Thur 06 June 2013

UN, others, on World Environmental Day, urge end to food waste From Chinedum Uwaegbulam, Adeniyi Adunola, Tolulope Okunlola (Lagos) and Lillian Chukwu (Abuja) S Nigerians yesterday A joined their counterparts worldwide to mark the “World Environmental Day” with the theme

Think.Eat.Save: Reduce Your Foodprint, the United Nations (UN), Minister of Environment, Hadiza Mailafia and other stakeholders have called for more conscious efforts aimed at curbing the massive loss and waste inherent in today’s food systems, lamenting that tonnes

of edible produce are squandered yearly.

UN Secretary-General Ban Kimoon said in his message: “On this World Environment Day, I urge all actors in the global food chain to take responsibility for environmentally-sustainable and socially-equitable food sys-

tems,” Currently, at least one-third of all food produced fails to make it from farm to table.

“This is foremost an affront to the hungry, but it also represents a massive environmental cost in terms of energy, land and water.”

He further noted that in de-

veloping countries, pests, inadequate storage facilities and inefficient supply chains are major contributors to food loss.

Those who grow for export are also often at the mercy of over-stringent expectations of buyers who place a premium on cosmetic perfection.

In developed nations, food thrown away by households and the retail and catering industries rots in landfills, releasing significant quantities of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

“Food loss and waste is CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

TheGuardian Conscience, Nurtured by Truth

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Vol. 29, No. 12,579

N150

www.ngrguardiannews.com

Airlines over-charge passengers to stay in business • Evade fuel surcharge tax

By Wole Shadare ITING huge operational C costs, airlines in the country are now devising new methods of staying in business by breaking airfares down into ‘fake components’, including the ‘fuel surcharge’ which is regarded as a trick designed to make passengers pay more.

Many airlines have increased fuel surcharges, claiming that high costs of operations and aviation fuel necessitated the rise in the charges, thereby leaving passengers at the receiving end.

They further argued that the idea of creating this additional price component was because of the rising price of aviation fuel in Nigeria, otherwise known as JET A1.

But an oil marketer who preferred anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, described the surcharge as a rip-off on travellers and government, Super Eagles’ Ahmed Musa (right) and Joseph Akpala after the former scored against Harambee Stars of Kenya in Nigeria’s 1-0 victory during a World Cup qualifier in Nairobi… yesterday.

PHOTO: AFP

CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

Senate votes on constitution amendments in two weeks From Azimazi Momoh Jimoh, Bridget Cheidu Onochie and Terhemba Daka, Abuja FURTHER review of the A 1999 Federal Constitution (amended) got closer to being achieved yesterday as Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Constitution Review presented its report.

The report as presented by the Chairman of the Committee, Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu, recommended, among others, that the tenure of state governors and president be limited to a single term of six

• Panel grants autonomy to councils • Woos state assemblies with first-line charge • Separates attorney general from justice minister • Jonathan, govs can’t benefit from six-year single term • Reps suspend debate on budget bill years and that local councils be granted full financial autonomy.

But the quest for more states

did not get favour from the committee as it struck out all 61 applications on grounds of non-compliance with re-

quired constitutional provisions.

Besides, the Amendment Bill sent to the National As-

sembly by President Goodluck Jonathan on the 2013 Appropriation Act has suffered a setback in the House of Representatives, as yesterday’s debate on the general principles of the proposal was suspended indefinitely by the parliament.

The session was not without drama as the chamber became rowdy with members’ body language skewed towards an outright rejection

Military arrests 55 suspected terrorists in Borno, Yobe - Page 3

of the bill when it came up for debate, just as the lawmakers pooh-poohed the President’s submission.

The National Assembly had earlier passed an appropriation of N4.987 trillion for the 2013 fiscal year, and certain concerns were raised by the President on the implementation of the budget, and later sent in an amendment proposal to the parliament.

The parliament had through its spokesman, Zakari Mohammed, while fielding questions on the issue during CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

2 NEWS CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 maintaining that JET A1 price had been stable for a long time.

Airlines introduced small fuel surcharges in 2004 after oil prices topped $40 per barrel.

Airlines evade fuel surcharge tax to stay in business Since then, oil prices have more than doubled.

A couple of years ago, the

price of the commodity spiralled, leading to airlines raising air fares by as much as 30 per cent. Currently, the commodity sells for between N105 and N110 per litre depending on area of purchase.

For instance, a breakdown of an airline’s air ticket (name withheld) to Abuja indicates N500 as Value Added Tax (VAT), N500 for Ticket Sales Charge (TSC), N500 for Passenger Service Charge (PSC), while fuel surcharge is N22, 000.

Virtually all the carriers now pad their fares with ridiculous fuel surcharge which travel experts said is being used to fleece government, aviation agencies and passengers.

This represents a significant expense, as in some instances, fuel surcharges are now higher than the airlines’ base fares.

Aviation analyst, Olumide Ohunayo, described the fuel surcharge as a big rip-off, adding that fuel surcharge is taxable income that ought to

be paid to government as it is done in other parts of the world.

According to him, “it is an obscenity that airlines continue the sham of fuel price surcharges in an underhanded attempt to blame the oil companies for their biggest operating cost.

Ohunayo recalled that shortly after foreign airlines got victory from the judicial panel and the concurring judgment of the review panel with a caveat that the regulations be updated to effectively fight surcharge rip-off, “the local carriers quickly latched on it by loading the ridiculous fuel surcharge to fleece government, aviation agencies and travelers.”

He alleged that the whole situation shows the deficiency in the regulations and the inability of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) to regulate as it were.

Ohunayo said it was contradictory that the same govern-

ment that mandated British Airways and other foreign carriers to pay taxes on fuel surcharge is looking the other way when it comes to the issue of domestic carriers, adding, “this is a big rip off on travellers and passengers”.

He noted that the fact that the oil industry’s products exist in a global market completely

devoid of price competition is a separate issue that has vexed regulators for decades.

Speaking in the same vein, the Assistant Secretary-General of Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Mohammed Tukur, called on airlines to reduce their fuel surcharges in response to falling global oil and jet fuel prices.

UN, others urge end to food waste CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 something we can all address,” Mr. Ban said, noting that the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) and public and private sector partners have launched the “Think.Eat.Save: Reduce Your Foodprint” campaign to raise global awareness and showcase solutions relevant to developed and

developing countries alike.

Mailafia added: “Given the imbalances in lifestyles, standards of living, economic status and the enormous environmental challenges facing our people, there is need for us to be more aware of the environmental impacts and economic consequences of the food choices we make to enable us make informed decisions on food management.”

Panel’s report separates attorney general from justice minister CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 a previous press conference, explained that the Amendment Bill was akin to asking the National Assembly to go the whole hug of working on a fresh budget bill due to its volume.

While presenting the constitution review panel’s report, Ekweremadu stated: “61 requests for state creation were made to the committee. However, none of those requests complied with the entire provision of section 8(1).

“The committee therefore recommends that, provided the House of Representatives received same, henceforth, the Clerk of the National Assembly should be directed to forward any memoranda that complied with Section 8(1) (a) (I, ii &iii) to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a referendum which itself is still half of the journey towards state creation. This can be done at anytime, whether or not there is a constitution amendment exercise going on.”

The amendment also contained clauses that sought to further strengthen the legislative arm of government.

A proposed amendment to Section 58 of the constitution, which dealt with the power of the National Assembly in passing bills, stated that should the President fail to communicate to the legislature about whether or not he had assented to a particular bill after 30 days, the bill would become law automatically.

“Where the President neither signifies that he assents nor that he withholds assent, the bill shall at the expiration of 30 days become law,” it said.

Senate President David Mark disclosed yesterday that consideration of the report would be done after the lawmakers return from the two-week end-of-session recess, which begins today.

He urged his colleagues to study the report to ensure a very rich and rewarding debate. He ruled out the possibility of adopting a voice-vote during the clause-to-clause consideration of the proposed amendment.

On the single tenure proposal, the Ekweremadu commit-

tee made it clear that serving president and governors would not benefit even though the bill did not specify the take off-date of the amendment.

The amendment reads in part: “Subject to the provisions of sub-section (1) of this section, the president shall vacate his office at the expiration of a period of six years. “(3) A person holding the office of the president or vice president immediately before the coming into force of the alteration of sections 135 and 136 of this constitution shall not be eligible to contest election for a single term of six years”, the bill stated.

On local council’s autonomy, the bill revoked the joint account system between the state and the council. It states: “Any amount standing to the credit of local council in the federal account shall be allocated and paid directly to the council for their benefit on such terms and in such manner as may be prescribed by the National Assembly.”

However, a local council that is not democratically put in place is barred from enjoying this privilege. “The amount standing to the credit of a local council without a democratically-elected council shall be withheld until there is a democratically-elected local council in such a local council.”

The much-debated pension for past presidents also received attention of the committee even though those not democratically-elected were excluded. “(5A): Any person who has held office as President or Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, shall be entitled to pension for life at a rate equivalent to the yearly salary of the incumbent President or Deputy President of the Senate, Speaker or Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives,” he said.

Also, the power of the President to assent to Constitution amendment bill has been scrapped in a new set of rules introduced by the proposed amendment. “The rules in-

clude “(3A): For the purpose of altering the provision of this Constitution, the assent of the President shall not be required. “(3B): National Assembly may propose a new Constitution for the Federation. “(3C): A new Constitution shall come into effect in the manner stipulated under subsection (3D) – (3N) of this section. “(3M): The Independent National Electoral Commission shall, within six months of the receipt of the draft Constitution, cause a referendum to be conducted to approve the draft Constitution. “(3N): If the draft Constitution receives a simple majority of votes cast in two-thirds of all states of the federation, it shall come into force as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, the report said.

In an effort to carry the states along, the Senate report granted first-line charge to some states bodies.

The draft amendment stated: “(3) Any amount standing to the credit of the State Independent Electoral Commission; House of Assembly of the State; Auditor-General of the State; Judiciary and AttorneyGeneral of the State; in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the State shall be paid directly to the heads of the respective bodies for the use of the institution for which he is head.”

The controversial status of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was equally addressed.

The proposed amendment in respect of FCT reads: “There shall be for the Federal Capital Territory, a mayor.

The National Assembly shall make law to provide for the establishment, structure, composition, finance and functions of the office of Mayor of the Federal Capital Territory.”

On the election of the mayor, the bill stated: “A person shall be qualified for election to the office of Mayor if he is a citizen of Nigeria by birth, he has attained the age of 35 years, he is a member of a political party and is sponsored by that po-

litical party and he has been educated up to at least, school certificate level or its equivalent.”

Ekweremadu also informed senators that the request for the creation of the state police was struck out because the existing system, if properly handled, was sufficient to tackle security matters across the country.

“We recommend that the preferred approach at this time is to critically look at the current federal police system with a view to sanitizing and strengthening it,” he said.

On the request for special status for Lagos State, the committee states: “While the committee appreciates the peculiar needs and challenges of Lagos, it is our considered opinion that according such special status should be a matter of political decision which should be kept out of the constitution.”

The report also rejected the request for ministerial nominees to come to the Senate with portfolios.

It states: “Assigning portfolios should remain the prerogative of the President for reasons of flexibilities. Besides, it has been shown that professional qualification does not necessarily approximate to performance in practical terms.”

The committee also rejected the clamour for the rotation of executive offices, saying: “Rotation of Executive Offices: We rejected this proposal on the grounds that the Constitution should not make Nigerian leadership subject to ethnic or regional considerations. This should be a matter of consideration among the various political parties.”

The report also approved of the request to separate the office of the attorney-general of the federation from that of the minister of justice. Ekweremadu explained that the measure was taken to guarantee the independence of the office of the attorney-general of the federation.

The same measure was also extended to state attorneygenerals, which according to the recommendation, will have a separate commissioner of justice.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

3

News ‘Okorocha will contest 2015 presidential election’

ACN alleges PDP, presidency hijack national youth council

S the calculations for the A 2015 presidential election continue to gather strength,

ROM the Action Congress Fallegation of Nigeria (ACN) has come that the Peoples

the Imo State Deputy Governor, Eze Madumere, has declared that Governor Rochas Okorocha will contest the presidential election.

The implication is that Governor Okorocha will not seek a second term in office as governor of Imo State. This is because he cannot contest both the office of the president and the governor at the same time.

Okorocha has been at loggerheads with some political stakeholders in the state over whether he would seek a second term in office, as they claimed that he had an agreement with them not to seek reelection.

MultiChoice marks anniversary with competition SPECIAL logo competition A has been launched by Multichoice Nigeria to kick-start its 20th anniversary celebrations.

Intending participants who are to send their entries in Jpeg format to entries@ng.multichoice.com , are also expected to incorporate the MultiChoice logo and colours into the designs they will submit for the competition.

Such entries, according to a statement by the company, must reflect the fact that MultiChoice is a proudly Nigerian company with Pan-African roots. Competing logos must also reflect MultiChoice’s commitment to family entertainment since the company’s debut in the country two decades ago.

Babalakin urges court to quash charges against him

By Bertram Nwannekanma and Yetunde Ayobami-Ojo HAIRMAN of Bi-Courtney C Services Ltd, Dr. Wale Babalakin (SAN) yesterday urged an Ikeja High Court, Lagos to quash the N4.7 billion charge preferred against him and four others by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

In his submission, Babalakin’s counsel, Chief Lateef Fagbemi, urged the court to quash the charges on the ground that the Lagos State Criminal Code Law and Criminal Procedure Law under which the fiat to prosecute his client was obtained has been repealed.

He contended that a fiat obtained in 2003 under a law that has been repealed cannot be used to prosecute his client for an alleged offence in 2012.

Also, Mr. Tayo Oyetibo (SAN), counsel to second defendant, Alex Okoh, urged the court to strike out the charge on the ground that the proof of evidence does not support the information filed by the EFCC against his client.

Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau (left) in a handshake with the representative of German Cooperation (GIZ), Dr. Terry Lacey; Chairman, PDP Plateau, Dr. Haruna Dabin (second left) and Chief of Staff to the Governor, Mr. Francis Bot, during the governor’s mid-term review retreat for commissioners, permanent secretaries, special advisers and senior public officers in Jos … yesterday.

Military arrests 55 suspected terrorists in Borno, Yobe

By Madu Onuorah (Abuja) and Iyabo Lawal (Ibadan) HE Nigerian military yesterT day announced the arrest of 55 suspected Boko Haram terrorists in the hotbed of insurgent activities in North Eastern states of Borno and Yobe.

Among the 55 was a group of five insurgents of Nigerien origin who were arrested when troops stormed their hideout at Mallam Fatori area of Maiduguri as they attempted to escape in two Toyota Cruiser Sport Utility Vehicles (SUV).

Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar has described the $7 million bounty placed on the leader of the extremist Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau, by the United States (U.S.) as a welcome development.

The Nigerian Special Forces also arrested another batch of 49 suspected terrorists in various locations in Yobe State following tip off by locals in some communities.

The troops also said they arrested a key terrorist who allegedly specialised in recruiting young men into the

• IG lauds move against Shekau, others Boko Haram group.

Director of Defence Information, Brigadier Gen. Chris Olukolade said in a statement in Abuja that the arrested individual also keeps watch over the insurgents’ armoury.

The three sets of insurgents were arrested during cordon and search operations by the Special Forces operating under the code name Operation Restore Order III. Olukolade stated that as troops continue to patrol the “notorious” Sambisa forest in Maiduguri, they are also cordoning the Alou forest and Gwoza Hills where they are taking possession of more abandoned vehicles, weapons and other items left by the fleeing insurgents in their camps.

He listed items and equipment recovered in their camps to include rifles, double barrel guns, various charms and amulets, machine guns, camouflage uniforms, bows and quiver, assorted rifle magazine, mobile phones, walkie talkie, car number plates and some food items. Abandoned vehicles

recovered include a Golf car, a Honda, Customs Pickup Van, Honda (2003 Model) and a Volkswagen Monte Carlo.

Olukolade added that during the arrest of the 48 insurgents, various weapons including AK 47 rifles, locally made pistols and ammunition were recovered by the troops who were combing the vicinities of towns such as Rugan Fulani, Arikime, Afghanistan and Ngandu villages.

General Olukolade also said that for the first time in years, police stations are now being reopened in some parts of Borno State.

According to him, “at Kirenowa, detachments of Police Anti-Terrorist unit have been deployed to complement security in the area.”

But Olukolade said there is a developing “trend whereby some particular crimes have now taken the place of terrorism as the criminals now resort to brigandage, robbery and attempted assassination of business rivals. All law abiding Nigerians were, however,

assured of the safety of their lives and property as troops of the Special Forces, comprising various security agencies including the police antibomb squads are working round the clock to nip the negative trend in the bud.

Citizens were further encouraged to continue to volunteer information on activities of any terrorists in order to help troops rid the state of insurgents.

The IG, who was in Ibadan, Oyo State to commission an ultra modern police hospital at the state command headquarters, said the bounty placed on the Boko Haram leader is a boost for the fight against terrorism in the country.

He also promised better days ahead for members of the Nigeria Police and their families.

“Our officers have been left unattended to for years. But things have changed now. We are doing this because we want to show love to our people. I have commissioned similar projects in many other states and before the end of the year, we shall do more,” he said.

Democratic Party (PDP) and the Presidency have hijacked the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), the umbrella group for all voluntary youth bodies in Nigeria, by imposing a PDP member as the president of the non-partisan organisation.

ACN, in a statement in Abuja yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said, “just like they divided the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) for selfish reasons and destroyed many national institutions, the PDP and the Presidency have also infiltrated the NYCN with the intention of using it for partisan purposes. ‘’The destructive train of the PDP and the Presidency, which has been targeting national institutions and organisations, has recently rammed into the NYCN, and the outcome is chaos and deep division in an otherwise cohesive and non-partisan body. ‘’In the desperation to seize control of many institutions and organisations, including voluntary groups and professional bodies, as part of their 2015 election strategy, the PDP and the Presidency are sowing the seed of discord and destruction everywhere.

Based on available evidence, the crisis currently rocking the NYCN has the imprimatur of the PDP and the Presidency.”

The party said its “concern here is the emerging desperation of the Presidency and the ruling party ahead of the 2015 polls and what this bodes for the 2015 elections. If these desperate folks are not checked, every value we hold dear would be destroyed in the name of wrong politicking.’’

ACN alleged that the man who has been imposed as the president of NYCN, even though the council’s election was cancelled because of a court order, is a card-carrying member of the PDP and an aide to the PDP national chairman, Bamangar Tukur.

World loses N560 trillion yearly to malnutrition, says UN

By Chukwuma Muanya (Lagos) and Itunu Ajayi (Abuja)

• Lauds Okonjo-Iweala’s move against child death

HE United Nations Food T and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) yesterday described

much as five per cent of the global gross domestic product, $3.5 trillion (N560 trillion), or $500 (N80,000) per person.

“That is almost the entire annual GDP of Germany, Europe’s largest economy.”

According to the report, in social terms, child and maternal malnutrition continue to reduce the quality of life and life expectancy of millions of people, while obesity-related

the cost of malnutrition to the global economy in lost productivity and health care expenses as “unacceptably high.”

FAO, in its flagship annual publication, The State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), launched yesterday, said malnutrition could account for as

health problems, such as heart disease and diabetes, affect millions more.

FAO Director-General, José Graziano da Silva, denounced the huge social and economic costs of malnutrition and called for resolute efforts to eradicate malnutrition as well as hunger from around the world.

Silva said although the world has registered some progress on hunger, one form of malnu-

trition, there is still a long way ahead. “FAO’s message is that we must strive for nothing less than the eradication of hunger and malnutrition”, he declared.

The report noted that although some 870 million people were still hungry in the world in 2010-2012, this is just a fraction of the billions of people whose health, wellbeing and lives are blighted by malnutrition.

According to SOFA, two billion people suffer from one or more micronutrient deficien-

cies, while 1.4 billion are overweight, of whom 500 million are obese, and 26 per cent of all children under five are stunted and 31 per cent suffer from Vitamin A deficiency.

To combat malnutrition, SOFA made the case that healthy diets and good nutrition must start with food and agriculture. The report reads: “The way we grow, raise, process, transport and distribute food influence what we eat.

Improved food systems can make food more affordable, diverse and nutritious.”

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

4

Issues In The News

Departed from Nigeria, united in

By Kabir Alabi Garba (just back from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA) HEY left their home country, Nigeria, at difT ferent times, and for varied reasons, but common shelter they have found in WinstonSalem, North Carolina, United States. The Nigerian community in the Twin City is not large, but it bestrides key sectors such as academics, health, industry, and county administration like colossus, as members pursue their callings with commitment and dedication.

The goal is simple: to contribute their quotas to the development of the sprawling city in particular, and the U.S. at large.

Renowned figures in academics include Prof.

Sope Oyelaran; Prof. Yomi Durotoye; Prof.

Segun Ilesanmi, Prof. Mamudu Yabuku; Modupeola O. Akinola, who is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Wake Forest School of Medicine, her husband, Yinka Akinola is Medical Director at Forsyth Medical Centre.

Others in the health sector are Dr. Walter Ezeigbo, Drs. Kayode Onasanya and Benjamin Anyanwu who are leading neuroscientists at Forsyth Medical Centre; Dr. Madu Ireh, while Mr. Ojo Ebeli and Solomon Apara work at Forsyth County. The list is simply inexhaustible.

“You find Nigerians in different professions here in Winston-Salem,” confirms Prof.

Durotoye, senior lecturer at the Political Science Department of Wake Forest University.

“That is the amazing thing about Nigerians.”

He adds with pride, “most people do not know that of all immigrant nationalities in this country (USA), Nigeria has the highest proportion of post-graduate degree holders.

“Our people get the best level of education if you compare us to immigrants from Japan, China… and these are Asians who you will think will have this kind of record. Nigerians are in top places across the United States. And that is the same thing you find here (WinstonSalam).”

Horse- cart ride…. A scene at old Salem Durotoye, who has been in the U.S. off and on for over four decades, however, acknowledges the ‘indelible’ footprints of Prof. Sope Oyelaran, not only in education in the Twin City, but also in developing and promoting what is today known as the National Black Art Festival in Winston-Salem.

TheGuardian SATURDAY, June 8, 2013

Conscience Nurtured by Truth

Roforofo Fights Ahead 2015 Governors Forum Debacle! Jonathan /Amaechi brawl! Asari Dokubo threat! Are these the shapes of things to come? What do all these portend for our fledgling democracy?

Soyinka On Life After Life, Dreams And Visions, Ige’s Killers, APC...

Prof. Oyelaran was a teacher at WinstonSalem State University, while his wife, for many years, served as the Dean of Salem College. She later got appointment as the President of Kalamazoo College and the family moved to Michigan.

“Even while there (Michigan), they are still active in the community, especially in the black community. He is a major contributor to the National Black Art Festival that they hold at downtown every other year. It is the flagship of cultural events that happen in this area and Oyelaran is very much involved in that from the beginning till now,” Durotoye recalls.

He reveals how fate played a role in his getting hooked to the city. “I first came here in 1989. I spent two years. I was on sabbatical from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). Then, I returned to Nigeria, and came back in 1995 and I have been here since then. But before 1989, I had spent about seven years in the States doing my graduate work at the Duke University and taught for a short while at the North Carolina A & T State University in Greensboro. I have been coming in and out of here in the last 40 years.”

On what attracted him to the city, the political scientist who is also the coordinator, African Studies Minor Program at Wake Forest

University, says, “If the truth be told, it is the job. This is where I got the offer. But why didn’t I move from here to elsewhere? It is because I like the community. It is a great place to raise your children, and I came here with a young family and I found the place so conducive to good upbringing of the children. That recommended Winston-Salem to me a lot.”

Were there social and cultural differences then and how did Durotoyes blend?

“I can’t say much about differences and coping mechanism now because I have been living in and out of the States for 40 years. When you have done that you pretty much know everything. It is even difficult now to identify any sort of challenges or difficulties. I have been here most of my life. I share the complaints that people who live around here would talk about. Whether they are Native American or natural-born American or whatever, many complain about things that are really due to the small size of the city and so when you are looking for the kind of amenities and whatever that you find in bigger cities, even like Charlotte, you don’t see such things here. For instance, social night life is limited here. But that is just because of the size of the city.”

Although, Prof. Durotoye is not all that far away from his native country as he has had to visit Nigeria, once or twice a year in the last one decade especially, he now nurses the desire of

The Nobel Laureate. Prof. Wole Soyinka, shares his experiences on deeper matters of life: Life’s greatest lesson for him, Psychic experiences, prospects of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and those behind Ige’s assassination…

Beware Of End Time Holy Water, Oils, etc Our column, Weekend With Amara sounds notes of warning on modern trends in “spirituality”…

These and many more in The Guardian…tomorrow.

Book your copy now!

Sculpture with the inscription, Earth without Art is ‘Eh’ on the campus of University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

5

Issues In The News

Winston-Salem ‘relocating’ permanently home, “because that is where my family is, where everybody that is related to me, that is where you will find them with the exception of my wife and children.”

The dream, he notes, is in line with his cultural root where the extended family norm is deeply rooted. “That means that I am limited in term of family contact and network. Other thing is the taste of home.

But that I will move back there does not suggest that I will never come back (to the U.S.) again,” he clarifies.

“For very many reasons, one, I have been living in and out of the U.S. for 40 years, and so, part of me is also here, and more importantly, when I decide to leave, my children are going to be here, and I need to come and see them. A lot of my friends are here. What actually it means then is that, I will be spending most of the year in Nigeria, but I also will be spending a substantial part of it here, too.” Durotoye is a native of Okemesi in Ekiti State.

Professor Mamudu Yakubu and his family have lived in Winston-Salem since 2006. Before then, the scholar spent three summers 2002-2004 conducting research with Professor S. Bruce King in the Department of Chemistry at Wake Forest University. At that time, Yakubu was a faculty member at the Elizabeth City State University, which is located in eastern NC. His initial attraction to Winston-Salem was the academic environment. The short time he spent in the summers on the WFU campus gave him the opportunity to explore the city and discovered that this would also be a great place to raise a family.

“So we moved here when the opportunity arose in 2006. The weather here is much better than on the coast where it gets very humid and warmer in the summer. I also like the cosmopolitan nature of the Triad area as a whole.”

How often does he visit his home country, Nigeria? “Lately, I have traveled to Nigeria about every four years for short periods due to work commitments. I used to go about once a year but I have gotten a lot more busy,” he says.

He compares cultural and social life of his home country and Winston-Salem, saying, “first, while ‘it takes the village to raise a child’ where I grew up as a child, parents spent more time with their children here.

There is greater involvement of parents in school. None of my parents had reason to come to my elementary or high school even when my father’s office was less than half a mile from my elementary school.”

Continuing, he adds, “People are far less busy in Nigeria compared to here. At the end of a work day, you can visit other family members or hang out with friends. If I do not get some of my work done at home, I will always be behind.

“Nigerians love ‘football’ or soccer and follow European league games and teams. It is the primary sport there. In the U.S., there are multiple sports such as football, basketball, baseball, hockey which are all very different from soccer but provide year round entertainment.”

He provides ‘yes and no’ answer to question on whether he plans to relocate permanently to Nigeria. He explains further, “I don’t have a straight answer for you on this question. It depends on the circumstance. There has been some progress in some areas in Nigeria in the last decade or so. Some of my friends, college roommates, high school classmates and juniors and family members occupy important positions in government and academia that, if used properly, could make life better for the average Nigerian citizen. In this respect, I would entertain the idea of returning to Nigeria within a relatively short-time frame to help in some area of nation building.”

And the need not to disrupt the education of his three children is the major reason he would not want to return to home country now.

“They are just starting school and I want to avoid disrupting their education unnecessarily. I don’t foresee any problem for them adjusting to life in Nigeria if they find themselves there now,” he notes.

In addition to being the Interim-Chair of the Department of Chemistry at WinstonSalem State University, Prof. Yakubu also serves as the Program Director of a

National Science Foundation program Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Programme (HBCU-UP). The goal of this programme is to increase the number of undergraduate science majors (biology, chemistry, computer science and mathematics) entering and graduating from WSSU and to increase the number of these graduates entering graduate schools in the sciences.

Prof. Yakubu hails from Jigawa State.

Another Wake Forest University Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Segun Ilesanmi is full of praises to the Lord for towering profile he has been empowered to build since August, 1993 when his family moved to WinstonSalem. “My wife and I feel truly blessed as professionals. As an endowed professor, I have achieved the very peak that any academic could hope to achieve, other than taking on an administrative appointment, as the Provost or President of a University. My wife is also the Director of the Student Health Services at WinstonSalem State University. While we fully trust God in the boundless opportunities He has in stock for us, we are grateful to Him for what He has enabled us to achieve thus far, in addition to the growing successes of the two wonderful children He has blessed us with.”

The movement was job related, too. In that year, Ilesanmi secured an academic appointment at Wake Forest University and his wife got a job at the Wake Forest University Baptist Health as a registered nurse. But the husband visits Nigeria more often than the rest of the family do.

“That’s because many of my visits are research related. On the average, I visit Nigeria every other year, although there have been occasions when I make multiple visits in a single year. In contrast, my wife has only been back there three times since she left there in 1991.”

And the major cultural difference the family noticed is not unique to WinstonSalem. Ilesanmi said, “It is a pervasive characteristic of the United States more generally. This relates to the raising of children. Contrary to the Nigerian, especially Yoruba culture, where parents enjoy a near-absolute right in how their children are raised, especially in the enforcement of discipline, with children expected to trust and be guided by the wisdom of their parents, such is not the case in this country.”

In the US, he said that children are taught from very early age that they too have rights, and that they can enforce these rights against their parents, including how they are disciplined. Sometimes, Nigerian parents feel that the American legal system gives too much latitude to children, and they justifiably fear that this encourages children to rebel against their parents.

Thus, a major cultural challenge that Nigerian parents face is to negotiate a healthy balance between the expectations to raise well-mannered and successful children (the hope of every parent) and respecting the law of the land that many perceive as a potential obstacle to that goal. “Many parents have been very successful in maintaining this balance,” he relished with joy.

Prof. Ilesanmi also notices a social difference, which he said is in the area of race relations. “Coming from a country where the colour of one’s skin has never been the prism through which a person’s identity is defined, we found it very challenging, psychologically and otherwise, that a country whose founding creed is rooted in the primacy of freedom as the hallmark of human dignity would condone the constriction of the exercise of that freedom by the artificial boundaries of racial difference.

“We have explored two avenues through which we initially sought to handle this particular challenge. One is by ensuring that our children attend racially diverse schools, and the other is by intentionally choosing to attend a racially integrated church. Both avenues have helped in giving us a balanced perspective on both Winston-Salem and the country as a whole.”

The plan to relocate permanently to Nigeria is premised on the conviction that “Nigeria is home and it’s where our

Prof. Durotoye roots are. Thus, no matter how more technologically advanced and more politically sane this country may be, Nigeria is where we truly belong, ontologically speaking, for living out our existential dreams, which include contributing our expertise to a society where it would have the most impact.” Prof. Ilesanmi is an indigene of Ilesha, Osun State.

Winston-Salem’s roots date to 1753, when the Moravians, a religious group from Eastern Europe, settled in the area and established the town of Salem. The nearby city of Winston became a bustling industrial centre with strong ties to textiles and tobacco. On May 9, 1913, the two cities became one, and Winston-Salem was born.

The North Carolina’s fourth-largest city is renowned to be rich in arts, music, and education. This profile has continued to be sustained with the presence of A-list institutions such as University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA); Winston-Salem State University (WSSU); Wake Forest University (WFU) among others, as well as hosting of the yearly RiverRun International Film Festival. The 15th edition of the film feast ran from April 12 to 21, 2013.

And its centenary celebration commenced on May 9 with series of events chief of which is the debut of a documentary produced by WSTV-13 that recounts the tale of how the two towns finally came to be one after a couple of failed efforts at amalgamation.

Entitled, Merger: Making The Twin-City, the docu-film was screened on WSTV-13 on May 16, while on May 30, it was shown on UNC-TV. Frank Elliott, city’s deputy director wrote, produced, and directed it.

While modernity has changed the face of Winston-Salem greatly, the architectural and cultural taste of the old is still preserved at the sprawling section of the twin-city known today as Old Salem. It has become a haven for tourists – domestic and foreign. And the symbol of the city remains the iconic Old Salem coffee pot, reflecting the passion with which coffee is consumed by the indigenes and residents alike.

Prof. Ilesanmi

Iconic Old Salem Coffee Pot, the symbol of the twin-city

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

6 | NEWS

Senate to ban overseas purchase of satellite images

By Chukwuma Muanya T may soon become an offence punishable by law for any government Ministry, Department, or Agency to go out of the country to purchase satellite images for use in the country.

Chairman Senate Committee on Science and Technology, Prof. Robert Ajayi Boroffice, made the appeal yesterday during the oversight function of the committee to the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in Abuja.

