13th June 2016 by Nigerian Tribune

NIGERIA’S MOST INFORMATIVE NEWSPAPER NO 16,522

MONDAY, 13 JUNE, 2016

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Nigerian Tribune

MKO Abiola's family demands presidential entitlements —P30,31

•June 12, cornerstone of Nigeria's democracy —Tinubu •Kanu, Opadokun, Gani Adams, Okei-Odumakin, others speak •Oyo, Osun declare today public holiday

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Nigeria will experience better times soon —FG —P2

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N150

50 killed in US gay club shooting —P37

Petrol price falling

•Product now sells for between N130 and N145 •Low consumption forcing price down —IPMAN —P2

Rickety vehicles to be banned in Abuja by September —P10

[FRONT ROW] Speaker, Ogun State House of Assembly, Honourable Suraj Ishola Adekunbi; deputy governor, Chief Yetunde Onanuga; Secretary to the State Government, Mr Taiwo Adeoluwa; son of late Chief MKO Abiola, acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, Lekan, and others, during the June 12 Walk held in Abeokuta, on Sunday.

Over 300,000 Nigerians will Pipeline bombings: MEND be jobless if foreign airlines seeks to partner NDA on leave —NANTA president dialogue with FG —P4 —P12

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Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerians will soon experience better times —Information Minister

Officer-in-Charge, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in Nigeria, Mr Chuma Ezedinma (left); Ebonyi State governor, Mr Dave Umahi; acting Managing Director, Bank of Industry (BoI), Waheed Olagunju and the Executive Director (Corporate Services), BoI, Mr Tobin Jonathan, during the governor’s visit to the BoI headquarters, in Abuja, at weekend. PHOTO: SUNDAY OSUNRAYI.

Petrol price falling, now sells between N130 and N145 •Low consumption forcing price down Olatunde Dodondawa -Lagos THERE are strong indications that low consumption, low turnover and competition may have forced marketers to sell premium motor spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol below N145 per litre. Nigerian Tribune gathered on Sunday that marketers, especially the independent ones were now selling petrol between N130 and N143 per litre depending on the area and the marketers. NIPCo filling station at Fadeyi bus stop, on Ikorodu Road was selling petrol at N143 per litre, while NNPC Retail Station at Igando was selling at N135 per litre as on Sunday. Al Rakin, College Road Ogba, Ikeja sold at N140.

In Ibadan, BOVAS, Odo ona, Dove, Ring Road, Diltop, Akala Expressway, offf New Garage all sold at N140, while a filling station at Olorunsogo, LagosIbadan Expressway sold at N143 and another at OritaAperin sold at N140. However, all major marketers, including MRS, TOTAL, MOBIL, CONOIL, FORTE were selling at N145 per litre. In a telephone conversation with the Nigerian Tribune, on Sunday, the Public Relations Officer, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), Western Zone, Alhaji Abdul Lateef Jaiyeola, stated that “firstly, that is the outcome of deregulation, whereby competition will force down the price. Secondly,

our members are recording low consumption and patronage from motorists. Those who used to sell 100,000 litres (equivalent of three trucks) daily are now finding it difficult to sell 33,000 litres daily.” However, he stated that products from private depot owners were now cheaper and available than products from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Spokesman of NIPCO Plc, Alhaji Taofeek Lawal, told Nigerian Tribune, that “that is what deregulation brings to the sector. We sell at N134 per litre from the depot at Apapa. Any of our dealers can add N6-N7 per litre as margin after, adding transportation cost of let’s say N2 per litre. The one at Fadeyi bus

stop can decide to sell below N143 per litre it is selling if he considers turnover because we deal in volume. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, at two Town Hall meetings in Lagos, recently, assured Nigerians that after six month, competition would force down pump price of fuel and that the government would improve domestic refining capacity by ensuring the three refineries were working to complement imported products by the NNPC and marketers. Efforts to speak with Executive Secretary of Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN), Mr Femi Olawore, proved abortive, as his number was not available as at time of this report.

AMCON vacates Avian premises in compliance with court order By Tunde Ogunesan ASSET Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) has vacated the premises of Avian Specialties Nigeria Limited, in Ibadan, which it earlier took possession of, according to information. Speaking with journalists in Ibadan, the company’s publicity secretary, Mr Ikenna Okolo, disclosed that AMCON, which had earlier taken over the possession of Avian Specialties premises and farms, had left the premises. A Federal High Court, Lagos Judicial division, presided over by Justice I.N.

Buba, had given an order setting aside the appointment of Chief J. Akingbola Akinola as the Receiver Manager of Avian Specialties Nigeria Limited “on the ground that the said appointment is in disregard and defiance of the ex parte order of the court made earlier on January 29, 2016.” It was earlier reported that the court further gave an order instructing Chief Akinola, described as the Receiver Manager appointed by the AMCON, to vacate the premises of Avian Specialties Limited and its farm that he took possession of on March 23,

2016, in disregard of the Interim Order of Injunction made by the court restraining AMCON from appointing itself or any other person as receiver manager of the company. Also, Justice J.T. Tsoho, presiding judge of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, had, in a separate application filed by AMCON and Chief Akinola, on May 23, 2016, discharged the ex parte orders that it earlier granted in favour of AMCON on and Chief Akinola, after hearing arguments from counsel for Avian, stating that “the ex parte order was obtained through willful conceal-

ment or suspension of material facts, in bad faith and out of abuse of the judicial process.” According to Okolo, businesses of Avian Specialties had since commenced. “Therefore, with these valid court orders, AMCON representative, Chief Akinola, has since vacated the premises and the farm he took possession of on March 23, 2016, in compliance with court order. “However, Avian Specialties Nigeria Limited has since then taken over the possession of the premises and commenced normal business activities,” Okolo said.

MINISTER of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on Sunday, said the Federal Government was working diligently toward making life more meaningful for Nigerians through carefully designed projects. Mohammed made the assertion in Lagos, at the eighth Alhaji Kafaru Tinubu Memorial Ramadan Lecture, themed: “Supreme sacrifice and the essence of followership in governance.” He said the government was aware of the plight of many citizens due to the dwindling economy. According to him, a N500 billion Social Intervention Programme had been put in place to help alleviate poverty. The minister said the money earmarked for the intervention programme in the 2016 budget was one of the sacrifices the government had to make in the face of falling revenue. “This government is making a lot of sacrifices and it is also expecting a lot of sacrifices from the people. “The N500 billion Social Intervention Programme, which is broken into five parts, covers employment of 500, 000 unemployed graduates, who will be trained as teachers. “It also covers the employment of 100, 000 artisans, as well as the One-Meal-ADay programme for pupils in primary schools. “The Enterprise Scheme, which is targeted at one million market men and women, 460, 000 artisans, 200, 000 agriculture workers is also covered in the programme. “It also covers the N5,000 monthly conditional cash transfer to the poor and the vulnerable,’’ he said. Mohammed dismissed some media reports that some states claimed they were not ready for the OneMeal-A-Day programme due to funding challenges. He emphasised that the Federal Government was solely responsible for the funding of the programme. According to him, the pilot scheme of the programme had started and would cover

RAMADAN MESSAGE

5.5 million pupils when fully on stream. The minister also advised Muslims to uphold the lessons of Ramadan by shunning vices and making sacrifices for others and the nation. In his lecture, Chief Imam, Lagos State University, Professor Ahmid Sanni, said the virtue of sacrifice was beyond prayers and fasting. According to him, it also required the show of love and care to the underprivileged in the society. In his remarks, the Lagos State governor, Mr Akinwumi Ambode, extolled the virtues of the late Alhaji Kafaru Tinubu, the patriarch of the Tinubu family in Central Lagos. Ambode, represented by the deputy governor, Dr Idiat Adebule, described Tinubu as a man, who lived for others. He urged Muslims to be in the vanguard for peace, especially during the Ramadan, adding that they must also be tolerant and friendly. The late Kafaru Tinubu was a former president of the Anwar-UI Islam Movement of Nigeria.

6 kidnapped in Rivers community NO fewer than six persons had been kidnapped in Edeoha town, Ahoada East Local Government Area of Rivers State. According to available information, the six persons were reportedly kidnapped Friday evening. A sizeable number of gunmen were said to have invaded the town late on Friday. Source gave the names of those abducted as Chief Leo Ahamefula, Mrs Abule, Mr and Mrs Success Nwanodi, Nenka Atomic and Mrs Natty. A source within the community said it was worrisome that the security agents deployed to the area had been withdrawn. The source implored the government to restore the security agents.

O mankind, fear your Lord. Indeed, the convulsion of the [final] Hour is a terrible thing. On the Day you see it every nursing mother will be distracted from that [child] she was nursing, and every pregnant woman will abort her pregnancy, and you will see the people [appearing] intoxicated while they are not intoxicated; but the punishment of Allah is severe. And of the people is he who disputes about Allah without knowledge and follows every rebellious devil. It has been decreed for every devil that whoever turns to him - he will misguide him and will lead him to the punishment of the Blaze. —Surat Al-Hajj verses 1-4

Monday, 13 June, 2016

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Monday, 13 June, 2016

Wike, agent of genuine development —Mark

•Commissions road in Obio/Akpor LGA • PDP will continue to deliver benefits of democracy —Wike

ORMER Senate President, David Mark, has commended Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, for being an agent of genuine development in the state. This was as Governor Wike declared that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would continue to solve the developmental challenges of the people by keeping campaign promises made to the people. Commissioning the 8-kilometre Ozuoba-Ogbogoro-Rumuolumeni Road, in Obio/Akpor Local Government Area on Saturday, the former Senate President described the governor as agent of “true change,” who had improved the living condition of the people by his delivery of democracy dividends. Senator Mark said Governor Wike had used his mandate to positively change the developmental

outlook of Rivers State, keeping his promises, instead of giving excuses for failure. Speaking on the projects delivery of Governor Wike,

Senator Mark said : “So far, he has governed well, now people are beginning to see the results of the promises he made. “He is not only keeping

his promises, he also has the welfare of the people at heart. That is what governance is all about. Those who voted him are reaping the benefits of democracy.

“Wike is a man of action, who keeps to his words and promises. I want to thank you for keeping to your promises.” He said all the PDP gov-

From left, former Senate President, David Mark; Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike; his deputy, Mrs Ipalibo Banigo; former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deputy national chairman, Mr Uche Secondus and a former Rivers State governor, Celestine Omehia, during the inauguration of Ozuoba-Ogbogoro-Rumuolumeni Road, in Obio/Akpo Local Government Area of Rivers State. PHOTO: NAN.

Pipeline bombings: MEND seeks to partner NDA on dialogue with FG Constitutes negotiating team Dapo Falade -Port Harcourt MOVEMENT for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has urged the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) to join in a dialogue with the Federal Government on the spate of bombing of oil facilities in the region. The group made the call in a statement issued by its spokesman, Jomo Gbomo, a copy of which was made available to the Nigerian Tribune in Port Harcourt, on Sunday. MEND, in the statement, said the Niger Delta struggle was beyond attacks on oil installations, adding that it had once believed in arms struggle hence, its resort countless attacks against the Nigerian state within the past 10 years of its existence. The group said the resort to taking up arms against the country and the International Oil Companies (IOCs) was with the “view to bringing to national and international attention, the pitiable paradox of the Niger Delta region.” Gbomo, in the statement, said MEND’s initial belief in arm struggle was founded in a speech by the late German leader, Otto Vin Birsmack, more than 160 years ago, that “the great questions of the time will be decided, not by speeches and resolutions, but by iron and blood.”

He, however, said MEND had a change of heart on May 30, 2014 and unilaterally declared a ceasefire of hostilities against Nigeria’s key economic and strategic interests, in response to the Democracy Day speech of former President Goodluck Jonathan the previous day. “Evidently, the ceasefire was an indication of the group’s belief that in this present age and time, ‘iron and blood’ might only become fashionable tools in settling questions when dialogue and diplomacy fail. “Our message to the NDA is simple—the Niger Delta struggle is beyond attacks on oil installations. “Indeed, prior to the MEND ceasefire, the group had, among numerous daring attacks, on Thursday, June 19, 2008, successfully carried out the spectacular attack on Royal Dutch Shell’s offshore Bonga oilfield, located at a whooping distance of 120 kilometres (75miles) southwest of the Niger Delta. “However, with the benevolent benefit of hindsight, the group realised that after the initial euphoria of each successful attack, the gargantuan problems which confront our region, including environmental pollution and political corruption, increased geometrically. “If, indeed, your cause is to

avenge the injustice done to the Niger Delta region, then, we urge you to ceasefire and join us to the table of negotiation with the Federal Government. Otherwise, the Niger Delta struggle shall be hijacked, once again, by selfish interests for their own personal aggrandizement. “One such example is the recent purported NDA demand made through the region’s governors that the Federal Government should drop charges of corruption against certain individuals and politicians from the region. “This absurd and ridiculous demand, to say the least, is far removed from

the Niger Delta struggle,” Gbomo said in the statement. To achieve a strong negotiating team, MEND claimed it held “useful exploratory discussions” with high ranking officials of the current administration (apparently the Federal Government) and had constituted ‘Aaron Team 2’ to dialogue with the government on the immediate, medium and long-term future of the Niger Delta region. The MEND spokesman further said the negotiating team was made up of patriotic and selfless men and women of proven track record, integrity and char-

acter, drawn from different parts of the Niger Delta region, but not MEND members. Among those who had accepted to serve as members of the ‘Aaron Team 2’, he said were Henry Odein Ajumogobia (Rivers), Bismark Rewane (Delta), Senator Florence Ita-Giwa (Cross River) and Timipa Jenkins Okponipere (Bayelsa). Others included Ibanga Isine (Akwa Ibom), Ledum Mitee (Rivers) and Lawson Omokhodion (Edo State), while others members, he said would be unveiled “in due course after due consultations with relevant stakeholders.”

ernors have kept their promises, while those who promised Nigerians change had failed to deliver. “I am a great advocate of change. Because what brought the All Progressives Congress (APC) to power was change. Now, we have seen that change had not taken place. We have to change that change now. Why we must change the change is because those who called for change are not keeping to their promise,” Senator Mark said. In his address, Governor Wike said in his projects delivery framework, he was not concerned about who awarded the project, but its impact on the lives of the people. He said: “For us, as PDP, we knew there were problems before we made pledges. That is why we are resolving the problems we met on ground. It does not matter the party you belong to, we shall continue to deliver democracy dividends to all Rivers people.” He said as a governor, he would always work in line with the campaign promises he made, because the people had always supported him. The governor reiterated his commitment to flush out cultists from the state, noting that security agencies had been given the free hand to deal decisively with cultists. Works Commissioner, Bathuel Iheanyichukwu, said the road was awarded by the previous administration, but abandoned at 30 per cent completion stage. He said the road was impassable before Governor Wike reconstructed it and revived economic activities in the area.

Shariah council visits Kaduna Ramadan assault victim in hospital Muhammad Sabiu -Kaduna THE Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Kaduna State chapter, has visited a non-muslim Francis Emmanuel, who was recently attacked by some Muslim youths for not observing the Ramadan fast, in hospital, describing the attack as unIslamic. Emmanuel is speedily recuperating at Saint Gerald catholic hospital, Kakuri, Kaduna south. Governor Nasir el-Rufai, alongside other groups and individuals, had strongly condemned the attack on

Emmanuel. el-Rufai, however, directed the police to arrest the perpetrators of the attack, warning that there was no room for religious violence and criminality in the state. On its part, Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Kaduna State chapter, led by chairman of the state council, Sheik Yusuf Sambo Rigachukun, who visited the victim, donated some cash to assist his medical bills. The council chairman, who was represented by Sheikh Tukur Abdulsalam, called on the public to re-

main calm and wish the victim speedy recovery. Speaking with newsmen shortly after the visit, state secretary, Supreme Council for Shariah in Nigeria, Abdurahaman Hassan, said those who unleashed the attack on Emmanuel did not represent Islam. He wondered where it was stated that a Muslim should fight another person for not fasting in the Holy month of Ramadan, adding that even a Muslim cannot force a fellow muslim to fast, rather the person could drag the person to Sharia court.

“The victim, receiving treatment, is a Christian and he has nothing to do with fasting during Ramadan. Even if a Muslim notices that his fellow Muslim is not fasting during Ramadan, the only thing he can do is to take him to Shariah court. You can’t assault a fellow Muslim for not fasting, talkless of a non-Muslim. “We are calling and appealing to the public not to take laws into their hands. We appeal to all to respect human dignity, irrespective of one’s religion,” he maintained.

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Monday, 13 June, 2016

Oshiomhole seeks review of policy on varsity education

OVERNOR Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State has called on the Federal Government to review its policy on university education with a view to subsidising tuition fees for indigent students, stressing that intelligent but indigent students should be encouraged to acquire quality university education. Speaking at the maiden matriculation ceremony for the pioneer students of Edo University, Iyamho, on Saturday, Oshiomhole said parents of the rich should be made to pay for quality university education for their children while the government should give subvention to children of the poor for same quality education. He said: "Nigeria has to

engage in a serious national conversation on the appropriate educational policy with particular reference to higher education. “Just now, this conversation is taking place in an informal way. The system seems to have collapsed. Governments at all levels ,simply do not have the capacity to provide the level of funding which universities require to produce first class graduates. “Right now, Nigeria is running a system which is highly deceptive and is not sustainable, a system that I like to describe as a generalised system of suffering, a system that subsidises the children of the rich just as they subsidise the children of the poor. For God's sake, my dear friend ,who works in an oil sector, why should his son or his

daughter go to the university and enjoy subsidy when he can afford to pay $20,000 or $30,000 for his son in Canada or in theUnited Kingdom ,But if they are here in Nigerian universities, they pay N40,000 or N50,000, and we know that is not sustainable." According to him, today, people find individual solutions to issue that requires a national policy, adding that while some university lecturers send their children to foreign universities for quality education, some Nigerian doctors also go to India for medical treatment, saying it is not a sustainable practice. "I think the way to go is to have the courage to find a way to identify students whose parents can afford to pay school fees.. But the

ones who cannot afford, but have what it takes for university education, those ones can also be identified and granted government scholarship so

THE Arewa Consultative Forum(ACF) has counselled the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) to give peace a chance, embrace dialogue, as well as stop bombing government facilities. The chairman of the forum, Alhaji Ibrahim Coomasie, said this in Kaduna, at the weekend. Coomasie, who was a former Inspector General of Police (IGP ),noted that militant attacks on oil installations is an invitation to another civil unrest, saying, "Nigeria cannot afford another civil unrest at this

time. He noted that the unending attacks on oil installations were unjustifiable, as according to him, all necessary machineries had already been put in place to develop Niger Delta region by the Federal Government. 'There is the Ministry for the Niger Delta, the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) and the Amnesty Intervention and funds had been injected into the region through these agencies." He added 'why are they refusing to dialouge with the Federal government ? Do

I will return PDP to winning ways —Sardauna Kola Oyelere - Kano A national chairmanship aspirant of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Sadiq Bello Sardauna, has said that the crisis rocking PDP requires the "energy and wealth of experience of a youth that can go in between diverse interests and come up with results." Sardauna, a 34- year- old Gombe -born grassroot politician, who disclosed this on Sunday, while speaking with pressmen in Kano, said that his candidacy offers windows of opportunity for self rediscovery by the party. Sardauna called on party faithful to close- rank as a major step at recovering lost power in 2019. We need to forgive and understand our differences if truly we want to make headway at recovering lost ground and power by 2019", he said. He, however, pledged to reunite the party and relaunched it to winning ways if given the mandate by his party members during the

forthcoming national congress His words: "participatory democracy usually provides platform for both the youth and the old to exhibit their leadership potentials and we felt this is the time to step out and change the change". Unveiling his agenda for a greater PDP, the business mogul harped on party supremacy and internal democracy as veritable components to move the party forward. Sardauna stressed "party supremacy suffers where a supposed party leader for want of self economy, looks for patronage from the elected representatives and we would do our best to discourage this age -long practice in the interest of our democracy". He said that graduates would be encouraged to aspire for positions within the party, adding the measure is to restore confidence among the youth. the quality of our democracy.

they want confrontation?, Coomassie called on the Niger Delta Avengers to give peace a chance, adding that if they want a par-

Aluyor, had commended Governor Oshiomhole, for his initiative in establishing the state university and his contributions to the nation.

SERAP tasks FG on oil companies in N/Delta THE Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the Federal Government to “stand up to powerful oil companies that have continued to abuse the human rights of the people of the Niger Delta region with impunity for decades, if it is to satisfactorily resolve the crisis in the region. Against the background of continuing crisis in the Niger Delta, fuelled by the activities of the Niger Delta Avengers, who are relentlessly bombing the country's oil infrastruc-

Give peace a chance, ACF counsels Avengers MuhammadSabiu-Kaduna

that they are not denied access to quality education." Speaking earlier, the vice chancellor of the university, Professor Emmanuel

ticular thing to be done for them , they should mention it so that the Federal government will consider it.

ture and have slashed its crude output, SERAP, in a statement, on Sunday, by the organisation's executive director, Adetokunbo Mumuni, said, that, “An important part of the solution to the human rights crisis ,is for President Muhammadu Buhari, to implement the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Court judgment, which ordered the Nigerian government to punish oil companies over oil pollution and devastation in the region.” The statement reads in part: “This government

should make sure that the activities of oil companies in Nigeria bring development to the people, rather than a string of needless human rights tragedies.” “The government of former President Goodluck Jonathan ignored the judgment and showed no political will to hold to account oil companies that have for many years, continued to destroy the livelihoods of the people with almost absolute impunity. President Buhari should make sure that his government adheres to this judgment without further delay.”

Nigerian Tribune

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Lagosmetro Engineer in trouble for issuing post-dated cheques Ayomide Owonibi Odekanyin AN engineer who allegedly issued two post-dated cheques worth N5.7 million, which were dishonoured on presentation at the bank, has been charged before an Igbosere magistrate’s court. Peter Balogun, 48, who resides at No.58, Ogudu Road, Ojota, Lagos, is standing trial on one-count charge bordering on fraud. The prosecutor, Steven Molo, told the court that the accused committed the alleged offence on July 22, 2012 at Ogudu. He was accused of issuing a First City Monument Bank post-dated cheque worth N3.4 million and another cheque worth N2.3 million to one Adedayo Ogunbanwo. The prosecutor said the cheque was returned for lack of funds when presented at the bank. He said the alleged offence contravened Section 319 (b) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2011. The accused pleaded not guilty. The magistrate, Mrs Ambimbola Komolafe, however, granted him bail in the sum of N250,000 with two sureties in like sum. She adjourned the case till June 30 for mention.

Scene of an accident involving a trailer at Apapa-Ijora Bridge, on Saturday. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA

Customs officer slapped magistrate, seized exhibits, Task Force alleges Arrested officers for trial today Bola Badmus

AGOS State Task Force has alleged that a fully-armed senior customs officer, Mr Yusuf S.S, on Friday, slapped the magistrate, Lekan Aka-Basorun, while superintending a mobile court attached to the task force. Its chairman, Olayinka Egbeyemi, claimed to have averted what could have resulted in bloody clash between men of Nigerian Customs Service and security men working for the state mobile court, aftermath of the attack on the magistrate. Apart from personally attacking the magistrate, Yusuf allegedly ordered that court exhibits, alongside recording gadgets, be carted

away by other officers of the Service who reportedly participated in the fight. Yusuf’s aides, who were armed as well, were said to have beaten up the two para-military officials and rough handled two other superintendents of police attached to the task force, namely, Sunday Ikharere and Adeloye Okunola, at the gate of customs premises at Ikeja. According to a release made available by the Public Affairs Officer of the agency, Mr Taofik Adebayo, Yusuf, with service No 48730 and a card No 368 attached to the Federal Operations Unit, Zone ‘A’ Ikeja, was said to have slapped Aka-Bashorun for ordering his court officials to impound private vehicles of Nigerian Customs

officers, for committing traffic offences. The release said consequent upon the attack, officers of the NCS trooped out en masse of their Ikeja office and charged at the operatives of the Lagos Mobile Courts, claiming that they were Federal Government agency and were fully exempted from any of the state laws, particularly the Lagos State Road Traffic Laws of 2012. The release, however, disclosed that two officers of the NSC were arrested during the fracas but were later released on self recognisance and billed to appear before court today. They officers are Mr Goyit Bulus and Mr Olugbogi Sunday. The statement recalled

that operatives of the court had earlier commenced its operations from Allen Avenue, Ikeja, impounding both commercial and private vehicles for various traffic offences down to Nigerian Customs Operations Unit, Ikeja area, where private vehicles were flagrantly parked onthe walkways beside an illegal car wash. “After impounding all these vehicles beside the Nigerian Customs premises by officials of the Lagos Mobile Court for various traffic offences, men of the services angrily barricaded the highways with heavy stones and used tyres and descended upon court officials and all impounded vehicles registrations number plates were forcefully carted away by them, including two mo-

bile phones (Samsung Tab ‘A’ 2016 and Samsung A5) with a Sony Camera used for recording as evidence before the court proceedings,” Adebayo claimed in the statement. Meanwhile, the magistrate, Aka-Bashorun, has warned that no government officials, be it federal or state, was above any laws of the country, just as he urged service chiefs in the country to call their respective officers to order. He also called on the management of the Customs Federal Operations Unit, ‘A’, Ikeja to immediately compel their officers to return all court’s exhibits, including the two phones and a camera in their possessions to his court without further delay.

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

Edited By Lanre Adewole

08037863902 | olanreade@yahoo.com

LASU suspends student caught smoking cannabis By Naza Okoli A 200-level Computer Science student at the Lagos State University (LASU), Taiwo Oreoluwa George, has been suspended after he was found to be in possession of a harmful substance known as cannabis. A statement issued by the management of the institution, at the weekend, said George was apprehended by campus security officials on Tuesday, May 3, 2016, close to the Badagry gate of the university. “The Vice Chancellor, Professor ‘Lanre Fagbo-

hun, by the power conferred on him in Section 28 of the Law establishing the university, has directed the immediate suspension of George Taiwo Oreoluwa with Matriculation number: 140591047 from the university, pending the arraignment before Students’ Disciplinary Committee. “In view of the development, George Taiwo Oreoluwa is not expected to participate in the socio-academic activities of the university until the suspension is lifted,”? the statement added.

Scene of a fire incident involving a commercial vehicle at Obalende Bus Stop, on Friday. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA

day morning reportedly still traumatised by the attack and remained at an unnamed hospital. In his confessional statement, the suspect said “my plan was to operate alone that night. Luckily for me, there was heavy traffic, which extended deep into the night on the Marine Bridge. “Just as I was planning to strike, I ran into Wasiu (his accomplice who is still at large). We decided to rob cars together. During the operation, we opted for a car at the rear, a Toyota SUV.”

