who stated this over the weekend, stressed that since the season is noted for wining, dining and visiting of relations and friends, particularly those coming from other countries, it becomes im-

perative to be on the alert. He said, “presently, there is no active case of Ebola in the country but Ebola is still a threat as its presence in neigbouring West African countries puts the nation at risk. This is why there is need to be on the alert and observe a high degree of personal and environmental hygiene, especially during this season of celebrations to prevent the disease from resurfacing in the country again”.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

News 47

SOUTH-EAST

2015: Jonathan will trounce Buhari, says Obi

ormer Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi, yesterday said he would not have problem delivering Jonathan in the Southern region of Nigeria. Obi, who is the Deputy Director of the Jonathan campaign organization in charge of South East, South South and South West, said it had been ordained that Jonathan would serve a second term and therefore, nothing can stop his re-

13%

The crude birth rate of Eastern Asia in 2010-2015. Source: Un.org

election in 2015. Obi spoke to journalists shortly after his investiture as a Papal Knight of St Sylvester at St Patrick Cathedral, Awka, Anambra State. He said the way he miraculously became Papal Knight before the mandatory age of 55 would be the way Jonathan would be miraculously re-elected next year. On the seeming strained relationship between him, his former party, All Progressives

Grand Alliance(APGA) and the governor of the state, Chief Willie Obiano, Obi described it as the figment of the imagination of certain people, adding that he had a cordial relationship with the aforementioned. He, however, said where he would be going politically would be better than where he was before leaving APGA. Speaking in the church, the Bishop of Awka Diocese of the Catholic Church, Most

48.6

Rev Pauilinus Ezeokafor, said the recognition of Obi for the knighthood was as a result of his wonderful work he did with his team when he was executive governor of the state. The Bishop said one of the most significant contributions of Obi was the impact of his administration on the psyche of the people of Anambra State. He maintained that Obi demonstrated that Anambra State was not cursed

1.5m

The number of fixed-telephone subscriptions The total population of Gabon (rep. 0.022% per 100 inhabitants of Barbados in 2007. of world’s population) in 2010. Source: Itu.int Source: Blatantworld.com

but that “we were the cause of our problems.” “These demonstrations go beyond the provision of infrastructure- the good network of roads, the new faces and lease of life given to our schools and hospitals, the payment of salaries, pension and gratuities as and when due. “The core of his contribution was with regard to the mental restructuring, the non tangible impressions etched on the psyche of the people,” the

Bishop submitted. Speaking on the investiture, and the APGA National Chairman, Chief Victor Umeh in their separate speeches described Obi as an achiever, who has put his footprint on the sands of time, adding that they could have misunderstanding with Obi on principle and nothing more.

N14.3m

Stanley Ihedigbo

The total capital importation value of the Construction sector in 2009. Source: National Bureau of Statistics

L-R: Wife of former Governor of Anambra State, Margaret Obi; Chief Peter Obi; their children, Amaka and Eloka, during the investiture of Obi as a Papal Knight at St Patrick’s Cathedral, Awka…yesterday

Ihenacho battles Ezeh in Imo Two aspirants emerge APGA Steve Uzoechi OWERRI

ormer Minister of Interior and Imo State gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Capt. Emmanuel Ihenacho, has accused Mr. Okey Ezeh, whom he defeated in the governorship primary election of being sponsored by some external forces to destabilize the party ahead of 2015 general elections. In a statement signed by the Director-General, Captain Ihenacho Campaign Organization(CICO), Dr. Anthony Ihedoro, which was made available to newsmen in Owerri, Imo State, the former minister described APGA under the leadership of Sir Victor Umeh and Barr. Peter Ezeobi, at the national and state level respectively, as one

united political family that remains committed to reclaiming its mandate in Imo, in the 2015 election. The APGA governorship hopeful, however, described the report of his purported suspension as a hoax and part of the orchestrated plot by those external forces that have found Ezeh a willing tool to execute their nefarious bid to weaken and deny the party victory in 2015. He added that having won the primaries and the symbolic APGA flag duly presented to him as Imo candidate at the recently concluded APGA Special Convention held at Awka, Anambra State, the issue of the governorship candidacy in Imo State APGA remains foreclosed as anyone parading himself as the candidate is merely impersonating and risks facing the law.

guber candidates in Abia Igbeaku Orji UMUAHIA

he hope of the former Diamond Bank Managing Director, Dr Alex Otti emerging as the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in Abia State may have hit the brick wall, as it appears the party has an alternative candidate for the position. The development came to the fore, as the Chairman of the party in Abia State, Chief Nnanna Ukaegbu, accused the National Chairman of the party, Chief Victor Umeh, on whose faction Otti, is nursing the ambition of his emergence as running the party as his personal estate. Ukaegbu, stated the position in Aba at the public presentation of the purported governorship candidate of the party in Abia, Chief Reagan Ufomba, at the

same venue where Otti was reported to have been chosen as the party’s flag bearer, saying that the development, was a demonstration of Umeh’s placement of his personal interest above that of the party. He revealed too, that the ugly situation being witnessed within the party shows that the leadership of the party was the root of the leadership crisis rocking APGA. “APGA is a legacy bequeathed to us by Odumegwu Ojukwu but Umeh for the past 11 years has converted it to his personal business, instead of bowing out he continues to balkanize the party for his personal gains.” Ukaegbu, stated that Ufomba, had remained the major financier of the party in the state since 2007, and remained the authentic candidate of the party for the 2015 governorship election.

Group task Igbo on politics

digbo-Amaka, a sociopolitical group of all Igbos from the South-East geopolitical zone of Nigeria has called on the Igbo to play a great part in the evolving political activities of the country with the view to ensuring that credible people occupy the country’s political offices. President, NdigboAmaka group, Mr. Leonard Ogbonna urged Nigerians, particularly the Igbo-speaking communities in Lagos State, to participate fully in the 2015 general election, saying the Igbo share the belief that the government possess the ability to conduct credible polls. Speaking at the market summit and voters’ sensitization organised by the group on the importance of voting for credible candidates in 2015 at the trade fair complex, Lagos, he explained that the sensitisation became necessary to stress the need for members to participate actively in the current democratic dispensation.

Coalition accuses Elechi of sabotage Charles Onyekwere ABAKALIKI

group known as the coalition of Ebonyi State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)candidates for the 2O15 general elections, has accused Governor Martin Elechi of sabotaging the activities of the party in the state. The coalition, in a press conference in Abakaliki, said the governor used the recent town hall meeting held on the December 15 to formalise his entry into the Labour party(LP) and abandoned the PDP. A statement, issued at the end of the briefing was signed by three senatorial candidates of the zones,six federal House of Representatives candidates and 24 state of Assembly candidates,and made available to newsmen. According to the statement,the conference sought to address the sinis-

ter attempt by the supposedly PDP governor of Ebonyi State, Elechi to undermine, sabotage and reverse the gains of the party in the state, as the 2O15 general election draws near. They stated that Elechi spent the better part of the meeting reeling out a litany of spurious arguments,why he has been unable to complete a single project in the past seven and half years,he assumed office. The statement read in parts: “it was obvious to all present that the main purpose of the meeting,was to announce to the whole world that “the PDP is a sinking ship. “Although,he would not be the first to abandon the ship,he was calling on his followers to do so. “Under Elechi’s watch in 2O11,the party was close to implosion with many party faithfuls leaving en-masse to fight him from the opposition.”

