Peoples Daily Newspaper, Thursday 16, May, 2013

www.peoplesdailyng.com

Vol. 10 No. 99

Thursday, May 16, 2013

. . . putting the people first

Rajab 7, 1434 AH

Nasarawa: Body of police commissioner found

N150

>> 6

2015: Jonathan free to run — NLC From Inumidun Ojelade, Ibadan

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Fertiliser pyramid at the official launch of 2013 wet season fertiliser sale to farmers, yesterday at Bungudu local government council in Zamfara state.

Photo: NAN

Emergency rule

resident of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Abdulwaheed Omar, has declared that President Goodluck Jonathan has every right to seek re-election in 2015.

Omar who spoke with newsmen in Ibadan yesterday said that the NLC did not see anything wrong if Jonathan decides to run for contest for re-election.

“It is now up to Nigerians, the electorate, to decide if he has performed well to vote for him.

“As far as I am concerned, as a Nigerian and the sitting president, Jonathan can contest for the highest position which is the Presidency.

“It is up to President Goodluck Jonathan and the government to ensure that we have free and fair and credible elections, credible and acceptable to the people.

The NLC chief however expressed reservations at the political development in Rivers state describing it as treasonable

Army shuts nation’s borders

Contd on Page 2

By Lawrence Olaoye, Joy Baba, Ikechukwu Okaforadi, Abuja and Mustapha Isah Kwaru, Maiduguri

I

n furtherance of President Goodluck Jonathan's Tuesday’s declaration of state of emergency in three states in the north east and subsequent directive to deploy troops to the affected states, the Nigerian Armed Forces, the Police and other security agencies have commenced operations to rid the nation’s border territories of terrorist bases and activities.

Contd on Page 2

3,000 troops arrive Borno Shettima urges calm Senators divided

Nigeria needs 150 Nigerian N335bn to fix students stranded power — FG >>6 in Russia >>5

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

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

Earth

26-27

Update

28-29

Feature

30

Driving foreign investment with entouLarge, Page 4

Int’l

31-34

Strange World 35 Digest

36

Politics

37-40

Sports

41-45

Leisure

47

Columnist

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

Army shuts nation’s borders Contd from Page 1 This development is aside massive deployment of troops, armoured tanks, combat helicopters and other military hardware into Maiduguri, the Borno state capital which continued yesterday with divisions of the security forces taking strategic positions at the areas identified as epicentres of the Boko Haram insurgent group.

Our correspondents reported that that the large scale military deployment which actually started since Monday, has caused fears and apprehension among the residents of the town even as Governor Kashim Shettima in a state-wide radio and television broadcast last night urged citizens to remain calm and pray for God’s intervention in the security challenges plaguing the state.

It was gathered that well over 3000 troops have been deployed so far to Borno state to complete the efforts of the about 5,000 members of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF) in on ground.

It was also observed that the newly deployed security forces who arrived in heavy duty military vehicles and patrol vans, were being stationed temporarily at the JTF headquarters at the Pomponari Ward, for documentation and other formalities.

Army fortifies borders Given the reported porous nature of the nation’s borders, the the Director of Defence Information, Brig-Gen Chris Olukolade, said in a statement yesterday military operation across the borders will focus on tracking down criminal elements within communities prone to terrorist activities.

The statement also explained the operations which will involve massive deployment of men and resources is aimed at asserting the nation’s territorial integrity and enhancing the security of constituted governmental structures in all territories within Nigeria’s borders.

According to Olukolade, the operational plans have briefed participating troops appropriately on arrests, cordon and search, especially directed at apprehending those who have been violating sovereignty of Nigeria through terrorist training, for insurgency and related

activities.

The statement noted that the operation is expected to put an end to insurgent activities in these parts of the country.

Olukolade assured law abiding citizens that every effort has been put in place to ensure safety of civilians and non-combatants while the operation lasts while urging them to cooperate with troops and supply necessary information on criminal and terrorist activities or movement in their localities as the operation is intended to safeguard the nation’s interests and citizens in all parts of the Federation.

Hunting down Borno insurgents begins However as at yesterday, the soldiers, backed by over 30 armoured tanks and armoured personnel carriers were divided into four groups and despatched to Marte, Mafa, Gamborou-Ngala and Bama local government areas which are the epicentres of the insurgency, security sources said.

Beside Bama which is located in Borno central zone, all the other areas are within the northern senatorial zone of the state.

It was also learnt that another set of troop was moved to the Sambisa Games Reserve, in Damboa local government council, in the southern part of the state, where the insurgents are suspected to have set up a base and training camp.

Peoples Daily observed that the troops in over a 100 patrol vehicles moved towards Mafa axis, causibg serious traffick jam along the highway.

The impending crack down on the insurgents is expected to be the peak of Federal Government’s determination to flush out the militants as the troops were directed to extend deadly operations deep into the desert where the gunmen are suspected to be hiding, a security source said.

Despite the massive movements of military personnel, the atmosphere in Maiduguri was not as tensed as residents were seen going about their normal activities unhindered.

And contrary earlier fears, the normal security situation remained unchanged, our correspondent further observed.

Meanwhile, some residents of the city who expressed their opinions on the emergency rule aid

that they have been living under “state of emergency” for the last two years, describing the action as not strange.

“I don’t think there is any difference between what we were experiencing before and what we are seeing now after the declaration of state of emergency as the conditions have always been there.

“The checkpoints, the restriction of movement, the fear, so, there is really no difference”, a resident, who gave his namd as Ari Madu told our reporter.

Shettima commends Jonathan, urges calm Also yesterday, Shettima in the broadcast solicited for more prayers from entire residents, for the restoration of peace to the state even as he urged them to support and cooperate with all the security agencies who are charged with the sole responsibility of tackling the Boko Haram insurgency.

According to the Governor, “in this trying moment, I urge everybody to fervently pray for the return of peace to our dear Borno state and in all other parts of Nigeria, to pave the way for rapid recovery and the socio-economic transformation that we so desperately seek to put in place as a government.”

He commended Jonathan for exercising his constitutional powers to proclaim the state of emergency in the area, as he explained that the development followed the spate of killings and destructions of property which ravaged the state.

As Shettima put it, “it is the constitutional responsibility of the President to take such measures and it is also the duty of any responsible state government to support lawful efforts that will guarantee the security of lives and property.

“It can never be the wish of any democratic government to have the military directly involved in the affairs of any federating unit except for unfortunate and painful causes.

“As the military leaders have said in discourses, the armory of the Nigerian soldiers is not meant to fight fellow Nigerians, the armory is meant to protect fellow Nigerians.

“I have directed the State Ministry of Home Affairs, Information and Culture to work

2015: Jonathan free to run — NLC Contd from Page 1 felony.

“From what I read yesterday and today, they are trying to withdraw security agents from the state governor and members of the state House of Assembly.

That would amount to treason.

“The legislators and the governor were duly elected by the people.”

According to Omar, the Governor, Rotimi Amaechi, and the lawmakers were elected by the people.

“They are not there at the mercy of anybody and the law

provides that they are secure and must be provided with security.

“Nobody has the right to withdraw their security and if anybody does that, it will amount to the highest crime against this nation and it means we are no longer practising democracy.

“It is anarchy and it is only during military government that somebody can just decide to withdraw the security of a democratically elected executive governor, which would be treasonable,” he said.

Omar described the political heat in the country occasioned by preparations towards 2015 polls as normal anywhere in the world, as, according to him, “as the general election approaches, the polity will be heated up.

“What we should be on the lookout for is what people will be saying and how they would go about carrying out their activities.

“As long as things go the normal way, whereby freedom of expression and association are guaranteed to everybody.”

out public safety enlightenment programmes that should be regularly featured on the Borno state Television and Radio while I urge our partners and friends in other media organizations resident in the state to help in educating citizens on public conducts at this different time that we face together.”

Senators canvass divergent views Senators yesterday canvassed divergent views on the proclamation of emergency rule in the Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states as Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, said that though the measure was a welcomed development in the interim, the nation needs to find a lasting solution to its security challenges.

In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on media, Uche Anichukwu, Ekwerenmadu advocated for reorganization of Nigeria's policing system to guarantee the security of lives and property of Nigerians.

According to Ekwerenmadu, “while a state of emergency is welcome as a first aid in tackling the security challenges, my stand has always been that we have to reappraise how we organize our national security as a federal entity, especially our policing system to guarantee the security of lives and property in every part of the country.”

While expressing hope that the step would not only help to arrest the escalating insecurity in the affected states, he noted that it will also correct the misgivings about emergency rule arising from previous unconstitutional approaches to implementation of emergency rule.

In a similar development, Senator Ali Ndume who hails from Borno state claimed that the Senate did not know the content of the emergency declaration.

“We hope that this is not going to be like adding salt to injury and we hope that it is part of the extraordinary measures that government has to take in order to bring an end to this problem. he said.

"But now, the Commander-inChief has taken over direct charge through either his representative or whatever to ensure security in those places.

“In other words, it is like the Armed Forces taking over from the civil police that are charged with the responsibility,” he said.

But Senator Victor Lar, said that the President had not done anything that is sanctioned by the Constitution.

He however said that from experience of what happened in Pplateau, declaration of state of emergency rule does not work to effectively bring about peace.

Lar explained that it does not work in the sense that during the declaration in Plateau, the state kept experiencing insurrections, arguing that the essence of that declaration was for the President to have the platform to channel resources and deploy security apparatus in a manner that would Contd on Page 2

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 3

Army shuts nation’s borders

Remains of the two pilots of Nigerian Air Force who died in a crash in Niger Republic, Squadron Leader Benjamin Ado and Flying Officer Ayuba Layelmeson being lowered into the grave, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: NAN

Contd from Page 2 put the situation under control.

“I would not want to be pessimistic but we hope that some of those pitfalls like non-payment of salary of workers of local governments that we experienced in Plateau State would not be replicated in the three States.

"Like the non-funding and assistance of States government with the funds for funding security operations would not be repeated in those other States.", he said.

Meanwhile, he expressed hope that the declaration would bring lasting peace to the affected States, calling on the security operatives to be prepared to rise up to the operational exigencies that may crop up in the course of executing the emergency.

Meanwhile, the official letter notifying the National Assembly of the decision to declare a state of emergency in the three states is expected to be received tomorrow by the lawmakers for consideration and approval.

Don’t approve emergency rule, ACN urges NASS From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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he Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has described the declaration of a state of emergency in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States by President Goodluck Jonathan as lacking in original thinking, and therefore asked the National Assembly to reject it.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said if the use of force was capable of ending the Boko Haram crisis, it would have done so a long time ago.

It said while the President was right in expressing outrage over the mindless killings and wanton

destruction by the insurgents, he was wrong in proposing more of the same measures that have failed to yield results. ''If the medicine given to a patient has not cured his or her illness, is it not futile to prescribe more of the same medicine for the patient? If the declaration of a state of emergency in 15 local government areas in four states in 2011 has not curbed the activities of the insurgents, why extend such measure to other areas? If the use of force in the affected states have failed to curtail the activities of the insurgents, why send in more troops? ''There is nothing new in the President's action. It is more of the same: deployment of more troops

Police uncover second ‘baby factory’

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he Nigerian police yesterday said they had found six pregnant teenage girls in a raid on a house and arrested three people suspected of planning to sell their babies.

It was the second so-called babyfactory uncovered in a week in the country.

“We acted on intelligence information and raided the house in Enugu (city) where we met six girls, under 17 and all pregnant, and freed them,” police spokesman Ebere Amaraizu in Enugu state said.

He said two men and a woman believed to be operating a child trafficking ring were arrested during the raid on Monday and were cooperating with police.

Amaraizu said the girls had been “lured into the house with a

promise of some money after” delivering a child.

“Investigation will unravel the details. We have to know how they came about the pregnancy and where they came from,” he said.

Monday’s raid came five days after police in nearby Imo State freed 17 pregnant girls and 11 small children from a home in the town of Umuaka.

The girls aged between 14 and 17, told police that they had been impregnated by a 23-year-old man who is currently in custody.

The owner of the building is on the run.

Nigerian police have uncovered a series of alleged baby factories in recent years, notably in the southeastern part of the country, but the intended buyers of the children have not been established.

to the affected states and the use of tougher, scorched-earth tactics against the insurgents. In the first instance, this stepped-up militarization of the states amounts to an asymmetric use of force in an environment where the insurgents operate within a civilian population, hence it will ultimately be counterproductive as the death toll will continue to mount while the civilian population – who will be caught in the cross fire - will be alienated. ''Secondly, the President should go ahead and disband the committee he recently inaugurated and saddled with reaching out to the insurgents, because by opting to flood the states with more troops under an illadvised emergency rule, he has succeeded in pulling the carpet from under the Committee's feet.

Who negotiates genuinely with a gun to his head?

The committee's job is over, the members can as well pack up and go home. ''Thirdly, one hopes the President's action is not linked to the politics of 2015. With the three states militarized, there can neither be electioneering campaign nor voting there. We had warned earlier that as 2015 approaches, the Jonathan Administration will increasingly take measures that will make it impossible to hold election in many states.

“The over militarization of some states in the north, the plan to destabilise the South-west using slush funds from the so-called oil pipeline protection contract and the infantile threats from some Niger Delta militants seem to be part of this plan. ''Fourthly, what happens if and when the declaration of emergency rule fails to stem the

violence, now that the President has gone for broke and played his last card? ''In view of the reasons stated above, we hereby reject the declaration of emergency rule in the three states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, and we call on the National Assembly to also reject it and not allow itself to be used to rubber stamp a declaration that is largely cosmetic. ''We reiterate our earlier statements that the Boko Haram crisis has its roots in years of bad governance that have produced an army of unemployed, unemployable, disenchanted and demoralized youths who are now ready hands and willing tools for those seeking to perpetrate violence.

The unprecedented corruption across the land, as well as injustice and extra-judicial killings are also fuelling this crisis,'' ACN said.

State of emergency to safeguard the nation’s sovereignty, says Tukur Meanwhile, the PDP National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, yesterday explained why Jonathan resolved to declare a state of emergency in Adamawa state.

Speaking while receiving some journalists from Kaduna, Tukur said the consideration of the government was that since Borno and Adamawa are geographically contiguous, it made a lot of sense to engage terrorists within the zones broadly in an attempt to break their network and areas of stronghold.

According to him, both the southern Borno and the northern Adamawa share close affinity in social life, ethnicism, religion, commerce and trade, such that the government needed to create a corridor and a buffer zone for engaging the terrorists in the two axis.

Tukur said it was incumbent on the Federal Government to recourse to a preventive approach even in the fight against terrorists, a reason he said Adamawa fell in the list of states of the north to be safely protected if the State of Emergency should work.

He said: “Mr. President took the last option of declaring a State of Emergency because the terrorist were becoming more daring. “They were even planning to declare a state of their own and these happened because many of us believed that the menace of terrorism has been a problem for the north alone."

Tukur also called on all the governors of the federation to monitor heir borders so as to guide against spill over from the affected states as the security agencies deployed would flush the insurgents out. He urged them to join in the war against insurgents for the emergency declared to work effectively.

According to him, Borno, Yobe and states would be feeling the heat of the State of Emergency at the moment, all states of the federation must begin to guard their boarders, as a proactive measure for limiting the scope and space for operations of terrorists.

FG, states, LGs share N721.505 billion for April

By Stanley Onyekwere

T

he Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) yesterday announced the sharing of a total sum of N21.505 billion among the federal, state and local governments, as total revenue distributable for the month of April.

According to a communiqué by the Chairman of the committee and Minister of State for Finance, Dr.Yerima Lawal Ngama, by the technical sub-committee of FAAC on the Federation Account, after its meeting in Abuja, shows the gross revenue of N621.070 billion received for the month was higher than the N 595.708 billion received in the previous month by N25.362 billion due to increased earnings from domestic crude and

petroleum profit tax.

From the sectorial breakdown of funds available for distribution for the month under review, revenue from mineral sector stood at N544.755 billion against the projected N465.057 billion while that of the non-mineral sector was N76.315 billion against N158.711 projection in the current budget.

The breakdown also shows that the distributable statutory revenue for the month was put at N531.332 billion with an argumentation of N92.436 which brings the total statutory allocation to N623.768 billion.

Also distributed is the sum of N7.617 billion refunded by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for the month.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

By Abdulkadir Isa

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan had cut short his trip to Namibia to address the carnage back home - the police had lost about 100 men in Nasarrawa state. Mr president had left for South Africa after a four-day Town Hall meeting that dovetailed into the World Economic Forum.

Nigeria needs foreign investors and president Jonathan is touring the world to bring these investors to a land where not only civilians are under the lenses of "unknown gunmen", but also the helpless law enforcement officers left to scoop for the bodies of their colleagues.

In case President Jonathan drags in the likes of Donald Trumph or even Carlos Slim, who safeguards their investment? No sound businessman will be willing to inject his funds, no matter how small, in to a community where basic social amenities - water, power and transport stands below poor; insecurity - kidnap, smuggling and sectarian crisis has permeated the territory.

The idea of Nigerians having an inconsistent president is no more news; this has been affirmed by many and even governments from the Americas. The U.S mission in Nigeria had to lead the way for an independent investigation on the Baga genocide before our President thinks otherwise, a regime that was initially carried away in mediating between the figures from the Red Cross and the Nigerian Army.

In fact, situation was still tense when the necessity of a town hall meeting in South Africa carpeted the lives of hundreds of Nigerians civilians and law enforcement personnel alike.

Let's take suit and make lives secondary as the FG has made it. The most worrisome is the inability of this regime to keep to its words, words no one forced them to pronounce and commitments that shouldn't be issues in the first place.

We have lived to understand that "too much of everything is bad", especially in leadership, be it power, politics and the paraphernalia of a democratic government.

For nascent economies like ours, it is a wise decision to bring in helping hands - technology and funds, but it is wiser to provide an enabling environment to accommodate and sustain potential foreign investment when wheeled in.

Here we have a leader that perfects campaign to swim in shallow waters, a call in futility and championed by doctored figures to reflect a growing economy, growing economy we don't feel, see or touch. This is the growing economy being sold to Nigerians in diaspora to appreciate in a bid to lure them to partake.

Our economy has grown so big that no fewer than eighty (80) ministers, Governors and CEO's had to carry down to South Africa for exhibition.

Mammoth trips like this have been held while Nigerians pose by the tap waiting results to quench their thirst.

Mr President in 2012 was in Canada as an observer with about 200 delegates for the G8 summit where half a billion was said to have been spent on the mission, he also graced the UN Conference on sustainable development in Brazil with a delegation of 116; The UNESCO

L-R: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Olugbenga Ashiru, Governor Seriake Dickson, President Goodluck Jonathan, Governor Peter Obi, Minister of Finance Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo at the town hall meeting in South Africa.

Driving foreign investment with entou-Large First ladies "youth infusion" summit in Maryland USA, World Customs Conference held in Brussels is among other foreign trips cutting deep into tax payer's money.

The nation expects much from a leader who had in his January speech said: "overseas travel by all political office-holders, including the president, should be reduced to the barest minimum. The size of the delegation on foreign trips will also be reduced". This promise was not made on your behalf; neither did you make them at gunpoint. The present figure does not translate to "barest minimum" especially with as many as 40 aides - personal and social on most occasions.

The 2013 budget is to gulp N2.6 billion, leaving one to contemplating if the Presidency is about a global tour, space missions inclusive. Only this volume of contingent justifies

such provision for travel expense for a country with economic deficits Nigeria's level.

It is high time Mr President thinks big for the betterment of all. His latest jaunt to South Africa was supposed to be a return visit made by President Zuma. Zuma was here just for one day with an ultra slim team. Surely South Africa has more interest as its stake in Nigeria heaps a great deal for the nation, with major brands in Nigeria like Supermarket chain - Shoprite, Telecoms giant MTN and Lagos Johannesburg route is said to be the main sustainer of South African Airlines.

If the reverse was the case between South Africa and Nigeria, perhaps President Jonathan will simply annex the South African nation as a colony.

It is not clear who foots the bills of the top Chief Executive Officers who made the train with Mr President but

“

Mr President in 2012 was in Canada as an observer with about 200 delegates for the G8 summit where half a billion was said to have been spent on the mission, he also graced the UN Conference on sustainable development in Brazil with a delegation of 116

obviously, Duty Travel Allowance and other expenses in foreign trips have been “adulterated� with dubious claims.

At present, ministers get as much as N35, 000/day as DTA and the South Africa trip had ministers in attendance far into double digits; ministers of Finance, Petroleum resource, Education, trade and investment, Power, Agriculture among others were present. Also governors Peter Obi of Anambra state and Bayelsa counterpart Seriake Dickson were present for the four-day jamboree.

Accommodation for these "first class citizens" and their aides is also another suction pipe out of public treasury.

Time to look in the direction of visionary leaders is long overdue; ours must act as expected in line with purpose. If South Africa can host the World Economic Forum, what stops us from vying for the same or similar programs? Doesn't it pay more bringing the investors to see for themselves rather than take sheets of paper to them?

If Mr President cannot drive us to greater heights, he shouldn't drain public purse, the rubble at home has made our major policy decisions a matter for foreigners to intrude and this does not spell a good omen for the prosperity of this nation. The message is clear and our president needs binoculars. For now, President Jonathans' regime holds an entourage record.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

By Umar Muhammad Puma

O

ver 150 Nigerian students who are on the Federal Government scholarship in Russia have practically turned to begging in order due to lack of payment of their allowances.

This revelation was made by the leader of the Association of the Federal Government Doctoral Candidates in Russia, Godwin Ezinkwo, during an interactive session with the House of Representatives Committee on Diaspora Affairs.

He informed the committee that for six months now, they have not been paid their allowances, a situation that made them to beg their counterparts from other African countries, for sustenance.

According to him, the students also suffer in terms of accommodation because most of

PAGE 5

150 Nigerian students stranded in Russia them are yet to pay for their houses, adding that they currently face eviction.

“Russia is a very hostile country in terms of weather and other things.

“It is very embarrassing and difficult to cope and Nigerian students are now leaving at the mercy of other African scholarship students like Ghana, Zimbabwe.

“They lend money to us. So, Nigerian students are like beggars, it is as bad as that and it

is demeaning begging fellow students from oother African countries.

“We also have to bring up the issue of accommodation. The agreement in its raw form provides accommodation for students but unfortunately some of the host countries do not honour this agreement.

“Students are made to pay for accommodation but they are unable to pay because their stipends and remittances for about six months.

“As I speak to you now, students are going to be evicted from their hostels because they cannot pay for the accommodation.

“We have the issue of medical insurance because the allowances for all these have not been remitted, students are also going to be evicted as you cannot stay in somebody’s hostel if you are not medically certified,” he said.

He further noted that they had written several letters to see the Nigerian Ambassador to

Russia in order to have a one-onone interaction with him on their plight, but in vain.

Ezinkwo who stated that there are about 150 undergraduate and 10 post-graduate students currently studying in Russia on Federal Government scholarship said that it was the worst form of scholarship by the Nigerian government.

Chairman of the committee, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, who expressed dismay at the revelation assured that the House would do everything within its power to unravel the matter in order to help the students.

“It is shameful that Nigerian students that are sent on scholarship to other countries have resorted to begging.

“It is really a sad commentary. You don’t deserve this kind of treatment. We should be ashamed that this is happening. How can you be good ambassadors if you’re treated this way?

“We are going to do our work.

“We will meet with the Ministry of Education and the relevant stakeholders and find out what the real situation is,” she said.

Taraba donates vehicles to Army, Police From Yusha’u Alhassan, Jalingo araba state government has donated six Hilux vehicles to the Nigerian Army in Takum and the police Command in the state.

Presenting the keys of the vehicles on Tuesday to the commanding Officer in Takum and the Commissioner of Police, the Acting Governor, Alhaji Garba Umar, commended efforts of the security personnel for their commitment to the maintenance of peace of peace in the state.

According to Umar, the additional vehicles will improve security surveillances and rid the state of hoodlums and perpetrators of evil acts.

Speaking to newsmen after the presentation, the Commanding Officer of the Army Barracks, Takum, Lieut-Colonel Nsikaka John Edet, thanked government for the gesture.

Also speaking, the state Commissioner of police Jubril Adeniji said the provision of the vehicles would enhance the efforts of security agencies by responding promptly to crises situations.

Adeniji regretted that during the recent Wukari crises, the police could not reach some of the areas the area because of inadequate

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L-R: Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina; Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator Anyim Pius Anyim; and Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolememen, during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, yesterday at the State House, in Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye.

Reps vow to monitor 2013 budget implementation

By Umar Muhammad Puma he House of Representatives yesterday vowed that it would ensure that the 2013 budget is implemented to the letter.

Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, Abdulmuminu Jibril (PDP, Kano state), gave the assurance at the opening of a capacity building workshop organized to strengthen members of the committee.

He stressed that it is the responsibility of the House to work on budgets presented by the Executive before any appropriation could be made

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adding that the there were issues in the 2012 budget which they would not allow to be repeated.

“We want to ensure that the very right percentage we expect in terms of implementation is achieved for 2013.

“We are still looking at the situation very properly but it is more convenient to draw some conclusion with the experience that we had in 2012”.

“For 2012, from the beginning to the end of the year, of course at the level of Committee on Finance, we gave out to the parliament and,

of course the country, the entire collections. “Every quarter, we bring out the figures and in actual collections and so many instances, targets were surpassed, that was why our position at then was that there was not any excuse why the budget shouldn’t have been implemented to the fullest.

“For 2013, we are not expecting anything less and the budget was presented to the parliament early enough.”

“We are saddled with a lot of responsibilities as year-inyear-out, we have to do the necessary modifications to the Medium Term Expenditure Framework.

“We also have to take our time to build the revenue framework for the budget, which is the projection of income of the entire country.

It’s when we finished our own exercise that appropriation committee can now allocate resources,” he said.

Earlier in his opening remarks, the Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, had expressed appreciation to the committee for its work.

He said that the House would always facilitate the work of the committee considering the critical roles it plays in the affairs of the parliament.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Nigeria needs N335bn to fix electricity power

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

M

inister of Power, Prof.

Chinedu Nebo, has disclosed that Nigeria needs not less than N335 billion to have what he descdribed as a "new super national grid," adding that about 8000 engineers are required by the power sector to revive it.

Nebo disclosed this while speaking at a meeting with the Senator Phillip Aduda-led Senate Committee on Power.

He pointed out that the engineers working in the ministry, aside being insufficient, are also aged people who are physically weak to climb electric poles and carry out other functions.

According to him, "the country's electricity sector presently suffers a huge deficit in terms of availability of engineers.

"The sector needs at least, 8,000 engineers to make the sector functional."

Nebo, who lamented the decay in the sector, said something urgent needed to be done to save the sector from imminent total collapse, adding, "what is being done presently is mere patching."

He cited the example of Ughelli, in Delta state which he said was formerly generated 400 megawatts but has dropped to a mere 120 megawatts.

"The same neglect is happening in the human resources because for 16 years, there has not been a single hiring of engineers needed to handle the aging equipment.

"There is a need to beef up the entire system. Something should be done." Nebo said.

He appealed to the Senate to strengthen the sector to avoid further drops in power distribution, adding that what was operational now can only guarantee 5,500 megawatts.

"If international donor agencies see that reputable companies are investing in the power sector, they would be encouraged to put their money in the transmission and distribution of power", he said.

Senator Aduda assured that the Senate would do everything possible to ensure that money was available in order to keep the power transmission companies alive.

L-R: Director, Admin and Human Resources, National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Hajiya Aishatu Lami Abubakar; Executive Director/Chief Executive Officer of NPHCDA, Dr. Ado Muhammad; Director, Planning Research and Statistics of NPHCDA, Dr. Abdullahi Mohammed, and Dr. Claribel Abam, during the national stakeholders meeting on PHC review, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Nasarawa killings: Body of Police Commissioner found

By Lambert Tyem

T

he search and rescue operation team deployed to Alakyo forest, scene of the recent massacre of policemen by the Ombatse militia group in Nasarawa state yesterday recovered the body of Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Mohammed Momoh who led the ill-fated security Competent police sources said that Momoh's mutilated corpse was recovered alongside other bodies of slain

policemen security men and were taken to hospital in Lafia.

Reports also indicated yesterday that the earlier casualty figures which the police gave may not be accurate as Peoples Daily findings revealed that all the 61 anti-riot policemen from the Mobile Police Squadron N0. 38 in Akwanga could not be accounted for.

The Police and the State Security Service had put the number of dead or missing security personnel at 56 comprising 46

policemen and 10 SSS operatives but sources at the Akwanga Moblie Police Base said that none of the ant-riot policemen mobilized for the operation survived the attack by the militia group.

According to one of the sources, "apart from the 61 MOPOL officers who were deployed from Akwanga, none of whom survived the Ombatse attack, others were also mobilized from the MOPOL sub-base in Lafia including men of the state CID who are still missing."

It was gathered also that the officer in charge of the Base had been summoned to the Force Headquarters by the InspectorGeneral of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar.