Boroffice in a statement signed by Head/Deputy Director, Media and Corporate Affairs of NASRDA, Felix Ale, expressed disappointment over the practice of some ministries and parastatals that continually spend huge sum of money to purchase satellite images outside Nigeria despite the fact that those images are readily available at the Nigeria Space Agency.

The Science and Technology Committee chairman described such unholy practices as unpatriotic, fraudulent and against the noble objectives of the present administration.

He said, in India for example, it is a punishable offence to embark on any indigenous project without using satellite images of the Nation’s Space Agency.

I

The story, he said, was not different in some other space fairing nations across the globe including the United States of America where bilateral agreement with the government of the United States with contents of images can only receive the approval of government of United States if such images

will be acquired from the United States owned satellites.

Boroffice mentioned that Nigeria cannot be an exception, saying anything contrary to patronising the satellite images of the Nigeria Space Agency by government Ministries, Departments and Agencies is against the Act es-

tablishing the Space Agency which stipulates it as the “repository of all satellite data all over Nigeria’s territory and accordingly all collaborations and consultations in Space data related matters in Nigeria shall be carried out or undertaken by or with the Agency”.

The Senate Committee on

Science and Technology emphasised that with this Act, it becomes imperative that all Satellites images needed by any government establishment or organisations including higher resolutions not in the fleet of the Space Programme could be purchased as multi- license through the NASRDA.

Some of the placard-carrying Nigerians protesting against President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in London... yesterday.

HE Christian Association of T Nigeria (CAN) has commended President Goodluck Jonathan for proscribing the Boko Haram sect and authorising the gazetting of an order declaring the group’s activities

illegal and acts of terrorism.

The association also commended the United States government for the recent $7 million bounty on Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau and urged the Federal Government to dissolve the amnesty committee, insisting

that amnesty is not meant for unrepentant criminals.

Speaking with journalists yesterday in Abuja, the Secretary General of CAN, Rev. Musa Asake, who described the development as an answer to prayers by Christians, noted that the proscription of the group by the Federal Government is a vindication of CAN’s position that the sect is a terrorist group and does not mean well for the country.

He said, “We thank God for the position the Federal Government has taken, even though it is coming late, we believe that God’s time is the

best. The Federal Government has woken up from slumber.

“When this group was killing innocent Nigerians and burning down churches, the socalled Northern elders did not say anything, they are criminals and bloodthirsty people and we thank God for the position government has taken,” CAN said.

Meanwhile, the association would next week launch a nation-wide campaign for the restoration of core values as a basis for Christlike living and progress of the nation.

Briefing journalists yesterday in Abuja, CAN’s Director, Na-

EACE may finally return to P the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) following reported moves by two factions of the party to seek an out-ofcourt settlement of the crisis that has rocked its leadership.

The move, it was gathered, came as a result of the recent decision of Anambra State Governor, Peter Obi, to finally conduct the state local council elections in October.

Also to ensure that the party repositions itself for the proposed election, the Maxi Okwu-led faction yesterday constituted a 14-member Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Committee, led by its former governorship candidate in Abia State, Regan Ufomba, to interface with the committee that was inaugurated by the Victor Umeh-led faction

to begin the processes of returning lasting peace to the party.

Briefing the media in Abuja, APGA Factional Chairman, Maxi Okwu, noted that the Umeh committee, led by Ziggy Azige, has begun moves to reconcile the two factions by paying visits to certain stakeholders and opinion moulders in the party.

He added that the party would be ready to settle its differences outside the courtroom to ensure that it positions itself very well for the October local council elections in Anambra State.

Okwu stated that his group decided to set up the committee so as to reciprocate the gesture from the Umehled group, stressing that the committee would sit in Abuja, Enugu, Awka and Lagos, as well as visit other

ADUNA State government K has been called upon to relocate residents of Wusono Village, a community inside the military formation.

The call on the government to relocate the community followed a series of threat faced by the military settling in the recent past.

Commandant of the Armed Forces Command and Staff Colleges (AFCSC) Jaji, Air Vice Marshall Effiong Osim, made the call when he led other senior officers of the Command on a courtesy call to Governor Mukhtar Ramalan Yero yesterday.

AVM Osim said the relocation of Wusono Village became necessary in order to secure the barrack, saying: “The relocation of the village, which is inside the barracks, would aid the Command in securing the military area against encroachment, as well as secure the environment against any security threat.

“When we got there, we tried to see how we could fuse the villages with us; so what we did was to employ 100 of their youths with various qualifications,” the Commandant said.

Governor Yero condoled with the Command over the bomb incident and assured them of his administration’s readiness to support the command.

From Ali Garba, Gombe tional Issues, Dr Williams Okoye said that distorted sense of values and misplaced priorities is responsible for the nation’s miseries adding that any nation that places emphasis on materialism is toying with disaster.

He observed the lack of Godcentered, people-oriented and purposeful leadership have been the major challenge facing the country adding that the need for a new breed of courageous and visionary leaders of integrity who would lead transformation is all spheres of society is very critical and urgent.

APGA factions move to seek out-of-court settlement From Ezeocha Nzeh, Abuja

From Bashir Bello, Kaduna

‘Blame northern religious leaders for crises’

CAN commends govt, U.S. over sanctions on Boko Haram From Nkechi Onyedika, Abuja

Military urges Kaduna to relocate community

party members it feels are critical to the final resolution of the crisis.

“The High Court of Anambra State has given judicial backing and insisted that the party’s April national convention of APGA, which was supervised by INEC in Awka, remains sacrosanct. So, we are focused on how to get the party back on track, we need the input of everybody on board.

“You may recall that earlier when I emerged, I stated that my intervention would centre on the reconciliation, reintegration and repositioning of the party. I am happy to also announce to you that the Victor Umehled group is already thinking towards that line and has already begun moves to reach at major stakeholders and opinion moulders of the party to see what it could do

SOCIAL critic and member A of the Northern Elders’ Forum, Solomon Dalong, has accused Muslim and Christian religious leaders of fanning crises that have continued to bedevil the North for such a long time.

Speaking at a conference organised for youths in the North-East yesterday in Gombe by Structural Integration Movement on Unity, Nationality in Diversity (SIGMUND CUREVE), Dalong said these religious leaders have continued to use their positions to flame the spirit of discord among the peaceful northern people.

He challenged the youth to stand up and say no to such gimmicks saying, “The youth in this country, especially those in the North, need to be enlightened to avoid being used by selfish and unpatriotic political and religious leaders for their selfish ends.”

Ajimobi lauds police for peace in Oyo OVERNOR Abiola Ajimobi G of Oyo State has attributed the peace and tranquility now being enjoyed in the state to the dedication, commitment and gallantry of the officers and men of the Nigeria Police.

The governor, who spoke yesterday during the inauguration of a 50-bed Police Hospital at the State Police Headquarters, Eleiyele, Ibadan, saluted the agency for its giant strides in ensuring peace and security.

Before his administration came on board, he said, the state was a theatre of war, with violence, thuggery and brigandage reigning supreme.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

Obama picks Rice as NSA NITED States (U.S.) PresiU dent Barack Obama conducted a major shakeup of his foreign policy team yesterday, naming Susan Rice as his new White House national security adviser after she withdrew from consideration last December for secretary of state because she was a lightning rod for Republican criticism.

Rice, currently the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and a longtime Obama confidante, will take over in July from Tom Donilon as the person who coordinates American foreign policy from the White House, Reuters quoted officials as saying.

News 7

120m Nigerians without electricity, says govt From Mohammed Abubakar, Abuja

Woos citizens to buy stake in power sector

INISTER of Power, Prof.

M Chinedu Nebo, alongside the Minister of State, Zainab

the problem, adding that power was already being restored.

According to the ministry, at least 120 million out of the estimated 160 million Nigerians are currently without electricity supply, leaving only an estimated 40 million Nigerians with electricity.

Nebo, who addressed State House Correspondents after

Ibrahim Kuchi, yesterday described the power outage being experienced in the country as national embarrassment, but blamed it on systems collapse.

Nevertheless, Nebo said that steps had been taken to rectify

briefing the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on the activities of his ministry in the last one last year, said that systems collapse affected some power installations in some parts of the country.

He cited the recent breakdown of power installations in Bayelsa and Kebbi states, which kept the two states in

darkness for over three weeks, stating: “Bayelsa State was almost knocked out because a huge tree fell on the transmission tower and shattered it up to the foundation.

“Similar situation occurred in Kebbi, where heavy storms destroyed three transmission towers. These things are natural phenomena that are not caused by human beings.”

Aside systems collapse, the

Britain backs Nigeria for UN seat

By John Ogiji, Minna

ITING her leadership role C in stabilising Africa sub-region, the British government

Court stops PDP panel on ailing Taraba governor From Charles Akpeji, Jalingo HE controversy generatT ed by the continued absence of the governor of Taraba State yesterday took a different dimension as the High Court sitting in Jalingo, the state capital, restrained the fact-finding committee set up by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on the ailing Danbaba Suntai from functioning.

The committee, which is being chaired by Senator Hope Uzodinma, was inaugurated by National Chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, to ascertain the reasons for the continuous absence of the governor.

MRA invokes FoI, seeks details of NEPC transactions EDIA Rights Agenda M (MRA) has made a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) seeking detailed information on its landed property nationwide and those recently sold under its current management.

In a letter, with the subject: “Request for Information on Nigerian Export Promotion (NEPC) Properties Nationwide”, dated May 31, 2013 and signed by its Programme Manager, Mr. Ayode Longe, MRA is asking the Council to provide it with the requested information, records and documents within seven days as required by the Freedom of Information Act, 2011.

Gombe Speaker lauds media on democracy From Ali Garba, Gombe PEAKER of Gombe State SGarba, House of Assembly, Inuwa has commended journalists for contributing immensely to the sustenance of democracy in the country.

Garba, who stated this in Gombe, North-East Nigeria, while speaking with correspondents, described journalists as partners responsible for keeping the public informed of governmental policies and laws that promote their wellbeing.

The Speaker said the three arms of government in Gombe State are focused on developing all the sectors, in order to move the state forward.

minister also fingered the activities of vandals as well as lack of funding last year for routine maintenance of electricity equipment. He noted: “I can use the word ‘nightmare’ to describe what we witnessed in the past three weeks, as far as power supply is concerned.”

Nebo said it was down to “systems collapse, which occurs at the beginning of every rainy season, or when the rainy season is about to take off robustly, with a lot of storm.”

Patron, Etisalat Prize for Literature, Dele Olojede (left); Chair of Judges, Etisalat Prize for Literature, Punla Gqola and Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Steven Evans, at the Etisalat Prize for Literature Press Conference, held at Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos…yesterday

PDP suspends Wamakko, Yuguda, others may shun Northern govs’ meeting From Saxone Akhaine (Northern Bureau Chief, Kaduna) and Azimazi Momoh Jimoh (Abuja) OKOTO State Governor Aliyu Magatakarda WaSmakko was suspended from the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday for alleged disrespect for the political grouping.

Meanwhile, a serious division may have emerged within the ranks of governors of the 19 northern states ahead of their meeting today in Kaduna.

The party’s National Working Committee (NWC) announced the action against Wamakko yesterday after a meeting in Abuja.

A communique released to journalists by the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, said: “The NWC at its 338th meeting held on Wednesday, June 5, 2013, extensively discussed the state of the party across the nation and its members as well as the repeated breaches and disregard to the Party’s Constitution by his Excellency, Dr. Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, the Executive Governor of Sokoto State.

“The NWC notes that on several occasions, Governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko had ignored invitations and lawful directives of the NWC in this regard and has continued to show complete apathy to the affairs of the party and contempt to an organ of the party.

“Consequent upon the refusal of the Governor to honour yet another invitation by the NWC to appear before it today, Wednesday, June 5, 2013 without any reason, the Committee, in exercise of the powers conferred by Articles 57 (3), 57 (7), 58. 1(c ),(h),

(f) and 59 (1),(2), hereby suspends the Executive Governor of Sokoto State, Dr. Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko as a member of the party and refers the matter to the appropriate disciplinary committee of the party.

This is in furtherance of the determination of the leadership of the party to enforce discipline at all levels within the party.”

Some members of the Northern State Governors’ Forum (NSGF), and their representatives will not be at the meeting for discussions on political, social and economic matters affecting the North.

Bauchi State Governor Isa Yuguda, who had announced his temporary withdrawal from the NSGF, may not attend the meeting.

Some of the governors who are sympathetic to his cause, “because they could no longer work with people who are hypocrites,” may not also be there.

The division is allegedly an offshoot of the schism in the larger, and hitherto all-embracing Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) that currently has two factional chairmen, Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State and Jonah Jang of Plateau State, after a disputed election on May 24 in Abuja to choose the head of the 36-member body.

Some of the governors, who voted to return Amaechi for a second term of two years, later challenged the outcome and picked Jang as a consensus chairman.

The factions have different secretariats in Abuja.

However, the crisis in the NSGF is partly associated with the division of the body before the NGF’s election.

According to reports, the

NSGF initially decided on Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State as a consensus candidate for the NGF election.

But a few days to the poll, the NSGF threw up Yuguda as its candidate, whom Shema refused to step down for.

Ostensibly to prevent presenting two candidates, which would have made it easier for Amaechi to be returned, the NSGF finally settled for Jang, whom it introduced to the PDP Governors’ Forum (PDP-GF), which then presented the Plateau helmsman for the election barely a few minutes away.

“It is the processes that led to Jang being picked as a consensus candidate of the NSGF that is tearing the forum apart now,” a source told The Guardian last night in Kaduna.

Still, it is not clear, which actions — pre- or post- the NGF election — that Yuguda and his sympathisers are protesting against.

The governor has vowed not to return to the NSGF until the group made it known to the world why it had “reneged on its earlier agreement” with regard to the NGF election.

A source close to him said yesterday that “our governor and some other governors in the North will not be part of the meeting (of the NSGF) the other governors are calling for tomorrow (Thursday).”

“This is the outcome of the recent 36 governors’ election in Abuja,” the source said, adding, “some of us are just here, to come and see how they (Secretaries to the State Governments (SSGs) of northern states) are going

about issues and not as representing our states. We are just here to observe; period.”

Indeed, the Bauchi State Government’s scribe was absent during the meeting of the SSGs at the General Hassan Usman Katsina House, Kaduna yesterday. The meeting usually comes up a day before the parley by the 19 governors.

Other issues to be discussed concern New Nigerian Newspapers (NNN) and the Northern Nigeria Development Company (NNDC.

has thrown its weight behind Nigeria’s bid for a permanent seat at the United Nations.

Britain is backing Nigeria ahead of South Africa and Ghana, other countries that have been in the running for the exalted position.

British High Commissioner in Nigeria, Mr. Andrei Pock, who dropped the hint in Minna, Niger State yesterday when he paid a courtesy visit to Governor Muazu Babangida Aliyu, said the decision of the British government to support Nigeria for the permanent United Nations seat was based on the country being a stabilising force in the West Africa sub-region. Pock also said that Britain is throwing its weight behind Nigeria because the country has been contributing to peace-keeping operations not only in Africa but in the world.

“Nigeria is important to England, Britain sees Nigeria as a regional and international force. Britain will work with Nigeria on major foreign policy issues,” he said.

The envoy, however, challenged the Nigerian government to take security issues, especially in the northern part of the country, serious, assuring that “we will partner with the government to restore peace and stability in Nigeria.”

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THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

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THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

POLITICS

Politics Squandering of Nigeria’s resources unpardonable, says Buhari Former Head of State and presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), retired General Muhammadu Buhari, hosted by Liberty Radio, Kaduna, spoke on a wide range of issues bordering on democracy in Nigeria since the First Republic, the merger by the opposition elements and the struggle to wrest power from the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2015 general elections, reports Northern Bureau Chief, Saxone Akhaine.

OULD you say that Nigeria’s past political W history was better than what we have today, and that when this situation is projected into the future, a disturbing picture emerges?

That is true to some extent. If we try to reflect on the First Republic till date, I think the biggest way to measure it is what the state of economy development was in the country from administration to administration whether it is civilian or military.

Look at how resources were utilised by the First Republic when it was based only on agriculture, and you see the infrastructure laid from the meager resources by the First Republic.

Then you come to the military administrations; and of course, the most peculiar period, as far as earning is concerned from external resources, from oil from 1999 till date.

You try and find out the amount of money the country realised, the state of infrastructure, say in 1999 till date and the amount accrued to the country.

You will really be shocked by how resources were not credibly utilised because the railway, airways, roads, and waterways are quite not efficient. The solid infrastructure is virtually gone and then you ask; what was the money used for?

Look at the universities, polytechnics and infrastructure we built during the military regimes.

But in spite of the resources, to sustain development became a trash in Nigeria, which the governments are responsible for.

God has endowed Nigeria with resources and human beings but we have failed to organise ourselves. Virtually from the First Republic,

Buhari there was no leadership in Nigeria because the way our national resources had been squandered. No country can survive it except Nigeria.

Don’t you think there is also attitudinal problem on the part of leaders, who do not follow the due process of doing things, as responsible for the way we are drifting today?

The whole problem revolves around leadership at the top. This is the tragedy in Nigeria. Those people at the top and at the various levels are doing whatever they like and not what the Constitution or laws of the land prescribe.

The merger parties have completed their conventions; one would like to know how far the merger has yielded fruits?

The road to merger is quite rough. Rough in the sense that the ruling party has enormous resources and its capacity for coercion.

Personally, I realise this since 2007: that the only way the opposition at all levels can counter the PDP is to come together to bring the dividend of democracy to their people.

The APGA has made it clear that it is not part of the APC. Some see this as a crack in the wall of

the opposition; do you agree with this assertion?

The APGA has a very serious legal problem, but Governor (Rochas) Okorocha has declared for the APC. He attended our convention and I think he has courage to come out to identify with the APC. But we have to be careful about the APGA because they have serious legal problems, which are in the courts.

People say the merging parties seem not to have an enviable record of internal democracy; and that the APC might not be different from PDP after all.

What is your take on this?

I think that’s the beauty of democracy. But that won’t stop us — the CPC, ACN, ANPP and other opposition parties from consolidating on the merger.

What are your hopes that the APC would be registered; and what would happen in the event that it was not registered?

I think I am optimistic. If I am not optimistic, I would not attempt to take my presidential ticket three times and go to the Supreme Court.

Why I believe we are going to be registered is because there is an Electoral Law, if you want to register a political party. The Electoral Law facilitates the way you go about it.

First, you must have a headquarters in the Federal Capital, which can be identified. Second, you must have a convention and we have had our conventions and have agreed to forsake our existing parties to go for the APC. Thirdly, we must have at a national spread, and those who would run the affairs of the party. As soon as we meet these criteria, and acknowledged

by INEC that we have met the criteria according to Electoral Act, we would be registered.

By law, 30 working days after INEC acknowledges this, we are APC whether the receipt has been given or not.

But the CPC certificate of registration is with Senator Anga’s faction; don’t you think this can affect the registration of the APC by INEC? Anga is not a member of the CPC and not faction.

Anga, on registration of the CPC, happened to be the chairman of the interim (executive committee).

If you could recall, the CPC was registered in December 2009 and wanted to participate in the 2011 elections.

The 2010 Electoral Act for the general elections did

not come into effect until about five or six months to the elections within which time the CPC, as a new party, had to register, do congresses, primaries, conventions and go into elections.

Yet, the CPC has senators, members of (House of) Representatives, Houses of Assembly and councilors. Is this not a wonder?

Anga happened to be the interim chairman of the party and then he expressed interest to be the governor of Kano State. By law, he knew it’s impossible for him to be the chairman of CPC and as well be the gubernatorial candidate in Kano. So, he had to formally write to resign, for him to participate in the primaries to become a gubernatorial candidate.

Therefore, if he said he has got the CPC registration (certificate), then he stole it and we will take him to court if he didn’t return it. If he is holding any document, he is holding it against the law.

Are you prepared to face whatever problems on the way to APC’s registration?

If I would go to court in 2003 and spend 30 months, 2007 and spend 18 months, and 2011, although as a member of the CPC and not as presidential candidate, and spend about eight months, I think I am an optimist of purpose.

It’s only natural that the PDP may not like to see the APC registered and it’s perfectly in order for them, politically, to see if they can frustrate the efforts. But we are ready for it (registration) and we would realise it.

Do you have trust in the INEC to conduct credible elections in 2015?

We, as APC, together with other parties and civil societies, want to make suggestions for amendment of Electoral Act 2010, towards the 2015 general elections.

Would you support the conduct of elections in one day, to ensure free and fair outcome; and how would you fight for the realisation?

I hope we don’t have to fight for anything; I hope we would just make suggestions according to law.

I think INEC, this time around, has started working according to the requirements of the oppositions. But if you have the elections in one day, there are efforts to manipulate.

Kwara govt, leaders disagree on provision of democratic dividends From Abiodun Fagbemi, Ilorin.

HE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government in Kwara State is counting its achievements in the past two years under the superintendence of Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed.

The governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Media, Dr. Muideen Akorede, listed some areas of achievement as health, water supply, smallscale enterprises, agriculture, education and road rehabilitation.

But the Dean, Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, the University of Ilorin, Prof. Hassan Salihu, and the President, Afonja Descendants Union (ADU), Alhaji Abdulkarim Olola Kasum, differ with the government on this claim.

Rather, they want the government to buckle up by providing more democratic dividends to the people.

Salihu, a Professor of Political Science, viewed politics as an avenue for the citizens to make known their needs to the government, which, in turn, would respond to such needs.

But he regretted the absence of such a system in Nigeria, as the governments put in place by the people, to hold in trust for them the public funds, “always do what please them and what they consider convenient for them to do.”

Similarly, Olola Kasum, a social critics and a public affairs analyst, told The Guardian that the current democratic government was yet to improve the lots of Nigerians in all sectors of life and endeavour.

“Nigerian workers are still what they used to be: Electricity supply has gone from bad to worse. Yet, go round the

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government official quarters; they enjoy almost 24 hours’ supply of electricity,” he said.

However, Akorede said 13 new ambulances were supplied to the state’s Specialist and General Hospitals just as hospital equipment and drugs were supplied to 43 primary health centres across the state.

Akorede disclosed that the General Hospitals in Ilorin, Share, Kaiama, Omu-Aran and Offa were at advanced stage of remodeling and rehabilitation.

“Already, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) had been sealed with the Dutch Government, through Hygeia Health Group, to extend the Community Health Insurance Scheme to all the 16 Local Government Areas of the state.

On water projects, Akorede said, “at least, 60 percent of the population is expected to benefit from the water supply scheme under the Water Reticulation Programme for Ilorin metropolis, to ensure access to water supply within 500 metres.”

“Besides, the government provided water booster station at Western Reservoir in Ilorin and built a water booster station in Anberi to boost water supply to Ajasse-Ipo and its environs just as comprehensive rehabilitation of 15 water works across the state and sinking of 300 boreholes have been carried out.”

On commerce, he said 28,000 small business owners had accessed a N250 million facility provided by the state government to promote small and medium scale entrepreneurship.

Akorede said that 150 youth entrepre-

Ahmed neurs, in conjunction with Kwara State University (KWASU), equally benefited from the programme, while additional N45m was provided for soft loans to graduates.

Under agriculture, he noted, “the government produced the Kwara Agricultural Modernisation Master Plan in conjunction with the Cornell University, New York Besides, it promoted commercial agriculture through a model of 10 farmers in each of the 16 councils of the state, while compartments system of planting, such as rice, maize, soya and cassava was created “to serve as change agents.”

The state established the Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development, as well as the Ministry of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, to promote functional education.

On the agricultural sector, Akorede noted that in September 2012, a MoU was signed with Australia-based com-

pany, Austrava, to export 500,000 tonnes of cassava chips annually.

“Another MoU was entered into with Vasolar Consortium of Spain for the cultivation, processing and packaging of rice in commercial scale in the state,” he said.

On road rehabilitation, Akorede said the government, during the years under a review, carried out rehabilitation of 800 kilometres of urban and rural roads, including federal roads in the state.

Still, Prof. Salihu noted that, “in advanced democracies, it is the people, through their representatives, who tell the governments their needs, and such needs are respected and promptly supplied.”

“But here in Nigeria, you may wake up one day and see borehole drilling equipment inside the jungle where people do not reside,” he said.

“Again, it is common in Nigeria for the government to sink boreholes where people are not in need of water.

In fact, there is a community in Nigeria where there is a stream that does not dry all season.

“Rather than the concerned state government to find ways of making it pipe-borne, it moved away from the stream and sunk a manually-propelled borehole that dried up in the dry season. Tell me the wisdom in that step!”

The don, who described Nigeria as the most blessed in the world in terms of high presence of human and natural resources in it, believes that those in government should see themselves inferior to the citizens, who, under democratic setting, are empowered to put in power and to remove from

power.

Thus, in his assessment, Nigerians are yet to enjoy “fully” true benefits of democracy, as what had “mainly” taken place have been imposition of government’s wish on the people.

Likewise, Olola Kasum said looking at the democratic gains from the available two segments of life, “you will agree that only political office holders and in some cases, public office holders could be talking of democratic gains.”

“If many Nigerians are sick today, the last stop gap for treatment is the teaching hospital. But how many Nigerians can afford the bill?” he said.

“But if it is those in power are invalid, they are promptly flown abroad for treatment. If they know what is good, why could they not replicate such in Nigeria?”

He observed that, “the poor man’s shoes before the advent of democracy had not changed; it is the elected officer who daily changes his pair of shoes and yet, keep the older pair of shoes away from the masses.”

“The democracy is yet to supply the basic necessity of the common man.

In fact, what are the needs of a common man than shelter, food and clothes? We are yet to see any significant change in this order.

Government should arise to these needs and stop propaganda on dividends of any democracy.”

The ADU leader believes that the insecurity in “almost every part of the country” could not be divorced from alleged absence of democratic gains, warning against the “Arabian nations’ type of revolution” in Nigeria towards “redistribution of wealth.”

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

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THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

TheMetroSection ‘My son was not an armed robber’ • Mother laments alleged killing of his only son by female police officer

By Odita Sunday OR Mrs. Osas Okungbowa Momodu, no words of encouragement can replace the vacuum created by the death of her only son, who was allegedly shot and killed by a trigger-happy female Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ogida Police Station, Benin City.

Her neighbours and friends are reluctant to leave Mrs. Okungbowa’s house for fear that she might kill herself if she is left alone to bear the pains of losing her only son, Ibrahim Momodu.

Ibrahim was a 22-year-old Science Laboratory Technology student of the University of Benin (UNIBEN).

An employee of the Edo State Centre for Community Development in the Ministry of Information and Orientation, Mrs. Momodu, has charged the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar and the Federal Government to investigate the alleged killing of her only son by one Onyeka Afegbua, a DPO. She said her consolation would come only when the truth is unearthed and the culprit brought to justice.

Her son, Ibrahim Momodu, a 500level was allegedly shot along Textile Mill road, Benin City.

“Last Tuesday, I discovered that my son did not come back home from school, which was unusual of him. I was angry, so I left for my work and when I came back from work, I discovered that the food I left for him was still there.

“This is a boy who has never spent a night outside our house. I called his phone but there was no response. It was on Wednesday morning I decided to go the police station near our house to lodge a complaint of missing person.

When I got there, they gave me two policemen who led me and some of my family members to Ogida Po-

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The late Ibrahim Momodu lice Station. We were told that the DPO was not in the office.

“A policeman who knew me called my daughter in Port Harcourt and informed her of what happened. It was my daughter who now called to inform me that my son was dead. It was at Ogida Police Station that I was directed

to the police headquarters, where we met the Crime Officer who confirmed the death of my son, saying: ‘It is a shameful death. Your son was involved in an armed robbery.’

He said he was caught at the scene of robbery. He also said he was caught with a bag, which they

snatched from someone and they now opened fire on him. I asked for the body and I was told he had been buried. From there, I started weeping and went home.”

“I am depending on the media to help me tell the world that the police killed an innocent boy full of hope and life. My concern now is that the police hierarchy should be sincere and arrest DPO Caro Onyeka Afegbua for questioning.

I am sure the Police would find out the truth if she is interrogated. I don’t have anyone to fight for me except God. This is my only son out of five children, my hope is gone, and I am really distressed.

Meanwhile, a group of people has protested the death. One of those who led the protest in Benin City, Mr. Pharez Jonathan, who is also a member of the Edo State Youths Forum, said the Ibrahim Momodu, he knew was not an armed robber. He added that it was a calculated plan by the police DPO to free herself.

According to him, “Our friend Ibrahim was on his way back from his friend’s place. Simply because the DPO saw him carrying a nylon bag, the DPO, a woman, personally shot at Ibrahim three times.

He was shot close to the petrol station three times. A lot of people were there and they saw what happened. They said the DPO stood there and watched him die.

Even if he was an armed robber, which he was not, did the DPO have the right to shoot him? We have carried our protest to the Governor’s Office. We also went to the state Police Command. We protested at strategic places in Benin. We willl not despair until this wicked DPO is brought to justice. We will not allow an innocent man, a 500 level student of University of Benin to die without jus-

Man, 29, arraigned for armed robbery, rape From Joseph Wantu, Makurdi.

TWENTY-NINE-YEAR-OLD man, one Msonter Iyange of Akwabo Street, Zaki-Biam, Benue State was yesterday arraigned before a Makurdi Chief Magistrate’s Court over charges of armed robbery and rape.

Police Prosecution, Sergeant Michael Ewoh told the court that on May 14, 2013, one Imoter Mchivga, who lives of opposite Yam Market in Zaki-Biam reported at the Zaki-Biam Police Station that he was robbed while his sister, Nadoo, was raped by the robber.

According to the prosecution, the complainant explained to the police that he was sleeping in

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his house when the accused person forced his door open and attacked him.

Mchivga stated that the accused person, whom he recognized as Iyange, robbed him of the sum of N900.00 and a torchlight valued N300.00.

He stated further that after robbing him, Iyange compelled him to call his sister to open her door and when she opened the door, upon hearing her brother’s voice, the robber forced him into the room, pulled Nadoo out and locked him up there.

The complainant said that he later discovered from Nadoo that the robber took her to his room with threats to injure her with a charcoal iron in the room if she refused and raped her.

Prosecution said that the suspect confessed to the crime during police interrogation, adding that the offence were contrary to Sections 1 (2) (a) and (b) of the Robbery and Firearms Act, 2004 and 284 of the Penal Code Laws of Benue State, 2004.

However, when the case came up for mention, no plea was taken for want of jurisdiction and prosecution said that investigation into the matter was still in progress and asked for another date for mention.

The Chief Magistrate, Mrs. Theresa Wergba ordered that the accused person be remanded in prison and adjourned the matter to July 4, 2013 for further mention.

Photonews

Briefs Osaghae to deliver Lead varsity lecture ISTINGUISHED political D scientist and comparativist, Prof. Eghosa Osaghae, who is also the Vice-Chancellor Igbinedion University, Benin, will tomorrow deliver the 2013 Lead City University’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Entrepreneurial Studies distinguished lecture, at the University’s International Conference Centre at 3.30p.m.

Missing documents Deeds of Assignment of FZ.AIVE a house situated at No. 15, Williams Road, Kay Farm Estate, Iju, Lagos, building approval, building plan and the relevant receipts of payment of the house belonging to Mr. Abiola Ibrahim Oladele is reported missing. Also reported missing are a copy of Nigeria Army Housing Estate-Kurudu Deed of Assignment and the building plan of Awo Ekiti House. All efforts to trace the original copies of these documents have proved abortive.

The matter has since been reported to the police. If found, please contact the nearest police station or contact the above address.

Ogbakor Ikwerre meets HE general meeting of T Ogbakor Ikwerre (Lagos) will hold on Sunday, June 9, at Club 1919, Nigerian Railway Compound, opposite AP Filling Station, Ebute Metta, Lagos at

Victory College old students meet Sunday HE general meeting of T Victory High School/College Old Students’ Association holds on Sunday, June 9, at the school’s compound, on Bank Anthony Way, Abule Onigbagbo Bus Stop, Ikeja, Lagos at 2.30p.m.

Marriage seminar In Christ Mission FwillREEDOM inc. (The Glorious Church) from today begin a three day marriage seminar tagged: “Heaven in Homes” at Freedom Cathedral, 4 Freedom Street, off Kososko Street, by Ogunlana Street, Ijeshatedo, Lagos. The seminar, which will feature, home building, child rearing and love tips, begins at 5.00p.m. daily while Sunday’s event is at 8.30a.m.

Pastor Bisi Adewale, Bishop Osaretin Ben-naigbe and others will minister.

NAFRC holds graduation HE Commandant NigerT ian Armed Forces Resettlement Centre, Oshodi, Air Vice Marshall M.A. Akisami will on Friday, June 14, preside over the graduation of Trainees of Course 1/ 2013 at Danjuma 2 at 10.00 a.m.

