Nigerian observer 13 02 2014

The Nigerian

PUBLISHED SINCE MAY 29, 1968 • Vol. 38 • NO.419 • THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2014 • N100. 0 0 CHILD HEALTH AND YOU

Page 15 Babies born too soon also have a right to live (2)

4 ministers exit Jonathan’s cabinet

ABUJA - President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday dropped four ministers to enable them to pursue their respective political and economic interests, the Minister of Information, Mr Labaran Maku, has said.

Maku made the

disclosure when he briefed State House correspondents on the outcome of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting,

chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan.

The Minister said that those affected include Minister of Aviation, Stella Oduah, Minister of Niger Delta, Mr Godsday

Orubebe, Minister of Police Affairs, Retired Navy Capt. Caleb Olubolade and Minister of State for Finance, Alhaji Yerima Ngama.

Maku added that the President had also announced further Continues on page 2

Auto Crash

MAN AND NATURE Page 27

The new kindgom of God

It’s a miracle I survived

By ADAMS OYIBOKE

BENIN CITY - Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, yesterday, said it is a miracle that he survived the impact of an auto crash along the Benin-Abuja road on December 28th, last year. the watchmen waketh but in vain.”

Speaking at a Special Oshiomhole said “the Thanksgiving Mass to essence of today’s celebrate his survival, the Governor said it was God’s mercy that saw him and the other occupants survive the direct impact of a bus which hit his car and completely destroyed it.

Reflecting on the scriptures in Psalms 127:1 which says “unless the Lord watches the city,

occasion is to give testimony to the fact that when we buy armoured vehicles, we are only thinking in terms of enemies who might choose to use firearms to fire at their enemies. But as I saw on the 28th of December, even the

- Oshiomhole

armoured vehicle is not sufficiently armoured to protect the vehicle itself from being hit in an accident.

“The real armour is the armour that God

provides when we submit to his will. It cannot be procured by money, it cannot be procured by the most potent arms makers.

Only God can armour

Close salary gaps, NLC urges FG ABUJA - The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has advised the Federal Government to address the salary disparity in the public service.

The NLC President, Malam Abdulwaheed Omar, made the call in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

He said “we in the NLC cannot understand why people on the same grade level receive different salaries simply because they are not working in the same organisation.

“A situation where some government organisations go home with huge salaries, while others collect peanuts is not acceptable to us.

“Government must, therefore, ensure parity in the pay of workers to the level that it is comparable to that of their contemporaries.’’

Omar said a committee had already been inaugurated to look into the issues with a view to addressing them.

He urged government to narrow the gap in the Continues on page 2

TIT BIT “Justice does more than just to vindicate a person; it always comes to prove that its season never fails to come”.

- Kingsley Ogbeide-Ihama

THANKSGIVING: Bishop Augustine Akubeze, Archbishop of Benin Catholic Archdiocese prays for Governor Adams Oshiomhole during a Special Thanksgiving Mass held for the Governor at Paul’s Catholic Church on Airport Road, Benin City yesterday, for surviving an auto accident on December 28, last year. Photo: CHARITY OZIGBO-ESERE.

us against evil.

“We had a serious accident and the armoured vehicle was itself destroyed. Those of us in the car, three of us, none of us were harmed and as you can see, we Continues on page 2

Army redeploys 107 senior officers, Navy 75

ABUJA - The Nigerian Army yesterday in Abuja announced the redeployment of 107 senior officers, including 36 Major-Generals and 61 others.

The Director, Army Public Relations, Brig.Gen. Olajide Laleye, who announced the postings while addressing newsmen on developments in the army, stated that some of the officers affected in the exercise included six new General Officers Commanding (GOC).

Maj.-Gen. K.C. Osuji is now the GOC, 1 Division, Kaduna; Maj-.Gen. E.F. Abejerin is now the GOC, 2 Division, Ibadan, while Maj.-Gen. John Zaruwa, is the new commander, 3 Division, Jos. Maj.-Gen. T.I. Debi, now commands 81 Division, Lagos; while Maj.--Gen S. Yusuf, takes over at the 82 Division, Enugu.

Laleye said that Maj.Gen. Unsaid Bindawa is to Continues on page 2

Defection: Reps to investigate ABUJA - The House of Representatives yesterday in Abuja mandated the Committee on Ethics and Privileges to investigate bribery allegation against some members of the

bribery allegation

House who defected to the PDP. The committee is to report back to the House in two weeks.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the APC Interim Spokesman, had alleged that members of the House of

Representatives were offered millions of dollars by the PDP leaders to defect to the party.

This resolution followed

a motion moved by Rep. Kingsley Chinda (PDPRivers) which was unanimously adopted without debate.

According to Chinda, the allegation is not only a breach of his privilege, Continues on page 2

News

4 ministers exit Jonathan’s cabinet

Continued from page 1

changes in the Federal Executive Council.

He noted that a number of ministers had been asked to step out of the Federal Executive council to pursue their interest.

The Information Minister said the President had appointed the Minister of State for FCT,

all came out of the armoured car unhurt, alive.

The armoured car is off the road, but we the ordinary people covered by the Blood of Jesus survived it”, he said.

Oshiomhole further said, “I pledge to rededicate myself to the services of the people of this great state. For the remaining time that I have, I will do as God directs me to continue to use the instrument of governance to deliver the greatest good to the greatest number of our citizens.”

Speaking in a homily at the service, the Archbishop of Benin Archdiocese, Most Rev. Augustine Akubeze said there is need for people to always thank God for his kindness and mercies in their daily lives and activities.

“In a special way, we are gathered in a thanksgiving service to God for saving the life of our executive governor, Governor Adams Oshiomhole and his entourage in an unfortunate car accident involving his convoy. We thank the Lord for averting the evil that could have happened and for keeping him far from bodily harm. It is a good thing to thank the Lord for his mercies and protection.

“We are grateful to God for sparing the life of the governor and for the good works He’s doing in Edo State. We thank the governor for putting the people first in everything and that is what good governance is all about.

We thank him for the developmental initiatives that has become synonymous with his administration

Ms Olajumoke Akinjide as Supervising Minister of Police Affairs and the Minister of State for Trade and Investment, Mr Samuel Ortom as Supervising Minister of Aviation.

He said the President also directed the Minister of State for

Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Darius Ishaku to take charge as Supervising Minister of the Ministry, while the Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo Iweala should take charge of the functions of the Minister of State for Finance.

“We thank the governor for staying focused and allowing God to use him for the good of Edo people. We pray that God bless and keep you. It is our prayer that God Almighty will always be your companion, strengthen you when you are weak, instruct you when you need direction, correct you when you err and help you to lead your people according to the divine plan and purpose.”

The highlight of the occasion was the conferment and decoration of the Governor with the honour of Grand Patron of the Church

Warden.

The Thanksgiving Mass was graced by several dignitaries including Deputy Governor of Edo State, Dr. Pius Odubu, Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Uyi Igbe; Member House of Representatives, Hon Jim Adun; Secretary to the State Government, Professor Julius Ihonvbere, members of the State Executive Council, members of Edo State House of Assembly, Traditional Rulers, members of the Civil Society Group, party chieftains from within and outside the state.

Continued from page 1

image before the electorate.

“What we should do is to get to the root of this matter so that the truth will be known,” he said.

In a reaction, Rep. Leo Ogor (PDP-Delta), the Deputy Majority Leader, described the APC bribery allegation as unfortunate.

“It is very unfortunate that APC today is singing a different tune. They are now finding themselves where they actually belong.

He said that members who were elected by their constituents swore to an oath to come and represent them in the House.

“Our oath of allegiance is to defend the constitution and serve the Nigerian people, not serving political interest of some political parties,”he said.

Meanwhile, the debate on the 2014 appropriation bill was adjourned to today after contributions from members.

State Government has directed timber contractors in the state to register their vehicles and forest exploitation equipment on or before February 28.

This is contained in a statement in Benin signed by the Commissioner for Environment and Public Utilities, Mr Clem Agba.

“The public, particularly timber licencees, saw millers and timber contractors are hereby informed that they are expected to register with the

yesterday in Abuja by Commodore Kabir Aliyu, the Director, Naval Information.

The statement said the redeployment cuts across naval personnel in the Navy Headquarters, Defence Headquarters and tri-service institutions.

The exercise involved 29 Rear Admirals, 28 Commodores and 18 Captains.

Those affected, according to the statement, included Rear Adm. E.O. Ogbor, the Chief of Policy and Plans, Naval Headquarters, who is now Chief of Administration, Defence Headquarters.

Also involved in the posting was Rear Adm. S.A. Akinwale, the Director of Logistics at Defence Headquarters.

He is now the new Director, Project Implementation, Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, Naval Headquarters.

Similarly, the statement said, Rear Adm. A.O. Ikioda was appointed the Chief of Policy and Plans, while Rear Adm. I.E. Ibas is the new Chief of Logistics.

Also, Rear Adm. I.A. Oyagha is now the Chief of Training and Operations at the Naval Headquarters “Rear Adm. S.H. Usman moves from the Central Naval Command to the Logistics Command as Flag Officer Commanding, while Rear Adm. P.A. Agba is the new Flag Officer Commanding, Central Naval Command, Yenagoa.

“Rear Adm. O.C. Medani is the new Flag Officer

Commanding, Eastern Naval Command, Calabar.

“Other senior officers redeployed include Rear Adm. I.A. Ajuonu, Group Managing Director /CEO, Navy Holdings Limited, and Rear Adm.O.E. Ekwe, Admiral Superintendent, Naval Dockyard Limited,” the statement said.

It further indicated that Rear Adm. D.O. Osuofa is now Navy Secretary, while Rear Adm. A.B. Afolayan will serve as Director, Medical Services.

The statement also said Rear Adm. O.P. Ozojiofor is the Director of Training at the Defence Headquarters, while Rear Adm. A. Shettima is the Managing Director, Naval Hotels and Suites Limited.

Others affected by the redeployment include Rear Adm. O.U. Emele as Director of Logistics, Defence Headquarters and Rear Adm. A. Johnson as Commander, Fleet Support Group (West).

Rear Adm. L.O. Iwuoha, is the Admiral Superintendent, Naval Doctrine and Assessment Centre, and Rear Adm. H.O. Ngonadi is the Director of Development at the Defence Headquarters.

Rear Adm. T.G. Epelle is the new Director, Medical (Admin/ Logistics), Defence Headquarters, while Rear Adm. E.G. Ofik, is the Chief Staff Officer, Western Naval Command.

Rear Adm. S.E. Ogoigbe is now Deputy Commandant, Armed Forces Command and

Reps to investigate bribery allegation

but also against the integrity and image of members of the House.

He said that Mohammed should be called upon to substantiate the allegation attributed to him.

The legislator urged the House to move to ensure that the public did not have a wrong perception about it.

“Let us not take this as if it is a political issue. It has to do with our integrity and

OKADA - Chairman, Ovia North East Local Government Council, Hon. (Barr) Lucy Omagbon has reiterated her administration’s determination to promote primary health care delivery system through maintenance of health facilities in the area.

The council boss made the assurance in Okada while addressing the council’s health workers who paid her a working visit.

He charged the health workers to be more dedicated to duty, while appealing to them to cooperate with her administration in order to improve on the council’s internally generated revenue, which,

Continued from page 1

remain at 7 Division, Maiduguri, while Maj.-Gen. P.A.T. Akem was appointed as the Army Provost Marshal.

He said that Maj.-Gen. A.B. Awala, former Army Secretary is now the Chief of Training and Operations, Defence Headquarters, adding that Maj.Gen J.A.H. Ewansiha, former

according to her, can guarantee prompt response to some of their needs.

The council’s Primary Health Care (PHC) Coordinator, Dr Idemudia Osayomore with Prince Omon Ogbomon had appealed to the council boss to urgently address some challenges faced by workers in the various health centres across the Local Government Area.

Prince Ogbomon highlighted some of the challenges to include leaking roof, lack of electricity power generating set, as well as activities of some patent medicine dealers that sell drugs from house to house in the area.

He also demanded for improved remuneration package for health workers in the council.

Close salary gaps

Continued from page 1 salary structure to ensure that workers were paid wages that would guarantee them a decent life.

The NLC boss said that where workers were poorly

Conference Centre, 1, TV Road, Benin City with Akugbe Baptist Association as the host.

Friday 14 th February, 2014 is for the all-night programme tagged “A Night To Recover All.” Rev. D.O.E. Madoghwe PhD is the Guest Speaker while Rev. Dr. Frank Ezele is the President, Edo Baptist Conference and Rev. Friday Ejodenore is the Moderator, Akugbe Baptist Association.

Register Vehicles, Equipment, Commissioner urges Timber contractors BENIN CITY - Edo forest department.

“Timber licencees, saw millers and timber contractors are given up till February 28, 2014 to register.

The statement said that only those who registered their logging equipment and obtained tax clearance certificate would be allowed to carry out forest exploitation this year.

The statement urged the affected persons to insure their workers under the Nigeria Social Insurance Trust Fund Seheme.

Army redeploys 107 senior officers, Navy 75

Council boss pledges to promote healthcare delivery

By KEHINDE OSAGIEDE

BENIN CITY – All Baptists within and outside Edo State will converge for the Edo State Baptist Conference (Nigerian Baptists Convention) for the 21 st Annual Session, 2014 which starts today.

The theme of the convention is “Pursue, Overtake And Recover All” and it is scheduled for the 13 th – 15 th February, 2014 at Edo State Baptist

Maku noted that the President asked the affected ministers to leave after they had indicated interest to pursue further goals in political and economic affairs in the country.

He seized the opportunity to correct the erroneous report in the media that the former Chief of Staff to the President, Chief Mike Oghiadhome, was sacked by the President because of alleged involvement in purported scam in the NNPC. Maku said the report was false and misleading, adding that Oghiadhome resigned his appointment to pursue further interest in politics.

“If the Office of the Chief of Staff does not supervise NNPC, it has no direct correlation with the work of the NNPC. “If he had left because of the purported scam in NNPC, it would suggest that there must have been some people in NNPC that would have been involved and sacked too.’’

He added that the Council discussed the outcome of the 2013 annual conference of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group, which deliberated on the nation’s agricultural sector.

It’s a miracle I survived

Continued from page 1

Edo Baptist Conference 21st Annual Session starts today

paid, the government should expect poor output.

He noted that unless the disparity was addressed, government may find it difficult to fight corruption in work places.

Chief of Army Standard and Evaluation, is now the Chief of Training and Operations, Army.

Maj.-Gen I.I. Abbah was appointed as Military Secretary, Army.

Other postings included Maj.Gen. G.A. Wahab who was appointed as the Chief of Administration, Army (COA), while Maj.-Gen A.T. Jubrin is now the Chief of Army Standard and Evaluation.

Maj-Gen. Emmanuel Atewe who was Commander, Guards Brigade, is now Commander Joint Task Force, (Operation PULO SHIELD), while Brig.Gen. A.B. Omozeje is now the Commander, Guards Brigade.

“Posting in the army is a routine activity that is carried out from time to time to fill existing vacancies emanating from promotions and retirements.

“Furthermore, the Nigerian Army wish to inform the media in particular and the public in general that posting and deployment of senior officers should not be used to overheat the polity.

“Insinuations and mischievous interpretation of a purely professional, unbiased and thoroughly thought out process should not be trivialised by undue and unfounded speculations,” Laleye said.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Adm. Usman Jibrin, has approved the redeployment of 75 senior officers to man various commands in the Nigerian Navy.

The redeployment was announced in a statement issued

Staff College, Jaji while Rear Adm. A.L. Akintola is posted to Naval Shipyard, Port Harcourt as Admiral Superintendent.

Also, Rear Adm. J.K. Ango is now the Director of Plans, Defence Headquarters, while Rear Adm. A.A. Osinowo is now the Chief Staff Officer, Headquarters, Naval Training Command, Apapa, Lagos.

Also, Rear Adm. R.O. Osondu is now the Chief Staff Officer, Logistics Command, Oghara, while Rear Adm. J.O. Oluwole is the Director of Equipment, Standardisation and Harmonisation, Defence Headquarters.

Rear Adm. F.D. Bobai, the statement added, is now the Chief Staff Officer, Headquarters Eastern Naval Command.

“The new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Naval Engineering Services Limited is Rear Adm. A.O. Odeh, while Rear Adm. S.A. Ahmadu is now the Commander, Central Pay Office, Apapa, Lagos,’’ it said.

The statement also said Commodore O.E. Uwadiae is the Commander, NNS BEECROFT, while Commodore E.G. Ochai is the Commander, NNS PATHFINDER. It further said Commodore B.T. Yusuf has been appointed as the Director of Naval Accounts, adding that the effective dates of the appointments range from February 14 to February 17.

News Shun Indiscipline, NOA Urges Students ILORIN - The National Orientation Agency (NOA) has urged students to shun all forms of indiscipline and embrace good conduct.

The Director General of NOA, Mr Mike Omeri, made the call at a sensitisation programme held at the Kwara State College of Education, Ilorin,and tagged: “Do the Right Thing: Campus Focus.’’

He said the programme was geared toward strengthening dialogue between young people, policy-makers and the rest of society in order to promote meaningful dialogue at different levels.

Omeri, who was represented by the Director of NOA in Kwara, Mr Felix Olowokere, said the sensitisation programme was part of the agency’s efforts to effect genuine attitudinal change in students.

Alhaji Isiaka Gold, the Secretary to the Kwara State Government, said the exercise

could not have come at a better time than now “when social vices have virtually become the language of the moment among Nigerian youths across the board.’’

He assured the NOA of government’s support and assistance in all its programmes, saying “we will support you morally and physically to make your well articulated programmes a huge success.”

Gold, who was represented

by Mr David Adesina, the Director (Political), admonished the NOA to extend its re-orientation programme to students in secondary schools.

In his keynote address, Prof.

Shehu Jimoh, the Chairman of Kwara State Polytechnic Governing Council, lamented that the “educational system in Nigeria has gone haywire as many Nigerian graduates are not educated.’’

Jimoh spoke on the topic, “Nigeria’s Tertiary Institutions

of Learning-Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: Implication for National Transformation.’’

He identified youth restiveness as one of the major challenges facing the nation’s education sector.

The retired university teacher also cited examination malpractice, robbery, cultism, drug abuse and trafficking, indecent dressing, rape and sexual harassment as other vices.

He said the peculiar problems facing the country were the products of bad leadership, poor parental care and inappropriate policies.

Jimoh advised parents, teachers and leaders to live by example so as to serve as reference point to the youths.

Bishop Emeritus Patrick Ekpu, bless the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole during a special thanksgiving Mass held for the governor at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Airport Road, Benin City yesterday for surviving an auto accident on December 28, last year.

Plot Revocation: Court Dismisses Suit Against FCT ABUJA - The FCT High Court in Abuja dismissed a suit filed by residents of Chikakore Layout in Byazhin, Kubwa, praying the court to stop the revocation of their plots.

Justice Yusuf Halilu gave the ruling in the suit filed by trustees of the community against the

Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) and the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed.

He ruled that plots in the layout were not duly allocated by the Bwari Area council, adding that any land allocation in the FCT that did not emanate from the FCT minister was not genuine.

“The Federal Government through the FCT Act of 2004 intended for Abuja a vast expanse of land devoid of cultural or hereditary inclination.

“That is why even the original inhabitants were merely paid compensation and asked to move regardless of the fact that generations were buried on such lands,’’ he said.

The judge said that the Land Use Act which vested all land within the territory of each state on the governor, the state was not applicable to the FCT. “Land within the FCT vests with the federal government who through the FCT minister vests same on citizens upon application.

“Without allocation by the

FCT minister, therefore, there is no way the plaintiffs in this case could acquire land in the FCT,’’ the judge said.

He said that action of any Area Council that had not been revalidated by the FCT minister was null and void.

“It is my view that the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs against the defendants must fail, and the entire suit is consequently dismissed,’’ he ruled.

The suit was initiated through an originating summons on June 26, 2013 by the incorporated trustees of Chikakore Layout Landlords against the FCT minister, the FCDA and Bwari Area Council.

ABUJA - The new DirectorGeneral, Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN), Mr Ladan Salihu, said reward for excellence and creativity will top the agenda of the management of the corporation.

Salihu, who spoke at a brief handover ceremony held at the FRCN headquarters in Abuja

charged staff of the corporation to improve on their productivity.

He said that the new management would intensify efforts to improve the fortunes of the organisation, while it would resist mediocrity and sycophancy at all levels.

According to him, the vision of the new management is to address the challenges affecting the corporation and to take it to the next level.

“I want to ask all staff of FRCN here in the headquarters and all over the country that we must fasten our seat belts, put our heads together and take the corporation to greater glory.

“I want to assure you that we will spare no effort, I will leave no stone unturned to ensure that we take FRCN to greater heights.

“I, therefore, want to state that we will try and build a management that will reward excellence and creativity and at the same time resist sycophancy and mediocrity,’’ he said.

Salihu thanked his predecessors for their efforts in sustaining the legacies of the corporation, and noted that the

new management would from time to time tap from their wealth of experience to sustain the corporation.

He specifically thanked the immediate past Acting DirectorGeneral, Mr Bola Agboola, for his patience and wisdom in handling delicate and difficult issues affecting the corporation in the past seven months.

Earlier, Agboola thanked the staff of the corporation for their support during his tenure, and attributed his success to both the management and staff of the corporation across the country.

He expressed confidence in the new director-general, adding: “he is not a novice to the challenges facing the corporation.’’

Agboola offered to serve the corporation from the outside, assuring Salihu that his doors were opened to him at all times.

Salihu before his appointment was the Executive Director of the Kaduna Zonal station.

He is a graduate of Mass Communication from Bayero University, Kano, and joined the services of the FRCN in 2007.

FRCN DG Assumes Duty, Promises To Reward Excellence

L-R: Bishop Augustine Akubeze, Archbishop of Benin Catholic Archdiocese; Governor Adams Oshiomhole and Dr. Pius Odubu, Deputy Governor during a special thanksgiving Mass held for the Governor yesterday for surviving an auto accident on December 28 last year.

Veterinarian Strike: Research

Institute Makes Contingency Plan ABUJA - Contingency arrangement has been put in place to tackle any outbreak of animal diseases and other emergencies following the nationwide strike by Academic Staff Union of Research Institutions (ASURI).

Dr Mohammed Ahmed, the Executive Director, National Veterinary Research Institute (NVRI), Vom, Plateau, gave the assurance in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

He stressed that the strike

would not cripple production at the institute.

“The strike has no much impact on our activities since most of the productions are done by our technicians both on the farms and in the laboratories.

“These technicians will go out in case of any outbreak of disease. We have people on ground to tackle such emergencies.”

He said some veterinarians, Heads of Divisions and other

Management staff of the institute were not involved in the strike.

Dr Isaac Ogo, the union’s Chairman in NVRI, had told newsmen in Jos that the industrial action was total and that no member would work.

He said the union wanted immediate release of conditions and schemes of service by the government, which was negotiated with relevant ministries and agencies for nine years.

According to him, the union

also demanded the restoration of the skipping of a grade level, which had been the practice because of the rigorous nature of academic staff training and practice.

The chairman said the strike, if not addressed, would have overwhelming negative effect on veterinary activities.

The union had on February 3, embarked on indefinite strike to compel the Federal Government to implement the agreement it signed with the union.

News Court Reserves Ruling On Boko Haram Suspects

Jos Airport Aviation Minister Gives Ultimatum To Contractor JOS - The Minister of Aviation, Ms Stella Oduah, has directed the contractor handling the remodeling of the Jos cargo airport to complete the project in 30 days or face “severe consequences’’.

Oduah gave the directive in Jos while inspecting the project.

She said the contract, which was awarded to Waland Services Ltd., had “dragged for too long’’, and declared there was no more time to waste on the project.

“The project is in line with the design of the airport, but we are not happy with the pace of the work,” the minister stated.

She noted that much of the work on the project, aside from the ceiling, painting and fittings, had been completed, saying “there is no need for further delays in completing it’’.

Oduah, however, expressed satisfaction with the quality of work on the job and urged the contractors to maintain the standard.

She said the cargo terminal at the airport would boost economic and agricultural activities in the state when fully operational.