The Police authorities were also said to have launched an investigation into allegations that the Nasarawa state government paid a huge sum of money to the state Police Command to checkmate the militia group.

Robbers kill three in Kwara banks raid From Olanrewaju Lawal, Ilorin

A

bout 20 armed robbers invaded three commercial banks in Omu_Aran, head quarter of Irepodun local government area of Kwara state on Tuesday night, killed three people and escaped with an unspecified amount of money.

It was gathered that the bandits

stormed the town around 6: 30 pm as sporadic gun shots rent the air in an operation that lasted for more than an hour.

Eye witness accounts said that the robbers attacked the police division and deflated the tyres of the police armoured tank packed outside the station.

The armed robbers were said to have thereafter invaded First Bank

Plc, Union Bank and Ecobank ,all along Aperan way in the town using grenades and dynamite to break the doors of the the bank's vaults.

An accountant with Union Bank identified as Gade and a driver were killed in the course of the robbery attack.

Also a member of a vigilante in the town identified as Dapo (alias Igbin) was also gunned down before

Nigeria, Cuba committed to bilateral commission

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

N

igeria and Republic of Cuba have agreed to strengthen their bilateral relationships, including exchange programmes on health, education , sports and culture, to improve the standard of living of their citizens.

Similarly, the parliaments of both nations will exchange programmes on legislations in order to make common laws that to facilitate the bilateral relations.

Senate President, David Mark, and the Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Hugo Ramos Milanes, who arrived at

the agreement in a parley in Abuja, pledged to work towards strengthening the bilateral relations between the two countries in a manner that would be economically and socially beneficial to their countries.

In his speech, Mark recalled that Nigeria and Cuba have a lot of sociocultural affinity that should be harnessed for the benefit of both nations.

He noted the exploits and excellence of Cuba in the fields of medicine, health and education, requesting for contribution to make Nigeria a centre of excellence.

Mark promised that Nigeria would in turn assist Cuba in areas where she

has comparative advantage, especially in areas of football and other sports.

Earlier, the Cuban Ambassador said he was in Nigeria to seek ways and means of improving and strengthening existing bilateral relations between the two countries, in a manner that will yield mutual benefits to the citizens.

He disclosed that at the moment, about 2000 Nigerians are in the Cuban universities, pointing out that about 500 of them are studying medicine.

While promising to help Nigeria improve on health and education, Milanes requested Nigeria to help Cuba improve on soccer.

the robbers escaped with an unspecified amount of money.

Reacting to the report, the youths from the town stormed the Omu-Aran police division as well as the Area Commander office to protest the robbery invasion.

A police patrol vehicle was also set ablaze by the youth while the police had to response with tear to disperse the protesters.

In his reaction, the Kwara State Police Command through the Police Public Relation Officer (PPRO) DSP Olufemi Fabode, said that "the Kwara State Police Command regrets to that some hoodlums or armed robber gang attacked the a branch of First Bank, Union Bank and Eco-Bank of at Omu Aran town and made away with an undisclosed amount of money.

"The police in Omu Aran engaged the armed robbers in gun battle and the robbers threw explosives to the mobile patrol vehicle while on the mission to stop them.

"One of the mobile patrol vehicles was set ablaze, two of the banks officials and a vigilante man were killed by the armed robbers," the PPRO said.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 7

PAGE 8

SURE-P Committee on public works inspects the rehabilitation of Abuja-Kaduna road, on Tuesday.

Photo: NAN

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

L-R: Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yarima Ngama, Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, and Minister of Water Resources, Mrs. Sarah Ochekpe, jointly briefing journalists after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, yesterday at the State House, in Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye

L-R: Minister of Youth Development, Alhaji Inuwa Abdulkadir, Sokoto state governor, Alhaji Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, and Director-General, NYSC, Brigadier-General Nnamdi Okorie-Affiah, during the 2013 NYSC management conference, yesterday in Sokoto.

Photo: NAN

Cross River state Governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, briefing journalists after his meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday at the State House, in Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye

L-R: Lagos state Commissioner for Physical Planning, Mr Toyin Ayinde, Managing Director, Adeniyi Coker consultant limited, Mr Fred Coker, Design Director, Str-Edge, Dubai, Ivar Krasinski, and lecturer, School of Built Environment, Heriot-Watt University, UK, Mr Kofi Karley, during the 2013 architects forum, yesterday in Lagos . Photo: NAN

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 9

Reps to probe the activities of NCC

By Umar Muhammad Puma

T

he House of Representatives yesterday mandated its committees on justice and Judiciary to investigate the activities of the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) in

order to ascertain the alleged manipulation of the musical industry by the commission.

The House also resolved to engage the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria (MCSN), Copyright Society of Nigeria (COSON) and other stakeholders

Minister charges COREN on funding

By Miriam Humbe

T

he Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, has assured the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) of continued Federal Government support in their regulatory role but urged the body should look for alternative means of funding its projects.

Onolememen said this while reacting to the request of the President of COREN, Kashim Ali and the Council members of COREN for budgetary allocations to complete the ongoing work on their zonal offices in Enugu, Makurdi and Warri and to commence work on its proposed permanent site allocated to it by the Federal Capital Territory.

The COREN team who were on a courtesy visit on the Minister said the proposed land for the permanent site which has been fenced is intended to be

developed as COREN House, at an initial construction cost of N1.5 billion.

Responding, the Minister said that, “government will support you to move forward but we will suggest that COREN begins to look at other areas for funding for sustenance.”

The COREN President had requested the Minister to ensure that the next budget of the ministry should allocate additional funds for Engineering Regulatory Monitoring (ERM) teams programmes.

According to him, “it is therefore my appeal to the honourable Minister to consider making a case to government on the need to support COREN in its drive to rid COREN of quackery and charlatans out of the engineering profession.

“To start with, I wish to humbly request that the next budget of the ministry should allocate additional funds for ERM.”

to address the issue of perceived monopoly in the Collecting Society Business in the country.

A motion read by Godwin Elumelu (PDP, Delta state) said there was need to investigate the activities of the NCRC based on the finding that the country is losing over N100 billion annually by “this unnecessary institutional bottleneck created by the Director General and management of NCRC to the

detriment of the economic growth of the country.”

According to him, NCC was established to regulate the copyright industry and Collecting Society Business but denies the application by the Musical Copyright Society of Nigeria for licence to operate as a Collecting Society.

As he put it, “there is agitation and restiveness by members of MCSN on the

perceived reckless attitude of the DG and officials of the NCC and a breakdown of law and order capable of affecting the economy and preservation of law and order in the country is looming in the music industry unless certain proactive steps are taken to arrest the ugly situation.”

The committees ware giving three weeks to submit a report to the House for further legislative input.

NARTO threatens strike over alleged N9.2 billion deductions by FIRS From Suleiman Idris, Lagos

T

he National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) as re-affirmed its resolve to proceed on its proposed strike action over alleged illegal deductions by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The union said yesterday in Lagos that failure of FIRS to refund N9.2 billion to the coffer of the NARTO would force it direct its tanker drivers to down tools.

The NARTO National President, Alhaji Kassim Ibrahim Bataiya, told reporters that PTD had issued a 14 days ultimatum on the 9th of May to the leadership of the association by PTD branch of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural

Gas on why it decided to carry out the action.

According to him, the sum represent the excess of five per cent withholding tax wrongfully deducted by Major Oil Marketers from its members’ bills submitted for payment and paid to FIRS from May, 2005 to May, 2012.

Bataiya explained that N2.7 has been processed and approved but awaiting payment by FIRS while N2.8 billion and N3.7 billion are at different stages of processing.

In response to the demand of tanker driver, Bataiye emphasized that the implementation of the agreement reached between the two parties will be contingent upon the refund of the sum of N9.2 billion

by FIRS. On the execution of the

agreement, he said that, “we had emphasized that the implementation of the agreement will be contingent upon receipt, by members of the association involved in the transportation of petroleum products refund, from the Federal Inland Revenue Services”.

He affirmed that FIRS has continued to hold onto the money due them without satisfactory explanation since 2012 in spite of the fact that some of its members have met the conditions set by FIRS to enable them to get the said refund.

Bataiya said, “the situation has adversely affected the expected income of our members thereby making it difficult for us to meet our obligation as contained on the agreement.”

PAGE 10

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Briefly Kogi is investors' haven, says Wada

K

ogi state Governor, Capt Idris Wada, has urged businessmen to invest in the state, describing the area as investors' haven.

Wada at a press briefing at the government House after a trip to South Africa on business mission stated that the agricultural development of the government has attracted sections of the international community.

He explained that he travelled on the invitation of that country's Ministry of Agriculture which has identified with Kogi's efforts in agricultural revolution.

He said that the state was ready to provide conducive atmosphere devoid of insecurity and other appendages that could hinder investment in the state, for prospective investors.

From Sam Egwu, Lokoja

Jonathan approves appointment of new NIC judges

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan has approved the appointment of 12 ne judges for the National Industrial Court (NIC).

The approval is sequel to the recommendation of National Judicial Council (NJC) headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar.

A statement by the Acting Director, Information of the NJC, Mr. Soji Oye, said the Judges will be sworn-in by the CJN and Chairman of the NJC on May 22 May, 2013.

By Sunday Ejike Benjamin

Jigawa constructs 135 health centres

J

igawa state said it has constructed 135 basic health centers in collaboration with the office of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) projects in the last six years of the administration.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr Tafida Abubakar, made this known at a Radio Jigawa special program marking the sixth anniversary celebration of the of the Governor Sule Lamido administration.

He explained that the state currently has 7,000 health workers compared to the 2,000 inherited from the previous administration in the state.

According to him, Dr 2.5 million treated mosquito nets were distributed to the public free during the period under review.

From Ahmed Abubakar, Dutse

L-R: Representative of Minister of Women Affairs, Dr. Ijeoma Unaogu, U.K International Development Minister, Ms. Lynne Featherstone, Secretary General, Women's Rights Advancement and Protection Alternative (WRAPA), Mrs. Sa'adatu Mahdi, and Director, Centre for African Leadership, Dr. Otive Igbuzor, during the media briefing on inequalities on the lives of girls and women in Nigeria, yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

Katsina establishes Information Technology institute From Lawal Sa'idu Funtua, Katsina

T

he Deputy Governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Garba Faskari, disclosed this on Tuesday during the graduation of 110 students of the state youth craft village.

According to him, the sum of over N900 million was spent for the first phase of the ICT project while N 500 million has been approved for the second phase.

According to him, when completed, the institute will help to equip the youth with the

modern ICT skills.

He also noted that government has signed an MoU with the National Board for Technology Education (NBTE) for the establishment of a technology incubation centre in the state where the youth will be

trained on small-scale enterprises.

Earlier the Special Adviser to the Governor on Science and Technology, Alhaji Sulieman Nuhu Kuki, said that over 2000 students were being admitted into the youth craft village annually.

2012 flood: Plateau victims demand FG relief materials

By Osaigbovo Iguobaro, Benin

P

lateau flood victims demand relief materials, cash Victims of the 2012 flood disaster in Jos North local government area of Plateau state on Wednesday demanded the payment of the relief assistance granted by the Federal Government to cushion their hardship.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the Federal Government had released N500 million to the Plateau state government to distribute to the victims of the disaster.

However, a spokesman of the victims, Malam Abdulhamid Hussaini, told NAN in Jos that

they were yet to be given the assistance.

Hussaini said the delay in distributing the aid was agitating the affected persons and had become a source of speculation among residents.

"We (victims) are yet to receive a kobo or measure of grain from the Plateau Government that collected the assistance on our behalf,'' he said.

He said that the victims had been turned to destitute after they were displaced by the flood in 2012.

"We are now living from hand to mouth as all our belongings and our business capital as petty traders were washed away by the floods.

"We are begging the state government to come to our rescue by distributing the grains and the financial assistance from the Federal Government.

"So far we have not collected any assistance from any government agency but we have been hearing our colleagues in other states collecting the Federal Government financial and food stuff assistance."

Hussaini, who lost six children during the floods, lamented that the victims had been struggling to "keep body and soul moving"' since then.

He said out of about 1,000 victims affected by the flood,

CBN trains staff on banking practices

By Abdulwahab Isa

T

he Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in partnership with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has flagged off an exercise to ensure compliance with sustainable banking practices in the Nigerian financial sector.

To achieve the objective, the apex bank yesterday on Tuesday in Abuja organized the first series capacity building workshop for its staff.

Special Adviser to the CBN Governor on sustainable banking, Dr. Aisha

Mohammed, said the workshop was necessary to enable staff develop adequate capacity in sustainable banking principles to assist in driving the new global innovation in the banking sector.

According to her, "this is the provision of training to CBN staff on Environment and Social (E&S) risk management and sustainable finance opportunities to enhance capacity to support and supervise banks in the implementation of the Nigerian sustainable banking principles,"

she said.

She said sustainable banking principles would ensure that banking operation is seen from a lager perspective where banking management is not just driven by profit motives for the shareholders but other stakeholders should also be put into consideration.

According to her, "the new global banking trend is not just for shareholders to enjoy profit but that all the stakeholders should be put into consideration in business activities for operations to survive."

very few of them were now living in decent accommodation with their families.

The spokesman said that the victims were ready to relocate when the government provided alternative plots for them.

Hussaini said some of the victims were compelled to build houses on waterways and currently lacked the financial capacity to purchase plots in safer places.

Reacting to the demands, the Executive Secretary of Plateau Emergency Relief Agency (PLSEMA), Alhaji Alhassan Barde, said government was computing the number of victims before the funds would be released to them.

Barde said government had evacuated the food stuff to local government areas for distribution to victims and had directed the affected councils to distribute same to the victims.

He said the agency was not aware that the Jos North Local Government victims were yet to benefit from the aid.

The scribe said that the funds would be distributed to the victims after a comprehensive census of all the beneficiaries and government buildings that were destroyed.

He appealed to them to be patient as the government was working to release the funds without further delay. (NAN)

PAGE 11

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Avoid some emotional decisions with your finances

P

ersonal finance concepts are generally straightforward and simple, but some people struggle with building a solid financial foundation when emotions get involved. Here are four ways people often act emotionally instead of logically that you should watch out for.

Changing banks because everyone else is The "it" thing to do these days seems to be changing your bank, but make sure that you are thinking things through before you act. Are you really paying anything for your account? You may not think that the banks are treating their customers fairly, but if you look at your statement and you never incur any fees, don't blindly go to a credit union and say "sign me up".

There are lots of reasons to jump ship, but make sure you know exactly how such a move is going to affect you.

Buying stocks when they're high and selling when they're low

This is true even when we invest in index funds. Most people can't wait to deposit their money into their investment accounts when the market is doing well and dread the same process when market conditions seem tough. If you want to increase your return, why not put a bit more into the market on a down day and less when it's on an up day? Small differences like this may seem meaningless but will add up overtime.

Staying in a bigger house than you need During the housing bubble when home prices went up practically every day, many families decided to move into bigger and more expensive homes even if renting would have been the better choice.

Whether they can or cannot afford the mortgage doesn't change the fact that the extra

mortgage payment is coming out of money they could use for other things. Is that extra bedroom that you never use worth not being able to take a nice vacation with your family a few times a year?

Keeping up with the Joneses When a few of your neighbors change their cars, your car always seems a bit older. When a bunch of your friends shop for new clothes, it's seems natural that you would get something too. If all your friends get a drink during dinner, it's much more likely that you will just automatically think of something to order.

There are lots more examples. I highly encourage you to list your expenses to remind yourself how you end up spending emotionally, so you won't repeat the same mistakes again.

Take steps to change your negative financial habits

R

aise your hand if you know you could be doing something to save a nice bit of cash each week but for some reason or another you just don't. Maybe you have a hard time getting your act together to pack a lunch each week or somehow you never find the time to look for a cheaper auto insurance plan. Don't be embarrassed if this is true for you, as almost everyone I know has these little, seemingly easy things that somehow just don't wind up happening. If you'd like to conquer one of these items on your list, try my three step method for making a change in your habits.

Step One: Figure out what is holding you back.

Pure laziness is not a detailed enough answer. You can almost always find a good solution to a problem if you have enough information to work with. So take some time and give yourself a thorough question and answer session to get to the bottom of things. Note: be friendly and kind to yourself when asking questions, don't go bad cop on yourself.

It's not really productive.

For example, if you somehow never make the time to pack a lunch, think about all the reasons for not packing a lunch over the past week: Ran out of bread.

Ran out of time.

Nothing seemed appealing.

Just plain forgot.

Or if you continually put off phone calls (my personal Achilles heel), your reasons might look like this: Wanted to make sure I had everything at hand before I called.

Forgot until it was too late to make the call.

Wanted to wait until a time when I was sure I wouldn't be disturbed.

Figured the lines would be way too busy on a Monday.

makes me feel more confident that I'll come across as prepared and pulled together, which is important to me.

Make calls first thing in the morning on the day I've decided ne of the first major to do them. This might not be the purchases that most schedule that efficiency experts people make is a car. would recommend, but as Interestingly enough, it is often somebody who is resistant to considered one of the worst making phones calls, I've found investments you can make, that if I don't do them first thing because, unlike other assets, cars almost always depreciate in in the morning, I'll let it slip my value. mind until after business hours.

The first thing you need to Do my best to schedule calls determine what you need the car for when I know I'll be home for? Are you more concerned with alone. Again, do them first thing a reliable mode of transportation, so that I don't talk myself into or something that will make a putting it off because "the kids will statement? Is it just for going to be home soon" or some other work or school, or for hauling the reason. Give myself a pep talk kids to soccer and football that if the person on the other end practices? Is it for regular long of the phone thinks I'm a loser trips, do you need to carry large because I don't have a butler to items when shopping, or is it just let the air conditioner repairman for the occasional weekend trip? in, well, that's their problem.

Once you've identified the Plan to do something fun after right car, think about whether Figured Friday was too late For example, some solutions to I get the phone calls done to you really need a new car or if a in the week to call and Monday the not packing a lunch problem reward myself for biting the used car will still serve your would be better. could be: bullet and getting things done. I purposes. Most cars depreciate My weird anxiety over Go grocery shopping every was resistant to this at first, 20% to 30% as soon as they are making phone calls flared up.

Sunday with a list. driven off the lot, so getting a one because it seems like grown folks Typing it out made me Pack your lunch in the year old car gives you almost the realize that some of my reasons evening as a part of your kitchen shouldn't have to be rewarded for same vehicle at a significant doing grown-up things. Then I for avoiding phones calls sound clean up duties. reduction in price. In fact, many decided that if it works, why not? a bit ridiculous but I'm willing Keep fresh and ready to go I now usually plan on running major auto dealerships offer to share them because you lunch choices at eye level in certified programs for their used fun, outside the house errands probably have some rather silly your fridge and pantry. cars which guarantee an accident after I do my dreaded phone calls. reasons for not doing things too. free, regularly serviced vehicle Start putting your keys in Step Three: Make the time to I also want you to know that it's that is tuned up with a complete your lunchbox so that you won't make this happen not that big of a deal, as we all warrantee. This gives you almost leave home without it.

Until your new habits are well have our little quirks and weak all the benefits without the full For my problem with spots. The thing is, unless you making phone calls, here are established, it's going to take a price tag. Of course, you can know the reasons you aren't some solutions I've come up with conscious effort on your part to always look for used vehicles that make sure that you schedule the doing things, no matter how and why they work for me. fit almost any price range, so if time you'll need to make things silly they seem, you won't be you budget is tight, you may need Get everything ready the able to make a workable plan to night before (old bills, checkbook, happen. Even if it sounds silly to to be flexible on specifics like model, write "Saturday 4 pm: make a fix things. color, and features, and and health insurance card Step Two: Make a plan to whatever information I'll need to grocery list. Sunday 10 am go to concentrate more on the target solve the problems that are make the call as efficient as the grocery store" on your price range. keeping you from doing what possible). Keep a pad of paper and calendar, do it. In fact, it's a good idea to write down a list of all of you want to do. pen along with my laptop on Chances are good that once hand as I make the call. Breaking the things you need to do each you understand and articulate the task up like this makes it day or week to accomplish your "Waste your money and you're the reasons that you are not seem less intimidating. Having goals and cross them off as they only out of money, but waste taking action, you'll be able to things ready to go first thing in are finished. This not only serves your time and you've lost a part come up with one or more the morning eliminates a reason as a helpful reminder, it's also a of your life." workable solutions right away. for procrastinating. It also good way to measure your - Michael Leboeuf progress.

Share your Money Tip: do you have a business/money idea, and you want to share it with our dear readers? Then, send it to: ikabirsule@gmail.com or (text it to 08091904890)

MONEY TIP

O

Quote

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 12

EDIT ORIAL EDITORIAL

Jonathan's South African Parliament address

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan's address to a joint sitting of the South African parliament on May 7, the first by a Nigerian leader, was the best speech he had given since his presidency, whether at home or abroad. Not the rumbling, disjointed and staccato delivery we have become used to at home. It was a confident, self-assured and sure-footed president Nigerians were seeing for the first time since, perhaps the days of late Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, appropriately eulogized internationally as the "golden voice of Africa".

The State Visit by the Nigerian leader came in the wake of a chill in NigeriaSouth Africa relations and few weeks after South African President, Mr. Jacob Zuma, flew into Abuja on a one-day fencemending trip. Of late, the two countries, may-be something to be expected, have been enmeshed in continental rivalry. One instance was when the two nations found themselves taking different positions on the Nato-funded over throw of the Gaddafi regime in Libya, Nigeria backing so called regime change and South Africa refusing t go along. The continental body, the African Union, declared no official position, effectively backing South Africa.

As it turned out, Nigeria found itself standing alone, its tail between its legs, as it were. At the last AU Heads of State Summit at Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, South Africa beat Nigeria to the Chair of the of the AU Commission, once again rubbing our nose in the mud. To be sure, no Nigerian was a candidate for the post but we supported then outgoing head, Mr. Jean Ping of Gabon.

The spat between the two nations came to head last year when some Nigerians visiting South Africa were turned back at the Johannesburg international Airport by immigration officials on the grounds

that their yellow fever inoculation cards were not genuine. Back at home, reactions to that backhanded treatment were predictable. Nigerian lawmakers called for a retaliatory action, particularly targeting South African businesses in banking and telecommunications in Nigeria. However, a South African apology coming in the neck of time saved the day.

No wonder, Jonathan's South Africa visit, at the invitation President Zuma, was awaited with a mixture of apprehension and

“

No wonder, Jonathan's South Africa visit, at the invitation President Zuma, was awaited with a mixture of apprehension and expectations expectations. Apprehension because it was not known what message the Nigerian leader was bringing along and expectations because the South Africans expected a thaw in relations between their country and Nigeria after Zuma's peace mission to Abuja. As it turned out, President Jonathan did bits of both.

President Jonathan began his address by appreciating the "hospitality" of his hosts and their struggle for freedom from white settler or apartheid rule. Then he carefully reminded them that their independence in 1994 would not have been possible without support from some African countries, particularly Nigeria. He spoke of the commitment of the Nigerian government

OUR MISSION “To be the market place of ideas and the leading player in the industry by putting the people first, upholding the truth, maintaining the highest professional and ethical standards while delivering value to our stakeholders”

and people to the liberation struggle in Southern Africa, South Africa in particular. A commitment that placed Nigeria in the league of "frontline state" though geographically it is not.

He said: "Suffice it to say that throughout the long-drawn, antiapartheid struggle, although we were not geographically contiguous, Nigeria was, nevertheless, considered a Frontline State, by the sheer fact of our commitment to the just struggle for freedom in Southern Africa. It is important to recall that this was a cause every Nigerian was committed to, not just those in government, but the people themselves. It was for this reason the Southern African Relief Fund (SARF) was created.

"This was funded with deductions from the salary of every Nigerian worker, irrespective of rank, both in the public and private sectors as well as donations from ordinary Nigerians in all walks of life, including students. This fund was placed at the disposal of the liberation struggle."

The president gave this reminder of Nigeria's decisive role in achieving black majority rule in South Africa without rubbing it in, without being patronizing.

For instance, he did not mention Nigeria's acquisition (nationalization) of British Petroleum (BP) in 1976, an action that forced the hands of British government to support an oil embargo against then apartheid South Africa. All the same, his message was not lost on his Pretoria audience: South Africa cannot continue to ignore Nigeria as if it does not owe it a debt of gratitude. And tat means that South Africa cannot afford to contradict Nigeria at every point and maltreat Nigerians who are doing clean business in that country.

All said, it was a successful state visit for the President and a huge diplomatic victory for Nigeria.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 13

Kwankwaso and budget discipline debate

By Umar Farouq Tafida

I

decided not to utter a word on the debate about Kano being the best state in Nigeria that is fiscally responsible and the most disciplined when it comes to budget implementation. I am comfortably convinced that almost all the chips are down now. Arguments are exhorted.

And unsubstantial condemnations of the position of Transparency in Nigeria in the Budget Discipline Perception Index, that places Kano above sea level, had since been proved illogical and immaterial.

Let me start by referring my readers to some of the things Transparency in Nigeria put as their yardstick for measuring the performances of the 36 states of the federation. They said in their report that, the report was a product of serious and academic scrutiny carried out by some reputable and independent bodies. Just to tell you that it was not an arranged to favour a particular political entity. And the areas that were addressed included, among other things, an emboldened effort for genuine political will to deal with leakages at the level of budget implementation. Which naturally makes public servants to be more committed to their official assignment. Under this come other lingering questions that interrogate the essential foundations of budget as a process and as an institution were brought to the limelight.

When one critically examines the index given by TIN he would come to understand that the report was not just doctored by

By M.B.O Owolowo

S

tate of Emergency or Emergency in a state?

When an emergency isn't really an emergency.

President Jonathan declared a “State of Emergency” in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states respectively, good! However his declaration doesn't affect the political appointees in the affected states. Some expected a situation where the executive is suspended and the military assumes command in the interim- as it is assumed 'force' is the best strategy to quell the insurgents for good. But the President has chosen an approach which many are keen to see its implementation, due to its perceived duality of powers.

State of Emergency explained: "A state of emergency is a governmental declaration which usually suspends a few normal functions of the executive, legislative and judicial powers, alert citizens to change their normal behaviours, or order government agencies to implement emergency preparedness plans. It can also be used as a rationale for suspending rights and freedoms, even if guaranteed under the

TIN as an NGO, neither was it influenced by the power-that-be.

It was an assessment carried out by different reputable and independent bodies. One could ask, or rather can go to Kano state and ask, is it true that the leakages that were the order of the day during the era of the previous regime are stopped? Go and ask issues like “Overheads given to Ministries, Departments and Agencies.” Overheads that were unnecessarily spent were seriously slashed down in all MDAs. And more productivity is recorded with the less overhead at disposal. What then is due process, if not this?

His Excelllency, Governor Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso started with the expenses at the Government House. He slashed down all the unnecessary spending at the Government House. The financial sitting-up started with his office. And public servants are more committed to their work now than before.

Their focus and understanding of public service delivery are redefined. You can go and conduct a personal research for your perusal. In fact I do not have any doubt that, the lingering questions that interrogate the very essential foundations of budget are adequately addressed by the People’s Governor, Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso.

I therefore challenge anybody to please go to Kano and see what is meant by physical infrastructure. So also what political will means in the administration of a state.

Kwankwaso’s political ideology, Kwankwasiyya, is indeed an embodiment of due process,

probity and accountability. It is his political philosophy that makes it a matter of unflinching necessity for the state government to public the outcome of the weekly state Executive Council meetings in major newspapers of the country, on weekly basis. No state! And I repeat, no state in Nigeria does that!

Kwankwasiyya ideologue means openness and transparency.

If you look at the main areas the Perception Index assesses the state, you will begin to see reason and wisdom in the entire process.

What are really involved in it?

Other areas of concern for the Perception Index are government expenditures of human capital, youth and women responsive budgeting, the focus of a state budget to sectoral targets of SEEDS (State Economic Empowerment and Development Strategies) and the performance of state in the internally generated revenue, that is a comprehensive revenue profile. Any one of these areas one decides to look deeply into, will come to believe that Kano state government deserves more that what Transparency in Nigeria finds out. Before the coming of Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso in May 29, 2011, the internally generated revenue was between N300 million to N400 million per month. When he came in it rose to N1.7 billion to N1.8 billion monthly. What an interesting transparent process being followed?

On the issue of urban renewal and housing, one could imagine the successes so far recorded by the leader of Kwankwasiyya in areas of housing policy and urban

renewal. Apart from the establishment of three modern cities Kwankwasiyya, Amana and Bandirawo cities, Kwankwaso administration was able to start the construction of flyovers within the city centre, just to ease traffic congestion of the metropolitan Kano. The project is still ongoing.

Whoever cares to fully get what I am saying should please pay a visit to Kano. You do not need to ask anybody, just go and see by yourself. Saying, they say, is believing.

The thing goes beyond that, Transparency in Nigeria assures that the basic and most fundamental reasons why Kano takes the lead are, among other things the effort being put by the state government to send 501 graduates to 14 countries of the world to further their education at the second degree level, sponsoring of 100 students to go and read Medicine abroad, another 100 students to go and read Pharmacy abroad and 100 students for a training in piloting and aeronautics engineering in Jordan. More than 200 students were sponsored to read different fields in different Nigerian universities. This alone takes good care of youth empowerment.

