The Nation April 21, 2015

Newspaper of the Year

Outrage over S/Africa attacks

1,000 migrants die in shipwrecks

NEWS

Page 4

NEWS

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•Protests in Abuja, Benin, Kaduna

•Disasters on European high seas

•Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

VOL. 10, NO. 3191 TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

TR UTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM TRUTH

CBN faults payment for services in dollars

N150.00

Buhari: our plan for Northeast

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By Collins Nweze, Snr. Finance Correspondent

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HE Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has condemned rising cases of currency substitution and dollarisation of the economy.

CBN Banking Supervision Director Mrs. Tokunbo Martins said the Naira remain the only legal tender in this country.

“Please be reminded that Section 15 of the CBN Act 2007 provides that the unit of currency in Nigeria shall be the Naira.

Section 20 (1) of the same Act provides that the currency notes Continued on page 4

•www.thenationonlineng.net

•Gen. Buhari

RESIDENT-ELECT Muhammadu Buhari has unveiled a comprehensive plan for the Northeast – the zone hardest hit by the Boko Haram insurgency.

The economy of the states, especially Borno, Yobe and Adamawa, is reeling under the effect of the killings and general insecurity.

Gen. Buhari told a Borno State delegation led by Governor Kashim Shettima, which

•President-elect, Obasanjo meet visited him in Kaduna on Sunday, that Lake Chad will get special attention so as to create jobs in agriculture for the teeming youths.

He promised to give priority to ending the insurgency to bring stability to the zone.

Besides, the search for oil along the Chad Basin will be funded.

There will also be collabora-

tion with neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon to curtail Boko Haram’s transborder movement;cut supply of arms and block recruitment and training of recruits.

Gen. Buhari said the stability of the Northeast would be a project because nothing can be achieved without Continued on page 4

•INSIDE: QUATTARA HAILS JONATHAN FOR NOT ‘PLAYING GBAGBO’ P5 APC REJECTS LIST P5

Schools shut as Fayose’s loyalists seize Assembly APC hails drivers for rejecting call to join protest From Odunayo Ogunmola, Ado-Ekiti

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KITI State Governor Ayo Fayose continued yesterday his desperate battle to stave off impeachment.

There was tension in Ado-Ekiti, the state capital. Many schools remained shut at the opening of a new term.

Fayose’s supporters stormed the vicinity of the House of Assembly, protesting the impeachment proceedings launched by 19 All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmakers.

Fayose has been running the state with seven Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lawmakers.

The APC lawmakers sent an impeachment notice to Fayose and his deputy, Kolapo Olusola, accusing them of gross misconduct in the performance of their official functions.

They wrote to the Chief Judge, Justice Ayodeji Daramola, after a special sitting, directing him to set up a seven-man panel to investigate the alleged gross misconduct.

Fayose, in a broadcast on Sunday, said that the Dr. Adewale Omirin-led APC Assembly members were planning to storm the complex. He urged his supporters to beseige the place and frustrate the plot to remove him from office.

The governor, who spoke in Yoruba charged PDP members, drivers, commercial motorcyclists (okada), market women and other interest groups WILL THE to rise and defend the CHIBOK GIRLS mandate they gave him at KIDNAPPED ON APRIL 15, LAST last year’s election.

Peoples Democratic ParYEAR EVER

?

RETURN?

Continued on page 4

•DOWN PIRACY: Members of the Films Producer/Marketers Association of Nigeria protesting against piracy in Lagos…yesterday.

PHOTO:DAYO ADEWUNMI

Movie stars march against piracy in Lagos •Don’t give up; it’s a battle you can win, Fashola tells protesters

•PAGE 62

•NO U.S. VISA FOR VIOLENCE-PROMOTING POLITICIANS P4 SINO-NIGERIA TRADE IS $16B P9 •INSIDE:

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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NEWS

Why outcome of R •‘How parties not on ballot appeared on result sheets’

•Managing Director, Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Babs Omotowa flanked by his deputy, Isa Inuwa (right) and General Manager, External Relations, Kudo Eresia-Eke at the presentation of of a publication on Facts and Figures on NLNG in Lagos...yesterday.

With a mission to undertake a comprehensive evidence-based research for the purpose of providing a deep understanding of local realities to broader national, regional and international norms, a civil society organisation, the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN), deployed observers in Rivers State during the governorship and House of Assembly elections. The report of the Londonbased organisation shows that what transpired in the state on April 11 was a sham. Excerpts from the group’s report:

T •From left: Anambra State chapter President, Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (NASME), Mr. Chinedu Anyaso; Regional Director, Southeast II, Skye Bank Plc, Dr. Cliff Agbaeze; Duruiheoma V, Obi of Otulu, Imo State, Eze Festus Ifeanyichukwu Orji and Head, Small Business Group, Skye Bank Plc, Mrs. Ayo Olojede at the maiden edition of the Skye Bank Business Seminar series tagged: “Nurturing Businesses for Growth” in Onitsha.

•Chief Marketing Officer, Etisalat Nigeria, Angelone Francesco donating a trophy (on behalf of Etisalat) to President, Nigeria School Sports Federation (NSSF), Ibrahim Muhammad at the Etisalat U-15 School Cup news conference/match draws in Lagos...yesterday. With them are: former Super Eagles goalkeeper, Peter Rufai (left); Head, Event & Sponsorship, Etisalat, Modupe Thani; NSSF Secretary, Olabisi Joseph (second right) and Director, Brands and Experience, Etisalat, Enitan Denloye.

PHOTO: MUYIWA HASSAN.

•Deputy Director of Admin/Human Resources, Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), Mrs. Monsurat Omotayo; Director of Operation, Niyi Ali, Director, Special Services Office, Dr Habiba Lawal and Special Services Office, Kaze Delson at a one-day workshop on Security Consciousness and Awareness for Railway Workers and Users in the Southwest in PHOTO: SOLOMON ADEOLA Lagos...yesterday.

HE governorship and State Assembly polls in Rivers State were marred by violence and disruption with over 470,000 out of 2,537,520 (19 per cent) registered voters denied the chance to vote due to official cancellations.

Many more stayed away from the polls due to well-justified fears of violence.

Violence had a serious impact on voters, election officials, and party supporters. The All Progressives Congress (APC) alleged that 19 persons were killed on Election Day with election observers able to confirm several of the most prominent deaths, notably, killings in Asari Toru and the assassination of APC leader Clever Orukwowo.

The inflation of announced votes in many local government areas made it impossible to know how many voters turned out for the polls but in six of the more closely contested council areas, (including Port Harcourt), official turnout ranged between 14-25 per cent of registered voters. From what we observed, that seemed a more plausible turnout.

Some results seemed to defy any effort to acknowledge reality. In Buguma town, Asari Toru Local Government Area, where security forces finally ended with shooting and clashes mid-morning on the Election Day, when one gang leader was beheaded, official results later recorded turnouts of 84-90 per cent in the town (87 per cent for the whole local government area).

In Gokana, where five wards were cancelled due to clashes and theft of election materials, the remainder of the local government area recorded an official turnout of 94 per cent. It was one of three local government areas with ‘turnouts’ between 93-95 per cent. The others are Akuku Toru and Khana local government areas, despite repeated reports of disruptions.

Significant efforts by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the police to improve security and election processes were simply overwhelmed by the breadth of violence and intimidation. Election officials were assaulted and abducted in incidents across the state and they often faced intolerable pressures from political

actors.

INEC’s efforts were further complicated by a breakdown in relations with the APC, whose protests delayed and disrupted polls in many parts of the state.

Parts of the state that were more closely observed like Port Harcourt Local Government Area saw noticeable improvement in conduct. The Smart Card Readers (SCRs) were used with minor problems. Voting seemed normal and there was reasonable collation. However, these areas were swamped by those who returned massive official results that were both implausible and extraordinarily one sided.

The elections are unlikely to be widely accepted as credible. In local government areas seen across the state as competitive, official figures repeatedly gave the APC less than 2 per cent of the votes. Official turnouts at an local government areas and ward level, ranging as high as 95-99 per cent, stood in stark contrast to observations made on Election Day. The failure to establish credible polls in Rivers State underlines the challenge that INEC faces in supporting free elections in states where political actors can use extraordinary amounts of cash to sponsor violence, intimidation of both voters and the manipulation of polls.

The outcome in Rivers demands that INEC swiftly releases all available data on the results of the poll, so that areas of most obvious abuse will not be rewarded with silence.

It should follow up existing recommendations from the European Union (EU) and others to investigate the polls as a matter of urgency.

After repeated failures to rein in abuse in Rivers and other resourcerich states, INEC and the Federal Government need to consider extraordinary measures to address entrenched political practices that frustrate the prospect of meaningful elections.

Rivers’ election as the most extensively disrupted The elections in Rivers State were almost certainly the most extensively disrupted in the country.

Polls were cancelled in local govern-

PO THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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e of Rivers polls defies logic, by observers

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•INEC chief Prof. Attahiru Jega

•Rivers State’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mrs Gesilia Khan

•Governor-elect Nyesom Wike

•APC candidate Dr Dakuku Peterside

ment areas with a population of at least 458,089 voters – just under 20 per cent of the voting population in the state.

Violent incidents were reported throughout the day, the worst of which occurred in the morning of Saturday, April 11. These included several reported deaths and attacks on party representatives, journalists and election officials.

INEC rescheduled voting until the following day in areas where it retained election materials but no election had started on Saturday(April 11), but allowed voting to continue in many impacted areas. Low voter turnout of around 20-30 per cent was recorded in the majority of the wards observed. Only a few wards had visible turnout of around 50 per cent.

In an improvement from the presidential elections, majority of the locations visited where elections had been disrupted or failed completely, were recorded as either having voting cancelled or postponed.