“The value chain that will

emanate from the terminal is immeasurable. You are going to have new world-class commodities coming out of different rural areas.

“We are also going to have connectivity that is commercial-based and you are going to have a bottomup growth in the economy of the state,” the minister added.

Oduah debunked reports that the State Security Service (SSS) officials attached to the airport had been withdrawn.

“It is not true that the SSS officials have been withdrawn from the airport. We need them in our terminals. They are there and will remain there,” she said.

Hon. Victor Edoror, member representing Esan Central in Edo State House of Assembly (right) presenting his letter of defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from PDP to Mr. James Omoataman, Deputy Clerk, Legislative Matters, EDHA, Tuesday. Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

National Conference

Ohaneze Constitutes C’ttee

ENUGU - Ohaneze Ndigbo, the pan-Igbo socio-cultural organisation, has set up a fiveman committee to harmonise the positions of the diverse groups in the area for the impending national conference.

The committee is headed by the former Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Okwesilieze Nwodo.

Briefing newsmen at the end of its meeting in Enugu, the President-General of the organisation, Chief Gary

Igariwey, said the committee had four days to present its report.

The president-general said the committee would come up with a conclusive document to guide the zone at the forth coming conference.

According to him, the final positions of the Igbo for the conference will be released in the next one week.

He promised full representation of members of other Igbo organisations at the conference.

World Radio Day

“We are here today to rub minds with all the other Igbo major organisations to harmonise on the position for the conference.

“The idea is to make sure that we have an all inclusive position, so that we can speak with one voice. They have four days to harmonise these positions.

“Some of the positions are identical. They are just going to fine tune the language. They are going to make sure that when we speak, we will speak with a consensus.

Women Play Key Role In Broadcast Industry - UNESCO ABUJA - Ms Irina Bokova, the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has said women play important role in the growth of broadcast industry.

This is contained in a statement issued by Mrs Sylvia Iwuchukwu, the UNESCO Programme Assistant in Abuja.

The statement quoted Bokova as saying that broadcasting through radio was essential in this generation as a medium of promoting gender equality and empowerment of women.

“On World Radio Day, we celebrate a medium that remains a first choice for women and men across the world.

“Radio gives a voice to the voiceless, helps educate the illiterate, and saves lives during natural disasters.

“A force for freedom of expression and pluralism, radio is essential to building inclusive knowledge societies and to promoting respect and understanding between people.

“Radio is especially important for promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women,’’ the statement said.

According to the statement, women are working at every level of the broadcasting industry to ensure the free exchange of opinion, information and ideas over the airwaves.

It said that much still needed to be done as less than one quarter of radio stories were about women.

“Women represent less than one third of all top level management and governance positions in media.

“Without the voices of more than half the world’s population, how can we understand the whole story? “ Women must have an equal part in news-making, decisionmaking and media ownership structures.’’ Bokova said.

Bokova said that UNESCO

was committed to getting the balance right as it would strengthen pluralism and freedom of expression in radio.

She said that this development had made UNESCO to work across the world to develop radio as an independent and pluralistic media for both women and men.

She said UNESCO was also ready to create a safer environment for all journalists with special recognition of the threats to women journalists.

“Radio can carry any message to any place at any time. We need to fully harness this power for the benefit of all,’’ she said.

Bokova called for the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women and men in and through radio.

Reports state that the World Radio Day was first proclaimed by UNESCO General Conference in November 2011.

The UN General Assembly in December 2012 endorsed it to be observed by all member states on February 13 of every year.

“Within the next one week, we will call them together again to show them our final presentation. We will still be open to other inputs. We believe in working with all Igbo organisations,’’ he said.

On the alleged leadership crisis in Ohaneze, Igariwey said the organisation had yet to receive any document contesting its leadership.

“There is no leadership crisis in Ohaneze. This executive was properly elected for a four-year tenure, attended by past presidents-general.

“This executive does not have any case in any court in this country,’’ the presidentgeneral said.

The meeting was attended by a one-time governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, traditional rulers and other stakeholders from the zone.

ABUJA - Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja has reserved ruling till February 28 on the bail application filed by counsel to three Boko Haram suspects.

The suspects are Mohammed Yunus, a Kogi University lecturer; Salami Abdullahi, a billionaire oil merchant and Musa Umar, who were all arrested in October, 2013 and have been in custody.

Kolawole fixed the date after listening to the arguments for their bail by their respective counsel and the Chief State Counsel.

They are Mr Hassan Liman, SAN, Mr James Ocholi, SAN, and Mr Abdul Mohammed, counsel to the first, second and third accused, while Mrs Jones Nebo appeared for the state prosecution.

Kolawole ordered the accused to be remanded in Kuje Prisons in the FCT Prisons Command and adjourned the case to February 28 for ruling on the bail application.

“Ruling in the respective applications for bail for the three accused persons is hereby reserved for February 28.

“They are all ordered to be remanded in the custody of the Nigerian Prisons Service, FCT Command, Kuje,’’ the judge ordered.

Liman had in his argument told the court that by the provisions of Section 118 (1) of the 2013 Terrorism Act, his client’s bail was at the discretion of the judge who should exercise it liberally.

Mr. James Omoataman, Deputy Clerk, Legislative Matters, EDHA, presenting a letter of defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from PDP from Hon. Victor Edoror, member representing Esan Central in the House to the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Uyi Igbe on Tuesday.

Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

News 2015: Dokpesi Wooing Me To Support Jonathan Insultive – Clark

By BETTY IDIALU

Hon. Victor Edoror, member representing Esan Central Constituency in Edo State House of Assembly, announcing his defection to All Progressive Congress (APC) from PDP on the floor of the House, Tuesday. Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

WARRI – Chief E.K Clark, has expressesed displeasure over the recent call on him by Dr.Raymond Dokpesi to support President Goodluck Jonathan’s 2015 bid.

Chief E.K.Clark while addressing a press conference at his country home in Kiagbodo, near Warri said he considers such action by Dr. Dokpesi as an insult on his personality, knowing fully well his antecedent and character.

According to Clark, after persistent calls from AIT for him to grant them interview on a particular subject, he obliged, only to discover that they were using the interview as a

MDG Project: LG Boss Leads Contractor Local Government and OKPELLA – The Okpella to site.

Chieftaincy Affairs, Mr. The council boss said it is To Site Chairman, Estako East Local Momoh Ahmed Musa who a Millennium Development Government Council, Hon. Abdulmalik Suleiman Afegbu, led the contractor handling the construction of the Doctors Residential Quarters at Okugbe Ultra Modern Health Centre,

Goals (MDGs) project with the local government and the federal government, each contributing 50 per cent of the contract sum.

He further stated that the construction of the

residential quarters will soon commence, noting that he will give every assistance to see that the project is executed.

Senior Special Assistant to the Edo State Governor on

… Inspects Water Borehole Project

OKPELLA – The Chairman, Etsako East Local Government Council, Hon. Abdulmalik Suleiman Afegbua has inspected the construction of an industrial borehole in Udiegwa – Ogute Community.

The council boss stated that his attention was first drawn to the water problem in the community when a Peoples Democratic Party leader, Chief Okhogbe John Haruna decamped to the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

He said that the state Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole promised to address the issue, noting that he was directed by Oshiomhole to solve that problem.

While expressing joy that he has fulfiled the governor’s promise to the people, he said that the problem of water is now a thing of the past in Udiegwa community.

Chief Okhogbe said he made several request for portable water during the PDP controlled government in Edo State but to no avail.

He narrated how the people suffered for water and how he presented the matter to Comrade Oshiomhole, adding that on assumption of office as council chairman, Hon. Afegbua has provided electricity transformer and industrial water borehole in less than one year in office.

While thanking the council chairman for the ongoing construction of four classrooms block in Udiogiegie Primary

School in Ogute-Oke, Okhogbe called for the provision of seats and desks for primary schools in this area.

He said his community is very much ready to give total support to government and the All Progressive Congress (APC).

Mrs. Omonayo Yakubu who spoke in local language, said that they have been dignified with the provision of water.

APC leader in the area, Mr. Omoh Beture who congratulated Hon. Afegbua for the fulfillment of his electoral promises to the people, promised to mobilise them towards continued support.

Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Local Government and Chieftaincy

Affairs, Mr. Momoh Ahmed Musa who was on the inspection team commended the council chairman adding that it is a thing of joy when promises are fulfiled.

He however called on the people to follow the part of change which according to him, “is represented by the APC”.

Meanwhile, the Chairman Etsako East Local Government Council, Hon. Abdulmalik Suleiman Afegbua has paid an unscheduled visit to Ugbedogwu Primary School, Ogute-Oke. The chairman who expressed happiness with the school building which was a constituency project by Hon. Peter Aliu promised to provide seats and desks so as give the pupils a conducive learning atmosphere.

spoke with newsmen, said that their visit was to inspect the project site, adding that he has a directive to supervise the project.

He maintained that the Governor Adams Oshiomhole led administration in Edo State and the Etsako East Local Government have collaborated to better the life of the people in the area through the provision of modern health facilities and trained medical and health workers.

Representative of the contracting firm, Mr. George Obozuwa said that the company local mobilised to site, saying that work would commence soon.

documentary on President Jonathan’s 2015 bid.

Chief Dokpesi who the elder stateman considers unfit for the post of a Chief of Staff, following the resignation of Chief Mike Oghiadomhe as Chief of Staff to the President because of Dokpesi’s past romance with Ibrahim Babangida said, “such a fellow cannot be trusted.”

“I am aware of the fact that Chief Raymond Dokpesi has been a regular caller at the presidency for some time now, without showing any sense of remorse and repentance during his aggressive and notorious activites against President Jonathan between 2010 and 2011, particularly, when Dokpesi was the Campaign Director-General of President Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.

It is being rumoured that

since the resignation of Oghiadomhe, Dokpesi’s name has appeared in many newspapers as a likely replacement.

The elder stateman told journalists that although, President Jonathan as the Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has the constitutional right to appoint any Nigerian of his choice as his Chief of Staff ,without interference from anywhere, he Clark as an elder statesman owes Nigerians a duty to speak his mind on any national issue.

He therefore called on all those lobbying for Chief Dokpesi as a replacement for Chief Mike Oghiadomhe to desist forthwith and put Nigeria first, as Dokpesi, according to him, is not fit and proper for the said position.

2015 Election: Group Commends Prompt Release of Time Table

By FAITH ISIKHNEMEN/ RICHARD EWEKA

BENIN CITY – The President of Jubilee Democratic Emancipation Group Nigeria, Dr. dele Oluwatade has commended the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the prompt release of the 2015 general election time table, saying it will aid preparations.

He gave the commendation while speaking with newsmen in Benin City.

Dr. Oluwatade said the early release will enable all

stakeholders in the election have enough time to prepare for the poll.

“All the parties involved will have time to prepare, the government will also have time to allocate resources that will enable the body perform creditably well for the poll”.

He said, “if the government fail to support INEC and the body eventually fails, the blame will no longer be on INEC, but the federal government.

“We all should support INEC as the unity of all will lead to a credible poll come 2015”.

More Interests Commiserate With Oba Erediauwa

BY RAYMOND OSOGBE BENIN CITY – The Palace of the Benin Monarch, His Royal Majesty, Oba Erediauwa has continued to play host to various interests groups and institutions over the demise of his eldest wife, Oloi Esther Omoyemwense Erediauwa, the Eson N’Erie of Benin kingdom.

Those who visited yesterday to commiserate with him over the unfortunate incidence included, the Comptroller of Prisons, Edo State, Mr. Meable Lagbosi and

Mr. A.O. Osayande who conveyed the condolences of Mr. Joseph Komolafe, Assistant Comptroller General of Prisons and the Zone ‘G’ Coordinator of Prisons to the Monarch.

A delegation from Oghara kingdom in Delta State led by Chief Samuel Erubemen also visited the Monarch.

Also at the palace were members of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association who prayed God to grant the Monarch the fortitude to bear the loss.

Some supporters of Hon. Victor Edoror, at Edo State House of Assembly on Tuesday.

Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

Lagos

Early Diagnosis Can Prevent Chronic Kidney Disease - Expert

LAGOS - A Nephrologist, Dr Bose Peters, has urged Nigerians to check their blood pressure and sugar level regularly to prevent chronic kidney diseases.

Peters, also the Founder, Kidney Foundation for Africa

(KFA), an NGO, told newsmen in Lagos that hypertension and diabetes were the main causes of kidney diseases and kidney failure.

“I am appealing to members of the Nigerian public that they should love their kidneys and

look after their kidneys so that they will live long.

“Chronic kidney diseases are common. They are serious, but they can be prevented if caught

early.

“The chief causes of chronic kidney diseases, leading to kidney failure are hypertension and diabetes.

“So if you are able to catch hypertension early, diagnose

diabetes early and keep them under control, then, the possibility of their continuing to destroy the kidney is less.

“In that case, we prevent them from moving to kidney damage and kidney failure.

‘So, that is our appeal, it’s cheaper to treat hypertension than to treat kidney failure.”

She also advised Nigerians to save the cost of travelling abroad for treatment by looking after themselves through early checks and diagnosis.

Conflicts In CAR, Others

African Anglican Primates Express Worry

Hon. Philip Shaibu, Majority Leader, Edo State House of Assembly (right), congratulating Hon. Victor Edoror on his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from PDP recently. Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

IKEJA - The Council of Anglican Provinces in Africa (CAPA) has said it was deeply worried by the raging conflicts in the Central African Republic and other troubled countries in Africa.

Primate Bernard Ntahoturi, the CAPA’s Chairman, who is also Anglican Archbishop of Burundi, spoke when he led other African Primates on a courtesy visit to Gov. Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State.

Reports state that the Primates from 12 Anglican provinces in Africa are in the state for an international conference of the church.

The conference is slated to begin on Tuesday and end today.

Ntahoturi said that the wanton killings arising from the various crises on the continent were not acceptable.

He said that it was time for all Africans to rise up and put an end to the bloodshed.

The chairman said that various conflicts on the continent and how they could be resolved would top the agenda of their conference.

“We are here for this conference to discuss matters affecting African people and the church.

“We shall be discussing how

to improve peace and justice in Africa.

“Africa has been tested in some of its countries with conflicts- in Sudan, Central African Republic, Egypt and other parts.

“The conference is the contribution of the church to ending the problem,“ he said.

Ntahoturi said the church stood for peace and the preservation of human dignity and would continue to promote peaceful co-existence.

The CAPA chairman commended Fashola for his administration‘s developmental strides in the state.

LAGOS - The Maritime Industry Advocacy Initiative (MAIN) has condemned the non-passage of the Ports and Harbour Bill by the National Assembly, after over five years.

A statement issued in Lagos on Monday and signed by the Executive Director of MAIN, Mr Sesan Onileimo, said the situation could stunt the growth of the maritime industry.

The advocacy group lamented the delay in the passage of the all-important bill.

“It is sad that more than four years after the bill was subjected to a well-attended public hearing, the Ports and Harbour

Bill is still in the chambers.

“Or could it be that the lawmakers do not understand the import of the bill?’’ he asked.

“This cannot be, but we cannot understand why after spending so much funds to organise public hearings and after committing so much funds to overseas travels, to see how such bills are handled in other climes, the law makers will still be foot-dragging, ‘’ it said.

The Non-Government Organisation (NGO) said that the bill was expected to solve the various challenges that could arise from the port concession programme of 2006.

“The Port and Harbour Bill incorporates an Independent Port Regulator as a separate agency to handle commercial disputes that are bound to arise from the daily interactions of providers and users of terminal and shipping services.

“The absence of a commercial port regulator has recently thrown the challenge on the shoulders of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council, while the Nigerian Ports Authority continues to be the technical regulator.”

“We recall that the ports were privatised in 2006, with a promise to put in place a wellstructured organ that will interface between the various players.

Group Condemns Non-Passage Of Port And Harbour Bill

Hon. Victor Edoror, member, representing Esan Central in Edo State House of Assembly (centre), flanked on his right by Dr. Christopher Omoigberale, former leader of PDP Esan Central and Pastor Solomon Efezokhae (left), former Treasurer PDP, Esan Central at a press conference by the lawmaker shortly after he defected from PDP to APC. Photo: GODWIN ISEGUAN.

Oil And Gas Audit

Implement Recommendations LAGOS - The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has urged the Federal Government to implement its Oil and Gas Industry Audit report recommendations Mrs Zainab Ahmed, NEITI’s Executive Secretary, made the call at a Public Enlightenment Workshop on Oil and Gas Industry Audit for the Year 2012, organised by the body in

Lagos.

Ahmed attributed the controversy surrounding the 20 billion dollars oil money to the failure of the Federal Government to adhere to NEITI’s earlier recommendations.

She said that the recommendation would have saved government the embarrassment and controversy.

“If fully the

- NEITI

recommendations that have been made by NEITI in its previous report were fully implemented, a lot of things would have been resolved now.

“Now that the citizens are pushing for immediate answer, we would have had a better stage of account.

“But now we cannot say whether the money is correct or not until it is fully audited,”

she said.

Ahmed said that the purpose of the workshop was to expose the oil and gas industries and government agencies on what they needed to do to support the audit process.

“This audit template workshop is part of NEITI’s public education and enlightenment specifically targeted at relevant government agencies and companies expected to be

covered by the audit exercise.

“The audit template is a set of questions designed in questionnaire format which NEITI’s team of auditors will expect answers to be provided by entities covered in the audit exercise.”

Ahmed said that the forum was to put other partners such as the media and civil society on notice about the commencement of the audit and to track the progress of the exercise.

North NYSC: Governor Seeks Extention Of Service Year MINNA - Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger has in Minna called on the Federal Government to extend the period of national youth service from 12 months to 18 months.

The governor made the call when the Director-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.-Gen. Johnson Olawunmi, visited him at Minna Government House.

He said the extension would enable youth corps members to acquire more training which would assist them to be self-employed.

“There is a need for the service year to be extended from 12 months to 18 months to give more room for the corps members to be exposed to more training,” Aliyu said.

The governor said Nigerians should also appreciate the purpose of establishing the NYSC scheme, which he said was to unite the country, instead of criticising it.

He urged the DirectorGeneral to tackle the issue of fake NYSC camps across the country and corps members who evade the service after colluding with the scheme’s officials.

“We must bring back the original concept, the original plan of the founding fathers of the NYSC,” Aliyu said.

The governor also said corps members who failed to participate in the scheme should be sanctioned.

He said his administration would soon establish a new orientation camp for corps

members deployed to the state.

Aliyu, who did not disclose the cost of the project, said the first phase would include the construction of hostel blocks, director’s quarters

and the guards’ quarters.

He said the state government would collaborate with the NYSC to enable youth corps members deployed to the state live in peace and harmony with their

host communities.

Earlier, Olawunmi had said he was impressed with the temporary NYSC Orientation Camp at Paiko, near Minna and the level of collaboration between the

Bandits Kill 15, Policeman In Zamfara

North Above Politics Of ‘Divide And Rule’ - ACF

SOKOTO - The Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) says the north is above the politics of ‘divide and rule’.

The Chairman of the Forum in Sokoto State, Alhaji Bala Sokoto, stated this at a news conference in Sokoto.

According to him, the forum will remain focused and steadfast in championing the cause of the north.

“It will never be swayed or distracted by sponsored political agents, no matter how highly placed,” he said.

Sokoto accused some politicians from the region of portraying the North in bad light, adding that some of them even proclaimed that the north did not belong to ACF. Sokoto said that the forum in the state was shocked and embarrassed by the misguided utterances of some politicians in the region.

“The state chapter of the forum was really disappointed by the fact that some politicians could engage in such an undignified outburst,” he said.

Zone C Area Controller, Nigeria Customs Service, Mr. Victor Dimka (2nd left), displaying seized goods before newsmen at the Enugu/Anambra/Ebonyi Area Command in Enugu recently.

Intensify Oil Exploration In The North, MINNA - Governor work out the possible Aliyu Urges FG Babangida Aliyu of Niger timetable for the has urged the Federal Government to intensify oil exploration activities in the Northern part of the country.

Aliyu made the remark when he received Commissioners for Solid Minerals from Zamfara, Sokoto, Plateau, Kwara and Kogi, in his office in Minna.

The commissioners were in the state for a one day

scheme and the state government.

He said the scheme had begun the computerisation of its activities in order to check the proliferation of NYSC camps and fish out fake NYSC members.

“As the election year approaches, there is the need for government to adopt measures to secure the lives and properties of youth corps members,” the directorgeneral said.

meeting of the Association of Petroleum Basins of Northern Nigeria.

He said the Federal Government could invest directly in the explorative work on the oil potential in the northern part of the country to improve the oil reserves by extension the revenue earning potential.

He said the government could concede to oil producers to explore the

Representative of the Acting Chairman, Joint Tax Board, Alhaji Kabir Mashi and Mr. Oduba Oduba (2nd right), the Executive Chairman, Edo State Internal Revenue, Chief Oseni Elamah (middle), Executive Director, EIRS, Prince Felix Isuku and other guests during the EIRS/JTB stakeholders sensitization workshop in Benin City weekend.

oil potential in those states as the Niger Republic Government had done with the Chinese firm as explorative activities were costly venture.

Aliyu urged them to

government explorative activities on each state.

He expressed optimism that the oil potential of Bida Basin would be explore for the benefit of the state and the country.

Unstable Weather Triggers Allergry Among Residents KANO - A Kano-based medical practitioner, Dr Fawziyya Ahmed, has said that unstable weather condition had triggered allergic reactions in some people in many parts of the state.

Ahmed, a general practioner at the Doctor’s Clinic, Kano, told newsmen that many of the inhabitants misunderstood the condition to be ordinary cold.

According to her, the sudden change in weather is not favourable.

“Most people react to certain changes in weather which is better known as climate change, without knowing that it is not mere cold or cough but reactions that happen within the human body,” she said.

She advised people to visit the hospital whenever their body began to react to the change, especially if the reaction was abnormal.

Ahmed, however, stressed that people who had some knowledge of allergic reactions, as far as their health history was concerned, should learn to identify what they were allergic to.

She also recommended the use of eye glasses and face masks against the harsh harmattan, adding that the situation could be harmful, especially to the eye and the nose.

Reports state that many people in Kano metropolis have been developing signs of catarrh, cough and other illnesses due to the harsh and unstable weather since December 2013.

GUSAU - The police in Gusau have confirmed the killing of 16 persons, including a policeman, by armed bandits in Maru local government area of Zamfara.

The state police command’s Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Lawal Abdullahi, told newsmen that about 150 armed hoodlums riding on motorcycles perpetrated the act.

He said the hoodlums had invaded the three villages of Tungar Rakumi, Mallamawa and Kangarawa on Saturday night.

The police spokesman said 12 persons were killed in Tungar Rakumi alone, while the rest four were killed in Mallamawa and Kangarawa.

“The bandits, who are suspected to have carried out the attack to retaliate the killing of three suspected cattle rustlers by the community in Birnin Magaji local government area last week, were heavily armed with AK 47 rifles,” Abdullahi said.

He further explained that the police patrol team in the area fought back and over-powered the hoodlums who escaped with other members of the gang who were injured during the encounter.

The PPRO lamented that the police always faced difficulties in trailing hoodlums in the area due to inaccessible terrain and nonavailability of telephone network signals.

He however assured that in spite of the shortcomings, the police would continue to make the state highly difficult for criminals to operate in.

Abdullahi urged the people of the state to always notify the nearest security outfit of any suspicious movement in their area.

Abuja Professional Qualifications: NGO

Advises Corps Members

First Lady Dame Patience Jonathan (left) receiving her painted portrait as present from the National President, National Council for Women Socieities (NCWS), Mrs. Nkechi Mba, assisted by the immediate past President of (NCWS), Mrs. Ramatu Usman, during their visit to the State House in Abuja recently.

ABUJA - Mr Chris Joseph, an Assistant Registrar with the Institute of Global Facilities Management, a NonGovernmental Organisation (NGO), has advised youth corps members to enhance their future marketability with further studies.

Joseph made the call in Abuja at a programme organised by the Gender Vanguard Community Development Service Group of the NYSC. He urged youth corps members to enroll for professional programmes, saying such professional qualifications would also enhance and sustain their knowledge in a wider society.

