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Monday, May 4, 2015

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Customs reject minister's rice import waiver Bayo Akomolafe and Yusuf Shuaib Abuja

he Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has rejected waiver

granted rice importers by the Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina. New Telegraph learnt at the weekend that the Customs opposed the waiver on the grounds

that the minister lacks the power to grant such prerogative, which is the exclusive preserve of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance,

Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. Already, major rice importers have stormed Adesina's office to solicit for N20 billion intervention and waivers. An import quota of 246,000 metric tonnes has

been allocated to Olam by the ministry as a major rice investor for the period spanning April 2015 to March 2016. It was also learnt that some importers of the commodity had obtained

various forms of concession from the Agriculture Ministry. But the NCS has declared that the move was a futile exercise inasmuch as the ministry has CONTINUED ON PAGE 7

Buhari to probe service chiefs, defence budget

lOur ordeal in Sambisa, by rescued women

Quick Read

Editorial

World Boxing Organization (WBO) world champion, Floyd Mayweather, with his three belts after his win over Manny Pacquiao... yesterday

Police uncover fraud in sales of govt houses T

Tunde Oyesina ABUJA

he police have discovered sharp practices in the sale of government houses by the

Presidential Implementation Committee (PIC) on Sales of Government Properties.

Reports of the Police Special Fraud Unit indicted some members of the committee for corruption

and abuse of office. The police had investigated the transaction

CONTINUED ON PAGE 6

Stringent sanctions against fake universities }19 Aviation fuel scarcity grounds }7 foreign airlines

MONDAY, May 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

SPECIALonREPORT The 8th Senate’s Fresh Generation Godswill Akpabio

Aliyu Wamakko

Jonah David Jang

Stella Adaeze Oduah

Samuel Egwu

Theodore Orji

Mao Ohuabunwa

Uche Lilian Ekwunife

Buruji Kashamu

Jerimiah Useni

Abubakar Kyari

Ben Murrey Bruce

Peter Nwabushi

Biodun Olujimi

Dino Melaye

Monsurat Sunmonu

Bayero Usman Nafada

Bala ibn Na’Allah

Isiaka A. Adeleke

Abubakar Danladi

Adeola Olamilekan

Binta Masi Garba

Rafiu Adebayo Ibrahim

Mustapha Bukar

Duro Samuel Faseyi

Fatimat O. Raji-Rasaki

Shehu Sani

Mustapha Bukar

Philip Aruwa I Gyunka

Buhari Abdulfatai

Suleiman O. Hunkuyi

Osinakachukwu Ideozu

Danjuma La’ah

Bassey Albert Akpan

Olanrewaju Tejuoso

Mohammed A. Ohiare

Nelson Asuquo Effiong

Achonu A. Nneji

Sabo Mohammed

David Umaru

Umaru Ibrahim Kurfi

Barau I Jibrin

Nnaemeka Anyanwu

Clifford A. Ordia

John Enoh Owan

Mathew A. Urhoghide

Utazi Godfrey Chukwuka

Rilwan Adesoji Akanbi

Gbolahan Dada

Abdul-Aziz M. Nyako

Francis A. Alimikhena

Olaka Johnson Nwogu

Ogba Joseph Obinna

Tijjani Yahaya Kaura

Donald Alasoadura

Rose Okoji Oko

Yele Omogunwa

Ogola Foster

Gershom H. Bassey

Suleiman M. Nazif

Malam Ali Wakili

Abdullahi A. Gumel

Marafa Bashir Abba

Yahaya Abdullahi

Abdulrahman Abubakar

Salihu Hussain Egye

Mohammed Garba

Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi

Ahmadu Abubakar

Mohammed Hasan

Isah Hamma Misau

Ibrahim Abdullahi

Muhammad Ubali Shitu

On June 4, 2015, the eighth Senate of the National Assembly will be inaugurated. Of the 109 Senators who will be taking their seats, 73, representing 66 per cent will be fresh in the upper chamber. Who are these fresh Senators? What are their backgrounds and antecedents? What quality of debate and contributions are we likely to see from them? These and more will be the kernel of a special report by New Telegraph on that day. The report presents a unique opportunity for family, friends and associates of these fresh Senators to felicitate with them. For enquiries and participation: Call Biodun: 0802-301-5582, Taiwo: 0803-304-2915, Onwuka: 0803-733-9843, David: 0810-759-1663

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, May 4, 2015

Travel Advisory

MONDAY, May 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

International Flight Schedule 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

KLM

ARIK AIRLINES

Lagos-London London-Lagos Lagos-New York

W3 101 W3 102 W3 107 (Mon, Wed , Fri) New York-Lagos W3 108 (Tues,Thurs, Fri) Lagos-Johannesburg W3 103 Johannesburg-Lagos W3 104 Lagos-Douala - (Tues, Wed ,Thur) Douala-Lagos - (Tues, Wed, Thur) Lagos-Accra Accra-Lagos

Abuja-Accra Accra-Abuja Lagos-Freetown Freetown-Lagos Lagos-Banjul Banjul-Lagos Lagos-Dakar Dakar-Lagos

-(Tue, Thur, Sat, Sun) -(Mon, Wed, Fri) -(Daily) - (Wed, Fri, Sun) -(Wed, Fri, Sun) -(Wed, Fri, Sun) -(Wed, Fri, Sun) -(Mon, Tue, Thur, Fri,Sat) -(Tue,Wed, Fri,Sat,Sun)

BRITISH AIRWAYS

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

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

Lagos-Cairo Cairo-Lagos

MS 876 MS 875

14:25hrs 08:30hrs

22:20hrs 13:30hrs

EGYPT AIR

KENYA AIRWAYS

16:00hrs

Lagos-Kigali

11:15hrs

16:45hrs

10:45hrs 09:35hrs 11:10hrs 13:25hrs 07:20hrs 17:00hrs 08:05hrs 13:35hrs 18:00hrs

hrs 14:44hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs

AWB 201 (Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun) AWB 202 (Tue, Thur, Sat, Sun)

14:00hrs

17:30hrs

22:35hrs 15:10hrs

06:00hrs 21:20hrs

17:00hrs 06:00hrs 08:00hrs 17:00hrs 08:00hrs 15:20hrs 21:00hrs

hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs hrs

01:00hrs

hrs

3:00hrs 14:00hrs

8:00hrs 19:00hrs

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

Lagos-Houston Houston-Lagos

UA 143 UA 142

10:10hrs 19:10hrs

6:05hrs 15.15hrs

Lagos - Addis Ababa ET900 Addis Ababa - Lagos ET901 Abuja - Addis Ababa ET910 Addis Ababa - Abuja ET911 Enugu - Addis Ababa ET930 Addis Ababa - Enugu ET931 Kano - Addis Ababa ET930 Addis Ababa - Kano 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

5:25+1hrs 20:20hrs

Lagos-Casablanca Casablanca-Lagos

AT738 AT 737

06:25hrs 02:15hrs

09:55hrs 6:00hrs

air maroc

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

12:30hrs

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

IBERIA

Abu Dhabi-Lagos

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

19:35hrs 23:45hrs

MEA 571 MEA 572

ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES

Lagos- Abu Dhabi

ETIHAD AIRWAYS

12:30hrs 18:00hrs

to Lagos)

UNITED AIRLINES

17:00hrs 4:40hrs

KQ 533 KQ 534

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

DELTA AIRLINES

11:00hrs 22:40hrs

Lagos-Nairobi Nairobi-Lagos

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

QATAR AIRWAYS

VS 652 VS 651

18:30hrs 05:15hrs 05:30hrs

BA075 BA074 BA 082 BA 083

EMIRATES AIRLINES

Lagos-London London-Lagos

12:00hrs 21:30hrs 23:50hrs

Middle East Airlines (Two flights weekly (Tues & Friday)

Lebanon-Lagos Lagos-Lebanon

VIRGIN ATLANTIC

RwandAir

Kigali-Lagos

Turkish Airlines

Lagos-Istanbul Nairobi-Lagos

332 333

Air Côte d'Ivoire Lagos to Abidjan Abidjan to Lagos

HF 851 (Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sun) HF 852 (Mon,Wed, Thurs, Sat)

ASKY 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

10:10hrs

10:50hrs

19:20hrs

21.50hrs

Flight No. KP 032 (Tue-Fri) KP 032 ( Tue-Fri)

Departure Arrival 14:00hrs 15:55hrs 16:30hrs 18:15hrs

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)

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

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

Local FLIGHT SCHEDULE 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

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

News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, May 4, 2015

Buhari to probe service chiefs, defence budget Emmanuel Onani and Ibrahim Abdul Yola

comprehensive probe of the prosecution of the war against Boko Haram and the spending of defence budget is the offing, New Telegraph has learnt. A top military source said at the weekend that the incoming administration of Major General Muhammadu Buhari, was planning to institute the probe during which some service chiefs, past and present, would be summon to defend their tenure, especially how defence budget was spent under their watch. This emerged as the military have arrested suspected supplier of food and fuel to Boko Haram as well as rescuing 260 women and children in Chalawa, Adamawa State. Also, some group of women and children earlier rescued from Sambisa Forest narrated their ordeal yesterday in the hands of Boko Haram. The source said the incoming administration was considering setting up a truth and reconciliation committee on the six-year old terror war. The Boko Haram insurgency, which started in 2009 in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, has claimed about 15, 000 lives, destroyed property and turned thousands of people to refugees. It was also gathered that some former service chiefs and military commanders that held strategic operational and command positions, might appear or be asked to appear before the panel, whenever it is constituted, to give account of what they did and knew about the fight against insurgency. The source said the move might not be in bad faith, but to put the records straight for posterity. He added that Buhari believed that more information on the Boko Haram insurgency should be provided for Nigerians and the international community. According to him, the president-elect's declaration that Boko Haram is a "fraud" is indicative of his belief that "better and further" explanations on the devastating insurgency have to be provided to the public. Besides, Buhari may be interested in knowing what was responsible for the commendable manner the military turned the tide against Boko Haram after the postponement of the presidential election in

February. The source said: "I hope you will treat this information well. I want to let you know that the retired no-nonsense General, who has been elected president, may cause to be established a truth or peace and reconciliation committee. "This committee, from what I know very well, is not going to be a vindictive exercise, but a medium for more expose to be made on the phenomenon called Boko Haram and the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency fight prosecuted by our military. "Let me tell you that the statement he made that Boko Haram is a 'fraud', is loaded; you don't expect a General and former head of state, to say too much. "In fact, the General may really want Nigerians and the global community to understand the momentum which the counterinsurgency war took a few months ago. "You know more than 40 territories have, within a period of months, been liberated, while between then and now, almost all Boko Haram's training camps and strongholds, including those in their biggest stronghold of Sambisa Forest, have been destroyed." It was also learnt that a former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Abdulrahman Dambazau, may have been shortlisted as the next National Security Adviser (NSA). Another source, who also spoke in confidence with New Telegraph, said "Considering how strategic the office of the NSA is, I can tell you that the next president, who will be sworn in on May 29, is likely to pick a former COAS, General Dambazzau, as NSA. "If that happens, I tell you it will pass as a good choice, because he is a very competent General." It was also gathered that the case of a former Commander of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) in Baga, Borno State, Brigadier General E. Ransome-Kuti, "may now be treated administratively." It was also learnt at the weekend that no fewer than 275 women and children rescued by troops from the Sambisa Forest have finally arrived in Yola for rehabilitation. Speaking on their horrific experiences, Falmata Ahmadu, a 22-year-old mother of two, said they endured three days of tortuous journey after they were rescued before finally arriving Yola. ‘’All praise be to God,

for rescuing our lives. I had since lost hope that we will get out of Sambisa; these people are really wicked. ‘’Even my enemy I will not pray for him to be there,’’ she added. Another victim, Lami Musa, who gave birth two days before they were rescued said: ’’It’s only God that save us from them. ‘’When they (insurgents) heard that soldiers were advancing on them, they asked us to follow them; but we declined. I told them I can't even raise my head up because of the birth pain that I was experiencing. ‘’They just started stoning us for refusing to run with them and in the process many were killed instantly, including children. ‘’As soon as they started scampering, we saw soldiers coming to our direction; then we stood up and told them that we were all abducted. This is how we were rescued,’’ she said.

She added that many women gave birth to babies while many children and women died of hunger and malnutrition. On their arrival in Yola, the women were registered, fed and given medical care. Many critically malnourished babies and children have been put on intravenous drips in the clinic and 21 have been hospitalised for gunshot wounds and fractured limbs, said a camp official. Through interviews the officials were trying to determine where the women and children are from. "Based on registration we have carried out so far, none of them is from Chibok," said Zakari Abubakar, Malkohi camp team leader for the National Emergency Management Agency. Almost all are from Gumsuri village near Chibok and which had been attacked many times

in the past year, said Abubakar. Meanwhile, the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) in a statement by the Director of Defence Information (DDI), Major General Chris Olukolade, said yesterday that a suspected supplier of fuel and food to terrorists had been arrested at Daban Shata in Baga, Borno State. He said the military, based on intelligence, had been trailing him till he was eventually trapped in the early hours of Sunday. He was said to be undergoing interrogation. "In another development, troops on patrol yesterday located 260 women and children in the outskirts of Chalawa village in Adamawa state where they had been held up while trying to escape from terrorists. They have now been conveyed back to their various communities in Madagali after undergoing the normal security

profiling. "Some of them disclosed that they had to abandon their homes to escape from the terrorists when Madagali came under their attack, while others were actually abducted and taken there. The terrorists were however sacked from the Madagali recently. "A number of terrorists however died in an encounter with troops who caught up with them as they fled prior to the recovery of the women and children. Some of the terrorists still managed to escape with varying degrees of gunshot wounds. Others who were captured are now being interrogated by intelligence officers. "A machine gun, some rounds of ammunition, as well as some motorcycles and bicycles were also captured from the terrorists. A member of the vigilante group serving as guide to the troops was however wounded," the DHQ stated.

L-R: Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar; Minister, Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed and Vice-President Namadi Sambo, during the prayers for the late Chief Imam of Abuja National Mosque, Usatz Musa Muhammed, in Abuja…yesterday

First Lady's absence stalls Jonathan's send-forth church service

church service organised by the Aso Rock Chapel to bid President Goodluck Jonathan and his family farewell after losing the March 28 presidential election was abruptly cancelled yesterday. Chaplain of the Aso Rock Chapel, Rev. Obioma Onwuzurumba, had announced during last Good Friday service that the church would be hosting a special service in honour of the outgoing president. But the event did not hold as scheduled just as New Telegraph learnt that the absence of the First

Lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, caused the cancellation. No reason was, however, given for the First Lady's absence. She has kept out of public glare since her husband lost the presidential election to Major General Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The special church service, a presidency source said, had been shifted to May 17 and all members of the Jonathan family who resided with him during his reign, including his mother, Eunice, were ex-

pected to attend. She was also absent from the Good Friday and Easter Sunday services held inside the Aso Villa Chapel, which her husband attended. Mrs. Jonathan and the president's mother had always been accompanying the president to church services inside Aso Rock. The last time she was seen in public was on March 28 when she and her husband voted at their polling unit in Otuoke, Bayelsa State. Mrs. Jonathan was conspicuously absent at the burial of the Special

Adviser to the President on Strategy, Research and Documentation, the late Mr. Oronto Douglas, on Saturday in Yenagoa. He died last month after fighting cancer for several years. While many, however, believed that the first lady must have been devastated by her husband's electoral loss to appear in public so soon after the shocking defeat, reports indicated that Mrs. Jonathan might have travelled out of the country to have some rest. Her spokesman, Mr. Ayo Adewuyi, did not pick calls made to his mobile telephone line yesterday.

News

MONDAY, May 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Senate Presidency: Atiku lobbies Buhari for North-East Johnchuks Onuanyim Abuja

ormer Vice-President Atiku Abubakar is pushing for the North East to clinch the Senate Presidency. A source close to the former Vice President told New Telegraph that it was one of the reasons that Atiku visited the president-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, at the Defence House in Abuja last week. But the APC National Vice Chairman (NorthEast), Engr. David Lawal, said the demand is being made by everybody from the zone. According to Lawal, the demand of the Senate Presidency to the NorthEast is the wish of every member of the party. Atiku had told journalists after a closed-door meeting with Buhari that his visit was personal. But the source, who preferred anonymity, posited that every visit to the President-elect comes with a demand and Atiku's demand, among others, was that the Senate Presidency should be zoned to the North East. According to the source, Atiku reminded the Pres-

ident-elect that it is only his zone that has not got anything among those that contested for the presidential ticket of the party last year December. “Atiku was emphatic during his visit to Buhari. He reminded the President-elect how former governor of Lagos State demanded for the slot of vice presidency and it was given to him and that he is now demanding for the slot of the Speaker of the House of Representatives for the South-west. "Atiku, therefore, said as the political leader of the North-East, he would want the zone to produce the next Senate President,” the source said. Atiku, from Adamawa State in the North East, was one of the five persons that contested for the presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Others were: Buhari (North-West), Sen-

ator-elect, Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso (North-West), Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah (North Central) and Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha (South East). While the North-West has clinched the Presidency, the South-East is demanding for the slot of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), with North-East and North-Central demanding for the slot of the Senate Presidency from the national leadership of the APC. Adamawa APC had also visited Buhari to make some demands from the President-elect. According to a source at the meeting, the Adamawa APC chairman and senator-elect, Hon. Binta Masi Garba, is among those contesting for the post of Senate Presidency from the North-East. Others who are interested in the Senate Presidency from the North-East are:

Ali Ndume (Borno), Bukka Abba Ibrahim (Yobe), Danjuma Goje (Gombe) and Ahmed Lawan (Yobe). All the contenders are ranking senators. Garba is a two-time member of the House of Representatives before her election into the Senate. During the visit of Adamawa Governor-elect, Senator Umar Bindow Jibrila, to Buhari, the demand was for the incoming government to pay special attention to rebuilding the zone, ravaged by Boko Haram insurgence. Speaking on the demand of the North-East for the Senate Presidency, APC national vice-chairman (North-East), Lawal, said: "In the North-East we are saying that the Senate President should come to us. We have never had it before. We are also making the demand because of how we are economically ravaged and we have never

had any patronage from the central government because of our opposition status. “So, we feel that the position of the Senate Presidency should be ceded to us and, in the alternative, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This is the position of the NorthEast. "Of course, the NorthWest already has the Presidency; the South West has the vice presidency; the South South and South East do not have ranking senator to occupy the position. So, the Senate President can only come from the North-East and the North-Central. We in the North-East are saying that we have a better chance. After all, we gave the second highest votes next to the North-West. "So, everybody in the North-East is working towards that reality of our Senate Presidency. Every-

body from the North-East is pushing that the Senate Presidency should be zoned to us or, in the alternative, the Speaker of the House of Representatives." Interim National Secretary of the APC, Alhaji Tijjani Tumsal justified the desire of the North-East to have the Senate President. He said: "Every zone is qualified to have the Senate Presidency zoned to it. However, there are some zones that are now adequately taken care of in the political party. The North-East is not one of those zones. North-West has produced the President, South-West has produced the Vice President. So, it is in order for the North-East, North-Central, South-East and the rest of the zones to agitate for the zoning of the Senate Presidency to it. So, it is legitimate for the North East to desire to produce the next Senate President."

TODAY’S WEATHER FORECAST LAGOS

31oC

28oC

Partially Cloudy

ABUJA

39oC

27oC

Partially Cloudy

PORT HARCOURT

KANO

26oC 19oC Storm Women and children rescued from Sambisa Forest and handed over to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) at Malkohi Camp in Yola…at the weekend. 41oC

21oC

Sunny

ENUGU

37 C

25 C

Partially Cloudy

IBADAN

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Police uncover fraud in sales of govt houses CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

based on a petition by Multiplication Global Trade Limited to the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit. The police report, however, revealed that a cabal operating within the PIC had specialised in fleecing unsuspecting people seeking to buy Federal Government properties of millions of naira. The police report, a copy of which was obtained by New Telegraph at the weekend, revealed how some staff of the PIC colluded with outsiders to defraud sitting tenants by

denying them their right of first refusal to buy the property contrary to government's laid down procedures. The report reads in part: "Discreet investigations revealed that there actually exists a cabal within the PIC whose modus operandi is described below: "That as soon as sitting tenants of any government property expresses interest to buy their flats in accordance with government policy and the PIC has profiled such tenants and found them qualified, the information about such property

is immediately passed to members of this cabal who would approach the tenants and give offers to buy the property off their interests at very ridiculous rates, usually between N10 million and N12 million maximum per flat, with subtle threats and intimidation that either they accept or they shall be disqualified. "The tenants are usually informed that they must all make payments for their respective flats together as one. Having succeeded in putting sufficient fear in the tenants, they are now compelled (the tenants) to give a joint

letter of authority to the supposed buyer to deal exclusively on their behalf with the PIC and pay on their behalf the offer price. Sometimes, the tenants are paid even before the offer letter is issued. "This modus operandi was recently deployed to intimidate the present occupants of No 6, Ruxton Street, Ikoyi, Lagos and in the process, several high ranking police officers have been maligned as having interest in the property." The report also revealed that PIC uses its members to claim property on the pretext that such

persons had paid without any money remitted to government's purse. "And having found a buyer for a price that usually doubles the government offer price, usually ranging between N650 million to as much as N900 million for Ikoyi properties, such buyer is then instructed to raise drafts in the name of PIC on behalf of each tenant for the value of the offer price while the balance goes to the member of the cabal that has been assigned that property to handle and consequently (the excess is) shared," the report added.

News

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, May 4, 2015

Aviation fuel scarcity grounds foreign airlines

lBA passengers to London stranded Wole Shadare

viation scarcity that surfaced last week is biting harder as foreign and domestic airlines are having their operations grounded. British Airways had its passengers stranded at both Lagos and Abuja airports as the airline’s 11:45p.m. flight out of Lagos on Saturday did not depart until 3:30p.m. on Sunday, just as its 11:45p.m. flight out of Lagos on Sunday has been shifted till today. Other foreign airlines are facing similar problems as they complained

of dearth of the commodity, which they said has affected their operations. An official of the airline who spoke to New Telegraph under condition of anonymity attributed the delay or shift in schedule to scarcity of aviation fuel, otherwise known as JET A1. New Telegraph learnt that most carriers including American and European airlines have resorted to flying to Cotonou, Benin Republic and Accra, Ghana to source for fuel. A visit to the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos shows that the carriers might not fly passengers as handlers of the

airlines at the counters told passengers that the airlines might not operate. Those who came from far distance are expected to be lodged in hotels in line with the requirement of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Meanwhile, Arik Air has said that it might suspend its operations if aviation fuel crisis persists. The airline now does only 20 per cent of operations owing to the scarcity of JET A1. The suspension of operations by the airline could have a far-reaching

effect on air travel, as the airline enjoys about 45 per cent of domestic market share. The Managing Director of the airline, Mr. Chris Ndulue, made the disclosure at a media briefing in Lagos at the weekend. The airline chief lamented that the carrier

has lost $9 million since April 24, when the scarcity of the commodity started. The airline, he disclosed, has lost close to $1 million on a daily basis due to scarcity. According to him, Arik consumes between 500,000 to 800,000 litres because of its huge operations.

PDP sets up committee on post-election review Onyekachi Eze ABUJA

n its desperate bid to remain in office, the National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic

Party (PDP) has set up a 15-man committee to review and evaluate the performance of the PDP in the just-concluded 2015 general elections and make recommendations for the repositioning of

L-R: Managing Director, Complete Sports, Mr. Mumuni Alao; Country Manager, Accenture, Mr. Niyi Yusuf; Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola and Chief Executive Officer/Principal Partner, Adetokunbo Obayan & Associates, Mr. Adetokunbo Obayan, during the Annual Leadership Seminar of Ansar-Ud-Deen Youth Association of Nigeria, Lagos Branch, in Lagos…at the weekend

Customs reject minister's rice import waiver CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

no power to grant import waiver. Adesina, in a letter he signed and dated April 13, 2015, said: “I am glad that domestic rice production is already on the increase; thereby resulting in rice import requirements of the country; hence the need for encouragement, by granting a duty waiver. “Given Olam Nigeria’s massive rice production and milling investment Nigeria, being the largest single existing investor in the sub-sector over the last two years with existing investments over $120,000,000, the ministry is willing to reduce the amount owed by 50 per cent to 54,000 metric tonnes to be applied to 2015 allocations. “Olam’s existing rice production and processing operations and future investment plans have

been assessed against the aforementioned criteria and an import quota of 246,000 metric tonnes has been allocated to Olam as a major rice investor for the period, April 2015 to March 2016.” The minister stressed that Olam now qualifies for a 10 per cent duty and 20 per cent levy waiver allocation. Based on this, Olam will only pay about N3.5 billion. However, the Customs spokesman, Mr. Wale Adeniyi, a Deputy Comptroller, told New Telegraph that the position of the NCS in respect of duty collection has not changed. He said Customs would collect the duty in the absence of which it would sanction the importers. Adeniyi said: “We are committed to a total recovery of the duty payable on excess importation of rice.

“We have the government backing on this issue. The president (Goodluck Jonathan) has given us the mandate to recover fully the duty on excess importation on rice; and management has no reason whatsoever to shirk its responsibility in this regard. “It is revenue that is due from any excess importation and we have President Jonathan’s backing to make this recovery. So, despite their foot-dragging, they cannot escape paying it. “Some of these importers still import. They are corporate bodies. So, they have indemnities, which we can tap into. We have our cards; and we can very much play it effectively. “Some of them still have high volumes of imports, which they have not started discharging. We

Ndulue stated that the carrier had to go to Accra, Cotonu and Cameroon in search of aviation fuel. “Things are getting worse because we don’t get fuel as we use to get from Port Harcourt and Kano. We have to go to Accra, Cotonu and Cameroon for fuel,” Ndulue said.

may not allow them to discharge. And even the ones that have discharged; we may not allow them to leave the port until they meet their obligation.” The NCS had, twice, issued strict warnings and deadlines to rice importers to remit N20 billion or face punishments. One of the importers, who spoke on condition of anonymity to New Telegraph, explained that the burden of payment was too heavy to bear. He added that it was a preferred option to delay the payment, until the incoming government of Buhari takes over, so as to open up new negotiations. He said: “Our effort was to ensure that Nigerians don’t go hungry, but rather than this gesture being recognised and compensated, the Nigeria Customs are on our necks, asking us to pay.

“We have invested heavily. We ought to be encouraged. Even those the government granted waivers didn’t do half of what we did.” Meanwhile, a former Attorney General of the Federation and now Secretary of the rice farmers' association, Mr. Michael K. Aondoakaa, has called on government to urgently protect the local rice industry from being thrown out of business. Aondoakaa, at a media briefing, expressed worry that the unethical practice indulged by rice importers could circumvent government’s policy and endanger the indigenous local rice industry. According to him, a particular company has resorted to smuggling of rice and selling them at cheaper prices in a bid to frustrate the local rice manufacturers.

the party. The review committee, headed by Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has the Secretary, PDP Board of Trustees (Bot), Senator Wali Jubrin, as secretary. The Ekweremadu committee, which has Governors Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), T. A Orji (Abia) and Ibrahim Dankwambo (Gombe) as well as Rivers State Governor-elect, Nyesom Wike and Ibrahim Shekarau, amongst others, as members will be inaugurated tomorrow, was in response to the accusation of NWC as responsible for the loss of PDP at the general elections. Other members of the committee are: Former Niger State governor, Engr. Abdulkadir Kure; Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and PDP governorship candidate in Imo State, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha; Minister of Interior, Abba Moro; former Minister of Police Affairs and Yobe State governorship candidate in the April 11 poll, Alhaji Adamu Waziri; former governor of Kaduna State, Senator Ahmed Makarfi; National Vice-Chairman (SouthWest), Chief Makanjuola Ogundipe; Chief Pegba Otemolu and Mrs. Funmi Ayoola Last Saturday, the party leadership alleged that some associates and aides of the president were planning to arm-twist President Goodluck Jonathan to summon a meeting in the Presidential Villa where NWC members will be asked to resign to pave way for new party executive. The committee is the last attempt of NWC to try to hold unto power till March 2016 when PDP is due to effect a change in its leadership. The setting up of the committee is coming at a time the call for the sack of the NWC members is assuming a deafening crescendo. The latest was from the South-West members of the party, which called on NWC members in the zone to resign.

News

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

400 killed, homes razed in Plateau Musa Pam Jos

he Traditional ruler of Kumbun village of Wase Local Government Area of Plateau State, Jessey Miri, yesterday disclosed that over 400 persons from

the community were killed by gunmen suspected to solders into three Taroh villages of Kadarko, Kurmi and Wadata. New Telegraph gathered that attackers were in over 40 trucks when they arrived some villages on Saturday , following reports of alleged killing of

four soldiers at Angwan Nanmi, Karin Lamido Local Government Area of Taraba State, which shares boarder with Plateau State. The traditional ruler, when speaking to New Telegraph on the telephone, yesterday, said, they were still in shock over what the attackers did to his people.

He said: “As I speak to you, the corpses of our people killed still litter the communities; thousand of homes were burnt and some of our villagers were burnt in their homes, including children and the aged”. Another citizen of the locality, who did not want his name in print, also insisted

that scores of persons were killed by the Military. He said: “The soldiers arrived the area and opened fire on innocent people, burning their houses and it is not clear why soldiers would open fire on the people they are supposed to defend”. New Telegraph investigation revealed that the

L-R: Healthcare Sector Lead Manager, Access Bank Plc; Chinyere Bishop-Adigwe; Head, Inclusive Banking, Ope Wemi-Jones; Head Strategic Brand Management of the bank and Managing Director, Pathcare Laboratories, Pamela Ajayi, during a workshop for women healthcare in the bank, organised by the Women Banking Initiative of the bank in Lagos.

Extravagant officials must be jailed –Murray-Bruce Chukwu David Abuja

s Nigeria warms up to transit to a new government in the next three weeks, Senator-elect for Bayelsa East Senatorial District, Ben MurrayBruce, has advocated that extravagant government officials, who waste public funds for personal pleasure be sent to jail. Bruce, who was elected on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, made the advocacy in Abuja while speaking with New Telegraph, shortly after the induction course organised for the newly

elected members of the National Assembly by the National Institute for Legislative Studies, NILS. He also accused the government of Nigeria of short-changing the poor by using the tax payers’ money for personal comfort while forgetting to attend to the needs of the less privileged citizens of the country. Therefore, the former Director-General of the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, vowed to use his position as a Senator to fight these ills and bring sanity to the system, tasking the media to join in his crusade to liberate the poor from the oppression of the rich in the country.

gunmen were reportedly dressed in military uniforms and the people of Wase alleged that men of Special Task Force were responsible for the killings which largely affected women and children. The Plateau State Commissioner for Information and Communication, Hon Mohammed Badu could not made comment, but was quick to say it was the duty of the Special Task Force to clarify the development. Another Traditional ruler of Taroh natives in Wase, Lot Nden, also confirmed the attack and put the death toll at over 500, and said the gunmen came in large numbers, spotting with Army uniforms. An eyewitness named Ponzing, who said he escaped narrowly, said the gunmen killed several women and children and destroyed houses. He said: “The men in Army uniform came in, as accompanied by 18 armoured tanks, with over 5,000 men dressed in army uniform and split into different camps as some of the soldiers came through Taraba State.” Special Adviser to Governor Jonah Jang on Labour Matters, Barr. Samuel Kumkur, when contacted, told our correspondent that so many houses were burnt, while children and women were killed.

Subsidy: Oil marketers holding us to ransom, says Okojo-Iweala Abdulwahab Isa Abuja

ontrary to claims by the oil marketers that the Federal Government still owe them N200 billion on oil subsidy payment, Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has said that the balance left based on Petroleum Pricing Products Regulatory Agency’s (PPRA) template is in region of N131 billion. That was as she called

on oil marketers to be magnanimous in their decision by considering the interest of Nigerians, who always bear the brunt of their actions whenever they chose to disrupt petroleum products supply chain. Speaking with select members of the media yesterday in Abuja, a day after the major marketers announced that government still owed the group N200 billion after last week payment of N156 billion, the minister said it was unfair for a small cabal to hold the entire nation to ransom.

She said that notwithstanding the revenue challenges facing the government, oil marketers issue was a priority to the government. “Since December last year, we have paid half a trillion naira, that is about N500 billion. So, we have tried really hard and we have appealed to them that they are also Nigerians. With the fact that we have prioritise them in their payment, so Nigerians won’t suffer. We always try to pay them even though we have serious revenue challenges so that Nigerians won’t suffer; so

that Nigerians won’t be in queues. They should also not allow Nigerians to suffer. Everybody is making sacrifices”, she said. She likened oil marketers to a small cartel that are into no risk business based on template negotiated with PPPRA long term ago which factored in exchange rate differential, profit margin guarantee, a situation she said leaves them with absolute no risk. “As you know, the template that governs their business is designed to cover all their costs plus a profit margin.”

Jonathan mourns Abuja Chief Imam Rivers APC, PDP bicker over judiciary Anule Emmanuel

resident Goodluck Jonathan has expressed sadness over the death of the Chief Imam of the Abuja National Mosque, Ustaz Musa Muhammed. Sheikh Mohammed died Saturday evening at the National Hospital Abuja, where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed ailment. In a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, President Jonathan

extended heartfelt condolences to the Muslim community on the death of Muhammed. The President also commiserated with members of the family of the late cleric, who greatly inspired his followers with his exemplary lifestyle, moral conduct and teachings President Jonathan said he believes that Ustaz Muhammed, who stood out as a passionate and diligent promoter of inter-religious understand-

ing and co-operation, will always be remembered as a bridge-builder and a gentleman in every circumstance. He prayed that Allah in his mercies, will grant him peaceful rest in Al-Jannah Firdaus. An official of the National Mosque committee, Abubakar Siddique, who confirmed the death on Saturday said funeral prayers for the Imam would be held at the National Mosque on Sunday (yesterday)by 10am.

Emmanuel Masha Port Harcourt

he Rivers State chapters of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, have accused each other of manipulating the judiciary to favour their causes of controlling the state as they head to the tribunal. The PDP accused the APC, and the government of Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi of insist-

ing on holding local government elections on May 23, 2015, despite a court ruling that such exercise, to be organized by Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission (RSIEC), should not take place. The PDP had gone to a Federal High Court, sitting in Port Harcourt, and succeeded in restraining the Commission of Inquiry set up by the state government to investigate politicallymotivated killings from sitting.

The APC, on the other hand, has criticized the PDP for allegedly sponsoring political killings in the state and going to the court to stop the sitting of the Commission of Inquiry set up by the State government to investigate the killings. According to PDP chairman, Felix Obuah, the APC would have disrespected a court of competent jurisdiction if it goes on with the council polls, noting that the election would amount to an exercise in futility.

NEW TELEGRAPH monday, may 4, 2015

News

national

Buhari urged to implement Oronsaye report on MDAs Abdulwahab Isa Abuja

articipants at a fiscal governance and Islamic workshop at the weekend urged the incoming administration of General Muhammadu Buhari, to accord priority to the Steve Oronsaye committee report on the restructuring of federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the country. They also recommend-

ed to the new government to review both formal and informal income of political office holders so as to bring them in line with global standards. Drawn from Islamic groups, the media and other non-governmental organisations, the participants advised the incoming government to retain agencies like the Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) for the vital role it is playing in the economy. Rising from a two-day workshop in Abuja, par-

ticipants at the workshop tasked the incoming government on the urgent need to “cut down on the cost of bureaucracy in the National Assembly, the Presidency and the MDAs.” They also asked the government to “cut down on overseas trip and medical tourism; improve fiscal transparency, publish budgets and income and expenditures of government as at when due.” Making known their views in a communiqué signed by the Chairman,

Media Committee of the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA), Mallam Umar Rufai and Lead Director, Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), Eze Onyekpere, a copy of which was obtained by our correspondent over the weekend, they also advised on the setting up of a National Council on Public Procurement. Other areas of priority suggested for the new government to curb waste include reduction in the number of aircrafts in the

presidential fleet, the need to desist from funding pilgrims using public funds. On Boko Haram, the participants said the experience of the last two months showed that the Boko Haram challenge is surmountable and advised the government to intensify the military campaign against the group while rehabilitating and rebuilding destroyed communities. On Niger Delta and the destruction of the environment, the group advised the government

to continue to solve the environmental and poverty challenges facing the people of the Niger Delta region through the continued funding of the NDDC. “Evaluate and review the value for money on federal programmes in the Niger Delta for enhanced transparency and accountability in the expenditure of resources accruing to the region.”

‘Upgrade colleges of education to varsities’ Yekeen Nurude Abuja

L-R: Igwe of Mbulu Owo Kingdom, Dr. Godwin Arum; winner of N1 million, Mr. Leonardo Stephen and runner-up, Immaculate, during the MTN Project Fame Season 6 cash quest prize presentation to winners in Enugu

Mark to PDP: Put election failures behind you Cephas Iorhemen MAKURDI

enate President, David Mark, at the weekend, told Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) faithful in the country to put the failures of the just-concluded elections behind them and be prepared to build a strong and united party

ready to play a credible opposition. “We must accept the ups and downs as an opposition party. That is what the PDP is now. We must remain a united family and face the reality,” Mark told PDP senators and House of Representatives-elect at a parley at the weekend. Mark said the not-too impressive showing of

the PDP in the elections, may in the long term, be a blessing to the party and the nation, “because we are going back to the drawing board to do a critical review and fashion out a blueprint that would get us out of the woods for good. “The role of opposition is strange to us, but it is not a death sentence. We should be ready for the

challenges. “We are prepared to play a credible opposition. I believe the nation and indeed Nigerians would be the best for it.” Mark, however, bemoaned the bickering within and among party faithful, all trading blames over the poor showing at the polls, saying “there is no need weeping over lost oppor-

tunities or mistakes of yesterday. The failure of yesterday should be our lesson for a better today and a triumphant future.” The Senate president, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Paul Mumeh, called on stakeholders of the PDP to bury their hatchets and resolve to work together for a united and progressive party for the future.

he Committee of Chairmen of Governing Councils of Federal Colleges of Education has asked the incoming government of General Muhammadu Buhari to upgrade some colleges of education in the country to universities. The committee in a communique issued and signed by its Chairman, Senator Emma Anosike, at the end of its emergency meeting held at Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri, Imo State, congratulated General Buhari for his success at the poll and prayed God to guide him right to lead the country well. It said the new government should not hesitate to convert some colleges of education with adequate staff strength and infrastructure to universities of education. The committee also lauded the contribution of the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETfund) towards the funding of tertiary education in the country.

Union wants postal reform bill passed Wema Bank celebrates 70th anniversary Yekeen Nurudeen Abuja

s the seventh National Assembly is winding down its activities, the Senior Staff Association of Communication, Transport and Cooperation of Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) has pleaded with the National Assembly to ensure the passage of the National Postal Reform Bill. President of the association, Imafidon Gabriel, made the plea in

Abuja, when the union unveiled two 18-seater buses procured for its members use at NIPOST headquarters. The occasion was part of the activities to mark this year’s Workers’ Day. He explained that the bill, when passed, would empower NIPOST to engage in activities that would benefit the public. The bill, according to him, would enable NIPOST to carry out financial operations such as payment and receiv-

ing deposits, likening it to the Postal Bank of Japan, which he said is one of the highest banks in Japan at the moment. Imafidon said: “As a union, we are stakeholders in NIPOST. We want to plead with the National Assembly members for the quick passage of the bill. The bill is already before them. The US mail became what it is today from 1972. Prior to then, it was a full government entity, but from 1972, the government removed its hands.

ema Bank Plc at the weekend celebrated its 70th anniversary since the commencement of banking operations. The Chairman of the bank, Mr. Adeyinka Asekun, speaking at the event attended by stakeholders of the bank and captains of industry, thanked the shareholders and the employees of the bank for making the bank resilience in the last 70th years of its existence. He noted that Wema Bank came into existence when World War Two was about to end, adding that the bank continued to

reinvent itself and is determined to remain resilience year after year. The Managing Director/CEO of the bank, Mr. Segun Oloketuyi, said the foundation of the bank was led by visionary people who toiled and laboured to make it what it is currently. A former Managing Director of the bank, Mr. Tunde Lemo, who represented the body of the past CEOs, commended the management for weathering the storm over the past years. He, however, advised the bank to remain proactive in leading other banks in innovation and creativity.

Wema Bank had announced unaudited first quarter financial results ended March 31, 2015, increasing its gross earnings by five per cent from N10.16 billion to N10.63 billion in corresponding period of the previous year. The bank’s Profit Before Tax (PBT) grew by four per cent year-on-year to N615 million up from N591 million in 2014 Q1, while the downward trend in the Non-Performing Loan (NPL) ratio continued, closing the quarter on 2.3 per cent from 3.4 per cent recorded in the previous period.

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Metro

Soldier offers dog attack victim N30,000 COMPENSATION

A man, whose dogs viciously attacked a bus driver, has given the victim a monetary compensation and a promise of job offer Taiwo Jimoh

captain in the United States Marine has compensated a man attacked by his dogs with N30,000 and a promise of job offer. The 45-year-old victim, Saturday Akpomose, was almost killed the soldier’s seven dogs at Ajah area of Lagos State recently while on a visit to his brother-in-law. The commercial bus driver was offered a driving job opportunity in a company owned by the soldier (name withheld). He was also given a 25kg bag of rice with beverage. However, the money and job offer have been causing ripples in Akpomose’s family. His wife and brother-inlaw have expressed dismay Akpomose collected a mere

Akpomose after his discharge from the hospital

N30,000 while his treatment had already gulped over N110,000. It was gathered that the victim, who was admitted

at the Akodo, General Hospital, after the attack, asked the soldier to take him away from the hospital. Akpomose, who had spent

about 11 days at the hospital, was discharged on May 1 to be reunited with his family. It was learnt that before he was discharged from the hospital, the victim had demanded a N5 million compensation from the soldier. But he was persuaded to accept N30,000 and a job offer. But Akpomose told our correspondent at the weekend that he accepted the money because the soldier promised to take good care of him and his family. He said: “I believe you saw all the wounds on my body, the wounds have not healed totally. I collected the money from him because I am not a troublesome person. I have left everything to God. “When the dogs attacked me, I tried to protect my neck, my private part and my stomach, because I knew if the dogs touch any of these parts I am gone. That was one of the reasons I decided to settle out of court with the owner of the dogs. If had died, my family members would have collected the money. “Although he offered me a

job, I cannot work for him. I want is for him to assist me in my business. How can I start waiting for salary at this stage when I have grown up children who are in the university to cater for?” The soldier’s Chief Security Officer, who identified himself simply as Victor, told our correspondent that the two parties had settled out of court. He said: “After we had footed his medical bill at the hospital, he was demanding N5 million from my boss to set up a business and feed his children, claiming that he cannot work now owing to the wounds all over his body. “To our surprise after the incident, Akpomose’s family members came to our house to shout that we had used him for ritual. They claimed that after the incident we slaughtered four cows and rams to appease the gods in the house. “My boss gave him a bag of rice and beverage to take care of his children. “We have told his family members who are threatening us with law suit that after settling with the victim, they should go ahead and do whatever they want to do, because we have done our best.” On April 22, about 8am, seven dogs, owned by the soldier, pounced on Akpomose and almost killed him. He was rescued by the residents and some passers-by. The incident was later reported at the Ogombo Police Division from where Akpomose was rushed to the Akodo General Hospital, Ajah.

Niger deputy gov’s brother abducted NAFDAC destroys N30bn Dan Atori Minna

he younger brother of the Niger State Deputy Governor, Ahmed Ibeto, has been kidnapped by gunmen in his home town. This is coming barely three months after the deputy governor dumped the People Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressive Congress (APC). Ibeto’s younger brother, Mallam Ayuba Ibeto, was kidnapped

ABIODUN BELLO FEATURES Editor

abiodun.bello@newtelegraphonline.com

about 10pm on Friday from his family house at Ibeto in Magama Local Government Area. One of the deputy governor’s aides, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed the incident. The aide said the younger Ibeto was kidnapped by heavily armed men numbering about 10. According to him, the kidnappers arrived at the Ibeto family house in two vehicles, a Golf car and a Hilux van. He added that shortly after storming the house, the assailants started shooting sporadically into the air to scare away the residents of the area before taking their victim away. The aide told our correspondent that the following morning the kidnappers used the victim’s mobile phone to call his mother, telling her that her son was in their custody and that all they needed was money. However, the abductors, according to the aide, did not give any specific amount as ransom. He said: “The kidnappers started shooting into the air before kid-

napping Ayuba who just weeded. “Ayuba pleaded with his kidnappers the following morning to speak with his aged mother who is sick so that her condition will not get worse. But instead, they used his cell phone line to call her. They told her that her son is safe and all they needed was money.” The deputy governor’s aide added that the family made frantic effort to call the line back but it was switched off. When contacted, the state Police Public relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Ibrahim Gambari, said the police was not aware of the incident as he was yet to receive any detail in that regard. He said: “I am not aware of any incident of such nature but I will investigate.” However, the Chief Press Secretary to the deputy governor, Bala Bitrus, confirmed the incident. Bala, however, could not say whether the kidnap was politically-motivated or not as there were no details about the motive of the kidnappers yet.

fake drugs –Orhii

Biodun Oyeleye Ilorin

he National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) said it had seized and destroyed fake drugs, unwholesome foods and other substandard regulated products worth N30 billion in the last six and half years. The NAFDAC Director-General, Dr Paul Orhii, disclosed this to journalists at the weekend after his courtesy visit to the Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Gambari. Orhii said the agency had warned all manufacturers of antibiotic and anti-malaria drugs in the country to have on their products the ‘scratch and pick’ mobile authentication panel otherwise called ‘True Scan’ from July. According to the NAFDAC boss, the move became necessary to ensure that consumers

can scratch and authenticate products before buying them. True Scan, according to him, makes it difficult for people to fake drugs. He said: “So, if we use the scratch card method we have the opportunity to finally completely eradicate counterfeit in our system. “We have fought the war against counterfeit drug to a standstill and that is why at the international level Nigeria is now being recognised.” Orhii said when he introduced the agency’s True Scan to the traditional ruler, pointing out that NAFDAC was the only organisation globally currently using the software. The DG expressed concern that counterfeit products thrive in Nigeria simply because there are no quality local manufacturers but expressed delight over latest developments in the sector.