A notable example of implausible exceptions to this was Ward 14 in Obio Akpor Local Government Area, which did not see materials released from the ward centre till close to 2pm yet still reported a 96 per cent voter turnout.

ing units.

In one particular case, our observers witnessed a young woman having a bottle smashed on her head merely for the act of coming to accredit to vote. In other locations, such as Kpite (Tai Local Government Area), voting was relocated to halls controlled exclusively by a political party.

Overbearing control of polling units It is important to note that in all the local government areas visited by the SDN, some polling units were relatively calm and normal in their conduct (noting that all were starting late). That said, observers repeatedly encountered polling units where party officials and youths had overbearing and sometimes overtly violent control of poll-

Ballot boxes, election materials stolen This was recorded across a number of local government areas.

Among those that provided details election officials were assaulted in five separate wards in Ikwerre Local Government Area with a supervising presiding officer hospitalised. In neighbouring Etche Local Government Area, officials were abducted and others assaulted.

In at least two local government areas, there were clashes that resulted in confirmed deaths, while accounts of other incidents, suggest that final tallies of fatalities will be significantly higher. In Buguma (Asari Toru Local Government Area), one man was beheaded amidst heavy fighting and in Ogba/ Ndoni (ONELGA), APC leader Clever Orukwowo was shot and killed by assailants on motorbikes.

The fighting in Buguma seems almost certain to produce a higher tally of deaths with shooting in the area commencing Friday (April 10) night, resuming the following morning. The fighters only ceased fire on the arrival of security reinforcements only to resume hostilities on Sunday (April 12).

Lack of confidence The APC went into the governorship election vehemently express-

In a number of council areas, parties that were not on the ballot paper appeared on the result sheets at the local government level.

Though the votes recorded by these parties were small, the discrepancy was significant as there were only two possible explanations. It was either the officials at a low level were making extraordinarily compounded errors which allowed them to entre votes against parties not on the ballot, or, results were being written without reference to ballot papers

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ing no confidence in the state leadership of INEC, having objected to the absence of results sheets at polling units during the presidential and National elections, which SDN was able to verify in some cases.

Their distrust predated the polls but was reinforced by results from the first weekend which contradicted both observer and vote-tracking data. The APC had already proven disruptive in the first election where its members blocked voting in numerous units where results sheets were allegedly not present. During the governorship election, trust between APC and the state INEC office was virtually non-existent.

In the morning of the Election Day, APC agents and supporters had blocked the distribution of materials from ward centres (RACs) in a wide range of local government areas. Allegations ranged from results sheets being removed to a lack of key materials. Delays were noticed by our teams in Obio Akpor, Emohua, Ikwerre, Khana, Gokana local government areas, while reports from across the state underlined the extent of the problem.

Delays in some areas were severe.

For instance, in Obio Akpor Wards 1,3 and 14, materials and officials remained trapped until about 2pm when police dispersed protesters with tear gas. In many other areas, these disputes were a contribution to accreditation not starting till 11am or later.

The protests over election materials led to several consequences.

They were the main cause of rescheduling of elections in a number of wards across the state. Ironically, they also contributed to a breakdown in election procedures. At a number of locations visited by SDN

observers, ad hoc staff were improvising to make up for lost time. This included allowing voters to accredit and then vote immediately and the use of manual accreditation rather than attempt to deal with issues affecting SCRs. Finally, in busy areas, it helped to push elections into the night, thus making it easier for results to be manipulated.

Governorship elections fell into two basic categories In a number of Local Government Areas, there were units and local government areas’ results that were consistent with observation during the day - modest or low turnouts, some competiveness in the split of vote and orderly collation was taking place in at least some cases.

These local government areas tended to be either urban or ones where there was a balance of influence between party agents, INEC officials and security services that kept conduct of the election within bounds of credibility.

In other areas, the results were either in direct contradiction of observations during the day, or had turnouts that ranged as high as 99 per cent of registered voters. Sometimes, this affected the whole council areas (such as Khana with a 93 per cent turnout) but often extreme numbers were buried within local government areas which had a mixture of low and extraordinarily high official turnouts.

The most extreme instance was recorded in Asari Toru Local Government Area, where there were was from Friday until midSaturday morning, with a number of deaths reported in the main town of Buguma. A volunteer observer described the town as a “ghost town” by midday on Saturday, yet wards within Buguma recorded voter official turnout as high as 89 per cent (with 87 per cent across the whole council area).

In Obio Akpor Local Government Area (Port Harcourt), international observers had visited a number of polling units in Ward 10 where officials gave accreditation numbers that were around 10 per cent with the exception of one unit reporting 62 per cent turnout. The ward later recorded an 83 per cent turnout in election results.

In Gokana Local Government Area, LGA there were no elections in five due to disruptions and theft of materials, yet in the remainder of the local government, a 95 per cent voter turnout was recorded with 97 per cent of the vote going to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Only half of the wards recorded any voided votes.

Votes for parties not on the ballot paper In a number of council areas, parties that were not on the ballot paper appeared on the result sheets at the local government level. Though the votes recorded by these parties were small, the discrepancy was significant as there were only two possible explanations. It was either the officials at a low level were making extraordinarily compounded errors which allowed them to entre votes against parties not on the ballot, or, results were being written without reference to ballot papers.

These errors were presumably perpetuated through at least three layers of collation between units, wards and council areas as they were still being reported in returns to the state office.

In Asari Toru Local Government Area, reported earlier for its 75 per cent voter turnout despite a raging conflict – two parties that were not on the ballot, featured (UDP, eight votes, NPP, 21 votes). Other local

government areas where parties that were not on the ballot were recorded included Omuma Local Government Area (three parties not on ballot), Port Harcourt Local Government Area (two parties not on the ballot), Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area, Akuku Toru, and Ogu Bolu LGAs. In Obio Akpor Local Government Area (Port Harcourt) SDN tracked the case of three wards – Wards 1, 3, and 14 – where distribution of election materials were obstructed

by APC protesters. The materials eventually left the ward centre around 130pm and elections were noted in a limited number of units after 2pm while others appeared to be absent. Official results for these wards recorded turnouts of 43 per cent (Ward 1), 83 per cent (Ward 3) and 96 per cent (Ward 14).

Preventing a recurrence

The governorship election appears set to be rated as highly unsatisfactory by almost all the actors – although for often contrasting reasons.

• More than 500,000 people in the state would have had no chance to participate in the election (475,166 of whom faced official cancellation of their polls), while turnouts as low as 15 per cent across a number of local government areas suggested many more were intimidated into staying away from the polls; • INEC ad hoc and permanent staff faced assaults, intimidation and abductions across the state.

While there were credible accounts of collusion in the manipulation of results, both permanent and temporary election officials also faced brutal pressures and assaults; • The PDP would feel it could have won the election in a free and fair contest but the disruption from APC and the apparent manipulation of results has virtually eliminated any chance of this being widely accepted; • Opposition parties can point to results from the election which defy all logic and to breakdowns in election procedures that left results wide open to fraud.

Under existing law, opposition parties will face an uphill struggle obtaining a cancellation of the Rivers poll. In fact, current laws provide perverse incentives in favour of rigging turnouts as high as possible as the onus is on the plaintiff to discredit votes one by one.

INEC is again placed in a difficult position where current tradition will have it defending the detail of results produced in Rivers regardless of the poor credibility of some of the official numbers.

The outcome in Rivers state (along with reports from Akwa Ibom) underline the difficulty of holding free elections in high stake states where extraordinary amounts of money are available to influence outcomes. The evidence appears clear that the technical and procedural changes from INEC that have made headway in other parts of the country are insufficient to make inroads on the challenges in these states.

In our view, there is a need to recognise the entrenched nature of challenges to free elections in such states and pursue a two-track solution.

The solutions are: that government should lead efforts to change the culture of political parties and their approach to elections – with an emphasis on limiting scope for fuelling political violence, bribery and intimidation; and that INEC must recognise that volatile parts of the country will require special measures to prevent fraud and extraordinary investment in election oversight until their situation is normalised.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

NEWS CBN faults payment for services in dollars Continued from page 1

issued by the Bank shall be legal tender in Nigeria at their face value for the payment of any amount and Section 20 (5) further provides that a person who refuses to accept the Naira as a means of payment is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a fine or six months imprisonment,” she said in a statement.

Martins warned the general public that it is illegal to price or denominate the cost of any product or service (Visible or Invisible) in any foreign currency in Nigeria and no business offer or acceptance should be consummated in Nigeria in any currency other than the Naira.

She advised deposit money banks operating in the country to desist from the collection of foreign currencies for payment of domestic transactions on behalf of their customers and the

use of their customers’ domiciliary accounts for making payments for visible and invisible transactions like fees, charges, licenses among others originating and consummated in Nigeria.

This however is without prejudice to foreigners, visitors and tourists who are encouraged to use their cards for payments or exchange their foreign currency for local currency at any of the authorised dealers’ outpost including hotels.

“Appropriate sanctions shall be meted on any bank that breaches this regulation. Please note that this circular supersedes the provisions of Memorandum 16 of the Central Bank of Nigeria Foreign Exchange Manual and Paragraph (XI) Section 4.2.1 of the Monetary, Credit, Foreign Trade and Exchange Policy Guidelines for Fiscal Years 2014/2015,” she said

Buhari: my recovery plan for Northeast Continued from page 1

•President Goodluck Jonathan speaking during news conference with President Alassane Quattara of Cote D’Ivoire in Abuja…yesterday.

PHOTO: NAN

APC demands new INEC team to conduct Imo rerun

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HE All Progressives Congress (APC) gave indications yesterday that it may not participate in the supplementary election in Imo State if the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) insists in areas where elections have already taken place and results announced.

