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TH IS WEAL TH: Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola (middle) and his deputy, Mrs Titilayo Laoye-Tomori, leading members of the executive council and others during the Monthly •HEAL HEALTH WEALTH Walk to Live for Healthy Living programme organised by the State Government at Iwo, Osun State ... at the weekend

Okonjo-Iweala’s chances get slim

50 foreigners held in anti-Boko Haram raid

S

By Nduka Chiejina, Assistant Editor

F

INANCE Minister Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s chances of getting the World Bank presidency got slim at the weekend – in the thinking of many who are familiar with the race.

But she dumped the idea of pulling out when it emerged that all odds were against her and in favour of United States candidate Dr. Jim Yong Kim.

SEE ALSO PAGES 2&3

Continued on page 4

•Mrs Okonjo-Iweala

ECURITY agents swung into action at the weekend, following Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau’s Youtube threat.

Fifty foreign nationals were arrested in Abuja.

Those arrested were mostly illegal aliens from Niger, Chad and Mali, it was gathered.

But the Nigerian Immigra-

From Yusuf Alli, Abuja

tion Service (NIS) yesterday said it was only intensifying surveillance not only in Abuja but in the 36 states.

The Nation learnt that following a tip-off, Immigration operatives stormed a quarters at about 8.15pm. They came in a Coaster bus, painted in the service colour.

The bus was escorted by a

Toyota Hillux van carrying armed men, mostly.

Most of the armed operatives were in mufti.

A source, who witnessed the surveillance, said: “Having known that it s a hideout of foreign nationals, the Immigration officers came for the combing of the area.

Continued on page 4

2015: Battle to stop me frivolous, says Jonathan President tells court he hasn’t announced plan to run

T

•Dr. Jonathan

HE President has spoken on his political future –less than two years into his four years tenure.

Dr Goodluck Jonathan’s stand is that he is entitled to another term under the 1999 Constitution because he is doing his first term of four years

From Kamarudeen Ogundele, Abuja

in office.

But, the President insists that he has not indicated or announced that he will run in 2015 as being insinuated.

Jonathan’s position is stated in a

counter-affidavit to a suit filed by a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Cyriacus Njoku, seeking to stop him from contesting the 2015 presidential election.

The suit followed a statement credited to the President that he is serving his first term in office.

According to Njoku, Jonathan cannot be a candidate in 2015 because he is running a second term in office.

Citing Section 137 (1) (b) of the Constitution, the plaintiff maintained that the President cannot swear to an oath Continued on page 4

•POLICE, CAN DOUSE TENSION RUMOUR IN OSUN STATE P7

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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NEWS

Can Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala break The Board of the World Bank is today expected to name the development bank’s president. Can Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala break America’s hold on the coveted seat?

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HE first time Ngozi OkonjoIweala ever had to convince Barack Obama of anything was back in 2005.

At the time, Obama was an ambitious young senator from Illinois with a keen interest in foreign affairs. Okonjo-Iweala was Nigeria’s blunt-speaking finance minister, traversing the globe to convince the world’s wealthiest nations that they should ease her country’s debt burden.

“Everybody was saying that this could never be done .?.?. that it would never happen,” Okonjo-Iweala recounted at an April event in Washington. “We went up to the Hill and there was a certain senator, Barack Obama” — long deadpan pause — “who was among those who were skeptical.”

Eventually, Obama — and the rest of the world — would agree with her.

Nigeria paid $12 billion up front to win a further $18 billion in debt relief, and while questions still linger about how good a deal Nigeria got, it removed a major obstacle to the country’s economic growth. She cites the episode as an example of her “persuasive powers.”

Seven years later, that young senator is president, and OkonjoIweala, now 57, is using her powers on an even more far-fetched idea. She’s making a bid to lead the World Bank, which last year loaned $57 billion to help poor countries develop. But by tradition, the presidency has always gone to the U.S. nominee, and Obama has made his pick: Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim. As the bank’s board of directors prepares to make a final decision..., it’s clear that selecting a woman from Africa would be unprecedented.

Yet Okonjo-Iweala hasn’t relented.

She insists that she is, by far, the most qualified candidate, having worked at the World Bank for decades, including a stint as its second in command. She has adoring fans — there’s a #TeamNgozi Twitter hashtag — and has garnered support from opinion leaders such as the editors of The Economist and PIMCO head Mohamed El-Erian. The New York Times editorial board, which has called for a more open selection process, urged the World Bank’s board to “take a serious look” at OkonjoIweala.

What’s perhaps most surprising about Okonjo-Iweala’s insurgent campaign, however, is that she isn’t proposing an overhaul in how the Bank does business — apart from the way in which the president is selected. One senior bank official calls her “the consummate insider.”

Unlike Kim, who has a long history of public health activism, OkonjoIweala seems more content to propose modest tweaks to the institution.

In many ways, then, the most radical thing about Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy is the fact of the candidacy itself.

Living poverty The details of Okonjo-Iweala’s biography go a long way toward explaining why she generates such enthusiasm. She was born in 1954, when Nigeria was still under British colonial control, and reportedly learned English by reading books such as “Treasure Island.”

After the British left in 1960, her life grew tumultuous. In 1967, the southeastern provinces of Nigeria,

including Okonjo-Iweala’s home Delta State, declared independence as the Republic of Biafra. A bloody, three-year civil war ensued, leaving 1 million dead. Her father, a distinguished economist, joined the Biafran army and her family subsisted through the war, she said, on one meal a day. In a 2005 interview with the Guardian, Okonjo-Iweala recounted how, when she was 15, she carried her malariastricken 3-year-old sister four miles to find a doctor.

“I know what it means to go to the stream to fetch water .?.?. what it means when people are poor and don’t have enough to eat. It’s not enough to say you know about poverty,” Okonjo-Iweala said recently, explaining why she should lead the World Bank. “You have to live it.”

When she was 18, Okonjo-Iweala moved to the United States to study economics at Harvard and MIT. She went on to join the World Bank in 1982, climbing through the ranks by shifting between jobs and across regions: as an agricultural economist focusing on Africa; country director for Mongolia, Malaysia, and Cambodia; and deputy vice president for the Middle Eastern region.

Most World Bank affiliates who have spoken out publicly on OkonjoIweala’s behalf — including 39 former staffers who wrote an open letter praising her “deep experience in international and national issues of economic management” — know her from this period. Among other things, she co-authored an influential report on how the bank should operate in fragile states that have been racked by conflict (known as “low-income states under stress”), where the bank’s government partners were either dysfunctional or nonexistent.

Economists say that Okonjo-Iweala comes at development from a fairly mainstream perspective. “Many international organisations, like the United Nations, take a very statecentric view of development,” said William Easterly, a development economist at New York University and former bank staffer. “But the World Bank tends to see a more balanced role for markets and states, and I’d associate Okonjo-Iweala with this view.”

Okonjo-Iweala’s best chance to put her views into practice outside the bank came in 2003, when Olusegun Obasanjo, then president of Nigeria, asked her to work as his finance minister. (Obasanjo had been impressed with a brief she wrote about economic reform.) At the time, Nigeria had just emerged from a three-decade military dictatorship that had racked up $35 billion in debt and transformed the country into what the anti-corruption group Transparency International deemed one of the most corrupt places on Earth. Okonjo-Iweala’s task, in addition to crafting the country’s budgetary priorities, was to clean up the wreckage.

By most accounts, she threw herself into the task, sifting through lists of civil service workers to cull phantom employees from the government payroll, firing officials, and unlinking the nation’s budget from the price of oil, Nigeria’s main

••Zoellick

•Okonjo-Iweala

export. Okonjo-Iweala could claim modest success. By the time she left Obasanjo’s administration in 2007, Nigeria was ranked 147th of 179 countries on corruption — moving ahead of Bangladesh and Togo, but still behind countries such as Russia and Yemen.

On economics, meanwhile, her record received mixed reviews.

Western economists praised her efforts to kick-start Nigeria’s private sector. Domestic critics were often less patient: Ni-ger-ian columnist Sonala Olumhense, for instance, recalls Okonjo-Iweala’s unfulfilled promise, in 2005, to create 7 million jobs. “It was the original 419,” Olumhense scoffed, referring to the code for Ni-ger-ian e-mail scams.

“The minister of finance job is one of the toughest in any country,” said Lant Pritchett, a development economist at Harvard University.

“You’re spending all day telling people no.”

For many World Bank watchers, that ability to prioritise is a key requisite to lead the organisation. “As president, you’re constantly trying to

Doctor in charge at the In a plot from The West Wing, Jim Yong Kim will take lessons from fighting HIV-Aids and TB to running the financial institution

•President Obama, Kim and Secretary of State Mrs. Hilary Clinton

I

T was Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing come to life: the White House solving a dilemma with a dramatic move, plucking out an obscure but highly qualified

candidate for a crucial post.

Or so it seemed when Barack Obama put forward Jim Yong Kim as the United States’s nominee for president of the World Bank, the

pre-eminent multilateral development agency. Kim is all but certain to be approved by the bank’s executive board on Monday.

In any other year, the choice of a

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

3

NEWS

America’s hold on the World Bank? restored the subsidies.

An inside track In many ways, Okonjo-Iweala isn’t looking to shake up the World Bank the way she tried to shake up Nigeria.

Her top priority, she has said, is “job creation” — leveraging the bank’s loans and technical expertise to help countries alleviate the sort of mass unemployment that ignited the Arab Spring.

At a recent event in Washington, she held up a notebook and said she had written down 11 things she thought needed to change at the institution. Many of them were relatively small-bore — for instance, that the World Bank needed to be quicker in offering technical assistance. She noted that, as a Nigerian official, she had to turn to the International Monetary Fund to connect the country with needed tax experts, because the World Bank was too sluggish.

Yet her critics wonder why she didn’t address many of these problems as managing director at the bank. “You had nearly four years to change all this,” said one senior bank official, who wished to stay anonymous. “What were you doing then?”

For others, Okonjo-Iweala’s familiarity with the labyrinthine bank and its 10,000 employees is a strength. Jean-Louis Sarbib, a former bank staffer who worked with Okonjo-Iweala, said that with the global economy still in a fragile state, it would be an asset to have a leader who doesn’t need to squander time getting oriented. Past World Bank presidents, such as James Wolfensohn and (famously) Paul Wolfowitz, often struggled to get much done in their first year or two while trying to learn the ropes of the place.

And, Sarbib pointed out, OkonjoIweala has a relationship with the board of directors, an important asset

•Kim divvy up scarce funds and focus on the world’s most pressing needs,” Easterly said. “You’re fundamentally making decisions that are guided by economics.”

Such decisions can often be wrenching. In 2006, Okonjo-Iweala was moved to a different post by Obasanjo, then left a year later to serve as managing director of the

World Bank. But Nigeria’s next president, Goodluck Jonathan, asked her back in 2011 to resume her old Finance Ministry job. She arrived as Nigeria was preparing to repeal its fuel subsidies — a decision she supported — and bore the brunt of the anger from the Occupy Nigeria protests that followed. In the end, the government backed down and partly

given that the board has frequently clashed with past presidents. She also has a working relationship with Christine Lagarde, the president of the IMF, from their days negotiating Nigeria’s debt deal. (Lagarde was France’s finance minister at the time.)

The key question, then, is whether that competence and familiarity is more important than changing the World Bank’s direction. At the moment, many people both inside and outside the organization agree that it needs to shift focus. The bank’s long-standing focus on development in the world’s least-developed countries is becoming increasingly outmoded now that nearly two-thirds of the world’s poorest reside in middle-income countries such as China and India.

“We spent a decade on human development, on gender, health, education, and now we have all these middle-income countries that also need modern infrastructure to advance their economies and continue to move up,” said Paul Cadario, a longtime World Bank staffer. “Do we have the credibility on that? And what are we going to do to engage on safety nets, on impediments to doing business, on making these countries less vulnerable to financial shocks, too?”

Part of the logic of Kim’s candidacy is that he is an outsider, a pioneer of a new model of public health who helped push the World Health Organisation in a new direction. But he’s also, in that respect, a bit of an unknown — Easterly, for one, worries that Kim could be a “Sarah Palin figure,” out of his depth at the bank.

Okonjo-Iweala, by contrast, is the safer bet, but also less likely to drastically reorient the institution.

When asked recently, for instance, if she would pay more attention to climate change and rethink the bank’s

controversial support for building coal-fired power plants, she gave a judicious answer: “I think the World Bank should be helping (countries) to find affordable alternatives,” she said. “But where this is not possible, then using the best technology possible to try and use this coal.”

In any case, Okonjo-Iweala’s views on where to take the bank may be moot. When its board of executive directors makes its pick next week (today), Kim is very likely to be its selection. After all, Washington has gotten its way on this matter for 60 years. The board’s voting powers are allocated according to financial support from wealthy donor nations, and Japan and European countries appear ready to side with the United States.

Which means that the real radicalism of Okonjo-Iweala’s candidacy may be less about what she wants for the bank and more the fact that, for the first time, she has made it possible to envision a non-American leading the institution. Along with former Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, Okonjo-Iweala has helped create the bank’s firstever competitive race for the presidency.

That’s no small matter in a world where China and India are wielding significant economic clout and demanding reform of international financial institutions. Okonjo-Iweala has warned that those rising powers could lose interest in these longstanding institutions if they don’t have a chance to be represented.

“You know, the bank has been around 60 years,” Okonjo-Iweala has said, speaking of the process by which the president is chosen. “That’s quite a bit of inertia. So you hav e to have the courage to say, look, certain things that we’ve always done this way, they have to go.”

World Bank will have to revive the patient 52-year-old doctor who established innovative programmes to fight HIV-Aids and tuberculosis would have been applauded as progressive — especially as the bank’s previous 11 presidents have all been white men.

The difference is that this year, for the first time, the US nominee is being challenged by a strong candidate from the developing world, Nigeria’s finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

The prospect of backing OkonjoIweala – a talented economist who rose to become a World Bank managing director – must have tantalised the White House. But political considerations force Obama to nominate a US citizen.

Luckily, Kim also has a backstory that makes him stand out.

Kim was born in Seoul in 1959, in a South Korea ravaged by war.

Like many others, Kim’s family suffered greatly. His father fled from the north at the age of 17 and never saw his family again. Kim’s mother was forced to march 200 miles to escape the advancing North Korean army, and lost her own mother.

“My family’s experience has given me an unshakable optimism about what can happen to the poorest people. You can start from humble beginnings and horrible conflicts and go on to lead a life of dignity,” Kim has said.

‘

To his critics, Kim’s CV in academia and the non-profit sector fails to compensate for his lack of experience of finance and economics, given the World Bank’s vital role as a financial institution. But Kim’s biggest task will be reinvigorating an organisation that has spent the past decade in the doldrums, through lacklustre leadership and a diminished role When Kim was five, his family emigrated to the US and settled in Iowa, where his father, Nhak Hee, taught dentistry. His mother, Oaksook, received a scholarship to study philosophy.

Kim thrived in the midwest, where he was quarterback on his school’s American football team and became interested in politics.

At the age of 12, Kim was campaigning in support of George McGovern, the anti-Vietnam war underdog who won the Democratic nomination to run for president in 1972.

McGovern was demolished by

‘

Richard Nixon but Kim says he loved his brush with politics, and it left him wanting to go further. His father had other ideas, as Kim recounted in a 2006 interview.

“I remember the first time I came back from college at Brown University, we were driving in the car and my father, just making conversation, said: ‘What do you think you want to study?’ And I said, you know, I think I want to study philosophy – my mother was a philosopher.

“So he pulled the car over and said: ‘When you finish your medical residency you can do anything you

want.’ I think all immigrant families understand this to an extent, that your parents want you to do something safe – to have a skill that no one can take away from you.”

Harvard offered a joint degree in medicine and anthropology, allowing him to satisfy both aims, although he later admitted: “For me, going to medical school was not the one thing in the world I wanted to do.”

Kim wrote his PhD thesis on South Korea’s economic development. In a recent article in the Financial Times, Kim said: “I have seen how integration with the global economy can transform a poor country into one of the most dynamic and prosperous economies in the world.”

But the difficulties of healthcare in the developing world were what first concerned him. At medical school he became friends with another student, Paul Farmer, and in 1987 they and others launched Partners in Health, a charity that fought tuberculosis, first in Haiti and later in other hard-to-reach places such as Siberian prisons.

That experience led to his appointment to the World Health Organisation, where he became director of the HIV-Aids department.

Kim’s time at the WHO included his championing of an initiative that could be a template for his tenure at the World Bank: the “3 by 5” programme, aiming to bring treatment for HIV-Aids to three

million people in the developing world by 2005.

It was criticised as overambitious but Kim piloted the programme deftly enough to bring it to fruition. Although the programme missed its 2005 deadline, the task was completed by 2007 and remains a highlight in the global struggle against HIVAids.

A return to Harvard followed, until in 2009 Dartmouth College named Kim as its president, making him the first AsianAmerican to head an Ivy League university.

Kim’s brief time at Dartmouth gives few pointers to how he will perform at the World Bank, although his administration has been criticised for failing to solve a long-running problem with student fraternity “hazing” or bullying.

To his critics, Kim’s CV in academia and the non-profit sector fails to compensate for his lack of experience of finance and economics, given the World Bank’s vital role as a financial institution.

But Kim’s biggest task will be reinvigorating an organisation that has spent the past decade in the doldrums, through lacklustre leadership and a diminished role.

Few can doubt Kim’s commitment to social justice. As he once told an interviewer: “I feel like almost every day I’m doing political social justice work. That’s what I do every day with my life.”

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS

•From right, President Goodluck Jonathan, his wife, Patience, his mother, Madam Eunice, Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson, his wife, Martha, during the service at the St. Stephens Anglican Church in Otuoke ... yesterday.

•Group Managing Director United Bank for Africa (UBA), Mr Phillips Oduoza and top management staff with some of the bank’s Most Valuable Performers (MVP) during the recognition ceremony to appreciate the top performers ... at the weekend.

Boko Haram: 50 foreigners held Continued from page 1

“Gunshots fired into the air sent everyone scampering to safety, including children, nursing mothers and expectant women.

“The gunshots also threw commercial motorcyclists operating in the area into confusion.

“After a 45-minute operation, the Immigration Service succeeded in arresting a busload of foreign nationals illegally in transit. They were no fewer than 50.”

Responding to a question, the source said: “They worked on the suspicion that some Chadians, Nigerien, Malian Tuaregs have made Galadinmawa their first port of call in Abuja.

“I think the recent intelligence report, which linked some foreign nationals with Boko Haram informed the raid.

“Confused residents also believed that the raid may not be unconnected with the manhunt for Boko Haram members in the FCT. “Even before the raid, most residents of Galadinmawa have not been comfortable with the huge presence of foreign nationals in the area.

Immigration Service spokesman Joachim Olumba, said: “I don’t have any information about that yet. What I can tell you is that our operatives are intensifying surveillance in all the states.

“We are intensifying surveillance because of the security situation in the country.

These are not the best of times for us as a nation, but we are determined to ensure that peace and security return to the country.

“This surveillance is not only in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), it is being carried out in the 36 states.”

It could not be immediately ascertained what has become of those arrested.

An Immigration Service source said: “Normally, when Illegal aliens are arrested, they will undergo security screening before being deported.”

Security around hotels, churches and other strategic areas remained fight in Abuja yesterday.

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent, who went round the city, observed that policemen, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps and FRSC officers were in strategic locations to ensure peace.

At Sheraton and Transcorp Hilton hotels, it was observed that some military men were deployed to complement the internal security arrangements of the hotel managements.

At Holy Trinity Catholic

Church, THISDAY Dome, St Mathew Anglican Church in the Maitama axis, road blocks were mounted and vehicular movement restricted to secure the areas.

At the dome, one of the policemen, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the idea was to ensure effective monitoring of movement of vehicles.

“As you can see, our major focus is to make sure that those who come here to worship go home safely. We are blocking the road just for safety.

“You can see that people pack their vehicles outside; if we don’t block this road, there will be serious traffic here.’’

At Holy Trinity Catholic Church, Maitama, FRSC man Mr Jonah John told NAN that the focus was more on free movement of people at the end of the service.

After a 45minute operation, the Immigration Service succeeded in arresting a busload of foreign nationals illegally in transit.

They were no fewer than 50 “What we are doing is part of the security work, but we focus more on ensuring that no accident occurs here.

“You can see that nobody parks inside the church compound; everybody is encouraged to park outside.’’

Security was also strengthened at the Assemblies of God Church in Garki 2 as well as Dunamis Church, Mountain of Fire and Living Faith Church, all in Area 1, Abuja.

Okonjo-Iweala’s chances get slim Continued from page 1

The third candidate, former Columbian Finance Minister Jose Antonio Ochampo, withdrew last week to back Dr Okonjo-Iweala.

The Nigerian coordinating Minister of the Economy has been adjudged the best suited for the position but international politics is in favour of the American.

Dr Okonjo-Iweala will remain in Abuja to monitor the decision of the World Bank board on the appointment of its president. The announcement is expected today.

While the Board is meeting to announce its decision, Dr Okonjo-Iweala will be in Abuja delivering a breakdown of Budget 2012 signed by the President last Friday.

The US intensified efforts to get its candidate Kim the job by “putting friendly pressure on independent countries, Continued from page 8

2015: Battle to stop me frivolous, Jonathan tells court Continued from page 1

of office thrice.

Joined in the suit are the President (first respondent), the PDP (second respondent) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the third respondent.

In the 15-paragraph counter affidavit deposed to

by Osahon Okeaya-Inneh, a lawyer in the law firm of Mr Ade Okeaya-Inneh (SAN), President Jonathan described the suit as frivolous and vexatious, adding that it failed to disclose a reasonable cause of action.

The deponent said: “The 1st defendant is currently doing his first term of four years in office as the president of Nigeria as provided by the 1999 Constitution as amended.

“The 1st defendant’s status and position are formidably backed by the 1999 Constitution.

“The constitution of Nigeria only makes provisions for a president to contest for not more than two terms of four years each.

“The Constitution recognises Executive President’s tenure of office to be four years.

“I was informed by Dr Reuben Abati (the presidential spokesman) on the April 4, 2012 at about 5.30 pm in his office and I verily believe that

‘The 1st defendant has not indicated or announced anywhere, whether in words or in writing, that he will contest for the presidential elections to be conducted in 2015’.

“The late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua contested and won the presidential elections conducted in 2007 for a one term of four years.

He was the president from May 29, 2007, until sometime in May 2010 when he passed on. ‘Yar’Adua’s four years was to end in 2011.”

Jonathan averred that on May 6, 2010, he was sworn in as the president after the demise of the late President Yar’Adua, thereby completing Yara’Adua’s 12 months of the four years tenure.

He insisted that this is the first time he is coming to power as the president through a conducted election wherein he was voted as the presidential candidate of his party, PDP. Besides, the President stated that the plaintiff did not attach copies of his recent tax clearance certificate from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and his PDP membership card as proof of who he claims to be.

Consequently, he asked the court to discountenance the suit as it was, in his view, meant to make the court labour in futility because the

suit is purely an academic exercise.

Njoku, through his counsel, Mr. Osuagwu Ugochukwu, raised two questions for determination by the court.

These are: •Whether Section 135(2) of the Constitution which specifies a period of four years in office for the President is only available or applicable to a person elected on the basis of an actual election or includes one in which a person assumes the position of President by operation of law as in the case of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan; and ‘Whether Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution, which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections applies to the 1st defendant who first took an Oath of Office as substantive President on May 6, 2010 and took a second Oath of Office as president on May 29, last year’.

Justice Mudashiru Onyangi has fixed Wednesday to hear Jonathan’s application for an extension of time within which his lawyer can file his memorandum of appearance and counter affidavit to the plaintiff’s suit dated March 20.

Njoku went to court to stop Jonathan from contesting in the January 2011 PDP presidential primaries, asking the party to respect its zoning principle.

He said the declaration of Jonathan (third defendant) to contest the presidency on the PDP platform was contrary to Article 7.2(c) of the Party’s Constitution (as amended).

But the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Lawan Gummi, dismissed the suit.

On March 20 at an Abuja High Court Njoku filed a suit over the actual status of which term the President is serving in office.

The suit followed a declaration by the President that he is serving his first term.

The applicant claimed in the suit that Jonathan is running a second term in office and cannot be a candidate in 2015.

He also said the President cannot swear to an Oath of Office thrice in the light of Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution.

Those joined in the matter are the President (1st Respondent), the Peoples Democratic Party (2nd Respondent), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the 3rd Respondent.

The applicant through his counsel, Mr. Osuagwu Ugochukwu, raised two questions for determination by the court.

These are: •Whether Section 135(2) of the Constitution which specifies a period of four years in office for the President is only available or applicable to a person elected on the basis

of an actual election or includes one in which a person assumes the position of President by operation of law as in the case of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan •Whether Section 137(1) (b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections applies to the 1st Defendant who first took an Oath of Office as substantive President on May 6, 2010 and took a second Oath of Office as President on May 29, 2011.

The applicant is seeking the five reliefs as follows: •A declaration that the tenure of office as President by Dr. Jonathan (i.e 1st Defendant) began on May 6, 2010 when his first term began and his two terms shall end on May 29, 2015 after taking his second Oath of Office on May 29, 2011.

•A declaration that by virtue of Section 136 (1) (b) of the Constitution, no person (including the 1st Defendant) shall take the Oath of Allegiance and the Oath of Office prescribed to in the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution more than twice.

•An order of injunction restraining the 1st Defendant from further contesting or attempting to vie for the Office of the President of the Federal Republic if Nigeria after May 29, 2015 when his tenure shall

by the Nigerian Constitution afforested ends •An order of injunction restraining the 2nd Defendant from further sponsoring or attempting to sponsor the 1st Defendant as candidate for election to the office of the President in the 2015 Presidential Election after the expiration of his two terms on May 29, 2015.

•An order directing the 3rd Defendant from accepting the name of the 1st Defendant where sponsored by his party again to run for the Office of the President in the 2015 Presidential Election to be supervised and conducted by the 3rd Defendant (INEC).

Njoku also in August 2010 attempted to stop the PDP from allowing Dr. Jonathan to participate in the PDP presidential primaries of January 2011.

Njoku, from Zuba Ward in Gwagwalada Area Council in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with PDP registration number 1622735 urged the court to ask the PDP to respect its principle on zoning in line with Article 7.2(c) of the party’s constitution.

He said the declaration of Jonathan (3rd Defendant) to contest the presidency under the PDP was contrary to Article7.2(c) of the PDP 2009 Constitution (as amended).

But the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Lawan Gummi, dismissed the zoning suit.

ADVERT HOTLINES: 01-280668, 08070591302, 08052592524 NEWSROOM: LAGOS – 01-8962807, ABUJA – 07028105302 COMPLAINTS: 01-8930678

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS

Ekweremadu seeks decentralisation of police EPUTY Senate President Ike Ekweremadu has called for the immediate decentralisation of the Nigeria Police in line with the federal system of government in the country.

Ekweremadu also urged Nigerians to spare a thought on a possible return to regionalism where the six geopolitical zones would become the federating units especially with demand for creation of new states rising to 46 and still counting.

Ekweremadu spoke at the Sixth Annual Oputa Lecture at the Osgoode Hall Law School , York University in Toronto , Canada .

A statement by his Special Adviser, (Media), Uche Anichukwu, said Ekweremadu spoke on the topic, “Nigerian Federalism: A Case for Review.”

Ekweremadu was quoted to have said that “prevalent global trend in crime-fighting and the realities of security challenges in Nigeria make the decentralisation of policing pertinent as it makes it easier to track and burst crimes, gives the police the advantage of knowing the environment- geographically, culturally, socially, politically, and even economically.”

He said the unhealthy and unviable state of the component states of the federation had made it imperative for the country to take a second look at the continual proliferation of states and the dispersal of resources.

Ekweremadu commended states that are streamlining their

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Falana faults Okonjo-Iweala on economy

By Adebisi Onanuga

•Urges return to regionalism ‘All constitutional provisions that tend to or are liable to manipulations to aggravate the nation’s fault lines must be revisited, while we need to replace State of Origin (indigene) in Section 147 with State of Residence’ From Onyedi Ojiabor, Assistant Editor and Sanni Onogu, Abuja

development policies and agenda as well as aggregate their resources and areas of comparative advantages to develop their regions.

He said: “A return to the regions in the long term seems a major plausible thing to do if we are to nurse any hopes of reversing the dwindling fortunes of our federalism by engendering viability and self-reliance of the component units, massive development, healthy competition, reduce cost of governance and enthrone acceptable level of equity.”

The Deputy Senate President identified the period between 1954 and January 1966 as the

golden era of Nigerian federalism, saying that the socio-economic prosperity recorded in the First Republic were possible because the Regions were neither subservient to nor dependent on the centre.

He said: “The brand of fiscal federalism in place today looks every inch that of master and servant relationship and therefore killing industry, initiative, and creativity, while promoting indolence, bad governance, and rentierism.”

He said the resurgence of debate on Nigeria ’s fiscal federalism underlines the fact that the nation needed to “move away from the current military-imposed ‘feeding bottle’ federalism to enthrone one predicated on self-reliance, hard work, enterprise, resourcefulness, and ingenuity to catalyse development” He faulted the power sharing formula. He added that between the Independence Constitution and the 1999 Constitution, 16 out of the 28 items on the Concurrent List, which translates to about 57 per cent, had been lost to the Exclusive List.

He listed such powers to include: the power of the original regions to control resources within their territories, have diplomatic representations in London, appoint judges without reference to a central body (the National Judicial Council), own constitutions and coat of arms,

•CONDOLENCE TIME Governor Peter Obi (middle) and Minister of Justice Bello Adoke during a condolence visit on Saturday to the Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Dikko Abubakar (right), who lost his mother recently

•Ekweremadu and right of the local governments to have their own police forces.

He said: “One major step, therefore to returning Nigeria ’s federalism on a strong and prosperous footing is to reengineer politically viable federating units by devolving more powers to the States.”

Ekweremadu observed that irrespective of how much constitutional reform the nation carried out, little progress would be made unless Nigerians rise quickly enough to build structures for the proper management of the nation’s diversities and to secure the optimal right to settlement, establishment, and happiness for all citizens in every part.

He said: “All constitutional provisions that tend to or are liable to manipulations to aggravate the nation’s fault lines must be revisited, while we need to replace State of Origin (indigene) in Section 147 with State of Residence .”

LAGOS lawyer and human rights activist Mr. Femi Falana has said the country is not broke.

The lawyer, in a statement issued in Lagos yesterday, faulted the position of Minister for Finance, Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, that Nigeria is going broke.

Falana’s statement, entitled “ Nigeria is not broke but mismanaged”, reads: “While not holding brief for the Governors’ Forum which has challenged the legal validity of the Sovereign Wealth Act at the Supreme Court, it is germane to point out that the economy did not perform better when the Olusegun Obasanjo Administration illegally operated and maintained an Excess Crude Oil Account.

“Incidentally, the current Minister of Finance was in charge of the economy at the material time.

“So at the end of every month what is shared in the meeting of FAAC is the crumb from the Master’s table. To compound the fraud, the revenue earned in dollars from the sale of crude is illegally withdrawn from the Federation Account and substituted with naira funds.

“Thus the three tiers of government are then paid with Naira warrants instead of dollar certificates with dire consequences for the value of the Naira and inflation caused by artificial excess liquidity in the market.

“For reasons best known to the federal government, the grand fraud identified by KPMG in the running of the affairs of the corporation has not stopped.”

•Akwa Ibom State Governor Godswill Akpabio (middle) and former Petroleum Minister Don Etiebet (right) during a condolence visit to the Acting IG

Youths back Boroffice for governorship race

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CORES of Akoko youths at the weekend converged on Oka-Akoko, the headquarters of Akoko Southwest Local Government Area of Ondo State, to support the governorship aspiration of Senator Ajayi Boroffice.

They jointly supported the Asiwaju of Akokoland’s candidature on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the forthcoming October 20 poll.

The youths gathered at the premises of Benjamin Franklin Adefarati Memorial Hall of the St. John’s Church in Oka-Akoko, the senator’s home town.

The ACN leader in the area, Ope Omoriwo said the youths supported Boroffice to become the next

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

governor.

He said they chose Oka-Akoko as the first place for the event because of the saying that charity begins from home.

According to him, in the next few weeks, other towns in the local government and Ondo State will host a similar gathering.

Omoriwo said the event was kick-starting the youths’ One Million Ondo State Youths for Senator Boroffice, which hitherto limited such activities to social networks.

He described the state as one of the most blessed in the federation and in the Southwest in term of human and natural resources, but

still lacking behind among the progressive States in many areas.

He said: “ACN has come to liberate the people of the state from the shackles of the present government that has refused to create employment for the teeming youths in the state.

“We have a fountain put in place at Alagbaka with huge amount of money running into hundreds of millions of naira but there’s no water to drink for people of Akure and its environs.”

The politician recalled a popular campaign slogan, which the Olusegun Mimiko government used to secure electoral victory from the Ondo State people: the room is enough for all.

According to him, it is unfortunate that after three years of the LP administration, there is no more room in the state for anyone else.

He said the youths are thirsting for a leader who could make things happen, a leader who will revives the moribund industries and even move forward to establish more.

He said: “All these are possible by supporting a person who has international exposure and foresight, Senator Ajayi Boroffice will offers us these and I’m very confident that he will never let us down’’.

Also addressing the youths at the event, Mr Ayelanbola Austin, said

the essence of the youth meeting is to sensitize them, and to let them see reasons why they need to support a leader whom they believe has the vision and capability to govern the State.

“The mission is to start door to door campaign for the effective mobilization of youths in the State to support the Senator”.

He said, the time has come for the youths to fight against deceit from the present government that has refused to empower the youth in the State after three years of its inception, He also urged the youths to come out en-mass to support the candidature of Senator Boroffice to fly the ACN flag in the coming governorship election.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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CITYBEATS Akiolu harps on S good governance

By Emmanuel Oladesu

Oba Riliwan Akiolu of Lagos has urged politicians to provide good governance, stressing that the dividends of democracy should not be scarce after 13 years of civil rule.

He spoke in his palace on the importance of the grassroots and the contributions of the former Lagos State Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, Prince Rotimi Agunsoye, who is celebrating his 50th birthday this week, to their growth.

The monarch described Agunsoye as a honest young man worthy of respect, stressing that he maintained a cordial relationship with Lagos State Council of Traditional Rulers during his tenure.

Oba Akiolu said when good governance is felt at the grassroots, democracy is at work, hailing Agunsoye for fostering local government development under the Fashola administration.

He said although he felt sad that Agunsoye was not reappointed as commissioner, he took solace in the fact that, when he was there, he was a responsible and progressive administrator.

Akiolu added: “We need credible men and women who can bring good governance to the grassroots.

“Agunsoye was exemplary. He was honest and frank. He is a good listener and he can only be convinced by superior argument. His tenure was commendable.”

08033054340, 08034699757 E-mail:- ynotcitybeats@gmail.com

YMPATHISERS yesterday visited the Lagos corporate office of Vintage Press Ltd (VPL), publishers of The Nation, to commiserate with the staff on the fire which gutted its photo section on Saturday night.

Among the early callers were leaders of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).

