Wednesday June 13, 2018 Edition

Offa robbery: In politics, all things are possible

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HE police have made the bold point that when they want to work, they can work. An appendage to that point, however, is that the amplitude of attention that the police pay to crime depends on what the police want to achieve.

That is rather dangerous.

All the rigmarole about the Offa robbery and the alleged involvement of Senate President Bukola Saraki

The Oracle Today Comment in it, do not make sense, in the manner that the police are going about it. This is not a defence for Saraki, he is writing well, and has the resources to defend himself.

ACCORDING to the police, the investigation in the Offa robbery, in which 33 have

died, nine of them police officers, are still on going.

Why did the police have to inflame the public with information about an investigation it had not concluded?

IF the investigations were concluded, would the next move not be to charge the suspects to court? Why the

The

VOX POPULI SACRUM

hurry in going public with the partial information from the investigation. It is obvious that the police that had been shouting about the investigation not being compromised have smeared their effort by their conduct.

THE speed of the police

WEDNESDAY JUNE 13, 2018

in the Offa investigation is commendable. The painstaking efforts that resulted in arresting the suspects show that the police can do more than they are doing in other areas, and in other cases.

POLICE have been quick in making the tapped confes-

racle ISSN: 2545-5869

VOL.3 No.23 N200

•NASS passes vote of no confidence in IGP • Invitation preposterousv •Police cancels invitation, asks Saraki to write statement •President punishing dissent in APC THE ongoing spat between the Police and the Senate President,

Dr. Bukola Saraki over the latter’s alleged connection to armed robbery suspects may have reignited debate about the ability or otherwise of the Nigeria Police to rise above partisan fray and professionally deal with critical security

issues involving VIPs and or Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) in society.

In the course of their investigation of a recent armed robbery attack at a bank in Offa, Kwara State, the police reportedly arrest-

ed some suspects who claimed to be political thugs of Dr. Saraki, further claiming that they were armed for their ‘security’ jobs for the Senate President by security

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Col Achuzia, Biafra’s ultimate warrior

•Col Achuzia

Page 2

•Ojukwu

•Murtala Mohammed

•Gen Yakubu Gowon

Cont’d on page 24

Today

www.oraclenews.ng

Saraki: Police in partisan drama

From BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia; NATH OMAME Jr., Port Harcourt; CHUKS EZE, Enugu and COLLINS UGHALAA, Owerri.

sion of the suspects public.

They have also circulated photographs showing Saraki and leader of the suspected leader of the gang at a social event in Ilorin. All these are to create a link between Saraki and the suspects.

THESE are unnecessary, as the suspects had said they worked for him as

Pg 14

Lagos community battles Total over underground water contamination From SOPURUCHI ONWUKA, Lagos

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he residents of Akoka community in Yaba area of Lagos State are in mortal battle with officials and representatives of multinational oil marketing firm, Total Nigeria Plc, over underground water pollution which the residents claim is affecting their health.

The dispute between the residents and the oil marketing company which has rapidly snowballed into a legal battle revolves around who takes responsibility for providing safe and potable water for the people following alleged contamination of underground water by the company’s service station in the vicinity.

The Oracle Today gathered that the residents grew mad at the company when they suspected that petrol seepage from an underground tank in a nearby Total service station left water wells and boreholes contaminated with hydrocarbon liquids.

It was not certain which of the different petroleum products--diesel, petrol or kerosene sold at the fuel retail station-caused the contamination but the residents accused the station manager of keeping rusty underground tanks from where, they allege, the contaminants seeped into subsurface water sources.

A water well in one of the houses allegedly burst into flame while some of the residents tried drawing water, indicating that the contaminant might be chiefly premium motor spirit also called petrol.

The matter is already a subject of investigation at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), which is the technical regulator of activities in the petroleum

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NASS passes vote of no confidence on IGP Idris

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Continued from Pg 1 personnel close to him.

In what has been described as “breaking with tradition”, the Police came on national television to announce the confessional statement of the robbers and publicly invite the Senate President for questioning.

The invitation to Saraki came against the backdrop of an earlier invitation to Senator Dino Melaye (Kogi West) and his subsequent travails in the hands of the police who slammed him with charges similar to Saraki’s, namely, that

Saraki: Police in partisan drama Melaye was working in cahoots with armed robbery suspects who also claimed to have been armed by him.

The seemingly non-diligent investigation of cases involving high-profile political personalities whose views are perceived to be at odds with those of mainstream political leadership in the country, before using the media to pronounce guilty verdicts on them,

may have fueled speculations that the Police have been sucked into partisan fray on the side of the government, becoming, at worst, a weapon of witch-hunt in the hands of the government against its perceived enemies.

“Ordinarily, the Nigeria Police is supposed to be a neutral, unbiased body. But unfortunately, we are seeing the reverse these days.

What the framers of the nation’s

constitution had in mind while proposing for the establishment of the Nigeria Police Force was a neutral, non-partisan force that would be free, directly or indirectly, from the day to day running of government,” an Enugu-based legal practitioner, Mr. Fab Ugwuama contended.

In a chat with The Oracle Today in Enugu, Ugwuama decried what he described as “a direct and

NASS passes vote of no confidence on IGP Idris •Threatens to evoke its its Constitutional powers if nothing is done to address its resolutions From CHIDI Ugwu, Abuja.

A

s part of a 12-point resolution, a joint session of the National Assembly sitting the of the House of Representatives Chamber Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence on the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Kpotum Idris.

The vote of no confidence and other resolutions came against the backdrop of spats between the Police leadership and that of the National Assembly.

Before the raging controversy over the police invitation to Senate President Dr. Bukola over alleged links to armed robbery suspects, Senator Dino Melaye from Kogi West had similarly been arrested, manhandled and detained by the police on gun-running charges.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, along with Dr. Saraki recently had their security details withdrawn while Senators Shehu Sani (Kaduna) and Isa Misau (Bauchi Central) had had face-offs with the police.

Among others, the joint executive session on Tuesday June 5, resolved as follows: 1. That the security agencies must be given marching orders to curtail the sustained killings of Nigerians across the country and protect life and properties of Nigerians, as this is the primary duty of any responsible government.

2. That the systematic harass-

•Saraki ment and humiliation by the Executive of perceived political opponents, people with contrary opinions including legislators and judiciary by the police and other security agencies must stop.

•Dogara

•IGP, Idris

3. That there must be strict adherence to the rule of law and protection for all citizens by the President and his appointees.

4. That the President must be

held accountable for the actions of his appointees and must be ready to sanction those that carry out any act, which may ridicule or endanger our country and de-

spokesman of the agency.

Head of HSE at Total Nigeria Plc, Mr. Segun Toikimo also declined to comment on the incident when contacted on phone, arguing that he is not the spokesman of his

company.

Dealer in charge of the filling station, Mr. Aleem Marouf told our reporter that the matter is in court, adding that he would not comment on an issue that is currently

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... Total over underground water contamination Continued from Pg 1 sector, including downstream infrastructure and facility integrity.

Head of Health, Safety and Environment at DPR, Mrs Attih Mfon, confirmed to The Oracle Today that the residents’ complaints have been received by the agency. She said the matter is currently under review, stressing that no determination has been reached.

According to her, a tripartite investigation exercise involving other interests in the matter is being planned and must be carried out after which, she said, a determination into the cause and extent of damage, negligence and non-compliance would be assessed to form the basis for official directive to anyone.

She did not give time lines for the planned processes.

An official of the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA) who refused to be named acknowledged the water contamination report but declined to give further details, saying he is not the authorised

subjudice.

According to one of the neighbourhood housewives who simply identified herself as Ifeamaka,

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Uwakwe Abugu, Enugu CPS, passes on L

•Abugu

ION Building, seat of government in Enugu, was thrown into mourning on Tuesday with news of the passing of Mr. Uwakwe Abugu, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. He was 59.

Abugu had worked in media houses including Vanguard and Thisday before his role at Lion Building, where he was highly regarded.

“We lost a gentleman, a good man, Mr. Uwakwe Abugu, Chief

Press Secretary to the Governor of Enugu State. Sad day for all of us in the media team,” Bob Ogbuagu Anikwe, Enugu State Commissioner for Information, announced, in a Facebook post.

“Uwakwe, I knew you for a very short time, but it was as if we knew each other for ages, the way we related, did the work together, and watched out for each other.

“It is well with your soul nwokem.”

determined crackdown on perceived opposing voices.”

“This whole thing reads again like the case of Dino Melaye – a sitting Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who was recently handcuffed, tear-gassed and bundled away like a common criminal. There had been several cases like that before the on-going onslaught on the President of the Senate, who is being harassed alongside Kwara State Governor, Abdul Fattah Ahmed,” the legal practitioner further argued, stressing: “We all watched the Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and the Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs, among others, openly wearing Buhari support group tags. That clearly signifies that they are no longer neutral but audaciously partisan.

“So, the hurried and dramatized public invitation of Senator Saraki by the Nigeria Police is simply tantamount to further crackdown on seeming opposition – those that the power that be believes are not dancing to, or not ready to dance to their whims and caprices.”

In a similar reaction, a security expert, Jackson Lekan-Ojo argued that the Police onslaught against Dr. Saraki is borne out of vendetta and political victimisation designed to reduce his stature in the public.

“The President of the Senate is a symbol of Nigeria’s government.

If the Police treats him with contempt and disdain, it will affect our image abroad,” he declared.

Speaking to The Oracle Today in Owerri on Tuesday, the Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Imo State, Dr George Nkwoji described the raging controversy between the IGP and President of the Senate, Dr. Saraki as “intriguing”, but assured that it would crash like a pack of cards.

“The case is intriguing in the sense that the robbery suspects never mentioned that Saraki sent them to rob or that they had been robbing for him,” Nkwoji said, adding: “It’s clear from the testimony of the suspects that they worked for Saraki as political thugs who engaged in the snatching of ballot boxes. I don’t see how knowing someone can be linked to robbery. Robbers have neighbours, friends and relations who don’t know them as criminals.”

A human rights activist and public affairs commentator, Comrade Paul Njoku, believes that the federal government is persecuting not only the opposition but also members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with dissenting voices.

“Dino Melaye, is an APC Senator, criticises the government, he is charged for gun running; Shehu Sani is an APC Senator and criticises the government and has been invited by the Police for murder.

Bukola Saraki is an APC Senator and criticises the government, he was charged to the Code of Conduct Tribunal, and now being invited for being allegedly indicted by suspected armed robbers who attacked a bank in Offa,” he agonized.

“Issa Missau is an APC Senator and criticises the government, he was charged to court. However, Omo Agege is an APC Senator and doesn’t criticise the government but reportedly stormed the Senate with thugs and stole the mace and was rewarded with appoint-

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The Oracle Today Wednesday 13, 2018

NEWS ACROSS THE NATION Shell’s crises hamper Nigeria’s oil revenue in May ...Production down by 190 kbd

By SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

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HE failure of Nigeria’s biggest oil asset holder, Shell, to manage its relationship with host communities in the Niger Delta has continued to take tolls on the country’s cash returns from the export market.

Higher market returns from the market is expected to provide strong funding performance to the 2018 budget following the rising crude oil prices in the interna-

tional market. Revenues from export of oil and gas contribute over 80 percent financial support to government’s economic growth plans.

With decades of regular clashes with its host communities and subsequent attacks on the nation’s petroleum infrastructure under its operations, Shell’s reputation with Niger Delta communities has remained the largest single cause of production crisis in the country.

Whereas most oil producing

Conoil declares 44% decline in PAT for 2017

By KAYODE OGUNWALE

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NE of the indigenous oil and gas firm, Conoil Plc has reported a decline of 44.36 percent in its profit after tax for the year ended 31 December, 2017.

The company’s made N2.838 billion as profit after tax in 2016 dropped to N1.579 billion at the end of 2017 financial year.

Its shareholders funds also dropped from N18.467 billion in 2016 to N17.893 billion, represented 3.11 percent, while the earnings per share slumped to N227 from N409 recorded in 2016. The decline in earnings per share represented 44.50 percent.

Meanwhile, Conoil revenue rose

by N30.489 billion or 35.86 percent, from N85,024 billion to end 2017 at N115.513 billion.

However, the company proposed N1.4billion as dividend payout to its shareholders for its last financial year in the face of daunting economic challenges in the country.

This translates to N2.00 on every 50 kobo ordinary share.

It is in line with the Company’s consistent dividend policy, over the years, to its shareholders.

The proposed dividend is expected to be ratified by its shareholders at the Company’s next annual general meeting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

countries are taking advantage of the prevailing unsteady rise in crude oil prices, Nigeria which is smarting from economic recession caused by low oil production numbers at a time of low prices is posting production declines for the month of May. According to surveys by both Bloomberg and Reuters affiliate agencies that track events in the commodity markets, Nigeria’s crude oil production slumped by 190,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.62 million barrels per day (mbd), the lowest in more than a year.

The production slide followed disruptions at key pipelines operated by Shell. Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Limited which operates the crisis ridden joint venture with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) called off loading of the Bonny Light crude exports at a time loadings at its second terminal, Forcados, are also facing delays.

Unfortunately, some indigenous and foreign independent companies that rely on pipelines operated by Shell to flow their output to export terminals are also trapped in the Shell vulnerability, suffering vicarious penalties from host communities.

Thus, the stalled loadings at Shell operated terminals totalling some 190,000 bpd are a product of combined output by Shell and smaller producers relying o its operated infrastructure.

In fact, apart from Shell operated joint ventures, other players in the industry have sustained smooth relationship with host communities.

Other companies involved in the Shell operated joint venture, Total and Eni, agreed with the operator to sell some of their stakes in some assets trapped in Shell’s operations.

The sold assets currently fare better under new joint venture operators and non operating financial in-

terests including Seplat, Neconde, Aiteo, NPDC and others who now produce more oil and gas from fields Shell was forced to abandon.

Total and Eni also operate separate and different joint ventures with NNPC and perform better in managing relations with their host communities.

Not a few indigenous companies have called on government to review asset holding structure in petroleum lease administration to enable religuishment of assets trapped in Shell’s host community crises for reallocation to other operators with better relationship with the operating environment.

Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, had at an interaction with National Assembly committee on the lingering Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) called for shorter lease tenure for awarded oil assets to make it possible for dormant assets to be recovered for rearward to asset starved players with good performance record.

CFAN to FG: Strengthen cooperative regulations

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OOPERATIVE Financing Agency of Nigeria ((CFAN) has urged the federal and state governments to strengthen regulatory functions in cooperatives to ensure growth and transparency of cooperative business in the country.

Executive Secretary of CFAN, Mr Emmanuel Atama, who made the call in Abuja, said that aside the issue of access to funds and ease of doing business, weak regulation was one of the major challenges of cooperative business in Nigeria.

According to him, because of weak regulations, many individuals just wake up and establish cooperative societies in their environs with the intention to loot funds of unsuspecting members.

He said: “These cooperatives do not hold Annual General Meetings, they don’t render accounts to their members, all they do is to eat the monies from members. The bottom line is that the regulation is weak, by the law and by the constitution, cooperative is on the concurrent list of the legislature.

“And it beholds state government and the FCT Administration through the office of the Chief Registrar of Cooperative to provide regulation for the cooperatives.

“And at the federal level, it is domiciled in the Federal Department of Cooperative, Ministry of Agric, but we discovered that both at federal and state levels, there is failure of regulation,’’ Atama said.

The executive secretary also urged

the government to set up a National Cooperative Commission of Nigeria to help resolve the issue of weak regulation in the subsector, noting that if there was a specific body set up for the regulation of cooperatives in the country, such a body would beam more light in cooperative business and achieve greater results.

On the issue of cooperatives that do not want to register with the national body, Atama said many of such •Cross Section of Cabinet members during the Security meeting with Service Chiefs at the State House in cooperative societies did not have Abuja. PHOTO; SUNDAY AGHAEZE. the interest of members at heart.

PenCom commences sensitisation, verification of 2019 retirees

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ational Pension Commission (PenCom) has kicked-off a preretirement workshop for 14,000 prospective 2019 retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) to bridge the knowledge gap of retirees on the scheme.

Acting Director-General, PenCom, Mrs Aisha Dahir-Umar, said at the workshop in Lagos on Monday that over eight million retirees had been imparted with the knowledge of the country’s pension scheme through the annual event.

The workshop is scheduled to hold in 15 centres across the country from June 4 to June 8 for the retirees in public service.

The centres include: Lagos, Enugu, Calabar, Ilorin, Gombe, Sokoto, Kano, Porthacourt, Benin, Bauchi, Nasarawa, Owerri, Lokoja, Ibadan and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Dahir-Umar, represented by Mrs Ekanem Aikhomu, Head of Benefits

and Insurance Department, PenCom, said the workshop was part of PenCom’s regulatory activities.

She said the commission had also finalised arrangements for the verification of the 2019 prospective retirees from June 25 to August 17 in the 15 centres.

“So, the impending verification exercise necessitated the need to undertake the sensitisation and public enlightenment to prepare prospective retirees on steps to take towards a hitch-free retirement life,” she said.

Dahir-Umar reiterated the Commission’s commitment to safeguard the interest of retirees.

“My dear retirees the achievements recorded by the Commission in the last 14 years would not be possible without the support of stakeholders and esteemed contributors.

Therefore, in order not to betray your trust in us, the commission must uphold its integrity.

FG begins exit plan for retirees F

By VICTOR NZE

EDERAL Government has initiated an exit management programme, tailored around the training of prospective retirees on various agriculture businesses in order to provide another stream of income for them as they transition to life of retirement.

The Permanent Secretary, Service Welfare Office in the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Mrs. Didi Walson-Jack, Mni, disclosed this at the 3rd Permanent Secretary’s Quarterly Breakfast Meeting with Labour in Abuja, last Wednesday.

A statement by Director Press& Media Relations, Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Ogunmosunle,O.A, quoted Walson-Jack as saying that the pur-

pose of the meeting is to provide a veritable platform for consultation with unions on the conditions of service and welfare of workers in the public service. It will also serves as a platform for the Service Welfare Office to receive necessary feedback on a number of initiatives targeted at enhancing the welfare and well-being of workers.

Reiterating Government’s commitment to the welfare of the workers, she said that the Exit Management Programme which is currently being piloted, was introduced as part of the initiative of the Office of the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation towards improving the welfare and wellbeing of Government employees as outlined in the Federal Civil Service Strategy and Implementation Pan, 2017 – 2020.

The Oracle Today

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Wednesday 13, 2018

NEWS ACROSS THE NATION

Standard Bank invests N61b in Stanbic IBTC

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tandard Bank Group the parent company of Stanbic IBTC has announced a further acquisition of 1,141,191,943 of its Nigerian subsidiary.

This represents an 11.35 percent jump in the bank’s equity taking its ownership stake in the bank to 64.4 percent from 53.09 percent.

Stanbic held about 53.02 percent at the end of 2016.

Meanwhile, First Century Limited, the second largest single shareholder of the company owned 7.61 percent of the company. Being an off-market transaction, it is likely that there was

a shareholder(s) who may have sold to Standard Bank.

Stanbic did not name who sold its stake in the transaction. However, considering the size of the transaction we have reasons to believe that it could be First Century Limited selling off their stake in the bank.

The offer price was not officially disclosed but we understand it was around N53.75 generating a massive purchase consideration of about N61.3 billion.

Rencap is thought to have handled the sell side transaction of the deal.

Amcon expects to return to profit as losses narrow

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HE Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), which was set up by the West African nation to buy bad debts from banks, said it could return to profit this year after losses in 2017 narrowed as the economy rebounded from its worst contraction in more than two decades.

The loss for the year through December improved to N16.4 billion from N164.9 billion in 2016, according to Executive Director Aminu Ismail. “If the economy continues with a positive outlook,” AMCON expects to return to profit this year, he said.

According to Bloomberg report, AMCON’s performance is in stark contrast to 2016, when chief executive officer Ahmed Kuru said the weak economy was hindering efforts to recover loans and other assets it took on in 2011. The institution acquired 12,537 non-performing loans worth N1.7 trillion from 22 financial institutions, following the

2009 banking crisis, according to its website.

Gross earnings increased by 23 percent to N341.8 billion, Ismail told reporters in Lagos. A 21 percent increase in interest income to N42.6 billion as well as the N41 billion sale of Keystone Bank helped boost performance even as operating expenses rose by 16 percent, Ismail said.

AMCON’s costs were “driven” by an increase in the price of aviation fuel and overhead expenses for two airlines it has taken over, Arik Air and Aero Contractors, according to an emailed presentation of the 2017 results.

It plans to sell Aero Contractors this year and has appointed advisers for the divestment of Arik, the presentation showed.

The economy of Africa’s biggest oil producer expanded 1.95 percent in the three months through March from a year earlier, after contracting in 2016. It is forecast to grow 2.1 percent this year by the International Monetary Fund.

•President Muhammadu Buhari receiving a gift from the Secretary-General UN World Tourism Organisation, Mr. Zurab Pololikashvili, accompanied by the Executive Director, World Tourism Organisation, Mr. Zhu Shanzhong (1st right) and Nigerian Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed during an audience at the State House in Abuja. PHOTO: State House, Abuja.

IMF tasks Nigeria on investment incentives T HE International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked Nigeria to give top priority to attracting private investments and driving robust domestic revenue mobilization, to boost economic growth.

This was part of the submissions from the IMF Spring 2018 Regional Economic Outlook for SubSaharan Africa, presented by the Senior Resident Representative and Mission Chief for Nigeria Mr Amine Mati.In his speech titled: “Domestic Revenue Mobilization and Private Investment”, Mati noted that the latest first quarter 2018 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of Nigeria at 1.95 percent, was within the IMF

projection of 2.1 percent for 2018.

He harped on the need for Nigeria and other Sub-Saharan economies to push policies that reduce macro-economic vulnerabilities, while pursuing growth that surpasses the population rate.

The IMF representative asserted that Sub-Sah aran Africa, region will experience moderate growth, but will have to address the debt vulnerabilities that is rising.

Mati while giving further insight revealed that 15 countries in the region were in debt distress at the moment.

On the workability of attracting private investments, he called for an effective Public-Private Partnership model and Special Economic

Dangote, Lafarge to raise capital

By KAYODE OGUNWALE

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IGERIA’S two biggest cement producers are set to raise huge resources from both local and foreign investors in a bid to expand productions and take advantage of economic recovery and increased infrastructure spending in the continent.

A report by Bloomberg said the two major cement firms intended to also refinance outstanding debt with proceeds of the fund raiser.

Nigeria’s parliament approved 9.1 trillion naira 2018 budget this month, Africa’s biggest economic biggest spending estimate ever with almost a third of it earmarked for roads, rail, ports and power.

In South Africa, where both Dangote Cement Plc and Lafarge Africa Plc also have operations, fixed investment expanded in the last quarter of 2017 as sentiment started to change in the run-up to President Cyril Ramaphosa winning control of the ruling party and becoming the national leader in February.

Dangote, controlled by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, said last month it’s looking to raise $500 million from a Eurobond sale

and will also issue 300 billion naira in local-currency bonds to refinance debt and boost expansion.

That’s before a proposed London initial public offering in the next two years, which people familiar with the matter have said could raise about $1 billion.

Meanwhile, Lafarge Africa, the Lagos-listed unit of Switzerlandbased LafargeHolcim Ltd., is seeking to raise about 100 billion naira

through equity or debt on top of a rights issue of about 130 billion naira late last year.

“Across the region in the last one or two years, we are seeing improving macroeconomic fundamentals driven by the upturn we are seeing in commodity prices,” Omotola Abimbola, equity analyst at Lagos-based Afrinvest West Africa, said by phone.

The fund-raiser will allow both companies to reduce debt and financing costs and free up cash, he added.

Dangote, Nigeria’s biggest listed company with operations in 16 African countries, is investing heavily in markets including Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo and has earmarked $350 million for capital projects this year.

Insurers target 150m policy holders in new campaign

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he Insurers Committee has commenced a N300 million rebranding project aimed at changing the negative perception of the public towards the insurance business.

The move is aimed at increasing the number of consumers from 37 million to more than 150 million of the country’s population.

The Insurers Committee is an association of operators in the industry and the regulatory body, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM).

The Vice Chairman of the Publicity Sub-Committee of the insurers, who is also the Managing Director, NSIA Insurance Company Limited, Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu, said at a conference in Lagos that the nationwide campaign to rebrand the insurance in-

dustry had already kicked off on June 1, 2018.

He added that the committee had set out seven cardinal goals that will be vigorously pursued to take the industry to lofty heights and contribute meaningfully to the economy’s development. Nwachukwu, noted that owing to the low contribution of the insurance sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which stands at 0.06 per cent and the poor perception of the general public towards insurance, the industry is yet to make its mark on the economy.

However, he explained that having put all the necessary requirements in place now, insurers are now set to launch the project, which is expected

to transform insurance operations in the country.

The initiative, according to the committee, will be driven via social media, print and electronics but greater attention will be on the social media due to the youth population. It would be recalled that to promote the project, NAICOM has contributed N40 million, while most companies have also made their contributions towards the initiative.

Earlier, insurance operators had agreed to raise 50 per cent of the funds budgeted for the rebranding project from companies gross premium income, while the balance of 50 per cent is to be shared evenly from profits realized by insurers.

Zones, with institutional and legal frameworks that will lead to significant foreign direct investments (FDIs) According to him “Increasing private investment is critical for the region to achieve sustainable growth and improve social outcomes over the medium term”.

In the area of domestic revenue mobilization, he informed stakeholders that it was one of the pressing policy challenge facing Sub-Saharan African countries.

From the report he shared that despite substantial progress in revenue mobilization over the past two decades, Sub-Saharan Africa was the region with the lowest revenue-to-GDP ratio.

The IMF believes the region can on average, mobilize 3-5 percent of GDP in additional tax revenues but will need to strengthen the value-added tax systems, streamline exemptions; and expand coverage of income taxes.

It also called for the introduction of new measures of taxation , such as property taxes, and harnessing technologies that will ensure cost efficiency and eventually improve tax revenue.

Also speaking, the DirectorGeneral of Debt Management Office (DMO) Ms. Pat Oniha in her remarks at the IMF report presentation stated that the borrowings carried out by the DMO, were targeted at capital expenditure that will impact the economy.

According to her, the government must remain focused on providing key services and creating the enabling environment for businesses to thrive in Nigeria.

The CEO of the Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) Mr Laoye Jaiyeola on his part decried the fact that Nigeria at the moment has not developed a robust publicprivate partnership framework to work with.

Jaiyeola called for the scaling up of the private sector in the country and transparency in the open governance partnership signed by the Federal Government.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS

Deltans peace-loving people – Okowa declares

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elta State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, has pledged to consolidate on the existing peace and tempo of development in the state.

The Governor was speaking at the government house in Asaba, Tuesday, while swearing-in former member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Judith Enamuotor as Special Adviser.

Governor Okowa remarked that “Delta State is blessed, there is no doubt about that and we have recorded successes, especially in the area of peace and provision of infrastructure, we are confident that we will continue to listen to the voice of our people,” adding, “we will continue to be accountable, transparent as we continue to work for our people.”

Governor Okowa commended the legislature, judiciary, religious leaders, traditional rulers and different people of all walks of life for working to boost peaceful co-existence among the diverse ethnic groups in the state. He said such harmony has given his administration the enabling environment for developmental activities to take place.

While congratulating Chief Enamuotor on her appointment, the governor urged all political appointees to “relate strongly with all Deltans to build a stronger relationship for the benefit of our people.”

He observed that the economic crisis that hit the country adversely affected the tempo with which developmental activities would have taken place in the state within the last three years, emphasising, “we are currently challenged as a nation, we are still far from where we ought to be and the advice I get from my Special Advisers and members of the state executive council helps a lot in taking decisions that impact on our people.”

“Deltans are very patient, peaceful and understanding people, we thank them for their continuous partnership with government in consolidating on the peace we enjoy,” he said.

Chief Enamuotor in her response, gave thanks to God for the opportunity to serve Deltans and the Delta State Government as Special Adviser, assuring, “I will do all I can to add value to the government of His Excellency, Governor Okowa’s administration which has done very well.”

The swearing-in ceremony was witnessed by the Chief Judge of Delta State, Justice Marshal Umukoro, President, Customary Court of Appeal, Justice Stella Oghene, Speaker of the Delta State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oberovwori, member of House of Representatives, Hon. Loveth Idisi, members of the state executive council, traditional rulers, among others.

S/South Govs back restructuring, devolution of power G overnors of the South South states have thrown their weight behind restructuring and devolution of power, saying such will lead to a more peaceful and prosperous nation.

The Governors who met, Wednesday night, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State under the aegis of South South Governors’ Forum had in attendance, Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, Bayelsa State Governor and Chairman of the Forum, Rt Hon Seriake Dickson, Rivers State Governor and host to the meeting, Nyesom Wike, Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel and

the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Rt Hon Philip Shaibu.

Briefing journalists after the meeting, Governor Dickson said far-reaching decisions that will be of benefits to the people of SouthSouth region and the country were taken.

According to him, “everyone is aware of the ongoing clamour for devolution and a return to essential founding principle of this great country and we, in our meeting resolved as we have been speaking over sometime that we associate fully with the clamour for restructuring, true federalism and devolution

of powers that are so concentrated at the centre to the federating units. We have agreed to support ongoing moves in that direction by working with like-minded Nigerians who mean well for the country so that we can all have a stable and prosperous and peaceful nation.”

He also stated that “while we are not against the withdrawal of 1 billion dollars from the Excess Crude Account by the Federal Government for national security, we believe that such should be done by adhering strictly to constitutional provisions of paying 13 per cent derivation”.

• From left: Governors Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State; Swriake Dickson of Bayelsa State; Nyesom Wike of Rivers State; and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State after a meeting in Port Harcourt, under the aegis of South South Governors Forum.

Seat of govt sacred – Emmanuel INI BILLIE, Uyo

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overnor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State has charged journalists and the people of the state to jealously guard the seat of government.

The governor criticised the habit of people insulting and abusing the state government, noting that the seat of the Akwa Ibom State government was sacred irrespective of the person sitting as governor.

Emmanuel who stated that governors would come and go but that the seat of the Akwa Ibom government would remain, advised journalists and the people of the state not to be pressured to write or do anything that will tarnish the image of the government.

Speaking during an interactive session with journalists yesterday in Uyo, the governor noted that he has kept to his promise to improve on the fortunes of the state, and cautioned against actions that would drive away investors.

He said his developmental projects were testimonies to his three years administration, adding that the effects of his work within the resources available at his disposal are noticeable for all to see.

Explaining that he welcomes constructive criticism, Mr Emma-

nuel said negative criticisms that were intended to damage his administration have turned out to be positive and appreciated the support he has received from the media in his three years as governor.

“The seat of government is something that we should guard jealously, no matter how under pressure we are to write. Let us know that whatever we do, we will remain Akwa Ibomites and we will be proud that we have defended our state and the seat of government in whatever we are doing, let it not be about us alone.

“For the fact that today there is a face on the billboard does not call for the level of insult and abuses people rain on the seat of government. It is not about the person occupying the seat of government, it has nothing to do with me alone as a person, it has something to do with the 6.2million people in Akwa Ibom State.

“Having stayed together for three years, you should be able to have seen the effect of this government and also identify what we stand for and what is good for the Akwa Ibom people. At times, it is not necessarily what we stand for, what I stand for, it is what will benefit the 6.2million people that we have in Akwa Ibom.

“I welcome constructive criti-

cisms. Don’t do something that will drive away investors. There is no nation on planet earth that stood on its own to be where they are today, they all relied on others.

We cannot develop ourselves on our own, we need partners,” he stated.

He mentioned some of his developmental projects to include the renovation of 346 secondary and primary schools across the state, noting that the tuition free primary and secondary education policy of the state government has given birth to an influx of students in schools even from neighbouring states.

He added that the government recently hired 2,000 teachers and said the government was particular about the advancement of military education with the recent commissioning of navy, army and police schools in the state because of the level of discipline in military schools, noting that discipline makes the difference in such educational training.

He also stated that the government was building roads that will link all the local government areas together for economic purposes, and that efforts were already in place to improve power generation in the state among other things.

Dickson said, “we took the collective view about the efforts of the Federal Government to withdraw 1 billion dollars for national security expenditures, our position in this zone is that in line with the constitutional provisions of derivation, while we have no objections to the Federal Government spending money on national security including the security of this zone, we believe that the constitutional provisions of 13 per cent derivation must be applied and fully respected and we will communicate that to the appropriate authorities so that whatever amount that is withdrawn from the Excess Crude Account, being proceed of crude oil sale is subject to the 13 percent principle enshrined in the constitution.

“We also agreed that the bill currently making rounds in the National Assembly which we understand is an Executive Bill on management of water resources; we are of the view that the provisions of the bill are offensive and obnoxious,” the Governors resolved, adding, “we disagree with the centralized control of water resources as we are already dealing with the problem associated with over centralization of our country and we have agreed that the bill should be immediately withdrawn by the Federal Government and further consultations be made on that.”

He disclosed that; “because of the nature of the discussions we have had, we also invited the AttorneyGenerals of the respective states to be in attendance and we had very fruitful deliberations touching on critical national issues that affect the wellbeing and welfare not just of our country, but principally, the life of people of this zone.”

Okowa, Ibori praise Pa Adiotomre on 80th birthday

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

D

elta State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa, and his predecessor, Chief James Ibori have described integrity as the hallmark of successful politicians.

They made the description at the 80th birthday cele bration of Chief Michael Adiotomre JP at Effurun, Uvwie local government area of Delta State.

According to Governor Okowa, politics can be played honourably as political positions are platforms for rendering selfless service to humanity.

He described Chief Adiotomre as “an honourable man,’ who has proven to be ‘man of integrity.’

While congratulating the celebrant, the Governor wished him more years of service to humanity.

To Chief Ibori, politicians should be consistent, observing that Chief Adiotomre does not waver on issues he believes in.

“Once you say this is where I am, and where I want to be, you stand by it,” Chief Ibori said, while the Chairman of the occasion, Prof. Andrew Onokerhoraye described Chief Adiotomre as an achiever.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS

Otti hits Ikpeazu, accuses Ikpeazu of wasting Abia resources

By BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia

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overnor Okezie Ikpeazu’s rival in the 2015 general elections, Chief Alex Otti, has scored the Ikpeazu administration low, saying it has performed abysmally in the last three years.

Otti who is the leader of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in Abia state, also alleged that Ikpeazu was laying “landmines” for future generations of Abians by increasing the debt profile of the state to unsustainable level.

Otti’s assessment of the Ikpeazu administration and his allegation, coming less than a week after the Democracy Day celebration which Ikpeazu used to showcase his administration’s scorecard, were contained in a statement he read during a radio programme in Umuahia.

In scoring Ikpeazu’s government very low, Otti pointed out that “socio-political and economic indices clearly show that Abia remains on the downward spiral in Agriculture, Education, Health, Security, General Infrastructure, Industrialization, and so on.”

“This alarming situation is a frightening reminder to the urgency of the mission of every Abia progressive. Remember, if the good men amongst us do nothing, the evil ravaging Abia would reach a point of invincibility,” Otti said.

The former bank chief who is warming up to challenge Ikpeazu again in 2019, said that Abia has continued to fair badly under the present government, adding that the third anniversary of Ikpeazu’s government offered Abia people good opportunity to assess his performance.

“It’s very easy to reach a conclusion that the present government has sadly failed to steer the vehicle of governance in a manner that would lift you from the doldrums of poverty and hopelessness, to a veritable economic pedestal that would show you hope and great opportunities,” he told Abians.

He swore that there was hardly any sector of the Abia economy that has witnessed significant improvement under the present administration, adding that Abians should see 2019 as crucial year when they would once again get the chance “to decide” their “socio-political and economic future as Abians.”

While accusing the administration of not being frugal, Otti alleged that that it was distressful that while the Ikpeazu administration was wasteful in managing state resources, it was equally accumulating huge debts without plans for repayment.

“Either by omission or commission (Governor Ikpeazu) seems to be squandering what’s accruing to the state while at the same time incurring debts without clear cut strategy and futuristic plan for repayment, thus planting a landmine for the Abia unborn generations,” he said.

He, however, did not provide figures to substantiate his claims but rather urged Abians to redouble their resolve and “remain firm and resolute as we collectively look up to a brighter day which shall come to actualization in no distant time.”

Abia State government was yet to react to Otti’s statement as at press time.

U.S commends Ayade’s industrial drive

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he United States Consul General to Nigeria, Mr. John Bray says he is impressed with the industrialisation drive of the Cross River Governor, Prof Ben Ayade within his three years in office.

Bray stated this in Calabar on Wednesday shortly after being conducted round several industries built by the Ayade-led administration in the state.

Industries visited included the Cross River Garment Factory, the Rice Seeds and Seedlings Factory, the Calabar Pharmaceutical Company and the 21 megawatts power plant.

“I am really impressed as I have not seen a lot of things like these in Nigeria in my five years in the coun-

try. Seeing all these developments in one area is very impressive,” the US Consul General remarked.

Bray who was in Calabar to prepare grounds for some visitors into the state explained that he had to take time out to see investments opportunities in the state and that what he saw is a beautiful state that would compel him to visit often.

On possible areas of collaboration between the United States and Cross River, he said it was evident that such exist already with the American-made tractors on ground at the rice seeds and seedlings factory as well as American engineers at the power plant.

His words: “There are always areas of collaboration. Seeing the

American-made tractors in the rice city with United States engineers on ground, that is an evidence of collaboration between the United States and Nigeria, though from a private sector, but there is collaboration already.”

Continuing, Bray said: “it is beautiful because government cannot do everything, so seeing the private sector here and United States products and engineers on ground, it is very great.”

In his reaction, Governor Ayade expressed delight that his efforts at developing the state were being acknowledged, adding that “it is a reflection of the fact that I have a pass mark from America and Germany.

Americans don’t mince their words,

when they want to say something to you, they will tell you truly how they feel.”

“This is my third year in office and we have gone round three factories with many more to go if we had the time. I wanted to take him to the largest banana plantation in Africa few minutes away from here, but I am sure we have other things to do, but one day we will be back and I will take them through.”

Ayade who commended Bray for accentuating and concentrating America investments and interest in Cross River, noted that the deployment of American turbines, engines and other machines in the factories remain a source of delight to him.

Delta monarch abducted, as 2 aides injured

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

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• Delta State Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa (r) with former member of the Board of Trustees of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP),Chief Judith Enamuotor , after her swearing-in as Special Adviser, at the Government House in Asaba

Be part of government – Okowa charges Christians D

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

elta State Governor, Sen. Dr Ifeany Okowa has urged Christians be part of the affairs of government as Christianity and Government are two entities of God. Okowa stated this during his keynote address at the Zion Ark of Convention International Bible Church 10th year Anniversary /Dedication of Ultra Modern Church Auditorium and Book Launch in Warri last Sunday.

The Delta State Governor who was represented by his deputy, Barr.

Kingsley Otuaro noted that Christians owned the world and so should take charge of governance.

While encouraging dedication and seriousness to God’s work, he stated that a Christian is not just a church goer because we were all expected to come to church.

The Delta State Governor noted that Christians hold the whole world because they were guided by God’s Spirit and the progressiveness of God’s revelation.

While giving his keynote address, Okowa asserted that government derives its authority from God to promote good and restrain evil.

“Government plays a role in the work of God’s kingdom on earth.

Good government encourages an en-

vironment conducive for people living peaceably, whereas bad government fosters unrest and instability. Because of sin, the legitimate institution of government has, at times, been used illegitimately throughout history.

However, numerous examples persist of Christians reasserting their influence and redeeming government to promote good and restrain evil” he said.

Earlier, the book titled ‘Choose Life’ authored by the General of Zion Ark of Convention Church, Pastor Victor Great was launched and reviewed by Pastor P. O. C. Akorefe.

The book reviewer disclosed that the 6 chapters with 120 pages book’s title reminded us that life was a choice that death was not inevitable, adding that the Book said that God did not create death. That it came into the world through man. And that every law made by man can be outlawed by another man. ” Death is a choice if you believe death you die and if you choose life you live”. He said.

Pastor Akorefe said the Book urged brethrens to stand against the belief that death is not a normal part of life but an enemy which God will destroy.

In his sermon taken from the Bible Book of Hebrew 7:1-2, the G. O of Zion Ark of Convention Church, Pastor

Victor Great notes that God does not relate with men but through men He has made God. He said God has been using faces of men and if one must go far in life one should begin to look for the faces of these men God uses.

Also ministering, Rev. Chris Christian of Shepherd of Locust Army International, Lagos, in his sermon titled Perfecting The Spirit Of Just Men, which he also backed with a reading from the Bible Book of Hebrew 11:3940 & Hebrew 12:18, stated that there were spirits that follows to wherever we go and do in life. And that God cannot use one beyond what he reveals.

The highlights of the occasion were the unveiling and launching of a book titled ‘Choose Life’, 10th year Anniversary of the Church and the dedication of an ultra modern church auditorium.

The event was attended by top government functionaries and notable clergy men including Member Representing Burutu Federal Constituency in National Assembly Hon. Julius Pondi, Delta State Commissioner for Science &Technology Hon. Bright Edejovwo, Hon. Austin Emaduku HPM of Local Government Service Commission, Hon. Mike Ogbodu, Hon. Steve Eruotor, Rev. Dr. I. C. Tola amongst others.

raditional ruler of Ogodor, a community in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State, HRM Sunday Olisewokwu has been reportedly abducted.

A family source who spoke on condition of anonymity said the monarch who is the Chairman of Aniocha North Traditional Rulers Committee was abducted at the weekend, with two of his aides injured in the heat of the abduction.