APC National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, in a letter to INEC National Chairman Prof. Attahiru Jega, also accused the commission’s officials in the state, led by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, of being compromised.

From Tony Akowe, Abuja

Oyegun said the APC will find it difficult to participate in any election organised and supervised by the Imo REC and his team.

In the letter dated April 20, 2015, the APC said it had watched with keen interest the developments in Imo State’s governorship election held on April 11, which was declared inconclusive by the commission.

The letter said “Our position is based on the fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Imo State

erroneously and perhaps mischiviously included areas where elections took place and results were collated, announced, declared and results sheets (Forms EC8A) issued to party agents, including agents of the PDP who signed the results sheets (see attached).”

Oyegun asked the Commission to remove the polling units where elections were held and results declared by the Presiding officers and signed by the party agents, adding that summary of the expected voters strength of all the units indicated that Oru East has 30,404 vot-

ers, Isu has 6,+86 voters and Mbaitoli has 10,072 voters. Ezihite Mbaise has 1,329 registered voters, which brough the total registered voters in the areas affected to 47,891 registered voters.

He said since elections were held in these areas and were certified by the presiding officers and acknowledged by all party agents, INEC does not have the powers to cancel the elections and order a rerun in such areas.

He asked the Commission to exclude the listed areas from the proposed elections of April Continued on page 60

U.S. to deny violence-promoting politicians visas

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HE United States will sanction Nigerian politicians who attempted or instigated violence during the elections, the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Ms Linda ThomasGreenfield, has said.

She said the U.S. will impose visa restrictions on any Nigerian found to have incited violence or interfered with the

electoral process.

Ms Linda Thomas-Greenfield in an article wrote: “anyone found to have incited violence or interfered with electoral processes will be unwelcome in the United States and subject to visa sanctions”.

She did not give names of those considered for sanctions.

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said, while the elections were gen-

erally without a significant scale of violence and irregularities in some parts of Nigeria, some people were resolved to undermine the will of Nigerians and interfere with electoral processes, resorting to violence and voter intimidation.

She said the U.S. regretted any loss of life and property during the process, adding that violence and rigging are

unacceptable in a democratic electoral process.

She praised the Independent National Electoral Commission and its chair, Prof. Attahiru Jega.

She said: “Despite some technical hitches, it is clear that technology and use of social media-INEC’s online posting of results for each polling unit, Continued on page 60

peace and security.

Shettima was accompanied

by Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Ibn Umar Garbai Elkanemi, and some elders, led by the Chairman of Borno Elders Forum Amb. Usman Gaji Galtimari.

The president-elect also assured the delegation that the receding of the Lake Chad will be addressed through the transfer of water from Central African Republic to the lake to boost its commercial activities for fishing and irrigation farming.

He recalled that he once read a document raising fears about the Lake Chad receding, which

he handed over to then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Gen. Buhari said Lake Chad could create millions of jobs through agriculture.

He maintained that prospecting for oil in the Lake Chad basin would not only increase the export potential but also to balance cross regional perceptions and manage agitations so as to enhance the country’s stability.

He promised to pay special attention to the economic potential of the Northeast so as to make it attractive for investments.

Shettima said Borno people felt so much attached to GenContinued on page 60

Outrage over S/Africa attacks

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HERE was outrage yesterday against attacks on African immigrants in South Africa, which has led to the death of no fewer than six people and massive destruction and looting of property.

Nigerians living in South Africa are not spared as no fewer than 50 have been rendered homeless after being displaced by the attacks. About 300 others are displaced near Johanesburg.

Although the Federal Government said it would begin the

From Osagie Otabor, Benin, Abdulgafar Alabelewe, Kaduna, Tony Akowe and Bukola Amusan, Abuja

evacuation of Nigerians, who are interested in relocating from yesterday, it could not be ascertained whether the evacuation had started.

The South African embassy in Abuja was picketed by members of the Advocacy for Peoples Rights and Justice (APRJ). They Continued on page 60

Schools shut as Fayose’s loyalists seize Assembly Continued from page 1

ty (PDP) members from all the 16 local government areas stormed the Assembly complex, vowing to stop Fayose’s removal.

The PDP loyalists, who were mobilised by local government caretaker chairmen, chanted the PDP slogan - power and rained curses on the APC legislators whom they accused of harbouring plots to set the state on fire with the impeachment proceedings.

The Assembly complex was under lock and key. Heavily armed policemen blocked all the major roads linking the complex. The few vehicles that were allowed passage were thoroughly checked and passers-by frisked by security agency.

The Assembly complex was like a marketplace when reporters visited at about 11.00 am.

Most of the civil servants working in ministries, departments and agencies with offices in nearby State Secretariat stayed away from work for what they described as “security concerns”.

Unlike the previous protests, major roads of Ado-Ekiti were

APC disturbing our peace, says PDP Secretary

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HE Ekiti State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Tope Aluko, has described the impeachment crisis as a contrived plan by the APC to throw the state into chaos after losing the governorship seat.

Aluko, who spoke yesterday on “Daybreak Nigeria”, a breakfast television programme on Ekiti State Television, accused APC of desperation and an attempt to gain power through the backnot blocked. Shops and markets were opened.But schools did not open.

Pupils and students were sent back home in Ado and Ikere.

Many parents, apparently reacting to the tension generated by Fayose’s broadcast, kept their wards.

The situation affected both public and private.

Some of the few ones that opened for third term resumption had to politely send back parents and their wards, on the excuse that the coast was not yet clear as far as safety of lives and property was concerned.

A parent, Mrs. Ajoke Ifeoluwa, said she decided to keep

door.

He said the impeachment plot against Fayose was not in the interest of the people, warning the opposition to toe the line of peace and face the reality of the day.

Aluko said: “The position of the APC is that ‘we must govern’; that is the problem we are having with the opposition. What they don’t understand is that this is not the mandate of Fayose, it is the mandate of the people.

her three children attending a prominent private secondary school in Ado-Ekiti at home because she received a text from the school authorities on Sunday, shifting the resumption date till today as a result of security concerns. Another parent said: “What is the problem of these people? I paid my children’s fees at the bank last week, hoping that they will resume this morning only to meet the gate shut.”

The state chapter of the APC praised drivers and okada riders “for refusing to obey Fayose’s inciting order to foment trouble over alleged plan by lawmakers of the party to storm the Assembly with thugs to remove the gover-

“If anybody in APC is relying on the power at the centre to crush a mandate given to us here, that will not work.

“It is not because they won the presidency, it is because fomenting trouble is inherent in them and what we are asking from them is that they should have the interest of the people at heart.

“They will soon come to power at the centre; we are in power in Ekiti. They should allow peace to reign.”

nor”.

They said the drivers and okada riders were right to have shunned the protest so as not be used as cannon fodder “while the governor’s children are kept in safety and luxury abroad”.

APC Publicity Secretary Taiwo Olatubosun praised the transport workers for their courage and wisdom, saying it is callous for a man to put fellow human beings in harm’s way over protection of his interest while keeping his own children out of danger to enjoy safety in luxury.

“We praise the drivers and motorcycle operators for their courage and wisdom. Fayose is used to protecting his own

interest and keeping his children in safety.

“The day he was first impeached in 2006, he asked his supporters to meet at Fajuyi to confront the soldiers. It was later that his supporters discovered that the governor had bolted in the booth of his car to safety while his supporters were tear-gassed with several of them wounded,” Olatubosun said.

The APC spokesman said the matter at hand was not about partisanship but about the abuse of the constitution, and wondered why Fayose believed he must win through violence all the time he tramples on the constitution.

•Fayose

“He first led thugs to sack the court and beat up a judge while court records in the Chief Judge’s office were torn.

The Chief Judge’s secretary was beaten. Now, he openly made a live broadcast in the state media, inciting his supporters to an act of insurrection by disallowing the lawmakers to do their lawful duties.

“Even during Sunday service in the church, Faýyose, to the shock of everyone, was inciting worshippers to protect the mandate they gave him through violent resistance to the lawmakers. Why must a governor choose violence as a religion?

Olatubosun said.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

NEWS APC to Nigerians: disregard ministerial list

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HE All Progressives Congress (APC) has urged Nigerians to disregard speculations concerning the appointment of ministers and the zoning of offices under the incoming Buhari administration.

Its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, denied reports concerning the issues of appointment, especially the zoning of the National Assembly’s principal positions and other offices.

The statement said in the true tradition of the APC, all

From Tony Akowe, Abuja

issues of public interest would be handled transparently and conveyed to Nigerians through the usual communication channels. ‘’No appointments have been made and no offices have been zoned. The main concern of our party at the moment is to ensure a smooth transition and to hit the ground running, in the interest of Nigerians. ‘’At the appropriate time, Nigerians will be informed of the appointments and the offices zoned,’’ APC said.

Senate Presidency: Akume, Suswam, others meet From Yomi Odunuga, Deputy Editor, Nation’s Capital

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IGH stake intrigues and political realignment in the race for the Senate Presidency heightened yesterday in Abuja, as leading contestants for the exalted office consulted with stakeholders.

Although the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has not endorsed any of the candidates, media reports that the seat was zoned to the Northcentral sparked a flurry of political activities around the candidates.

When our correspondent visited the home of one of the candidates jostling for the top job, Senator George Akume, there was an influx of serving senators, senators-elect and governors to his Maitama residence.

Akume, Senator Bukola Saraki, Senator Ahmed Lawan and Senator Danjuma Goje are said to be strong contenders for the position.

Early visitors to Akume’s home yesterday included the Benue State Governor, Gabriel Suswam, senators representing Ekiti State, Olubunmi Adetunbi and Tony Adeniyi, as well as Senator Sulaiman Nazif from Bauchi State.

