16th January 2016

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Javan Busho, known as Ben Priest, is a Nigerian reggae artiste based in South Africa. He is the lead singer of the Lucky Dube band in South Africa. The Cross River State -born star sings and talks like Luke Dube, who passed on in 2007. In this interview, Ben Priest, who came to Nigeria on a short visit, spoke to Newton-Ray Ukwuoma about his passion for reggae music and the South African reggae legend.

When did you start singing?

Professionally, I started singing on stage at my base then in Abuja. I ran a lot of in-house bands in Abuja every weekend in different hotels like Chelsea Hotel, Sheraton and Nicon Hotel. The last place I worked was in Valencia Hotel in Wuse 2 in 2008 before I finally left for South Africa.

You were evidently doing well in Nigeria, why did you leave for South Africa?

One or two things led to my going to South Africa. First, I adored Lucky Dube right from my youth. He had always been someone I looked up to. I always tried to mimic his voice even in Nigeria. Not only the melody, his messages were deep, philosophical and prophetic. I see deeper than what an ordinary person sees in his music. One day I dreamt and saw myself singing in his band. It happened a number of times. Since then I began to long to go to South Africa. Somehow the Lucky Dube band saw some of my music online and called me to come join the band. I went to South Africa and met with them. I did some auditions and was later chosen because I sang like him, having the same tone. They believed I was someone who could walk in the shoes of the legend.

When did you leave for South Africa to join the band?

I went to South Africa on the 25th of September 2008. Lucky Dube died on 17 October 2007. I could say it was a divine appointment, but sadly we always miss him so much. But there was a need not to let his legacy die even though I was doing my own thing in Nigeria before then. It is my own way of contributing to the legacy of Lucky Dube the legend.

As a Nigerian and leading the Lucky Dube band, how has it been?

I would say it is not easy to step in the shoes of the legend. To start with, no one can replace his uniqueness. No one can replace the glory he carried. I tried and I am still in the process of reviving his band. Just recently we were able to come up with an album since he died and Continues on pg30

There is a spiritual connection between

me and Lucky Dube – Ben Priest, Lead singer, Lucky Dube Band

Continues on pg30

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Saturday Tribune

Shocking defence contract revelations

•N643bn, $2.1bn for procurements in 8yrs •N4.4bn paid on unexecuted contracts •Officer awards N6.25bn, $5m contracts to self •Buhari orders EFCC to probe 17 ex-military chiefs, others Leon Usigbe - Abuja

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ROUBLE is coming for more officials of the past administration as President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal AS Badeh (Retd) and 16 other former and serving top military brass over suspected corruption in the procurement of arms during the last dispensation.

Apart from Badeh, others are Air Marshal MD Umar, Air Marshal AN Amosu (retd), Maj-Gen. ER Chioba (retd), AVM IA Balogun (retd), AVM AG Tsakr (retd), AVM AG Idowu (retd), AVM AM Mamu, AVM OT Oguntoyinbo, AVM T Omeny and AVM JB Adigun.

The rest are AVM RA Ojuawo, AVM JA KayodeBeckley, Air Cdre SA Yushau (retd), Air Cdre AO Ogunjobi, Air Cdre GMD Gwani, Air Cdre SO Makinde, Air Cdre AY Lassa, and Col N Ashinze and Lt Col. MS Dasuki (retd).

The president’s order to the anti-graft agency followed the recommendation of the committee he established to audit the procurement of arms and equipment in the Armed Forces and Defence sector from 2007 to 2015.

Following the recommendation, he has directed the EFCC to carry out further investigation into the misconduct established against the retired and serving officers of the Nigerian Air Force and Nigerian Army.

According to a statement issued by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Friday, the president wants the commission to investigate the roles of the officers, 21 companies and their directors in fundamental breaches associated with the procurements by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and the Nigerian Air Force (NAF).

The companies slated for probe are Messrs Societe D’ Equipments Internationaux, Himma Aboubakar, Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited, Messrs Syrius Technologies, Dr Theresa A. Ittu, Sky Experts Nig Ltd, Omenyi Ifeanyi Tony, Huzee Nig Ltd, GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd, Gbujie Peter Obie and Onuri Samuel Ugochukwu.

Others are Spacewebs Interservices Ltd, Oguntoyinbo Tayo, Oguntoyinbo Funmi, Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd, Chief Jacobs Bola, Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd, Geonel Intergrated Services

Ltd, Sachi Felicia and Mudaki Polycarp Wolfgang Reinl.

According to the statement, the breaches identified by the audit committee include non-specification of procurement costs, absence of contract agreements, award of contracts beyond authorised thresholds, transfer of public funds for unidentified purposes and general non-adherence to provisions of the Public Procurement Act. Furthermore, the procurement processes were arbitrarily carried out and generally characterised by irregularities and fraud.

It said in many cases, the procured items failed to meet the purposes they were procured for, especially the counter insurgency efforts in the North East.

According to the statement, a major procurement activity undertaken by ONSA for NAF was that concerning the contracts awarded to Societe D’ Equipment Internationaux (SEI) Nig Ltd. The statement said between January 2014 and February 2015, NAF awarded 10 contracts totaling $930,500,690.00 to SEI Nig Ltd. It added: “Letters of award and End User Certificates for all the contracts issued by NAF and ONSA respectively did not reflect the contract sums. Rather, these were only found in the vendor’s invoices, all dated 19 March 2015.

Additionally, some of the award letters contained misleading delivery dates suggesting fraudulent intent in the award process.

“The observed discrepancies are in clear contravention of extant procurement regulations,” it said.

The statement added: “The SEI contracts included procurement of two used Mi-24V helicopters instead of the recommended Mi-35M series at the cost of $136,944,000.00.

“However, it was confirmed that the helicopters were excessively priced and not operationally air worthy at the time of delivery. A brand new unit of such helicopters goes for about $30m.

“Furthermore, the helicopters were delivered without rotor blades and upgrade accessories. Additionally, the helicopters were undergoing upgrade while being deployed for operation in the North East without proper documentation. It was further established that as at date, only one of the helicopters is in service while the other crashed and claimed the lives of two NAF personnel.

“The committee established that ONSA also funded the procurement of 4 used Alpha-

Jets for the NAF at the cost of Seven Million, One Hundred and Eighty Thousand US Dollars ($7,180,000.00).

However, it was confirmed that only 2 of the Alpha-Jet aircraft were ferried to Nigeria after cannibalization of engines from NAF fleet.

“This is contrary to the written assertion of the former Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal AN Amosu to the former NSA that all the 4 procured Alpha-Jets aircraft were delivered to the NAF. “The non-militarisation of the Alpha-Jets made them unsuitable for deployment to the North East and they are currently deployed only for training at NAF Kainji.

“Furthermore, the procurement of the Alpha-Jets was contrary to the recommendation of the assessment team. The Committee found that the conduct of Air Marshal Amosu was deliberately misleading and unpatriotic.

“The contract for the procurement of 36D6 Low Level Air Defence Radar for the NAF was awarded to GAT Techno Dynamics Ltd in April 2014 at the cost of Thirty Three Million US Dollars ($33m) and was funded by ONSA. “The committee established that the radars were excessively priced as a complete set of such radars (comprising 6 radars including the Control Centre) goes for Six Million US Dollars ($6m) averagely. The committee observed that the radars were delivered without the vital component of Identification Friend or Foe (IFF) that distinguishes between own and adversary aircraft, which has significantly degraded the operational capabilities of the NAF in the North East.

“It was further observed that the sum of Three Million, Three Hundred Thousand US Dollars ($3.3m) was fraudulently included in the contract agreement as VAT and With Holding Tax and subsequently paid into the bank accounts of Spacewebs Interservices Ltd and Delfina Oil and Gas Ltd. “The committee further established that Two Million US Dollars ($2m) from the proceeds was transferred to Mono Marine Corporation Nig Ltd, which is jointly owned by principal characters in this deal. The committee opined that the infractions of extant regulations by these companies were clearly intended to defraud.

“It was established that between September 2009 and May 2015, the NAF expended about Fifteen Billion Naira (N15bn) on the maintenance of its Alpha-Jets, C-130H aircraft and Mi-24V/35P heli-

copters. Out of this amount, Four Billion, Four Hundred and Two Million, Six Hundred and Eighty Seven Thousand, Five Hundred and Sixty Nine Naira, Forty One Kobo (N4,402,687,569.41) was paid out for contracts not executed.

“It was also observed that in carrying out these maintenance activities, contracts worth over Two Billion, Five Hundred Million Naira (N2.5bn) were awarded to Syrius Technologies, a Ukrainian company that was not registered in Nigeria. Regrettably, in spite of these expenditures, the status of NAF fleet remained operationally appalling as only 3 Alpha-Jets, 2 C-130H and one each of Mi-24V and Mi-35P were serviceable as at 28 May 2015.

“In October 2013, NAF awarded contracts to DICON for the supply of weapons and ammunition at the cost of Five Hundred and Ninety Nine Million, One Hundred and Eighteen Thousand Naira (N599,118,000.00). However, only 2 of the 7 items contracted were delivered to

NAF while the outstanding 5 items remained undelivered despite repeated requests to DICON. “The committee also found that the delivered ammunition were about 40 years old, thereby casting doubts on their shelf life. The failure of DICON to fully execute the contract and the delivery of aged ammunition diminished the capacity of the NAF in North East operation.

“The committee uncovered insider dealings by military officers in procurement activities undertaken

by ONSA and the NAF. The officers were found to have misused or abused their offices for personal gains by influencing award of contracts to private companies in which they have substantial interests.

“For instance, an officer serving in the ONSA used his office to secure 2 contracts for his company, Geonel Integrated Services Ltd, for the protection of 20 Dams and Presidential Air Fleet security at the cost of Six Billion, Two Hundred and Fifty Million Naira (N6,250,000,000.00) and

Five Million US Dollars ($5m) respectively.

“Furthermore, some NAF officers used their companies to collect VAT and With holding Tax that were never remitted to FIRS while another officer was found to have cross transferred about Five Hundred Million Naira (N500m) between a NAF company, Aeronautical Engineering and Technical Services Limited, SkyExperts Nig Ltd and Huzee Nig Ltd, companies in which he had personal interests.”

The statement recalled that in its First Interim Report, the Committee on Audit of Defence Equipment established that the sum of N643billion and $2.1bn interventions were received for defence procurements by DHQ and the services between 2007 and 2015.

“In continuation of its assignment, the committee has so far established that the nation spent about Twenty Nine Billion Naira (N29bn) and Two Billion US Dollars ($2bn) on NAF procurement activities alone,” the Presidency statement concluded.

Metuh docked, pleads not guilty, remmanded in prison Sunday Ejike - Abuja THE embattled National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh on Friday told a Federal High Court in Abuja that he is innocent in the N400 million fraud charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Metuh, who pleaded not guilty to the seven-count charge bordering on breach of trust, diversion of public funds and money laundering filed against him by the anti-graft agency, will remain in prison custody until Tuesday, 19 January, 2016 when the court will rule on his bail application.

Metuh orally applied to the trial Judge, Justice Okon Abang, through his counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN), to admit him on bail on the ground that the offence he is alleged to have committed was a bailable one.

The prosecution counsel, Sylvanus Tahir, while objecting to the oral application for Metuh’s bail, told the court that the defence ought to have applied formally in writing for the bail of the defendant.

Ikpeazu objected to that submission, saying that the trial is a summary one and that the court can exercise its discretion to grant a bail

based on an oral application and cited the case of Abiola vs FRN reported in 1995 to buttress his submission.

He said, “We do not intend to go outside the law, but to rest the application on the constitutional right of the defendant. We are not going beyond the charge against him, so the issue of bringing an affidavit does not arise”.

Ikpeazu therefore pleaded with the court to exercise its discretion by granting Metuh bail.

It will be recalled that Metuh had approached the court with a suit seeking an order for his release from the custody of the EFCC. In the suit for the enforcement of his fundamental rights filed on his behalf by his counsel, Ifedayo Adedikpe (SAN), the PDP spokesman told the court that his continuous detention by the anti-graft agency since January 5, 2016 that he was arrested from his Abuja residence at No 14, Drive 1, Prince and Princess Estate, near the Abuja Games Village for allegedly collecting N400 million from the $2.1 billion arms funds diverted to several politicians by former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, amounts to violation of his fundamental rights.

He then asked the court to order the EFCC to release him or charge him to court.

Rotimi Jacobs (SAN),

counsel for the EFCC told the court that the commission has a valid court order to detain the PDP spokesman over corruption related crimes.

In the charge, signed by the Assistant Director Legal and Prosecution Department of the EFCC, Sylvanus Tahir, Metuh was accused of obtaining N400 million through Destra Investments Limited from the office of the then National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd) on behalf of the PDP for campaign activities.

He was also accused of converting part of the money to one million US Dollars and diverted it for his personal use while another sum of N21.7million was transferred to another chieftain of PDP, Chief Tony Anenih.

Part of the seven-count charge reads in part: “That you, Olisa Metuh and Destra Investments Limited on or about the 24th November, 2014 in Abuja took possession of N400 million paid into the account of Destra Investments Limited with Diamond Bank Plc, Account No: 0040437573 from the account of the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA) with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) without contract award when you reasonably ought to have known that the said fund formed Continues pg4

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Metuh docked, pleads not guilty, remanded in prison Continued from pg3

part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki (Rtd) the then National Security Adviser (To Wit: criminal breach of trust and corruption) and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2), (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act. “That you, Olisa Metuh and Destra Investments Limited on or about the 24th November, 2014 in Abuja converted N400 million paid into the account of Destra Investments Limited with Diamond Bank Plc, Account No: 0040437573 from the account of the office of the NSA with the CBN without contract award when you reasonably ought to have known that the said fund formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki (Rtd) the then NSA (To Wit: criminal breach of trust and corruption) and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2), (d) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act. “That you, Olisa Metuh and Destra Investments Limited on or about the 24th November, 2014 in Abuja, did retain the sum of N400 million on behalf of the Peoples Democratic Party for its campaign activities by concealing the said sum in your account with Diamond Bank Plc, when you reasonably ought to have known that such fund formed part of the proceeds of an unlawful activity of Col. Sambo Dasuki (Rtd), the then NSA (To wit: criminal breach of trust and corruption), and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 17(a) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended in 2012 and punishable under Section 17(b) of the same Act.”

The Chairman, African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN) Plc., Reverend Omotola Oyediran, welcoming the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Odua Investment Company Limited, Mr Adewale Raji, during his visit to Reverend Oyediran at her residence in Ibadan on Friday.

PHOTO: ALOLADE GANIYU.

Buhari asks military to intensify rescue of Chibok girls Chris Agbambu - Abuja

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RESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari on Friday charged the military to develop the appropriate intelligence and strategy to rescue the missing 209 students of Government Secondary School Chibok in Borno State in the quickest possible time.

The president gave the charge while interacting, via video conferencing with troops’ commanders in the North East, shortly after laying a wreath at the cenotaph of the ‘unknown soldier’ at the National Arcade, Abuja.

The interaction with troops was part of the programme for the wreath laying ceremony which was the climax of the 2016 Armed Forces and Remembrance Day. Buhari, who expressed satisfaction with the performance of the troops, said Nigerians were equally concerned about their performance and were eagerly awaiting the return of the abducted Chibok girls.

He assured them of his administration’s commitment to improve their welfare and the military’s operational readiness to deal with contemporary challenges of national security.

“I am quite impressed with what you have done so far and what you are presently doing.

“Yesterday I met with some of the parents of the Chibok girls and the nation is anxiously waiting for you to provide the intelligence on their whereabouts and then the ground forces developing

the strategy and tactics to recover them.

According to him, “Tell the troops that we are all concerned about their performance and I assure you the government is doing its best to make sure that they are provided with the best that is possible in terms of military hardware and efficiency in logistics and your allowances”.

The president expressed

confidence in the ability of the Armed Forces to restore peace and order to parts of the country plagued by armed conflict and other forms of criminal activities.

Responding on behalf of the troops, the Theatre Commander, ‘Operation Lafiya Dole’, Major-General Hassan Umaru thanked the president for the Federal Government’s support to the military.

He assured the president and Nigerians that the troops were in high spirit and determined to put an end to the menace of insurgency in the North-East.

The president also interacted with the Air Component Commander of ‘Operation Lafiya Dole’, Air Vice Marshal Bayo Amao, who was on aerial surveillance of Bitta and Gwoza general areas.

Armed militants blow up pipelines, Tompolo denies involvement EbenezerAdurokiya-Warri AMID reports of renewed militant activities in the Niger Delta, a former lord of the creeks, Chief Government Ekpemupolo, also known as Tompolo, has denied his involvement in the alleged blowing up of gas pipelines from Thursday night till Friday morning in Warri South-West Local Government Area of Delta State.

Reports that could not be confirmed were rife on Friday that suspected former militants blew up gas pipelines conveying gas from Escravos to Warri to Lagos and to Abuja.

The pipelines said to belong to the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) were reportedly blown up at Opudebubor, Okpelama and Kpokpo areas, Chanomi creek and Sahara, behind Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL).

Spokesperson for the Joint

Tax Force (JTF), Lt. Col. Isa Ado neither picked his phone nor replied to a text message sent to his mobile device to confirm the incidents.

However, Tompolo, through his media aide, Paul Bebenimibo, told Saturday Tribune that he was not involved in any economic sabotage such as blowing up of pipelines.

He berated those linking the pipeline incidents to him, saying he remained a staunch supporter of the Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

Tompolo also said he was in high consultation with his lawyers on the EFCC suit preferred against him and would remain a law-abiding citizen as ever before.

He admonished the Federal Government to go after economic saboteurs who were bent on ruining the nation’s oil economy, adding that he had no link with any individual or group per-

petrating evil in the creeks.

Meanwhile, the UN has warned that while peaceful and credible elections were held in several countries in West Africa in the past six months, violent extremism continues to pose a serious threat throughout the subregion.

Mohamed Ibn Chambas, Secretary-General Ban Kimoon’s Special Representative and Head of the UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA), told the Security Council.

“Violent extremism and terrorist activities remain a major threat to security and development in West Africa, further aggravating the region’s humanitarian challenges.

“While some progress has been made in the fight against Boko Haram, the terrorist group continues its indiscriminate attacks against civilians not only in Nigeria, but also in Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

VC calls for establishment of 4 new Open varsities in Nigeria Clement Idoko - Abuja THE vice chancellor of Sokoto State University, Professor Nuhu Yaqub, has urged the Federal Government to increase budgetary allocation to the education sector to 26 per cent just as he called for the establishment of four new Open universities in the country.

Yaqub described as pathetic, the neglect of education sector in Nigeria over the years leading to the current poor teaching and learning conditions at various levels of the sector in the country.

He spoke on Friday in Abuja at the fifth convocation lecture of the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) at the permanent site of the university in Abuja. The lecture was entitled, “Open and Distance Education in Relation to Socio-Economic Development.”

He stressed that Nigeria could implement the 26 per cent budgetary allocation to education sector as recommended by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), adding that Nigeria was ranked very far below some even poor African countries in terms of budget to education.

Customs officers given 14 days ultimatum to declare assets ALL officers and men of the Nigeria Customs Service are to make full disclosure of their assets in a new measure put in place to push transparency and compliance with the Rule of Law. A statement signed by Wale Adeniyi, spokesperson for the Customs disclosed that the directive on assets declaration is contained in a circular, signed by the ComptrollerGeneral of Customs, Colonel Hammed Ibrahim Ali (retd) and addressed to all Deputy Comptrollers-General, Zonal Coordinators and Customs Area Controllers. The statement said all officers are to comply with the directive within 14 days.

According to the circular, the directive on assets declaration is in compliance with “The Bank Employees Declaration of Assets Act Cap B1 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004. Though the Act provides for asset declaration by all bank employees, it also empowers the president to extend its application to other categories of persons.

Specifically, Section 12 (1) states that “The provision of this Act shall apply to the Comptroller-General, Deputy Comptroller-General, Assistant Comptroller-General, Chief Collector, Principal Collector and other Officer, staff or employee of the Nigeria Customs Service as the apply to a Chief Executive or an employee of a bank”.

The Comptroller-General observed that many officers have not complied with the provisions of the Act over the years, stating that the 14-day ultimatum for compliance will be strictly enforced.

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Govs, others celebrate Akintola •How he was killed —Son

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HE scion of the family of a late Premier of the defunct Western Region, Ambassador Abayomi Akintola, has given graphic details of the almost twenty-hour siege that culminated in the assassination of his father, Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola, during the January 15, 1966 coup.

He insisted that the body of his father was not mutilated by the mutineers as widely believed, but confirmed that the invaders abandoned his father’s blood-soaked body at the entrance to the building.

The former Nigeria Ambassador to Hungary recounted the 1966 harrowing experience during a lecture marking the 50th anniversary of the death of Akintola, held at the Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, on Thursday.

The event was attended by the governor of Oyo State, Senator Abiola Ajimobi; his immediate past predecessor, Chief Adebayo Alao-Akala; Secretary to the Osun State Government, Alhaji Moshood Adeoti; a former AttorneyGeneral of the Federation and Minister of Justice,

Chief Richard Akinjide; Senator Brimmo Yusuf, among others.

At the LAUTECH lecture, Akintola said that none of the premier’s children and their wives was injured while the gun attack lasted, describing their father as a hero who laid down his life and shielded his family from the invaders.

He said, “I was managing a thriving business in Lagos when my father directed me to relocate to Ibadan when he became premier.

Although I was very reluctant to leave certainty for uncertainty, I had to defer to him. That was how I came to Ibadan.

“During the coup, about 50 soldiers invaded our house. My father was in a room within the house with us and we begged him no to go out. We shielded ourselves with the big wardrobes in the room as the soldiers began to shoot sporadically.

“At a stage my father told us he wanted to go and meet them, but we begged him not to Like the hero that he was, he told us that he would prefer to go and face them and damn the consequences, rather than allow them to wipe out his

family if they continued to hide.”

Akintola said his father eventually confronted the soldiers, who he alleged initially ran away, frightened that any living thing in the house could survive under the hail of bullets aimed at every direction in the building.

According to him, it was later when the family could venture out of the building that they discovered the body of the family’s patriarch in a pool of his blood.

He described the late

premier as a nationalist, a quintessential family man, a democracy lover, an orator and committed politician who did his best to raise the socioeconomic profile of the Western region.

In his address at the event, Ajimobi admonished the family of the late premier to reach out and involve more people and political leaders on issues and events relating to the late premier, whom he described as an “unsung hero.”

“This late icon was an

unsung hero, not only because of his unprecedented achievements as a politician, a parliamentarian, an astute administrator, but also because he was a bridge builder in Nigeria’s search for national integration,” he said.

Also on Friday, the governor led others to lay wreaths in honour of the country’s war heroes during the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebration at the Remembrance Arcade, opposite the Government House, Ibadan.

Ajimobi said: “It is perti-

Saturday Tribune

nent to remember gallant solders who put down their lives to sustain the unity of our dear country. We will continue to support them even when they are no more.”

The General Officer Commanding, 2 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major General Laz Ilo, described the programme as a good way of giving honour to the fallen soldiers, whom, he said, did their best and paid the supreme price for the unity, sovereignty and survival of the country.

Agitation for Biafra, hopeless, futile exercise —Obasanjo Christian Okeke -Abuja Former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, on Friday, in Abuja, said that Biafra agitation, as a means of calling for succession or severance from Nigeria, is a hopeless and futile exercise which no serious person should embark upon.

He accused those involved in the ongoing protests for the independence of Biafra of doing so out of error and ignorance.

Obasanjo stated this during a roundtable discussion organised by Nextier Advisory, a public sector advisory firm with the theme “Nigeria and the Biafra Agitation” and insisted that only those who did not experience the previous civil war in the country would embark on the current agitation for Biafra.

The former president absolved the Igbos of blame for voting for former President Goodluck Jonathan

in the last general election, and called on President Muhammadu Buhari to prove that Nigeria was his constituency by being fair to the Igbos.

According to him,“No right-thinking person who had experienced the horror of war will ever agitate for more war.

“Most wars stem from perceived injustices and dissatisfaction and a desire to correct or redress such “Our civil war was not any different. The solu-

tion is first for elders in the South-East to call for sanity among the youths and for the president to prove that Nigeria is his constituency.

He should act like God who gives rain to the good and the bad, just and the unjust equally.

“I cannot end without reiterating that Biafra agitation as a means of calling for succession or severance from Nigeria is a hopeless and futile exercise on which no serious person should embark on.”

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Ekiti Speaker stresses need for better funding of military, retirees THE Speaker of Ekiti State House of Assembly, Right Honourable (Pastor) Kola Oluwawole, has stressed the need for the Federal Government to increase funding of the nation’s military as well as welfare of their retirees.

Oluwawole made this call on Friday while speaking with some journalists during the grand finale of this year’s annual Armed Forces Remembrance Day. He maintained that while the efforts of the Federal Government along this line had been commendable, “there is obviously room for improvement.”

According to a statement by his Special Assistant (Media), Stephen Gbadamosi, on Friday, Oluwawole said; “these men, who keep vigil so that other Nigerians can sleep with their two eyes shut, aside the problem of insurgency they are currently grappling with, need more attention than they are currently being given. We need not to vilify them for any reason, especially political. The duty of securing the territorial integrity of the nation alone is herculean.”

Resident Electoral Commissioner for FCT, Professor Jacob Jatau (left) and the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu (second right), inspecting continuous voter registration exercise at the Junior Secondary School, Wuse 2 in Abuja on Friday. PHOTO: NAN.

EFCC seeks Army’s partnership on corruption

Arraigns 2 for N210million fraud Saliu Gbadamosi-Abuja

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HE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has called on the Nigeria Army to partner with it in the task of fighting corruption and economic crimes in Nigeria.

EFCC’s Head of Operations, Enugu Zone, Obioha Okorie, made the appeal on Thursday when he led senior officers of the com-

mission in the zone on a courtesy visit to the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 82 Division, Nigerian Army, Enugu, Major General Ibrahim Attahiru.

According to Okorie, the EFCC team’s visit underscored the need for synergy and collaboration in the fight against corruption in the country.

Responding, General Attahiru said he was happy that the Head of Operations found it expedient to

pay a courtesy visit to the Division. He pledged the support of officers and men of his division to the fight against economic and financial crimes and wished Okorie a successful tenure.

