Peoples Daily Newspaper, Thursday 17, January, 2013

www.peoplesdaily-online.com

Vol. 10 No. 14

Thursday, January 17, 2013

. . . putting the people first

Impeachment: Reps pass vote of confidence on Tambuwal >> PAGE 2

Man kills brother over girlfriend >> PAGE 3

RABIUL AWWAL 6, 1434 AH

N150

Ekwueme may clinch PDP BoT chair >> PAGE 5

Jonathan picks Turaki, Nebo for defence, power portfolios

By Richard Ihediwa

P

resident Goodluck Jonathan yesterday sent the names of two new ministerial nominees to the Senate for clearance in an apparent move to fill the

vacancies in the Ministry of Defence and that of Power.

This is just as there are apprehensions that the President may effect minor changes in his cabinet.

The nominees sent to the Senate are former Vice Chancellor

of University of Nigeria (UNN) Nsukka, Prof. Chinedu Nebo and Alhaji Tanimu Turaki.

Though the portfolio of the two nominees are not yet known, there are however speculations that the former university don may replace ertswhile Minister of Power, Prof. Bath Nnaji who resigned his job last year. Nebo is from Enugu state where Nnaji also hails from.

The other nominee, Alhaji Turaki from Kebbi state, is expected to replace former Minister of Defence, Mohammed Bello also from Kebbi, who was removed from office last year.

The new appointments may have triggered fear over possible minor cabinet changes in some quarters. Some cabinet members, especially those with political ambition in 2015 were earlier

reported to have been penciled down for sack.

It was gathered that the president may insist on cabinet changes in the first quarter of the fiscal year in order to inject new blood into his administration.

President Jonathan had earlier asked ministers with political ambition in 2015 to resign their job or get sacked.

Contd on Page 2

2015: Jonathan’s mole exposes govs’ plot

Receives recording of secret meeting

By Agaju Madugba

T

he lingering face-off between President Goodluck Jonathan and governors of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has taken a fresh twist as the President may have received a tape recording detailing a plot by the governors to render the President virtually irrelevant in major party matters.

Competent PDP sources close to the governors hinted yesterday that one of the governors from the north-central zone discreetly recorded proceedings of a recent meeting of the governors and made the tape available to the party’s National Chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, who relayed the content of same to an embattled President.

The power show between the governors and Jonathan came to the fore recently with the leadership tussle in the Adamawa state PDP as the governors overturned the decision of the National Working Committee (NWC) and ordered the restoration of the Ninjiyiwa Kugama-led executive committee in that state.

Our sources said that the governors were enraged at what would have amounted to humiliation of one of them in the person of Governor Murtala Nyako and decided to rally around him, a development which led to their calling the bluff of the NWC. One of the sources noted that part of the Contd on Page 2

L-R: National Chairman, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Prince Tony Momoh, CPC presidential candidate in the 2011 general elections, General Muhammadu Buhari, and Nasarawa state Governor, Alhaji Tanko Al-makura, during the inauguration of the CPC Merger Committee with other opposition political parties, yesterday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

PAGE 2

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

CONTENTS News

2-10

Editorial

12

Op.Ed

13

Letters

14

Opinion

15

Metro

16-18

Business

19-22

S/Exchange

23

S/Report

24-25

Earth

26-27

Update

28-29

Impeachment: Reps pass vote of confidence on Tambuwal

…vow to continue fight against corruption

By Lawrence Olaoye

T

he House of Representatives yesterday resumed plenary amidst speculations that some members were plotting the impeachment of Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal but the members unanimously passed an overwhelming vote of confidence in him.

The issue of the Speaker’s impeachment rumour was raised

by Rep Ogbuefi Ozongbachi who expressed worry about some newspapers (Peoples Daily not included) reports that moves were ongoing in the House to impeach the Speaker.

According to the reports, the lawmakers were angry that the process for the purchase of their constituency Toyota Camry cars was not transparent.

But lawmakers at the plenary yesterday discountenanced the report and concluded that such was the handiwork of mischief makers outside National Assembly who are bent on sponsoring confusion

in the workings of the Green Chamber.

The motion for the vote of confidence to be passed on Tambuwal was moved by Rep Samson Osagie, an opposition lawmaker from Edo state and it was supported overwhelmingly with no one raising a dissenting voice.

The Speaker, commenting over the matter, however urged his colleagues to be focused and ignore any attempt to be distracted by the enemies of progress who would want to sponsor crises in the House. According to him, his leadership has resolved more than ever to do those things that would benefit the masses they are representing in the parliament.

Again, Tambuwal in a prepared addressed he read to his colleagues on resumption said his leadership will continue to uphold the tenets of its legislative agenda aimed at repositioning the House not just as a key branch of government, but as a defender of the rights of the people.

He stressed that the House

would not relent in its fight against corruption just as hje reiterated the determination of the House to produce a people’s constitution through the amendment exercise.

He said “We are convinced now more than ever before, that a situation where majority of the citizens continue to live in abject poverty while an insignificant minority corner the commonwealth is not only unjust but unacceptable. In this regard we shall continue to adopt a pragmatic and functional approach to ensure that the war against corruption is removed from the realm of rhetorics by exercising absolute diligence in our oversight function so as to enhance transparency and accountability in both high and low strata.”

While assuring his colleagues that his leadership would strengthen the House committees by producing requisite tools to make their jobs easy, Tambuwal added that the House has resolved to help the President in ensuring that the 2013 budget is fully

implemented.

He also called on the executive to endeavour to emulate the example of the National Assembly by cutting down on cost of governance so as to free funds for capital projects in the country.

“Let me note in passing that the budget for the National Assembly, which encompasses the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Management of the National Assembly, the National Assembly Institute and the National Assembly Service Commission, has never been increased in the last few years. We have, in this way, striven to lead by example in the efforts to curb costs despite the fact that the National Assembly has been growing and evolving into an even more dynamic legislative body,” he said.

Tambuwal also charged the executive to stimulate the private sector in order to ncreate employment opportunities for the people just as he urged the government to invest more in agriculture.

Sectarian strife: Mark insist on capital punishment for culprits

Charges Jonathan to implement 2013 budget as passed Sack of NIS boss: Not too soon, Page 4

Discourse Int’l

30 31-34

Strange World 35 Politics

37-40

Sports

41-46

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

By Richard Ihediwa

S

enate President David Mark has reiterated his call for capital punishment for those convicted for involvement in sectarian clashes and attacks in the country.

Mark, who stated this in his address on the resumption of Senate plenary yesterday, also charged the executive to go ahead and implement the 2013 budget as passed by the National Assembly saying the inputs made by the Senate were derived from the aggregate of the wishes and aspirations of Nigerians to free themselves from poverty.

Maintaining that the brains behind sectarian strife as well as those who execute the plots that

have led to the death of innocent Nigerians should not go unpunished, Mark said he maintains his stand that the offense should attract capital punishment.

On the 2013 budget which is now experiencing some delays in

being signed into law by President Goodluck Jonathan, Mark gave kudos to the Senate for passing the bill on time adding that the inputs by the Senate was in line with the wishes and aspirations of Nigerians.

Iinsisting that the inputs by the

Senate were in the interest of Nigerians, Mark said the inputs were made based on the desire of Nigerians to be freed from economic hardship and to put the nation on the path for sustainable economic development.

FCTA suspends ban on Abuja mini buses

By Josephine Ella Ejeh The FCT Administration, yesterday, suspended the ban on the use of mini-buses within the Federal Capital City for three weeks.

The FCT minister, Senator Bala Mohammed, gave this instruction after meeting with the stakeholders including the officials of the drivers’ union, FCT chapters

of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) respectively, in addition to the FCT Police Commissioner as well as Director, Department of State Security in his office.

A statement signed by Muhammad Hazat Sule, Chief Press Secretary to the FCT Minister, said the minister directed the setting up of a committee to be chaired by the FCT Permanent Secretary, Engr.

Anthony Ozodinobi to fine-tune the implementation of the ban.

All the stakeholders including the FCT chapters of the NLC/TUC, the police, VIO, FRSC, and the civil society are being represented on the committee.

Senator Mohammed insisted that there is no going back on the policy as it is for the good of all the residents of the Federal Capital Territory.

2015: Jonathan’s mole exposes govs’ plot Contd from Page 1 content of the tape may not be unconnected with certain steps which the governors intend to take in order to reduce alleged Jonathan’s excesses in the party especially in his equally alleged move to undermine the power of the governors.

According to the source, the

issue of who becomes President in 2015 is at the centre of the entire drama and, “the governors want to prove to the President that he cannot really go far without them.”

Developments in recent years have actually tended to prove that the governors constitute a force to reckon with in the emergence of the President and

the Vice President.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s successor, the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua was picked from the governor’s forum and so was Jonathan himself who had started as Vice President, also from his earlier position of governor.

The latest in what has perhaps

turned out to be the rule being the emergence of Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo from his earlier position as Governor of Kaduna state.

According to the source, “Jonathan wants to jettison the pattern and it is not likely to work having been a beneficiary of the process.”

Jonathan picks Turaki, Nebo for defence, power portfolios Contd from Page 1 In a one page letter to Senate President David Mark, who read same on the on the floor of the Senate yesterday, Jonathan explained that the presentation of the nominees for confirmation

was in accordance with section 147(2) of the 1999 Constitution.

Meanwhile, the president has presented a budget of N253.1 billion for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for the 2013 fiscal year. The presentation of the budget

was in compliance with section 299 of the 1999 Constitution which vested the National Assembly legislative powers over the FCT. A breakdown of the budget show N155.6 billion is for capital expenditure, N48 billion and

N49.5 billion are for personnel cost and overhead respectively President in the letter which conveyed the budget yesterday however asked the legislators to give expeditious consideration on the budget.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 3

Man kills brother over girlfriend From Yusha’u Alhassan, Jalingo

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L-R: Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr. Akinwumi Ayodele, Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah and Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Deziani Alison-Madueke, during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting yesterday at the State House, Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye

Money laundering: Judge’s absence stalls arraignment of Lamido's son

By Lambert Tyem

T

he arraignment of Aminu Lamido, son of Jigawa state governor, Sule Lamido before a Federal High Court, Kano could not go on yesterday as scheduled following the absence of trial judge, Justice Shehu Yahaya.

Wilson Uwujaren, spokesman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), said the accused person was brought to court by operatives of the EFCC at about 8.45am; but more than an hour later, the deputy chief registrar of the court announced that the judge was unavailable,

promising to communicate a new date for the arraignment to the parties.

EFCC said the registrar gave no reason for the judge’s absence.

Aminu, who faces a one-count charge of money laundering, was arrested by EFCC on December 12, 2012 at the Malam Aminu Kano

International Airport, Kano on his way to Egypt, for failure to declare the $50,000 he had on him to Customs as required under Section 12 of the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act Cap F 34 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004 and Section 2(3) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011 and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 2(5) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act, 2011”.

Sugarcane seller stabs 19-year-old to death From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

C

risis was averted yesterday in Makurdi, the Benue state capital as 19-year-old Umar Abdulrahman, was stabbed to death by a sugarcane seller following an argument.

Umar who resided at No. 20 Kano Street, was stabbed on the chest after he was said to have haggled the price of sugar cane with the seller who later followed the deceased to his house and killed him in the presence of his family members.

Youths in the area had mobilised for a reprisal attack when the police stepped in to calm the situation even as the culprit whose identity could not be ascertained fled and is being hunted by security agents.

Police authorities confirmed

the incident and said that investigation is ongoing to fish out the murderer.

“Investigation is still on to arrest the culprit as we assure people of the state of their safety”, Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Daniel Ezeala said.

middle-aged man, Aminu Bashir, of Tudunwada Barade ward in Jalingo, capital of Taraba state, has stabbed to death his stepbrother – Shamsuddeen Bashir.

An eyewitness, Musa Abubakar, told our reporter that argument erupted between the two brothers over a woman who seemed to be in love with both brothers.

He said the younger brother, Aminu, became very vicious over an argument which prompted him to pull out a knife and run it into his brother’s heart.

Abubakar who described the incident as unfortunate, said Aminu has been arrested by the police.

Investigations by our reporter revealed that the father of two brothers is a police officer who is presently in Lagos; the incident occurred three days after the father left Jalingo for Lagos.

Taraba state Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Maishanu, confirmed the incident, adding that the accused would soon be charged to court after the police complete investigations on the matter.

In another development, police officers with the Taraba state command have been reminded to be professional in their conduct.

The Commissioner of Police, Ibrahim Maishanu, made the remarks in Jalingo while reacting to the brutal beating of a teenager – Shombi Oshomi Obida - by a police officer on New Year eve.

According to him, it was gross indiscipline for any police officer to beat up any civilian or use his rifle in any act of brutality.

2015: I would contest if... – Buhari …charges merger c’ttee to negotiate best deal for Nigeria

By Umar Mohammed Puma

L

eader of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has said that he would contest the 2015 presidential election if his party offers him the ticket to contest.

Buhari was speaking yesterday in Abuja during the inauguration of the party’s merger committee headed by former Bauchi state deputy governor, Alhaji Garba Gadi.

“I'm under pressure by party members and loyalists to contest the 2015 presidential election; I have said before – it is on record – the last general election that I will not present myself again for election. But after that I explained it so many times that members of my party said I don’t belong to myself – I belong to them and they belong to me. For that reason I told them go and organise a party and

if you approach me I may consider it. This is the stage we are in, and I am waiting for my party and if we have a merger it will make it easier for me as the new party will decide whether it will offer me the ticket and it will be up to me to accept it or reject it”, he said.

The former military ruler urged the committee to go into the negotiation with a fundament objective of “negotiating the best deal for Nigeria”, saying it is essentially a matter of give-andtake and that there is nothing sacrosanct about any of the issues that would be ironed out during the discussions.

“Your task is national. Petty personal interest should not stand in the way of a great opportunity to build and run a better Nigeria, which will happen once CPC and ACN come together; everyone is finally coming round to accept the necessity for it. Right now, so strong is the belief in unity as seen

in the merger of our two parties that the sentiments expressed on both sides sound as if the two parties may merge on their own even before their representatives reach the roundtable”.

“The sentiment today is for a full merger between the CPC and ACN, not an alliance or an electoral understanding or anything of the sort. What Nigerians want, is merger and that is what you are going to negotiate and bring home to them”.

“And, luckily, you already have something on the ground to work on, because much ground towards unity has already been covered in previous abortive attempts. For instance, there is already in existence an unexecuted understanding between the CPC and ACN for the creation of a new party, with a brand new logo and a new flag already designed and all other paraphernalia of a political party

put in place. All these should be dusted up and built upon so that we do not waste valuable time revisiting ground that has already been covered. Your committee should go back and pick up matters from there. At the risk of sounding overly too optimistic, I may suggest that you should be able to finish your work in six weeks, at the end of which the CPC and ACN should be in position to sign a declaration of intent to fuse their two parties into one”, he said.

He added: “After signing the declaration, it should not take more than another six weeks for the parties to pursue the matter within their own constitutional context to ensure that the issue is legitimated through the proper procedures and processes of its own organs. And from there it will be a matter of crossing the Ts and dotting the Is. It is not impossible that the new party is presented to the people of Nigeria by the middle

of this year.

When asked why he omitted the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) in his comments on the merger, he said, “I don’t think any party is dropping out but if you can recall that in 2010 we went far with ACN and we are picking priority and we are going to exhaustively go through our terms reference with ACN before we attend to other parties because to us it is continuous exercise with ACN”.

Other members of the committee are Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa state, Prof. Tam David-West, Alhaji Sabo Nanono, Senator Hadi Sirika, Chief Okoi Obono Obla, Owelle Oscar Udoji, Engr. Ife Oyedele, Mr. Osita Okechukwu, Chief Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba, Mrs. Lucy Ajayi, Air Cdre Bernard Banfa (rtd), Engr. B. D. Lawal, Dr. Haruna Yerima, Mr. James Ocholi, Barrister Adebayo Shittu, Prof. Buba Bajoga and Dr. Osagie Ehanire.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Sack ofNIS boss: Not too soon

Rose Chinyere Uzoma, former Immigration Comptroller-General

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s a staff of Peoples Daily, I am tempted to feel vindicated and, perhaps say "good riddance", on the sacking of the ComptrollerGeneral of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma. But Mrs. Uzoma is not the exception in the rot that defines the nation's public service, she just happens to be the one that got caught now. The story of the fall of the erstwhile NIS boss can be found everywhere in Nigeria, so celebrating her fall must only be so as to serve as deterrence (do we really ever learn on these shores?) to others.

Still, it feels good to be vindicated, especially when all sorts of motives had been ascribed to Peoples Daily when it broke the story of the recruitment scandal that was to eventually consume Mrs. Uzoma.

The three-paragraph statement announcing the sack of the immigration iron lady reads; "I am directed to convey approval of His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele, GCFR President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for you (Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma) to proceed on your preretirement accumulated leaves.

"I am to further convey that you are to hand over the duties and responsibilities of your office on Wednesday, 16th January, 2013 to the most senior Deputy Comptroller

Abba Moro Minister of Internal Affairs

Because they are rarely held to account for their misdeeds while in office, many a top government functionary in Nigeria often think nothing about tempting fate with all kinds of conduct that in more civilized settings would have earned one out right dismissal from office, if not time in the penitentiary. A whole world of difference for the better would be made if the stick is occasionally wielded against erring public office holders, writes Abdu Labaran Malumfashi.

General of Immigration in the person of Rilwan Bala Musa, MNI, who will act as Comptroller General of Immigration pending the appointment of a substantive CG of Immigration.

"On behalf of the Hon. Minister of Interior and all members of the board, I wish to thank you for your service to Nigeria. The board wishes you good luck in your future endeavour". Mrs Uzoma is due to retire on March 6, 2013. The statement was signed by the Director/Secretary, Civil Defence, Fire Service, Immigration and Prisons Board (CDFIPB), Dr. R. K. Attahiru, on behalf of Interior Minister Comrade Abba Moro and the chairman of CDFIPB. But when Peoples Daily Weekend broke the story of the recruitment scandal at the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) about four weeks ago, there had been a flurry of denials from officials of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and NIS. First reaction had come from the ministry when the Minister's spokesman, Malam

Salihu Dantata Mahmud claimed the publication "could be a strategy to malign the good image of the honourable minister".

According to the spokesman, "The honourable minister of interior is a no nonsense man who has zero tolerance for malpractices and fraudulent activities. There is no way he could allow employment to be given to only his state and local governments in the name of special consideration. Some critics are at it again, since it is being rumoured that cabinet reshuffle is imminent, this could be a strategy to malign the good image of the honourable minister."

On its part, the NIS had claimed that it was conducting the exercise clandestinely in order not to recruit those it termed as terrorists and criminals.

The NIS's spokesman, Mr. Olumbar Joachim, while denying any untoward practices in the exercise, claimed that the service introduced stringent vetting measures to ensure that it did

not admit criminals.

"Considering the situation we are in now we will go the extra mile to ensure that criminals and terrorists are not brought into the service," declared the spokesman, adding that, "the service will not engage in any exercise that will endanger the lives of innocent Nigerians".

A few days after, the ministry made an about turn on its denial and directed the NIS to stop the recruitment exercise, "until a more transparent, acceptable"

procedure is adopted. But a day later the NIS boss told the minister that he could not stop what had not begun, saying that the service was yet to start the recruitment exercise.

Relationship between the Minister and the NIS CG obviously went sour when the latter allegedly prepared an impromptu circular without the knowledge of the Minister of Internal Affairs and other stakeholders to remove some of the newly posted officers and replace them with her loyalists.

“

On its part, the NIS had claimed that it was conducting the exercise clandestinely in order not to recruit those it termed as terrorists and criminals.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 5

20 Fulani houses destroyed in Benue community From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

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ver 20 houses belonging to Fulani herdsmen residing in Odessa, Onyagede district of Ohimini local government area, Benue state, were yesterday were destroyed by unknown persons.

Spokesman of the herdsmen, Malam Anaruwa Abdullahi who disclosed this to journalists, said property, including generators, television, clothing, and several household belongings as well as over N300,000 cash, were destroyed during the mayhem.

He further intimated that the

incident took place while the Fulani herdsmen had gone out to graze their cattle.

Malam Abdullahi said the affected herdsmen are presently taking refuge under trees and appealed to both the state and local governments to come to their aid.

A prominent indigene of the

local government and former state chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Sule Audu who visited the scene of the incident, expressed shock at the magnitude of destruction and called on the chairman of the council and the National Emergency Management Agency

Doctor, two others die of Lassa fever in Benue

CBN revokes licenses of 236 Bureau de Change operators

From Uche Nnorom, Makurdi

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By Abdulwahab Isa

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o stem the tide of abuses that have characterised the foreigb exchange market, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has revoked the operating licenses of 236 Bureau de Change operators in Nigeria.

A circular dated January 15, 2013, signed by CBN Director, Trade & Exchange, Batari Musa warned all authorised dealers and the public to desist from transacting business with the affected bureaus as any business transacted with any of the affected exchanges is illegal.

CBN Director, Public Communications, Mr. Ugochukwu Okarafor, told our reporter last night in a phone conversation that the affected BDCs got the axe for failing to pay the minimum deposit stipulated by the CBN for players in foreign exchange market (WDAS) market The CBN had set the minimum capital requirements for the BDC operators in two categories.

Category ‘A’ are expected to have a minimum paid up capital of N250 million while category ‘B’ are expected to have a minimum of N20 million.

Some of the BDCs whose licenses were revoked include, A.F.A, A.I.A, Acclaim, AL-Rima, Belview Travels Nig. Ltd, Circulated, Dabi, Danco, Executive, FCT, Faith, Fairex, Jama’a, and Kano Agency.

Others are Forexfield, Gold Package, Gombai, Katinga, Kanzul, Kungu, Lindel, List, Malina, Masaba, Safepoint, Restoration, Planet, Optimal, Shefa, Vintage, Zeeto, Basic Concept, among others.

R-L: President Goodluck Jonathan receiving a letter from a special envoy from South Sudan, Mr. Pa’gan Amum Okiech, yesterday at the State House, Abuja. Photo: Joe Oroye

I’m not afraid to run for presidency - Gov Aliyu From Iliya Garba, Minna

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overnor Muazu Babangida Aliyu of Niger state has said he has not declared his desire to contest for the 2015 presidential election and that the alleged flag-off of his presidential campaign in Plateau state “is baseless.” He explained however, that the situation is not an indication that he is afraid to contest the presidential election when the time comes.

He made the clarification yesterday at Government House, Minna when he received the

Ethiopian Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. Ali Abdul Sulaiman and the New Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Prof.

Musibau Akanbi who paid him a courtesy call.

Aliyu said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has instructed that all campaigns for the 2015 elections should stop and that as a loyal party man and law abiding citizen, he will abide by the decision.

He stated that it was the National Youth Leader of the party, Alhaji Garba Umaru who led a

Ekwueme may clinch PDP BoT chair

By Lawrence Olaoye

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(NEMA) to come to the aid of the victims.

Reacting, the chairman of Ohimini local government council, Mr. Sunday Mark who described the incident as unfortunate, promised to channel requests of the victims to the appropriate quarters.

trong indications emerged yesterday that former Second Republic vice president, Dr. Alex Ekwueme, may emerge the new chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees (BoT).

It was learnt that the octogenarian became an acceptable choice when it was apparent that President Goodluck Jonathan and his mentor, former President Olusegun Obasanjo would not agree on a consensus.

Jonathan had backed the former Minister of Works, Chief Tony Anenih while Obasanjo was in support of the former national chairman of the party, Chief

Ahmadu Ali. It was learnt that Jonathan is working ahead of the 2015 presidential election which he is likely to contest and as, such has begun moves to fix his men in strategic positions ahead of the polls.

According to investigations, Obasanjo who stepped down as the BoT chairman, still has his eyes on the control of the party and would want to determine who clinches the party’s presidential ticket come 2015.

It was gathered that the lots fell on Ekwueme who is one of the founding fathers of the party with a lot of administrative experience. Part of the reasons why the stakeholders resolved to adopt Ekwueme the BoT chairman, according to investigation, was his age and ability to put the PDP house in order.

delegation to Plateau state to thank the PDP members in that state for voting for him during the National convention of the party; but this has now been misinterpreted as a presidential campaign flag off by him (Aliyu).

Governor Aliyu also said his explanation is not an indication that he is afraid to contest the presidential election when the time comes.

According to him: “If it is God’s will that I would come out, believe me I am not afraid I will come out because what will be, will be! But I am not out yet”!

hree persons, including a medical doctor, have died of an ailment suspected to be Lassa fever at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, Makurdi.

Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Orkuda Malu who confirmed the deaths in an interview with newsmen in his office yesterday, said the deceased were referred to them from an undisclosed private hospital.

According to the CMD, the doctor whose identity was not disclosed, was treating the patients but contacted the disease and was referred to the hospital along with the patients.

He said another patient who also came in close contact with them is being examined; adding that he has been kept in an isolated enclosure to prevent him from having contact with other patients at the hospital.

Dr. Malu intimated that they have contacted the epidemiology unit of the state hospital who wasted no time in sending protective equipment for their doctors, adding that the blood samples of the deceased have been taken to Edo state to authenticate if it is Lassa fever.

He however, allayed fears of residents of any possible widespread outbreak of the disease in the state.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Orduen Abunku, also assured that all is being done by government to prevent the situation getting out of hand, stating that all doctors in the teaching hospital who have contact with patients are given anti-viral drugs to prevent them from contracting the disease.

Dr. Abunku urged the people to cover their food to avoid rat faeces infecting them.

'Jonathan still studying 2013 budget'

By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem

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resident Goodluck Jonathan is currently studying the 2013 N4.987 trillion budget which was submitted to him by the National Assembly.

Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Lawan Yerima Ngama disclosed this to State House correspondents yesterday at the close of the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting.

Ngama stated that the document is in possession of the President who is perusing it but he did not give the time that he (the president) will append his signature to it.

He also did not disclose whether or not the controversial aspects of the documents,

such as the oil benchmark and the refusal of the National Assembly to include appropriation for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is being looked into by the President.

According to the minister, there may still be areas of disagreements that could stall the signing of the document into law but these are yet to be known as the President has not finished studying it.

On media reports that the ministry of Culture and National Orientation diverted the sum of N300 billion appropriated for the hospitality industry last year, Ngama refuted the story saying it is a misnomer to claim that government made such appropriation.

PAGE 6

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

NHRC calls for investigation into alleged abduction, rape by soldiers

By Sunday Ejike Benjamin & Joy Baba

…suspects face dismissal from Army

ational Human Rights Commission (NHRC), has called on the Chief of Army Staff and the FCT Commissioner of Police to investigate the allegation that some men in army uniforms abducted and raped some women under the guise that they were prostitutes.

Executive Secretary of the Commission, Prof. Bem Angwe who made the call in a statement in Abuja yesterday, also

requested that the Chief of Army Staff and the FCT Commissioner of Police should update his commission on any action taken on the subject matter to enable it take further necessary action in line with its mandate.

The NHRC monitored the report of the incident as aired by the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) on the 14th January 2013, in which it was alleged that on the 20th, 21st and 22nd of December 2012,

N

some women were alleged abducted by men in army uniforms in an unidentified black Hilux Van around Wuse 2, Abuja, and taken to an unknown destination, where they were beaten and raped.

The Commission gathered that the matter is already before the Federal Secretariat, Abuja Police Station, however condemned all forms of rights violation and said the commission is ready to ensure that the rights

of the victims are enforced.

Reacting to the incident yesterday, an army source who declined identification admitted that the matter had been reported and that in following investigations, the suspects who carried out the crime had been arrested by the Military Police.

Our source added that the culprits would be dismissed by military authorities before they are handed over to the police for prosecution.

MDG donates N50m to Katsina VVF centre From Lawal Sa'idu Funtua, Katsina

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he Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Katsina state office, has donated the sum of N50 million to patients of the Katsina VesicoVaginal Fistula (VVF) Centre to enable them integrate into the larger society after the completion of their treatment.

Speaking yesterday at the graduation ceremony of the VVF patients who skills acquisition programme, wife of Katsina state governor, Hajiya Fatima Ibrahim Shehu Shema, noted that the patients received a monthly allowance of N7, 000 each.

The governor's wife added that apart from the monthly allowance, the 100 patient-graduates would, besides working tools, receive N50, 000 each to enable them have a capital to begin with.

The permanent secretary, Special Duties and the MDGs Coordinator, Alhaji Isiyaku Dikko, noted that the office assisted in the programme as part of their contribution in ensuring the full rehabilitation of the VVF patients.

Fake drugs campaign: NGO lauds NAFDAC

By Julius Aminu

F

ollowing the recent interception of fake drugs by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), a nongovernmental organization, StandNigeria Initiative, has also applauded Dr. Paul Orhii for the recent seizure of N600million worth of fake drugs in Kano state. It described this as a monumental achievement because of its strategic position as commercial nerve centre and hub for the supply of drugs to other states and neighboring countries.

In a statement signed by its national coordinator, Mr. Dike Chigbue, the NGO commended the Director-General of NAFDAC and his management for the introduction of the cutting-edge technologies such as the TRUSCAN and the SMS service to combat the hydra headed problem of drug counterfeiting in the country.

Chairman of Berom Youth Molders Association, Mr. Rwang Dantong (left), briefing newsmen on the situation in Berom Community, yesterday in Jos. With him is the Secretary of the Association, Mr Pam Moses (right).

Photo: NAN

Kaduna spends over N401m on victims of post election violence From Nasiru Mu'azu Isa, Kaduna

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aduna state government yesterday flagged off the distribution of financial assistance to victims of the 2011 post-election violence in the state.

Governor Ramalan Yero, in a speech at the flag off ceremony at the State House, said it was sad that people who had lived together peacefully for decades or even centuries should suddenly turn against one another.

He observed that "innocent people were killed, properties destroyed and many others internally displaced".

Governor Yero said as part of the process to resolve the crises, the government under the leadership of late Governor Ibrahim Yakowa set up a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the crises with a view to proffering appropriate recommendations to the government.

He said the government, after extensive verification and in consideration of the plight of victims, has approved N401, 200, 000. to be distributed to verified victims.

N150, 000 will be given to those who lost houses, while those that lost churches or mosques will

be given the sum of N100, 000.

Beneficiaries in the central zone will be paid between today and tomorrow while those of Zone 1 will be paid at Zaria local government secretariat on the 21stand 22nd of January.

Beneficiaries of Zone 3 will receive their cheques at the secretariat of Jema'a local government council from the 23rd to 25th of January.

The chairman of the committee and deputy governor of Kaduna state, Amb. Nuhu Bajoga in his opening remarks called on the victims of the crises to eschew bitterness and embrace the spirit of reconciliation and also engage in dialogue.

FG to map out 1,268 livestock routes in Niger state From Iliya Garba, Minna

I

n an effort to bring lasting peace between pastoralists and farmers in Niger state, the Federal Government has demarcated 1,268 livestock routes.

Assistant Director General, Federal National Livestock Development Projects under the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Alhaji Balarabe Umar Ramadan, dropped the hint yesterday at a one-day sensitisation and advocacy meeting of stakeholders on demarcation, beaconing and survey of international livestock routes held in Minna. He said the Federal Ministry of Agriculture is committed to retracing the routes to avoid conflicts between pastoralists and farmers in the state.

He stated that once these routes are retraced, the Government will pay 50 percent of the cost while the state and local governments will pay 30 and 20 percent respectively.

Ramadan, who is also a team leader of the group, said consultants to that effect have been given the mandate to trace the routes at the intervals of one kilometer, stressing that the state will complement to ensure peace ithin the communities.