Recently, Obi Olisewokwu, had in a letter addressed to the Permanent secretary, Directorate of chieftaincy Affairs, Deputy Governor’s office Asaba, on behalf of Aniocha North kings , dated 3rd May 2018, titled ” RE -APPOINTMENT OF PRINCE JUSTIN OREZE CHUKWUNONSO NWOKO AS THE OBI OF IDUMUJE UGBOKO KINGDOM ” warned that non adherence to established procedure in crowning a new obi could “lead to mayhem ” and unprecedented violence in Idumuje Ugboko.

In the letter signed by the Obi of Ogodor and the secretary of Aniocha North traditional rulers committee, Mr. Nwaokolo Louis, the traditional rulers noted that beyond customary guidelines for royal ascension “there are many court cases challenging the enthronement of Nonso Nwoko of which the Aniocha North traditional rulers committee is a party ” Some observers are linking the abduction to the position of the chairman, and members of the Traditional council of the area, on the lingering crises in Idumuje Ugboko Royal dispute, as the council had insited that due process be followed in the face of several court cases on the issue of the right person to ascend the throne.

Recently, tension heightened in the Idumuje Ugboko community when Senator representing Delta North visited the community, and was welcomed by Prince Nonso Nwoko where he reportedly received “royal blessings” from Nonso Nwoko on behalf of the Idumuje Ugboko people, which in a letter

by Chief Chris Ogwu faulted the ascription of Nonso Nwoko as the Obi of the community.

As at the time of filling this report, the State police command has not responded to enquiry on the abduction.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Police to arraign 33 suspected cultists, armed robbers

By THEO RAYS, Onitsha

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o fewer than 33 suspected cultists and armed robbers arrested by Police anti-cult operatives in different hideouts in Awka, Obosi and Okija, all in Anambra State, will be arraigned in court this week to face a three-count charge of cultism, murder and conspiracy.

The suspects, who according to Police sources have been terrorising the areas earlier mentioned, were arrested by the Special Anti Cultism Squad, (SPACS), of the State Police Command.

Police impeccable sources confided to The Oracle Today that 11 of them were arrested in Awka, the State capital, over cultism and murder, while 12 were arrested in Obosi for the same of kinds of offense cultism and murder. The rest 10 who arrested at Okija have only one count charge of cultism.

Confirming the arrest, the SPACS Commander, Mr. Christopher Bassey, a Chief Superintendent of Police, (CSP) hinted that those 10 - arrested in Okija would be arraigned on one count charge of cultism as there was no murder.

The SPACS commander who attributed cultism among the youth in those three areas to political interest warned that the Police won’t spare anybody involved in cultism and armed robbery urging parents to always monitor the kind of friends and companies their children keep.

Okowa mourns former ICPC boss, Justice Akanbi

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

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overnor Ifeanyi Okowa has expressed grief over the death of pioneer Chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) Justice Mustapha Akanbi, who died at the age of 85 years.

Okowa in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Charles Aniagwu, in Asaba, described the late Akanbi, Wakili of Ilorin, as an incorruptible, forthright and virtuous jurist whose rulings where hardly disputed while on the bench.

“The late Justice Akanbi would be remembered for his contributions to the fight against impunity in the country.

Okowa noted: “He was an incorruptible jurist whose judgements could hardly be faulted while on the bench. During his spell as Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC), he fought corruption with uncommon passion and courage and sincerity of purpose.

He lauded the late Akanbi’s many contributions to the development of his immediate community, State in particular, and the country in general.

The Governor commiserated with the immediate family of the deceased, the government and people of Kwara State, and urged them to be consoled by the virtues of integrity and patriotism of the late jurist.

Abia govt. blames core investor for delay in Aba Leather/Garment Cluster take-off

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bia Government has blamed the core investor for the delay in realisation of the Umukalika Leather/Garment Cluster facility project in Aba. Commissioner for Industry, Chief Henry Ikoh, said in Aba that the investor, Reticulated Construction Nigeria Ltd. was not doing what the government had demanded of them.

He said the state government would soon decide on the way forward and what to do with the investor.

“If you call me in two weeks’ time, I shall be able to tell you if we are going on with him (the core investor) or not. What we planned is not what the government is seeing on ground at the site now,’’ he said.

According to him, though work is ongoing at the site, as the government has acquired a 500 KVA genera-

tor for its operations.

On alleged extortion of the project’s stakeholders by officials of his ministry, which they noted was also hindering take-off of the facility, Ikoh said he was yet to receive any complaint.

He, however, said that the N7, 000 the off-takers were to pay was a “small amount of money’’ for forms to enable the government know the type of shop each applicant would need.

The commissioner said the state government was committed to clustering major businesses in Aba, adding “Umukalika is for real and it is going to happen’’.

Ikoh said that the government had also created and was working on what he called “the mechanic cluster’’ at Ovom Community in Obingwa Local Government Area for motor

parts dealers and mechanics.

However, Mr Emem Coffie, the Managing Director, Reticulated Construction Nigeria Ltd, the contractor handling the project, said the company was waiting for guarantee from Abia state government to commence work.

He said that since they took over the job in 2015, they had spent so much money but when asked what the money was spent on, as there was virtually nothing at the site, he got angry.

Coffie said that his company had only collected N200, 000 from the sale of forms to off-takers, and so could not do much until the end-users make enough commitment to the project.

According to him, the Umukalika cluster project is a Public-Private Partnership project as contained in

• From right: Former Governor of Ebonyi State, Sam Egwu, former Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), Anyim Pius Anyim, Governor David Umahi, and former governor, Chief Martin Elechi, when the latter endorsed the incumbent state’s chief executive for re-election in 2019

I have commonised government -- Ayade

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ross River State Governor, Prof Ben Ayade said in the last three years, he was focused on the people by taking government to them.

Governor Ayade said this when he led a walk around the city of Calabar, the state capital in celebration of May 29 Democracy Day. Doing an introspection of his stewardship in the last three years while addressing a mammoth crowd that poured out to participate in the walk, Ayade said: “When you are a governor and you focus on the people, this is what you get because I have shifted government from a small number of people who before now thought that they were the Alpha and the Omega. I have commonised government, expanded it and taken it to the people that need it most. That is what has brought the atmosphere you see here today.”

Rationalizing the basis for his expanded government, the governor said: “Cross River State has never had it so good, when almost every family has somebody in government,” adding that “that is the secret because in a sluggish and developing economy, the focus is on the people, while infrastructure

becomes secondary.”

According to Ayade “If people have not eaten, you cannot be thinking of doing roads for them.

Food first. While my first term policy is food on the table by expanding government, I did so because I understand that in politics, the emphasis should be on the people.”

Rationalizing further, Governor Ayade said: “When we move from this level to a level where hunger is no more and they are guaranteed of a decent livelihood, then you move to the next phase which is infrastructure. So I’m doing what my people love and that’s why you are seeing all this enthusiasm.

“We are very happy for the stability of our democracy but very little to show in terms of character. Indeed, Nigeria has just become a political country.”

Ayade, while arguing for less emphasis on electioneering, and more on service, said: “From the beginning of an election, you think of another election, so we do election in Nigeria for the purpose of election and not for the service to the people.

“I feel sad that after 19 years, we still have this kind of democracy. If Nigeria is indeed a leading country

in Africa, then this is not the kind of democracy I will expect from Nigeria 19 years after. And so, I expect to see more finesse and more educated people in politics, I expect to see better character. It is not normal that in every election season, there has to be this level of tension.”

Drawing parallels from other democracies, Ayade revealed: “I was in China during their own presidential election, I was not aware that there was an election going on that day because everybody was in the factory working. It doesn’t matter who is the president. That is the situation in a near perfect system like China.”

The governor who insisted he is more focused on the people, said: “I’m more focused on my people and if your focus is on the people, politics will be three months before election and I think whether you are in opposition or in the ruling party, just focus on your people and you will see that the conflict in your state will be less because if I’m doing well as a Governor, there will be no desperation to effect a change. The only reason where you see fierce competition is because those who become governors or even presidents hold it and limit it only to their political party.”

the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) his company signed with Abia government and the off-takers.

According to him, the off-takers are to buy application forms for N7, 000, fill and return it with initial deposit of N50, 000 to show commitment before his company can begin work.

He said that these were some of the terms of agreement between both parties upon which his company could get the assistance of a bank to commit to building the project.

Coffie, however, said “things are on course” regarding the project.

It would be recalled that the state governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu had promised to develop industrial clusters in Aba when he assumed office in 2015, beginning with Umukalika Leather/Garment cluster.

However, three years down the line, the plan to establish clusters for these creative, artisanal sectors had been mired in perpetual delays.

President, Leather Products Manufacturers Association of Aba, (LEPMAS), Mr Okechukwu Williams said that there was the need to cluster the leather and garment sectors in Abia.

He said that this was because a cluster assembles small and medium scale manufacturers under one roof, providing them with common facilities like power, water, access roads and equipment.

According to him, clustering the sectors together will ensure increased productivity, creation of jobs in the affected sectors and fostering competitiveness of their products against imported ones.

Williams said that the Leather Workers would prefer to be given another site with landed documents to enable them get banks that could build the facility for them in record time.

The President, Association of Tailors and Fashion Designers (AFTAD), Abia state Mr Onyebuchi Nwaigwe said there were many problems facing the realisation of the Umukalika cluster facility project.

He said that the realisation of a leather and garment cluster facility in Aba, would require government knowing what the end users would need in the facility and what they were willing to do to have such facility.

He said that the personnel government sent to supervise the projects were not sincere, hence the delay and non-commitment shown over the years in the project resulting in its non-realisation.

Nwaigwe, therefore, urged the state governor to hand over the Umukalika Cluster project to sincere and upright people who would not seek to “make millions” from it to ensure its realisation.

Both Nwaigwe and Williams agreed that the size of the Umukalika project would serve only one of the sectors.

They said that merging leather and garment workers at the place would result in some workers remaining at their old shops at Ariaria after others had moved to Umukalika.

They advised the state government to take a census of the leather and garment sector workers in Aba to know their numerical strength before deciding where to relocate any of them.

According to them, the census will save the government the stress of doing a haphazard job that will result in government’s inability to solving the targeted problem.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS 2019: Old Bende adopt, honour Ikpeazu

By BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia

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he people of Old Bende have now taken their turn to endorse and adopt Governor Okezie Ikpeazu as the consensus governorship candidate for the general 2019 elections.

The people who made their position known in their communiqué, also honoured the governor with the chieftaincy title of Omekaozuoha of Old Bende.

Old Bende comprises nine local governments, namely Arochukwu, Bende, Isuikwuato, Ohafia and Ummunneochi in Abia North senatorial zone as well as Ikwuano, Umuahioa North and Umuahia South in Abia Central Senatorial zone.

In the communiqué read by Maazi Sam Ohuabunwa on behalf of the Old Bende people, the people said they were impressed by the achievements of the governor in the last three years and assured him of their block votes in 2019.

Deputy Governor, Sir Ude Oko Chukwu, who also doubled as Chairman of the Organizing Committee, said that the Old Bende people decided to honour the Governor in appreciation of his giant strides in the governance of Abia State.

He appealed to the Governor to accept the various calls of offering himself to be re-elected in 2019 because he deserves re-election.

Political leaders of Old Bende who addressed the gathering at the Events Centre, Umuahia, including Senators T. A Orji and Mao Ohuabunwa; Member representing Ikwuano Umuahia in the House of representatives, Chief Sam Onuigbo; Deputy Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, Sir. Cosmos Ndukwe; Majority Leader of the House of Assembly, Hon. Chinedum Orji, among others, praised the governor for the quality of development in infrastructure and good governance he has brought to bear on the state and reiterated the decision of Old Bende people to ensure he is returned in 2019.

Also, Old Bende Traditional Rulers Council, led by Eze Godwin Chionye; representatives of the Presidents-General and women groups all commended the governor and expressed their support for his reelection.

Responding, the Governor assured Abians that the State was safe in his hands, adding that all he has achieved would not have been possible without the support and cooperation of the people.

Ikpeazu said he was proud of the Old Bende people for their immense contributions to the development of Abia economy and commended them for their enterprising spirit, adding that he was humbled by the reception organised in his honour.

No more multiple taxations on property in Enugu -- Ugwuanyi I n a bid to eliminate cases of multiple property taxes and create a platform for property owners to seek redress, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State has inaugurated a 10-man Land Use Charge Assessment and Appeal Tribunal.

Swearing in the 10-member tribunal chaired by Barrister Chigozie Nnadi, the governor said the inauguration of the tribunal is consistent with the vision to consolidate the state’s reputation as one of the most investor-friendly states in the country, describing it as a giant step towards easing the tax burden of property owners.

The tribunal, the governor stated, was further necessitated by complaints from property owners about the multiplicity of taxes on their lands and landed property.

“There have been stringent com-

plaints that local governments and agencies of state government impose all manners of taxes, rates and levies on land and landed property.

“In response to these complaints, the Enugu State House of Assembly in September 2016 passed into law the Land Use Charge Law. This was amended in 2017, thus consolidating all property, land use rates and charges payable under the Property Rates Law, Local Government Law and assessment law in Enugu State into a new Land Use Charge to be called Land Use Charge,” he said.

Governor Ugwuanyi noted further that the new law has ended the era of multiple taxation of property in the state, saying: “Property owners in the state will no longer receive varieties of demand notices on their property. Instead, they will

receive and pay a single charge on their property.”

He also explained that by streamlining the hitherto haphazard levies on property, the Land Use Charge will help boost the internally-generated revenue of both the state government and participating local government councils.

The state’s Chief Judge, Justice Priscilla Emehelu commended Governor Ugwuanyi for performing a very important aspect of the Enugu State Land Use Act and in choosing members who have distinguished themselves in various endeavours.

She explained that the tribunal have the powers to summon anyone to appear before it, adding that the state’s judiciary would next week commence training workshops for members of the tribunal to ensure they are “grounded and

well prepared in line with the law”.

Justice Emehelu also pointed out that adequate sensitization was essential for the goals behind the tribunal’s inauguration to be actualized.

Responding on behalf of the members after their inauguration, Barrister Nnadi thanked the governor for giving them the opportunity to offer their service and promised that the tribunal will discharge their duties with a sense of fairness and justice.

“We are aware that this task is enormous, but we will do our best to make you proud. We’re convinced that this is a show of commitment which you have always demonstrated in your conviction to offer good governance to the people of Enugu State,” she said.

Saraki/police squabble not healthy for Nigeria’s democracy - Clergy

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

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• Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu (r) with the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike During the commissioning of seven new Internal Roads by the senate deputy leader.

Nwachukwu decries imposition, impunity in political parties

By BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia

A

former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Senator Ike Nwachukwu, has advised the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to avoid imposition of candidates and impunity, if the party wants to survive the turbulent Nigerian political terrain, describing them as the twin killer pills of political parties in the country.

Receiving the interim leadership of the Abia State chapter of SDP in his Ovim country home in Isuikwuato local government area, Nwachukwu maintained that imposition and impunity were the bane of mainstream political parties in the country.

Leaders of SDP which just took root in Abia State paid an advocacy visit to Senator Nwachukwu, in their bid to drum support for the “untainted” party, which they believe was the best credible alternative in a good stead to upstage the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and take over Government House, Umuahia, after the 2019 general election.

Nwachukwu, who endorsed the SDP, advised the promoters of the

party to make the party truly democratic.

A former PDP chieftain who retired from partisan politics in 2014, Nwachukwu noted that the bane of all the main stream political parties, especially PDP and APC, was imposition of candidates and impunity and enjoined the SDP to avoid making the same mistakes.

“There is nothing like returning candidates unopposed in a democracy; the most popular person should be fielded for elective positions,” he said, adding that even when only one person stands for a particular position, party members should still be allowed to cast votes to ratify the ticket.

He called on youths of Nigeria to rise and take their destiny in their own hands by contesting for elective positions, adding that the nation needs generational change as the old order has woefully failed the people, leaving in its trail, sufferings, underdevelopment and crises.

“The old generation has not done well; if it had done well, there won’t be Boko Haram, herdsmen menace, kidnappings as well as

other terrorist and criminal activities pervading the land,” he said.

Chairman of the steering committee of SDP in Abia, Hon Chidi Nwosu, said that the party was endowed with credible leaders that would develop the state, adding that it was high time the people of Abia rejected PDP and other parties and embrace SDP. “SDP has arrived in Abia. We are going to recreate Abia and provide for the citizens all that they need to live a meaningful life and realise their potentials after years of misrule, corruption and impunity,” he said.

He lamented that the only thriving industry now in Abia was the mortuary business. “They spring up every day because death toll is rising as corruption and bad governance continue to thrive and spread hardships,” he said.

In his remarks the SDP convener in Abia, Mr. Okechukwu Phillips, said that the party has resurrected and was poised to replace APC and PDP, as according to him, the two main parties “will die forever” and give way to people-oriented party as represented by SDP.

eader of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) in Ndokwa East Local Government Area of Delta State and Founder of Faith Assembly Ministries, Stanley Eloagu, has condemned reports by the Nigeria Police Force linking the Senate President, Bukola Saraki to armed robbery suspects in the Offa Bank robbery incident.

Eloagu alleged that what is becoming common in the country is that once you have a strong voice as an opposition against the Buhariled government or perceived to be against the President, something will come up against you for which you will be persecuted and oppressed.

Adding that our democracy cannot grow under such circumstances, where a vibrant opposition cannot be entertained or intimidated.

“This is not healthy for our democracy. Considering the various criminal cases against some Senators who are perceived to be a threat to some people, it is a clear indication that this is a plot to blackmail and intimidate the lawmakers.

What makes things worse is that the majority of these people belong to the same political party.”

While reacting to previous allegations by Saraki during plenary where he had accused the Inspector General of Police of plotting to frame him in order ‘to settle scores,’ he advised that both parties should reconcile in the interest of democracy.

“I don’t want to believe that the IGP is on a revenge mission. However, whatever it is, I advise that they settle their differences in the interest of Nigerians, to enable the Senate President concentrate on his duties. If you recall, this is a man who spent most of his time visiting the Code of Conduct Tribunal over false asset declaration” However, the clergy believes that the allegations by the Inspector General of Police against the Senate president is a sort of drama that will phase out just as the Code of Conduct Tribunal’s dismissal of the charges of false assets declaration against the Senate President, Bukola Saraki.

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

POLITICS

Anyaoha: Ojukwu, Chekwas, Bozimo to Buhari: Hand Peter Obi Igbo heroes of over to a younger person democracy before 2019 election

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Pg 10

Plea for peace, harmony signposts Wike’s 3rd anniversary •Abdulsalami, Ooni of Ife enjoin Rivers people to eschew bitterness, destruction From Port Harcourt, NATH OMAME writes on the lingering bad blood in Rivers politics, explaining how many a VIP has intervened to get the people to eschew politics of bitterness and enjoy Wike’s dividends of democracy in unity.

•Nyesom Wike

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he combustive animosity, bitterness and vengeful recriminations that dogged the 2015 general elections in Rivers State have continued to reverberate as the dramatis personae, Governor Nyesom Wike and the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, are yet to sheathe their swords.

And their personal grouse towards each other has permeated the political space of the state, essentially along party lines and among politicians in support of their leaders: Wike of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), the party on whose platform Amaechi was elected and served as the Speaker of the State House of Assembly for eight years and as governor for another eight years before he defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC), in November 2014.

And since members of the parties, supporters and associates live amongst residents in the State, the razor-sharp division has crept in large measure into the public and is visible in public discourses across the state.

There appears to be no single issue on politics, governance, developments and much more, where there is a convergence of opinion by the PDP and the APC. Even when Governor Wike on assumption of office, on Friday, May 29, 2015, pledged not to re-award uncompleted projects awarded by his predecessor, Amaechi, to other contractors, and fulfilled same by re-negotiating the contracts with the same contractors, completed and commissioned the projects, the APC has continued to insist that the immediate past APC administration in the state had executed 90 per cent of the projects before

•Rotimi Ameachi

•Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi

•Abdulsalami Abubakar

dwindling oil exports and falling oil prices reduced statutory monthly allocations to the state, which severely affected its capacity to fund ongoing projects before the expiration of its tenure.

While the ruling PDP government in the state is celebrating its projects, and in some cases, inviting highflying personalities and Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), to commission such projects and receiving effusive accolades from its guests in the process, the APC in Rivers State has, at each turn, found a way to pooh pooh the efforts of the governor, often insisting that most of the road projects, an area where Governor Wike has excelled, were conceptualised and almost completed by the immediate past APC government led by Amaechi.

Invariably, the commissioning of newly completed projects by the Wike administration has often been tinctured with a cacophony of voices from the PDP which is always in favour of the governor, and from the APC, which is always posturing to downplay the quality of the projects and the efforts of the governor and insinuating, in some cases, that the size and quality of the projects are not commensurate with the funds claimed to have been spent.

For instance, the 50th anniversary of the creation of Rivers State, celebrated in May last year, which was supposed to have united the people of the state, irrespective of their political leanings and inclinations, further polarised political leaders in the state along the ruling PDP and the opposition APC in the state.

The tension that characterized the 2015 general elections is, again, building up as

Nigerians prepare to enter an election year, a year of campaigns, congresses, conventions, party primary and the 2019 general election proper. Now, the singsong is the decampment of groups of persons either from the APC to the PDP or from the PDP to the APC. Of course, either of both political parties schemes to outdo the other in making a capital of sorts from these arranged defections.

Consequently, rabidly critical statements are made and the bad blood that separates both parties runs deeper.

So, it is not surprising that some prominent Nigerians invited by Governor Wike to commission projects to commemorate the third anniversary of his government have called on the people of Rivers State to eschew bitterness, hostility and rancor and, instead, preach peace and cultivate a culture of love and harmony for the growth and development of the state.

On Friday, June 1, former Head-of-State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar was in Port Harcourt to commission the 8.4 kilometre Garrison-Trans-Amadi-Slaughter-Woji-Elelenwo Road as part of the 30 road projects the Wike government commissioned to commemorate its third year in office. The former military head-of-state enjoined the people of Rivers State to embrace peace and tranquility so that they can attract development to the state.

“Let me draw your attention to the need to maintain peace not only in Rivers State but also in Nigeria. Rivers State has a lot to gain in an atmosphere of peace and tranquility. I call all leaders in Rivers State to work together to bring peace to Rivers State for the state will gain more when there is peace rather than when there is

an atmosphere of rancor,” the former military leader said.

Similarly, on Saturday, June 2, the Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, who was in Port Harcourt to commission the Rex Lawson ultra-modern cultural centre, located in the densely populated Port Harcourt Township, appealed to the people of Rivers State and Nigerians to set aside politics of bitterness and destruction and focus on service to the people.

“Your Excellency, God will continue to be with you. God will continue to be with the good people of Rivers State. How many leaders can execute and commission projects so close to the people? How many leaders can stand tall and speak so close to the people. Today, I am very proud to be associated with Mr. Project, the governor of Rivers State for the love he has for his people. I want other governors to learn from him,” the Ife Monarch said.

Governor Wike reiterated that the completion of the cultural centre reinforced the promise he made when he was sworn-in as governor of the state that he would not re-award contracts that were previously awarded by his predecessor.

“We did not re-award the contract. We negotiated with the contractor that abandoned the job, paid him and ensured that this superlative edifice is delivered. There will be urban renewal around this neighbourhood where the centre is located.

We have reconstructed Creek Road and we will develop other facilities to beautify this area. For the opportunity given to me

by Rivers State, there is nothing that I cannot do for the state. I will pay them back in a big way,” Wike vowed.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

BOLD & BLUNT

Anyaoha: Why Ojukwu, Chekwas, Obi are heroes of democracy

•Reveals how Peter Obi aided the Progress, Survival of APGA •Says, situation ripe for APGA to reclaim Imo State The crisis currently rocking the Imo State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) following alleged plans by the State governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha to install his son in-law, Uche Nwosu, as his successor in 2019 has drawn the attention of political enthusiasts who wish to see a better situation of things in the State. In this interview with THEO RAYS, an Onitsha-based legal practitioner, Barr Emeka Anyaoha, who hails from Imo State but has at different times contested election in Anambra and Imo States and has also served as the legal adviser to APGA in the South East, speaks on the politics of Imo State, the APGA project and the impact of the founding fathers of the party on democracy in Igbo land, and expectations in 2019, among other issues. Excerpts: Let’s start with your sojourn into politics, your view about politics and experiences too having played politics both in Anambra and Imo States respectively?

Naturally, man is a political animal, very jealous in nature and cohabit the society with other fellows among whom he strives to be the best he can, thus politics and politicking are inevitable to man. To me, I have over the years participated in politics and politicking at different levels from the ward level to the local government, State and regional, upwards to the national level. I worked primarily with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at a time when the party bestrode the entire political space in Nigeria.

I worked with my mentor and godfather, the late Chief Joseph Igwe alias Bolingo who was the proprietor of the popular Bolingo Hotels. I also worked with the late Vice President of Nigeria Dr Alex Ekwueme. These opportunities of working with great men came through the auspices of my in-law Mrs Jesse Balonwu and her husband who was also my mentor and godfather Chief Nnabuenyi Balonwu (SAN).

Given this interesting opportunity and exposure I had in PDP, I aspired to go to the Federal House of Representatives in Abuja to represent the good people of Onitsha North and South Federal Constituency but unfortunately, I lost at the primary election.

I had the ambition to go to the National Assembly to contribute my quota to the development of Nigeria in general and to the development of the commercial city of Onitsha in particular but my ambition couldn’t see the light of day because something went wrong somewhere. Some elements in the party ganged up against me on the grounds that I am not an indigene of Onitsha and therefore I should be dropped for Onitsha indigene. So they denied me the ticket of the PDP for the Federal House of Representatives election in 1999. I was provoked, annoyed and totally discouraged about politics. However I learnt my lesson that politics can either make or mar you. I also learnt that in most cases, it is not the best candidate that wins the party primary and the main election too. Really, I was disappointed because I was the best candidate for the election as far as the PDP was concerned and for the fact that I was not fielded as the flag bearer of the party even as the best candidate, PDP lost the election to the defunct All People’s Party (APP) which later became All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP).

Nemesis caught with PDP and they lost the election to less popular party then.

After losing the PDP ticket, what next did you do? Did you stick out your neck for PDP, as a faithful party man or did you abandon the party like many politicians did and or do?

No, while nursing the hurt that I suffered in PDP, I didn’t give up on politics and politicking. I switched over to All Progressives

•Ojukwu Grand Alliance (APGA) when the party was formed because of the ideology and manifesto of the party. Though I wasn’t part of the people that created both the ideology and the manifesto of the party, I was impressed with APGA’s pro-Igbo ideology and manifesto. I doff my cap for the founding fathers of APGA. I doff my cap for Chekwas Okorie, alias Ojozi Ndigbo. I doff my cap in nostalgic memory for the late Biafran leader and Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwu Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the man who will never die in the minds of his people. I doff my cap for former governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi who, along with Ojukwu, moved APGA on a fast lane to win the first governorship seat as a political party in 2003 and took APGA to the Promised Land by showcasing what Nigerians were yearning for in governance. I also doff my cap for the only Senator of APGA extraction Senator Victor Umeh, a beneficiary of the APGA project and all those politicians who have invariably contributed in several ways to move APGA forward. Spe-

•Rochas Okorocha cifically people like Ojukwu, Chekwas, PeterObi and Umeh are heroes of democracy in Igbo land and they deserve special place in our democratic journey.

In APGA, I worked as a legal adviser and again I contested State House of Assembly for the seat of Ideato North State Constituency and lost to PDP. PDP muzzled me out of the race to the State House of Assembly by fire by force. I won the election but they thwarted the result in favour of the PDP; I have the result sheet and everything showing that I won but they refused to concede victory to me. After that, I came back to my Chambers and began to reminiscent on politics.

As a victim of politics of indigene and nonindigenes in Onitsha in those days, what do you think could be done to effectively deal with it because it is still creating problems in political circles?

Philosophers have observed that man born free is everywhere in chain. In Nigeria,

people are politically in chain following the issue of indigenes and or non-indigenes.

The 1979 Constitution as well as 1999 Constitution as amended are supposed to have measures to deal with the problem but, unfortunately, they don’t. So, as a lawyer, it is my earnest wish that the National Assembly should enact and promulgate laws and policies that are good enough to address the issue once and for all. People should be allowed to participate in politics the way they participate in business outside their homeland. People are free to do business, go to school, build houses, get married and have children outside their homeland but when it comes to politics of contesting election, some elements will suddenly remember that you are not an indigene. That is not acceptable because such is a huge sign that we are still backward politically. People should be allowed to contest election outside their native lands the way they are allowed to do business, go to school, build houses, get married and have children outside their na-

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

BOLD & BLUNT the case, am sure APGA couldn’t have produced a governor in Anambra even at this moment.

Secondly, as governor, Obi preformed wonderfully well and his performance made APGA very much acceptable to the good people of Anambra State. Obi was the key to the progress of APGA as a political party.

Obi used everything he has, his connections, his business acumen and sagacity to give Anambra best governance ever under the platform of APGA and that made the party strong in the State. No sane person can take that away from Mr. Obi.

•Peter Obi

Critics are wondering why Obi and Umeh could not move APGA outside Anambra State.

The issue is not about Obi and Umeh; it is about politicians accepting APGA as a platform to do politics and politicking. During the 2003 election, there was a committee set up by the leadership APGA to persuade the governors of the South East to use the platform of APGA to contest election in 2003 but all of them refused. Governor Clement Mbadinuju of Anambra State may be regretting not accepting the APGA overtures.

When it was clear that PDP would not give Mbadinuju the ticket to seek re-election in office, Mbadinuju was advised to embrace APGA and invest in the party but he refused because he was looking for an already-made party. He ended up pitching his tent with Alliance for Democracy (AD) and failed to retain the governorship seat under AD. So, the progress of APGA depends on politicians. From what APGA is doing in Anambra State, it is clear that the party is a good and great party, so let politicians embrace the party, invest in it and use the platform of the party to contest election so that the party could replicate what it is doing in Anambra at Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo State respectively. In Imo State particularly, the situation is ripe for APGA to reclaim the State and it is my earnest wish that the candidate of APGA will be declared winner of the governorship election in 2019 in Imo State.

A governor is a governor regardless of the party. There is nothing different between an APC governor and PDP or AD governor and so on. The difference between governors is performance. APGA has a well thought-out ideology and manifesto and what is happening in Anambra State under APGA shows that the party means business of good leadership for the people.

•Chekwas Okorie

Are you now asking politicians in APC, PDP and others from the South East in particular to defect to APGA? It is not about defecting. When you talk about defection, your are referring to the legislators in the State House of Assembly or National Assembly leaving one party for another. It is about people accepting APGA and investing in it as a platform to contest election on. As I said, a governor is a governor regardless of his political party. A Senator is a Senator regardless of his political party. A Rep is a Rep regardless of his political party and so on, so why can’t they embrace APGA, invest in it and use it to play politics? Why? No reason, by my own judgement.

•Chris Ngige

•Chinweoke Mbadinuju

tive lands.

How would you assess the progress of the APGA project considering that the party has largely failed to make inroad outside Anambra State?

As I said earlier, I have special tribute to Chekwas Okorie, the late Ikemba Nnewi and Peter Obi for their efforts and contributions for APGA. Peter Obi in particular aided the progress APGA in many ways and ensured the survival of the party. I give you one or two examples of the impact of Obi on APGA. After the governorship election in 2003, Peter went to court to challenge the victory of Dr Chris Ngige of the PDP who was declared winner of the election. Somehow along the line, the leaders and other stalwarts of APGA, including myself, decided that since Ngige was doing well, he should be allowed to continue in office. Really, Ngige, unlike

I doff my cap for the founding fathers of APGA. I doff my cap for Chekwas Okorie, alias Ojozi Ndigbo. I doff my cap in nostalgic memory for the late Biafran leader and Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwu Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the man who will never die in the minds of his people. his immediate predecessor, was doing well but his own party, the PDP was fighting him from the back, left, right and centre. On this note that Nigige was doing well, the leadership of APGA decided to withdraw APGA from the case filed at the election tribunal.

APGA as a party pulled out of the case but Peter Obi refused to withdraw from the case and eventually at the end of the day, the Court of Appeal gave judgment in his favour.

So, based on that judgment, Obi became the saviour of APGA because if Ngige had won

In next year’s general election, where would you like the Igbo people to pitch their tent? In APC, PDP, APGA, SDP or Obasanjo’s Third Force with ADC? Ndigbo should focus on capacity-building at home. Let us be stronger at home to the extent that we have a bloc force courtesy of a bloc vote for bargaining power. Let us, for goodness sake, embrace APGA and build on it for bargaining power. That is where I want Ndigbo to pitch their tent.

Buhari for second term; is it worth it?

It is not worth it. What did he achieve in his first term to deserve a second term? In his first term, we have seen security, the economy and the Naira crash. We have seen unemployment balloon; his so-called fight against corruption also crashed. Everything about governance crashed in his first term, so what is he coming to do in his second term? To me, the answer is nothing.

Do you have any ambition for 2019?

My political ambition is to see Nigeria as a country in good hands. And to see Ndigbo form a strong political bloc under APGA and use the bloc to negotiate for better political deal at the centre.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

INTERVIEW

Bozimo to Buhari: Hand over to a younger person before 2019 election Alaowei Broderick Bozimo, Elder Statesman and former minister of Police Affairs in this interview, advises President Muhammadu Buhari to step aside and let the younger generation take over from him. Bozimo, an Ijaw Opinion leader and member of PANDEF, also asked the federal government to intensify effort at getting oil companies to relocate their headquarters to the Niger Delta region. He spoke with EMMANUEL OGOIGBE in Warri What do you have to say about President Buhari and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who are presently at each other’s throat?

I believe that President Buhari, a very prominent Nigerian has really played very critical role in the uplift of this country. You see, it is always better to bow out when the ovation is loudest. He should not rubbish his brilliant and unequalled career that he worked so hard to build. But, people pushing him to recontest are not doing him any favour. We had of this same issue with Dr. Goodluck Jonathan before. I can only say that it is still not too late, especially now that he signed a bill of ‘Not too young to contest”. If people like him should hand over to a younger and brilliant person, I will applaud it; so let him borrow a leaf from former President Jonathan’s gesture and step aside because the truth of the matter is that nothing is there that we are fighting about; moreover, President Buhari has done his best. As the military Head of state he tried his best and now, he has been able to fight corruption to the barest minimum and he is doing it as best as he could, although some Nigerians believe that he is too harsh and the corruption crusade is selective, but he started something; so, he cannot do everything all by himself; he cannot say because he is there he will fight corruption throughout his life. In fact, biologically, it is not possible for him; he should allow younger generation to take over from him and in the future people will remember that it was in Buhari’s time that corruption was fought frontally.

Like we remember the late President Musa Yar’Adua that the Amnesty programme was his brainchild. I think that it is safer for him to hand over to a younger generation; there is still time for him to do this before 2019 general elections. In this country, we cannot afford to rock the boat; Nigeria should be in peace now.

We should not forget too that Mr. President is not too healthy apart from age. I will advise him at this point in time that he should honourably step aside and we will applaud him.

What is your reaction to your friend, Chief Obasanjo forming a political party?

No, I don’t believe that my friend, Chief Obasanjo is forming a political party. All he is saying is that we need a new body that will collapse into a political party. Remember that Chief Obasanjo is an elder statesman and if you know him very well, you will know that he is fanatically committed to the Nigerian project. He has always been there for the prospect of the nation called Nigeria. He is always strategizing and he does not see himself as a Yoruba man, Hausa man, Igbo man etc; in short, he is a detribalized Nigerian. He

believes that we should work together to keep Nigeria strong and united.

Democracy Day 2018 coincided with President Muhammadu Buhari’s third year in office; what is your impression about the present government?

First of all, we thank God that the nation has remained one and, today we are celebrating Buhari’s third year in office; we have cause to be grateful to God Almighty. However, I will like to start with my own government, I mean Delta State.

I am very happy with the performance of Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, who is performing very well. The young man is focused and he knows what he is doing; he is very focused.

What can you say about the performance of President Buhari?

However, I don’t think the performance of the Federal Government has come as a surprise to discerning Nigerians. President Buhari certainly means well for this country, but you cannot perform well unless you are so equipped to do wonders. I think his performance has not been so effective, especially in ensuring the security of Nigerians; in fact, he is falling short of what we had expected from him; more so, when he is a retired military general, we expect by now he would have arrested the un-wanton killings of Nigerians in the Nort-East and the country as a whole.

It is very sad that even in some parts of Delta State, we have evil characters coming to kill people, rob and rape women.

This is totally unacceptable. In view of this, we appeal to Mr. President to do something urgently and unless that happens, I do not see how APC can return to government in 2019. So, that is my own comment for now but this is the time to be prayerful. I suggest that all tiers of government, starting from local, State and federal governments, put their acts together to ensure that Nigerians remain united.

I am about 80 years old; I don’t pray that all the efforts we have been making to come to nothing and it will be sad if we don’t have anything to bequeath to our children. I can see that in the next generation our youths will be very smart, taking the bull by the horn and ensuring that things are put in their proper perspective.

So we look forward to our government putting in place plans to hand over the next generation to our vibrant youths, otherwise, we will be so sad and I don’t see how we can explain to our Creator when He asks us to explain what have we done for our people and we have nothing to show for it.

What is your reaction to the federal government’s plans to create cattle colonies across the country?

•Alaowei Broderick Bozimo

Well, I have already reacted to that and I believe it is a non-issue. For instance, Buhari himself has a farm; Speaker House of Representatives Hon. Yakubu Dogara also has a farm. Left to me, I would say it would be a lot better If I one keeps his farm or cattle rearing in his own area.

But, for those who eat meat because for me I no longer eat beef, I think it will be better if they can have their own area where they rear cattle and make sure that they produce healthy and quality beef safe enough for consumption.

Sir, the Maritime University seems to have taken off. What is your own take on this?

We thank God for everything and I have confidence that Gbaramatu people, in fact, the Ijaw, Urhobo, Itsekiri-- all of us in the Niger Delta--and Nigerians in general and others from other African nations should be part of the success story.

I think that it is a very welcome development and for that, I must congratulate the federal government for bowing to the pressures that were mounted by PANDEF and other interest groups, leading to the success story. As a matter of fact, that is the only thing the federal government has done for this area that

produces oil, the nation’s source of revenue. In spite the 16-point agenda that was submitted to the federal government in ASO Villa Abuja, we are happy about the latest development, although Maritime University is one of the 16-point agenda PANDEF submitted to the Vice President, Prefessor Yemi Osinbanjo. Besides, the Vice President had earlier directed all the oil companies to relocate their headquarters to the Niger Delta region but, sadly, up till now nothing has been done. For instance, look at Warri a beautiful and thriving oil city; in fact nothing happens in Nigeria without mentioning Warri, yet no development. We are totally grounded; imagine seaports not functioning, Shell Petroleum Development Company had since relocated out of Warri. There are beautiful buildings crying to be used by companies, it is a pity.

However, I believe the President did not reinforce the directives of the relocation of oil company headquarters to Warri; if they do that the tension here will be less. I am appealing to both Mr. President and his Vice to reinforce that directive. It will be better especially now that we are approaching election period; they should try to do it.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

TRIBUTES

Tributes as Ezinne Esther Ugwu-Oju (Nee Didigu) is buried

•Senator Chukwuka Utazi (c) and the DG, South East Governors’ Forum, Prof. Simon Ortuanya (L) when they called on Sir Emeka Ugwu-Oju at his residence after the outing Mass.

From CHUKS EZE, Enugu

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here is no fulfilling and rewarding life for a woman who had toiled so hard to raise nine offspring to blossom into very established influential folks than for God to allow her the rare privilege of being buried by all her children. That was the divine lot of Ezinne Esther Olibe, Nee Didigu, who was lowered to mother earth on Thursday, May 31, 2018, at her home, Amogu Aku, in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State.

People attended the ceremony from various locations within and outside the country, with many friends turning back to repeat the next day because the funeral venue was overcrowded.

Ezinne died aged 84. Her funeral was attended by friends and well-wishers from all walks of life, who joined the Ugwu-Ojus, including the President of South East, South South Professionals and Chairman of Nigerian Entrepreneurs Summit and Honours (NESH), Emeka Ugwu-Oju, to celebrate a “well-spent life” of a dogged merchant and extraordinary entrepreneur, who was also described by many people as jack of all trades and master of all.

Leading the pack was the Catholic Bishop of Nsukka Diocese, Most Rev. Godfrey Onah, who also headed the cream of members of the clergy in attendance, the religious and faithful to bid Ezinne farewell with an episcopal Holy Mass.

The solemn event also drew various tributes from high-profile dignitaries, including the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo; governors of the five South East States and their deputies; governments of Bayelsa and Edo States; DSP Ike Ekweremadu; Senators Chukwuka Utazi, Mao Ohuabunwa, Enyinnaya Abaribe, Anyim Pius Anyim, Liyel Imoke: Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Chief Ayo Adesanya and former Deputy Speaker of the House of representatives, Chief Emeka Ihedioha. There were also tributes from national and state headquarters of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) respectively.

From the corporate world were Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings and UBA; Chief Oba Otudeko, Chairman of Flower Mills of Nigeria; FIRS, Genesis Group Nigeria; the Central Bank of Nigeria; Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce; Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority; Federal Ministers Ibe Kachikwu of Petroleum Resources; Okechukwu Enelama of Industry Trade and Investment; Dr. Chris Ngige of Labour and Employment; and Chairman of Ship Owners Forum, Lady Margaret Orakwusi, among many others.