In another development, two accused persons, Stanley Odjighere and Igho Timothy Okpekereke, who were dragged before a Federal High Court, sitting in Warri, Delta State,

by EFCC for defrauding a new generation bank of

Don’t sack doctors, lecturers, ex-SSG warns Aregbesola

ERSTWHILE Secretary to the Osun State Government, Alhaji Fatai Akinbade, has warned the state governor, Mr Rauf Aregbesola not to carry out his threat of retrenching doctors and lecturers in the state.

Doctors and lecturers had been embroiled in a faceoff with the Aregbesola administration over their salaries and other related matters since last year.

As a result, Akinbade in a statement, admonished that sacking any worker at this point in time, would not be the solution to the economic doldrums caused by the policies of Aregbesola’s administration.

According to him, “if the sack thing is a joke, Aregbesola should just stop it because it will be a joke carried too far. I think it rather remains on the platform of conjecture, a stunt of sort. It is a gimmick that hardly works anymore because no government can cow workers from demanding for their rights” In addition, he warned that the consequences of such action would be dire

for the administration to bear.

The former SSG who was also the Labour Party (LP) gubernatorial candidate in the state’s last year’s governorship election, wondered why Aregbesola’s administration would think sacking workers demanding for their rights, would solve the problems on ground.

Akinbade added “the governor is only being clever by half. Definitely, no one can eat his cake and have

it. So, the governor and his team must face the consequence and the reality of the mess they created” The LP stalwart noted that if Aregbesola should make good his threat of sacking the affected workers, the situation would further plunge the state into another phase of economic chaos. “This is avoidable. If not heeded, many families will be gravely affected in the end,” he said.

N210million in 2014 have pleaded guilty to the charges preferred against them.

The duo were dragged before Justice M.S Abubakar on a two-count charge of money laundering.

According to a press release made available to the Saturday Tribune, in Abuja

by EFCC’s Head, Media and Publicity, Mr Wilson Uwujaren, the duo in 2014 at the Oghara branch of Ecobank Plc, Delta State, cashed in on a system glitch leading to malfunctioning of the Quickteller facility in the bank’s ATM to defraud the banks by transferring monies to several accounts.

All the transactions involved, it was learnt, were failed transactions but the monies transferred were not reversed from the customer’s accounts. The accused transferred over N210million into their First Bank accounts, which they laundered through other people’s bank accounts and later converted to their personal use.

Justice Abubakar adjourned the matter today for sentencing.

Why Nigeria’s unity is attractive — Osinbajo Leon Usigbe - Abuja VICE President Yemi Osinbajo has identified factors which he said make Nigeria’s unity attractive, saying these include its size and the sheer economic power of a huge population.

He therefore noted that no one who thinks of dismembering the country and considers the enormous potentials that could result from its size would still want the country divided.

“Whoever it is that wants

to go his own way will find that our size is why we are an attractive proposition,” he observed.

He made the remarks at the 13th annual Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja titled “50 Years After 1966: Is Nigeria Rising?”

The vice president said Nigeria’s size was not just formidable in the African continent, but also globally, adding: “our country has the potential not just to be the giant of Africa, but a major economic giant in the world.”

He counseled that the Nigerian elites have a duty to deliver Nigeria as the giant that it is.

While noting that the size of Lagos State alone was larger in economic terms than several African countries, he submitted that Nigeria was better staying together and maintaining its unity.

Osinbajo admitted that Nigeria was having rising challenges but pointed out that elite consensus was necessary for the building of successful nations.

Remember death, cleric warns political leaders Sam Nwaoko - Ado Ekiti THE Archbishop of Ondo Province (Anglican Communion), Most Reverend Latunji Lasebikan, has warned political and sundry leaders in the country to remember death as some of them amass wealth through less than honest means.

Archbishop Lasebikan gave the charge at St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Osi-Ekiti in Ido/Osi Local Government Area of Ekiti State at the funeral service for the wife of the retired Bishop of Lagos West, Anglican Communion, Most Reverend Peter Awelewa Adebiyi, Caroline Adefiola, on Friday.

The cleric lamented that the country would remain stagnant “until we learn how to render selfless services to the nation and to ourselves the masses.”

He urged Nigerian leaders to “stop unnecessary looting of the treasury because death may come anytime.”

Ogun Assembly approves new logo for state THE Ogun State House of Assembly has endorsed a new logo for the state as presented to the House by Governor Ibikunle Amosun.

The logo is to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the creation of the state.

The majority leader, Mr Adeyinka Mafe, moved the motion for the ratification of the changes to the logo and this was seconded by Mrs Yetunde Shogbeyin, a member.

The majority leader, while opening debate on the motion, said that the new logo came at the right time when the state was preparing for its 40th anniversary.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mafe said that the new logo showed the importance of the state and what it stood for in terms of education, adding that the state recorded many firsts in the area of education.

el-Rufai appoints new chairman for board of internal revenue Muhammad Sabiu - Kaduna GOVERNOR Nasiru el-Rufai has approved the appointment of a new interim chairman of the Kaduna State Board of Internal Revenue.

This was contained in a statement made available to the Saturday Tribune on Friday and signed by the state commissioner for Finance, Alhaji Suleiman Abdu Kwari.

The statement disclosed that the new acting executive chairman of the board is Moukhtar Ahmed, who was until his appointment Special Adviser on Investment Promotion to the Governor, Nasir el-Rufai.

In the same vein, the statement also announced the appointment of Mr. Chris Umar as the acting Company Secretary/Legal Adviser to the agency. Umar was Special Adviser, Legal Matters to the governor.

The statement further said, “the Kaduna State Executive Council has declared a state of emergency on revenue generation in the state.

“Among others, this has necessitated urgent actions structured to improve the IGR of the state in the short, medium and long term.”

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

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feature

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

In Lagos, even tomato sellers say ‘dollar don go up’

Naza Okoli - Lagos

A

LABA International is perhaps the busiest market in Lagos: every inch of the market appears to be involved one way or another in the rowdy business of buying and selling. Along the single road that wades through the market, the chaos is taken to a whole new level. Cars, tricycles, motorcycles, wheelbarrows, and other kinds of vehicles fight over the right of way. Shops are sited uncomfortably close to one another, so that one often feels an overwhelming sensation of being choked.

For some months now, one of the most popular headline stories in the media has been the falling value of the naira against the dollar. Indeed, it has so often been harped upon that it seems both the news writers and their audience have become tired of the subject. A good number of the traders at Alaba are exporters. To what extent are they affected by the travails of the naira?

“We are gravely affected,” Engineer Paul Okenwa, President-General of Alaba International Market, told Saturday Tribune on Wednesday. “In fact, many of us are idle now. The money in our hands is drying up. It is also gradually affecting the prices of goods, and many of our customers are finding it difficult to understand.”

Okenwa said the situation was one that called for “bold steps and bold decisions,” and called on the Federal Government to initiate “more robust economic policies”.

“On our own parts as traders at this market, what can we do?” he said. “There is nothing much we can do. The policy of the government supersedes that of ours. We can only complain in the media. I’d tell everybody to persevere. We should be patient because God is in heaven.

It is only God that can turn things around. I would not criticise the policies of the government, but I can tell you that these policies are affecting our economy. I know that many companies are laying off their workers. Even if we want to stop importation altogether, it should be gradual.

Our ambition should not be bigger than our ability. Many companies are dying... even our Chinese partners. There was a time we imported goods at N168 per dollar, and then naira fell to N220, and we were crying. Now it is N300. Imagine that!”

‘Aba-made’ But if there is any group that appears to thrive on the state of the naira, it is traders of domestic goods who ordinarily are not supposed to be affected by the exchange rate, but who have nevertheless found a “justifiable excuse” to increase the prices of their commodities.

By the side of the road, close to the entrance of the Electrical Dealers Section at Alaba, are sellers of clothes and shoes. Their items are displayed on wheelbarrows, parked vehicles, and on mats spread out on the ground.

Femi Johnson, a student at Lagos State University, had just purchased some clothes along this stretch.

“I bought these clothes there,” he said pointing further down the road. “To my surprise, the guy [seller] told me that one shirt is N2500 because ‘dollar don high’. It is not imported shirt o! It is Aba-made. You can see the finishing... see the thread coming out. Ordinarily this is supposed to be N1000 or less. I’m sure it would have been cheaper at Oshodi. Anyway, after everything, I paid N1500.”

Nneka Ugwu lives at Egbe with her husband and three children. She owns a small restaurant in front of her compound. She told Saturday Tribune that the prices of foodstuffs had been going up since late last year, and that traders of these commodities often cite the exchange rate as the reason for the hike in prices.

I bought these clothes there... To my surprise, the guy [seller] told me that one shirt is N2500 because ‘dollar don high’. It is not imported shirt o! It is Aba-made. You can see the finishing... see the thread coming out.

“Even tomato sellers now talk about the rate of naira and dollar,” she said. “I used to buy onions in large quantity, but I cannot do that now, because they have all increased their prices. We thought it was because of Christmas, but Christmas is long gone, and the prices are still up there. The man I normally buy from said it’s because of the dollar rate.”

Angela Idowu sells banana at Liasu Road, Egbe. Even though she did not attribute the hike in the price of banana to the dollar rate, she noted that the price of the fruit had not reduced since after Christmas.

“I used to pay N35 000 for my supply from Ore in Ondo State,” she said. “But I now pay N50 000 for the same quantity. That is why banana is expensive.”

‘Import-dependent’ However, Dr David Mautin Oke, a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Economics, University of Lagos, told Saturday Tribune on Wednesday that increase in the prices of locally produced goods should be expected.

“Nigeria is an import-dependent economy” he said.

“When you have a country which does not produce most of the things it consumes, then you should expect things like that to happen. We all know that whenever the exchange rate is high, it will mean that the prices of imported goods will be high. But yes, it has a way of also affecting domestic prices. This is because the domestic economy is already affected. There is what we call ‘expectations’ or ‘influences’.

When people expect that prices would go up, they normally increase the prices of their commodities. Again, we mustn’t forget that some of the local manufacturers use imported machines. So whenever you have an economy that is importdependent, whatever happens in the international economy will affect the domestic economy.”

One of the most long-standing tips often proffered by experts as remedy for the Nigerian economy is diversification – a conscious effort to revive local industries. It is a generally held belief that Nigeria possesses the capacity to manufacture most of the products it currently imports.

Perhaps the current state of the naira could provide the much needed incentive – the political will – to at last make industrialisation the central focus of government at all levels?

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

newsmaker

Magu: The unauthorised story of a tough cop

LANRE ADEWOLE traces the journey of Ibrahim Magu to the zenith of anti-corruption campaign.

C

AN a journey of about 13 years, in and out, be adequately captured by a famous phrase? Let’s assume that Latin’s Que Sera Sera (whatever will be, will be) would do for Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Ibrahim Magu in describing his secondment journey in the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from his coming in, as an investigator in the Economic Governance Unit wearing a Deputy Superintendent of Police epaulette in 2003 to now sitting atop the wave-making anti-corruption outfit which is roiling under President Muhammadu Buhari, in about three years of his return.

Not many would know that Magu, until his acting appointment by Buhari, a Deputy Director heading the Internal Affairs Unit of the commission, was unceremoniously pulled out of the commission in 2008 as a Superintendent of Police (SP) under the chairmanship of Mrs Farida Waziri. He was said to be head of his unit then. But his direct boss, the then Inspector General of Police (IGP), Sir Mike Okiro, despite the great investigative job he was reportedly doing, recalled him to the force headquarters in Abuja alongside a couple of other officers. Was Magu a target of official victimisation? Answers would remain in conjectural realm.

Magu, however, returned to the EFCC with the return of Lamorde who he incidentally succeeded following the controversial exit of the former chairman and in a few months on the hot seat, Nigerians are no longer asking “Magu who”, with the way the activities of the commission have dominated the nation’s everyday existence. Gradually, Nigerians and the world beyond are now connecting the wave-making name to the unsmiling face and lean figure of the new anti-corruption czar.

If a poll is conducted today to determine whether Magu should have the job for keeps, only two blocs of the populace might raise an objection; members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party and their sympathisers, who have vehemently deplored Magu’s perceived Gestapo style of unconventionally breaking suspects’ will-power to extract confession, thereby making loot recovery and prosecution easier than before.

As if taking a cue from his principal, the president, Magu seemed unmoved to criticisms trailing his alleged disobedience of court order releasing a prime suspect in the (in)famous armsgate, alleged persecution and witch-hunt of opposition figures fingered in

the saga as well as the perceived lopsidedness in the arrest of suspects mentioned in the various alleged corruption cases under his watch.

Though reportedly not a populist within the anti-corruption conclave, one thing that even his harshest critic can’t deny him is the general consensus that he is arguably, the best investigator in the system today.

He is reportedly so good in peeping into the dark recesses of corruption havens that successive leaderships at the commission, regardless of unfavourable disposition to his person, found his capacity attractive enough to put him at the epicentre of major investigations. Now, the tough top cop is in charge and there is no way things can remain the same again.

Being good at his job has always paid off for Magu. When Buhari’s administration took off and the new National Security Adviser who is Magu’s kith, wanted crack detectives to unravel security vote spendings, Magu was the natural choice representing the EFCC on the presidential panel. Would there have been a better person to continue with the alleged Dasukigate scandal as acting EFCC boss, if not the man that began the inquest with the new NSA. So, the diligent but controversial investigator became the top consideration but the man regarded as “positively erratic” by many EFCC insiders, probably has more battles to fight within than alleged corrupt persons outside fighting back.

Magu, according to EFCC staff, isn’t the everyday people’s boss. He is also said not to be making visible efforts to become one. He’s got names among the staff, that aren’t flattering but he is generally acknowledged as a disciplined officer, capable of tackling inside and outside forces.

As expected, the coming of a Deputy Dir-

ector to boss his erstwhile director bosses would have implications.

It is either the junior boss is struggling to “settle down” as the boss or the erstwhile seniors are not finding it easy bending to the new reality.

The combination of the two likelihoods is reportedly playing out at the EFCC with Magu as the boss. Last week, the most senior staff member of the commission, FBI-trained Director of Operations, Olaolu Adegbite was sent on compulsory leave

by Magu, while another director was clamped in detention alongside another senior staff, for alleged unethical conducts, leakage of confidential information and incitement of junior staff.

Both were Magu’s seniors.

If the usual succession arrangement was to be followed, Adegbite, who is the most senior and DoP, should be the natural pick. But Buhari possibly found his man in Magu and the system must reset to accommodate the new reality. Now, the man that had never left the commission for anywhere in 13 years would have to go on compulsory leave for the resetting to be functional and it is unlikely that his own within the system would be completely quiet and calm.

Another major issue Magu may be compelled to address is the sustained agitation for autonomy by trained ca-

dets of the commission who have kept kicking against the continued stay of seconded police investigators. Successive leaderships, headed by senior police officers had shunned their agitation.

Magu, also a policeman, is likely to toe same line and with a director accused of inciting the cadets during their training period, now out of circulation, the cacophony may simmer under him. But isn’t there a likelihood of under-the-cover schism? The independence-seeking cadets are pointing at Customs and Immigration services which stopped accepting police investigators after about three years of existence, while arguing that after about 13 years, it is about time that all officers returned to police headquarters.

The usual recall exercise of seconded police officers by the Inspector General to the headquarters after spending huge fund training them and its attendant personnel loss to the commission, is another argument being raised against Magu and his officers from Loius Edet House.

Except a recall by the IGP in the mould of the Nuhu Ribadu saga, it is almost certain that Magu won’t be swayed by these arguments to let go of this hot job.

Another issue that won’t go away quietly is the ethnic angle to his acting appointment. But for a nation already whacked with corruption, ethnic colouration of an effective appointment, may not fly.

Magu is a survivor of police and EFCC politics. Just like some others now, he had been detained by another leadership. Just like Adegbite, police had placed him on a controversial suspension without pay. His home had been ransacked. He had been accused of all sorts of allegations. Efforts were made to stop his return to the EFCC in 2012 until former President Goodluck Jonathan personally stepped in. He had investigated the high and mighty in the land.

He could be said to have seen it all. The FBI-trained financial investigation expert is shaped and wired for the job. With the right environment and mix, he is likely to be a runaway success.

entertainment

feature

interview

feature

Actress Halima Abubakar debunks pregnancy remours

Member of ritual killer gang lures 4-yr-old with groundnut, beheads him

Taraba lawmakers are acting lawlessly —APC chair

Public varsity hostels: It’s still suffering and smiling

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P37

P38

Pp22&27

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

08050498504 toluwaniforever@yahoo.com

I said ‘no’ to my hubby’s proposal for 3yrs Being born to a cleric-father and mother who is a teacher, her life was moulded by discipline and guided by moral virtues. Dr (Mrs) Kehinde Omotayo, Head, Department of Science Education, Ekiti State University, Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State and former Assistant Director, Sandwich Programmes of the institution, in this interview with TOLUWANI OLAMITOKE, speaks on her youthful days, life as a lecturer and what has made her marriage work. the ringleader. My mum beat the hell out of me.

How free were you with the opposite sex as a youth?

I attended mixed schools for my primary and secondary education and so interacted well with the opposite sex. I also had brothers and sisters and we all slept on the same mat. But I must add that the discipline we were given at home helped me to be focused and so didn’t misbehave.

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HERE were you born and raised?

I was born in Ogbomoso Baptist Hospital in Oyo State but had my primary and secondary school education in Iwo, Osun

State.

What things stood you out among your peers as a child?

I was an extrovert and was sharp. If we were sent on an errand at home or in school, the money was always given to me. Again, when staging plays in school during the end of the year activities or in church, I was always the star actress. This made my dad have a soft spot for me aside the fact that my sister and I were the only female children in the family.

What did your parents do for a living?

My dad retired as a Baptist pastor while my mum was a school teacher and retired as a headmistress.

Can you describe your family’s pattern of living?

Being the family of a pastor, we held early morning devotions as early as 5:30 am. Even when I was still a child and because mum as a teacher must be in school by 7:00 am, she would bathe us while we were still struggling to get out of sleep. We were served breakfast before we left for school, so we didn’t eat outside the home.

Tell us a feat you performed while you were young which earned you a pat on the back?

At age 8, we were asked to recite Bible verses during a Bible competition at the Baptist Convention which was held in Benin and I came first. I led my class in school and was also good in sports, the junior girls 100 meters race precisely.

You must also have done something which got you punished?

As a primary school pupil I led a group which was enthusiastic having their own farm and we innocently destroyed a farm which was near our school. We uprooted the yam growing on this farm and planted it on ours. The owner of the farm, on realising the damage done to it, came to report to the headmaster and it was discovered that I was

Can you tell us how your mum in particular introduced you to puberty stage?

I will say the way our parents handled sexuality was poor. I knew nothing about menstruating until I started at age 12. The first time I saw someone menstruating was when I attended a camp programme organised by our church. As females, we all bathed in an open bathroom and during one of this occasions, I saw one of us who was quite older than me bathing and there was blood. I didn’t understand what was wrong with her. The day I started menstruating I discovered my dress was stained but I didn’t know what caused it or what to do. Thank God we had aunties living with us who helped me out. When I told my mother she yelled and talked. The way she reacted really scared me. Anyway, she woke me up in the night and told me that now I was a woman and that I had to mind my ways with the opposite sex. By this time I was no longer interested in listening to what she had to say.

How did you get into the teaching profession?

Then after secondary school education you were considered an adult, you therefore get a job, work and later get married. Since I knew I was good in school and was always between the first and sixth position in class, I didn’t want to follow this pattern, my desire was to go for the Higher School Certificate (HSC), but my dad had no money. It was during this period he got a transfer from Iwo to Kano. I therefore went for the National Certificate for Education (NCE) programme at Advanced Teachers College now Federal College of Education, Zaira. And I must confess I didn’t regret it. I actually made distinctions.

And where did you have your university education?

I had my first degree in Science Education (Biology) from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaira. I had the best result in my department and of course I was then married and blessed with two kids. I wanted to work, but my husband encouraged me to go back for my second degree programme. I count myself lucky in this regard because I have a friend whose husband told her to stop her educational pursuit in order to take care of the home. My husband actually helped me process my admission and brought the letter to me. I studied Curriculum and Instruction Studies (Science Education) at the University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri and also Curriculum Studies (Science Education) for my P hD at the same university.

At what point did the issue of marriage creep in?

My husband was my father’s young friend. He was

working in a company as an executive—a sales representative and would come and pay my dad a visit as the pastor of his church and he would sometimes come along with souvenirs from his company. There was a time he needed to see my dad for something urgent but he wasn’t at home when he came. He was at loss for what to do, and then as my usual self, I offered to relay his mission to my dad on his return which I did to his satisfaction. He was impressed and we became friends.

You then must have been expecting his proposal?

No. Whenever he came to see my dad and I was around, we would exchange pleasantries and just have the general talk. I was shocked when he proposed to me and so was my dad.

What was your response?

No,of course.

Can you tell us your reason?

I thought he was one of those guys who always wanted to boost their ego by wooing the pastor’s daughter. For about three years he got a ‘no’ for an answer from me so he stayed off. I later saw the sincerity in him when he came to pay me a visit in school. Again, he got the eldest in his family, his sister involved who after making it known to my parents that their father was a pastor and the family were members of ECWA, became their friends while she took me as her daughter. We later got married.

In which areas did you differ early in your marriage?

I realised men always love friends. My husband loved to enjoy the company of his friends and attended parties but he never drank. With my kind of upbringing, the social part of life wasn’t part of me. I loved eating beans in the evening, but my husband loved rice.

How did you handle your relationship with your in laws?

My parents in law were nice and the truth is, I had made up my mind that my marriage must work despite the interference of some others.

What thrills you most about your job?

I love to impart my students, not only with cognitive knowledge, but virtues. They also love being around me, probably they feel I have listening ears. Many of these students whom I taught have come back to me to show their appreciation.

If you were not teaching,what other profession would you have gone into?

Nursing or medicine. My male friends actually discouraged me from pursuing either of these. They told me if I went for nursing I wouldn’t have a husband. Since there was none to counsel us then I dropped the idea.

What attention do you give your looks?

I love to look good but not trendy. I love dressing corporately to work but I don’t like wearing suits unless occasion calls for it. I use what I find comfortable, so I have stopped wearing high heeled shoes. Again, I love to wear good things, but not exceptionally expensive things.

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune BLESSING EKUM ekumblessing@gmail.com 08116954639

food&drink

Add colour to your meals with

fruit drinks

What do architecture and cooking have in common?

Mrs Halimah Akinola, a senior architect with a government establishment, speaks with TAIBAT ALIMI about translating the creative work of an architect into food and getting the best out of feeding in spite of busy schedules.

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HAT is your food timetable like?

I feed on anything that comes my way because I hardly have time to eat due to the nature of my job.

Have you always been non-choosy about food?

I believe I have always been because even as a child, I ate anything my mum prepared.

So there wasn’t a dish you didn’t like as a child?

Well, I didn’t like eating yam at all.

Even now that I am married with kids, I avoid cooking yam as much as possible and my family is fine with that.

Can you recall your first cooking blunder?

It was the day my mum wasn’t at home and she had asked me to prepare white amala called lafun. So, I brought water to boil and added the flour not knowing that the water was too much, I stirred and stirred hoping it would solidify. Unfortunately it didn’t. It was watery and we had to eat it with spoon.

What meal is popular in your place of origin?

I’m from Ogun State and the popular meal is cold pap commonly called eko.

Though it is assumed that it’s lafun with abula, but from our cognomen the praises emphasise on our food which is eko.

What’s your favourite?

I don’t have any favourite food but I love to eat Ikokore. When I want to give myself a treat, I prepare this.

Is there a special way you prepare yours?

Tips and tricks: Genius cleaning hacks Blender:

The blender’s sharp blades and ridged interior can be tricky and dangerous to clean. Fill the blender halfway with water, add a few drops of dishwashing soap and blend on low for 10 seconds.

Wipe down the upper area with the soapy water and a sponge, then rinse.

Sponge:

Plastic bowl:

Do you have plastic bowls with tomato stains? To avoid that in the future, rub some vegetable oil in the bowl before pouring in your tomato. To revive the old ones, place the bowl in the sun for a few hours, it would reduce the tomato appearance significantly.

A kitchen sponge just might be the biggest germ holder in the house. Owing to the fact that it is usually wet and left in dark, humid areas, it is the perfect grounds for bacteria, mould and yeast to breed. To get a super clean, germ-free sponge, pop a wet kitchen sponge in the microwave for two minutes. Let it cool for a few more minutes before retrieving it, and repeat every other day or so.

(Skip this if your sponges contain any metal.)

Yes, I cook mine with stock. The water would be made from stockfish, meat and the like.

Would you describe yourself as adventurous in the kitchen?

Yes, I love to try new recipes I have surfed on the internet. I especially love to try new fruit drinks because I love blending varieties of drinks.

How do you translate architecture into your food preparation, especially presentation?

Architecture basically has to do with creativity. Food preparation and presentation is also a very creative art. So, a background in architecture would enable one to use her creativity to make food look appealing.

How do you overcome the temptation of eating junk food?

An architect cannot overcome the temptation of eating junk food because even if you prepare food from home, you might not have the chance to eat the food and you would end up taking it back home. It has happened to me several times that there was nothing I could do but eat junk.

What do you snack on while working?

I eat any snack I can get while I am on site because treating oneself to good meal will be difficult while on duty.

How do you ensure not skipping meals?

I don’t really like to eat food because I love fruit drinks more, so I do not worry about skipping meals.

12

16 January, 2016

conversewithyemisi

Dear Amaka, I doubt if you have told me the true story about your love life!

You have alluded to the fact that you have been seeing the second boy you met in Ibadan in the last six years. Are you saying that you have been ‘falling in love’ with the opposite sex since you were 10?

Amaka, you are being economical with your actual age.

Though you never mentioned where you were based before coming to Ibadan, the issue of your first boy is a foregone conclusion. Here is a boy you heard or saw last some six years ago.

What efforts did you make to connect with him wherever he is as technology has made communication easy for all. Even if you were out of sight, you should not be out of mind, if you were ever serious with him in the first instance. You were only gambling on him. You never meant to have anything serious with each other.

Since you relocated to Ibadan, have you called him? Does he even know your whereabouts? Please, my dear it is better you come clean on this issue and stop building your castle in the air. You will only get your fingers burnt if you are neither there nor here.

It is impossible or I should maintain that you cannot keep two guys at a time. How do you want to cope with the two of them? You want to gamble and God save you none of them is an impostor, who will not want to share his love with another man?

It is not even a healthy development.

Please, make up your mind and think of something worthwhile that will make you a better woman in future.

What can I do? I’m not ready for marriage Dear Yemisi,

I

want to ask you what I can do about my relationship life. I'm a 19-year-old girl and my boyfriend is 31. We've been dating for almost 10 months now and I think he's really serious with me.