More than 20 craft schools were also established by Kwankwaso administration. And more than 3000 youth were trained in different crafts for them to earn good livelihood. What is most important is the way state budget is formulated, as testifies by the TIN Perception Index Report that, “State Budgeting process is people-oriented. The system of the state budget is participatory, where you have all

A state of confusion constitution. Such declarations usually come during a time of natural or man made disaster, during periods of civil unrest, or following a declaration of war or situation of international or internal armed conflict."

To some of the President's critics the “State of Emergency” is a contradiction in terms, they are accused of never seeing anything good in whatever he does. To his supporters however, the declaration is long overdue,

as they will defend anything he does- including special pardons and his “I don't give a damn” attitude.

Interestingly this isn't the first time Jonathan would declare a “State of Emergency”, in Yobe and Borno especially.

A State of Emergency was declared on 31 December 2011, in the North-Eastern (Yobe and Borno States) and North-Central (Plateau and Niger State) regions of the country.

“

Basically, another “State of Emergency” has been declared in the 'States' of Emergency. Evidently nothing was achieved by the previous declaration and we wonder what effect this latest declaration, however special, would have on the affected areas.

Basically, another “State of Emergency” has been declared in the 'States' of Emergency.

Evidently nothing was achieved by the previous declaration and we wonder what effect this latest declaration, however special, would have on the affected areas.

I wonder how the “amnesty” initiative fits into this bedlam.

An awkward development occurred while one of the accused Boko Haram members, Kabiru Sokoto appeared in court recently, according to his lawyer “Our client has confided in us that he never met with the Amnesty Committee. Even on the said date of the purported meeting, Kabiru Sokoto was before Justice Ademola Adeniyi.”

With this contradictory revelation, many are beginning to question the dynamics and authenticity of this amnesty programme.

As expected, some prominent figures are questioning the rationale behind this declaration and wonder why Nassarawa and Bayelsa States weren't including on the declaration listconsidering a significant number of police officers have been

sections of the society largely contributing to the budget conception process. It is in this respect that some of the local government officials are essentially copying from governor Kwankwaso in making their budget largely participatory.”

My argument goes like this, which of the above indices or parameters is not there in Kano?

Can someone help me find a way of faulting the above developmental activities by Kwankwasiyya regime? Those sent to further their studies were they not from Kano? And were they not sent by Kwankwaso administration? Or can someone come and claim that the money used to send them was not from the treasury of Kano state? I think even Transparency in Nigeria forgot to include other developmental projects executed

by Kwankwaso.

So whether Transparency International accepts to have an affiliate in Nigeria or not, the fact remains that the process and procedures followed by Transparency in Nigeria in arriving at the selection of Kano as the best in terms of fiscal responsibility and budget discipline, are genuine, open and transparent. Everything is said in the comprehensive report of TIN. With Transparency in Nigeria or without Transparency in Nigeria, Nigerians are capable of rating the performance of their public figures and public institutions.

And indeed including the performance of our states.

Tafida is an Abuja based financial analyst murdered by militia in those states.

Nigeria is probably at its most fragile ebb and whatever decisions the President takes affects lives. To those in the affected regions, the hardship continues. Overtime numerous lives have been lost: the police, the JTF and civilians, they are all Nigerians, so from that perspective, we are killing ourselves.

The President is meant to be the Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and is responsible for security of the nation. President Jonathan hasn't really impressed majority of the citizenry on security, we fervently hope he can get a grip on the nations security challenges.

Some may applaud this move as firm and decisive, as some would dismiss it as political rhetoric and strategising towards the next elections. Whatever it is, we want a stop to the wasting of innocent lives and our richly diverse human resources.

As the confusion on the State of Emergency continues, we hope we aren't left more confused than we were about the state of affairs, before the declaration: a State of Confusion! m.b.o.owolowo@gmail.com

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 14

The futility of emergency

By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde

P

resident Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has just bought another dummy called state of emergency from his security chiefs.

He thinks it will work. I think it will not.

Jonathan’s state of emergency is different from that of Obasanjo. Unlike under Obasanjo, this one keeps the offices and privileges of political office holders intact in the states where it will operate. The only difference is that the security of the state will be vested in the hands of the military and some constitutional rights of citizens of their citizens will be suspended.

This is the interpretation I just heard from Yahaya Mahmud, SAN, on the BBC. If these are the only differences, it will be difficult to see how they will afford the military victory over Boko Haram.

The military has enjoyed full access and support of the governments in the affected states, effectively subordinating the governors at every given point. Governors had no say in anything, if I can remember very well, except in standing straight to be milked by the khaki boys for logistics, providing

underfunding, relief to victims it must not be and appealing any of the JTFs. to them to They get money accept Peoples Daily welcomes your letters, opinion articles, text from the federal violations of government their rights in messages and ‘pictures of yesteryears.’ All written above, from the good faith, a contributions should be concise. Word limits: Letters - 150 state fate from God or words, Articles - 750 words. Please include your name and governments a national a valid location. Letters to the Editor should be addressed below and from sacrifice. to: sideways when The we citizens military also make the The Editor, enjoyed the full mistake of privileges of Peoples Daily, 1st Floor Peace Plaza, falling, or are using force – 35 Ajose Adeogun Street, Utako, Abuja. forcefully many times Email: opinion@peoplesdaily-online.com dragged, into excessive – on SMS: 08134607052 their net. An any citizen idea even they without occurred to me hindrance from the state governments in that one of the best outlets for my burning of neighbourhoods and the past two years. No father has sections of towns, the alleged Country Yoghurt would be ever taken the JTF to court, to military and police barracks. I rapes, arson, the ransacking of my knowledge, over the arrest will soon be there collecting my homes, etc. of his son who was detained own share of the booty before the And I doubt very much if the without charge at Giwa politicians start their campaigns police, from the InspectorBarracks – the Nigerian version in 2014 – if Boko Haram will General of Police to his of Guantanamo. The son that approve them permits!

Commissioners in the states, may not have anything to do So what exactly has hindered have constituted any obstacle to with Boko Haram. Nobody has the military so much that they the operation of the JTF. Instead, taken them to the International needed to compel Mr. President to the police have wisely remained Criminal Court in spite of the give them a state of emergency pegged in their paramilitary war crimes that have been to operate under? positions in the JTF structure documented by local and The state of emergency is also and operations. international human rights futile from the records so far. Two Finally, a quarter of our groups: the extrajudicial killings budget goes to security, the days ago, a senator from Borno of suspected members of Boko State revealed that 23 to 24 of largest portion of it obviously to Haram and civilians, the the 27 local governments in the JTF operations. Most Nigerians detentions without trial, the state are under the effective believe that if any government tortures of detainees, the control of Boko Haram. If despite agency should complain of

WRITE TO US

the resources, the personnel, the Giwas, Bagas, Maiduguris and Damaturus, government has lost 87% of the territory in Borno to Boko Haram, I wonder what additional powers to the military would achieve.

A significant shift though would be the mass deployment of soldiers to the affected areas.

With the sophistication of Boko Haram, our sons in the military will just be turned into cheap targets. There will be so many of them to aim at easily, more to destroy in a spot.

I am at loss here – completely. What has the state of emergency achieved when it was declared under this regime in some local governments including those now under Boko Haram occupation?

I would like to conclude this article by stating a woeful statistics on the incapacity of successive governments to solve our national problems: Government in Nigeria has not been able to solve a single problem in various areas of governance and the economy, to my knowledge, in the past 28 years. A problem at the beginning of a regime will remain there until it ends – accompanied by many news ones. And so our wahala continued to pile up.

I need to be convinced how declaration of the state of emergency could make Boko Haram an exception.

Aliyu Tilde is reachable via LinkedIn

Terrorism, Putin and the Cold War legacy

By Nina Khrushcheva

T

errorism always complicates diplomatic relations. Since the Boston Marathon bombing, the suspected handiwork of two brothers of Chechen background, Russian and American security officials have focused on a blame game.

Could better cooperation between the FBI and the FSB (successor to the KGB) have averted this bombing? Which country is responsible for the carnage? The United States, which Russia warned in 2011 about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother who was killed in the police shootout a few days after the bombing? Or Moscow, which gave Washington scant evidence to pursue in that query?

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union and the United States regarded each other with a mixture of suspicion and contempt. This continuing legacy may be the reason for the two intelligence services’ failure to communicate here.

The Americans, convinced the other side was withholding information, appear to have mistrusted the inexact Russian data. So the FBI may have decided to do the bare minimum.

Even Boston’s police department was reportedly not informed of what we now read was a cursory investigation by the FBI of the elder Tsarnaev in 2011.

Washington and Moscow’s historic political disagreements may have helped lead to the tragedy at the Boston Marathon, where three people were killed

and hundreds more injured. The surviving younger Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar, now faces charges of using a weapon of mass destruction and a potential death sentence.

One key reason Washington does not trust Moscow is Vladimir Putin. Washington views the Russian president, a former KGB colonel, as notoriously untrustworthy. For decades, U.S.Russian relations have resembled a swinging pendulum – with Putin now considered as dishonest and manipulative as Boris Yeltsin, his anti-communist predecessor, was viewed as bighearted and forthright, if chaotic in his capitalist aspirations.

Following the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, the United States and Yeltsin’s Russia bonded as (sometimes uneasy) allies over issues ranging from the Balkan wars to creating a capitalist system in Russia. The West even treaded lightly in dealing with the “first” Chechen war – when Yeltsin in 1994 ordered the invasion of Chechnya, a Russian republic vying for independence, to bring his democratic revolution there at the barrel of a gun. For Washington, Yeltsin’s intent to spread democracy was more important than any localized domestic brutality.

But when Putin waged his own Chechen war in 1999, the international outcry was overwhelming. That war, like Yeltsin’s, flouted humanitarian conventions. But this fight was very different – Chechnya became a scene of economic and political anarchy, with Islamist warlords seeking to create a caliphate across the North

Caucasus. And no country wants a fundamentalist state within its borders.

This message from the Russians was particularly useful for Washington following the attacks of September 11, 2001.

But Putin’s human rights record – show trials against the oil tycoons, journalists killed and protesters prosecuted – trumped any defense offered for his actions in Chechnya. Though there was a clear shared security concern, suspicion against Putin dominated.

Washington treated Chechnya as a uniquely Russian affair – an oppressed ethnicity fighting for independence from its imperial master. Initially, the United States had accepted a Russian offer for cooperation following the invasion of Afghanistan, but by the mid2000s then-Vice President Dick Cheney brought relations back to their default Cold War position of mutual recrimination. He denounced Putin’s Russia, saying it “unfairly and improperly restricted the rights of her people.”

Putin, feeling betrayed, responded with vehement antiAmericanism. He equated President George W. Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Middle East as a new form of colonialism.

In 2009, President Barack Obama attempted his famous “reset” with Russia, but there was little positive outcome. In 2010 another scandal erupted – Washington uncovered 12 Russian sleeper spies, planted by the Russian FSB a decade earlier.

The Cold War cloak-and-dagger

games were back, dimming the chances of any Moscow security demands being taken seriously.

It was close to the discovery of the spy debacle that the FSB sent its request to the FBI about investigating Tamerlan Tsarnaev. That inquiry went unanswered – at least according to the North Caucasus chapter of the Russian Center for Combating Extremism.

In the FBI’s version, Tsarnaev was investigated as a suspect linked to terrorism. But with no tangible connections found, and the FSB offering no additional information, his case expired.

That’s where being on speaking terms could have made a difference between life and death. Americans didn’t want to listen, and Russians failed to explain that they, too, had little information to go on.

First, Moscow reportedly only uncovered Tamerlan’s Internet exchanges with a few Islamic radicals from the lawless mountain woods in the Caucasus.

His 2012 trip to Dagestan, where for six months he tried to join the insurgents, has yet to be fully analyzed.

Jihad by Facebook isn’t how the game is played in the Caucasus. When Tsarnaev’s two contacts – Mahmoud Mansur Nidal, a Dagestani jihadist, and William Plotnikov, a Russian emigrant to Canada turned Islamic militant – were killed last year in military raids, Tsarnaev returned to the United States.

Today, Moscow and Washington both claim that their lack of cooperation was a legal misunderstanding. In the United States, for the most part, this lack

of hard evidence means no case.

Though it seems strange that the FBI would not have recognized that the Russian warning, and Tsarnaev’s visit to Russia, might constitute a case for keeping an eye on him.

For the Russians, who have often been lax where legality is concerned, any connection to the Caucasus insurgency was a solid source for real watchfulness.

But legal or not, had similar information come from, say, Pakistan, which is playing a double game of both supporting and suppressing jihadists, the FBI may well have reacted far differently.

“Pakistani terrorists” now capture the American imagination and warrant exhaustive investigations, accounting for some successful preventions – like the PakistaniAmerican who failed to blow up New York’s Times Square.

The big question for the United States, now confronted with Islamic fundamentalism among its own citizens and residents, is: Can Washington afford to remain focused on Putin’s KGB past and the Cold War legacy?

Russia and the United States may not be able to manage an allencompassing reset, but two professional secret services ought to be able to find a way to share reliable information.

After all, when Cold War rules still applied, Americans warned Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev when their embassy in Moscow uncovered Communist hardliners plotting a coup in 1991.

Culled from reuters.com

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 15

Why US can’t afford to let Syria situation slide

By Mark Urban

A

fter two years of brutal civil war in Syria there is growing support in Washington for the US taking some action.

The question of what to do about Syria's civil war has rumbled away in this city's foreign policy establishment for the past two years, without reaching any sort of conclusion or touching off military intervention, but in recent weeks the ground has been shifting.

Whereas for much of last year it was a couple of venerable Republicans on the Senate Committee on Armed Services, John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who argued the US could not afford to let the situation in that war-torn country slide, there are now signs that a broader swathe of opinion is adopting these arguments.

Does this matter when President Barack Obama seems set against getting involved militarily, reflecting the public

opinion of a war-weary America?

It seems that it does, with White House briefing suggesting Mr Obama's administration is now actively looking at sending weapons to the anti-Assad opposition and indeed taking further action if large scale use of chemical weapons emerges.

There have been a number of way points in this change.

There was a significant moment last year when the president's defence secretary and CIA director revealed they had both been over-ruled by their boss on the question of arming the opposition.

More importantly events on the ground such as the reported use of chemical weapons have stirred the debate and created an expectation of action after President Obama's talk of "red lines" for the Assad regime.

It appears it is only the prospect of possible peace talks in Geneva that have stalled the move towards more direct US involvement.

Yet this may simply be

buying a reluctant president a little more time to consider unattractive options since at Monday's press conference with David Cameron he showed little faith the diplomatic track would produce something.

In the Senate now other voices, including senior Democrats, are driving the move towards greater action.

Last week Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, launched a bill to arm the opposition.

Senators Bob Casey (a Democrat) and Marco Rubio (a rising Republican star tipped for the 2016 presidential race) have put forward another, which would mandate the administration to go further, planning to secure Syria's stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

How do these leading lawmakers justify this stance given the experience of Iraq and the marked reluctance of the US public to get more deeply involved?

"We can't just delegate this

to others", Sen Casey told me, "we have to have more of an impact on the outcome".

He believes it is a vital US interest to check Iran and Hezbollah (President Assad's allies) in Syria, that the huge refugee flows generated by the conflict are destabilising the region, and America must insure it empowers the moderate Syrian opposition.

Most of these senior people on Capitol Hill who now speak of the need for intervention still hold sacrosanct the principle that there should be no US "boots on the ground".

Yet now that he is gaining broader support for his quest to arm the opposition Sen McCain is urging his colleagues to consider that under certain circumstances, such as a widespread use of chemical weapons, the US and its allies must be ready to send in troops.

"We cannot do this on our own," Mr McCain told us, suggesting that in the nightmare scenario in which nerve gas bombs were falling into the hands of militant

Abuja natives and gains of ‘Land Swap’

By Rogers Edor Ochela

T

hat the incumbent Federal Capital Territory Administration under the ministerial superintendence of Senator Bala Mohammed is poised to right the obvious wrongs as epitomized in infrastructural deficit in the nation's capital is certainly not in doubt. And that he has devised a reliable strategy tagged Land Swap policy to achieve this noble objective is equally incontestable.

What is however a subject of doubt is the necessity or otherwise of pockets of protests against the policy by some few natives.

The angst of the natives, which is largely borne out of ignorance of the cardinal objectives of Land Swap policy, is equally predicated on the unfounded fear that it will dispossess them of their ancestral land without getting anything in form of adequate compensation.

From all intents and purposes, this is far from the truth.

In an effort shed light on the policy, especially the interest of residents, particularly the original inhabitants, a special town hall meeting was held on Friday, the 26th of April 2013 at the international Conference Centre, Abuja, where the Minister painstakingly explained in clear terms what he has in stock for the natives.

At this juncture, it is necessary to emphasise, at least for purpose of clarity that citing capital cities of nations all over the world has its inherent advantages and disadvantages.

It involves making of sacrifices on both the part of government and indigenes; in a nutshell, quid pro quo, meaning giving in something in exchange for another thing. In this case the indigenes ceding their land to the government for infrastructural development, while they are handsomely compensated.

It would be recalled that when the regime of late General

Murtala Mohammed muted their idea of relocating the nation's federal capital from Lagos, it set up a panel headed by late Justice Akinola Aguda and vested it with the responsibilities of planning, designing and developing the FCT. Through the instrumentality of Decree No. 6, the panel was vested with the ownership, control and governance of the territory.

In the process of identifying a suitable place that can serve as the capital of the country, several cities, towns and locations such as Kaduna, Lokoja, Auchi, Lafia, Kafanchan, Okene, Osara, Makurdi, Agena, Agege etc were considered. But through painstaking efforts based on several factors, the present location of FCT, which was a virgin land was chosen. To further underscore its virginity, it had to borrow the name Abuja which was the former name of the place presently known as Suleja.

The point must be emphasised that Nigeria is not the only country in the world that has had to relocate its capital city from one location to another. Other countries that had done so include Brazil which moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia; Malawi which relocated its capital from Zomba to Lilongwe; Cote D'Ivoire from Abidjan to Yamoussoukro; Australia from Sydney to Canberra and Tanzania from Dar-es-salam to Dodoma.

It is no longer secret that the huge influx of Nigerians into Abuja has overstretched its facilities almost to breaking point. Successive administrations in the FCT have expended billions of naira trying to provide infrastructural facilities with negligible success.

The incontrovertible fact is that the most revolutionary of all those efforts in providing facilities for Abuja is encapsulated in the present land swap programme of Senator Bala Mohammed-led

administration.

What made the policy unique is that in opening up districts under the Land Swap programme, for the first time in the history of the FCT, the native settlements are being given opportunity as active stakeholders in deciding the nature and model of resettlement and compensation policies to be adopted by government to address their concerns. With this unprecedented package, a silver lining on the horizon seems certain for the original inhabitants of FCT who virtually had a raw deal in the hands of officials since the founding of Abuja 37 years ago.

Judging from past experiences, the option of resettlement and compensation has failed woefully to meet the expectations of critical stakeholders in the FCT project.

In the first instance, the resettlement programme has suffered series of setbacks because it created a cyclic problem whereby people are resettled today, only to sell the houses or plots of land and move to another location, awaiting another round of resettlement, a development that could make resettlement and relocation an unending one. It is against the backdrop of this pitfall that the government opted for integration policy which again could not work due largely to funding constraints. Recent estimates put the cost of resettling and integrating the natives at over a mindnumbing sum of N150 billion, a staggering amount that is unaffordable, even to the most prudent of administrations.

It is pertinent to allay the fears of the natives that for the first time in several decades since the creation of Abuja, a visionary Minister in person of Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed has devised a wonderful strategy in conjunction some development partners, whereby the issue of

integration or resettlement of natives is to be incorporated into land deals sealed with these investors under the land swap policy.

Under this highly innovative programme, credible investors in infrastructure, including multinational companies have now accepted to deploy millions of naira into integrating the natives through several mechanisms, such as integration, relocation and compensation all within the approved framework, hinged on best international practices.

As far as the land swap policy is concerned, Senator Mohammed means well for the Abuja natives. So it is uncharitable for anybody to accuse the minister of using the policy as an instrument to unjustly dispossess the native of their lands without compensation. It is also trite to assert that the citing of Nigeria's capital city in Abuja has benefited the indigenes in more ways than one. Today, all the members of National Assembly representing FCT and all Area Council Chairmen are indigenes, while the territory is being administered more or less like a state with its budget being prepared by the NASS. It is equally instructive to note that under the innovative land swap programme, Abuja native communities that may directly be affected in the implementation of the programme are 17 in number with some few Fulani settlements. These communities are Azhata, Ketti, Dagaja, Anaknayita, Gofe, Kowyizihi, Burun, Takalafiya, Takushara 1, Takushara 2, Maraba 2, Sabon Burun, Maraba 1, Anguwan Mamuda, Waru, Yiyimuttu and Burum Gbayi.

While some of the affected communities have expressed fear over the implementation of the Land Swap project, the FCT Administration is working assiduously to allay such fears,

groups, a multi-national coalition would have to enter Syria to secure them.

Others, such as Sen Casey, disagree about sending in ground troops, arguing that even under these circumstances, the US would have to limit itself to airstrikes while indirectly helping the Syrian opposition to secure the stockpiles.

So the attempts to halt the conflict by peace talks could hardly be more urgent.

But there are signs that the west's allies in the Syrian opposition could be as reluctant to sit down with President Assad's representatives as they have in the past.

Could a sense that the ground is shifting in Washington be emboldening them to carry on their military struggle?

For a president who has until now been deeply reluctant to fuel the conflict, that could be a bitter irony.

Mark Urban is with NewsNight of London maintaining that any massive infrastructure development in the FCT must, as of necessity, holistically take into consideration resettlement and compensation issues if it is to succeed.

At the recent Town Hall Meeting, the Minister assured that any resettlement or compensation policy would take into consideration the concerns of all critical stakeholders, including the livelihood and socio-economic activities of the original inhabitants; FCT developmental needs; commercial interest of the investors as well as the human rights concerns of the International community.

It is also noteworthy that the affected native communities are to be given all options to enable them take good decisions on the type of resettlement plan that will be convenient for them, just as the minister has assured the affected natives that notwithstanding the policy agreed to by the stakeholders, as a responsible Administration, the FCTA shall intervene where necessary to ensure that they are treated fairly and justly.

In summary, the minister in a charter of promises he unfolded recently said that the land swap policy will ensure that the sharing formula does not exclude the communities; that the compensation policy is adequate and will meet reasonable expectations of all relevant stakeholders including the communities, investors, FCTA and the international community; enhance employment opportunities for the youth of the affected communities; and that the authority shall always exhibit utmost transparency in its dealings with the communities.

With this laudable objective, the minister needs the support of all and sundry, especially the natives in order to successfully execute it.

Ochela, a journalist and public affairs analyst, sent in this piece from Wuse, Abuja.

PAGE 16

College of Education holds annual conference

By Usman Shuaibu

C

ollege of Education Academic Staff Union (COEASU), Zuba chapter in Gwagwlada Area Council of the FCT, has Organised its first Annual National Conference for the Stakeholders in education sector in the country.

The National conference which entitled “Education and the challenges of insecurity in Nigeria” was attended by the stakeholders in education sector within and outside the FCT. Speaking at the occasion, the provost of the College, Prof. Tijjani Isma’il, urged government to give priority attention to education sector in the country.

According to him, education creates a secure society, while adequate security ensures a convenient learning environment.

He further called on government to give the necessary support to the teachers to carry out work effectively.

Isma’il assured the conference that his administration would continue to provide the needed amenities in the College.

Presenting a paper tagged “Education in the face of Insecurities: Challenges and the Way Forward”, Prof. (Mrs) Okwudisu, urged government to inject enough money into the education sector to enhance quality education.

She also called on government to provide infrastructural facilities in schools, pointing out that so many schools in Nigeria were facing by the problem of facilities due to bomb blast.

She appealed to the federal Ministry of Education to provide a standard curriculum content which would be acceptable in the educational institutions in the country.

She then pleaded with the government to focus on the development of health and agricultural sectors in order to generate employments for Nigerians in the labour market.

While commenting on the security situation of the country, Okwudisu called on the Federal and state governments to provide good governance so as to put an end to insecurity faced by the citizens of Nigerians at the present time.

On his part, the chairman of COEASU Zuba Chapter, Dr. Ahmed Lawal Baza, said that the conference was organized to enable the academia to display their talents through the presentation of papers to update the knowledge of the participants.

He further asked the government to give incentives to teachers to boost their morale at work.

Baza used the occasion to commend the FCT minister, Senator Bala Mohammed for Pursuing the law establishing the FCT College of Education at the National Assembly.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Villagers demand budgetary provision for orphans, vulnerable

By Adeola Tukuru

F

und Raising and Communication Officer with SOS Children Village, Gwagwalada, Mrs Gladys Omopariwa, yesterday called for budgetary provision for orphans and vulnerable groups to strengthen care for the less privileged.

Omopariwa stated this in Gwagwalada during a visit to Gwagwalada Area Council by staff and children of the village in commemoration of 2013 International day of families.

She said budgetary provision for the less privileged in the country would no doubt strengthen the efforts of NGOs and other stakeholders in the care for orphans and

vulnerable groups.

Omopariwa said the International Day of Families was set aside by the United Nations to commemorate the essence of families globally.

Mrs Amina Solomon, Head of Personnel Management, Gwagwalada Area Council who received the children on behalf of the council commended the staff of the

village for the care for the children.

She pledged the commitment of the council to continue to offer necessary support to the village to ensure that the children were adequately cared for.

Solomon therefore called on the children of the village to be obedient and dedicated to their academics.

Nursing school holds cultural carnival

By Adeola Tukuru

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Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) workers cleaning a major road yesterday at Central Area, in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

Experts say dizziness, cold are signs of anaemia

S

ome medical experts have said feelings of dizziness, constant cold and headaches were signs of iron deficiency anaemia.

They spoke in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that these signs, if not properly treated could have serious health consequences.

A Gynaecologist, Dr Fred Achem, said that iron deficiency anaemia could also cause low oxygen levels in vital organs like the heart.

Achem said iron deficiency anaemia, was a common type of anaemia, which occurred when there was shortage of iron in the body.

He said, “Iron deficiency anaemia occurs when there isn’t enough iron in the body, it causes a lower than normal amount of red blood cells in the body.

“Red blood cells are the cells that transport oxygen throughout the body.

“Iron deficiency anaemia gradually starves the body of the oxygen it needs, leading to

symptoms like shortness of breath, paleness, headaches, heart palpitations and fatigue.”

Achem said that the immune system was dependent on iron for its efficient functioning.

He said a lot of people were ignorant of the importance of iron to the body, adding that it went beyond providing oxygen to the body.

The gynaecologist said deficiency in iron could also weaken the body’s immune system, especially in childhood and pregnancy.

“Iron deficiency can do much more harm than merely causing anaemia.

“It can have effects like weakening your resistance to infection as well as damaging your ability to think,” he said.

Achem added that the best way to prevent iron deficiency was to be informed on the best sources of iron.

“Some good sources of iron include: red beans, meat, fish, nuts, soybeans, cereals, potatoes, spinach and other

dark green leafy vegetables.

“Also, Vitamin C helps the body to absorb iron. Good sources of Vitamin C are vegetables and fruits, especially citrus fruits like oranges, grapefruits and tangerines,” the gynaecologist said.

He said that some foods and medicines like tea and coffee, calcium, antacid could make it harder for the body to absorb iron.

A nutritionist, Hajiya Jummai Hassan, said that there were many conditions that could lead to iron deficiency in the body.

“Iron deficiency anaemia is the most common nutritional disorder in the world.

“This type of anaemia can be aggravated by pregnancy, heavy menstrual flow, internal bleeding, gastric and peptic ulcer, inflammatory bowel disease, malaria and haemorrhoids,” Hassan said.

She said that iron deficiency anaemia could be corrected with iron supplements like Vitamin B12 and folic acid. (NAN)

he FCT School of Nursing and Midwifery, Gwagwalada, recently held their sixth annual cultural carnival in Abuja.

The Acting Director, Nursing Services of the FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat, Ms Onukwue Onyinye, said after much academic work, the students decided to organize the event to showcase the different cultures of Nigeria in order to unwind.

She said in the last two Final Qualifying Examination (FQEs) organized by the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, both schools scored 100 percent respectively, which makes the FCT School of Nursing one of the few not sitting for the May 2013 FQE that is meant to be a re-sit for candidates.

According to her, students of the school also performed creditably well in the FQE in 2010. “The FCT School of Nursing had 18 credits with one of the students having over-all credits in the three papers, which was the best result in the country for that year,” she said.

