Peoples Daily Newspaper, Monday 03, June, 2013

www.peoplesdailyng.com

Vol. 11 No. 12

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

. . . putting the people first

Rajab 26, 1434 AH

Buhari’s 2015 campaign posters flood Abuja

N150

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Man jailed 168 years for N2.5m fraud

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n Ikeja High Court in Lagos yesterday sentenced a middle-aged man, Olaolu Salau, to an imprisonment of 168 years with hard labour for defrauding a Lagos-based businessman, Solomon Ayoola, of N2.5 million.

Judge Adeniyi Onigbanjo gave the verdict following a plea bargain between the convict and the Economic and Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Under the terms of the bargain, Salau pleaded guilty to an amended 24-count charge.

In sentencing him, the Judge ordered that the convict serve seven years for each of the 24-counts at Kirikiri Prisons, Lagos.

Justice Onigbanjo however ordered that the sentence run concurrently starting from December 11, 2007, the date Mr. Salau was arrested by the EFCC. In addition to the jail sentence, the convict was also ordered to pay restitution of N2.5 million to his victim. The judge ruled that he must pay the cash within a year of his release from prison.

Contd. on Page 2

L-R: President Goodluck Jonathan, Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, and Master Samuel, son of late Eventus Ukpon, laying wreath in honour of the victims of Dana air crash, during the remembrance service and unveiling of memorial cenotaph, yesterday at the domestic wing of Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, in Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye

Senate stops states creation  New Constitution’s draft copy ready July

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

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gitation for state creation may have suffered a setback. Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekwerenmadu, who is also Chairman of the Senate committee reviewing the 1999 constitution, yesterday revealed that those demanding for state creation did not comply with the

required guidelines.

This is even as he said the senate committee will submit its report to the senate this week, expressing hope that the draft copy of the constitution would be ready by June/July, before other actual legislative processes would be applied to it.

Ekwerenmadu, who spoke with journalists in Abuja, said the

committee does not see anything wrong with state creation, but emphasised that the processes required in it must be complied with by any group seeking for states to be created from their areas.

According to him, the requirements, according to Section 8(1) of the constitution as amended, include signature

of the two-third of the Local government council of the affected areas requesting for the state, including the councilors and the chairmen of the council from the area requesting for the state.

“When we received request, that request must as a matter of constitutional requirement, have the signature of the two-third of the Local government council

of the affected area requesting for the state. So, that include the councilors and the chairmen of the council from the area requesting for the state.

“And you must know these must be elected councilors and chairmen because the constitution did not envisaged caretaker. If it is found out that they are not elected Contd. on Page 2

Lagos, families JTF carts mystery cartons honour Dana Air from Amigo Supermarket, crash victims >>5 Wonderland >>3

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PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

News CONTENTS News

2-10

Editorial

12

Op.Ed

13

Letters

14

Opinion

15

Metro

16-18

Business

19-22

Stockwatch

23

S/Report

24-25

Defence

26-27

Agric

28-29

Tribute

30

PDP is a dysfunctional family - ACN From Ayodele Samuel,Lagos

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ction Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as a “big-for-nothing dysfunctional family” that practises political cannibalism, hence its spiraling descent into ignominy.

In a statement issued in Lagos yesterday, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai

Mohammed, said that anyone calling the PDP a ‘’big family, united in freedom’’ may be suffering from hallucination.

It also said that in spite of its continuous dismissal of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as a group of strange bedfellows (a well-worn cliche that has now lost its meaning), the PDP can only underrate the merger at its own peril.

“A happy family needs no

advertisement, because people know a happy family when they see one. A happy family needs not draw attention to itself because happiness cannot be hidden.

What the PDP is mistaking for happiness is a form of manic disorder.

“As this vanishing family continues to sink, it has now degenerated to consuming its own members for survival.

Nothing showed this more than

the recent election of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF). Ever seen a party that is at war because its member won an election? Ever seen a family in which the father is seeking to devour his own son for achieving success?

“Our sincere wish is that this sinking behemoth will somehow survive till 2015 so it can receive the drubbing of its life,’’ ACN said.

New revenue formula: RMAFC adopts terrain

By Abdulwahab Isa

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basic section in the anticipated new revenue formula is the provision for terrain type of states and local government councils as a principle in the sharing of revenue from the Federation Account under the Horizontal Revenue Allocation Formula.

This is in line with the complaints submitted by some states and local governments following the report on Terrain types which was prepared by the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation

in 2007. That was in the aftermath of discussion of the implication of the ruling of the International Court of Justice as it affects the landmass figures of some states and local Governments in the country.

Elias Mbam, Chairman Revenue Mobilsation Allocation and Fiscal Commission, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja in a welcome address at the opening of a three -day Multi-Agency meeting involving the Office of the Surveyor General of the Federation(OSGOF), the National Boundary Commission(NBC) and the Surveyors- General of the thirty

six (36) States and the Federal Capital Territory convened by the Commission.

A statement by the Commission’s spokesperson, Ibrahim Mohammmed, said the forum which had in attendance various stakeholders, was also expected to advise the Commission on the appropriate weights to be apportioned to each of the three terrain types from the 5% allocated to the terrain factor under the Horizontal Revenue Allocation Formula.

The Commission had in 2007 requested the office of the Surveyor

General of the Federation to carry out a survey on terrain types of all States and Local Governments to enable it apply the terrain factor as stipulated in the subsisting Act. Mbam also reiterated the Commission’s ardent desire to ensure fair and equitable implementation of all factors under the Horizontal Revenue Allocation Formula just as he charged participants at the meeting to come up with invaluable contributions that will help in resolving all the contending issues as well as address all complaints arising there.

Man jailed 168 years for N2.5m fraud As we mourn Dana victims…, Page 4

Int’l

31-34

Strange World 35 Digest

36

Politics

37-38

Newsxtra

39-40

Sports

41-45

Leisure Columnist

47 48

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU The Peoples Daily wants to hear from you with any news and pictures you think we should publish.

You can send your news and pictures to: letters@peoplesdaily-online.com pictures@peoplesdaily-online.com contact@peoplesdaily-online.com

Phones for News: 070-37756364 09-8734478

Contd. from Front Page The court also approved a plan by prosecutors to use Salau as a prosecution witness against the remaining defendants.

Salau was originally arraigned with four others on allegations of conspiracy and defrauding Ayoola at different times to the tune of N2.5 million.

The alleged fraudsters reportedly told Ayoola that they

could increase his money by invoking an invisible entity.

According to the charges dated May 6 and filed on May 7, 2013 by the EFCC, the convict was charged with conspiring with four others with intent to defraud the businessman of various sums between June and November 2006. The offence contravened section 419 of advanced fee fraud and miscellaneous offences.

Ayoola had written a complaint to the EFCC in September 2007.

Prosecutors disclosed that EFCC investigators established that the fraudsters had obtained the sum of N2.5 million between June and November 2006.

The findings led to a 24-count charge, one on conspiracy and 23 others bordering on advanced fee fraud and obtaining money by false pretence.

The case was originally handled

by Justice Habeeb Abiru. In the course of trial, Salau, who had been in custody for seven years, wrote to the EFCC to request a plea bargain.

The other three defendants, Akinsowon Olufemi, Adebisi Adewale and Muyiwa Ayeni, have been remanded at Kirikiri Prison until July 22 when their trial is due to resume.

Senate stops states creation Contd. from Front Page

chairmen, that means that they have not fulfil that obligation.

“Furthermore, there must be signature of the two-third of the state assemblies from those respective areas requesting for a state. Then, there will be twothird signature of the National Assembly”, he said.

Ekwerenmadu further explained that what happened was that some traditional rulers, out of the love for their people, quickly signed the request for creation of states and submitted same in Abuja without looking at what the constitution says.

“They are not the one who should be signatories, it has to be parliamentarians. My own understanding of the constitution is that, it is not just going to be parliamentarians but serving parliamentarians, that is sitting members, not those who were members in 1960.

“That is one of the tales

people have avoided in making these requests. This is one of the constraints,”, he said.

While pointing out that the committee supports creation of states, he said, “but you have to follow the procedure laid down by the constitution which most people are trying to avoid.

“That is our stand on it. I will like you to help us explain to the public because it is an issue that will be very controversial.”

Meanwhile, he disclosed that his committee will submit its report to the Senate this week, adding that the draft copy of the constitution based on the compilation of the memorandum and submissions by the public, would be ready by July.

According to him, “we have gone a long way. I believe that God willing, by this week, we should be laying on the table, the report of the Senate committee on constitution review. You recall that we created time line when we started.

“Our objective is to ensure that by this time, we should be able to be laying on the table, probably have a discourse and pass it at the senate, and then we should be able to push it to the House of Representatives and the states assemblies respectively.

“We are hoping that they will be able to move as fast as we are doing that hopefully, we will be able to achieve our July deadline. Even if we are going to miss it, it will not be too long behind the mark. We tenaciously followed our programme and time line regarding constitutional amendment. I am happy to say that we have achieved our objectives in terms of the timing.”

At this point, the committee will start the next phase which is proper legislation regarding the constitution amendment, adding that what they have already done is consultation with their constituents, through public hearing at both states and national levels.

“So, we believe what we are going to submit to the senate will add value to the democracy, constitutionalism and Nigerians will also have value for the work.

For us there is nothing personal about it, whatever our colleagues decides, we believe that will be the best for our country.

“So what we are going to do is to make proposals to the plenary regarding specific areas and we are going to give reasons for every decisions we have taken. So, whatever our colleagues decides at plenary will be the final position of the Senate.” Ekwerenmadu said.

Speaking on the resolution of the House of Representatives, which bars President Jonathan from accessing the funds of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, where emergency was declared recently, he said whatever contrary resolution the lower chamber is taking cannot change the earlier resolution passed by the conference committees of both chambers.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 3

News

Security excavate boxes at Amigo supermarket, Wonderland Park

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ecurity officials who carried out a semi-excavation work on Amigo supermarket in Abuja say they have unearthed ‘boxes’ whose content have not been disclosed.

The boxes have been taken to the head office of the Department of State Security Service, SSS, in Abuja, an official of the agency, involved in the excavation, told PREMIUM TIMES. According to PREMIUM TIMES, the security officials are currently excavating some parts of Amigo,

one of Abuja’s busiest supermarkets, and Wonderland Amusement Park, Abuja’s largest amusement park, in search of likely weapons.

The SSS sealed off Amigo and Wonderland on Friday evening after the businesses’ co-owner was declared wanted for allegedly being part of a Hezbollah Lebanese terrorist cell in the country.

Earlier on Thursday, the Joint Task Force in Kano said it uncovered a bunker beneath a house in Kano where heavy ammunition, including anti-tank weapons were stored.

The JTF said it arrested three suspected terrorists who mentioned the Amigo owner as part of them.

Security agencies on Friday evening sealed off the popular Amigo supermarket, owned by a Lebanese who is accused of being part of a major terrorist cell.

The Joint Task Force in Kano had on Thursday named Fauzi Fawad, a co-owner of Amigo and Wonderland Amusement Park, Abuja’s largest, as allegedly part of a Lebanese Hezbollah cell operating in Nigeria.

Both public areas were open

Two Police pension scam suspects arraigned before FCT Federal High Court, yesterday in Abuja.

on Friday as shoppers and visitors, many unaware of Mr. Fawad’s alleged involvement, continued their transactions. Wonderland also allowed visitors in without the basic entry fee.

Fawad is said to be on the run, the JTF said after investigations by the SSS. The JTF said they arrested three Lebanese in various raids in Kano and recovered heavy weaponry including anti-tank guns, rocket propelled grenades from a bunker in the a house used by the foreigners.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Troops destroy insurgents’ anti-aircraft guns in Borno

By Joy Baba

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dvancing troops of Special Task Force have destroyed some heavy weapons, including anti-aircraft and antitank guns in some terrorists camps in the forests of northern and central Borno state.

This was contained in a statement signed by the Director

of Defence Information (DDI) Brig-Gen Chris Olukolade, in Abuja yesterday.

The statement also said the special operations which preceded troops movement has resulted in the destruction of much of the insurgents weapons and logistics such as vehicles, containers, fuel dumps and power generators.

Olukolade said border posts have

all been manned by security agents to prevent escape or infiltrations by insurgents.

“The casualties inflicted on the insurgents in the cause of the assault will be verified during mop up” the statement also said.

In another development, the Adamawa state Governor, Alhaji Murtala Nyako, has commended the conduct of both the military and the

people of Adamawa state.

He gave this commendation at the State House in Yola while receiving the Defence Headquarters Operations Assessment Team at the weekend.

Nyako said though the state was not expecting the state of emergency, he however commended the Armed Forces on the way it was being implemented.

Buhari’s 2015 campaign posters flood Abuja

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buja residents woke up yesterday to see Gen. Muhammed Buhari’s 2015 campaign posters on the platform of the yet to be registered All Progressive Congress (APC), adorning strategic parts of the FCT. The posters, printed in A4 bold size, have the picture of Buhari who is among the arrow heads of the opposition coalition in Nigeria.

The words on the posters were careful written to proclaim that the General is the favored candidate of the opposition come 2015.

The posters were strategically pasted along the Ahmadu Bello Way, Asokoro district, and from the Federal Secretariat, down to Maitama with the inscriptions: 2015: Here Comes The Only Savior For Nigeria, Gen.Muhammdu Buhari APC consensus candidate for 2015 presidential election, Support Buhari: The only man for the job.”

There was near-traffic gridlock along the Asokoro junction yesterday as motorists and passers-by made a slow stop to catch a glimpse of the posters, the first ever on the APC platform and a clear signal that the General and his foot soldiers are getting ready to consolidate their strategy towards his emerging as the APC presidential candidate come 2015.

The timing of the posters which is coming just a day to the merging parties’ joint committee meeting and few days to the expected submission of the application of the merging parties to INEC, has kept tongues wagging as to the real motives behind the posters. This seems to have increased the growing 2015 presidential election tension earlier ignited by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Many people described the pasting of the posters as an act of desperation and lack of patience on the part of the General and his supporters since APC is not yet a registered political party.

Buhari’s supporters say they see nothing wrong for any group or individuals to decide to commence awareness campaign for the General, adding that there is little or nothing he can do to stop any group which believes in his presidency and wishes to start public awareness of it.

UniAbuja: Medical students protest again, disrupt DCL exams

By Maryam Garba Hassan

M

edical students of the University of Abuja yesterday staged another peaceful protest which is the second in the year over what they described as “government’s insensitivity towards their plight and future.”

The students were protesting against the non-accreditation of the medical college of the university.

The students had arrived the permanent site of the institution

around 6 am Tuesday, locked the entrance gate to the school to prevent students of the Centre for Distance Learning and Continual Studies from writing their exams scheduled to commence yesterday.

When Peoples Daily visited the school’s permanent site, some Fulanimen numbering about 30 and swindling different kinds of weapons ranging from cutlass, knives and clubs who forced the gate open, were throwing missiles at the students.

According to one of the medical students who spoke on behalf of the President of the University Medical Students Association, Omeize Salawu, they have been planning the protest for long and will continue until the issue is resolved adding that the Vice Chancellor of the University has indicated interest to speak with leaders of the aggrieved students but they turned his offer down because he had been promising for years without keeping to his

promises.

Salawu further explained that their target is to ensure that the school is shoot down until the issue resolved adding that they are going to issue a communiqué where they have made three requests from the government which include that each of the affected students be given N10 million as compensation for the five years they have wasted and that government should transfer them to other medical colleges to complete their degree programme.

Reacting to the new development, the Public Relations Officer of the University, Malam Waziri Garba, who described the situation as “uncalled for”, said the university authority was surprised by students’ action adding that the Vice Chancellor had already set up a committee headed by the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Academics, Prof.

Samuel Kukulu to dialogue with the students to get to the root of the problem and proffer solution to the unending crisis.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

The Page 4 Report

As we mourn Dana victims…

With an innovative cenotaph the Lagos state government helps keep alive the lessons of the tragic Dana Air flight.

By Ben Ezeamalu

L

agos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, and some family members of the victims of last year’s illfated Dana Air mishap, unveiled a cenotaph at the site of the crash at IjuIshaga, Lagos.

They also unveiled a tomb block engraved with 157 names of the victims of the plane crash.

“This cenotaph which we are unveiling here today will ensure that their memories never die,” said Mr. Fashola.

“This monument will stand as a permanent memorial to these family men, women and children; and we will cherish each of their stories – stories of potential and of fulfilment, stories of true heroes,” he added.

On June 3, 2012, a Dana MD-83 aircraft crashed into a two storey building in the crowded suburb killing all 153 people on board.

The horrific air disaster also claimed the lives about 10 people on the ground.

However, Lagos State government’s records at the anniversary stated that there were four ground victims who perished in the crash.

Mr. Fashola urged the victims’ families not to be crest fallen.

“A year may seem like a long time, but for the families and friends of the men women and children we lost, that day does not feel like history,” Mr. Fashola said. “The memories of that day are probably as fresh as they are painful; particularly today when you are forced to confront the thoughts you may have pushed to the innermost recesses of your minds, just to enable you get from one day to the next.”

“What does one say at a time like this?

What does one say when words will never be enough?

“Many of us cannot even begin to imagine how great your suffering must have been this last one year,” he added.

For the victims’ family members who attended the ceremony, it was a reminder of the pains of the last year’s accident.

Chizoba Mojekwu, whose sister was aboard the ill-fated flight, said that attending the memorial was “difficult” for her because she is standing at the place where “it happened.”

“I’ve been living a life that maybe my sister was on holiday,” said Ms. Mojekwu, Director of Human Resources at the Central Bank of Nigeria, who also lost eight colleagues to the crash.

“They say time heals all wounds.

Sometimes I believe that because I’ve lost my mum and for 14 years we still feel some of that pain.

“But this is very raw and we are still grieving,” Ms. Mojekwu added.

Ms. Mojekwu called on aviation authorities to take steps to forestall a recurrence of the incident.

“There is still much to do. Issues of what really happened to this flight remain unanswered,” Ms. Mojekwu said.

“Also the issue of compensation. It is easy to blame the insurance companies but Dana Air has to step up and ensure that people are treated with respect and with dignity,” she added.

The cenotaph in honour of Dana air crash victims inaugurated by Lagos state governor, Mr Babatunde Fashola, yesterday in Lagos Photo: NAN Another family member of the victims, Ben Anyene, said that those who were directly affected “were pained, angry, and despondent.”

“The crash could have been avoided if human lives are valued in this country,” Mr. Anyene said.

“We should not throw up our hands in resignation that the plane crash was an act of God. God does not kill his own,” he added.

Mr. Anyene frowned at the restoration of the operational licence of Dana Air

despite that the details of what caused the crash has not been revealed.

“Among us (victims’ families) we have the reach and competence to engage those in the aviation industry. The blood of our loved ones must not be shed in vain,” said Mr. Anyene.

On plans by the Ministry of Aviation to unveil a cenotaph in Abuja to commemorate the one year anniversary, the families said that they were not informed.

“I never heard about the plan by the federal ministry of Aviation to unveil a

Family members and neighbours of Dana air crash victims protesting during the inauguration of the cenotaph in honour of the victims, yesterday in Lagos Photo: NAN

“

There is still much to do. Issues of what really happened to this flight remain unanswered.

cenotaph. A lot of the families here were not told,” said Mr. Anyene.

The families also expressed gratitude to the Lagos State government for its assistance and making “a huge difference in the lives of the families here present.”

“The state government provided mortuary, ambulances, pathological services including DNA analysis to ensure that our people’s bodies were identified and properly buried,” Mr. Anyene said.

“The government paid all the cost,” he added.

Mr. Fashola said that the state, in the aftermath of the crash, has improved its response capacity, trained and continued to train its first responders as well as developed response protocols and acquired necessary equipment.

“As a Government we have learnt some painful lessons and we have grown from them,” said Mr. Fashola.

“We convened a Disaster and Emergency Management Summit for all the States in the South West, at which we shared our experience and information.

“The entire incident is properly documented for posterity, with copies in the Attorney General’s office and the Governor’s office, with details of what we did well and what we could have done better to avoid our past mistakes.

“God forbid it, if such a disaster should recur, we are much better prepared to respond,” Mr. Fashola added.

In his speech, Stella Oduah, the Aviation Minister, said “every effort” is being made to prevent the errors of the past.

“We are in touch with Dana on the issue of compensation to the various families and they have assured us that they are doing everything that is possible to hasten the payment, apart from certain problems within families that are impeding,” said Ms. Oduah, who was represented by George Afamefuna, Permanent Secretary at the ministry.

“I assure the governor of Lagos State that sooner than later, we shall conclude the issue of compensation,” he said.

Premium Times

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 5

News

PDP reads Riot Act to members •Says ACN, CPC led by tribal bigots N

By Lawrence Olaoye

ational Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has said that the party would no longer tolerate any indiscipline and sabotage from its members even as he warned that any of them found wanting must be ready to face the consequences.

This warning comes on the heels of the party’s recent suspension of Rivers state governor and factional chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Rotimi Amaechi, for alleged anti -party activities.

Jonathan applauds CJN’s Judiciary reform

With the warning, it is feared that some other governors who have been expressing so-called anti-party views within the party of recent should brace up for unpleasant consequences akin to that of Amaechi, from the party’s leadership.

Tukur averred that the PDP would henceforth begin to invoke relevant sections of its constitution against errant members if only to maintain discipline within its fold.

He said the party’s constitution has always been a veritable tool for promoting harmonious relationship and cohesion among members.

According to him, the failure of PDP to strictly enforce its laws for whipping troublesome

members into line had accounted for the frequent breakdown of confidence among members, on one hand and with the leadership on the other hand.

The National Chairman, in a chat with newsmen on 14 years of democracy recalled that the founding fathers never joked about raising the PDP into a formidable party which must promote justice, equity and fair play among members.

Meanwhile, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, yesterday described described the stakeholders in the opposition Action Congress of

Nigeria (ACN) and those in the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) as insensitive religious and tribal bigots.

According to Metuh in a statement, “instead of unnecessarily attacking the PDP, the ACN and its co-traveler, the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) should be bold enough to tell Nigerians the outcome of their meeting where their members were sharply divided over comments by their leader, General Muhammadu Buhari condemning the decision by the Federal Government to root out insurgency in the country and

describing it as an attack on the north.

“Many of their members have now realized that they are in the wrong boat captained by insensitive religious and tribal bigots. This can only vindicate the PDP which has continued to caution Nigerians against being deceived by wolves parading themselves as saviors.

“In any case, it is clear that the opposition parties has nothing to offer. The barking of 20 dogs can never scare an elephant.

These frustrated tribal cum religious associations can never be equated”

By Sunday Ejike Benjamin

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan yesterday gave the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar a pass mark in her efforts geared towards restoring public confidence in the nation’s judiciary.

President Jonathan, who was speaking while declaring open a centenary law summit in Abuja to mark 100 years of legal development in Nigeria, also hailed the CJN over her radical stance in ensuring that judicial officers lived in accordance with their oath of office and code of conduct.

“I welcome the efforts of the National Judicial Council (NJC) under the chairmanship of the CJN in the fight against misconduct amongst judicial officers, who I believe can sanitize the judiciary system in this country.”

Jonathan said his government would respect the constitution and challenged the other arms of government to constantly work on the laws to meet the current trend across the globe.

Earlier, the CJN reiterated that the Judiciary under her watch will not tolerate any abuse of power, corruption and other vices among her learned brothers on the bench.

“Under my watch, there shall be zero tolerance for corruption in the Nigerian Judiciary. Zero tolerance for contravention of the Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers. Zero tolerance for unethical conduct.

“Zero tolerance for abuse of office.

Zero tolerance for subversion of the political process through collusion with unscrupulous politicians.

“Zero tolerance for indiscriminate abuse of the equitable remedy of injunction.

Zero tolerance for incompetence.

Zero tolerance for indolence”, CJN declared.

“We shall sustain the current efforts of the NJC which I chair, in weeding out the bad eggs that smear the image of the Nigerian Judiciary and bring opprobrium to an institution whose role makes the difference between the rule of law and jungle justice”.

The CJN described the law summit as, “groundbreaking one” which is one of the series of yearlong activities commemorating

R-L: Adamawa state Police Commissioner, Mr. Godfrey Okeke, Brigade Commander, 23 Armoured Brigade, Brigadier-General Fatai Alli, Adamawa state governor, Admiral Murtala Nyako (rtd), leader of army delegation on assessment of state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, Major-General O.T.Ethan, and other security and Adamawa government officials, during a visit of the delegation to Adamawa state, yesterday.

Photo: NAN

Dana crash: Gov Fashola, families pay tribute to victims From Suleiman Idris, Lagos

I

ju-Ishaga, the quiet border community between Lagos and Ogun state where a Dana aircraft flight 9J992 crashed one year ago, throbed yesterday. Indeed, it was reminiscent of the grief families and loved ones of the 157 victims of the accident has come to term with yesterday as relatives and friends poured out to mark the fatal flight first anniversary.

As early as 8 a. m the Murtala Muhammed Terminal 2 (MMA2) was a beehive of activities as families, representatives of airlines and aviation agencies converged for a procession to the headquarters of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority NCAA for a brief ceremony.

Managing Director of Dana

Airlines, Mr. Jackie Hathiramani, noted that the airline has put in place a series of measures in place to ensure that such an accident do not re-occur again in all its flight operations.

He said the airline shared the grief of the families-“Our hearts go out to all of them and they will forever be in our hearts”, he said, affirming that over twenty-three families of the victims of the Dana Air ill-fated crash on its McDonnell Douglas MD-83 aircraft have received US$100,000 each as full compensation.

At the Iju/Ishaja site of the crash, Lagos state Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, said many nations and their nationalities from India, China, the United States and Nigeria were united by a common grief.

He said “it was an accident that took place in Lagos, but its impact and reach were beyond our borders, men and women, Muslims and Christians, Hindus and atheists became joined by a common pain, it was a horrific day.”

Fashola, later laid a wreath and unveil a cenotaph erected in memory of the victims said the memories of June 3, 2012 are probably as fresh are they are painful as families may have to pushed the innermost recesses of their minds to enable them to get on with their daily lives.

According to Fashola, “what l do know is that today, although our grief is deep and senses of loss unquantifiable, our heads are not bowed. We are not crest fallen. Your undying spirit to continue and your presence here

today is a sign of monumental courage.

“It is not courage without pain but one defined by dignity and resolve to get on with life in spite of the pains that has kept the families going.

“This monument will stand as a permanent memorial to these families’ men, women, and children; and we will cherish each of their stories – stories of potential and of fulfillment, stories of true heroes.”

Speaking on behalf of the bereaved families, Dr. Ben Anyene said Nigerians must be concerned with what is happening in the aviation industry and thank the Lagos state government for the relief materials and assistance it rendered the families at the aftermath of the crash.

PAGE 6

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

News

New transport policy, a ‘welfare package’ for Abuja residents, says Minister

By Adeola Tukuru

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inister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator Bala Mohammed, has described the new transport policy as part of the welfare package by the administration for residents.

He assured that the policy would improve on the man-hour of the workers and business men alike as the city centre would be plied by the certified high capacity buses running scheduled services.

The Minister who was speaking through his Senior Special Assistant on Political Matters and National Assembly, Sen. Usman Jibril Wowo, told journalist the new policy was part of the welfare packages by the administration for the residents and it would improve on the man-hour of the workers and business men alike as the city centre would be plied by the certified high capacity buses running scheduled services.

He pointed out that when new policies become

operational they are often faced with some minor challenges which are finetuned over time, assuring the residents that the new policy will meet public aspiration in the shortest possible time.

“This policy will make people move from the satellite towns to the city with ease and at a cheaper rate as the highest fare is N150 for people from Gwagwalada, Kuje and Zuba and as low as N50 for movements within the business district.

Besides the vehicles are to take off at an interval of between three and 10 minutes whether it is filled or not because they are subsidized and would help to build a culture of timeliness to catch a in the long run,” Wowo stated.

He noted that even though the policy had attracted a lot of criticism initially from the public leading to delay in its implementation such vent of public view reflected the right of the citizens to seek

clarification on any issue that they do not understand from the administration.

According to him the various groups represented by their leaders in the series of meetings endorsed the new policy and pledge support for the programme which would reduce the heavy traffic often witnessed in the city centre while manhour for businesses is gained for higher productivity both in the public and private sector for the overall benefit of the FCT and the country.

Borno teachers embark on strike From Mustapha Isah Kwaru, Maiduguri

A

Colorful posters of General Muhammud Buhari 2015 presidential campaign on the platform of the yet-to-be-registered All Progressive Congress Party adorning strategic parts of the capital city, yesterday in Abuja.

Power outage: Normal supply returns end of June, says Minister

By Etuka Sunday

M

inister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, yesterday expressed concern over the recent power outage experienced across some states of the Federation, attributing it to rain storm.

The minister has also appealed for calm, promising that full restoration of supply would be effected by end of June, 2013.

In a statement by the Deputy Director Press/Head of Media, Timothy Oyedeji, the Minister said there was need to shed more light on the disruptions, “since this comes against the backdrop of recent gains in power generation across the country.”

Nebo said that, “the loss of power supply to Bayelsa state on May 17, 2013 was caused by the collapse of a terminal tower following a severe tropical rain storm.

However, the Ministry

and its concerned agency, Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) promptly mobilized very reputable and competent contractors who have commenced work and effectively restored one of the lines by the end of June 1, 2013.

“A permanent restoration

of the transmission is expected to be completed by the same contractor in about 40 days.

“Similarly, the recent loss of power to some parts of Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara States and Niamey in Niger Republic was also as a result of rain storm leading to the collapse of three units of 330kV towers.

“The Ministry is expediting the restoration of supply by utilizing spare towers already available to the TCN. However, due to the impact of the damage on the foundations of the affected towers, the timeline for the full restoration of supply to the affected areas is end of June 2013.

FG hails Gov Aliyu. over security

F

or tackling the issue of security insurgency in the state, the Federal Government has applauded the Governor of Niger state Babangida Aliyu, saying his action is worthy of emulations.

Minister of Special Duties and Chairman of the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security challenges in the North, Hon. Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, made the commendation when the Committee visited the Governor in Minna.

Turaki said that since the ugly

incidents of Madalla and Suleja in Niger state, normalcy and peace have returned to the state and that is why Niger state was chosen by the federal government as a platform to proffer a solution to all these problems.

“We are here to tap your knowledge to see that the issue of insecurity in the north is tackled finally because you did not allow the issue of insecurity to linger at all in Niger state, we appreciate your effort.

“We call on all Northern states governors to follow your footsteps so as to achieve these goals. Federal

Government on its own will talk with the victims, share their views and feelings to see where we can help them, irrespective of the fact that nothing can quantify whatever that is given to them compared to the lives of their dear ones who have died or lost parts of their bodies.

“The Federal Government really commends Governor Aliyu’s untiring effort in ensuring lasting peace which has brought normalcy to Niger state.