He says he wants to marry me, but most of the time, we both think about the age difference. Aside from the fact that I wouldn't like to get married until I'm probably 25/26, we aren't sure my parents would let me get married to someone who is 12 years older than me.

I once stylishly asked my mum if she doesn't mind but she said she minds and that the age difference is too much.

Now, I really don't know what to do. I really love him. He's definitely a husband material, but then, I don't know if I'm going the right way. I keep asking God for guidance and protection. I don't want to make any mistake and I don't want to waste his time. Though, he's not pushing, we are both just scared; there's no time on his side.

He probably needs to settle down because most of his friends are married and I am afraid his parents might start pushing him to get married. You know how we Africans are.

But I really don't want to break up. Do you think we should let the relationship flow until fate plays itself or we should just end the affair? I really don't know if I'm doing the right thing or I'm going the wrong way. I just want to know what you think I should do.

Thank you very much. God bless you.

Ola Gbola.

Dear Ola, One thing I will want you to get right away from now is that you should make up your mind on what to do.

From your disposition, you are not prepared to settle down with your said lover. The only person who can guide you aright is God who you have trusted to guide your decision.

You are in dilemma, first because of the age gap and for the fact that your mum is not in support of you dating a man who is 12 years older than you. To me, the age difference is not much of an issue provided you will not be intimidated by his achievement.

Are you still not in school? The answer to this question will go a long way in solving the riddle because I cannot advise that you go ahead to say ‘I do’ for an institution that you are least prepared. If for instance you are an undergraduate, I cannot

08055001741 (sms only) yemiaofolaju@yahoo.com

For Him

Who do I go for?

Dear Yemisi, I am a 16-year-old girl. I love a boy, and he is also in love with me, but when I came to Ibadan, I met another boy who also loves me. It has been long since I last saw the first boy.

Should I give in to the second boy because it has been six years we have been seeing each other and I love both of them?

What should I do?

Amaka, 080*****1**.

Saturday Tribune

Ayotomiwa, 36, tall, AA, working class from Ondo State, single, needs a lady aged between 25 and 40 for marriage. Call 08153303760.

Sola, 46, self-employed, widower, with two boys, Abeokutabased, Christian, needs a woman aged between 30 and 50 for a relationship. Call 08133261693.

Lanre, 38, AA, graduate, selfemployed from Osun State, needs a responsible woman/lady for a relationship. Call 08165017775.

Kprince 34, single, businessman based in Lokoja, needs a good looking, fair-skinned, lady aged between 23 and 27, for a relationship. Call 08155556144.

Tiwatope, 25, from Osogbo, Osun State, single, dark–complexioned, needs a lady for a serious relationship. Call 09098896153.

Adeyinka, businessman, based in Ibadan, needs a God-fearing, beautiful, caring lady aged between 25 and 35 for a relationship. Contact 07019094732.

Frank, 34, Abuja-based, needs a lady for a relationship. Call 08050934915.

Sylvester, 29, 5.7feet tall, dark-skinned, self-employed from Delta State, needs a working class, mature, beautiful lady from any tribe, aged between 26 and 32 for a relationship. Call 08038172942.

For Her be so emphatic on the issue of marriage.

Talking from experience, you cannot combine matrimony with studies. You are in better stead for matrimonial duties when you don’t have any academic issue to contend with. Even if your man agrees to give you time to graduate, you will discover at a stage that your home will be threatened by demands from some quarters.

It is then that you will realise that your once humble, quiet, unassuming man is a complete human being when he starts to bear his fangs. Though you claimed to have sounded out your mum on marrying a fairly older man, I never expected her to have given an approval, but all the same, the issue is about your life.

As long as you have observed that your boyfriend’s parents might mount pressure on him to marry soon, and you have decided not to get married until you are 25/26, then I will suggest you allow the guy to have a fresh start. Mathematically you are talking of another six to seven years.

Be honest with yourself Ola, you are not ready for this guy and you should be sincere with him by telling him how you feel and that you wouldn’t want to waste his time. Let the final word be from him as you have said that God is the one guiding you.

If God does not have a hand in it, the relationship will no doubt breakdown, but if He is the one behind it, things will work out irrespective of your excuses.

Bukunmi, 26, undergraduate, needs a mature man aged between 30 and 35 for a serious relationship. Call 07013983646.

Atinuke, 23, needs a God-fearing, caring, serious guy based in Ibadan for a relationship. Contact 08166510833.

Gbemisola, 33, Abuja-based, needs a nice, caring, responsible, employed man, for a serious relationship.

Contact 08168247081.

Boluwatife, 28, dark-complexioned, needs a responsible man aged between 35 and 50 for a serious relationship from any tribe.

Call 09037886239.

Esther, 29, dark-skinned, single mother, needs an honest, straight forward, comfortable life partner, aged between 35 and 45 for a relationship. Call 07063686449.

13

16 January, 2016

intimacy

Saturday Tribune

With Bosede Ola-Samuel 08112658560 bosedeola_samuel@yahoo.com

STRICTLY FOR ADULTS

Tackling the unseen enemy in marriage S ex makes the difference in marriage. It is like water to humanity; no one can do without it. That is why it is often mentioned as one of the reasons why a person should get married. Marriage without sex is an aberration. Such a marriage is bound to head for the rocks. In fact, great shall be the crash. That is why every marriage or relationship columns in the newspapers, and programmes on the radio and television give priority attention to sex matters. Sex, when not properly handled by couples, is the unseen enemy in marriage and the silent thief of marital joy. That is why we have to talk about it always.

I hope this write-up will satisfy the curiosity of those who feel that the issue of sex in marriage is being blown out of proportion. As such people often say, “sex, sex, sex....is marriage all about sex?’’ Of course, there are other issues of marriage, but the most important of all marital issues is sex. That is why it must be properly handled if the marriage will be preserved. Sex is the most important of all marital issues because of the following reasons: • The bedrock of every reason people give in the court of law for divorce is poor sex.

• No matter what the problem is between couples, as long as they still enjoy good sex with one another, it can easily be overlooked.

• The quality of sex and what it represents play a major role in the quality of every marriage: poor sex will always result in weak marriage and vice versa.

• Sexual fulfilment is only achieved when a man is able to take his wife to orgasm - the pinnacle of sexual

satisfaction.

So, every couple must recognize and appreciate the importance of great sex life to their union and achieving it must become their mutual goal.

To achieve great sex life in marriage, couples must note the following: • Great sex life between a couple does not come just because they love themselves.

• Men, especially, need to know that their years of sexual experience and number of women they have had it with does not guarantee that their wife would be sexually fulfilled.

• Nothing good comes easy; nobody becomes an expert at anything without having to learn, even satisfying

Anything short of sexual fulfillment in marriage endangers the marriage, and makes it unattractive to the younger generation.

your spouse.

• Couples must work on improving their skills of lovemaking.

• A couple that will enjoy a great sex life must recognise the difference in the body mechanism of man and woman, and seek how to use it to their advantage.

• Sex for a man is an “any day” and “any time” thing, but for her, good sex requires good preparation. A woman’s response to sex is slow and gradual but that of a man is quick and spontaneous.

• Man’s sexual need is physically based. His gonads are continually producing sperm, which are stored in the seminal vesicles along with seminal fluid. When the seminal vesicles are full, there is a physical push for release. And this is done through sex.

• A woman tends to be more rooted in her emotion and desire to feel loved. If she feels love, she wants to make love with the husband who loves her. Once she does not feel love, she has no interest in sex.

• Sex becomes better as we get more intimate with our spouses.

Sex is in effect, an all rounder in marriage: you quarrel over sex and settle quarrels with sex. Couples must therefore give serious attention to their sex life to ensure sexual fulfillment. Anything short of sexual fulfillment in marriage endangers the marriage, and makes it unattractive to the younger generation.

In response to my readers’ request, I have packaged some of my previous articles into a book with the title: ENJOYING GREAT SEXLIFE. You can call me on 08112658560 for the book.

14

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

With Aunty Yemi 08056834515 ojeleyeoyeyemi@yahoo.com

Our choice article topics

By students of Strong Tower College, near Olubadan’s Palace, Monatan, Ibadan

Voting age should be lowered to 13 years

By Blessing Jubril, 14 years old, SSS 2

Education begins at home

By Mercy Adebiyi ,14 years old, SSS 1 Education begins from the parents. First, parents should ask their children after school everyday, “what did you study in Maths and English language today? Give me an example.” Parents should pick a time of the day to talk about school and do home work. It helps the children to have a routine.

Secondly, parents should meet their children’s teachers regularly and cheek on the children at school frequently. This also helps the teacher to concentrate on such children in class, knowing that the parents will check anytime soon.

Thirdly, parents should praise their children for reading or doing other learning activities. This encourages the children to want to read more and engage more in academic activities.

Also, parents should try to study together with their children at home. They should teach the children by example. This will give the children a sense of togetherness and deep understanding. Parents, let education begin at home.

I have a headache whenever I remember that voting age in Nigeria is 18. Anybody that has attained age 13 should be allowed to vote because a boy or a girl of 13 is a teenager just as any 18-year-old. So, any government policy that affects the youth also affects them, as it affects the adults too.

If the government reduces the voting age to 13, there will be an increased number of eligible voters which can bringing about the positive change that is needed in this country.

From age 13, one can decipher the right from the wrong.

Furthermore, not allowing a person of 13 years to vote is a way of saying that they are not important in the society and that they do not have any say in the society. However, in this computer age, some 13- year-old teenagers know many things elderly people do not know.

I want to implore the government to consider that teenage age starts from 13 and they should lower the voting age from 18 to 13. This will go a long way to better our electoral system.

Importance of schooling

By Eniola Olukotun, 12 years old, JSS 2 Schooling is important in many ways. First, schooling prevents illiteracy, i.e it enables people to know how to read and write.

Also, schooling makes a person stand out among the multitude. It makes one gain confidence to talk and become relevant in the society.

Further, schooling enables people to know their rights and responsibilities in the society. It enables one to contribute to the development of the society.

Lastly, schooling helps people in choosing their career. Through school-

ing, one has a better future.

Appropriate school leaving age By Kayode Adeyinka, 15 years old, SSS 3 In most countries, the school leaving age reflects when young people are seen to be mature enough in their society but not necessarily when they are old enough to be regarded as adults. However, after leaving school, one is considered to have completed one part of one’s life.

The appropriate age for students to leave secondary school is 16, the reason being that two years after birth, a child should have started school and then spend only two years in nursery school. Plus six years each in primary and secondary schools, which is 12 years, making 16 years all together.

Sixteen years is also appropriate because it is the median teenage age when the child is no more a kid but not yet an adult but is ready to prepare for the next step ahead which is to gain admission into the university.

School and environment

By Blessed Olorunleke, 13 years old, JSS 3 A good environment is needed for a school. It can be defined by the school having all necessary facilities, well-managed classrooms, availability of school-based health services, standard disciplinary policy and physical amenities that can protect the students against other external factors.

A good schooling environment enables the students to study well and know what they are taught in school. Even, the parents also can have peace of mind that their children are safe in school and the teachers also can teach the students well.

A good schooling environment should be provided by the school management so that parents, teachers and the students can all enjoy the school. The government should make sure that they approve only schools with good environments.

Youth development and education

By Samuel Adeshina, 12 years old, SS 1

Education is very important in the process of youth development. Education is the action undertaken by a person to acquire any type of experience while youth development is the act of changing the situation of youth for the better. So, without education, there can be no youth development.

Also, youth development may be impossible without experience. Education takes a person to greater heights. Youth development without education is like going to school with a pen but without books.

The consequences of youths without education include drug abuse, keeping bad company and disrespecting elders. But the benefits of youths with education include performance of tasks with precision, ability to solve problems, respect for elders, confidence to participate in any competition, ability to meet intellectual demands and ability to create or invent things. Therefore, the government needs to develop education first before developing the youths.

Importance of education

By Isaac Akintayo, 11 years old and Ajisafe Gold, 11 years old, JSS 1 Education is said to be the best legacy that can be given to children. Education is responsible for many people’s successes in life.

Most highly-placed people, including politicians, are educated. Without education, many would be stark illiterates and would not be able to contribute to the development of the society and the country at large. Without education, one cannot be relevant, especially in this computer age.

Education makes knowledge available. Knowledge makes life easy and even more so with continuous learning and search for knowledge. That is why people learn every day.

I beseech all, especially parents, to give their children quality education. A popular Yoruba proverb says, “Uneducated children will sell the house built by the parents.” Parents who do not give their children education, are like those building a house without foundation.

Education remains the best legacy that can be bequeathed children.

Importance of excursion to pupils’ education

By Tolani Adeyinka, 12 years, old, JSS 3 Excursion is a short trip to places usually for a special purpose and with the intention of prompt return.

The following underline the importance of excursion to pupils’ education: Reinforcement: A trip to a place can reinforce what a teacher has taught the pupils in a subject in class and help the pupils to understand the topic better.

Engagement: A teacher can turn excursion trips into mobile classrooms instructing the students to collect data and assigning a project based on what they learnt during the outing.

Socialisation: Taking the pupils out to a new environment gives them the experience of travelling in a group and teaches them how to live in unity.

Exposure: Pupils get to visit a place they have never been before.

Curiosity: Students who go on an excursion trip always want to learn more about the subject on which the trip is based.

Retention: Excursion trips help the pupils to retain information longer than what they are taught in classrooms.

15

16 January, 2016

health&fitness

Saturday Tribune BLESSING EKUM

ekumblessing@gmail.com 08116954639

By Blessing Ekum “IF your body dey scratch you, your privates dey scratch you, you dey stool blood, e be like worm dey move for all your body, your belle dey make noise and you get internal heat. No waste time o... na staphylococcus be that. If as woman, your menses no plenty or e get brown colour....na staphylococcus. If you be man and you dey get serious pains when you and woman meet, you no fit last one round sex with your madam, you no get sexual urge again or you get watery sperm, na staphylococcus be that. Oyibo medicine no dey work o....ask person wey don suffer staphylococcus before. Buy ******. Sharp sharp you go see result.”

For regular visitors to busy street corners in most of the cities in the country, the above narration is not new.

Though there may be variations to the narrative, the crux of the message is that a long list of symptoms is a result of an infection and most times, this is attributed to the group of bacteria known as staphylococcus, also called staph.

Speaking with Saturday Tribune, one of the roadside herb sellers of staph aureus treatment who simply identified himself as Friday said, “There are many fake staphylococcus drugs around and that is why people treat themselves but the infection becomes worse. If they don’t treat staphylococcus aureus on time, it can cause arthritis or oedema. If it spreads to the brain, it can cause insomnia, mental imbalance and epilepsy. Most people suffering from infertility have this infection. It is mostly caught from toilet or from sex with infected person. All these foreign antibiotics don’t work for staphylococcus aureus.

It can reduce it a little but will not clear it from the body.”

Though these lines are what he markets his product with to unsuspecting members of the public, who most times fall for such antics, medical experts point out the flaw in his assertion and advice against ill-informed health decisions.

Dr Tokunbo Ajayi, of Orbitals Clinic, Lagos, said contrary to what is commonly believed, staphylococcus aureus is just one out of many types of staphylococcus bacteria. He added that the staphylococcus aureus bacteria can cause pneumonia, food poisoning, blood poisoning and skin infections like boils, stressing that the most common is skin infection.

As against the information Friday and his ilk peddle, staph aureus is neither a sexually transmitted infection nor contracted from the toilet. In fact, Dr Tobi Poluyi, a medical practitioner said, “In medical terms, there is nothing like toilet disease. What most people refer to as toilet disease is actually sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and staph aureus infection is not an STI.” Though certain symptoms can be attributed to staph aureus infection, medical experts caution against self-diagnosis or using inappropriate diagnostic methods and treatment. In the past decade, one of the problems that have continued to ail the pharmaceutical world is the emergence of drug-resistant micro-organisms and this has largely been attributed to the misuse and abuse of drugs which, most times, arises from self-medicating.

Dr Ajayi said: “Since staphylococcus aureus infection is bacterial, the proper treatment is the use of antibiotics but this should not be based on self medication. People take all kinds of antibiotics and wonder why the infection still remains, but the fact is when you are treating staph aureus, you don’t use just any broad spectrum antibiotic and expect it to work. It doesn’t matter how long you take it, it won’t work because you are not using the right medication.”

Dr Puloyi adds that “You can’t decide that you have staph aureus based on symptoms that drug sellers say.

Some of these symptoms also present in other diseases which are not staph aureus-related. In fact, some of the symptoms have nothing to do with staph aureus infection.

For instance worm-like movement in the body is usually a parasitic infection and not bacterial. It is also important to note that not all bacterial infections are caused by staph aureus. You have to see a doctor who, based on your symptoms, can then direct you to do a Microscopic Culture and Sensitivity test. It is until after this test has been done, that one can know he/she is infected with the staph aureus bacteria and then the appropriate antibiotic

Why staphylococcus aureus seems hard to treat can be administered. Moreover, most times, the presence of staph aureus does not indicate an infection; it could be a contaminant from the lab.” In other words, when you go for a MCS test, the staph bacteria which sometimes grow in laboratories can contaminate the sample thus resulting to the test showing positive whereas in reality, there is no infection.

In the case of staph aureus treatment, Dr Poluyi adds that besides going for a MCS test, it is important not to self medicate on just any antibiotic, because besides destroying the body’s normal bacterial flora (which is beneficial to the body), this could result in the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains of the bacteria.

Not only does selling mixtures claimed to cure staph aureus in buses and on the roadside have severe health implications, it is also illegal. According to Section 2(1)

Staphylococcus aureus bacteria can cause pneumonia, food poisoning, blood poisoning and skin infections like boils.

of the Counterfeit and Fake Drugs and Unwholesome Processed Foods (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (Cap C45 LFRN 2004), any person who, without the permission of the appropriate authority hawks or sells; or displays for the purpose of sale, any drug or poison whatsoever in any open market, kiosk, motor park, roadside stall, bus, ferry or any other means of transportation or in any other place not duly licensed or registered for the purpose of sale and distribution of drugs or poisons shall be guilty of an offence under the Act and shall be, accordingly, punished as stipulated in the Act. Section 3 (1b) of the said Decree states penalty for violation upon conviction as liability to a fine not exceeding N500,000 or to imprisonment for a term not less than 2 years or to both such fine and imprisonment.

Although enforcement of this stipulation remains largely unachieved, the health implications of actions such as those taken by Friday have become one of concern. “The problem with herbal treatment is that you cannot ascertain its efficacy. Some people claim that herbal treatments work, but the issue is you cannot measure the dosage, people are told to just keep taking it till they see improvements. Also, there are no contraindications or a list of the constituents of such drugs. This can be very dangerous. So, it is not advisable,” Dr Clement Afo, a Lagos-based medical practitioner said.

Preventing staph aureus infections is as simple as maintaining proper hygiene, keeping cuts and wounds clean, careful food-handling and food-preparation practices.

In preventing transmission, care should be taken against direct contact with an infected sore or wound, or with personal-care items such as razors, bandages, etc.

16 healthandfitness

16 January, 2016

Big breasts at eleven

Dr. Wale Okediran

I have a neighbour who is just eleven years of age and has breasts that are bigger than her age. What is the cause?

Wuraola (by SMS) Nature has a way of giving different people different sizes of body organs ranging from lungs, to hearts, penis and breasts.

Unless the girl in question has other underlying

My enlarged prostate gland pathological concerns, the big breasts can be a normal development. Unless

she has other complaints, I will suggest that she should be left alone.

There is no scientific reason jogging should decrease one’s sexual ability.

On the other hand, regular exercise is a good stimulant for sex. As long as you can moderate your jogging and you have no weak knees, you can continue jogging at 60 years of age.

I am over 60 and I still jog occasionally.

I have pains on my nipples though it has been a long time since I had sex.

Kindly help me because I don’t know what to do.

Chinwe (by SMS)

cancer is rare and if both nipples are sore, it’s rarely a sign of breast cancer as that usually only affects one breast at a time. Although you did not indicate your age, painful nipples could occur at any age in relation to the menstrual cycle, friction from exercising without

I am a 45-year-old civil servant. During my last visit to my doctor, he informed me that my prostate gland is enlarged. Although he told me that this happens in men over 40 years of age, the discovery got me worried. Could this lead to cancer? I will appreciate it if you can educate me more on this issue.

Jerome (by SMS) It is normal for the pro-

state gland to become enlarged in most men over 40 years of age. After age 40, for reasons that may be hormonal, the prostate

using bras, or aggressive foreplay as well as an underlying breast ailment.

It will be important if you can carry out a self-examination of your breasts to notice if there is any abnormality in your skin appearance or the existence of any cracks in your nipples or the existence of a breast lump.

It is equally a good thing for you to check for signs of any discharge from your nipples.

If all these are absent then you should just take some pain-relieving tablets and carry on with your life.

PLEASE doctor, what can I do to stop farting from the vagina. I have been observing this since I gave birth. Kindly help me because it is embarrassing.

Josephine (by SMS) Vaginal farts can happen with exercise, sex, and with sudden movements like getting out of a chair. The first step is to understand that air normally gets into the vagina. During movement or coughing the air in the vagina is forced downwards. If the muscles at the vaginal opening part slightly to allow some air to escape, a noise may result.

Next, it’s important to un-

derstand that a fart from the anus is different from a vaginal fart. With the former, the air that leaves originates from within the gut or from swallowed air.

However, during the latter, the vaginal walls expand, pulling in lots of air. When it collapses back down, the air gets expelled and creates a fart-like sound.

Vaginal farts are usually odorless. There are only

A

WARENESS of the danger of cardiovascular diseases, I will say, is very high now in our communities and this is quite encouraging. A sizeable number of people now select what they eat and many more people engage in programmed and supervised physical activities. While we appreciate these efforts, there is one area that is not of utmost practice yet. The focus this weekend is about consumption of ‘NUTS’.

Studies have shown that enjoying handful of nuts everyday can significantly reduce the risk of developing heart diseases. Even those who eat nuts once a week have less heart disease than those who don’t eat nuts at all. Going more scientific, in general you can achieve an 8.3% reduction in the risk of death from coronary heart disease with each weekly serving of nuts. My esteemed readers, it is not about where the studies were conducted, it is all about the benefits of this readily available and cheap food.

Coronary artery diseases (the blockage of the vessels that supply the heart) are on the increase and it knows no bounds. The rich, the poor, the educationally disadvantaged and the literates are equally affected. One of my friends developed it recently and he concluded that, what will kill him has finally arrived. The cost of management is huge. It takes an average of half a million niara (N.5m) to diagnose. And depending on the number of stents needed, the amount ranges from one to three million naira for the procedure and additional monthly cost of medication which varies based on co–existence of other diseases. To me, study or no study, I will continue to eat nuts. What about you?

Why are nuts so heart-friendly?

Nuts contain a variety of nutrients and other ingredients that contribute to the lowering of the risk of heart diseases and control cholesterol: Rich source of healthy fats — there is no need to avoid all fat in the diet; nuts are a healthy-high fat food. Healthy fats are monounsaturated or polyunsaturated fats which help regulate blood cholesterol. Eating a variety of nut will ensure balanced form of these various fats. Some nuts rich in healthy fats (monounsaturated) include almonds, cashews, pecans, hazelnuts while nuts high in polyunsaturated fats

begins to enlarge. From 20 grams it may grow to almost 100 grams. As it enlarges, it squeezes the urethra and the man begins to notice changes in the way he urinates. The man begins to notice that after urinating, the urine still drops in his pants.

The good news, though, is that it is not all enlarged prostates that develop into cancer. Just go on with your life and go for ready medical check -ups.

I fart from the vagina

Pains on my nipples

Most women have experienced sore nipples at some time or another. This can be triggered by many causes, including friction, hormonal imbalances, inflammatory disorders, environmental factors, allergies, skin conditions, infections, itching, sensitivity, sexual activity, pregnancy or breastfeeding. Nipple

waleokediran@yahoo.co.uk

08055069356 (sms only)

Can I still jog at 60?

I have been a keen sportsman from my youth. I have been jogging since I stopped playing football when I turned 30. Now I am 60 years old and a friend told me to stop jogging since he thinks, it may reduce my sexual prowess.

Kindly advise me.

Saheed (by SMS)

Saturday Tribune

two sources of the air/gas that produces vaginal flatulence. These are the normal air that gets into the vagina as well as the air that comes from the bowel.

The later implies a fistula, a connection between the bowel and the vagina, allowing gas (and sometimes fecal matter) to pass from the bowel into the vagina.

If it is a fistula, the treatment is surgery. If it is not, performing exercises like squats or Kegel exercises can strengthen the pelvic muscles and help keep the vaginal walls from expanding and sucking in wind which when expelled, causes the farting sound.

Dr. Abiodun Adeoye adeoyemoshood@yahoo.com

08056564360, 08072000017 (sms only)

Eating nuts helps your heart

are walnuts, pine nuts and Brazil nuts.

• Contains plant omega-3s: There are few types of plants that have this type of omega 3 which is chemically different from those found in the fish and sea foods. Both plant and animal sourced omega 3 are good for your heart. Walnuts, pecans, and hazelnuts are rich in omeg3s.

• Reduces cholesterol oxidation: This chemical interaction is the key step in atherosclerosis — the blocking and hardening of arteries which leads to heart attack and stroke. Consumption of adequate quantity of nuts prevents the commencement of this chemical interaction thereby preserving the integrity of the arteries that supply blood to the brain and the heart. Almonds, Brazil nuts and pistachios are very good in this function.

• Natural source of plant sterol: It is not all about chemical interaction; nuts can mechanically prevent the absorp-

tion of abnormal cholesterol from the stomach and intestines. The plant sterol does this and large consumption of nuts by virtue of this function can make your stool bulkier and slimmy due to cholesterol contents in the stool. Also, nuts contain fibers which are soluble and insoluble. Soluble fibre helps reduce cholesterol reabsorption in the intestine thereby excreting it from the body. Insoluble fibers help maintain a healthy bowel functions. Nuts with skins are particularly high in fibre.

• A source of arginine, an amino acid building block of protein which is converted to nitric oxide in the body.

Nitric oxide causes blood vessels to relax and remain elastic; preventing blood clotting that can lead to heart disease. In addition, it may improve the penile erectile function. This may be a respite to some of us that suffer sexual dysfunction! If you have a better sexual performance after consumption of nuts, it will be nice you inform us through the e-mail or SMS only.