“This is important, particularly in the labour market, and it will

Broken pipe of an oil well located in Egbebiri Area of Biseni Community, Yenogoa Local Government Area, discharging a mixture of crude and gas into the surrounding environment recently.

Emir Calls For Peaceful Co-Existence Among Nigerians

ABUJA - Alhaji Musa Ijakoro, the Emir of Bwari in the FCT, has called for peaceful co-existence among Nigerians.

Ijakoro, who made the call on Monday in Bwari in an interview with newsmen, said that no nation would develop without peace.

He appealed to Nigerians to pray for peace in North-East and cessation of the activities of the Boko Haram insurgents.

“We should not relent in offering prayers for peace in the North-East and Nigeria as the Federal Government intensifies efforts to curtail the insurgents,’’ he said.

The traditional ruler urged parents to monitor their children and wards to prevent them from falling into wrong hands.

“The era of allowing our children have any type of friend is over. Parents should

endeavour to know who the friends of their children and the home they come from,’’ he said.

He said that children as leaders of the future should also be mindful of their friends, adding that no society

ABUJA Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta in Abuja has said that Nigeria should look at other avenues for resources to avoid overdependence on oil.

Uduaghan spoke when he delivered a lecture entitled: “Leadership-My Personal Experience’’, to the Course 22 Participants of the National Defence College.

“I am sure many of you had heard about our vision of building a “Delta beyond Oil’’, which I think should read “Nigeria beyond oil’’.

“This is our thrust to end our overwhelming dependence on oil as the source of our income.

To us, oil dependence makes no sense because it is simply not sustainable.

“As everyone knows, oil is a volatile and exhaustible commodity with possible future substitutes, which if it happens as is now happening with large

would wish to have irresponsible leaders.

Ijakoro commended the National Assembly for passing the anti gay bill and President Goodluck Jonathan for signing it into law.

make them more marketable and versatile,’’ the NGO official said.

Joseph, a guest speaker at the programme, said the event was organised to equip corps members for the task ahead after the service year.

In her remarks, Mrs. Chioma Umunnakwe, a coordinator of the group, said the group’s objectives focus on teaching about the rights of children and the importance of education.

“The group advised against domestic violence on the Nigerian women and children, and it is also important the corps members are updated to prepare them for their future,” she said.

Another coordinator of the group, Mrs. Maryam Bello, urged corps members to key into

the opportunity because it would create a link with other members of the institution globally.

She said the rate of unemployment among youths would be reduced if corps members would take advantage of the series of sensitisation programmes organised by the group.

Seun Oduniyi, one of the corps members, praised the group coordinators and the guest speaker for their “laudable sensitisation programme’’.

She said she had learnt a lot and the importance of the management programmes, adding that the certificate obtained from the institute would help to boost her curriculum vitae.

ABUJA - The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, has lauded Governor Martins Elechi of Ebonyi for achieving 30 per cent affirmative action for women in the state.

Dame Jonathan made the commendation when a delegation of women from Ebonyi led by the governor’s wife, Mrs. Josephine Elechi, visited the State House in Abuja.

“It is worthy of note that Ebonyi is one of the states that has passed a bill on inclusion of women in government.

“As he has demonstrated confidence in the capacity of women to serve in his government, I urge him to also encourage them in every way possible to vie for elective positions either at state or national level come 2015,’’ she said.

She appealed to women to come together, be supportive of one another and ensured that the 35 per cent Affirmative Action bill was passed into law by the National Assembly.

“We should also strive to apply our inborn qualities as home-makers to act as bridgebuilders and peace ambassadors

at all times,” the first lady said.

Jonathan, however, urged Nigerian women to continue to act as agents of positive change in any capacity they found themselves.

She commended the efforts of Elechi for championing the campaign against child labour, trafficking, teenage pregnancy and other forms of maltreatment against children.

Earlier, the governor’s wife assured Jonathan that empowerment of women remained the cardinal objective of her leadership.

Elechi said that it had afforded Ebonyi women the opportunity to occupy various positions of responsibility.

“May I on behalf of our women assure you that no stone would be left unturned in ensuring that your efforts at according Nigerian women a place of pride in the sociopolitical and economic sphere of the nation yield good results.’’

Part of the delegation included four women from the House of Assembly, one head of service and two local government chairpersons.

The others were six permanent secretaries, eight board members, 26 councillors, eight coordinators, currently serving in the governor ’s cabinet.

On a related development, a delegation from the National Council for Women Societies (NCWS) was at the villa on a solidarity visit.

The first lady thanked the council for its support to the present administration.

First Lady Lauds Elechi On Gender Inclusion

Look Beyond Oil, Uduaghan Urges Govt discoveries of shale oil, will end crude oil’s competitive edge,’’ he said.

Uduaghan said that for nearly seven years, the state had begun to plan, invest and rally the

people to embrace the diversification of the oil-based economy.

According to him, to grow the state and make it prosperous and assure its future, it is necessary that an economy that will be more empowering is created.

Vitamin D Deficiency Can Trigger Fibroid change your diet.

- Gynaecologist “Women who have not got

ABUJA - Dr Prosper Igboeli, a gynaecologist, has advised women to eat foods rich in vitamin D, as lack of it in the body could trigger fibroid formation.

Igboeli who is the Managing Director of a private Fertility and IVF Centre, gave the advice

in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

“We realise that vitamin D deficiency is connected to fibroid formation.

“We have taken some measurements of vitamin D in

patients and found out that a lot of black women who have fibroid also have vitamin D deficiency.

‘So, you need calcium, vegetables, fruits; you have to

pregnant before are also prone to fibroid formation because the oestrogen and the progesterone that they make on monthly basis also stimulate the vessels of the womb to transform themselves into a tumorous fibroid step.“

Business + Economy Aondoakaa Seeks Patronage Of Local Rice

L-R: Commander, 53 Division Signals, Nigeria Army, Brig.-Gen. Lucky Irabor, GOC, 3Div Nigeria Army, Maj.-Gen. John Nwaoga and Acting Commander, Training and Doctrine Command, Nigeria Army, Minna, Brig.-Gen. Aron Danpome at the Lieutenant to Captain Practical Promotion Examination in Jos on Tuesday.

MAKURDI - A former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa, has urged Nigerians to patronise locally produced rice.

Aondoakaa gave the advice when he spoke with newsmen in Makurd.

The former minister, who is now a rice farmer and miller, stressed the need for the citizenry to be proud of the indigenous rice to increase agricultural production of the crop.

“The first challenge is how to get people to patronise local rice as against the imported rice, it is about the orientation of people.

Sovereign Wealth Fund Gets Additional $550m

ABUJA - The Federal Government has said that it had given an additional 550 million dollars to the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) for the development of infrastructure in the power sector.

The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi OkonjoIweala, said this while briefing newsmen in Abuja.

Okonjo-Iweala said the Federal Government had realised that the sovereign wealth fund could use the funds made available to it to generate

more monies from other investment partners.

“What we have decided to do is to infuse another 550 million dollars into the resources of the sovereign wealth fund for the sovereign wealth fund to manage.

“You will recall we took one billion dollar Euro bond; seven months ago we took that facility and at the time we took it, we told you it was meant for infrastructure development for the power sector.

“So, this money is still being invested to the power sector.

“All that we have done is that we have shifted the money to the SWF because we realised that it can generate additional monies, resources, from other partners if we hand the money to them,“ she said According to her, 200 million dollars will be invested in gasto-power infrastructure to help leverage up to 300 million dollars.

She added that the balance of 350 million dollars out of the

FG Establishes Power Sector Intervention Fund ABUJA - The Federal Government has approved the establishment of Power Sector Intervention Fund with initial deposit of N300 billion to facilitate speedy development of the nation’s power sector.

President Goodluck Jonathan made this known at an International Conference on Power Sector and Infrastructure Financing at the Presidential Banquet hall, Abuja.

Jonathan, represented by Vice President Namadi Sambo, said that the setting up of the fund would enable industry players have access to cheap long term funds.

“To enable industry players have access to cheap long term funds, government is hereby setting up a “Power Sector Intervention Fund’’.

“The financial resources for this special Fund will be pooled from the Federal Government, Development Financial Institutions (DFIs) as well as local and global and financial partners.

“The Coordinating Minister for the Economy will give

details of the operational structure of the fund. But, will essentially, provide avoidable refinancing and unlending services to the sector.

“On its part, the Federal Government will make initial deposit of N300 billion.’’

Jonathan noted that under the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan about 2.9 trillion dollars was needed for infrastructure development efforts between 2014 and 2045.

He said the energy sector alone needed about 900 billion dollars in the next 30 years, saying that a significant percentage of the amount was expected to come from the private sector.

The president said that the power sector alone needed 10 billion dollars for Generation and Distribution companies to meet the target of additional 5,000 megawatts in the next few years.

According to him, the nation’s transmission grid requires an annual investment of about 1.5 billion dollars for the next five years to ensure its reliability and stability.

550 million dollars belonged to the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trader (NBET).

“This is money that NBET holds in order to back up its finances to show the investors in the sector that they can be a good intermediary.

“So, what we said is why don’t we give it to SWF to

manage on behalf of the NBET,“ she said.

Mr. Uche Orji, the Chief Executive Officer, SWF, said that power was among the five sub-sectors that the fund would focus on in 2014 with especial interest on generation and distribution opportunities.

LAGOS - A Molecular Geneticist, Dr Joy IrobiDevolder, has urged stakeholders in the health sector to invest in genetic testing technology, to reduce the high rate of mortality resulting from sickle cell disease.

Irobi-Devolder of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, made the plea in an interview with newsmen in

Lagos.

She spoke on the sidelines of a seminar with the theme: “Unlocking DNA Biotechnology in Nigeria,” organised by the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba.

Irobi-Devolder said that genetic testing would help in the early detection and accurate diagnosis of sick cell disease.

“There is local rice in the market, but in the major markets, when you supply to them, they make preferences as to what they could sell.

“When you eat local rice, you are eating fresh rice produced within two years which is the shelf life of rice.

“You do not know the effect of preservative chemical that was used to prolong the shelf life of imported rice,’’ he said.

Aondoakaa, who admitted that local rice was insufficient for local demand now, said that plans were in place to increase production to 1.2 million tonnes this year.

He said President Goodluck Jonathan was leading by example as rice bought at the nation’s seat of power (Aso Rock) during 2013 Christmas celebration was local rice.

The former minister said the patronage of local rice by the populace would put money in the pockets of the nation’s farmers.

Invest In Genetic Testing, Expert Tells Stakeholders

A cross section of participants at the Lieutenant to Captain Practical Promotion Examination in Jos on Tuesday.

The Online Medical Dictionary defines genetic testing as, “the study of a person’s DNA, in order to identify genetic differences or susceptibility to particular diseases or abnormalities”.

Irobi-Devolder said, “Early detection of the disease helps to prevent complications that more often than not result in deaths of sickle cell patients.

“When you look at the World Health Organisation’s report, 200,000 babies were diagnosed of sickle cell disease in Africa.

“And when you put the focus on Nigeria, you will see that 100,000 infants die every year in Nigeria, only based on haemoglobin diseases.

“So it becomes a true public health issue that Nigeria as a whole should actually invest in.

“What are the means that can reduce this high rate of mortality?”

The expert said one of the ways to reduce it “is to give a proper diagnostic criteria.

“I am not saying that the traditional technique of using blood count and haemoglobin electrophoresis are not working.

Higher Life Confab Pastor Chris And The Stars Of Heaven !!!

How The Programme Began And most outstanding Ended (1) “Nigeria’s Gospel Ambassador and

By TUNDE EIGBIREMOLEN

ADJUGDED the most organized, most spectacular, splendid and successful crusade to have been held in the last four to five years in Benin, the Higher Life Conference with Pastor Christ held in Benin City, the Edo State capital of Nigeria, drew hundreds of thousands to Christ; the marvelous light of Jesus Christ, who

February 6, Sunday, February 9, 2014, Miracles that fermented as testimonies in previous engagements with Pastor Christ rented the air.

They were definite and concise, perceivable and felt, those testimonies. They will be too numerous to recall here. However, they equally

Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, Ph.D

remained the object and subject of teaching, preaching and healing from Pastor Chris’ mouth.

How did “these seas find their way into Benin City for the programme, kept agitating the mind of this writer.

As it is usually typical of Christ Embassy, the crowd was surging, and arguably the programme converged over one million souls, still the last single crowd in recent times which any church organization had put together singly.

Nigeria’s most outstanding Gospel Ambassador and Emissary of Faith, Healing and Miracles, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome electrified the venue of the Higher Life Conference with His Word, His worship and diverse ministrations.

At the opening of the Programme on Friday

lifted up the faith of other participants.

The NIGERIAN OBSERVER investigation revealed that those who needed solutions to their issues from Aba, Onitsha, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Lagos and oversea countries stormed the venue of the conference at km 12, Christ Embassy Camp Ground, Sapele Road, Benin City. Indeed, to state that the venue was packed full unto overflow, is to say the least.

Just a testimony, one word from the testimony kept the worshippers abuzzed and excited, expecting more miracles from the Most High; then enter a Sister Gloria who had testified how God healed her of numbness of her legs, wherein she felt no sensation in higher low timbs; at a

Emissary of Faith, Healing and Miracles, Pastor Chris Oyakhilome electrified the venue of the Higher Life Conference with His Word, His worship and diverse ministrations.” higher conference programme in Lagos, her sensations were miraculously restored. This testimony lifted the faith of others, who came expecting, and they were indeed blessed, first by the WORD and then with giving their lives to Christ and gaining healing as their right (children’s bread).

One thing became clear at the camp ground, Pastor Chris Oyackhilome was always encompassed by the stars of heaven! Pastor Chris shoned brightly, and the stars of heaven round about her also were greatly lit. These stars include Rev. Rom Amenkhena and Evang. (Dr.) Eddy Ewaise and several stars!

(After the 2011 testimony in Lagos given by sister Gloria of how her sensations were restored and the crowd had been beautifully repositioned for their miracles, your sincerely observed a star of heaven, Rev. Tom, giving a deep insight into Higher Life Conference 2014, Benin. His analysis too was another fillip added to the expectant crowd of worshippers in attendance.

When Rev. Tom climbed the podium, he told the innumerable sea of worshippers what to expect from the Higher Conference, Benin. Tom, a highly cerebral and thorough-bred star of heaven was brief and definite in his short exhortation: “We are in Benin, for Higher Life Conference 2014. it’s a ticket to Divine Promotion. Significantly there are great truths about 2014. you are going to tell many of them, and I can assure, when these truths are unfolded to you, you will leave where you are, to where you ought to be. Halleluiah.

Amen.

“The NIGERIAN OBSERVER investigation revealed that those who needed solutions to their issues from Aba, Onitsha, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Lagos and oversea countries stormed the venue of the conference at km 12, Christ Embassy Camp Ground, Sapele Road, Benin City. Indeed, to state that the venue was packed full unto overflow, is to say the least.”

NIGERIA is blessed with abundant human and natural resources which nature has endowed her with. The country’s climatic conditions favour wide variety of agricultural activities, including the cultivation of wheat. Additionally, Nigeria is the most populous country in the Continent of Africa, with abundant economic resources, which, when properly harnessed, may enable the country to achieve the status of a rich and developed nation.

ALTHOUGH its industrial sector is underdeveloped due, in part, to inadequate capital for investment and lack of technological knowhow, yet the country has prominent industrial concerns such as giant oil industry, iron and steel complexes, steel rolling mills, pharmaceutical companies, food processing Industries, car assembly plants and so on. Although most of these Industrial concerns are not functioning optimally and many of them depend on imported inputs, they can serve as a basis for industrial take-off, if we put our acts together.

HOWEVER, despite Nigeria’s extensive landmass, growing population, agricultural and industrial potentials, the country remains economically backward, indeed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had at a time classified Nigeria as a heavily indebted country with difficulties in meeting debts servicing obligations; Certainly, these attributes are a minus in our national drive towards socio-economic and political development.

THERE are divergent opinions on the relationship between effective leadership and the economic organization of Nigeria, and how to expand the productive base of the country.

Literally, economics is the distribution of scarce resources for optimum development of a society.

Thus, successive governments had pursued vigorously, policies that will strengthen economic growth and development in Nigeria. But despite the economic efforts of past and present governments, Nigeria is yet to achieve basic economic aspirations.

LITERATURES on the Nigerian economy have cited leadership problems as a major cause of the

THE NIGERIAN

Growing The Nigerian Economy country’s inability to effectively mobilize her resources. Critics have shown quite clearly effective leadership is a great obstacle to development in Nigeria. Leadership problem has hampered the country’s progress in the political, economic, military and socio-cultural sectors. Poor leadership lies at the root of our continuing social, moral, economic and political crises. Practically, all our misfortunes in Nigeria have been due to poor leadership. It seems, therefore, that the Nigerian leadership structure determined to place the blame for the unstable situation the frustration and difficulties confronting them on their leaders.

THUS, in contemporary Nigeria, we have observed and rightly too, that there is a great yearning for the total transformation of the process of producing appropriate leadership. This yearning, which grows more urgent by the day, is both legitimate and understandable. After decades of hopes raised and hopes dashed, it should not be surprising that Nigerians are wary and weary.

HAVING gone through decades in which their faith in their national leadership have been abused and affronted, Nigerians impatience with their leaders and almost total distrust of government functionaries can no longer, be-dismissed as mere cynicism.

AT independence, expectations throughout Nigeria were high and the possibilities for greatness were almost limitless. Considering her vast resources, the country appeared set for good attainments, and fulfills what the international community saw as her destiny to lead the black race into the main stream human and technological civilisation.

REGRETABLY, the Nigerian economy has hit an all time low. There is massive under utilization

resources. What is more painful is that our industrial sub-sector is not producing at full capacity. Despite being blessed materially and humanly, our cost of production remains high with growing unemployment. Also only crude oil is being seriously tapped, and production was negatively affected by the Niger-Delta crisis, thanks to the amnesty programme which has largely restored the oil sector. Our concern here is that outside oil, resource mobilization efforts are rather disappointing. In our estimation, if the attention given to crude oil had been extended to other minerals and the agricultural sector, definitely.

Nigeria would have attained desirable and sustainable development.

THERE is no doubt that Nigeria is richly endowed. The country has all It takes to become a super power. Somehow, our major problem is the leadership question, which has inevitably impaired our ability to mobilise our resources. However; we believe that our system of government has contributed to this poor leadership problem. Our political structure especially the adoption of a warped federalism has combined effectively to deprive Nigeria of a sound process of getting the right leadership Even democracy which is expected to produce effective leaders is now, a major political problem in Nigeria. WE believe that problems such as corruption, and inter-ethnic wars and suspicion, which have contributed a lot to the failure of leadership, can be adequately tackled, particularly as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has braced up to the problem in recent times.

AT independence in 1960, the international community amazed at the economic potentials of Nigeria, was quite certain that if our resources were appropriately managed, Nigeria would one day become the giant of Africa. Unfortunately, due to the failure of our leadership to strategically mobillise our resources for political, socioeconomic and cultural advancement of our nation and people, Nigeria is yet to make appreciable gains in development, worsened by a very poor infrastructure base.

Health FAR back as in the 1970’s, parents worried that their long-haired, bell-bottomed teenagers were getting drunk or smoking manjuana. Today dangers also come in form of prescription medicines from opioid pain relievers such as otycontin to ADHD drugs such as Ritalin.

Prescription drug abuse appears to be on the rise in the country.

Roughly 6.3 million Amenzan report that they are currently using prekntian drugs for nonmedical reason’s according to the U.S Department of Health and Human service.

Little wonder drug abuse know no age. The elderly are vulnerable because they are more likely to take many medication, often long term. Also. Women may be as much as 55% more likely as men to be prescribed drugs that can be abused, such as narcotics and tranquilizers; therefore their risk is great, according to the NIDA. Abuse is most common among young people, almost one in five teensroughly 4.5 million has tried getting high with prescription drugs typically with pain relievers such as vicodin or oxycontin, or stimulants, such as Ritalin and Adderall).

Some teens say that prescription medicines are much safer to abuse than illegal drugs.

But just because prescription drugs are not cooked up in someone’s garage does not mean that they are safe. According to Compton, the main risk for many drugs is addiction. “ As people take these substances, some of them will find that they really like them”, he says “They take more of them and they continue to take them, even when they no longer want to. And that is the hallmark of addiction.

It creeps up on people in very subtle and unexpected ways. No one starts out taking a drug, saying. I want to be an addict”.

Besides addiction prescription drug abuse can bring on a host of health problems such as irregular heartbeats, seizures,

Curbing Menace Of Drug Abuse hostility, and paranoia-even infections with Hiv or other agents if someone dissolves and in jects pills to get a quick high. Over dose of prescription drugs can be fatal.

Prescription drugs like codeine which it is popularly called have been so misused. The cough syrup which is supposed to be for the cure of cough situations have been turned into a product for getting slow and high to teenagers, because of the codeine content in it. The codeine content is put into most cough syrup in order for the cough victim to take it, and get relaxed, but no it has been misused.

It is pertment to remember that most individuals can reap benefits from prescription drugs without problems. But a minority will run into trouble.

“Using these substances outside of a doctor ’s prescription is already a red flag and a warning.

“Compton say.

Which drugs are commonly abused? What most susceptible? How could they be endangering their health?.

Opioid pain relievers which are prescribed for acute or chronic pain as well as to relieve pain after surgery. They function by blocking pain perception.

Among the opioids, oxycontin, vicodin and percodan are the most common abused although other types in this categony are also misused.

“Oxycontin is very concerning because it is an extremely powerful opioid agent. It’s a fantastic medication for people with critical pain. It is just lifesaning for many people.

But when it is abused, it can have a heroiri-like effect.

The most dangerous medical risk is severe respiratory depression or death if someone take a large single dose of an opioid. But other problems can occur, too. They are very sedating.

I would say the abuse of drugs is increasing due to the fact that people refuse

By ISEDE NKEM EMMANUELLA

to heed to the doctors prescription all because they prefer getting high and putting their health state at risk.

Most people from my research take drugs excessive because they

educational objectives.

Prescription drug abuse are on the rise because there are more drugs available to more people, the opportunity for abuse is greatly increased. Doctors report writing more

to be influenced by a person’s biology, social ennoment, and age or stage of development. The more risk factors that you have, the greater the chance that taking drugs can lead to addiction. Little wonder again, for example, sometimes addictions run

have problems and they choose to take excess drugs in order for them to forget the problem at that moment.

In another form most people takes drugs in excess just to feel among that is peer pressure.

Many educators recognize that drug and alcohol abuse among students and individual in general are significant barriers to their achievement of their

prescription for patients than ever before. That include prescriptions or commonly abused drugs such as opoids, CNs, depressors and stimulants.

In addition, you only have to go on the internet to find vast numbers of online pharmacies, selling these highly addictive drugs.

Only pharmacies make it easy to get these drugs even for children or teens.

Risk for addiction appears

in families with a strong genetic link. In addition, social environment including friends or colleagues may also influence addiction. Studies show the earlier someone begins to abuse drugs, the greater the chances are that the addiction may progress into more serious problems.

If you are abusing prescription drugs, you may be taking larger dose than your doctor

“Prescription drug abuse are on the rise because there are more drugs available to more people, the opportunity for abuse is greatly increased. Doctors report writing more prescription for patients than ever before. That include prescriptions or commonly abused drugs such as opoids, CNs, depressors and stimulants.”

prescribed. Your doctor may notice that you are calling more frequentry for refills for the medication or that you are asking for increasing amounts of medications. This may also be a sign of abusing prescription drugs. In addition, your pharmacist

may notice prescription drug abuse by spotting false or altered prescription form or multiple prescriptions for controlled substances from different doctors.

People can manage using prescription drugs safely by always following the prescription medication directions carefully, by not increasing or decreasing medication doses without talking with your doctor first, never stop taking medication on your own, don’t crush or break pills (especially if the pills are time –released), be clear about the effects on driving and other daily tasks. All these would serve as a guide for prescription drugs to individuals.

Finally experts believe that combing addiction treatment medications with cognitive behavioural therapy is the best way to ensure success for most patients.