METRO 11

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Orekoya kids: Police release abductors’ pictures

City Briefs LAWMA, LASSAA recycle campaign posters Muritala Ayinla

Rasheed

Camillus Nnaji

olice in Lagos yesterday released the pictures of two brothers behind the recent abduction of three kids belonging to Mr. Leke Orekoya. The state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Kenneth Nwosu, confirmed the release of the pictures of Raheed and Hakeem Kareem. The PPRO said police were not relenting in their investigations and would soon apprehend the brothers, their mother and one of

Hakeem

Funmilayo

the brothers’ wife. He said: “We are not leaving any stone unturned towards arresting all the fleeing members of the gang. We must make sure they face the full wrath of the law.” One of the kidnappers, who is already in detention, Fumilayo Adeyemi, who abducted the three children of the Orekoyas on April 10, was employed as a maid 24 hours earlier through an online employment advertisement portal, OLX. When arrested by officials of Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Shasha area of La-

gos, Adeyemi also confessed to being the abductor of the Esharagaran kids who were kidnapped in the same manner from their home in Magodo Estate. The kidnap syndicate had asked the Orekoya family to pay N15 million, which was later reduced to N13 million. The abductors, all family members, finally accepted a N2 million paid into a bank account at Sagamu in Ogun State. Thereafter, they dumped the children at an uncompleted building at Shasha, Akowonjo axis of the Lagos metropolis.

During interrogation, Adeyemi admitted that her husband, Rasheed Kareem, brother-in-law, Hakeem Kareem, Hakeem’s wife and their mother, who are still at large, are members of the kidnapping gang. The ‘nanny’ said her husband, Rasheed, was the head of the gang. It was gathered that Raheed and Hakeem have been living in affluence, driving exotic cars wherever they lived. But if people begin to question the source of their wealth, they would simply relocate to another area.

Man electrocuted while reconnecting wire Offa Poly student, rescuer die inside well A Adeolu Adeyemo Osogbo

Biodun Oyeleye Ilorin

National Diploma 1 (ND1) student of Business Management, Federal Polytechnic Offa, Kwara State and another person lost their lives at the weekend while trying to fetch water from a well. The incident, which occurred at Igbawere village, a short distance from the institution’s permanent site, has thrown the village and the student community into mourning. It was gathered that the student, identified as Akojede Sodeeq, was trying to fetch water from the well when he fell into it. The second victim, according to sources, was an indigene of the village and was among those summoned to rescue Sodeeq but he also lost his life in the process. An official of the institution, who pleaded anonymity because he was not authorised to speak with journalists, confirmed the incident. He said: “It is true we lost a student and a villager. They called us to inform us about the incident. But please it did not take place on our premises. Students are living in that village, which is next to the permanent site. It is really a sad development. Some of Sodeeq’s colleagues described the deceased as a gentleman with a lot of drive and will power.

middle-aged man, Opeyemi Ogundele, was electrocuted at the weekend while illegally reconnecting electricity wire at Ilesa in Osun State. The wire was earlier disconnected by staff of the

Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) over unpaid bill. The body of the deceased was discovered at Ake-Ayo area of the town. Investigation showed that the deceased, an electrician, was hired by some occupants of a house at OkeAyo, to re-connect the wire. Ogundele was said to

have billed the occupants N1,500 while he rented a ladder for N200. The hired electrician said to have insisted on collecting the money before reconnecting the wire. The deceased reportedly mistakenly touched the live wire on the electric pole and was electrocuted immediately.

Experts seek president’s assent to safety law

Safety professionals at the seminar

Muritala Ayinla

afety professionals have called on President Goodluck Jonathan to immediately sign into law Occupation and Health Service (OHS) Bill to reduce avoidable disasters. Speaking at the annual conference/seminar, organised by Safety Advocacy and Empowerment

Foundation at the Lagos Chamber for Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the safety professionals said that needless loss of lives and property would be adequately tackled, if all Nigerians clamoured for the signing of the OHS Bill into law. The Director-General (DG), Lagos State Safety Commission, Mrs Olubunmi Dominga, urged

the President to sign the bill so that Nigerians could smile. According to her, the bill, if signed into law, will reduce and eventually eliminate frequent avoidable accidents in most Nigerian firms. She said most Nigerian companies took safety for granted, but the bill, if signed into law, would address all the safety issues taken for granted. Other speakers also harped on the need to commence the drive towards establishing a positive safety culture in the country. On his part, Executive Director, SAEF, Mr Jamiu Badmos (an engineer), urged Nigerians to take safety issues more seriously, adding that most disasters were preventable if only people could take safety precautions.

agos State Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) said it would partner the Lagos State Signage and Advertisement Agency (LASAA) in recycling the waste generated from the removal of the estimated 1.5 million campaign posters for the 2015 general election. The agency also said that it would extend its street washing service to new areas, describing the service as a sanitation channel adopted in developed nations across the globe through the use of high powered machines for pressure washing and sanitation of public roads. Briefing journalists at the weekend on the activities of the agency in the last one year, the LAWMA General Manager, Mr Ola Oresanya, said the training of his staff on proper handling of medical waste contributed to the curtailment of the Ebola Virus Disease. Harping on the partnership in the waste management, the LASAA Managing Director, Mr George Noah, said the collaboration would aid the agency in its cleanup exercise. According to him, it strives to rid the state of estimated 1.5 million posters used during political campaigns. He said the move would help to develop an eco-friendly means of disposing waste. According to him, recycling paper waste conserves natural resources, saves energy, cuts greenhouse gas emissions and keeps landfill space, free for other forms of waste that cannot be recycled. Noah added that the waste to be recycled was generated by LASAA’s enforcement team in the course of hosing down political campaign posters across the state.

Police arrest suspected robbers, cult members Kunle Olayeni Abeokuta

olice detectives in Ogun State have arrested some suspected armed robbers and cult members who were terrorising the residents of Ota in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area. The suspects, numbering five, including a female, were arrested in two different operations at Ijako and Ijoko areas of Ota. Locally-made guns, live cartridges, cutlasses and charms, were reportedly recovered from the suspected criminals. The state Police Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, who confirmed this yesterday in a statement in Abeokuta, said the police detectives carried out the operations on Saturday and Sunday (yesterday). Adejobi, a Deputy Superintendent of Police, disclosed that the suspects had already confessed to many crimes in the axis. He listed the names of the suspected cult members as Bamidele Adejare, 18, Sodiq Gbadamosi, 22 and Olamilekan Omoola, 22. The suspected armed robbers were identified as Taiwo Wasiu and Gbemisola Adebiyi. The PPRO said: “The police detectives attached to Ota Division led by the Divisional Police Officer, CSP Muyideen Adisa, have arrested some deadly cultists and armed robbers who terrorise the innocent people of Ota area in Ado-Odo/Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State.”

12 News

monday, may 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

national

Eko Atlantic City ready next year —Commissioner Muritala Ayinla

he acclaimed Africa's biggest civil engineering project, Eko Atlantic City, will soon begin to serve its purpose as the first set of the office buildings would be ready for occupation next year, the Lagos State Commissioner for Waterfront, Prince Adesegun Oniru said. The project, which is located on the 5,000,000 square metres parcel of land reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, was designed to provide the space and infrastructure to house 250,000 people and become the workplace for 150,000 residents in the state. Hence, the project concessionaire has offered for sale some of the ongoing infrastructure which would serve as offices. New Telegraph gathered some of the projects in the city, which are in advanced stages, are the Afren headquarters building; a skyscraper which is presently at its sixteenfloor of construction, and likely to be completed and occupied in 2016. Briefing journalists on the development of the project, Oniru said aside the Afren building, another project, Eko Pearl Towers is also rising into the sky, saying that project was no longer a dream but a reality. He said: "It is now a reality as a significant progress has been made with ongoing construction of various infrastructure such as storm water drainage, installation at 79 per cent, sewage pipe installation at 40 per cent, water supply pipe installation at 21 per cent, and telecom ducts installation at 27 per cent.” He explained that of the total land size to be reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean (almost twice of the land size of Victoria Island), about 5,184,999 sqm had been reclaimed as at October 2014, and 33 million cubic metres of sand pumped since commencement of phase 1.

L-R: Director, Administration and Human Resources Management, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Mrs. Yetunde Oni; President, Project Fix Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Kowontan; Emir of Ilorin, Alhaji Ibrahim Zulu-Gambari; founder/CEO, Nigerian American Agricultural Empowerment Programme, Chief Temitope Ajayi and Director-General, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Dr. Paul Orhi, during a courtesy visit by NAFDAC to the Emir in Ilorin…at the weekend.

Ngillari wants to implicate me, says Adamawa Speaker

Ibrahim Abdul Yola

here seems to be no end, in the fight between the Speaker of the Adamawa State House of Assembly, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and the state Governor, Bala James Ngillari. The speaker yesterday accused the governor of trying to rope him in on a financial sleaze, following the alleged bid

Enugu

ational Vice President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) in charge of South East zone, Mr. Chris Isiguzo, has called on journalists in the five states of the zone to key into the theme of this year’s celebration of the World Press Freedom Day in order to play their

er, the attempt was to deny him and majority of the legislators fair hearing in the court of public opinion and prevent the truth from coming out, except the one from the executive arm. "The plan is to accuse Fintiri of not following due process in the award of contract and sourcing of funds for the execution of the Faculties of Law and Medicine of the Adamawa State University during his brief but

eventful stint as the Acting Governor last year. "It is, however, important for the public to note that the ministries concerned duly advertised the projects for pre- qualification tender which were not opened before Fintiri's tenure came to an abrupt end. "Moreover, proceeds from the N5billion bond, which was earmarked to execute the project was yet to mature as at the time Fintiri left office,

therefore what funds could he have tampered with or much less mismanaged?" the statement queried. Fintiri further said that it was unfortunate for the governor to lose focus at the very tail end of the administration, noting that instead of Nggilari to focus on the modalities of transfer of power, he instead engages in needless distraction and political vendetta against Fintiri.

Amosun blasts Isiaka for criticising $3.2bn rail project Kunle Olayeni Abeokuta

he Governor Ibikunle Amosun-led administration in Ogun State yesterday chided the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the April 11 governorship election, Prince Gboyega Isiaka, over the latter's criticism of the $3.2billion light

Press Freedom Day: NUJ chief tasks journalists on participation Uwakwe Abugu

to remove the speaker, last week. The speaker, in a press statement signed by the Assembly’s Information Officer, Zailani Umar, alleged that as a prelude to the plan, the executive arm of government in the state, through the Commissioner of Information, has barred all state media outfits from covering the activities of the legislative arm under Fintiri. According to the speak-

roles effectively in nurturing Nigeria’s democracy. According to a release issued yesterday, Isiguzo said, “the objective of the World Press Freedom Day is to remind our governmental and non-governmental organizations and civil society of the vital role of the freedom of press in strengthening democracies and promoting development around the world."

rail project of the state government. The governor described Isiaka's criticism as a reflection of his ignorance and narrow world view about developments, even within the country. The state government, had, last week, signed a contract with the China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) for the construction of light rail, which

would cover intra and intercity routes in the state. But Isiaka, who has already filed a petition against Amosun's electoral victory at the tribunal, described the rail project as a "misplaced priority." He argued that the project should not be the priority of the state for now when there were decaying schools and health facilities on the ground begging for urgent attention.

However, in a statement by his Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, the governor stated that Isiaka's claim was "only a reflection of his myopic world view which would have kept the state in her 1976 state if the PDP candidate had been elected governor." He said, "We are forward-looking, progressive administration. Our

plan is to create a modern, agro-based, industrialised and developed state. The light rail project is central to achieving this. "However, we need to remind Mr. Isiaka that constructing a rail project does not disturb investment in other social services. Our Rebuilding Mission in all other areas will not be disturbed in any way.

Fire guts Maiduguri market Agro-dealers demand share of

section of the Gamboru Market in Maiduguri was, yesterday, gutted by fire which destroyed about 50 shops and goods worth millions of Naira. Some traders in the market told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri that the fire started at about 3.00 a.m. when there was nobody in the market. Malam Mohammed

Ibrahim, a leader in the market, said that he noticed thick smoke at the market during the early morning prayers around 5.00 a.m. ``We were at the mosque praying when we saw thick smoke coming out from the market. ``But we could not get to the market immediately due to the prevailing curfew in the state,'' he said.

N70b intervention fund Yusuf Shuaib ABUJA

he Agro -Dealers and Suppliers Association of Nigeria, yesterday, demanded from the Federal Government the payment of their own share of the N70 billion intervention fund in the agriculture sector. The association said that the delay in the

payment for the services they have rendered to the intervention scheme had impacted negatively on their businesses. They lauded President Goodluck Jonathan over the Griwth Enhancement Scheme ( GES) , describing the programme as the best ever in the agricultural sector that has impacted positively on the lives of farmers.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Interview

Power tussle

Era of political enslavement gone – Obidigbo

Ekiti: When peace meeting failed

Politics Thorny road to May 29 Claims of booby traps and counter-claims of blackmail are threatening the envisaged smooth transition of power from the outgoing government of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the incoming All Progressives Congress (APC) administration, FELIX NWANERI reports

resident Goodluck Jonathan demonstrated statesmanship, when he conceded defeat to General Muhammadu Buhari in the March 28 presidential election even before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) formally declared the former military ruler and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the poll. The president, whose party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had been in power since 1999, had called Buhari to concede defeat and congratulate him at a time results from all but one of the country’s 36 states – Borno – was still being expected though the opposition party was clearly in unassailable lead. Both men had prior to the election, signed a peace accord to respect its outcome, but Jonathan, who made history as Nigeria’s first incumbent president to lose re-election bid, besides conceding defeat, went a step further by promising a smooth transition of power to the opposition party. The president, against this backdrop, set up a Transition Committee charged with the responsibility of drawing up programmes of activities for the May 29 inauguration ceremony. The committee is headed by the Secretary to the Government of

AYODELE OJO

DEPUTY Editor, POLITICS ayodele.ojo@newtelegraphonline.com

President-elect, Buhari and President Jonathan at a recent meeting.

the Federation (SGF), Senator Anyim Pius Anyim. Jonathan’s gesture, which is rare in African politics, was commended by Nigerians and the international community, including world leaders like President Barack Obama. The United States president, in a message, said: “I look forward to working with President Jonathan throughout the remainder of his term, and I thank him for his many years of service and his statesmanlike conduct at this critical time.” Despite the torrents of commendations and Jonathan’s assurance of a hitch-free take off for the Buhari administration, the APC has alleged that the president’s actions of late, show he is lacing the path of the incoming government with banana peels that may pitch it against the people. The party cited the various sacks and appointments of officials of key government agencies and parastatals by President Jonathan at the twilight of his administration as not only booby traps, but a grand plot to ensure a rough road to the Villa for the

We have no apology for our victory, and the concession of defeat... has, by no means, diminished the historic and emphatic victory

President-elect. To most APC members and some analysts, any attempt by the incoming administration to reverse some of the last-minute actions by President Jonathan will spur bad blood in the system given Nigeria’s ethno-religious politics. The suspicion may have informed the setting up of a 19-member “parallel” transition committee last Wednesday by the President-elect. The committee, which has members drawn from across the country’s six geo-political zones, is headed by a retired Permanent Secretary and elder statesman, Alhaji Ahmed Joda. Inaugurating the committee, Buhari told its members that they are not on a fault-finding mission, but to study the hand over notes and advise him on how to avoid the mistakes of the past. However, the Federal Government, in a swift reaction said it took exception to some of the terms of reference of the committee and warned the APC against running a parallel government. It also warned that President Jonathan’s magnanim-

ity should not be taken as a sign of cowardice. Sack and appointment of new IGP In a move that shocked many, the president, on April 25, fired the Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba. The sack was announced by the president’s spokesperson, Dr. Reuben Abati. A Deputy Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, was appointed to act in Abba’s stead. With his removal, Abba proceeded on forced retirement four years before he attained retirement age. He enlisted in the Nigerian Police as Cadet Inspector on December 31, 1984 and is actually due for retirement on March 22, 2019. Though no reason was given by the Presidency for Abba’s removal, feelers had it that it may not be unconnected with the April 11 governorship and House of Assembly elections in Lagos and Rivers states as well as his alleged sympathy for the APC. Abba was said to have incurred the wrath of the Presidency the night before the GoverCONTINUED ON PAGE 14

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C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 1 3

norship and House of Assembly elections for reportedly arguing with some top officials over an order to recall the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in Charge of Zone 6, Tunde Ogunsakin, from Rivers State. The former police boss had redeployed Ogunsakin from Cross River to Rivers to take charge of security for the governorship election in the state after Governor Chibuike Amaechi complained that policemen in the state collaborated with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the PDP to intimidate APC members as well as in rigging of the Presidential and National Assembly elections in the state in favour of the ruling party. Though Ogunsakin eventually left Rivers at the eve of the election, the initial refusal by Abba to recall him to his Calabar, Cross River base was seen as gross insubordination and clear partisanship on his part. The last straw was Abba’s presence at the presentation of Certificate of Return to Buhari by INEC. To some analysts, Buhari would be incurring the wrath of his supporters in Edo State and the South-South by extension should he attempt to remove Arase, who hails from the area by the time he is sworn in. Obi takes over at SEC Three days after Abba was removed, the president’s hammer fell on the chairman of the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), Dr. Suleyman Ndanusa. He was replaced by former Anambra State governor, Mr. Peter Obi. Obi’s appointment was contained in a statement also released by Abati. It also confirmed the appointment of Mounir Haliru Gwarzo as Director-General of the commission. Gwarzo was appointed on acting capacity shortly after the tenure of the former Director-General, Arunma Oteh, ended last year. Obi’s appointment has been viewed by many as a reward for his support for the president during the campaigns. The former governor had defected to the PDP from the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) shortly after he left office in 2014 and served as Deputy Director-General (South) of the PDP Presidential Campaign Council. But akin to Arase’s case, the gulf between the APC and the people of the South-East is likely to widen if Obi, who enjoys some level of followership in the zone, is relieved of his new position by Buhari. Obi’s kinsmen have before now continued to cry marginalisation, and the howl could get worse should one of their own be relieved of the “cherished position” except a replacement is picked from the area. Change of guard at NHIS The sack wind also blew past the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), sweeping off its Executive Secretary, Femi Thomas. Abati, who also announced the sack, revealed the appointment of Olufemi Akingbade as the acting Executive Secretary/Chief

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Claims, counter-claims

Buhari (fifth right) and members of his Transition Committee

Executive Officer of the agency. Akingbade, who hails from Ekiti State, was until his new appointment, the General Manager, ICT in NHIS. Lamido in at NPA Continuing with the sack, the president on April 29 relieved Mallam Habib Abdullahi of his appointment as Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA). He was immediately replaced by Alhaji Sanusi Lamido Ado Bayero, eldest son of the late Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero. The Ciroman Kano, who started his career as a lecturer at the Kaduna State Polytechnic before moving to the state Ministry of Justice, later served as a Director General, Kano State Council of Chiefs, Director General Special Duties in the Kano State Government, and District Head/Council member Kano Emirate Council. Unlike the other appointments, that of the NPA poses more threat to the incoming government. Bayero had contested the Kano kingship with the new Emir of Kano and former Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, whose sympathy for the APC leadership is not in doubt. To analysts, the bond between the APC and the people of Kano, who revere late Ado Bayero, is bound to face the test of time should his son get booted by the incoming government. Bamidele alleges oil subsidy removal A fresh twist was added to the gale of sack and appointments, which the APC claims are booby traps, when the Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Research and Legislative Budget, Hon. Opeyemi Bamidele (APC Ekiti State), said the absence of a provision for fuel subsidy in the 2015 Appropriation Act is another political landmine for Buhari. The lawmaker, who advised the APC to take immediate steps to let Nigerians know where it stands on the matter, said: “The

L-R: Former Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim and Permanent Secretary, Presidency, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote at a meeting of the Presidential Transition Committee.

We take exceptions to some utterances... that look as if the current government is being stampeded or intimidated

truth and reality of the situation is that the outgoing PDP administration has, through the 2015 Budget, removed oil subsidy and it must be made to accept responsibility for it rather than for the incoming APC administration to bask in the euphoria of having won an election without realising the booby trap into which they and the Nigerian people are walking into.” According to him, apart from the reduced amount of N21 billion provided in the Act for the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme, no other provision was made in the budget for subsidised welfare services. He therefore warned that the absence of the provision for continued fuel subsidy portends grave implications for the Buhari administration. “To me, this is definitely a booby trap for the incoming administration. Those who were suggesting within the APC that its incoming administration might withdraw fuel subsidy must be educated that they would be sending Nigerians a wrong signal capable of creating the impression that the APC either deceived Nigerians to get their votes or had reneged on its electoral promise as a progressive party. “This is a serious development and a defining moment

that calls for the attention of all well-meaning Nigerians at home and abroad. This is the first time in the last 16 years of our civilian rule that a new political party will be taking over to form a government and if care is not taken, this matter is capable of making the incoming government morally dead on arrival,” Bamidele said. APC decries last-minute actions Besides raising the alarm over booby traps, the APC alleged last-minute looting of the nation’s resources, hurried recruitment into the public service and rushed privatisation of key financial institutions by the Jonathan administration, warning that such actions will have serious repercussions. National Publicity Secretary of the party, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said while the Jonathan government remains in office till midnight of May 28, it is incumbent on it not to tie the new government’s hands through suspicious actions. His words: “The National Council on Privatisation (NCP), which is headed by the Vice President, has just approved the financial bid opening for transaction advisers for the privatisation of the three Development Finance Institutions in the country – the

Politics

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

ahead of inauguration

Obi

Bank of Agriculture, Bank of Industry and Nigeria Commodity Exchange. The question is: What is the rationale for rushing this exercise with just weeks left for this administration? “Also, there have been reports, yet unrefuted, of a planned hurried recruitment into the Nigeria Immigration Service, after a previous attempt ended in a national tragedy and the fleecing of innocent job seekers by mindless Federal Government officials. Apart from the fact that this last-minute recruitment is suspect, it is irregular.” Jonathan warns against parallel govt Dismissing APC’s claims, President Jonathan reminded Buhari and the APC that he remains in charge until May 29. Addressing newsmen after the weekly Federal Executive (FEC), last Wednesday, Minister of National Planning and chairman of the transition sub-committee of the Presidential Inauguration/ Handover Committee, Abubakar Suleiman, warned the presidentelect and APC against comments and actions that portray them as running a parallel administration before the handover date. Suleiman disclosed that 80 per cent of the work on handover notes has been completed as most Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have complied with the presidential directives ahead of the deadline. He also revealed that the president charged his ministers and other cabinet members to remain steadfast, continue to discharge their duties with the appropriate efficiency until their last day in office and not be intimidated by comments of members of the incoming government. “The incoming government should avoid creating a parallel government while the government is still on. We take exceptions to some utterances and to some of the terms of reference that look as if the current government is being stampeded or intimidated. “Council members are advised

Arase

Lamido

to work in line with the terms of reference of the current government. Council members are also advised that the terms of reference as formatted by our transition committee should be strictly complied with. When the incoming government takes over government it can come out with its programmes…This government remains resolute to the various programmes and projects it is pursuing and the government will continue to do that until the morning of May 29,” Suleiman averred. APC fires back Apparently irked by the president’s warning, the APC further accused him of plotting to hinder a smooth handover of power, despite his “public posturing” in that regard. Mohammed, who stated the party’s position, said while the outgoing government had earlier issued a memo to all ministries, departments and agencies to make sure their handover notes were ready by April 20, it has reversed itself by saying the handover notes would not be ready until May 14. His words: “We are sick and tired of being blackmailed by the Jonathanians. General Buhari won the March 28 Presidential election fair and square, having satisfied both constitutional and other statutory requirements. We have no apology for our victory, and the concession of defeat – while it may have increased the political stock of Jonathan – has by no means diminished the historic and emphatic victory of General Buhari and the APC. “With the new date, the Buhari Transition Committee will have little or no time to take a thorough look at the handover notes or seek clarification on knotty issues, effectively handing it (Buhari Transition Committee) a fait accompli as far as the handover notes are concerned. This does not augur well for a smooth transition and gives the impression that the outgoing administration is trying to hide something. The APC spokesman de-

scribed as illogical and strange, the claim by the Jonathan administration that Buhari was trying to set up a parallel government, simply because he has set up his own transition committee. Wondering how the terms of reference of the Buhari transition committee had become the concern of the outgoing FEC, Mohammed said: “In case the Federal Executive Council has forgotten, General Buhari of the APC was declared the winner of the March 28 presidential election by the INEC. He is therefore today the President-elect and the APC, the incoming government. It is therefore illogical to accuse the President-elect and the incoming government of setting up a parallel government.”

The President should maintain the high profile statesmanship, which he has well established

Stakeholders’ caution While the incoming administration has assured that it will not get itself bogged down by an endless probe of the activities of the Jonathan administration, it is has vowed that all actions taken since the result of the March 28 presidential election was announced will come under the searchlight. But some stakeholders, who spoke on the issue, admonished both camps to thread with caution to avoid upsetting the applecart ahead of the new government’s inauguration. Among those who gave the advice was the National Chairman and candidate of United Progressive Party (UPP) in the presidential election, Chief Chekwas Okorie. He told New Telegraph in an interview that the row between the APC and the PDP over the transition is not a healthy one because Nigerians and the rest of the world have been praising the maturity of President Jonathan and General Buhari over the way they have cooperated up till this time. He said: “The presidential election has come and gone, someone won and some people lost. I am one of those who lost, so I think the President should maintain the high profile statesmanship, which he has well es-

tablished. He shouldn’t allow the hawks around him to make him believe that his well-established maturity and statesmanship is a sign of weakness. That impression may make him to begin to sound combative. “To me, it is too late in the day to begin to do that. My advice therefore is that he should continue to husband the transition in the way and manner that he accepted the outcome of the election’s result until he bows out gloriously and gracefully.” On APC’s claim of booby traps by the Jonathan administration, he said: “The way I look at it is that the president is still the president until May 29, and the incoming president, who will assume all presidential powers from then, including that of the commander in chief, has the right to review every action taken by his predecessor, including those he thinks were done in bad faith.” Okorie added: “Luckily, there would be a brand new National Assembly with more than 70 per cent of its members having no primordial loyalty. So, Buhari will have it easy with any appointment that needs to be shot down to allow people who will help him fulfill his campaign promises. “No one should break anyone’s head because of what the president is doing in his last days. He has a good argument in insisting that he remains the president until he hands over. The incoming government should just wait, and I can tell you that I will support any review that will make Buhari have less distraction. If PDP loyalists are being appointed to sensitive positions, they should be removed because they can sabotage his government.” While the claims and counterclaims have rekindled doused tension and expected to heighten ahead of the May 29 handover date, it behoves on Buhari, who no doubt is used to landmines given his military background, to tread carefully on the thorny path if he is to realise his set goal of sanitising the polity for Nigerians to enjoy the fruits of democracy at all levels of government.

16 Politics Dr. Chike Obidigbo, a 2014 parallel governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Anambra State, speaks on the outcome of the general elections and expectations from the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari. OKEGWO KENECHUKWU reports How would you assess the outcome of the 2015 general elections? The expectations of Nigerians is that the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari, has all it takes, both military and civilian experience and as well as the political will, to steer the ship of the country to an enviable height. It is hoped that he would be a national leader and not a regional or ethnic leader. So many things were brought to bear during the elections. The victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was the least to be heard of because it seems impossible for a sitting government to be defeated in Africa. I gave kudos to the APC. They did their job very well; starting from the party’s registration to the general elections. They sensitised the voting public and before the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) realised what was happening, it was too late. I also appreciate President Goodluck Jonathan’s early acceptance of defeat.

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Era of political enslavement gone – Obidigbo tern in the general elections? Looking at the voting pattern in the South-South and SouthEast, it was almost the same because APC was not well marketed in the zone given the impression that the APC alliance mattered most to the South-West and the North that gave it a tribal outlook. That was why the winning of Dave Umahi in Ebonyi State and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi in Enugu did not come as a surprise. However, in Abia State there are some upheavals because the incumbent governor, Dr. Theodore Orji, did not allow the Abia people to vote freely for their choice. The impression everybody had was that the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate, Dr. Alex Otti, was the candidate to beat in that election, coupled with the

What do you think Nigerians should learn from the 2015 elections? President Jonathan should be blamed for his party’s defeat because of the quality of the people that surrounded him, and whom he entrusted his machineries. There was no way he could have continued the fight and that is the more reason he took the noblest way; if for nothing else, to maintain peace. His defeat, no doubt had some bandwagon effect, which made some states that are supposed to be the strongholds of the PDP, such as Plateau, Benue and Kaduna, to vote for APC. The lesson of the 2015 elections is that democracy has come to stay in Nigeria and the era of political enslavement or slavery is gone. Nigerians are of high hopes that General Buhari will work hard to live up to the yearnings and aspirations of the citizens, if he desires to effect the true change in the polity canvassed by the APC. This, he should do by reorganising and restructuring his party because many members of his party are known to be people who will oppose the campaign against corruption and impunity. The President-elect must stage a fight within his enclave, if he would truly fight corruption and return sanity to the nation’s polity. What is your take on the voting pat-

Obidigbo

Democracy has come to stay in Nigeria and the era of political enslavement or slavery is gone

fact that PDP under Orji did not do well in the state. Also in Imo State, it was clear from the beginning that it was going to be a fight of the titans, between the incumbent Governor Rochas Okorocha and the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha. In the NorthWest, North-Central, North-East and South-West, the story was the same, as was shown in the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were lopsided. Your party, APGA, didn’t do well in the National Assembly elections in Anambra State. Does this portend any danger to APGA, especially now that the APC has taken over at the federal level? The overwhelming victory in the House of Assembly election

in the state was a demonstration of the love Anambra people have for the leader of the party, late Dim Chukwuemeka OdimegwuOjukwu and APGA as a party. We all worked very hard to make sure that the party won extensively despite the fact that the squabble within the party has cost so much electoral chances. This was also responsible for our poor performance in the National Assembly and it is not a good omen. What do you think Ndigbo can benefit from the incoming government at the federal level? What should be our priority as a people should be the reconstruction, reconciliation and rehabilitation of the entire political system in the country, whereby every citizen of this country should be given equal opportunity to exist as full-fledged citizens devoid of marginalisation and intimidation. Basically, there are expectations that the incoming APC government led by General Buhari would bring sanity and the change it demanded from Nigerians to return the country to the path of glory and progress. It has also been proved beyond all reasonable doubt that President Jonathan’s administration failed the South-East states because we did not benefit anything. I would rather blame our leaders for this neglect. Our Igbo leaders should be blamed for whatsoever neglect we accused Jonathan of. I don’t blame him for anything because our people always claim to be their brother’s keeper, but when it comes to the distribution of wealth and amenities, we are all selfish. When they advertise good roads built on television and other media, they include the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway and Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, which are now a death traps. Who among those representing us raised objection? Have they ever articulated our need and present it to the president when they have opportunity to meet with him like other ethnic groups do? What they do is to discuss their personal issues and relegate all other issues affecting us as a people to the background. If Jonathan had won, we will benefit nothing because it would be business as usual unless we realise it is time to fight for our right. The only way we could have been heard was through our political leaders who have failed us because they never believed that they are truly representatives of the people. Take the 2nd Niger Bridge and the Onitsha Sea Port as reference points. The history of the 2nd Niger Bridge is dated as far back as 1979 during the Shehu Shagari administration and up till today, it has become a recurrent decimal in the nation’s annual budget, only to be commissioned during election for campaign. The issue of the seaport is a forgone issue as there was no strong indication that the Federal Government intends to dredge the River Niger not to talk of vessels berthing at the port. It is important that we should have representatives of people who have the interest of our people at heart and who would discuss our problems.

Politics 17

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Ekiti: When peace meeting failed Since the face-off between the All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly and Governor Ayo Fayose started, several peace efforts have been initiated. ADESINA WAHAB examines the recent failed intervention

hen things finally fell apart between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly, leading to the removal of Adewale Omirin of the APC as the Speaker by seven PDP members, it further aggravated the frosty relationship between the 19 APC lawmakers and Governor Ayo Fayose of the PDP. Since last November, the Assembly has been engulfed in leadership crisis, which by extension, has affected the state government. To resolve the crisis, a number of groups and eminent personalities from the state have volunteered to intervene. The Ekiti State Council of Traditional Rulers, under the leadership of the Chairman, the Onitaji of Itaji-Ekiti, Oba Adamo Babalola, issued statements and called a number of meetings on the issue, but to no avail. According to Oba Babalola, the monarchs’ efforts were always frustrated by the claim by the APC lawmakers that the matter was in court and that any comments on it would be subjudice. Also, the efforts of the Ekiti State Council of Elders and the Committee for the Creation of Ekiti State met a similar brick wall. So, it was with high expectation that the people of the state looked forward to another planned meeting between the warring parties called by eminent Ekiti indigenes led by Chief Afe Babalola (SAN), the founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD). The meeting was slated for April 30. As early as 6a.m., truckloads of armed security personnel, comprising policemen and men of the Department of State Service (DSS), took over the Ado-Ikare Road, where the venue of the meeting, ABUAD is located. Also, no fewer than 300 policemen and DSS operatives were within the university campus and around the hall where the meeting was scheduled to hold. In addition, another batch of 200 security men were deployed in Imesi-Ile, Osun State where Omirin and his colleagues were supposed to be escorted from to Ekiti State. Before the kick-off time of 11a.m. for the meeting, Babalola; the chairman, Committee for the Creation of Ekiti State, Chief Deji Fasuan; former National Planning Minister, Chief Ayo Ogunlade; for-

L-R: Dr. Jide Olajide,Prof. M. O. Ajisafe, Aare Afe Babalola, Governor Ayo Fayose, Chief Deji Fasuan, Chief Ayo Ogunlade, Prof. l. O. Orubuloye and the Speaker Ekiti House of Assembly, Hon. Dele Olugbemi

Omirin

mer Secretary, Yoruba Council of Elders (YCE), Dr. Kunle Olajide; former Vice Chancellor of Ekiti State University, Prof. Israel Orubuloye; ABUAD Vice Chancellor, Prof. Michael Ajisafe; the Commissioner of Police, Ekiti State Command, Joshua Ibine; State Director, DSS, Duke Fubara; some PDP members of the House of Assembly including factional Speaker, Hon. Dele Olugbemi. Hons. Samuel Ajibola Oyedele, Adeyinka Adeloye, Olowo Ajiboye among others were already seated. Till about 11:45a.m. when Governor Fayose came in and the meeting started, journalists and others present were hoping that the APC lawmakers would breeze in. This is despite the fact that the lawmakers had late on the eve of the meeting, sent a message that they would not attend, citing the safety of their lives and alleged plans by Fayose to arrest them. In his opening remarks, Babalola catalogued how Omirin gave him the assurance that he and his colleagues would attend the meeting until the last minute when he sent a text message that their safety was not sure.

I am ready to shift grounds and ready to pay their entitlements. It is not cowardice but act of good leadership

“Today is an important day for me and Ekiti State and it is as important as the day I stood to defend the need for the creation of Ekiti State. But it is unfortunate that a party to the dispute is not here. Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), after stressing himself through his tight schedule and was already in Ibadan, planning to come here, turned back when he learnt that the other group said they would not attend. Many people also turned back because of that information. “We are here because Dr. Kunle Olajide phoned me about two weeks ago that he wanted to see me and said it was about the happenings in the state and that people expected that I intervened. I showed him many letters calling me to intervene and I said at my age, I don’t want to be involved in politics and that I face my baby (ABUAD). In my office Olajide phoned Omirin and I said I have not intervened because I don’t want insult from anybody and Omirin said he respects me and would not mind my intervention. “I spoke to the governor and he said he was in support of my intervention and I phoned Omirin to tell him that the governor is interested in the settlement of the matter. On April 26, Omirin sent a text message that his group had agreed for me to host the meeting but that they were worried about their security and safety. I said the security and safety aspect would be adequately taken care of and you can see what we have put on ground today. “I got across to Abuja, the top hierarchy of the police and the DSS sent officers and men from outside the state to complement those on ground. They eventually agreed to come here today. They have agreed as to where the police would meet them and lead them to the venue of the meeting and I got a text message late yesterday in which they said they would not come despite all the assurances I gave. Going for a peace meeting is not a basis for arrest. I am a stakeholder in the state and if I tell you how much I have invested in the state, you will know why I love peace to reign in the state,” he said. In his own remarks, Fasuan said:

“I have had two platforms to convey this kind of meeting, it was always on the eve of the meeting like this that we were told they would not hold. Council of Obas attempted the same and the result was the same – meeting did not hold. I spoke with Omirin this morning through Olajide’s phone that they should come. The next 30 days in the state might be filled with landmines, which should not be.” For Chief Ogunlade, the issue is about conflict resolution. “Give and take involves giving up certain things to take others. If they are thoroughbred Ekiti men, then the survival of Ekiti should be paramount in their minds. Unity is needed and no sacrifice is too much to sustain it,” he noted. The former YCE scribe, Olajide, described himself as a messenger among the feuding parties. “I have been worried in the last couple of months about happenings in the state. I was prompted to come to Baba Afe Babalola concerning negative propaganda about the state. I Am surprised but not frustrated that the APC people did not come. “Our matters will be resolved here and we will reject external intervention. Fear of arrest is an indication of timidity and as politicians in a developing country, you must not be afraid of arrest,” he opined. Professors Ajisafe and Orubuloye both called for shifting of ground by the parties for lasting peace in the state. When it was the turn of Governor Fayose to speak, he likened himself to a chief executive officer of a company. His words: “The duty of the CEO of a company is to take directives from the owners. Ekiti is owned by Ekiti people and as the governor, I only need to take advice and instructions from the people. “Before this meeting, some groups and people invited me to meetings to resolve this matter. I was in Lagos two months ago to meet Ugbimo Ure Ekiti at Eko Hotels to explain what happened. They invited the other side and CONTINUED ON PAGE 20

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Opinion Boobytraps Lincoln advised Buhari to shun Dominik Umosen

message in a bottle, for those who know the story, is not a general message. Not for every one. Usually, it is only for whom it is addressed. The tortuous journey to direct the encryption reinforces its significance. Contesting the presidency four times must have been inspired by a similar conviction as that of iconic Abraham Lincoln who became American president after many attempts. Like Lincoln, Buhari must have been similarly inspired by the peculiar history of his country to want to return and contribute to sustainable change and progress in his fatherland. Those who might not be familiar with this aspect of the story, especially how Lincoln enthusiastically mobilised against slavery and paid dearly for it, should realize that the president’s second coming as citizen numero uno is not accidental but pre-ordained, perhaps to afford someone from the household of pharaoh the opportunity to supervise the political deconstruction of the enduring national challenge that reformation poses. Against all odds, including uncomplimentary focus on his role as the country’s fourth military ruler, Gen. Buhari disappointed book makers, emerging triumphant in the presidential elections, thus lending credence to the fact that there was something divine about Nigerians ignoring negative manipulations against Gen Buhari by his traducers. As President Buhari swivels on the exalted seat, surveying the Nigerian landscape which has transmogrified from troubled to demon-infested,

he contemplates how to rid his country of sundry demons and poltergeists who appear determined to render his chant for change as the ultimate soliloquy for the utterly frustrated. I am volunteering information which is already common knowledge that changes in the system have become so tectonic that most folks, especially the younger ones, do not really believe the trending story that Nigeria could be easily reformed or redeemed by this variant of change that politicians are parroting. As pessimistic as it may sound, many do not really believe that Buhari has the capacity to make the kind of difference that he made as a military ruler, surrounded, as he is, with the same set of politicians who contributed to the mess which he is allegedly sworn to rectify. It is in the interest of the populist general to internalize the fact, well before hand, that the urgent business of reforming Nigeria, as urgent and desirable as this task may be, might not be feasible if he relies on the same discredited platform of traditional mischief -makers, including so-called malicious gang-ups, to pursue his objective. The presumption may be that he is sitting on the most coveted seat in the country because most Nigerians wanted meaningful change, instead of the 16 years of motion without movement by the Peoples Democratic Party. But in order to prove the fact that his appeal transcends the north and the two million extra votes that he got from the South-West, the incoming president will have to demonstrate his ability to think outside the box by proving his eagerness to fix the huge mess that translates as Nigeria.

In this regard, Buhari has his task neatly cut out for him, beginning with the problem of insecurity which may have been largely resolved by outgoing President Jonathan. But its more formidable corollary of free-wheeling gangsterism by nomadic herdsmen still exists and haunts the country like a marauder preys on a flock without a diligent shepherd. What makes the outdated menace of the nomadic herdsman particularly relevant is the fact that because he is Fulani, hence an interested party, the world is interested to see how he intends to deal with the issue which has led to the death of so many innocent people in various parts of the country. Nigerians are interested to see whether President Buhari will be able to convince his kinsmen that the rest of the world has moved from nomadic pastoralism to the practice of livestock farming in clearly designated ranches which leave no room for tension and friction between farmers and itinerant herdsmen. Like the self-taught Illinois lawyer before him who anchored his fame on the emancipation legacy, President Buhari can also make his appeal enduring by resisting manipulators of traditional political mischief whose real objective is to prevent him from achieving his stated purpose of fixing the country. The human booby traps around him will try to achieve this by offering unsolicited advice like asking him to isolate corrupt persons even when no court of competent jurisdiction has made such pronouncement of guilt. If he can resist these merchants of mischief, then he would have connected perfectly with Lincoln’s enduring appeal.

Re-inventing the PDP Julius Oweh

espite the woeful outing of the Peoples Democratic Party in the national and state elections, one fact remains unassailable, that the party undoubtedly remains the most national party in the country and could be found in every ward. The electoral defeat of the PDP was self inflicted and as a result of arrogance, and the many years in power. The APC victory is a product of injustice and lack of internal democracy of the PDP. This was essentially the message of the national chairman of the party Alhaji Adamu Mu`azu while inaugurating the PDP presidential campaign in January 2015. With a bit of hindsight, the national chairman pleaded then with party members: ‘We say that members of the PDP should not be used and dumped again. People leave the party because of lack of equity or injustice...... A lot of people who left our party did so because of injustice in our party. The party is full of injustice`. It was this streak of injustice prevalent in the party that forced five state governors to leave the party and for the APC. Majority of members of APC today were given poison chalice of injustice and inequity to drink and had to leave the party. It was the same unfortunate display of injustice that pushed a former head of state to publicly tear his party membership card. Hope is not, however, lost for the PDP to regain the political initiative and once again take a leading role in the political evolution and development of the nation. And this much was stressed by the senate leader,

Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba who harped on the political theme that the defeat of PDP was a God-sent avenue to recreate the party. That is why genuine members of the PDP must go back to the drawing board and truly examine what went wrong with the party. I will offer free consultancy service to the PDP. For one thing, the party primaries for various elective positions were mired in controversies. Party demi-gods and godfathers were in the dictatorial games of fixing names of their favourites despite the electoral preferences of the party members. This incensed a lot of people and these people worked against the interest of the party in the general elections. Even the presidential primary was a closed door affair as other contestants were told not to participate as the presidential nomination form became the scarcest commodity. No party develops when it abhors the principle of free choice. It was the lack of internal democracy that signalled the paralysis of the party and little surprise the party kissed the dust in the general elections. Furthermore, the defection of the five state governors, legislators and other people was treated with levity and indifference by the party leadership. The leadership was under the cloud of delusion that the party would always win elections. To make matters worse, the so called reconciliation exercise was not done with the best of intentions. If the PDP is to bounce into national reckoning, it must genuinely extend the olive branch to such disaffected members and convince them why they should return to the fold. It will be pretty difficult now that the party is out of power at the

national level and the major attraction which is government patronage is no longer there. But genuine party faithful will come back and rebuild the party. Whether some people like it or not, the PDP husbanded power for sixteen years and some of her achievements are visible and enduring. These cannot be wished away with a wave of the hand. Therefore, those routing for the sack of Adamu Mu`azu are making a fundamental error of judgement. The rebuilding and reinventing of the party is beyond the sack of one man. The national executive of the party must go on soul searching and truly build a party that is based on democratic principles and the expressed will of the party members. The PDP must discard the notion that the president of the country is the national leader of the party while the state governor is the leader at the state level. The president and the governors must subordinate themselves to the party national chairman and state chairman respectively. When this is done, the road of recovery of the party is already laid. Party executives should be allowed to carry out their functions without unnecessary interferences from elected members, be they in the executive arm of government or the legislative arm. Now that the PDP is exiting from power at the national level, it is the supplication of this piece that the era of impunity is gone for good. The party was too power-drunk that it could not read the political realities on the ground. The blame is not only that of President Goodluck Jonathan but all those who surrounded him and were feeding him tissues of lies about political developments and weaving tales of the invinci-

bility of the party. Today, the scales have fallen from their eyes. The party should not lose sleep about those defecting to the APC. The party instead should look inward, swallow its pride and engage in strategic political engineering that will once more make the PDP the darling of Nigerians. The party should forget the verbal war with the APC but concentrate more on the pitfalls of APC and use such to its advantages. It is painful to lose elections but it would be tragic to continue mourning over such lapses. Like the legendary Phoenix, the PDP shall emerge from the ashes of the electoral defeat to great heights. If Nigerians see that PDP has thoroughly reformed itself, the people shall flock once more to the party. Winning of elections is not about abusing the opponents’ characters. It is also not about propaganda and political sophistry. It is about convincing the electorate that you will improve their standard of livings and use the common patrimony for the betterment of all. Unfortunately, at the zenith of PDP power, governance became an art of doling out economic patronage to a few party faithful and treating governance as property of select few. Coupled with suffocating arrogance and climate of impunity, the APC stole the political initiative from the most cohesive and truly national party in the country. This winter of defeat and despondence of the PDP will not last if it truly reinvents itself in line with democratic norms and obey the wishes of the party members. Should that happen, the greatest beneficiaries shall be the mass of our people. It is possible for the PDP to rise again. •Oweh, a journalist, wrote in from Asaba, Delta State.