News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

SOUTH - SOUTH

Amaechi lambasts Wike for desecrating Akpor kingdom BROTHERS

Amaechi and Wike are Ikwerre. Only politics can put them asunder

ivers State governor and Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, yesterday called on the people of Akpor kingdom to vote out the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Nyesom Wike, in the 2015 elections for allegedly desecrating the kingdom, a stronghold of the Ikwerre ethnic nationality. Amaechi stated this at the weekend, when he paid a courtesy call on the Nyenwe-Ali Akpor Kingdom, Eze A. A. Orlu Oriebe, at the launching/

foundation stone laying of the proposed Akpor Traditional Centre at Ozuoba in the Obio/Akpor Local Government of the state. He said the unholy collaboration between supporters of the PDP and Wike, to perpetuate the molestation of the Nyenwe-Ali stool in Akpor kingdom, currently under the kingship of Eze Orlu Oriebe with thugs and police at the time when Mbu Joseph

Mbu was commissioner of police, was practically illegal and an act of disrespect to the traditional stool and elders of Ikwerre. According to him, “The All Progressives Congress (APC) and my government will no longer hear and tolerate that you are molested by the Peoples Democratic Party. They only succeeded in molesting you during the time Mbu Joseph Mbu was here. But now,

$61.5m

The total pay (including salary/winnings & endorsements) of Kobe Bryant (Basketball) for 2014. Source: Forbes.com

it is time for the people of Akpor kingdom to allow the riverine people of the state produce the next governor in 2015 and I am sure you will honour this request,” Amaechi said. He also promised to recognise traditional stools in Obio/Akpor Local Government before the expiration of his tenure. “On my table, there are so many requests for the recognition of traditional stools. I know that Akpor

62,000

The projected number of Americans above 65 years with Alzheimer’s in Kansas State by 2025. Source: Alz.org

kingdom occupies a high place in the Ikwerre ethnic nationality. Your people have a duty to protect the people occupying traditional stools. Mgbueto stool will be recognised for the benefit of the people in that kingdom,” Amaechi said. Governor Amaechi further urged the people to brace up and massively mobilise for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2015 elections as his administration was mak-

€100m

The record-breaking transfer fee of Gareth Bale from Tottenham to Real Madrid in 2013. Source: Goal.com

Supporters of Rivers gov warn APC Wale Elegbede

Peterside promises to improve on Amaechi's legacy Emmanuel Masha

he Rivers State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Hon Dakuku Peterside, has promised the people of the state of his readiness to improve on the legacy of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi if elected as governor. Peterside, who stated this at the thanksgiving and dedication of his ambition at the new Obi Wali International Centre, said he was ready to take over the mantle of leadership from Amaechi. At the event, attended by Amaechi and top APC chieftains, Peterside said he was ready because power belongs to God. "I am ready to take over Government House. God bypassed me in spite of my weaknesses and chose me for this race. I am ready because the battle belongs to God," he said. "I will continue from where Governor Amaechi stopped, and I will take Rivers State to the next level."

ing frantic efforts to fix Ogbogoro road soonest. “You must start now to build APC and massively mobilise for the party ahead of the 2015 election. This is because I have done enough for the people of Akpor kingdom. My administration fixed the Ozuoba-Choba road. I even awarded 14-classroom blocks to Nyesom Wike at the cost of N112 million each. But, as you can see, he has not built even a classroom.

L-R: Miss Carniriv 2014, Stephaine Chinda; APC Gubernatorial candidate for Rivers State, Dakuku Peterside and Rivers State Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, at the 14-kilometre Carniriv Garden City Freestyle Parade in Port Harcourt…at the weekend

Suspended PDP lawmakers defect to APC Cajetan Mmuta BENIN

ggrieved lawmakers under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Edo State House of Assembly who lost their reelection bid ahead of the 2015 elections are poised to reunite with their counterparts in the All Progressives Congress (APC) sitting in the old executive chambers of Government Hosue, Be-

nin City, the state capital. The 24-member House was split in June 2014, following the suspension of four members over alleged misconduct. Also, investigation revealed yesterday that the plenary of the House may move from the Old Executive Chambers’ venue to the Anthony Enahoro legislative chambers at the Kings Square. The nine PDP legislators have been holding their plenary at the Kings

Square. At the peak of the crisis, the plenary of the APC legislators was presided over by the Speaker, Hon. Uyi Igbe, while that of the PDP legislators was presided over by the suspended Deputy Speaker, Hon. Festus Ebea. The Minority Whip of the PDP-controlled group, Kingsley Ehigiamusoe, gave the indication of a possible reunited House at the weekend.

He said it was important for the APC and the PDP members to come together irrespective of their party affiliation and differences in the interest of peace and the development of the state. Ehigiamusoe noted that nobody or political party was bigger than the state. Ehigiamusoe, representing Igueben and a two-time lawmaker, had lost his third term bid on the platform of the PDP to a fresh candidate.

political group, the Amaechi Core Supporters Vanguard, yesterday said it is opposed to what it described as the systematic marginalisation of the Rivers State governor, Rotimi Amaechi, in the affairs of the All Progressives Congress (APC). In a statement signed by its coordinator, Mr. Gabriel Orlu, the group warned that any further ill-treatment of its leader, Amaechi, might force its members to reconsider their place in the APC. The statement reads in part: “We, the entire members of the Amaechi Core Supporters Vanguard, have watched with great interest and disappointment, the unfolding events in our great party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) in recent times and wish to condemn the systematic marginalisation of our leader, Governor Rotimi Amaechi, in the affairs of the APC. “The most recent in the long list of injustice and humiliation meted out to Amaechi, a man who has given everything, be it funding, courage and visibility to our party, APC, even at the risk of making himself unpopular among his kin and kith, is the brazen manner he was rejected as the running mate of our presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari."

Akpabio preaches love, peace at Christmas Group cries out against marginalisation Benin DISCO explains power outage in Edo

igerians of different religious backgrounds have been asked to recommit and rededicate themselves to God by imbibing the spirit of love and peace because 'God is love' Akwa Ibom State Governor, Godswill Akpabio, who made the remark at the weekend during this year's Akwa Ibom State government Christmas

carol night, which featured 9, 999 choristers at the state International Stadium, Uyo, said: “Let each succeeding generation of Akwa Ibom people use this to recommit and rededicate themselves to God. “Let the praise from this event bring everyone to God’s banqueting hall, where love is served and righteousness reigns.”