He said: "It was exactly what we did in 2009, it will serve as a reminder hence security agents are in place to maintain law and order".

Responding, the Commissioner for Livestock and Fisheries Development, Dr. Isah Yahaya Vatsa, stressed the i mportance of pastoralists and asked the team to sensitise people especially in rural communities where pastoralists have their routes.

Govt partners ICT stakeholders to help pregnant women, children

By A'isha Biola Raji

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he Federal Ministry of Health is partnering with stakeholders to use information and communications technology (ICT) in order to guarantee pregnant women and children get health information as and when appropriate.

Minister of State for Health, Muhammad Ali Pate, disclosed this at a meeting with members

of the United Nations Foundation. He said the technology would sustain and enable the accomplishment of the target of saving one million lives in 2015.

Pate disclosed that his ministry would work together with the Ministry of Agriculture due to its ability to reach out to rural farmers and local people who needed the services most.

He further stressed that his ministry has already started

deliberations to source for funds from the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) in order to ensure that rural people have access to health information through their telephones.

Speaking at the meeting, the providers of the technology and Executive Director of mHealth Alliance, Patricia Mechael said: "We want to work with Nigeria to become much more effective in the use of mobile and ICT to achieve the goal

set forth in saving one million lives.

We are working on how to leverage technology and infrastructure to improve the health outcomes of pregnant women and children.

"We want to improve access to information that women and families need when they need it. It could be on anything including nutrition during pregnancy, immunisation, making sure they are tied into health system in a much more systematic way".

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Northern elders plan another meeting in Kano From Edwin Olofu, Kano

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iqued by the multiple problems bedeviling their region, the Northern Development Forum Initiative (NDFI), has concluded plans to hold a three-day summit in Kano next week.

Chairman of the forum and former governor of the defunct North-western state, Alhaji Usman Faruk, stated that time has come to address the problems of the region.

Speaking during a radio talkshow “Barka-Da-Hantsi”, monitored in Kano, Alhaji Faruk said: “ This time around, it is not the usual way of lamenting about our problems; rather we want a

L-R: Minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr Akinwumi Ayodele, Minister of Aviation, Princess Stella Oduah, and Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Deziani Alison-Madueke, during the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, yesterday at the State House, in Abuja.

Photo: Joe Oroye

Bauchi to continue screening of teachers

Court extends forfeiture order of Sylva’s properties G

From Ahmed Kaigama, Bauchi

By Sunday Ejike Benjamin

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Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday granted the application brought before it by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) seeking an extension of the interim order of attachment granted it to take possession of 48 properties of former governor of Bayelsa State , Timipreye Sylva.

The initial order made by the court sitting before Justice A.R. Mohammed on December 21, 2012, was for 14 days.

Before the expiration of the order, counsel representing the commission, Mr. Festus Keyamo, had filed an application for an extension.

Keyamo told the court that the extension of the order was imperative for the determination of all applications and the safety of the attached properties.

However, the respondent’s counsel, Benson Ibezim prayed the court to vacate the order because it was an ex-parte order and that his client is challenging the competence of the court to even entertain the case.

In his ruling, Justice

Mohammed held that aside from the fact that EFCC had applied for the extension of the order before the expiration of the subsisting one, he was granting the extension because the order was the crux of the matter.

“If I do not do so, the question would be why and what are we coming here to deliberate on next time. The order of 21 December is the main thrust of this matter, the court must order for its existence to enable the respondent to be heard”, he stated and adjourned the case to January 24, 2013.

Assets belonging to the former governor against which a forfeiture order was obtained by the EFCC include a mansion at 3 River Niger Street, plot 3192 Cadastral zone AO, Maitama District Abuja; nine units (comprising six one bedroom and 3 two bedroom apartments) at 8 Sefadu Street Wuse zone 2, plot 262 Cadastral zone AO2, Wuse Abuja; 2 units duplexes at 5 Oguta Street, plot 906 Cadastral zone Wuse 11 Abuja.

Others are a duplex at Plot 1271 Nike Street Cadastral zone AO5, Maitama District Abuja; a duplex at Phase 1 Unit No. 1

(Villa 1) Palm Springs Gold Estate, Cachez Turkey Projects Limited, Mpape, Abuja; 10 units of one room apartments at 8 Mistrata Street plot 232 Cadastral zone Wuse 11 Abuja; 5 units duplexes at Plot No 1070 Dakibiyu District Cadastral zone B10, Abuja; 16 units service apartments at Plot 1181 Thaba Tseka Crescent, Off IBB Way, Wuse 11, Abuja and 3 units of three bedroom flats at No. 1 Mubi Close, Plot 766. Cadastral Zone A01, Garki, Abuja.

practical implementation of solutions that would be proffered by the summit”.

He said that though their resolutions would be presented to the President for his action, they would also present the same document to the northern governors and members of the national and state assemblies for help in speedy implementation of recommendations.

The summit, he said, would invite former presidents, vice presidents, Heads of State, governors, ministers, parliamentarians, university dons, retired military and police officers, religious leaders, among others.

overnor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi state has vowed to continue with teachers screening in the state as his administration is ready to make positives changes in the education sector.

It would be recalled that the National Union of Teachers ’ Bauchi state chapter , and Bauchi state Universal Basic Education Board SUBEB are in disagreement over screening of teachers.

A press release issued by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Ishola Michael Adeyemi and made available to newsmen in

Bauchi yesterday, expressed the desire to make positive change in the education sector particularly at the foundation level where only qualified people are employed as teachers .

The governor who did not hide his displeasure over the imbroglio caused by the screening exercise, explained that government ’s decision was in the best interest of education at the foundation level.

According to him, the aim was to ensure that qualified people are employed as teachers in all the public schools as against the present situation where unqualified people are engaged as teachers.

Kogi monarchs urged to keep the peace From Sam Egwu, Lokoja

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raditional Rulers in Kogi State have been tasked to effectively carry out the task of maintaining peace in their domain.

Kogi State Deputy Governor, Yomi Awoniyi, stated this when he received First Class traditional rulers from Central Senatorial District of the state who were in his office to rejoice with the government and people on the survival of the State Governor, Capt. Idris Wada, in the December 28 auto crash.

Awoniyi described traditional rulers as bastion of the peoples culture and tradition, noting that the measure of recovery of the State governor as a miracle.

He said the Governor would resume office soon, even though he has ensured that his physical absence does not impede governance.

Awoniyi disclosed that the governor has put in place necessary administrative measures aimed at ensuring that government business runs smoothly and unhindered.

He called on people in

positions of authority in the state to carry out their function with absolute fear of God, as the present administration was on the verge of transforming the State socio – economically.

Earlier in his speech, leader of the delegation, the Ohi of Okene/Okengwe, Alhaji Yakubu Yusuf, said they were on the visit to thank God for the survival of the governor and commiserated with the State government on the death of ADC to the State Governor, Mohammed Idris, in the auto crash.

Jonathan, PDP associate with corrupt people, says CACOL From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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oalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has condemned President Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for associating with corruption and corrupt people in the country.

Reacting to the news of an exconvict, Chief Olabode George,

vying for the party’s Board of Trustee Chairmanship post and other candidates with questionable pedigree, the Executive Chairman of CACOL, Debo Adeniran derided the President and his party for glorifying and romancing corruption with impunity without morality.

“It is sickening that the President, who should show better

example for the masses to follow, could glorify corruption with such impunity. Jonathan could not have been serious with his fight against corruption. He is just paying lip service to it. He is supposed to shame and despise corrupt leaders, but he is giving presidential recognition to them.

“Imagine the President appointing Chief Tony Anenih, whose only achievement as

Minister of Works and Housing, was diverting billions of dollars meant for building and rehabilitating our roads into his private coffers, as the Chairman of the Nigerian Ports Authority, and the same Anenih is also vying for the PDP Board of Trustee Chairman. It is very shameful that our President’s list of associates is replete with criminals. This same President Jonathan was showering praises

on former Governor of Bayelsa State cum ex-convict, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, as his political benefactor sometimes ago.

“The President and his political party are so barefaced and really do not give a damn about what the people think about their actions.

It is so saddening that a president that claims to be fighting corruption is dining and wining with ex-convicts,” he said.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 9

Reps to expedite action on PIB, constitution – Sam-Tsokwa

By Lawrence Olaoye

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he House of Representatives yesterday disclosed that it will expedite action on the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill and its efforts at amending the 1999 constitution as it resumes plenary today after the New Year break.

This disclosure was made by the Chairman, House committee on rules and business, Rep Albert Sam-Tsokwa, while briefing newsmen on the priority areas of the House.

Sam-Tsokwa said: “We are going to continue to implement the things of utmost priority to Nigerians and in line with the legislative agenda. We believe we have kept faith with the legislative agenda and hope to improve on its implementation.”

On the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), the lawmaker said that it would be one of the bills in the House to be passed as soon as possible. “As we speak now, the bill has gone through second reading in the House of Representatives.

It is before an ad-hoc committee specially constituted by Mr. Speaker to ensure that work on it was expedited,” he said.

He added that the House would also amend the Public Procurement Act 2007 to ensure probity and transparency in government business.

He however expressed regret that the Act had caused drawbacks in implementing the nation’s budget rather than accelerating the process.

“The Act has to be amended to ensure proper implementation of the budget without setting aside transparency and probity,” he said.

Kwara prone to drug trafficking, says NDLEA commander From Olanrewaju Lawal, Ilorin

K

wara State Commander of the. Nigeria Drug Law E n f o r c e m e n t Agency(NDLEA) Dr. Segun Oke, has said that the State could be hot spot for illegal drug trafficking due to its position in Nigeria.

Oke who stated this while speaking with journalists in Ilorin, said as a transit route, drug traffickers from Delta, Kogi,Niger,Ondo and Edo states could use the state as a base before moving to their destinations.

He said with the presence of an International Airport, intra and inter-state movements from nearby states and border countries, Kwara state was prone to drug trafficking and drug dealers.

Oke who had served in Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Niger and Plateau States including Federal Capital Territory(FCT) Abuja, disclosed that two weeks ago, his command apprehended members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers(NURTW) with substance discovered to be cannabis.

He explained that the suspects

Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (middle); his Deputy, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha (2nd left) and Leader of the House, Hon. Mulikat Akande Adiola (left), during the House’s resumption after the New Year holiday, yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Mahmud Isa

FG to tackle human trafficking through new law

By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem

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he Federal Executive Council (FEC), yesterday, approved a new bill which will tackle all crimes relating to human trafficking in the country.

Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku who briefed state House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting at the Presidential Villa, said council which was chaired by President Goodluck Jonathan directed the Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke to forward "a Bill on Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition), Enforcement and

Administration Bill 2012", to the National Assembly for passage into law.

According to Maku, the bill when passed will provide specific punishments for persons found guilty on issues of trafficking in persons and their collaboration.

Such penalties as captured in the proposed law include imprisonment between five to seven years and payment of substantial fines.

He said the law would end forceful exportation and abuse of young Nigerians particularly abroad.

The document was submitted to council by the

Minister for Justice.

"The existing legal framework for addressing the subject matter which is the Trafficking in Persons (Prohibition), Law Enforcement and Aministration Act, 2003 (as amended), is fraught with deficiencies and grossly inadequate to effectively combat the scourge of human trafficking in Nigeria".

Maku said "The principal objective of the current Bill is to repeal and cure the defects in the existing law and reposition the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), for effective delivery on its mandate and

provide for a more comprehensive legal and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of human trafficking offences in Nigeria".

Council at its meeting also received a revised report from a cabinet committee on the collapse of Navy building in Gwarinpa area of Abuja in 2012.

The report according to the Minister for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Ms Ama Pepple, indicate the structure which collapsed was defective.

The two-storey building belonging to the Nigerian Navy collapsed on seven labourers killing two and trapping three others.

The building located on 45 Road, Gwarinpa Estate was demolished when it collapsed on the workers.

Govs annexed disbursement powers from Perm Secs- Dasuki From Nasiru Mu’azu Isa

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ultan Ibrahim Dasuki has said that the legacies of the late Sardauna of Sokoto, Sir Ahmadu Bello have been abandoned by the present crop of politicians.

Dasuki who made this statement during a press conference at his home in Kaduna yesterday, said the biggest legacy of the late Sardauna was honesty in all spheres of life which has been abandoned for sycophancy, thereby leading to the current problems in the country.

He observed that the wealth of the nation which belongs to the public, was no longer theirs because the leaders cart away the resources without doing the job they were elected to do.

The former Sultan blamed the deterioration of industries in the north on governors who have misused the funds meant for these industries.

Dasuki recalled that in the past the control of monies was left with the permanent secretaries to disburse according to the needs

of their offices but now the governors have total control over monies in the states.

He also faulted the joint accounts operated by state and local governments, saying the local government chairmen have no access and say in how the monies are spent.

He blamed politicians for the new nature of public behaviour stating that the public take cue from the kind of leadership they get.

Dasuki said that present leaders do not take advice from past leaders and elder-statesmen and even when they do, the sycophants around them make them ignore such advice.

The ex-Sultan observed that there were too many states and local governments, asking, “why do we need so many?”.

Dasuki blamed greed for the large number of states and local governments in the nation, adding that no development was being done other servicing salaries and allowances.

He also observed that in the past there was just one state but

were able to deliver on the developmental needs of its people.

He said the first coup plotters had no understanding of what they did and so set the pace for all the problems of lack of

development and bad governance in the nation.

The royal father said as an elder statesman who is 90years old now, he could only pray for the nation.

UniAbuja: Engineering students seek end to lingering crisis

By Stanley Onyekwere

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tudents of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Abuja have appealed to the Professor E J C Nwanna led-investigation panel to advise the university management to immediately expedite action on the lingering problems affecting the university.

The students, on Monday, in a Memorandum submitted to the panel are amongst other things, demanding the immediate recruitment of lecturers and technologists, purchase of relevant equipment, construction of additional structures and processing of

results and mobilization of two sets of engineering students for Nigerian Youths Service Corps (NYSC).

According to the Memorandum, after the visit of a verification team from the Nigeria University Commission(NUC), the problem that led to the protests by the students of faculty of engineering are still unattended to and these include; inadequate space, lecturers and equipment necessary for learning.

Part of their demands include the conduct of students Union Government (SUG) elections, extension of examination duration beyond a week, among others.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

New FCT transport policy will increase crime – SECDA

By Lambert Tyem

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elf-Employed Commercial Drivers Association (SECDA) yesterday appealed for the suspension of the new transport policy of the Federal Capital Territory Administration to avoid increased crime rate in the Federal Capital Territory.

The union said the policy has increased the hardship of commuters and drivers in the FCT and could compound the security crisis in the nation.

Speaking to our correspondent, the FCT Secretary of SECDA, Innocent Asogwa, said the transport policy introduced by the FCT Administration on Monday has affected over 30,000 commercial bus drivers, apart from thousands of commuters.

Asogwa explained that the government has not put in place the needed palliatives and measures in the satellite towns that would make the policy to succeed through provision of enough high capacity buses to service the teeming population of commuters, adding that its "poor attempt to copy the Lagos transport system" has only worsened the transport crisis in the FCT. The SECDA scribe alleged that his union members were not allowed to ply the routes approved for them, including

Alaafin fire incident, setback for Yoruba culture, says FCT minister From Inumidun Ojelade, Ibadan

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inister of State for FCT, Olajumoke Akinjide has described the fire incident that engulfed the palace of Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Olayiwola Adeyemi as a big setback to the Yoruba cultural renaissance.

Akinjide who expressed consternation over the level of damage caused by the inferno in a press statement signed by her media assistant, Alhaji Isiaka kehinde, enjoined the first class monarch to accept the incident in good faith.

The Minister, waxing philosophical said, "as I feel deeply saddened by this occurrence, I'm at the same time thankful to God that no life was lost in it".

Akinjide, who described Alaafin as a Yoruba cultural ambassador, said that it might be difficult to replace some of the artefacts already claimed by the fire.

Idu and Gwarimpa, which were part of their allocated routes.

Asogwa complained that transport fares have since shot up since Monday, pointing out

that the FCT-approved high capacity buses were exploiting commuters by charging about

Men the Lagos State Public Works Corporation set for work yesterday at Alausa, in Ikeja.

N150 from Wuse to Maraba against the regular N70 fareraba.

Photo: Bolaji Olasunkanmi

Arepo pipeline: NNPC allays fear of fuel scarcity From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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llaying fears that the recent fire incident on the System 2B Pipeline at Arepo will cause another bout of fuel scarcity in Lagos and its environs, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Andrew Yakubu, has said that the ruptured points on the pipeline have been fixed.

Yakubu made this clarification during a visit to the

scene of the pipeline explosion at Arepo in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State for on-the-spot assessment of the situation.

Yakubu explained that the four points ruptured by the product thieves have been clamped with the Corporation also working out ways to make the pipeline less accessible to oil thieves and vandals.

"There is no reason to entertain fear about fuel scarcity because we have

enough products in Mosimi to last for some days... this is a stop gap measure. We just made some observations now on how to make the pipeline less accessible, if we are able to achieve that within the day we will start pumping," he stated.

Reacting to the allegation of negligence by the governor of Ogun State, the GMD explained that the Corporation's mandate was to operate and maintain the pipeline and its right of way and that he has written to

the governor soliciting the state government's collaboration in checking the menace.

He called on state governments to emulate the Abia State government which mobilized security to protect the pipelines in the state, a situation which turned the Port-Harcourt - Aba pipeline renowned to be the worst in vandalism and products theft, into the most secured pipeline in the country.

Remembrance Day: A’Ibom commissioner sacked, Perm Sec. retired From Mike Etim, Uyo

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arely one hour after performing the c e r e m o n y commemorating the Armed Forces Remembrance Day laying of wreath which falls under her ministry, at the Uyo Cenotaph yesterday, the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Mrs. Helen Ukpabio was sacked while the Permanent Secretary in the same Ministry, Mrs. Arit Okpo was ordered to proceed on immediate retirement.

The order was issued in a statement by the State Commissioner for Information and Communication Mr. Aniekan Umana did not however state any reasons for their removal.

On why the government took such a drastic step, the commissioner, in a telephone interview with our reporter, simply said he was acting on the governor's order. our reporter who monitored the cermony, gathered that the action might not be unconnected with the decision of the commissioner and her

permanent secretary not to wear the emblem for the occasion.

It was also gathered that the commissioner did not also wear the emblem during the church service which was part of the celebration last Sunday.

Our reporter also learnt that the commissioner's removal was effected when she was still hosting dignitaries, including members of the state executive council without her knowledge, through a statement broadcast by the state-owned Radio Akwa Ibom.

She was later called out

from the banquet hall and driven to the Government House where she was briefed of her removal.

Before her appointment as commissioner of Women Affairs, she had served as the state commissioner for Education.

She was however deployed from the ministry when she was unable to give relevant fact on the state of education in her ministry.

The governor instead, had to brief Wole Soyinka during his visit to the state last year.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Accident is real, get insurance?

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he growing incidence of accident on our roads, resulting from poor infrastructures and excessive speeding by motorists has put many road users on danger list. If you walk to the orthopaedic hospitals, you will be amazed the number people brought in each day to the emergency units, as result of vehicular accidents, particularly the motor cycle cases popularly called 'Okada'.

The unfortunate thing is that majority of the victims do not even have money to pay for their medical bills, leaving their relations to begging from one person to another for help.

While who could become a victim of accident cannot be predicted, it is important that people take insurance to protect their self in case of accident, to enable them meet financial needs

at that critical time.

Insurance here provides cover to enable an accident victim meet his or her medical bill in the event of an accident or make claims in the case of permanent disability.

While some employers have provided for insurance of their employees under group life insurance, a provision of the Pension Reform Act 2004, which covers death in service, it is

important that people take personal accident insurance.

A personal accident insurance covers expenses that occur as a result of an accident, providing financial assistance to you and your family in times of your greatest need. Depending on the premium plan and policy terms, the policy holder could get as much as he or she wants.

Among the advantages include a 24 hour coverage worldwide; no medical examination require; flexibility to increase benefit level by choosing ideal plan; option to secure multiple benefits through multiple premiums as well as affordable premium rates.

Almost all the insurance companies in the country offer this class of insurance and it is either as personal accident or group personal accident cover.

Niger Insurance plc's cover for instance indemnifies the insured against loss or damage as a result of death or bodily injury occasioned by accidental, violent, external and visible means independent of any other cause.

Under this policy, the company has: Personal accident and Group personal accident.

The distinction between the two is that whereas the Personal Accident Policy is issued to an individual, Group Personal Accident Policy is issued to a number of persons, normally the employees of a business firm, club members, Directors, etc. under Group Personal Accident, the party taking up the policy (the umbrella organization) is known as the Insured while the member covered in the policy are the Insured persons.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best

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tocking up on long term storage food isn't just for emergency survival. It's also your insurance against inflation and harder times. It's always a good idea to have at least a month worth of food on hand but I recommend 3 or more depending on your budget.

Think about it, you can feed a family of 6 for 1 month for as little as N100, 000.00 you would have to be a pretty thrifty shopper to beat those prices in a grocery store today.

So that's the cost today but what about a year from now or 15 years from now. God forbid you've lost your job or find yourself in harder times. Can you imagine what a month's or 3 months worth of food will cost in 15 years? With a 25 year shelf life you've just beaten the heck out of inflation and if you do find yourself in harder times or have lost your job, you've given yourself one less thing to worry about. Its great peace of mind in trying times to know your family will still eat

well.

Why prepare?

Take it from someone who has been through several major disasters, preparing is something everyone should be doing. Besides disasters, there is always the uncertainty of job loss or the very real possibility of economic collapse. Preparing for these kinds of events is no different than buying insurance. We buy insurance to protect us from things we hope do not happen.

Well this is no different except you

get something for your money.

Then there are events like Flood as we are seeing today. How different would the lives of those people have been, had they had a stock of food or a hurricane disaster kit? It doesn't change their loss but it sure would have made their lives easier while they waited for rescue. So take it from someone who knows it as much better to plan ahead and give you peace of mind because we are all vulnerable to the future.

What you should be

Save cost on IT with Microsoft Office 365

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etting cost saving IT software can enable a business save some investment fund. While this has been the headache of many new businesses, Microsoft, the world leader in software, services and solutions, has come to help people and businesses realise their full potential with its Office 365.

This software comes with a reprieve, providing a one-stop shop for IT solutions that are much cheaper than other software.

Office 365 is a cloud offering that allows enterprises of all sizes to keep their infrastructure as simple as possible and focus on productivity and still be able to use it offline. Cloud computing is like a central infrastructure for everyone to use and not every single enterprise needs to build their own infrastructure.

The great thing about Office 365 is you don't worry about investing in skills for infrastructure management. It has been handled for you

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directly by somebody else. At the same time, you don't worry having generator 24/7 to keep your infrastructure running, as someone is handling that for you.

Awawu Olumide-Sojinrin, Microsoft marketing lead, explains that Office 365 has payas-you-go model, as "you pay for what you use and pay for what you need. You don't need to buy infrastructure for backup, for scaling. You can pay on monthly basis and save money which allows business to succeed. This means you don't have to focus on infrastructure anymore."

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Office 365 for enterprises also includes Microsoft Office professional plus desktop software on a pay-as-you-go basis for the first time ever for N3, 160 - $20 - per user per month.

The introduction of Office 365 to Nigeria has the potential to fuel business and economic transformation across the region by delivering cost-effective, flexible access to enterprise-IT. "Office 365 provides the productivity backbone for modern businesses in Africa," according to Olumide-Sojinrin.

buying?

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Are you always on the road, get personal accident insurance?

T

he growing incidence of accident on our roads, resulting from poor infrastructures and excessive speeding by motorists has put many road users on danger list. If you walk to the orthopaedic hospitals, you will be amazed the number people brought in each day to the emergency units, as result of vehicular accidents, particularly the motor cycle cases popularly called 'Okada'.

The unfortunate thing is that majority of the victims do not

even have money to pay for their medical bills, leaving their relations to begging from one person to another for help.

While who could become a victim of accident cannot be predicted, it is important that people take insurance to protect their self in case of accident, to enable them meet financial needs at that critical time.

Insurance here provides cover to enable an accident victim meet his or her medical bill in the event of an accident or make claims in

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While some employers have provided for insurance of their employees under group life insurance, a provision of the Pension Reform Act 2004, which covers death in service, it is important that people take personal accident insurance.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 12

EDIT ORIAL EDITORIAL

E

Cancel this oil deal, it stinks

ven to the lay man, the sale of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 30, reputed to be one of Nigeria’s most prolific onshore oil blocks, to Heritage Oil, a British oil and gas company, must come as a big shock because of its security and economic implications for the nation. The security implication of the deal is that the owner of Heritage Oil is the infamous Tony Buckingham, who it was that had provided the mercenaries that fought alongside insurgents in Angola and Sierra Leone, in addition to playing a key role in the 2004 coup plot to overthrow the government of oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. The economic implication has to do with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s refusal to approve the sale of the oil block to Conoil, owned by Mike Adenuga Jn, when the oil and gas company had sought to buy it long before Heritage oil came along.

That there is something fundamentally dirty about the deal can be attested by the fact that when Shell and its partners, Eni of Italy and Total of France, sold their 45 per cent stake, for $850 million, in the onshore oil concession located in the western Niger Delta on November 1, 2012,

it was so much shrouded in secrecy that it hardly received a mention in the local media. But even more curious is the fact that prior to the transaction, the NNPC had torpedoed Shell’s attempt to sell the same oil block to Adenuga’s Conoil which had offered $1.29 billion for it.

In opposing the Conoil deal, the

“

Whose interest are the minister and NNPC promoting by allowing such a deal that is clearly in conflict with the nation’s interest to close?

NNPC, which has controlling interest of 55 per cent in the oil block, had insisted on enforcing its right to operatorship as provided under the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) covering the concessions. And in June 2011, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke backed the NNPC position, saying that OMLs 30 and 34 were too strategic to the country’s power programme to be handed over to

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”

“certain” operators.

It is, therefore, rather odd that in spite of the fact that it is “strategic and important to the country’s power programme”, the ministry of petroleum and NNPC sanctioned the sale to Heritage Oil whose background ought to have qualified it to be among those the minister referred to as “certain” operators.

Two pertinent questions to ask here are: why would the NNPC sanction the sale to Heritage Oil for only $850 million as against the $1.29 offered by Conoil, more so given the unwholesome reputation of the owner of Heritage Oil, Tony Buckingham?

Whose interest are the minister and NNPC promoting by allowing such a deal that is clearly in conflict with the nation’s interest to close?

We at Peoples Daily are one with the President of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Peter Esele, in calling on President Goodluck Jonathan and the Petroleum Resources Minister to do everything in their power to reverse the transaction without further delay. The National Assembly should, as a matter of urgency, wade into the issue and prevail on the government to cancel the deal as soon as possible because it is clearly fraught with ill-intentions.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

By Ahmed Babba Kaita

A

s Nigerians entered the New Year with little hope for the future, President Jonathan tried to reignite the usual zeal with which each New Year is traditionally welcomed. It was an effort in futility though. There isn't any prospect that 2013 would be any different from the tumultuous 2012. The body language of the President, his handlers and the ruling PDP were as uncoordinated as ever to engender any hope that things would be better in 2013 than they were last year..

In a message to his 'numerous' Facebook friends, the President painted a bright picture of a new year, relaying entirely on diplomatic niceties that he mistook for genuine assessment of the situation in Nigeria. Our future gauge was assessed by the "Clinton Foundation" and the British Prime Minister, David Cameron.

While confirming the consistent GDP growth rate of over 6% per annum for the last 3 years, President Goodluck claimed the "Clinton foundation" celebrated Nigeria as one of the 10 fastest growing economies for this feat.

The President was equally carried away with David Cameron's comparing Nigeria with Brazil and Indonesia in a weird unsupportable argument of growth and development.

President Jonathan might have hinged his absolute believe in Cameron's declaration based on Cameron's assessment of the

PAGE 13

A president and his many promises common factor unifying the three countries which he mentioned as; fitness, obsessed with enterprise, spending money on the future education, infrastructure and technology. Superficially an excellent view, if I may say. But, shouldn't the President consider more, the assessment closer home than resting his hope of "fresh breeze" on misleading diplomatic niceties from Europe and USA that cannot be supported with the reality of stagnation very visible on the Nigerian soil. Simple conscience analysis would have told President Jonathan that neither Bill Clinton (after whom the Clinton Foundation was established) nor PM David Cameron would have lasted a week in office with half the mess trailing each and every action he has taken as a president.

President Jonathan claimed improvement in various sectors of the economy, the most ridiculous being security. He even claimed an improvement in "life expectancy". That, I found most ridiculous. Cut away from the life threatening situation most Nigerians are exposed to, the president is the last person to know what life expectancy (the real thing) is in Nigeria. Daily, people are being killed or maimed on our national highways by either the guns of armed robbers or insurgents on one hand, or the guns of

rampaging security personnel.

For those who escaped this threats, our dangerously dilapidated roads would definitely finish the job. Not even the powerful convoys of state governors and other high ranking government officials that hitherto bullies other road users off the road sometimes with fatal consequences is immune to the deadly consequences of Nigerian roads that got more deadly with more money spent on them.

How one rates the claim of rising life expectancy against the poor state of rural and urban healthcare delivery system requires more presidential explanation. But, it deserve being mentioned that no nation develops by relying on foreign hospitals for treatment of common non-life threatening ailments. Perhaps, on their different visits to the Nigerian shores, both Clinton and Cameron might have had to contend with tight schedules to glance through our local newspapers. They couldn't have missed numerous adverts of various Dubai and Indian hospitals with attractive offers for healthcare services. Such adverts have since become a good source of revenue for numerous ailing publishing houses. Same goes for foreign schools scavenging on the Nigerian public who are left with no option but to patronise most of these low rated institutions that

can never be allowed to operate in Europe and the US. Fortunately, these schools are still a better option to cultists and drug addicts production line our local universities have been reduced to through long exposure to unfriendly policies and utter disregard to the roles of universities in nation building.

With an indisputable evidence of a declining nation caused by moral corruption with a devastating effect of social stagnation, both President Jonathan and Prime Minister David Cameron couldn't have being celebrating any other "GDP" growth beside the ever growing "Gross Domestic Problems."

Cameron wouldn't have faced the British parliament with a phantom prospect of a new year when he cannot substantiate such dreams with tangible evidence of clear blueprint of how he intends to achieve it. Perhaps, through with dumping garbage second hand goods, Europe is set on turning Nigeria into a giant political and economic laboratory where any unimaginable theory will be put to test. Else, how does a paper "GDP" growth translate to a change of fortune in Nigeria when the number of people living below poverty line is rising same time with the imaginary "GDP" growth that the president hold so dear.

I couldn't help but agree with

the president in his call for attitudinal change. The only difference however is that, while the president is seeking for this change from the Nigerian public, the solution lies with the change of attitude to leadership by the Nigerian leaders. No nation develops when issues of corruption are treated with levity. Various probes set by this regime provided ample chance for the regime to prove its zero tolerance to corruption but, sadly corruption keeps growing and suffocating every aspect of our wellbeing as a nation. Indonesia and Brazil do not grow their economies by playing frisbee to with multi trillion Naira corruption allegations as the one uncovered by the fuel subsidy scam probe for which no one is yet convicted. Corruption, just like cancer, stifles growth and threatens the continuous existence of a nation. And just like cancer, it requires painful therapy regime to contain. But first we have to accept itssigns and symptoms and treat them for what they are rather than accepting any foreign concocted theory of "GDP" growth without supportive evidence. The first step to addressing a problem is to accept it exists.