• Lastly, it contains folate, a B vitamin that helps reduce high levels of amino acids called homocysteine, which is a risk factor for heart disease From the foregoing, there is no single nut that can do all, hence the need for consumption of varieties of nuts daily. As you maintain a healthy heart, I wish you a happy weekend.

Note: This year, our focus will be to attend to specific heart issues that border the minds of our esteemed readers.

If you have any question send to adeoyemoshood@yahoo. com or 08072000017,08056564360.”

17

16 January, 2016

mediascope

Saturday Tribune

WITH AKIN ADEWAKUN akadewakun@yahoo.co.uk 0805 468 3584

In this interview with AKIN ADEWAKUN, publisher of The Niche Newspaper, Mr. Ikechukwu Amaechi, speaks about developments in the nation’s media industry, noting that ownership interference is always allowed as long as it doesn’t compromise the publication’s neutrality.

O

F late, the media seems to be on trial, especially with allegations of financial misconduct against some organisations within the sector. More worrisome is the latest development at the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), where some member publications are taking their leave of the body.

Do you think the media would still be able to speak with one voice at the end of the day? Does this not bother you?

I’m going to be very sincere with you, Nigerians are hypocrites, and that is a very terrible thing. I don’t see why anybody is making noise about the so-called money paid to some newspapers. I didn’t collect, but I won’t, because of that say there was any issue. Why? There was an incident, the Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) threatened that they were going to sue the Federal Government because the military impounded their newspapers.

The president called a meeting of the publishers at Aso Rock and pleaded with them that he didn’t want any court action and that he was prepared to settle out of court. In fact one of the publishers there at that meeting told the president that she was too humble and that for a president to plead that way, she would say let it go. It was one of the people who is making the loudest noise now that said no, they must collect this compensation, and of course, they all agreed on the amount to be collected. And at the end of the day, almost all the newspapers took their money. If I have a product that was vandalised by government, shouldn’t I collect money?

It just reminded me of 2011, when General Ibrahim Babangida said he was going to run for the presidency and invited some media executives to Minna, and we went. All of a sudden, everybody started talking rubbish. Some said they gave us N10million each. A columnist with The Nation wrote and was insulting all of us, and I replied him on what the issue was. The same day IBB declared in Minna, Atiku declared in Kano and people went. In any case, if he’s saying that IBB’s declaration was a non-event, why was he making an issue out of it? And if he’s saying a newspaper had sacked the chairman of its editorial board because he went to Minna and he wanted all the other newspapers to do so, what is my business? I was the editor of Daily Independent then, do you know whether it is the editorial policy of the paper that everything IBB does must be covered. If he has issues with IBB, I don’t have issues with him. And the same people who will make this noise will look the other way when their interest is being protected. So those who are pulling out of NPAN, it is their problem. Perhaps they had issues with NPAN before now. But if it is because N120million was collected for twelve newspapers that applied and said ‘we lost our product and the chairman of NPAN stated how that money was to be disbursed, and many of these newspapers have collected theirs, apart from Tribune that is yet to collect, those that are returning money now and saying that they didn’t know the source , it doesn’t make sense. If there is an issue with how arms money was used, deal with the issue. That the media was paid compensation for an atrocity committed by the military, I can’t see any issue there. And if you are talking about advert, shouldn’t the media publish advert again? If the Jonathan Campaign Organisation gave me advert, I shouldn’t publish again? That is why I said Nigerians are a bunch of hypocrites. All the political parties spent money, where did the money come from? Let us fight corruption, but you don’t vilify the media because they publish adverts. If anybody wants to leave NPAN, I’m not even a member, but so be it. It is an association, if you are no longer comfortable with it, you can pull out, but not on the basis of collecting money. I don’t think that the advert money dented the credibility of the media.

A lot of investors believe that this is definitely not the best of times to go into a venture such as publishing, a move you surprisingly, made not too

Traditional media must reinvent itself —Ikechukwu Amaechi, Publisher, The Niche

long ago. What informed the confidence?

I may not quite agree that this is not the best of times to go into any kind of business. When I hear that, I remember this story of the good old days. People always talk about the ‘good old days’. My father would tell you when they were growing up in the ‘good old days’, I used to tell my children the same thing too. So it all depends. So what I would say is that each generation has different circumstances and challenges.

You find out that in 2015, some people became billionaires, doing genuine business. Some also are going to make it in 2016, despite the harsh economic environment. I’m not afraid that the economic environment is not as friendly as it ought to be, but then every challenge comes along with its own opportunities. So it all depends on what you make of those opportunities you see in the challenges you face in life. In any case, there is no time you won’t face challenges.

If you also ask people who opened businesses in those ‘good old days’, you also find out that some people didn’t succeed.

All you have to do is to be focused, know what you want to do, and of course, do the right thing.

All the political parties spent money, where did the money come from? Let us fight corruption, but you don’t vilify the media because they publish adverts.

What exactly do you hope to achieve with the strategy of starting The Niche as a weekend newspaper?

The Niche is not a product of impulse, we considered the project very well. We sat down and had strategy meeting.

Almost all of us had the background of journalism, practising journalists and many people say that the print media is saturated, and going into it as a new product is almost suicidal, I say no because for a country that has an estimated population of over 160 million people, how many newspapers do we have? What is even the level of circulation and readership that we have here? We have smaller countries like Kenya, where The Nation of Kenya alone has a print run of almost 500,000 copies. We have smaller countries where newspapers have print run of well over one million.

There is no Nigerian newspaper that is doing that today.

Again, in the ‘good old days’ of the Daily Times, Sunday Times alone was doing 500,000 copies. I’m sorry to say that Nigerian newspapers, all of them put together today may not boast of doing that much. I agree when people are apprehensive, based on available statistics, but why can’t Nigerians consumer one million newspapers a day? Why can’t they buy one million newspapers a day? We are talking of a nation of 160 million people. So we can’t have one million people buying newspapers. I’m saying all these to tell you what convinced us that the print media industry is not saturated. All you have to do is to, again borrow our name, carve a niche for yourself and find an opening. And we thought that opening lies more in Sunday newspapers.

Why? We didn’t have a Sunday newspaper properly defined in the country right now before we came in. All we had were Sunday editions of the regular daily newspapers. The Observer of London was there for more than 300 years, and they are still there, exclusively as a Sunday newspaper, even before they went into partnership with the Independent of London, but they are still publishing exclusively as a Sunday newspaper, and it does well over 2-3million every Sunday.

With the youth migrating to the new media, can the traditional media afford to ignore this trend?

No we can’t, because of that huge population, coupled with the fact that the youths of today would be the adults of tomorrow. What it then means is that the traditional media will continue to reinvent itself. The audience is the only thing that must preoccupy you as a journalist at any point in time. You are not publishing for yourself. Again if we go back to Europe and America, where the young ones are more technologically savvy than our people here, how come the traditional media over there has not gone under?

We can’t afford to ignore them because they are audience, we must put them into consideration, but what we have to do is reinvent ourselves. In any thing you are doing, if you don’t flow with the time, sooner than later, you will go under. In fact that is why almost every newspaper now has an online edition. It is a question of flowing with the tide.

18

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

crimeandcourt

He vomits, defecates in the room anytime he gets drunk —Wife I don’t want to divorce my wife —Husband Stories by Ayomide Owonibi, Rukayat Olufemi and Opeyemi Oladipupo with Agency Reports

A

a customary court sitting in Mapo in Ibadan, Oyo State, has dissolved the eight-year-old marriage between Ajibike Ajeigbe and her husband, Adedapo over addiction to beer.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the president of the court, Mr Ademola Odunade, held that the dispute had gone out of hand hence, Ajibike’s resolve to end the relationship by all means.

“In the interest of peace and tranquility, the union between Ajibike and Ajeigbe has ceased to be henceforth,” he ordered.

Odunade ordered Ajeigbe to pay a monthly feeding allowance of N5,000 for the upkeep of their seven-yearold child and be responsible for his school fees and other welfare.

Ajibike had told the court that Ajeigbe was a ‘deadly drunkard’ who did not cater for the welfare of his wife and child.

“My lord, for the eight years of my being in this relationship, I never knew happiness because Ajeigbe kept bringing me anguish, stress, and disgrace.

“Anytime he consumed beer, he vomited and defecated in the entire sitting room such that the offensive odour contaminated the entire house.

“I had to wash the sitting room and the surroundings again and again, but now I am frustrated.

“I once abandoned his home and he came to meet me again at my rented apartment.

“Worst still, Ajeigbe tortures me and the child with extreme hunger and lack of care.

“I have been personally responsible for the child’s care till date as his addiction to beer has hampered any progress he might make,” Ajibike said.

Ajeigbe could not deny any of the allegations but rejected the divorce claim.

However, Ajeigbe burst into tears and walked out of the court room even before the court’s president completed reading the judgement.

The respondent’s melo-drama sparked off laughter and astonishment, not only to the court workers, but also to the observers.

I have evidence my wife is sleeping with the landlord,man tells court A 51-year-old civil servant, Adewale Akinshola, has pleaded with a customary court sitting at Iyana-Ipaja, Lagos State, to dissolve his marriage to his wife, Cynthia on allegations bordering on infidelity.

Akinshola told the court that his wife has been having an affair with his landlord since 2011 and all efforts to make her stop were in vain.

He added that he had tangible evidence of the alleged affair, adding that it persisted for the whole period.

“I have evidence she was seeing the landlord. I noticed her ways weren’t straightforward.

“There was a day my wife left the house around 5.30a.m., saying she wanted to get to work early. I was so curious that I trailed her.

“I saw my wife sneak into my landlord’s car and I entered a bus and followed them. My wife sat in the front, while the man drove. I wondered what their plan was. When they got to their destination, I came down from the bus and I received the shock of my life. My wife and her lover went into a restaurant.”

“She has refused to stop despite pleas from both sides of the family,” he said.

His wife was, however, not present in court to respond to the allegations. The matter was subsequently adjourned till February for continuation of the hearing.

I’m tired of her nagging, threats to my life,husband tells court His actions have inflicted injuries on my heart —Wife ONE Olajide Akinyeye has sought the dissolution of his 15-year-old marriage to his wife, Abiodun Adeyeye, over alleged threats to his life and property before an Akure customary court in Ondo State.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Olajide, who is the petitioner, had alleged that the defendant was fond of nagging and constantly threatening his life.

He said that he could no longer live with Abiodun because her issue had made him to develop heart problem.

He said that the marriage, which was blessed with a child, has broken down irretrievably, adding that he did not have access to his son any longer.

The defendant, Abiodun, in her response denied the allegations levelled against her by the petitioner.

Abiodun, however, told the court that the petitioner had inflicted lingering wounds on her heart through his actions.

According to her, their second child died because of the petitioner’s carelessness, saying that he did not even give her money at all for the child’s survival.

Abiodun prayed the court to allow her take custody of the only surviving child.

She also prayed the court to allow her to continue to answer the petitioner’s surname so that she could have a name affinity with her son.

“I want the only surviving child to be in my custody because he is my joy and I would still like to retain my surname, Akinyeye.

“So that whenever the boy’s name is mentioned, my sur-

Saturday Tribune

He’s under spiritual attacks from his mum —Wife She has a man-friend in Nyayan —Husband AN Upper Area Court, Karu, Abuja, has dissolved the marriage between Habibah Salihu and her husband, Idowu Suleiman, over spiritual attacks.

According to News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the judge, Ibrahim Walliyyullahi, granted the divorce after hearing both parties.

Walliyyullahi advised them to maintain the peace for the sake of their children, and ordered Habibah to observe an Iddah (waiting) period of three months before remarrying.

He further granted the father access to his children whenever he wished to see them.

The court also advised the respondent to agree on a fixed amount of monthly allowance for the upkeep of his children.

Habibah, 33, a housewife, who resides in Nyayan in Abuja, had pleaded with the court to dissolve her marriage for alleged spiritual attacks.

She told the court that her marriage to her husband was under some form of spiritual attack.

She said that the marriage was contracted in 1998 but that she and her husband had been living apart since 2010.

The mother of three said the marriage was peaceful until her mother-in-law began to dictate to her husband.

The petitioner told the court that she could no longer put up with the excesses of her mother-in-law and she also accused her husband of doing nothing about the attacks.

“My Lord, we were happily married until my husband began to act under the influence of his mother after a few years of our marriage.

“My husband began acting like someone under a spell; he became very foolish and no longer became responsible.

“I was surprised because he changed towards me and the children, I am sure his mother has gone diabolical because he would shout at me anytime I tried to talk about the situation,” she said.

Habibah said that the situation became worse and led to the respondent becoming ‘temperamental and irresponsible’.

“He would, in connection with his mother, invite herbalists into her home to organise needless prayers and at the end he would be told that I was the cause of his misfortune.

“He stopped paying the children’s school fees and whenever I asked for money for their upkeep, he would be-

He tricked me into a polygamous set-up —Wife She knew I had a wife —Husband

name can match his,” she prayed.

President of the court, Mrs Olayinka Falodun, in her judgement, appealed to both parties to give peace a chance, and advised them to consider the name and future of their only surviving child.

She, therefore, adjourned the case till February 1 for continuation.

A trader in building materials, Mrs Bukunmi Oladejo has filed a suit at a Grade C Customary Court in Agodi Gate, Ibadan, Oyo State, seeking the dissolution of her fouryears-old marriage to her husband, Victor Oladejo, over an alleged irresponsible attitude.

Bukunmi said that she had a traditional marriage with

A customary court, sitting at Mapo in Ibadan, Oyo State, has dissolved a seven-year-old marriage between Iyabo and her husband, Dare Adeyemo, over hooliganism, threats to life and infidelity.

President of the court, Mr Ademola Odunade, held that the court looked at the issue of threats to life with seriousness.

“It is obvious that there is no love whatsoever, in trying to instill discipline through the use of machete.

“Therefore, the union between Iyabo and Adeyemo is hereby dissolved in the interest of peaceful coexistence.

“Iyabo shall take custody of the four-year-old child, while Adeyemo shall pay N5,000 monthly allowance for the upkeep of the child.

“Adeyemo shall in addition be responsible for his education and general welfare,” he held.

In her petition, Iyabo said that Adeyemo, popularly called okuta (stone) in the neighbourhood was ‘a hooligan and a drug addict’.

“My lord, Adeyemo suddenly carried out an attack on our church one day and brought the service to a halt, thereby, sending worshippers to run in different directions.

“That day, he came with a machete threatening to inflict cuts on the pastor for fornicating with me.

“He is in no way responsible since we got married in 2009 as he takes all forms of hard drugs and drinks, including Indian hemp, ogogoro and lots more.

“My lord, there is no more love between us as I am tired of his embarrassment and irresponsibility,” Iyabo said.

Adeyemo did not deny any of the allegations, but said that the court should grant her wish.

“I deliberately went to disrupt the church service in order to send some messages of warning to the pastor to stop sleeping with my wife.

“My lord, Iyabo is such a disobedient wife and a prostitute.

Despite my warning and counselling, she never repented from her bad ways,” Adeyemo said

He came to chase us away with cutlass in my church —Wife I went there to warn her pastor to stop sleeping with her —Husband

31

Oladejo but stated that her parents returned the bride price paid on her. ‘’Prior to our marriage, he was very kind to me and lied to me he had no other wife when I told him I was not ready for polygamy. I realised he was close to a woman who was living nearby and whose children were always helping me to do household chores when I had my baby.

When I asked him to explain the relationship between him and the woman, he told me she was his sister. He gave the woman money to buy all we needed for the naming ceremony of my baby,’’ she told the court She said that Oladejo ran anky as soon as her baby clocked two months and was only seen during the New Year’s festivities when he dropped the sum of three thousand naira.

In his response, Oladejo, who is an auto spare parts seller, agreed to the dissolution of the marriage since Bukunmi was not ready to share the home with his first wife.

“She knew I had a wife before she came into my house and I performed my responsibility as a father to my daughter and husband to her. I decided not to pay my daughter’s school fees again because Bukunmi would never present to me evidence of payment,’’ he said Oladejo further stated that Bukunmi refused to join him at his new house and that when he attempted to bring her in, her mother objected because the mother complained about the presence of his first wife.

President of the court, Alhaji Amusa Makinde urged both parties to reconsider their stance as he adjourned the case till January 26.

come very angry,’’ she said.

She said she was forced to leave her matrimonial home in the year 2010 due to the hostile behaviour of her in-laws.

“I was forced to leave the marriage when I could no longer bear the attacks on my health and on my fourth child which led to her death.

“To make matters worse, he is not man enough to stand up for me whenever I am threatened by them.

“I don’t need assistance from him because he stopped taking care of me and the children many years ago,” she said.

Suleiman of Jikwoyi, Abuja, described the allegations as baseless as she was just hiding under the pretence of spiritual attacks.

“She thinks I am not aware that she has a man-friend who she is seeing.

“Despite all the issues in her marriage, I have pleaded with her several times to be patient and let us sort things out but she left in 2010.

“She left me to be with her man-friend who resides in Nyayan, Abuja, and also denied me access to my children,” he said.

Suleiman prayed the court to grant her request, but urged the court to compel her to grant him access to his kids.

“We have been living separately for the past five years so the divorce is just a formality.

“Our families did all they could to salvage the union, but it just didn’t work.

“So, let her continue with her life, the only business I have with her are my kids and she should allow me to see them,” Suleiman said.

She’s troublesome, she disturbs me at work with calls —Husband I don’t want divorce, as I have nowhere to go —Wife A man, Yusuf Owolabi, has called on a Grade C customary court sitting in Agodi Gate Ibadan, Oyo State to end his four-year-old marriage to his wife, Suliyat over what he described as persistent quarrel and threats to life.

Yusuf told the court that he paid no dowry on Suliyat but that the union produced a daughter.

“She had children from her previous marriage but since she came into my home, I have never known peace,’’ Owolabi told the court.

“We fight all the time, she disturbs me with her ceaseless calls at my work place, especially during peak period.

Her family has intervened on a number of occasions. She has instigated me against my mother and on account of her troublesome manner, we have had cause to move from one rented house to the other. She fights neighbours arbitrarily,’’ he told the court Owolabi added that he had never shirked his responsibilities to Suliyat, saying unlike most men, he knows Suliyat shoes’ size because he buys them for her regularly and that he used to gave her the sum of N1,000 for her and daughter’s weekly upkeep.

Responding to Owolabi’s allegations, Suliyat said she objected to the dissolution because she had nowhere else to go.

“It took a year of persuasion before I agreed to move into his house. He pledged to pay dowry on me but failed because it took a long time before he got me pregnant,” she told the court When she became heavy, Suliyat said he reminded Owolabi of the dowry issue but was told that Owolabi’s Shehu (Islamic cleric) advised him against the payment.

Suliyat further told the court that the same Shehu asked Owolabi to stop dropping the N1,000 weekly allowance but to flee the home.

Suliyat also debunked claims that she fought neighbours, saying they were evicted from their previous rented house because Owolabi defaulted in payment.

President of the court, Alhaji Amusa Makinde, adjourned hearing till January 27, but called on both parties to maintain the peace.

19

16 January, 2016

voxpop

Saturday Tribune

With Kate Ani

08071080888 anikate92@yahoo.com

Does your spouse’s age really matter?

Apart from factors like family background, religious inclination, educational attainment, genotype, etc, a big point for consideration ahead of commitment to marriage is age. KATE ANI discovers that while some place premium on it, others dismiss the age issue as immaterial in marriage.

Kehinde Taiwo arrying a girl younger or older is hardly a matter of concern, as long as one is compatible with the partner and they respect each other in terms of understanding, thoughts, and views.

Then, I guess one tends to avoid the age factor and all they concentrate on, is to make their marriage work. And after all, age is just a number!

M

Sayo

Chisom Mmesoma It is better to marry someone of same age bracket. You grow together and grow old together.

Tokunbo Alade One can marry anyone he/she loves, irrespective of them being younger or older. Marriage is a bond made for life and becomes an important part of your future.

Wale Oshin It depends on personality and character. There are those guys who are older but without character and integrity, whereas there are younger guys who possess far better qualities than 10 older guys put together. It also depends on the understanding and maturity of the individuals involved.

Kemi Akioye Hell no! I don’t care how mature the guy is, I can’t marry a guy younger than

The funny thing is that as a guy, I have never dated a younger girl all my life. I have always dated girls that are two, five years older than me. I am already thinking of settling down with one

me. One of my former boyfriends was just three days younger than me and we broke up.

Laja Abiodun The funny thing is that as a guy, I have never dated a younger girl all my life. I have always dated girls that are two, five years older than me. I am already thinking of settling down with one.

Bernie Emmanuel As far as am concerned, marriage is all

about love. My wife is older than me but I want to tell you that we’ve been in love right from the first day we started going out till we married. That first love has never reduced a bit; in fact it’s still increasing by the day. She respects me so much that nobody knows she is the older partner. You can marry a guy younger than you if he loves you because it doesn’t just make any difference. Age is just a number and maturity does not go with age.

Adetayo Johnson Yes, I can marry a lady far younger than I am because I will earn much respect from her and she will be easy to control.

Also, she would be submissive and more respectful than a lady who is of the same age with me or older than I am.

Tokunbo

Kehinde

Bernie

Sayo Akinosun No, I can’t marry a guy younger than me or my age mate; he has to be older by about six years.

20

Saturday Tribune

16 January, 2016

With Tommy Adegbite 0811 695 4631 tommyabijo@yahoo.com

Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo, laying a wreath at the Remembrance Arcade, Abuja, to mark end of the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Day, in Abuja, on Friday. Photo : Sunday Osunrayi

Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Gabriel Olonisakin, laying a wreath at the Remembrance Arcade, Abuja, to mark the end of the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Day in Abuja, on Friday. Photo: Sunday Osunrayi

Senate President Senator Bukola Saraki, laying a wreath at the Remembrance Arcade, Abuja, to mark the end of the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance Day, in Abuja, on Friday. Photo: Sunday Osunrayi.

Oyo State governor, Senator. Abiola Ajimobi, laying a wreath at the 2016 Armed Forces Remembrance the celebrations, held at Remembrance Arcade, Agodi, Government House, Ibadan on Friday. Photo: Alolade Ganiyu.

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Pastor (Mrs) Bunmi Omoregbee of River of Life Chapel, Ilorin, Kwara State, recently marked her birthday. Here, her husband, the General Overseer of the Church, Reverend Godwin Omoregbee celebrating with her.

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The newly weeded couple, Mr & Mrs Adedamola Paseda at Maryland, USA recently.

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Major General Joseph Olaseni Shoboiki (retd) left and his wife, Dr (Mrs) Jayne Shoboiki, during the investiture of Ambassador (Dr) Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosumu as Patroness, Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Remo chapter, held at Abraham’s Tabernacle (Baptist International Worship Centre), Oba Erinwole Awolesi Road, GRA Sagamu, Ogun State. PHOTO: D’TOYIN

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16 January, 2016

P

OOR Nigerians, taking into consideration the trauma of decades of mis-governance of their nationhood and the corruption that percolates all strata of government, the national hysteria on the arms procurement scandal, a.k.a. Dasukigate, should not be a wonder to anyone. Saviours have turned into looters and benevolent rulers have mutated into tyrannical taskmasters. Over the years, the common sight was leaders who climbed the national till, dredged holes therein and piped the droppings from the till into their personal reservoirs. Whenever there is a measure of hues and cries, successors of that generation of the elite class institute what looks like a redemptive enquiry and at the end of the day, everything fizzles out like a pall of irritating smoke.

Thus, when the Dasuki revelation came out, there was a bit of lethargy from the people, convinced that the elite would, as was their wont, sweep the details under the carpet. But when the Muhammadu Buhari government started to demonstrate a sense of departure from the past, national interest began to graduate, until it reached the crescendo that it is at the moment. Every revelation was greeted with amazement and indignant irritation.

In a country that reeks of squalor and want, Nigerians wondered how their own government could release billions of naira for, among other profane things, spiritual consultation.

However, in the hysteria, Nigerians have and understandably so, sucked in a hail of ill-digested facts and uncritically, have allowed such to dictate their lives. Like the uncritical, fluid and reversible Roman plebeians (as demonstrated in Julius Caesar), they are allowing their heroes to be tagged names that those who pull the strings give to the marionette.

One such person is Chief Oluyemisi Falae. A lot has been written on the N100 million received by the former Secretary to the Federal Government and respected technocrat on behalf of his party, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) from the former Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih. Some border on palpable ignorance while some are dance steps of people who are unconsciously swinging

Saturday Tribune

Saturday With

ayinla mukaiba ayinlamukaiba@yahoo.com

Dasukigate and our collective anxiety their hips to the pull of the strings of the marionette.

The facts have been placed in the public domain and do not bear repetition here. Suffice to say that, harangued by the growing support for and popularity of the then Candidate Buhari and the ebbing savour of Goodluck Jonathan and his PDP, PDP mobilised a huge war chest, ostensibly through its access to public money, and sent out its icons on redemptive political evangelism. One of such was Tony Anenih, highly awed for his fix-it credentials. One of the domains he visited was Falae’s Akure home where he asked for inter-party collaboration between his party and Falae’s SDP. The Akure chief, a well-known apostle of federalism and constitutional democracy, who wears his democratic credentials on his sleeves, agreed to discuss details of Anenih’s proposal with his party. As testified to by SDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Dr. Abdul Ahmed Ishiaq, Falae ran to his party which, at its well-attended national executive council meeting, gave him the go-ahead to negotiate with Anenih but with some provisos, which Falae put together in a letter forwarded to Mr. Fix It on January 23, 2015 asking for one, restructuring of Nigeria, policy of zero tolerance for corruption, intensification of efforts to defeat insurgency in the North East of Nigeria, generation of employment, recurrent expenditure reduction and of course, SDP playing a role if the PDP eventually clinched power. Anenih’s reply bore testimony to this.

In Falae and Isiaq’s defences, it was later that Anenih sent the sum of N100 million to Falae for onward transmission to his party which he promptly did and the party selected a four-man committee to deliberate on the criteria of the money’s usage to finance SDP’s electoral office-seekers.

By every standard in that transaction, Chief Falae never deviated from the paths of truth and political righteousness which have been the emblem of his public and political ca-

reer. Indeed, it will be totally illogical to group Falae among those who collected money from Dasuki.

First, from what he has volunteered to the public, Falae had never met nor had any transaction with the retired NSA in the last 15 years. It would be otiose for him, who was aware that the PDP just completed a fund-raise that ran into billions of naira, to have asked Anenih where the money was coming from. It would be downright illogical and preposterous for him to even have conjured that an arms purchase shindig brewed the money.