“Mr. President seeks to address with the establishment of this committee something that is very

cademic activities at primary schools in Borno state were shut yesterday as the state chapter of the Nigeria Union of Teachers, (NUT) embarked on an indefinite strike following what it described failure of the government to pay the new N18,000 minimum wage.

This was contained in a statement issued by the union and signed by its Chairman and Publicity Secretary, Comrade Bulam Abiso, and Comrade Usman Kachalla, respectively.

The union however appealed to the government to avoid a situation where the education sector would be paralyzed as a result of the strike by paying the minimum wage.

“The state government has assured teachers on various occasion that government will clear all outstanding arrears of teachers by February at the same time finish the biometric data capturing after which the new wage will be implemented to all teachers in primary schools in the state by March 2013 but failed in her promises.

“We have given the state government three weeks to pay all teachers their minimum wage in arrears or risk pupils staying at home but we received no response,” it further added. dear to you, the concern is to address what you and your colleagues (northern governors) have several times discussed and tackled.

“We are aware of several committees you and your colleagues had set up on the same problem with a view to making sure that normalcy is restored in every nooks and crannies of the northern part of the country.

The Committee, according to the Minister, is expected to engage the Boko Haram sect into constructive dialogue with the view of bringing to an end the issue of security insurgency that has bedeviled the northern part of the country.

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 7

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 9

PAGE 8

Photos Splash

L-R: Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar; Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Information, Mrs. Kehinde Ajoni; Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku; and Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen; during the 2013 Ministerial Score Card press briefing, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Front row, from left: Former board member, Olabisi Onabanjo university, Ven. Philip Oyebolu, the president, Nigerian Society of Engineers, Malam Mustafa Shehu; former President Olusegun Obasanjo; fellow, NSE, Malam Habu Gumel; chairman, NSE, Abeokuta branch, Mr A. Awolana; and other officials, during the visit of the NSE president to Chief Obasanjo, yesterday in Abeokuta.

Photo: NAN

President Goodluck Jonathan (2nd right), cutting the tape to inaugurate an exhibition during the Centenary Law Summit, yesterday in Abuja. With him are Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (left); Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar (2nd left); and Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Professor Epiphany Azinge (right).

Photo: Joe Oroye

L-R: Chairman, Board of Trustees, National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), Ambassador Dickson Akoh; NYCN President, Comrade Yakubu Shendam; and Administrative Secretary, Comrade Boniface Mba, during the media briefing on NYCN‘s programmes , yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

Ministry of Environment’s staff and other environmental activists, during a road-show to mark this year World Environment Day, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 10

News Briefs UNIBEN students protest murder of colleague

S

tudents of University of Benin, Benin City, Edo state were yesterday set for showdown in a brazen determination to avenge the murder of one Momodu Ibrahim who was reportedly shot under circumstances that the students described extra judicial killing.

The students who were clad in black T-shirts marched through major streets in Benin and called for arrest and prosecution of the police boss who allegedly did the shooting of the 22 years old 500 level student of Science and Laboratory Technology.

Addressing newsmen at the Nigeria Union of Journalists,(NUJ), secretariat, a sister of the deceased, Ebohon Rebecca Egbe, called for Justice and gave an account of how the life of his brother was cut short by the bullet of the police.

By Osaigbovo Iguobaro, Benin

Experts want budget process unbundled

E

xperts at a two-day Senate public hearing on “Review of National Planning and Budgeting Process”yesterday called for more openness and consultation in the budgeting process, saying it is the only way to ensure that budget specifics and targets are accomplished.

The public hearing organized by the Senate joint committees on National Planning, Economic Affairs and Poverty Alleviation and Finance, was aimed at reviewing the budgeting processes, with a view to making amendments as necessary.

Declaring the public hearing open, the Senate President, David Mark, represented by the Senate Minority Whip, Abu Ibrahim, said the essence of the hearing was to review the current budgeting process, so as to give it a nationalistic approach that will forestall marginalization of any part of the country.

He said the process would help to ensure that the budgeting in the country is effective, calling on the public to come forward with contributions and suggestion that will help the lawmakers engender a more representative budget.

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

Cleric warns on pornography in Nollywood

A

Catholic Priest, Rev. Fr. Jude Awe, on Monday in Abuja cautioned filmmakers against the infiltration of pornographic pictures into the Nigerian movie industry.

Awe told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in a telephone interview that the effect of nudity in films could easily corrupt the human mind.

According to him, the effects of pornographic films are severely damaging and pervasive to the moral growth of an individual. ``The human mind is fragile and can easily get corrupted by the negative influences

L-R: Kaduna State Deputy Governor, Ambassador Nuhu Audu Bajoga, in a handshake with Area Manager, Industrial Training Fund (ITF) Kaduna office, Ali Isa Mai, during the flag-off the 2nd National Industrial Skills Development Programme, yesterday in Kaduna.

World Environment Day: Minister harps on sanitation

By Mohammed Kandi

A

s the World Environment Day (WED) celebrations begin tomorrow, Minister of Environment, Mrs. Hadiza Ibrahim Mailafia, yesterday called on Nigerians to desist from conducts that could endanger the

environment and inhabitants.

Mailafia spoke yesterday in Abuja after a five-kilometre road walk in commemoration of the 2013 World Environment Day with the theme: “Think, eat, and save.

She cautioned against indiscriminate food wastage and stressed the need for citizens

to ensure environmental and physical sanitation to keep fit at all times.

Recalling the UN’s statistics on the eight million people who go to bed hungry daily.

She said, “the people should think when they eat to save energy, and avoid littering the environment with wastes.”

On high rate open defecation within the FCT, Mailafia said that that her Ministry was collaborating with the state governments and the FCT to provide more sanitary facilities including public toilets and taps to more grassroot locations across the country, to enhance environmental sanitation.

Northern Youth faults Dokubo’s position on 2015 presidency

N

orthern Youth Assembly has described the outburst of Asari Dokubo over President Goodluck Jonathan’s second term bid as unpatriotic.

Dokubo had at a news conference in Abuja said that Nigeria would be in crisis if Jonathan was not re-elected in 2015.

National President of the

Assembly, Mallam Ibrahim Waiya, made this known at the weekend after a press briefing on arrangements for the forthcoming National Youth Conference in Minna.

He said, “we at the Northern Youth Assembly vehemently oppose Jonathan’s second term bid because he has openly demonstrated his inability to rule Nigeria, stressing that, we feel he

From Olanrewaju Lawal, Ilorin

below acceptable standards.

The governor said that his administration would not relent in ensuring that the police and other security agencies were supported in the task of protecting lives and property of the people in the state.

He also advocated the development of a peer review mechanism by the states in zone 8 of the Nigeria police formation on strategies employed in fighting crime and criminality in the states so that there will be greater synergy in crime control in the zone.

The AIG, in his remarks, said he was in the state on an assessment of the condition of a Kwara State Polytechnic student shot by the police and to sympathize with the family on the unfortunate incident.

cannot be a good driver”.

Waiya commended the emergency rule declared in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states because the intent is to restore peace and normalcy in north but the control of resources by Federal Government is unacceptable.

Asked on his impression of the election of Nigerian Governor’s Forum, he said Governor Jang is the cause of all the problems in

the North, who has no bearing and is been paraded as the Chairman of NGF against the declared winner is just a drama.

Meanwhile, 20 youth groups from each state of the North is to be drawn as participants at the conference while Governor Ibrahim Dankwanbo of Gombe state, Mr. Sam Nda Isaiah and Abubakar Malami (SAN) are expected to present papers at the conference.

By Miriam Humbe

federal roads in the country which he said were presently benefitting from the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P) to include Kano-Maiduguri dual carriage way, Abuja-Lokoja road and Benin-Ore Sagamu roads among others.

He further revealed that the timeframe for completion of the KanoMaiduguri road was the last quarter of 2014 while that of the Benin-OreSagamu road will be the first quarter of 2015. speaking earlier to mark the opening of the event, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, observed that the Federal Ministry of Works made significant progress since 2011 adding that, “the transformation of our roads sector is an irreversible movement.”

Ahmed wants erring policemen FG spends N126 billion on roads in disciplined two years

G

overnor of Kwara State, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed has urged the police high command to ensure that the public is kept abreast of disciplinary measures being taken against erring cops in order to sustain public confidence in the police.

Ahmed made the call when the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of zone 8, Mr. Chis Dega, paid him a courtesy call in his office.

Ahmed said that such transparency would also serve as deterrent to other policemen who may have the tendency of behaving

M

inister of Works, Mike Onolemen, said yesterday that the Federal Government constructed at least 32 roads across the country in the past two years of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, at the cost of N126 billion with the Federal Ministry of Works paying the larger amount of N120 billion of the entire sum.

The Minister said this while presenting his score card at the 2013 ministerial platform, a mid-term report on the progress and achievements in the past two years of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, at the National Press Centre, Abuja.

Onolememen also listed some five

PAGE 12

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

EDITORIAL

House: Standing with people under emergency rule represented by the views of some Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANS) and constitutional lawyers. The House was also swayed by threats by the governors of the affected states to go to court should the President withhold their allocations.

We accept the House argument that the situation in the three states is not a political challenge to the

“

“I

’ll never allow the institution to be an institution of arrogance. We should avoid any position that is against the Constitution”. With those words, Speaker Aminu Tambwal led his 360-strong House of Representatives to deny President Goodluck Jonathan the power to seize the statutory fiscal allocations of the three states now under emergency rule. They are Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, considered the epi-centre of the three-year-old Boko Haram insurgency in the North.

Section 3(2)(e) of the Emergency Power (General) Regulations 2013 gives the president the prerogative to take control of the shares of the three states from the federation account to fund the federal government’s counter-insurgency campaign. A conference of the Senate and House approved it but the House in plenary rejected it after its committee reported back from the conference. The Senate is yet to take the conference report.

But while voting on the State of Emergency Declaration, it had given the president the carte blanche to do as the emergency demanded.

The House explained that it opposed the seizure of funds meant for the three states because public opinion was decidedly against it and so was expert opinion

The power Jonathan is seeking is unconstitutional and he should be told so unmistakably authority of the federal government but a national security problem.

And since emergency rule was not demanded by the governments of those affected states but one imposed by the centre it is only right that the federal government underwrite the costs of the counter-insurgency campaign.

Furthermore, the extant 1999 Constitution does not give the President any power to seize the allocations of the federating states and local government councils whether or not in an emergency.

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The Supreme Court made this very clear in its decision in the case of Lagos state versus the federal government over the latter’s seizure of the allocations of the state because it created additional local governments outside the ones listed in the Constitution.

More importantly, President Jonathan did the right thing by resisting pressure in his party, the PDP, to sack all structures of government in the three states a la Plateau and Ekiti states in 2004 and 2006 respectively. He cannot now seek to, through the backdoor, undo that article of faith.

The state governments need their allocations to remain functional.

The Boko Haram insurgency has already ruined their economies.

Mr. President, don’t kill them off by denying them what is theirs by right.

We enjoin the Senate to follow in the noble footsteps of the House by denying the President that power he seeks to withhold the allocations of the three states. Agreeing with the President on the imperative of emergency rule was the patriotic thing to do. However, patriotism shouldn’t make the upper chamber a rubber stamp, supporting the President blindfolded. The power Jonathan is seeking is unconstitutional and he should be told so unmistakably.

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PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 13

Opinion

Their vindictiveness, our gain

By Ugochukwu ugwanyi

T

hat President Goodluck Jonathan is today edging towards the 1984 big brother is not in contest, what many are yet to come to terms with is the kickback that his resembling that big brother brings. His control of the federal government that gets 52 per cent of government’s revenue allows him the privilege of being that master that can wipe erring subordinates into line.

That is why this is not exclusive to him. His predecessors, as a result being exposed to the same federal might, never hesitated in deploying it when and where it mattered most to them. Call it abuse of power if you may, it remains what it is. Ours have become a case of ‘power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ like Lord Acton reckoned. Though we have the National Assembly and the Judiciary that are supposed to tone down the president’s power, we know how absolute the president’s power is.

Cast your mind back to the days of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Those days, even a sophomore student of political science can readily tell you that what we then called democracy was anything but democracy. This arises from the impunity with which the establishments were used against perceived political enemies. We know what became of the self-acclaimed governorgeneral of the Ijaw nation, Joshua

Dariye of Plateau, Chris Ngige of Anambra, Rashidi Ladoja of Oyo to mention but a few just because they fell out with the then ‘oga at the top’. Even his deputy, former vice president Atiku Abubakar was not spared the raw scorch of power when things fell apart between the two leaders.

Today the situation hasn’t changed one bit. The seemingly absolute power wielded by President Jonathan has continued to corrupt him absolutely. However, we are the better for it! Cool temper, you will understand and come to terms with me presently. We are in the know of the travails of former Bayelsa governor- Timipre Silver. He fought the battle of his life to get a second term mandate but that he couldn’t secure because he fell out with he that has the yam and the knife. Today, he is been interrogated by the EFCC with regards to a N48 billion fraud. I trust your intelligence to tell whose imprimatur you can attribute his ordeal to.

Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido, had been quietly living his life and transforming Jigawa to the best of his ability, neither him nor any of his were arrested or (like some would say) harassed by the EFCC. But, immediately campaign posters linked him to the 2015 presidential election that was when his eldest son would be arrested for money laundering. A coincidence? Reading the handwriting on the wall, Lamido quickly dissociated himself from

those saying he had interest in the presidency. The predicament of Rivers state governor, Rotimi Amaechi, is common knowledge.

Legion is his afflictions since he sinned against the power-thatbe. The security details of key members of his government were withdrawn, his victory at the Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) was denied him, the NGF was made to be in factions, he is suspended from his party and there are schemes to have him impeached albeit the state assembly is in support of him.

For anyone still in doubt as regards the fear that governors have of the president’s powers, let them ponder on why 19 governors would endorse the president’s man in the open while in the secret ballot three of them voted

“

otherwise. It is indeed because of their fears for him that ‘can do and undo’. The vindictive nature of this power-that-be knows no bounds. After the former minister of education Oby Ezekwesili accused government of wasting the $67 billion foreign reserve left for it by the Obasanjo administration, this government lashed out at the former minister for the N458.1 billion that accrued to the ministry of education under her watch which they maintained produced no achievement.

They even mulled a probe of her stewardship at the ministry of education. Remember also that it was rumoured that former PDP national chairman Vincent Ogbolafor was made to resign because he spoke out against Jonathan contesting the 2011 elec-

For anyone still in doubt as regards the fear that governors have of the president’s powers, let them ponder on why 19 governors would endorse the president’s man in the open while in the secret ballot three of them voted otherwise. It is indeed because of their fears for him that ‘can do and undo’.

The vindictive nature of this power-thatbe knows no bounds

tion. Before you could say Vincent, ICPC had already arraigned him at a Abuja High Court on a 17-count criminal charge involving N2.3 billion fraud said to have been committed by him when he was a minister during the Obasanjo regime. These people are experts at dusting up files and digging up dirt to be hurled at their target when the time is right. Those who ordinarily want to throw stones are restrained because they live in glass houses. But if they must throw, then glass houses should not be their places of abode.

Those who are today serving in government at various levels have no option but to be diligent and true to their callings. That is if they value their rights to be voted for and to pass information. If they thought that the restrictions would lasts only while they are in office, they would be deceiving themselves. Who knows, the restrictions may even extend beyond the afore-mentioned two areas in the future. As for that power-that-be, the one whose absolute powers have so absolutely corrupted, leave him to the next power-that-be. Then would you see him speaking with his tongue in check. It is even possible that he would then become the next characterisation of the saying: what goes round comes around.

Perchance, that is another route to the maturity of our democracy.

Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi viaug.ugovester@gmail.com

Jang’s gang of governors and their irrational “God”

By Adeolu Ademoyo

T

here is a cognitive challenge about thinking when the rational takes flight, or when one is just plainly conceptually ignorant and analytically unable.

With this sort of loss of reason and the rational, it is sad for our nation for we may be in more trouble than we think. Governor Jang, his gang of governors, and their irrational “God”, confirmed this frightening irrationality that is on rampage in the land. But before we engage Jang’s gang and their irrational “God”, let me again make a public disclosure. Governor Jang professes the Christian faith. I do.

But this is where it ends. Political religion, or nascent theocracy (Christian or Islamic), theocratic temperament of any hue or color no matter how mild or burgeoning is problematic for our country because the flippant use of God by “religious” people of all sorts is often self-serving, morally and intellectually dubious and has not been helpful in the nation’s public life. Therefore, I do not see how Jang’s irrational “God” can be my God even when the gang has a right to its irrational “God” that approves election rigging.

But do not hang Jang. “I can assure you that my emergence as the chairman Nigerian Governors’ Forum was the will of God”, he said. On the allegation that a faction of the NGF rigged the

elections in his favor, Governor Jang gave a bang! “God is a democrat, does not support rigging but if you rig and succeed, that means God approves of it.” On 2015, Mr. Jang did not hang up, he said: “I believe that God has anointed who will be President of Nigeria in 2015 but only he knows who it is.” Jang hung onto all these in a church. With these three propositions- a factual claim, an interpretation and the last a projection, Governor Jang is hanging Nigerian democracy, and he is using God to hang it.

Given that election and voting are at the heart of democracy, by inserting God as an electoral

“

“divine” active agent and subject, Jang introduced theocratic agents, practices, assumptions - no matter how incoherent, uncouth and mild - through the backdoor into governance. We know how Christian and Muslim politicians dubiously use God’s name for purely personal and cultural projects that have nothing to do with faith or spirituality. So if in Jang’s case God approved his rigging, is that God a Christian or a Muslim God in view of the fact that his rigging sponsors are both Christians and Muslims?

For the rationally inclined, this is the reason the use of religion in state and public matters is very

Given that election and voting are at the heart of democracy, by inserting God as an electoral “divine” active agent and subject, Jang introduced theocratic agents, practices, assumptions no matter how incoherent, uncouth and mild - through the backdoor into governance. We know how Christian and Muslim politicians dubiously use God’s name for purely personal and cultural projects that have nothing to do with faith or spirituality

problematic for our nation. If Mr. Jang is right, it means the Christian and Muslim God helped him rig.

Now suppose I decide to resist him and the fraud he and his Christian and Muslim Governor colleagues have just committed-it would be said that I am resisting the act of God and Allah!

This type of irrationality is partly the conceptual linkage between the abuse of God and religion and terrorism. Why? Because my hypothetical resistance will be brought down by force, fury and fiat of a presumed living God and Allah who will not allow his “divine” “words” to go “unfulfilled”. This is because my resistance would be seen as a resistance against the “word” of God and Allah! In the twisted mind of the terrorist, the terrorist act is conceptually the “divine” “fulfillment” of the “word” of a “God”. This irrationality may partly contribute to why Governor Jang has been unable to resolve the feud among citizens of different faith and ethnicity in Plateau state.

The tragedy in Mr. Jang’s irrationality is compounded because Mr. Jang may already know who will win the 2015 elections when he openly said God had anointed Nigeria’s president in 2015 and beyond because “the current controversies being faced by government at the moment is a foreshadow of what is likely to happen at the 2015 general

elections…” In other words, Governor Jonah Jang’s God (and perhaps assisted by earthly Christian and Muslim cleric citizens and politicians in society, in state houses and the presidency) already knows (two years before the election) the person who will win the election in 2015 because what happened at the NGF forum-where he and his supporters declared him the Chairman in an election he lost is a foreshadow of 2015.

Governor Jonah Jang expresses the absurd and irrational limit of a fledgling theocratic temperament among Nigerian cleric politicians and citizens, their abuse of God and use of religion for fraudulent reasons in state and public matters.

His latest act symbolizes the regular practice by cleric politicians and citizens-both Christians and Muslims, to smuggle religion into state and public matters and use it to validate projects that have nothing to do with spirituality.

Nigeria is replete with such abuse when our so-called Christian and Muslim rulers and citizens appeal to Allah and God after their abuse of our being. No amount of religious language and symbols deployed to capture our minds should be allowed to screen off this ethically questionable and irredentist agenda of cleric politicians and citizens.

Adeolu Ademoyo is reachable on aaa54@cornell.edu.

PAGE 14

Letters & Opinion

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

FCT minister’s encounter with rogue publisher

By Ray Edmund Oche

O

ver the years, public officials in Nigeria have unwittingly become endangered species, usually the target of slanderers and extortionists, for reasons that are less than altruistic. The most unfortunate aspect of this sad saga is that journalists have often allowed themselves to be sucked into the vortex of this disturbing trend. This issue reared its ugly head recently when the Abuja Chapter of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) alerted the general public of the shameful activities of these turn-coats in the journalism profession, citing the case of a Kaduna based magazine which claimed to have written a book running into hundreds of pages chronicling alleged rot within the FCT Administration under the leadership of Sen. Bala Mohammed, with a view to extorting huge sums of money from him as ‘settlement’.

The NUJ leader, Chuks Ehirm stressed that in a glaring unprofessional manner, the said magazine went to the extent of publishing advertisement soliciting for negative articles from the general public through telephone, email and Facebook to rubbish the image of the FCTA and the Minister. Too sad! At the same time, the publisher of the controversial magazine were putting pressure on the Minister through his aides to pay a staggering N15m into his account with a first generation bank and also allocate a choice plot of land to him in Abuja as a condition for him to suspend the publication of the book. But the corrupt

bravery in publisher met transparently a stubborn tackling the gum in the problems of the Minister who Peoples Daily welcomes your letters, opinion articles, FCT in the last swore never to text messages and ‘pictures of yesteryears.’ All written three years that bribe anybody contributions should be concise.

Word limits: Letters he has presided to kill report - 150 words, Articles - 750 words. Please include your over the affairs of or allocate the territory. land to any name and a valid location. Letters to the Editor should be Secondly, his person under addressed to: conceptualization duress. His of governance is aides promptly The Editor, one that espouses reported the Peoples Daily, 1st Floor Peace Plaza, the lofty ideals of attempted leadership being extortion to 35 Ajose Adeogun Street, Utako, Abuja. synonymous the NUJ and Email: opinion@peoplesdaily-online.com with moral the security SMS: 08134607052 authority as the agencies one way to beat detailing the followership into line. Because he Philosophy. Far from it! It simply account number sent by the rogue has insisted that all transactions means Pull Him Down, a cruel publisher to a media aide of the be conducted in strict compliance disposition targeted at celebrated Minister. with the Federal Government’s due achievers. This class of men is There are different types process regime, Bala Mohammed simply unprincipled, seeking out of human beings. Out of these, has kindled the ire of some people, to distract hard working men and however, two stand out. In the including this publisher and as women from their noble goals. first class are those who appreciate such deserves to be crucified. For Sadly, a member of this group, the the goodness in others. These daring to stand out of the motley publisher of this Kaduna-based individuals look at others through crowd of those who see public the prism of objectivity, celebrating magazine almost found a safe office as an avenue to plunder the haven in Federal Capital Territory them when occasion demands common patrimony at will, he to ply his trade. The prime target and criticizing where there is the must be barbecued. is Senator Bala Mohammed. need to do so. Their criticism is Spoilsports like this publisher Ordinarily, there would not have usually informed and unbiased. cum ‘journalist’, no doubt has been any need to join issues with Conversely, at the other side of found the minster’s style of this journalist turned extortionist, the coin are human beings that hardly see anything good in others. who is desperately trying to survive administration which is premised on a determination to free the willy-nilly. However, in these To this group of individuals, they FCTA from the vice grip of strange times, when falsehood if world begins and ends within their marauders that have plundered its left overtime, assumes the position tiny and narrow horizon. Often resources with abominable perfidy, shallow-minded in their perception of truth, there is the urgent need objectionable. In as much as we to put the records straight. For of events, there is the tendency for agree that journalists have the this publisher to even contemplate them to find fault even where none constitutional right to hold public zeroing in on the FCT minister, exists. officers accountable to the people, Sen. Bala Mohammed, to ply This ugly phenomenon such rights should be exercised his trade is saddening to say the is known in local parlance as with decorum within the confines least because the minister has PHD. Do not be deceived. The of the law. As such, it is patently demonstrated an unprecedented three letter initials do not stand wrong to hide under the canopy of heroism coupled with inspiring for academic title, Doctor of

WRITE TO US

the media profession to perpetrate unprofessional and lawless acts, the way this man from Kaduna did recently, sending messages demanding for gratification to stop the publication of this phantom book. It is high time members of the fourth estate of the realm learnt to practise this noble profession with a sense of decency and decorum, if not the Nigeria’s founding fathers of journalism will turn in their graves in regret and disappointment.

That Senator Bala Mohammed stood his ground and refused to give in to this cheap blackmail by the Kaduna based magazine deserves commendation and not condemnation from all and sundry and is worthy of emulation by other public officials. If the minister had not refused to play ball and probably settled this publisher in secret, the NUJ would not have heard of it in the first place, let alone organizing a press conference to address the issue.

Other public officials in Nigeria suffering in silence in the hands of extortionists masquerading as journalists should emulate Bala’s exemplary conduct by refusing to settle blackmailers that are getting bolder by the day. A word, it is often said, is enough for the wise.

Vilification and selective myopia can hardly vitiate the wholesome truth that Bala is doing a wonderful job to reposition the FCT. The earlier opportunistic elements in the polity learn to appreciate this fact now, the better it will be for them in understanding Bala Mohammed’s unique persona.

Ray Edmund Oche sent in this piece from Asokoro, Abuja.

Hanging out with the big boss

By Ose Oyamendan

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haven’t seen him in eighteen years. We haven’t talked to him in at least eight. In that time, he’d gone to re-establish himself as an authentic African hero. He’d done things no Nigerian has ever done and he’d done it in the murky waters of Africa football. Growing up, he was one of five sports figures I longed to meet. The others were Muhammad Ali, Pele, Mike Tyson and Diego Maradona. I met him first and luckily, the others too – Maradona in America, Tyson at a couple of parties, Pele at the world cup and Ali in the tuxedo store we both shop at in town.

Stephen Okechukwu Keshi is different. He is Nigerian and always seem to triumph despite the odds. He turned a careerthreatening suspension into an opportunity that opened the floodgates to Europe to Nigerian footballers. He anchored the golden era of Nigerian football by forming an effective partnership with Clemens Westerhoff. The first time I met him, he laughed half of the interview. He thought I was a prank. I was just a teenager, too young to be a reporter. But, once

he realized I’d just finished my first degree and I was naïve about the politics in the house of Nigerian football, he was as welcoming as a long lost big brother.

Over the years, I’ve always wondered how this man would have done were he born in a more forward-thinking country. He could have been an international legend – like the German, Frank Beckenbauer whom he’s closest to in mold to me. But, this is Nigeria where people dig graves for their best talents.

History repeats itself in Nigeria like a broken record. It’s why South Korea which got her independence the same year as Nigeria and was supposed to have a slower development track than Nigeria is an economic power today and cohosted the world cup a decade ago while Nigeria is mired in poverty, under-development, political comedy and struggles to convince fellow Africans to hand her hosting rights for continental tournaments.

I sit next to him and try to find a point of interest. He sometimes limps, a badge of honor from many wars for Nigeria. And, I am limping too, a badge for over-eating. But, I’m not telling him that. I pretend

it’s an old football injury. He raises an eyebrow that shoots down my tale, same way he puts down unruly players who think they can hold the country hostage We talk a little and I realize this man must love punishment.

Beckenbauer is a mini-god in Germany. Michel Platini rules European football. Yet Keshi is often underappreciated and always in one storm or the other in the native land he loves with an undying passion. He must love punishment, I tell him.

He flashes a Californian smile but his voice is heavy with a Hollywood melancholy. “I only got one country. We can’t abandon Nigeria.” We talk a little about our last talk about eight years ago. I was coming out of film school and the Big Boss being the Big Boss was proud like a big brother. “Hey, don’t forget home O! You have to use this and your experience to go and help back home,” he counseled. He shakes his head in admiration like he’s still proud.

But, I get an incomplete, I think.

I’m still “not home”.

What Keshi fails to realize is that not everyone is like Keshi.

Nigeria beats up its best talents

and romance mediocrity. A lot of people take their bruises and go back abroad to heal and thrive.

Then, a lot of people are not Keshi.

He sees a bruise and takes it as a badge of honor in the battle for the motherland. Now he is facing what would be the biggest task of most coaches’ career – qualifying for the world cup. But again, he’s not like most coaches. He’s already qualified a country for the world cup. This should be a piece of cake, right? No! This is still Nigeria where everyone and their mistress are football experts.

Even a goat on its way to becoming a delicious pot of isi-ewu has an opinion about the Eagles squad.

You think Nigerian politics is bad; you’ve not peeked into Nigeria’s house of sports where football is king. But while Nigerians gave up on their politicians long ago, they retain a love for football. And, they think Nigeria must qualify for everything. This has made coaching Nigeria akin to being on the death row.

Most coaches come to Nigeria to make quick money and dash off.

But not Keshi. The man is thinking ahead. After the glorious era of the mid-1990s, Nigeria went into a rut

where we became a laughing stock.

We went from number five in the world into the wilderness where Cape Verde and Tonga play. Keshi wants to make sure that never happens again.

Against Mexico on a humid May night, I saw the future at work. I told Keshi before the game that I don’t care about the result against Mexico. It was important the boys stretch their legs and come out unhurt. What matters is the game against Kenya and Namibia. Keshi smiles again, a Hollywood smile struggling in Nollywood waters. It’s not the way Nigerians think. People want a “W” and hope the future takes care of itself. Yet, Keshi keeps battling on.

He knows we’ll be in Brazil. And, he knows with God and luck, this team may just right the wrong of 1994 when the Eagles was two minutes away from a path to glory but lost to immaturity. You never bet against Keshi. And, you’ll be a fool to bet against Nigerian football, despite everything. God is not that unkind. We’re already unlucky enough with our political leaders.

Ose Oyamendan is a USbased Nigerian filmmaker

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 15

Comment The Dana Crash: Why memory matters

By Emmanual Ojeifo

N

o one had a premonition of the tragedy that befell our nation on Sunday, June 3, 2012 when the Dana aircraft, Boeing MD-83, on a domestic scheduled commercial flight from Abuja to Lagos, crashed into IjuIshaga, a crowded neighbourhood near the airport, following what was alleged to have been a total loss of power in both engines.

Apparently landing on its tail, the airplane soon burst into flame, resulting in the deaths of all 153 people on board, as well as approximately 10 deaths and an unknown number of injuries to people on the ground. That day was indeed a black Sunday. For many years to come, that day will remain unforgettably etched in the memories of millions of Nigerians.

To forget this day is to forget a part of history that has characterised our nation as a land where blood gushes forth unrestrainedly like an overflowing stream.

Preliminary reports issued by the Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB) confirmed that the airplane was on the fourth flight segment of the day, consisting of two roundtrips between Lagos and Abuja.