Akume equally played host to a legal adviser to the APC, Mr. James Ocholi (SAN); Mr. Mustapha Boss and former military Governor of Katsina State, Maj-Gen. Lawrence Onoja.

Akume and his visitors held a closed-door meeting, which was said to be part of the strategic plan to ensure that the former Benue State governor and third-term senator becomes the president of the Senate of the Eighth Assembly, which would be inaugurated on Saturday, June 6.

On why Suswam, who had a prolonged political disagreement with Akume, was at the residence, a source told our correspondent that there was a need to realign various political interests in the state and the Northcentral geopolitical zone to attain the “shared developmental objectives”.

“I would not link today’s visit to any plan by Senator Akume to become the president of the Senate. These politicians are stakeholders and they need to strategise on developmental issues as it affect their zones. There is nothing wrong or curious about Governor Suswam’s visit to someone, who handed over power to him. At least, senators and politicians from other zones were at the meeting,” a close aide of Akume said.

The source, while expressing confidence in Akume’s ability to offer the needed leadership in the Eighth Senate, noted that he played a pivotal role in “facilitating the enthronement of the APC brand in the Northcentral, having painstakingly steered the course through the gradual evolution of the party from the Action Congress through the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), to the eventual emergence of the amalgam called the APC”.

We didn’t handle Jonathan’s campaign fund, says PDP

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HE leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has distanced itself from controversies surrounding the N2 trillion allegedly spent by President Goodluck Jonathan on his re-election campaign.

The party said it did not handle the President’s campaign funds, contrary to media reports.

PDP’s National Publicity Secretary Chief Olisa Metuh stated this in a radio programme monitored in Abuja yesterday.

Maintaining that the President had denied spending N2 trillion on his campaign, Metuh said funds meant for the campaign were directed and managed by various directorates of the Presidential Campaign Organisation, over which the party’s leadership had no control.

He said: “As a party, we have

From Gbade Ogunwale, Abuja

refrained from joining issues publicly on this matter, but in the light of enquiries arising from allegations that the NWC embezzled the money meant for the campaigns, we need to make some clarifications.

“As the spokesperson of the PDP, I want to place it on record that the National Working Committee was not part of the management of funds for the presidential campaigns.

“The NWC did not receive any money neither was it in any way involved in how the funds were spent. Even as the national publicity secretary of the party and chairman of the Publicity Sub-Committee, I did not receive any money from anybody and no fund whatsoever was given to me for the campaign.”

Don’t starve judiciary of funds, CJN tells governors

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HE Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed, has appealed to state governors to always release funds appropriated for the Judiciary in their yearly budgets to enable the arm of government function effectively.

Justice Mohammed said his demand to the governors was to remind them about the need to respect a subsisting judgment, which directs the release of funds standing to the credit of the Judiciary to heads of courts in the states.

The CJN spoke in Abuja yesterday while opening a workshop organised by the National Judicial Institute (NJI) for magistrates on judicial ethics.

Justice Mohammed said he was aware of the difficult conditions under which magistrates operate, a development attributed to the governors’ refusal to release funds appropriated to the Judiciary.

“I am not unmindful of the hardship many of you are go-

From Eric Ikhilae, Abuja

ing through. I am aware that some of you sit in town halls and other unsuitable venues.

Many of you live in rented apartments with co-tenants, some of whom may be or become litigants in your courts.

“The security of your lives and property are porous.

Many of you have been attacked by hoodlums. Some have been kidnapped and huge ransoms demanded from their families. Some have even been killed by assassins. All these make the condition of your work so bad and challenging.

“These ugly scenarios are occasioned by the refusal of some state chief executives to obey the constitution and give to your heads of court what belong to the Judiciary of your state. Without proper funding, no head of court can perform magic.

“It is on this note that I call upon all the state chief execu-

tives, including those that will be coming on board on May 29, to please respect and obey the constitution they have sworn to uphold.

“All the funds appropriated to the state Judiciary should be promptly released to heads of courts so they can function effectively.

“When the magistrates feel unsecured by the government, they are tempted to provide the security themselves. Financial insecurity is the worst because it exposes the magistrates to some corrupt and ignoble practices.

“This must be avoided by all means. The magistrate must be adequately encouraged to discharge his duties without fear or favour, affection or illwill”.

The NJI Administrator, Justice Roseline Bozimo, said magistrates occupy important positions and perform functions that vital to the judicial process.

According to her, the magis-

•Justice Mohammed

trates are the gateway to the nation’s judiciary.

“Over 70 per cent of cases that come to the Judiciary are started at this level. The participants, therefore, occupy a strategic position in the hierarchy of courts.

“The Magistracy also serves as the academy from where judicial officers of the superior courts are appointed. This is why the NJI, in the discharge of its statutory mandate, include programmes that are aimed at strengthening the capacity, knowledge and integrity of magistrates. This year’s workshop is also tailored to achieve that aim,” Justice Bozimo said.

•Members of Advocate for Peoples' Rights and Justice on a peaceful protest in Abuja over the ongoing xenophobic attacks against PHOTO: NAN Nigerians in South Africa...yesterday.

Ouattara hails Jonathan for averting 'Gbagbo experience' in Nigeria

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RESIDENT Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire yesterday hailed President Goodluck Jonathan for peacefully conceding defeat to his opponent, Muhammadu Buhari, in the presidential election.

According to him, Jonathan’s action saved Nigeria from civil war, a situation Cote d’Ivoire experienced.

Ouattara spoke with reporters after holding a closed-door meeting with President Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Maintaining that he was on a private visit to Aso Rock, he said he had to praise his host and Nigerians on the successful conduct of the elections.

He added that Jonathan’s decision to concede defeat and avoid bloodshed was a legacy for Nigeria and Africa, and a model to West Africa.

Recalling a similar situation in his home country when his predecessor refused to concede defeat after the presidential election, he said the action resulted in a four-month civil war that killed 3,000 people before he finally assumed office.

From Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

Jonathan was Nigeria’s Acting President five years ago when he mobilised other West African leaders to forcefully oust Ouattara’s predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, who had refused to relinquish power after losing the presidential election.

Ouattara said Jonathan’s historic gesture saved the country and West Africa from chaos and tragedy, which, he added, should serve as a lesson to African leaders.

Expressing his admiration for Jonathan, the Ivorian president stressed that his Nigerian counterpart’s support and friendship towards him and Cote d’Ivoire remained appreciated.

He said: “I came here on a visit to see my friend and brother and to congratulate the Nigerian people on the conduct of the presidential election.

“On May 29, there is going to be inauguration and hand over to the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.

“So, I wanted to tell you our appreciation over the leadership we have received from you during these years.

“You know that about five years ago, Cote d’Ivoire had elections and I won the election and the former president decided not to leave office. This brought the civil war and 3,000 people were killed.

“We were put in a hotel for protection by the United Nations for four and a half months. We were there without food because the hotel was guarded by the president’s men.

“It was only after four and a half months of imprisonment in that hotel that finally we were able to leave the hotel; after the former president quit and finally left office for me.

“I am saying this to stress that what happened in Nigeria is a lesson to all of us. Please accept my admiration.

“I think that avoiding violence, avoiding civil war when we have elections in Africa should be our utmost objective.

“People are more important

than power and Mr. President, my good friend, I am not surprised about what you did and I wanted to congratulate you, congratulate the Nigerian people, congratulate the Presidentelect.”

He added: “This election in Nigeria is a legacy for African countries and I think we owe you a lot in ECOWAS. I will like to also say that for two years I was chairman of ECOWAS after yourself and we had to deal with difficult issues as the wars in Mali, the terrorists in northern Nigeria, the problems in Guinea Bissau and Togo.

“You were always with us.

You are a West African before being a Nigerian and we thank you for what you did for West Africa.

“And we also were together to set up the partnership agreement with the European Union (EU) and only West Africa has been able to do this.

“My brother, you have shown support to me during the difficult years I went through and you have shown friendship to me all these years. So, I want to tell you thank you.”

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

NEWS

APC to Aliyu: account for N13.4b wards’ funds

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IGER State All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday urged the Babangida Aliyu administration to account for N13.4 billion allocated to the Ward Development Project (WDP) but not released to the 274 wards in the last five years.

In a statement yesterday in Minna by its Publicity Secretary, Jonathan Vatsa, the party alleged that despite the government’s claim of regular and prompt release of the funds for the projects across the state, it discovered that money was sparingly disbursed to the wards.

The statement said: “The Ward Development Project,

•Our records available for verification, says govt From Jide Orintunsin, Minna

which the government always takes credit for, has been hugely a fraud. We are well armed with empirical facts that since 2010 till date, despite the deduction from local government and state joint account, the money was never released to the wards.”

But the governor’s Chief Press Secretary Israel Ebije said the allegation was false and unfounded.

In a statement, Ebije said the account of the WDP were well kept and available for

public scrutiny.

He said: “The allegation against Dr. Aliyu on the WDP funds is false. Every fund set aside for the laudable project is accounted for.”

The APC recalled that in 2010, no money was released to the wards, despite the deduction from July to December, totalling N1,644,000,000.

The party said the money was deducted from the joint account but not remitted to the wards.

It also alleged that in 2011, N3,288,000,000 was deducted but not released.

APC added: “We also have

it on a good account that in 2012, releases were made from January to March only, leaving a balance of N2,466,000,000; the same was experienced in 2013: releases were made from January to March, living a balance of N2,466,000,000. But that was neither released nor accounted for.

“In 2014, releases were made for January and February, living a balance of N2,740,000,000. In 2015, releases were made from January to March, and living unpaid amount for the current year that was deducted and not released to N822,000,000.

“The total of the project funds deducted but not released nor accounted for, from the above figures, now stand at N13,426,000,000.”