This is where every public office holder must learn a critical lesson from the Falae example. If he were greedy, he could have ‘eaten’ the money and corresponded with Anenih in the dark. If he had done that, he would have been singing the bitter song Judas sang on his way to Aceldama now. But he brought the money to his party, which decided on how it would use it to finance its political hold.

Agreed, there is anger and bile in the land, especially on this 50th anniversary of Kaduna Nzeogwu’s vilification of political profiteers.

There is greater anger that the pestilence has not subsided. In our anxiety to ‘hang the bastards,’ let us not throw the wheat out with the chaff. Falae’s white robe has not in any way been stained.

Indeed, lawyers will tell you that he lacked the necessary mens rea to link him with the Dasuki shindig and even morally, he acted with nobility, in a country where political party leaders are more or less praetorian and predators. Would President Buhari and his party, the APC, in all honesty, deny that they also collected electoral campaign money?

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22

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Saturday Tribune

27

newsfeature Laolu Harolds, Modupe George, Jude Ossai, Enugu And Biola Azeez - Ilorin

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OSTELS are typically low-budget accommodations that provide a common, friendly social environment for its occupants. Common areas such as kitchens, bathrooms, toilets and living areas are usually shared. Bathrooms and toilets are usually large, with several shower stalls and rows of sinks.

Hostels tend to lend to more interaction, cost much less than other private apartments, but do not provide privacy or personal services and that is why it is appropriate for the university environment.

Affordability is one of the reasons students opt for hostel accommodation on campus, but it seems the whole essence of housing students in the academic environment has been lost in Nigerian universities today.

Hostels have generally become unconducive, congested and overcrowded, as most public universities no longer build new ones. The number of intakes now outweighs the number of hostels in universities – and no one seems to bother.

In some universities’ hostels, 14 students now share a room meant for two or three. Walls are cracked, roofs leak freely, toilet seats are broken, taps do not run and showers are blocked, to mention just a few. These, among other conditions, have precipitated students’ unrest in many universities lately.

On October 12, 2015, students of the University of Calabar, Cross River State, shunned classes and staged a protest which authorities considered serious enough to close down the institution for two weeks. After reopening the institution, university authorities have made attempts to address some of the complaints, but the best efforts are still far below what is required.

Saturday Tribune visited some federal universities to ascertain, firsthand, the condition of the hostels.

University of Ibadan Hostels at the University of Ibadan are generally currently in bad shape. There are dilapidated ceilings, worn-out wardrobes, cracked walls and bad floors.

The number of students in a room depends on which of the blocks a student finds him or herself. In the Fresher’s Block, there are six students occupying a small room.

“The condition of my hostel is not satisfactory. In this hall, we have four students to a room apart from squatters and the room is not well ventilated,” a male student complained.

A 300 Level Pharmacy student of the Queen’s Hall told Saturday Tribune: “My room is very small, being an extension of the main building. We are meant to be two in the room, but right now the number has been increased to four.

“Since I entered this university, I have never witnessed a tangible renovation work being done in this hostel.

Sometimes, my room-mates and I contribute money to buy things such as bulbs and door locks, since the school is not willing to come to our aid. When we complain, we don’t get immediate or considerate attention. That is why you would see some of us using rechargeable lamps in the night, because our lamp holders are bad and there is nobody to help change them.”

The condition of the kitchenettes is critical. Electric cookers provided by the university are, expectedly, all spoilt; but it was gathered that there was an order at a time that students should not bring stoves into the university premises due to a fire incident that occurred in one of the hostels. So, the university made provision for ‘hot plates’ in the kitchenettes, Saturday Tribune was told.

Eight such ‘hot plates’ were supplied to kitchenettes – one each to a block that has about 30 students to a kitchenette.

Students had to take turns to cook their meals, much to their chagrin. When they complained about the development, students were then allowed to bring in their stoves.

Most of these electric cookers are spoilt now and can be seen packed up in corners of the kitchenettes.

Observing personal hygiene is a serious business for students, especially for the female ones, who seem to be more

Public varsity hostels: It’s still ‘suffering and smiling’ prone to infections. Saturday Tribune gathered that in some of the male hostels, especially Zik and Independence Halls, only four toilets are attached to each of the blocks, and there are about 54 students in each block. Worse still, these toilets are dirty; some half-broken and some completely broken. The stench of urine is pervasive every corner of the male hostels, especially the ‘Zik’ and ‘Indi’ halls.

When asked why the toilets are in such conditions, the students said that though cleaners are paid to clean them everyday, most of the time, students don’t get water to flush the toilets after using them.

It’s either the pumping machines are not functioning well or there is no electricity to pump the water.

A male student in Zik Hall told Saturday Tribune, “We wake up at 3am most times to queue up for water.”

In the female hostels visited by Saturday Tribune, there were heaps of tissue paper inside the toilets, clogging them up. The sight was messy and disgusting. Some students said they have to sprinkle the entire bathroom or toilet with different brands of disinfectants before they could either take their bath or use the toilets.

enjoy some special privileges.

A 300 Level student of Pharmacy who resides in Queen Elizabeth Hall said, “Queen Elizabeth Hall is okay because it is closer to the school area, classrooms and the gate.”

This proximity theory was somewhat confirmed by Joseph, a 300 Level Law student who lives in Mellamby Hall, which is near the Administration area.

He said: “Over 400 occupants are in this hall. The bathrooms and toilets are not good, though the school management has been trying its best to renovate them. At least, 60 per cent of the toilets have been repaired.

The hostel is well-managed being the smallest hall in the university. I prefer to stay on campus because I can’t trade my security for pleasure and I am comfortable in this hall. At least, The Common Room is with air conditioner and this makes it easy for me to assimilate whenever I’m reading in there.”

Students say they pay N14,000 per session for the facility.

However, there are hostels around the campus that are built and managed by private investors. One of them is the Mariam Hostel, where students are said to pay up to N90,000 for a room of three students, and N120,000 for two-person occupants.

When contacted to kwon what management is doing to improve the condition of hostel accommodation in the university, the Director of Public Communication, University of Ibadan, Mr Olatunji Oladejo, said: “This actually tops the agenda of our vice chancellor, Professor Abel Idowu Olayinka. To him, investing so much money on the hos-

A 300 Level student of Pharmacy who resides in Queen Elizabeth Hall said, “Queen Elizabeth Hall is okay because it is closer to the school area, classrooms and the gate.

Different strokes Curiously though, Saturday Tribune observed that the level of attention given to each of these hostels differs.

According to some of the students, majority of the hostels that are in such deplorable states are far inside, while those closer to the offices of the school management are given special attention. Expectedly, residents of these hostels

tel facilities, especially halls of residence, is to improve the quality of lives of our students; and he believes that there is a strong correlation between a conducive learning environment and performance. Hence, he continues to commit sufficient funds to improving the facilities in the university’s halls of residence.”

“In fact, if you go through his vision, when he assumed duty on 1 December, 2015, you will find out that the welfare of students is paramount to him and his programme of action and what he has done so far could be verified by anybody. He has done so well and so much within a short time to consolidate what his predecessor, the now Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, did while in office.

“He has directed the Hall Wardens to ensure that all the facilities in the hall of residence be fixed to the best condition.”

Was the order carried out?

“The work is ongoing and he is ensuring that whatever must be provided for the students must be first-class. Recently, he led the entire management team from 8am till 5.30pm to various ongoing projects in the university such as Teaching and Research Farm, Halls of Residence, UI School of Business, Ajibode, an extension of the university, where we will now have the new Faculty of Law to access the extent of work going on in these places. And with all sincerity, majority of the work have been completed to satisfaction. That is to show a kind of vice chancellor who wants to see things for himself, so that he could take informed decisions. The students are resuming in February; definitely, they just have to fix them, though, we have many Halls of Residence.

“We were at the Obafemi Awolowo Hall of Residence, where the contractor was able to tell us that he has done 80 per cent of the entire improvement of the hall. All of these efforts are to ensure that we have facilities that could aid effective learning environment. We also visited the ‘AWBA Dam’ which is the source of water to the university community because all of these cannot be focused in isolation; you take all of them in context.”

University of Lagos At the University of Lagos, the complaints are about the

same: there are problems with water and electricity supply.

A male student said, “The conditions of the rooms are not really bad, but water and electricity supply have never been regular; we had to stage series of protests against the authorities.”

Students here pay N25,000 for the facility, and there are a minimum of six students to a room, aside from squatters.

Each of the halls has about 500 to 600 students. Some of these halls include the King Jaja, Sodehinde, Amina and Moremi Halls.

Students claim that it is almost a custom to not have electricity, especially during examination periods.

“We have water at night and in the morning. When water finishes in the reservoir, we have to go all the way to the Scholar side (a hostel block reserved for students with CGPA of 4.3 and above) to fetch water,” a 300 female Microbiology student stated.

Other students, especially those who reside on the top floors, say they give out their clothes to laundrymen, since they cannot endure the rigour of fetching water from the ground floor.

Conveniences? The conditions of toilets here are so bad that students, especially females, make use of ‘potty’ or empty custard buckets to defecate or pee in; toilets are so bad one could be infected!

A female student told Saturday Tribune: “The condition of the toilet can be blamed on the students though. The cleaners try to keep the toilets clean, but there are some dirty students who just mess them up and go their way.

“Some of the toilets are bad; they are broken. Those who cannot use potty resolve to doing ‘shot put’. They just throw (their waste) over the fence into the bush on the other side of the institution. That is why you perceive some bad odour in the air all around the hostel areas. You can’t enter Amina Hall; the situation there is terrible.”

UNILAG students also complained of security problems on campus.

“All these porters you see around are the first set of people to run away whenever there is any uproar. And this is because they are old. Imagine the school management employing old people to guard us,” a student sneered.

“The only thing the management does to improve on the

state of the hostels is that they go round at the end of each session to repair things like fans and switches before the new session begins. During the session, if anything goes wrong, students are on their own,” another female student recounted.

But despite the inadequacies, most students still prefer to stay in the hostels. They say it gives them opportunity to get the right information at the right time. It also affords them the opportunity to participate in co-curricular activities which make them rounded individuals.

Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife The condition of hostels here is equally bad. Hostels are overcrowded with up to 13 students sharing one room. In some hostels, when it rains, the roofs leak. Most of the taps of the reservoir of water students use in cooking, bathing and drinking are tied with rags. The inside of the water tanks is filled with dirt.

Hostel areas are bushy. There have been reports of snake bites, Saturday Tribune was told. In all the hostels visited, there were no kitchenettes; students cook with their stoves on the corridors.

For the 30,000 students’ population on campus, there are only 9,000 bed spaces altogether in the hostels. As a result, some students make quick business off the others by selling bed spaces. This is not peculiar to OAU though.

Presently, students here pay N3,090 per session as hostel fee. The fee was even N90 per session before it was increased in 2001, until it peaked now at N3,090.

N3,090 as hostel fee per session? Could this be why facilities are the way they are?

The Student Union President, Tayo Akande, did not deny the fact that such fee is unrealistic in maintaining the facilities, but said that students no longer trust the management.

“With the increase in school fees, if the condition of the hostels can be improved upon, we could actually make such bargains again. But we cannot risk our parents paying so much without any guarantee that there will be basic improvements.”

As in the case of UNILAG, students here also said that despite the poor condition in the hostels, they would still prefer to stay on-campus as it enables them to get to class on time.

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16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

views.com

Redefining our collective tomorrow

By Adebobola Omowon

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HE proposed employment of 500,000 teachers is a big step, a good move and I am happy about it.

This is a move the Federal Government must use as an opportunity to reset the thoughts, thinking, values, orientation, heads and hearts of the coming generation, an opportunity that must be seized. The question is what opportunity? How is it an opportunity? Why should it be tapped? That brings me to the problem of the country.

I have always said the problem of this country is not just present or previous leaders. We, the present generation, the youth, constitute the larger problem. They say we are the leaders of tomorrow, I stand to contest that. We are the leaders of today, and if we don’t take charge of today, TOMORROW may never come.

The youth of this generation have gone to school, but have refused to make use of things learnt. We have continued to be the tools of the older generation. Instead of standing as one to champion causes, we have continually been used by the older generation. They have continually divided us by our tribe, religion, state and have played on our weaknesses and vulnerability. We have gone to school, to be able to decipher lies and also learn that living transcends we attacking ourselves based on tribe and religion and that our differences are not our problem. However, these are the same things being used to push this generation to go against each other, fight each other and cause a big division. This division is a smoke screen, as we can never see the real thing, which is a microscopic few holding unto the wealth of the nation for they and their children, many whose children are youth too. The problem of the country is truly multifaceted, and interwoven.

The youth being a problem is just one, but really, these schools where hearts are formed and minds are made, are they really working?

The problem identified takes me to the questions raised earlier. Why this employment should be tapped into, and why it is an opportunity for the government. The problem right now is that people, especially the youth, feel no nationalistic sentiment, no love for their country and nothing that connects and binds them to the country. This can well be corrected. Call it psychological propaganda, call it image laundering, but this is the key.

My heart bleeds when I discover that nine out of every 10 cannot mention the names of all our leaders from past till present. There are countries that have had over forty (40) presidents. Kids in such countries make it a game, to alternatively mention the names of their former presidents. How many Nigerians can tell in order, who led us and when? I have identified where tribalism got its stand. People have grown up to learn what they feel or hear from the society, instead of being taught deeply in

their schools. Perhaps, it would have been best to have immediately taught the story of the Civil War in the secondary schools immediately after the war. It would have been best teaching them the lessons to be learnt from it, not to spite anyone, but to tell it the way it was. If this was done, it would have eliminated its resurfacing decades after, where everyone tells the story from what they either heard, felt or their own personal opinion, and some, of course, add some fiction.

History is key. The opportunity is here for teachers to be employed in history, which should be made compulsory, in all schools even if not taken compulsorily during their WAEC exams. The reason for this is, a person, nation or people, who do not know their history, are like horses running in no direction, they might get anywhere in time, but they would not be where they are supposed to be. This is an opportunity for history teachers who would be employed to be specially trained. Specially trained as to some things which they need to emphasise, which they need to instill in the minds of the coming generation.

These young minds need to be confident in the nation in which they are and be mentally prepared to one day make the difference they truly are born for. I have had teachers work on my mind this way. The minds of the teachers must first be taught before they go teach these growing minds. Apart from the knowledge of art and science, History/Civic Education is recommended to save the souls of the coming generation.

By employing numerous teachers, the government will be mending broken spirits and fixing the coming generation to know that they can change the course of history and grow to love.

Adebobola Omowon, an expert in International Relations and History, sent in this through: adebobolaomowon@yahoo.com

Arms probe, Anenih and the place of loyalty

By Kayode Ojo PRESIDENTS, the world over, are known to rely on the services and friendship of dependable allies, party members and even family members outside the defined and regular cabinet appointees throughout their tenure. It does not matter whether that president is Barrack Obama or Vladimir Putin, or even any of the African presidents. As a matter of fact, it was reported most recently in the media that an inner ring of President Muhammadu Buhari’s circle of friends has started digging in and influencing all the appointments made so far by him. Like it or not, that is how the presidency works, especially in a democracy. And that was how the presidency of Goodluck Jonathan operated until he was voted out of power in 2015.

And discussing the Jonathan presidency, one of the few people who stuck close to him come rain and shine was Chief Tony Anenih. Of course, it is trite to say that Anenih’s name is one that rings bell in Nigerian politics.

As a former minister of works in the Obasanjo presidency and, later, Chairman of Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Anenih had come to symbolise the tenacity of the PDP and its unequal ability to rejig and bounce back from one crisis after another to a stronger party until its final defeat last year.

It is all too clear for any casual observer to see that the defeat of Jonathan could have come much earlier than the 2015 general election but for people like Anenih.

The succession politics from the late President Umaru Yar’Adua to Jonathan, more than anything, defined the character of the Jonathan presidency and later its defeat in 2015 and this would be in spite of rather than because of people like Anenih. Make no mistakes about it, Anenih was perhaps the most loyal and dependable ally of former President Jonathan. This was probably why he was entrusted with assignments that involved fund disbursements to political allies. Besides, he never ceased to put his national political network and reputation to stabilise the Jonathan presidency by winning more friends, supporters and loyalists to Jonathan. Not only did he commit his time, he spent his own money to carry out assignments for the president even when those have been rightly mobilised for the action simply pocketed the money.

It is perhaps too easy to assume that Anenih was fero-

ciously supporting Jonathan for his own selfish, political and any other pecuniary interests. Yet the truth remains that Anenih felt a moral burden to help the president succeed. First, as a statesman and party leader, it behoved Anenih to help steady the hands of Jonathan with the right advice in the interest of the Nigerian nation. Second as the politician with perhaps the highest profile from the SouthSouth region, and with a president from the same region for the first time in the country’s history, Anenih could not have done other than provide the strongest support for Jonathan. Even when Jonathan lost the 2015 presidential election, Anenih volunteered to resign from his BoT position to allow the former president to assume it and find a strong platform to engage in national politics.

Although it is easier for the Nigerian politician lacking in principles to always run to where it is cooking as many PDP leaders of yesterday are doing now by defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Anenih can look back with satisfaction and dignity at his contributions, loyalty, support and service to the Nigerian state through the Jonathan presidency. As an elder statesman, he has nothing to be ashamed of because there is no record that he abused his rare privilege as a confidant and ally of the former president. When Jonathan needed fearless Nigerians to speak the truth to his party members in 2010 that the zoning principle in the PDP could not override the Constitution of the country, Anenih found his voice and used his experience and vast political network to pass that message. And when it became clear that the president was wrongly handling the issue of the break-away ‘New –PDP’ group, Anenih did not mince words in telling Jonathan the truth that he needed to listen to the aggrieved group and mend fences with them.

Of course, this drew the anger of the many sycophantic and tragic ‘advisers’ making their living by singing to the ears of the former president, the lyrics he wanted to hear.

They did not wait to pour out all manner of invectives on their party’s BoT chairman. Strangely, many of those who goaded Jonathan on to the wrong path then have now jumped out of the apparently “sinking” PDP ship into the now “thriving” APC fold. More will still jump out.

In a country where the president is so powerful to make and unmake, whether in terms of power politics, business and policies, anyone who has the ears of the president easily lends himself/herself to both creeping and outright envy. If

Anenih thought that everybody was cool with his chummy relationship with the former president, then the events of the past few days must have cleared any doubt in his mind.

His name has been circulating in the media as one of the recipients of the alleged Dasuki $2.1 billion arms budget scam.

In fact, the EFCC said it confirmed payment of N260 million from the Office of the former National Security Adviser into his account. In spite of the fact that Anenih quickly wrote to the EFCC clarifying how he was merely running errands for the former president, he is being wrongfully clobbered daily in the media as part of the people who stole from the Federal Government. In Anenih’s letter to the EFCC, he detailed how the former president instructed him on trust to deliver specified amount of money to some known politicians, including Alhaji Tanko Yakassai, Chief Olu Falae and Senator Rashidi Ladoja- for some political ends. And it is on record that none of the people Anenih mentioned refuted his story.

Indeed they have all acknowledged that they received the said money from Anenih. Now the question is, if the NSA was directed by President Jonathan to pay some money to Anenih for specified presidential assignments that he had carried out, how on earth was Anenih to know if the money was drawn from the arms budget meant for fighting Boko Haram or from any other source for that matter?

The fact that Anenih willingly furnished the EFCC, upon its request, with the truth clearly shows his honest intentions. I do not know anybody, including those now trying Anenih in the media and attempting to drag his name and reputation to the mud, who will be summoned

by President Buhari and given a sensitive assignment on trust, who will turn the President down or ask the president how he would fund it or where the money to fund the assignment would come from. Perhaps Tony Anenih has overstayed in Nigerian politics and some agents have taken it upon themselves to retire him willy-nilly. Maybe some people in his home-state are getting apprehensive of his never-waning influence in Edo politics, especially as a governorship election nears and are willing to throw everything to discredit him. Maybe Anenih is simply paying the price of being too loyal to a president who was too weak as to be defeated by small decisions of governance he could not take!

Mr Ojo, a public affairs commentator, lives in Ketu Alapere, Lagos.

24

Saturday Tribune

16 January, 2016

style

Saturday Tribune

25

With Kate Ani 08071080888 anikate92@yahoo.com

Trend alert: Oversized kimono jacket

Tinuola Ayanniyi tayanniyi@yahoo.com 08055069379

Do-It-Yourself:

Zipper ring

T

HE year 2016 seems to be the year of the oversized kimono trend. Created as an alternative coat for French and British soldiers in World War I, the coat has since morphed into a daily go-to, and must-have for fashionistas.

This long and flowing jacket is every Nigerian female celeb’s favourite, even under a high degree temperature, despite being an outdoor staple.

It is made of lighter fabrics, usually draped with a belt, knee-long, slightly oversized so that it basically dances in the sun, when the wind so gently blows.

Whether worn over a dress, draped over the shoulders, or worn with ripped jeans and T-shirts, the kimono jacket is a great piece to bring into a wardrobe because of its widespread versatility. Colour wise, it looks best in nude and black.

Materials • ZIPPER: (approximately 15 centimeters long – you need only one part) • Scissors • Ring • Hot glue • Pliers • Rhinestone

CUT away the fabric part of the zipper.

KNOT the zip like shown at the picture.

Style tips# Easy steps to cure chapped lips

THERE is nothing as unsexy as a lady with dry bloody chapped lips due to the dry weather. Here are some do-it-at-home tips that can help.

• Before you wash your face, apply a balm to your lips.

• For chapped and sore lips, slice up a cucumber into thin pieces and leave them over lips for five minutes (try it while you’re watching TV). It helps rehydrates your lips, and feels fantastic.

• Exfoliate: Make an at-home paste with sugar and honey. For very sensitive lips, use a clean, soft toothbrush and brush it back and forth.

• Don’t lick your lips: We lick our dry lips to add some moisture, but it actually dries them out even more. Your saliva contains acids that break down food, but they also irritate your lips. Continuously licking your lips will remove any natural oils you have on your lips.

• Breathe through your nose: Something as easy as breathing through your mouth can actually dry out your lips.

• Drink water: Hydrating from the inside will help keep your lips from getting dry.

PUT some glue on the back of the knotted zipper and stick it to the felt circle (in the middle).

FIX the rhinestone in the middle of the ring.

APPLY glue to the back of the felt and attach it to the ring.

26

16 January, 2016

outofthisworld

With femi osinusi

osfem2@yahoo.com 08055069292

Very soon, we would be travelling in the air holding the aircraft

The wingboard is attached to the back of the plane

A

Illustration of how the wingboard will look like

Illustration of how the rider will stand so as to remain balanced in the air

Saturday Tribune

new idea is currently being toyed with. It is quite an unusual one. It involves people travelling in the air right behind a moving aeroplane, it is like those who move behind a speedboat on the sea with aid of some gadgets.

The concept is called ‘Wingboarding’ and it involves using a wingboard attached to an aeroplane to travel in the air behind the same aeroplane.

Aaron Wypyszynkski, the lead engineer and founder of WyP Aviation that is developing the board, told englishnews.info that the rider controls the board in the air just by shifting their weights. By coming behind the aircraft, according to him, it would also produce a stable platform that flies through the air.

The illustration of the rider fully balanced in the air

The wingboard

28

businessextra

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Edited by Sulaimon Olanrewaju

lanresulaiman123@gmail.com 0805 500 1708

Why multi-billion naira properties are now vacant Chukwuma Okparaocha - Lagos

A

LL over the world, big cities draw large populations with the attendant problems and possibilities and Lagos is not an exception.

With a population now believed to be over 20 million, Lagos State is arguably the most populated state in Nigeria, with demands for housing far outstripping its supply, thus making it to continuously lead a pack of other cities that share a similar trend, including Kano, Port Harcourt, Onitsha and Kaduna.

However, based on investigations, the idea that demand for housing outstrips supply seems to be true in Lagos Mainland alone. This is because on the Mainland, accommodation is so difficult to get that residents are now migrating to suburbs of the neighbouring Ogun State, where places such as Mowe, Ibafo and Sango (and its environs) are full of people who eke out a living in Lagos.

However, recent indications have it that the reverse seems to be the case in upmarket places in Lagos, especially places such as Victoria Island, Lekki and Ikoyi.

A recent survey on property vacancy factor conducted

by Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) puts average vacancy rate in Lagos at 42 per cent. The report further indicated that vacancy rate in upscale areas was between 40-42 per cent, while the one in the Mainland was at between 10 and 15 per cent.

It also added that the 454 houses considered in 111 streets in Victoria Island and Ikoyi axis showed that all the houses had an average vacancy factor of 10.08 per cent.

Saturday Tribune, with a view to finding out why such pieces of ‘architectural wonders’ are left to waste away, recently went round various parts of Ikoyi such as Bourdillon Road, Kofo Abayomi Crescent, Glover Road, Cameron Road, Osbourne, Park View estates, as well as Banana Island, which is widely regarded as one of the most expensive estates in Nigeria.

A walk round those places revealed magnificent houses built with sheer opulence not having even just an occupant living in them, while a few others have partial occupancy. Some of the houses observed included duplexes, blocks of flats and detached buildings.

Some of them still had guards watching them day and night, while their lush and well-mowed lawns bore evidence that the owners of such vacant properties were always keeping them in top form.

Various factors ranging from high cost of renting, selling/buying and maintenance, as well as downturn in the economy have been suggested as possible reasons for this development. This latter idea is corroborated by the fact that some of those properties are valued not in Nigeria’s

A walk round those places revealed magnificent houses built with sheer opulence not having as much as one occupant living in them, while a few others have partial occupancy.

local currency (naira) but in the United States dollars.

For instance, according to information gathered, at Banana Island, letting of three-bedroom and four-bedroom apartments costs between $65,000 and $150,000 per annum, service charges for the same duration could go for $17,000-$30,000, while outright sale of a property, depending on type, could go for as much as $2million.

Similarly, sale of blocks of flat (4-bedroom) at Old Ikoyi, for instance, at Glover Road, could cost as much as N250m (for waterside), while those not at waterside could cost N200m. Renting of a house at Glover and other parts of Ikoyi such as Queens Drive, Adeyemi Lawson could cost between N5m-N7.5m per annum.

Speaking in an interview an expert in estate survey, valuation and development revealed that the downturn in the economy had massively reduced the financial muscle of many affluent people to rent or buy such expensive properties.

An ex-president of the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyor and Valuer, Chief Joe Idudu, in a recent interview with Saturday Tribune said: “Any developer must look at the nature of the place he wants to invest in, so as to know whether such a place is active or not. If you build a big house for investment purpose, you must be sure that there is market for it, you must ensure that there are people who have the capacity to pay for such a property.”