Ahmed Babba is a member of the House of Representatives representing Kankia/ Kusada/Ingawa Federal Constituency of Katsina state.

2015: Bauchi's crowded field of gubernatorial aspirants (I)

By Sanusi Muhammad

I

n his defence against an allegation of pride, the doyen of Nigerian politics, frontline politician and first Premier of the defunct Northern region, Sir Ahmadu Bello (Sardauna of Sokoto) said, "They say that I am proud and impatient. I am certainly proud, for I have much to be proud of and not the least the trust that God has given me to lift up our people from their primitive conditions into the light of life and the happiness of contentment.

But I am not proud in the arrogant sense, for I know that I am merely an instrument carrying out God's will and pleasure".

The late premier's defence is handy in this discourse to remind those aspiring to govern a complex but flexible state like Bauchi to stop believing they are the most qualified for the position of governor. It is perceived that most of them are neither the dedicated politicians blessed with courage, intelligence or patriotism needed in 2015 to continue from where the incumbent say farewell when his second term is up.

Some pride themselves as the best brains, most dedicated, most committed to be trusted with the mandate of providing the basic requirements of the electorate, forgetting that the majority of them have already failed the test in their various callings. Most of those nursing the ambition to take over from Governor Isa Yuguda belong to the school of thought that donating motorcycles, tokunbo cars etc to miscreants and

political hangers-on constitutes part of their constituency projects or improvement of the welfare of their people while some believe that their presence at naming, marriage or other ceremonies is a continuation of constituency projects.

In most parts of Bauchi state, the electorate shared water ponds with animals until Yuguda made an attempt to rescue the situation.

In Bauchi north senatorial zone, for instance, not to talk of glaring poverty, disease and malnutrition, potable water is far from the downtrodden, a fact which is known to their representatives but which they are not ready to anything to ameliorate. Yet some of those representatives are today aspiring to govern the state.

2015 is yearning for the likes of Yuguda who have over the years established a good rapport

with the downtrodden and contributed to their welfare including security against poverty, hunger and catapulted the people to greater heights in many ways. If what is heard and seen is real within the political circle of today, and from posters already pasted on major streets in Bauchi metropolis and other towns is anything to go by, then with heavy heart, I sadly state that the Bauchi State we all know is truly in search of credible aspirants for support to secure the mandates of their respective political parties in preparation for battle royal to the Government House in 2015.

From the posters so far pasted, only few can be said to be serious with the wherewithal, capacity and courage to endure the heat at the most appropriate time while majority are either spoilers, on errand or playing a trick for

“

The list of aspirants is daily on the increase across party divides, suggesting that the road to the Government House will be anything but smooth. The grapevine has it that the PDP has Senators Abdul Ahmed Ningi (Bauchi central), Babayo Garba Gamawa (Bauchi north), Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed (Bauchi south) and Dr. Musa Babayo (Bauchi north)

settlement with other positions at the wee hour.

The list of aspirants is daily on the increase across party divides, suggesting that the road to the Government House will be anything but smooth. The grapevine has it that the PDP has Senators Abdul Ahmed Ningi (Bauchi central), Babayo Garba Gamawa (Bauchi north), Bala Abdulkadir Muhammed (Bauchi south) and Dr. Musa Babayo (Bauchi north), Shehu Musa Gabam (Bauchi south) Muhammed Nadada Umar (Bauchi central), Dr. Ali Pate (Bauchi central), Barristers Ibrahim Zailani (Bauchi south) and Hussaini Umar (Bauchi south). In the ACN are the likes of Senators Ibrahim Yakubu Lame (Bauchi south) and Baba Tela (Bauchi north).

Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) may have to choose between Alhaji Bello Ahmed Arabi (Bauchi south), Abdullahi Adamu Dan China (Bauchi south), Senator Suleiman Nazif (Bauchi north) Engr. Sadiq Mahmoud (Bauchi north) and Honorable Maitama Tugga (Bauchi north). Aspirants that may try their luck on the platform of All Nigeria People's Party (ANPP) are yet to make their aspiration public but definitely there are few aspirants holding nocturnal meetings with party chieftains on the possibility of flying its flag. A reliable source close to the chieftains of the party disclosed that most of those that may aspire on its platform are credible politicians that were

tested and possess the requirements to scale the electorates hurdle. If that is true, then history may likely repeat itself in 2015.

The PDP, the ruling party in the state, may not repeat its 2007 mistake of wrongdful zoning and imposition of candidates. Yuguda as the leader of the party was a victim of political highhandedness. He was courageous and determined to realize his ambition and stood against the odds until he achieved his goal.

Based on his past experience, he may not be visibly involved in party scheming to impose or short change any aspirant. But that does not mean keeping silent when errors are committed or about to be committed in entrusting party mandate to a wrong person.

CPC has a good presence and formidable followership in the state for the respect and influence of its national leader, General Muhammadu Buhari. From the look of things, the party is getting organized and waxing stronger.

As rumoured, Senator Suleiman Nazif may eventually dump the idea of aspiring to fly its flag for the gubernatorial race and may settle to chair the party and if that is realized, PDP should be prepared for a battle of the titans based on the experience garnered over the years by Nazif in partisan politics coupled with his technical expertise as a 'war lord' in possession of few deadly weapons (finance).

Sanusi Muhammad is of the Northern Governors' Media Forum

PAGE 14

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Police still collect graft at Wowe

By Abayomi Ojo

O

n Friday, January 11, 2013, I boarded a taxi from Mowe, Ogun state to Owode-Egba. I was going to honour a pre-scheduled official meeting with the local immunization officer at the General Hospital at Obafemi-Owode local Government headquarters. I had been warned that the road from Mowe to Ofada town is bad, so I opted to join the public mode of transportation. As soon as I got to the park, I was sandwiched with someone else in the front (passenger's) seat. Soon I began to have some form of paraesthesia and it didn't help that my co-passenger had a child on her lap. Four other passengers soon came and sat at the back and we were on our way. I was still aching in the discomfort and agony when we were treated to the rigour of the road. It also lived up to its reputation.

I was sure that a headache was imminent when around a junction in the Ashimolowo area of Mowe town, we were ordered to stop by fully dressed members of Nigeria Police. The ensuing event was like a miracle to me. "Oga, I no get change oo," the driver said in a coarse tone that seemed to indicate that the conversation had begun a long time ago. "Ok. Ok." The police

officer replied, nodding his head. with me was so angry that he on the driver.The people in the taxi Shebi you know shey na hundred queried why the police officer did agreed almost unanimously that they were not too hundred naira," sure if the driver he said and he had valid spat on the driving papers, ground."I no get Peoples Daily welcomes your letters, opinion articles, text since it was still change wey messages and ‘pictures of yesteryears.’ All written early in pass two January.

Of hundred naira contributions should be concise. Word limits: Letters - 150 course, the driver oo." words, Articles - 750 words. Please include your name and pretended as if he The phlegm a valid location. Letters to the Editor should be addressed didn't hear us. contained a to: "Oga, abeg no mixture of trouble me oo," he sputum and The Editor, said in pidgin some dirty Peoples Daily, 1st Floor Peace Plaza, English. "I no dey brown colour 35 Ajose Adeogun Street, Utako, Abuja. there oo." As long that has come to Email: let ters@peoplesdaily-online.com as the prevailing characterize the SMS: 07037756364 circumstance in indiscipline and law and policies contempt of the Nigeria Police in my mind. The not inquire about the license of the governing transportation remains driver extended a two hundred driver. He was angry that the the same in Nigeria, we shall naira note to the police officer whose police officer was not interested in remain where we are. The issue of shirt was so badly damaged that I the license of the vehicle or any of incomplete and invalid driving could see neither his name nor his the driver's papers for that matter. papers will disappear if the number. He pocketed the money He was angry that he did not check government will collaborate with with his left hand in broad daylight the general state of the vehicle in the drivers' associations.

The government can find a and then produced a change of a the least and that he was not even hundred naira from the right side concerned about the number of the way to collate the entire licenses, of his trouser which he handed over passengers in the taxi. He kept permits, levies and all other papers to the driver. I was battling with complaining that the Police Officer affecting drivers and other road this scene until the driver told us was more interested in the one users and appoint some official, that had been going on for more hundred naira graft than in who will liaise with the NURTW than a month. "E no go better for anything else. He even questioned local associations, meet with their them!!" He cursed and he too spat if road block was part of the job opinion leaders and register these outside. I watched as the sputum description for police officers in drivers easily at 'affordable rates' in their local places. The idea is to flew away into the harmattan. Nigeria?

One of the passengers in the taxi Somehow our attention turned find a way to bring the

WRITE TO US

government to the people. I guarantee that all public drivers will be fully registered within a week in the process. Regular education of our drivers on the right use of the road is also needed and helpful.

Although people have stressed it continually, the total road network needs to be completely overhauled. The salary structure of the Nigerian Police also needs to be reviewed. And disciplinary measures need to be upheld.

Someone joked at the back of the taxi at the expense of the driver.

"Na him be Jonathan wey make fuel price cost pass?" We all laughed.

He continued, "Or you no know shey the driver's wife carry belle?"

We knew instinctively that he was trying to hint that the driver would be more concerned with footing the bills for the Naming Ceremony of his child and buying PMS at #110 per litre at the filling station rather than renewing his driver's license and other road papers.

I am not sure if the National Assembly has re-visited the Nigerian Police Act and added a routine road check as part of their duty. I'm also not sure if the Inspector General of Police in Nigeria has re-ordered his 'boys' to go back to our roads and re-establish the illegal act of collect 'twenty - twenty naira' from our 'Danfo' drivers.

Abayomi Ojo is reachable on www.facebook.com/ ojo.abayomi

The Nigeriana: Stepping back into Jan 1966

By Babayola M. Toungo

T

he current promotions and retirements in the Nigerian army portend danger to the continued unity of this country; they remind one of the complete annihilation of the crop of officer corps of northern extraction in January of 1966. Now, as then, Igbo officers led the putsch - the difference being while the officers of 1966 used guns, the officers of 2012 used their pens.

With the attempt to rewrite the history of the civil war by the likes of Chinua Achebe and other intellectuals of Igbo descent, the direction of the intellectual warfare is beginning to be clear to those whose vision was befuddled by the pseudointellectualism of the writers. It all began with giving Odumegwu Ojukwu, the leader of the defeated Biafra a state burial as if he was not directly responsible for the deaths of nearly a million people during the civil war. The brutal killing of General Mamman Shuwa, an authentic civil war hero, right in front of nearly a dozen soldiers who were supposed to be guarding him, followed this.

If the skewed nature of the promotions and retirements is indicative of where the army is headed to, then we are in serious trouble. A recent news item in one of the dailies went further to say that the retirements are not

over because others still in service, particularly those from the north and the south who are seniors to one Major General Minimah will be retired to make way for him to take over as Chief of Army staff when the current Army Chief of Staff, General Ihejirika steps down.

The present chief is retained just so that he can truncate the careers of senior officers to make way for a Minimah. Though covertly, the officer corps of northern ancestry has been systematically decimated in the services, the subtle implication of Major General Isa and Air Vice Marshall Kure in the bombings inside the Jaji Cantonment was the first salvo fired overtly. The subsequent forceful retirement

of General Isa, who was in line to take over from Ihejirika, confirmed what was generally suspected to be in the offing.

The politicisation of the military has destroyed the very essence of the services professionalism. Promotions and retirements are now based on primordial sentiments like where you come from and which religion you professes not on merit, seniority or such other professional considerations.

Though this was shrewd in the past, particularly during the Obasanjo regime, it has become full blown now. The audacity of its authors leaves one breathless.

With what is happening in the military, one has the feeling that Goodluck Jonathan is bent

“

The politicisation of the military has destroyed the very essence of the services - professionalism. Promotions and retirements are now based on primordial sentiments like where you come from and which religion you professes not on merit, seniority or such other professional considerations. Though this was shrewd in the past, particularly during the Obasanjo regime, it has become full blown now

on making sure he is the last President of what we know as Nigeria. The parallels between what is unfolding now and the wholesale massacre of northern military officers in January of 1966 are uncanny and scary.

The events of the night of January 15th, 1966 is repeating itself right before our eyes but this time no blood is flowing, only careers destroyed, some in their prime. Are we by any stretch of the imagination sure the country is going to survive the current assault on its values by a government that cares little about the sensitivity of certain things? A government whose functionaries branded a whole section of the country as 'terrorists'?

The claim by the Controller General of the Immigration Service that she refused to advertise vacancies in the service in order to avoid recruiting 'terrorists' into the organisation sums up the mind set of those who forced the retirement of certain people in the Nigerian army simply to make way for Minimah to become Chief of Army Staff. Our military institution is taken back to the days of the West African Frontier Force (WAFF) by a government insensitive to the existing socio-political fault lines. The retirements and/ or promotions of officers purely based on the perception that a section of the country can and

could be made subservient to another bodes danger to the corporate existence of the country. My take on the current exercise of weeding out officers of northern and south western extraction is synonymous with the murders of Brig. S.A. Ademulegun, Major S.A. Adegoke, Lt. Col. J.Y. Pam, Brig.

Zakari Maimalari and Col. Kur Mohammed and the rest. Then as now, no single Igbo officer lost his life or commission. While Maimalari and co. lost their lives, Isa and his mates lost their commissions while the rest are on the firing line to lose theirs.

My fears are - will the country bear the consequences of this misadventure?

If any officer is due for retirement let them be retired but if they are not, the military authorities should allow them to remain in the service, unless they choose to voluntarily do so.

The wise thing to do for those who want Minimah to head the army is to make sure he remains in the army and bide his time. Retire his seniors to make way for him will be a very dangerous precedent that may be imitated by others when their 'time' comes. The way the military and the country are run today will surely make Godwin Orkar proud in his grave.

Babayola M.Toungo can be reached on babayolatoungo@yahoo.co.uk

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 15

Conundrum of the Jonathan administration P

By James Dakulo Sekibo

resident Goodluck Jonathan was supposed to be a president of necessity, meant to fulfil the yearnings of most Nigerians that had given their overwhelming support when he was running for president of this great country. We were promised fresh air; a break from the norm, a situation whereby there would be a complete transformation of not only the socio-economic landscape but the lives of Nigerians.

Three years or thereabout down this insincere administration, we are left with despair, frustration and regret over supporting President Goodluck Jonathan, as he slowly but surely leads the country to failed state situation; nothing seems to be working in Nigeria apart from the imperious corruption by those in government and their associates, bias and insensitivity from this visionless government. Every day that goes by it is one dirty scandal or another.

My pity goes to the people of Otuoke for producing the worst president this country has ever had, and Goodluck even has the effrontery to aspire to a second term in 2015; he should spare us the trouble of massively voting him out of office in a very dishonourable manner. This is a President that is busy sharing our subsidy money with his criminal

friends in the oil and gas industry, these are the same people that are at the heart of the fuel subsidy scandal, does it not surprise Nigerians that till this moment there has been no conviction or any punitive sanction against any/all of the companies involved in the fuel subsidy scam.

The president has failed on all fronts: security, roads, aviation, power, education and the fight against corruption. Can the president sincerely tell Nigerians what happens to the over 1 Trillion naira budgeted for securing our lives from this government's creation; Boko Haram? Your guess is as good as mine the money is corruptly shared and the so called terrorism is encouraged by the government in a subliminal manner, so that the over1 trillion naira will continually be budgeted for security and criminally shared every year, while we watch the ruin of the North's economy and we in turn foolishly accuse the same North of annihilating their properties and lives. The addition of the religious colouration is just to create diversion from the truth thus ensuring that they place Christians against Muslims in the North and vice versa. Jonathan is such a pretender and a very terrible axis of evil that is hell bent on further disuniting the citizens of this great country. As it portends today we are more divided than ever with a severe mutual suspicion amongst the different

Zones (North, West and South) of the country and also along religious divides.

My greatest regret watching this situation of high level lack of ingenuity by Jonathan is that it will have a boomerang effect on the South-South in the long run. Other of the country will never forget this glaring ruinous inflicted damage to their Zones, most especially the North and they will never forgive.

I grew up in the North and what is happening today (Boko Haram Menace) is not and has never been the forte of an average person from the North; Muslims or Christian likewise.

Let us look at the recent retirements in the Army, most of the retirees were of Northern origins with a few South Western officers and this has occasioned the elevation of officers from mostly the South-South and South East, a glaring example of how Goodluck wants to subjugate other Zones in the country by reducing their influence in all aspects of the nation. But I guarantee the President one thing that is obvious, very soon the chickens will come home to roost and we the people of the South-South will have to pay for the misguided decisions of one very reckless and lacklustre individual that God presented the opportunity to rule on a platter of gold and that person is blowing it away based on some baseless sentimental and religious inclinations.

I am more inclined to follow the path of Asari Dokubu when he recently asserted that President Goodluck Jonathan should forget about re-election in 2015 centred on his dismal performance and failure to deliver on the campaign promises he made in 2011; it is groundless to dwell on issues, as a result of the conspicuous fact that Jonathan's administration is bereft of any positive significant achievement. The transformation the administration professes is more of the current leadership of Nigeria transforming their fortunes into mega billions of Naira; tax payer's money meant for the sustainable development of the country.

Goodluck has institutionalized corruption in a manner that is amazing and never before witnessed in Nigeria. The Transformation Agenda of the current Federal Government was a sham from inception is still a sham and will forever be a sham as long as Goodluck superintends over the affairs of Nigeria.

The solution is for fellow Niger Deltans to shun Goodluck's bid for re-election in 2015, and it must start from this moment, as a people we deserve better than Jonathan; he should have been the least of persons to represent our Zone, we should have learnt from his miserable performance in Bayelsa state as its Governor. The people of South-South are more politically conscious and we will no longer be taken for fools; if Jonathan wants

Mali: The last gasp of Françafrique

By Gary K. Busch

P

erhaps the apogee of French control of its 'independent' African confreres was the creation and maintenance of a common currency in these territories, the CFA franc. There are actually two separate CFA francs in circulation. The first is that of the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) which comprises eight West African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo).

The second is that of the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) which comprises six Central African countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, CongoBrazzaville, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon), This division corresponds to the pre-colonial AOF (Afrique Occidentale Française) and the AEF (Afrique Équatoriale Française), with the exception that Guinea-Bissau was formerly Portuguese and Equatorial Guinea Spanish)..

In short, more than 85% of the foreign reserves of these African countries are deposited in the "operations accounts" controlled by the French Treasury. The two CFA banks are African in name, but have no monetary policies of their own. The countries themselves do not know, nor are they told, how much of the pool of foreign reserves held by the French Treasury belongs to them as a group or individually. The earnings of the investment of these funds in the French Treasury pool are supposed to be added to the pool but no accounting is given to either the banks or the countries of the details of any such changes. The limited

group of high officials in the French Treasury who have knowledge of the amounts in the "operations accounts", where these funds are invested; whether there is a profit on these investments; are prohibited from disclosing any of this information to the CFA banks or the central banks of the African states.

The African states are now querying how it might be possible to recover their tens of billions of dollars from the French Treasury.

These funds were invested on the French Bourse in the name of the Treasury, not in the name of the African states. This French Treasury is in a desperate shape.

The country is in deep financial troubles. The official debt to GDP ratio of the French government is around 86%, which is higher than in Spain and Britain, if not yet at Italian or Greek levels. That is the "official" debt. France also has liabilities of hundreds of billions of euros via the EU, not counted by the official statistics. Add those in, and you get to a debt/GDP level of more like 145%. Add in the present cost of future pension liabilities, and you'll be way over the 200% mark.

Add in the cost of bailing out France's own creaking banks, in the event of meltdown elsewhere in Europe, and you'll be getting to figures that the country cannot possibly pay. If the French cannot pay its own debts it certainly is not ready to release the already hypothecated African reserves back to the Africans.

Financial reality has never been France's long suit. In its precipitate attack on Libya it used up its annual military budget in the first seven weeks of the campaign. It dug into the African reserves it was holding to pay for

the unprecedented attack on Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast which killed thousands of innocent civilians in Abidjan and provoked the murder of others across the country. During the French and UN rampage across the Ivory Coast the citizens bemoaned the fact that the French used African money to buy the bullets that killed them.

Now the French are in the military conflict in Mali and are soon to be engaged in the Central African Republic.

The unilateral activities of the French in Africa in an effort to maintain its relevance and a free run for French business have been an unmitigated disaster. French policy has created the very problem the rest of the world was seeking to avoid. In its attack on Kaddafi in Libya (which the rest of NATO ended up paying for) it succeeded in creating a radical Islamist state in Libya, whose alQaida colleagues have taken Libyan equipment and training and spread their wings to the rest of West Africa; notably Mali. AlQaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is closely allied to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group

(LIFG whom France intervened on behalf of during NATO's 2011 proxy-invasion of Libya - providing weapons, training, Special Forces and even aircraft to support them in the overthrow of Libya's government) Many nations, especially Algeria, on the main conflict route, have been very concerned that the unrest and disorder in Libya has led to the development of a major safe haven and sanctuary there for al-Qaeda and other extremist jihadis; a safe haven to train and re-equip for jihadi activity in Egypt and, especially, Syria.

The problem is that France cannot sustain any military activity on a long-term basis. Its military budget has been stretched to breaking point by the costs of abandoning Afghanistan. It is relying on the UN to pay for the continuing intervention.

Hollande, who has antagonised the wealthy French and the business community at home, has little chance of raising money for the war effort in Africa. He is locked in battle with the Sarkozy-UMP Africa Cell in the President's office which operates without consulting

“

The unilateral activities of the French in Africa in an effort to maintain its relevance and a free run for French business have been an unmitigated disaster. French policy has created the very problem the rest of the world was seeking to avoid

to contest in 2015 then he should better go and garner his support from other Zones of the country of which I doubt he will even get 1% of their votes; no right thinking Northerner or Westerner will vote for Jonathan.

We, the people of South-South, have unanimously withdrawn our support for President Jonathan who we view as a complete failure that has immensely disgraced and humiliated the South-South. It is better we align ourselves with other Zones of Nigeria to vote Jonathan out thus ensuring that someone with character and intent takes over to save our country from this endemic decay and offer meaningful and purposeful leadership that will take us back to the path of real development. Right about now citizens of the South-South should look beyond the PDP for the kind of leader that Nigeria needs at this despairing moment. In 2011, I wasted my vote on Jonathan just like other persons from the SouthSouth, 2015 is around the corner and we must ensure that our votes are not wasted again on the likes of Jonathan; our modern day catastrophe.

My patriotic group will continue to use media attrition until President Goodluck realises that he no longer enjoys any form of support athwart the length and breadth of Nigeria.

Chief James Dakulo Sekibo can be reached on jamesekibo@gmail.com

him. The DGSE barely consult him and ignore him in African matters.

The French Masons, long a source of support for their Africans, are the very target of Hollande's attempt to raise taxes and increase fiscal responsibilities among the French multinational business community. The fundamental françafrique coalition has shattered.

The final irony in the planning is that the French expect that the nations of ECOWAS (the West African Economic Community) will send thousands of soldiers to take up the battle in lieu of the French who want to pull out quickly. They will pledge to send them but who will pay for them?

The African states don't have the money to pay for such an endeavour, partially because the French Treasury has 'disappeared' their reserves. The UN doesn't have the funds and asking the EU and NATO for funds is a no hope request.

The US has planes, drones and transport available and in use but has told all who ask that it is not willing to send troops or to pay for others. The US is worried about deep defence cuts on its own and possible sequestration. It isn't likely to use the remaining funds to assist a campaign in Mali (or the CAR).

So the likely outcome is a degeneration of the conflict that will entrench the AQIM in the region and strengthen the hands of the jihadists in addition to threatening Algeria. This seems to be the last gasp of françafrique in Africa. The French will find it ever harder to keep their traditional businesses in the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, CAR and Mauretania going. Unlike almost all the other countries involved there are thousands of French nationals in these countries right now - all of whom are targets and possible hostages. This is not a good time to be French in Africa.

PAGE 16

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Restriction of mini-buses: Commuters resort to long trekking H

undreds of the Federal Capital Territory(FCT) workers residing in the satellite towns and neighbouring states resorted to long trek yesterday as commercial mini-bus drivers withdrew their services in protest against the new FCT transport policy.

The Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) had restricted the buses to some parts of the city and introduced the use of high capacity buses to ply the city centre.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that mini-bus drivers plying the MararabaAbuja route set up barricades on the road, and carried placards to protest their restriction to Nyanya bus stop.

The action caused heavy traffic build up, which prompt the police in the area to deploy men and fired tear gas to disperse them and clear the roads for traffic.

A commuter, Mr Chinedu Obi, urged the FCT administration to make more buses available to ease movement of commuters from Masaka-Mararaba axis to the city centre.

Another stranded commuter, Mr James Abe, lamented that the policy restricting mini-buses or Araba to certain areas of the territory was affecting the masses negatively.

“They do come out with policies that worsen the plight of the masses every January. Last January, it was the removal of subsidy on petrol and this January, it is the restriction of mini-buses to punish us,’’ he said.

According to him, instead of the masses jubilating at the beginning of the year the reverse is the case, they should

have a re-think.

However, Mr Aminu Garba, the Nyanya Divisional Police Officer, told NAN that the roads had been cleared for free flow of traffic.

Garba said that no arrest was made in connection with the protest, but urged the drivers not to take the laws into their hands and barricade the road.

Also, Mr Nath Ughoh, the FRSC Unit Commander in Nyanya, said that his men had worked with the police and military to restore normalcy to the route.

On the Gwagwalada-LugbeAbuja expressway, commuters were stranded at the different bus stops as the drivers stayed off the road to protest their restriction.

Mrs Racheal Oji, a Civil Servant, said that she got to the bus stop at about 6.30 a. m., but spent up to two hours without getting any mini-bus or the high capacity bus to take to city centre.

Mr Ojo Akanni, another civil servant, lamented that the restriction of the mini-buses to parts of the metropolis came at the wrong time of the year.

“I have being standing here for the past two hours to get a bus to Wuse, but there is no sign of getting the mini buses or the big ones they claimed to have brought as substitute,’’ he said.

It will be recalled that the Secretary, FCT Transportation Secretariat, Engr Jonathan Ivoke Achara , said that mini buses had not been banned

completely from plying from satellite towns to the city centre.

He said that the restriction was an effort by the FCTA to implement the Abuja Master Plan on Transportation and also to study the traffic management in the FCT. Ivoke said, “the high capacity buses are to ply major areas in the FCT, while mini buses can ply anywhere in the area councils and in areas designated for them to ply.’’

The mini buses could ply Mombassa-Michael OkparaOlusegun Obasanjo-Moshood Abiola Area 1 route.

He said that the mini buses could also go from Area 1 to Gudu, Apo Mechanic Village, as well as from Jabi to Mbora, Kaura and Gudu Market.

Commuters alighting from the suburbs, trek to the bus terminal at Minister's Hill in Maitama, Abuja in ompliance with the new FCT transport policy restricting mini buses.

Photo: Miriam Humbe

Kubwa General Hospital gets radiology unit

By Josephine Ella Ejeh

T

he Health and Human Services Secretariat of the Federal Capital Territory Administration has commissioned a radiology unit in Kubwa General Hospital as part of its efforts to improve health care delivery in the FCT. While commissioning the unit yesterday, the Secretary, FCT Health and Human Services Secretariat, Dr Demola Onakomaiya explained that the unit is capable of a functional X-ray unit, supported with a top of the range ultra sound scanning machine that has activity for cardiac

monitoring.

This, he said would greatly complement the existing services in the hospital, thus bringing about qualitative health care services to the people of Kubwa.

He said: “Radio-diagnosis is a very important aspect of health care delivery and indeed total patient care is not achievable without this particular unit,” adding, the FCT administration had always wondered the magnitude of hardship the residents of Kubwa will be facing without this unit.

Dr. Onakomaiya commended the management of the hospital

for the development that has taken place in the hospital in a short while which includes upgrading and commissioning of the eye centre, maternity wing, dental unit and mortuary services among others.

He assured of the FCT a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ’ s commitment to take health care services in the territory beyond the present standard to that of international best practice.

This was as he directed the Medical Directors in all FCT hospitals to make their hospitals of global best practices.

Earlier in an address, the Medical Director of Kubwa

General Hospital, Dr. Ahmed Danfulani said the hospital had in the past been faced with a lot of challenges but in the past few months quite a number of them have been solved.

He disclosed that soon when the second Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) building in the hospital would be put to use, the restaurant, laundry and physiotherapy building would come up.

Danfulani, who thanked the secretary and the General Manager, FCT Health Management Board for the achievement, also commended staff of the hospital for their supports.

The mini buses could also ply Jabi to Mbora, Sun City to Apo Mechanic Village and from Gwarimpa to Life Camp first gate.

They could also ply from Bwari town to Dutse Alhaji and the expressway and from Kubwa second gate to Gado Nasko Road and to Kubwa first gate, from Mpape to Murtala Mohammed Expressway Junction. (NAN)

•••TUC makes case for commuters

T

he Trade Union Congress (TUC)has appealed to the Federal Capital Territory(FCT) Administration to make adequate provision for commuters before fully implementing its partial ban on movement of mini buses in parts of Abuja.

Mr Aliyu Abdulhakeem, the Chairperson of the FCT chapter of the congress, made the appeal in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

He said the FCT administration should have put adequate measures in place before carrying out the plan.

Abdulhakeem said the FCT Administration should not have taken such decision without considering the interest of the people as it could be interpreted as a ploy to “gradually tell the poor, the civil servants and the masses to get out of Abuja’’.

He advised government to properly analyse the implication of some of the decisions it was taking before implementing them.

Mr Jonathan Ivoke, the Secretary, FCT Transportation Secretariat, had said on Monday that the restriction on the movement of mini buses was part of the effort being made to implement the Abuja master plan on transportation.

He also said that the implementation of the Transport Master Plan was part of efforts to study traffic management in the FCT. Ivoke explained that the highcapacity buses were allowed to ply major areas in the FCT, while the mini buses can ply anywhere in the area councils, and other areas designated for them in Abuja.’’

He, however, said that mini buses were not allowed to ply Wuse Market to Eagle Square, Asokoro , AYA and Nyanya.

Other areas include the Area Three Junction to Tafawa Balewa, Herbert Macaulay Way, Berger Junction to Jabi, and from Gudu Market to Apo Quarters and Ahmadu Bello Way and from Federal Secretariat to Gwaripa.

Ivoke added the mini buses were not allowed to ply A.Y.A to Shehu Shagari Way through the Federal Secretariat to Transcorp. (NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

INSIDE FCT COURTS Police arraign NGO worker for alleged breach of trust, cheating

T

he Police on Tuesday arraigned Blessing Kyado, a worker of Daughters of Charity Clinic, Kubwa, FCT, before a Kubwa Senior Magistrates’ Court for alleged criminal breach of trust and cheating.

The prosecutor, Sandra Oparaougo, told the court that the case was reported on December 17, 2012 by Mary Okoro of the same clinic.

Oparaugo alleged that the accused allegedly used the clinic’s receipt to obtain various sums of money from patients, totaling N37,000.

She said the offences contravened sections 314 and 323 of the Penal Code.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Magistrate, Mr Jibrin Kutigi, granted the accused bail for N30,000, with two sureties.

He adjourned the case to Feb. 5 for continuation of hearing. (NAN)

Man bags six weeks imprisonment for mischief

A

Karu Upper Area Court in Abuja has sentenced one Abdullahi Suleiman of Area E, Nyanya, Abuja, to six weeks imprisonment for mischief.

The Presiding Judge, Alhaji Umar Kagarko, however, gave him an option of N6,000 fine.