The accident occurred during the return leg of the second trip, as the aircraft made its final approach for the runway. Being the second deadliest air accident on Nigerian soil, the Dana Air crash came to reveal the stark reality of the poor post-disaster management system in our country. Journalists

and reporters at the crash scene reported how chaotic the scene was, with thousands of Lagos residents attempting to approach the site.

Crowds attempted to bring hoses to the site while soldiers attempted to disperse onlookers with punches and rubber whips.

The onlookers then threw stones at the soldiers in retaliation.

Water for fire fighting was scarce for several hours due to the city’s shortage of fire trucks, and civilians attempted to fight the fire by hand with sachets of ‘pure water’.

Water trucks commandeered from nearby construction projects had difficulties reaching the site due to the neighbourhood’s narrow roads. At the end of the day, over 160 precious human lives were

“

systematically liquidated in an air disaster that was, to say the least, preventable.

Like a national ritual that follows all breaking news of tragedy in our nation, President Goodluck Jonathan visited the crash site, wept before media cameras, declared three days of national mourning and pledged that “every possible effort” will be made to boost the nation’s aviation safety.

End of discussion. We return to business as usual and wait until another tragedy happens. This is the sorry order of things in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Frankly, there is something downright sickening about a nation that has no regard for human life.

As a people and as a nation, we have become so accustomed to

God has a message for us in the midst of our troubled situations. As citizens we must stay together and try to work out lasting solutions to our problems. We can make something out of our tragedies if we make our tragedies count. Put differently, it is our collective duty to channel our anger and rage each time something goes wrong into actions that will not only save our lives when the time comes but that will be a monument to the lives lost.

scenes of bloodshed to such an alarming degree that the wanton destruction of human lives no longer generates any sense of moral revulsion in us. Every day in this country, the consciousness of human life being sacred and inviolable is gradually being depleted as we witness violence, bloodshed and death in alarming proportions. Our country is fast becoming an endless theatre of blood. The sad part of it is that in the eyes of millions of Nigerians, tragedies and disasters claiming multiple human lives have become “one of those things.” We talk about them soberly, mourn for a few days and get on with life as usual.

Drawing from our experiences, we must note that God has a message for us in the midst of our troubled situations. As citizens we must stay together and try to work out lasting solutions to our problems. We can make something out of our tragedies if we make our tragedies count. Put differently, it is our collective duty to channel our anger and rage each time something goes wrong into actions that will not only save our lives when the time comes but that will be a monument to the lives lost.

With every tragedy comes the opportunity to build a monument – a monument of good governance, inspired citizenry and bold actions.

Tragedy is an opportunity to do better, to create better systems and conditions that ensure that such tragedy does not happen again.

To do this we must find out what happened, punish those who let

it happen and reform the system in question in order to prevent another breakdown.

That is why memory is very important; it is a means of strengthening our collective resolve to move forward. Unfortunately, Nigerians are a very forgetful people, impervious to the lessons of their own troubled history, and as Matthew Hassan Kukah has said, “This amnesia has contributed to diminishing us as a people.” In the face of every single national challenge, we have often seemed bewildered, perplexed and clueless.

If not, how come we have failed to learn anything from our previous experiences? The answer, as Wole Soyinka once wrote, is that “We are a nation of short memories.”

Memory and history are inseparable, and that is why the loss of memory is not just the absence of facts, it is the loss of personal identity, family, friends, and indeed the whole complex of life’s meaning. It is very difficult to function in society if we do not know who we are and how we got this way. If we do not know our personal and community histories, we are like children who are easily manipulated by those who would use the past for their own purposes.

Historical identity is rooted in community. It is passed to us through our conversation with our mothers and fathers who have gone before us.

Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Ojeifo is of the Catholic Secretariat, Abuja

Fraudulent score card, failing opposition

By Charles Omole

N

igerian political commentaries never cease to amaze me. With the Jonathan administration scoring itself high and the opposition scoring him as poor; it again emphasizes the age-old wisdom that the truth is always between the two extreme positions. A perusal of the government report on itself will reveal a catalogue of self-praises and achievements. And reading opposition analyses reveals all that the Jonathan administration has done wrong without any praise for whatever it has achieved. This does not help healthy national discourse.

I am not a fan of Mr. President, but I am passionate about Nigeria and I refuse to give up on the nation. The primordial concern of a government mid-term report that only focuses on its achievements and not its failures is that the administration will not give attention to fixing the problems we all know exists; but which the government has not admitted exist.

People do not make effort to fix a problem they have not admitted exist. So candid admission of its failures will assure Nigerians that the government can see what we all can see; thus giving hope that solutions can be found. But when government does not admit openly

to problems everybody knows exist; it is difficult to have confidence of any imminent solutions. Sadly our political leaders live in a bubble that makes empathy with ordinary Nigerians difficult for many of them. But do they have to rub our noses in it?

As for the opposition groups, I have even greater derision for them. Opposition for its own sake is bad politics. If truth be told, nobody (regardless of their political sympathy) will honestly say that they believe the Jonathan administration has been 100 percent bad. Not even Saddam Husain was totally bad. There will be more credibility in opposition groups if they produce balanced analysis of the government performance. That will require them to accept and praise the government for what it has done right and then criticize what it has done wrong and then proffer their own solutions. Simply going on about how bad the government is will not wash. This is lazy politics.

After all; many of these opposition players have been in power in one way or another in the past. What did they achieve when they were in office? How did they transform their sphere of influence? We need to move beyond the politics of noise to politics of substance.

My recommendation to the

opposition is that they should form a shadow cabinet or a parallel government; they should produce a quarterly scorecard for each ministry they are shadowing, stating its SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity, threats).

This will make them look like government-in-waiting and it will also create a pool of people who will be better familiar with the details of operational activities in each ministry; thus making it easier for them to hit the ground running if they get into power. They must stop all these nonsense of headline grabbing abuse and criticism of

“

the Jonathan administration; just for its own sake. Their opposition is against the government and not Nigeria. Hence in the interest of the country; they must oppose responsibly and constructively.

Nigerian will believe more an opposition group that credits the government when it is due and opposes them when it is deserved. Nobody has a monopoly of solution; after all there are educated and experienced professionals in the current government. So they must be doing some things right and it will make sense for the Opposition to admit

As for the opposition groups, I have even greater derision for them. Opposition for its own sake is bad politics. If truth be told, nobody (regardless of their political sympathy) will honestly say that they believe the Jonathan administration has been 100 percent bad. Not even Saddam Hussain was totally bad. There will be more credibility in opposition groups if they produce balanced analysis of the government performance

the successes of the government as and when it happens. This is the kind of opposition Nigeria needs.

It also strengthens the voice of the opposition, thus increasing their influence and credibility. An opposition that always opposes regardless of the facts will become a laughing stock.

There is this wise saying: if a man with a big head goes into the public square to speak and first jokes about how big his own head is it neutralizes anyone’s joke about his big head. People will say we know; he has told us himself. A government that honestly admits its failures and is determined to change imp will wrest from the opposition the power to influence the citizenry.

Putting your own bad news and failures on the table candidly will take the sting out of your critics.

The government’s constant denial of all things negative should stop.

The administration should be bold to state both its achievements and failings. People love plain-speaking and candid politicians; politicians that say it as it is. Politicians that do not insult our intelligence by denying what most of us know as truth. The recent First Lady’s sickness denial debacle comes to mind.

Charles Omole via Charles@ Prodelinternational.com

PAGE 18

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Metro

Bus driver, 48, in court for manslaughter

T

he Police on Monday arraigned a commercial driver, Edmond Okike of Gwagwalada, Abuja in a Wuse Zone 2 Chief Magistrates Court for alleged manslaughter.

Police prosecutor Paul Anigbo said told the court that on May 21, Okike drove a Toyota Corolla car with registration number XG 321 RBC in a careless manner on Musa Yar’Adua Way,

Abuja.

He said because of Okike’s careless driving, he knocked down a 10-year-old pedestrian, Joy Nyitarmen, a pupil of Lugbe primary School, Abuja.

The prosecutor said Nyitarmen sustained severe injuries as a result of the accident which led to her death.

He said the offence contravened the provisions of

section 29(1) CAP 548 of the Road Traffic Act. Section 29(1) of the Act states that`` a person who drives a motor vehicle on a highway without due care and attention, or without reasonable consideration for other persons using a highway is guilty of an offence under this Act and liable to imprisonment or fine or both.’’

Okike, however, pleaded not

guilty to the charge.

The Chief Magistrate, Mrs Ramatu Gulma, granted him bail in the sum of N1 million with a reasonable surety in like sum.

Gulma said the surety must be resident within the court’s jurisdiction and that the address should be ascertained by a titled document or evidence of payment of rent for December 2012.

Medical students of University of Abuja staging peaceful protest, yesterday at the university main gate, yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Joe Oroye

INSIDE FCT COURTS Man, 33, docked for breach of trust, cheating

T

he Police yesterday arraigned one Terry Ogieyean, 33, of Canopy Market, Wuse Zone 3, Abuja for alleged breach of trust and cheating.

Police prosecutor David Udeh told the court that the accused was reported at Wuse Zone 3 Police Station on May 31 by Charles Arinze who resides at Dutse Alhaji, Abuja.

According to the prosecutor, on May 13, the complainant entrusted his laptop computer valued at N120,000 to the accused to sell for him and remit the money.

Udeh added that instead of the accused remitting the money after selling the computer, he converted the proceeds to his personal use.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened the provisions of Section 312 and 322 of the Penal Code.

Section 312 says ``whoever commits criminal breach of trust shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to seven years or with fine or with both.’’

Section 322 states ``whoever cheats shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or with both.’’

Senior Magistrate Grace Adebayo granted the accused bail in the sum of N100,000 with two sureties who must each be working in a reputable organisation and must possess the organisation’s identity card.

She then adjourned the matter to July 1, 2013 for proper hearing. (NAN)

Scavenger jail 4 months for theft

Man jailed for stealing drugs A

A

n Abuja Grade 2 Area Court in Kado, FCT, yesterday sentenced one Okechukwu Emuwa, 44, to three months imprisonment for stealing a carton of pharmaceutical drugs worth N250, 000 .

He was, however, given an option of N4,000 fine.

The Police Prosecutor, Mr

Simeon Ibrahim, told the court that on June 1, one Odor Ndubuisi of C.N Okoli Transport Company, Abuja, came to the Utako police station to report the matter.

Ibrahim said the convict, a trader of No 11 Adeberu Oduwole St., Lagos, had, on the same day, stole a carton of pharmaceutical drugs, all amphicillin tablets,

valued at N250,000.

He said the convict was caught red-handed on the spot, adding that the offence contravened the provisions of Section 288 of the Penal Code.

Section 288 carries a sevenyear maximum sentence or with fine or both.

Emuwa, however, denied

being guilty of the offence, saying that he mistakenly took another person’s luggage, thinking it was his own.

The Presiding Officer, Mr Ahmed Ado, who was not satisfied with his explanation, sentenced him to three months imprisonment or pay a fine of N4,000. (NAN)

Bus conductor gets 80days for negligence

A

n Abuja Senior Magistrates Court yesterday sentenced a bus conductor, Isaac Odenigbo, to 80 days imprisonment with an option to pay N1,500, for negligent conduct.

Senior Magistrate Abdullahi Illelah also ordered Odenigbo, 20, of Tasha Village to pay N50,000 to one Aisha Bala after he pleaded guilty to the one-count charge.

The prosecutor, Cpl. Simon

Emmanuel, had told the court that Bala, a resident of Gwagwa Village, Abuja, reported the matter at the Life Camp Police Station, Abuja, on May 27.

Emmanuel told the court that the complainant handed her bag containing some clothes to the convict after she boarded his bus from Gwagwa to Wuse on the same date.

He said the bag contained 4

pieces of wrappers, 3 pieces of guinea brocade and some old clothes all valued at N50,000.

Emmanuel told the court that on getting to her destination she requested for her bag from the convict and he could not produce it.

During investigation the convict admitted collecting the bag from the complainant and keeping it in the boot of the car.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened the provisions of Section 196 of the Penal Code.

The section provides that whoever does any act in a manner so rash or negligent as to endanger human life or property shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months or with fine which may extend to N100 or with both.’’

(NAN)

Kuje Area Court in the FCT yesterday sentenced a 23-yearold scavenger, Umar Usman, to four months imprisonment for theft.

The police prosecutor, Cpl Ocheche Samuel, had told the court that the matter was reported at the Kuje Police Station by one Chibike Udeji of Anguwan Sanyi, Kuje, on May 28.

Samuel said the convict, of no fix address, and who was charged with criminal trespass and theft, entered the complainant’s shop at Kuje Forest and stole zinc worth N17,000.

He said the offence contravened the provisions of sections 342 and 289 of the Penal Code and punishable under sections 347 and 287 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The prosecutor said that during investigation, some of the stolen zinc sheets were recovered from the convict, who pleaded guilty to the charges against him.

The Presiding Judge, Mr Nuhu Ibrahim, sentenced him to four months imprisonment with an option to pay N9,000 fine.

Ibrahim also ordered the convict to pay N15,000 as compensation to the complainant. (NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 16

Residents grumble over ban on mini-buses in FCT

By Adeola Tukuru

T

housands of residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) were stranded yesterday following the partial restriction placed on the operators of mini-buses from plying the main city.

The residents were stranded for hours before they could get to their destinations.

It would be recalled that the FCT Administration, had on Monday commenced a re-routing of minibuses operating in the territory, saying there was no going back on the policy.

Mandate Secretary, transport secretariat, Engr.

Jonathan Ivoke, said this at the weekend while conducting a road-show to various parts of the city to sensitize residents on the administration’s preparedness to commence implementation of the policy stressing there it will drop fare by about 40 percent for commuters.

Ivoke who spoke through the Director Mass Transit, Engr.

Adewole Adeosho, said the commencement of the policy will restrict mini-bus drivers operations to the earlier delineated routes outside the city as they are free to operate in the satellite town where they are permitted to ply their trade.

He emphasized that their operations would terminate at the various interchanges on the Kubwa axis, Yar’ Adua expressway, and Nyanya interchange where they are to feed the highway with passengers for the high capacity busses to commute into the city.

Taxis are exempted from the restriction as their services will still be needed in the tcity and other part of the territory.

Peoples Daily reporter who monitored the situation, said that it took an average of three hours to move from Kubwa to Wuse, a distance of less than 45 minutes drive.

A civil servant from the Ministry of Works , who simply identified herself as Madam Chidinma Okeke, said she left her house in Lugbe about 8am oblivious of the situation in town, only to get to the

office by 11:30am yesterday.

In her words: “I doubt if I will go to work tomorrow because my body needs to recover from this trekking I did today.

“I left my house in Lugbe around 8am and it is almost 11:30am and I am yet to get to my office. It is really unfortunate”.

A woman who sells roasted plantain at a structure beside the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, expressed fear that the day could be bad since she got to her shop around noon, in contrast to the usual 8am.

It was observed that some of the few mini-buses that plied the road yesterday from the

Karmo-Jabi axis were stopped somewhere around Zone Six, Wuse while commuters going to Nyanya had to trek up to Zone 4 to wait for the few available buses.

The 191 buses said to have been rolled out by the Transport Secretariat were not visible.

Usman Mohammed, a civil servant, said although he was on his annual leave, he had to go out with his Space Wagon to convey passengers and take advantage of the absence of the minibuses.

He said: “As you can see, I am working at my pace because there are no competitors. I discovered this morning that fares have

increased and there were a lot of people stranded, so I came out with my car to convey them to their destinations and make some money.

“However, I will go straight home when I drop these passengers because for me to come to Wuse earlier on, I spent almost three hours from Mararaba. I pity my fellow Nigerians too because I know this is just a plan to send some Nigerians out of Abuja.

“They should have even made alternative arrangements before doing this. I think it is bad.

In Nyanya, I saw a bus driver weeping because he has not been

People stranded at Nyanya bus-stop due to implementation of Abuja’s new transport policy, which restricted commercial buses from entering the City Centre, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: NAN

Teacher blames govt, parents for non-use of indigenous language

A

language teacher in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mrs Vivian Ibrahim, has blamed the government and parents for the gradual decline in the use of indigenous language among youths.

She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Monday in Abuja that the gradual decline was the result of government’s

placement of priority on the teaching of the English language in schools at the expense of indigenous languages.

“I blame that on the government because when we started this so called civilization thing, our government decided that it is best to really upgrade the English language rather than our own languages in school.

“Though they tried but their efforts were not enough; if you look at other countries like China, Japan they are into technology they are into advancement in a high level but yet it is their language they use in doing all of these.

“You go to school you must learn even if you are a foreigner when you go there you need learn

Pharmacists assure on commitment to Healthcare delivery

By Usman Shuaibu

C

hairman of the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) , Pharmacist Nwigudu Uzoma, has said that the leadership of the association would remain focused on the provision of quality healthcare delivery for the citizens of Nigeria.

According to him, we in ACPN are always eager to partner with other stakeholders and wellmeaning Nigerians in providing steps geared towards solving the global problem of inequality in

able to work since yesterday.”

Some of those selling bus tickets also condemned the development, claiming that the ultimate result of the policy would be an increase in crime.

One of them said: “We learnt that they are doing this due to some security reports on the territory but it is not true. They just want to award more contracts to buy luxury buses after the ones they bought last year during the subsidy protests collapsed.

“If we do not get any job to do, then they should expect us to find new ways of feeding ourselves.

They want to push people into crime.

healthcare delivery especially in the FCT rural Communities.

Uzoma, who stated this while delivering his address during the maiden edition of the community health outreach in Kuje Area council.

He urged the people of Nigeria to purchase their medicines from registered pharmacies.

He said that the leadership of the association would continue to provide quality pharmaceutical care by increasing access to good healthy, quality and efficacious medicines as well as other health promotional and preventive services to the residents of Abuja.

He pointed out that the leadership of the association would gear towards providing affordable and quality healthcare to under-served communities to meet up with their health heeds.

His word: “we are dependable allies in complementing the effort of government on the attainment of the health related millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4,5 and 6 in the various communities we serve through adequate provision and promotion of public health and delivery of quality healthcare to the people”.

Nzoma disclosed that his

administration would fight quacks in the profession and urged members to join hands with him to move the association forward.

On his party, the secretary of the association in the territory, pharmacist Ike Sunday, said that the leadership of the association would not hesitate to arrest the health challenges faced by the FCT residents in the six area councils.

The scribe pledged the association commitment to continue to provide quality pharmaceutical care as well as provision of drugs for the masses.

it; so I think to an extent our government has a lot to play.

“They have failed the citizens of this country in that aspect they made sure that we picked up this English language as the very major language they teach.

“I know they tried at a time they involved languages, there was a time we had that in school but if you go I bet you now we don ’t even have much of that; so to an extent, the government has a part to play.”

She urged parents to promote the use of indigenous languages at home by making the children speak them. ``Parents these days because of the high level of education feel they have to speak a white man’s language to feel among, to get a white collar job and then we put our own languages at the back ground.

“You find out that to show yourself as an educated person you need to speak the Queen’s English but they forget that when you play something above others it become a high priority and then other things will fail and then they will suffer.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 17

Metro

NBA registers 103 lawyers in FCT

By Usman Shuaibu

N

igerian Bar Association (NBA) in Gwagwalada Area Council Branch, FCT, has registered a total of 103 lawyers to ascertain the quacks in the profession.

Chairman of the NBA, Barr. John Eric Tyoyumun Tyorumun, who made the disclosure in an interview with Peoples Daily during the annual general meeting of the association in Gwagwalada, said that the leadership of the association would not relent in its effort to combat quacks in the profession.

He urged members of the association to be committed to law profession while advising them to use the profession to improve the society for better.

He further advised lawyers to shun any act capable of tarnishing the image of the profession, as according to him, lawyers are the special people in our society. While speaking on the achievements of the association so far, Tyorumun narrated that the association was able to secure a piece of land, 18 setters bus and a temporary secretariat for the association among others.

Contractor gets visionary icon award

By Usman Shuaibu

A

contractor based in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Emeka Okpara who is also the proprietor of a football club in Suleja, Niger State, has conferred with the visionary Icon award by the management of Orator weekly newspaper based in Niger state and Abuja.

Speaking at the occasion, the managing Editor of Orator weekly newspaper, Mr Nasir Oseni said that the award was bestowed on the contractor based on his contributions towards the sports in Suleja and Niger State as a whole.

He urged the awardee to continue to contribute tremendously towards the development of the sports in the area for the benefit of the youths.

He said that the leadership of Orator weekly newspaper would continue to award philanthropists who have contributed to the development of the society at all ramifications.

L-R: Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Federal Capital Territory, Engineer John Obinna Chukwu; Minister of State for FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide; and Water, Sanitation/Hygiene ( WASH) Ambassador, Engineer Ebele Okeke, during the ambassador advocacy visit to the minister, recently in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Brazil to build new satellite town in FCT

By Adeola Tukuru

T

he FCT Administration has approved the request of a consortium of Brazilian investors to build a model satellite city in Abuja. It would depict the Brazilian character and flavor as well as boost the bilateral and cultural ties between Nigeria and Brazil.

FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed who disclosed this recently when he hosted 50 Brazilian businessmen in Abuja, pointed out that the Brazilians would undertake the multi-billion naira investments under the land swap programme recently introduced by the Administration to fasttrack infrastructure and housing development in the Nation’s Capital.

According to the Minister, the Brazilian investors were set to sign

a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the FCT Administration to define the legal and physicals framework for the collaboration. He said the two parties have resolved that the MoU would be signed before the Brazilians depart for home at the end of their current visit.

In addition to their participation in the land swap programme, Senator Bala Mohammed announced that the Brazilians have also indicated interest in developing an industrial park, a mono rail transport system, a world class hospital and a standard university in the FCT. The Minister had earlier in a power point presentation reeled out FCT’s numerous investment attractions such as centrality of location, excellent infrastructure, abundance of rich natural resources,

relative security, neutral character and cosmopolitan ambience.

Senator Bala Mohammed told the Brazilians about Abuja’s strategic location as a territory that can be accessed from any part of the country by flight in less than one hour and from any part of the African continent in less than seven hours. Abuja’s unique position as the foremost regional, continental and global conference centre in Africa was also highlighted by the Minister during the presentation.

Earlier, the leader of the Brazilian delegation and the Secretary of Agriculture in the Brazilian state of Grande Do Sul, Mr. Rio Fernando Malwardi had stated that they were in Abuja to explore greater bilateral collaboration with Brasilia the capital of Brazil and Grande Do Sul on one hand and Abuja on the other.

HehailedtheFCTAdministration for the various measures put in place to accelerate development of the capital city in line with best global standards adding that he has no doubt that within the next couple of years, Abuja would rank among the best cities in the world. He said they were delighted to learn that the Abuja master plan envisages the development of the city in a similar manner as Brasilia the capital city of Brazil. He described Nigeria as an important trading partner of Brazil In his remark, the Nigerian Ambassador to Brazil, Ambassador Vincent Okoedion said Nigeria would benefit immensely from closer bilateral relations with Brazil. He said that Brazil recently displaced Great Britain as the sixth strongest economy in the world.

Overweight babies: Gynaecologist advises pregnant women to avoid junk food

T

he Chief Consultant Obstetrician and gynaecologist at the National Hospital Abuja, Dr Chris Agboghoroma, has warned pregnant women against eating junk food to avoid delivering overweight babies.

Agboghoroma told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview yesterday in Abuja that excessive weight gain during pregnancy could affect the baby’s weight.

He said that delivery could be difficult for expectant mothers if their

unborn babies were overweight.

The gynaecologist, however, said that a woman being overweight during pregnancy had nothing to do with the baby being obese later in life.

He said that apart from their eating habits, genetic factors could be responsible for obesity in children. ``Women who gain too much weight in pregnancy they give birth to babies that are also overweight and that can be an issue, an area of concern for the mother when she wants to

deliver, but it does not really affect subsequently the baby’s life, weather the baby will become obese because what makes the baby to develop his or her ideal body weight subsequently is more of genetic predisposition. ``It is true that many women have good appetite and they have a genetic disposition of being fat and their children can also inherit it from them. ``So when this children also cultivate the habit of eating, they also get fat like the mothers or like their

parents; it is not because of that junk the mother ate but because of the genetic predisposition that is there that will make them become fat. ``Another thing is about habit, a mother who is used to taking a lot of junk foods will also buy for the baby, as she is buying snacks here and there, she will also be filling the baby’s pocket, lunch box with a lot of variety things; so as the mother is eating the baby is eating; so both of them become chubby or obese.

``So you think it is something you carried along from pregnancy, it is habits that have developed out of the womb.`` The gynaecologist advised pregnant women to watch what they ate generally and take the supplements given to them at ante-natal clinics, which included folic acids, vitamins, iron.

He also advised them to ignore the belief that a pregnant woman must ‘’eat for two’’. (NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 19

INSIDE

Nigeria loses N256bn annually to crude oil theft – Shell

By Etuka Sunday

S

hell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has expressed its concern about crude oil thieves and illegal refineries operators in the Niger

Delta saying the country is losing $1.6billion (N256 billion) annually to oil theft.

The company cites its forced shut down of the Nembe Creek trunk lines in Bayelsa state, a facility which produces about 150,000 barrels of crude oil

per day and its declaration of force majeure on Bonny light export as part of troubles caused by the oil thieves.

The closures according to Shell were to enable it remove crude oil theft connections, investigate suspected oil theft

leaks and carry out repairs.

Speaking at a workshop organized for media practitioners in Yenagoa, Shell’s manager, government/ community relations, Evans Krukrubo said over 90 per cent of its pipelines in the region have been ruptured by suspected oil thieves.

He notes that the shutdown of production at Nembe creek trunk lines would impact negatively on Bayelsa share from the federation account.

Remembering NNPC’s Dr Levi Ajuonuma: One Year After - Pg 20

Etisalat launches Easy Cliq with 10k/Sec tariff reduction - Pg 21

L-R: Group Manger/Divisional Head, Retail Banking, Unity Bank Plc, Mr. Usman Abaji, Executive Director, IT Operations Technology of Unity Bank Plc, Mr. Ahmed Yusuf, Executive Director, Enterprises Risk Management Directorate, Alhaji Rislanudeen Mohammed, and Executive Director, Central Business Directorate of Unity Bank Plc, Alhaji Ibrahim T. Mohammed, during the media presentation of Unity Bank-Aim, Save and Win Promo (3-in-1 Savings Advantage), yesterday at the bank head office, in Abuja. Photo: Mahmud Isa

Unity Bank Cement: Why Dangote is investing $500m in Tanzania flags off ‘3By Abdulwahab Isa •’It’ll bolster Nigeria-Tanzanian ties’ in 1 Savings he Prime Minister of of a new business relationship In his address, Aliko Dangote significant milestone for us in Advantage’ Tanzania, Mizengo between Nigeria and his country. said the construction of the our quest to build a Pan Africa Pinda has commended We are The Tanzania PM described facility was a familiar turf for cement company. the Dangote Cement Plc as an irony, that prior to the his company as it has done excited that an African company promo and unveiled why Africa’s coming of Dangote cement, same in other parts of Africa. is making this investment in

T

king of cement is investing $500million in his country.

Mr. Pinda, who was speaking during the groundbreaking ceremony at Dangote’s Mtwara factory in Tanzania, said the investment was sequel to invitation of the Dangote Group by his country after it was discovered that Tanzania has the resources it takes to produce cement.

Commending the President of the Dangote Group Aliko Dangote, Mr. Pinda said the new plant will without doubt lift the economy of his country and Africa at large.

He thanked the conglomerate for locating the three million metric tons plant in his country.

He said the commencement of the construction of the plant signaled the beginning

in spite of the abundance of limestone, a necessary raw material in cement manufacture in Mtwara, Tanzania was experiencing a deficit in cement production and supply.

He said: “We could not bring in Cement Plants with capacities to produce cement in large quantities, so that demand of cement would be met. Growing demand for cement with inadequate supply led to deficit and high prices.

“While this was becoming a growing concern to the Government, we came to know about the availability of Cement Grade Limestone in huge quantities in this village in Mtwara. But this was a challenge for us, as Mtwara is quite far from the market of cement, which is mainly in the cities.”

He therefore expressed hope that the new investment will strengthen the ties between Nigeria and Tanzania, adding that Africa is gradually taking its destiny in its own hands.

The investment in this sector, which he explained as being outside the traditional mining sector, is to take advantage of the abundance of limestone in the country and work towards making Tanzania selfsufficient in cement production.

He commended the government and people of Tanzania for recent public sector and banking reforms, as well as revamped and new legislative frameworks, which had spurred private sector driven investment.

Said he; “We are excited for two major reasons. The first being that today’s event is a

a sister African country. This indeed, shows that Africa is gradually taking its destiny in its own hands rather than wait for investors from outside Africa.”

- Pg 22

MANAGEMENT TIP OF THE DAY

S

Don’t schedule that meeting

ome people get trigger-happy when it comes to scheduling meetings. Have information to share? Need to get the team’s input? Better get something on the calendar. But half the time, these gatherings are a waste of time.

Here are three rules for being respectful of other people’s time: Only use meetings for discussions and decisions that must happen with a team, in real time. Don’t use the time for FYI items that

you can communicate via e-mail.

Send a clear agenda with the meeting invitation — not two minutes before — so it’s easier for everyone to tell whether they need to attend.

Designate someone to take thorough notes. Circulate those to anyone who might need to be in the loop, but doesn’t need to come to the meeting.

Source: Business Review

Harvard

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 20

Energy Company News

Afren Nigeria

Remembering NNPC’s Dr Levi Ajuonuma, One Year After

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fren Nigeria has successfully raised over $2billion through equity on its operations in the oil and gas business, based on strong technical team and proven track records as an explorer and fast track developer .

Other factors that helped the company further in raising the money, include good governance culture, right partnership and the Nigerian opportunity set.

This consequently helped the company to hit production within a span of two and half years in Okoro asset which now is producing about 20,000 barrels per day.

May & Baker Nigeria Plc

M

ay & Baker Nigeria Plc would consider raising additional capital to support its business expansion and steady the healthcare company against competition, the board of the company has said.

Speaking at the company’s annual general meeting held in Lagos Thursday, Theophilus Danjuma, chairman, May & Baker Nigeria Plc said the company has started considering various ways of raising new capital and would soon choose the most appropriate means to bolster the capital base of the company.

According to him, it has become expedient for the company to recapitalise to muster enough liquidity to face the challenges of the business environment.

Pfizer Incorporated

P

fizer Inc., has posted first quarter profit of $13.5billion in 2013reflecting gains from Pfizer’s joint venture in China- and lowered its 2013 forecast.

The company’s quarterly profit surged to $2.75 billion from $1.79 billion in the yearago period. Excluding one-time items, its adjusted earnings from continuing operations came in at $0.54 per share.

Pfizer’s Inc has also shed businesses outside its core medicine franchise to focus on drug development.