He added that “the occupants were whites and I guessed they are husband and wife. Wasiu and I positioned ourselves on both sides of the car and we broke the two rear glasses. “I collected the man’s phone while Wasiu took her wife’s phone and her purse containing N60,000. The lady pleaded for her drug from the purse and I asked my colleague to give her and we left for another car.” The suspect further said “the next car in front was a Toyota Corolla, with a lone

How we robbed Portuguese couple —Suspects Olalekan Olabulo AN ex-convict, Samuel Meme, has revealed that members of his gang and other in-traffic robbers usually target motorists who use their phones in traffic. Meme was, a few days ago, arrested by operatives of the Rapid Response Squad (RRS) after he, alongside one other person, simply identified as Wasiu, now at large, robbed a Portuguese couple on the Marine Bridge in Lagos. The couple were as of Sun-

occupant. We broke the two side glasses too but the lady insisted she had no phone but we collected her bag and jewellery.” Recounting how he joined the robbery gang, the suspect stated that “Wasiu taught me how to rob in traffic and I have mastered the act. I operate alone. “Occasionally, when I run into like minds, we robbed whenever there is traffic in Marine Bridge. We sleep under Ijora Bridge and we are many there.” The suspect also said four

Burglar jailed without fine option for stealing play-station Ayomide Owonibi Odekanyin A 27-year-old man, Ibrahim Aiyelangbe, was, on Friday, sent to jail for burglary by an Igbosere magistrates’ court. Aiyelangbe was sentenced to four months in Ikoyi Prison, without an option of fine, after he admitted stealing a PSP (Play Station Portable Game) and N19,000 cash. Aiyelangbe was arraigned on May 11, on a two-count felony charge, with No. Q/28/2016. The prosecutor, Friday Mameh, told the court that on May 9, at about 1.30 a.m., Aiyelangbe jumped a fence into the compound of Axon Engineering Ltd on Glover Street, Ikoyi. He added that Aiyelangbe stole a PSP Game 2003 Model valued at N40,000 and the sum of N19,000 cash, totalling N59,000,

property of Joshua Saidu Bature, a supervisor at Axon Engineering. Mameh said Bature and

a security operative on duty that night at the company caught Aiyelangbe and handed him over to the police.

The deplorable state of Obalende road. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA

The presiding magistrate, Mrs O. A. Olagbehinde, sentenced him to prison without an option of fine.

The suspects of his gang members are currently serving different jail terms in Kirikiri prison. “We are six in my gang. Four of us are in Kirikiri Prison. They are Gbenga, Imele, Tontolo and Lateef. I just came back from Kirikiri, where I spent three months,” he stated. Mene also said “robbery

is not the only job I do. I do other menial jobs. We selected cars to rob whenever we see any vehicle where the occupants are busy with phones. We start operation around 8:00 p.m.” The suspect further told the RRS interrogators that he is also an expert in removing trailers’ batteries. “I also remove and sell truck batteries that are parked by the road side. This week alone, I have stolen and sold like five batteries. I sold each of the batteries for N4,000 or N5,000. I sell them to Musa Yahuu,” he said. His confessional statement led to the arrest of the receiver of the stolen batteries, who is also currently in police custody. He added that “my colleagues who are still at large are Dan Jos, Ik and Wasiu. Dan Jos and Ik are part of my team, only that they didn’t operate with me that night.” The image maker in charge of the state police command, Dolapo Badmos, confirmed the arrest of the suspects to Lagos Metro.

Monday, 13 June, 2016

10 news Rickety vehicles to be banned in Abuja Sept

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Christian Okeke -Abuja

ICKETY vehicle owners in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, have been given up to September 1, 2016 to put their vehicles in proper shape or such would be put off the road by enforcement agents. Managing Director of Temple Resources, which is the firm that manages the computerised vehicle inspection machine system in the territory, in partnership with the FCT Administration, Segun Obayando, disclosed this at the weekend. He said rickety vehicle owners were being put on notice that their vehicles would be given a life ban after September 1, as enforcement would commence at the end of the deadline. He stated that going by the massive awareness campaign being mounted, motorists in Abuja would know their rights, what to do and when to conduct thorough check on their vehicles to ensure their road worthiness. Lamenting on the dangers of using such rickety vehicles, Obayando noted that, “the problem is that Nigerians keep managing and managing themselves to death.” Obayando disclosed that his firm recently signed a working agreement with Lagos State on replication of the inspection system, noting that facilities already mounted in Niger State would be commissioned by the end of the month, while that of Anambra State was also ready for commissioning. According to him, other states on line to embrace the project included Sokoto,

Abia and Enugu states. Expressing satisfaction that the benefits of the system were quite being appreciated, he recalled the challenge experienced in the take-off of the project in the FCT, which, he said, was as a result of poor communication between the authority and the organisation. He disclosed that expan-

sion work was ongoing in the territory with new centres expected to be commissioned soon at Wuye and Gwagwalada. He said: “This vehicle inspection is just coming in a computerised way. People have their resentment, their feelings but being consistent, people have seen that what we are doing is good.

will be saturated with this new innovation. “We have already commenced ICT training of staff that will be deployed to other states of the federation for mass training of manpower on ICT. In fact, about 35 men are due in Abuja, by next week, to begin the train-the-trainer programme in readiness

From left, guest speaker, Chief Ayo Adebanjo; founder, Igbo Youth Movement (IYM), Comrade Elliot Uko; former vice-president, Dr Alex Ekwueme; former governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife; former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana; former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi and a guest, Dr Arthur Nwankwo, during the 17th IYM annual convention in Enugu, on Sunday. PHOTO: NAN.

Chief Adebanjo, Kanu, 4 others bag IYM awards Jude Ossai -Enugu A former Pro-democracy chieftain (NADECO) and Director of the African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN) Plc, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has again advocated true federalism as a panacea for the hydra-headed problems facing the country. Chief Adebanjo, who proffered the solution on Sunday, in Enugu, shortly after

receiving an award from the Igbo Youth Movement (IYM), noted that the experiment to rule the country by the colonial masters as a nation under a unified central government proved a failure, as it gave rise to political agitation and crises in several parts of the country. Going down the memory lane, he remarked, “On occasions like this, it is important to remind ourselves

Oronsaye being persecuted over report on EFCC —Group A non-governmental organisation, Integrity Group, has ascribed the ongoing trial of former Head of Service of the Federation(HOS), Mr Steve Oronsaye, to persecution over a report which sought to merge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) with other anti-graft agencies in the country when he was still in service. According to the national coordinator and secretary of the group, James Alo and Aliu Sanni, respectively, a report written by the Oronsaye-led committee when he was HOS and chairman, Presidential Commitee on the Rationalisation and Restructuring of the Civil Service, had sought the merger of the EFCC with the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC). The report also sought the

They keep calling us to come to their states to put in place such project; that alone is a living testimony for us and the country in general. “Other reasons worthy of note is that among the people who called in seeking partnership, came on their own without being invited. That shows that in no distant time, the whole country

autonomy of the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), in line with Nigeria’s agreement with international anti-graft and antimoney laundering agencies. ‘‘NFIU is presently a unit in EFCC and the largest international funding to EFCC,’’ the group noted. Alo and Sanni, in the statement, wondered why the EFCC would exhume a case which had been investigated and which cleared Oronsaye of any wrongdoing. “The EFCC had concluded its investigation as far back as 2010 while the suspects were also arraigned in 2011 and even got judgment against one of the suspects in 2013 before the commission reopened the case based on ‘additional statement from a witness.’ We wonder at the desperation of EFCC to punish this man,” it said.

The group noted that it was lack of substance in the case against Oronsaye that raised the ire of Justice Olasumbo Goodluck of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), High Court, during the last sitting of the court, over the failure of the EFCC in filing its amended charges as requested. Integrity Group recalled that Oronsaye was “the one that started the investigation into pension fraud when he was Head of Service, he was also the one that set up the Pension Reform Task Force team. He was the one that submitted the report of the task force to EFCC and ICPC for further investigation, if he was guilty, would he now want to expose himself by inviting the agencies to conduct further investigations?.”

where we are coming from. It is an historical fact that our country, Nigeria, is not a nation, but a conglomeration of various ethnic nationalities which were colonised by the British colonialists at various times in their different localities. According to him, ‘‘from the Richard Constitution to the military rule and up to this day, Nigerians were subjected to various acts of political agitation, because the constitution under which the people are governed is not suitable for an heterogenous society like Nigeria.’’ Chief Adebanjo recalled how the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, said “Nigeria is not a nation, but a geographical expression made up of various ethnic nationalities, diverse in language, culture and religion. “It is my strong view that to put a stop to the various acts of uprising in the country today, be it Niger Delta Avengers, MASSOB, IPOB or the new agitation for state of Biafra, we will require a change of our constitution to allow for the restructuring of the country under a truly federal system. Then, and only then, can we have peace in the country without which there can not be progress.” Chief Adebanjo, therefore, warned: “ The use of force

to cow down these agitators can never succeed, And so, it is Altus continua in search for true federalism.” He also used the occasion to commend the IYM for the honour bestowed on him, pledging his unflinching support in the struggle to achieve true federalism in the country. All the speakers, including the former Vice-President, Alex Ekwueme, Professor Jerry Gana, ex-governors Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Peter Obi and Mrs Ankio Briggs agreed that only true federalism would bring peace to the country. Chief Ekwueme, who also received an award and had advocated true federalism, stated that the issue being canvassed was an improvement on his earlier call for regionalism. Mrs Briggs noted: “Our diversity is not our problem, but those who manipulate our diversity. Our story now is that of frustration. Change should be based on truth and if it is not based on truth, another group can come up and demand for a change and that is what we are witnessing in the country now.” The awardees were Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife, Professor Jerry Gana, Mrs. Ankio Briggs, Nnamdi Kanu.

to its nationwide spread as more states have endorsed the project and had signed agreement for commencement at their various states “These new trainees will be working in Niger and Anambra states. And before now, we had sent few of our men abroad. Some went to Spain, some went to Ghana, some went to South Africa for the training. “As I am talking to you, we have about 105 youths undergoing training. But we are going to have 85 to start off in Anambra and Niger states. “The modern vehicle inspection system is one of the technological means of curbing menace of accidents and untimely death in the city. “Right now, we can provide data of every resident who owns vehicle in the FCT or every visitor from other states who drives into Abuja. Very soon, we will be providing the authorities with data of every vehicle that enters Abuja and how many times the person entered. “We can provide such data more especially when the owner passes through our system. Even if the owner sends someone on errand, in as much as your data has been captured with us, it shows when such vehicle passes through the system, the number of minutes you spent with us and in the case of one being investigated, we can provide such data.”

NSCDC arrests Boko Haram kingpin in Borno THE Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), on Sunday, said it had arrested a 56-yearold Boko Haram kingpin in Aski Uba Local Government Area of Borno State. The Commandant of the NSCDC in Borno State, Mr Ibrahim Abdullahi, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri. Abdullahi said the suspect was apprehended at Mussa village on June 7. “Our men have made remarkable progress by arresting a Boko Haram kingpin. “The notorious kingpin was said to be a recruiter, as well as supplier of arms and IEDs to Boko Haram terrorists. “He confessed that his three children were also arrow heads of the Boko Haram sect,’’ he said. He said the command had since handed over the suspect to the army for further investigation.

businessnews

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Zero oil plan: Nigeria’ll generate $100bn from non-oil exports —Awolowo •As Dangote backs plans to diversify exports from oil

HE Executive Director and Chief Eexcutive Officer (CEO), Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) has emphasised exports as a core driver of job creation, increased investments, growth in government income, and better macro stability, through more foreign exchange inflows. Awolowo stated this, while presenting the ‘Zero Oil’ plan to Dangote Group, last week. The Zero Oil plan, in line with the current administration’s agenda of restructuring the economy to no longer depend on crude oil exports, has set a long term goal of earning 20 per cent of Nigeria’s GDP, that is, $100 billion from non-oil exports. The initial target however is to exceed $30 billion annually in non-oil exports over the next 10 years. The presentation is part of NEPC’s nationwide roadshow to engage stakeholders and investors on the government’s vision of making Nigeria’s overdependence on crude oil, a thing of the past. Awolowo, speaking at the presentation, said Nigeria’s interventions to boost the supply of foreign exchange would augment other actions that reduce foreign exchange demand. According to him, Nigeria could achieventhe economic miracle seen in East Asian countries, anchored primarily on the growth and diversification of exports in those markets, in a shorter time period. The rationale behind the

presentation of the ‘Zero Oil’ plan to the Dangote Group stemmed from the fact that the group is Nigeria’s largest conglomerate and also one of the nation’s highest earners of non-oil foreign exchange. The group already dis-

tributes goods produced in Nigeria across West and Central Africa, and has set its sights on more growth in markets beyond. It will be recalled that many oil exporting countries have recently introduced national plans to

BETTER days seem ahead for Nigerians as Sapele Power Plc has embarked on an expansion project to generate more power for its consumers. This was the crux of a workshop held last week to brief stakeholders ahead of the expansion project in Ogorode, Sapele Local Government Area of Delta State. It will be recalled that Sapele Power Plc, the second largest power plant in Nigeria with 1020MW thermal plant, was acquired by Eurafric Power Ltd in 2014 with the goal of generating 1,500MW in five years. The workshop witnessed representatives from Okpe and Sapele communities which are the host communities.

build a Nigerian economy no longer dependent on oil exports. This will include consultations with major investors, trade associations, small businesses, State governments, and foreign missions\partners.

Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC), Mr Olusegun Awolowo (left) , presenting the Zero Oil plan to Aliko Dangote, President, Dangote Group, last week.

Remove legal impediments to capital market growth, SEC appeals to NASS Sanya Adejokun-Abuja

THE Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has identified serious legal impediments to the growth of capital market and is appealing to the National Assembly to make things right in the interest of the economy. Speaking on Wednesday at the stakeholders’ forum on Realizing the Potentials of the Nigerian Economy Through Proactive Capi-

tal Market Legislation cohosted by the Capital Market committees of both the Senate and House of Representatives in Abuja, Director General of the (SEC) Mr. Munir Gwazo urged lawmakers to play the critical role of tackling identified legal impediments to the master plan. He said SEC was compiling a comprehensive document detailing all amendments needed to make the

Sapele plant to generate more power Ebenezer Adurokiya-Warri

stop their over-dependence on oil, most recently Saudi Arabia and Nigeria’s Zero Oil plan articulates Nigeria’s commitment to its own export diversification. NEPC continues its nationwide roadshow to

Representative of Sapele Power Plc, Mr. Ernest Atsenuwa, in his address, informed the stakeholders that the power station had had an installed capacity of 1020MW, but the generation went down due to the activities of government. He, however, noted that the new owners, Eurafric Group, are prepared to improve the generation output of the station and that the stakeholders forum was for a proper briefing on the expansion plans of the power station. Managing Director of the power station, Onoriode Odjegba, during his presentation of the Environmental Impact Assessment of the project, gave a blowby-blow account of the various expansion projects the station would be executing

shortly. He said the business plan would include capacity recovery through the refurbishment of three steam turbines and replanting of gas turbine that would generate an output of 330MW and 145MW in nine months after all negotiations were concluded. The business plan, he added, encompasses the emergency/bridging power that’ll generate an output of 300MW and 200MW in nine months by APR Energy, Cummins and Aggreko. On capacity expansion, the MD said that 500MW apiece would be expected in 12 months through the engagement of New 500MW Plant and DEESIDE 500MW Plant when negotiations were over.

Master Plan implementation a success. Some of the impediments include jurisdictional conflict between the Investments and Securities Tribunal (IST) and Federal High Courts For instance, Section 274 of Investments and Securities Act (ISA), grants IST exclusive jurisdiction over capital market disputes while Section 251 (1p, q, r) of the 1999 Constitution gives jurisdiction to High Court over executive or administrative actions of SEC. Gwarzo appealed to the National Assembly to Include the IST under Section 6(5) of the Constitution and craft “legislation to prescribe the adoption of “Reasonableness test” in conducting judicial review in contrast to the “Correctness Test” as well as make the IST a special Division of the Federal High Court. He also appealed that National Assembly members should amend relevant sections of the Land Use Act to resolve property/land title allocation and transfer issues to facilitate securitization because “Various Sections of the Land Use Act inhibit the development of the capital market. “Particularly, Sections 21 & 22 negatively impact transfer of possession and foreclosures which by im-

plication inhibit the takeoff of mortgage-backed securities.” The capital market regulator also asked for an amendment to Section 22 of Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) to allow crowd funding of private companies. “Section 22 of CAMA on crowd funding limits members of a private company to 50 while also restricting its transfer of shares”, Gwarzo said adding “a robust legal and regulatory framework is a necessary condition for the actualization of our master plan aspirations.” Also speaking at the event, Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital Market and Institutions Senator Isiaka Adeleke said the two chambers of the National Assembly have realised that the economy cannot fully develop without making the capital market the hub or pivot of its developmental strides. He disclosed that the National Assembly was aware of the dwindling fortunes of the capital market and by extension the economy but that as a parliament they “strongly believe that, the downward slide in the economy, provides the best opportunity for major stakeholders to begin to return the economy to vibrancy.

BEDC rejoices over improved supply to Agbor, urges payment of bills BENIN Electricity Distribution Plc (BEDC) has congratulated the residents of Agbor made up of Ika South and Ika East local governments on the improved power supply to their areas assuring them of the company’s readiness to sustain and even improve on the development provided they pay their bills promptly. BEDC’s Chief State Head, Delta, Albert Esenabhalu, in a statement, said this in a presentation he made at the Agbor Business Unit Customer forum held at the Ezinne Event Centre, On Wednesday. It will be recalled that the Agbor area of Delta state had recorded poor electricity supply in the past due to its disadvantage network configuration as the only feeder servicing the entire area runs from Irrua covering over 62 kilometers through thick vegetation and bad roads thus constraining power supply. However, the 132KVA line step-down at Agbor awarded over 10 years has just been commissioned thus boosting power supply. Esenabhalu affirmed that the Ika nation was getting not less than 12 hours of supply but could have been getting more if not for the challenge of low generation to the national grid occasioned by gas shortage and vandalisation of gas pipeline. He noted that generation had dropped to 1500 megawatts nationwide, saying that in such situation, it was difficult increasing supply to operational areas given BEDC allocation of 9 per cent, adding “in spite of this we need to let our customers understand the need to pay their bills as we buy energy as well, without which we cannot serve them effectively the way we want to”. Esenabhalu, who noted that the drop in power generation was affecting BEDC’s ability to circulate power to customers despite its installed capacity said the company was working towards taking advantage of government’s window on independent power generation to augment its allocation from the grid and increase supply on the long run. He warned Agbor residents against illegal connections, bypass and vandalism of BEDC installations in their domain, emphasising that only this could militate against electricity supply in the area.

businessnews

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Mass sack: NUBIFIE threatens closure of erring banks ChukwumaOkparaocha-Lagos

HE National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees (NUBIFIE) has ordered all affected banks embarking on mass downsizing in the industry to halt the action or risk being picketed. The union stressed that sacking of workers is not the solution to the challenges in the country which the union said is engendered by government policies and other economic factors. NUBIFIE made this stance known at a recent press conference held at its secretariat in Lagos. Comrade Danjuma Musa the president of the union argued that mass retrenchment, as carried out by some banks, would rather create more problems in the already saturated labour market. “Mass sack is against the government’s intent of job creation as afforded in the campaign promises and due process,” he said. “Before the current economic malaise, banks have long been engaged in antiworker activities at different levels of exploitation. The situation in banking sector is a fallout of many years of un-banking practices coupled with laiserfaire corporate misgovernance and corruption. “Workers have always been the sacrificial lambs on the altar of corporate

mis-governance and that has to stop,” Danjuma added. The NUBIFIE boss specifically warned employ-

ers in the sector especially Skye Bank, Diamond Bank, ECO Bank and others to halt all intended retrenchment, as further violation

prepared to close down the branch networks of the erring banks without further notice,” he said.

OBJ calls for policy to promote consumption of LPG, CNG OlatundeDodondawa-Lagos

From left: Musa Atahiru, Retail Business Manager, Sterling Bank Abuja; Otorkpa Joseph, winner in the N1 million category and Uche Isinetugo, representing the Sterling Bank Business Executive Retail, Abuja, at the cheque presentation to winners of the New Sterling Plus Cash Reward promo, on Friday.

Over 300,000 Nigerians will be jobless if foreign airlines leave —NANTA president By ’Wale Olapade

AS the foreign airlines threatened to close shop in Nigeria due to the lingering forex crisis, the National Association of Nigerian Travel Agencies, NANTA has warned that the country travel industry is at the risk of losing over 300, 000 jobs. This is coming as anxi-

ety continues to mount over the $591 million foreign airlines money trapped in Nigerian banks, which made difficult for foreign carriers to repatriate fund to their home country. Speaking at a press conference at the NANTA House in Lagos, the National President of NAN-

FADAMA: World Bank disburses $39m, commences fifth mission THE World Bank has so far disbursed a sum of $39m on the Third National Fadama Development Project Additional Financing (AF) as part of concerted efforts to support Nigeria’s agriculture and revenue diversification drive of the Federal Government The Bank, in statement by its Task Team Leader, Dr. Adetunji Oredipe, obtained in Abuja on Tuesday, said it will commence its Fadama Implementation Support Mission from the 10th to 27th of June across eight states of the Federation in conjunction with the Federal Ministries of Finance and Agriculture. The Board of the Bank had approved additional IDA credit of USD 200 million on June 28, 2014 to assist the Federal Government of Nigeria to scale up impacts on the ground and strengthen the development effectiveness of

would attract forceful closure. “Defaulting employer would have themselves to blame as the union is

Nigerian Tribune

the Third National Fadama Development Project by aligning it more closely with the Government agricultural programs. The additional financing is supporting clusters of farmers in six selected states with comparative advantage and high potential to increase production and productivity of cassava, rice, and sorghum and horticulture value chains and link them to better organized markets. As at the last mission in January 2016, 930 business plans have been prepared across the states, out of which 424 business plans were approved and disbursed. These business plans covered Five Thousand and EightyEight (5,088) hectares of farms across the four value chains across the core and production cluster States. Also, harvesting of rice cultivated during the rainy

season has been completed in Kano, Lagos, Niger and Enugu States while cassava has been harvested in Kogi State. In addition, the first Micro-Finance Bank established through savings mobilized by Fadama Farmers Community Association (FFCA) in Plateau State has been completed and received provisional and operational license from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for take-off while construction/rehabilitation of the Agricultural Equipment Hiring Enterprises (AEHE) centers were on-going in all the core States except in Lagos and Enugu where lack of counterpart funds have delayed commencement. The overall objective of the mission is to assess implementation progress of the project by reviewing all project components to accelerate disbursements and focus on results monitoring and reporting.

TA, Mr Bankole Bernard appealed to the airlines not to rush in withdrawing their services as it will further deepen the current crisis which will affect over 300, 000 jobs in the up and down stream of the aviation sector. Bernard stated that the development is going to affect every body, both the travel agencies, government and the general public, stressing that if a ticket that supposed to be issued in Nigeria is issued in Ghana, the government will lose money. “The government is equally losing revenue to neighbouring countries as tickets can be purchased from outside the country and once that is done, the taxes on such tickets will not go to the government through the withholding tax which they would have benefited from such transaction,” Bankole said. While calling on the government to resolve the matter quickly, Bankole noted that the aviation industry contributes to the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP. NANTA president observed that if the industry is allowed to go down, it will affect the country as it will lead to more job loss like what is happening in the banking industry. He said that the Federal Government had already instructed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to

come up with a flexible foreign exchange policy that will assist airlines to repatriate their funds. Bankole added that the body has met with the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, NCAA and the permanent secretary Federal Ministry of Transport with a view of resolving the problem of the trapped foreign airlines money. He disclosed further that most European Airlines, like British Airways, Air France KLM, Lufthansa are still selling tickets in naira, though for higher class tickets while few others are still asking for dollars like Delta Airlines and United airlines that had left. Reading out NANTA’s position at the press briefing, the national treasurer, Zackary Abdulllahie also urged the federal government and her aviation agencies like the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, FAAN, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA and the NCAA to collect all aviation taxes, fee in local currency to reduce the naira exposure the government has with the airlines. He also appealed to their foreign trade partners to consider re-introducing other economy classes, even if it is at a higher fare, adding that It will be preferable to Nigerian passengers.

FORMER President Olusegun Obasanjo has urged the federal government to promote consumption of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) otherwise called cooking gas and Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in other to address over reliance on importation of refined petroleum products. Speaking to journalists at his HillTop mansion in Abeokuta on Sunday when the management of NIPCo Plc visited him, Obasanjo stated that 10 years after he introduced the policy that will promote CNG and LPG consumption, Nigeria is still lagging behind in full utilization of LPG and CNG. According to him, “if subsequent government has built on what we started in 2006, we wouldn’t have been where we are today. We would have been self sufficient in fuel consumption and at least half of the vehicles on the Nigerian roads should have been on gas.” CNG is used by vehicles as alternatives to premium motor spirit (PMS) and Automotive Gas Oil (AGO) otherwise called diesel. The Managing Director of NIPCo Plc, Mr. Venkataraman Venkatapathy, argued that the country will be saving $2.5billion from $200million gas consumption equivalent of refined products.

Med-View chief laments scarcity of foreign exchange THE Managing Director of Med-View Airline, Alhaji Bankole Muneer on Sunday decried the difficulty in accessing foreign exchange by indigenous airlines, saying he bought dollar at N370 to bring back into the country the airline’s latest aircraft. The arrival of the aircraft puts the number on its fleet at six while the new aircraft was immediately deployed for its Accra operations on Sunday. While commending the efforts being made by the Minister of State for Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika to address the challenges confronting the local carriers, Bankole urged him to impress it on President Mohammadu Buhari to realize that the local airlines are a driving force for the economy.

editorial

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

The AGF’s 20 wise men

N May 27 this year, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated the National Prosecution Coordination Committee (NPCC) for the effective prosecution of high profile criminal cases. The committee, chaired by Malam Abubakar Malami (SAN), the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, comprises 12 ex-officio members and eight external members with proven integrity and competence. The committee is to help the AGF in achieving efficient, effective and result-oriented prosecution of high profile criminal cases in the country. It is also to guarantee prompt contact and synergy between investigators and prosecutors, manage the information given to the public on such cases, and ensure strict compliance with the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), 2015. In addition, the NPCC is to advise the AGF on the exercise of his prosecutorial powers in Sections 150 and 174 of the 1999 Constitution, prepare the policy strategy document for the coordination of investigation and prosecution of high profile criminal cases in Nigeria, collate the list of such cases, and assign them to prosecution teams. The committee will scrutinize the proof of evidence and charges before arraignment. It will also receive and analyse reports from the investigation and prosecution teams engaged to handle such cases. During the inauguration, Osinbajo reassured Nigerians that the committee was not set up to interfere with the work of the anti-corruption bodies. He stressed that President Muhammadu Buhari had no interest in teleguiding the anticorruption agencies or prosecution authorities in the country. The committee is to work with the A ttorney General of the Federation to ensure that people are treated fairly, and not pursued by reason of bias or any other such consideration. It is expected to “exercise prosecutorial power independently and without any direction except of course from the learned Attorney-General who is the constitutional and prosecutorial authority in the country.” The NPCC would ordinarily appear to be a welcome development given the problems that have dogged the prosecution of corruption and other criminal cases in the courts, especially those involving men and women in high places. Indeed, judges have often complained of poor prosecution of cases. In several instances, corruption cases have been dismissed because of the shoddy job done by the prosecutors. Furthermore, under previous governments, the office of the Attorney General of the Federation interfered with corruption cases in a manner that demonstrated unwillingness to fight corruption. The current committee is therefore expected to assist the Attorney General

in monitoring the anticorruption bodies and other prosecutorial bodies as they carry out their functions to ensure that they operate within the due process of law and without disregarding human rights. The government is apparently of the view that if the committee works well, this would improve on the legitimacy of the prosecution process in order to ensure the buy-in of all Nigerians. That the government is apparently responding to the criticism that its anti-corruption war is biased and targeted at key members of the opposition, especially the high profile cases, seems sufficiently clear. It is also clear that it is responding to the criticism that those arraigned are often treated by the anticorruption bodies as if they are convicts and the media hype they continue to generate often belies the fact that most of the corruption cases are often not concluded, giving the impression that the government is merely making a public show without substance. However, we caution the Buhari administration to be wary of proliferating committees like its predecessors did, with virtually nothing to show for them. In our view, the prosecution of criminal cases requires gathering tight information and intelligence in order to provide a basis for ascertaining and arresting the rot in the country. These activities should not be the responsibility of ad hoc bodies. There are officials in the Attorney General’s office responsible for coordinating and overseeing the prosecution of criminal cases. These officials should simply be made to do their job. Where there are capacity gaps, the government should close those gaps by providing the required training or employing the required personnel. It must also make the resources and equipment needed to facilitated their work available. Prosecuting high profile criminal cases requires a cautious, measured, systematic and sustained approach backed by effective use of executive power as provided by law and with a resolve to punish wrongdoing. Besides, the bad blood likely to be generated between the AGF’s new team and those previously saddled with the tasks that it has been inaugurated to carry out is not good for the polity. What is more, the new committee has been inaugurated at a time of national economic emergency. According to President Buhari, twenty-seven out of the 36 states in the country are technically bankrupt, and even the Federal Government insists that it is cash-strapped. The 20 members of the committee are going to be paid to do a job already provided for in the extant institutions. Surely, available funds ought not to be expended on needless bureaucracy. We therefore urge the administration to, in future, consult widely before setting up new institutions.