Ajuwaya 2013 Batch ‘A’ Corps Members On Final Lap

By OGUNYEMI ADEBAYO WHILE some days are analogous with footprint on dry rock, some can be compared with indelible paint on the wall. In the same vein, while a vast majority of Nigerians cannot remember Tuesday 5th of March 2013 and today Thursday 13th of February 2014 for anything meaningful, the aforementioned two days will always remain evergreen in the memory of 2013 batch A corps members.

The promise “I pledge to serve my country” came into manifestation in the academic life cycle of 2013 batch “A” corps members when they trooped out in thousands to various National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp on 5th of March 2013 with strong and unquenchable determination to serve their father land.

As usual, they spent three weeks in orientation camp in order to learn the nitty-gritty of National Youth Service. On the early hours of Tuesday 26th of March 2013, they were posted to different organizations and establishments popularly known as Place of Primary Assignment (PPA), the posting which as a matter of necessity be accepted in good faith as a patriotic citizen of our dear country.

2013 batch A corps members started their National Youth Service per se as soon as they were accepted in their PPAs. They have done everything possible to foster the unity of the country. For the past ten months now, they have been contributing to the development of the giant of Africa and today, they are on final lap of the scheme. Some of them joyfully shared their service experiences as follow.

Mr. Akinwunmi Gabriel Oluwatobiloba who had his PPA in Army Day Senior Secondary School, Ikpoba Hill said “The service year which started on 5th of March 2013 and which am looking forward to end on February 13, 2014 (today) commenced with the orientation course that prepared me mentally and physically for the one year service in loyalty to my dear nation Nigeria”.

Talking about his contribution to the younger

generation via his PPA, Gabriel said “It was a time of impacting into the young one mostly at my place of Primary Assignment which consist of nothing less than 1,700 students. I was able to contribute my quota in building them academically, morally and spiritually for future challenges”. Gabriel also added that the time of his Community Development Service (CDS) was always a time of re-union and the moment of rational planning to improve host community.

Gabriel who said at the end it was as if he should not be released in both his PPA and CDS openly declared that he had been able to learn how to manage resources as well as setting of priority rightly in the course of the scheme.

Another outgoing corps member, Titus Darlington Chinazam who served his father land in Project Charilove said, “My first day in charilove was like hell, seeing children with different difficulties. Initially, I couldn’t stay and I tried to see if I could be reposted but all to no avail and the only option was to stay”. A Godly minded man would definitely full of empathy and uncomfortable while seeing fellow human being in agony.

Darlington who claimed to have joined the van of giving hope to the hopeless in his PPA also served the established in different capacity. He served as an accountant, administrative head and secretary to mention but few.

Darlington who said his service year in Project Charilove was a replete experience gave glory to God for the successful completion of the exercise.

However, in her own part, Alozie Glory Uche who studied Mathematics in University of Nigeria Nsukka and had her PPA in Benson Idahosa University (BIU) said “my service year was a period of opportunities-opportunities for growth, development and reach out to people. Also, I learnt a lot, acquired skill I may have had to pay for in PPA. Infact, it was a moment of blessing”.

Speaking further, Glory said “Socially, I grew because I was more reserved before

service, but meeting people from different ethnic groups and being part of MDGs CDS group gave me an avenue to interact and relate better with people”.

Glory who expressed gladness for the opportunity she had to have served her country declared to have improved academically because of the people,

Stressing further, Victor said “my first project together with my CDS group was at a remote village on the outskirt of Benin City. I was relatively new. The joy I saw in their eyes as we taught them soap making make the CDS project really fulfilling for me.

Talking about other projects, he was able to carryout with the members of his CDS group, Victor stated that “other

Nigerian were suggesting that the scheme should be scrapped because of the temporary security challenges facing the nation. But if any scheme should be scrapped, it must not be an NYSC scheme. It is a scheme that Nigeria graduates can’t afford to miss.

However, “it is not over until it is over” they say. Some corps members still shared

of Nigeria, Nsukka said “Serving in Edo State especially Benin City has been wonderful. Serving here has enriched in terms of knowledge”.

Ernest further stated that “There were so many wrong perceptions, I have had about Benin City and her people but being her changed such perception”.

challenges and responsibilities she encountered during the service year.

Another outgoing corps member, Okeowo Samuel Olusegun who studied English in Obafemi Awolowo University also opened up and shared his service experience by saying “My service year has been quite challenging, demanding, rewarding, tasking productive, wonderful and result oriented”.

“I must say this service year has opened my eyes to many opportunities, without it, I would categorically say the sequence of my life is incomplete”.

Okeowo acknowledged.

Sharing his own service experience, Ucheri Victor who had his PPA in Benson Idahosa University said “Generally, my service year was great and an interesting period, it was full of opportunities to learn and impact in the life of others in Edo State”.

projects involved supply of laboratory equipment to Anglican Girls Grammar School Benin City and supply of Uniform to Evbodia Primary School in Evbodia Community”.

Victor finally expressed happiness for being part of a team that was able to make a mark in the annals of history.

Coker Olakunle Oladimesi who served in Oba Ewuare Grammar School, Benin City also expressed his view about his service year as challenging, tasking, stressful but highly rewarding. He praised God with high pitch for seeing him through.

National Service year- a moment of integrating with people of divert culture and language, a moment of nourishing the unity of the country, a moment of projecting the banner of oneness and a moment of realizing the real identity of our great nation.

Sometimes ago, many

their interesting service experience as follow.

In his own submission, Maduako Onyedikachi who studied Material and Metallurgical Engineering from the Federal Polytechnic Idah and whose place of Primary Assignment was Queen Esther Academy, Benin City said “It has been a wonderful service year here in Benin City. It was full of flexing, enjoyment and a lot of achievements”.

Onyedikachi who said his passing out caused a sober reflection in his place of Primary Assignment as both members of staff and students were crying also added that he caught his beautiful angel here in Benin City.

However, Onyedikachi came to Benin as a single young graduate and is going back home with a beautiful damsel.

Indeed, he has gotten a monumental achievement.

Yes, all round success.

Uncovering his achievements and the impact he was able to make in the course of the National Youth Service, Ukaejeh Onyekachi from MDGs CDS group unequivocally disclosed the high rate at which itemised children on the importance of education. Onyekachi also itemised the series of skill he has been able to acquire in the last eleven months right from NYSC orientation camp.

In his own part, Ilo Ifeanyi Ernest who studied Philosophy in the University

Adegbemigun Oluwafemi David who has his service year in University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) declared that the service year was quite interesting but challenging.

Oluwafemi who was a former president of Corp Medical Team (COMET) Egor Local Government Area said NYSC is a good scheme, a time to develop oneself, learn and meet a different set of friends from different background.

Nwogwugwu Chioma who also served in UBTH gave thanks to God for the success of the scheme. Chioma said “I came, I saw and I conquered…”

The fact that Edo State NYSC officials contributed immensely to the success of 2013 Batch A corps members in the state cannot be argued.

The effort of NYSC stakeholders in Edo State and Nigeria at large is recognized as well. Consequent upon these facts, 2013 batch A corps members says thank you to both NYSC officials and other stakeholders across our dear nation without reservation.

2013 batch A corps members have obeyed the clarion call, they have lifted our nation high under the scorching of sun and drizzle of rain. And now, they are having their Passing Out Parade (POP) today, may the rewarder of humanity service reward them accordingly. Bye for now!

“Another outgoing corps member, Titus Darlington Chinazam who served his father land in Project Charilove said, “My first day in charilove was like hell, seeing children with different difficulties.

Initially, I couldn’t stay and I tried to see if I could be reposted but all to no avail and the only option was to stay”. A Godly minded man would definitely full of empathy and uncomfortable while seeing fellow human being in agony.”

Child Health & You

Babies Born Too Soon Also Have A Right To Live (2)

IN the previous presentation of ‘CHILD HEALTH AND YOU’, we reviewed Prematurity and the maternal causes and factors associated with premature labour and the consequent birth of premature babies. The prevention and/ or control of prematurity must include, and perhaps start from, the clear appreciation and understanding of the causes and factors associated with premature births. In this presentation, we continue with the review of the aetiological factors concerning premature labour and the resultant delivery of premature babies. We now look at some causes/factors associated with the foetus.

Factors related to the Foetus Concerning the foetus, multiple gestation or ‘multiple foetuses’ as an obstetric condition is easily one of the commonest contributory factors in premature labour and the attendant birth of premature babies. Several foetuses struggle to survive and grow within the same space in the womb and this creates a restriction on the optimal activity and wellbeing of the foetuses such that the progress and duration of the pregnancy become compromised with the consequent premature onset of labour which results in the delivery of the foetuses as premature babies. Indeed, multiple gestation is also associated with several other obstetric conditions which, by themselves and together with multiple pregnancies, result in premature deliveries. These obstetric conditions include, among many others, premature rupture of the foetal membranes, foetal malformations and other related anomalies, ‘Twin-totwin Transfusion’ and abnormalities in the positions and presentations of some of the multiple foetuses.

‘Twin-to-twin Transfusion’ occurs particularly when the multiple foetuses share the same reproductive anatomical structure known as the chorion within the placental moiety such that their blood vessels connect and allow exchange of blood between them with one foetus acting as the ‘donor’ while the other acts as the ‘recipient’ in the transfusion process within the womb.. This condition is possible only when the foetuses result from one ovum

By PROF CHARLES O. EREGIE

and the division into multiple foetuses occurs only after implantation of the fertilized ovum (i.e. embryo or zygote).

This is ‘Uniovular or monozygotic’ twinning/ multiple gestation with ‘ m o n o c h o r i o n i c placentation’. Such babies are born as distinctly different twins, for example, as one baby is much bigger and relatively more plethoric (the ‘recipient’) than the other that is much smaller and relatively much paler (the ‘donor’). The compromised well-being of the foetuses contributes to determining the altered progress and duration of the pregnancy with the premature onset of labour and birth of babies that are premature.

Chromosomal aberrations in the constitutional make-up of the foetus significantly affect the health and overall level of activity and wellbeing of the conceptus.

Several chromosomal conditions are known and they may be associated with gross anomalies in the structures and functions/ well-being of the foetuses while in the womb. These anomalies may be incompatible with life or meaningful existence outside the womb. They generally adversely affect the course and duration of the pregnancy leading ultimately to premature labour with the predictable delivery of premature babies. Some of the chromosomal conditions include, among others, Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome), Trisomy 18 (Edward Syndrome) and Trisomy 13/ 15 (Patau Syndrome). These babies, apart from being premature, usually have a plethora of dysmorphic or abnormal features which characterize their recognition and clinical diagnosis.

Ancillary ‘Karyotype Studies’ facilitate the confirmation of the chromosomal abnormalities.

Several other chromosomal aberrations occur apart from the ‘Trisomies’ mentioned earlier and may also lead to altered progress of pregnancy with the consequent birth of premature babies.

Congenital Anomalies represent a huge array of conditions afflicting the foetus which significantly affect its well-being in the womb and

also determine the outcomes of pregnancy especially the birth of premature babies.

Several major anomalies may be incompatible with life or productively useful life after birth. In all probability, such

Disorders of the lungs include, among others, Pulmonary Hypoplasia and Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation.

The gastrointestinal system also

the womb and alter the progress and duration of pregnancy with premature onset of labour and the attendant delivery of premature babies. We will

immunization.

These conditions may cause very severe damage in the womb and the foetus may subsequently develop the condition called ‘Hydrops

anomalies distort the optimal growth and development of the foetus and usually precipitate the premature onset of labour and the consequent birth of premature newborn infants. Virtually every bodily system can be afflicted with these major congenital anomalies. Some congenital disorders affecting the brain include, among others, Anencephaly, Encephalocoele and Congenital Hydrocephalus.

Anomalies affecting the heart include, among others, Ventricular Septal Defect, Patent Ductus Arteriosus and Single Ventricle. Congenital

has several congenital anomalies including, among others, Oesophageal Atresia and related disorders, regional lesions (atresia, diaphragm, web etc) manifesting with Intestinal Obstruction and Imperforate Anus and such other Anorectal Anomalies.

We cannot afford to dilate on the plethora of systemic possibilities for Congenital Anomalies but it suffices to recognize these as persisting contributors to the bothersome huge health burden of premature births.

Several Immunological disorders afflict the foetus, compromise its well-being in

highlight just a common condition as a case-in-point.

The condition of Blood Group Incompatibility between the foetus and the mother results in an immunological sensitization and disorder which leads to the production of destructive antibodies directed against the foetus causing immense damage and compromise of its well-being within the womb with the resultant premature delivery of the newborn infant. This Blood Group Incompatibility includes the ABO Blood Group Incompatibility and the Rhesus Blood Group Incompatibility/ Iso-

Foetalis’ among other complications. Afflicted foetuses may be born prematurely and also develop severe Neonatal Jaundice requiring critical care of the newborn infant. The critical foeto-maternal obstetric care provided for this condition may also involve and require the planned premature delivery of the foetuses to forestall intrauterine deaths.

Thus, these immunological conditions not only result in the birth of premature babies but also contribute to the persistence of significant neonatal morbidities and mortality.

To be continued

“The critical foeto-maternal obstetric care provided for this condition may also involve and require the planned premature delivery of the foetuses to forestall intrauterine deaths. Thus, these immunological conditions not only result in the birth of premature babies but also contribute to the persistence of significant neonatal morbidities and mortality”

Media

Unveiling Today’s Pr

By NDUBUISI UMORO

THE study of the news is central to most if not all courses in communication and media studies. Like information itself, the news is a vital component of the life of individuals, groups, communities and nations. News brings us information several times daily, often on hour.

Whether it is in print, broadcast form the news represents to us the world reality and every student soon learns that the news is a process or rather an amalgam of many processes which mediate information, select it, edit it, emphasize some parts of it, distant it, and even manipulate it.

News is that raw information which is eventually constructed as news, is turned into narrative, a mode of story telling which by application of certain professional practices and conventions.

There are few places that boast of an act of creation everyday.

A newspaper or radio or television is one of them. Out of the daily newsroom whirl emerges a remarkable product. In a matter of hours, thousands of works and pictures are put together in a cohesive pattern designed to inform, educate and entertain the listeners, readers, and the viewers. To a causal observer, workers in the newsroom may appear to be running about aimlessly amid the clatter of the typewriters, or the computer and continually ringing telephones. Actually, the scurrying around, the occasional shouting, the general air of excitement, are all part of a controlled procedure.

Each editor, reporter, producer and copy boy has a designated jobs, the end result of which is the newspaper that rolls off the presses on time, news read to the listeners on radio, TV and news room is where the newsmen “manufacture” the news. The newsroom is the factory of news broadcast or in the print media.

The product of the news itself.

The City Desk The heart of the newsroom is the city desk. The city editor is responsible for all local news a term that on many papers, radio and the television, includes the surrounding suburban and exurban areas and sometimes beyond. Style hardly matters to start with, the city Editor will probably rewrite your copy anyway.

On a small daily, the city editor puts on a one - man show, even writing headlines for the news stories he edits. On larger newspaper, he is backed up by assistant editors, on both the day and night sides, and clerks to take many of the phone calls and handle other chores.

To collect and write the news, the city editor relies on his reporters who fall into different classifications. The most common of these is the general assignment reporter, the all- round works horse who may cover a house on fire in the morning, interview a politician in the afternoon and attend a city council meeting that night.

Infact, the general assignment reporter is supposed to be able to report almost everything, even though there are some papers, radio and television stations many have specialists on such fields as science, business, education, politics, banking, economics, accountancy and stock exchange. However, paper qualifications in all the above subjects are eventually meaningless. People with high qualification have failed to make good city desk journalists and people without them have often made top jobs. On smaller papers radio and television stations where most young men and women starts, general assignment reporter often double as “specialists” a practice that adds variety to idea of the different kinds of carriers available in journalism.

Assignments Many newspapers, radio and television stations have their own correspondents based on his capacity to get news. If he stumbles across a story he is expected to notify his station, but this is an exception. Most stories are assigned to reporters by the city editor.

He decides which reporter goes where, either by prearrangement or on the spur of the moment as newsbreaks. A number of assignments are predictable, such as the local council meetings, court, trials interview with visiting dignitaries and testimonial dinners. Announcement or handout of these events usually come to the city editor’s desk and are distributed to staff members.

The spot news story, that is unexpected or unplanned or unplanned news events, such as natural disasters, air crashes, train crash such that occurred in London July 2005 when bombs planted in underground train blast the train tub. More than 60 people lost their lives in the bombshells, or the twin bomb lasts that occurred at Abuja on Nigeria’s 50 years independent celebration at Eagle Square on 1 October 2010.

Such are distinguished from diary stones which are known well in advance and can be planned for by newspaper, radio or television news team — such as news conference, state visits, elections or budgets. But the editor must have someone available to go out on these stories when they do occurred. They are also

called breaking news in radio and television broadcast.

Nothing is more frustrating for an editor than to gaze on rows of empty desks when big news breaks. Usually, however, someone will be there since part of the general assignment reporter’s duties is to take news on the telephone.

When a reporter is sent out to “leg” a story, he may not write it, depending on the hour. If by the time he gathers all his facts and it is near deadline, the editor will ask him to phone the material to a rewrite man in the office. The latter, who may be a general assignment man, will take the reporter’s notes and write the story to meet the deadline. The deadline for a reporter means the time that his copy must be in the hands of the city editor. If the deadline is missed, the story won’t get into paper since the presses run on schedule. It can sometimes possible in radio and television by saying. “The news will be heard in the subsequent bulletin”.

If however, time permits, the reporter at the scene can return to the newsroom to write the story himself. Some highly experienced newsmen are able to dictate a story on the phone in the same form it will appear in the newspaper radio or the television.

The most demanding deadline are on the news wire services notably the Associated press, United Press International, BBC’s radio monitoring service, the Information Technology (IT) microelectronics plus computing, plus telecommunication equal IT. The acquisitions processing storage and dissemination of vocal pictorial textual and numerical information by microelectronics based combination of computing and telecommunications. It is possible now that IT can carry endless news if there is the cash to pay for the hardware, the software and the service. The laser beam carrying 30 channels of speech in digital form, cordless telephones, scanning devices which read the printed word out to the blind, telephones for the deaf, voice recognition, typewriters which read your typing back to you and programmes which translate ones language into another.

All these serve thousands of newspaper radio and television stations throughout the world today. Wire service men write their stories as fast as they get them.

The Beats One of journalists more colourful figures, is the beat man.

The beat journalist is a reporter whose desk is not in the newsroom, bit at the city hall, police headquarters, courts, railway station or country building. He is the city editor’s eyes and ears at theses places. The beat reporters function as an editor himself, selecting the items that he will cover and report. Smaller newspapers often depend on general assignment staffers to cover beats. This means that a reporter, equipped with a car will make the roads of the police station, city hail, the court house, railway station, ministry of education, the hospital etc. and then newsroom to write his stories.

The traditional beatman remains at his post, calling at his office only for conference or to pick up his check. A police reporter works out of a pressroom in police headquarter telephones, including a direct line to his office, typewriters, a fire alarm bell and a radio receiver on the police frequency. He has the police code numbers and on this he is able to tell instantly when a patrol car has been rushed to a fire or murder or accident scene. He then flashed this information to his city editor who orders a reporter photographer or a video man to hurry to the scene. The beats man stay where he is, protecting newspaper radio or television station.

In the next half hour, there may be another police call more important than the first. The beat reporter must be the pressman to monitor the signal and others.

It should be known that some newspapers are de emphasizing the beats today as a result of the presence of radio handset walking talking and television which are faster in reporting breaking news.

To offset this advantage, the newspapers are replacing beat man with specialist and investigative reporters who may spend weeks poking beneath the hard news for an executive story.

The trend in broadcast journalism is toward interpreting as well as reporting the news.

One place where beat man still flourishes is in African suburbs, and in some developed countries. Most press set up bureaus in their suburbs often staffmg them with young men and women who have just come out of college. They are responsible for everything newsworthy in their communities and frequently they get a chance to write their own stories. It is here they will be posted as juniors to do the normal of police and fire stations, hospitals, and town halls, mayors, councilmen, district attorneys, clerks, etc must be cultivated. Beat man must spend time with persons to win their confidence looking for stories. Most

Journalis

reporters are always looking out for the significant fact that is The sub going to make a news story. by a repo It may not be obvious to the people who are giving him that none information and so it is never enough to ask. Anything interesting In this, happening? Ask to be given a run-down on what is happening, and then you decide whether there is anything interesting and local reporter should learn all he can about his district. He should know his way round it, every street, every square, and every café.

There is no way to learn a town better than walking round it.

The reporter must know something of the town’s history, its principal industries the way it has changed in recent years. The planning, proposals for the future. The churches and clergy are invaluable because they meet families at moments of greatest stress and even today, when religious observance is waning, they must know their parishioners well. Junior reporters often have to cover the regular events in the town such as meetings of women institute, annual flower show, traditional marriages, local festivals, and others. Never despise these. Reports of them lead to some other human story, social events, where people meet each other and exchange gossip, the sort of gossip that is news.

It is the duty and obligation of the beat reporter to keep popping questions. Merely asking if there is any news will often bring a negative response from even the friendliest official. But when the question gets down to specifics, the responses are usually more substantial.

It is an axion of journalism that vague general questions normally bring vague general answers. When questions are narrowed down, so also are the answers, (see next chapter for questioning).

Copy Desk The city editor is only one editor in the newsroom. Others include the managing editor, the copy editors, the news editor and wire editor. The bigger the paper, radio and television stations, the more varied are its editors.

It is after news copy is read and edited by the city editor, it then goes to the copy desk where it undergoes further editing and a headline is written for it. On some small papers, radio and televisions, the reporters put their own headline on stories but usually this is the job of the copy editors. These men sit around a horseshoe shaped desk getting their copy from the copy chief, sometimes called the dealer or stotman. A copy editor is the reporter’s backup-man. He checks a story for errors or spellings, grammar and style. The later referring to a set of rules the Journ newspaper, radio or television has for abbreviations, capitalization, punctuation, titles etc. The style book is used to assure consistency and ga in news copy. Some papers for example, allows Nigeria Labour this by Congress (NLC) Nigerian Police Force (NPF) St for street, PAand c Press Association News Agency only in headlines and special length matters. But papers employ the abbreviation regularly in the news How copy. Some papers insist in the use of Mr. in front of last name in on the any kind of story, while others employ it only for obituaries or in most reporting about such dignitaries as the President of America, secon president of Nigeria or the British Prime Minister. the sto In radio or television are many such terms as boom, console, introd one, cut, dolly, live, OB, PAL, Pan SECAM, shot etc.

The A reporter must accept that he must be edited, both on the city Repor desk and the copy desk. Journalism as fast and fleeting as it is, prose still demands a great deal of discipline from its writers. aware The beginner reporters should accept editing as part of their risks assignments after he has gained some experience on the job, he occur must learn the rules of the game and thereby benefits from the mista experienced and intelligent editor. The authority of the copy editor straigh varies with the newspaper or some papers. A copyreader can report rewrite the entire story if he feels that’s necessary. Sometimes, up” th there must be clearance from the city editor if there is going to be them overhaul of the copy sent in by a rewrite man staff. contin Sub Editing Ag Sub editing is still a part of copy desk editor. His job is a it a co sedentary and unglamorous part of journalism. Its practitioners effect are not sent out to cover stories and they almost never get bylines. headli Their eight hour stint is carried out at a desk where they sit in accord sweaters and shirtsleeves, with their faces seen frowns as they If th pore out typewritten words. Infact, the best of them can be must immeasurable help to a news writer. gaps.

Sub editor prepares copy for the printers. Copy may come from read e a variety of sources, from the reporters (through the news editor) would from the telephone, copy takers, from the papers own intere correspondents abroad,(through the foreign editor) and from news It is agency tapes. He marks up stories for setting, for a required length. story

Media

int And Broadcast

sm (2)

editor may edit a ten inches story sent in orter to four inches of space. Making sure e of the essential facts is lost. he must learn how to measure precisely

telephones calls. The sub has to study these sometimes conflicting facts and put them in a coherent whole.

It is the job of the sub editor to make the story clear.