She commended the Secretary of the FCT Human and Health Service Secretariat, Dr Ademola Onakomaiya as well as the FCT Minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, for providing a photocopying machine in the schools to ease the stress/cost of photocopying materials outside the schools premises and for coming up with a policy it absorb the best five graduating students into the FCT civil service as well as paying for the schools DSTV subscription for two years to keep them abreast with happenings all over the world.

Responding, the FCT Health Secretary, Dr Onakomaiya, describe the schools as places known for excellent in both character and learning.

He said there was need for events like the cultural carnival once in a while for students to promote their cultures and exhibit how this can enhance learning.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 17

Nigeria to partner with Singapore on bilateral ties

By Adeola Tukuru

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igeria is poised to deepen its economic and bilateral tie with the Republic of Singapore as both countries are on a mutual talk that would allow them leverage on areas such as capacity building and exploring infrastructural development possibilities between both countries.

The Singaporean Minister of Foreign Affairs Masagos Zulkifli at a state visit to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT Bala Mohammed said the visit was necessitated by the need to explore possibilities of deepening the bilateral expansion that both countries had build overtime.

The envoy also disclosed that the Nigerian Ambassador to Singapore Nonye- Rajis Okpara who was also present at the meeting has been taking the lead in selling various investment options in the Nigeria to him, adding that this had necessitated his visit to the country to get first-hand information on those areas.

“Most people in Singapore are not properly informed about issues in Africa. The Nigerian Ambassador to Singapore has been briefing me on the investment options in the country, and that is the factor that had propelled this visit. Am impressed with what I have seen so far and would talk deeper with relevant authorities on area of collaboration” Also, the Envoy said Singaporean high commission to Nigeria explained that the High commission in t he country has moved a step further in establishing a Capacity and skill acquisition centre in Nigeria to assist in empowering the youths and absorbing them in various fields of their choice.

Responding, the FCT Minister said the outcome of the visit would be fast-tracked as the territory is prepared to sign Memorandum of understanding with the visitors in areas of capacity building of the administrative staff of the Territory and standard practice in the management of the Territory.

In addition, the Minister said the transformational policies of the present administration would explore all the available options with regard to human capital development, adding that the FCT administration would partner the country in various areas such training and retraining of its staff as well as other areas.

School children having fun at a park, recently in Asokoro, Abuja.

Photo: NAN

Bala warns against politicization on Land Swap Programme

By Adeola Tukuru

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he FCT Administration has warned against the politicization of the FCT Land Swap programme because infrastructure must be provided in the entire 250 square kilometers of the Federal Capital City as well as the 8,000 square kilometers that comprise the Federal Capital Territory through an affordable means.

Senator Bala Mohammed gave this warning while

inaugurating the 30 member Ministerial Committee on the Implementation of Land Swap Programme and Resettlement Matters in Abuja.

Senator Mohammed also cautioned those who may wish to hijack the genuine concerns of the people to cause confusion to desist from such acts.

His words: “Let me use this opportunity however, to serve a word of caution to those that may wish to hijack the genuine concerns of the people to cause confusion”.

According to him, “we, as

an Administration prefer the way of dialogue and civil approach to all matters affecting the citizens of the FCT. We cannot however, abdicate our responsibility for maintenance of peace, wherever there is a threat to law and order”.

The Minister remarked that this inauguration is a follow up to the promise made during the Special Town Hall Meeting convened last month to discuss matters affecting the FCT Land Swap Programme.

He reiterated that the

meeting was designed to provide a forum for all stakeholders to make input into the Land Swap Programme as well as to listen to the concerns of the various communities that would be affected by the project among others.

Senator Mohammed recalled that the deliberation at the meeting was conducted in a free and fair atmosphere; adding that the occasion provided a unique opportunity for the Administration to listen keenly to the submissions made by various stakeholders.

Proprietor enjoins Muslims, Christians to live in unity

By Usman Shuaibu

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he Proprietor of Al-zikiru Mubarak Li- Islammiyat Kwankwashe in Suleja Local Government Area in Niger State, Mallam Mohammed Hamid Ibrahim, has called on Muslims and Christians alike to pray for unity of the country at their various places of worship.

Ibrahim, who made the call in an interview with Peoples Daily during the celebration of Eid-el- Maulud (birth of Prophet Muhammed) in Kwankwashe, also urged the Muslims and Christians to pray for Nigeria to overcome

the prevailing security challenges in the nation.

He said that as a Islamic scholar he would to propagate the religion of Islam among the Muslims in the area.

He charged Muslims on good behavior and harmonious relationship with neighbours wherever they live and urged them to emulate the life style of Prophet Mohammed all the times.

The Islamic scholar said that his leadership would continue to organize Islamic ceremonies to update the knowledge of the people of kwankwashe and suleja on western education.

Ibrahim called on youths to obey the rules and regulations guiding the religion of Islam, while advising parents to send their children to school to acquire western education.

Presenting a paper entitled “Destiny” Sheikh Musa Yaro advised both Muslims and Christians to be contented with whatever they have.

He urged Muslims all over the country to devote their time to worship God, saying one with God is the majority.

He said, Muslims and Christians are one people

united by a common destiny, therefore, we must set aside all our differences and work together to understand each other as one people.

Yaro, however, advised Islamic scholars to do things accordance with the fear of God and warned them against acquiring worldly things instead of serving God. Also, a guest lecturer, Sheikh Abdul Maleek Badamasy who presented a paper tagged “Good morals behavior in Islam” said that the essence of religion was to make adherents of such faith better followers in their living standard, behavior, deeds and utterances.

PAGE 18

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Businessman, 35, remanded over alleged rape of house maid

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n Upper Area Court in Mararaba, Nasarawa State on Monday, remanded a 35-year-old business man, Oyemachi Nnamani, of Upper Uke, Nasarawa State in prison for alleged rape.

The prosecutor, Jospeh Ahwa, told the court that the matter was reported by the victim’s sister, the Patience Agbo, at Uke Police Station on May 7.

Ahwa said that the victim (name withheld), a 14-year-old

girl living with the Nnamanis, was raped by her employer on May 29.

He added that “on May 29, the accused knocked at the victim’s door and asked for his phone battery.

“When she opened the door, the accused forcefully entered the room and had carnal knowledge of her.’’

The prosecutor said that the accused agreed during investigation that he entered the

victim‘s room but denied having carnal knowledge of her.

He noted that the offence contravened the provisions of the Penal Code.

However, the accused pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The accused counsel, Gabriel Okpara, prayed the court to grant his client bail but the prosecutor objected, saying the matter was still being investigated.

He said that the allegation against the accused was not a

An over loaded ‘okada’ making brisk business along Mararaba/Nyanya road.

bailable offence and that the victim was undergoing treatment.

He urged the court to use its power under Section 183 of the Criminal Procedure Code to remand the accused to enable the police to conclude investigations.

Presiding judge Vincent Gwahemba, granted the prayers as he ordered that the accused be remanded in prison and adjourned the case to June 10 for further mention. (NAN)

Photo Mahmud Isa

Pastor docked over breach of trust, gets bail

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n Abuja Area Court on Tuesday fixed June 3 for ruling in a case of alleged adultery, physical assault and threat to life, involving a couple, Ramatu Okpanachi and Abubakar Okpanachi.

The judge, Mr Haruna Masanawa, fixed the new date after hearing the fresh submission of the parties in the matter.

The parties had requested the court to give them time to settle their differences.

Masanawa gave the couple the grace period to enable them go back home and settle their differences and report back on the adjourned date with a report on which the court could give a ruling.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the couple who reside at Queen Amina Street in Kubwa, Abuja, had been married for five years and have a threeyear-old daughter.

The petitioner, Ramatu, in her statement of claim, alleged that her

husband, being a drunkard, was threatening her life, maltreating her, assaulting her physically and keeping late nights.

She, therefore, prayed the court to dissolve the marriage forthwith.

However, the respondent, Abubakar, in his submission, denied his wife’s allegations, saying that the bone of contention between them was that his wife was adulterous.

Abubakar said that even the paternity of their daughter was

“suspect.’’

He said he would have to carry out a paternity test on the child to confirm if she was his biological child.

“My Lord, I have my doubts about the paternity of our threeyear-old daughter.

“I want to carry out a DNA test to ascertain if she is mine.

“My house help once caught my wife in the act on our matrimonial bed,’’ Abubakar said.

(NAN)

3 men jailed 2 months for iron rods theft

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Karu Senior Magistrates Court on Monday remanded a mother of two in prison for allegedly refusing to pay for clothes worth N108,000 which she bought on credit.

Ifeoma Mark, 32, of Nyanya, Abuja, is facing a two-count charge of criminal breach of trust and cheating brought against her by the police.

She, however, denied the

charges.

Senior Magistrate Anna Akobi ordered the accused to be remanded in prison until June 17 when she would rule on her oral application for bail.

The prosecutor, Cpl. Silas Nanpan, objected to the bail application on the ground that the accused would jump bail.

“She had jumped police administrative bail twice since

May 2012 when she was arrested.

“If granted bail, there is the probability that she would still abscond as she has no traceable address.’’

According to the prosecutor, one Victoria Eleojo of Gwarinpa Estate, Abuja, reported at the police station that she supplied the accused person with Senegalese clothes worth N108,000 on credit.

He said the supply was done in May 2012 based on trust and the accused promised to pay after selling the clothes.

“The accused refused to keep to the terms of the agreement and converted the said money to her personal use.

“The accused made partpayment of N31,500, leaving a balance of N55,500 which she intentionally refused to pay.’’

INSIDE FCT COURTS Property agent docked over alleged duping of five persons

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he police yesterday arraigned a property agent, Ike Megafu, of Gwarimpa Estate, in an Upper Area Court in Gudu, Abuja, for alleged breach of trust.

The police prosecutor, ASP Daniel Agada, told the court that five persons complained against Megafu on different dates at the Kaura Market Police Station, Abuja.

Agada said the first complainant, Yisa Braimoh, of Prince and Princess Estate, Abuja, lodged his complaint on Feb. 25.

He said Braimoh entrusted his shop number WA2, located at Kaura Modern Market to the accused to rent out for N1 million and he did but converted the money to his own personal use.

Agada said the second complainant, Peter Dada of the Federal Ministry of Works, Abuja, reported the accused on Feb. 14.

“The accused rented out Dada’s shop number AG210 at Kaura Modern Market in April 2012 for N 250,000 without his consent and converted the money to his personal use.’’

The prosecutor added that the third complainant, Ezeani Izuchukwu, of Lugbe, Abuja, reported that the accused rented out his shop number HG69 for N200,000 and converted same to his personal use.

“The fourth and fifth complainants, Florence Otuu and Michael Ngwu, reported the accused on Feb. 23.

“The accused let out Otuu’s shop number BOS214 situated at Kaura Modern Market for N100,000 and dishonestly converted same to his personal use.

“Similarly, the accused leased out Ngwu’s shop number BOS213 also at Kaura Modern Market, for N340,000 but appropriated same amount,’’ Agada said.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened the provision of Section 312 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.’’

The presiding judge, Adamu Wakili, granted the accused bail in the sum of N1 million, and adjourned the case to June 3 for further hearing.

(NAN)

The offence, according to prosecutor, is punishable under sections 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 both.

Section 322 says whoever cheats shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years or with fine or both. (NAN)

BUSINESS

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Email: aminuimam@yahoo.co.uk

Mob: 08033644990

PAGE 19

INSIDE

- Pg 20

‘Why UK rejects Nigerian foods at borders’

Nigeria’s crude output drops to 1.73mbpd in April

By Etuka Sunday

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igeria’s crude oil production last month was 1.734 million barrels per day (mbpd) compared to 1.746 million (bpd) in March.

According to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in its May report released last Friday, oil output for the first quarter of this year was around 1.82mbpd.

Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, has faced periodic production challenges in the past few years. Last year, production fell from 2.032mbpd in the third quarter to 1.891mbpd in the fourth quarter occasioned by massive floods and oil theft, with an average of about 2.45mbpd for that year.

Production levels from January to April were far below government’s forecast of 2.53 million bpd for the year. In January and February, outputs were 1.994mbpd and 1.722mbpd, respectively, according to data from OPEC. The report also revealed that several of the oil exporting countries in sub-Saharan Africa (including Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial and Ghana) will benefit from rising hydrocarbon output as new mining production in several countries will also be a positive factor for manufacturing.

The resurgence in Africa’s fortunes, and the uptick in its vital oil, gas and mining sectors, the report said, has been linked to factors such as the rapid growth of China and other Asian economies.

Oil supply from Africa is forecast to increase by 70,000bpd to average 2.38mbpd in 2013, representing an upward revision of

15,000bpd from the previous monthly oil market report (MOMR).

The revision came from South Sudan, Sudan and Ghana,

while the supply outlook for Gabon experienced a downward revision and the other producers forecast remains steady from a month earlier, the report said.

Nigeria’s slow reform progress limiting credit rating, says Moody’s

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igeria’s slow implementation of structural economic reforms is limiting its chances of a credit-rating upgrade, Moody’s Investors Service said.

While economic growth in Africa’s biggest crude producer is “resilient,” any chance of an update from its Ba3 rating, three levels below investment grade, is hindered by corruption, weak institutions and its vulnerability to oil price drops, Edward AlHussainy and Dietmar Hornung, credit analysts at Moody’s said yesterday.

Nigeria’s economy expanded an estimated 6.6 percent in the first quarter of the year, compared with 6.9 percent in the previous three months, the central bank said last week, citing figures from the West African nation’s statistics bureau.

Oil contributes as much as 70 percent of the government’s fiscal revenue, leaving it sensitive to a downturn in global prices, Moody’s said.

“Momentum for addressing challenging structural reforms has slowed,” AlHussainy and Hornung said.

“Most critically, legislation to revise the fiscal regime in the petroleum industry and to deregulate the downstream oil and gas sector has stalled, holding up significant foreign investment while the sector’s productivity declines.”

The government lost about $1 billion last month because of missed oil production targets, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said last week in an interview in Cape

Town.

Production fell to 1.81 million barrels a day in March, the lowest level since September 2009, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Output averaged 2.2 million barrels a day in the first quarter, according to figures released by the NNPC on April 17. That compares with a production forecast of 2.53 million barrels a day used in this year’s budget. The loss was due to crude theft and pipeline sabotage, according to NNPC. “This violence has the potential to stall foreign investment and is increasingly a fiscal drag on spending by state and local governments,” said Moody’s.

While Nigeria isn’t “at a tipping point,” it said, “political risks are amplified by the combination of rising poverty and inequality, political dis-empowerment, entrenched religious and ethnic tensions, and extraordinary levels of corruption.”

(Source: Bloomberg News)

R-L: Kano state Governor, Engr. Rabi'u Musa Kwankwaso, and former Managing Director of Peugeot Automobiles Nigeria, PAN, Kaduna, Mr. Philippe Beudet of PSA Group of France, their discussion regarding support for technical education in Kano especially in view of the establishment of 44 new technical schools by the Kwankwaso administration.

DPR bans importation of cooking gas from Niger Republic

By Etuka Sunday pparently concerned about the impact on safety, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has banned the importation of high pressure Propane-laden Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), otherwise known as cooking gas, from Niger Republic, through the land borders.

It was gathered that the intervention of the apex regulator followed concern raised by the LPG marketers that consumers faced imminent danger as off-specification product was being imported from Niger Republic to flood the Nigerian market.

This product, it was learnt,

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had higher proportion of highly explosive Propane than the LPG that is sourced from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited and the refineries, which consists mostly of low pressure Butane.

It was also gathered that the LPG imported from Niger Republic is cheaper than the ones sourced from the refineries and the Nigeria LNG Limited.

The Nigerian LPG marketers had warned its members not to patronise the LPG from Niger because of the imminent danger it posed to users.

They stated that the Propane LPG would explode in the normal cylinders designed for Butane LPG because of its high pressure

Management Tip of the Day

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Go after high-quality revenue

n uncompromising focus on growth can take companies in the wrong direction. Take Groupon. Once lauded as the "fastest-growing company ever," its stock price has fallen about 80% since the company went public in 2011.

The key is to find quality, sustainable revenue. Here's what that looks like:

It's predictable. It's always easier to forecast if you can be confident that 90% of last year's customers and dollars will be back this year. The money should come from returning clients willing to spend the same amount.

It's profitable. A benchmark for a good margin varies by sectors, but quality revenue tends to be higher-margin. Aim for gross

margins of at least 70%.

It's diverse. While early-stage companies may often have a couple of customers that make up a large portion of revenue, over time you want to build a diverse base. None of your top five clients should make up more than 15% of revenue.

Source: Harvard Business Review

and accused the DPR of issuing import licenses to some marketers to import the dangerous product without considering its impact on safety.

The National President of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas Reps Association of Nigeria, Mr. Odu Gbolahan said that the DPR had withdrawn the approval given for the importation of the controversial LPG. The LPG imported through the landed border however helped to crash the price in the local market because the ones from that axis were very cheap.

But the marketers who protested the importation of the product said they were concerned with the welfare of the people and the impact on the environment.

The immediate past President of the National Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers Association of Nigeria (NALPGMA), Mr. Mouruff Adesina Onabule had alleged that some marketers used the cheap LPG from Niger Republic to ‘blend’ the more-expensive ones from Nigeria to make huge profit, without minding the threat to safety.

Onabule warned members of NALPGMA to shun the LPG imported through Niger axis.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 20

COMPANY NEWS

Equipment Leasing Association

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o build capacity by equipping companies and other organisations with essential tools and techniques that would lead to significant cost savings and operational efficiency, the Equipment Leasing Association of Nigeria (ELAN) recently held a fleet management conference.

The three-day conference, which also provided a platform for business networking was organised with firm determination to build capacity in emerging markets for ELAN members and fleet practitioners.

The conference with the theme “The Role of Fleet Management in achieving operational efficiency in Nigeria” was supported by Volvo/ATC Nigeria, and held at Lagos Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja recently.

‘Why UK rejects Nigerian foods at borders’ Stories by Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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he Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) Executive Director, Dr. David Adulugba, said that Nigerian exporters lose millions of dollars annually due to rejection and destruction of traditional food exports at the UK Border Agency.

As the Head, Imports and Official Controls Unit, Food Standards Agency, UK, Michael Glavin, attributed the rejection and destruction of Nigerian food export at the border to noncompliance with the rules.

Speaking at the exhibition and workshop on ‘Export of Nigerian Food Produce to the United Kingdom, UK’ organised by Council, Adulugba lamented that most exporters do not engage in formal trading.

…NEPC boss seeks formal trading ”We have been telling the exporters to formalise their trade and register with NEPC. They have to fill the necessary forms and follow procedures to avoid the problems”, he said.

The executive director explained that that was why the agency brought in the team of experts from the UK Border Agency to give the necessary advice to help them in their transactions. “What we are asking the British is very simple: Just allow our goods into your country for sale. We do not want to send our goods there and be destroyed at the border and at our expense. We have received numerous complaints; The question is: why do Ghanaians have their goods sail through the UK border and Nigerians’ don’t? What are we doing wrong, what are we not

doing right? We want to put this thing straight away. That is why we brought the experts here to discuss with you”, he said.

Glavin said that there were standards to be met before products were allowed into European countries. Glavin, who led the UK delegation to Nigeria, said the products were either rejected or destroyed when the standards were not met. He said that the team was in Nigeria to assist the country’s exporters of food produce to the UK on what to do to avoid having their products intercepted.

The Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Alh. Dauda Shu’aib Kigbu, had earlier expressed concern over

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LCCI

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he Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) on Tuesday unveiled the prospectus for the 2013 Lagos International Trade Fair scheduled to begin on November 1.

The president of LCCI, Goodie Ibru, said that the fair, which would end on November 10, would take place at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos.

Ibru promised that the fair would be far better than that of 2012.

FG to review concession of Lagos Trade Fair Complex

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Mantrac Nigeria Limited antrac Nigeria Limited, dealer in caterpillar and generators is partnering Stanbic IBTC Bank by providing a wide range of financial alternatives for customers on equipment purchasing.

The collaboration will avail Mantrac customers to access broad range of financial structures, flexible payment options at competitive rates in the bank.

Managing Director Mantrac Nigeria, Edmund Martin-Lawson, who disclosed this at the company’s power system customer seminar in Ibadan, said the move by company serves as an additional purchasing solution to meet customers’ needs.

the losses incurred by Nigerian exporters due to noncompliance with the conditions and guidelines governing such exportation.

Aganga said that government would do everything possible to address the challenges of exporting traditional food produce to the EU and UK. He noted that UK has remained Nigeria’s top five additional non-oil export destinations for food produce, and advised exporters to update themselves and adhere to new guidelines for exporting food produce to Europe.

L-R: Founder/Vicew and Chairman Nisa Premier Hospital, Dr. Ibrahim Wada, Nigeria High Commissioner to Canada, Ambassador Ojo Maduekwe, and Hon. Mao Ohuabunwa, during a three-day Nigeria-Canada investment conference, recently at the Fairmont Roya Hotel, in Toronto, Canada.

All eyes on new SMEDAN DG , Bature Masari

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ll eyes are set on Alh. Bature Umar Masari as he assumed office as the Director-General and Chief Executive of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), following his appointment by the Federal Government.

Although Masari has pledged to partner all stakeholders in enhancing small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) output, more would be demanded from him. Stakeholders and members of the organized private sectors are expecting major SMEs breakthrough to be imitated by the agency, Masari pledged to consolidate on the federal government and private sector initiatives earlier started for increased job creation through the development of SMEs across

the country.

He explained that more efforts will be worked on in conformity with government policies for maximum collaboration desired to develop strategies that would ensure that problems associated with productivity potential of SMEs were addressed.

According to him, SMEs have the potentials for job creation and could contribute greatly to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a nation, while he acknowledged that some SMEs faced constraints by several challenges that limited their impact on Nigeria’s economic development.

He said SMEDAN was saddled with the responsibility of developing and promoting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Nigeria, stressing

that it had the compelling role of building synergies to tackle challenges bedeviling the sector.

“My previous job in Katsina was on job and wealth-creation along with poverty reduction among people, so the present job would be a continuation of what I had been doing but now to a larger Nigeria”.

The new DG served as Kafur LG Chairman and immediate Special Adviser to Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina state on Poverty Alleviation, described SMEs as the engine for growth of the economy.

Masari, 51, hails from Masari in Kafur Local Government of Katsina state. He is an alumnus of two prestigious Institutions Bayero University (BUK), Kano and Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria.

he Federal Government said it is set to review the concession agreement of the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex (LITFC) to Aulic Nigeria Limited, which it said was one of the major recommendations of the National Council of Privatisation (NCP).

Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment, Dr. Samuel Ortom, dropped the hint at a meeting with the NCP Implementation Committee and the LITFC stakeholders to resolve the protracted dispute over the concessioning in his office in Abuja.

Ortom, promised that all their recommendations on the LITFC concession would be implemented.

According to him, government had identified infrastructure and power, among other challenges, and promised that these would be fixed to enhanced business activities in the complex and the country in general.

“We are also going to undertake a facility and financial audit and verification of your own portion of the complex to ascertain who the operators are and their status.

At the end, we will eventually find a Special Purpose Vehicle or concessionaire that will manage its own area of the complex”, he said.

Ortom pledged the commitment of the committee toward amicable resolution of the dispute to pave way for the development of the complex to international standard, urging the stakeholders to quickly correct the committee where they thought it was going wrong.

The minister, who said the Federal Government was not happy at the present state of LITFC, assured that its infrastructure would upgraded to international standards in order to boost the trade and economic development of the country.

PAGE 21

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

From Hauwa Anaja, Abuja It takes a very patient man to do business in Nigeria. There's so much to contend with; competition, electricity challenges, the environment, getting enough capital, among others.

But one thing that is certain which couldn't be a problem is having the market. With a population of over 160 million people, you can be rest assured that you have the market for your business and I mean any kind of business in Nigeria.

However, the question remains: is Nigeria a businessfriendly destination? Is it a place where Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) thrive well?

Indeed, many families in Nigeria survive on small businesses. It may not pay all the bills but it helps provide their basic needs.

Having spent some weeks in Rwanda of recent, I sought to explore the investment climate and the opportunities for small and medium businesses in comparison to Nigeria.

My first observation was that no stall in the markets I visited and business places in Kigali the Rwandan capital and other provinces I visited had miniature generators making loud noises all over the market, in a frantic bid to supply power to their shops or business outlets.

Of course this is not the case in Nigeria. Not only is electricity a huge challenge, access to capital has remained an impediment to starting a business.

A Senegalese textile designer based in Abuja, Mukhtar Bamba once told me if electricity was steady, he could design ten clothes per day compared to the five he produces daily.

"Running a business on generator is not easy; you have to fuel it, and the shop rent is high, so these things determine our prices," he said.

This of course is gradually becoming the anthem of most small entrepreneurs in Nigeria.

So, the question is: "What are the possibilities of starting a business in Nigeria and running it successfully"?

Let me however pause to examine how Rwanda is getting it right and attracting investors to the country aimed at rebuilding itself after a genocide that grounded the economy just a couple of years ago.

After the 1994 genocide, in the year 2000, Rwanda had a GDP of 290 dollars, a 64 percent poverty rate with life expectancy at 49 years.

However, the country, under the leadership of Paul Kagame, has developed home-grown solutions in order to rebuild its economy.

Among them are, building on agriculture, and enhancing service delivery and tourism, with opportunities for Rwandese ploughing into these sectors from district to Federal level.

Everybody is a player in the Rwandan economy. Of course, for a country starting from 290 dollars Gross Domestic Product (FDP), everyone has a role to

Doing business in Nigeria and Rwanda; a comparative analysis

View of a tea plantation in Rwanda play.

The 2013World Bank and IFC report on the global rankings on the ease of doing business shows that Nigeria ranks 131 out of 185 countries with no reforms on doing business since 2012.

Rwanda, on the other hand, ranks 52nd, and have held two "doing business" reforms since 2012. Singapore ranks first, followed by Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Central African Republic ranks 185th.

The East African country is also ranked 8th easiest place to start a business and access credit.

How is this achievement possible with a population of about eleven million people?

What lessons are there to learn from Rwanda?

Not only has the Rwandan government displayed zerotolerance to corruption; it has also come up with policies that allows for easy start of business, with less bureaucracy and more openness.

Vivian Kayitesi, Head of the Investment Promotion and Implementation Department of the Rwanda Development Board says the political will to drive business growth is the reason for this achievement.

"It has taken a lot of buy-in from key government officials; there's high-level political buyin, the parliament has been key in ensuring that reforms are done quickly, we also assess if the reforms are having an impact.

"You can register your business on-line in the comfort of your home, even in Lagos; if you do it on-line it's free, and if you come to the Rwanda Development Board, you just have to pay 15000Frw (Rwandan Francs) which is less than 30 US dollars (or N4, 800), and a copy of your ID card, you fill out a form and in six hours you come back for your license," Kayitesi explains.

Many entrepreneurs in Nigeria have posited that

“

You can register your business on-line in the comfort of your home, even in Lagos; if you do it on-line it's free, and if you come to the Rwanda Development Board, you just have to pay 15000Frw (Rwandan Francs) which is less than 30 US dollars (or N4, 800), and a copy of your ID card, you fill out a form and in six hours you come back for your license," Kayitesi explains.

drastic measures to boost electricity must be taken if Nigeria must attain its rightful place as the giant of Africa.

"Four thousand mega watts is nothing to go by," they opine.

Also, commercial banks should ease their lending policies in order to favour soft loans for especially micro, small and medium entrepreneurs.

The banks however are said to favour large businesses compared to small ones. This may not be surprising as they too are profit-oriented.

"Mrs. Justina Ajonye, a poultry farmer in Auta Ba laifi, Nasarawa state once said to me, "I have tried some banks for loans to assist me in my farm, but they'll say you have to provide collateral; as long as you are starting on a small level, they don't believe in you.

"They either want to come and see your farm, or they have grades of farms that they want to support; they ask me questions like how are they sure I even own a farm and they are always assisting those that are already established, but let them come to our small farms and see what we are doing," she lamented.

Meanwhile, the erstwhile Director-General of the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN), Alh. Umar Nadada has said funding small businesses requires extra efforts from governments, private sector especially microfinance banks and development partners.

"There's usually more problem with funding microbusinesses, whose maximum fund rate is five million Naira; this is because they constitute up to 90 percent of the business

brackets of micro, small, medium and large-scale entrepreneurship.

"But recently, the doors of opportunities have begun to open for micro and small businesses," he said.

With regards to microcredit, the Microfinance Transparency report on Rwanda in 2012 shows that prior to the genocide of 1994, the micro-finance sector had experienced slow growth, but that after the genocide, a lot of donor funds were directed to relief oriented micro-finance initiatives.

The Rwandan government also provided credit lines and grants to the sector.

"In 2008, there were a total of 125 micro-finance institutions concentrated in semi-urban areas to the detriment of financial institutions in rural areas."

Just like Nigerian banks that hesitate to offer loans to micro and small businesses, Rwanda saw a situation where clients refused to pay up loans and caused the dearth of many micro-finance institutions.

However, to address this, the report recommends the establishment of savings and credit cooperatives and effective legal framework to guide their existence.