The party said its demand was in consonance with the WDP law as contained in Gazette, Vol. 13, in the Niger State Legal Notice No. 24 of 2009, as amended, in Vol. 16 of Niger State Legal Notice No. 4 of 2012.

Ebije described APC’s allegation on the funds as shallow and irresponsible.

He said: “The WDP funds are intact, well utilised and the records of disbursements and grassroots-based projects are available for public scrutiny.

“Allegation against Dr. Aliyu on the WDP funds is false. Every money set aside for the laudable project is accounted for. The WDP initiative has received international recommendations.

The World Bank has indicated interest and since partnered with Niger State government. The project is one of the best initiative of the Governor Aliyu administration.

“Niger State APC should settle down administratively and study records before going public with puerile speculations. They should quit acting like an opposition party. They are now the ruling party brought to power by a bandwagon voting pattern.”

Wamakko, Tambuwal, others get INEC’s certificates of return

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• House of Representatives Speaker and Sokoto State Governor-elect Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (middle); Governor Aliyu Wamakko (left) and Deputy Governor-elect Ahmed Aliyu, after collecting their certificates of returns at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Sokoto...yesterday.

OKOTO State Governor-elect Aminu Waziri Tambawal and his deputy, Alhaji Ahmed Aliyud got their certificates of return yesterday from the state office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Governor Aliyu Wamakko and senator-elect for Sokoto Central also got his certificate of return with other senators-elect for Sokoto East and South, Ibrahim Abdullahi Gobir and Alhaji Abdullahi Danbaba Damboa.

Eleven elected members of the House of Representatives and 30 of their counterparts for the House of Assembly also got their certificates of return.

INEC’s Federal Commissioner for Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara states, Hajiya Amina

From Adamu Suleiman, Sokoto

Bala Zakari, expressed appreciation to the candidates and Nigerians for allowing peaceful conduct of one of the most credible and transparent elections in the area.

She said: “I wish to congratulate you all for your successes and will also like to appreciate the losers for accepting defeat in good faith for the sustenance of our democracy.”

Tambawal assured that his administration would focus on the laudable project of the outgoing government.

The governor-elect promised not to betray the trust the electorate reposed in him for voting for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

He said: “Your trust is secured and will not be misplaced. Our focus at the centre

and the state will be to consolidate and promote the clamour for change in the best interest of all and to meet the expectations of citizens in line with our manifesto.”

Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Abubakar Sadiq described the success of the general elections as historic.

He urged the victors to be magnanimous in their celebration by carrying along the electorate in the affairs of their administration.

“You should know that you are carrying the barner of all the electorate, whether they voted for you or not.

“Every voter should be considered important so that you can move the state and the country forward,” Sadiq said.

Ahmed: Nigeria not drifting towards one-party system

T • Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed (middle) getting his certificate of return at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office in Ilorin...yesterday

•Members-elect, House of Representatives: James Faleke (left); Minority Leader Femi Gbajabiamila and Yakub Balogun, displaying their certificates of return at INEC headquarters in Abuja... yesterday.

PHOTO: ABAYOMI FAYESE

HE victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 28 and April 11 general elections is a clear message for elected officials to meet the yearnings and aspirations of the people or be booted out of office, Kwara State Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed has said.

Ahmed dismissed the fears in some quarters that APC’s attractive performance would make Nigeria drift towards a one-party state.

The governor spoke yesterday in Ilorin, the state capital, when he got the Certificate of Return for his reelection at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) office.

He also canvassed support for Senator Bukola Saraki to emerge the Senate President in the Eighth National Assembly.

Ahmed said: “Our party, APC’s sweeping victory across the country, has led to the speculation that our country is headed to a one-party state. For me, that fear is unfounded. This is because real power has actually been restored to the people rather than the party system as the determinants of our democracy.

The governor, who also spoke on behalf of the Na-

From Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

tional Assembly members who got their certificates of return from the National Electoral Commissioner in charge of Kwara, Niger, Kaduna and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Dr Chris Iyimoga, noted that APC’s resounding success at the polls in Kwara State was a call for more service delivery to the people.

He said: “We promise to work even harder to make your lives better. For us, the significance is immense. Our people have not only spoken in unison for change, they also cast a resounding vote for a Kwara State that is progressive and in the mainstream of Nigeria’s politics.”

On the ongoing lobby for the Senate leadership slot, which APC has allocated to the Northcentral, Ahmed said Saraki fits the bill, given his sacrifice to the success of the party nationwide.

He added: “We are grateful for our political leader in the state for guiding us right.

Indeed, most of what we are witnessing today in the state and other parts of the country happened because our leader and others chose to stand up for change at a critical point in Nigeria. I am confident that when the time comes, our leader, Senator Bukola Saraki,

will emerge the next number three man in this country.”

The governor hailed the residents for electing APC candidates for all elective positions from the state assembly to National Assembly and governorship, recalling that it was the first time that a political party will achieve that feat in the state.

He also hailed INEC for presiding over what he described as “perhaps the most credible and conclusive election in our national life” pointing out that the action of the electoral body has restored the credibility of the country’s electoral process and strengthened national democracy.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Emmanuel Onucheyo, urged elected political office holders to work for the people who voted them into office as a means of preparing for the next election.

He said: “Start working from now, make our success in 2015 real by improving on the wellbeing of the people; make our people happy. 2019 is not far from now. Everywhere I went they were asking if we had cases of ballot box snatching and I told them we have passed that state.”

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

7

NEWS

Okocha expresses fear over who swears in Wike F

ORMER President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) OCJ Okocha has expressed concern over the absence of a Chief Judge who will swear in Rivers State Governorelect Nyesom Wike.

Okocha said the constitution empowers only the Chief Judge of a State, the President of a Customary Court of Appeal and a Grand Khadi of a Sharia Court of Appeal to administer oath of office on a governor-elect before he can legally perform the functions of a governor.

From Clarice Azuatalam, Port Harcourt

Okocha, who spoke yesterday on a radio interview monitored in Port Harcourt, said Rivers State may be in for a constitutional crisis on May 29 if Governor Rotimi Amaechi does not appoint an acting Chief Judge.

He said: “Any of these three can administer the oath. For us, it is usual that it is the Chief Judge of Rivers State. We don’t have a Chief Judge, neither do we have an acting Chief Judge. We also do not have a President of the

Customary Court of Appeal.

“If these things remain as they are now, there may be constitutional crisis. Right now that office is vacant so is the office of President of the Customary Court of Appeal of Rivers State and we are facing this looming, as you say, constitutional crisis.

“Well, I hope and believe that reason will prevail and the governor will see it fit to do what is needful to ensure he appoints the appropriate person as stipulated in the constitution as acting Chief Judge so that at least, we can

have our new governor sworn-in by the acting Chief Judge so appointed,” Okocha said.

Justice Lambo Akanbi of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt last year ruled that the National Judicial Council (NJC) cannot force the governor to accept whoever it recommends to him for appointment as Chief Judge.

Justice Akanbi also said that the decision of the NJC to prefer Justice Daisy Okocha and disqualify Justice Peter Agumagu was wrong, null and void.

Dissatisfied with this decision, Justice Okocha approached the Court of Ap-

MTN provides succour for xenophobic attacks victims

From Gbenga Omokhunu, Abuja

S •Okocha

peal to set aside the decision and till now, the matter is still undecided.

•Chief of Defence Staff Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh (left) speaking when the Minister of State for Defence, Col. Austine Akobundu (retd) visited him at the Defence Headquarters in Abuja ... yesterday.

•Condemns act

By Lucas Ajanaku

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TN Nigeria yesterday said it has provided financial support to the transit camps where victims of xenophobic attacks in South Africa are being resettled.

It said the attacks were needless.

Its Corporate Services Executive, Akinwale Goodluck, who spoke with reporters at the company’s head office, Falomo, Ikoyi, Lagos, said the carrier condemned the attacks, saying they lacked justifications in the modern age.

He said though the attacks were limited to certain parts of the country, they were nonetheless symptomatic of poverty, illiteracy, stressing that MTN was concerned not because of its business but largely because of the fatalities that had occasioned the lawlessness.

Goodluck, who spoke against the backdrop of inciting postings on social media platform urging reprisal attacks, said there was no basis for such a call, arguing that MTN Nigeria is a Nigerian business with about 98 per cent of its workforce being Nigerians beginning from its Chief Executive Officer, Michael Ipkoki.

According to him, only about 12 expatriate workers draw their pay cheques from MTN Nigeria while over 6,000 Nigerians are employed as permanent workers while about one million others support the value chain, eking out their living form the telco.

Goodluck said the carrier, which supports businesses such as the financial institutions, has invested $15 billion over the past one decade to build infrastructure and expended another N10 billion on its corporate social responsibility (CSR) through the MTN Foundation that has supported providing health services to complement government’s efforts.

In terms of support to the economy, the telco which has over 60 million subscribers said it is the second largest tax payer to the Federal Government only next to the multinational oil companies.

Buhari‘s victory: Hashimu treks to Abuja

PHOTO: NAN

‘Continued killing of APC members in Rivers condemnable’ T

HE All Progressives Congress’ (APC’s) Greater Together Campaign Organisation (GTCO) in Rivers State has raised the alarm on the continued killing of members of the party in the state.

It demanded an immediate end to the act.

GTCO, the campaign outfit of Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside, yesterday in Port Harcourt, through its Director of Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, expressed shock over the post-election killings.

The organisation said: “If they killed APC members on election days, why have they continued to kill after the polls? We wonder why the persons behind the killings want to turn Rivers State into a killing field.”

Citing cases in Ahoada East, Okrika and other local government areas of the state, where APC members had either been killed or abducted, the GTCO noted that the killings had been raising

From Bisi Olaniyi, Port Harcourt

concerns over the calibre of men and women the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared winners of the elections in the state.