In addition, the judge also ordered the convict to pay N74,600 as compensation to the complainant.

The prosecutor, Mr Tangshak Jerry, had told the court that Ahmaje Ahmedu of Area E, Nyanya, Abuja, reported the case to the Nyanya Police Station on January 14, 2013.

Jerry further said that Suleiman smoked a cigarette inside a faulty vehicle parked at the complainant’s workshop at Mopol Junction, Nyanya, on January 13.

“Suleiman dropped the cigarette inside the car without stubbing it and in the process, a `Ghana must go’ bag containing customers’ clothes valued at N74,600 caught burnt,’’ he said.

Suleiman admitted committing the offence and pleaded for leniency. (NAN)

PAGE 17

Snake hunter in prison for setting ablaze yam farm A

n Abuja Magistrates Court has ordered Abraham Kegnon, of Mpape, Abuja, to pay N100,000 as compensation to a farmer for burning his yams.

Magistrate Musa Jobbo

gave the order when Kegnon pleaded guilty to the charge brought against him.

Jobbo said that Kegnon should be held in prison until he pays the amount.

Police Prosecutor, Musa Abdulahi had told the court

that Mike Danladi, also of Mpape Village, Abuja, reported the matter at the Mpape Police Station on January 11, 2013.

Abdulahi said the convict entered the complainant’s farmland without his consent.

“In the guise of hunting for snakes, he set the whole farmland ablaze, burning a hip of yams valued at N100,000’’.

He said that during investigation, the accused confessed to have committed the crime. (NAN)

Union members struggling with a taxi driver for allowing a passenger alight at the Area 1 under the bridge, recently in Abuja. Photo: NAN

23-year-old held for assault, theft

By Beauty Amaike

A

23-year-old man,Samuel Eso of Behind Chrushed Rock Mpape Abuja has appeared before an Abuja Magistrates Court for criminal force, Assault, theft.

The Police Prosecutor, Isah Abubakar told the court that on January, 11, 2013 one Odey Kennet of the same address came to the Mpape police station and reported

that on the above mentioned date, he was with his brother Onah Ogah at Adegunle road Mpape Abuja when the accused met him and ask him to buy him a drink and the complainant said he was not having money and he left for area one to see his girlfriend.

Abubakar further told the court that the accused confronted the complainant at area 1 junction Mpape Abuja and slapped him and forcefully

dispossessed him of his Nokia phone and two curved Blackberry phones valued N50, 000 and N20, 000 with cash of N5, 000.

He said that the offence is contrary to Sections 265 and 288 of the penal code.

However the accused pleaded guilty to the charges.

The accused further explain that the information is true.

He said “we were dinking and the complainant said that

he was going to his girlfriend’s place to buy chicken. So I followed him to the place, when I got there I ask him to give me his phone to make call and I later ask him for some money. I have given him back his two phones and N5, 500 I collected from him”.

Magistrate Musa I. Jobbo granted the accused bail with the sum of 100,000 and one sure in like sum.

He adjourned the case to January, 29, 2013 for hearing.

Mechanic bags one month imprisonment for stealing car stereo

A

20-year old-mechanic, Ibrahim Salihu, has been sentenced to one month imprisonment by an Abuja Senior Magistrates Court for stealing a car stereo CD player.

Senior Magistrate Folashade Oyekan passed the sentence after the convict pleaded guilty to the offence.

Oyekan said the sentence would to serve as a lesson to him and a deterrent to others

“who have taken to stealing as a means of livelihood’’.

The magistrate also ordered that the CD player be returned to the complainant.

Earlier, Police Prosecutor, Anigbo Paul had told the court that on January 14, one Egah Ifeanyi of Lugbe, Abuja, reported the convict at the Lugbe Police Station.

Paul said that on January 14 Ifeanyi came home and discovered that his car stereo

CD player had been removed from his car by the convict.

He said that the stereo was valued at about N13,000 and that during investigation, the convict confessed to opening the car with another key.

The prosecutor said that during investigation, the stereo was recovered from the convict.

Paul said the offence contravened the provisions of Section 288 of the Penal Code.

Salihu pleaded guilty to the offence and begged the court to be lenient with him.

He said he was not in the habit of stealing and that it was his first time, and promised that he would never repeat the act if he was forgiven.

Following his plea, Paul urged the court to try him summarily under Section 157 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC). (NAN)

PAGE 18

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Nasarawa residents bemoan harsh effect of FCTA new transport policy Stories by Etuka Sunday

P

Advert

eople living in New Nyanya, Mararaba, Ado and Masaka in Nasarawa state especially those working in Abuja, yesterday lamented what they described as the harsh transport policy of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to worsen their already bad condition of live.

The residents, who were seen sweating under the sun while awaiting to board a bus to their places of work said the decision in as much as it appeared to be good was harsh and devilish since their welfare was not considered in the policy.

They accused the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) of being insensitive to the plight of the poor workers driven from the capital city to take solace in Nasarawa state and struggled to work every day from there because of congested nature of the roads.

According to them, the larger population of those working in the FCT resides in Nasarawa state and ought to have been considered in

the new transport policy of FCTA. They said that the new transport policy may also reduce the fast growing economy of FCT since workers from that route no longer resumed early to work.

Some of them, who spoke to our reporter yesterday appealed to FCT minister to reverse the decision or reduce the painful experience of the residents by sending some buses down to Nasarawa state to convey workers to Nyanya before proceeding to the town.

One of them, Abdulazee Isa works of Wuse II: ”I have been standing here for closed to three hours now and I’m tired. Look at the time am going to work? The suffering is too much at least there should be some buses station at Mararaba to move people to the town.”

Abdulahi kalin, who was going to Wuse Market to shop for food stuffs said: “Government should help us please, we are really suffering here.”

On his part, Mr. Malone Wakil is a Civil Servant said: “This situation is bad and the Government must do

something fast about it because people are suffering. When I heard about it on Radio I thought it was going to be an easy exercise but I was wrong after all, look at how people are sweating under the sun.

The policy is good but some measures ought to have been taken before”.

Meanwhile Mr. Victor Abe, a staff of FAB-REM Ltd said: “On Saturday a meeting was called in the office to inform us of the new transport policy of the FCTA that as from Monday all the smaller buses with Abuja colours would be stopped from coming to the main town that government has provided buses that would be taking people to Abuja”.

“I think the essence to maintain law and order and to also help reduce hold ups and insecurity in the FCT. I can tell you confidently that there are 250 new buses on ground that would be used to implement the new policy. We wanted the drivers of the small buses to work with us but they refused, they want to be on their own so they deserved the restriction,” he said.

FCTA to host Rice Africa’s conference

R

ice Africa has concluded plans with the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) to host its yearly conference in Abuja as part of its contribution towards rice production and food sufficiency in Nigeria.

The Managing Director, Rice Africa, Dr. Edwin E. Idu who led other officials of Rice Africa in a courtesy visit to the Minister of State for FCT, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide said Rice Africa is a Pan-African event that brings experts from all over Africa to build synergy to support rice

industries in Africa.

He said it is a yearly event that focuses on value chain development, adding that since 2011 the concept of value chain development has been more pronounced in Africa.

He also expressed satisfaction that the Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government is built on value chain development.

According to him, the conference is to build capacity of stakeholders like farmers, promoters and marketers.

In her response, the Minister of State for FCT administration would support Rice Africa in every way possible, stating that Agriculture is one of the major pillars of the Transformation Agenda of the Federal Government and the highest employer of labour in the country.

She dismissed the idea of importing rice into the country, saying it amounts to waste of money since Nigeria has good climate and soil to produce enough rice and even export to other countries of the world.

Gbagyi/Fulani clash: Minister assures of full implementation of report

F

CT minister, Senator Bala Mohammed on Tuesday received the final report of the implementation committee set up to look into the compensation of the victims of the Gbagy/Fulani clash, promising full compensation to ensure permanent peace in the area.

The Minister while

receiving the report in his office expressed satisfaction with the quality of the report and thanked the Implementation Committee for a job well done.

He assured that the recommendations of the committee in aspect of payment of compensations, reconstructions and resettlement as contained in the report would be taken to President Goodluck

Jonathan for full implementation to ensure a permanent solution and peace in the community.

He however said that the perpetrators of the clash especially those who killed in the course of the clash should be apprehended and brought to book to discourage those who may have the thought of further committing such act in the FCT.

BUSINESS

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Email: aminuimam@yahoo.co.uk

PAGE 19

INSIDE

- Pg 20

Our interest in steel sector- SON

Mob: 08033644990

FG, states, LGs share N567.7bn in December

By Chris Alu

T

he Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) has approved the sharing of N567.708 billion for

federal, states and local governments for the month of December as against N572.895 in the month ofNovember 2013.

According to a communiqué released at the end of the

Prices of staple foodstuffs rise in Kano —NAN survey

T

he prices of some staple foodstuffs such as beans, soya beans, maize, local rice, millet and wheat have increased in Kano in the past one week.

A market survey by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) at the Dawanau International Grains Market, revealed price hikes of between 25 per cent and 35 per cent in the past one week.

A bag of red beans now sells for about N16,000 as against N14,000 while a bag of white

beans goes for N17,000 from its previous price of N11,000. The survey further showed that a bag of soya beans had risen to N9,000 from between N7,000 and N8,000 while a bag of millet shot up from N7,000 to N8,000.

Similarly, a bag of local rice which used to sell for N14,500 has climbed to between N16,000 and N17,000. Also a bag of wheat which was sold at N13,000 now goes for N18,000 in the period under review. (NAN)

Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting on Tuesday night, the Federal Government got N217.425 billion while states and local governments got N110.281billion and N85.022 billion respectively.

N49.705 went to the oil and mineral resources producing states as 13 percent derivation.

For the Value-Added Tax, the Gross revenue available for

sharing was N57.535 billion as against N62.723 billion distributed in the preceding month resulting in a decrease of N5.188 billion.

For VAT distribution, the Federal Government got N8.285 billion, states got N27.617 billion while Local governments got N19.332 billion.

The gross revenue for the month was N581.059 billion was higher than the N569.459 by

N11.600 billion. This resulted from the higher export. Sales volume in November despite the effects of bunkering and maintenance works on crude oil production and lifting.

While N7.617 billion refunded by the NNPC was shared, the sum of N35.549 billion was proposed for distribution under the Subsidy Reinvestment Programme (SURE-P).

Brent crude oil hovers near $111

B

rent crude hovered near $111 a barrel on Monday as fears of disruption of supply from the Middle East resurfaced.

Also prices are on the uptick amid growing optimism for a revival in demand growth as the world’s biggest economies show signs of steady recovery.

Other factors pointed out are plunges in oil exports from Iraq

due to bad weather, escalating attacks in Syria and an exercise

by Iran’s navy in the strategic Strait of Hormuz have all revived supply fears.

Brent crude gained 34 cents to $110.98 a barrel in early trade, after settling down 1.1 percent lower, the most since Dec. 17 and below its 100-day moving average of $111.05.

(Bloomberg)

CBN to increase N300bn power, airline fund

T

he Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that it will increase the N300 billion Power and Airline Fund (PAIF) to the power and aviation sectors, a statement said.

The statement, issued in Lagos on Tuesday, said that the development was with a view to increasing available funds for the execution of power projects in the country.

The bank said that it would further create amenable structures suitable to the peculiarities of the power sector.

It also said that the decision was one of the major planks of its banking sector economic development programme for this year.

“It will include the size, tenors, structures, projects, collaterals and other terms in a holistic approach, to further align the financial system to the critical funding requirements of the power sector.

“The power sector transformation is a major thrust of the Federal Government’s Transformation Agenda with a major target of generating 40,000MW by 2020.

“However, it has been estimated that the power generation segment will require investments of at least 3.5 billion annually over the next 10 years

to meet the target,” the statement said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that the CBN launched the Power Sector Fund in August 2010, with the objective of addressing the critical finance needs and peculiarities of the sector as well as stimulating lending to it.

The fund is managed by the Bank of Industry (BOI) under the technical assistance of the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).

The power fund prioritises key power projects and provides funds at seven per cent interest rate payable on a quarterly basis.

The fund covers refinancing of existing loans and leases as well as working capital for the sector. (NAN)

L-R: Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development FCT Secretariat, Mrs. Olvadi Bema Madayi, Minister of State for Federal Capital Territory, Oloye Olajumoke Akinjide, and Managing Director of Rice Africa, a Pan-African Organisation, Dr. Edwin Idu, in a meeting with the minister on Tuesday in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

Fashola denies N2.5bn loan from Ex-Im Bank From Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

G

overnor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos state has denied the state acquisition of $ 15.7 million (N2.51 bn) loan from ExportImport Bank ofthe United States (Ex-Im Bank), to purchase 32 fire-fighting vehicles for the state.

This came barely five days after the bank said that it had authorized a $15.7 million direct loan to the Lagos state government to underwrite the purchase of 32 American firefighting vehicles manufactured

by W.S. Darley & Co. (Darley) of Itasca, Illinois in the US. Fashola, who spoke in an interview while reacting to a

recent publication after inspecting the Ikorodu road expansion project, Ikorodu, said, “Lagos state government didn’t apply for any loan. But what the state EXCO approved was the purchase of 32 fire engines and other fire fighting accessories from W.S. Darley & Co., to aid the fire service officers in the state to respond effectively to fire disasters in Lagos.”

It was gathered that the fire fighting equipments would arrive the state before the end of the first quarter of 2013.

According to him, “No state government in Nigeria can borrow loan without the approval of the Federal

Management Tip of the Day

A

Strengthen your network with shared activities

re you looking to build a potent network? Don’t rely on casual interactions or half-hearted introductions.

High-stakes activities that ally you with disparate individuals around a common point of interest are the best way to forge tight connections.

Whether you join people in sports teams, community service

ventures, or interdepartmental initiatives, engaging with them in this new way creates stronger ties.

This is because these conditions allow for unscripted behaviors and natural responses to unexpected events — things that rarely show up during business lunches or office meetings, where impressions are managed and presentations are

carefully rehearsed.

People will see you as you truly are, and vice versa. Common activities also offer opportunities for celebration and commiseration, which generate loyalty and form close working relationships.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Government and the state EXCO. And that was why we always go to the National Assembly always when we want to raise any loan.””Any one who is familiar with the Ex-IM Bank, it is a strategy adopted by the American Government to promote the export of local company to other countries.”

“So the American Company that would manufacture the fire fighting equipments need a starting operating capital to assembly the equipment for the country that needed such equipments. That is what the U.S government gives to its company for overseas trade.””The way the loan works is from the Ex-IM Bank to the American company that would produce the equipments, guaranteed by a local bank in the country where the product would be shipped to,” he explained.

Fashola stated that fire engines “are not things that you can walk into a company and purchase easily.”The governor noted that the loans acquired by the state government previously were used for capital project and weren’t expended on recurrent expenditure. The governor lamented that the publication failed to state the reason for acquiring the fund.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 20

COMPANY NEWS CFAO

N

igerian Ball-point Pen Industries Plc (NIPEN), a manufacturing subsidiary of the CFAO Group, has announced 124 per cent growth in performance in 2011 over the same period of the preceding year.

Chairman, Board of Directors and Managing Director of the Company, Steve Faderin made this disclosure while reviewing the company’s operational performance for the year ended December 31, 2011 at the company’s 37th yearly general meeting in Lagos.

Faderin, who is also the Group Managing Director of CFAO in Nigeria, said the company has continued to make progress in spite of the country’s economic and operational challenges, which the company faced during the year.

FTN Cocoa Processors

F

ollowing the approval by its shareholders of FTN Cocoa Processors Plc may form a strategic alliance with some foreign cocoa processing firms in order to aid its business growth as well as profitability.

Specifically, the company has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding towards a strategic partnership with Transmar Group of America, one of the global players in the cocoa products industry as an off-taker in the international market.

Speaking at the company’s yearly general meeting in Lagos, recently, the Chairman of the company, Chief Olusola Oguntimehin noted that the partnership would aid the company’s realisation of its objectives and help it meet conditions set by the African Export-Import Bank limited (AfrexImbank) to assess its credit facility.

Nigerian Petroleum Development Coy

T

he 100 million standard cubic feet per day Oredo Integrated Gas Handling Facility (IGHF) project has been scheduled for completion by the third quarter of 2013, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), has said.

Besides, NPDC has commenced delivery of 65 million standard cubic feet per day (65 MMSCFD) of gas into the domestic market from Oredo field in OML 111.

The Oredo gas project is a 100MMSCFD capacity gas plant with fractionation and LPG dispensing units. When the plant is completed by the third quarter of 2013, it will produce 100MMSCFD Lean gas (West African Gas Pipeline specification) and 330 tonnes per day of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

Nigeria’s economic growth to hit 7% in 2013 Stories Ayodele Samuel, Lagos

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igeria’s economic growth is likely to rebound in 2013 to an average of 7 per cent, that’s according to the Financial Derivatives Company (FDC) monthly economic report.

The nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded to 6.48 per cent in the third quarter of

2012 over the previous quarter.

According to the report released on Tuesday, the anticipated growth is expected to be driven by improved power supply, new investments in the petroleum sector and increased agricultural productivity amongst other factors.

The report expects that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would consider moving to a

more accommodative monetary stance, but it however warned that if the budget impasse between the President and the National Assembly over the increased benchmark of $79 per barrel is not resolved, the CBN may have no alternative but to retain its current Monthly Policy Rate (MPR) at 12 per cent between the first quarter and first half

of the year.

The CBN will hold its first monetary policy meeting for the year on Monday, January 21st to Tuesday 22nd.

The FDC however called for direct government intervention in infrastructure, security, environment, public schools and hospitals as well as other areas in which there are evident cases of market failure.

Chamber raises concern over rice mill importation by FG

T

he Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has raised concerns over Federal Government plans to import 100 rice mills from China for distribution to states.

LCCI President Goodie Ibru, in a statement said such acquisition should be done by the private sector with the support of government.

He said the proposed acquisition of rice mills raised a number of specific concerns which includes: How will the rice mills be distributed? How will they be managed? How will they operate alongside the existing rice processing mills owned by small scale operators without creating the challenge of unfair

competition?

“The current policy thrust in economic management, which has been severally canvassed by the members of the economic team, is that government would concentrate on the provision of enabling environment and institutions to support the growth of private enterprises.

“This fundamental principle is also clearly elaborated in the Vision 20 2020 document as an economic management philosophy that would guide the choice and direction of economic policy. The decision to import rice mills is a negation of this principle. We believe such acquisition should be done by the private sector with the

support of government.

“The story of the NNPC, the refineries, NITEL, steel complexes, fertilizer plants, petrochemical plants, Nigeria Airways, the Railways, Paper Mills etc. illustrate the tragedy of state owned enterprises in Nigeria. These enterprises were managed (and some are still managed) by politicians and bureaucrats and the cost to the economy was horrendous.

Similar scenarios played out in many states. This is not a model of government intervention that the economy deserves and this has been proven by empirical evidence. It has not worked in most economies as it is typically marred by mismanagement

and corruption.”

He urged government to address the current needs of funding through credit support at concessionary interest rates to enable operators acquire more paddy rice, de-stoning machines, parboiling machines etc for rice millers in the country.

He listed access roads to rice producing and processing locations to facilitate evacuation and improve market access, Irrigation to ensure all year round rice farming and improved seedlings to improve productivity as others challenges faced by the operator in the country.

Our interest in steel sector- SON T

he Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) says it has shown particular interest in the steel sub sector to ensure that all the steel products produced in the country meets the minimum requirements.

SON Director-General, Dr. Joseph Odumodu, therefore charged all new and existing steel companies to produce their products to meet the minimum requirements using optical emission spectrometer.

Odumodu noted that every steel company in the country would need to purchase the right universal textile testing machines and the optical emission spectrometer for chemical analysis to ensure that every steel produced in the country are of good standard.

“All the steel companies in the country today have complied with these order. The next step is the implementation and monitoring, to ensure that all the products that are coming out are properly tested and this will be on a monthly basis to ensure that any product that comes out of the company complies with the standard.”

“Most of the steel companies in the country have either acquired the Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme or are almost at the verge of acquiring the certificate. I am proud to say that locally made steel products, especially the reinforcement bars produced by Nigerian companies, are of the right quality and can compete with

complying while the imported ones are not also doing badly because we have not had cases of the substandard ones in the course of our monitoring exercises, when we go from warehouse to warehouse to ensure that those ones we missed at the ports also meet the minimum requirements.”

Kuye resumes as M.D./CEO OF NEPZA

M

SON Director-General, Dr Joseph Ikemefuna Odumodu imported product. In terms of the chemical composition, the sizes of the materials, which ranges from 8 millimetres, 10 millimitres, 12 millimetres and the likes.”

He said such should be upgraded to the weldable steel grade, using the tempo process to produce weldable steel bars that have very high strength with carbon equivalent values.

“We believe that we are taking a right step in the right direction in ensuring that these products that are imported are monitored from the ports but the only problem that we are having presently has to do with the directives given to us to leave the ports”, he stated.

“The locally produced steel products are properly monitored and they are

r.

Oluwagbemiga Olatunde Kuye, has resumed as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigeria Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA) following his appointment by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

Mr. Kuye was the Executive Director of Operations and Technology at ECO Bank Nigeria Plc between 2009-2012. Mr. Kuye who has spent bulk of his career in CitiGroup where he rose to become the Vice President responsible for Central Africa Operations and Technology and Deputy Chief Executive Officer for CitiGroup Cameroon has over 21 years of local and International Banking experience with over 10 years at Senior Management level.

He was an active member of the special committee set up by the Honourable Minister of Trade and Investment for the Reform of Free/Export Processing Zones in Nigeria.

PAGE 21

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Arepo pipeline: Yakubu allays fear of fuel scarcity

By Muhammad Nasir

C

ontrary to speculations that the recent fire incident on the System 2B pipeline at Arepo would cause another bout of fuel scarcity in Lagos and its environs, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr.

Andrew Yakubu has said there is no need for such fears as the ruptured points on the pipeline have been fixed.

Yakubu made this clarification during a visit to the

…says damaged pipeline has been fixed scene of the pipeline explosion at Arepo in Obafemi Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State for on-the-spot assessment of the situation.

Yakubu, who was earlier briefed by PPMC engineers on site explained that the four points that were ruptured by the product thieves have been clamped and that the corporation was also working out a way to make the pipeline less accessible to oil thieves and vandals.

“There is no reason to entertain fear about fuel scarcity because we have enough products in Mosimi to last for some days, but beyond that our men have already clamped the four points that were ruptured and there is no fear of disruption of distribution and supply as such. This is a stop gap measure. We just made some observations now on how to make the pipeline less accessible, if we

Facebook takes on Google with new search tool

Etisalat subscriber F base hits 15 million

T

he Chief Executive Officer of Etisalat Nig. Ltd., Mr. Steven Evan yesterday said that the company had reached a subscriber base of 15 million by the start of January.

Evan disclosed this in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

He said that the milestone represented a market share of over 15 per cent in just over four years of operation.

The CEO said that the achievement had made the network one of the most successful late entrants globally.

“At the beginning of 2012, we were moving towards 11 million subscribers. Now, 12 months later we have added four million

active subscribers to our base; this is a phenomenal achievement, ’’ he said.

The Etisalat boss said that with the scaling up of its subscribers, the company had shown an innate ability to turn challenges into opportunities.

“With this mindset and our focus on quality, innovation and the customer, we have been able to listen, attract, reward, retain and expand our customer base over the last 12 months. Our success now and in the future will continue to rely on executing on this strategy, ’’ Evan said.

Evan assured that the company would improve its quality of service by upgrading and expanding its network.

(NAN)

are able to achieve that within the day we will start pumping,” he stated.

Reacting to the allegation of negligence made by the governor of Ogun state, the GMD explained that the Corporation’s mandate is to operate and maintain the pipeline and its right of way and that he has written to the governor in the corporation had solicited for the state government’s collaboration to

check the menace.

“We are glad that His Excellency has opened up that he would collaborate with us,” he said.

He called on all state governments to emulate the Abia state government that have mobilized security to protect the pipelines in the state, a situation which he said has turned the PortHarcourt – Aba pipeline which used to be the worst in terms of vandalism and products theft into the most secured products pipeline in the country.

acebook has dramatically overhauled its search service to allow people to search for information and pictures posted by their friends as well as public posts from everyone else on Facebook.

The new ‘Graph Search’ service allows users to search photos, people, and connections, and find places their friends have recommended.

However, experts have warned the social network to ‘tread carefully’ with user privacy - even though Facebook claims its new service is ‘privacy

aware’ Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg said it is ‘not web search’ - but the firm has partnered with Microsoft’s Bing search engine in a snub to Google, which has its own social network, Google+.

Called Graph Search, the new Facebook service uses ‘intelligent’ interpretation to allow you to find friends by interest.

While the new search engine does not search the web, it intensifies Facebook’s battle with Google+, the search giant’s

social network.

It will also allow the firm to improve its personalised advertisments by finding out more about what users want to do - what kind of films they want to see, for instance.

The firm was quick to address privacy concerns over the new service, saying: ‘We’ve built Graph Search from the start with privacy in mind, and it respects the privacy and audience of each piece of content on Facebook.

(Source: http:// www.dailymail.co.uk/)

Oxfam Nigeria earmarks N1bn to tackle poverty

By Abdulwahab Isa

E

fforts to alleviate pangs of poverty in Nigeria have attracted further intervention from a NonGovernmental Organsation (NGO) - Oxfam in Nigeria which is committing over 5million Euros (about N1billion) towards eradicating poverty.

The Oxfam in Nigeria is made up of Oxfam (GB) of Great Britain and Oxfam Novib (Netherlands). The bodies came together in December 13 2012 as Oxfam in Nigeria with a cardinal objective to fight poverty and empower Nigerians.

Speaking with media representatives in Abuja, Dr Chichi Okoye, the Country Director of Oxfam in Nigeria said the organisation has a combined annual budget of over 5 million Euros earmarked for aggressive and robust fight against poverty in Nigeria.

Speaking on the mode of its operation, she said Oxfam works directly with communities and seeks to influence the powerful to ensure that the poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and have a say in decisions that

affect them.

To achieve this, she Oxfam will develop programs and solutions that will empower people to work their way out of poverty, in addition to providing lasting changes in the lives of the vulnerable poor through advocacy and campaign. She said the NGO has active presence in 98 countries.

Specifically, she explained that areas of focus is depended on understanding Nigerian development context and what is needed to make development happen as according to her , ”our capacity, interest, resources, current partners, link local to global priorities of other NGOs and fund raising opportunities”.

Oxfam works directly with communities and seeks to influence the powerful segment to ensure the poor people can improve their lives and livelihoods and also; have a say in decisions that affect them.

According to her, Oxfam will develop programs and solutions that will empower people to work their way out of poverty, in addition to providing lasting changes in the lives of the vulnerable poor through advocacy and campaign.

L-R: Bauchi state Commissioner for Finance, Mammud Maijaira'a, Nassarawa state Commissioner for Finance, Muhammad Mainoma, and Borno state Commissioner for Finance, Yinus Mairami, during Federal Account Allocation (FAAC) meeting, on Tuesday in Abuja.

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

FG targets 20 % Broadband penetration in 2013

By Chris Alu orried by the low b r o a d b a n d penetration in the country, which is put at 6 per cent, the Minister of Communications Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson said government had taken some measures that would deepen penetration by additional 14 per cent by 2017.

Omobola who spoke in Lagos at the weekend at a broadband forum organised

by BusinessDay Conferences in conjunction with the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said government had

W

already set up a committee on broadband, with a mandate to achieve 20 per cent broadband penetration by 2017.

Listing some of the hurdles to broadband penetration, the Minister blamed low penetration on exorbitant demand from several government agencies over right of way in laying fibre cables.

“The situation where over seven Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) of government are demanding between N500 million to N1 billion from a single operator to grant permit for right of way to lay fibre optic cables, speaks

volume of the imminent danger that such action could generate.

What it means is that government is simply shooting itself on the foot, because such demands have over the years, stifle the growth of broadband in the country,” the Minister said.

She called for concerted efforts on the side of government to put more of government services online, in order to create demand for broadband across the country. She explained that government would partner more with the private sector to further boost broadband penetration in the country.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 24

PAGE 25

‘Everywhere I go it’s the same: No job’ Like eternal motion without movement, government’s repeated assurance that millions of jobs would be created has remained a mirage, as testified by the army of jobless graduates pounding the streets in vain. Zainab Yahaya Kandi chronicles their heart-rending tales….

F

our years after graduating from the university I’m still jobless and roaming the streets in search of one. I have applied for nearly 40 jobs and done not less than four interviews which were all unsuccessful.

It is so

“

unfortunate that our leaders do not care but are rather busy trying to be elected and reelected,” bemoaned Ibrahim Adamu, a Banking and Finance graduate.

This cry is not Adamu’s alone; it is the cry of hundreds of thousands of graduates on

Scores of unemployed Nigerian youths in search of jobs.

the streets of Nigeria who have had to live with the dreadful experiences of unemployment, year after year.

Over the years, graduate unemployment has become a major problem in Nigeria with successive governments doing little or

nothing tangible to alleviate the problem.

The rate of unemployment in Nigeria is quite alarming.

According to a recent research, countless thousands of graduates out there are victims of unemployment. The rate of unemployment in

Nigeria, as reported by the National Bureau of Statistics, increased to 23.90 percent in 2011 from 21.10 percent in 2010. According to the report, from 2006 until 2011, Nigeria Unemployment Rate averaged 14.6 Percent reaching an all-time high of

Photo: Justin Imo-Owo

23.9 percent in December of 2011 and a record low of 5.3 Percent in December of 2006.

The number of unemployed Nigerians had been recently put at 20.3 million.

Narrating her experience as an unemployed graduate, Michelle Oku, a graduate of the

University of Ibadan, said: ‘’I graduated five years ago with a B.Sc in mathematics, yet there’s nothing to show for it; all my efforts to secure a job have been in vain.’’

She added that becoming a graduate is not an easy task, yet frustration waits at the end of the rigour. “I remembered all that I went through in school with much pain; the financial difficulties, psychological trauma and a whole lot of suffering. Yet I have no job up till now. Is this fair?” she lamented.

Abdul Keji, a biochemistturned photographer, spoke with PEOPLES DAILY on the situation that led him, a biochemical graduate, to photography. He said he became a photographer in order to earn a living even though he has no photography skills.

Narrating his ordeal Keji said: ‘’I have been graduated for the past three years and have since been searching for a job in all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria without success. My parents went through a lot to see me through school.

They endured so many challenges, financial, emotional and psychological hoping that when I graduate and secure a job they will have some relief from the financial burden of my siblings’ education. Now I have graduated and after three years securing a job has turned out to be the most difficult thing I have ever seen or endured.’’

Today, the employment situation in Nigeria is so bad that you see qualified candidates with HND, degree and even master’s degrees beg to do menial jobs like drivers and security guards.

Most times they apply for such jobs and don’t get employed.

A lecturer, Mr. Sani Mohammed, stated that out of over 200,000 graduates churned out yearly from Nigerian universities less than 1,000 get employed.

There are just too many

Minister of Labour, Chukwuemeka Wogu people trying to get a job and survive in this country, he added, with little or nothing being done by officialdom to stimulate job-creation opportunities.

Commenting on the effect of unemployment in the country, a business analyst, Dr. Abel Umeh, averred that “Lack of employment has increased the rate of crime and corruption in the country as well as affecting the security of the country too”. He added that “due to prolonged unemployment many youths indulge in all sorts of crimes and vices. The situation has led a lot of graduates into engaging in dangerous and

negative jobs, like robbery, theft, assassination, etc, just to survive”.