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Monday, 13 June, 2016

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Niger Delta Avengers, allow reason to prevail

HATEVER members of the Niger Delta Avengers, and other militant groups in the South South region may be fighting for, the ongoing violence is not the best way of expressing their grievances. Although the Nigerian government may be losing huge revenue due to the attacks on oil pipelines and installations, the biggest loser will be the Niger Delta people, whose environment is being destroyed by the oil spill. I keep wondering what will ever satisfy our people, as it is only the Niger Delta that has a Commission for the development of its region, which is the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC). Also, it is only the Niger Delta youths who are benefiting from a monthly payment through the amnesty programme. During the last two administrations, several of our youths were sent

abroad to train in different skills and vocations, and after the trainings, they were connected with employers. The truth is that the Nigerian government, right from the time of the late Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, to the present administration, has always given the Niger Delta region special recognition. No other region has benefited as much as the Niger Delta region, but it is unfortunate that our people are never satisfied. The Nigerian government is also making money from other sections of the country, but none has really enjoyed as much as the Niger Delta region. I want to admit that the claims of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) that the ongoing attacks on oil installations might lead to the outbreak of war. This is possible because no reasonable government will fold its arms while some group of people keep testing its patience.

It is just so painful that whenever war breaks out, it is the women and children who suffer the most. I, therefore, want to use this opportunity to call on Niger Delta elders, particularly Chief Edwin Clark, to speak to the youth who are waging war against the Nigerian state. It is only a matter of time before the patience of the Nigerian government wanes. Our people have suffered enough through oil pollution, and we don’t want a situation whereby bombs will begin to rain down on their heads due to the activities of a few selfish people. I know that the majority of the Niger Delta people are against these militants, and it is high time prominent people in the region spoke out against them now before the situation degenerates further. However, it is also important that I call on the Nigerian government to diversify the economy. I believe these militants are

acting the way they are because they feel their region is generating the largest percentage of Federal Government’s revenue, but when other regions are also generating more through solid minerals and agricul-

ture, then the militants will know that everyone has an equal contribution to the Nigerian economy. Today, with our creativity, agriculture and mineral resources can displace crude oil as our largest

sources of income. I believe with the political will of the present administration, we can become a multi-economy country. •Nelson Ekwale, Benin, Edo State.

New Oyo education policy: Need to support Gov Ajimobi I want to say that since Governor Abiola Ajimobi assumed the leadership of Oyo State, the state has been experiencing peace. The governor even once said that there can be no development without peace, but the recent misunderstanding between the state chapter of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the government, which resulted in some students going on rampage on June 6, is something that is giving peace-loving people in the state cause for concern. During the rampage, secondary school students

in Ibadan, the state capital, destroyed properties at Oke Ado area belonging to the governor, as well as the All Progressives Congress (APC), and this is definitely not good enough. The genesis of the protest was because the government is planning to return some schools to their original owners, but the NLC is totally against this. Before going against this policy, I think we need to look at some issues on ground; Oyo State has the largest number of public schools in the country, and the financial constraint on government is making it difficult for education to be taken to the high standard it deserves in the state. As a result of this, the government feels that in order to effectively manage the education sector in the state, then some schools should be returned to their original owners. Instead of going against this policy, I think it should be applauded, as the original owners of the school will effectively manage them in partnership with

the state government. One thing that made the South West as great as it is today is because of education. When Chief Obafemi Awolowo was premier of the Western region, he focused on education, and the region is definitely the most educated in the country today. Why have we not had any insurgency in the South West when other regions are boiling? It is because the people are well educated and they know what is right from what is wrong. So I think all stakeholders should support Governor Ajimobi in his quest towards raising the standard of education in the state. The truth is that government alone cannot record success without the input of the private sector, and Governor Ajimobi knows this, and this is why he is coming up with this policy to change the face of education in the state. •Adekunle Adenusi, Jericho, Ibadan.

It’s an overload, indeed! WHEN I first saw the Glo Overload advertisement on CNN, I told my friend that it was not possible because of the prevailing rates by other telecommunication companies. “Let them tell it to the marine,” was my reaction to the claim that N8,000 recharge gets 48GB. However, I decided to try it out, but was pleasantly surprised when I bought the N8,000 recharge card and got the 48GB data. Let me also say that the speed it great, and that is

what necessitated this testimony. I recall that this was how Globacom helped to make telephone available for poor people when it started operations as against the widely-held view that telephone was a status symbol by cellular-wielding privileged Nigerians then. May God continue to bless Dr Mike Adenuga for making life easier for us. •Abubakar Tanimu, Tundun Wada, Kaduna.

opinion

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Lasisi Olagunju Lasgunju@yahoo.com (08111813053)

HERE has never been a pretence in her resolve to rule the world. In 1992 when her husband was seeking election into the White House, the catch phrase was “Vote one, Get two.” And for the eight years Bill Clinton was in the White House with Hillary ever beside him, Americans thought they saw the true meaning of that phrase. Now, with Hillary’s nomination as the Democratic Party candidate, the full import of the couple’s destiny is unfolding. If she wins this election, the couple will go down in history as the first to move into and live in the White House twice. And the credit should go to the woman who never let her eyes move away from the ball. “ I know how to handle misbehaving men,” she recently said, suggesting how she handled the potentially careerwrecking sex scandal that rocked her husband’s presidency and how she would fix Donald Trump in this contest for our Earth’s number one citizen. Now, would she have gone this far, breaking all ceilings- glass and iron- if she had done what many women do when their men are caught with Monica Lewinskys? You cannot be different unless you do things differently, moving away from the rabble. She is “the news” today because she refused to be in the news when others would swiftly disclaim and disown their men. You will always know record breakers by the way they handle common issues their own way. Men are natural with suicidal indiscretions. Women who get blown away by the storm of their partner’s indiscretion find out their error too late. Every day in our customary courts, we listen to tales of couples seeking marriage dissolutions because they could not handle simple problems of marriage or, rather, because the women simply failed to “know how to handle misbehaving men.” And, out of the sphere of marriage to the public space, women throughout history have proven to be better problem solvers. Their self- immolating content-capacities are the reasons cities stand and men rule. In our own chapter of history and myth, you remember Moremi of Ile- Ife and the permanence of her place in history for doing what men could not do to free her people. Coming closer in time, there was Funmilayo Ransome Kuti, whose knowledge of how to handle men summarily, permanently cut off obnoxious tax nooses around feminine necks. Every household and every community has a history of such women. And,

Need a Hillary to handle Nigerian Trumps

of course, now, you would ask what about women who literally set ablaze humanity in fits of rage and greed? I know you would go even into the same history and fish out some notorious ones like Efunsetan Aniwura. I know you would move nearer home and name women in our recent history whose farts in the family soup have put shame itself into shame. You would be right. Scoring a hundred per cent in matters of character is reserved for angels. I have not said women are angels. Indeed, I haven’t heard of one. Even then, in the Efunsetan story, have you bothered to look beyond the fiction into the real story? Was she not a victim of power wielded by men who were ever suspicious of ascendant women? Read her story please and the story of all women divorced by society and thrown out, skirt, blouse, wrapper, all, out of the room of honour by men and the power they wield. You know women could be tender and tough at all times. That is why at old age, fathers value their caring daughters, and mothers feel no pains even when they

have their fingers in the fires of life. You remember Agnes Bojaxhiu whose exemplary tender heartedness and godliness in looking after the sick, the rejected, the orphaned changed her name to Mother Teresa? Black Americans will always remember Rosa Parks whose positive stubbornness and its consequences marked a turning point in civil rights movement in the United States. They will remember that the consequences of Parks’ 1955 refusal to give up her bus seat to a white man have remained a metaphor for what happens when you refuse to do business safely as others do it. They will continue to ask if there would have been a President Barrack Obama with a black First Lady in the White House without a Rosa Parks? Now, with so many powerful people everywhere demanding life-taking sacrifices from the poor, don’t we need a Rosa Parks in Nigeria to tell off such impudent forces holding on to unearned privileges at our collective expense? And, again, can you remember a woman called Marie Curie, first woman to win a Nobel Prize in two arcas? She lived between 1867 and 1934, also an unusual fighter — in the sciences — and the owner of the word “radioactivity.” We need her around now to further suggest (as she did to her age) how to use radiation to cure the cancer eating through the body of Nigeria. Back to Hillary, there are lessons in her life for all women. She is the world’s woman of the moment today because she was patient. She carefully maintained the balance of her apple cart. She knew where she was going and, possibly, was blessed with knowing how to get there. That, probably, explains why she contested a very bitter primary with Obama in 2008, lost and still worked under him. That, again, may be the explanation for her knowing when to quit as the Secretary of State. Some great women in Nigeria lost it simply because they wanted to be around forever, serving in every government. So, we need a Hillary here to tell all our Trumps to stop defecating from the mouth. We need a Hillary to tell off misbehaving Trumps who think we should be saying “thank you” as they rip open the belly of decency and responsibility. A Hillary is needed to defeat men who lie and look away; men who insult our collective intelligence with daily doses of denials of pledges and cancellation of covenants.

Towards resolving the Niger Delta militancy By Divramredje Lawrence Efeturi THE Niger Delta is the host of multinational oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria. It supplies about 90 per cent of the crude oil and gas resources of the country, which form the bulk of Nigeria’s mono-economy. Since Shell struck oil in Oloibiri in 1956, the region has been riddled with caustic degradation, and the people are being confronted by catastrophes in spite of the region’s contributions to the economic viability of Nigeria as a nation. And since the intensification of oil exploration and exploitation in the region, several oil-producing communities have been visited by grave consequences, including the lack of basic social amenities for human survival. Precisely, the oil-producing communities have only known poverty, misery and sorrow. It is so pathetic that despite the natural disasters that plague the Niger Delta, there are also the ecological disasters resulting from the activities of the oil and gas companies, which include earth tremor via seismic activities, dredging and oil spillages emanating from equipment failure, maintenance errors, pipeline corrosion or engineering errors and gas flaring. As a result, we’ve had the pollution of farmlands, fishing streams and ponds. All these pose great health hazards to the people living in the oil-producing communities. More than ever, the oil belt conjures a magnified picture of instability occasioned by poverty, stagnation, unemployment, criminal neglect and environmental degrada-

tion. Therefore, it is imperative to gain this acquaintance that what is happening in the Niger Delta should be perceived as the accumulation of years of frustration. Let us accept the fact that gross negligence breeds frustration, and frustration breeds desperation. The incontrovertible fact is that both the Federal Government and the multinational oil companies were grossly negligent for too long about the welfare of the people and the communities of the oil-producing areas of the region. Curbing youth restiveness, however, is an enormous task that must embrace all stakeholders in the region; without the oil companies meeting with their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and being responsive to to the plight of the people, instead of raising tension in the area and branding youths as been restive, the fundamentals of meeting the demand of curbing youth restiveness in the region will be difficult. The oil and gas companies should see the host companies as partners in progress, while their rights should not be infringed upon. The Federal Government should tackle the problems of deprivation, neglect and poverty in the area with all seriousness in the quest to totally eradicate the perennial case of youth restiveness in the region. The Federal Government, in its furtherance for peace seeking, should urgently re-examine its youth policy and positively implement it. It should also effectively implement all environmental protection laws. In an utmost exhortation, the NNPC/ EPNL (ELF Petroleum Nigeria Limited) Joint Ventures and other oil and gas companies operating in the Niger

Delta region should bring the lessons of global best practices home by engaging in sustainable environmental practices in their operations and activities. By this, our environment would be made pollution-free. The Federal Government must involve the people of the Niger Delta region in decision-making processes so as to avail them wide choices and opportunities of influencing the socio-economic and political agenda of the region. There should be adequate and functional training and orientation programmes for the youth. Also, the Federal Government needs to exhibit the political will to implement policies and programmes that will address the problems of the Niger Delta. In addition, there should be an upgrading and enhancement of the health facilities, education, housing and water supply infrastructure of the region, and also the provision of support infrastructure for water, rail and air transportation of people and goods across the region. Also, the abrogation of all obnoxious laws and the practice of true federalism, resource control and self-determination should be underscored. Then, for the youth, violence, acrimony and confrontation is not the way to solve problems of this magnitude. Youths should be all embracing and seek legal means in articulating their intentions. No doubt, if neglected for too long, one would want to exhibit some level of stubbornness, but be that as it may, we should try as much as possible to follow due process in the pursuit of our fundamental rights. •Efeturi is a public affairs analyst.

politics&policy

FTER a three-week delay, the National Caretaker Committee (NCC) headed by a former Kaduna State governor, Senator Ahmed Makarfi took over the national secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Tuesday to resume work. Since it was established by a resolution of the national convention held in Port Harcourt, May 21, the seven-man committee had been unable to report for duty at the Wadata Plaza, Wuse Zone 5 Abuja edifice which houses the party’s national headquarters because Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, the erstwhile national chairman of the party refused to give up on the post and threatened to storm that party secretariat should it be opened for Makarfi to gain access. The Inspector General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase, sensing the potential for a breakdown of law and order, had deployed a detachment of armed police personnel who sealed off the party office until nine days later, when he was convinced that enough sense had returned to it. Following the prompting of the PDP’s Board of Trustees (BoT), the IGP authorised the unsealing of the office and allowed both the BoT and staff access to resume their work. Renewed optimism Flowing from the office re-opening, the party office exploded back to life last Tuesday with the state governors elected under the party, the BoT members of the formerly aggrieved Concerned PDP Stakeholders and other leading party faithful storming the national secretariat to witness the handing over of its affairs by the former National Working Committee (NWC) to the Makarfiled NCC. Sheriff did not show up, perhaps not unexpectedly. But just as he had done previously at the Port Harcourt national convention, his former deputy, Prince Uche Secondus, stood in for him. The party saw the occasion as a the beginning of a new dawn and speaker after speaker reflected this new optimism for the immediate future of the PDP against the perceived mis-governance of the All Progressive Congress (APC). Its most senior figure in government, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, was sure that PDP would recapture power in 2019 and therefore, it was prepared to endure another torrid three years of the APC administration. While he sympathised with and prayed fervently for President Muhammadu Buhari now abroad for medical treatment, he observed that only the PDP offered genuine hope for Nigerians. His words: “To the people of Nigeria, there is still hope. We sympathize with you, with what you are going through today. But with the PDP, you are seeing today, there is hope for our country. And we believe we can endure the hardship of the three more years coming between now and 2019 because there is light at the end of the tunnel. And when this light will come, it will shine forever in Nigeria. Our promise to the people of Nigeria is that we are going to produce the next president of this country in 2019.” Support for Makarfi The chairman of the PDP Governors Forum and governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Mimiko, in demonstrating governors’ support for Makarfi and rallying the party faithful, explained that the NCC was properly constituted in accordance with the provisions of the party’s constitution. In a veiled reference to Sheriff, he said whoever was thinking of anything else, was only being pretentious. He wanted people who think like Sheriff to abandon their position and team up with the mainstream of the opposition party. He said: “I speak on behalf of the governors, my colleagues, that in one accord we support Senator Markarfi. We support him because his caretaker committee was

Monday,13 June, 2016

PDP: Back from the precipice? Last Tuesday, the former National Working Committee (NWC) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) handed over the leadership of the party to the Ahmed Makarfi-led National Caretaker Committee. LEON USIGBE reports that this may have stirred the party away from the path of selfimmolation.

Makarfi properly constituted in accordance with the constitution of the PDP. Any other body by whatever name or pretension, can only be illegal. I, also with the mandate of the governors, appeal to anybody that feels, in all this resolution process that he has lost out, to come on board so that together, we can build a strong and united PDP. But for now in accordance with our constitution, the caretaker committee is constitutionally constituted body to run the affairs of PDP.” Obviously elated that the lingering crisis in the party seemed to be coming to an end, he profusely praised the BoT and party elders led by a former Minister of Information, Professor Jerry Gana and a former Deputy Senate President, Ibrahim Mantu, for the leadership they demonstrated in resolving the differences in perception which, he observed, showed deep and discernible love for the party. Noting that the PDP was united, he went ahead to paint an even gloomier picture of the nation under Buhari and the APC and stressed the need for a united PDP to recapture power in 2019. Deteriorating state of the nation Mimiko was quick to highlight the fact that things have taken a more dangerous turn since the advent of the Buhari administration with an economy speeding down the abyss and security situation even more tenuous than when the APC took over governance of the country. He stated: “Senator Ekweremadu has talked about the state of our economy. But even beyond that, in all my time in this country as an adoles-

Mimiko

PDP is hoping that it has pulled through its most difficult challenge yet and is now set to dive into preparations for the coming Edo and Ondo gubernatorial elections hoping for less internal distractions as it trudges into the future. cent and as a political active adult, which is a few years now, dying has never been this cheap in this country. Beheading, dying has never come to the forefront of national discuss. It seems that everyday you open the newspaper, you see people dying here, beheaded there and people carting them away to secret graves. “These are the worst of times for this nation. Our economy is bad, yes, but what is more troubling and should be troublesome for every Nigerian is that this is an era I call unbridled centrifugalism. All the centrifugal forces threatening to tear this nation apart

are taking strength. Where they are taking the strength from, I don’t know. But the mismanagement of the affairs of this country is one of the renewed strength of these centrifugal forces. We want to have a nation, we want to have a united Nigeria that is based on justice. We want a government that protects the people of Nigeria. We want a nation where those who have the mandate of the people will stand up for the security of this nation. More worrying for him was that the social activists and the media who provided much criticism when the former ruling party was thought to be going astray had remained mute in the face of grievous mal-governance. “Even the voices of those who have been the alter-ego of those of us who are activists, where are those voices today? Are those voices silent because they agree with the trajectory that the country is taking today? Or because terror and fear have taken over this land. There are questions we must ask ourselves.” Mimiko said. He did not fail to warn that the present administration may have ridden to power on the back of populist agitation but also noted this has been the foundation of dictatorship in each era around the world. “It is not about whether you like PDP or APC. It is about the fact that in an era, every dictatorship has always been preceded by an unbridled populism and thereafter, the true character of that regime creeps to the fore. In the absence of a vibrant civil society, we need a vibrant opposition party. And therein lies the stake of all Nigerians in a vibrant PDP,” he counselled. Formal NWC handover As prescribed by the party’s constitution, Secondus, the former National Chairman performed the role of the former National Chairman in his absence by formally passing the baton of leadership to Makarfi who will now preside over the conduct of a new national convention to elect a new NWC. While handing over, Secondus was keen to stress that the PDP was strong despite the contrary impression of its detractors. “Let me make this note,” he said, adding: “This party is strong, this party is here, this party is capable of resolving its problems. This party is not divided, this party will move forward. This party is ready to capture power in 2019.” Sheriff was said to have flown abroad on the eve of the handover in an obvious attempt to avoid the occasion. From what emanated from his camp after the ceremony, it looks like he is set to continue to press for his case to occupy the party top post even when it is apparent that the PDP wants to move on. His media assistant, Inuwa Bwala, sought to pour cold water on the handover to Makarfi when he described it in a statement issued moments after the ceremony as “a charade.” He maintained that there could no nothing called a PDP national caretaker committee since the matter brought before the court by the Sheriff team was yet to be decided. “For the avoidance of doubts, we state categorically that what took place at the PDP secretariat on Tuesday June 7, 2016 was a total disregard to court orders and an extension of the impunity for which the party has been accused of and which has taken the party to where it is today,” Bwala stated. His position is not likely to move the new leadership of the PDP who wasted no time presenting itself to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) same day and was recognized by the electoral body as the duly constituted leadership of the opposition party. With that, the PDP is hoping that it has pulled through its most difficult challenge yet and is now set to dive into preparations for the coming Edo and Ondo states gubernatorial elections hoping for less internal distractions as it trudges into the future.

Monday, 13 June 2016

money

Godwin Emefiele, CBN governor

Group Business Editor Sulaimon Olanrewaju | 08055001708 | lanresulaimon@yahoo.com | @lanresulaimon

leadership

entrepreneurship

Kemi Adesoun, Minister of Finance

With an estimated 1,500 workers in the banking services sector sent packing in the last two weeks, as banks try to stay afloat, the Federal Government felt it could no longer fold its arms and watch. As a result, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige, stirred up controversy on Nigeria’s liberal labour market status when he warned operators in the banking and telecommunications (telecoms) sectors to desist from ongoing mass sack of staff or risk the withdrawal of their licences. Expectedly, the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC), pledged to align with the Federal Government in ensuring an end to the incessant and abrupt retrenchment. Just in the nick of time, the Bankers Committee, after their Thursday’s meeting in Abuja, noted that the lenders were aware of the implications of sacking workers in view of the current economic situation of Nigeria. The Committee therefore promised to reduce the mass layoff in banks as soon as possible; especially when major fiscal challenges facing the sector have been fixed to a reasonable extent. But, even as the minister insisted that banks and telcos must abide by the provisions of section 20 of the Labour Act, most finance and economic experts are worried that government’s actions may not be the solution to the lingering cri-

sis, adding that the crisis would continue until the real structural issues are fixed. The experts and other industry watchers chiefly cite, among other reasons for the expected purge, the crash in the crude oil price in the international market, which came along with its difficulties for the Nigerian economy, and forced the government to implement some policies considered unfavourable to the banking sector. According to them, there must fiscal and monetary policy agreement, cost of doing business should be favourable, there should be increased local manufacturing and regular power supply among others before any negotiation with employers would be meaningful. “We think that the government’s threat to withdraw the licence of any bank or telecom company that flouts its order not to retrench staff was ill-advised and unnecessary. “In the first place, if the government’s intention is to preserve jobs in the banking and telecoms industries, a re-vocation of an operator’s licence for retrenching some staff will mean that every other staff (including the MD) of the institution would be dismissed by virtue of the closure of the bank or telco. “Secondly, threats of this nature create fears in the mind of investors, particularly foreign investors, as it gives the impression that Nigeria’s labour market is highly regulated,” finance and economic experts led by Mr. Johnson Chukwu,

Managing Director, Cowry Assets Management Limited observed. “We advise the government to focus on addressing the critical economic challenges that have led to a slowdown in the Nigerian economy and loss of revenue by the banks and telcos,” the assets managers submitted. The Monetary Policy Committee of the CBN had, in its November 2015 meeting, noted that close coordination between the monetary and fiscal policy, was necessary for sustainable growth in the banking industry and the economy in general. At the meeting, the Committee considered the present challenges that pervade the macroeconomic space namely the expected rate hike by the USA Federal Reserve Bank, the continuously declining oil prices and the gloomy outlook on global growth. Other structural bottlenecks it identified which are still present today are; weak quality of infrastructure and the current slowdown in economic activities that constitute high risk to real sector lending. These, the committee observed, would require more adjustments by the fiscal authorities to de-risk the sector. It also warned that interest income earned by banks on investment securities and loans are expected to reduce in the first quarter of 2016 as banks adjust to the lower primary auction rates in the bonds market and reduced interbank rates. Section 20 of the Labour Act

analysis

Dr Chris Ngige, Labour Minister

Real issues in check-mating mass sack in banking industry Chima Nwokoji - lagos

Nigerian Tribune

Labour leaders agrees with the minister that banks must abide by the provisions of section 20 of the Labour Act. To them, the recent sack violates extant labour laws and laid down procedures of sacking workers and redundancy. Section 20, subsection (1) of the Labour Act states that in the event of redundancy“(a) the employer shall inform the trade union or workers’ representative concerned of the reasons for and the extent of the anticipated redundancy; in the country.” In most of the banks, unionism is outlawed, meaning that there was no union to be informed ab initio. The General-Secretary of National Union of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions Employees (NUBIFIE), Comrade Mohammed Ishaqu Sheikh, was quoted as having said that it is legally and morally wrong for banks and financial institutions to embark on sacking spree without consulting unions in the industry. He said that his union would partner civil society groups to picket the banks that sacked workers without consulting the union. Also, Section 20, subsection 1(b) of the Labour Act states that the principle of “last in, first out” shall be adopted in the discharge of the particular category of workers affected, subject to all factors of relative merit, including skill, ability and reliability; and “the employer shall use his best endeavours to negotiate redundancy payments

to any discharged workers who are not protected by regulations made under subsection (2) of this section. The Act also states in Section 2 that “the Minister may make regulations providing, generally or in particular cases, for the compulsory payment of redundancy allowances on the termination of a worker’s employment because of his redundancy. Redundancy, as described in the Labour Act, means an involuntary and permanent loss of employment caused by an excess of manpower. Why mass sack may not end soon A senior bank official who prefers not to be named told Nigerian Tribune that the mass sack is a natural reaction to the economic situation of the country. To him, “Government has no right to have issued such a directive that is capable of pitching labour against management of the banks.” He said it is not only in the banking industry that mass sack has taken place of recent. “When other businesses in the economy were shutting down and many of them relocating to Ghana, did the government stop them? Is the government saying that people should continue to retain expense that is injurious to their existence? The banks are not an extension of government MDAs,” he noted. Continues on pg27

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

with Kehinde Akinseyinde-Jayeoba

m: 08057336640 e: kehinde_07@yahoo.com

ETI restates commitment to shareholder value ECOBANK Transnational Incorporated Plc (ETI) has pledged to remain committed to shareholder value creation in order to build a stronger and more profitable financial services institution. Chief Executive Officer of ETI, Ade Ayeyemi while giving out the facts behind the figure of the corporation at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) at the weekend explained that shareholder value creation was a core strategy the bank deplored to drive profit. Giving further insight into the activities of the bank, he added that ETI being a Pan African bank would invest only where there is sustainable competitive advantage, while noting that Ecobank intend to defend the competitive position of being among the top three in 14 markets in Middle Africa. While noting that the bank had come a long way with presence in 36 African countries and listed in three African Stock Exchanges, with total assets at $23.6 billion and revenue of $2.1 billion, Mr Adeola said the bank would not relent but keep expanding especially in Nigeria where it had 40 per cent of its investment.