By Etuka Sunday

F

or staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the sudden demise of their image maker, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma last year, after the ill-fated Dana Airline crash that cut short his career would remain indelible.

The memories remain very fresh like the tree planted at the river bank which refuses to wither.

His memories again resonated at the recently concluded Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, USA, when he was given a post-humus PETAN Outstanding Leadership Award, in recognition of his distinguished and outstanding contributions to the development of the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria. The award was received on behalf of his family by Emy and Michael Ajuonuma.

As a spokesman and chief image-maker of the NNPC for over eight years, he worked as an arrow-head in charge of organising NNPC’s participation at OTC. The oil and gas industry has missed an icon and friend of all for the past one year now; could anyone replace him? He was indeed missed for the passion and exceptional enthusiasm he brought on the job.

As a seasoned communicator, hardly a week passes without seeing Dr Ajuonuma on national television gallantly defending his organisation. He was always

Late Dr. Levi Ajuonuma

on the pages of newspapers explaining or making a point, all aimed at getting the public to understand the workings of the oil and gas industry, especially from the perspective of the national oil company.

He has carried out his duties as the spokesman and chief image maker of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation over the years with such infectious gusto that one can hardly think about the Corporation without his image popping up in your mind.

For eight years he was in the national limelight, parrying blows directed at NNPC and ensuring that members of the public understand the challenges faced by the corporation that is saddled with the task of managing

“

For eight years he was in the national limelight, parrying blows directed at NNPC and ensuring that members of the public understood the challenges faced by the corporation that is saddled with the task of managing the nation’s hydrocarbon wealth

the nation’s hydrocarbon wealth.

In recognition of the professionalism and élan that he has brought to bear on the practice of public relations, he is being honoured with the Fellowship of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations today, the highest award of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), the professional body of those in the business of reputation management.”

Since his foray into full-time PR practice as the chief image maker of the NNPC, Dr. Ajuonuma has taken PR practice a notch higher, by innovatively deploying relevant communication tools to get Nigerians to understand the workings of the oil and gas industry and the NNPC to dispel the wrong impressions most Nigerians used to have about the Corporation and the entire industry. It is precisely for this that he was accorded the highest honour by NIPR. The award comes as a tall and brilliant feather on the cap of a man who many Nigerians believe richly deserves it.

Many spoke about his contributions during the conferment of the award of Fellow of NIPR. For Mr. Jakes Epelle, a member of the institute, he described it as a well deserved honour. “Dr Ajuonuma is a man every member of the institute is very proud of because of his competence, strength of character and above all, high sense of professionalism. He is one man who has added class

and colour to PR practice and I am indeed very happy about this worthy honour to a worthy man”, he said.

For the Chief Executive Officer of SY and T Communications, a PR firm, Simeon Tumba, it was simply a testimony to the worth of Dr. Ajuonuma as a committed professional.

Another, Wole Ademulegun of the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency said, “For me, I consider the award long overdue, but my joy is that it finally came for a man who has done great for the profession. It is a fitting icing on Dr. Ajuonuma’s professional cake.”

According to a public affairs analyst, Seinde Fademi, the award to Dr. Ajuonuma came at no better time than now, when the NNPC and the oil industry is being pilloried by the public and he did a good laundering the image of the corporation.

His words: “It could be very trying to manage the image of an institution that is largely misunderstood by the public.

But Dr Ajuonuma has lived up to the duty, he was never tired of engaging the public and explaining the position of the NNPC. When people, some of them highly placed in the society, made wild allegations about the corporation, he took the pain to explain the true position and dispels the fog of ignorance with the light of truth and knowledge.

He has done well for the NNPC and for the PR profession; the honour could not have come at a better time than now.”

Dr. Ajuonuma’s contributions to the oil and gas sector would continue to be greatly missed, because he was able to distinguish himself from others who believed not in the power of working hard to the top.

As a distinguished Nigerian, posterity would continue to judge in his favour. A mere mention of his name at the NNPC headquarters in Abuja would bring tears down the cheeks of many, because of his humane disposition. May his soul continue to rest in peace.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 21

ICT

Etisalat launches ‘Easy Cliq’ with 10k/Sec tariff reduction

E

tisalat Nigeria, has launched a device that would give more value to its customers-known as Easy Cliq-which will make its subscribers to enjoy 10k/sec tariff reduction.

In addition, it will provide free 90MB data monthly, as well as free

midnight intra network calls from 12.30am to 4.30am.

Speaking on the revamped package, Wael Ammar, Chief Commercial Officer at Etisalat Nigeria, explained that the new offering is to enable customers enjoy more value from the network.

“The revamped Easy Cliq gives customers access to lower tariffs based on their daily spends. This unique tariff plan is such that when a customer has used N25 in a day, his/her tariff to all networks drops instantly.”

He pointed out that this lowered

tariff is in addition to all the benefits that EasyCliq customers are used to.

“The threshold daily spend is N25 before which calls would be at 40k per second to all networks.

Upon attaining the N25 threshold, tariffs drop automatically to 10k

per second for EasyCliq to EasyCliq calls, 20k per second for intra network calls, and 30k to other networks. All these in addition to bonus free minutes on incoming calls, 90MB of free data monthly, unlimited free SMS intra network and N4 SMS to other networks”.

Airtel collaborates Huawei, Microsoft for Windows 8 Smartphone

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R-L: Chairman of occasion, Group Captain John Obakpolor (rtd), presenting scholarship award to System Engineering Student of university of Lagos, Miss Omotuyi Ajoke, during the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigerian (APWEN) 2013 business luncheon and award presentation, recently in Lagos.

Photo: NAN

irtel Nigeria is collaborating with Huawei and Microsoft to launch Ascend W1, its first Smartphone that runs on the Microsoft Windows Phone 8 operating systems.

Huawei Ascend W1 smartphone is among the latest technology that comes bundled with free 200 Megabytes (MB) data plan for the first 6 months on the Airtel network.

Customers who purchase the phone would also enjoy Airtel’s special Smartbytes plan of 20 free SMS, 18K per second calls to all networks in Nigeria and 20k per second call rate to 5 international destinations (USA, United Kingdom-Land Line, Canada, India and China).

Speaking at the launch, Inusa Bello, chief sales officer for Airtel Nigeria, said the company was proud to collaborate with Huawei in providing Nigerians with innovative mobile experience especially on superior data offerings, to enhance the way they

work and play.

“Only recently, we launch a special recharge card called the Single Recharge that enables customers to do both voice and data recharge using one card.

Today, WhatsApp subscribers on Airtel platform are enjoying exclusive first of its kind data bundle service in partnership with “WhatsApp Inc. These innovations ride on our superior and widest 3.75g service, underscoring our determination to become the most loved brand in the daily lives of Nigerians”, Bello stated.

Also speaking, Tony Liang Wei, managing director, Huawei Devices, West Africa, “the phone is specifically created for Africa and is powered by Microsoft, making it the first Huawei Windows 8 smart phone in the world.

He added that the smart phone has 470 hours of standby time, the longest of all Smartphone’s in its class.”

“Without the registration, the network operators will not be able to identify a porting

subscriber or confirm that such is the rightful owner of the number being ported,’’ he said.

NCC to end SIM cards registration by June Stories by Chris Alu

T

he Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC) has said that the nationwide registration of Subscriber Identity Module (SIM ) cards would not be extended for any reason at the end of June 30 deadline set by the commission.

NCC Executive ViceChairman, Dr. Eugene Juwah, who stated this at the weekend, also explained that the commission would commence the collation of

the data for publication, adding that subsequent registration would be done by different telecom providers, with approval from the commission.

Juwah was represented by the Director of Communications, Mrs. Biodun Olujimi, at the 73rd edition of Telecoms Consumer Parliament organised by the commission in Enugu, with the theme of the parliament: `Mobile Number Portability: Benefits to Telecom Consumers’.

He said that the service would allow consumers to switch from one network to another while retaining the current number.

The EVC explained that the service would remove the trouble of moving around with multiple cell phones and encourage competitions among providers as well as reduce tariffs.

Juwah said the porting required registration of SIM card by the subscribers for security reasons.

MTN set to kickoff Y’ello Care

A

ll is now set for MTN Nigeria to kick off its annual event programme called Y’ello Care, it is an initiatives organized by its volunteer’s staff to roll out its programmes for the year.

The theme of this year’s campaign is “Investing in Education for All”. It would run from June 1 to 21.

While the programme will be officially flagged-off by MTN board of directors led by Dr. Pascal Dozie, chairman, and MTN executives, led Mr. Brett Goschen, chief executive officer, will on Monday June 3 hold the Y’ello Book Fair, where staff and guests will be encouraged to buy educational materials for at least one child to be distributed in various public schools.

With education as the focus, for 21 days, MTNers will seize the

opportunity to go to select schools in Lagos and across the regions Abuja and Port Harcourt to once again seek to inspire and empower Nigeria’s future leaders and contribute to making significant and lasting change by Investing in Education for All! This year, the initiative is organised under three broad themes: ‘Empowering Teachers, Empowering Learning and Digital Content for Education’.

Specific activities would include the hosting of ICT seminars for teachers, actual classroom teaching, ICT awareness workshops, and the establishment of digital libraries in select secondary/primary schools across the country to promote a healthy, voluntary study habit among students.

This is besides the cleaning

exercises in schools, donation of audio and hardcopy books and among others that would be taking place during this period.

Other activities for the 21 Days of Y’ello Care include learnersto-leaders initiative, whereby Senior Management staff will be encouraged to mentor primary and secondary school students on their desired career paths; Who Wants to be an ICT Icon (WWTBAII), an ICT quiz structured after the popular ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’, aimed at driving ICT awareness among students; and voluntary donations through the Y’ello Baskets, which will be placed in all MTN offices for staff to drop books, educational items and other learning materials.

The items will be donated to special schools/orphanages across the country.

Airtel launches ‘Bid & Get Offering’ service

A

irtel Nigeria has launched an offering-‘Bid & Get Service’-to its customers, which enables bidders to bid for items with the lowest bidder of any item offered within the period of time given to its subscribers.

The service is a direct reverse of the traditional concept of auction, where the highest bidder is declared a winner and the ‘Bid and Get’ auction service is open to both pre and postpaid customers and the first item on auction would be iPhone 5 and iPad mini communication gadget.

With Airtel ‘Bid and Get’, a customer whose bid is the lowest and unique automatically wins the bid for the advertised item for the day. The winner can purchase the item for N100 only irrespective of the retail price of the item.

To register for Airtel ‘Bid and Get’, customers are to send the word “BID’ to the short code 3210 free of charge, and thereafter participate in the bid by sending their bid amount to the 3210, at N10 for every bid SMS. The customer whose bid is the lowest and is unique at the end of the bidding cycle is declared

the successful bidder and would automatically be eligible to buy the product on offer for N100.

On receipt of SMS informing a participant of winning a particular bid auction, the successful bidder is to send the word “WIN” to “3211” and thereafter, would be presented with his winning at the nearest Airtel office.

Speaking on the latest innovation from Airtel, Deepak Srivastava, chief operating officer, said being another first by the company, the rollout further confirms Airtel’s innovativeness and superior value propositions as it draws closer to becoming the most loved brand in the lives of Nigerians.

He stated that the uniqueness of the Bid and Get Service is that a fix amount of N100 is what a successful bidder pays for any item won, irrespective of the current retail price in the market.

“The distinction of this service yetw again proves that as a company, we dig deeper into the ideas box to bring out impactful propositions that excites not just the customers including the youths, but the entire telecoms market”, he stated.

PAGE 22

PEOPLES DAILY, TUEDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Business

Skye, Diamond, Fidelity commence due diligence to acquire AMCON’s bridge banks From Ngozi Onyeakusi, Lagos

P

rospective investors in the bridge lenders owned by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) have commenced due diligence exercises for the acquisition of the banks, Mainstreet, Keystone and Enterprise banks, investigations have found.

The would-be investors include three local banksDiamond, Fidelity, and Skye banks.

The front-runners, Diamond,

Fidelity and Skye, have already begun verifying the health status of Mainstreet, Keystone and Enterprise banks, to allow for informed investment decisions.

Some of the prospective acquirers are also planning to raise capital from within and outside the country, to boost their chances of acquiring the banks and improving their branch networks.

Managing Director of Skye Bank, Kehinde DurosinmiEtti, which is planning to raise N50 billion fresh capital, has declared that his bank is still in the race.

Already, the Renaissance Capital Group and Citibank, advisers appointed by AMCON to work out cost-effective ways of disposing the banks, have recommended strategic investments as the viable option.

AMCON is currently searching for financial advisory and law firms that would guide its divestment from the banks, with Enterprise Bank Limited to be the first to be divested from, in June.

The corporation is seeking for proposals from investment banks and qualified international financial advisers,

to provide financial and transactional advisory services towards the divestment of its entire shareholding in the banks.

This development is said to have jolted the investors, as they have increased the pace of the mergers and acquisition process.

Bismarck Rewane, chief executive, Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) limited, said the “Key objectives of Nigerian banks in 2013 would centre on enhanced return on capital, cost efficiency, excellent service delivery and asset protection.”

Maritime workers’ union laments poor safety at Nigerian ports From Olawuni Oladapo, Lagos

F

ollowing the death of a dockworker, Mr. Ahmed Usman at the Five Star Logistics Terminal over the weekend, the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) has said that safety measures at Nigerian ports are low. This is even as it particularly rated 5-star Terminal poor in terms of safety precautions for dock workers.

President of the Dockworkers Branch of MWUN, Comrade Adewale Adeyanju, on Thursday condemned the management of the terminal for failing to provide adequate safety for the lives of dockworkers at the terminal.

“It is unfortunate that we lost a dockworker at 5-star logistics while performing his official duties, accidents are inevitable but the safety procedure in 5star logistics is so porous, if there is adequate safety and live jackets, the man would have survived”.

“We are now trying to make sure that all the terminal operators at Nigerian seaports provide life jackets on board vessels and any terminal that fails to do so we will protest and carry placards against such terminal we cannot continue to lose our members on daily basis” he said

Adeyanju also lamented that two dockworkers are currently recovering at the hospital as a result of the poor safety condition of the terminals at the Tin- Can Island port.

Speaking, he said “if you go round the terminal, it is only few of them that are safety-conscious and believe in the safety of their workers; it is not everybody that knows how to swim, what they ought to do is provide life jackets but they are not having it”.

“In terms of welfare, we have a standard; we make sure that we collect adequate compensation from the terminal operator and the P&I club, their welfare is hundred percent okay, we even improved on it this year”.

Even though our correspondent gathered that when it was finally pulled out, the corpse of the deceased staff had been mutilated by fishes, Adeyanju debunked the report saying that the man had been buried on Sunday at Agege burial ground according to Muslim rights.

He explained that the union is already meeting with the management of the terminal and the P&I club in order to secure compensation for the family of the deceased.

NLC President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar

President General, MWUN, Comrade Anthony Nted

Unity Bank flags-off ‘3-in 1 Savings advantage’ promo

By Abdulwahab Isa

I

n continuation of its endowed culture of enriching lives of its existing customers for their loyal patronage, Unity Bank of Nigeria Plc has flagged off second edition of its promo tagged ‘The 3-in1 Savings advantage’.

Under the new promo, flagged yesterday in Abuja, existing and new customers are eligible to winning cars, scholarship, empowerment tools and electronics sound system for

maintaining minimum balances of N250, 000 N100, 00 and N10, 000 respectively, for a period of 45 days.

Speaking at the occasion, Managing Director of the bank, Ado Yakubu Wanka, represented by Acting MD, Alhaji Yusuf Ahmed, said the bank stood tall in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), by a way of creating products that addressed the poor segment of the society.

He recalled that “about six

months ago, we concluded the 1st season of our ‘Aim, Save & Win’ promotion, which was our bank first outing since we began business in January 2006. Today, we are gathered to present the 2nd edition of the savings promotion –the ‘3-in-1 savings advantage’.

In the first season, over a thousand participants were rewarded with various prizes; six of such customers won a Hyduai Verna salon car each while other got motorcycles, refrigerators generating sets

and mobile phones”.

The new promo which begins today 4th of June is slated to last for six months while draws to select winners is scheduled to hold in 5 zones of the banks across the country.

The first zonal draw comes up on 18th August to 17th September, while the second draw is fixed for between 2nd October to 4th November and the third zonal draw and grand finale is fixed for 16th November to 17th December 2013.

MAN President advocates single digit interest rate on agric loans

P

resident of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Alhaji Bashir Borodo has advocated the introduction of a single-digit interest rate on agricultural loans to enhance growth in the sector.

Borodo made the suggestion in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse, Jigawa state capital.

He said that the measure would stimulate investment and encourage development of agricultural enterprises, adding that high interest rate was militating against effective agricultural financing in the country.

“The greatest problem with agricultural financing is the interest rate; interest is generally about 20 and 25 per cent.

“With the intervention of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the interest rate is now about 12 per cent; it is good to review it further down to a single digit for sustainable development”.

Borodo urged the Jigawa government to develop a blueprint that would enable it to transform the agriculture sector.

“I also suggested that there must be a new blueprint for agricultural development in Jigawa, because agriculture is the only asset - the best asset for the state and there must be a new platform for it; the old model may not deliver what we want quickly.

“We will encourage the indigenes to do it, but if they could not, whoever can do it should come in because what we want is for value addition for this things to go all over but you don’t insist that it has to be the indigenes because the world is becoming a very global village,`` he said.

Also speaking in a separate interview with NAN, Miss Abimbola Junaid, a Nigerian in Diaspora, called for attitudinal change on the part of the people to patronise local products, so as facilitate sustainable economic development in the country.

Junaid, a UK-based woman activist, also urged government at all levels to adopt practical measures to check capital flight and encourage investment.

“We need effective publicity to correct the wrong impression about the security situation in the country,” she said.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 23

Stock Watch

Report as at Monday, June 3, 2013

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 24

PAGE 25

Special Report

Dana Air crash: Issues unresolved one year after Ben Ezeamalu

L

ess than 24 hours to the unveiling ceremony, labourers and supervisors work at a frenzied pace under the light showers to put ‘finishing’ touches to the cenotaph at the site of last year’s Dana Air mishap.

The cenotaph, billed to be unveiled on June 3 by the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola, would commemorate the one year anniversary of the horrific air disaster in which a Dana MD83 crashed into a building at the crowded suburb of IjuIshaga, killing all 153 people on board.

About 10 people on the ground also lost their lives as the Lagos bound aircraft,

from Abuja, crashed into a two storey building.

Though the cenotaph is yet to be completed, and the interlocking tiles on the grounds of the crash site, which has now been fenced, is still halfway from completion; a Lagos State Government official at the site said that the structure would be ready before Monday’s event.

“Everything will be ready before tomorrow(Monday), even if they (labourers) have to work all night. The rain hasn’t help matters,” said the official who didn’t want to be named and declined an interview because “he’s too busy to talk.”

Coroner’s Inquest Days after the air mishap, a coroner’s inquest was initiated to ascertain the

causes of the accident as well as offer recommendations.

The inquest, which has entered its final stages, among other things, exposed the unpreparedness of Nigeria’s emergency response agencies.

Testifying at the inquest, John Ojikutu, an aviation consultant, faulted the Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, NAMA, for activating its emergency response after the aircraft crashed, rather than when it found out that something was wrong.

NAMA had submitted a transcript of the conversation between the pilot and the Lagos Air Traffic Controller as well as the voice recording between the pilots during the ill-fated flight.

The Dana aircraft was airborne at 2:58 p.m. and estimated to arrive at Lagos by 3:45 p.m., according to the preliminary report released by the Accident Investigation Bureau.

“The agency responsible for that flight, NAMA, which was supposed to give us 45 minutes of that flight only gave us 13 minutes. What happened to the remaining 32 minutes?” asked Mr. Ojikutu, a retired Group Captain.

“It is not when an aircraft crashes that you activate emergency. Emergency starts from the moment you notice that something is wrong with the operation of the aircraft.

We didn’t see it here until the distress period,” Mr. Ojikutu added.

During the earlier sitting

Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah and Chairman House Committee on Aviation Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, at the scene of the Dana Airline crash in Iju, Lagos

of the inquest, issues of emergency response by the relevant agencies were at the front burner.

Fire officers from the Lagos State Fire Service, who were one of the first agencies to respond to the distress call, according to Dauda Olaogun, a fire officer testifying at the inquest, arrived the crash scene at 4:10 p.m., about 20 minutes after the crash.

“We were there 30 minutes before Julius Berger arrived,” Mr. Olaogun had added.

Testimonies at the inquest by Mr. Olaogun and other emergency response agencies like the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency, LASTMA; the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, among others shed light on the uncoordinated and haphazard operations of the nation’s emergency rescue agencies.

The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, blamed the poor rescue efforts on crowd control at the accident site.

“Another clog in the wheel was co-ordination of the various stakeholders. Regular joint simulation exercises and informal meeting between members of various organisations will engender more effective collaboration in future operations,” the agency stated.

Akin Jimoh, Program Director at D e v e l o p m e n t Communications Network, noted that emergency response issues before the Dana Air crash are yet to be tackled one year after the incident.

“If we have a plane crash tomorrow, we are still going to be faced with the same situation of last year,” Mr. Jimoh told PREMIUM TIMES. “People will still lose their lives unnecessarily,” he added.

Compensation Battle One year after the crash, some families and relatives of the victims of the crash continue to battle Dana Air

TRAGIC: Scene of the fatal Dana plane crash, this time last year for compensation.

At a press conference of March 28, the airline stated that payment of compensation to victims’ families had been bogged down due to multiple court cases filed by the families against Dana Air. Tony Usidamen, the airline’s Spokesperson, said that 95 of the 125 families who completed claims forms had received the $30,000 (N4.5 million) interim compensation while 11 had gotten the full compensation of $100,000 (N15 million).

“The airline has not abandoned any of the bereaved families,” said Mr. Usidamen.

“About 21 more families whose grant of probate has just come through will receive full payment shortly upon execution of release.

“But for the 65 others who have taken the airline to court, they can’t get anything until all legal issues are sorted out,” Mr. Usidamen added.

Stella Oduah, the Aviation Minister, echoed Dana Air’s position, noting that the “legal

tussle and lack of proper documentation” by families have delayed the payment of compensation.

Section 48(3) of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Act provides that “in any case of aircraft accident resulting in death or injury to passengers, the carrier shall make advance payments of, at least, US$30,000 within

30 days from the date of such accident, to the natural person or such natural persons who are entitled to claim compensation in order to meet the immediate needs of such persons and such advance payments shall not constitute recognition of liability and may be offset against any amounts subsequently paid as damages

“

The airline and its representatives have come up with a number of excuses as the reason why they have not paid this mandatory US$30,000.

These excuses include insufficient documentation, multiple claims, and multiple representations

by the carrier.”

At a press conference last November, five months after the plane crash, some victims’ families said that Dana Air’s “deceit” in payment of compensation claims is “painful.”

Four families said that they got half of the stipulated US$30,000, with the airline asking them to prove that they deserve more than US$15,000, and that babies ought not to be paid anything because they don’t have income and dependants.

Also, a family who lost several family members said that Dana Air’s management wrote to them proposing an interim payment of US$30,000 “for their entire loss.”

In an e-mail response to PREMIUM TIMES, Bunmi Awoyemi, who represents 40 victims of the accident, stated that those issues remain largely unresolved.

14 people have received the interim payment while 26 remain unpaid, according to Mr. Awoyemi.

“The airline and its representatives have come up with a number of excuses as the reason why they have not paid this mandatory US$30,000.

These excuses include insufficient documentation, multiple claims, and multiple representations,” Mr. Awoyemi, a New York admitted attorney, said.

On the issue of insufficient documentation, Mr. Awoyemi said that one of his clients submitted the required documentation in November last and did not receive payment until the first week of May. “The payment was put on hold for no justifiable reason,” Mr. Awoyemi added.

Mr. Awoyemi said that a particular family that got paid recently had their payment withheld on the grounds of multiple claims even though key members of the family had jointly requested for compensation.

“The key members are the father and husband of (the) deceased family member who also double as grandfather

and father to another very young deceased family member.

“This family had to resubmit documents they already had twice and insisted that all the siblings and all the aunties of the deceaseds as well as the mother and grandmother of the deceased had to sign the compensation forms,” said Mr. Awoyemi.

Mr. Awoyemi accused Dana Air management of refusing to make interim payments to four of his clients who are ground victims of the crash.

“Dana Airline denied that they died on the ground even though they admit that 10 people died on the ground,” Mr. Awoyemi said.

“The local lawyer of these four ground victims, Barrister Gbenga Eguntola, has made frantic efforts to get the interim payments for them to no avail even though he has submitted a laundry list of documents to prove these clients died on the ground.”

Source: Premium Times

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 26

DEFENCE

State of Emergency: The journey so far

By Joy Baba

T

he Special Task Force operating in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, where President Goodluck Jonathan recently declared a state of emergency, has made tremendous effort in calming the daily uprisings which were commonplace before the declaration.

Recent reports from those states (especially Borno ) have indicated that a lot of improvement has been made three weeks on, after the declaration.

Troops of the Special Forces within the third week of operation intercepted messages sent to fleeing insurgents; urging them not to give up but fight to the end while attempt by some of them to heed the call was foiled during the weekend; they were trailed to some settlements and towns near the border where they planned to regroup.

Also, the Multinational Joint Task Force within the same week carried out an operation which resulted in the capture and destruction of the insurgents assembly points sited in the outskirts of Kaneram Dan Katsina, Tumbu Dabino and Mallam Fatori area north of Baga.

The towns and settlements have now been secured while cordon and search operation is also ongoing in the area after the insurgents have been dislodged.

A statement signed by the Director of Defence Information, Brig.

Gen Chris Olukoade, said Abba, a high profile terrorist who had been on the wanted list died in that same week while 25 insurgents were rounded up.

According to the statement, “a total of 25 insurgents were rounded up while 3 died including a high profile terrorist identified as Abba- who has been on the list of most wanted persons.

“This incident happened during an encounter with troops of the task force as the insurgents were finalising moves to carry out an extensive terrorist operation around Maiduguri.

“The captured ones were all apprehended with their weapons which include rifles, pistols, double barrel guns and various calibres of ammunition during a raid operation of the JTF in Kumshe and Bulunkutu area”.

Olukolade also said in the statement that they succeeded in killing a security operative of the Task Force but they were all apprehended before their main planned infiltration with more arms to cause mayhem in the city.

In another development in that week, the Special Force freed a man bound in handcuffs who had been held hostage since last year in Sambisa forest; where the insurgents have camps and do most of their operations from.The freed hostage was taken to the hospital and is being treated by the Task Force.

The troops attack the biggest camp in the forest dominated it and discovered a number of fresh grave, more arms and ammunition, burnt vehicles and other equipment.

A terrorist believed to be a close associate of insurgents’ leader Abubakar Shekau was also found dead as he ran errand for the leadership within the week while two fellow terrorists who were with him, one of which is confirmed to be a Nigerien were arrested and presently in the custody of the Multinational Joint Task Force.

A separate statement from Olukolade, said the three insurgents, who have been perpetrating arson within Baga axis and other environs were captured in a bid to escape to Niger Republic through Lake Chad.

“The three were in the process

JTF officers on patrol of major streets, recently in Maiduguri

Boko Haram insurgents of crossing the border to the neighboring Niger Republic through the Lake Chad. The three have been confirmed to have operated in Baga and participated in perpetrating arson and other atrocities around the vicinity of the town.

“They have been relocating from place to place since they left Baga last month” the statement added.

More troops of the Police Mobile Force were deployed to join the operations while more towns were secured in the operations to rid the nation’s territories of terrorist activities in the third week.

As events unfold within the week, the intensive cordon and search operation being conducted by the troops of the Special Forces received a major boost from civilian cooperation in communities close to locations being focused in the operation yesterday.

A group of terrorists moving from village to village in search of large quantity of food were tracked and apprehended following a tip off from civilians. The group which was moving around in a Toyota Land Cruiser Jeep with registration number Borno XA 428 ADM which is suspected to have been stolen was eventually arrested at Daban Masara with weapons such as AK 47 rifle, single barrel shotgun, double hand shotgun and various calibres of ammunition.

In other locations, a total of 56 identified insurgents were apprehended with the help of Military Police Dogs and several items recovered from the arrested insurgents.

Items recovered from them include; 7 packs of IEDs, 2 Rocket Propelled Gun chargers, a rifle magazine, 2 machetes, bomb detonators, camouflage and other military uni-

forms as well as medicines equipment, charms, 7 vehicles including a Jeep and 8 tri-cycles.

DDI said in a statement on the apprehension of the 56 insurgents that Defence Headquarters believed that some stranded terrorists are keen on establishing new camps but are being trailed accordingly.

He further said “there were also a few encounters with some insurgents in forest locations apart from the identified and destroyed camps”.

With aid of trained Military Police dogs that are participating in the cordon and search phase of Special Operations against terrorism in the country various attempts being made by the insurgents to escape to enter towns and cities in the North East as troops dislodge them from their forest bases, were also foiled by the dogs.

The efforts of the specially trained dogs have so far led to the arrest of over 50 terrorists who were trying to infiltrate Maiduguri as more than 15 of them were arrested with arms concealed in their body or properties.

At Deseri forest, 3 Hilux vehicles mounted with anti-aircraft were destroyed; one Voxwagen Golf car and four motorcycles were also recovered.

Troops also noted that there were a couple of foreigners from neiboring Chad and Niger amongst the insurgents in Borno.

Five Nigeriens and two Chadians were among the fleeing insurgents apprehended by the Special Forces as troops continue their pursuit of terrorists dislodged from their bases within last week.

The seven were among the 9 arrested at Tumbu Gini, a border town with Chad as they tried to cross the borders into Chad but the man suspected to be leading the group escaped with gunshot wounds.

A separate statement also signed by the DDI said the Defence Headquarters observed that the insurgents were getting weaker as the day goes by and have run short of provision.

Messages calling for support from Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as other cohorts of the insurgents were intercepted by the troops.

“This is a clear confirmation of the level of pressure which has been brought to bear on the insurgents” Olukolade said in the statement.

He further said attempts are being made by insurgents and their collaborators to push into public domain, questionable and manipulated messages meant to misinform the public.

This development according to observers, should be sustain by the JTF and other collaborating agencies to arrest the situation and bring normalcy to citizens and other foreign nationals living in those re-

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 27

DEFENCE

UN commends Nigeria’s peace support efforts Stories by Joy Baba

T

he United Nations (UN) has once again commended Nigeria for her peace support efforts in Liberia and other parts of the world.

UN Secretary General, Mr Ban Ki-moon, gave the commendation recently in Monrovia, Liberia, during a Medals Presentation Parade in honour of the Commanding Officer, Colonel Obinna Ajunwa and his personnel in Nigerian Battalion (NIBATT) 31 as well as 758 other Nigerian peacekeepers in that country.