It said: “The unabated killings of APC members in Rivers State raises concerns on the mental status of the men and women INEC declared winners of the recent elections in the state. We are afraid that killers and sundry criminals have been imposed on the state by INEC, and if we are right, then worse days lay ahead for our people.”

The GTCO noted that in Ahoada East Local Government Area, several killings have been recorded after the April 11 elections, in which it alleged that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders unleashed armed militias, miscreants and uniformed rascals on voters.

The campaign organisation said: “Since the discredited governorship and House of Assembly elections in Rivers State, killers have swarmed on Ahoada East, hitting down their targets. Recently, Messrs.

Chigba Apollos and Chiezule German, both members of APC in the area, were shot dead in Ibarikpo by unknown gunmen. Ibarikpo is in Ahoada East, Ward 13.

“Besides the killings, kidnappers are also on the prowl in Ahoada East Local Government Area, targeting only APC members on a daily basis. It appears APC in Ahoada is marked for extinction.

“The abduction of Chief Cassidy Ikegbidi, Chairman of Ahoada East Caretaker Committee, is one of the latest tragedies that have befallen APC. Apart from Ikegbidi, who was kidnapped last Friday (April 18), Mr. Suleiman Atago from Ideoha in Ward 5, and Chidi Oji from Ihuowo Ward 10 were also ab-

ducted by heavily-armed gunmen, reportedly dressed in military uniform.

“On March 24, ahead of the presidential and National Assembly elections, Miebaka Opuogulaya from Abam-Ama (Abam community) in Okrika was not only killed, but his body was taken away by his killers.

“In a similar bizarre manner, on April 15, Mr. Saturday Wakama was killed and his corpse carried away. Wakama, a popular APC member in Okrika, was a member of the Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) and had championed campaigns for a riverine governor in Rivers State.

“We wonder why security agencies have not arrested any killer or kidnapper, to face justice. This is an indictment on the agencies of state saddled with the responsibility of tackling law breakers. An arrest and prosecution will send strong warning to these outlaws and possibly stem the tide of growing murder of APC members in Rivers State. A stitch in time saves nine.”

‘IT can bridge gaps in govts’ policies’

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•Akinwunmi

HE Chief Executive Officer and Managing Partner of Hartford Green Consulting Limited, a process management and information technology company, Mr. Adebayo Akinwunmi, has assured intending investors apprehensive of a change in government of their investment’s safety.

He said Information Technology (IT) can always bridge the gaps envisaged in the business environment and the larger economy occasioned by any government’s policy changes.

Akinwunmi, in a statement yesterday, said: “There will always be policy changes based on exigencies of time.

Even in our homes, we change rules when we realise our mistakes or done things that will not necessarily impact positively on our family.

“In a country of between 150 to 170 million people, there is bound to be knocks on some of the policies governments make. The effect of this is that companies need to change and comply with regulations and changes in our economy, acting quickly in

order not to fall behind. In many cases, businesses will rather deny or overlook these changes which could easily lead to losses and expensive moves in the future.”

The IT expert noted that “the benefit of technology is actually the ability to be dynamic in our operations”. This, he added, “means that if government introduces policies that affect our operations, the ability to quickly adapt will depend largely on the dynamics of our processes and the tools we have in place within our organisations”.

ULEIMAN Hashimu, now called ‘the traveler’ who promised to trek from anywhere he was to Abuja if Gen. Muhammadu Buhari wins the presidential election, arrived Abuja yesterday evening after trekking for many weeks.

The native of Katsina State was in Lagos when Gen. Buhari was announced the president-elect. Hasheem left Lagos at about 5am the day after Gen. Buhari was announced winner and arrived in Ibadan around 6pm.

Despite several warnings from friends, he continued his journey.

In Ilorin, people escorted him for several miles until he stopped at Oloru. He received a rousing welcome in Jebba, where unlike in other villages he met people who had heard of him.

About 20 people set off with him from Jebba and after some miles turned back but the other two were strong-minded. They encountered armed robbers close to Mokwa, although fortunately he had already met one of them in Jebba, and the would-be robber ended up giving him N200 for water in satchet.

He continued his trip from Mokwa – Kudu – Kutigi –Bida – Suleja and arrived Abuja yesterday.

People have welcomed him as a real hero. They took photographs with him and asked for his autograph.

The journey, according to Google map, is over 700kilometre.

Suicide bomber injures three

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BOTCHED suspected Boko Haram suicide attack targeting a group of Shiite Muslims injured three people in Potiskum, Yobe State yesterday, witnesses told AFP. The would-be bomber detonated his explosives a few metres (yards) from an open-air mosque in the Dogo Tebo area of Potiskum shortly after afternoon prayers.

“Three worshippers were hit by shrapnel and sustained mild injuries while the bomber’s thighs and legs were blown off,” said local resident Mukhtar Ubale in an account supported by two others.

Another resident who witnessed the explosion, Zakari Kabiru, said the bomber, thought to be aged about 30, was taken to hospital but his chances of survival were slim.

“Only his torso was intact but the lower parts of his body were shattered,” he said, blaming the Sunni jihadist group Boko Haram for the attack.

Boko Haram, whose insurgency to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 15,000 since 2009, condemns Shias as heretics who should be killed.

The group has carried out several suicide and bombing attacks on Potiskum, which is the commercial hub of Yobe state and one of the worst hit by the violence.

8

THE NATION TUESDAY APRIL 21, 2015

NEWS

Ondo urges residents to shun local gin

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HE Ondo State government has called on residents to suspend the consumption of local gin, ogogoro.

Eighteen people have died, following the outbreak of a strange disease in Irele Local Government.

It was discovered that the outbreak of the disease in the area may not be unconnected with the consumption of the alcoholic substance.

The government had taken samples of blood and specimen of victims for tests.

The result of the medical investigations suggest that the victims may have died after consuming local gin, a development known medically as methanol poisoning.

Commissioners for Health and Information Dayo Adeyanju and Kayode Akinmade, at a briefing in Akure, yesterday said the result of the tests linked the deaths to methanol poisoning, contrary to the report of pesticide poisoning.

The government warned the public against consumption of ogogoro and other

herbal mixtures, pending the discovery of the cause of the disease.

It confirmed that the casualty figure still remains 18; five people are receiving treatment at the University College Hospital, Ibadan.

“The ministries of Health and Information would continue to sensitise the public to allay fear.”

Akinmade enjoined the media to keep enlightening the public through accurate information dissemination.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) office in the

state has denied media reports that the deaths were caused by pesticide poisoning.

WHO state coordinator Dr Akinola Fatiregun made the clarification at a briefing in Akure.

He said the clinical feature and diagnosis carried out suggest methanol poisoning as the cause of the mysterious deaths.

Dr Fatiregun said the WHO office in Abuja was prepared to address the issue, stressing that his office detected methanol poisoning.

Father arraigned for ‘raping’ daughter

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47-YEAR-OLD man, Solomon Ojo, was yesterday arraigned at an Ota Senior Magistrate’s Court in Ogun State, for allegedly raping his daughter.

Ojo, who lives at 15, Abinuyo St, Ijoko, Ota, is facing a onecount charge of rape.

The Prosecutor, Sgt. Rosemary Brown, told the court that the accused committed the offence in 2013 at his residence.

Brown said the accused forcefully had carnal knowledge of his daughter.

She said the offence contravened Section 358 of the Criminal Code, Vol. 1, Revised Laws of Ogun State, 2006.

The Magistrate, Ms Temitope Adebutu, admitted the accused to bail on N200, 000 and two sureties.

Adebutu said the sureties must have landed property within the court’s jurisdiction and swear to an affidavit of means.

The case was adjourned till June 3 for hearing.

‘No rift between Omirin, Ojudu’

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HE Special Adviser on Media to Ekiti State House of Assembly Speaker Adewale Omirin, Wole Olujobi, has said there is no rift between Omirin and Senator Babafemi Ojudu.

In a statement, Olujobi said the report on state media was the figment of the imagination of the persons peddling it.

The statement said the Speaker never engaged in any deal with anyone; “it is not also true that Ojudu collected money to impeach Governor Ayo Fayose in 2006”.

“The report found its way

to Channels Television website and upon investigation by the station’s management, it was discovered the report was smuggled into the website by government agents.

“Government agents have put a Channels TV worker in trouble.

“Omirin is not pursuing any governorship ambition.

“Allegation of fighting between Ojudu and Omirin over impeachment fund is non-existent and diversionary. Nigerians are not fools.

They know all the constitutional infractions Fayose has committed.”

‘I’m ready for Senate leadership’

O •From left: Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Yakub Bashorun, Commissioner for Agriculture & Cooperatives Gbolahan Lawal and Special Adviser to the Governor on Information and Strategy Lateef Raji at a ministerial briefing to mark the eighth year of the Babatunde Fashola administration…yesterday PHOTO: OMOSEHIN MOSES

Woman, 50, delivered of twins after 14 years

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50-YEAR-old woman, Mrs Roseline Akinsola, was yesterday delivered of twins after 14 years of childlessness.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Akinsola, who works at the Ekiti State Christian Pilgrims Board, was full of praises to God for answering her prayers.

The mother of two girls, who weighed 4.2kg and 2.3kg, advised childless couples not to lose hope.

Akinsola, in an interview

with NAN, said: “ I thank God for the new name he has given to me; before I was being called ``Iya Iyanu’’ without a child, but today, my name has changed to ``Mummy Twins.’’

“Many of my colleagues, friends and neighbours mocked and sidelined me, but because I stood firm on the word of God, He answered my prayers.

“I thank my husband who, despite the troubles and problems from family, friends, colleagues and neighbours, still believed in me and God.

“He stood by me as a father in all ways and believed in God all through the crisis.

I also thank my siblings, who stood by me in prayers for years.