Truly so. Unemployment in Nigeria is one of the most precarious problems the country is facing and it needs to be addressed urgently. This is even as a number of unscrupulous persons have capitalized on the situation to feed fat on the sweat of desperate applicants.

According to Economy Watch (2010), economic reforms, changes in the industrial policy and better utilization of available resources are expected to reduce the problem of unemployment and poverty

NLC President, Abdulwaheed Omar

that results from it.

For example, it was reported last week that a housewife in the FCT was arraigned before an Abuja court for alleged involvement in an employment scam. She and her accomplice reportedly collected a huge amount of money from a man under the pretence of getting work for him in the Nigeria Custom Service.

This case, sadly, is the rule rather than the exception across Nigeria. Like vultures preying on helpless chickens, job scammers have been ripping of innocent applicants with abandon.

From Lagos through Lokoja to Lafia, the story is the same: multitudes of unsuspecting job seekers being fleeced d ai ly .

According to Economy Watch (2010), economic reforms, changes in the industrial policy and better utilization of available resources are expected to reduce the problem of unemployment and poverty that ravage nations like Nigeria. But the million naira poser is: will the authorities concerned do the right thing? Will they take practical steps that would take the rampaging unemployment monster?

PAGE 28

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

EMERGENCY UPDATE

Korean Ambassador in Nigeria, H.E. Jong-hyun Choi (M) with NEMA D-G, Muhammad Sani-Sidi (2nd left) and other official of Korean Embassy in a group photograph during a donation of 20 rice milling machines to 2012 flood victim.

Oil Pipeline Explosion: YADI tasks government on youth employment

By Mohammed Kandi

F

ollowing the devastating explosion of pipelines last Saturday, killing about 50 persons at Arepo village in Ogun state, as a result of vandal activities, a NonGovernmental Organisation (NGO), Youth Against Disaster Initiative (YADI), has called on the government to create employment for the country’s teeming youth population.

YADI made the call in a statement issued to journalists yesterday in Abuja, noting that “effective measures must be promptly embarked upon towards the creation of massive employment opportunities and poverty eradication by all levels of government”.

National Coordinator of the group, Abubakar Jimoh, said it was imperative for government at all levels

including stakeholders to ensure proper environment safety by improving security against the illegal activities.

“We commend the rapid intervention of the search and rescue team of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigerian Police Force, Fire Service and Red Cross Society of Nigeria, who have helped to keep the

environment safe against further disasters,” he said.

Jimoh therefore observed that there should be “installation of the modern Pipeline Telecontrol System for adequate control and monitoring of oil process equipment and transfer from one station to another.”

The Coordinator also advised that stiffer punishment should be leveled against perpetrators of black

marketers and anyone found guilty of pipeline destruction.

He however recalled that, “In the recent times, Nigeria has experienced huge losses of thousand lives and property worth billions of naira from various pipeline vandalisms.”

“Pipeline vandalism will continue to sabotage the government development projects, as unemployment rate accelerates in the country,” he warned.

Korean Ambassador in Nigeria, H.E. Jong-hyun Choi (3rd right) with NEMA D-G, NEMA officials operating rice milling machines donated by Korean government Muhammad Sani-Sidi (2nd right) inspecting rice millers machines donated by the Korean Embassy.

PAGE 29

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

EMERGENCY UPDATE

Flood: FG gets 30m donation of rice milling machines from Korea

By Mohammed Kandi

T

he Korean Government has donated 20 rice milling machines worth over N30 million to Nigerians as part of its humanitarian effort to assist the affected communities worst hit by the flood disasters that ravaged most part of the country in 2012.

Receiving the donation on behalf of the federal government, Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Muhammad Sani-Sidi, expressed his appreciations for the gifts and said that his Agency was also collaborating with other stakeholders to ensure a sustainable recovery for the emergency.

Sani-Sidi recalled that, “vital infrastructure, farmlands and means of livelihood for several communities were lost to the flood disaster, while severe ecological

dislocation was experienced across the affected States”.

He said: “The Federal Government, through NEMA, the State Governments, Local and International organisations and private sector have rendered humanitarian assistance to the victims of the floods.”

According to him, the event was remarkable and historic for the government and people of Nigeria as well as the Republic of Korea, and assured that his Agency would ensure prompt delivery of the implements to the designated states.

The donation, which was presented to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) last weekend in Abuja, came through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA).

While handing over the machines to NEMA, Korean Ambassador in Nigeria, H.E. Jong-hyun Choi, expressed

optimism that the donation could help Nigerian farmers recuperate as fast as possible saying each unit of the rice milling machines has the capacity to process about 300 kg of rice per hour.

“We hope that the donation will help Nigerian farmers overcome serious plight and distress caused by the flood and get back on track for their livelihoods,” he explained.

“This support spoke volumes about true friendship and partnership with Nigeria that Korea has been enjoying over the years and that Korean government is pleased to part of the Nigerian government’s comprehensive rehabilitation efforts,” the Ambassador said.

“A total of twenty rice millers will be handed over to the state governments of Bayelsa, Kogi and Benue. Five rice millers each will go to Bayelsa and Kogi while ten machines are for Benue state,” Choi stated.

Korean Ambassador in Nigeria, H.E. Jong-hyun Choi in handshake with NEMA D-G, Muhammad Sani-Sidi during a donation of 20 rice milling machines for flood victims.

NEMA sensitises NGOs, CBOs on disaster management

T

he National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has stressed the urgent need to build humanitarian capability for disaster management. the South West Zonal Coordinator of the agency, Mr. Iyiola Akande, stated this recently in Lagos, at a one-day workshop on “The Role of NGOs, CBOs and the Private Sector in Disaster Management’’.

Akande stressed the need for both conceptual and practical approaches to coping with disasters, especially reducing human vulnerability.

“Disaster management

should be mainstreamed into the business plans of the private sector, especially in the corporate institutions.’’

He noted that NGOs, CBOs and the private sector had often played important roles in disaster management as revealed by some evaluation of their past involvement.

“The communities are quick in response and have local knowledge and expertise to act as important channel for awareness raising and education,’’ he said.

Also speaking, the Executive Director, Centre for Disaster, Risk and Crisis Reduction, Mr. Amusat Kolawole, commended NEMA for

organising the workshop.

He called for regular interactions between the NGOs, CBOs and other public-spirited organisations saying “There should be a recognised network of CBOs working on disaster management to provide disaster risk management as a corporate social responsibility.”

Kolawole also suggested that there should be increased capacity building and aggressive advocacy for all stakeholders.

“The journey to resilience is a collective one and all of us have great service to render in spite of the many challenges,’’ he said.

(NAN)

YOUTHS FOR PUBLIC SAFETY

By Abubakar Jimoh abujimoh01@yahoo.com

2013: Building a disasterresilient community (2)

I

ndeed in 2010, NEMA appealed to the World Bank for support in the recovery process. The collaboration led to the agreement that the Bank would strengthen the capacities of NEMA and SEMAs in Disaster Damage and Loss Assessment, and help the country to get a better overview of the economic impacts and disaster resilience.

Apart from giving the high level of independency to SEMAs in disaster management, it is expected that the World Bank, NEMA, SEMAs and other national and state agencies would strengthen their partnership in disaster response and risk reduction to reduce the vulnerability of Nigerians to natural hazards.

To complement the World Bank assistance, there is monthly allocated of ecological fund to each state from the federation account by the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).

However, the Youths Against Disaster Initiative (YADI) recently leant that an aged-long era of mismanagement and corruption on the part of successive governments was responsible for the inadequate establishment and poor operations of the SEMAs and LEMAs across the country.

Also, to strengthen the operative capacity of the states’ emergency response, SEMAs must seek effective collaboration of the existing disaster management stakeholders in the states as required in section 8(1) of the Act establishing NEMA in 2001, which stated: “There is hereby established for each State of the Federation, a State Emergency Management Committee”.

Sub section 2 of the Act elaborates that the State Committee shall consist of the Deputy Governor of the state who shall be the chairman; the Secretary to the State Government; one representative each from the State Ministry of Women and Social Welfare, the State Ministry of Health, the State Ministry of Works, the State Fire Service, the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria, the State Environmental Protection Agency, the Nigerian Police Force, the Federal Road Safety Commission, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, the Nigerian Red Cross Society, and National Maritime Authority in coastal States.

There is also the need to establish workable and meaningful volunteers at the grassroots level, the states must equip and mobilise LEMCs with disaster management training and skills to enable them provide assistance at all phases of disaster management including prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.

LEMCs on their parts should ensure constant running of the emergency training and engagement, registration and development of the volunteers’ databank.

The training for LEMC in each community should focus on the objective of the Vulnerability and

Capacity Analysis (VCA), which is to conduct a detailed and comprehensive hazards, population and infrastructure vulnerabilities and capacities as well as risk analysis to support mitigation, preparedness and response, taking advantage of their local methods and resources.

In his opinions on the Capacity Analysis towards Disaster Risk Reduction, Charles A. Agbo (2010) provided a strategic approach that, it is becoming increasingly clear that livelihood strategies are intricately linked to coping capacities.

In Charles’s analysis, livelihood and coping capacities are interrelated; as modern day mitigation and preparedness options are tied to the household production, consumption and exchange capacities.

Furthermore, it was in support of the above Kayode Fagbemi (2010), encouraged the master trainers at grassroots levels to access and address major risks affecting the communities; determine the people vulnerability to those risks, and their capacity to cope and recover from disaster; help the communities to understand the hazards they face; assist them in taking the necessary measures to improve the situation, based on their own skills, knowledge and initiatives; and prepare the people against hazards and prevent them from turning into disasters.

The trainers must as well understand that to achieve the community’s acceptance of the training and skills brought to them by the government, they must be ready to identify the unique cultural background, the environmental attributes as well as other internal resources through which problems have been solved in each community and be ready to accommodate these community-specify features to the Disaster Risk Reduction Interventions; as advised by Alhassan Nuhu in his 2012 Media Retreat Lecture on Disaster Management.

The United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UN/ISDR) introduced Participatory Community Appraisal (PCA) (i.e. involvement of community members) as a useful method of disaster risk assessment when the community actively engaged in debate about the formal evaluation of risks. PCA would help to facilitate the documentation of local knowledge and interpretation of risk synthesized with outside approaches and captions. It would allow for positive response and active participation by the community, since the interaction is done at the community level.

Finally, considering the roles of community leaders in awareness and sensitisation on the community vulnerable hazards is a preventive opportunity against proactive disasters. Community leaders would help to notify their people, their neighbouring communities and if necessary local government of the possible consequences of the identified risk.

PAGE 26

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

2013 and the dreaded figure 13 A

lready, predictions of e n v i r o n m e n t a l disasters are puffed up for this year, with what many considered as an “unlucky” year with an “unlucky” number 13. And it is also the belief of many that it’s going to be a very trying year for people with Triskaidekaphobia, known as the fear of number 13.

Often we ask ourselves what’s in a number. Why is 13 considered unlucky, anyway?

Although no one can really say when man started associating 13 with misfortune; the superstition is very old. Some researchers point to one of the oldest religions, Zoroastrianism, considered number 13 sinister and wicked.

According to numerologists, the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12. They consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. In exceeding 12 by 1, figure 13 associated with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy.”There is also a superstition, derived from Norse myth, that having 13 people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners reaffirmed in Christianity by Jesus and the 12 apostles at the Last Supper.

Triskaidekaphobia is the term given to fear of 13, and it is not uncommon in architecture for the 13th floor of a high-rise building to be renamed or skipped over.

In Eastern cultures namely Korean, Chinese and Japanese - the same fear and superstition surrounds the number four. This stems from the word for four in Mandarin sounding similar to the word for death.

The Egyptians believed that life unfolded in twelve stages, and that afterlife was the thirteenth. Some years also contain 13 full moons instead of twelve which posed problems for monks and observers. Also in a Pentagram with a circle ratio of 13, each arm of the star will equal 12.36; the number of lunar months, days, and hours in a solar year. Add the arms together and you get the number of full moons in 5 years.

The pentagram itself features the golden ratio. The golden ratio is interconnected with the Fibonacci sequence which 13 is part of. It’s also believed that the superstition was nonexistent prior to 1907, and that Thomas Lawson’s novel “Friday the 13th” made the number popular. Jesus also died on Friday, so the unlucky

day was combined with an unlucky number to form “Friday the 13th.”

Researchers discovered that 28 per cent of streets in the UK, the most famous address in Britain do not have a house with the number. This fear of 13 is strong in today's world. More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor.

Many airports skip the 13th gate. Hospitals and hotels

population is afraid of Friday the 13th, a condition known as paraskevidekatriaphobia.

"Friday the 13th" as we know it has its roots in many traditions and cultures.

Sailors were particularly superstitious in this regard, often refusing to ship out to sea on a Friday. According to legend, in the 18th century, the British Navy commissioned a ship called the H.M.S. Friday

ENVIR ONMENT ENVIRONMENT WATCH

By Ambrose Inusa Sule, mnes globenviron@yahoo.com 0703-441-4410 (sms only)

Japan Tsunami regularly have no room number 13.

When it comes to buying and selling, researchers have also discovered that houses with the number 13 hardly attract buyers, and that people avoid buying houses on the 13th day of the month.

Meanwhile, in ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.

As for Friday, it is well known among Christians as the day Jesus was crucified. Some biblical scholars believe Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit on Friday.

Perhaps most significant is a belief that Abel was slain by Cain on Friday the 13th.

Records have it that In North America and Europe, a significant portion of the population behaves very strangely on Friday the 13th.

They won't fly in airplanes, host a party, apply for a job, get married or even start a new project. Some people won't even come into work. In the United States, roughly 8 percent of the

in order to quell the superstition.

The navy selected the crew on a Friday, launched the ship on a Friday and even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's captain. Then, one Friday morning, the ship set off on its maiden voyage -and disappeared forever.

Some historians trace the Christian distrust of Fridays to the church's overall opposition to pagan religions. Friday is named after Frigg, the Norse goddess of love and sex. This strong female figure, these historians claim, posed a threat to male-dominated Christianity.

To fight her influence, the Christian church characterized her as a witch, vilifying the day named after her.

This characterization may also have played a part in the fear of the number 13. It was said that Frigg would often join a coven of witches, normally a group of 12, bringing the total to 13. A similar Christian tradition holds that 13 is unholy because it signifies the gathering of 12 witches and the devil.

Another significant part of the Friday-the-13th legend is a

particularly bad Friday the 13th that occurred in the middle ages. On a Friday the 13th in 1306, King Philip of France burned the revered Knights Templar at the stake, marking the occasion as a day of evil.

Some people come to fear Friday the 13th because of misfortune they've experienced on that day in the past. If you get in a car wreck on one Friday the 13th, or lose your wallet, that day is bound to stay with you. But if you think about it, bad things happen all the time, so if you're looking for bad luck on Friday the 13th, you'll probably find it.

It also doesn’t help that Apollo 13 was the only unsuccessful mission by the United States of America intended to land humans on the moon. The rocket launched on April 11, 1970 at 13:13 CST. An oxygen tank exploded on April 13, 1970.

It is also believed that if you have 13 letters in your name you will have the devil’s luck.

Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey, Dahmer, Theodore Bundy, and Albert De

Salvo.

Numbers are infinite and there are also billions of people on earth/trillions of random occurrences. So any poor number sitting on the number line can be subject to superstitions. Prime numbers such as “lucky” 7 and “unlucky” 13 are easy to be targeted because of their prime nature. We have two legs, two arms, eyes, etc.

Prime numbers just don’t make sense and they were often interesting to early people. Naturally over time these numbers got more and more bad raps.

It’s easier not to sit in seat 13 and have peace of mind rather than sitting there and thinking you might die. Also most people tend to remember negative experiences more.

To counter all of this undue hatred of the poor number 13, those stricken with negative thoughts about the number 13 need to learn how to focus on pleasant thoughts for 2013.

So if you fear the 13th, take your pick of remedies and let tomorrow bring its luck—good or bad.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 27

Red Cross seeks N583m for 2012 flood victims

By Mohammed Kandi

F

ollowing continued suffering by victims of 2012 nationwide flood disaster across 33 of the 36 states and Abuja, the Nigerian Red Cross Society (NRCS) has launched a CHF 3,453,527 (N583, 799,296.13) to provide basic amenities of food, non-food items and money for them.

In its initial assessment of needs in 11 states, the society noted that 422691 individuals were affected in 56 local government areas with 256, 767 of them displaced. Of this number, 116 persons died, 867 were injured, and two people were declared missing.

It was also leant that 161 camps were set up with 224,161 displaced persons residing in the camps.

Already, considerable response to the appeal has been received from private sector donors such as Shell, Exxon Mobil, FCMB (First City Monument Bank PLC), Stanbic IBTC, the French Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria LNG limited, Czech Government, VERF/ WHO Voluntary Emergency Relief.

Other movement partners include the American Red Cross, Canadian Red Cross Society (from Canadian Government), Japanese Red Cross Society, Netherlands Red Cross (from Netherlands Government), Swiss Red Cross, Red Cross of Monaco, Swedish Red Cross and also Finnish Red Cross.

The assessment report also added that 26, 801 houses altogether were destroyed in Adamawa, Taraba, Plateau, Benue, Kogi, Niger, Edo, Anambra, Delta, Bayelsa and

Rivers states.

The NRCS will spend the money to specifically support over 50, 000 victims in 12 states over a 12 months period up to September 25, 2013.

According to a document from NRCS, volunteers are active in all the areas affected in the provision of relief and health materials, psychosocial support and hygiene promotion.

“The assessment shows that in the upper areas, the numbers of displaced are relatively low, but the number of houses destroyed relatively high. The delta area shows a higher number of IDPs, but a lower number of destroyed houses, most likely because of the type of construction more adapted to flooding”, the statement added.

NRCS is represented in all affected states and have mobilised resources at the branch level, but this centralised response will focus on the most affected areas in the 12 identified states with materials and support for emergency shelter and recovery, basic household items, provision of water and sanitation facilities in, household water purification tablets in certain identified areas, first aid, sensitisation on flood related health risks; water, sanitation and hygiene promotion activities, targeting 50,000 people.

Overall, the Nigerian Red Cross Society in the statement said it will provide shelter, cash/voucher assistance, water, sanitation, hygiene and health support to 50,000 disaster-affected people (approximately 7,142 households) for twelve months.

In addition, relief and early

Waste management coy tasks Onitsha residents on proper refuse disposal

L

aga International Waste Management Ltd., a refuse disposal company, has urged residents of Onitsha and environs to properly bag and dump refuse into the containers provided in their neighbourhoods.

The Area Coordinator of the company, Mr Lawrence Uboh, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Onitsha, said the proper disposal of refuse would ensure a clean and healthy environment.

Uboh said that the company would acquire more equipment to meet-up with the growing challenge of refuse management in the city.

He said that the company was in a position to prevent refuse build-up in the city and environs, adding that the perceived lapses were due to the break during the festive period

and the harmattan weather condition.

“You know there are a lot of challenges that come with festivity; that is one. Another thing again is the time of the season in weather condition we are. If you go round the town, you see that most places are on fire. Most of our receptacles are on fire. It’s a problem on its own.’’

NAN reports that the responsibility of refuse disposal and management in Onitsha rested on a tripartite agreement between the Federal, Anambra governments and the company.

The Agency recalls that in the tripartite agreement; the company is to see to the day-today removal and management of refuse in Onitsha and its environs; while the Federal and Anambra governments provide monetary and logistics supports. (NAN)

recovery efforts will target 4,000 households, while health, hygiene promotion and sanitation measures will reach the additional 3,142 households.

Thousands of blankets, buckets, mats, soap, shelter kits, kitchen sets, tarpaulins, jerry cans second hand clothing, bags, mosquito nets, hygiene kits have been

provided for victims.

“To do this, a principal operational centre will be established in Benin City. This will serve as the base of operations for activities in Kogi and Edo states, as well as providing focused support to the operations conducted out of NRCS Branch offices in Adamawa, Anambra, Taraba and Delta state.

“Support for operations in Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers states will be supported by the Benin City operational/ logistical centre, with the possibility of opening a secondary operations base out of NRCS Branch office in Port Harcourt under the supervision of the NRCS SouthSouth Liaison officer”, the document revealed.

Rice milling machines donated to flood victims by the Korean goverment

FG urged to control importation of electronic waste

A

radiologist and a researcher have called on the Federal Government to control the importation of electronic waste in view of its effect on human health.

Speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos yesterday, they noted that Nigeria was becoming a dumping ground for e-waste from European and Asian markets.

A researcher at the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research, Lagos, Dr. Bamidele Iwalokun, urged the regulatory bodies to ensure proper monitoring of electronic waste that find their way into Nigeria markets.

Iwalokun said that the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Computer Professionals Registration Council of Nigeria (CPN) should collaborate on this to prevent health hazards caused by e-waste.

He underscored the need for the Federal Government to establish recycling facilities to check-mate the harmful impact of e-wastes.

Iwalokun noted that electronic goods, such as cell phones, mp3 players, televisions and computers

exposed people to hazardous chemicals as well as posed a risk to the environment.

“E-waste not only pollutes the land, it also has serious health implications, due to chemical discharge. E-waste contains approximately one thousand chemicals including mercury, lead oxide, cadmium, and polyvinyl chloride, which are hazardous to human health,” he stated.

“It can cause lung disease called beryllicosis or lung cancer, primarily through inhalation; damage to vital organs such as the brain and kidneys,” Iwalokun said.

Iwalokun noted that the switch from analogue to digital products, had created a “flood of old televisions and computer monitors into the Nigerian ports.

“Developed countries have found it easier to ship their ewaste to developing countries, Nigeria inclusive.

“Nigeria does not have a computer recycling facility.

Yet e-waste is dumped in the country, thereby exposing people to toxic materials,” he said.

Also, speaking, Dr Chinedu Chukwu, a radiologist, called

for caution in the usage, storage and disposal of electronics, especially the old ones, because of the possible harmful radiation effect.

Chukwu of the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), said: “Concerning the usage and storage of electronics, especially the old ones, one needs to be very careful because of the radiation they emit.

“Though, one cannot exactly say the level of radiation effect that can come from these, one of the effects can be the induction of cancer, which means, it can be cancerous.

“The radiation effect of these electronics can also affect the skin, as well as the fertility level of the people. Even, some of the phones that we use emit so much radiation. There has not been quality assurance on them.

“People should not throw things around anyhow because of their harmful effects,” he advised.

According to him, “There should be a system in the country designated to take care of unwanted electronics like old television, radio sets and mobile phones.” (NAN)

PAGE 30

By Abubakar Gimba

B

ut the sad and sudden death of Governor Yakowa seemed to have jilted our brother, the Bishop, out of his customary sobriety into a state of exasperation. In his eulogy he asserts, "From the creation of Kaduna State in 1987, the Northern ruling class, by policy seemed to have erected an invisible sign that read: No Christians Need Apply to nter...the Kashim Ibrahim House, or represent the State at the highest levels". According to his hypothesis, there is " a policy of exclusion against non-Muslims" which has " turned Kaduna State into a political mecca and laid the foundations for the sad religious tensions that have continued to dog the State". The curious aspect of his stance is that, he scaled the boundaries of Kaduna State and brought in other States as culpable in the bloody sagas of Kaduna. This sounds like a conspiracy theory against Muslim elites across the North.

Collaborators and conspirators, all!

But, in his exasperation, the Bishop's most poignant statements are his admonishing to the new Governor Yero: "The world looks up to you never to be seduced by the whispers of the wicked whose devilish and selfish hold on power has held our society down... Do not be tempted to think that the Muslims have taken what the wicked have presented as a prize for only Muslims..". Heavy words, both invective and patronizing!

The great scorn, however, went to those ALLEGED to be jubilant over the unfortunate death of Yakowa. With a mixture of moral and kindred indignation, he called them "riffraffs and scoundrels".

And indeed, if the report were true, they had committed a very reprehensible and sinful act. The moral reproach for such an opprobrious act is not any more applicable in any religion than in Islam. But the energy and venom poured into it is puzzling, coming from a man who should appreciate (though certainly not condone) such gross moral deficiency in man. The energy he poured in this scorn is because he felt Muslims were the jubilant.

If it were not so, why did he not show such moral indignation when in one of the Jos carnage, an amateur video showed men waiving human body parts of Muslims for munching in their raw state. One jubilant member of the killing crowd even announced with fanfare, "Ni anta na ke so!" in Hausa (It is the liver I want). Never in my life have I seen or heard of such a bestiality, a very chilling oddity. That should have made any Godfearing priest to go on his knees in tears, for the flock which had gone thus wild. Perhaps, the Bishop railed and wept over that gory descent into such an enormity, especially coming from the flock to which he was directly or indirectly a shepherd. Besides, the "riffraffs" had nothing to do with the sad accident that consumed Yakowa. They live in a different world from the rest of us (men of faith of whatever religious label), a world not circumscribed by

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

ET TU, Monsignor Kukah? (II)

Bishop Mathew Kukah strict adherence to any religious codes of conduct. Their world is a goldmine for preachers, a battlefield for evangelism. The Bishop knows better than I. Lest we forget, Yakowa was a political leader, not a religious or ethnic representative. To package him as a sectional/tribal and a religious symbol or representative is to be unfair to the spirit of the man which he showcased while alive, and earned him the soubriquet, "Yakowa Na Kowa" by, even according to the Bishop's honest admission, his Hausa Muslim admirers. In death therefore, let's eulogize Yakowa, but we must guard against undeserved demonizing of others. Let's condemn socially and morally repulsive acts, but we must be wary of selective condemnation for an equally reprehensible act.

Yakowa was a bridge builder: let's not therefore allow those who want to appropriate him as their son and hero to be bridge breakers.

The late Governor sadly lost his life in an unfortunate air mishap far away from any of the Northern States. I shudder to think what the Bishop of Sokoto would have said if he had been killed by Boko Haram! I still have not been able to unravel the puzzle that pushed this man of God to give such an umbrage in his speech to Muslims: he made at least 25 direct and oblique

unsavory references against Muslim leaders and Muslims generally. Yet in another breadth, here is a man who, by his own admission, enjoys the goodwill and camaraderie of Mai Martaba, The Sultan of Sokoto and every Muslim elite deserving to be in Who's Who Book of Northern Muslims. What has happened to common courtesy? KIlled on the alter of cerishing the publicity of being seen as tough-talking? Even the brothers of his "riffraffs", such as the "young Muslims genuinely wailing and waiving in sorrow", and "many ordinary Muslims genuinely full of emotions " who hugged him on account of Yakowa's fatal accident, all provide a congenial atmosphere for the Bishop to help solidify Yakowa's bridges and not break the dykes. Yet the Bishop pulled as many of his arrows of contempt for Muslims as he possibly could to shoot at them!

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah is among those at the top of my list of the clergy I trust do possess the qualities of the needed savvy for promoting inter-religious harmony for a more united North and a peaceful Nigeria. That was why his elevation to the episcopal position as the Bishop of Sokoto elated me to no end, even though by his recent utterances, he has not shown sufficient sensitivity or courtesy to the historical significance of the place

“

and the gracious reception whic the predominant Muslim population there has accorded him. The appointment, I believed then, was a clear signal that at least the top hierarchy of Church is very much interested in a cordial Muslim-Christian relationship. I still believe that that intent remains, and Bishop Kukah remains tailor-cut for the crucial assignment, despite his Burial Mass speech fumbles. He, at least, would appreciate Islam and Muslims. As a "son of the soil" of the North, he would understand Muslims to a great extent. He would not, however, appreciably understand Islam. A non-Muslim may know a great deal about Islam, but would not understand it. This is because Islam is not only in a set of books;it is found in its complete form only in the heart.

Many a non-Muslim confuses a Muslim (especially his outwardness) with Islam, and hence a deficiency in a Muslim is projected as a part of Islam, and proceed to pour all manner of venom and oddious aspersions on both. This, in the main, is the problem with the Bishop of Sokoto.

Another problem: the Yakowa's burial speech was misappropriated by the Bishop who, as a clergyman should have concerned himself with, yes...eulogizing the the dead, but drawing the attention of the living to the candlelight-like brevity of

Bishop Mathew Hassan Kukah is among those at the top of my list of the clergy I trust do possess the qualities of the needed savvy for promoting interreligious harmony for a more united North and a peaceful Nigeria.

life and the need to follow the Light of Eesah (may Allaah's peace be upon him) to attain righteousness, and not launch into political issues with the passion of a politician. Rather than focusing on that, he went into the minefield of politics of agitations. I would not advise that he either becomes a fiery politician or face his Episcopal calling: life is not thus compartmentalized. This is Islam's position. And the church pulpit affords him the opportunity to do both, thereby increasing his flock for God: not the politicians' podium from where on earns only some votes for temporal purposes.

The politician has the privilege to court controversy and play with the truth, shape it to his taste it, remold it and package it to appeal to the taste of his audience, or even play a hide and seek game with it. The priest does not enjoy that: whether from the pulpit or away from it. He can only do one thing: deliver the message of God to man, and faithfully too. Tell the flock the truth, no more no less, without colorings or exaggerations.

Conscious deviations from the message for any reason apart from the Lord's Pleasure would amount to a gross misconduct. Bishop Kukah's faux pas is to mount the rostrum with one leg on the priest's pulpit and the other on the politician's podium, and proceeded with unhidden bias to, rather ungraciously, give the total monopoly of imperfections to Muslims, and laid all the problems of social dislocations in the North at their doorsteps, against the canons of truth. His few references to "good Muslims" did not fail to unveil the Bishop's deepseated angst, if not a (surprising) long held prejudice.

No, Monsignor Kukah! You have a responsibility to God, your faith and the community you find yourself in. Be concerned and play a Moses to your people, but be just. In your speech, your exhorted your people of Southern Kaduna and challenged the youth to "Rise up!... Fear is dead!...."

Given the trajectory of your mood, the exhortation would have worried me. But I believe you may be only trying to tread the path of theological philosophy of the venerable Pope of our time, Pope John Paul Ii, who in reechoing Christ to the Apostles and the women wrote, "Be not Afraid", in one of the chapters of his book, "Crossing The Threshold of Hope".

Never give up on your faith even in difficulties in meeting the demands of the Gospel, was the Pope's message, and an encouragement to Christians to hold on to Love firmly with enduring perseverance. Pope John Paul II was an exceptional bundle of humility and grace.

That is the type of man in the Episcopal order, whose footprints I hope, our dear Bishop would follow. I know he can. May God guide his footsteps.

Abubakar Gimba was one time President of Association of Nigerian Authors

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 31

Don't make the same antiterrorism mistakes in Mali ANALYSIS

By William G Moseley

I

nternational efforts to combat terrorism on the battle field have yielded dubious results over the past decade. While recent al-Qaeda linked rebel advances in central Mali have been followed by a swift Franco-Malian counter offensive, the international community needs to be deliberate in order to avoid the same errors of the past decade of anti-terrorism activity.

Mali succumbed to a coup d'ĂŠtat in March of last year when disgruntled military officers removed a democratically elected president who was within a few months of leaving office. The power vacuum created by the coup allowed Tuareg rebels to seize control of the northern two-thirds of the country in the hope of creating an autonomous ethnic state known as Azawad.

Tuareg ethnic insurgents, principally led by a group known as the MNLA (French acronym for National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad) were subsequently displaced by different Islamist groups, some with ties to alQaeda. Islamist groups, such as Ansar Dine, were less concerned with territorial autonomy than the ability to impose sharia law in the northern regions of the country. That said, there have been concerns that other Islamist groups, such as the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA), a splinter group of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), were really in the game to create a new haven for terrorist operations. This is a situation of some concern to the USA but more importantly to France given geographic proximity, colonial ties and economic interests in the region.