Mr Ki-moon who was represented at the occasion by the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) and Head of the United Nations Mission in Liberia, Ms Karin Landgren, noted with delight that Nigeria’s dedicated participation in UN peacekeeping dates back to as far as 1960 when Nigeria joined the UN operation in the Congo (UNUC) adding that such dedication had continued in Liberia to date.

Acknowledging the presence of a special delegation representing Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff at the occasion, the Secretary General observed that their presence was another demonstration of the importance the government and people of Nigeria attach to UN Peacekeeping and also to lasting peace and stability in Liberia.”

To the peacekeepers Mr. Kimoon said their constant patrolling, escorts and guard duties have contributed immensely to addressing cross-border challenges that has enhanced stability in Liberia and in the region.

He also commended them for their civil-Military programmes which he said had earned them the trust and respect of the communities they are serving.

The Secretary General also commended the NIBATT 31 for enhancing women participation

Soldiers display their combat readines in Monrovia, Liberia in their ranks, and expressed hope that they would inspire others to recognise their important contribution to peacekeeping as well as to meet and exceed those numbers.

Leader of the Nigerian delegation, Major General Mohammed Abubakar, on his part conveyed the perception of the President, Commander – In – Chief, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, that he is satisfied with the role the Nigerian Contingent is playing under the auspices of United Nation Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and the various achievements recorded in the area of peace and secu-

rity which are vital for the rapid development of Liberia.

General Abubakar noted that ever since the deployment of the Nigerian Contingent in Liberia, it has continued to display the core values of excellence and professionalism in all the various roles that it has been assigned.

He assured them that Nigerian Government was very pleased and proud to be associated with the Contingent as it has continued to bring glory to the nation.

The delegation Leader charged the peacekeepers to remain loyal, dedicated and not compromise for any form of self-

ish gains.

He further pointed out that Nigeria has had the honour to participate in over 48 peacekeeping missions that cut across Africa, Asia, Middle East, Europe and the Caribean adding that Nigeria will continue to support efforts at improving the Liberian security sector capacity building.

Also speaking at the event, the Commander Nigerian Contingent (NIGCON) and Sector Alpha, Brigadier General Kasimu Abdulkarim, said Nigerian Contingent are highly elated “as our individual and collective efforts are being recognized”.

Gen Abdulkadir pointed out that Nigerian Contingent in the mission comprised two battalions and the Sector Headquarters staff of 58 personnel, adding that the contingent jointly carries out about 2, 464 patrols monthly.

Highlights of the day’s event were the presentation of medals to the peacekeepers at a parade which had Major Anthony Ozemhoya as its Commander and a Combat Display, while cultural groups of Nigeria’s various ethnic groups entertained spectators in the second part of the day’s programme.

NDC commandant urges youths to be innovative

T

he commandant of the National Defence College, Real Admiral Jonah Lokoson has urged Corp members to be innovative and strive to create solutions to developing challenges in the country.

Lokoson, who was represented by the College Secretary, Air Vice Marshal Abiodun Idowu, stated this while addressing our going Batch-C

National Youth Service Corp members that served in the institution.

The Commandant further urged them to create jobs for themselves when they go out there instead of waiting for government or any form of white collar job.

He also expressed delight that there was no negative report about any of the Corp member all through their stay in the institution.

Army parades three suspects for trafficking Indian hemp

T

R-L: Secretary, National Defence College, Air Vice Marshal Abiodun Idowu, presenting a certificate to one of the outgoing NYSC members, who served at the college, recently in Abuja.

Photo: Joy Baba

he 176 Special Forces of the Guards Battalion of the Nigerian Army on over the weekend paraded three men for conveying 27 bags of substance suspected to be Indian Hemp.

Parading the suspects before journalist in Abuja, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of Guards Brigade, Capt Charles Ekeocha, said the suspects were arrested by the troops of the battalion while on patrol in Kwali.

He gave the names of the suspects as Mr Richard Humphery, Mr Umaru Abubuwa and Mr Friday Okeke adding that they were arrested on May 26 in a J5 bus with registration number Kano AE 163 AJG on their way to Kano.

The PRO further said the

seized items fully loaded in 50 Kg bags and were carefully concealed in the upper compartment of the bus to escape detection According to him “initial investigation revealed that the suspects were heading to Kano from Akure as they claimed the illegal goods belonged to one Mr Ikey who resides in Kano.

“The suspects were subsequently detained in the unit while efforts were made to lure the alleged owner from Kano to show up.

“The suspects, the bus and the bags of the substances would be handed over to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency for further interrogation and prosecution”.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 28

Agriculture Agriculture key to Africa’s economic growth, says Sambo Mohammed Kandi

F

ollowing the successes achieved from the various value chains of the ongoing Agricultural Transformation Agenda, Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo has said that agriculture has remained key in efforts to tackle Africa’s myriad challenges.

In a statement issued in Abuja by the Vice President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Malam Umar Sani, Sambo said the sector was responsible for the continent’s sustainable economic growth.

Speaking at the ongoing Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan, Sambo noted that agriculture accounted for a large portion of Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

According to him, President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration placed high premium on the reformation of the sector, adding that the sector had remained genuine means of diversifying Nigeria’s economy and tackling unemployment.

The Vice President, who informed that in 2012, agriculture accounted for 35 per cent of the country’s GDP, said: “It is with this

in mind that the Federal Government outlined a wellarticulated agricultural reform programme, aimed at developing the country’s agriculture sector through private sector-led inclusive growth strategy, with the ultimate aim at diversifying Nigeria’s economy away from oil.’’

Sambo, therefore, urged sister African countries to borrow a leaf from Nigeria, as ``Nigeria has moved from looking at agriculture as a programme to looking at it as a business enterprise that needs to be nurtured and sustained.”

He, however, stressed that for African countries, including Nigeria, to achieve a sustainable growth, tangible efforts should be made to develop agriculture across the value chain.

“This is because agriculture is the continent’s backbone, employing about 70 per cent of the workforce and accounting for about a third of Africa’s GDP,’’ he expalined.

Sambo, who called for closer collaboration with Japan to explore new areas of cooperation, urged the Japanese government, through TICAD, to partner with Africa in efforts to reposition its agricultural sector as a means of achieving

Ekiti state farmers displaying some of their farm products during the recent National Agric Show in Tudun-wada, Nasarawa state. sustainable growth.

Similarly, the Prime Minister of Japan, Mr Shinzo Abe, pledged that his country

would do more to address the developmental challenges facing the African continent.

Abe said that Africa was a

strategic economic partner of Japan, stressing the need to reposition the continent for rapid socio-economic progress.

A cursory look at Nigeria’s agricultural sector

By Salisu Na’inna Dambatta

T

here is a consensus among all analysts, statisticians, experts and watchers of the Nigerian economy that the agriculture sector in Nigeria is the single largest employer of labour. This fact was recently accentuated by the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku while speaking on Radio Link, the FRCN network live phonein programme.

The Minister of Information said that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has reported the creation of about 2, 000, 000 jobs from May 2011 to date, through its activities, specifically the development of the value chains of several crops.

The sector is also the largest single contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at 44.7 per cent, by far dwarfing the much-hyped Oil and Gas sector’s less than 20 per cent. Central Bank of Nigeria data has consistently shown that the agricultural sector is the second largest earner of foreign exchange for the country through the export of commodities, second only to the Oil and Gas sector.

Although there is a lot of outcry on the country’s habit of importing foodstuff we can grow

locally, the truth is that Nigeria is among a clutch of countries which are self-sufficient in the production of several crops on which the bulk of the population depend for theirdaily energy intake.

The Minister of Information alluded to this in the course of the live radio programme when he referred to the massive local rice and wheat production he saw during his Good Governance Tour to some states in the North-West of Nigeria. He was impressed with his participation in the thrashing of paddy rice on a rice farm that was being harvested.

Just like what the Minister of Information witnessed, this writer can say that based on what I know cumulatively, watching and reporting the Nigerian Agricultural sector in my journalism career from 1979 to date, successive managements of the Federal Ministry of Agricultureand Rural Development have always maintained that Nigeria is selfsufficient in the main staple crops.

These most important crops include millet, sorghum, cassava, sweet potatoes, coco yam, Irish potatoes, fresh tomatoes and pepper and several other horticultural crops such as Onions and many fruits, such as citrus, mangoes, pawpaw, pineapples and coconuts. Even in the case of rice, Nigeria was

self-sufficient, but started recording deficit, not because production was declining, but simply because rice transited from an occasional food treat to a common, ordinary food in more households, and of course, higher population and urbanisation.

Thus, despite boosting its local production, the farmers were unable to bridge the gap between demand and supply.

This led the country to import more of it: from around 300, 000 MT per annum in the 1980s, to around 650, 000 MT nowadays.

Statistics garnered from various sources indicate that Nigeria is the world’s largest producer of sorghum for human consumptions. It is grown in the country’s savannah ecological zones and in the area some environmentalists regard as the emerging desert land to the Northern ends of Borno, Katsina, Yobe, Kebbi, Sokoto and Jigawa states.

Nigeria is world’s largest producer of sorghum. It produces slightly more than 10% of world’s sorghum for human consumption or nearly 8.00 million metric tons per annum. Some 60 million MT of sorghum are produced world-wide every year. With government’s intention to transform its Value Chain, Nigeria’s status as the number

one sorghum producer will be deepened and sustained.

A 2011 USAID report on sorghum production in Nigeria says: “Sorghum is the primary food crop in virtually all parts of northern Nigeria. Sorghum also is used extensively in brewing, and industrial demand for sorghum is rising steadily.

Nigeria does not import any sorghum at the moment.

However, minimal amounts are exported informally toneighbouring countries.”

As for Cassava, Nigeria is the largest producer. It produces around 40 million metric tons per annum. A report by the Root and Tubers Expansion Unit in the Federal Ministry of Agriculture reported in 2008 that 54% of all Nigerians get their energy intake from various cassava food derivatives. It is one of the very few crops that are widely grown in all the ecological zones of the country.

Its foreign exchange earning potential for Nigeria has been proven when dry cassava chips worth US$118 million dollars were exported to China last year. This is not surprising as cassava has more than 360 actual applications. It is one of the few crops that are 100% useful, without any waste.

As we celebrate the year 2013 Democracy Day and the delivery of democracy dividend under the current dispensation,

readers and indeed all Nigerians should be proud of the fact that as climate change and other elements take their tolls on global food security, the situation in Nigeria is a bit different. Despite exces zsive leakages to our neighbours, Nigeria is food liquid. This is rare among developing countries.

Although the National Emergency Management Agency has reported a loss of over N2.6 trillion as a result of the flood that ravaged parts ofNigeria in 2012, the country was able to survive the crisis and there was no noticeable food shortage in the country. The government released food from its national reserve.

Now that the rainy season is coming up all over the country, farmers should brace up to do what they always do best: producing more affordable food for the people and saving the country from importing rice, wheat and tomato paste.

While talking agriculture, it is important for readers to appreciate that most of the factories that are manufacturing on sustainable basis in Nigeria are in the agro-allied sector.

This is a food for thought for those who want to have an accurate overview of the Nigerian economy.

Dambatta is a Federal Director of Information

PAGE 29

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Bank donates N100m agric inputs to Plateau flood victims

T

he African Development Bank (AfDB) has donated relief materials, including fertilisers, seeds, agrochemical and tiller machines to flood victims under its Fadama II supported programme in Plateau.

Speaking at the occasion, the bank’s Task Force Leader, Mr Danladi Ebbah, said the gesture was to provide succour to farmers grossly affected by the 2012 flood, which ravaged most southern parts of the state.

Ebbah gave the breakdown of the Flood Disaster Relief Support to include 5,100 bags of NPK, Urea and SSP, 16.5 metric tonnes of maize, rice and wheat Seeds, 8,200 satchet of assorted vegetable seeds, 6,300 litres of agro-chemicals, and ten small Tiller machines.

He said the management of the bank appreciated the pains of the farmers whose crops and homes were destroyed and to those who lost their love ones as a result of the flood, adding that the input support would enable the affected farmers to sustain their production.

Ebbah commended the implementation team of the Fadama programme in Plateau, saying that ‘’they have actually made the Fadama projects sponsored by the AfDB a success; they have made us proud; we are very happy.

“With the African development bank, our target is not the commercial farmers’; our target is the small scale farmers who are indeed the drivers of our economy.

“Of course, all the big time farmers we know they have their money; they don’t know what to do with the money, they go into farming and they always fail.

“But the small scale farmers are the engine of agricultural development in this nation and we cannot run away from it, and that is why we are saying that we are here for you this morning.

“The little that the Fadama projects is going to give is just to be a succour to you and I am very sure that you are going to use it, multiply it and bring much more,” he explained. Also speaking, the National Coordinator, National Fadama Coordination Office (NCO), Mr Tayo Adewumi, who was represented by Alh. Bala shuaibu, an admin officer in the office, said that more than N400 million was budgeted for the provision of relief materials in six states.

Adewumi said that out of the N400 million, Plateau got more than N100 million, based on the outstanding performance of the Plateau implementation office and the beneficiaries.

“This relief assistance is being extended to about six states namely Kwara, Kogi, Jigawa, Borno, Kaduna and Plateau. And the sum of over N400 million is voted for these six states.

“Out of this N400 million, Plateau state alone is talking over N100million, you can see Plateau is always at the top, implementation, Plateau at the top, disbursement Plateau at the top, relief materials, Plateau at the top.

“This is quite impressive and I am sure it is not out of nothing, it is actually the product of performance, because all these things are performance based. `` Earler, Mr Thaddeus Yelwa, the Project Coordinator in the state, thanked AfDB, the NFCO as well as the Plateau State Government and its 10 participating local governments for their continued support in changing the lives of the poor.

He said that 260 victims would benefits from the relief materials, adding that each of the victims would receive four bags of fertilisers, chemicals and improve seeds.

Agriculture

‘Nigeria set to lead Africa in fruit, vegetable export’ Abayomi Adetola is the Commercial Manager for the Sub-Saharan Africa operations of DHL Aviation. in this interview with a group of Journalists in Lagos, he speaks on myriad opportunities within the reach of Nigeria in the horticulture, fruit and vegetable export into European markets. Excerpts: Opportunities: e saw that agricultural produce is what Africa can export to Europe.

We found also that, until last year, Nigeria is the only country from which we have not been picking anything. Before then, from the past eight years of operation in Africa, it was only last year that we began to get things to pick for export from Nigeria.

From Nigeria, majority of those products are vegetables, such as ugu (Telfaria), water leaf (Talinum) and bitter leaf (Vernonia). From Nigeria, spices are not yet part of the export.

W

From Douala alone, weekly, no less than 60 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables are sentto Europe through DHL alone. Other airline cargo services come to drop their cargo in Nigeria and go to some other West African countries to pick up perishables back to Europe.

They export various types of pepper, ginger, cucumber, pine apples, banana flowers and vegetables.

Cotonou sends more than 45 tons weekly,and Accra 65 tons weekly.

These are all-year-round.

Destination countries within the Europe: Most of Nigerian markets are in London and Belgium. But for most of the francophone countries, their market is in Charles de Gaulle Airport in France.

Nigeria compared to other West African countries: A major issue is the health certificate. Before now, they called it

Eur1 form, but now, they call it Form A. Not much of health check isdone on import from other countries as done on produce emanating from Nigeria.

There is a particular certificate issue on produce coming from the exporting countries that we have not yet resolved.

It belongs to the exporting country.

Nigeria needs to address this as a country.

The airports in Nigeria are not yet developed for the exports of perishables.

Imports into Europe therefore often get destroyed.

Infrastructural issues such as cold rooms are yet to be developed for the export of perishables. The available infrastructure is only designed for imports.

Profitability: The exporters are having a good business exporting. The price structure on getting to Europe is like ratio 1:3 when compared to selling locally in Nigeria. That is when you compare

A farmer displaying high-yield cassava at the IITA., Ibadan

GMOs good for Africa’s development, says Harvard Don

B

iotechnology and genetic engineering have the potential to do for agriculture what mobile technology has done for the communications sector in Africa, a renowned Harvard University scholar, Prof. Calestous Juma, has said.

Prof. Juma, who spoke to Journalists recently in Mosambique, advocated for the adoption of Genetically Modified Orginisms (GMOs) saying they would boost food and income security.

He however, cautioned that it would be detrimental to adopt GMOs without clear flexible and supportive biotechnology regulations, asking Parliament to pass the Biotechnology Bill.

The Don was speaking at a public lecture organised by the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) in Kampala.

Prof. Juma has authored

several books on Africa’s development, including The New Harvest, which is arguably today’s most authoritative scholarly work on agriculture in Africa.

At the public lecture he emphasised the role of technology in transforming livelihoods, insisting that if Africa didn’t embrace GMOs in agriculture, the problems like climate change, pests and diseases that have dogged the sector over the years would devour production to shocking levels.

He cited the Banana bacterial wilt which has devastated banana growers in Uganda, saying the problem would be deterred is farmers planted GMO banana varieties that are resistant to the wilt.

He decried the phenomenon of resisting new technologies, saying it won’t help Africa to develop. On the safety of GMOs, he likened the current debate to the rumours that were circulated during the early days of mobile technology

that the phones would cause brain cancer.

According to him, instead of focusing on rumours that discredit GMOs, it was prudent for governments to empower institutions to effectively check the safety standards of each product introduced on the market.

He said biotechnology had caused a 24% increase in cotton yield per acre and a 50% growth in cotton profit among US smallholder farmers between 2006 and 2008. It raised consumption expenditure by 18% during the period.

He cited another report which said GMO crops that are pest-resistant had suppressed pests even beyond gardens where they were planted to assist farmers who don’t grow GMOs. “Biotechnology and in particular GMOs are not per se more risky than conventional plant breeding,” he asserted.

Source: New Vision

what you get by selling locally to when you export. They recover their costs easily.

Handling of perishable items: On our part, it constitutes more than 80 per cent of what we put on our flight back to Europe. For what we have been doing for more than eight years, with the experience, we consider ourselves as experts in perishable handling.

Prospects for Nigeria: I see the prospect as bright for Nigeria, with government backing. If we are doing it individually, it will take a very long time for us to get to where we want to get to. Most airlines drop their cargo here in Nigeria and go to Accra to pick fresh products, or to Nairobi to pick flowers.

They burn fuel in going to these places.

If they have something to pick from Nigeria, the prices will be lower. We will be able to compete favourably at the export market. It will create a lot of jobs for many Nigerians.

Experiences: From our aspect, we are putting in all our experience of some years to show fellow Nigerians that we have markets in Europe for most of the products that are getting spoilt here in Nigeria. We want to open upNigeria for agricultural export so that we will be less dependent on oil. This is an area that can create a lot of jobs for the farmers, for those doing the packaging and those who truck the products to the airport. There are a lot of job along the supply chain and value chain, from beginning to the end.

Government support: Government needs to open up the market for people, ensure certification issues are addressed and ensure that the international airports have facilities for agricultural produce exports, not epending on the existing cargo facilities.

Progress in export market: Once we are able to break in, it is non-stop for Nigeria. The weather in Benin and Cameroon are similar to Nigeria’s. A farm I know in Cotonou sends more than 15 tons of pine apples every week on our flight to Europe.

The owner resigned from a UN job to do this business. In Nigeria, we can do better.

My duty is to ensure that the flights are full. I go to Malabo, Libreville and other countries capitals. When I challenge them on why their flights are not full, they ask me what are we sending from my country?

In Nigeria, before now, I used to think that we are so lazy and we don’t farm, but when I started going to farmers, they tell me they have land and that I should just tell them what I need, they will grow it for me. Things get wasted here, but there is market in Europe waiting.

Abayomi Adetola

PAGE 30

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Tribute

In memory of late Muhammadu Ladan

Corporation (BBC). After returning from Britain, he joined the services of the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1950 and became the Northern Regional Controller in 1957 before he left to become Clerk of the Northern House of Assembly. His stint as a broadcaster has inspired many in the family to follow his footsteps, just as his commitment to education made us all to value education.

In 1960, according to records, Alhaji Muhammadu was appointed chairman of the then Northern Nigerian Development Corporation, which later transformed into the New Nigeria Development Company Limited. He however resigned from NNDC in 1966 and took up appointment

with the Civil Service Commission of the North Central State.

Alhaji Muhammadu was married and survived by 23 children and many grandchildren and great grandchildren.

The children include Alhaji Yusuf Ladan, a veteran broadcaster, former General Manager of the Kaduna State Media Corporation (KSMC) Dan Iyan Zazzau and District Head of Kabala; Mallam Ilyasu Ladan, a one-time Director General Services in the office of the Secretary to Kaduna State Government; late Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Ladan, former Chief Accountant and Financial Officer at the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria; late Alhaji Bello Ladan, a one-time clerk of

the Kaduna State House of Assembly; and Alhaji Abubakar Ladan, former Secretary to Kaduna State Government.

Others are: Alhaji Aliyu Ladan; former Chief Nurse, Ministry of Health, Kaduna State; late Alhaji (Dr.) Ja’afaru Ladan, one-time Director Ministry of Agriculture; late Alhaji Umar Ladan, former Deputy Director, Department of Arts & Culture ABU Zaria; Alhaji Suleiman Ladan, former Director Federal Ministry of Information; late Alhaji Shehu Ladan, former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); Alhaji Ahmad Ladan; former staff of the Nigeria Ports Authority; late Aminu Ladan, who died at an early age; and Honourable Justice Mannir M. Ladan of the Federal High Court Kaduna State.

The rest are: late Hajiya Hadiza Ladan; Hajiya Halima Maiwada Abubakar (CEO of Mecca Medina Travels Agency); Hajiya Safiya Tukur (former Permanent Secretary Ministry of Women Affairs in Kaduna State); Mrs. Yelwa Fatima Baba-Ari (Director of FCT Secondary Education Board); Hajiya Gadatu Falaki of the Kaduna State Judiciary; Hajiya Asmau Ladan (a senior health practitioner); Hajiya Raliya Mohammed Balarabe (Director School of Applied Sciences Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic Zaria); Hajiya Salamatu Lawal Aliyu, Hajiya Maimuna Bello Sani; and Hajiya Murjanatu Aminu Bello Maitama.

Indeed, one of the ways through which the living can benefit the dead is through constant prayers. In this light I say, Oh Allah! bless the souls of the departed, and bless us with those who will pray for us when we depart.

The New York Times reports that the device can be put in place by two nurses who require little training, it only takes four minutes to apply, it is disposable, and there is no need for sterile conditions.

It is also cheap compared to surgery and the device is easy to ship and store.

The manufacturer also claims there are no needles involved and no loss of blood, the patient can return immediately to their daily routine, and it does not require the use of unsightly stitches or sutures.

Circ MedTech, the social enterprise that created PrePex, claims that 25 million people have already died of AIDS and that another two million people are infected every year.

In 2007, the WHO reported that male circumcision in high risk parts of African

can reduce the risk of HIV infection by 60 per cent.

The reason for this is that the foreskin acts as HIV’s main entry point to the body during penetrative sex between an uninfected man and an HIV-infected person.

This is because the inner surface of the foreskin contains a higher proportion of the cells that HIV targets, such as T-cells.

It is hoped that the device will slow the spread of HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa as heterosexual men in high-risk areas are 60 per cent less likely to become infected if they are circumcised It also has less keratin, a protein found in the skin, which has a protective effect.

Circumcision can also reduce the likelihood of genital ulcers, which increase HIV risk by creating a break in the skin through which the virus can enter the body.

In addition, any small tears in the foreskin that occur during sex make it much easier for the virus to enter the body.

However, surgical circumcision requires surgeons working in sterile surgical conditions – something which is often not available in the parts of Sub-Saharan Africa where HIV is most prevalent.

In 2011 UNAIDS, the US Government, the WHO, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the World Bank launched an action plan to carry out 20 million voluntary circumcisions by 2015.

They believe this will save 3.4 million lives and US$16.5 billion in long term healthcare costs.

Circ MedTech believes that the PrePex offers a ‘safe, simple and scalable’ way of achieving this goal.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Aliyu U. Ladan

A

lhaji Muhammadu Ladan, as the Almighty Allah had decreed, passed on years before I was born. I did not get to share a conversation of words with my grandfather; I also never had the opportunity to be in his arms. But he has succeeded in influencing my life in a very positive way. Many of those who happened to know him say he was a respected family man, a professional teacher, a seasoned broadcaster, was humble almost to a fault, and much more.

On May 16 this year, it was exactly 43 years since his demise. But his memories remain ever fresh in our hearts. I understand why they say a good name is worth more than silver and gold. I and my numerous cousins – and even nephews and nieces – are still using his name.

Born in 1914 – the year Nigeria’s Southern and Northern Protectorates were amalgamated to become one country – Alhaji Muhammadu Ladan died while serving as the Permanent Commissioner in the Public Service Commission of the North Central State.

He died as a result of heart-related ailment and was buried in his hometown of Zaria according to Islamic rites. My grandfather was educated at the Zaria Provincial Middle School between 1921 and 1928. He was also at the then famous Katsina College from 1928 to 1933.

As fate would have it, he later taught at the Katsina Training College and between 1933 and 1934, and at the Zaria Provincial Middle School between 1934 and 1948. He worked diligently and rose through to become the headmaster of the school for some time.

In 1949, he went to Britain where he worked with the British Broadcasting

News Extra

By Emma Innes

A

new method of carrying out male circumcision without the need for surgery has been approved by the World Health Organisation.

The PrePex circumcision device uses an elastic band to cut off the blood supply to the foreskin until it dies and falls off, or can be cut off painlessly.

It is hoped the device will help to reduce the spread of HIV in Africa because being circumcised reduces a heterosexual man’s risk of becoming infected by 60 per cent.

The PrePex device works by using an elastic band to cut off the blood supply to the foreskin which causes it to die meaning it falls off, or can be cut away painlessly. It takes two nurses just four minutes to fit the device The technique does not require a general anaesthetic and is believed to be safer than surgery.

Muhammadu Ladan

The ‘elastic band’ circumcision device that could reduce HIV infection rate by 60%

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

ANALYSIS

By Kumi Naidoo

T

he Greenpeace office in Istanbul has been under siege. It is in the heart of Taksim, an area in which a brutal police clampdown has been trying to end the peaceful protest over the planned destruction of the small, and historic, Gezi Park by Taksim Square. The protest has grown to involve tens of thousands of people and drawn the support of people from all over the world.

There is a little calm in the storm now as police have withdrawn from Gezi Park and the tear gas is dissipating. Prime Minister RecepTayyipErdogan, however, remains bullish about the plans to trash the park. He remains stern in his rejection of the peaceful protests but has conceded that the police may have over reacted. This is far from over.

In the past 24 hours, tear gas canisters have been thrown by police at the entrance of our building and on to our roof. We are not a threat, we are nonviolent and we are offering medical assistance to injured peaceful protesters or the heavily armoured police should they need it.

People are travelling from all over Turkey to Taksim, people are gathering elsewhere in the country and around the world in solidarity to say “I am in Gezi” and to say “we are watching and we are horrified by the brutality”.

It is no longer about a handful of trees in a tiny park or the plans to cover it with a shopping mall. But, make no mistake, the fundamental human need for natural spaces over the inexorable march of shopping malls remains an important factor.

The clampdown in which heavily armoured police unleashed a fog of tear gas and a volley of rubber bullets injuring and hospitalising peaceful protesters, has reminded people of Tahrir and Occupy Wall Street. Perversely, perhaps, it has also emboldened them, hardened them and brought into sharp focus that this is now a struggle for the quality of Turkish democracy. It is a struggle for the right to peaceful protest; a struggle to say people and nature come before the business interests of powerful elites and their insatiable greed for profit.

Many other issues and concerns over Prime Minister Erdogan’s constant erosion of civil liberties and environmental protections are being masked by the “fog of war”, the vast clouds of tear-gas wafting across Taksim.

Freedom of speech and the right to peaceful assembly are sacred principles, without which democracy cannot prevail. These principles must be respected by the Turkish authorities. The violence against protesters must stop!

Regular updates from my colleagues in our Greenpeace office in Istanbul are a cause of great concern and of pride. Our staff, supporters and volunteers stand in solidarity with those who demand the protection of the park.

They stand in solidarity with those demanding an end to the police brutality and all violence.

PAGE 31

International

The last tree or the final straw?

The Greenpeace office in Istanbul has been providing medical attention to injured protesters [VolkanCagali/Greenpeace] Our office is located on Istiklal Street, the main avenue leading to Taksim square - just one kilometre from it. The protests have spread along the street and police officers have been confronting demonstrators directly under the office, using tear gas and water cannons. Access to the office has been impossible at times and the air is acrid.

However, our office has remained opened throughout the night and will remain open as long as is needed.

We are taking in injured and

exhausted protesters. We are offering respite from the storm and first aid to the injured. A number of doctors and medics have joined us to provide triage for those in need. The atmosphere is tense but our activists are resolute in their determination.

I am alarmed by the inability of the media channels in Turkey to fully cover what is happening - for years they have been subject to government suppression and censorship.

But across social media, citizen

“

to citizen, peer to peer, the news is being heard and seen. The authorities are being watched and condemned. Photos, videos and tweets have been flooding the net. Hundreds of offices and business places in Istanbul have been opening their wifi networks for public access - making a mockery of the notion that news can be controlled - to make up for the phone data network being shut down trying to prevent people from reporting what they are seeing. Our teams in Turkey are

Our office has remained opened throughout the night and will remain open as long as is needed. We are taking in injured and exhausted protesters. We are offering respite from the storm and first aid to the injured.

regularly updating our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

We hope all of our staff, supporters and volunteers stay safe but we also support the risk they are taking. In these trying times, we embrace our core values of peace and non-violence, of bearing witness and taking action.

To Prime Minister Erdogan I say stop the violence, end the brutality and open up the media to allow a full debate of the issues. The world is watching.

We have heard the Prime Minister rightfully call for peace elsewhere in the Middle East. He must now walk that talk at home. We appeal to him not to repeat the tear-gassing and brutality of the last days, we ask for him to stay the rubber bullets and batons.

Violence serves no one’s interest.

Our thoughts, our hearts and our solidarity are with the people of Istanbul and the people of Turkey. Pay attention, seek out news of what is happening and add your voice to the clarion call for the violence to stop, for the park to remain and for the right to peaceful protest to be upheld.

Source: Aljazeera

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 32

International

Guinea media calls strike after government shut opposition radio G uinean media called a 24-hour strike for Thursday in protest at the government’s closure of an opposition-owned radio station for one month before the June 30 election after a listener called on the air for an uprising.

The long-delayed vote is supposed to seal a democratic transition after a 2008 military coup in the mineralrich West African nation. But the opposition says it fears the ballot will be rigged and has staged violent protests to try to block it.

Increasing political tension has alarmed many investors in the West African country, the world’s largest exporter of bauxite, threatening to deter much-needed capital as it seeks to diversify its economy.