Reporters sometimes indulge in poetic styles or prose when writing. The sub editor must curb such style. The story must be factual and complete as much as possible making it flow clearly from one point to another.

Avoid linking phrases that tie one paragraph to the last.

They often cause endless problems when the story cannot be cut without making nonsense of it.

It is the duty of the subs to write headlines, as the business

nalist on duty

auge how much space a story will take and he does y examining the basic test sizes that his paper uses ounting to how many words may be allowed in hs. w much a sub editor has to do on a story depends e reporter, it may be that the reporter has ‘sink’ the interesting point of the story low down on the nd folio of his copy. In that case the sub will turn ory round to make the most interesting point of the duction. ere is a perpetual battle between reporters and subs. rters can never understand why their superlative cannot go into the paper as they write it. Subs are e that if they did not catch the mis-spellings, libel and plain errors of fact in reporters stories may r for a bigger trouble in newsrooms. The sub kes, correct his grammar and punctuation and hten out his ungainly syntax and semantics. Many ters can thank copy editor, sub editors for “cleaning heir stories — eliminating mistakes and making more readable in terms of organization and nuity. ood sub editor also can enhance a story by giving ompelling headline. An obtuse editor can kill the t of a surprise ending story by giving it away in the ine, in catastrophe which happens all too often, ding to some news writers. here are obvious missing facts of a story, the sub go back to the reporter and ask him to fill in the The sub represents the newspaper reader. He must every story ‘cold’ as the person buying the paper d do, and he must contrive to make the story esting. s the duty of the sub to put together version of a from reporters, news agencies on tapes and

of headline writing is perhaps the most difficult. He then goes through the copy, cutting, out superfiours matter, trimming it to length and preparing it to fit whenever space has been allocated to it.

The sub checks the spelling as earlier said of names and places, the house style book, if there is one. Many newspapers over the world have curious spellings, particularly foreign place names that are honoured by custom (such as Irak for Iraq,) It does not really matter which way they are spelt, but if one sub editor fails to follow the house style and let’s Iraq by, when Irak is the house style you can be sure that on the same page there will be two other references to the place spelt in house style. At least house styles make consistency.

Other Editors: Other editors in the newsroom may include the managing editor, his assistant, news editors, the telegraph editor, a photo editor, and the state editor. The managing editor is responsible for all of the papers radio or television editorial content including local, national and international news. He and his aids make up or dummy the pages deciding what story goes where, on air, if radio or television.

On large newspapers, there is a separate makeup editor who lays out the pages on the instructions passed by the managing editor or his staff. A strong managing editor also generates policy for the news side. He may for example instruct the city editor to mount a campaign against dirty air, crimes in the streets, armed robbery, violence attacks on people, cultism in secondary schools and the university and lady bartenders, human-trafficking and teenage prostitution.

The managing editor is authorized to poke his nose into the affairs of the sports and woman’s department, but

however he usually lets their respective editors run their own show.

The thousand of words that pour out of the newsroom’s teletype machines are gathered, edited and assigned to the paper by the telegraph or wire editor.

The manager may handle the job alone, if it is a small newspaper in addition to other duties. There are some large city dailies with a cable desk where several editors make judgments on the copy, edit it and write the headlines.

No newspaper or electronic media, regardless of its size, can possibly print, read or present all the wire copy flowing to it from all over the world on leased wires of the Nigeria News Agency, Associated Press, United press International and many others. When the General Assembly of United Nations is in session, and by organization are meeting, there is always thousands of words field into the press media (print radio and television) stations. Out of this mass, the wire editor must screen out the most newsworthy and even those stories are likely, to be trimmed in size. Also in mind no amount of the wires, copy, there must be room for local news, advertisements, sports editorials, columns, and pictures.

News Worthy Questions one may quickly ask are: “What is newsworthy?” What are newsworthy?” “Who says they are newsworthy?”

During the day, newsworthy events will take place that are quite unpredicted.

A passenger plane may clash, a gang of armed robbers may raid a bank, terrorist’s bombed underground train in London (July 2005) is newsworthy.

Different countries have different customs. Guided by their constitution every newspaper, radio and television news bulletin has a ‘lead’ story which is the first story given the greatest prominence on the front page or put first in the bulletin.

The editor or the chief sub editor could choose which story he thinks will be most important to the readers, listeners or the viewers.

If there is earthquake in Japan with an estimated 1,000 and another one at Peru with 3000 dead, prominent papers in those countries and the world, would probably put that of Peru first before that of Japan estimating the death tolls in the two earthquakes.

Popular papers in some countries such as Britain, America, or Canada would try to discover whether any Britain’s, Americans or Canadians were working in the area, and if they find any of their citizens, they look for their particulars or pictures and the might rate the front pages of these countries. But if the death toll were entirely local, the popular press would probably place disaster on an inside foreign page.

If houses are pulled down because of flood in Lagos or Benin City or Kaduna, (Nigeria) trapping families, the Vanguard, Nigerian Observer or New Nigeria would put that prominently on their front page of their papers. National papers might put briefly lower down their front pages and the popular tabloids would probably put the story inside the paper. Events will be more likely to be reported if they fulfill any some of several of the following criteria: Frequency: If the event takes a time approximate to the frequency of the medium. A murder for example is more newsworthy, than crime of “entering and stealing” from a house.

Amplitude: The bigger the better, the more dramatic, the greater is the likely hood of the story achieving what some authors call ‘threshold value’ Unambiguity: The more clear-cut uncomplicated the events, the more they will be noticed and reported.

Familiarity: That which is ethnocentric of cultural proximity and that which is relevant and close to home matter most, unless things close to home are affected by far away events.

Correspondence: That is the degree to which the events meet with our expectations and even our prediction it could be familiar or unfamiliar.

Surprise: This forms an antidote in terms of (4) and (5) and works to the benefits of good news. Events have to be unexpected or rare or preferably both, to become good news.

Continuity: That which has hit the headlines- will continue to be newsworthy even if amplitude is reduced Composition: The need for a ‘balanced’ in a news-spread leads the producer or editor to feed in a contrasting element - some home news if the predominant stores have been foreign.. A little good news if the news has generally been gloomy, writers on communication generalized that the more events concern the elite nations or seen in personal terms and the more negative the event is in its consequences; the greater is the likelihood of selection. Consequently,. once a news item has been selected, what makes it newsworthy will be accentuated. In an article in a Journal of International Peace Research (1965) Galting and Ruge adopted four criteria as Television newsworthy.

In Television: the visual is given pre-imminence. The possession of new film will often increase the prominence given to a news story News items which include film of our own reporters’ interviewing or commentating on a story, are preferred Television make use of small fraction of number of stories the newspapers carry, and even major television items are short compared with newspaper coverage.

There is preference for ‘hard’ stories or actuality on television news. It is also argued that in a picture — driven, medium, the availability of dramatic pictures competes with and often supersedes other news considerations. They also added that for an event to be judged newsworthy, it must be enchored in narrative frame works that are already familiar to and recognizable by men as well as by audiences situated in particular cultures; for different societies tell themselves on television and elsewhere different stories.

Security Issues THAT the United States of America is the undisputed global military super power is a fact that can no longer be contested, especially since the balkanization of the Soviet Union brought the Cold War to an abrupt end and subsequently created a new global order. Since then, the U.S has gone ahead to become the world’s policeman and arbiter of peace.

The “Vietnam Syndrome” is a term that refers to the hangover effect of America’s massive military losses during the Vietnam War. It refers to the shocking realization within U.S defense circles that its military was not constituted by bionic men after all; that like other armies, its forces were not invincible, but susceptible to the normal hazards of combat; that the American military could, like the armies of other nations, also register high casualty rates in war. Painful as these lessons were, the significant realities they conveyed to the eggheads of the military industrial complex were legion – the primary one being that wars are cruel to all the parties that engage in them.

After the embarrassing losses it suffered in its war with the Vietcong, there was a general consensus within the defense industry that the U.S could no longer afford to risk the lives of fellow Americans in future military engagements. To this end, a new stratagem, with greater emphasis on increased reliance on research, development and deployment of state of the art military technology in future military campaigns, was to be adopted to safeguard the lives of American forces. The subsequent wars the U.S fought in its post-Vietnam campaigns vindicated its adoption of a new paradigm to warfare.

The seamless successes of its campaigns in Iraq – Gulf Wars 1&11 - and Afghanistan, where it suffered minute fractions of casualties, compared to disasters of previous expeditions, were classic demonstrations of the undoubted effectiveness of its new strategic approach to combat; successes that have emphatically demonstrated the lucidness of its fighting machine to the rest of the watching world.

In these engagements, the U.S did not send in ground troops initially, as was the tradition prior to the Vietnam blunder, but launched comprehensive air, land, and sea bombardments of carefully chosen military and military-related targets, using some of the most sophisticated high-tech equipment ever manufactured and deployed on the field of battle since the advent of modern combat, before committing ground troops to finish off any remaining resistance. The devastation wrecked by these weapons, especially the manner they decisively decided the outcome of these conflicts, are testaments to the omnipotent status America’s defense establishment enjoys over its contemporaries.

However, one new development that is bound to define the future of future military engagements, and which has the tendency of totally tipping the scales of modern wars in the U.S’ favour, is the rise of Drones – or Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) - which has given birth to a new era of combat – the age of robotic warfare. Part of the “Unmanned Combat Systems Program”, Drones have completely redefined the face of warfare, giving an unfair advantage to any adversary employing it. A Drone is a pilotless plane which can be guided by remote control, or can navigate

With JUDE OBUSEH 08033510173

American Drones And Global Security

automatically based on pre-programmed software.

The U.S is the world’s Drone superpower, with an estimated 7, 500 aircrafts currently in its arsenal, according to Pentagon sources. Although Israel was the first country to develop military Drone technology after the Arab-Israeli War, during which its air forces sustained heavy losses, and is a top exporter after the U.S, the U.S remains both the largest producer and most frequent user of the air craft. Drones are currently been employed by the U.S for both military and non-military purposes: by the military for gathering intelligence and military strikes – in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya – by police departments for surveillance, by farmers for crop yield observation, by wildlife conservationist for anti-poaching surveillance, etc.

Drones are seen as the future of modern warfare because: they are less prone to mistakes than other weapons systems, they remove the risks to soldiers and civilian non-combatants, and because technology will continue to improve such that Drones become even more precise, efficient, and

infallible in the future, thus rendering less precise, efficient and fallible human forms of war obsolete.

Drones are thus seen as marking “a giant step forward in humanitarian technology”, and viewed as “a weapon of choice for future national leaders in planning national security strategies.

But one of the greatest threats posed to global security is the possible proliferation of this technology in the manner the world was literally brought to a standstill during the era of the nuclear arms race when several players took a cue from the US and the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) and joined the nuclear club.

Already, Russia, China, Pakistan, India, Iran and some others are said to be test-running their own prototypes prelude to the commencement of full production. The possible explosion in the production of these devices is definitely going to make the world a much more volatile place as the casualty rates from armed combats are bound to increase exponentially.

Another worst-case scenario that is better not imagined is the possibility of terrorists groups Continues on page 19

“The U.S is the world’s Drone superpower, with an estimated 7, 500 aircrafts currently in its arsenal, according to Pentagon sources. Although Israel was the first country to develop military Drone technology after the Arab-Israeli War, during which its air forces sustained heavy losses, and is a top exporter after the U.S, the U.S remains both the largest producer and most frequent user of the air craft. Drones are currently been employed by the U.S for both military and non-military purposes: by the military for gathering intelligence and military strikes – in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Libya – by police departments for surveillance, by farmers for crop yield observation, by wildlife conservationist for anti-poaching surveillance, etc.”

Security Issues Continued from page 18

acquiring Drone technology and deploying it in their zero-sum wars of attrition across the globe. The new face of global terrorism, which is driven by a compulsive bloodlust, makes Drones very attractive options. The operational advantages they provide can be exploited by these groups to devastating effects. Imagine these invincible and highly lethal machines in the hands of extremist groups such as Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabab, Hamas, Boko Haram et al.

When eventually these aircrafts become available in commercial quantity, some of the questions that will certainly pop up are: how effectively can the sale and usage of Drones be monitored? What will stop an apocalyptic group from acquiring Drones meant for civilian use and modifying them to suit their depraved purposes? These are some pertinent questions that must be answered by policymakers, manufacturers and marketers of these weapons of combat by the time they become available for use on a wider scale, outside the largely military purpose it is currently serving.

Coming closer to the home front, the U.S recently proposed to establish a Drone base in Niger Republic, a neighboring country to Nigeria, to assist in monitoring the activities of groups such as AlQaeda and their affiliates. Now, the implications of the establishment of such a base for the security of the Western African sub-region will be very far reaching. For a country like Nigeria, whose security has been seriously compromised by the activities of Boko Haram, an Islamist fundamentalist group reported to have ties with Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabbab and Hezbollah, there is no guarantee that the country’s airspace will not be illegally violated, as the U.S seeks to gather intelligence for the use of its military, and that it will not use this pretext to engage in other clandestine activities that might breach the country’s sovereignty, knowing the antecedents of its secret services in other theatres of conflict across the globe.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acts like a branch of the American military in its operations, and has been known to conduct its own foreign policy, different from that of the U.S government.

Unlike the military, CIA operations differ in their planning and execution. The CIA can take impromptu life and death decisions once American interests are thought to be at stake, whether the said threats are valid or not. For example, it can decide on its own whether a terrorist is going to be targeted, and in some circumstances can carry out strikes without further authorization. Pakistan is the most graphic example of a war theatre where the CIA does not require presidential authorization to launch a mission within its borders. So, what stops it from applying the same measures in Niger and its environs once it has a base in place to do so? What stops it from launching cross-border Drone strikes into Nigeria if terrorist cells are suspected to be hibernating within its borders?

However, it is quite surprising to note that Nigeria, a country that claims to be a regional power in Africa, has not deemed it necessary to question the aforementioned proposal by seeking clarifications on its operational modus, areas of coverage, and the duration of the program. If Nigeria’s security establishment was in seasoned hands, it would have sought for immediate guarantees from the U.S that its proposal to locate a military facility very close to its borders, will not compromise the country’s

With JUDE OBUSEH 08033510173

American Drones ...

national security and that of the whole sub-region.

The Nigerian government must begin to play its role as one of the continents major powers. It must immediately expedite action on this Drone issue by constructively engaging the U.S on the said proposal. Sound assurances that the proposed Drone base will not transform into another permanent military base, from where clandestine operations into countries within the sub-region will be conducted, must be obtained from the ensuing parley.

in possession of these tactical aerial war machines.

The increasing interest in this technology in defense circles across the globe, coupled with the ongoing research into the development of other unmanned – land, air, and sea - systems are bound to tilt the scale of future combats in favour of armies in possession of these robots. For the U.S, a country whose ambition of global military supremacy has never been a secret, the comparative advantage it currently enjoys in the production and deployment of this technology is

As America’s role as the policeman of the globe and major guarantor of peace continues to expand, adopting a security strategy that will reduce all possible threats to its security forces to the barest minimum, makes the use of Drones and other Unmanned systems the best option. Since assuming office, US President, Barack Obama, has sanctioned the increasing use of Drones in the country’s military operations across the world.

His administration has conducted more than three times as many Drone strikes per year compared to his predecessor in the Oval Office - an indication of the manner the U.S would prefer fighting its future wars.

In all, the use of Drones as choice weapons of modern warfare is bound to determine the outcome of future wars, especially as more participants prepare to join the league of countries

an issue that should raise serious concerns in security circles across the globe.

Thus, for world peace and security to be effectively guaranteed, in the wake of the entry of these invincible flying machines into the theaters of modern combat, there is urgent need for ethical and legal guidelines in the research, production, sale and deployment of these stealth weapons of combat to be established to guide countries in possession of this technology. International organizations, such as the United Nations Organization, continental bodies, international nongovernmental organizations and national governments must push for the hashing out of effective and far reaching policies to this effect.

No effort should be spared, for any effort directed towards the peace, security and progress of the world is worth it. God save the world!

“The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) acts like a branch of the American military in its operations, and has been known to conduct its own foreign policy, different from that of the U.S government. Unlike the military, CIA operations differ in their planning and execution. The CIA can take impromptu life and death decisions once American interests are thought to be at stake, whether the said threats are valid or not. For example, it can decide on its own whether a terrorist is going to be targeted, and in some circumstances can carry out strikes without further authorization. Pakistan is the most graphic example of a war theatre where the CIA does not require presidential authorization to launch a mission within its borders.”

Motoring With OSAGIE AIFUWA 08023412452

Care For Your Car Air Condition

Understanding Car Fuel System Symptoms, Problems And Solutions SYMPTOM: engine consumes much fuel or petrol.

Problems: (1) Carburetor needs adjustment, or no enough air intake (2) Choke hooked (stuck) during operation.

Solution: Adjust carburetor appropriately to reduce fuel intake. (2) Clean of replace air cleaner element. (3) Check choke action (free it if necessary).

• Symptom: engine spits back or back fires when pulling Problems: (1) There is fuel shortage. (2) There is water in the fuel system. (3) There is air leakage in inlet manifold.

(4) Ignition timing is faulty.

Solutions: Clean the carburetor jets and needle valves, or (2) check fuel supply and fuel tank (3) Tighten all parts associated with inlet manifold. (4) Correct the timing.

• Symptom: No fuel delivery (mechanical pump).

Problem: Tank might be empty, or supply pipe choke, pump filter choked, float’ needle stuck, air leakage at pump set

Shock Absorber

SHOCK ABSORBERS should be replaced when necessary. Shock absorbers condition should be checked by using the following methods of inspection.

Examine Visually: Check for oil leakage from oil-seals of the piston rod and the cylinder surface. If there is leakage, replace the shock absorber immediately. Also replace it if there is any dent in the cylinder. .

Push Down On The Bumper: If the vehicle bounces up and down buoyantly two or three times when the bumper is pushed down and released it indicates that the shock absorbers have lost their effectiveness.

Pump The Brakes: While driving slowly, pump the brake pedal. If the vehicle’s front or rear end divers a lot, it indicates that the shock absorbers have lost their effectiveness.

Feel The Shock Absorbers: Feel the shock absorber. If their temperature rises to high level soon after starting this is normal. If they remain cold, they are not operating efficiently.

Checks The Mount: If the shock mount is bent, or the wash position is improper or if the rubber bushing is damaged replace the shock absorber. Shock absorber should be checked periodically.

screw or gasket, tank vent might be blocked, dirty pump filter choked, float needle stuck, air leakage at pump set screw might be blocked, dirty pump valves presence of holes on diaphragm, diaphragm screw might be slacked, broken springs.

Solution: Provide adequate fuel in the tank, or (1) Clean choked pipes. (2) Clean choked pump filter (3) Release float needle. (4) Correct air leakage at pump set screws or gasket. (5) Remove dirt’s at the vent. (6) Clean pump valves (7) Replace diaphragm or change pumps. (8) Slacken screws evenly, stretch diaphragm and tighten screws.

• Symptom: Pump noisy Problem: (1) Mechanical failure like worn spindle or level. (2) Replace broken spring or replace pump.

• Flooding (over floating) at the carburetor (mechanical pump) Problem: Either pump mounting gasket is too thin or (2) Rocker arm bent outward (3) Diaphragm spring too strong (4) Float needle and seat worn or dirty (5) Pump link arm or pivots damaged (6) Float is punctured.

Solution: Replace gasket (2) Re-adjust or replace rocker arm adjust or replace diaphragm spring (3) replace float needle and seat or clean Replace damaged link arm or pivots. (5) Replace float • Symptom No fuel delivery (electrical pump) Problem: Tank is empty or (2) Supply pipe is blocked.

(3)Delivery pipe is blocked (4) There is dirty in filter and valve (5) Float needle stuck.

Solution: Put adequate fuel in the tank or (2) Slacken the intake union, pump will tick, then clean supply pipe.

(3) Clean delivery pipe, slacken the union, the pump should tick (4) Clean or change filter (5) Release float needle.

• Symptom: Noisy operation (electrical pump).

Problems: There is air leakage at intake or (2) Fuel leakage at the delivery side.

Solution: Rectify the air leakage at delivery side.

Problems: No current is supplied or (2) Toggle mechanism seized.

(3) Dirt or burnt points. (4) There short circuit of the winding to earth. (5) Winding broken.

Solution: Check for broken wire, reconnect or replace, or (2) Check for rust or toggle mechanism, clean or replace (3) Clean or replace.

(4) Correct short circuit. (5) Replace.

GENERALLY, the best care you give to your cars air conditioning system to have it regularly serviced by qualified specialist, whereby the system is thoroughly cleaned, all hoses and pipes are checked for leaks and the refrigerant gas topped up. This is normally done periodically and prevents the discomfort to having the system break down when it is most needed.

In using the system, one should always remember to turn off, then the engine is stopped. Starting with the system engage not only placed added strain on the compressor clutch and associated drive belts but also the battery of car as well. Whenever the car has been left in open for prolong periods, the amount of heat soak built up in the interior is considerable, in such situation, it is advisable to drive with windows down for the first few minutes. This allows warm air to escape and achieve a more rapid cool down time.

An associated benefit is also a small saving in fuel used, since the system will not be working so hard to do the cooling.

Like almost everything else, letting the system lie dormant and unused for prolong period does it in no favours.

One should run the system for at least fifteen minutes twice a week in other to keep all seals, bearings and components in working order.

Always ensure the refrigerant gas is topped up, as running the system on empty can damage the components by observing these few simple tips, your, vehicle air conditioning should give many years of faithful service and more years of comfortable driving.

Safety Tips

• DON’T be a victim of fire disaster, Keep fuel in your car tank only • More Lives are saved with less night travelling.

The life saved may be yours’ Avoid night travelling • Avoid Conviction, obey traffic regulations. Drive to stay alive!

• Maximum speed limits cars — 100km P.H Taxis and Buses— 9OKMP.H Tankers/Trailers — 60KM P.H. Timber Trucks — 60KM P.H. Speed Kills!

• Avoid Overloading • You should never overload any vehicle with goods or passengers.

• Passengers stand very risk of severe injuries or death in overloaded vehicles.

• Drivers of overloaded vehicles will be convicted and may also have their vehicles impounded.

• Passengers should not travel in overloaded vehicles.

• Passengers who allow themselves to constitute the “EXTRA” passengers will be removed at any point of the journey. BE WARNED!

View Point

THE word centenary connotes a hundred years of existence of a thing or a people. The component known as Nigeria by 2014 grounds of having been together as one indivisible inseparable entity by reason of the amalgamation process of the southern and the northern protectorate by Lord Lugard celebrated a hundred years.

It is necessary however, to know that countries that have had such privileges to have sizeable number of ethnic nationality have since gone their separate ways the youngest country in Africa, the South Sudan which broke up from the Northern Sudan. Having separated, still appears to be acrimony and bitterness by the cleaveraged countries. Iraq and Iran is not an exception to these struggle and various other nations of the World.

In Nigeria however, the amalgamation story and the present testimony that we have lived together as a Nation would not have been complete if we do not recognize the almighty who has kept us thus far. Of course many Nigerians not really know how important it is for us to rejoice and celebrate the centenary with Champaign from the highest to the least citizen of this great nation, Nigeria except we find out from countries where unstoppable wars have persisted because of secession. These countries would have prefer to have opportunity to celebrate if that could solve the problem of wars. As we celebrate the centenary, how far has the girl-child felt over these period prior to the coming of the colonial masters especially in the area of education? In the colonial era, it is a known fact that women were not given the same privilege and opportunity that the man enjoyed with the colonial masters. There was no story of’ any of them recruited into the Colonial neither were they recognized or made relevant by the white masters.

Could it be right for us as a people not to consider the plight of the Girl-child while we celebrate? What exactly is the offence committed by the girl-child that a nation is adamant over her plight? Is her offence not pardonable if any? What has been the effort of government over the years? Is this a better time for us to look inwards in order to profer result—oriented solution in addressing these issues that have enveloped the relevance of the education of the girl-child? These are questions that deserve answers in this momentous occasion of our national life to answer. Are these question’ to the government, civil society Let us not extricate ourselves from these question because the education of the girl-child is a celebration component and deserves to be considered and incorporated in to centenary celebration proper by reason of the achievement made so far and whether the minimum Development Goal project gave represented the interest of the girl-child successfully in the area of her education well-being.