The NUJ delegation comprised the National President, Mohammed Garba, Vice President, Zone E, Muktar Gidado, Chairperson, National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Mrs Asabe Baba-Nahaya, Lagos Chairman Deji Elumoye, Secretary Sylva Okereke, former Secretary Adolphus Okoronkwo, Kogi Chairman Ali Atabor, his Kano, Kaduna and Taraba States counterparts, Haruna Abduljalad, Yusuf Ali and Abdullahi Gambo.

Inspecting the razed photo section, the visitors expressed dismay over the destruction.

The fire, which started after 8 pm, lasted for an hour.

The delegation was received by the company’s Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief, Mr Victor Ifijeh, Executive Director, Finance and Administration, Mr Ade Odunewu, The Nation Chapel Chairman Jude Isiguzo and Secretary Eric Ikhilae, among others.

Elumoye said the delegation came to commiserate with the management and staff over the incident. He prayed against a recurrence.

The delegation, he said, was in Lagos for a different purpose, but decided to visit the company on hearing of the incident.

Garba urged the organisation to ensure that measures are taken to prevent a recurrence.

“We are glad that strategic sections of the organisation, including the press, the warehouse and store were not affected. Accept our sympathy. We pray we do not record such unfortunate in-

•The Photo Editor, Mr John Ebhota, rummaging through the burnt documents...yesterday

NUJ President, others sympathise with The Nation over fire

By Jude Isiguzo and Eric Ikhilae

cident again,” he said.

Ifijeh praised the delegation for the visit. He also thanked the company’s workers for their efforts in containing the fire.

“We are grateful to the staff for their dedication. But for their efforts, the damage would have been more than this. They were able to effectively contain

the fire before the fire fighters came,” he said.

Ifijeh said stiffer measures would be taken to improve on the existing safety measures.

The effect of the fire dawned on some affected staff yesterday as the Photo Editor, Mr John Ebhota, shed tears on sighting the charred remains of his desk, documents and photographs.

He said he was disturbed most

Soldier brutalises nursing mother

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N full public glare, a soldier brutalised a nursing mother in Lagos and tried to push her down from the Obalende Bridge.

Motorists and passersby however swooped on the soldier, who was in uniform as he continued to beat the woman and threatened to deal with anyone who intervened.

The incident occurred around 3:30pm on Obalende Bridge, Lagos Island last week.

Passengers who alighted from commercial buses because of the heavy traffic saved the woman.

Our reporter watched as the soldier dealt the woman blows.

He ignored pleads by some passersby to leave her, vowing to kill her for daring him.

Angry bystanders later waded in and prevailed on the soldier to leave the woman.

The soldier was whisked away by his colleagues who drove a green Toyota Hiace military vehicle with number plate ARMY

•SHAME: The soldier in a brawl with sympathisers in public

By Tajudeen Adebanjo

NA 057 B03.

Narrating her ordeal, the vic-

tim, Mrs. Bolanle Braimoh, said: “We entered a commercial Obalende-bound bus from Oshodi. A

PHOTO: JOSEPH TIMOTHY

co-passenger, Joseph Timothy, a Part II Business Administration student of Olabisi Onabanjo Uni-

LAGOS EMERGENCY LINES STATE AGENCIES 4. KAI Brigade Phone Nos: 080-23036632; 0805-5284914 Head office Phone Nos: 3. LASTMA Emergency Numbers: 01-4703325; 01-7743026 080-75005411; 080-60152462 5. Rapid Response Squad (RRS) 080-23111742; 080-29728371 Phone Nos: 070-55350249; 080-23909364; 080-77551000 070-35068242 01-7904983 080-79279349; 080-63299264

1. Fire and Safety Services Control Room Phone Nos: 01-7944929; 080-33235892; 080-33235890; 080-23321770; 080-56374036.

2. Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Lagos Zonal Command Phone No:080-33706639; 01-7742771 Sector Commander Phone No: 080-34346168; 01-2881304

PHOTO: RAHMAN SANUSI

070-55462708; 080-65154338 767 or email: rapidresponsesquad@yahoo.com 6. Health Services – LASAMBUS Ambulance Services Phone Nos: 01-4979844; 01-4979866; 01-4979899; 01-4979888; 01-2637853-4; 080-33057916; 080-33051918-9; 080-29000003-5.

by the destruction of documents relating to the treatment of his amputated arm. He was scheduled to travel to Germany for the next phase of his treatment.

Other items lost include cameras, compact disc archives, travel documents, drawing materials and equipment, artworks, television sets, mobile telephones, money and car particulars. versity (OOU), and I, sat beside the driver in the front. The soldier then came and ordered us to relocate to one of the seats at the back of the vehicle. Joseph was not happy, but I prevailed on him. We alighted and went to the back seat. Joseph then began to grumble that what the soldier did to us was unfair because we had boarded the bus before the soldier.

“On hearing that, the soldier started shouting and threatening to deal with him when we alight at Obalende. Then I pleaded with the soldier to leave him. On getting to the bridge near Obalende, the driver urged the passengers to alight because of the traffic. We and some other passengers alighted and started trekking. The next I saw was the soldier coming behind us. As I turned to inquire what he wanted; he gave me a slap and started beating me.”

Mrs Braimoh described the incident as “barbaric and cruel.”

“Is this how people abuse power just because he is a military man? He had been threatening us in the bus even while the driver and other passengers told him it’s enough,” she said.

Mrs Braimoh traced the soldier to the Ikoyi barracks where officers she met told her he is not from there.

An officer, A. Adamu, who took Mrs Braimoh’s statement on the order of his boss, promised to fish out the soldier.

Timothy expressed sadness over the incident.

“It’s really a lawless situation.

He met us in the commercial bus, ordering us to go to the back seat.

A bus that is not yours, you can imagine,” he said.

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS

Aregbesola: I won’t be distracted by rumour mongers

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SUN State Governor Rauf Aregbesola yesterday blamed the opposition for fuelling religious sentiments to score a political point.

He said his administration would not be distracted by the antics of those he described as agents of doom and that their plan to destabilise the state would fail.

The governor spoke on the purported security report about the situation in his state and plans by opposition figures to create chaos in their desperation for power. He said he had, last year, written President Goodluck Jonathan on the activities of the mischief makers peddling falsehood about the rebranding of the state.

Aregbesola noted that years of political and administrative tutelage under his leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, four years of liberation struggle in the state and almost two years of direct governance have fortified him and prepared his mind for virulent attacks by those legally deposed from power by the people.

The governor took exception to the propaganda by the Southwest chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leader, Mr. Segun Oni; the National Secretary, BrigGen. Olagunsoye Oyinlola (rtd) and Senator Iyiola Omisoye. He said the PDP leadership has demonstrated lack of tact and seriousness.

According to him, when the PDP attempted to distract the former Bola Tinubu administration in Lagos State, the government triumphed over their antics.

He said the wisdom that permitted his former boss to rise above the occasion is not lacking in him and members of his team.

Aregbesola doubted if the rumour peddlers were conscious of the security implications of their actions.

He described the plan to fuel religious sentiments as condemnable.

He said: “In Yorubaland, we are known for religious tolerance. Our cosmopolitan outlook does not accept any bickering on religion.

People forget that there are over 400 gods in Yorubaland. In the same house, the husband could worship Obatala and his wives could be Oya, Osun, Ogun and Sango worshippers.

Obatala worshipper wears white; Sango worshipper wears red. Yet, they co-habit. That is the basis of

•‘PDP leaders want to destabilise Osun’ Akeredolu condemns secession allegation against governor

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ORMER Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President Oluwarotimi Akeredolu (SAN) yesterday condemned the allegation of a secession plot against Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

He described the allegation as satanic, noting that the governor is more intelligent and principled than his enemies might admit.

In a statement, the eminent lawyer said it was not surprising that Aregbesola’s adversaries were on a mission to malign him because he has, since assuming office, given the people “honest, dedicated and focused leadership”.

The statement reads: “Some journalists have called to have my comments on the satanic report of alleged secession plot by Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, the governor of Osun State. Let me hasten to condemn this unfounded allegation in the strongest terms possible. The Aregbesola I have had the opportunity of interacting with at close quarters is far more intelligent and principled than what his adversaries are willing to concede to him.

“This allegation should not surprise any keen observer of events as they relate to the politics of the state since the successful ouster of the decadent cabal.

“Since the assumption of office of this austere and highly tolerant and pragmatic political leader, the good people of Osun State have continued to heave a sigh of relief. He has been able to show that what it takes for the people to feel the impact of governance is honest, dedicated and focused leadership. The locusts, with their destructive propensities, will, no doubt, devise other means of distraction. What these characters must not fail to recognise is the fact that each time they go to town with funny tales, such as this ludicrous one, they offer the people reasons to be alert, having been subjected to acts of brigandage, actively encouraged and promoted by the top hierarchy of the ruling party.

“The suggestion that the governor of a state in a federation cannot take decisions through the House of Assembly on matters such as state flag, anthem, coat of arms, for the state within a federation and other ancillary matters must be deprecated by all those who sincerely believe in the continued existence of the polity known as Nigeria. Lagos State had adopted its own unique emblem far back. Some states have their own

By Emmanuel Oladesu, Deputy Political Editor

our free association, even in modern times.

“I am a serious Muslim. My immediate sister, by the same father and mother, is a Christian. There is no Yoruba home where you don’t have adherents of all faiths - from the denominations of Christianity, to denominations of Islam and traditional religion. Some people are even without faith. Religion is a personal affair.

THE acting Chairman of Ondo State Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Chief Noah Adesoji, at the weekend urged the electorate, who are above 18 years but have no voters’ cards, to register at their local governments.

Adesoji took over the leadership of ACN in Ondo State following the resignation of former chairman, Mrs. Jumoke Anifowose, who has joined the governorship race.

He addressed a youths’ rally, organised by Ile-Oluji/Oke Igbo Local Governments’ ACN youths.

Adesoji said the ACN is for the youths, adding: “We need your support to unseat the present ruling government because the youths have been put in darkness since this government took over power three years ago. I am promising you that if you support us, we will not turn our back against you.”

The youth leader, Anas Mohammed said ACN was training the youths to sustain the Awolowo legacy.

He noted that there was high rate of unemployment in the state, saying an ACN government would revive the moribund industries for the benefit of the youths.

“However, nothing is taken for granted. Every right-thinking person must have regard for religion because of its emotional nature. That is what is worrisome to me. I will want to plead with all concerned to be careful because it is reckless, if you don’t handle it with caution.”

Aregbesola noted that efforts to build new classrooms have been wrongly interpreted, saying his administration inherited the poor

school environment.

The governor said the only option was to demolish the schools and build new ones to provide a conducive atmosphere for learning.

He said: “We intend to create a new age, technological-based schools.

One is, therefore, worried that in our determined effort to put in place infrastructure that will guarantee development, progress and future for our children, some people are attempting to use religious sentiment

•Aregbesola

to set us back.

“The process was not surreptitious. It was open. We advertised for the best designers to submit proposals to have local content to boost the local economy. On uniform, we found out that the local adire fabric, if incorporated into the uniform of students, would give them some distinction and boost the economy.

Proposals came in torrents. Ministry officials reviewed the proposals, did the shortlising and brought them to the Exco.

“Majority of the Exco members are Christians. That Exco met on April 4 to select the colours and designs. One was, therefore, shocked to read in the papers about the false allegations that religion was the basis for doing this.”

Aregbesola noted that following his letter to Dr Jonathan on the evil machinations of his adversaries, the President would do the right thing.

The governor highlighted the activities his administration has started to promote religious harmony in the state.

These, he said, include sponsoring people on holy pilgrimage, provision of free train ride during Easter and participation in all religious activities in the state.

He said plans were underway by his administration to build a 2,000 convention ground in Ilesa as part of activities to foster harmonious relationship among all faith.

Police, CAN deny tension rumour in Osun

Electorate urged to get voters’ cards From Leke Akeredolu, Akure

By Olamilekan Andu

emblems and other states must be allowed to follow suit. There are no treasonable acts inherent in the bid of federating states to create their own identities within a federal system.

“The nebulous report, which alleges that Ogbeni Aregbesola is a major promoter of an Islamic sect, is not only ludicrous but satanic. I can claim to know the governor and at no time has this disciplined and highly religious man ever exhibited attitudes which suggest intolerance and undisguised predilection for anarchy.

“Osun State, apart from being the source of most of the people of the Southwest, is also the state of origin of most of the famous Christian clerics in the country. Anyone who wishes to “Islamise” the state will have to coerce Pastor E.A. Adeboye, Pastor W.F. Kumuyi, and a host of others, numerous to mention, to either flee or become Muslims. Such is the warped logic bandied as security report, if the accounts in the Sun on Saturday are correct.

“This caveat becomes necessary since no official statement was credited to any state security agent.

One would have also chosen to ignore this latest irritant but for the consistent attacks on the man generally seen as unyielding in his belief in true federalism.

“Let all those behind these puerile allegations be ready to face the rest of the region should they attempt to disturb the peace in Osun State. It is insulting, to assert the least, that the characters who are rudderless and clueless, whose sole interest in politics is selfish and retrogressive, are the ones throwing their jaundiced darts at a clearly progressive politician, whose lifestyle serves as a constant embarrassment to the profligate and thieving elements in and out of government, with a view to destabilising the West.

“Let them remember that those who did something similar to this diabolical spin in the past were all consumed by the subsequent unfolding and relentless logic. The survivors of subterfuge vanished into oblivion soon afterwards. They must be warned, lest they set in motion a chain of events the end of which nobody will be able to predict.”

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OSUN State Police Commissioner Mrs. Kalafite Adeyemi and the Chairman of the state chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Abraham Adeseye, have debunked the report that there is tension in the state following an alleged attempt

by Governor Rauf Aregbesola to Islamise the state.

Speaking with our correspondent on phone yesterday, the police chief said there is no tension in Osun State.

Reacting to a major story in Sunday Sun, entitled: Tension in Osun, Mrs. Adeyemi said she had gone round the state and that no

From Adesoji Adeniyi, Osogbo

intelligence report indicated that there was tension in any part of the state.

She said: “Even the Nigerian Polytechnic Games (NIPOGA) being hosted by the Federal Polytechnic, Ede, is going on without any hitch. If there was tension, no such thing can hold in the state. I have gone round the state lately. I speak and interact with different sections of the state and there is nothing indicating tension in anyway.”

Oluseye wondered where Sunday Sun got its information.

The CAN chairman said there was no evidence to justify the re-

port, adding that there was no iota of truth in it.

He said: “We are God’s people; we are not contractors. If there’s any government step that will affect us, we will fight it. We spoke with the governor on Saturday and we are still going to meet him today (Sunday).

“I think it is beyond a governor to make a state one religion-dominated. It is impossible for him to impose one religion over the others. During a crisis on the use of Hijab in public schools in the state, we met the governor and we told him our minds and I think that was settled for good.”

Saturday Sun reported that State

Security Service (SSS) report allegedly indicated that Aregbesola was giving some youths military training, like that of Boko Haram.

Sunday Sun reported that there was tension in Osun State because of an alleged attempt by the governor to “Islamise Osun State.”

The report, credited to the Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Southwest, Kayode Babade, added that Aregbesola is on the security watch list for his alleged links with a North African country.

In a broadcast on Saturday, Aregbesola denied the reports and the allegations against his administration.

Ekiti approves N676m for Ado-Ekiti street lights

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HE Ekiti State Government has approved N676,621,446 for the provision of street lights in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital.

The contract includes the replacement of dilapidated and disused street lights erected by the ousted regime.

Addressing reporters at the weekend on the outcome of the State Executive Council (Exco) meeting, Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation Funminiyi Afuye said the project would complement

From Sulaiman Salawiudeen, Ado-Ekiti

the government’s ongoing urban renewal.

The commissioner said the Exco also approved the reconstruction of the Otun-Osun-Iloro Road.

He noted that the project, which costs N227,342,335, would accelerate the socio-economic development of communities connected by the road.

According to Afuye, the road

between Osun and Iloro has been completed, and the one between Osun and Otun has been reawarded to Rosco Nigeria Limited.

Afuye said ongoing road projects would be completed on schedule, adding: “Road rehabilitation and reconstruction currently going on across the state are such as will not have to be replaced/repeated in six months, as has been the experience with past projects.

“Having been given a standard of execution, which must be religiously observed, the roads, being constructed across the state today, are comparable to any quality ones anywhere. They are the types that every Ekiti indigene would be proud to identify with.

“The money being used for them is the people’s money and same must be applied to give the best projects to the people, which they are meant to serve.”

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS Carpenter caught attempting to collect bursary in Ekiti

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HE Caretaker Chairman of Irepodun-Ifelodun Local Government Area of Ekiti State, Major Tajudeen Olufemi Awe, at the weekend said the council has caught a carpenter for allegedly attempting to collect a bursary award.

He told reporters in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital, that the suspect’s name was smuggled into the list of bursary beneficiaries by some council workers.

The council chief decried the endemic corruption in the country, saying with sincerity and focus, government workers at all levels could live comfortably without stealing.

Awe said: “I directed the concerned worker to bring the list of the beneficiaries of the current year’s bursary programme.

“But when I was going through it, I immediately sighted the name of the carpenter. I suspected a fraud in the whole arrangement, because I knew the name belonged to a carpenter.

“More so, the carpenter was the man that used to do some work for me in my house.

“Incidentally, the carpenter and I are from the same quarters in my town.

So, we know each other.

But in the list, he did not include the name of our quarters. Instead of using

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti

his house and quarters, which would have exposed him the more, he wrote the name of another quarters to deceive people.

“Later, when I met the man and accosted him, he owned up. He said it was some of the officials who assisted him to put his name on the list.”

Awe said no genuine student would be denied his legitimate bursary during his tenure, adding that the aim is to alleviate the suffering of the students.

•From left: Publisher, The Sun newspapers, Chief Orji Uzor Kalu; President, Advertising Association of Nigeria (ADVAN), Mr. Kola Oyeyemi; President, Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN), and Publisher of Thisday newspapers Prince Nduka Obaigbena; and Publisher, Punch newspapers, Mr. Wale Aboderin during the stakeholders’ meeting of the newspapers and advertising industry at Plannet One, Maryland, Lagos...yesterday.

Lawmaker warns Jonathan’s 2015 campaigners

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EPUTY Chairman of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Petroleum Downstream Yusuf Shittu Galambi has urged President Goodluck Jonathan to focus on developing the country, rather than get carried away by the call on him by a regional group to contest the 2015 presidential election.

He urged the President to call the group to order, if he is not part of the project.

Galambi spoke with reporters at the weekend in Gusau, Zamfara State, during a condolence visit to the Chairman of the House Committee on Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Alhaji Ibrahim Shehu Gusau, on the death of his father, Alhaji Shehu Bakauye.

He said: “Many issues have crippled the country, including a fast decaying economy, insecurity, poverty, power outage and unemployment.

“Why can they not advise him to concentrate on projects that will bring about progress?

“The President has to call those groups and persons to order, so that his attention would not be diverted from the issues that require solution.

“If Jonathan performs well,

PUBLIC NOTICE

POWER OF CHRIST GOSPEL CHURCH

The above-named organization has applied to the Corporate Affairs Commission for incorporated Registration under part “C” of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2004.

TRUSTEES 1. Pastor Moses Dosu Hunja 2. Pastor Phillip Abiodun Hunpe 3. Pastor Timothy Sewanu Hunpe 4. Bro. Moses Iroko Athoroedo 5. Pastor (Mrs.) Esther Aduni Hunja AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 1) To propagate the Gospel to all Nations as laid down by the Lord, Jesus Christ.

2) To engage in Christian missionary activities and to encourage believers to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

3) To redeem the land worldwide through revivals, crusades, prayers, seminars, Bible study sessions and teaching conference.

4) To reach out to sheep that is lost worldwide.

Any objection to this application should be forwarded to the Registrar-General of Corporate Affairs Commission, Maitama, Abuja within 28days of this publication.

Oluwatosin Adesanya Esq Oluwatosin Adesanya & Co Barristers, Solicitors, Property & Corporate Consultants 113, Idiroko Road, Ota, Ogun State. Tel: 08056608879, 08091609754

PUBLIC NOTICE

AUSBETH AJAGU FOUNDATION This is to notify the general public that the above named body has applied for registration under part “C” of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 1990.

THE TRUSTEES COMPRISE: 1.

Dr. Ausbeth Ajagu, MFR, F. AES 2.

Rev. Mrs Anuli Ausbeth-Ajagu 3.

Mrs. Nkechi Aroh AIMS AND OBJECTIVES The aims and objectives of the Foundation shall be: 1) To support the work of God locally and internationally.

2) To give scholarships to indigent children.

3) To support widows, orphans and the aged.

4) To provide wheel chairs and any other form of assistance to people with disabilities.

5) To endow chairs and academic excellence awards on secondary and tertiary institutions that would reward hard work.

6) To establish schools that would be excellence driven.

7) To do any other thing that would help enhance the quality of life of every human being both locally and internationally.

Any objection to this registration should be forwarded to the Corporate Affairs Commission, Maitama, Abuja within 28days of this publication.

U.P.E. NNAJI, Esq. Solicitor 08033162521

•Buhari shouldn’t contest presidential poll, says ex-NLC secretary From Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operationand Adamu Suleiman, Gusau

Nigerians will call for his reelection, not a regional call as is being anchored.”

Also at the weekend, a former Assistant General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Mr. Salihu Mohammed Lukman, yesterday advised former Head of State Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to dump plans to contest the 2015 presidential election.

He told Buhari, who has contested the presidential poll three times, to concentrate on uniting opposition parties against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) .

Lukman, who gave the advice in an open letter to Buhari, said the ex-Head of State should not follow the political path of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and exSenegalese President Abdoulaye Wade.

He said: “On December 31, 1983, when you spearheaded the overthrow of the Alhaji Shehu Shagari led Second Republic, one of the justifications for the coup was the ‘crisis of confidence afflicting our nation’.

“The reality before us since 1999, as Nigerians, is that we continue to face this crisis of confidence. In fact, if your coup speech is to be replayed word for word, it will reflect present national conditions.

And like in 1983, the yearning for change is evident in the conduct of our politicians

which you so lucidly captured in your 1983 speech “Your recent declaration as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on April 13, 2012, to the effect that you will be contesting the 2015 elections compelled me to, not just write to you, but make my views open to the public.

“You will be 73 when the 2015 elections will be conducted. Looking at your personal life, I believe you are sincerely troubled by the absence of alternative leadership in the country and this is what propels you to continue to offer yourself.

“In evaluating this issue, I think it is really unfortunate that our national situation is almost pushing you to follow the inglorious path of the Mugabe and Wade of Africa .

With the incompetent and politically naive team that you

have, the probability that your Presidential candidature for 2015 will be overpowered is very high.

“What do we do therefore?

Do we just surrender to PDP without a fight and ask you to withdraw from contesting the election? If we ask you to withdraw, would that not translate to abdication of our responsibility to our people?

What are the options before us?

“Sir, these are not easy questions to answer, yet we must answer them convincingly.

First, we must on no account surrender to the PDP. On no account should we allow a situation where we inadvertently facilitate the rule of PDP in anyway. Therefore, your aspiration to contest the 2015 Presidential elections must be discouraged because of two fundamental reasons.

“The first is that the same altruistic reasons driving your aspirations will not regulate the structures of your campaign and would not be able to fight against the emergence of greedy and corrupt politicians who will be embraced by you to win the elections.

“The second reason is that your aspiration would blur our peoples’ vision, as they will not be able to see beyond you. I therefore submit that our society will benefit more without your aspirations for 2015. In the circumstance, it is my hope that you will consider changing your role to that of leading the negotiation process towards strengthening the capacity of opposition parties. Events in Senegal should serve as a source of inspiration. “

Osun ACN to PDP: we won’t dignify you with response

F

OR the Osun State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), only mentally unbalanced people will believe the security report being promoted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.

The ACN spokesman, Mr. Kunle Oyatomi said the party was not under any obligation to dignify the opposition with a response over the alleged report, which he said attempted to create a Boko Haram situation in the state.

Oyatomi was reacting to a statement credited to PDP spokesman Diran Odeyemi, in which he cautioned against reading political meanings to the alleged security report.

According to him, the opposition has been confined to where it rightly belongs by the responses of Nigerians.

He said: “In the public domain, its value

can only be measured by the comments of highly respected non partisan Nigerian citizens.

“One that will interest the PDP in Osun, Southwest and Abuja is that of Professor Itse Sagay, one of the best known constitutional lawyers in Nigeria today. He said the report was stupid and the product of insanity.

The ACN Osun State believes that only those who suffered the same disease of insanity and stupidity will believe that report.

We have nothing more to add.”

Speaking for the PDP, Odeyemi warned Governor Rauf Aregbesola and his ACN “to desist from politicising very serious security matters and stop damaging the reputation of the state.”

Pension task force remains suspended, says Senate

T

HE Senate committee probing alleged fraud in the administration of pension funds said yesterday the suspension on the Pension Reform Task Team was in force.

Chairman of the investigative panel, Senator Aloysius Etok, told reporters in Abuja that the Abdulrasheed Maina-led task team “remains suspended pending the outcome of our investigations”.

Etok, who is also the Chairman, Senate Committee on Public Service and Establishment, added: “We never disbanded the team, we only suspended it and all its operations.”

He said the committee summoned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Chairman Ibrahim Lamorde to explain the

From Onyedi Ojiabor, Assistant Editor

whereabouts of the money purportedly recovered by Maina’s team.

Etok said: “Maina claimed to have recovered some billions of naira, and the EFCC chairman confirmed this to

be true during our public hearing. So, we want to know how much was recovered and where the money is kept.

“We know the money could have been kept in court as exhibits or lodged in some accounts. We want him to tell us this tomorrow (today).”

The senator said the committee has summoned the managing directors of some banks, including those of Zenith International Bank, GTBank, First Bank, Diamond Bank, to explain illegal transfers of pension funds into some accounts in those banks.

Okonjo-Iweala’s chances shaky Continued from page 4 especially those in the Americas to back Kim to become the next World Bank president.”

A source very familiar with the race for the World Bank top job said yesterday: “The emergence of next World Bank President will not be merit-based but Okonjo-Iweala will press on for the top job,” s source said.

The source added: “Last Tuesday, the three contestants were interviewed and on Friday their track records were to be discussed and debated by the board of the World Bank, but the pro-USA board members did not allow the merit

discussion to hold.”

In addition, the out-going World Bank President, Robert Zoellick, disclosed that the next election will be merit-based but not this one.

The source added that the US might have secured the support of the European countries in advance by backing the candidacy of French Finance Minister Christine Largard to become the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and, as such, both the USA and European countries are adopting the “you scratch my back I scratch your back tactic”.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS

Why I accepted Tinubu’s political ideology, by ex-minister Oni

Ex-OSOPADEC chief Omojuwa dumps PDP for ACN From Damisi Ojo, Akure

A

CHIEFTAIN of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Chairman of the Ondo State Oil Mineral Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC), Chief Adewale Omojuwa, yesterday resigned his membership of the PDP and joined the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Omojuwa was a member of the state caucus of the PDP and former chairman of the party in Ilaje Local Government Area.

In his resignation letter, which was addressed to PDP chairman in Ugbo Ward 3 and PDP state chairman, Omojuwa said it takes effect from April 13.

Accompanied by his supporters, the politician thanked PDP members for giving him the opportunity to make his impact felt in the lives of the residents when he was OSOPADEC chairman.

The letter reads: “I sincerely thank the leadership of the party for giving me the opportunity to serve at various capacities in the last 14 years existence of the party.

“I want to believe that I have made my impact felt to my people having served the party patriotically and meritoriously”.

Some members of the PDP in the state described the exit of Chief Omojuwa from the party as a big loss, saying the

vacuum created by his resignation will be difficult to fill.

Addressing reporters after his resignation at Igbokoda, Omojuwa said his action did not indicate his exit from politics but to build on his political career in the ACN. He said his desire to join the ACN was informed by the good political ideology of the party and be a partaker of the regional integration agenda being canvassed by the Yoruba leaders.

The former OSOPADEC chief said he would always fight for the interest of the oil producing communities in the state, urging the residents to be united.

A

FORMER Ondo State Chairman of Labour Party (LP), Dr. Olaiya Oni, at the weekend said he believed and accepted the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) ideology because it is the only political platform which allows the masses to enjoy the dividends of democracy and promotes the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s developmental agenda.

Speaking with The Nation in Akure, the state capital, Oni condemned a report, entitled: Ondo 2102 poll: drawing the battle line, in which he received criticisms for joining the ACN and supporting

From Leke Akeredolu, Akure

Asiwaju Bola Tinubu’s political train.

The former LP Chairman faulted the report for rating the achievements of Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko as the best in the history of the state.

Oni described himself as a disciple of the late Awolowo, whom he said suffered to improve the lot of Yoruba.

According to him, it is the same thing Tinubu is doing to ensure that the Southwest remains the best among other regions.

He said: “For point of em-

phasis, I am a celebrated disciple of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and, indeed, I lost a West regional scholarship and lost an appointment as an Assistant Lecturer because of my political activities as a student of the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State.

“What Chief Awolowo stood for was the dignity of the Yoruba race, as he was not prepared to allow the Yoruba serve at the mainstream politics where they would be regarded as second class citizens.

“It is the same philosophy that makes me to believe in

the political ideology of Asiwaju Tinubu, because he was the “last man standing”.

He was able to withstand the political hurricane of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and so provided the compass with which the rest of the state in Western Region was liberated.

“It is now time to ask what benefits the mainstream politics gave the Yoruba race when their son was President of Nigeria for eight years.”

The former Minister of Education explained why he defected from the ruling LP and Mimiko, saying the governor was never a progressive.

Ekiti PDP exco won’t meet Southwest leader Oni

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HE crisis rocking Ekiti State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) deepened at the weekend as the State Executive Committee said it would not meet the Southwest leader, Mr. Segun Oni, who is visiting the state this week.

The members of the committee explained that since Oni had allegedly given his tacit backing to the parallel executive, led by Mr. Akin Omole, a member of his caucus, there is no meeting line.

In a letter, dated April 14, the executive committee chided the ousted governor for planning to use his visit

Party suspends factional leaders, others

T

HE Ekiti State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has suspended a factional leader, Akin Omole.

He was suspended with seven other members of his group by the State Executive Council of the party, led by its Chairman, Mr Makanjuola Ogundipe.

Omole, a former Majority Leader and a candidate in the March 18 state congress which he lost - was sponsored by ousted

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti

governor and PDP National Vice-Chairman for the Southwest, Mr Segun Oni. Ogundipe said the suspension followed alleged threats by the splinter group to frustrate the substantive Exco.

Addressing reporters at the weekend at the party secretariat in Ado-Ekiti, Ogundipe said the Exco took the decision following the recommendations by ward chairmen of the affected persons.

By Emmanuel Oladesu, Deputy Political Editor

to the state to recognise the parallel executive, although he lacks such powers under

the PDP constitution.

Signatories to the letter are the chairman, Chief

Makanjuola Ogundipe, deputy chairman, Mr. Femi Bamishile, secretary, Dr. Tope Aluko, and legal adviser, Mr. Kola Adefemi. They alleged

that the dissident group is planning to unleash violence on members of the authentic exco during the visit.

Ogundipe said Oni was taking off from a shaky foundation as a zonal leader who could not ensure peace and harmony at home, wondering how he would be able to cope with problems arising from other Southwest chapters.

He reminded him of his “unpopular emergence” as the National Vice-Chairman, adding that “if there is any election to be contested or questioned, it is yours because there was no voting at all”.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS Benin Airport records low patronage

By Kelvin Osa-Okunbor

T

HE Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria ( FAAN) has released statistics on passenger movement in some airports across the country.

The Benin Airport posted a dismal outing as it recorded a decrease in passenger and aircraft movements last year, when compared with figures of the previous years.

Benin Airport is one of the fastest growing airports in the country in terms of passenger movement as it recorded 348,906 passengers in 2010 and 323,545 last year.

Aircraft movement at the airport showed that in 2010, there were 7,081 movements in the airport. In 2011, 6,791 movements were recorded.

Speaking on the decrease in both passenger and aircraft movements, the airport manager, Sunday Ayodele, attributed the reduction to the opening of the Asaba Airport and the repair work on the Benin-Ore road by the Federal Government.

Ayodele said the decrease was also as a result of the stoppage of operations into the airport by Air Nigeria and the cut down of flights operations by Associated Airlines and Aero Contractors.

Ayodele said: “Associated airlines reduced its service, Air Nigeria stopped and then Aero contractors reduced.

“Before the opening of the Asaba Airport, all the Delta passengers were using the Benin airport, including people from Onitsha but now Asaba is nearer. So that has affected our passengers and aircraft movements.”

Police uncover ‘baby factory’ A in Akwa Ibom 45-year-old woman, Margaret Wisdom Effiong, has been arrested by the Akwa Ibom State Police Command for allegedly running a “babymaking factory”.

The suspect was arrested at Uruan Local Government Area, where the “baby factory” is located.

According to the Police Commissioner, Umar Gwadabe, the suspect is alleged to have been running the business with her husband, Wisdom Effiong Mbaba, who is now at large.

The police boss told reporters that Effiong and

•Arrest 45-year-old woman From Kazeem Ibrahym, Uyo

her husband, who she claimed is a doctor, were selling newly born babies to ritualists and other shadowy characters.

Gwadabe said three expectant girls and four others between the ages of 18 and 20 years were rescued.

Speaking with reporters, the suspect denied the allegation.

She, however, admitted that her husband used to perform abortions but had stopped.

Another suspect, Aniebiet Sunday, said she went for an abortion but was delivered of the baby.

She said she sold the baby at N70,000.

The commissioner told reporters that the command, in collaboration with the youths of Nung Ikot Obodio in Oruk Anam, arrested

Umar Joshua, with one AK 47, two magazines and 19 rounds of live ammunition.

He said Benjamin Edoho from Eket, Anthony Emmanuel George and Udeme Dennis Okon, both from Ibiono Ibom Local Government, were arrested for attempted robbery.

Gwadabe also said little Rachael Hezekiel Antai, aged four, was rescued from Victor Edet Esu, a kidnap suspect.

Victor Udo, Abasiama Essien Udo, Nse Sunday Ekpenyong were also arrested for alleged kidnap cases and arms recovered from them.

DELSU matriculates 7,463 From Polycarp Orosevwotu, Warri

T

HE Delta State University, Abraka, at the weekend in Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government admitted 7,463 students at its matriculation.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Eric Arubayi, said the university is one of the fourth generation universities, established in 1992 by the state’s first Executive Governor, Felix lbru.

Arubayi advised the students to comport themselves diligently and observe the rules and regulations of the university.

He urged them to refrain from activities or vices that are capable of breaching the oath of their matriculation or that will jeopardise the completion of their studies.

Delta to punish rent defaulters From Okungbowa Aiwerie,Asaba

T

HE Delta State Government has given a 30-day ultimatum to defaulters of Ground Rent to pay or risk losing their Certificates of Occupancy.

Commissioner for Land, Survey and Urban Development Patrick Ferife gave the warning at the weekend in Asaba,the state capital.

Ferife urged defaulters to pay up; stressing that the government will not hesitate to seal up their offices.

He said a task force on Ground Rent Collection had been constituted by the government to visit hotels, filling stations and factories.

Oshiomhole inaugurates industrial water rig

E

DO State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has inaugurated a new 2,500-metre capacity water borehole drilling rig in Agbede in Etsako West Local Government Area.