The taking of the town of Konna (60 km northeast of Mopti) on January 10

by Islamist rebel forces was significant.

To be clear, fears that the rebels could march all the way to the capital city, Bamako, were overblown. While it was one thing to take and control the least populated regions of the country, some 90 percent of Mali's population lives to the south and west of the central town of Mopti. Moving southwest into much more densely populated regions of the country, and into areas that are deeply unfriendly to the rebel cause, would have meant stiff resistance.

The significance of the push south, even if it was incremental and not sustained, was that it implied that the leadership of the rebellion (if it was not clear already) was no longer prioritising the goal of an ethnic state known as Azawad. This was evident for at least two reasons. First, while the idealised boundaries of a hypothetical state known as Azawad were vague, many would not include Mopti in this territory because there were few Tuaregs who historically resided there. Second, moving closer to Mopti was a major public relations blunder almost guaranteed to negate any outside support for a new Azawad state. Pushing beyond the territory of Azawad

'The Malian government, the French military and the international community have an obligation to avoid clumping together the innocent with the guilty'. suggested some other goal, such as the tactical aim of destroying the airport in Sevare (adjacent to Mopti) to prevent an air supported counter offensive, or a desire to incite a reckless Western-led reaction that might eventually breed more local support for the Islamists (more on this later).

While it is abundantly clear that certain Islamist groups are calling the shots in the North, conversations with Malians in the south of the country suggest that many continue to make little or no distinction between three distinct assemblages in the North: Tuareg civilians who are just trying to live their lives; Tuareg rebels (largely represented by the MNLA) who initiated the rebellion to create an autonomous state; and Islamists who support sharia law and often have connections to groups outside the country. Many Malians blame the MNLA for initiating the rebellion and problematically conflate them with innocent Tuareg civilians and Islamist groups.

This failure to consistently distinguish between different groups in

the North by multiple stakeholders (including the interim Malian government and its army backers, a significant proportion of the population in the south, and many international observers) portends longer term trouble for the significant military drive to push back the rebels begun by France this past weekend. Because of this unwillingness to differentiate, military initiatives - which must necessarily involve the Malian military in ground operations - stand a good probability of inflicting high levels of collateral damage, particularly on innocent Tuareg civilians who are likely to be unfairly associated with the Islamist rebels.

This potential collateral damage should be of deep concern for at least three reasons. First and foremost, the Malian government, the French military and the international community have an obligation to avoid clumping together the innocent with the guilty in order to avert the loss of life and human rights abuses amongst blameless

“

civilians. Second, if there was no significant support amongst Tuaregs for an independent state known as Azawad before, collateral damage amongst innocent civilians will tend to foster this. Third, anti-terrorism efforts in other parts of the world involving an outside military component have only ever succeeded on the narrow grounds of disabling military capacity and have largely failed when it comes to building peaceful regions under democratic governance.

What Mali needs in order to move forward are at least three measures.

First, the twin towns of Mopti-Severe in central Mopti are home to over a 100,000 people, including a large number of internally displaced refugees, who deserve protection from potential rebel reprisals (and the same would go for any other major cities, such as Gao, liberated in the coming days). Armed UN peacekeepers should be dispatched to the region immediately to perform this role. While this is perhaps a slight nuance, defending a region from

The taking of the town of Konna (60 km northeast of Mopti) on January 10 by Islamist rebel forces was significant. To be clear, fears that the rebels could march all the way to the capital city, Bamako, were overblown.

insurgents is typically less problematic than advancing into an area to reclaim it.

Second, coup leader Captain AmadouSanogo really must step aside.

Not only did he topple a democratically elected leader (which was wrong irrespective of corruption concerns at the time), his presence as the real power behind the sham interim government necessarily limits broad international support for external assistance in this difficult time. Related to Sanogo's departure must be a clear plan for creating a legitimate interim government in Bamako.

Third, an unambiguous plan for a peace process in the North must be developed which includes armed UN peace keepers across the major urban centres of the provinces of Gao, Timbuktu and Kidal and a referendum on the future status of this region. While the rebels would almost certainly lose such an election if it were well-monitored, the process itself would be important for moving forward on a path to peace and reconciliation.

This last step is likely to be unpopular with many stakeholders, including the Malian military which seeks revenge for previous defeats in the North, Islamist groups who are likely to do poorly in a free and fair referendum, outside terrorist organisations who care little about the future of Mali, and the international community who will likely balk at the price tag of doing it right. Let us hope against hope that all will see the wisdom of acting deliberately and thoughtfully in order to insure long term peace and stability of Mali.

Source: Al Jazeera

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Dozens killed in Aleppo University blasts

French troops begin ground combat in Mali Foreigners 'abducted' by militants in Algeria

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number of foreigners are reported to have been abducted in Algeria, diplomatic sources say.

News agencies report that five Japanese nationals and a French citizen were taken

by Islamic militants from the town of In Amenas.

The oil giant BP operates a production facility in the town and it said there had been an incident but did not confirm the kidnapping.

British diplomats said they were aware of "a terrorist i n c i d e n t " .

A spokesman said it "was seeking clarification from oil companies working in the area as to whether they have personnel involved in the incident."

But French and Algerian officials were unable to confirm the abduction.

Japan is making inquiries.

Islamist militants in the region have in recent years seized a number of foreigners, mainly in Mali.

Eight French nationals are currently being held across the region.

The abduction comes as French forces are preparing to attack Islamist milita n t s in Algeria's s o u thern neighbour, Mali.

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rench troops have begun direct ground combat against fighters belonging to the al-Qaeda linked Ansar al-Dine group in Mali.

Quoting SandaOuldBoumana, spokesman for Ansar alDine,NazanineMoshiri reported from Bamako on Wednesday that the French forces had moved 400 km north from the Malian capital and were shelling Diabaly, a town in central Mali.

She quoted OuldBoumana as saying that "the fighting is happening 2km from the centre of Diabaly, away from the civilians".

"Military sources in the Malian army have told Al Jazeera that French special forces are fighting in the town," she said.

EdouardGuillaud, France's military chief of staff, said that the French ground operations in the West African country began overnight.

Our correspondent said the military action was expected to be "difficult" for France..

"Ansar al-Dine and other armed rebel groups that have control of the area know the terrain very well, and they have very sophisticated weapons," she said, referring to the rebel-controlled northern part of Mali.

She said the first Nigerian contingent of about 190 soldiers was due to arrive in Mali on Thursday.

The parliament in Niger was waiting for approval to send its own contingent of more than 500 soldiers, currently waiting at the border, Al Jazeera's Moshiri said.

Diabaly residents who have fled the area told the Associated Press news

agency that Ansar al-Dine fighters had sealed off the roads to the town and were preventing people from leaving.

They feared that that the fighters would use the residents of the town as a human shield.

On the diplomatic front, the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) expressed support for the Frenchled military operation in Mali on

Wednesday. "[The OIC] has reaffirmed the full support and solidarity with the Republic of Mali in its efforts to expeditiously recover areas in the north of its territory under the control of armed groups in order to restore its national unity and territorial integrity," EkmeleddinIhsanoglu, the OIC chief, said.

French armoured tank Diabaly.

Kenya seizes smuggled ivory in Mombasa port

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enyan officials have seized more than 600 ivory pieces worth an estimated

$1m (ÂŁ700,000) in the port of Mombasa.

The consignment, which

Law enforcement officials counting the seized tusks.

included whole tusks, came from Tanzania and was destined for Indonesia, they said.

The seizure comes just over a week after an entire family of 11 elephants were gunned down in south-eastern Kenya - the single worst incident of ivory poaching recorded in the country.

Elephant poaching deaths have been on the rise because of demand from Asia.

The ivory, weighing about two tonnes, had been labelled as decorating stones, the head of operations at Mombasa port said.

It was intercepted by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) at the port after a tip-off, Kenya's Daily Nation newspaper reports.

"This is... the biggest ever single

seizure of ivory at the port of Mombasa," KiberengeSeroney, the port's police officer in charge of criminal investigations, told Reuters news agency.

Simon Gitau, from the Kenya Wildlife Service, agreed after counting the 638 ivory pieces that the haul was a "big catch".

"These are roughly 250 elephants that have been killed," the Daily Nation quotes him as saying.

After the international trade in ivory was banned in 1989, global demand dwindled and elephant populations began to recover.

But in recent years those advances have been reversed, with an increase in elephant poaching across the African continent.

years, the BBC's PumzaFihlani reports from Johannesburg.

They work seasonally to pick and pack fruit and say with rising costs they can no longer survive on their current

wages.

But farmers, who are mainly white, are adamant they will go out of business if the minimum wage is raised, our reporter says.

The farms were hit by a strike last year, when two workers were killed in clashes with police and $11m-worth of damage was caused when some vineyards were set alight.

The strike resumed last week, despite intervention from unions, the government, farmers and other workers' representatives.

The governing African National Congress has called for workers to end violent protests, saying they were being used as a cover by criminals for their own purposes.

South Africa police probed over farm strike shooting

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outh Africa's police are being investigated after a man died during the ongoing farm workers' strike in the wine-producing Western Cape region.

The country's Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) said it would determine the police's involvement in the man's death.

LetsekangThokoene, who was not a farm worker, was allegedly shot by rubber bullets on Monday.

South Africa has been hit by a series of wildcat strikes since last year.

The strikers, who pick and pack fruit, have been demanding their daily wage be more than doubled to about $17

(ÂŁ11).

Community activists in De Doorns, where Mr Thokoene owned a small shop, said he got caught in the crossfire as police and protesters clashed.

Western Cape police said Mr Thokoene was taken to hospital where he later died.

The police refused to give further details about what happened.

The IPID said it would investigate all the circumstances that led to Mr Thokoene's death.

The Western Cape region is home to South Africa's multibillion dollar wine industry where labour relations have been fraught with racial tension, more than 18 years after white minority rule

ended.

Most of the area's 3,000 farm workers, who are black or mixed race, are not employed on a permanent basis - despite working on the farms for many

Some policemen had shot protesters last week.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURS DAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Asia and Middle East

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suicide bomb attack has been launched on a building belonging to Afghanistan's National Directorate of Security (NDS) in the capital, Kabul, officials have said.

Three civilians were killed and 30 hurt, the officials said. Five attackers were killed.

Another car packed with

PAGE 33

Suicide bomb attack on Afghan security offices in Kabul explosives was defused, police said.

The Taliban, who have launched several high-profile raids on Kabul, said they were behind the attack.

Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says the attacked area is often packed with civilians who come to collect passports and national identity

Japan emergency fuels Dreamliner fears

cards at the interior ministry.

Intelligence chief Gen ZaherZaher told the BBC the clearance operation was now over.

The area involved in central Kabul is heavily barricaded and also houses several Western embassies.

The main explosion took place

around noon local time (07:30 GMT). A plume of smoke rose from the area, and gunfire and police sirens were then heard.

One eyewitness, Mohammad Zia, told Associated Press that a car had been driven up to the gates of the barricaded NDS building and a bomb inside the vehicle was

J

apan's two biggest airlines have grounded their fleets of Boeing Dreamliners after an apparent battery problem forced one of All Nippon Airways (ANA)' jets to make an emergency landing on Wednesday.

The plane landed safely in Takamatsu, and all 137 passengers and crew were evacuated using the emergency slides, according to the airline. Several people were slightly injured during the evacuations.

"During the flight, [the pilots] had an error message saying 'battery problem'," said an ANA spokesman. "We are still investigating what exactly happened."

Local media said the pilots noticed smoke in the cockpit, but ANA would not comment on those reports. A passenger told Japan's NHK broadcaster that he "smelled something strange" as the plane was taking off.

But ANA and its rival Japan Airlines, both of them among Boeing's biggest customers for the jet, said they would ground their fleets pending safety checks. ANA has 17 Dreamliners in service, and Japan Airlines has seven.

Al Jazeera's Andrew Thomas, reporting from Sydney, said: "These are supposed to be state of the art batteries. Much lighter than their predecessors.

The NDS premise in Kabul.

Officials criticise Qadri's 'long march'

O

fficials in Pakistan have come out in criticism of Tahir-ulQadri, a Canadian-Pakistani Muslim leader, who has led thousands of people in protest against the current government for a third straight day.

Speaking to the crowd in the Pakistani capital on Wednesday, Qadri again demanded that the government resign, saying that the "nation will throw out the corrupt leadership".

"The world can easily judge what the rulers have delivered in the last five years," Qadri told the crowd

Dozens killed in Aleppo University blasts

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wo explosions have struck Aleppo University in northern Syria, killing at more than 80 people, official sources and opposition activists say.

There were conflicting reports as to what caused the blast on Tuesday, with the government and opposition blaming each other.

The explosions set cars ablaze and blew the walls off dormitory rooms.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited students and medical officials as saying that 83 people were killed in the explosions near the university's dorms. More than 150 people were injured, several of them in critical condition, the group said, without giving details about the cause of the explosions.

outside parliament.

"They are looters, not leadership, who always looted Pakistan and nation."

Speaking at a press conference near the site of the protests, QamarZamanKaira, the federal minister of information, suggested a prolonged protest may lead to government action.

"There is nothing wrong with raising your concerns and protesting.

But if you try to hold the capital hostage and disrupt the lives of its people, the law will take its course."

Kaira also said general elections will take place as scheduled some time between May 5 and 15.

"All political parties are happy with the Election Commission and elections will happen on time," he said.

The Pakistan Muslim League, the main opposition group, also rejected Qadri's call for the military to play a role in the formation of a caretaker government to oversee the run-up to elections.

"Tahir-ul-Qadri is working on somebody's agenda to derail democracy in Pakistan and we reject all of his demands." Nawaz Sharif, League president and former prime minister, told a news conference, in an apparent reference to the military.

Qadri set a one-day deadline for four demands to be fulfilled: to announce electoral reforms before elections; to dissolve the election commission and form a new one; to setup a caretaker government; and to dissolve the provincial and national assemblies.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Faisal Mirza, a supporter of Qadri from the Netherlands, said the current system was not in conformity with the Pakistani constitution.

The Boeing 787 after emergency evacuation.

Tahir-ul-Qadri

detonated.

A number of wrecked cars could also be seen.

Shop owner Qais Ahmad told Reuters: "I was inside the shop when I heard noises and a huge bang. The explosion happened and all the glass and windows in my shop were destroyed and injured my head."

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 34

Europe and Americas New York governor signs gun control law

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he governor of New York state, Andrew Cuomo, on Tuesday signed into law one of America's toughest gun control measures, the first to be enacted since the mass shooting last month at an elementary school in neighbouring Connecticut.

The bill passed the Democraticled state assembly on Tuesday afternoon, a day after clearing the Republican-majority state senate.

It expands the state's ban on assault weapons and has new measures to keep guns out of the hands of mentally ill people.

"People who are mentally ill should not have access to guns.

That's common sense," Cuomo said. "That's probably the hallmark of this bill."

The bill also limits ammunition magazines to seven rounds. Cuomo described highercapacity magazines as "nonsensical to a civil society."

"No one hunts with an assault rifle," he said. "No one needs ten bullets to kill a deer. End the madness."

Cuomo pressed for passage of the bill after a gunman killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, just over one month ago.

The measure also mandates a life sentence without parole for anyone who murders a police officer or firefighter. Just two weeks after the massacre in Connecticut, an arsonist gunman ambushed and killed two firefighters responding to a fire he had set near Rochester.

Gun rights advocates quickly lashed out at Cuomo. The National Rifle Association said it was "outraged at the draconian gun control bill."

"These gun control schemes have failed in the past and will have no impact on public safety and crime," the group said in a statement.

New York's state comptroller, Thomas DiNapoli, also announced that the state's $150bn public pension fund will stop buying shares of publicly-traded firearms manufacturers.

Governor Andrew Cuomo

Chavez VP gives state-ofthe-nation address V

enezuelan Vice-President Nicolas Maduro has given the annual state of the nation speech in place of Hugo Chavez, who is still recuperating in Cuba after cancer surgery.

In a brief speech to the National Assembly, Mr Maduro pledged loyalty to the president and said Mr Chavez remained in charge of the country.

Mr Maduro also denied that there

was a political fight for the succession.

President Chavez was due to be sworn in on 10 January for a fourth term.

The Supreme Court ruled he could take the oath at a later date, a view challenged by opposition figures.

"There is only one president: Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias, supreme commander of the army, commander of the Bolivarian

Revolution," Mr Maduro told legislators.

He also used his speech to announce that the Mr Chavez had appointed former vice-president Elias Jaua as Venezuela's new foreign minister.

The post was previously held by Mr Maduro.

The vice-president saluted National Assembly president,

Nicolas Maduro (Middle)

Diosdado Cabello, and dismissed rumours that they are political rivals.

"They say Cabello and I are fighting. But Cabello and I are united in our heart, in loyalty to a man who has the supreme command of this country."

The vice-president said that his appearance to give the state of the union address was in accordance with the constitution, as Mr Chavez had been granted leave of absence by the National Assembly.

This view was challenged by some legal experts - they highlight Article 237 of the Constitution, which stipulates that the president should appear "personally" to give the speech within 10 days of the inauguration of the legislature.

The current assembly was sworn in on 5 January.

BBC's Sarah Grainger in Caracas says that the speech, which in Mr Chavez's hands could go on for hours, lasted a matter of minutes with Mr Maduro.

President Chavez underwent a fourth operation for cancer on 11 December, and suffered postoperative complications.

Mr Maduro told legislators he had met Mr Chavez in Havana on Monday and that his health was improving.

"He is climbing the hill, he is fighting with his spirit, his vision, his love," said Mr Maduro, adding that Mr Chavez has been briefed on developments in Venezuela.

US to electrocute inmate-killer

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he US state of Virginia is set to use the electric chair to put to death a man who killed two fellow prisoners to speed up his own execution.

Robert Gleason, 42, is the first Virginia inmate to choose electrocution over lethal injection since March 2010.

The former tattoo artist pleaded guilty to a 2007 murder and has since killed two fellow prisoners, while waiving all his rights to an appeal.

Virginia's governor says he will not intervene in the case.

The execution is set for 21:00 on Wednesday (02:00 GMT Thursday) at the Greensville

A

wave of violence in Mexico has left nearly 40 people dead in three days, authorities say.

At least 16 bodies were found in the Toluca region on Monday and another 22 in Mexico City over the weekend.

Police said organised crime is thought to be involved in the Toluca killings.

Recently inaugurated President Enrique Pena Nieto has said that reducing violence in Mexico is one of his government's top priorities.

He has recently enacted a law to trace and help thousands of victims caught up in drug violence and other crimes.

The bill sets up a compensation fund and establishes a national registry to record what happened to victims.

Correctional Center in the town of Jarratt.

Gleason's lawyers have argued he has a long history of mental illness and his condition has deteriorated during a year in solitary confinement.

Two other evaluations deemed him capable of making his own decisions.

He strangled his cellmate, 63-year-old Harvey Watson, in 2009, after tricking him into allowing his hands to be tied by pretending it was part of an escape plot.

According to court records, Gleason taunted his victim by stuffing a urine-soaked sponge

into his mouth before killing him.

While awaiting sentencing, he strangled 26-year-old Aaron Cooper.

Gleason said that he asked Cooper to try on a "religious necklace" through a wire fencing separating them.

He has said in multiple interviews that he has waived the appeals process because he knows he will kill again if he is not executed.

"Someone needs to stop it," he told the Associated Press at the time of the first inmate murder. "The only way to stop me is put me on death

row."

He repeated threats to murder again in court on numerous occasions.

Governor Bob McDonnell said in a statement on Friday: "Gleason has expressed no remorse for these horrific murders.

"He has been found competent by the appropriate courts to make all of these decisions."

Only 157 death-row electrocutions have taken place out of 1,320 executions since the US death penalty was reinstated in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Authorities have said the high death toll in Mexico City was "unusual" for the capital, but ruled out the involvement of organised crime.

On average, there are fewer than two violent deaths a day in the city.

In Toluca, however, many of the bodies had been dismembered and showed signs of torture.

Next to some of them, police found notes reportedly left by drug gangs.

President Pena Nieto has promised to reduce violence levels in the country.

His predecessor, Felipe Calderon, launched a war on the powerful drug gangs in December 2006.

Critics say the deployment of the army to fight the cartels has led to an escalation in violence, affecting mostly innocent victims.

Several drug lords have been arrested or killed. But an estimated 70,000 people have died in drug-related violence in the past six years.

Mexico violence kills 38

President Enrique Pena

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 35

Surround-sound coffins now available in Sweden

A Swedish man has designed a coffin with built-in speakers linked to a music playlist that can be updated by the living.

M

usic and video equipment store owner Fredrik Hjelmquist said his hi-fi coffin would entertain the dead and provide solace for grieving friends and relatives by making it possible for them to alter the deceased's playlist

online.

"We don't know, right? But then people believe in different ways in different parts of the world," Hjelmquist told Reuters television when he was asked whether a belief in life after death was what would lead someone to buy his

Bathroom bandit' stealing toilet parts throughout Milwaukee

P

olice in Milwaukee are trying to flush out a thief who has been stealing flushing valves from fast food restaurants and five regional universities.

The so-called "bathroom bandit" is accused of stealing $30,000 worth of automatic flush valves from urinals and toilets since September, WHASTV reported.

Although investigators have surveillance footage of this lavatory larcenist, they are still trying to figure out a motive.

"It's our suspicion, and we've

Police in Milwaukee believe this man has stolen more than $35,000 in toilet parts since September.

yet to be able to confirm this, that he's reselling them somehow. We don't believe he's taking them for scrap, there just wouldn't be enough value in it," Sgt. Ray Radakovich of the Greenfield Police Department told WITI-TV. Police believe the thief has some kind of plumbing knowledge because in just a minute or two, he's able to shut off the water, screw the valve off, and be on his way.

The problem has gotten so bad that the regional manager of the local Arby's has ordered locks placed on the urinals.

"At first I thought it was a prank but when he hit another store we knew something was going on here," Eric Peterson told TodaysTMJ4.com.

In order to slam the lid on the bathroom bandit, authorities are asking the public for help.

The suspect is a white male between the ages of 20 and 30, between 5' 8 and 5'10? tall and around 150-160 pounds with a light beard. Police say he may be wearing a dark jacket and a black hat with a white stripe.

Officials are urging anyone with information to contact the UW-Milwaukee Police Department at 414-229-4627.

coffin.

"In Sweden perhaps we don't believe in it, but in many parts of the world people believe in a different way," he said.

He planned to be buried in such a coffin, he added, and would choose opera for his long sleep. He

has not sold any of his coffins, but there have been many enquiries, he added.

The price tag is a hefty 199,000 Swedish crowns ($30,700).

"We've had an unbelievable amount of inquiries, not so much

in Sweden, but many from the United States and Canada, also from Taiwan," he said.

"OzzyOsbourne should buy one I think or Keith Richards. Somebody ought to do it because this is really rock n' roll I think...but at the same time beautiful," he said.

Dog abducted at gunpoint found, returned to owner

Bueller, a French Bulldog, was found Saturday morning after being reportedly stolen at gunpoint.

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his Bueller wasn't just playing hookey.Bueller, a French Bulldog allegedly taken at gunpoint in Tampa, Fla., was returned safely to his owner, Derek McComber, on Monday morning.

McComber, 27, had taken Bueller for a walk at approximately 12:19 a.m. on Saturdaywhen a gray Honda Civic pulled up on the side of the road, according to a release from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

A man then got out and asked McComber what kind of dog Bueller was.

After hearing that the dog was a French Bulldog, the suspect stated, "Well, I'm taking it," swooped up Bueller,

and began moving toward his car. McComber reported that he noticed the suspect's handgun was pointing at him, so he did not attempt to defend Bueller.

McComber began a social media campaign to find his pawed pal, launching both a Facebook page "Help Find Bueller" and Twitter handle @helpfindbueller.

Meanwhile, Gregory Sakas, an unemployed repairman, found the 25-pound dog Saturday morning at approximately 9:30 a.m. in his front yard, less than a mile from McComber's home.

Sakas, who described Bueller as "really polite" kept the dog overnight.

He was in the process of posting "found dog" flyers when a contact at Sunshine Animal Hospital told him a man was looking for a dog of that description, the Tampa Bay Times reported.

"I said, 'Man, I'm taking this dog to the police department,' " Sakas told the paper. He called the sheriff's office, where a reunion was set up.

"He was all over him, man," Sakas said of Bueller. "They knew each other for sure." According to the Times, Sakas will hear from Crime Stoppers about a reward soon. But despite his financial situation, Sakas said he didn't do it for the money. He offered a different explanation: "We're dog people."

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Diet drinks' 'link to depression' questioned

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xperts are questioning whether diet drinks could raise depression risk, after a large study has found a link.

The US research in more than 250,000 people found depression was more common among frequent consumers of artificially sweetened beverages.

The work, which will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's annual meeting, did not look at the cause for this link.

Drinking coffee was linked with a lower risk of depression.

People who drank four cups a day were 10% less likely to be diagnosed with depression during the 10-year study period than those who drank no coffee.

But those who drank four cans or glasses of diet fizzy drinks or artificially sweetened juice a day increased their risk of depression by about a third.

Lead researcher Dr Honglei Chen, of the National Institutes of Health in North Carolina, said: "Our research suggests that cutting out or down on sweetened diet drinks or replacing them with unsweetened coffee may naturally help lower your depression risk."

The safety of sweeteners has been tested by regulators But he said more studies were needed to explore this.

There are many other factors that may be involved.

And the findings - in people in their 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s and living in the US - might not apply

to other populations.

The safety of sweeteners, like aspartame, has been extensively tested by scientists and is assured by regulators.

Gaynor Bussell, of the British Dietetic Association, said:

"Sweeteners used to be called 'artificial' sweeteners and unfortunately the term 'artificial' has evoked suspicion. As a result, sweeteners have been very widely tested and reviewed for safety and the ones on the market have an

excellent safety track record.

"However, the studies on them continue and this one has thrown up a possibly link - not a cause and effect - with depression."

She said the study was a "oneoff" and did not mean that sweeteners caused depression.

"For a start, people who suffer from depression may latch on to the idea that it is their sweetened beverages that caused it and so add a bias to their reporting of past intake, especially as 'soda' in the US is demonised even more than in the UK. Also, it may be that drinking 'diet' drinks is a marker for obesity or diabetes which in themselves can cause depression.

"Non-calorific sweeteners can play a useful role in the diets of those trying to lose weight and diabetics and it is certainly not advocated that people should replace their diet sodas with more coffee."

Beth Murphy, at the mental health charity Mind, said: "We would urge anyone who is affected by depression to follow the advice of their GP or other medical professional in regards to their treatment."

Source: BBCNews.com

Superfoods can make cancer MORE likely, says pioneer of DNA study

By Fiona Macrae

F

ashionable anti-cancer superfoods and supplements do not prevent the disease and may even cause it, according to a scientist who helped discover the structure of DNA. James Watson said the cure for many cancers will remain elusive unless scientists rethink the role of antioxidants, which include vitamin pills and food such as blueberries and broccoli.

It is widely believed they boost health and fight cancer by mopping up oxygen molecules called free radicals. But Dr Watson argues these may be key to preventing and treating cancer - and depleting the body of them may be counterproductive.

Free radicals not only help keep diseased cells under control, they are also pivotal in making many cancer drugs, as well as radiotherapy, effective, he believes.

Writing in a journal published by the Royal Society, the 84-yearold Nobel laureate stated that antioxidants 'may have caused more cancers than they have prevented'.

'For as long as I have been focused on the curing of cancer, wellintentioned individuals have been consuming antioxidative nutritional supplements as cancer preventatives, if not actual therapies,' he said.

'In light of recent data strongly hinting that much of late-stage cancer's untreatability may arise from its possession of too many antioxidants, the time has come to seriously ask whether antioxidant use much more likely causes than prevents cancer.'

He said a vast number of studies had found antioxidants including vitamins A, C and E and the mineral selenium, to have 'no obvious effectiveness' in preventing stomach

cancer or in lengthening life.

Instead, they seem to slightly shorten the lives of those who take them, and vitamin E may be particularly dangerous.

The American, who describes his theory as among his most important work since the DNA breakthrough with British colleague Francis Crick in 1953, said blueberries may taste good but give no protection against cancer. The study by Dr Watson, based at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, is published in the journal Open Biology.

He has caused uproar in the past with his opinions on race, intelligence, beauty and homosexuality.

Professor Nic Jones, of Cancer Research UK, agreed that studies showed antioxidants were ineffective for cancer prevention in

healthy people and can even slightly increase the risk of the disease.

He said vitamins and minerals should be obtained through a healthy and balanced diet.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk

Counter productive? It is widely believed foods such as blueberries, left, and broccoli, right, help boost health and fight cancer by mopping up oxygen molecules called free radicals

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 37

2015: Jonathan and the long rope phenomenon ANALYSIS

By Agaju Madugba

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resident Goodluck Jonathan may not have made any definitive proclamation concerning his intention to contest the 2015 presidential election but current developments, both within and outside government circles, may lead any discerning mind to the conclusion that Jonathan may indeed be in the process of struggling to determine his destiny beyond 2015.

A “destiny child” as some of Jonathan’s admirers often describe him, the President rose to power through an inter-play of various forces far beyond his control or the power of anybody or group for that matter. He began his political journey from his position as the Deputy Governor of Bayelsa state to being the substantive governor, from where former President Olusegun Obasanjo influenced Jonathan’s selection as Vice President to late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua.

The rest is history. Just like actors in a drama presentation or characters in a novel, Jonathan’s body language in recent times clearly single him out as completely flat.

He appears to be so predictable to the point that before the curtain goes down, the audience or readers already know the ultimate end.

Although there have been both overt and covert campaigns for Jonathan to continue in office beyond 2015, but the New Year day 2015 posters in Abuja have tended to heighten the tempo and perhaps erased doubts that Jonathan will most likely take another shot at the Presidency.

Thus begins the real story of Jonathan’s chequered journey towards the end of the drama as the already beleaguered Nigerian audience wait to see how he handles the forces on his path.

The much talked about 2015 may be some two years away but political activities leading to the emergence of a new president on May 29 of that year are most likely to begin towards the second quarter of 2014. Also a combination of issues arising from developments in the country in 2012 and 2013 may go a long way in charting the course that 2015 will eventually take. For the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), 2012 remains the most disturbing and challenging for workers since, according to the union, the period was

President Goodluck Jonathan characterized by incessant job losses, insecurity, corruption, and unparalleled impunity by the political class. These are developments that continue to threaten the nation’s stability even in the New Year. “The issue of corruption is unprecedented today in Nigeria so much so that we wonder whether there are proper regulations in place to tackle the menace,” NLC President, Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar, had lamented in his New Year message. He noted further “It has become a way of life and has eaten deep into the core of our existence as a country.” For a former Kaduna state governor, Alhaji Balarabe Musa, only prayers can make the difference for Nigerians in 2013 as he points out that, “this is a government that cannot cope, and, so, I do not expect anything from them. As it is now, Nigerians should rather keep praying for the nation in 2013 because the government cannot do anything.”

Incidentally, also threading the path of cynicism, another prominent northerner, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, maintains that Nigerians should not expect much from the Jonathan administration in 2013 because of series of broken promises on the part of the President. He says, “My experience with Jonathan government has been disappointment all the way because there is hardly anything they promised at the beginning of

their tenure that they have achieved. In the first place, President Jonathan is not a presidential material, so Nigerians should not actually expect anything extraordinary from him.”