Cajetan Mmuta BENIN

socio-cultural and political organisation, Defender of Democracy Group (DDG), yesterday raised the alarm over what it called a calculated attempt by various governments in the country

to marginalise the Isoko nation in Delta State despite being a populous oil bearing area in the state. The group also urged all sons and daughters of Isoko to shun any political party that refuses to field an Isoko son or daughter as deputy governor in the next dispensation.

he recurrent power outages in Ugbowo area of Benin City, Edo State, were yesterday said to be caused by load limitation on the Guinness 33KV line from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) explained in a statement. Lately, residents of

the area had been facing power challenges. BEDC noted that as a distribution company, it relies on supply from generating companies through the transmission networks, and that a transformer failure from the TCN can affect its business of distributing power to households and companies.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

News 49

NORTH

Lamido to Jonathan: Our votes are for you if… Dahiru Suleiman Dutse

igawa State gover nor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, has reiterated his stand that the people of Jigawa State would vote for President Goodluck Jonathan in next year’s general election, provided the president will redeem his earlier pledges to the people. Speaking at a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

stakeholders’ meeting in Dutse, Governor Lamido said: “Based on our marathon discussion with Mr. President, I am happy to announce to you that President Jonathan has assured me that he will redeem his previous campaign promises.” Parts of the promises are the completion of Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project, the construction and expansion of Dutse Regional Water Scheme, the Auyo Irrigation Proj-

ect and the construction of Dutse International Airport. It will be recalled that during the 2011 presidential campaign, the president promised Jigawa people that he will complete the Hadejia Valley Irrigation Project, among other promises, which he has failed to fulfill. Lamido said: “Upon failing us by Mr. President, we took the pain of using our hardearned

money to construct a befitting international airport to the tune of N16 billion, only to be refused to be reimbursement of such huge investment by the presidency.” According to him, “I categorically stated before Mr. President, the message of my people that, as you know, you have a carryover of campaign promises to Jigawa people and that if really you want their mandate this time around, we

are appealing to you to redeem those promises; and he assured me that he would meet those promises, the governor said. “We remain resolute to our great party, the PDP, and strongly loyal to our dear nation, but in supporting and endorsing Mr. President for another term, we will remain silent, unless and until the President honours his pledges appropriately,” said Lamido.

Kwara State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed (second right) and his wife, Omolewa, presenting some working tools to one of the beneficiaries of LEAH Foundation Special Empowerment programme for women at the Government House, Ilorin...yesterday

Bauchi transport firm offsets N254m loans Mohammed Kawu BAUCHI

auchi State transport firm, the Yankari Transport Corporation, said it has repaid N200 million of the N254.5 million transportation loan it acquired in 2011 from the Urban Development Bank. The General Manager of the corporation, Alhaji Yahaya Tanimu, said the loan, which has a monthly offset of N6 million, is to be fully repaid sometimes next year, adding that there wasn’t any month the corporation failed in its repayment obligation. Taminu, in a chat with journalists yesterday, revealed that the corporation has presently 85 serviceable and roadworthy vehicles with five of them 50-seaters that undertake long distance transportation of passengers. He added that the corporation trains its workers in collaboration with the Vehicle Inspection Unit of the Ministry of Works, as all its vehicles have speed limit gadgets installed in them to forestall accident and ensure good working condition of the vehicles.

Minna jailbreak: Securitymen leave escapees Reject December salaries, Dan Atori MINNA

ocal water suppliers popularly known as ‘Mai ruwa’ have started running away from Minna, the Niger State capital, over the unlawful arrest on some of them by security agents after the jailbreak at the Minna Medium Prison. Some of the local water suppliers, who hail from Katsina State, have also threatened to sue the Comptroller-General of Prisons and other security agencies in Niger State for unlawful arrest. Speaking to our cor-

respondent, one of the local water suppliers, Dabo Adamu, said he was arrested alongside many other suppliers by a combined team of security men who drove in four trucks, claiming that they were among the escapees from the prison. Adamu, who spoke in Hausa, told New Telegraph that; “I just supplied my customer a truck load of water, and I decided to buy a recharge card to load my phone. I was loading the phone when security men with guns ordered me into their truck. “When I asked them

what happened, they pushed and forced me into the truck, even though I told them I am a water supplier and they saw me with my truck. They collected my phone and all the money in my pocket.” Adamu, who hails from Daura in Katsina State, said it took the intervention of some of his customers for him to be released. Another water supplier, Abdul Ibrahim said: “I live in Wushishi Estate in Minna, some of the people they arrested and took to the prison are water suppliers and not escapees. When I

requested for my phone and money after we were released, they said I should count myself lucky, rather than asking for my phone.” The water suppliers, however, pleaded with the Comptroller-General of Prisons to intervene in the matter, so that their innocent colleagues and kinsmen be released forthwith. It will be recalled that gunmen on December 6, 2014 broke into the Minna Medium Prisons, freeing 270 inmates from the Minna Medium Prisons with 211 inmates still at large.

Kogi NLC tells workers Muhammad Bashir Lokoja

ess than four days to Christmas, the Kogi State chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) has called on workers in the state to reject their December salaries in protest against moves by the state government to sack 6, 000 workers. The union, in a joint communique issued at the end of its meeting in Lokoja at the weekend, which was signed by the state NLC Chairman, Comrade Odaudu James and the TUC Secretary,

Comrade Kolawole J. O. respectively, urged the workers to heed to the directive in the interest of the security of their jobs. The communique read: “SEC in session, having noticed government’s plan to send away over 6, 000 workers in Kogi State, the union hereby resolved that all workers should reject their salaries for December 2014, to protect their jobs.” The labour union further warned the state government to reverse its decision or be faced with the consequences of its action.

10, 000 Borno residents take refuge in Adamawa Masari: APC’ll put an end to PDP’s rule Ibrahim Abdul Yola

o fewer than 10, 000 residents of Chibok, Damboa and Gwoza in Borno State, who escaped from the Boko Haram attack in the state are currently taking refuge in Adamawa State, elders of the area have disclosed. Two prominent elder

statesmen from the area, Elder David B. Kitakwa and the Peoples Democratic Party, Chairman in Gwoza Local Government, Pa Abdulmunini Isah, confirmed that no fewer than 10,000 people, including women and children, had been displaced by the insurgents in the area this year. The elders, who are presently taking refuge

in Adamawa State, along with thousands of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) from Borno State, disclosed to newsmen, shortly after the lawmaker representing Chibok/ Damboa/Gwoza federal constituency donated some relief materials to Damare IDPs’ camp in Girei Local Government, that many of them took to their heels to save their lives.

Ibraheem Musa Kaduna

he former Speaker of the House of Representatives and gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Katsina State, Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari, has boasted that his party would defeat the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

in the 2015 elections if the people’s votes would count. Masari, who addressed newsmen shortly after chairing the Annual General Meeting of Katsina State indigenes resident in Kaduna, was optimistic that his party is ready to deal with any challenge headlong in order to avoid a repeat of the 2011 election, when

the election was rigged in favour of the PDP. While noting that the 2015 election may determine the existence of Nigeria as an entity, the former speaker cited bad leadership, corruption and lack of foresight as the bane of the present administration. He also said that the only solution is to send the PDP packing.