In his condolence letter to the UgwuOju’s, which was addressed to the NESH

•Sir Emeka Ugwu-Oju (in glasses and clutching an envelope) leads the Ugwu-Ojus to a special offering during the outing Mass after the funeral of their late mother, Ezinne Esther Olibe Ugwu-Oju (Nee Didigu), at St. Patrick Catholic Church, Amogu Aku in Igbo-.Etiti Local Government Area, Enugu.

Creme de la creme rally at Emeka Ugwu-Oju, Lagos businessman’s mother’s burial boss, the Vice President prayed God to comfort Emeka and his entire family over the loss of their mother.

Osinbajo, Emeka’s long-time close associate, The Oracle Today gathered, wrote, in part: “Please accept my sincere condolences. We must, nonetheless, praise God for her life and the legacy she left in you, (Emeka), in particular, resulting in your sterling contributions to business and society.”

For Bishop Onah, who also condoled with the bereaved family on behalf of the Nsukka Diocesan clergy, religious and the lay faithful, described the deceased as an amiable, adorable and admirable mother whose only interest was providing services to humanity in a silent manner.

According to the bishop’s condolence letter, which was personally endorsed by him, the late Ezinne Esther was an exceptional woman who was not only loving and caring to her family alone but also to everyone that was around her or came across her.

“She was a leader, an astounding organiser and, above all, a committed Christian to the core, marked by the evangelical qualities of humility, sincerity and simplicity”. While pointing out that her death had created an apparent vacuum in the UgwuOju family and the society at large, Bishop Onah prayed God to receive her soul in His eternal bosom and comfort the family, as well.

On his part, Director-General of South East Governors’ Forum (SEGF), Prof. Simon Ortuanya described the death of Ezinne Esther Ugwu-Oju as a huge loss to the family, Aku community, Igbo-Etiti Council Area and Enugu State in general.

He stressed that the woman was a devout Christian who devoted her life to the service of God and humanity, and asked God to receive her soul and give the family the grace to cope with the vacuum that her exit has created.

Similarly, Enugu State governor, Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi described the late UgwuOju as a great indigene of the state who would be remembered for her sterling service to the society.

Ezinne Ugwu-Oju, he said, was a commu-

nity leader, devout Christian and dedicated mother.

The governor who also attended the funeral with a large delegation, expressed his unreserved commiseration to the family, adding that, “we are grateful to Good for her long sojourn on this mortal plane.”

On his part, Senator Ekweremadu, who said he received the news of Esther’s death with sadness, urged the family to “take solace in the fact that she led a pious life of selfless service to humanity and has bequeathed creditable legacies as well as worthy offspring to keep her page alive in the pages of history.”

For Senator Utazi, who said he is both a family friend and an in-law to the UgwuOjus especially, Emeka, the late Ezinne contributed so much to the society in terms of training people around her and those that came into contact with her with one affliction or the other.

He added that through her strong moral stance, Ezinne also raised her children to become accomplished members of the society, like herself.

“Mama lived a full and fulfilled life; she lived a life of philanthropy – life dedicated to the service of humanity, especially the less privileged,” Utazi who represents Enugu North (Ugwu-Oju’s constituency) in the Red Chamber, said, pointing out that she was a trailblazer in haulage business and everything that she ventured into during her active days, and in the society generally.

Ezinne’s brother, Pastor Caj Didigu of Eden Christian Ministries, Maryland, USA, also eulogised her late sister, Esther, describing her as a rallying point. Caj is the most senior surviving children of the Didigus of Mkpologu, a neighbouring town to Aku, but under Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of the State.

It was gathered that Didigu, Esther’s father was once prided as the wealthiest man in their entire locality. But Pastor Caj also told The Oracle Today, that her late sister (Esther) was also exceptional from early age, adding that she took after their late father, a versatile successful merchant,

who like Esther later did, traded in all kinds of goods, as diverse as whatever people needed at the time.

“We learnt from sister Esther, how to render selfless service to humanity; how to be hardworking, forthright, sincere and how to reject any form of gratification for favour done to others,” he said.

And for Emeka Ugwu-Oju, her late mother was exceptional in every wise, including being a very intelligent breed despite her poor literacy level. According to him, she was so energetic that she was able to get so many things done at the same time. She was jack of all trades, who became a master in virtually everything that she ventured in.

Also describing her late mother as a workaholic, the NESH chief, said that she was able to juggle while running dealership and supply contracts for the defunct corporate organisations such as NIGERCEM; Nigeria Prisons Service, Nigeria Breweries, and the University of Nigeria, among other corporate institutions and agencies, while still keeping the home front intact, at the same time.

He also disclosed that the traits of hard work, forthrightness and resilience, which he exuded daily at work and other engagements were learned from Ezinne, his late mother, such that friends usually ask where he got his energy from.

“She was both successful in her business and family life, as well as in being over-generous with her time and resources. Growing up, there was never a time that we had less than 20 people living with us, and most of them were not even immediate relations. However, continued stay was on the condition that you must not be lazy,” he said.

According to verified records, Ezinne Esther Olibe Ugwu-Oju (Nee Didigu), who died at 84, was born in 1934, married into the Ugwu-Oju family by her husband, the late husband, Felix Ugwu-Oju, on August 22, 1948.

Left to mourn her are nine children, 23 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren, among others.

14

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Special Feature

•Col Achuzia

By Basil Chiji Okafor

O

n the 31st of March 1968, dark clouds hovered over what was left of a tiny, besieged Biafran territory. The Biafran troops, aware of the impending doom that stared them in the face, looked on in gloom and confusion, but in one last, desperate act of bravery and patriotism, still held their ground. Unable to stand the intimidating spectacle of the approaching war machine of the Nigerian Army some, however, turned tail.

Earlier, on the 4th of October, 1967, the 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army, under the command of Lt.-Col. Murtala Mohammed, after repeated, failed attempts to take Onitsha, resorted to bombarding the city from the Asaba end of the Niger Bridge for eight long days before a 10-boat flotilla finally crossed the river and entered Onitsha.

Having once gained entry into the city, nevertheless, rather than pursue the retreating Biafran forces, the Nigerian troops resorted to looting the famous Onitsha Main Market, finally burning the edifice to the ground. That break gave the Biafrans the time they needed to regroup. The 11th and 18th Battalions, under the commands of then, Major Joe Achuzia and Colonel Assam Nsudoh, respectively, quickly mobilised a two-pronged attack on Onitsha and, in a pincer operation, either captured, or killed off most of the occupying Nigerian forces.

Fast-forward, five months to Abagana!

A huge armada of the 2nd Division of the Nigerian Army: six thousand men, under arms; 106 vehicles, including tanks and other armoured vehicles; assorted trucks and jeeps; fuel tankers and stores, all under the command of the same Lt.-Col. Murtala Mohammed, snaked its way up the hill, in the direction of St. Anthony’s Catholic Church, Abagana. It was indeed an intimidating sight.

Meanwhile, Colonel Achuzia, having served in the Onitsha sector of the war and thus, fully aware of the 2nd Division’s repeated failures at Onitsha, only anticipated Murtala Mohammed’s next move.

He was already a veteran of several successful battles in various sectors of the war and thusly, enjoyed the Commanderin-Chief’s confidence: “I don’t care if he ate with his feet, but he won battles,” said Ojukwu, when confronted with the many accusations leveled against Achuzia, by his detractors.

At the point of the Abagana siege, Achuzia had become something of a roving commander and was one of the very few who had the privilege of a direct, secret telephone communication with the leader, wherever he was. A signal from the Commander-in-Chief, had reached him at the Nsukka sector of the war, where he had since been moved, to proceed to

•Chukwuemeka-Odumegwu-Ojukwu

•Murtala Mohammed

•Gen Yakubu Gowon

Story of Col Achuzia, Biafra’s ultimate warrior

Abagana, immediately. At Abagana, itself, most of the senior officers had all but disappeared and, from their ranks, remained only Colonel Chude Sokei.

The senior officers disagreed totally with what they considered Achuzia’s unorthodox planning of that operation, but Chude Sokei remained behind. How could a man who was not even in the Nigerian Army with them, dictate to Sandhurst-trained officers like themselves, what to do, in the heat of battle? But unknown to them, Achuzia, a British-trained engineer, was a veteran of the Korean War and had also seen action with the British forces during the occupation of Palestine.

Said Achuzia, of the day of the Abagana Ambush: “Chude Sokei said he wanted to stay behind to see how my strategy was going to succeed. My only regret was that he did not live to see the success and the end of that battle.”

As the convoy lumbered up the snaky route, uphill, Col. Achuzia took one of his mortar men and went up the belfry of the church. The nervous subaltern crouched with him up in the tower that served as their sentry point, as they watched the Nigerian convoy approach and began to roll by. Suddenly, Achuzia ordered him to fire.

His strategy in letting the troops pass, first, lay in the fact that he knew their stores were coming right behind them. And troops in battle, without their stores and reinforcements, were virtually as good as a no force, at all.

Rather fortuitously, for the Biafrans, the rocket landed, smack, on a tanker, laden with petrol! The stupendous explosions that followed could be heard as far afield, as Nnewi and its environs. And so, did the resultant towering inferno, last for days, on end. Of the 6,000 men on that mission estimates, even by independent international sources and journalists in Biafra, such as Frederick Forsythe, put the casualty figures at between 5,800 and 5,900 men.

In addition, 350 tons of the Nigerian Army equipment were either captured, or destroyed and Murtala, himself, one of the very few survivors of that battle, escaped by the skin of his teeth, having been coptered out of the scene of the carnage. On his return to the rear, he was promptly relieved of his command by Gowon and he never again commanded a division.

Although credit for who actually gave

the command for the firing of that fatal rocket, has gone from some quarters to Major Jonathan Uchendu, every source universally agrees that Colonel Achuzia, in his capacity as the Commanding Officer of Uchendu’s unit, actually, meticulously planned the Abagana ambush. However, it is not unlikely that the envy his repeated successes in the various battlefields drew from his fellow officers, coupled with his closeness to Ojukwu, conspired to give the proverbial dog a bad name, in order to hang it. Indeed, this was a huge part of what fueled the Achuzia legend, in which many claimed he needlessly wasted troops during what they termed his “bouts of madness”.

However, whatever was the case, the following is a war diary of Colonel Joseph Achuzia, meticulously extracted from the lips of the eccentric and more often than not, taciturn military tactician and Biafran War hero. The colonel very recently passed away, just before he turned 90 and was interred just weeks back. This is the story of Achuzia, by the legend, himself: BCO: Colonel, sir, rather ironically, it seemed like you were intensely disliked, if not altogether, hated, by not a few people in the Biafra, that you fought so hard for. Yet, despite this general attitude, you were endorsed by Ojukwu, himself, as one of his best commanders and a man who won battles. What was the magic, what was your secret for winning battles, during the Biafra War? ACHUZIA: Well, I would consider what you call the magic of winning battles as the ability to command the respect of your troops and infuse in them, the sense of capability.

Now, when you talk about battles, you mean, in other words, soldiering, right?

BCO: Yes, sir…

Soldiering, the military, like every other discipline, is a profession and an art. Just like you go to school to learn to become a lawyer, or a doctor, or an engineer, or whatever profession, so also must you learn soldiering, to become a soldier.

BCO: You were like a soldier’s soldier, so what was the difference between you and the others?

ACHUZIA: The difference, again, if you join an army, you are trained. But if you haven’t had the experience of combat activities, in open battle [in war] then, you

haven’t really started soldiering. Once you have participated in actual combat, the difference would always show, when situations that require actual combat experience, occur. I have the experience. I experienced battle in Korea, I also experienced battle in Palestine, during the occupation of the British forces and I would say that most of my training was in the battlefield.

BCO: But there was always this conflict: you came into the Biafran Army through the militia and the other senior officers who often let it be known that they were Sandhurst graduates, saw you as something of a misfit and a usurper…

ACHUZIA: Yes, I was aware of it and Ojukwu was also aware of it. Indeed, most of those officers that were left after the pogrom were officers that came over from the Nigerian Army. I was not from the Nigerian Army. I was in the British Army, with the Lancashire fusiliers, where I was recruited immediately after I finished my education…

BCO: (Cuts in) I understand you’re an engineer by profession…

ACHUZIA: That’s right.

BCO: How did you connect with the military?

ACHUZIA: You see, I was born in Lagos at a time, Lagos was a British colony and everybody from the British colony, was a British subject. Arriving in Britain, once you were a British subject and 18 years of age – and this was immediately after the end of World War II – you had to do National Service.

BCO: Now, back to our own war, how would you describe Ojukwu, the man and your relationship with him?

ACHUZIA: Like I said in my tribute to him, he was an icon, a legendary figure and friend that was like a brother. We first met in Kings College, Lagos, in the early 1940s and took to each other. I played football, but he was somebody who participated in virtually every sporting activity. When we left Kings College, we both arrived England almost at the same time. He went to Eton and I went to South-East London

•See more on www.oraclenews.ng

15

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Extra Ayade flags off C/River universal health insurance

By VICTOR NZE

I

n a bid to ensure a universal health coverage for all citizens, Cross River State governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, yesterday launched the state comprehensive health insurance scheme, christened Ayadecare.

The scheme which also targets the vulnerable as well as the zero income earners in the state got N250 million as seed fund from Governor Ayade.

While the governor donated N200 million on behalf of the state, the sum of N50 million was on behalf of Ayade and his family.

Speaking at the U. J. Esuene Stadium, venue of the launch, the governor said the May 28 launch, a day set aside to celebrate the Nigerian children was deliberate as it sought to give priority to children and women who are the vulnerable in the society “The state will invest heavily in the scheme to ensure quality and affordable health care services for our people”, Ayade said, while advocating for Federal Government support to ensure the success of the programme in the state.

Justifying the launch of the scheme, the Governor said “the scheme is a clear indication that the state is in the right path to ensuring prosperity and better health services for the people. Our children must have access to the scheme and the launch of the programme on Children’s Day is to celebrate the children who are leaders of tomorrow. “ Ayade, while commending the lawmakers from both the National and State House of Assembly for offering to subscribe for 500 persons in each of their political wards, noted that the scheme will take care of the very poor in the society.

Also speaking, the Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly, Hon. John Gaul Lebo, commended Ayade for the scheme, noting that with the launch, the governor had shown a strong commitment to a better health care in the state.

The speaker assured the governor of continuous legislative support for the scheme in the state.

In his remarks, Special Adviser on Insurance, Chief Godwin Iyala, commended Governor Ayade for the initiative, and disclosed that the scheme was designed to put more money in the pockets of Cross Riverians.

According to Iyala, an average family in Cross River spends at least N25,000 monthly on health and that by “this scheme, we are determined to ensure health governance. It is to ensure affordable and quality healthcare. Cross Riverians are very happy with the Governor. The universal health care is now at our door steps and we will ensure it succeeds.”

Director-General of the state Primary Healthcare Agency, Dr. Betta Edu said Ayade has taken measures with the launch of the scheme to improve the health care of Cross Riverians According to her, “less than five percent of Cross Riverians have access to health care. It will enhance quality and affordable healthcare” A representative of the National Health Insurance Scheme, commended the Governor for the scheme, noting that it was to provide safety net for the needy in the society and guarantee improved health.

He assured the state of the Federal Government’s support to ensure the success of the programme.

Commissioner for Health, Dr. Inyang Asibong said the launch of the scheme was in fulfillment of the governor’s deep vision for healthcare in Cross River State.

Anambra PHCs to be renovated, re-equipped, expanded - Commissioner

By IBE NWACHUKWU

A

nambra state government has reiterated its determination to renovate, re-equip and expand all Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in the state, as part of its efforts to achieve health for all by the year 2020.

The state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Josephat Akabuike who disclosed this during his official to Primary Health Centre, Ogwu-Ikpele in Ogbaru Local Government Area of the state, emphasized that the state government would start the expansion project from the Ogwu-Ikpele Health centre by building a residential places for doctors, Nurses, recreation center among others.

Akabuike further disclosed that henceforth, he would direct doctors and other medical experts from the

state ministry of health to be visiting the health center from time to time, adding that government would acquire about two or three more plots of land for the expansion pprogramme.

The Commissioner who also inspected other state and Local Government initiated projects in the area, including schools, water scheme, N20 million choose-your community project initiative and Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, expressed concern that the primary health centre had at present remained malfunctional.

He however commended the Local Government Chairman, Hon. Arinzechukwu Awogu for his efforts so far initiating the visit shortly on assumption of office and assured him that the state government would come to their rescue.

According to him, “I don’t believe in long story but in practical. Ogwuikpele needs help from the government because they are part and parcel of us. But the community also needs to resolve their differences for peace to reign, and to create enabling environment for the government to come in and develop their community” Earlier, the council boss, Awogu had commended Akabuike for honouring his request to visit the OgwuIkpele primary Health centre, since the situation truly needs urgent intervention from the government because according to him, the issue of health, if put in a proper shape, would be of immense benefit to all and sundry especially those in rural Community like OgwuIkpele.

According to Hon. Awogu, “if the healthcare is repositioned to a bet-

ter condition, it would go a long way in enabling the incumbent Obiano administration to achieve required standard in primary Healthcare delivery.

In his remarks, the Councillor representing Ogwu-Ikpele Community, Hon. Dochie Okwuwa, expressed optimism that the visit by Health Commissioner Dr. Akabuike and Ogbaru Local Government, Chairman, Hon. Awogu to his community would surely bring a desired change not necessarily on health sector alone, but on other areas like schools, roads, PG’S election .

Other personalities at the visit include LG. Vice Chairman, Hon Osigwe Onyebuchi ,Local Government.

Secretary, Hon. Ifechukwu Aniegboka, two SSA to the Governor Engr.

Okey Udeze, Hon. Hypolite Obi and APGA members among others.

Guard against arrogance -Okowa charges office holders

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

D

•Senate Minority Leader and former Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Sen. Godswill Akpabio cutting the tape to inaugurate a Fertilizer Blending Factory in Abak

Udeachara promises to push for creation of Erosion Commission

By BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia

A

n aspirant to the House of Representatives for Isuikwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency in Abia State, Chief Jude Udeachara, has promised to push for the creation of a Commission for Erosion Control by the federal government, if he is elected.

Udeachara, a Special Adviser to Abia State Governor on Trade and Commerce, made this known last Sunday at his Amaokwe Uturu country home in Isuikwuato local government area when he hosted members of Ward 7 (Achara-Mbaugwu) to formally inform them of his intention to contest for Isuikwuato/ Umunneochi Federal Constituency seat in the House of Representaives on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

According to Udeachara, erosion menace was not receiving adequate attention in the country, insisting that setting up a Commission specifically charged with controlling erosion and other environmental challenges would save many communities nation-wide from disap-

pearing from the face of the earth.

He noted that erosion constituted a major environmental challenge in Isuikwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency and portends great danger for the people.

“As a House of Representatives member, I will ensure that I will get a commission for Erosion in Nigeria, just like you have Niger Delta Development Commission.

“We should have a federal commission for erosion control so that special budgets and allocations can be made for checking environmental devastation and erosion, otherwise one day, we will be in our homes and our houses will go under the earth.

I will move for the creation of that commission,” he promised.

He lamented that the federal constituency has the largest deposit of granite in Nigeria but lacked asphalted roads.

“There are no asphalted roads in Uturu, Isuikwuato and in so many places in Umunneochi and yet, Isuikwuato and Umunneochi local governments have the mother deposit of granites in Nigeria.

“I will make it a point of duty that

every year, we must have in our national and state budgets, road projects in our federal constituency because we supply stones that are used in building roads all over Nigeria,” he added.

The aspirant was bitter that many parts of the federal constituency lacked electricity and assured that he would work assiduously to remedy the situation, adding that as a businessman, he would collaborate with multi-national companies to develop and industrialise the Federal Constituency and bring about “employment, development and empowerment.”

Party stalwarts, including Chief Matthias Ogbulubi and Chief Sunday Ike, former chairmen of PDP in Isuikwuato and Umunneochi local governments respectively, Isuikwuato PDP Woman leader, Ugoeze Ngozi Osuoha, Chief Michael Emmanuel and Isuikwuato Coordinator of Positive Forum, Ndubuisi Ukeje, in their remarks, pledged their support for Udeachara, assuring him that PDP faithful in the federal constituency would work for the actualization of his ambition.

elta State Governor, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa has urged those in position of authority to guard against arrogance and be careful about who they take advise from.

Okowa made the call on Sunday at the 6th synod of the Ika Diocese of the Anglican Communion held at the Cathedral Church of St. John, Agbor, Ika South local government area of Delta State.

“Those of us in leadership positions must guard against arrogance, people flatter us and in the end, we sideline those who will tell us the truth,” the governor said, adding, “ever leader must be careful of who they take advice from, listen to contrary views even when we do not like their guts.”

He commended the theme for the synod which is, ‘Finishing Strong,’ observing, “the principle of finishing strong runs across the Bible because, God wants us to finish strong and finish well., it is not about how you start but, how you finish.”

“As Christians, we must be strong and of good courage, it is all about our relationship with our Lord, Jesus Christ, with what is happening around us, it is time to unite, it is time for committing ourselves to prayers,” the Governor who was accompanied to the service by his wife, Dame Edith, and political office holders said.

Earlier in a sermon, Rt. Revd. Andrew Igenoza had said, “finishing strong is beyond the principal, it is spiritual, be ready to finish strong by being in the Lord.”

16

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Extra Wike rolls out seven new roads 2019: INEC unveils framework to integrate PLWDs at Amadi-Ama Community

T

he celebration of the outstanding developmental strides of Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike continued on Monday as the State Government rolled out seven new roads at Amadi-Ama community in Port Harcourt metropolis.

The seven new Internal Roads which have opened the densely populated Amadi-Ama Suburb were commissioned by the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.

Speaking during the commissioning ceremony at Amadi-Ama, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Ezenwo Wike said the roads were constructed in fulfilment of promises made to the people of the area .

He said: “When we came here for our campaigns, the Amadi-Ama people promised to support us.

They kept their own side of the bargain. These roads represent our commitment to the development of this community “.

The governor thanked the Amadi-Ama people for their support for the contractrors to deliver the roads in line with approved specifications.

He stated that the State Government is using high level companies to construct projects in the area .

Commissioning the seven new internal roads, Deputy Senate President , Senator Ike Ekweremadu said Governor Wike has redefined the governance process, reaching out to the electorate through projects.

He said that the Rivers State Governor will be re-elected on the premise of his performance, noting that all those ganging up against Governor Wike will fail woefully.

He noted that for two weeks Rivers State has been in the news for positive reasons, as daily commissioning of great projects have taken over the airwaves.

“I can see the feeling of satisfaction on the faces of the people.

When you get the opportunity to serve, we must serve the people to the best of our ability. Governor Wike is serving the good people of Rivers State.

“By this time next year, his mandate would have been renewed by the people of Rivers State. By the time he concludes his second term, Rivers State would have been improved beyond expectations “, Senator Ekweremadu said.

Rivers State Works Commissioner, Mr Dum Dekor said the roads were flagged off for construction on August 8, 2017 and delivered seven months laterthrough dedicated funding.

He said though the area is built up, the contractors applied the best professional standard.

There was a goodwill message by the spokesman for the contractors, Mr Robinson Ndioko.

Caretaker Committee Chairman of Port Harcourt City Local Government Area, Prince Amadi Oparaeli thanked the Rivers State Governor for his outstanding developmental strides and commitment to projects in the area.

By ANIEKAN ANIEKAN, Calabar

A

head of the next round of elections in the country, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has pledged to modify its processes to accommodate more persons living with disabilities (PLWDs) in the nations electoral processes.

This it hopes to achieve through expanding its framework on access and participation of people living with disabilities and also working with relevant stakeholders to bridge the gaps that hinder their participation in the electoral processes.

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),

Prof Mahmud Yakubu, stated this in Calabar during a one-day validation process on access and participation of persons with disability.

Professor Yakubu, who was represented by a National Commissioner, Dr Adekunle Ogunmola, said that over time, the commission has identified gaps that militate against the participation of disabled persons and have taken appropriate steps to mitigate these challenges.

“As a commission, we are committed now, more than ever to meaningfully uphold and incrementally improve the gains made in the advancement of the rights of PWDs to accessible and inclusive electoral process.

“It is important to note that this INEC Framework on Access and participation of PWDs in the electoral process is an internal work aimed towards strengthening the Commission as an institution that is inclusive in its human and financial resources as well as in its practice and process.

“This is another milestone in the commitment of the commission in expanding the electoral space in order to ensure that the right of all eligible Nigerians to vote and be voted for is guaranteed”, he said.

He disclosed that the commission is partnering with some Organisations like the Albino Foundation to get statistics of persons with disabilities and has begun a pilot scheme in

• Former Governor of Benue State, Mr. Gabriel Suswam (m) flanked by State Governor Udom Emmanuel, his Deputy, Mr. Moses Ekpo, Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon Onofiok Luke, cutting the tape to commission the Atan Offot Roads in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State in celebration of the third anniversary of Governor Emmanuel

Anambra community wants govt intervention to end kingship tussle

By OGE ONYEANUSI

T

he people of Ihiala in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State have appealed to the state governor, Chief Willie Obiano, to intervene and save the community from a looming bloodshed over the community’s royal stool.

The townfolk took to the streets and roads within the town, Monday, with placards calling on the governor to intervene in the tussles by parties over the vacant stool The protesters led by the Okpara of Nnebogbu, Nze Aloysius Oduenyi, displayed their placards and sand songs depicting anger, while also demanding a successor to the throne of the community.

Speaking during the peaceful protest, Nze Aloysius Oduenyi, Okpara of Nnebogbu, said that the Dioha Royal family whose turn and responsibility it is to select candidates for the royal throne did a thorough job before arriving at Thomas Obidiegwu as choice candidate; adding that any other person parading himself as Igwe-elect is an infiltrator and a trouble maker.

He said that the activities of the trouble makers have held the community to ransom and had hampered government from issuing Certificate of Recognition to their choice candidate, Thomas Obidiegwu; a development he said, left the royal stool unnecessarily vacant for a long time.

According to him, a guideline was laid down for the emergence of a king in Ihiala community. He said that the guideline is incorporated in documented evidence subsumed in two major documents viz: the Constitution and Code of Conduct of Ihiala as well as the Summary of Agreement of the seven sons of Dioha or their representatives.

He noted that the processes contained in the documents were strictly adhered to in the nomination, selection and presentation of Thomas Obidiegwu as their candidate. According to him, 18-man screening committee was set up to screen candidates for the throne after which the result was overwhelmingly victory for Thomas Obidiegwu.

“As if to corroborate the evidence”, he said, “a referendum/ plebiscite was conducted and again, Thomas Obidiegwu emerged.

“Three presentations were also made at the Nnebogbu level as a way of ratifying the choice candidate. One, the Okpara Nnebogbu made the presentation to the Okparas. Five Okparas were present at the first presentation. Second presentation was made to the custodial of the royal seal in the person of Sylvester Mbamali Anyigbo; and at that second presentation, five Okparas were also present.

“Finally, the Okpara of Elekechem, Nze Theophilus Ntomchuk-

wu, who went for a health trip abroad at the previous presentations returned to conduct his own selection process, and again, Thomas Obidiegwu won.

“From antecedence and precedence, it is the duty of Okpara Nnebogbu as leader of the royal family to present the Nnebogbu nominee to Ihiala town. These processes have already taken place as the Okpara had presented his nominee to the town on April 7, 2018 through the President-General of Ihiala Community, Barr. Jude Ngobili.

“Ihiala had since accepted the nominee of the Dioha Royal Family in the person of Thomas Obidiegwu for onward presentation to government. The community now awaits government action as regards issuing Certificate of Recognition to our candidate.

“Any other person claiming to be candidate of the Dioha Royal Family is an unknown entity. As far as Ihiala is concerned, we do not have two nominees for the royal throne.

Therefore, what we are doing today as a community is to drive our message home and claim our mandate through the peaceful protest”.

Some of the elders among the protesters were: Nze Festus Mmadukaejiaka, Nze Jeremiah Nnawolue, Christopher Ezeokonkwo, Nze Augustine Obinwa, Ichie Sir Emmanuel Ihenatuoha, among other elders.

Ekiti and Osun States. These people he said will be presented with materials from the Commission that will enable them to participate in the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in those states.

He said the process of developing the framework has been long and tortuous journey of consultations and meetings with various relevant stakeholders especially the Joint National Association of Disabled Persons and the process is consistent with the Electoral Act (2010) and the 1999 Constitution as amended.

Resident Electoral Commissioner of Cross River State, Dr Frankland Briyai, in his presentation, said the commission aims at reducing inequality and exclusion in the electioneering processes and the framework being worked on will go a long way in achieving this.

“This is consistent with the commission’s vision of reducing inequality and exclusion in the electoral process. It is worthy of note that the commission has made significant achievements in assisting PWDs by providing magnifying glasses for albinos, electoral information on Braille and so on during the 2017 Anambra Governorship elections and I believe that by the adoption of this operational framework today further guarantee the rights and privileges for PWDs can be achieved.

“The efforts of the commission will no doubt boost the confidence of over 25 million people living with disabilities in Nigeria and they will all come out and exercise their right which is not only about votes but contributing their national quota to National development through the building of a vibrant responsive democracy,” Briyai said.

Resident Electoral Commissioner of Akwa Ibom State, Mr Mike Igini, who participated alongside 18 other Resident Electoral Commissioners from across the country, said the system that is being worked on by INEC will guarantee to a large extent inclusiveness and equality in our elections.

“Come 2019 and beyond, every segment of the country eligible to vote should not be denied on account of challenges of disabilities.

Because every human being at one time or the other would have issues of limitation in ability in terms of age, where you would not be able to do anything. The system should be able to support you to exercise the full right of a citizen,” Igini said.

One of the participants and National President of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities in Nigeria (JONAPWD), Ekaette Judith Umoh, commended INEC for the initiative stressing that the challenges they face will be addressed.

She said the initiative by INEC is commendable because it is what they have been looking out for in the last couple of years. She said the political space in the country will be broadened to enable people living with disabilities to participate effectively in it.

According to her, Nigeria has signed and rectified the United Nations Convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and Article 29 of the convention speaks on their political participation and the framework will address the various barriers they face.

“We face a lot of barriers in participating in the electoral process.

There are various levels of barriers such as institutional, attitudinal, environmental and social barriers. So INEC has taken it upon themselves to address that. So with this INEC disability framework, al the barriers that would have stopped us from participating effectively is going to be addressed here,” she said.

17

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

BU$IN£SS •Energy •Finance

•Stock

•Insurance

Business

•Aviation

Financial inclusion: Race for agent banking heats up

NLNG working on solid market share P18 Energy

Kachikwu’s 3 years of refinery acrobatics P20 e-Platform

Why CBN’s proposed electronic transactions levy angers telecoms assocations P22 Travel

Buhari woos investors with ‘attractive investment incentives’ P26 Insurance

By SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

A

CBN EXCHANGE RATES JUNE 5TH, 2018 Currency

Buying(NGN)

Central (NGN) Selling(NGN)

US DOLLAR 305 POUNDS STERLING 408.456 EURO 358.2225 SWISS FRANC 310.18 YEN 2.7877 CFA 0.5235 WAUA 431.6645 YUAN/RENMINBI 47.6107 RIYAL 81.3268 SOUTH AFRICAN RAND 24.3231

305.5 306 409.1256 409.7952 358.8098 359.397 310.6885 311.197 2.7922 2.7968 0.5335 0.5435 432.3722 433.0798 47.6892 47.7677 81.4601 81.5935 24.363 24.4029

bill payment, cash services, ATMs and balance enquiries.

Providing ICT backbone to the loop is a financial inclusion solutions provider, Basic Information & Communication Systems (BICS), which also announced that it was also collaborating with NIPOST and Software Group to set up an agent banking network.

Through its network, the partners target to provide employment for over 10,000 young Nigerians and offer financial services to over 20 million underserved citizens within two to three years.

The emerging operating model opens a new market for money deposit banks which are increasingly looking to tap the potential of the retail market in the face of stiff competition for the corporate enclave.

“Banks need to be focused on giving consumers a means to interact with them,” Charles Kie, managing director of Ecobank Nigeria, is quoted in a report by Oxford

Business Group (OBG), one of the groups that track aid funded programmes in developing countries.

“The real conversation is not about banking penetration but about financial services availability for consumers,” the regional banker said.

The Oracle Today reports that agency banking has long been canvassed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as one of the commercial incentives available to banks in supporting policy strategies for government’s financial inclusion programme conceived to avail banking services to underserved rural populace.

Banks outsource the lean structure agent banking services on information technology infrastructure, using dedicated apps and IT based systems for speedy customer data generation, absorption and harmonization into main data base.

COMBINATION of policy and commercial incentives floated by government under its financial inclusion strategy has sparked a new race among commercial banks in the country to decentralise simplified field operations across sub-urban centres in the country to capture more customers.

The Oracle Today reports that the policy which was formulated five years ago has defied changes in political and administrative environment to drive the new retail banking operations that promise franchise opportunities that create thousands of new jobs in the economy.

Cost of running rural branch offices by commercial banks in a depressed economy, where low income and galloping inflation hamper savings efforts, has made agency banking the most efficient option in capturing massive low

profile markets.

According to a report by groups monitoring aid supported financial programmes in Nigeria, most commercial banks are taking early steps to open up local banking agents and capture a huge chunk of the estimated 60 million virgin customers in rural communities.

Unity Bank started in March with extension of its agent banking system to the north-western states of Kano and Jigawa, using its digital portal, Unity1 Online, to reduce procedural steps and waiting times in opening for its new customers in the area.

Keystone Bank also followed with the launch of its new agency banking system, KeyServ, in partnership with the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) and local financial technology firm i-OneC. Under the new retail service collaboration, Keystone is to use NIPOST’s extensive network across the country for a range of services, including bank account opening,

Cont’d on Page 19

7.98m workers registered under pension scheme as at Q1 2018 – NBS P28 Equity & Capital Market

How capital market faired in President Muhammadu Buhari’s 3 years in office?

P30 Money Market

Wapic shareholders task Aig-Imoukhuede on non-dividend payment P31

Stock Market Highlights As At 5TH JUNE, 2018

Summary

ASI DEALS VOLUME VALUE EQUITY CAP BOND CAP ETF CAP

S/N

37,854.92 4,436.00 339,676,992.00 N5,964,313,324.16 N13,712,190,092,463.99 N9,917,256,841,052.79 N7,385,803,630.14

Coy (By Volume) Volume

ACCESS GUARANTY UBA ZENITHBANK FBNH

Value(N)

133,066,930 N1,419,775,854.40 39,316,662 N1,616,739,223.85 23,228,747 N258,468,775.20 19,962,414 N533,318,860.45 12,456,065 N136,697,965.50

5 Top Gainers

Symbols Last Close NB N106 DANGCEM N223 OKOMUOIL N80 INTBREW N39 WAPCO N33.1

Current Change N111.3 5.3 N228 5 N84 4 N42 3 N34.75 1.65

TOTAL PRESCO UACN ETI NPFMCRFBK NCR

N193.3 N70.35 N14 N19 N1.69 N6

Five Tope Losers

N202 N71.25 N14.7 N19.1 N1.75 N6.3

%Change 5.00% 2.24% 5.00% 7.69% 4.98%

-8.7 -0.9 -0.7 -0.1 -0.06 -0.3

-4.31% -1.26% -4.76% -0.52% -3.43% -4.76%

18

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

BUSINESS

NLNG working on solid market share

By SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

A

FRICA’S biggest gas liquefaction and export company, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited, has declared commitment to consolidating the nation’s position as global energy supply factor.

The declaration comes as two European ambassadors in the country commended the company on its outstanding commitment to the development of the gas sector and the host Bonny communities.

The company stated weekend that it is growing its processing capacity for production of liquefied gas and natural gas liquids in a major investment that would establish its reputation as a safe reliable and secure supplier of gas based energy to the world.

Managing Director, Mr. Tony Attah, who hosted the ambassador of The Netherlands, Mr. Robert Petri, and the Spanish ambassador, Mr. Marcelino Ansorena, in Bonny, Rivers State, stated that the company’s six train plant has capacity to feed the export market with 300 cargoes

of 22 metric tons of LNG and 5.0 metric tons NGLs annually.

NLNG remains the single largest supplier of LPG (over 50%) in Nigeria and is working at encouraging expansion of the sector to boost access to domestic LPG at affordable cost.

The company stated that it is working on development of its seventh processing train to grow existing capacity by 36 percent to 30 metric tons of LNG per annum, adding that apart from capturing greater market share for increased revenue for stakeholders, the plant expansion would contribute to meeting energy demand for global economic growth and place Nigeria in the map of reliable suppliers. ”We are working to grow our operations through the expansion of our plant by building Train 7. This will increase our production capacity by about 36% from 22MTPA to 30MTPA, boost revenue to the Federal Government and our shareholders; further help to monetize Nigeria’s gas and create about 10,000 jobs at the construction phase.” Mr. Attah told the visiting envoys.

He said NLNG was as at 2016 the fourth in ranking amongst the top LNG exporting nations in the world with 7.0 % of the global market share.

According to Mr Attah, “Nigeria is largely a gas country with little oil.

There are huge economic prospects in investments to utilise the proven and unproven reserves, to solidify the country’s positioning in the international LNG space and also to serve the country’s growing domestic needs for power and industry.

“NLNG believes that we can and must do more by convincing Nigeria that the future is Gas. We need to invest more in Gas Development. If

we do nothing, we will drop our global rating in the list of Gas nations.”

He also enumerated the company’s unique CSR initiatives geared towards its aspirationof turning Bonny, its major host community into a tourist haven with an annual contribution of three billion naira for the development of the Island overa period of 25 years.

According to him, this ambition will benefit other neighboring riverine communities as well, with the completion of the Bonny-Bodo road project for which NLNG is contributing 50% of implementation cost in partnership with the Federal Government.

Mr. Attah thanked the visiting diplomats for their unflinching support to the NLNG advocacy against proposed NLNG Act amendment.

Ambassador Robert Petri of the Netherlands commended the entrepreneurial spirit of Nigerians and gave assurance of his country’s support for the private sector to create more business opportunities and jobs in the country.

Also, Ambassador Marcelino Ansorena of Spain lauded NLNG’s lofty corporate social responsibility profile and high reputation for business process integrity, pointing at the company’s global listing as an anti-bribery and anti-corruption compliant company.

FG dismisses rumours of N36bn royalty to Alesa-Eleme Community

F

ederal government has no intention of paying any money for communities hosting the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited and neighbouring Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited in Rivers State.

Whereas the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation fully owns and operates the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited, it is in joint venture with Indorama of India which operated the Eleme Petrochemical Company Limited.

Management of NNPC declared in a statement that government has not approved N36 billion to Alesa-Eleme community in Rivers State as royalty for playing host to the Port Harcourt Refining Company, a subsidiary of the corporation.

Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, traced the origin of the phantom compensation story to a traditional ruler, regarded as a claimant to the Alesa-Eleme traditional stool.

According to the corporation, the said traditional ruler went to town with the fake story after a purported meeting with the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (HMSPR) and Board Chairman of the corporation, Dr. Emanuel Ibe Kachikwu.

NNPC stated that Dr. Ibe Kachikwu made no such promises, adding that the apparently fabricated story was designed to cause disharmony between the NNPC and the hospitable Alesa-Eleme Community.

The corporation emphasized that through the years, the Port Harcourt Refinery had enjoyed cordial relations with all the 10 communities in Eleme where the refinery is located, including Alesa Eleme and Alade Eleme through the Joint Community Relations committee (JCRC).

NNPC said the JCRC, comprising representatives from the various interest groups of the community, had been relating with the Management of PHRC on a sustained basis for creation and execution of development projects and needs of the communities.

While thanking the peace-loving

people of Eleme for their love and hospitality through the decades, the corporation implored the community dwellers, especially the youths, to discountenance any such rumour of impending N36bn compensation as there was no •From left: MD/CEO, Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya; Minister for Communications Technology, Barr. such approval or payment to any Adebayo Shittu; Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Communications, Dr. Chukwuemeka Ujani; his wife, Mrs entity.

Nonyelem Ujani and the representative of the wife of Lagos State Governor, Mrs. Adeniji Kazeem.

PIB: NNPC Calls for simplified fiscal terms

T

HE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has urged the Senate to consider simplifying the fiscal provisions in the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill (PIFB) to ensure easy implementation of the law.

Group Managing Director of the corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, made this submission during the Senate Joint Committee Public Hearing on the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill (PIFB), Petroleum Host and Impacted Communities Development Bill (PHICDB) and Petroleum Industry Administration Bill (PIAB) at the National Assembly on Monday.

He advocated for the inclusion of clauses to make the law to be reviewed in response to changes in operating conditions, adding that the commercial terms for the industry should be made attractive for new investments.

He said there was need for the new law to empower the regulatory agencies in the industry for effective enforcement of compliance, adding that NNPC was fully in support of the changes.

Dr. Baru said the original Petroleum Industry Bill was borne out of government’s desire to put in place a robust and desirable legislation to engender transparency, accountability and fairness in the nation’s petroleum industry, noting process of getting the bill passed had been very challenging.

“It is laudable to note that the Governance Bill has been passed by the Legislature while the Fiscal Bill, Administration Bill, and the Host and Impacted Communities Development Bill are going through legislative processes.

“NNPC appreciates the opportunity to review these bills and we have employed our deep expertise and experiences in the Industry to assess their provisions and will gladly make contributions that will not only enforce the desires of the National Assembly but will ensure that the reform bills when passed into law meet the expectations of Nigerians and investors

alike,” Dr. Baru stated.