“Let me thank God for all those who stood by me in prayers and encouraged me not to desist from serving God.” The father of the twins, Babatunde, 49, said: “We fast, pray and cry unto God for the fruit of the womb for years, but I am happy that today, God has fulfilled his promise to my family.

“I thank members of our church and Pastor and Mrs David Ajileye for their prayers and care for my family,’’ the happy father, who is also a civil servant, said.

Ajileye, who is the General Overseer of the Way of Life Bible Church, Ado-Ekiti, thanked God for His blessings in the lives of the couple.

“The church witnessed a similar miracle in 2013 when a couple, members of our church, delivered a set of twins, a boy and a girl after 31 years of childlessness,’’ he said.

Olanusi: Impeachment process may begin this week

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EMBERS of the Ondo State House of Assembly may begin impeachment process against the Deputy Governor, Ali Olanusi, who dumped the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Sources said the House leadership are ensuring that the process begins early.

The Assembly is made up of 26 members, comprising 23 PDP lawmakers and two APC members.

Odigbo’s seat occupied by the former Speaker, the late Samuel Adesina, is still vacant.

It was gathered that the impeachment proceedings may begin this week. PDP members have been meeting

From Damisi Ojo, Akure

on the process.

A source said besides his defection, there are no allegations that could be made against Olanusi.

But an APC lawmaker, Gbenga Edema, said the leadership of the APC met and made resolutions on the matter, saying “the matter should be considered as speculation for now”.

He said none of the two APC members received any notice for the impeachment process against the deputy governor.

According to him, “we have not been informed of any impeachment process.

We are just two in the House and we consider all we are hearing as speculation for

‘

When we get the notice of impeachment and the deputy governor is served with the impeachment notice, the two of us will know the next line of action

’

now.”

He added: “When we get the notice of impeachment and the deputy governor is served with the impeachment notice, the two of us will know the next line of action.”

Many interest groups, in-

cluding youths from the 18 local governments have called for Olanusi’s resignation.

The groups had urged the House of Assembly to impeach Olanusi, if he failed to resign.

Olanusi, who still lay claim to his election as the deputy governor, insisted that he was duly elected the same way Mimiko was elected.

He alleged that his allowances and those of his aides were withheld by the government, and instituted a case at the Federal High Court, Akure.

The light in his official apartment at Alagbaka Government House has been reportedly disconnected.

YO State House of Assembly Speaker Mrs. Monsurat Sunmonu has said she is ready to serve in any leadership position in the Eighth Senate.

Mrs. Sunmonu won the National Assembly election to represent Oyo Central.

She said with her experience in the House of Assembly in the last four years, she has much to contribute to the Senate in any leadership position.

A statement by her media aide, Folake Balogun, said:

From Tayo Johnson, Ibadan

“Mrs. Sunmonu is widely known among the big-wigs of the party as ‘the stabiliser’ as she held the Oyo Assembly together for four years.

“This is despite the initial demographic of the House, which included 13 Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), 12 Accord Party and seven Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members at its inauguration in 2011. She is the first Speaker in the history of Oyo State not to be impeached.”

Graduate teachers for Ondo schools

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NDO State Governor Olusegun Mimiko has approved that the post of Administrative Secretary, Local Government, be changed to Permanent Secre-

tary. He also approved the creation of graduate teachers’ cadre and elongation of their career from Grade Level 14 to Grade Level 16.

In a statement in Akure yesterday, Commissioner for Information Kayode Akinmade said government considered and approved the recognition of relevant university degree as a teaching qualification in its primary schools.

Consequently, he said, graduate primary school teachers with relevant teaching qualifications at the primary level can now enjoy career progression as their counterparts in other sector of the public service.

Ogun appoints school administrators HE Ogun State Teaching Service Commission (TESCOM) has appointed another set of 10 headteachers, 24 assistant headteahers and one zonal secretary in public schools.

Speaking at the induction ceremony of the new headteachers in Abeokuta, Commission’s Acting Chairman Otunba Timothy Adebowale described the promotion as a call for more dedication and commitment to duties, noting that they are expected to lead by example.

Adebowale urged them to provide quality leadership and be dedicated to their duties to justify their appointment.

He called on them to make meaningful contributions to reposition the education sector.

The acting TESCO boss underscored the need for a cordial working relationship, mutual cooperation and respect between the headteachers and their assistants to build a strong structure needed for running the schools.

Permanent Secretary Mrs. Olabisi Akinnnuga advised the inductees to be above board, noting that "headteachers should be worthy of emulation as they are role models in their respective schools".

Akinnuga reaffirmed that government would continue to reward excellent performance and promote competence among teachers

T

THE NATION TUESDAY APRIL 21, 2015

9

NEWS

•Ogun State Governor Ibikunle Amosun (seventh right), Alake of Egbaland and Chairman, Egba Traditional Council, Oba Adedotun Aremu Gbadebo (seventh left), Osile, Oke-Ona Egba, Oba Adedapo Tejuoso (sixth right), Agura of Gbagura, Oba Halidu Laloko (sixth left), Olowu of Owu, Oba Adegboyega Dosumu (fifth right) and other traditional leaders when the Egba traditional Council visited Amosun at the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta...yesterday.

Nigeria-China trade volume hits $16b, says Ambassador

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HE Nigeria’s Ambassador to China, Olusola Patrick Onadipe, yesterday said trade volume between the nation and China rose from $3billion to $16billion in eight years.

He said Nigeria’s foreign policy had expanded beyond the Afrocentric policy it pursued between the 60s and the 90s.

Onadipe spoke at the opening of a training session on Economic Diplomacy in Beijing for 30 Nigerians. It is organised by the Academy for International Business Officials(AIBO).

He said Nigeria remains open to international investors in line with its new change in foreign policy focus.

Represented by Mr. Euche Abu Obe, the Ambassador said: “Our engagement with China has recorded positive trend. The trade volume between the two nations has grown from $3billion in 2006 to $16billion in 2014.

“For many years, Nigeria favoured a foreign policy that was largely Afrocentric.

This was then necessitated by the need to rid Africa of colonial rule which had been

From Yusuf Alli, Beijing

largely achieved.

“The end of apartheid in South Africa has made Nigeria to be more interested in the affairs of the world as envisioned in 1960 by the nation’s late first Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa.

“We are ready to continue to promote economic cooperation between Nigeria and many countries. We want to open our economy to others because we have huge potential. We will encourage the Nigerian Investment Promotion Council (NIPC) and the Nigerian Export Promotion Council (NEPC) to achieve this global perspective.”

The Vice President of AIBO, Mr. Zou Chuanming, said since 1998 about 20,000 people, including ministers all over the world , from 106 countries had benefited from 800 training sessions of the institute as at March 2015.

He said since 1971, China has had a robust diplomatic relationship which is still being cemented.

He said: “The two nations have similarities to make their diplomatic relations sustainable. China and Nigeria are both regional powers

with large population and they are also developing nations.

“These traits have assisted the two countries since 1971 to develop economic relations steadily and healthily.

We are ready to cement the diplomatic relations for the benefit of our people.”

The Minister of National Planning, Dr. Suleiman Abubakar, said: “The major lesson we as Nigerians can learn from this great Asian country is that huge population is an asset and not a liability.

“China, reputed to be one of the nations with high population density running into billions, has succeeded in using it maximally rather than seeing it as a disadvantage.

Represented by his Special Assistant on Media, Alh. Abdurrahman Abdulrauf, the Minister also said China had achieved the feat of a global player because of less emphasis on certificate.

He added: “Further to this, China, from history flourishes as a result of its emphasis on skill rather than certificate. This is one area we should explore critically. “ Laying emphasis on cer-

tificate rather than skill will not carry us anywhere. This is why the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has continued to give attention to artisans through a revolving loan to the small and medium scale industry owners.”

He pleaded with the incoming administration of the President-elect to sustain some of the poverty alleviation programmes of Jonathan administration.

The Minister said: “For effective management of the economy, the incoming government cannot afford to jettison some of the poverty alleviating programmes of the outgoing administration.

“While one cannot totally rule out some of the present policies, throwing away the baby with the bath water won’t do the incoming government and the entire Nigerians any good.

“The National Integrated Master Plan(NIMP), like any other project, must be worked on to achieve the right result because it is neither about President Goodluck Jonathan nor the President- elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari. Rather, it is all about Nigeria.”

Judiciary official gets three-year jail term for fraud

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LAGOS High Court sitting in Ikeja has sentenced a worker in the probate division of the Lagos State judiciary, Mrs Bukola Adeosun, to a threeyear jail term for stealing government money totaling N1,114,000.

Justice Latifa Okunnu yesterday found Mrs. Adeosun guilty of two out of the three counts charge of conspiracy, stealing and alteration preferred against her by the prosecution.

Justice Okunnu held that the convict was guilty of stealing N1,114,000 belonging to the g o v e r n m e n t .

The judge, however, absolved her of conspiracy as there was no evidence linking her conduct to anybody as claimed by the prosecution.

By Adebisi Onanuga

Mrs. Adeosun had been accused by the prosecution of diverting revenue collected on behalf of the government from the public to personal use.

She was charged with stealing and conspiracy alongside another probate official, Mrs Funmilayo Kazeem.

They were accused of defrauding the government and the victims, who came for official transactions at the probate division.

The court discharged and acquitted the second defendant for conspiracy and stealing.

The prosecution stated that the convict between June and August 2008 collected various sums of money amounting to N1.114million from people,

issuing them original government receipts without reflecting same in the official records of the court’s treasury.

She was accused of issuing receipts bearing big sums of money, contrary to the official directive, which prescribed any transaction above N2,000 to be paid to the bank.

The prosecution said the convict collected various sums of money ranging from N4, 000 to N150,000 from her victims, pretending to help them conduct some probate issues.