From left, Haruna Jalo-Waziri, Executive Director, Capital Market, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Oscar Onyema, Chief Executive Officer, NSE; Ade Ayeyemi, Group Chief Executive, Ecobank Transnational Incorporated (ETI) and Laurence do Rego, Group Executive, Commercial Banking, ETI at the ETI Facts Behind the Figures presentation at the NSE

Fortis MFB lists additional 657m ordinary shares Kehinde Akinseindejayeoba - Lagos

ORTIS Micro-finance Bank Plc, has listed additional ordinary shares of 657 million units on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). The shares arose from the conclusion of a special placing exercise following Equator Capital’s investment in the bank. The Special Placement of exactly 656,666,668 Ordinary Shares of 50 Kobo each was pegged at N1.50 per share. Equator Capital partners LLC is a fund management company dedicated

to improving lives in lasting ways by investing in private sector financial enterprises in emerging markets. It manages the ShoreCap family of funds, which specialises in investing in inclusive financial services entities in developing and transitional economies. Chairman of Fortis Micro Finance Bank, Mr Felix Achibiri, during the NSE closing gong ceremony in Lagos, on Wednesday, noted that the investment is a huge vote of confidence in the vision of the bank to be the dominant microfinance bank in Nigeria by reaching out to more under-served communities across the country, espe-

cially on the back of the bank’s recently acquired National Microfinance Bank License. “In the last eight years, Fortis has majorly funded its growth from seed capital, customers’ savings and retained earnings, and in doing so, have built one of the fastest growing microfinance institutions in Nigeria.” He mentioned that the investment is expected to bring a renewed sense of purpose and additional resources to deliver varied products and services to our esteemed customers and improved value to all stakeholders. Achibiri also said the bank

is looking at sourcing for fund through the capital market in the fourth quarter of the year. He added that Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) has granted National Banking Licence to the bank, saying, Fortis recently became second micro-finance bank in Africa and first in West Africa. Speaking also, Managing Director of the bank, Mr Tiko Okoye said that every sector of the economy is faced with harsh operating environment, but the micro-finance banks are at relative advantages over the other financial institution. According to him, “ these

Shell promises shareholders world-class investment FOLLOWING the BG acquisition, Shell Chief Executive Officer, Ben van Beurden, has promised it’s investors a world class returns. In a statement by the Shell Boss, with continued strong focus on returns and growth in free cash flow per share the corporation intends to improve on its cash flow. According to hin Shell’s priorities for cash flow remained reduction of debt,

payment of dividend and having a balance between capital investment and share buy-backs. He explained that the company’s capital investment would be in the range of $25-$30 billion each year to 2020, as it improve capital efficiency and ensure a more predictable development funnel for new projects. It expected investment for 2016 to be $29 billion, excluding the purchase price of BG.

However, in the prevailing low oil price environment, it promised continued drive of capital spending down towards the bottom end of this range, while projecting that in a higher oil price future the company would cap it’s spending at the top end of the range. “Asset sales, as planned, are expected to be $30 billion for 2016-18. We have earmarked up to 10 per cent of Shell’s oil and gas

production, including 5 to 10 country exits, for disposal. We expect to make significant progress on the first $6-8 billion of this programme in 2016,” Van said. He added that as a result of Shell’s portfolio development and investment, “we expect to see an improvement in returns in the next few years, our debt reduced, and significant growth in free cash flow, across a range of oil

prices. For example, organic free cash flow could reach $20-$25 billion and return on capital employed some 10 per cent around the end of the decade, assuming $60 oil prices. This compares to 2013-15 averages of $12 billion and eight per cent with average $90 oil prices.” Van Beurden concluded that the company’s strategy should lead to a simpler company, with fundamentally advantaged positions,

are institutions that deal with people at the base of the pyramid and are not affected by changes at the foreign exchange rate. They are concern with the essential commodity of living, foods. In that sense Microfinance sub-sector is relative more stable than the other sector. Commenting on the Company’s performance for 2016, he said, “We have been growing number with consistency increase in loan portfolio recovery, increase in the balance sheet size, and increase in all operational indices as we look forward to a year of adding values to the shareholders.” For the fist quarter of 2016, Fortis MFB increased Net Assets by 21.9 per cent to N2.8 billion from N2.3 billion. The bank also grew revenue for the period by 17.9 per cent to N667.8 million from N566.4 million posted in 2015. The microfinance bank’s Profit Before Tax for Q1 however fell 55.3 per cent to N102.7 million from N229.9 million, while Profit After Tax dropped 55.3 per cent to N71.9 million from N160.9 million recorded for Q1 2015, driving earnings per share 60 per cent lower to 4 kobo from 10 kobo per share posted in 2015.

Monday, 13 June, 2016

The 60-second

business coach PAGE 20

PAGE 22

Leaders’

forum PAGE 22

Getting ahead of competition By Sulaimon Olanrewaju

OME companies are obsessed by what the competition is doing. They watch their industry rivals’ every move and use same as a guide to their actions and determination of their inactions. Their reason for paying attention to competition is to know what new steps they are taking so as to know how to

go about producing their own or checkmating them. Justifying the need to study the competition, leading personal development expert, Brian Tracy, says this is important in order to know “their strategies and tactics for market penetration and market domination. How do they position their products or services? Continues on pg20

Adewale Tinubu, Group CEO, Oando Plc

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Making competition irrelevant

Quote LEADERSHIP

Apple operates in a crowded industry but it has taken the time to understand the market and the nuances of its customers. That is why every time it releases a product, it breaks its own record. Apple has no need to worry about competition because it has taken the pains to understand its market and customers.

Continues from pg19

Why do people buy from them? How do they service their customers and build relationships both within and outside of their organizations? What is their pricing policy? What new skills or training do they acquire to stay current? What is their approach to quality control?” Other experts believe that studying the competition offers an opportunity to avoid their mistakes because a company that devotes time to studying its competitors is unlikely to repeat the mistakes made by them. Yet some other experts are of the view that gathering intelligence on competition empowers an organization to be a step ahead of other players in the industry and positions it to ‘snatch’ business from them. However, as good as keeping a tab on competition is, it may force a company to play the competition’s card instead of concentrating on growing its own business. For as long as a company allows itself to be guided by goings on in rival companies, it would limit its own growth. Paying unnecessary attention to competition means surrendering to it. Studying the competition could produce two results, neither of which is good. First, it could lead to overrating the competition or underrating it. Overrating competition may lead to being overawed by it to the extent that the urge to take initiative is lost. On the other hand, underrating the competition leads to dismissing the threat which it may pose. So, while it is important to recognize competition, it is vital not to allow it to determine what to do or not to do. Paying unnecessary attention to the competition could be a red herring for the simple reason that the company being studied may deliberately lead the one studying it in the wrong direction just to stay ahead. Watching every step of the competition may be a sign of inadequacy in an organization. A company that is not burdened by a sense of inadequacy will not be unnecessarily bothered about what the competition is doing. Guinness Vs Nigerian Breweries A couple of years ago, Guinness Nig. Limited accused another brewing company, Nigerian Breweries Plc, of destocking it. According to some officials of Guinness, staff of Nigerian Breweries were giving incentives to bar owners across the country not to stock Guinness products.

Chidi Momah, Group General Manager, Company Secretary & Legal Adviser, NNPC To counter this development, Guinness embarked on massive media campaign of its products. While it is good to advertise, Guinness’ action was a reaction to what it thought NB was doing to its products, the step was not necessarily borne out of a need. But the move did not do much in changing the visibility of the products. This was later followed by a campaign embarked upon by a Non-Governmental Organisation, the Consumer Rights Advocacy Network of Nigeria (CRANN), which placed advertisements in national newspapers accusing a major and dominant brewery of engaging in “pirate marketing”. According to the NGO, Nigerian Breweries offered distributors and bar owners incentives to destock Guinness brands and prevent consumers from making a choice. One of the advertisements showed silhouette of two bottles, with various headlines, such as “Wake up Call to Consumers,” “A Call for Fair-Play”, “Unfair land-grabbing in the Alcoholic Beverage Industry”.

It is not enough to do just enough; a company must do more than enough to retain the loyalty of its customers.

Dada Thomas, Founder Chief Executive Officer Frontier Oil Limited The advertisement portrayed Nigerian Breweries as bullying Guinness. In another advertisement, one bottle in the shape and look of the Nigerian Breweries’ Legend Extra Stout was chasing another, which had the form of Guinness Stout. The series of advertisement was estimated to have cost the NGO over N20 million. However, many observers condemned CRANN for its stand, querying why it chose to queue behind an industry player against the other. Some even questioned the source of the fund used for the anti-Nigerian Breweries campaign. The question that has yet to be answered is about the effect of the campaign on the fortune of the two companies. The campaign did not remarkably improve the fortune of Guinness; neither did it negatively impact on the performance of Nigerian Breweries. This points to the fact that it is a disservice to any organization to make studying or focusing on countering the opposition its major concern. Instead of deploying resources to study opposition, companies should do the following: Understand your market and its preference Management guru, Peter Drucker, said businesses exist not essentially to make profit but to create customers. According to him, it is when a company creates customers and is able to sustain the relationship between it and the customers that it can hope to make profit. How do companies create custom-

Dr Ernest Azudialu, Managing Director Chief Executive Officer of Sifax Nigeria Limited ers? To create customers, a company must first understand the market. No company produces to satisfy its fancy; every company produces to satisfy the customer. To effectively satisfy the customer, the company must know what the customer wants. Conducting research to find out what the customer wants and striving to make this available, will put a company a step ahead of competition. This fact is well known by Apple. In an era when many companies are complaining about poor sales, Apple has been breaking sales

THE 60-SECOND business coach By Liz Ryan Managers are better than everyone else This belief says that when a person becomes a supervisor, they are deemed to be just a bit smarter and more capable than the employees they supervise. That’s why they were promoted — because they are a person of a higher caliber than the people on their team. Many of us were trained this way. Without even realizing it, we grew up in the business world believing that managers live on a higher plane than ordinary employees do. That’s false! Managers are just like everybody else. They don’t have all the answers — thank goodness! What fun would it be to work on a team if one person had all the answers? Rules were made for a reason and must be followed at all times Rules are made to prevent bad things from happening. In some cases, the bad things are so dire (involving injury, for example) that the rules must be stated and restated often and adherence to rules becomes a critical part of a person’s job.

Improve your product Every customer that buys a product does so with an expectation. The product is supposed to meet a need or solve a problem. So, to cultivate and retain a customer, a product must go beyond striving to deliver on the expectations of the customer but also go ahead to exceed it. Achieving this is anchored on constant improvement of the product. Instead of wasting resources on studying competition to find out what it is doing or not doing, a company should invest in research with a view to improving on its service delivery. It is not enough to do just enough; a company must do more than enough to retain the loyalty of its customers. The more a company titillates its customers with great products and unique services, the more loyal the customers will become. Oscar Onyema, CEO, Nigerian Stock Exchange The edge of the Virgin Group is its penchant for innovation. Rather than wait for others to ceiling. When it released Apple iPhone 6 and set the trend, the Group, more often than not, Apple iPhone 6 Plus recently, the demand was acts as the pathfinder; it finds newer, better overwhelming as the products hit a record and more cost-effective ways to satisfy its cussales figure of 10,000,000 within three days tomers. That is why its customers are literally and that was when the phones had yet to be eating out of its hands. Richard Branson does open for sale in China and 26 other regions, not waste resources on studying what his including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, rivals are doing or not doing; rather it spends money finding out how it can improve the life Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, of every one of its customers. Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Improve customer service Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. Staff must be trained to make customers

happy at all times. This comes in different ways. The first and most important step is a personal touch with the customer. Leaders must encourage their employees to have a one on one relationship with as many of the customers as possible. Customers do not want to be treated as statistics; each one wants to believe that he is unique to the service provider and important to him. Nothing should be done to deny or deprive him of this feeling. One other important step is after sales service. To ensure that a customer repeats a purchase, it is important to offer him after sales service or after sales calls just to find out about the product. Apart from making the customer feel good, it also serves as a platform for getting feedbacks from him. So, instead of losing sleep trying to find out what rival companies are up to, a more profitable exercise will be to ensure that products and services are not stagnant but keep improving. With that done, it will be virtually impossible to be shoved aside by competition. Get the pricing right One way to get ahead of the competition is to play the pricing card correctly. Companies that produce close substitutes or offer similar services often engage in pricing war. But when a company understands very well the ability and the preference of the segment where it operates, it is able to take pricing policies that will put it ahead of competition. Finally… Competitors will always want a slice of your market. Paying them too much attention is taking your eyes off the ball. Rather than do that, focus on scintillating the customer. Once the customer is wowed, competitors are out.

Five outdated leadership ideas that need to die In most cases, though, the rules were made not to prevent injury or death but to save a person in a bureaucratic job from having to have a conversation. If you read the typical corporate or institutional policy manual, you’ll see that the greatest part of the manual is made up of Dos and Don’ts for activities that have almost no impact at all, like taking a vacation day or getting a new ID badge. The rules only serve to keep people who don’t like to have conversations from having to engage in them. The rules serve another purpose, too. They cement the unequal power relationship between an employee and his or her employer. We don’t need most of the policies and rules we’ve got. They are a time-suck and a terrible message to send to your teammates. A good day in the department is a day when everything runs like clockwork Many of us were taught that a good day for a manager is a calm day when nothing goes wrong. In a nineteenth-century mill or factory, that was probably a good model. Today, avoiding disaster is the booby prize. A good day for a manager nowadays is a day when your team has a huge idea that could

revolutionize the way you work. A good day is a day when your team solves a big problem and their Team Mojo grows. Progress can be messy. Avoiding the mess to keep things looking clean and prim on the outside is a bad thing to do! A great day at work is when you pull a bunch of stuff out of your figurative closet, spread it out and look at it. That’s something to celebrate! Rewards and punishments can make people do almost anything Many managers were taught that people are motivated by rewards and punishments, but that’s ridiculous. Maybe donkeys can be motivated with carrots and sticks, but not the brilliant humans on your team. You don’t have to do a thing to motivate a human being, except create a workplace in which people feel safe bringing themselves to work. You have to take away the stupid rules and constant measurements if you want to see greatness from your team. You have to get rid of all grading systems that give grown adults A, B and C grades like little kids in school. You are the coordinator for your department, like a conductor in an orchestra. Your job is to make beautiful music by pulling all the sections of the orchestra together.

My job is to stimulate production and make sure we hit our goals Your job is not to stimulate production and make sure your team hits its goals. If you focus on the crank side of the job — that is, the part of the job that is concerned with deadlines and milestones — you will miss the most important part of your role. Your real job as a manager is to grow the flame in your department — to grow the trust and team energy that naturally emerges when people are united around a common goal. That is a much higher calling for you than picking apart the numbers in cells on spreadsheets and making them sacred. You will never become a great leader by focusing on particles. You have to pay attention to the waves swelling and crashing around you, instead! When you build the Team Mojo level on your team, you can stand back and watch as your teammates blow your mind. Your production goals will be a non-issue then, because your team will be focused on its own forward energy and you’ll blow past your goals like an afterthought. You can reach this state, but you’ll have to begin that process by looking in the mirror. Today is the perfect day to dive in!

Time is really the only capital that any human being has, and the only thing he can’t afford to lose. — Thomas Edison BOOK

The Art of the Start By Guy Kawasaki A new product, a new service, a new company, a new division, a new organization, a new anything—where there’s a will, here’s the way. It begins with a dream that just won’t quit, the once-in-a-lifetime thunderbolt of pure inspiration, the obsession, the world-beater, the killer app, the next big thing. Everyone who wants to make the world a better place becomes possessed by a grand idea. But what does it take to turn your idea into action? Whether you are an entrepreneur, intrapreneur, or not-for-profit crusader, there’s no shortage of advice available on issues such as writing a business plan, recruiting, raising capital, and branding. In fact, there are so many books, articles, and Web sites that many startups get bogged down to the point of paralysis. Or else they focus on the wrong priorities and go broke before they discover their mistakes. In The Art of the Start, Guy Kawasaki brings two decades of experience as one of business’s most original and irreverent strategists to offer the essential guide for anyone starting anything, from a multinational corporation to a church group. At Apple in the 1980s, he helped lead one of the great companies of the century, turning ordinary consumers into evangelists. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, a venture capital firm, he has field-tested his ideas with dozens of newly hatched companies. And as the author of bestselling business books and articles, he has advised thousands of people who are making their startup dreams real. From raising money to hiring the

right people, from defining your positioning to creating a brand, from creating buzz to buzzing the competition, from managing a board to fostering a community, this book will guide you through an adventure that’s more art than science—the art of the start. In its original form, The Art of the Start was the de-facto standard for learning how to start a company. The new version is 64 percent longer and features Guy’s latest insights and practical advice about social media, crowdfunding, cloud computing, and many other topics. To wit, business plans are no longer necessary; social media has replaced PR and advertising as the key method of promotion; crowd funding is a viable alternative to investors; and the cloud makes basic infrastructure affordable for almost any new venture. Whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, small-business owner, intrapreneur, or notfor-profit leader, there’s an over-abundance of advice. The Art of the Start 2.0 solves that problem by distilling Guy’s decades of experience as one of the most hardworking and irreverent people in business. As Guy likes to say, “Entrepreneur is a state of mind, not a job title.” This book will help you make your crazy ideas stick, through an adventure that’s more art than science–the art of the start.

leadership&management

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

TOPE POPOOLA is a Human Capital developement Consultant and Pastor. Please feel free to send questions, feedback comments on this column to

topheritage@yahoo.com or visit http//turbochargedforsuccess.blogspot.com

Leadership and the sycophancy trap - 2

HOW does a leader identify sycophants? The first sign of the manifestation of sycophancy is a glib tongue that manifests in flattery. I recall an event that happened many years ago in my undergraduate years. In those days, it was not possible to electronically transfer money as it is now. Therefore, I had to travel from Ile-Ife to Akure at the end of every month to collect my monthly allowance from my father. On a particular occasion, I had borrowed some money from a friend to travel to Akure as usual. On getting to my father’s office, I met a man there who had come to see him for a favour. A discussion between me and my father had led to a disagreement between us over a matter that should not have involved this stranger at all. But because he needed a favour from my father, he jumped into the discussion and began to talk glowingly about my father while he made me look like a villain. Every part of me rose in hatred of his presence and he made me say things that I ordinarily would not have said as I left my father’s office that day and did not return for an allowance for the rest of the session just to prove, as I said to my father, that even orphans can have an education. Sycophants spin fibs of a leader’s infallibility; doing all that is needed to make the leader believe that he could never be wrong! Sycophants don’t have meaningful counsel to give. All they do is sheepishly echo a leader’s position even if they do not understand it! Sycophants will laugh at every statement that sounds like a joke from a leader’s mouth even when it is not funny. And they laugh the loudest at the driest of jokes! They will lap up the opinion of a leader even when it is downright ridiculous and totally bereft of common sense. I saw this first hand in the office of a prominent leader I had gone to keep an appointment with. When he heard that I was around, in deference to my person, he stepped into the waiting room where I was waiting with several others who had come to see him. Immediately on sighting him, as if on cue, everyone, including me, stood up in honour of his person and position. After greeting him, I was dumbfounded to discover that I was the only one who dared to sit down! Every other person

kept standing while they sheepishly grinned at everything he said even when there was no reason to! It all looked so strange to me. Later as I left the office after that appointment, it occurred to me that this is the reason why leaders in the Third World have the aura of invincibility around them! One thing sycophants do very well is backbiting. They are eager to regale a leader with the most ludicrous stories about others and their ‘perceived disloyalty’. They will readily point attention to unintended slips or errors on the part of others even when the errors are not so apparent to the leader. They will report speeches, private conversations with others shared with them in confidence, of course with the full complements of their own twisted interpretation, all because they want to position themselves as the leader’s ‘ear to the ground’. Sycophants derive their essence from being in the company of the leader all the time. To ensure that they do this, they simply try to shield others from having access to the leader so that they can dig in their heels deeper into his consciousness. In due course, they begin to define his universe for him and he begins to filter his narratives through them until his world-view begins to find definition in their affirmation. This is the sycophant’s way of shielding the leader from the reality of the world outside of the ring he has drawn around the leader. Unfortunately for the leader that falls prey to sycophancy, he becomes a prisoner of some sort because he now confines his perceptions to the ring that sycophants have drawn around him. In time, he can no longer tell the difference between sycophancy and loyalty. When a leader gets to that point, he is seriously in danger. If care is not taken, he begins to live in suspicion of even people that truly care about him. The more he hears about how some people he hitherto ‘trusted’ have been ‘betraying’ him, the more his self-preservation instinct is aroused. He therefore begins to come up with ‘protective’ strategies that intend to deal with his perceived “enemies”. And guess who suggest the strategies and are saddled with their execution? The cycle of sycophants!

As the Bible says in Proverbs 29:12, when a leader begins to listen to lies, all his officials become wicked!

How does a leader therefore identify people that are truly loyal to him? The scriptures tell us in Proverbs 27 verse 6 that the wounds of a friend are given in good faith but the kisses of a hater are false. More often than not however, most leaders cannot stand the wounds given by a friend, a wound usually ‘inflicted’ by wise counsel. They prefer the kisses of haters because at first, the haters don’t usually appear as haters! People who are truly loyal to a leader love him too much to allow him self-destruct. They will therefore damn consequences in telling him the truth or an alternative opinion even when he does not want to hear it because of his larger-than-life ego, pumped into a fragile balloon by the air of sycophancy. The Bible says further that perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one’s friend springs from his earnest counsel (Proverbs 27:9) If you are a leader of a team, give heed to what happens in your meetings. The sycophants will talk the loudest and most frequently in order to eulogize your position and views even when others are trying to get you to see things from other perspectives. When you are having a meeting with your team and you notice that one member of the team is unusually quiet, pause. There may be unspoken dimensions to the issue under discussion that he is seeing and which it would do you a lot of good to see and consider. More often than not, he may turn out to be the voice of reason that, in the privacy of further interrogation, would tell you things that others were too afraid to tell you. Honesty is the hallmark of true loyalty. Unfortunately, honesty is one thing that strong leaders sometimes find difficult to embrace in their followers. And yet, it is the only thing that can save them from the pitfalls of their own indiscretion....continued Remember, the sky is not the limit, God is!

Before you ask for a hand

ONE and all do communicate, but only a few do connect with their addressees while communicating. The truth is; you cannot become a first-rate public speaker on the condition that you do not know how to connect with your audience. When you do not know how to connect with your listeners, you are actually not speaking to them, you are speaking to a wall that you have built {as an effect of your inability to connect with them} between you and your audience and what you are saying will be bouncing back in your face. Have you ever considered why the blind do follow the blind in leadership? It is because the blind knows how to connect with them, while most of those who are not blind do not know how to connect with those within their sphere of influence. People only follow leaders who know how to connect with them, either those leaders can see or not. This is very deep. I will write some more on this in the days to come. For the umpteenth time, on the condition that you do not know how to connect with your audience, you’d speak but they will not hear let alone understand you. A wall is going to come up between you and your audience. Great and influential leaders do know that if they are going to be effective and useful in leadership, they will need to connect with those they are leading and put them first before every other thing. You cannot truly lead the people, if you do not put them before yourself. The truth is—all African leaders do put their followers last. They do not serve the people. The people serve them. They put the burden they cannot bear on the people. They live large while the people groan. To truly lead the people; you will need to put them before yourself in everything. Their welfare will need to come before yours. It is an error in leadership for you to be comfortable when those

under your leadership are not. Leaders in Africa do boast of billions of naira in their varied bank accounts while most of their followers are living below the poverty line. If you are just taking up a new leadership assignment, you will need to understand this inevitable leadership principle. If you do not know how to practise this principle, I do not need to be a seer to know that you are going to fall flat on your face in leadership. Not long ago, a man took over a leadership position in an organization and instead of employing the leadership principle I am teaching you today, he ignored it and he fell completely flat on his face. He failed woefully, not because he did not know the job, but he failed dolefully because he ignored this decisive leadership principle. Always remember this: when you break a leadership principle, it will come back to haunt you. On the condition that you are going to be leading your followers into new areas of growth and possibilities, you will need to understand this principle too. People will not just follow your new ideas only because it seems so good to you. People will only follow you because you have bonded with them—because you have connected with them. About three years ago, a leader asked for my hand without touching my heart. Many years previously, he had the opportunity of touching my heart, but he refused to do so. I went to him for mentoring and instead of embracing me, he shut his door. Instead of being bitter, I picked myself up and moved on. The rest, as they say, is history today. Buddy, the person whose heart you refuse to touch today, his hand you will not be able to ask for tomorrow. There are people I will go to any length for on earth today, not because they are rich in cash, but because they have touched my heart uniquely. Additionally, if you will not give to your people first, do not expect to receive from them. When you give kindness to them, they will give same back to you. What you will not

give to them, they will not give you back in return. In Africa, most leaders are always expecting from their followers. They always want to reap from where they never bestowed any labour. Remember, your followers will not buy into your vision if you do not first care for them. It is not about your vision, it is about you. If they do not like you, they will certainly not like your vision. To gain the attention of everyone on your team, try and connect with them individually. This is where many leaders shoot themselves in the leg. You are not allowed to relate to your team on the same level, you will need to relate to them on different levels. You will need to know the needs of each of your team member. Remember, their needs are not the same. Do not forget. If you solve problems for them today, they will solve problems with and for you tomorrow. When you care for your followers, they will care for you. People will not care for you just because you are their leader, but they will care for you because you care for them. What you have not done for the people, do not expect them to do for you. Many leaders cannot go the extra mile for their followers, but they do expect their followers to go the extra mile for them. Take for instance, you do not celebrate your followers on their birthdays and wedding anniversary celebrations, but you do expect them to celebrate you on yours. Lastly, there was a politician in this nation—who was very influential. He did not have any formal education, but he knew how to connect with everyone within his loop of influence. As an effect of this rare skill, he became very prominent in the world of politics in his day and time in this nation. To become an effective leader in the pool of politics and in every specialty of life, you will need to know how to adeptly connect with everyone within your orb of influence. See you where great and influential leaders are found!