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Stringent sanctions against fake universities

ne major concern that has remained a source of worry to the National Universities Commission (NUC), the agency supervising university education and other discerning stakeholders in the university system lately, is the need to arrest the growing trend of fake or illegal universities mushrooming in every nook and cranny of the country. With university education experiencing a slide and depletion in quality and standard, and the urgent need to rescue it from its downward lurch and bring it to the path of glory, which the system was known in the good old days, NUC has to brace up for the challenges by tightening the noose. It is so alarming that if the rate at which fake universities or other unapproved degree milling institutions are growing is not checked, the adverse effects might sink the entire sector. Already, university education has suffered enough misfortune, that the NUC requires all it could muster at this time to ensure that the attendant poor quality facing the system, and which has continued to erode local and international confidence is tackled headlong. Although, it is agreed that the NUC has engaged its energies in clamping down on illegal universities and other degree mills, that effort, to a large extent, seems not to have been adequate to stop the operators of these illegal institutions. What is necessary at this stage of the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quest for a more fashionable university system is the need to internalize and articulate a more formidable process laced with stringent sanctions

For NUC to fight the menace of fake universities to a logical conclusion, first, the operations of illegal universities have to be criminalised and legal framework that will permanently nail the operators and proprietors of these unlawful institutions and their activities. More importantly, anything short of this, that is, any effort by NUC without such stringent action backed with appropriate legal framework will amount to nothing in the fight against the menace. It, therefore, suggests that whatever NUC is doing in the process should be based on outright legal prosecution and jail terms for offenders, and if not, nothing would be achieved in this direction. Section 24 of the Educational Act, that's Cap E34 Law of the Federation 2004, that is, the law establishing the NUC mandates that any institution that is not established in accordance with the licensing procedures as specified in that law shall be closed down by the NUC. Beyond the power to close down fake universities, the law does not specify any sanction that

NUC could impose on any culprit found to have been involved in promoting illegality. Equipped with this law and in view of the lacuna, which did not give the Commission the outright power to go beyond closure of illegal institution, there are limitations to what NUC could do. The fact then remains that the law should be amended in order to give the Commission the needed bite to enforce legal action against proprietors of these fake Ivory Towers, which are out to extort innocent students and award them fake certificates. However, it is interesting to note and kudos must be given to the NUC for taking the fight beyond closure of their operations, but to institute legal actions against the defaulters in which the Commission claimed two operators had so far been prosecuted and jailed. Going by the negative effects of the activities of these illegal operators on, education and future of the country and the innocent students, perhaps it will be needless to give NUC mandate without the enabling legal framework to carry out its operations as agency of government. Though, the Commission in order to address the lacuna in its law, and as a responsive and responsible organisation, has pushed forward amendment process to that law before the National Assembly. Therefore, it is incumbent on the part of the National Assembly to fast track without further delay, the process of amending the NUC law, so that the agency could be given the legal teeth with which it could push for legal action against operators of fake universities. Aside this, the Commission

needs to strengthen its Department of Quality Assurance with the needed wherewithal to carry out its assignments without looking back. According to the NUC, now that the law has not criminalised the operations of illegal universities despite the unwholesome activities of the proprietors, it has only been successful in prosecuting some of the culprits under the EFCC provision of obtaining money under false pretence. Through this provision, the NUC claimed to have prosecuted the proprietor of Temple University, Mr. Pius Nwachukwu and the owner of an illegal study center of Nasarawa State University and Middle Belt University, Mr. Francis Ada Agbos. Both were convicted and jailed. Sometimes in 2010, one of the national dailies published a story of a centre at Ogba, Lagos, where the degrees of the University of Calabar were being milled to their victims at a cost. The centre had claimed to be an affiliate of the university. Though, the management of University of Calabar immediately distanced itself from having any association with such centre and promised to get to the root of the matter. For NUC to fight the menace of fake universities to a logical conclusion, first, the operations of illegal universities have to be criminalised, while appropriate legal actions should be applied with a view to bringing the culprits to book. Also, members of the society should see themselves as stakeholders in the collective fight against illegal universities or study centres by exposing such fake institutions to law enforcement agencies or the NUC.

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Politics

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

No truce on Fayose, lawmakers’ impasse CONTINUED FROM PAGE 17

gave them advice. “We must pursue peace and the government is doing everything possible to ensure peace. After all the courts in the land have declared me duly elected as the governor of the state, the next thing should be to allow us to govern. “There is a tenure and people must be allowed to enjoy dividends of democracy. It is either Fayose is their headache or there is no way they can match what Fayose is doing. I won

the election and they went about seeking injunctions to stop my inauguration. “Eminent citizens of the state should call us to order. I have spent six months out of my fouryear tenure. I know from the outset that these people would not come. They gave the excuse that I was planning to use Government House policemen and other security agents to arrest them, that is a lie. If I do that and arrest them, where will I keep them? Do I have a prison or am I running a detention facility to

keep 19 people? “If there is anybody who should be evasive, it should be me because their own tenure has almost expired. I am ready to shift grounds and ready to pay their entitlements. It is not cowardice but act of good leadership. The Friday Aderemi-led Assembly have not been paid their severance allowances.” Before the gathering went ahead to adopt some resolutions, Babalola asked CP Ibine and the DSS Director, Fubara, to say whether there was any

instruction from any quarter to arrest the APC lawmakers and they said there was nothing like that. The gathering later adopted the following resolutions: •Peace is paramount in the state and must be maintained; •Security chiefs to give undertaking that they won’t be partial in dealing with all parties; •Regretted that the APC lawmakers did not attend the meeting; •Peace will be restored with the cooperation of all

parties; •Appeal to APC lawmakers to return to base and attend any peace meeting organised in future; •That the governor is ready to shift grounds on contentious issues if that will produce peace and if the APC lawmakers come for peace meeting; •That an Elders’ Advisory Council be set up to resolve issues in the state; •That there was no arrangement by anybody to arrest APC lawmakers. Signs that the peace meeting would crumble

emerged on the afternoon of April 29, when the APC issued a statement that Fayose gave N30 million to labour leaders in the state to go on indefinite strike to prevent his impeachment. The statement was signed by the State Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatubosun. But, labour leaders such as Kayode Akosile of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) described the allegation as illogical. Meanwhile, Omirin, who spoke through his media aide, Wole Olujobi, gave conditions for attending any peace meeting. He explained that while they appreciated peace moves initiated by the eminent lawyer, surrounding circumstances gave away the governor as not prepared for any resolution of the crisis. Reacting to Babalola’s claim that he had made security arrangement for 200 policemen to protect them into and out of AdoEkiti, the lawmakers said this alone had given away the motive of the peace meeting. They wondered why the peace would include provision of security to escort them out of the state instead of escorting them to the House of Assembly to continue their legislative duties. “We cannot hold any meeting on the basis of monetary settlement in isolation of the consideration of the constitutional breaches by the governor. It is amazing that the truce terms will not include resumption of our duties, but just to settle us monetarily and escorting us out of Ekiti State,” the statement explained. The lawmakers proposed that the meeting be moved to Ibadan office of the senior lawyer, while members of the committee must be non-partisan elders. They expressed sincere appreciation to the elders who facilitated the meeting and urged them to consider holding the meeting at a neutral and safer venue. While Fayose and others present at the meeting expressed readiness to allow peace to reign, they emphasised that feuding parties should willingly embrace peace and not that they would be forced to do so. Specifically, Fayose said that nobody should after the meeting begin to throw stones and expect the other side to keep quiet. With the recalcitrant attitude of some of the actors, the next 30 days in the state could prove to be stormy.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Analysts counsel incoming govt on tax rate hike

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$1.6bn TAM: FG suspends modular refineries' investments The Federal Government has jettisoned modular refinery projects' investments due to the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the four conventional refineries, which is to gulp $1.6 billion.

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Fuel scarcity: Arik cuts flights, loses $9m (L-R) Country Head, Advantage Banking, Dammy Oruwari; Group Executive, Ecobank Transitional Incorporated, Patrick Akinwuntan; Deputy Managing Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Anthony Okpanachi; Executive Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Kingsley Aigbokhaevbo; MD/CEO Jetlink Ltd, John Nwosu and Executive Director, Ecobank Nigeria, Kingsley Umadia, at the launch of Advantage Banking by Ecobank in Lagos.

Arik Air said it might be compelled to suspend its operations if aviation fuel crisis, which has compelled the carrier to slash its flight by 80 per cent and incur loses of $9 million, persist.

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SWITCH Switch to social media and various instant message chat applications is reducing the volume of SMS sent daily Kunle Azeez

he penchant by telecoms subscribers in Nigeria to use Instant Messaging (IM) platforms such as Blackberry Messenger (BBM), WhatsApps and other a like for sending messages may have been robbing telecoms operators close to 45 per cent of the revenue they ought be making from normal Short Messaging Service (SMS), New Telegraph has learnt. With the development, the problem of telecoms operators in Nigeria in the face of dwindling Average Revenue Per User

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Telcos losing 45% SMS revenue As use of instant messages rises (ARPU) and increased capital expenditure (CAPEX) appears compounded. According to findings, the volume of text messages, which run on Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), has declined to 55 per cent as 45 per cent of telecoms subscribers, who hitherto used USSD platforms to send text messages, have migrated to Internet-based platforms such as the IMS. “In Nigeria, about 45 per cent of those who send messages regularly use Internet-based IMS,” said Ericsson's head of

sub-Saharan Africa, Mr. Fredrick Lejdling. He said: “Irrespective of their location, telecoms users want to remain connected with messaging and calling and updated with browsing and social networking and have access to

80 million Total number of mobile Internet subscribers in Nigeria.

entertainment.” According to reports, there are over 80 million mobile Internet subscribers in Nigeria with close to half of them using IMS to send messages. “In a way, one can say that the instant messages (IMs) are free because you are not charged by page per message, but rather, you use your Internet bundle to send as many messages as possible with less use of USSD platform for sending text messages,” said a telecoms analyst, CONTINUED ON PAGE 22

Rates Dashboard INFLATION RATE March 2015.............................8.5% February 2015.........................8.4% January 2015...........................8.2%

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

EXCHANGE RATE (BDC as at May. 1)

USD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N223 Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N332 Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N240

l Foreign Reserves – $29.512bn as at 28/04/2015

Source: CBN

EXCHANGE RATE (Interbank as at May 1)

USD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N197 Pounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N303 Euro . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . N220

Business | News

INEFFICIENCY Four refineries have combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd, which has never been attained

Adeola Yusuf

he Federal Government has jettisoned modular refinery projects' investments due to the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) of the four conventional refineries, which is to gulp $1.6 billion. New Telegraph gathered at the weekend that the decision to suspend the modular refineries was buoyed by huge budget on the TAM for refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna. The Federal Government had, in March 2012, announced plans to site these modular refineries in Kogi, Lagos and Kaduna. Four years after the announcement of this investment plan, government has been unable to go ahead with the project because it has prioritised the TAM of refineries. "Government is cash strapped over spending on the Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) for the four conventional refineries," a source at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources told New Telegraph by phone. "A whopping $1.6 bil-

MONDAY,MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

$1.6bn TAM: FG suspends modular refineries' investments lion, (about N260 billion) was voted for turnaround maintenance (TAM) of the four refineries across the country by the end of 2014. But this deadline is yet to be met owing to the challenges, which the Federal Government faced with the TAM. "Now, a lot of other refinery-related investments like the modular refinery have to wait

Akin Akinbo. Though, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has, in 2013, slashed the cost of SMS from around N10 to N4, Akinbo said that many subscribers are still using instant messaging platforms, especially the youths and technology savvy professionals. He attributed the trend to the relative decrease in the cost of and access to the Internet in the country, especially with the current efforts by government to ensure deeper broadband penetration in the country. Nigeria currently has a plan to achieve 30 per cent broadband penetration in line with the National Broadband Plan 2013-2018. Apart from the Federal Government’s mediumterm goal to increase broadband penetration to 30 per cent, it also targets a minimum speed of 1.5 megabyte per seconds (mps). Last year, Minister of Communication Technol-

dueke, said that it was capable of turning the tide in the sector Group General Manager, Public Affairs, NNPC, Ohi Alegbe, added in a telephone interview with New Telegraph that the proposed TAM is already a fait accompli. The proposed TAM, he said, is "a comprehensive one, which will involve complete rehabilitation

by the original builders of the refineries. There is no body better equipped to do that than the original builders. There won’t be third parties or middlemen involved as the case may be.” Findings, however, showed that the PHRC plants have operated for 12 years without TAM and this has caused the equipment to deteriorate

and operate at low capacity. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had embarked on the privatisation of the refineries in 2007, but it was later upturned by the former President Musa Yar’Adua, because the latter felt that certain interest in the north and south were sidelined in the scheme of things.

L-R: Group Managing Director/ CEO, Diamond Bank Plc, Mr. Uzoma Dozie; Chairman, Dr. Chris Ogbechie and Company Secretary, Ms. Nkechi Nwosu, during the bank’s 24th Annual General Meeting in Lagos. PHOTO: SULEIMAN HUSAINI

Telcos losing 45% SMS revenue CONTINUED FROM PAGE 21

while others have been totally jettisoned," he said. In its quest to achieve 90 per cent optimum capacity utilisation of the refineries, the Federal Government has proposed to spend $1.6 billion on TAM in all the four refineries from 2013-14. Justifying the need for the TAM, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Ma-

ogy, Mrs. Omobola Johnson, said that government expanded to eight per cent from six per cent broadband penetration recorded in 2013. Currently, there are over 142 million active telephone users in the country with mobile phones having the highest device share of Internet services. According to the Ericsson Consumer Insight Summary Report on Nigeria titled: “Internet Goes Mobile,” it was found that 84 per cent of mobile smartphones are connected to the Internet. Also, 82 per cent of mobile phone users access the Internet with their device on a daily basis while 45 per cent of PC users and 44 per cent of tablet users do the same. “Wanting to remain updated and connected is a strong motivator for consumers when opting for Internet services. Having access to Internet services enables Nigerians to lead CONTINUED ON PAGE 36

Cocoa farmers in Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire to earn $13.19bn BOOM Demand for cocoa by chocolate producers on the increase Bayo Akomolafe

ix million global cocoa farmers from Nigeria, Ghana, Cote d’ Ivoire and other countries are to earn $13,195,600,000 (N2.64 trillion) from cocoa this year. The price of the commodity, according to the International Cocoa Organisation (ICCO), has already risen to $2,999 per metric ton. It was learnt that world production will hit 4.4 million metric tons this year. Currencly, Cote d’I voire produces 36 per cent of global cocoa; Ghana, 22 per cent; Indonesia, 11 per cent; Nigeria, six per cent and Brazil, five per cent. Cameroon and Ecuador produce five per cent each, Dominican

Republic, two per cent; Peru, one per cent, while Malaysia, Papua New Guinea in Asia and Oceania account for seven per cent. Nigeria, which has already targeted 800,000 metric tons in 2015, is expected to earn N479.8 billion ($2,399,200,000) this year if the price remains at $2,999 per metric ton. The country’s production for 2013/14 was 240,000 metric tons. A research firm, MarketsandMarkets had revealed that farmers might not be able to meet global demand by the producers of chocolate, which has become a lucrative business. The firm noted that the cocoa industry was valued at $83 billion per year. It explained that the daily consumption of chocolate was massive, adding that a study in the United Kingdom had revealed that 91 per cent of the female had admitted eating chocolate, while male accounts or 87 per cent. Also, BMI Research said: “We see stronger production growth in secondary producers such as Brazil and Nigeria over our

forecast period to 2018. Nigeria has long stated that it wants to double cocoa production over the next five years.” Meanwhile, a professor at the University of Sydney's Department of Plant and Food Sciences, David Guest, had predicted a worldwide shortage of cocoa by 2020, saying that chocolate prices would double as the world is running out of cocoa. Also, Swiss-based chocolate giant, Barry Callebaut, explained that the demand would likely outstrip production by one million metric tons by 2020 It said: “ People are consuming more cocoa than farmers are able to produce.” It would be recalled that the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, had urged cocoa farmers not to only export the produce, but to also think of processing it so as to add value. Adesina said that the value chains were designed to address the challenges in agriculture with a view to making the sector a “money spinner in Nigeria.”

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Growing Up Under Pressure To Excel PALO ALTO, California — Palo Alto High School, one of America’s most prestigious public schools, is sandwiched between two stark and illusory paths. Just to the west, Stanford University beckons as the platonic ideal, a symbol of the road to Google, to fabulous success. To the east, across a bike trail, are the railroad tracks NEWS ANALYSIS where three boys from the school district killed themselves this year. This year’s suicide cluster is the second contagion to visit this city. Five students or recent graduates of the district’s other high school, Gunn High School, killed themselves beginning in 2009. Experts say such clusters, while rare, typically occur when suicide takes hold as a viable coping mechanism — as a deadly, irrational fashion. But that hasn’t stopped this community from soul searching: Does a culture of hyperachievement deserve any blame for this cluster? The answer is complex: No, the pressure to succeed is not unique, nor does it cause a suicide cluster in itself, but the intense reflection underway here has unearthed a sobering reality about how Silicon Valley’s culture of high achievement is playing out in the schools. In addition to whatever overt pressure students feel to succeed, that culture is intensified by something more insidious: the contradictory talk from parents and administrators. They often use all the right language about wanting students to be happy, healthy and resilient — a veritable “script,” said Madeline Levine, a psychologist who treats depressed, anxious and suicidal tech-industry executives, workers and their children. “They say, ‘All I care about is that you’re happy,’ and then the kid walks in the door and the first question is, ‘How did you do on the math test?’ ” Ms. Levine said. “The giveaways are so unbelievably clear.” Denise Pope, an education expert at Stanford, calls this gulf between what people say and what they mean “the hidden message of parenting.” But here, and in lots of other ultrahigh-achieving communities and schools everywhere, Ms. Pope said that what children are hearing is the overriding message that only the best will do — in grades, test scores, sports, art, college. “In everything,” she said.

The average citizen of Cambodia consumes about 160 kilowatt-hours of electricity in a year. Bangladeshis are better off, consuming 260. Nepalese, before the devastating quake, used about 100. In Ethiopia, it’s about 50. Then there is the refrigerator in your kitchen, which runs through 300 to 600 kilowatt-hours a year. NEWS ANALYSIS Dozens of countries — including Nepal, Cambodia and Bangladesh — have flocked to join China’s new infrastructure investment bank, a potential rival to the World Bank. The reason is not hard to find: The West’s environmental priorities are blocking their access to the kind of energy infrastructure that could deliver the comfort and abundance that the West enjoys. The United States relies on coal, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power for about 95 percent of its electricity, said Todd Moss, from the Center for Global Development. “Yet we place major restrictions on financing all four of these sources of power overseas.” The West’s environmental agenda undermines the very goals it professes to achieve and threatens to advance climate change rather than retard it. “It is about pragmatism, about tradeoffs,” said Barry Brook, professor of environmental sustainability at the University of Tasmania in Australia. “Most societies will not follow low-energy, low-development paths, regardless of whether they work or not to protect the environment.” If billions of impoverished humans are not offered a shot at genuine development, the environment will not be saved. And that requires not just help in financing low-carbon energy sources, but also a lot of new energy, period. Recently, a group of scholars involved in the environmental debate issued what they are calling the “Eco-modernist Manifesto.” The “eco-modernists” propose economic development as a precondition to preserving the environment. Achieving it requires dropping the goal of “sustainable development” and replacing it with a strategy to use nature more intensively. To mitigate climate change, spare nature and address global poverty requires nothing less, they argue, than “intensifying many human activities — particularly farming, energy extraction, forestry and settlement — so that they use less land and interfere less with the natural world.”

EDUARDO PORTER

MATT RICHTEL

KEITH NEGLEY

“I hear students tell me that if I don’t get into X, Y, Z college, I’ll wind up flipping burgers at McDonald’s,”said Ms. Pope, who is working with Ms. Levine to counsel at the high schools. She said that wrongheaded idea becomes an emotional and physiological threat when multiplied by at least three other factors: technology that keeps teens working and socializing late at night, depriving them of essential rest;

growing obligations from test-prep classes and extracurricular activities; and parents too busy to participate in activities with their families. “We are not teenagers,” Carolyn Walworth, a junior at Palo Alto High School, wrote in an editorial in the local paper in response to the suicides. She described students as “lifeless bodies in a

Continued on Page 26

Continued on Page 27

INTELLIGENCE

WORLD TRENDS

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

ARTS & DESIGN

Wanted: More female engineers. PAGE 24

India sits on a fortune in gold. PAGE 28

Popular to the point of extinction. PAGE 30

Across India, a riot of dance styles. PAGE 34

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

O P I N I O N & C O M M E N TA RY An analysis in The New York Times — “1.5 Million Missing Black Men” — showed that more than one in every six black men in the 24-to-54 age group has disappeared from civic life in the United States, mainly because they died young or are locked away in prison. This means that there are only 83 black men living outside of jail for every 100 black women — in striking contrast to the white population, where men and women are about equal in numbers. This astounding shortfall in black men translates into lower marriage rates, more out-ofwedlock births, a greater risk of poverty for families and, by extension, less stable communities. The missing men should be a source of concern to political leaders and policy makers.

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

Gone: 1.5 Million Black Men While the 1.5 million number is startling, it actually understates the severity of the crisis that has befallen African-American men since the collapse of the manufacturing and industrial centers, which was followed by the “war on drugs” and mass imprisonment, which drove up the national prison population more than sevenfold beginning in the 1970s. In addition to the “missing,” millions more are shut out of society, or are functionally missing,

because of the shrinking labor market for low-skilled workers, racial discrimination or sanctions that prevent millions who have criminal convictions from getting jobs. At the same time, the surge in imprisonment has further stigmatized blackness itself, so that black men and boys who have never been near a jail now have to fight the presumption of criminality in many aspects of day-to-day life. The stigmatization of black-

ness presents an enormous obstacle, even to small boys. Last year, for example, the Department of Education reported that black children were far more likely to be suspended from school — even from preschool — than white children. Federal cases also show higher rates of public school suspensions for minority students than for white students for identical behavior. The sociologist Devah Pager, a Harvard University professor

who has meticulously researched the effect of race on hiring policies, has also shown that stereotypes have a powerful effect on job possibilities. Ms. Pager found that criminal convictions for black men seeking employment were virtually impossible to overcome in many contexts. “Being black in America today is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job,” she wrote in her book, “Marked: Race, Crime and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration.” In recent months, the many cases of unarmed black men and boys being shot dead by the police show how the presumption of criminality, poverty and social isolation threatens lives daily in all corners of the United States.

INTELLIGENCE/LINA NILSSON

ROGER COHEN

How to Attract Female Engineers

Long Live Europe

The figures are well known: At Apple, 20 percent of tech jobs are held by women and at Google, only 17 percent. A report by the Congressional Joint Economic Committee estimates that in the United States 14 percent of engineers in the work force are women. As a woman with a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering, I look at those numbers with despair. Why are there so few female engineers? Many reasons have been offered: workplace sexism, a lack of female role models, stereotypes regarding women’s innate technical incompetency, the difficulties of combining tech careers with motherhood. Proposed fixes include mentor programs, student support groups and targeted recruitment efforts. Initiatives have begun at universities and corporations, including Intel’s recent $300 million diversity commitment. But maybe one solution is simpler and obvious. An experience at the University of California, Berkeley, where I teach, suggests that if the content of the work is made more societally meaningful, women will enroll in droves. That applies not only to computer engineering but also to more traditional, equally male-dominated fields like mechanical and chemical engineering. I work at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, which recently began a program that, without any targeted outreach, achieved 50 percent female enLina Nilsson is the innovation director at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at the University of California, Berkeley. Send comments to intelligence@ nytimes.com.

rollment in just one academic year. In the fall of 2014, U.C. Berkeley began offering a Ph.D. minor in development engineering for students doing thesis work on solutions for low-income communities. Half of the students enrolled in the inaugural class are women. They are designing affordable solutions for clean drinking water, inventing medical diagnostic equipment for neglected tropical diseases, and enabling local manufacturing in poor and remote regions. Women seem to be drawn to engineering projects that attempt to achieve societal good. Curious to learn whether that was true at other universities, my colleagues and I contacted the dozens of universities that have programs aimed at reducing global pover-

Women are drawn to projects intended to fill societal needs. ty and inequality. What we found was consistent and remarkable. The undergraduate-level international minor for engineers at the University of Michigan reports that 51 percent of its students are women. Those women are predominantly majoring in some of the oldest and most traditional engineering fields — industrial operations and mechanical and chemical engineering — where, arguably, gender stereotypes are most entrenched. At the interdisciplinary D-Lab at the Massachusetts Institute

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of Technology, which focuses on developing “technologies that improve the lives of people living in poverty,” 74 percent of more than 230 enrolled students this past year were women. Arizona State University said that its humanitarian engineering courses and study options have twice as many women as its traditional engineering classes. Comparable programs at the University of Minnesota, Pennsylvania State University and Santa Clara University also report significant increases in the numbers of women participating. The trend is also true for standalone classes. Susan Amrose, who teaches a civil and environmental engineering course on design for sustainable communities at U.C. Berkeley, counted 128 female and 103 male students since the class began in 2006. “Last fall, we had 70 percent women,” she noted. “Many of them tell me they are seeking out opportunities to work on technical projects with a strong purpose, such as improving fuel-efficient cookstoves.” Student-driven clubs and programs see the same patterns. At Princeton in New Jersey, the student chapter of Engineers Without Borders has an executive board that is nearly 70 percent female, reflecting the overall club composition. None of the programs, clubs and classes were designed with the goal of appealing to female engineers, and perhaps this is why they are drawing us in. At the core of each of the programs is a focus on engineering that is cutting edge, with an explicit social context and mission. What does all this show? It shows that the key to increasing the number of female engineers may not just be mentorship programs or child care centers. It may be about reframing the goals of engineering research and curriculums to be more relevant to societal needs. It is not just about gender equity — it is about doing better engineering for us all.

London There’s an American cottage industry specialized in Europe’s woes: a Continent whose defense spending is never adequate; a monetary union that is irretrievably flawed; a land of welfare that breeds unemployment; a place of resurgent hatreds that led Ronald Lauder, the president of the World Jewish Congress, to observe this year that Europe “looks more like 1933 than 2015.” Nope, Europe looks more like 2015, a borderless market of more than half a billion people, so attractive to much of humankind that thousands die trying to get into it, a Continent where entitlements including universal health care are seen as basic humanity, and a magnet to states outside the European Union that long to be part of this entity. Entities are unsexy. But the entity without precedent that is the 28-member Union has delivered. It has delivered peace, prosperity however frayed, and freedom to former inmates of the Soviet imperium. It has also created an awareness of European identity that falls short of European patriotism but is a counterweight to the primal nationalism that stained the Continent with so much blood. As Dominique Moïsi, a French political scientist, noted: “Europe is alive. It is not well, but it is alive.” A falling euro and cheap oil have prompted economic stirrings. European automakers had their best performance in a year in March. Growth estimates for the eurozone economy this year are being revised upward. It is dangerous to succumb to undiluted Europe-bashing. It’s a form of amnesia. It’s also an invitation to those who seek to break Europe’s integration, chief among them Russia’s Vladimir Putin. The Russian president sees the weak link in Europe’s chain in Greece, now governed by the left-wing Syriza party of Alexis Tsipras,

whose dalliance with Moscow is worrying. Of course, Putin was not the cause of Greece’s woes; he merely seeks to exploit them. Those woes are not about to abate — and here we get to the reasons why 2015 is a critical year for Europe. Despite a brutal fiscal adjustment, the fact remains that Greece’s debt is not repayable. It is probably even less repayable now than at the outset of the crisis. Syriza’s electoral victory was a reflection of the sentiment that something has to give. At some point there must be debt forgiveness; the cost of stupid loans has to be recognized. Or there may be a Greek default. The worst outcome for Europe would be a Greek exit from the euro. Once one country goes, the whole edifice wobbles. At the other end of Europe lies another danger, within another tenuous union, Great Britain. An election will be held May 7. It will be held as Britain shows signs of turning into Israel — a state where elections are the prelude to the real political business of trying to form a coalition government. Whether David Cameron’s Conservatives or Ed Miliband’s Labour will be the biggest party is unclear. But neither seems likely to be able to govern alone. Mr. Cameron has promised a referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union in 2017. His victory would lock in a two-year period of deep uncertainty over the future direction of a major European state. Mr. Miliband has rejected a referendum. Europe is alive. It is not the corpse of certain American doom-merchants. It needs Greece and Britain. It does not need a Putin putsch. Above all, it needs the capacity to see its crisis in historical context, because unity to Europe must be as sacred as liberty to the United States.

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WORLD TRENDS

E.U. Gropes for Fix to Migrant Crisis By JIM YARDLEY

CATANIA, Sicily — To human rights advocates, one of Europe’s biggest mistakes in the Mediterranean migration crisis came last November with the shutdown of the Italian patrol and rescue program Mare Nostrum. Led by the Italian Navy, the program saved thousands of migrants at sea. But ending it, largely for budget reasons, had effects beyond scaling back humanitarian efforts. The Italians were using the program to prosecute the smuggling networks behind the surge in human trafficking across the Mediterranean. The program helped Italian prosecutors convict more than 100 people for smuggling and indict three smuggling bosses in Egypt. Italian ships patrolled international waters while police investigators were stationed on board. “Police were able to intervene directly,” said Giovanni Salvi, the chief prosecutor in Catania. “They could immediately identify the telephones that were being used, the numbers and the traffickers. We could get wiretaps. That allowed us to record conversations between the ‘mother ship’ and the bosses in Egypt.” The program that replaced Mare Nostrum, known as Triton and run by the European Union, is less ambitious and restricted to the waters immediately off the European coast, and it does not Gaia Pianigiani contributed reporting.

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The European Union is being criticized for not paying for Italy’s sea rescue operation. Photographing survivors of a ship that capsized. include a robust law enforcement component. The decision by European leaders not to pick up the monthly bill of 9 million euros (about $9.8 million) to keep Mare Nostrum operating has drawn scathing criticism in the aftermath of the shipwreck that left more than 750 migrants dead. European leaders have pledged to triple funding for search-and-rescue missions while dedicating new resources to fight the smuggling rings. But the new European response is being criticized as shortsighted and still lacking the scope of Mare Nostrum. Many analysts say Europe needs a more holistic response, including overhauling its asylum system and expanding channels of legal immigration, because the problem of illegal migration will only worsen. “There was a lot of expectation from the public that the European Union wasn’t going to give just a short-term response but a medium- and long-term vision,” said Thomas Huddleston, an analyst with the Migration Policy Group in Brussels. “We didn’t get that.”

By SUZANNE DALEY

LYNSEY ADDARIO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Mare Nostrum, Latin for “our sea,” was hardly a cure-all, Mr. Salvi said, but it provided investigators with the advantage of scope and immediacy. On at least five occasions, Mare Nostrum ships working in international waters seized “mother ships” — the large vessels that carry out migrants before transferring them to smaller boats in international waters. Meanwhile, police investigations could start aboard rescue ships, as officers began questioning migrants and identifying smugglers, as soon as people were rescued. By contrast, no police investigators were on the Italian Coast Guard ship that responded to the fatal shipwreck. The scope of smuggling operations in North Africa is immense and multifaceted, defying easy solutions, analysts say. Tuesday Reitano, a policy analyst who has studied North African smuggling networks, warned that migrant smuggling had become hugely profitable, with different militias or African clans controlling pieces of territory. “For West Africa

and the Sahel, this is the next cocaine flow,” she said. The economics shifted with the civil war in Syria because suddenly tens of thousands of affluent Syrians were willing to pay several thousand dollars, per person, for passage to Sweden or Germany. In response, Ms. Reitano said, loosely connected smuggling networks have coalesced, charging higher rates to Syrians, even as they are willing to take less from Africans, who are loaded onto small boats to bolster profits. “You had huge numbers of Syrians, and now, all of a sudden, there is a parallel exodus of Africans,” she said. “That is not an accident.” Many analysts warn that efforts to contain refugees and migrants in Africa — without providing them with legal channels to seek asylum — will backfire. “If you block people in Africa, they will continue to die,” said Philippe Fargues, director of the Migration Policy Center in Florence, Italy. “Maybe not before our eyes, but they will die somewhere in Africa. It is pure hypocrisy.”

Poles Divided on Boon of Russian Shoppers By RICK LYMAN

SOPOT, Poland — Jan Hermanowicz was not expecting quite this level of reaction when he put a sign on his beach-side restaurant saying he refused to serve Russians. “I decided to protest because Russia entered Crimea,” he said. “I must say, I am very surprised by all the attention I got.” Other business owners feared he would drive away Russian customers. A Russian prosecutor threatened him with legal action. Politicians tried to assure Russian visitors that they remained welcome. Since the Ukraine conflict erupted, European nations have been having an argument among themselves that measures ideals against profits. Some, eager to dissuade President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia from further aggression, argue that the slate of Western sanctions is weak. Others say maintaining ties is the way to lure Moscow back into the Western fold. A treaty signed by Polish and Russian officials in Moscow in 2011 created a program that Joanna Berendt contributed reporting from Warsaw.

made it easier for residents living nearby to cross the 200 kilometer border. Great crowds of Russian shoppers — 1.2 million in 2013 and 1.7 million last year — began appearing in stores as far west as Gdansk. Malls, medical clinics, beauticians and lawyers had new customers and hired Russian-speaking staff. Advertisements in Cyrillic script sprouted on Polish highways. Russians found themselves within easy reach of discount food and clothing stores offering goods that were either unavailable or much more expensive in Kaliningrad. And thousands of Poles discovered that gasoline could be had at almost a third of the price in Kaliningrad. “In my opinion, the West needs to continue its hard line towards Putin, and NATO needs to keep its ability to react,” said Pawel Adamowicz, the mayor of Gdansk. “We need to make Russians think twice before acting. But at the same time, we need to maintain these relations with ordinary Russians, to distinguish between the people and the regime.” Mr. Hermanowicz, 54, has a different view. At first he refused to remove the sign. “For

many business owners, it is more about the money than it is about the idea,” he said. “They live by the cult of money.” A few times, he said, Russian customers who were denied service reacted with anger, and twice he had to call the police. So finally Mr. Hermanowicz took down the sign. But he refuses to remove a banner showing a glowering Mr. Putin, a pistol in each hand, above a red-hued

A ‘Russians not welcome’ sign draws scrutiny. globe and a pair of goose-stepping soldiers with the legend, “We Come in Peace — To Rule Your World.” Traffic across the border has dropped recently — nearly 31 percent in the first three months of the year compared with the same period last year. But political and business leaders attribute this to a drop in the ruble’s exchange rate and not growing antipathy between residents of

the two countries. “Russians are the most sought-after customers,” said Mr. Adamowicz. “They spend a lot of money. They tip well. When they go back home, they leave a lot of money here.” There have been a handful of incidents speaking to an increase in tension. The recent construction of six Polish watchtowers along the Kaliningrad border drew national media attention. The watchtowers were seen as a fresh sign of anxiety between the two nations — despite the towers having been in the works since 2004. Monika Trzcinska, the mayor of Braniewo, a small town near the border, said there had been an incident involving a Russian customer at a discount store, who was told he could not pay in rubles and replied, “Soon, you will all be using rubles.” This led a Polish customer to step forward and punch him. The Pole was fined, she said. The border program is worthwhile, Mr. Adamowicz said, if only because it brings together ordinary Poles and Russians. “Obviously, we try not to mention the war in Ukraine or Putin’s politics,” he said.

HELSINKI, Finland — Getting a speeding ticket is not a feel-good moment for anyone. But consider Reima Kuisla, a Finnish businessman. He was recently fined 54,024 euros (about $58,000) for traveling a modest, if illegal, 103 kilometers per hour in an 80-kilometer-per-hour zone. Mr. Kuisla is a millionaire, and in Finland the fines for more serious speeding infractions are calculated according to income. The thinking here is that if it stings for the little guy, it should sting for the big guy, too. Mr. Kuisla, 61, took to Facebook in March with 12 furious posts in which he included a picture of his speeding ticket and a picture of what 54,024 euros could buy — a new Mercedes. Mr. Kuisla said he was considering leaving Finland, a position to which he held firm when reached by phone. “The way things are done here makes no sense,” he said. Before hanging up, he added: “For what and for whom does this society exist? It is hard to say.” The Nordic countries have long had an egalitarian streak, embracing progressive taxation and high levels of social spending. Perhaps less well known is that they also practice progressive punishment. A rich person, many citizens believe, should pay more for the same offense if justice is to be served. The question is: How much more? On his Facebook page, quite a few of Mr. Kuisla’s friends offered their sympathy. Elsewhere, it was easier to find Finns shrugging over his predicament. At the University of Helsinki, Jussi Lahti, 35, a graduate student, said that he considered an equal percentage fair. And, he added, Mr. Kuisla “had a choice when he decided to speed.” The fines are calculated based on half an offender’s daily net income, with some consideration for the number of children and basic living expenses. Then, that figure is multiplied by the number of days of income the offender should lose, according to the severity of the offense. Mr. Kuisla, who oversees a real estate empire, was assessed eight days. His fine was calculated from his 2013 income, 6,559,742 euros, or more than $7 million. Mr. Kuisla’s infraction is actually classified as a crime. Kimmo Kiiski, a senior transport adviser at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, said a commission was studying the issues of criminality and fines for lower-end speeding tickets. Mr. Kuisla, Mr. Kiiski said, would have gotten a fine of about 100 euros if he had been traveling three kilometers per hour slower. “There has to be some difference depending on income or there would be no justice,” he said. “But not that kind of difference.”

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Quake Deepens Nepal’s Despair

Nepal was in political and economic disarray well before the April 25 earthquake. A man rescued in Katmandu.

By GARDINER HARRIS

NEW DELHI — Her home and village near the earthquake’s epicenter were destroyed, her grandfather was killed, and no one from outside the village — not a soldier, police officer or rescue worker — had arrived to help. Bhima Lama, a Nepali living in New Delhi, pieced together this picture from patchy cellphone calls to villagers lacking shelter and making do with little food and water. It is a story that will probably be told again and again in the coming weeks as rescuers fight their way over broken roads and past landslides to reach Nepal’s remote areas. The nation of 27 million was in political and economic disarray well before the April 25 earthquake. And the natural disaster seemed sure to complicate attempts to repair the rifts opened by decades of war and political paralysis. Nepalis are known for their toughness. Sherpas and Gurkhas, both Nepali peoples, are so renowned for grit that their names have become synonyms for strength and bravery. But the country they and other Nepalis have been navigating for years is one that tests resolve. A 10-year Maoist insurgency ended in 2006, but political leaders have since been unable to agree on a constitution, despite two elections and repeated promises to reach consensus. In interviews, Nepalis said they were forced to deal with the tragedy with hardly any government help and complained that

NARENDRA SHRESTHA/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

their leaders had made the nation vulnerable, by tolerating poor construction and development norms. Achutraj Subedi, a businessman in the construction industry, lay contorted in pain in a hospital in Katmandu, his spine, skull and left leg battered in a building collapse caused by the earthquake. As his brother-inlaw Youraj Sharma tended to him, he said both men knew well that the country was a victim of more than just natural tectonic forces. “We’re both in the building business, and people have built buildings without pillars, without iron rods in the concrete and with very loose concrete,” Mr. Sharma said. “He was on the ground floor of a hotel, meeting with six friends in the business, and the hotel just fell down on them.” The country has vast hydropower potential, but electricity has long been in such short supply that lights are generally out for up to 14 hours each day in plac-

es like Katmandu. Manufacturing represents a paltry 6 percent of the country’s economy. Poverty is endemic, air pollution is choking, and health statistics are terrible. With few jobs at home, the country’s youths have become part of a modern exodus. The scale of emigration has long astonished development economists, yet it continues to grow. On average, about 1,500 Nepalis officially left for temporary jobs abroad each day in the 2014 fiscal year, up from six a day in 1996, according to the Nepali government. Even more are thought to have left unofficially for India. In some seasons, one-quarter of Nepal’s population may be working beyond the border, economists and labor officials estimate. Just as they are most needed, Nepal’s strongest backs are mostly working in construction projects throughout the Middle East and Asia. The remote villages destroyed are home mostly to

A nation divided by political paralysis and geography. the elderly, women and children. Young men are present only in photos, and fund transfers. Experts and historians have long debated the roots of Nepal’s toxic political culture. Many have concluded that Nepal’s nearly impassable mountains have created such a kaleidoscope of communities that consensus is impossible. Ruled for centuries by monarchs, Nepal has 125 ethnic groups, 127 spoken languages, scores of castes and three distinct ecosystems that have divided it. Elites have long refused to share power with the lowland Madhesi people, and the royal family imploded when the crown prince massacred the king,

queen and others in 2001. “I’m hoping this terrible disaster might finally force a political consensus among Nepal’s political elite,” said Shyam Saran, a former Indian ambassador to Nepal. India — Nepal’s giant neighbor — is at the forefront of relief efforts. Whether these efforts will be enough is far from clear. Many Nepalis express deep ambivalence about the country’s relationship with India, feeling that India has for decades alternated between intrusive meddling and hurtful neglect. The poor state of roads connecting Nepal with India, symbolic of a lack of shared purpose and development efforts, has hampered evacuation efforts. For now, it remains to be seen how the twin themes of Nepal’s modern history — personal perseverance and public disorder — will play out as the country struggles to recover, and then rebuild.

The Pressure of Growing Up in Silicon Valley Continued from Page 23 system that breeds competition” and wrote of going to the emergency room to deal with stress, missed periods and having “a panic attack in the middle of a 30-person class and be forced to remain still.” There has been lots of talk in the community about what to do, she wrote, but action has not followed. (The district is providing counseling services, offering a suicide-prevention kit and urging teachers to limit homework hours.) She wrote: “We are the product of a generation of Palo Altans that so desperately wants us to succeed but does not understand our needs.” Glenn McGee, the district’s superintendent, also seemed to struggle to walk the line between celebrating the exceptional nature of this area while urging students to relax. Sitting in his office and looking across the

street at the Stanford campus, he mourned the fact that some parents feel that such a school is the only acceptable outcome. “In many cases, people have made a big sacrifice to live in this community,” Dr. McGee said, referring to exorbitant housing costs (the median housing price last year was $3.3 million). Characterizing the attitude of many parents, Dr. McGee said, “To be blunt, what is my return on investment?” “My job is not to get you into Stanford,” he said he tells parents and students. “It’s to teach them to learn how to learn, to think, to work together — learn how to explore, collaborate, learn to be curious and creative.” Some parents hear it, he said, but “a lot of families and parents don’t hear the message and say: compete and compete.” Soon after lamenting the pressure, Dr. McGee raved about a student who was part of a math team that finished first in Jan-

uary in a national competition, and about the new performing arts center under construction, and about the coming $24 million athletic facility funded by a private family foundation. And why wouldn’t he rave? Why not be thrilled by achievement? Because the bar for academic

Where students are pushed to be the best in all they do. success here has become so high that solid performance can feel mediocre. It puts enormous pressure on a school, or a community, when such consistent, acrossthe-board greatness becomes a baseline of sorts — what Alan

Eagle of Google, whose 17-yearold son is a junior at Gunn, described as a culture of “not just excellence but uber-excellence.” Perhaps that explains some of the contradictory language: Parents are searching for language to encourage their children, even push them, but not crush them. One solution, Ms. Pope said, is “downtime, playtime, family time.” For parents, too. In other words: Take a leap of faith (well supported by science) that downtime will lead to a healthier perspective. Dr. Morton Silverman, a psychiatrist and senior science adviser to the national Suicide Prevention Resource Center, suggested that another answer is recognizing that the mixed messages also betray a sense of terror about the future among both students and parents. With the economy in flux and the income gap growing, parents don’t see a clear path anymore to

financial stability — even here, maybe especially here, where things move fast and competition is fierce. In addition, many of the fortunes made here have been based on creating things that destabilize traditional businesses and their workers. Dr. Silverman suggested parents should say something like: “I can’t tell you which path to take or how to get there, but I will support you,” he said. “I’m here to back you up.” It’s a hard message to hear in a place like this. Walking near the train tracks where the children laid themselves down, Dr. McGee said this community, if any, should have answers. “Can we put sensors up there?” he mused quietly to me, maybe to alert the train operators that someone has climbed onto the tracks. “This is Silicon Valley,” Dr. McGee said. “There ought to be something we can do.”