Musa’s pessimism and Mohammed’s distrust of government’s intentions may seem justifiable given that over these past years, and in 2012 in particular, the nation’s economy continued to wobble even as the hydra-headed corruption tended to ground it with scandalous reports emanating from sections of the petroleum sub-sector, the heartbeat of the national economy. With such a dismal report card of performance and the wrangling currently rocking the foundation of Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party (PDP),

a red card appears to dangle on the President’s face even with a number of political slips he tends to commit by the day. Just how far can Jonathan go without support of the PDP governors in particular and the power brokers within the party? The answer may be neither here nor there but unlike in 2011, there are indications that the governors may have turned their backs against Jonathan, a development which a party chieftain insists is essentially based on the President’s bid to run again in 2015.

Arising from the political marsh in Adamawa state as a result of a struggle for power control, a PDP chieftain Dr. Umar Ardo, says the governors no longer give a whoop what Jonathan does or intends to do except, of course, to try as much as possible to frustrate his plans. According to Ardo, “they (PDP governors) want to impose one of them as presidential candidate of the party in 2015 and that is why they are defying what the President and the people want.”

From all indications, it would appear that Jonathan has apparently forgotten the circumstances under which he emerged president at a time that the north was still savoring presidential power which was cut short by the unexpected demise of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. “Jonathan is not satisfied with his 2011 victory and now he is trying to stretch his luck rather too far,” another PDP source said even as the source asks, “how do you expect the north or PDP governors from the north to support the President’s inordinate ambition to cling to power?” Apart from this factor, Jonathan seems to further tighten the noose around his neck having grabbed the rope which some more experienced party men may have deliberately doused with irresistible berth. The source explained further that, “Jonathan’s greatest undoing

“

Those handling the matter have sold the dummy of Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu as the BoT Chairman to Jonathan, and he has bought the idea. The fact is that it is because they want a lame duck, somebody who will be ready to do whatever they ask him to do without any questions asked

is to allow himself to incur the wrath of former President Olusegun Obasanjo who is the single most influential person in the PDP today.” It is unclear at what point and the circumstances leading to recent altercation between the Presidency and Obasanjo, but there is much evidence the relationship between Jonathan and Obasanjo is far from being cordial. According to the source, “when it comes to determining who emerges the President in the PDP, governors hold the key and in the present circumstances, Obasanjo has control of majority of them because he was instrumental to their emerging governors and they are not in a hurry to forget the role he has played in their lives. If the governors decide on a candidate and present such a person to contest the PDP presidential primary elections, Jonathan will kiss the dust and that will mark his disgraceful exit.”

The matter is debatable though but the debacle over chairmanship of the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) may not be unconnected with part of the plot to eventually render Jonathan ineffective and further reduce his chances of making significant impact as 2015 draws closer. As the source puts it, “Those handling the matter have sold the dummy of Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu as the BoT Chairman to Jonathan, and he has bought the idea. The fact is that it is because they want a lame duck, somebody who will be ready to do whatever they ask him to do without any questions asked.” But whatever the issues at stake, President of the Arewa Youth Forum (AYF), Alhaji Gambo Gujungu, lists insecurity, crippling poverty and government’s failure to prosecute its transformation programme to impact positively on the people, as some of the major factors that will mar Jonathan’s perceived quest to seek re-election in 2015.

As Gujungu puts it, “there is a wide gulf between the government and the masses of this country because you cannot single out any particular area that you can say with confidence that this government has performed.

Majority of the people who actually did the voting are suffering and in 2015 you expect them to also come out again and ask Jonathan to continue? My candid opinion is that President Goodluck Jonathan should shelve his ambition because he has proved that he is not capable of handling the affairs of this country.”

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Tambuwal seeks NASS collaboration with European parliaments

By Lawrence Olaoye

S

peaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has called for a closer working relationship between Nigerian parliamentarians and their counterparts in the European Union.

Speaking when he gave audience to members of the Association of European

Parliamentarians with Africa (AWEPA)who paid a courtesy call to him in Abuja yesterday, Tambuwal specifically asked the visitors to help Nigerian lawmakers in the areas of budget tracking, training for members of national and state assemblies, and other areas to deepen democratic ethos.

Tambuwal said both the House of Representatives and the European parliament can share

their experiences and challenges for the benefit of the two entities.

He said by developing closer contact, the two parliaments can enhance democratic ideals in Africa and Europe.

He assured that the House of Representatives will play active role in the promotion of the aims and objectives of AWEPA. Earlier in his remarks, the leader of the delegation,

Professor Tadeusz Iwiriski, said they were in Nigeria to explore ways of enhancing cooperation between AWEPO and the National Assembly of Nigeria.

He said the association will partner with like mind bodies to promote MDGs and interparliamentary cooperation.

The visit was organized under the auspices of the Nigerian National Institute for Legislative Studies (NILS).

L-R: Cross River state INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr Mike Igini, Chairman, Senate Committee on Information, Senator Eyinaya Abaribe, Guest Speaker, Mr Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN),NBA President, Mr Okeywali, Special Guest of Honour, Justice Ayo Philips, Lagos state Solicitor General, Mr Lawal Pedro, representative of Gani Fawehinmi family, Mrs Ganiyat Fawehinmi, during the 9th Chiff Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture/Symposium, on Tuesday in Lagos.

Photo : Bolaji Olasunkanmi

Kogi LG poll: Aspirants must resign April, KOSIEC directs From Sam Egwu, Lokoja

A

ll public office holders who want to contest the forth coming local government elections in Kogi state have directed to resign their appointment by 4th April, as there would be no special candidate.

The directive was given in an exclusive interview with our reporter in Lokoja by the Chairman of the Kogi State Independent Electoral Commission, KOSIEC, Barr Abraham Olaniran, even as PDP Chairman, Hon Hassan Salau gave similar directives.

Barr Olaniran noted that the law stipulates that all public officers resign 30 days to the election slated for May 4, 2013 for the LG polls in the 21 local government in Kogi state.

The Chairman who said that KOSIEC had no power to screen candidates however pointed out that it can only document the particulars of candidates as presented by political parties.

He further averred that KOSIEC will make available nomination forms which political parties could collect for their candidates as part of requirement for the election.

The KOSIEC boss asserted that time-table and guidelines for the election had already been made public stressing that security arrangements had been concluded with relevant security agencies.

On logistics, Olaniran hinted that KOSIEC had inaugurated 42 electoral officers in the 21 local government areas of the state adding that electoral materials are ready.

Osun budget all embracing, Enugu PDP meets behind closed-doors with councilors says lawmaker

T

he PDP in Enugu State yetserday met behind closed-doors with its councillors from the seven local government areas in the Enugu North Senatorial Zone.

Although the agenda of the meeting was not made public, the Chairman of the

party in the state, Chief Vita Abba, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that it was to discuss party affairs.

Abba said the meeting was organised with the party stakeholders to discuss internal matters to move the party forward in the state.

“This is a political party

and we should hold meetings to make the party better,’’ he said.

The party had recently suspended three councillors from Uzo Uwani Local Government Area for gross misconduct and anti-party activities.

The party is also

grappling with the prolonged absence of Gov. Sullivan Chime who went on vacation in September.

A source close to the meeting told NAN that similar meetings would be held with councillors from the other two senatorial zones. (NAN)

INEC’s Electoral Institute undergoing re-organisation, expansion says Chairman

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he Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is undergoing reorganisation, re-structuring and widening the scope of its Electoral Institute, INEC Chairman Attahiru Jega, has said.

Jega dropped the hint at the opening of the three-day workshop on “Managing the Media for Successful Electoral Process’’ organised by NAN Bizcom, in Makurdi on Wednesday.

Jega, who was represented by the Administrative

Secretary of INEC in Benue, Mr Bamidele Oladipo, said that exercise was meant to elicit maximum performance from the staff members.

He said: “The exercise is informed by the need to get the best out of the staff and it is not a witch hunt, nor is it intended to stultify morale.’’

On the Electoral Institute, Jega said: “Our desire is that the institute should research into electoral matters and serve the commission, and Independent Electoral Commissions in West African

region.

“In furtherance of this effort, the position of DirectorGeneral, and Directors for the institute have been advertised.’’

He explained that promotion of staff to directorate cadre would be released as soon as the restructuring was completed.

In her remarks, the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mrs Oluremi Oyo, explained that the agency had continuously collaborated with INEC in capacity building and wished

that the relationship would be sustained.

Oyo, who was represented by the Executive Director (Marketing), Mr Jide Adebayo, said that NAN and INEC played pivotal role in the transformation process in the country.

She explained that NAN would remain committed to the “philosophy of improving capacity’’, especially in the media and public relations and would continue to strive to impact positively on the nation.

(NAN)

T

he Chairman, House Committee on Finance and Appropriation in Osun, Mr Kamil Oyedele, says the state’s 2013 budget would cater for all sectors of the economy.

Oyedele made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Osogbo.

He said that the House had referred the fiscal proposal to the House Committee on Finance and Appropriation for further consideration.

The chairman added that the budget would focus on the economy, environment and agriculture sectors, particularly livestock, fishery and forestry sub-sectors.

Other areas that would be given required attention, he said, include urban and rural electrification, education, health, information and culture, regional planning and environmental sanitation as well as housing and water resources.

NAN reports that Gov. Rauf Aregbesola sent the fiscal proposal to the House in December before the lawmakers went on recess. (NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 39

Opposition frustrated electronic voting proposal, says Gbajabiamila

By Umar Muhammad Puma

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pposition parties were responsible for the inclusion of the controversial Section 52 subsection 2 of the Electoral Act which banned the use of electronic voting “for the time being”, Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila has said.

He was speaking at the public presentation of the “2015 Manifesto of Opposition Parties” written by a public affairs analysts and commentator,

Salihu Mohammed Lukman.

“The reason for opposition to electronics voting by ACN, ANPP and others at the time was because we were very wary of sophisticated rigging. We were very wary of advanced technological rigging. We had seen what had happened in advanced democracy like the US during the Al Gore and Bush era.

More importantly, the issue of electronics voting at the time was being driven by the PDP members in the House. So we felt, with PDP the more you look, the less you see and they were driving so vehemently the issue

of electronic voting, we knew there was an agenda somewhere.

We had to organise our base and we opposed that issue to put that in the electoral law,” he said.

While saying that there is no alternative to the merger of the opposition, he said the arrangements emanated from the House of Representatives two years ago during the election of the Speaker of the House, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, adding that the success of that move made them to believe that if they can succeed in electing Tambuwal, they can also succeed in electing the President of the country.

ACN national leader, Senator Ahmed Bola Tinubu, represented by Gbajabiamila, said he believed the book harbours too much on the alleged competing personal ambitions between leader of the Congress for Progressive Change, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari and himself.

“This is understandable. It is part of our political parlance to focus on leaders. However, I tell you, if Gen. Buhari and I do our part to cement an opposition alliance, but everyone else takes a holiday thinking the hard part is over, we will be in worst

We have no friction in our party, says Rivers APGA Chairman

T

he Rivers Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr Terry Godfrey, has said that there is no friction or crisis among its members.

Godfrey stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Port Harcourt yesterday.

He said that the party was ever united and determined to take over areas of political interest in the next elections.

“APGA is more united from 2013 without any doubt; we have began our strategies on how to win more constituencies.

“Let nobody be deceived that we are not united or that the party is under any sort of crisis,’’ Godfrey said.

The APGA chairman explained that the party was more concerned with winning elections than dwelling on trivial issues.

He said that it was the focus of the party for electoral success that had united them more, adding that the “party is in intact”.

Godfrey, who said that the seeming crisis in the party was normal in every democratically oriented political party, gave the assurance that it had been settled.

He claimed that there was external pressure to destabilise the party, but promised that no level of distraction would cause disunity in the party.

The APGA boss described the party as the most credible party, capable of delivering democratic dividends to the people.

Godfrey explained that what the people wanted was good governance which, he said, APGA had provided for them in Imo and Anambra.

According to him, a united house is always achieving great things; the achievements of APGA in the two states show it is one and focused.

“A divided house cannot stand, we are very much together, that is why people of Imo and Anambra are reaping the dividends,’’ he said.

(NAN)

L-R: Chairman, House Committee on Defence, Hon. Bashir Adamu and Hon. Tasiu Mohammed Dogur, chatting after House's delibration, yesterday in Abuja. Photo: Mahmud Isa

position by 2015 than had we not created an alliance. Thus everyone must assess their role in the coming alliance and identify how they cannot only help bring it into existence but give it the fortitude, strength and ballast needed to navigate the difficult waters to electoral victory.

“Here, I can say for myself and I am sure I also speak for the General in this regard. It is not in our hearts to sacrifice the national wellbeing in order to fulfil any personal agenda.

Whatever responsibilities that need to be assumed or sacrifices needed to be made to consummate a progressive alliance, we shall do,” Tinubu said.

Buhari represented by former deputy governor of Bauchi state and chairman of the CPC merger committee, Alhaji Garba Gadi, said there was no going back on the party’s merger talks with other opposition parties and those previous failed attempts to achieve a merger should not deter the ongoing moves, which he said was driven by yearnings of Nigerians.

Chairman of the event, Chief Audu Ogbe lamented that political parties since 1999 has dumped party manifesto as those in the elective positions only follow their whims, adding that the development was responsible for the misplacement of policy that lead the President to also be the leader of the party despite the enormous responsibility of his office and which led to dictatorship and inefficiency.

National Assembly approves re-constituted SEC Board

By Abdulwahab Isa

T

he re-constituted Board of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given firm commitment to resolve the impasse between it and National Assembly in the interest of growth of the capital market.

Chairman of the Board, Mallam Suleiyman Ndanusa, stated this yesterday in a chat with newsmen shortly after a formal inauguration of the Board by the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, in Abuja.

Ndanusa who was at a time, SEC Director-General assured that the Board will work towards

achieving the mandate for which it was established even as he noted that SEC will undergo what he described as complete modernisation process, According to him, “we are going back to SEC at a very challenging and interesting moment.

“A lot has been done by our

Clerics condemn Lagos law on cremation

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ome clerics yesterday condemned the passage of the law legalising voluntary cremation of corpses and unclaimed bodies in Lagos State The Lagos State House of Assembly (LAHA) on Dec. 27 2012 passed the Cremation bill after it scaled through the third reading at its plenary.

In telephone interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the clerics described the bill as against all ethics and beliefs of religions in Nigeria.

Monsignor Gabriel Osu,

Director of Social Communication, Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, however, noted that some of the cemeteries in Lagos metropolis needed rehabilitation.

“The abode of the dead should be neat, decent and respected,” he said adding that it was, however, not enough reason for allowing cremation.

“The assembly should pursue issues and interests that would benefit the people in the area of housing, accommodation, security, food, health and environment.

“The legislators should look at laws on widows, women, child rights and the use of underage as child labour, rather than proposing and passing a bill on cremation,” he said.

Osu identified youth unemployment, insecurity, corruption, indiscipline and infrastructure decay as some of the challenges facing the country.

Also, Chief Lekan Ajirotutu, spokesman, African Traditional Religion of Nigeria (AATREN), told NAN that cremation was not in line with African tradition.

(NAN)

predecessor but that is not enough as we are going to be more concerned with enforcement of rules and regulation of the market.”

He described current developments in the capital market as interesting and challenging times and that the Board would consolidate on the current gains and move the market forward.

Inaugurating the Board earlier, the Minister described the Board of SEC as very important to the economy.

According to her, the tax relief recently granted to some stock brokers has gingered the stock market and rekindled confidence in the capital market and implored the SEC DG and Managing Director of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to encourage more listings on the floor of the stock exchange.

Okonjo-Iweala noted that government is pleased with the quality of members of the Board more so as the National Assembly approved the list of members.

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PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Make economic regeneration your priority, Ere tells Gov. Dickson

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he Coordinator of i n d i g e n o u s entrepreneurs in Bayelsa State, Hon. Ebikakeme Ere, has asked Gov. Seriake Dickson to make economic regeneration his “main point agenda“.

Ere told newsmen at a media chat in Yenagoa that the state’s economic policies were causing “rapid closure of small businesses.“ The coordinator, speaking

also for Indigenous Small and Medium Scale Entrepreneurs in Bayelsa, said many of the current economic policies operated by the state were “poor and unfavorable”.

Ere, also a former federal lawmaker and CEO of a leading software development company in Bayelsa State, urged Dickson to review his economic policies to encourage the development and survival of small

businesses.

According to him, small business owners in the state were promoting a N150million investment in new technologies that would see to the opening of more internet café.

He added that the N150 million investment initiatives would work to reduce cost of doing business in the state.

“But the State Government must activate policies that will

stop the death of small businesses in the state.

“The present administration in Bayelsa needs to change its fiscal policies and empowerment plans for small business entrepreneurs,“ he said.

On another business plan in partnership Globacom and a group of other investors, Ere said this initiatives would require the sum of N50million to provide five additional solar-powered

masts.

“This new business plan will reduce the cost of using the internet and will ensure an improvement in sales of computer antennas and modems,“ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the group of other investors is led by a former Director of Bayelsa Foods Company, Mr Godson Beedie.

(NAN)

Amosun, NBA, others urge FG to tackle insecurity, poverty

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L-R: Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal receiving a gift from the ViceChairman, Foreign Affairs Committee of Polish Parliament and leader of the Delegation of Association of European Parliamentarian of European with Africa (AWEPA), Professor Tadeusz Iwiriski, during the delegation's visit to the Speaker, yesterday at the National Assembly in Abuja.

Photo: Mahmud Isa

PDP can’t intimidate me, says Offa LG ACN Chairman From Olanrewaju Lawal, Ilorin

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he Chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria ( ACN) Offa Local Government, Prince Saheed Popoola, has accused few members of his dissolved cabinet of spreading falsehood against his person.

The sacked cabinet members, who had defected to the PDP, were asked to resign their appointment before Saheed dissolved the cabinet in December last year.

Popoola said in a statement issued on Tuesday evening that

the character assassination was part of the grand plot to victimize him after he had repeatedly rejected the intimidation to quit the ACN “which was the platform our people have chosen to be.”

“I wish to alert the world to the unceasing intention of the PDP to give the dog a bad name in order to hang it. The latest in the futile plot is contained in the character assassination by former members of my cabinet who are now PDP members.

“Although I have since explained my own side of the story to the relevant authorities and would not do anything to inhibit

whatever investigation to be carried out, these elements are now resorting to media blackmail to achieve their sinister plot.

“The agenda is to rid Kwara of any opposition by all foul means available. I urge the public to see their allegations as antics of desperate lots whose grievances are that I would not betray our people or retain them in the cabinet despite the many issues against them.

“I remain committed to the ideals of transparency, probity/ accountability and good governance for which our people are still standing by us.”

Borno promises job for ex- servicemen

B

orno State Government has promised to provide employment for retired military personnel in the state.

Gov. Kashim Shettima said this at the Armed Forces Remembrance Day celebration in Maiduguri on Tuesday.

Represented by his Deputy, Alhaji Zanna Mustapha, Shettima said that the state government would also provide employment for the dependents of the ex-service men

to alleviate their hardships.

“Considering the fact that our ex-servicemen fought in the course of defending us, their families and dependents should not be left to suffer deprivations.

“It is for this reason that I am appealing to all to generously render assistance to cater for the families of the fallen heroes and our exservicemen in general.”

Shettima also appealed to all employers of labour in the state to

consider offering employment to both ex-servicemen and their familiies.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that about N3 million was realised at the launch of the state Emblem Appeal Fund held at the end of the ceremony.

The state government donated the highest amount of N2million while the balance came from individuals and organisations.

(NAN)

ome eminent Nigerians on Tuesday urged the Federal Government to intensify efforts to combat insecurity and poverty in the country.

They made the call at the 9th Chief Gani Fawehinmi Annual Lecture/Symposium organised by the Ikeja Branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Lagos on Tuesday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the theme of the lecture was “Economy, Politics and Human Rights: Wither Nigeria?”.

Speakers at the lecture included Gov. Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Mr Okey Wali, President, NBA, and Prof. Chidi Odikanlu, the Chairman, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

Others were Mr Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN), and Mr Onyekachi Ubani, Chairman, NBA, Ikeja Branch.

Amosun, who was represented by the Ogun State Attorney-General, Mr Wemimo Ogunde (SAN), said Nigeria was in dire need of economic revival.

He said: “A bad economy means high poverty level which leads to a high crime rate.

“The economic base of a nation is important as it determines the actual strength and capacity of that nation.

“It is the expression of the worth of the citizens as well as their capacities for self actualisation and fulfilment.

“Freedom of choice means nothing when the citizens are not sufficiently empowered to exercise that freedom.”

The governor maintained that the government must strive to overcome its security challenges in order to create a conducive environment for businesses to thrive.

“I want to re-state that government need not be the largest employer of labour; it should not even be.

“All that the government needs to do is create the right atmosphere for investments and opportunities to flourish.

“The Service Industry and Manufacturing Sector could employ more people than all the governments in the country put together”, he said.

He said: “The NBA calls on the Federal Government to intensify efforts in its fight against insecurity, as this is not only affecting human lives, but also the Nigerian economy.

“Foreign investors can only invest in a secured, peaceful country. With the situation on ground in Nigeria today, Nigeria presents the most challenging development environment in the world today”. (NAN)

Local Govt. autonomy long overdue — Dons

S

ome university teachers have expressed support for the ongoing calmour by Nigerians for local government autonomy, to enhance development at the grassroots.

The dons, in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos, said local government autonomy was long overdue.

Prof. Solomon Akinboye, Head, Political Science Department, University of Lagos (UNILAG), described the third tier government as an independent one, which should be allowed to function independently.

Akinboye said that all the tiers of government in a federal system all over the world were independent, but the situation was different in Nigeria.

“I will support the call for local government autonomy; it is what many of us have been clamouring for for a long time.

“If we are operating a true federalism, the local government which is the third tier of government

should have its own autonomy.’’

The head of department noted that managing the funds and resources at the local government level was not a barrier, adding that it only required “checks and balances”.

He said there should be a means of monitoring and evaluating the application of funds allocated by the Federal Government.

“It is a grassroots government, nearest to the people, and should be able to function independently to care for the people.

“The local government should be given autonomy,’’ Akinboye said.

Also speaking, Prof. Friday Iyoha said that if the local government remained dependent on the state, there would be no development at that level of government.

Iyoha, the former Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences, Ambrose Ali University, Ekpoma, said the local government should be allowed to function on its own. (NAN)

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 41

Nigeria Mission satisfied with team’s accommodation

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he Nigerian High Commissioner to South Africa, Ambassador Sanni Yusuf, has expressed satisfaction with the facilities at the disposal of the Super Eagles for the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

Yusuf told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Correspondent in South Africa yesterday in Johannesburg that the team got

the best hotel allocated to it.

“I must say that the Super Eagles, of the four teams in the group, have the best facilities; the hotel has two standard training pitches located within its precincts.

“We also intend to meet with the LOC on the issue of accreditation for key government officials to have access to the team and to

AFCON: Ethiopia promise Walyas N10.5m each to beat Super Eagles, others

By Patrick Andrew with agency report

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fter 30 years of missing in Africa’s elite football tournament, Ethiopia are determined to hit it big at the 29th AFCON

Sewnet Bishaw, Coach of Walyas

that begins this weekend in South Africa.

Accordingly, the E t h i o p i a n government has promised each Walyas $100 000 (N10.5m) for them to beat the likes of the Super Eagles of Nigeria, Elephants of Ivory Coast, Black Stars of Ghana and Bafana Bafana to clinch the prestigious trophy.

Disclosing this yesterday, the Ethiopian Football Federation president Sahilu Gebremariam, said each player

would receive $111 000 if the team wins the Cup and a further $55 000 if the team reaches the final in South Africa.

Sahilu said coach Sewnet Bishaw and his assistant coach would be rewarded with “significantly higher prize money” if the team progresses to the final.

This cash inducement to players is not peculiar to the Walyas, as the Super Eagles have equally been promised $10,000 per player in every win in the

preliminary and a further $12.500 in the next stage and $20,000 if they get to the final.

Also, the Black Stars are to reck in as much as $100,000 each if they get to the final in addition to several other incentives.

In a similar fashion, Mali, Niger Republic and Ivory Coast have made sundry monetary reward promises to their teams as they progressed at the various stages of the tournament.

NFF in anxious wait for N1.4bn as Jonathan charges Eagles to bring back trophy

By Abdulrahman Abdulraheem

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arely three days to the kick-off of the 29th Africa Cup of Nations, the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) is still awaiting the release of the N1. 4 billion appropriated for the prosecution of the fiesta even as President Goodluck Jonathan has charged the Super Eagles to bring back the trophy from South Africa.

President Goodluck Jonathan

The football federation had expected the release of the money yesterday to facilitate the procurement of tickets for accompanying officials as well as allowances for the team, which is expected to arrive in Johannesburg this morning, but as at the close of work yesterday officials were wearing longdrawn faces.

Albeit, they declined to speak on the matter but a source said the NFF had been promised ‘something’ which was not forthcoming, a development that forced the leadership into desperate measures.

M e a n w h i l e , President Jonathan, who led members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in a prayer session for the Super Eagles, has

urged them to perform in a manner that would reflect Nigeria’s status as Africa’s giant.

The Chairman of the National Sports Commission and

Sports Minister, Bolaji Abdullahi, who disclosed this at the end of the Council’s meeting, said the Eagles would have no excuse not

Joseph Yobo, Eagles Skipper

The Menas of Niger Republic will each receive $6 000 per each victory at the group stage. Already, the players have each got $4000 as allowances before the team departed for South Africa on this week.

Ethiopia won the Cup of Nations in 1962 but last qualified for the final tournament in 1982.

It was drawn alongside tough opposition in Ghana, Mali and Congo in 2013 and is not expected to get out of the group. accomplishing the desired target having been accorded necessary logistics to prepare for the tournament.

The minister said that President Jonathan had called on the players to bring laurels to the country and pointed out that Nigeria’s absence at the medal tables in major outings recently was unacceptable.

Asamoah Gyan, Black Stars

discuss other logistics required for the team.

“The hotel that the team will be staying in was used for the 2010 World Cup and is still in very good shape; it is located in a secluded area of the town, with heavy security,’’ Yusuf said.

He added that the mission had notified the Nigerian communities in South Africa and in Mozambique, which is closed to Mbombela, and has large population of Nigerians, to come out en masse to support the Super Eagles Meanwhile, the High Commissioner has told members of the Nigeria Football Supporters Club in Mbombela, who accompanied him on the inspection of facilities to be good ambassadors of the country.

He appealed to the fans to be wellbehavoured ambassadors of Nigeria and urged them to stay away from the Eagles’ hotel to avoid distracting the players.

Yusuf was accompanied on the visit by the Consul-General, Okey Emuchay and Dr Bolaji Ojo-Oba, Director of Elite Athletes at the National Sports Commission.

The Super Eagles will be staying at the Ingwenyama Conference and Sports Resort, Mbombela.

Kanu says only firebrand Eagles will excel in S/Africa

By Albert Akota

F

ormer Super Eagles captain, Nwankwo Kanu says only a firebrand and mentally focused Eagles will end Nigeria’s long wait for a third African Cup of Nations trophy win when the curtain drops on the fiesta in South Africa.

Nigeria last tasted the joy of continental conquest 18 years ago in Tunisia when the current Chief Coach, Stephen Keshi, lifted the trophy as skipper after a pulsating 2-1 win over the Chipolopolo of Zambia.

Kanu, whose 86 Caps is sure to fall to current skipper, Joseph Yobo who is just one short of the record, believes with self confidence, discipline and determination coupled with hard work, the Eagles will attain the desired continental conquest.

According to Kanu, the Eagles have what

it takes to emerge champions in South Africa, but must first do the needful adding that the team is guaranteed the support of government and people of Nigeria.

“The number one thing in football is self confidence to win every match because without that you will never excel in any competition.

“We won the 1996 Atlanta Olympics football because we believe in ourselves.

Even the Zambians who won the last AFCON believe in themselves despite the fact that nobody gave them that chance.

“No doubt, that the Eagles tutored by Keshi will win the cup because I strongly believed in their quality,” he said.

Nigeria are grouped alongside defending champions Zambia, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso and are to play their opening game against Burkina Faso.

PAGE 42

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Aussie Open: Zheng upsets Stosur as Li, Nishikori progress for Asia China’s Zheng Jie upset home favourite Samantha Stosur to join Li Na in the Australian Open’s third round yesterday, as Japanese star Kei Nishikori flew the flag for Asia’s men.

Zheng fought back from a losing position in the final set reeling off five games in a row against the panicking ninth seed to take it 6-4, 1-6, 7-5.

The Chinese, who reached the semifinals in 2010 and is a two-time Grand Slam doubles champion, revealed that tenacity had been drummed into her from a young age.

Li, the 2011 French Open champion and Australian Open runner-up, also faced difficult moments in her 62, 7-5 win against Olga Govortsova of Belarus before booking her place in the next round.

With Peng Shuai’s win on Tuesday, three Chinese women are into the third round in Melbourne, in positive signs for the country which will host five WTA tournaments next year.

Nishikori, a men’s quarterfinalist last year, also made it to round three as he came through a first set tie-break and then surged home in straight sets against Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq.

The Japanese star had a battle in a 69-minute opening

Zheng Jie

Nadal to return at Brazil Open

R

afael Nadal is watching the Australian Open from the stance like every other spectator no thanks to recurrent injury problems.

But the former world number one will make his comeback from injury at next month’s Brazil Open, the ATP says.

The seven-time French Open champion , who is 26 years and has suffered from tendonitis in his knee since losing to Lukas Rosol in the second round of Wimbledon in June, was forced to withdraw from the Australian Open after his recovery was hit by a

stomach virus.

Nadal also missed the London 2012 Olympics and the US Open with his knee complaint.

The Spaniard has slipped to four in the world rankings during his absence from the Tour.

Britain’s Andy

Murray won the US Open in September and has moved up to number three.

Nadal’s appearance in the indoor tournament in Sao Paulo will be his first on the tour in South America since 2005. The tournament begins on 11 February.

set but once he got the initial edge he proceeded to take charge, and grabbed three service breaks in the second set and another two in the final set to win easily.

However, there was disappointment for Japan’s Tatsuma Ito, who went out in four sets to 2006 finalist Marcos Baghdatis.

And Misaki Doi suffered the humiliation of going down 6-0, 6-0 to world No 2 Maria Sharapova, who reached the third round without dropping a single game.

India’s Somdev Devvarman went out in five rollercoaster sets to towering Pole Jerzy Janowicz, who momentarily lost the plot in a screaming meltdown which quickly circulated on the Internet.

Taiwanese qualifier Chan Yung-jan also went out to former women’s world No 1 Ana Ivanovic, failing in her bid to join compatriot Hsieh Su-wei in the round of 32.

... As South Africa’s Anderson posts warning signals

S

outh Africa’s flag bearer, Kevin Anderson, yesterday sent warning signals to the big boys when he dismissed Andrey Kuznetsov in straight sets 6-1, 7-5, 6-4 to advanced to the third round of the Australian Open.

The game which lasted under two hours, saw the lanky South African, who has been in excellent form recently, having reached the final of the Sydney International, sent down 19 aces in a dominant serving display against the 21-year-

old Russian, ranked 79 in the world.

Kuznetsov, who won the junior Wimbledon title in 2009, was broken four times by the South African.

Anderson is looking to progress to the fourth stage of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, and will next face 22nd seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain, who he recently beat during the Hopman Cup in Perth.

Verdasco easily defeated Belgian Xavier Malisse 6-1, 6-3, 6-2.

It’s Sharapova versus Venus Williams Friday

M

aria Sharapova and Venus Williams will meet in a muchanticipated third-round clash at the Australian Open on Friday for the eighth time.