The state communications regulator suspended Planete FM radio on Thursday after a caller urged a revolt against President Alpha Conde. Planete FM,

owned by opposition spokesman AbdoulayeSylla, cut the caller off and criticized his appeal.

“The National Communications Council’s decision respects neither the law on freedom of the press nor the constitution,” said BoubacarYacineDiallo, head of the URTELGUI media association. “We demand that the CNC revoke this sanction.”

Guinean law allows the closure of private media for a maximum of 72 hours for any act that might threaten state security.

International media watchdog Reporters Without Borders said in a statement the CNC was acting like an institution “outside the law” as its ruling was based on a 1991 statute which had been superseded by subsequent legislation.

More than 50 people have died in three months of political violence and ethnic clashes between

L-R: ECOWAS Commissioner Political Affairs, Dr. Salamatu Husseini Suleiman; Vice-President Mohammed Namadi Sambo; and President ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Kadre Desire Ouedraogo; during the closing ceremony of the 5th Tokyo International Conference on African development, yesterday at Yokohama, in Japan.

pro-opposition Peuls and the Malinke group which supports the government.

Guinean media have reported an increasing number of violent attacks on journalists by both government and opposition supporters.

“Journalists have been attacked and threatened, radio stations have been attacked, all during political protests,” Diallo said.

Conde has ordered an investigation into a round of protests

in late May in which 12 people died in clashes between police and demonstrators.

The opposition has called on the government to revoke the licence of South Africa’s Waymark to update the voter list, saying Waymark is stuffing the register with Malinke voters.

The company denies this and the government says there is no time to appoint a new company to do the job.

Worker killed in South Africa’s Lonmin mine

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worker has been shot dead at a Lonmin mine in South Africa, the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) says.

The murder is the latest in a new wave of unrest to hit the troubled platinum belt.

“One of our members was attacked with a gun in our office at Lonmin’s Western Platinum mine,” spokesman LesibaSeshoka said on Monday, adding the worker later died.

The shooting happened near the town of Marikana, 120km

northwest of Johannesburg, where police shot dead 34 miners in a single incident in August last year, the deadliest police action since the end of apartheid.

Police confirmed a shooting at Marikana but said they were still gathering details.

Seshoka could not confirm who was responsible for the attack.

In the past both unions have accused each other of attacking and killing their members.

Industrial relations goes sour again as workers protest death of their colleague.

Japan’s Shinzo Abe hails Africa as ‘growth centre’

A

frica will be an engine for world growth in the coming decades and Japan has to invest more on the continent, Japan’s prime minister has said.

Shinzo Abe was speaking at the end of a three-day conference on African development in Yokohama.

Japan pledged $32bn (£21bn) in aid to Africa, including money

Japan PM, Shinzo Abe (L)

to tackle insecurity.

Japan appears to be worried that its rival China has built a strong presence in Africa, correspondents say.

“Africa will be a growth centre over the next couple of decades until the middle of this century... now is the time for us to invest in Africa,” Mr Abe said at the end of the conference co-hosted with the African Union (AU), World

Bank and UN. “Japan will not simply bring natural resources from Africa to Japan. We want to realise industrialisation in Africa that will generate employment and growth.”

Critics repeatedly accuse China of simply making a grab for resources in Africa, but it denies the charge.

It says it has invested heavily in building infrastructure on the continent.

Japan’s five-year aid package includes spending in the public and private sectors to create jobs and develop infrastructure.

“We hope to further support and continue to expand together with Africa. We hope to develop a win-win situation in our relationship,’’ Mr Abe told a press conference.

About 1,000 Africans would be offered opportunities to study and work as interns in Japanese companies, AP news agency reports.

The aid package sets aside

about $1bn to help stabilise the Sahel region, where al-Qaedalinked militants have gained a foothold, AFP news agency reports.

Jap a n w o u l d a l s o t r a i n some 2,000 people in counterterrorism activities, it reports.

The five-yearly conference adopted a declaration pledging to promote trade, tourism and technology transfer.

It described the private sector as “a vital engine of growth” and said legal and regulatory frameworks should be improved in Africa to boost investments.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister HailemariamDesalegn said it was important that the declaration be implemented “ t o t h e s atisfaction of both sides”.

Among other African leaders who attended the meeting were Mali’s interim President DioncoundaTraore, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Sierra Leone’s Ernest BaiKoroma.

Niger says ‘terrorists escaped’ in jail raid

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iger’sgovernmenthassaidthat about 22 inmates, including several “terrorists”, escaped a prison in the capital Niamey after armed men attacked the jail.

The statement came on Sunday, a day after officials said the escape bid had failed.

MarouAmadou, the justice minister, who also acts as government spokesman, said that inmates facing terrorism charges had killed three prison guards and seriously wounded three others during the shootout on Saturday.

“It has emerged from initial investigations at the site that the aggressors obviously benefitted from outside complicity regarding the weapon introduced into the prison,” Amadou said.

Among the escapees was CheibaneOuld Hama, who was imprisoned for killing four Saudis and a US citizen, Amadou said, adding that Hama was “actively sought”.

Hama was sentenced to 20 years in prison in June 2012 for his involvement in an attack on a group of tourists on a hunting safari that killed four Saudi nationals in December 2009 and the killing of an American in a bar in Niamey in 2000.

The escaped prisoners are “a danger for the region”, a Malian security source said.

The prison attack happened a little over a week after twin suicide bombings on an army base and French-run uranium mine claimed more than 20 lives in northern Niger on May 23.

Two armed groups - Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Signatories in Blood claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying they were in retaliation for Niger sending troops to participate in a French-led military operation against al-Qaeda-linked fighters in neighbouring Mali.

He called on the West African country’s people to “remain calm” and exercise their “duty to be vigilant”.

In a separate incident, officers from Niger’s anti-terror squad killed one person and wounded another on Sunday when they opened fire on what they said was a suspiciouslooking 4WD vehicle with tinted windows that had been driving back and forth in front of their headquarters.

Amadou said officers had given the “usual warnings” before firing shots in order to stop the vehicle.

The car’s other two occupants have been taken into custody, he said.

Residents said the vehicle may have simply been cruising around central Niamey..

PEOPLES DAILY , TUESDAY, JUNE , 2013

PAGE 33

International

Taiwan’s former president attempts suicide

T

aiwan’s imprisoned former President Chen Shui-bian tried to kill himself but was stopped by guards, the Justice Ministry said.

A ministry statement said Chen used a towel to try to kill himself on Sunday night in a bathroom at Taichung prison in central Taiwan.

It did not elaborate on how the towel was used.

Without commenting on any injuries Chen may have suffered, the statement said he was in stable condition on Monday at the prison, which is part of a hospital compound.

The 62-year-old is serving a 20-year sentence for corruption offences committed during his 2000-2008 presidential tenure.

The statement quoted Chen as saying that he tried to take his own life to protest against his corruption conviction, part of which was based on his use of a special presidential fund to carry out secret Taiwanese diplomacy.

Chen has been receiving medical treatment in recent months for a series of health problems, including a heart

condition.

His office has been pressing for his release on medical parole, citing his poor health and his depressed state of mind.

Last week Chen announced he was applying for readmission

to the Democratic Progressive Party, the main opposition grouping, which he led during his presidency.

He left the party of his own volition after leaving the presidency in 2008.

The party has not formally responded to Chen’s application, but current party leaders have made it clear they fear that his readmission could harm their attempts to cleanse the party of the aura of corruption.

A

Chen Shui-bian is serving a 20-year sentence for corruption offences during his tenure [Reuters]

Mass anti-nuclear protests held in Tokyo

T

housands of demonstrators have rallied against the government’s consideration of restarting nuclear reactors in the Japanese capital, Tokyo.

At least 7,500 people, including disaster victims and popular figures, gathered at a park in the city centre on Sunday, shedding light to the natural disaster two years ago that killed 19,000 and sparked a nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, whose Liberal Democratic Party has close ties with the nation’s powerful business circles, has repeatedly said he would allow reactor restarts if their safety could be ensured.

Protesters later marched through the capital, holding anti-nuclear banners including one which read: “No Nukes!

Unevolved Apes Want Nukes!”

They also demonstrated outside the headquarters of Tokyo Electric Power Co, operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant which was crippled by meltdowns after the March 2011 tsunami.

Kenzaburo Oe, Nobel literature laureate, was also among the protesters.

In March, more than 15,000 people gathered at the park demanding an end to atomic power two days before the anniversary of the disaster.

Japan turned off its 50 reactors for safety checks in the wake of the disaster but has restarted two of them, citing possible summertime power shortages.

Radiation from the plant, 220 kilometres northeast of Tokyo, spread over a wide area after the worst nuclear accident since the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Asia & Middle East Wuhan city in China to fine unwed mothers

Protesters on the streets of Tokyo.

Chinese city is planning to fine women who have children out of wedlock - a policy which opponents say will lead to more abandoned children.

The plans, drawn up by family planning officials in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, would target women who “knowingly have children out of wedlock”, according to a report in the Global Times newspaper.

Unmarried mothers could be charged six times the annual per capita disposable income in Wuhan, a figure equivalent to about $26,000.

Officials referred to the fines as “social compensation fees”.

Chinese state media said the law would help keep the birth rate low and aid family planning management.

The law was announced just days after a newborn baby boy was rescued from a sewage pipe in Zhejiang province. Reports suggest that the unmarried mother was shunned by the father, such is the social stigma of single parenthood in China.

Chen Yaya, of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, warned there could be more “sewer babies” if the policy is enacted.

Wang Qiong, a professor at Wuhan University, told the China Daily the regulation was “ridiculous”.

“What if a woman chooses to have a test tube baby without getting married?

Should she also be fined?”

The Global Times said that the fines would target unmarried women who cannot prove the identity of the father of their child, or those who have a baby with men who they know have spouses.

China warns U.N. against ‘irresponsible remarks’ on North Koreans

C

hina warned the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees on Monday against making “irresponsible remarks” about nine North Korean defectors the U.N. believes were repatriated to their isolated, authoritarian homeland by China last week.

The United Nations said on Friday that it was concerned about China’s return of the nine young people to North Korea, where they face severe punishment, possibly execution, for having fled.

The nine, all believed to be orphans, were first sent back to China after crossing into Laos.

The office of the UNHCR said last week it was seeking clarification

from both China and Laos.

“We hope that the UNHCR does not make irresponsible remarks based on unv erified news,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a daily news briefing.

The nine returned to North Korea last Tuesday, said Hong, but he denied Pyongyang had sought to have them returned.

“China hasn’t received any requests by parties concerned to assist in the repatriation of these people,” he said.

“As verified by the Chinese side, the nine people entered China on May 27 and left China for Korea on May 28 holding legal and valid documents and

visas,” he said. “Chinese border authorities inspected their travel documents and approved their exit.”

Hundreds of North Koreans attempt to flee their country every year, often first crossing into China and then making their way to Southeast Asia. Many end up at a reception center in Bangkok from which they are flown to South Korea.

It is a highly risky trip of more than 5,000 km. In China, they must avoid North Korean agents, a network of informants and police. Many are repatriated from China and sent back to labor camps where they face possible starvation. Some have

been executed.

Asked about policy towards North Korean defectors, Hong said China always handled such cases based on “its domestic laws and international laws as well as humanitarian principles”.

“We always oppose making it an international and political issue or an issue of refugees,” he said.

International law requires that people be allowed to apply for asylum and not be expelled to a country where their lives or freedom may be under threat.

The U.N. human rights office last week called on Pyongyang to allow independent monitors to visit the defectors.

PEOPLES DAILY, MONDAY, JUNE 3, 2013

PAGE 34

International

EU ‘needs new fundamental law’ -Verhofstadt

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new round of EU treaty change and referendums will be needed in 2015 after next year’s European elections, says one of the bloc’s top politicians.

The liberal leader in the European Parliament, Guy Verhofstadt, called for a “new fundamental law for the EU” to give the bloc long-term cohesion.

The former Belgian prime minister was speaking at a high-profile debate in London on the EU’s future.

EU politicians negotiated for eight years to seal the 2009 Lisbon Treaty.

The EU’s struggle to coordinate policy in the euro crisis has fuelled calls for a much closer political union, with a eurozone “government” and separate eurozone budget.

“There’s a failure in the way we govern Europe - it’s inter-governmental... we need a far more integrated Europe,” said Mr Verhofstadt.

Formal talks on revising t h e EU treaties should start in early 2015, he said, as “it’s necessary to deal with the problems - not just economic, but also defence”.

But putting such reforms to popular votes is fraught with risk for EU politicians, amid growing Euroscepticism in many EU countries.

Treaty changes have to be agreed unanimously by the 27 soon to be 28 - member states.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has acknowledged that treaty changes will probably be necessary to ensure long-term stability in the eurozone.

Turkish Prime Minister calls for calm after days of protests

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urkish Prime Minister TayyipErdogan called for calm on Monday, after a weekend of fierce antigovernment protests, urging people not to be provoked by demonstrations he said had been organized by “extremist elements”.

The main Turkish share index fell by 6.67 percent when markets reopened. The lira was also lower and bond yields rose.

“Be calm, relax, all this will be overcome,” Erdogan told a news conference at Istanbul airport before his planned departure on an official visit to Morocco.

Tens of thousands of people took to the streets in Turkey’s biggest cities over the weekend and clashed with riot police firing tear gas, leaving hundreds of people injured.

Streets were calmer on Monday morning after another

Tayyip Erdogan

night of noisy protests and violence in Istanbul, Ankara and other cities.

The unrest was sparked by protests against government plans to redevelop Istanbul’s

Taksim Square, long a rallying point for mass demonstrations, but widened into a broad show of defiance against the Islamistrooted Justice and Development Party (AKP).

London since June 2012 to avoid extradition to Sweden for alleged sex crimes, told Al Jazeera that the case is a matter of international diplomatic significance as it “involves every country on earth”.

“In order for there to be justice there has to be public oversight,” said Assange, who added that that the prosecution for Manning’s proceedings plan to call 141 witness, out of which at least 31will have their testimony kept “completely secret”.

The military trial at Fort Meade, Maryland, is expected to run until at least late August.

Prosecutors have said they expect to call more than 100 witnesses.

Civil liberties groups say the court-martial has been shrouded in secrecy and threatens to stifle whistleblowers.

Manning faces 21 counts, including the most serious one

of aiding the enemy, as well as prosecution under the Espionage Act of 1917.

“It’s probably the most dramatic example of the administration’s use of the Espionage Act to prosecute leaks of information to the media,” said Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Centre for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Programme.

“It’s quite dramatic, and the government will say that it’s proportionate to the crime.”

Manning, an intelligence analyst, was arrested in May 2010 while serving in Iraq. He was charged with downloading intelligence documents, diplomatic cables and combat videos and forwarding them to WikiLeaks, which began releasing the information that year.

Manning testified in February that he had released the files to

Europe and Americas “This is a protest organized by extremist elements,” Erdogan said. “The fact the AK Party has increased its votes at three elections in a row and has successfully won two referendums, shows how the people of this nation have embraced the AK Party.”

In power for more than a decade, Erdogan’s AKP has increased its share of the vote in each of the last three elections. Turkey has boomed economically and its influence has increased dramatically in the Middle East and on the global scale.

But many Turks, including some former supporters, accuse Erdogan of growing increasingly authoritarian, muzzling the media, tightening the AKP’s grip on the state and putting religion at the centre of politics in violation of Turkey’s secular constitution.

US soldier goes on trial over leaks

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n American soldier faced his first day on trial accused of the biggest leak of classified information in US history, with prosecutors saying his actions aided the enemy.

Private Bradley Manning, 25, is charged with providing more than 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy website, including a video showing an Apache helicopter kill a group of civilians and two Reuters journalists in Iraq.

He said the move was intended to spark renewed debate on US military action. But the government says the leaks damaged national security and endangered American lives. He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who has taken refuge in the Ecudorean embassy in

spark a domestic debate on the military and on foreign policy in general.

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” he said at the time.

“I felt I accomplished something that would allow me to have a clear conscience.”

One of the leaked US military videos showed a 2007 attack by an Apache helicopter that killed a dozen people in Baghdad.

Bradley Manning

Central Europe floods leave six dead

Czech emergency rescue team has been supported by the military

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any people are dead or missing across central Europe as floods continue to devastate parts of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

At least six people have been killed due to the torrential rain, which put

much of central Europe on a state of high alert on Monday.

Five people were killed at the weekend in the Czech Republic, where the flooding was the worst in a decade, while in Austria one clean-up worker was killed in a mudslide near Salzburg.

Waters from three swollen rivers gushed into the old town of Passau in southeast Germany, one of the worsthit cities, pushing water levels to the highest they have been in 70 years.

Much of the city was inaccessible on foot and the electricity supply was shut down as a precaution.

Rescuers were using boats to evacuate residents from flooded parts of the city.

With water from the Danube, Inn and Ilz rivers relentlessly pouring into the city, markers set in 1954, when the city suffered its worst flooding in living memory, have disappeared beneath the rising water.

The German army said it has sent 1,760 soldiers to help local authorities and volunteers reinforce flood defences particularly in the south and east of the

country.

Chancellor Angela Merkel planned to visit flood-hit areas on Tuesday, spokesman Steffan Seibert said.

How her government responds to the emergency could influence the outcome of a nationwide election in September.

“It’s perfectly normal that the leader of the government would go to the region and see what is happening for herself,” Seibert said.

Shipping was stopped on parts of the Danube and Rhine rivers in Germany, both important arteries for shipping grains, coals and other commodities, because of the high waters.

Authorities in the Czech Republic worked on Monday to erect further protective metal barriers along the Vltava river, which also flows through the capital Prague.

Volunteers piled up sandbags to keep the swollen river from overwhelming the city’s historic centre after floods forced factories to close and drove thousands from their homes.Rescuers evacuated about 2,700 people across the western half of the country where the government declared a state of emergency in most regions.

Some had to leave their homes in the southern neighbourhoods of Prague while further evacuations have been under way in the northern Czech Republic, awaiting a flood wave later Monday.

The last time central Europe saw similar floods was in 2002, when 17 people were killed in the Czech Republic, and damage estimated at $26bn was inflicted.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 35

Strange World

Idol rock – nature’s balancing act T he 50-acre expanse of Brimham Moor in North Yorkshire, England is home to a number of curious rock formations shaped by tens of thousands of years of erosion, but the most impressive of all is Idol Rock, a 200-ton monolith balancing on a tiny pyramidal base.

The 15-foot high Idol Rock looks like it’s about to crumble, but it never does.

Weighing an estimated 200 tons, the giant rock formation has been performing its amazing balancing act for as long as anyone can remember, defying the laws of physics and leaving the visitors of Brimham Moor scratching their heads in awe. Also known as The Druids Idol or The Druid’s Writing Desk, this unique attraction sits on a tiny lump of rock only one foot

in circumference. Photos of it have been circulating on the internet for years, with many claiming it is just the result of Photoshop manipulation, but the Idol of Brimham is very real, an example of Mother Nature’s artistic talent.

The whole of Brimham Moor is considered one of the United Kingdom’s strangest environments. During the Victorian era, the dozens of curiously-shaped rocks had everyone thinking it was a place created by the Druids, and it was only in the 20th century that people finally realized it was just the result of 18,000 of years of constant erosion. “For Brimham, could it be transported to Salisbury Plain, would reduce Stonehenge itself to a poor and py g m y miniature,” someone once said about this magical place.

This Aussie cattledog can balance any common household item on his head

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ack has an extraordinary talent. The bandannawearing pooch can balance pretty much anything on his head, from biscuits to glasses of water. Clever boy!

Using just positive reinforcement, lots of love and affection, the owners of this incredibly talented pup have taught him to balance ordinary household objects on his head.

Not just that, though, Jack manages to remain dignified and adorable the whole time.

From wine bottles to kettles to frying pans, there’s not much that Jack can’t balance on his head.

Jack’s owners decided to share their images on reddit via Imgur before taking requests for objects for Jack to balance.

They promise that Jack wasn’t forced or hurt in any way during the making of this series and that he was praised and rewarded the whole time.

When asked how he got Jack so well trained the owner, doigoid replied: “My girlfriend is really good with animals. When we first adopted him she told me “just always positively reinforce him when he does good”, so we have.

“We reward him for good behaviors (sometimes with treats, but mostly with praise). if he doesn’t understand what we’re asking, instead of scolding him, we just ask again until he get it or try to teach him another trick that’s easier.”He is a very happy, smart guy!”The grand finale was Jack’s own balancing act, perched atop of his owners legs.

Man fleeing police ends up alligator’s jaw

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man who was attacked by an alligator after fleeing police in Florida says he was in a fight for his life.

Bryan Zuniga, 20, told Tampa Bay’s Fox 13 News that he was swimming and trying to hide when a the alligator lunged at him.

Zuniga says he was nearly knocked unconscious when the alligator’s mouth hit his head. He fought back with both legs and the arm not caught between the animal’s jaws.

“I thought I was going to die,” he told Fox 13 News.

“The moment the gator’s mouth hit my head, I almost got knocked out. But my will to live kept me conscious and I fought back.”

The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office says Zuniga ran away and into a water treatment plant after being pulled over by deputies on Thursday. He was later found at a hospital being treated for puncture wounds to the face and arm area.

He has been charged with fleeing police.

Man had pencil in head for 15 years

D Jack can balance any ordinary household object on his head. Picture: Reddit via Imgur

The pencil which was removed from the head of a 24-year-old patient. AFP Photo

octors have removed a pencil from a mans head after he had lived with it for 15 years without knowing.

The 24-year-old man is believed to have suffered an injury in his childhood, which led to the pencil being embedded in his skull.

After years of head headaches, constant colds and worsening vision in one eye, the unnamed Afghan man decided to seek medical help.

After being taken for a scan in 2011, the Aachen University Hospital, in Germany, said a 10cm (4inch) pencil was found lodged from his sinus to his pharynx.

The object was also found to have injured his right eye socket.

Once the German doctors had removed the pencil, the man was cured and since then has had no adverse effects from his treatment.

Hospital spokesman Mathias Brandstaedter said the case had come to light after it was presented at a medical conference this week.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 36

Digest

Donating blood is good for your health

By Emma Robertson e all know giving blood provides an essential lifeline to those in need, but a growing body of research demonstrates that it could have health benefits for the donor too.

Findings have shown that donating blood reduces the risk of heart attacks and even cancer.

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It even burns 650 calories for every pint given.

The news could come as welcome boost to British blood banks which use an average of 7,000 units of blood every day.

It is thought that the benefits arise from lowering high iron levels.

Iron affects how thick and sticky the texture of the blood

British hospitals use an average of 7,000 units of blood every day

is. High iron levels causes the blood to be thicker.

Raised iron levels also accelerate the oxidisation process of cholesterol.

This can affect blood consistency and create increased friction as it travels through blood vessels.

As this increases wear and tear to the lining of arteries it could then contribute to cardiovascular disease.

Because donating blood removes some of its iron content, it may therefore have a protective benefit if done on a consistent basis by helping thin the blood.

According to a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that those aged 43 to 61 had fewer heart attacks and strokes when they donated blood every six months.

A study of 2,682 men from Finland found they had an 88 per cent reduced risk of heart attacks than those who don’t donate, reported Medical Daily.

Likewise, a study published in the Journal of the National cancer Institute also links iron to an increased cancer risk as it’s believed to increase free-radical damage in the body.

In line with this theory, a four-anda-half-year study involving 1,200 people found those who made bi-annual blood donations had a lower incidence of cancer and mortality than those who didn’t because blood donations lowered their iron levels.

However, these benefits depend on making donations on a regular basis, rather than once in a while.

Another side effect of donating blood is that it can burns a large number of calories too.

After donating blood, the body replaces all of the blood volume within 48 hours, and all the red blood cells within four to

Donating blood could help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and boost weight loss eight weeks.

The University of California in San Diego estimate that for every one pint of blood donated, 650 calories are burned as the body must replenish itself.

Although this could be seen as an attractive effortfree way to lose weight, the NHS Blood and Transplant centre still encourage people to donate for altruistic purposes for the benefit others first, rather than for themselves.

The NHS Blood and Transplant service currently collects 2 million units of blood each year from 1.3 million British blood donors.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Eat more fat to lose 10lb in twelve days

By Collette Lyons

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f you’d like to know where half the staff of the UK’s glossy magazines spend their mornings, I’d suggest you sign up for Educogym.

They’d probably rather you didn’t know about the programme that promises you’ll drop a dress size in 12 days - partly because the Harley Street gym is so small you could barely swing a pair of trendy trainers in it.

Before my first session, I’m weighed and measured. I have 36 per cent body fat (I’m told 25 would be ideal), and I’m a stone heavier than I’d like to be.

My sports bag rattles with all the supplements I’m handed to support my diet and speed up weight loss - iron, magnesium, creatine and amino acids.

Overseen by the instructors, I’m to do 15 minutes of weights a day, then 80 sit-ups to speed up my metabolism and ensure I lose fat, not muscle.

Then there’s the diet - it’s all sugar and carb free and based completely on fat (with green vegetables at lunch

and dinner).

My 12 days are an orgy of steak, eggs, avocado, nuts and cream cheese - in specific ratios of protein to fat.

The theory is that fat keeps the body’s insulin steady and helps you burn more.

But on the third day I get such bad shakes that I can barely get out of bed and have to cancel training, and by the fourth, the mere sight of an avocado is enough to turn me the same colour as the fatty fruit. I am advised to eat only when I am hungry.

But without the blood sugar rollercoaster of carbs, I simply don’t have an appetite. I bin breakfast and exist on two meals a day.

It does play havoc with my social life - there’s no alcohol allowed, and you get some very funny looks if you ask a waiter for 120g of steak and 85g of Philadelphia for dinner.

But after 12 tough days, I have lost 10lb (7lb of which is pure fat), and around 2in off my hips, stomach and back.

Was it worth it? Obviously. But I will never eat an avocado again.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Never eating an avocado again: The Educogym diet, based completely on fat, includes an orgy of avocados, nuts, cream cheese and steak...

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Nation building is a collective responsibility, says Saroh

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rof. Daniel Saroh, the 2011 ANPP gubernatorial candidate in Benue state, yesterday advised Nigerian leaders to regard nation building as a collective responsibility.

Saroh said in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja, that leaders must set aside their selfish interests and work for the collective growth and development of the country.

According to him, the crisis in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) was not healthy in a democracy and called on the governors to reconcile. ``If 35 governors cannot conduct credible election, how do you expect the INEC Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega to conduct a successful election in 2015,” he said.

“The crisis rocking the NGF is not likely to get better for the development of the country. The situation is not encouraging.

“Nigerians are getting pessimistic that the 2015 general election will be manipulated by government,’’ he added.

“Some of them are not even doing well in their states and they are fighting over the leadership of the forum’’, he noted, alleging that the group was only ``feeding fat on the nation’s resources in their various states’’.

He urged the PDP to be democratic in its operations by maintaining an all inclusive system that would carry everybody along in running the affairs of the party.

On the travails of Gov. Rotimi Amaechi, Saroh advised the PDP and the Federal Government to stop over heating the polity and allow the governor to run the affairs of his state.

(NAN)

PAGE 37

Oyinlola tackles PDP BoT member over comments on OBJ, Jonathan From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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ormer governor of Osun state, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, yesterday took a swipe at a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees, Alhaji Shuaib Oyedokun, accusing him of fanning the embers of discord in the party.

Prince Oyinlola, in a statement personally issued by him, said it was unbecoming of an elder like Oyedokun to seek to create a rift between President Goodluck Jonathan and former President Obasanjo with unguarded statements based on falsehood.

Oyedokun was quoted in a report to have accused the former President of causing divisions in the PDP by criticising President Jonathan last Wednesday in Dutse, Jigawa state.

Oyinlola said no fifth columnist can succeed through political subterfuge in creating a rift between the two foremost leaders of the PDP. He added that he suspected Oyedokun of being uneasy about current efforts by stakeholders to resolve all differences in the party

hence the statement.

“It does not lie in the mouth of Alhaji Oyedokun to romanticise about unity in the PDP after planting his own son, Femi Oyedokun in the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and putting his wife in Accord Party.

An elder that is genuinely interested in the unity of the party would not ask his son to go to the ACN seven days after his party lost power in Osun state and even lobby for the son to be made a commissioner in an opposition government. I expect Alhaji Oyedokun to first bring his own household back into the PDP before talking about anything in the party,” he said.

Prince Oyinlola said Oyedokun as an elder should have found out what Obasanjo actually said in Jigawa before concluding that the former President attacked President Jonathan.

“I have painstakingly found out that what former President Obasanjo said in Jigawa was that he was happy Governor Sule Lamido did not disappoint him given the role he (Obasanjo) played in his emergence

as governor. He then concluded with a Yoruba proverb: “you can help someone get a job, but you cannot help the person do the job. We got Lamido the job and he has done it well.”. That was it. There was no innuendo or allusion to President Jonathan in the statement which Oyedokun has now clung to further cause divisions in the polity. “ I am particularly worried that Alhaji Oyedokun did not agree with our BOT chairman Chief Tony Anenih, who, just last week at the PDP family dinner, called for peace and the resolution of all differences in the party. Could Alhaji Oyedokun be carrying out the usual assignment of throwing spanners in the works of genuine members of the PDP who are working hard to reconcile all its leaders and members andnreposition it for the tasks ahead? What could actually be his motive?

“I asked the above questions because in 2007 after Alhaji Oyedokun abandoned the PDP and joined forces with its opponents to found the Action Congress, and then lost out in the power struggle in that

opposition party,it took me time to beg Chief Obasanjo to accept him back into the fold and to even make him a BOT member of the PDP. It is very ironic that Alhaji Oyedokun is now using that position to attack his benefactor unjustly and seek to destroy once again, the PDP, the platform that has given him the visibility he currently enjoys .

“I also read that he claimed Chief Obasanjo is planning to go to another political party. I think by now Alhaji Oyedokun ought to know that Chief Obasanjo does not have the character of a betrayer. He is also not what in the military we call a deserter. He is a leader of the PDP and I am sufficiently close enough to him to know that he is ever committed to the growth and survival of the party and of the nation,” Oyinlola said.

Oyinlola also appealed to all PDP members in the south west to remain steadfast in their support for President Jonathan and the government’s transformation agenda. He further urged them to see current challenges as temporary and surmountable.

APC to end insurgency, corruption if registered

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eputy National Secretary of the CPC, Mr Okoi Obla, has said the All Progressive Congress(APC) is committed to stopping insurgency and corruption if registered as a political party.

Obla, a member of the APC Merger Committee, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday that APC would win the 2015 general elections.

He said that APC would wage war against indiscipline in the country if voted into power in 2015.

According to him, the party will provide better governance for the people through participatory democracy.

Obla said APC would provide employment to unemployed Nigerians if voted into power in 2015.