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Connecting To Our Ancestors As spring rolls around in the Northern Hemisphere, fishermen head to streams to renew their ritual of trying to lure trout to artificial flies. Historical evidence LENS traces the earliest fly fishing to Romans and Macedonians in the second century. The British writer Izaak Walton’s “The Compleat Angler,” published in 1653, is credited with popularizing the sport. Our early Paleolithic ancestors used harpoons and spears to subdue their prey. About 42,000 years ago, intrepid fishermen in Southeast Asia fashioned the earliest hooks out of bone and shells. This spring, eight million Americans will buy trout and salmon licenses, wading into waters and trying to master the perfect cast to present their carefully chosen flies to the cagey fish. Douglas M. Thompson won’t

Fishing seems to satisfy our need to be hunter-gatherers.

to support a freshwater hobby,” he wrote. The hobby revolves around an animal to which we are connected by common ancestry not so very long ago, “420 million years, give or take,” James Prosek wrote in The Times. Trout are native to the Americas, Europe, Asia and North Africa, and those regions celebrate the new season. Mr. Prosek says the fish are valued for their aesthetic beauty, for sport and as food. His watercolors of trout species capture that beauty. “Trout fishing connects us not only to our ancestral past, but to our legacy as hunter-gatherers, to a time when we needed to catch and kill in order to survive,” he wrote in The Times. That “must be primarily why we fish, to satisfy some latent impulse deep in our evolutionary fabric.” In other words, fishing is a connection to our Paleolithic selves. Paleo eating is the diet trend that replicates eating “like our ancestors,” meaning the hunter-gatherers of the Stone Age. Followers consume fish, grass-fed meat, nuts, seeds, eggs, and nonstarchy fresh fruits and vegetables. For some budding Paleo enthusiasts, the tough part is forgoing bread, grains, ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/ rice, pasta, leAGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES gumes, sugar, salt, Stocked fish crowd out native species potatoes and dairy. and rely on pellet feed. Eric Bittner Not to mention releases trout in Maryland. chocolate, coffee, beer and wine. Jeb Bush, who is be one of them. considering a run for president “I reluctantly gave up fishof the United States, has used the Paleo diet to trim down if ing 10 years ago after I saw he decides to take on younger what a century of stocking and thinner candidates, The nonnative fish was doing to the Times reported. Unlike the landscape I love,” Mr. Thomptwo Bushes who have served son, a professor of geology at as president — his mounConnecticut College, wrote in The Times. tain-biking brother George W. Trout aquaculture relies and his still-trim 90-year-old on pellet feed, and producing father, George H. W. — Jeb some 13 million kilos of trout Bush has long struggled with to stock each year requires his weight. roughly 15.5 million kilos The Paleo diet and a mornof feed, he reported. These ing exercise routine are workpellets are made of herring, ing; he has lost about 14 kilos menhaden and anchovies harsince December. Of course, he has had to avoid his favorite vested from oceans in quanMexican dishes: enchiladas tities that are unsustainable. and chilaquiles. He has also Stocked fish also crowd out given up wine. native species. The biggest downside for “We are devastating populaMr. Bush? tions of marine species simply “I am always hungry,” he said. For comments, write to TOM BRADY nytweekly@nytimes.com.

CHOR SOKUNTHEA/REUTERS

An average Cambodian uses 160 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year. A Phnom Penh utility pole.

Rethinking Sustainability Continued from Page 23 This new framework favors a very different set of policies than those now in vogue. Eating the bounty of small-scale, local farming, for example, may be fine for denizens of wealthy towns in the West. But using it to feed a world of nine billion people would consume every hectare of the world’s surface. Big Agriculture, using synthetic fertilizers and modern production techniques, could feed many more people using much less land and water. As the manifesto notes, as much as three-quarters of all deforestation globally occurred before the Industrial Revolution, when humanity was supposedly in harmony with Mother Nature. Over the last half century, the amount of land required for growing crops and animal feed per average person declined by half. “If we want the developing world to reach even half our level of development we can’t do it without strategies to intensify production,” said David Keith of Harvard University, a signer of the new manifesto. The eminent Australian conservationist William Laurance, who is not involved with the eco-modernists, put it this way, “We need to intensify agriculture in places that we have already developed rather than develop new places,” he said. “What is happening today is much more chaotic.” Development would allow people in the world’s poorest countries to move into cities — as they did decades ago in rich nations — and get better educations and jobs. Urban living would accelerate demographic transitions, lowering infant mortality rates and allowing fertility rates to decline, taking further pressure off the planet. “By understanding and promoting these emergent processes, humans have the opportunity to re-wild and re-green the Earth — even as developing countries achieve modern

Average electricity consumption Kilowatt-hours per capita per year, 2011 SELECTED COUNTRIES

United States 13,250 Japan

7,850

Germany

7,100

Albania

2,200

India

680

Bolivia

620

Mozambique

450

Ghana

340

Senegal

190

Yemen

190

Nigeria

150

Myanmar

110

Ethiopia

Haiti

Source: World Bank

living standards, and material poverty ends,” the manifesto argues. This would require lots of energy. Windmills or biofuels would put large swaths of the earth’s surface in the service of energy production, so they have only limited usefulness. Solar panels and nuclear plants, by contrast, could eventually provide carbon-free energy on a large scale. The new strategy, of course, presents big challenges. Notably, it requires improving the safety of nuclear reactors and bringing down their price. Solar energy at scale requires new energy storage technologies. “Decoupling of human welfare from environmental impacts will require a sustained commitment to technological progress and the continuing evolution of social, economic, and political institutions alongside those changes,” says the manifesto. In the meantime, poor countries will require access to other forms of energy: hydroelectric power from dams, natural gas, even coal. “There are enormous energy demands,” noted Professor Ruth DeFries of Columbia

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University in New York. “It will be some time before we can fulfill them with wind and solar energy. It is only realistic that there will be a lot of coal and gas along the way.” For all the environment-related objections one could pose to these paths, the alternative seems indefensible: Let the poor of the world burn dung and wood, further degrading the world’s forests. Or put solar panels on their huts so they can recharge their cellphones “Sustainable development” has been around since the United Nations’ Bruntland Commission proposed it in 1987. Even then, it acknowledged its energy problem. “A safe and sustainable energy pathway is crucial to sustainable development,” it stated. “We have not yet found it.” A quarter of a century on, the discourse has changed little. Today, the International Energy Agency states that it is within our grasp to provide modern energy access to everyone. What does it mean? Five hundred kilowatt-hours per year to urban households and 250 for rural ones. Maybe enough to power a refrigerator.

Sanctity of Truth

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MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

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Key Brazil Legislators Seek President’s Fall By SIMON ROMERO

RIO DE JANEIRO — The head of Brazil’s Senate, Renan Calheiros, has been accused of tax evasion, using a government jet to visit a surgeon for hair implants and allowing a construction company’s lobbyist to pay child support for his daughter from an extramarital affair. Eduardo Cunha, the conservative speaker of Brazil’s lower house of Congress, has successfully battled corruption accusations, from embezzlement to living in an apartment paid for by a black-market money dealer. In some democracies, figures facing such situations might find themselves banished from public life even if they were never convicted. But not in Brazil, where the men who command the scandal-plagued Congress are increasing their power over the scandal-plagued president, Dilma Rousseff. The move reflects one of the most profound shifts in political power in the country in decades — and is a clear measure of the troubles Ms. Rousseff faces in the sweeping bribery case involving Brazil’s national oil company. “This is ‘House of Cards,’ Brazilian style, with the chiefs in Congress seizing a moment when

FERNANDO BIZERRA JR. /EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY

President Dilma Rousseff oversaw Petrobras when the corruption scandal started. the president is very weak,” said David Fleischer, a professor emeritus of political science at the University of Brasília. The strategy seems to be working. Congressional leaders appear to be deflecting attention from their own troubles by revolting against Ms. Rousseff, whose public approval rating stands at 13 percent. In doing so, they have managed to largely shield the Brazilian Congress from blame. Its own approval rating climbed to 11 percent in April from 9 percent in March, according to Datafolha, a polling company. Ms. Rousseff is facing huge protests calling for her impeachment, with many Brazilians fuming over the sluggish economy and revelations of the bribery scheme at the national oil company, Petrobras. She was chairwoman of the board at the oil giant from 2003 to 2010, roughly corresponding to the period when the scheme was started. The scandal involved executives at Petrobras accepting bribes and channeling funds to political figures and to Ms. Rousseff’s leftist Workers Party, according to former executives. No testimony has emerged indicating that Ms. Rousseff profited from the scheme. But she has been put on

Dilma Rousseff is vulnerable despite scandal in Congress. the defensive. Ms. Rousseff is facing a rebellion from the centrist Brazilian Democratic Movement Party, which has anchored her coalition and controls both houses of Congress. Mr. Calheiros, the Senate leader, and Mr. Cunha, the speaker of the lower house, are members of the rebelling party. Ms. Rousseff’s own vice president, Michel Temer, the leader of the PMDB, as the party is known, is bolstering his power after the president appealed to him to ease tensions with Congress. At each turn in the bribery scandal, the PMDB’s chiefs have moved to erode the power of the left-leaning Ms. Rousseff, stalling some of the austerity measures proposed by her finance minister and thwarting her nominees for her cabinet. Cristovam Buarque, a respected senator on the left who voted against Ms. Rousseff in the recent election, said the growing sway over the president by the troika formed by the heads of Congress and the vice president amounted to a “coup.” “Instead of a general, a brigadier and an admiral acting with the support of the armed forces, we have the vice president of the republic and the chiefs of Congress maneuvering with the support of the troops of the PMDB,” he said. Congress’s growing resistance represents a turning point for an institution that has been widely despised in Brazil for its propensity to reward itself with pay raises when other parts of society endure austerity measures, and for its capacity to shield its members facing legal challenges. Nearly 40 percent of federal legislators who won large numbers of votes in the 2014 elections are under investigation in an array of crimes. It takes a great deal for any member to be expelled from Congress because of the special judicial standing enjoyed by all 594 members of Congress allowing them to be tried only in Brazil’s Supreme Federal Tribunal, effectively producing years of delays. As Ms. Rousseff battles for her political survival, Mr. Cunha, an evangelical Christian radio commentator and economist, is raising his national profile in appearances around Brazil, championing a socially conservative agenda and suggesting that the PMDB is forging its own distinct political ambitions. “Cunha is sadistic, tough, smart, and he has charisma,” Claudio Lembo, a former governor of São Paulo, told the newspaper Valor Econômico. “If Dilma sought me out one day for advice, I’d tell her, ‘Go read Machiavelli. When you can’t beat your enemy, get close to him.’ ”

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KUNI TAKAHASHI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

India Tries to Put ‘Idle Gold’ to Work By ELLEN BARRY

MUMBAI, India — Just after 10:15 every night, the three stone goddesses of Mahalakshmi Temple are stripped of their finery — the gleaming masks, said to contain 8 kilos of gold; ropy gold necklaces; pendants shuddering with jewels. The treasure is transported to a “strong room,” where it remains until morning alongside decades’ worth of offerings given to the deities. Sharadchandra V. Padhye, who heads the temple’s managing trust, would not give the value of what is kept in the room, but made it clear that it was vast. In his mission to build India’s economy into one that could someday rival China’s, Prime Minister Narendra Modi would like to mobilize the roughly 18,000 metric tons of gold thought to be in private hands, 2,250 tons of it in major Hindu temples. Demand here is so high that gold imports have in recent years accounted for nearly 30 percent of India’s trade deficit, and many people prefer to keep it in the form of jewelry, making it difficult to trade or convert into cash. Economists call it “idle gold,” and Mr. Modi’s team would like to see it used for trade and investment. In May, the government is expected to introduce a plan to induce Indians to deposit gold in banks, offering fixed interest rates for a “metal account.” There are also plans to issue gold bonds and, for the first time, to issue gold in the unsentimental but fungible form of a coin. Previous drives to monetize gold have mostly fallen flat. Analysts blame interest rates that were too low to attract large entities and a minimum gold deposit so high that it excluded small entities, like private households. But the efforts also encountered visceral distrust of state interference with temple wealth. A top official at the Vishway Hindu Parishad, or World Hindu Council, said the organizaSuhasini Raj and Neha Thirani Bagri contributed reporting.

India’s government wants temples to deposit their gold in banks. Preparing gold jewelry for auction. Top, donated jewelry auctioned at a Hindu temple in Mumbai. tion opposed any effort to monetize temple gold, despite “full support” for Mr. Modi’s government. “For thousands of years, Hindu society has donated this gold to temples whose trusts have safeguarded it,” said Vyankatesh Abdeo, the organization’s all-India secretary. “Our wealth is in gold; the government’s evil eye is on this wealth. This is absolutely wrong, and we oppose this move. This wealth is God’s, not

Riches are locked away in temples instead of banks. the government’s.” Mr. Padhye, who heads the trust at the Mahalakshmi Temple, said donors gave jewelry to the deities in his temple out of a “feeling of attachment,” and would be upset if they learned their gifts had been taken away. “We will not give up our gold,” he said. Some temples seem ready to experiment, though. At Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati, Narendra Murari Rane, chairman of the temple trust, said he was waiting to see whether the government of-

fered favorable terms to those depositing gold in banks. “We will consider it,” he said of the plan. “If the result is better than our own auctions, maybe. We can only consider it if the profits are more.” Soma Somasundaram, managing director in Mumbai of the World Gold Council, a market development organization for the international gold industry, said that he doubted many Indian temples would agree to melt down centuries-old jewelry, but that the new initiatives, especially the introduction of an Indian gold coin, could begin to profoundly shape the behavior of future gold buyers. He said sustained efforts in the next few years could draw around 270 metric tons of gold, or the equivalent of $12 billion, into use as investable capital. The auctioneer at Shree Siddhivinayak Ganpati temple noted that the donations to the deity were, for the most part, transactional from the get-go, since most of the temple’s donors make offerings to hold up their end of a bargain with the deity. “They ask for a wish from God,” said the auctioneer, Shashikant Kanvilkar. “That’s the moment when they tell God, ‘If my wish comes through, I will give you this particular thing.’ This temple is known to make your wishes come true. The gift is given after the deal is completed.”

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Clash Over Solar Unfolds in Hawaii By DIANE CARDWELL

HONOLULU — Allan Akamine has wanted nothing more than to lower his $600 to $700 monthly electric bill with a solar system of his own. But for 18 months or so, the state’s biggest utility barred him and thousands of others from getting one, citing concerns that power generated by rooftop systems was overwhelming its ability to handle it. Only under strict orders from state energy officials did the Hawaiian Electric Company recently rush to approve the lengthy backlog of solar applications. It is the latest chapter in a closely watched battle that has put this state at the forefront of a global upheaval in the power business. Rooftop systems now sit atop roughly 12 percent of Hawaii’s homes, by far the highest proportion in the United States. Other states and countries, including California, Arizona, Japan and Germany, are struggling to adapt to the growing popularity of making electricity at home, which puts new pressures on old infrastructure like circuits and power lines and cuts into electric

Fuel Cells For Cars Getting New Push By LAWRENCE ULRICH

For decades, hydrogen has been promoted and then dismissed as an alternative fuel for cars. Now, in spite of those who insist that battery electric vehicles are the best long-term environmental solution, the cost of hydrogen fuel cells has fallen significantly, and carmakers are placing another long-odds bet on the technology. Hyundai has been first in the latest wave of fuel cell models, which are actually electric cars with one important difference: Instead of a plug-in battery that draws power from the electrical grid, a fuel cell generates power from an electrochemical reaction between onboard hydrogen and oxygen in the air. Clean water trickles out the tailpipe as the only byproduct. In a riposte to most battery electric vehicles, which generally travel less than 160 kilometers on a charge, and take several hours to recharge, fuel cell cars operate nearly as conveniently as gasoline models. They travel roughly 500 kilometers on a tank, and their ultrastrong carbon-fiber tanks can be pumped full of hydrogen in less than 10 minutes. Last June, David Uselton and his wife, Suelyn, became the second California family to lease the hydrogen version of the Hyundai

company revenue. Many utilities are trying to stem the rise of solar by reducing incentives, adding steep fees or effectively pushing home solar companies out of the market. In response, solar companies are fighting back through regulators, lawmakers and the courts. The shift in the electric business is remaking the relationship between power companies and the public while raising questions about how to pay for maintaining and operating the nation’s grid. In solar-rich areas of California, Arizona and Hawaii, solar-generated electricity flowing out of houses and into a power grid has caused voltage fluctuations that can overload circuits, burn lines and lead to brownouts or blackouts. “Hawaii’s case is not isolated,” said Massoud Amin, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Minnesota and chairman of the smart grid program at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, a technical association. “When we push year-on-year 30 to 40 percent growth in this

KENT NISHIMURA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Excess power generated by solar panels goes to the local utility, the Hawaiian Electric Company. market, with the number of installations doubling, quickly — every two years or so — there’s going to be problems,” he said. The economic threat has electric companies on edge. Over all, demand for electricity is softening while home solar is spreading across the United States. There are now about 600,000 installed systems, and the number is expected to reach 3.3 million by 2020, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. Hawaiian Electric wants to cut roughly in half the amount it pays customers for solar electricity they send to the grid. But after a study showed that with some upgrades the system could handle

A hydrogen car’s tank can be filled in less than 10 minutes. in California in 2002, analysts estimated the cars cost up to $1 million each to produce. In 2007, General Motors introduced a test fleet of 119 STUART PALLEY FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Chevrolet Equinox hydrogen S.U.V.s. The company Tucson crossover sport utility boldly predicted it would sell as vehicle. They are paying $499 a many as one million fuel-cell vemonth with $2,999 down, decisively more than they would for hicles by 2020. But development the same Tucson with a gasostalled, and the industry turned its attention to electric vehicles line engine. But perks include a and plug-in hybrids. $5,000 purchase rebate from the But carmakers, including state and three years’ worth of Toyota — the unmatched king free hydrogen from Hyundai. of hybrids — are again optimisLike the nearly 70 other people who have leased hydrogen-futic about hydrogen. Toyota will offer its $58,325 Mirai fuel cell eled Tucsons, the Useltons were compact this year, exclusively in checked out by Hyundai to enCalifornia for now. Honda will folsure the car would fit their lifestyle. The criteria included geolow in 2016 with a car based on its streamlined FCV concept model. graphic proximity to the nine Toyota says it has reduced the public hydrogen stations. Mirai’s fuel cell cost by 95 per“I would rather shamelessly drive to dealerships, asking to cent. It has linked up with BMW be part of the program,” said Mr. to develop fuel cells, with other Uselton, a director of an e-comalliances formed by G.M. and Honda, and by Daimler, Ford and merce company. Nissan. His enthusiasm was driven by Today, most hydrogen is dea belief that automobiles require a reinvention. rived from natural gas produc“One thing we know for sure is tion, diminishing its environthat oil will not be here forever,” mental edge. But backers see he said. promise in producing hydrogen Proponents of hydrogen note by splitting water using solar, that it is the most abundant elwind or other renewable power. Toyota is confident it could sell ement in the universe. But deperhaps 3,000 Mirais in the Unitriving that element efficiently has been a major catch, along ed States through 2017. That is a with a dearth of places to refuel. relatively small number, but the The cars’ onboard fuel cells and company envisions a hydrogen storage tanks have been exorbinucleus that will spread to the East Coast and eventually the tantly expensive. When Honda whole nation. tested its first FCX fuel cell cars

much more solar than the company had assumed, the state’s public utilities commission ordered the utility to begin installations. Hawaiian Electric is upgrading its circuits and meters to better regulate the flow of electricity. Rooftop solar makes more power than any other single source, said Colton Ching, vice president for energy delivery at Hawaiian Electric, but the utility cannot control or predict the output. The rooftop units are “essentially invisible to us, because they sit behind a customer’s meter and we don’t have a means to directly measure them,” he said. For customers, such explanations offer little comfort as they

continue to pay among the highest electric rates in the country. “I went through all this trouble to get my electric bill down, and I am still waiting,” said Joyce Villegas, 88, who signed her contract for a system in August 2013 but was only recently approved. Mr. Akamine expressed resignation over the roughly $12,000 he could have saved over the last 18 months, but wondered about the delay. “Why did it take forceful urging from the local public utility commission to open up more permits?” he asked. Installers — who saw their fast-growing businesses slow to a trickle — are also frustrated with the pace. James Whitcomb, chief executive of Haleakala Solar, said the answer may lie in a more radical solution: Avoid the utility and its grid altogether. Customers are increasingly asking about the batteries he often puts in along with the solar panels. The batteries allow customers to store the power they generate during the day for use at night. It is more expensive, but it breaks consumer reliance on the utility’s network of power lines. “The lumbering big utilities that are so used to taking three months to study this and then six months to do that — what they don’t understand is that things are moving at the speed of business,” Mr. Whitcomb said. “Like with digital photography — this is inevitable.”

Batteries, Growing Along With Renewable Energy By HENRY FOUNTAIN

POMONA, California — The future of energy, according to one widely held view, will include solar panels and wind turbines continuing to proliferate, churning out ever more electricity and eventually eclipsing fossil fuels. With the cost of renewable technologies plunging, that vision is starting to take shape, especially in areas with abundant sunshine or steady wind. The shift sounds simple in theory — plug more solar and wind into the mix, and unplug more coal- or gas-burning power plants, sparing the world millions of tons of greenhouse gases. But because of the variable nature of these renewable sources — no electricity is generated when the sun goes down or the air is still — they add strains to the power system. Batteries have long been seen as one way to work more renewables into the electrical grid, by storing electricity during times of excess generation and releasing it when needed. Now, spurred by mandates to deploy storage, by the rise of rooftop solar systems, and by falling prices of lithium-ion cells, batteries are set to play a significant part in America’s power supply. Despite plummeting prices, large battery systems generally are not yet economical for helping to integrate renewables on a broad scale. Battery systems, which are capable of storing large amounts of power

and releasing it over an hour or longer, have some advantages over other storage methods. They can supply power nearly instantaneously and handle cycling between charging and discharging. And as the manufacturing of batteries and control systems scale up, it will be easier and cheaper to deploy quick-response systems. Maintaining a reliable grid is a high-wire act for operators, who struggle to keep a balance between the supply of electricity from generation sources and demand for it from customers. Batteries are especially valuable because they can respond quickly, adding more power to the system in a second or less. Here at a Southern California Edison laboratory, scientists are working to help make widespread battery storage happen. In tests, batteries — lithium-ion cells like those used in electric cars — are undergoing continuous charge-discharge cycles in heat and cold, dripping humidity and desert dryness, to simulate the conditions they may face. “We want to get a sense of what degradation you see on the system and how long they last in the field,” said Loic A. Gaillac of Southern California Edison. Ravi Manghani, an analyst with GTM Media, sees growth in the energy storage industry. “We expect that every year, we’re going to see on average 100 to 250 percent growth,” he said. “And most of that will be in batteries.”

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

The Perils Associated With Dark Matter By GEORGE JOHNSON

Earlier this year, Sabine Hossenfelder, a theoretical physicist in Stockholm, made the jarring suggestion that dark matter might cause cancer. She was talking about the hypothetical, lightless particles that cosmologists believe pervade the universe and hold the galaxies together. Though it has yet to be directly detected, dark matter is presumed to exist because we can see the effects of its gravity. As those invisible particles pass through our bodies, they could be mutating DNA, the theory goes, adding at an extremely low level to the overall rate of cancer. But that was just the beginning. Shortly after, Michael Rampino, a professor at New York University, proposed that dark matter was responsible for the mass extinctions that have swept Earth, including that of the dinosaurs. His idea is based on speculations by other scientists that the Milky Way is sliced horizontally through its center by a thin disk of dark matter. As the sun, traveling around the galaxy, bobs up and down through this darkling plane, it generates gravitational ripples strong enough to dislodge distant

JON KRAUSE

comets from their orbits, sending them hurtling toward Earth. An earlier version of this hypothesis was put forth last year by the Harvard physicists Lisa Randall and Matthew Reece. But Dr. Rampino has added another twist: During Earth’s galactic voyage, dark matter accumulates in its core. There the particles self-destruct, generating enough heat to cause deadly volcanic eruptions. Struck from above and below, the dinosaurs succumbed. It is surprising to see something as abstract as dark matter take on so much solidity, at least in the human mind. The idea was invented in the early 1930s as a theoretical contrivance — a means of explaining observations that otherwise didn’t make sense. Galaxies appear to be rotating so fast that they should have spun apart long ago. There just isn’t enough gravity to hold a galaxy together, unless you assume that it hides a huge amount of unseen particles that neither emit nor absorb light. Said to be five times more abundant than the stuff we can see, dark matter is a component of the theory behind gravitational lensing, in which large masses like galaxies can bend light beams and cause stars to appear

An abstract substance as a cause of universal ills. in unexpected parts of the sky. That was the explanation for the spectacular observation of an “Einstein Cross” reported in March. Acting like an enormous lens, a cluster of galaxies deflected the light of a supernova into four images — a cosmological mirage. The light for each reflection followed a different path, providing glimpses of four different moments of the explosion. But not even a galactic cluster exerts enough gravity to bend light so severely unless you postulate that most of its mass consists of hypothetical dark matter. In fact, astronomers are so sure that dark matter exists that they have embraced gravitational lensing as a tool to map its extent. Dark matter, in other words, is used to explain gravitational lensing, and gravitational lensing is taken as more evidence for dark matter. Some skeptics have wondered if this is a modern-day version of what ancient astronomers called “saving the phenomena.” With enough elaborations, a theory can account for what we see without necessarily describing reality. The classic example is the geocentric model of the heavens that Ptolemy laid out in the Almagest, with the planets orbiting Earth along paths of complex curlicues. Ptolemy apparently didn’t care whether his filigrees were real. What was important to him was that his model worked in predicting planetary movements with great precision. Modern scientists do care, and to show that dark matter exists outside their equations, they are trying to detect it directly. Most theorists bet that dark matter consists of WIMPs — weakly interacting massive particles — and have built underground detectors to measure their impacts on ordinary matter. But so far, there have been no hits. Somewhere from 10 to a few thousand times a year, Dr. Hossenfelder estimated, a WIMP may happen to strike one of our own atoms, including some that make up DNA. The energy would be strong enough to break molecular bonds and cause mutations. When it comes to cancer, that is a negligible threat. Two of Dr. Hossenfelder’s colleagues, Katherine Freese and Christopher Savage, estimate that cosmic rays zipping through a human body cause more damage in a second than dark matter would in a lifetime. But the effect of dark matter is still strong enough that scientists are considering using DNA or RNA molecules as WIMP detectors. If WIMPs turn out to be a fiction, something else will have to be found to explain the missing mass. Something is screwy about the universe, and astronomers are determined to find out why.

LUC FORSYTH FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; BELOW JUSTIN MOTT FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Wildlife Groups Struggle to Prevent Extinction of Small, Scaly Mammal By ERICA GOODE

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Elephants and rhinoceroses may serve as the poster animals for the illegal trade in wildlife. But the most trafficked mammal, wildlife experts say, is a far less familiar creature: the pangolin, a scaly insectivore with a tongue longer than its body and a tail so powerful it can hang upside down from tree branches. Its propensity for rolling into an armored ball when threatened has invited comparison to an artichoke. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy in parts of China, where it is believed to nourish the kidneys. The scales, made of keratin, like human fingernails, are used in traditional medicine to treat skin diseases and other ailments. Trade in the animal has a long history: In 1820, King George III of England was presented with a suit of armor made from pangolin scales. But the demand for pangolins — and with it the hunting of the animals — has grown sharply in recent decades. Poaching has increased in Southeast Asia and Africa, according to Traffic, an organization that monitors wildlife trade. Customs officers seize thousands of pangolins and hundreds of kilograms of pangolin scales each year, often disguised as other goods. In January, officials in Uganda said they had seized two tons of pangolin skins packed in boxes identified as communications equipment. In France a few years ago, more than 90 kilos of pangolin scales were discovered in bags of dog biscuits. “You’ve got a big ship coming from Indonesia and it’s labeled frozen fish, and it turns out to be 14 tons of frozen pangolins,” said Annette Olsson, a technical adviser for Conservation International in Southeast Asia who helped open the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center. The

groups were mounting efforts to rescue the pangolin in advance of the 2016 meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora. The pangolin’s odd appearance has not helped its cause, Ms. Olsson said. “It’s not huge and not very charismatic,” she said. It’s small and weird and just disappearing. Yet a scaly creature with beady eyes, a narrow snout and a long tail is not without whimsy. A Pokemon character, Sandslash, was loosely based on the pangolin, thought to be the only scaled mammal. Scientists are slowly beginning to learn more about the animal and its behavior. Once thought to be a relative of the anteater, the sloth and the armadillo, genetic studies suggest it is more closely related to raccoons and giant pandas. Burrowing in trees or tunnels, pangolins have weak eyes but keen noses to smell insects and powerful claws to dig them up. Their tongues are sticky, able to scoop Pangolins are more closely related up hundreds of ants at to pandas than anteaters. A once, their ears closing pangolin at a rescue center. up to prevent the ants from swarming inside. Like skunks, they can emit a were once common here. But so foul odor when threatened. many have been killed that they Pangolins often arrive at and Chinese pangolins are listthe rescue center with severed ed as critically endangered by limbs from poachers’ snares or the International Union for Conbites from hunting dogs. A vetservation of Nature. The group considers all pangolin species erinarian cleans and bandages threatened. their injuries. The mother and “The pangolin runs the risk her offspring now at the center of becoming extinct before seem in no hurry to leave. most people have even heard of “Sometimes, we feel hopethem,” Britain’s Prince William less,” Mr. Bunra said of efforts said last fall. to save pangolins and other Peter Knights of WildAid said species in Cambodia from exthat his and other conservation tinction. “But we try our best.”

Cambodian government runs the center with the assistance of the Wildlife Alliance, a conservation group. Most countries, including Cambodia, have laws against hunting pangolins. But enforcement is often weak, and the incentive for poachers in poor rural areas to catch and sell pangolins and other wildlife to middlemen for smuggling organizations is strong, said Bunra Seng of Conservation International in Cambodia. Sunda pangolins, one of eight pangolin species,

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Sanctity of Truth

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Ebola Is Lying in Wait, Far From Central Africa By PAM BELLUCK and WILLIAM J. BROAD

A growing body of clues suggests that the Ebola virus may have lurked in the West African rain forest for years, perhaps decades, before igniting the epidemic in the region that took more than 10,000 lives this past year. Ebola had been considered a threat mostly to Central African nations. Yet studies tell of possible Ebola antibodies in human blood samples drawn in West Africa long before the current outbreak. And genetic analysis suggests the West African virus broke off from a parent strain in Central Africa at least 10 years ago, possibly as long as 150 years ago. “My gut feeling,” said Dr. Peter Piot, the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, is that the evidence points to “infection before the current epidemic.” Medical detectives in West Africa are now seeking to establish whether the virus had previously infected people there. The research is part of a push to better understand where Ebola might strike next, and to strengthen surveillance and health systems. Beyond the known outbreaks in Central and West African nations, scientists have found signs in human blood that suggest immune reactions to Ebola in 14 oth-

SENEGAL CHAD G U I N E A Current

BENIN

outbreak

NIGERIA

TOGO

IVORY SIERRA COAST LEONE GHANA LIBERIA

CENTRAL A F R I C A N R E P.

ETHIOPIA

SOUTH SUDAN

CAMEROON K E N YA

GABON R E P. O F CONGO

Traces of Ebola

D E M . R E P. OF CONGO BURUNDI

Researchers suspect that Ebola may have existed in West Africa, as well as in other countries with no known history of the virus, long before the current outbreak. Recorded outbreaks of Ebola in humans. Areas thought to be at risk of future outbreaks.

SOMALIA

UGANDA

EQ. GUINEA

TA N Z A N I A

ANGOLA

M A L AW I

Countries thought to be at risk. ZIMBABWE

Countries with no recorded Ebola outbreaks where human immune responses have been found. (Panama and Philippines not shown.)

MADAGASCAR

MOZAMBIQUE Sources: “Filoviruses,” by Jens H. Kuhn; Adrian Mylne et al., Scientific Data; David M. Pigott et al., eLife Sciences

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Signs that a virus had a long presence in West Africa. er countries: 12 in Africa, as well as Panama and the Philippines. Zeroing in on African rain forests, scientists from Oxford University, Harvard and other institutions recently used ecological data and patterns of human and animal outbreaks to construct a detailed prediction of other likely Ebola danger zones. It stretches across 22 nations from West Africa as far east as Madagascar. For decades, scientists have searched for the presence of Ebola in West Africa. It is generally assumed that the virus survives in an animal host, perhaps bats. But the host has never been identified, and researchers have struggled to understand how often humans have been exposed. In 1982, German scientists, examining blood from hundreds of Liberians, reported antibodies to the Ebola virus in 6 percent of the samples. Four years later, Dutch scientists found the antibodies in 13 percent of blood samples from Liberia. Similar rates were found in samples from Guinea and Sierra Leone. But doubts arose because of diagnostic imprecision. Then, in 1994, came the first and — until the current outbreak — only confirmed human case in West Africa: a Swiss scientist who had examined a dead chimpanzee in an Ivory Coast rain forest. She was flown to Switzerland for treatment and survived. More than 10 years later, a

Data points to Ebola antibodies in human blood samples in West Africa before the current outbreak. Left, graves in Liberia. In the mid-2000s in Sierra Leone, experts found what appeared to be Ebola antibodies. DANIEL BEREHULAK FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES; RIGHT, CARL DE SOUZA/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

team of American scientists and West African medical personnel working at the Kenema Government Hospital in eastern Sierra Leone made a strange find. They had been treating people suspected of having Lassa fever. But more accurate tests showed that only about a third of patients had that disease. Led by Randal J. Schoepp of the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland, the team sought to solve the puzzle by analyzing blood drawn from more than 200 patients at the hospital from October 2006 to October 2008. They found antibodies for a range of diseases, including what appeared to be Ebola antibodies in nearly 9 percent of the samples. The scientists were also surprised to learn that the possible strain of Ebola in the samples bore little similarity to the one that had sickened the Swiss woman in Ivory Coast. Instead, it resembled one from the continent’s interior, more than 1,600 kilometers away: the Zaire strain,

the deadliest of all, the one that would later spark West Africa’s catastrophic epidemic. In August 2013, the team submitted its findings to a journal published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States. After the Zaire strain had been identified as the cause of the current outbreak, the C.D.C. journal published the team’s report online in June. In July, Dr. Sheik H. Khan, the chief physician of the Lassa ward in Kenema, Sierra Leone, exhausted after treating waves of Ebola patients, died of the infection that he and other team members believed they had identified in the blood samples. In January, another virology team at the Kenema hospital reported Ebola antibodies in blood samples of patients who entered the Lassa ward from June 2011 to March 2014. The team, led by Robert F. Garry, a virologist at Tulane University in New Orleans, found the antibodies in up to 22 percent of 242 patients. He said “a lot more validation” was needed to confirm that Ebola was

be discounted, several experts indeed present before the current said. Ebola may be more deeply outbreak. SLUG EBOLA rootedebola-evidence in the African landscape But clues that Ebola might SCOOP than anyone guessed. have been hiding in forests SECTION Jenssci H. Kuhn, a virologist at throughout Africa does not come 7.3" x Institutes 4.7" the National of Health just from blood tests. Scientists SIZE in America, pointed to the detechave sequenced the genes of the ORIGIN Jonathan x4340 virus in the current epidemic and tion of Graphics possible Ebola x1839antibodies compared it to the Zaire strain in the Democratic Republic of responsible for most Central Af-DATE Congo 0421 in the 1980s, saying those sketchy findings now seem prerican Ebola outbreaks. The researchers identified scient. That nation has since had hundreds of genetic mutations eight Ebola outbreaks, most rethat, taken together, suggest cently last year. that the West African Ebola “These are hints that need variant diverged from the Cento be followed,” Dr. Kuhn said. “They should raise the level of tral African strain and settled vigilance.” into a distinct ecological niche And Stephen S. Morse, an in25 to 150 years ago, perhaps even earlier. fectious disease expert at ColumIn September, 58 researchers bia University in New York, said from Harvard, the Massachuit now seemed likely that Ebola had long smoldered in the West setts Institute of Technology and African jungle. the Broad Institute, among other Perhaps, he said, years of liminstitutions, reported sequencing results from a much larger group ited encounters between people of Ebola viruses in the West Afand the virus had produced a relrica outbreak. The genetic split, atively small number of human they contended, occurred more cases that were never identified recently, around 2004. and never spread: “None of the Still, the scientific clues embers reached the stage of a through the decades should not fire.”

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Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

H E A LT H & F I T N E S S

F.B.I. Agents Are Given a New Mission: Shape Up By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT

WASHINGTON — Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation are on the front lines of the fight to protect the United States from Islamic terrorists, Russian hackers and Chinese spies. Now they have something far more personal to worry about: their waists. For the first time in 16 years, the F.B.I. is requiring that its agents pass a fitness test. “The lives of your colleagues and those you protect may well depend upon your ability to run, fight and shoot, no matter what job you hold,” James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, said in October in an internal memo to agents that was obtained by The New York Times. The agents, Mr. Comey said, are symbols to Americans of what is “right and good” about the country. “I want you to look like the squared-away object of that reverence. I want the Amer-

FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION; BELOW: ZACH GIBSON/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Longer hours and desk work take a toll on investigators.

Tests will ensure agents can pursue suspects. Left, running at the National Mall in Washington. Fitness tests fell out of favor 16 years ago. Above, agents in 1938.

ican people to be able to take one glance at you and think, ‘THERE is a special agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.’ ” The fitness tests, which started at the end of last year, are a return to a tradition begun by the F.B.I.’s first director, J. Edgar Hoover, who obsessed about his agents’ weight, as well his own considerable girth. More significantly, the tests are a response to concerns throughout the bureau about how its transformation after the September 11, 2001, attacks, has put more stress on agents and given them less time for fitness. After the attacks, many agents who were accustomed to working normal hours and had spent their entire careers investigating crimes like gang violence or drugs — work that took them into the field to make arrests —

strain them if they resist arrest. There are no weight limits, but agents have to achieve certain requirements in four different exercises depending on their age and gender. The threshold to pass is not nearly as high as it is for military commandos or hostage rescue-team members. For instance, male agents ages 30 to 39 must perform 24 push-ups without stopping and 35 situps in a minute. They have to sprint 300 meters in less than a minute and run about two and a half kilometers in 12 minutes and 53 seconds. They get a five-minute break between exercises. Men are typically better at the push-ups than situps, but it is the reverse for women. Everyone struggles with the sprint. So far, there has not been a stampede to take the test, including at the Washington office,

began working 20-hour days as the F.B.I. changed its primary mission to fighting terrorism. Many agents were sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. Around the same time, the bureau drastically expanded its efforts in two areas that emphasized long desk hours: cybersecurity and intelligence. The increased demands manifested themselves in different ways. Some agents put on weight, while some suffered from anxiety and depression. “You could

see that health and fitness was not the priority it used to be,” said Zachary Lowe Jr., the chief of instruction at the F.B.I.’s academy in Quantico, Virginia, which created the test. The F.B.I.’s 13,500 agents have until October to take the test, and the results will be included on their annual performance reviews. The test is primarily designed to ensure that agents can move quickly during a mass shooting, chase suspects and re-

If Sleep Won’t Come, Dim the Screen By KATE GALBRAITH

Most evenings, before watching late-night comedy or reading emails on his phone, Matt Nicoletti puts on a pair of orange-colored glasses that he bought for $8 off the Internet. “My girlfriend thinks I look ridiculous in them,” he said. But Mr. Nicoletti, a 30-year-old hospitality consultant in Denver, insists that the glasses, which can block certain wavelengths of light emitted by electronic screens, make it easier to sleep. Studies have shown that such light, especially from the blue part of the spectrum, inhibits the body’s production of melatonin, a hormone that helps people fall asleep. Options are growing for blocking blue light, though experts caution that few

LED blue light may be keeping you up at night. have been adequately tested for effectiveness and the best solution remains avoiding brightly lit electronics at night. A Swiss study of 13 teenage boys, published in The Journal of Adolescent Health, showed that when the boys donned orange-tinted glasses, shown to prevent melatonin suppression, in the evening for a week, they felt “significantly more sleepy” than when they wore clear glasses.

Older adults may be less affected by blue light, experts say, because the yellowing of the lens and other changes in the aging eye filter out increasing amounts of blue light. But blue light remains a problem for most people, and a study of 20 adults ages 18 to 68 found that those who wore amber-tinted glasses for three hours before bed improved their sleep quality considerably relative to a control group that wore yellow-tinted lenses, which blocked only ultraviolet light. Devices such as smartphones and tablets are often illuminated by light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, that tend to emit more blue light than incandescent products. Televisions with LED backlighting are another source of blue light, though because they

where few agents have subjected themselves to it (all passed). Although the F.B.I. has never had the kind of fitness culture of, say, the Marines, the agents are competitive, and many who have put off the test are working for higher scores. “It’s really not that hard,” said Jennifer Schick, a public corruption agent at the F.B.I.’s Washington field office who also oversees fitness training and tests. “Most agents wouldn’t be satisfied in just coming out and making the minimum. They would be embarrassed by that, and that is why they’re waiting.” To help them prepare, the F.B.I. is offering training sessions. One was recently held on the National Mall at sunrise, when Ms. Schick stood over a dozen agents who did push-ups until their bodies collapsed to the ground in exhaustion. They did lunges to build leg strength and ran wind sprints. “Unfortunately, some people told me they are embarrassed to come and show other people how out of shape they are, and that’s a shame because they are the ones who really need it,” she said.

said. The intensity of light, in addition to color, can affect sleep. During the daytime, experts say, exposure to blue light is good. Best of all is sunlight, which contains many different wavelengths of light. “That’s what our brain knows,” said BENJAMIN RASMUSSEN FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Kenneth P. Wright Jr. of the sleep and chronobiology are typically viewed from much lab at the University of Colorado, farther away than small screens Boulder. like phones, they may have less Short of cutting out all eveof an effect, said Debra Skene, a professor of neuroendocrinology ning electronics, experts say, it’s at the University of Surrey in Enadvisable to use a small screen rather than a large one; dim the gland. screen and keep it as far away LEDs are increasingly popular from the eyes as possible; and as room lights, but “warm white” reduce the amount of time spent bulbs, with less blue, tend to be a reading the device. better choice than “cool white” Dr. Skene said, “If you can look for nighttime use. Orange glassat the iPhone for 10 minutes rathes are not a panacea, Dr. Skene said. “It isn’t just get rid of the er than three hours, that makes a blue and everything’s fine,” she lot of difference.”