Idudu, who is also an ex-chairman of the Estate Surveyor and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON), also noted that “The volume of people with the capacity to buy such expensive properties has dropped; this is as a result of the downturn in the economy which has made players at the top of the market to be reduced in volume. The downturn in the economy has reduced the financial muscle of people who should be buying such properties or renting them as tenants. They are therefore moving to cheaper places such as Ikeja and Apapa on the Mainland. That is why demand

for property seems to be on the increase on the Mainland at the expense of the so-called highbrow places on the Island.”

He, however, insisted that the situation was even worse in Abuja, because unlike Lagos, which, according to him, has a relatively healthy mix of the rich and poor, the gap between the rich and the poor in Abuja is very wide, thereby making many more expensive properties in it to be vacant.

In the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, information gathered indicated that it costs between N2.5 million and N3 million to rent a two-bed bungalow in areas such as Maitama, Asokoro, Wuse and Garki, which are some of the choice places in the FCT, while it costs between N400,000 and N700,000 to rent a two-bedroom apartment in its numerous satellite towns such as Kubwa, Lugbe and Karu yearly.

A similar situation plays out in Port Harcourt, where one-bedroom flat costs between N250, 000 to N350, 000 per annum, depending on the location in the oil city. A two-bedroom flat goes for between N400, 000 and N650, 000 per annum, while a three-bedroom flat and four-bedroom bungalow cost between N800, 000 and N1.3 million per annum, respectively.

Perhaps, the reality of the situation is best captured in the experience of 36-year-old Samson Ayiga, who was on house hunting exercise for over six months. Ayiga, who like any other person, got the services of real estate agents to get this done, was totally at a loss on why his considerably high monthly income could not still match the astronomical amounts being demanded as rent for what he felt was a “common” two- bedroom flat in some of the choice areas in Lagos.

“You look around and you find many completed, fullyfurnished and beautiful buildings that that have nobody living in them, simply because of the outrageous prices at which they are put, either for rent or sale,” he said.

Ayiga’s plight was, perhaps, better captured by Professor Timothy Nubi of the Department of Estate Management, University of Lagos, who reportedly noted that by the United Nations (UN’s) standard, a worker should not spend more than 30 per cent of his/her income on rent.

Prof. Nubi was quoted as saying, “By the time a civil servant pays 60 per cent of his income on house, it definitely affects his general well-being. The UN standard is that nobody should pay more than 30 per cent of his income on rent. By the time you pay more than 30 per cent it means that the houses are not affordable,” he said.

Property experts however are of the opinion that lack of property tax regime is partly responsible for the increasing cases of unoccupied buildings littering the cities.

They posited that an effective property tax regime would provide a check on greedy property owners and alleviate the sufferings of tenants who simply could not just afford the high cost of accommodation being demanded.

29 entertainment

e t a r o Corp orship: s n o p S d o o w ly l o N l l Wi 015 2 t a e b s i h t s record year?

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

2 Face Idibia at a Star Trek show

had been created through AFRIFF N the not too distant past, one of to give Nollywood the major issues that usually came stars and filmto the fore whenever entertainment makers the opstakeholders were gathered was the portunity to tell little or no interest shown in entertaintheir stories and ment by major investors. also make profit, But times have changed and stakeholdwhile also helpers, Nollywood practitioners, actors, ing them in the musicians as well as distinguished bodies area of distribuin the entertainment industry now have tion in Nigeria Yemi Alade the corporate world supporting some of and Africa. their activities, especially in the year 2015.

Earlier, AfoAccording to reports, in 2015, Nollywood layan, who grossed the second highest in the country’s had been anGDP and has become a fertile land for innounced as vestors and filmmakers who, Arik Air AmCinematographer, Clarence Peters being through bassador, had presented with a dummy cheque for $2,000 by h u g e clinched another Access Bank at Afriff 2015. f a n big endorsement. shows, He inked a deal endorsewith Peugeot Auments, tomobile Nigemovies ria (PAN). While and musigning the sic, are Memorandum gradually of Understandhelping ing (MOU) at to push the NAF Conthe counference Centre I Bo try farther D, M and Suites, Ah, Rasheed Olaoluwa away from madu Bello Way, Kado, economic worth Abuja, Managing Director/CEO of PAN, Mr Ibrahim precipice.

N1 billion.

Boyi, said the partnership was meant to showcase the L i t t l e S p e a k i n g alignment of the two brands - Afolayan, an outstanding wonder, noat the Afri- representative of Nollywood and the new Peugeot - which table filmcan Business are of international standard. maker, KunSymposium An elated Afolayan, who lauded the gesture, noted that le Afolayan, which took place during the his endorsement by PAN meant a lot for the entertainment received the 2015 edition of the International Film Festival (AFRIFF), industry as it would open a vista of opportunities and more backing of the Bank of Industry (BOI) to one of the directors of the Bank of Industry, Mr Babatunde partnerships with the corporate world. fund his yet-to-be-produced flick, The CEO. The bank has Joseph, who represented the Managing Director, Mr Continues on pg32 also announced the furnishing of Nollywood with a loan Rasheed Olaoluwa, said the N1 billion “Nollyfund” loan

By Joan Omionawele

I

30

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

‘Reggae, for me, is a better vehicle to spread my message’ Dube’s music again, and what we stand for which is peace. My coming into the band as leader is another message that Jah wants Nigeria and South Africa to come together as one. We are burning down xenophobia and discrimination.

Which is symbolic of me being in the picture as the ambassador of reggae. I will also urge Nigerians to be in support of this spiritual journey, to ensure there is oneness among Africans.

Continues from pg2

with me coming into the picture. So far we have been trying to push the music forward.

We have also done several shows and we are going places soon. We have also tried to make contacts in Nigeria to see how we can distribute and market the new album. That will be handled very soon with me in the picture and as the lead singer of the Lucky Dube Band in South Africa. My manager, Lenah Mochoele, is also doing a very good job to push it forward with the coming into the picture of TK Dube, the son of Lucky Dube, he is also coming up trying to incorporate into the band as well and he is doing very well too.

I thank members of the band for welcoming me and finding me fit to lead the band. I feel welcome and at home to be with the band.

How do you think Lucky Dube would have reacted to the cases of xenophobia in South Africa?

He would not have supported it, I believe, with what he stood for in his music when he said “Hey you rasta man!/,Hey you ruffian!/ You gotta come together as one”. He would frown upon xenophobia. He was an authority and was a voice of the voiceless. I plan to record a song that will speak against xenophobia and call for unity in Africa.

I will be taking some of the lines of the legend. We want to immortalise him, so to speak.

You have taken a lot of his persona, do you think you share any spiritual connection with him?

As I said, I had always wanted to go to South Africa even when he was alive. It had always been my dream to meet with him. In Nigeria back then, I was referred to as the Nigerian Lucky Dube on radio and television stations. I was so passionate that whenever I performed then in Abuja, people would think he was the one performing. I said before that he appeared to me in my visions a number of times. And I always felt that there could be a spiritual connection between me and the legend. It plays out now in the things that are unfolding. I didn’t know how deep it was before he passed on but I have begun to see now that he is gone that his spirit didn’t want his legacy to die. I believe also that the fact that I did not meet him one on one when he was alive but have had visions of him that his spirit searched me out. While he was alive I always felt like a part of the band. But I didn’t think I could be the lead singer. It was Jah’s doing and I don’t know how it came to be. I only wanted to visit South Africa and meet the legend one on one.

You have been in South Africa over ten years, do you have any personal experience of xenophobia?

I would speak of the band because that’s where I strictly belong. The family accepting me and realising that the past is gone and we have to embrace one another is a major proof of an exception to the wide notion. I’ve never experienced any form of xenophobia since I’ve been there.

How much have you connected with Nigerian reggae artistes since you returned? Do you know some of them?

I do. I have always looked up to people like Majek Fashek, Oritz Wiliki, Ras Kimono and others as fathers of reggae.

They are legends as well. Like you said, it is possible that I meet with these guys and see how we can revive the reggae music in Nigeria. With my international acquaintances, I am told they would be pleased to work with me. We could record duets together or perform on stage together. Reggae is still something that people can still relate with.

In one of the books published on him, titled ‘Advocate of Order’, he was said to be a man of many talents, what did you admire about him?

There are a lot of reggae artistes everywhere but what I admire most about Lucky Dube is about the uniqueness in his voice. It is not an easy thing to mimic his voice, sing his lyrics or pronounce his words with the same tone and movement. It makes him stand out. He can do the screaming tirelessly without stress. I loved and admired his uniqueness.

In mirroring that, how has it been leading his band in South Africa?

It’s going on satisfactorily well. We are not doing the very best. The revival is coming on strong with his books and the CDs are spreading across Africa. Recently we went to Caledonia in Australia. The turnout was massive.

People were shedding tears. With the coming of the band to Nigeria anytime soon, it will speak much for itself and we are currently working on that.

Have you met with the family of Lucky Dube?

How has the reception been?

Yes. I have met a couple of them. I have met his wife, his son, TK Dube and his daughters, Nkule Dube and Bongi Dube, all singers. He has seven kids. They do come from time to time to join the band. TK oversees the band. The band is doing well and is alive despite the death of Lucky Dube. The oneness and unity in the band is very strong.

It’s amazing how united we are in the band. The band is so professional that if you’re not good enough you can’t last long.

This may come as a surprise to many Nigerians that Lucky Dube’s band is much up and running and is being led by a Nigerian. Why did it take so long for you to come public?

I have always looked up to people like Majek Fashek, Oritz Wiliki, Ras Kimono and others as fathers of reggae.

They are legends as well I know that Nigeria has the biggest fan base of Lucky Dube all over Africa. However, I couldn’t have gone far without the support of the band and the family. They kept watch over me in everything I try to do. I have seen that I am trying to do my best to uplift the spiritual journey, so to speak, of the legend Lucky Dube and we are trying to go places and live up the legacy of peace and unity which were the messages of his music. He was an advocate of peace and unity. He was not xenophobic. For instance his music was never directed to only South Africa. It was universally embraced. That’s why he was a real legend. He was not one sided. We are also trying not to do otherwise with the support of the band. I am here now to make Nigerians understand and embrace me, to embrace Lucky

What are the real reasons you are in Nigeria?Are you here on holidays?

There is no Christmas for rastas. There is no rest when doing Jah works. I came with some few CDs and books written by the manager, Lenah Mochoele. We came to see how we can create awareness that the band is coming here.

I’ve been in Abuja for about two weeks before coming down to Lagos. I have met with a lot of people in the media who have been very supportive. We are planning to do a tour in Nigeria very soon so this is sort of a pre promotional thing.

What part of Nigeria are you from?

I am from the South South, Cross River State.

How come you bear Ben Priest?

Ben Priest is my stage name. My real name is Javan Busho. My dad is a pastor and this reflects in my personal songs and my stage name. I was very grounded in the word of God as a kid. I try to keep the spiritual part of me in my job even while my style of music is reggae. I believe that reggae is a better vehicle for me to spread my message.

That’s why the passion for reggae is there more and my father doesn’t have a problem with it.

What are your plans for the New Year?

We have schedules that we work with. We have shows lined up. January is a very dry month but shows will be coming up as from February. Although we are not sure of the countries yet. We have a Lucky Dube band fan page on Facebook where people can go to for updates.

32 entertainment

16 January, 2016

‘Entertainment industry needs more structures’

Saturday Tribune

MD, BoI, Rasheed Olaoluwa, on a visit to Kunle Afolayan’s movie location.

Continues from pg29

With so much interest in the music industry, Nigeria’s most sought after record label, Mavin Records, owned by Michael Collins, popularly known as Don Jazzy, got the support of Access Bank for its maiden concert. Speaking at the concert announcement, the Executive Director (Personal Banking), Access Bank, Victor Etuokwu, said the reason for the corporate investment in the record label was because Access Bank was a brand that identified with every Nigerian, especially youths.

According to him, “Access Bank decided to identify with the Mavins because they are a group who connects with millions of youths in Nigeria. We have a young and vibrant population which is a plus, thus, Access Bank has decided to form a strong bond with the youth of this country, and there is no way to do this other than to collaborate with a team that has the highest followership and we are proud and honoured to work with them.”

Also, Closeup, a product in the stable of Unilever, signed Yemi Alade and Davido as ambassadors while telecommunication giants, Glo and MTN, brought Wizkid, Tiwa Savage, Seyi Shay, Kcee PSquare, Funke Akindele, Odunlade Adekola, Omawumi, Don Jazzy, Korede Bello and other musicians on their payroll. This is even as companies like the Nigerian Breweries Plc had, in previous years, organised Maltina Dance-all, Star Trek, Gulder Ultimate Search and a host of other shows to support the entertainment industry.

Even comedians were not left out as Basketmouth, Okey Bakassi, Hafiz Oyetoro and Akpororo signed juicy deals with top telecommunication companies in the country.

It will also be recalled that during the fifth edition of the Africa International Film Festival, (AFRIFF), the organisers, through their CEO, Chioma Ude, gave scholarships to 20 young filmmakers to study in the United States. There was substantial funding from Access Bank, too, for the filmmakers and actors who were the big winners of the night.

Zonal Head, Business Banking Division, Access Bank, Bolarinwa Animasahun, stat-

P Square performing during the GloCAF awards.

Nollywood actors and actresses at a previous edition of AMVCA. ed that the bank was ready to partner Nollywood by assisting it with a N1 billion loan. According to him, “we are ready to work with you. We are ready to inject one billion naira into the business.”

On its part, satellite television service provider, MultiChoice, has over the years partnered with Nollywood actors in showcasing their movies on Africa Magic and supporting their movies. Its most recent project was ‘Road to Yesterday’, a movie by Genevieve Nnaji. The Managing Director, Multichoice

Nigeria, Mr John Ugbe, told journalists: “For over 20 years, MultiChoice has played an active role in the development of the African film and television industry. The Africa Magic channels, which sit on our DStv and GOtv platforms, continue to display the best of African entertainment content to the world and with the launch of The Voice Nigeria, we have once again provided a platform for African talent to shine.”

For Peace Anyiam Osigwe, the convener of the Africa Movie Academy Awards (AMAA), the annual awards ceremony, which has been acknowledging and supporting African talents through its investors and sponsors, the platform has been fuelled to reward Nollywood practitioners.

Dennis-Okike, winner of the10th Gulder Ultimate Search.

Despite the encouraging robust friendship the corporate world is building, observers of the entertainment industry have continued to urge the government to invest more in the industry.

While speaking with Saturday Tribune, popular Nollywood actress, Rose Odika, stated: “We need our own film village. Investors and the government can do this for us since we are working tirelessly to make money for the country and also showcase Africa to the world through our films.”

However, it is not time to bask in the euphoria of these partnerships but to integrate professionalism with more business acumen in order to solidify the industry to make it enviable like Hollywood and Bollywood. It is time for entertainers to recognise that investors will always be ready to put their money where they see golden opportunities, talents, youth and crowd appeal. So, there is the need for entertainers to continuously rebrand, network and improve on their performances. Once this is done, opportunities will come knocking, one after the other.

33 entertainment

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

A producer once told me music wasn’t for me — Timi Dakolo Stories by Joan Omionawele

P

OPULAR soul musician, Timi Dakolo has revealed that he was once advised to abandon his calling–music.

This, he said at the just concluded The Headies Awards.

Dakolo, who carted away three awards became emotional when he was called

to receive his award and was almost short of words. However, he managed to say “when I started pursuing my musical career, a producer in Lagos told me that music was not meant for me, so the message is, never let anyone cow you to abandon your dreams.”

Dakolo was the biggest winner of the night, followed by Olamide, who went home with two awards.

Generation driven by ego, money, status— Funke Akindele

Snapped Nigeria partners British Council to promote Nigerian filmakers

AN opportunity for Nigerian directors and actors to be part of an innovative ‘social movie’ collaborative film project is on course in Lagos.

“Following on from the success of ‘Snapped The Movie’, the UK’s first ever short film specifically created for and shown on Snapchat, we are about to create Snapped Nigeria, the next Snapchat movie which will be set and filmed in Lagos. It will be produced by Kemi Lala Akindoju for 2Far Media Ltd and supported by the British Council who will also be promoting and marketing the movie,” said a statement from the organisers.

‘Snapped the Movie’ is the brainchild of 2far Media and is a simple but powerful concept – produced by creating a narrative sequence of multiple short Snapchat films for Snapchat ‘My Story’.

Snapped The Movie is a unique way of creating film content for young audiences in a format they like to engage with. The short film appears for only 24 hours on the ‘My story’ feature on Snapchat.

Although employing professional film processes, the films will be recorded entirely on a mobile phone and, alongside the characters, the mobile phone itself will become a character in the world created.

Snapped Nigeria programme, in association with British Council, which was written by Bola Agbaje, will be shown live on Snapchat on 22 February and will be the focus of a panel discussion on February 26 as part of the programme of events at the high profile Social Media Week Lagos 2016 conference.

Nollywood actress, Funke Akindele has admonished her fans and Nigerians to be wary of fake people. inher recent post on Instagram Akindele took time to0 educate her fans.

Although the Jenifa’s Diary actress did not mention names, she warned : “Hold on to every genuine person you find. This generation has people driven by ego, money and status. As a result, good souls are ruined daily. Keep your head up and be conscious of the energy you give out and connect with,” Akindele said.

The actress, whose TV series are being shown on top TV stations in Nigeria, is enjoying massive airplay and delivering talent and content to the entertainment pleasure of Africa as a whole.

Actress, Halima Abubakar, debunks pregnancy rumours N oll y w ood Halima actress, Abubakar recently debunked claims on social media that she was pregnant. This came after she sparked pregnancy rumours with a post about the beauty of being _pregnant, on her Instagram page. Saturday Tribune however gathered that the Nollywood actress is not pregnant after all.

She even went further to add that she is not having sex at the moment.

In her words, the actress of Northern Nigeria said : ”sorry loves, I am not pregnant. Although It is a great wish but I have to have sex to get pregnant.”

, others Okwo, Oboli, JombeoA y for Broadway Movi cadem B road w a y Movie Academy, an innovative film academy, has announced established industry stakeholders as part of the facilitators for Broadway Movie Academy maiden class which will take off in the last week of February 2016 at Ikeja, Lagos.

The first set of facilitators announced are Mildred Okwo (producer and director of ‘The Meeting’ and ‘Surulere’); Omoni Oboli (actress, producer and director of ‘Being Mrs Elliot’ and ‘The First Lady’); Blessing Egbe (actress, producer, director of ‘Lekki Wives’, ‘Two Brides and a Baby’); Chineze Anyaele (producer and director of ‘Ije’); Uche Jombo (actress and producer of over 17 movies); Moses Babatope (director at FilmHouse Cinemas and Head of Filmone Distribution); Samuel Olatunji (CEO, Bigsam Media).

According to the statement announcing the facilitator more people with proven track records are set to be announced in the next few days.

The statement reads: “Oftentimes the dilemma of those who want to go into movie industry is the knowledge gap that needs to be bridged. They want to start acting but don’t know how to start, where to go for opportunities, how to improve

skills and how to market themselves, how not to fall into hands of fraudulent individuals. Same goes for directing, movie production, scripting writing and other marketable skills in the industry.

“It is to this end that Broadway Movie Academy is putting together a 35-class session where industry professionals will be on the ground to teach prospective industry players and existing industry players (who want to deepen knowledge) on acting, scriptwriting, directing, production, cinematography, business side of the business (cinema runs and outside cinema business), becoming entertainment brand, how to promote yourself and your movie, marketing, how to be a viable entertainment brand and other industryrelated subjects.

The statement adds: ‘The intention of the founders of Broadway Movie Academy is to produce ‘prepared’

graduates that will be able to do ‘things’ on their own in the movie industry and know where to call for necessary assistance that will help make them brand of reckoning in the industry‘.

34

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

with Tunde Ayanda ayandaayotunde@yahoo.com 08034649018

Folly Coker’s rising profile Folorunso Coker, owner of Browns Cafe and Lagos State Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture, is fast gaining popularity in Lagos as a vital tool in the administration of Governor Akinwumi Ambode.

The politician, who served as an adviser towards the tail end of the administration of erstwhile Governor Babatunde Fashola, is getting the kudos for the success of the One Lagos Fiesta, a five-day musical concert sponsored by the Lagos State government.

The success of the concert, which featured a large number of artistes, comedians and entertainers, was attributed to the politician’s influence among the youth and the powerful message the staging of the concert sent to Lagosians.

Popularly known as ‘Folly’ in the social circle, the politician has been in the state’s corridor of power since the government of Governor Bola Tinubu and now seems to be the time for his name to soar.

Joy abounds for Toyin Collins

Friends, family remember Adunni Bankole ‘Broken is the golden bowl! The spirit flown forever!’ This line from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem, ‘Lenore’ became the message that marked the first year remembrance of one of Nigeria’s most celebrated matriarchs, Iyalode Adunni Bankole, when her friends and family hosted a prayer session in her honour in Lagos a few days ago.

The late socialite, wife of Ogun State politician, Chief Alani Bankole, died last year, with her passage throwing her numerous friends and admirers into mourning.

Adunni Bankole, before her death was a socialite, a successful businesswoman and role model to many young people.

Her children organised a praise night in her honour at the R n A City Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, where ‘Eliza’, a movie produced in her honour was unveiled.

T

his is more like the hottest news within the Lagos social circle. It is everywhere that society lady, Toyin Collins, is now a mother!

The socialite, who was formerly known and introduced as Mrs Toyin Alakiu, was delivered of a baby girl recently in a hospital in Lagos.

Toyin, a beauty and skin expert, celebrated her 50th birthday some months ago and the new baby is seen as a rare gift that will cement her bond with her husband, Debo Collins.

Toyin, who disappeared from the social circle immediately after her marriage to Debo Collins, now has a story to tell and she is telling it to all her friends.

The owner of multi-purpose beauty parlour, Fresh Look, has now taken up a motherly role as she continues to tell her joyful tale.

Gbenga Obadara’s new interest Ogun politician, Senator Gbenga Obadara, has found himself a new love outside politics.

The former lawmaker, who lost his bid to return to the Senate in the last election, has floated a radio station that added to the number of existing private radio stations in the city of Abeokuta, Ogun State.

The new broadcast company is named Sweet FM and it has begun skeletal transmission that reaches everywhere in the state.

The politician’s interest in broadcasting is rumoured to be part of his plan to worm himself into the hearts of the people owing to his political ambition, while his friends denied the claim, saying the ex-Senator has always dreamed of owning a radio station.

Bolu Akin-Olugbade's quiet celebration The Aare Ona-Kakanfo of Owu kingdom, Prince Bolu Akin-Olugbade, had a quiet ceremony recently.

The man, who favours Hollywood-like lifestyle judging from his choice of cars and appearance, had a celebration to mark his 35th wedding anniversary to his wife, Ladunni.

The Olugbades’ way of celebration this time was modest as he refused to roll out the drums as usual but chose a classy restaurant in the heart of Lagos to lunch with his wife and children.

35

16 January, 2016

achievers

With Ronke Sanya (Winner, NMMA, Innovative Reporter of the year 2015) 07036050161 | sanyaaderonke@gmail.com

& Oyeyemi Okunlade | 08056834515 | ojeleyeoyeyemi@yahoo.com

It was a bit challenging because I was competing with students from developed countries that had internet and sophisticated gadgets at their fingertips.

How I won 3 international awards in a day

— Mojisola Ojebode, GIST Tech-I, GES 2015 best agriculturist and best female entrepreneur Mojisola Ojebode can be described as a superwoman with top-notch ingenuity. Spurred by the passion to proffer solution to agricultural problems, the biochemist made a bio solution that took her to the international stage. She tells RONKE SANYA in this interview, how her innovation earned her three awards in different categories at GIST Tech-I, GES 2015 competition inNairobi, Kenya with a cash prize of $25,000.

W

hat inspired the idea of organic pesticide in you?

It all started when I went on my usual sensitisation of rural women farmers and I noticed that they planted lemon grass around their compounds. I asked why and the response was that it scared reptiles. So I thought that if lemon grass could scare reptiles, it probably could have some effects on small pests and then I decided to carry out a work on it in the laboratory.

As a researcher, my work is based on using natural resources to combat insect pest attack, especially on food crops, using what we call biologically active resources (bio resources). I took interest in agriculture towards the end of my first degree as a biochemistry student at the Federal University of Technology (FUTA), Akure.

So I decided to use my profession to proffer solutions to agricultural problems and then thought of pesticides. We have heard of ‘killer beans’ which resulted from the use of pesticides that were not regulated.

So I decided to do pesticides, using natural products. Leaves and grasses that have been shown to be pesticidal to an extent.

Through joint effort of my team, we made some combinations using lemon grass and some other natural resources. We made several trials and combinations before we reached the final result which we believe was prefect enough.

destroyed. We went ahead to incubate the eggs of the bean weevils and they couldn’t hatch because of the treatment we applied on them.

How did you get to know about the GIST Tech-I competition held during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Nairobi?

Actually, I initially applied for a competition at YALE—Young African Leaders Initiative—but they redirected me to apply for another competition which was agriculturebased. They sent me a mail, which I ignored because I was more interested in the YALE, a competition for young African leaders that have made impacts on the lives of many.

One week to the end of the submission of entries for GIST Tech-I, I had a second thought and felt my innovation might become widely accepted and even commercialised. I did the videos as requested and then submitted. Interestingly, out of about 800 applicants from around the globe, I qualified for the semi-final.

You won the idea stage category, what does that mean?

Yes, GIST Tech-I competition involves participants from various parts of the world, who are into science which includes agriculture, engineering,

And you were not afraid that the result might not be widely accepted?

My decision was based on the fact that I was not comfortable with research works ending up just being in journals and finally on bookshelves. I wanted something that will be put into practice immediately in the field and people will benefit from it. I am somee exhibition. and during th one who doesn’t entertain fear and just st er h at e d o Ojeb choose to derive joy in what I do. Within medicine one hour of exposure of the combination and ICT. There is the idea stage my team and I made, the crop pests were and also the start-up stage. The start-up

Saturday Tribune

stage is for hose whose innovation has been implemented to become commercialised and has already started production while the idea stage is for those whose innovation is still in the idea stage and hasn’t become commercialised.

So, when I qualified for the semi-finals, my project had to be subjected to various tests by experts to see how feasible and possible my idea was. I made it through that stage successfully and another hurdle to scale was to ensure that my video get enough votes globally to make me win. I started campaigning for votes using the social media networks and in the university of Ibadan campus. So, the University supported me in campaigning for votes by contacting various science bodies and at a point I had to station laptops in the hostels for students to vote.