Earlier, the Lead Senate Committee Chairman, Senator Kabiru Marafa, said the public hearing on the three (3) bills was the first time that the National Assembly was sponsoring the bills in bits and pieces for easy consideration and speedy passage of regulations that would lead to the reform of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry.

By KAYODE OGUNWALE

in the country.

Represented at the event by the Director Zonal Offices Coordinating Department, ZOCD, Mr. Edward Okolo, the investment expert cited experiences with some investors in the manufacturing sector, who claimed that despite fulfilling their fiscal obligations, the nation’s public procurement and contractual processes had continued to favour foreign companies to their disadvantage.

She explained: “Our case for fiscal incentives for listed companies on the NSE is actually based on experience. What we are saying is that Nigerian companies doing the same business these foreign companies are doing if they are listed should be encouraged in terms of public procurement or whatever government is doing.

“We don’t want to keep taking from them because they incur a lot of cost and you cannot reduce the cost more than a limited amount of percentage. The best is to begin to give them some incentives and with that you have more companies coming to the market.”

SEC advocates incentives for listed firms to deepen market participation

S

ecurities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has advocated some measure of fiscal incentives for listed companies on the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) in order to mitigate their cost burden and encourage more entities to list shares on the bourse.

Apart from reduction of costs, the measure, according to the SEC, will translate to huge investment benefits to shareholders and also further position the quoted companies to contribute more to national development through improved capacities and job creation potential.

Acting Director General of the commission, Ms. Mary Uduk, who advocated the fiscal necessity on the sidelines of the Alliance Law Firm’s Maiden Lecture Series, Luncheon and Book Presentation event with the theme ‘Contemporary Corporate Governance Issues in Nigeria’ in Lagos, also believes that creating some form of fiscal incentives for listed entities will add further mileage to ongoing efforts to improve corporate governance

FMDQ Clear, Frontclear partner to deliver clearing structure in Nigeria

By KAYODE OGUNWALE

F

MDQ Clear Limited and Frontclear signed an agreement to jointly enhance Nigeria’s first central clearing house structure, with the support of a settlement guarantee fund. The collaboration is the culmination of a long-standing working relationship focused on improving how the Nigerian OTC financial market functions and follows-on an initial introduction via the International Capital Market Association (ICMA), of which FMDQ is a full Member and Frontclear is a long-standing partner.

FMDQ Clear Limited (FMDQ Clear), a wholly-owned clearing and settlement subsidiary of FMDQ OTC Securities Exchange, and Frontclear, a Netherlands-based development finance company, have joined to realise a first in the Nigerian market by facilitating a clearing structure to strengthen the OTC market liquidity. FMDQ Clear, a SEC-registered central clearing house, positioned to deliver end-toend clearing and settlement services that will help enhance integrity and eliminate the inherent risks to bilateral trades in the Nigerian capital market, will be backed by Frontclear’s core financial guarantee product, thereby improving the creditworthiness of participating counterparties and reducing initial set-up costs.

The Frontclear guarantee is expected to function like a settlement/credit guarantee fund typical to more developed financial markets.

19

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

BUSINESS

Nigeria clears $600m debt to international airlines

N

igeria has fully repatriated the 600 million dollars belonging to international airlines trapped in the country due to foreign exchange shortages, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Tuesday.

Director-General of IATA, Mr Alexandre de Juniac, on its website gave the credence at the 74th IATA Annual General Meeting and World Air Transport Summit in Sydney, Australia.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the funds were airlines’ ticket sales and other allied activities which the country could not repatriate due to fall in crude oil earnings in late 2016 and early 2017.

According to de Juniac, we have had some recent success.

The 600 million dollars backlog in Nigeria has been cleared. And we have made 120 million dollars of progress from a peak of over 500 million dollars in Angola.

“I encourage the government

of Angola to work with airlines to help to reduce this backlog further,’’ he said. de Juniac called on governments yet to clear theirs to abide by international agreements and treaty obligations to enable the airlines to repatriate their funds.

According to him, the amount of airline funds blocked in 16 countries totaled 4.9 billion dollars at the end of 2017.

He said that five out of the 16 countries which owed the airlines included Venezuela ($3.78 billion), Angola ($386 million), Sudan ($170 million), Bangladesh ($95 million) and Zimbabwe ($76 million).

“The connectivity provided by aviation is vital to economic growth and development. Aviation supports jobs and trade, and helps people to lead better lives. But airlines need to have confidence that they will be able to repatriate their revenues in order to bring these benefits to markets,’’ de Juniac said.

•Chairman Sub Committee on Publicity and Communication, Insuers Committee, Hassan Oye- Odukale (left) Deputy Director/Head, Corporate Affairs NAICOM, Rasaaq Salami; Vice Chairman Sub Committee Publicity, Ebelechukwu Nwachukwu; Managing Director, Custodian & Allied General Insurance Limited, Toye Odusi and Director-General, Nigerian Insurers Association (NIA)Yetunde Ilori at a press conference in Lagos.

BDCs kick as CBN raises Union Bank bags ISO certificate for Forex: trading margin by N3 Quality Management Standard

By VICTOR NZE

T

HE Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has awarded its ISO 90012015 certification to Union Bank of Nigeria after meeting the Quality Management Standard (QMS).

The financial institution was presented this certificate recently at its head office on Lagos by the Director-General of SON, Mr Osita Aboloma, who was represented by Mrs Oluremi Ayeni.

The DG, while commending Union Bank for being one of the first players in the banking sector to have attained this certification, said the certification would

further place the lender ahead of others in the same industry.

“Union Bank’s focus on service delivery will definitely improve and strengthen its competitive edge. I commend Union Bank for attaining this certification milestone which indicates quality products and service delivery, and encourage other businesses to take the same step,” Mr Aboloma said.

In his remarks, Chief Executive Officer of Union Bank, Mr Emeka Emuwa, acknowledged the hard work, focus and dedication of the Union Bank team.

He said the financial institution would continue to put quality above everything it does.

ENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has approved an upward review of the trading margin for operators of Bureau De Change (BDC) in the country by three naira.

This is also as the forex operators faulted the review on the grounds that the new directive would further increase the rate multiplicity in the market. The acting Director, Corporate Communications, CBN, Mr Isaac Okorafor, in a statement on Monday in Abuja, said henceforth, BDC operators would buy the United States (US) dollar from the CBN at N357 per dollar to sell at N360.

He said this would provide a positive margin of N3.00 per dollar sold to BDC operators by the apex bank.

Okorafor said the decision was

aimed at giving BDCs a level playing field to enable them compete favourably with other authorised foreign exchange dealers.

He urged BDC operators to abide by the new guidelines and not seek to exploit eager customers by selling above the N360 band.

He warned that erring BDCs would be sanctioned in any case of infraction established against them. It will be recalled that the CBN, in March 2017, directed licensed BDCs in the country to purchase Foreign Exchange from it at the rate of N360 to a dollar, and sell to customers at no more than N362.

At the time of issuing the directive in 2017, the bank hoped to achieve a convergence of rates between the inter-bank window and

the BDCs. Later, on March 27, 2018, the CBN made it mandatory for all the BDC operators in the country to access foreign exchange from the CBN three times a week.

However, reacting to the development, the Association of Bureau de Change Operators in Nigeria (ABCON) faulted the new directive.

President of the Association, Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe, said the new directive would further increase the rate multiplicity in the market.

“Our recommendation is that it should be revised to twice weekly, with the amount reviewed up from 20, 000 dollars to 30,000 dollars per market day. Also, the transaction rates by both the banks and BDCs should be merged. We also demand that BDCs should be allowed to return their unsold position to the CBN as is the practice by banks,” he said.

The reviewed trading margin would make the bank rates and BDC rates for Business and Personal Travel Allowances the same.

bill payments, airtime purchases, government disbursements, cash deposit and withdrawal services and remote enrolment of bank verification numbers (BVNs).

With a combination of policy enforcement by regulators and commercial incentives for players in the financial services market, government targets to increase financial inclusion in Nigeria by 26.3 percent to 76.3 by 2020, up from 53.7 in 2010.

In positioning for revenue upside hosted in the commercial incentive to capture more rural customers without associated investments in branch offices the commercial banks have started engaging agents to handle most of the front desk services that constitute the bulk of customer relations and teller duties and also reduce pressure at branches where physical transactions would now be limited.

On a broader policy vision, financial inclusion is expected to deliver economic gains by capturing into the data of formal financial services industry the huge number of low income earners that rely on costly thrift collectors and cut throat lenders that operate out-

side the radar of regulation.

According to a report by an organisation promoting financial inclusion in Nigeria, EFInA, only 58.4 percent of the 96.4 million Nigerian adult population in 2016 was financially served. And some 10 percent of the proportion that was financially served actually patronized informal savings pools and money lenders.

The CBN states that the low penetration of bank branches in the country, particularly in rural areas, is a significant barrier to financial inclusion. It added that costly financial services and lack of financial products for lower-income people constitute huge part of the problem.

According World Bank data, there were 5.4 bank branches per 100,000 adults in 2016. While this is in line with the sub-Saharan African average of 5.3 in that year, it is well below the South African figure of 10.2 branches per 100,000 adults.

It would be recalled that Nigeria’s economy descended from glorious heights in 2016 by plunged into recession in 2016. And associated cash squeeze in the markets im-

pacted on bank deposits, forcing them to trim overhead as revenue dipped.

According to the World Poverty Clock, 82 million Nigerians or 42.4% of the population were living in extreme poverty as of December 2017. And access to financial services is expected to form a strong contributor to economic growth and wealth creation, and is therefore key to addressing Nigeria’s high poverty rates.

However, it remains to be seen how the agent banking services provide efficient solutions to rural banking needs in a manner that uses competition to attrite unregulated financial service providers into oblivion.

For now the regulatory framework, security infrastructure and personal financial data protection for agent banking services are not clear. Also, the right level of awareness campaigns to prepare the target customers for the new ways of transacting financial services with remote banks have not activated, not even by some of the banks that have established agents in some locations of the country.

C

Financial inclusion: Banks begin race for agency outlets

Cont’d from Pg 17

It would be recalled that agent banking is one of the key drivers of the wider National Financial Inclusion Strategy introduced by former Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala in 2012 to provide financial services by third parties on behalf of licensed commercial banks.

As key part of the strategy, the CBN rolled out of its BVN system in 2015 to mark an important milestone in government’s efforts to improve the country’s financial inclusion. The BVN system which uses biometric technology to record a customer’s face and fingerprints enabled bank customers with existing accounts to open further accounts without other forms of identification.

The omnibus identification process eases access to banking while also reducing risk of fraud.

According to the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System, a financial company owned by the CBN, BVN enrolments are a key component of agency banking. The system had captured over 33 million registrations by April 2018.

Another step forward in the use of agent banking came in 2016 with the CBN’s granting of two superagent licences to Innovectives and Interswitch, thus extending the regulatory framework and supervision of agent activities.

The CBN added fillip to implementation of the agent banking strategy in March this year under a new expansion programme to bolster ongoing efforts to improve financial inclusion in the country.

The focus of the new arrangement is however set on the Northern region of the country where commercial banks have least incentives to invest in local branches.

To facilitate the arrangement, government has entered deals with money deposit banks, licensed mobile money operators and super agents with robust technology and reliable infrastructure base to support a 500,000-strong agent network under a new Shared Agent Network Expansion programme.

The structure is meant to that do not have local offices to deploy agents in reaching new and existing customers with basic financial services including funds transfer,

20

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

ENERGY

Kachikwu’s 3 years of refinery acrobatics

By SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

T

HE inability of the present administration of the federal government to address the nation’s capacity gaps for crude oil refining after three years of avowed commitments points to abysmal policy experiments that not only disrupted inherited downstream recovery arrangement by the previous administration but also translated to huge financial losses in the botched programme.

Prior to change of government in 2015, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was running a very successful in-house refinery rehabilitation programme with a well mobilized pan-industry domestic skills pool.

The phased 18 month arrangement which started with the 210, 000 barrels per day Port Harcourt Refinery in 2014 was part of government’s direct intervention in the domestic refinery rehabilitation. It enjoyed well funded large scale procurement of needed spare parts from original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

NNPC had also entered a power supply arrangement with Gel Utilities Limited which commissioned generation plants to provide electricity to run the refinery. The corporation also entered deals with local marine transport operators for crude oil and products movements at the plants during pipeline outage.

In the first month of the phased rehabilitation programme and resumption of crude supply to the plants, Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) hit a record net profit of N11.2 billion and also mapped out plans for additional N182 billion annually from sales of deregulated products including LPG, AGO and other derivatives.

Former Managing Director of the refinery, Dr. Bafred Enjugu, told The Oracle Today that massive procurement which saw all necessary spare parts on ground was intended for simultaneous rehabilitation, technology upgrade and prolonged processing activity in line with emerging global environmental standards.

Dr. Enjugu said government’s decision to supply crude to the refinery by marine transportation,

the supply of power by an IPP, and approval for a new strategy of using in-house skills optimized NNPC’s capacity.

He stated that the NNPC resorted to domestic skills when the Original Refinery Builders (ORB), the JGC of Japan, refused to take the rehabilitation contract over citing security concerns. Dr. Enjugu said the JGC had nominated their technical consultants, Tecnimont of Italy, who did not only come up with outrageous charges but declined to give performance guarantees.

The development, he said, had provided opportunity for NNPC to search inwards for the skills and knowledge requirements for the rehabilitation. He added that the use of in-house personnel also falls in line with the Nigerian Content Development Act in the petroleum sector.

Dr. Enjugu said the arrangement was coordinated by the group executive management of NNPC was for rehabilitation and upgrade of all the refineries operated by the company, including Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited and Kaduna Refinery.

He said the ORBs for all the refineries had been contacted for the jobs while local skills force was to understudy the process for the purpose of technology transfer and knowledge sharpening deliberately conceived for domiciliation.

However, the move which was described by the industry as the boldest move by the NNPC at taking technical challenge towards maintaining its plants was truncated by the brash changes in the management of the corporation on arrival of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in 2015.

In major part of his grandiloquent policy declarations on assumption of duties as the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu who also doubled as the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), had in 2015 vowed to restream the nation’s three refineries as a matter of urgent national priority.

At a meeting with members of the

Lagos Petroleum Club in Ikoyi, Dr. Kachikwu declared that the managers of the refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna had up till December 2015 to swing to efficient commercial operations or get sacked. He also said any of the refineries that failed to rebound to optimal commercial efficiency would be privatised by end of 2015.

Dr. Kachikwu had told the nation that President Muhammadu Buhari was in a hurry to fix the midstream and downstream petroleum industry operations of the NNPC in order to plug alleged financial leakages by weeding out large scale incompetence, ineptitude and financial profligacy in the system.

His statements came against the prevailing fuel shortages that greeted the new government after marketers in the system closed shops to demand billions of Naira in subsidy payments.

The minister condemned NNPC’s crude swap arrangement that allowed the corporation to exchange its crude oil allocations for refined petroleum products from traders, adding that subsequent interim arrangement would replace the swap deals with direct processing swap deals with offshore refiners.

In a rockstar performance that held the audience spellbound at the National Assembly hearing on the state of the industry in 2015, Dr. Kachikwu had outlined series of measures that would rapidly translate to vibrant downstream petroleum industry activities. He said the measures were urgent to exit the domestic fuel market from import dependence and save government billions of dollars losses associated with NNPC’s national fuel supply obligations.

Unfortunately three years after in 2018, the three refineries with four processing plants that hold combined capacity for 445, 000 barrels per day still lay moribund, running huge cost overheads on large workforce, humongous bureaucracy and maintenance of dormant facilities.

According to NNPC’s business report, the consolidated capacity utilization of the nation’s three refineries has been very low in the past three years, falling as low as 5.81 percent in November 2017. Performance

for January 2018 is 10.89 percent as some of them were totally unavailable over periods of time in the year.

In January 2018, for instance, Kaduna Refinery performed at 4.7 percent of installed capacity, Port Harcourt Refinery performed at 20.6 percent while Warri Refinery recorded zero performance. In September 2017, only the Port Harcourt Refinery functioned at 13.4 percent while both Warri and Kaduna Refineries recorded zero performance in the month.

According to NNPC, “the combined value of output by the three refineries (at import parity price) for the month of January 2018 amounted to N26.18billion while the associated Crude plus freight costs and operational expenses were N28.88billion and N10.88billion respectively. This resulted to an operating deficit of N13.59billion by the refineries.”

From the figures, operations efficiency of the government’s refinery business is very low; commerciality has negative balance sheet of N13.59 billion loss; while import monopoly run exclusively by NNPC generated subsidy bills in excess of N1.4 trillion in 2017 alone.

Starring directly at abysmal performance in the past three years, the minister’s narratives on the refineries have also changed!

At the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Summit (NIPS) hosted by the minster in February, he told The Oracle Today that the policy strategy now emphasizes private sector partnership arrangement that would see extension of deadlines from 2015 to 2019 when the first tenure of the Buhari administration is billed to end.

Between 2015 and now, Dr. Kachikwu had thrown about a number of policy strategies that include clustered arrangement that would allow new investors establish more refineries around existing ones in order to optimise pipeline and storage facilities already in situ. He also adopted industry proposals for legalization of scalable modular refineries around crude production hubs in the Niger Delta to service some segments of the local fuel market that patronize substandard products from illegal refineries.

However, the minister’s collocation and modular refinery strategies failed to attract the right set of com-

mercial investors in the first three years of the present administration.

Rather, trading firms that target offtake from the nation’s main refineries have rapidly filed into consortia that queue for shady concession deals that have pitched the minister against national legislature.

The Senate last year cancelled the concession deals over allegations about due process, transactional opacity, inconsistent policy directions, unclear technical pedigree of the consortium participants, and total absence of stakeholders’ consultation in the entire process.

Similar concessions earlier ngranted some of the consortium participants by former President Olusegun Obasanjo were revoked by late President Umaru Yar’Adua, prompting some of the investors like Dangote Group to embark on Nigeria’s biggest greenfield refinery project.

However, NNPC under the helms of Dr. Maikanti Baru, is driving a new concession process that appears more detailed and painstaking in selecting the private investors. The corporation has set up a committee to work out details of concession arrangements that allow two consortia of nine firms run the country’s three refining companies.

The first consortium includes Vitol, Saipem, General Electric, Sahara Group and MRS Oil Nigeria Plc. The companies in the consortium push to take over the 125,000 Warri Refinery and the 110,000 Kaduna Refinery.

The second consortium which comprises Trafigura, Eni, Cepsa and Oando wants to run the 210,000 bpd Port Harcourt Refinery.

The Oracle Today gathered that the concession terms under discussion provides a fuel for cash swap arrangement akin to upstream production sharing contracts (PSCs) that allow investors to recover funds plus margin via commodity equity shares.

The terms, it was learnt, would transfer responsibility on the investors to optimise operations efficiency in order to earn returns.

However, whereas several refinery revamp policy actions, implementation strategies and programme processes drag into quagmire; the crude swap deals and huge financial subsi-

Cont’d on Pg 21

21

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

ENERGY

FG to review PSCs with oil firms

By SOPURUCHI ONWUKA

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NUMBER of fiscal terms hosted in the production sharing contracts (PSCs) that govern commercial investments in oil and gas exploration and production in Nigeria will soon be reviewed to usher in new revenue arrangement for government and her partners.

The development comes as Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) declared that it has been faithfully remitting all petroleum industry revenues accruing to it to the Federation Account.

Details of the PSC review which have been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari is awaited by the industry to provide clearer investment outlook for operators who have been anxious for fiscal clarity in the industry.

Spokesman of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, stated in a document that the nation’s legislators who have expressed worries over Nigeria’s obsolete petroleum contracts with private investors have been notified about the imminent review of commercial relationship with oil companies.

Under the PSC terms guiding most of the nation’s deepwater and few conventional offshore oil production operations, the oil firms are allowed to carry the full investment risk and allow government to share output after full investment recovery.

During the period of investment recovery, government is however entitled to royalty and tax oil as well as other receivables stipulated in the fiscal packages that govern commercial activities.

However, government had since the oil price boom of 2008 sought for review of the active PSCs to allow early revenue takes in order to

benefit from positive swings in oil prices. The move which prompted the controversial Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is opposed by leading risk bearers in deepwater operations who view the attempt as violation of contract sanctity.

Disputes associated with fiscal side of the PIB led to its lingering legislation at the National Assembly since 2008, prompting the current National Assembly to break the omnibus bill into four separate components that allowed the Petroleum Industry Fiscal Bill (PIFB) to stand independent of others. Others components are the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB), Petroleum Industry Administrative Bill (PIAB) and the Petroleum Industry Host Community Bill (PIHCB).

However, while all the bills unbundled from PIB still stagnate at the National Assembly, government through its agencies in the petroleum sector have been pushing for contract review with oil firms, leading to disputed barrel grabbing at the export terminals, and accusations about crude oil over lift against NNPC. Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, told members of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream) who were on oversight visit at the corporate headquarters of the corporation in Abuja that the production contract review with oil firms was part of the new accounting harmonization process awaiting presidential approval.

In responding to a question on why the PSC agreements had not been reviewed for a long time despite clauses in the agreements that stipulate periodic review, Dr. Baru disclosed that a presidential approval had been secured and that a committee would be set up soon to carry out the review.

•From left: Deputy Managing Director, Alhaji Sadeeq Mai-Bornu; Ambassador of Spain to Nigeria, H.E Marcelino Ansorena; Managing Director/CEO, NLNG, Tony Attah and the Ambassador of the Netherlands to Nigeria, H.E Robert Petri during a visit to NLNG Plant.

He, however, disclosed that in the absence of a comprehensive review, NNPC had looked at projects on a project-by-project basis and raised observations which some of the partners had taken permission to present before their managements.

On efforts by the NNPC to ensure that Joint Venture (JV) and PSC operators do not run excessive bills at the expense of the nation, Dr. Baru explained that apart from the establishment of an Efficiency Unit in the corporation to ensure value for money across all operations, NNPC had also done a lot in renegotiating contracts as well as benchmarking costs in keeping with international best practices.

He added that the effort had yielded significant results in terms of reduction in the cost of crude oil production per barrel in the Indus-

try.

He assured the legislators that NNPC has been faithfully remitting full oil revenue to the nation treasury, denying allegations of short deliveries that sparked investigations into the corporation’s accounting systems.

“While the process of audit and reconciliation of accounts is on, a lot of accusations of short payments and non-remittances are usually traded, we endeavour to keep our cool on these allegations because we know that we remit whatever is due to the Federation Account”, he explained.

Dr. Baru said allegations of nonremittance of funds had become a recurrent decimal over the years, occasioned in part, to the nature of the corporation’s operations which involved credit lines requiring constant audit and reconciliation.

Kachikwu’s 3 years of refinery acrobatics

Continued from P 20

dies that entitle NNPC to huge cash claims run uninterruptedly.

The National Assembly is currently probing NNPC for whopping N5.1 trillion allegedly unaccounted in the corporation’s numerous fuel supply arrangements. The Senate also ordered the corporation to refund staggering N216 billion it had taken at source to the nation’s consolidated revenue fund over breaches in appropriation procedures.

Thus, the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, through agencies in the Ministries of Petroleum Resources and Finance respectively have visibly failed to revamp the refineries and cut associated financial wastes. The refineries remain moribund; NNPC is still accused on breaching financial appropriation processes; while the nation’s wasteful fuel importation process is still veiled in opacity.

Analysts point at the irony of inability of Africa’s biggest petroleum producer to fund rehabilitation of three refining companies while surprisingly sustaining capacity for decades of unbroken costly fuel imports. And NNPC’s use of wasteful petroleum products importation as the primary

means of meeting domestic fuel demand at a time its refineries are dormant form part of industry’s unresolved riddles.

Since 1993, domestic fuel supply has been import dependent while whopping amounts of cash have been consistently hauled out for the nation’s treasury to support government’s fuel supply contracts which are mostly fraught with scandals associated with relentless allegations of backstage cash looting.

Numerous government agencies including Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) which is the technical regulator of the petroleum industry, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) which is the market regulator, Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF) which ensures uniform pricing as well as NNPC, Ministry of Finance and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) are involved in an intricate accounting arrangement that has, across decades, failed to address gaps in reconciliation of import bills from all players in the domestic fuel market. Yet the agencies hardly agree on actual subsidy accruals.

Billions and trillions of Naira annually bandied as subsidy withdrawals

by NNPC have consistently drawn a spate of public outcry from stake-

holders, prompting regular investigations by the National Assembly.

And innumerable attempts by Ministry of Finance and CBN to subject fuel subsidy payments to appropriation were overridden by presidential executive fiat, pointing stridently at political support for irregularities at NNPC. Former Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala was in 2005 redeployed to Foreign Ministry over altercations with NNPC about subsidy appropriation. Later in 2014, former CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was prematurely removed over allegations of accounting gaps at NNPC. Currently, National Assembly is investigation over N1.4 trillion subsidy accounting gap at NNPC. Unsurprisingly, these huge accounting gaps always occur during run up to elections.

The Group Managing Director of NNPC is appointed by the president.

He also reports to the President. The corporation is largely self regulating and self accounting despite the existence of industry regulatory agencies.

It currently enjoys fuel import monopoly, a situation that makes it sensitive to halt and hurt its operations.

Outside political circles, industry players and stakeholders have

continued to push for reforms that would strip the corporation of political protection by guaranteeing its administrative and financial autonomy while strengthening regulatory institutions.

The reforms along with numerous policy alternatives harnessed at stakeholder engagements are captured in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) which has been difficult to push through lingering legislative processes at the National Assembly.

At the Nigerian Petroleum Industry Summit in February, industry stakeholders and economic analysts stressed the need to revive the nation’s refining industry to capture the full benefits of the nation’s petroleum industry.

They argued that the huge volumes of cash lost to shady petroleum products import deals could have built a robust midstream and downstream petroleum industry hubs needed to build the critical linkages between the huge budget petroleum sector and domestic economic productivity.

Former Managing Director of Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited, Dr. Bafred Audu Enjugu, stated that the company has potential to harness business opportunities and rake in over N200 billion annually.

Dr. Baru explained that underremittance allegations follow disagreements over expenses borne by the corporation on behalf of the Federal Government.

Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Upstream), Senator Omotayo Alasoadura, who led members of the committee on the oversight visit, demanded monthby-month crude oil production figures for the past two years and crude prices for the period.

He called on NNPC to fully cooperate with the Senate in providing input on the fiscal component of PIB and the other segments of the bill.

Other members of the committee who were present at the meeting include: Senators Gershom Bassey (Vice Chairman), Sam Egwu, Victor Umeh, Fatimat Raji Rasaki, Clifford Ordia, Osinakachukwu Ideozu, Stella Oduah and Biodun Olujinmi.

Managing Director of Seplat Petroleum, Mr. Austin Avuru, advanced strong arguments to support industry pressure for government to displace the controversial import programmes that promote capital flight with reactivation of the nation’s domestic downstream industry operations.

He said a robust domestic refining industry was urgently needed to promote local industrial growth, attraction of foreign direct investment, job creation and acceleration of economic growth.

According to former Secretary of the Commonwealth of Nations, Mr. Emeka Anyaoku, the fact that Nigeria is a global crude oil export factor and at the same time a net importer of refined petroleum products is an unacceptable paradox. He condemned the situation as wasteful, uneconomic and illogical.

But politicians that run successive administrations of the federal government prefer cash returns from crude oil sales while promoting import deals as the easiest cash conduit that is too socially sensitive to halt.

Managing Director of ENI affiliates in Nigeria, Mr Mosimmo Nsula, had told the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, at a panel session in Abuja that Nigerian government still has all it takes in its pocket to provide all the energy the economy needs without taking desperate measures like massive importations and tolled social services.

22

The Oracle Today Tuesday June 13, 2018

e-Platform Why telcos’re angry at CBN’s electronic transactions levy •Implementation to cripple efforts to speed up broadband access •Efforts to meet the CBN governor unsuccessful •Withdraw proposed 0.005% tax bill

Stories by ISAIAH ONWUANUMBA

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HE Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) has announced today that it is not happy with a recent directive by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to all banks on the collection of 0.005% levy on all electronic transactions into a National Cyber Security Fund account within the regulator.

The businesses which are to be affected are as follows; GSM Service Providers and all telecommunication companies; Internet service providers; Banks and other financial institutions; Insurance companies and Nigerian stock exchange President of the Association, Mr. Olusola Teniola said this today at a Press Conference in Lagos.

According to him, “ATCON believes any actions that has the potential to destroy the telecoms industry should be avoided by all tiers of government in Nigeria as the accruable benefits of imposing this levy on our members are far lower than the revenue that it is going to create for the government.

In view of this and other reasons enumerated above, the Association’s position is that the proposed levy of 0.005% tax bill should be withdrawn and its implementation seriously reviewed.”

Mr Teniola explained that the eventual implementation of this levy of 0.005% would cripple if not render useless government and private sector efforts to speed up the broadband penetration in Nigeria and our Association has a mandate to protect the invest-

ment in the telecom industry from undue pressure from the government in the form of yet additional burden on our members that are already overtaxed by all tiers of governments.

He explained that the underlining reasons for the Association’s Position is that “The Cybercrime (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc) Act 2015, Section 44 that the CBN seeks to implement, states in Section 44 an establishment of a National Cyber Security Fund. In Section 44.2 (a) a Levy of 0.005 of all electronic transactions by the businesses specified in the second schedule to this Act. Where in the Schedule five categories including GSM Service providers and all telecommunication companies and Internet Service Providers are to apply this charge!”

“ATCON believes any premeditated actions that are capable of killing the telecoms industry must be eschewed by all tiers of governments in Nigeria as the perceived benefits of imposing this levy on aforementioned businesses have the direct capability to erase if not destroy the achievements that have been made since the telecoms sector was liberated. We therefore advise government review this directive as it would affect some macro-economic elements such as loss of employment and we as Industry will have to increase prices to cover the collection, processing and pass on these costs to the 150million subscribers.”

He lamented that all efforts to meet The CBN governor was unsuccessful. “Our Association has

Osinbajo, Shittu, others to attend premiere of Airtel Touching Lives Season 4

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IRTEL Nigeria has announced Monday that Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo, wife of the Vice President, and Minister of Communications Technology, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, will lead high-profile guests who have confirmed they would attend the premiere of Airtel Touching Lives season four.

A ststement from the mobile giant also revealed that the premiere, which is billed to hold on Sunday, 3rd June, 2018, at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, is expected to have Senator Robert Ajayi Boroffice, Chairman Senate Committee on Science and Technology and Senator Solomon Olamilekan, Deputy Chairman, Senate Committee on Communications.

According to Airtel, Hon. Saheed Akinade Fijabi, Chairman, House Committee on Communications; Hon. Ujam Chukwuemeka, Deputy Chairman, House Committee on Communications and Chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission, Senator, Olabiyi Durojaiye, amongst many others, will also grace the premiere.

Captains of industry, heads of agencies, non-governmental organisations, philanthropists and notable media proprietors are also expected to attend.

Airtel Touching Lives is an inspiring corporate social responsibility initiative that seeks to offer practical relief, succour, hope, opportunities and credible platforms to liberate and empower the underprivileged, disadvantaged and hard-to-reach persons in the society.

The activities of Airtel Touching Lives are recorded and produced for national television with a view to promoting the spirit of giving, self-sacrifice and love among Nigerians.

Speaking at a press conference in December to announce the kickoff of nominations for Season 4 of the programme, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Airtel Nigeria, Mr. Segun Ogunsanya, said the company is committed to helping the less privileged in the society in line with its vision of creating empowerment opportunities and making life better for Nigerians.

“Together, we all can make our society a better place if we join hands and collaborate to uplift the downtrodden around us.

“While the Government and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) cannot do it all, we have a responsibility to contribute our quota to making Nigeria a better place for all,” he said.

•From left: Ajibola Olude, Executive Secretary, ATCON, Olusola Teniola, National President, Association of Telecommunications Companies of Nigeria and Ifeloju Alakija, NEC Member during a press conference to announce ATCON’s rejection of 0.005% cyber security levy introduced by CBN. requested repeatedly to meet with Mr Godwin Emefiele, Governor of CBN to discuss some of the issues that our members are facing with respect to sourcing for foreign exchange to purchase the needed equipment and to our great surprise the central bank of Nigeria

has not honoured the invitation.”

ATCON is a professional, nonprofit, non-political umbrella organization of telecommunications companies of Nigeria. It is also the premier Association that was formed by technocrats in the tel-

IGERIAN Minister of Communication, Dr. Shittu Adebayo within the week said Nigerian Government, in collaboration with the India Government is set to forge closer relationship in order to accelerate Information Communication and Technology (ICT) growth in the country as well as boost the two countries’ economies.

The minister made this known during the Indo -Africa ICT Expo 2018 event which was held at Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos.

The theme of event was: “One world,one platform: Let’s talk about digital transformation.”

Rrports have it that The Indo -Africa ICT Expo 2018 was organised to provide wider opportunities for African and Indian companies to stand out with their distinctive products through exhibition and networking activities and also to establish strategic partnerships among key players of the ICT ecosystem.

Adebayo said that Expo would most importantly offer huge opportunities for our local entrepreneurs and start-ups to pitch their solutions and products to over 75 Indian companies who were all expected to attend this Expo.

“The expo is timely and a milestone in the history of partnerships between India and Nigeria which will further promote ecosystem of digital Transformation, and forever change the way of

seeing things and doing business.

“I am aware that India regards Nigeria as one of its most important partners in sub-Saharan Africa and It is also necessary to highlight the fact that India has a comparative advantage in the ICT sector which, I believe Nigeria can benefit hugely from. ” With the existence of several high profile ICT companies from India, Nigeria entrepreneurs and start-ups can tap into the abundance of technological knowledge to boost their business knowhow, “he said He said that the government had also expressed optimism that ICT remains the key tool that would help the country achieve the transformation which she desires.

He noted that consequently Nigeria’s drive to transforming the sector was predicted on ICT Strategic Roadmap, eGovernment Master Plan and the national Broadband Plan.

“We very strongly believe that our local entrepreneurs and start-ups will demonstrate their business acumen.

“They have the talent and the creativity and all it takes to make the kind of difference that can be done in the sector.

“The Ministry will continue to adapt to changes that innovation in technology brings, ” the minister said.

Adebayo said that they were

ecoms industry to facilitate as well as accelerate the growth and adoption of broadband for the purpose of socio-economic development of Nigeria so that our country would not be left behind in terms of 21st century innovation.

Indo -Africa ICT Expo 2018: Nigeria, India partner for ICT growth N

fully committed to key into the astronomical growth of the technology industry and also hope to harness its full potential.

He said partnerships that would ensure the growth of technology industry would be welcomed.

Adebayo said that the world was experiencing a shift from the traditional ways of doing things to a more ICT-driven approach where organizations, and governments are forced to use technology to shape policies.

“You will agree with me that the existence of technological advancements is evident enough that the fourth industrial revolution is upon us.

“This is why the Government has taken ICT strategic roadmap very seriously and we can see that the Nigerian ICT and telecom industry is on the match. ‘ With the current efforts of the Buhari Administration at substantially reforming and commercializing the sector most especially NIPOST and NIGCOMSAT, there is no limit to how far nations can go in developing their socio economic conditions.

“I have been made to understand that the two-day national and international forum will proffer practical steps and solutions that will assist the relevant MDAs in formulating a robust roadmap towards a workable partnership in fostering Local ICT Content among some of our development partners,” Adebayo said.

23

The Oracle Today Tuesday June 13, 2018

e-Platform

TTejas Networks unfolds ICT products plan for Nigeria market Stories by ISAIAH ONWUANUMBA

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EJAS Networks Limited, a global IT company of Indian origin with over 400,000 products deployed in over 65 countries across the world, has unfolded its grand plan for the Nigerian market.

Co-founder, Tejas Networks Limited, India, Mr. Arnoh Roy, unfolded the plan while speaking on the sidelines of the 4th Indo-African ICT Expo, which held in Lagos last week.

“We are designers and manufacturer of telecommunication products in India. We are constantly looking at expanding our market from India to many other countries across the world.

“When we started expanding, we saw not only in Nigeria but many other African countries, the applicability and significance of the products we are making. One of the reasons for coming to Nigeria, Africa and various other markets was the opportunity to really take part in the growing market.”

“Nigeria is also an emerging economy like India and there is a lot of requirement for communication technology. There is a lot of investment happening and still

going to happen in building the broadband networks across the country. And with our strong experience in providing solutions and implementing them in India, we saw the relevance of bringing that technology and seeing the applicability in the market in Nigeria and other African markets, ” Roy explained.

Roy disclosed that with over six years of operation in the Nigerian market, Tejas Networks, an optical and data networking products company, which designs and develops market leading products in the Optical Networking and Broadband Access (4G LTE, GPON) segments, is already discussing with the Nigerian Government on its grand plan for the country.

“We already have an office with local employees here in Nigeria doing our sales and support. But we want to come in a much bigger way and we are in talks with the Nigerian Government. As part of building the networks, we’ll develop both skills centres as well as manufacturing facilities. So, everything that is deployed here will get assembled here in Nigeria. They will have trained people who know how to assemble, how to deploy and how to support it. All of these

Jos Varsity seeks NCC partnership on big data analytics, cyber security , others

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DELEGATION comprising six top Management of the University of Jos pays a courtesy call to the Executive Vice-Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission on May 23, 2018 to seek partnership in the area of Big Data Analytics, ICT, IoT, and Cyber Security.

The delegation led by Professor Theresa Nmadu, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Administration of the University of Jos, stated that this visit is premised on establishing a relationship with the Commission and aimed at identifying areas of collaboration with the Commission and expressed readiness to partner with the Research and Development Department of the Commission to come up with innovative technologies that will help the advancement of humanity and help curb cybercrimes and, train youths in ICT so that they could be self- dependent.

The DVC Administration, University of Jos, also noted that in addition to identifying areas of collaboration and workability, she is happy to inform the EVC/ CEO NCC of his nomination for Honourary PHD Award scheduled to hold on Saturday June, 23, 2018 at the University of Jos. She noted that a letter was forwarded earlier in the month and that this reminder should not come as a surprise.

Executive Vice Chairman/ CEO, NCC, Professor Umar Garba Danbatta expressed appreciation to the delegation’s visit and finding NCC worthy of Award, stating that any award to him is an award to the Commission.

Professor Danbatta, stated that the Commission is committed to fulfilling its mandate and doing whatever it is that will advance the telecoms industry, the society, and support innovative technologies that will help youths become gainfully employed,

improve government sources of revenue through diversification in ICT in line with the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan of the Federal Government.

The EVC commended predecessor CEOs of NCC in their efforts of providing an enabling infrastructure, regulations and support initiatives and, it is expected that successive CEOs’ should identify areas of development and growth through proactive regulations and strategies that are implementable, impact generating and spring a multiplier of effects in the industry that will expand the economic growth and development of our society.

The NCC manages an important sector of the economy and nation, and also scarce resources of spectrum, numbering plan, short codes and host of other important activities which include but not limited to the attraction of foreign direct investment, driving innovative technologies and ensuring pervasive ICT deployment for national, economic, educational and cultural development, said Prof. Danbatta.

The NCC boss also stated that the Commission is willing to partner and collaborate with all relevant stakeholders of the industry stating in clear terms that strategic collaboration and partnership is one item of the 8-Point Agenda or Strategic Vision Plan of the Commission. The Commission will therefore partner with the University of Jos in relevant areas of concern.

Director Human Capital & Infrastructure Group at NCC, Maryam Bayi expressed appreciation for the honour to EVC/CEO NCC and stated that the NCC has been supportive to a number of schools and communities across plateau state to help bridge the digital divide gap.

investments will come as part of the partnership with the Nigerian Government in growing the ICT sector.”

“We are in touch with the Communication ministry, the Honorable Minister of Communications, Barrister Abdur-Raheem Adebayo

Shittu who was at this Expo was in India and we actually showed him how this inter-connectivity has been provided and the kind of technology that is used. It was a kind of site-working. I think he is very motivated to bring something like this here. He is also motivated

that it cannot just be selling of products which we deploy here, we have to bring value-addition, skills training, and assembling capabilities. We are all looking to do all of that as part of the overall plan,” Roy stated.

•From left: Ime Archibong, VP Partnerships, Facebook; Ebele Okobi, Head Public Policy Africa, Facebook and Emeka Afigbo, Head of Developer Programmes, Facebook at the launch of the NG_Hub today in Lagos.

Facebook launches NG_Hub in Lagos, first in Africa

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ACEBOOK has launched NG_ Hub in Lagos, its first hub space in Africa, in partnership with CcHub. Facebook announced within the week the launch of NG_Hub in Lagos, Nigeria – its first flagship community hub space in Africa, in partnership with CcHub. The Social Media giant also added that: in a week-long celebration which will bring together developers, start-ups, and the wider tech community across Lagos and Nigeria, the launch will showcase the new multi-faceted space which aims to bring together communities to collaborate, learn, and exchange ideas.

With creativity and excellence existing across all of Nigeria, Facebook also announced partnerships with seven other hubs across the country including in Abuja (Ventures Platform), Jos (nHub), Kaduna (Colab Hub), Kano (DI Hub), Uyo (Start Innovation Hub), Enugu (Roar Hub) and Port Harcourt (Ken Saro Wiwa Hub). These will serve as centres of excellence and will feature dedicated Facebook spaces, where many of Facebook’s training sessions will take place, and a space where creatives and developers can book to help them advance their skills.