WORLD | News

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Mass conversion in India PM’s home state sparks anger

ardline Hindu groups came under fire yesterday after about 200 Christians were converted in the Indian prime minister’s home state, amid increasing concern at the right-wing government’s perceived pro-Hindu tilt. The radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) said it converted Christian tribal people to their original Hindu faith in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s western home state of Gujarat late Saturday. The mass event drew widespread criticism from Christian groups and Modi’s political opponents yesterday. They accused radical organisations linked to Modi’s ruling party, like the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of forcing or enticing religious minorities to convert to Hinduism. “Extreme right wing is flex-

ing its muscles. VHP/RSS through Hindutatva (“Hinduness”), rewriting history and economic policies,” Digvijay Singh, a leader of the opposition Congress party, posted on Twitter early yesterday. A Gujarat-based priest said he could not “accept that anyone who has been a Christian will convert to other religions by personal choice”. “VHP is forcing people and luring them to convert their religion to.” Father Dominic was quoted as saying by Zee News channel’s website. Saturday’s mass ceremony took place in a tribal village, 350 kilometres (215 miles) south of the state capital Ahmedabad. It happened hours after Modi’s Hindu nationalist, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological mentor RSS called for a new law to ban “forced religious conversions”. “Over 200 people were asked to throw their religious pendants in a holy fire

and were given new pendants with the image of (Hindu) Lord Rama,” Ajit Solanki, a Gujarat state VHP secretary, told AFP. Solanki however denied using any kind of force or monetary promises, maintaining that the conversions were voluntary. The world’s most populous democracy is a secular country under the constitution and religious freedom is considered a

fundamental right. The issue of mass conversions has paralysed India’s parliament, with opposition lawmakers demanding Modi make a statement on earlier reports of poor Muslims being coerced into Hinduism. A hardline group linked to the BJP was accused of converting some 50 slum-dwelling Muslim families about a week ago in the Taj Mahal city of Agra. One of

the converts told AFP they were promised ration cards and other financial incentives if they switched religions. Critics say Hindu hardline groups have become emboldened since the BJP was elected, promoting a Hindu-dominant agenda. Modi, who spent his early years in the RSS, has made no comment on religious issues since becoming Premier.

Egypt retires hardline intelligence chief

gypt’s intelligence chief, who took office in mid2013 after the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Mursi, has been retired from the job, the presidency said yesterday. No reason was given in a statement for the departure of Mohamed Farid al-Tohamy, who had been a consistent advocate of the fierce security crackdown on Mursi’s Muslim Brotherhood that has seen hundreds killed and thousands jailed. The state-run news portal AlAhram said Tohamy, who is in his 60s, was retired for health reasons. Khaled Fawzy, a senior official in the intelligence agency, will temporarily assume Tohamy’s duties, the presidential statement said. “President Ab-

del Fattah al-Sisi has issued a decree to retire Mr Mohamed Farid (al-Tohamy), head of general intelligence, and issued a decree awarding him the Order of the Republic of the first degree in recognition of his efforts throughout his career,” it said. Sisi previously served with Tohamy in military intelligence and as army chief orchestrated Mursi’s ouster after mass protests against his rule. Sisi has promised to eradicate the Brotherhood. The crackdown has lately expanded to include liberal and secular activists, including some of the leading figures in the 2011 popular uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Mursi was freely elected in 2012 and ruled for a year.

Health minister named as Haiti’s new interim prime minister

aitian Health Minister Florence Duperval Guillaume was named interim prime minister yesterday to replace Laurent Lamothe, who resigned a week ago following several weeks of protests. The announcement is part of an effort to resolve a mounting political crisis over longdelayed elections. Under Haiti’s constitution, Guillaume can hold the interim position for up to 30 days before a permanent choice is nominated for approval by parliament. Lamothe was forced to resign after President Michel Martelly accepted the recommendations of a special commission appointed to defuse the crisis, including calling for the prime minister to go. It also came after international warnings from the United States and the United Nations that the impoverished Caribbean nation was on the brink of political chaos again.

Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, is still recovering from an earthquake five years ago that leveled much of the capital, Port-au-Prince. In recent weeks, demonstrators in several cities have accused the government of corruption. If elections are not held before Jan. 12, the fifth anniversary of the earthquake, parliament will shut down, leaving the country without a functioning government until presidential elections in late 2015. A career health worker whose official title is minister of public health and population, she is seen as close to Haiti’s First Lady Sophia Martelly, and has overseen efforts to rebuild the country’s fragile medical services, including by starting new hospitals and handling a cholera epidemic and long-running HIV-AIDS treatment. Named health minister in 2011, she is widely respected by international aid agencies.

A man takes part in a ceremony for the conversion of about 200 Christians to Hinduism, at Aranai Village Valsad, district of Gujarat state yesterday.

Tunisians vote in historic presidential run-off

unisians voted yesterday in a presidential run-off election that completes the country’s transition to full democracy nearly four years after an uprising which ousted autocrat, Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. With a new progressive constitution and a full parliament elected in October, Tunisia is hailed as an example of democratic change for a region still struggling with the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring revolts. The North African nation avoided the bitter post-revolt divisions troubling Libya and Egypt, but Sunday’s election pits a former official, Ben Ali against an incumbent who claims to defend the legacy of the 2011 revolution. Frontrunner Beji Caid Essebsi, a former

parliament speaker under Ben Ali, won 39 percent of votes in the first round of voting in November with current president Moncef Marzouki winning 33 percent. Polling opened at 8 a.m. local time (0700 GMT) with a heavy security presence but the morning turnout looked thin at stations around the capital. Official preliminary results were not expected until Monday. Overnight one gunman was killed and three arrested after they opened fire on a polling station in the central Kairouan governorate, a defence ministry official said. Essebsi, 88, dismisses critics who say he would mark a return of the old regime stalwarts. He says he is the technocrat Tunisia needs after three messy years of an Islamist-led coalition government. Marzou-

ki, 69, is a former activist who once sought refuge in France during the Ben Ali era. He has painted an Essebsi presidency as a setback for the “Jasmine Revolution” that forced the former leader to flee into exile. “We need a president who looks after the people and is not interested only in power,” said Ibrahim Ktiti, an electrician who voted in the poor Ettadhamen neighbourhood of Tunis. “The old regime won’t make it back. Essebsi never excused himself for all the time he was with Ben Ali.” Yet many Tunisians tie Marzouki’s own presidency to the Islamist party’s government and the mistakes opponents said it made in controlling the influence of hardline Islamists in one of the Arab world’s most secular countries.