Monday, 13 June 2016

Nigerian Tribune

NTREPRENEURSHIP

WITH RUTH OLUROUNBI M: 0811 695 4637 E: RUTH.OLUROUNBI@TRIBUNEONLINENG.COM T: @OLUROUNBI

Job creation:

Women entrepreneurs driving job growth By Ruth Olurounbi

Quote We become what we think about —Earl Nightingale

new report has indicated that women entrepreneurs are outperforming their male peers when it comes to hiring. A new research, EY Global Job Creation Survey 2016, released last week to coincide with the EY World Entrepreneur Of The Year™ Forum. The new research, which surveyed 2,673 entrepreneurs globally, revealed that women are leading in the job creation stakes, anticipating an average growth rate of 10.9 per cent in 2017, compared to 8.3 per cent among male entrepreneurs. Furthermore, 43 per cent of women surveyed said they hired more than expected in 2015, compared to 39 per cent of male entrepreneurs, the report showed. According to the research, job cre-

ation levels are even higher among younger women, with female entrepreneurs under the age of 35 expecting an average of 16 per cent increase in workforce size in the year ahead, while 56 per cent recorded better than expected job creation in the past year. The figures for men in the same age bracket are 13 per cent and 56 per cent respectively. The report also indicated that female entrepreneurs are 19 per cent more likely to be running $1 billion companies than men. Although leaders of billion dollar businesses were a relatively small group in the research – accounting for 148 people or six per cent of the survey base, yet, of the companies surveyed, five per cent of male entrepreneurs led $1 billion companies, compared to 6.2 per cent of female entrepreneurs. Continues from last week

Abuja start-ups find launch pad

in shipping containers Don’t

quit

your job just yet PAGE 25 PAGE 24

Affiong William

Monday, 13 June 2016

Nigerian Tribune

NTREPRE

By Ruth Olurounbi

AGOS! That’s the first place that comes to mind when we talk of Nigeria’s tech start-up. It is, after all, where tech action and if we are being honest, any action is. To mention Ibadan, Oyo State, the largest city in West Africa and an approximately 90-minute drive to Lagos would be a long stretch. To mention Abuja, the nation’s capital, is simply ludicrous, especially since, as The Big Cabal co-founder, Femi Bankole puts it on TechCabal’s forum platform, Radar, the FCT “has always been considered the distant, neglected sibling” to Lagos, of course. But Kola Aina, CEO and Founder of the recently launched Ventures Platform (VP) insists that although the Abuja tech scene surely has way to go to get to Lagos levels, “there are positive signs.” Hence: the Ventures Platform. Youth employment is a maddening headache that is never going away, not anytime soon, anyway. Remember when the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its unemployment and underemployment report released on Friday, May 20, 2016 reported that another 1.5 million Nigerians became unemployed in the first quarter of 2016, as Nigeria’s economically active population increased from 105.02 million in Q4 2015 to 106.0 million in Q1 2016? As youth unemployment also rose to 42.24 per cent, 5.2 million youths remain unemployed in the economy, the NBS said. If Nigeria were to remain Africa’s largest economy, it must find a way to make its environment conducive for businesses operating in it and it must be involved in developing and empowering enabling environments for the growth of start-ups, investors as well as analysts have recommended. For existing young entrepreneurs, as the government lags in providing them the needed space to operate optimally, they seek business incubation, a launch pad which provides an enabling environment. This growing need is probably why Lagos is where the action is. But as we learned from Aina, with his new venture, he is providing three things that are profoundly important to start-up founders in Abuja and anywhere else in Nigeria – workspaces, events and incubation, through Ventures Platform, a brainchild of the Emerging Platform Group, a technology solutions company. Housed in stylishly designed shipping containers is Ventures

Kola Aina builds Abuja’s tech start-ups with shipping containers Platform, a world-class fullservice innovation hub, which offers Abuja start-ups a promise of an enabling environment, as well as mentorship from business experts and venture capitalists. The idea simple. It is to ensure that start-ups are driven through the challenges of business sustainability in the first few years through an intensive 16-week hybrid incubation

programme, a residence for need-based cohorts and a paid co-working space for free-lance entrepreneurs and professionals on the go. These are the core of (VP)’s value proposition, Aina disclosed, stressing that the full-service innovation hub will identify, support and fund innovative ideas and enterprises in the e-agriculture, e-health care, Fintech, e-government, ICT and other technology inclined areas,

The shipping containers housing the newly launched Ventures Platform

Founder/CEO, Ventures Platform, Kola Aina (left), explaining a point to the Shittu (right), while the Senior Special Assistant to Acting President Yemi Imokhuede looks on, during the launch of the Ventures Platform in Abuja, bringing innovative ideas from concept to reality. Launched on June 3, 2016, VP’s Aina is hoping that by 2020, his state of the art venture would have incubated 160 start-ups, become one of the top five technology companies generating combined annual revenues of $200 million, improve the tech ecosystem in Abuja and Nigeria at large and leverage more partnerships and collabo-

ration to build the ecosystem. Already, VP has announced that it is accepting applications for its inaugural incubation programme. The programme offers accepted start-ups a unique mix of workspace, business strategy and capacity building, short term residency for accepted fellows and seed funding for innovative ideas. This is because, according to Aina, “we believe this mix of complete

Nigerian Tribune

Monday, 13 June 2016

ENEURSHIP

...Pioneer, entrepreneuriship, SMEs reporting in Nigerian media

From left: Lagos Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Babatunde Durosinmi-Etti; Lagos Deputy Governor, Dr Idiat Oluranti Adebule; Special Adviser on Economic Affairs to the Acting President of Yemi Osinbajo and Chairman, Lagos House Committee on Wealth Creation and Employment, Sola Giwa, at the 1st Stakeholders’summit on unemployment, held at the Airport Hotel, Ikeja.

Minister of Communication, Adebayo Osinbajo on Economic Matters, Afolabi on Friday, June 3, 2016.

support provides early stage start-ups the tools needed to survive, grow and thrive - ultimately. In addition to programs and a rigorous curriculum, we provide seed funding for companies that show promise.” According to him, the application process is such that provides value to all applicants whether or not they are accepted into the incubation program. At each stage successful applicants are shortlisted and contacted to move on to the next stage, while unsuccessful applicants still gain valuable business knowledge. The selection committee has the final say on which cohorts go into the 16-week incubation program, he said. Although the first incubation cycle will take place from August to November 2016 and will take place in Abuja, applications are ongoing for start-ups across Nigeria operating in any sector of the economy and will close by July 1, 2016. The selection committee, which comprise successful entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders, will select the final start-ups based on passion, ingenuity, tenacity, market viability, capacity to execute, among others.

Women entrepreneurs 19% more likely to run $1b+ businesses than men —Report Continues from pg 23 “There are signs that women entrepreneurs are fast becoming leading job creators. This is extremely encouraging as entrepreneurship has long been a route to employment and business success for many women despite the enduring gender gap. “While some challenges remain for female-led businesses, like often not scaling to the same extent as their male-led counterparts, our research shows some tentative and welcome signs that this is changing. Our research shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to run billion dollar businesses and outperform men when it comes to hiring and creating jobs,” Uschi Schreiber, EY Global Vice Chair, Markets, said. The EY Global Job Creation Survey 2016 was conducted online between January and March 2016 with an independent panel of global entrepreneurs in 12 key global markets, including input from 245 of the world’s most dynamic entrepreneurs – EY Entrepreneur Of The Year participants. The results are based on the responses of 2,673 entrepreneurs in Germany, China, India, France, Brazil, Japan, Australia, Canada, the UK, the US, Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA.

chatr m the

Ruth Olurounbi

0811 695 4637 (sms only) e:ruth.olurounbi@tribune.com.ng t:@Olurounbi

Don’t quit your job just yet

STARTING a business is exciting! I would know – I have started several businesses in my short years on earth. There’s nothing as exhilarating and as beautiful as giving life to a new venture. In fact, those who have been at it for longer swear that there’s no better way to be wealthy other than to be an entrepreneur. In fact, you’ve probably been preached to, or told to quit your job to start your own business and you may probably been considering it. And you’re right to. But before you quit your job to become an entrepreneur, here are a few things you should know first. Be familiar with the 5Ws&H rule or if you will, principle Why: ‘Why do I want to start a business?’ ‘Why do I need to start a business?’ Remember, the need to start a business far outweighs the “want” to start a business. Most businesses succeed because they are out to provide specific solutions. This is where you find out what kind of solutions are lacking in your environment and find a way to provide them. And while you’re figuring this out, you’ve got ask another “why?” question – why should they buy your product or service? Who: To whom am I providing these solutions? This is where you outline your potential market. Demographic factors come into play here. Your typical factors include age, gender, marital status, race, education, income and occupation. Another “who?” to consider is the competition – “who are your competition?” What: is the cost of providing these solutions? Your cost includes the investment you put into developing your solution - finance, psychology, emotions, social, etc. What are you willing to give up for your success? Are you ready for

the cost? Again, another “what?” question you may want to answer is “what is my unique selling point?” What differentiates you from your competitors? Where: Where are they? Where your potential customers at? Are they offline or online? If they are online, where specifically are they? When: when do you launch your business? How: do I get my products and service to them? Technology has made life simpler for your consumers, don’t complicate it. As much as you’d love to, you’re not going to know everything Remember how shocked you were to realise that you had to learn on the job, despite the fact that you had a decent education in college? Well, that’s sort of how businesses are. You’re probably not going to know everything at your first start, and you’re probably not going to know everything 10 years down the lane. What’s important is that you know what’s most important to you and to your business, and to learn to be opened to learning. Your environment and your customers Yes, I remember! I said you’re probably not going to know everything at first. But I did say it’s important that you knew what’s important to your business, right? Your business environment, as well as your customers, is important to your success. Take the time to know how your industry operates, what moves and shakes it and how your customers think. If you’re proposing a service, you want to know why they need the service and why they should part with their hard-earned money to buy it.

Be intimate with governing laws You want to be duly and thoroughly informed about your country’s laws – tax laws and all laws that regulate industry you’re about to operate in. You need to understand the regulations you need to follow, the licenses to procure and taxes you will pay for, as you start your new business. It’s quiet tempting to want to skip this part, especially in Nigeria, but it is safer for you to not skip this part. Do some initial research into these and go ahead and consult with a lawyer and an accountant to confirm what you got for research, and to help structure your business in compliance with the law. ‘But why do I need this,’ did you ask? Well, other than the fact that your business is structured in compliance with the law, you want to know that you’re paying the correct tax to the government (multiple or double taxation comes to mind here); you want to make sure you’re charging the correct amount of taxes your business is into – you don’t want to be arrested for defrauding your customers; and three, for your peace of mind. Starting a business is hard enough; you don’t want some technical legality getting in your way later on. You will fail and that’s okay Even with the best business plan in the world, you are still probably going fail. But what’s important is you don’t let the failure crush you. Starting a business is like learning to walk, you take the first few steps and you find yourself smacked down the floor. Like a baby learning to walk, pick yourself up and keep walking until you footings are sure, and measured. All the best to you.

Monday, 13 June, 2016 CBN Bills

CBN Exchange Rates Date

Currency

Buying(NGN) Central(NGN)

Selling(NGN)

6/10/2016

US DOLLAR

196

197

196.5

POUNDS STERLING

283.3184

283.0386

283.7588

SWISS FRANC

203.3617

203.8805

204.3993

YEN

1.835 1.8397

1.8444

CFA

0.3198 0.3298

0.3398

WAUA

276.4347 277.1399

277.8451

YUAN/RENMINBI 29.8548

29.9315

RIYAL

52.2444 52.3777

52.5109

DANISH KRONA

29.7945

29.9465

SDR

276.6344 277.3401

29.8705

30.0081

278.0458

FGN Bonds

Date of Auction Security Type Tenor Maturing On 11/13/2003

5/15/2003 CBN Certificate 91 91 180

2/25/2002 CBN Certificate 170.7672 1.4001 0.3028

11/26/2001 CBN Certificate 171.2862 1.4044 0.3128

2/20/2003 11/21/2002 9/19/2002 Amount Offered (N mn) Subscriptions (N mn) Tot. Successful (N mn) Net Sales (N mn) Range of Bid Rates Successful Bid Rates Marginal Rate True Yield

180 180 82227 82227 37767

240.1376 26.7946 15000 15000 4161

240.8675 26.8765 5000 5000 2740

17019

4161

9/24/2001 CBN Certificate

Date of Auction

5/11/2016

4/13/2016

Security Type

FGN Bonds

Maturing On

5 Year

10 Year

20 Year

5 Year

2/13/2020

1/22/2026

3/18/2036

2/13/2020

Amount Offered (N mn)

Subscriptions (N mn)

35.40

51.71

72.49

58.53

Tot. Successful (N mn)

7.50

20.00

25.00

20.00

Tenor

1155 1155 1155

2740

Net Sales (N mn)

20.5

19.5

Range of Bid Rates

10.9900 - 18.0000

11.0000 - 18.0000

10.0000 - 18.0000

Successful Bid Rates

10.9900 - 13.2490

11.0000 - 13.7430

11.0000 - 13.9000

10.0000 - 12.0000

Marginal Rate

13.249

13.743

13.9

with Chima Nwokoji m:08032637535 e:chimatitus@yahoo.com

Banks reduce lending, place excess cash with CBN to earn interest Stories by Chima Nwokoji

UE to uncertainties in the business and economic environment, fresh facts emerged over the weekend that Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) are not willing to lend to each other and to the real sector of the economy, preferring to place their excess liquidity with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for interest earning purposes. Confirming this development, dealers from Cowry Assets Management Limited revealed that Standing deposit facility (SDF) by the close of business last week increased by 23.64 per cent to N616.13 billion,” suggestive of surplus banks’ unwillingness to lend to one another,” while standing lending facility (SLF) increased by 97.90 per cent to N102.89 billion as borrowers (deficit units) borrowed from the CBN official window. Banks access the SLF to borrow from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) while they access the SDF to place deposit with the CBN. Presently the CBN charges 15 per cent as interest rate on loans to banks through the SLF while it pays 11 per cent as interest on deposit placement through the SDF. The CBN had stopped publishing how much banks are making by lacing their excess liquidity as deposit via its Standing Deposit Facility. However, prior to the stoppage,it was reported in January 2015, that banks earned N27.26 billion as net interest earned from placing their excess liquidity as deposit with the CBN in one year. Investigations revealed that from October 2013 to September 2014, banks placed N81.85 trillion as deposit with the CBN through the SDF and borrowed N5.14 trillion through the

SLF. Further, the CBN paid interest of N32.9 billion on the deposit through the SDF, while it earned interest of N3.68 billion on loans to banks through the SLF. Subsequent CBN’s Economic Report omitted information on how much banks made by placing their money as deposit via the SDF. Rather, the apex bank limited its report to how much it lent to banks via the SLF and how

much banks placed as deposit via the SDF. Meanwhile, Nigeria Interbank Offered Rate (NIBOR) for overnight funds last week, one month, three months and six months increased to 4.33 per cent (from 3.27 per cent), 9.04 per cent (from 9.02 per cent), 11.87 per cent (from 11.41 per cent) and 13.25 per cent (12.79 per cent). Similarly, yields on the Ni-

gerian Interbank True Treasury bills moved in mixed directions as yields on the one month and six months maturities fell to 3.33 per cent (from 4.43 per cent) and 9.08 per cent (from 9.13 per cent) respectively; while yields on the three months and 12 months maturities rose to 7.42 per cent (from 7.06 per cent) and 11.83 per cent (from 11.29 per cent) respectively.

Rates to soften on expected N196.99bn worth T-bills maturity THERE are high expectations that Treasury Bills (T-Bills) worth N196.99 billion will boost financial system liquidity and soften interbank rates on Thursday,16 June,2016. According to dealers, the instruments are 91-day bills worth N35.10 billion and149-day bills worth N161.89 billion. “We expect the inflows to boost financial system liquidity and there by soften interbank rates,” said dealers from Cowry Assets Management Limited. In the same vein,the Debt Management Office is scheduled to auction N105.0 billion worth of bonds at

the monthly bonds primary market auction. The amount on offer according to the debt office is N15 billion of FEB 2020, N40 billion of JAN 2026 and N50billion of MAR 2036 bonds. “We expect these bonds to clear at stop rates of 13.7 per cent, 13.9 per cent and 14.0 per cent respectively. We believe the bonds market performance in the week ahead will be majorly driven by the auction as investors free up liquidity ahead of the auction even as unsuccessful bids are redirected into the secondary market,” the dealers acknowledged. Traders said the central

bank failed to sell treasury bills at its open market operation (OMO) window twice in the week because commercial lenders were asking for higher returns than the bank was willing to offer. The central bank however, sold 206-day bills worth N93.18 billion ($468.24 million) on Monday, and also retired N129.61 billion of matured OMO bills, leaving the system with more cash. “We expect rates to trade lower next week if the promise of the government to release capital project funding next week is anything to go by,” one dealer concluded.

Heritage Bank clinches fastest growing bank award HERITAGE Bank Ltd received the Fastest Growing Bank of the year award 2015 by DOM Communications, publishers of the Nigerian Pilot Newspaper and Nigeria Newsworld Magazine. The prestigious Award was conferred on the financial institution on Tuesday, by the Chairman/Publisher of the Newspaper, Dennis Sami, at the bank’s head office in Lagos. Speaking to finance correspondents on the conferment of the ward, Sami said

Heritage Bank was voted as the fastest growing bank in terms of corporate appearance. He explained that Journalists voted the winner of the award across the country, as the bank was chosen for the pace with which it has expanded footprint across the country and its services to customers. Sami, however, said that the leadership forum for the award of Nigerian Pilot newspaper have been in existence for the past eight

years, rewarding excellence. The award was received on behalf of the Managing Director of Heritage Bank, Ifie Sekibo by the Executive Director, Service Banks, Niyi Adeseun and the team from the Corporate Communications Department of the bank. Adeseun on receiving the Award, said the bank was delighted for being considered as one of the fastest growing bank, which had distinguished itself on the retail space as a bank.

Nigerian Tribune

Money Market Review THE financial system liquidity opened last week Tuesday higher at N463.2 billion relative to N277.4 billion closing balance in the previous week. Thus, dealers at Afrinvest (West) Africa limited said money market rates, Open buy Back (OBB) and Overnight (OVN) settled at 3.1 per cent and 3.4 per cent respectively prompting an OMO auction of N50.0 billion by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). Consequently, system liquidity moderated to N412.5 billion on Wednesday but did not materially impact on rates as the OBB rates dropped to 2.8 per cent while O/N steadied at 3.4 per cent. On Thursday, system liquidity received a boost as it further inched higher to N439.4 billion while OBB and OVN rates moderated to 2.7 per cent and 3.3 per cent in that order. As at Friday, OBB and OVN rates closed 2.0 per cent and 2.3 per cent lower week on week (W-o-W) to settle at 2.8 per cent and 3.2 per cent as the system liquidity had improved 51.4 per cent to close the week at N408.3 billion. At the Treasury Bills market, investors continue to show interest in the short dated treasury bills (T-bills) instruments as against the 364-Day instruments that traded at yields in excess of 11.0 per cent throughout the week. Average T-bills yield opened higher on Tuesday at 10.1per cent in response to system liquidity dynamics but moderated at 9.3 per cent on Wednesday and Thursday. Dealers said the CBN on Wednesday conducted a total of N143.9 billion treasury bills auction for the 91-Day, 182-Day and 364-Day instruments at respective marginal rates of 8.0 per cent, 9.1 per cent and 11.1 per cent with the three instruments more than 100.0 per cent oversubscribed. Amidst the weighty macroeconomic risk factors in the system, dealers at Afrinvest said they expect investors to remain cautiously in favour of shorter term instruments; hence, “we expect the T-bills market to trade bullish in the week,” they stated. Foreign Exchange market According to dealers, financial system liquidity opened last week at N258.6 billion, down from last Friday’s opening levels of N306.5 billion. The Apex Bank auctioned OMO bills worth N93.2 billion during Monday’s trading session. Consequently, Open buy back (OBB) rose 1.1 per cent to 3.1 per cent whilst Over Night (O/N) rose 1.3 per cent to 3.6 per cent from Friday’s closing rates. Liquidity levels inched lower to N160.4 billion on Tuesday as the debit for the successful OMO bids hit the system whilst OBB and ON rates increased to 4.4 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively in tandem to liquidity dynamics. By midweek OBB and ON rates settled at 4.8 per cent and 5.3 per cent respectively as system liquidity rose to N898.7 billion as a result of the refunds to deposit money banks for unfulfilled bids at penultimate week’s foreign exchange (FX) auction and an OMO maturity, eventually closing at 4.2 per cent and 4.7 per cent respectively on Friday, up 1.4 per cent and 1.5 per cent W-o-W. In the Treasury Bills market, rates movements were largely influenced by OMO mop-ups and maturity during the week. Average rate closed the first trading session of the week at 8.0 per cent as the central bank mopped up N93.2 billion from the system and inched even higher to 8.5 per cent on Tuesday. However, average T-bills rates dropped to 8.4 per cent by midweek as N129.6 billion OMO maturity hit the system. Average T-bills rate closed the week at 8.4 per cent, up 0.2 per cent W-o-W. Bond Market Bearish sentiments dominated the Bonds market last week as average yield across benchmark bonds rose on most trading days of the week. Average yield across benchmark bonds closed the first trading day of the week at 13.7 per cent, up 1.2 per cent from Friday as sell sentiment lingered. The selloffs continued on Tuesday as yield rose 0.2 per cent to close at 13.9 per cent. The sell offs continued towards the end of the week with increased activity observed on the FGN MAR2024, FGN JUL2034 and FGN MAR2036 bonds. Average yield settled at 14.0 per cent by the end of Thursday’s trading session, eventually ending the week at 14.0 per cent, up 1.5 per cent W-o-W.

Monday, 13 June, 2016 27 FCMB targets 600,000 customers, berths in Gbagada Lagos Stories by Chima Nwokoji FOR customers and members of the general public who reside in the Gbagada area of Lagos State, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) has announced the opening of a branch for business in the area with effect from Monday, June 13, 2016. Located Diya Street, Ifako Gbagada Street, Lagos, the Bank said it is in line with its expansion plan to extend reach and make its operation accessible to its customers and members of the general public. “The location of the branch takes into consideration convenience for FCMB customers and other people living in Gbagada, Shomolu, Anthony, Ogudu, Oworoshoki, Bariga, Akoka and the environs”, a release made available to the media in Lagos, confirmed. This is even as the bank said it plans to grow this year substantially in retail banking by adding over 600,000 customers to the existing 3.2 million at the start of the year. Retail banking revenues and profitability are also expected to grow strongly in spite of the challenging economic environment. Smart branching and technology will play an equally important role in attaining this objective. The Group Chief Executive/CEO, Mr Ladi Balogun said, “With a robust product suite for businesses and individuals and our award winning service culture, we are intent on leveraging these capabilities by investing extensively in channels to reach more customers. Today, our customers are embracing alternative channels such as mobile at an impressive rate, whilst many still need the reassurance of an experienced banker and the infrastruc-

ture a branch offers. The Gbagada branch gives this reassurance. It will not only serve the immediate

community but also serve as a hub for the deployment of alternate channels such as agent location,

ATMs POS and mobile banking across a wider radius.” Responding to questions on the opening of the new FCMB branch,

Nigerian Tribune

the Vice President, Branch Management and Trade Services at First City Monument Bank (FCMB), Mr. Oluwakayode Adigun said.

Trader, retiree become millionaires in Sterling-Plus Cash promo

Ladi Balogun, Group Managing Director, FCMB

Yemi Adeola, Sterling Bank MD

A spare parts dealer in the Sabongari area of Kano Mr. Augustine Chijioke, and Mr Joseph Otorkpa, a retired Chief Accountant at the Supreme Court Abuja have emerged millionaires in the ongoing New Sterling-Plus Cash Reward Scheme Season 2. The duo were not the only ones smiling to the Bank this season as Rev. George Bako and Mr Yakubu Bashir were also N500,000 richer. They were selected via an electronic raffle draw held at Sterling Bank’s Corporate Head Office in Lagos and attended by representatives from

Card expo: Skye Bank to showcase latest e-products Skye Bank Plc will delight delegates, exhibitors and members of the public with its vast array of retail and e-payment products at the ‘Card Expo Africa 2016’ being organized by Intermac Consulting Limited in Lagos. Skye Bank which is one of the leading exhibitors at the exhibition which starts on Tuesday in Lagos, will showcase its retail and e-commerce products such as Skye Mobile, internet banking and card products. According to a release issued by the bank, about 3000 delegates and 70 international exhibitors will attend the annual exhibition

which has as its theme; ‘Retail payment and E-Commerce’. Card Expo Africa 2016 will focus greatly on the future of retail payment and e-commerce and how innovation will drive the process. The conference and exhibition will focus on new users as well the service delivery strategy that will deliver the future of retail payments and ecommerce. The statement further said at the conference and exhibition, top retail payment and e-commerce experts will provide strategies on how to position and enhance your business to guarantee

operators top spot in the ever changing retail and e-commerce industry. Besides, it explained that merchants, financial institutions and solution providers would get first- hand information from on new trends in e-commerce, as well as enable companies to present their innovations and meet their competitors and partners. Recently, Skye Bank and Chams Mobile won the ‘Best Mobile money/Card combination in Nigeria’ award for their joint development and activation of the Kegow Visa virtual card.

the National Lottery Commission (NLRC) and the Consumer Protection Council (CPC). According to the Bank, 30 customers of the Bank had won N100,000 each while 289 others had been rewarded with the sum of N50,000 each for their participation in the promo to date. In the first season of the promo, the Bank paid out a total of over N40 million. Five customers of the Bank won One Million Naira each, six won N500,000 each, 70 others became N100,000 richer, while 579 customers went home with the sum of N50,000 each. Mr Augustine Chijioke who could not hide his excitement at the presentation of the prize money commended the Bank for fulfilling its promise of rewarding customer loyalty, adding that “this will remain memorable to me as long as l live as this will be a great support to my business.” “One can best imagine what is happening to me because this can only be God. I found it very difficult to believe the news when l got a call from Sterling Bank that l had won a million naira. In fact, l could not rejoice, I was just calm. I was still in doubt until this was reconfirmed to me when l got to my branch. l thank Sterling Bank for this gesture and assure that l will remain a good ambassador of the brand”.

Check-mating mass sack in banking industry Continued from pg17

The Manufacturing and Non -Manufacturing Purchasing Manager’s Index (PMI) data for May were disappointing, as it indicated activities contracted across both sectors albeit at slower pace. At the 2015 National Delegate Conference of the Senior Staff Association of Nigeria Universities (SSANU), its National President Comrade Samson Ugwoke had warned that many industries had started laying off workers which would have adverse effects on the country. “Industries will sack their workers sooner or later because there is no power; the power level is still low. An economy that is generator-based cannot guarantee companies to produce at 100 percent, and it is the workers who are suffering. “So if a businessman cannot make profit, he will reduce workers and these people would become unemployed, increasing the poverty level in the country. So government must look at the economy; we must go agro-based. We are blessed with arable land, including six to 10 months rain,” he said. Another major challenge which seems to have become synonymous with every government in power is the inability to provide electricity. The real issues were

identified in a 2015 report by the Good Governance Initiative (GGi), a non-governmental organization advocating uninterrupted power supply in the country. The report stated that Nigerians spend N3.5trillion on fueling their generators annually. In the banking sector, it observed that “each branch spends over N4million on diesel in a month, while an average family man spends between N60,000 and N100, 000 in a month on fuel, apart from the maintenance.” At the time, it was estimated that there were over 6,133 bank branches and each expending N4million on diesel a month, amounting to approximately N25billion. “This will amount to N294.4billon per annum across all the branches. This means that not less than N1.5trillion must have gone into diesel purchase in the past five years. This is outside the amount spent on powering ATM points located outside banking premises and maintaining the generators, among other critical banking infrastructure,” the report revealed. Analysts are worried that a situation where a bank branch expends N4million on diesel alone in a month, it would be difficult to cover costs especially where five banks’ profit after tax in 2015 amounted to only N59.73billion.