UMCOBA old boys meet ETHODIST College, M Uzuakoli Old Boys’ Association (UMCOBA), Lagos, Wife of elder statesman, Edwin Clark, Dr. (Mrs.) Bisola Clark (left), father of the founder, Emoeferotu Foundation, Sir Robert Esiri, President/Founder Emoeferotu Foundation, Pamela Esiri and Suleiman Sanni Bello representing the Chairman, Col. Sanni Bello at the logo launch and sixth anniversary of the foundation in Abuja...

Account Manager,Prize Communications Ltd, Ranti Alaka (left), Publisher THE CITIZEN, Mr. Malachy Agbo,Head, Clients Service,Prize Communications Ltd ,Ngozi Mortune, and Account Manager, Prize Communications Ltd, Nat Ogbu at THE CITIZEN yearly lecture media briefing in Lagos..The lecture holds today at Southern Sun Hotel, Ikoyi.

will meet on Saturday, June at the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research, Yaba, Lagos at noon.

METRO 13

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

Photonews

Head Girl, Ifako Int’l Secondary School, Basorun Funmilayo (left); Head Boy, Israel Ayodele and Head Teacher, Fred Williams Primary School and other pupils during the presentation of gift items to the primary school as part of activities marking the Founders’ Day celebrations of Ifako Int’l School...recently

Director, House 2 House Campaign for Good 2015, Mr. Mike Owuda Ojo, National Co-ordinator, Price Chidi Ibe and Director, Planning and Statistics, Mr. Abur Clifford during the inaugural press conference of House 2 House Campaign for Goodlock 2015 in Abuja...on Tuesday PHOTO: LADIDI LUCY ELUKPO

Marketing Manager, Mr Sola Abati (right), Promotion Executive, Mr Raymond Ofili both of Honeywell Noodles with kids during a special train ride, organised by Honeywell, to mark Children’s Day...

Patron, Etisalat Prize for Literature,, Dele Olojede (left); Chair of Judges, Etisalat Prize for Literature, Pumla Gqola and Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Steven Evans, at the Etisalat Prize for Literature Press Conference, held at Wheatbaker Hotel, Ikoyi, Lagos... yesterday

Redeemed Christian Church of God installs solar-powered energy in Mushin, Lagos

By Kenechukwu Ezeonyejiaku HE Apapa Family of the Redeemed Christian Church of God has installed solar-powered electricity in seven communities of Mushin Local Council of Lagos State.

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The communities that benefited from the gesture include Akala, Igbarere, Adedoja, Aileru, Oyegunle, Ojo and Amodu.

At the commissioning of the project, the Head, Apapa Family, Pastor Idowu Iluyomade,

said: “As communities, which are notorious for its drug addicts and presence of all sorts of crime, the church deems it fit to bring light to disperse the darkness in the community as our Lord Jesus Christ admonished us to be the

light of the world.”

He said that with the presence of light in the area, the economic activities in the community would, once more, be activated and that as a community seemed to have been forgotten, the proj-

ect has shown them that God still remembers them.

“In those days when it gained notoriety as a haven of hard drugs and spine-chilling crimes, only the temerarious dared tread the street of

Akala in Mushin, regardless of what time of the day it was.

“Dotted by swarms of offputting miscreants, even the valiant among men would need more than guts to pass by the gangsters on the notorious streets.

14 | THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

TheGuardian Conscience Nurtured by Truth

FOUNDER: ALEX U. IBRU (1945 – 2011) Conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it. Uthman dan Fodio 1754-1816

Editorial Transforming Nigeria’s murky oil sector T was hardly surprising that international extractive industries watchdog, Revenue Watch Institute (RWI), recently released the Resource Governance Index (RGI), a global ranking of the quality of the governance of extractive industries in the world’s leading 58 natural resources-rich countries and in its assessment, Nigeria was ranked 40th. The ranking, based on issues such as the transparency with which taxes and other revenues are remitted to the government and reported correctly confirmed the correct status of Nigeria’s oil industry as one riddled with corruption and lacking in transparency.

The ranking would have gone largely unnoticed but for the diligence of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), which came out to corroborate the characterization of the governance of Nigeria’s oil sector by the RWI as “very weak”. This diligence of NEITI is admirable. It has since inception consistently exposed the opacity and corruption, which reign supreme in Nigeria’s oil sector.

It is indeed tempting to think that NEITI’s origins in an international movement to promote transparency in extractive industries, which Nigeria signed up to, accounts for its tenacity and courage; but its leadership has been critical to its success. After all, NEITI is funded by the Nigerian government and its Executive Secretary and some board members are Federal Government appointees.

Without the tradition of integrity and fearlessness it has built, the paymaster of the piper would have been dictating the tune. NEITI would have been one of the many agencies meant to fight corruption and promote transparency, which have failed so woefully to do so and Nigerians would never have had the benefit of its candid reports.

The Resource Governance Index assesses four key components of extractive industries: Institutional and Legal Setting; Reporting Practices; Safeguards and Quality Control and Enabling Environment. Nigeria scored moderately well on the first component i.e. Institutional and Legal Setting, on account of the passage of legislations, which promote ostensibly transparency, including the 2007 NEITI Act and the Freedom of Information Act. But crucially the manner in which various agencies in the oil and gas sector function was found to be totally deficient in providing an enabling environment for substantive transparency. This evaluation is hardly surprising as Nigerian officialdom has a tragic genius for crafting seemingly sensible laws and regulations and doing everything that expressly contravenes every letter and spirit of the laws. Besides, transparency seems less of a consideration in Nigeria given the constant exposure of gargantuan corruption. The impotence of the government on, if not active promotion of corruption, is the real issue. In its review of the 2013 RGI, NEITI revealed that its annual audit of the Nigeria oil and gas sector has found $9.6 billion in outstanding payments owed the Federal Government by oil companies, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Neither the NNPC nor the Ministry of Petroleum has confirmed or denied this claim. According to NEITI, “underpayment, underassessment, and variance in royalties, signature bonuses, levies and taxes” abound in the oil sector. No significant step has been taken to redress these anomalies despite NEITI’s detailed reports on the enormous cost to the national treasury and recommendations on stemming the fiscal drain.

It seems that successive Nigerian governments have deliberately created and left open a system of mammoth shadow revenue taps in the nation’s oil sector.

The Federal Government has refused to address the urgent need to bring fairness, transparency and due process to the bidding through which oil blocks are allocated and the process for reviewing existing oil block concessions. Billions of dollars could easily be made by high-ranking politicians and corrupt bureaucrats as a result of the wide discretion the system has for long permitted. Shamefully, despite the prevalence of required metering technology, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources is yet unable to efficiently measure the quantity of crude oil pumped by the oil companies operating in Nigeria.

NEITI in its comments on the Resource Governance Index also highlights one of the gravest failure of the Goodluck Jonathan administration or that of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP): the failure to pass the all-important Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). The government may significantly have diminished chances that the bill would be passed in good time by the National Assembly by making the bizarre choice to retain and by some accounts even expand the opaque discretionary powers that have often been abused by ministers. The National Assembly, dominated by the PDP, has delayed passage of the PIB with squabbles over regional distribution of oil export revenue. Not only is an opportunity to improve the transparency and revenues of Nigeria’s oil sector being lost, the industry is also being gradually reduced to irrelevance as more African nations are discovering oil and are attracting investment into exploration and production. New technology is also bringing greater volume of hitherto commercially unviable domestic oil and gas into the western markets on which Nigerian exports rely.

The Presidency seems too preoccupied with the politics of 2015 to exercise the leadership required to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill urgently. All the same, passing the PIB is the minimum first step that needs to be taken to put an end to the rampant corruption and impunity in Nigeria’s oil sector.

On this, history will not judge kindly anyone who failed to do his duty to ensure that Nigeria takes this remarkable step.

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LETTER

Internet as the ultimate The former Vice Sof IR:Chancellor of the University Lagos, Professor Tolu Odugbemi, made a promise to the university community to provide students and staff on campus access to broadband internet facility. This was about four years ago. Three years and nothing was forthcoming on the promised Project, but we kept our fingers crossed, knowing that politics is played in the Ivory Towers as well. We have been anticipating the day when we would be able to browse the internet from the comfort of our rooms and lecture halls.

Finally, it became a dream come true in 2012. The university management, headed by the late Professor Babatunde Sofoluwe, delivered on its promise by making the broadband service accessible to final year and postgraduate students as well as the staff members. This constituted a little above one-quarter of the university population. It is, however, a commendable start and a sign of better things to come.

This goes to say that students can access the service from the comfort of their rooms by simply logging in with their matriculation numbers and personalised passwords while staff can do just the same from their offices.

There are dozens of online courses, many of them offered

free of charge, which students can take advantage of and gain international certifications in. In fact, this writer is currently an online student of the Harvard University free online school. You get to obtain a branded certificate on completion of your modules, tests, assignments, projects and examinations as you would in the usual real world institutions. However, to meet up with class and tests schedules, such a student must have access to ample internet service to download course lecture materials (if he cannot go through them real time online), turn in assignments in record time. With the availability of internet service, he can do all these without any glitches. This also applies to students in universities and higher institutions other than the University of Lagos.

It is, therefore, preposterous for the Ministry of Education and the National Universities Commission to expect our graduates to be anywhere near the level of other countries when they pay lip service to the provision of vital facilities. Nigerian graduates should be able to compete favourably with those from other universities and be globally relevant, but they are denied quality education. A colleague of mine recently

represented Nigeria at a Global Agricultural Research Event in Uruguay. While there, Olawale Ojo shared this with me on the Facebook social medium platform. “Uruguay has gone as far as having wireless internet service on their public buses. I wonder when Nigeria will get there”.

In some parts of the world, access to internet service has become part of their citizenry’s fundamental human rights.

This means as a citizen in such country, I have a right to sue my landlord or school management if I do not get internet service for my use. Moreover, I posit that any nation or educational system, which does not highly prioritise the provision of internet facility to its learning class is only digging its grave. Sooner than we think, we would be doing almost all our human activities on the virtual space. Now, we shop online, buy online, pay bills online, write exams online and get degrees online amongst so many other things.

Information technology is fast taking over from the archaic method of carrying out activities and this reality must be awakened in our leaders. If an average Nigerian undergraduate is not information technology empowered, he would no doubt be a misfit for the workforce.

• Joshua Oyeniyi, Lagos.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

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Business Appointments P27 Stakeholders strengthen support for African women empowerment Nigeria’s connected lines hit 161.9m amid downturn in telecoms services

By Adeyemi Adepetun ESPITE the downturn in D telecommunications services in the country, the nation’s connected telephone lines grew by 2, 049, 470 in March 2013.

Indeed, the country’s connected lines as at February 2013 was 159, 879,295 but went up to 161, 928, 765 in March.

This growth is coming on heels of sharp drop in quality of services from the telecommunications operators, as subscribers continued to grapple with surge in unconnected calls; drop calls; unsolicited text messages, among others.

According to the latest industry data obtained from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday, Nigeria’s active telephone lines moved from the 116 million in February to over 117 million in March.

As usual, the GSM operators including MTN Nigeria; Airtel; Globacom and Etisalat continue to dominate. They presently have 114 million subscribers, while the troubled Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators, including Starcomms; Visafone and Multilinks recorded a loss in their active subscriber base.

The CDMA operators, which had 2, 790, 989 active subscription as at February, lost 87, 385 subscribers, entering March with 2,703, 604.

Like the CDMA, the fixed wired/wireless sub-sector with 410, 664 in February sustained a downward profile in March, having 405, 625 subscribers.

Paradoxically, the telecommunications sector installed capacity grew by 10.7 million in March, moving from 226.6 million in February to 237.4 million.

The sector also recorded slight deeper telephone penetration in March. The teledensity moved from 83.2 per cent to 83.7 per cent in March.

It must however, be mentioned that the operators have announced independently the ploughing of about N960 billion into network upgrades and expansion to be able to checkmate the increasing service challenges.

The NCC is however, yet to come out with the number of subscribers that have switched networks in the ongoing Mobile Number

CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

President, South-East South-South Professionals of Nigeria, Emeka Ugwu-Oju; President, Afrexim Bank, Jean Louis Ekra and his wife and President, Thelo Group (pty) Ltd, South Africa and Board Member, Afrexim Bank, Ronnie Ntuli, at the yearly meeting of Africa Development Bank in Morocco, where Ekra won the Lifetime Achievement Award.

Govt seeks intervention fund to revive power plants

By Roseline Okere The Ministry of Power has opted to shop for an intervention fund to revamp the country’s ailing power plants before the final handover to the new owners in July.

The fund raising strategy was informed by the fact that the country’s power generation and transmission was not included in the 2013 budget, which was passed into law recently by the government.

Government had said that the country would need $10 billion investment in the power sector in the next 10 years to boost supply and transmission in the sector, The Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo, who made this disclosure on Tuesday at Egbin Power plant in an interview with journalists, attributed the fund paucity crisis assailing power sector to the inability of the government to conclude privatisation of power firms by December 2012.

“We thought that by December 2012, the whole privatization exercise would have been completed. But is was unfortunate that we missed the deadline on privatization of the power plants and this has resulted to shortage of funds for repairs and maintenance of the power stations”.

He said that the govern-

ment would ensure that the new owners of the power firms put up for sale do not inherit liability but assets.

According to him, the country’s power plants were facing the challenge of fund paucity to effect repairs on some of them, leading to major system collapse, adding that this has really affected the power generation and distribution in the country.

He said that the government would ensure that the power outages currently being experienced in the country, are finally brought to rest.

Nebo pointed out that the government had undertaken various rehabilitation projects in various parts of the country and was looking to achieve an installed capacity of power generation of 10,000 by 2014.

“At about the first quarter of 2014, we will have an installed capacity to product 10,000 megawatts. The president just commissioned various power projects that we expect to double power supply and the ultimate target is that by 2020 we will have 40,000 megawatts.

“I can tell you that the government has done a lot to improve power supply.

Before the president took office Nigeria was still battling with 2000 megawatts, but today we generate over

4000 megawatts and within a year we will go to 10,000 and more Independent Power projects are coming on board, and all the NIPP projects will be sold”, he added.

He also disclosed that Federal Government has pledged to complete the 1,994 abandoned rural electrification projects across the country, which would be revived as part of President Goodluck Jonathan’s aspirations for the power sector.

According to him, 90 per cent of the projects were abandoned at their completion stage, adding that the situation signified a massive loss of resources to the nation.

“It was Jonathan that revived the agency and it has not only been revived, but government has ensured fund was pumped into it. Today, huge rural electrification projects have been advertised for completion.”

Nebo further stated that the government is still in the process of reviewing the electricity roadmap adding that the targets of the roadmap are still well on course.

“We are reviewing because some of the things that were on ground when the map was construed are no longer on ground. And that is why there must be a post privatization roadmap”, he added.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

16 BUSINESS

Lingering unemployment level worries CITN

By Chijioke Nelson HE Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) has decried the persistent high unemployment level in the country, which it described as inimical to the nation’s economic growth and development.

The President of the institute, John Femi Jegede, pointed out that although the government appeared to have made certain moves to boost the situation in

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the labour market, the trend has remained largely unimproved.

He said that the institute’s worries were based on the fact that high unemployment is averse to government’s avowed revenue generation drive, with its concomitant pangs on the economy.

“This problem has resulted to anti-social behaviours, including militancy, prostitution, armed robbery, terrorism and kidnapping, among others. It is

our belief as an institute, that to fight and win the war against these vices, government’s encouragement of the private sector cannot be over-emphasised.

“Government should not only be committed to creating jobs for Nigerians through direct employment in its agencies and parastatals, but also pursue a more sustainable approach to job creation by encouraging the private sector.

“We need to build young entre-

preneurs, who will be able to employ five or more people, with multiplier effects that will give more job opportunities than government expanding its agencies, resulting in less productivity,” he said.

He stressed that it should be noted that while government needs commendation for its efforts so far in exploiting the non-oil sector to reduce overdependence and expand the economic base, the efforts have not yielded much desired results.

According to him, the inability to effectively control the allocation of import licences and foreign exchange aggravated the pace of industrial decline, with the manufacturing sector not being able to play a leading role in economic growth and development.

Jegede noted that the Bureau of Statistics even pegged the issues affecting the sector to parlous infrastructure, shortage of skilled manpower, poor linkage of industrial sub-sectors, overdependence on the external sector for raw materials and capital goods, which were discovered in the 1970s.

For the oil sector that would have provided a leeway, he said: “The unpleasant stunning revelations in that sector leaves more to be desired. The vital issues in this sector include weak institutions, lack of transparency and corruption, among others, often perpetrated by major players in this sector.

Nigeria’s connected lines hit 161.9m CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 Portability (MNP).

Though, NCC’s Director of Public Affairs, Dr. Tony Ojobo had disclosed that 48 hours after the launch on April 22, about 4000 subscribers ported, the president of the National Associations of Telecommunications Subscribers of Nigeria (NATCOMS) however, told The Guardian that six weeks into the process in Nigeria, about 10, 000 subscribers have ported.

Ogunbanjo, while appreciating the NCC for introducing MNP, pointed out that most subscribers are yet to get along with the process, stressing that lots of awareness and technicalities around it must be resolved.

Like Ogunbanjo, Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) Chairman, Gbenga Adebayo said MNP will not take away service quality challenges.

Adebayo said the quality of service challenge is distinct, saying that it only provides subscribers networks options.

“Like I have said in several of my interviews, MNP will not resolve service quality challenges. It only gives subscribers network provider options. We need to go back to the basis. It has become urgent for government to also intervene.

“The issue of fibre cuts; incessant sites closure by (Local government and agencies of government); multiple taxations, all must be address”, he stated.

According to him, the problem of congestion may not be resolved until government steps in and address grey areas confronting investment in the sector.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

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NEITI urges beneficiaries of federation account to match funds with projects From Anietie Akpan, Calabar HE Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), has declared that the ongoing auditing of the income and expenditure of the three tiers of government and other beneficiaries of statutory allocations is neither a witch-hunt nor fault seeking exercise.

The Chairman of NEITI, Mr. Ledum Mitee, who gave the charge yesterday, during a workshop on Fiscal Allocation and Statutory Disbursement Project decried “mutual suspicion and distrust that have existed among the federal, states and local government over who gets what and how”.

He, however, charged the federal, states and local government councils which are beneficiaries of funds from the federation account in oil and gas sector, to match such funds with projects executed.

According to him, the beneficiaries of allocations should ensure the application of funds collected to strategic needs and priorities at the federal, state and council levels as his organizations has resolved to intensify the validation exercise on such funds.

He said, “the initiative is fulfilling its statutory mandate under section 2 of the NEITI Act of 2007 which requires the agency to conduct audit exercises to ensure transparency and accountability by government in the allocation, disbursement and application of revenues earned from the oil, gas and mining sectors.

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NOSDRA moves to criminalise oil spillage HE National Oil Spill T Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) says it is making moves to make oil spillage a criminal offence to control the nation’s environmental pollution.

The agency’s DirectorGeneral, Mr Peter Idabor, said in Abuja on Tuesday that the National Assembly had been helping the agency to review its law.

He said both the Senate and the House of Representatives had started helping the agency to amend its law to make it a criminal offence for any company that pollutes the environment.

What we are doing now, he said, is actually to make it a criminal offence, now it is just a civil offence and since the companies know it is a civil offence, they do it with impunity.

“If they know that it is a criminal offence and they can be sentenced to jail for polluting the environment, they will be more careful in their operations.

“If we can do that it will significantly help to reduce the incidence of oil spills in the country,’’ he said.

According to him, the law

would reduce the number of spills on the environment, which endangers the lives of Nigerians.

The director-general said most chemicals inside the crude oil were cancer-causing agents; the people exposed to it were likely to develop cancer and other deadly diseases.

He appealed to the oil companies to reduce the quality of the oil they spill on the environment to ensure good health for the populace.

“We also hope that the NOSDRA law will be amended very soon and that will give us power to crimalise the issue of oil spills so that violators can face criminal justice of this country,’’ he said.

Idabor, however, solicited the cooperation of other environmental agencies to address the challenge of environmental degradation, saying that the issue of overlapping functions should be a thing of the past.

“We should all come together because the oil companies are capitalising on the differences between us and our sister’s regulators to continue to pollute and degrade our environment,’’ he said.

Govt must be sincere to attain 10,000MW From Bashir Bello, Kaduna HE Deputy President T General of Northern States, Senior Staff Association of Electricity and Allied Company, Comrade Musa Ndupwa yesterday said the Federal Governments plan to attain 10,000 megawatts by December 2014 will not workout if the government is not sincere and transparent in the process.

He said, “As of now we are having 4000megawatts and we are thinking of 10000megawatts yet that can not go anywhere in Nigeria.

The government should be thinking towards building a standard power generation station not that mega generating station of 150megawatts.

“All this things would have been on the ground but as long as if the Federal government are not sincere and transparent in all their dealings in the power sector Nigeria will continue to suffer.

Speaking in Kaduna yesterday during the inauguration ceremony of Kaduna Electricity Distribution Company (KEDC) the Deputy President frown at the transmission and distribution equipments on ground which he described as obsolete.

“When you go to most of our generating site you’ll find out that the power plants were built 40 -45 years ago and this equipment are obsolete that is why if there is a little problem our total transmission crashed in some cases we have to call in foreign engineers or manufacturers to come and help us to manufacture the component that is having problem.

“With this kind of a situation,

for anybody to come out and promise 10,000 megawatts before December 2014 is a mirage,“ he said..

According to him, workers in the power sector are not moved by the amount N347billion as announced by the honourable Minister because Government is ready to fast track the implementation of Electric Power Reform Act and thereafter privatize the entire Power Holding Company of Nigeria which is against the backdrop of the fact that our initial position PHCN should be encouraged to run efficiently, while investors are invited to build their independent power plants to run side by side with PHCN. “Since the federal government insisted and keenly interested in privatizing the place we have no objection because power sector is federal government utility and that step can bring improvement to the sector but the govt must go by the terms and referrence of the agreement signed to payoff the terminal benefits of each and every worker working in PHCN till date before handing over or taking over by any investor,” the Deputy President stated.

On his own part, the Managing Director of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) Alhaji Idris Mohammed said Government is sincere in all its promises and dealing as concerns the power sector . He assure the workers that the signed agreement between the Government and the Unions will be adhered to those who want to be paid will receive all their entitlements while those who want to remain will also be paid off and re-absolved into the system.

Managing Director, Wapic Insurance Plc, Segun Balogun; Chairman, Wapic Insurance Plc, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede; and Company Secretary, Mary Agha, at the Completion Board Meeting of Wapic Insurance Plc in Lagos.

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Appointments WIMBIZ, Vital Voices Forum strengthen support for African women economic empowerment

Ezekwesili

By Nike Sotade ITH a renewed affirmation of Africa as the next world’s economic powerhouse and women as the ace, notable leaders across strategic strata of the private and public sectors have reiterated the need for greater attention to the critical role that African women could play in the economic development of the continent.

This observation was made when more than 100 African business men and women leaders from business, government, civil society and media who converged in Lagos at the Supporting Public Advocacy for Regional Competitiveness (SPARC) Programme and Forum, organised by Vital Voices Global Partnership and Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), declared that achieving full economic growth and social development in the continent depended largely on how well the potential of women could be harnessed.

The participants who spoke on the theme: “Women’s Leadership: Why Africa is Rising,” said that women had emerged to become “a strongest asset” because of their proven abilities to efficiently manage institutions where they worked or led as well as managing family resources.

“Creating opportunities for women to participate in the economy will improve their earning potential and assist families to move out of poverty and contribute to the overall economy,” former Vice President (Africa), World Bank, Mrs. Obiageli Ezekwesili, said in her keynote speech.

“In Africa as well as Nigeria specifically, women constitute half of the population and their under-representation in social, political and economic spheres must be addressed if Africa is to leverage fully off the promise and potential that they hold. In

W

Azeez

Nelson

most African countries, only about a third or 30 per cent of women participate in economic activity, often in very limited ways.

“Therefore, any development process that ignores the lifechances of half the population cannot address the problem of poverty and the crisis of sustainability. This is why at this critical juncture of global change, it is a necessity for the development process to fully incorporate an agenda for women’s empowerment by including women’s realities in the fullest sense,” she added.

Ezekwesili lamented that there were still many cultural and social barriers in the way of African women that must be removed and called on governments and other stakeholders to do everything possible to empower women through improved access to credits, qualitative education, good health, equal job opportunities and increased participation in decision making at both corporate and political spheres so that they could play greater role in socio-economic development.

President/CEO of Vital Voices Global Partnership, Alyse Nelson said through the SPARC programme which was established in 2012, her organisation has consistently advocated for increased women’s economic engagement in the labour force and entrepreneurship, while simultaneously creating a more enabling environment for women’s economic engagement and greater poverty alleviation in Africa.

“Vital Voices recognises that women are powerful engines of economic growth and social change. Through SPARC, Vital Voices and partner businesswomen’s associations are working together to enable women to fully partici-

pate in their economies,” she said.

Nelson added that during the targeted four-year SPARC initiative, the partner association in the four priority countries – Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Uganda – would be supported to develop robust economic advocacy campaigns targeting a relevant barrier to women’s entrepreneurship in their countries.

She said the organisation works in close partnership with the Africa Businesswomen’s Network comprising WIMBIZ (Nigeria), Kenya Association of Women Business Owners (KAWBO), Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Limited (UWEAL) and Businesswomen’s Association of South Africa (BWASA).

In her welcome speech, WIMBIZ chairperson, Adeola Azeez, said part of her association’s advocacy campaign to empower Nigerian women was to increase the number of women in economic leadership by promoting qualified women to fill 30 per cent bank board seats and 40 per cent of top bank management positions in accordance with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) policy by January 1, 2015.

“The SPARC program through WIMBIZ is using advocacy tools to sensitize the general public and seek possible legislative change to deal with on the issue women representation on the socio-economic decision making processes in Nigeria. WIMBIZ will partner with other advocacy groups, media and consultants who would support the expansion of socio-political and economic space for women in Nigeria,” she said.

The SPARC Forum, which featured two panels made up of eminent persons, also exam-

Women have emerged to become ‘‘a strongest asset’’ because of their proven abilities to efficiently manage institutions where they work or lead as well as managing family resources

ined the value of women’s leadership in Africa’s private sector and the impact of government investment in women. Among the panelists were Management and Strategy Consultant, Mr. Adedotun Sulaimon; former Minister of Agriculture of Uganda/ Founder of Uganda

Culture Community Centre, Victoria Sekitoleko; CEO/ Founder, STRATEGIES!, Cameroon, Kah Walla; Project Manager, Transformation, Strategy& Alignment, Nedbank Group Limited, South Africa, Suheima Mohamed; Co-owner, Fuse Project Management and

Consulting Limited, South Africa, Samali Bosa; and Managing Director, Satima Consultants and Advocate High Court of Kenya, Jane Kiragu. Senior Program Manager, Africa, Vital Voices Global Partnership, Celena Green also featured prominently at the forum.

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THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

African workers petition ILO over alleged under-representation

By Yetunde Ebosele OR the ongoing reforms FLabour at the International Organisation (ILO) to attain its desired objective, the alleged under-representation of African workers should be addressed, the Organisation of African Trade Union Unity (OATUU) has said.

Also, according to OATUU, there is need for a fair representation of all peoples and continents in the ILO Governing Body.

In a petition addressed to the Director-General of ILO, Guy Ryder, and signed by the Secretary General of OATUU, Owei Lakemfa, the union observed that, there are only two Africans out of 21 at the top career level (D2 level) in the ILO, while at the next level of Dl, there are about nine Africans out of 73 (only five of them at the headquarters).

It added that out of the 249 staff members in the top professional grade (PS), Africa accounts for less than 20.

“The statistics get worse as we descend the hierarchy ladder to the handful of young Africans employed in the ILO”, said OATUU. Describing the situation as “no fault” of Ryder’s leadership, OATUU pointed out that it is however an “inherited structural challenge that needs immediate remedial measures.

“These measures should include amongst others, a review of the recruitment

method, retention of Technical partners and experts in the ILO structure, and the Intern Progamme.

We are not asking that standards be lowered. But, we do know that Africa is bursting with highly qualified manpower, which has made African immigrants the highest educated in a country like United States. What we ask for is a level playing field and a correction of the under representation of Africans and other peoples in similar situation”.

Making reference to its recent meeting with the ILO Director-General, OATUU said basic issues such as the fundamental rights of workers to freely associate and join unions or engage in collective bargaining, remain as critical issues affecting workers within the continent.

“As you already know, in many African countries, public sector workers are denied the right to associate either with themselves or other workers.

“OATUU had also pointed out that while the world seems to have moved to the stage of conflict prevention as a fundamental policy, the fact is that a number of African countries are indeed engaged in conflict, or are just emerging from such situations.

“In the same vein, we also raised the challenge of needless and pointless proliferation of central labour organizations, which fundamentally weaken workers and

the ability of trade unions to defend workers’ rights.

“We were happy by your assurances that your leadership is willing to work with us in all these areas as well.

We look forward to this”, said the petition titled “Needed reforms and challenges in the ILO”.

Part of the petition reads: “For a couple of years now, we have been informed of persistent attacks to undermine the ILO Bureau for Workers’ Activities (ACTRAV) and its current leadership.

“We are very concerned that attempts are being made to restructure ACTRAV without any open, transparent and inclusive consultations within the Workers’ Group of the Governing Body and within ACTRAV itself.

“This undue external interference in the management of an ILO department is undermining the work of ACTRAV within the ILO, which can have negative consequences on your own credibility as Director General of the ILO. “We have been informed of the harassment of the Director of ACTRAV and unfair treatment of other staff members. We are deeply concerned by this and express our full confidence in the role being played by ACTRAV and its management.

“We submit that any future discussion on the restructuring and management of ACTRAV should be done in

full consultation with the members of the Workers’ Group of the Governing Body.

“Any new appointments made must be based on a set of transparent criteria.

More importantly, there must be a transparent process in the identification

of the professional and managerial staff in ACTRAV. “There must also be respect for regional balance between developed and developing countries.

Similarly, we have to take into account gender balance and extensive and proven trade union experi-

ence.

“The director of ACTRAV must have management experience and be capable of building and leading a team. It is our hope that respect for these criteria will strengthen ACTRAV in its mission.

Road workers get new President From Collins Olayinka, Abuja EMBERS of the Road M Transport Employers Association of Nigeria (RTEAN) have elected Alhaji Musa Shehu as its National President.

The new RTEAN helmsman was elected unopposed last week Wednesday after reaching uncommon consensus.

A statement from the National Deputy General Secretary of the union, Henry Ejiofor, said Shehu, whose tenure would last five years, is a tested administrator and

bridge-builder who will move the union forward and ensure welfare of members are protected.

The statement added: “After going through his impeccable credentials and his expertise in managing men and resources, most of the members of the union were convinced that he has all the ingredients to move the union forward and further ensure that the interests of the members are well protected.”

Also elected into various positions were 34 other leaders who will help run the affairs

of the union.

In his acceptance speech, Shehu promised to work towards further unifying members of the union and ensuring that government set up policies that will engender sustainable development in the country’s transport sector.

He added: “My main agenda is to ensure that government introduce policies that will further develop our professionalism, safer roads and efficiency of our services. We know that if the roads are not safe and motorable, we will not have enough passengers and that the safety of our pas-

Christ the King Catholic College rewards outgoing students HE immediate past School T Prefect of Christ the King Catholic College OdolewuIjebu, Ijebu-Ode-Epe Road, Ogun State, Olisanonso Ohaedoghasi, recently received about 47 percent of the available gifts during the 13th valedictory/graduation ceremony for the year.

Also, five others got admissions into Universities of

Aberdeen and Scotland, while two of them got part-scholarship awards The Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Ijebu-Ode, Most Rev. Albert Ayinde Fasina during the ceremony urged young school leavers and other Nigerian youths to be full of faith in God. A statement issued by the school’s management explained that the Bishop

encouraged the young school leavers to live a life of love of God and selflessness as taught

by Christ.

The Principal, Rev. Fr. Patrick Balogun in his speech, commended the outgoing students for living up to expectations.

Balogun prayed for God’s guidance, protection and blessings of the children.

APPOINTMENT

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

Fresh 8m unemployed persons expected by 2015, says ILO From Collins Olayinka, Geneva, Switzerland RESH eight million people are expected to join the current 200 million unemployed people by 2015, as the global unemployment figure is projected to hit a record 208 million by 2015, the latest report on global unemployment by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), has revealed.

The 2013 edition of the yearly World of Work report, tagged, “Repairing the economic and social fabric,” which was obtained by The Guardian in Geneva, Switzerland, came as deliberations as labour stakeholders converge for the 102th International Labour Conference (ILC).

The report shows encouraging, but still-fragile signs of improvement in emerging and developing economies, while many advanced economies continue to face high or even rising unemployment and increasing inequalities.