Featuring bespoke works of art from local artists in Nigeria, the NG_Hub space, which includes workspaces, meeting rooms, a games and chill out room, an event space and a well catered café, will also be the focal point for a number of training programmes.

Aimed at attracting the best talent and driving innovation in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem, these are all designed to equip Nigerian SMEs, tech entrepreneurs and the next generation of leaders to better understand and utilise the power of digital tools for economic growth.

Training programmes include: The Fb Start Accelerator programme – a research and mentorship-driven programme aimed at empowering start-ups and students with technical & business support and funding to optimize their product for growth – focused on those building solutions using advanced technology, with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).

Digify Pro Nigeria – a two-month intensive boot camp where 20 aspiring digital professionals will learn what it takes to have a career in digital marketing. The programme is designed to fit the specific needs of industry, covering a range of topics including community management, content and email marketing, brand online reputation management, UX design and more.

Boost Your Business – Made especially for micro, small and medium sized businesses owners, Boost Your Business is a one-day training that teaches digital marketing for business growth. #SheMeansBusiness – the first to launch on the continent, #SheMeansBusiness is a one-day training workshop and networking experience for female entrepreneurs, offering a mix of business and digital marketing training for

women led businesses, along with additional opportunities to network with fellow female entrepreneurs.

Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Vice President of Partnerships said: “Technology provides expansive opportunities to engage young, creative and resourceful Nigerians, especially in delivering solutions to challenges across communities here in Nigeria. Our mission is to build community and bring the world closer together, NG_Hub provides that physical space that will serve as a centre of learning and skills development in Lagos, and I’m excited about the possibilities that this will create.”

Commenting on the partnership Bosun Tijani, Founder/CEO of CcHub, added: “Our aim has always been to provide a viable platform for creatives and innovators to express their talent and create solutions to the myriad of social and economic challenges faced by countries across the continent.

Partnering with Facebook on NG_ Hub enables us to achieve our objectives at scale and make the desired impact in the tech ecosystem here in Lagos.”

“The NG_Hub highlights our ongoing commitment to supporting local talent in Nigeria. We’re delighted to be partnering with CcHub here in Lagos, as well as with many other hubs across Nigeria to deepen our engagement, increase skills development and support the next set of innovators, tech entrepreneurs, start-ups, and others in our collective bid to change the face of technology and grow the economy,” said Ebele Okobi, Director of Public Policy, Africa.

24

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

ISSN: 2545-5869

EDITORIAL

www.oraclenews.ng

VOX POPULI SACRUM

Offa robbery: In politics, all things are possible in a cult gang-related killing in Kwara State.

Saraki quoted the Kwara State Governor Abthugs during elections. The investigations on dulfatah Ahmed, as the source of information the sources of weapons or funding for the on attempts by IGP Idris to implicate him in an gang could have been done away from the alleged murder case. attention of the police, a route that the police IT was at the same session that some Senators appear unwilling to follow. disclosed that their police aides were being IT is not helpful for the public to view a criminal withdrawn by the Police Headquarters. investigation as a personal fight between the FORCE Headquarters swiftly denied any such plot.

Senate President and the Inspector General Jimoh Moshood, the spokesman said, “Until of Police, Ibrahim Idris, who had consistently investigation is concluded, any person (s) or turned down the invitation of the Senate to group (s) who tries to interfere in the investibrief it on the security situation in Nigeria. gation process by action or utterances is comThe police’s conduct gives them no option. mitting an offence. The suspects admitted and OTHER insinuations are that the troubles Saraki confessed before the press and the public to and his associates have are connected to have killed 11 innocent persons in the state and their moves to leave the All Progressives Conother States of the country. The victims accordgress, APC, over the disagreements about ing to the suspects were targeted and killed on political contests in 2019. In the midst of the instructions of their sponsors.” these speculations, a criminal investigation is “It is pertinent to state that, there is no vested whittling to nothing. interest by the Inspector-General of Police in A group, nPDP, of which Saraki is a core memthe ongoing investigation into the several murber, has been in public with its disenchantders committed by this killer gang. Therefore, ment with the Buhari administration. In 2013, transferring this hired assassin gang masquernPDP left Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), ading as cultists in Kwara to Force Headquarfor an alliance with APC that finished off PDP ters, Abuja, for further investigation is in acat the 2015 election. cordance with Police investigation procedures.

THE group has lately expressed its determinaThe Force will leave no stone unturned and will tion to leave APC. A meeting that it was to do everything within the ambit of the law to have with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on ensure justice in this matter, no matter whose Monday was called off by nPDP, which issued ox is gored.” a statement that it would not meet with the MOSHOOD’s enthusiasm at the parade of the acFederal Government while the police were cused persons has been criticised for getting harassing its leaders, notably, Saraki. the matter to the bizarre turn it is taking. “The FEW would be surprised about the politicisation Senate President of the Federal Republic of of the Offa investigation. On May 16, Saraki Nigeria, Senator Bukola Saraki, is being invited alerted the Senate of an attempt by the by the Nigerian Police Force to report to the Inspector General of Police to implicate him Force Intelligence Response office in Guzape, Abuja to answer to all the allegations leveled against him from the confessions of the five gang leaders namely, Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibikunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salaudeen Azeez, Niyi Oyediran and some of the other 17 suspects arrested for their active participation in the Offa bank robbery and the gruesome killing of 33 persons including some pregnant women and nine police personnel”.

SARAKI responded: “Let it be known that there is no way I could have been associated with armed robbery against my people. When the Offa robbery incident happened, I was the first top public official to pay a visit to the place and right there in the palace of the traditional ruler, I put a call through to this same Mr. Ibrahim Idris, the IGP, requesting him to make certain specific security arrangements as demanded by the people.

“Members of the public will remember that on May 16, 2018, I alerted the Senate about the information passed on to me by my State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed, over a plot by the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, to frame me up by getting some suspected cultists arrested in Ilorin to implicate me. It is believed that the timely leakage of the plot in that case aborted the use of the Cont’d front page 1

suspected cultists to implicate me. Now, it is the Offa bank robbery suspects that are about to be used.

“This plot is concocted to embarrass me and, in the mind of the IGP, it is his own response after his refusal to honour the invitation by the National Assembly, headed me, for him to offer explanations on the rampant killings and violence across the country.

“It is, however, sad that this abuse of the criminal investigation process aimed at intimidating and over-overawing the legislature, thereby obstructing it from doing its work, is a big threat to our democracy “.

BEFORE Saraki, police had accused Senator Dino Melaye, an outspoken critic of the government and a Saraki ally of being accessory to the crime of kidnapping and gun running, and providing political thugs with fire arms and operational logistics. Senator Shehu Sani, a torn in the flesh of the Kaduna State Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i, has been accused of murder and linked to a group of alleged criminals being investigated by the Kaduna State Police Command.

SENATOR Suleiman Hunkuyi, also from Kaduna, had another form of intimidation; his house was demolished by the Kaduna State Government, for allegedly being built without approval and against master-plan of the state capital.

This discovery was made three years into the life of the administration in Kaduna, and with growing disagreements with el-Rufa’i.

THE public is impressed so far with the aplomb and promptitude the police deployed to the Offa robbery. Even its “no matter whose ox is gored” policy that has resulted in investigating the Senate President deserves applauses.

But, when will the police arrest, investigate and prosecute Fulani herdsmen who are killing thousands of Nigerians across the country? Are these lives less important than the 33 who died in Offa? Or do the sponsors of the Fulani herdsmen have to be Senators to command police investigation?

Our Vision TO BE among the top five newspapers in Nigeria and, in due course, the Numero Uno; to be a newspaper of records that effectively caters to the information needs of all segments and sections of the Nigerian society as well as all social classes and cultures.

Essentially, we want to be a responsible corporate citizen, a commercially viable, properly organised media business, which meets its obligations to society, government and the workforce.

Mission WE INTEND to contribute to the development of an inclusive Nigerian society, with a view to getting rid of the dark sides of our national life (slothfulness, greed, corruption, nepotism, totalitarianism, etc); to continually engender and sustain national debates that would ultimately lead to the enthronement of healthy national values--hard-work, justice, equity and fairplay, transparency, good governance, resulting, in themselves, the egalitarian Nigerian society of our dream. We will give voice to the voiceless and at all times, strive to be balanced, objective, honest, truthful and fair to all sides; so that through The Oracle Today, our people, the Nigerian people can see a bright light at the end of what has been a very dark tunnel.

And we shall do all this in absolute trust in God who blesses good intentions.

25

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

OPINION

Why is the IDF so aggressive?

By YAGIL LEVY

M

ore than anything the IDF is zealous about, it’s prestige, resources and freedom of action that influence its judgment on how to best serve the country’s security.

Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is spearheading the militant approach toward confronting Iran in Syria, according to Amos Harel (May 3). If so, this refutes one of the prevailing assumptions in Israel and around the world that the chief of staff is a moderating factor, who works to restrain the politicians. The IDF blocked the initiative to attack nuclear facilities in Iran and was indeed responsible for the restraint shown in the West Bank in 2015 when the so-called lonewolf attacks began.

This image is now being shattered, as the army reacts aggressively on the Gaza-Israel border and attacks Iranian outposts in Syria.

So is the army hawkish or dovish? The answer is that this question is irrelevant. More than

the army is loyal to one ideological approach or another, it is loyal to its status as an organization.

That’s why the IDF restrains the politicians when they push it toward battles that cannot be won. That’s why it isn’t thrilled about pursuing adventures in the Gaza Strip and certainly not interested in dealing with a third intifada in the West Bank. In such situations it suffers losses and has difficulty wielding force, given the legal limitations, and such warfare ends indecisively.

Such considerations have led the IDF in the past to moderation in the Lebanese theatre, and in recent years it hasn’t been eager to get embroiled in conflicts in the West Bank or Gaza involving “low-tech” battles that harm the preparedness of its combat units. This is particularly true now, when the Gideon multiyear plan formulated by the army is aimed at preparing it for the wars of the future, based on advanced technologies.

More than anything the IDF is zealous about its prestige, its resources and its freedom of

action, and that influences its judgment on how to best serve the country’s security.

The battle against Iran is different. In Syria, the IDF can conduct high-tech warfare that demonstrates its high-quality abilities, rather than the limited capabilities of the ground forces. It can operate there without domestic or foreign restrictions concerning legitimacy, and without having to deal with human rights organizations and United Nations investigations.

From the IDF’s point of view, an escalation against Iran, which suffers from military and economic weakness and lacks substantial international legitimacy, will lead Tehran to relinquish its strongholds in Syria. Thus a security threat will be removed and the army’s public image – which Eisenkot is particularly sensitive to – will soar. Moreover, the Gideon plan will not be disrupted and there may even be greater willingness to add funding to the defense budget for long-term enhancements. Motivation to do military service, which tends to rise after successful rounds

of violence, will certainly not disappoint this time and will provide oxygen to the dying compulsory-draft model.

That’s why the risk that an escalation could cause thousands of missiles to fall on the home front and fatally undermine public trust in the IDF is not currently playing a role in the army’s considerations. Under these circumstances we can also understand why the ambiguity that once characterized Israel’s military operations against Iran have given way to public relations stunts – like the photo of the F-35 aircraft over Beirut.

But the importance of all this does not lie in a theoretical analysis of the army’s motives. We must understand that the military is a player in the political arena with its own interests, whose position must be studied critically by the public, even if behind it are the admired commanders of the “people’s army.”

•YAGIL wrote this article originally for Haaretz, Israel’s English-language newspaper

Snapshot of a moving target (2) The purpose of every intellectual or scholarly expose—oral or written—is threefold: 1.

To publicize the knowledge and information crystalized in the expose; 2.

To stimulate debate and discussions over the data, perspectives, deductions and/or insights, articulated in the expose; And 3.

To have the expose serve as a credible basis for policy formulation or implementation by a government, agency, organization or authoritative individual.

Apart from the section of Oseloka Obaze’s book, Prime Witness, that contained its: dedication, reflection, philosophy, Foreword, Acknowledgment and Introduction; the book is divided into SIX parts: A through F. Part A, sub-titled: Governance and Politics, is made up of chapters 1 to 15; Part B, sub-titled: Foreign Policy is made up of chapters 16 to 18; Part C, sub-titled: Security Challenges is made up of chapters 19 to 21; Part D, sub-titled: Constitutional Questions is made up of chapters 22 to 25; Part E, sub-titled: Economic and Fiscal Policies is made up of chapters 26 to 35; and finally, Part F, sub-titled: Change Mantra in Retrospect is made up of chapters 36 to 38.

These chapters constituted of a total of 299 text pages, 42 pages of Appendices and a 14-page Index.

• Prime Witness is a dense work that requires very close and concentrated reading in order for the reader to grasp and maintain the trend lines of the author’s thoughts.

• The analysis of policy pronouncements, projections and efforts at implementation; tends to meander from criticism to sympathetic hearing, to a wait-and-see attitude; with the consequence that, every now and again, the author’s perspective on the various policy issues, gets lost in the shuffle or becomes so muted that the reader is unsure of the author’s definitive stance.

• Prime Witness is not a book for the “average Nigerian.” It is too intellectually taxing for that segment of the Nigerian population. Even for Nigerians who are university students and public policy buffs and/or aficionados, plowing through Prime Witness will be an intellectual challenge, as

•Summary of the Guts of His Book In this second installment of the review of Oseloka Obaze’s widely acclaimed book, PRIME WITNESS: CHANGE & POLICY CHALLENGES IN BUHARI’S NIGERIA (2017), reviewer EMEKA ANIAGOLU, in what he calls ‘summary of the guts of Obaze’s book’, explains the ‘threefold’ purpose of every intellectual work… well it should. Its subject matters are serious, complex and demanding of intellectual acuity. It will be most useful primarily, if not exclusively, to intellectuals, scholars and those in policymaking circles; which, in all probability, might have been its author’s intention, anyway.

1.

The Motivation behind the Book What was Oseloka Obaze’s motivation for writing his book: Prime Witness?

• Was it purely scholarly interest in deconstructing the policymaking and implementation apparatus as well as modus operandi of the current government of Nigeria?

• Was it to introduce himself to the Nigerian public, in order to showcase his administrative acumen and/or policymaking skills; as a way of positioning himself for future appointments and/or elective positions in the country? After all, it is no secret that he served in the Anambra State Government and once ran for Governor of Anambra State!

• Was it a disinterested academic search for policy solutions to Nigeria’s problems of governance that are, no doubt, crying out for creative solutions and willed action?

Having judiciously read Oseloka’s Prime Witness, I, feel confident in asserting that it was all of the above. And why not? The Igbo have a saying that: ‘Ife madu lulu ogoya aburo usa.’ ‘Something someone deserves or has earned is not greed or vaulting ambition.’

Having worked and thrived in the world’s largest bureaucracy—the United Nations—for over two decades; having been trained in some of the best institutions in the world, on the delicate art and craft of policymaking and implementation, nego-

tiation, peaceful conflict resolution processes and techniques; having had to come up with feasible policy options for problems on-the-ground in conflict-ridden environments; and having had to make such policy options conceptually intelligible and persuasive—both to his superiors and subordinates; Mr. Obaze, a bona fide Nigerian patriot, may well have felt that he had little or no choice but to put his experience and expertise to use in the discourse that is his most recent book: Prime Witness.

It remains unclear to me, however, whether a forensic analysis of policy formulation, choices and the political dynamics of their successful or unsuccessful implementation, no matter how copiously undertaken, is enough to nail down the essential concern Nigerians have about “who” Muhammadu Buhari really is? What his core values, motivations, predilections, worldview, apprehension of the modern world and Africa’s/Nigeria’s place in it, sense of religious freedom, modern feminism, etc. are?

Though President of Nigeria—for the second time—Buhari remains mysterious, if not, in fact, enigmatic to most Nigerians.

In fact, Obaze noted in the Introduction to his book, Prime Witness, that: Although Buhari, served as a military head of state thirty years earlier, and had been in the democratic political fray for over sixteen years, Nigerians knew him perfunctorily, and not necessarily or always in a positive light. Little had been written about him. He had no published autobiography. Hence, it would take exactly four months into the Buhari Presidency, for his top aides, Maman Daura and Abaa Kyari, Buhari’s Chief of Staff to compel the publishing of an “authorized biography” of Bu-

hari by Prof. John N Paden, not only to re-introduce Buhari to Nigerians, but indeed, to inform those who “had little sense of what happened in the intervening thirty years” whilst making an attempt at presenting “objective history” and a “cultural and political perspective of the current challenges of the Buhari Presidency.”

Prime Witness did not resolve that mystery, and it might well be that it could not have or was not intended or designed to do so. Interrogating the policies of President Buhari, although they do not necessarily emanate from only him, as a means of trying to nail down the persona and philosophical worldview of President Buhari, is a bit like analyzing the diagnosis and prognosis of a doctor, without knowing anything about the doctor’s medical training or area of specialization!

--President Buhari appears to have more of abstract aspirations rather than concrete policies—such as the “fight against corruption;” and where there are actual policies, their questionable efficacy are more often than not attributed to the failures of the “past administration,” and/or the persisting problem of “corruption;” which is, of course, an exquisite tautology.

THE GROUP Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief Ikeddy Isiguzo Editor Felix Oguejiofor Abugu Deputy Editor/Head, Lagos Bureau Sopuruchi Onwuka Abuja Bureau Chief Tony Ailemen Head, Graphics & Designs Nnamdi Alex Chukwu Business Manager Kelechi Nze Circulation Manager Felix Oti

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Travel & Hospitality

26

‘Enugu airport risky for night landing’ M

anagement of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport (AIIA), Enugu, has advised air traveller against landing at night at the airport. This is also the authorities said the screening of travellers for the fast spreading Ebola viruis has fully commenced at the airport.

While assuring all air passengers using the airport of safety, the Airport Manager of AIIA, , Mr. Mgbemena Orjiako Mgbemena, said during an interactive session with journalists in Enugu, weekend, said, that though the airport has all the necessary navigational aids that will aid safe landing and take-off, the only thing the airport is still waiting for, is to add at the two ends of the runway approach light for night landing.

“We do not encourage night landing yet because we have not fixed the approach light. So our operational hours for now is just 12 hours from 7:00 am to 7:00 pm. We may be able to do more than that as soon as the issue that surrounds the installation of the approach lights are tidied up.

Meanwhile, the AIIA, Enugu has commenced full blown thermal and body screening of all passengers coming in and going out of the international airport.

This was part of management efforts to contain the spread of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which broke out recently in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Orjiako also added that the airport has also been able to get the cooperation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has assisted in giving sensitization talks with all the agencies in the airport.

According to Orjiako, the talks which are not only centered on Ebola, also extend to other communicable diseases that are possibly moveable through the air or by means of air travel.

“You know air travel is the quickest means of moving around from continent to continent. So if there is a contagious disease of such magnitude it can easily move from country to country. So WHO has been here and has equally assisted us in giving talks on how to tackle it and what to watch out for and what to do to prevent the spread”, Mgbemena said. On what the airport is doing to avoid any spread, the airport manager said that the Port Health Authority (PHA) in collaboration with other agencies at the airport had held an emergency meeting where they carefully planned on how to forestall Ebola

Lagos joins 2018 World Music Day celebrations with MML

S

howgear and its organizing partners have announced that Lagos will be joining the global celebration of music in the month of June for a 3rd consecutive year under the umbrella of Make Music Lagos (MML).

Make Music Lagos is the Lagos edition of Make Music Day, a festival of free live music hosted in more than 120 countries all over the world to commemorate World Music Day under the guidance of the United States-based Make Music Alliance.

Since its launch, the Make Music Lagos festival has had two (2) backto-back editions. The first in 2016 which delivered 3 concerts with performances by Bez, Cobhams Asuquo, Tosin Martins, Olufunmi, Wura Samba, Johnny Drille, Pita, Wole Oni, Lagos Mainland Choir etc.

And a second in 2017 that saw the introduction of 3 landmark music initiatives (Mass Appeal, Learn to Play & Street Studio), and an increase in the number of concert venues to 12. Notable performers at this edition were: King Sunny Ade, Daddy Showkey, Adewale Ayuba, Omawumi, BEZ, Sound Sultan, Morayo Music and Folabi Nuel.

For the 2018 edition, the Make Music Lagos crew is upping the ante with a full slate of events across the month of June. The Mass Appeal, a live performance by a diverse group of instrumentalists and bands of the 2018 MML Theme Song composed by Alternate Sound, comes up on Sunday 17th June at the newly opened JJT (Johnson Jakande Tinubu) Park in Alausa. Learn to Play, a music instruments teaching initiative, runs from the 19th to 21st of June at Lagos State Education District 1, Agege and on the 21st of June in other select locations. \While Learn to DJ, a teaching initiative that gives aspiring DJs the opportunity to learn from DJ Jimmy Jatt and other leading DJs, and the Street Studio, a free style music production initiative, will be hosted on World Music Day (June 21) in select locations across the city.

Over sixteen (16) concerts will also be hosted on World Music Day (June

21) in various venues across the city of Lagos. And the celebrations will be capped off with a Lagos Shutdown on Sunday the 24th of June at the Muri Okunola Park, Victoria Island with live performances from LAGBAJA, WAJE and a host of others.

“We are excited to be back for a 3rd edition of Make Music Lagos following the success and the overwhelming show of support from the last two (2) editions. More importantly, we are excited about the endorsement of the festival by the Lagos State Government which is a big seal of approval on the festival,” said Adeola Akinyemi, Showgear COO and the MML Organizing Team Chair.

Virus Disease (EVD) at the airport.

He said Enugu airport was very serious on controlling the ebola outbreak in DR Congo because international flights are coming into the airport three times a week.

Mgbemena noted that the airport had also created an area where they can quarantine any passenger discovered to have an abnormal temperature.

“That area in the arrival hall where we keep them and also check their temperature discreetly while they are coming in without them knowing. We also have sanitisers in different corners at the airport where people can wash up themselves”, he said.

According to the manager, there was always a joint monitoring of the movement of passengers into

the airport every Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturday, adding that they “pay greater attention to those moving into the airport because most of them may be coming from Addis Ababa but they may be transiting from other areas of the world. So we want to be very cautious and we don’t want anything to go wrong”.

•From left: United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO)/Commission for Africa (CAF) Regional Director, Elcia Grandcourt; Secretary-General, UNWTO, Mr Zurab Pololikashvili , Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, Deaconess Grace Isu Gekpe at the pre-conference press briefing for the UNWTO/CAF Meeting at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja.

C’ River Govt. spreads tourism development initiative to schools

C

ross River Government says it has taken its new initiative on tourism and culture to schools across the state, in order to ensure sustainable development of the sector.

State’s Commissioner for Culture and Tourism, Mr Eric Anderson, who disclosed this in Calabar, said that government had deemed it necessary to create more awareness on culture and tourism to enable the people to develop more interest in the area as a viable sector of the economy.

“We have introduced Tourism and Digital Media in our schools with a view to inculcating the spirit of tourism into our students. This is part of the measures we have taken to ensure that Cross River remains the tourism destination, not only in Nigeria, but in African as whole,” he said.

He said that the state sent a contingent to Rio de Janerio in Brazil early this year to participate in an international carnival, adding that Cross River was the first to do so in the country. The commissioner added that the

state considered tourism as a major source of revenue through branding and rebranding of tourism activities.

“Since the inception of the present administration under Prof. Ben Ayade, government has introduced a lot of innovations in the annual Calabar Christmas Carnival to attract more investors. Besides that, the governor created a Ministry for Culture and Tourism which had never been done in the past.

“We are not relenting by introducing more attractive measures like what we saw in Rio,” he added.

the regional meeting, as, according to him, ‘it shows Nigeria is hospitable.’

On attracting investment into Nigeria as well as other African countries, the UNWTO chief said that was in line with the organisation’s target of making the sector sustainable in terms of wealth and job creation, adding that fora like the CAF was specifically evolved to address challenges facing the member countries.

“The UNWTO seeks to promote tourism in countries and one of the ways it does this is through projects like the CAF meetings where we set out by first asking individual countries to list their challenges. These are collated and through platforms like the CAF meetings, they are evaluated and solutions discussed.

We believe tourism is the ultimate solution and way forward for Nigeria, as well as other countries in Africa, largely because of its potential for huge job creation which can improve the economies of African countries.

“When we come together for the regional CAF meetings, we look to help create conducive tourism environment which makes attracting investments possible, which in it-

self is the biggest driver of economies. In Nigeria, we are looking foreign direct investments (FDI) which we are working with the government to first position better.

“I am impressed with the level of work by Nigeria towards organising this event; it only goes to show that the people are hospitable.

Tourism can develop this country more than any other resource or sector. The potential for job creation is huge. So we are working with the government to see how far we can help it develop the industry, as well as other African countries. The UNWTO also shares in the resolve and is working to ensure that tourism is developed much enough to create jobs in the continent and attract that needed investment,” said the UNWTO boss.

While noting that tourism has huge potential to generate lasting development opportunities in Africa and Nigeria in particular, Pololikashvili said the continent is UNWTO’s top priority in the area of tourism and investment promotion. “There are broad impact of tourism for the benefit of societies and its people, and promot-

ing tourism as a priority in national agendas,” he said.

On his part, Mohammed while The minister welcoming Pololikashvili and his team to the country, said tourism remains the future of Nigeria, as, according, its sustainability is attainable, which he said, explains the Federal Government’s commitment of $11 billion dollars so far to developing infrastructure across the country.

The minister also said the recent government’s Ease of Doing business policy, especially in the area of seamless travel, not only raised the country’s ranking in the comity of investment friendly nations, but also accounted for the over $6 billion attracted in terms of foreign investments as at the last quarter of 2017.

The minister who announced that the Meeting gathered 166 foreign delegates, 26 African Tourism Ministers and 332 Nigerian delegates, said the theme of the meeting which is, Tourism Statistics: A Catalyst for Development,” f was in sync with the plan by the Federal Government to improve on the nation’s tourism statistics for planning purposes and the ultimate development of tourism sector.

Buhari woos investors with ‘attractive investment incentives’ U

By VICTOR NZE

NITED Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) can assist Nigeria attract more investments by boosting the country’s tourism sector to make it effective in job creation.

This is also President Muhammadu Buhari urged investors to consider Nigeria as their second home as he wooed them to invest in the subsector of the country’s economy.

Addressing a World Press Conference preceding the 61st UNWTO Commission for Africa (CAF) conference at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, Sunday, Secretary-General, Mr Zurab Pololikashvili said the regional meeting of African tourism ministers was designed to articulate issues militating against the growth of the sector in member-countries with a view to evolving appropriate solutions, so that the industry can create job opportunities which, he said, is in line with the goals of the organisation.

Pololikashvili, accompanied by minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, praised the efforts put in by Nigeria toward hosting the 61st edition of

27

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

AVIATION

Airline operators fault FG on National Carrier, move against VAT Stories by VICTOR NZE

U

MBRELLA body of airline owners in the country, the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) has resolved to stop the remittances of Value Added Tax (VAT) to the Federal Government from June 14, this year.

This is also as the body faulted Federal Government’s plans to use tax payers’ money to fund the proposed National Carrier project.

Rising from a meeting attended by the management of majority of the country’s domestic airlines, the AON stated that the deadline is not only for the benefit of the airlines but also to attract more passengers back to the airports. enting the position of AON, during a press briefing in Lagos on Thursday May 31, the Chairman of the group, Capt. Nogie Meggison also noted that the Nigerian Domestic Airline Travel is the only mode of transportation that is subjected to the Value Added Tax (VAT).

Capt. Meggison said this imposition creates a suppression of domestic airline travel demand; resulting in airlines not being able to optimally utilize their aircraft assets thereby creating a market distortion.

Megisson further decried that even some airlines were being exempted from the tax making it worse and unfair.

“Nigerian Domestic Airline Travel is the only mode of transportation that is subjected to the Value Added Tax (VAT). This imposition creates a suppression of domestic airline travel demand; therefore re-

sulting in airlines not being able to optimally utilize their aircraft assets and more importantly creating a market distortion.”

“The AON’s position is that the VAT on airline ticket sales for domestic carriers must be removed completely forthwith as road transportation, rail, marine and international air travel carriers are not subjected to VAT.” “Moreover, a situation whereby some airlines are paying VAT while some other privileged airlines are not paying VAT and the VAT which we pay is being used to subsidize our competitors against those that are making payment is unfair.”

On the issue of a National Carrier, Meggion said the AON is at a loss as to the relevance and need of a National Carrier at this point in time in the history of the nation.

He observed that whilst the AON is not averse to the government providing a conducive operating business environment and a level playing field for the establishment of a private sector driven flag carrier, the idea of using tax payers money to float a “National Carrier” in 2018 is not only counterproductive, but inimical to the overall interests of the present corps of private entrepreneurs.

The AON Chairman said there should be a level playing field and transparency in the operations of the planned national carrier.

He said if the federal government is sincere about the establishment of a national carrier, their members should have been invited to come and take equities in the national carrier.

Meggison pointed out that bringing the director general of the Ni-

Delta, LAWA to construct $1.86b Sky Way at LAX

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elta Air Lines and the Los Angeles World Airports (LAWA) have formally kicked off the Delta Sky Way at Los Angeles Airport (LAX) project — Delta’s $1.86 billion plan to modernize, upgrade and connect Terminals 2, 3, and the Tom Bradley International Terminal (Terminal B).

Construction is expected to begin this fall. The project kickoff follows the LAWA Board of Airport Commissioners’ recent approval of the largest tenant improvement award in its history, which cleared the way for the Delta Sky Way at LAX to begin.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Delta CEO Ed Bastian, LA City Councilmember Mike Bonin, LAWA Commissioner Sean Burton and LAWA CEO Deborah Flint celebrated the milestone today at a press conference where they also shared new renderings of the future facility.

“Los Angeles is constantly reaching new heights, and today’s project launch creates jobs and forges global connections,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, adding: “The modernization of Terminals 2 and 3 is an investment in our economy and people, and Delta’s partnership

is helping to accelerate an era of growth and innovation in Los Angeles.”

“Nearly 10 years ago, we made a commitment to be LA’s premier, premium airline. Today, LAX is one of the most important hubs in our network where we operate more than 170 daily flights and connect more passengers to our partner airlines than anywhere else in the U.S.,” said Delta CEO Ed Bastian, adding: “The Delta Sky Way at LAX project is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in and transform the airport experience in partnership with LAWA and the City of Los Angeles. Delta is excited and proud to be leading the way not just in LA but in our hubs across the country, with more than $12 billion in airport infrastructure investments in progress over the next few years.”

“Our vision is a gold-standard airport, and one of our strategic plan goals is delivering exceptional facilities and experiences at the same time,” said LAWA CEO Deborah Flint. “And even though that is no easy feat, I am confident that with the team at Delta and the partnership we have, that we can achieve that vision.”

gerian Civil Aviation Authority, the industry regulator to be part of the committee to set up or run a private sector national carrier is a misnomer that should not happen anywhere. ”In the overall scheme of things, “National Carrier” can only result in a huge distortion to the current market and will be a huge drainpipe to government’s treasury. In this regard therefore, we urge the federal government to provide clarity on the Agenda whether it’s for job creation or for profit as well as steps being taken in the establishment of this “National Carrier”, especially when viewed against the

background that the Minister of State Aviation has indicated that this airline will commence operations on December 24, 2018.

“Moreover, this model is no longer practicable worldwide as in the 70s 80 percent of the airlines in Europe were government owned airlines. Today 98percent of the airlines have been privatized,” he said.

On the issue of Customs Duty, Meggison explained that while the government has provided for Zero Customs Duty on Commercial Aircraft, Spares and Engines, the industry is yet to fully benefit from the provision.

This, he said, has resulted in airlines having some of their aircraft fleet grounded for days in some cases, thereby resulting in cancelled flights which in event results in chaos at our airports to the displeasure of our esteemed customers.

The AON Chairman added that this situation is unacceptable and should be reversed forthwith.

He urged the federal government to immediately institute the necessary mechanisms to ensure that the Customs Duty Waiver to Commercial airline operators as proposed and agreed should be fully effected.

•(From left to right): Chairman, Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Capt. Nogie Meggison; Executive Director Overland Airways, Mrs. Aduke Atiba; Overland Airways, Mr. Trancis Anwana and Executive Director, First Nation Airways, Capt. Chimara Imediegwe, during the AON Media briefing in Lagos, Thursday, on the State of the Aviation Industry and to Announce AON’s decision to Stop Remittance of VAT to the Federal Government from June 14.

IATA rules out profits by airlines for December

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ROFITS in the airline industry are unlikely to reach the record levels forecast in December due to a jump in fuel costs, the head of the world’s leading air transport group said on Thursday.

International Air Transport Association (IATA) Chief Executive Alexandre de Juniac said his organisation will issue fresh forecasts next week, and that airline profits were still likely to be robust.

The December projections were based on oil at 60 dollars per barrel, Juniac said. Brent crude is currently over 77 dollars per barrel, having risen roughly 15 per cent so far this year.

“We are probably at the peak of the (profit) cycle. Next year we don’t know yet but probably less positive,” Juniac said at a media event ahead of the organisation’s annual meeting starting on Sunday.

Airline operators such as Singapore Airlines Ltd and Malaysia’s AirAsia Group Bhd posted strong profits in the latest quarter ended March amid a tourism boom in the region.

In December, IATA predicted a record 38.4 billion dollars net profit for the airline industry in 2018, with 27.9 billion dollars coming from U.S. and European airlines.

Juniac said higher fuel prices had not yet been passed on in fares and that infrastructure and labour costs as well as taxes were rising.

Meanwhile, The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has released data for global air freight markets showing that demand, measured in freight tonne kilometers (FTKs), rose 4.1 Percent in April 2018, compared to the same period the year before. This was up from the 1.8 Percent growth in annual demand recorded in March 2018.

Freight capacity, measured in available freight tonne kilometers (AFTKs), grew by 5.1 Percent yearon-year in April 2018. This was the second time in 21 months that capacity growth outstripped demand growth.

According to the report, African carriers saw freight demand grow 5.6 percent in April 2018 compared to the same month last year, after a decline of 3.4Percent in March.

Capacity increased by 23 percent.

After a surge in international FTK volumes last year, seasonallyadjusted international freight volumes have trended downwards from a peak in late-2017 and are now at levels seen mid-2017.

“The weaker growth in air cargo is primarily due to the end of the

restocking cycle, during which businesses rapidly increase their inventory to meet unexpectedly high demand. This is consistent with demand drivers moving away from the highly supportive levels seen last year. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) for manufacturing and export orders fell in April 2018 to its lowest level since 2016.

A softening of global trade is also evident with containerized freight demand slowing in tandem with air freight demand. Seasonally-adjusted freight volumes continue to track sideways.

“April saw a strengthening from the abrupt slowdown in growth experienced in March. This is good news. We remain cautiously optimistic that demand will grow in the region of 4Percent this year.

But the forecast appears to have increasing downside potential. Oil prices continue to rise as does protectionist rhetoric. Borders open to people and to trade drive economic growth and social prosperity. We are all disadvantaged when they are closed,” said de Juniac.

All regions reported growth on 2017 levels, albeit at different levels of expansion.

IATA represents some 280 airlines comprising 83 per cent of global air traffic.

28

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

INSURANCE & PENSION

Pension scheme hosts 7.98m workers in 1st quarter Stories by VICTOR NZE

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ATIONAL Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that about 7.82 million workers are registered under the pension scheme in the fourth quarter of 2017 compared to 7.71 million registered workers in the third quarter of the year.

The NBS made this known in “Pension Asset and Membership Data for Fourth Quarter, 2017’’ posted on its website.

The bureau stated that the Pension Fund Asset under Management as at fourth quarter stood at N7.5 trillion as against N7.2 trillion in third quarter of the year.

The pension fund assets were invested in various asset classes by approved existing scheme (AES), closed pension fund administrators, retirement savings

account (RSA) active fund as well as RSA retiree fund.

It added that FGN Bonds has the highest weight percentage of 48.61% of the total pension fund assets and closely followed by

treasury bills with 20.89% weight and domestic ordinary Shares with 9.25% weight while agency bonds has the least with 0.07% weight.

This, the report stated, was

closely followed by treasury bills with 15.68 per cent weight.

It stated that domestic ordinary shares were 8.94 per cent weight while agency bonds had the least with 0.08 per cent weight.

Participants within the age

distribution 30-39yrs have the highest percentage composition closely followed by participants within the age bracket of 40-49yrs and 50-59yrs while participants above 65 years have the least percentage composition.

Oyo retirees get N200m

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he Oyo State Government has released the sum of N200,963, 492.86 for the payment of year 2011, 2012 Gratuity for 201 retired Civil Servants in the State from Grade level 01-07.

State Head of Service, Mrs. Olawumi Ogunesan, who made the disbursement of cheques on behalf of the State Government to the beneficiaries at the Old Ministry of Establishment and Training, Secretariat, Ibadan, explained that the payment is an attestation to the fact that the Oyo State Government is paying gratuities to pensioners based on merit and without influence or favour.

The HoS represented by the Acting Permanent Secretary, Office of the Head of Service, Mrs. Adejoke Eyitayo appealed to those that are yet to collect theirs to exercise patience as Government is working assiduously to pay them in due course.

Mrs. Ogunesan revealed that the Oyo State Government had earlier paid N1.3billion gratuities to retirees last year and consequently admonished the beneficiaries to use the money judiciously and be careful with fraudsters who may want to swindle them by collecting money from them unlawfully.

Speaking on behalf of the beneficiaries, two retirees, Mrs Adediran Odebisi and Mr Rasheed Akanbi appreciated the Oyo State Government for releasing the huge amount of money as their gratuities, saying that most of them have lost hope of getting it.

The duo reiterated that the procedure followed in paying the money was pure and based on merit as nobody collected anything from them before releasing the money.

•From left: Eddie Efekoha, Managing Director/CEO, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc; Obinna Ekezie, Chairman, and Rukevwe Falana, Company Secretary, during the company’s 23rd annual general meeting in Lagos.

NSIA Insurance ISO certified

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SIA Insurance Limited said it has received the ISO 9001:2015 Certification from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), the representative of

the International Organisation for Standardization (ISO) in Nigeria.

The Company achieved this certification due to its successful implementation of the quality

Consolidated Hallmark settles N3.354bn claims

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o reward shareholders who have stood by the company during trying times in its 2017 financial year, Consolidated Hallmark (CHI) PLC has declared a N0.02kobo dividend per share, amounting to N140 million dividend paid to its teeming shareholders nationwide.

While announcing the dividend payout to its shareholders at the 2017 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company in Lagos, last week, Chairman, CHI, Mr. Obinna Ekezie, said his insurance firm believes shareholders deserve all the reward they can get through regular dividend payments and more for their continued faith and firm belief in the company.

Stating that the dividend is payable to shareholders whose names appear in the register, he stated that, “we shall continue to live up this expectation as we have done severally, in the past.”

He expressed optimism about the future of the insurer, pointing out that the successful completion of the final phase of the capital it raised, full deployment of funds re-

alised and the eventual emergence of the company as one of the top players in the financial service sector, will benefit its esteemed shareholders in the long run.

Similarly, Managing Director/ CEO, Consolidated Hallmark Insurance Plc, Mr. Eddie Efekoha, said the company continues to fulfil its obligations through prompt claims settlement as gross claims amount paid out in its 2017 financial year was N3.354 billion.

The Total Assets of the firm, he said, stood at N9.49 billion in its 2017 financial year, up from N7.44 billion it was in 2016, representing 27 per cent growth.

He stated that CHI also posted a Profit After Tax of N406.2 million as against N194.9 million posted in its 2016 Financial Year, adding that its Profit Before Tax grew by 74 per cent from N368.1 million in 2016 to N641 million in 2017.

The Gross Premium Written reported for the period, he stressed, was N5.6 billion, while a Net Underwriting Income of N4 billion was recorded.

management system and priority for customer satisfaction. This has ensured that all processes within the organization are standardized to meet best practices. The certification aligns with NSIA’s drive for excellence.

NSIA Insurance thrives on its quest for continuous improvement and this is also the bane of the ISO 9001:2015 standards.

To this end, the Company will uphold compliance to the standard and quality of service across all of its branches to provide clients with excellent service delivery.

The Company’s Managing Director, Mrs. Ebele Nwachukwu, said: “As we continue to strive for client satisfaction at all times, we are very proud of this achievement, which underscores our drive for excellence.

“The ISO certification assures our clients and stakeholders that we can be trusted to deliver the highest quality of services. It gives them confidence that we are fully focused on their needs and committed to international standards of quality.”

ISO 9001:2015 is the latest and most advanced international standards for quality management systems and our promptadoption of this standard is evidence of our commitment to quality in all of our business processes and products.

NSIA Insurance is a composite insurance company, with almost 30 years of service in the Nigerian insurance industry.

C’River launches Health Insurance

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ross River State Governor, Prof Ben Ayade has formally launched the state’s health insurance scheme, tagged; ‘AyadeCare.’

The event which coincided with the Childre’s Day celebrations held, Monday, May 28, at the U. J. Esuene Stadium with the state’s chief executive in attendance.

The launch signifies the formal take-off of the much desired health scheme in the State, as it joined other states government like Oyo, Delta, Ondo, Kebbi, and others.

According to statement by Chairman, Publicity Sub-Committee, Roseline Irek, the lanching ceremony also provide a platform for Cross Riverians and all residents in Cross River State the opportunity to further understand AyadeCare initiative.

Ayade is an initiative which partners International and National health finance bodies, Implementing Partners, Health Management Operators, Third Party Administrators, from reputable Organizations, Civil Society Organizations, the Media, and Labour Unions.