Security agents raid Sudan rights group’s office

udanese security agents raided the headquarters of a human rights monitor yesterday and seized computers, a member of the group said, nearly two weeks after one of its founders was arrested. National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) agents arrived at the office of the Sudan Human Rights Monitor in the early afternoon and searched the premises. “They took all the computers, even some personal computers from the employees, and they also took some documents and left the building,” the group’s

executive manager Buraq al-Nazir told AFP by telephone. He said the NISS did not close down the group, which documents human rights violations in Sudan. A source who was there at the time said the raid came during a workshop, and that one of those attending it was detained. The source gave no further details. Britain’s ambassador to Sudan, Peter Tibber, tweeted he was “concerned by the raid on Sudan HR Monitor”. On December 6, the NISS detained Amin Makki Madani, a civil rights activist and one of the group’s founders, shortly

after he returned from Addis Ababa where he had signed a document aimed at uniting opposition to President Omar al-Bashir. While Madani signed the document on behalf of civil society groups, other signatories included rebels and opposition parties. Bashir, 70, seized power in a 1989 Islamist-backed coup and won a 2010 election that was marred by opposition boycotts, with monitors saying the process failed to meet international standards. The ruling National Congress Party has said Bashir will stand for reelection in April.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Transfer News

Sports News

Ik Uche relishes Villarreal’s late surge

Man City eye Sneijder as ploy to keep Lampard

Skrtel rescues point for 10-man Liverpool

Sport It is like a cycle; there was a time when the men were doing well and the women were performing poorly, but now the cycle has changed

International Sport

Did you know? That no English manager has ever won the league title. Seriously

Future bright for male athletes, says Udo-Obong Charles Ogundiya

ormer national athlete, Enefiok Udo-Obong, has said fans should look forward to seeing male athletes excel in major competitions in the next two years for Nigeria. The Sydney 2000 Olympic medalist in 4x400m (Nigeria was awarded the gold medal after the United States was disqualified for drug offense) said the progress of some of

the young athletes in the last two years had shown that the future was bright. Speaking with our correspondent in Lagos at the weekend, Udo-Obong said the failure of the men to perform well in recent competitions could be traced to the mass retirement of some of the athletes that had made the country proud in recent years. He said: “It is like a cycle; there was a time when the men were doing well and the women were performing poorly, but now the cycle has

changed. “I will say the men are not performing right now because it coincided with the period that many of the established male athletes retired, and to build up a new set of athletes takes time and it is a difficult process.” Speaking further, the Olympics bronze medalist in 4x400m at the 2004 Olympic Games said the next Games in Rio, Brazil, was too close, and as such Nigerians should rather look ahead to the next Common-

wealth Games in Gold Coast City, Queensland, Australia. Udo-Obong said: “Rio 2016 might be too soon for them to make any meaningful impact, but with proper training, the guys will explode at the next Commonwealth Games. “A lot of the young athletes have started making some impact and we therefore expect brighter future for our male athletes.” He advised Nigerians to support all athletes, male or female, as they were all competing for the country.

Eagles’ RE-BUILDING must start now –Ekpo

Eduok (left)

The Sport Team Adekunle Salami Deputy Editor, Sports

Emmanuel Tobi Assistant Editor, Sports

Ifeanyi Ibeh Sports Correspondent

Ajibade Olusesan Sports Correspondent

Charles Ogundiya Sports Correspondent

Ajibade Olusesan

x-international, Friday Ekpo, has challenged the Nigeria Football Federation to expedite action on their turn-around plans for football now that world football governing body, FIFA, has given the federation a clean bill of health. Ekpo said that the Amaju Pinnick-led board must now prove critics wrong by doing the right things, saying distractions are minimal now after FIFA

endorsed the report of the Election Appeals Committee that authenticated the September 30 poll that brought in the board. Ekpo said that the only way Pinnick and his members could enjoy the support of Nigerians was to work hard in the interest of the game. “I think the time has come for NFF to sit down and work. Let us thank God that FIFA has endorsed their elections and that will give them the chance to concentrate and work. Nigerians are looking up to

I think the time has come for NFF to sit down and work. Let us thank God that FIFA has endorsed their elections and that will give them the chance to concentrate and work

Ekpo

them, they want them to change the face of football in this country after everything that has happened,” he said. He said the crisis that erupted after the last FIFA Word Cup caused so much damage to the country’s football including the failure of the Super Eagles to qualify for the 2015 Africa Nations Cup. “The way people who have no business in football come around to cause

confusion always baffles me. The crisis was needless. It is sad that Super Eagles failed to make it to the Nations Cup and I can tell you it was due to the crisis. We lost everything to the problem, Nations Cup and even the Adidas sponsorship deal. I don’t know why these people cannot just leave us alone, we love our game, they should not come again and cause more confusion,” he said.

SPORT

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

Ik Uche relishes Villarreal’s late surge

igeria international Ikechukwu Uche has expressed happiness after his team ended the year with a resounding victory over Deportivo La Coruna on Sunday. The Nigeria international was on for 46 minutes before he was replaced by Giovani Dos Santos

in Villarreal’s 3-0 thrashing of Deportivo La Coruna. Villarreal are now fifth on the league table with 30 points from 16 games. “This is the best way to finish 2014! Thank you teammates, staff and fans! @VillarrealCF #EndavantVillarreal,” Ike Uche

tweeted. The 30-year-old Nigeria striker, who has scored four goals in 14 games this season, only recently extended his contract at Villarreal till 2017. The Spanish La Liga will resume on January 3, when Villarreal will play away at Elche.

Quadri, Oshonaike, others win NTTF awards Ajibade Olusesan Uche (left)

Aneke, Zenke, Akpabio on target Ajibade Olusesan

huks Aneke, George Akpabio and Simon Zenke were the only shining lights as Nigerian players abroad endured a largely quiet weekend. Zulte-Waregem moved up to 10th on the Jupiler League table in Belgium with a 1-0 win over Mouscron Peruwels courtesy of a goal from Aneke. The former Arsenal striker scored the game’s only goal in the 39th minute to make it two goals in his last four games after scoring in the 2-1 Belgian Cup win over Lierse. Zenke was the hero of his Turkish division two team Sanliurfaspor as he scored in their 1-1 home draw with Giresunspor. The former Nigeria youth international opened the scoring in the sixth minute to give the hosts the lead before they surrendered it in the 48th min-

ute. Zenke has scored two goals this season. Akpabio’s opening goal of the encounter was not enough as his South African club Chippa United fell 2-1 at home to SuperSport United on Sunday. In Spain, Ike Uche did not score before he was substituted in the 46th minute of Villarreal’s 3-0 win over Deportivo La Coruna while Isaac Success came on from the bench in the 80th minute of Granada’s 1-1 draw with Getafe. In England, Brown Ideye started again for West Brom but he could not register his first Premier League goal as the Baggies lost 3-2 to QPR. Sone Aluko was introduced in the 56th minute of Hull City’s 1-0 loss to Swansea at home. The Nigerian winger bagged a 66th minute yellow card. Sammy Ameobi was removed in the 89th minute shortly before his side, Newcastle, fell to a late Sunderland goal to lose 1-0 at home.