The report notes that the global economy is still recovering slowly from the financial crisis with most emerging and developing countries experiencing rising employment and narrowing income inequalities compared to their high-income counterparts.

However, the gap between rich and poor in most low and middle-income countries remains wide. Many families who have managed to rise above the poverty line are at risk of lapsing back.

F

The report maintains that by contrast, income inequalities have increased in advanced economies over the past two years, against the backdrop of increasing global unemployment – predicted to rise from the current 200 million to nearly 208 million by 2015.

There has been upward movement in the number of unemployed globally since 2007. The world has seen unemployment figure progressively rose from 169.7 million in 2007 to the current 201.5 million and to 207.8 million in 2015.

Out of the global 207.8, the sub-Saharan Africa is expected to have 28 million unemployed persons from the current 26.6 million unemployed persons.

According to the report: “Income inequalities rose between 2010 and 2011 in 14 of the 26 advanced economies surveyed, including France, Denmark, Spain and the United States. Inequality levels in seven of the remaining 12 countries were still higher than before the start of the crisis.

“Economic inequalities are also on the rise, as small firms lag behind their larger counterparts in terms of profits and productive investment.

While most large enterprises have regained access to capital markets, start-ups and small enterprises are disproportionately affected by bank credit conditions. This is a problem for job recovery now and affects economic prospects over the longer term.”

Reacting to the findings of the report, the Director General of the ILO, Guy Ryder, opined that though there are positive developments in many parts of the world, the high and rising income disparities present a worrying trend.

His words: “These figures present a positive development in many parts of the developing world, but paint a disturbing picture in many high income countries, despite the economic recovery. The situation in some European countries in particular is beginning to strain their economic and social fabric.

ICPC chairman recommends sack of incompetent public service executives From Abosede Musari, Abuja HAIRMAN of the C Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Barr. Ekpo Nta, has recommended that in trying to achieve accountability in the public service, incompetent chief executives who have no clue as to why they are in public service, should be eased out of their jobs.

The ICPC boss also advised that positive rewards for good performance and honesty should be encouraged

while continuous performance reviews must be part of operations of the public service.

Barr. Nta said these while speaking at the 11th Nigeria Development Forum (NDF 11) organised in Abuja by the African Centre for Resource Studies (ACRS) with the theme “Improving Government Accountability: Best Practices in Stewardship and Performance Oversight”.

“I reward performance through group-reward which ensures that laggards are sanctioned, monitored

ICAN elects president, tasks members on values

By Faith Oparaugo HE Institute of Chartered T Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), has elected, Alhaji

Kabir Mohammed as its 49th president.

In his acceptance speech during his investiture in Lagos on Tuesday he said if leadership is to continue to be for service, rather than for the pillage of the common wealth, we must inevitably redefine and enforce our value system.

According to him, the youth of today relish in vices as if living an honest life, is a recipe for naivety or antithetical to human progress.

He noted that the seeming triumph of evil over good, implies that good men have not only failed to do nothing, but have also remained docile

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and indifferent. As good men he said, we must act fast to redeem and restore the lost glory of the accountancy profession.

“We must continue to expose ethical compromises, and sanction deviants, whose conduct, if not checked, can demean and bring the hard earned, and towering goodwill of the profession to disrepute.

“We must stand up and be counted, on the side of equity and justice, both in words and in actions, such that the premium placed on the integrity of the chartered accountants by stakeholders, will continue to be justified.

“This is our finest hour to impact the cause of national development and human

progress, with our skills and professional expertise. The ICAN brand must remain the benchmark of best practices, the nation’s lighthouse in ethical conduct and professionalism and pathfinder to business.

He said: We will constructively engage and partner with the government and regulatory agencies in order to set a new tone for corporate governance and public service. By proactively setting direction of change in the profession and economy”.

He also added that we would continue to lead the drive for high quality financial reporting, benchmarked on global best practices, and deliver more on our public interest mandate, by meeting and surpassing expectations.

and assisted by their peers or work group. A commendation letter for some staff is worth more than monetary rewards”, he said.

In order to make the public service better and more accountable, Nta also state that improved accountability is essential for achieving high performance and that recruitment and employment regimes that attract, select and motivate bestqualified and capable people must be put in place.

“In ICPC I have tried as far as humanly possible to ensure fairness in this exercise at great personal discomfort.

Do not please sectional and other interests because at the end of the day, these interests would not own up publicly that you did the wrongs on their behest”, he said.

Minister of Interior, Abba Moro, who was at the event urged public office holders to discharge their duties with high sense of responsibility, saying that this is important to ensure accountability and the ability to do away with corruption.

President of ACRS, Chris Onwuka, in his welcome statement said that the Nigeria Development Forum is a platform for public sector executives, business corporation’s states and local councils around the country to get more involved in the growth and development of Nigeria.

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ScienceGuardian How genes determine academic success, by researchers I

‘

Researchers from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium set up an experiment that searched two million variable locations known as SNPs in the DNA of 101,069 people for variants that appeared to be linked to educational attainment. They found only one that was associated with years of education. Two more SNPs were associated with whether a person had finished college. The researchers then replicated the findings by doing the same sort of analysis on another 25,490 people’s DNA and finding that the same SNPs popped up.

factors underlying educational attainment an attractive prospect.

Researchers from the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium set up an experiment that searched two million variable locations known as SNPs in the DNA of 101,069 people for variants that appeared to be linked to educational attainment. They found only one that was associated with years of education.

Two more SNPs were associated with whether a person had finished college.

The researchers then replicated the findings by doing the same sort of analysis on another 25,490 people’s DNA and finding that the same SNPs popped up.

Considering the apparent effect of all two million SNPs, the analysis can account for only about two per cent of the difference between those with the highest and lowest levels of education. The single SNP with the strongest effect explains just 0.022 per cent of the variation in educational attainment in the people sampled. The SNP most strongly associated with finishing college gives people about a 1.8 percentage point difference in the odds of completing a degree.

It is common for genetic vari-

Academic success ... may be determined by the genes

ants to have only weak influences on whether someone will develop a particular trait: Variants associated with height, for instance, exert about a 0.4 per cent influence.

But even scientists used to tiny effects have expressed disappointment at the small contribution of these variants. “It’s not even like a cup half full,”

‘

Compiled by Chukwuma Muanya T has been confirmed: genetic factors may exert a tiny influence on how much schooling a person ends up with. But the main lesson of the research published in May 30 edition of Science by a group of more than 200 researchers, experts say, should be that attributing cultural and socioeconomic traits to genes is a dicey enterprise.

A behavioral geneticist at the National University of Singapore, Richard Ebstein said the study does mark the first time genetic factors have been reproducibly associated with a social trait. “It announces to social scientists that some things they have been studying that make a difference to health and life success do have a base in genetics.”

But even if it does survive further inspection – and many similar links between genes and social characteristics have not – the study accounts for no more than two percent of whatever it is that makes one person continue school while someone in similar circumstances chooses to move on to something else.

Previous studies comparing twins and family members have suggested that not-yetidentified genetic factors can explain 40 per cent of people’s educational attainment; factors such as social groups, economic status and access to education would explain the other 60 per cent. That percentage attributed to genetics is similar to the heritability of physical and medical characteristics such as weight and risk of heart disease. That makes a hunt for the genetic

says Robert Plomin, a behavioral geneticist at Kings College London. “It’s a cup that is less than 1 percent full.”

Critics of the study don’t quibble with the way it was done. Their concern – one the authors share – is that there is no gene “for” going to college.

Continued on Page 46

Scientists closer to artificial livers ROMETHEUS, the mythoP logical figure who stole fire from the gods, was punished for this theft by being bound to a rock. Each day, an eagle swept down and fed on his liver, which then grew back to be eaten again the next day.

Modern scientists know there is a grain of truth to the tale, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) engineer Sangeeta Bhatia: The liver can indeed regenerate itself if part of it is removed.

However, researchers trying to exploit that ability in hopes of producing artificial liver tissue for transplantation have repeatedly been stymied: Mature liver cells, known as hepatocytes, quickly lose their normal function when removed from the body.

“It’s a paradox because we know liver cells are capable of growing, but somehow we can’t get them to grow” outside the body, says Bhatia, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Health Sciences and Technology and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, a senior associate member of the Broad Institute and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science.

Now, Bhatia and colleagues have taken a step toward that goal. In a paper appearing in the June 2 issue of Nature Chemical Biology, they have identified a dozen chemical compounds that can help Continued on Page 46

ASTRONOMY With J. K. Obatala

Another asteroid flyby -“Awesome!” (1) AVING missed last Friday’s flyby of asteroid 1998 QE2, I H started searching for footage of the event – and ended up with the “Geeks”.

No, I wasn’t captured and caged. So I didn’t have to hold out a bone to deceive a blind witch, like someone did in a fairy tale.

Fortunately, there were no wicked witches at the “White House We The Geeks Google + Hangout On Asteroids” – just a Wicked Old U.S. President (lurking somewhere unseen) who refuses to come to Nigeria!

The dictionary in my cell-phone contains two definitions of a geek. One is a carnival performer who does disgusting things. The other is a person with an unusual or odd personality.

I’m sure Obama would prefer the second definition.

Anyway, sense-one doesn’t really apply because the programme was quite informative and insightful.

If there were anything “disgusting” about the programme, it was the absence of a black person. The White House, it seems, is going to remain the white house, no matter who happens to be putting up there.

I guess these space buffs think of themselves as “odd,” because the President’s place of abode is not where you’d expect to find a of panel of this kind – with scholars, venture capitalists and space explorers discussing asteroids.

Come to think about it, the presenter is a curiosity piece of sorts. She’s a middle aged white woman who thinks everything about asteroids is “Awesome”. That, at least, is the way it seemed during the first half of the discussion.

Actually, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that asteroids are now being talked up at the White House. Within the past three months, two of these uninvited guests have intruded into Earth’s orbital domain. A third threw a tantrum over Russia and injured 1000 people at Chelyabinsk.

Asteroids, therefore, are “in”. But while the world may be more conscious of these orbiting bombs, this is due largely to the power of the media and the willingness of authorities in the industrialised nations to go public with the information.

Asteroids are the shards of what would have been a fifth rocky planet, with its orbit lying between Mars and Jupiter. But the gas giant guards its orbital territory jealously – breaking up any smaller body that attempts to form within its gravitational field.

Asteroids are the primitive ruins of this cosmic battle for territory and dominance, which commenced more than four billion years ago, during the formative stages of our solar system, and continues.

Most asteroids still orbit the sun, between Mars and Jupiter. But the gravitational influence of the gas giants has rendered this region dynamic and unstable. In other words, no newcomer is welcome; and the remains of the shattered bodies, the planetesimals, can never be at rest.

Since the solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, much of this debris has been ejected outward into interstellar space. But quite a large number of these bodies have been – and continues to be – flung inwards, towards the Sun. Consequently, there are swarms of asteroid fragments orbiting inside the path of Mars, even between Earth and the Sun. Those that come within 1.3 astronomical units (AU) of Earth (such as the Atiras group), or cross its orbital path, are called Near Earth Asteroids (NEA).

“In terms of orbital elements,” NASA notes, “NEOs are asteroids and comets with perihelion distance q less than 1.3 AU. ….The vast majority of NEOs are asteroids, referred to as Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs). NEAs are divided into groups... according to their perihelion distance (q), aphelion distance (Q) and their semi-major axes (a)”.

Group Description Definition NECs Near-Earth Comets q<1.3 AU,P<200 years NEAs Near-Earth Asteroids q<1.3 AU Atiras NEAs whose orbits are contained entirely with the orbit of the Earth (named after asteroid 163693 Atira). a<1.0 AU,Q<0.983 AU Atens Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes smaller than Earth’s (named after asteroid 2062 Aten). a<1.0 AU,Q>0.983 AU Apollos Earth-crossing NEAs with semi-major axes larger than Earth’s (named after asteroid 1862 Apollo). a>1.0 AU,q<1.017 AU

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

32 SCIENCE HEALTH

Tobacco kills six million people yearly, says WHO • Nigeria may ban its advertising, promotion, sponsorship • National Non-Communicable Diseases Plan ready • Foundation worries about rise in rheumatic fever, heart disease

By Chukwuma Muanya S part of activities to A mark World No Tobacco Day 2013, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has called on member states including Nigeria to ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, even as the Nigerian Heart Foundation (NHF) has alerted on the rise in damaged hearts and valves caused by Rheumatic Fever (RF) and Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD).

Also, stakeholders including the NHF and the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) have developed the first Nigerian document on NonCommunicable Diseases tagged National NCDs Plan with emphasis on cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, sickle cell anaemia, albinism, road traffic accidents.

The WHO in a statement released recently said that the global tobacco epidemic killed nearly six million people each year, of which more than 600 000 are nonsmokers dying from breathing second-hand smoke.

According to the WHO, unless member states acted, the epidemic would kill more than eight million people every year by 2030 and more than 80 per cent of these preventable deaths would be among people living in low- and middleincome countries and that RF and RHD remained significant causes of cardiovascular diseases in the world.

A comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship is required under the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Executive Director of the

NHF and President elect of the World Heart Federation (WHF), Dr. Kingsley Akinroye, in an exclusive interview with The Guardian alerted on the rise in rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease leading to damaged valves and hearts especially in pregnant women. Akinroye also said that the country had developed a National NCDs Plan which would be launched soon by the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, before being taken to the Federal Executive Council and President Goodluck Jonathan.

Every year, on May 31, WHO and partners everywhere marked World No Tobacco Day, highlighting the health risks associated with tobacco use and advocating for effective policies to reduce tobacco consumption.

Tobacco use is the single most preventable cause of death globally and is currently responsible for killing one in 10 adults worldwide.

The theme for World No Tobacco Day 2013 is: Ban tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship.

Akinroye said: “One of the NCDs and also chronic is rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease. We assume we have really conquered it, certainly we have not at all and the burden of rheumatic heart disease is still there. Those who were able to escape from rheumatic fever, their hearts are damaged, their valves are damaged and they are there.

So we now get them when they are usually in their middle twenties and especially pregnant women, quite a lot of them with valvular damage who are not opportune to have a

valvular correction. Of course, you know in Nigeria our care for surgery is very bad. So we still have a lot of heavy burden about this and now this is our opportunity to go back again.

“We are also very lucky that when we are doing our national NCD plan which we just completed two weeks ago and we are going to launch that. I spoke with the minister this morning and we are going to launch that very soon. We thought that rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease were gone but they are still here with us and we do not need any more than penicillin to be able give them at the primary health centre (PHC), identification of those people with rheumatic disease the centre at the PHC when we work with them at the secondary and tertiary centre to be able to see the real burden of disease.”

Akinroye who was the former vice president of African Heart Network (AHN) said that the National NCDs strategic Plan was a working document from the FMoH working with NHF and the academia. “So we have been working on it for the past two years, it has now been developed and we have the final document and the Minister of Health will soon launch it before we take it to the executive council and also to the president. In the region of Africa, Nigeria unfortunately is the only country with no policy plan on NCD and you cannot be talking to anybody if you do not have a plan. Nobody wants to talk to you if you cannot estimate the burden of the disease,” he said.

Akinroye added: “First of all, we are going to focus on cardiovascular disease. We are focusing on cancer, we are also focusing on dia-

Director Investigation and Enforcement Directorate, National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC),Mr. Garba Mc Donald (left); Director General NAFDAC, Dr. Paul Orhii; and the Director of Narcotics and Controlled Substances NAFDAC, Mr. Yusuf Ubale, during a press briefing on activities of the Agency in Lagos... recently PHOTO: GABRIEL IKHAHON betes and we are focusing on chronic respiratory disease, which are the four main disease, which came on at the UN. But in addition to Nigeria’s peculiar situation, we have added haemoglobinopathy that is sickle cell disease, albinism, road traffic injuries. So globally at the regional level, the four main ones have been agreed on that cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and chronic respiratory disease.”

A comprehensive ban of all tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship is required under the WHO

Framework Convention for Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) for all parties to this treaty within five years of the entry into force of the convention for that party.

Evidence shows that comprehensive advertising bans lead to reductions in the numbers of people starting and continuing smoking.

Statistics show that banning tobacco advertising and sponsorship is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce tobacco demand and thus a tobacco control “best buy”.

The ultimate goal of World

No Tobacco Day is to contribute to protect present and future generations not only from these devastating health consequences, but also against the social, environmental and economic scourges of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke.

The tobacco epidemic is man-made and entirely preventable. Yet, only half of the world’s population lives in a country that fully protects its people with at least one of the key policy interventions that significantly reduce tobacco use.

Painkillers increase heart risk, studies confirm IGH doses of painkillers H used by millions can increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure, according to the largest study of its kind. It confirmed a ‘small but significant’ extra risk of dying from heart problems after prolonged use.

The drugs, known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), include ibuprofen and diclofenac, and also newer medication called coxibs. They are used by people with arthritis and other forms of chronic pain.

For every 1,000 people with a moderate risk of heart disease taking them for one year, three extra people would have an avoidable heart attack including one death.

The study found naproxen was the safest NSAID. Researchers looked at the highest doses of painkillers prescribed by doctors, twice the daily amount recommended for headache and other minor ailments.

They said a short course of tablets bought over the counter for a muscle sprain

was unlikely to be hazardous. The study pooled the findings from 639 trials involving over 353,000 people after numerous small trials showed a link between NSAIDs and heart side effects.

Study leader Professor Colin Baigent, of the Medical Research Council Clinical Trial Service Unit & Epidemiological Studies Unit at Oxford University, said the results would help patients to balance the benefits and risks of using the drugs, and that they should not panic.

He said: “We’re talking about really low risks. The extra risk of a heart attack is very small. But if patients are worried they could talk to their GP about it and they can consider if the risks, which are real but small, are worth it for them.”

At least seven million Britons with arthritis take painkillers, including NSAIDs such as ibuprofen, diclofenac and coxibs.

The research found for every 1,000 people with a moderate risk of heart disease having one year of treatment with high-dose diclofenac (150mg daily) or ibuprofen (2400 mg daily), about three would experience an avoidable heart attack, of which one would be fatal.

In contrast, high doses of naproxen did not affect heart attack risk, said the study published in The Lancet medical journal.

33

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

NaturalHealth Fresh concerns over herbal sex drive boosters Nigerians have gone herbal. Most products from toothpastes, bathing soap to beverage drinks and even medicines to boost libido have herbal versions. They are generally believed to be safe and are taken without caution.

Indeed, Nigerians have thrown caution to the wind when it comes to natural medicine. But recent Nigerian and American studies differ. CHUKWUMA MUANYA writes.

PROSPECTIVE study that A investigated the possible effects of Nigerian herbal remedies on semen quality involving 218 patients who attended the fertility unit of Nnamdi Azikiwe University Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Anambra State, showed that 83.97 per cent of the patients with history of herbal intake had abnormal seminal fluid analysis while only 16.03 per cent of subjects with no history of herbal intake had abnormal result.

The researchers from the Department of Medicine, Richmond University Medical Centre Staten Island, New York United States of America (USA); Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Toxicology Unit, University of Port Harcourt Rivers State; and Africa Education Initiative Research Group Nnamdi Azikiwe University Nnewi concluded: “This gives a clue of the possibility of male infertility from Nigerian herbal remedies.

The reproductive health damage from consumption of Nigerian herbal remedies should be identified with in depth risk assessment.”

The study titled “Semen Abnormality And Nigerian Herbal Remedies: A Preliminary Investigation” was published in The Internet Journal of Toxicology.

According to another recent report published in a recent issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, not only are many dietary supplements marketed for erectile dysfunction and other male sexual problems ineffective, they may not even be ‘natural.’

In fact, a number of these supplements are adulterated with the very prescription drugs they claim to replace, The editorial by Dr. Pieter Cohen, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, United States, sheds light on this growing concern. Cohen cited several alarming incidents in which over-the-counter sexual enhancement supplements were found to contain other substances.

For example, one study in Singapore found that 77 per cent of so-called natural sex supplements on the market contained undeclared pharmaceutical drugs, often in higher-than-recommended doses.

And in 2012, a supplement called Rock Hard for Men was found to contain both counterfeit Cialis and glyburide, a diabetes drug. A similar combination found in other sex supplements has been tied to the deaths of more than a dozen men in Asia.

Even more disturbing, such supplements may contain analogues, or chemical variants, of prescription drugs like Viagra. Indeed, more than 45 new analogues have been identified in sexual supplements, according to Cohen.

One Dutch study found that about three-quarters of the products sold in the Netherlands contained at least one analogue, while the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently discovered three analogue drugs (as well as counterfeit Viagra) when it analysed a product called Mojo Nights.

Herbal medicines ... under the microscope

Other tainted supplements include those sold under the names Vicerex, Bullet Proof and Lightning ROD. Viagra celebrates 15th anniversary FDA warns of fake Adderall sold online.

Analogues are particularly troublesome, said Cohen, because they have never been tested in humans, so their potential side effects remain a mystery. “We do know, however, the risks associated with prescription medications such as Viagra and Cialis.

“These drugs, known as PDE5 inhibitors, can cause side effects like headaches, nasal congestion and vision problems – and they can have dangerous interactions with the heart medication nitroglycerine. That doesn’t mean PDE-5 inhibitors are unsafe for everyone, but it does mean that they need to be prescribed and monitored by a doctor.

“Unfortunately, when one take a sexual enhancement supplement, you have no real way of knowing whether that product is adulterated with PDE-5 inhibitors or other drugs that could have harmful effects when used without supervision.

“It is my hope that by educating men, deaths from sexual enhancement products can be prevented in the United States,” Cohen said. He urged men with sexual dysfunction to avoid sexual health supplements altogether.

“If you really want to try something natural,” Cohen suggested asking the doctor about yohimbine, a prescription medication for erectile dysfunction that’s derived from yohimbe, a compound naturally found in the bark of a West African evergreen tree.

It is important, however, that you take the prescription version and not the supplement yohimbe, which has been shown to contain varying amounts of the active ingredi-

ent.

While it is true that men may seek out natural remedies for sexual dysfunction because they believe they are safer and gentler than their conventional counterparts, it has been shown that some men may be using these supplements as way to avoid discussing sexual issues with their physicians or because they are too embarrassed to fill the prescription at their local pharmacy.

To address such concerns, Pfizer has started selling Viagra online. Although men still need a valid prescription for the drug, they will be able to order the medication on the Internet and have it sent directly to their home.

According to a recent article in the New York Times, a 2011 survey by Pfizer found that 80 per cent of pills sold online as “Viagra” were counterfeit drugs that only contained about 30 per cent to 50 per cent of the active ingredient sildenafil. Worse, some were contaminated with pesticides, paint and printer ink.

By selling real Viagra online, Pfizer hopes to guide men to the legitimate drug.

This is one way to help guys feel less embarrassed about sexual dysfunction. It is also recommended that men and their partners get comfortable having open, candid conversations about sex. “You might feel nervous at first, but learning to communicate honestly with your partner about your sex life can make it easier to discuss sexual health with your doctor – and it’s the most natural approach of all.”

Meanwhile, the use of homeopathic and herbal medicines has increased in recent years. This has probably arisen as a result of a number of factors including disillusionment with conventional drugs, growing confidence in complementary medicine,

and a belief that the products are safe, often on the grounds that ‘natural’ equates to safe.

A review of literature has shown a range of favourable and unfavourable effects for a range of natural substances.

Patients often turn to complementary medicines, including homeopathic and herbal remedies, for chronic and inflammatory conditions, and those refractory to the beneficial effects of conventional products.

In Nigeria socio-economic deprivation, poverty and ignorance have led to trust and reliance on traditional herbal preparations for health reason.

According to The Internet Journal of Toxicology study, the use of herbal products are not regulated in Nigeria and in many low income countries and are freely available to everyone. “Cases of organ (kidney, liver, heart, testis, etc) failure after prolonged intake of herbal preparations have been anecdotally reported in Nigeria and other African countries. An increasing number of cases remain undocumented due to poor record keeping in the developing world. “...In our work, we found 60.09 per cent cases of primary infertility. We alsofound 60.09 per cent cases of primary infertility amongst the patients on Nigerian herbal remedies. NHR like B-success, Operation Sweep, and Rinbacin that were recommended for management of male infertility have been found to have deleterious effects on the testis of male albino rats. Orisakwe et al 2004 demonstrated that consumption of Hibiscus Sabdarifa HS calyx extract a popular local red wine in Nigeria by growing rats reduced sperm counts and spermatogenesis with evidence of marked degenerative histological changes.

Four natural steps to reduce death risk, researchers find LARGE, multi-centre A study led by Johns Hopkins University, United States, researchers has found a significant link between lifestyle factors and heart health, adding even more evidence in support of regular exercise, eating a Mediterranean-style diet, keeping a normal weight and, most importantly, not smoking.

The researchers found that adopting those four lifestyle behaviors protected against coronary heart disease as well as the early buildup of calcium deposits in heart arteries, and reduced the chance of death from all causes by 80 per cent over an eight-year period. Results of the study, “Low-Risk Lifestyle, Coronary Calcium, Cardiovascular Events, and Mortality: Results from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis,” are described in an online article ahead of print by the American Journal of Epidemiology.

“To our knowledge, this is the first study to find a protective association between low-risk lifestyle factors and early signs of vascular disease, coronary heart disease and death, in a single longitudinal evaluation,” says Haitham Ahmed, the lead author who is an internal medicine resident with the Ciccarone Centre for the Prevention of Heart Disease at Johns Hopkins.

“We evaluated data on more than 6,200 men and women, age 44-84, from white, African-American, Hispanic and Chinese backgrounds. All were followed for an average of 7.6 years.

Those who adopted all four healthy behaviours had an 80 per cent lower death rate over that time period compared to participants with none of the healthy behaviours,” says Ahmed.

Study participants all took part in the ongoing MultiEthnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), a prospective examination of the risk factors, prevalence and prevention of cardiovascular disease. MESA participants were recruited from six academic medical centers and did not have a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease when they were enrolled.

All participants had coronary calcium screening using computed tomography (a CT scan) when they were first enrolled in the study to see if there were early signs of calcium deposits in their heart arteries that are known to contribute to heart attack risk.

As the study progressed, the researchers also assessed whether the participants had a heart attack, sudden cardiac arrest, chest pain, angioplasty or died due to coronary heart disease or other causes.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

34 NATURAL HEALTH

Universal health coverage can only be achieved by developing natural medicine, says Odukoya Prof. Olukemi Abiodun Odukoya is a pharmacist with PhD in Pharmacognosy. The professor of Pharmacognosy is the Head of Pharmacognosy Department Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lagos.

She spoke with CHUKWUMA MUANYA on how natural medicine could be used to ensure universal health coverage in Nigeria; the setting up of Phytocare and AfriMed where Nigerians can choose to be treated either with conventional or traditional medicine; efforts to enhance the packaging, acceptability and affordability of herbal medicines; using herbs to manage patients with kidney damage, among other issues. Excerpts: OURNEY into herbal mediJcine?

I got into herbal medicine through my specialty.

Pharmacognosy has to do with natural products and the natural products include herbs, minerals as well as surgical dressings. I got more involved with herbal medicine because of the demand

for health. You could remember the World Health Assembly (WHA) of 1978, the World Health Organisation (WHO) embarked on an ambitious project to achieve health for all by the year 2000.

So during when I graduated as pharmacist I wanted to go into postgraduate studies and fortunately Pharmacognosy is the

Odukoya only course I did not have a reference in school. I thought I was good in it and with the interest I generated at the final year level. There were some courses on evaluation and I was the only student that took that course in my final year in Ife. Having developed that interest in Pharmacognosy I went on and specialised in Pharmacognosy at Masters and PhD levels.

After PhD, when I got into teaching, I generated more interest, one could not really say or pin-point where specified herbs or herbal dosage forms that one could prescribe or suggest to patients or colleagues or members of one’s family to use. So I got more interested as a pharmacist that if one could prepare dosage forms as it is done in western countries so as to improve on our herbs, to give Nigerian herbs a better image.

So once it has a better image as to packaging, as to labelling, as to the appearance, and also to improve the quality of those herbs then you would have won the populace as to using herbs and also improving on health. This will end up improving the health of the populace and not treating diseases.

Why should we wait to treat diseases if we can make ourselves healthy?

I could remember sometime ago the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said he is not a minister to manage diseases but to promote health for the people. WHO realizes that for us to have health for all, the barefoot doctors, the traditional medical practitioners needed to be recognised, they needed to be promoted.

Chinese and India medicines are well known today but they worked for it. You know the Chinese were never colonised, they only went through a revolution. So they were able to protect their medicines both explicable and inexplicable and the medicine of China went into Europe because of silk. That was the greatest joker the Chinese had for their medicines to thrive. Pure silk is obtained from the cocoon of the butterfly. It was the Chinese that had the monopoly of that trade, so in introducing silk into Europe, they also took their medicines. You know Indians too were colonised but they were able to protect their medicines but explicable and inexplicable in Ayuverda, and so their medicines thrived. The Arabs, most of their medicines were spices and the spice trade also promoted their medicines.

But when our own colonial

masters came, African went through an era of oppression called the dark ages when human beings were not being respected, how much more your culture and medicines; all these were relegated to the background. Years back, the African Decade for traditional medicine, which started in 2000 and we are now in 2013, it has been renewed. Some of the goals set then was for promotion of herbal medicines.

The National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) is really promoting herbal medicine by registering it, which is a plus for Nigeria. But my fear or what aches me is that WHO realized one thing, that we must use herbs available to our local circumstance.

Chinese and Indian herbs are not available to the local circumstance of Nigerians.

We can use their technologies to improve our medicines not to bring their medicines to suppress ours. There is nothing that they have there that we do have the equivalent in Nigeria. Africa generally is where the medicine is; see the bush all over. Though we are still collecting from the wild, I believe that if we exploit the wild very well we will have health but at the same time replace what we are cutting from nature by cultivating medicinal plants.

Have you been able to package these herbs into acceptable forms?

We have Phytocare Health Services, which I am a consultant. We have medicinal herbal teas. It is located at Akiola Town at Iyana Ipaja towards Agboru. We have a full herbal section. It is a premises where we give our clients the option.

If you want to go into pharmaceuticals, there is a full registered pharmacy there with a pharmacist running the place.

We also have a full herbal section with another Pharmacognocist that controls the place.

So you have a choice if you want to use herbs or conventional medicines. We have also made it simpler. People that are going abroad queuing up to use affordable diagnostic machines for therapy. Some of these we have imported for people to use and be treated with Nigerian herbs.

The machines help us to evaluate the client’s health. We also have the massager and a detoxifying machine. We have machines that can detect breast cancer easily without going to use mammograms and they are affordable because we want to make health affordable to the populace.

Nigerians have gone accustomed to drinking tea and herbal medicines are best taken as teas because we want to take them as much as possible at ease. The best way to take them at ease is to take them in form of teas. We have them in tea bags that you can just infuse or if they are hard materials like the roots or the bags you can make decoction of it.

But as much as possible to keep our production line all year through we are using the regenerative parts of the plants like the leaves, the fruits, the seeds, the flowers.

We also have the African tea

solutions because we are thinking of taking our teas beyond the shores of Nigeria.

Before the year runs out, we are going to open that company. It is registered as AfriMed that African Medicine. African Tea Solutions is a subsidiary of AfriMed. Who should visit the Centre?

All Nigerians should visit the Centre including the poor, the rich, the needy, the healthy and also the diseased; everyone, young and old, man and woman.

Non communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes, stroke, kidney failure are on the prowl. Do you have solutions for them?

You know in herbal medicine there is nothing you do not have solution for. We believe that there are solutions for all diseases. We believe that for example in diabetes you have to repair the pancreas. So we have herbs that will repair the pancreas. These days too I am alarmed.

I have suddenly developed an interest in studying plants that can take care of the kidneys because a lot of young Nigerians are coming down with kidney problems. We have some patients we are managing. When I say managing, I mean that the patients are feeling well and when you do all the tests needed it will show that the patient is responding and you are pleased the patient is responding to what you are giving.

But some medical experts are claiming that it is the herbal medicines that are causing the rise in kidney damage?

I do not subscribe to that. May be when you do not take the required dose. Even conventional medicines have down sides. I am a pharmacist so I should not throw the ‘diarrhea of the mouth.’

There are some medications or some medicines, you think they are so simple that you take everyday and yet. Some common medicines are very damaging, they damage the kidneys and liver over time and there are some people that take them everyday.

There is this new craze about herbal teas especially the imported ones. Where is the place of our local herbs?

We are going to prepare our own tea, the African green tea, African antioxidant tea or variety of teas also to take care of the various ailments that is anti-hypertensive, anti-diabetes, anti-ulcer and so on. We will be proud of Nigeria selling the teas to other countries so that we will also be adding to the economy of the nation. We intend to export these teas to African countries, we are going beyond the shores of Nigeria.

How is the community around the Centre embracing the new concept?