The governor said with the borehole, which has the capacity to crack through rocks, no part of the state will be left without potable water.

He said: “My business is to make things happen and not to lament. I have directed them to locate the borehole, which will have an overhead tank, to the heart of the city around the palace from where the water will be distributed to other parts of the town.

“From there it can be distributed to the North, East, South and to the West of Agbede and that way everybody will have water.

“When they finish distributing the water, and those who can afford it will pipe it to their houses and the drilling rig will move to Avwain, Jagbe and Aviele, to provide water for these communities, we want to do it quickly before the rain starts.

Today we are demonstrating that these communities will now have water.”

Oshiomhole said he has only one purpose in government noting that “to become a governor is not a big deal, but it is a big honour that people assembled and ask you to be entrusted with their resources.”

He advised politicians to remember that resources that are entrusted in their hand are not for their pockets.

•Ekiti State Deputy Governor Mrs Funmi Olayinka (second left); Chairman, Visitation Panel Prof. Richard Anao (left) ; Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Dr. Eniola Ajayi (middle); the Rector, Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti Mrs Taiwo Akande and Commissioner for Information and Civil Orientation Funminiyi Afuye, when the polytechnic panel visitation the Deputy Governor in Ado-Ekiti.

‘INEC to re-strategise for smooth poll in Edo’

T

HE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it will re-strategise to ensure that people’s votes count ahead of the July 14 governorship election in Edo State.

INEC National Commissioner, Training and Research, Prof. Lai Olurode said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday.

He said the electoral body was re-strategising because there are indications that things were getting charged up in the state.

“INEC has attained a measure of success in the collation of results, timely delivery of election materials and arrival of poll officials at their polling units.”

He said the commission would create a level-playing field and ensure that the electorate would not feel intimidated by any party.

Lawmaker faults ministry creation From Kazeem Ibrahym, Uyo

T

HE establishment of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs by the Federal Government has been described as a diplomatic deceit on the people of the South south geopolitical zone of the country.

The senator representing Uyo Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Ita Enang, said this yesterday.

Enang said the ministry has not done anything apart from handling the presidential initiative projects such as overseeing the construction of the East-West road.

His words: “Till tomorrow, I will say it was unnecessary to create the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs because the ministry has no extra fund. I still say that the creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta is a diplomatic deceit.

A

‘Our campaign is on issues’ From Osagie Otabor, Benin

T

he Adams Oshiomhole Campaign Organisation has said the July 14 governorship election will dwell on issue-based campaigns and not issues of lies.

This, it said, will help to stimulate the electorate to see the good works of Oshiomhole in the last three and a half years.

Director, Media and Publicity of Oshiomhole Campaign Organisation, Kassim Afegbua, in a statement yesterday said they will lay emphasis on the numerous achievements of the governor.

Afegbua said ‘mudslinging campaigns’ of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were to cause distractions and confuse voters about the achievements of Oshiomhole.

According to the statement, “If the PDP cannot explain to voters what its achievement(s)has been, it should simply keep quiet instead of trying to deceitfully woo voters with promises that cannot be fulfilled.

“Edo voters are very much conversant with the overwhelming achievements of the Comrade Governor.

They can feel the impact of his intervention in the governance process in the state.”

Olurode said INEC noticed voter apathy in some of the recent elections because of

fear of violence and hijack of ballot boxes.

He said security opera-

tives were cooperating with INECto conduct a smooth election in Edo, adding that the electoral body had also put in place an “Inter Agency Committee on Election Security’’.

Olurode said the malpractices observed at some polling units during past elections were inimical to the conduct of free and fair elections.

He said INEC was bent on policing polling units more effectively to make peoples’ votes count.

“People stay away because of the possibility of violence and this is a sign that their vote will not count and INEC will never be part to this, so security of life and property is of great concern to INEC.” The national commissioner said although Nigeria had yet to attained perfection in election, the commission was doing all it could to reduce malpractices during polls.

Gunmen kill ITV reporter in Edo

PHOTO-JOURNALIST working with a privateowned broadcast station, the Independent Television, Chuks Ogu, has been murdered in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

It is not yet clear whether his attackers were armed robbers or assassins but the late Ogu was shot in the chest. He died before he got to the hospital.

Ogu was killed at the home of a couple on Siluko Road.

It could not be confirmed if he was the actual target of the attack or if anything was removed from the couple.

An official of the television station, who pleaded for anonymity, confirmed the incident.

He said: “He was killed at the home of the new couple on Siluko Road after covering their wedding.

From Osagie Otabor, Benin

“He was there with his colleague to arrange when to air the programme when robbers suddenly appeared and shot him. We deposited the remains at the UBTH mortuary last night.

“Ogu, a man of quiet and humble disposition, will be missed for his diligence and hard work.”

It was gathered that the police are interrogating occupants of the house where Ogu was killed, including the couple, whose name was not revealed.

Commissioner of Police Olayinka Balogun said the deceased was at the scene with a friend and may have been killed mistakenly.

12

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

NEWS Benin Airport records low patronage

By Kelvin Osa-Okunbor HE Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria ( FAAN) has released statistics on passenger movement in some airports across the country.

The Benin Airport posted a dismal outing as it recorded a decrease in passenger and aircraft movements last year, when compared with figures of the previous years.

Benin Airport is one of the fastest growing airports in the country in terms of passenger movement as it recorded 348,906 passengers in 2010 and 323,545 last year.

Aircraft movement at the airport showed that in 2010, there were 7,081 movements in the airport. In 2011, 6,791 movements were recorded.

Speaking on the decrease in both passenger and aircraft movements, the airport manager, Sunday Ayodele, attributed the reduction to the opening of the Asaba Airport and the repair work on the Benin-Ore road by the Federal Government.

Ayodele said the decrease was also as a result of the stoppage of operations into the airport by Air Nigeria and the cut down of flights operations by Associated Airlines and Aero Contractors.

Ayodele said: “Associated airlines reduced its service, Air Nigeria stopped and then Aero contractors reduced.

“Before the opening of the Asaba Airport, all the Delta passengers were using the Benin airport, including people from Onitsha but now Asaba is nearer. So that has affected our passengers and aircraft movements.”

T

Police uncover ‘baby factory’ A in Akwa Ibom 45-year-old woman, Margaret Wisdom Effiong, has been arrested by the Akwa Ibom State Police Command for allegedly running a “babymaking factory”.

The suspect was arrested at Uruan Local Government Area, where the “baby factory” is located.

According to the Police Commissioner, Umar Gwadabe, the suspect is alleged to have been running the business with her husband, Wisdom Effiong Mbaba, who is now at large.

The police boss told reporters that Effiong and her husband, who she

•Arrest 45-year-old woman From Kazeem Ibrahym, Uyo claimed is a doctor, were selling newly born babies to ritualists and other shadowy characters.

Gwadabe said three expectant girls and four others between the ages of 18 and 20 years were rescued.

Speaking with reporters, the suspect denied the allegation.

She, however, admitted

that her husband used to perform abortions but had stopped.

Another suspect, Aniebiet Sunday, said she went for an abortion but was delivered of the baby.

She said she sold the baby at N70,000.

The commissioner told reporters that the command, in collaboration with the youths of Nung Ikot Obodio in Oruk Anam, arrested Umar Joshua, with one AK

47, two magazines and 19 rounds of live ammunition.

He said Benjamin Edoho from Eket, Anthony Emmanuel George and Udeme Dennis Okon, both from Ibiono Ibom Local Government, were arrested for attempted robbery.

Gwadabe also said little Rachael Hezekiel Antai, aged four, was rescued from Victor Edet Esu, a kidnap suspect.

Victor Udo, Abasiama Essien Udo, Nse Sunday Ekpenyong were also arrested for alleged kidnap cases and arms recovered from them.

DELSU matriculates 7,463 From Polycarp Orosevwotu, Warri

T

HE Delta State University, Abraka, at the weekend in Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government admitted 7,463 students at its matriculation.

The Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Eric Arubayi, said the university is one of the fourth generation universities, established in 1992 by the state’s first Executive Governor, Felix lbru.

Arubayi advised the students to comport themselves diligently and observe the rules and regulations of the university.

He urged them to refrain from activities or vices that are capable of breaching the oath of their matriculation or that will jeopardise the completion of their studies.

Delta to punish rent defaulters From Okungbowa Aiwerie,Asaba

T

HE Delta State Government has given a 30-day ultimatum to defaulters of Ground Rent to pay or risk losing their Certificates of Occupancy.

Commissioner for Land, Survey and Urban Development Patrick Ferife gave the warning at the weekend in Asaba,the state capital.

Ferife urged defaulters to pay up; stressing that the government will not hesitate to seal up their offices.

He said a task force on Ground Rent Collection had been constituted by the government to visit hotels, filling stations and factories.

Oshiomhole inaugurates industrial water rig

E

DO State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has inaugurated a new 2,500-metre capacity water borehole drilling rig in Agbede in Etsako West Local Government Area.

The governor said with the borehole, which has the capacity to crack through rocks, no part of the state will be left without potable water.

He said: “My business is to make things happen and not to lament. I have directed them to locate the borehole, which will have an overhead tank, to the heart of the city around the palace from where the water will be distributed to other parts of the town.

“From there it can be distributed to the North, East, South and to the West of Agbede and that way everybody will have water.

“When they finish distributing the water, and those who can afford it will pipe it to their houses and the drilling rig will move to Avwain, Jagbe and Aviele, to provide water for these communities, we want to do it quickly before the rain starts.

Today we are demonstrating that these communities will now have water.”

Oshiomhole said he has only one purpose in government noting that “to become a governor is not a big deal, but it is a big honour that people assembled and ask you to be entrusted with their resources.”

He advised politicians to remember that resources that are entrusted in their hand are not for their pockets.

•Mrs. Mayen Johnson Akpe and her children in front of their new apartment presented by the wife of Akwa Ibom State Governor, Mrs Ekaette Akpabio, in Adidaha Edo in Esit Eket Local Government

‘INEC to re-strategise for smooth poll in Edo’

T

HE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it will re-strategise to ensure that people’s votes count ahead of the July 14 governorship election in Edo State.

INEC National Commissioner, Training and Research, Prof. Lai Olurode said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja yesterday.

He said the electoral body was re-strategising because there are indications that things were getting charged up in the state.

“INEC has attained a measure of success in the collation of results, timely delivery of election materials and arrival of poll officials at their polling units.”

He said the commission would create a level-playing field and ensure that the electorate would not feel intimidated by any party.

Lawmaker faults ministry creation From Kazeem Ibrahym, Uyo HE establishment of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs by the Federal Government has been described as a diplomatic deceit on the people of the South south geopolitical zone of the country.

The senator representing Uyo Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Ita Enang, said this yesterday.

Enang said the ministry has not done anything apart from handling the presidential initiative projects such as overseeing the construction of the East-West road.

His words: “Till tomorrow, I will say it was unnecessary to create the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs because the ministry has no extra fund. I still say that the creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta is a diplomatic deceit.

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‘Our campaign is on issues’ From Osagie Otabor, Benin he Adams Oshiomhole Campaign Organisation has said the July 14 governorship election will dwell on issue-based campaigns and not issues of lies.

This, it said, will help to stimulate the electorate to see the good works of Oshiomhole in the last three and a half years.

Director, Media and Publicity of Oshiomhole Campaign Organisation, Kassim Afegbua, in a statement yesterday said they will lay emphasis on the numerous achievements of the governor.

Afegbua said ‘mudslinging campaigns’ of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were to cause distractions and confuse voters about the achievements of Oshiomhole.

According to the statement, “If the PDP cannot explain to voters what its achievement(s)has been, it should simply keep quiet instead of trying to deceitfully woo voters with promises that cannot be fulfilled.

“Edo voters are very much conversant with the overwhelming achievements of the Comrade Governor.

They can feel the impact of his intervention in the governance process in the state.”

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Olurode said INEC noticed voter apathy in some of the recent elections because of

fear of violence and hijack of ballot boxes.

He said security opera-

tives were cooperating with INECto conduct a smooth election in Edo, adding that the electoral body had also put in place an “Inter Agency Committee on Election Security’’.

Olurode said the malpractices observed at some polling units during past elections were inimical to the conduct of free and fair elections.

He said INEC was bent on policing polling units more effectively to make peoples’ votes count.

“People stay away because of the possibility of violence and this is a sign that their vote will not count and INEC will never be part to this, so security of life and property is of great concern to INEC.” The national commissioner said although Nigeria had yet to attained perfection in election, the commission was doing all it could to reduce malpractices during polls.

Gunmen kill ITV reporter in Edo

PHOTO-JOURNALIST working with a privateowned broadcast station, the Independent Television, Chuks Ogu, has been murdered in Benin City, the Edo State capital.

It is not yet clear whether his attackers were armed robbers or assassins but the late Ogu was shot in the chest. He died before he got to the hospital.

Ogu was killed at the home of a couple on Siluko Road.

It could not be confirmed if he was the actual target of the attack or if anything was removed from the couple.

An official of the television station, who pleaded for anonymity, confirmed the incident.

He said: “He was killed at the home of the new couple on Siluko Road after covering their wedding.

From Osagie Otabor, Benin “He was there with his colleague to arrange when to air the programme when robbers suddenly appeared and shot him. We deposited the remains at the UBTH mortuary last night.

“Ogu, a man of quiet and humble disposition, will be missed for his diligence and hard work.”

It was gathered that the police are interrogating occupants of the house where Ogu was killed, including the couple, whose name was not revealed.

Commissioner of Police Olayinka Balogun said the deceased was at the scene with a friend and may have been killed mistakenly.

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EDITORIAL/OPINION EDITORIAL FROM OTHER LAND

COMMENT

A chance to learn what really happened to Trayvon

ID matter •CBN’s plan to make voter’s card instrument for transactions is welcome, but ...

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ENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is said to be planning to add the voter’s card to the identity instruments recognised by banks in financial transactions. The apex bank’s deputy director, consumer finance, Nwaoh Ifeanyi, was quoted as saying that efforts are in top gear to make the acceptance of the voter’s card for the purposes of identification happen soon, to foster growth of the industry. Presently, only three means of identification are accepted by banks for the purposes of transactions. These are the international passport, the national driver’s licence and the national identity card.

The measure is said to be borne of the need to further deepen the financial services industry and to enhance the Know Your Customer (KYC) initiatives of the apex bank.

‘This fact is at the heart of the frustrations daily encountered by ordinary citizens, who, lacking any of the instruments, have to depend on third-party identification before they could access basic services provided by financial institutions. Worse of course is that banks have tended to make fetish of identity instruments ... These perhaps make the measure seemingly spoton, at this time’

A way to look at what makes the measure an imperative is to inquire into the percentage of Nigerians with access to any of the three aforementioned identity instruments. The truth is that only a small minority of Nigerians possess a standard means of identification. This fact is at the heart of the frustrations daily encountered by ordinary citizens, who, lacking any of the instruments, have to depend on third-party identification before they could access basic services provided by financial institutions. Worse of course is that banks have tended to make fetish of identity instruments, especially when it comes to opening of accounts and when receiving foreign remittances.

These perhaps make the measure seemingly spot-on, at this time. This is particularly as the nation’s quest to have a standard identity card has been an experience in bad faith, kleptomania and incompetence of those entrusted with the responsibility. The result is the mess in which the nation still lacks a mechanism for identifying citizens. Even the exercise, which produced the current national identity card, was so riddled with corruption that the product could not have been anything but a sham – neither credible nor reliable – despite the billions sunk into it.

Of course, another exercise by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to develop a credible, biometric national identity card system is on-going.

This is what makes the measure as proposed by the apex bank somewhat curi-

ous. Is it that the CBN has no faith in the outcome? More unfortunate is that we are not even sure which voter’s card the CBN is referring to; the temporary cards or the permanent ones which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) promised but which are yet to be made available to Nigerians? Why is it difficult for the CBN to collaborate with the NIMC to expedite action on the proposed national ID cards? And for how long will the nation continue to depend on ad hoc solutions which are no more than palliatives when the solution seems so obvious?

The point here is to underscore the urgency of a multi-use document which integrates disparate data of citizens into a single platform. Our expectation is that even the voter’s card would at some point be integrated into the NIMC framework as obtained globally; we do not see why Nigeria’s case should be different. Possession of the international passport, the national driver’s licence, the national identity card or even the voter’s card is clearly optional; the same cannot be said of the national identity card which is not only compulsory but is supposed to consist of basic data of all citizens. This is why the earlier the government puts the mechanism for its realisation in place, the better it will be for all citizens – including the banks.

As for the CBN, its plan may appear well-intentioned; we consider it however as derogating from – if not entirely defeatist of – the objective of an early realisation of that goal.

Beyond the wharf rats •We still have a long way to go to make our ports efficient

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HE Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) is reported to have recently installed over 10 CCTV cameras at the Apapa and Tincan ports to check the wharf rats and sundry criminal activities.

According to media report, some maritime lawyers have complained that over 500 wharf rats are working for some government agencies at the ports, and the installation of the cameras is to forestall such conducts. While we commend the installation of CCTV cameras to check criminal activities at the ports, we are surprised that such basic security technology has just been installed at our country’s premier ports.

As an import-dependent economy, our ports may be the second largest revenue earner for the country, and as such deserve to be guarded jealously. Unfortunately, for years, the two ports which are the main ports of entry for our country and many other countries in the northern part of Nigeria, suffered neglect by government agencies, leading eventually to their concession to private companies.

Indeed, that policy was a major thrust of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration and the impression was that the concessionaires would provide effective technology and capacity to make the ports some of the best in the sub-continent.

We are afraid that the concession policy appears not to have changed much, except perhaps the enrichment of the private companies involved. Despite promises, the time and resources expended to

clear goods at the wharf has remained dire to our economic growth. The 24 hours to 48 hours time-frame to clear goods at the ports has remained a wish; while corruption and avoidable bottlenecks remain the order there.

The number of agencies lobbying to stay at the ports against international best practices remain high. We thought that the concessionaires were coming with modern technology to save time and energy spent clearing goods. Such technology would have ensured a more effective determination of container contents and dispense with the myriad of uniformed men jostling for relevance and pecuniary interests at the ports.

Unfortunately, not much has changed, as corruption, delays, inefficiency and security lapses at the ports continue to derail any serious economic activity in the economy. With increase in population, there is expansion in our importation; and the corruption-laden costs of clearing imported goods are shifted to the end-users, thereby worsening the poverty index of our citizens. Poverty in turn worsens the critical unemployment crisis in the country, which in turn aggravates the number of persons seeking to eke out a living at the ports.

It is this army of unemployed Nigerians that daily troop to the ports in search of their daily bread that are regarded as wharf rats. Without any legitimate business at the ports, yet desperate to earn income, they resort to stealing goods and items imported into the country. Some

are also turned to agents of the many agencies at the ports, as they act as fronts to receive bribes or pass on vital information to beat security checks. In whatever circumstance they find themselves, they constitute a security danger to the legitimate businesses and users of the ports.

While taking steps to eradicate the wharf rats at the two major ports, there is the urgent need for government to also work hard to improve the economy. The other ports should be rehabilitated to take some burden off the ones in Lagos. The unemployed youths have by their conduct shown that they are security risks all across the country, and the best way to redeem them and the country is by creating opportunities for them to be gainfully employed.

‘As an import-dependent economy, our ports may be the second largest revenue earner for the country, and as such deserve to be guarded jealously. Unfortunately, for years, the two ports which are the main ports of entry for our country and many other countries in the northern part of Nigeria, suffered neglect by government agencies, leading eventually to their concession to private companies. . .. We are afraid that the concession policy appears not to have changed much’

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E DO NOT prosecute by pressure or petition. We prosecute cases based on the relevant facts of each case and on the law of the state of Florida.”

So declared State Attorney Angela B. Corey in announcing second-degree murder charges against George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February. Ms. Corey hit all the right notes, explaining that her job was not to secure convictions but to be a “minister of justice.”

She appropriately emphasized that Mr. Zimmerman’s rights must also be protected and cautioned against drawing any conclusions before the evidence has been heard and tested.

Ms. Corey typically works out of Jacksonville but was tapped as a special prosecutor on the matter after Sanford law enforcement officials initially decided not to arrest Mr. Zimmerman. Her appointment occurred only after Mr. Martin’s parents publicly decried the handling of their son’s death, seemingly incriminating 911 tapes involving Mr. Zimmerman were released, and the Justice Department announced plans to conduct its own investigation. Whether the state would have pressed forward but for these developments may never be known.

Mr. Zimmerman, who made a brief court appearance Thursday to acknowledge the charges against him, will be arraigned next month, at which time he will have the opportunity to enter a plea.

Before a trial convenes, he may also have a chance to seek dismissal of the case under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law, which shields individuals from prosecution if they show that they employed lethal force to combat what they reasonably perceived to be a serious threat to their life or safety. The law, a version of which has been adopted by some 20 states, all but invites individuals to shoot first and ask questions later, and should be repealed. Ms. Corey rightly has promised to fight such a defense if invoked by Mr. Zimmerman.

On Thursday, Ms. Corey’s office filed a sworn affidavit buttressing many of the assertions that first triggered public outrage. Mr. Martin was “profiled”

by Mr. Zimmerman, the affidavit states. An interview with Mr. Martin’s girlfriend, with whom he was speaking on the phone just before being shot, revealed that Mr. Martin was “scared because he was being followed by an unknown male through the complex and didn’t know why” and that the teenager “attempted to run home but was followed.”

Investigators assert in the sworn document that Mr. Zimmerman “got out of his vehicle and followed Martin” and that Mr. “Zimmerman confronted Martin and a struggle ensued.” They say that Trayvon Martin’s mother has identified the cries for help heard on 911 calls as those of her son.

All this remains to be tested in court, as it should be. Because of Florida law, chances are good that the case will be televised if it goes to trial, providing viewers with an opportunity to judge the evidence and the proceedings for themselves. Such broadcasts do not assure legitimacy, nor can they guarantee that the public accepts the results. But given the troubling origins of this case and the more recent concerns about whether Mr. Zimmerman can get a fair trial, this added level of scrutiny would be welcome.

– Washington Post

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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EDITORIAL/OPINION

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IR: Ever since the people of Southwest Nigeria roundly rejected the insufferable reign of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), the former has been ignominiously bouncing from the pillar of political illogicality to the post of belittling folly. Rather than accept its fate, put its riven house in order, and provide impactful, structured and constructive opposition to the ACN governments in the Southwest, the party has chosen to continue to assault the people of the region, nay the country, with distasteful untruths, blatant falsehoods, and self-destructive blackmails.

The latest in its coordinated series of pedestrian propaganda campaign is its deplorable claim that the governor of the State of Osun, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, is superintending over plans by the state ACN to send youth leaders and student activists to Cuba for paramilitary training.

These youths, the Zonal Publicity Secretary of the party, Kayode Babade, claims, will come back home to put the training they might have acquired into the service of Aregbesola who, as the PDP placeman further alleges, is actively working on a secessionist scheme.

The PDP needs to know that Nigerians are wiser for their politics of cheap lies. It is an open fact that Cuba’s May Day celebration is one of the most outstanding across the world. It attracts different tourists from various part of the globe. And this year’s will not be the first in

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Osun PDP intensifies folly which Aregbesola will sponsor students there in order to observe the grand exercise. Only last year, about 53 students benefitted from the gracious act of the governor. Where was the PDP that time? Or was Aregbesola not wise enough then to think of a secessionist plot?

For the avoidance of doubt, the governor does not believe that secession is the viable panacea to the manifold problems warring against Nigeria. Neither does he for once doubt the fact that a subverted, phony federal system will not bring

the country out of the woods of steady economic and political regressions. If his conviction that it will do the Southwest good to distinguish itself through meaningful governance and helpful economic and cultural bonding is what the PDP men of supine intelligence term secession, it should know now that Aregbesola will not change tact. He is incurably given to this in the same way as he is untiringly committed to anything that will promote and preserve the peace, stability and progress of Nigeria.

My naked moments of transition IR: It took me some considerable financial planning and rearrangements to execute my last 12 days visit to Nigeria in February after years of absence from my beloved country.

Visiting Nigeria regularly from the United Kingdom is like wishing for a quarterly Christmas celebrations as a child would wish for. The visit did not only provide an insight to variable moments of stark reali-

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ties in transition of where I was coming from, to where I went. It also raises questions in my subconscious as to the comparative transition of the Nigeria I was ‘forced’ to leave out of fear of being reduced to a social degenerate in 1990.

My first naked moment of transition on arrival at the Muritala Mohammed International Airport was the welcoming heat that engulfed my entire body, having departed

EFCC’s appeal agianst Elumelu, Akingbola, a right step IR: My joy knew no bound when I read the news of the appeal of the judgements of Justice Charles Archibong and Justice Garba Umar in the corruption cases involving former banker, Erastus Akingbola and former chairman, House of Representative Committee on Power, Honourable Ndidi Elumelu who are being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. My joy is against the backdrop of the fact that those who allegedly looted the national treasury should

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More, if it is indeed true that the PDP carpetbaggers have unassailable evidence of that which they claim against Aregbesola and his party, it should have quietly alerted the appropriate security agencies instead of luxuriating shamelessly in the cesspit of banal muckraking and abominable scaremongering.

Here is a serious claim for the police and other security agencies to thoroughly investigate. They must insist that the Publicity Secretary should substantiate his claim, failing which he should be tried for

false claims and an attempt to rupture the peace of the country.

Let the PDP non-personable personages of yesteryears be reminded that however hard they try to distract and discredit the peoplefriendly and productive government of Ogbeni Aregbesola through its manifold foolishness, they can be sure of uninterrupted failure. Let them throw up the knife of their asinine indiscretions as many times as they can, it is certain to always come down on its flat side of shallowness.

If these men are genuinely interested in the continuous oneness and peaceful coexistence of Nigerians, they should avail the minds in the government at the centre of the requisite advice on responsible governance which, as they must know, is the antidote to the needless thought of secession by any group from any part of the country.

• Oladejo Alebiosu, Ile-Ife, Osun State

not be allowed to go in peace to enjoy their “loot”.

When the two justices came up with their decisions to set the two accused free of corruption charges, the decisions came to me with a rude shock. I was personally disillusioned and short of words, as to me, it was a bad omen in the fight against economic and financial crimes which the EFCC symbolizes.

I want to personally advise the EFCC not to make same mistake that was made, that made the judge

dismiss the case, be it on “technical ground” or “commercial ground”.

I just hope that Lamorde, the chairman of the EFCC, will give us cause to smile as so much is expected from his leadership. He should diligently prosecute all the high profile corruption cases the commission is presently handing. I want to believe that so much has been given to the EFCC; so, so much is expected from the EFCC. They cannot afford to fail!

• Anthony Favour Ojelimafe Abuja-Nigeria

Heathrow Airport in over four inches of snow. This transition transcended into a rude awakening within 10 minutes of landing in my home country as the initial welcoming heat became an inferno because of lack of air conditioning within the airport lobby/ premises while we queued up through the immigration and security checks.

The immediate contrast of coming from a workable and functional environment into a dysfunctional and a repressive one, not only violates one’s senses; it also naturally triggers a patriotic right to question within you or someone, how and why your own country should be or remain in such state of total developmental stagnation –since independence.

What is shocking was that the degree of rowdiness and indiscipline behaviour of the people in public has increased far beyond normalcy. The idea of patience and civility expected amongst people has been replaced with jungle behaviour in almost every faucet of our social strata.

There is always a universal understanding or contest among motorists on the Lagos roads to want to come home with the trophy for being the

meanest, fastest, most daring, bravest and rudest driver of all time, not to mention other areas of social indiscipline in the community.

However, while we wait for the ‘messiah’ in good leadership and miracle as to eradicating corruption in our country; the enlightened sociopolitical organisations, nongovernmental bodies, journalists and media houses should pick up the mantle by educating the masses on the virtues of a civil society and basic discipline at a level beyond mere awareness. It should be seen as a concept that must be enshrined in the community, from government bodies to schools and in our homes.

This concept was introduced by the government of Buhari and Idiagbon, though short lived; but we witnessed the success of it. It can be achieved where there is a will.

And who knows, the introduction and positive impact of its possible success, might rub on our leaders, and could the beginning of eradicating corruption in our beloved country, Nigeria.

• Femi Onabote United Kingdom

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

EDITORIAL/OPINION

Obasanjo, lies upon lies

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IES, in the form of darkness can only endure for a while; the light of truth would eventually prevail. It does not matter how long people’s memories are taken for granted and trampled upon, a truth that is clouded by propaganda and falsehood must one day give way for exactness and genuineness.

The story of the life of former President General Matthew Olusegun Aremu Okikiolu Obasanjo ought to be a national testimonial today – a man who God turned from virtually nobody to somebody, who, like Biblical Joseph emerged from prison to the throne. He attained the political ultimate in the land on two occasions as the number one citizen. He ruled and reigned and was in control of the affairs of the destiny of many millions. Like no other Nigerian in history, he was given the opportunity to make or mar a country blessed by the Creator with enormous human and material resources.

Nigeria is where it is today largely because of the personality and comportment of its leadership. Whether one likes it or not, there is no way the history of the nation would be written without Obasanjo taking a prime position. If the story becomes pleasant – or remains as horrid as it is today, he surely has a deep hand in it.

The Scripture says it is only righteousness that can exalt a nation as sin would forever remain a reproach to any people.

If a leadership is deceitful and hypocritical, the followers are bound to be enmeshed in craftiness and fraudulence. Nigeria is soaked in corruption and resultant poverty today because of lack of truthful and candid leadership example to emulate.

Let’s give Baba Obasanjo the due respect of an elder. But it is out of love that we must also tell him the truth, moreso as he still remains under grace to be alive to restitute his ways. At his age, nothing should make him resort to falsehood in an open matter. Even as it is true that no one can have enough of the world, a man of Obasanjo status and standing should by now be living the life of a statesman who should be showing the new generation the right way forward.

That the former president would publicly deny his move for a third term is demoralizing. He was alive on a Channels Television interview saying that he never initiated the infamous third term agenda and heaped the blame on the National Assembly. His excuse was that were the initiative to be from his presidency, it would have come to the legislature in the form of an executive bill. As my brother Femi Adesina aptly puts it in his column, “Obasanjo thinks we are all fools.”

The instant response of the then Senate President, Senator ...What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

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NAME is a cultural and spiritual construct fixed to the whole essence of man with the power to regulate his mechanics. God values it. He called all his prophets by their names. He changed Abram to Abraham. He changed Sarai to Sarah. He changed Jacob to Israel, He sent prophet Nathan to name Solomon Jedidiah.

He wants all his creatures properly labelled and identified. The herbalists believe in it.

They evoke the names of their victims for evil purpose because they know the significance of evoking the name from the spirit realm. The evocation must touch the source of the man’s essence otherwise the jazz will not work.

Since man was created, we have been naming names even to the point of superfluity. In a single naming ceremony a baby is given almost 20 to 30 names all because every member of the extended family that drops money in a bowl considers it necessary to give the baby a name. In the process, so many names have been cloned and recycled to meaningless dead-end. For

‘In this season and city of frauds and scams, one is at the mercy of God to escape undeserved sanctions.

One’s perplexity becomes more inveterate when you come to discover that some of these people may not be real but mere shadow-chasers latching on one’s integrity to convoke venalities’

Ken Nnamani then was enlightening of the well-circulated perception and gossip. He revealed that Obasanjo informed him of the third term project. His quoted words that debunked Obasanjo’s claim that he told nobody about the agenda: “Immediately I became the Senate President, he told me of his intentions and told me how he wanted to achieve it. I initially did not take him seriously until the event began to unfold.”

Another demystification of the lie was by United States of America’s former Secretary of State, Condeleeza Rice who wrote in the memoir of her years in office: “In 2006, when President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria sidled up to President (Bush) and suggested that he might change the constitution so that he could serve a third term, the President told him not to do it. ‘You have served your country well, now turn over power and become a statesman.”’ Could it be that Obasanjo had forgotten all these and the fact the revealers are still alive?

To further deflate the falsehood, Nnamani reminded us of the more than N8billion that was shared at N50million each to bribe the legislators. According to him, “if he (Obasanjo) is claiming that he never initiated the idea, who then initiated the release of more than N8billion from the Central Bank coffers? Is it not only the president that has access to the CBN vaults? Didn’t he give instruction to the CBN Governor then to dole out the money? Or does any lawmaker or senator have access to it? If this is not true, did Obasanjo who pretended he was fighting corruption through EFCC ever queried the disbursement of such huge amount as bribe?

To deepen the spirit of lie, Obasanjo said if indeed he had wanted a third term, God would have granted him the request because “there is nothing I wanted that God has not given me.” It might still be tolerable to lie against man, but to use the Almighty as a cover up to failed self-centeredness is an abomination. God never grant grace to unrepentant acts of iniquity. Which is why Baba urgently needs a penitent spirit to seek the mercy of God and restitute his ways to enable him end the race of life gloriously. We read in the Bible of enthroned kings who failed to make it to heaven. My sincere wish for Baba is that when his time eventually comes, he would rest with the Lord in eternity.

Damning Dame Below is the summary of a report in The Nation and several other newspapers last Friday: “A massive traffic jam, sweating commuters and several manhours wasted. So it was in Lagos yesterday.

Lagos Island was groaning under a crippling traffic jam that paralysed business and sent many trekking.

First Lady Patience Jonathan was visiting – to thank women for voting her husband in last year’s election.

Security operatives closed down some sections of roads in the nation’s business and financial capital. The resultant traf-

fic jam extended beyond the Island to Mainland Lagos. It did not subside until early evening.”

Talk of disruption of business activities in the nation’s commercial nerve centre just because of a visit by Mr. Resident’s wife.

A commentator reminded us of what the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said: “Whatever life you cannot enjoy outside office, don’t enjoy it when you are in office.” Wherever dame Patience visits, there must be pains and agonies heaped on an already overburdened populace. It happened in Ibadan few weeks ago. The question is: Is it compulsory that busy roads must be shut down because of a private visit?

If Governor Babatunde Fashola could move about safe and secured in Lagos and yet never caused traffic jam, why should the economy of a metropolitan city be paralysed on the excuse of a hollow ‘thank you visit’? For a long period, Fashola and his security details would remain in standstill traffic jam without blowing siren. This is to prove that those who do well have no cause to fear.

Must we wait till irate Nigerians begin to stone unfeeling public officers acting in primal ways that inflict pains and agony on the innocent electorate who are expecting impactful performance from the elected? If such a jamboree visit is ever necessary, why can’t it be done on a Saturday when businesses would be less disrupted? It was reported that hours after Dame had left, many Lagosians were still damned wallowing in traffic jam caused by her visit.

In those days, innocent school children would be compelled to line up the streets waving pointlessly at visiting politicians. That is no more since politicians’ wives have been integrated into the public show. Some make good impact, many are worthless. Yakubu Gowon’s wife, Victoria started the flamboyant First Lady office in the 70s. But where is she today? Yet, Ibrahin Babangida’s Maryam’s Better Life project at least, one way or the other, touched some Nigerian women.

Even some governors’ wives now come up with creative ideas that are better than being idle with government abundant resources. Former Lagos State First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s New Dawn project remains alive till today and still makes impact on the youth.

So, let Dame Patience damn frivolous ventures of unfruitful visitations amounting to wastage of public funds that further infuriates the already depressed people come up with tangible project in line with her husband’s transformation agenda. For instance, there is the issue of abuse of young girls across the country that she can begin to campaign against.