It was a bit challenging because I was competing with students from developed countries that had internet and sophisticated gadgets at their fingertips. But interestingly, when the result for the voting stage came out, I scored the highest vote in idea category and made it to the final.

So what happened in the final?

In the final, we had to do a fiveminute pre-

only black female in the final. So finally the results were announced and my name was called as the best female entrepreneur. I was amazed because I was even impressed by the presentation of my competitors.

Not knowing that there was more to come, again, the announcer called ‘Mojisola Ojebode from Nigeria,’ as the second runner-up in the idea category. Even the announcer had to confirm that ‘again, Mojisola from Nigeria!’

And the judges informed that I deserved it because my innovation was top-notch. Then came the third one, which was the best in agriculture category.

I’m sure the awards came with some cash prizes.

For the first one, the best in agriculture, I won 5,000 US dollars; for the second one, the best female entrepreneur, I also won 5,000 US dollars and then the second place, idea category, I won 15,000 US dollars.

How did you spend the 25,000 US dollars?

(Laughs). The cash prize was for us to implement the idea we presented at the competition. I gave reports on every stage of how the money was spent to the sponsors. We (I have a team I work with) began planning immediately I got the cash prize. On my team, I have a chemist and a marketer. We purchased laboratory equipment, secured a parcel of land to plant the organic products we use in the production of the biological solutions. We also need to monitor the plants from growing stage because this determines the end product which the product is used for.

Also, a lot needs to be put in place before we start distribution of the product. Presently, we are working on perfecting and adjusting the biological formulas so that when the product eventually comes out, it will meet and surpass all expectations.

Have you always exhibited creative instincts as a child?

I was a dogged and curious -I 2015 GIST Tech young girl.

I have at ts an p ci ti other par Kenya. d an e d o been working b je Mojisola O finals held at Nairobi, with plants since I competition was little. I would cut flowers, squeeze and sentation which drink the water that came out from them would determine the eventual winner. and add a bit of sugar. I also would grind Some were tense due to the huge crowd that ginger, mix it with water and make ginger comprised both white and black experts drink for everyone in the house and even from various parts of the world. I was the our neighbours. My childhood was fun.

36

16 January, 2016

weekend cartoons

Saturday Tribune

Adeeko Olusegun adeeko.olusegun@yahoo.com 0811 695 4638

Just a Laffing Mata

Board meeting

FUNOLOGY

POLITICO

“THERE will be a meeting of the Board immediately after the service,” announced the pastor.

After the close of the service, members of the Church Board gathered at the back of the auditorium for the meeting. But there was a stranger in their midst — Brother Segeluulu — a visitor who had never attended the church before.

“My friend,” said the pastor, “Don’t you understand that this is a meeting of the Board?”

“Yes,” said the visitor, “and after today’s sermon, I suppose I’m just about as bored as anyone else who came to this meeting.”

Three hymns ONE Sunday, a pastor told his congregation that the church needed some extra money and asked the people to prayerfully consider giving a little extra in the offering basket. He said that whoever gave the most would be able to pick out three hymns, sing and everyone would clap for the person.

After the offering baskets were passed, the pastor glanced down and noticed that someone had placed a big brown envelope of N500,000 in the basket.

He was so excited that he immediately shared his joy with the congregation and said he’d like to personally thank the person who placed the money in the basket.

The pastor called the name on the envelope and gently from the back, Sister Gloria shyly raised her hand. The pastor asked her to come to the front.

Slowly, she made her way to the pastor. He told her how wonderful it was that she gave so much and in thanksgiving asked her to pick out three hymns.

Sister Gloria’s eyes brightened as she looked over the congregation, pointed to the three most handsome and richest men in the building and said, “I’ll take him and him and him!,” including the pastor.

Africa’s richest man settles Mavin boss and Badoo beef

feature

37

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Ritual killer gang member lures 4-yr-old with groundnut, beheads him

By Oluwatoyin Malik

A

suspected member of a gang of ritual killers, Ganiyu Tajudeen (25), has been arrested by the operatives of Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, (FSARS), Osun State Command, after the killing and beheading of a four-year-old Bakare Teslim.

The killing was said to have occurred in Iragbiji, the headquarters of Boripe Local Government Area of Osun State recently.

The FSARS operatives have through the arrest curbed the activities of the gang which was said to have carried out series of murder of innocent residents of Osun State in recent times.

Saturday Tribune learnt that Tajudeen connived with other gang members whose names were given as Aremu Moshood (48), Agboola Abdulwasiu (31) and Ganiyu Abidoye (60) to lure the four-year-old Bakare Teslim away from his parents’ residence on the pretext of buying him groundnuts.

A police source told Saturday Tribune that the father of the victim, Mr Ismail Bakare of Agbelekale area of Iragbiji, disclosed to law enforcement agents that on getting home on the day of the incident, he was informed by an aged woman living in his neighbourhood that Tajudeen had come to take away his son to buy groundnut.

But to his surprise, when the little boy was nowhere to be seen afterwards, the response to his enquiries on the whereabouts of his son was negative, as he denied setting his eye on the boy.

The disappearance of the four-year-old led to the matter being reported at the office of the FSARS and through investigation, the suspect confessed to have taken the boy to an unknown destination with the sole aim of using him for money ritual.

Tajudeen also confessed that he and his partners in crime had already beheaded the young lad, adding that the boy’s head had been buried in a shallow grave, while the body was thrown somewhere and covered with leaves.

He thereafter took the FSARS operatives to the scene where the body was thrown while the head was exhumed few meters away from where the body was recovered.

In the suspect’s confession to the police, he stated that “I am a palm fruit cutter. The mother of the body came to my house to tell me that she would need my services to cut palm fruits, asking me to come the following day.

“But I went to her house at about 5.30p.m same day. I took the young boy with me, with the belief that no one noticed when he was going with me. I bought N20 worth of groundnut for him before taking him to my house at Iyana Olofa.”

The suspect initially claimed that he got the boy at the prompting of Moshood, who had earlier asked him to bring the urine, blood and hair of a young boy when he (Tajudeen) went to Moshood for ritual to make fortune and for protection. The suspect added that he went to Abdulwasiu for the same ritual and he also asked him to bring a boy.

Tajudeen indicted his father, Ganiyu Abidoye in his statement, saying that he was the one also told him to kill a boy and bury his body so that his acts would not be ex-

Ganiyu Tajudeen with the headless body of his victim recovered from where he threw it.

posed.

He disclosed to the police that he took the deceased to Olokede bush where he cut his head with a knife and buried it, while he threw the body away.

Saturday Tribune gathered that Tajudeen had once been arrested in 2012 for stealing a child at Otapete area of Iragbiji. He was said to have been beaten and macheted by indigenes of the town before he was taken to the police station, while the rescued boy was returned to his parents. The accused Tajudeen was eventually charged to court and spent seven months in Ilesa prison.

But Moshood denied Tajudeen’s claim, saying that he was not a herbalist and could not have asked Tajudeen to bring anything for ritual. Among the exhibits found in Moshood’s house were two horns covered with red cloth,

white cloth, four knives, bones, black soap and charm.

Speaking on the items, the suspect said that he was using one of the horns for self-protection while charmed arm band was also for him because of his involvement in politics. He added that the knives belonged to his wives.

It was also learnt that one of the suspects. Abdulwasiu had a pending case of kidnap in court before his latest arrest.

Meanwhile, the four suspects have been dragged before an Osogbo magistrates’ court on a four-count charge of conspiracy, kidnapping, murder and unlawful and intentional killing of Teslim Bakare.

The suspects, whose pleas were not taken by Magistrate B.B Idowu Ajao, ordered that the suspects should be remanded in prison till next date of adjournment.

The case has been adjourned till February 18, 2016.

38 interview

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Taraba lawmakers are acting lawlessly —APC chair

In this interview, the chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Taraba State, Alhaji Hassan Jika Ardo, speaks on the crisis rocking the state House of Assembly over the nullification of the election of the former Speaker, Honourable Abel Dia and other issues affecting the state. SYLVANUS VIASHIMA presents excerpts.

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HAT is your take on the current standoff in the state House of Assembly?

It is unfortunate that the Nigerian constitution has been flawed in broad daylight with reckless impunity by the House of Assembly. I believe the Taraba State House of Assembly is not different from other states in the country. This is the first time in the recorded history of this country that a House would be adjourned without a date of reconvening, just because they want to serve the interest of the former Speaker who, as we speak, is not even a member of the House of Assembly. It is really unfortunate but the electorate and, indeed, the generality of Tarabans will not just fold our arms and watch.

The laws of this country are meant for all of us to obey, members of the legislative arm of government inclusive.

We must operate within the confines of the law. This time, we will go beyond taking to the streets if the members are not careful. The seats they occupy are not family seats but are a responsibility given to them by their constituents. We will not allow them to be misused. We are calling on the legislators to reconvene and elect the House’s leadership.

The House must be seen to operate independent of the executive and not this system where it has become a mere tool in the hand of the governor. This is the worst thing that could happen to any state assembly.

We are calling on them to, as a matter of urgency and in the spirit of representation, resume, elect new leadership and continue with the duty for which they were elected otherwise we will call on the electorate across the state to decide on them. They cannot continue behaving like illiterates dealing with another bunch of illiterates.

I gathered reliably that the seat of the former Speaker, which has been declared vacant due to the nullification of his election, will not be occupied until after the election, for which a date has yet to be set. That sends the correct signal as to what the [Peoples Democratic Party] PDP has been doing in the state. I am also informed that the PDP has perfected arrangements as to when the election would be held, in collaboration with the [Independent National Electoral Commission] INEC. This implies that the PDP in the state is part of INEC. Where is fairness in this?

As we speak, the picture of the former Speaker is still hanging in the House of Assembly as the current speaker and he is still being addressed as the Speaker. We will decide what to do. One thing I can assure you of is that, we will not sit and allow this to continue in the state. We believe in following the due process of doing things and in the rule of law. They must be held accountable for breaching the laws of the land.

You talked about mobilising the electorate to take action against the lawmakers, emphasising that it would not just be street protest... What exactly do you have in mind?

It is a simple thing: they must understand that they are not leading mad people but sensible constituents who voted them into office. The lawmakers have to explain to their constituents if the seat of the Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly is an exclusive preserve of a particular person.

But your party has about seven members in the House and they are also quiet on this issue...

One of them has addressed the public on the issue. He is the chairman of the House Committee on Information.

He told the world over the break that the assembly had no Speaker. So, they are not quiet. Someone has to speak for the rest.

What do you think are the implications of this indefinite break by members of the assembly for the state?

It affects everything. The entire system is affected. There are no more checks and balances in the government.

They must understand that they are not leading mad people but sensible constituents who voted them into office. The lawmakers have to explain to their constituents if the seat of the Speaker of the Taraba State House of Assembly is an exclusive preserve of a particular person.

The reason for which the three arms of government are enshrined to operate simultaneously is defeated. As it is, nothing would move in the state. There are decisions the executive cannot take without the consent of the legislature. A lot of things at stake would be hampered.

In any case, they were elected to sit and legislate not to adjourn indefinitely at their discretion, while collecting their allowances. If it were the civil servants, they would be shouting ‘no work, no pay.’ Is that how to represent the people? Is that the legal provision? Does it mean they are only there to represent their own pockets and not the interest of their constituents? Where are the sweet promises they made their constituents during campaign?

Why are they so desperate to retain the Speaker? If he really was their collective choice, they can go ahead and elect another Speaker so as to continue their work pending the outcome of the election. Why are they so afraid of having another Speaker? What secrets are they guarding so jealously? You can’t help thinking that something fishy is going on there.

What are the chances of your candidate winning the battle?

The election is to take place in all the eight polling units as the tribunal ruled. The appeal court upheld that decision.

And then, the appeal court set aside the number of votes as captured by the tribunal because, according to them, there was calculation error.

As you know, the appeal court is the final bus stop, so we could not challenge that. But that notwithstanding, for someone who is contesting the seat for the very first time to beat a member who has been there for over 12 years tells you that the sitting member must have outstayed his usefulness in the constituency.

Ordinarily, he shouldn’t have been talking of still hustling the state assembly seat. He should be thinking of the National Assembly. But he knows that his constituents would not vote for him. He has failed them for over 12 consecutive years.

Emmanuel Bongo is a true Christian and a democrat who will rescue the constituency. If we were to talk sentiment, I would go for my tribesman or a Muslim, but I believe in credibility and competence, and that is why Emmanuel Bongo is our candidate and the people have proven so far that it was, indeed, a great choice.

Don’t you think the ruling of the appeal court in the case of your governorship candidate that favoured the PDP will jeopardise the chances of your candidate in this election?

There are certain mistakes that we make but I am sure we will outgrow that stage soon. The candidate of an election is for the election and he or she is voted for that position based on who he or she is.

Senator Aisha Alhassan was voted by the people of Taraba State to be their governor based on what they believe she could offer the state. Bongo was also voted based on what his constituents believed he could offer. So, the ruling of the appeal court will not in any way affect the election of Bongo.

And let me just tell you this, even those who claim they have won the case at the appeal are aware that the judgement was in error. The appeal court cannot be giving contradictory judgement.

It is established in law that where a person did not participate in the primary, such a person is not qualified to contest in the general election.

39 interview

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

TSA: We discovered N80m in an agency’s dormant account —Zamfara commissioner

The Zamfara State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Umar Jibo Bukkuyum, speaks with MUHAMMAD SABIU on the validation of the election of Governor Abdulaziz Yari at the Supreme Court, the sweeping of the local government election by the All Progressives Congress (APC), among other issues. Excerpts:

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AST week, the Supreme Court upheld the election of Governor Abdulaziz Yari, much to the chagrin of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which feels that the apex court goofed, what would you say about this?

Well, the Supreme Court’s verdict was in tandem with the genuine votes the governor got at the poll. People voted for him because they believed in his leadership style. His first four years impacted positively on the lives of the people. To cut the story short, his leadership is eventful and rewarding to the people of the state. He has touched the people in different ways. He has constructed and rehabilitated state and federal roads in every nook and cranny of the state. He organised free feeding for secondary school students and renovated dilapidated primary schools. He has not relented on the payment of salaries in spite of the dwindling revenue of the state. During the campaigns, the people showed him love for what he had had done for them. So, persuading the people to vote to him wasn’t difficult.

The governor won the election convincingly but the PDP felt the votes were not real, so they went to the tribunal but the tribunal affirmed his election. Not satisfied, they appealed the tribunal’s judgement. Again, the appeal court in Sokoto gave the victory to the governor. Yet, they felt the judge erred. They went to the Supreme Court. At the apex court, their case was dismissed for lack of merit and the governor’s election was, again, upheld. It was good news for democracy and the rule of law. To us in the APC, the judgement didn’t come as a surprise. We want to inform the good people of Zamfara State that this time, they will witness more meaningful development.

The PDP has accused the APC in the state of not providing the enabling environment for them to participate in the recently-held local government election, what is your reaction to this?

The election, to the best of my knowledge, was successful. Before the exercise, letters were sent to the PDP as well as other political parties inviting them to participate in the poll. However, the PDP decided to boycott the election but other parties, about five in number, participated in it. The allegation that we did not provide the enabling environment was unfounded and baseless. I think they decided to stay away from the election simply because

swearing-in ceremony, the local government election has been concluded. Even the tribunal is in place to entertain petitions that might emanate from aggrieved contestants.

they were afraid of defeat. The election was conducted in a peaceful atmosphere. The APC swept all the chairmanship positions and all the councillorship seats. The elected chairmen have all been sworn in by the governor. Later, the chairmen swore in their deputies and councillors. With the successful conduct of the election and the subsequent

The PDP decided to boycott the election but other parties, about five in number, participated in it. The allegation that we did not provide the enabling environment was unfounded and baseless. I think they decided to stay away from the election simply because they were afraid of defeat.

What is the government doing to improve the economy of the state?

Governor Yari had directed that from Monday, 11 January, 2016, all state government accounts shall remain closed until the Treasury Single Account (TSA) became effective.

To this end, a seven-man panel has been set up by the State Executive Council to see to the successful implementation of the TSA. The committee is being headed by the governor. You see, the decision of the government to introduce the TSA is primarily to block all leakages and stem corruption in the civil service, in addition to improving the economic base of the state. Recently, we discovered about 1,000 accounts being operated by the different agencies. One of such accounts, the government discovered, had N80 million, but the account is dormant.

Already, the committee has swung into action. It met with all the bank managers and the governor directed them to close all government accounts in their respective banks.

This initiative will afford the government the opportunity to know exactly how much is coming into its coffers as well as how much liability it has. Before now, we didn’t know how much the state was generating. However, ministries and local governments will be directed to open only expenditure accounts to ensure that government business does not suffer.

What is the government doing to improve the state’s internally generated revenue?

The government is trying hard to have its revenue base improved significantly. The dwindling oil prices have affected the running of government at the federal and state levels and we cannot continue like this. The statutory federal allocation is always decreasing and we generate less than N100 million every month. So, you will realise that because of that, payment of salary is always difficult.

Executing capital projects is equally impossible. So, we have to bury our political differences in this regard and work towards improving the revenue of the state. Every son and daughter of the state should be willing to sacrifice for the development of the state.

‘Even reverend sisters aren’t safe from kidnappers’ Catholic Bishop of Bomadi, Delta State, Most Reverend Hyacinth Egbebo, in this interview, speaks on governance and youth development. ALPHONSUS AGBORH brings excerpts.

WHAT is your take on the rule of law and the fight against corruption in the country?

I have been listening to the news and events seem to suggest that there is some impunity in the way the rule of law is being exercised. And about that, I am very sad because we expected something better than what we are having. Thanks to God, there is a drive against corruption and that is the way forward. But the way to do it is not really to denigrate people. If somebody has done something wrong, there is a subtle way of going about it. But then events seem to suggest that the dignity of the human person has not been respected, even rights, as it were.

Today, youths are into all manner of activities that put the society in all sorts of risks, especially security, what is the way out?

Our youths are not well provided for and because of that, they have taken to kidnapping and other criminal activities. I attribute this, primarily, to bad governance. There has been bad governance for a long time. Leaders have been looking after their own welfare for too long without investing in infrastructure and capacity building of these

of petroleum products, we are at their mercy. As a result of this, the boys have taken to refining of crude and giving people in this area diesel and petrol, but the government shoots them at sight and destroys everything which, to me, is not acceptable. The government is not addressing the situation. There is nothing here. We have to travel miles to get to the city to get these products.

young people. They have been left to fend for themselves and to live the way they know best.

Nigeria needs to re-educate these youths. One big problem we have around here (the coastal region) is lack of electricity. There are also no roads, no water, no good schools, no good hospitals and the NNPC mega stations are not here. So, anytime dealers want to hike the prices

Priests get kidnapped by criminal elements in the society these days,what does this portend for Nigeria?

Even reverend sisters have been victims of kidnappings.

That shows that the society is really decaying. Moral values are going down and that is unfortunate. Armed robbers have visited me four times and I blame bad leadership for letting them do this to us.

If we can have good leadership, Nigeria will blossom once again. People will look up to Nigeria and praise the government if they power the human resource. Nigerian youths are a gift to the nation. They don’t need to be mowed down. Let the government invest in them and Nigeria will blossom again.

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feature

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

‘Squatters don’t have a chance in these hostels’

Continued from pg27

Private investors Hostels at OAU are managed by the university authorities, but private owners have also been allowed to build some hostels on the university’s land near the gate, on a Build Operate and Transfer agreement. This area is known as ‘Student’s Village.’

Saturday Tribune gathered that the private owners are meant to collect the rent for about 10 years, after which the facility will be given to the university. But these hostels are very expensive. Students pay fees ranging from N120,000 to N250,000 per annum. In some of these hostels, two students share a room.

University of Nigeria, Nsukka The motto of the university is ‘To Restore the Dignity of Man’ but the condition under which students live in the hostels of this institution is about to put that to the test. The accommodation and water problem at both the Nsukka and Enugu campuses of the university is pathetic.

For instance, in Alvan and Eyinjoku Hostels in Nsukka campus, six male students live officially in a room, but in some cases, there are six more illegal squatters, making 12 persons in a room.

Water supply is erratic despite the five boreholes dug in each of the two campuses.

“Water issue is an eye sore as the boreholes are not functioning. But curiously, each time students plan to go on the rampage over this, water will suddenly start running over night. Toilets and bathrooms are in deplorable condition; students go elsewhere to ease themselves.

“Many students now prefer to reside outside the campus because the essential utilities are not available to them on the campus. The year 2015 could be regarded as the worst period for the UNN students,” one of the students told Saturday Tribune.

There is also a problem with electricity supply.

The Public Relations Officer of UNN, Mr Okwun Omaku, could not be reached for comments as he declined to pick his calls; but a source in the university said the issue of accommodation and water scarcity would soon be a thing of the past as they are being addressed.

University of Ilorin Of the about 33,000 students in the university, only 3,000 can be accommodated on campus. A large population of students of the university therefore lives in private hostels located around the institution.

Saturday Tribune gathered that there are two types of hostel accommodation in UNILORIN. There are the public private partnership hostels, built by individuals or associations and put under university management.

These types of hostels come in two sizes. There is the type with two students per room, and another type with four students per room.

These usually have adequate facilities in the rooms generally probably because of the price students pay for them. Squatters do not generally have a chance to stay in these hostels due to the standard and effective monitoring by porters.

The second type of hostels are those built by the uni-

versity management. These come in six and eight-bed space rooms. Officially, squatters are not allowed; but the system is never foolproof. Some students still manage to beat the porters to sneak into the hostels to see their friends, stretching the facility. They hide whenever porters do their random checking and sometimes manage to stay for days in the rooms.

So, generally, up to 10 students often share a room, most especially during test and examinations periods. Electricity supply is not perfect, but the situation is assuaged as the university often powers the hostels with generator.

If there is any problem with water supply, it can be put down to negligence on the part of those saddled with pumping water into the reservoir.

“When outsiders visit the hostels early in the morning, they can often notice students going around the school premises with buckets looking for where to get water to

bath,” a student told Saturday Tribune.

But life is totally different in the private hostels. Electricity is regular, taps run, and toilets and bathrooms are neat; but these come with a heavy price. While students pay N28,000 in hostels run by the university, those in private hostels are said to pay up to N100,000 or even more!

But the university management has entered into partnership with some private developers to build hostels on the Build and Operate and Transfer. Already, arrangements have been concluded with a private company, the Origin Group, to build additional 2,500 room-hostel with 5,000 bed space capacity.

The vice chancellor told representatives of the company in December 2015 that the university could only effectively and efficiently instill moral and academic discipline in its students if the students are within the confines of the campus.

The facility will be transferred to the university after 21 years.

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feature

16 January, 2016

Saturday Tribune

Nigeria uses killer drones to fight terrorism —Report

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igeria has been confirmed as one of the countries that have acquired unmanned armed drones to fight terrorism.

Unmanned armed drones are precision, missile-fitted fighter aircraft that fly without human pilots, but are “usually under real-time human control from a remote terminal.”

A United States based authoritative Foreign Policy magazine which announced Nigeria on Friday as one of the killer drone possessing countries outside the West, said they were sold to the country by China.

According to the report, Nigeria, Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Pakistan are nations that have bought armed Chinese drones.

The Foreign Policy report is reproduced here:

Meet China’s killer drones

From Iraq to Nigeria, countries looking for cheap, armed drones are increasingly turning to China — and leaving the United States behind Iraqi officials revealed last weekend that one of their armed drones carried out an airstrike which mistakenly killed nine members of a Shiite militia near Tikrit in a friendly fire incident. The news came as a surprise, mostly because many people didn’t know Iraq had armed drones.

Iraq, for the record, very much does. And so do a number of countries, especially in the Middle East, thanks to the rise of China as a prolific developer and no-questions-asked exporter of armed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Chinese exports are now helping to loosen the door policy of the once-exclusive club of countries with drones capable of destroying targets on the ground.

Unmanned Chinese aircraft like the armed Caihong, or “Rainbow,” series of drones are fast becoming the Kalashnikovs of the drone world — entry-level alternatives for countries eager to achieve a basic unmanned strike capability quickly and cheaply.

Turns out there are a lot of eager buyers. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt have bought armed Chinese drones, as have Pakistan, Nigeria, and Iraq.

Actually using the robotic aircraft hasn’t always gone smoothly: Nigeria’s armed CH-3, short for “Caihong-3,”

drones first became public when one of them surfaced in photos of a crash in the northeastern part of the country, though it’s unclear whether the aircraft went down due to technical problems or ground fire. Two CH-4 drones also reportedly crashed in Algeria while undergoing testing by the Algerian military, which has been weighing a purchase.

Those countries are turning to Chinese drones because they’re easier to buy — and much cheaper — than their American counterparts. Washington has strict limits on which countries can buy U.S.-made armed drones. China is willing to sell them to anyone with cash to spend.

China’s drone marketing revolves around a threepronged strategy of “price, privacy, and product,” according to Ian Easton, a research fellow at the Project 2049 Institute, an Arlington, Virginia, think tank focused on Asian security issues.

On the product side, armed drones had been the almost exclusive and rarely exported preserve of Western countries like the United States and Israel. But China has spent years working to develop its own UAV industry to catch up with the United States, in part to ensure it could keep pace with American military technology in the event of a future conflict between the two superpowers.

Those countries are turning to Chinese drones because they’re easier to buy — and much cheaper — than their American counterparts.

Washington has strict limits on which countries can buy U.S.-made armed drones. China is willing to sell them to anyone with cash to spend.

“This is a sector they’ve been investing in heavily since just after 2000. There are anywhere between 75 [and] 100 UAV-related companies, both private and state-owned, building things out to meet demand,” says Richard Fisher Jr., a senior fellow on Asian military affairs at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, a think tank in Alexandria, Virginia, focused on international security issues. “The Chinese government gives them all lunch money, and they just work building new things. Sometimes the government will buy them. Sometimes they’ll let these companies export them.”

That investment has helped the Chinese drone industry market cheaper, albeit somewhat less capable, versions of the iconic American Predator and Reaper drones to a wide international market — all without forcing buyers to jump through the political and regulatory hurdles that exist in the United States. In addition to U.S. national arms export regulations, the United States abides by the voluntary international Missile Technology Control Regime, which asks members to apply a “strong presumption of denial” to exports of drones that can carry a 1,100-pound payload more than 185 miles.