Available records show that Ecobank International Incorporated, Union Bank Plc, First City Monument Bank Limited, Wema Bank Plc and Fidelity Bank Plc posted huge fall in profit after tax in 2015. The 2015 financial results of the banks released in March this year showed that the combined profit after tax of the five banks fell from N107.279billion in 2014 to N59. 73billion in 2015, indicating a decline of 79.59 per cent. The N53.54billion fall in profit was attributed by many of the banks’ chief executive officers to high impairment charges on bad loans, foreign exchange volatility and other challenges facing the economy following the significant drop in the nation’s oil revenue due to the sharp fall in oil prices. The solution according to stakeholders lies in partnership between the government and the private sector to create jobs for the teeming population of unemployed Nigeria. This stems from their concern that Nigeria had unemployment challenges when the economy was in a much better shape, and now that the country is facing even more challenging times, there is every likelihood that unemployment figures will continue to grow. A former head of the Federal Inland Revenue Services Mrs. Omoi-

gui Okauru, who is also a former chairperson of the Board of Trustees, Lagos State Employment Trust Fund (LSETF), said the private sector should latch itself to “well-intentioned initiatives” by governments to reduce unemployment. “By partnering with government to create jobs, the private companies not only show themselves as responsive corporate citizens, but such actions also improve the demand for their products and services, as Nigerians are lifted out of poverty and increase their disposable income,” she said. Others want the Federal Government to pay Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) and other service providers the money due to them for services rendered under the Treasury Single Account(TSA), rather than threatening to withdraw their operating licence for breach of its directive to stop mass sack of workers. They said payment for such services will make good sums of money available to the banks to continue rendering profitable services which will in turn enable them retain some key staff, as opposed to a situation where public sector funds have been mopped up, while their service charges are being withheld. Olabode Adeyemi, Executive Director Africa Media Initiative, said the mop up of cash through

Treasury Single Account (TSA) has affected the viability of Nigerian banks. TSA according to him, is like an unfinished business because the Federal Government has not reciprocated the effort of service providers by releasing the accrued funds agreed upon at the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). His words: “For me, good as it is that the deposit money banks are collecting, that Systemspecs Limited has allowed its Remita platform to render this useful service, it is proper for government to respect the agreement and effect immediate release of what is due to them. By the time it does this, we will conclude and agree that TSA platform has come to stay and will continue to work uninterruptedly.” Adeyemi and other stakeholders wonder why the Federal Government will be holding back a huge chunk of money that could help the business of banks and still ask them not to find a way to cut cost. “Of course as organizations that are in business to make profit, they must downsize. Instead of threatening banks that they must not downsize, I will encourage Mr. President to make a presidential declaration for immediate release of what is due to them and open the door for further negotiations,” Adeyemi pleaded.

28 BRANDS & MARK

TING

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

NTA to broadcast Euro 2016 live free to air

The Regional Retail Head, Lagos & South-west of First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited, Funmilola Paseda; Chief Executive Officer of Laterna Ventures Limited, Pastor Remi Morgan; his wife, Pastor (Mrs) Yinka Morgan; the Zonal Head, Victoria Island of FCMB, Mrs Omowunmi Kalejaiye and the Head, Consumer Liability Products of the bank, Mr Shamsideen Fashola,during the Exclusively Children Exhibition organised as part of activities to celebrate Children’s Day, in Lagos, recently.

Milky war, as Peak, Hollandia fight over copy-cat creativity Stories By Akin Adewakun - Lagos

HE nation’s hitherto sleepy integrated marketing communications industry recently came to life, albeit for the wrong reasons, recently, as two creative campaigns, Peak’s Wazobia or Sikini money and Hollandia Evap’s Na Correct Wazo, again brought to the fore the issue of copy-cat creatives in the industry. Brand handlers of Peak Milk, one of the brands from the stable of Friesland Campina Wamco, had rolled out a television campaign Wazobia or Sikini money TVC, designed to inform consumers in that market segment of the product’s availability in N50 sachet, popularly known as Wazo in the local parlance. Interestingly, as a way of pushing its smaller sachets into the market too, the Hollandia Evap, one of the brands in the stable of Chi Limited, also launched its own campaign tagged Na Correct Wazo, a television commercial designed to intimate its consumers too on the brand’s decision to democratise milk intake in the country by making it available, irrespective of the consumer’s social or economic status. But since the advent of the two campaigns, which many believe have gone a long way in portraying the different brands as responding to the needs of consumers in that market segment, especially at these hard economic times, industry watchers have been expressing their reservations about the originality or otherwise of the two campaigns. For instance, since it broke few weeks ago, some analysts have described the Hollandia Evap: Na Correct Wazo campaign, as a poor cloning of the Peak Milk’s Wazobia or Sikini Money tele-

vision commercial, which had earlier been running on the nation’s airwaves. They believe the current marketing warfare in the Nigerian dairy sector has again brought out more poignantly the marketing aberration called copy-cat creativity in contemporary advertising. In a review of the two campaigns, Adeola Peters, a brand analyst, believes that the adoption of the Wazo concept

by Hollandia Milk to market its smaller sachets has only succeeded in reinforcing whatever imagery the Peak Milk’s ‘Wazobia’, ‘Sikini Money’ creative concept must have created in the minds of the audience. “Nothing in that commercial indicates that it is being running by a competition. I think Hollandia should have simply stay clear of the word Wazo.

NBC supports over 8,000 students with Back to School Items OVER 8,000 students in the nation’s public primary schools had, in the past five years, benefitted from the Back To School items initiative of the Nigerian Bottling Company. Disclosing this, over the weekend, during a media tour of the company’s facilities in Ikeja, Lagos, the Director, Legal, Public Affairs and Communications, Mrs Sade Morgan, explained that the initiative, which comes under its Youth Development Scheme, represents one of the numerous ways of partnering with its business environments on shared values. She stated that besides the Youth Development programme, the company, under its Water Stewardship Scheme, had been able to achieve a 54 per cent reduction in process water usage between 2004 and 2015, while it had provided water to over 8,000 households in 14 communities. Morgan added that in demonstration of its corporate citizenship, the company had paid the sum of N40.3 billion as taxes to different tiers of government between 2008 and 2015, while stressing the company’s commitment to continue to invest in the nation’s business environments in spite of the present economic challenges. While reiterating the company’s commitment to the local content mantra of the Federal Government, Mrs Morgan disclosed that most of the company’s products

are produced locally, adding that out of the company’s 950 suppliers, 90 per cent are from the local Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs). Besides, she explained, the company had also business training skills for over 25,000 women entrepreneurs in its value chain as

regional customer forum, an interactive gathering that enables the brand have direct engagement with its customers, exchange ideas, discuss areas of improvement as well as provide feedback on the company’s services. He described the forum as a feedback platform that enables the company to continuously improve its operations and develop more innovative products and ser-

a way of further enhancing the economy. She stated that the purpose of the factory tour was to give the media a first-hand information on the production processes of the company’s offerings and avail the media of the new level the company is taking soft drinks production.

Why big advertisers don’t come to Nigeria —Kankarofi THE Registrar and Chief Executive Officer, Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Alhaji Bello Kankarofi has attributed The near-absence of big advertisers in the nation’s advertising space has been attributed to lack of verifiable data and reliable audience measurement with which such brands can work with. The Registrar and Chief Executive Officer of Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON), Alhaji Bello Kankarofi made this observation in Lagos, recently, at a media briefing organised by APCON and BSP Media International, a London-based consulting firm on the forthcoming International Summit on Advertising in Nigeria. Alhaji Kankarofi argued that paucity of audience measurement in the industry

Etisalat reiterates commitment to QCE TELECOMS service provider, Etisalat Nigeria, has reiterated its unwavering commitment to delivering quality customer experience (QCE), while also developing innovative products and services for its teeming customers. The company’s Director, Brands and Experience, Etisalat Nigeria, Elvis Ogiemwanye, gave the assurance, recently, at the Abuja leg of its

AFRICA’S largest network television, Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) has announced its readiness to broadcast the Euro 2016 games on free to air in a bid to excite Nigerian football lovers with best in class sporting action and entertainment. Football enthusiasts will enjoy 12 select live matches and 23 catch-up highlights from the competition including games from the group stages, knock out stages and finals on free to air on NTA Sports and other NTA channels as the tournament runs from June 10 to July 10 in France. According to the Managing Director of NTA TVE, Mr Maxwell Loco, the station is fully ready to beam the top matches on its two popular channels, including NTA Sports and NTA News 24. “We are very delighted to bring smiles to the faces of enthusiastic and energetic football loving Nigerians that are looking forward to the games. “We are aware of the enthusiasm and excitements that Nigerians derive from football and are glad to key into this world class sporting mundial to connect Nigerians with their passion and delight,” the NTA boss stated

vices. Also speaking at the event, the Director, Customer Service, Etisalat Nigeria, Plato Syrimis, said the revamped easy-to-use, self-help mobile application, EasyMobile App is one of the most recent innovative solutions that the company introduced as a result of feedback from Etisalat customers.

had kept away such big ad spenders such as Nike, from committing some of those spends in the nation’s advertising space, since there is no way they would be able to measure the impact of such investments on the brands. He lamented that despite the fact that the world is going digital, with the nation’s advertising space also imbibing that digital culture, lack of cash had hindered APCON from investing in digital technology that would make it perform its statutory duties effectively. “As a regulatory body, we have been finding it very difficult to effectively perform our duties because we are not digitised yet. Unfortunately for us, the whole space is going digital. “For instance, up till now, we still find it very difficult to regulate internet advertising, despite the fact that there are huge volume advertisements being posted on the web,’ he stated. He explained that the forthcoming Summit, scheduled for July 7 and 8, this year would showcase the advances and emerging trends in marketing communications practices and standards, explore the relationship between current and future media platforms, as well as examine new business models.

tribunebusiness

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

Tax relief for pioneer companies

HE Nigerian Government has over the years put in place many different and overlapping incentive schemes to attract both local and foreign investment. Tax exemption is generally regarded as an industrial investment device; many developing countries like Nigeria offer it as one of their major incentives. Basically, tax incentives are designed to encourage investments in certain preferred sectors of the economy and sometimes geared towards attracting inflow of foreign exchange to complement domestic supplies for rapid economic development. Tax exemption otherwise known as tax holiday is one of the most widespread tax incentives. Tax exemption simply means a period of exemption from payment of taxes imposed by the government and this may be complete or partial. The granting of pioneer status, for instance, gives a company a preferred position in getting established, usually through exemption of income tax payment. A pioneer company is a company that engaged in manufacturing, processing, mining, servicing and agricultural industries whose products have been declared pioneer products on satisfying certain condition as determined by the Industrial Development Coordinating Committee (IDCC) of the Government under the Industrial Development (Income Tax Relief) Act Cap 179 LFN 1990. The pioneer tax holiday is for an initial period of three years or subject to further extension of two years or five years (once and for all without further extension). Enabling Act Act Chapter 179 laws of the federation of Nigeria (LFN) 1990 but first enacted by Decree No22 of 1971 and commenced on 1/4/1970. Commencement Date 1st April, 1970 “An Act to repeal and re-enact, with major changes, the industries Development (Income Tax Relief) Act and to make provision for tax relief for certain industries that may be issued with pioneer certificates by the minister and other matters ancilatory there to”. Conditions: •Industry is not being carried out on a suitable scale as required and there are prospects for further development in the industry or its product. •If it is in the public interest to encourage the industry or its product. •Application may be made for the inclusion of a product on the pioneer list Mode of Application •All application to be addressed to the Minister.

All capital expenditures incurred and used by a pioneer company shall be deemed have been incurred on that day next following the end of its tax relief period. Where it incurs a Net loss, that loss shall be deemed to have been incurred on the date on which its new trade commences i.e. it will be allowed to deduct all the losses brought forward from the pioneer period The company must submit to the FIRS a list of its assets for certification. At the end; the FIRS will issue a certificate of qualifying expenditure. The Board is expected to issue the company for each year, the amount of income as ascertained and loss as arrived at (if applicable). Treatment of Capital Allowances and Losses A capital expenditure incurred shall be deemed to have been incurred on that day next following the end of the pioneer period. I.e. regardless of the number of years granted a pioneer company, all capital expenditures incurred in line with the provision of the second schedule within the periods shall be deemed to have been incurred after the Tax relief period. •For losses incurred within the pioneer period, the cumulative amount will be deemed for computing total profits to have been incurred on the day, next following the pioneer period i.e. it will be allowed as a deduction in the new business.

Tunde Fowler, Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service •State the status of the company. •Give details of qualifying capital expenditure to be incurred. •Give sources of qualifying capital expenditure and estimated cost. •Specify location of Assets. •Date of production of pioneer products. •Any by product not being a pioneer product. TERMS OF PIONEER CERTIFICATE •Must be in terms of the application to which it relates. •Specify permissible byproducts to be produced. • Specify period within which company must be incorporated and conditions to be endorsed •Pioneer status will only be issued from a date when company was incorporated and shall be effective from a date not earlier than the date on which the application was submitted to the minister or date of incorporation, which ever is the later. •Any other condition will be specified by the minister •The minimum Tax relief period not exceeding five years to

be stated 3(6)(a-b) Amending of Pioneer Certificate to Add New Product Section 4 (1) – (3) allowed a company during its pioneer period to make application in writing to the Minister to add a new product. RETROSPECTIVE PIONEER OPERATION •Where a pioneer certificate is to be operative from a retrospective date, all acts shall be treated as not having been closed or not having happened and all taxes paid (if any shall be repaid as soon as may after the expiration of three months from the production day. PRODUCTION DATE •No later than one month when the company is going into commercial production (marketable quantity), the company shall apply in writing for the certification of its production date. •Not later than one month after the production date or any extended period granted by the FIRS, the company shall make application in writing to the FIRS for the certification of the amount incurred as qualifying

capital expenditure prior to the production date. Cancellation of Pioneer Certificate i) A Company may apply for cancellation ii) If a company contravened any provision of the Act or failed to meet conditions set. Tax Relief Period i) Commencing from the production date, it shall continue for three years (but can be extended):ii) for another one period of two years (if the standard and rate of expansion are satisfactory), local raw material utilization expansion, training and development of Nigerians, Government Policy Priority) iii) Five years (once and for all). TRANSITION FROM PIONEER STATUS Conditions of Old Trade or Business of a Pioneer Company The old trade shall be deemed to ceased permanently at the end of the tax relief period. The pioneer company deemed to have set up a new trade on the day next following the end of its relief period.

DOCUMENTATION REQUIRED BY FIRS Memorandum and Articles of Association Certificate of Incorporation Answer to standard questionnaire Pioneer Certificate issued The period approved Production date Products and by-products For a going concern, the Audited accounts ended before the production date to be furnished (regardless of the number of months). Rendition of Returns The conditions governing the submission of tax returns in CITA are applicable to a pioneer company. One year from commencement of production date. Period of one year successively. Last year of the relief period. Example: Kano Money Lender Ltd was granted a pioneer status commencing from 1st July, 1999. The company has 31/12 as its accounting date. The period granted was for five years. At the expiration of the pioneer period, it submitted accounts for the years ended 31st December, 2004 and 2005 you are given these additional data.

news

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

MKO Abiola’s family demands presidential entitlements

Abiola’s younger brother berates Ogun for not declaring June 13 work-free day •We’ve not flouted any law —Ogun govt OlayinkaOlukoya–Abeokuta with Agency Reports

HE family of the late Chief MKO Abiola, the presumed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, has called on the Federal Government to declare Abiola the winner and pay presidential entitlements to his family. The request was made on Sunday by the head of the family, Alhaji Muritala Abiola, at the commemoration of the June 12, 1993 election. The event, which was organised by the state government, started with a

Democracy Walk from the June 12 Cultural Centre, Kuto, Abeokuta, to the Oke Ido ancestral home of the Abiolas. Muritala, who is the younger brother of the late business mogul, said MKO deserved the entitlement for dying for the enthronement of democracy in the country. “First, we want the Federal Government to declare June 12 as Democracy Day. It should do even more than that. “Ken Saro Wiwa died fighting over Ogoni oil spillage. The Federal Government is today doing the cleaning up of the oil spillage in Ogoni land.

“MKO was killed because of an election he won. “He is not acclaimed winner, they should confirm him as slain president of Nigeria. “MKO should be declared president. Although slain, all the entitlements belong to the family,” he said. Muritala, however, thanked the state government for keeping the memory of the late Abiola alive by staging a Democracy Walk in the last five years. He appealed to the state government to return the school established by the late Abiola, Salawu Abiola Comprehensive High School, Osiele, Abeokuta, to

the family to administer. Governor Ibikunle Amosun, in his speech, said that everyone knew that late MKO Abiola was the adjudged winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Amosun, who was represented by the deputy governor, Mrs Yetunde Onanuga, described MKO Abiola as the hero of the nation’s current democracy. “We have been organising the Democracy Walk and identifying with the Abiola family for the past five years that this administration has been in government. “He was a philanthropist and the hero of our current democracy,” he added.

Alhaji Abiola has berated the Ogun State government for not declaring June 13 (today) public holiday, since this year’s celebration fell on Sunday. Nigerian Tribune recalled that Osun State government had declared Monday (today), work free day in commemoration of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. He said the state government ought to have declared the day work free day. Meanwhile, Ogun State government said it had not flouted any law for not declaring today (Monday) a public holiday for the celebration of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Government, in a reaction through the Senior Special Assistant on Media

to Governor Amosun, Juwon Soyinka, said it had not breached any law on whether to declare Monday (today) as work free day. Soyinka said government did not declare work free day in commemoration of June 12 annulled election because it fell on a Sunday. He said: “There is an extant law in the state that provides that every June 12 be declared a work-free day. We cannot declare a public holiday. Only the Federal Government has the power to declare a public holiday. “The law says work-free. State governments can’t declare public holiday. Since this year’s celebration fell on a Sunday, traditionally, it’s work-free. So, the government felt there was no need to declare another work-free day (on Monday).”

Worst MKO’s enemies lay wreaths at his graveside —Osun PDP Oluwole Ige - Osogbo

From left, Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debt, Senator Shehu Sani; former governor of Kaduna State, Alhaji Balarebe Musa and the Special Adviser on Political and Ideology Matter to the senator, Alhaji Suleiman Ahmed, during the senator’s visit to the former governor, to mark the 2016 June 12 celebration, in Kaduna, on Sunday. PHOTO: NAN.

June 12, cornerstone of Nigeria’s democracy —Tinubu ByYejideGbenga-Ogundare IN commemoration of the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 annulled election on Sunday, the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, has called on Nigerians not only to demand from their leaders performance and accountability but also to learn from the lessons of the June 12 struggles and rekindle their love and devotion for democracy and Nigeria. Tinubu, in his anniversary message, stated that Nigerians need to cast their minds back to the events of that period and never forget the patriots who lost their lives and limbs in the epochal struggle “Beyond being a watershed, the June 12 election, the annulment and its af-

termath remain the cornerstone of our democracy as a people today. Because a few courageous ones across the broad spectrum of the Nigerian society led from the front, the military was unable to get away with its constitutional impunity,” he said. According to him, the seed of democracy was sown during the June 12 struggles. “However, 16 years after the struggle ended and the military departed, a new kind of struggle began. With a government of the people, by the people and for the people, the desire for rapid development and a disciplined and accountable leadership became an agenda item. “In the hands of the PDP-led government, Nigerians got a raw deal. But again, desirous of a change, Nigerians were

again galvanised into voting the PDP out and voting in the APC with its message and philosophy of change “But beyond the historic mandate given to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is the urgent need to have every citizen part of the change we want to see. From the streets and crannies, from the classrooms and boardrooms, from the lecture halls and the corridor of power, from the lawmakers, ministers and leading politicians, this is a season that demands our contribution,” he said. Further, Tinubu said that just like in the moving spirit of June 12, Nigerians must speak up against any form of financial recklessness and corruption in high places, adding that Nigerians must support the ongoing war against corruption led by President Muham-

madu Buhari. “We know that no change comes easy and we must be mindful of the fact that the success of the APC-led government is the success of all of us. On this occasion, I shout out to all my colleagues from the days of the June 12 struggle, encompassing the NADECO foot soldiers still alive, the pro-democracy activists, the civil society and the professionals who stood up to be soldiers in defence of the democratic rights of Nigerians. “With the new converts and company that have joined our rank and file, let us again stand, guard and be vigilant to ensure that disgruntled elements and the powers of yesterday who we overthrew with our votes do not destroy our democracy,” Tinubu concluded.

OSUN State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday, declared that the real enemies of late business mogul and the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Bashorun MKO Abiola, are the ones using his goodwill to curry favour of Nigerians at the moment. The party, in a statement issued in Osogbo by its spokesperson, Prince Diran Odeyemi, recalled that the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan had, in recognition of the sacrifice of late presidential candidate of Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the nation’s democracy, named University of Lagos (UNILAG) after him. The statement reads in part, “but what did Jonathan get in return? Protests were instigated and insults hurled at the president by those that have over the years benefitted immensely from the goodwill of late Abiola. “Chief MKO Abiola stands for all that is noble and good. Unfortunately, effort that would have perfectly immortalised him was rejected by biggest beneficiaries of late Abiola’s goodwill and philanthropy. “Nigerians know those that worked against UNILAG being named after MKO and history will always remember President Goodluck Jonathan as the courageous leader that made sincere efforts to immortalise him. Those that thwarted move to permanently etch MKO on our

minds are the ones laying wreaths at his graveside now, so sad!” The party, therefore, called on President Mohammadu Buhari to name a national monument in the memory of late MKO Abiola in recognition of the role he played in facilitating the democracy the nation enjoys today.

MKO remains hero of Nigeria’s democracy —Lagos PDP Bola Badmus - Lagos

LAGOS State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has eulogised the life and times of the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chief MKO Abiola, declaring that the late politician remained the hero of the country’s present day democracy. PDP said this on Saturday in a statement made available by its publicity secretary, Mr Taofik Gani, contending that “the events of that election, with respect to how it should improve our polity, should not be a one time exercise in a year but must reverberate everyday of our lives.” According to the party, doing so will encourage beneficiaries of the supreme sacrifice paid by the late politician and business guru to ensure that his legacies are immortalised beyond the present assessment, even as it expressed the belief that the late politician would have been a member of the PDP if still alive.

news

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Nigerian Tribune

Implement 2014 national conference recommendations, Kanu, Okei-Odumakin, Adams, others urge FG Olalekan Olabulo - Lagos

MINENT Nigerians including, Rear Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (retd), Professor Sophie Oluwole, Otunba Gani Adams, Dr Joe Okei-Odumakin and others have reiterated the call for the implementation of the recommendations of the 2014 National Conference. Kanu and others stated this while speaking during the 2016 anniversary of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, organised by the Odua People’s Congress (OPC). They also called for the restructuring of the country. Kanu, a former military

administrator in Lagos State, while speaking at the event tagged, ‘The Spectre of June 12, Change Agenda and Democratic Consolidation in Nigeria’, pointed out the need to restructure the country. He said “we need to build on the gains of 1993 and 2015 by not only enthroning the culture of free and fair election but also cultivating the habit of accepting defeat, when we lose.” Gani Adams, in his welcome address at the occasion, said: “One major issue that stare us in the face, which we fail to address, is the need to restructure Nigeria.” He added that one of the major challenges is the

need to address the structure of the Nigerian state. The OPC chief urged President Muhammadu Buhari not to jettison the resolutions of the last National Conference. Joe Okei-Odumakin, in

her speech, described the June 12 presidential election as the ‘real change’ which gave Nigerians the freedom to choose their leaders. She said the government should implement the rec-

ommendations of the last national conference. She said “we have to restructure Nigeria so that this country can move forward. June 12 marked the real change. It is extremely important and significant

that we draw some lessons from June 12.” Professor Sophie Okuwoke also called on the Federal Government to ensure that a national conference is used to move the country forward.

Oyo declares today public holiday, wants Abiola immortalised OYO State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, has declared today, Monday, June 13, as public holiday in commemoration of the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. A statement by the Special Adviser, Communication and Strategy, to the Governor, Mr Yomi Layinka, conveyed the governor’s decision, on Sunday. “June 12 remains a watershed in the history of the country, because of the significance of the day in the nation’s democratic journey, having broken all ethnic and religious barriers. The annulled election is yet to be matched in terms of freeness, fairness, transparency, openness and widespread acceptability. “Much as the electoral umpire that midwifed subsequent elections had tried, the annulled election remains the best in terms of organisation and no system adopted for the conduct of subsequent elections is yet to match Option A4 used to conduct the June 12 election. Besides, the resolve of Nigerians to put aside their differences and troop out en masse to collectively vote for a positive change was a demonstration of the fact that Nigerians were not ready to negotiate the unity of the country even in the face of diversity. “That the symbol of the annulled election, Chief MKO Abiola, opted to pay the supreme price to defend his mandate has deepened democracy and the price he paid is what the comfort the political leaders are enjoying up till today. I want to, once again, urge the Federal Government to immortalise and officially recognise Abiola as a former president of the Federal

Republic of Nigeria and to confer on him the highest honour in the land befitting of a former president. “Political leaders should be prepared to leave their comfort zones and be prepared to make sacrifices to defend the democracy we are enjoying today and should not allow parochial interest to overshadow the collective interest of the electorate. There is no doubt that Abiola won the election, despite failed attempts by those that contested the election with him to twist facts and rewrite history.” “We must keep the memory of Abiola alive and the least we can do is to continue to commemorate the day and bring out its fond memories as a lesson in electoral transparency and openness. “We should not forget him as he remains one of the greatest martyrs this country has ever produced, so that generations yet unborn will know that somebody laid down his life in defence of democracy and the rule of law.”

From left, former Lagos State governor, Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (retd); NADECO chieftain, Mr Ayo Opadokun; Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa; Lagos State SSG, Mr Tunji Bello; son of MKO Abiola, Abdul Abiola and Special Adviser to Lagos State governor on Civic Engagement, Mr Kehinde Joseph, observing a minute silence in honour of heroes of June 12 struggle, at the 23rd anniversary of the annulment of the June 12 presidential election, organised by Lagos office of Civic Engagement, on Sunday. PHOTO: NAN.

From left, guest speaker and Deputy Vice Chancellor, University of Lagos, Professor Duro Oni; National Coordinator, Odua People’s Congress (OPC), Chief Gani Adams; the event chairman and Chairman, NADECO, Real Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu (retd) and the President, Women Arise, Dr Joe OkeiOdumakin, at the June 12 lecture, organised by OPC, in Lagos, on Sunday. PHOTO: SYLVESTER OKORUWA.

It’s time we practise true federalism —Ambode Bola Badmus and Olalekan Olabulo - Lagos

LAGOS State governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, on Sunday, said it is high time that Nigeria ran on a viable federal structure in order to ensure that it preserved some of what had been gained since the return of the country to democracy. Governor Ambode said this while speaking at the 23rd anniversary of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, which took place at the Blue Room, Lagos

Television, with the theme, “Democracy and Inclusiveness: Basis for Good Governance.” The governor, while saying this was a duty for all Nigerians to perform, contended that such effort was to ensure that the memory of late business mogul and winner of June 12, 1993 election, Chief MKO Abiola, continues to guide and abide with the country. Ambode, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Mr Tunji Bello, said,

“This is a day we must continue to remember because we have been practising democracy. We are not actually doing what we should be doing. “We still have a long way to go. If you want to live by Abiola’s memory, if you want to honour him, we owe him a duty to ensure that we install a viable democracy and that viable democracy can only be installed if we have true federalism which we are presently not practising, and that is very important.” Leader of the National Democratic Coalition, Rear

Admiral Nduisi Kanu (retd), in his remark, declared that crises occasioned by the militancy, agitation by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and others would not stop unless the country practise true federalism. “Whatever is happening now in the country, either militancy, IPOB and others, will not stop until we go back to the Nigeria that we are expected to build; a federal Nigeria. “We should brace up and be prepared. Prayer will not solve the problem. We have to get back to a federal Ni-

geria. If not, we should be prepared because what we are seeing is just a child’s play,” he warned. Speaking at the event, which was attended by the Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly, Honourable Mudashiru Obasa, among others, a NADECO chieftain, Mr Ayo Opadokun, lamented that Nigeria had the largest number of poorest people in spite of being the eight largest exporter of crude oil in the world, declaring that something was “wonderfully” wrong with the country.”

32 south-westnews Salary: Inherited debts responsible for non-payment —Fayose

Monday, 13 June, 2016

Pay before 72 hours or..., group warns Sam Nwaoko - Ado Ekiti

O V E R N O R Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State has said “the huge debt profile inherited from the immediate past administration which took N25 billion bonds from the Capital Market and N31 billion commercial loans,” is responsible for the poor financial condition of the state and the challenges faced in the payment of workers’ salaries.