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

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Sanctity of Truth

H E A LT H & F I T N E S S

To Get Really Fit, Get Out of the Gym By TARA PARKER-POPE

The author Christopher McDougall helped make barefoot running mainstream with his best-selling book “Born to Run,” a tale about a tribe of endurance runners and an annual 80-kilometer footrace in the mountains of Mexico. Now Mr. McDougall returns with another tale, “Natural Born Heroes: How a Band of Misfits Mastered the Lost Secrets of Strength and Endurance,” that he hopes will again upend the fitness world, this time by getting people out of the sterile gym environment to run, jump, throw and climb outdoors. Here’s an edited version of our conversation. Q. Where did the idea for this book come from? A. It came out of “Born to Run,” but by accident. I was researching indigenous and ancient runners, and I came across a reference to the Cretan runner. He was a foot messenger during World War II. I found this whole other fascinating story about people doing these superhuman feats on foot, behind enemy lines, running 40 to 100 miles [60 to 160 kilometers] at a time on a starvation diet. Q. Achieving that level of fitness seems so unattainable. Is there a lesson here for a regular person?

the things I never could do was climb a rope. Climbing a rope is not a muscular challenge; it’s a dexterity challenge. I got a 30-foot rope, slung it over a branch in my yard and started studying climbing techniques. Within a day, I was climbing. You trap the rope between your feet. You don’t pull yourself up by your arms; you step up with your legs. Q. Why do you think people have lost these natural abilities for throwing and climbing? A. At age 5 or 6, we stick kids in a class and say: “Sit there. Don’t move until 3 p.m. and then go home and do homework.” We take these physical animals and turn them into sedentary animals. Most recreational sports are created by men for men, and they use male attributes like body strength. But the real skills, the human skills, are the ones where the differences between men and women are the slimmest. Humans have great dexterity and adaptability. Some of the greatest rock climbers in the world are women. Q. So how should people change their exercise habits in the modern world? A. Add things to your workout that you don’t think you can do. Try to climb a rope. Walk on all fours. Get outside and do things you’re not expecting. Q. Why is an outdoor

workout better than a workout in a gym? A. In a gym, you’re on a padded seat, strapped in and isolating one muscle. All of the uncertainty in the range of motion has been stripped away. In the real world when you move, you don’t isolate one muscle. We have been trying the stationary machine STUART BRADFORD model for 40 years, and it’s failed. It’s based on A. The big reveal to me was that bodybuilding. Size was never they’re not superhuman at all. the goal of the hunter gatherer. In reality, the classic Greek ideal You never wanted to be big; you of a hero was a common person. wanted to be mobile and agile. It was a virtue, a responsibility, that every person should be able to develop these natural, very Q. So many people embraced attainable skills to be reliable in barefoot running after your first a crisis, to be capable of helping book, what is the ultimate advice someone else out. in this book? A. What’s the point of your exerQ. What are the skills of a natucise? Why are you getting big or lifting stuff if it’s not useful? Can ral-born hero? I use this skill to pick up a child A. It’s about developing your who needs help or use this to pull natural abilities so you have a rope? dexterity for throwing, climbing or crawling. Strength is about using that natural elastic recoil Q. So what kind of training do you in our body to tap into these do now? latent reservoirs of strength. A. I’ve become infatuated by They are there; we just don’t use Parkour. People think it’s darethem. devilry on rooftops, but it’s about learning how to shift our body weight and using parts of your Q. One of the skills you write body you ignore. I also take my about is climbing. Can you tell me runs off of trails and into creek more about that? beds. That uncertain footing A. Kids love to climb. They want allows you to work on agility to get off the ground all the time. and nimbleness. An immediate After the age of 5 or 6, we stop benefit is that it focuses you on practicing the ability to get our the present. bodies off the ground. One of

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERIK JACOBS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Data With the Power To Help Heal By STEVE LOHR

Steven Keating’s doctors view him as a citizen of the future. A scan of his brain eight years ago revealed a slight abnormality — nothing to worry about, he was told, but worth monitoring. And monitor he did, reading and studying about brain structure, function and wayward cells, and obtaining a follow-up scan in 2010, which showed no trouble. But he knew from his research that his abnormality was near the brain’s olfactory center. So when he started smelling whiffs of vinegar last summer, he suspected they might be “smell seizures.” He pushed doctors to conduct an M.R.I., and three weeks later, surgeons in Boston removed a cancerous tumor the size of a tennis ball. Mr. Keating, a 26-year-old doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab, has pushed and prodded to get his medical information, collecting about 70 gigabytes of his own patient data. His case points to what medical experts say could be gained if patients had full access to their medical information. Better-informed patients, they say, are more likely to take better care of themselves, comply with prescription drug regimens and even detect early-warning signals of illness, as Mr. Keating did. “Today he is a big exception, but he is also a glimpse of what people will want: more and more information,” said Dr. David W. Bates, chief innovation officer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Some of the most advanced medical centers are starting to make medical data more available. Brigham and Women’s, where Mr. Keating had his surgery, is part of the Partners HealthCare Group, which has 500,000 patients with web access to some of the data in their health records including conditions and test results. Other medical groups are beginning to allow patients online access to the notes taken by physicians, in an initiative called OpenNotes. More than

A 3-D print of Steven Keating’s M.R.I. data showing a brain tumor, the white mass in the right front section of the brain. Top, Mr. Keating holding a 3-D copy of his tumor. two-thirds of the patients reported having a better understanding of their health and medical conditions, adopting healthier habits and taking their medications as prescribed more regularly. Nearly five million patients in America have been given online access to their notes. As an articulate young scientist, Mr. Keating had a big advantage over most patients in obtaining his data. He knew what information to request, spoke the language of medicine and did not need help. The information he collected includes the video of his 10-hour surgery, dozens of medical images, genetic sequencing data and 300 pages of clinical documents. Much of it is on his website, and he has made his medical data available for research. Still, he said he encountered a medical culture resistant to sharing data. “The person with the least access to data in the system is the patient,” he said. “You can get it, but the burden is always on the patient. And it is scattered across many different silos of patient data.” Since his diagnosis last summer, Mr. Keating has become an advocate for giving patients all the medical data they ask for. An effort to accelerate the adoption of open technology standards in health care, the Argonaut Project, began in December.

One detail in a yearlong study of OpenNotes underlines doctors’ concerns; 105 primary physicians completed the study, but 143 declined to participate. Still, the experience of the doctors in the evaluation seemed reassuring. Only 3 percent said they spent more time answering patient questions outside of visits. Yet knowing that patients could read the notes, one-fifth of the physicians said they changed the way they wrote about certain conditions, like substance abuse and obesity. Evidence of the benefit to individuals from sharing information rests mainly on a few studies so far. For example, 55 percent of the members of the epilepsy community on PatientsLikeMe, a patient network, reported that sharing information and experiences with others helped them learn about seizures, and 27 percent said it helped adhere to their medications. Mr. Keating has no doubts. “Data can heal,” he said. “There is a huge healing power to patients understanding and seeing the effects of treatments and medications.” Mr. Keating says he believes that people will increasingly want access to their medical data, especially younger people reared on social networks. “This is what the next generation, which lives on data, is going to want,” Mr. Keating said.

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL WEEKLY

Sanctity of Truth

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

ARTS & DESIGN

Students from Kerala Kalamandalam in December in Thrissur. Right, a performance of ‘‘La Bayadère’’in 2012.

Dances of India, Rich in Breadth The dance forms of India have extended my idea of dance itself, what it can be and signify. Twice in recent years, I’ve made four-week visits there. The biggest lesson of my first trip (February-March 2012) was that dance is more central to Indian ESSAY culture than to any other I’ve encountered. Just one small example: On arrival at the airport in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, the poster welcoming arrivals was a vast image of Odissi, the state’s beautiful classical dance form. More crucially, all around the nation, the Hindu gods are seen as dancing; and Shiva’s dance is cosmological. The chief discovery of my second visit (December 2014-January 2015) was that dance in India covers a far wider spectrum than in any other culture in the world. To explain this, I single out just eight days, December 18 to December 25. Christmas Day I spent in Mumbai, watching a Bollywood musical, “PK,” in which an alien ends up breaking into song and dance as he falls in love with the Indian heroine. I had been in the southwest

ALASTAIR MACAULAY

state of Kerala from December 18 to December 22, watching the local forms of Mohiniattam, Kathakali and Theyyem. Mohiniattam (all-female) and Kathakali (all-male) are recognized among India’s classical forms; and though Kathakali and Theyyem are among its strangest, they now feature prominently in tourist imagery, for reasons of their exotically picturesque makeup. It was not till this trip that Kathakali — Homeric in its epic meter, character-packed drama and variety of intense dramatic color — became a revelatory experience to me; and I would travel back for more. On the evening of December 19, as I rushed in a cab from one side of Thrissur (a long and exuberant open-air Kathakali performance) to the other (to catch Kalamandalam students dancing Mohiniattam) and back again, Thrissur’s dance world felt as busy as New York’s. I’d return, too, to further investigate Theyyem, which, though not the richest dance experience of my life, was far the strangest. This, like Kathakali, is an art that involves male performers in extraordinary makeup and elaborate costume. It’s peculiar to the villages of north

ANDREA MOHIN/THE NEW YORK TIMES; TOP LEFT, BRIANA BLASKO FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

Kerala; and I spent the morning of December 22 in three of those villages watching Theyyem both in preparation and as event. The facial makeup is predominantly scarlet, but with complex internal patterning and drastic eyeliner. This, like the costuming, indicates which of the local gods is being shown. And it’s thus — in heavy, bright and intensely restricting outfits — that the Theyyem performers dance. Footwork, not complex, is rhythmic; the dancer travels and rotates in space; in the face, only the eyes move, radiating vehemence. The steps and mobility of those I saw have nothing of the formal fascination of the Indian classical genres; but a stunted force stays in the memory.

Theyyem is just one astonishing example of India’s dance sociology. A more archetypal image of India, but now receding into history, is the female temple dancer. For ballet people, the bayadère — temple dancer — is their central idea of Indian dance: in particular Nikiya, the heroine of Marius Petipa’s 1877 Romantic-classical ballet “La Bayadère,” and the corps de ballet of Shades. The historic truth of bayadères, however, arises from the centuries-old Indian tradition of devadasis: women dedicated to the temple from childhood, some as dancers and/or musicians, some as prostitutes, some as all of the above. Though there are no longer

temple dancers, dancing certainly occurs in temples. On February 20, 2012, in Tamil Nadu, I watched a dance festival at the temple at Chidambaram on the day of the year when the great god Shiva was honored as Nataraja, lord of the cosmic dance. Chidambaram is the temple most associated with Nataraja, whose dance implies change, destruction, renewal. Statues depict him balanced on one leg, within an arc or circle of flame. Among the implications of his pose are movement within stillness and stillness within movement. Sacred and profane, motion and stasis, renewal and destruction: Indian culture delights in dualisms, and dance is at their heart.

Netflix and Marvel Bet on Local Heroes By DAVE ITZKOFF

In the pantheon of Marvel Comics, Daredevil might not be the first superhero you’d turn to in a bind. He doesn’t have the high-tech arsenal of Iron Man or the godlike might of Thor. His few attempts to transcend comic books include an uninspiring appearance in a 1989 “Incredible Hulk” TV-movie and the starring role in a misbegotten 2003 film starring Ben Affleck. But this neglected champion has become vitally important to Marvel’s ambitions to take its characters from page to screen. Netflix has released all 13 episodes of the first season of “Daredevil,” starring Charlie Cox as Matt Murdock, the victim of a childhood accident that blinded him but gave him extrasensory powers. Netflix will add three more shows based on the Marvel char-

acters Jessica Jones, Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Then, a mini-series, “The Defenders,” will unite these characters into a superteam. It is a strategy that Marvel and Netflix hope will duplicate the success of “The Avengers,” the franchise that combined the characters of movies featuring Iron Man, Thor and Captain America. A Hulk-sized smash is hardly guaranteed: The characters in “The Defenders” are not as familiar as those presented by Marvel in its films. And each series must stand on its own for the whole enterprise to work. After “The Avengers” was released in 2012, Marvel surveyed its roster of costumed characters, looking for potential television projects. In particular, Daredevil and his New York allies seemed well equipped for smaller-scale conflicts.

There was nothing small, however, about the size of Marvel’s pitch: It wanted an upfront order of all five series, without pilot episodes. That approach seemed to rule out broadcast networks like ABC, which, like Marvel, is owned by Walt Disney, and which carries other Marvel series, like the espionage adventure “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” Netflix, the streaming video service, started its political thriller “House of Cards” with a two-season guarantee, and was willing to make a bigger commitment to the “Defenders.” Ted Sarandos of Netflix said that he was drawn to the characters Marvel was offering because “these were all nonconventional heroes — really grounded.” “Daredevil,” adapted from the comics series Marvel introduced in 1964, takes its inspiration from the character’s post-1980s publi-

Charlie Cox stars as Matt Murdock in Marvel’s ‘‘Daredevil.’’

BARRY WETCHER/NETFLIX

cation history, when writers and illustrators like Frank Miller, Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev helped define him as a hard-boiled hero in a world of crime. The “Daredevil” show runner, Steven S. DeKnight, explained the protagonist’s central conflict: “Will he be a young man who will grow up to solve the world’s problems as a lawyer, or to solve them with his fists?”

For the moment, Netflix is being stealthy about how many seasons it will give to “Daredevil” and its other Marvel shows. Mr. Cox said he was committed to his character for a good long while. “I think I’ll be playing Daredevil well into my 90s, if they’ll have me,” he said. “I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather be doing. Maybe speak to me again when I’m 70 and see if I feel that way.”

Business | Money Line

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Analysts counsel incoming govt on tax rate hike

Caution New govt should focus on blocking leakages Tony Chukwunyem

espite priority which the incoming government has promised to give to closing of the enormous fiscal gap created by the sharp drop in oil revenues and colossal election spending in the 2015 general elections, financial analysts at Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) Limited have counseled against an immediate increase in the tax rate. The experts made this call in the current edition of their “Economic Monthly” publication. They argued that while Nigeria has one of the lowest Value Added Tax (VAT) rates (five per cent) in the world, which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised should be quickly increased to boost revenues, the new administration should first focus on blocking leakages before raising the tax rate. The FDC, which has foremost Economist, Bismark Rewane, as its MD, noted: “While increasing tax rates will go a long way in boosting government revenues, we believe it should be done

with caution to prevent a backfire. Higher taxes have often been found to encourage tax avoidance and evasion. This is all the more likely in an environment where a lack of transparency with the tax structure discourages people to trust the taxation system or voluntary com-ply with payment. “Hence, it seems more reasonable that government block leakages

as an immediate step to recovering revenues rather than increasing the existing tax rate. In the medium to long term, we believe as government undertakes more developmental projects and put a better tax structure in place that encourages transparency, it can convince the people to accept a higher tax rate.” The FDC said: “A high level of tax leakage, the

difference between tax potential and tax collection, accentuated by the non-transparency of the current tax structure, has often been cited as one of the reasons for low tax revenues in Nigeria. The Minister of Finance noted that blocking leakages is expected to add several millions to Nigeria’s revenues while the new federal administration expects over N1 trillion to be recovered.”

Visa profit falls on strong dollar

orld’s biggest payments network, Visa Incorporated has said that profit fell threr per cent on a strengthening United States dollar and revised its full-year forecast for earnings-per-share growth. Net income for the fiscal second-quarter ended March 31 dropped three per cent to $1.55 billion, or 63 cents a share, from $1.6 billion, or 63 cents a year earlier, adjusted for a stock split, the company said in a statement. Visa, led by Chief Executive Officer, Charlie

Scharf, is investing in new technology aimed at accelerating mobile and other forms of digital payments and striking deals with merchants as consumers demand more rewards. Spending on the network increased even as consumers spent less at the pump amid lower gas prices in the US. “While the negative impacts from the strengthening of the US dollar and lower gasoline prices continued to exert pressure on revenue growth, our results and volume trends have remained strong,” Scharf said in the state-

ment. Visa revised its EPS growth forecast for the fiscal year ending September 30 to the “low-end of the mid-teens range,” from “mid-teens” on January 29. Revenue in the quarter rose 7.8 per cent to $3.41 billion, beating analysts’ estimates. Six hundred and seventy-six million in incentives tied to winning new deals with banks, Visa said, hurt the total. Operating expenses rose to $1.13 billion as the company spent more on personnel and technology, the statement said. Visa card spending in

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

N16,833,244.57 N16,509,472.5m 8.2 0.0000 13 10.899 7.96 17.01 US$61.39 US$29,512,462,564

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, 2014 Dec, 2013 Feb, 2015 2/5/2014 24/2/2015 11/6/2013 Dec, 2013 Dec, 2013 24/2/2015 28/4/2015 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

It also cited evidence from other countries, which showed the negative effects of fiscal leakages. For instance, according to the FDC, “a study of fiscal leakages in Kerala, India, found that almost 35 per cent of the total tax potential of general sales tax was not tapped in the state. Furthermore, the study shows that the amount of tax leakage was enough to eliminate the US rose 8.3 per cent to $747 billion as growth in Canada, Latin America and the Middle East and Africa region slowed. Cross-border volume, a measure of spending abroad, rose eight per cent, the company said.

the primary account surplus from the economy and could affect fiscal sustainability.” The analysts also stated that leakages are the major reasons for low tax revenues in the country, pointing out that although there is general agreement that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has improved a lot since 2004 by investing in staff training, re-organising some of its operations and automating part of its processes, “these have been inadequate to block leakages.” It contended that evidence of tax leakages could be seen to be “reflection of a culture of corruption and the inefficient tax administration.” The FDC analysts attributed the high level of tax leakage in the country to factors such as weak legal sanctions for defaulters, a narrow tax base, double taxation, illicit financial outflows and use of political influence.

Expert lists benefits of riskbased approach to AML/CFT Tony Chukwunyem

hief Risk and Compliance Officer, Nigerian Export-Import Bank (NEXIM), Dr. Emmanuel Abolo, has said that the adoption of a risk-based approach to the implementation of Anti-Money Laundering and Combating of Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) measures would yield significant benefits for companies, regulators and other parties, including the public. In a paper titled: “Customer due diligence and risk-based approach to AML/CFT” which he delivered at the anti- money laundering and combating of financing of terrorism workshop organised by the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), he argued that if applied effectively, the approach should allow financial institutions and supervisory authorities to be more efficient and effective in their use of resources in addition to minimising the burden on customers. According to him, “a risk-based approach is designed to make it more difficult for criminals to make use of financial institutions due to the increased focus on the identified higher risk activities that are being undertaken by these criminal elements.” He further stated that the approach allows financial institutions to more efficiently and effectively adjust and adapt as new money laundering and terrorist financing methods are identified.

He, however, noted that efforts to combat money laundering and terrorist financing should also be flexible in order to adapt as risks evolve, stressing that financial institutions should use their judgment, knowledge and expertise to develop an appropriate riskbased approach for their particular organisations, structures and business activities. In addition, Abolo said: “Money laundering and terrorist financing risks can be more effectively managed through a risk-based process that assesses all potential risks, and which is built on a true cooperative arrangement between competent authorities and financial institutions. Without cooperation and understanding between these parties, there can be no effective risk-based process.” He warned that money launderers and terrorist organisations have considerable knowledge of the financial sector and take extreme measures to hide their financial activities and make them indistinguishable from legitimate transactions. He, however, emphasised that “a risk-based approach should not be designed to prohibit financial institutions from engaging in transactions with customers or establishing relationships with potential customers, but rather it should assist financial institutions to effectively manage potential money laundering and terrorist financing risks."

Business | News

MONDAY,MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Fuel scarcity: Arik cuts flights, loses $9m DOMINANT The airline enjoys about 45 % of domestic market share Wole Shadare

rik Air said it might be compelled to suspend its operations if aviation fuel crisis, which has compelled the carrier to slash its flight by 80 per cent and incur loses of $9 million, persist. The news about the scarcity of JET A1 came on a day the airline withdrew from the lucrative Lagos-Dubai route, citing loss of revenue amounting to several millions of naira The suspension of operations by Arik Air could have a far-reaching effect on air travel, as the airline enjoys about 45 per cent of domestic market share. Managing Director of the airline, Mr. Chris Ndulue, who briefed the media in Lagos at the weekend, lamented that the carrier had lost $9

Telcos losing 45% SMS revenue CONTINUED FROM PAGE 36

a more socially connected life. The pursuit of better access often makes consumers switch connections from fixed broadband to mobile broadband or the other way around. “The most common reason given by consumers when switching connections concerns changes of location, with around 58 per cent citing this as the primary factor affecting their decision. “The other determining factors include the availability of Internet connections (54 per cent) and better speed or reliability (51 per cent). If Nigerian consumers are provided with consistently good quality connections at all times, irrespective of location, they are likely to spend more time online and remain connected, unaffected by geographically imposed barriers,” the report said. Meanwhile, President of the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), Mr. Lanre Ajayi, noted that Internet access has deepened in the country with the advent of new mobile chat applications, which subscribers’ use at almost zero cost, once they have Internet connection.

Explains stoppage of Dubai route million since April 24, when the scarcity of the commodity started. He explained that though it is not easy to specifically quantify the loss but that the airline could only estimate it. The airline, he disclosed, was loosing close to $1 million on a daily basis due to the scarcity. He explained that Arik consumes between 500,000 and 800,000 litre because of it’s huge operations.

Ndulue stated that the carrier had to go to Accra, Cotonu and Cameroun in search of aviation fuel. “Things are getting worse because we don’t get fuel as we use to get from Port Harcourt and Kano. We have to go to Accra, Cotonu and Cameroun for fuel,” Ndulue said. He explained that for wide body aircraft such A320 and A330, it consumes about for trucks of aviation fuel, adding that

the airline’s operation is quite different from that of international airlines that operate into the country once a day. On the contingency plan put in place by the airline to cushion the effect of the scarcity on its operations, Ndulue explained that last Thursday, only two oil marketers were very active. On the allegation in some quarters that it is because Arik Air owes

major oil marketers that is why they refused to sell aviation fuel to it the Managing Director said that the airline is not indebted to any oil marketer. He said that if the current situation persists, Arik Air may be forced to stop operations till the product is readily available. He appealed to the airline’s passengers that were adversely affected by the development. Meanwhile, Arik has attributed its withdrawal from the lucrative Lagos-

Dubai route to loss of revenue amounting to several millions of naira. Its Managing Director said a challenging wider economic environment in Nigeria as well as increasingly stringent travel regulation controls in the United Arabs Emirates (UAE), contributed to the decision to suspend the service. Ndulue, stated that the policy drastically affected the number of passengers it airlift, forcing it to suspend service to the country.

Business |Stock Watch

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Custodian and Allied: Leveraging on fruitful merger PROSPECTS Sustaining growth agenda through improved earnings Chris Ugwu

ather than appreciating in value, shares of insurance companies admitted on the official list of the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) have remained relatively stagnant with most of the companies remaining at the nominal prices of 50 kobo at which they were quoted in the market. When companies approach the equities market for listing of their shares, the quoted nominal value is usually 50 kobo as against the actual price they are being sold to the investing public. Since the crash of the nation’s capital market in 2008 negative perception has trailed the subsector, which was compounded by that inability of about 85 per cent of the companies in the industry to pay dividend to shareholders for many years. There are, however, some challenges facing the insurance industry, chiefly among which have remained low penetration due to wrong perception as most people undertake the insurance policies out of compulsion rather than as a necessity. This has resulted in a situation where most players operate in abyss. However, while the overall economic and business climate remained a mixed grill for insurance companies, Custodian and Allied Insurance has weathered the storm and remained the toast of investors with an upward trend in its share prices and financials. Successful merger Stockbrokers attributed investors’ sustained confidence in the stock despite the lull in the stock market to the favorable underwriting income from the insurance of the company after a successful merger was consummated between Custodian and Allied Insurance Plc and Crusader Nigeria Plc. In June 2013, following regulatory and legal approvals, Custodian and Allied Insurance Plc and Crusader Nigeria Plc merged to form Custodian and Allied Plc, which came into existence in June last year. Despite the sell-off in the market following massive profit taking that saw the market lose considerable chunk of investors’ wealth, Custodian and Allied’s share price, which closed at N3.25 per share on May 31, 2014, stood at N4.20 when the closing bell rang last Friday, accounting for an increase of 95 kobo or 29.23 per cent year to date.

Share price movement of Custodian and Allied

Corporate profile Custodian and Allied Insurance Plc is a general insurance business. The principal activities of the company are to develop, package and deliver insurance products within the areas of personal cover, business cover and special risk. Personal cover provides insurance services such as vehicle, homeowners, accident and boat owner/yacht insurances. Business cover offers insurance services such as business interruption, burglary/housebreaking, electronic equipment insurance, employee dishonesty (fidelity guarantee), marine hull, marine cargo and all risks insurances. Special risk provides insurance services such as oil/ gas, directors & officers liability, credit card protection, aviation and debit card protection insurances. Listed in the Other Financial Services Sector of the Daily Official List of the Exchange, Custodian and Allied Plc’s subsidiary is CAI Trustees Limited. Financials Custodian and Allied Plc commenced the year 2014 on impressive ground with a 90.7 per cent growth in pre-tax profit for the first quarter ended March 31, 2014. According to statement from the company, its profit before tax for the first quarter of 2014 stood at N1.1 billion, representing a 90.7 per cent increase on the N587 million it declared in the corresponding period of 2013. The rise in profit was a reflection of the insurance investment holding company’s expertise. The company’s gross written premium during the period under review was N5.9 billion, as against the N4.1 billion written in the same period of 2013. This represented a growth of 41.8 per cent. The firm’s asset base increased to N47.6 billion in the first quarter of 2014 from N45.6 billion as of December 31, 2013. This indicated a 4.2 per cent growth in asset base within a three-month period. Trend in profitability continued in the second quarter, as the underwritten firm announced an unaudited profit before tax of N2.751 billion and profit after tax of N2.276 billion for the halfyear period ended June 30, 2014. The result represents an increase of over 100 per cent over the N1.137 billion profit after tax recorded in the corresponding period of 2013. Similarly, shareholders’ funds grew by 9.34 per cent to N20.88 billion from N19.09 billion as at June 30, 2013, while total assets stood at N48.2 billion, compared with N45.6 billion reported as at June 30, 2013. The underwritten company continued with good numbers, recording 54 per cent increase in profit after tax for the third quar-

2014 May 30

N3.25

Jun 30

N3.70

Jul 31

N3.93

Aug 31

N3.88

Sept 30

N4.30

Oct 31

N3.80

Nov 30

N4.00

Dec 31

N3.62

2015 Jan 31

N3.91

Feb 28

N2.66

Mar 31

N4.00

Apr 30

N4.20

has proposed the payment of an additional 12 kobo per share as final dividend, bringing the total dividend to 18 kobo per share in respect of the results of 2014 financial year. According to the statement, the audited result demonstrates Custodian’s resilience in a challenging operating environment.

Oshin

Improved result was achieved on the back of favorable underwriting income

ter ended September 30, 2014. The group reported profit after tax of N3.2 billion for the nine months period over the N2.06 billion recorded in the corresponding period of 2013, representing an increase of 54 per cent. The company’s revenue grew to 12 per cent, from N16.211 billion in 2013 to N18.487 billion in 2014. Shareholders’ funds also increased by 11 per cent to N21.2 billion from N19.1 billion as at December 31, 2013, while total assets stood at N49.9 billion compared with N45.6 billion reported as at December 31, 2013. Custodian continues to maintain its leadership position in terms of positive bottom line as its consolidated annual results for the year ended 31 December 2014, had showed that it made a pre-tax profit of N5.15 billion. The group’s total assets base rose to N48.9 billion, while its profit before tax and profit after tax were N5.15 billion and N4.09 billion respectively, indicating a year-on-year growth of 19 per cent in profit before tax. A statement from the company said that in furtherance of its commitment to regular dividend payment to shareholders, an interim dividend of six kobo per share was paid in September 2014. It added that following the release of the audited results for the year, the Board of Directors

Profit drivers/outlook The company’s Chief Finance Officer, Mr. Ademola Ajuwon, said that the improved result was achieved on the back of favorable underwriting income from the insurance subsidiaries and remarkable efficiency gains group-wide. Ajuwon said: ‘The performance is a concise representation of Custodian and Allied Plc’s unrelenting commitment to its corporate ideal of exceeding customer and other stakeholders’ expectations at all times as demonstrated daily through customer focus, comprehensive systems, processes and operations integration. “Barring any unforeseen adverse developments, management is confident that the company’s well-articulated business plans and forecast will be achieved in the short, medium and long terms, ultimately benefiting all stakeholders,” he said. According to the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Oluwole Oshin, the performance presents, in concrete terms, the result of the company’s unwavering customer focus, comprehensive systems, processes and operations integration; coupled with unrelenting commitment to its corporate ideal of exceeding customers and other stakeholders’ expectations at all times. “We will continue to ensure that our products and services are customer-driven; even as we strive to position our subsidiaries to become Africa’s insurers of choice,” he said.

RELIEF The scheme offers free medical consultation and medication to over 28m subscribers

Kunle Azeez

igeria’s indigenous telecoms operator, Globacom, has partnered over 8,000 hospitals to offer its customers and other Nigerians who subscriber to its Mobile Health Insurance scheme free medical consultation and medication in the country. Glo said that the insurance product would afford Nigerians the opportunity to have quality access to quality health care delivery system. Speaking at the launch of the product in Abuja, Globacom’s Regional Chief Marketing Officer, Mr. Ashok Israni, stated that subscribers on the Glo network using the product would be able to access basic information about Health Insurance Scheme at the touch of their phones. Israni, in a statement,

Insurance

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Glo partners 8,000 hospitals said the package was developed in partnership with the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) to take health care delivery to millions of Nigerians through telephone handsets. “There are millions of Nigerians yet to tap into the immense benefits of health insurance. This initiative will open a viable avenue for some of these people to come under the health insurance coverage, enabling them to sign up for one of the many Health Management Organisations accommodated in the scheme,” said Israni. According to him, Glo subscribers are required to dial a dedicated code on their mobile phones and be instantly admitted to the Glo Health platform, where they can follow a simple registration process. “Once they subscribe, Globacom customers will be able to use their mobile phones for pre-defined medical treatment for which affordable premiums are remitted through the subscribers’ mobile phone,” he said. The platform, accord-

ing to Israni, also guarantees Globacom customers and other Nigerians free medical consultation and medication in over 8,000 hospitals in the country. Israni said Globacom’s package comes with supply of drugs free of charge from NHIS accredited operators across the country for subscribers who are consistent in the payment of their premiums. He explained that the premiums have been deliberately made affordable for virtually every-

one, saying “subscribers can pay N35 per day, N250 per week or N1, 000 per month to qualify to benefit from the mobile insurance package.” According to him, “We do not know when we will fall sick and require medical attention. The beauty of health insurance is that it takes away the burden of worrying whether you will have any money left in your account or in your wallet when next you fall sick. With health insurance cover, anytime you

fall sick, you can rest assured that you will have access to quality medical treatment even if you have nothing left in your wallet or in your bank account.” He said the product will go a long way in realizing the national objective of extending health insurance to Nigerians regardless of their financial status or social class. “Together with our partners, Salt & Einstein MTS and NHIS, Globacom is committed

to achieving universal health coverage for all Nigerians within the shortest time possible,” Israni concluded. in his remarks, the immediate former Chief Executive Officer of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHS), Dr. Femi Thomas, commended Globacom for providing its infrastructure for the project. He said the contribution of Globacom in the national effort to bring quality health to Nigerians is much appreciated.

Royal Exchange offers health insurance to blind pupils Sunday Ojeme

s part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Royal Exchange Plc has provided free health insurance to staff and pupils of Pacelli School for the Blind & Partially Sighted in Lagos. The gesture, which is for a one-year period at the first instance, also included educational learning aids for the school, according to a statement from the bank. Speaking at the presentation, the Group Managing Director of the company, Chike Mokwunye, pointed out that one of the main objectives of the firm’s corporate social responsibility was to impart knowledge and assist the less privileged in the society whenever the need arises. He added that as a responsible corporate citizen, the firm must be willing to offer a helping hand to those in society who need the support to become better citizens tomorrow. He said, “As children

who already are at a disadvantage due to no faults of theirs, our aim is to make sure they learn valuable vocational and educational skills which in turn would make them more that capable of leading normal lives as responsible citizens who can fend for themselves and not be dependent on the larger society for any form of assistance.” He commended the principal, teaching and other ancillary staff of the school for their humanitarian efforts in ensuring the students have the best education available to them. Responding to the gesture, the Principal, Rev. Sister Jane Onyeneri, said, "The offer of health insurance to all the pupils of the school, including the teaching and non-teaching staff is a noble gesture which will go a long way in ensuring that the students and staff are in the best of health throughout the year, while the students will also make good use of the learning and mobility tools provided by Royal Exchange."

L-R: Manager, Events and Sponsorship, Etisalat Nigeria, Ora Egwu; Top 12 Contestant, Oyinkepreye Toun; Executive Director, OMG, Ugochi Pedro; Head, Events and Sponsorship, Etisalat Nigeria, Modupe Thanni and another Top 12 Contestant, Ogunrombi Olakunle, during the unveiling of Nigeria Idol Top 12 contestants at OMG's Dream Studios in Lagos

NAICOM approves Akinboye as SA Insurance MD EXPERIENCE The new helsman has garnered experience overtime Sunday Ojeme

he National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has approved the appointment of Mr. Bode Akinboye as the new Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the insurance firm. The new Chief Executive officer has assumed office after leading his private firm’s af-

filiate establishment, Gemrock Management Company Limited, to acquire strategic stake in the underwriting company in December 2014. Akinboye joined Standard Alliance Insurance Plc from Industrial and General Insurance Company (IGI) in 1997 as Financial Controller. He was later promoted AGM/Group Head, Financial Institutions, Oil and Energy. Thereafter, he was given the challenge to set up the life insurance subsidiary, Standard Alliance Life Assurance Limited, which he consequently headed as the founding Chief Executive Officer. He successfully positioned

the company as an innovative life and pension outfit before he was appointed the Deputy Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer of Standard Alliance and later confirmed as its Managing Director in 2003. In 2007, he became the Group Managing Director/Chief Operating Officer responsible for supervising all the Chief Executives of member-companies under Standard Alliance Group. Akinboye is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA); Member, Nigerian Institute of Management (MNIM); Member, Institute of Directors (IoD) and an Alumnus of Lagos Business School (LBS), Pan African University.

Business | Insurance

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

TECHNOLOGY Technological evolution is affecting business

uncorp Commercial Insurance CEO, Anthony Day, has challenged brokers to “go on the attack” in the face of technological change and greater competition. “The opportunity is for all of us to change our business model and adapt to the rapidly changing customer of the future,” he told last week’s Steadfast Convention. i n s u ra n c e n e w s. a u pointed out day told brokers to capitalise on their capabilities. “The unique relationship brokers have with customers is what all the disrupters in every industry are looking for,” he said. He says brokers’ ability for constant interaction with customers “not just once a year”, being trusted and having deep knowledge of clients are what the digital world is trying to achieve. Digital disruptors such as Google and Amazon are working to identify the characteristics and needs of each customer, but brokers are ideally positioned to meet customers’ needs because they know their clients. “In the past the focus was on products but now

L-R: Managing Director/CEO, Associated Discounts House Limited (ADH), Mr. Abubakar Jimoh; Chairman, Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imokhuede and Company Secretary, Mrs. Cornelia Utuk, at the Company’s 21st annual general meeting in Lagos. PHOTO: GODWIN IREKHE

Expert to brokers: Innovate or perish the focus has to be on customer interaction.” Day says demographics, technology, changing lifestyles and buying preferences are creating a more splintered range of customers. Companies that do not cater to the preferences and behaviours of Baby

Boomers and generations X and Y and soon Z “will simply become irrelevant”. He urges the industry to use the fresh thinking of its employees, including that of the four generations in the workplace. Suncorp is training its staff how to react to cus-

tomers’ different personas, and he says brokers do this naturally. “Traditional scripts do not work. We need to customise to the individual.” Brokers must look to their businesses and how they communicate and meet the changing needs of customers.

Continental Re plans expansion through acquisition FUND RAISING The firm plans to raise significant capital this year Sunday Ojeme

ontinental Reinsurance Plc has said it plans to expand to other parts of the continent in the next three years by way of African acquisition. The Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr Femi Oyetunji, said that in each of the company’s five African regions, one subsidiary has been given the responsibility to look for acquisitions. “A few names have come up in each region and we’re assessing them strategically at the board level.” The report says that Continental Reinsurance plans to “raise significant capital” this year through equity sales to enable it to “take advantage of opportunities that abound in Nigeria and Africa.” The Continental Re boss stated that the fundraising was initially planned for last year and delayed so that Continental could put in

place a new investor to replace Emerging Capital Partners LLC. He said that Emerging Capital, a Washington-based buyout firm, announced plans to sell its majority stake in Continental Reinsurance last year. “The investor is very close to concluding the exercise and will announce the preferred bidder for its 54 percent stake soon,” he added. Speaking on just concluded elections, he said that the March presidential election has bolstered investor confidence in Nigeria. “With the peaceful conclusion of elections, business optimism has grown and people are going to be investing.” Continental Reinsurance Plc, one of the two registered reinsurance companies in the country, said it is in the process of shoring up its brand with the aim of fostering rapid growth and expansion across the African continental market. Last year, Oyetunji said the new expansion plan of the firm would help it build financial and technical capacity in local markets with a view to building a pan-African commitment from its stakeholders as it expand across the continent. "We remain true to our mis-

sion of being the premier panAfrican reinsurer, committed to the long term prospects of the continent. We are now stepping up how we translate this commitment to build local capacity and provide local solutions, which combined will result in industrywide development," he said. He said the reinsurance firm hopes to localise market development and bring its strong points to bear on new locations as it strategises to expand its operations across the continent. A sustainable presence bodes for acceptance in these new markets and its dedication to pan-African growth will be facilitated in return, he added. Oyetunji said the reinsurer, which is currently operating in more than 46 countries across the continent, planned to use its subsidiaries as hubs and build local markets by employing highly skilled local professionals with strong local market knowledge and experience. "We see localisation as a way to grow the market, but also to develop solutions that are more apt for the local market, and to ensure sustainability and responsible local corporate citizenship in the markets we operate in.

Day returned recently from Europe and the US, where he met reinsurers and investors. He says while insurer and reinsurer returns continue to be strong, there is concern about the global economy. Australia’s stable economy is attracting increased capital and competition to the insurance market “and there are disruptors looking for industries and environments like ours”. While this can deliver a short-term benefit to customers through increased capacity, it can lead to longer-term issues for competition, not only for insurers but also for brokers. SMEs here are “doing it tough”, Mr Day said. They are becoming riskaverse and looking to protect their businesses, and that provides an opportunity. Customers across

many sectors feel the internet has empowered them, and the most recent Vero SME Insurance Index shows business owners want to have more control over their insurance decisions. Many young entrepreneurs, particularly women, feel they can buy insurance without the help of any adviser. “There’s no doubt the technological evolution is affecting your business,” Mr Day said. “But you need to embrace it, to become part of it.” Brokers can increase their use of online and mobile channels, and use search engine optimisation. Customers have access to large amounts of information but are also suffering “information overload”, particularly if they are time-poor SME business owners. “This is your opportunity to help,” Day said. Social media should be seen as an opportunity to gain referrals and to tell potential customers that using a broker can save them money and ensure they get the right cover at the right price.

President, Nigerian Council of Registered Insurance Brokers, Ayodapo Shoderu

Business | Financial Market News

MONDAY,MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

FMDQ Daily Quotations List

30-Apr-15

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 ^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 15.54 13-FEB-2020 ^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)

Maturity Date

TTM (Yrs)

Bid Yield (%)

Offer Yield (%)

Bid Price

Offer Price

16-Aug-13 27-Apr-12 27-Jul-07 31-Aug-07 30-May-08 29-Jun-12 23-Oct-09 13-Feb-15 27-Jan-12 14-Mar-14 28-Nov-08 22-May-09 20-Nov-09 23-Jul-10 18-Jul-14

13.05 15.10 9.85 9.35 10.70 16.00 7.00 15.54 16.39 14.20 15.00 12.49 8.50 10.00 12.1493

581.39 476.80 20.00 100.00 300.00 351.30 233.90 98.31 600.00 524.68 75.00 150.00 200.00 591.57 279.50

16-Aug-16 27-Apr-17 27-Jul-17 31-Aug-17 30-May-18 29-Jun-19 23-Oct-19 13-Feb-20 27-Jan-22 14-Mar-24 28-Nov-28 22-May-29 20-Nov-29 23-Jul-30 18-Jul-34

1.30 1.99 2.24 2.34 3.08 4.16 4.48 4.79 6.75 8.87 13.58 14.06 14.56 15.23 19.22

14.01 14.09 14.08 14.08 14.06 14.03 14.04 14.05 14.11 14.06 16.74 17.14 17.60 15.51 14.09

13.88 14.00 14.00 14.00 13.93 13.94 13.93 13.96 14.04 14.00 16.68 17.07 17.50 15.44 14.04

98.84 101.71 92.05 90.83 91.81 106.00 77.16 105.01 109.65 100.64 90.76 75.54 52.72 68.07 87.17

98.99 101.86 92.20 90.98 92.11 106.30 77.46 105.31 109.95 100.94 91.06 75.84 53.02 68.37 87.47

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

4,582.44

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

4,231.29

Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description

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 2.40 112.22 116.70 66.49

24-May-15 03-Apr-17 08-Dec-16 19-Apr-17 06-Jul-17

0.07 1.05 1.61 1.97 2.18

2.63 2.27 2.00 2.69 2.85

13.32 16.71 16.04 16.77 16.93

99.08 100.56 99.89 100.03 96.35

Agency Bonds FMBN ***LCRM

0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 08-DEC-2016 0.00/16.50 LCRM II 19-APR-2017 0.00/16.50 LCRM III 06-JUL-2017

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

322.38

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

319.65

Sub-National Bonds A/Agusto

KADUNA

12.50 KADUNA 31-AUG-2015

31-Aug-10

12.50

8.50

31-Aug-15

0.34

4.44

17.34

98.36

A-/Agusto

*EBONYI

13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015

30-Sep-10

13.00

2.16

30-Sep-15

0.42

3.23

16.38

98.63

BBB+/Agusto

*BENUE

14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-11

14.00

4.86

30-Jun-16

0.69

4.46

18.27

15.50 IMO 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-09

15.50

5.73

30-Jun-16

0.69

3.48

17.29

98.82

19-Apr-10

10.00

57.00

19-Apr-17

1.97

1.31

15.39

91.11

‡ /Agusto

*IMO

97.33

A+/Agusto; ‡ /GCR

LAGOS

10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017

‡ /Agusto

*BAYELSA

13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017

30-Jun-10

13.75

25.73

30-Jun-17

1.23

1.00

15.27

98.33

‡ /Agusto

EDO

14.00 EDO 31-DEC-2017

30-Dec-10

14.00

25.00

31-Dec-17

2.67

1.79

15.86

96.02

‡ /Agusto; A+/GCR

*DELTA

14.00 DELTA 30-SEP-2018

30-Sep-11

14.00

30.81

30-Sep-18

2.05

1.80

15.89

96.87

Bb-/Agusto; A-/GCR

NIGER

14.00 NIGER II 4-OCT-2018

04-Oct-11

14.00

9.00

04-Oct-18

2.06

1.00

15.09

98.14

‡ /Agusto; A-/GCR†

*EKITI

14.50 EKITI 09-DEC-2018

09-Dec-11

14.50

13.73

09-Dec-18

2.04

1.00

15.09

98.99

Bb-/Agusto

*NIGER

14.00 NIGER III 12-DEC-2018

12-Dec-13

14.00

10.20

12-Dec-18

2.04

4.78

18.87

92.37

‡ /Agusto; A-/GCR

*ONDO

15.50 ONDO 14-FEB-2019

14-Feb-12

15.50

27.00

14-Feb-19

2.24

1.00

15.08

100.68

BBB+/Agusto; A-/GCR Aa-/Agusto; ‡ /GCR

*GOMBE LAGOS

15.50 GOMBE 02-OCT-2019 14.50 LAGOS 22-NOV-2019

BBB-/Agusto; BBB+/GCR

*OSUN

14.75 OSUN 12-DEC-2019

02-Oct-12 22-Nov-12 12-Dec-12

15.50 14.50 14.75

15.09 80.00 25.70

02-Oct-19 22-Nov-19 12-Dec-19

2.67 4.56 2.64

1.00 1.00 1.00

15.07 15.04 15.07

100.83 98.24 99.33

BBB-/Agusto

*OSUN

14.75 OSUN II 10-OCT-2020

10-Oct-13

14.75

10.78

10-Oct-20

3.18

1.00

15.05

99.27

Aa-/Agusto; ‡ /GCR

LAGOS

13.50 LAGOS 27-NOV-2020

27-Nov-13

13.50

87.50

27-Nov-20

5.58

1.00

15.08

94.14

A-/Agusto; BBB+/DataPro

KOGI

15.00 KOGI 31-DEC-2020

31-Dec-13

15.00

5.00

31-Dec-20

5.67

1.00

15.09

99.62

‡ /Agusto A-/GCR

*EKITI *NASARAWA

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

31-Dec-13

14.50

4.55

31-Dec-20

3.33

1.44

15.49

97.57

06-Jan-14

15.00

4.56

06-Jan-21

3.36

1.00

15.05

99.82

98.87

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

452.88 437.36

Corporate Bonds BBB+/Agusto BBB-/Agusto

*UPDC

10.00 UPDC 17-AUG-2015

17-Aug-10

10.00

2.50

17-Aug-15

0.30

1.00

13.80

*FLOURMILLS

12.00 FLOURMILLS 9-DEC-2015

09-Dec-10

12.00

18.75

09-Dec-15

0.36

1.00

13.98

99.30

BB/GCR

*CHELLARAMS

14.00 CHELLARAMS 06-JAN-2016

06-Jan-11

14.00

0.42

06-Jan-16

0.44

2.63

15.85

99.24

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

NAHCO

13.00 NAHCO 29-SEP-2016

29-Sep-11

13.00

15.00

29-Sep-16

1.42

1.00

15.11

97.37

A-/Agusto

FSDH

14.25 FSDH 25-OCT-2016

25-Oct-13

14.25

5.53

25-Oct-16

1.49

1.34

15.38

98.54

A/GCR

UBA

13.00 UBA 30-SEP-2017

30-Sep-10

13.00

20.00

30-Sep-17

2.42

1.00

15.08

95.89

BBB-/GCR

18.00 C&I LEASING 30-NOV-2017

30-Nov-12

18.00

0.64

30-Nov-17

1.44

1.88

15.97

103.22

Nil

*C & I LEASING *DANA#{r}

MPR+7.00 DANA 9-APR-2018

09-Apr-11

16.00

5.40

09-Apr-18

1.69

1.00

15.05

101.33

A-/DataPro†; B+/GCR

*TOWER#

MPR+7.00 TOWER 9-SEP-2018

09-Sep-11

18.00

2.54

09-Sep-18

1.86

1.00

15.07

104.39

AAA/DataPro†; A/GCR

*TOWER#

MPR+5.25 TOWER 9-SEP-2018

09-Sep-11

16.00

0.70

09-Sep-18

1.86

1.00

15.07

101.35

A+/Agusto; A/GCR

UBA

14.00 UBA II 22-SEP-2018

22-Sep-11

14.00

35.00

22-Sep-18

3.40

3.00

17.05

92.34

BBB+/Agusto; BBB+/GCR

15.75 LA CASERA 18-OCT-2018

18-Oct-13

15.75

2.10

18-Oct-18

1.97

2.29

16.37

98.98

BBB-/DataPro†; BB/GCR

*LA CASERA *CHELLARAMS#

MPR+5.00 CHELLARAMS II 17-FEB-2019

17-Feb-12

18.00

0.36

17-Feb-19

2.05

6.11

20.20

96.60

Nil

*DANA#{r}

16.00 DANA II 1-APR-2019

01-Apr-14

16.00

4.50

01-Apr-19

2.67

2.16

16.23

99.49

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

NAHCO

15.25 NAHCO II 14-NOV-2020

14-Nov-13

15.25

2.05

14-Nov-20

5.54

2.76

16.84

94.39

A/GCR

UBA

16.45 UBA I 30-DEC-2021

30-Dec-14

16.45

30.50

30-Dec-21

6.67

1.13

15.25

104.83

A/GCR

STANBIC IBTC

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

30-Sep-14

11.93

0.10

30-Sep-24

9.42

1.00

15.29

83.45

A/GCR

STANBIC IBTC

13.25 STANBIC IB 30-SEP-2024

30-Sep-14

13.25

15.44

30-Sep-24

9.42

1.00

15.29

89.95

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

161.53

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

157.34

Supranational Bond AAA/S&P

IFC

10.20 IFC 11-FEB-2018

11-Feb-13

10.20

12.00

11-Feb-18

2.79

1.00

15.06

89.21

Aaa/Moody's; AAA/S&P

AfDB

11.25 AFDB 1-FEB-2021

10-Jul-14

11.25

12.95

01-Feb-21

4.75

1.00

15.05

85.53

Bid Price

Offer Price

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

24.95 21.78

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

5.26

5.07

107.26

108.25

5.13 JUL 12, 2018

12-Jul-13

5.13

500.00

12-Jul-18

4.31

4.01

102.41

103.31

6.38 JUL 12, 2023

12-Jul-13

6.38

500.00

12-Jul-23

5.57

5.43

105.25

106.20

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

1,574.57

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

GTBANK PLC I

7.50 MAY 19, 2016

19-May-11

7.50

500.00

19-May-16

6.50

4.12

100.98

103.41

B+/S&P

ACCESS BANK PLC

7.25 JUL 25, 2017

25-Jul-12

7.25

350.00

25-Jul-17

7.34

99.80

B/Fitch; B/S&P

FIDELITY BANK PLC

6.88 MAY 09, 2018

09-May-13

6.88

300.00

02-May-18

10.40

9.47

91.09

93.35

B+/Fitch; B+/S&P

GTBANK PLC

6.00 NOV 08, 2018

08-Nov-13

6.00

400.00

08-Nov-18

7.39

6.90

95.76

97.24

B+/Fitch; BB-/S&P

ZENITH BANK PLC

6.25 APR 22, 2019

22-Apr-14

6.25

500.00

22-Apr-19

6.98

97.50

B/Fitch; B/S&P

DIAMOND BANK PLC

8.75 May 21, 2019

21-May-14

8.75

200.00

21-May-19

10.79

10.13

93.43

95.49

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

FIRST BANK PLC ACCESS BANK PLC II FIRST BANK LTD

8.25 AUG 07, 2020 9.25/6M USD LIBOR+7.677 JUN 24, 2021 8.00/2Y USD SWAP+6.488 JUL 23 2021

07-Aug-13 24-Jun-14 23-Jul-14

8.25 9.25 8.00

300.00 400.00 450.00

07-Aug-20 24-Jun-21 23-Jul-21

8.74 10.63 9.07

8.74 10.20 9.07

97.21 93.94 94.15

97.21 95.80 94.15

B-/S&P

ECOBANK NIG. LTD

8.75 AUG 14, 2021

14-Aug-14

8.75

250.00

14-Aug-21

10.16

9.81

92.75

94.25

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

3,650.00

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

3,507.78

**Treasury Bills^ DTM 7 14 21 35 42 56 63 70

FIXINGS Maturity 7-May-15 14-May-15 21-May-15 4-Jun-15 11-Jun-15 25-Jun-15 2-Jul-15 9-Jul-15