We give free health talk every month to sensitise them about their health. We talk about the common diseases that people are interested in.

We have talked about cancer, we have spoken to the youths about diseases from lifestyles.

We have had three lectures so far and the community is happy. We choose a the semiurban community because our studies showed that their awareness about health.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

SCIENCE & HEALTH

35

NAFDAC alerts on drug counterfeiters new tactics

By Chukwuma Muanya and Bertram Nwannekanma General, IRECTOR D National Agency For Drug and Food and Administration Control (NAFDAC), Paul Orhii, has raised alarm on new tactics being adopted by drug counterfeiters to bring in fake drugs and unwholesome products in the country.

Part of the new tactics, the NAFDAC boss disclosed include the involvement of non drug dealers like generator and mobile phone accessories dealers as well as the importation of packaging materials of popular and fast moving drugs such as antibiotics, injectables and anti-malarials with the intention of packaging the fake.

Orhii who was addressing

Nnewi Teaching Hospital to relocate key services From Chuks Collins, Awka HE new Chief Medical T Director (CMD) of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Prof Tony Igwegbe has disclosed that key services of the institution would be relocated to its Okofia permanent site.

Also of priority is having a Specialty Clinic, General Out-patient Department (OPD), well-equipped Surgical and Obstetrics wards, as well as completing the fencing of the new site.

The CMD said because the present temporal site was already choked up, the facility now reject patients, while some Emergency Ward patients sleep on the floor.

Speaking at a special reception, held in his honour by the management of Cutix Plc, at the Conv-aj Centre, Nnewi, Anambra state, Prof Igwegbe said he sees the movement to the new site as a challenge and wants to build the key internal road network of the new site that have remained abandoned for years.

He appealed to philanthropists to assist the institution to become a firstclass referral hospital where people from all parts of the world would also flock to for specialised medical tour.

The retired founding chairman of Cutix Plc, Chief Ajulu Uzodike who was among those that built and donated structures with which the teaching hospital took off on inception, appealed to the state government to assist them with the access road into the permanent site.

Uzodike, a former boss of the Manufacturers’ Association and Chamber of Commerce, lamented that the headache of the hospital is akin to all agencies that depend on the government for sustenance.

But believed that with the renewed interest of the President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in the South-East geo-political zone and welfare of Nigerians, things would change soon.

A former CMD of the hospital and chairman of the occasion, Prof Okey Mbonu praised the resilience of the succeeding chief executives who have kept the dream alive and well.

A business mogul Chief

Emeka Offor pledged to use his contacts and reach to attract more facilities, endowments, grants and donations to the hospital.

the media on the activities of the agency in line with its mandate to safeguard the health of the citizens said that most of those drugs are brought as unaccompanied cargo and concealed as general commodities which takes extra efforts by operatives of the anti drug agencies to detect.

He however assured that the agency has intensified daily surveillance and monitoring activities to ensure fake, counterfeit, substandard and unwholesome regulated products do not enter into the country at will.

NAFDAC has demonstrated its resilience in the fight against fake and adulterated drugs by securing seven major convictions since

his assumption of office as the director general of the agency, Orhii however described the conviction of the manufacturers of “My PIKIN” baby teething powder by a Federal High Court, Lagos as historic and the first in the world.

This he said was because the verdict was delivered in the spirit of the law being proposed by the agency for the confiscation of assets of convicted drug fakers and counterfeiters.

According to him, the agency will press further with a proposal that victims of drug counterfeiters be compensated with portions of the seized assets of convicted drug counterfeiters.

The NAFDAC boss also

used the briefing to parade four men arrested in different part of Lagos for various counterfeiting offences that runs into N31 million.

The suspects, who include, Paul Ogbonna, Celestine Eruokwu, Ifeanyi Edeh and Ozoemena Kelvin Odo were arrested for either trying to smuggle packaging materials for Ciprotab 500 tablets, an antibiotic or some pharmaceutical products declared as mobile phones accessories.

They are to be charged to court soon, Orhii assured.

While raising concerns on the importation of donated items especially drug products, Orhii reiterated that donated drugs must have a six months shelf life at the time of arrival in

Nigeria for it to be accepted.

According to him, the agency is on top of the situation of the enormous task, as it has deployed cutting edge technology like TRUSCAN, Mass Authentic Service) MAS to help fight the e counterfeit regulated products that still find their way undetected into the country.

Orhii stressed that the ban on importation of medicine through the land borders is till enforced and solicited for the media support to achieve the zero tolerance to fake and unwholesome regulated products which he said is key to the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

36 SCIENCE HEALTH

Renewed fight against fake drugs in Africa takes off

By Chukwuma Muanya ORRIED by the dearth of W experts and available tools to combat falsified, substandard and counterfeit medicines in countries in SubSaharan Africa including Nigeria, the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) has launched the Center for Pharmaceutical Advancement and Training (CePAT) in Accra, Ghana.

The new centre is the beginning of a series of global health initiatives to equip national and local regulatory authorities and officers, quality assurance and quality control professionals, manufacturers, and others in the pharmaceutical industry with knowledge and skills to promote access to good quality medicines. The new center is being launched as a Commitment to Action through the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI).

USP’s chief executive officer, Dr. Roger L. Williams, noted:

“CePAT is a natural extension of USP’s core mission of establishing public standards for the quality of medicines, foods, and dietary supplements. As USP has become increasingly active throughout the world, the need to support efforts to provide good quality medicines to everyone who requires them has become more important.

CePAT is a positive step in that direction, and has been realized in part through our strong working relationships with the Ghanaian and other Sub-Saharan African medicines regulatory authorities.”

Nigerians and many in SubSaharan Africa currently face a serious problem when it comes to accessing quality medicines. A 2013 report on the quality of uterotonics (oxytocin and ergometrine) in Ghana found that over 90 percent of the samples tested by United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-USP Promoting the Quality of Medicines Program

(PQM) failed either the test for the active ingredient or sterility, and only three of the 26 products tested were officially registered with the Ghana Food and Drug Authority (FDA).

A 2010 study on the quality of anti-malarials in African countries, collaboratively conducted between the World Health Organization (WHO) and PQM, revealed that 44 percent of the samples collected in Senegal failed to meet quality standards.

In Madagascar and Uganda, 30 percent and 26 percent of the samples failed, respectively.

These reports, and others, underscore the seriousness of the issue and the need for trained professionals to improve access to quality medicines, which CePAT hopes to help ensure.

U.S. Ambassador to Ghana, Gene A. Cretz, noted: “Improvements in this area are critical, and I am proud that CePAT is playing a role in tackling this problem, and

NDA, Oral B partner on disaster management RAL- B, a brand of Procter O & Gamble Nigeria is partnering with the Nigerian Dental Association (NDA) to bring into focus the role of dentists in disaster management and the integration of the dental profession into the scope of protecting human lives and other disaster management teams in the country.

President of the NDA, Dr. Clement Olojede, disclosed this at a press conference in Lagos on Monday in respect of the forthcoming annual general meeting and scientific conference of the association holding in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state from June 5 and 6, 2013.

He explained that this objective had become imperative because the role of dentists in disaster management in Nigeria has not been properly

understood and hence under -utilised.

He said that erudite speakers who were vast in the knowledge of the subject under probe had been carefully selected to arouse awareness of the accident and disaster managers, adding that the meeting is aimed at sharing scientific knowledge and brainstorming to pave a pathway for the association as well as lay a sustainable foundation for future generations.

The theme of the conference is “Accident and Natural Disasters in Nigeria: The role of the dentists.”

Olojede noted that the decision to make the theme of this year’s conference centred on disaster management was necessitated by several factors, which have led to mass disasters both locally and internationally.

Some of the factors include weather disaster, incidence of terrorism globally, mishaps involving mass travel, ethnics, religious and political clashes, the unfortunate cases of building collapse across the country, cases of pipeline explosions among others.

Also speaking, Regulatory & Technical Relations Manager, Procter and Gamble, Mrs. Adebusola Opanubi, congratulated the Nigerian Dental Association for the conference and also the Nigerian consumers who would benefit directly or indirectly from what they would learn from it.

She said Oral B is pleased to partner with the Nigeria Dental association because we share a mutual interest in improving the oral health of the Nigerian consumer.

that the U.S. President’s Malaria Initiative and USAID activities laid the groundwork for establishing USP in Ghana.”

Vice president of USP’s Global Health Impact Programs (GHIP), who also oversees CePAT operations, Dr. Patrick H. Lukulay, said: “Serious public health issues related to poor quality medicines have been linked to lack of trained human resources, in countries with limited resources.

“With the centre, we want to bring the opportunity to improve local quality assurance systems by training national regulatory agencies and quality control professionals so they can fight the problem of fake and substandard medicines in a sustainable way.”

CePAT’s first course offerings are on Medicines Dossier Evaluation, Quality Control (including hands-on laboratory training) and Good Manufacturing Practices for Pharmaceuticals. Applications are subject to a pre-evaluation to ensure that the appropriate candidates are chosen, based on their potential role in providing access to good quality medicines in the Sub-Saharan African region.

CePAT in Accra, Ghana, was established by the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) to help build human resource capacity in pharmaceutical quality assurance and quality control by training local professionals to serve as technical experts. Provided under USP’s Global Health Impact Programs (GHIP), CePAT delivers an integrated platform of training, laboratory services and consulting services to support and strengthen quality assurance systems in a sustainable way in countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The USP is a nonprofit, scientific, standards-setting organization that improves global health through public standards and related programs that help ensure the quality, safety, and benefit of medicines and foods. USP’s standards are used worldwide.

A cross-section of participants at the launch of the United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USP) Centre for Pharmaceutical Advancement and Training (CePAT) in Accra, Ghana… recently.

Why govt could not fight tobacco war, by Chukwu From Itunu Ajayi, Abuja.

HE Federal Ministry of T Health in Abuja on Monday said that what seemed to be the inability of the federal government to fight the war against tobacco smoking like the rest of the world is weak legislation, which has continued to incapacitate the move in the fight.

The Minister of Health Prof.

Onyebuchi Chukwu told journalists in Abuja on Monday during an interactive session that Nigeria would have wished to be on the same page with the rest of the world in their fight in safe guarding the health of the people especially secondary smokers who are unnecessarily exposed to health hazards out of no choice of their own.

To this effect the minister said that the federal government would initiate more stiffer and stringent penalty for tobacco smoker. He made reference to the effort made

by Mr. Olorunnibe Mamora in the sixth senate to sponsor bill that could put an end to smoking in public places in the country but said the effort suffered set back then because there was no strong legislative backing for the move.

Chukwu lamented that the fight against tobacco smoking is one that requires a lot of funding noting that producers of the harmful product are very rich and would fight back any fight put up by the government. He likened the fight against tobacco to that of fight against corruption, which he said usually fights back. He said the reason why the country was not involve in any fun fare in the 2013 world No tobacco Day was as a result of the country not having a strong anti-tobacco law yet.

Chukwu reiterated the commitment of the federal government through his ministry to continue the scale-up of health delivery noting that a lot of giant strides had been achieved in recent years in the health sector.

He added that for the first time, the federal government appointed oral health ambassadors for states while the Senate President David Mark is the oral health champion of the country. Oral health the minister said has not been given much priority in the past, but with the knowledge that oral health take a centre stage in the overall well being of the people, the federal government took steps to bring it to the front burner.

The minister, however, said Nigeria cannot still attain the point of giving 15 per cent to the health sector in the annual budget as a result of other areas of the economy which needed equal attention of the federal government.

He said people has different priority areas of which they want the federal government to allocate fund like education, transport and in recent times security as a result of the security challenges being faced by the country.

Chukwu, however, said in the midst of the meagre financial situation facing

every sector of the economy, his ministry has been able to train 60 medical doctors abroad in different areas of professionalism, equip hospitals with state of the art equipment for diagnosis and treatment and generally given hospitals across the country a face lift with federal hospitals now being equipped to the point where long bone fractures such as thigh bones could be treated and the patients discharged in five days instead of being admitted for long periods of time.

He told journalists that the government might not be able to stop people from going abroad for medical treatment because the basic human rights of the people must be respected adding that those who travel abroad occupies and infinitesimal number of the populace and more importantly they are people who can afford such trips.

He gave instances where people travel abroad just to have their babies out of their personal desire that they wanted their wards to be citizens of another country or have dual citizenship. The minister maintained that this scenario would not be as a result of the inability of hospitals in Nigeria to take delivery of babies but out of personal choices of those concerned.

In like manners, he said people sought medical treatment abroad for other ailments that can be handled with in the country.

In recent times the minister said hospitals in Nigeria had done kidney transplants, open-heart surgery, brain surgery and other serious cases that usually had people referred abroad.

Commenting on the rancour recently experienced in the health workers’ cadre, the minister said the development is due to personal aggrandizement of the people involved. He said such rancour and disagreement is not obtainable in private practices, noting that it is only with the government employees that such relationship cracks is being experienced.

On the high ration of patients to doctors in government hospitals, the minister admitted that the country is experiencing low population of medical doctors noting that any doctor who had graduated from medical school and is still finding it difficult to be gainfully employed has other ulterior motives ranging from their wanting to stay in the major urban cities of the country and their desire to work in a particular hospital. The minister said there is no way anybody can graduate from the medical school and claim to be jobless.

The minister also said the country has recorded a 78 per cent coverage on immunisation as against the 45 per cent in past. He said to record a 100 per cent coverage, the country would soon be selfreliant on drug production in order to crash the prices of malaria treatment drugs. He added that it is his desire for Nigeria to attain universal health insurance coverage.

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SCIENCE HEALTH

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PHC workers allege faulty implementation of reform law Stories by Wole Oyebade

• Petition Lagos Assembly

ORKERS at the Primary W Health Care Department of the Lagos

Nurses, Pharmacists, and Health Workers among others, noted that the enactment of the reform law in 2008 and establishment of PHC Board had raised fresh hope among the workers that health service delivery to the people would be more effective.

The PHC Board, according to them, had set out to implement the reform law appropriately until the current SA to the governor was appointed into the Ministry of Health in 2011.

Since then, “staff of the PHC department have found no peace with the SA’s overbearing attitudes. Rather than allow the PHC Board to function in line with the law establishing it, she has arro-

State Local Government Services have petition the state House of Assembly over alleged faulty implementation of health reform law and “overbearing attitude” of the Special Adviser (SA) to the governor on public Health.

The workers, in a petition titled: ‘Dysfunctional implementation of the Lagos State Health Sector Reform Law,’ urged the lawmakers to look into the running and implementation of the PHC Board vis-à-vis its management and financial activities.

In their letter read on the floor of the Assembly, the PHC workers, consisting of

gated to herself the powers and day-to-day running of the Public health care system like a private organisation.

“Since her appointment, the SA has not added any value to the PHC system. The only

achievement recorded by her in the last two years has been chaos and disillusionment.

Her popular statement is “I have the mandate of the governor to step on your heads, and I careless about whose ox is gored.

“This statement lack deco-

rum and can never be in the interest of the state public service,” the statement read in part.

The petitioners added that they had written several letters to the governor but to no avail, hence their resolve to turn to the House of

Assembly to “save our soul”.

Reacting to the petition, lawmaker representing Lagos Island I, Wahab Alawiye-King, informed the House that there are rules guiding employee-employer relationships in the state, and the state Ministry of Health

Centre for rape victims to open in Lagos ESPITE may have come R the way of rape victims and all forms of sexual assaults in Nigeria, as a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) is set to take off at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), offering free medical and legal services.

The centre, first of its kind in Nigeria, is being set up by the Partnership for Justice

• Trains health workers, counsellors supported by Justice for All Programme, Department of International Development (DFID) in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Health.

Main objective of the centre is to provide comprehensive and quality services to survivors of sexual violence in a compassionate and caring

manner free of charge.

Already, 30 medical doctors and nurses drawn from various government-owned health institutions in the state are undergoing a twoweek training workshop being facilitated by a Forensic Expert, Dr Sarah Redvers, from St. Mary’s Sexual Assault Referral

Centre, Manchester, United Kingdom (UK).

Executive Director/ Managing Partner, Partnership for Justice, Itoro Eze-Anaba, told reporters at the opening of the training programme that the centre would provide free medical, psychosocial and follow-up support services to all women and children that are victims of rape and sexual assault.

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SCIENCE & HEALTH

Survivors, victims’ relatives launch aggressive campaign against cancer • Plan acquisition of mobile cancer treatment centre • Comprehensive specialised medical centre to gulp $30m • Nigeria needs 37 or more centres

By Bankole Shakirudeen Adeshina and Ikechukwu Onyewuchi ETHRAUGHTED by the D soaring numbers of victims to one of the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, cancer, Nigerians, under the aegis of Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP) have began aggressive sensitization campaign against the scourge. This was sequel to a report that says 10 Nigerians die of cancer every hour of the day.

Championing the course, about 150 names of prominent Nigerians, caught across all sectors, have been shortlisted at the special anti-cancer ambassadors who will be spreading the campaign across the nooks and crannies of the federation.

The team, which is constituted of the disease’s survivors, relatives of victims, specialists and volunteers, intended to put in place an effective medical structure to combat cancer across the country. Practically, this task would see them to raise N95million (exclusive of duties) to purchase one Cancer Mobile Treatment Center, which would be primarily dedicated to diagnosing and treating the disease in the grassroots.

This initiative, which was unveiled over the weekend in Lagos and in commemoration of World’s Cancer Survivors’ Day, intended to attract major and minor donors to raising funds that will be sufficient for the establishment of at least, a comprehensive specialized cancer center in each state of the country. According to expert, the financial implication to establish a worldclass comprehensive cancer

treatment center is approximately put at $30million.

The move to buy a mobile cancer treatment center and subsequently establish a comprehensive specialized treatment center was a course informed by American and Indian’s success stories, whose survivors’

chances are more than 90 per cent.

America has over 2000 Mobile Cancer Treatment Centers and India has over 125 Comprehensive Cancer Treatment Centre.

Speaking at the secretariat of CECP, Dr. Abia Nzelu, said that every year, 100,000

Nigerians were diagnosed of this killer disease among which 80,000 of them would die, due largely to late discovery and lack of access to first class medical treatment.

According to her, ignorance, especially among the people at the grass-root and the absence of comprehensive specialized diagnostic and treatment centers and it mobile cancer versions in the country, were responsible for the massive but preventable deaths.

Nigeria’s health indices uninspiring, say Fayemi, Soyinka

By Joseph Okoghenun KITI State Governor, Dr. E Kayode Fayemi was among several Nigerians who scored Nigeria’s health indices low in a gathering of health experts at the 8th memorial lecture of Nigeria’s former Minister of Health, late Prof. Olikoye Ransome – Kuti organised by Women’s Health and Action Research Centre (WHARC) in Lagos.

Fayemi, who was the guest lecturer yesterday on a lecture titled “Tackling the Challenges Of Health And Inequity In Ekiti State”, said “Nigeria’s healthcare delivery performance index is still struggling with those of war torn and less endowed countries even after 52 years of independence,” adding that “many factors and challenges have conspired against the realisation of the laudable objective of the Walter – Harkness 10-year development plan and the enunciation of the first National Health Development Plan in 1960.”

He listed the problems facing Nigeria healthcare system to include lack of “good governance at all levels of government”, policy inconsistency,

lack of political commitment, corruption, infrastructural decay, undue politicisation of the health sector and declining professionalism in the healthcare system.

Other challenges, according to Fayemi, included weak coordination, integration and implementation of health policies and programmes; inadequate budgetary provisions for health, inequitable distribution of the health workforce and weak primary and secondary levels of care with a weak referral system.

Ransome-Kuti, a paediatrician, was appointed Minister of Health in 1985, a position he used to provide a footholds for the institutionalsiation of primary health care (PHC) in Nigeria, acting as advocate, implementer and a key policy proponent on all aspect of primary healthcare. RansomeKuti was later appointed the Chairman of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), a post he held until his death.

Chairman of the occasion and Nigeria’s Nobel Prize Winner, Prof. Wole Soyinka, who was represented by his son and Ogun State Health

Commissioner, Dr. Olaokun Soyinka, said that social injustice was killing Nigerians on grand scale, adding, “health inequality is part of that social injustice”.

The younger Soyinka said there were a lot of burdens placed on him by the life and works of late Ransome-Kuti to develop PHC in Ogun State.

WHARC’s Executive Director, Prof.

Cyril Mokwenye, described Ransome-Kuti as the man who championed the interest of maternal health, exclusive breastfeeding and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) reduction in Nigeria.

Some of the attendees of the event included a member Ekiti State House of Assembly, Dr. Omirin Adewale, Provost, College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL), Prof.

Folashade Ogunsola represented by CMUL’s Dean of Clinical Sciences, Prof. Afolabi Lesi, the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Prof. Akin Osibogun, Ford Foundation Programme Officer, Prof. Friday Okonfua, Country Director of Population Council, Dr. Babatunde Ahonsi among other several dignitaries.

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Firm introduces blood glucose monitoring device UCCOR may have finally Sbetes, come for sufferers of diathe debilitating nutrition related disease, as a new product which will help them monitor their health better has been launched into the Nigerian market by Abiagait Health Solutions Limited.

Experts at the official launch of the product, Bayer Contour Ts Blood Glucose Monitoring Device, last week in Lagos said it is an easy-to-use meter, which enables individuals and families monitor their blood glucose without any assistance from a health care provider; and can also be used in hospitals by doctors to get instant result for their patients with 100 per cent accuracy.

Provost, College of Health Sciences, Osun State University, Osogbo, who was chairman at the launch, Prof.

Olutayo Alebiosu, said 60 per cent of all deaths in the world according to the World Health Organisation (WHO) statistics are attributed to chronic noncommunicable diseases including diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

Alebiosu said Nigeria has the highest number of people suffering from diabetes in Africa, about three million with the highest mortality rates due to the disease. Alebiosu said the management of the disease is very expensive and not affordable by majority of sufferers, noting that while sufferers of Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and Tuberculosis receive medications and do laboratory test

free; there are no subsidies for diabetes care.

Guest lecturer at the launch/consultant at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria, Prof.

Geoffrey Onyemelukwe called for a lifestyle change especially by urban dwellers from processed foods to natural foods: fruits, vegetables, etc to stem the diabetes pandemic. He said regular exercise of up to 150 minutes a week can help in preventing the onset of causative factors of diabetes.

Onyemelukwe called for the establishment of a National Diabetes Centre to provide framework for the management of the disease, saying that diabetes has killed more Nigerians than HIV/AIDS, malaria and cancer.

Chief Executive of Abiagait Health Solutions Limited, Mr. Isaac Thompson Amos said his organisation decided to partner with Bayer Health Care, Germany to bring the Bayer Contour TS Blood Glucose monitoring system to help government in providing quality health care for the people. He noted that the product is the best in the market and is currently marketed in over 100 countries.

Amos said that Abiagait was discussing with the Ministry of Health and other health care related agencies to take the products to the grassroots. He said the product could be used in the hospital, at home, work places or even religious organisations to test the blood sugar with instant result.

How cancer drug damages mouse hearts EART damage from H chemotherapy may be due to leaky pipes. Sunitinib, a cancer drug known to harm heart tissue, wipes out cells that seal blood vessels, Vishnu Chintalgattu of the biotech company Amgen and colleagues report May 29 in Science Translational Medicine.

These cells, called pericytes, normally wind around tiny blood vessels, or microvessels, keeping them healthy and plugging leaks like rubber patches glued to bicycle inner tubes.

Researchers examined tissue from drug-treated and untreated mice and noticed that sunitinib stripped pericytes from microvessels in the heart. Without the sheaths of sticky cells, more than twice as much fluid seeped from the microvessels.

Leaking liquid may explain why as many as 28 percent of sunitinib-treated cancer patients end up with heart trouble, the researchers suggest.

But there may be a way to fix the plumbing problem.

Thalidomide, the molecule made famous for causing birth defects and now used to treat cancer, can protect pericytes from slaughter by sunitinib, the team reports.

Dosing lab-grown pericytes with only sunitinib killed the cells, but giving them both drugs didn’t seem to do any harm. And when researchers grafted human cancer tissue into mice and treated them with the two drugs, the animals’ tumors shrank and their hearts pumped normally.

Speech experts decry rise in noise-induced health problems PEECH experts under the SPathology aegis of the Speech and Audiology

Public Relations Officer of the Nigerian Medical Association (NDA), Dr. Victor Nwabudike, President, NDA, Dr. Clement Olojede, Regulatory & Technical Relations Manager, Procter & Gamble Nigeria, Mrs. Adebusola Opanubi and Secretary General, NDA, Dr. Sam Obamiyi, at a news briefing on the forthcoming Annual General Meeting of the association in Lagos… recently.

Nigeria of Association (SPAAN) have decried the contribution of noise pollution to most of the world’s worst health problems, even as they Federal the urged Government to legislate on the issue, with the aim of making it an enforceable law.

President of SPAAN, Prof.

Abiola Ademokoya, at the international conference of the association held recently in Lagos, with the theme,

“Developmental and social impacts of speech and hearing disorders in Nigeria” said: “Generally, Nigerians do not take issues relating to speech disorders seriously, even when there are different types of speech disorders requiring professional diagnosis and treatment, such as stuttering, speech problems relating to hearing loss, delayed speech among growing children, incoherent pronunciation (mis-articulation), among others.”

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Senate moves against purchase of satellite images from abroad

By Chukwuma Muanya may soon become an offence punishable by law for any Ithetgovernment Ministry, Department, or Agency to go out of country to purchase satellite images for use in the country.

Provost, Federal College of Education (Special), Oyo, Dr. Adeniyi Olufemi; Nasarawa State Commissioner of Education, Alhaji Hussaini Abubakar; President, Speech Pathology and Audiology Association of Nigeria (SPAAN), Prof. Abiola Ademokoya; SPAAN Founder, Prof. Clement Bakare; and Supporter, Children’s Haven, Montreal, Canada, Mrs. Bernadette Bakare at the 2013 conference of the association held in Lagos… recently

How genes determine academic success, by researchers Continued from Page 31 The scientists used educational attainment because data on it are available for large numbers of people. But it is a proxy for something else – perhaps differences in the way peoples’ brains work or in personality traits like perseverance that could help people get through school. That means it is impossible to know what the researchers are really measuring.

The researchers caution that they have not identified specific genes, but merely found variants implicating some regions of the genome in educational attainment. Even if they had pinpointed a particular gene, “it doesn’t tell you the mechanism by which the gene is having a relationship with education,” says study coauthor Daniel Benjamin, an economist at Cornell University.

At best, the study may set an upper limit of effects scientists can expect to find in genetic studies of social traits, says Anna Need, a neuropsychiatric geneticist at Imperial College London. If a study of so many people can find only marginal genetic associations, smaller studies claiming to have uncovered genes strongly linked to political views or other social values are probably nonsense, she says. She fears that people will interpret the study to mean that genes determine education levels.

It is a fear shared by Duke University geneticist David Goldstein. “This tiny, tiny, tiny signal is completely pointless and will be misinterpreted,” he says. “Now we’re beating the poor methodology to a point that it will confess to pretty darn near anything.”

The variants identified in the study may be false confessions, he says. They barely clear a statistical hurdle at which one in every 20 SNPs seemingly associated with a trait will actually be due to coincidence. “This is literally right on the border,” Goldstein says, and “has a real good chance of being wrong.”

Also, researchers had identified genetic markers that may influence whether a person finishes high school and goes on to college, according to a national longitudinal study of thousands of young Americans. The study is in the July 2012 issue of Developmental Psychology, a publication of the American Psychological Association.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Kevin Beaver, a professor at the College of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Florida State University said: “Being able to show that specific genes are related in any way to academic achievement is a big step forward in understanding the developmental pathways among young people.”

The three genes identified in the study – DAT1, DRD2 and DRD4 – have been linked to behaviors such as attention regulation, motivation, vio-

lence, cognitive skills and intelligence, according to the study. Previous research has explored the genetic underpinnings of intelligence but virtually none has examined genes that potentially contribute to educational attainment in community samples, said Beaver.

He and his colleagues analysed data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, also known as Add Health. Add Health is a four-wave study of a nationally representative sample of American youths who were enrolled in middle or high school in 1994 and 1995. The study continued until 2008, when most of the respondents were between the ages of 24 and 32. The participants completed surveys, provided DNA samples and were interviewed, along with their parents. The sample used for this analysis consist-

ed of 1,674 respondents.

The genes identified in this research are known as dopamine transporter and receptor genes. Every person has the genes DAT1, DRD2 and DRD4, but what is of interest are molecular differences within the genes, known as alleles, according to Beaver.

Subjects who possessed certain alleles within these genes achieved the highest levels of education, according to the findings.

Dopamine transporter genes assist in the production of proteins that regulate levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the brain, while dopamine receptor genes are involved in neurotransmission. Previous research has shown that dopamine levels play a role in regulating impulsive behaviour, attention and intelligence.

Artificial livers may debut soon Continued from Page 31 liver cells not only maintain their normal function while grown in a lab dish, but also multiply to produce new tissue.

Cells grown this way could help researchers develop engineered tissue to treat many of the 500 million people suffering from chronic liver diseases such as hepatitis C, according to the researchers.

Lead author of the paper is Jing (Meghan) Shan, a graduate student in the HarvardMIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Members of Bhatia’s lab collaborated with researchers from the Broad Institute, Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin.

Bhatia has previously developed a way to temporarily maintain normal liver-cell function after those cells are removed from the body, by precisely intermingling them with mouse fibroblast cells. For this study, funded

by the National Institutes of Health and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the research team adapted the system so that the liver cells could grow, in layers with the fibroblast cells, in small depressions in a lab dish. This allowed the researchers to perform large-scale, rapid studies of how 12,500 different chemicals affect liver-cell growth and function.

The liver has about 500 functions, divided into four general categories: drug detoxification, energy metabolism, protein synthesis and bile production. David Thomas, an associate researcher working with Todd Golub at the Broad Institute, measured expression levels of 83 liver enzymes representing some of the most finicky functions to maintain.

After screening thousands of liver cells from eight different tissue donors, the researchers identified 12 compounds that helped the cells maintain those functions,

promoted liver cell division, or both.

Two of those compounds seemed to work especially well in cells from younger donors, so the researchers – including Robert Schwartz, an IMES postdoc, and Stephen Duncan, a professor of human and molecular genetics at the University of Wisconsin – also tested them in liver cells generated from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). Scientists have tried to create hepatocytes from iPSCs before, but such cells don’t usually reach a fully mature state. However, when treated with those two compounds, the cells matured more completely.

Bhatia and her team wonder whether these compounds might launch a universal maturation programme that could influence other types of cells as well. Other researchers are now testing them in a variety of cell types generated from iPSCs. In future studies, the MIT

Chairman Senate Committee on Science and technology, Prof. Robert Ajayi Boroffice, made the appeal yesterday during the oversight function of the committee to the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) in Abuja.

Boroffice in a statement signed by Head/Deputy Director, Media and Corporate Affairs of NASRDA, Felix Ale, expressed disappointment over the practice of some ministries and parastatals that continually spend huge sum of money to purchase satellite images outside Nigeria despite the fact that those images are readily available at the Nigeria Space Agency. the Science and technology committee chairman described such unholy practices as unpatriotic, fraudulent and against the noble objectives of the present administration.

He said, in India for example, it is a punishable offence to embark on any indigenous project without using satellite images of the Nation’s Space Agency. the Story he said, was not different in some other Space fairing Nations across the globe including the United States of America where bilateral agreement with the government of the United States with contents of images can only receive the approval of government of United States if such images will be acquired from the United States owned satellites Boroffice mentioned that Nigeria cannot be an exception saying anything contrary to patronizing the satellite images of the Nigeria Space Agency by government Ministries, Departments and Agencies is against the Act establishing the Space Agency which stipulates it as the “repository of all satellite data all over Nigeria’s territory and accordingly all collaborations and consultations in Space data related matters in Nigeria shall be carried out or undertaken by or with the Agency”. the Senate committee on Science and technology emphasized that with this Act, it becomes imperative that all Satellites images needed by any government establishment or organizations including higher resolutions not in the fleet of the Space Programme could be purchased as multi- license through the NASRDA. He commended the Agency for its giant strides towards technological advancement, saying the achievements recorded so far by NASRDA have consolidated the position of Nigeria as a pride to the continent and indeed the giant of Africa.

Humans’ trip to Mars face radiation risk • Improved shielding technology could keep exposure within acceptable levels STRONAUTS travelling to Mars on any of the current spaceA flight vehicles would receive a dose of radiation higher than United States National Aeronautic Space Agency (NASA) standards permit, according to a study of the radiation environment inside the craft that carried the Curiosity rover to the planet.

The study, reported in Science, is the first to use radiation data recorded by a robotic craft en route to Mars. It is also the first to rely on measurements from a radiation detector in space that has shielding similar to what might be used on missions carrying humans, says physicist Sheila Thibeault of NASA’s Langley Research Center in Virginia, who was not involved in the study.