Let her just do something rather than touring around to case commotion.

If she must travel, there are official helicopters she could use without causing misery on the people who would not need politicians parading themselves around the metropolis during the busy hours. It makes no sense causing avoidable hardships on the people.

Before Cinna is sacrificed for a sinner

By Dapo Thomas instance, when I went on a google search for “Dapo Thomas” I came across so many versions and variants of it and most of them have nothing to do with me. It is enough frustration for one’s first name to be cloned and recycled but one becomes helpless and bewildered when one’s name and the surname are now cloned and replicated by all and sundry. In this season and city of frauds and scams, one is at the mercy of God to escape undeserved sanctions. One’s perplexity becomes more inveterate when you come to discover that some of these people may not be real but mere shadowchasers latching on one’s integrity to convoke venalities.

I am rattled that I have been sandwiched in a labyrinth of an identity furore. My name, personality, credibility, integrity, dignity, in short, my whole essence has suffered some kind of collateral damage in a crossfire between Dr Olatunji Dare and another ‘Dapo Thomas’. I am therefore carrying another man’s cross to Golgotha all because of an interlocking identity similitude.

Before the floodgates of inquisitions and informal interrogations were opened, I had personally confronted this identity mess myself. As it is the practice with me, every morning when I buy my newspapers, I glance at the front page headlines and then the back pages. Shockingly, I saw my name in a rejoinder sent to Olatunji Dare’s column in The Nation by one ‘Dapo Thomas’. I hurriedly did a mental reflection on my recent journalistic encounters to see if I had any issue with Olatunji Dare. Since I have been reading this journalism teacher in The Guardian till he moved to The Nation, I cannot remember having any issue with him. So, I became convinced that this was another

‘Dapo Thomas’. I was not particularly comfortable with the situation because of the activities this namesake of mine was involved in; nevertheless I cautioned myself that in a world of six billion people, having a copyright to the name was inconceivable.

The man was at liberty to enjoy his name(s)—the label of human identification.

This obviously is not the first time I was having self-confrontation and image encounter with ‘myself’. When I was serving in the government of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I even learnt about my death. The newspapers screamed: “Tinubu Loses Aide”.

The story was about the death of Asiwaju Tinubu’s Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs while I was Senior Special Assistant on policies and programmes. Our portfolios were different and our names had variations. For instance, mine was standard version (no prefix, no suffix, and no hyphen), his was a double-barrelled version. Again while I can call myself Dapo Thomas of Lagos, he was Dapo Bode-Thomas of Oyo since he was the son of the Late Chief Bode Thomas, Obafemi Awolowo’s right hand man. Despite the fact that his name was double-barelled, people still compounded the problem for me by spreading the news of my “death”. Those who had my numbers called my lines to see if I would pick it or not. “Hello”, I would say each time I picked and the response was usually dead silence as my callers wondered whether it was my ghost or the real me. It took some time before I convinced people that I was alive and that the Dapo BodeThomas that died was an ‘old school edition’ since he was relatively older than me.

It is therefore shocking that some years after this incident, another costly one is now

unfolding. I know when I write. I know what I write. And I know how I write. This time, I did not write anything. I do not have any issue with Olatunji Dare nor does he have any issue with me. I have no NGO. I run no NGO and I operate no NGO. I know nothing about Neighbour to Neighbour (N2N). The only neighbours I know are my two neighbours in the Redemption Camp where I reside—one is the National Prayer Coordinator for the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) and the other is a retired General who found God after participating in the Civil War where many millions were killed. By any stretch of imagination, these people don’t look like people who can dole out millions in support of subsidy removal or presidential campaign adverts.

My assignment now is to meet this person to know if truly Dapo Thomas is his real name, pen name, guy name or mischief name. If he claims it is real and he is real, then since both of us write as public commentators, I will advise that he picks one of the numerous versions apart from the original version that belongs to me. But if he refuses, then I can change mine to one of these: Dapo Thomas of Eko Boys High School, Dapo Thomas of Compro (Ayetoro) or Dapo Thomas of “Great Ife” or better still Dapo Thomas of UI. But if in the unlikely event he also attended all these institutions before or after me, I will have no option than to believe that he is a shadow-chaser using my name to confront its image to provoke an umbrage.

Cinna the Poet was killed by the mob that was out to avenge the death of Ceasar not because of his bad verses but because he shared the same name with Cinna who was the sinner and conspirator the mob was looking for.

But before Cinna is sacrificed for a sinner I am sundering all parallels and off-loading all precarious and notorious liabilities associated with this “Dapo Thomas” without prejudice to his activities and those of his “neighbours”.

• Thomas writes from dapothomas@yahoo.com

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

22

EDITORIAL/OPINION

T

HE United States (U.S) embassy in Nigeria highlighted the security challenges facing this country in the Easter travel advice to its citizens living in the country. It drew attention to the history of attacks during previous holiday weekends, near daily attacks in the north and cautioned them against undertaking journeys in that part of the country.

In the same vein, it advised its citizens to avoid all but essential travels to the Niger Delta states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo and Rivers; the South East states of Abia and Imo; Jos in Plateau state, Bauchi, Borno and the Gulf of Guinea due to risks of kidnapping, robbery and other armed attacks.

Coming before the Easter celebrations and especially against previous experiences, it was feared that possible targets of such envisaged attacks would be churches or gatherings for the celebration of the festivity.

The embassy said that much when it cautioned its citizens to be vigilant around churches and other places of worship, locations where large crowd gather and areas frequented by foreigners.

Due to the lethality of suicide bombings, the attention of all would expectedly have been focused on the northern part of the country. This is more so given the targeting of churches in previous festivities by the Boko Haram religious extremists resulting to incalculable loss of lives and property. It was therefore feared that if recent trends were anything to go by, there is every thing to expect that there would be suicide attacks on Christian places of worship in that part of the country. For this, the second plank of the warning on possible kidnappings and robbery attacks may not have attracted much attention both from the point of view of our citizens and the security agencies.

The suicide bomb attack on Easter day that left more than 40 innocent people dead in Kaduna state underscored the accuracy of that advisory. Though the bomb exploded at a very busy road junction that mainly hosts informal eateries and black market sellers of gasoline, the main targets were churches located around the area. From all accounts, those killed were not the original targets. The car laden with the bombs missed its target due to the refusal of church security to allow the lone suicide driver around the church premises. Had they fallen to the trick and

B

UT the smaller boy was already out of hearing, his wooden box firmly planted on his head, bare feet scuffing the dust on the way to Apataganga…

That was the character of Maren, Wole Soyinka’s alter ego in the literary icon’s autobiography, Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years. It was the young Soyinka at age 11 on his way to a new life at Government College, Ibadan (GCI).

What triggered the recollections were the remarks of the Nobel Laureate at the first Ogun State Investors’ Forum on Monday, March 26, in Abeokuta. The event, which was covered live by the electronic media, was equally captured in part by the Daily Sun - “Soyinka decries proliferation of tertiary institutions in Nigeria” (Sun 28/03/12): “Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has denounced the proliferation of higher institutions in Nigeria. Soyinka’s position was in apparent support for the merger of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) with the OlabisiOnabanjo University (OOU) and the administrative consolidation of the four ICT Polytechnics into one by the government of Ogun State… Soyinka condemned what he described as ‘mindless proliferation’ of institutions. He said schools should not be established without the wherewithal to nurture them and urged governments to invest in quality not quantity.”

But let me race back to the faction (‘faction’ not fiction), Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years, and titillate the reader with the encounter of young Soyinka with the character of Ezeoba, the senior boy in charge of his dormitory. Ezeoba had accessed the wooden box of the new boy and then shot at him. I really had a damn good laughter while reading the exchanges. “‘What apprentice carpenter fabricated this arboreal eyesore?’

Perplexed, the boy merely stood and stared at his questioner.

‘You have problems with your auricular faculties? A perforation in your tympanic membrane that interferes with your hearing, perhaps?’

‘I don’t understand you.’

‘Please!’ the larger boy barked suddenly.

‘When you address a senior boy, you say Please…!’

‘I am not from a village, Ezeoba, please.’

‘The proof of the pudding is in eating. When you get to the dining hall, we shall see with what hand you pick up your fork and knife -

Emeka OMEIHE 08121971199 email: EmekaOmeihe@yahoo.com

Of Boko Haram and kidnapping insistence of the bomber, perhaps the casualty level would have been more devastating.

Within the same period also, there were terror related attacks in other parts of the north all confirming the predictions of the U.S embassy. But the second plank of its warning dealing with kidnappings and robbery attacks seemed not to have attracted much attention during the period. The reason for this could vary. It could be that there was little incidence of this during the period or that the severity of cases was not such to attract considerable public attention. But from Delta state, came a shocking report of the arrest of a deputy Superintendent of Police and head of the state anti-kidnap squad. The unnamed police chief was arrested and taken to the Force Headquarters Abuja for alleged complicity in many cases of abduction under investigation in the state. This singular case involving the head of an anti-kidnap squad underscores the severity of the challenges the nation undergoes.

Though the case is still under investigation, the mere arrest of a man who should be the conscience of the state in kidnap related issues shows how degenerate the matter has become.

Here is a man entrusted with the onerous responsibility of stamping out kidnapping in the state; a man on whom the state government depended for all security information to stamp out the malfeasance now transmuting into the greatest obstacle to the fight. Instead of fighting the scourge, he

compromised his position, colluded with criminals to make the state ungovernable.

Instead of helping to fight the ill, he became the greatest clog to genuine attempts to stamp it out.

Little wonder instead of abetting, kidnapping and sundry crimes resonated with grater ferocity despite genuine efforts by the state government to combat them.

This singular incident underscores the degenerate level into which our society has sunk. It is not the first time key security personnel would be fingered in a similar mess. Not long ago, some military personnel charged with the task of restoring peace in Jos, were also found culpable in the kidnap saga of the father of football star Mikel Obi. There may be more of such unreported cases of collusion. The new Inspector General (I.G) of Police, Mohammed Abubakar harped on this rot in his initial x-ray of the problems with the institution and how to revitalize it.

It was this image problem that informed the scrapping of the ubiquitous road blocks that had turned into tolls centers for the police.

Good a thing, since that decision was taken, we have not seen an upsurge in crimes suggesting that we had no need for them after all. They were there mainly to serve the selfish interests of police personnel who did everything possible to sabotage all previous efforts to dismantle them.

Perhaps, the latest order would have been equally sabotaged but for the insistence of

Soyinka and proliferation of higher institutions

By Soyombo Opeyemi that always gives you rough boys away. We can tell when you dig your spoon in your beans like a shovel, ha haha! So you say you are not a village boy.’

‘No, Ezeoba, please.’

‘Then that wooden receptacle for what I presume must be your private paraphernalia strikes my judgment as being incompatible with your protestation, which I am inclined to accept, since your phonetical articulation of the English language is passable, intelligible, and you may not require remedial coaching to save the House public embarrassment. But that decision is, of course, the prerogative of the Housemaster.’

‘Do you mean my box?’

‘Oh. You understood me?’ The senior boy sounded disappointed. ‘Yes, the box, young sir.

For the status of Government College, a portmanteau would have been more appropriate…’”

And to the inscription, Akinkoyi, in the pillowcase of Master Wole, Ezeoba turned. “‘Is this yours…?’

‘It’s mine, please. A nickname. That is the present from my godmother…’

‘It means “Trouble”. Double, double, toil and trouble – that is Shakespeare.’

‘Yes, please, Macbeth.’

‘Oh. You know Mr William Shakespeare?’

‘My father had some of his books in his library.’

‘I see. A new boy not totally devoid of elementary erudition…’”

On the temerity of the young Soyinka to suggest the change of House emblem, Ezeoba reached out once more to his ornate armoury: “You infinitesimal mote of the human species…

You problematic, disruptive factor of inverse proportion to your physical mass, so you want to tamper with the traditional emblem of Swanston House which your predecessors, of infinite wisdom and cumulative maturity, have thought fit to retain and maintain all through

their turbulent scholastic passage through the courtyards of this institution…!”

I went this far in my extracts in order to appreciate the quality of education available in those days, in government secondary schools for that matter. In fact, many of the literary icons ever produced by this country never even studied English language at the universities, but passing through the Government Colleges was enough to equip them for life in the Use of English. And since other subjects were taught in English, little wonder they all excelled in their chosen fields.

Chinua Achebe of the fame, Things Fall Apart, studied History at the University College Ibadan. T.M.Aluko, the author One Woman One Machete, studied Engineering. Elechi Amadi, author of The Concubine, read Physics. The highly renowned Economist, the late Pious Okigbo once reviewed a literature book written by the legendary Achebe! And must we forget the late prolific author, Cyprian Ekwensi, who read Pharmacy?!

I wonder whether the same Government Colleges or any public school of today would have produced Wole Soyinka and those other literary titans. And this is the crux of the matter.

The desire to being back the good old days has become the obsession of my governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun. It preoccupies his mind throughout the day and assails his waking hours: “How do we produce many Soyinkas, Sapara-Williams’, Awolowos, Simeon Adebos, Adeoye Lambos, Akintola Williams’, etc in Ogun State?”

I invite readers to take just a weekend off to travel across Ogun State and see for themselves the dilapidated structures of our public schools.

Except those that have been renovated by the current government, the state of these schools will melt even a heart of steel. Please journey round Ogun and see the rot with your own eyes.

I cannot envy Senator Ibikunle Amosun in

the I.G to deal with any officer in whose area of duty there are reported cases of crime. We have not seen any significant equipping of the police since then; we have not seen any increase in remuneration but crime has not increased as was the case in previous in instances. What this means is that we can successfully combat crimes without the checkpoints. Now that the checkpoints are out, the police authorities should now follow it up with equipping the various formations with motorized patrol vehicles and ancillary communication gadgets to enable the police fall in line with its counterparts in other parts of the world.

Crime either by suicide bombers, kidnapers or armed robbers constitutes the greatest challenge to the country today. That seems to be the message in the U.S advisory.

If that advisory is followed to its logical conclusion, it would imply that no part of the country is safe as it has something untoward to say for virtually all states of the federation. Potential visitors to this country will no doubt, be scared down the marrow by that report. Its repercussions for foreign investments inflow are too obvious to deserve a mention.

Having identified the damage resurging criminal activities has done to our collective image; it is sad that we are yet to get a handle to them. Though law enforcement agencies have been striving to combat them, there seems to be some disagreement on how best to go about the fight. There have been efforts to explain their resurgence on account of the debilitating poverty in the country. That is why there have been suggestions that the government should enter into negotiations with the Boko Haram sect that has levied war on the country. It is this sociological view of the matter that has sustained such unconvincing arguments that the criminality of that sect can only be resolved at the conference table. Boko Haram is evil. So also is kidnapping. We can as well rationalize kidnapping on account of poverty in some southern states even with the so called fat receipts from the Federation Account. After all, it is too well known how the parasitic elite fritter away our collective patrimony.

So, we may have to take a holistic perspective of poverty if we are to have a handle at the sundry crime challenges confronting the country. We may have to negotiate with Boko Haram, kidnappers and armed robbers. his Mission to Rebuild Ogun State. What this administration inherited was a house in ruins.

You need time to clear the rubble and recover trapped valuables before erecting new structures. Worse, the new government inherited a heavily indebted state with virtually all assets that could generate income to the state sold off at rock bottom prices all in the name of concessioning.

Nothing daunted, we’ll provide free and qualitative education to our children at all cost. Once they get it right at primary and post-primary levels, they are bound to excel at the tertiary level. We are not interested in taking over any school; all we have said is to ask them to give us a couple of years to sort out ourselves. A policy that would have seen over 20,000 children roam the streets in one fell swoop is certainly not in public interest. In fact, our plan is to give the private schools a run for their money by the kind of facilities we intend to put in our public schools.

The governor usually speaks along those lines. And it is to the credit of this administration that some pupils of private schools are now returning to public schools to benefit from its genuine free education policy that includes free textbooks in all the subjects and writing materials.

Of course, resources of the state are limited even though efforts are already on top gear to diversify the economy of the state. One is therefore happy that the planned consolidation of the four ICT Polytechnics into one and merger of the two state owned universities has, by implication, received such a dispassionate endorsement of our literary guru. It’s actually a matter of common sense. It is better to devote scarce resources to two institutions than spread them across six.

The University College Ibadan, where Soyinka had a stint before going to Leeds, was once ranked fourth in the entire Commonwealth of Nations. Today, the same institution is a speck in the Commonwealth map of universities. These are the kind of retrogressions that give Amosun sleepless nights. And he’s ready and committed to make OOU a success story. I have no doubt that the likes of Prof Wole Soyinka - my intellectual avatar - will be more than willing to lend a helping hand to make OOU the pride of the nation in a record time.

• Soyombo is Special Assistant on Media to the governor of Ogun State

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

23

24

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

25

BUSINESS THE NATION

E-mail:- bussiness@thenationonlineng.net

ISSUES

T HE CEO ‘Only 36% of adults have access to

Who will rescue the capital market?

- P. 27 News Briefing

‘New tax law’ll affect workers’ WORKERS are in for hard times, going by the provisions of the newly amended Personal Income Tax Allowance (PITA).

- Page 26

‘Oil licences to deplete reserves’ THE issuance of permits to 42 marketers to import fuel this quarter will make demand for dollar to surge and also deplete the foreign reserves.

- Page 31

What charm for Chams?

CHAMS Plc was one of the stocks believed to be a new frontier for the stock market but the reverse has been the case.

For now, what we want to communicate here is that we are going to rigorously pursue any hindrance to power supply. And to ensure that we clean up the system, we have to make sure that we deliver more reliable power to the country.

- Prof Barth Nnaji, Minister of Power

formal banking’

Page 32

Nigeria, Daewoo work out terms on power investment T OP officials of Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company led

by South Korea’s ambassador to Nigeria have concluded terms of investment in the country’s power sector; it was learnt at the weekend.

This would be followed by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for building of infrastructure to boost power supply.

The development according to sources is sequel to President Goodluck Jonathan’s visit to South Korea last month where he met with chief executives and top officials of leading South Korean companies.

The Daewoo delegation, it was gathered, was in Abuja to carry out investigation on what infrastructure to build and the terms of investment. However, after

•Nnaji in US to seek pacts implementation

By Emeka Ugwuanyi

arriving at a cordial consensus with the government, the Minister of Power, Prof.

Barth Nnaji directed that the legal teams of the power ministry and that of Daewoo work out terms of the agreement before pen is put to paper to officially sign the MoU. The legal teams, it was gathered are still working on the assignment.

The specific projects to be constructed by Daewoo are still being kept secret but a source said it would be on

power generation infrastructure or construction of gas supply infrastructure that would supply gas to existing thermal power stations or both.

President Jonathan while in South Korea had told Daewoo Engineering and Construction Company that Nigeria’s gas infrastructure needs to be upgraded in order to meet the urgent power needs so as to quicken government’s industrialisation aspiration.

Jonathan expressed disenchantment over the abundant gas resource, which cannot be utilised for domestic purposes and for export due to

lack of infrastructure.

Daewoo’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Jong-Uk Seo, had assured Jonathan of the company’s willingness to do business in Nigeria, adding that the company has been operating in the country since 1978.

Similarly, the Power Minister, Nnaji, who is expected in the country today, has been in the United States in the last one week courting the officials United States Export-Import Bank (US EXIM) to implement the $1.5 billion agreement it entered with the government.

The bank had promised to as-

sist in improving power supply in the country. The government and General Electric (GE Energy), a US firm, signed recently in London a $10 billion investment in some power plants with combined 10,000 megawatts (MW) capacity.

At the agreement signing, which took place at the Nigerian High Commission in London, Nnaji, told journalists that GE only wanted to take up at least 15 percent equity in each of the plants to be constructed.

The minister was said to be bothered by the sharp drop in power supply since last month and is making efforts to attract fund to improve the situation, hence the aggressive drive for the implementation of some of the big agreements and also to achieve government’s aspiration of attaining 40,000MW generation by 2020.

- Page 35

AG Leventis: Signs to watch AG Leventis (Nigeria) Plc had a tenouous performance in the immediate past year as rising costs eroded the impressive growth in sales.

- Page 36 DATA STREAM COMMODITY PRICES Oil -$107/barrel Cocoa -$2,686.35/metric ton Coffee - ¢132.70/pound Cotton - ¢95.17pound Gold -$1,800/troy ounce Rubber -¢159.21pound MARKET CAPITALISATIONS NSE JSE NYSE LSE

-N6.503 trillion -Z5.112trillion -$10.84 trillion -£61.67 trillion RATES Inflation -10.5% Treasury Bills -7.08% Maximum lending-22.42% Prime lending -15.87% Savings rate -2% 91-day NTB -15% Time Deposit -5.49% MPR -12% Foreign Reserve $35.8b FOREX CFA 0.2958 EUR 206.9 £ 242.1 $ 156 ¥ 1.9179 SDR 238 RIYAL 40.472

•From left: Sterling Bank Executive Director, North and Corporate Banking, Abubakar Sule; Executive Director, South, Lanre Adesanya; Managing Director/ CEO, Yemi Adeola and Executive Director, Lagos, Davendra Puri, at the bank’s Customers’ Forum in Lagos ... at the weekend.

Insurers’ capital hits N600b, says Daniel

T

HE gross capital base of the insurance industry has hit N600 billion, the Commissioner for Insurance Fola Daniel, has said.

He told The Nation that the industry as at 2010 had between N500billion and N600billion gross income, adding that with last year’s financials, which is still being processed, the income may exceed N600billion.

Daniel noted that with the enormous opportunities in the economy, the industry has the potential to achieve N2trillion income. He said the operators are under trading with the cash at their deposer stressing that the industry after five years of recapitalisation ought to have

By Chuks Udo Okonta

been a model to insurers across African and other part of the globe.

He said: “The issue of how close or far the industry is towards the achievement of the target would not have a straight answer. I think what we need to do is really to go back to the fundamentals of the figures behind that target we gave ourselves. On the basis of what we have in the nation, should we really be talking of N1trillion income?

Five years after recapitalisation, should we not be talking of something more than N1 trillion? If we deploy N500billion to

N600billion to do business, should we not be looking at doubling that amount of money? Or even making it triple? I think we have the wherewithal to generate income in excess of N1trillion.

“How much of it we have gotten, I cannot say, because the 2011 account has just reached the commission, I do believe that by the time we get most of the accounts, we would be able to say; yes this is where we are exactly. I think the underlining thing should be, do insurers have the capacity? Do we have a business environment that can support the premium income of N1 trillion or even N2 trillion?

And the answer is yes.”

He noted that the Insurance

industry is assiduously working to net over N100billion from motor insurance, adding that going by the statistics provided by the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) which put vehicles in the country at over 10 million, the industry through its initiatives will net over N100billion from that class of insurance.

Daniel said the industry also hope to achieve gross premium income of N1.10 trillion, create additional 250,000 new jobs, make substantial contribution into the Fire Service maintenance fund as provided in section 65(5) of the Insurance Act, attain3.0 per cent insurance contribution to the nation’s Gross

Domestic Product (GDP) and attain premium per capita contribution of N7, 500 from N1, 200.

He said if available statistics are anything to go by, the MDRI’s target of N2.5 trillion gross industry premium income by the end of 2015 and N6 trillion by the end of 2021 is on course.

Daniel said in terms of average growth rate, the industry has recorded 36.0 per cent for 2007-2009 up from 11.67 per cent for 2004-2006.

He added that although complete figures for last year are not yet available, there are strong indications from what is available that the industry will record significant increase.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

26

BUSINESS NEWS Flight Schedule MONDAY - FRIDAY LAGOS – ABUJA Departure Arrival 1. Aero 06.50 08.10 2. Associated 07.00 09.30 3. Air Nigeria 07.00 08.20 4. IRS 07.00 08.20 5. Dana 07.02 08.22 6. Arik 07.15 08.15 7. Chanchangi 07.15 8. Air Nigeria 08.15 09.35 9. Dana 08.10 09.20 10. Aero 08.45 10.05 11. Arik 09.15 10.15 12. Chanchangi 10.00 11.00 13. IRS 11.15 12.35 14. Dana 12.06 12.26 15. Aero 12.20 13.30 16. Air Nigeria 13.25 14.45 17. Chanchangi 13.30 14.30 18. Arik 13.45 14.45 19. IRS 14.00 15.20 20. Aero 14.10 15.30 21. Air Nigeria 14.50 16.10 22. Dana 15.30 16.50 23. Chanchangi 15.30 16.30 24. Arik 15.50 16.50 25. Aero 16.00 17.20 26. IRS 16.30 17.50 27. Arik 16.50 17.50 28. Dana 17.10 18.30 29. Chanchangi 17.30 18.30 30. Air Nigeria 17.35 18.55 31. Air Nigeria (T/TH) 18.30 19.50 32. Arik 18.45 19.45 33. Aero 19.20 20.40 1.

2.

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8.

LAGOS – BENIN Arik 07.30 Associated 08.30 Aero 10.50 Arik 11.45 Associated 13.00 Aero 14.25 Arik 15.30 Associated 16.00

1.

2.

3.

4.

Arik Aero Arik Aero

1. Arik 2. Aero 1.

2.

3.

4.

LAGOS – CALABAR 07.30 11.20 12.50 16.00 LAGOS – JOS 10.55 11.15

LAGOS – KADUNA Aero 08.00 Chanchangi 10.00 Arik 10.00 Arik 15.10

08.30 09.10 11.50 12.45 13.40 15.20 16.30 16.40 08.50 12.40 14.10 17.20 12.15 12.45 09.10 11.00 11.10 16.20

LAGOS – PORT HARCOURT (CIVIL) 1. Aero 07.15 08.35 2. Arik 07.15 08.35 3. Arik 09.00 10.20 4. Dana 09.27 10.40 5. Aero 10.50 12.30 6. Arik 11.40 13.00 7. Air Nigeria 12.00 13.10 8. IRS 13.30 15.00 9. Arik 14.00 15.20 10. Dana 15.03 16.20 11. Air Nigeria 16.00 17.10 12. Arik 16.10 17.30 13. Aero 16.15 17.30 14. Arik 17.10 18.30 1.

2.

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LAGOS – OWERRI Aero 07.30 Arik 07.30 Air Nigeria 13.40 Arik 14.00 Arik 16.30

08.40 08.40 14.55 15.10 17.40

1.

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Arik Aero Arik Aero

LAGOS – WARRI 08.15 11.50 11.55 14.55

09.1 12.50 12.55 15.55

1.

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LAGOS – KANO Air Nigeria 07.10 IRS 08.00 Dana 08.10 Arik 12.20 IRS 14.00 IRS 18.15

08.50 09.45 09.40 14.00 15.45 19.55

LAGOS – OWERRI 07.20 14.00 16.30

08.30 15.10 17.40

LAGOS – UYO 10.35

11.35

1. Arik 2. Arik 3. Arik 1. Dana

LAGOS – MAIDUGURI 1. IRS 11.15 13.15 2. Arik 15.50 18.00 LAGOS – ILORIN 1. Overland 07.15

08.00

LAGOS – ABUJA SAT/SUN Arik 7.15; 10.20; 2.20; 5.20pm – 7.30; 9.15; 10.20; 2.20; 4.50; 6.45 Aero 07.30; 09.35; 13.10; 14.50; 20.20 – 07.30; 09.35; 13.10; 14.50; 20.20 Air Nigeria 08.15; 14.30; 17.15; 18.30 – 08.15; 13.30; 14.30; 17.15; 18.30

‘New tax law’ll affect workers’ living standards’

W

ORKERS are in for hard times, going by the provisions of the newly amended Personal Income Tax Allowance (PITA).

In the amendments, employees are required to pay taxes on certain allowances in which they have enjoyed full relief. These include leave bonus , housing and medical, among other allowances, provided for employees in both private and government establishments.

Speaking at a seminar on taxation in Lagos over the weekend, a partner at Emmanuel Ijiwere & Co, a tax and financial audit firm, Emmanuel Adeleke, said the amended personal income tax allowance Act, passed by the NationalAssembly, would affect the standard of living of workers.

By Akinola Ajibade

Adeleke said leave bonus that is not more than 10 per cent of annual basic salary, is now taxable under the new Personal Income Tax Allowance (PITA) guidelines, adding that the development would further affect workers’ living standards. He said medical expenses incurred by staff outside the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and workers’housing allowance that is not more than N150,000, are going to be taxed. He said the grey areas in the amended PITA would certainly affect the living conditions of Nigerians.

According to him, the relief provided by the amended personal income tax would not be of help to workers.

“Both the workers in the lower, medium and higher income brackets, would be affected by the amended personal income tax allowance Act. There is a Consolidated Relief of N200, 000 or one per cent of gross income for workers in the new amendments. But that cannot cushion the effects of the economy on an average Nigerian worker,” he added.

Also, a principal partner, Babatunde Rufai & Co, Mr Tunder Rufai, said the new amendment was a sharp improvement on the old ones. He said legal issues contained in the new amendments must be resolved in the interest of people that are in taxable bracket.

He said the portions affecting the welfare of workers need to be look into to foster growth.

Why airline business in Nigeria is unprofitable, by operators

T

HE General Secretary of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Captain Mohammed Joji, has attributed high operating costs, rising price of aviation fuel and lack of an enabling environment as being responsible for failure of airline business in the country.

He also attributed the failure of the Federal Government to implement the waiver on importatation of aircraft spare parts and other sundry factors as part of the reasons airline undertaking remains an uphill task.

Joji, while speaking on the state of the aviation sector, said airline operators could not overcome these factors and make profit because they are grappling with a myriad of operational and safety issues that has made aviation business unattractive.

He said with the recent 15 per cent increase in the pump price of JET A1, (aviation fuel), consituting about 50 per cent of airlines’ operating cost, it

By Kelvin Osa-Okunbor

would not be profitable of airlines continue with the current charge regime.

He explained that the price of JET A1, jumped from N170 per litre to N195 last week , adding that the development could force debt-ridden airlines to increase their airfares.

Joji said domestic airline operators are in a fix, as to whether to raise airfares or not, fearing that doing so may force air travellers to take to the road.

He urged the Federal Government to intervene to save the industry from total collapse.

Joji said: “Just last week, fuel marketers raised fuel price and it has gone up from N170 to N195.

You need N9,375 from each passenger to pay for fuel. How much are you charging? Between N21,000 and N23,000? What about maintenance? What about the airport charges? If you increase your

airfare, people will go to the road to take night buses, and then you lose passengers.

“Sometimes, we had to go to Ghana to change an engine and bring it back to Nigeria, why should we do that? That is what we are saying, that there are so many issues, which we have to look at; the cost of operations is very high.”

He added: “If you have a bird strike, that aircraft will remain on the ground for about one month and there is no compensation from the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.

“If I operate that aircraft in America or England, within two hours, I will get an engine. The recommendation is straight forward”.

He tasked the government to come up with a policy to protect airline operators like what obtained in the United States, where airlines are protected under the bankruptcy law.

•From right: CBN Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi Lamido; President, Bank Directors Association of Nigeria (BDAN) Olor’ogun Sunny Kuku and Vice-President, Mrs Foluke K. Abdulrazaq, during a meeting with Sanusi in Abuja.

Naira firms on Shell, NNPC dollar sales

T

HE naira strengthened to its highest level in a month against the United States’ dollar on the interbank market last Friday, supported by dollar sales by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell and speculation on sales by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to local lenders.

The local currency closed the week at N157.40 to the dollar on the interbank, firmer than the N157.70 to the dollar it closed on Thursday.

Four oil multinational companies sold around $186 million to lenders early in the week, which boosted dollar liquidity in the market and provided support for the local currency.

“The market reacted to the invitation by NNPC to some banks to bid for its dollars on Friday and coupled with another dollar sale by Shell,” on currency trader said.

Dealers said the naira was also supported by large dollar inflows from offshore investors who participated at a treasury bills auction on Wednesday.

“Since NNPC was unable to conclude its dollar sales this week, we expect the naira to strengthen further next week when the funds hit the market,” another dealer said.

Treasury bill yields fall on demand spike

N

IGERIAN treasury bill yields fell across the board at an auction last Thursday when a total of N183.65 billion ($1.17 billion) worth were issued by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as demand surged to its highest in years.

The Federal Government, according to Reuters news, sold N30.16 billion worth of the 91-day paper at 14 per cent, compared with 14.19 per cent at the previous auction, while it auctioned N73.49 billion in 182-day bills at a return of 14.94 per cent, against 15.05 percent previously.

Thursday’s auction results were announced on Friday.

The apex bank issued N80 billion worth of the one-year paper at 15.07 per cent, below the N15.57 per cent of an auction last month.

Dealers said prospects of inflation falling for March and a likely cut in CBN’s benchmark interest rate at its next Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting are driving down yields on the debt instruments.

“We are expecting yields on other fixed income paper to take a cue from the results of this auction,” one dealer said.

Demand rose significantly as a total of N474.51 was demanded by investors, compared with N148 billion at the last auction.

‘Govt agencies exit has reduced cargo dwell time’

T

HE exit of some government agencies from the ports about six months ago, has reduced cargo dwell time from about 30 to 24 days, The Nation has learnt.

Chairman, Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA), Tin-Can Island Ports Chapter, Kayode Farinto, said following the sacking of these agencies, cargo dwell time has actually improved, arguing that most of the affected bodies were performing overlapping functions.

He said: “ The exit of these agencies has reduced the serious challenges our members were going through. Before their exit, the general agreement then was that dur-

By Uyoatta Eshiet

ing examination every agency involved should be available to make the process faster, but that was never the case.

“They will stay away and come back later, thereby creating bottlenecks within the system,” Farinto said, adding that since the reduction of the number of these agencies, the clearing process is faster and this has actually facilitated the rate at which cargoes are cleared.

However, he said, expectations that the new regime would translate to reduced cost of operations and subsequent lowering of prices of goods, has not been realised.

He said: “Ordinarily that would have been the case, but unfortunately, the newly introduced benchmark by Customs has brought a new dimension of problems into the ports.”

He said the experience of the past one month since the implementation of the benchmark valuation policy, shows a process that had been concluded by agents, has to be revalued, resulting in the process being started all over again.

“Cargo dwell, to me, has actually reduced, but the time it takes an agent to clear his goods has not actually reduced’, he said, adding that before the benchmark introduction, it used to take an agent about one week to clear

goods at the ports, but it has gone back to two weeks.

On why it is so, Farinto said the agents are being made to go over an already completed process because Customs wants to make more money based on the new benchmark valuation. He complained that the expected changes in Customs have not been seen.

He said the new process requiring officers to seek a superior officer’s consent before goods can be released is actually slowing things down.

He said:“The 48 hour cargo clearance policy of government has been effectively defeated by this introduction of the benchmark valuation by Customs.”

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

27

ISSUES

Who will rescue the capital market?

•Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

•Ms Oteh

Globally, the capital market, which crashed a few years ago, is recovering, but the case seems to be different in Nigeria. Why is this so? The House Committee on Capital Market tried to find out, but before it could make a headway, it ran into a crisis of integrity. Its Chairman, Herman Hembe, Director-General, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Ms Arunma Oteh alleged, demanded N44 million bribe from her for the panel’s job. Her claim has temporarily halted the panel’s work, but who will stop the market from bleeding?

TAOFIK SALAKO asks as he x-rays the effect of regulation on the market.