As we cogitate over these and by questions, let us also examine our feelings and therefore extend our thinking to the provisions of history and so, it would be correct to infer that over the years the education of the girl-child have suffered so much in the hands of government, families ever before the year 2000 and thereby treated with levity. It would also be correct to posit that the government have not also seeing the problem concerning of the girl-child as a social error and as such measures

The Centenary And Girl-Child Education

By EMMANUEL U. OKORO

have not been put in place to cushion the effect already created by the nonchalant attitude of the government toward her plight. Although the government have been up to the task in the area of maternal mortality and the Visco Virgina Fistura Project have received remarkable boost. But one aspect which is moribund to government is the issues relating to gril-child education.

However, information remains a veritable tool in the transformation of any nation. The government must not send every girl-child to school but the government can provide information as to the relevance of girl-child education for people to send their children to school “sensitization is the word” by these grievous mistakes’ on the part of government the government must breeze up to its responsibility by bringing to the knowledge of the people such issues of national importance like the education of the girl-child. The National Orientation Agency as an agency of government saddled with the responsibility of creating awareness on such areas of national importance, must be in full year to champion this course. It would be correct also to summit that girlchild education with its historical connotation has experienced poor sensitization/awareness on the part of the national orientation agency and also from the various media organisations in Nigeria. At present HIV/AIDS

“The media must realize that the home front is waiting to be thrilled by jingles that can take them down memory lane. If the media can toll the line of creating fascinating jingles to encourage the education of the girl-child the-same way jingles are done HIV/ AIDS, sickle cell anemia and other social problems, indeed the media can say it right to the people and none else can do its better”

which is a viral disease is feared, avoided and dreaded by people because of the awareness campaign all over the country and the world at large. Such campaign has created care and consciousness in the minds of people all over the world. And so, if the people in same manner are rightly informed of the relevance of the education of the girl-child in television, radio stations and the print media such campaign is sure to lay bricks of consciousness and commitment in the actions of people in relation to the girl-child education.

It is important to note therefore, that emergency measure have been introduced by government on these issues from the stand point of history. They are emergency in our security, in the fight against corruption.

As the security operations are employing diverse measure and methods to execute the challenges in internal security and the media’s unrelenting media campaign against the insurgency and economic and financial crimes commission’s doggedness in fighting the scourge of corruption in Nigeria. I wish to plead that the government should see reasons to introduce emergency or better still state of emergency to address the education of the girlchild such emergency in these area would produce faster result than have achieved in other respective areas of our social life.

The media must realize that the home front is waiting to be thrilled by jingles that can take them down memory lane. If the media can toll the line of creating fascinating jingles to encourage the education of the girl-child thesame way jingles are done HIV/AIDS, sickle cell anemia and other social problems, indeed the media can say it right to the people and none else can do its better. The media however, is a veritable tool to actualize the millennium development Goal number of promoting gender equality and empowerment of women and there is no better time than now for them to braze up to these Continues on page 22

View Point

Democracy Better Than Military Rule

By ALEXANDER EBOS UGHU NIGERIA is yet to celebrate another consecutive 15 years of uninterrupted democracy with amidst fears of security challenges and political commotions among top political leaders across the country.

May 29 of every year is set aside to mark democracy day in Nigeria, the pathetic story is that since the unfortunate appearance of the terrorist group called Boko Haram who wickedly invade the Northern part of Nigeria, thousands of human lives have been wasted and property worth billions of naira destroyed in recent past years while other parts of the country are not exempted in terms of security threats.

Though, President Goodluck Jonathan is yet to fish out the heartless executors of this terrible act, most especially the Boko Haram sponsors who have chosen to make his government uncontrollable and ungovernable in the recent times.

The issue of apprehending Boko Haram suspects or perpetrators is a mere political gimmick as his security threat is nothing to write home about.

President Jonathan’s government is now a laughing stock of security failure and of late state of emergencies declared in some parts of North which was long overdue, Nigeria security operatives are yet to comb out the major sponsors of this dastardly act.

Precisely, May 29, 1999 when the military government hardened power over to the civilian government under the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerians had been yearning for democracy before the military forces toppled the then civilian government in 1966 with bloody coup that claimed many innocent lives and property worth billions of naira destroyed then.

The military government succeeded in taking over the government from and 1983 to 1998. Though, the military government also witnessed three months unrest civil war between Rt. Gen. Yakubu Gowon and late Emeka Ojukwu over Aburi Agreement.

Over the years, democracy celebration has been in high key Continued from page 21

challenge by mapping out strategic jingles especially in the electronic media such that will be motivating and interesting for people to get along with or better still attracted to sing them along our streets like “mama” too good” by indomie noodle and several others.

Moreover, these mandate lays also on the shoulders of the Ministry of Women Affairs across the country to deliver on point the needs of the girlchild (education) The ministry must as a matter of urgency give priority to partnering with the civil society (groups) whose objectives revolve round addressing the girl-child education and not politicizing her activities as it well. They must also stop the huge financial conditions ascribed on civil society groups whose missions are centered on carrying out activities beneficial to the plight of the girl-child C.S.O are

but since President Jonathan assumed power, the country began to witness another school of wanton killings of both Christians and Muslims in the Northern region of Nigeria by these die-hard Islamic sect called fundamentalists.

The problem is that the Islamic sect operation is uncontrollable more sophisticated in spite of the presence of Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in the North. Even security operatives are not spared in terms of state of emergencies declared in three Northern States recently by President Goodluck Jonathan.

Some highly placed Northern leaders and elders felt the leadership of the country has been totally betrayed by the present administration after the death of President Musa Yar’Adua in 2009.

Despite the perpetual security threats, Nigeria has witnessed some political and economical achievements in Jonathan’s government and others since the enthronement of democracy in the country. But the fact remains that corruption has eaten deep like a canker worm into the fabric of the society while our education sector is nothing to write home about. The annual budget on education in Nigeria is less than the amount spent on Nigerian students attending Ghana Universities which implied that the educational sector is in low state.

Our hospitals are mere clinics. The so-called federal roads are death traps for innocent Nigerian road users.

President Jonathan alone cannot make Nigeria great except every region cooperates with his leadership. Most of the selfstyled politicians are only concerned with 2015 rather than putting quality leadership in place.

The issue of Nigerian Governors Forum and the sudden dethronement of the former chairman, Governor Rotimi Amaechi is an implication of unhinged political leadership and muscle show at the centre.

The lingering political scuffle brought the emergence of People’s Democracy Party Governors Forum which is now headed by Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State.

However, if there is anything to go by the American prediction that Nigeria will break in 2015, then our political leaders must settle their scores. Before the Boko Haram insurgence, OPC, Egbesu group of Ijaw nation and Niger Delta Militants were key players of ethnic violence together with MASSOB group with genuine course unlike the Boko Haram operators who decided to make the leadership of the country ungovernable.

Federal Government succeeded in creating post-Amnesty for the Niger Delta Militants after much political consultations and nothing else. Those that were calling for Amnesty for Boko Haram meant well to enjoy peace but the Islamic sect objected the move by President Jonathan. The problem is that some of the Boko Haram facilitators are beneficiaries of the unrest in the North. The only way out may be adopt the late President Gadaffi of Libya idea of dividing Nigeria and nothing else.

Lastly, Nigeria has been able to sustain a successful democracy without the intervention of the military onslaught in recent past years. Nigeria security operatives must be on alert to bring the perpetrators of this act to book while the Federal Government must fully equip our security agencies to combat the deadly enemies of democracy in Nigeria for the worst democracy is better than a military rule.

“President Jonathan alone cannot make Nigeria great except every region cooperates with his leadership. Most of the self-styled politicians are only concerned with 2015 rather than putting quality leadership in place.”

... And The Girl-Child Education

conditioned to register with the women affairs ministry and are required to pay exorbitant fees for registration and these has made such groups to carry out their activities without including women affairs ministry to their programme of activities.

Also some commissioners are made to carryout solely the pet projects of her Excellency, the wife of the governor of the state and would not champion any innovation by C.S.O’s whatsoever.

This is a wakeup call for the ministries of women affairs nationwide to understand that no person is an island and cannot be, it is a collective responsibility for all.

History will do us good if we can identify area need restructuring in order to achieve education for all.

As a matter of fact, the problem of women (girlchild) will remain a

pressing concern to all social crusaders who believe in equality, irrespective of gender. The struggle to see the education of the girl-child given priority shall remain the concern of our organisation as long as the ink keep flowing.

However, as we look forward to the centenary celebration, it would be note worthy for us to examine ourselves and reflect on how far the quest for the education of the girl-child have thrived over the year looking at where we’re coming from

in terms of her education, where we’re at the moment as a people in these regard and where we intend to be in the years to come.

Let us all join forces together and build on the tenets of togetherness with unity of purpose. Women the world over must stand

to condemn in totality the long lasted ideology of known support syndrome for their fellow women whom have shown interest to show-case their God given potential and talents in politics by these more women will be encouraged to participate in politics and leadership and the girlchild will begin to sense a level playing ground for all. As the theme for last year’s girl-child day celebration “innovating for girl’s education such innovations on our part must revolve around tradition and religion, that is to say, tradition and religion should be guided from detecting the life of the girl-child she has to be allowed to enjoy the best of education now and after the centenary celebration.

And in doing this we can part ourselves celebration and our Nation will be better for it Happy Centenary celebration Nigeria!!!

Religion

I Believe In Miracles

MIRACLES are supernatural events beyond the understanding of man. Gresham Machen, a theologian has defined a miracle as “an event in the external world that is wrought by the immediate power of God”. Also C.S Lewis, another scholar, defined a miracle as “an interference with nature by supernatural power”. A writer further explains that, “miracles are beyond man’s intellectual or scientific ability”.

Miracles are not magic because while the former is from God and follows through faith, prayers and supplications, the latter (magic) follows from the devil with rituals, incantations and abracadabra — known ritualistic formula. Miracle is sustainable but magic is not!

God is God of miracles, and we know that clearly from the scriptures from the Old Testament to the New Testament — miracles abound. God used the prophets in the Old Testament to perform signs and wonders. Such prophets of God are Moses, Joshua, Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Daniel etc. In the New Testament, Jesus did awesome miracles and the apostles after Jesus did the same, and it is continuous till date because Jesus said: “Verily, verily I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also and greater works than these shall he do because I go to my father” Jn. 14:12. Miracles are still with us today.

Jesus has given us the power to perform miracles- to exercise miraculous manifestations on others and unto ourselves. In the great

commission, he said to every believer: “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel . . . and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name shall they cast out devils, they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not harm them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover” Mk16:15,17-18.

I wonder why people say there are no miracles today when the Bible holds a clear view of miraculous manifestations. Miracle is a term that is wide and encompassing and goes beyond health matters. The simple view that miracle deals only with health issues gives it a parochial purview. In our daily life, we experience miracles and testimonies. You sleep and wake up in the morning is it not a miracle?

Some people have died in their sleep state; when your financial circumstance changes from poverty to riches, is it also not a miracle if such is achieved genuinely? If your status suddenly experiences a lifting- is that not also a miracle when you did not expect it? So miracles happen on a daily basis in our lives. To receive a miracle from God, you must first have faith — I mean absolute faith in God. The Bible says “But without faith it is impossible to please Him

With REV. DR. A. A. OPARA

for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him” Heb 11:6. You must have faith in God. You cannot see God because he is a spirit (Jn 4:24). But you believe he exists. You know that Jesus went to his home country but could do

say they don’t believe in the supernatural don’t experience miracles because they have no faith in God. When you have faith in God, then follow that faith up with prayers and supplication to God. Pray to God concerning your situation — whatever it is, He will answer you

wrote again “Pray without ceasing” 1 Thess 5:17.

Until you get that miracle, don’t cease to pray if you know you are asking in accordance with Gods will (Eph 5:17) The scripture says; pray in this manner “Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven” Matt 6:10. The Bible says further: “This is the confidence we have in him that he heareth us

very little because of the people’s faithlessness “And he went out from thence and came unto his own country. And he could there do no mighty works, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick and he healed them. And he marveled because of their unbelief Mk 6:1,5-6. You see what unbelief can do.

It creates faithlessness and brings a big gap between God and man. Those who

— God cannot deny his word and the Bible says clearly: “Ask it shall be given you, seek, ye shall find, knock, it shall be opened unto you. For everyone that asketh receiveth” Matt 7:7-8.

When you ask from God, you need to persevere.

That means you pray again and again on the issue that is why Jesus said “Men ought always to pray and not faint” Lk 18:1. Paul

when we ask according to his will (IJn. 5:14) Man, you can experience miracles on a daily basis.

Do not give yourself to a life of defeat and failure.

The devil is responsible for that. Turn things around now by believing in Jesus.

He said” I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly” Jn 10:10. This explains the secondary reason of Christ mission on earth. (His

primary reason being salvation J 3:16) Is abundant life not a life of miracle? Wherever you are now or what ever condition you find yourself now, you can get a touch of God to change your situation by faith in God

and with prayers. God will not abandon those who seek after him genuinely.

He says if you seek him he will be found but if you forsake him he will also forsake you (2Cliron 15:2).

Friend look up to Jesus now the author and finisher of our faith (Heb 12:2) God is willing to do a miracle in your life now if only you believe! God bless you.

“I wonder why people say there are no miracles today when the Bible holds a clear view of miraculous manifestations.

Miracle is a term that is wide and encompassing and goes beyond health matters. The simple view that miracle deals only with health issues gives it a parochial purview.”

International Right-To-Die Law: Belgium Set To Extend To Children

BRUSSELS - Belgium, one of the very few countries where euthanasia is legal, is expected to take the unprecedented step this week of abolishing age restrictions on who can ask to be put to death — extending the right to children.

The legislation appears to have wide support in the largely liberal country. But it has also aroused intense opposition from foes — including a list of pediatricians — and everyday people who have staged noisy street protests, fearing that vulnerable children will be talked into making a final, irreversible choice.

Backers like Dr. Gerland van Berlaer, a prominent Brussels pediatrician, believe it is the merciful thing to do. The law will be specific enough that it will only apply to the handful of teenage boys and girls who are in advanced stages of cancer or other terminal illnesses and suffering unbearable pain, he said.

Under current law, they must let nature take its course or wait until they turn 18 and can ask to be euthanized.

“We are talking about children that are really at the end of their life. It’s not that they have months or years to go. Their life will end anyway,” said Van Berlaer, chief of clinic in the pediatric critical care unit of University Hospital Brussels.

“The question they ask us is: ‘Don’t make me go in a terrible, horrifying way, let me go now while I am still a human being and while I still have my dignity.’”

The Netherlands already allows euthanasia for children as young as 12, providing their families agree.

The Belgian Senate voted 5017 on Dec. 12 to amend the country’s 2002 law on euthanasia so that it would apply to minors, but only under certain additional conditions. Those include parental consent and a requirement that any minor desiring euthanasia demonstrate a “capacity for discernment” to a psychiatrist and psychologist.

The House of Representatives, the other chamber of Parliament, is scheduled to debate on Wednesday whether to agree to

the changes, and vote on them Thursday. Passage is widely expected.

King Philippe, Belgium’s constitutional head of state, must sign the legislation for it to go into effect. So far, the 53-yearold monarch and father of four has not taken a public position, but spokesman Pierre De Bauw said that is not unusual. “We never give any comment on any piece of legislation being discussed in Parliament,” De Bauw said Tuesday.

Though one opinion poll found 75 percent of Belgians in favor, there has been a vocal opposition.

“We are opening a door that nobody will be able to close,” Andre Leonard, the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and chairman of the Episcopal Conference of Belgium, told The Associated Press. “There is a risk of very serious consequences in the long term for society and the meaning we give to life, death and the freedom of human beings.”

Etienne Dujardin, 29, a notary employee and father, has been among those staging protests as the debate in the House of Representatives nears. He doesn’t believe safeguards proposed under the new law are watertight enough to protect youngsters who may be incapacitated by disease.

“If you take three psychiatrists, one of them will end up approving (euthanasia),” Dujardin said. “In the name of promoting freedom for children, we’re letting someone else decide.”

This week, an “open letter” carrying the names of 160 Belgian pediatricians was issued to argue against the new law, claiming there is no urgent need for it and that modern medicine is capable of soothing the pain of even the sickest children.

The doctors also said there was no objective way of providing that children possess the “discernment” to know what euthanasia means.

Van Berlaer, 45, was not one of the signatories. Very sick children who are surrounded by other ill and dying people are not like other youngsters, and mature quickly_too quickly, he said.

They may look on as friends or

neighbors in their ward die because they can no longer breathe or swallow, and come to realize what lies ahead for them.

In such cases, Van Berlaer said, a child may want to say goodbye to classmates and family, and ask if he or she can stop living.

“The thing is that it is an ultimate act of humanity and even love for the patients, minors in this case, that we at least listen to this question and think about why they would ask such a difficult thing,” Van Berlaer said. “And it will never be easy, even if the law changes now, things won’t be easier.”

By his estimate, only a handful of Belgian children, all in the teenage years, would be able each year to make use of the lifting of age restrictions. “If there is still a possible medical treatment, they will not be

the region of Flanders, also is in favor of the legislation.

Euthanasia, he said, sometimes becomes the kindest and most caring option.

“I’ve seen quite a lot of persons dying in — how do you say in proper English — agony?” said Van Hoey. “If you see

somebody who died in pain, you see his face completely with a kind of expression where you see the pain on the face.

“I never saw that when I gave someone euthanasia he or she asked for,” the doctor said.

Besides Belgium, the only other countries to have legalized euthanasia are two of its neighbors, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, said Kenneth

Tamil Nadu state Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha went all out to gain favor with rural voters. Schoolgirls received laptops. Farm workers got cows and goats. Homemakers were given spice grinders and fans.

The price tag for the giveaway, which started in 2011 and continues today: 20 billion rupees ($322 million) in a state of about 70 million people.

Freebies are a fact of life in Indian politics, and items like livestock are only part of it. All three parties seen as the front-runners in upcoming

beloved tradition in India, a country of 1.2 billion people and the world’s biggest democracy.

Some 270 million people — nearly 22 percent of the population — live in poverty here, making giveaways particularly resonant for voters.

Last July, the Indian Supreme Court ruled the giveaways were not technically corrupt, but “distribution of freebies of any kind, undoubtedly, influences all people. It shakes the root of free and fair elections to a large

Election Season In India Comes With NEW DELHI - Just before Freebies leader in western Maharashtra state, village council elections, Southern launched a hunger strike and

Belgian professor and doctor, Gerlant Van Berlaer, poses at the University Hospital UZ in Brussels. allowed to ask for euthanasia,” the Brussels pediatrician said.

The discernment clause, he said, should bar the law from applying to young children.

Dr. Marc Van Hoey, a general practitioner who is president of the Right to Die Association in

An Indian supporter wears a mask of India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi as he waves the party flag at a public rally addressed by Modi, in Gauhati, India.

Chambaere, a sociologist and member of the End-of-Life Care research group at the Free University Brussels and University of Ghent.

In the Netherlands, children between 12 and 15 may be euthanized with parents’ permission, while those who are 16 or 17 must notify their parents beforehand. Luxembourg limits the practice to legal adults 18 and older.

elections have enticed voters with subsidies on electricity, cooking gas or grain.

The largesse could give sputtering growth a short-term boost, but there are growing concerns that the subsidizeeverything mentality they represent will damage government finances and the economy. Growth is expected to be less than 5 percent in the 2013-14 fiscal year, far below the 8 percent rate the country averaged in the past 10 years. A crisis of confidence stemming from erratic government policymaking is partly to blame by deterring business investment.

India’s Election Commission said this month it plans to require political parties to explain how they will pay for any “welfare measures” announced in the runup to the vote, to be held by May. Economists have taken issue with a slew of new subsidies announced by the government, which is headed by the beleaguered Congress party. An expansion of India’s cooking gas subsidy will cost nearly $805 million, straining public coffers.

“If you are subsidizing 97 percent of the population, you are basically subsidizing people who are paying for it themselves,” Raghuram Raj, India’s central bank governor, said in a recent televised interview.

Campaign-season goodies are a

degree.”

But many voters welcome the giveaways as the cost of living skyrockets.

“It is a good gesture!” said Soymyajit Singh, a 20-year-old university student who got a free laptop in October under a program organized by Akhilesh Yadav, chief minister of northern Uttar Pradesh state. “Everyone needs a computer. But how many of us can afford it?”

The laptop swayed Singh’s vote.

While his family staunchly supports the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, Singh says he will cast his ballot for Yadav’s Samajwadi Party.

In Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha defended her giveaways by saying they were welfare measures aimed at improving poor people’s standard of living.

Jayalalitha is among the politicians who have hopes of becoming prime minister this year.

If no one party dominates elections, regional parties such as hers will play a key role in cobbling together a coalition government in New Delhi.

The most costly freebies for the government have subsidies rather than direct giveaways. In recent weeks, the Congress party and other political blocs have pressed for sweeping subsidies, often in dramatic fashion.

Sanjay Nirupam, a Congress

threatened to set himself on fire to press his demands for government subsidies that would lower electricity bills in Mumbai by 20 percent. He called off his hunger strike after four days after the party leader in his state assured him the plan would come under serious consideration.

In New Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man Party, cut electricity bills in half this year for poorer households. The party rose to power the Indian capital Delhi last year on a wave of populist promises and an anti-corruption campaign, and leader Arvind Kejriwal is widely considered to have his eye on the national stage.

The Bharatiya Janata Party promised grain at cheaper rates for the poor in central Chhattisgarh state, where the party has been in power for years. The party leader, Narendra Modi, is considered a top candidate for prime minister in the upcoming national vote.

Nationally, the Congress party pushed for an $805 million plan that allows families to buy more subsidized cooking gas cylinders.

The government approved the expanded subsidy following demands by Rahul Gandhi, the likely Congress candidate for prime minister.

Analysts say the giveaways may be a time-honored practice, but the government is hard pressed to pay for them. At the end of September 2013, India’s long-term external debt was $305.5 billion. India will have to pay back a short-term debt of $172 billion by March 31, according to government statistics.

In New Delhi, though Aam Aadmi is lowering the electric bills of poor households, it is not making up the difference. New Delhi state has no cash surplus and had a fiscal deficit of 29 billion rupees ($471 million) in 2012-13.

Private distribution companies have told Kejriwal’s government that they are running out of money to pay generation companies. The Business Standard newspaper reported that the companies are already sitting on losses worth 110 billion rupees ($1.7 billion). The suppliers have warned residents to be prepared for 8 to 10 hours of daily power cuts in parts of the city if the new government doesn’t raise electricity rates and lend them money to buy power from state-run utilities.

India followed a socialistpatterned economy until 1991, but the progress of reforms has been unsteady. And sometimes the government has been forced to raise prices on items such as grain soon after giving out a slew of subsidies because it needs the money.

Even when the government is offering freebies, as the Congress party is now, that doesn’t guarantee votes. The party’s stock is low, battered by corruption scandals and inability to unblock bottlenecks in crucial sectors like land, power and food.

“What helped the Congress party in the last election in 2009 was a reasonable economic growth,” economist Surjit Bhalla said. “What will hurt them the most in the next elections is a lack of growth in the past five years.”

International EU To Ease Sanctions On Zimbabwe, But Not Mugabe

BRUSSELS - The European Union is to further ease sanctions on Zimbabwe next week, but will keep a travel ban and asset freeze on President Robert Mugabe and his wife, EU sources said on Tuesday.

But the EU has held out an olive branch to Mugabe, inviting him to take part in an EU-Africa summit in Brussels in April and granting him an exemption from sanctions to visit Europe.

The moves reflect a cautious easing of EU policy towards Zimbabwe 12 years after it first imposed sanctions in protest at human rights abuses and violations of democracy under Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980.

EU states were divided in their response when Mugabe, 89, won a fifth term as president in an election last July that was endorsed as free by African observers but denounced as fraudulent by the opposition.

The overhaul of the EU’s policy, after a review, is designed to encourage positive change in Zimbabwe while retaining some leverage over Mugabe to pursue reforms.