Dignitaries who graced the occasion included those from the National Legislature in Cross River State, the Speaker and members of the State legislature, the State Chief Judge, the Chairman and members of the Traditional Rulers Council, Religious and Faith Based Organizations, and others.

29

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

INSURANCE & PENSION

NAICOM approves Old Mutual’s accounts Stories by VICTOR NZE

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ATIONAL Insurance Commission (NAICOM) said it has approved the 2017 financial accounts of Old Mutual General Insurance Company Nigeria Limited and Old Mutual Life Assurance Company Limited, barely six weeks to the June 30th deadline given by the regulators to insurance firms in the country.

The Old Mutual General Insurance Company Nigeria Limited and Old Mutual Life Assurance Company Limited approval by NAICOm brings to 20 the number of approvals to insurance companies’ financial statements for 2017.

The other companies that are yet to submit their accounts will have to pay a daily fine of N5,000 for failing to meet the June 30, 2018 deadline for submission of their 2017 accounts pending when they submit their accounts.

NAICOM regulation requires insurance firms to submit their financial statements before June 30th every year, or risk being barred from engaging in further business activities

•A group photograph of traditional rulers from Delta South after their registration for the Delta State Contributory Health Insurance Scheme.

Leadway pays N27.4bn to policyholders

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eadway Assurance Company Limited has paid N27.4 billion claims to policyholders in 2017, an increase of 18.95% from the N23 billion paid in 2016, in demonstration of commitment to meet its obligations to policyholders.

This was disclosed at the company’s 46th yearly meeting in Lagos, where the insurer presented its 2017 financial year results to shareholders across the country.

As the largest insurer with balance sheet size of N272 billion, the company continues to position itself to provide the best in class financial security to its varied customers, ranging from individuals, corporates to large commercial/ industrial clients.

This, the company said, is to exhibit market leadership with

growth in its gross premium income, which increased by 57 per cent to N84.48 billion within the period under review.

Addressing shareholders at the meeting, the Chairman of Leadway Assurance, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai, said: “While the impact of the economic recovery remains mixed, we are optimistic that recovery from the throes of recession will continue as we navigate the issues and challenges that 2018 may bring.

“On our part, we are encouraged to leverage on our brand and strategic initiatives to increase insurance awareness, create risk products tailored to every segment of consumer needs delivering ‘happiness’, to rejuvenate insurance as a necessity.

utual Benefits Assurance Plc has paid a total of N5.15 billion to policyholders in the country in efforts to regain confidence in the nation’s insurance sector.

According to the company, the audited financial accounts for the year ended December 2017 with the profit after tax of 176 per cent showed that shareholders of the company stands a chance of getting better investment returns.

The result, which was released on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), revealed that profit after tax increased by 176 per cent to N1.02 billion in the 2017 financial year from a loss position of N1.35 billion in 2016.

Gross Premium Written also appreciated by 16 per cent from N12.14 billion in 2016 to N14.03 billion in 2017, while underwriting income also grew by 10 per cent to N11.78 billion in 2017,

I

life insurance products in eight pilot branches over the past few months.

It said that Prudential, one of the oldest and most capitalised life insurance companies in the world, acquired a majority stake in Zenith Life of Nigeria in July 2017 and formed an exclusive Bancassurance partnership with Zenith Bank in Nigeria and Ghana.

FBNInsurance is industry’s best for 2018

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BNInsurance Limited has won the 2018 Insurance Company of the year award at the 4th African Insurance Awards in recognition of its aggressive strategy to develop the retail life market in Nigeria.

The award instituted by Africa Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re) was presented to FBN Insurance at the 45th African Insurance Organisation (AIO) Conference & General Assembly held in Accra Ghana.

According to the judges the insurance firm had between 2014 and 2017 achieved an average growth of 57, 36 of premium in-

Mutual Benefits Assurance declares N5b claims settlement M

Prudential Zenith Life deploys to additional 50 bank branches

n line with its Bancassurance partnership with Zenith Bank, Prudential Zenith Life Insurance said it had commenced sales of insurance products in additional 50 branches of Zenith Bank from Monday.

Prudential Zenith Life Insurance said in Lagos on Tuesday that this would build on the initial launch of the partnership which enabled customers of Zenith Bank to purchase

against the 2016 figure of N10.70 billion.

Chairman, Dr. Akin Ogunbiyi, said: “Despite the tough business environment, we have been able to bounce back to profitability and delight our shareholders. Dividend of two kobo per share will be paid to our esteemed shareholders who have stood by us over the years.”

The result, which has been approved by the insurance regulator- NAICOM, also showed that the net claims paid by the Group in 2017 stood at N5.15 billion from N3.35 billion in 2016, resulting in a 54 per cent increase from the previous year’s record. On claims payment in the period under review, the Managing Director, Segun Omosehin, said: “This is an attestation of our firm resolve to consistently honour our obligations to our esteemed customers, while improving our claims’ administration processes and procedures.”

come, 58.6 per cent of net profit and 43 per cent of shareholders ‘fund. For a relatively new company as FBN, the panel of judges considered those figures as exceptional performance especially in a country where insurance level is less than 1 per cent.

The company’s aggressive strategy to develop the retail life market led to the opening of 2000 distribution agents; the pioneering role in the use of mobile phone to bring insurance products to the lowest class of citizens in Nigeria has led FBN Insurance Nigeria to achieve 70 per cent of its revenue from retail life market.

Despite being approximately four years old in the insurance industry as at 2014, FBN Insurance Nigeria had become a top five life insurer (having risen from the 27th position as at 2010).

The Innovation of the Year award went to Kenya-based Jubilee Insurance for its Julie technology platform, which was designed to improve its service to clients, while the CEO of the Year was named as Richard Lowe, CEO of Activa Insurance, who the judges said was a stalwart of the insurance industry across Africa.

Meanwhile, Managing Director, FBN General Insurance, Mr Bode Opadokun, Thursday, said the company’s shareholders’ fund grew to N4.45 billion following the company’s impressive business performance in 2017.

Opadokun who said in Lagos that the fund grew to N4.45 billion from N4.1 billion in 2016, also

noted that the growth validated the shareholders’ confidence in company’s deliverables.

“The increment to N4.45 billion in 2017 from N4.1 billion in 2016 is a confirmation of shareholders’ unwavering support and trust in the general insurer’s business potential of the company,’’ he said.

Opadokun said gross claims of N861 million was paid in the financial year compared to N627 million paid in 2016, representing a 27 per cent increase over 2016 figures, adding that its underwriter will continue to prioritise claims payments and shareholders’ welfare to sustain its integrity.

He explained that the increase in claims expenses was due to the high loss trends the market witnessed during the year under review, just as he, , however, added that the company made a significant reinsurance recoveries on all the claims incurred from each class of business,’’ he said.

Opadokun said the company’s Gross Written Premium (GWP) increased to N3.52 billion in 2017 from N2.19 billion in 2016, further adding that the preferential treatment given by Nigerians was also revealed in an impressive Profit Before Tax (PBT) as it grew to N323 million in 2017 from N195 million in 2016, a 66 per cent growth.

He said that total assets recorded an appreciable growth of 27 per cent in the financial year to N7.24 billion from N6.06 billion in 2016.

30

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

EQUITY & Capital Market

How capital market fared in Buhari’s 3 years Three years into his tenure as the President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, KAYODE OGUNWALE writes on how President Muhammadu Buhari has been able to impact the Nigerian capital market. Excerpt.

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HEN information filtered out in February 2015 by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that the then General Muhammadu Buhari won the nation’s presidential election, it was exited news for many investors in Nigerian capital market. Investors took to the stock market to demonstrate their happiness by demanding for more shares which led to the first ever highest gain in a single trading day in the 55 years of the market. The stock market gain N906 billion, representing 8.45 per cent in a single trading day. The market which has been in existence since Nigeria’s independence as never record a gain of 8 per cent on a single day transaction.

Many analysts believed that inspired performance of highest daily gain in the history of stock market was a sign of confidence in the nation bourse. Though, prior to the election, there was uncertainty around the general election which dragged many stock prices to penny stocks.

However, the market started on a smooth mode in May 29, 2015 when Muhammadu Buhari assumed office as President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, there was high hope from the investing public of a renewed and developed market; they expected him to bring his zero tolerance for corruption to bear on the market.

Thereafter, investors hope started fading when President Muhammadu Buhari failed to appoint his cabinet. With this, the performance of the Nigerian stock market ended poorly in 2015 as indicated by the market indicators, the market capitalization and the All Share Index.

Data from the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) as at December, 31 2015 showed that the equity market dipped by 17.36 percent year on year compared with a decline of 16.14 percent in 2014.

During the year, the Nigerian bourse slumped below its three year low due to what market analysts attributed to inability of president to appoint minister as at when due, dwindling crude oil price, foreign exchange problems and exodus of foreign portfolio investors. The market was also negatively affected by the instability of the naira exchange rate which discouraged foreign investors from the bourse.

In the same vein, the poor run spread to the year 2016 as the Nigerian stock market maintained a bearish outlook to close the year 2016 on a negative note by 6.16 percent.

Differently, in 58 years existence of the Nigerian stock market, the market make history as third best stock market globally in 2017 with 43 percent annual gain.

The 2017 financial year ended

•President Muhammadu Buharai on the positive trajectory with a record of N4.363 trillion gain to close at N13.609 trillion in market capitalisation.

The growth in market at the period was mainly due to sustainable positive sentiment by investors.

NSE was rated one of the top five best performing global stock exchanges in 2017 by the CNN. The rating revealed that the nation’s stock market toped equities markets of most major European, Middle Eastern and Asian countries.

A CNN report, which examined the performances of global equities’ markets, listed the United States stock market to have average 25 per cent, Nigeria 43 per cent, Turkey 43 per cent, Argentina 73 per cent and Hong Kong 35 per cent as the major out-performers.

The report said the Nigerian stock market in 2017 recorded a 43 per cent gain after the Central Bank made it easier to swap foreign currencies through the special window called the ‘Investors’ and Exporters’ FX Window’ created in April which also helped

the country ease out of a short but painful recession.

However, the year 2018 started on positive trend until late April when bearish overwhelmed the positive outlook in the market.

The weak performance of the domestic bourse was sustained all through the month of May as investors continued to sell off on market bellwethers. Hence the All Share Index fell 7.7 percent in May (the largest monthly loss since January 2016). This Performance is largely in line with the trend across emerging market equity indices as foreign investors continue to exit these markets.

Market analyst at SCM Capital, Mr. Sewa Wusu said, risk aversion and apathy from portfolio investors is taking its toll on the Nigerian market.

Increasing yields in treasury bonds in advanced economies, particularly in the U.S., may have also shifted focus from the Nigerian market, he said.

Nigerian equities advanced earlier this year as increased prices for oil, the nation’s biggest export, boosted optimism among investors and reduced foreign-ex-

‘ You would probably see activity in the mar-

ket when there is a catalyst for it, otherwise people would want to wait and see from a political perspective before going on with their large investment plans. That is the feedback they are giving us

’

change shortages. Net purchases of stocks by foreigners seeking higher yielding emerging-market assets jumped 13-fold in January from a year earlier.

Speaking last week in Lagos, the CEO of the NSE, Mr. Oscar Onyema said the two risks investors are concerned about now is currency and country risks.

“You would probably see activity in the market when there is a catalyst for it, otherwise people would want to wait and see from a political perspective before going on with their large investment plans. That is the feedback they are giving us.”

Commenting on the performance of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in the last three years CEO, Afrinvest, Mr. Ayodeji Ebo said, “this administration started very slow, there were some very avoidable mistake that slow than the market. In 2015, treasury bill yield closed around five percent and rose significantly to around 20 percent in 2016 before moderating to about 14 percent in 2017. The implication of this is that, in lending, when you see risk free investment give as high as 22 percent effective yield, investors especially most of the banks would prefer to channel available funds/deposits received from their customers to that particular form of investment.”

Based on government decision to see how to restructure the budget, it refused domestic borrowing and go for more foreign borrowings, that has helped moderated the rates toward the end of last year and to this year, he said.

He noted that, risk within the economy is still very prevalent

which has hampering lending to the private sector.

In addition, it would be difficult to conclude market performance under President Muhammadu Buhari without talking about the instability in the head of apex regulator in the capital market.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is operating at a skeletal level due to the absence of a board.

Also, in the last three years we have three director general of SEC and that send a very wrong signal to foreign investors.

SEC has been without a board since 2015, after the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration dissolved the existing one then.

The Investment and Securities Act (ISA) designates the board of SEC as the main organ for the administration of the commission.

Some stakeholders believed that the inability of the government to constitute a board for SEC for three years has exposed the capital market to ridicule and poor corporate governance.

There is nowhere in the ISA where anyone is substituted to perform the role of the board of SEC. There is no way any other government agency or minister or whosoever can replace the board. It has exposed the frailties of the capital market regulation.

The ISA stipulates the composition of a board for SEC, which shall include a part-time chairman, the director-general and chief executive as accounting officer, three full time commissioners, a representative of the Federal Ministry of Finance, a representative of the Central Bank of Nigeria, and two part-time commissioners one of whom shall be a legal practitioner qualified to practice in Nigeria with ten years post call experience.

The ISA vested the board of SEC with the mandate for “general administration of the commission”, which, particularly, include to formulate policies for the regulation and development of the capital market and the achievement and exercise of the functions of the commission, approve the audited and management accounts of the commission and appoint Auditors for the commission.

Also, the board is statutorily responsible for consideration and approval of the yearly budget of the commission as may be presented to it by the management, establishment of zonal offices of the commission and sundry activities as necessary and expedient for the purposes of achieving the objectives of the commission.

In conclusion, due to important of the capital market to economic development as an avenue to raise long term fund, government need to introduce policies that would make companies to thrive in terms of cost of doing business. Most of the companies have to provide their power, roads and many other infrastructures which will moderate companies’ margin. Policies are required to drive transactions in capital market.

31

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

MONEY Market

Wapic shareholders task Aig-Imoukhuede on non-dividend payment

By JEROME USHAKANG

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HAREHOLDERS of Wapic Insurance Plc have expressed disappointment over nonpayment of dividend for three three-year running and called on the Chairman, Mr. Aaigboje AigImoukhuede to reverse the ugly trend as their aim of investing in the company is to make profit.

The Shareholders who were speaking at the 59th Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Lagos were particularly sad, and wondered why Wapic didn’t deem it fit to declared even Bonus share as shareholders have not been rewarded as per dividend.

One of the shareholders, Mrs. Abosede Pitan told the Aig-Imoukhuede that she was aggrieved not only because dividend is not paid for some years now but also because since she bought the shares of Wapic Insurance at N11.00 per share over ten years ago, there has been no capital appreciation, no Bonus share and no dividend payment.

Similarly, a prominent shareholder and former President of Nigeria Shareholders Solidarity Association (NSSA) Chief Timothy Adeshiyan said, “I am surprised that Wapic Insurance didn’t paid dividend nor Bonus for the financial year ended December 31, 2017. I recalled that the last dividend paid by the company was three years ago, and it was just three kobo, we are aging and we don’t want posthumous dividend”.

In the same vein, National Coordinator Emeritus, Independent

Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN), Sir Sunny Nwosu said that shareholders have suffered for some years now without dividend nor Bonus share.

Nwosu suggested that Wapic should do something that will add value to its shareholders by paying interim dividend or Bonus share.

He also challenged the regulator of the Insurance industry, National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) to do more to protect the insurance sector as what is happening in the insurance sector of the economic system is failure of the regulator.

The ISAN National Coordinator Emeritus, advised the Board of Directors of Wapic Insurance to declare an interim dividend to mark its 60th anniversary and also to appease aggrieved shareholders.

Also speaking, a shareholder, Mr. Nonah Awoh requested that the Chairman, Mr. Aig-Imoukhuede should explain to investors what he meant when he said dividend won’t be paid even in the near future. How long shall we wait for dividend payment? He asked.

Another investor, Alhaji Muhtar Muhtar commended the Chairman of Wapic Insurance for the good work but said, “ I Iove you but pay us good dividend and bonus.

Responding, the Chairman said that the Board recognizes the important of dividends to shareholders. However, said, “Given the possibility of increased regulatory capital requirement in the near future, the Board of Directors does not deem it prudent to recommend the payment of dividends for the period ended December 31,

•From left: Adamu Atta, Non-Executive Director; Adeyinka Adekoya, MD/CEO; Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman, and Mary Agha, Company Secretary, at 59th AGM in Lagos.

2017.”

Aig-Imoukhuede told shareholders that in line with the company’s mission to lead in all that is worthy, Wapic in 2017 led a number of sustainability initiatives which have significant impact on the citizenry, the insurance industry as well as the economy at large. He explained that in this regard, the company is sponsoring the creation of Nigeria’s first insurance “Claims and Analytics Bureau” adding that an initial assessment has confirmed the fea-

sibility and viability of the project.

Meanwhile, an analysis of the results for the financial ended showed that the Wapic’s Group Gross premium grew by 23 percent to close the year at N9.8billion while net claims increased to N3.1billion from N2.86billion in 2016, as underwriting leaped to N1.6billion in 2017 as against N38million achieved in 2016, representing 304 percent.

Profit Before Tax stood at N1.62billion from N1.2billion in year 2016 as profit after tax also

grew and peaked at N1.52billion from N586million in the previous year, while total assets achieved a growth of 10 percent to close the year at N 28billion from N25.9billion 2016. Shareholders fund in like manner increased by 8 percent to N17.9 billion in contrast to N16.6billion in the previous year, while Earning per share stood at 11kobo during the period under review as against 4kobo in the previous year.

Shareholders’ advises GSK to revalue over N680m unclaimed divided

By JEROME USHAKANG

S

HAREHOLDERS of GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria Plc (GSK) has advised the company to revalue a total of N680, 252,893 million unclaimed dividends being warehoused as at December 31, 2017.

The shareholders who were speaking at the 47th Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Lagos appealed to GSK to collaborate with the Registrars of the company to sensitize the investors nationwide to come forward and claim their dividend.

They also said beside the enlightenment campaign, the Registrars should also educate the shareholders of the need for them to fill “Dividend Mandate Form” so that their dividend can be credited into their account. They said the dividend mandate form has made so easy for the investors, hence it can be paid into savings or current account, unlike before when dividend can only be paid into current account.

One of the shareholders, Mr. Adebayo Adeleke said the revaluation has become necessary adding that doing so the company would be able to invite a family member to claim the entitled dividend of a shareholder who is dead.

However, the Chairman of GSK, Mr. Edmund Onuzo in his response told the shareholders that the company in recent times has taken steps to ensure that all shareholders can retrieve all their unclaimed dividends.

“For instance, Our Registrars because of this issue has opened six branches across Nigeria, specifically outside Lagos State to better serve as a distribution point for sharehold-

ers. “Onuzo Said.

According to him, a list of unclaimed dividend was circulated along with the with 2017 Annual Report, and the issue of unclaimed dividend was highlighted in the notice of AGM, a form for e-allotment was included in the 2008,--2012,2014— 2016 Annual Reports for shareholders to complete and return among others.

The chairman re-assured shareholders that the company and Registrars are working together to ensure that there is an increase in the number of shareholders who subscribe to the e-dividend process for dividend payment going forward.

He said, “ All shareholders are encouraged to fill out the e-dividend payment form attached to the Annual Report and return same to the Registrars for processing. Shareholders are strongly advised to contact the Company’s Registrars or the company’s Secretary to retrieve their unclaimed.”

Meanwhile, the value of unclaimed dividend as at January this year stands at N104billion. In February this year, the Senate began moves to checkmate handling of unclaimed dividends by the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) .

The Senate as at then said , this would be done through proper legislation. Speaking during public hearing organised by Senator Bukar Mustapha, APC Katsina North led Senate Committee on Capital Market, Senate President Bukola Saraki who noted that there was the urgent need for amendments on some of the extant laws guiding the sectors, said that some of the provisions of the extant laws are ob-

solete and needed to be remedied as regards utilization of unclaimed dividends and funds in dormant accounts .

The Public hearing was on Investments and Securities Act ( ISA) 2007 ( Amendment) Bill 2018 and the Unclaimed Funds Bill 2018. Represented by the Senate Minority Whip, Senator Philip Aduda, the Senate President said, “This problem can only be solved through amendments to existing Acts of Parliament such as ISA 2007 and CAMA 1999.

“For instance the Companies and Allied Matters Act ( CAMA) 1999 have placed restrictions on the

number of years a shareholder can claim dividend of a Public Limited Liability Company . “Section 385 of CAMA 1999 provides a window of only 12 years after which a shareholder can no longer access the dividend warrant declared by the companies .

“While the law is silent on what happens to these unclaimed dividends , section 382 gives Public Limited Liability Companies powers to utilize these funds without hindrance or permission by the shareholders It is therefore imperative that these impediments are eliminated to enhance investors’ confidence in the Nigerian Capital Market “.

According to him, similar amend-

ments were required to be carried out in the banking sector through the unclaimed Funds Bill 2018, adding that over the years, financial institutions in the country have had unfettered access to unclaimed funds from dormant banks accounts ; outstanding share certificates ; uncashed dividend warrants ; unclaimed insurance proceeds ; unclaimed pension benefits; unclaimed contributions to the National Provident Fund etc, which the bill is set out to tackle . He said, “To this end, the enactment of the Unclaimed Funds Bill 2018 will make idle funds available for National Development now.

Domestic Product (GDP) would be above six per cent it used to be, going by growth recorded in tax revenue.

On external debt, he assured Nigerians that the current debt profile was still small and nothing to worry about when compared to GDP. Osinbajo said that the country’s debt to GDP was 21 percent, compared with Ghana that was around 70 percent and South Africa 50 per cent, USA 101 percent.

He stated that the country’s debt to revenue as at Nov. 2017 was 34 percent down from about 60 per cent in the past.

“The reason why we have the alarmists is because this is only a snapshot, if you take a snapshot of Nov. 2017, you are not looking at revenue, you might say that the debt is very high.

“So, you cannot respond to these things by snapshot because you

are not taking into account the revenue.

“Our external debt is not something we should worry about, we have managed debt very well,’’ he said.

Osinbajo said that government would remain committed to the development of local capacity with implementation of various initiatives enlisted in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP).

On privatisation, he said that government was still committed to privatisation exercise and was too looking at assets that needed to be privatised. He said that government would concession General Electric and the four major airports in the country. Mr James Gunnell, the Managing Director, Financial Times Live/Global Conferences & Events, said that the summit would further brighten Nigeria’s complex economic and investment climate.

Nigeria’s tax revenue grew by 51% in 2017 – Osinbajo

By KAYODE OGUNWALE

V

ice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the country’s tax revenue has increased to 51 percent in 2017.

Osinbajo made the disclosure at the FT Nigeria Summit on “Dispelling Uncertainty and Building Resilience’’ head in Lagos last Thursday.

He said that the 51 percent growth year- on-year was due to aggressive tax policies introduced by the Federal Government.

Speaking on “Nigeria beyond oilThe pathway to transformation’’, Osinbajo said that the Federal Government had diversified the economy to ensure proper growth and development.

“Aside from oil, tax revenues have gone up by 51 percent in 2017. We are recording high tax revenue in the history of the country,’’ he said.

Osinbajo said that tax to Gross

32

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33

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Love and Living

...With Ireto Temofeh

MODEL OF THE WEEK

LOVE NEWS

Will Meghan and Harry honeymoon in Canada?

T

he new Duke and Duchess of Sussex have reportedly picked their honeymoon destination and its a royal paradise in Canada.

Apparently, they will be going to Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Alberta, Canada and will be staying at the 6,000 sq ft Outlook Cabin which has been dubbed ‘The Royal Retreat’.

Royal officials have yet to confirm if the claims are true, which come after Harry and Meghan had previously said they would postpone their honeymoon.

According to TMZ, the new Duke and Duchess are heading to the spot which has been frequented by royals before.

King George VI and the Queen Mother stayed there in 1939 and Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip also visited in June 2005.

Other famous names who have visited the spot include Anthony Hopkins, John Travolta and Bill Gates.

In 1954, it was where Marilyn Monroe and Robert Mitchum filmed River of No Return.

An enclave of luxury accommodation at the heart of Jasper National Park, the site boasts a series of elegant log cabins.

In the pristine forested surroundings of the lodge’s spa, any recent bride can soothe away the stresses of a Royal Wedding (and accompanying family woes).

The cabin was destroyed by fire in 2000 but it has since – carefully and painstakingly – been rebuilt, using the correct construction blueprints, and with period furniture sourced to replace the originals lost in the blaze.

TMZ sources claim that the resort has ordered special gear and other items to prepare for the arrival of the royal couple.

However, the claims have yet to be confirmed.

The new Duke and Duchess opted to postpone their honeymoon immediately after their wedding.

They instead appeared at Prince Charles’s 70th Birthday Patronage Celebration in the gardens of Buckingham Palace.

ROMANTIC JOKE FREEDOM

Name: Christy Twitter: @E_OnomE • If you want to be our next ORACLE GIRL, e-mail or forward your photos/data to ireto007@yahoo.com. Call 07031028714.

ODD NEWS

A wife says, “Hey! Look at that funny guy whose been drinking a lot.” The husband responds, “Who is he?” The wife answers, “Well, five years ago, he was my boyfriend and I denied him for marriage.”

“Oh my God! He’s still celebrating his freedom!” says the husband.

How one day a week without alcohol lowers disease risk

Y

ou might think that knocking back a drink six days out of seven doesn’t sound like the most virtuous of health plans.

But according to research, laying off alcohol for just one day a week could significantly reduce your risk of liver damage.

Scientists have previously claimed that people who drink large amounts are the most likely to develop alcoholic cirrhosis.

But now a study of 55,197 people has shown that drinking patterns can also influence your risk of developing the disease.

Volunteers were quizzed on their lifestyle, eating habits and waist circumference as part of the test. They were also asked

to report their average alcohol intake in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

Experts found that 342 of the study’s participants were diagnosed with cirrhosis. They used the information to calculate ‘hazard ratios’ for liver disease in relation to drinking frequency, lifetime alcohol intake and beverage type.

The results, published in the Journal of Hepatology, showed that daily drinking appears to be a risk factor along with the total amount of alcohol consumed.

It found that drinking every day was far more dangerous for our health than consuming alcohol on five or six days a week.

study also showed recent alcohol consumption – rather than lifetime drinking habits – is a stronger predictor of alcoholic cirrhosis.

And it found that wine is linked to a lower risk of the disease compared with beer and spirits. Researcher Dr Gro Askgaard, from Copenhagen University Hospital, said: ‘For the first time, our study points to a risk difference between drinking daily and drinking five or six days a week.

‘We can speculate that the reason may be that daily alcohol exposure inhibits liver regeneration and worsens liver damage.’

Courtesy: Daily Mail

34

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

True Confession

He cheated on me while I was pregnant

I

read a lot and I decided to tell quickly tell you my story. For some time now I’m confused about my feelings and I think that by writing the story it would be easier for me to find an answer.

I met Jim my husband while I was in my early twenties and he seemed like the nicest man on earth. He bought many gifts for me and made me feel like a woman loved and in love.

Whenever he was around me, I felt like I was in heaven, because his love seemed so pure and so beautiful. It didn’t take him too long to propose.

And it didn’t take me too long to convince my parents that he was the one I wanted to marry. As far as I was concerned, no man could love me like Jimmy.

My mum tried to make me delay our marriage by saying that I was yet to complete my higher education.

Actually, at that time, I was still in the university and I had hopes of graduating and getting a job which I would use to support myself and my parents. I never thought of getting married while I was still in school but Jimmy didn’t think that way.

Jimmy was so desperate to marry me rather than wait for me to complete my studies, because according to him, he didn’t want another man to snatch me after I had graduated.

In any case, Jimmy always had a problem of emotional insecurity. He always felt insecure in relationships.

I knew from the way he acted that he felt insecure. It was clear in his very jealous and obsessive attitude towards me. He almost went crazy whenever he saw me with any guy and he always wanted to know where I had gone and where I was going at all times.

In fact, some of my friends told me that he had been monitoring my movement by bribing some of them to give him constant information on my movements. I thought his actions were very immature, but I never confronted him over it.

In any case, I still agreed to marry Jimmy because he had been so good to me and so respectful to my parents. He appeared like a perfect gentleman even though he was very jealous and possessive but I didn’t mind because I knew he loved me.

However, after marrying the man, with whom I thought I would spend the rest of my life, we started trying for a baby. After four years and several IVF attempts I finally got pregnant.

It was a hard pregnancy.

The whole time I felt that my husband was cheating. We had many conversations, and of course he denied it. It got to point where I started to think that I was crazy or just imagining things because of the pregnancy and stressed condition.

I decided to find out if I was right and I was not surprised because there he was cheating on me the whole time with an undergraduate girl and a cultist for that matter!

When my husband returned home later that day, I told him how his girlfriend had come to our house with some of her so-called friends to threaten me. I told him to be careful and stop cheating on me to avoid meeting people like that who could threaten the peaceful existence of our family.

There I was pregnant and the man decided to date one stupid girl who decided to come to my home with a bunch of her friends one day to tell me face to face that she was a cultist and that she was going to take my husband away from me and that there is nothing I’m going to do about it.

When my husband returned home later that day, I told him how his girlfriend had come to our house with some of her so-called friends to threaten me. I told him to be careful and stop cheating on me to avoid

meeting people like that who could threaten the peaceful existence of our family.

After that I was scared for the baby and myself. But after my husband said he was “sorry” and that he “loved me” I decided to stay with him until I give birth and then make a decision.

My husband claims to have stopped dating that cult girl but she still calls me on phone to threaten me. Most of the time she calls with an unknown number and for that reason I have stopped answering any call with an unknown number.

I have now given birth to a lovely baby girl. Currently my child is alive and well, a really happy baby, very loved by everyone, including her father. But I am still angry that my husband did this kind of thing to me. I cannot swallow the insult. He has lost my trust and in some ways my love. I think I will be better off without him.

Please tell me what you think.

• Do you have a story or comment about this confession?

Call 07031028714.

35

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Relationships and Love Advice

He wants to divorce her because of me

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Dear Love Doctor,

M

y name is Jennifer. I’ve been dating a guy for 13 months and he promised to marry me. We talked a lot and he showed love. Unfortunately, his former girlfriend just got pregnant for him without him knowing until five months after. The baby is now five months old, and the baby and the mother are living with the guy at home. He told me that he just wants the mother to finish breastfeeding the baby before he throws her out, that he doesn’t want to marry the mother of his baby. He said he never told her that he was going to marry her, and that she forced the pregnancy on him. Right now, he is begging me to forgive him, that he really wants to marry me. He says I should forgive him and accept his baby as my own. We love each other and I really need your counsel.

I don’t know what to do.

From Jennifer.

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Dear Jennifer,

I

really think you should leave him alone to face his new life and responsibility as a ‘married’ man.

He now has a five-month-old baby and it would be wrong for him to do away with the mother just like that and hand over the baby to you to take care of him/her! Such an action would be highly irresponsible.

Sometimes, when we are in love, we fail to see reality and understand when it’s over. Don’t jeopardize the life of a baby out of your selfish love for this man. Be selfless enough to let him go, for the sake of the baby and its mother.

Sacrificing the mother of his baby and her baby for your sake would

be an extreme measure. Things have changed now, and as a result, your “love” for this man will only serve as a distraction to him now.

It would serve as a distraction preventing him from facing reality that he now has a family and living up to his responsibilities as a father and husband.

Tell him to iron out his differences with his wife and make his marriage work. He should be patient and marry the mother of his baby, except they are extremely incompatible. He can work through his ‘marital’ problems. That is the truth. You’re only being a distraction to him now. Don’t dwell on the

Arin Ola, 42, a divorcée with a kid, wants a honest man for a relationship that can lead to marriage. 07082807656.

past love you shared with him, (because he now has a family and you ought to set him free so that he can be focused and take proper care of his family). Be thankful to God for the love you shared with him and move on. Things have changed now. Therefore, you must focus on the future ahead of you. Pray to God and be patient. With time, you will get the right man for you. Don’t be selfish, sometimes you just have to let go even when you’re in love; especially when things don’t work out the way you planned. It may not be easy, but it’s okay to cry and get him off your mind. Let him go!

Do you have advice on this problem? Please share your thoughts. Call 07031028714 or 08131161840. Email: ireto007@yahoo.com Do you have a marriage/wedding, birthday, anniversary or club or town meeting announcement to make?

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36

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

It happened to me:

Confessing to my husband that I’m bisexual made our relationship and me stronger

W

hen I was 25, I realised for sure that I was bisexual. I then spent the best part of year figuring out how I was going to tell my husband.

Let me clear something up right now, as I feel sometimes bisexual people are all put under the same umbrella: I didn’t want to leave my husband for a woman. I didn’t suddenly want a threesome involving another woman. I’m still monogamous, faithful and I’m very much still bisexual, and it just so happens I’m married to a man.

Some people might want those things, but I basically wanted my relationship to stay exactly as it is now — except with the truth out in the open, of course.

I believe it was even harder knowing I didn’t want my relationship to change, because usually if someone is married to the opposite sex and comes out as gay, for example, both parties know the relationship isn’t going to carry on the same. For me, I didn’t want to lose my other half, but in my mind there was a very real chance this could actually happen.

When I first consciously realised I liked the same sex in a not-just-admiring-your-lipstick kind of a way, I was scared shitless by it.

Seriously. I think that has a lot to do with the way bisexuality is treated by a lot of people; we’re known as “greedy,” “not fussed” and “haven’t made up our minds about what we like.” Perhaps for a little while I also believed this about myself and figured I might grow out of it.

I had, at that time, been with a wonderful man for five years, as a straight woman. I’m biased of course when I say he’s the most incredible human being I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing; he really is the most grounded, openminded, accepting person I’ve ever met, but part of me thought it was a real possibility that if he found out I was bisexual, that he’d turn on me, we’d drift apart, and our amazing relationship would become just a memory.

Enter: the grieving process.

My entire coming-out journey was really similar to the grieving process, except the only funeral involved was the fictional one I’d created in my head for my marriage.

To begin with, being bisexual frightened me, but I would justify it by telling myself I was just “admiring” certain women who caught my eye. I couldn’t be a lesbian, no, because I wanted to jump on my husband every hour of every day. And it’s not like I didn’t know bisexuality existed, but rather I wasn’t open to the idea that my sexuality wasn’t what I had thought it had been for the past 25 years.

Now that I look back, I can’t believe how in denial I was.

When I started to question myself more and open myself up to the possibility I might not be straight, I spent months staying awake every night after my husband had gone to sleep, trawling Google for stories or advice from other women who had been in my situation — bi and married to someone who doesn’t know. I am an anxious worrier who always assumes the worst, so just like when you Google your mild headache symptoms and it tells you that you’ve got minutes to live, this was no better.

All I could find were stories of relationships ruined by one person’s sexuality, that they wished they’d lied and never told their partner the truth, husbands and wives leaving each other and cheating and not trusting each other ever again. I never found a positive story in that whole time. I tormented myself for a long time and it convinced me that maybe if I ignored how I felt, if I never said it out loud, then maybe it wouldn’t be real anymore and I could stop worrying about it.

That approach did. Not. Work.

Keeping something that big of a deal all to myself ate away at my sanity and it ended up

being all I could think about.

It made my anxiety far, far worse and I began suffering panic attacks; my self-esteem hit rock-bottom and I was jittery all the time.

As it dawned on me that I would have to own up and come out for real, I became really depressed. I have a history of depression and my husband is rock solid when it hits, helping support me and being a true friend to me to help lift me up again, but this time the one person I could normally talk to and rely on was the person I was avoiding spilling the beans to.

Inevitably, he could tell something was up.

He didn’t know what exactly, but he did his best to help me out.

I had a pretty shitty childhood, and I’ve been through some bad stuff so I do find that cognitive behavioral therapy and athome therapy has helped me cope with my demons in the past. I started slowly addressing my other issues with meditation and sessions of CBT, but as I couldn’t fork out for proper bells-and-whistles therapy sessions I had to make do with recordings from a psychiatrist to use at home (which are actually wonderful and I still use them). But the benefit for me was that I still didn’t have to admit out loud what was really plaguing me.

As I slowly built my confidence up, I realised something: I had to tell the truth — right then. I guess so many months of having

this heavy on my mind made it so the pain of keeping it a secret became worse than the potential outcome if I came clean.

So I planned the day to tell my husband.

On that day, we had lunch. I squirmed throughout the whole thing and had “I am bisexual” on the tip of my tongue along with my bacon sandwich but it just wouldn’t come out (no pun intended).

I bottled it in person, so I did what any rational grownup does: I sent him a message on Facebook. When he was in the next room (yeah, I know).

I held my breath. With every step he made up our stairs I can tell you I was tempted to jump out of my office window and make a run for it.

I was definitely not prepared for him to walk up to me, not saying a word, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me for a good minute in silence. It seemed he was relieved too.

All these months worrying, waiting for something to go wrong, depression, insomnia and everything else came to a head in that moment. Standing back up again he just looked at me and said, “Is that it? Is this all you have been worrying about all this time?”

That is what I’d needed to hear for all those months. He told me he was proud of me for having the courage to come out and that he was so happy that he got the chance

to know another little part of me. Not once was he judgmental. He felt comfortable asking me questions. All in all he was the man I married and admire, and my sexuality didn’t change that.

And you know what? Having the most important person in my life accepting me for who I am helped me accept myself too. My self-confidence has grown tenfold, and while I still struggle with identity issues, I’m getting better thanks to owning up and telling the truth. Saying the words out loud makes it real for me, and I needed that. Some people are OK with never defining their sexuality, but for me, it became this huge burden that eventually I couldn’t hold onto any longer.

Having the confidence to just be who I really am instead of hiding it has made our relationship so much happier and less stressful.

I do realise not everyone is fortunate enough to have such a happy ending. There are many people I have not come out to yet as I still have that fear of rejection. But for me, life was too short and too miserable to keep my secret hidden for so long, and I’m a better person for having been honest.

I haven’t changed, I’m still me. Just honest with myself. And happy. *Do you have a story or comment about this true confession?

Call 07031028714.

37

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

The Law and You

With Barr. Ken Akpom 08162016410

Employment and contract of employment

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he ultimate aim of most people who are not self-employed is to be employed after acquiring one qualification or the other, or even after acquiring a skill. Many people pray for lucrative employment in fulfillment of their efforts in life. To some people, they do not belief in being self-employed to seek for white collar jobs. To some of them, their concern is just to be engaged so as to be seen by others as staff of one organization or the other to some others it is just to have some meals on their tables and others are just to show off. In some cases, they do not even bother to perfect their employments properly and legally. It is as a result of some of my callers who text messages to me regarding some sympathetic situation that they or their relatives found them into while in employment that I decided to discuss this topic.

Come to think of it, what are employment and the contract of employment? In a very simple language, one can say that employment is a contractual relationship between two parties, one called the employer while the other is the employee. The employer is seen as the master who hires the employee, makes provision for the work to be done by the employee as well as provides the tools for the employee to perform the work. The employer controls the employee whom he hires and the work according to the terms and conditions agreed upon. On the other hand, the employee plays the role of a servant in the contractual relationship, therefore is expected to obey the master’s instructions and be subordinate to the master in the discharge of his duties.

The enjoyment of confidence as well as the sustainability of the type of relationship requires the applicability of the law. In Nigeria today, there are force sources of employment and labor law namely; the received English Law, the constitution, Nigerian Legislation and the last but not the least the Nigerian and foreign Case Law. The need to avoid problem and breaches arising at will without any means of compensating the innocent parties makes the laws on employment very necessary and important. This is a deviation from the past employment law which unduly favored the master. However today, the common law, statute, judicial orders make it that an employer is under the law to provide for the safety and security of his employees as the employees demanded.

Now that we have known who are an employer and an employee, it is necessary for us to know and understand what the contract of employment between them is all about. Come to think of it, what is a contract? There is no precise and concise definition of this term contract by many authors but we shall, for the sake of this work take just two. A renowned law author, Professor Sagay in his book entitled Nigerian Law of Contract defines contracts as “an agreement which the law will enforce or recognizes as affecting the legal rights and duties of the parties”. I wish to simply put it “as a voluntary agreement between two or more parties with the sole aim of creating either in writing or orally a legal obligation”. It

should be noted that in all the definitions of the term ‘contract’ the reoccurring elements common to all are; I. Agreement II. Two or more parties III. Legal obligations and rights.

However, it is worthy to emphasis that contract is an envelope of promises which the law makes binding upon the parties involved. However, agreements which are just domestic or social in nature may not be enforceable by law because they are ab initio (i.e. at the onset) not intended to be binded legally. For instance, a father who promises his jambite son that if he meets up the university cut-off mark that he would buy him a screen-touch phone worth Two Hundred Thousand Naira and the son made it as the father promised, this type of promise cannot be legally binding if the father fails because it is a mere promise not intended for legal binding. Unlike this scenario, the agreement between an employer and an employee by its peculiar nature, is usually intended to be legally binded with just a few exceptions, hence is enforceable in law.

HOW IS CONTRACT CLASSIFIED? Contract is classified by the courts into two namely; Formal and Simple contract. Simply put, a formal contract is one performed under seal, Deed and duly executed. This means that for a Deed to be valid and admissible in evidence as well as have full legal effect, it must be signed, sealed and delivered.

A simple contact is one not done as in formal but is made in other form of writing or orally. However, it must be noted that there are some contracts that are mandatory to be done in writing. Some of them are, lease above three (3) years sale of land, etc. But, some can be made orally and yet valid and enforceable both at law and in equity. Such contracts include employment, tenancy, sale of goods, etc. however, Section 7 of Labour Act 1974 states that where a contract is not in written form, its particulars (terms and conditions) must be delivered by the employer to the worker not later than three months after the beginning of the worker’s period of employment with the employer?

CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT This simply is a contract between an employer and an employee in which the employer offers to employ the employee to work for him with terms and conditions which both of them agreed upon. If the terms and conditions suites the employee; he accepts. Then a contract of employment is made. It should be noted here that the employee is a worker while the employer is the person who enters into a contract to employ another person to work for him or for some other person.

The Labour Act only applies to workers so strictly defined and does not apply managerial positions like managers or such categories of staff regarded as a projection of management staff. These later categories of staff mentioned, their employment conditions are tak-

en to be regulated by the Common Law as in the case of David Olaja v. Kaduna Textile Mills Ltd (unreported) No NCH37/69. The big question then is who is a worker? Section 91 of the Labour Act, 2004 defines worker as any person who has entered into or works under a contract with an employer, whether the contract is for manual labour or clerical work, or is expressed or implied orally or written, and whether it is a contract of service or a contract personally to execute any work or labour. Therefore, a worker includes unskilled labours or semi-skilled industrial staff.

FORMATION OF CONTRACT OF EMPLOYMENT No agreement is enforceable by the law unless it is a contract with such elements as offer, acceptance, consideration, intention, certainty and legality as well as the capacity to enter into such contract. Let me briefly explain some of elements of the contract. i. OFFER: An offer in contract of employment takes place where the applicant (employee) is issued with appointment letter. The earlier procedures before the appointment letter is issued cannot be said to be an offer but invitation to treat. ii. ACCEPTANCE: An applicant (employee) offered is required to accept the offer with the terms and conditions in which the employer (the owner of the work) stipulates in the contract without any introduction of new condition. iii. CONSIDERATION: Simply put, this is the paying of wages by the employer to the employee to reciprocate for the services offered to the employer by the employee. Consideration in a contract of employment can be gleaned. iiii. INTENTION TO ENTER INTO LEGAL RELATIONS: Here, the intention may be express or constructive or in cases absent. It may be absent where the relationship is between an employee and members of his family. The court will decide whether such relationship is binding. v. LEGALITY: Employment law is based on legality.

Anything to the contrary to its legality makes the contract illegal. An employment to commit crime or to do anything prohibited by law is illegal, void and unenforceable by law. vi. CERTAINITY: The contract of employment must be certain and agreed upon by the parties. The contract of agreement should be specific by making reference to other documents like in public service rules, condition of service handbook, etc. and ensure there is no ambiguity or dual interpretation of facts.

Please, do not always forget that the facts are not exhaustive herein but to give you knowledge of your rights, so consult a lawyer near you or text me to do more explanation.

• Do you have questions or seek legal clarification on issues concerning your marriage, probate, property, etc? Call or send a text message to Barr. Ken: 08162016410, 08075763840. Email: kenakpom@yahoo.com

38

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

ENTERTAINMENT

With Douglas Omoyooma

Tee Mac @ 70: Mom’s death my saddest experience ever Flutist, Tee Mac Omatsola Iseli clocked 70 last week. And to mark the occasion SPAN, hosted the veteran musician to an evening of fun and excitement where he was honoured for his contributions to the Nigerian music space. In this chat with TS Weekend, Tee Mac opens up on the joys, trills and pains of turning 70. He spoke with FATIMAH MUHAMMAD-OMOLAJA How do you feel being celebrated at 70 and turning 70?

I feel fine and not a year older than 45!. I just have added one year but my body is hardly adding the years. I work out, play my flute 2-4 hours a day, walk my dogs twice and just feel great. The secret is the right feeding. Plenty of vegetables and fruits, no red meat and all food freshly cooked. No junk food at all. No white sugar only honey into my green tea.

What have been the high points of the last 70 years?

I would say my family and children, my concert tours, my visits to all the countries on this earth’ Are you fulfilled? Is there anything you would want to do differently if given another chance?

I am fulfilled but I would have done many things different if I could have foreseen the future. I would have spent less time in Nigeria and not invested at all into Solid Minerals and Gas and Oil. I realized a bit late that Government changing policies can be very dangerous, as when Obasanjo revoked everybody’s mining license and we had to wait for 2 years for the mining act to be passed and then apply again. I had serious and big supply contracts for Zinc and Lead and nearly went bankrupt. Hundreds of millions of naira worth of mining equipment rusted on the fields. Processing plants became absolute during the years we were not allowed to mine.

Do you have any regrets?

Yes I have many regrets but I have to live with the choices I made and not to think about spilled milk.

What have been the most trying experience of the last 70 years?

I think my most trying and frustrating experience in my live was when I accepted to become the PMAN President. The viciousness of the fractional President, Dele Abiodun, who ended up in Ikoyi Prison, the absolute negativity of another imposter called Pretty Okafor and his lies and statements that I sold the PMAN land gave me an idea that even Music politics can be very negative. But I learned how to be a leader and how to take the stress of the largest black musician union in the world.

What has been your happiest moments?

I have had many happy moments including going to the beach or vacation with my children. But most of all, I am happy and content after every successful show. Few understand the stress one goes through especially in Nigeria to put up a perfect show. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong so when it is over there comes the happiness of achievement. We professionals perform as a kind of self-confirmation, to prove to ourselves that we are up to the task and happy fans and concert goers are our confirmation.

• Tee Mac during a performance closed her eyes. I love my mother very much and was devastated. Also every time one of my wonderful Alstatian dogs dies, I feel bad and unhappy for weeks. They are like my children and I am very attached to them.

Why did you decide to be a flutist despite the fact that you also studied economics in school?

I have wanted to be a Flutist since I could walk. I got my first flute at age seven and started private lessons until I could join the Conservatorium in Zurich. I studied Economics to please my family.

How old were you when you started using the flute?

I started to play every day from Christmas 1955. That was when I found my first flute under the Christmas tree. I was seven years and seven months old.

him to sleep. I was devastated. From then on I have always had many dogs. At one time 10 years ago I had 14 Alstatians at the same time. I name them after prominent people because some of them remind me in their behaviour like their name sake.

You are mostly seen on native attires, what do you think about them and what is your best colour?

I have designed most of my native clothes since 1971. I feel much better in them than in suite and tie. I also think this is a way of expressing my artistic thinking. I have never followed the trends of what is in or out! I hardly have designer clothes, Maybe, a few suits and snickers.

What is the current state of Nigeria music especially regarding the war between coson and NCC? I am a director in MCSN and have watched Today you have a lot of dogs as pets and you COSONS actions from day one. I am glad name them after prominent Nigerians. Why? that NCC stepped in and proscribed it. When and how did your love for dogs develop? a collective society collects and no proper I lived in a wonderful estate outside Zurich, accounting and distribution is done, then Switzerland with a lot of land, sheep and they are in default and they must be stopped.

Could you share your saddest moment with horses and my uncle allowed me to choose MCSN, the Music Collective Society Chaired us? a dog. My first dog was a Bull Terrier puppy

by Oritz Wiliki is solid and honest. We do not I was in China performing when my sister called Bully, and I was 13 years old. He was my miss COSON at all. called me from London with the bad news best friend. I had to take care, feed him, walk that my mother quietly died without any sick- him and bath him. When I left house to enter Now that MCSN has been approved, when ness. She just decided that her time was up the University he fell sick and my family put are your operations coming back on stream? and she said goodbye to my sister, Orode and

MCSN never stopped serving musicians in 18 years. Until the approval. MCSN acted as Artists Assignee Company. Which means we gave them the right to collect on our behalf our royalties. Many good things will come out in the nearest future. MCSN is being re-organized and re-branded to fully take charge as the only approved Collective Society.

What is your advice for up and coming artists?

Show business is great but very hard. It takes total dedication including thousands of hours of rehearsals. Young musicians must educate themselves, be able to play at least one instrument. The music illiterates have no chance in the international arena. Upcoming artists have to learn to live healthy, no drugs and alcohol in moderation. Many have gone down due to the vices. And they should learn on how to stay humble and grateful to fans.

What new project are you working on?

I have signed a contract for shows with the Jacksons in the middle and Far East. The Jackson 50th Anniversary TV special in Dubai plus concerts in Singapore, Beijing, Hainan Islands and Macau. I am working on a new CD as a follow up to ‘Just Like a Dream’ and I am involved in some humanitarian development projects. I thank God for good health and good friends.

39

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Entertainment Why I’m not yet ready for marriage – Wale Ojo

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opular actor, Wale Ojo, has revealed that he is not in a hurry to get married.l According to him: ‘I don’t know if there’s a problem with marriage, but I like been in a relationship without the pressure of marriage. Whenever I want to play sex roles in a movie, I discuss with my partner. I enjoy myself more without marriage or its pressure,” he said.

Wale even confessed that all the sex scenes he played with Omotola Jalade were real and natural.

“My sex scenes with Omotola are very easy. After all, I am a sexy person. I don’t see it as that hard. Omotola and I are great friends, so it was very easy for us to have that chemistry and do what we had to do. It wasn’t difficult at all. Our kisses were real. We grabbed each other, we were passionate, it is natural. It is real.”When asked if he felt something emotionally while the act was going on, the United Kingdom returnee said, “Of course, you have to have an emotion to do this. We are good friends, so things worked out well. It wasn’t that hard. I always love playing the bad guy role.”

• KOK (6th from left) and other Cast and crew of Glo Professor Johnbull on set

Professor Johnbull: KOK in arranged marriage drama in new episode

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n a new, humour-loaded episode of the TV drama series, Professor Johnbull, three of the characters, Mai Doya (Funky Mallam), Etuk (Imeh Bishop) and Olaniyi (Yomi Fash-Lanso), are worried that Professor Johnbull (Kanayo O. Kanayo) is still single years after he lost his wife and proceed to arrange a wife for the erudite professor.

The bride to be happens to be Etuk’s sister who resides in the country’s capital territory. In another plot of the episode titled Arranged Marriage, the mother of Abadnego (Martins Nebo) arranges a countryside girl for his son and goes further to pay the bride price before bringing her to Enugu for him. According to promoters of the series and telecoms firm Globacom, viewers will have a good

laugh as Etuk’s sister arrives Enugu to discover that Professor Johnbull is unaware of the arrangement and Abadnego rejects the “rural” girl brought to him by his mother.

The company in a press release urges television viewers to find out what happens next to the arranged “babes” and what the bombastic Professor Johnbull has to say about the whole venture.

The show teaches a lot of lessons for viewers on the subject of matchmaking in African traditional society and its advantages or otherwise in contemporary settings.

According to Globacom, the age-long tradition where parents or relations arrange partners for their children or relations thought to be ripe for marriage but have refused tosettle down subsists in modern times, prompting the se-

ries to examine the practice. Can two complete strangers make good marriage partners? Is matchmaking old fashioned or still relevant in contemporary society?

What is the place of compatibility in matchmaking? These are some of the questions the new episode entitled ArrangedMarriage tries to answer.

The programme is broadcast at 6.00 p.m. on Sunday on DSTV Africa Magic Family and GOTV Channel 2. There is a repeat broadcast on Thursday at 9.30 p.m. as well ason NTA Network, NTA International on DSTV channel 251 and NTA on StarTimes at 8.30 p.m. on Tuesday and Friday. It is also aired on Anambra Broadcasting Service at 8.30 p.m. on Wednesday and Saturday.

TAFF 2018 to honour Emem Isong, Jerry Mofokeng

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ovie producer and CEO of Royal Arts Academy, Emem Isong Misodi, alongside South African actor, Jerry Mofokeng will be honoured with The African Film Leadership Award, July 3, in Dallas, Texas according to a statement from the organisers of the annual The African Film Festival, (TAFF), which holds at the Dallas City Performance Hall.

A renowned film maker, Emem is the founder of Royal Arts Academy, where she mentors young talents and provides opportunities to rising stars. On his own, Jerry Mofokeng enviable exploits in South African film industry, is inestimable, having starred in several critically acclaimed films, including “ Cry The Beloved Country”; “Lord of War”; “Mandela and de Klerk”; and the 2005 Academy Award-winning film “Tsotsi.”

Speaking, Kelechi said that the festival which opens on June 29 will climax on July 3 with an awards night.

According to him, Richard Mofe

Record label signs new acts

Damijo who hosted last year’s edition will be teaching the Master Acting class again this year, while popular film director, Lancelot Imasuen will teach a class in directing.

While the festival opening night will be a folklore of storytelling sessions by Eclectic Vanessa Danso from Ghana; Ben Amushie from Nigeria, Dallas Poetry Slam, Juliana Musical Drama from Tanzania, and Ruth Ndulu Maingi from Kenya.

Among others, the Association of Nigerian Physicians in America (ANPA), will be part of this year’s event, as its members will be holding a convention in Dallas ahead of the opening of the festival. ANPA is said to be partnering TAFF to showcase the power of Medicine and Film, as its founder will be de- • Emem Isong livering a paper at the convention. oonian filmmakers, Kang Quintus, Notable film makers expected Ruth Nkweti, Terence Limona, Tito grace this year’s TAFF include ana Bibish. Gambian Alhagie ManUche Jombo, Stella Damasus, ka; Sierra Leonian Winstina Taylor; Charles Billion, Jim Iyke, Kenneth Congolese Soleil Marie; Kenyan Okolie, Robert Peters, Dolapo Hollywood-Based, Benjamin OnAjayi. Also, expected are Camer- yango among others.

• Efe EJ

A

new wind is blowing across the entertainment scape as boss of Daffanjy Entertainment, E. J. Efe has signed two fresh acts, Ejiz and Jimoh Waxiu to his label.

Speaking during a ceremony to unveil the acts, the showbiz executive said that Daffangy Entertainment is the record label to beat as it will raise the ante in the Nigerian music space. He boasted: “Daffangy Entertainment is a record company focussed on discovering, developing and nurturing fresh talents with a view to projecting them beyond the shores of Africa and NIgeria. Daffangy Entertainment is also working with the best hands in the game and that is why we have Ibrahim Kabiru, the CEO of Clapstik Entertainment handling our artist management,” he added.

Born Ejiro Erhirhovwefe, Ejiz, as he is fondly called was raised in Effurun, Delta State.

The Sample Banana singer who hails from Ethiope West L.G.A of Delta State is a singer, songwriter and a performer who kicked off his singing career in 2012 when he recorded his debut single produced by current label mate, Jimoh Waxiu. He went on to record several songs featuring acts like MI2, Yung Hanz, Jimoh Waxiu and Shuun Bebe.

For Jimoh Wasiu Oyewumi aka Jimoh Waxiu, the journey into music began in Warri, Delta State. As a teenager, he was exposed to his father’s massive library of afro beat, rock, pop and soul collections. He is a songwriter, vocal director, producer and studio engineer and has collaborated on a couple of songs with several artists.

40

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Crime

Three-man currency counterfeiting syndicate smashed Stories by XAVIER NDAH

A three man syndicate of currency counterfeiting has been rounded up by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS) Imo State command.

The suspects Mrs. Clementina Ndukwe, Anthony Njoku and Alexander Umunna were arrested following reports of the illegal activities of the syndicate which bothers on conspiracy and currency counterfeiting.

The case which was reported to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,EFCC, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Imo State command, where it was alleged that some group of persons were trading in counterfeit banknotes. The Commission we gathered swung into action and commenced investigation where it was discovered that the prime suspect, Mrs. Clementina Ndukwe who sells bread at a popular bus stop in Owerri metropolis, had a link to other suspects in Lagos from whom she normally buys counterfeit notes.

Further investigations also revealed that she sells her counterfeit banknotes to others at the rate of N2, 500 for every N25, 000 counterfeit notes afterward which they will mix the counterfeit notes with genuine banknotes and transact normal businesses with them.

The sum of 1,147,000:00 worth of counterfeit notes was recovered in her shop alongside some papers cut to U.S dollars size which is used for production of fake dollar notes otherwise known as “Wash-Wash” in the local parlance.

The suspects who were charged before Justice Lewis Alagoa of the Federal High Court Owerri, Imo State on Monday May 28,2018 were arraigned on Friday May 11, 2018 on six count charge bordering on Conspiracy and Currency Counterfeiting

40-year old man, who could not A control his sex urge, has mistakenly strangulated his best friend and

•From-L-R-Alexander-Obinna-Umunna-Clementina-Ndukwe-and-Tony-Uchenna-Njoku.png

to the tune of N1, 147,000.00 (One Million, One Hundred and Forty Seven Thousand Naira).

EFCC said the offence contravene section 6(2) of the Counterfeit Currency (Special Provisions) Act, Cap C35, L.F.N. 2004 and punishable under section 5(1) (c) of the same Act. EFCC said investigations also revealed that Ndukwe sells her counterfeit banknotes to the 2nd and 3rd defendants at the rate of N2, 500 for every N25, 000 counterfeit notes; the 2nd and 3rd accused will afterward mix the counterfeit notes with genuine banknotes and trans-

act normal businesses with them.

When the case which was adjourned for consideration of bail application and ruling came up, counsel to the defendants, B. M.D.O Chinekezie for the 1st defendants and I.G. Nwachukwu for the 2nd and 3rd defendants applied for the bail of their respective clients.

However, in view of the letter written by the 2nd and 3rd defendants to the Commission which notice was brought to the court by prosecution counsel, Mashal Umukoro Onome to change their plea, counsel to the 1st defendant,

prayed the court to give him time to study the case file having recently taken over the case in order to ascertain if his client, would follow in her co-defendants’ footsteps.

Thereafter, Justice Alagoa granted the defendants bail in the sum of N2 million each with three sureties in like sum.

He ruled that the sureties must be residents of Owerri, Imo state and adjourned the case to July 4 for trial. He ordered the defendants to be remanded in prison custody pending the fulfillment of their bail conditions.

‘Pastor’ arrested for allegedly swindling church member A self-acclaimed pastor, and founder Jesus the General Outreach Ministry based in AmuwoOdofin, Lagos, ThankGod Udechukwu has been arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Enugu Zonal Office for allegedly swindling his church member .

Udechukwu who hails from Ozalla, Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State and had allegedly taken advantage of one of his kinsmen who trusted him as a ‘Man of God’, before he was arrested on Wednesday May 23,2018.

In his confession the pastor said “I am his pastor and man of God, in fact, I used to pray for him to succeed and indeed, I prayed for him before he travelled out to Dubai.”

He boasted.

According to the EFCC,apparently with this ‘Messiah’ mindset, the selfstyled minister of God set out to ripoff his victim using lies, half-truths and manipulations.

EFCC said “the victim and complainant who resides in Dubai, United Arab Emirate, his traumatic ordeals in the hands of Udechukwu started with a suggestion that he hands over four Highlander SUVs he imported to him, claiming that one of his church members was willing to buy the vehicles and other con-

Driver strangles co-worker in failed rape attempt

signments imported with them all of which amounted to N16.000,000 (Sixteen Million Naira only) “After waiting for a while for the remittance of the monies realized from the sale, the Pastor having taken a huge sum from the total amount realized claiming they were for logistic purposes, muted the idea of starting a transport services business and suggested buying two Sienna buses. As if, under a spell, the complainant still agreed to the business idea. “Again, with nothing coming out of the transport business, the complainant said he was no more interested in the venture and instructed the suspect to sell off the two buses. Udechukwu sold one of the buses and converted the proceed to his personal use.

“Some months after, the pastor further suggested a business to the complainant and introduced him to one Amechi Chuks Amechi who claimed to work with Nigeria Breweries and that he could assist in securing a dealership from the company. He claimed the deal will cost the complainant the sum of N2,370,000.00 (Two Million, Three Hundred and Seventy Thousand Naira only) which he transferred to Amechi company’s account in the name of Royal Homes Furniture Company Limited at First Bank Plc.

female co-worker during a struggle to have his way for a quick sex.

The Oracle newspaper gathered that trouble started in a sachet water factory in Otta, Ogun State where the suspect and the 38-year old deceased Abimbola Hamzat, were employee.

Confirming the incident the police image maker, Superintendent of Police (SP) Abimbola Oyeyemi said “The arrest of the suspect followed a complaint by one Owolabi Moses, who reported at Onipanu Divisional Headquarters that the suspect, who was a driver in his pure water factory, had been disturbing the deceased, an accountant in the same factory, with love advances to no success”.

He said “On that fateful day, the deceased was alone in the factory when the suspect took advantage of that and attempted forcing her to do his bidding. The lady stood her ground only to lose her life to an orchestrated strangulation in the hand of her assailant.

“On the strength of the report, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Onipanu Division, SP Sangobiyi Johnson, led detectives to the scene where they met the suspect unconscious.

Investigation revealed that the suspect, having realized that he had committed a grievous crime, made attempts to kill himself ”.The PPRO narrated.

The Oracle gathered that the driver had confessed to the Police that he loved the deceased so much and after all attempt to make her yield to his pleadings failed he saw that day as an opportunity to overpower her and had sex with her.

The suspect said he never wanted to kill her rather in the ensued struggle she died in his hands.

The suspect Abiodun Idowu, The Oracle gathered on realising the damaged he has caused attempted to take his life by drinking Hypo bleach and Izal.

However, before the poisonous substances could begin to react on his system, policemen had arrived the scene, took him to a hospital where he was adequately attended to and discharged before being detained in police custody.

Oyeyemi disclosed that the State Commissioner of Police, CP Ahmed Iliyasu, had ordered that the suspect be transferred to the Homicide Section of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for proper investigation and prosecution.

•The Pastor

“The petitioner who had hoped to use part of the proceeds from his investments to start some businesses here in Nigeria was totally devastated when on coming home, discovered to his chagrin that nothing was left as the pastor and his friend had diverted most of the monies realized to their personal use.

“Investigation revealed that he used the monies in all the businesses to expand his church buildings and take care of personal issues” EFCC explained.

Head of Media and Publicity Wilson Uwujaren who confirmed the incident said the matter will be •The suspect charged to court soon.

41

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

Crime

Robbery kingpin shot dead while escaping with snatched vehicle

Stories by XAVIER NDAH

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n armed robbery suspect has been shot dead by men of the Federal Special Anti- Robbery Squad(FSARS) magbon Abeokuta while escaping with a snatched Lexus RX 350 Jeep.

Police Public Relations Officer Ogun state Superintendent of Police, SP, Abimbola Oyeyemi who disclosed the incident said the deceased was a member of an armed robbery gang who operates in Abeokuta and snatched the said vehicle on gun point at oke ilewo area of

the metropolis.

He said, immediately after the incident, a distress call was made to the police and the commissioner of police Commissioner of police ,CP, Ahmed Iliyasu piqued by the audacity of the hoodlums gave a matching order to the FSARS commander DSP Uba Adam that the suspects must be brought to book.

“In compliance with the CP’s directive, FSARS teams manning various exit points in the state were alerted to be on lookout for the snatched vehicle and the suspects.

“Luck however ran against the the gang when the FSARS team stationed along sango ota area sighted the said vehicle and gave it a hot Chase.

Having realized that the game is up, the robbers in a bid to escape opened fire on the policemen and the officers returned fire with fire. At the end of the encounter, one of the robbers was fatally injured and he was taken to state hospital in ijaye but died while receiving treatment.

“Recovered from him was one AK49 assault rifle loaded with 13 rounds of live ammu-

nition. The snatched Lexus RX 350 Jeep with registration number Lagos LSD 456 Ex was also recovered.

“Meanwhile, the commissioner of police cp Ahmed Iliyasu who expressed his satisfaction about the performance of his men has ordered a serious manhunt for the fleeing members of the gang. The CP also assured residents of the state to always alert the police on time whenever any crime is been committed in their area to enable the police respond as quickly as possible”. He explained.

Fake lawyer nabbed

•The suspect

The undercover operatives of Lagos State Police Command attached to Ojo Police Station have arrested one Mr. Uche Julian Nwajiakwu for impersonating as a lawyer.

This is the second time a fake lawyer is being arrested at the Ojo Magistrate Court.

The first was the arrest of one Chris Elisha who was arrested on 6th of February, 2018, after being in illegal practice for fifteen years.

Uche Julian Nwajiakwu, the latest man to be arrested for illegal law practice had been on the game since 2015.

According to the suspect, he fell in love with law practice when a friend of his commissioned him to act as lawyers in order to serve his tenant a quit notice and he was handsomely rewarded after the deed and since then, there was no looking back.

However, Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos State SP Chike Oti said luck ran out on Nwajiakwu on while he was arguing on a bail application for his client at the Ojo Magistrate Court

when his argument fell below the established practice techniques which led to the notice of intelligent lawyers who were present in the court.

The suspect’s mistakes according to the lawyers were too obvious to be ignored and he was taken up and the police were invited to take up the investigations.

Oti said police investigation into the case, revealed that the suspect did not study law in any of the Nigerian universities nor anywhere else in the world and he was charged to Ojo Magistrate Court for impersonation.

In view of this incident, Oti said the Commissioner of Police, CP, Lagos, has reiterated his warning to professional bodies to properly scrutinise people professing to be members of their body.

According to the CP, this is one incident too many and must be checked while noting that the Command had in the recent months, arrested fake medical doctors and other spurious health workers including fake journalists.

Summit moves to prevent crime in ter-

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security summit has advanced strategies for the reduction and ultimate prevention of criminal acts in Nigerian tertiary institutions.

The three-day summit organised by the International Centre for Executive Security Training and World Certification Institute at the weekend was held at Transcorp Hotel, Calabar with the theme “Crime, fear and Insecurity in Tertiary Institutions: Challenges, Impact, and Prevention Strategies”.

The security summit was aimed at examining the causes of crimes in tertiary institutions and mapping out preventive strategies in order to ensure a safer and quiet environment for learning, teaching and research in tertiary institutions of Nigeria. The keynote speaker, Professor O.B.C. Nwolise, of the Department of Political Science of the University of Ibadan, and other resource persons including Professor Rowland NdomaEgba, former vice-chancellor, University of Ife and Professor M.O. Faborode, former Secretary General of the Committee of Vice-Chancellors proffered practical solutions on the way forward.

The speakers observed that crime wave in Nigerian tertiary institutions has become serious threats to life and property, as well as dedicated learning, teaching and research. They identified some of the causes of insecurity such as cultism, drug abuse, untrained security personnel, poor funding, ill-equipped libraries, accommodation, sporting, workshops, laboratories, poor family upbringing and faulty character building curriculum.

The summit, therefore, recommended that government and society should give very urgent attention to trending crime wave in tertiary institutions to mitigate their impact. In addition, there should be a well designed dedicated curriculum for character moulding for students in tertiary institutions in Nigeria to balance the curriculum which is currently only academic learning focused.

“Parents and the society at large should take the socialisation of their children and the young ones more seriously. This will enable them to know early enough unacceptable behaviours that are detrimental to their development. They called on government and owners of private tertiary institutions to adequately fund their institutions and provide the facilities relevant for interesting learning and teaching.

“The government should use intelligence personnel to fish and flush out cultists and criminals from tertiary institutions as well as create a database for students expelled from any tertiary institution to be shared by all such institutions”.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS

Okoh stresses the importance of PVCs

By OGE ONYEANUSI

P

rimate, Church of Nigeria, Anglican Communion Most Rev. Nicholas, Okoh, has appealed to all Christians in Nigeria who are yet to register and those yet to collect their Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) to do so without delay.

Most. Rev.Okoh noted that they should not only get their PVCs, but also register and belong to a political party, saying that “time has gone when people will make false claims of politics being dirty.”

Addressing Christian faithful shortly after the consecration of the four Bishops and presentation of archbishops, at All Saints Cathedral, Onitsha, most Rev. Okoh stated that Christians should not continue to sit on the fence concerning politics and thereby allow those not worthy to lead them .

According to him, unclaimed voters card hanging in INEC offices belonged to someone who should have come to collect it ‘whether rain or sunshine, so ensure that you register and collect your voters card, be involved and participate in party politics and also ask to be voted for.’

Earlier in his sermon, the Bishop on the Niger, Rt Rev. Owen Nwokolo, called on Nigerian leaders to pay attention to their spiritual health, just like the people they lead, particularly in the face of the crisis facing the country.

Expressing worry over the spate of killings and attacks on Christians and churches in different parts of the country, particularly in, Taraba, Benue and Kaduna states by herdsmen, Nwokolo called on the Federal Government to take urgent measures and put a stop to such attacks to enable the country to hold its 2019 general elections.

“You should not pretend that you don’t hear their cries in the face of the people. There are killings, maiming and sacking of people from their various communities in Nigeria.,” he said.

He expressed sadness over what Christians in the country have been subjected to, saying such has never been witnessed in Nigeria ‘by people hiding under the name of herdsmen that is not proper and acceptable.’

He urged leaders in Nigeria to ‘live a Christ-like life, embrace God and put their faith in their relationship with man as God is capable of solving all the problems militating against their administration.’

The newly-consecrated clerics were Bishop Godwin Awoke, Diocese of Ngbo, Bishop Wisdom Ihunwo, Diocese of Niger Delta North, Bishop Solomon Akambi, Diocese of Offa and Bishop Prosper Amah, Diocese of Ogbaru.

The event was grace by Ananmbra State, Governor, Chief Willie Obiano, Archbishop of Enugu Most Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma, Archbishop emeritus Most Rev. Maxwell Anikyuuyrwenwa, Most Rev. Ugochukwu Ogoke, Most Rev. Michael Akiyemi and retired Bishop of Niger West Diocese, Prof Anthony Nwoka and member representing Nnewi North, Nnewi South and Ekwusigo Federal Constituency, Hon. Chris Azubogu and other important dignitaries

You ‘re free to leave APC – Okechukwu tells Okorocha

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irector-General, Voice of Nigeria (VON) and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has advised Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha to leave the party if he so desires.

Okechukwu, who spoke with newsmen at the APC national secretariat in Abuja on Monday, said that the APC would win the 2019 elections without Okorocha.

According to him, the actions and inactions of Okorocha have caused the APC more setbacks in the last four years in Imo and the South-East in general.

He said recent development that

made the governor to lose at the party´s just concluded congresses was a grand plan to reposition APC toward winning elections in the South-East.

“At least there are more than 60 political parties now, Okorocha is free to join any one of his choice, though, we are not forcing him to leave. What we are saying is that we have taken the leadership out of his hands because he is playing God; so, what I am saying is that he is at liberty to leave APC. “But let nobody anywhere think that the APC will lose because we have retrieved the party from him.

Mr President is going to get more

votes, we are going to win more parliamentary seats, more governorship seats without him,” he said.

He noted that over 90 per cent of the leadership and membership of the APC in the South-East were against Okorocha and his style of governance.

However, Dr Toe Ekechi, Convener of APC Restoration Coalition in Imo, said he would rather prefer that Okorocha remain in the party than leave.

“Rochas Okorocha is the governor of Imo. I think there is joy in heaven when one‘s lost sheep is found. We will be most joyous to see our governor Rochas Owelle Okorocha come

back to the fold and work with us as a family to ensure the success of APC in 2019.

“That is not taking away the fact that he has the right to make political decisions that suit him, but in terms of what we want, we wish that we work with him. I will not want it to degenerate to that extent, not necessarily in the interest of the party but in his own interest and I think he is a smart governor and won’t want to contemplate leaving APC,” he said.

He expressed confidence that even if the governor decided to leave the party, the coalition was prepared to sustain the APC in Imo.

2019: Ogieh lauds Deltans for backing Okowa

By JONATHAN AWANYAI, Asaba

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• Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, and wife at the formal launch of the state’s comprehensive health insurance scheme, christened Ayadecare at the U. J. Esuene Stadium

Killings: Group slams FG for failing to protect lives of citizens

By BONIFACE OKORO, Umuahia

F

ollowing the unabated killings in the country, a coalition of rights groups from the South East zone has slammed the federal government for failing in its primary responsibility of protecting lives and property.

The coalition, South East Human Rights Situation Room, accused the federal government of having not shown commitment in stemming the tide of killings of innocent, harmless citizens across the country by armed herdsmen and other insurgents.

Addressing newsmen as part of activities marking the National Day of Mourning declared by the coalition penultimate Monday, the convener of the group, Prof. Joy Ezeilo, also decried extra-judicial executions, enforced disappearances and excessive use of force” by security agencies, including their response to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The National Day of Mourning, an activity to remember victims of on-

going killings by suspected herdsmen, saw the Coalition marching through major streets in Enugu, clad in black attire.

Ezeilo, the founding Director of Women Aid Collective (WACOL), noted that section 14(2) of the constitution provides that the “security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government,” adding that it behoves on government of the day to secure lives and property that are wantonly and unwarrantedly destroyed everyday in many parts of Nigeria.

She noted that the right to life is held as sacrosanct in all cultures and religions, noting that the nation’s constitution provided in Section 33 that “Every person has a right to life, and no one shall be deprived intentionally of his life, safe in execution of the sentence of a court in respect of a criminal offence of which he has been found guilty in Nigeria.”

The group lamented that killings by suspected herdsmen, currently threatening to overtake Boko Haram insurgency in magnitude, have

continued unabated even as few arrests were made and those arrested not prosecuted.

“The government has not shown commitment to hold those erring state agents responsible. The herdsmen problem has continued unabated and there is low prosecution of this armed herdsmen marauding across Nigeria, terrorising Nigerians, destroying farmlands and killing farmers and members of communities that they invade.

“The impunity with which human lives are wasted has left the voices of the victims crying to high heavens for justice. That is why this national day of mourning is called for in order to remember all Nigerians wherever they hail from, whether Igbo, Tiv, Hausa, Ijaw, Fulani, Efik, Yoruba, Kanuri and others that have lost their lives.

“Undoubtedly, Nigeria has failed those who have died as a result of the prevailing state of insecurity.

The Government has failed them, and the international community is failing them too,” the rights groups lamented.

chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Executive Director (Finance and Administration) at the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC), Bashorun (Hon.) Askia Ogieh JP, has commended the people of Delta state for supporting the second term bid of the state governor, Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa.

Bashorun Askia who thanked the citizenry for their support for Governor Okowa’s administration in the last three years due to the massive service delivery and infrastructure development in all nooks and crannies of Delta state, assured that there are better days ahead.

The Senior High Chief who is also the Deputy National Chairman of Delta Political Vanguard (DPV), a mass mobilisation and sensitisation organ of Senator Dr. Ifeanyi Arthur Okowa, said “Governor Okowa has demonstrated equity in the distribution of projects across the three senatorial districts and in the appointment of political office holders in the state.”

He said that majority of Deltans have therefore vowed to ensure the electoral victory of Governor Okowa and all PDP candidates during the 2019 general elections, as a result of the unprecedented transformation of the state within three years, especially the construction of over 193 roads and drainages with more than 90 of them completed across the state.

According to him, “Deltans resolve to return the ‘Road Master’ is because Governor Okowa has turned Delta State into a construction site with various sectoral infrastructure achievements in the major cities and rural communities.”

Bashorun Askia, who appealed to the people to sustain their love and support for the governor, assured the electorate that Governor Okowa’s SMART Agenda of “Prosperity for All Deltans” is to further improve the lives of the electorate through provision of basic amenities and other major infrastructure development across the state.

Recall that recently, the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu and Governor of Bayelsa state, Seriake Dickson respectively commissioned multiple road projects in parts of Delta State, describing the “Road Master” Governor, Senator Dr Ifeanyi Okowa as a man who represents hope for Nigeria’s democracy.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS FRSC promotes bicycle as means of transportation in Ebonyi

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ederal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) on Monday in Abakaliki, urged residents to embrace bicycles as means of transportation.

FRSC Sector Commander in Ebonyi, Mrs Stella Uchendu, said this at the commemoration of the World Bicycle Day organised in the state in conjunction with Abakaliki Cycling Club.

According to Uchendu, bicycle usage reduces traffic congestion and has immense health benefits.

She called on relevant stakeholders in transport sector in the state to assist in promoting the usage of bicycles in the Ebonyi.

“The FRSC in its drive to reduce road crashes in the country enjoins the citizens to embrace the use of bicycles as a means of transportation to ease the congestion on our roads.

“The UN recognises that motorised transportation has effect on the environment, through gas and greenhouse emissions and other forms of pollution which emanates from vehicles. The world wants to reduce dependence on motorised form of transportation, which made it to promote the use bicycle for transportation.

“We also urge the people to correct the notion that bicycles should be used only in rural areas, it can also be used in the urban areas if adequate modalities are put in place,” he said.

She urged the government to construct roads with cycling paths, to reduce the risks associated with bicycle usage on roads.

“The government should also construct roads with speed-calmer, to reduce speed because all road users including cyclists have the right to use roads.

“We also enlightened bicycle riders to protect themselves by wearing helmets, reflective clothing, especially at night, reduce speed, install reflectors on bicycle pedals, among other protective measures.

The sector commander noted that cycling also had several health benefits and a source of physical exercise to keep people healthy.

“Bicycle riding also promotes leisure, a source of fun, promotes conviviality and is devoid of the traffic competitions, usually associated with driving on the road.

“It is also pertinent to note that the FRSC in conjunction with the late Minster of Transportation, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, promoted bicycle riding in 2011, as an alternative source of transportation,” she said.

State Coordinator of the Abakaliki Cycling Club, Mr Tochukwu Eni, commended the FRSC for partnering with the club to commemorate the day, noting that it would enhance its activities.

“We are gratified with the tutorials on safety measures to adopt while cycling. This will encourage us not to be deterred in promoting the cycling message.

“We would also change the mindset of people about using bicycles as an alternative means of transportation, as obtained in developed cultures of the world.

Mr Ugochuku Umeh, the Cycling Club’s Trainer, noted that cyclists face varying dangers on the road due to the poor driving culture of motorists.

“We are appealing for support from the government and private individuals to promote the bicycle riding culture, to reduce accidents and enhance transportation,” he said.

South-South stakeholders demand ratification of AFCFTA

By ANIEKAN ANIEKAN, Calabar

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ross River State Governor, Professor Ben Ayade has disclosed that the continent’s unity and prosperity is linked to the signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCTA) and has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to assent to the agreement without delay.

The governor made this known in Calabar during the South-South programme organized to sensitize the people of the region on the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.

According to the governor, the benefits inherent in the agreement are enormous for Nigeria in particular and Africa in general, saying signing the agreement will mark a

major turnaround in the economy of the continent.

Listing the benefits of the agreement and why the country must assent to it, the governor said “Nigeria is in desperate need for the agreement because it provides for more efficient port operations in the country because of the volume of goods and services which would pass through our ports.

“Nigeria is a large country and our income for taxes and port dues is quite huge. The AFCTA will provide a challenge for more effective port operations and it will enable the country to realize the fact that because there is trade liberalization, the efficiency of operations will improve in view of the expected volume of trade in the ports.

“Africa is the centrepiece of Ni-

geria’s foreign policy and the continent has to think big and it is time for Nigeria to assert that role and be that big brother of Africa. Nigeria, by virtue of our foreign policy in Africa should be leading the fight for the ratification of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement.

The Foreign Policy of Nigeria is Afrocentric and this has to be about providing a shoulder for our African brothers to lean on. This is the time for Nigeria to assert its leadership role in the continent”.

He decried the level of internal trade among African countries stressing that the present agreement particularly the World Trade Agreement which Nigeria is part of is unfair to the country because of it the migration of goods and services without the migration of people.

•Akwa Ibom State Governor Mr. Udom Emmanuel playing host to the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Marcelino Ansorena, who paid a courtesy call to the Government House, Uyo, Akwa Ibom State

In his presentation, the Director General of Nigerian Office of Trade Negotiations and Nigeria’s Chief Trade Negotiator, Ambassador Chiedu Osakwe said the essence of the seminar was to consult with Nigerians through a nationwide consultation on the benefits of the ACFTA. He said the sensitization campaign is to explain to Nigerians and stakeholders on what the ACFTA is all about and also harness their concerns with a view to integrating them into the agreement for the overall benefit of the country.

“What we want to hear from the people of the South-South Zone is what the government should do alone, with PPP in order to leverage on the agreement because we are all stakeholders in the Nigerian Project. We need to hear from the people what we need to do in order to facilitate the processes and make our products more competitive as against being complacent in the international market.

“We have been to Kano, Maiduguri, Makurdi, Owerri and the event in Calabar is the penultimate.

The feedback thus far is clear and there is a strong support for boosting Intra Africa trade so that our economy can grow and jobs can be created”.

In a 19 point communiqué at the end of the summit, the SouthSouth Stakeholders’ Forum endorsed the Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area as a necessary step for facilitating trade, attracting investment and deepening industrial activity, linked to global value chains in the Free Trade Zones.

They commended the President for initiating the consultation which has afforded Nigerians the opportunity to properly scrutinize the AFCFTA and urged the president to assent to the agreement in view of its enormous benefits to the economy of the country.

2019: Why GUO endorsed Enwezor for Onitsha North/South House of Reps seat –Aide

By IBE NWACHUKWU

H

on. Emeka Okafor, Personal Assistant (PA) to Chief Godwin Ubaka Okeke, Chairman of GUO Group of Companies, an Onitsha-based transport magnate has explained the rationale behind Okeke’s tacit endorsement of Hon. Chugbo Enwezor, representing

Onitsha North I state constituency in Anambra state House of Assembly, for House of Representatives, come 2019 general election.

Okafor said a group priding itself as clamouring for paradigm shift and equity in the forthcoming APGA primaries to elect the party flag bearer for the post of House of Representatives for Onitsha North/

South Federal Constituency, has totally misconstrued and mischievously twisted Okeke’s statement to imply support for their agenda, even when Okeke himself has taken a stand to support Enwezor for the NASS election for obvious reasons.