Previous calculations of exposure were extrapolations, notes study co-author Cary Zeitlin of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. Those studies used detectors in space that either had no shielding or were aboard Mars-bound craft whose instruments were not switched on until they reached the planet.

The measurements made by the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission, which landed Curiosity in August 2012, are at the high end of those extrapolations and therefore are not a big surprise, Zeitlin says. But scientists could not be certain that the extrapolations were accurate until they examined the data detected by the spacecraft, he adds. “Models are all well and good, but there’s no substitute for data.”

Zeitlin and his colleagues analysed the radiation recorded by a small detector on board the craft that was active during most of the 253-day cruise to Mars. Although the craft was not uniformly protected from exposure to Galactic cosmic rays and charged particles from the Sun, the MSL’s shielding on average approximated that of human space-flight missions.

The results suggest that astronauts on a Mars-bound mission that was using a current propulsion system would receive 0.66 sieverts of radiation during the voyage to and from the planet.

But the study does not take into account additional radiation to which the humans would be exposed once they arrived on the Martian surface, for what might be an extended stay.

Exposure to a radiation dose of one sievert is associated with a five per cent increase in the risk of developing a fatal cancer.

“If, as the authors suggest, the MSL data correspond to the dose to be expected by astronauts on a similarly shielded vehicle under similar conditions, then that dose is still unacceptable

by NASA standards,” says John Charles, chief of the International Science Office in the Human Research Program at NASA’s Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas.

NASA defines the acceptable dose in terms of total astronaut career limits; 30 to 60-year-old male astronauts who never smoked can receive between .8 to 1.2 Sievert, while female astronauts of the same age who also never smoked can receive .6 to 1 Sievert. .

THE GUARDIAN, Thursday, June 6, 2013

Aetiology and alternative treatment of hypertension Part 2

SCIENCE HEALTH

Study links milk intake in mothers to better IQ in children

By Wole Oyebade S countries commemorate A the World Milk Day (WMD) 2013, researchers have advised

week Thursday I Lof AST brought you the first part this article. To refresh your memory I mentioned three ways by which the heart is made to pump blood more forcefully. These three ways are, increased viscosity of the blood as a result of accumulation of acidic wastes in and around the cells as a result of dehydration.

Secondly, in a state of dehydration, certain hormones and neurotransmitters, led by histamine are released.

These hormones cause reduction in the lumen (vasoconstriction) of the arterioles and capillaries in the capillary bed mainly in the muscles. This vasoconstriction reduces the amount of blood and water passing through the capillary bed, so that blood and water are redistributed to the five vital organs of the body.

Thirdly, and to further reduce the water filtering through the cells of the capillaries, the brain signals the liver to produce more cholesterol which will be deposited between the cells acting as an adhesive. Water used to be the adhesive between the cells and filtration of water into the cells and wastes outward proceeded unhindered.

Cholesterol is not permeable to water and so filtration of water is reduced to a minimum. These three mechanisms give rise to what is known as peripheral vascular resistance. The heart interprets this to be a blockage, hindering the flow of blood.

In an attempt to overcome the resistance, the heart begins to pump with a greater force. This added force with which the heart pumps blood is what is referred to as high blood pressure (hypertension).

The forth mechanism for the development of hypertension is that the water that is redistributed to the brain for example, has to forced into the cells of the brain against the osmotic gradient by a process called reverse osmosis. The heart will have to pump even with more force to be able to push water into the cells of the brain. This will further heighten the pressure with which the heart pumps.

This worsens the hypertension.

Treatment of Hypertension It is clear from all that has been written that dehydration is the primary cause of hypertension. It stands to reason therefore, that in the management of hypertension, the first thing to do would be to correct the dehydration. It will only take 8 to 10 glasses of water daily to correct the dehydration. If the body becomes properly hydrated the following changes will occur: The rate of blood circulation will increase, the accumulated wastes swept off and the blood less viscous. Water is a known inhibitor of histamine and as the amount of water in

the body increases and is sustained, histamine secretion and release become inhibited.

Vasoconstriction of the capillaries ease off and the vessels return to their usual state of elasticity. Further changes will include the reduction of production level of cholesterol by the liver. The cholesterol already deposited among the cells will gradually be dislodged. With all these changes sustained, water intake going on as prescribed, the body is taken off the rationing mode so that the force of pumping water against a high osmotic gradient will be reduced. Water alone may be enough to manage hypertension of short time duration. However, water alone will not do if the hypertension is long standing and established. For such cases the following will have to be included.

Exercises Recommended exercises are brisk walking (for beginners), jogging, cycling, and swimming, three to four times weekly. Exercise strengthens the heart and lowers the pressure with which the heart pumps blood at rest. New capillaries develop and blocked ones are opened up to increase the capillary bed and thereby reduce and eventually eradicate the peripheral vascular resistance.

Exercise also plays a part in detoxification and weight loss in obese individuals.

With weight reduction there is usually a reduction in the blood pressure Diet The food that we eat plays a significant role in blood pressure management. To begin with, items such as sugar, table salt, caffeinated beverages, tobacco and cigarettes, alcohol etc should be cut down or avoided completely.

The following minerals and vitamins are necessary for the good health of the heart and the blood vessels; potassium, calcium, magnesium, Vitamin D3, Vitamin C, fatty acid like Omega 3 and amino acid such as L-arginine. Food sources of these include, spinach, watercress, wheat grass, soybean, Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes. Others are fruits like orange, grape fruit and banana. Skimmed milk for its calcium content and dark chocolate or raw cocoa are also part of the management protocol for hypertension.

Use of supplements There is an array of supplements in Health Food Shops that add value to the health of the cardiovascular system.

Your alternative medicine practitioner will no doubt be able to counsel you appropriately concerning what supplement to use.

Finally, avoid situations and things that can cause you stress.

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women who are pregnant or planning to have children to consume the right amount of iodine, which is found in milk, or risk their child having a low Intelligence Quotient (IQ).

A study of more than 1,000 pregnant women found those who consumed lower amounts of iodine, which is absorbed from food and found in milk, dairy products and fish, were more likely to have children with lower IQs and reading abilities.

Iodine is essential for producing hormones made by the thyroid gland, which has a direct effect on the development of the foetal brain.

At a recent commemoration in Lagos, by FrieslandCampina WAMCO Nigeria, President of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Prof. Ngozi Nnam said more milk should be consumed daily for good health and vitality.

Nnam noted that milk had proven to be a complete food that improves the nutritional quality of a diet. “Its’ rich nutrient composition, health and other benefits in prepared food strongly qualify milk as an important component of a diet,” she said.

Previous research has shown that conventional milk is better for pregnant women than organic milk. A study published in the British Journal of Nutrition discovered that organic milk contains 42 per cent less iodine than the regular variety.

The study by researchers at Bristol and Surrey universities found two thirds of the 1,040 pregnant women they tested were iodine deficient. These women were more likely to have children with lower IQs, and it was found the lower the iodine the lower the IQ and reading ability.

Prof. Margaret Rayman of the University of Surrey, who led the study, said: “Our results clearly show the importance of adequate iodine status during early pregnancy, and

*As FrieslandCampina commemorates day emphasise the risk that iodine deficiency can pose to the developing infant, even in a country classified as only mildly iodine deficient.”

Researchers have said pregnant women should ensure they get enough iodine by eating dairy products and fish, as well as drinking milk. But they warned against kelp supplements, as they can have ‘excessive levels’ of iodine.

The study, which has been published in The Lancet, used samples from the ‘Children of the 90s’ project, a long-term health research project involving 14,000 mothers who enrolled while pregnant during 1991 and 1992. The health and development of their children has been followed ever since.

Dr Sarah Bath, a co-author and registered dietician, said: “Pregnant women and those planning a pregnancy should ensure adequate iodine intake; good dietary sources

are milk, dairy products and fish. Women who avoid these foods and are seeking alternative iodine sources can consult the iodine fact sheet that we have developed, which is available on the websites of the University of Surrey and the British Dietetic Association.

“Kelp supplements should be avoided as they may have excessive levels of iodine.”

An earlier study based in Tasmania, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, showed nine year olds who received insufficient iodine in the womb due to a period of deficiency in the population got lower scores on literacy tests.

Nnam, a Professor of Public Health Nutrition, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, noted that the WMD commemoration was very important to underscore new findings and the importance of milk to health

Glass of milk

and vitality in young and old.

She observed that there are varieties of milk, which everyone would find useful to promote growth, dental and cardiovascular health as well as reduce the risk of colorectal and breast cancer.

While breast milk remains the best source of food for newborn, at least in the first six months of life, adults have a variety of milk to choose from and these include pasteurised milk, homogenised, fortified, whole and reduced fat.

Others are low fat, free-fat, flavoured (for children); filled, evaporated, sweetened condensed, low sodium, whole dry, low fat dry milk, fat free dry and butter milk.

On the benefits, she said: “Milk promotes growth because it is an exceptionally good source of protein that is readily digestible and biologically available. It supports sound bone growth and development because it is very good source of calcium in the diet, vitamin D, phosphorus and magnesium.

“It promotes cardiovascular health because of its rich potassium, calcium and riboflavin contents. Calcium could help decrease bad cholesterol in the blood to reduce heart problems. Helps to build immunity because of its rich vitamin A content.

“Regular consumption of low fat dairy products can help to reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes. The effect may be due to the combined effects of many beneficial nutrients in dairy foods including calcium and magnesium and the low glycemic index of dairy foods,” she said.

Managing Director, FrieslandCampina WAMPO Nigeria, Peter Eshikene said the company commemorated the day to broaden knowledge on various milk usage.

The theme for this year’s WMD is ‘Do more with milk.

This theme is important for us as a company because we believe it is our responsibility as the leader in the dairy industry to create necessary platform for Nigerians to share enlightened information on milk.

How donating blood reduces heart attacks, cancer risk T has been shown that giv- of cholesterol. This can 88 per cent reduced risk of large number of calories Iessential ing blood provides an affect blood consistency and heart attacks than those who too. lifeline to those in need, but a growing body of research demonstrates that it could have health benefits for the donor too.

Findings have shown that donating blood reduces the risk of heart attacks and even cancer. It even burns 650 calories for every pint given.

The news could come as welcome boost to British blood banks, which use an average of 7,000 units of blood every day.

It is thought that the benefits arise from lowering high iron levels. Iron affects how thick and sticky the texture of the blood is. High iron levels cause the blood to be thicker.

Raised iron levels also accelerate the oxidisation process

create increased friction as it travels through blood vessels.

As this increases wear and tear to the lining of arteries it could then contribute to cardiovascular disease.

Because donating blood removes some of its iron content, it may therefore have a protective benefit if done on a consistent basis by helping thin the blood.

According to a study from the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers found that those aged 43 to 61 had fewer heart attacks and strokes when they donated blood every six months.

A study of 2,682 men from Finland found they had an

don’t donate, reported Medical Daily.

Likewise, a study published in the Journal of the National cancer Institute also links iron to an increased cancer risk as it’s believed to increase freeradical damage in the body.

In line with this theory, a four-and-a-half-year study involving 1,200 people found those who made bi-annual blood donations had a lower incidence of cancer and mortality than those who didn’t because blood donations lowered their iron levels.

However, these benefits depend on making donations on a regular basis, rather than once in a while.

Another side effect of donating blood is that it can burn a

After donating blood, the body replaces all of the blood volume within 48 hours, and all the red blood cells within four to eight weeks.

The University of California in San Diego estimate that for every one pint of blood donated, 650 calories are burned, as the body must replenish itself.

Although this could be seen as an attractive effort-free way to lose weight, the NHS Blood and Transplant centre still encourage people to donate for altruistic purposes for the benefit others first, rather than for themselves.

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Education

Cross section of students displaying the Opon Imo (Knowledge Tablet) during its official launch at, Ilesa, Osun state on Monday

Chairman, Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Bisi Akande (left); Deputy Governor/Commissioner for Education State of Osun, Mrs Titi Laoye-Tomori; Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola; his Wife, Alhaja Sherifat Aregbesola; Speaker House of Representative, Honourable Aminu Tambuwal and National Leader of CAN, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, during the official launch of Opon Imo on Monday

New dawn in Osun as ‘knowledge tablet’ debuts CASUAl window-shopping in a bookshop at A Dockland, in the United Kingdom sometime in 2011 by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the comical, unassuming governor of Osun state, has translated into some tremendously good fortune for the state’s public secondary school students.

While in that bookshop, Aregbesola had come across a simple electronic learning device and an idea immediately struck him. It occurred to him that something similar to the device could be adapted to suit and transform the Osun State education sector.

When he returned home, he summoned his lieutenants and sold the idea of producing a similar device with some education content that could be used by the state’s secondary students to them. Work began. However, the governor and his officials did not initially come to terms with the enormity of their new project.

While on it, the team saddled with the responsibility ran into several hurdles that were not anticipated. Like the normal computer devices, the tablet was to have both the hardware and software. While the hardware was easy to assemble, the process of putting the software in place proved somehow difficult.

But in the end, the team came up with the Opon Imo (knowledge tablet), made up of three major components: textbooks, tutorials and samples of examination questions, like a mobile library all embedded in an ipad. About 150, 000 students in the state public senior secondary classes will now get a unit each.

It was thus understandable that the Osun state government made a big show of the launch of Opon Imo, last Monday in Ilesha. The roll call was impressive: former Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; governors of Ekiti and Oyo states, Mr. Kayode Fayemi and Mr. Abiola Ajimobi amongst others.

Displaying the tablet at an elaborate ceremony, held at Zenaba Half Moon Hotel and Resort, Ilesa, Aregbesola declared that Osun state’s process of democratizing education had begun.

“It is a first of its kind, stand-alone learning tablet in the world for self-paced study,” he announced gleefully. “The virtual classroom category contains 63 e-books, covering 17 academic subjects for examinations being conducted by WAEC (West African Examinations Council), NECO (National Examinations Council) and JAMB (Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board).”

According to him, the innovation also contains non-academic, life-enriching subjects, such as the History of the Yoruba; Sexuality Education; Civic Education; Ifa on ethics and morals; Enterprise Education; hints and tips on passing the West African Senior School

Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and How to live a Healthy and Happy life.

He explained: “This section also contains an average of 16 chapters per subject and 823 chapters in all, with about 900 minutes or 15 hours of audio voiceovers. In the integrated test zone of the device, there are more than 40,000 UTME (Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination) and WASSCE practice questions and answers, dating back to about 20 years. It also contains mock tests in more than 51 subject areas, which approximates to 1,220 chapters, with roughly 29,000 questions referencing about 825 images.”

Weighing just 1.1kg, the Opon Imo according to him, has the advantage of both a small size and lightweight, which allow for flexibility. He also pointed out that the tablet of knowledge would be distributed free, to relieve parents of the financial burden expended on learning materials.

Another advantage of the innovation, he further explained, “is that it can be solar-powered.” Besides, it records audio lessons; saves students the stress of copying notes during lessons; spares them more time to learn; facilitates early exposure of students to ICT; and has up to six hours of battery life. Its touch screen device makes for easy use too.

Aregbesola disclosed that Osun state would be saving a whopping sum of N50.25 billion, that would have been spent to purchase textbooks in the 17 subjects being taught in its public schools; on the hard-copies of 51 audio tutorials; JAMB and WAEC’s past questions and answers for all subjects, over a period of 10 years.

“We do not have to buy books, as long as the tablets are in use, he averred. “We also cannot quantify the cost of the virtual classroom, which does not even exist anywhere, except in Opon Imo. The introduction of Opon Imo is a precious high point in our comprehensive plan to totally remake the public school system in Osun.”

The governor observed that since the world was tilting towards ICT, “Opon Imo is a bold statement on the determination of the state government to qualitatively redefine public

education.” He added: “With Opon Imo, we are certain to open the doors of good education to more of our students, who would otherwise have been denied that priceless opportunity.

Through education, we are rescuing our children from possible misery.”

He stated that Opon Imo was designed only for senior school pupils, even as the state continues to look into ways to absorb the lower classes into the initiative, as soon as the appropriate textbooks and funds are available.

On the business side, he disclosed that a factory for the assemblage of the computer tablets is taking off in the state. “It will provide jobs for our youths and bring revenue to the government. “The foundation for the making of Osun the Information Technology hub of the nation has been laid,” he said.

But in his characteristic manner, Aregbesola did not forget to hit hard at those he described as enemies of progress. His words: “While we were working hard at achieving success, the professional naysayers and incurable nonachievers had started to snigger. They went about town to wag their tongues in the spiteful meanness of their spirit and the small-minded pettiness of their self-conceit, that the project had failed according to their dark prophecy.

But instead, it was their false prophecy that failed.”

He continued: “The much-awaited Opon Imo has finally arrived. The smart computer tablet has entered the education scene, to the glory of Almighty God; to the victory of the public school students of Osun, but to the utter bewilderment of cynics, whose ardent wish is for the project to fail. Unfortunately for them, God has a different plan for Osun and for its good people”.

And to those he described as armchair critics, who accused the state government of eliminating textbooks with the introduction of Opon Imo, he said: “The question to ask then is, ‘what if?’ Textbooks are printed mainly from wood, grown on hundreds of thousands of hectares of land every year. This has grave implications for the environment. Secondly, as all education managers know, after teachers’ salaries, books take the next disproportionate share of the

do not have to buy books, as long as the “ We tablets are in use, he averred. “We also cannot quantify the cost of the virtual classroom, which does not even exist anywhere, except in Opon Imo. The introduction of Opon Imo is a precious high point in our comprehensive plan to totally remake the public school system in Osun.

“

By Mary Ogar

budget. At any rate, the world is going digital and we would be doing the children a lot of harm if they are not exposed to the digital world at an early age.”

The guest speaker and Country Director, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), Prof Hassana Alidou, said while the world body recognized Nigeria’s concerted efforts in terms of enrollment and increased allocation to the education sector, “relatively little progress has been made in achieving the Education For All (EFA) goals.”

Besides, she noted that in sub Saharan Africa, many children were emerging from schools without acquiring writing, reading or numeracy skills. She wondered if teaching was actually taking place in the schools, stressing that the skills were important for progress across the continent.

Alidou disclosed that UNESCO would be allocating $6.4 million to support the Federal Government in revitalizing literacy and adult education in Nigeria. She charged African leaders to embrace modern technology, especially in the development of children in the continent, underscoring the need for the introduction ICT into all sectors.

Commenting on Opon Imo, she said: “this tool would be useful including the fact that the questions’ platform would be useful in examination.

Digital literacy eliminates digital divide and improves learning among children. This is putting education in the hands of the learner and moving away from the conventional rote learning.”

To the students, she said: “the message of the tablet is a message of a father who loves his children. Through this tablet, you are obligated and motivated to give the best of yourself through your own achievement.”

Master Okeoluwa Femi-Lawrence, an SS2 student from Ilesa Grammar School, who had been using tablet for about two months said: “Opon Imo is something great. I give kudos to the governor because the tablet was designed in a way that the students are familiar with. The portability is amazing. Now, I find reading much easier like never before. I carry it everywhere and I can read anywhere, even on the move. For many of us whose parents cannot even afford textbooks, this is a life saver.”

He added: “For me, Opon Imo is a teacher, so I advise other students to take advantage and not abuse it as some students are rather focusing more on the games aspect. I want them to utilize the positive aspect of the tablet and not let the governor down considering the huge amount of money spent on the project.

Deborah Olayemi, also an SS2 from Baptist High School said: “Opon Imo contains all the textbooks we need as students. We have the opportunity to read. Before now, our parents can only buy some textbooks because they cannot afford to buy all. I am now improving in subjects such as Commerce, Economic and Accounting.”

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Education 51

Yobe declares state of emergency in education sector From Njadvara Musa, Maiduguri OVERNOR Ibrahim G Gaidam of Yobe state has declared a state of emergency in the state’s education sector. Citing poor management of secondary schools and other levels of the education sector in the state, Gaidam

said the situation was no longer acceptable.

The governor, who made the declaration during an unscheduled visit to Government Girls’ College, Damaturu also attributed students’ mass failure in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination

Borno spends N227m on infrastructure (WASSCE) in the state to the poor management of its secondary schools His words: “I am very much saddened and disappointed with the state of dilapidated structures of this Girls’ College. How could these stu-

AUN dismisses rumour, assures parents of students’ safety HE American University of T Nigeria (AUN),Yola, Adamawa state has denied the rumour making the rounds, that many of the institution’s foreign academic staff members were leaving due to the security situation in the state.

According to a statement by its Assistant Vice President, Public Relations and Communications, Mr Abubakar Abba Tahir, there is also no iota of truth in the insinuation that many parents have been withdrawing their wards because due to the same reason.

Part of the statement reads: “On Saturday, May 11, more than 4,000 people attended

the 5th Commencement at the American University of Nigeria (AUN). This number includes four globally distinguished diplomats and an accomplished American journalist, Charlayne HunterGault, who served as Commencement Speaker.

The diplomats included: US Ambassador Terrence McCulley, EU Ambassador David Macrae, Irish Ambassador Patrick Fay, and High Commissioner Joseph Habineza of Rwanda whose country has 17 scholarship students at AUN. “If there were any security concerns in Yola, none of these VIPs (Very Important Persons) would have ven-

tured to come. The graduation activity and the beginning of summer break naturally increased movements in and out of Yola airport. Several days later, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in Adamawa and two other northeast states. It took all of Adamawa residents by surprise because we had just finished our beautiful graduation on our safe and secure campus and because the state is the safest in the north east region. Despite the emergency rule, Yola has been orderly, calm, and peaceful, before and after the hugely successful Commencement, which saw nearly 300 students graduate.

dents learn and still perform well in their examinations, under this deplorable learning environment?”

He directed the state’s Commissioner for Education, Alhaji A. Musti to immediately submit estimates for the rehabilitation of all affected schools in the state.

The state’s Ministry of Education, according to him, is to be split into two for “effective and efficient” management of schools.

Gaidam lamented: “Year in year out, we keep having 10 or 15 per cent performance in the WASSCE and the NECO examinations. We will not

tolerate that any longer. The knowledge gap between the children of the rich and that of the poor must be bridged, which was my vow during my electioneering campaign.”

Addressing the students in the assembly hall, he urged them to work hard, pledging to improve the learning environment and the quality of food being prepared for students.

Meanwhile, the Borno State Commissioner for Higher Education, Alhaji Bello Ayuba has disclosed that the state government has so far expended N227 million to improve the infrastructure of its tertiary institutions, to enable them satis-

fy the full accreditation requirements of the National Universities Commission (NUC), National Board for Technical Education (NBTE) and the National Council for Colleges of Education (NCCE). The state’s College of Legal and Islamic Studies was also renovated at the cost of N550 million.

According to Ayuba who spoke at a briefing to commemorate Governor Kashim Shettima’s second year in office in Maiduguri, the technical department of Ramat Polytechnic, Maiduguri, is also being reconstructed and had reached 90 per cent completion.

CIBN signs MoU with varsities, polytechnics

By Ujunwa Atueyi HE Chartered Institute of T Bankers (CIBN) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with three universities and three polytechnics that would enable their respective undergraduate and graduate students sit for particular levels of the institute’s professional examinations.

The universities are: the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Kaduna state; Bowen University, Iwo, Osun state and Covenant University, Ota, Ogun state.

The polytechnics include: Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro, Ogun state; Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara state and the Osun State Polytechnic, Iree.

The partnership, according to CIBN’s President and Chairman of Council, Mr. Segun Aina, who spoke during the ceremony in Lagos, allows graduates of Banking and Finance of partnering institutions to be examined in only a few subjects in the institute’s professional banking examinations, to qualify as professional bankers.

He said: “All Banking and Finance undergraduate students of the partnering university must register with the institute while in their 100 level and are qualified to commence the writing of the examinations on successful graduation.” The other phase, which is known as the ‘Top Up,’ caters for Associates of the

10m children are out of school, says Igbuzor HUMAN rights advocate, sized the need for increase in A Dr. Otive Igbuzor, has said girl child education, which he that about 10 million Nigerian said is key to curbing child children of school age are out of school. This trend, he said, must be addressed for Nigeria to attain its full potential in terms of development.He also canvassed for an increase in the funding of public schools to enable Nigeria curb the increasing challenges of poverty and illiteracy in the country.

Dr. Igbuzor stated this in Abuja at the sixth anniversary and award of scholarships to some less privileged children

by Emoeferotu Foundation.

He said that successive governments in the country had not done much to give education the priority it deserves, as a key factor in measuring real development. Igbuzor, who blamed the increasing rate of poverty in country on lack of access to quality education and bad leadership, empha-

and maternal mortality in the country. ‘‘Education is a key factor for measuring development. The right to education is an enabling right for every child.

There is correlation between education and health. So, the more educated a person is, the higher the possibility for him to have a better health. Also there is a correlation between education and maternal mortality rate. If a woman is educated, the possibility of dying from avoidable death is reduced. That is why girl child education must be encouraged,’’ he said.

The Foundation was set up in 2007 to uplift underprivileged rural and semi-urban children to enable them contribute positively to their families, communities and the nation at large.

Institute who desire a first degree in Banking and Finance, to be admitted on a part-time basis for a maximum of two years, to write some subjects in the university examinations to enable them graduate.

Pupils of Imperial Gate School, Lagos posing with their teacher Miss Nneoma Oguamanam during the school’s education fair tagged “Thank a Plant,” held recently.

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Education 53

Senior secondary curriculum has too many compulsory subjects, says Adefisayo Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo is a widely respected education specialist and consultant, who has authored and co-authored several published works on core public and private education sector issues. She is currently the Director of Corona Secondary School, Agbara, Ogun State. The University of Ibadan scholar and recipient of a Federal Government scholarship, spoke to ROTIMI LAWRENCE OYEKANMI on a wide range of issues. Excerpts: Many stakeholders are complaining about teachers’ competence across the board. One school of thought says lack of proper teaching is responsible for mass failure in public examinations. Another school of thought argues that teachers are indirectly responsible for moral decadence in schools? How skillful do you think a contemporary teacher should be? What should be his or her role?

EFORE I go into what I want to say, I will say that I have met many great teachers; many of whom are still teaching today. They care about the children and they are hardworking professionals who believe in what they are doing and appreciate the almost mystic role they play in their students’ lives. However, they are the exception and not the rule.

There is no doubt that the quality of schools has a direct causal relationship with the quality of teachers. We can therefore say that to some extent, our teachers are contributing to these poor results.

However, I look at it in a broader way. Why do we expect our teachers to be competent professionals? What is the entry point into teacher education?

Are they getting good quality initial teacher training in our Colleges of Education? What about subsequent professional development? Is teaching a profession of choice? Can we really honestly expect teachers to be immune from the decadence in our society? Are they responsible for this decadence? Don’t teachers deserve to afford a good quality existence for themselves and their families?

Honestly I believe we are getting what we have planned for.

In the best educational systems, teachers are well trained, well remunerated, revered professionals.

They are involved in planning the curriculum, designing instruction, researching into new trends. What do we have in Nigeria? Teaching is no longer a respected profession.

Teachers are rarely, if ever involved in planning for the sector. Their salaries are withheld when there are financial problems and they are not regarded as valuable professionals. In many instances, being a teacher is a route to certain poverty. It was not always so but this is the present reality. People do not want to go into teaching and people do not even want their children to marry teachers!

If that is the reality, what do we think will happen?

Teachers will not be skilled, will not be committed and the vicious cycle of poor student performance will perpetrate itself.

Recently, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) released its Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) results, revealing a very poor perform-

B

ance. This follows the pattern of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), being conducted by the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and Senior School Certificate Examination being administered by the National Examinations Council (NECO). What do you think is responsible for this?

There are many reasons for the poor results. An analysis of the sector shows a complex

Adefisayo intertwining of many related and unrelated factors. It ranges from home and parental support, to quality of

schools, teachers, school leaders and quality of education management. It includes inadequate funding; sub-optimal

use of funds and diversion of funds though corruption and other leakages.

It has legal, regulatory, financial and social aspects. I know that we are investing less than the UNESCO recommended level of investment in education, but Nigeria’s investment in education is larger than the sum total of many of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The deployment of the amount for education has been a major issue.

There are also quality factors such as teacher quality, the quality (depth and breadth) of the curriculum, our methods of assessment, availability of resources such as library books, laboratories and classroom furniture. Culture is another factor that complicates an already complex system. For students to do well, there must be a culture of high expectations, a belief that every child deserves a chance to succeed and an

investment in making this happen.

I want to conclude that we need visionary, passionate, competent, honest people who know that what matters most in any school system is what happens in the classroom between the possible to ensure that investment, planning and funding decisions put this interaction first.

Some people argue that examinations should no longer be the only yardstick for measuring students’ academic abilities. Do you agree?

This is an interesting argument and I agree that there are many assessment methods; examinations being one of them. By their nature, examinations are adequate for measuring certain skills, but it is well known that some students do not perform well under the rather artificial environment of exams but

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Association of African Universities’ new president unfolds agenda The 13th General Conference of the Association of African Universities (AAU), ended in Libreville, Gabon at the weekend, with the appointment of Prof. Olusola Oyewole as its President for the next four years. Oyewole, who also clocked 365 days in office as Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Abeokuta (FUAAB), Ogun State on May 24, spoke to ROTIMI LAWRENCE OYEKANMI on his vision for the association and other issues.

Excerpts: How prepared are you for your new assignment as President of the Association of African Universities?

OR the very first time, the Association of African Universities has a President that has had the opportunity of working with AAU as a staff and is also working with many Universities in Africa.

While at the AAU, I worked with several Universities in Africa. I have worked with donor agencies and other bodies associated with the African Union and therefore, the operations of the AAU are not strange to me.

So, the AAU now has a President that has been a staff and who is also currently a Vice-Chancellor, which allows for greater wealth of experience. Between 2007 and 2009, I was the Coordinator of the World Bank Project on Quality Assurance for African Universities and in that capacity, I was responsible for promoting and ensuring the quality of educational delivery in many Universities in Africa through the AAU. During that period, I worked with regulatory agencies in different countries in South Africa, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria and Ghana, just to mention a few. Apart from that, I was also the Project Coordinator of a Project supported by the United Kingdom (UK) government, a USAID Project titled: “Mobilising Regional Capacity for Development.” We call it MITI in the Mobilizing regional capacity initiative, and the purpose of that project, of which I was the coordinator, was to help Universities collaborate with one another and engage in research that will contribute to the development of their various countries and regions. It allowed Universities to bring their research proposals and ensure that they collaborate with other researchers outside their own country and region.

The former AAU Acting President, Professor George Magoha did say that the membership of the AAU is not evenly spread across Africa. What plans do you have to improve on this?

It is interesting to note that the conference we just had in Gabon had 44 per cent of those who were present there from the Francophone speaking countries. It is a big shift from the former trend of attendance. Forty per cent Francophone and the rest were Anglophone. We also had the Arab and then the Portuguesespeaking communities of the continent. I think the Francophone and then the English speaking, that is the Anglophone, were just above 50 per cent and for the very first time too, we have a Frenchspeaking Secretary-General in the Association. With this, we hope that we would be able to reach out to our Francophone countries and Universities, for them to be involved. It is an association of all the Universities in Africa, including those in North Africa, so our intention is not just to reach out to those in the Francophone countries but also to reach out to those in the northern part of the continent.

One of the main issues discussed at the conference was the general graduate unemployment situation. Discussions were deep and recommendations were made. In what ways will the AAU help its members translate those recommendations into reality?

One of the challenges Universities in Africa have, is to ensure that they improve the contents of their curriculum, to make them relevant to Africa. We have challenged our Universities to ensure that graduates of African Universities possess some skills and competencies that would make them become employable, and also enable them to create jobs. And we feel that with this emphasis, we would be able to improve the employability of our graduates.

We have also emphasised the need to increase funding of higher

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Oyewole education institutions and funding for providing modern facilities that would improve the quality of teaching in our various Universities.

It has often been argued that despite the existence many universities and academics in Africa, the continent is still facing awesome challenges. In what ways can academics transform the African continent?

It is high time academics and indeed Universities got to their governments in the sense that there has been a wide gap between the governments and the Universities. It is high time we encouraged Universities to develop closer collaboration with the government and also to prove to the government that they are relevant to our development.

We feel also that Universities should engage in research that would address issues or that would provide solutions to the challenges facing our governments and our communities. Through that, we feel that Universities and academics can help to transform our respective countries.

It’s been one year, precisely on May 24, since you assumed duty as the Vice-Chancellor of FUNAAB. How would you assess the state of the University you met and what has happened in the last 365 days?

I would say that we have been able to continue with the trend of having a stable University calendar. For example, in another three, four or five weeks, we would be concluding the 2012/2013 Session.

And we have also been able to promote the visibility of our University through the various activities and the new programmes which we have brought into play.

For example, we have started the Commencement Lecture of our University; we have resuscitated the Yam Roasting Festival, and we have improved our local and international collaborations.