Bid Discount (%) 4.11 8.96 12.58 10.64 11.85 11.40 11.87 10.25

Offer Discount (%) 3.86 8.71 12.33 10.39 11.60 11.15 11.62 10.00

Bid Yield (%) 4.11 8.99 12.67 10.75 12.01 11.60 12.12 10.46

Money Market Tenor

NIBOR Tenor O/N 1M 3M 6M

Rate (%) 9.4583 12.8783 13.9314 15.1624

Rate (%)

OBB

8.25

O/N

8.79

Tenor Call 1M

REPO

Rate (%) 10.00 10.25

Foreign Exchange (Spot & Forwards) Tenor

Bid ($/N)

Offer ($/N)

Spot 7D 14D 1M 2M 3M

197.89 201.81 202.13 202.87 204.24 205.60

197.99 201.93 202.28 203.37 205.31 207.21

^16.00 29-JUN-2019 7.00 23-OCT-2019 15.54 13-FEB-2020 ^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

29-Jun-12 23-Oct-09 13-Feb-15 27-Jan-12 14-Mar-14 28-Nov-08 22-May-09 20-Nov-09 23-Jul-10 18-Jul-14

16.00 7.00 15.54 16.39 14.20 15.00 12.49 8.50 10.00 12.1493

351.30 233.90 98.31 600.00 524.68 75.00 150.00 200.00 591.57 279.50

29-Jun-19 23-Oct-19 13-Feb-20 27-Jan-22 14-Mar-24 28-Nov-28 22-May-29 20-Nov-29 23-Jul-30 18-Jul-34

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

4,582.44

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

4,231.29

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 Rating/Agency

Issuer

INNOVATION

FMBN

Agency Bonds

Description

Issue Date

A/Agusto

KADUNA

A-/Agusto

*EBONYI

BBB+/Agustoby Chris Ugwu *BENUE Stories

‡ /Agusto

*IMO

LAGOSon its n order to deliver ‡ /Agusto *BAYELSA key mandates of ‡ /Agusto EDOmarket ‡ /Agusto; A+/GCR *DELTA development and goverBb-/Agusto; A-/GCR NIGER nance, FMDQ Plc is to be ‡ /Agusto; A-/GCR† *EKITI positioned as a world class seBb-/Agusto *NIGER ‡ /Agusto; A-/GCR *ONDO curities exchange with three BBB+/Agusto; A-/GCR *GOMBE year’s focus encapsulated in Aa-/Agusto; ‡ /GCR LAGOS BBB-/Agusto; BBB+/GCR *OSUN financial market development, BBB-/Agusto *OSUN Chairman, Plc, Dr. Aa-/Agusto; ‡ /GCRFMDQ OTC LAGOS A-/Agusto; BBB+/DataPro KOGI Sarah Alade, has said. ‡ /Agusto *EKITI She said this while addressA-/GCR *NASARAWA ing shareholders the compaTOTAL OUTSTANDINGat VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION ny’s 3rd annual general meeting (AGM) Lagos. Corporatein Bonds BBB+/Agusto *UPDC Alade, who is also the Deputy A+/Agusto; ‡ /GCR

BBB-/Agusto

*FLOURMILLS

of Nigeria (CBN), said that the Nigerian market will focus 12.50 OTC KADUNA 31-AUG-2015 13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015 on product and market develop14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016 ment 15.50 initiatives that will proIMO 30-JUN-2016 10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017 mote price discovery and trans13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017 parency to all stakeholders. 14.00 EDO 31-DEC-2017 DELTAthat 30-SEP-2018 She14.00 added the initiative 14.00 NIGER II 4-OCT-2018 will also provide quality and re14.50 EKITI 09-DEC-2018 liable market 14.00 NIGERresearch, III 12-DEC-2018promote 15.50 ONDO 14-FEB-2019 education and capacity building 15.50 GOMBE 02-OCT-2019 for stakeholders, foster integra14.50 LAGOS 22-NOV-2019 OSUN 12-DEC-2019 tion of14.75 the markets, increase 14.75 OSUN II 10-OCT-2020 investor and reduce 13.50confidence LAGOS 27-NOV-2020 15.00 KOGI 31-DEC-2020 market failure. 14.50 EKITI II 31-DEC-2020 Alade said that the board 15.00 NASARAWA 06-JAN-2021 of the company developed five guiding principles for the company. She listed them to include UPDC 17-AUG-2015 focus 10.00 on market development; 12.00 FLOURMILLS 9-DEC-2015

0.00 17.25 0.00/16.00 0.00/16.50 0.00/16.50

09-Dec-10 06-Jan-11

14.00

29-Sep-11

13.00

NAHCO

13.00 NAHCO 29-SEP-2016

A-/Agusto

FSDH

14.25 FSDH 25-OCT-2016

25-Oct-13

14.25

A/GCR

UBA

13.00 UBA 30-SEP-2017

30-Sep-10

13.00

BBB-/GCR

*C & I LEASING

18.00 C&I LEASING 30-NOV-2017

30-Nov-12

18.00

0.64

106.00 77.16 105.01 109.65 100.64 90.76 75.54 52.72 68.07 87.17

# Risk Premium (%)

Valuation Yield (%)

2.63 2.27 2.00 2.69 2.85

13.32 16.71 16.04 16.77 16.93

106.30 77.46 105.31 109.95 100.94 91.06 75.84 53.02 68.37 87.47

Indicative Price

14-Aug-14

30-Nov-17

1.44

1.88

15.97

103.22

5.40

09-Apr-18

1.69

1.00

15.05

101.33

09-Sep-18

1.86

1.00

15.07

104.39

0.70

09-Sep-18

1.86

1.00

15.07

101.35

22-Sep-18

3.40

3.00

17.05

92.34

14-Aug-21

10.16

9.81

92.75

94.25

1.97 nvestData18-Oct-18 Consulting 0.36 17-Feb-19 2.05 Limited has concluded 2.67 ar4.50 01-Apr-19 2.05 14-Nov-20 rangements to mobilise 5.54 the 30.50 30-Dec-21 Nigerian investing public6.67 on 0.10 30-Sep-24 9.42 the potential of the nation’s 15.44 30-Sep-24 9.42 161.53 capital market post-general 157.34 elections. The company’s Chief Operat2.79 ing12.00 Officer, Mr.11-Feb-18 Ambrose Omor12.95 01-Feb-21 dion, who disclosed this in 4.75 La24.95 gos, said that the enlightenment 21.78 workshop, tagged: “May 2015 Outstanding Value & ($mm) Beyond: Equity investment Maturity Date Bid Yield (%) made easy,” will widen the scope of domestic investors’ 500.00 28-Jan-21 investment awareness in 5.26 the nation’s capital market. 500.00 12-Jul-18 4.31 He noted that the workshop 500.00 12-Jul-23 5.57 would enlighten investors on 1,500.00 ways to play in the market in a 1,574.57 post-transition period and also centre on post-May 29 market 500.00 19-May-16 6.50 performance for previous elec350.00 25-Jul-17 7.34 tion years and some drivers of 300.00 02-May-18 10.40 the nation's economic growth in 400.00 08-Nov-18 7.39 500.00 22-Apr-19 6.98 the new dispensation. 200.00 21-May-19 10.79 He said that it would also 300.00 07-Aug-20 8.74 afford the 400.00 the investing 24-Jun-21 public 10.63 450.00 9.07 opportunity to23-Jul-21 know the factors

8.75

250.00

16.37 that2.29 would attract foreign98.98 inves6.11 20.20 96.60 tors2.16 to a particular industry 16.23 99.49 or 2.76 16.84 94.39 company . 1.13 15.25 104.83 Omordion noted that inves1.00 15.29 83.45 tors1.00 would also be able to iden15.29 89.95 tify the next growth stocks and how to exit from such companies and avoid any depression 1.00 15.06 89.21 as experienced in recent past. 1.00 85.53 He added that15.05 the capital market would benefit from the recent political evolution in the country . Offer Yield (%) Bid Price Offer Price Omordion advised investors Prices & Yields to reposition their portfolio in 107.26 108.25 line5.07 with the expectations from the 4.01 reforms expected from 102.41 103.31the new5.43 government after May 29. 105.25 106.20 “It is imperative for investors to know which stocks to buy now, sectors to invest in, the stocks to sell and the reasons,’’ 4.12 100.98 103.41 he said. 7.34 99.80 99.80 The InvestData boss noted 9.47 91.09 93.35 that6.90 the market would be large95.76 97.24 6.98 97.50 policy 97.50 ly driven by the of the 10.13 93.43 95.49 incoming government and its 8.74 97.21 97.21 agents in different 10.20 or regulators 93.94 95.80 9.07 listed on 94.15the Exchange. 94.15 sectors

3,650.00

FMDQ Daily Quotations List

TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

was attributable to the fact that transaction fee income in 2013 was4.44 charged only 17.34 in December, 98.36 3.23 16.38 98.63 while 2014 enjoyed the full bene4.46 18.27 97.33 fit of3.48 the recognition of income 17.29 98.82 1.31 full year, 15.39 91.11 for for the accounting 1.00 15.27 98.33 91.291.79 per cent of 15.86total revenue. 96.02 1.80 96.87 on FMDQ had 15.89 recently listed 1.00 15.09 98.14 its platform the United Bank for 1.00 15.09 98.99 4.78 Plc’s N30.50bn 18.87 92.37 Africa bond. 1.00 15.08 100.68 The listed bond was Series-1 1.00 15.07 100.83 of UBA Plc 7-year 16.45 per cent 1.00 15.04 98.24 1.00 15.07 99.33 Fixed Rate Subordinated Unse1.00 15.05 99.27 cured 1.00Notes due 15.08in 2021. 94.14 1.00 15.09 99.62 The listing was the first cor1.44 15.49 97.57 porate bond to be admitted 1.00 15.05 99.82 on the FMDQ Over-The-Counter (OTC) platform following the approval of the FMDQ Bond 1.00 13.80 98.87 Listing and Quotation Rules 1.00 13.98 99.30 by the Securities and Exchange 2.63 15.85 99.24 1.00 15.11 97.37 Commission (SEC) in Decem1.34 15.38 98.54 ber last year. 1.00 15.08 95.89

2.10

#{r}

8.75 AUG 14, 2021

99.08 100.56 99.89 100.03 96.35

2.54

35.00

ECOBANK NIG. LTD

0.07 1.05 1.61 1.97 2.18

InvestData to reposition investors

#{r}

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

24-May-15 03-Apr-17 08-Dec-16 19-Apr-17 06-Jul-17

322.38

9-APR-2018 *DANAhas estle Nigeria Plc released MPR+7.00 on theDANA floor of the goods names09-Apr-11 such as in- 16.00 MPR+7.00 TOWER 9-SEP-2018 09-Sep-11 18.00 *TOWER posted a 50.6 per cent NSE recorded a marginal creased competition across 16.00 MPR+5.25 TOWER 9-SEP-2018 09-Sep-11 AAA/DataPro†; A/GCR *TOWER 1.38 per 14.00 cent in its various product in profit segments, 14.00 UBA IIslide 22-SEP-2018 A+/Agusto;decrease A/GCR 22-Sep-11 UBA beLA CASERA 18-OCT-2018 BBB+/Agusto; BBB+/GCR 18-Oct-13 *LA CASERA reported15.75 profits after tax, insecurity in northern fore tax for the first quarter Nige- 15.75 MPR+5.00 CHELLARAMS II 17-FEB-2019 17-Feb-12 18.00 BBB-/DataPro†; BB/GCR *CHELLARAMS ended March 31, 2015. from N17.099 billion in 2013 ria and lower discretionary 16.00 DANA II 1-APR-2019 01-Apr-14 16.00 Nil *DANA NAHCO II 14-NOV-2020 A+/Agusto; 14-Nov-13 15.25 NAHCO The A-/GCR company, in a filing to N16.86215.25 billion during the income. 16.45 UBA I 30-DEC-2021 A/GCR UBA “While PBT30-Dec-14 was down 24 16.45 with the Nigerian Stock Ex- period under review. 182D T.bills+1.20 STANBIC IA 30-SEP-2024 A/GCR 30-Sep-14 11.93 STANBIC IBTC This was on the back of a change (NSE), posted a profper cent y/y , PAT 13.25 STANBIC IB 30-SEP-2024 A/GCR 30-Sep-14grew by 13.25 STANBIC IBTC TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE it before tax of N3.487 billion modest 7.6 per cent apprecia- around four per cent y/y due TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION compared with N7.071 bil- tion in its gross revenue to to a tax credit of N1.1 billion. lion a year earlier, indicating N102.665 billion in 2014 from A gross margin expansion Supranational Bond 10.20 IFC 11-FEB-2018 IFC aAAA/S&P drop of 50.6 per cent. N95.416 billion in 2013. of 150bps y/y 11-Feb-13 to 42 per cent 10.20 AFDB 1-FEB-2021 Aaa/Moody's; AAA/S&P AfDB 10-Jul-14 Nestle11.25 Nigeria also post- was completely Revenue also dropped to offset by a 11.25 TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE ed a six per cent decrease in N27.556 billion from N33.425 significant (787 per cent y/y) TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION billion in the same period profit before tax for the full rise in finance charges and last year, representing a de- Issueryear ended December 31, an 8 per cent y/y inCoupon (%) Description Rating/Agency Issueincrease Date crease of 17.5 per cent. 2014. The company posted operating expenses. We beFGN Eurobonds The company’s Q2 2014 re- a profit before tax of N24.44 lieve the y/y rise in finance 28, 2021 BB-/Fitch; B+/S&P 07-Oct-11 sults had shown single-digit billion compared6.75 JAN with charges is primarily down 6.75 BB-/Fitch; FGNN26.04 billion a year sales growth for the second earlier, to Nestle’s fx loan exposure 5.13 JUL 12, 2018 12-Jul-13 5.13 BB-/S&P six per and the continued quarter. Sales of N33.8 bil- indicating a drop of6.38 devalua- 6.38 BB-/Fitch; JUL 12, 2023 12-Jul-13 BB-/S&P lion were up six per cent y/y. cent. tion of the naira.” TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE Revenue however, rose to Profit before tax and profit They noted that although TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION after tax grew faster by 11 N143.32 billion, from N133.06 Nestle’s topline growth of Corporate per cent Eurobonds y/y and 13 per cent billion in the same period eight per cent missed man7.50 MAY an 19, 2016 agement double-digit B+/Fitch; GTBANK PLC I last year, representing 19-May-11 y/y toB+/S&P N6.9 billion and N5.8 target 7.50 7.25 JUL 25, 2017 B+/S&P ACCESS BANK PLC 25-Jul-12 billion respectively . increase of eight per cent. for the full year and Q4, they 7.25 6.88 MAY 09, 2018 B/Fitch; B/S&P FIDELITY BANK PLC 09-May-13 6.88 However, dwindling Analysts at FBN Capital expect the growth figure to 6.00 6.00 NOV 08, 2018 B+/Fitch; B+/S&P GTBANK PLC 08-Nov-13 APR 22, 2019 be among the highest B+/Fitch; BB-/S&P ZENITH BANK PLC 22-Apr-14 fortune set in during the said: “It appears that6.25 topline of the 6.25 8.75 May 21, 2019 B/Fitch; B/S&P 21-May-14 third quarter as itsDIAMOND nine-BANK PLC growth is now more chalconsumer names during this 8.75 8.25 AUG 07, 2020 B-/Fitch; B/S&P FIRST BANK PLC 07-Aug-13 8.25 month ended September lenged by similar earnings season, in line with 9.25 9.25/6Mheadwinds USD LIBOR+7.677 JUN 24, 2021 B-/Fitch; B/S&P ACCESS BANK PLC II 24-Jun-14 8.00/2Yconsumer USD SWAP+6.488 JULpast 23 2021 B-/Fitch; B/S&Punaudited FIRST BANK LTDfaced by other 8.00 30, 2014, results trends. 23-Jul-14 B-/S&P

Avg. Life/TTM (Yrs)

319.65 areas for us in 2015,” Alade said. The Managing Director / CEO, Plc, Mr. Bola 8.50 FMDQ OTC 31-Aug-15 0.34 2.16 30-Sep-15 0.42 Onadele, said: “With SEC’s ap4.86 30-Jun-16 0.69 proval listing on FMDQ, 5.73 for bond 30-Jun-16 0.69 1.97 the57.00 service has19-Apr-17 commenced and 25.73 30-Jun-17 1.23 maximum efforts will be direct25.00 31-Dec-17 2.67 2.05 ed 30.81 at ensuring30-Sep-18 that we support 9.00 04-Oct-18 2.06 all13.73 upcoming bond listings on 09-Dec-18 2.04 12-Dec-18 2.04 our10.20 platform as FMDQ is now 27.00 14-Feb-19 2.24 best placed to provide integrated 15.09 02-Oct-19 2.67 service to the debt capital mar80.00 22-Nov-19 4.56 12-Dec-19 2.64 ket25.70 and specifically , to issuing 10.78 10-Oct-20 3.18 houses (sponsors of bond issues 87.50 27-Nov-20 5.58 5.00 31-Dec-20 5.67 on the FMDQ platform) and issu4.55 31-Dec-20 3.33 ers4.56 with value-adding solutions 06-Jan-21 3.36 to452.88 their needs.” 437.36 He noted that as the company launched its first year of opera2.50 FMDQ recorded 17-Aug-15 0.30 tions, revenue 18.75 09-Dec-15 0.36 of N1.75 billion in 2014 compared 0.42 06-Jan-16 0.44 15.00 29-Sep-16in 2013. 1.42 with N155.65 million 5.53 25-Oct-16 1.49 Onadele said30-Sep-17 that the growth 20.00 2.42

12.00

14.00 CHELLARAMS 06-JAN-2016

A-/DataPro†; B+/GCR

Maturity Date

24.56 2.40 112.22 116.70 66.49

focus on the enhancement of market liquidity, transparency and integrity; win share of 31-Aug-10 12.50 30-Sep-10 13.00 mind, by building market ac30-Jun-11 14.00 ceptance and adding value to 30-Jun-09 15.50 19-Apr-10and other 10.00 its members stake30-Jun-10 13.75 holders.30-Dec-10 Others are remaining 14.00 30-Sep-11 14.00 focused on debt market-listings, 04-Oct-11 14.00 quotations and secondary mar09-Dec-11 14.50 12-Dec-13 14.00 ket; and operating a self-sustain14-Feb-12 15.50 ing company with minimal fo02-Oct-12 15.50 cus on profitability on the first 22-Nov-12 14.50 12-Dec-12 14.75 three years. 10-Oct-13 14.75 “The 27-Nov-13 activation of the 13.50 SRO 31-Dec-13 15.00 function and integration of the 31-Dec-13 14.50 FMDQ trading systems to the 06-Jan-14 15.00 clearing and settlement systems of the CBN and CSCS to ensure straight through processing of 17-Aug-10are also key 10.00focus transactions,

*CHELLARAMS

Nil

13.94 13.93 13.96 14.04 14.00 16.68 17.07 17.50 15.44 14.04

Business | Financial Market News

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

Coupon (%)

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

Nestle’s pre-tax profit falls 51% BB/GCR

A+/Agusto; A-/GCR

14.03 14.04 14.05 14.11 14.06 16.74 17.14 17.60 15.51 14.09

FMDQ targets product, market devts 0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 08-DEC-2016 0.00/16.50 LCRM II 19-APR-2017 0.00/16.50 LCRM III 06-JUL-2017

Over-the-counter market ***LCRM focuses on liquidity, TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION transparency and integrity Governor of the Central Bank Sub-National Bonds

4.16 4.48 4.79 6.75 8.87 13.58 14.06 14.56 15.23 19.22

30-Apr-15

3,507.78

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 **Treasury Bills^ FIXINGS Money Market Foreign Exchange (Spot & Forwards) professional,DTM financial or investment advice. We attempt to ensure the Information is accurate; theBidInformation is provided “AS IS” and on an “AS AVAILABLE”Tenor basis and mayRate not(%) be accurate or up to date. We do not guarantee Maturity Bid Discount (%) Offer Discounthowever, (%) Yield (%) NIBOR 7-May-15 4.11neither do we accept liability for the results of any action taken on the basis of the Information. the accuracy,7timeliness, completeness, performance or fitness for4.11 a particular purpose of3.86 any of the Information, OBB 8.25 Tenor Bid ($/N) Offer ($/N) FGN

14 21 35 Bonds 42 56 63 70 Rating/Agency 77 84 91 98 105 119 126 133 147 154 168 NA 217 231 252 266 273 280 287 294 308 322

329 TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE

14-May-15 21-May-15 4-Jun-15 11-Jun-15 25-Jun-15 2-Jul-15 9-Jul-15 Issuer 16-Jul-15 23-Jul-15 30-Jul-15 6-Aug-15 13-Aug-15 27-Aug-15 3-Sep-15 10-Sep-15 24-Sep-15 1-Oct-15 15-Oct-15 NA 3-Dec-15 17-Dec-15 7-Jan-16 21-Jan-16 28-Jan-16 4-Feb-16 11-Feb-16 18-Feb-16 3-Mar-16 17-Mar-16

8.96 12.58 10.64 11.85 11.40 11.87 10.25 Description 11.31 11.49 ^13.05 16-AUG-2016 12.09 11.88 ^15.10 27-APR-2017 11.25 9.85 27-JUL-2017 12.24 9.35 31-AUG-2017 12.02 10.70 30-MAY-2018 12.43 11.94 ^16.00 29-JUN-2019 11.75 7.00 23-OCT-2019 12.49 15.54 13-FEB-2020 13.22 ^16.39 27-JAN-2022 12.94 13.25 ^14.20 14-MAR-2024 13.33 15.00 28-NOV-2028 13.85 12.49 22-MAY-2029 13.42 12.51 8.50 20-NOV-2029 13.59 ^10.00 23-JUL-2030 13.39 ^12.1493 18-JUL-2034 13.02

8.71 12.33 10.39 11.60 11.15 11.62 10.00Date Issue 11.06 11.24 16-Aug-13 11.84 11.63 27-Apr-12 11.00 27-Jul-07 11.99 31-Aug-07 11.77 30-May-08 12.18 11.69 29-Jun-12 11.50 23-Oct-09 12.24 13-Feb-15 12.97 27-Jan-12 12.69 13.00 14-Mar-14 13.08 28-Nov-08 13.60 22-May-09 13.17 12.26 20-Nov-09 13.34 23-Jul-10 13.14 18-Jul-14 12.77

8.99 12.67 10.75 12.01 11.60 12.12 10.46 (%) Coupon 11.59 11.80 13.05 12.46 12.27 15.10 11.63 9.85 12.75 9.35 12.54 10.70 13.01 12.54 16.00 12.36 7.00 13.25 15.54 14.34 16.39 14.09 14.59 14.20 14.76 15.00 15.46 12.49 14.97 13.87 8.50 15.25 10.00 15.10 12.1493 14.71

Bonds

24-Mar-16

13.14

12.89

7-Apr-16

13.28

13.03

15.17

13.11

12.86

15.03

343

357 TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION 21-Apr-16

*for the Amortising bonds, the average life is calculated and not the duration

14.90

Tenor O/N 1M 3M 6M

Rate (%) 9.4583 12.8783 13.9314 15.1624

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

O/N

8.79

REPO

Maturity Date

NITTY

581.39 16-Aug-16 Tenor Rate (%) 1M 10.6657 476.80 27-Apr-17 2M 12.5874 20.00 27-Jul-17 3M 12.6410 100.00 31-Aug-17 6M 12.9611 300.00 30-May-18 9M 13.3938 12M 15.3089 351.30 29-Jun-19 233.90 23-Oct-19 98.31 13-Feb-20 NIFEX 600.00 27-Jan-22 Current Price ($/N) 524.68 14-Mar-24 BID($/N) 199.0000 75.00 28-Nov-28 OFFER ($/N) 199.1000 150.00 22-May-29 200.00 20-Nov-29 591.57 23-Jul-30 279.50 18-Jul-34

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

Rate (%) 10.00 Bid10.25 Yield 10.75 11.00

(%)

1.30 14.01 13.88 1.99 14.09 14.00 NOTE: 2.24 14.08 14.00 :Benchmarks 2.34 14.08 14.00 * :Amortising Bond 3.08Bond 14.06 13.93 µ :Convertible AMCON: Asset of Nigeria 4.16 Management Corporation 14.03 13.94 FGN: Federal Government of Nigeria 4.48 14.04 13.93 FMBN: Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria 4.79 Finance Corporation 14.05 13.96 IFC: International 6.75 14.11 Management 14.04 LCRM: Local Contractors Receivables NAHCO: Nigerian 8.87 Aviation Handling 14.06 Company 14.00 O/N: Overnight 13.58 16.74 16.68 UPDC: UAC Property Development Company 14.06Africa Portland Cement 17.14 Company17.07 WAPCO:West 14.56 17.60 17.50 15.23 15.51 15.44 19.22 14.09 14.04

Rating/Agency

Issuer

Description

FMBN Modified Duration Buckets

***LCRM

TOTAL OUTSTANDING VALUE TOTAL MARKET CAPITALISATION

<3 3<5 >5 Market

0.00 FMB 24-MAY-2015 17.25 FMB II 03-APR-2017 0.00/16.00 LCRM 08-DEC-2016Total Outstanding Porfolio Market Value(Bn) 0.00/16.50 LCRM II 19-APR-2017 Volume(Bn) 0.00/16.50 LCRM III 06-JUL-2017 1,431.91 1,409.48

98.84 98.99 101.71 101.86 92.05 92.20 NA :Not Applicable 90.83 90.98 ^ : Market Prices 91.81 92.11 # : Floating Rate Bond ***: Deferred 106.00coupon bonds 106.30 77.16 77.46 ‡ : Bond rating under review 105.31 †: Bond105.01 rating expired 109.95 N/A :Not109.65 Available {r} :Issuer in receivership100.94 100.64 90.76 91.06 NGC: Nigeria-German Company 75.54Bank for Africa 75.84 UBA: United 52.72 53.02 68.07 68.37 87.17 87.47

4,231.29

Issue Date

Agency Bonds

197.89 197.99 201.81 201.93 202.13 Price 202.28 202.87 203.37 204.24 205.31 205.60 207.21Price Bid Price Offer 206.28 213.47 220.29 226.27

4,582.44

Risk Premium is a combination of credit risk and liquidity risk premiums **Exclusive of non-trading t.bills

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

Coupon (%)

BOND 24-May-12FMDQ FGN0.00 03-Apr-12 17.25 Weighting by Weighting by Mkt 09-Dec-11 0.00/16.00 Outstanding Vol Value 20-Apr-12 0.00/16.50 06-Jul-12 0.00/16.50 41.39 43.87

1,185.90

1,124.68

33.03

36.33

646.30

871.07

25.58

19.80

3,264.11

3,405.23

100.00

Outstanding Value (N'bn)

INDEX 24.56

2.40 Bucket 112.22 Weighting 116.70 66.49 0.41

322.380.33 0.26

319.651.00

Maturity Date

Avg. Life/TTM (Yrs)

24-May-15 03-Apr-17 % Exposure_ 08-Dec-16 Mod_Duration 19-Apr-17 06-Jul-17 19.44

0.07 1.05 1.61 Implied Yield 1.97 2.18 14.04

38.56

14.09

41.99

14.95

100.00

14.44

# Risk Premium (%)

2.63 2.27 Implied 2.00 Portfolio Price 2.69 2.85 104.1534

Valuation Yield (%)

Indicative Price

13.32 16.71 16.04 INDEX 16.77 16.93 1,166.93

99.08 100.56 YTD Return 99.89 (%) 100.03 96.35 5.3329

108.7428

1,085.05

7.1575

77.3305

1,086.89

7.9314

98.8078

1,116.52

5.8129

Sub-National Bonds A/Agusto

KADUNA

12.50 KADUNA 31-AUG-2015

31-Aug-10

12.50

8.50

31-Aug-15

0.34

4.44

17.34

98.36

A-/Agusto

*EBONYI

13.00 EBONYI 30-SEP-2015

30-Sep-10

13.00

2.16

30-Sep-15

0.42

3.23

16.38

98.63

BBB+/Agusto

*BENUE

14.00 BENUE 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-11

14.00

4.86

30-Jun-16

0.69

4.46

18.27

97.33

‡ /Agusto

*IMO

15.50 IMO 30-JUN-2016

30-Jun-09

15.50

5.73

30-Jun-16

0.69

3.48

17.29

98.82

A+/Agusto; ‡ /GCR

LAGOS

10.00 LAGOS 19-APR-2017

19-Apr-10

10.00

57.00

19-Apr-17

1.97

1.31

15.39

91.11

‡ /Agusto

*BAYELSA

13.75 BAYELSA 30-JUN-2017

30-Jun-10

13.75

25.73

30-Jun-17

1.23

1.00

15.27

98.33

‡ /Agusto

EDO

14.00 EDO 31-DEC-2017

30-Dec-10

14.00

25.00

31-Dec-17

2.67

1.79

15.86

96.02

Business | Interview

MONDAY,MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Banks need restructuring to boost food security –MD, Bama Farms Ltd. Mr. Wale Oyekoya is the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Bama Farms Ltd. The graduate of Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, Huntsville AL, USA, bares his mind on the need for commercial banks to reduce interest rate to farmers and the planned privatisation of Bank of Agricuture (BoA), among other issues in this interview with DELE ALAO What is your assessment of the agric sector in Nigeria? We still have a long way to go in the agricultural sector in Nigeria, especially with the population that is soaring almost about five million growth every year. We still have a very long way to go for us to be able to meet up with the demands of the population of the country, especially in terms of agricultural mechanisation, which I believe, is the only way that can ease the population growth in the country with sufficient food. How can you relate the Federal Government’s mechanisation scheme to your argument that mechanisation is the way to go to ensure food security? As I always say, successive governments have always had laudable programmes and very good policies, but implementation of those policies and programmes is the problem. If we have done the mechanisation the way they have been talking about, we are supposed to have abundance of food with less price that common people can be able to afford. But it is not so. I believe that if we have gone to commercialise our agric, we should be able to have some of our youths tap into this sector but they have not been able to do that. How will you describe the Federal Government’s Agricultural Transformation Agenda (ATA) vis-

à-vis its aim to provide farm inputs such as fertilizers and seedlings, among others, to farmers at subsidised rates? Well, I call it an infamous Agricultural Transformation Agenda in the sense that its implementation is not so good. Just as I said earlier, implementation of many government programmes and policies is the problem. The implementation of the ATA has not been encouraging, going by feelers around. The propaganda around ATA is just too much and we need more of reality than propaganda and lies. With all the money committed to the Agricultural Transformation Agenda, we are not supposed to be importing food at this stage, but unfortunately, 80 per cent of the foods we eat in this country are still being imported. So, what are we transforming? Are we transforming some peoples ‘pockets or we are transforming people’s stomachs? If you look around us again, most of the foods we eat are being imported through our porous borders. When government announced the increase in the tariff on rice, people stop red the importation of the commodity through our ports and started bringing in rice from Cotonou, Togo and other neighbouring countries. So, if the Agricultural Transformation Agenda is working, I don’t think we

Oyekoya

have to find ourselves in a mess where we spend almost about a trillion naira importing food into the country.

Portfolio farmers are the ones benefiting from the grants and loans

How would you then describe the country’s agriculture practice? The agric practice in Nigeria is still in the hands of the subsistence farmers. And I have always urged our governments to really move from subsistence farming to mechanised farming, into providing modern tools to our youths in order for the old ages in the agric sector to really give way for the youths. So, our practice is still in a very local way. And with our population that is really rising, we need to do more of mechanised farming, providing modern tools to farmers and, at the same time, bring in technology, because the whole world has gone to technology, we cannot depend on our hoes and cutlasses to till the ground anymore. But, in terms of funding the sector, do you think that governments at

various levels have done well? To me, they have not really done adequately well. I could say that they have done a little bit part of it. But the money is not being given to the real farmers. I think we have got a lot of differences in the way the farmers are living in this country. But, I still believe that most of the money is still being given to the political or portfolio farmers. Portfolio farmers are the people that just have briefcases, they said they have land somewhere and they have property to secure these loans. And they are the people benefiting from all the agriculture grants, loans and schemes that are coming out. I think that most of the real farmers should have access to these funds and they should be allowed to use what they have on their farms as collateral because most farmers in Nigeria are poor. What is your view on the role the financial institutions like banks in agricultural financing? The banks have always been

Business | Interview

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

The company Bama Farms Ltd Founded 2005 Assets under managment Nil

Membership of professional body Chairman Agric Group, Lagos Chamber of Commerce &Industry, LCCI (2012 – Date); All Farmers Association of Nigeria, AFAN Poultry Association of Nigeria, PAN Lagos State Catfish Association, LASCAFAN

the problem of farmers in this country. I have said it several times and I’m not shying away from it because there is no way you could compare a commercial interest rate to agric rate. In most of the advanced countries that we copy, they gave out their agric loans at about 2.5 per cent and that is why you see most of the foreigners taking over agric in this country like the Lebanese, the Indians and the Israelis because they are able to get this money at a very cheaper rate in their countries and change it and bring it into our country. While we are still struggling at 26 per cent, they already got their loans at two per cent. So, our banking system really needs to be restructured in order for them to be able to understand the problems of farmers. Most Nigerian commercial banks do not understand the problems of farmers. They just feel that they can give you a loan and at the same time start paying. And the gestation period of most of the farmers’ crops or animals start from six months. If you go to fish production, it takes six months, if you go to poultry, either you want to rear poultry for eggs production, it takes six months. And if you want to go into crops, it takes minimum of one year or three years. So, if you give a loan to farmers, you should be able to give them a moratorium. Moratorium means giving them time to be able to start repaying the loan. So, Nigerian banks are not really helping farmers. It is only the Bank of Agriculture that is trying. We have been saying that the BoA should be restructured for it to be able to attend to the real farmers because most farmers are able to identify with the bank. And Bank of Industry (BoI) also, they are trying their best in order to help the processors because they are dealing with processing aspect of farming. But my own overview of the commercial banks in Nigeria is that they need to be restructured and be able to do the right things and to reduce the burden of the collateral they are taking from the farmers. So, in that way, we are able to do more of planting. BoA has really been crippled. The Federal Government has not really funded the bank to give loan to farmers. With the new government coming in, with the new agenda we have been talking about to give to the new govern-

There is so much money coming into the agric sector but most of them have been embezzled

Oyekoya

ment, I believe that they will be able to fund the Bank of Agriculture. How do you perceive the recent announcement by the Federal Government on the privatisation of BoA? Privitisation of BoA is a welcome development because it has been politicised and controlled by some people. The funds are not getting to the hands of real farmers with too much government bureaucracy. How do you think agriculture has fared under President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, bearing in mind the much-touted elimination of cabals in the fertiliser distribution process? Well, I have to give the administration credit for being able to reduce the theft and fraud in the country’s fertiliser distribution system. But, at the same time, the fraud has not been eliminated. As I always say, Nigerian farmers’ problems have gone beyond fertilisers. In my own farm, I have about 150 hectares of land. What is two bags of fertilisers going to do for me? What about people who are into animal production? They don’t need fertiliser. So, what are you doing to augment the problems of people that are not into crops? And not only that, you are supporting rice, you are supporting cassava, there is nothing wrong with it. These are carbohydrates. What about the protein aspect of it, which is the animal production? So, it is a very good thing to really take the fertiliser issue

away from government and give it to the private sector. If you look at it the way it is now, it is still being controlled by government. And government has no business to really monitor or to really do agric business. Give it to the private sector. What the private sector needs is a conducive environment. Do you think that agric sector has fared well in its contributions to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? The sector is contributing enough, but can do better. And the reason I am saying this is that we need to go back to our root in the olden days when we used to have the groundnut pyramids in the North, cocoa plantations in the South, rubber in the Middle Belt and oil palm in the South West; this is where we can earn some of our GDP. And we should do beyond the 40 per cent we are currently tapping from agriculture because we focus too much on oil and it is really affecting our economy. But thank God with the new government that is coming in they said they are going to focus on diversifying the economy from oil into agriculture. What we are requesting from the new government is to have a listening ear because the outgoing government has refused to listen to people. They refused to carry stakeholders along. And what are those issues in the sector you want the incoming government to address? It is a very simple thing - to appoint the right person as Minister of Agriculture, a private,

technocrat who has a farm. Also, the incoming government should have advisers from each state. Maybe pick a farmer from each state to be able to advise government on the needs and problems of what is going on in their respective states. Another thing is to tackle corruption. There is so much money coming into the agric sector but most of them have been embezzled. Government needs to fund agriculture the same way it is funding oil and gas, if possible, give them subsidies. CV

Born February 4, 1959 Education B.SC Accounting/ Agricultural Science - 1987 Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University, Huntsville AL, USA Career New York City Human Resources Administration, Brooklyn, NY, (1993-1999). Supervisor, Animal Control Department, Alabama farmers Cooperatives, Decatur AL 35609 (1989-1990); Registrar Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical University (1984 – 1987); Farm Practical and Internship, Alabama Farmers Cooperatives, Decatur AL 35609 – (1987-1989);

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015

Business | Capital Market

MONDAY,MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043

Daily Summary (Bonds)

The Nigerian Stock Market Exchange as at April 30, 2015

No Debt Trading Activity

Daily Summary (Equities)

Activity Summary on Board EQTY AGRICULTURE Crop Production FTN COCOA PROCESSORS PLC OKOMU OIL PALM PLC. PRESCO PLC Crop Production Totals Livestock/Animal Specialties LIVESTOCK FEEDS PLC. Livestock/Animal Specialties Totals

Activity Summary on Board EQTY Symbol FTNCOCOA OKOMUOIL PRESCO Symbol LIVESTOCK

No. of Deals 1 23 55 79

Current Price 0.50 27.41 30.09

No. of Deals 25 25

Current Price 2.33

AGRICULTURE Totals CONGLOMERATES Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Diversified Industries Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 A.G. LEVENTIS NIGERIA PLC. CHELLARAMS PLC. TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OF NIGERIA PLC U A C N PLC. Diversified Industries Totals

104 Symbol AGLEVENT CHELLARAM TRANSCORP UACN Daily Summary

No. of Deals 17 1 215 70 (Equities) 303

Activity Summary on Board EQTY CONGLOMERATES Totals CONSTRUCTION/REAL ESTATE Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange © Building Structure/Completion/Other COSTAIN (W A) PLC. Building Structure/Completion/Other Totals

Current Price 1.70 3.95 3.20 42.00

303

Quantity Traded 10,000 578,770 572,626 1,161,396

Value Traded 5,000.00 15,735,156.40 17,220,183.41 32,960,339.81

Quantity Traded 298,458 298,458

Value Traded 704,846.78 704,846.78

1,459,854

33,665,186.59

Quantity Traded 409,600 100 47,980,463 691,811 49,081,974

Value Traded 685,445.75 376.00 152,501,114.96 28,460,299.58 181,647,236.29

49,081,974

181,647,236.29

Symbol COSTAIN

No. of Deals 13 13

Current Price 0.87

Page Quantity Traded 364,028 364,028

Infrastructure/Heavy Construction JULIUS BERGER NIG. PLC. Infrastructure/Heavy Construction Totals

Symbol JBERGER

No. of Deals 26 26

Current Price 51.70

Quantity Traded 175,888 175,888

Value Traded 8,961,557.81 8,961,557.81

Real Estate Development UACN PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT CO. LIMITED Real Estate Development Totals

Symbol UAC-PROP

No. of Deals 23 23

Current Price 10.78

Quantity Traded 150,096 150,096

Value Traded 1,639,018.10 1,639,018.10

Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) UPDC REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) Totals

Symbol UPDCREIT

No. of Deals 8 8

Current Price 10.00

Quantity Traded 2,367,130 2,367,130

Value Traded 23,671,350.00 23,671,350.00

3,057,142

34,592,311.27 Value Traded 200,000.00 200,000.00

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 CONSTRUCTION/REAL ESTATE Totals Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 CONSUMER GOODS Automobiles/Auto Parts DN TYRE & RUBBER PLC Automobiles/Auto Parts Totals Beverages--Brewers/Distillers Activity Summary on Board EQTY

CHAMPION BREW. PLC. CONSUMER GOODS GOLDEN GUINEA BREW. PLC. Beverages--Brewers/Distillers GUINNESS NIG PLC INTERNATIONAL BREWERIES PLC. Published by The NigerianBREW. Stock Exchange © NIGERIAN PLC. Beverages--Brewers/Distillers Totals

Beverages--Non-Alcoholic 7-UP BOTTLING COMP. PLC. Beverages--Non-Alcoholic Totals Food Products DANGOTE FLOUR MILLS PLC DANGOTE SUGAR REFINERY PLC FLOUR MILLS NIG. PLC. HONEYWELL FLOUR MILL PLC NATIONAL SALT CO. NIG. PLC Daily Summary 30/04/2015 U Tas C of NIG. PLC. Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 Food Products Totals Food Products--Diversified CADBURY NIGERIA PLC. NESTLE NIGERIA PLC. Food Products--Diversified Totals