Reacting to what he termed an ongoing media misinterpretation of

A’ Ibom Govt. urges commission to assist refugees from Cameroon

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kwa Ibom State Government has appealed to the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, to come to the assistance of Cameroonian refugees who have settled in the state.

Permanent Secretary, Deputy Governor’s Office, Mr Nkopuruk Ekaiko, who made the appeal in Uyo, Friday, said that the state government had been over stretched in rendering assistance to the refugees, calling on the commission to intervene.

According to him the commission has given assistance to refugees in the neighbouring states saying that those in Akwa Ibom should be so

treated.

“What I am saying is that the relevant federal agencies should live up to the expectations of these people.

“The agencies should ensure that they provide relief materials to the refugees and rehabilitate them as they are doing in other states.

“It is not only in Akwa Ibom state that we have these refugees. There are some in Cross River and there are kinds of interventions the commission has made there and other places,” he said.

He disclosed that the state government had informed the commission about the presence of the refugees since last year and had been waiting

for its response.

The permanent secretary said the state government had expected that the commission would as a matter of urgency, come to the aid of the refugees.

“Last year, there were some returnees and refugees from the Republic of Cameroon. Each of them was interviewed by the immigration services. This office visited their camps at Mkpat Enin, Eket and Oron for some assessment. Immediately after that assessment late last year, the state government sent relief materials to them,” he said.

a simple statement made by Okeke himself penultimate Wednesday at the APGA state secretariat that he has given his full support and blessings to Enwezor, Okafor maintained that Okeke attended that occasion to endorse and emphatically demonstrate his complete support for the aspirations of Hon Chugbo Enwezor to represent the above mentioned constituency in the Federal House of Representatives come 2019.

According to Okafor, “Okeke does not believe that paradigm shift or equity is a reason to enthrone mediocrity or turn a blind eye to visible Capacity and he stands by his open endorsement to state that Chugbo Enwezor is the best candidate to represent the constituency”.

Okafor further declared: “Our chairman, Okeke has studied the political ascendancy and exploits of Chugbo Enwezor in the House of Assembly and he has overtime taken note of his people-oriented approach to leadership and cannot in all good conscience stand on the side of lies”.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Lawmaker embarks on free medical outreach in Ebonyi community

By CHINEDU NWAFOR

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ounder of Caring Heart Foundation and Member representing Ohaozara, Onicha and Ivo federal constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Linus Abaa Okorie, has embarked on free medical outreach in Ukawu autonomous community in Onicha Local Government Area of Ebonyi state.

The outreach took place at Ukawu Secondary School where over ten thousand members of the community including pregnant women, children, youths, aged men and women were in attendance.

The Lawmaker noted that the foundation had embarked on similar outreach in other communities within the constituency.

Okorie who was impressed by the turn out of people, commended the stakeholders of the community for mobilizing the people to benefit in the free medicare.

“This is very impressive and shows that the stakeholders of Ukawu have done a wonderful job. Indeed, one of the Consultants is the town union’ president of Ukawu. He just did the mobilization. You can see the outcome. I am impressed with what they did.

“Right there behind you is the health centre. That is the largest health centre in Ukawu but because of lack of funding and attention, it got dilapidated for years. They are not using it.

“As we leave here today, by next week, Caring Heart Foundation had decided to take it over. By next week, workers will come and reroof it; take it up, make it better, stronger and remodel the place to make it more functional so that after this intervention, people can have a place close by to go for their health needs.

“We are working with the state government to reform the health sector. They are going to send in personnel that will be manning the place in the best interest of our people.

“This is the four clans that are benefiting from this health outreach.

There are two communities here:

Some of them are Consultants in Paediatrics and other skill persons.

“We also pocketed ourselves very well. We came with enough drugs and our target has been anybody that is seen by a doctor should go home with what is prescribed.

“Part of the target of this outreach is to identify cases that are treated and the ones that cannot be treated at this outreach level.

We have done that in so many places and here, we have a long list so far. And if you listen to Hon. Linus Okorie when he was going round, you would hear him say, we should book, we should book.

“We have seen two women with UV prolapse. We have another man with prostate cancer and we saw two children with umbilical hyena and we have seen a pregnant women with previous scare and a very big baby in less than six month of preg-

nancy and so many other cases.

“They are going to be referred to hospitals were they will be treated free of charge by Caring Heart Foundation. This is what we have been doing in other communities we have visited”.

The President General of the Ukawu autonomous community, Dr. Francis Ikele, who coincidentally is a member of the medical team applauded the Lawmaker for the initiative which he said has salvaged health condition of members of the communities within the constituency The Traditional Ruler of Ukawu autonomous community, HRH Eze James Elom, commended Okorie for intervening on the health needs of the people of his community and assured him of their continuous and solidarity in his political career.

CHANGE OF NAME I formerly known as DON VONGS MAMTUR now wish to be known as MAMTUR VONGTIM NDAM. All Former documents remain valid. Banks and General public take note.

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Banks and general public take note.

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• From left: Hon. Justice, Iyabo Kasali, Hon. Justice, Lateefat Okunnu, and Solicitor-General/Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Justice, Mrs. Funlola Odunlami at A-day Stakeholder’s meeting on “Amendment And Implementation of The Child Rights Law, 2015”, Alausa Secretariat, Ikeja

Community commends Ugwuanyi over 5m grant

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2019: Vote for personality-- Bishop Chukwuma tells Nigerians

By IBE NWACHUKWU

T

he Anglican Bishop of Enugu Diocese, Rt. Rev. Emmanuel Chukwuma has charged Nigerians to vote into power a president who has profound personality and pedigree, irrespective of political affiliation.

Speaking to newsmen at the All Saints Anglican Church Cathedral, Onitsha, during the ordination of four new Anglican Bishops, Bishop Chukwuma said he had assessed the performances of APC-led federal government for the past three years and discovered that it scored only 60 percent.

Bishop Chukwuma contended that most political office holders take politics as business instead of service, adding. “I am more interested in personality with pedigree and not PDP or APC”.

In his own speech, Bishop Samuel Ezeofor of Aguata Anglican Diocese, noted that it is only the government that can stop the Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram insurgents from their killing spree, since the insurgents themselves do not take advice

Ishinkwo and Ukawu. We started in February in Akaeze. We went to Ugwulangwu in March. We were in Abaomege in April. This is May and we are here now and we will take it to other communities”.

Dr. Agu Martins, a medical Doctor in the team said they were fully prepared to attend to health needs of the people of Ukawu community,adding that they had enough man power and drugs to reach everyone who came for the outreach.

“So far, we have enrolled 500 patients in the adult section and we have over 300 children section and 40 pregnant women and we are hoping to see more. This is just 2pm.

We are going to be here till 5 to 6pm.

“Before now, we have been going with 12 Doctors but today, we have 16 Doctors, we have 4 midwives, 4 scientists and 25 health assistants.

• Bishop Chukwuma from the populace.

According to Ezeofor, “It is like killing is part of Islam and it is only the government that can stop the insurgents from further killings because they don’t hear or take advice from anybody”.

Also speaking, Bishop Geoffrey Chukwunenye of Oru Anglican Diocese, urged Islamic leaders to stand up and explain to Nigerians whether Islamic religion is for peace or for violence.

According to Bishop Chukwunenye, “We were told that Islam is for peace but by their fruits, we shall know them. A bad tree bears a bad fruit, while a good tree bears a good fruit”.

he Imufu General Assembly, IGA, has commended Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State over his N5million grant for the construction of the first ever health centre in the community and promised to make judicious use of the money.

Consequently, the IGA, has set up a seven-man committee to build the health centre and mandated it to patronize members of the community for the labour works, engineering, transportation or even in the buying the building materials to ensure that the villagers benefitted adequately from the fund.

The IGA also, deliberated on a report by the President General of Imufu Town Union, ITU, Chief Lawrence Mamah, that the traditional ruler, Remigius Attah, “falsely,” reported him to Governor Ugwuanyi for allegedly “being a clog in the wheel of progress,” in the community.

These were contained in a communique jointly signed by the Secretary of the IGA, Stephen Arji along with the secretaries of Oha Imufu, wich is the supreme organ of governance in the community.

The communique’ read, “Following the report made by Igwe Remigius Attah, against the President of ITU, to the Governor of Enugu

State, His Excellency, Rt Hon. Dr. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, over the disbursement of the N5 million Development grant by the state government for the construction of a health center in Imufu, the IGA, met on both May 9 and May 24, 2018 to deliberate on the matter.

“Among those present at the meeting at the Onyishi Imufu’s palace included, the Onyishi, Oluoha Ngwu Nwidoko; Igwe Remigius Attah, Chief Lawrence Mamah, the Vice President of the ITU, Mr. Thaddeus Iyidah, branch chairmen of ITU from Awka, Onitsha, Abuja, Enugu and Nnewi among others. Others included members of Oha Imufu, the Ikorobias and the Egal.

“After exhaustive deliberation of the issue, the following resolutions were adopted: “That the IGA commended the amiable Governor of Enugu State for releasing the first tranche of N5 million grant to Imufu Autonomous Community for the building of its first ever health center, for which land had already been acquired at the central part of the community.

“The community equally commended the efforts of both Igwe Remigius Attah and the President General of ITU, Chief Lawrence Mamah, in making sure that the money was paid into the Commu-

nity’s Account at Fidelity Bank Plc. “The community set up a sevenman committee, headed by Mr. Augustine Iyidah, with the following as members: Mr. Anselem Odo, representing Igwe Remigius Attah; Mr. Augustine Mamah- representing the President General of ITU; Thomas Ogbu- representing the Oha Imufu; Thomas Ogbuja – Representing Onaje clan; Chief Hyacinth Ugwu, representing Umuossai clan and Hon Jonathan Mamah- representing Umuowaa clan. Onaje, Umuossai and Umuowaa are the three major clans that make up Imufu Autonomous Community.

“The Onyishi (eldest man in Imufu), Oluoha Ngwu Nwidoko inaugurated the committee and the members were mandated to sit at any place of their choice for their meetings.

“The IGA mandated both the Igwe and ITU President to ensure proper supervision of the committee and also approve and release money to the committee as and when due to ensure speedy execution of the job.

Both the committee, the Igwe and the President General of ITU are to brief the IGA periodically until the assignment is completed. The IGA warned that any diversion, misappropriation or misapplication of the money will not be tolerated.

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

SPORTS Eagles not yet ready for World Cup – Rohr

Omeruo drops Jersey No 4 shirt for Ndidi

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Stories by MADUABUCHI KALU

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UPER Eagles’ Technical Adviser, Gernot Rohr has shocked millions of football crazy Nigerians after he declared that his team are not yet ready for the Mundial after they suffered a 2-1 defeat in the hands of World Cup bound English national team the Three Lions.

Rohr made the shocking declara-

tion moments after the final whistle signaling the end of the encounter as he reflects the outcome of the game and the performance of his charges.

He, however, expressed the hope of using the remaining days before the team’s opening game against Croatia at the Mundial to put things right with his team even as he said they would work very hard to en-

sure that they do not disappoint millions of Nigerians who are very optimistic of seeing their team do very well in Russia.

“To me, we are not ready yet.

We have to work much more in the two weeks we have before our first game.

“We missed totally our first half of the match against England. Perhaps also the preparation for the match

I’ll link you to global community, Nnaji tells Lagos SWAN

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EW appointed patron of the Lagos Chapter of Sports Writer Association of Nigeria (SWAN), Chief Kennedy Fintan Nnaji, has declared his willingness to link the association to the global community via his good will and contact.

He specifically said that he would get in touch with the relevant authorities in Japan to ensure that Sportswriters from Lagos who will be attending the 2020 Olympics which Japan will be hosting will not encounter obstacles before during and after the Games.

Chief Nnaji, explained that he would make sure that the Japanese sports journalists partner with Lagos SWAN to enable them understand how sports journalism is practiced in other climes.

The Japanese-based businessman made the declaration during his acceptance speech as one of the patrons of the Lagos SWAN during his investiture last Tuesday at the Lagos SWAN secretariat inside the National Stadium complex Surulere, Lagos.

The Imo State-born businessman whose company is quoted on the floor of the Japanese Stock Exchange expressed gratitude to SWAN for finding him worthy to be one of their patrons. He explained that he would cherish his appointment as one of the patrons of SWAN for a very long time to come.

“I must start by saying that I feel humbled with this show of love by the Lagos State Chapter of the Sports

Writers Association of Nigeria,” Chief Nnaji began.

“When I got your letter of appointment I couldn’t believe it. I asked myself; who could have introduced me to SWAN in the first place? Since I have never established any form of relationship with the association. As a matter of fact I was shocked because I was wondering who might have linked me up to SWAN. “However, in my search for an answer, I got to know that it was Mark Charles Ndukaihe and I said no wonder.

“I must say that I feel honoured and I appreciate this appointment. I will continue to cherish this appointment

for a very long time.

“I want to assure you that I have accepted to be your patron and that I will discharge the responsibility of a patron to this association to the best of my ability. All my life I have been serving humanity.

“I am not a politician. I chose to be a businessman and decided to service humanity and I have been doing that and I see my appointment as one of your patrons as further service to humanity.

“I promise today knowing the full meaning of patron, it is not only about patronizing you on finance, but I think it about linking you to the international community where you will liaise with your contemporaries.”

uper Eagles’ defender, Kenneth Omeruo has dropped the legendary No4 jersey he has been known with since former Captain Nwankwo Kanu retires from international football some years back.

Kanu made the Number popular but in what seem a twist in the team’s released jersey list, the Abia State born defender (Omeruo) was handed over No22 jersey while Leicester and Eagles’ dependable midfielder, Wilfred Ndidi was handed over the No4 Jersey.

That was one major change noticed in the Eagles released squad numbers for World Cup 2018. It is recalled that Omeruo had used the No4 jersey for three years.

Omeruo only returned to jersey number 22, same number he was assigned when he first broke into the senior national team of Nigeria in 2013. He used jersey number 22 at the last World Cup in Brazil.

The Chelsea defender has used the number 4 shirt for the past three years but Ndidi will have the honor of wearing the number for Nigeria all through their campaign at the Russia 2018 World a Cup starting on the 14th of June.

Russian-Nigerian defender Bryan Idowu will wear the number 2 shirt while Simeon Tochukwu Nwankwo gets the number 13 jersey with Alex Iwobi settling for number 18 as opposed to his club shirt number 17, which will be worn by Vice Captain, Ogenyi Onazi.

Goalkepper Ikechukwu Ezenwa was handed the No1 jersey despite Francis Odinaka Uzoho who will wear shirt number 23 appears to be favourite to be first choice goalkeeper.

was not so good. On Saturday we couldn’t train in England because it was raining and the pitch was not good enough to make it good for us to train so we have to miss so many steps running around the pitch.

“And two days before we arrived around 10 in the morning after 10 hour flight, we had death foot and so in the beginning of the game, the players were not ready and in the second half we made changes and we were better. A lot of lessons for the stuff on Saturday,” Rohr said.

“Because in the first half, we had our usual organisation, 4-2-3-1 or 4-41-1 but it didn’t work out for several reasons. In the first half, four players were not fit and also England made such a good beginning of the game.

They put the pressure on us and we got the corner which resulted in the first goal and free kicks and all these immediately came out.

“So, the first beginning was for us an opportunity to change our organisation at the half time and to play a little bit like England, 3-5-4 or 5-3-2 if you want and it was much better.

And we also changed four players unfortunately in the World Cup we The full squad and jersey cannot change four players. But the Nos: players that came in did very well 1. Ikechukwu Ezenwa and we saw different 2nd half,” Rohr 2. Bryan Idowu declared.

3. Elderson Echiejile

•L-R: Bunmi Ogunwale, Secretary Lagos SWAN; Vice Chairman, Adeola Omokiviev; Chief Kennedy, Patron Lagos SWAN; Lagos State SWAN Chairman, Mr. Debo Oshundu and immediate pass chairman, Fred Edeare.

4. Wilfred Ndidi 5. William Troost-Ekong 6. Leon Balogun 7. Ahmed Musa 8. Oghenekharo Etebo 9. Odion Ighalo 10. John Obi Mikel 11. Victor Moses 12. Abdullahi Shehu 13. Simeon Nwankwo 14. Kelechi Iheanacho 15. Joel Obi 16. Daniel Akpeyi 17. Ogenyi Onazi 18. Alex Iwobi 19. John Ogu 20. Chidozie Awaziem 21. Tyrone Ebuehi 22. Kenneth Omeruo 23. Francis Uzoho

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The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

SPORTS

Keita tips Eagles for World Cup Semis

Keep off Jerusalem, Messi warned N

Stories by MADUABUCHI KALU

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HE Palestine Football Association head has urged fans to burn pictures of Argentina striker Lionel Messi and replicas of his shirt if he plays against Israel in Jerusalem next weekend.

Twice world champions Argentina will play at Jerusalem’s Teddy Kollek Stadium on Saturday night in a World Cup warm-up match.

The game has attracted huge interest among the Israeli fans, mainly because of Messi’s planned participation.

But the Palestinians are not happy that the match will be held in Jerusalem.

Palestinian FA chief, Jibril Rajoub wrote on Sunday to Claudio Tapia, the head of the Argentinian FA, last week accusing Israel of using the match as a “political tool”.

The stadium that will host the match is in west Jerusalem. The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of a future state that will include the Gaza Strip and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

However, the status of the city generally is highly sensitive.

The match was originally slated to be played in Haifa but Israeli authorities contributed funding for it to be moved to Jerusalem, irking Palestinians further.

This is in the wake of U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of the city as Israel’s capital.

The U.S. embassy was moved

there last month.

“The Israeli government has turned a regular sports match into a political tool. As was widely covered in Argentinian media, the match now is being played in order to celebrate the `70th anniversary of the State of Israel’,” part of Rajoub’s letter said.

On Sunday, Rajoub declared a campaign against Argentina and particularly Messi, noting he has millions of fans across the Arab and Islamic world, Asia and Africa.

“He’s a big symbol. So, we are going to target him personally and we call on all to burn his picture and his shirt and to abandon him. We still hope that Messi will not come,” he told reporters after leaving the Argentinian representative office in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

A small group of youths wearing Palestine football scarves demonstrated outside the representation office and attempted to set fire to an Argentinian flag.

Rajoub has long tried to get football’s world governing body, FIFA, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to impose sanctions against Israel.

This is mainly because of the Israeli government’s settlements policy in the West Bank and because it has imposed travel restrictions on Palestinian athletes citing security concerns.

Those bodies have not heeded his calls. Argentina have made four previous pre-World Cup stopovers in

ABY Keita feels the 2018 World Cup will be a tough outing for African representatives but singled out Nigeria ‘to lead by example’.

Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Senegal and the Super Eagles shoulder the continent’s dream to win the elusive diadem.

And the midfielder who is on Liverpool radar believes African teams have learnt from past flaws – and this time around will make the four.

“It will be a tough tournament for African teams but the good thing is that they have learnt from past mistakes,” Keita told Goal.

“I know Nigeria will lead by example and we will definitely have at least two teams in the semis of the competition.

“However, it is unfortunate that Guinea will not be part of the African teams at the games in Russia.”

Guinea failed in their attempt to qualify for their maiden World Cup appearance having finished behind Tunisia, DR Congo and Libya in Group A of CAF’s Third Round qualification.

Only Cameroon, Senegal and Ghana have made significant impacts on the world stage – reaching the quarter-final in the 1990, 2002 and 2010 editions.

Israel since 1986.

The team have been drawn in World Cup Group D and will open its campaign against Iceland in Moscow on June 16.

Most countries do not recognise either Israel’s or the Palestinians’

sovereignty in Jerusalem and have embassies to Israel in the Tel Aviv area.

However, Guatemala and Honduras followed the U.S. lead in moving their embassies last month.

There’s fierce battle for No1 Jersey – Agu

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UPER Eagles’ goalkeeper trainer, Alloy Agu has disclosed that there is a fierce battle for the No1 shirt in the camp of the Super Eagles and said that is very good for the team as it will bring out the best in the goalkeepers.

According to him the battle for the starting line-up in the Eagles is not restricted to the goalkeeping department but in every segment of the game as players battle to ensure that they give their best which absolutely very good for the team.

This even as the players were handed Jersey numbers just as Enyimba goalkeeper, Ikechukwu Ezenwa was handed the No1 Jersey which indicates that the position could be manned by anybody despite Francis Uzoho featuring prominently more with the Super Eagles’ team recently.

According to the former Eagles’ safest hands, the technical crew is satisfied with the competition in the camp as will eventually see the players performing at their optimum levels.

“Ezenwa has been in the goal for a while now and has done so well for Nigeria and you can’t take that away from him and Francis is doing great.

“So, there is a swift competition among them and that is what we expect.

“There is competition in all department and that’s brings out

the best in them and that is what is going to see us through in all departments,” Agu explained.

Speaking on why Ezenwa was given the No1 Jersey instead of Francis Uzoho who from every indication the technical crew particularly the goalkeeper trainers seem to favour to man the post for Nigeria at the Mundial, former Eagles’ defender, Ifeanyi Udeze explained that Ezenwa should be the right person to be handed the No1 Jersey according to the tradition of the National team set up.

According to Udeze who represented the country in 2002 FIFA

World Cup tagged Korea/Japan 2002, there is a tradition in the national team. It is all about first come first served. He explained that the No 23 Jersey handed to Uzoho is in order because he is the last goalkeeper to be invited to the national team.

Continuing, Udeze explained that having the No1 Jersey does not automatically mean that Ezenwa is going to be the first choice goalkeeper saying who mans the post remains the prerogative of the coach and the performance of the goalkeeper in training.

•Alloy Agu

We don’t have goalkeeping problem – Rohr

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uper Eagles’ gaffer, Gernot Rohr has rubbished the fears being expressed by some stakeholders concerning who stands in-between the sticks for the national team for the 2018 Federation of International Football Association (FIFA) World Cup kicking off in Russia on June 14th.

For the Franco German football tactician, as far as he is concerned the Super Eagles do not have any goalkeeping problem because he has implicit trust in the three goalkeepers that he is taking to Russia. Therefore, there is no problem in that department of the game as his confidence in the goalkeeper is

unwavering.

“I trust our goalkeepers. For me, we don’t have a goalkeeping problem,” Rohr began.

“I heard here and there that we have goalkeeper problem, but as far as I am concerned; we don’t have goalkeeping problem.

“We have three good goalkeepers. And we gave the responsibility to Francis to play because he needs the experience of these big games playing in Wembley. He had already played in Poland where we had only 40,000 spectators and today (Saturday) we had more spectators. We had the atmosphere of the World Cup already and he did very well.

“We are working a lot to see him do well. We sent our goalkeeper coach to La Corona to be with him and assist him for 10 days after all he is human. He is only the third keeper in La Corona but he is doing well in the reserve team.

“So, he will continue to work, he is quite, he is tall, he can come out, he is good on the line, but he has to work. But what I also like about him is that he is humble because we need something like that. “On Messi, I hope by the time we play our third game which is against Argentina, we would have qualified and that Messi will not play against us,” Rohr said.

Why Zidane quits Real Madrid

Z

anedine Zidane, the triple Real Madrid UEFA Champions League winner, has resigned his position from club following a row over Chelsea’s Eden Hazard Manchester United David De Gea. The 45-year-old Frenchman stepped down from his role at Los Blancos after guiding the club to three consecutive Champions League titles The night before Zidane announced his resignation at a press conference, sources say he and Real Madrid President, Florentino Perez clashed over summer transfer plans. It is believed that Zidane have been keen in securing the services of Chelsea ace, Eden Hazard this summer which Real Madrid President, Perez said no.

However, when Perez told Zidane he wished to bring in long-term target, De Gea from Manchester United, the manager insisted he had faith in current goalkeeper, Keylor Navas. The debate went back and forth and ended, it is claimed, with Zidane telling Perez: “I am done.

You take care of the team.”

Claims that Perez does not want Hazard may be reassuring to Chelsea as they try to hang on to their best player.

Zidane didn’t believe Los Blancos needed to bring Manchester United goalkeeper David De Gea to the Bernabeu. Perez is famously hands-on when it comes to signing players at Real, instigating the first Galactico era of Zidane himself, Luis Figo, Ronaldo and David Beckham during his initial term as Real president.

In his second period in charge, he has overseen a second more successful Galactico policy. Bringing in Kaka did not pay dividends, but Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale have helped Real win four of the last five Champions League titles.

47

The Oracle Today Wednesday June 13, 2018

NEWS Cont’d from Pg 2 ment as a member of the APC National Convention Committee.

Action speaks louder than voice.”

Njoku expresses surprise at the sudden deep interest the Inspector-General of Police has developed in the investigation of the Offa robbery in Kwara State, but has not displayed similar zeal in curbing the killings by herdsmen across the country.

“Why has IGP Idris suddenly become interested in the Offa Bank robbery and its victims and not the murderous and genocidal killings in Benue, Taraba, Kogi, Bauchi, Southern Kaduna, among others?” Njoku queried.

He wondered why the President Buhari and the IGP are “more interested in certain selective variables than the bloodbaths going on in the country.”

“Robbery and killing is absolutely bad and must be condemned in strong terms. In my view, bringing the criminals that robbed the Offa Bank to justice is a cheerful development. But if the type of energy President Buhari and the IGP are using to investigate the Offa hoodlums is being channelled also to investigate killings in Benue, Taraba , Zamfara and others, there will be no more loss of human souls in our country!” he quipped.

The federal government’s alleged hounding of perceived political opponents and members of the ruling party who disagree with them, according to Njoku, typifies a classical case of “when sentiment beclouds patriotism.”

“In my view, therefore, the action of IGP in trying to link Saraki to the suspects and perhaps incriminate him is politically-motivated and will crash.”

Also speaking to The Oracle Today, Prof Chinedu Asinu-Anosike, noted that the crisis between the IGP and Senate President Saraki is an attempt by the Presidency to fight political opponents and muzzle the Legislature.

He described the attempt to incriminate Senator Saraki in the dastardly armed robbery attack in Kawara State recently as a frame-

Saraki: Police in partisan drama up, adding that if care is not taken more of those who are seen to oppose some powerful persons would be framed up and even prosecuted.

He also likened it to the crisis between the Police and Senator Melaye, which led to his arrest, arraignment and hospitalization, warning that Nigerians do not need such crisis at this time of her history.

According to Barrister Ben Okoko, immediate past chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Idemili, Anambra State, branch.

“The police invitation on Saraki is abnormal, in as much as no-

body is above the law. For Saraki who is the incumbent President of Senate, a two-term governor of Kwara state and a medical doctor of repute, his invitation by the police is to say the least, is preposterous,” Okoko said.

“The worst part of it is that the invitation was made public which is ridiculous. The police should trade with circumspect or cautious. A confessing armed robber’s background should be investigated to ascertain whether someone is inducing him to rope Saraki in”. |More so, someone who is not in a good record book of Saraki can do that. I am of the firm view that

the police tactics in investigating of crime in this country is antiquated and that calls for a need to modernize the investigation tactics.

“However, there is nothing wrong in a very senior police officer leading some junior ones to visit Saraki if after full investigation of the person the confessing armed robber made an irresistible point to the fact that there is a direct connection between him and Saraki.

“The accusatorial system of our criminal law envisages a situation where a person is presumed to be innocent until he is proved guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.

If the police have their facts right,

•From left: Peace Akpan, Oracle Newspaper staff , Oluwaseunfunmi Rebecca Olusina during her graduation at Babcock University On Sunday June 3, 2018, and graduant father Mr. Olusina Olusina

National Assembly passes vote of no confidence on IGP Idris mocracy.

The National Assembly also urged the government to show sincerity in the fight against corruption by not being selective but also prosecute current appointees that have cases pending against them.

It called on the Executive to at all times protect the sanctity of the National Assembly sand preserve the Federal Government of Nigeria by not interfering in its business and prosecuting those who invaded the Senate to seize the mace.

7a. That the National Assembly should liaise with International Communities through the IPU, APU, ECOWAS, CPA, Parliament, Pan African Parliament, EU, UN, US congress and UK Parliament to secure our democracy. b. That the democratic elections

... Total over underground water contamination Cont’d from Pg 2 pumping water from wells and boreholes into overhead tanks filled the air with petrol fumes and spread panic across the area, forcing neighbourhood associations to launch investigation into the cause of the menace.

She said the neighbourhood association has already taken up the matter, prompting Total to rapidly repair the leaking underground tanks and re-commission them.

However, that has not brought immediate succour to the residents who complain that they still have tastes and fumes of petroleum products in their water.

Our investigation showed that Total had taken initial steps to appease the residents by providing water via mobile water vendors that temporarily filled overhead water storage tanks in some of the households.

However, not every affected

household benefitted from the gesture while those that benefitted only had temporary relief as the supplied water quickly ran out while wells and boreholes still remained unsafe.

With the matters already in court, it remains to see how the matter is resolved.

A social health official who spoke with The Oracle Today on the matter blamed the problem not on any of the parties in the dispute but on the state and local government that have failed to provide residents with potable water.

He pointed out that all the water sources in discussion fail to meet basic requirements for safe domestic application, adding that even those that have boreholes and water wells do not have the requisite facilities and treatment chemicals for water purification and sterilization.

He said all the parties involved in

the dispute are victims of failure of government to meet basic social services to the people.

Another official of Federal Ministry of Environment (FME) also said it is the function of the state to provide drinking water for the residents, adding that regulation recognises pipeline and tank failures.

He explained that resulting seepage would take time to clear through natural evaporation and sand filtration.

According to The Oracle Today investigation, seepage from a failed underground tank is a child’s play when compared to massive pipeline spills that result in largescale environmental degradation.

Such massive spills require coordinated industry response through National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA).

Only in Niger Delta has NOSDRA ever activated such integrated spill response programme.

must be competitive and inclusive by removing the present reign of fear and intimidation particularly as we approach the forthcoming 2019 elections.

8. That the National Assembly will work closely with Civil Society Organisations, Trade Unions and NGOs to further deepen and protect our democracy 9. That the President must take immediate steps to contain the growing level of unemployment and poverty in Nigeria especially now that we have advantage of the oil price having risen to $80 per barrel.

10. That both chambers of the National Assembly hereby pass a vote of confidence on the Senate President and the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the entire leadership of the National Assembly.

The lawmakers reaffirmed their earlier adoption of vote of no confidence on the Inspector General of Police “who does nothing other than preside over the killing of innocent Nigerians and consistent framing up of perceived political opponents of the President and outright disregard for constitutional authority, both executive and legislative.”

The National Assembly threatened to evoke its Constitutional powers “if nothing is done to address the above resolutions passed today.”

there is no need to invite Saraki to come and make a statement.

“Even an accused person standing trial has a right to remain silence. The invitation to Saraki and the publicity given to it is aimed at tarnishing his political image.

Looking at the Senate President’s pedigree from his father, Olusola Saraki as a first class politician and himself as a political timber and calibre of his own right, one will start to wonder he stands to gain from an armed robbery operation, even if he was a congenital kleptomaniac.

“Incidentally, there was s faceoff between the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the Senate . One would ordinarily suspect that the police hierarchy is trying to implicate the Senate President because of the face-off. Saraki can go to court to stop the police if there is no forensic evidence to link him with the purported confessional statement of the robbers cogent enough to warrant his invitation.”

The National Assembly seemed to have agreed with this point of view when its joint session on Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence on IGP Ibrahim Idris.

According to the lawmakers, “the systematic harassment and humiliation by the Executive of perceived political opponents, people with contrary opinions including legislators and judiciary by the police and other security agencies must stop.”

The lawmakers warned that there must be strict adherence to the rule of law and protection for all citizens by the President and his appointees, stressing that the “President must be held accountable for the actions of his appointees and must be ready to sanction those that carry out any act which will ridicule or endanger our country and democracy.”

However, the Police insist their invitation to Dr. Saraki was very much in order.

Although the Police have cancelled the invitation and instead asked Saraki to present a written statement within 48 hours, the police in an earlier statement issued by the Force Public Relations Officer, ACP Jimoh Moshood, said: “The investigation into the Offa bank robbery and gruesome killings of more than 33 Innocent persons in Offa, Kwara State, on April 5, 2018, directed by the Inspector General of Police, IGP Ibrahim Idris, has made significant progress, successes and more revelations have been recorded.

“The gang leaders and some of the principal suspects arrested for their active participation in the robbery and the killing of innocent persons have made confessional statements admitting to the various criminal roles they and their sponsors played in this dastardly and heinous crime“The five gang leaders, including Ayoade Akinnibosun, Ibukunle Ogunleye, Adeola Abraham, Salawudeen Azeez, Niyi Ogundiran and some of the other seventeen suspects arrested for direct involvement and active participation in the Offa bank robbery and the gruesome killing of 33 innocent persons, which includes some pregnant women and nine police personnel, admitted, confessed and volunteered statements that they were political thugs of the Senate President, Senator Bukola Saraki, and the governor of Kwara State, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed.”

WEDNESDAY June 13, 2018

The

www.oraclenews.ng

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racle Today

VOX POPULI SACRUM

ISSN: 2545-5869

Let the kite perch…and the eagle too T

he Igbo philosophy on the virtue of accommodation and or division is encapsulated in this time-tested exhortation: let the kite perch and the eagle too but whoever says the other must not perch, let its wings break!

Even as the nation’s democracy endures 19 years on, what has become obvious is that neither the spirit of accommodation nor division of labour is a strong point of this dispensation.

Rather, what appears to obtain is an eternal brutish fight for space among the three tiers of government. And the ‘stronger’ the tier, the more able it is to forage in the other’s territory or ‘sphere of influence’.

The summary--and the pity of it--is that our democracy still has to contend a lot with the totalitarian tendencies of the military era. The President is still Emperor, infallible and irreproachable—he is ‘the father’ of the nation.

The governor is Lord of the Manor from whose benevolence or despotism residents of his State must drink. The only fall guy is the local government Chairman who lacks the muscle and authority to protect his own. He is the only one who must take orders or whatever is given to him by ‘his governor’, the one who has been systematically stripped of his statutory authority over resources in his domain.

It means that 19 years on, our democracy still boasts no symmetry among the three tiers of government, no symbiotic relationship leading to an organic whole that regenerates itself.

Instead, what we have is a chaotic system where component parts prey on each other’s weaknesses.

Consider this anecdote. A week or so ago, two gentlemen walked into our office at Onitsha and asked to see me. What was their mission? They had come to collect this year’s ‘Capitation Fee’, a levy per each employee, which corporate bodies pay to the local government where they operate. After a lot of argument, cajoling and even blackmail, we finally reached an agreement: we were convinced we should pay and we will.

But, what struck one was the obvious desperation in our august visitors’ tones and the revelation they were later to make. Half-pleading, half-threatening, they had explained that Capitation Fee “is practically the only internal revenue-generating item” left for the local government by the State government, which has ‘cornered’ virtually all revenue sources belonging to the local government. They gave this ‘usurpation’ as “the main” reason local governments in The Light of the Nation can’t deliver democracy dividends to their communities as much as they should.

Really? Capitation is the only fee local governments can directly collect in Anambra?

What about fees from markets and motor parks? What about sanitation fees and several others?

Section 7(1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that: “The system of local government by democratically elected local government councils is under this constitution guaranteed; and accordingly, the government of every state shall, subject to section 8 of this constitution, ensure their existence under a law which provides for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of such councils.”

According to Ozohu-Suleiman Abdulhamid and Paul Chima of the Department of Public Administration, Abuja, in a research paper titled Local Government Administration In Nigeria: The Search For Relevance, “the constitution,” following from the above constitutional provision, “assumes that the law relating to local government creation would be made by the State Houses of Assembly.”

“Thus the legal framework does not see lo-

Eastside From the

By Felix Oguejiofor Abugu Phone: 08076290498 (SMS only)

cal governments as a third tier of government, but merely recognises local government as an appendage of state government where the latter enjoys absolute discretion over the former,” the duo argued, stressing that “although the 1976 reform of local government attempted to clarify this, it did not provide the legal framework to underpin any fundamental restructuring.”

“Similarly, the 1979 Constitution and the current 1999 Constitution failed to provide the necessary constitutional backing to operationalise the change. This lacuna created the opportunity for manipulation by both the federal and state governments,” they stressed.

Indeed, a major challenge confronting the local government administration in Nigeria subsists in the contradictions inherent in the constitutional provisions on the system. While the Constitution provides that it is the responsibility of States to ensure the existence of local governments, the same constitution makes local government creation an exclusive federal preserve, to the extent that a local government is presumed to have been validly created by a State government only when such exercise receives the approval of 2/3 majority of Members of the National assembly.

Thus, even though the Constitution clearly delineates the functions of the local government, those functions can be performed only as far as a particular state government is prepared to allow. Statutorily, the local government is the third tier of government in our system, but operationally, the constitution denies the local government that status. Which means that while, in our begging-bowl federalism (apologies to DSP Senator Ike Ekweremadu), the local government as the third tier receives allocation from the federally sharable pool, such allocation is not exactly the local government’s to use as the chairman-in-council deems fit. It is almost always tampered with by the State government .

The statutory functions of the local government are at the very heart of public administration at the grassroots. According to the Fourth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution, the main functions of a local government council are as follows: (a) The consideration and the making of recommendations to a State commission on economic planning or any similar body on (i) The economic development of the State, particularly in so far as the areas of authority of the council and of the State are affected, and (ii) Proposals made by the said commission or body; (b) Collection of rates, radio and television licences; (c) Establishment and maintenance of cemeteries, burial grounds and homes for the destitute or infirm;

(d) Licensing of bicycles, trucks (other than mechanically propelled trucks), canoes, wheel barrows and carts; (e) establishment, maintenance and regulation of slaughter houses, slaughter slabs, markets, motor parks and public conveniences; (f) Construction and maintenance of roads, streets, street lightings, drains and other public highways, parks, gardens, open spaces, or such public facilities as may be prescribed from time to time by the House of Assembly of a State; (g) Naming of roads and streets and numbering of houses; (h) Provision and maintenance of public conveniences, sewage and refuse disposal; (i) Registration of all births, deaths and marriages; (j) Assessment of privately owned houses or tenements for the purpose of levying such rates as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of a State; and (k) Control and regulation of (i) Out-door advertising and hoarding, (ii) Movement and keeping of pets of all description, (iii) Shops and kiosks, (iv) Restaurants, bakeries and other places for sale of food to the public, (v) Laundries, and licensing, regulation and control of the sale of liquor, among others.

But, there is scarcely anywhere in Nigeria that a local government is allowed to properly perform those functions because the State government whose responsibility it is to ensure the existence of that tier of government has, in most cases, usurped the local government’s sources of revenue and, by extension, its very functions.

In Anambra State, for example, the state government has all but taken over the aforementioned functions of the local government.

In Imo State, Governor Okorocha’s administration not only took over the functions of the local government but also experimented with running a fourth tier of government or what the governor calls Community Government.

In Abia, Ebonyi, Enugu, Delta and, indeed, most other States of the federation where elected local councils are in place, the chairmen-in-councils are so beholden to the State governors that they can hardly take any independent decisions.

An example of this lack of independence is evident in the prevalent failure or inability of councils to even construct and or tar short streets in their domains or maintain existing ones, a major function of the local government. And this is largely because they just don’t have the resources, no thanks to state governments, which have systematically stripped them of their revenue sources and functions. So, when next you see a state governor either gloating over the label of

‘performing governor’ or cowering under the shame of ‘non-performing or under-performing governor’, just remember everything happens at the expense of the chairmen-in-councils of the local governments in his domain.

Or, has anyone ever had of a performing local government chairman in the equation of ‘performing’ State administrations?

INCIDENCE OF DOUBLE TAXATION From the foregoing, is there still any wonder why we have high incidence of double taxation across the land? This anti-business, anti-growth phenomenon occurs when local governments, which take their functions seriously, flex muscles and insist on collecting revenue from where they are statutorily entitled to, even after the State government has supposedly collected the tax or revenue. That is why we find all manners of revenue agents in markets, parks and roadside drop-off points, not just in Anambra (but especially in Anambra) but also in other parts of the South East, South South and the rest of Nigeria.

WHAT TO DO? Everyone agrees that because it is the government closest to the people, a vibrant local government system in Nigeria is imperative.

Therefore, as Nigeria celebrates 19 years of democratic governance and going forward, it is incumbent on the authorities concerned, especially state governments whose responsibility it actually is, to ensure that the local government is properly emplaced as the third tier that it is and allowed to function as such.

In their well-reasoned conclusions drawn from their well-researched and referenced paper, Abdulhamid and Chima recommend, among others: • That in order to drive the principle of democratic federalism to its logical conclusion and to give constitutional reality to the concept of three-tier federalism, local government should be clearly and unambiguously established in the General Provisions, Chapter I, Part I, sub-section 2 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

• That following from the above, a chapter on local government as an autonomous unit of the federation should be created in the Constitution, analogous to Chapter V, Parts I and II for the federal and State governments respectively. The new chapter should make provisions that ensure the legislative and executive powers and functions of local government councils, even as these provisions would automatically override the current ambiguous provision in Section 7, which gives state governments the leeway to manipulate local governments, usurp their statutory functions and plunder their resources.

• That the controversial State Joint Local Government Account (SJLGA) should be removed from the constitution and replaced by a new regime of fiscal federalism where local government councils would be accountable for funds directly allocated to them, and • That this new regime of fiscal federalism would evolve measures to instil fiscal discipline among local governments and encourage self-reliance through internally generated revenue.

According to the duo, “a clear and unambiguous definition of the powers and functions of local government would help local governments improve their revenue base and fund public services without over-reliance on statutory allocations from the Federation Account.”

In my view, there couldn’t be better answers to the seemingly intractable existential problem facing the local government system in Nigeria.

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