It is believed that with the right facilities and framework, entrepreneurs' worst nightmares in Nigeria and indeed Africa, would gradually become a thing of the past, and the continent would be able to compete with other developed nations of the world.

Not only would this help create jobs for the ever-growing work force, more opportunities for investments and local manufacturing would be provided.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 22

FRC urged to set modalities in favour of SMEs From Ngozi Onyeakusi, Lagos

T

he Group Managing Director, Courteville Business Solution Plc., Mr. Adebola Akindele has called on the Financial Reporting Council to put in place modalities that will ensure optimal participation of Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) in the activities of the council.

Akindele however, described the attitude of the Council to this class of business in the country as being discouraging.

Speaking while addressing the stock brokers during the company's 'Facts Behind-theFigures' at the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) on Tuesday, in Lagos, Akindele noted that to ensure optimal participation of the SMSE in the activities of the council, a lot of issues need to be addressed and modalities put in place.

He noted that effort made Courteville, over a long time, to get registered with the FRC, both

on-line and manually proved abortive, adding that the council is not doing anything to remedy the situation.

He described the huge challenges encountered on a daily basis by companies in Nigeria and beyond, in the course of their business endeavour as a veritable and huge potential available for the company.

According to him, it is not only in Nigeria that these challenges are experienced, adding that Courteville has no other work than looking at these challenges and developing solutions to them.

He opined that Courteville, the first IT company to be quoted on the NSE and equally first to be ISO certified, has enjoyed being a member of the NSE; a status, he said, has gained it an unquestionable local and global integrity.

He noted that company, ever since it became a quoted company in 2009, has never

Phone Halo unveils Button TrackR to protect smartphones and valuables via Bluetooth

P

hone Halo has launched an Indiegogo campaign on Tuesday to develop and fund Button TrackR, a new way to find lost and misplaced items using your iOS or Android device.

The company launched a similar project called Wallet TrackR in November last year, which alerted users via a Bluetooth connection whenever their wallet and iPhone were separated. A custom tune would play to alert the user of the problem and also save the relevant geo-location data in case they missed it and moved on.

The only problem was that the technology was focused on a single device and most consumers have more than one object that they would consider 'valuable' when they leave the house.

Phone Halo has returned with an updated version today called Button TrackR. It's tiny, about the size of a button in fact (surprise, surprise) and can fit into just about any nook or cranny. The app can now track up to 10 of these little gadgets at any one time and has also been updated to include a bunch of

new features, such as crowd sourced tracking.

It's pretty clever. If another user is in the vicinity of a lost item, a push notification will be sent to the relevant owner with updated GPS coordinates. It happens automatically and is designed to speed up the process of finding lost items - especially if they happen to be stolen in public and the person responsible moves on.

As before, users can setup an alert so that their phone will ring whenever they leave a designated area without a Button TrackR. The process also works the other way, however, so users can tap the tracker and force their smartphone to ring, notifying them of its location even when it is set to silent.

The only obvious issue seems to be attaching the blighters to all of your most previous goods.

The Button TrackR comes with double-sided tape, which is fine for hardy objects such as a mountain bike or moped. We expect users will be a little reluctant to tape the tracker to more luxurious items though, such as a digital camera or expensive watch.

(Source: thenextweb.com)

failed to maintain profitability in all its bottom line and is equally known for consistency in dividend payment.

On the company's performance indices, he noted that the firm's unaudited report the first quarter of 2013 recorded

a turnover of N113million, a 33 percent increase when compared with N233.5 million written in 2012, while Profit before Tax, he said, grew to N112.2 million, reordering a 77 percent surge against N63.3 million written in the period of 2012.

Profit after tax equally rose significantly, by 63.2 percent from N53.2 million recorded in 2012 to N86.8 million achieved in 2013, while Shareholders' Fund, which stood at N2.8bn billion in 2012 rose N2.9bn in 2013.

Stanbic Bank partners Rwanda on $400m Eurobond

L

eading South African lender, Stanbic Bank has partnered with the Government of Rwanda in the issue of its debut $400-million, 10-year Eurobond, assisting the country to become the latest subSaharan country to obtain funding from international capital markets - a first not only for Rwanda, but also for East Africa.

Stanbic Bank Regional Head of Investment Banking, Anne Aliker said the lender provided advice on financial, documentation and legal aspects of the transaction to the

Government of Rwanda, for which it also acts as a ratings adviser.

The funds from the bond issue are intended for the construction of an international convention centre and to finance capital expenditure requirements for Rwandair, the national airline carrier, Ventures Africa reports.

According to Aliker, the bond issue underscores the increasing stature of Africa as an investment destination.

Interest in the issue of the deal could be gauged by the fact that total bids of $3.5 billion, about 7.5 times the issue size, were received

for the bond that will be due in 2023.

The bond was priced at 6.875 percent for the ten-year period and commenced trading at 6.625 percent.

Stanbic Bank's Head of Investment Banking Coverage for Rwanda, Patrick Mweheire said: "The capital raised will go a long way in boosting Rwanda's profile to International investors.

According to the World Bank, Rwanda is globally ranked 52 on its measure on the ease of doing business, the highest in subSaharan Africa after South Africa."

Mali needs urgent support for economic development -Mali PM

Prime Minister of Mali, Mr. Diango Cissoko with Chairman of the Islamic Development Bank (IfDB) Group, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

T

he Republic of Mali is in need of urgent support for economic development more than any time in history, according to the Prime Minister of the country, Mr. Diango Cissoko.

The Prime Minister was speaking at the Headquarters of the Islamic Development Bank (IfDB) in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia during a one-day visit, ahead of the International Conference on Mali scheduled to take place on 15th May in Brussels. Mr. Cissoko drew attention to the current political crises in Mali, which according to him, calls for strong economic intervention from international development partners.

The Prime Minister stated

that "institutions like the IfDB and all development partners should come together to support Mali".

"Only when we are supported by our partners that we will be able to revive the economy of the country, so that Mali will become the country we knew", he added.

In his welcome address, the Chairman of the IFDB Group, Dr. Ahmad Mohamed Ali stated that his institution supports laudable efforts that will restore harmony among the Malian society. "The IFDB will actively participate in the Brussels meeting and cooperate with your country and other institutions for the socioeconomic development of Mali", President Ali pledged.

Since its inception in 1975, the IFDB Group has approved $782

million for development projects in Mali, and has initiated a Member Country Partnership Strategy (MCPS) aimed at Mali's economic development and regional integration. The MCPS is IFDB 's economic plan for its member countries aimed at supporting the government and the private sector, as well as promoting regional integration.

The Islamic Development Bank is a multilateral Development Bank established in 1975 to promote socio-economic development among member/ non- member countries. The 56 countries of the Organization for Islamic Cooperation (OIC) constitute the membership of the Bank. The Republic of Mali is one of the members of the Bank.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 24

PAGE 25

A community, a ‘corper’ and a patriotic mission….

Living up to the admonition of the legendry former President of the United States, Mr. John Kennedy, that we should think of what we can do for our country and not what our country would do for us, a youth ‘Corper’ dazzles a community in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, with some remarkable projects. Etuka Sunday who was at the event, reports Aaron Ameh’s patriotic gesture to the Karshi community

K

arshi, one of the thickly i n h a b i t e d communities of the nation’s capital city, was in jubilant mood last week provided free medical care was provided by a Corps Member serving under the platform of HIV/AIDSMedical Community Development Service (CDS) group, as part of his personal project and service to the fatherland.

The World Health Organisation (WHO)’s definition of healthy living is not an absence of diseases.

This formed the basis for Mr. Aaron Ameh’s contribution to the community.

A graduate of Bio-Chemistry/ Lab Science from Federal Polytechnic, Bauchi serving in Abuja with Mangrovetect Clinic, he believes in the power of saving lives through campaigns and awareness creation on HIV/AIDS, general personal hygiene and healthy living.

As a community made up of mainly women and children with aspiration just like any other communities in Nigeria, they have been living on hope that one day their affairs would be made better through either the government, NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) or an individual who has the love of the community at heart.

Not just that; they are slum dwellers living in poor sanitary conditions thereby susceptible to many diseases such as malaria and typhoid but lack the basic necessities of life. Gbagi and Hausa are the two commonly spoken languages in the community. The standard of living is low. They often battle with fever outbreak just like their in any other communities.

The level of sensitization about their personal health

and other positive life issues is low. However with his meager resources, every household was touched, including children at the Karshi Junior Secondary School (JSS), since they were not only sensitized and treated medically but were also given drugs, books and insecticidal treated bed nets to prevent the increasing wave of malaria in the community.

Speaking recently, Mr. Aaron Ameh said that the project, “child health and maternal mortality” was necessitated by the death of his mother whom he said died because of negligence on the part of medical personnel when he was a child, back in Benue State. According to him, the child health and maternal mortality

campaign was not that pronounced like today hence the death of his mother, therefore he vowed to take the campaign to every household wherever he finds himself.

As a follow up to that dream, he joined HIV/AIDS Medical Community Development Service (CDS) in the NYSC camp to enable him realize his dream. And as God will have it, he was posted to Mangrovetect Clinic where he is currently carrying out his charity work. He has a dream that is far becoming a reality.

The project was a product of long struggles and challenges.

Mr. Aaron said”the journey in terms of the project was not an interesting one, but I made up my mind to accept whatever challenges that might come

my way in the course of carrying out this project. So no matter the challenges I count it all joy.

“At a point I decided to quit but I saw it as a defeat on my side.What might have been a barrier to the project was finance but later I found out that finance was not going to be a problem but my inability to finish what I have started.

I met one or two persons who encouraged me to continue. I told myself from camp that I would embark on a project, not because of what NYSC would give me but how I would impact the lives of people in the community.I got to a point and my friends were discouraging me but I told them I was not going to stop since I had gone far in it.

“I thank Mangrovetech Clinic, Excellent and Friends

Beneficiaries of free medical treatment and insecticidal-of treated bed nets.

L-R: Karshi NYSC zonal inspector, Mrs Suliaman, Mr. Aaron Ameh and the District Head, Alhaji Ahmed Doka Management Consult Limited in conjunction with Centre for Family Health Initiative, NYSC Body, especially HIV/ AIDS (Pet CDS) Group for their contributions to the success of the project in Karshi Community. God will bless them,” he said.

On her part, his trainer Lucy Agba said, “am a d e v e l o p m e n t a l communicator, I build capacity on public health, talk about social living, ethics

and morals, a writer and a publisher. This is a programme by one of my trainees in camp, I trained him in the second batch, batch B last year on HIV/AIDS in the camp. He is supposed to come into the community and mentor the young ones, give them information on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS prevention and healthy living which he has done, and he is going to step further from his mandate to leave an indelible mark in

Karshi community and am proud of him.

“People should pay responsible attention to the way their children grow, how they themselves grow, and we can’t live our lives careless any more, our health is very important; we must pay attention to our health and make sure we live right and it is a collective responsibility.

“Pet project has been on for ten years now, for

Karshi District Head, Alhaji Ahmed Doka (2nd left) and Aaron Ameh (3rd left)

A cross section of students of JSS, Karshi sustainability, we will call on the NYSC body and government to help sustained the project. However Aaron on his own if he has the passion can continue, not only him, everybody must be involved at individual capacity,” she said.

Also speaking, the District Head, Alh. Amed Doka who represented the Chief of Karshi expressed joy for the gesture and prays God to bless him richly. He added that

“for a young man with nothing or little resources to carryout project as big as this shows his level of commitment to charity work and saving lives. He therefore promised to ensure that the materials donated are equitably distributed to the residents of the community.

In like manner, the Principal of Junior Secondary School, Karshi, Imhangbe Isekhilu God’s power said, “It is the right information we needed to reach to the student.

Actually, the students are bright but they need this kind of information to know that they are the future leaders of tomorrow, so that they don’t play around with they lives. They should resist every pressure that would derail them from the right track.We will soon be organizing a career day in continuation of this project, so he will also be involved to talk to them again through drama or other presentations.

“Government should not tie NYSC body to office work alone; this community development project should be encouraged and financed, because at this level as a corps member, you wouldn’t know because of the zeal, you will use the little stipend or allowance (allawi) to finance the project, it is not easy, even we the teachers, it very difficult given out money to finance this kind of project.

Also everything should be budgeted for,” he said.

One of the beneficiaries of the gesture, Abubarkalari, a

“

All corps members must see their service year as a year that should be dedicated to the service of humanity and not a year to enrich themselves or be used to gallivant the city in search of greener pastures, according to one of the elders. They must learn to use the little or meager resources at their disposal to affect lives in their places of primary assignments because every little thing counts mother of four (4) said, “I really appreciate it, the project is apt, you know this period is a rainy season and time of mosquitos, therefore I thank the initiator of the project and God will bless him.

When somebody initiates, government should support it in terms of advice and finance, even NGOs too,” she said.

Aaron said, “The HIV/ AIDS Medical CDS group is dedicated to spreading the awareness of HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Polio, Sexual and Reproductive Health and other related diseases to young children in Secondary schools all over Abuja. We have achieved immeasurable success and have recorded several milestones in our Anti-AIDS campaigns so far.

“The next phase of the project which I intend to carry out after my service

year will be in Dobi village in Gwagwalada and Rimba village in Abaji area council, and so I will need stakeholders in the public health sector and politicians for support in any way they can to see how we can support the underprivileged in our society. But all this can’t be possible without finance,” he concluded.

Just like Aaron, all corps members must see their service year as a year that should be dedicated to the service of humanity and not a year to enrich themselves or be used to gallivant the city in search of greener pastures, according to one of the elders. They must learn to use the little or meager resources at their disposal to affect lives in their places of primary assignments because every little thing counts.

PAGE 26

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Rainy Season: State Govts. adopt measures to avert flood

A

s this year's rainy season begins, state governments have taken measures to avert flood and its subsequent disasters.

This followed NIMET's alert of possible flood this year and warning to state governments to adopt necessary measures to control the situation.

It also warned farmers to avoid farming activities at river banks, while people should not build on water logged areas.

President Goodluck Jonathan had released of N17.6 billion as direct financial assistance to the affected states and some Federal Government agencies responsible for disaster management. He also announced the constitution of a National Committee on Flood Relief and Rehabilitation to assist the Federal Government raise funds to mitigate the pains and ensure effective post-impact of rehabilitation of victims.

Following this development, the affected state governments constituted committees assigned to assess and distribute relief materials to the affected persons.

The committees, in most of the states, have completed their assignments, although some of the victims had complained of either being left aside or that the assistance was insignificant compared to their losses.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the victims in Delta state had released N237.7 million from the N500 million released to it by the Federal Government.

Justice Francis Tabai (Rtd), the Chairman, Delta Committee on Management of the Federal Government N500 million Grant to Victims of Flood Disaster and Post-Flood Rehabilitation, said this in Asaba.

He said the committee had distributed farm inputs including 50, 000 cassava stems and plantain suckers in the 14 local government areas in the state.

Tabai said the committee would renovate schools and give grants to churches affected by the flood.

Reports from Dutse indicated that the Jigawa Government has disbursement N484 million to people, whose houses were destroyed during the disaster in parts of the state.

The Chairman of the State Flood Disaster Management Committee, Alhaji Abdulkadir Jinjiri, said the money was distributed to 71,414 victims in the 16 affected local government areas.

He said that more than 97,000 rooms were destroyed in the disaster, adding that the gesture would enable the victims re-build their houses.

Similarly, N5, 000 would be given to families, who lost a room while those who lost more than a room would receive N10, 000 each.

Jinjiri said the state government had also spent more than N40 million on the purchase food items, consumables and other relief materials for the victims.

He said the state government had also earmarked N172 million for the provision fertiliser and 2,000 tube wells to farmers, whose farmlands were destroyed.

In Katsina, 10,536 victims of the disaster from 18 local government areas have received N130 million from the N300 million Federal Government relief funds as assistance.

The chairman of the state committee on distribution of the relief funds, Alhaji Abubakar Yusuf, said the money was distributed to the victims to enable them address some of their problems.

He said the remaining N170 million would be used for the construction of drainages, culverts and other projects in the affected local government areas to prevent reoccurrence of flood this year.

Reports from Kaduna State said that the State Emagency

When flood upset free vehicular movement along Abuja-Lokoja high way in 2012 Management Agency (NEMA) has commenced the second round of the distribution of relief materials to the victims The Executive Secretary of the Agency, Mr Ishaku Makama, said that the victims would receive building materials to repair their houses, in addition to food items worth N100 million, which was ditruibuted to 5,694 persons.

The materials distributed include 3,365 bags of rice, 900 bags of beans, 13,454 bags of maize, 9,140 bags of guinea corn, 600 bags of salt, 1,100 bags of sugar, mattresses, shoes, wrappers, and palm oil, among others.

NAN reports that the money was part of the N400 million given to the state by the Federal Government.

The state government had said that the balance of N300 million would be used to procure building materials and as capital to the victims to restart their businesses.

Although N400 million was released to Bauchi State from the intervention fund, , the state government has yet to commence distribution of the money.

This followed some discrepancies discovered by the committee set up by the state government to handle the issue.

The spokesman of the committee, Alhaji Inuwa Bello, however, said that a technical committee set up to resolve the discrepancies had submitted its report to the state government.

However, the State Emergency Management Agency (OSEMA) in Osun, said the state government had received N250 million from the Federal Government as the state's grant to control future flood in the state.

The General Manager of the Agency, Mr Oyetunde Oyesiji, said the money was committed to ecological control programme as there was no flood disaster in the state.

In Plateau, the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said the N500 million intervention fund received from the Federal Government has yet to be disbursed.

The Executive Secretary of the Agency, Mr Alhassan Barde, told NAN that the delay was caused by the failure to arrive at an acceptable formula of sharing of the money.

"Looking at the ravaging effect of the 2012 flood and indeed the colossal losses suffered by people, we are not saying that N500 million is a small money, but it is not enough when you want to commit the money.

"If you remember, infrastructures, structures, bridges, farmlands, culverts and roads were destroyed, while dams were also

submerged.

"These are things that we need to build back to ensure that the communities benefiting from the intervention did not suffer again when the next raining season comes.

"And we need to put all these things into consideration in arriving at a method for the disbursement so that there would be no rancour when the money is shared according to the needs,'' he said.

In Kwara, the state government said it distributed relief materials worth N385 million to 12, 735 victims in the state.

The Special Adviser on Emergency and Relief Services to the Governor, Alhaji Musa Abdullahi, said the state government had received N300 million from the intervention fund.

He said the state government also donated N85 million to the affected persons.

Some of the materials distributed to the victims in the affected local government areas were printed wax, bags of cement, bags of rice, Blankets and roofing materials.

Others were fishing nets, plastic materials, groundnut oil, mattresses, roofing sheets and other assorted materials.

Some of the Victims, Alhaji Aliyu Nurudeen, Alhaji Kola Kpatako and Shehu Makama, who spoke with NAN, expressed satisfaction with the assistance.

Kpatako urged the Federal and State Governments to provide prototype Housing units in flood prone areas to enable the affected people move away from the river banks.

In Birnin Kebbi, the victims also received the assistance to repair their dilapidated buildings.

Alhaji Umar Abdullahi, the chairman of the committee handling the distribution of the materials, said the committee had completed work in rehabilitating the victims.

The chairman of Birnin Kebbi local government area, Alhaji Musa Dan Illelah, said he was not aware of any complaints over the assistance to the victims.

A victim, Mallam Garba Muhammad, said he received building materials, including food stuff, bedings, clothes and N135, 000 to enable him rebuild his house at Tsohon Gari.

However, victims of the disasters in Ebonyi are yet to receive any form of assistance.

The Executive Secretary, Ebonyi State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Umunna Igboke , said that the state government had set up a committee to disburse the intervention fund.

According to him, 200 million has been released by government to augment the N300 million earlier released by the Federal Government.

Igboke said apart from the financial assistance, the victims would get bags of rice, beans, garri, vegetable and palm oil, sugar, blankets, bath towels, wax prints, plastic buckets, among others.

From Imo, reports indicated that the state government has distributed N75 million to the victims in Oguta and Ohaji/Egbema local government Areas of the state.

The amount was part of the N400 million intervention provided by the Federal Government to cushion the effect of the disaster.

Distributing cheques to the victims in Owerri, Gov. Rochas Okorocha, said the victims were categorised into four groups.

"Category "A" received N5 million each, those in category "B" got N3 million each, while categories "C" and "D" received N2 million and N1 million, respectively."

In Kano State, the government said it had distributed relief materials worth over N400 million to victims of the flood disaster.

The commissioner for Special Duties, Gen Idris Dambazau (Rtd), said the materials were distributed to each of the victims with some amount of money in 34 local government areas that were affected by the disaster.

He explained that the money used in purchasing the items was part of the N400 million the Federal Government donated to the state to assist the flood victims.

Similarly in Zamfara, the state government said it had spent over N180 million to assist the flood victims across the state.

The Executive Secretary, Zamfara State Emergency Management Agency (ZEMA), Alhaji Atiku Maradun, said the agency distributed cash assistance to the victims ranging from N50, 000 to N400, 000, depending on the damages and losses.

Maradun said the agency had taken care of over 1500 flood victims across the 14 local government areas in the state.

And in Anambra, the government said it had completed disbursement of the second phase of flood disaster relief amounting to N528 million to the 55 communities that were ravaged by flood in 2012.

The Secretary to the State Government, and Chairman of the Relief Management Committee, Mr Oseloka Obaze, made the disclosure to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka.

He said that more than 200 tonnes

of food items, made up of garri, sorghum and maize, were also distributed to the victims of the flood disaster in the eight affected council areas of the state.

"The timing of delivery of the funds and materials has been done to fill the gap of unmet needs in the food production sector," Obaze said.

On its part, the Borno State Government said it had constructed 750 brick houses for the resettlement of the 2012 flood victims in Damasak, headquarters of Mobar Local Government Council (LG).

Mallam Modu Bukar, an official of the state emergency relief agency, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Maiduguri. Bukar said the houses were financed completely by the state government.

He, however, said that National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) also provided some relief materials to the victims.

Bukar said that the state was yet to access the N250 million promised by the FederalGovernment to rehabilitate the victims.

"We are still awaiting the N250 million donations promised by the Federal Government last year," he said.

Similarly, the Flood victims in Benue are yet to receive their share of the N500 million donated by the Federal Government to the state to cushion the effects of the disaster.

NAN recalls that the former chairman of the committee set by the state government to oversee the disbursement of the funds, Mr. Theophilus Adzaagee, had attributed the delay in resettling victims to to lack of comprehensive data on the affected people needed for the effective rehabilitation.

However, a member of the Relief Distribution Committee, Mr Adikpo Agbatse, said the exercise had commenced with the distribution of materials to victims.

But another member of the committee, Mr Chris Atsaka, said the committee had not started the disbursement of funds to victims.

He said the committee had commenced the distribution of relief materials but stopped when one of the primary schools where the materials were kept was razed down by fire.

But a top government official, who pleaded anonymity, told NAN that the Benue State Government had no money to resettle victims.

NAN reports that most victims had returned to their homes in November 2012 without credible alternatives.

Some of the victims complained that apart from the N2,000 they were given as transport fares at the close of camps, ``no additional kobo has been given to us.''

Mercy Tor, a mother of two, said: "I have not been giving any money since the closure of the camps."

She said the "rehabilitation" promised by government was yet to reach the victims even though the funds had already been released by the President.

"We want to move on with our lives, people who are not affected do not understand what we are passing through now, "Tor said.

In Gombe State, some of the 70 households affected by the 2012 flood disaster in Wuro Dulo area of Lawanti village in Akko Local Government of Gombe state, have appealed to the state government to resettle them as the rainy season approaches.

The victims made the appeal while speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in the area. They said when the incident happened, the state government immediately provided some relief items such as food and clothing and promised to resettle them but had yet to do so.

(NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 27

Fuel-wood charcoal harvesting as anti-environment

M

usa is a farmer of over 20 years in a village in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and his farming has always been mainly in millets and maze.

Two years ago, he discovered he hardly could break even.

His harvest that year was the worst in a decade.

He complained to his friend who advised him to try his hands in fuel-wood extraction for charcoal harvesting.

Soon he discovered that what he could not make in two years, he made in charcoal business within 6 months.

Today, Musa has turned the forest to a killing field in the already deforested forests. The forest is at his mercy like others before him.

Musa is not alone in the business of fuel-wood extraction for charcoal. There are hundreds of Musas who has turned the forest to a sort of holocaust, bringing down any standing tree in sight.

If per chance you are traveling through OkeneLokoja-Abuja road, you will see heaps and heaps bags of charcoal, for major towns and cities across the length and breadth of the country.

Without affordable alternative source of energy, the rural poor and the lowincome earners invest more in axes, machetes and other implements that can sustain a renewed and intensified onslaught on the forests. The hike in kerosene price cum scarcity has further put the forests at the mercy of the rural populace, which constitute more than 70 percent, as this alternative energy source is no longer within their reach.

The demand for fuel-wood has been on the steady increase by the increasing population despite the existing Felling of Trees (Control) Laws in the various states of the federation.

As all of us may be aware, the causes of environmental degradation can both be natural and man-made, which includes over-exploitation of our natural resources, such as fuel-wood extraction used for charcoal, are no doubt on the increase.

You may want to ask, what happened to coal briquettes, the alternative to firewood and kerosene for which former President Olusegun Obasanjo gave N100m in 2001.

It could be recalled that the Nigerian Coal Corporation, the manufacturers of the briquettes and its accompanying stove flooded the FCT with briquettes in 2001.

The briquettes were sold for N160 per carton of 12 cubes of briquettes, while the stove was sold for N460. The large family stove size was sold for N1, 600.

The smokeless coal briquettes were launched with fanfare in Enugu early in 2001 by the then Minister of Solid Minerals Godwin Kanu Agabi and former minister of state for environment Dr. Ime Okopido.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo had that year approved N100m for the coal briquettes program as an alternative to the use of firewood in order to stave off the degradation of the forests and to protect the environment.

The briquettes were expected to come as a relief to millions of households who previously depended on scarce and expensive kerosene and cooking gas.

Again, what has happened to the Federal Ministry of Environment Forestry Scheme meant for each ecological zone in the country?

The program development was supposed to be an all participatory one, having adopted a bottom up approach in the design and evolution. It was to be an evolution of holistic and proactive strategies to combat the myriad of environmental problems confronting the country.

Noting with serious concern, the rate of desert encroachment in the semiarid north and the menace of soil erosion, land degradation and deforestation throughout the country, reaffirmed the urgent need to embark on an aggressive environmental rehabilitation program to combat the degradation processes.

It should be noted that before the advent of Obassanjo administration, there was the National Tree Planting Campaign, an annual event, as a strategy devised to sensitize the people and engender public awareness on the need for forest conservation, and an impact tree-planting culture in the

ENVIR ONMENT ENVIRONMENT WATCH

By Ambrose Inusa Sule, mnes globenviron@yahoo.com 0703-441-4410 (sms only)

citizenry, in view of the roles of forest and tree planting in our environment and in general well being of our people.

This concept helped in the planting of trees for various end uses under the various forestation programs that both the Federal and State governments embark upon annually. Today, the National

Tree Planting Campaign has remained a hollow ritual.

As all of us may be aware, the causes of environmental degradation can both be natural and man-made.

Which includes over exploitation of our natural resources such as fuel-wood extraction, are no doubt on the increase.

The scarcity and frequent

hike in price of kerosene amounted to double standards for a government that promised to fight deforestation with all the weapons at its disposal.

It was reported across the country that the recent scarcity of kerosene has further put the forests at the mercy of the rural populace, as this alternative energy source is no longer within their reach.

The pressure on forest resources has persistently pushed the rural populace to marginal land with an attending plethora of ecological problems. This mirrors the gross imbalance between available natural resources, usually finite and non-renewable and population that grows by as much as 5 percent annually.

The United Nations Sudano-Sahelian Office (UNISO) has identified forest depletion as the major agent of desertification in Nigeria.

It has been estimated that nearly three quarters of Kano city's yearly firewood requirement, which is about 75,000 tones are brought in by donkeys within a radius of 20kim.

The consequence of human dependence on wood for fuel and construction is estimate at about 350,000 ha of land is under the threat of deforestation annually, while the annual rate of reforestation is put at about 30,00ha. The problem is of disastrous dimension to the environment and the people.

The well-known relationship between poverty and environmental degradation obtains as poverty generates environmental degradation (Desertification), which in turn accentuates poverty. It is true that the severity of any ecological disaster is dependent on the vulnerability of the people so affected. The problem really is that with each passing day, the povertystricken and the environment become worse for wear.

Don tasks universities on Earth Science research development

By Ibrahim Kabiru Sule

T

he Nigerian universities have been challenged to raise to the occasion of averting the glaring destruction of the planet through the promotion of rigorous researches in the field of earth science and other interdisciplinary approach.

At a lecturer in the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, a Lecturer at the University,

Olusegun Ekanade made this plea while presenting his paper titled "Nigerian Universities and Earth Science Development" during a workshop organised by the Association of African Women in Geosciences in Nigeria, recently.