One of the things I came up with is to make this University a worldclass University. We have been promoting world-class activities.

We have had increased participation of other Universities in our programmes, international collaboration. Overall, I think that with reference to our original mandate of Teaching, Research and Community engagement, our University has ensured that within the last one year, we have improved the quality of our teaching.

Indeed, that may account for the reason why more people are interested in coming to FUNAAB more than ever before.

Relevance of the curricula in African universities to the needs of the private and public sectors was also discussed at length at the conference. How will the AAU transform this concept to produce the expected results in the continent?

We are encouraging Universities now to work in close collaboration with industries. We feel that Universities should not just develop their curriculum alone, there should be closer collaboration with industries, so that industries would be able to tell Universities what they really need in terms of quality of graduates.

We are also encouraging them to involve people outside the universities in rendering some teaching services with the Universities... that there is a lot that these students can learn from those practicing in the industries. With close collaboration between the Universities and the private sector; we will help the Universities produce graduates that would meet the needs of the industry.

Some weeks ago, I made a statement with reference to FUNAAB graduates in particular, that by the time they complete their programmes in our University, they will not just leave this place with their certificates, we will ensure they possess some skills that will set them apart.

Do you think the AAU would continue to be relevant?

Yes. AAU is the face of higher education on the continent and the biggest voice of higher education on the Continent. AAU will continue to be relevant in that, we are an arm of the African Union. We serve as arm of African Union on the issues relating to higher education on the continent. We will continue to be relevant; we will continue with our programmes; leadership capacity building projects that we feel will continue to help in the development of our Universities.

One of the other things that the AAU does is to ensure that we help Universities in addressing issues that have become challenges to Universities within the continent. Issues like quality, issues like ICT, internationalization, issues like mobility of staff and students with the continent, scholarship, funding. These are the type of issues that will bring Universities together to discuss as we take a common approach to solving these challenges.

We will continue to dialogue with governments in Africa on how to improve the qualities of Universities in their countries and dialogue with governments on how to solve challenges facing higher education on the continent. For example, centrally, we have challenges about access. The number of students that have access to higher education is much higher than the current provisions. We will continue to dialogue with governments on funding of higher educational institutions. We feel that we will continue to be the voice of our Universities in the continent, in our collaboration and partnership with other universities outside the continent.

These are the things the AAU will be doing. We will work closely with the African Union on issues of making education relevant to our Continent. And lastly, we will promote closer collaboration and partnerships among Universities in Africa. One of the things that I promised to do in the next four years is to ensure that the Association of African Universities has a befitting permanent headquarters in Accra, Ghana, and we are already on.

There is this impression that Universities in Nigeria are increasingly being localized. Most of the Universities have Vice Chancellors from the same geographical areas and FUNAAB is not an exception. Do you think this is healthy?

Really, I will not say that the intention is to appoint a Vice Chancellor from the locality, but it is to ensure that we have people who have the competence to drive the vision of the University.

In as much as we are looking for people that will drive the vision of the University, whether they come from the locality or from outside the country, it does not really matter. What is important is that we have people who will provide the appropriate leadership to ensure that the University meets the vision of such a University.

In other words, it does not really matter where the Vice Chancellor comes from?

It does not matter and our own University cannot be said to be localised per say. Though, the immediate past Vice Chancellor was also from Ogun State, the Vice Chancellor before him happened to come from another state and the one before him as well.

So, FUNAAB cannot be said to be one of those Universities that have localised VCs. I, for example, did not come in as a localised person, because I have had opportunity to work outside this

‘Senior secondary curriculum has too many compulsory subjects’ CONTINUED FROM PAGE 53 would exhibit their skills in a less pressured environment. I also feel that our examination questions address the lower end of cognitive skills and are oftentimes measuring the ability to cram and regurgitate rather than application of principles.

In an ideal environment, we would be able to assess learning through additional tools, such as portfolios (art students for example should be able to submit their works for assessment), project work assessment, oral tests, meaningful, standards-based, school-based continuous assessment and so on. Our exam questions would measure additional skills, such as critical thinking, problem solving and creativity.

But, the reality is that we have not built an educational system that is flexible and adaptable and capable of transparently managing a more advanced assessment system.

Do you believe in the 6-3-3-4 system?

I think the thinking behind the 6-3-3-4 system was original and well meaning. The main problem has been implementation. It does not look like enough thought was given to the technical, financial and skills implication of the new sys-

tem. For it to work, laboratories and workshops would have to be built and equipped, teachers trained and consumables and resources made continuously available.

If implemented well, it might have led to a renaissance in this country but implementation was haphazard and even now, many of its original intentions have been subsumed. For example, after basic education, students were to have a choice between an academic and a vocational education. We all know the latter never took off and virtually all children transited to senior secondary schools where most vocational subjects were not taught.

Do you agree that the secondary education curriculum, being touted by the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) is suitable for the country?

The curriculum is well-meaning like a lot of the things that we do, but I am not sure the planners discussed with schools and implementation is rather protracted. The reality on ground is at variance with the vision behind the curriculum.

Frankly, for senior secondary, I think there are

too many compulsory subjects. As it is, a Science student need not do any arts subjects apart from English and an Arts student can get away without doing any Science subject. In addition, the curricula for the trade subjects are just coming out and there is virtually no content on entrepreneurship i.e. managing a small business as opposed to learning a trade. I think these are early days and hope that the curriculum will be subject to more in-depth analysis and research.

As the Principal of a reputable private secondary school, what do you view as the challenges of managing students?

Managing students has always been a challenging but rewarding experience. That has not changed. The challenges have however changed because of the fact that the students themselves face daunting circumstances in their own personal lives. Some of the factors in their daily lives that give them the greatest concerns include poverty, parental neglect, uncertainty, hopelessness about their future coupled with distractions from technology and social media.

The impact in school is manifested in bad behavior, absenteeism (physical and mental tru-

ancy) and disengagement with learning.

I hesitate to blame the children, especially as I feel that we adults are not providing sufficient nurturing, leadership and guidance necessary to support these children and help them build successful lives. We either over-protect them or neglect their inner yearnings and sometimes try to compensate for obvious neglect by pampering them and not being realistic.

How would you compare secondary education in your own days with what we have now? What has changed for the better or worse?

I would not refer to education as being better or worse in my time in school; rather it is very different now. We must look at education in context. The way we were taught and what we were taught (curriculum content) was probably adequate for those times. There is no doubt that we were well taught by committed and passionate teachers and were imbued with good value systems. However, I am honestly still not sure that my generation has been able to adapt well enough to the world of today because we were taught based on the assumption that the environment would remain stable.

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ABU Council sets fresh targets for management From Mohammed Abubakar, Abuja HE new Governing Council T of the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria rose from its maiden retreat in Abuja over the weekend, setting fresh goals to the management of the institution as means of consolidating the achievements recorded by the institution, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.

Accordingly, the Council came up with a resolution to create a new office of the Deputy Vice- Chancellor in order to drive new vision of optimal resource mobilization and management. Similarly, the Council, in recognition of the experience and capacity of the institution and the need for training of critical manpower for the emerging universities resolved to reposition the university as postgraduate training institution.

The Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Council, Alhaji Mohammed Abdullahi Dewu, who read the outcomes of the retreat to newsmen in Abuja, said the Council stressed the need for urgent steps be taken to enhance management and internal control systems with a view to ensuring more efficiency, transparency and accountability.

Besides, Dewu, an Architect said the Council noted the current efforts of the university to introduce e-learning platforms in its postgraduate programmes and directed the management of the institution to ensure its immediate take-off in the next academic session. It also directed the management of the institution to put together the results of all existing research efforts and henceforth ensure that they are duly registered and patented.

“In an effort to promote efficiency and value for money, Council agreed that the management of all ABU-owned companies should be sourced from outside the university system. When put in place, the management will be given revenue to achieve.

“Council noted the low-level

of the university’s internally generated revenue (IGR) and resolved to improve it to 30 percent of the total annual budget requirements over the next four years. In this regard, the university management has been mandated to review its existing strategic plans and align same towards achieving this objective.”

Justifying the creation of the proposed office of the DVC in charge of resources mobilization and management, Dewu said the decision was in sync with the enabling law setting up the institution, noting that it was intended to lessen the burden on the university’s chief executive, the Vice Chancellor.

However, the National Universities Commission (NUC), through its Executive Secretary, Prof. Julius Okojie has in recent past accused managements of some universities of creating of unnecessary bureaucracy in their institutions. For instances during a workshop in Abuja, Okojie argued that two DVCs were okay for a university saying creating another office of DVC was a duplication of duties.

But Dewu submitted that, “The Act setting up the university has given us the powers of adding as at when due and when there is need to increase the number. There is o limit to the number of DVCs you can create. Besides, the size of the university and the large number of students we have and the proposed revenue mobilization drive as well as the increase in the number of students, which goes with the increase of the resources to be spent, we are trying to explore the possibility of creating the office of the DVC, who would look into the resource management with a view to reducing the burden on the VC. “Because the VC’s duties are so enormous, we believe that adding this to it would be counter productive that is why we are looking at the possibility of creating that post so that he can focus more on the academics and other areas of governance, rather managing a resource-based output of the university.”

Babcock varsity graduates 1,491

By Gbenga Akinfenwa total of 1,491 students gradA uated from the Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State on Sunday. Out of the number, 1,359 received first degrees while 132 were awarded post graduate degrees.

Of the first degree graduating students, 52 passed out with First Class honours, 1,059 with Second Class Upper division and 248 were in the Second Class Lower division.

At the 11th Convocation ceremony, Miss Oduyoye Omobola Oyebola of Public Health Department, emerged as the 2013 graduating student with the highest CGPA of 4.92.

Former Governor of Cross River State, Donald Duke was also awarded Doctor of Law and Community Development (Ph.D), Honoris Causa.

The Vice Chancellor of the institution, Prof. James Kayode Makinde, in his speech said its

pursuit of excellence as a private institution in spite of the acute economic and security situation pervading the country without compromising good standard is a pointer to God’s faithfulness.

He noted that for the country to survive and prosper in this gloomy and stormy global economy, there is need to effectively begin the reconstruction of vocational training to provide medium level highly skilled artisans, technicians and craftsmen and women to fill the indispensable vacuum in production and maintenance created by years of neglect and over-certification of mediocrity.

Makinde stressed that in the absence of functional government presence, today’s university administrator does not just concern himself with academics but collaterally runs municipal or local government in terms of facilities, roads, power, water supplies, security, health and

Rivers State Commissioner for Education, Dame Alice Lawrence-Nemi distributing free laptops to teachers and students at a ceremony held in Port Harcourt recently

Lecturers abandon Kaduna polytechnic From: Saxone Akhaine, Northern Bureau Chief XODUS of teachers has hit E the premier polytechnic in the north, Kaduna Polytechnic (Kadpoly), following the delay by the Federal Government to live up to its pledge in converting the institution into a City Technical University. Most of those lecturers that have abandoned the Polytechnic in search of greener pasture were the bulk of its experienced hands, particularly those with Doctor of Philosophy (P.hd) in the various Colleges and departments of the polytechnic.

Besides, the newly constituted Polytechnic Governing Council’s Chairman, Chief Sergeant Awuse, at the inaugural meeting last week, said that effort would be geared up to ensure that Federal Government live up to its pledge to convert the institution into a City Technical University, and also halt the brain-drain affecting the institution.

According to Awuse, “ I think Kaduna Polytechnic is overdue to have been converted to University, going by the amount of infrastructural facilities, technical equipments and the manpower strength available here”. “ It is an open secret that the Polytechnic has three broad based Colleges located outside the main campus and each of these Colleges can stand as a campus of any of the university we have in the country today. I think Kaduna Polytechnic is overdue to be converted to University and this Board will try its best to advise government accordingly”.

However, Chief Awuse frown at the level of indebtedness of the Polytechnic, saying that parts of the mission of the new Board of the Polytechnic was to ensure that we reposition the Institution “away from its old ways and ensure that things are done properly”.

“Going by the documents before me, the financial books

of the Polytechnic is in a mess.

The level of overheads and indebtedness is nothing to write home about. We are here to turn the institution around, and also make sure that things go according to the rules and laws governing the institutions. We are not going to tolerate all those old ways and we are not here for contract awards”.

“The issue of the conversion of the Polytechnic to University or degree awarding institution will be pursued with vigour and determination especially now that the Minister of Education has made it as her administration’s top priority”, Awuse stated.

Besides, the Rector of Kadpoly, Dr. Mohammed Bello Ibrahim, in an address lamented that “the issue of not converting the Polytechnic to City Technical University as announced by the Federal Government in 2006 is still pending”, noting that “the non-realization of this noble intention of the Government has affected the

Polytechnic negatively as the institution keeps on losing lecturers with doctorate degrees to Universities daily”.

Ibrahim argued: “ if the thinking of this administration is to make the Polytechnic Degree awarding institution instead of outright convertion to University, let it be done now as delay will further cripple the institution”.

Though, the Rector explained that the Minister has shown considerable interest on the issue of the conversion of the Polytechnic, however, he said, “what the Council needs to do now is just a little push in order to realize the noble objective”.

The chairman of the Kadpoly branch of Academic Staff Union of Polytechnic (ASUP), Comrade Mustapha Yahaya Bida remarked that the Polytechnic would realize its potentials fully when it has been converted into a university, as he lamented that “the daily exodus of lecturers with doctorates out of the total number of 200 of them in the Polytechnic is a serious concern”.

UI vice chancellor gives mid term report From Iyabo Lawal, Ibadan ICE Chancellor of the V University of Ibadan (UI) Professor Isaac Folorunsho Adewole on Tuesday disclosed that the institution benefited from the federal government capital allocation of N1.3billion for the 2011 completion of some projects and improvement of energy supply at the premier university.

In addition, Adewole at his mid-term report to the university community said that the premier university has spent N48 million naira as scholarship for First class products of the institution.

The Vice Chancellor stated that the scholarship will ensure that the best brains are given the opportunity to annex their potentials and added that the scholarship will engender a systemic regeneration of best schol-

ars.

The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), NonAcademic Staff Union (NASU)Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities(SSANU) NAAT, and Student Union Government organised the forum to ensure accountability of public office holders and deepen democratic governance culture in the institution.

To enhance staff human capital development, Adewole disclosed that the University Senate approved the sum of N67million naira as research grants to facilitate participation at local and international conferences.

Adewole said the administration has invested in the improvement of teaching and learning through “establishment of Directorate of Quality Assurance, renovation of lec-

ture theatres and construction of new ones and 24hour library service to enable students study for their programmes” despite the daunting challenges He further hinted that the University is finalising the implementation of Students’ Assessment of lecturers report to improve the quality of service delivery.

“We have engaged tutorial assistants costing N25 Million per session, finetuned the admission process, purchased smart boards for all departments, establish UI Research Foundation and Centre for human Resource Development” In the area of security, Professor Adewole said the institution has awarded contract for the purchase of CCTV while other security equipment have been procured with staff exposed to anti-terrorism training.

To ensure protection of students and staff, the VC said the university now has a gender and sexual harassment policies through which erring staff will be investigated and punished if found guilty of any allegation of harassment. He listed the achievement of the administration to include”completion of networks of roads and bridges in Ajibode extension, purchase of five units of 40 KV mobile generators, purchase and installation of two 2000KV Cummins Power Generators, Installation of prepaid metres, Solar street lights, water supply improvement project, purchase of fault locator, construction of roads, car parks, public toilets and massive construction of lecture theatre, beautification, Maternity Hospital, sawmill and facelifting the university

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NigeriaCapitalMarket NSE Daily Summary (Equities) as at Tuesday PRICE LIST OF SYMBOLS TRADED FOR 05/06/2013

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NSE Daily Summary (Equities) as at 05/06/2013

PRICE GAINERS

LOSERS

Livestock Feeds achieves 50 percent turnover growth

By Bukky Olajide ESPITE the tough and chalD lenging operating environment that characterised 2012 financial year, Livestock Feeds Plc, a subsidiary of UAC of Nigeria Plc, achieved substantial growth in its business, reflecting a 50 per cent growth in its turnover for the year.

The Chairman of the company, Larry Ettah, who disclosed this in his address to shareholders at the 49th yearly general meeting of the company, said the company’s performance improved significantly with a turnover of N5.43billion, compared with N3.62billion made in 2011.

According to the 2012 Reports and Accounts of the company made available, the company’s profit before tax rose by about 42 per cent over 2011’s figure of N152.2million to N216.2million in 2012. Profit after tax for the year under review was N139.1m,

compared with the previous year’s figure of N97.8m.

Earnings per share for the company achieved a marked improvement at 11.59 kobo, representing 42 per cent leap over the 2011’s earnings of 8.16 kobo.

According to Ettah, the results

generally established a growing improvement in the company’s performance and efficiencies.

He said no doubt, a lot of challenges remained to be tackled in the process of integrating the company into the larger UAC business family, however,

he noted disclosed that “plans and investments in rebuilding, renovating and making improvements in infrastructure and other critical areas have already commenced.”

He said, “This is necessary to stabilize and improve the company’s operation to guarantee

a sustainable future that will ensure better returns to all stakeholders.”

It will be recalled that at the 2011 AGM of the company, shareholders approved the issue of 800 million ordinary shares of 50 kobo each offered to UACN by way of special

placement and the investment by UACN of up to 51 per cent of the issued share capital of the company. Ettah told the shareholders that the process for the placement had been completed and the requisite regulatory approvals obtained.

Corporate performance buoys Cadbury’s shares

By Helen Oji of Cadbury SitalHAREHOLDERS Nigeria Plc have made a capgain of 45 per cent following the consistent rise in the price of its stock at the nation’s capital market, due largely to the impressive financial results of the company.

Consequently, the company has recorded a growth of 45 per cent in its share price, as it ended trading on may 31, 2013 at N64.53 per share against

N44.50 at which it opened trading for the week.

Cadbury recorded a profit after tax of N3.4 billion for the year-ended December 31, 2011 and paid a dividend of N1.564 billion after seven years. And just as shareholders are still savouring the resumption of dividend payment, the company has raised their hopes for higher dividend this current year by reporting an increase of 185 per cent in profit after tax for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013.

According to the results, Cadbury reported revenue of N8.362 billion in Q1 of 2013, up 16 per cent from N7.198 billion in the corresponding period of 2012. Profit before tax and after tax soared by 185 per cent from N587 million to N1.676 billion and N401 million to N1.142 billion respectively.

These figures have spurred more demand for the shares of the company, leading to a growth of 45 per cent last week alone.

Shareholders of Cadbury

stayed without dividend for seven years as the company struggled to recover from losses that occurred due to provision for past overstatements of financial accounts.

Addressing the shareholders at the yearly general meeting of the company recently, Chairman of Cadbury, Atedo Peterside, said: “We are pleased to be in a position to pay dividend to our shareholders this year. Also we sincerely appreciate the support and patience of all our sharehold-

ers throughout the years of rebuilding the company when profits were ploughed back to sustain the business and dividends could not be paid.”

Peterside attributed the ability have paid dividend this year, to operational efficiencies and cost control programmes of the company, which he added, provided a strong platform to ensure that this top-line performance translated into the company’s profitability for the year under

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Opinion Contemporary problems of democracy (3)

By Edwin Madunagu HE following statement should, perhaps, be T made at this point: Crucial in understanding and appreciating Anthony Akinola’s Democracy in Nigeria is not forgetting that the author takes the country’s existing capitalist (“free market”) political economy not only as given but also as unchanging. He takes for granted that carrying out the reforms advocated in his book would leave the basics of the capitalist (“free market”) economy not only invariant but also unthreatened. I felt Akinola’s silent assumption throughout the book but more strongly in his consideration of corruption and welfarism. I believe you will not, especially if you are a Leftist, be able to fully appreciate this book unless you take this point into account and see, in spite of this, what I have called “flashes of beauty” and “products of deep thought” the book embodies.

What I still have to say in this appreciation can be streamlined and re-arranged under five themes: The question of “ cleavage”: ideology, ethnicity and religion; the “leadership” question: “the “zoning” principle together with collective, collegial, rotational and single-term presidency; “welfarism” in a restructured economy; corruption as lubricant of capitalism; and the philosophy of hope. In continuing with the appreciation I may have to refer to ideas which, though Akinola’s, are not explicitly stated in this book but in his other works that I have also read.

In the Synopsis to Part 4, titled Jonathan and the zoning controversy, the author says: “The politics of Nigeria has little or no ideological content; what divides Nigerians are their ethnicity and religion” (page 79). Three pages later, under the essay History of leadership crises, the author repeats the proposition but adds a third factor: “The noises about the direction of the presidency in 2011 should remind us that our nation is not divided by ideology, but by religion, region and selfish interests” (page 82). This proposition is repeated in several essays in the book. If you dig deep into, and analyse, Akinola’s third factor, “selfish interests” – unless it is a slip of pen” (which anyone who has read this book and other works of his will almost swear is not) – you will sometimes come face to face with what he seeks to deny, that is, ideology.

This point notwithstanding, I think I know what the author has in mind: I think it is a matter of emphasis; but this emphasis, which we may be tempted to overlook carries important implications which the author then employs theoretically – namely, that the political parties that now occupy Nigeria’s democracy space can coalesce into a handful of large and, perhaps, national, parties.

Akinola’s proposition can be reformulated as follows: Several factors, including ethnicity, religion and ideology divide Nigerians; but in politics (or the type of politics we used to call “bourgeois politics”) which the ruling classes and their power blocs completely dominate, ideology takes a back seat, and ethnicity and religion become dominant, though not exclusive. If the author accepts my modification that rests my case; but if he rejects it I shall then take another step in another direction and propose that the fact that different political groups are found in the same party does not mean that there are no ideological differences – sometimes serious differences – between them. Groups with deep ideological differences may come together for a strategic objective, such as national liberation. Check the Kuomintang (KMT) in China during the antiJapanese national resistance, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC) in Nigeria between 1944 and 1950.

I do not want to be misunderstood on this question. So let me put my proposition in context. Akinola employs his own proposition – of no ideological, or no serious ideological, differences – to argue that the tens of political parties which now operated in the country can coalesce into a handful of national parties – a development which will now be strengthened if rotational presidency is adopted and inserted in the nation’s Constitution. See, in particular, the essay Fusion, not alliances (pages 113 - 115).

My counter proposition is in three parts: first, that there are ideological differences in Nigeria’s politics; second, that amalgamation of parties can still take place even in the presence of ideological differences; and third, that, conversely, the fact that this amalgamation takes place does not mean there are no ideological differences. However, as in the historical examples cited above

(KMT, ANC and NCNC) the coming together of parties – I mean serious parties – with ideological differences is usually for a strategic objective. Once that objective is realized, or is in sight, the differences, hitherto underplayed, begin to surface and the hitherto monolithic party begins to “fall apart”.

The case for rotational presidency is, arguably, the strongest and most passionately argued proposition in Democracy in Nigeria. Reading through Akinola’s argument that literally litters the book and those works of his that are not accommodated in the book I think the full title of his proposition should be: Collegial, rotational and single-term presidency. For the “collegial” part of the proposition, Akinola says in the essay Presidency is the issue: “The argument that a potential president should be intelligent, competent and patriotic cannot, in any way, be faulted. However, those with such qualities can be found in all the geopolitical zones of the Nigerian federation. The time will come, and it may not be long, when we see conventional wisdom in a remodeled presidency that is made up of an elected leader from each of the geopolitical zones. The position of president who combines the functions of Head of State with that of the Chairmanship of the Collegiate can be based on rotation” (page 35).

If the proposition had stopped here readers of my column in The Guardian newspaper would notice that Akinola’s position (formulated above in 2006) completely coincides with the position I have, myself, held for a long time. But Akinola had continued: “Because of the belief that Nigeria is one important nation of the world whose political leader deserves a face, the preferred model here is one on which a zone hold on to the position of Head of State and therefore, the title of President for the duration of a single term of whatever number of years the Constitution prescribes. The members of the Collegiate will be entitled to seek re-election. When we have done this we will have built our nation and its democracy on a rocky foundation” (page 36).

The whole “collegial” arrangement, Akinola suggests, is for the future. In the interim, he stands by rotational presidency. He also argues for a singleterm tenure for the rotational presidency. In fact he think that anyone who supports the key arguments of rotational presidency will also see that a

single-term tenure will strengthen it. He argues this last proposition explicitly in several other more recent essays including For single term rotational presidency (page 99 – 101).

I recall that Akinola wrote a piece, The case for a collegial executive, which was published in The Guardian of April 26, 2002. Five days later, on Thursday, August 1, 2002, my column carried my response, Collegiality or collectivity? My position in this response was that while applauding Akinola’s brilliant and rare proposition, what he actually offered was neither “collegiate” nor “collective”, but just rotational. However, since I now assume that his 2006 essay, which I had already cited copiously and approvingly, supersedes that of 2002 (which is not even included in the present book), my 2002 argument is no longer relevant here.

In August 1988 I received, in my capacity as Acting Editorial Page Editor of The Guardian, two previously published papers written by Akinola on rotational presidency: Nigeria; The quest for a stable polity: Another comment and An open letter to the Constituent Assembly. I considered the papers important enough to make personal photocopies and preserve in my library. They are still with me.

The first publication was based on his book, The search for a Nigerian political system (1986). Ten years later, in 1996, Akinola came out with Rotational presidency (1996). All these go to show that Akinola has been long on this issue; and his position has been consistent.

In the essay Welfarism in a shrinking economy, Akinola says: “Welfarism is about the health, happiness and general well-being of the individual. A nation which assumes the responsibility of providing for the health, happiness and general wellbeing of its people(s) is regarded in political parlance as a welfare state.” (page 155). The author identifies “free education”, “free health care’, “unemployment benefits”, “old age state pension”, “subsidised housing”, etc, as welfare programmes; and he approvingly recognises Great Britain and the old Western Region of Nigeria (under Obafemi Awolowo) as having practised welfarism. But he believes that welfarism depends critically on the “availability of funds”. In 2001 he said, in relation to Nigeria, that, “the funds are simply not there for an idea whose time deserves to come” (page 157).

My question is: Why are the funds not there?

• To be continued next Thursday.

Constitutional role for civil society (1)

By Nathaniel Abara S we jostle with other top nations in the global marathon, 2013 A presents Nigeria an unprecedented opportunity to create a “fourth estate”, a new arm of government, and the cornerstone of civil society organisations (CSOs) inclusive of the independent media. The Transformation Agenda demands a Transformation Constitution, which incorporates a role for CSOs and creates a governance quadrangle, a new partnership embracing the existing legislature, the executive, the judiciary and a new “house of civil society”, to be called The Council of Civil Society (CCS). This “bridge house” between the government and CSOs, is the house of solidarity for Nigerians.

The CCS will operate at all tiers of government. CCS members will not compete with elected representatives. Rather, the CCS will complement the legislature and the executive, playing an advisory role, contributing civil society perspectives to issues and mobilizing social organisations and citizens to fully support government. This model views citizens as partners, not subjects to be ruled – the dependency or ”feeding bottle” approach. We propose that the council should work in four interest-based groups, namely, the media, which is also embedded in the women, youth, and other interests group. Once a year, each legislature will deliver to its CCS “A State of the People Address” to outline how legislative work impacts the people they represent.

Calls abound for strong institutions. Many concerned Nigerians call on citizens to participate actively in public affairs. They remind citizens that government alone cannot address the challenges facing the country. But an ordinary individual does not influence the almighty government, anywhere. All over the world, citizens reach big governments through their CSOs. For Nigerian citizens to play active part in the affairs of the nation, the role of our civil organisations requires constitutional recognition. This recognition is the single most effective and efficient way to commit the close to 1,700 branches of government at all tiers to join hands with organized civil society to tap into the energy of participatory democracy. This solution may appear radical. But as Albert Einstein said, ”we cannot solve the problems that we have created with the same thinking that created them.” We therefore need to seriously reconsider our continued adoption of the three arms model of governance.

The new Council will complement the legislature to exercise oversight in Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), especially in budget implementation and projects monitoring. The legislature will therefore have more time for its primary duty of making and changing laws. The CCS will act as “watch and work dog”, compelling the civil service to sit up and mobilizing CSOs and citizens to participate in social service delivery.

At the grassroots, we recommend that the CCS mechanism anchors the proposed financial and administrative autonomy for local governments. Accordingly, the 774 local CCSs will work with their respective elected chairmen, their deputies, the supervisory councilors and the local bureaucracies to execute social contracts for the people. Funding for education and health services should be a first charge on the allocations and revenues of each local government. The nation would thereby avoid the huge risks of simply allowing the local governments to collect their allocations directly without an appropriate framework for revenue and expenditure transparency and holding the local tier accountable.

Evidence dating back to about 6,000 years shows that transparency assumes precedence in any successful creative and development endeavour. There was the first biblical declaration at creation “Let there be light: and there was light.” It was against the background of “light”, which in modern times we could term transparency that the work of creation began on earth. We can deduce that without transparency as a first modus operandus of governance, nothing good could result from our transformation efforts. The Freedom of Information Act and the proposed CCS, with its media group playing a vibrant role, will engender transparency, and the demand for accountability and responsiveness. Their intervention will stem corruption in the system.

The present three branches of government fall short of the expectations of Nigerians. This model of governance does not suit our situation where the corruption prone extractive industries dominate the economy. We are aware that oil and gas contribute approximately 95 per cent of foreign exchange earnings and about 80 per cent of government revenue, according to Shell Nigeria April 2013 Report.

With this sectional dominance of oil which Juan Alfonso called “the Devil’s excrement” that results in Ross’ “oil curse”, the model is unlikely to deliver satisfactory services, development and transformation. The panacea can be found in the role of CSOs to engage all tiers of government, demand transparency and accountability, expand services and set the stage for accelerated development of Nigeria’s “Third Sector”, the voluntary and non-profit social sector where the needs of 150 million Nigeria’s poor people will be met. These fit the global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which engages CSOs as a strategic partner to reverse the “resource curse” worldwide.

But what could be the cost of this enterprise? Working on the estimated 2013 budget of the federation of N9.5 trillions, a capital component of 27.3 per cent, the same ratio in the approved 2013 federal budget, we have N2.6 trillions of capital expenditure, which should impact Nigerians. Dr. Andrew Pocock, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, disclosed that infrastructure in Nigeria cost three times higher than it ought to be, because of corruption in allocation and delivery process. On this basis, the value of the capital budget that

could be lost in 2013 is estimated at N1.7 trillions at all tiers of government. This figure excludes savings in the overheads of government. Investing on the CCS at all tiers, about 5 per cent of the expected value not delivered, which comes to approximately N85 billion per annum, in order to recover N1.7 trillions for Nigeria would appear a reasonable investment. So, the CCS project would be good value-for-money.

CCS, this new arm of government will positively affect the 150 million poor Nigerians, the vulnerable and disadvantaged of our society, who were excluded in the framing of the 1999 Constitution. The 812 executive arms at all tiers of government have no more than about 30,000 elected and appointed officials to supervise a public service of about 2.5 millions. Based on the 2007 report of the global citizen network, CIVICUS, Nigerian CSOs now have about 120 million as members. CSOs therefore have the capacity to effectively engage the 2.5 million public servants on a 24/7 basis at all critical points where value is expected to be created.

Why is this constitutional engagement so compelling? First, the ordinary citizen is weak and helpless. There is very little he or she can do to influence government. As proposed, the CCS will act as an intermediary to advocate and mediate the social contracts between the people and their governments. This model also applies in the spiritual realm. For example, in the Christian faith, Christ Jesus, mediates and advocates between our Omnipotent God and mortals under the new covenant or divine contract. Christ mediates between God and His people. Borrowing a leaf from the foregoing model, we can assert that without credible CSO’s in any nation, a people should not expect meaningful improvements in their security, social, economic and other areas of life.

The second reason is that Nigeria’s complex ethnic, religious, regional and other societal diversity overburdens our generic three arms of government. We are the world’s seventh most populated country, estimated to be 170 million people. This population, which is fragmented along many divides has over 250 ethnic groups that speak over 550 languages, spread on 1 million square kilometers of territory, dwelling mainly in rural areas and facing multi-faceted environmental challenges at the extremes of north and south. This chaotic situation was further weakened in the quest to keep the nation one. Societal confusion was compounded by serial balkanization of the four regions in 1963 to 36 states and 35 provinces to 774 local government areas. These demarcations now constitute the basis for social, economic, political and what have you contests by a few elites, to the exclusion of the larger proportion of the citizens.

• To be continued tomorrow.

• Abara, DIC, the Managing Advisor/CEO, Enterprise Trust & Development Company Limited, is a former investment banker and economic advisor to government.

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Opinion The Christian attitude to money (2)

By Josiah Idowu-Fearon Continued from yesterday.

ROM the New Testament, we also learn that what one does with one’s money reveals where one’s heart is, and whether or not that heart has been transformed when a person claims to be a Christian. The wealthy but godly patriarchs are all depicted as having shared generously with the needy. There was a connection between their spirituality and their generosity.