Activity Summary on Board EQTY

Household Durables VITAFOAM NIG PLC. CONSUMER GOODS VONO PRODUCTS Household Durables PLC. Household Durables Totals Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange © Personal/Household Products P Z CUSSONS NIGERIA PLC. UNILEVER NIGERIA PLC. Personal/Household Products Totals

70 No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 0.50

Quantity Traded 400,000 400,000

Symbol CHAMPION GOLDBREW Symbol GUINNESS INTBREW NB

No. of Deals 11 1 No. of Deals 64 8 145 229

Current Price 7.39 0.93 Current170.00 Price 21.49 157.01

Quantity Traded 134,814 2,200 Quantity399,750 Traded 57,100 Page 2,983,114 3,576,978

Symbol 7UP

No. of Deals 23 23

Current Price 162.00

Quantity Traded 92,505 92,505

Value Traded 15,021,180.54 15,021,180.54

Symbol DANGFLOUR DANGSUGAR FLOURMILL HONYFLOUR NASCON UTC

No. of Deals 41 76 80 10 28 5 240

Current Price 4.89 6.11 35.74 3.28 8.25 0.50

Quantity Traded 248,072 1,638,124 663,338 113,000 1,309,414 201,168 4,173,116

Value Traded 1,115,026.56 10,071,343.88 23,519,160.36 374,895.38 10,847,301.19 100,584.00 46,028,311.37

Symbol No. of Deals CADBURY 35 Daily Summary (Equities) NESTLE 57 92

Current Price 39.90 950.00

Quantity Traded 67,093 171,083 238,176

Value Traded 2,465,450.34 162,413,682.74 164,879,133.08

Quantity Traded 3,543,310 30,000 Quantity Traded

Value Traded 16,441,750.19 29,400.00 Value Traded

Symbol VITAFOAM VONO Symbol

No. of Deals 46 No. of Deals2

Current Price 4.83 1.03 Current Price

Symbol PZ UNILEVER

No. of Deals 30 58 88

Current Price 28.50 42.31

722

ICT Computer Based Systems COURTEVILLE BUSINESS SOLUTIONS PLC Computer Based Systems Totals

830,973,161.64 Value Traded 201,771,148.88 62,899,852.27 422,907,132.27 18,287,385.65 322,794,211.65 6,196,997.06 3,750,589.71 116,173,466.93 Value Traded 1,463,972.41 235,088.26 2,584,129.93 592,530,271.04 1,751,594,246.06

Quantity Traded 1,219,718 Page 3,075,510 11,311 56,252,464 50,000 14,151,508 1,476,200 1,000 1,225,866 60,115 2,100 78,129 18,000 3,346,028 80,967,949

4 1,244,122.36 of 12 2,814,303.90 5,655.50 28,682,906.71 25,000.00 7,075,754.00 4,433,543.00 500.00 882,779.24 30,057.50 1,050.00 39,064.50 9,000.00 1,772,485.56 47,016,222.27

Value Traded 37,392.58 1,360,307.68 Value Traded 5 1,397,700.26 of 12

Activity SummaryBanks on Board EQTY Micro-Finance

FORTIS MICROFINANCE BANK PLC FINANCIAL SERVICES NPF MICROFINANCE BANK PLC Micro-Finance Banks Micro-Finance BanksExchange Totals © Published by The Nigerian Stock Other Financial Institutions AFRICA PRUDENTIAL REGISTRARS PLC CUSTODIAN AND ALLIED PLC FBN HOLDINGS PLC FCMB GROUP PLC. ROYAL EXCHANGE PLC. STANBIC IBTC HOLDINGS PLC UBA CAPITAL PLC Other Financial Institutions Totals

No. of Deals 1 31 No. of Deals 32

Current Price 5.42 1.32 Current Price

Quantity Traded 6,899 1,047,828 Quantity Traded 1,054,727 Page

Symbol AFRIPRUD CUSTODYINS FBNH FCMB ROYALEX STANBIC UBCAP

No. of Deals 116 19 736 93 3 42 75 1,084

Current Price 2.85 4.20 9.80 3.34 0.55 29.45 1.53

Quantity Traded 6,333,967 1,350,264 29,955,412 15,334,259 433,432 545,948 6,988,713 60,941,995

Value Traded 18,228,003.33 5,634,716.10 297,050,081.91 50,597,806.06 238,387.60 16,062,618.83 10,684,308.47 398,495,922.30

289,908,978

2,198,504,090.89

FINANCIAL SERVICES Totals HEALTHCARE Healthcare Providers UNION DIAGNOSTIC & CLINICAL SERVICES PLC Healthcare Providers Totals Pharmaceuticals FIDSON HEALTHCARE PLC GLAXO SMITHKLINE CONSUMER NIG. PLC. MAY & BAKER NIGERIA PLC. NEIMETH INTERNATIONAL PHARMACEUTICALS PLC PHARMA-DEKO PLC. Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange ©

2,632 Symbol UNIONDAC

No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 0.50

Quantity Traded 7,000 7,000

Value Traded 3,500.00 3,500.00

Symbol FIDSON GLAXOSMITH MAYBAKER NEIMETH PHARMDEKO

No. of Deals 34 48 10 12 1

Current Price 3.32 55.00 1.63 1.03 2.13

Quantity Traded 3,563,531 377,093 90,001 856,040 4,679

Value Traded 11,118,820.62 20,730,480.81 148,473.63 881,974.70 10,434.17

Page

Symbol CWG NCR

No. of Deals 1 1 2

Current Price 4.00 12.19

Quantity Traded 100 2,000 2,100

Value Traded 380.00 23,180.00 23,560.00

Processing Systems CHAMS PLC

Symbol CHAMS ETRANZACT

No. of Deals 1 1 2

Current Price 0.50 3.39

Quantity Traded 1,000 2,760 3,760

Value Traded 500.00 9,798.00 10,298.00

8,860

35,358.00 Value Traded 1,693,197.30 1,511,804.68 386,793.44

INDUSTRIAL GOODS Building Materials ASHAKA CEM PLC Activity Summary on Board BERGER PAINTS PLC EQTY CAP PLC INDUSTRIAL GOODS Building Materials Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange © CEMENT CO. OF NORTH.NIG. PLC DANGOTE CEMENT PLC PAINTS AND COATINGS MANUFACTURES PLC PORTLAND PAINTS & PRODUCTS NIGERIA PLC LAFARGE AFRICA PLC. Building Materials Totals

Daily Summary (Equities) Symbol ASHAKACEM BERGER CAP

No. of Deals 14 13 6

Current Price 19.95 9.07 35.66

Quantity Traded 84,722 161,297 10,601

Symbol CCNN DANGCEM PAINTCOM PORTPAINT WAPCO

No. of Deals 4 83 8 2 62 192

Current Price 11.59 184.50 1.33 3.83 94.00

Quantity Traded Page 19,706 1,067,778 472,250 200 781,210 2,597,764

Electronic and Electrical Products CUTIX PLC. Electronic and Electrical Products Totals

Symbol CUTIX

No. of Deals 5 5

Current Price 1.74

Quantity Traded 121,017 121,017

Value Traded 219,236.88 219,236.88

Packaging/Containers BETA GLASS CO PLC. GREIF NIGERIA PLC Packaging/Containers Totals

Symbol BETAGLAS VANLEER

No. of Deals 6 2 8

Current Price 30.00 11.48

Quantity Traded 4,760 400 5,160

Value Traded 147,200.00 4,364.00 151,564.00

2,723,941

270,344,031.59

Quantity Traded 808 808

Value Traded 3,999.60 3,999.60

808

3,999.60

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 INDUSTRIAL GOODS Totals Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043

NATURAL RESOURCES Chemicals B.O.C. GASES PLC. Chemicals Totals

Exploration and Production SEPLAT PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LTD Exploration and Production Totals

205 Symbol BOCGAS

No. of Deals 1 1

Daily Summary (Equities)

No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 0.50

Quantity Traded Page 7,912 7,912

Value Traded 8 of 12 3,956.00 3,956.00

Symbol OANDO

No. of Deals 281 281

Current Price 18.00

Quantity Traded 5,531,785 5,531,785

Value Traded 98,081,025.08 98,081,025.08

Symbol CONOIL ETERNA FO MOBIL MRS TOTAL

No. of Deals 21 20 66 17 6 10 140

Current Price 36.21 2.72 177.65 150.00 50.54 155.50

Quantity Traded 30,406 399,255 222,814 84,334 1,209 5,494 743,512

Value Traded 1,136,375.24 1,085,938.50 39,603,483.96 12,589,157.39 58,056.18 862,465.00 55,335,476.27

Symbol SEPLAT

No. of Deals 21 21

Current Price 377.00

Quantity Traded 16,578 16,578

Value Traded 6,424,311.40 6,424,311.40

6,299,787

159,844,768.75

Daily Summary (Equities)

444 Symbol Symbol REDSTAREX TRANSEXPR

No. of Deals No. of Deals 2 6 8

Current Price Current Price 3.78 1.22

Quantity Traded Quantity Traded 90,000 19,000 109,000 Page

Value Traded Value Traded 340,200.00 22,250.00 362,450.00 9 of 12

Employment Solutions C & I LEASING PLC. Employment Solutions Totals

Symbol CILEASING

No. of Deals 6 6

Current Price 0.52

Quantity Traded 1,899,733 1,899,733

Value Traded 988,431.16 988,431.16

Hospitality TANTALIZERS PLC Hospitality Totals

Symbol TANTALIZER

No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 0.50

Quantity Traded 55,500 55,500

Value Traded 27,750.00 27,750.00

Hotels/Lodging IKEJA HOTEL PLC Hotels/Lodging Totals

Symbol IKEJAHOTEL

No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 3.86

Quantity Traded 1,500 1,500

Value Traded 5,640.00 5,640.00

Symbol LEARNAFRCA UPL

No. of Deals 4 5 9

Current Price 1.43 4.83

Quantity Traded 13,901 190,503 204,404

Value Traded 18,905.36 893,355.76 912,261.12

Road Transportation ASSOCIATED BUS COMPANY PLC RoadSummary Transportation TotalsEQTY Activity on Board Transport-Related Services SERVICES AIRLINE SERVICES AND LOGISTICS PLC Transport-Related Services

NIGERIAN AVIATION HANDLING COMPANY PLC Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange © Transport-Related Services Totals Support and Logistics CAVERTON OFFSHORE SUPPORT GRP PLC Support and Logistics Totals

Daily Summary (Equities) Symbol No. of Deals Current Price 15 15

0.63

Quantity Traded 345,501 345,501

Value Traded 211,810.63 211,810.63

Symbol AIRSERVICE Symbol NAHCO

No. of Deals 2 No. of Deals

Current Price 2.20 Current Price

Quantity Traded 5,000 Quantity Traded

Value Traded 10,450.00 Value Traded

Symbol CAVERTON

No. of Deals 5 5

Current Price 3.00

Quantity Traded 22,786 22,786

Value Traded 69,058.70 69,058.70

101

3,511,615

8,097,831.16

4,694

374,551,302

3,750,601,659.71

Quantity Traded 11,400 11,400

Value Traded 16,872.00 16,872.00

11,400

16,872.00

ABCTRANS

52 54

SERVICES Totals

EQTY Board Totals

Daily Summary (Equities)

6.30

868,191 Page 873,191

5,509,979.55 10 of 12 5,520,429.55

Activity Summary on Board ASeM CONSUMER GOODS Food Products MCNICHOLS PLC Food Products Totals Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Printed CONSUMER 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 GOODS Totals

Symbol MCNICHOLS

No. of Deals 2 2

Current Price 1.55

ASeM Board Totals

11,400

16,872.00

Equity Activity Totals

4,696

374,562,702

3,750,618,531.71

Exchange Traded Fund

Name LOTUS HALAL EQUITY ETF NEWGOLD EXCHANGE TRADED FUND (ETF) VETIVA GRIFFIN 30 ETF Exchange Traded Fund Totals

7Value Traded of 12 217,160.12 192,137,009.68 677,448.24 796.00 73,349,021.25 269,973,230.71

Symbol JAPAULOIL

Activity Summary on Board EQTY

SERVICES SERVICES Courier/Freight/Delivery Courier/Freight/Delivery RED STAR EXPRESS PLC TRANS-NATIONWIDE EXPRESS PLC. Courier/Freight/Delivery Totals Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange ©

Current Price 5.21

OIL AND GAS Totals

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Printing/Publishing Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 LEARN AFRICA PLC UNIVERSITY PRESS PLC. Printing/Publishing Totals

Value Traded

Symbol FORTISMFB NPFMCRFBK Symbol

IT Services COMPUTER WAREHOUSE GROUP PLC NCR (NIGERIA) PLC. IT Services Totals

Petroleum and Petroleum Products Distributors CONOIL PLC ETERNA PLC. FORTE OIL PLC. MOBIL OIL NIG PLC. MRS OIL NIGERIA PLC. TOTAL NIGERIA PLC. Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Petroleum and Petroleum Products Distributors Totals Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043

Current Price 1.02 0.94 0.50 0.51 0.50 0.50 3.00 0.50 0.72 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 0.52

32,893,683.93 Value Traded 1,500.00 1,500.00

Integrated Oil and Gas Services OANDO PLC Integrated Oil and Gas Services Totals

Insurance Carriers, Brokers and Services Symbol No. of Deals AIICO INSURANCE PLC. AIICO 9 Published by The Nigerian Stock Exchange © CONTINENTAL REINSURANCE PLC CONTINSURE 12 CORNERSTONE INSURANCE COMPANY PLC. CORNERST 2 INTERNATIONAL ENERGY INSURANCE COMPANY PLC INTENEGINS 13 LAW UNION AND ROCK INS. PLC. LAWUNION 3 LINKAGE ASSURANCE PLC LINKASSURE 15 MANSARD INSURANCE PLC MANSARD 13 MUTUAL BENEFITS ASSURANCE PLC. MBENEFIT 1 N.E.M INSURANCE NEM 11 Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 CO (NIG) PLC. NIGER INSURANCE CO. PLC. NIGERINS 2 Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043 PRESTIGE ASSURANCE CO. PLC. PRESTIGE 1 REGENCY ALLIANCE INSURANCE COMPANY PLC REGALINS 3 SOVEREIGN TRUST INSURANCE PLC SOVRENINS 1 WAPIC INSURANCE PLC WAPIC 56 Daily Summary (Equities) Insurance Carriers, Brokers and Services Totals 142

4,898,344 Quantity Traded 3,000 3,000

Energy Equipment and Services Totals

Quantity Traded 33,585,980 13,692,161 20,440,148 9,827,287 11,336,512 2,485,968 1,681,208 22,984,212 Quantity141,215 Traded 60,434 2,649,406 28,059,776 146,944,307

Value Traded 32,890,183.93

Current Price 0.50

Current Price 5.99 4.60 20.70 1.86 28.75 2.50 2.29 5.29 Current 10.22 Price 3.89 0.98 21.15

Quantity Traded 4,891,344

No. of Deals 1 1

NATURAL RESOURCES TotalsEQTY Activity Summary on Board

16,471,150.19 3 of 12 Value Traded 2,530,128.75 61,062,020.13 63,592,148.88

Current Price

107

ICT Totals

Value Traded 994,049.98 1,958.00 Value Traded 67,535,868.87 1,165,982.00 2 of 12 455,083,378.73 524,781,237.58

13,599,999

No. of Deals 105

Symbol COURTVILLE

E-TRANZACT INTERNATIONAL PLC Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 Processing Systems Totals Printed 30/04/2015 15:19:43.043

No. of Deals 221 72 69 (Equities) 92 220 80 31 241 No. of Deals 32 2 18 296 1,374

ACCESS BANK PLC. DIAMOND BANK PLC ECOBANK TRANSNATIONAL INCORPORATED FIDELITY BANK PLC GUARANTY TRUST BANK PLC. SKYE BANK PLC Activity Summary on Board EQTY STERLING BANK PLC. FINANCIAL UNITEDSERVICES BANK FOR AFRICA PLC Banking UNION BANK NIG.PLC. UNITY BANK PLC WEMA BANK PLC. ZENITH INTERNATIONAL BANK PLC Banking Totals

Symbol ACCESS DIAMONDBNK ETI Daily Summary FIDELITYBK GUARANTY SKYEBANK STERLNBANK UBA Symbol UBN UNITYBNK WEMABANK ZENITHBANK

3,573,310 Page Quantity Traded 91,280 1,454,634 1,545,914

Symbol

HEALTHCARE Totals

Valueof Traded12 320,385.36 320,385.36

Symbol DUNLOP

Daily Summary (Equities)

CONSUMER GOODS Totals

Daily Summary as of 30/04/2015 FINANCIAL SERVICES Printed 30/04/2015 Banking15:19:43.043

HEALTHCARE Pharmaceuticals Pharmaceuticals Totals

Page

Daily Summary (ETP) Symbol LOTUSHAL15 NEWGOLD VETGRIF30

No. of Deals 1 1 3 5

Current Price 10.73 2,300.00 15.85

Quantity Traded 2 22 9,999 10,023

Value Traded 21.46 50,600.00 156,386.03 207,007.49

ETF Board Totals

10,023

207,007.49

ETP Activity Totals

10,023

207,007.49

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan (left) with Secretary to the State Government, Comrade Ovuozourie Macaulay, at the 22-man end of tenure inauguration committee in Delta State.

Executive Chairman, Kaduna State Board of Internal Revenue, Alhaji Ahmed Jibrin (middle); Zonal Commanding Officer, Assistant Corps Marshal Victor Nwokolo; Head of Motor Vehicle Administration Department, Deputy Corps Marshal Charles Theophilus and other participants, after a workshop for Heads of FRSC Driversâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Licence Centers in Kaduna. PHOTO-NAN

L-R: Guest lecturer, Prof. Ladipo Adamolekun; Club Chief, Silver Knights, Mr. Adegboyega Akin-Deko and presidential candidate, Kowa Party, Prof. Oluremi Sonaiya, at a lecture on Leadership, Institutions and Development: Disjunctions in the Nigeria experience, in Ibadan.

Managing Director, Founders International Academy, Jos, Mr. Lucky Momoh (left), presenting a cheque to the overall winner of the 12th Annual National Mathematics Competition, Master Cishak Erasmus in Jos.

Photo | News

L-R: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Health, Mr. Linus Awute; Minister of State for Defence, Col. Austine Akobundu; United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador James Entwistle and Minister of Information, Senator Patricia Akwashiki, at the inauguration of Ebola Vaccine Study and commissioning of the Clinical Research Centre in Abuja.

L-R: Vice President, Nigeria Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), Lagos State chapter, Comrade Michael Ajose; President, Comrade Lasisi Ayinde Akinsanya; Treasurer, Comrade Okanlawon Pelaiye and Chairman, Amuwo Odofin Local Government branch, Comrade Tope Lawal, during the Workersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Day in Lagos.

L-R: Regional Director, BEN TV, UK, Mr. Lanre Ijaola; Chief Executive Officer, Larry Jones Entertainment, Dr. Larry Jones; President, Nigerian Union of Journalists, Oyo State Chapter, Mr. Gbenga Opadokun and Nigerian Musical Artiste, Adeyemi Gideon Ayomide (aka DNA Baba), at a press conference to unveil DNA Baba in Lagos. PHOTO: SULEIMAN HUSAINI

Chairman, Nigerian Conservation Foundation, Ede Dafinone; President, Philip Asiodu and members, NCF Conservation Club, at the 25th Annual General Meeting of the foundation in Lagos.

46 News

promise

In-coming assembly won't be antagonistic of Governor, lawmakers-elect promise

Adesina Wahab ADO-EKITI

he Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 26-members of the Ekiti State House of Assembly that will be inaugurated next month will not be a rubber-stamp of the executive arm of government. Also, the lawmakers have

monday, may 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

south - west

Coming Ekiti Assembly won't be rubber stamp — Legislators-elect assured that they won't be needlessly antagonistic of the executive arm too. The lawmakers-elect, who emerged during the April 11 House of Assembly election with the PDP winning all the 26 seats in the House, also assured that matters brought before them by Governor Ayo Fayose would be subjected to thorough debate, in the interest of the people. At a press conference in Ado-Ekiti at the week-

end, the lawmakers–elect said they would not hesitate to disagree with Fayose on matters having to do with the interest of the people, but reiterated that such disagreement would not be allowed to affect the smooth-running of government at the executive level. The lawmaker-elect for Moba Constituency 1, Pastor Kola Oluwawole, who spoke on behalf of his colleagues, said the next As-

sembly would protect the principles of Separation of Powers despite that they belong to the same party with Fayose. “The next Assembly won’t be rubber-stamp of the executive arm of government. We are going to give the people robust legislation through thorough and dispassionate debate of issues brought before us. We can disagree with the governor, if that will make Ekiti better, but

that will not truncate our relationship as brothers and sisters. “We will do exactly what the constitution empowers us to do, which is to serve as checks and balances on the executive. The Lagos and Osun Assemblies in the Southwest were populated by members of the APC, does that make them rubber-stamp? So, it will be wrong for people to think we are going to be

rubber-stamp because we are Fayose’s loyalists,” he said. On the impeachment crisis rocking the Assembly, Oluwawole said his group had reached out to the 19 APC lawmakers on the need to tread the path of honour, but said the overtures were rebuffed. “Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State inherited a PDP-dominated Assembly from Prof Osunbor, but he was not driven out of town because of this. Omirin and other APC lawmakers should forget about personal ambitions and give the needed cooperation to the governor.

APC challenges two House of Assembly seats in Ondo Babatope Okeowo Akure

L-R: Group Managing Director, Wema Bank Plc, Segun Oloketuyi; Olawunmi Asekun; Chairman, Wema Bank Plc, Adeyinka Asekun and special guest, Tunde Bakare, at the 70th anniversary dinner of Wema Bank in Lagos.

Ogun CJ frees 38 prison inmates Kunle Olayeni ABEOKUTA

he Chief Judge of Ogun State, Justice Olatokunbo Olopade, has granted pardon to 38 inmates on awaiting trial across five prison facilities in the state. Olopade granted amnesty to the inmates during her two-day visit to Ibara, Oba, Ilaro, IjebuOde and Sagamu prisons. New Telegraph gathered that 15 inmates were freed at Ibara prisons in Abeokuta, while 12 others

were left off the hook at Oba prisons in ObafemiOwode Local Government Area of the state. Six inmates were set free in Ilaro; three at IjebuOde and two at Sagamu prisons. In her remarks, Justice Olopade advised the inmates to be of good behaviour and conduct themselves properly in the society. She stated that the pardon was in furtherance of efforts to decongest the various prisons in the state. The chief judge also toured the Borstal Train-

ing Institution in Adigbe area of Abeokuta which serves as a federal reformation centre for juveniles and young offenders. At the centre, its Controller, Mrs. Folashade Akinwale, called for the intervention of the state government in enhancing the welfare of juveniles. She noted that no effort should be spared in complementing the Federal Government's contributions. Responding, Justice Olopade promised to in-

tercede with the state governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in ensuring adequate provision for the welfare of young offenders at the correctional facility. She also said efforts were ongoing to ensure speedy dispensation of justice through appointment of more judges and magistrates in the state. The chief judge added that the state government was aware of the need to expand judicial infrastructure and construct more court buildings for an improved judiciary.

Fayose's aide fault lawmakers'

Afe Babalola to chair lecture kidnap allegation in honour of Awolowo Adesina Wahab Mojeed Alabi

he Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, ABUAD, Aare Afe Babalola will tomorrow chair a public lecture in honour of the late sage and former Premier of Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The lecture, being organized by the University of Ilorin chapter of the Nigerian University

Education Students’ Association (NUESA), has been themed; “Connecting the Past with the Present for a Better Rewarding Nigeria’s Education System.” In a statement issued by the association’s President, Owoseye Silva, the lecture is part of the activities lined up to mark this year’s edition of the institution’s ‘Back-toSchool’ programme.

Ado-Ekiti

pecial Assistant to the Ekiti State Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, has said the 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) members of the State House of Assembly are confused as to what to do next in their bid to impeach Governor Ayo Fayose.

In a statement in AdoEkiti yesterday, he added that a proof of the state of confusion the lawmakers were was their recent allegation that the governor wanted to kidnap them. According to him, former Speaker, Adewale Omirin and others ought to know that since their impeachment plan had hit the rocks, they ought to do the honourable thing and allow peace to reign.

he All Progressive Congress (APC) has challenged two out of the 21 House of Assembly seats won by the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in the April 11 Assembly election conducted in Ondo State. The two candidates of APC for Ilaje constituency 11, Mr Gbenga Edema and Akure South constituency 1, Mr Festus Aregbesola have approached the House of Assembly Election Tribunal sitting in Akure to set aside the return of PDP candidates declared winners of the state constituencies election held on April 11. The two separate petitions filed by legal adviser to APC in the state, Mr. Charles Titiloye and its candidate in state House of Assembly Election for Ilaje Constituency II and Akure Constituency I as the Petitioners has the PDP, its Candidate and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as Respondents in the petition.

The APC candidate petitioned against the return of Coker Malachi of PDP's declaration as the winner of Ilaje Constituency II was premised on the ground that he did not score the majority of lawful votes cast in the election and that the election was marred with corrupt practices and noncompliance with the Electoral Act. The APC noted that INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, Mr Segun Agbaje had admitted in a press conference that there were widespread violence, irregularities and subversion of the electoral process in the said constituency but took no concrete step to cancel the said election, rather he declared it as inconclusive. The party alleged that the same INEC which admitted that its returning officer was forced under duress to declare a winner when actually the election was inconclusive thereafter turned around to present the certificate of returns to PDP candidate in the said election.

WHO, FMoH to conduct survey on STH in Ekiti

survey exercise on the prevalence of Soil Transmitted Helminthes (STH), a health condition that is caused by a group of worms (aran inu), which exist as parasites in the intestine of infected people will be carried out in Ekiti State between tomorrow, Tuesday, May 5 and Wednesday, May 13, 2015. Results of the nine-day survey, which is sponsored by the Children Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), Federal Ministry of Health and Ekiti State Ministry of Health, will be used by the Ekiti State

Ministry of Health to receive free drugs from the World Health Organisation through the Federal Ministry of Health. Special Assistant to the State Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, who made this known in a statement issued on Sunday, said school-aged children in Ekiti State will be treated when the free drugs are delivered later this year. He said the State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has urged parents in the State not to panic over the exercise as it was aimed at the wellbeing of children in the State.

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

News 47

SOUTH-EAST

NLC to Umahi: Be wary of sycophants, saboteurs Group wants Buhari to Uchenna Inya ABAKALIKI

actional Chairman of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), Ebonyi State chapter, Comrade Ikechukwu Nwafor, at the weekend blamed what he called the failure of the Governor Martin Elechi government on sycophancy, sabotage and insincerity

on the part of those at the helm of affairs in the administration. To this end, he has urged the incoming administration of Chief Dave Umahi, not to appoint people of such behaviours into his government if he must succeed. He spoke at the Abakaliki Township Stadium, while addressing the workers and Chief Umahi, the Deputy Governor and

Governor-elect during the Workers’ Day celebration. ‘’When you appoint members of your cabinet, please appoint those who will be sincere to you; those who will look at your face and tell you the truth about the state without fear or favour, because those are the people that will make your government to be reasonable and successful.

“Don’t appoint sycophants, because they will be telling you what will make you happy for you to give them something to put in their pockets. He explained that the workers are expecting his administration to be a listening government; a government that will not relegate the people to the background unlike the disposition of the Elechi’s administration.

appoint Onu SGF Uchenna Inya ABAKALIKI

group within the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the South-East, the National Youth Frontier South East Zone, yesterday called on the President-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, to appoint the former governor of old Abia State and the Chairman of the defunct ANPP, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. The group made the call in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State capital at the end of its meeting, stating that the APC should equally consider the zoning of the position of Speaker, House of Representa-

tives or at least the Deputy Speaker to the South-Eastern zone. They described Onu as a detribalized Nigerian with huge appeal, followership and acceptability across the states in the South-East. “This makes him to be the most qualified among those jostling for the position. We can vouch for his integrity and promise that he will not disappoint General Buhari, having been with him for many years”, they said. The group urged all Igbo, irrespective of party affiliation, to join hands with the group to support Onu, for the position. “This is because we believe that he (Onu) has the capacity to bring the Igbo nation together in this dispensation”, they said.

Ohakim urges Rep-elects not to defect Steve Uzoechi OWERRI

F Niger State Governor, Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu (left), being decorated by Igwe Emmanuel Ugwu, during the conferment of the tittle of Onunekwuru Ora 1 of Ibagwa Nike community in Enugu East Local Government, Enugu State

Enugu plans fencing of 100 schools in seven years Uwakwe Abugu Enugu

nugu State Government has said that it plans to embark on a seven-year school fencing project that would cover over 100 schools within the period, a project, which the State Commissioner for Education, Prof. Chris Okolo, said would take off soon. The Commissioner, who announced the proposed project at Olido Community in Igbo-Eze North council area of the

state, explained that the main aim of the government in embarking on the big project is to secure the schools from vandals who are in the habit of engaging in vandalism of schools’ infrastructure. He was in the community to inaugurate a classroom and office complex built and donated to the Olido Community High School by a Lagos-based businessman, Mr. Ralph Abugu, who hails from the area and had done the gesture to help solve the

problem of lack of classrooms in the institution. The commissioner, who represented Governor Sullivan Chime on the occasion, further told the gathering of the community people, teachers and students that apart from checking the activities of thieves and vandals, the coming school fencing projects would also heldp the government and the various education authorities in the state to maintain discipline in the schools. “For instance, when

Obiano’s wife hails ambulance donation Pamela EbohAwka

ife of Anambra State Governor, Mrs. Ebelechukwu Obiano, yesterday commended a couple, Dr. Obi and Mrs. Rosaline Ifezulike, for the donation of an ambulance vehicle to her pet project, Caring Family Enhancement Initiative (CAFÉ), a non-governmental organization, for the effective delivery of medical services in the

rural communities of Anambra. Mrs. Obiano expressed her profound appreciation to the donors for identifying with CAFÉ and supporting its programmes, that impact positively on the health of the people, describing the gesture as an indication that the couple indeed has a heart of gold. The governor’s wife said; “I am elated and excited that the ambulance is coming at a

very good time because CAFÉ needs such support as we are set to commence the settingup of Old Peoples’ Home in the three Senatorial Districts of the State and we have acquired land for the project.” She further assured the donor that the ambulance would be effectively utilized in the service of Ndi Anambra and restated her commitment to the promotion of the welfare of Ndi Anambra.

the schools are fenced, it will also help in maintaining discipline generally and specifically checking late-coming and truancy among the students and some teachers who may tend to engage in lateness”, he stated. However, he did not state exactly when the project will take off just as he did not explain whether the out-going administration of Governor Chime has discussed it with the incoming regime of the Governor-elect, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi.

or mer Gover nor of Imo State, Chief Ikedi Ohakim, yesterday hosted members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state, in an apparent effort said to be aimed at the rebuilding of the party in the state. The event, which was organized in honour of the six Rep members-elect of the PDP, was held in his Burma Retreat country home in Okohia, Isiala Mbano council area of the state. Ohakim, who commended the party faithful over its success in the just-concluded general elections despite the loss of the presidential election and governorship, was optimistic that the party would bounce back in the near future. The former governor said that the mis-

fortune of the party in the last elections were normal in politics, adding that the situation offers the party the opportunity to go back to the drawing board and put its house in order. Ohakim, who also used the opportunity to plead with the PDP Rep members-elect not to jump ship, maintained that Imo remains a PDP state, regardless of the transient posturing of the ruling party. Chief Ikedi Ohakim donated two buses to two political wards in Isiala Mbano, which polled the highest votes for PDP in the just concluded general election. The former governor announced the commencement of his empowerment initiative for youths and women through his non-gover nmental organization, the African Clean and Green Initiative (ACGI)

Umahi blames treasurers for nonpayment of salaries Uchenna Inya ABAKALIKI

bonyi State Deputy Governor and the Governor-elect, Chief Dave Umahi, has absolved Governor Martin Elechi of the allegation that he was responsible for the non-payment of council workers’ salaries in the state since March this year. The Governor-elect who spoke in Abakaliki at the

weekend while addressing the workers, said: ‘’The governor is not God that would know everything. Certain things you complained about happened without his knowledge. “Like the local government workers’ salaries that have not been paid, the governor is not the Head of Personel Management or the Treasurer and I have it on good authority that all is not well with them. ‘’So I want you to go

back and hold the HPMs and Treasurers accountable for the outstanding local government workers’ salaries. He vowed to step on many toes in his administration’s fight against corruption in the state, saying the era where politicians took funds without accounting for them were over; building houses, living in affluence while workers live in abject poverty must stop.

News

Chris Ejim Yenagoa

resident Goodluck Jonathan at the qeekend acknowledg ed the pivotal role played by late environmental and human rights activist, Oronto Natei Douglas, in the sustenance of the Niger Delta struggle for resource control and environmental restoration. Jonathan made the acknowledgement at the weekend during the funeral service in honour

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

SOUTH-SOUTH

Jonathan, Dickson, pay tribute to Oronto Douglas of Douglas at the St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital. According to him, late Douglas introduced intellectual activism to the Niger Delta struggle for economic inclusiveness, saying that he was articulate; he was an icon, an idealist, he was proactive, strategic, courageous, exclusively humanitarian and never retracts, once committed to a cause he

believes in. Eulogising the late environmentalist, the President described him as a unique personality, who was worth more than silver and gold, stressing that Douglas left at a time when his wise and useful counsel were most needed. He added that Douglas impacted positively in so many ways on the people of Bayelsa State, the Niger Delta and the entire

country, within his short, but eventful life on earth, and would continue to be remembered by all who knew him. The President said: “By his contributions, he was worth more than silver and gold and he left at a time he was most needed as he had impacted positively on the people of the state, the Niger Delta and the entire country within the short period of his life on earth.”

In his remark at the occasion, Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson announced the award of scholarships to Douglas’ two children up to university level, in appreciation of his selfless contribution to the development of humanity and the Niger Delta in general. The governor also directed the immediate employment of all the teachers of the Chief Edwin Clark Prepara-

tory School in Okoroba, founded by the late human rights lawyer, as well as support for his foundation and other legal projects initiated by him. Dickson said; “The state government will give every necessary support to the children to have their education to university level, the government will support all his dreams and what he lived for.”

APC flays bombing of pipelines in Niger Delta Gabriel Choba and Joe Obende

L-R: Legal & Human Resources Manager, Primeport Logistics, Chinelo Obidigbo; Managing Director, Femi Adewunmi; Tony Okeiyi of SAHCOL; Makunjoula Akinmurele; Director, Operations, Primeport Logistics, Godwin Ezihuo, at the presentation of a two-way radio to SAHCOL in Port Harcourt…at the weekend

embers of the All Progressives Congress (APC) security committee in the Niger Delta states yesterday condemned the actions of some ex-militant groups within the region that have claimed responsibility for the series of pipeline explosions in Delta State. Coordinator of the group, Bibi Oduku, while speaking to newsmen yesterday, also reiterated the committee’s belief in the administration of the President-elect, General

Muhammadu Buhari, to bring sanity to the Nigerian system, as well as implement developmental programmes that would heal the wounds of the Niger Delta people. Condemning the action of some groups within the region that have been claiming responsibility for the series of pipeline explosions in Delta State, Oduku said: “Their demands may be genuine, but dialogue is a better tool for negotiation. We in the Niger Delta region would not allow anyone exploit our difference in creed or tongue to set us against one another.”

Uduaghan faults NUC for scrapping weekend programme

Group seeks relocation of Rivers election tribunal

Dominic Adewole

Tunde Oyesina

ASABA

he Delta State governor, Emmanuel Uduaghan, at the weekend, faulted the National Universities Commission (NUC) for scrapping weekend programmes in Nigerian universities. The governor said it was a ploy to deprive Nigerian youths of quality university education. Speaking at the week-

end during the 9th convocation ceremony of the Delta State University (DELSU), Abraka, the governor blamed the NUC for closing its eyes to the merits of the programme before taking such action. He said: “The NUC should first evaluate the advantages of weekend programmes before scrapping it. I stand here to lend my voice to those calling on the NUC not to scrap weekend programmes,

not because of financial benefits to the universities, but because there is a lot of people out there, who will not have the opportunity of having education without weekend programmes.” Governor Uduaghan, who congratulated the 7, 806 graduates, which included graduates in Diploma, First Degree and Higher Degree courses, challenged them to be good ambassadors of the university. “I do know that the

certificate is not all about learning, but of worthy character, so, I appeal to you to be good ambassadors of your university, be good ambassadors of your state and of your country,” he tasked them. He said his administration takes education as a priority, second only to the health sector, in the human capital development programme, warning the graduates against societal vices.

Abuja

political group, the Society for Good Governance, at the weekend in Abuja, asked the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, to relocate the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal back to Port Harcourt as against Abuja, where it is billed to be sitting. Speaking through its Coordinator, Mr. Tamuno

Greg, at a press conference, the group said there was no basis for compelling the tribunal to sit in Abuja. According to him, Port Harcourt is peaceful, adding that there is no threat whatsoever to the lives of the tribunal members. “If the city is not peaceful as they would want us to believe, why has the President of the Court of Appeal not relocated the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt to Abuja?

Commuters stranded as fuel scarcity cripples Delta NUJ wants journalists protected from attacks Dominic Adewole Asaba

undreds of commuters and motorists in Delta State were yesterday stranded as the fuel scarcity that has been biting hard in the state continued, crippling the economy of the state. The situation became tense in the Toll-Gate axis of the River Niger Bridge, along the Asaba-Onitsha Expressway, where no fewer than 500 people who traveled for the Workers’ Day celebration were stranded as a result of the high transport fare.

Motorists and commuters in the oil city of Warri were the worst hit as those affected faced hectic time getting to their working places. Besides, the lively nightlife across the state, which used to be the hallmark of every event, was devoid of its usual bubbling and back-slapping. The scarcity of the product crept into the oil rich state since April 30, compelling workers that had planned big for the commemoration of the May Day in the state to boycott the celebration. Checks by New Telegraph yesterday revealed

that the scarcity had taken its toll on the two neighbouring local government areas making up Asaba metropolis. The scarcity also affected business activities in the five other adjoining council areas of Asaba, including Aniocha South, Aniocha North, Ika South, Ika North East and Ndokwa West. Apart from the popular NNPC Mega station situated along the expressway, virtually all the petrol stations within the state have exhausted their supplies even as the few that have it now sell at inflated rates.

Clement James Calabar

he Cross River State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) has decried the spate of attacks on journalists across the country and has called for an immediate end to it. The union made its position known yesterday in a release signed by the state Chairman of the council, Mr. Ndoma Akpet, to mark the World Press Freedom Day. While noting that press freedom helps democracy to thrive, the council said this year’s celebration should serve as a signpost towards democratic practice in Ni-

geria. “A free press is a sine qua non of a thriving democracy; therefore this year’s World Press Freedom Day should be a signpost towards the direction of democratic practice in Nigeria,” the statement added. The council added; “One recounts the various cases of intimidation, harassment and outright repression of the press and its practitioners. This year alone, at least four journalists have been murdered in Nigeria while countless others were killed, maimed or imprisoned around the world. “The murder of journalists by terrorists in France

and the bombing of TAO FM in Kogi State, are cases in point, where journalists and media practitioners are seriously targeted.” On the theme of this year’s celebration, which is; “Let Journalism thrive; Towards a better reporting, gender equality and media safety in the digital age,” the council said it reflects three areas of concern, listing them as the need for quality journalism: Journalism that is accurate and independent; gender balance: the need for gender balance and equality in practice and ownership and the safety in a digital age: The issues of safety for journalists and their sources in a digital age.”

NEW TELEGRAPH monday, may 4, 2015

News 49

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Suswam, Ortom in war of words Cephas Iorhemen Makurdi

he political face-off between incumbent governors and their predecessors is likely to rear its ugly head in Benue State as the outgoing governor of the state, Gabriel Suswam, has asked his successor, the Governor-elect, Dr. Samuel Ortom, to stop parading himself as if he has assumed office. Governor Suswam’s emergence as governor was the brainchild of his predecessor and Senate Minority Leader, George

Akume, but he (Suswam) later turned his back against him throughout his eight-year tenure as governor of the state. Similarly, Senator Barnabas Gemade was instrumental to Akume's election as governor, but they later had a frosty relationship until recently when the duo settled their scores to achieve certain political ends. But Akume, Gemade and Suswam cannot be said to be instrumental to the election of Ortom, who won on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC). But 25 days to the hando-

ver date, the Governorelect, Ortom has started receiving bashing from the outgoing Governor Suswam, who in his latest attack on his successor, scolded him to ‘desist from acting as if he has already assumed office.’ Suswam, who was reacting to the content of a media briefing by the former Minister of State Trade, Industries and Investment, where he asked the present administration to stay action on the appointment of traditional rulers as well as the discreet recruitment of over 6, 000 workers and his resolve not to put the eight SUV jeeps presented to

him and his deputy into use until they are properly accounted for, accused Ortom of running a parallel government in the state. Suswam, in a statement through his Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Justin Amase, told Ortom that he is “still in charge as the executive governor and would not tolerate any reckless pronouncement from any person or persons on matters of government and governance” in the state. The governor, who cautioned the leadership and members of the APC to demonstrate decorum and desist from jumping

the gun with inflammatory statements capable of creating ill will and tension in the state, advised them to wait until May 29 when their administration will be officially inaugurated to also take charge of the state. But in a swift response, Ortom asked Suswam to stop blackmailing the APC. In a statement yesterday by the APC Secretary, Hon. Onov Tyuulugh, the party said they are not interested in Suswam’s olive branch and overtures and advised the governor to stop blackmailing the incoming government with what he described as ‘olive branch’.

L-R: Kaduna State Governor-elect, Malam Nasir El-Rufai; National Chairman, Anwar Faidot Society of Nigeria, Alhaji Abdulrazak Alejaiye and Deputy President, Nigeria Labour Congress, Comrade Issa Aremu, at the seventh day fidau prayer for late Chief Imam of Anwar Mosque, Sheikh Daniyatu Shita-Bey in Kaduna…yesterday

Gunmen assassinate ex-PDP chair in Benue Cephas Iorhemen Makurdi

unmen yesterday assassinated a former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in KatsinaAla Local Government area of Benue State, Hon. Lumunnege Zegeigyuve. New Telegraph gathered that the gunmen, numbering about five, stormed the residence of the PDP chieftain in the wee hours of the day and started shooting sporadically to scare neighbours after which they shot and killed the victim, leaving him in the pool of his blood. The Benue State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Austin Ezeani, who confirmed the incident, said it was a case of conspiracy. The PPRO said the assailants took to their

heels after the incident while one Orseer Tete Zegeguve, a relation of the deceased, was unlucky as the police arrested him concerning the incident. Ezeani said three empty shells of AK47 bullets were recovered at the scene of the incident, adding that the police are trailing other members of the gang while the remains of the politician had been deposited at the General Hospital, Katsina-Ala. Katsina-Ala Local Government area, it will be recalled, had witnessed several incidences of attacks by gunmen on individuals, especially the killing of an Assistant Inspector General of Police, Baba Ibrahim, who was on a special mission from the Force Headquarters, Abuja, to investigate the case of cattle rustling in the area.

Saraki mourns Abuja Chief Imam Biodun Oyeleye Ilorin

he Chairman, Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Dr. Bukola Saraki, has described the late Chief Imam of the National Mosque, Abuja, Ustaz Musa Mohammed, as a great symbol of guidance for Nigerian Muslims nationwide. Saraki, who described Mohammed’s death as a monumental loss to the country in a statement by his media aide, Bamikole Omishore, said the deceased was a renowned Islamic cleric of good conduct. The statement reads in part: “The eminent scholar was one of the first class individuals in the country, who have really sacrificed for the propagation of peace, love, brotherliness and tranquility in our dear nation. “Nigeria has indeed lost a rear gem! His demise is a great loss to Islam, humanity and Nigeria in general. He will be remembered for his principled life, spirit of tolerance, leadership quality and the spiritual roles he played during his life time. “I hereby join all Muslims worldwide to mourn this great loss with the family of the deceased and particularly, the leadership of the National Mosque and the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA).”

INEC to present certificates of return to lawmakers-elect Musa Pam Jos

he Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Plateau State will, tomorrow, present certificates of return to 24 newly elected members of the state House of

Assembly. INEC's Head of Public Education in the state, Mr. Osaretin Imahiyereobo, in a press statement issued at the weekend in Jos, a copy of which was made available to New Telegraph, said those expected to be issued with their certificates include Peter Ibrahim

FG hands over Tsangaya school to proprietor Mohammed Kawu Bauchi

he Federal Government has handed over the Tsangaya Model Qur’anic School in Toro, headquarters of Toro Local Government area of Bauchi State to its proprietor, Malam Mato Gumau. Speaking at the handing over of the school at the weekend, the Executive Secretary, Universal Basic Education Commis-

sion, Abuja, Dr. Dikko Sulaiman, said it is part of the Federal Government’s commitment to support Tsangaya education at the grass roots. Represented by the Programme Coordinator, Almajiri Education Programme in UBEC, Malam Ibrahim Yusuf, the secretary said the construction of the school followed a request made by its proprietor, Malam Mato Gumau and the approval by the Federal Government.