(NAN)

R-L: Chairman, Senate Committee on Business and Rules, Senator Ita Enang; presenting the key of an 18-seater bus to chairman, Nigeria union of journalists (NUJ), Akwa Ibom Council, Mr Joe Effiong, recently in Uyo. Photo: NAN

Akinjide expresses support for Ladoja/Akala’s recociliation

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inister of State for Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Chief Jumoke Akinjide, has expressed support for the ongoing reconciliation between two former governors of Oyo State, Rashidi Ladoja and Adebayo Alao-Alaka.

This is contained in a statement signed by Akinjide in Ibadan on Sunday.

Akinjide described the

action as a right step in the right direction, noting that her position had always been to encourage Ladoja, a founding Board of Trustees member, back into the PDP. She commended the efforts of the PDP Governor’s Forum, Gov. Ibrahim Shema-led Committee and the South West zonal PDP led

by Dr Yomi Finnih Committee at finding a lasting solution to the

current disunity in the Oyo State PDP. The minister said that her view was that no one could hijack the party machinery, adding that every loyal party member should unite to form a cohesive and allinclusive state executive.

According to her, the process must be based on truth and sincere reconciliation. ``Those who worked against

the PDP from within during the 2011 Elections will admit their errors and anti-party misdeeds and pledge full loyalty to the Party henceforth rather than narrow self interest,’’ she said.

Akinjide urged the PDP to unite and provide the Oyo State people with a more democratic and compassionate alternative to the ACN-led state government.

(NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 38

Politics PDP won’t win Gombe in 2015, says CPC chieftain From David Hassan, Gombe

Acting chairman of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in Gombe state, Alhaji Suleiman Hassan, has declared that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will lose it reelection bid in the state by 2015 insisting that it has failed to deliver on its electoral

promises.

According to him, the ruling party could no longer deceive citizens as every one was aware of its gimmicks, insisting that the party had failed to put smiles on the faces of the people.

He said with the merger of four political parties which include CPC, ACN, and ANPP

and part of APGA to form APC, the ruling party would no longer retain power both at the state and the federal levels.

The chairman also added that he nation has nothing to celebrate 14 years after democracy returned into the country. This is as he carpeted the PDP for opening up the country to ridicule to

the rest of the world by the way it’s governors handled the chairmanship election in the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).

While calling on the people to be circumspect in their votes in 2015, the CPC boss enjoined them to ensure that heir voted are counted before leaving the polling booths.

R-L: Clerk, Senate Committee on Women Affairs and Social Development, Mr. Sulaiman Jalam, receiving the Award of Excellence and Patronship on behalf of chairperson of the Committee, Senator Helen Esuene; from the Chairman, Civil Society Forum Akwa Ibom state, Comrade Uduak Akpan, during the forum’s visit to the National Assembly, recently in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Sen. Nwogu celebrates Supreme Court verdict in Aba, Abia

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en. Nkechi Nwogu says her victory at the Supreme Court is a manifestation of God’s hand in her life.

Nwogu, representing Abia Central Senatorial zone, made the declaration while celebrating her birthday and the court judgment in Aba on Sunday.

She said that the judgment by

the court would uphold and advance the principles of democracy in the country.

Nwogu said the victory would strengthened her to continue to uplift democratic principle, especially in the area of quality representation.

According to her, the victory has shown that nobody can truncate smooth democratic process in the

state.

She appealed to all to unite, saying: ``it is only unity that will make government remain focused and provide more democracy dividends to the people’’.

The senator commended members of the People’s Democratic Party and the entire people of the state who stood by her during the

legal tussle.

She said the court’s verdict was a clear testimony of good things to come in the state, noting that she had forgiven her petitioner.

Mr Emeka Atuma, challenged the return of Nwogu, contending that Osisioma Ngwa is not part of Abia Central as delineated by INEC (NAN)

PDP disowns Akala/ Ladoja 10-man committee From Inumidun Ojelade, Ibadan

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yo state chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has disassociated itself from the 10-man committee set up by two former governors of the state, Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala, and Senator Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, to work out modalities for an alliance. It says the duo are merely touting the party’s name in the political agenda to front their own parochial interests.

The party, speaking through one of its leaders, Dare Adeleke, declared that the touted inauguration of the proposed committee under the guise of PDP does not have the blessing of the States Executive Committee of the party.

He said neither the National Working Committee nor the National Executive Committee of the party is aware of such move.

While seeing the motives of the two former governors as self-serving, the party warned Otunba Alao-Akala, in particular, to desist henceforth from using the collective name of the party in the state.

The party also accused Akala of being disrespectful to the party hierarchy in the reconciliatory moves brokered by the national chairman, Dr. Bamanga Tukur stressing that the foul language he reportedly used against Tukur’s visit to Oyo State was condemnable.

In interim, the former governor has repeated for the uptenth time that he will never join the Accord Party as he celebrates his 63rd birthday at his residence, Amazing Villa, Bodija, Ibadan, yesterday.

Speaking with journalists, Akala said “Some people are misconstruing the inauguration of a reconciliatory committee we’re putting up at Senator Rashidi Ladoja’s house as me joining Accord party. I’m not joining Accord and I will never join Accord. We’re just trying to see how we can work together and bring some PDP members who are not happy back into the fold and make them happy.”

2013: Group to collect one million signatures endorsement for Ubah

By Umar Muhammad Puma

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coalition of youth associations in Anambra state yesterday disclosed that it has commenced the process of collecting one million signatures from indegenes of the state to endorse Dr. Ifeanyi Ubah as governor of the state come November this year.

The groups in a press conference in Abuja by the convener, Mr. Uzugo Chinwuba and Stanley Murphy, said this has become necessary in view of the fact that Ubah’s intention is to bring light and liberation to the people of Anambra state, who, according to them, have persistently been plagued by leadership crises.

“Ubah’s intention of becoming the next governor of Anambra state is one of redemption and prosperity, as the people of the state will witness an era of remarkable leadership and great transformation, which had never been witnessed before in the history of the state; We are appealing to those peace lovers and lovers of progress

in Anambra state to join hands in ensuring that Dr. Ubah is given all the necessary and required support to actualize his legitimate quest as the successor to the incumbent governor of Anambra state”.

The group also said it has uncovered an ongoing campaign of calumny and defamation against Dr. Ubah, by assembly of elites who feel intimidated by

Ubah’s overwhelming record of achievements and have no good intention for the entire people of the state.

The group called on the people of the state to disregard and ignore those people who are bent on employing all manners of falsehood and propaganda in achieving their despicable mischief.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 39

News Extra

Fake NSCDC officer in N8.5m job scam

By Tobias Lengnan Dapam

T

he Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) yesterday paraded one Mr. Wasiu Adewale Azees, for allegedly defrauding job seekers to the tune of N8.5m.

NSCDC alleged that the suspect had been parading himself as chief superintendent officer in Offa, Kwara state, where he carried out

most of his fraudulent activities.

But the suspect, who claimed to be a former volunteer in the corps, confessed to journalists that he had been working with some NSCDC senior officers at the national headquarters and Lagos command to defraud job seekers.

Parading the suspect in Abuja yesterday, the Corps Public Relations Officer (CPRO), Mr. Okeh Emmanuel, said the suspect was caught based on

various complaints received by the management of NSCDC over the personnel of the corps who have been collecting money from people in the name of recruitment.

Emmanuel narrated that, “unfortunately, one Mr. Wasiu Adewale Azees, from Offa, Kwara state who in his own capacity has decided to brand himself as chief superintendent, a senior officer of the Corps, decided to open his

own parallel organisation thereby recruiting job seekers illegally and giving them fake appointment letters upon payment of the amount demanded.”

Emmanuel added that the suspect was not only parading himself as a senior officer of the Corps but he was also “going about to impersonate in the name of Civil Defence, attending different functions in the uniform of Civil Defence, taking photographs

with senior officers of different services; such as Nigeria Army, Immigration, Police and Navy. So, it was these photographs he showed to his victims as a senior officer of NSCDC.” Speaking with journalists, the suspect said he gave N5 million to some NSCDC top shots who secured appointments in the Corps for those who paid him money and that the NSCDC was being unfair to him.

KRPC commissions boreholes for host communities From Mohammad Ibrahim, Kaduna

K

aduna Refinery and PetrolChemical (KRPC) General Manager, Ayodele Bolanle, has commissioned solar-powered boreholes and electrification projects for the benefit of the company’s host communities.

Speaking while commissioning the projects at Mahuta and Janruwa, Kamazo communities, the Bolanle said the company would soon open a petrol station to provide kerosene in the area.

“This is part of our social and corporate responsibilities to our host communities. Also the 33 KVA line of electricity will help supply electricity to residents of Janruwa in Kamazo and its environs,” he said.

Bolanle noted that Kamazo residents have spent years without electricity in their homes until KRPC came to their aid.

The KRPC management further added that the solar borehole alone cost N6.3 million while the electricity line cost N5.6.

Traditional rulers of the host communities commended the company for taking good care of the communities but urged the officials to end gas flaring and bush burning in the area, employ their youths even as they appealed for more meaningful projects for the communities.

Group urges FG to withhold Bauchi council funds From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

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group of concerned democrats operating under the aegis of Bauchi Alliance for Good Governance (BAGG) has called on the Federal Government to withhold the monthly statutory grants to the local governments until an election is conducted.

Leader of the group and former special adviser to former Governor Ahmadu Adamu Mu’azu, Comrade Chindo Abdulsalam, stated this while speaking to journalists at the Bauchi NUJ press centre.

He said despite the directive of the National Assembly to conduct local government elections nationwide, Bauchi state government failed to do so.

“We appeal to the Federal Government to withhold its statutory monthly grants to the councils until election is conducted.”

Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corp (NSCDC) parading fake officer, Wasiu Asewale Azeez (right), arrested recently in Oyo state for defrauding members of the public to the tune of N8.5million, talking to journalists yesterday at the corps headquarter, in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

Katsina House suspends Minority Leader From Lawal Sa’idu Funtua, Katsina

K

atsina State House of Assembly yesterday suspended the Minority Leader, Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim Mahuta, over a media interview alleged to be offensive to the House.

The motion for Mahuta’s suspension was moved by the Chairman of the Appropriation

Committee, Alhaji Ali Iliyasu Abubakar, and seconded by Hon. Bilyaminu Muhammad Rimi.

Abubakar alleged that the Minority Leader had in a recent interview with a newspaper accused the state government of poor budget performance.

He noted that the interview touched on the credibility and integrity of the House,

hence the need to investigate the matter and punish the lawmaker.

In his defense, Mahuta said he was misquoted in the interview disclosing that he had since issued a rejoinder to the newspaper organization.

However, Mahuta reaffirmed his stand on his statement in the interview where he alleged that out of

the over N400 million budgeted for the science and technical education board in 2012, no single kobo was released.

The Speaker, Alhaji Ya’u Umar Gwajo-Gwajo, noted that the House unanimously agreed to suspend the lawmaker while his case was referred to the Ethics and Privileges Committee for proper investigation.

‘Pure water’ machine electrocutes man in Bauchi From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

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25-years-old man, Emma Nkwogba, has been electrocuted as he attempted to take a nut that fell from the machine he was operating.

The late Nkwogba was said to be a native of Okigwe local government area of Imo state and was working in a table

water (popularly called pure water) company along Yandoka road in Bauchi metropolis. The Manager of the company, Zenith Pure Water, Mr. Eric Nwankwo, confirmed the incident to journalists in Bauchi yesterday and said Emma who was on night shift got electrocuted by one of the automatic pure water sealing machines when he attempted to take a nut that fell from the

machine while he was operating it.

“My staff got electrocuted when he tried to bring out a nut that fell under the automatic sealing machine. It was absolute carelessness on his part because when the nut fell under the machine, he knelt down and pressed himself close to the cable wires where there was a circulation of electricity as he

was trying to reach the nut. As a result of his body’s contact with the wires, he got electrocuted and could not move again.

He said he was out of town when the incident occurred and was devastated when he got the news of the demise of his best staff as the late Nkwogba “was very hard-working and managed the affairs of the company with all seriousness”.

PAGE 40

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

News Extra

Igbo group demands compensation for Boko Haram victims From Adesoji Oyinlola, Lagos

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he Igbo Nationality Right Assembly (INRA) has urged the Federal Government to compensate all victims of the Boko Haram bombings and other attacks in the northern part of the country, in the spirit of equity, fairness and justice.

National Convener of the group, Chief Sam Okey Nwosu,

made the call at the close of the group’s summit in Lagos.

Claiming that the Igbo constitute about 80 per cent of victims of the insurgent attacks, the group asked the Igbo at home and in the Diaspora to support the demand for compensation.

According to Nwosu, the INRA has initiated the compilation of data on identified victims of Igbo extraction to ascertain what they lost during the period.

He chided the Igbo over what Nwosu described as their lukewarm attitude towards pursuing their collective rights.

According to him, “the unity of purpose with which the Igbo will fight for the compensation for their unfortunate kinsmen will indicate how prepared they are to fight their marginalization in the scheme of things and have a Nigerian President of Igbo extraction.

“The elite who are supposed to stand and protect the interest of the Igbo would rather pursue their personal agenda against the interest of the race, while leaders of other races put the interest of their people at the front burner.

“Igbo leaders should come together to negotiate for whatever belongs to them, especially the presidency that has eluded the tribe all this while.

Orphanage appeals to Kogi Assembly for aid

eneral Manager of Katsina Urban and Regional Planning Board, Alhaji Usman Nadada, has disclosed that to ensure proper planning in the development of the area, government has approved the allocation of 6,000 residential plots of land.

Nadada who made the

Kano state Governor, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso (middle), receiving two prestigious awards from American Black Mayors, during the 39th National Annual Conference of Black Mayors, on Sunday in Atlanta Georgia, USA.

disclosure in an interview with newsmen in Katsina, noted that the government’s gesture would beat down the prices of land across the state and ensure proper planning.

He said the measure would also check indiscriminate carving of farmlands for residential purposes.

According to him, “the government is making sure that

adequate provisions are made for facilities in the carved out areas.

Nadada called on beneficiaries to make good use of the land given to them to own a house of their own, adding that the government would continue to provide an enabling environment for land developers.

On the flood prone areas, the he assured that the government had taken appropriate measures in

checking the incidences of flooding to, according to him, avoid a repeat of last year’s sad incident.

“We have gone round to monitor the flood prone areas. As you can recall last year we checked the illegal erection of structures along water ways in the state.

“Our monitoring team has reported that people have complied with our directives,” he said.

Borno trains women in skills, trades

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orno state government has trained about 5,000 less privileged women in different skills and trades as part of its women empowerment programme.

Hajiya Inna Galadima, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, disclosed this on Monday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri.

Galadima said the state government also gave the

etwork for Justice, a human rights organization based in Kaduna, has called on the military authorities to withdraw soldiers from the streets in Kaduna.

Describing the checkpoints mounted by soldiers as unnecessary, the group’s spokesman, Sadau Garba, said that peace had returned to the area and that the soldiers have nothing to offer.

From Mohammad Ibrahim, Kaduna

ational Youth Vanguard of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Bauchi state has commended the Governor Isa Yuguda over projects that the group said had transformed the state during his six year in office.

The state Coordinator of the group, Alhaji Sadat Saleh, and the General Secretary Umar Sabo, stated this while briefing newsmen in Bauchi, saying that Yuguda has moved the state forward.

According to Sadat, Yuguda’s administration has lifted the state to greatness in the areas of education, health care water supply rural electrification and youth empowerment.

From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

Katsina allocates 6,000 residential plots

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N

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From Lawal Sa’idu Funtua, Katsina

Group urges withdrawal of soldiers from Kaduna roads

PDP youth laud Yuguda on projects

From Sam Egwu, Lokoja he MOM’s Orphanage Home in Lokoja yesterday appealed to Kogi state House of Assembly to intervene in the provision of a vehicle to convey the children to school.

According to the proprietor, Mr. David Ede, the orphanage has so far produced five graduates with three of them serving under the National Youth Service scheme.

Ede who spoke when some members of the House of Assembly visited the orphanage, noted that due to the distance from the town, transportation, health facilities have become major challenges facing the school, pointing out that electricity has become a nagging issue to the home.

He urged the legislators to also to assist the graduands to secure jobs.

BRIEFS

beneficiaries trade tools such as sowing, knitting and grinding machines, to enable them start their own businesses.

She said the government also presented cash assistance of N100,000 each to about 40 widows, who lost their husbands as a result of the prevailing security challenges in the state.

Galadima said that the government also rehabilitated 80 women suffering from Vesico Vaginal Fistula (VVF), who had

undergone successful surgery. ``Part of the rehabilitation programme, include training in various profitable trades and vocation, to empower them economically to stand on their own,’’ she said.

The commissioner added that the ministry had also initiated plans to sensitise communities on the need to embrace VVF patients back into their fold after successful surgery.

Galadima said the ministry

was collaborating with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) as part of its efforts to prevent trafficking in persons from the state to neighbouring countries.

She recalled that the Department of Child Development in the ministry recently repatriated a young girl, who was rescued from some suspected human traffickers, back to her parents in Niger. (NAN)

Lamido flags off Sheikh Inyass Maulud in Jigawa

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overnor Sule Lamido of Jigawa state yesterday declared open the one week national Sheik Ibrahim Inyass Maulid celebration in Dutse.

He called on Islamic scholars to close rank and promote peace and unity among the Muslim ummah adding that Islamic.

Dr. Lawi Salga who represented Sheik Dahiru Usman Bauchi said Sheik Ibrahim Inyass showed signs of blessing since his childhood days adding that one of his greatest blessing is the propagation of Islam throughout West Africa.

From Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

Kebbi engages 1,500 for fumigation

T

he Kebbi state government on Monday said it would employ 1, 500 youths to undertake the fumigation of the entire state, to promote environmental health.

The state Director of Public Health, Alhaji Isa Argungu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Birnin Kebbi that N150 million would be spent by the government to purchase the herbicides needed for the fumigation.

Argungu said the youths would be engaged under the Subsisdy Fund Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P).

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 41

2014 W/C qualifier

We are ready for Super Eagles, Harambee Stars boast

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arambee Stars have again vowed to beat the Super Eagles to rekindle their hopes of qualification for the next round of the World Cup African

Champions John Kairuki, the Football Kenya Federation (FKF) media Officer said yesterday that the Stars were both mentally and physically ready

for the Eagles stressing that nothing would stop them from taking the three points from Nigeria.

“We are prepared for them. The team are ready and raring to go,”

Nigeria reject Kenya’s cheap accommodation for Eagles

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FF’s advance party yesterday frowned at the 680 Hotel reserved for the Super Eagles and has opted to arrange for a suitable accommodation for the team at the expense of the Nigerian government.

The hotel is right in the centre of town with so much noise around it, a situation that has compelled the NFF and the Nigeria High Commission to work on alternative accommodation for the African champions.

Already, the FKF has made arrangement for the Eagles to train at the Moi International Sports Centre at 4pm today, but would be willing to allow them there should Coach Stephen Keshi prefer a morning work-out, according to FKF President, Sam Nyamweya.

The pre-match meeting is scheduled for today at the Bulemart Hotel at 7pm, even as the match officials, led by Ivorian referee Noumandiez Doue arrived in Nairobi yesterday.

NFF President, Alhaji Aminu Maigari is expected to lead a delegation from Nigeria aboard a Kenyan Airways flight this afternoon.

Meanwhile, Maigari has explained that the NFF’s planned travel arrangements for team will not in any way affect the performance of the players in the all important game.

Maigari said in Abuja yesterday ahead of his journey today to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia from where he would connect flight to Nairobi that everything is in place for the team to succeed.

he revealed in a radio programme monitored in Abuja.

He confirmed that all the expected players had arrived and had adequately shaped up ahead of the cracker, but regretted that influential skipper Dennis Oliech and mercurial midfielder Mcdonald Mariga and keeper Arnold Origi will be conspicuously missing in action.

He listed the foreignbased players to include Victor Wanyama, Brian Mandela, David Gateri, Patrick Osiako, Kepha Aswani, Jamal Mohammed and Arnold Origi. “They were part of the team that trained in Naivasha on Sunday morning and will be expected in Nairobi today,” he said.

Nigeria top Group F of the qualification campaign with five points while Kenya is bottom with two points midway through the qualification rounds.

The two teams settled to a 1-1 draw in the first leg tie in Calabar and Kenya badly need a win to revive their hopes.

Mikel hits Nairobi before Eagles arrive today 1,500 security personnel at Moi International Sports Centre.

Stories by Patrick Andrew

J

ohn Mikel Obi flew straight from England to Nairobi, Kenya yesterday 24 hours before other members of the Super Eagles, who until this morning were camping in Nuremberg, Germany

Mikel Obi

arrived.

The Chelsea midfielder, who missed the international friendly between the Eagles and the El Tricolore on Saturday, had been denied the Schengen visa.

The midfield lubricator flew into Nairobi aboard a British Airways flight

yesterday evening, hours ahead of the rest of the delegation that was expected to arrive from Frankfurt around 1.30am this morning.

He opted to fly to Nairobi ahead of the team, to the utter shock of the Harambee Stars camp who had thought that, Mikel, that had been their nemesis for years now, would join other high-profile withdrawals.

But the mercurial midfielder arrived in Nairobi to delight of the advanced delegation of the NFF even as Kenyans officials slumped deeper into depression.

It would be recalled that the Chelsea defensive midfielder was instrumental to Nigeria’s 3-2 defeat of the Stars at the same venue on November 14, 2009 – a result that sent the Super Eagles to the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals in South Africa.

The Eagles had been afflicted by injuries to several first team players including AFCON Golden Boot winner Emmanuel Emenike, Kalu Uche, Reuben Gabriel, and

Victor Moses and the inclusion of Mikel would have meant a depleted Eagles just the Stars who will be missing five key members of their squad, prominent being skipper Dennis Oliech.

Harambee Stars’ top guns that will watch the game from the spectators’ stance are goalkeeper Arnold Origi, Mcdonald Mariga, David Gateri, and Ayub Timbe, while and reserve goalkeeper Duncan Ochieng has not inspired confidence and is therefore cause for worry to coach Adel Amrouche.

Already, the other players Ahmed Musa and Fengor Ogude joined the team at the weekend.

Meanwhile, no fewer than 1,500 security personnel will be on duty for tomorrow’s decisive 2014 World Cup qualifying game at the Moi International Sports Centre to guarantee adequate security for teams and spectators.

This was disclosed by the kenya media which equally reported that a high-powered kenyan government delegation will graced the match.

Siasia expresses concerns over Super Eagles defence

S

amson Siasia has expressed serious concern over Super Eagles defence ahead of tomorrow’s qualifier for the 2014 FIFA World Cup against the Harambee Stars of Kenya.

The former Eagles manager said to the team’s technical crew would need to fortify the team’s defence line to achieve victory against the Harambee Stars in Kenya.

“All I am worried about is how the Eagles defend. If they can do that a little better, I think our chances to qualify for the world cup will be very great. I pray they (the players) do well and make sure they win in Kenya. ``Football is a collective thing; I won’t pick out a player to say he is better than the other person. Collectively they did well against Mexico with better ball possession. ``If they can continue like that and work more on the defence, I think it will be good. ``Mexican star Chicharito had a couple of chances at the back all by himself; so, the Eagles had to shift from one area to the other to cover the goals because if they don’t there will be problem,’’ Siasia said.

He also urged Nigerians to stop showing emotion for players not invited for the crucial encounter and focus on those in camp as the country depended on them now for the desired result.

Sia-One as Siasia was popularly called, however, urged Keshi to avoid changing

Kenneth Omeruo

players all the time as it could make it difficult to have a formidable squad for the Super Eagles. ``Naturally we missed the likes of Emmanuel Emenike but he is not there right now, so, let’s focus on the players that can make us proud in that crucial game. ``It takes a while to build a team but if you keep changing and changing, it becomes difficult to have a formidable team. ``All the same, Keshi knows this and I believe that was the essence of the friendly match played against Mexico. ``Hopefully, the majority of the players that played against Mexico will play against Kenya because there is a

bit of understanding among them right now. ``So, if he tries to bring in some new players again, then, there could be a little bit of confusion. ``It is important he (Keshi) wins that game against Kenya or at least come back with a draw,’’ Siasia added.

The Super Eagles will also play Namibia, in Windhoek, on June 12 in another 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier.

Nigeria is at the top of Group F with superior goal margin against closest rivals Malawi. The Super Eagles have five points and three goals from three matches ahead of Malawi also with five points and two goals from three games.

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 42

Sports Confed Cup

Rangers drawn against Etoile du Sahel in Group A

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igeria’s sole flag bearers in the continental clubs fiesta, Enugu Rangers are drawn in group A of the CAF Confederation Cup alongside ES Sahel, Saint Georges and Stade Malien.

The Flying Antelopes, who only last Sunday

edged out CS Sfaxien to qualify for the group stage of the Confederation Cup will play in Group A of the competition, will play alongside clubs from Ethiopia,Tunisia and Mali, who also qualified after the last round of matches.

The Flying Antelopes will play their first

game against Etoile during the weekend of 1921 July in Enugu.

Rangers will have the opportunity of fortifying the team will five new players before the start of the Group matches. In Group B, TP Mazembe of Congo will challenge North African

opposition FUS Rabat of Morocco, Entente Setif of Alhgeria and CA Bizerte of Tunisia.

Rangers, the sole surviving Nigerian team in Caf competition defeated CS Sfaxien 1-0 on aggregate to reach the group stage of the competition on Sunday evening.

FIFA names host cities for 2014 Women’s World Cup in Canada

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he Federation of International F o o t b a l l Associations (FIFA) has named Edmonton, Moncton, Montreal and Toronto, as host cities for the 2014 FIFA U-20 World Cup billed for Canada.

A statement on its website said the announcement was made in Toronto, against the backdrop of the friendly encounter between

Canada and the U.S. It quoted Tatjana Haenni, FIFA’s Deputy Director of Competitions for Women’s Football as saying: ``It’s a great pleasure to include Toronto, Edmonton, Moncton and Montreal, as host cities for the event. ``This will also be part of the coast-tocoast adventure for 2015, because host Cities are one of our biggest sources of support when

it comes to promoting the competition.

It added that the Official Emblem of the tournament has been unveiled, which marks the kick-off of the tournament. ``This marks the kickoff of the seventh edition of the biennial U-20 Women’s World Cup, one of two FIFA women’s youth tournaments being played, ahead of the FIFA Women’s World Cup,

Canada 2015. ``It said that Bell Canada will be the official telecommunications provider and the first National Supporter of the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup 2014, and FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015,’’ it said.

It will be recalled that the 2012 edition of the competition that took place in Rifu, Saitama, Tokyo, Kobe and Hiroshima in Japan.

Flying Eagles face world champions Brazil in Toulon toruney today A

fter two disappointing games at the on-going Toulon tournament, the Flying Eagles will test its tactical and physical readiness for this month’s 2013 FIFA U20 World Cup in Turkey when they face world champions Brazil.

The John Obuh tutored team, who have staggered in the last couples of months culminating in their loss of the CAF U-20 trophy, play Brazil would not be at Turkey 2013 following their failure to qualify from the South American qualifiers.

However, they have impressed at the Toulon Tournament as they have chalked up three wins in as much number of matches.

They overcame a first-half scare

by Belgium U21 to win 2-1 in their opening game, before they stopped an impressive Mexico 1-0 and on Sunday they put World Cup-bound Portugal in their place with two early goals.

The Flying Eagles, on the other hand, are yet to really lift up in France after they lost 2-0 to Mexico and forced Belgium to a 1-1 draw on Sunday.

The six-time African champions have used the first two matches to try out some players for the World Cup but would most certainly put forward their best foot against the Samba Stars at Stade Louis Hon in St. Raphael from 7pm local time.

This means defenders Ikechukwu Okorie, Kingsley Madu, Shehu Abdullahi are expected to return with Belgium-based John Felegha getting his chance in goal on Tuesday.

This defence will have to put an eye on Brazil twinkling starslike Danilo, Ademilson and Yuri Mamute.

Strikers Kayode Olanrewaju, Samuel Eduok as well as Edafe Egbedi will also return after they were rested against Belgium.

Kayode Olarenwaju, will the Flying Eagles’ attack against Brazil today

The last time both teams clashed at this level was in 2005, when they played out a goalless draw in a group game at the World Cup in the Netherlands.

Coach John Obuh blamed the strong wind for the lack of flow in his team against Belgium on Sunday.

“The wind did not allow us to play our normal flowing game.

Both teams had their chances, but we were too much in a hurry to score. We hope to improve against Brazil on Tuesday,” he lamented.

Brazil coach Alexander Gallo said he will be satisfied with a point to take them to the June 8 final as they have already recorded nine points.

“We have nine points from three matches. Now it will be okay to get a point against Nigeria. We are not the favourites to win this competition. France and Colombia have come here with very strong teams,” he said.

Rafael Nadal, celebrated his birthday in style after beating Nishikori

Birthday boy, Nadal, smatches into French Open quarter-finals

K

ei Nishikori’s hope of truncating Rafael Nadal’s birthday celebration went awry yesterday when the champion emphatically bundled the Japanese out of Roland Garros and himself berthed at the last eight finals of the lawn tennis fiesta.

Nadal thus earned his second straight sets victory in succession as his challenge for an eighth French Open title gathered pace with a 6-4 6-1 6-2 win.

Troubled in his first two rounds where he had to come from a setback, Nadal celebrated his 27th birthday in style with a brutal demolition of

13th seed Nishikori.

Only in the first set did Nishikori, looking to become only the second Japanese man to reach the last eight in Paris, offer any sort of challenge to the defending champion.

Nadal broke serve with the aid of a fortunate net cord in the fifth game of the opener and that proved enough for him to take the first set.

Nishikori had a glimmer of a chance when he had a break point in the second game of set two but failed to convert it and was broken in the next game when he flailed a high backhand volley into the tramlines.

From then on Nadal

was in total command and finished the match by hooking a forehand winner down the line after a little over two hours before waving to the crowd as they sang happy birthday to the king of clay.

“To celebrate my birthday here on centre court in Paris is a very special moment for me,” Nadal said courtside before a huge birthday cake was wheeled on to court.

“Today I played a bit better than in the previous days.”

Third seed Nadal will face the winner of Stanislas Wawrinka against Frenchman Richard Gasquet in the quarterfinals.

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 43

Sports

‘Why I returned to Chelsea’

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ose Mourinho said it was an “easy decision” for him to return to Chelsea for a second spell in charge.

“It was an easy decision. I asked the boss ‘do you want me back?’ and the boss asked ‘do you want to come back?’ - after a couple of minutes the decision was made.”

“I’m very happy. I had to prepare myself to not be too emotional on my arrival at the club, but obviously I’m very happy.”

The Portuguese manager, who also helped the Blues to two League Cup wins and one FA Cup triumph, takes over from interim boss Rafael Benitez following a three-year period in charge at Real Madrid.

He said that he would be looking to “improve the team” but not by spending millions in the transfer window.

“By that, I mean work with the team. My work has to improve the players and the team.