S

TOCK markets worldwide made a good showing in the first quarter of the year, but it was not so for their Nigerian counterpart, which closed the quarter with negative returns. The All Share Index (ASI)-the benchmark index at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), which tracks changes in prices of all quoted equities and doubles as the country’s index, closed the quarter at 20,652.47 points as against its 2012's index on board of 20,730.63 points, representing a drop of 0.38 per cent.

With an inflation rate of 11.9 per cent and monthly average prime lending rate of 17.11 per cent, real rate of returns at the market ran into double-digit losses. However, the global market showed a robust growth and optimistic outlook with the American stock market showing its best performance in more than a decade.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the Standard & Poors' 500 (S & P 500), two key indices of the United States US market, closed the quarter with their best performance since 1998; the Nasdaq fared better with returns that outperformed other comparable quarters. The S & P 500 closed the quarter with some 12 per cent gain.

Also, Japan's Nikkei returned some 19 per

cent gain, its best in a first quarter in 24 years.

Global equity recovery was driven by economic data indicating improvements in manufacturing, employment and retail positions in the US amidst other positive global economic reports. The Nigerian economy also shared this positive macroeconomic outlook with nearly all pundits expecting the economy to sustain its steady growth in future.

The market’s poor performance is a reflection of its losing streak since 2008. Market value of all quoted companies dropped by about N1.4 trillion last year as the benchmark index indicated a negative return of 16.31 per cent. For a market that had between 2007 and 2009 lost 70 per cent of its value, the recent declines exasperated investors. Market capitalisation, which is currently N6. 6 trillion, had peaked at N12.1 trillion in March 2008.

The secondary market’s performance also reflected of the parlous state of the primary market, with investors' loss of confidence constricting funding for companies and raising the booby traps of over-indebtedness.

From a high of N1.3 trillion in 2007, new issues dropped by 93.5 per cent to only N85.9

billion in 2009. It has since remained almost inactive with the exceptions of few core investors seeking to recapitalise their companies through rights issues.

What ails the market?

But nearly all investment analysts agree on the strong fundamentals and prospects of most of the quoted companies. Chief Investment Officer, Renaissance Asset Managers, Plamen Monovski, urged investors to move their funds to sub-Sahara Africa (SSA)where equities are trading at "exceptionally cheap" levels. Monovski, who leads investment decisions at the fund management subsidiary of Renaissance Capital, which invests in Nigeria, manages assets in excess of $2.5 billion. Renaissance Capital, a leading emerging markets investment bank, believes Nigeria could surpass South Africa and emerge the biggest economy within the SSA region. It noted that a 20 per cent rebasing of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) could make Nigeria the biggest economy in SSA by 2016 but a higher rebase value could hasten the country’s emergence as the region's economic leader by 2014.

Most other pundits including the Interna-

tional Monetary Fund (IMF) and International Finance Corporation (IFC) are also optimistic of Nigeria's economic growth.

With gross economic growth and most equities making profits and paying dividends-two major variables for positive stock market performance, what could be holding down the market? Most stakeholders believe that the non-protection of investors and an effective regulator is a dampener on the market's performance.

President, Independent Shareholders Association of Nigeria (ISAN) Sir Sunny Nwosu, said the regulator’s failure to give due consideration to protection of minority shareholders is responsible for the waning investors confidence in the market.

According to him, the capital market has yet to recover because minority investors who would have provided steady inflow of funds through regular savings are disenchanted with the policy thrusts of the financial regulators and the government, which most often punish the minority shareholders for systemic fail• Continued on page 28

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

28

ISSUES

Who will rescue the capital market?

• Continued from page 27

ures. He said while the regulator tended to overlook infractions by some influential major shareholders, it often turned round to punish investors for its failures.

Nwosu said the problems of the market are inconsistent policies, unguarded statements that tend to undermine investors confidence and government’s insensitivity to the market’s needs. "The regulators should accept their failures and retrace their steps in order for the market to recover," Nwosu said.

The consequence of investors' concerns and operators' disinterest is telling on the market.

Enter the regulator Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Ms Aruma Oteh was appointed in 2010 and charged to restore investors' confidence in the regulatory framework, which had been damaged by allegations of frauds and unethical conducts by operators and quoted companies and worst still, complicity of the regulators.

Ms Oteh, a former vice president at the African Development Bank (ADB), on assuming office, sacked NSE Director-General Prof Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke and appointed an interim administrator and interim president to lead the management and council of the NSE. Her intervention initially appeared to raise investors' confidence. The market posted a positive full-year average return of 18.9 per cent in 2010. Under Ms Oteh, SEC has made several changes which it views as vital to building the blocks of a world class market.

SEC reviewed and published a corporate governance code, which became effective in April. One of the main areas of focus is the strengthening of the institutional capacity of SEC including human capital, technology and process. The commission has begun implementing key recommendations and made significant investments to enhance its technology platform. To address human capital and skills gap, the Commission hired fresh and technically competent professionals.

SEC is also collaborating with the Ministries of Finance, Trade and Investment and Agriculture and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on the privatisation of the Abuja Securities and Commodity Exchange (ASCE).

Given its importance to the economy’s growth, its privatisation would align its structure and operations with the agricultural transformation agenda of the government.

Besides efforts to improve corporate governance, periodic disclosure of financial information and the quality of such information have improved enhanced monitoring, enforcement and the requirements for higher quality information disclosure from public listed companies by SEC and NSE. To improve disclosure in prospectuses, SEC in the last few years has also introduced some rules.

The Commission is also working with stakeholders to improve liquidity in the market. Apart from new listings, SEC believes that the formal take-off of market making, security lending and short selling will improve liquidity in the market. The Commission recently approved the NSE's rules on market making, short selling and securities lending.

The Commission believes new listings are critical to the development of the market and it is determined to ensure that sectors of the economy, which are under-represented on the Exchange are encouraged to participate.The Commission has also engaged the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) and the Ministry of Power, on the listing of state owned enterprises listed for privatisation.

But while SEC was campaigning for new listings, the highest concentration of voluntary delisting in recent years occurred

last year. The delisting of Nampak Plc , Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC) and United Nigeria Textiles (UNTL) not only reduced the available investment opportunities in a stagnated market, it was also a major blow to the campaign to get several quotable companies on board.

Selective perception Critics have faulted the genuineness of SEC's regulatory interventions. They believe the SEC's reform is selective and cosmetic. Some operators and stakeholders are not happy with SEC’s handing of SEC’s leadership crisis. Despite being applauded for sacking NSE’s management many still allege that SEC, has overtime become impartial; working for some vested interests whose struggle for control exacerbated the crisis at the NSE. NSE as a limited by guarantee self-regulatory organisation is owned by individual and institutional members, especially broker-dealers with seats on the Exchange, with all the voting rights conferred by ownership vested in them. SEC's intervention was premised on the national importance of NSE as the country’s only stock exchange. But rather than resolving the crisis and restoring NSE to its independence, SEC appeared to be interested in entrenching its interests at NSE. Against the wish NSE members, SEC turned its former interim administrator at NSE into a council member and retained the interim head of council as president, even after it claimed to have completed a world-class executive search and constituted new executives for the NSE. On the direction of SEC, many individuals were handpicked into hitherto elective positions on NSE’s council. Stockbrokers, under the aegis of Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers (CIS) and Association of Stockbroking Houses of Nigeria (ASHON) protested the infractions. But with the apex regulator wielding the hammer, their protests fizzled out. While the SECdirected council used the previous rotational rule at NSE to remove pre-intervention council members, it has selectively used a status quo ruling to retain one influential council member as vice president, who many finger as the de facto president of NSE. The much vaunted aggressive move by SEC to demutualise NSE was also viewed by stakeholders as a continuation of calculated attempts to corner the NSE. Stockbrokers and stakeholders in the market said SEC, under its current leadership, cannot be trusted to be impartial in the demutualisation of the NSE. They alleged that SEC has ulterior motives in pushing for the demutualisation of NSE.

Demutualisation and nationalisation A senior capital market operator and former president, Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN), Mazi Okechukwu Unegbu, describes the planned demutualisation of NSE as suspicious.

"One is of the view that the centre of this issue is the control of the heart of the NSE. This is because prior to 2008, the NSE was seen as a money making venture. That is why those who only had rumours of the operations of the capital market became overnight experts," Unegbu said.

He said demutualisation should pass through a process duly initiated and run by members of the NSE, pointing out that rather than undue concentration on demutualisation of NSE, SEC should concern itself with developing a com-

•Ex- SEC boss Senator Udo Udoma

• House Speaker Aminu Tambuwal

petitive market place by encouraging the development of alternative stock exchanges and products that could deepen the market.

"What we hear at the moment is that we want to create a 'world class market based on international best practices'. What is the basis of the measurement? Is this not the case of the pregnant sheep whose time to give birth is not due deciding to give birth to a premature ‘baby’ because others whose time are due have given birth? The premature baby will certainly die," Unegbu said.

Unegbu, who is the Managing Director of Maxifund Investment and Securities Plc, said it was both theoretical and practically sound for the regulator not to jump into the arena as SEC is not a member of the Exchange and should not through proxy own or be seen to teleguide the operations of the Exchange.

The knee-jack manner of nationalisation of three quoted banks with the tacit support of SEC by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has also left several investors disenchanted with SEC. Investors, who traded on the shares of Afribank Nigeria Plc, Bank PHB and Spring Bank in the previous trading session, woke up to the news of the nationalisation of the banks as they streamed to the market for the continuation of their deals on the banks and other stocks. Against the usual rules of flagging possible risks through placement on technical suspension or full suspension, the banks which were valued at N30 billion then, were nationalised overnight, nearly two months before the September 30, last year deadline for their recapitalisation by the CBN. They were subsequently converted into limited liability companies, delisted from the NSE and transferred to the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON).

Investment managers at Afrinvest West Africa said they were surprised by the decision to nationalise the banks given that the September deadline for their recapitalisation was still some 55 days ahead.

"We believe the impact of this action on the equities market will be markedly negative, given the challenges in the global economy and the renewed concerns about the downturn in recent weeks. This assumes even more frightening proportions when considering the apparent lack of in-

vestor’s confidence in the domestic retail segment," Afrinvest said.

President, Nigeria Shareholders Solidarity Association (NSSA) Chief Timothy Adesiyan, said the nationalisation was another major blow to investors who had been in pains for declines in values of their investments.

SEC immediately issued a statement endorsing the nationalisation without any reference to the process adopted as well as the fate of minority shareholders. "The SEC wishes to state that the actions of the NDIC, CBN and AMCON are significant steps towards the resolution of the banking crisis. Indeed, the Commission believes these actions will accelerate the recovery of the Nigerian capital market," SEC said. NSE concurred with this position. After the nationalisation SEC and NSE placed non-existent banks on full suspension.

‘We believe the impact of this action on the equities market will be markedly negative, given the challenges in the global economy and the renewed concerns about the downturn in recent weeks. This assumes even more frightening proportions when considering the apparent lack of investor’s confidence in the domestic retail segment’

Question of integrity The integrity of the capital market reform has also come under serious doubts following allegations of financial profligacy, poor judgement and bad administrative practices against Oteh, who is responsible for SEC, management. The management crisis at SEC blew open at the public hearing by the House of Representatives' Committee on Capital Market. Ms Oteh, who owned up to making use of officials from Access Bank in senior management roles at SEC, was alleged to be running what was described as 'management within management' with a coterie of handpicked consultants and advisers while existing members of management were only sought to concur to crucial decisions. The top management staff dissociated themselves from several decisions allegedly taken by management and tendered several documents indicating they had raised objections to certain decisions and processes pushed through by Ms Oteh.

Although Ms Oteh’s allegation that the former chairman of the Committee, Hon. Herman Hembe, demanded bribe from her halted proceedings at the public hearing, several cases had been built, questioning her integrity. Besides administrative practices that weakened the institutional decision-making capacity of the SEC management, Ms Oteh was confronted with allegations of financial impropriety including surreptitious purchase of three Toyota Hilux vehicles for N32 million without due process. While Ms Oteh grappled with the allegation that she caused SEC to pay N62 million to rent a fivebedroom apartment for her despite the monetisation policy of the government, it was established that she stayed in the high-brow Transcorp Hilton Hotel for eight months contrary to a maximum of 56 days allowed by SEC and civil service rules. In what appeared to be reckless disregard for rules, the executive commissioner, legal and enforcement at SEC, in several cases, said he noted and drew attention to the infractions. Following these allegations of abuse of office and privileges, the board of SEC has directed its audit and finance committee to investigate.

Besides the pending House probe there is the need for an all-inclusive probe to resolve issues of ethics and practices undermining the market.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

29

PERSONAL FINANCE

Key points in personal financial planning

Investor’s Worth

The billions of heroic past

J

him one of the most respected retired bankers.

Beyond Zenith Bank, Ovia is a man with the magical golden wand for success. His touch makes a success of every enterprise. Ovia’s business proficiency has also been reasserted with the foray into telecommunications. His stake in Visafone Nigeria is a testimony that he can do well even in the stormy waters of the highly competitive telecommunications market in Nigeria. Again, it is to the credit of his business acumen and ingenious brand strategy and marketing insight that Visafone became a toast of Nigerians, hitting one million subscriber base within six months of its operation and active service in 12 states. Visafone has since grown to become one of the most innovative telecommunication companies in Nigeria.

Ovia is a well-known avid supporter of ICT in Nigeria, a long-standing propagator of ICT in Nigeria and Africa in general. He was the president of the Nigeria Internet Group (NIG), chairman of the Nigeria Software Development Initiative and chairman of the National Information Technology Advisory Committee. He is the founder of the Youth Empowerment for Digital Revolution in conjunction with the United States Embassy. He also founded ICT Foundation for Youth Empowerment – an annual initiative committed to improving the socio-economic status of Nigerian youths by empowering them with information through the use of information and communication technology.

An alumnus of the prestigious Harvard Business School, Ovia holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Louisiana, Louisiana, USA and a B.Sc in Busi-

IM Ovia should justifiably be proud of himself and so should everyone with sense of value. Within a period of 20 years, he turned an idea into vision and transformed this into a mission that now permeates the socio-economic landscape of Nigeria. Jim Ovia founded and managed Zenith Bank from a small private limited liability company to become one of Nigeria’s most capitalised banks and one of Nigeria’s top five most capitalised companies. With a market worth of N408.15 billion, Ovia not only created a huge fortune for himself through his entrepreneurship at Zenith Bank but also for about 682,000 direct shareholders and more than 48,000 employees of the bank.

And with donations to societal well being, lifting N716 million in 2011 as against N503 million in 2010, Ovia’s Zenith Bank is not only a value-creating entity for shareholders but a rainbow of hopes and fulfillments for all stakeholders.

In building a value powerhouse for shareholders and other stakeholders, Ovia has also benefited himself. The single largest shareholder, Ovia holds 8.75 per cent equity stake in Zenith Bank, which is currently valued at about N36 billion. Most analysts said such valuation could triple in the immediate future as the bank consolidates its position as one of the most profitable banks in Nigeria.

Besides the growing market value, the nest eggs lie in the continuous cash flow that such equity stake represents. With cash dividends of N2.61 billion and N2.33 billion in 2011 and 2010 respectively, Ovia’s average annual dividend income counts in billions of naira. The integrity and sense of honour that come with secured financial lifelines in retirement make

Ask a Broker

What is CHN?

C

the surname of the shareholder. The CHN is somewhat similar to account number usually issued by banks. Just as all deposits and withdrawals go into the bank account number, all shareholdings by an investor are entered into his CHN, provided that those

HN stands for Clearing House Number and it is a unique number assigned to each shareholder by the Central Securities and Clearing System (CSCS). The CHN usually starts with the alphabet ‘C’ and ends with two alphabets derived from

F

INANCIAL planning is the systematic process of ensuring adequate sustainable stream of funds to meet financial needs. For companies and individuals, financial planning is the lifeline and any deficiency in this regard can lead to permanent damage. Companies therefore engage in liquidity analysis constantly to ensure there are enough funds to meet emerging financing obligations.

•Ovia For individuals, the whole ness Administration from gamut of personal finance Southern University, Louisiana, deals with management of USA. He has inspired many cash inflows and outflows to young Nigerians with his in- create and promote sustainsight in education and unwa- able living standard. Financial vering commitment to the pur- planning is likened to the suit of knowledge. But against heart that invigorates other the popular class culture of af- parts of the body. Insolvency, fluent Nigerians, Ovia differen- or loosely bankruptcy, is a sign tiates himself by towing the of poor financial planning and path of humility and involve- is allegorical to death. A comment in the lives of less privi- pany suffering with consistent inability to meet it financing leged.

Like the great American bene- obligations will end up with factors of wealth, from the liquidator while an indiCarnegie to Bill Gates, Ovia’s vidual with similar problem philanthropic gesture is evident will sooner than later be ran in the commitment of his many out of town either by creditors businesses to touch lives or resultant killer sicknesses through diverse interventions such as heart attack.

Personal financial planning in the wellbeing of people and communities. The corporate is a long-winded process that social responsibility profile of runs through the lifetime of an Zenith Bank and his other busi- individual and beyond. From ness concerns is a reflection of income generation to investhis alignment with community ment management, risks management, budgetary coninterest.

In recognition of his immense trol and estate planning, percontributions to the cause of sonal finance permeates the national development and hu- whole affairs of man.

To lay the foundation for manity in general, Ovia was conferred with the national personal financial planning, award of Member of the Order personal finance advisors adof the Federal Republic (MFR). vise individuals to write down Truly, Ovia has not only built their reasons for making a fortune for himself but has money. Since human activities etched his name in gold as one are driven by motives, writof Nigeria’s iconic entrepre- ing down one’s reasons stimuneurs and investors. It’s a for- lates desire which energises critical thinking faculty, gives tune that benefits all. clear focus to planning and helps to correct worldview.

Personal finance advisors shares have been have also enumerated eight

dematerialised - that is, converted from physical certificate to electronic form. As a central depository for his investments, a shareholder needs only to have a single CHN while maintaining investment relationships with several stockbrokers. This enables one to efficiently manage one’s portfolio irrespective of the multiplicity of the transaction channels.

Ways and Means

Accessing finance for SMEs

A

CCESS to finance is a major constraint to several small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

SMEs, by their nature, require amenable finance tailored to meet their gradual growth phase and sometimes, largely unstructured organisation.

While the immense potential of the SMEs to contribute to national growth and productivity is not in doubt, poor finance has continued to limit the growth of the SMEs sector.

First Bank of Nigeria (FBN) is however, giving SMEs opportunity to grow their businesses. FBN’s SME financing pack transcends the regular lending, deposits, trade and treasury products, to the development of financial solutions that enable business owners serve their clients ef-

ficiently. This ultimately empowers them to make informed financial decisions for sustained business success.

FBN’s U-First is a suite of retail and consumer loan products designed to enable individuals and small businesses meet their business and personal needs under a flexible repayment structure that is in sync with the best global practices. With the UFirst loans, small business operators are empowered to take little steps that will ultimately grow their businesses.

Under the U-First umbrella, the bank has a set of homogeneous loans targeted at individuals and small & medium enterprises (SMEs). The set targeted at individuals are classi-

fied as Consumer Loan Products while those targeted at SMEs and entrepreneurs are classified as Retail Loan Products. Every product provides a unique opportunity for beneficiaries to effectively grow their businesses.

FBN’s Retail “U-First Loans” empower individuals and businesses to acquire assets and meet other financial needs at the best possible terms. These include auto and household equipment loans, operational vehicle and office equipment loans for SMEs to purchase vehicles and equipment for use in the day-to-day running of the business. SMEs can also enjoy short-term loans and overdrafts to meet their business expansion and working capital requirements, among others.

Company Julius Berger Lafarge Wapco Access Bank First Alum.

Greif Nig GSK GTB Nigerian Brew Okomu Oil Paints & Coatings Poly Products

Zenith Bank FCMB

Sterling Bank

By Taofik Salako

vital points of wealth creation.

One, draw the purse strings by spending less than you make.

This enables one to build savings that could afford one advantage of life-changing opportunities. Secondly, know yourself, that is, let your passions drive your incomes. This creates an unstoppable continuity of incomes that ends only with your death. This explains why the affluent persons still continue to work. The third point is training, knowledge and education. The importance of this is self-evident and cannot be over-emphasised. Wealth creation also relies on creating and sustaining multiple streams of income. In doing this, tap into formal education, personal talents, goodwill and relationships.

Another principle is the concept of profitable ventures.

Assess each endeavour with a view to determining inherent value derivable from it and competitive comparism of such yield to other alternatives. For any yield or value to merit the name, it must be above inflation. In other words, a yield of 12 per cent with inflation at 12 per cent amounts to zero yield in real terms. Besides, constantly seek opportunities to increase value. Wealth creation is an adaptive continuous process.

As environment changes and opportunities evolve, one must not be static in order not to join the pack of yesteryears. Explore new opportunities. Today, it may be quoted equity investment, tomorrow’s growers may be fixed-income securities, and the other day’s enliveners may be real estate.

Watch the changes; tap the opportunities.

One major often-misconceived principle of wealth creation is borrowing or leverage. Many people see debts in

AGM Date AGM Venue 21-06-12 Yar’adua Centre, Abuja 23-05-12 To be Advised 27-04-12 To be Advised 07-06-12 Lagos Airport Hotel, Ikeja 18-04-12 Rockview Hotel, Apapa 22-05-12 Muson Centre, Lagos 19-04-12 To be Advised 16-05-12 Muson Centre, Lagos 13-06-12 To be Advised 15-05-12 To be Advised 30-04-12 Ilupeju Recreational Hall, Lagos 03-04-12 Civic Centre, VI, Lagos 21-05-12 Muson Centre, Lagos 15-04-12

Lagoon Restaurant Lagos

the negative. Meanwhile, borrowing or financial leverage is a chief wealth creation tool in the hands of the rich and corporate giants. The catch in financial leverage is that the reason for the leverage should outweigh the cost. Loans should only be procured on assets that generate incomes that far exceed the totality of principal and interest on loan.

Never should you take loan to meet non-profit expenditures such as child naming, burial etc.

Lastly, apply the principle of only assets buy luxuries. Do not plunge into unsustainable living by directing your incomes primarily to acquisition of personal luxuries such as cars, jewelries, wears and palatial homes. Rather, direct incomes to building up a veritable assets column which returns could later buy your desires, without shooting yourself in the leg.

It’s also important that individuals should take into consideration various risks that could mitigate realisation of their objectives. Risk management includes consideration for the risk appetite of an individual, interest rate risk and exchange rate risk. One major way of hedging risks is to take relevant insurance policy to cover each undertaking. Insurance provides necessary cushions for assets and secures the insured against vagaries of natural and man-made happenings.

To everyone, the seven advices in “The Richest Man in Babylon” have been agelong words of wisdom and suffice as watchwords. Start thy purse to fattening, control thy expenditure, make thy gold multiply, guard thy treasures from loss, make of thy dwelling a profitable investment, insure a future income, and increase thy ability to earn.

Time

Div (kobo) Closure

11am -

240 75 30

04-06-12 07-05-12 13-04-12

11am

Nil

28-05-12

11am

30

10-04-12

11am -

120 85

24-04-12 29-03-12

11am -

300 400 8

21-03-12 15-05-12 29-03-12

11.00am

1 for 24

16-04-12

11am

95

26-03-12

11

3 for 20 shares

23-04-12

10

30-04-12

11.am

Feedback/Comments: Email: taofad2000@yahoo.co.uk; SMS only: 080-2833-0861

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

30

MONEY LINK

Sterling Bank’s net profit hits N7b

S

TERLING Bank Plc delivered an impressive performance in 2011 as net profit rose by 60 per cent to N6.7 billion. The result places the lender as one of the bestperforming banks in a period characterised by lower earnings. Audited report and accounts of the bank for the period released at the weekend showed robust growths in incomes and profitability as well as improvements in assets quality and returns.

Gross earnings rode on the back of 110 per cent growth in non-interest income and 23 per cent growth interest-based incomes to N45.2 billion as against N30.4 billion in 2010, an increase of 49 per cent. Interest income increased from N24.5 billion in 2010 to N30.2 billion. Operating income also grew by 32 per cent to N27 billion compared with N20.4

By Collins Nweze

billion. Profit after tax and extra-ordinary income jumped by 60 per cent to N6.7 billion as against N4.2 billion in 2010.

The bank’s proportion of bad loans to total loans and advances surpassed the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN)’s industry target of 5.0 per cent at 4.8 per cent. Non-performing loans had stood at 10.7 per cent of gross loans in 2010. Sterling Bank’s total balance sheet nearly doubled from N259.6 billion in 2010 to N504.4 billion in 2011. Total deposits doubled by 104 per cent to N406.5 billion as against N199.3 billion while the bank expanded its risks assets as net loans and advances by 60 per cent to N163.5 billion from N101.9 billion in 2010.

Market analysts said the perfor-

resenting a dividend per share of 10 kobo.

With opening market consideration of N1.20 at the weekend, the dividend per share of 10 kobo represents a dividend yield of 8.3 per cent, a strong attraction that has since triggered upward rally for its shares.

Speaking on the results, Managing Director/CEO, Sterling Bank, Mr. Yemi Adeola said the bank’s performance in 2011 underscored its ability to attain growth despite challenging economic conditions.

He noted that the bank had harnessed the opportunities created by the successful business combination with ETB, which put it as a stronger institution with a network of almost 200 branches.

The Sterling Bank CEO reiterated the commitment of the board and management to unlocking values for

mance demonstrated the thoroughness and success of the bank’s acquisition of Equitorial Trust Bank (ETB).

Nearly all other banks that had undertaken mergers and acquisitions during the period ended with decline in profit or outright losses. Several banks, which were not involved in business combinations also witnessed declines in net earnings or outright losses due to provisions for bad loans.

Return on average equity increased from 17 per cent in 2010 to 20 per cent. Liquidity ratio improved from 47 per cent to 64 per cent while capital adequacy ratio improved from 13 per cent to 17 per cent.

The performance has impacted positively on payouts to shareholders with the board recommending distribution of about N1.6 billion as cash dividends to shareholders, rep-

•Adeola

shareholders as the bank consolidates its operations to focus on core commercial banking business in line with the new regulatory regime of the apex bank.

Bank directors seek partnership on reforms

T

HE Bank Directors Association of Nigeria (BDAN) has offered to work with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) for the implementation of reforms in the banking sector.

BDAN is the umbrella body of non-executive directors of banks established to provide a forum for improving the knowledge and the competence of Bank Directors, thereby promoting honorable practice within the Banking Industry in Nigeria.

The association affirmed its commitment to effective implementation of reforms in the sector, when its Governing Council visited the CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido and the Managing Director/Chief

Executive, NDIC, Umar Ibrahim.

The council commended both regulatory bodies for the various reforms initiatives in the banking industry, it also indicated readiness to contribute to the achievement of the goal of a stable and healthy banking industry. Besides, it presented the report of the Survey on Directors’ Compensation recently conducted by the Financial Institutions Training Center (FITC) for the Association and BDAN’s first official newsletter.

Speaking during the visit to the CBN Governor, President of the Association, and Chairman, Ecobank, Olor’ogun Dr. Sonny Kuku said, “ BDAN can be the needed catalyst to ensure the implementation of the proffered solutions to the challenges of the

sector”.

“We at BDAN recognise and align with the various reforms which have been introduced by the CBN”

“However, implementation is thought to be the greatest challenge. It is in the areas of implementation of the well thought out solutions to FSS challenges and its

BOI unfolds plan for creative industry

T

HE Bank of Industry (BoI) has restated government’s commitment to developing Nigeria’s creative industry as part of efforts to harness the contributions of the industry to national growth.

Receiving a United Kingdombased group- Ravensbourne, in her office, chief executive officer, BoI, Ms. Evelyn Oputu said that the focus on the Nigerian creative industry was part of the Federal

Government’s plan to strengthen the sector.

The three-man team led by Ravensbourne’s chief executive, Prof. Robin Baker was starting a four-day visit to Nigeria.

Represented by BOI’s executive director, Toni Phido, Ms. Oputu, noted that the bank also manages the government’s Entertainment Fund. She added that as part of the BOI’s longer term plans to develop the nation’s creative industries, it

FGN BONDS Amount N

Rate %

M/Date

3-Year 5-Year 5-Year

35m 35m 35m

11.039 12.23 13.19

19-05-2014 18-05-2016 19-05-2016

WHOLESALE DUTCH AUCTION SYSTEM Amount Amount Offered ($) Demanded ($) 150m 150m 138m 138m

MANAGED FUNDS

NIDF NESF

Price Loss 2754.67 447.80

7.9-10% 10-11%

PRIMARY MARKET AUCTION (T-BILLS) Tenor 91-Day 182-Day 1-Year

Amount 30m 46.7m 50m

Rate % 10.96 9.62 12.34

Date 28-04-2011 “ 14-04-2011

GAINERS AS AT 13-4-12 SYMBOL

O/PRICE

STERLNBANK CAP UBN GLAXOSMITH NESTLE FCMB TRANSCORP WAPIC JAPAULOIL NAHCO

1.20 21.72 2.82 20.01 415.00 4.32 0.50 0.53 0.55 7.94

C/PRICE

1.26 22.80 2.96 21.00 434.99 4.50 0.52 0.55 0.57 8.20

113m

NGN USD NGN GBP NGN EUR NIGERIA INTER BANK (S/N) (S/N) Bureau de Change (S/N) Parallel Market

Current Before

C/PRICE 132.07 4.62 1.00 10.10 0.83 1.28 0.91 17.70 225.09 0.50

CHANGE 6.95 0.24 0.05 0.49 0.49 0.06 0.04 0.70 4.91 0.01

29-2-12 27-2-12

113m

155.7

22-2-12

C u r r e n t CUV Start After %

147.6000 239.4810 212.4997

149.7100 244.0123 207.9023

150.7100 245.6422 209.2910

-2.11 -2.57 -1.51

149.7450

154.0000

154.3000

-3.04

152.0000

153.0000

155.5000

-2.30

153.0000

154.0000

156.0000

-1.96

DISCOUNT WINDOW Feb. ’11

July ’11

March 2012

MPR

6.50%

6.50%

12%

Standing Lending Rate ,, Deposit Rate ,, Liquidity Ratio Cash Return Rate Inflation Rate

8.50% 4.50% 25.00% 1.00% 12.10%

8.50% 4.50% 25.00% 2.00% 12.10%

9.50% 5.50% 30.00% 2.00% 12.6%

NIBOR Tenor 7 Days 30 Days 60 Days 150 Days

NSE CAP Index

27-10-11 N6.5236tr 20,607.37

Date

Rate (Previous) 4 Mar, 2012 9.0417 9.6667 11.2917 12.1250

Rate (Currency) 6, Mar, 2012 10.17% 11.46% 11.96% 12.54%

28-10-11 N6.617tr 20,903.16

% Change -1.44% -1.44%

MEMORANDUM QUOTATIONS Name

LOSERS AS AT 13-4-12

SYMBOL O/PRICE MOBIL 139.02 AVONCROWN 4.86 RTBRISCOE 1.05 PRESCO 10.59 LIVESTOCK 0.87 IKEJAHOTEL 1.34 CONTINSURE 0.95 OANDO 18.40 GUINNESS 230.00 PRESTIGE 0.51

Exchange Rate (N) 155.8 155.8

CAPITAL MARKET INDEX Year Start Offer

CHANGE

0.06 1.08 0.14 0.99 19.99 0.18 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.26

113m

Amount Sold ($) 150m 138m

EXHANGE RATE 6-03-12 Currency

INTERBANK RATES OBB Rate Call Rate

“will use the Olympic games as a showcasing platform for Nigeria, with particular emphasis on the Nigerian music, film and theatre/entertainment/creative sectors.”

As part of its key objective, Phido also said part of BOI’s key objective is the plan to “position Nigeria at the global conversation table as a “though” leader,” by partnering industry experts, academic institutions and international players during the 2012 Olympic games in London.

DATA BANK

Tenor

Initial Current Quotation Price Market N8250.00 5495.33 N1000.00 N552.20

improvement that BDAN can be a strategic partner since BDAN is made up of representatives of the owners of the business of the FSS in Nigeria,” he said.

Offer Price

Bid Price

ARM AGGRESSIVE 9.17 KAKAWA GUARANTEED 1.00 STANBIC IBTC GUARANTE 122.59 AFRINVEST W.A. EQUITY FUND 100.06 THE LOTUS CAPITAL HALAL 0.75 BGL SAPPHIRE FUND 1.08 BGL NUBIAN FUND 0.89 NIGERIA INTERNATIONAL DEB. 1,694.93 PARAMOUNT EQUITY FUND 8.13 CONTINENTAL UNIT TRUST 1.39 CENTRE-POINT UNIT TRUST 1.87 STANBIC IBTC NIG EQUITY 7,259.48 THE DISCOVERY FUND 193.00 FIDELITY NIGFUND 1.67 • ARM AGGRESSIVE • KAKAWA GUARANTEED • STANBIC IBTC GUARANTE • AFRINVEST W.A. EQUITY FUND

9.08 1.00 122.48 99.58 0.72 1.08 0.88 1,689.75 7.74 1.33 1.80 7,071.36 191.08 1.62

Movement

OPEN BUY BACK Previous 04 July, 2011

Current 07, Aug, 2011

Bank

8.5000

8.5000

P/Court

8.0833

8.0833

Movement

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

31

MONEY MARKET REPORT Official reserves ($ billion)

FGN domestic debt by holder, Dec 2011 (% share)

•Sources: Debt Management Office (DMO), FBN Capital Research

‘Oil licences to deplete reserves in Q2’ T

HE issuance of permits to 42 marketers by the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) to import 4.8 billion litres of fuel this quarter will make dollar demand at the Wholesale Dutch Auction System (WDAS) surge. This would also inversely deplete the foreign reserves.

The official reserves was $35.6 billion as at the end of March, compared with $34.7 billion a month earlier and $33.3 billion one year earlier. The reserves, however, hit $36 billion on April 11, but the progress is seen as slow and at odds with trends in international oil prices in the last one year.

Nonetheless, it is consistent with the subdued demand for forex at WDAS in the first quarter of this year, an enhanced supply on the interbank market and modest naira appreciation. Analysts predict that demand and supply for dollar, which moderated in the last three months after the government reduced petrol subsidies in January, will going forward become upbeat.

Gregory Kronsten of Macro & Fixed Income, FBN Capital, insists that these improvements are due in part to the sharp fall in imports of petroleum products in the first quarter, and that, import quotas have been allocated for the second quarter, the forex market will be volatile, putting pressure on reserves.

However, he argued that the fuel subsidy cut in January, although a retreat from the proposed deregulation, should bring lasting gains in terms of reserves savings even as the large gap between fuel imports and domestic fuel consumption should narrow.

Reserves at end-March provided 6.2 months’ cover for imports of goods on 2011 estimates, and about 4.7 months when services are included.

The CBN said it acknowledged the modest increase in the external reserves in recent months. It, however, noted that inflow into the CBN was not consistent with the high oil prices and, this underscored the need for tighter fiscal controls around oil revenues as well as first line charges including Joint Venture Company (JVC) deductions and subsidies.

The apex bank said a higher rate of retention of oil revenues should facilitate the efforts at maintaining exchange rate stability as an antidote to imported inflation without excessive reliance on

By Collins Nweze

monetary tightening measures.