Gyendong (Barkin Ladi), Sunday Muchen (Bokkos), Joshua Izang Madaki (Jos East), Nyam Pam Dareng (Jos South), Ibrahim Baba Hassan (Jos North North), Peter Ajang Azi (Jos North West) and Kassim Ngad Jacob (Kanke). Others are Saleh Shehu Yipmon (Kanam-Dengi),

Yusuf Adamu Gagdi (Kantana), Amos Vongtim Kumtul (Langtang North Central), Godfrey Kapsel Lamdip (Langtang North North), Vincent Venman Bulus (Langtang South), Abdul Adamu Yanga (Mangu North East), James Emmanuel Dakas (Mangu South).

Group hails deputy governor-elect Dan Atori MINNA

political group, the Kede Youths Development Association (KYDA), yesterday hailed the Niger State Deputy Governor-elect, Alhaji Ahmed Mohammed Ketso, describing his emergence as a new political order in the state. KYDA, led by its President, Umar Mohammed Lenfa, made this known when the group paid the Deputy Governor-elect a

courtesy visit in Minna yesterday. According to the leader of the group, “Ketso is the new pillar of democracy in Niger State. He has been making waves in politics in Niger South Zone “A” since 1993 after he contested for councillorship under the defunct Social Democratic Party (SDP) and won in his Jagi Ward of Mokwa Local Government Area, until the dissolution of the entire political structure by the late Head of State, Sani Abacha.”

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PDP: What happened? C O N T I N U E D F R O M PA G E 5 6

the issue that led to the exit of five governors of the PDP extraction in one single swoop. As a matter of fact, the party lost many more influential and resourceful members especially in the National Assembly as soon as Mu’azu came on stage. Yet, curiously, he continued to bask in the euphoria of the rather mundane nickname of “game changer”. Well, the game has finally changed indeed! Doubtless, the problem the PDP was confronted with was not limited to the national level. In addition to the obvious flaws in the way the national leadership handled the affairs of the party, it needs no emphasis to state that the party’s biggest setback came from its abysmal performance at the state level which culminated in the perfidy witnessed at the party primary elections in December 2014, beginning with the election of delegates. List of delegates were changed several times to suit the whims of aspirants who claimed to have the ears of the national chairman. The party primaries were a bazaar. Aspirants were milked by party officials at all levels. In the states, officials imposed arbitrary levies on aspirants even after they had paid the officially prescribed fees. In a bid to meet the standard set by the party, aspirants borrowed money from sundry sources; many disposed of their priced assets and property. The citizenry watched with dismay as delegates were lavished with hundreds of thousands of naira, in some cases millions, by aspirants in a bid to win the delegates over. The governorship primaries in the states were far from credible, throwing up candidates whom the electorate, including members of the party, rejected right from day one. And with a baffling indifference or outright connivance, the national leadership looked the other way as aggrieved aspirants complained, asking for the right thing to be done. Without prejudice to the fact that I was a major participant in the governorship primaries in my state, Imo, I can state without any fear of contradiction that I had never, before December 8, 2014, witnessed the type of governorship primary elections as the type we had in Imo state. The result is what we saw: the strongest supporters of the party dumped its governorship candidate to support that of the rival party. Whether they were right or wrong is beyond the scope of this article but there can be no doubt that the situation would not have degenerate into that had the national leadership, especially of the NWC, not compromised itself. The result of that was witnessed during the presidential and governorship elections in the form of the apparent apathy of former aspirants and their supporters. The refrain was, “it serves them right”. As it is today, the party faithful can no longer wait for the sack of the leadership of the party at the national level and some state executives. Personally, I join other well meaning leaders of the party in demanding for the immediate resignation of the game changer, that is, the national chairman, Malam Adamu Mu’azu. The party should be handed over to a new leadership which will begin to prepare it for the next election. I liken what happened to a football tournament. After every bad outing, a new coach is usually brought in to prepare the team for the next tournament. The next source of PDP’s predicament was the shooting down of the zoning policy. Before 2011, it was a well known fact that the cardinal policy of the party was zoning. In the preamble and the aims and objectives of the party’s constitution, it is clearly stated that the party would be built on the principle of zoning. But that principle was killed in 2011 at the Green Chambers of

the National Assembly when, against the party’s policy and expectations of Nigerians, a Northerner emerged Speaker of the House of Representative, a position zoned to the South west; with a fellow from the Southeast clinching the Deputy Speaker position. Without a doubt, that was when the real trouble began for the PDP. Unfortunately, President Jonathan and the party leadership could not stop what happened in the House and that was the beginning of problems for his presidency. The resultant effect of the killing of zoning was that the PDP threw up many “wrong candidates” in the just concluded general election. Wrong, not in the sense that they were not qualified but in the sense that their candidature went against the wishes and aspirations of the people. Put in a different language, what PDP suffered was not a rejection of it by the people but a rejection of the products it presented. Needless to say, had the PDP presented a Northern candidate in line with the expectation of the people of the North, the Southwest and even parts of the Southeast and Southsouth, it would have still retained the presidency. In the next part of this series, I will deal more elaborately on this. Which takes me back to my earlier assertion that all hope is not lost for the PDP, provided the proper things are done and quickly too. In spite of the victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the PDP is still in a good stead to play a big role in the building of our democracy. Going back to the football tournament metaphor, the PDP definitely is a more experienced club than the APC which is less than three years old in the game. To be sure, some of its leaders are among the most experienced and seasoned individual players but as a team, it is yet to blend. Still, I believe it will not be difficult for the party to form a crack team from amongst its members to face the imminent challenges squarely. With the discovery of Shale oil in India and China and crude oil in North Africa which is closer to Asia, the demand for our crude will be near zero in the next one year even when account is taken of the fact that Nigeria’s Bony light is being sold at a discount. As it is, the next twelve months will be very traumatic for the national economy. Back to the PDP, however, my advice to the party members is that they should remain in the party to rebuild it and represent it for another tournament. Those fortune hunters leaving now are doing so at their own peril and it is even a disservice to the nation. In my humble view, the outgoing president, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, should see the task of rebuilding the PDP as the challenge of his life. It would be wrong for him to over stretch himself in the glory of the current praises being showered on him for effortlessly conceding the loss of the election and in the process saving the country from an imagined crisis. That was quite great of him but the bitter truth is that the PDP baton dropped from his hand at a most critical point in the life of our country. Still, there is a lifting up for him and the Peoples Democratic Party. For our dear nation at large, it ought to be stressed that we cannot afford to spend all the time clapping our hands and dancing around over “change”. The change is here and now that we have it what is required is action. Every Nigerian is expected to join hands with the new team to push in the same direction. But the potential game changer, I dare say, is to unleash the economic power of millions of our youth who sang and danced the music of change but who unfortunately are currently locked out of the national arena due to joblessness. • Ohakim was governor of Imo State from 2007 - 2011

MONDAY MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

William and Kate back home with Britain's new princess

rince William and his wife Kate showed off their new baby daughter to close relatives yesterday as Britain eagerly awaited the name of the new royal princess. Kate's mother Carole Middleton and her sister Pippa were the first to arrive at the couple's Kensington Palace apartment in central London followed by William's father Prince Charles and his wife Camilla. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, their firstborn Prince George and the new arrival were expected to spend the next few days at Kensington Palace before travelling to Anmer Hall, their secluded 10-bedroom man-

sion on Queen Elizabeth's Sandringham country estate. Betting on the new baby's name meanwhile saw Charlotte overtake longtime front-runner Alice as the bookmakers' favourite with odds of 3/1. Britain's Sunday newspapers carried big front page pictures of the new baby and fourth in line to the throne with many running souvenir pullouts. "Sleeping cutie," said both The Sun and the Sunday Mirror, with a close-up of the child, who was born Saturday. The birth is "a reminder of the things that really matter in life", added the Sunday Telegraph. Tourism chiefs said the baby was expected to boost visitor numbers to London. "Royal connections

and attractions are key drivers that attract people from the UK and abroad to the capital," said London tourism boss Gordon Innes. To mark the arrival, many of London's hotels and restaurants also celebrated with regalthemed afternoon teas and London's landmarks including Tower Bridge and the Trafalgar Square fountains were lit up in pink late on Saturday. Newspapers said Queen Elizabeth II was seen attending church yesterday at her Sandringham residence in Norfolk, eastern England. While the baby has met her only aunt, she is yet to meet her uncles. William's brother Prince Harry is on attachment with the Australian army.

Britain's Prince William, right, and Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, pose for the media with their newborn daughter outside St. Mary's Hospital's exclusive Lindo Wing, London.

Burundi journalists protest after closure of radio stations

ournalists in Burundi held a sombre gathering yesterday to mark World Press Freedom Day, after a week of political violence that has also seen radio stations shut down. "It's a sad day for the Burundian press because radio stations are closed, journalists are jailed," said Antoine Kabuhare, head of an independent media rights group. "It's a sad day for anyone who believes in

democracy and freedom of expression, and it's sad to hear messages of hate," he said at a gathering of journalists outside a media hub which authorities have shut down. At least 10 people have died and scores more have been hurt since the political unrest broke out in the central African nation last weekend. Nearly 600 people have also been arrested, according to police. The unrest erupted af-

ter the ruling CNDD-FDD party designated President Pierre Nkurunziza, a former rebel leader and bornagain Christian from the Hutu majority, as its candidate in presidential elections due to be held on June 26. Opposition figures and rights groups say Nkurunziza's attempt to stand for a third consecutive term violates the constitution as well as a peace deal that ended a civil war in 2006. Nkurunziza has been in power since 2005.

Baltimore mayor announces end of city-wide night curfew

he mayor of Baltimore yesterday lifted a nightly curfew that was implemented after residents in the US city rioted following the death of a man in police custody. A 10:00 pm to 5:00 am curfew was imposed Tuesday following chaotic scenes that saw mobs looting shops, smash-

ing store windows and setting cars ablaze. But recent protests have been largely peaceful and a growing chorus of community members and business owners called for the curfew to be lifted. "Effective immediately, I have rescinded my order instituting a city-wide curfew," May-

or Stephanie RawlingsBlake wrote on Twitter. "I want to thank the people of Baltimore for their patience." The mayor went on to tweet that her goal had "always been to not have the curfew in place a single day longer than was necessary. I believe we have reached that point today."

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

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International Sport

Table Tennis

Eagles Round-Up

World Relays: Nesiama applauds victorious Nigerian women team

Drogba delighted with fourth EPL title

World championships: Ma Long wins men’s gold

Sport

Mikel shines as Chelsea claim EPL trophy

Did you know? That women were allowed to compete for the first time at the Olympic Games in 1900 in Paris, France.

I was too quick for Pacquiao – Mayweather • I thought I won, says ‘Pacman’

loyd Mayweather beat Manny Pacquiao at the MGM Grand after being awarded a wide unanimous decision, and said afterwards that the Filipino could not catch him throughout the duration of the fight at the MGN Grand Arena in Las Vegas. Judge Dave Moretti scored the welterweight unification matchup 118-110, while Burt Clements and Glenn Feldman each had it 116-112. Mayweather who now owns the WBC, WBA and WBO titles captures his impression after the bout touted as the “Fight of the Century,” in the following quotes: “Pacquiao is a great champion and a helluva fighter. Now I see why he’s been so successful in the sport,” said Mayweather, 38. “He had his moments in the fight, but as long as I moved on the outside he wasn’t going to be able to catch me. He’s a really smart fighter, though. “It was only when I stayed in the pocket that he could CONTINUED ON PAGE 52

The Sport Team Adekunle Salami Group Sport Editor

Emmanuel Tobi Assistant Editor, Sport

Ifeanyi Ibeh Sport Correspondent

Ajibade Olusesan Sport Correspondent

Charles Ogundiya Sport Correspondent

Pacquiao lands a punch as Mayweather reacts during their fight... Sunday morning

Chelsea are Premier League champions C helsea clinched their first Premier League title for five years as Jose Mourinho’s side produced a typically stubborn display to grind out a 1-0 victory against Crystal Palace at a jubilant Stamford Bridge on Sunday. Playmaker Eden Hazard scored the crucial goal in the 45th minute when he headed home the rebound after Palace keeper Julian Speroni had saved his weak penalty. Chelsea were tested at times by a dangerous Palace side but

the final whistle was greeted by raucous scenes as Mourinho’s side clinched their fifth topflight title and first since 2010. Visiting manager Alan Pardew had won four of his previous six matches as an opposition coach against Chelsea and from the opening stages it was evident his side -- nestled safely in mid table -- had designs on postponing the Blues’ title celebrations. The hosts were almost gifted a fortuitous lead in the 22nd minute when Speroni punched

wildly at Cesc Fabregas’s free kick but Nemanja Matic, afforded the freedom of the Palace penalty area, hesitated and his shot was diverted for a corner. Then it was Palace’s turn to go close but Jason Puncheon was denied by a desperate block from Chelsea defender John Terry -- though replays suggested the ball may have struck the Chelsea captain’s arm. With frustrations slowly building it was talisman Hazard, who after a relatively anonymous half by his own standards,

burst into life drawing a challenge from James McArthur to win a controversial penalty. The resultant spot kick was tame and easily saved by Speroni though the Belgian was quickest to react to nod home the rebound. The game followed a similarly pattern after the break. Chelsea continued to fire blanks in search of a clinching goal but a fervent atmosphere had already engulfed Stamford Bridge long before the final whistle was blown.

52 Sport

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

World Relays: Nesiama applauds victorious Nigerian women team Charles Ogundiya

echnical Director of the Athletic Federation of Nigeria, Navy Commodore Omatseye Nesiama, has applauded the performance of Team Nigeria at the IAAF World Relays, Bahamas 2015. Nesiama was reacting to the gold medal won by the country’s women in the 4x200m relay in a world leading time of 1:30.52secs at the IAAF World Relays in Nassau, Bahamas on Sunday morning. The quartet of Dominique Duncan, Regina George, Christiana Udoh and Blessing Okagbare emerged victorious in a race that saw both host nation, Bahamas, and 2014 winners, United States of America disqualified. “I had said it before now that we can rely on these women to

showcase our prowess in the relays and they have not disappointed me,” Nesiama said. He added: “Despite our inability to have a strong team due to the non-availability some of the athletes pencilled down for the competition, the women did the job for us.” The women’s 4x200m was the most dramatic final on the first day of the IAAF/BTC World Relays. Pre-event favourites USA failed to make the podium after disaster struck on the final baton changeover putting an end to their medal hopes. There was drama too for the host nation as their second changeover was well outside of the zone. The Bahamas team carried on and eventually crossed the line in second place, but they were disqualified afterwards. It meant that Nigeria were

the surprise victors, winning in 1:30.52 to take two seconds off the national record they set earlier this year. Okagbare led the team off before the baton was passed to George, Duncan and Udoh in that order. Jamaica finished a distant second in 1:31.73, one-and-ahalf seconds slower than their time from last year, but one place higher on the podium. Germany placed third in 1:33.61 while China set an Asian record of 1:34.89 in fourth. Meanwhile, Nigeria did not start in the Men’s 4x100m race, which was won by the USA in a Competition Record 37.38secs, ahead of Jamaica- with Usain Bolt in the fold- (37.68) and Japan (38.20). The Nigerian men also put up a lacklustre performance in the 4x400m race as they clocked 3:06.92secs to finish in 18th position.

From left Blessing Okagbare, Regina George, Dominique Duncan, and Christy Udoh of Nigeria celebrating on the podium after winning the women’s 4x200m gold

Rivers athletes set to protest non-payment of salaries

thletes who will represent Rivers State in the 19th National Sports Festival later this year will stage a peaceful protest to the government house in Port Harcourt this week to protest the non-payment of their salaries and allowances. The athletes, according to sources close to the situation, are eager to take their grievances to the state Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, whom they believe may not be aware of their plight. “We believe the governor is not aware that we are being owed for more than 10 months. The Deputy Governor, Tele Ikuru, is in-charge of sports and we fear recent developments over his return to the People’s Democratic Party may have affected communication between him and the governor and that is why we want to see Governor Amaechi to let him know what is hampering our

preparations for the festival,” said Taiwo Suleiman, one of the athletes. Rivers State emerged overall winners of the festival when it hosted in 2011 and came second at the Eko 2012 edition behind Delta State. The athletes said they are determined to return the state to the number one position which it achieved four years ago for the first time since its creation in 1967. “We want to be first again and our plan was to use it as a send-off gift to Governor Amaechi who has been the main pillar behind our success if it had held late last year or April this year. He (Amaechi) has brought Rivers State to the sporting map of Nigeria as a state to be reckoned with unlike in the past when the state was an also-ran in major sporting events in Nigeria,” added Suleiman, the best 100m blind athlete in Nigeria.

Mayweather hits Pacquiao with a left hook... Sunday morning

‘I was too quick for Pacquiao’ CO N TI N U E D FROM PAGE 51

have those moments. He’s a really tough competitor. My dad wanted me to do more, but Manny’s really awkward and I had to watch him closely.” But Pacquiao who thought he had won the fight Pacquiao revealed at the post-fight press conference that he suffered a right shoulder injury in training approximately two-and-ahalf weeks ago, one that hindered the ability to throw his patented hook. Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach says they considered pulling Pacquiao out of the bout, and Top Rank CEO Bob Arum said surgery is a possibility. Regardless of the injury, Pacquiao had his moments and the best one came in Round 4. The 36-year-old blasted Mayweather with a clean left hook, a blow that staggered the Las Vegas-resident to the ropes and forced him into a shell. Mayweather (48-0, 26 KOs) covered up and withstood a furious barrage from Pacquiao, catching most of the follow-up punches with his gloves. However, Pacquiao connected with several thudding body shots, sending the pro-Manny crowd into a boisterous roar.

“I caught him many times. I was never hurt,” Pacquiao (576-2, 28 KOs) said. “I was very surprised at the scores. I hit him many mores times than he hit me. I had no problem handling his power. I thought I won.” The American, a fiveweight world champion, also criticised those who doubted him, telling them he had made them “eat their words”. “For years everyone said that I was scared and that I’d lose,” added Mayweather, who is undefeated in 48 professional fights stretching back 19 years. “I made the non-believers into believers. I was the better man, the smarter fighter - more calculated, more patient. He was applying pressure but not landing many punches and I was just keeping my jab in his face.” Mayweather started the brighter of the two and rocked Pacquiao with a number of right hand counter punches in the early exchanges. The Filipino came back at the American in the fourth round, stunning Mayweather with a left hand and again in the sixth round but was never able to back it up and Mayweather ran out the winner on the judges scorecards.

NBBF hammer descends on three clubs Ifeanyi Ibeh

ith the first phase of the Zenith Bank Female Basketball league ongoing at the national stadium in Abuja, the board of the Nigerian Basketball Federation (NBBF) sat on Sunday to address major issues brought forward by the technical committee as regards the national domestic leagues and the national team programmes, with far reaching decisions made and some already being implemented. The Nigerian Basketball Federation has threatened to

take disciplinary action on three clubs for various offences ranging from their failure to pay their players bringing the game into disrepute. Following a comprehensive meeting regarding the ongoing DStv Premier Basketball League and the Zenith Bank Basketball League on Sunday in Abuja, the NBBF board agreed to take disciplinary action against DStv Premier League teams, Oluyole Warriors of Ibadan and Kada Stars of Kaduna, for owing their players sign-on fees and salaries from last season. The Civil Defenders, who

play in the lower league, also came under the hammer of the NBBF for bringing the game into disrepute by deliberately failing to honour their match against Hoop ‘n’ Read in last November’s National Division One Championship. The matters were brought to the attention of the board by the basketball body’s technical committee. The technical committee also briefed the NBBF board on the debt stock of the federation and their efforts to offset them, with the board endorsing some of the strategies suggested to help ease the process.

Edo coaches mourn Tony Ottah

he Nigeria Football Coaches Association, through its Edo State chapter, has expressed sadness over the death of veteran coach, Tony Ottah. Ottah, a member of the 1973 Green Eagles team that won Nigeria’s first ever All Africa Games football gold, reportedly slumped a few hours after the burial of an-

other veteran coach, Willy Bazuaye, last week in Benin. He however never recovered until his death on Friday night. In a statement signed on behalf of the coaches’ president, Bitrus Bewarang, secretary of Nigerian coaches, Solomon Ogbeide, said Ottah’s death, coming on the heels of Bazuaye’s, has denied the body “experienced and valuable” techni-

cal contributions towards the development of the profession. “Coach Ottah was before his death, the Training Officer of the Edo State chapter. The younger coaches have attested to his richness and repertoire of experience and it has manifested in the quality representation of teams in the Federation Cup from the state,” he said.

International Sport 53

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

Champions League ticket in our hands – Young

shley Young has reminded his Manchester United teammates that their Champions League destiny remains very much in their own hands. United succumbed to a third successive defeat in Saturday’s shock 1-0 home loss to West Bromwich Albion to leave them four points clear of Liverpool in fifth. With only 12 points left to win this season, Louis van Gaal’s side is still favourites to secure a top-four finish, and Young is confident that the Red Devils will reach the finish line regardless of the manner. “As players and staff, there’s no doubt we can qualify for the Champions League and that was always what we wanted to do,” he told MUTV. “It’s still in our hands and we have three massive games coming up. We have another tough game away to Palace next weekend and we want to get back to winning ways.”

Chelsea’s Mikel Obi and team mates celebrating winning the Premier League... Sunday

RESULTS ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE Chelsea 1 – 0 Crystal Palace Tottenham 0 - 1 Man City Leicester 3 – 0 Newcastle Aston Villa 3 – 2 Everton Liverpool 2 – 1 QPR Sunderland 2 – 1 Southampton Swansea 2 – 0 Stoke West Ham 1 – 0 Burnley Man United 0 – 1 West Brom ITALIAN SERIE A Roma 2 – 0 Genoa Atalanta 1 – 1 Lazio Fiorentina 3 – 1 Cesena Inter 0 – 0 Chievo Verona 0 – 1 Udinese Sampdoria 0 – 1 Juventus SPANISH LA LIGA Espanyol 1 – 1 Vallecano Cordoba 0 – 8 Barcelona Atl. Madrid 0 – 0 Ath. Bilbao Sevilla 2 – 3 Real Madrid La Coruna 1 – 1 Villarreal

PREMIER LEAGUE TABLE GD

1 Chelsea

35 42

Pts 83

2 Man City

35 35

3 Arsenal

33 31

4 Man United

35 24

5 Liverpool

35 11

6 Tottenham

35 5

7 Southampton 35 20

8 Swansea

35 -1

firmed them as champions. Comparing this title triumph to his three previous victorious Premier League campaigns Drogba said: “I think I prefer to live with the present and this one is sweet, this one is sweet also. “With me or without me, Chelsea will always be number one. “I’m happy that I’m part of this but Chelsea is bigger than me and they will

always win.” It was the third time that Drogba has won the Premier League title in a match at Stamford Bridge, something which he savoured: “Third time here and it’s an amazing feeling - fantastic - the fans - amazing, you know, they’re the best.” Asked about his future he would only say: “A good rest, a good celebration...and that’s it.” Young

Wenger expects ‘big challenge’ at Hull

Getafe 1 – 2 Granada

our-times Premier League title winner Didier Drogba savoured his latest triumph with Chelsea as fans and teammates celebrated around him at Stamford Bridge. The talisman of Jose Mourinho’s ‘first coming’ to Stamford Bridge was delighted to celebrate the triumphant reclaiming of the league title after Chelsea’s 1-0 victory of Crystal Palace con-

Aguero inspires City victory over Spurs

Sassuolo 0 – 0 Palermo

TEAMS

Drogba delighted with fourth EPL title F

9 West Ham

35 1

10 Stoke

35 -5

11 Everton

35 0

12 C. Palace

35 -6

13 West Brom

35 -13

14 Aston Villa

35 -21

15 Newcastle

35 -24

16 HullCity

34 -13

17 Leicester

35 -15

18 Sunderland

34 -22

19 QPR

35 -22

20 Burnley

35 -27

anchester City may no longer be able to call themselves Premier League champions but at least the indignity of missing out on the topfour has almost certainly been avoided after Sergio Aguero inspired them to victory at Tottenham. A poor 2015 has seen Manuel Pellegrini’s side go from title challengers to facing the prospect of potentially missing out on Champions League football. That disaster has been almost certainly averted, though, after continuing their fine form against Tottenham, with Aguero securing a 1-0 win just hours after City were dethroned as English champions. Their fight to retain the title had realistically ended several weeks back but Chelsea’s rubber-stamping meant a reaction was required at White Hart Lane, especially having lost their last four league games on the road. This was an eighth defeat in nine Premier League matches against City and one few could have imagined after Pochettino’s side started so well.

Chelsea’s Willian (left) in action against Hull City...Sunday

rsene Wenger has warned his Arsenal side to think again if they believe that Monday’s trip to relegation-threatened Hull City will be a stroll in the park. The Tigers ride the crest of a wave into Monday’s clash at the KC Stadium after beating Crystal Palace and Liverpool this past week to breathe new life into their survival bid. “They had two great performances when they were in quite a bad situation, but they had two amazing results,” the Frenchman is quoted as saying by Sky Sports News. “Hull have just beaten Liverpool at home, so we are warned that we will face a big challenge there.” The Gunners, who sit level on points with second-placed Manchester City can consolidate third place by moving five points clear of Manchester United in fourth.

World championships: Ma Long wins men’s gold

orld number one, Ma Long, became the men’s world champion for the first time, as he beats compatriot Fang Bo in the final of the International Table Tennis Federation World championship in front of the capacity crowd in Suzhou on Sunday.

The ping-pong player featuring in his fourth world championship defeated Bo 4-2 (11-7, 7-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-13, 11-4) to claim the title that has eluded him all these years. “It is like a dream come true. Having lost in the semifinal at the last three world championships, honestly I have a lot

of pressure to earn this title. At the end of the day I think this was worth it.” the newly crowned champion said. In the women’s category, top seed, Ding Ning, also beat compatriot and second seed, Liu Shiwen, 4-3 (7-11, 15-13, 11-7, 11-9, 9-11, 4-11, 11-8) to claim the gold. Ma Long

Sport

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015 NEW TELEGRAPH

EAGLES ROUND-UP

Promise, Ibrahim, Kayode on song F

Promise

ormer Flying Eagles stars, Isaac Promise, Rabiu Ibrahim and Kayode Olarenwaju, were in scoring form for their clubs in Europe last weekend. Promise scored in a seven-goal thriller between his Turkish Super Lig club, Balikesirspor, and Fenerbahçe at the Sükrü Saracoglu Stadyumu on Saturday. . Fenerbahçe who had Nige-

ria’s Emmanuel Emenike in their fold won the match 4-3 and Promise who led Nigeria U-20 team to a silver medal at the 2005 World Youth Championship, scored his side’s first goal in the 15th minute. Similarly, Olarenwaju who was in Flying Eagles side to the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup, netted his 13th league goal of the season but it was not enough to stop his side, Maccabbi Netanya,

from going down to a 2-1 defeat to Hapoel Tel Aviv. The former Golden Eaglets star scored in the ninth minute but Hapoel Tel Aviv levelled through Azulay in the 35th minute before Falach netted the match winner in the 64th minute. Kayode has scored seven goals in his last 10 appearances in the Israeli top division, including a brace in back to back games

against Maccabi Tel Aviv and Hapoel Beer Sheva in February. Ibrahim who was in Nigeria’s squad to 2009 FIFA U-20 World Cup was also on song for AS Trencin as they claimed the Slovakia Cup on Friday. The former Sporting Lisbon midfielder levelled scores at 1-1 in the 36th minute, as his team beat FK Senica 3-2 on penalties after

Mikel shines as Chelsea claim EPL title, Ambrose too

ikel Obi played a key role as Chelsea beat Crystal Palace 1-0 to claim their fourth English Premier League title. The Nigerian replaced Juan Cuadrado at half time and he had a commanding performance in the middle of the park; the 27-year-old even almost scored as he fired a shot that went slightly off target in the course of the match. The former Lyn Oslo player is qualified to collect champions’ medal as he played 16 league matches for the Blues this term. The Stamford Bridge side has now won the EPL title two times since the arrival of Mikel from Lyn Oslo in 2006. Efe Ambrose was in action for 65 minutes when Celtic wrapped

up their Scottish league title with a 5-0 humiliation of Dundee United on Saturday. The Nigerian operated at the periphery of the main team for most part of the season despite playing 25 times in the campaign. He spent more times on the bench than he had on the pitch, he played 1,849 minutes as against 3,345 minutes he managed last season for the champions. Brown Ideye was an 80th minute substitute when West Brom secured a shock 1-0 win against Manchester United at Old Trafford on Saturday. His compatriot, Victor Anichebe, was an unused substitute. Osaze Odemwingie, again, came off the bench as his side; Stoke City lost 2-0 at Swansea. The Nigerian who just re-

turned from a long injury layoff replaced Jonathan Walters in the 81st minute. In the Championship, Kenneth Omeruo was an unused substitute as Middlesbrough played a goalless draw with Brighton & Hove at the Riverside Stadium. Odion Ighalo was introduced in the 78th minute as Watford played 1-1 with Sheffield Wednesday and failed to win the Championship trophy. The Nigerian who has 20 league goals to his credit replaced Matej Vydra. In Italy, Ogenyi Onazi was relegated to the bench in Lazio’s 1-1 draw at Atalanta. Emmanuel Emenike failed to add to his four league goals when he replaced Dirk Kuyt in Fenerbahce’s 4-3 win over Balikesirspor.

Mikel Obi in action for Chelsea... Sunday

NIGERIA PREMIER LEAGUE round-up Kwara United send Pillars away empty-handed

eague champions, Kano Pillars, on Sunday, returned home empty handed after Kwara United

defeated them 1-0 in one of the NPFL Week Seven games played inside the Ilorin Sports Complex.

Action between Giwa FC of Jos and Rangers of Enugu in a recent league match

Giwa return to top spot Stories by Charles Ogundiya

os-based Giwa FC continued their impressive run in the Nigeria Professional Football League with another victory at home to Bayelsa United. Two first half goals by Charles Okoro and Edoh Ocheme and a second half goal by Ibrahim Shuaibu gave the privately owned club the victory against Bayelsa United. The game ended 3-1 after Bayelsa United’s Tombara

Tiongoli scored a goal for the visitors late in the game. The victory pushed Giwa back to the top position on the table, dethroning Heartland FC of Owerri who lost 3-0 at home to Sunshine Stars. Wikki Tourists thrashed Rangers International of Enugu 4-2 while the game between Sharks and FC Taraba ended 2-2 in Port Harcourt. In Nnewi, two second half goals gave Gabros a 2-0 win at home to Enyimba while Dolphins defeated Lobi Stars 2-0 in Port Harcourt.

Abia’s Obasi Okoro (right), vying for the ball with Pillars’ Rabiu Ali

Emma Eviemere gave the Afonja Warriors the lead in the first half of the game, diverting the ball home with his head off a corner kick. The home team created several chances in the game but failed to convert them with the visitors also having their own fair share of chances mostly from the break. Kazeem Yekeen in goal for Kwara United came to the rescue of his side on more than two occasions when faced one on one with Kano Pillars strikers. Speaking with New Telegraph after the match, Kwara United head coach, Tunde Sanni, said he was happy getting the three points at stake. “I give God the glory for the victory in today’s game,” Sani said. “I was confident that we would beat Kano Pillars because I understand their pattern of play. I was once based in Kano and I know the team very well.” He however blamed the inability of his team to convert so many scoring chances on injuries that have ravaged his team recently.

Interview/Features 55

NEW TELEGRAPH MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

How Mayweather beat Pacquiao

Mayweather lines up a punch against Pacquiao... Sunday

New Telegraph presents a round-by-round account of how the clinical Floyd Mayweather deteated the aggressive Manny Pacquiao in front of a packed house at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the early hours of Sunday Nigerian time. Round 1 Both fighters moved aggressively to the centre of the ring to start their long-awaited fight. Pacquiao looked to land early body shots, but Mayweather slipped away. Mayweather landed a solid counter right to the body in the final minute. Round 2

Pacquiao gets Mayweather on the ropes, but the unbeaten pound-forpound king slips away repeatedly or wraps up Pacquiao in close. Pacquiao’s shots are mostly missing, and Mayweather gets more aggressive later in the round. Pacquiao lands a late left. Round 3 Mayweather delivers a borderline

low blow, and Pacquiao reacts angrily. Pacquiao loads up for a few big punches, but still has trouble finding the most elusive boxer of his generation. Big shots late get the crowd on its feet. Round 4 Pacquiao stalks Mayweather around the ring, but Mayweather mostly parries the big shots that draw hoarse cheers from the crowd. Pacquiao then catches Mayweather with a huge left hand and appears to stagger him, but Mayweather backs up on the ropes in a defensive posture and then survives the round with a smirk. Round 5 The crowd is still buzzing from Pacquiao’s enormous left hand in the fourth round, but Mayweather shows veteran calm and wins the early exchanges. Pacquiao is stalking and looking for openings, but finding none this round in the defensive virtuoso. Round 6 Pacquiao wears a look of fury to open the round, and he chases Mayweather to the ropes repeatedly with superior energy and aggression. Pacquiao unloads with combinations that bring the crowd to its feet, but Mayweather stares back with a cold-eyed look and mouths, ‘Nope, nope.’ Round 7 Mayweather becomes the pursuer to open the round, stalking Pacquiao back to the ropes. Mayweather uses a double jab and a right hand to keep Pacquiao guessing. Pacquiao lunges forward to throw combinations, but Mayweather is already gone. Round 8 Mayweather continues to use his jab to keep Pacquiao uncertain. Pacquiao opens up, jumps in and throws big

shots at Mayweather, connecting with two big left hands. Mayweather jabs and counterpunches. They trade glares after an exchange at the bell. Round 9 Pacquiao continues to look for an opening to unload his big punches, but Mayweather counter-punches and dodges skilfully. Pacquiao is more aggressive and effective, but Mayweather nearly connects with a big right hand, and he lands a big late flurry on the ropes. Round 10 Another round of stalking by Pacquiao and superb defence from Mayweather, who lands just enough jabs and counterpunches to keep the Filipino congressman frustrated. Neither fighter lands anything huge in an even round. Round 11 Two great fighters are in a bit of a stalemate, with Pacquiao unable to land his speedy combinations and Mayweather unable to do much more than jab, counterpunch and stay out of trouble. Pacquiao backs Mayweather into a corner, but Mayweather lands a clean left hand on the chin moments later. Mayweather claps his gloves together at the bell in a gesture that Manny once used. Round 12 Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao hug in the centre of the ring before the final round of the most anticipated fight in years. Then they shove each other away and go back to work. Pacquiao continues to storm forward, but Mayweather shows off athleticism with one last fleetfooted display. Both fighters raise their gloves at the bell, and Mayweather jumps on the ring ropes.

Ex-champions’ verdict on bout Mayweather is a great

De La Hoya critical of

technician – Lewis

Mayweather’s tactics

ennox Lewis has praised the scar De La Hoya has criticised work of Floyd Mayweather Floyd Mayweather Jr for the Jr during his victory over Manapproach used during his unaniny Pacquiao, calling the Amerimous points victory over Manny can a “great technician”. Pacquiao. The 38-year-old was booed Mayweather eased past the Filiby several of the capacity pino at a sold-out MGM Grand in crowd at the MGM Grand GarLas Vegas to stretch his unbeaten den Arena in Las Vegas, after record to 48-0, but De La Hoya securing a unanimous points was disappointed with the tactics De La Hoya decision. adopted by the five-weight world Lewis However, the former unchampion. disputed world heavyweight BBC Sport quotes the Golden champion took to Twitter to disappointed by fight Boy CEO as saying: “Call me oldsuggest that some boxing fans ike Tyson says he is “underwhelmed” by Floyd school but I like the fans getting are overlooking Mayweather Mayweather Jr’s points victory over Manny their money’s worth by watching Jr’s technical skill and sugPacquiao. an action-packed fight. gested that many spectators The 38-year-old extended his record to 48-0 after “I’m just not into the boxing, run“want blood”. picking off the Filipino with counter punches bening style. I like jumping out of my He tweeted: “Some people fore taking a unanimous decision to add the WBO seat because a fight was excisting.” want blood & get disappointed welterweight title to his WBC and WBO crowns. However, ‘Money’s father, Floyd when they don’t get it. Doesn’t However, Tyson tweeted his dismay at what he felt Mayweather Snr. dismissed crititake away from fact that Floyd was a disappointing match between the pair, saying cism of his son’s strategy against is a great technician.” Tyson “We waited five years for that” the Filipino.

Tyson

On Marble

I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. – Stephen Covey

Moroccan woman (Zahra Aboutalib, 75-year-old) gave birth to a 'stone baby', 46 years after it was conceived. The baby developed outside the womb.

NIGERIA’S MOST AUTHORITATIVE NEWSPAPER IN POLITICS AND BUSINESS

MONDAY, MAY 4, 2015

World Record

Sanctity of Truth

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PDP: What happened?

ollowing the dramatic resignation of his membership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by President Olusegun Obasanjo, earlier this year, by publicly tearing his membership card, I did a piece in which I tried to situate the action of the eminent Nigerian leader in perspective. In the article titled, OBASANJO: WHAT HAPPENED?, I opined that it was quite ominous of President Obasanjo to publicly shred the ‘baptismal’ certificate of his son, an aphorism which I deliberately employed to underscore the point that Obasanjo was the father of the PDP and indeed the father of the nation an oracle of sort. Coming just some weeks to the 2015 general election, President Obasanjo’s action signified that he was indirectly predicting the fall of the party. In the article under reference, I pointed out that President Obasanjo did what he did out of frustration, having continually failed in getting the leadership of the party to understand his body language or heed his advice on how to save the party. I did point out that though Obasanjo might not have couched his language of communication in the most elegant manner, it was our responsibility in the party to try to extract the message, rather than the resort to cajoling the elder statesman, which was becoming the preoccupation of some PDP and presidency officials. Of course, Obasanjo was not the only fellow who foresaw the PDP plummeting. The difference was that he was probably the only one who had the candour and sincerity of purpose to put his observations across without flattering those at the helm of affairs. In appraising Obasanjo’s action of publicly shredding his PDP membership card, I had to inevitably take a cue from his evidently hard stance to lend my own shrill voice that the party was heading towards a crash. Again, because my piece came even closer to the general election, I was widely criticized for being a dooms day prophesy bearer. Even a top official of the party called for my suspension from PDP for anti-party activities. I laughed. I had mentioned that the leadership of the PDP should have been able to prevent the exit of five of its state governors at a swoop. And that even so, the fellow who was brought in to run the affairs of the party thereafter failed even more abysmally than his predecessor in addressing the issues that eventually led to the defeat of the party. I feel pained on the calamity that befell the party. This notwithstanding, I feel that a quick intervention has become necessary in order to let the party faithful know that in spite of what has happened, it is not yet over for PDP; and that from the ashes of the present ruins may still rise a greater party. I think there is need to let the teeming members of PDP realize that there is still a great hope and that as they say, after rain comes sun shine; the same as to say that there is a silver lining in the horizon. But that cannot happen if we do not first and foremost take stock and to put it in my own native parlance, to determine at what

IKEDI OHAKIM Guest Columnist point the rain began to beat us. Just as in my earlier piece before the general election, I maintain the position that the blame of what happened to the PDP lies squarely on the door of its national leadership. As I noted above, Chief Obasanjo was not the only fellow who saw the ominous signs. I personally tried to communicate my own observations to the leadership of the party and even to the President himself in various private memos. To be sure, I am with millions of people all over the world in commending President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting the results of the presidential election so early and saving Nigerians from anxieties and probably a crisis. In addition, while I also agree with the human angle theory of the ‘shoe less’ Ijaw boy who came to Abuja and is leaving Aso Rock with his head and that of his entire family intact, I believe that President Jonathan was in a position to achieve more than that. As the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo, would say, it is not life that matters but the courage which one brings to it. President Jonathan is a courageous man but it didn’t even need raw courage to have been able to save the PDP from the disaster that befell it under his watch. What he needed was not courage but a listening ability and capacity to employ the capability of others. Unknown to many, the fate that befell the PDP was already dangling like the Sword of Damacles right from 2007. But Obasanjo was able to save the party from that calamity not because he was the wisest and most courageous man but because he has or had the ability to discern the danger. For example, the single act that saved PDP in 2007 was President Obasanjo’s swift move that saw Governor Peter Odili voluntarily opting out of the presidential race for the interest of the party and the nation in general. For, when confronted with the binary choice of either having Odili as the presidential candidate or having the PDP collapse under him, President Obasanjo in a deft move rallied leaders of the party to persuade Odili, who was already coasting to victory for the primaries, to drop his ambition; not through any presidential fiat but by consensus for the interest of the party and the entire country. That move ensured that the late Yar’ Adua, a Northerner, emerged as the party’s presidential candidate, instead of Odili; and that was what saved the party from what it finally suffered in 2015 under President Jonathan. Obasanjo was, of course, vilified by the less informed and they were many. How could he return presidential power to the North which had

“monopolized” it for several years? Is it not therefore a matter of grave concern that the big price paid by Peter Odili to save the PDP in 2007 was never put into consideration by the party? Odili was simply waved aside in a manner that piqued other well meaning members of the party and which discouraged them from making further sacrifices for it. Yar’ Adua’s tenure was unfortunately cut short by his death and thus bridging the turn of the North which had a legitimate claim to the presidency after Obasanjo, a Southerner. The constitutional inevitability of the Jonathan ascendancy gave him only about two years but by 2011, Obasanjo came into the picture after Jonathan had expressed interest to run for a full tenure of four years. Obasanjo came with the wisdom of his better knowledge of Nigeria and in agreeing that Goodluck Ebele Jonathan should go for his own presidency, insisted that the latter should do only four years, that is, between 2011 and 2015. It is a fact that cannot be over laboured that President Obasanjo traversed the length and breadth of the country canvassing support for President Jonathan to be allowed to do another term of just four years and in the process made promises on behalf of the party. Unfortunately, President Jonathan decided to take another shot at the presidency in 2015 thus putting Obasanjo in bad light especially before the North. Meanwhile, some discerning strategists in the Southwest, led by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, saw an opening and moved in their political machine and began to shell both the Wadata plaza, Abuja, the national headquarters of the PDP as well as the Aso Rock Presidential villa. It is important to point out that the final decision by President Jonathan to run in 2015 was the result of a deliberately designed conspiracy to prod him on to that fatal mistake. The conspiracy entailed, among other things, the sacking of Bamangar Tukur, the recruitment of Mua’zu as well as the recruitment of some elements, especially contractors, to block people who would have offered the president better advice on the matter and other vital issues. Let me illustrate this with the Olagunsoye Oyinlola saga. The Oyinlola saga seems to me a major proof of the conspiracy theory. It baffled even the least discerning fellow why the PDP leadership acted with so much impunity on the Oyinlola matter when it was clearly evident that it was shooting itself on the foot by the way the matter was handled. Prince Oyinlola, a former military ad-

ministrator of Lagos state and former democratically elected governor of Osun state was suspended as national secretary of the party in a manner that confounded even the most benevolent apologist of both the presidency and the PDP leadership. Yet, even after he got reinstated by a federal high court, the party resorted to legal obstacle and judicial rigmarole to ensure that the court order was not implemented till today. Coming close the 2014 governorship election in Osun state where Governor Oyinlola has a massive following, it was unthinkable that the party could afford to treat him the way he did. Had Oyinlola not gotten that treatment, PDP would have won the governorship election in Osun and with the earlier recovery of Ekiti state, that would have formed a basis for establishing a strong hold for the entire Southwest. I am of the strong belief that the conspirators blocked President Jonathan from seeing the danger in the Oyinlola saga. I will dwell on the conspiracy matter more elaborately in the next part of this series. The result was what Nigerians and the rest of the world witnessed on March 28, 2015. The North demonstrated in unmistaken terms its resolve to have the presidency back as agreed before the ascendency of the late Yar’Adua, though not cast on stone. The region completed that determination on April 11 2015 at the governorship election. At the end of the political tsunami, only two PDP states survived in the entire North made up three geo-political zones, the Northwest, the North-east and the North central. Thus, from one single act of removing his eyes from the big picture, President Jonathan had the baton of PDP tragically fall off his hands. In a twinkle of an eye, what was known the world over as Africa’s largest political party became a regional party overnight; now restricted to the former Eastern Nigeria. The national chairman, Malam Adamu Mu’azu, did not help matters. With a style of leadership that defied any known tenets in party administration, Mu’azu frustrated several party leaders across the country who genuinely wanted to make inputs on how to save the party. The national chairman was incommunicado most of the times. He neither accepted telephone calls nor returned. He never replied to letters or memos from well meaning party leaders. For example, none of the petitions written to the NWC, which he leads, on the governorship and national assembly primaries in the states were treated. Mu’azu never addressed any of the issues that were causing discomfiture in the state chapters; but resorted to a style that saw him pick and choose friends from among party leaders and chieftains across the country. In my article in question, OBASANJO: WHAT HAPPENED, I pointed out that the party never reaped any benefits from replacing the former chairman, Bamanga Tukur, with Mu’azu who unfortunately was described by another writer as a product of the grand conspiracy to crumble the PDP. As I pointed out, Mu’azu failed in particular to address C O N T I N U E D on PA G E 5 0

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