If I don’t do that I won’t be happy with myself.

If after that we can further improve the team by buying couple of players, then fantastic but I have to improve the team with my work.”

Mourinho, who helped Real to the Spanish league title in 2012 and has won two European Cups with Porto and Inter Milan, said if it was up to him he would like to begin training with the squad straight away.

“I don’t need a holiday. I’m sorry that we aren’t beginning training tomorrow. I say to the players during the season when they are tired that victories make miracles.

“When you win, win, win, you are never tired. In my case, it’s about moving to a place I love. Happiness is stronger than tiredness.”

Mourinho initially left Chelsea by mutual consent on 20 September 2007 after the club had made an indifferent start to the season which had seen them occupy fifth in the table.

There were also reports that his relationship with Russian owner Roman Abramovich had become strained.

“I think it was a difficult moment because you know I love it here and I have a big connection with the club - it wasn’t easy for the club either,” he said of that period. “But if you analyse it, in a cool way, and leave your emotions aside, I think it was fantastic. I got what I aimed for in my career, while Chelsea also won more important trophies.

“We are now back together which is a great moment for both. We are ready to marry again and be happy and successful again.”

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“

Jose Mourinho

CHANGE OF NAME I, FORMERLY KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS MEMUNAH BAMIDELE ABUBAKAR, NOW WISH TO BE KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS MEMUNAH BAMIDELE FALOLA. ALL FORMER DOCUMENTS REMAIN VALID. GENERAL PUBLIC SHOULD PLEASE TAKE NOTE.

CHANGE OF NAME I, FORMERLY KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS HAYARA ISAH, NOW WISH TO BE KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS ASIYA ABUBAKAR. ALL FORMER DOCUMENTS REMAIN VALID. DARAZO L.G.A., BAUCHI AND GENERAL PUBLIC SHOULD PLEASE TAKE NOTE.

CHANGE OF NAME I, FORMERLY KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS IBRAHIM YAKUBU, NOW WISH TO BE KNOWN AND ADDRESSED AS YAHAYA UMAR. ALL FORMER DOCUMENTS REMAIN VALID. DARAZO L.G.A., BAUCHI AND GENERAL PUBLIC SHOULD PLEASE TAKE NOTE.

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Quote from Chelsea’s management He is undoubtedly a very good man manager. He gets people to play for him.

He is such good value.

The media love him, even if they have had fallings out.

He understands how to talk to the fans, make the players motivated and play the media.

He is a mover and a shaker, and the Premier League is better for having him back.

is return was long expected.

That in itself was neither denied nor confirmed until interim manager Rafael Benitez blew lip In the end, it was Real Madrid President Florentino Perez preempted the Blues’ official Monday announcement, saying on Sunday evening: “Mourinho is going to Chelsea. Probably on Monday he will be their new manager. We wish him good luck.”

That much happened yesterday. Jose Morinho, 50, returned to Stamford Bridge a destination he left rather controversially on five years ago.

He returned not simply to English football, but to the club where he once ruled it. When he first swaggered into west London as a fresh-faced 41-yearold in June 2004 and proclaimed himself ‘the Special One’, the sheer force of personality took everyone by surprise. This time it is the minimum expected.

Mourinho, by his own admission, is returning to Chelsea off the back of the worst season of his career. That his phenomenally successful career to date has set an absurdly high standard is beside the point. At Madrid, in his eyes and those of many others, he failed.

Yet for Roman Abramovich, Mourinho’s struggles in the Spanish capital may only have made him a stronger candidate to succeed the unpopular Rafa Benitez. Having gone out of his way to make his position at the Santiago Bernabeu untenable, the Portuguese was guaranteed to be available this summer. His messianic status among Chelsea fans also offered a quick route to redemption for a Blues hierarchy which had dared to replace a club legend with a hate figure.

Most compellingly of all, perhaps the only idea more attractive to a ruthlessly ambitious owner than appointing Jose Mourinho is appointing a Jose Mourinho who feels he has a point to prove.

It is a reunion long in the making, and one many thought would never happen. For all the stories of regular text conversations and gratis supercars, few expected Abramovich would ever be willing again to cede the kind of control a man like Mourinho demands. Mourinho, for his part, was believed to have eyes only for Sir Alex Ferguson’s job at Manchester United.

But it also feels like a move which suits all parties. Chelsea have continued to collect trophies for the past seven years and even reached the pinnacle in Munich last May but have never projected the same aura of invincibility as under Mourinho, even

in Carlo Ancelotti’s double-winning season.

Mourinho, meanwhile, laid his cards on the table last month when he revealed, rather tamely, that he wanted to return to place where he is loved. He is adored at Inter and revered in his homeland, but Chelsea represents the perfect combination of affection and ambition.

It is a confrontation the media will relish, just as they did when Chelsea’s brash young wondercoach went toe-totoe with Arsene Wenger, Rafa Benitez and anyone else who crossed his path.

The jokes, the metaphors, the soundbites and the controversies all add up to make Mourinho a journalist’s dream. Even if his relationship with the English press was not always quite as rosy as is sometimes made out, he was and is pure box office, and his presence will be ever more greatly appreciated at a time when so many enduring characters are leaving the Premier League.

Whether Abramovich will welcome the return of this side to Mourinho is questionable. Compromise, then, must prevail at Stamford Bridge if the relationship between manager and owner is to last.

Abramovich must allow Mourinho a louder voice than Ancelotti or Roberto Di Matteo. Mourinho, in turn, must accept that he will not be allowed to build a team entirely in his image, and with no expense spared. This time around the core of Chelsea’s future is already in place, in the form of Juan Mata, Eden Hazard and Oscar, and will be so regardless of the manager.

Even Chelsea fans, who have spent the best part of two years trying to serenade Mourinho back to Stamford Bridge, must concede that the realisation of their dream poses a thousand questions.

“

Mourinho

It was an easy decision.

I met the boss, I met the owner and in five minutes CHELSEA MANAGERS UNDER after a couple of very short ROMAN ABRAMOVICH • Claudio Ranieri: Sep 2000 to May 2004 but pragmatic questions, we • Jose Mourinho: Jun 2004 to Sep 2007 decided straight away.

• Avram Grant: Sep 2007 to May 2008 • Luiz Felipe Scolari: Jul 2008 to Feb 2009 I asked the boss ‘do you want me back?’ and the • Guus Hiddink: Feb 2009 to May 2009 • Carlo Ancelotti: Jun 2009 to May 2011 boss asked me ‘do you • Andre Villas-Boas: Jun 2011 to Mar 2012 want to come back?’ and • Roberto Di Matteo: Mar 2012 to Nov 2012 in a couple of minutes, the • Rafael Benitez: Nov 2012 to May 2013 decision was made.

Jose Mourinho: June 2013

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 44

Sports

60, 000 fans watched Neymar’s unveiling

By Patrick Andrew with agency report

A

n estimated 60,000 Barcelona fans watched the formal unveiling of Neymar live at the Camp Nou yesterday.

The figure eclipsed the crowd that congregated same venue in 2009 to welcome Zlatan Ibrahimovic from Inter.

Aside from the huge crowd presence, there were 122 media professionals from 15 different countries there to capture the event in audio-visual to no fewer than a billion captive audience. Now that’s gorgeous.

Of course, Barca will be hoping that Neymar proves a bigger success in Catalunya than Ibrahimovic, whose spell with Blaugrana was somewhat uneventful in terms expectations and results.

The ceremony, Neymar enlists in the exclusive club of top brazilian aces that thrilled Catalunyan fans and include the likes of Evaristo, Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo and Ronaldinho legends, the lot of them. They were sensational and indeed phenomenal in performance and acclaim.

The journey had started on May 26. No, not that snappy. I mean the formal confirmation of the capture of the Brazilian sensational. Trust the South American country in

whose nooks and crannies abounds sublime aces. They always produce a phenomenal per generation. Why! It took close to a decade for Neymar to hit the scene after the ‘demise’ of Ronaldo.

What with the frenzy with which the crowd roared when Neymar emerged from the ‘tunnel’! You could be forgiven if you thought it was a legend come from mars.

“Neymar came out onto the pitch and the fans went crazy, singing his name. Everyone was singing, ‘Neymar! Neymar! Neymar!’”

That’s one chant that will surely linger at the Camp Nou, yes become quite popular in the years to come.

That should be expected considering what hurdles Barcelona officials have had to scale through to land their prize star: stiff competitions from every moneybag club- Man City, Chelsea, Real Madrid, PSG, lately Napoli and even thrifty but prudent Man United.

Even uptil the last moment, Real Madrid did their utmost to land the forward, first trying to sign him when he was just 14 years. More recently, Marcelo and Kaka made several attempts to persuade their compatriot to join them at the Santiago Bernabeu.

All that ended yesterday.

Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barcelona Vice president confirmed yesterday that this transfer was two years in

the making and that the deal was made at the behest of the Barcelona coaching staff.

He also confirmed that the fee is €57 million and that there were no intermediaries involved in the deal.

The buy-out clause has been set at €190m and is not only a la Liga record but the highest in the world.

He poses for the camera with his jersey but without a number of it.

Perhaps, he may inherit Thiago Silva’s jersey No. 11 should his fellow countryman opted to depart Camp Nou. Barely hours after arriving at the Camp Nou, former Santos star, Neymar submitted to medical examinations and passed in flying colours.

“

Great players always understand one another. Leo will be make Neymar better, and Neymar will make Leo better

The Brazilian, who had chosen Barca ahead of rivals Real Madrid despite huge financial lure from archrivals Real Madrid that tripples what the La Liga champions had offered, is thus completed his transfer formalities from Santos in a move that has united the Brazilian with Lionel Messi in a formidable attacking partnership.

The Brazilian international, who signed a five-year contract, travelled straight to Spain from Brazil’s friendly with England in Rio de Janeiro.

Neymar’s flight from Brazil arrived an hour behind schedule at around 1 p.m. local time. Decked out in solid black with sunglasses and a baseball cap, he headed straight to Camp Nou where he took his first photograph in front of the blue and burgundy club insignia with over a hundred fans waiting for him, some wearing his shirt and waving Brazilian flags.

After undergoing two medical exams, he met with club president Sandro Rosell to ink the deal and then get his first touches of a ball on the Camp Nou pitch in front of his new supporters.

Earlier on Monday, Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta said Neymar is coming “to the best place to grow,” and that he expects the 21-year-old forward to become even better when paired in attack with

four-time world player of the year Lionel Messi.

“He can bring us a lot because he is very talented player,” said Iniesta. “He brings his ability to break down defenses, to score, and to entertain. He is young. He has a long path ahead of him, and he is coming to the best place to grow.”

Iniesta also tried to ease the pressure on his new teammate and allay any concerns fans might have about whether two major stars like Messi and Neymar can play together.

“He is coming to the best possible place for him,” Iniesta said. “Let him do what he does best, that is enough. It is great news that we can count on him. Surrounded by the people he will have here, he will get better and better.

“Great players always understand one another. Leo will be make Neymar better, and Neymar will make Leo better.”

Neymar flew to the Mediterranean city on a private jet with a small entourage that left Brazil after the national side’s 2-2 draw with England on Sunday.

He will then quickly return to his home country for the upcoming Confederations Cup which Brazil is hosting in preparation for the 2014 World Cup. Neymar led Santos to its greatest run since Pele stopped playing for the club in the 1970s. He helped Santos win the 2010 Brazilian Cup, the 2011 Copa Libertadores and three straight Sao Paulo state championships and remains the club’s leading scorer in the post-Pele era with 138 goals in 230 matches.

Barcelona have not disclosed the financial details of the transfer, but Brazilian media said the Catalan club will pay about €30 million for the youngster.

Santos had fielded offers from Barcelona and Madrid and said it was up to Neymar to choose where he wanted to continue his career.

Neymar signed an agreement to join the Spanish champions on May 27.

I want to help Messi stay the best, Neymar screams

N

Neymar being presented, Neymar in Barcelona’s traditional colours

eymar says he wants to help Lionel Messi continue to be the best player in the world following the Brazil international’s move from Santos to Barcelona.

The 21-year-old sealed a lucrative move to Camp Nou last week following months of speculation and is relishing the prospect of linking up with the Argentine.

“I want to help the team. Barce are more than a club,” the Selecao forward said at his unveiling.

“I want to help Messi to continue being the best player in the world. I am very happy to be a Barca player. It’s a dream come true.

“I’m very happy. It’s very emotional. It’s very exciting to be a Barca player. It’s a dream, thank you very much.”

Neymar was introduced to fans at Camp Nou and says he cannot wait to play at the stadium. Camp Nou is very emotional. I’m very happy. Thank you very much.”

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 45

Sports

1

2

p *i *c *t *o *r *i *a *l

1\ Three-time world champion Red Bull racing driver Sebastian Vettel says he may quit Formula 1 in five years’ time.

2\ Everton have reached an agreement with Wigan over compensation for manager Roberto Martinez and could name him as their boss by Wednesday. The Spaniard, 39, is thought to have been Everton’s first choice to replace David Moyes, who signed a six-year contract to manage Manchester United.

3\ Arsenal have approached Celtic about the signing of Kenya midfielder Victor Wanyama, the player’s former coach has told the Daily Mail.

4\ Tshifhiwa Munyai stopped in the nineth round Emmanuel Quartey of Ghana to retain his WBA Pan African junior featherweight title at the weekend.

5\ Bernard Koech of Kenya won San Diego’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Half Marathon in 58 minutes, 41 seconds, the fastest time ever run in America and the fastest in the world this year.

Koech’s mark will not count as a record because the net elevation drop from start to finish on the point-to-point course didn’t meet IAAF rules.

4

5 3

PEOPLES DAILY| TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

PAGE 46

Sports

Coach urges FG’s support for Deaflympics Games

NTTF urges athletes to combine education with sports

T

T

he Nigeria Table Tennis Federation (NTTF) has again reiterated the essence of combining sports with education stressing those upcoming athletes must resist the temptation of focusing whole soul in sports without thinking a career outside sports in their later years.

Oguntade, who urges the younger athletes to take a cue from some former and current national and international players like Segun Odegbami, Cecilia Arinye and Adokiye Amiesimaka, Blessing Okagbare, Chika Chukwumerije, among others, said without education it would be difficult for them to have meaningful life once they retired from sports or had serious career-threatening injury. ``Upcoming players need to embrace both education and sport without giving priority to one above the other,’’ Oguntade said.

According to him, former athletes like Arinye, Odegbami, Amiesimaka and hosts of others are having meaningful life today years after quitting active sports because they had formal education.

Oguntade noted that Arinye, a former table tennis player is currently the Director of Sports, University of Lagos, while exinternational Odegbami, is currently the Director, International Sports Academy, Wasimi, Ogun.

He also recalled that exinternational, Amiesimaka, a onetime Executive Committee member of the Nigeria Football Federation, was also a former Attorney General of Rivers. ``Sports will get the upcoming players to a certain stage in life, but when they can longer be active, when they have gotten to their peak, that is when education comes in. ``It is then their educational background will be their means of livelihood. Sports will make their names to be important during their sporting days, but what happens when they do not get a formal education while participating in sports. ``They will be forgotten because there is nothing to fall back on.

Certificate is necessary, that is why you see a lot of uneducated athletes on the streets but with education you have something to rely on,’’ he said.

He added that even administrative sports officers find time to improve on their educational standard because they know that one day they would retire and rely on their certificate.

According to him, athletes with sound educational background will be bold to mix with his or her colleagues in national and international scenes.

The secretary, however, urged the Ministry of Sports and the National Sports Commission to provide the enabling environment for athletes to combine education with their sporting career.

Bolaji Abdullahi, Sports Minister

he national Deaflympic football team has appealed to the Federal Government and corporate organisations to support the team as it prepares for upcoming Summer Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Kamiludeen Oladimeji, the team’s coach, who made the appeal yesterday in Lagos, said that the support would help to enhance the team’s chances at the competition.

According to Wikipedia, the Deaflympics are an International Olympic Committee (IOC)-

sanctioned event at which deaf athletes compete at an elite level.

Deaflympics were previously called World Games for the Deaf, and International Games for the Deaf.

However, unlike the athletes in other IOC-sanctioned events (i.e., the Olympics, the Paralympics, and the Special Olympics), the Deaflympians cannot be guided by sounds (i.e., the starter’s guns, bullhorn commands or referee whistles).

To qualify for the competition,

Judo association to train 40 young judokas, says Scribe

T

he Lagos State Judo Association (LSJA.) has concluded plans to kick-start the training of some 40 budding judokas that were identified at a recent coaching clinic, according to association’s scribe Ijeoma Soribe.

Speaking on efforts to generate fresh talents, Soribe, said those to be trained were among 180 students that participated in the clinic conducted from May 20 through 23 in Lagos.

“The training is to further develop their potential in order to be wellgrounded in martial arts,’’ she said, adding that the judokas would be groomed to develop their skills to enable them participate in future competitions. ``The 40 judokas will go through intensive training from later in the week, for them to understand the rudiments of the sport. ``If their interest is well stimulated,

this will put them in a vantage position to take over from the ageing ones, who may no longer be fit to engage in competitive judo,’’ she said.

Soribe said the association had enough modern equipment to ensure proper training of the talents to international standards.

She also said that the association was poised to discover the many talents that abound in schools in the state.

athletes must have a hearing loss of at least 55 db in their “better ear”. The competition has been scheduled to hold from July 26 to Aug. 4 in the Eastern European nation. ``We are begging the country, the ministry and every other area to please try and support us very well so that we can get to the standard of making something back if we eventually travel to Bulgaria for the Deaflympics Games. ``But in a nutshell, we need more encouragement for the guys, so that it can motivate them to gear up more, because they are very happy that they have qualifying for the Deaflympics Games for the second time in the history of their sport.

“Since the federation has tried their possible best and the Nigeria Deaf Football Association is trying their possible best to make sure they make contact with some people or company to help them.

“In a nutshell we need something like allowances to encourage this guys, even we the officials, because it is not an easy task to train special sport.`` Oladimeji said that financial constraints had made it impossible for the country’s athletes to participate in the 2009 edition of the Deaflympics in Taipei.

Roland Garros

Djokovic, Haas sail into quarterfinals W

orld No 1 Novak Djokovic overcame the loss of his first set of the tournament to advance to the quarterfinals at

Novak Djokovic

Roland Garros with a 4-6 6-3 6-4 6-4 victory over 16th seed Philipp Kohlschreiber yesterday.

Djokovic got off to a sluggish

opening as German Kohlschreiber started out by firing on all cylinders.

The Serbian top seed, however, was quickly back in control,

breaking early in each set and saving a few break points on the way to a somewhat uneventful victory.

Djokovic next faces German Tommy Haas, the 12th seed, for a place in the semifinals as he bids to land the trophy at Roland Garros for the first time.

Earlier, Haas became the third oldest man, and the first German in 17 years, to reach the quarterfinals when he swept past racquet-smashing Russian Mikhail Youzhny.

Haas, 35, is also the oldest man to make a last eight at any Grand Slam since Andre Agassi at the 2005 US Open.

The 12th seed, who made history in the third round when he needed a record 13 match points to beat John Isner, eased past Youzhny, 6-1, 6-1, 6-3 in just 84 minutes.

Former world No 2 Haas had lost on clay in straight sets to Youzhny in Rome last month.

But he was never troubled on Monday, winning 10 games in succession after losing the opener.

Such was Youzhny’s frustration that he smashed his racquet nine times against his courtside chair, sending splinters spiralling into the air at Court Suzanne Lenglen.

The violence of his outburst made him an instant YouTube hit even as the match was still being played.

Haas will be the first German in the last eight in Paris since Michael Stich and Bernd Karbacher in 1996.

PEOPLES DAILY, TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

Some Interesting Facts The guy at the end of this video exists.

If you say “my cocaine” you sound like Michael Caine saying his own name.

Male puppies, when playing with female puppies, will intentionally let the female win.

The next Star Wars will not be directed by George Lucas.

It takes seventeen muscles to smile and forty-three to frown.

The kingdom of Bhutan use ‘gross national happiness’ as a key national indicator.

The majority of European children born in 2013 will live to see the year 2100.

Cows have best friends.

Neurologically speaking, seeing somebody else smile actually makes you happier.

Every human being spent about half an hour as a single cell.

There are people, ombrophiles, who have a passionate love for rain.

Once your brain realizes that you’re dying, it releases DMT, one of the most powerful known psychedelics. This dilates your perception of time and allowing you to live inside your own mind for hours or even days.

No matter how long you live there will always be an

PAGE 47

Leisure amazing new food for you try.

A group of porcupines is called a prickle.

Aside from a sample in a lab, Smallpox is completely extinct. No one else will ever die from it again.

A pig’s orgasms last thirty minutes.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones.

Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born.

Sloths only leave their tree once a week, to pee and poo.

Spinner dolphins sleep in pairs, one with the left hemisphere asleep, the other with the right. They each keep watch with one eye and half a brain. They are known to

sleep-mate for life.

At the time of your birth, you were, for a few seconds, the youngest person on the planet.

Cows produce the most milk when listening to the song Everybody Hurts

by REM. Somewhere, someone is losing their virginity right now.

If you spell out numbers in order, the first time you get to the letter “a” is at onethousand.

We’ve all been here forever. Every bit of matter we see has been here since the beginning of time and it always will be.

A m o n k e y w a s once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.

Happiness is a skill. You can learn it and it’s not hard.

Except when breeding, the Common Swift spend their entire lives in the air, living on the insects they catch in flight.

They drink, feed, and often mate and sleep on the wing Baby rabbits are called kittens.

Baby puffins are called pufflings.

56. Costa Rica is statistically the happiest nation on Earth.

Worms communicate by snuggling.

2013 is the first year since 1987 that consists for four different digits.

Say what?

SUDODKU

PHOTO OF THE DAY

This spectacular iceberg in the Jokulsarlon lagoon, Iceland, looks like it has had stripes dyed into it, but they are a completely natural phenomenon.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

www.peoplesdailyng.com

. . . putting the people first

TUESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013

SPORTS LATEST

CAF Confed. Cup: Okey showers praises on Rangers

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he Flying Antelopes coach says his boys made him proud with the way they fought to secure a qualification ticket against CS Sfaxien Enugu Rangers coach, Okey Emordi has praised the efforts of his players, saying he is proud of them for fighting to secure qualification to the group stage of the Confederation Cup. Rangers battled hard to a goalless draw against Tunisian side, CS Sfaxien after a 1-0 victory at home in the first leg.

“I am so proud of the players.

They fought like trojans and they showed that when the chips are down, they can rise to the occassion.

“Not many people gave us a chance after the first leg game which we won by a lone goal.

But we turned the table against the Tunisians in the second leg which ended in a goalless draw.

“The boys played to instruction and did exactly what they are supposed to do. If we continue with the way we played against Sfaxien, there is no stopping us this season,” said Emordi.

Rangers will play in Group A of the Confederation Cup alongside Etoile Du Sahel, Stade Malien and Saint George.

Amoo is Sunshine Stars new coach

T

he former Shooting Stars coach will take over from sacked Samuel Abimbola as head of the technical crew of the Akure side Former Shooting Stars coach, Fatai Amoo has taken over as new Technical Adviser of Sunshine Stars.

The Akure side sacked their coach, Samuel Abimbola last week and they have quickly replaced him with the former assistant Super Eagles coach.

ODSFA official, Akin Akinbobola told Goal that they have found a coach who will help the team reliase it’s desire of winning the League trophy at the end of the season.

ADVERT: BUSINESS: NEWS: LAGOS:

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QUOTABLE QUOTE Look at the way our natural resources are being stolen; you will agree with me that it is only Nigeria that will experience such massive stealing and still survive as a country. — Former Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, now a chieftain of opposition All Progressive Congress (APC)

Jang, GEJ and the gang A

t the media briefing after the Friday, May 24th Chairmanship election of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), as captured and flashed across Nigeria by television stations, Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau State, the supposed “winner”, stood by the left of Akwa-Ibom State Governor, AKpabio, dwarfed in size by the latter, and looking every inch like a rain beaten chicken. He was visibly unsure whether or not to continue acting the role assigned to him in a script authored by others, with only a little, if any, input from him.

He knew that there was nothing concrete in the script to rely on other than the fiction, first, that the list (itself shown to be a fraud in that it bore the names of two governors who were not at the meeting) of 21 governors who it was claimed had endorsed him in April for the position, had now miraculously become transformed into the result sheet of an election held that afternoon, and, second, that his 16 votes made him the winner and not Governor Amaechi who got 19 votes.

But back in Jos the following Sunday night, and no doubt now emboldened by assurances of support and financial backing from the Villa and some of the oil rich states, Jang got the state legislators to troop to the Government House that night to pay homage and congratulate him on his “victory”.

It was God, he kept emphasising to the law makers, that made him victorious. Maybe they believed him, maybe not. But they played along, as they always do. I bet there will be a big thanks-giving service this or next week.

But which god? Which kind of god would snatch victory from the winner and give to the loser in such a transparent and credible election, involving only 35 state governors who each had only one vote and voted? Is it the god that Ombatse chief priest, Baba Alakyo, claimed was the one that killed about 100 police and SSS operatives sent to arrest him? Or the god that armed robbers usually attribute their luck to after a successful operation?

There are now two NGFs, each with its own secretariat and support staff. A more confident Jang now heads one, and seems happy doing it. “There is only NGF, and I’m the chairman”, he keeps saying whenever and wherever he cites pressmen.

The presidency told the world that President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) wasn’t at all interested in the outcome of the NGF election. But in what made the president his own first doubter, he endorsed the Jang and gang faction last week. In fact, it would take the completely untutored in our affairs not to know that factionalising the NGF had for long been at the top of the presidency’s priority list. Jonathan’s closest advisers,

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FOR THE MASSES

By Rufa’i Ibrahim ruf585@hotmail.com

Gov. Jonah Jang notably chief Edwin Clark, have been calling for its proscription. Jonathan himself has been having a running battle with Governor Amaechi. A number of the PDP governors are in open rebellion against the party and the presidency, and beating them back into line hasn’t been easy, if not completely beyond Jonathan’s limited political abilities.

Jonathan’s frustration with the governors is, in a way, understandable. The governors are a very powerful lot, especially when acting together-as even former President Obasanjo, a much stronger leader than Jonathan, would tell you. The fate of any president is literally in their hands.

Their power is largely a function of the underdevelopment of our democracy, as manifested in the lack of well rooted institutions that force leaders to respect the constraints of democracy and through which the governed can enforce accountability on the leaders. A governor selects his state’s national delegates, literacy owns them, takes them to Abuja and leads them in a line to vote for whichever aspirant for the party’s presidential ticket he chooses. Is it not only three years ago in 2010 that Jonathan had to threaten to sink the ship, when being on his knees begging failed to achieve results, before his own PDP governors finally caved in and gave him their support?

Clearly, therefore, Jonathan has an interest in clipping the wings of the governors.

But in choosing to do this by way of factionalising the NGF, did Jonathan merely follow his own instincts? Or did he follow the advice of his aides and mentors? If the latter, the least that can be said is that they (his advisors) didn’t help him.

If the former, it shows a leader with undeveloped political instincts who has yet to, and, in fact, seems almost incapable of developing the capacity for political manoever. Clearly, what has just happened in the NGF has shone a very unflattering light on Jonathan’s political abilities.

The PDP governors constituted almost two-thirds majority in the NGF. Yet, Jonathan, with all his authority and enormous powers as president, couldn’t manoeuvre his way to form within it a block big enough in terms of numbers and orientation that he could always count on to support him and his policies. The formation of the PDP Governors Forum, which Jonathan pushed for as a way to get around this problem, hasn’t helped matters, and is certainly not a well considered move if the idea is to get control of the NGF. And a divided NGF will be even less helpful.

Is Jonathan really serious about his transformation agenda? If he is, how does he hope to make any progress when the governors, with whom and through whom he must work, are divided, with even some from his own party operating outside the tent and pissing into it?

But a much more serious question, and which forms this writer’s chief concern in this piece, is: why Jang? Just why did Jonathan and his men, having decided to break up the NGF, choose Jang, from among many other governors who could perhaps do even better, to head the pro-Jonathan NGF faction?

For many months before the court-down to the NGF election, it was Governor Shema of Katsina State that was said to be the anointed, the one who would have at his disposal the enormous powers of the presidency and use them to wipe the floor with Amaechi. Then, a few weeks to the election, the talk in town was that Shema had, for some reasons, been dumped for Isa Yuguda, Bauchi State governor.

Then, all of a sudden, Jang became the presidency’s new favourite for the role he now plays.

Jang is, in the view of not a few people, not your everyday politician.

By this, I think, it is meant that he is not as wily and cunning as most politicians tend to be, which, in a way, is good. But in the reality of Plateau State politics, and given the man’s character and attitudinal disposition, this has proved to be a source of problems, if not disaster.

Jang happens to be a man stuffed with layers of resentments, which he has been harbouring and nursing for decades. In the main, he harbours deep resentments about what he says is his untimely retirement from the Air Force, and blames it squarely on his Hausa-Fulani bosses in the armed forces at the time. And this he has neither forgotten nor forgiven in all the decades that have gone by. Jang is the type of man who takes his travails too much to heart, and wastes no opportunity to extract from his perceived enemies a generous pound of flesh. This is worsened by the fact that he is a man of incautious utterances.

That all this has found practical expression on policy making and implementation in Plateau State is something that only a few in this country would deny. Jang makes no secret of his dislike (or is it hatred) for the Hassan Fulani, who he brands and profiles as settlers, strangers and sometimes even as terrorists, who are, therefore legitimate targets of attacks by especially his Berom brethren who believe they have been displaced and dominated by the former. Jang is something of a past master in manipulating primordial sentiments for political gains. Knowing that in Plateau ethnicity is too fragmented for real political campaign purposes, he has seized on manipulating religion as his main hobbyhorse.

Jang, with his well known mindset that produces policies that speak to narrow, ethno-religious interests, was in the forefront of Jonathan’s 2011 presidential campaign. A campaign that was organised, run and “won” not around the issues begging to be addressed but on the basis of the manipulation and inflammation of passions and sentiments.

Is the dumping of Shema and Yuguda in preference for Jang meant to flash a signal that Jonathan intends to organize and run his campaign along the same lines he did in 2011? What will be the implication of such a development for our politics and 2015 elections?

Is it a sign that Jonathan and the PDP will not accept defeat, even in an open and transparent election, and will resort to manipulating sentiments and inflaming passions to make fall claims to victory?

Lest we forget, the NGF election was fought largely along the PDP, APC divide. In fact, the election has, in some ways, helped to fasttrack the development of a twoparty system in Nigeria, with the APC clearly having an edge as a consequence of Amaechi’s victory and the cool and dignified manner in which his faction has handed its success. Jang may be happy being a factional leader enjoying the limelight. But the fact is that he has, by his antics unwittingly turned himself into APC’s chief recruitment Sargent. So keep up the good work, Jang.

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