Interbank Rates

The naira strengthened to its highest level in a month against the dollar on the interbank market on Friday, supported by dollar sales by International Oil Companies (IOCs). The local currency closed the week at N157.40 to the dollar on the interbank, firmer than the N157.70, gaining 30 Kobo at a stretch.

Four IOCs sold about $186 million to banks early in the week, which boosted dollar liquidity in the market and provided support for the local currency. Dealers said the naira was also supported by large dollar inflows from offshore investors who participated at a treasury bills auction on Wednesday.

Same day, the naira strengthened against the dollar on both the interbank market and official window also supported by large dollar inflows from IOCs and offshore investors. It closed at N157.40 to the dollar on the interbank, firmer than the N157.50 to the dollar it closed on Tuesday, gaining 10 Kobo. There was no trading last Monday because of the Easter Holiday.

The interbank lending rates eased marginally last week to an average of 14.33 per cent, from 14.41 per cent the previous week due to the impact of funds distributed to government agencies from its stash of oil money and treasury bills maturing.

“There were large inflows from disbursement of a portion of the excess crude accounts to some state and local governments this week, including payment of about N98 billion in treasury bills maturity which hit the system on Monday,” one dealer said.

The secured Open Buy Back rate fell to 14 per cent last week, from 14.25 per cent previous week, 200 basis points above the Central

Bank’s 12 per cent benchmark rate, and four percentage points above the Standing Deposit Facility rate.

Overnight placement and call money rates were unchanged at 14.50 per cent.

Budget President Goodluck Jonathan last Friday, has signed the 2012 budget into law, keeping all the key figures the same as approved by parliament last month as expected. He said total expenditure would be N4.697 trillion with an additional N180 billion for special programmes, which takes spending to N4.877 trillion. “It is a budget of fiscal consolidation, inclusive economic growth and job creation,” Jonathan told reporters at the signing ceremony.

The spending plans assume a $72 a barrel benchmark oil price, up from $70 in the proposal submitted

by Finance Minister Ngozi OkonjoIweala in December, boosting revenues available to the government.

Pensionss scam The CBN will this week release the results of the special examination it is conducting on commercial banks to determine their level of involvement in the recent pensions scam. Reports indicate that the Banking Supervision department of the CBN, which is carrying out the audit, submitted the result to the Governor’s office last week and it would be made public this week.

The CBN said improvement in the inflow of foreign exchange partly owing to the current high crude oil prices in the international markets and the general improvement in the policy environment. That attracted capital flows, which influenced the rise in the reserves.

Bonds Banks and discount houses held 67 per cent of Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) domestic debt

stocks of N5.62 trillion at end-December, according to data recently released by the Debt Management Office (DMO). In the first quarter, the DMO raised N190 billion in the market from the sale of FGN bonds at auction. Its issuance calendar for the second quarter is not yet available, but analysts predict that there may not be any dramatic changes from the previous quarter.

Public Sector Funds CBN last week, threatened to withdraw public sector deposits from banks as part of its effort to control money supply in the economy. This formed part of the regulator’s new monetary, credit, foreign trade and exchange policy guidelines for this year to 2013 released last week.

The policy, among other things, mandates banks to conduct quarterly stress tests and introduce additional restrictions on purchase of foreign exchange for importation of petroleum products.

IMF/ World Bank The Governor of CBN Sanusi Lamido Sanusi has blamed development gaps in African economies on defective economic ideologies being prescribed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and World Trade Organisations on the continent.

He, therefore, called for a ‘radical re-thinking’ on development strategy for Africa to be relevant in the global economy.

Sanusi,who spoke at the Eirenicon Africa Public Lecture Series (EAPLS), at The Royal School of Medicine, London, said stark reality of extreme poverty in Africa confirms his views. He added that over the years, the share of Africa in global trade remained insignificant despite the implementation of the policies that were recommended by international financial and development institutions.

ValuCard

‘

The CBN said it acknowledged the modest increase to the external reserves in recent months. It, however, noted that inflow into the CBN was not consistent with the high oil prices and, this underscored the need for tighter fiscal controls

’

ValuCard Nigeria Limited is now Unified Payment Services Limited. Bisi Onasanya, Chairman, Board of Directors, Unified Payments, in an address at the launch of the new identity in Lagos, stated that electronic payment is no longer defined by plastics or payment cards but now encompasses different payment options such as mobile banking, mobile money

among others.

“I am happy that the transformation process which started with the decommissioning of the domestic card scheme, ValuCard, is being concluded today with the unveiling of a new name and corporate identity that reflects the neutrality and global view of the company’s new business focus,” he said.

Bank to bank report Sterling Bank Plc delivered an impressive performance in 2011 as net profit rose by 60 per cent to N6.7 billion, placing the bank as one of the best-performing banks in a period characterised by lower earnings.

Audited report and accounts of Sterling Bank for the year ended December 31, 2011 released at the weekend showed robust growths in incomes and profitability as well as improvements in assets quality and returns.

Unity Bank said on Friday its pretax profit declined by 76.65 per cent to N3.13 billion in 2011, from N13.41 billion the previous year.

Gross earnings also dropped to N47.54 billion, from N64.81 billion in the previous year, the bank said in a statement to the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

FirstBank of Nigeria Plc has introduced a joint home ownership scheme for couples. In a statement, the bank said it is possible for couples wishing to have their house even in the midst of competing needs for the scarce resources. It said owing a home requires couples to observe a strict saving regimen that is followed to the letter. Also, some form of contributory scheme is adopted to shore up capital for building a home.

The Managing Director, NEXIM Bank, Roberts Orya, has tasked northern business men to brace up to the economic challenges facing the region by cultivating the culture of cordial relationship with banks. This, he said, will enable them to access facilities from the lenders.

Orya spoke at the maiden Summit on Entrepreneurship Development organised by the Kano State Ministry of Commerce and Industry, noted that lack of sufficient financial knowledge by northern businessmen impedes their credit access from banks.

Standard Chartered Bank last week, launched of Securities Services in South Africa, expanding the bank’s existing regional securities services to the largest economy on the continent.

32

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

THE CEO

‘Only 36% of adults have access to formal banking’

• Mrs Ogunbambi

The Executive Director, Citiserve Limited, a subsidiary of VIGEO Holdings, Mrs Lola Ogunbambi, whose company was licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a Payment Terminal Service Provider (PTSP), in this interview with AYODELE AMINU, speaks on the cash-less Lagos and Nigeria’s payment system. Excerpts:

A

S a provider of banking and payment services, what are your challenges?

The process started slowly but is steadily getting better. The initial challenges were with the merchants, acceptance of the channel as the new payment mode. The man machine barrier was strong and is still in some areas, but generally, it’s getting to be accepted. As a service provider, our job is to train the cahiers on how to use the Point of Sales (PoS) and assure them of the ease of use. The efforts put in by the Central Bank

of Nigeria (CBN) and the bank’s Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) in terms of media adverts also gave a great deal of credibility to the process.

The CBN’s cash-less policy is expected to engender financial inclusion. How is CitiServe taking advantage of this initiative?

The general idea is to include up to 70 per cent of adults in the financial system.

With the 36 per cent financial inclusion, we are far from getting to this goal. Bank account holders are the same set of people

using Internet payments and Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) to date. The CitiServe model from 2007 has been in the retail sector with The Orange Box being used for offline transactions by network partners, who trade in Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication credit. We had sponsors from state governments and NGOs and the time is right now to cash in on this database and include them in promoting inclusion. Some of them are petty traders that can easily be transformed into mobile money agents; this is the angle we

are including in our plans with some banks.

How many PoS services have CitiServe sold and what are or is the Unique Selling Preposition (USP)?

CitiServe has sold over 15,000 units to date. We are at several buying stages with some banks and some state governments.

We also want to leverage on the data base we created in our retail distribution model.

Our value proposition goes beyond the in• Continued on page 33

33

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

THE CEO

‘Only 36% of adults have access to formal banking’ •Continued from page 32

stallation of PoS at merchant locations and training them on usage, it is to also provide options of products and applications that will improve and increase the daily transaction of the merchant.

Our Orange Box (CMPOS) is easy to use; we are glad to say several top executives including CEOs of some banks have had the opportunity to use it and confirm this to us.

Our CMPOS is rugged, we had the opportunity to do a drop test, i.e dropping it on the floor and putting it together again without any data loses, breakage or damage. We have a full technical team certified to break the seal and repair the PoS in case of any malfunction or careless damage. I say careless because we have had some of our partners use other chargers to power the Orange box and burn some elements. The Orange box is combustion certified, which means it can be used at petrol stations. With about 19 years working on the PoS, we have had adequate time to understand and train on the repairs of

the PoS locally. The battery life is 72 hours as well and we have also applications for Wifi, CDMA, GPRS and LAN. The basket of options is full.

What are the challenges facing the cash-less policy and how can it be overcome?

The first challenge is that the banks are gearing to have the PoS at the merchant locations faster and racing for the high number.

This means we have had to increase the teams involved in the process. It is a full logistic operation and the tolerance level is nil.

Some of the challenges include delayed credit to merchants, Fear of security, Man-Machine barrier and network failure. Security concern by customers remains one major stumbling block facing the cashless policy, customer aversion stems from the legitimate fear of financial loss due to fraud. Technological advancement has facilitated a myriad of ways in which network systems can be intercepted unlawfully. To combat the fear of fraud and reduce loss, systems security should be a priority with robust authentication standards and encryption

‘Security concern by customers remains one major stumbling block facing the cashless policy, customer aversion stems from the legitimate fear of financial loss due to fraud.

Technological advancement has facilitated a myriad of ways in which network systems can be intercepted unlawfully’

• Mrs Ogunbambi

technology deployed to protect information during transmission.

Additionally, e-signatures and advance electronic certification using Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) could be, in the medium term, adopted to provide an added layer of security.

What is the solution to delayed credit to merchants after customers have made payments?

Not all transactions are delayed, the plus one plan with the credits is a strong issue that the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) is working on the speed of reconciliation along with the banks such that 100 per cent is achieved.

Why can’t merchants get value same day?

Some get value same day, it’s the same as the issue explained. The national central switch is working on improving this with the local switches.

One of the biggest challenges facing e-payment is security of customers’ funds. How can that fear be addressed?

The most critical issue is for the customers to ensure the security of their PIN, assess codes and logon information. The security does not apply mainly to PoS, but on the web ATMs and Internet banking. Losing or sharing your personal information is a gateway to fraud. It is a battle worldwide. When using the PoS, customers should cover the pad when entering their Personal Identification Number (PIN), remove their card and collect the receipt and leave no information behind.

One major reason the CBN moved from the swipe card to the chip is because you have to enter a security PIN to have access to your bank account. It is an added security. Be careful to do this on the PoS always.

To combat security issues. It is imperative that with e-payment, system security is priority; robust authentication standards and encryption technology are used to protect information during transmission. Additionally, e-signature and advance electronic certification could be adopted to provide an added layer of security.

Do you see the need for a legislation that will make it easier for operators, banks and regulators to import needed cash-less banking equipment with minimised restrictions / fees at the ports?

An exception on duty will be good. This is the ultimate as it will reduce the overall cost and subsequently reduce delays at ports.

The issue of PoS transaction fee now at 1.25 per cent for merchants has not been addressed. Don’t you think some merchants with low turnover may discourage the use of PoS because of additional fees?

The 1.25 per cent was a focal point of debate for the CBN. The percentage charge is indeed a substitute to the cost of using cash in the economy. The cost of moving cash from the merchant location to the bank, counting and managing the cash is huge, (bullion van, security men, insurance, risk) this is usually not passed on to the merchant. If this were the case, I believe 1.25 per cent might be a lower option for many businesses.

Using a card for payments is also good for the merchant as this elicits a rapid expansion of retail products, better management of operational cost and ease of reconciliation.

The cash-less policy will,

• Mrs Ogunbambi

‘One major reason the CBN moved from the swipe card to the chip is because you have to enter a security PIN to have access to your bank account. It is an added security. Be careful to do this on the PoS always’ ultimately,bring more of the unbanked into the system as well.

There are charges for convenience and inconvenience in most already: banks charge for over the counter cash below a certain figure and charge a fee on ATMs if used by other bank cards etc.

There are, however, unique cases where the charge should be subsidised, removed or transferred, such as fuel. Also, the international organisation for vending machines operators confirmed that there is a waiver for vending sales.

What mechanisms must be put in place to ensure that true conditions of each PoS and their locations are tracked at all times by the regulators or NIBSS as obtained in other countries?

The NIBSS has a central server that sees all PoS activity and location. They monitor and trace the activities but it is not their responsibility to track conditions of the PoS. That is the job of the service provider.

What do you think was responsible for why the CBN made adjustments to the initial cash-less policy already partially implemented in Lagos?

The adjustment was to allow stakeholders’ wish to prevail. The PoS acceptance by merchants should be enhanced with more communication in the media. Individuals and corporate account holders that use cash a lot will adjust. I know several small scale businesses were rushing to open accounts for their staff salaries which needs time for reference etc. The delay is not denial, but a time to put things in perspective for the stakeholders. I am sure

with the new timeline, the CBN governor will not listen to any excuses.

What other problems must be addressed to improve public confidence on e-payments and increase patronage?

Communication is the critical issue that needs focus. Public education on the values need to be stressed.

So, can you enlighten us about other things CitiServe does?

Our business is to provide alternative channels of convenience for the distribution of services and products. Our vending machines are at several locations conveniently offering drinks and snacks to customers at offices, schools and hospitals.

We provide empowerment opportunities for state beneficiaries.

Over the years, our Orange box has given indigenes income options through commission on GSM PIN credit, Pay TV, PHCN etc and we continue to expand our basket of offers. Added to those are training programmes for beneficiaries who represent states and can provide several services in terms of revenue collection, identification and verification programmes and other community services. The orange box is also biometric enabled for data mining for government data base.

We work with some banks on developing fast track applications to enhance services and a smooth process at branches along with applications to integrate the telecommunication companies with their dealers. All these are in alignment with the financial inclusion of the CBN and the cashless Lagos policy.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

34

EQUITIES NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 13-4-12

NSE trades 23% of FGN bond

T

HE Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) traded 23.08 per cent of the total available FGN bond tradable in the market. This represents six out of the total 28 FGN bonds in the NSE. The figure recorded reduced from eight or 30.77 per cent transacted in the previous week.

In all, the market recorded a turnover of 62.32 million units worth N51.93 billion in 472 deals last week, in contrast to a total of 129.62 million units valued at N111.73 billion exchanged in 803 deals during the week ended April 5, 2012.

The most active bond was the 7.00 per cent FGN October 2019 (6th FGN Bond 2019 Series 4) with a traded volume of 13.47 million units valued at N9.07 billion in 91 deals.

This was followed by the 16.39 per cent FGN January 2022 (9th FGN Bond 2022 Series 1) with a traded volume of 13.07 million units valued at N14.20 billion in 96 deals.

Meanwhile, in the equities market, the NSE All-Share Index depreciated by 198.77 points or 0.95 per cent to close on Friday at 20,743.16 while the market capitalisation decreased from N6.641 trillion to N 6.615 trillion, a difference of N26 billion.

Also, the NSE-30 Index depreciated by 8.40 points or 0.88 per cent to close at 947.79. One of the four sectorial indices appreci-

By Taofik Salako and Tonia Osundolire

ated during the week compared with two during the preceding week.

The NSE Insurance Index appreciated by 0.74 points or 0.59 per cent to close at 126.66. However, the NSE Banking Index depreciated by 6.97 points or 2.38 per cent to close at 286.00.The NSE Consumer Goods Index depreciated by 13.71 points or 0.81 per cent to close at 1,688.04. Also, the NSE Oil/Gas depreciated by 10.31 points or 5.24 per cent to close at 186.33 Specifically, analysts said sentiments in the banking sector were predominantly bearish last week as selling pressure shaved off 6.3 per cent from First Bank. Fidelity Bank, Diamond Bank, UBA and Zenith Bank also recorded losses ranging from 1.2 per cent to 3.4 per cent. On the other hand, Union Bank and Sterling Bank rallied with gains of 20.8 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively.

The building materials sector also went to the bears last week. Dangote Cement dipped slightly, while Ashaka Cement and CCNN lost 9.5 per cent and 4.4 per cent respectively.

Lafarge Wapco, however, recorded no price change at the close of the week.

The profit warning announced by Oando led to a 6.8 per cent loss last week. Mobil and Conoil were also in line with the

market trend, shedding 9.5 per cent and 5.0 per cent respectively. Eterna Oil was divergent to the bearish trend with a 6.0 per cent cumulative gain.

As a whole, the market traded a turnover of 1.582 billion shares worth N7.859 billion in 14,492 deals, in contrast to a total of 1.149 billion shares valued at N7.796 billion exchanged the previous week in 15,027 deals.

The Financial Services sector accounted for 782.146 million shares valued at N4.681 billion traded in 8,318 deals. The Conglomerates Sector followed with 647.095 million shares valued at N517.21 million traded in 400 deals.

The Banking subsector of the Financial Services sector was the most active during the week with 666.097 million shares worth N4.525 billion exchanged by investors in 7,900 deals. Volume in the Banking subsector was largely driven by activity in the shares of Unity Bank Plc, Zenith Bank Plc and Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. Trading in the shares of the three banks accounted for 306.529 million shares, representing 46.02 per cent, 39.19 per cent and 19.37 per cent of the turnover recorded by the subsector, sector and total turnover for the week, respectively.

The Diversified Industries subsector of the Conglomerates sector, boosted by activity in the shares of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, followed on the week’s activity chart with a subsector turnover of 640.49 million shares valued at N320.878 million traded in 210 deals.

NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 13-4-12

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16 , 2012

35

EQUITIES WATCH

Email: taofad2000@yahoo.co.uk

Chams Plc is stunted at nominal value but there appears to be little fascination to change this status, reports TAOFIK SALAKO

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2005

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2011

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HAMS Plc was one of the stocks believed to be a new frontier for the stock market. The second of the information and communication companies to be listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in 2008, Chams, like other ICT stocks, was seen as a representative of the famous global technology stocks' returns and veritable opening into Nigeria's own Silicon Valley. But it's becoming increasingly worrisome that the technology boom might have burst before it even bubbled.

In the past 16 months, Chams' share price has stagnated at its nominal value of 50 kobo per share. It had traded all through 2011 unchanged at 50 kobo and so far this year, it has remained dumb to market changes. Even when it was active on the pricing board, Chams' price trend had been extremely volatile, rocketing between hopes and allures of new technologies and projects and the realities of the subsequent fundamentals. Listed in September 2008, Chams had traded at a high of N2.57 per share in 2009 before plummeting to a low of 50 kobo per share. It stumbled to a close of 57 per share in 2009. In 2010, it gained as much as 86 per cent to trade at a high of N1.06 per share but this gain soon fizzled away as the innovative technology company slumped to a low of 50 kobo, the value it has maintained since then. Even at nominal value, it's not certain whether Chams has bottomed out as a subsisting rule as the NSE disallows price change below the nominal value of a company.

Waiting for the boost technological The immediate past business year had appeared as the turning point for the company and several quite believed the board and management projections of a new phase of growth starting from the audited report and accounts for 2011. There were quite several indicative factors to be optimistic about the stock's performance. Audited report and accounts of the company for the year ended December 31, 2010 had showed that turnover rose by 50 per cent while gross profit jumped by 280 per cent. As against N988.6 million in 2009, the firm recorded a turnover of N1.48 billion in 2010.

Gross profit also quadrupled from N136.84 million in 2009, to N520.23 million in 2010.

This performance indicated significant improvements in the top-line underlying profitmaking capacity of Chams as gross profit margin increased from about 14 per cent in 2009 to 35 per cent in 2010.

This was also followed by a positive sequence in the first half of 2011 as turnover rose by 257 per cent while gross profit increased by 377 per cent within the first six months ended June 30, 2011. With gross margin improving from 37 per cent in 2010 to about 50 per cent in 2011, the company reversed from a negative net profit margin of about 63 per cent to a positive net return margin of about 14 per cent. The first half report showed a turnover of N1.63 billion in 2011 compared with N457.22 million in 2010.

Gross profit increased from N169.31 million to N807.30 million. The company recorded a profit after tax of N224.2 million within the six-month period compared with net loss of N286.2 million in corresponding period of 2010.

By the third quarter ended September 30, 2011,

What charm for Chams?

Chams sustained impressive top-line performance and remained with a positive bottom-line, although the net profit had reduced substantially. Turnover stood at N1.98 billion as against N686.79 million recorded in comparable period of 2010. Profit before tax stood at N139.42 million compared with a loss of N578.75 million in 2010. As against net loss of N616.75 million in third quarter of 2010, net profit was modest at N97.59 million in the third quarter 2011. The profit performance touched on the balance sheet of the company as depleting shareholders' funds recovered to N5.84 billion as against N5.15 billion posted at the beginning of the year.

Much optimism Alluding to the interim reports for 2011, Chairman, Chams Plc, Professor Adebayo Akinde had assured shareholders that the company was on a turnaround. He said the company had entered a new era of growth as well as stable and improved returns to shareholders. "I wish to assure you of remarkable improvement in earnings by your company in 2011, which is evident in the financial results posted in the first and second quarter of the year," Akinde disclosed. He said that the company has invested in enabling infrastructures and resources to engender growth and ensure stable returns to shareholders in the years ahead.

Akinde said extensive restructuring and consistent investments in technology have improved efficiencies and profitability of existing and new projects being undertaken by the company. He said the company has surmounted the operational challenges, which adversely affected its performance through internal restructuring and deployment of innovative technologies, pointing out that a portfolio of existing and new projects in the areas of identity management, payment and transaction systems has significantly improved the operational performance of the company.

Technological failure or value realistic ?

But against expectations of a strong recovery and possible return to profitability after a streak of losses in recent years, Chams has turned in a stunning net loss of N1.24

billion for the 2011 business year. Key extracts of the audited report and accounts for the year ended December 31, 2011 showed a loss before tax of N1.2 billion in 2011, a continuation of the trend that saw a pre-tax loss of N1.8 billion in 2010. Loss after tax moved from N1.38 billion in 2010 to N1.24 billion in 2011. Turnover had grown by about 20 per cent from N1.48 billion in 2010 to N1.78 billion in 2011. While technological firms are expected to be slim, efficient and less encumbered by the mid-line, administrative expenses have instructively continued to be the evaporation points for Chams. With administrative expenses more than turnover at N2.14 billion and N2.31 billion in 2011 and 2010 respectively, the company's modest gross profit of N687 million in 2011 and N519 million in 2010 were simply overwhelmed by the mid-structures. Interest expenses and taxes merely built on the losses, eroding the actual underlying values of shareholders whose last and only cash dividend was three kobo distributed in 2009.

Expectedly, the losing position hit the balance sheet, shaving off N1.14 billion from shareholders' funds. Shareholders' equity dropped from N5.15 billion to N4.01 billion.

There should also be concerns about the future impact of the losing streak as working capital dropped from N1.09 billion in 2010 to N658.28 million in 2011. Without a breakthrough at the mid-line of the profit and loss account, depleting equity funds and working capital can only worsen the financing structure of the company, posing more danger to recovery.

Turning technological edges into real values Undoubtedly, Chams has prospects. With Nigeria's growing adoption of electronic payment system and technology-driven processes, Chams' unquestionable profile as the leading and most visible innovative company places it ahead to reap on previous investments. Notably, the company's growing profile has been strengthened by the provisional and substantial licensces granted it by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to deploy mobile payment services, prepaid cards, offsite Automated Teller Machine (ATM) net-

•Demola Aladekomo

work and a transaction switching platform. With the cashless policy already on in Lagos and the nationwide take-off scheduled for 2013, innovative money payments would become increasingly attractive to the growing population of hi-tech Nigerians. This much has been underscored by the success of the telecommunication sector.

Chams has really built superstructures to facilitate this change-over. With such enabling platforms as ChamsCity digital malls in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt, data capture equipment, transaction switching platformChamsSwitch, mobile payment platformChamsMobile, data centre to host and process transactions, Point of Sales terminals, as well as ChamsVarsity-an information and communications training institute, among others, Chams probably has the largest nationwide private deployment of technology. These deployments coupled with awards of several multi-billion naira national projects including the national identity management, sim card registration and e-voting as well as sub-national and private projects hold out strong prospects for Chams.

But it still needs to turn the technologies inward to trim its operating superstructures and rethink marketing strategy necessary for mass adoption needed to boost its incomes. With Nigeria's public sector penchant for contract reviews and previews with every changes in the system, Chams' hope of turning its technological advantages into values for shareholders lie in becoming an efficient private-sector driven innovation company with products and services adored and adopted by majority of Nigerians. Until then, there appears little fascination to rouse the share price.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16 , 2012

36

DUE DILIGENCE

AG Leventis: Signs to watch A

G Leventis (Nigeria) Plc had a tenuous performance in the immediate past year as rising costs counteracted impressive growth in sales, leaving shareholders with slimmer actual earnings. Audited report and accounts of AG Leventis for the year ended December 31, 2011, showed a sweet-bitter mixed grill with a 36 per cent growth in sales and 16 per cent decline in net profit.

Besides, the report indicates a cautious outlook, given declines in key underlying performance indices. Although the declines were proportionally slim, higher financial leverage and declines in profit margin, liquidity, as well as decrease in net earnings showed a tepid performance outlook. While the company was able to control other costs, growing expenses which rose by 50 per cent, undermined the margin and further exposed the conglomerate to financing challenges.

However, the 17 per cent increase in cash dividends by the board might be a reassurance that the conglomerate saw the signs of weakness as a passing phase rather than a start of a trend.

•Arthur Bourekas (Australian) Managing Director

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2008

2009

Balance Sheet Assets: Fixed assets Total long term assets Trade debtors Current assets Total assets Liabilities: Trade creditors Bank loans Current liabilities Long-term liabilities Total liabilities Equity Funds Share capital Total Equity Funds

2011

cent to 21 per cent.

Governance and structures

Profitability

By Taofik Salako

Short-term loans had doubled from N539 million to N1.1 billion, while current liabilities had increased by 32 per cent as against 66 per cent decline in long-term liabilities. Group paid up share capital remained unchanged at N1.32 billion. Shareholders' funds meanwhile inched up by 1.2 per cent to N10.65 billion in 2011 compared with N10.52 billion in 2010.

The firm showed a mixed performance in 2011 with an impressive top-line and a negative net Financing structure earnings position. Besides, underlying profitability measures AG Leventis' balance sheet supshowed a largely weak performport weakened during the year as ance, notwithstanding the 30 per gearing ratio trended upward to cent growth in pre-tax profit, double digit. While the proportended to colour the profit outtion of equity funds to total assets look in the negative. dropped from 54 per cent in 2010 Group turnover jumped by 35.5 to 51 per cent in 2011, the debt-toper cent from N13.35 billion in equity ratio doubled from 5.1 per Efficiency 2010 to N18.1 billion in 2011. Howcent to 10.3 per cent. Long-term ever, cost of sales rose correspondliabilities/total assets ratio The conglomerate, to some exingly by 35.4 per cent to N14.26 slipped from 7.7 per cent to 2.5 per tent, witnessed improved internal billion as against N10.53 billion cent just as current liabilities now cost management during the pein previous year. Gross profit accounted for 47 per cent of total riod, although available details stood at N3.84 billion in 2011, repbalance sheet size as against 38.5 were not sufficient to determine resenting 36 per cent increase on per cent in 2010. the level of productivity and overN2.83 billion posted in 2010. ToGroup total assets had increased all efficiency. Total costs of busital operating expenses meanmarginally by 7.3 per cent from ness-excluding finance charges, rewhile rose by 28 per cent from N19.56 billion in 2010 to N20.98 duced slightly from 96.8 per cent N2.40 billion to N3.08 billion. billion in 2011. Total liabilities, in 2010 to 95.8 per cent in 2011, leavNon-core business incomes however, rose by 16 per cent to ing the company with a higher dropped from N564 million to N10.46 billion, as against the operating margin.

N398 million, while interest exN9.04 billion in previous year. penses jumped by 50 per cent from N109 million Fiscal Year Ended December 31 2011 2010 to N164 million.

Profit before tax Nmillion 12 months % change 12 months grew by 29.8 per Profit and Loss Statement cent to N1.02 billion Main Business Segment 18,095 35.5 13,353 in 2011, as against N788 million in Total turnover 18,095 35.5 13,353 2010. But with 244 Cost of sales 14,255 35.4 10,525 per cent increase in Gross profit 3,840 35.8 2,828 tax provisions from N139.3 million to Operating expenses 3,084 28.3 2,404 N479.6 million, net Interest and other incomes 398 -29.4 564 profit after tax dwin-

Finance expenses Pre-tax profit(loss) Post-tax profit (loss) Basic earnings per share(kobo) Gross dividend Cash dividend per share (kobo) Net Assets per share (kobo)

2010

164 1,022 543 20.5 370 14 402

50.5 29.8 -16.3 -16.3 16.4 16.7 1.3

109 788 648 24.5 318 12 397

9,719 9,725 689 11,256 20,981

0.0 0.0 -3.3 25.9 7.3

9,717 9,727 712 8,937 19,555

3,337 1,094 9,936 519 10,455

5.8 103.0 31.9 -65.5 15.7

3,153 539 7,531 1,505 9,036

1,324 10,647

0.0 1.2

1,324 10,518

dled by 16 per cent to N543 million in 2011 compared with N648 million in 2010.

Beyond the surface, gross profit margin was static at 21.1 per cent. Pretax profit margin however dropped from 5.9 per cent in 2010 to 5.6 per cent in 2011. While return on total assets improved from 4.0 per cent to 4.9 per cent, return on equity dropped from 6.2 per cent to 5.1 per cent.

Per share analysis showed earnings per share of 20.5 kobo for 2011 as against 24.5 per cent. The board of the conglomerate meanwhile has recommended increase in cash payouts with a rate of 14 kobo per share for 2011 compared with 12 kobo distributed for 2010. This indicated increase in gross dividend from N318 million to N370 million. The sustainable dividend outlook of the conglomerate, however, diminished with a dividend cover of 1.5 times in 2011 as against 2.0 times in 2010. Net assets per share stood at N4.02 in 2011 as against N3.97 in 2010.

Liquidity The liquidity position of the conglomerate remained steady, thought slightly lower than the previous level. Current ratio, which broadly indicates ability of the company to meet emerging financing needs, stood at 1.13 times in 2011 compared with 1.19 times in 2010. The proportion of working capital to total sales dropped from 10.5 per cent in 2010 to 7.3 per cent in 2011. Debtors/creditors ratio also declined from 23 per

Fiscal Year Ended December 31

One of the oldest surviving conglomerates and earliest listed companies in Nigeria, AG Leventis (Nigeria)'s operations span the wide gamut of the economy from foods and beverages to automobile, real estate, hotel, general trade and merchandise. With some eight business lines, the 54-year old conglomerate has strong linkages with the Nigerian economy.

AG Leventis has some 30,000 shareholders, but the Leventis Group family still owns about 88 per cent controlling equity stake. At the last count, about 86 per cent of total number of shareholders holds not more than 5,000 ordinary shares of 50 kobo each.

The board and management of the conglomerate remained stable. Chief Joseph Oke leads the board as executive chairman while Mr Arthur Bourekas is the managing director.

AG Leventis complies generally with the code of corporate governance although the designation of executive the chairman appears to be in breach of the provision that intends chairman to be in a non-executive position.

Analyst's opinion The overall outlook for AG Leventis is stable and steady. While fundamentally it needs to determine the appropriate cut-off point for its financial leverage and reign in extraneous costs that could undermine otherwise impressive growth prospect, there are still reasonable basis to assume a stable outlook, with more tendency towards improvement than reversal, especially as it new businesses gather momentum.

2011 %

2010 %

Financing structure Equity funds/Total assets Long-term liabilities/Total assets Current liabilities/Total assets Debt/Equity ratio

50.7 2.5 47.4 10.3

53.8 7.7 38.5 5.1

Profitability Gross profit margin Pre-tax profit margin Return on total assets Return on equity Dividend cover (times)

21.2 5.6 4.9 5.1 1.5

21.2 5.9 4.0 6.2 2.0

Efficiency Pre-tax profit per employee (Nm) Staff cost per employee (Nm) Cost of sales, operating exp/Turnover

NA NA 95.8

0.593 1.32 96.8

Liquidity Current ratio Working capital/Turnover Debtors/Creditors

1.13 7.3 20.6

1.19 10.5 22.6

JOBS THE NATION

Website:- http://www.thenationonlineng.com

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

37

• Some of the defunct banks

The banking reforms have brought in its trail causalities and survivors. While some have lost their jobs to the reforms, others are being employed. The Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) depicts it all. The company was set up to manage the non-performing assets of banks and has created jobs for many Nigerians, reports AKINOLA AJIBADE.

Creating jobs from non-performing assets J

OB opportunities have been opening up in the financial services sector following the take-off of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON), two years ago.

Before now, the sector had been battling with various crises. The insurance, capital market and banking sectors have had their fair share of the crisis. They have recorded huge financial, material and personnel losses. The banking industry was

the worst hit. The banks were burdened with huge debt portfolios, low liquidity and corporate governance. The development resulted in the auditing of the 24 banks in 2009, and their subsequent restructuring. The boards of the banks were sacked, while new ones were appointed. Many workers were affected by the development. According to reports, not less than 6,000 workers have lost their jobs to the crisis.

While this lasted, the Central Bank of Ni-

geria (CBN) pushed for the establishment of an assets management company. The company has been mandated to sell the toxic assets of banks to achieve profitability. It bought the bad debts of banks that could not find ready investors.

Beyond this is the capacity of the company to create jobs for many Nigerians. CBN gave this indication recently, when it said there are job prospects in the firm. According to the CBN, the required skills for the assets

management company are diverse and necessary. CBN, while giving an overview of AMCON, said good personnel are needed to spur the growth of the company.

“Accessing the skills required to manage and service AMCON is diverse. Therefore, the issue of accessing, retraining and motivating appropriate resources is criti• Continued on page 38

38

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

JOBS

Creating jobs from non-performing assets • Continued from page 37

cal for the growth of the company”, it said. Based on these, stakeholders have concluded that AMCON would provide various jobs for people. They listed the jobs to include that of financial/ risks analysts, assets evaluators, assets buyers/ negotiators, stockbrokers and lawyers, among others.

Part of the requirements, which stakeholders believe would help people secure jobs, is a deep understanding of the workings of the banks, ability to re-appraise balance sheets and further bring in necessary inputs, marketing skills, international exposures, good pedigrees, and sound academic/ professional backgrounds. They reason that managing the troubled assets of banks require pragmatism and competence, adding that the financial regulators would not take anything for granted.

The Executive Secretary, Money Market Association of Nigeria (MMAN), Mr Akinwale Abe, lents credence to these assertions. He said the introduction of the assets management company would galvanise the potential of the workers.

Abe said the development would not only allow lawyers and risk management experts to get jobs, but would deepen their understanding of assets management. He said the company would give loan/debt recovery agents an opportunity to showcase their skills for the growth of the financial service industry.

According to him, people who have a grasp of the financial market would definitely avail them-

selves of the opportunities in the company as time goes on.

He said: “It is not that Nigeria does not have the required skills to manage the assets of the troubled banks. We have Nigerians that can fit into such arrangements. There are people in the financial industry that would find such opportunities interesting.

Also, Nigerians in the diaspora would like to work in the company.