Chinese drone companies also spare buyers some of the controversy associated with armed drones by making the actual transactions as opaque as possible. Easton says Chinese drone makers are protective of their clients’ privacy, revealing little about buyers or prices.

Both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have reportedly bought the armed GJ-1 variant of the Wing Loong drone, developed by Chengdu Aircraft Industry Group. But it’s the CH-3 and CH-4B armed drones, made by China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp. (CASC) and marketed by Aerospace Long-March International Trade (ALIT), that appear to be the most popular models so far.

A number of countries began adding those drones to their fleets in 2015. The Nigerian Air Force showed off its own CH-3 during a visit from its chief of air staff in July.

Pakistan’s Burraq drone, reportedly based on the CH-3, carried out its first strike in September. Iraq revealed itself as a CH-4B customer in October, and in December IHS Jane’s published an analysis of satellite imagery which appeared to point to a CH-4B on the runway at Saudi Arabia’s Jizan Regional Airport.

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16 January, 2016

motoring

Saturday Tribune With Seyi Gesinde seyigesinde@yahoo.com 08116954632

Kia Motors introduces new ‘drive wise’ sub-brand

World’s first flying taxi drone unveiled

A

Chinese drone maker has revealed a giant quadcopter, recently unveiled as the world’s first flying drone taxi, big enough to fit a passenger.

The maker, EHang, said

it was building the world’s first “Autonomous Aerial Vehicle” for transporting people.

Unveiled at Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest technology trade fair, in Las Vegas, United States, and called

the 184, the all-electric vehicle has four arms with a total of eight propellers at the end.

The electric vehicle is held aloft by eight propellers and is capable of autonomously zooming through the air, meaning the human

Chevrolet says new Bolt to achieve over 200 miles on a full charge Chevrolet has said that its all-new brand, 2017 Bolt will achieve over 200 miles on a full charge.

The automaker, General Motors (GM) said the new Bolt will go into production at the end of this year.

The Top Gear is a report said “we’re told the diminutive Bolt EV benefits from

the experience of Chevy Volt owners, and features such things as a driving range projection based on the time of day, typography, weather and driving habits.

It also gets a 10.2in colour touchscreen display mounted on a “floating” instrument panel, a rear camera mirror, birds-eye

vision to assist parking, lots of connectivity (naturally), EV navigation mapping that routes around nearby charging stations if needed, and even a gaming feature.

This lets Bolt EV owners compete with each other to see who can achieve the best efficiency. Watch out Angry Birds.

passenger doesn’t have to pilot it.

“You know how it feels to sit in a Ferrari?

“This is 10 times better,” EHang boss George Yan, told Mail Online.

“I think in all of us there is that little kid in all of us that says I want to fly.”

The drone has special systems built in which should stop it colliding with other aircraft or building, whilst it also comes with an emergency system which means it can hover safely in mid air in case of an emergency.

The company says the 184 is autonomous, so all the passenger has to do is enter in their destination in the smartphone app, sit back, and let the drone take over.

There’s no option to take control of the 184 remotely.

The cockpit is empty, apart from a stand to place a smartphone or tablet and a cup holder.

“I think in all of us there is that little kid in all of us that says I want to fly,” said Yan. ‘I don’t want to get a pilot license after five or 10 hours of flying, I want to do it right away. We’re making that dream happen.”

Kia Motors has introduced the launch of a new subbrand, ‘drive wise,’ to encompass its future Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS).

According to the automaker, ‘drive wise’ embodies Kia’s philosophy to realise intelligently safe vehicles featuring Kia’s latest and forthcoming ADAS technologies.

Kia recently announced plans to manufacturer partially-autonomous cars by 2020, and aims to bring its first fully-autonomous vehicle to market by 2030.

Debuting at the recent 2016 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Kia’s innovative DRIVE WISE technologies are currently under development.

Engineered to improve safety for all road users, ‘drive wise’ will enable Kia to introduce intelligent safety technologies to its future model range, helping to eliminate potential dangers and, for many, the boredom of driving, while changing the ways in which owners interact with their vehicles.

Kia’s CES 2016 illustrates the progression of its autonomous driving technologies, from those available in current models to cutting-edge features being developed over the next 15 years under the DRIVE WISE banner.

Kia’s exhibit at the increasingly popular show gives visitors the chance to experience a host of next-generation technologies and concepts with interactive displays.

New Hyundai IONIQ is first car with 3 different hybrid, electric powertrains The all-new Hyundai IONIQ will be the first car sold with a choice of three different hybrid or electric powertrains.

Set to be unveiled in Korea in January, the new car will make its European debut at March’s Geneva Motor Show.

Hyundai has now released information on the hybrid system, the first of three setups that will eventually be available along with an allelectric model and a plug-in hybrid.

The hybrid IONIQ will use a new 1.6-litre engine, developed specifically for Hyundai’s hybrid vehicles, linked to a magnetic electric motor.

Engineers have worked to make the engine as efficient as possible for optimal fuel consumption and CO2

emissions, claiming the engine boasts the world’s highest thermal efficiency.

The electric motor uses a lithium ion polymer battery that uses power from the motor to regenerate during use.

Hyundai has released two images that give us a proper view of the IONIQ, as opposed to the renders and teaser shots we’ve seen to date.

Hyundai insists that much of the car’s styling has been determined by the search for maximum aerodynamic efficiency.

Air-intakes will close at speed to reduce drag and, therefore, make the car more efficient and give it greater electric-only range.

This theme extends to the aerodynamic wheels and to the sleek headlight clusters.

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Kanu: Factional MASSOB threatens civil protests Jude Ossai - Enugu THE factional leadership of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has threatened that unless the Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu is released by the Federal Government, it would stage civil protest, beginning from Monday next week.

Rising from a meeting at Okwe on Friday, the body urged the President Muhammadu Buhari led-Federal Government to obey three different court orders for Kanu’s release.

The Igbo group who spoke through their National Director of Information, Samuel Edenson and National Secretary, Ibem Ugwok Ibem said, “Nnamdi Kanu must be released now or more diplomatic, image, and political damages will befall the already battered Nigeria’s image with massive, self-determined and non-violence worldwide Biafran Demonstration/protest.”

Ekiti moves to pay teachers’ allowances From left, widower, Engr Segun Ogunleye, Mr Yemi Ogunleye and the brother, who is also the Special Adviser on Media to President Muhammadu Buhari, Mr Femi Adesina, at the burial service for the late Professor (Mrs) Foluke Ogunleye, at Deeper Life Church, New Gbagi, Ibadan, on Friday. PHOTO: TOMMY ADEGBITE.

CBN plans to rob us to pay foreign company —Bureau de Change operators Chima Nwokoji-Lagos

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HE Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), has accused the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) of plotting to make Travelex, a foreign company the only official outlet for retail foreign exchange transactions in the country.

The association, meanwhile, has said that the Bureaux De Changes (BDC) sub-sector is not the cause

of the problem being experienced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) at the money market.

The Acting President of ABCON, Aminu Gwadabe, at a press conference in Lagos on Friday after a national meeting of the association, regretted that in an attempt to justify its decision to stop sales of dollars to BDCs, the CBN resorted to casting aspersion on BDCs after issuing licenses to the operators.

The CBN, ABCON al-

leged, has created the impression that all BDC operated are rent seekers, who do nothing but engage in buying foreign exchange (forex) at low prices,keep it in order to sell when the price goes up.

“Many BDCs are doing legitimate business according to CBN guidelines.

“We believe the main reason is to make the foreign company the only official outlet for retail foreign exchange transactions in the country,”Gwadabe said.

Adeboye bags OAU’s honorary doctorate degree THE Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, on Friday, honoured Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), with a degree of Doctor of Science during its 41st Special Convocation.

The university described the 1967 graduate of the institution as a man of many parts; a prophet, missionary, apostle, 21st-century colossus, author, leader, elder statesman, sportsman, scholar, epitome of humility and a loving father who is called ‘Daddy’ by several millions of his spiritual children across the world.

The university noted that Adeboye has endowed four major professorial chairs in Mathematics to the tune of N198 million at the University of Lagos, University of Nigeria, Nsukka; University of Ibadan and Obafemi Awolowo University.

Pastor Adeboye expressed gratitude to all those who came to honour him at the occasion. While speaking on the “Mathematics of Dream” at the event, the cleric drew an example

from Luke 27 verse 18 and Luke 1 verse 37 and admonished everybody at the event never to write off a dreamer that has God as his friend.

He recalled how he told a friend during his graduation in 1967, when the late Oba (Sir) Adesoji Aderemi, the then Ooni of Ife, was conferred with an honor-

ary doctorate degree, that he would receive the same honour one day and how his friend mocked him because of his poor background.

He said in fulfilment of his dream, the special convocation was made possible because he had met Jesus along the way, in the last 50 years.

ABCON feared that handing over the retail transactions to the foreign company portends great danger not only for the forex market but the economy as a whole.

“Most of the profits of that company will be repatriated abroad, a development that undermines the nation’s foreign exchange dynamics. Secondly, the company has been found to contravene forex regulations,” Gwadabe alleged.

For example he added, the company was one of the BDCs suspended for not submitting the BVN of its directors as required by CBN (apparently because four out of its five directors were British).

ABCON further said that previous attempt by the foreign company to hijack the retail forex segment through direct sale of travellers’ cheque to the public was fraught with malpractice which led to the sacking of 150 of its staff, and the eventual suspension of the scheme by the CBN.

Emotions as dignitaries bid Professor Ogunleye farewell

By Tunde Ogunesan DIGNITARIES from all walks of life on Friday converged on the Deeper Life Bible Church, New Gbagi, Ibadan, to pay last respect to the late Professor Foluke Matilda Ogunleye (Nee Adesina).

Ogunleye, a professor in the Department of Dramatic Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, IleIfe, Osun State, died in a road accident on December 26, 2015, on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway.

As her remains were carried into the church, close associates of the Ogunleyes and Adesinas,

betrayed emotion as they sobbed on seeing their loved one being carried in the brown wooden casket.

Her brother, Femi Adesina, who is the Special Adviser on Media to President Muhammadu Buhari could not control his emotion; he was in tears through the almost two hours service.

Her remains were later interred at St James Cathedral Cemetry, Eleyele road, Ibadan.

Some of the dignitaries at the occasion included a team which represented the vice chancellor of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; Professors

(Mrs) Olubukola Adedeji, Adedeji Fatuse, who read the citation, Sola Akinrinade, Bayode Popoola and Dr Kemi Rotimi.

Others were the former minister of Petroleum Professor Tam David West and his son, Tiriah, Professor and Dr (Mrs) Francis Eghokhare, General Overseer of Foursquare church, Rev Felix Meduoye, Pastor and Mrs Segun Babatope, representatives of Owa Obokun Adimula, Oba (Dr) Aromolaran and Oba Alapa of Ipa Awori, Professor Wale Omole, representative of Apetumodu of Ipetumodu, among others.

EKITI State government has said it has received the money to pay the allowances of teachers handling core subjects and those working in remote areas where it is difficult to get staff for schools.

Disclosing this in Ado-Ekiti yesterday, the State Governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, said the allowances would be paid within the next two weeks.

According to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Idowu Adelusi, in Ado-Ekiti, the governor is also to meet sawmill owners and timber merchants before the week runs out.

On the meeting with sawmill owners and timber merchants, Fayose stressed that it became necessary to clarify some issues concerning the exploitation of the state’s natural resources.

“The state government shut all the forest reserves late last year because of some developments. A situation whereby some unscrupulous people are exploiting our natural resources for their selfish benefits cannot be allowed to continue.”

Young Democratic Party gets INEC’s certificate Leon Usigbe - Abuja THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has complied with last December court’s decision to register the Young Democratic Party (YDP) as the electoral body has now issued it with a certificate of registration.

National chairman of the party, Nya-Etuk Ezekiel, presented the certificate at a press briefing in Abuja, on Friday, saying that the party would not seek any elective office until it had put the necessary structures in place.

He had been asked whether it might want to participate in the coming Edo and Ondo state elections to which he said the YDP was only interested in making a difference at this point in time.

The party boss also said even though the All Progressive Congress (APC) “is suffering from lack of foresight or confidence,” the YDP would extend a hand of fellowship to the ruling party and President Muhammadu Buhari as they seek to provide leadership to the country.

He however ruled out a possible merger with the APC.

Benue guber: Ortom floors Tarzoor at S/Court Sunday Ejike - Abuja THE Supreme Court on Friday, upheld Samuel Ortom of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the duly elected governor of Benue State in the April 11, 2015 governorship election in the state.

The court held in the judgement that Terhemen Tarzoor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lacks the locus standi (legal right) to institute the suit.

A seven-member panel of the apex court, had in an unanimous judgment delivered

by Justice Nwali Ngwuta, held that Tarzoor is not an APC member and therefore, cannot contest Governor Ortom’s nomination and sponsorship as the governorship candidate of the APC. Justice Ngwuta while dismissing the appeal awarded the sum of N150, 000 as cost in favour of Governor Samuel Ortom and the APC.

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16 January, 2016

Keshi eulogises late wife Banji Aluko-Benin City

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HE remains of Mrs Kate Keshi, the late wife of the former Nigeria coach, Stephen Keshi, were laid to rest in Benin City on Friday.

Mrs Keshi, who died on December 9, 2015, in the United States during a protracted battle with cancer, was interred at the family residence in Ugiokhuen Quarters, Ugbor Road, Benin.

A funeral mass had earlier been held in her honour at St. Paul’s Catholic Church, Airport Road, Benin before the interment.

The event was attended by friends and family members of the deceased, members of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) and ex-Nigerian internationals, among others.

Among them were the Technical Director of the NFF, Shaibu Amodu; exSuper Eagles coach, Austin Eguavoen, former Eagles assistant coach, Daniel Amokachi and the chairman of the Edo State Football Association, Mr Frank Ilaboya.

Keshi, who spoke to journalists shortly after the event, described his late wife as a

unique woman, who would be greatly missed.

“She was a unique wife. A wife that I think any man would love to have. I am honoured that, despite their busy time, they (guests) came out to give their last respects to my wife. Most of them knew my wife and

I believe that is why they are here. I thank them, the press and all Nigerians for being in prayer with my family,” said the former coach of Togo and Mali.

Ilaboya, in his remarks, described Mrs Keshi’s death as a loss to the entire football world.

Enyeama dreams French Cup title FORMER Nigeria captain, Vincent Enyeama says he will be delighted if Lille OSC can land the Coupe de la Ligue during the weekend.

Lille progressed to the last four of the competition after overcoming En Avant Guingamp 4-2 on penalties with Enyeama saving two of the hosts’ spot kicks.

He told the club’s official television station afterwards that God was his inspiration for saving from 12 yards.

“God is my secret for saving penalties. It will make me pleased if we can win the trophy.

“I believe in God and it will be a dream to play at the Stade de France,” he said.

Enyeama, was the hero of the hour as his superlative displays helped Lille OSC progress to the round of the Coupe de la Ligue on Wednesday.

The 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) winner was called into action as early as the seventh minute of the quarter-final fixture, but he saved well from Yannis Salibur at a frenzied Stade du Roudourou.

The former Enyimba goalkeeper then produced a stunning double save, the second off a fierce Jimmy Briand drive in the 22nd minute to keep the score at 0-0.

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My first salary as a player was N400 —Adepoju Former international, Mutiu Adepoju belonged to the generation of players who took Nigerian football to new frontiers in 1994.

Nicknamed the ‘Headmaster’ during his days because of his penchant for hitting the target with his head, Adepoju holds an enviable record of attending three World Cup finals - USA ‘94, France ‘98 and Korea/Japan 2002 - before he called it quits with active football. Armed with a coaching licence obtained in Spain, Adepoju, later handled his former team then in the lower division, Shooting Stars Sports Club (3SC) as General Manager and succeeded in bringing the Oluyole Warriors back to the elite cadre in his first year. His antecedents also earned him his current job of managing the Kwara Football Academy (KFA). In this interview with OLUWABUNMI AJAYI, the ‘Dammam Miracle’ hero reveals his journey into the game which brought him fame and perhaps, affluence and declares that despite having the same chemistry with the late foremost Nigeria striker, Rashidi Yekini, their relationship ended in the camp of the Super Eagles. Excerpts:

W

HAT was your parents’ reaction to your interest in football as a kid?

Well, I will say football is a gift which runs in my family. My father played football briefly during his time but not as a professional and my uncle, Dauda Adepoju too played for the IICC Shooting Stars in the 1970s. So my family is blessed with football talent. When I was going to school, the primary thing was for me to face my education and that was the mandate from my parents. At times, if I got home late after football training, they will scold me but their reaction showed that they loved me.

At the start of your football career, did you ever think you could go this far?

My ambition was to play professional football from day one. For me, moving from one country to the other wasn’t my priority. The passion I had for the game was a great joy and I give thanks to God for what I was able to achieve through football.

Can you recall your first salary as a footballer?

My first club was Femo Scorpions of Eruwa and my first salary was N400.00 and that was in 1986.

The amount could be ridiculous now but it was something then. My salary was later increased to N450.00 in the second season. When I joined Shooting Stars Sports Club in 1988 season, I started earning N525.00 as monthly salary.

What about your first full international game?

It was in 1988 at the U-20 level against Lesotho at the Lekan Salami Stadium, Ibadan in an African Junior Nations Cup qualifying series and we won 4-0.

Adepoju I scored three goals in the match. We went ahead to qualify for the World Cup in 1989 held in Saudi There is more money in football now, do you reArabia and lost 0-2 to Portugal in the final. gret not being part of the present generation of professional footballers?

How was your first day in the Super Eagles I have no regrets, nobody can bring back the hand of camp? time. In those days, money wasn’t our priority but the Hmmm, I received a warm welcome from Stephen passion for the game. I thank God for what I was able Keshi and Austin Eguavoen, they were so nice to me and to achieve, particularly not because of money, but the they also gave me words of encouragement that devel- strength and popularity God has given me. Today people oped my career. always recognise my presence anywhere I find myself and I’m proud of what I have done with the little money I got Some Nigerians felt the Super Eagles could as a player. have won the 1994 World Cup were it not for loss of concentration against Italy, what, in your As an administrator with the Shooting Stars and opinion went wrong? now Kwara Football Academy, what is the differWell, if they said loss of concentration or inexperience ence between playing and managing the game? cost us victory against Italy, they might not be wrong, but Playing for a team and managing a team are different my own opinion was that we lacked experience of hold- things. In managing a team, you have to take care of the ing on to the ball at crucial moments. Concentration and players and coaches you are working with on a daily baexperience matter too in football and if we had enough sis for success to be achieved. Managing is a very tasking experience we wouldn’t have lost to Italy. job, when the result is not positive, the person in charge of administration will be held responsible and even be at Who among the coaches had the biggest influ- the receiving end. ence on your career?

I worked with so many coaches during my career and I What is your advice for coach Sunday Oliseh as gained a lot from them, but I will say when I was in the far as coaching the Super Eagles is concerned?

Flying Eagles when I played under coach Tunde Disu and He should keep to his philosophy because there is going Kelechi Emeteole. They actually got the best out of me to be a lot of criticisms, he should try and take the best and their tutelage helped my career in no small way. They and do what he thinks is right and not listen to people. made me feel important in the team and they made me I’m not saying he shouldn’t take note of people’s opinto realise that with hard work and commitment I will go ions, but he should try as much as possible to choose the places. With their words of couragement, I was able to best players who can deliver because result matters at the score five goals during the 1989 FIFA U-20 World Cup end of the day. Oliseh is doing well so far. qualifying series.

To what extent can football academies help Ni-

gerian football?

Well, it depends, there are so many football academies in the country today. The one I know and manage is Kwara Football Academy which is the best because we have all the facilities and everything we are teaching is in line with development.

A football academy should be a place for youngsters to learn the rudiments of the game, it should be from the teen age and what I think is that, for Nigerian football to move forward we have to start from the grassroots. A structure like the KFA is not too much for every state to have in this country. At KFA, We have a conducive environment in which players can develop their skills - four pitches, gym, medical centre and secondary school that our players attend. We take care of their education and football career and we have been producing resourceful products.

Nigeria has qualified for the Rio 2016 Olympics, what do you think Samson Siasia can do to improve the standard of the team?

He needs to ensure a good training programme with the players and work on the weak areas in the team before the Olympics because I believe they still need more training.

How do you feel any time you recall Dammam miracle?

Well, I always feel great and happy that we created Dammam miracle. Coming from 0-4 down to equalise in less than 30 minutes to go and eventually win through penalties was a no mean feat, moreso against a super power side, USSR then. So, it is in the Guinness Book of Records. In fact, somebody sent the video clip of the match to me recently and I always feel happy any time I recall the match.

Any unfulfilled dream before you stopped active football?

One of my unfulfilled dreams was when I was in Real Madrid team B as a youth player. I played in some friendlies but I was not able to play in the Champions League and in the top flight league. Nevertheless, I’m still fulfilled because of what I was able to achieve in football before I retired though, I would have loved to play for the Real Madrid main team.

How was your relationship with the late Yekini?

Our relationship was great in the national camp but after that, he changed not only to me but to so many people. Yekini was a very nice person, friendly and jovial but suddenly his attitude changed as I said. It was so unfortunate that I was unable to ask him the reason for his strange attitude before his death.

What was your experience like during the 2002 Japan/Korea World Cup? It was my third World Cup appearance and I will always appreciate the fact that the coach then, Chief Adegboye Onigbinde considered me worthy of being part of the team to Korea/Japan 2002.

I was happy to be part of the squad despite the fact I didn’t play in any of the three games, but the coach had his reasons for fielding any player at any point. Though, I wished I had played in at least one game, it would have been a great experience in my life but nevertheless, I thank God for making the team. I don’t bear a grudge against Onigbinde, he has been a father to me in and outside football and I always look up to him.

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE FIXTURES (Saturday, Jan. 16 )

NO 1,134

Saturday, 16 January, 2016

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Tottenham Bournemouth Chelsea Man City Newcastle Southampton Aston Villa

vs Sunderland vs Norwich vs Everton vs C/Palace vs West Ham vs West Brom vs Leicester Sunday, Jan. 17 Liverpool vs Man U Stoke City vs Arsenal Monday, Jan 18 Swansea vs Watford

1:45pm 4:00pm 4:00pm 4:00pm 4:00pm 4:00pm 6:30pm

3:05pm 5:15pm 9:00pm

Ighalo wins EPL player of the month award N

By Ganiyu Salman

Iheanacho

Iheanacho makes Europe’s top 100 prospects

By Adebayo Taoreed NIGERIAN starlet, Kelechi Iheanacho has been named on a list of Europe’s top 100 prospects.

The Manchester City lad, is among 18 England-based players listed by Italian football website, www.tuttomercatoweb.com in a survey conducted.

His team-mate, 18-year-old Spanish Manu Garcia is also on the list.

Iheanacho alongside Garcia made their debut for the Citizens at the start of the ongoing season.

The winner of the 2013 FIFA U-17 World Cup and the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tournament,

Iheanacho has continued to enhance his reputation in the Manuel Pellegrini side.

The lad who featured for Nigeria at the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup in New Zealand, was on song last weekend against Norwich City in the FA Cup to take his tally to five goals in three starts and 11 substitute appearances.

Iheanacho, it will be recalled, joined City last season from one of the football academics in Nigeria, Taye academy, following his exploits at the cadet World Cup in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and has since been one of the future greats in Europe.

igeria international, Odion Ighalo has been named the English Premier League Player for December 2015.

The honour provides some respite for Ighalo, whose goal against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on Boxing Day was nullified by the Premier League panel and recorded as an own goal following the deflection by England defender, Gary Cahill.

Interestingly, the Super Eagles forward had been nominated twice in 2015 before his eventual triumph in the December edition.

The Edo State-born lethal weapon was outstanding in the outgone year scoring 30 goals to become the best player in the English all top four divisions.

The Hornets striker scored five times in five appearances last month begining with the goal in the 2-0 win over Norwich City, while he grabbed the match winner in his club’s 0-1 away win over Sunderland.

The former Udinese of Italy player netted a brace in the 3-0 demolition of Liverpool at Vicarage Road, while he also scored in the 1-2 home loss to Tottenham Hotspur on December 28, his last in 2015.

Ighalo now left with 13 goals in the EPL this season, two shot of Jamie Verdy and Romelu Lukaku, is on the verge of becoming

the first Nigerian player to score the higest number of goals in the Premier League held by Yakubu Ayegbeni with 16 goals.

It was a weekend to celebrate by the newly-promoted Watford

as Quique Sanchez Flores, also clinched the manager’s award for the same month under review.

The Hornets will wait till Monday for their next EPL fixture against struggling Swansea City.

Ighalo

Eagles land in Rwanda as CHAN 2016 begins

By Olawale Olaniyan Nigeria’s Super Eagles team B arrived in Rwanda on Friday, as the fourth African Nations Championship begins today in Kigali.

Hosts, the Amavubi of Rwanda will take on the Elephants of Cote d’Ivoire in the opener, as Gabon confronts Morocco also today at the Amahoro Stadium, Kigali.

A team of 23 players and 12 officials landed at the Kigali International Airport in the early, afternoon, after about three hours flight from Johannesburg’s Oliver Tambo International Airport.

The Eagles had spent two weeks in Pretoria, after another two weeks at a training camp in Abuja to per-

fect their strategies for the championship meant for players on domestic leagues.

While in Pretoria, the Eagles humbled University of Pretoria 3-0 and drew 1-1 with 2011 CHAN runners-up Angola, while they

Bature Yaro

pipped Cote d’Ivoire 1-0 in their last friendly.

“We have arrived. Everyone is in the mood and there is robust selfbelief among the players. They are rearing to go,” Super Eagles’ Media Officer, Toyin Ibitoye told thenff. com from Kigali.

The home-based Eagles under coach Sunday Oliseh will on Monday begin their campaign in group C against the Mena of Mena of Niger Republic at the Stade Regional de Nyamirambo, Kigali, from 5pm Nigeria time.

Nigeria will also face Tunisia at the same venue on January 22, while its last group game against Guinea is fixed for January 26 at the Rubavu Stadium.

Printed and Published by the African Newspapers of Nigeria PLC, Imalefalafia Street, Oke-Ado, Ibadan. Telephone: 08165728976; 08073598322. E mail: saturdaytribuneeditor@yahoo.com Website: www.tribuneonlineng.com MANAGING DIRECTOR/EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: EDWARD DICKSON EDITOR: LASISI OLAGUNJU. All Correspondence to P. O. Box 78, Ibadan. ISSN 2712. ABC Member of the Audit Bureau of Circulation. 16/1/2016.