ore accolades are coming the way of African champion, Aruna Quadri, as he was named the Player of the Year by the Nigeria Table Tennis Federation. Veteran ping ponger, Funke Oshonaike, also bagged the Woman Player of the Year award. Quadri has been phenomenal this year; the 26 year-old Portugal-based athlete leapt from 237th position in February to 30th in October in the International Table Tennis Federation world rankings following his scintillating outing at the World Cup held in Dusseldorf, Germany. According to the secretary general of the NTTF, Chinedu EzealaOgundare, the award which was held during the final of the President’s Cup was staged to motivate the players as

ew Taekwondo sensation, Abubakar Isah Adamu and Shola Olowookere, repeated their excellent feat at the last Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships by bagging gold medals in the just concluded Lagos Opens, held at Rowe Park, Lagos. The tournament, organised by the Lagos State Taekwondo Association and sanctioned by the Nigeria Taekwondo Federation, attracted a total of 195 fighters from across Nigeria, and had in attendance most members of the historic Taekwondo National Team to the 2014 Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships, where Nigeria Taekwondo got its biggest medal

Ifeanyi Ibeh

oach of Nigeria’s Golden Eaglets, Emmanuel Amuneke, has said that his side will not underrate any of their first round opponents at next year’s African U-17 Championship after being pitched in the same group as Guinea, Zambia and tournament

haul records since 1987 All Africa Games. It could be recalled that Adamu and Olowookere, who are both 17 years won the first Gold medals in the Kyreougi [fighting] during the Commonwealth Taekwondo Championships, and have been touted by Taekwondo pundits as the future of the sport in the country. Sunday Onofe, who narrowly missed out on a medal in Edinburgh, won the gold medal in the -87kg Middleweight division, and Chiamaka Onumonu who also narrowly missed out on a medal in Edinburgh defeated her fellow bronze-medal winning commonwealth teammate, Uzoamaka Otuadinma, in a keenly contested final of the +67kg Olympic weight division.

Quadri

hosts, Niger. The draw for the 11th edition of the continental championship, taking place from February 15 to March 1, 2015, and which will serve as the qualifying tournament for next year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup, took place on Sunday with the Golden Eaglets placed in Group A, while defending champions, Cote d’Ivoire, South Africa, Mali and Cameroon are in Group B. The top-two teams from each group will not only proceed to the tournament’s semi-finals, but will also qualify for the World Cup, coming up in Chile from October 17 to November 8,

he League Management Company (LMC) has commiserated with Lobi Stars on the death of their player, Audu Sarki. He died from injuries sustained in an automobile accident. Sarki was driving

the League and we commiserate with his family, club and teammates. Most importantly, we pray that his injured wife and child recover fully and have the fortitude to bear this loss of their bread winner,” Irabor remarked

2015. And former African Footballer of the Year, Amuneke, has said that his players will be focused on grabbing one of the four tickets reserved for Africa, even as he described the draw that pitched his side against Niger, Guinea and Zambia as ‘fair’. “I think it is a fair grouping not minding the fact that we are going to face the host country,” said the former FC Barcelona winger. “We are not going to underrate any of the teams and as I said before the draw, our sole objective in Niger is to qualify for the World Cup and after that, we can begin to talk about other things.”

Manu upbeat despite tough draw for F’Eagles

LMC condoles Lobi Stars over Sarki’s death with his wife and child from his home state, Yobe to Bauchi when the accident happened. Chair man of the LMC, Hon. Nduka Irabor, described the death of the player as sad and prayed that his soul would find peace. “It is a sad loss to

the year category, while Abayomi Animashaun and Muyibat Bello claimed the cadet of the year awards. The coach of the year went to Olawale Ajetunmobi of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), while Opeoluwa Osoba is the match official of the year.

Eaglets won’t underrate group rivals – Amuneke

Adamu, Olowookere shine at Lagos Taekwondo Opens Charles Ogundiya

well as to inspire the upcoming ones to aim high in their careers. Similarly, Oshonaike, who has been a role model for young players with her conduct on and off the table, was adjudged the senior female player of the year. Olasunkami Oginni and Ajoke Ojomu won in the junior player of

Manu

Emmanuel Tobi

lying Eagles coach Manu Garba has said he is confident his team will triumph at next year’s African Youth Championship even though they have been drawn in a tough first round group that has hosts Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire and Congo. “Our group seems to be tougher

than the other group which has Ghana, Mali, Zambia and South Africa, but I believe we will qualify for the semi-finals along with Cote d’Ivoire,” said Manu. “But this is not to say that all the eight teams are not good enough to win the competition and so we will expect no favours from any of them. “There will be no easy groups or matches. We therefore have to prepare very well and be motivated to achieve our targets.” The Flying Eagles class of 2015 is built around the country’s U17 team that won the FIFA U17 World Cup last year in the United Arab Emirates. The African Youth Championship will be played between March 8 and 22, 2015.The semi-finalists will qualify to represent Africa at the FIFA U20 World Cup in New Zealand.

International Sport 53

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

Transfer News Arsenal, Dortmund battle for £37m striker

rsenal have made a bid for Palermo striker Paulo Dybala, according to Argentine source Clarin, but Borussia Dortmund have made the Serie A side a higher offer. The Argentine has been one of the stand-out performers in the Italian top flightthisseason,showinghimselftobeone of the brightest prospects in European football at the moment. Arsenal are known to be big admirers of the 21-year-old and have submitted a bid of around £31m to Palermo, though Dortmund are currently in the lead for the player as they have tabled an offer worth £37.5m.

Bale ready for £80m Man United move

areth Bale is reportedly open to a move back to England in 2015, and Manchester United could sign the Welshman in the summer if they are willing to fork out £80million. Bale joined Madrid from Spurs in 2013, and enjoyed a hugely successful first season – scoring goals in both the Champions League and Copa Del Rey finals to help his side lift the trophies. But according to the Express, he is not completely settled in Spain, and he and his family are open to a move back to England.

Besiktas agree personal terms with Inler

esiktas have agreed personal Bmidfielder terms with Napoli’s defensive Gokhan Inler.

The Black Eagles and Inler have reached an agreement on a three year contract at €2.2 million per season. According to reports in the Turkish media, Besiktas have also agreed upon a €3 million transfer fee with Napoli for the 30-year-old. The 30-year-old central midfielder whose contract with Napoli runs out in June 2016, has spent four years at Napoli since joining in July 2011 from Udinese.

Torres for shock Liverpool return

ERNANDO TORRES could be on his way back to Liverpool. The Spanish striker is currently on loan at AC Milan from Chelsea but the Italians are said to be unhappy with his performances and want to cut short his two-year loan. Liverpool are desperate for firepower and think they can land the World Cup winner on the cheap. Chelsea on the other hand appear desperate to dispense of the Kop favourite after strengthening their attacking options over the summer.