I believe these groups of people have what it takes to manage the toxic assets of banks to ensure profitability.”

Also, the former Head, Research Department, Access Bank Plc, Dr Emmanuel Abollo, said Nigeria needs quality manpower to run the assets management company.

Abollo, speaking during a Bimonthly Public discourse on the theme: Banking reforms and Prospects of Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, in Lagos, said managing toxic assets of banks require competence.

He said skills would be a challenge to the company, adding that it would take time before Nigeria can provide the skills needed to guarantee the success of an assets management company.

Abollo said there is the need for the establishment of a risk management school to improve the skills of workers. He said the school would help in training the regulators and operators for optimal performance. He advised banks to institutionalise what he termed “macro and micro stress tests to prevent liquidity crisis.

Similarly, the Managing Director, Nigerian Deposits Insurance Cor-

• Sanusi

poration, Alhaji Umaru Ibrahim, said AMCON has the potential to bring out the wealth of experience of bankers to bear on the industry.

Ibrahim said one of the company’s objectives is to recover the bad debts of banks, adding that it has been using quality manpower to achieve this goal.

“There is a lot of ignorance on what AMCON does. AMCON is not set up for the resolution of the crisis in the banks. It was established to turn the dead assets of banks to wealth. This it has been doing since it was established. AMCON is going to outsource debt recovery agents across the country to achieve its objectives. Its going to employ

• Chike-Obi

more hands in its bid to achieve success,” he said.

Umaru, while delivering a paper entitled: Brief on Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), in Lagos, said there is hope AMCON will employ some of the best in the industry to record growth.

The Managing Director, Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria, Mr Mustapha Chike-Obi, corroborated these assertions. ChikeObi said AMCON will seek well qualified advisers locally and internationally to achieve its objectives of selling the three bridged banks to the right and capable buyers.

“What we are trying to do is to

hire locally and internationally acclaimed advisers that would advise us on what we should do to the three bridged banks in the next 12 to 18 months. They would advise us on things that would lead to the sales of the banks at the appropriate time”, he added.

His assertion is in tandem with the aspiration of CBN that wants to free banks from liquidity stress by employing quality hands in the industry. CBN has been instrumental in the appointment of only those fit to be on the boards of the banks.

Also, it ensures proper regulations are put in place to prevent the appointment of people with bad records.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS P&G appoints External Relations executive for West, Central Africa

P • Mrs Iluyemi

ROCTER and Gamble Nigeria (P&G) has appointed Mrs Temitope Iluyemi as its Head of External Relations for West and Central Africa.

Prior to her additional role of the Head of External Relations for P&G in Nigeria, she led the same role for 22 other countries in the P&G West African cluster.

She assumed her new role last month. She will oversee all P&G’s

external relations disciplines including government relations, brand public relations, corporate communications, consumer relations and regulatory affairs for the 23 countries in West and Central Africa. She is also P&G’s Government Relations Leader for 34 countries across sub-Sahara Africa.

Mrs Iluyemi, who was born in Lagos, obtained her first degree in Pharmacy from the University of

Lagos, Nigeria in 1997. She went ahead to obtain a postgraduate certification in Business Management from Management College of South Africa in 2004.

She started her career with P&G Nigeria in 1998 as an account executive and since then has distinguished herself with consistent outstanding results earning her leadership positions in different roles within the organisation.

Some of Mrs Iluyemi’s previous roles include Customer, Business Development Manager, Supply Chain Management both in Nigeria and South Africa.

Mrs Iluyemi is happily married and has two children. She enjoys travelling, reading and dancing.

She is also a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and is involved in various local community projects.

CAREER MANAGEMENT

Top seven job hunting tips to getting your dream career

L

OOKING for work is no teaparty. And to be honest, it is not funny. Seeking for employment will surely require a lot of your time energy and resources.

Moreover, it could be very overwhelming physically emotionally and psychologically. Thus job hunting tips are really, important to those who are in serious need of employment. Here are some of the top strategies employment seekers could try.

Know yourself Begin with an honest analysis of what your real strengths are. Who are you? Your interests, skills, aptitudes, likes/dislikes, etc Then know which of your skills are transferable. This means you need to be definite about what you can offer the marketplace and how you are going to carry it out. That is being customer-centric. Reality- it is not

By Olu Oyeniran

what the job can give you, but you have to offer the employer.

Determine what you want You cannot go anywhere with your employment search if you don’t know exactly what you want.

Believe it or not, most people have already spent some years working for a company before they ask themselves if they have the right career fit. That could be frustrating.

Take time to list your key skills, experience level and relevant qualifications. Also identify the salary and benefits you wish to have and the career development opportunities you might be looking forward too. On the opposite side of your list include the name of companies you wish to work for, the actual opportunities available at the mo-

ment and the future trends for these opportunities.

Get some career guideance First and most given advice to fresh graduates, it could also be helpful to those who have been employed but seeking for a new job.

In fact, interview preparation assistance, resume writing and career advice may be useful/necessary.

Local cities and counties provide career placement services as well.

Professional career advisor can help you figure out exactly what you want to do and guide you on maximising your resources and qualifications.

Review and update your resume The main purpose of your resume is to market you to prospect employers as you find a new job. And

so it must highlight your qualifications, achievements and compatibility with the job that you are applying for. If your resume only includes a summary of your accomplishments up to the date of its creation, ensure to include a short explanation of how each of them was achieved. While you can always compose resume it is still best to do it under the guidance of a professional.

Approach companies If there are companies that you really want to work for, contact them directly. Though most job seekers do not want to do this, employers usually prefer job seekers who apply this way. Search for their respective career websites and register your interest for specific employment opportunities they might have.

Prepare for interviews This may be the last but definitely not the least in importance among the job hunting tips. In fact there can be a better advice on job interview than this. Do your research on the company, the industry, the people involved, etc. Doing this can help you feel calm and focused on the interview day.

As you have already practised with a coach or a friend, you are able to think in advance great answers to commonly asked questions.

Olu Oyeniran is the Lead Consultant, EkiniConsult & Assoiciates.

Website: www.jobsearchhow.com E-mail: oluoyeniran@yahoo.com Tel 08083843230 (SMS Only).

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16 , 2012

39

INSURANCE

PenCom seeks pension protection fund T

HE Director-General National Pension Commission (PenCom) Mohammad Ahmad has said the commission will push for the amendment of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2004 to institute protection of contributors’ fund.

He said Section 69 of PRA 2004 may need to be amended to provide for the establishment of a “Pension Protection Fund”, adding that the fund would among others guarantee minimum pension to retirees as well as take care of others with low balances in their Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) at retirement.

He noted that a detailed proposal by the commission on the issue would soon be presented to the Federal Government. He said: “Sec-

Stories by Chuks Udo Okonta

tion 173(3) of the 1999 constitution provides for pension review every five years or together with salary increases whichever is earlier, as inflationary adjustment. However, the compulsory pension scheme was not designed to incorporate increases in pension as inflationary adjustments are reflected in the investment yields of accumulated pension assets, while monthly contributions do increase whenever salaries are reviewed. There is, however, the need to adjust the pension element of the accrued benefits of retirees in accordance with the provisions of Section 173(3) of the 1999 Constitution.”In order to protect participants in the compulsory pension scheme in case there is any

shortfall or financial losses arising from the investment activities of the Pension Fund Administrators, Section 69 of PRA 2004 may need to be amended to provide for the establishment of a “Pension Protection Fund”. The fund would among others guarantee minimum pension to retirees as well as take care of retires with low balances in their RSAs at retirement. A detailed proposal by the Commission would soon be presented to the Federal Government.”

He stated that the pool of pension funds and assets generated by the compulsory pension scheme has aided the deepening of Nigeria’s financial sector and provided a platform for attaining the transformation agenda of government in the provision of infrastructure, en-

ergy, employment generation and the development of the real sector of the economy, stressing that the proportion of the pension assets to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew from 1.4 per cent in 2006 to seven per cent in 2010. He said the compulsory pension scheme has simplified the process of payment of retirement benefits through the issuance and implementation of effective regulations and guidelines. He noted that the regulation requires employees to start the process of accessing their benefits six months before the date of their retirement, provides for necessary documentation and the procedure for payment of benefits.

This arrangement he said is to ensure smooth transition to retirement life.

He noted that the payment of benefits to retirees in the private sector had been regular and timely and that recently, the payment of retirement benefits to retirees as well as death claims to beneficiaries of deceased Federal Government employees has been challenging due to funding problems of the government. Ahmad said the administration of pensions has, no doubt, been enhanced with the passage of the PRA 2004, stressing that not only has the Act provided a platform for a more effective, efficient and transparent administration of pensions in the federal public service and the private sector, but also generated a pool of long term investible funds that already had positive impact on the growth of the Nigerian economy.

Brokers target grassroots businesses

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ROKERS are being equipped to enable them to maximise the enormous untapped opportunities at the grassroots, President, Nigeria Council of Registered Insurance Brokers (NCRIB), Mrs Laide Osijo, has said.

Osijo told The Nation that the council has empowered most its states area committees to engage in insurances of businesses at the grassroots. She said the council in aligning with the Market Development and Restructuring Initiative (MDRI) programme of the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) will continue to provide better coverage for people at the grassroots who are prone to risks.

She said against the backdrop of security challenges confronting the nation, there should be a new thinking on how individuals, the government and other corporate institutions could better safeguard lives and property using insurance.

The NCRIB chief made a case for the utilisation of the services of registered insurance brokers for insurances, in view of their diverse knowledge of the insurance industry which they avail their clients in helping them to maximise their insurances at competitive costs. ‘’Aside from ethical standards which registered insurance brokers adhere to, clients also benefit from their services in terms of robust professional advise they render to their clients who engage them’’, Osijo said.

The President also appealed to government institutions to always factor in provisions for

insurance of the assets in the yearly budgets to safeguard such assets and reduce the incidence of unpaid premiums by such institutions.

A former President NCRIB, Mr Teslim Sanusi, said in ethics and professionalism, the council has continued to give priority attention to the NCRIB law with respect to membership registration, adding that the Council will uphold its resolve to credible registration of members in consonance with the NCRIB Act No 10 of 2003.

He noted that the council has seen the need to project its image positive light through an effective registration of members and that consequently, any member that does not conform to conditions stipulated in Section 6 (1) of the NCRIB Act will be shown the way out. “We have come to realise that the image problems being encountered by the insurance industry of which insurance brokers are an integral part, was partly occasioned by activities of charlatans operating in the market. We are resolved to put an end to this.”On branding and publicity, there have been concerted efforts to etch insurance broking in the minds of the general public through branding and publicity,” he said.

Director, Pan African University, Prof. Pat Utomi, urged brokers to have a paradigm shift and make insurance accessible and attractive to the public. He called on insurers to use experience from the economic meltdown to reposition their operations and guide against mistakes witnessed made in the past.

Risk management seminar for insurers

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ISK and Insurance Management Society of Nigeria (RIMSON), in association with Conrad Clark (CCN Ltd) will be organising a two-day intensive advanced enterprise risk management course for directors, executives, senior managers and key decision makers to give them practical tools to assist in the process of embedding an effective measurable ERM culture. RIMSON said the course will be led by Joachim Adebayo Adenusi, an inspirational enterprise risk professional at the

NECA House, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos between May 31 and June 1.After completing the course, delegates will be able to use risk management skills to run their businesses by making effective decision; practice each step of the ISO 31000 risk management standard; use both the qualitative and quantitative risk management techniques; identify, describe, assess and evaluate risks; design and verify effective risk treatment or control measures and assist their Board of Directors in designing risk appetite statement.

• From left : President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote; President of the Republic of Congo, Sassou Nguesso; Congo's Minister of State of Industrial Development and promotion of private sector, Adada Rodolphe and CEO of Dangote Capital, Amadou Hoti, after a business meeting in Congo at the weekend.

NAICOM settles N617.8m claims in Q1

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HE National Insurance Commission (NAICOM) has said its Complaints Bureau has settled claims dispute amounting to N617.8 million in first quarter A statement by the Assistant Director, Corporate Affairs, NAICOM, Mr Lucky Fiakpa, said the bureau in the first quarter of this year resolved a total of 17 disputes involving policy holders and insurance companies resulting in claims settlement of N617.8 million.

He said last year the Bureau resolved a total of 107 disputes out of 347 that were brought before it, adding that a total of N519.08 million claims were settled. He noted that the Bureau may well handle over N1 billion claims settlements by the end of 2012.He said: “One interesting thing about the dispute resolution mechanism of the commission is that the number of complaints has been coming down over the years. This is an indication that the zero-tolerance stance of the Commission on non-settlement of claim by insurance companies has started to yield positive result. Companies are now responding well by paying claims promptly.Causes of disputes in most cases include matters relating to the discharge of obligations by insurance companies and intermediaries. It also involved non-issuance of document after receipt of premium; delay in settlement of claims; partial or total repudiation of claims; premium paid or pay-

able; and legal construction of the policy wordings.”Fiakpa noted that the Bureau deals largely with policy holders, beneficiaries of insurance contract, and third parties to an insurance contract. Stressing that, others include insurance companies, insurance brokers, insurance agents, re-insurance companies. With government agencies such as the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Public Complaints Commission, Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission (ICPC), Customer Protection Commission (CPC), Ministry of Finance, among others.He said the public has written the commission to express their gratitude for resolving their claims issues with some underwriters. Some of the individuals according to him are Adewale Mutalib who said “…I’m now totally convinced that NAICOM is up to the task under the able leadership of Mr. Fola Daniel and his team”. Commissioner for Insurance Mr Fola Daniel said the bureau has been empowered through the provision of required staff and working tools, which is in line with its policy of zero tolerance of non-payment of claims which now compels most insurance companies to treat claims payment promptly.

He noted that the effort has expedited the complaints resolution processes and enabled the commission to effectively monitor companies’ claims settlement processes excluding NICON Insurance Plc

where a lot of complaints relating to pension matters are yet to be resolved.

Daniel said operators who consistently fail to settle discharged claims promptly would loss their license, adding that insurers have been mandate to henceforth administer claims in accordance to standard insurance practice and should be considered as a sole responsibility.

He stated that discharged claims should be settled immediately as prescribed by the Insurance Act 2003, adding that failure to do so would attract sanctions as stipulated by section 70 (2) of the Insurance Act 2003 “Failure to settle discharged claims shall attract sanctions as stipulated by Section 7o (2) of the Insurance Act 2003. Consistent failure to settle discharged claims promptly may lead to the withdrawal of the licence of the insurer as stipulated by section 8 (1) (m) of the Insurance Act 2003 and the insurer may be would up by the commission in accordance with the provisions of section8 and 32 (1) (b) of the Insurance Act 2003.

“No foreign loss adjuster shall attend to any claims in Nigeria oil and gas sector without the express permission of the commission on such terms and conditions as may be stipulated in the approval. Similarly, the foreign loss adjuster shall handle the assignment with and in collaboration with at least one loss adjusters of registered under the Insurance Act, 2003,” he said.

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

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LABOUR

No volunteer can stay beyond two years, says TAC boss T

HE Directorate of Technical Aid Corps (TAC) has denied allegations of complicity and corruption in its operations. Some of TAC's successful but yet-tobe-deployed volunteers has accused the leadership of the corps of colluding- with some of the volunteers to stay beyond their twoyear tenure. But Director General and Chief Executive Officer of TAC, Ambassador Mamman Daura, said the scheme is structured in such a way that it would be nearly impossible to manipulate in favour of any of the volunteers, no matter how highly placed. He said the selection and deployment processes are open and transparent.

Daura, who spoke through the Director/ Head of Programmes, Arab Yadam, was reacting to allegations made by some of the volunteers in recent publications. Expressing utter shock at the allegations, he maintained that the agency has little input in the entire process of the programme. He said since the commencement of the programme in 1987, the programme has never been accused of bias because of the significance to the country’s integrity in the comity of nations.

He said: “Some of us are really very surprised when we heard the story of corruption rocking the programme. This is an organisation that was established in 1987 under the military administration of President Ibrahim Babangida. Secondly, this is not an agency meant for job recruitment, it is not so. It is an agency set up by the Federal Government to assist less privileged African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries with Nigerian manpower. This assistance, is however-based on volunteer concept and people are out there on allowances and not paid salaries”.

Yadam explained the difficulties involved in manipulating volunteer’s allowances, which he said, were in two forms-on-shore and offshore. According to him, officials of the agency have no opportunity of being involved in the payment of the on-shore allowance given to the volunteers. According to him, the two-year duration of the programme account for its uniqueness, which in a way insulate it from undue manipulation by groups or individuals. “We are surprised to read that people are paid salaries and not only that; this is a twoyear programme which is not renewable. Once you are out there, after your second year, you come back and if at the end of your second year, those countries decide to retain you, they do that at their expense and not at the expense of the Federal Government of Nigeria. That is an arrangement between that individual and that country because our contract ends at the end of second year, so there is nothing like renewal in our scheme, it is one term job or assignment,” Yadam added.

Besides, the involvement of the recipient country in the programme made it difficult for a volunteer’s tenure to be extended unilaterally by Nigerian officials, the director explained. ‘The insinuation that we have entered into an agreement with some volunteers to

• Minister of Labour, Emeka Wogu From Yomi Odunuga and Dele Anofi, Abuja

extend their contract for about five or six years so that we can be collecting half of their salaries is not only erroneous but unfortunate and misleading. Let it be known that as a foreign policy tool, there are three types of agreements between the Nigeria, the recipient country and the volunteer, that each must comply with.

There could be reason to review the agreement between the two countries though, but if the individual wishes to enter into another agreement it must be after the completion of the non-renewable two-year duration, exclusive of TAC or the country.

Meanwhile, the first step in the process of the recruitment of volunteers is that we advertise for application, people apply all over the nation and we shortlist for interview. In order to ensure transparency, the interviews are carried out not by any of the officials of the Directorate of Technical Aid Corps; the interviews are conducted by professional bodies like National Union of Teachers, the Medical Council, the Engineering Council and others. Based on their report, we now select those who are qualified according to their scores or

• Minister of External Affairs, ‘Gbenga Ashiru

performances. This process does not end there, we go further to subject them to orientation and we tell them what to expect and how to conduct themselves when they get to those countries.

“We also tell them during orientation that the fact that they are asked to come for orientation does not translate to automatic ticket that you are going on this scheme either soon or later. This is because the Act that sets up the Directorate says that sending volunteer depends on the access needs of the recipient country and the recipient country has to make a request for it.

The system is such that even if I have a candidate and I want to impose him/her there, I don’t have a final say because if he goes there, he may be accepted or rejected. We can send 30 names and at the end of the day, the country might end up selecting maybe 20 or 25 and we always give this information to the volunteers during the orientation.

Yadam also explained the necessity of recruiting volunteers in spite of the fact that a number of successful volunteers were yet to be deployed after more than four years. He

‘We also tell them during orientation that the fact that they are asked to come for orientation does not translate to automatic ticket that you are going on this scheme either soon or later. This is because the Act that sets up the Directorate says that sending volunteer depends on the access needs of the recipient country and the recipient country has to make a request for it.’

said the agency cannot afford be complacent or negligent of its duties by being proactively prepared for emergency situations. “We have people that have been in the data bank since 2002, but people can be impatient because we know the situation of things in this country today. The last biennium which is the 2010/ 2012, we have started receiving request from the recipient countries and we have started deploying. Last week, I came back from Namibia, I took about 15 volunteers to that country and another 44 will be leaving next week or so. If we have not been on our toes, several situations have occurred that almost got us embarrassed but for the deepness of our data bank. When Southern Sudan got her independence, requests for professionals just flooded in without prior notice. They were asking for all the medical doctors we can afford because the whole of Southern Sudan has just eight as at that time. Before then, Haiti came calling aftermath the earthquake of 2010 for medical professionals. We were really tested at that time and we have to advertise for medical personnel as a matter of emergency after we have exhausted those we have in the data bank.

We practically have to call them up because of the time gap because some have moved on, some got better jobs, while some were no longer interested and the few that we got were not enough. We also have to remember that we have over 35 countries in the ACP to serve, so we have to be ready at all times.

“Apart from this, the issue of profession also determines the frequency of volunteer selection and deployment. There are always more requests for professionals in the medical, engineering and technology fields than others. While doctors, nurses and engineers would have been deployed, others that studied History or Geography for instance would be there waiting for longer time. So, to accuse us of not deploying volunteers, is unfair because if there is no request from the recipient country, there is absolutely nothing we can do,’ he added.

Yadam also said to accuse the officials of the agency of extorting money from successful volunteers to overstay their programme was also not justified. According to him, the structure put in place for the payment of the on-shore allowance to the volunteers was fool-proof. We do not pay the volunteers physically. All the transactions are done electronically and through our embassies and High Commissions in the recipient countries.

Our embassies have TAC Desks that monitor the activities of the volunteers, which complements our monitoring schedule. The recipient country also has their own monitoring programme that they avail us with. So, one can see that there is no way our officials can manipulate the allowance more so when the twoyear programme is not renewable.

The director appealed to volunteers that are yet to be deployed to be patient, noting that deployment is unpredictable.

Microinsurance coverage expanding, says ILO

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HE number of microinsurance schemes worldwide has increased substantially over the past five years and now reaches an estimated 500 million worldwide, according to the Microinsurance Innovation Facility of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the Munich Re Foundation.

Microinsurance aims to protect poor people against risks - such as accidents, illnesses, death in the family, natural disasters and property losses - in exchange for insurance premium payments tailored to their preferences and capacity to pay.

The second volume of the “Microinsurance Compendium, Protecting the poor” just published by the two organisations says the number of people covered by microinsurance rose from 78 million in 2007 to 135 million in 2009, reaching nearly 500 million today.

“Since 2008, we have seen numerous innovations emerging to overcome the challenges of providing viable insurance services to more low-income people”, says Craig Churchill, Team Leader of the ILO’s Microinsurance Innovation Facility and Chair of the Microinsurance Network, which is a global multi-stakeholder platform that aims to promote the development and delivery of effective insurance services for low-income people.

“Efforts now should focus on increasing effectiveness so that insurance products can successfully reduce their vulnerability. The Compendium comes at the right time to help in-

surers, delivery channels, donors and other stakeholders understand what it means to provide valuable risk-management services to the working poor”, Churchill adds.

The results show that Asia - with its two microinsurance powerhouses: China and India - is spearheading the trend, covering roughly 80 per cent of the market. It is estimated that 60 percent of people around the world who are covered by microinsurance live in India. Latin America accounts for 15 percent of the market and Africa five per cent.

There are many reasons why Asia is ahead of the game: large and dense populations, interest from public and private insurers, proper distribution channels and active government support are some examples, the report says.

“Indeed, what the developed world took several hundred years to accomplish cannot be replicated within a decade in the developing world, even given all the new technology and knowledge that is now available. Providing microinsurance effectively requires the involvement of many stakeholders from both the public and private sector who are not used to working together and who often have very different objectives and operating systems.

What matters now is the process of getting key stakeholders to work together effectively”, says Dirk Reinhard,Vice-Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation.

According to the Compendium, there have been many innovations in the field of microinsurance over the past years. For ex-

ample, new products covering a variety of risks have been piloted and distributed to poor households through an increasing diversity of channels (e.g., banks, retailers or cell phone companies). Commercial insurers have also entered the low-income market, creating significant capacity for scale. At least 33 of the 50 largest commercial insurance companies in the world now offer microinsurance, up from only seven in 2005.

The Microinsurance Compendium Volume II covers in 26 chapters a wide range of topics from sector’s trends, contribution of microinsurance to social protection and resilience building, health, life and agriculture insurance and their distribution to the business case and client value of microinsurance.

Zimbabwe takes control of foreign mining firms

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IMBABWE’S government has said it has taken majority ownership of foreign-owned mining firms, which had not already given a controlling stake to black Zimbabweans.

Indigenisation Minister Saviour Kasukuwere said all such firms that did not meet a late 2011 deadline were now deemed to be in 51 per cent state control.

He did not say which or how many firms would be affected.

Analysts have expressed scepticism and say it is a political move.

Some have said Mr Mugabe’s regime was posturing ahead of elections he wants to hold later this year.

Mr Mugabe’s coalition partner and longtime rival, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, has always opposed his plans to seize control of foreign firms.

Nic Borain, an independent political analyst based in South Africa, said: “I would treat this with quite a degree of scepticism.

“I would want to wait to see the specifics of how those shares would be transferred, how the assets would come to be in government

hands, how government would exercise any control over those assets.”

Mr Kasukuwere had previously said that most foreign miners were complying with the order to transfer majority ownership.

Some foreign-owned mining companies have operations in Zimbabwe, including Rio Tinto and Anglo American.

Both firms have been unavailable for comment.

Mr Mugabe says such moves are need to right the wrongs of the colonial era, which left most of the economy in the hands of the white minority.

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THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

Special Focus on Outstanding Caretaker Committee Chairmen in Oyo State (1) Oriire Local Government, ...developing grassroots Ido Local Govt ,Ido ...setting the pace Daniel AILEMEN, Yusuff KEHINDE and Franca NJOKU Ikoyi-lle

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..bringing about change

acob Abidoye Bamigboye, has brought about positive change in Oriire Local Government since he assumed office seven months ago.

The pace of the development in the local government area in the last seven months has been unprecedented.

13 major capital have been completed which means an average 1.5 major capital projects every month.

Like in many local government areas in the state, provision of modern toilets had been an issue. Realising the importance of this, he embarked on the construction of boreholes and modern toilets in the following areas, Adefila Market, Tewure Market, Iluju Market, Omowale Market.

In other for people to enjoy the dividends of democracy, the new Oriire Local Government under the leadership of Bamigboye drilled 11 motorized boreholes with surface tank at various villages. The villages include: Alawusa, Oniyan, Ahoro-Dada, Oke-Awon, Alaropo-Akinwaole, Olapelu, Obamo, Oloka, Eseke, Apiti and Lagbelagbe.

Work is currently going on the comprehensive Health Centre at Lapelu village. When completed, the people of village and the environs will not have to come to the headquarters for medical treatment.

On the local government secretariat, the caretaker committee chairman, Bamigboye, who believes in change has purchased 165KVA generator, sound proof to be used at the secretariat. Not only that, he has also started work on the construction of a three block of classroom as skill acquisition and vocational training centre within the local government premises.

Bamigboye who is aware of thechallenges of developing the near impossible terrain has completed the construction of three 1.5x2.0x8.0 metres culvert at Apekon, Baho and Eleru streams. So also, the construction of 3 (2.0x2.0x8.0) triple cell box culverts at Oloora stream along Araromi road. He has also done same at Egbon stream. Unlike Oloora stream, Egbon stream has double cell box culvert. The chairman has also touched Oba stream with the construction of 2 (2.0x2.0x8.0) double cell box culverts.

Since the new helmsman assumed office seven months, he had made it his priority to pay staff salaries at the appropriate time and made loans available to them irrespective of party affiliation.

The council boss has also strategically made Oriire a model of secured council area by procuring of Jack Pick up Van for both the police and vigilante patrol.

Bamigboye has been enjoying peace in the council said dialogue has been the secret of his success. “People do not want change, but I have been trying to ensure that we have a broad based political party through dialogue, anytime there is the need.”

Bamigboye will want to be remembered for provision of good roads, employment and abundant food.

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ocal government as the third tier of government is expected to be the closest to the people at the grassroots. The impact of government is felt through the activities of the local councils. Why this may be the ideal, many people at the grassroots still complain that they are l being neglected. Irrespective what is happening, some of these council chiefs still make sure that they impact the lives of their people.

An x-ray of the Oyo State Local government areas has shown that Government at the local provinces is yielding the dividends of democracy, below is part one of this special edition aimed to show Nigerians that there are some local government chairmen like the ones showcased in this special edition who are genuinely interested in improving the welfare of their people and that they are actually delivering the dividends of democracy.

Part two of this special edition series on Outstanding Caretaker Committee Chairmen in Oyo State will be published to accommodate local government areas not captured in this edition, for details on how your local government could be featured, please contact Dan on 07026272619, Yussuf on 08037287467 or Franca on 08033083175

•Ajimobi

•Bamigboye,

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desoji Richard Ojoawo, the C a r e t a k e r Committee Chairman of Oyo West Local Government, Oyo State who came in about seven months ago, has proved that ‘meagre’ allocation from the federal government is not an excuse for any LG not to perform.

He is lucky to have keyed into the vision of both the Oyo State governor, Chief Abiola Ajimobi and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi 111. Alaafin’s blueprints on how a local government should be run have been his guide.

Realising the importance of education, he embarked on free distribution of writing materials to the students of the council. He has also

Brief history Ido Local Government was carved out of the old Akinyele Local Government in May, 1989 with its headquarters at Ido by the regime of former military President, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (rtd). Then, the Federal Government created more local governments to guaranty people oriented developmental projects at the grassroot.

In terms of landmass, the Council is the largest in Ibadan land with 1,010,954 square km and a population figure of 103,261 according to 2006 Census. The ten (10) Wards Council shares boundaries with Akinyele, Ibadan North West, Ibadan North, Ibadan South West, Oluyole and Ibarapa East Local Government as well as Odeda Local Government in Ogun State.

Ido Local Government is the largest producer of Cocoa in Oyo State as recently confirmed

by Mr. Philip Oyadipe, the State Chairman of Cocoa Farmers Association of Nigeria.

There are various tourist attraction Centres like Toko-Taya tree (Gbolagun and Masika) at Akufo; Ogiyan stream at Oloka Village; Eleriko Stream at Alabi Village and few others.

On Friday, 12th August, 2011, His Excellency, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, the Executive Governor of Oyo State appointed Prof.

Joseph Adeniyi Olowofela as the Chairman, Caretaker Committee of Ido Local Government. In actual fact, his name has automatically entered the Guinness book of record in the history of Oyo State as the first Professor to serve as Local Government Chairman.

There is no gain saying that the involvement of Prof. Adeniyi Olowofela in politics and governance of Ido Local Government area of Oyo State since assumption of office last August as the Chairman, Caretaker Committee has been a great blessing to both indigenes and residents of the Council area. As a result of this, the party leaders in Ido Local Government jointly agreed and nominated him for the Chairmanship of the Caretaker Committee and His Excellency acceded to their request. Today, to the glory of God, he has been able to transform the local government to a reasonable level from zero level where it was before his arrival.

In his maiden address to workers of the Council shortly

Oyo West Local Government ...building for better tomorrow been able to provide free remedial classes for students of the local government. As a way of showing his commitment to the project, he employed qualified teachers who are conversant with the curriculum to teach at the centres. 1,700 pupils in each of the centres are currently benefiting from the initiative.

Ojoawo, who is aware of the importance of the good road networks has constructed new roads and rehabilitated those in bad shape. In the last six months, the LG boss has been able to tar four different roads to specification, spending N109 million. One of the roads is about 1.5 kilometres. These roads were constructed with

standard drainage. 2,000 kilometre roads also have been graded in both rural areas and the major areas in the local government.

Workers have also benefited enormously from the local government in the last seven months. The refurbishing loan which hitherto was N500, 000 has been increased to N1 million and salaries are being paid on time.

In conforming to what obtains in the modern local government secretariat, the new administration has given facelift. Today, fence at the council are looking better and street lights have been provided. Works are still ongoing.

As a way of providing for better tomorrow, the council will soon embark on

•Ojoawo construction of shopping complex, schools and more roads.

As a way of improving the revenue of the council, the new caretaker committee chairman resuscitated the

poultry of the council which had been abandoned for a while now. He stocked the poultry with 4,000 birds.

Also land has been acquired for trailer park. A project which is expected to outlive the present administration.

The new LG boss has also embarked on what is called ‘comfort station’. It is more or less like a modern toilet, equipped with boreholes that serve the toilets.

While educating transport workers, especially drivers, the danger of hard drugs, it also made available to commercial motorcycle riders free crash elements Ojoawo though believes funding has been the major challenge of the

after swearing-in, he expressed his determination to adopt open door policy, that constructive criticism that can move the local government forward shall be considered. He also unveiled the Three cardinal points of his administration tagged 3Ws which include Welfare, Water and Wellbeing and he has been doing wonderfully well in his transformation agenda.

At inception, the Chairman reemphasized the importance of welfare of workers as well as the people of the Council area which according to him would motivate workers as well as the people of the Council area which according to him would motivate workers to put in their best and also encourage the people to always cooperate and support government activities and programmes from time to time.

To start with, for the first time in the history of Ido Local Government, Prof. Olowofela last year cleared the 2011 leave allowance of all workers at once.

Barely two weeks in office, there was a terrible flood that ravaged the whole of Ibadanland and wiped away many bridges including Apete Bridge which affected the entire people of Apete in ward 4 of the local government.

Prof. Olowofela in his efforts to ensure victims are properly attended to, displayed high level of humility by riding on Okada in order to safe time. He personally engaged local divers to rescue a young lady, an ND II student of The Polytechnic Ibadan who was trapped in the middle of Apete River for close to 48 hours. He then took her to a private hospital for medical attention.

Thereafter, there was cholera outbreak at Omi-Adio, Ward 9 of the Local Government which was promptly attended to in order to curtail the spread of the epidemics. Without further delay, the council boss directed immediate chlorination of all deep wells at Omi-Adio and other parts of the council.

•Olowofela

local government but said: “No matter how much they give to a local government, because it is the government that is closest to the grassroot, no amount will be enough.” The way out according to get around this, according to him is to go into private public partnership arrangement with agencies that are ready to partner.

Proposed projects

•100 units housing units •Cottage industry •construction of a mini stadium •Embarking on poultry projects •Planting of palm tree and cashew trees •To employ 776 unemployed •To construct 45 store shopping complex

THE NATION MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012

42

Special Focus on Outstanding Caretaker Committee Chairmen in Oyo State (1) hose who appointed Itesiwaju Local Yunus Oladiji Ibarapa East Local Government, Olanrewaju Olaosegba Government, Otu as the Caretaker Committee Eruwa...a place where experience counts Chairman of Ibrapa East ...developing grassroots through unity

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H

onourable Olarinre Adeniji Adisa trained in Estate management is a pragmatic being, little wonder, he has been pragmatic since in dealing with issues affecting the council since he assumed office about seven months ago.

The first thing he did as new helmsman was to give the secretariat a new look. He ‘sanitised’ the LG secretariat.

The obsolete furniture, bushy environment which were ubiquitous are now things of the past. Flat thing screen monitor and printers replaced the jaded ones.

Adisa by is training is not just good in estate management; he also manages human beings too. While demanding total commitment from the staff, he has also taken car of their welfare. Rights of workers such as carrefurbishing loans, allowances and prompt payment of salaries have been the priority of the caretaker chairman.

He has also provided communication gadgets in the council to make accessibility and information easy.

Infrastructural development has also caught the attention of the LG boss. Drilling of boreholes, public toilets in major markets, clearing of drainage and the construction of major junctions are the things the people of Itesiwaju are currently enjoying.

As it is now, the local government could boast of good health care delivery system. The clinics are well stocked with drugs and other necessary things. Aged, widows are given attentions to in these clinics. This is in line with the pet project of the Oyso State First Lady, Chief Florence Ajimobi.

He is also working assiduously to see that the As it is now, the local tide of education decline is government could boast stemmed. The school pupils were given free of good health care exercise books in other to delivery system. The take the burden off their clinics are well stocked parents. As a way of with drugs and other encouraging students in necessary things. Aged, the area, the chairman paid widows are given NECO fees for SS3 attentions to in these students. Extra mural clinics classes are going on in different centres in the local government.