“It does seem a time to move forward and the sense is that Zimbabwe is moving ... We need to respond,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in the European Parliament on Tuesday in response to a question about easing sanctions.

“I think we probably are now

in the right place to do this on the basis that if things go badly we can move back again,” she said.

EU sanctions on Zimbabwe are renewed annually and are due for review by February 20. The EU is expected to announced next week that sanctions will be suspended on eight of the 10 Zimbabweans affected by asset freezes and travel bans in recognition that the country has made some progress in reforming.

EU officials have described the eight as “key decision-makers” in Zimbabwe.

However, Mugabe and his wife Grace will remain under sanctions for a further year, EU sources said.

The EU will keep its arms embargo on Zimbabwe and Zimbabwe Defence Industries, an arms supplier, will also remain under sanctions, the sources said.

Sanctions on scores of people and companies that were previously suspended will remain suspended.

Zimbabwe may be in line to receive some funding from an EU aid fund for developing countries for the period until 2020.

For years, the EU stopped channelling development aid through the Zimbabwean government and worked instead with charities, but it will now talk to the government about how to spend aid money.

Zimbabwe, shunned by Western governments and funding institutions, needs $27 billion more than twice the size of its

economy - to fund a five-year plan to improve basic services and rebuild the impoverished country, a senior government official said last week.

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party has long demanded the complete removal of EU sanctions it denounces as illegal.

An EU source said Mugabe had not yet replied to the invitation to join other African and EU leaders at the Brussels summit in April.

Mugabe took part in EU-Africa summits in Tripoli in 2010 and Lisbon in 2007, although his presence at the Lisbon summit prompted a boycott by then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The EU has gradually eased sanctions on Zimbabwe for several years to reward it for political reforms under the previous coalition government in which Mugabe shared power with his political rival Morgan Tsvangirai.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe arrives for the extraordinary session of the African Union’s Assembly of Heads of State and Government on the case of African Relationship with the International Criminal Court (ICC), in Ethiopia’s Capital Addis Ababa.

PUBLIC NOTICE STONE OF HELP CHRISTIAN CHURCH The general public is hereby notified that the above named Church has applied to the Corporate Affairs Commission for registration under the Companies and Allied Matters Act No.1 of 1990.

BOARD OF TRUSTEES 1.

Rev. Ebenezer Eguridu 2.

Orogun Lawrence 3.

Deaconess Margaret Eguridu 4.

Daniel Obaroh 5.

NewYear Okposio AIMS & OBJECTIVES 1.To establish the Gospel of Jesus Christ and to teach the Believers the true Bible Doctrine, to establish Believers faith.

2.To Establish and build churches for fellowship.

3.To organize conferences, seminars and workshop for all ministers and church workers and entire members for rapid growth of Christianity.

Any objection to this registration should be forwarded to the Registrar- General, Corporate Affairs Commission, Plot 420 Tigris Crescent, off Aguiyi Ironsi Street, Maitama, Abuja within 28 days of this publication.

Signed: DEACONESS MARGARET EGURIDU

High-Level Talks: SEOUL - North and South Korea held their first highlevel talks in seven years on their armed border yesterday exploring ways to improve ties while the South and the United States geared up for large-scale military drills that have angered Pyongyang.

The meeting was set up with unusual speed and great secrecy at the North’s suggestion last week, the latest example of conflicting signals coming from Pyongyang that included an abrupt cancellation of an invitation for a U.S. envoy to visit.The North is likely to repeat its demand for the South and the United States to scrap the military drills,

Head of the North Korean high-level delegation, won Tong You (3rd left) shakes hands with his South Korean counterpart Kim Kyou-hyun (2nd right) during their talks .

Syrian Forces Press Assault Near Lebanon Border DAMASCUS President Bashar alAssad’s forces and fighters from Lebanese ally Hezbollah stepped up attacks on Syria’s strategic border town of Yabroud yesterday, activists said, in apparent preparation for a new offensive to flush out rebels.

The assault is the latest

step in Assad and Hezbollah’s campaign to secure the LebaneseSyrian border region and fortify the president’s hold on central Syria, from the capital Damascus to his stronghold on the coast.

Pro-government media said the army seized the nearby village alJarajeer, while the pro-opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Assad’s forces had advanced on the area but had not completely taken it.

- Activists

More than 13 air strikes had already hit the mountain border town yesterday the Britishbased Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as overnight clashes between Assad’s forces and the opposition on the outskirts of Yabroud continued into the morning.

“The attacks were sharply intensified but it is unclear if the

North And South Korea Seek Better Ties

due to start later this month, but both sides have plenty of incentives to seek a deal that could break their long stalemate.

“For the North, if it comes back with an accomplishment in terms of improved SouthNorth ties, it will mean a better atmosphere for Kim Jong Un to visit China and a justification to pursue highlevel talks with the United States,” said Cheong Seongchang, an expert at the Sejong Institute outside Seoul.

Kim is believed to be seeking a visit to China, Pyongyang’s greatest ally and main benefactor, to reinforce his legitimacy as leader. In his early 30s, Kim took power when his father died suddenly

in 2011.

The South Korean delegation is led by President Park Geunhye’s deputy national security adviser. North Korea has sent the second-highest ranking official in the ruling Workers’ Party department charged with ties with the South.

The two sides wrapped up a morning session but there was no word on what was discussed in the closed-door meeting at the Panmunjom truce village on the border.

The meeting comes a

week before the two sides are scheduled to hold reunions of family members separated since the 1950-53 Korean War at the Mount Kumgang resort just inside the North, which is considered a major humanitarian event by the South.

However, the North has threatened to cancel the reunions, citing a sortie last week by a nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 bomber near the Korean peninsula.

The North has also called for the cancellation of the annual military drills by the South and the United States, calling them a rehearsal for war despite repeated assertions by Seoul and

Washington that the drills are routine and defensive.

North Korea has canceled an invitation for U.S. human rights envoy Robert King to visit Pyongyang to discuss the release of imprisoned U.S. missionary Kenneth Bae, which had been expected to come as early as this week.

South Korea halted all trade and most investment with the impoverished North Korea in May 2010 after the sinking of one of its warships, which it blamed on Pyongyang.

A joint factory project in the North’s border city of Kaesong is the last remaining symbol of economic cooperation between the two Koreas.

offensive on Yabroud has started or if this is paving the way for a main attack,” said Observatory head Rami Abdelrahman.

Arab news channel Al Meyadeen described the attacks as the start of a wider military offensive. It said Assad’s forces were positioning themselves on hilltops outside Yabroud in preparation for attack.

Some activist groups said Hezbollah was involved in the fighting.

The attack on Yabroud is part of what locals have called the “Battle for Qalamoun”, the name of mountainous region along the frontier with Lebanon used by both the rebels and Assad’s allies to smuggle in people and supplies.

Rebels said they shot down an aircraft in the fighting yesterday, but there were no videos yet to verify the reports.

Such border clashes risk fuelling sectarian tensions in Lebanon, where Sunni-Shi’ite divisions deepened by the conflict in Syria have already triggered instability.

Rebels fighting to end four decades of Assad family rule are led largely by Syria’s Sunni Muslim majority and have strong support from Sunnis in neighboring Lebanon. Many of the fighting units in Yabroud are Islamist, including some with links to al Qaeda.

Man & Nature

With O.C Madu

The New Kingdom Of God EVEN though, we are to live in the present, we do at times, give some thoughts to the future. Anyone for once rather depressed by the everworsening state of confusion on earth asks himself what shape the future will take?.

Is it still possible at all to emerge from these sad condition of the present time?

True, people speak of a kingdom of peace, that is to come one day, but, what will it be like in such a kingdom?.

Herbert Vollmann says.

There is a promising future for all men who still retain within them a spark of longing for the light, it is based on the longer distant earthly kingdom of peace of a thousand years, whether men are to experience this in their present earthly garb, or in a later reincarnation or from the beyond.

In this kingdom of Peace or Go Herbert Vollmann says, it is a question of adjusting the earthly laws, laws, as indeed the whole of earth – life, to the laws of God in Creation, thus, to the laws of Creation, to which the Laws of Nature also, belong. Until now, that has not been the case, as is proved by the depressing state of affairs.

In the New kingdom of God, man will indeed retain his free will, but under-the heightened radiation – pressure, he can no longer use it for evil thoughts and actions without at the sametime, suffering instant harm. That is to say, the reciprocal action sets in at once and he must immediately reap what he has sown, whereas, titherto, there have often been long time lapses between spiritual seed and harvest.

Therefore, man as Crown of Creation or more precisely, as ruler in the material world of subsequent Creation, has to learn again to recognize and to obey the laws of His God. Hence, he must investigate them thoroughly in order to find in them the will of God, to which he must adjust his whole earth –life, be it legislation, jurisotiction, art, education, science, public health or commerce, industry, technology, finance or military affairs.

The resultant understanding of the

Creation knowledge will be taught above all in the schools, so that, already children can grow up in this knowledge and become conscious of the fact, that they are only creatures, who must submit to the will of the creator.

In the New kingdom, Hercsbet Vollmann says, man must also, make a fundamental change in his social order, subjugating it to the order of Creation. This means that, a division of earthmen into definite homoyeneous groups will take place, as was customary with ancient of peoples.

There were castes of priests, doctors, warriors, artists, merchants, craftsmen and so on.

In those days, men still had some idea of the creation law of Attraction of Homogeneous species applicable here which has remained alive in the popular saying “Birds” of a feather flock tighter At the sametime, this is an example of how earth –life is to be adjusted to the laws of Creation.

Therefore, each, will live in the environment that corresponds with his nature, where he is at home among his kind and is able to continue his harmoniow development in jount swinging. All this in turn requires a healthy leadership, which means that, there must be personalities who have genuine qualities of leadership, to which belong above all a sense of justice and exemplary conduct.

It is a fundamental retirement in Creation that some should lead others. As long as there is development, there must be leaders, who in each case are on higher step, thus, who have greater experience than those to be led and who carry out their task with outstanding ability. They will always be chosen and

appointed from a place above them, which also, is only a link in that chain of guidances which reaches from the earth up into the highest spiritual heights.

Thus, later too, each people will again receive the leader chose from “ Above, that is, from the spiritual, under whose leadership, it can develop-beauty and its own culture to the highest flowering.

Now, if those to be led choose their leader themselves, as is common practice for example, with the democratic partysystems, this does not accord with the laws of Creation and is of great disadvantage to the earthly and spiritual development of men. A glimpse into these systems, with their continual dissensions and their perpetual party squabbles and strife, shows this clearly enough.

On the other hand, it can be understood that the democratic form of government more or less represents an inevitable development, after all kinds of rulers with undivided sovereignty had so misused their power over thousands of years, that belief in the just discharge of such a high office was lost.

Often too, the expression “by the Grace of God” was merely a formality, when these very words should really have been a people to pay special heed to the Laws of God. However, the foundations of the new forms of government swill no longer be the laws and systems devised by men, but the laws of God. They must be recognised and adhered to by individuals, by the family and by governments, thus, in private and public life.

Once the spiritual welfare in human development is of

“Hence, he must investigate them thoroughly in order to find in them the will of God, to which he must adjust his whole earth –life, be it legislation, jurisotiction, art, education, science, public health or commerce, industry, technology, finance or military affairs”

paramount importance, the class, because each one is in the place which through his birth, he has chosen for himself, in which he is able to develop psychically and in the earthly sense to an individual personality.

In this connection a very important new way of thinking arise, which will also, give a new meaning to the expressions connected with the word “ social” that classes which form naturally stand not below and above one another but side by side, in joint working for a true humanity.

Herbert Vollmann says that, all men who are united in these classes or castes, however varied, they may be in their earthly level of education, have a common origin and hence, also, a common goal. The paradise of man in the Realm of the Eternal Spiritual.

He says in the coming kingdom of peace, the goal is to spread a reflection of the Heavenly Paradise on earth.

It is to become a kingdom of True Peace, which can only arise if in future, men live strictly in accordance, with the Divine Laws in Creation, which they will then, have recognized.

All this, may still be regarded now as an impossible happening, but it is good and beneficial to begin already to occupy oneself with it in though. For thoughts too have an effect and open ways into the new time, which under the effect of new cosmic radiations is powerfully announcing itself.

Abd-ru-shin the author of Crait message says that before the thousand-year Reign of peace (millennium), things has to become new in the judgment. That is, the essential foundation for the New kingdom. It cannot be built up on the existing soil Everything that is old has first to become new.

This does not mean, however, that the old is to be revitalised in its exist form, but the expression “new” implies of change, a transform at of the old.

What must first change most drastically in the judgment is man himself, for he alone has brought the confusion into subsequent Creation. From him, from his wrong volition, the evil went forth into the world.

Super Sub’ Diame Hammers Norwich

Saints Triump Over Hull SOUTHAMPTON extended their unbeaten run to six matches on Tuesday with a 1-0 win over Hull in their English Premier League clash.

A 69th-minute goal by Jose Fonte was enough to give the visitors the points and leave Hull’s Steve Bruce to wait a little longer for his 100th win in the Premier League as a manager.

Victory saw Mauricio Pochettino’s attractive and talented side move above Newcastle — who host Spurs on Wednesday — and to within two points of seventh-placed Manchester United, who are away at Arsenal on Wednesday.

Defeat halted Hull’s minirevival and leaves them only three points above the relegation zone.

Pochettino, who forged his reputation as a coach at Spanish side Espanyol, said that it had been a complete performance by his side.

Cardiff Remain In Mire

CARDIFF City remain rooted in the Premier League relegation zone after failing to make ground on the teams above them in a 0-0 draw with Aston Villa on Tuesday.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s side would have been in the bottom three on goal difference alone had they prevailed at the Cardiff City Stadium, but despite twice hitting the woodwork, they had to settle for a draw.

Villa might have snatched victory at the death, but Cardiff goalkeeper David Marshall displayed stunning reactions to thwart visiting substitute Andreas Weimann in injury time.

• Mesut Ozil

Matthew Jarvis on the hour, created the opening goal for James Collins in the 84th minute and then scored deep into stoppage time himself to secure all three points for the Hammers.

Victory took the east London club into 10th place in the table and four points clear of the relegation zone, with Norwich now a solitary point above the bottom three.

Sam Allardyce’s side came into the game on the back of 1-0 win away to Aston Villa, while Chris Hughton’s Canaries had held title challengers Manchester City to a goalless draw.

him by showing him situations where he can shoot more, and he will do that.’’

While debate over Ozil’s form continues to be centre stage, Wenger maintains “we have not to be focused on one player,’’ as Arsenal look to respond against an indifferent United side.

Defeat at Anfield on Saturday lunchtime saw the Gunners later knocked off the top of the table

by Chelsea, although title rivals Manchester City also dropped points in a goalless draw at Norwich.

“It is a good opportunity four

days later to respond straight away and that is what we want to do,’’ Wenger said.

“After that I can talk and talk and talk, but it is action that will decide.’’

Wenger added: “We can’t believe everything is perfect because it is not, but we also have to put everything into perspective - two weeks ago, Manchester City were unstoppable, so it changes quickly.

“It is just how well we can respond and how consistent we are (able to be), and that is just down to our belief.’’

Ozil Must Ignore Expectation MESUT Ozil must focus on what convinced Arsenal to make him the club’s record signing rather than become obsessed with living up to expectations, according to manager Arsene Wenger.

The German playmaker produced another subdued display in the 5-1 trashing at Liverpool on Saturday, when he again drifted in and out of the match.

Some Gunners fans and pundits alike are starting to become impatient with the 25year-old, who arrived from Real Madrid in a much-heralded 42.5 million pound deal on deadline day in September 2013.

Ozil’s last eight appearances have returned only two assists and no goals.

However, Wenger is in no doubt the midfielder has all the qualities needed to develop his game in the Premier League, with another stage set to showcase his talents on Wednesday night when Manchester United come to the Emirates Stadium.

“Ozil feels the pressure of course, because he knows a lot is expected when you are a big transfer. There is a big expectation level, but he should not worry about that, just play in the team and enjoy it, give his best. That is the best way to deal with it,’’ said Wenger.

“But on the other hand, you must say he doesn’t come from a small club - he comes from Real Madrid where the pressure is always huge as well, so he is used to it.’’

Ozil, of course, is not the first player who might need time to adapt to the hustle-and-bustle of the English top flight, and Wenger stressed everyone must be patient.

“He thinks it is more physical here for sure and he works on his body strength to deal with it,’’ said the Arsenal boss.

He needs understanding,

- Wenger

because he always wants to do well.

“He is not a guy who doesn’t care, his style can sometimes look like that, but he is really the opposite character.

“He cares about the game, he wants to do well and needs more support.’’

Ozil marked his arrival with a superb strike in the Champions League win over Napoli at the Emirates Stadium on Oct. 1, but has not found the net since early December, which is now some 11 appearances ago.

Wenger accepts that is an area where the German could sharpen up.

“You want the guy who plays behind the striker to score some goals and sometimes he is too obsessed with making the perfect pass when he could take a shot at goal,’’ he said. “(He can improve) by practising on it and convincing

It Requires Patience To Rebuild United - Moyes

DAVID Moyes believes he was awarded a six-year contract to replace Sir Alex Ferguson as Manchester United manager because the club’s hierarchy realised what a big job it was.

After a shaky start to Moyes’ tenure, United have staggered through the early weeks of 2014, suffering five defeats already, before failing to beat bottom club Fulham at Old Trafford on Sunday.

It represents as poor a campaign as United have endured since the early years of Ferguson’s reign, and they face another stiff test at Arsenal on Wednesday evening.

There has been general

MOHAMED Diame proved himself the textbook ‘super sub’ making one goal and scoring the other as West Ham beat Norwich City 2-0 at Upton Park on Tuesday to bolster their hopes of Premier League survival.

Norwich had the lion’s share of chances but the visitors couldn’t find a way past Hammers goalkeeper Adrian.

And West Ham, who’ve now won three straight games without conceding a goal, made them pay with two late goals.

Senegal midfielder Diame, who replaced

approval of former captain Roy Keane’s assessment that up to half a dozen experienced players are required to rebuild United to their former strength, and it appears getting the club back on track is going to take time.

“I was given a six-year contract,” said Moyes.

“Things were always going to take time. There has been rebuilding going on here year after year and we’ll continue to do that.”

There has been plenty of backing from the club’s hierarchy, even though executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward is likely to be quizzed about this season’s poor performances - and the impact

failing to qualify for the Champions League would have on finances - when he speaks about United’s second-quarter results on Wednesday.

This has not come as a shock to Moyes though.

“The support has been fantastic,” he said.

“The right clubs pick the right managers and the right managers pick the right club.

“I always hoped Manchester United would come looking for me and they did in the end. The support doesn’t surprise me.”

Nevertheless, having already spent more than £60million on Marouane Fellaini and new club-record signing Juan Mata, the Glazer family will have to splash out much more according to Keane.

For the Irishman agrees with many who feel Ferguson’s managerial ability allowed United’s controversial owners to get away with investing far less on the first-team squad than was actually required.

Keane told itv.com: “They’ve kind of cut corners in terms of transfers in the last few years, they’ve not gone out and got the big players, and it’s just caught up with them this year.

Toure To Take Defensive Midfield Berth

YAYA Toure is set to play as a defensive midfielder in Manchester City’s crunch clashes with Chelsea and his former club Barcelona.

Fernandinho, who has partnered Toure in the centre of the City midfield, is likely to miss both games with the muscle injury that has also prevented him from playing in their last two matches.

And manager Manuel Pellegrini plans to use Toure, who has scored 15 goals in a more advanced position this season, in the deeper role that the Brazilian usually occupies.

Javi Garcia, another holding player, is also sidelined and while Pellegrini praised defender Martin Demichelis for his performance in midfield in last Monday’s 1-0 defeat to Chelsea, the Argentine was criticised by many others and his manager wants the former Atletico Madrid man in his back four.

So the City manager has concluded that Toure is his best option to anchor the midfield against Chelsea in the FA Cup

on Saturday and in the first leg of City’s Champions League tie with Barcelona three days later.

He said: “Without Fernandinho and Javi Garcia, the only player that can do it is Yaya. Martin Demichelis can also do it, and did it very well against Chelsea, but with Demichelis and [Vincent] Kompany we have a strong defence, and defended very well against Newcastle and Norwich.”

Toure, who had been accused of spending too much time in attack this season, played as a defensive midfielder in Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Norwich and will continue there in Wednesday’s clash with Sunderland.

And Pellegrini added: “Maybe if I have to change, we will see in the future but for the moment Yaya will stay there.

“Yaya is also very important going forward but when he was going forward, everyone was asking why he didn’t defend more! For the moment he will continue to play there, and we will see how we arrange the other things.”

Atleti May Face Ronaldo Missile Action

ATLETICO Madrid could face punishment after Cristiano Ronaldo was hit on the head with a cigarette lighter thrown from the crowd during Real Madrid’s 2-0 Copa del Rey semifinal second leg win at the Estadio Vicente Calderon.

Ronaldo scored two early penalties in Tuesday’s game to Casillas told his club’s official seal Madrid’s 5-0 aggregate website that some kind of passage to the final. He was punishment was needed given then hit by the object thrown by Ronaldo might have been an unidentified supporter when injured, saying: “There is walking from the pitch always someone that tries to accompanied by teammates smear the image of a club like Sergio Ramos and Xabi Alonso Atletico Madrid. It does not at the half-time break. reflect how the majority of their Referee Alberto Undiano fans are. [But] I think the Mallenco included the incident consequences could be serious in his official match report, because it could have hurt a which was submitted to the player.”

Spanish FA after the game.

Los Blancos defender Sergio Under competition rules the Ramos said in the mixed zone host club could now be fined that the person who threw the up to 30,000 euros and have lighter — if they could be their ground closed for one to identified — should be the one three games if the incident is punished, adding: “The judged serious enough.

Calderon is a stadium that Madrid club captain Iker shows its affection for its team.

This stains and spoils a

spectacle like football. The cameras are there for things like this, and if they find him they should ban him for a long time.”

Atletico director Clemente Villaverde attempted to play down the incident afterwards, when asked in Marca if his club might now face punishment from the La Liga authorities.

“It is an isolated incident, nothing else fell [from the stands],” Villaverde said. “The player was not injured. A lighter would not normally cause much damage. I am delighted

that Cristiano has no problems.”

Ronaldo had moments earlier been booked for an aerial challenge on Javier Manquillo,] which saw saw the young Atletico right-back and awkwardly and be rushed immediately to hospital for tests on his back and neck.

The Madrid talisman reportedly phoned Manquillo straight after the game to ask if he was okay, and Atletico tweeted a medical report which suggested the damage was not as bad as first feared.

GERMAN insurer Allianz is paying +110m for a stake in Bayern Munich, reigning Champions League holders and one of the world’s bestknown football clubs.

The transaction extends the relationship between Bayern and some of the largest names in German industry, with carmaker Audi and Adidas, the sports goods maker, already among the club’s investors Allianz is injecting capital in return for an 8.33 per cent stake in Bayern, the insurance company said in a statement.

In parallel, Allianz will

Spotlight On Seedorf As Atletico Approach

AC Milan coach Clarence Seedorf awoke to the reality of the real challenges facing his side and question marks over his approach just over a week before welcoming Atletico Madrid to the San Siro.

Seedorf replaced Massimiliano Allegri in early January and after crashing out of the Italian Cup quarter-finals to Udinese, the Rossoneri’s league form under the Dutchman has yet to fully convince.

The former Milan midfielder steered his side to two successive wins and a draw to pull clear of the bottom half of the Serie A table and instill some belief that a revival was on.

But the wake-up call came on Saturday when a clinical display

by Rafael Benitez’s Napoli exposed the task that awaits Milan if they are to snatch a top five finish and a place in the Europa League next season.

Seedorf’s arrival at one of Italy’s iconic clubs prompted a media storm, as much for his popularity during his successful 10-year spell at the club as for the fact it is his first real coaching appointment.

After being outclassed 3-1, his credentials faced a first grilling from the critics who have followed the steady decline of the seven-time European champions since a 2012 summer clear-out of top players, including the Dutchman.