Bremen agree Oztunali loan

undesliga strugglers Werder Bremen have agreed a deal to sign Levin Oztunali in an 18-month loandealfromBayerLeverkusen. The teenage midfielder moves totheWeserstadionafterstrugglingtobreakintoRogerSchmidt’s first team. Having only made six league appearances this season, two of them starts, the 18-yearold has been sent out on loan to gain more first team experience. “Levin’s qualities are exceptional,” said Leverkusen sporting director Rudi Voller. “What Levin needs now is match practice at the highest level. “BremencanofferhimmoreofthisthanwecurrentlycaninLeverkusen,where the competition is much greater in his position.”

Man City eye Sneijder as ploy to keep Lampard anchester City are reported-

Mraylystarplanning to sign GalatasaWesley Sneijder so that

they can keep Frank Lampard for the rest of the season. Former Chelsea star Lampard is on loan at the Etihad from City’s MLS franchise New York City but has unexpectedly become a key member of Manuel Pellegrini’s squad. City are now keen to keep the 36-year-old ex-England international for the remainder of the season rather than send him to the USA in January as planned. The Netherlands international would be signed by City but loaned to New York City in a reverse of the Lampard deal.

Skrtel rescues point for 10-man Liverpool

artin Skrtel’s goal in the seventh minute of added on time rescued Liverpool a 2-2 draw in their Premier League meeting with Arsenal on Sunday. The Gunners looked to have done enough to secure all three points at Anfield, having battled back from behind, but a late twist to the contest saw Brendan Rodgers’s charges secure a share of the spoils. Coutinho gave the hosts the lead with a fine finish off the post following some sloppy Arsenal play, but Mathieu Debuchy managed to level things up against the run of play with the last piece of action of the first half, out-jumping Skrtel to nod the ball home. Skrtel required lengthy treatment on the field following a clash with Olivier

Bale

Ali hospitalised with pneumonia

oxing legend Muhammad Ali has been hospitalised with pneumonia and is expected to recover because the illness was caught early, a spokesman said on Saturday. Ali, 72, was admitted to a hospital in an undisclosed location Saturday morning and is being treated by a team of doctors and remains in stable condition, spokesman Bob Gunnell said. “Because the pneumonia was caught early, his prognosis is good with a short hospital stay expected,” Gunnell

said in a statement. He declined to give any further details of the boxer’s condition and said Ali’s family was asking for privacy. The boxing great, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, made a public appearance in September to attend a ceremony in Louisville, Kentucky, for the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Awards. A three-time world heavyweight champion, Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s about three years after he retired from boxing in 1981.

lan Pardew believes his Newcastle United side were unfortunate to lose the TyneWear derby and insisted they could have beaten Sunderland, had things gone their way. Adam Johnson’s 90thminute strike snatched Sunderland the points at St James’ Park on Sunday after a hotly-contested game on Tyneside appeared to heading for a goalless draw. “That’s as painful as it gets, to lose in the last minute like that,” Pardew told Sky Sports.

eal Madrid coach has hailed his team for giving the fans a perfect Xmas gift. Real Madrid defeated San Lorenzo of Argentina 2-0 on Dec. 20 to win the Club World Cup and secure their fourth trophy of 2014. The Spanish giants dominated the final with Sergio Ramos, who had been an injury doubt because of a hamstring strain, and Gareth Bale getting on the scoresheet. Real added the year-ending trophy to the Champions League, Copa del Rey and Eu-

ropean Super Cup titles they had already secured in 2014. They will also end the year on top of La Liga. Saturday’s triumph was also their 22nd consecutive win in all competitions, and they now have in their sights the mark of 26 straight wins achieved by Johan Cruyff ’s Ajax side in 1971-72. “We deserved to win the title - we can say that Real Madrid are the best team in the world,” said Real coach Carlo Ancelotti.

Premier League Liverpool 2 – 2 Arsenal Newcastle 0 – 1 Sunderland Man City 3 – 0 C/Palace Aston Villa 1 – 1 Man United Hull 0 – 1 Swansea QPR 3 – 2 West Brom Southampton 3 – 0 Everton Tottenham 2 – 1 Burnley West Ham 2 – 0 Leicester

Atalanta 3 – 3 Palermo Fiorentina 1 – 1 Empoli Sampdoria 2 – 2 Udinese Torino 2 – 1 Genoa Sassuolo 1 – 1 Cesena Roma 0 – 0 AC Milan Skrtel

A “We were chasing the game a little bit and over committing and we kind of warned the players that Sunderland could score a set play - and we got punished for it.

RESULTS

Serie A

School massacre: Khan plans trip to Pakistan

Pardew

Giroud, which led to the early stages of the second half becoming broken up. Things soon sparked back into life, though, and despite all the pressing from Liverpool it was Arsenal who edged ahead through Giroud, who managed to fire away a first-time shot between the legs of Brad Jones after a quick one-two with Santi Cazorla.

Verona 0 – 1 Chievo

Newcastle coach rues loss

Club World Cup, a perfect Xmas gift-Ancelotti

United are prepared to smash their record fee to bring him to Old Trafford, and while Madrid will not allow Bale to leave in January, a summer move is looking increasingly possible. It is unlikely to go ahead if Louis van Gaal’s side fails to finish in the top four this term, as Bale will certainly expect to be playing Champions League football at this stage of his career. But with some new arrivals expected to come in in January, Van Gaal’s side look in good shape to challenge City and Chelsea at the top after a poor start.

mir Khan has revealed he will travel to Pakistan in the next 10 days to show his support for the victims of the army school massacre in Peshawar. Khan, who recently returned to England from Las Vegas where he beat Devon Alexander, is one of the most high-profile sportsmen in Asia. And he hopes his trip will make a difference as the country of his parents’ birth tries to recover from the atrocity committed by the Taliban where 141 people, mainly children, were murdered. “I will be going to Pakistan between Christmas and New Year,” Khan said. “Talking about this stuff could be threatening for me, but I just want to speak the truth and tell people what is happening is wrong. “I think it’s more important now than ever to go over there. I think it will send a statement to a lot of people that Amir Khan is going there to make a difference. I want it to be a better country. It’s just a shame - I cannot believe how sick some people are.”

La Liga Villarreal 3 – 0 Deportivo Celta Vigo 0 – 1 Almeria Barcelona 5 – 0 Cordoba Levante 1 – 1 Real Sociedad Eibar 0 – 1 Valencia Vallecano 1 – 3 Espanyol

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Team P GD 1 Chelsea 16 23 2 Man City 17 22 3 Man United 17 12 4 West Ham 17 10 5 Southampton 17 15 6 Arsenal 17 9

Pts 39 39 32 31 29 27

7 Tottenham 8 Swansea City 9 Newcastle 10 Liverpool 11 Everton 12 Aston Villa 13 Stoke City 14 Sunderland 15 West Brom 16 QPR 17 C/Palace 18 Burnley 19 Hull City 20 Leicester

27 25 23 22 21 20 19 19 17 17 15 15 13 10

17 17 17 17 17 17 16 17 17 17 17 17 17 17

-1 3 -5 -3 0 -10 -3 -9 -6 -12 -8 -14 -9 -14

MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014 NEW TELEGRAPH

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2014

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The FIRST final with extra-time was Italy vs Czechoslovakia on June 10, 1934.