We can therefore conclude that a person who is really trusting God finds it easier to let go of material things and be motivated to generosity and kindness.

Furthermore, the New Testament suggests that certain extremes of wealth and poverty are clearly viewed as intolerable, though it is hard to quantify such things (Wheeler 1999:245). The Bible therefore really talks about all things in moderation, though extreme sacrifice is often encouraged and commended in specific situations.

The New Testament and assistance to the needy We turn to St. Paul’s appeal to the church at Corinth for this sub-topic. There are several lessons here which, if taken to heart, would help us in our Christ-like witness in a country where many are departing from kingdom principles.

In 2 Cor. 8-9, Paul gives us certain principles: • He teaches us that the Christian should give according to his/her means (vs. 11).

• The goal here, as Paul says, is not that others should be relieved while the giver is hard-pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty (i.e. the giver’s) will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty (the receiver’s) will supply what you need. The goal is equality (2 Cor. 8: 13-14). By equality/equity within the body of Christ, Paul assumes that the customary system of patronage will continue, and that there will be some Christians with more, and some with fewer, possessions. He appeals to the Christian principle of generosity, but he does not suggest a foolish sacrifice. He advises giving “according to one’s means.” Equality here may just be what we read about in Acts, where it is said that no one should go without necessities, so that giv-

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ing is done on the principle of each giving according to their means and each receiving according to their needs. Paul is certainly not in favour of some being burdened while others are eased.

• Paul uses the example of Jesus Christ who humbled Himself in the sense of becoming a human being taking on material poverty in order that He might gain spiritual riches for His followers. He then urges the Christians in Corinth to make similar sacrifices like Jesus did, out of generous hearts and a real concern for equity. Here therefore, Paul is urging that a reciprocity relationship be set up between two very different parts of the Christian Church (Jerusalem and Corinth). For now, the Jerusalem church needs material help. But Paul foresees a day when the Jerusalem church might reciprocate if a need developed in Corinth.

In giving by the Christian, the phrase “give from what you have” (2 Cor. 8:11b) is of importance. Paul is not asking the Corinthians to go and take out a loan in order to help. Nor is the sheer amount the crucial thing. He says that if enthusiasm and sincerity are present then any size of gift is acceptable. Here he is no doubt encouraging less well-off Christians to contribute without feeling a sense of shame about the little they can give. In an honour and shame culture like ours, shame is often an impediment to giving by those of moderate means. In 2 Cor. 9:7, Paul stresses that each individual should decide in his or her own heart what will be given, and not do it reluctantly, for God loves a cheerful giver. Paul also suggests that such giving, which he says is like saving, leads to a proportionate harvest – if you sow little, you reap little.

For Paul, the household of faith must take care of its own; this involves a transnational entity called ekklesia (church) of God, not merely a local congregation.

Why God blesses people In 2 Cor. 9: 6-11, Paul preaches that God often blesses people materially in order that they may be a blessing to others. In verse 9, he enunciates a principle of “enough”. His prayer is that the audience will have enough so as not to be

dependent on others. Paul is talking here about financial independence of a certain sort, a sufficiency that enables generous giving to others. What we do with our surplus money reveals our true character. A further benefit of giving is that thanksgiving and praise will be given to God by those who receive what the Corinthians give. So, the end result of such giving is that good witness is borne to God before a watching world, and more Christians are actually led to praise God. Implications of Paul’s teachings on giving While it is clear that Paul does not advocate for communism of any sort, it is also clear that he does advocate for communalism, or community-ism. By this, it is meant that Paul believes that the Christian community must not allow any of its members to be in want.

Paul sees this as an obligation not merely within a particular congregation, but as a part of an empire-wide group of churches.

Christians should take care of their own.

Paul’s advocacy for equity does not mean that all persons should have exactly the same quality and quantity of material resources. He is interested, especially in a time of economic crisis, in the Jerusalem church to set up reciprocity networks so that the needs of that church can be taken care of by other churches who can certainly afford to help. We need to also notice the emphasis on not creating further problems by burdening the givers in order to alleviate the need of the receivers.

Concluding thoughts In light of the New Testament, we need both the micro and the macro ethics when it comes to matters of money, wealth, possessions, work, remuneration, and the like. It is not enough simply to be an honest person earning an honest naira. Our business ethics must match our Christian principles. If one has considerable assets, one has to ask hard questions such as: • Has the money been made while investing in wicked enterprises and compromising companies? One must work to disentangle oneself from the ways of the world and its business-as-usual attitude and conversations.

• The whole idea of saving up huge sums of

money for oneself and one’s family so one can live a life of ease or luxury, having no need to work any longer, is an all-too-modern notion, without any biblical warrant.

The New Testament as a whole encourages us to have generous hearts. It encourages us not to live our lives for “unrighteous mammon” in a self-seeking and self-centred manner. It encourages us to put our ultimate trust in God, and be willing to demonstrate that trust through sacrificial giving. It encourages us to be wary of, and wise about the fallen economic and political institutions of this world, and to do our best to disengage from their unethical practices. The New Testament urges us to have a theology of enough, that is, to live by a principle that godliness with contentment leads to great gain in ways that cannot be monetarily quantified. The New Testament encourages us to deconstruct and disengage from the rat race for success, prosperity, and wealth. Greed is repeatedly warned against as a soul-destroying force. The goal of the Christian life is not prosperity or even happiness, but, rather, godliness, holiness, loving God and loving our neighbours wholeheartedly.

The New Testament does not promise an equivalent monetary boom for whatever amount one gives to a good Christian purpose or ministry. One is to give without any thought of return. But there is also the promise that God does bless in various ways those who generously give to others. In 2 Cor. 8-9, Paul does not encourage calculation, by which I mean he does not encourage the Corinthians to assume that God will automatically give them back more than they have contributed to the collection for the Jerusalem Church. Nothing in this or any other New Testament text suggests such a conclusion.

Sometimes the rewards for material generosity are simply spiritual, and, rightly seen, those rewards are in fact more precious and valuable in the kingdom scheme of things. The New Testament asks if we have embraced kingdom principles when it comes to money, possessions, wealth, ministry, remuneration, and work. If we have not done so, or have not done so sufficiently, then at this synod, we hope we will do something about it.

• Concluded.

• The Most Rev. Idowu-Fearon, Ph.D (ABU) is the Bishop of Kaduna Diocese Anglican Communion, Kaduna.

Unemployment and other challenges before labour

By Henry Boyo RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, state governors and some P legislators celebrated May Day with organized Labour, with the usual spectacle of march-pasts and copious speeches!

Labour, on one hand, demanded for positive results in the areas of employment, security and corruption, so that the Nigerian economy can survive and soar from the impact of good governance.

On his own part, President Jonathan surprisingly indicted his Economic Management Team, when he decried our touted economic growth without attendant job creation, and noted that “I agree totally that until we create jobs, until Nigerians can find food to eat, until Nigerians who are sick can walk to the hospitals and get treatment, the economic indices are meaningless to them”.

Nonetheless, Labour has traditionally reserved strike action, its ultimate weapon of coercion, primarily to instigate higher wages for its members and press its demands for reduced fuel prices. Regrettably, however, the value of the modest wage increases has always been quickly eroded by unbridled doubledigit rate of inflation over the years, as too much money chase less goods. Ironically, success with Labour’s demands for controlled fuel prices also induce bloated subsidy payments in place of real infrastructural enhancement.

Consequently, it would be appropriate to examine whether or not higher wages and reduced fuel prices are possible without the anti-social excess baggage of inflation and subsidy.

Indeed, purchasing power of incomes can be enhanced simultaneously with lower fuel prices, if Labour’s strategy recognizes that a relentless ‘cash surplus’ economy is the fundamental reason why the N18,000 minimum wage currently purchases less than half of the goods and services that were possible a few years ago for the same amount.

Similarly, Labour’s advocacy must recognise the role of a manipulated naira exchange rate as the root cause of continuously rising fuel prices and the related wasteful subsidy component.

Although some Nigerians believe that fuel prices would tumble if government built new refineries, this will not necessarily be so; our national experience is indicative that we do not run public corporations with the required discipline. Consequently, any call for government investment in more refineries would be tantamount to turning back the hands of the clock,

and further entrenching corruption and mediocrity in governance at the expense of the people!

However, Organised Labour’s demands on this year’s May Day specifically calls for increasing employment opportunities and effective control of insecurity and corruption in governance.

Incidentally, the major factors that could drive employment include a healthy consumer demand base, such that the wages of income earners would command stable or increasingly stronger purchasing values, so that workers have access to more of a wider range of ‘cheaper goods’. Increasing consumer demand would consequently motivate existing entrepreneurs to expand production and also attract new investors into the market, with more job opportunities in tow!

Nonetheless, such increasing consumer demand may still fail to instigate employment opportunities, if double-digit interest rates (high cost of funds) discourage investments.

Paradoxically, increased purchasing power of stable incomes (i.e. reducing inflation) or indeed, provision of low cost of funds for the real sector, hardly feature prominently in Labour’s advocacies.

Instructively, however, both high inflation and interest rates are the results of poor management of the amount of cash or liquidity in the economy. For example, while inflation is the product of too much money chasing fewer goods, high cost of funds is instigated by the high Monetary Policy (control) Rate that CBN imposes to cage inflation, by restraining access to the perceived high cash volumes in the system.

Clearly, however, the causative link between rising unemployment levels and heightened insecurity is already well established in public consciousness, particularly as unemployment amongst the “youth population has assumed a very negative dimension with serious consequences on national peace and progress”.

Corruption, which Labour also identified for serious remedial attention, is equally facilitated by the excessive level of easy cash available and the weak sanctions for financial impropriety. For example, while a church rat is lean and shorn of excess fat, the bakery rat, like the ‘fat cats’ in our system, would continue to remain obese because of the liberal availability of ‘bread’ and ineffective mousetraps in their habitat.

So, instructively, availability of surplus cash ironically turns out to be a major root cause of low purchasing power of incomes, and high cost of funds. This systemic cash surplus in-

trinsically also facilitates corruption and rising unemployment, which ultimately engenders insecurity.

Incidentally, the plague of ‘surplus’ cash (excess liquidity) in the system is also responsible for rising fuel prices and the wastage of over N2 trillion subsidy payments annually.

In essence, CBN’s relentless substitution of monthly naira allocations for dollar-derived revenue instigates a continuous horrendous supply of naira, which provides excess cash supply to banks. Thus, CBN’s misguided payments arrangement also continuously pitches increasing surplus naira revenue against the rationed weekly dollar auctions of the apex bank; the resultant market imbalance ultimately weakens the naira exchange rate and inadvertently pumps up fuel prices with bloated subsidy values as collaterals.

The foregoing analysis clearly identifies CBN’s monopoly of the foreign exchange market as the common cause of ‘excessively’ surplus naira as well as the major determinant of low purchasing power of wages and consumer demand. Furthermore, high cost of funds, unemployment and insecurity are also the ulterior products of excess liquidity, while the systemic cash surplus is similarly responsible for a weaker naira exchange rate, which in turn instigates high fuel prices and the related astronomical subsidy values.

Consequently, Labour’s seemingly intractable problems would be resolved if CBN effectively manages the source and reduces the prevalent excess naira liquidity by adopting the instrument of dollar certificates for payment of monthly allocations of dollar-derived revenue. In this manner, the oppressive hydra-headed ghost of excess liquidity will disappear and the impediments to low inflation and interest rates would be removed. The naira exchange rate will become stronger and boost the purchasing power of all wage earners, while domestic petrol prices will fall below the current price of N97/litre, so that erstwhile subsidy payments of over N2 trillion annually will become available for infrastructure! Furthermore, low cost of funds and increasing demand will become possible to drive expansion of industrial production as well as increasing job opportunities. Ultimately, Labour Union membership will increase, while government tax revenue will rapidly swell from the ensuing bourgeoning commercial and industrial activities.

The question, however, is, will Labour ever recognize the side on which its bread is buttered?

• Boyo, a public finance analyst, wrote from Lagos.

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Sports Nigeria beats Kenya, moves closer to Brazil 2014 World Cup

By Christian Okpara SKA Moscow star, Ahmed C Musa was the hero yesterday in Kasarani, Nairobi, where the Super Eagles defied all the antics of the Harambee Stars to emerge 1-0 winners in the Group F Brazil 2014 World Cup qualifier.

Musa, a double winner in the Russian league, grabbed the only goal of the game in the dying moments of the encounter to give Nigeria eight points from four matches, which is two points more than that of Malawi, which could only draw goalless with Namibia in the corresponding game in Blantyre.

Before the game, which kicked off by 2.00 p.m.

Nigerian time yesterday, many followers of the Super Eagles were apprehensive due to the tortuous route their team took to get to Kenya and the fact that the last time both teams met, Kenya almost ran away with the three points.

The Super Eagles played a friendly in Houston, U.S.A, on Saturday morning and only arrived Nairobi on Tuesday after stops in Frankfurt, Germany, and Ethiopia.

In the first leg in Calabar two months ago, Kenya led Nigeria 1-0 up until the dying moments of the game when Nnamdi Oduamadi’s scissor’s kick ended the game in a 1-1 draw.

Buoyed by that draw in Calabar, the Harambee Stars and their fans felt yesterday presented the best opportunity to defeat the Super Eagles in a competitive game. But they met a different Super Eagles in the breezy afternoon at the Moi International Sports Centre, Kasarani.

The game had the mark of a goal even up to the dying moments when the Eagles were pressurising the Kenyans for the opener. That

came in the 81st minute when Musa latched onto a throughpass by Mikel Obi to lob the ball over the onrushing Kenyan goalkeeper, Duncan Ochieng and into the back of the net.

Kenya, who were needing nothing sort of a win to keep alive their hopes of gracing the World Cup final, started the match badly with defender, Brian Mandela almost handing the Super Eagles a quick goal in the first minute of the match.

The South Africa-based defender failed to deal with a loose ball after restart allowing Brown Ideye to charge forward but the Super Eagles star could not find the back of the net with keeper Ochieng’ to beat.

Five minutes later, Musa Ahmed beat the Kenyan defense but his attempt to pick out an advancing Sunday Mba was blocked by Brian Mandela.

The Kenyans were having a great time in midfield and Oman-based Jamal Mohammed was showing some awesome creativity though he appeared self-fish sometimes.

The first half ended with both teams failing to break the deadlock.

The second half, dominated by the Super Eagles, was heading to a goalless ending until Musa intervened to silence the capacity-filled stadium, which had in attendance Kenyan government officials.

The Super Eagles, who are heading to the Confederations Cup in Brazil later this month, moved on to eight points with two games to play as Malawi failed to keep pace.

They will visit Namibia next Wednesday while Malawi host Kenya at the same time in another crucial round of matches with only the group winners progressing to the third qualifying round.

Super Eagles’ Elderson Echiejile (right) vies for the ball with Harambee Stars’ David Ochieng during the 2014 World Cup qualifying match between Nigeria and Kenya at the Kasarani Stadium, Nairobi…yesterday.

PHOTO: AFP

More foreign athletes join race for Warri CAA Grand Prix

By Gowon Akpodonor

• AFN picks junior athletes for Africa/World championships

HE list of foreign athletes for T the 2013 Confederation of African Athletics (CAA) Golden

Jamaica and the United States of America (U.S.A). The CAA Golden Grand Prix in Warri will hold on June 14.

As at yesterday, the list had swell up with Ethiopian 5,000m women runner, Almaz Ayana and Mauritius women long jumper, Ghiziana Siba joining the race.

The Ethiopian has a Personal Best time of 14:57.97 seconds in the 5,000m race while Siba (Mauritius) has a Personal Best of 1.80meter in the women

Grand Prix Warri, Delta State, is on the increase, as top runners from Ethiopia, Kenya and Mauritius have joined the race.

The Technical Department of the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN), released a list of foreign stars who signified their interest in competing in the championship earlier in the week. They include athletes from Great Britain,

Sharapova fights back to reach French Open semi-final EIGNING champion, Maria Sharapova lost the first six games, then won the last four to reach the French Open semi-finals.

The defending champion overcame a miserable start in the quarterfinals yesterday to beat Jelena Jankovic, 0-6, 6-4, 6-3.

It was the first victory of Sharapova’s career after losing an opening set 6-0. Her opponent Friday will be twotime Australian Open champion, Victoria Azarenka, who reached her first Roland Garros semi-final by beating Maria Kirilenko 7-6 (3), 6-2.

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Sharapova won her first French Open title a year ago to complete a career Grand Slam. She’s 42-9 at the French Open, best among active women. Maria Sharapova fights back to reach French Open semi-finals Serb Jankovic made a scintillating start as she reeled off the first six games, yet Sharapova slowly upped her game and a break in the seventh game of the final set proved decisive. She will now meet Victoria Azarenka, who beat Maria Kirilenko 7-6 (7-3) 6-2.

Sharapova lost a set 6-0 for

only the fourth time in her Grand Slam career after committing 20 unforced errors in the opening set.

But she managed to put that behind her and extend her unbeaten run at Roland Garros to 12 matches.

“After the first set I knew if I wanted to win this match I’d have to change things around,” she said.

“I just had to erase that chapter and move forward because the match was not over. I still felt like I was in the match and I was - I broke her in the first game and that was extremely important.

“I just fought really hard in the third set. It only gets tougher from here but I’m really happy to be at this stage again.”

Azarenka became the first woman representing Belarus to reach the semi-finals in Paris. The two-time Australian Open champion won five straight points to lead 6-1 in the first-set tiebreaker before taking it 7-3.

Kirilenko, who is still to progress beyond the last eight in a Grand Slam tournament, double-faulted to trail 3-1 in the second set and a long forehand handed Azarenka victory.

high jump. A male javelin thrower from Egypt, Ihab Abdul Rahman has also signified interest in the competition. He has a Personal Best of 81.84meter in javelin.

The long jump event for men seems to have contenders so far with athletes from Egypt, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria

already listed.

If pre championship performance should count, Nigeria’s Stanley Gbagbeke with a Personal Best of 8.20 meter, will be the man to beat in this event. Egypt’s Mohammed Fathallah Deif Allah with a Personal Best of 8.19 meters is on the list.

Federations Cup resumes on June 11 From Ezeocha Nzeh, Abuja HE Nigeria Football T Federation (NFF) has fixed June 11 as the date for the commencement of the 2013 edition of the Federations Cup round of 64 matches.

The federation, which conducted the draws for the round of 64 matches last week in Abuja, said then that it would arrive at the commencement date after meeting with organisers of the various leagues in the country to avoid a clash of date with league matches.

After a meeting of the NFF’s Director of Competitions, Sanusi Mohammed, with the secretaries of all the four leagues (NPFL, NNL, NNWL and NWL), yesterday in Abuja, the federation agreed with

the leagues organisers to stagger the date of the Federation Cup matches beginning from June 11 to ensure that the competition is rounded off before the end of the 2013 football season.

Releasing the fixtures and venues to the media yesterday, Sanusi explained that the dates were carefully arrived at to ensure that there was no clash with league matches involving the clubs, adding that the centers were also carefully picked to ensure that all the clubs were given equal treatment.

From the fixtures released to the various states’ football associations, 10 matches will be played on June 11 at the Lokoja, Abuja, Jos, Kaduna, Katsina Ala, Akure, Katsina, Lafia, and Ado Ekiti centers.

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Ikoyi Club comes alive for Prime Atlantic squash tourney

By Tony Nwanne VER 65 players are contesting for the ultimate diadem O at the fourth Prime Atlantic Closed Squash tournament, which kicked off on Monday at the Ikoyi Club 1938 squash section. The tournament is a collaboration between Ikoyi Club 1938 and Prime Atlantic.

The tournament, which groups players into six pools of A to C, also has the ladies category, as well as, competition for veterans and ex-professionals.

The tournament will climax on June 9.

Speaking at a briefing to kick off the championship, the President of the Squash section, Tokunbo Ogundipe, said the essence of the competition is to further create awareness for squash in the country, with the aid of the squash federation to bring the game back into the forefront of sports in the country.

“We will be working with the squash federation to continually create more awareness for this game because as it is now, it is waning off, and we at Ikoyi Club 1938 want to revive it through this tournament that promises to excite members of the club,” he noted.

Also speaking at the briefing, the Captain of Squash Section, Sodi Pepple, noted that the exprofessionals games would be keenly competed by some notable nationally recognized players, who are also members Super Falcons’ Desire Oparanozie (left) controls the ball during a recent game against Cameroun. Gombe says the NFF of the club. was wrong to lump all the national teams together in one sponsorship deal.

Corporal Friday wins Best Nett as Goodluck Jonathan Golf Club debuts From Ezeocha Nzeh, Abuja HE IBB International Golf T and Country Club, Abuja, will soon cease to be the exclusive club in the FCT following the emergence of a new club, the Goodluck Jonathan Golf Club, located at the Nigeria Airforce (NAF) base along the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport road.

The club, which was commissioned in 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan, was opened for official use by golfers when it hosted a oneday Democracy Day Kitty last week to mark 14 years of uninterrupted democracy in the country.

Speaking to The Guardian at the one-day kitty, which saw Corporal J. Friday of the Rhino Golf Club and Amina Wilfred of the IBB Club winning the best Nett for the men and women categories respective-

ly, Lady Captain of the club, Ekanem Ekwueme, who described the brown course as a baby course, noted that the kitty was aimed at introducing the new course to golfers within the FCT and its environs.

She added that the need to decongest the IBB International Golf and Country Club gave rise to the decision of officers of the NAF Base to set up the Goodluck Jonathan Golf Club.

“Ninety-nine per cent of golfers in Abuja and its environs did not know that there was a golf course like this outside the IBB. So it is an awakening to reduce the traffic and population at the IBB Golf Club. There has to be some diversions and the best is a location like this inside the NAF Base. We had over 100 entries for the kitty, meaning that if we have full tournament

Brazil’s Neymar will feature in the Trace Sports’ Rising Star on DStv.

here, it will be great in registration and attendance.

“All our efforts now is to change it from a brown golf course with nine holes to a green one and from the green, we work towards having an 18hole course. We hope that the president, which the golf course is named after, will support us as we move forward.

“After the Democracy Day Kitty, the club will also host the Northern Lady’s Golfers Association Championship in November before the September tournament,” she said.

She revealed that the club

plans a kitty and a golf clinic for children from around the environment in its catch them young programme, adding that the course is owned by the Airforce with a new committee set up to manage the course.

“The captain, who is the head of the presidential air fleet, Air Commodore Onuh, and his team, has begun in a very big way with the organisation of this kitty, which came up barely two weeks after its inauguration. Now that we have a committee, the club will do more in the nearest future,” she assured.

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NFF spends N1b on litigations, says Gombe Insists Federation needs restructuring From Ezeocha Nzeh, Abuja ORMER Chairman of the FAssociation, Gombe State Football Shuaib Gara Gombe, made a stunning revelation at the weekend, when he disclosed that the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) spends over N1 billion yearly to offset the bills of external solicitors handling its myriad of cases in the regular law courts.

Gombe, who is a close associate of the NFF board, called for a total restructuring of the federation’s legal and marketing department, just as he revealed that federation had a total of 49 cases at the various law courts last year, adding that it has not won any of the discharged ones, while others are still ongoing.

Arguing that the structure of the NFF, as currently constituted, has given rise to heads of departments that have nothing to offer, Gombe said the sponsorship agreement, which the federation currently has with a certain company needs to be revisited, while urging the federation boss and his board to courageously explore the exit clause and review the contractual agreement.

“The financial situation of the federation brings me to

the issue of restructuring of the NFF. The administrative structure of the federation must be overhauled. We have marketing and legal departments, for example, but the federation still spends huge amount of money on external solicitors, as well as, pay huge commission to an external marketing consultant.

“Instead of keeping a whole department, the federation would have hired a technical consultant based on commissions to be doing the job. Let me tell you authoritatively that the present NFF has spent close to N1 billion in the last one year on external solicitors.

“The federation has had more than 49 cases in court without winning a single one.

Then the question should be why the federation should continue to keep a legal department. It is the same thing with marketing. The federation cannot claim to have a marketing department when an external consultant is pocketing 10 to 15 per cent of every deal.

“The money in contention is a peanut yet the federation has to use political expediency to get the money. The sponsorship is not coming based on the product value of the national teams but because of political expediency.

Abuja agog as Jonathan launches Rhythm N’ Play

By Olalekan Okusan HE Federal Capital Territory T (FCT), Abuja, will today come alive as President Goodluck Jonathan officially launches Rhythm N’ Play, an initiative of the Nigeria Academicals Sports Committee (NASCOM), which was inaugurated by the Minister of Sports, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, late last year as part of his playground to podium policy.

The event, which begins at 10 a.m., holds at the Velodrome of the Abuja National Stadium.

Aimed at two million children in the next two years, Rhythm N’ Play is an exciting youth-friendly campaign for enhancing mass youth participation in sporting activities and age-grade competitions.

According to the Chairman of NASCOM, Yemi Idowu, the project would help reposition Nigerian sports through mass participation and early discovery of young sporting talents at the grassroots level.

“The Rhythm N’ Play campaign is intended to reach children between the ages of 12 and 17 years and encourage active participation in regular sporting activity.

“After the launch, we will go to work at the state level by getting our ambassadors and stakeholders in each state to initiate the launching of the programme at the state level, cascading down to the local

government levels.

“NASCOM has decided to work through the Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF) and Youth Sports Federation of Nigeria (YSFON) at the state level. After the launch, we are also going to launch the harmonised calendar for our stakeholders and we will seek publicity and sponsorship for all their programmes,” he said.

Idowu added that the, “Rhythm N’ Play will rely heavily on the use of music, celebrities, volunteers, new media and other elements of pop culture to amplify and realise its objectives. “ We think that our target of involving two million kids within two years of its inception is a realistic target, which has been set by the Minister of Sports/Chairman, National Sports Commission, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, when he approved the project. “ Children of school age are the primary participants of Rhythm N’ Play and this includes kids within and outside the formal education system. The campaign is intended to reach children between the ages of 12 to 17 years and encourage active participation in regular sporting activity. ” He disclosed that the campaign would be integrated into junior and secondary school sporting activities with Rhythm N’ Play Clubs set up in schools nationwide.

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TheGuardian Conscience, Nurtured by Truth

By Macdonald Amaran HE various definitions of leadership now available are enough if put together and referred to as a book upon publication. It is vexatious to see people criticise without proper review, speak without reasoning or processing of thoughts; state facts without verification or ascertaining same.

Let us consider this scenario to put things in perspective, as an example: Question one, was it President Barrack Obama who found the bomb suspects in Boston? Answer: No. Question two; was it the FBI that actually found the same Boston bomb suspects? Answer: Not exactly. Question three, who found the suspects? Answer: Leadership did.

Question four: Which leadership and how did it find the suspects? Answer: The Leadership of Obama with his firm and instructive directive to the FBI whose expertise and intelligence or ‘A game’ as it has been referred to would have been useless without the support of the evergrowing proactive, responsive, objective and courageous American public or citizenry, if you wish. Here is how it all played out as extracted from yahoo news of April 20, 2013.

“Weary officials lifted a daylong order that had kept residents in their homes, saying it was fruitless to keep an entire city locked down. Then ‘one man’ emerged from his home and noticed blood on the pleasure boat parked in his backyard. He lifted the tarp and found the wounded 19-year-old college student known the world over as Suspect No. 2.

The resident who spotted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his boat in his Watertown yard called police, who tried to persuade the suspect to get out of the boat,’’ said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis…

“He was not communicative,” Davis said. Instead, he said, there was an exchange of gunfire — the final volley of one of the biggest manhunts in American history. The violent endgame unfolded just a day after the FBI released surveillance-camera images of two young men suspected of planting the pressure-cooker explosives at the marathon’s finish line, an attack that put the nation on edge for the week.

Watertown residents who had been told Friday morning to stay inside behind locked doors poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.

Celebratory bells rang from a church tower. Teenagers waved American flags.

Drivers honked. Every time an emergency vehicle went by, people cheered loudly.’’

The fundamental issue is, do we have ‘a one man’ in Nigeria? On issues such as this we all like to mind our business, we don’t want wahala o. We will say, “If you speak now or call the police you will be arrested; the police will interrogate you and sometimes detain you because you want to be the one man.’’ These are fears our people have which I very well understand. However, that is the more reason why we should not blame our President when we don’t get the same kind of moving success that the Americans achieved.

We are not on the same pedestal; we can only strive to get there. What with the infrared technology they employed. Do we have it? The answer may be no, and even if we do how functional is it? The robot that flipped the boat open, do we have it? The answer may be no? And even if we do, how many do we have and where would they be stationed?

Having occupied a position of leadership, from experience, I understand the difficulty a leader can encounter in trying to solve numerous problems. In this

T

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In defence of Nigeria this time

country, we are cynical; people will never give you a chance, they will just talk because they feel like talking. The truth is, we all will die someday whether we like it or not, the only difference is we will die at different times or maybe same time if it is so destined.

As such the earlier we begin to make meaningful impact to our society the better for us all. We live in a society where people watched four young boys gruesomely murdered and ‘no one man’ thought it wise to swiftly call the police except those related to the boys or connected to them. The role of the ‘one man’ is an objective one. In America, if you see someone who is about to perpetuate a crime you call the police immediately. That’s how the

American ‘one man’ would act, but here sentiments would come in the moment you know it may be the son of this, that, or the other brother. You rather keep quiet and would not be the one to blow the whistle.

Rather than see how we can improve on our system to make it proactive, responsive and protective we are busy blaming the President. People say things like ‘it took them i.e. America just 48 hours, but here we will be setting up committee to look into it’ ‘then they will say they are on top of it.’’ ‘On top of what?’ All this I have heard in the past in different circles. It bears reminding ourselves that for every man we see unleashing terror on our people, a woman carried him tirelessly

The YOUTHSPEAK Column which is published daily is an initiative of THE GUARDIAN, and powered by RISE NETWORKS, Nigeria’s Leading Youth Development Centre, as a substantial advocacy platform available for ALL Nigerian Youth to engage Leadership at all levels, engage Society and contribute to National Discourse on diverse issues especially those that are peculiar to Nigeria. Regarding submission of articles, we welcome writers‘ contributions by way of well crafted, analytical and thought provoking opinion pieces that are concise, topical and non-defamatory! All articles (which are not expected to be more than 2000 words) should be sent to editorial@risenetworks.org To read the online Version of this same article plus past publications and to find out more about Youth Speak, please visit www.risenetworks.org/youthspeak and join the ongoing National Conversations’’.

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Editor: MARTINS

OLOJA

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ABC (ISSN NO 0189-5125)

Thursday, June 6, 2013

In this country, we are cynical; people will never give you a chance, they will just talk because they feel like talking.

The truth is, we all will die someday whether we like it or not, the only difference is we will die at different times or maybe same time if it is so destined. As such the earlier we begin to make meaningful impact to our society the better for us all. We live in a society where people watched four young boys gruesomely murdered and ‘no one man’ thought it wise to swiftly call the police except those related to the boys or connected to them.

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in her womb not for two days but for nine months, raised him and watched him grow and in some cases, she did this alone without the support of a man for some reason. Now, the child is grown up and he believes the best thing he can do is to take the life of other people who have done him no wrong! My question is where is the woman or women who carried these people in their wombs?

Where are they? Whatever the cause maybe it is wrong to take the life of innocent people. Those behind the Madala bombing, by whatever name called, are not spirits, they were men born of women, same as the Boston bombers.

These bombers, born of women, are depriving other women the joy of the children they brought to the world. All hands must be on deck to stop the evil. It should not be the time any longer for us to mind our business because some day any of us could be victims, caught in the evil machination of bomb throwing.

The next time you hear someone criticising the President for not swiftly bringing the perpetrators of an act of terror on the citizens, ask the person ‘are you that “one man”? Have you supplied the police with information, if you have any? A 19-year-old teenager was involved in the Boston bombing. If we do not do something about all this, there will be many 19 year olds in our midst, and we may wonder what happens when the 19 year old of today is 30? One man emerged from his home and noticed blood… what have you noticed from your home? In the face of all the bombings we have been going through at home in Nigeria what did you do about it? In crisis, all America is one, always united. There no Democrats and there are no Republicans. It’s all about America and that is why they achieve result. However, is that the case here at home—with PDP, ACN, CPC? It really doesn’t matter who the President is or where he comes from.

What matters is where Nigeria stands in the League of Nations and whether or not her citizens are safe, whether equity thrives, justice, and fairness is sustained, peace reigns, hard work is rewarded. If we have a man or a woman who can take us there we have to support him or her and his team, irrespective of who they are or where they come from, provided they get into office legitimately. Without support there can be no performance.

That’s the reason President needs ministers; doctors need nurses, lawyers need paralegals, and architects need brick layers and the Police need information.

•˜Amaran, a legal practitioner, an unpublished author, lives in Port Harcourt