Apparently aware of the security challenges being faced by the people of the local government, he collaborated with the police and other security operatives to put an end security threat in the area.

As a way of promoting peace in the local government, he extended olive branch to the opposition.

“Live and let live, if you are there today let people know your impact while in position, so that when you are no more there, people will talk about you,” has been the philosophy of Honourable Olarinre Adeniji Adisa.

•Adisa.

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Local Government knew he would deliver, considering his experience.

A man who appreciates the value of education, he has made it a duty to pay the bursaries of the students of the local government who are in different tertiary institutions a priority. He did not stop at that, the need to equip the students in different schools in the area has been his priority. The exercise books project of the SS1 students in Ibarapa East Local Government attests to this.

The epileptic power supply has been a problem in most places in the country, especially at the grassroots.

Being a pragmatic individual, he has addressed this by maintaining a cordial relationship with the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) staff in the local government. The local council and the PHCN have been able to improve the problem of power in Ibrapa East Local Government. “We ensure that we installed four transformers. In fact we have a proposal with the state government on how to increase the electricity supply,” Olaosegba, said.

The LG boss understands the vision of the party and the governor.

The environmental sanitation exercise is something the council does not joke with. This accounts for the clean environment in the local government, especially at the headquarters.

As a way of marinating healthy, environment, the council boss has secured approval for the construction of ‘comfort station’, modern toilets in many parts of the local government.

While some people have continued to pour encomiums for achieving much at a short time, Olaosegba insisted that if given another opportunity to serve the local government once again, he would be able to meet up with the agenda set by him to take the council to another level.

There are many elderly people, widows and widowers living in the villages and communities in the local government, Olaosegba believes that they are a factor, therefore, he has taken it upon the

Kajola Local Government, Okeho

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... touching peoples’ lives positively

on. Chief (Dr) Sunday Folorunso Ogungbenro, the caretaker chairman, Kajola local government area of Oyo state must have been cut out for grassroots administration early enough.

The landmark achievements he is making at the Kajola local Government with headquarters at Okeho attests to this. Immediately, the retired teacher was appointed as the caretaker chairman of the Local Government, it did not take him time to swing into action as he embarked on the developmental, projects that impact positively on the lives of the people of the Local Government. The magic touch of Dr.Ogungbenro can be felt in the areas of road construction, employment, the welfare of the widows and the aged, health, welfare of the local Government staff, Education.

EDUCATION The background of Chief (Dr) Sunday Ogungbenro as a professional teacher and retired teacher’s supervisor must have prepared him to give the educational development Kajola

have also put in place a better package for the staff by ensuring that salaries are paid promptly and the 13th month salaries for workers has been a priority.

Though the council would want to do more, Olaosegba is appealing to the federal government to increase the allocation to local government areas in order for them to do more for the people at the grassroots.

Olaosegba

•Ogungbenro local Government Area the seriousness it deserves. At Kajola local Government, under the Ogungbenro’s administration, free exercise books were distributed in all government primary schools’ pupils in the local government.

According to the caretaker chairman, “as responsive government and being somebody

Iwajowa Local Government,Iwere-Ile

eing a lawyer and the first chairman from Iwere Ile, has really helped Barrister Tajudeen Olawale Abdul-Salam, the Caretaker Committee chairman of Iwajowa Local Government.

He had stayed long enough watching from outside to know the needs of the people of the local government.

As a trained lawyer, he has successfully committed his administration into making the welfare of his people a priority. He procured health equipments and repaired the ambulance for the health centre which had been down for a while now. The ambulance is fully functional.

Until he assumed office, the Budo Musa Health Centre closed shop, realizing the importance of the centre, he pumped money into it and brought it back to life.

He also touched other health centres in the council by stocking them with drugs. As a way of fighting diseases, Abdul-Salam embarked on immunization of the infants.

He is planning to rehabilitate Jokolo Health Centre.

As at today, generating sets are in all the health centres in the local government Not oblivious that health is wealth; the new helmsman has employed 50 casual workers to manage the environment. He made sure that the people of the local government are sensitized on importance of clean environment that is why the environmental campaign is

present administration to take care of them. “This administration has a heart for the elderly and the widows,” he said.

Health is wealth, so they say, coming from a background that is very organized, he has also constructed mini clinic within the local government secretariat.

The flood that affected Oyo State last year did not spare Ibarapa East local Government. The council has taken it as part of its responsibilities to support those that were affected by the flood.

Aside constructing roads in different parts of the local government, the Alaya road which was impossible for the previous administration to construct because of lack of resources was completed.

Realising the problem of unemployment in the local government, the present administration has introduced skill acquisition and empowerment programme. This has equipped some unemployed youths. “We

close the people at the grassroots, the exercise books we distributed freely are a sort of palliatives to the parent.”

The administration’s intervention in education is not limited to the distribution of free exercise books, National Examinations Council (NECO) forms were also procured for the hundred students by the local government.

Before the appointment of Hon. Chief (Dr) Sunday Ogungbenro as the caretaker, the water situation in the schools in the local government was nothing to write home about, these boreholes were sunk and deep wells dug in some primary schools that were hither to experiencing water supply problem.

HEALTH In line with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) health policy in Oyo State, Kajola Local Government collaborates with the state government in ensuring free health facilities to the people of the local government. The immunization of the children in the local government against the

preventable diseases is also given the utmost attention.

Ogungbenro’s administration also commissioned fire health centers with relevant up to date medical equipments. The weekly and monthly environmental exercise was regular and implemented with every seriousness as the caretaker chairman believes a “health is wealth.”

To further demonstrate the zeal for a healthy environment in the local government area, Health officers were seen to be performing routine cheeks to prevent bush environments.

Modern toilets with boreholes were also constructed at the following public places: Olele market at Okeho, Elero market Ilero, IIua market, IIlua, sabo market sabo, Isemi market, Isemi ile , the secretariat complex, Oja agbe ilero. Unlike the previous arrangement where public toilets were constructed without provision for maintenance, the present administration in Kajola local Government, Oyo state is recruiting permanent personnel that will ensure the toilets were well kept all the time.

...giving priority to the welfare

ongoing. The indiscriminate dump of waste will soon fizzle out with the creation of temporary dumpsites at Ijio Iganna and Iwere Ile. Abdul-Salam whose the health of his people are prime on his mind has built public toilets in different locations of the local government.

Mosquito nets were distributed to the people of Iwajowa Local Government.

The aged and the widows have also benefited enormously from the caretaker committee chairman in the last seven years. More than 1,500 of them have been treated of one ailment or the other. More than 100 men have undergone henna operation successfully.

The new local government caretaker committee chairman has further shown his commitment to education by giving out 50,000 big notes and exercise books for the primary school pupils. He also paid for NECO, GCE examination fees fro about 300 indigenes of Iwajowa Local Government.

The chairman also gave N7, 300 cash to each of the 740 internal candidates students in all public schools in the local government. In line with the Oyo State drive for qualitative education, the LG chair is sponsoring Governor Abiola Ajimobi Remedial Programme.

Construction are going on in some schools in the local government. The schools include Itasa Community Primary School,Olopele; RCM Primary School, Igana; Community Primary School, Epo Ijio; Community Primary School, Gaa; ayetorolle Community Primary School also in Gaa. The schools are constructed with official toilets and stores.

Recognizing the bad roads in the local government, he has been on road construction drive, the recent being the completion of Ipaaalu road at Idiko Ile. Barrister Abdul-Salam has shown his competence in managing people and resources, recently he distributed 100 grinding machines and 150 sprayer and 1000 cutlasses as his own contribution to poverty alleviation in the local government.

•Abdul-Salam

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PSYCHO TRIP!

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NEWS Ecobank not bothered by Boko Haram, says Kuku

‘Ewi not complicit in Ekiti land tussle’

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HE Baisaya of AdoEkiti, the Ekiti State capital, High Chief Adebisi Kolawole Adesua, has said the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe Aladesanmi III, has only repeated an old judgment on a land dispute between the Edemo Aduloju and the Baisaya families.

Addressing reporters on the dispute between the two families, Adesua noted that the monarch only re-echoed a 1954 verdict in favour of the Baisaya family.

The high chief said the 1954 judgment by the then Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Daniel Aladesanmi II, conceded the land from Ogbese to Ijan boundary to the family.

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Ado-Ekiti

He said: “When the issue came up, Oba Adejugbe set up an eight-member panel, which investigated the matter and presented a position to the Ewi in written form.

“One discovery of the panel was that the same tussle came up in 1952 and the then Ewi, Oba Daniel Aladesanmi II, did the same thing by setting up a panel which concluded its investigation in 1954. The oba ruled in favour of the Baisaya family, based on a historical fact.”

He noted that although the case is already in court, it was needful to clear airs regarding the allegation of complic-

ity of the Ewi of Ado in a land matter long decided in favour of the Baisaya family.

“The family decided to address this conference as the third party to the case of a land dispute between the families and to state clearly that the Ewi has not tilted a bit in our (Baisaya) favour.

“History does not lie and the latest judgment has only confirmed the truth.”

A copy of a statement showed that “the dispute on the land was brought before Oba Daniel Aladesanmi II in 1952 and was finally settled in 1954 in favour of Chief Baisaya Abiodun, Chief Ejemua Ajayi families and Edemo Ojo, all in 1954”.

Also, as shown in a copy of

the recommendations of the eight-man panel by the Ewi, it was stated that the stretch of land “from Omitere back to Ado should be owned by the Edemo family and the one from Afinilara to Ijan boundary be owned by the Baisaya family. Thus, the two streams were their (Edemo and Baisaya) major boundaries.

“The judgment clearly stated that Edemo family should not go beyond River Ogbese,” the recommendation said.

He said Oba Adejugbe was not taking sides with the Baisaya family on the land dispute, as alleged by rival Edemo family.

Lawmaker’s son, two others die in Kwara road crash

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HREE people died in a crash at the weekend in Kwara State.

The accident reportedly occurred on Saturday evening at Oro in Ifelodun Local Government.

The driver of the Honda involved in the crash was said to have lost control and hit a hard object.

Shola Oniyangi, the eldest

From Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

son of a member of the House of Assembly, Alhaja Nimota Ibrahim, Layi Agboola, son of a retired Nigeria Customs officer and another person were said to have died in the accident.

The retired customs officer, Sogo Agboola, is a former head, Federal Anti-smug-

gling Squad of the Nigeria Customs.

Sources said the driver of the vehicle was the only survivor.

While the remains of the son of the lawmaker have been buried at the Muslim cemetery on New Yidi Road, Ilorin, according to Islamic rites, the bodies of the two other victims have been deposited in

the mortuary at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital.

The Chief Imam of Oniyangi Mosque, Ilorin was said to have led the funeral prayer for Shola Oniyangi.

His mother, Alhaja Ibrahim, was said to be on a visit to South Africa.

Police spokesman Daboh Ezekiel did not confirm the accident.

Boko Haram attempts to bomb Kano

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USPECTED Boko Haram members yesterday attempted to bomb a beer parlour in Sabon Gari, Kano. However, the explosive they planted underneath a car only damaged the bonnets of three cars.

An eyewitness said immediately the suspected terrorists dropped the bomb and fled, it exploded, causing panic in the area. There was no casualty.

The source said after they fled, the Joint Task Force (JTF) and Bomb Disposal Squad cordoned off the area, combing the neighbourhood. No arrest was made.

Police spokesman Magaji Majia confirmed the incident. He said there was no

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•Govt, JTF blame Maiduguri residents for prolonged crisis From Kolade Adeyemi, Kano and Joseph Abiodun, Maiduguri

casualty, adding that investigations have begun.

Borno State Government and the JTF yesterday blamed the residents of Borno State for the continued attacks by the Boko Haram sect on the state, saying the non-provision of information that would lead to the arrest of the sect members was the reason there was no end in sight to insecurity in the state and Nigeria.

The Borno State Deputy Governor Zanna Mustapha, who was at the Monday Market, Maiduguri where

11 persons were confirmed killed by the Boko Haram sect, said the only way to end the onslaught of the terrorists was to provide information that would lead to their arrest.

The deputy governor, who was at the market to commiserate with the traders, said the government, in collaboration with security agencies, would provide security in and around the market.

He assured the bereaved families that government would assist them, and called on the public to cooperate with security agencies by providing information that would assist in ar-

Ekiti seeks support of corporate bodies, education stakeholders

HE Ekiti State Government has said the support of stakeholders, including parents, groups and corporate bodies, is crucial to the advancement of education.

Deputy Governor Funmi Olayinka spoke at the weekend when she hosted a seven-man visitation panel set up by the Federal Government to investigate the operations and activities of polytechnics in the country.

She urged the stakeholders to partner the government to redeem the dwindling fortunes of education in the country.

According to her, there is need for the stakeholders to unite and present a common front on the education of children.

Mrs Olayinka said the Kayode Fayemi administration felt especially responsible to take care of Federal Government institutions in the state because of its belief that they have a primary role to play in the

From Sulaiman Salawudeen, Aado-Ekiti

development of the state.

The deputy governor said the state government supported the federal polytechnic in the state to discharge its role as a tertiary institution of note.

She said: “Education, being an abiding legacy, which the state is working hard to sustain and promote, has continued to receive prime attention as attested to by the recent distribution of laptop computers to all teachers and secondary school pupils in the state.”

The panel chairman, Prof. Richard Anao, said the panel was not on a revenge mission or to expose anyone. He said it was set up to examine the operation and activities of the 21 federal polytechnics and colleges of education set up between 2004 and 2011.

He said the panel was part of Federal Government’s education transfor-

mation goal to ensure that products of educational institutions rise above the multiple challenges thrown up by a globalised age.

Prof. Anao, who said Ekiti State has produced the highest number of professors in the country, hailed Dr. Fayemi for his achievements, especially in the education sector.

The former University of Benin Vice-Chancellor noted that “lack of continuity of programmes and poor funding have remained the bane of the Nigerian education system”.

The Rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, Mrs. Taiwo Akande, thanked the state government for its cooperation and assistance to the institution.

Others members of the panel are: Mrs N.E. Alaba (Secretary), Alhaji Mohammed Wakili, Alhaji Mohammed Sanni Zango, Mr Ifeanyi Umeh and Mr M. Sanni.

resting the terrorists.

Mustapha said without giving adequate information to the security agencies, government alone cannot stop the killings.

From Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

•Kuku

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HE management of Ecobank Plc at the weekend said its business is not threatened by the activities of the Boko Haram sect or other security challenges in the country.

The Chairman of the bank, Dr. Sunny Kuku, who spoke during the launch of Ecobank Diaspora Account in Abuja, said the bank took security issues seriously.

His words: “Security challenges are threats to everybody, but in any situation, the strong survives. That is life. It is how you manage your life and Ecobank is a bank that everybody knows is very ethical and when you are pure and ethical, bad people move away from you. The bank takes security very seriously and contributes to the society generally.”

Return to negotiation table, CNPP pleads with Lagos doctors

By Emmanuel Oladesu

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HE Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), Lagos State branch, yesterday urged the resident doctors to stop its proposed strike in the interest of stakeholders in the health sector.

The association said, although the doctors have the constitutional right to seek better welfare package under the law, it is unadvisable to play politics with the health of patients.

CNPP Chairman Mr. Akinola Obadia told reporters that Lagos State government was the first to implement the Federal Government Consolidated Medical Salary structure (CONMESS), adding that Governor Babatunde Fashola had indicated his readiness to perfect whatever error that may have affected its implementation.

He described the medical profession as a foremost humanitarian service, urging the doctors to embrace dialogue.

Obadia said: “We appeal to the doctors to resist the temptation of being influenced or incited to strike by selfish politicians with the motive of taking political advantage of the situation. Neither personal interest nor political motivation should be allowed to sway them in this grave circumstance”.

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NEWS

INEC to prosecute one million suspects for electoral offences

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T least one million suspects are to be prosecuted over offences arising from last year voter registration and general elections, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Board of Electoral Institute chair, Prof. Lai Olurode, has said.

Olurode, who is also National Commissioner of in charge of Training and Research, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) yesterday in Abuja that the prosecution had been “a big problem’’, because of paucity of funds and manpower.

He said INEC was collabo-

rating with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to facilitate the prosecution at minimal costs, adding that Bauchi, Zamfara, Gombe and Bayelsa were among states with the highest number of suspects.

“In actual fact, some of those apprehended have been prosecuted and convicted but the number was just too small compared to those remaining.

He said NBA as a body and stakeholder is committed to sanitising electoral process in the country and had offered INEC a window

that would lower the cost of prosecution.

“All over the country, there are NBA branches and the branch in each state will take up the case and prosecute for INEC at an agreed fee.

“NBA is seeing the service, a public service and an effort to sanitise the electoral system in Nigeria.”

According to Olurode, prosecution of election offenders should not be left with INEC alone as it is a major mandate which another body should be saddled with.

Olurode called on government to work on the report of Uwais Electoral Reform Panel which had recommended that a separate body should be set up to handle electoral offences.

NAN recalls that the 22member panel was set up in 2007 to, among others, fashion out strategies towards free and fair elections in Nigeria.

Olurode called for increased police cooperation in INEC activities to facilitate prosecution of electoral offenders.

Sultan urges Muslims to unite for Islam Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

•Sultan Abubakar

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HE Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Muhammad Saad Abubakar (III) has asked Muslims to be united to address the challenges facing Islam.

He also asked Muslims to embrace debates and dialogue in contributing to the development of the country.

Sultan gave the advice in an address on Saturday at a two-day Conference on Nigerian Muslims and Democracy at the National Mosque in Abuja .

He said: “I would like to

thank the organisers for seeing the need to bring Muslims together at these trying times when, more than ever before, the Muslim Ummah needs to reflect and consult and develop a united front, to face the challenges ahead.

“This demonstrates the saying of Allah, the most high, that we are indeed one community. “Verily this your Ummah, is indeed one community.”

Sultan also asked Muslims to adopt debate and dialogue in contributing to the nation’s development.

He added: “Muslims like all citizens, have a civic responsibility to air their views and participates in national debates and contribute to the development of the country. “Discussions and debates generate ideas and promote understanding and consensus building.

Such avenues also provide the opportunity for consultations.

“Consultation is a key feature of the life of the Mus-

lim community and Allah has encouraged us to consult one another in running the affairs of the community.

Sultan said: “Those who obey their lord and establish prayer; who conduct their affairs by consultation, and spend out of what we bestowed upon them” “Our religion, political culture and history should inspire us to participate in these kinds of civic engagements. We have specific instructions to cooperate in Albir Wa -ttaqwa, acts of righteousness and piety; to cooperate with all stakeholders in matters, which affect the well-being and security of our country. This calls for the unity of the Ummah. It also calls for dialogue across religious and cultures. Dialogue itself calls for understanding, patience and perseverance.”

He urged Muslims to put public interest above all issues.

Sultan said: “Islamic political culture and the Sharia itself are focused on Maslaha or ‘public interest’, that which is most beneficent to people.

Islamic history is replete with efforts of Muslim scholars engaging in discussions and debates over ways to make societies better.

“The history of the Sokoto Caliphate, in particular, illustrates the central role of consultation in deciding the affairs of the community and the debate both among scholars and people on the best way to shape the affairs of the community.

“While I urge you to continue this process of consultations and debate and make your own contributions to the national debate, I wish to entreat you to be guided by wisdom, sound argument and Islamic decorum, as explained in the Quran.

“I should also implore you to remain conscious of your duty to Allah the most high, your duty to fellow citizens and to ensure sincerity of purpose in your endeavour to make Nigeria a better country. You should consider a mechanism of institutionalizing these efforts to ensure sustainability of the good works you have started.

Jonathan worships at Otuoke church From Vincent Ikuomola, Abuja

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RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan was among the worshippers at the Saint Stephen’s Anglican Church, Otuoke, Bayelsa State yesterday.

He participated in the Holy Communion service with members of his family.

His wife, Dame Patience and his mother, Madam Eunice, were there.

Also present was Governor Seriake Dickson, his wife, Martha and top government functionaries.

The church has been a subject of controversy with the opposition alleging that its reconstruction was a bribe from an Italian company.

The Presidency denied this claim.

Jonathan did not make any speech at the service. He took the second bible reading. The first lesson was taken by the First Lady.

At the service, prayers were offered for the peace, unity and harmony in the country.

Bishop of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Ogbia Diocese, Right Reverend James Oruwari, said the solution to the current challenges was in the hands of God. He urged leaders to always remember the words of God in taking decisions affecting the country, noting that they should have the fear of God at heart.

He assured the congregation that the country would surmount all the problems and would move ahead to become a great nation.

Lagos journalists okay Garba, Odusile for NUJ posts

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EMBERS of the Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) have endorsed the candidature of Alhaji Waheed Odusile of The Nation for the post of Deputy National President of the union.

At its congress on Saturday, they overwhelmingly voted for the trio of Odusile, the union’s President, Mallam Garba Muhammed and the Secretary of the G-zone, Adolphus Okonkwo as official candidates of the state council at the Triennial Delegates Conference of the union billed for May 24, in Abuja.

Garba is seeking re-election. Okonkwo is taking a shot as Financial Secretary.

The decision was taken via a show of hands. It was 68 votes for and 15 against. The motion was moved by Alhaji Usman Tongo of FRCN. The Chairman of the state NUJ, Comrade Deji Elumoye, who moderated the voting process called for a vote after the debate.

Garba and Odusile thanked journalists in Lagos for their support and promised not to disappoint them.

Odusile said: “A good leader must be one of the people and also part of the people.

“I’ve built my career from being a reporter and I rose through the ranks to become a Managing Editor today. I am still part of you. At the union level, I started as Chapel Secretary at The Concord Newspaper. I’ve being a state officer and a National Ex-Officio, I did not depart from you. I’ve been one of you, I’ve been a part of you and I still remain with you.

“Together, we shall take our union to the next level. I will never disappoint or fail you. Please trust me with your votes.”

FOREIGN NEWS Zuma for sixth marriage

Multiple raids in Afghanistan

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ILITANTS have staged a wave of co-ordinated attacks on the Afghan capital Kabul and other locations.

Foreign embassies, Nato’s HQ and the Afghan parliament were hit in the first major attack on Kabul in more than six months.

The attackers also struck in the provinces of Logar, Paktia and Nangarhar. The Taliban said it was the start of a “spring offensive” .

Two Afghan security force members and 17 militants were reportedly killed.

A further 17 Afghan police officers and nine civilians were injured, the Afghan interior ministry said.

The last attack on Kabul on this scale was in September 2011 when heavily armed insurgents took over an unfinished high-rise building and opened fire on the US embassy and Nato headquarters. That attack left at least 14 Afghans dead.

The Taliban said yesterday’s attacks marked the start of a “spring offensive”.

Their “fighting season” tends to begin when the warmer weather melts snow in mountain passes along the border with Pakistan, allowing fighters to cross into Afghanistan.

Among yesterday’s targets was the British embassy, with two rockets hitting a guard tower and a rocket-propelled grenade fired at a house used by British diplomats, but no staff were hurt, the Foreign Office later confirmed.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague

said he “strongly” condemned the attacks, and praised Afghan government forces for responding “bravely, promptly and effectively”.

Reports of explosions and gunfire in Kabul continued to come in nine hours after the attacks began around 13:15 local time (08:45 GMT).

Insurgents focused their assault on Western embassies in the central diplomatic area and the parliament area but also attacked international troops in the east of the city.

The Taliban listed as targets the German and British embassies, the Kabul Star hotel, the headquarters of the Nato-led international force (Isaf), and parliament house.

The list also included the ruined Darul Aman palace outside the capital.

At the parliament, a number of MPs joined the fight against the insurgents, Kandahar lawmaker Naeem Hameedzai Lalai said.

Speaking to the Associated Press news agency, said he had climbed the tower of the parliament building and fired on insurgents with an assault rifle.

“I shot up to 400 or 500 bullets from my Kalashnikov at the attackers,” he said. “They fired two rocket-propelled grenades at the parliament.”

Large explosions rattled the diplomatic quarter where a Reuters correspondent spoke of black smoke rising from embassies as rocket-propelled grenades whizzed overhead.

•Zuma

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OUTH Africa’s President Jacob Zuma will marry for the sixth time next weekend, making longterm fiancee Gloria Bongi Ngema his fourth current wife,

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his spokesman says.

Zuma is a Zulu traditionalist, and polygamy is legal in South Africa.

His spokesman, Mac Maharaj, said the private ceremony would take place in Nkandla in KwaZulu Natal province.

Zuma usually takes one wife with him on official events, on a rotating basis.

The marriage will be his sixth, but he is divorced from one wife and another took her own life in 2000.

The BBC’s Southern Africa correspondent, Karen Allen, says Ms Ngema - a businesswoman from Durban - is already a familiar figure at the president’s side.

Zuma, who became president in 2009, recently celebrated his 70th birthday and has 21 children.

A statement on the president’s website said there would be no cost to the government for next weekend’s ceremony, nor did the state pay for the maintenance of the four spouses’ households.

Zuma was acquitted of rape charges in 2006, though he admitted having unprotected sex with the woman, who was HIV-positive, showering afterwards in the belief that this would reduce the chance of infection.

In 2009, he fathered a child out of wedlock with the daughter of a senior football official.

New clashes in Syria

RESH clashes have erupted in Syria as a vanguard of UN monitors prepares to arrive to oversee the shaky ceasefire.

Activists said there was heavy shelling in the city of Homs, while rebel fighters reportedly attacked a police station in Aleppo province.

Syrian state media claim that attacks by “terrorists groups” have intensified since Thursday’s truce.

The United Nations passed a resolution on Syria on Saturday, authorising

the deployment of unarmed observers.

A spokesman for international peace envoy Kofi Annan said that an advance party of six observers arrived in Syria yesterday evening and would “be on the ground in blue helmets today”.

Ahmad Fawzi said the six would be “quickly augmented by up to 25 to 30 from the region and elsewhere”.

A ceasefire came into effect on Thursday morning but there have been many violations since, and the BBC’s Jim Muir in Beirut says the monitors will arrive to find a truce in dire need of reinforcement.

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MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

WHO SAID WHAT

‘Nothing is taken for granted. Every right-thinking person must have regard for religion because of its emotional nature. That is what is worrisome to me. I will want to plead with all concerned to be careful because it is reckless, if you don’t handle it with caution ’ RAUF AREGBESOLA

VOL 7 NO 2,097

C OMMENT & D EB ATE EBA

“I

ALWAYS make my supplications to God that, in selecting me as the President of this country, the Vice President, the Governors, members of the National Assembly, the ministers, we are not the best material but God knows why he chose us and we pray He should use us to change this country.”

This is not the sort of line you expect from the leader of over 100 million people. It is what some psychologists call false humility. By that line, President Goodluck Jonathan wants us to be sorry for him. He wants us to ask God to help him do his job, to confront the darkness and violence of Boko Haram, to slake the pent-up rage in the land with regards to poverty, infrastructure decay, deaths from diseases, housing deficits and the everlasting oppressions of power failure.

The words are twisted lyrics of surrender, the sort that makes us as a people unable to blame anything except powers outside ourselves. It is a recipe for paralysis.

The President implied in those words he delivered in the church in the Presidential mansion that it is now up to God to deliver Nigeria. The reason is that he with his team is not the best, and so the best cannot dawn on our circumstances unless God uses them to do it.

The President has been in office for over two years, and he is still speaking as though he took over office in March this year. His appeal to God and the scriptures do injustice to the faith and the holy book. The holy book does not imply that we surrender.

It is true that God chooses those who are regarded as little, but who told Jonathan that God chose him? Is it because he visited churches and some of the leaders liberally granted him their blessings? Sentiments gave him that office, not God and not his ability.

Many Nigerians are waking up to this fact.

Since he decided to wax Biblical, I will today. First, God chooses the best. The people outside only think they are not the best. Paul wrote that not many mighty or wise in the world are chosen, but God choses the lesser ones to confound the wise. Jonathan has not confounded the wise. He has actually emboldened them to lash at the ineptitude of his government.

David confronted Goliath. He was the last son of Jesse. But God chose him. When God of the Bible chooses, he invests them with the Holy Spirit and unction to perform.

Jonathan lacks performance. He calls himself a transformational leader, but the term has dressed up an inept Nigerian leader.

In the book, Transformational Leadership written by Bernard Bass and Ronald Riggio, the notion refers to men who lift a people to

SAM OMATSEYE

IN TOUCH

intouchsam@yahoo.com 08054501081(sms only) •Winner, Informed Commentary 2009& 2010 (D.A.M.E)

God in Aso Villa

•Dr. Jonathan heights they only dreamed. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, they make their people live the life they imagined.

The 20th Century had such men as Winston Churchill, for leading his nation with rhetoric and moral authority to victory against the forces of evil. Franklin Roosevelt for doing same and shepherding America from the worst economic times in history. Nelson Mandela for saving his people from the woes and servitude of prejudice. Brazil’s Lula Da Silva for leapfrogging 30 million people out of poverty. They acted with a sense of destiny. These people were bold and drew out systematic plans, combining order with compassion.

Some of them believed in God, and in fact, many of the world’s leaders of the century, like Nehru and Ghandi believed in God, but

RIPPLES NIGERIA HAS A LONG WAY TO GO –EX HEAD OF STATE

Yes long way...LONG UNTARRED WAY

they allowed God to work in them for the people. They did not speak in deceptive words of surrender. They confronted the nation’s woes with clear and identifiable vision. Can anyone today truly articulate what the vision of Jonathan is on any subject and how they will work in the next few years?

I doubt it. Some responders to this page have asked why I take on the President. Rather than engage me on facts and elementary logic, they careen into sentimental verbiage about him being chosen of God. The real transformational leaders work with wisdom. Even Jesus on earth emphasised wisdom. He spoke of revelation when he thanked God that He had not revealed the truth to the so-called mighty people but to babes. We can see that from his disciples. They lived on the fringe of the world’s intellectual wellspring. But they triumphed when they received power. What are Jonathan’s revelations? Is it to remove subsidies and promise to use the money for what government normally does like roads and hospitals?

Those who cavil at this column for taking on the President should realise that I have nothing against him as a person, but I have love for my country. I actually love him as a person. The bible says he whom I love, I chastise. Not that I love Jonathan less but that I love Nigeria more. He has not lived up to the wisdom and dignity of the office, and that worries me in the decay that assails our people in all spheres. He said the subsidy money will be used for what government is routinely tasked to perform. It is over a quarter, we can’t see signs. When President Obama released what was termed stimulus package to the states, we immediately saw the impact. Recently I saw roads and bridges fully constructed with the money. Texas Governor last

HARDBALL

P

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has a reputation for innocent expression. He speaks the way he feels, without guile, without complications, and nearly always revealing and psychoanalytic of self. He indulged all of these again on Saturday when he convened a breakfast prayer meeting at the State House in Abuja. Said he: “I always make my supplications to God that in selecting me as the president of this country, the vice president, the governors…we are not the best material, but God knows why He chose me, and we pray He should use us to change this country.” This column cannot recall one great man in history who felt he was the second best for the job of leadership and yet went on to affect his society in ways that have left that country panting for more of him and reminiscing over his reign years, decades and even centuries after.

Leaders may be modest about imposing themselves and their policies on their fellow men, especially when they have had to go to war, but they seldom feel modest about their qualification for the office they occupy. Try telling Lincoln, Churchill, Napoleon, or even Hitler that they were not the best men for the times and the leadership positions they occupied.

Jonathan’s declaration was, however, probably a Freudian slip. He was neither prepared to govern Bayelsa State when leadership was thrust upon him, and like his two predecessors in the highest office in the land, he was also not

year appropriated Obama-inspired jobs as his. This was barely two and a half years in office. Jonathan has job and infrastructure deficits.

Here is why Jonathan should be held accountable. One, he commands over 55 percent of Nigeria’s budget. Two, he controls the critical infrastructure in the country. The federal roads account for how well business is soldered to business between states. How good are the roads? He controls the police in a federalist contortion. It is the creative work of some states, namely Lagos and now Ogun, that the rise in crime is curtailed. Education at the primary level has its budget in his palms to a great degree. And education fails at that level. He controls the ports mostly, and he regulates the banks, and controls power and energy resources in the country. All mineral resources, most of them untapped, are under the Federal Government.

He holds the yam and the knife and he wants God to show him how to cut. My duty in this column is to tell him to do it and not ruin the yam. There are many hungry people at the table and outside the room who want him to cut the yam appropriately.

Jonathan only used that language of God to exploit the religious gullibility of Nigerians who turn coy when God’s name is used. They forget that Jesus warned that “ not every one that says “Lord, Lord, shall enter into my kingdom but they that do the will of my father…” That is what this column is asking of the President. Not his serpentine will and those of his fuddy-duddy and octogenarian advisers.

Eyes on Musdapher

B

Y this weekend, we shall know the way of the Nigerian Supreme Court on a matter that has been brewing since a magistrate judge swore in governor in Kogi State and a governor, through acts of impunity, emerged in Bayelsa State.

We have seen mixed signal from Chief Justice Dahiru Musdapher era. The jury is still out. He has acted as though he is cut from a different cloth from his errant predecessor. The world is waiting to see if the court will clarify the implications of the tenure elongation of governors who may have been well into their second terms if the same judicial system ruled before the April polls last year. They could have picked up the party tickets. Those on the throne today were not in the reckoning in January last year when the primaries held. Is it justice we shall get from Musdapher?

•Hardball is not the opinion of the columnist featured above

Jonathan’s self-deprecating honesty prepared for the challenges of the presidency. It is, therefore, probably true that he and others, whom he listed yesterday as being saddled with the responsibility of governing Nigeria, were really not the best men for the job.

But the real kernel of Jonathan’s spiritual deposition was his claim that God chose him knowing full well he was not the best man for the job.

Woven around that claim was the insinuation that since the choice came from God, one way or another, the Almighty was obligated to hear his prayers and ensure the success of his presidency. In addition, attached to his prayer meeting deposition was his belief that God invariably answers supplications even when the conditions precedent to that answer have not been met.

Jonathan not only has a poor understanding of the scriptures or theology, he also has an even poorer understanding of God. Every student of theology knows that it is not in all cases that God chooses a man to take power because that man was expected to do well for his country. Sometimes God enables a man to assume power to fulfil other aspects of His sovereign will, which the uninitiated would even consider cruel. Hitler surely could not be a darling of God, nor were the many incompetent and licentious despots the world had borne their yokes

and regretted their reigns. If Jonathan agreed he was not the best man for the job, what has he done since he assumed power to become the best? Does he expect God to be committed to answering his prayers or those who intercede for him when he has been reluctant to sanctify himself, scrupulously pursue the cause of justice, ennoble the office he occupies with lofty purposes, promote amity among the people he governs, and apply himself diligently to novel solutions to his country’s multifarious problems?

Perhaps the most potent self-indictment he pronounced during the prayer meeting was contained in the following statement: “We must live above (those) primordial tendencies which can only compromise our growth as a nation. We should be guided by the ideals of justice, equity, selflessness and, above all, the fear of God in every conduct, public or private.” He almost fooled us. It is doubtful whether anyone has promoted primordial tendencies as copiously and severely as he has done in the last two years. As for justice, neither he nor his government understands the term, let alone apply himself to it. And when the fear of God is discussed in relation to the president, it is obvious he made the statement in a fit of absentmindedness.

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