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A word for Yemi Osinbajo

am glad that the APC eventually took my advice and saw the wisdom in not fielding a muslim/muslim ticket for the 2015 Presidential election even though I hear that, right up till the last minute, they almost did. I congratulate my friend and brother Professor Yemi Osinbajo on his nomination as the Vice Presidential candidate of the APC and running mate to General Muhammadu Buhari. I have known Yemi for a number of years and I must say that he is not only a very pleasant and civilised person with a warm and gentle disposition but he is also a cerebal lawyer with a brilliant mind. I have immense respect for him. Yet sadly ever since I heard about his nomination and announcement as Buhari’s running mate I have felt nothing but sheer pity for him and a deep sense of pathos. My counsel and words for him are as follows: Woe unto the children of light that secretly delight in darkness and that seek to thwart the counsel of God for their nation by joining hands with the sons of Boko and the daughters of Haram. The bible says ‘’what fellowship is there between light and darkness?’’ It says ‘’what does God have to do with Belial?’’ It says ‘’what profiteth a man to gain the world and lose his soul?’’. A respected Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, a devout and committed Christian and an intellectually-sound, well-bred and well educated Professor of Law accepts to be running mate to a closet fundamentalist, a cruel military dictator and a die-hard believer in the philosophy of ‘’born to rule’’? This is serious. A gifted servant of God who is a favored spiritual son of Rev. Enoch Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church Of God has jumped into bed with one of the most notorious troublers of the faith and one of the most consistent enemies of democracy and Nigeria? This is very sad. Adeboye is undoubtedly one of God’s greatest and most respected generals on the planet and one of the Church’s most humble and best-loved precious gems, yet one of his spiritual sons has surely let him, and indeed the Kingdom of God, down by choosing to play ‘’man Friday’’ and second fiddle to an individual that represents everything that is troubling, unsettling and repugnant to the modern world and to the 21st century? What a tragedy. A learned Professor of Law and a senior member of the Nigerian bar who is the leading authority on the law of evidence and who has written numerous books on that topic, chooses to play number two to a man that failed all his exams at military college and that never went to a decent school or to any university? Jumping Jehoshaphat. It is only in Nigeria that this sort of thing can happen. Poor Yemi. Look at what the Haramites have done to him and look at what they have reduced him to. Is there anyone that they will not use and is there any norm that they will not defile, pervert, debase, violate

Crossfire FEMI FANI-KAYODE

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Buhari

Osinbajo

and corrupt in their ignoble quest for power and as a consequence of their insatiable lusts and manifest greed? The truth is that each and everyone one of us, including my friend Yemi, will ultimately have to answer to God for the choices that we make and we must live with the consequences of those choices. It is no wonder that the Redeemed Christian Church of God has disassociated itself from a false claim that the Church and, by implication, Adegboye himself, was supporting the Buhari/Osinbajo ticket. Thankfully they have come out to say clearly and categorically that this is not so. One can always trust Adeboye to do and say the

right thing because he is a man that is truly ‘’after God’s heart’’. Yet the denial of an endorsement and tacit support from his Church is just the first of many shockers and unwelcome surprises that Yemi will be served with in the next few weeks. He will get shock after shock and surprise after surprise until the battle is over and circumstances compel him to go back to his very lucrative legal practice. Yet before he does that, he should learn a thing or two from one of his esteemed colleagues and yet another Pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, the courageous Pastor Bosun Emmanuel. Bosun said the following words in his famous sermon titled ‘The Nigerian Church’ which went viral just a few months ago. He said, ‘’woe be unto any believer who joins hands with the enemies of God in an attempt to bury the Church and destroy the gospel’’. This was a timely admonition and these are strong and wise words from a true servant of God who is under no illusion about what is going on in the politics of Nigeria and who is brave enough to say it as it is. Yet whether we choose to heed Bosun’s words or not, I am absolutely certain of one thing: those that have aligned with the servants of satan and the children of darkness and that seek to thwart God’s counsel for our nation shall not prevail.Boko Haram abducted 185 women in Borno state on December 18th and they killed no less than 52 innocent people. Despite that some people are still supporting Buhari and his army of desperate Haramites? What a

Buhari’s choice of a Christian Pastor as his running mate means nothing and changes nothing about him or his entrenched views and ancient mindset

people, what a country. Those that say that Buhari has changed simply because he chose a Pastor as his running mate are ignorant. Did he not have a Pastor as his running mate in his last outing in 2011? Did he not still say that it was his intention to ‘’spread sharia throughout the country’’ and that ‘’an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the north’’? Did he not oppose a state of emergency in the North Eastern states and say that it was unfair for the military to kill Boko Haram members? Did he not say that instead of killing them they should forgive them, pamper them and treat them in the same way that the Niger Delta militants were treated? Did the spokesman of his party Alhaji Lai Mohammed not say that the proscription of Boko Haram by the Federal Government was ‘’unjust’’ and ‘’unconstitutional’’? How does the fact that Buhari has opted for a Christian running mate change any of these things? In any case he only opted for a Christian running mate because he was compelled to do so as a consequence of the hue and cry that the prospect of a muslim/muslim ticket had already started to generate. Are those that cite the fact that he has a Christian running mate as evidence of his new-found love for Christians aware of the fact that during the American civil war a small, ignorant, misguided and deluded group of negro slaves actually fought on the side of the southern confederate forces in an attempt to keep slavery in place? Did that suggest that the leaders of the southern confederate ‘’secession’’ states suddenly changed their minds and fell in love with the blacks that they had enslaved and treated like animals? Is Buhari’s claim of not being partial to his own Hausa-Fulani tribe not a little far-fetched? Did he not lead a northern delegation to Alhaji Lam Adesina, the late Governor of Oyo state, just a few years ago when some Fulani herdsmen were slaughtering Yoruba farmers on their own land and ask him ‘’why are YOUR people killing MY people?’’ Apparantly Buhari believed that the aggressors that had invaded the land and farms of others and that killed all the occupants had a right to do so simply because they were Fulani. Yet some people still claim that the man is not a tribalist. Ignorance and lack of knowledge is a terrible affliction but in this context it is not only terrible but also very dangerous. Buhari’s choice of a Christian Pastor as his running mate means nothing and changes nothing about him or his entrenched views and ancient mindset. It rather provides clear evidence of his sheer desperation to win power at all costs and it is a reflection of his obvious and deep-seated deceit. Let the truth be told even though the heavens may fall: Christian Vice President or no Christian Vice President, Buhari’s heart remains as dark as ever. We shall meet him in the field: let God’s will be done.

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