Ekanade noted that "on a day to day basis, there is always one form of new scientific discovery, new science knowledge, new science technology and the list is unending", as a result of which

the universities in Nigeria ought to take advantage of.

The university lecturer, who is from the department of Geography, furthermore drew attention to the constant change and evolving of nature itself, which however called for the adaptation of such changes, through research.

He therefore underscored the opportunities that abound in the earth science especially in environmental industries,

government agencies and above all, "one of the greatest employers of labour of earth scientists are the oil and gas industry and their servicing companies."

The workshop had an environmental geologist, Professor Mayen Adiuku Brown from university of Jos as the Chairman of the occasion, and other participants who had proceeded on a field trip for better comprehension of the presentation.

PAGE 30

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2012

Between skills' acquisition and paper certificates

Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i

By Folasade Folarin

T

he craving of Nigerian youths to acquire paper qualification at all costs became a focus of public discourse during the recently concluded orientation programme of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

It was learnt that some desperate youths paid various sums of money to be awarded degrees by unaccredited educational institutions.

Sixty-two of the ``graduates'' were arrested at a fake NYSC orientation camp in Nasarawa State.

When quizzed, they confessed that they paid some money to acquire degree certificates so as to enable them to participate in the NYSC scheme and subsequently secure employment. ``We paid between N120,000 and N200,000 to be admitted into the camp,'' one of the fake graduates said.

They said that after acquiring the degree certificates, they also needed NYSC discharge certificates to complete the circle, as NYSC certificate was a prerequisite for employment.

Stakeholders and experts have blamed the growing obsession for paper qualification on the type of education that was bequeathed to Nigeria by the British colonialists.

They also attributed the high unemployment rate in the country to the preference for the acquisition of certificates instead of skills.

Mr Edmund Onwuliri, the

Demolished at Maraba Market

Assistant Director, Information and Public Relations, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), said that one of the problems facing the country was the erroneous emphasis placed on paper certificates. ``Everybody believes that you can only be productive when you have gone to school, but then what is education? Education is what arms you with the right language to give expression to your natural talents,'' he said.

Mr Bayo Omoboriowo, a graduate of chemistry from the University of Lagos, urged the people to desist from undue obsession with certificates. ``A certificate is a document which simply certifies the completion of a course. It places power in your hands to enable you to access what the certificate has the tendency to offer,'' said Omoboriowo, who is now a

professional photographer, He stressed that the acquisition of certificates should not be a do-or-die affair, adding that a person could still make it in life without necessarily possessing a certificate.

Omoboriowo said that he developed an interest in photography at a very tender age, adding that he later decided to adopt photography as a profession even though he studied chemistry in the university.

He conceded that his education had somewhat helped him to harness his latent potential. ``Young people don't have to worship certificates; all they need to do is to ensure that they get enough knowledge to make them relevant in this time and age. ``Your skill and talent would always make a way for you. In a case where the acquisition of a certificate seems to be problematic, then skills' acquisition might be a way out.

“

Everybody believes that you can only be productive when you have gone to school, but then what is education? Education is what arms you with the right language to give expression to your natural talents

``It is observed that many people who are not so good in regular school work could be very good in technical education; so, there should be provision for technical education and human development in our scheme of things,'' he said.

Mr Samson Agboko, a civil servant, urged parents to refrain from forcing their children to study particular courses.

He said that although parents ought to guide their children in making career choices, their courses of study should be determined by their individual ability.

Nevertheless, Onwuliri said that efforts to address the high level of unemployment in the country required a shift of emphasis toward skills' acquisition and technical education. ``The fact that you have a university degree does not guarantee that you are going to get a good job or live well. All the same, anyone who knows how to apply his hands to work in a pragmatic way will live better. ``White-collar jobs are in short supply nowadays and the economy is struggling. ``It is only when the economy is vibrant that you begin to see more room being created to absorb the labour force but if the economy is wobbly, what do you expect?'' he asked.

Onwuliri noted that most of the artisans who engaged in housefinishing tasks like tiling, Plaster of Paris (POP) fittings, among others, were from neighbouring countries like Togo and Republic of Benin.

He stressed that the foreigners were usually preferred to their Nigerian counterparts because they were very competent and resourceful. ``We have been advocating the incorporation of entrepreneurship development into the curriculum at all levels of education, particularly in secondary and post-secondary institutions. That is a veritable way of promoting skills' acquisition. ``We are also encouraging graduates to learn skills after graduation and that is why the NDE is establishing skill-acquisition centres all over the country. ``We have up to 80 different trades that we offer training on and so we counsel you first and after the counseling, you select what you want and you will be trained in that area. ``NDE has offices in all the states of the federation and the FCT, so you are free to walk into any of the offices to make enquiries,'' Onwuliri added.

All the same, analysts insist that the government and other stakeholders should play greater roles in efforts to check the perceptible mania for paper certificates.

They argue that measures should be put in place to enable the youth to harness their latent potential and check the endless search for whitecollar jobs.

Source: NAN

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 31

The logic of democracy ANALYSIS

By Creston Davis andSantiago Zabala

F

rom a political point of view people still believe in nostalgic and dangerous ideas like "objectivity" "reality", "truth" and "values" as a precondition for democracy.

But believers in absolutes forget a crucial lesson borne out of the historic record namely, that the tide of secularisation is irreversible and remains inextricably bound-up in the human condition.

This reality necessarily checks and harnesses the search for fanatical, absolute truthclaims that, we maintain, are contrary to the very nature of democracy.

Indeed the demand democracy place on us is therefore a commitment to maximising critical, open dialogue whilst maintaining a minimal peaceable solidarity among different social and political actors. We thus submit the need to dispense with arrogant notions of truth opting instead for more temperate and humble philosophical programmes, ones that, for example help nurture a larger more volatile discourse of human flourishing.

It is worth briefly examining the logic that appeals to claims that are absolute and beyond the reach of history. From the birth of religion and early philosophy the ever-changing natural world was interpreted as threatening, chaotic and unpredictable. This further resulted in a neurosis, which was only cured, it was thought, when the threatening material world of change was a result of a more fundamental unchanging, immaterial idea, or a God. By appealing to absolute moral foundations, or a God, or Truth, any disagreement could be resolved so long as everyone agreed with the final appeal pronounced by the ruling class.

And if there was disagreement, the rulers in power, like political or religious authorities, could be justified in exacting violence against a dissenter.

The danger in this metaphysical universe was that only the King or Pope (or the philosopher-king) could discern what the true will of God (or Reason) was on earth without question or criticism.

In this way, an eternal, unchecked idea was given moral justification beyond the reach of democratic discourse.

Consequently, unjust political regimes could get away with implementing their power in

Physicist Stephen Hawking recently said that philosophers have not kept up with science and their art is dead [EPA] the name of the Almighty or an idea.

It is little wonder that one minor tradition in Greek philosophy, the Platonic legacy, was quickly adapted into the Greek and later Roman Empire, as Peter Sloterdijk has recently argued. This legacy could then easily be transferred into the hegemony of Christianity in the form of the Roman Catholic Empire, which neutralised many other divergent Christian, religious, pagan and philosophical traditions in order to alight as an absolute authority both religious and political. This set the stage for the spread of the Islamic Empire in the 7th century.

By contrast, we submit that history and not religion (or unchecked Reason) must be taken seriously as opposed to idealising absolutes, which, in political theologies, only serve as flimsy veils behind which violent and inflexible premises invariably lurk. It is difficult not to interpret mainstream religious ideology and its historical reality as employing appeals to almighty God as a means to dominate the cultural, political, moral and even economic discourse.

By contrast, when, for example, Churchill said that democracy is the worst form of government excluding all others, what he meant was that you cannot find a better system if you take history seriously. This is a pragmatic and hermeneutical approach, which entails a modest style committed to an experimentation and perpetual improvement on inevitable shortcomings.

Post-metaphysical philosophy has never claimed inerrancy; indeed it knows the tools it provides in good faith are nevertheless fragile, incomplete and above all contingent unlike extreme and historically unsustainable version of scripture that allows no room for error and all the room for "justified violence". For this reason we agree with Stephen Hawking, who recently pronounced the death of philosophy.

The philosophy that is dead is, of course, the one that appeals to absolutes, that is, metaphysical philosophy. And with Hawking we join sides with SlavojZizek and the late American philosopher, Richard Rorty, by claiming that the duty of philosophy is a modest task.

"I think philosophy is a very modest discipline," says, Zizek.

Philosophy does not solve problems, "the duty of philosophy is to show how what we experience as a problem is a false problem". Philosophers deal less with absolute truth

claims, like Hawking thinks, and operate more like Rorty says, "when it comes to political deliberation, philosophy is a good servant but a bad master".

In this modest sense, philosophy is useful in formulating new interpretations of social phenomena, but neither is it indispensable.

What is distinctive about the hermeneutic (the philosophy of interpretation) approach is that it gives priority to relations between knowledge and social life, that is, to the concerns that arise as the inevitable result of one's own existence: mortality, freedom, meaning and death.

A democratic society may develop itself only by generating culture not as an abstract body of superior knowledge but as a complex dialogue that must never come to rest. In fact, democracy must become a lived philosophy, which it can only do by refusing absolute truth and its attached totalitarian regimes. The only hope of a democratic politics is to form citizens who articulate

“

This way of appealing to absolutes should therefore be interpreted as giving up on dialogue and democracy in a panic moment to push a ruler's own agenda in the name of the religion. Democracy continues to be difficult work, which never arrives at a resting place

their own practical needs, freely and unencumbered by the pressures of simplistic and lazy metaphysical systems.

The political message of philosophy after the end of modernity is that there is nothing outside our human and natural community.

Philosophers must understand problems as rooted in society.

The danger is that philosophers become alienated from communities - as has happened to so many analytical philosophers. We therefore submit that philosophy must subordinate itself to the political demands of democracy.

Rorty, together with HansGeorg Gadamer, Gianni Vattimo, Zizek and many other philosophers, understand hermeneutics as possessing this possibility because it does not presuppose an absolute that dissolves differences.

Hermeneutical philosophy is humbled by the hope that agreement will never be lost as long as the conversation lasts.

And so the hope that characterises hermeneutics as the philosophy of postmodernity depends on privileging human historical narratives as opposed to abstract theories of reality. The moral justification of a political institution cannot thus be found through a philosophical explanation alone but also in those historical narratives that allow the conversation and even disagreement to continue unfolding.

The point is to retrospectively interpret history as a continuation of events that arrives at conclusions needed for the betterment of society; that is, only by interpreting can we verify whether we are not simply regurgitating outdated phantoms that continue to reproduce unjust symptoms and forms of repressions. For example, when the American president, George Bush tried to construct a case for going to war in the Middle-East, he did this by appealing to God's will and used the Bible as evidence to justify his theocratic agenda.

This way of appealing to absolutes should therefore be interpreted as giving up on dialogue and democracy in a panic moment to push a ruler's own agenda in the name of the religion. Democracy continues to be difficult work, which never arrives at a resting place, but is always under revision, refinement and revaluation. In this respect, democracy is not an ideal rather it is a process of employing tools of a modest hermeneutical philosophy. In sum, democracy reminds us that we need each other for our very survival.

Source: Al Jazeera

PAGE 32

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Education: UK to support 800,000 Northern children

By Abdulkadir Isa

Namibia mulls state of emergency to fight drought

N

amibian Prime Minister HageGeingob said on Wednesday that President HifikepunyePohamba would soon declare a state of emergency because of the severe drought gripping the country.

The state of emergency, whose date Geingob could not divulge, would be the second during President Pohamba's tenure since 2011, when severe floods swamped the northern and northeastern parts of the country.

Geingob made the remarks in the capital Windhoek at a Comprehensive Drought Relief meeting attended by regional governors to discussed short, medium and long-term strategies to alleviate the effects of drought in the country.

An assessment carried out by the Prime Minister's Office last month established that more than 400,000 people are affected by drought in the Oshana, Omusati, Ohangwena and Caprivi regions, where many schools have closed down.

On Monday, the Disaster Risk Management Committee (DRMC) chairperson, FransKapofi, who is also the presidential affairs minister, told the media that the cabinet had set aside 200 million Namibian dollars (217,000 U.S. dollars) for drought relief.

Wednesday's meeting sought to work out ways of how the government can tackle food insecurity situation, water scarcity and poor grazing in all the 13 regions of the country.

Geingob called for coordinated efforts involving central, local and regional government, as well as other key stakeholders who have a role to play such as churches, demanding that the governors should understand the purpose of the drought relief.

He also emphasized that no Namibian should feel left out in the process of distributing drought relief.

Prime Minister HageGeingob

T

he UK government is to help 800,000 children receive an education in Northern Nigeria by 2015, out of which 600,000 will be girls.

In a statement by Rob Fitzpatrick, Head of Press & Public Affairs Section British High Commission after a programme launch in Kano, he said "The teacher support programme will cover all 5,335 public primary schools in the state and is being funded by the UK and Kano state government".

British Government Minister for International Development, Lynne

Featherstone had visited Kano to understand development challenges in Northern Nigeria and to review progress on development projects supported by the UK Department for International Development.

Attending the launch of the new Kano Development Plan with His Excellency Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Deputy Governor of Kano State, Minister Featherstone commented: "The UK Department for International Development has been working with the Government and people of Kano State for over 10 years. I am delighted to be present at the launch these new products of this excellent

partnership".

"The Kano Development Plan is the state's first development plan. We believe this is a vital step in improving planning, budgeting and ultimately delivery of the services which affect everyone's lives" Mr Featherstone added.

Kano state is introducing a robust plan to help boost Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the state with a multi-pronged approach including an Investor Handbook which will give domestic and international investors the information they need to invest and create jobs in Kano and the Teacher support programme for numeracy and literacy which will help

teachers deliver the standard of education that the children of Kano deserve among others.

British Government Minister for International Development, Lynne Featherstone.

31 killed as army, rebels clash in Congo

A

L-R: Deputy Head of Mission, South Sudan Embassy, Ambassador David Choat, former Head of State, General Abdulsalam Abubakar, Counselor, South Sudan Embassy, Mayor Angong Panther, and South Sudan Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador Parmena Riak, during former Head of State's visit to South Sudan Embassy, yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

t least 31 people were killed in violent clashes after Mai Mai rebels attacked army positions in Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern town of Beni, a military spokesman said on Wednesday.

Gunmen launched the attack early on Wednesday at an army recruitment center near the North Kivu provincial town before being repelled after more than two hours of fighting, Colonel Olivier Hamuli told Reuters.

"The provisional death toll is 23 Mai Mai, 5 recruits and 3 FARDC soldiers, including a senior officer," Hamuli said.

Mai Mai is the generic name given to a multitude of local armed groups that roam eastern Congo.

EU to pledge 520m euros for Mali reconstruction

T

he European Union will pledge 520m euros (ÂŁ442m; $673m) to help rebuild Mali, at a conference of international donors in Brussels.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the money would help the West African state become "stable, democratic and prosperous".

The conference is the first since France sent troops to oust Islamist rebels from northern Mali in January.

Mali's government has a 4.3bn-euro plan for "a total relaunch of the country".

It includes rebuilding government institutions and the military, repairing damaged infrastructure, organising presidential elections, holding dialogue with rebel groups in the

north, and stimulating the economy.

After meeting the European Commission chief in Brussels on Tuesday, Mali's interim President DioncoundaTraore said he hoped about 2bn euros would be raised at the donors' conference.

"I think that's a good start," he told a news conference.

"Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, in a week or in a month, it is clear that the international community, the European Union, will inject a lot more than that."

Mr Barroso said the aid would benefit Europe as well as Africa.

"The support of the international community is essential to establish a Mali that is stable, democratic and prosperous," he added. "But the

principal actors in this transition are the Malians themselves and their government."

He said the EU welcomed the Transition Roadmap, aimed at establishing a full return to democracy and stability in the country, and the Plan for the Sustainable Recovery of Mali, which Malian officials will present at the conference on Wednesday.

Officials say 103 international delegations, including 10 heads of state and government, will attend the meeting, which was organised

by Mr Barroso, Mr Traore and French President Francois Hollande.

Since the French-led military intervention at the start of the year, the Islamist

rebels have been pushed back from the main urban centres of northern Mali. However, some fighters have retreated to hideouts in the mountains and desert, from where they launch isolated attacks.

Tens of thousands of refugees also remain in neighbouring Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Niger.

France nevertheless began withdrawing the first of its 4,500 troops in the country last month.

It hopes to have only 1,000 remaining by the end of the year.

They are due to work alongside peacekeepers from the United Nations' Multidimensional Integrated Stabilisation Mission in Mali (Minusma).

PAGE 36

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Women's handbags contain more bacteria than the average toilet

By Emma Innes

W

omen's handbags are contaminated with more bacteria than the average toilet, a new study has revealed.

Tests showed that one in five handbag handles is home to sufficient bacteria to pose a risk to human health.

The research also revealed that the dirtiest item in the average handbag is hand cream - bottles of hand cream were found to carry more bacteria than the average toilet seat.

Lipstick and mascara packets were found to be little better.

The tests, carried out by Initial Washroom Hygiene, also revealed that leather handbags are the most bacteria-riddled as the spongy texture provides the perfect conditions for bacteria to grow and spread.

The researchers suggest that women should regularly clean their hands and bags with antibacterial wipes or gel to prevent crosscontamination.

The study found that one in five handbag handles is home to enough bacteria to pose a risk to human health Peter Barratt, Technical Manager at Initial Hygiene, said: 'Handbags come into regular contact with our hands and a variety of surfaces, so

the risk of transferring different germs onto them is very high, especially as bags are rarely cleaned.

'Once these germs are on the

bags, they can easily be transferred via hands onto other surfaces.

'Regular hand sanitisation is essential to prevent the

presence of bacteria in the first place and thorough cleaning of bags is recommended to prevent the build-up of contamination.'

The research comes after another study revealed that workplace kitchens are dangerously dirty, to the point that they could cause illness.

The study, also carried out

by Initial Washroom Hygeine, revealed that half of surfaces in workplace kitchens are contaminated by dangerously high levels of coliforms - the bacteria present in faeces which can lead to outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease.

It also showed that more than a quarter of draining boards were found to have four times the safe level of coliforms.

The research also revealed that the handles of shared fridge-freezers were bacteriarife, with a third carrying high levels of coliforms, whilst 30 per cent of shared microwaves were also shown to be contaminated around the handles and buttons.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Why living near a busy road could be dangerous for your child's health

By Daily Mail Reporter

E

xposure to traffic fumes can set children on the road to diabetes, a study has shown.

Living near a busy road and increased levels of pollution from cars and lorries significantly raised the risk of insulin resistance in ten-yearolds, scientists found.

The condition, which reduces the body's ability to control blood sugar with the hormone insulin, is a recognised precursor of Type 2 diabetes.

Researchers in Germany looked at the effect of two kinds of traffic pollution on 397 children.

Blood tests were taken and measurements made of pollution emissions in areas where the children lived.

For every defined step-rise in levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) and sooty particulate matter (PM) from diesel exhausts, the risk of insulin resistance increased by 17 per cent and 19 per cent respectively.

The risk also rose by 7 per cent every 500 yards closer to a major road a child lived.

Study leader Dr Joachim Heinrich, from the German Research Centre for Environmental Health in Neuherberg, said: 'To our knowledge, this is the first prospective study that investigated the relationship of long-term trafficrelated air pollution and insulin resistance in children.

'Insulin resistance levels tended to increase with increasing air pollution exposure, and this observation remained robust after adjustment for several factors, including socio-economic status, BMI

(body mass index, a measurement relating height and weight), and passive smoking.'

The findings appear in the latest edition of the journal Diabetologia.

The researchers are continuing to study the children, whose progress will be monitored for 15 years.

They want to see how the children fare as they grow older and

The risk of insulin resistance in children rose by 7 per cent every 500 yards closer to a major road a child lived Previous research has linked air pollution, especially sooty particulates, with heart disease and premature death.

However, studies looking at associations between long-term exposure to traffic pollution and Type 2 diabetes in adults have been inconclusive.

'Oxidative stress caused by exposure to air pollutants may.. play a role in the development of insulin resistance,' Dr Heinrich said.

'In addition, some studies have reported that short-term and longterm increases in particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide exposure lead to elevated inflammatory biomarkers, another potential mechanism for insulin resistance.'

become adults. Individuals who stay in the area where they grew up and those who move will also be compared.

'Moving from a polluted neighbourhood to a clean area and vice versa would allow us to explore the persistence of the effect related to exposure and to evaluate the impact of exposure to increased air pollution concentration later in life,' Dr Heinrich added.

'Whether the air pollutionrelated increased risk for insulin resistance in school-age has any clinical significance is an open question so far.

'However, the results of this study support the notion that the development of diabetes in adults

might have its origin in early life including environmental exposures.'

Environmental health expert Professor Frank Kelly, from King's College London, pointed out that children were especially vulnerable to air pollution.

'They have a larger lung-to-body volume ratio, their airway epithelium is more permeable to air pollutants, and the lung defence mechanisms against particulate matter pollution and gaseous pollution are not fully evolved,' he said.

'Breathing the same pollutant concentrations, children may have a two to four-fold higher dose reaching the lung compared with adults.'

He added that traffic pollution studies had largely focused on particulate matter and overlooked the effects of nitrogen dioxide.

'It is of interest that this new study demonstrates that both PM

Both levels of nitrogen dioxide and sooty particle matter have been linked to increased risk of insulin resistance in children

and NO2 are linked to increased risk of insulin resistance in children,' said Prof Kelly.

'This finding is especially relevant for cities in the UK such as London which regularly exceeds current EU (European Union) limit values for NO2.

'Only last week the Supreme Court ruled that the UK Government was not doing enough to minimising NO2 pollution and protecting the health of its citizens.'

The possible link with oxidative stress highlighted the importance of childhood diet, he added.

'This is a timely reminder for Government that as well as improving air quality in our cites they need to ensure children have access to quality school meals which include fresh fruit and vegetables to ensure our children have good supply of antioxidants which will help protect them from the worst effects of traffic pollution,' said Prof Kelly.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 37

FG takes human rights seriously in Nigeria – Adefuye

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he Federal Government is taking firm actions to ensure a thorough investigation and accountability over the alleged human right abuses in the town of Baga, in Borno state.

“The actions will be accomplished swiftly and effectively,” Nigerian Ambassador to U.S. Adebowale Adefuye has said.

Prof. Adebowale Adefuye stated this in his reaction to an editorial published by a U.S. Newspaper, the Washington Post with the title “Tactics under fire in fight against Nigerian terrorist

group”. ’ Published on May 8, the newspaper’s editorial focused on the recent confrontation between Boko Haram militants and government forces in Baga, It stated that there were several reasons why the incident should be taken seriously by the Obama administration and other governments.

Such abuses should matter in Washington because the U.S. is providing assistance to the Nigerian army, including training and helping with communications and transport.

It, however, noted that under

U.S. law, aid cannot be provided to forces that are known to have committed human rights abuses, stressing that more broadly, the U. S had a strong interest in preventing practises that themselves foster extremism.

The North America Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Nigerian ambassador’s reaction was also published by the newspaper on May 13.

Adefuye said that President Goodluck Jonathan immediately instituted a full investigation upon learning of the incident in

which Nigerian security forces and troops from Cameroon, Chad and Niger were called on to repel a Boko Haram assault in the border region.

“He also welcomed plans by Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission to pursue its own independent inquiry.

“The destruction and loss of life in Baga are tragic and regrettable, but judgment should be reserved until further details emerge and investigations are completed,’’ Adefuye stressed.

The envoy stated that the post correctly asserts that Boko Haram “is a serious threat “.

“Our government in partnership with the U.S. and others are responding with a range of initiatives that seek to strengthen communities and isolate extremists.

“This effort is taking place within the boundaries of Nigerian law and in accordance with the human rights principles enshrined in our constitution,’’ Adefuye added.

He, however, noted that where any misconduct was established in Baga or elsewhere the federal government would not hesitate to bring those responsible to justice. (NAN)

Emergency rule: UPP says national unity supersedes partisan politics

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

U

Chairman, House Committee on Diaspora, Hon. Abike Dabiri-Eruwa (left), receiving documents from President, Federal Government doctoral candidates in Russia, Mr Godwin Ezinkwo (middle), during a meeting with the committee, yesterday in Abuja. With them is Hon. Aminu Shagari (right).

Photo: NAN

Rep canvasses support for pension reform

By Lawrence Olaoye

D

eputy Chairman, House of Representatives committee on Pension, Rep Samson Okwu, has appealed to his colleagues to support his efforts at reforming the nation’s pension through the bill for an act to repeal the Pension Reform which the House stood down yesterday.

Speaking after the plenary yesterday, the deputy chairman alleged that some individuals in the society who did not want the amendment confused members into working against the Bill cautioning the House not to throw away the baby with the bath-

water.

The Bill which seeks to repeal the Pension Reform Act, 2004 [PRA 04] and to re-enact the 2013 [PR13], to continue to govern and regulate the administration of the uniform contributory pension scheme for both the public and private sectors in Nigeria.

The lawmaker said “I will enjoin Nigerians, House and the Senate to support the Bill; it is a good Bill, it is an executive Bill.

Not quite long, the House and senate passed a joint resolution on the corruption that is going on in the pension industry”.

He explained that the Bill seeks for increase regulatory authority and greater efficiency of the National Pension Commission

towards greater oversight on, and repositioning of the pension Transition Administration departments so as to curb the endemic corruption that has ravaged such departments in recent times.

He said that the major thrust of the new Bill, among others, is to establish a uniform set of rules, regulations and standards for the administration and payment of retirement benefits for the public service of both the federal government, state governments, the FCT service, the local government councils and the private sector, which is an improvement on the old act.

Okwu noted that this uniform standard is in line with

international best practices of which Nigeria also is a major global player. He added that recently it took a very crucial joint resolution in putting an end to an era of impunity in the civil service pension of the Head of Service and in other instances of widespread corruption in the various pension department.

The lawmaker stated that the Bill is a positive response by the excutive to re-overhaul the pension system by bringing in a paradigm shift into the apex regulatory agency of the pension industry by increasing its statutory mandate for greater supervision of all the pension departments and other connected matters.

nited Progressive Party (UPP) has said that Nigerian unity supersedes partisan politics, commending President Goodluck Jonathan for his decision to declare a state of emergency in troubled states of Yobe, Borno, and Adamawa.

In a statement issued yesterday by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Ogbuehi Dike, the party said that partisan and opposition politics should not be given priority over national security.

UPP therefore said emergency rule in these crisis states is essential to safeguard the lives and property of innocent Nigerians who are being killed daily by Boko Haram insurgents, arguing that no responsible government will allow the massacre of the citizenry or occupation of any part of the country by insurgents.

“UPP affirms this firm, decisive and proactive action of President Jonathan as security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government as stipulated in section 14 (2) b of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended.”, the party said.

It also called on Nigerians, irrespective of tribal, political or religious affiliation, to cooperate with security agents in carrying out their constitutional mandate of protecting lives and property of the populace, urging Nigerians to pray fervently for the country in this trying time.

However, it reiterated its position that the Federal Government should not shy away from friendly nations that have acquired adequate technology to combat terrorism to help Nigeria in quelling the insurgency in some parts of the country.

PAGE 38

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Wada and challenges of development in Kogi ANALYSIS From Sam Egwu, Lokoja

S

ince the present administration of Capt Idris Wada and Arc Yomi Awoniyi came to power on January 27, 2012, a lot of water has passed under the bridge.

So much has happened that it has become too difficult to know which direction the state ship is facing in view of the divergent opinions towards the administration. In some cases, the expectation of the people reached fever levels waiting to see the rapid socioeconomic development in a state which habours 26 out 29 of the nation’s mineral resources.

The most spectacular achievement in all these months since Wada took over the reign of power in the Confluence state, close watchers of Kogi state government since its creation in 1991, agree, is in the area of security which still has won the admiration of people both within and outside the state.

Before now, Sunday Ejembi observed that it was difficult for individuals to move freely within the urban and even rural centres of the community and human life amounted to little or nothing, especially, among the “boys” in the society.

People say the governor would be given kudos for that giant and decisive steps in ensuring safety of life and property as no meaningful development can take place in the atmosphere of insecurity.

However, in the last 13 months, critics are of the opinion that there was little or no physical projects that could be credited to the Wada’s administration.

This according to hem could be as a result of the heavy debt burden bequeathed to his administration by his predecessor.

Those in this school of thoughts argued that Wada cannot move against his forbear following the circumstances through which he came into power. To continue to enjoy the support of his political mentor, his administration must pay all the debts he inherited.

According to Shaibu Ujah, a seasoned politician, for Capt Wada to succeed, having mapped out his plans of action, the sycophants around him and his government must be shown the way out. He further maintained that until Wada steps out to see whether the advisers were advising him well or are merely telling him

Governor Idris Wada soothing words about the feelings of the people outside, he may not know the true position of his government in the reckoning of the people.