The Russian had won four previous meetings.

Sharapova racked up her second 6-0 6-0 victory of the week, this time against Japan’s Misaki Doi, to reach the last 32.

And Williams saw off France’s Alize Cornet 6-3 6-3 in the first of Wednesday’s night matches.

With five-time champion Serena Williams and defending champion Victoria Azarenka in the other half of the draw, the winner will be in a strong position to make the final.

Sharapova, who won the

Maria Sharapova

By Patrick Andrew with agency report

S

tephen Keshi, Super Eagles head coach, has lambasted critics of his inclusion of domestic league players in the AFCON squad and dismissed claims that he was merely gambling with the players.

The former Togo and Mali manager, who used the domestic league players as the nucleus in his rebuilding effort in the last one year, argued that

2008 Australian Open, has made a sensational start to her campaign, taking 24 games without reply.

She first played Williams in 2004, and when asked about taking on the seventime Grand Slam champion again, she said: “There are certainly no secrets coming in that match-up.

“We’ve played against each other many times.

Despite the fact she might not be seeded high or didn’t play for a little bit, she’s still a very experienced player and a tremendous athlete.”

Williams, 32, has slipped down the rankings in recent years due to injuries and ill health, but has returned from outside the top 100 at the end of 2011 to 26th in the world.

Venus Williams

Keshi blasts critics of domestic league players in AFCON squad the Nigeria Premier League (NPL) should be shut down if it cannot produce quality players for the national team.

Speaking on a football magazine show, Sports Tonight, on Channels TV penultimate night, Keshi argued that Nigeria’s best era in continental football was prosecuted by a team that was largely dominated by domestic lads.

“If players in domestic

league cannot play in Super Eagles then let’s scrap the domestic league,” said Keshi, who was a product of the Nigerian top flight with clubs like ACB and New Nigerian Bank (NNB), before becoming captain of the Super Eagles.

“Big Boss,” as he is fondly called, had included only six domestic league players out of the more than 20 that he has worked with since his

assumption as head coach in the 23-man squad for

Sunday Mba

the Africa Cup of Nations in South Africa.

The six local players are: goalkeeper Chigozie Agbim (from Enugu Rangers), Azubuike Egwuekwe (from Warri Wolves), Godfrey Oboabona (from Sunshine Stars), Reuben Gabriel (from Kano Pillars), Sunday Mba and Ejike Uzoenyi (both from Enugu Rangers).

The selection of the players had generated intense debate in Nigeria

but Keshi remains adamant that the six players worked hard to deserve their places.

It is the first time in seven years that a Nigerian squad would include more than a player or two from the domestic league for the Nations Cup. Goalkeeper Dele Aiyenugba was the last player from the nation’s top flight to make the cut to the 2006 AFCON while with Enyimba.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Future Africa Academy teach Sportlite soccer lessons

F

uture Africa Football Academy yesterday dwarfed Nigerian National League club side Sportlite FC of Katsina with delectable round leather display to the amazement of the teeming football fans that were on hand to watch the friendly game.

The friendly duel was meant to test the tactical and mental resolve of the academy lads who are being molded preparatory to their participation in the Katsina state FA Cup later in the year.

Though the game ended one apiece, but the depth, character and resilience of the academy lads impressed spectators who wondered what magic had been done within two months of its existence to produce the quality and flair exhibited by the team.

Alhaji Aminu Kurfi

The Academy FC owned

by Alhaji Aminu Balele Kurfi (Dan Arewa) had only last weekend trounced Katsina Governor's Cup Runners-up Kurfi FC 6-0 just days after beating Sokoto United 3-0.

Following the splendid performance of the Academy, officials of the Katsina state government were said to have approached the proprietor to seek what assistance he would need from the state government for the team, but he declined.

Peoples Daily Sports learnt that Alhji Kurfi had instead of accepting the offer from the government reportedly told the officials that it was Sportlite that needed help and pledged to assist the national professional league division one team by exposing them to international friendly games.

Ahaji Kurfi was quoted to have further said that the government should channel whatever resources it had wanted to use to assist Future Africa Academy FC to provide the badly needed social amenities for the people of Katsina state.

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CHANGE OF NAME

PAGE 43

Manchester United return on Ronaldo’s agenda

D

issatisfied Cristiano Ronaldo no longer sees his longterm future at Real Madrid and has made it known to Manchester United that he favours an eventual return to Old Trafford.

The development, which has been revealed to ESPN by well-placed figures close to both clubs as well as the player, tallies with Ronaldo’s recent public comments regarding his next move.

Ronaldo is said to be dismayed at the state the team are currently in as well as the rapid regression following last season’s record-breaking title win. exacerbating that are issues like a perceived failure to back the player in his Ballon d’Or campaign, the state of siege in which his manager Jose Mourinho now finds himself and the apparent infighting as a result of the unrest.

With the Real boss almost certain to depart the club in the summer, Ronaldo is concerned about where the club go next.

Liverpool shuns Dempsey

L

iverpool managing director Ian Ayre insists he has no regrets over the Clint Dempsey saga, which left the club short of strikers over the first half of the season.

Owners Fenway Sports Group refused to sanction a £6 million deal to sign Dempsey, 29, from Fulham last August, and the United States international ended

up joining Tottenham instead.

FSG’s policy is to focus on signing players under the age of 24, and it was felt that Dempsey offered little resale value.

However, with Andy Carroll having left to join West Ham on a season’s loan and new signing Fabio Borini soon to be out for three months with a foot injury, manager

C Milan midfielder Kevin-Prince Boateng has been invited to appear at an annual anti-racism event held by the United Nations (UN).

The invitation comes after the 25-year-old led the Rossoneri from the field after being racially abused by opposition fans during a friendly against Pro Patria earlier in January.

He was followed by team-mates and club

A

Ghanian player faces anti racism panel

B

Guardiola takes over at Bayern in July

ayern Munich has confirmed Pep Guardiola will become the club’s new manager in the summer.

Guardiola, 41, has been without a club since leaving Barcelona at the end of the 2011-12 seasons as he sought time away from football.

During his sabbatical in

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officials, causing the game to be abandoned and earning the player widespread recognition for his actions.

The Ghana international found out on Tuesday that he would not be punished for making a stand a very real possibility given he did not wait for the match officials to make the decision and

America, the Spanish coach has been linked with several clubs, including Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and AC Milan.

However, Bayern have moved to secure his services for the 2013-14 campaign after they announced yesterday he has agreed a three-year deal at the Allianz Arena.

Guardiola, who won three Liga titles and two Champions League trophies during his time at

Brendan Rodgers was left with Luis Suarez as his only fit senior striker.

But Ayre, who is responsible for conducting transfer negotiations at Anfield and recently brought in Daniel Sturridge from Chelsea for £12 million, insists that Liverpool acted correctly over Dempsey.

Liverpool’s six signings since Rodgers’ arrival last

now he will be a guest of honour at the UN event.

A statement published on Milan’s official website yesterday confirmed: “Milan midfielder KevinPrince Boateng has been invited to the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination organized by the United Nations on Thursday, March 21.

Barca, will succeed Jupp Heynckes as Bayern boss.

“Pep Guardiola is one of the most successful coaches worldwide and we are convinced he will not only light up FC Bayern but also German football.

We are looking forward to working with him from July 2013 onwards.

Bayern president Uli Hoeness added: “We are extremely thankful for the work Jupp Heynckes has done.

After his

June have all been at the younger end of the market.

Borini is 21, midfielder Joe Allen 22, forward Samed Yesil 18 and Sturridge 23, while Nuri Sahin - whose loan stint from Real Madrid was cut short last week - turned 24 just after his arrival, and Oussama Assaidi celebrated his 24th birthday shortly before joining Liverpool from Heerenveen in August.

Kevin-Prince Boateng

decision to leave we would be delighted if the team ensured of him an illustrious farewell. Only a big gun like Pep Guardiola came into question as an appropriate successor for him.

Heynckes, 67, is currently enjoying his third stint as Bayern boss, with the club in command of the Bundesliga, as they lead the table by nine points with 17 matches played.

QPR sign Marseille striker for club record fee

Q

LOSS OF DOCUMENTS THIS IS TO NOTIFY THE GENERAL PUBLIC THAT CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY NO. BA/13273 BEARING THE NAME OF AISHA ALIYU ADAMU GUMEL. ALL EFFORT TO TRACE IT PROVED ABORTIVE. IF FOUND, PLEASE RETURN TO THE DEED REGISTRAR, MINISTRY OF LANDS & SURVERY, BAUCHI.

The situation is a far cry from the stability and regular trophies he experienced during his last three years at Old Trafford under Sir Alex Ferguson with whom he has maintained contact.

Those at United were surprised but encouraged by the developments, although they understand that the situation is far from straightforward and any transfer would only Cristiano Ronaldo come in the long term.

Pep Guardiola

ueens Park Rangers have signed striker Loic Remy from Marseille for a club record £8m fee.

Remy, 26, has agreed a four-and-a-half-year deal with the Premier League’s bottom club.

The former Lyon forward has won 17 caps for France and scored four goals.

Remy, who has scored three goals in 19 appearances for Marseille this season, said: “Harry

played a big part in me coming here.

“I spoke to him and Tony Fernandes at length and they made it clear they wanted me here. They gave me the right motivation to join QPR. “I want to develop my game here. This season the objective is to stay up but beyond that we have greater objectives.

“After seven years in France, this is the right time for me to pursue a new challenge in the

Premier League the best league in the world.

“I am confident I can adapt to the Premier League.

My main characteristics have taken me to the level I am at today but I am keen to keep improving in the Premier League.

Rangers’ previous transfer record was Djibril Cisse, bought for £4m in January 2012. Junior Hoilett was signed for £3m rising to £4m with addons in July 2012.

PAGE 44

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

2013 Nations Cup finals

Stallions ready trample Eagles, says Pitroipa

B

urkina Faso winger, Yaan Jonathan Pitroipa has underlined the importance of a victory for his side when they face Nigeria’s Super Eagles in their first game at the 2013 AFCON in South Africa.

Both sides go head-to-head in the opening game of Group C on

January 21 at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit and the Stade Rennais man knows his side cannot afford to fail against their heralded West African neighbours.

“That game against Nigeria will be extremely important. If we want to qualify for the

quarterfinals, we have to get something from that game; a draw or a win, but we cannot lose that game,” Pitroipa said.

The 26-year-old however acknowledged that getting a result against the Super Eagles will not be easy as “Nigeria is a top side full of quality players.”

“It certainly won’t be an easy match as Nigeria is a top side full of quality players but we know what we have to do,” he said.

Burkina Faso finished bottom of Group B at the 2012 AFCON following successive losses to Angola, the Ivory Coast and Sudan.

Demba Ba

Samuel Eto’o Fil

Mohamed Aboutrika

Andre Ayew

Ba, who moved from Newcastle to Chelsea in the January transfer window, is one of the deadliest strikers in the league, and made an immediate impact for Chelsea when scoring twice in the 5-1 FA Cup third-round triumph at Southampton.

At Newcastle, the 27-yearold forward’s prowess helped lift the Magpies to fifth place last season.

While sorry to see Ba head to London, Newcastle manager Alan Pardew still has a Senegalese ace up his sleeve in the shape of Cisse.

He joined Newcastle on a £10 million (12 033 million euros/ $16 093 million) deal from German Bundesliga outfit Freiburg and has proved a major hit, scoring 13 goals last term.

While the Africa Cup showcases the cream of the continent’s abundant talent, joining Ba and Cisse on the absentee list is one of Africa’s biggest names in the shape of Eto’o.

The 31-year-old is Africa’s most decorated player, being voted African Footballer of the

Year in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2010.

After standout spells at Barcelona and Inter Milan, he is currently one if not the highest paid footballers in the world, with a reported weekly pay packet of some £350 000 (421 000 euros/$563 000) at Russian big-spenders Anzhi Makhachkala.

With three World Cups and six Nations Cups under his belt, the Cameroon captain and his team will be sorely missed.

Cameroon’s shock defeat to Cape Verde in the qualifier also robs the 2013 Nations Cup of talented midfielder Alex Song, who moved to Barcelona from Arsenal last August.

He made a name for himself at the 2008 Cup of Nations in Ghana when he was selected for the team of the tournament, an honour he also picked up three years ago.

As in 2012, the former continental kings Egypt have once again been excluded from the feast of African football.

The Pharaohs have suffered a startling dip in fortune since rattling off three consecutive titles in 2006, 2008 and 2010.

Their bid to qualify for 2013, against the sombre backdrop of the Port Said stadium disaster in February which cost the lives of 74 people, came to a premature end with a first round 4-3 defeat to the Central African Republic.

Their absence deprives the Nations Cup of such Egyptian luminaries as goalkeeper Esaam al Hadary, defender Wael Gomaa and midfielder Mohamed Abou Trika.

Of the teams who qualified, Ghana will have to do without the services of Marseille’s star midfielder Andrew Ayew and striker Yahaya Mohamed, who are both injured.

Morocco’s Queens Park Rangers’ midfielder Adel Taarabt, Arsenal’s striker Marouane Chamakh, on loan to West Ham, and Qatar-based midfielder Houssine Kharja all failed to make the Atlas Lions’ squad.

Hosts South Africa must do without retired midfielder Steven Pienaar, Mali’s Mahamadou Diarra is injured, while Nigerian duo Danny Shittu and Shola Ameobi declined their country’s call.

Adel Taarabt

Peter Odemwingie

Steven Pienaar

Kolo gives favourites tag to Ghana

I

vory Coast defender Kolo Toure believes the Black Stars of Ghana and not the Elephants are the favourites to win the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations.

Though he admitted that the Elephants have had near misses and are determined to erase that, the Man City defender still sees the Black Stars as the favourites who hope to win the tournament in South Africa for the first time in 31-years.

However, Ghana are without big name players such as Michael Essien, Sulley Muntari, John Mensah and Andre Ayew for various reasons and therefore lack the experience they could have offered, but they remained one of the favourites to win the competition that kicks off on Saturday.

And Toure whose side are the overwhelming favourites to end their own trophy drought that spans over two decades say Ghana is rather the team to beat.

“No (responding to whether indeed the Ivory Coast are favourites) everybody is always saying that but I think Ghana is the one,” he told Kumasi-based Angel FM. Because they are playing well and they have a great team and in the last World Cup they were the best Africa team.

“Egypt didn’t have a lot of big players but they won it three times.

You don’t need to have big players to win Africa Cup of Nations.”

Ghana goes into the competition haven won all two friendly games against Egypt and Tunisia quite impressively.

The Black Stars will play their Group B opener on Sunday against DR Congo after which they face Mali and Niger in the other group games.

Eto’o, Ba, Pienaar lead missing stars list

D

idier Drogba may lead a star-studded cast list at the 2013 Africa Cup of Nations but this year’s competition which gets underway on Saturday is bereft of some of the continent’s top names.

For while Ivory Coast captain Drogba and the Toure brothers Kolo and Yaya and company head for South Africa, the likes of Samuel Eto’o, Demba Ba and Papiss Demba Cisse are missing out, forced to watch the action on television.

Ba and Cisse failed to join the party when Senegal were kicked out of the 2013 tournament by organisers CAF as punishment for crowd trouble which flared up at the qualifier against Drogba’s Ivorians.

Senegal’s disqualification must have been greeted with quiet relief, though, at the pair’s respective Premier League clubs.

Zambia return, hope reclaim trophy Feb. 10

T

he Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) officially handed back the Africa Cup of Nations trophy to the Confederation of African Football (CAF) yesterday.

Faz General Secretary George Kasengele had on Tuesday stated that the AFCON trophy would leave would be returned back to CAF in Johannesburg.

“It will be a very emotional moment. We had become used to having the trophy around us as proof of our incredible feat last year.

The going away of the trophy should invigorate and re-energise our resolve to bring it back to

Zambia for a further two years,” said Kasengele.

And Chipolopolo coach Herve Renard has assured the nation that the Chipolopolo technical team and players will do their best to ensure the trophy returned to Zambia in 2013.

“We are in South Africa to bring the trophy back to our country. I can assure you that the players and the staff will do everything to make for the second time consecutively Zambia very proud,” said Renard.

“2012 was a amazing year for all of us. I believe we can do it again,” concluded the 2012 African coach of the year.

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

PAGE 45

P I C T O R I A L 1

2

3

PICTORIAL

4

5

6

1] For the first time since arriving in 2009, a dissatisfied Cristiano Ronaldo no longer sees his long-term future at Real Madrid and has made it known to Manchester United that he favours an eventual return to Old Trafford.

2] Pep Guardiola has revealed his ambition to move to the Premier League, putting a number of English clubs - including Chelsea and Manchester City - on notice.

3] London 2012 medallist Anthony Ogogo launches his pro career by vowing to become Britain's best-ever middleweight.

4] Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre insists he has no regrets over the Clint Dempsey saga, which left the club short of strikers over the first half of the season.

5] Dragons forward Andrew Coombs is thrilled by his call-up to Rob Howley's Wales's squad for the Six Nations.3 6] Heather Watson escapes from three match points down to beat Ksenia Pervak and reach the Australian Open third round.

PAGE 46

PEOPLES DAILY, THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

Hopkins fights Cloud March as Vazquez, Burns stake titles B

ernard Hopkins is scheduled to challenge IBF light-heavyweight champion Tarvoris Cloud in New York on March 9.

Hopkins, one of the oldies still battling for honour and fame in the square ropes, wants another opportunity to test his experience and skill against a younger opponent come March.

In the same vein, Miguel Vazquez and Ricky Burns will put their lightweight titles on the line in London same month but a week later in a unification fight on March 16.

Vazquez will defend his IBF title for the sixth time since August 2010, having lost only three of his 36 fights.

Burns is the WBO champion. His plans to defend his belt were dashed recently when two challengers withdrew from fights against him.

The bout will form part of a tournament at Wembley Arena in which light-heavyweight champion Nathan Cleverly of Britain will fight Robin Krasniqi of Kosovo.

It has also been announced that WBA champion Mikkel Kessler will fight Carl Froch, the IFB champion, in a super-middleweight rematch at a date and a venue to be confirmed.

Kessler won their first fight by unanimous

decision in Denmark in 2010. The 33-yearold Dane has won 46 of his 48 fights; 35 by knockout. Froch has a record of 30-2; 22. He took the IBF belt from Lucien Bute in May 2011.

The Englishman said on Tuesday the bout against Kessler was “the fight that I want more than anything in the world.

Also, Kell Brooks’s fight against IBF welterweight champion Devon Alexander will now take place on February 23. They will meet at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit. The fight was postponed late last year when Brook injured his ankle in training.

Malawian Isaac Chilemba, who fights out of South Africa and is at No 5 of the WBC’s list of light-heavyweights, will fight Anthony Bellew of England in Liverpool on March 30. Bellew is ranked third.

The fight will be a final eliminator to challenge for the WBC title.

The winner will face the winner of the clash between WBC champion Chad Dawson and Jean Pascal who meet on March 23.

WBA flyweight champion Juan Carlos Reveco is set to defend his title against Masayuki Kuroda in Kawasaki City, Japan,

Bernard Hopkins

on February 27.

Reveco is from Argentina and has a record of 29-1, including 16 knockouts. Kuroda stands at 21-3-2; 13.

Reveco was elevated from interim champion to regular champion when Brian Viloria became the super champion after beating Hernan Marquez last November.

IBF middleweight champion Daniel Geale will defend his belt against fellow-Australian Anthony Mundine in Sydney on January 30.

England’s James DeGale has relinquished his European super-middleweight title after winning the WBC silver belt.

Former European and Commonwealth super-bantamweight champion Rendall Munroe has retired after losing to Scott Quigg in a challenge the British title.

Munroe lost on points in a challenge against WBA champion Toshiaki Nishioka in 2010.

A total of 36 heavyweights are ranked in the latest edition of Boxing News. David Price is at No 1 and his arch-rival Tyson Fury at No 2.

Only four flyweights are ranked, with Kevin Satchell, the British and European champion, at No 1.

Carl Froch

Korea hosts Dream Program 2013

By Mohammed Kandi

F

our Nigerians are among 150 young athletes from 40 world countries participating in the Dream Program 2013 in Gangnueng in Gangwon Province, Republic of Korea.

The event, which kicked off on Saturday, January 5th is aimed at introducing the athletes, especially from warm countries, to the winter Olympic sports that will be held later this year.

A release by the Korean Cultural Centre, in Abuja

reveals, “Countries, where winter sports are not developed due to various reasons such as climate, will seize the opportunity of the program to realize harmony of mankind and world peace through sports by the systematic training being provided through the program.”

“The Dream Program was initiated by Gangwon Province, which is hosting of Pyeong Chang 2018 Olympic Winter Games as a promotion plan for young winter sports athletes and to fulfill the promise it made “with international sports world to expand the base of

winter sports.”

The statement said.

Since 2004, Gangwon Province has invited young people from all over the world, but especially, countries where winter sports are not developed to come and experience winter sports, and, thereby, promoting exchange of culture and friendship among youth from all over the world.

The release also said that the Korean Gangwon province is “taking winning the right to host 2018 Winter Olympic Games as a corner stone to convert the character of

program into systematic and specialized training program of winter sports.”

“Winter Sports Academy’ was started to establish professional winter athlete resources from 2012 by providing opportunity to promising youths athletes,” it said.

Sporting events like Glacier Marathon, Skating, Alpine, Snowboard, Alpine for the disabled, short track events etc, will feature in the training.

Participating athletes have the privilege of participating in the sport events of their choice.

Invited professionals will

also train the participants on the winter game rules, technical theory and general training rules.

Amore John Oluwatobi, Tswako Abubakar Saviq, Obi Ugochi Mary, Aigbe Marvelous Ohikhoje are representing Nigerian in the two weeks event.

Angola, Cameron, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Gabon, Gambia Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Tunisia and Zambia are other African countries participating in the event which come to a close on Wednesday 16th January, 2013.

Kwara Govt explains N1.4 billion vote for sports

P

rovision of massive sporting facilities in the Kwara state and the engagement of youths in sports activities are the reasons for the N1.4 billion voted for the sector in the 2013 budget, according to the state government.

Hajia Rahmat AdeshinaAbaya, the Commissioner for Sports and Youth Development, explained yesterday while elaborating on government’s allocation for sports in this year’s budget.

She revealed that the huge budgetary provision was the necessary to renovate and make available facilities which would ginger needed massive development of sports and the engagement of youth in useful ventures.

“Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed is a friend of sports and he has thought of what he could do to give athletes the necessary support in terms of facilities and their welfare.

All these have been done and the result is what is seen in the budget, especially for the youth; the lovers of sports,’’ she said.

The commissioner said that Kwara hosted a lot of sporting activities in 2012, including two international matches that involved the Flying Eagles qualifiers for the African Youth Championship in Algeria.

She said that the development was as a result of the facilities and the peaceful nature of the state, adding that the state wished to host more such events.

“People coming to Kwara for one event or the other, even though some are not sports; they believe Kwara is a home of peace that is why they look forward to it.

“They know that anything that they want they will get it; logistics, support, peace as well as accommodation,’’ she said.

The commissioner said that she had visited many stadia across the country and found that Kwara Stadium could accommodate a lot of sporting activities than many others.

Gov Abdulfatah Ahmed

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THURSDAY, JANUARY 17, 2013

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Bad pitch, ‘scandalous’ ticket sales take shine off AFCON

W

ork has intensified over the National Stadium damaged pitch for Saturday’s AFCON opening as officials lamented “scandalous” ticket sales.

The pitch, which three years ago staged the final of the World Cup, was damaged recently during a Lady Gaga musical concert and ever since the authorities have been working round the clock to ensure it is back in a condition befitting of the opening day of action. But there are still bad pitches.

On Saturday, hosts South Africa take on debutants Cape Verde, while Angola and Morocco will do battle in the other match in Group A. The pitch has been relaid and top stadium management official Jacques Grobelaar has assured all hands are on deck to ensure a befitting opening day for the AFCON. However, ticket sales have not gone as smoothly as was hoped with South Africa sports minister Fikile Mbalula labelling the whole process “scandalous”and “complicated”.

However, LOC chief executive Mvubo Mbebe blamed budgetary constraints and the short time to market the tournament.

Meanwhile, South Africa’s footballers have agreed to forego bonus payments at the African Nations Cup finals until the knockout stage of the tournament, coach Gordon Igesund said on Wednesday.

“The players themselves decided they will only accept a bonus payment if they get to the quarterfinals and again if they reach the final. There is no money in the first round and nothing for the semifinal,” he said.

Poor results in the warm up matches have left South Africa outside the list of favourites although Saturday’s opening game at the cavernous National Stadium, which holds just over 90 000 people, has been sold out.

South Africa play the Cape Verde Islands in the first match of the 16-team, three-week tournament.

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QUO TABLE Q UO TE UOT QUO UOTE We’re going through a critical, somber moment in Maiduguri. The moment is exerting a toll on our people, but once we create jobs, this madness will evaporate.

— Gov. Kashim Shettima of Borno state on the cost of the Boko Haram insurgenncy

Nigerians still waiting for their 'African Spring' T

welve months ago, Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan gave his people a bizarre New Year present: he announced the immediate removal of fuel subsidies. The controversial measure meant that, quite suddenly, citizens were to pay as much as three times the usual price for gasoline.

Nigerians were outraged.

They filled the nation's streets in protest. The coalition was broad: young and old, female and male, poor and (some) rich. Their action, often spontaneous but orchestrated by labor leaders, amounted to a fierce rebuke to Jonathan's administration.

The government's unilateral decision was a recipe for new levels of extreme hardship for the poor, taxed already by low wages, ballooning unemployment, a high cost of living, shambling infrastructure -- and the Olympian greed of the elite class.

The protesters quickly adopted the banner of "Occupy Nigeria."

They were animated by a global movement of activists standing up against what they saw as economic exploitation and corruption perpetrated by Western governments, often with the tacit encouragement of powerful corporations.

However, "Occupy Nigeria" was different from other "Occupy" movements. There was a good reason for this. Nigeria's activist voice had gone silent for too long.

The country's streets had not felt the pounding of mass protests since the mid-90s, when a coalition of student activists, labor leaders, political activists, lawyers, doctors, academics, artisans and other civil society groups meshed into a powerful pro-democracy movement to drive the military from power.

In fact, last January's "Occupy Nigeria" protests were largely heralded and led by young people who were born in the early and mid-90s -- a generation that has come to view and use social media as its primary means of activism, social mores and political empowerment.

In January 2012, that mass movement put the bloated Nigerian government in the crosshairs. It's believed to be Nigeria's biggest ever national mass protest. Apart from its sheer size, the movement managed to endure for days and weeks. And, in some ways, it set some impressive, unthinkable marks.

For instance, some considered it unimaginable that Nigerians (often portrayed as too "happy," too timid and cowardly, too polarized along ethno-religious lines) would unite behind a

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GUEST COLUMNIST Omoyele Sowore

President Jonathan common cause. Also, it was unthinkable that a mass uprising would start from the nation's capital of Abuja, considered a fortress of the ruling interests. Yet, an intrepid former legislator, Dino Melaye, sparked the protests with a petition drive that ignited a nationwide uprising.

In a country factionalized along ethnic and religious lines, the movement defied all odds. In Lagos, for example, a radical fiery Christian preacher, Tunde Bakare of the Save Nigeria Group, anchored the protests. In Kaduna, the protests were led by Shehu Sani, a veteran activist and Muslim of the Civil Rights Congress. His religious faith didn't faze young Christian protesters determined to fight for their rights.

In some parts of the country, the protests seemed far less organized. It was difficult to determine who was in charge in of them.

There was also another novel aspect of the movement. Nigerians across the world also joined the protests to a degree never-before seen. In rally after rally, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and Asia, they made their voices heard.

In New York City, Nigerians staged four different actions. The most dramatic was a showdown with a Nigerian minister sent by the Jonathan administration to calm the tempers of Nigerians who felt justifiably insulted by the illadvised removal of oil subsidies.

Her so-called "Town Hall" meeting at a five-star hotel in Manhattan was effectively shut down, and the

minister disgraced.

Nigerians in Australia, Toronto, South Africa, London, Sweden and Accra, Ghana, were soon protesting at the country's embassies demanding change.

But the biggest surprise was the protest movement's peaceful nature, especially at a time when the nation was gripped by violent militant groups and armed criminal gangs.

Despite provocation by the security agencies and police, the protests were mostly civil and peaceful. The only deaths and injuries recorded in Ilorin, Lagos, Kano, Abuja and Kaduna were reportedly inflicted by the police and soldiers unleashed on hapless citizens.

But a year later, it's difficult to argue that the movement achieved its goal. For its size, its failure to compel any serious measures to curb the culture of impunity and corruption in Nigeria is significant.

So, what went wrong? Why did the movement crumble in its cradle?

These questions perplexed several traditional activist groups and NGOs who were busy attending meetings with the government to seek an amicable resolution to the crisis.

One major reason for the quick collapse was the movement's lack of a central command structure.

To some extent, it was a leaderless, but not rudderless affair.

As the publisher of SaharaReporters, I witnessed the crystallization of a citizen journalist movement. Many citizens wrote and posted reports of the mass protests. They didn't wait around for their stories to be told in distorting sound bites by the foreign media or twisted by a mostly compromised local media.

These citizen reporters sent photos, videos and texts. They tweeted, texted and analyzed every minute of the struggle from all over the country and the world, bringing the integrity of their witness to bear. SaharaReporters kept up its side of the bargain; we published the "field" reports in a timely manner.

For a moment, many Nigerians hoped that the "Occupy" movement would transition into the first sub-Saharan African Spring (or Harmattan).

A year later, the conclusion is sobering. It is clear that "Occupy Nigeria" failed to metamorphose into a genuine, sustained mass movement.

The central labor unions that were initially trusted to lead the movement capitulated quickly under the weight of accusations that they were conniving to overthrow the government. The Nigerian army, notorious for its legacy of intervening to protect the country's corrupt status quo, was deployed to quell the protests.

On the bright side, the Nigerian people, especially the younger generation, got a taste of people power. I have no doubt that they can -- and will -- exercise that power again.

Few as they were, some immediate gains testified to the power of the mass uprising. After two national addresses, a browbeaten President Goodluck Jonathan rolled back fuel prices and reinstated some fuel subsidy.

And he made a commitment -- far from realized -- to identify and punish profiteers from fuel subsidy scams.

For Nigerians, one lesson is that they possess a latent power capable of bringing change -- if only the people will it.

There are also important lessons about opportunists and saboteurs. It wasn't hard to see their trails during and after the mass protests. The protests had hardly died down when some of the labor leaders found their way into plush government committees. Others formed themselves into "stakeholders" and began earnestly to jostle for government patronage even as the issues that sparked the protests had not been addressed.

Even so, I believe the awareness created about the pervasive corruption in the oil sector made a difference. But it was not the issue.

After all, Nigerians already knew government officials and their corporate accomplices were stealing. "Occupy Nigeria" simply washed the carcass of the whale of corruption ashore.

The eventual revelation by a parliamentary committee that a grand sum of $6.8 billion had been stolen through subsidy scams is a yet unresolved scandal.

Nigerians suspect, with good reason, that their top government officials are in no hurry to unmask the gluttonous embezzlers of fuel subsidies. In fact, the impression is that the culprits, law enforcement officials, and the judges have all retired to their usual zone of criminal complicity and comfort. No one will be punished.

As the people of Nigeria still hanker for their African "Spring," the "Occupy" movement can reemerge at any time to take Nigeria by storm.

Omoyele Sowore is the publisher of New York-based African news website SaharaReporters.com. This piece was CNN commissioned.

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