Governor Fayose, according to a government statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, stated this while reacting to the “noshift-ground stance of the striking workers,” said “about N1.2 billion was being deducted monthly from the state’s allocation to service the loans which the Kayode Fayemi-led administration took.” In a related development, a socio-economic group in the state, the Nigeria

Progressive Vanguard (NPV), has said it will embark on a mass protest against the state government over failure to pay workers’ salaries. The group lamented that “the hardship being faced by the workers is worrisome, embarrassing and uncalled for” and consequently gave Governor Fayose a 72-hour ultimatum within which to pay the workers or face mass action. In a statement signed

by its state chairman, Mr Bamayi-Lawal Adegoke and Secretary, Mr Tayo Ojo, the group said the situation at hand called for broad intervention to save the state and its people from dire consequences. “The latest development in the state calls for prompt intervention of all and sundry since the governor is not ready to do the needful regarding the payment of workers’ salaries of about six months. “Since the workers are not

Oyo State governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi (left), presenting a special award to the All Progressives Congress (APC) national chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun. With them is the Pro-Chancellor University of Ibadan, Dr Umar Mustapher (middle), during the luncheon and award ceremony of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association, held at Bishop Richard Finn Auditorium, UI, on Saturday.

PDP will retain Ondo if... —SSG By Wale Akinselure AHEAD the November governorship election in Ondo State, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Dr Aderotimi Adelola, has vowed that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was poised to retaining power if the election is free and fair. He premised this conviction on what he called the avalanche of achievements of the Dr Olusegun Mimiko-led administration in all sectors of the state. Aderotimi, speaking in Ibadan, on Saturday, where he received the worthy Ambassador Award of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association, regarded insinuations that the popularity of the PDP was waning in Ondo State as mere propaganda and antics of the opposition to demonise the Mimiko-led government. “What is incontrovertible is that Mimiko has been the best governor in Ondo State in all areas of governance whether in the health, education,

agricultural sectors, urban renewal, among others. I believe that with all his achievements coupled with the fact that the PDP is the only party in Ondo State. There is no doubt that PDP will retain power in the state. In a free and fair election, PDP will win Ondo State. When it is one man, one vote; and every vote counts, PDP will win Ondo State.” “To say that the popularity of the PDP is waning in Ondo State amounts to

propaganda. The opposition will always say that the government in power is not doing anything, but our achievements speak volumes. They (opposition) will always demonise the government in power.” On the ongoing strike by workers in the state, Aderotimi said Ondo continued to suffer from the adverse effects of dwindling price of oil and its attendant dwindling revenue. He, however, expressed optimism that the strike

would soon be called off. “It is not only in Ondo State that workers are on strike, it is the same in many other states. The situation is due to the inability of the country to generate enough revenue to pay workers across the nation. Oil revenue is dwindling and that is why we are in a problem in this country. Even if we are an oil producing state, this dwindling price of oil affects us negatively,” he added.

Preserve your environment, Ogun govt tells residents THE Ogun State government has called on residents of the state to preserve their environment and desist from acts that could lead to desert encroachment in an attempt to mitigate the effect of climate change. The Commissioner for Environment, Mr Bolaji Oyeleye, stated this while sensitising people on the areas that were posed to environmental hazards in the state. He said desert encroachment was a critical environmental challenge

that the state had to deal with in recent times. Oyeleye cited areas that had been seriously affected by environmental hazards in the state to include Ipokia, Imeko Afon, Yewa South, Yewa North, Abeokuta North and Odeda Local Government Areas. “The people of Ipokia, Imeko-Afon, Yewa South, Yewa North, Abeokuta North and Odeda council areas are vulnerable to this environmental hazard and we will ensure we curtail the effect of climate change in those areas,” Oyeleye

stated. He urged the people of the state, particularly the affected areas, to cultivate the idea of tree planting, cautioning against indiscriminate felling of trees so as not to jeopardise the ecosystem. Oyeleye said the state was not unmindful of the human tendencies of extracting earth resources without recourse to preservation of the environment, adding that government had been monitoring activities of industries to ensure proper disposal of waste.

demanding the full payment of all the salaries they are being owed at once due to the present economic challenges in the country and the state, it is now a must for the governor to do the right thing now or face peoples’ revolt,” the group stated. Governor Fayose had explained that if the N1.2 billion being deducted was added to the state’s monthly allocations, his administration would not owe workers. Fayose took a swipe at the All Progressives Congress (APC), which, he said, had been “gingering the labour to remain adamant on the issue of the strike,” saying “it was “quite unfortunate that the Fayemi-led administration also diverted the N850 million meant for the Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board and, thereby, led to the suspension of the state from the Universal Basic Education Commission programmes since 2012.

Ondo guber race: Supporters beg Alasoadura not to dump ambition Hakeem Gbadamosi -Akure FOLLOWING the death of the wife of the Senator representing Ondo Central, Chief Tayo Alasoadura, last month, his supporters across the state have called on the lawmaker not to dump his gubernatorial aspiration. Alasoadura, who is the chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), lost his wife last month. The lawmaker’s supporters across the 18 local government areas of the state have pleaded with him not to allow the death of his wife to kill the ambition which he has been nursing for some years. According to the supporters, the best way to honour the memory of his late wife was to ensure the governorship ambition did not die with her since she was a strong supporter of the project, who also believed that Ondo State must be repositioned. The supporters, who were led by a member of the House of Representatives representing Akoko North East and Akoko North West, Stephen Olemija, waited for Alasoadura at the Akure Airport to identify with him in his struggle to turn the state around.

Ooni lauds founder of Oduduwa varsity By Aramide Shanu THE Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi (Ojaja 2), has praised the founder of Oduduwa University, Ile-ife, Dr Ramon Adedoyin, for sustained efforts at accelerating the pace of development in the area. The traditional ruler made the commendation when he paid a visit to Dr Adedoyin, who was one of the contenders for the stool of the Ooni after Oba Okunade Sijuade joined his ancestors. The visit, which many have described as both historic and symbolic, will further unite the people of IleIfe, as Dr Adedoyin is the Maye of Ile-Ife. He said he was happy to have met Dr Adedoyin, as he noted that he had heard about his huge developmental efforts, especially in making Ile-Ife a commercial hub. He commended Adedoyin for establishing the Oduduwa University, Polytechnic, First Access Microfinance Bank, Hilton Hotels, among others, in Ife. Oba Ogunwusi reiterated his promise to have resorts, hotels and hostels in Ile-Ife and appealed to the people of the area to join him in IleIfe investors’ destination in the country.

Senator Adeola donates 500 life jackets, cash to constituents FOLLOWING incessant boat mishaps and loss of lives in Lagos waterways in his Lagos West senatorial district, Senator Solomon Adeola has donated 500 life jackets to boat operators, while also donating grants of N20,000 to 50 market men and women to augment their trading activities. Making the donation in his senatorial district office at Ikeja, at the weekend, Senator Adeola stated that the donation was not partisan to his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the gesture was meant for constituents of his district, irrespective of political party affiliation. He added that, following his election as a senator, he now represented all the over 11 million people of his district. “I see my empowerment as a way to remind the people that I have not forgotten them. In spite of the dire economic situation of the country, I will continue to remember those who sent me to Abuja as their senator,’’ he said.

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Monday, 13 June, 2016

SDP cautions Ajimobi on new education policy As Oyo APC lauds him on commitment to peace By Tunde Ogunesan

HE Social Democratic Party (SDP), Oyo State, has made a passionate appeal to the state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, to thread softly over the proposed new education policy geared towards engaging private partnership in the running of the state public secondary schools. The party, in a press release made available to newsmen by the party's spokesman, Alhaji Akeem Azeez, on Sunday, said the

proposed “Private Public Partnership initiative in Oyo State public schools, is a preamble to the outright sale of government schools to capitalists and affluence in the society.” Alhaji Azeez described the move by the “governor as a subtle privatisation of state public secondary schools, maintaining that the policy was ill-conceived, illegal and unconstitutional" and capable of "destroying today's hope of a greater tomorrow.” The party urged the governor to suspend the idea and draw inference from

one of the quotable quotes of the great Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” According to the statement, “the party observed with dismay the on-going industrial action declared by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), occasioned by the ill-conceived Public Private Partnership initiative in our government-owned schools. Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) Oyo State, has described Governor Ajimobi as an

Bello lauds Abdulsalami at 74 Adelowo Oladipo - Minna

NIGER State governor, Alhaji Abubakar Bello, has said that Nigeria owes the fledging democratic experience being enjoyed currently by the citizenry to the solid foundation laid by the short but memorable administration of former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar The governor, in a birthday message to General Abdulsalami,who turned 74 today (Monday), described him as the father of a new Nigeria. Governor Bello, in a statement issued in Minna, on Sunday, by his Chief Press Secretary( CPS), Malam Jibrin Baba

Ndace, said .Abubakar's contribution to democratic development of the country, gave birth to the current political dispensation. 'A committed and loyal officer, your towering credentials in the military

Mrs Saraki commends ex-UN women country representative Adetola Bademosi - Abuja WIFE of the Senate President, Dr Toyin Saraki, has commended the erstwhile United Nations women country representative to Nigeria and Eoonomic Community of West Afri-

Police parade suspected kidnapper in Ondo Hakeem Gbadamosi - akure

ONDO State Police Command, at the weekend, paraded a member of a Kidnapping syndicate in the state over the abduction of two reverend sisters and their driver last month. The suspect, Philip Isiga ,who confessed to the offence, explained that he was not directly involved in the crime but a member of the syndicate said he received a sum of N50,000 from the ransom paid to secure the release of their victim. The two sisters, Perpetual Apo and Roseline Familade and their driver, Mr Zwugwa Zibai, were abducted on May 15, 2016, on Benin-Ijebu Ode Expressway, at Kajola Village, in Odigbo Local Government Area of the state and spent seven days in the captives of their abductors. Speaking on the arrest, the state Commissioner of Police, Mrs Hilda Harrison, confirmed that Isiga was involved in the abduction of the sisters and was

saw you to the height of your career when in 1998, destiny placed the leadership of this country on you. A responsibility you delivered creditably well to the admiration of the international community', he said.

arrested after a tip off The 25-year-old suspect from Delta State, however, said he was introduced to the business by one Ufoma, who was said to have been arrested too but currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital in the state . Ufoma ,who was also alleged to be the leader of the kidnapping syndicate in the area and was said to have masterminded the abduction of the two sisters and their driver Isiga said, " When my pure water business was not moving well again, Ufoma came to me and advised me to join him in his business, I didn't know it was kidnapping business. I stayed in the bush when they abducted the sisters "Later, Ufoma told me he collected N200,000 from the family of the victims and he gave me N50,000 out of it as my own share. " The commissioner said the command was already on the trail of other fleeing suspects, saying the one arrested would soon be charged to court.

can States (ECOWAS), Dr Grace Atieno Ongile, on her laudable service to the country. She said: Ongile, during her five years tenure, fought the cause of women and the vulnerable. Speaking at the weekend, in Abuja, at a sent forth party held in honour of the country representative, Mrs Saraki described her as a humble and passionate person, adding that her work was not about money but her heartfelt desire to make a difference. She commended her unique style of leadership, drive, zeal and doggedness with which she did her job. Also, the UNPFA Country representative. Ratizai Ndhlovu, described her as one: "who is committed to and immersed in her work for which she had endless passion. The committee of friends was led by the wife of the Senate President, founder and initiator of Well Being Africa and the Executive Director of the International Society of Media in Public Health ,Moji Makanjuola. Others are Senator Biodun Olujimi, UNFPA Country Representative, wives of senators and other notable Nigerians. Meanwhile, Dr Grace has described Nigeria as home even as she looked forward to the presentation and acceptance of the GE&O Bill.

ideal leader whose penchant for peace, egalitarianism and societal development would rank as one of the best in the history the country and the world at large. The party made this known in a statement signed by its Director of Publicity and Strategy, Olawale Sadare, and made available to journalists at the weekend.

Sadare said the party expressed its satisfaction with the mature way the governor is handling the sponsored protests arising from premeditated opposition to the proposal aimed at rescuing the dwindling standard of education in the state. According to Sadare, "Immediately it became obvious that some fifth columnists were ready to

capitalise on the prevailing situation to cause civil unrest in order to continue their political war with the APC-led government in the state, Senator Ajimobi personally took up the gauntlet and turned the challenge to an advantage by engaging the public in what has turned to be unprecedented crisis management approach through public communication.

We don’t trivialise security —Rector IN its efforts at beefing up security in Saki Community, the management of The Oke-Ogun Polytechnic Saki, in Oyo State, has organised a three-day seminar on security. Declaring the seminar open at the institution’s conference room, the institution’s Rector, Mr Mathew Olaniyi Oladeji, said based on the increase in students’ population, the need for training and re-training of its personnel was imperative to avail them of modern technique to checkmate incessant students’ unrest on the campus. According to him, general security awareness training for security and non-security staff became

a necessity, in order to wage war against truancy within and outside the campus, given the current trend of insecurity in the country. While commending the organiser of the seminar, LABDOT PROJECT Nigeria Limited, for engaging seasoned resource persons, he advised the participants to make good use of the experience garnered, just as he assured that the management would give necessary support to make the seminars useful to all staff members. The chief security officer of the institution, Mr Ogunkanmbi Olabode, in his presentation, itemised possible places that attract criminal activities at the

grassroots. These, according to him, included hotels and motels, restaurants and night clubs, parking lots, abandoned and uncompleted buildings, among others. He observed that there had been reported cases of rape, cultism, illegal possession of arms and ammunition, adding that robberies were planned and executed from the aforementioned places. Ogunkanbi pointed out that all human activities and issues are interlocked with security implications, adding that it is very essential for stakeholders to be conscious and sensitive to all activities in their environments.

34 CONFIRMATION OF NAME

I, Akinsuroju Omowunmi Ronke am the same person as Akinsuroju Roseline Ronke. Now, I want to be known and addressed as AKINSUROJU OMOWUNMI RONKE. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

Monday, 13 June, 2016 CHANGE OF NAME

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I Adewale Olorunmola am the same person bearing Banabas Adewale Olorunmola. Now, I wish to be known and addressed as ADEWALE OLORUNMOLA. All documents bearing these names remain valid. Zenith Bank Plc, Osogbo Branch and general public take note.

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I, Miss Tawakalitu Ope Oyedepo am the same person bearing Miss Oyedepo Tawakalitu Ope. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as MRS. BELLO TAWAKALITU OPE. All documents bearing these names refer to me and remain valid. General public take note.

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I, formerly Shabi Opeyemi Odunayo, female, Christian, Yoruba, Nigerian citizen, of No 1, Babalola Street, Ososami, Oke-Ado, Ibadan want to be known and addressed as ARIYO OPEYEMI ODUNAYO due to marital status that I am now married to Ariyo Emmanuel. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

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I, Ugwu Onyebuchi Okeze am the same person as Ugwu Paul Onyebuchi. Now, I wish to be known, called and addressed as UGWU PAUL ONYEBUCHI OKEZE. All documents bearing these names remain valid. First Bank Plc and general public take note.

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I, Ojewola Oluyemisi Kikelomo am the same person as Olayiwola Oluyemisi Kikelomo. Henceforth, I wish to be known and addressed as OLAYIWOLA OLUYEMISI KIKELOMO. All documents bearing these names refer to me and remain valid. Skye Bank Plc., Stanbic IBTC Plc., and general public take note.

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My correct name is EGHWEREE JESSICA ENAJITE not Eghweree Enajite. All documents bearing these names remain valid. General public take note.

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I, formerly Miss Ibikunle Mary Tunrayo now MRS. AKINBODE MARY TUNRAYO. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

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I, formerly Miss Ronke Busari now MRS. FOWOWE RONKE MERCY. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

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I, formerly Miss Folasade Ireti Adebayo now MRS. FOLASADE IRETI OGUNMOLA. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME

I, Onuabuchi Adaeze Barbara am the same person as Onuabuchi Ebele A. Henceforth, I want to be known and addressed as ONUABUCHI ADAEZE BARBARA. All documents bearing these names refer to me and remain valid. General public take note.

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I, formerly Miss Kolawole Omolola Olufunke now MRS. AROSO OMOLOLA OLUFUNKE. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

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news FG expresses determination to end child labour

Clement Idoko-Abuja

HE Federal Government has expressed concern over thousands of Nigerian children who are victims of child labour within the country and overseas, expressing its determination to end the menace. Acting Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Alhaji Abdulrazak Dangiri, said this in a solidarity message to commemorate the 2016 World Day against Child Labour on Sunday. While expressing solidarity with victims of child labour scattered across the globe, Dangiri reiterated the commitment of the Agency to joining hands with other stakeholders around the world to end child labour. Describing child labour as a sad development, the NAPTIP boss said Nigeria has a fair share in the several millions of victims of child labour, living in slave-like conditions across the globe, “having been deceived and lured out of their homes by criminal gangs and greedy parents.” He explained that victims of child labour suffer varying degrees of misfortune, inhumane treatments, psychological and emotional harm, physical torture, socio-economic violence, sexual abuse and harmful traditional practices that undermine their natural development as human beings. “Their worth and dignity are destroyed, their lives are made worthless and with no

Monday, 13 June, 2016

hope in sight,” he stated in the message made available to newsmen in Abuja, by the spokesman of the agency, Mr Josiah Emerole. On the focus of this year’s activities being ‘Child Labour and Supply Chain’, Dangiri stressed the need for labour inspectors to be more diligent in their activities, and to ensure that no

child is found working in plantations, quarries, manufacturing firms and other places where children are placed under harmful situations. “The negligence of parents to their children and their greed which pushes the children out, should no longer be tolerated in Nigeria. Children are gifts from God and

parents are under obligation to take care of these children until they come of age. “Unfortunately, many of our people now delight in making their children breadwinners at very tender age while they feed fat on the sweat of those children. That is evil and must be stopped,” he said. Urging Nigerians and

Senate President, Dr Abubakar Bukola Saraki, having Iftar (breaking of fast) with a cross section of people in his Ilorin home, Kwara State, on Saturday.

...As Saraki seeks its eradication Ayodele Adesanmi- Abuja SENATE President, Dr Bukola Saraki, on Sunday, called for eradication of child labour as part of activities marking this year’s World Day Against Child Labour with the theme: “End Child Labour From the Supply Chain”. Saraki in a statement by his Special Assistant on Gender Advocacy, Fatima

Kakuri, urged all stakeholders to work towards bequeathing a future devoid of child labour and all other forms of inhuman practices against children. “In this 2016 World Day Against Child Labour, we wish to express our support and join the global community in eradicating child labour from the supply chain. We find this year’s theme (end child labour in supply

chain) both apt and significant as we reflect on the particular challenges that our nation faces which have heightened considerably the vulnerabilities of our children to exploitation. “Millions of our children are trapped in child labour, hawking on our streets, working under appalling inhuman conditions in small informal sector enterprises instead of being in school.

Faleke’s petition polarised APC —Bello As gov names Kogi varsity after Audu Yinka Oladoyinbo-Lokoja THE Kogi State governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, said the petition filed by the deputy governorship candidate, James Faleke of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last governorship election in the state, against his (Bello) victory polarised the party. He said the petition was filed at a time all members of the party in the state should have come together and act as one, after the death of its governorship candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu. Bello, who spoke in a statewide broadcast at the weekend, also immortalised the former governor by naming the Kogi State University, Anyigba, after him. The governor, who spoke against the backdrop of the judgments of the state governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja, noted that the petition by

people around the globe to show solidarity and support in preventing this horrible crime and human rights violation, he said “efforts need to be intensified by all and sundry to rid our nation of this menace. We need to take the crime of child labour seriously, as that is the first step towards its eradication.”

Faleke was hard to believe, being novel as it came within the party. “I must confess that the petition by Honourable James Abiodun Faleke was a bit harder to come to terms with because it came from within the ranks of our great

party, the APC. It is never an easy task when a leader finds himself in conflict with elements of his own support group and I found it particularly hard to face with fellow party men in the press and in the court. “Honourable James Abio-

dun Faleke’s was a petition that greatly polarised our party at a time we really needed to act as one in order to survive the heavy blow dealt the APC in Kogi State by the sudden and painful death of our leader, Prince Abubakar Audu.

Alphonsus Agborh - Asaba

East China. “The agreement for the establishment of Kwara Chitex Industrial Park was signed between Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed and Mr Shi Zengchao, Managing Director of Ningbo Jinsheng Star Import and Export Co Limitedd, at The 18th China Zheijand Investment and Trade Symposium, held in Ningbo, East China, over the weekend. “The signing, which was part of the Ningbo Major Investment Projects Signing Ceremony organised

by the Ningbo Municipal People’s Government involved a total of $3.7 billion worth of investments in 31 projects out of which $1.4billion was for outbound investments with The Kwara Chitex Industrial Park being the only Nigerian bound.” Speaking after the signing, Governor Ahmed expressed delight over the multi-million dollar project, which he said, was expected to commence soon, saying the state was focusing on manufacturing to stimulate its economy and create jobs.

Kwara secures $56m Chinese investment THE Kwara State government has secured a $56 million Chinese investment for the establishment of a textile industrial park in the state. A statement by the governor’s senior special assistant on Media and Communication, Dr Muideen Akorede, which was made available to journalists in Ilorin on Sunday, said Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed finalised talks about the investment during his current investment trip to

These challenges are huge and complex and not unconnected with the security situation and economic conditions of most families. Yet we must find a way out of this problem. “We recognise the menace of child labour, abuse, rape and abduction in our dear nation; the Chibok girls remain fresh in our minds and our hearts remain with the families of the girls until they are recovered.. “Among our peculiar problems, early child marriages, baby factory syndrome, domestic violence tied to conservative religious and cultural beliefs, remain serious obstacles in our quest to liberate the Nigerian child. “The good news is that, the Senate is doing all within its powers to see that we reverse the situation. Presently, we have embarked on a comprehensive review of our Labour laws and the Child Rights Act to eliminate any gaps, offer adequate protection and provide mechanism for redress in cases of child labour abuse. Equally, we are working to ensure a uniform enactment and enforcement of the Child Rights Act in all states in the nation. “Protecting our children from abuse and all forms of exploitation must be a priority. We hope for a better Nigeria and must join forces and renew our commitment to make the future of work in Nigeria, a future, without child labour,” he said.

Niger councils to spend N46.2bn in 2016 Adelowo Oladipo-Minna NIGER State government has proposed N46.2 billion for the 25 local government councils for 2016 fiscal year. Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Alhaji Kabir Abbas Musa, disclosed this while briefing newsmen at the Government House, at the weekend in Minna. He noted that the agreed proposed figure for the grassroots administration would be presented to the Niger State Assembly as the 2016 Local Government Appropriation Bill. Musa stated further that the budget proposal included the statutory allocation of five per cent, which amounted to N2.3 billion, had been allocated for the emirate councils. The commissioner, however, attributed the delay of the budget to the change in leadership of the local government, starting from the caretakers of the immediate past administration to the use of Director of Personnel Management as coordinators, adding that the inclusion of the Emirate Councils in the budget also contributed to the delay.

23 vehicles impounded over illegal forestry activities Yinka Oladoyinbo-Lokoja ABOUT 23 vehicles have been impounded by the Kogi State Task Force over illegal forestry activities, and for flouting the ban placed by the state government on felling of logs in the state forestry reserves. Apart from the vehicles, the Nigerian Tribune gathered that the people arrested with them, would be prosecuted after completion of investigations by the security agencies. Thd state Commissioner for Environment, Mrs Rosemary Osikoya, said this on Saturday, while parading two trailers and the suspects arrested by the men of the National Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) in various parts of the state. Speaking with newsmen in company with other officials of the ministry, the commissioner said the heavy goods vehicles were apprehended by the men of the Nigeria Police and that of the NSCDC. She said all the vehicles were in the custody of the police, which he said, was already investigating the matter to ascertain the level of culpability.

communitynews Build personal relationship with policemen, Ona-Ara LG residents told 36

by adewale oshodi

HE people of OnaAra Local Government Area of Oyo State have been told to build personal rela-

Monday, 13 June, 2016

tionship with the police to make community policing in the area successful. DSP Rotimi Adebayo gave the advice during a parley organised by the Justice, De-

velopment and Peace Commission (JDPC), an arm of the Catholic Archdiocese of Ibadan, to promote better understanding between the police and residents of the

council area. DSP Adebayo from Akanran Police Station, said one of the problems the police is that some people have just hate them for no just

From left, Chief Imam of Ona-Ara Local Government Area of Oyo State, Alhaji Lateef Salaudeen; DSP Adebayo Rotimi of Akanran Police Station; Mrs Adenike Ibitara of JDPC and the Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Ona-Ara, Pastor Samuel Orisalade, during the Police/Public Forum. PHOTO: ADEWALE OSHODI

‘No land for grazing zone in Oke-Ogun’ OYO State government, under the leadership of Governor Abiola Ajimobi, has been called upon to shelve any plan to establish grazing zones in Oke-Ogun area of the state. Making the call in a press statement was the OkeOgun Development Council (ODC). The statement signed by Mr. Oladoja Oladele and Comrade Jare Ajayi, Acting President and General Secretary of the council respectively, the council said it had come to its attention that the governor is planning to cede some lands in Oke-Ogun for the proposed grazing zones for Fulani cattle rearers.

“It is on record that OkeOgun is an area in the South West that has suffered the most in the hands of unscrupulous cattle scoundrels who pretend to be cattle rearers. It would, therefore, amount to a height of injustice to give the land of suffering farmers to these cattle rearers who are inflicting untold hardship on the indigenous people,” the statement said. The body contended that allocating lands in Oke-Ogun to cattle rearers would amount to appeasing them instead of sanctioning them for their destructive and murderous acts against the peace-loving people of the the area.

It will be recalled that the governor, during his 2016 Democracy Day address to the people of Oyo State, announced that his government would establish grazing lands, feedlots and ranches for herdsmen with a view to curbing incessant clashes between them and farmers in the state. The ODC maintained that this new position of the governor “is very much antithetical to what he told the whole world when he launched Oyo/ Agric programme at Paago near Iseyin in May this year. On that occasion, he had maintained that there would be no land for cattle

Undergraduate donates food, clothes to underprivileged biola azeez-ilorin A 21-year-old final year student of Biochemistry at the University of Ilorin, Miss Rashidat Adesona, has distributed food and clothing materials worth more than N500,000 to orphanage and motherless babies homes in the state capital. Speaking during a charity food exhibition she organised in the university campus at the weekend, Miss Adesona said she was driven by the determination to leave a legacy of assistance to the underprivileged after the completion of her education in Ilorin. The young entrepreneur said that she raised fund for the charity food exhibition through her savings,

sponsors and friends, adding that she collected fairly used clothes, slippers and other materials from privileged people for distribution to children in motherless babies homes. She also solicited partnership and assistance from government, corporate organisations and individuals in order to reach more underprivileged people in the society, saying she planned to extend the activities beyond Kwara State. According to Adesona: “It is good to touch lives one way or the other. It doesn’t necessarily mean you have to provide material things. Even, talking with or smiling at others can make them happy.