Ujah however disclosed that the people of the state are hungry and do not know where to take their complaints to.

So, he counseled Wada to take urgent steps to address the poverty in the land before it becomes too late.

An analyst of current affairs based in Lokoja since 2003, Chief Chinedu Emenike, stressed that Kogi could only experience development if the people of the state join hands together to work with whoever wins as governor. This, according to him, is a state where 23 persons would get up to contest for governorship, which naturally, only one person could win. When they fail, he said, the next thing they do is to start thinking of how to frustrate the winner.

“Until we learn how to follow after losing, there can’t be proper development and that has held Kogi down all this while; making things difficult to work. Till we show right attitude to the government, there would be retardation in transformation agenda,” he submitted.

Those who spoke to Peoples Daily were of the opinion that the governor has to be a little bit decisive if he is to make any impact and leave marks on the sand of history as a governor of Kogi state. They

observe that all these motions without movement in his administration must be checked. The first area they pointed at was the issue of township road in the capital city, Lokoja where rehabilitation by State Road Maintenance Agency, SRMA, has failed to make any impact after substantial fund was alleged to have been approved and released. According to them, using shovels, wheelbarrows and tricycles for intra-city road repairs make mockery of the whole exercise.

Some of the people interviewed on the performance of the governor so far were unanimous in people’s missions that people passing through the state to and from Abuja had suggested that Wada should have employed the services of genuine and qualified contractors with capacities to

deliver quality roads instead of engaging quacks who would be carrying out remedial works on the township roads on weekly basis. They have also suggested that street lights, which are being dressed on daily basis should have been powered by solar energy.

Another political observer in the state, Joseph Ode, has said the performance of the governor could not be divorced from the quality of the people in his cabinet. He argued that most of those in Wada’s team are mismatch.

He said they are people who have failed in their different fields of endeavour; people who have no political pedigree, with little or no clout to win supports and sympathy for Wada’s government, even in their home wards.

According to him, all appointees in Wada’s

“

All appointees in Wada’s government are self made politicians who do not know how Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was groomed to what it is today, and it may sound ridiculous that the founding fathers of the party are sidelined for new comers who would rubbish the party

government are self made politicians who do not know how Peoples Democratic Party, PDP was groomed to what it is today, and it may sound ridiculous that the founding fathers of the party are sidelined for new comers who would rubbish the party. He said “After the demise of others, where are people like John Odawn, Prince Sola Akemode, Alhaji Ibrahim Lico Ocheje, Air Commodore Ray Emaiku (rtd), Senator Tunde Ogbeha, Arc Gabriel Aduku, just to mention a few. These are the people who make things work. Those behind the success of PDP and those the party may need anyday, come rain come shine.”

Considering the realities on ground, watchers have said Wada needs urgent measures to put smiles on the faces of the electorates through the delivery of dividends of democracy.

They pointed out that the state capital, Lokoja, is suffering from serious neglect. “Where there are iron drums as distbin, the state cannot be said to be developing and where darkness falls all over the state capital when the sun sets, there is need to question the competence of the government,” they submitted.

To Udu Abu, even the security adviser to the governor seems to have lost focus. He noted that there is insecurity around the Government House.

Commercial vehicles have turned Government House into motor parks, stopping and picking passengers at will without regard to its security implications.

For the government to achieve its set goals, critics are unanimous in their belief that Wada should prioritise his agenda and deliver on his promises for the electorates to see. The hues and cries of transformation agenda that is faceless will not take anybody anywhere, critics aver. They are also of the opinion that the governor should form a functional monitoring team to see that the programmes of action mapped out have human face. The education sector, hey counseled, should be policed by well informed, radical technocrats. T hey also encourage he governor not fail to sack whoever is found wanting, especially those who have constituted themselves into a cog in he state wheels of progress. This according to them is because Kogi is in a hurry to develop and no one can thwart the efforts.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 39

Ladoja Oyo governor assures of job creation through PPP seeking undeserved heroism Oyo ACN From Inumidun Ojelade, Ibadan

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From Inumidun Ojelade, Ibadan

T

he Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Oyo State chapter, has upbraided the Senator Rashidi Ladoja-led Accord Party for what it called its “puerile and sensational bandying of fake state earnings” in its usual quest to earn an undeserved heroism among the people.

It made this known while reacting to a release issued by the Accord Party’s Director of Publicity, Mr. Dotun Oyelade, alleging that the state government had collected N78 billion in the last one year and had failed to cater for the needs of teachers.

The party accused Ladoja’s AP of being “a nest of liars” as the state government had already paid the 27.5 Enhanced Teachers’ Salary, as well paying the minimum wage of N18,000 to the least paid worker in the state for over a year now “We understand Ladoja’s beef. His cheap mantra of being the only governor who catered for the interest of teachers while in office has been effectively punctured

by Ajimobi’s unrivalled impacts in the lives of teachers and the state workforce. He and his party needed to mourn their departure from the hearts of the workforce and replacement with Ajimobi who has touched the lives of the state workforce in the last two years through training and retraining, as well as taking care of their welfare,” the ACN said.

The party added that while the state’s earnings in the last two years were a far cry from the “fake figures” being bandied by the Accord Party, the party-led government had used its financial engineering skills to construct so many roads that are unprecedented in the history of Oyo State.

On the chieftaincy title of Aare Atunluse of Ibadanland being conferred on Ajimobi by the Olubadan of Ibadan, the ACN said Ladoja and his party should hide their faces in shame.

“After trying unsuccessfully to cause disaffection between Ajimobi and his father, the Olubadan, by whipping sentiments on the Oyo State Traditional Council, Ladoja went a step further by attacking the urban renewal effort of the government that has attracted positive comments from all and sundry.

The bestowal of this title on Ajimobi is the Olubadan’s own way of telling the former governor to shut up. We are not surprised that Ladoja cannot bear the shame and has chosen the week of the chieftaincy conferment to run away to London,” it said.

overnor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has said that his administration would continue to partner with the private sector in order to create an avenue for job creation for the unemployed youths in the state.

He made the disclosure yesterday while formally inaugurating the facility of Spanco Group at the Old Kingsway Building, Dugbe, Ibadan.

The governor further

disclosed that government would soon institute an egovernance system and outsource some services in order to create a sypport system that would improve informationsharing across various areas for the citizens of the state.

Also, through a partnership between government and the Spanco Group, he said that his administration would roll-out a Government to Citizen (G2C) Help Line which would establish an information link between government and citizens.

This, Ajimobi said, would

cover various initiatives by the state like Health Helpline and Medical Care, Health Emergency and Hospital/ Ambulance Management, Agriculture Helpline, Land Registry, Women in Distress and Police Helpline aside any other new initiatives and programmes that would be introducing in the future.

“All over the world, the trend now is for organizations to fanout the execution of key aspects of their responsibilities to professionals and experienced solution-providers.

“This is the reason for our government’s synergy with Spanco Group, an organization which possesses business spread across System Integration, Power, Technology Infrastructure, e-Governance and Business Process Outsourcing as well as state-ofthe-art infrastructure, including skilled work force,’’ he said.

The governor said that the state possessed a fertile ground for any investor wishing to take optimal advantage of its Godendowed possibilities.

R-L: Senate President David Mark, in a chat with Cuban Ambassador to Nigeria, Ambassador Hugo Rene Ramos, during the envoy's visit to Senate President, on Tuesday at the National Assembly, Abuja.

Photo: Mahmaud Isa

Emergency: Don’t trample upon people’s rights, lawyer warns soldiers

By Lawrence Olaoye with agency reports

A

prominent Lagos based lawyer and human righs activists, Bamidele Aturu,yesterday warned soldiers deployed to the troubled states currently under emergency to be careful in handling the situation so as not to trample on the rights of the ordinary citizens.

The lawyer gave the warning on the heels of the state of emergency declared by President Goodluck Jonathan in the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

Other prominent lawyers who commented on the declaration of the state of emergency in the trouble states commended the President for taking the right decision on the matter.

The lawyers, however, told News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the Federal Government

should also tackle poverty and unemployment to end the insecurity.

Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN) said that the declaration of a state emergency was a welcome development.

Sagay said: “The situation in those states was getting totally out of hand because we were beginning to have an army of occupation made up of terrorists who were virtually in control of those states.

“The danger is that they are Al-Qaeda supporters and the real Al-Qaeda could have arrived and put these areas under its control and the rest of the country would be in danger.”

He praised Jonathan for retaining the democratically elected governments in the states as stipulated by the Constitution.

“The president has no power to sack the governments of

these states. Section 305 has no such provision.

“On the contrary, Section 11, Paragraphs 4 and 5 specifically states that the office of the governor and the state houses of assembly are not to be affected by declaration of state of emergency,” Sagay said.

Mr. Onyekachi Ubani, Chairman, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Ikeja branch, told NAN that the government should strive to earn the trust of the people in order to tackle the insurgency.

“Finally, the president has taken steps to stop the violence in the states where we have witnessed senseless and wanton destructions of lives and property by some sects,” he said.

He, however, said that mere declaration of a state of emergency would not put an end to the violence in the states,

urging that the government should address some fundamental issues.

“There is an urgent need for us to meet and discuss our unity as a nation and how we can make progress,” Ubani said.

In a statement he made available to NAN, Mr Festus Keyamo also hailed the development.

Keyamo said: “The bloodletting in these states left the president with no other option but this extraordinary step.

“This step must be appreciated in the light of the refusal of the insurgents to even dialogue with the Federal Government.

“The primary duty of any government is to protect lives and property.

“It is only right that government should dig deep to find a lasting solution to this ceaseless carnage.”

PAGE 40

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

L-R: Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Hon. Abdulmumini Jibrin, Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal and vice-chairman of the committee, Hon. Yomi Ogunnusi, during a workshop on the functions of House Committee on Finance, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: NAN

APGA crisis: 18 NWC members dump Umeh

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

T

he last seems not to have been heard in the crisis rocking the All Progressives Grant Alliance (APGA), as eighteen out of the 25 members of the party's National Working Committee (NWC) yesterday dumped its National Chairman, Victor Umeh.

In a communique read by the National Publicity Secretary of the party, Barnard Akomas, the NWC members said they have decided to desociate themselves from the purported recognition of Umeh as the chairman of the party by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

According to the communique, the NWC members said "We, eighteen members of the NWC out of

twenty seven who served with Chief Sir Victor Umeh have dissociated ourselves from INEC's recognition of Umeh".

They explained that they had since March 23rd, passed a vote of no confidence on Umeh's leadership, reiterating that their rejection of it is based on his draconian style of leadership.

They also re-affirmed their participation and stand on the National Convention held at Awka, on the 18th of April, calling on INEC to continue to remain firm and defend its decision to monitor the APGA Convention held at Awka.

On the letter of recognition written to Umeh by INEC, the communique explained that INEC has explained that such recognition ends immediately it receives further directive from the court.

They further explained

Tukur gets new aides

By Lawrence Olaoye

N

ational Chairman of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has appointed three new aides in replacement of those he sacked recently.

Tukur in a letter to the National Working Committee, NWC, signed by the National Director of Administration, Gurama Bawa, requested the Committee to give the aides

possible assistance and cooperation in the discharge of their duties.

The new appointees include a former Senator and governorship aspirant of the party in Sokoto State, Abubakar Gada, who will serve as the Political Adviser to the national chairman.

Others are George Korgba from Benue state who is the new Principal Secretary while A. Y. Ahmad retains his posts as the Special Assistant, Special Duties

that the relief granted Umeh by the Appeal Court is for stay of execution from parading himself as the Chairman of the party as was ordered by High Court in Enugu, emphasising that the court never, at any time, upturned the substantive judgement which was that the convention that brought Umeh was not properly done.

"NWC notes further that there are multiplicity of suits pending before the various

High Courts filed by Victor Umeh or his surrogates.

Victor Umeh in other instance has applied to be joined as a party or as the authentic representative of APGA. "We note particularly Suit No. FHC/AWK/CS/88/2013

by Charles Nwazojie for himself and others and INEC and 5 others before the Federal High Court Awka in which INEC is the 1st defendant. We view the current INEC statement as

preemptive and prejudicial to the Federal High Court case at Awka in which INEC is a 1st Defendant.", the communique read in part.

Meanwhile, the NWC of the party has endorsed the resolution of the South South and South East governors after a meeting held in Asaba, Delta state, reiterating their support for governor Peter Obi of Anambra state in his development efforts in the state.

Critics ignorant of my achievements – Amosun

G

ov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun says many of his critics are ignorant about his administration's achievements.

Amosun spoke in Ilara, Imeko-Afon Local Government Area of the state while inspecting the extent of work done on the 107 kilometre Ilara-Ijoun-Oja Odan-Ilase road project.

"Those criticising us for doing these roads are either ignorant of what we are doing or they are confused by the level of service delivery we are giving to the people.

"But we won't be deterred and we will remain focused on doing what the good people of Ogun state voted us to do,'' he said.

Amosun, who expressed delight at the level of work done so far during the first phase, said the road project was the longest

embarked upon by his administration.

"I laugh when I hear some people say all the road projects are being concentrated in Ogun Central. I laugh because I see they are ignorant of what is going on.

"This road is 107 kilometres and it is the longest of all the roads we are presently constructing; it cuts across the four local governments in Ogun West.

"It links Yewa North, Yewa South, Ipokia and of course Imeko-Afon, It is only Ado-Odo/ Ota that it didn't touch and we are treating that local government specially.

"Why we are doing it is to ensure that this area (Ogun West), being the food basket of the state, is opened up to achieve its full potential.

"When this road is completed, our farmers won't have problems bringing out their farm produce again,'' he said.

The governor, who had earlier inspected the 7.4 km Oke-Oyinbo/Idagba road, said that the six-lane LafenwaAyetoro project was underway.

Mr. Hakan Dal, the Project Manager of PW Nigeria Limited, commended the governor for providing necessary support to ensure the timely completion of the projects.

He also praised the people of the town for being cooperative and supportive of the construction effort.

Dal expressed optimism that the project, which commenced in November 2012, would be completed by May 2015.

(NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 41

Only 14 Flying Eagles in Germany as confusion mars preparations Stories by Patrick Andrew

F

lying Eagles' preparations for the FIFA U-20 World Cup may have taken a turn for the worse with the latest being that only 14 players are in the team's Germany camp, barely 24 hours to FIFA's deadline for the submission of the final list.

Firstly, Coach John Obuh had submitted a provisional list of 30 players just before jetted out to Germany for a refresher course.

Subsequently, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) procured travelling documents for that number even as they home-based players reported to their Nnewi camp.

There came the first hiccup as the Anambra state government which initially spurned sponsoring the camping suddenly saw political connotation in Chief Ifeanyi Ubah's lifeline for the team.

Consequently, the Peter Obi's government confronted the leadership of the NFF, a development that led to delay in the commencement of the camping.

The next hiccups ensued when the coach returned from Germany after two weeks course.

The coach opted to drop eight

Niger govt extols Golden Eaglets' Ali-Baba

S

aliu Ali-Baba, the Golden Eaglets' midfielder at the 2013 CAN U-17 Championship in Morocco, received praises from Niger State government in Minna yesterday.

While being decorated with the silver medal the Eaglets won in Morocco, the Commissioner for Sports Development, Mr. Dan Shashare, said Saliu is a good ambassador of the state and urged other youth to imitate him.

"I'm happy to be commended in the presence of staff of the council. This recognition is important and it would also motivate me to continue to do my best," said Ali-Baba.

Ms Dounia Lahrech, the Media officer of Federation Royale Marocaine de Football, who presented the player before the commissioner said, "Your boy (AliBaba) is smart. He spoke with maturity and I'm very impressed about how he answered the questions."

Meanwhile, Ali-Baba along with other athletes that recently won laurels for the state would soon be formally hosted by the Chief Servant Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu, the Executive Governor of Niger State where he would expectedly announce packages.

John Obuh, Flying Eagles coach, Aminu Maigari, NFF President players from the provisional list, and substituted them with nine others.

But the NFF had already procured visas for them,

The new batch of players were called up and accommodated in a hotel in Abuja but the football federation has been unable to secure the needed travelling documents for them to travel to Germany.

Further, the NFF without consulting with and obtaining the coach decided to drop five players, this sparked off misunderstanding between the football federation and Obuh with the later insisting that those players must be returned.

The NFF, according dependable source, dismissed Obuh's position and bluntly ordered him to work with what has been decided for me.

That includes that only four of the

nine players he called are acceptable to the NFF and that those five they have dropped without consulting him would remained excluded from the team.

However, playing down on the disturbing development, NFF General Secretary, Musa Amadu, told Journalists in Abuja that the federation has not relented in its efforts to secure visas for the players stranded in Nigeria.

"We are on course. The bulk of the plays are already in Germany and they wil be joined this weekend by the rest of the team" stated Amadu without addressing other teething issues.

… Team draw Brazil, Portugal in Toulon tourney

T

he Flying Eagles have been drawn against Brazil and 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup rivals, Portugal, in this year's Toulon International Tournament which kicks off on May 28.

Samm Audu, the team's Media Officer, said in a statement yesterday from Germany where the team are presently camping, that the Flying Eagles are in Group B of the 10-team

tournament. ``The Flying Eagles will on May 29 meet defending champions Mexico whom they lost 1-4 to in another invitational tournament in Panama preparatory to the 2011 World Cup in Colombia. ``On June 2 they will meet Belgium, and on June 4 they will then go on to face world champions Brazil who incidentally failed to qualify for

the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey.

Their final group game is against Portugal on June 6,'' he said.

The Flying Eagles will open their 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup campaign on June 21 in Kayseri against the Portuguese.

Audu said the Flying Eagles held Portugal to a goalless draw in Lisbon in 2011, before losing to the same team 2-0 in a pre-World Cup tournament

in Panama. ``Portugal later went on to reach the World Cup final, where they lost to Brazil,'' Audu said in the statement.

Group A of the Toulon tournament has the U.S., Colombia, Congo DR, France and South Korea.

Winners of both groups will slug it out in the final on June 8, with the runners-up to battle for the third-place medal.

Premier League and two from the Portuguese Liga. Chelsea duo of John Obi Mikel, and Victor Moses were also given the nod for the trip.

Both Mexico and Nigeria will use the friendly match to shape up for their next month's 2014 World Cup qualifiers. For Nigeria, Kenya and Namibia are their opponents on June 5 and 12 respectively.

Mexico and Nigeria have met three times with a 1-0-2 record in favor of Mexico. The two teams last met in October of 2007 in an international friendly, with the match ending in a 2-2 tie at the Estadio Olimpico Benito Juarez in

Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.

NIGERIA ROSTER: Goalkeepers:Chigozie Agbim (Warri Wolves/NGA), Austin Ejide (Hapoel/ISR), Vincent Enyeama (Maccabi Tel Aviv/ISR) Defenders: Azubuike Egwuekwe (Warri Wolves/NGA), Efe Ambrose (Celtic/SCO), Elderson Echiéjilé (Sporting de Braga/POR), Kenneth Omeruo (ADO Den Haag/NED), Godfrey Oboabona (Sunshine Stars/NGA), Solomon Kwambe (Sunshine Stars/NGA), Francis Benjamin (Heartland F.C./NGA), Odunlami Kunle (Sunshine Stars FC/ NGA)

Midfielders:John Mikel Obi (Chelsea/ENG), Victor Moses (Chelsea/ ENG), Ogenyi Onazi (Lazio/ITA), John Ogu (Academia de Coimbra/POR), Obinna Nwachukwu (Heartland/ NGA), Sunday Mba (Enugu Rangers/ NGA), Michael Babatunde (Kryvbas Kryvyi/UKR), Reuben Gabriel (Kilmarnock/SCO) Forwards: Joseph Akpala (SV Werder Bremen/GER), Brown Ideye (FC Dynamo Kyiv/UKR), Anthony Ujah (FC Koln/GER), Nnamdi Oduamadi (Varese/ITA), Kalu Uche (Kas?mpa?a Spor Kulübü /TUR), Gambo Muhammad (Kano Pillars F.C./NGA)

Keshi picks 8 home-based Eagles, 19 others for Mexico clash

S

uper Eagles' Head Coach, Stephen Keshi, has included eight domestic league players in the 25-man squad for the international friendly duel against Mexico May 31 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, USA. Top among them are AFCON heroes Sunday Mba and Godfrey Oboabana, others are Chigozie Agbim, Solomon Kwambe, Francis Benjamin and new kid on the block Odunlami Kunle as well as Azubuike Egwuekwe and Gambo Mohammed.

Keshi called up two German Bundesliga players, two from Serie A in Italy, two from the Scottish

Godfrey Oboabana

Sunday Mba

Gambo Mohammed

PAGE 42

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Ebewele slams fraudulent sports federations’ elections

By Patrick Andrew with agency report

F

ormer Commissioner for Sports in Edo, Mr Brown Ebewele, has taken a swipe at Tuesday's elections into the boards of sports federations.

Describing the exercise as "fraudulent" Ebewele said the processes leading to the elections and the conduct of the exercise itself were anything but transparent as the National Sports Commission (NSC) would want people to believe.

Ebewele, who said he was a victim of the substitution of stakeholders' names, frowned at his exclusion from the Athletics federation election.

The former athlete, who is fondly called ``Juju Man,'' said the intrigues that threw up some members of the board at the just-concluded Sports Federations elections, were ridiculous and makes the exercise questionable.

He said that the manipulation of the election, especially the removal of his name and others from the list of stakeholders, was enough grounds for him to fight the Commission. ``Of course, you can see how names were removed and replaced.

Surprisingly, somebody from the NSC told us that the guidelines released for the election were not from the commission. ``I was elected by the Track and

Brown Ebewele, Bolaji Abdullahi, Sports Minister Field Athletes of Nigeria in Shagamu, during the Golden League competition, as their representative. ``It was upon reaching Abuja that they told me that my name had been removed; is that not enough for

me to start protesting; is that not enough for me to start slapping people? ``So, you just minimise your excesses: How can I travel all the way from Benin City only to be told that

my name is no more in the list? If it happens to you, will you take that?''

Ebewele queried.

He pointed out that the NSC had failed to choose professionals for the various board elections, irrespective

eliminated from the Games because there are 202 National Federations affiliated to the International Wrestling Federation (IWF) who are in the struggle to retain the sport. ``The sport is natural to man.

IWF has set up a 5-man committee to be made up of three men and two women from around the world to make a strong case for the retention of the sport. ``We will be meeting the IOC in St Petersburg, Russia on May 24 and I will be presenting a paper to that effect. ``Although, the principal decisions will be held on Sept. 9 in Buenos Aires, where I will also present another paper to try to convince the IOC to rescind the decision. `` We are hopeful they will rescind the decision because of the initial discussions we have been having with individual IOC members from various countries,''

he said.

Igali added that the sport also had an advantage of remaining because of the pedigree of wrestling at the Olympic Games. ``At the 2012 Olympics, we had

The newly elected-handler of the NWF noted that the recommendation was based on politics and not merit. ``When you look at the statistics, wrestling has a high followership of

of the outcome of the voting.

He noted that the NSC preferred to work with mediocrities rather than genuine stakeholders. ``I want the world to hear this; Falilat Ogunkoya participated in the South West election and lost to Prof Makanju, how did she get back to the board, somebody that lost in the South West? ``This is part of the Nigerian manipulation that we are talking about which has made us not to make progress, yet we are in a country that is talking about transformation. ``You can see rottenness and fraud; you can see corruption very visibly; Falilat contested in the zone and got only one vote, now she is back,'' Ebewele said.

The former Commissioner of Sports in Edo, however, expressed happiness with the emergence of Solomon Ogba as President of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN).

He added that it would have been incredible to hear that Ogba lost the election to those who had nothing to offer to athletics.

He urged the NSC to always shop for professionals to manage sports in the country, adding that it was only a professional that could change the misdemeanours in sports.

Igali to resist IOC's wrestling exclusion from 2020 Olympics

D

aniel Igali, the newlyelected President of the Nigeria Wrestling Federation (NWF), on Wednesday re-assured the wrestling family that he would struggle to stop the elimination of wrestling from the Olympic Games.

Igali spoke against the backdrop of the recommendation of the Executive Committee of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to eliminate wrestling from the Olympic programme.

The IOC said that the ratification of the proposal would be considered during the 125th IOC Session to be held in September in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He told newsmen in Abuja that he would be representing Africa in making presentations to convince the IOC executive Committee to retain wrestling on the Olympic programme. ``Wrestling should not be

around 21 million, as at the last Olympics. ``And there were at least nine sports that fell below that standard.

So, it is obvious that it was pure politics that was involved in trying to oust wrestling,'' Igali said.

71 countries that participated and apart from athletics which had about 30 different disciplines, wrestling is the most diverse in nature in terms of medals to be competed for. ``Also, 29 countries won medals at the last London 2012 Games. You can't beat that. To now say you want to eliminate one of the foremost sports in the Olympics, it should not happen,'' he said. Daniel Igali, in action for Canada during the Athens Games

Dauda calls for corporation, harmony among HFN members

P

Dauda

resident, Handball Federation of Nigeria (HFN),Yusuf Dauda, who was reelected after a thorny elections right from the zone, has appealed to members of the newly-elected board of the federation to unity and work harmoniously in the interest of the game.

Dauda, who expressed delight with his victory at the polls, vowed to re-jig his grassroots programmes and ensure that he completes whatever programme he had

started during his first tenure. " I am happy, the members have reposed their confidence on me. I will use the opportunity to re-dedicate myself to complete all the grassroots programmes and I hope others in the board will collaborate with me to accomplish our collective mission. ``It is my intention to sustain the glory of handball which is gradually being restored. So, I see my return as an opportunity to ensure that what

was started in the first tenure is completed,'' he said.

Dauda, who applauded the National Sports Commission (NSC) for the peaceful conduct of the election, expressed delight at the electoral board for ensuring a free and fair election.

He assured that handballers would be busy throughout the year and lauded the National Sports Commission (NSC) for conducting a

fre and fair election.

Meanwhile, re-elected technical director of the federation, Musa Hamza, who described the election as tough, said it was their good performance in the first term that saw them through.

Hamza, who defeated Mark Jacob 3-4 at the North West zonal election, said that he was ready to work with anyone that was willing to contribute to the growth of handball.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Italian league harderthan EPL, says Saha

T

he Lazio striker believes forwards in England have more tactical freedom than in Italy, making it easier to score goals Laziostriker Louis Saha says he has found it harder to score goals in Serie A than the Premier League following his January switch from Sunderland.

The Frenchman enjoyed a long career in England, turning out for Newcastle, Fulham, Manchester United, Everton, Tottenham and the Black Cats before moving to Italy this season.

"I have been used to the English league which is a bit more open with more free roles for every player on the pitch but the main thing is the freedom of the players.

"In England you may have a few possibilities to be one-on-one with a few more chances to score goals. Italian football did change and technically it is very impressive and sharp with many small players who have technical abilities.

Lazio currently sit seventh in Serie A as they prepare for their to Cagliari on May 19, their last game of the season.

Bommel ends playing career with red card

M

ark van Bommel finished the final game of his playing career on the sidelines as he was sent off 19 minutes from time following a trademark crunching tackle.

The 36-year-old former Netherlands midfielder announced his retirement on Sunday after he had been dismissed playing for PSV Eindhoven in the 3-1 league defeat

by FC Twente.

He won 79 Dutch caps, and also played for Barcelona and AC Milan.

The midfield enforcer won eight league titles in four different countries while with PSV, Barcelona, Bayern Munich and AC Milan from 2000 to 2011.

Van Bommel also captained the Netherlands team during a 12year-long international career in which he gained notoriety alongside fellow tough tackling defensive midfielder Nigel de Jong at the 2010 World Cup.

PAGE 43

Kaka, Ronaldinho B out of Brazil squad

Bayern dismiss Rooney reports ayern Munich has dismissed reports Manchester United forward Wayne Rooney is a summer transfer target for the Uefa Champions League finalists.

Last week, the 27-year-old put in a transfer request to leave Old Trafford, but he is apparently not on the German champions' radar.

"I can answer that we have great respect for Wayne Rooney, but there has been no contact with him. There is no contact and he's not on the agenda. No, no.

Absolutely not.

Bayern have also ruled out any interest in 21-year-old Brazil star and rumoured Barcelona target Neymar.

Ex-Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola already faces an embarrassment of riches when he takes charge next month and must decide who will start in Bayern's star-studded attack with a host of top talent vying for places.

Guardiola will inherit a squad already boasting the likes of Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery, Thomas Muller and Toni Kroos, while Mario Gotze arrives from Borussia Dortmund at the end of the season.

Ronaldinho

R

onaldinho and Kaka were both left out of the Brazil's squad for the Confederations Cup, named by Coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Scolari had been expected to include at least one of the

experienced pair in his squad for the competition which Brazil hosts in June.

Chelsea midfielder Ramires was surprise exclusion. Brazil has played five matches under Scolari, with one win, three

draws and one defeat.

"We could lose out in terms of experience but we will make up for that with the enthusiasm which the young players bring," Scolari told a news conference.