So far, the jury remains out with reports on Monday claiming the defeat to Napoli had irked

Adel Taarabi

club president and owner Silvio Berlusconi.

Club CEO Adriano Galliani was quick to pour water on the embers when he told Sky Sport Italia: “There has been no criticism from Berlusconi regarding the work of Seedorf.”

- Seedorf’s tactics questioned -But a week before Atletico’s visit for a Champions League last 16 clash that Milan will be desperately looking to win, Seedorf’s choices for Saturday’s game were widely questioned.

Some reports hastened to question the decision to leave captain Riccardo Montolivo and Sulley Muntari, who are both suspended for the Atletico fixture, on the bench against such a strong side as Napoli.

But he explained: “Montolivo is in good shape... but we have to think about the games coming up and against Atletico we will be without Montolivo and Sulley Muntari so I have to test alternatives.”

It meant Michael Essien made his debut, albeit an unremarkable one, alongside Nigel de Jong and Seedorf later admitted the Ghanaian, like many of his players, will require some time to adapt to his demands.

There were also questions over central defenders Philippe Mexes, handed the captain’s armband, and Adel Rami as well as an ineffective Mario Balotelli, who finished the match early and in tears.

Milan’s defence, notably Mexes, crumbled under a Napoli attack which produced a brace for Argentinian Gonzalo Higuain, while Balotelli was virtually inexistent and replaced by a far more motivated Giampaolo Pazzini on 73 minutes.

Balotelli sat on the bench shedding tears that were later attributed to his emotional state only days after confirming paternity of a 14-month baby girl, Pia, born to model and former girlfriend Raffaella Fico.

Seedorf will expect a more focused approach against Atletico, but in the meantime he stood behind the 23-year-old striker.

Real Madrid’s Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo shouts during the Spanish Copa Del Rey (King’s Cup) semi-final second leg football match, club Atletico de Madrid vs Real Madrid CF at the Vicente Calderon Stadium in Madrid on Tuesday.

Aubameyang Header Puts Dortmund In Cup Semis BORUSSIA Dortmund booked their place in the German Cup semi-finals as a header by Gabon’s PierreEmerick Aubameyang secured a 1-0 win in Tuesday’s last eight clash at Eintracht Frankfurt.

Just as injury-hit Borussia’s coach Jurgen Klopp had predicted, the quarter-final was a gritty affair as Dortmund gained the upper hand ahead of the teams’ Bundesliga meeting on Saturday.

“Despite the injuries, I had no doubts in the team,” said Klopp.

“We want to go to Berlin (for the Cup final on May 17) and you could see that from the way we played.”

Aubameyang’s goal seven minutes from time put the 2012 Cup winners through despite missing key first-team players.

AMong those missing were injured Germany midfielders Sven Bender and Marco Reus, who both suffered thigh injuries in last Saturday’s 5-1 romp at Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga.

Centre-back Mats Hummels was out with an ankle knock, while winger Jakub Blaszczykowski and defender Neven Subotic are out for the season with knee injuries.

Frankfurt captain Pirmin Schwegler was missing with bruised ribs.

Both sides had chances with Dortmund’s attacking midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan firing wide as he tried to finish

off a move he started while midfielders Jan Rosenthal and Johannes Flum went close for Frankfurt.

“We didn’t use our chances before the break, we tried to inmpose our game on them, but it is difficult to do that against an opponent like that,” said Eintracht coach Armin Veh. “Nevertheless, we want to try and get something out of Saturday’s match at Dortmund,” he added referring to Frankfurt’s delicate state as they are just four

points above the relegation zone.

Robert Lewandowski had a battle royal with his marker, Peru’s Carlos Zambrano, who at one point left the Poland striker pole-axed on the turf after a sharp elbow to the ribs, which was missed by referee Knut Kircher.

Dortmund got the break-through they craved when Mkhitaryan’s corner was flicked on by captain Sebastian Kehl for Aubameyang to head just inside the back post with extra-time looming.

Allianz Buys Stake In Bayern also extend a naming rights deal for Bayern’s stadium, one of the bestknown arenas in world sport. The stadium will be known as the Allianz Arena until 2041.

Klopp Praises Team Effort

JURGEN Klopp believes that Borussia Dortmund played well for 70 minutes of the 90 in their 1-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Tuesday.

BVB dominated the majority of the first half and finished with aplomb in the DFB-Pokal quarter-final at the Commerzbank Arena, although the hosts threatened to take the lead early in the second half.

Klopp admits that his side were outclassed after halftime but was thrilled with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s headed goal from a Henrik Mkhitaryan corner after 83 minutes, vindicating their recent setpiece practice.

“The first half was clearly ours and we played really well for 70 minutes,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, in the first 20 minutes after the break, we had our rhythm broken and no clear way to win the game.

“After that there were many interruptions to play that helped return the momentum back our way.

Frankfurt also did very well themselves and had some opportunities.

“We have trained a lot for set pieces, now it has worked out for us two games in a row. This is very important.

We really wanted to be in the DFB-Pokal semi-finals, and it’s something I think my team can win.”

Dortmund’s Gabonese striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang tries to score during the German Cup (DFB-Pokal) quarter final football match Eintracht Frankfurt vs Borussia Dortmund in Frankfurt am Main, on Tuesday.

Landreau Out For Five WORLD Cup finals pecking order Weeks Deschamps’ bound France’s third to keep goal for France at choice goalkeeper Mickael Landreau is facing five weeks on the sidelines after suffering a calf muscle injury, sources

Michael Landreau

at his Ligue 1 club Bastia revealed on Tuesday.

The 34-year-old — who won two league titles with Nantes in 2001 and Lille in 2011 — picked up the problem in the 3-0 defeat by Marseille in their Ligue 1 clash on Saturday.

He is due to miss Ligue 1 games against Monaco, Saint Etienne and defending champions and leaders Paris Saint Germain.

Landreau is currently third in Didier

UEFA Partially Upholds PSG Appeal LAURENT Blanc will be in the Paris SaintGermain dugout for their Champions League tie at Bayer Leverkusen after UEFA partially upheld the French club’s appeal.

Blanc had been told he would have to follow the first leg of his team’s last16 tie on Feb. 18 from the VIP section of the BayArena after UEFA blamed him for delayed kick-offs at three of PSG’s group-stage fixtures this season.

However, a witness to the appeal hearing at UEFA HQ in Switzerland on Tuesday told Le Parisien: “PSG’s lawyer showed that UEFA’s disciplinary regulations do not specify that the coach is the sole person responsible for the punctuality of his players.”

The paper claimed no one dared tell Zlatan Ibrahimovic he had to go out for the second half when the Swede dallied in the dressing room

Fernandinho

during PSG’s encounter with Benfica at the Parc des Princes in early October.

It also said an organisational error slowed the players’ arrival for the second half of their home game against Olympiakos while officials failed to call players sufficiently early for the second half of PSG’s trip to Benfica.

PSG, who were fined 10,000 euros for the incidents, did not appeal against the fine.

the World Cup finals in Brazil behind Tottenham’s Hugo Lloris and Steve Mandanda of Marseille.

Landreau has 11 caps to his name. He made his debut in the 2001 Confederations Cup, and was a member of the French squad that reached the 2006 World Cup final, although coach Raymond Domenech didn’t give him any playing time.

After falling out of favour - he was overlooked for Euro 2008 - he earned a recall in 2012 from Deschamps, with Cedric Carrasso making way.

Pele

Pele Returns To Cosmos For Degree And Ceremony

Oscar (Chelsea).

Strikers: Hulk (Zenit), Bernard (Shakhtar Donetsk), Willian (Chelsea), Neymar (Barcelona).

that title at a pre-game ceremony on April 13 in the team’s opening match of the 2014 campaign at Hofstra University’s Shuart Stadium against Atlanta in a rematch of last year ’s championship final.

Pele, FIFA’s “Player of the 20th Century”, also will be awarded an honorary degree from Hofstra for humanitarian efforts and his contributions to sport as well as serve as a special guest to the college’s conference on the historical, political and economic impact of football April 10-13.

“Pele transformed and transcended the game,”

said Hofstra University president Stuart Rabinowitz.

“While the world first came to know him for extraordinary athletic feats, his soccer career was, in many respects, simply a prelude to an extraordinary life of service as a philanthropist and advocate.

“He understands the power and responsibility his soccer legacy carries, and has used it to improve the lives of others.”

Pele has served as a United Nations ambassador for environmental and ecological causes and was honoured by his homeland for helping develop anti-corruption legislation.

M I C H A E L Schumacher’s manager Sabine Kehm has dismissed reports that the seven-times F1 champion has contracted a lung infection.

Reports emanated late on Tuesday night that Schumacher, who is being slowly brought out of an induced coma, had contracted pneumonia.

However, Kehm told German news agency DPA that those reports were speculation.

“As always, my answer is: announcements about Schumacher’s health status, that are not done by his official doctors or by his management need to be treated as speculation,” she said.

Schumacher landed head-first on a rock after he lost his footing while skiing off-piste in December and has been in a critical condition ever since.

Reports had suggested that Schumacher’s chances

of a full recovery were to diminish the longer he was held in the induced coma.

Jean-Marc Orgogozo, professor of neurology at the University of Bordeaux, was quoted by the Daily Mirror as saying: “Every day, every week in a coma the chances decline that the situation is improving.”

French police have said Schumacher was not skiing recklessly when he crashed and hit his head on a rock.

BRAZILIAN football legend Pele will return to the New York Cosmos in April for a championship celebration and to accept an honorary degree for humanitarian work, the team said Tuesday. surge in football interest.

The 73-year-old icon The Cosmos were inspired Brazil to World revived last year and Cup glory in 1958, 1962 won a title in the secondand 1970, then played tier North American for the original Cosmos Soccer League, a level from 1975 through below Major League 1977, winning the title in Soccer. his final season and Pele will join the sparking an American Cosmos in celebrating

Fernandinho Called Up For Brazil Friendly

BRAZIL coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has selected Manchester City midfielder Fernandinho in his squad for the friendly against South Africa next month.

Fernandinho joins players such as Neymar, Oscar, Ramires, Willian, David Luiz, Thiago Silva, Hulk and Bayern Munich’s Rafinha in the party for the match in Johannesburg.

However, there was no room for Kaka — who has not represented his country since March — or Robinho, who last played for Brazil towards the end of last year.

The squad has yet to be fully finalised, with Scolari opting to wait until closer to the fixture before choosing players from Brazilian clubs to allow them to reach top form and

fitness. He said he expected to select three or four.

Among them could be Fluminese striker Fred, currently recovering from a niggling injury problem, who was one of Brazil’s star performers at the Confederations Cup last summer.

Squad: Goalkeepers: Julio Cesar (QPR).

Defenders: David Luiz (Chelsea), Dante (Bayern Munich), Thiago Silva (Paris Saint-Germain), Daniel Alves (Barcelona), Marcelo (Real Madrid), Rafinha (Bayern Munich).

Midfielders: Luiz Gustavo (Wolfsburg), Paulinho (Tottenham), Fernandinho (Manchester City), Ramires (Chelsea),

Formula 1 Dispels Schumacher ‘Lung Infection’ Reports

Supersport Not Bound To Cover All League Matches, Says LMC Chair

THE League Management Company (LMC) on Tuesday dissociated itself from the clamour that the matches in Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) in 2013/2014 season be covered by the SuperSport.

The Chairman, Nduka to do that makes you worry Irabor, told the News Agency about television coverage? of Nigeria (NAN) that the “I cannot deny the fact that LMC was not in the position people have suggested that to dictate to the SuperSport when there is no television, what matches to cover. it’s easy to compromise He said the club managers referees. should be concerned about “But there are other ways having good match officials of checkmating referees. for their matches.

Even before we begin to try “I am not perturbed about to rope referees in, let us even whether games are covered or try persuasion and better not; television is not football, compensation. Let’s see how I am managing football; not that works. television coverage.

“But television coverage is “If they (SuperSport) cover not the solution to the things the game or they don’t cover we fear. it, it is not an issue; play your “We the managers if we game. don’t offer, will anybody ‘All you need to worry take? Let the managers about is whether we have resolve to help football; not proper referees. What is that football that is played in the unbecoming thing you want dark.

“Not football that calculates that there won’t be television coverage to allow you achieve result. “ Television is only a part of the game because of the commercial gains inherent, not the sporting results possible,’’ Irabor said.

Some club managers had flayed the random coverage of league matches last season by the SuperSport, but Irabor insisted that the company had the right to choose the matches to be covered.

He, however, assured the stakeholders that many of the

league matches would be shown on terrestrial television to attract the local viewers.

“If we have our matches on television many commercial interests will want to take advantage of what we are putting on the screen.

“But, remember, this is a maturing league, a maturing economy.

“How many takers of the TV rights do we have? One. SuperSport. No rival, no competition; they dictate the pace.

“If they say they cannot go

Nigerian Contigent Leaves For Cameroon Mathew Ejeh.

NAN reports that Cameroon will host the men’s first “Pool T’’ qualifier which includes: the host, Algeria, Nigeria, Rwanda and Gabon.

Nigeria would be competing to secure one of Africa’s three tickets to the World Championships.

Nduka Irabor

Lagos To Provide Accommodation For THE Nigeria Wheelchair Athletes Basketball Federation

NFA Begins Implementation Of Clubs’ All processes required to THE Nigeria Football Licensing System ensure that the Club Association (NFA), on Tuesday in Abuja, said it had started the implementation of the Clubs’ Licencing System in the country.

A statement issued by the NFA Media Officer, Ademola Olajire, stated that the implementation, which took effect from Jan. 31, followed a FIFA circular and in particular, CAF circular dated November 26, 2013.

It quoted Olajire as saying the development became mandatory for all federations to adopt and implement the system for clubs participating in national and confederation club competitions.

Olajire said that licencing regulations was the basic document for clubs through which different members of the football family aimed to promote common principles.

“The principles are sporting value, transparency in their finances, ownership and control of clubs, players and coaches welfare, and the

credibility and integrity of club competitions.

“Licence under the NFA Clubs Licencing Regulations are in six categories which include: Sporting Criteria, Infrastructure Criteria, Personnel and Administrative Criteria.

“Others are: Legal Criteria, Financial Criteria and Business, Commercial and Promotion Criteria.’’

The NFA media officer listed the safeguarding of the credibility of club competitions and the improvement level of professionalism within the football family as the objectives of the system.

He also named other objectives to include the promotion of sporting values in accordance with principles of fair play, the promotion of transparency in finances, ownership and control of clubs.

He stated that the required implementation of the Licencing Regulations would be discharged in two phases from January 2014 to November 30, 2014.

reach more people if you use free-to-air television. So, we have made them adopt freeto-air as a policy.

“This season, you can tune to your local television station or channel that is not on cable and see the matches íf you have actually subscribed or paid for it as a broadcaster,’’ Irabor added.

The new NPFL season is expected to kick-off on February 21.

Wheelchair Int’l Tourney

(NWBF) on Wednesday said that athletes would be quartered at the Teslim Balogun Stadium hostel for the 3rd Victor Ochei International Wheelchair Basketball Championships.

The NWBF’s Secretary, Victor Anusa, told newsmen in Lagos that the body had earlier appealed to the Lagos State Government to allow them to use the facility.

He added that the body had to make the request because of the proximity of the hostel to the National Stadium, Lagos, venue of the competition.

Volleyball

A 15-man contingent of the male national volleyball team, yesterday left Nigeria for Cameroon to participate in the final phase of the African qualifier for the 2014 Men’s World Volleyball Championship.

The Technical Director of the Nigeria Volleyball Federation (NVBF), Mr Tony Oghuma-Eghimai, told newsmen that the contingent consisted of 12 players and three officials.

The team had been in camp in Abuja since Jan. 26, in preparation for the African qualifier, scheduled to hold between Feb. 12 and Feb. 18 in Yaoundé.

The qualifier match is for the 2014 FIVB Men’s World Championship in Poland, which will hold from September. 3 to September 18.

Oghuma-Eghimai said the team was led by the Head Coach, Austin Odumo, and his Assistant, Samuel Ajayi, as well as the team manager, Eze Ogwuamalam.

The technical director listed the players to include; the Captain, Emmanuel Jatto, Daniel Nathaniel, Emmanuel Samuel, John Salami, Akinbo Sunday and Hassan Eruaga The other players are: David Lawal, Harrison Anyasodike, Dikkiya Morris, Isaac Ejigba, Ibrahim Adamu and

to point A, they can’t go to point A. “You are not a broadcaster; you have given out your right to somebody and he has paid you for it.

‘Because television is an essential part of the game, it is not a bother to me. All that is a bother to me is: What does the law of the land say?

“That sporting events cannot be taken exclusively by any platform. You can

Licencing Regulations become operational must be completed by the end of the second phase, being November 30, 2014, he noted.

Reports state that no fewer than 300 athletes are expected to participate in the championship which will hold from Feb. 18 to February 22.

Anusa said the facility would be available for all participating athletes from February 17.

The secretary said that the choice of hostel was obvious considering the physical condition of the athletes.

“The place will be open to all athletes both from Nigeria and visiting athletes from other African countries.

“The state government over the last two years has been very supportive to the federation.

“It is our wish that the friendly relationship between the federation and the state will continue for the common good,” the secretary said.

Anusa added that the Lagos State Government allowed the use of the facility as part of its contribution to the successful hosting of the annual event.

... To Decide Super Eagles’ US THE Nigeria Football Camping Site ’Morrow Association (NFA) says it will tomorrow decide which city in the U.S. the Super Eagles will camp in for its preparations for the 2014 World Cup. Ademola Olajire, NFA’s Head of Media, told newsmen in Abuja the decision was delayed to enable the association’s agent conclude all arrangements.

NAN reports that the 2014 FIFA World Cup will hold from June 12 to July 13 in Brazil.

Olajire said it would have been improper for the NFA to announce the camp site when the agent was yet to

conclude the camping arrangements.

“It is obvious that the Eagles will camp in the U.S., but we will announce the city by the end of this week.

“I am in touch with the agent and he will finalise the arrangements by Friday,” he said.

On the Eagles’ involvement in an eightnation tournament in the U.S., Olajire said the NFA had no financial commitment in the tournament.

He said the Major League Soccer (MLS), the

organisers of the tournament, had already communicated the NFA on the national team’s involvement.

Olajire said the Eagles were among the invited teams by virtue of being the African champions.

Cote d’ Ivoire and Nigeria as well as one of the country’s World Cup Group F opponents, BosniaHerzegovina, are part of the tournament.

Other participants are Spain, Greece, Honduras, Bolivia and El Salvador.

The tournament is expected to hold between May 27 and June 10.

CMYK

Climbing A Tree From The Top NIGERIA reminds us of the case of the smart messenger with a short memory. This messenger soon turned his mother into a money spinning machine of sorts. One morning, he came to the office to announce that his mother was critically ill and he needed money to procure her medication. Out of genuine sympathy, we obliged him and also gave him time off to go and take care of the mother.

A few weeks later, he returned to announce that the mother could not pull through. She passed on. The messenger wept profusely and narrated how dear the mother was to him. Usually, when people weep like that, it is not so much about their closeness to the departed one but more of how to get the money for burial. We consoled him and assured him of sufficient assistance with the burial. We gave him N100,000 and wished him well since we were too busy at the time to attend the funeral.

About seven years later, our friend came to announce that his mother had been involved in a terrible accident and that he needed N50,000 for her blood transfusion at the hospital. Was this not the same mother that we helped to bury some time ago? Well, there was sufficient reason to give him the benefit of doubt.

After all, in the African context, father or mother is a generic term that could apply to any older member of the extended family.

We made N50,000 available to him but this time around, the money was handed over to my Personal Assistant, PA, with instruction to accompany our friend to the hospital; pay for the

blood transfusion; and assess the situation appropriately. On the way, he cornered my PA and suggested that they should share the money because his mother was not involved in any accident.

The early indications are that 2015 is a ticket to the past. We just refuse to be guided by the lessons of history. As a result, we keep doing the same things, the same old way and we keep expecting different results. How else does anyone explain the fact that, 30 years after the demise of the Second Republic, we are still returning to the age of “Tako-Tako Mentality” in which old wines simply appear in new kegs? The NPN of 1983 believed on the band-wagon effect, which requires that you place the presidential election first and the party of whoever emerges President will sweep all the elections, even down to the local government level.

This has been widely criticized because of its propensity to aid rigging at the lower levels. In the elegant phraseology of Governor Adams Oshiomhole, this is like climbing the tree from the top. The ideal thing is to start the elections from the lowest rungs of the ladder.

In its memory loss, the NPN (oops, the PDP) of 2014 relies on the same old methods, thinking that if it worked then, it must also work now. But did it really work then? Their memory fails them in the obvious fact that the old methods only succeeded in bringing us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves today. They are even unable to realize that the political configuration has totally changed: in 1983, people moved from the smaller parties to the

NPN but in 2014, the centre can no longer hold and the movement is from the big party to the smaller parties that were once in the opposition. So the band-wagon pendulum can also swing either way.

Rivers State has had a raw deal in seen and unseen ways. At the

Mbu scattered them to various obscure positions where their training became useless and the equipment procured for their work made redundant. This was money flushed down the toilet! However, Mbu’s malfeasance is not totally

reign of terror under a Gestapo, IGP Sunday Adewusi. Under his reign of terror, Armored Personnel Carriers were first introduced into the Nigeria Police Force.

They were instruments for cowing the opposition to submission. It was a

• Prof. Attahiru Jega, INEC Chairman

height of the terrorism threats facing the State, the Government devoted substantial budgetary outlays, sending men of the Nigeria Police Force in the State to Israel and other places for training in group anti- and counterterrorism tactics. No sooner did they return to the State than Police Commissioner Joseph

useless. At least, it provides the best reference point in support of the State police.

The use of force is temporary. Mbu’s reign of impunity in Rivers State was a passing phase. We have been through this rough route before, no thanks to the same gang of people. In the Second Republic, we witnessed a

wicked regime and so wickedly did it also end! In just the same way that there is no killing the beetle, you cannot destroy an idea whose time has come. Such is the fate of the All Progressives Congress, APC. Finally, people are now celebrating the removal of Police Commissioner

Mbu from the Rivers State police command.

Even in his departure, he carries on with his impunity. In a country that is supposedly under the rule of law, he is alleged to have released suspected PDP thugs who were earlier caught with large cache of arms and ammunition. He has introduced a new dimension to criminality. A progovernment prison warden who is deployed to a new location can now throw the prison gates open for inmates to flee to freedom. What a parting gift!

In its proactive stance, the APC has, for the first time in the politics of Nigeria, taken the registration of members to the grassroots, the unit level. The PDP feels threatened by this novel idea. Rather than stoop to be taught this new order, the PDP must resort to its evil machinations. They have invaded registration centres; killed and maimed some APC members; and carted away registration materials, apparently for destruction.

In all this, the change we need simply dictates that it is not always smart to be smart!

“In its memory loss, the NPN (oops, the PDP) of 2014 relies on the same old methods, thinking that if it worked then, it must also work now. But did it really work then?

Their memory fails them in the obvious fact that the old methods only succeeded in bringing us to the sorry state in which we find ourselves today. They are even unable to realize that the political configuration has totally changed: in 1983, people moved from the smaller parties to the NPN but in 2014, the centre can no longer hold and the movement is from the big party to the smaller parties that were once in the opposition.

So the band-wagon pendulum can also swing either way.”

Printed and published by Bendel Newspapers Company Limited, 24, Airport Road, P.M.B. 1334 Benin City. Telephone; Lagos: 01 4930929, Benin: 052 257492, 257531 Editor. BARR. SOLOMON IMOHIOSEN (KSJI) - (07030699646), Deputy General Manager (Marketing) (08023457566), Assistant General Manager(Advertisement) (08023808856) Lagos Office: 3/4 Amode Close, Kudirat Abiola Way, By Olushonsun Bus Stop, Oregun, Ikeja, Lagos. Abuja Office: Floor 1, Edo House, 75 Ralph Shodeinde Street, Central Business District, Abuja. Tel/Fax: 09-5237631. All correspondence to: 24 Airport Road, Benin City. E-mail: nigerianobserver@yahoo.com (ISSN 0331-2674)