So, I encourage people to help others. There’s nothing too small or too big to give to assist others. God will bless everyone for every good deed.” The event which was attended by people from within and outside the university community, also had the wife of the Registrar, Mrs. Obafemi and the Head of Department of Mass Communication Department of the University of Ilorin, Dr. Saudat Abdulbaki in attendance. Also speaking, Dr. Abdulbaki commended the initiative and efforts of the organiser, saying that the programme had the potential of reducing poverty.

grazing in Oyo State.” As to why they think the proposed grazing land could be sited in OkeOgun, “Oladele and Ajayi, in the statement, stated that Oke-Ogun is where you can presently get vast areas of land. It is also an area that the Fulanis have been using over the years. So, the temptation could be there for government and sponsors of the cattle rearers to have their eyes on Oke-Ogun. In any case, we are already getting strong indications that Oke-Ogun is where the government is thinking of. This is why we are shouting right now that such a thing should never be done.” According to ODC which is the umbrella body for the people of Oke-Ogun, livestock rearing is like any other business. “Anybody who wants to engage in it, should purchase or hire a land and establish ranches on it as it is being done in other climes. Our land should not be turned into grazing zones for cattle rearers of any hue. “It is no more news that many lives have been lost due to clashes between Bororo-Fulani cattle rearers and farmers in Oke-Ogun. “Lots of farmlands have been destroyed, women raped and many farmers maimed. Many people have abandoned farming as a result of the dangers they face in the hands of cattle rearers,” the statement added.

cause, “despite the fact that we are trying our best to ensure a e safer society.” “If the public hates the police, then we will not record success in the area of community policing; the police need information from members of the public in order to make our job easier. “Today, policemen in Oyo State Command are very free with members of the public, to the extent that the phone numbers of top officers of the command, and even that of the commissioner, are known by the people; so it is important that the public develops personal relationship with the police for the benefit of the society,” he said. Earlier in her opening remarks, Mrs Adenike Ibitara of JDPC, said the

organisation was continuing with the police/ public parley so that both parties can come together to rub minds on how to ensure safer societies. “Many people have been saying a lot of negative things about the police, and a platform like this will make it possible for both parties to meet and iron out their differences. “I am glad that the previous parleys we’ve had has resulted in better understanding of how the police work, and I think we will continue with the programme. “Many people have used this platform to reach out to the police on issues that are of utmost concern to them. This is one of the success points of this parley,” Mrs Ibitara said.

Desist from acts capable of tarnishing your image —Osun VGN boss by gbenga olumide THE Osun State Commandant of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria (VGN), Alhaji OyedokunAdebamigbe, has warned the newly appointed executive members of the group to desist from acts capable of tarnishing the image of the association, saying that the violation of the constitution of the body might lead to the termination of their appointment. Adebamigbe gave the warning during the official presentation of certificate of awards to 15 newly appointed state executives and three zonal commandants at the VGN headquarters in Ayetoro, Osogbo. The commandant, while identifying security consciousness among Nigerians as an antidote to the security challenges facing the country, he called on Nigerians and the people of Osun State, in particular to report any strange movement in their vicinities to security agencies, saying that security matters should not be taken with levity. Emphasising the need for a more harmonious relationship between the police and the group, Adebamigbe stated that the police and the vigilante group had been enjoying cordial relationship for a long period of time. According to him, such relationship will help the police in discharging their duty of protecting life and property better. He maintained that the only way Nigeria could overcome insecurity is to

jointly fight the menace to a standstill. “It is paramount to maintain utmost vigilance in our respective abode. The security of our life and property is too important to be left in the hands of security agencies alone,” he said. Adebamigbe further expressed the VGN’s readiness to continue to support the Nigerian army in the ongoing fight against the deadly Boko Haram insurgents, and to rescue the Chibok Girls. Enumerating the group’s achievements, the commandant listed the discovery of Indian hemp farms in a joint operation with the NDLEA and NSCDC at Ikire in Irewole Local Government Area of the state, voiding of bank robbery in Modakeke, Sammya Construction Company, Alasan and Ile-Ife and the arrest of the suspects. He, therefore, advised the newly appointed executives, the zonal commandants and all other members of the group to be loyal to the constituted authorities, security agents and cooperate with stakeholders in their various communities. In their remarks on behalf of the awardees, the Deputy State Commandant and the Ijesa Zonal Commandant, Abiodun Oguleye and Bello Wasiu, respectively appreciated the state and federal commandants for bestowing on them the award of recognition, promising to continue to be good ambassadors of the organisation.

Monday, 13 June, 2016

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50 killed in US gay nightclub shooting

•Killing an act of terror —Obama •Worst in US history —Mayor •Killer may have ISIS link —FBI

gunman killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida on Sunday and wounded 53 others before being killed by police in the worst mass shooting in United States history. The shooter was identified as Omar Mateen, a Florida resident, who a senior FBI official said might have had leanings toward Islamic State militants. Officials called the rampage a “terrorism incident,” but cautioned that the suspected Islamist connection required further investigation, Reuters reported. Orlando Mayor, Buddy Dyer said the attack was the deadliest single US shooting incident, eclipsing the 32 people killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University. “Today we’re dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Dyer said, more than doubling an earlier estimate that about 20 bodies were found in the Pulse nightclub. A police officer working as a security guard inside the club, which has operated in downtown Orlando since 2004, exchanged fire with the suspect at about 2am. EDT, police officials said. A hostage situation quickly developed, and three hours later SWAT team officers used armoured cars to storm the

club before shooting dead the gunman. It was unclear when the gunman killed the victims. One officer was injured after he was hit in his helmet while exchanging fire with the gunman, police said. “Do we consider this an act of terrorism? Absolutely,” said Danny Banks, special agent in charge of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. “Whether that is domestic terrorist activity or an international one that is something we will certainly get to the bottom of.” Asked if the FBI suspect-

The killer, Omar Marteen. PHOTO: DAILYMAIL.

ed the gunman might have had inclinations toward

militant Islam, including a possible sympathy for

Islamic State, Ronald Hopper, an assistant FBI agent in charge, told reporters: “We do have suggestions that the individual may have leanings toward that particular ideology. But right now we can’t say definitively.” The FBI said it was still trying to pin down whether the mass shooting was a hate crime against gays or a terrorist act. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama called the mass shooting at an LGBT Orlando nightclub Sunday an “act of terror” in remarks to the nation from the White House briefing room.

“We know enough to say this was an act of terror and an act of hate,” he said. “The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terror. We will go wherever the facts lead us ... What is clear is he was a person filled with hatred.” At least 50 people were killed and 53 more wounded in what is now the deadliest mass shooting in American history. Obama said while it could have been any one of our communities, “this is an especially heartbreaking day for our friends who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.”

EU referendum: Cameron issues Brexit pensions warning DAVID Cameron has said the government might not be able to protect spending on pensions, the NHS and

defence in the long term if the United Kingdom leaves the European Union. The prime minister said

Brexit could cause a “black hole” in the public finances and threaten the “triple lock” guaranteeing state

Secret US report on 9/11 will absolve Saudi —CIA chief Brennan THE probable publication of classified parts of a 2002 congressional report into the 9/11 attacks will clear Saudi Arabia of any responsibility, CIA chief John Brennan has said. Keeping 28 pages of the report secret has sparked speculation that the attack had received official Saudi support. The classified pages are also central to a dispute over whether the families of 9/11 victims should be

able to sue the Saudi government. Saudi Arabia denies any involvement. Fifteen out of the 19 hijackers in 2001 were Saudi citizens. Former senator Bob Graham, who headed the Senate intelligence committee that compiled the classified report in 2002, has said that Saudi officials did provide assistance to the 9/11 hijackers, BBC said. But Mr Brennan said this

was not the case. “So these 28 pages I believe are going to come out and I think it’s good that they come out. People shouldn’t take them as evidence of Saudi complicity in the attacks,” Mr Brennan said in an interview with Saudi-owned Arabiya TV. Mr Brennan also described the 28-page section of the 2002 report as merely a “preliminary review”.

otherNEWS

pension increases. He told Andrew Marr “our economy would be smaller” if the UK left the single market leading to “difficult choices”. Vote Leave said it was “a frantic attempt to rescue a failing campaign”. With less than a fortnight to go before the referendum on the UK’s EU membership on 23 June, other developments include: On the penultimate weekend before the crunch vote, Mr Cameron has used a series of newspaper articles and a BBC interview to warn of the financial consequences of Brexit, saying it could put at risk ring-fenced future funding for public services. He said forecasts from the

British PM, David Cameron

Institute for Fiscal Studies suggested Brexit could lead to a shortfall in the public finances of between £20billion and £40billion, which would need to be “filled” - either by tax rises, extra borrowing or spending cuts.

Gaddafi hometown grabbed back from Islamic State the coastal city of Sirte is evidence it is making progress at last in establishing its credibility. Soldiers from a force aligned with Libya’s new unity government walk along a road during an advance The offensive, which has on the eastern and southern outskirts of the Islamic made rapid advances in the State stronghold of Sirte. PHOTO: REUTERS past three days, is boosting LIBYA’S United Nation negotiated unity hopes the struggling Govgovernment is claiming an offensive that’s ernment of National Accord close to driving Islamic State militants from (GNA) may be able to build

up a new Libyan army on the back of the success and encourage militias loyal to a rival government in the east of the country to defect. But the unity government’s authority remains patchy even in the west of the country — which was dramatically demonstrated this weekend

when Tripoli’s general prosecutor confirmed that the bodies of at least a dozen loyalists of former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi had been found just days after they were released from detention. The victims were from two groups of detainees held at Tripoli’s al-Ruwaimi prison

or at the Mitiga air force base a court in the capital ordered to be freed. The bodies started to be found on Friday in different parts of the city, six of them just east of Tripoli’s international airport. Some officials told VOA the latest count they had Sunday was 17 bodies.

11 German MPs under police protection in genocide row ELEVEN German members of parliament (MPs) of Turkish origin have been put under police protection. They received death threats after supporting a move to describe the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide. Germany’s foreign ministry has warned MPs of Turkish origin against travelling to Turkey, say-

ing their security there could not be guaranteed. According to BBC, the German parliament’s move outraged the Turkish government, which does not recognise the killings as genocide. The 11 MPs of Turkish origin who voted for the resolution have faced a backlash of negative opinion from the Turkish government and from

within Germany’s sizable Turkish community. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan castigated them, saying: “What sort of Turks are they?” Ankara’s mayor showed the 11 MPs in a tweet, saying they had “stabbed us in the back”. According to German media, it was retweeted by many Turkish nationalists, some of

whom made death threats. And a group of Turkish lawyers has reportedly filed a complaint accusing the MPs of “insulting Turkishness and the Turkish state”. Earlier this month, Turkey recalled its ambassador from Berlin in fury after the German parliament voted overwhelmingly for the Armenian “genocide” resolution.

Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro

Monday, 13 June, 2016 Editor: Ganiyu Salman tribunesporteditor@yahoo.com 08053789060

Euro 2016:

UEFA threatens to disqualify Russia, England over fans misconduct

EFA said on Sunday that Russia and England could be thrown out of the European Championship finals if their fans are involved in more violence. The Uefa executive committee made a public “warning” in a statement which expressed “disgust for the violent clashes which occurred in the city of Marseille” over the weekend. On top of any punishment ordered by an investigation committee, the executive committee said “it will not hesitate to impose additional sanctions on the Football Association (FA) and the Russian Football Union (RFU), including the potential disqualification of their respective teams from the tournament, should such

violence occur again.” Dozens of people were hurt in three days of clashes in Marseille and at the Stade Velodrome after the England-Russia match on Saturday which ended in a 1-1 draw. Uefa earlier charged Russia with misconduct over the role of its fans in the unrest. Russia was charged with crowd disturbances, racist behaviour and letting off fireworks. The result of the inquiry and sanctions are to be announced on Tuesday. Russia’s next game is in Lille, northern France, on Wednesday against Slovakia. England’s next Group B game against Wales in nearby Lens on Thursday has been classed as a highrisk game by the French authorities.

A Russian fan is seen here kicking an English fan inside the stadium.

All set for 5th Ochei International Wheelchair Basketball Championship By Niyi Alebiosu THE stage is set for the forthcoming 5th edition of Sir Victor Ochei International Wheelchair Basketball Championship. Bukola Olopade, president, Wheelchair Basketball Federation of Nigeria in a telephone conversation with Tribunesport who commended the sponsor,

Sir Victor Ochei; who is the former speaker, Delta State House of Assembly for his continued sponsorship of the championship after leaving office disclosed that countries like Cameroon,Benin Republuc, Ghana, Togo among others have signified interest in participating in the championship holding between October 2-16 in Lagos.

Former Tribunesport editor, Somefun commiserates with Keshi, Amodu’s families By Nurudeen Alimi FORMER Group Sports Editor, of the Tribune titles, Mr Adegboyega Somefun, has commiserated with the families of two former

Super Eagles coaches, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi and Shuaibu Amodu who died on Wednesday June 8 and Saturday June 11 2016 respectively. Somefun, in a state-

Somefun (left) with late Keshi in Lagos, two years ago.

ment made available to Tribunesport on Sunday said:”So sad to hear the news about the death of Keshi. He was the best indigenous coach Nigeria ever had. A man who

opened the doors for our players to play abroad. “A man who rewrote the history of Nigerian footballl both as player and later as coach. His death no doubt is a shock to all football lovers within and outside Nigeria. May God grant his family the fortitude to bear the loss. Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, Big Boss, rest in peace”. While extolling the virtues of former Super Eagles coach, Shuaibu Amodu, Somefun, a former board member of Shooting Stars Sports Club of Ibadan noted that Amodu’s death is indeed a moment of grief for Nigeria. “A sad one for the football family which came days after the death of Stephen Keshi. What else can one say but to pray for his departed soul. May Allah be with his family”.

Olopade,who also doubles as the vice president of the association for West and East Africa commended Mr Frank Momoh of Fort Group for his support to the association and the game of wheelchair basketball in the country. According to Olopade, a former commissioner fir youth and sport in Ogun State, he is happy that the sponsorship of the championship by Sir Victor Ochei which is in the fifth year has helped in the development of wheelchair basketball in the country and has also brought the name of the

country to the international level as far as the game is cncerned. Olopade said,”the board will like to express our appreciation to Sir Victor Ochei his continued sponsorship of the championship even after leaving office as the Speaker, Delta State house of Assembly which showed that his love for the game goes beyond spending government money for sponsorship”,he said. He however, assured that this year’s edition will as in the previous edition be well organised and be hitchfree.

Dogara mourns Amodu Jacob Segun Olatunji and Kolawole Daniel - Abuja

THE Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Honourable Yakubu Dogara, has condoled with the nation over the sudden death of another former coach of the Super Eagles, Shuaibu Amodu. Amodu, who was, until his death, the Technical Director of Nigeria’s football governing body, NFF, died early on Saturday. In a statement made available to journalists in Abuja by his spokesman, Turaki Hassan, Honourable Dogara described the late former Super Eagles coach as a true nationalist who dedicated his lifetime

to serving his country. He lamented that Nigerian football was under trial as a result of sudden death of Amodu as he died when the country was still reeling from the demise of his colleague, Stephen Keshi. Amodu, during his tenures as coach of the National team, qualified the Super Eagles for the World Cup in 2002 and 2010. He said Amodu’s demise would forever remained painful as it came when the nation’s football was in dire need of his experience to reform it. The Speaker then prayed that God grant the nation and his family the fortitude to bear the loss.

39 tribunesport

Monday, 13 June, 2016

No bonus for victorious Flying Eagles P LAYERS and officials of Nigeria’s U20 men’s team left Calabar for Abuja on Sunday without being paid their bonuses for a win over Burundi, AfricanFootball.com can confirm. The ‘Flying Eagles’ defeated the ‘Young Swallows’ of Burundi 2-1 on Saturday and 3-1 on aggregate to progress to the last qualifying round of the U-20 Africa Cup of Nations. But just as it was in the first leg when they won 1-0 in Bujumbura, the players and officials didn’t receive their bonuses from the cashstrapped Nigeria Football Federation. The NFF have struggled to offset the bonuses of national teams in recent times, with the issue also affecting the Super Eagles. “We haven’t received our bonuses yet, even from the first leg,” a source within the team informed.

Adetunji Sunday of 3SC (right) and Enyimba’s Chinedu Udoji during the match between both teams at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba, Ibadan, on Sunday.

Ajani’s header dims Enyimba By Olawale Olaniyan SHOOTING Stars Sports Club (3SC), continued with its impressive home record under returnee coach, Gbenga Ogunbote as it defeated reigning Nigeria Premier League champion, Enyimba 1-0 in a match day 22 game played on Sunday at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan. The match winner was former

Sunshine Stars striker, Ajani Ibrahim, whose header in the 25th minute of the game off a pull out by Yinka Adedeji caught goalkeeper Moses Ocheje helpless. Sunday Adetunji’s long range shot in the early minutes was saved by Ocheje. Enyimba threw the chance to take the lead in the first minute but goalkeeper Fabiyi Emmanuel was brilliant enough to stop Etor

Daniel from scoring. Nzube Anaezemba also wasted what would have been an equaliser in the 31st minute as he shot the ball wide in the box with Fabiyi already displaced. Shooting Stars’ Ojukwu Ifeagwu’s header off a cross from stylish Adedeji also missed the target before recess. Both sides struggled in vain to change the scoreline while the

Airforce, Wesley Girls win maiden Lagos secondary schools B/ball league THE first Lagos State Secondary School Basketball Champions of Champions league hosted at Avicenna International School s came to an end on Sunday with Airforce Secondary School emerging as Champions of the Boys Division while Wesley Girls High School emerged champions in the Girls Category. Airforce School emerged champions defeating Ilupeju Grammer school in the crucial tie breaker game 26-18 after beating International School University of Lagos( 26-16) and host Avi Cenna International schools (23-15) on their way to their title in the round robin championship format. While the Girls Division saw Milo Conference Champions Wesley Girls Yaba made an easy work of all opponent beating wild card entrants Holychild College 23-0, Greenspring Schools 16-0 before defeating host Avi Cenna Int’l School 19-6 to finish Top of the log. Former Lagos State Sport Council Chairman, now Nigeria Basketball Federation Board Member and League Director, Mr Agboola

Pinhiero lauded the Organisers AKOFA Sports initiative and expressed enthusiasm on the bright future of Basketball with the talent on display. “ I am impressed with the level of competition amongst this kids, I am glad that there is a platform

for all these champions to come together and compete for an overall champion in Lagos. This creates an extra incentive to win any of the various grassroot competitions and a kind of health rivalry is also being developed amongst the teams as Pride is also at stake”.

second half lasted. Speaking with Tribunesport, Ogunbote said he was very happy with outcome of the match saying his team’s dream of escaping relegation is on course. “We will definitely pick vital points from our away games because we know what it is at stake and for us to survive relegation, we need to pick away points and continue to win at home,” the former Sunshine Stars tactician stated. Also, his counterpart from Enyimba, Paul Aigbogun gave kudos to his players for living up to expectations despite the defeat. “There is no problem with my boys having failed to win in the last four games. At least, these are the players who played nine games unbeaten in the ongoing season, but I believe we will soon get it right,” said the former Warri Wolves sweat merchant.

Most Valuable players Ikay Oparugo of AirForce Secondary School (left) and Oyindamola Abdulazeez (Wesley Girls) pose with their trophies.

Murray re-unites with former coach ANDY Murray has reunited with former coach; Ivan Lendl before the Aegon Championships at Queen’s Club. Murray, 29, has been without a coach since splitting with Amelie Mauresmo shortly before the French Open last month. The Scot won Wimbledon, the US Open and Olympic gold during two years with Lendl from 2012 to 2014. “Ivan’s single-minded and knows what it takes to win the big events,” Murray said in a statement. “I had two very successful years working with him. I’m looking forward to Ivan joining the team again and helping me try and reach my goals.” Lendl, a former world number one and eight-time Grand Slam champion, has spent the last two years working for the United States Tennis Association. He will work alongside Jamie Delgado, the British former player who joined Murray’s team earlier this year. Lendl helped guide Murray to victory at the London 2012 Olympics before the Briton won his first Grand Slam title at the US Open later that year. The Czech-born American then helped Murray end Britain’s 77-year wait for a men’s singles champion at Wimbledon in 2013. “I enjoyed working with Andy in the past,” Lendl, 56, added. “Andy and I have always stayed in contact so it should be fun to be part of his team again.”

Okoku celebrates Children’s Day, World Hunger’s Day with Kids EX-INTERNATIONAL Paul Okoku has taken his Greater Tomorrow Children’s Foundation train to Delta State to celebrate the 2016 Children’s Day and World Hunger’s Day with pupils of Igbe Ogume Primary School in Ogume, Ndokwa Local Government. With a mission statement to help less-privileged children in Nigeria achieve their maximum potentials by empowering them to create a brighter future through hunger relief, medical programmes, education, sport activities and mentoring, the Greater Tomorrow Foundation has been reaching out since it started operations in Nigeria and upped the ante last weekend by taking its yearly programme to kids in a remote village in Delta State. Set against the backdrop of a village setting, with rustic and bushy environment, Okoku’s foundation put smiles on the faces of the kids, who were given goody bags containing spaghetti, noodles, biscuits, fruit drinks, candy, note books.

SIDELINES It was another celebration of Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola’s Hope ‘93, June 12 election, on

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MONDAY, 13 JUNE, 2016

UR country is always exhibiting characteristics that perplex us day by day. In times of both ruffled peace and unruffled peace something always crops up to underline the perspective contained in my opening sentence. I won’t beat about the bush. Recently a Federal High Court (in Abuja?) ruled that our former heads of state and presidents, including Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, erstwhile putative political father of our immediate past president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, before Chief Edwin Clarke supplanted him in allegedly questionable circumstances and annexed the title from him, must give account of all recovered stolen and looted moneys belonging to Nigeria. In fact, the judge unequivocally ruled that the said moneys recovered from especially the tenure of Chief Obasanjo up to that of the current president be accounted for in full. His ruling excluded none. The activists who took the matter to court which the judge ruled on mean well for our country. And the judge who delivered the judgment that he delivered also means well for our country. But one of our country’s very top political dramatis personae, in fact, a foremost and foremost old guard of our political and military establishment in the person of the popular and unpopular - depending on your wondrous lenses of vision - Chief Obasanjo called the judge of honour “ignorant and stupid” for an innocuous judgment that our ex-president should applaud. Or what does he honestly find amiss in the judge’s ruling? Or does the ruling ache our ex-president because it has the potential to unearth hidden things that will ache endlessly Mr. Popular and Mr. Unpopular? Believe you me O my dear readers as I earnestly aver here that I don’t know what is amiss and why Chief Obasanjo should be offended. But he knows and knows what we, including the activists and the good judge, don’t know and will or may never know. Why not? Yet we want to know what he knows that we do not know. It will help us to make the most populously prosperous and the most prosperously populous black country on planet earth the country we

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Sunday, 23 years after the botched mandate. Even with two decades gone by, most admirers of the late politician still feel bad for the unfulfilled hope - that if Abiola had been sworn-in as president, he would have concluded even a second term in office, 15 years ago. The only consolation for them is for M.K.O. to be officially recognised as hero of Nigeria’s democracy. But if to be or not, Nigerians continue to pray for the departed soul to continue to rest in peace.

in&out with Tony Afejuku 08055213059

We must ask questions want it to be. One way to know and understand our country and our leaders well is to know our country better. Asking our leaders questions is an effective way to know them and our country better. The rhythm of our repetition is the rhythm of a far better country than the one we now have. It is the rhythm of our good and healthy country that must be our good and healthy country. We must ask questions. Our leaders are our teachers and students at the same time. If need be, we can and must ask them shocking questions. And we can use any valid forum and medium to ask our questions which they must answer with decorum and without qualms. We must questions to promote the liberation of our country and mankind. The activists who took the matter of accountability to court went there to ask, in my clear and frank view, necessary questions about our country that must remain our one indivisible country. And the judge who granted them the ruling he granted them was (and still is) interested in the answers our illustrious political leaders in the first grade would give us all. It is in the interest of everybody and everyone, including each and every illustrious gladiator (and his cohorts) who fortune, chance and circumstance allowed to preside over our political and economic destinies and woes at different points in time.

Our leaders must not play the Trump card. Perhaps our leaders are not illustrious after all. Chief Obasanjo should kindly withdraw the curious epithet of “ignorant and stupid” he applied to the fine judge in the news that has entered my journalistic and realistic imagination as good news of impeccable lucidity about an illustrious judge of honour who has fearlessly called a spade a spade. Let me say this: Chief Obasanjo’s abusive epithet which he has applied to Justice Umar, I think, recalls the unethical one Donald Trump, the “presumptive nominee” of the US Republican Party, recently employed in his puerile diatribe directed at Justice Gonzalo Curiel . This American judge ruled that the Republican “presumptive nominee” for the forthcoming November US presidential election should let the contents of his “Playboy” accounts be open to judicial/public scrutiny. Several US citizens have accused the real estate billionaire of academic scam and swindle

relating to his now defunct “Trump University” where, as they have alleged, the academic benefit they thought they would get was nothing but a worthless thing. Mr. Trump, as Nigerians would allege it, duped and played them 419. Trump’s response? Mr. “Gonzalo Curiel is a Mexican judge” who is “inherently biased” against him because he is a Trump “hater, a hater.” Simply, Trump the trump was (and still is) deliberately questioning and impugning the integrity of a judge who cannot answer back on account of his status as a majestic judicial Olympian. Clearly, Trump is allegedly afraid of what we in Nigeria call expo that will hurt his presidential ambition and quest. Trust Americans. Even his ardent party men and women and fabulous officials within and without US parliament are hitting him real hard. Are you kidding me? Trump must make his deposition properly in court backed with real evidence that is real evidence. Our leaders must not play the Trump card. We must ask them questions. As Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) said: “The only way to learn is to question.” Sartre was a French philosopher, critic, playwright, novelist and journalist who declined the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1964. Our leaders, if they can, should read him. Who dash monkey banana? •Post Script: The columnist is still at large with boiling, burning anguish.

Reps affirm Pinnick’s position as NFF President By Nurudeen Alimi

THE House of Representatives has affirmed Mr. Amaju Pinnick as the authentic President of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and ordered Chris Giwa and his cohorts to put an

Pinnick

end to the act parading themselves as President and board members of the NFF henceforth. The decisions were reached at an executive session inside the Green Chamber last week. The members of the House of Representatives after considering the report of its sports committee came up with recommendations which will allow Nigerian football to be administered in peace. It was resolved at the meeting that the Minister for Youth and Sports Development, Barrister Solomon Dalung and the Federal Government shall recognise, work and support the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), under the leadership of Amaju Pinnick.

It was also agreed that the InspectorGeneral of Police and other security agencies shall give full security protection to the NFF, Amaju Pinnick and other board members. They added that the Federal Government and security operatives shall call Mr. Chris Giwa and his group to order to ensure that Nigeria football does not continue to suffer and or incur the wrath of FIFA. They, however, stressed it that the Minister of Youth and Sports, Barrister Solomon Dalung had, at several fora (including a session with the House Committee on Sports), stated clearly that there was no court order sacking the Amaju Pinnick Board or asking Giwa to take over the NFF.

NPFL RESULTS Plateau Utd 2 Rangers

Nasarawa

4 Ifeanyi Ubah 2

Rivers Utd

4 MFM FC

3SC

1 Enyinba

Sunshine

1 Lobi

Ikorodu

1 Akwa Utd

Heartland 0 Wikki Pillars

2 Warri Wolves 2

Printed and Published by the African Newspapers of Nigeria PLC, Imalefalafia Street, Oke-Ado, Ibadan. Telephone: 08165728976; 08073598322. E mail: editornigeriantribune@yahoo.com Website: www.tribuneonlineng.com MANAGING DIRECTOR / EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: EDWARD DICKSON. EDITOR: DEBO ABDULAI. All Correspondence to P.O. Box 78, Ibadan. ISSN 2712. ABC Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. 13/06/2016.