Gotze may return for UCL final

M

ario Gotze could return to the Borussia Dortmund team just in time for the Champions League final against his future club, coach Jurgen Klopp told an international press conference yesterday.

Speaking to the press yesterday, during a media open day, Klopp confirmed that, so far, everything had worked out according to plan during Gotze's rehabilitation after sustaining a thigh tear during the semifinal victory against Real Madrid.

Germany midfielder Gotze is currently getting in shape for the Wembley showdown in Munich, away from the TV cameras in Dortmund, Munich

paper tz revealed on Wednesday.

With one of the major questions prior to the Champions League final answered, Klopp also confirmed that the Robert Lewandowski situation will not be solved before the Wembley final.

The striker is the subject of interest from Bayern and Manchester United and looks likely to follow Gotze out of the door at Dortmund this summer.

The Dortmund boss, whose rise to fame is one of the more surprising stories in European football this year, believed that on their day Dortmund were capable of beating every team in the world.

Mario Gotze

automatically reach the Champions League group stage.

Chelsea, who are currently third and two points ahead of Arsenal, host Everton at Stamford Bridge on Sunday, while the Gunners travel to Newcastle.

The teams who finish in the top three of the Premier League automatically qualify

for next season's Champions League group stage. The fourth-placed club enters the competition's third qualifying round.

The Blues are playing two end-of-season matches against Manchester City in St Louis and New York, while England also has friendlies on 29 May and 2 June against Republic of Ireland and Brazil.

Rooney

Manchester City face another tough draw

M

Chelsea, Arsenal may play-off EPL third position

T Mark van Bommel

he Premier League has confirmed there will be a third-place play-off match between Chelsea and Arsenal if the pair ends the season with identical records.

If Chelsea draw 0-0 on the final day of the season and Arsenal win 2-1, they will be level on points, goal difference and goals scored.

The play-off winner would

anchester City's dismal performance in the Champions League is set to cost them dear in the draw for next season's group stage.

City could face a difficult draw for the third season running with Barcelona or Bayern Munich from pot one and Juventus, AC Milan or Paris Saint-Germain from pot two being possible opponents.

City's score of 10.228 this season ranks them 45th and is lower than that achieved by Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk, Metalist Kharkiv and Genk.

UEFA rankings are based on a fiveyear period, and in 12 months' time City will lose their score of 20.000 from 2008-09 when they lost to Hamburg in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup. Of the 21 teams ranked higher than City, 14 are guaranteed a place in the Champions League next season.

Of the other seven clubs, five can still qualify and four are currently in a Champions League place.

Barcelona, Bayern Munich, Read Madrid, Chelsea, Manchester United and FC Porto will be top seeds in the draw, joined by Arsenal if they qualify and Benfica. If Arsenal fail to qualify then either Valencia (if qualified) or Atletico Madrid will move into the top pot.

PAGE 44

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Purdy takes long shot at IBF title Heartland break 4 yrs L away jinx,

ee Purdy, a replacement for Kell Brook, will challenge IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander in Atlantic City on Saturday night.

Alexander, who is from Saint Louis in Missouri, is set to make the first defence of his belt when he meets the 25-year-old Purdy, a former British and current IBF international champion, at the Boardwalk Hall.

Purdy, from Colchester in England, has taken the place of Brook, who is rated No 1 by the IBF but has foot and ankle problems.

Purdy won three fights last year to push his record to 20 victories, including 13

knockouts, three defeats and a draw. He beat Adnar Amar (25-1), Chris Johnson (16-3) and Gunersindo Lucas Carrasco (16-0).

In March this year he stopped veteran Cosme Rivera (35-15-3) in the ninth round despite having problems to make the weight.

Alexander, a 26-year-old southpaw, won the vacant WBC junior welterweight title in August 2009 when he stopped Junior Witter in the ninth round. He also won the IBF belt by stopping Juan Urango in the eighth round.

He retained both titles against Andriy Kotelnik but then lost them to Timothy Bradley in January 2011. In

October last year he moved up to welterweight and outpointed veteran Randall Bailey to take over the IBF welterweight title.

The American could well beat fourth-ranked Purdy inside the distance.

On the undercard, WBC interim light-welterweight champion Lucas Matthysse faces IBF light-welterweight champion Lamont Peterson in a non-title ten-rounder at a maximum weight of 63.95 kg.

Matthysse, 30, is from Argentina and Peterson, 29, from the United States.

Matthysse has an outstanding knockout record.

He has won 31 of his 33 fights inside the distance and has lost only twice, both times on split

decisions, against Zab Judah and Devon Alexander.

Peterson's record stands at 31-1, with 16 shortcut wins.

His only loss was in December 2009 Timothy Bradley beat him on points. It could be an entertaining fight; one for the connoisseurs.

Nwuche promises build character, disciplined weightlifters

By Albert Akota

T

he newly elected president of the Nigeria Wrestle Federation (NWF), Chibudum Nwuche, has promised to use sports to build good character, discipline and open up job opportunities for Nigeria youth.

He said the federation has mapped out strategy to empower the youth through

wrestle as well as organizing and engaging in sporting activities both local and international for the interest of the country.

"We will not leave any stone unturned because my board is comprises of array professional who have interest of the game at heart, we are set to develop the game of wrestle in Nigeria beyond expectations.

"We will do everything to

create competitions where the young one at the grassroots which are our major priority can showcase their talents.

"We will go as far as primary, secondary and tertiary institutions where the raw talent can be found for future competitions, "he said.

Nwuche however promised to carry it members along in all the federation activities to avoid progression in wrong direction.

Lee Purdy

AFN shifts 3rd Golden League to PH for junior athletes T

he Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) has shifted of its Golden League third leg that was originally scheduled for Ilorin, to the University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT).

This was disclosed yesterday by the federation's technical director, Navy Commodore Omatseye Nesiama, who however confirmed that the initial date for the league May 18 still remains.

Nesiama said that the shifting this was to allow the African Junior Championship athletes in camp at UNIPORT to participate in the league. ``The league will now hold in Port Harcourt and no longer in Ilorin because we want to give opportunity to qualified athletes at the UNIPORT camp to participate. ``We also have to consider the athletes in camp and besides, it will also contribute to their training,'' he said.

He also said that any athlete caught with the performance enhancing substance at the league would be sanctioned.

According to him, the AFN was determined to get it right

Nigeria relay quartet that won the African Junior Championship and ensure that athletes achieved their best without enhancing substances.

The director, however, advised athletes participating at the league to strictly abide by the AFN code of conduct.

Nesiama said that the AFN

gave the advice as a result of the boycott that occurred at the second leg of the league which failed to hold at Benin in April. ``The participating states, clubs and athletes are advised to abide by the AFN Code of Conduct as well as compete fairly in

trying to achieve desired performance,'' he said.

The league's second leg in Benin was abandoned due to the unruly behaviour by some athletes who protested to AFN that the standard for the league was too high.

beat 3SC

F

ederation Cup champions, Heartland finally brought to an end their more than four-year wait for a first away win in the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) yesterday.

Heartland stunned 3SC 2-0 at the Lekan Salami Stadium in Ibadan to end about 1,529 days jinx for a maiden away win the Nigeria top flight league.

The last time Heartland won on the road in the league was on March 7, 2009 at Enugu Rangers. They won 3-1 on that occasion. Heartland petite winger, Jolly Osas, netted just three minutes of the kick off.

3SC then huffed and puffed but the Cup holders put the chink in their armour through an insurance goal from Ebere Odiche with just 20 minutes left to play.

Heartland are now second on the log with 20 points, two behind table-toppers, Kano Pillars.

Kano Pillars kept their spot at the summit of the standings with a 3-1 win over Nembe City.

Rabiu Ali, Nasiru Ali and Buhari Musa were among the goals in Kano as the champions moved two points clear at the top.

In the early kickoff of the day, Reuben Ogbonna struck late from a direct free kick to give El-Kanemi Warriors a 1-0 win over Sunshine Stars, who had Henry Osita sent off.

ABS and Sharks fired blanks in Ilorin in spite of the latter being reduced to 10 men when former Nigeria under-20 defender, Adeyinka Adedeji, was sent off by centre referee, Sani Mohammed, for a second bookable offence.

Liberia striker, John Kollie, scored his second goal of the season as Lobi Stars held on for a 1-0 win over Warri Wolves.

Goals in each half at the Liberation Stadium in Port Harcourt from Fred Okwara and Derek Amadi gave Dolphins the full points over Kaduna United.

Bishop Onyeudo is now joint leading scorer with Isah Akor on seven goals apiece after he netted from the spot in Gombe United's lone goal win over Kwara United.

Enugu Rangers could not hold out for a point in Uyo as they conceded in the 80th minute to Sharafa Usman's strike for Akwa United.

Today, Bayelsa United play hosts to Nasarawa United in game which could see any of the two sides go third on the log.

Two-time African champions, Enyimba, go up against Wikki Tourists in Bauchi to round off Week 12 games.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 45

ivanovic being mobbed by mata and OScar after his back-breaking goal at the death against Benfice to give Chelsea the Europa Cup trophy

1

pictorial 2] Mario Gotze could return to the Borussia Dortmund team just in time for the Champions League final against his future club, coach JurgenKlopp told an international press conference on Wednesday

4

3] Andy Murray endured a miserable 26th birthday as he retired from his Italian Open second-round tie against Marcel Granollers with a hip injury 4] Captain Alastair Cook says his England side need to be at their best to beat New Zealand after drawing their three-Test series 0-0 earlier this year 5] Scotland centre Joe Ansbro has been forced to retire from rugby following the neck break he suffered last summer.

6] Olympic bantamweight gold medallist Luke Campbell will make his professional debut at Hull KR's MS3 Craven Park on 13 July.

2

5

3

6

PAGE 46

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

Injury KOs Haye's in return against Charr

Handball will regain its past glory, says Balogun

T

David Haye

D

avid Haye has withdrawn from his fight against Manuel Charr after hurting his left hand in training.

The former WBA heavyweight champion was scheduled to fight Charr in Manchester on June 29.

Haye announced his withdrawal in London on Tuesday, two days after suffering the injury.

He said the hand would need at least

Manuel Charr four weeks of rest.

The controversial British fighter announced recently that he would fight the Lebanon-born German, who also has Syrian heritage, in his comeback bout.

Haye has fought only once since losing his WBA title to Wladimir Klitschko in July 2011. He knocked out Dereck Chisora in July last year.

Charr twice challenged Haye to

a fight after both lost "world" title bouts to one of the Klitschko brothers over the past 18 months.

Haye he won 26 and lost two of his professional bouts. Charr has a record of 23 wins and one defeat.

The 28-year-old Haye's return would have been televised live and promoted as part of a new relationship between Adam Booth of Hayemaker and Eddie Hearn of

Matchroom Sport.

Haye was looking for another shot at one of the Ukrainian Klitschko brothers and believed a victory over Charr would have put him back in line for a title fight.

WBA, IBF and WBO champion Wladimir beat Haye on points in July 2011. His older brother Vitali, the WBC champion, stopped Charr in September last year.

former president,``because his programmes assisted the growth of cricket a lot.'' ``I believe what he (Onyedima) needs to do is to continue with Sagoe's programmes on ground because so far, it has been working for the growth of the sport. ``I believe with only Sagoe out of the board, Onyedima will get the support he needs from other members," he said.

The vice president said that the new board's first assignment was to further prepare the U-19 cricketers in camp, ahead of the World Cricket Cup qualifiers in Uganda, later in the month.

Coach Tonye Timimadi, said that Onyedima performed creditably well at the Abuja Cricket Club, saying he hoped he would transfer the spirit to the NCF. Timimadi added that although, Onyedima has not recently held a national position, it does not mean that he was not capable of running the

federation. ``He achieved a lot as the Chairman, Abuja Cricket Club and with that, I believe that he will be able to do same at the NCF," he said.

Seyi Sonde, the national U-19 male coach, advised the newlyelected president to cooperate

with the former president and seek advice from him for the sport to grow further.

The national U-19 male cricket team is currently in camp at the Tafawa Balewa Square (TBS) cricket oval, ahead of the World Cricket Cup qualifiers from May 25 to May 29.

Cricket stakeholders say Sagoe's removal no big deal C

ricket stakeholders in Lagos yesterday expressed optimism that the removal of Kwesi Sagoe as President of the Nigeria Cricket Federation (NCF), would not affect the growth of the game.

A new president, Emeka Onyedima, the Chairman, Abuja Cricket Club, on Tuesday defeated former president Sagoe at the sports federations' elections conducted in Abuja.

The respondents believed that sports administration was not necessarily who headed a board, but the interest the president and other board members had for the development of the sport they administer.

Soki Dakoru, NCF's returned Vice President, said that the removal of Sagoe notwithstanding, the incoming board would improve on the growth witnessed under Sagoe.

Dakoru, however, advised Onyedima to continue with the laudable programmes of the

ayo Balogun, a member of the recently-elected board of the Handball Federation of Nigeria (HFN), has assured that the new board would restore the sport to its former level.

Balogun, a stakeholder on the federation's board, said after Tuesday's elections that the sport had lost its glory from what it used to be in past years. ``I can recall very well that 12 years ago, the country's handball players were the first in Africa and were almost emerging on the international circuit. ``Only for the tempo at which they were moving to drop and at the moment, they are 7th in Africa, which only means they have dropped drastically,'' Balogun said.

The veteran journalist recalled that when he was the Vice Chairman of the Lagos State Sports Council about three years ago, he noticed that the fortunes of handball had nose-dived in the country.

He said that it was since then that he developed interest in the game and was determined to make the sport grow, the reason he was now on the board of the federation. ``With the crop of new members now on the board of the federation, I can assure you that the sport will experience a barrage of competitions and adequate publicity. ``Now that we have members who are knowledgeable and with a vast record of the game, the athletes, coaches and officiating officials will be busy throughout the year. ``The vision is to turn the sport around for good and that will start from the grassroots,'' he added.

Balogun also promised handball lovers within and outside the country that in the next two years, the game would be one of the most popular sports in the country, with a wide coverage. ``Reviving a sport and making it popular involves discovering talents from the grassroots because that is the most paramount thing. ``In the next two years, handball will be a sport to reckon with, both within and outside the country. ``The game will be rubbing shoulders with other sports within the country and on the international scene,'' he added.

Elections into the various boards of the sports federations were held on Tuesday in Abuja.

Plateau Rocks coach laments poor funding

A

lex Guwan, Chief Coach of Plateau Rocks, a female basketball team, yesterday decried the current state of neglect being experienced by the team because of poor funding by the Plateau government.

Guwan said in Jos that the team had been surviving on the goodwill of some well-meaning individuals in the state.

He added that the rough spell being experienced by the club had not in any way deterred it from performing well in the ongoing season. ``We have qualified for the

final phase of the Zenith Bank female basketball tournament, slated for June in Lagos, after we emerged in the last eight in Asaba. ``I don't know how we would have made it this far, if not for people who have interest in the game. I remember when we were going for the other two phases in Abuja and Asaba, we had to source for money from individuals. ``We are using this medium to appeal to the state government to release money to the team, to help us to participate well in the tournament,'' he said.

The Chief Coach further said that the team had been given a one-week break for the players to rest after the strenuous competition. ``I am so impressed with the team and we thank God we didn't have any serious case of injury during the tournament. We will put our heads together to see that we have a stronger team for the finals,'' the coach added.

He called on supporters of Plateau Rocks to continue to throw their weight behind the team at all times, as it strived for honours in the country's basketball circuit.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

PAGE 47

The futility of emergency

By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde

T

he President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has just bought another dummy.

He thinks it will work. I think it will not.

Jonathan's state of emergency is different from that of Obasanjo. Unlike under Obasanjo, this one keeps the offices and privileges of political office holders intact in the states where it will operate.

The only difference is that the security of the state will be vested in the hands of the military and some constitutional rights of citizens of their citizens will be suspended.

This is the interpretation I just heard from Yahaya Mahmud, SAN, on the BBC. If these are the only differences, it will be difficult to see how they will afford the military victory over Boko Haram.

The military has enjoyed full access and support of the governments in the affected states, effectively subordinating the governors at every given point. Governors had no say in anything, if I can remember very well, except in providing relief to victims and appealing to them to accept everything in good faith, a fate from God or a national sacrifice.

The military also enjoyed the full privileges of using force - many times excessive - on any

citizen they without hindrance Commissioners in the states, from the state governments in have constituted any obstacle the past two years. No father to the operation of the JTF. has ever taken the JTF to court, Instead, the police have wisely to my knowledge, over the arrest of his son who w a s detained without charge at G i w a Barracks t h e Nigerian version of Guantanamo.

The son that may not have anything to do with B o k o Haram.

Nobody has taken them to the International Criminal Court in spite of the c r i m e s that have b e e n documented by local President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan a n d international remained pegged in their human rights groups.

And I doubt very much if paramilitary positions in the the police, from the Inspector- JTF structure and operations.

So what exactly has General of Police to his

hindered the military so much that they needed to compel Mr. President to give them a state of emergency to operate under?

T h e state of emergency is also futile from the records so far.

Two days ago, a senator from Borno S t a t e revealed that 23 to 24 of the 27 l o c a l governments in the state are under t h e effective control of B o k o Haram. If despite the resources, t h e personnel, the Giwas, B a g a s , Maiduguris a n d Damaturus, government has lost 87% of the territory in Borno to Boko Haram, I wonder what additional powers to the military would achieve.

A significant shift though

would be the mass deployment of soldiers to the affected areas.

With the sophistication of Boko Haram, our sons in the military will just be turned into cheap targets. There will be so many of them to aim at easily, more to destroy in a spot.

I am at loss here completely. What has the state of emergency achieved when it was declared under this regime in some local governments including those now under Boko Haram occupation?

I would like to conclude this article by stating a woeful statistics on the incapacity of successive governments to solve our national problems: Government in Nigeria has not been able to solve a single problem in various areas of governance and the economy, to my knowledge, in the past 28 years. A problem at the beginning of a regime will remain there until it ends - accompanied by many news ones. And so our wahala continued to pile up.

I need to be convinced how declaration of the state of emergency could make Boko Haram an exception.

I do not have the monopoly of wisdom though. The military may know many things I do not know. I sincerely hope it works..

Dr. Tilde is a renowned columnist based in Jos

Boosting animal protein production in Nigeria

By Filibus Yatai

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ivestock experts noted at a recent conference in Jos that Nigeria could not meet its animal protein needs in spite of abundant animal protein sources in the country.

The level of milk production is even very disturbing as the country consumes N155 million worth of imported milk daily.

The experts described the situation as serious and urged the government to redress the trend.

Dr Joseph Nyager, Director, Livestock Department, Federal Ministry of Agriculture, said government was putting policies in place to boost animal protein production in the country. ``What we are doing is to focus on the development of six priority value chains of meat from cow, pig, sheep, goats, poultry and dairy. ``Critical livestock inputs are also being provided to farmers at a discounted rate in order to improve production and productivity of their livestock.''

Nyager also said that the ministry was collaborating with the private sector to strengthen the National Animal Production Research Institute (NAPRI), to facilitate the provision of day-old chicks at a cheaper price.

For the dairy sector, Nyager said that the ministry was

collaborating with West African Milk Company (WAMCO) to establish additional milk collection centres in Oyo and the FCT. ``We believe that these steps will reposition the beef industry to process and provide wholesome meat and milk products at affordable prices to Nigerians and for export,'' he said.

Dr. Godwin Oyediji, the Registrar, Nigerian Institute of Animal Science, observed that Nigeria imports `` one million dollars worth of milk for local consumption daily. ``The current parlous state of our production structure, which is in the hands of nomads, is unsuitable; we sink so much money to import this product that we can produce locally if we can effectively harness our livestock potential. ``There is no doubt that the nation's 170 million people offer a ready market for farmers and investors; so we must explore the dairy and meat production as a viable business,'' he said.

The inability of the country to satisfy its animal protein needs locally has been blamed on reliance on traditional methods of dairy production.

Prof. Francis Ahamefule of the Department of Animal Science, Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi said the country must

step up efforts to discourage the traditional production methods. ``Nigeria must de-emphasise the traditional production system and embrace intensive livestock production with emphasis on meat and milk production. ``Specifically, conscious effort should be made to settle the nomadic pastorals who predominantly are in control of more than 90 per cent of Nigeria's cattle. ``Settling them would create positive awareness toward accepting best practices in animal agriculture. ``This hopefully would enhance milk and meat production and fast-track Nigeria's agricultural transformation agenda,'' he said.

Ahamefule said that Nigerians must not see livestock production as ``strictly a Fulani affair'' as it is a lucrative business venture that anyone could engage in. ``There will be a massive turnaround if Nigeria's 23 million cattle, 24 million sheep and 40 million goat potential are properly harnessed through massive investment in the sector,'' he said.

Ahamefule explained that cattle accounted for 50 per cent of the nation's meat supply, while sheep and goats accounted for 20 and five per cent respectively. ``Cattle also provide 90 per

cent of the total annual milk output, while sheep and goats account for less than 10 per cent,'' he further said.

He noted that the nation could not meet its protein needs because the livestock sector is completely tied to herding by the Fulani nomads.

He also said that the nomads had continued to view cattle rearing as simply an inherited tradition of their great grandfathers. ``This traditional production system and beliefs need restructuring if we are to meet our protein needs,'' the university don advised.

Prof. Isaac Butswat, a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Animal Science, decried the low productivity of Nigerian cattle, stressing that the breed need to be improved upon in order to achieve higher productivity. ``What the animal produces in the form of milk and meat is a function of many factors such as the type of breed, climate, nutrition, health and other management practices. ``If such factors are not properly improved, especially the breed of cattle, the consequence is that output in terms of milk and meat will remain low. ``Our aspirations are to improve the average local cattle

weight to 350 kg from the current 250 kg, attain an annual beef production of 650,000 tonnes, generate dairy milk production to 1.9 million tonnes, and to double poultry production by 2016. ``We cannot achieve these goals if farmers continue using our local breed. ``There is, therefore, the need to encourage livestock farmers to embrace biotechnology techniques to improve the breed of their cattle through artificial insemination for optimal productivity. ``The technique is easily accessible in animal research institutes; many farmers have tried it and boosted productivity, both in meat and milk production,'' he said.

Butswat advised livestock farmers to liaise with research institutes like the National Animal Production Research Institute, Shika, Kaduna State and the National Veterinary Research Institute, Vom, for advice and technical services.

With the incentives put in place by the government, entrepreneurs should invest in the livestock sector as it is not only a gold mine but could also create employment opportunities.

Source: NAN

www.peoplesdailyng.com

. . . putting the people first

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2013

SPORTS LA TEST LATEST

Chelsea beat Benfica at the death to make history

C

helsea became the first side to hold the Champions League and Europa League titles simultaneously as Branislav Ivanovic's stoppagetime header earned victory over Benfica in Amsterdam.

Fernando Torres' sixth goal in six Europa League games gave the 2012 Champions League winners a lead that was cancelled out by a penalty from Oscar Cardozo, awarded for handball against Cesar Azpilicueta.

Frank Lampard hit the bar in the 88th minute before the winner came from the most unlikely source as defender Ivanovic, who missed last May's Champions League win through suspension, headed in a corner in the first minute of stoppage time.

For ten days, Chelsea will be holders of both Europe's club trophies after inflicting Benfica's seventh successive defeat in European finals. The Portuguese side's 51-year wait for glory goes on.

Much derided interim boss Rafael Benitez has now delivered silverware to make Chelsea the fourth side - after Juventus, Ajax and Bayern Munich - to win all UEFA's top competitions.

The Londoners won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1970-71 and 1997-98 and the Champions League last season. That Champions League success came under an interim coach following a sacking earlier in the campaign, and history has repeated itself in Amsterdam.

It brings Chelsea a trophy at the eighth attempt this season and with a Champions League return all-but assured ahead of Sunday's 69th and final game of the season at home to Everton, Benitez has fulfilled his brief since succeeding Roberto Di Matteo as boss in November.

His successor could be Jose Mourinho, who led Porto to successive European titles before joining Chelsea in 2004.

It was never going to be straightforward against Mourinho's compatriots, a side Chelsea met for the first time last year en route to Munich.

The task was tougher still when Eden Hazard was ruled out with a hamstring injury and captain John Terry, who missed the 2012 Champions League final through suspension, suffered further final heartache due to an ankle injury.

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QUO TABLE Q UO TE UOT QUO UOTE The huge debt that we owe the heroes of our history is not to be complacent with the freedom of our people and democracy that we have established.

— President Goodluck Jonathan on a state visit to South Africa, May 8, 2013

Army should play by rules of engagement The speech by His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Borno state, Alhaji Kashim Shettima, yesterday on the proclamation of state of emergency in the state by President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on Tuesday.

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ear fellow citizens, I address you today with heavy heart and grief. I join you in mourning your families, friends and other loved ones who may have lost their lives to the security challenges that we face in Borno State; I commiserate with you for the injuries, you or your loved ones may have suffered and for the properties you may have lost as we are confronted with a nightmare that has haunted us for far too long.

I am usually thrown onto emotional torture any time a life is lost in Borno especially by man-made brutality because as your Governor, I am under obligation, constitutional and moral, to ensure your safety. As your leader, I consider myself a father to all orphans, a brother and friend to everyone of you, a son to every parent and a member of every family in Borno State regardless of religion, tribe and geo-political affiliation. I share in your moments of despair more than you can ever imagine because regardless of the intrinsic worth of any programme and projects put in place by any government, however laudable, a citizen has to be alive or safe to enjoy the benefits of such programme or project. Therefore, the most important role of any responsible government is the security of lives and properties.

Fellow citizens, as you may be aware, the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has in exercise of his constitutional powers, declared a State of Emergency in our dear State, following the spate of killings and destructions of properties, that have pervaded us. It is the constitutional responsibility of the President to take such measures. It is also the duty of any responsible State

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GUEST COLUMNIST Kashim Shettima

Borno state Governor, Alhaji Kashim Shettima government, to support lawful efforts that would guarantee the security of lives and properties.

It can never be the wish of any guarded democratic government to have the military directly involved in the affairs of any federating unit except for unfortunate and painful causes. As the military leaders have said in discourses, the armory of the Nigerian soldiers is not meant to fight fellow Nigerians, the armory is meant to protect fellow Nigerians.

A human life is sacred, more so, the life of every good Nigerian, no matter whose’ it is; and we all have moral, spiritual and social obligations to preserve and respect the lives of one another as we would want ours to be so preserved and respected.

Allah has said emphatically in the Holy Quran that he has dignified every human being, He has placed high premium on the sacredness of human lives and as His dignified creatures;

we should obediently respect the lives of fellow creatures. Let us be our brothers’ keepers, hold our arms in the true Borno spirit that we were hitherto known for, so that we rise together as one people with shared passion for our collective progress.

We are facing a trying time that I believe without blind optimism, that we will overcome in no distant time Bi’iznillah.

A period of state of emergency is that which comes with rules that are different from those that guide our day to day lives. We must therefore, take personal steps as citizens, to avoid being caught by the strange rules. I have directed the State Ministry of Home Affairs, Information and Culture to work out public safety enlightenment programmes that should be regularly featured on the Borno State Television and Radio while I urge our partners and friends in other media organizations resident in the State to help in educating

citizens on public conducts at this different time that we face together.

Let me use this opportunity to importantly urge the military who are fellow Nigerians like all of us, to abide by the directive of Mr President, in operating under the rules of engagement so that innocent lives and their properties are jealously preserved and protected.

As time passes, we shall as a Government, remain focused in our abiding fate and commitment to improve the welfare of all citizens through quality governance.

I will seize this opportunity for the umpteenth time, to call on our brothers in the Jama’atu ahliss Sunnah lil Da’awatu wal Jihad to embrace dialogue so that we can solve this problem on the table through collective bargaining, offers and compromises. I am glad to note that the Presidential Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution, is still working round the clock as also emphasized by the President. I believe like I have always said since 2011, that by the end of the day, dialogue will be the last and sustainable resort. Let us embrace the spirit of live and let’s live.

May I also add at the risk of sounding repetitive, that the best way to fight crime is to provide jobs through integrated agriculture and other industrial growth. We are very conscious of the fact that there is mass poverty and unemployment and as you may have confirmed from our ongoing programmes across the State, we are creating jobs and we will continue to do.

I urge you to fervently pray for the return of peace in our dear Borno State and in all other parts of Nigeria, to pave the way for rapid recovery and the socioeconomic transformation that we so desperately seek to put in place as a Government.

I thank you so much for your support and wish every one of you, Allah’s guidance and protection.

Long live Borno state!

Published by Peoples Media Limited, 35, Ajose Adeogun Street, 1st Floor Peace Park Plaza, Utako, Abuja. Kano office: Plot 3, Zaria Road, Opposite Kano State House of Assembly. Lagos Office: No.8 Oliyide Street, off Unity Road, Ikeja, Lagos. Tel: +234 814 292 9046. Cell: +234 082 443 2099; 803 7007 759. e-mail: contact@peoplesdaily-online.com; pmlnewsdesk@gmail.com ISSN: 2141– 6141