Justice Okunnu held that the prosecution proved stealing against the convict, despite the fact that she argued that Mrs. Adeosun’s statements, where she admitted collecting the money,

were made under duress.

She also denied ever collecting money from her victims. Besides, she attributed her problems to her co-accused.

Justice Okunnu held that her statements were voluntarily made and that the discrepancies in her statements were undoubted.

The judge said: “The first defendant stole the money belonging to the Lagos State government and she had engaged in unwholesome practices to swindle the government.”

In consideration of the plea made by Mrs. Adeosun’s lawyer, Justice Okunnu held that the punishment for her offence attracted seven years, but sentenced her to three years imprisonment.

APC youths call for Ekiti chairman’s resignation

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GROUP in the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti State has called on the Chairman, Chief Jide Awe, to resign.

The group, under the aegis of APC Youth Alliance, Ekiti State, said since June 21, last year, the outcome of elections in the state has followed an unimpressive pattern of defeat.

“The most honourable thing for a chairman to do under such circumstances is to resign.”

It said the suggestion was made in good faith and borne out of the need to turn around the fortune of the party, which runs counter to the pattern of progressive politics in the region.

In a statement by its spokesman, Yemi Araoye, the group said: “We recognise the contributions of Chief Jide Awe to the emergence and building of the APC in Ekiti State.

“He played his part. He was the former chairman of the Action Congress (AC), led the party through a turbulent era and the subsequent victory in the October 10, 2010 Supreme Court Judgment.

“It is obvious from the current dynamics of party politics in Ekiti State that

there is the need for the party chairman to take the honourable step of quitting the stage so as to allow for a new era that will usher the state back to the progressive fold.

“It is apparent that an Aweled exco cannot salvage the dwindling fortunes of APC in Ekiti State in the context of the prevailing circumstances.

“The hijacking of the political space by Governor Ayodele Fayose and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is not due to the overwhelming support of Ekiti people, but largely fueled by the bitter disenchantment of the APC supporters, who are disgruntled with the leadership.

“In democratic nations, when the support for a political party continues to nosedive, the most honourable thing for the party chairman to do is to step aside.

“It does not require any pressure from anyone for him to know toe the honourable path.

“Chief Awe needs to make this important sacrifice at this historic moment to save the party from total eclipse and to reposition the party towards winning future elections.”

‘Amosun’s re-election divine’

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HE National President of Ogun Patriotic Forum (OPF) and a stalwart of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun State, Seyi Shodipo, has said the second term victory of Governor Ibikunle Amosun and the decision of the 12 other governorship candidates to concede defeat had shown that his re-election was divine.

Shodipo spoke at a special thanksgiving/prayer session at Soji compound, Igbore, Abeokuta South Local Government Area.

The APC stalwart assured the people that the future of the state under Amosun will not only witness the

completion of his rebuilding mission but also achieve a greater level of development in all areas.

The OPF president said the people were proud of Senator Amosun’s initiatives aimed at making Ogun the envy of other states.

Shodipo thanked the people for re-electing the governor and for their unflinching support.

He said the re-election marked a new dawn in the state as the Amosun administration was set to build on the foundation it had earlier laid to make the state a model for other states.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

10

CITYBEATS

CITYBEATS LINE: 09091178827

•Mrs Ajelero... yesterday

•Bunmi

•The church... yesterday

PHOTOS: TAJUDEEN ADEBANJO

Girl, 3, kidnapped in church

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IDNAPPERS struck in a Lagos church on Sunday snatching a three-year-old girl, Bunmi Ajelero, who was playing with her mates.

She was released in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, last night after her parents paid a N300,000 ransom The kidnappers, it was learnt yesterday, pretended to be worshippers at the Surulere Baptist Church on 52/54 Ojuelegba Road, Surulere, Lagos.

They were said to have lured the little girl away, with the promise of giving her Gala, a popular beef Sausage.

The two men were said to have taken Bunmi away on a motorcycle through Nathan Street, Off Ojuelegba Road, Lagos.

A child ran into the auditorium to alert the church leaders, but before they could come out, the kidnappers had gone.

The girl later identified the kidnappers on the Close Circuit Television (CCTV).

An usher simply identified as Mrs Adisa said she suspected, two women and a man who behaved queerly.

The man, she said, “looked too serious; held the Bible tenaciously and read the programme booklet with utmost seriousness”.

“I couldn’t suspect any evil intention from him since he was a new comer. When we were distributing packs, I gave the women and they demanded for his own unknown that he had already collected one.

“I went outside to bring one for him, on returning, I saw him already with a pack sitting outside with the two women,” she said.

•Kidnappers demand N300, 000 ransom •Baby released in Abeokuta

By Tajudeen Adebanjo

The church gives new comers food pack.

Bunmi’s mother Mrs Toyin Ajelero was distraught when The Nation met her in the church yesterday.

She described the incident as shocking, adding that the CCTV showed the kidnapper told other children that he was going to buy Bunmi Gala.

She said: “Ordinarily, Bunmi won’t follow a stranger but we thank God. We saw that he took Bunmi to the Okada that was waiting and rode off. The church leaders called the family; the father of the child, they brought all the children into the media room to see all the faces of the people at the English and Yoruba service. At the English service, the guy was figured in white shirt by one of the children; he was also figured at the Yoruba service in brown shirt.”

Mrs Ajelero, who was at the Bible Guest House in Ilupeju, Lagos, when the incident occurred rushed down to Surulere on being informed.

She said: “I was at the Bible Guest House, Ilupeju; that is where I serve God. The children came to church here with their father. The father is a member of the media crew, he was in a meeting in the media room after the service and the elder sister was upstairs in the children’s church, the brother too was with the choir for rehearsal.

We were to move into the new house we have just rented. So, I was

Student arraigned for ‘assaulting’ landlord

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TENANT, Doris Okafor (24), yesterday appeared before a Tinubu Magistrate’s Court in Lagos for allegedly assaulting her landlord.

Okafor, a student, who lives at 43, 4th Avenue, Road 403, Festac Town in Lagos, was charged with “conspiracy and assault occasioning harm.”

Prosecuting, Sergeant Daniel Ighodalo said Okafor committed the offences on March 18 at 66, Emmanuel Street, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos.

He said the accused with four others at large assaulted the landlord, Godwin Ulom, in his Lekki home.

“The student assaulted the landlord after he had a confrontation

with her for smoking hemp as well as her alleged association with persons of questionable character. The tenant came to the landlord’s residence with four men suspected to be hoodlums to beat him up,’’ Ighodalo said.

The offences, he said, contravened Sections 171 and 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

Section 171 recommends three years imprisonment for assault occasioning harm Section 409 provides a two-year jail term for conspiracy.

Okafor pleaded not guilty.

Magistrate Olaitan Ajayi granted him N20,000 bail with a surety in the like sum. She adjourned the case till May 18 for mention.

I couldn’t suspect ‘any evil intention

from him since he was a new comer.

When we were distributing packs, I gave the women and they demanded for his own unknown that he had already collected one

’

just calling that where are you and how are we moving? My husband said we can’t move now because of what happened; but I didn’t understand. He cut the call. I called again about two hours later; I was just hot, troubled and sweating; my heart was heavy. When I called again to ask for the children, he said he left them with one of their aunties and I said ‘when are we moving,’ and he said ‘no we can’t move.’ I asked him ‘you said something happened the other time’ and he said ‘I shouldn’t worry that he will call back then he cut the called.’

Then I called the aunty whom he said he left them with and I asked her straight: Did anything happen in church today? She said ‘yes’. To who? ‘Is it to my husband or who?

That one too said I will call you back and cut off the call. So, immediately, I rushed down here. I saw a crowd of people around. I came in here around 3pm. Though I was on the altar with a group of women, everybody praying and about

•The church premises where Bunmi was kidnapped... yesterday

4:30pm, it was shown to me that a particular person said he is a kidnapper, that he called my reverend and that means the person used the church bulletin but my reverend is in Owerri, Imo State for the Nigeria Baptist Convention programme going on there. The reverend had to connect with Lagos, to tell them what he had just heard on the phone and that the person requested for the girl’s father’s phone number who is my husband. So, they had to send the number to him and he said he wants to be talking to the father of the child alone. After then, we waited for another number of hours; he called and put the phone on my daughter’s ear to speak with the father; a three-year-old-girl. She spoke with the father and the father said he asked her ‘how are you? And she said ‘she is not fine.’

“Obviously, she has not seen her father because they are so close.

Then the guy said that he will send a message that will tell him what to do; So, he called later that he was somewhere in Ibadan, Oyo State.

He said he will tell them what to do between 10pm and 11pm. So, the deacon led everyone in prayers. They asked everybody to go home and thanked everyone, over 100 people who were with us.

People who saw it on facebook and other social media just started coming. But at after 11pm, we were waiting outside the house and he

finally spoke to my husband that if he asked for N5 million, would he have asked for too much? My husband said it is not too much because the life of his daughter is more than that. He said okay, ‘I don’t want to inconvenience you; what about N500, 000? He said because ‘they picked the child for me from a church; that is the second they are bringing for me from a church’ and that he doesn’t want God’s curse to be on him. He later said he should pay N300, 000. My husband said okay and he put the phone on the girl’s ear again; at that time the baby had calmed down and I am sure she had already accepted her fate, she must have known that something was wrong.

But at that point, the father said he asked her at after 11pm that ‘are you okay? and she said ‘she is fine.’

She asked for the elderly ones; where is Dammy? The one she follows. Where is Tosin? The elderly one, that she wants to see them; then my husband called me from where I was crying that we should go and sleep. He promised to call back by 10am today (yesterday). He didn’t call at 10 but called at 11:11am and asked them to be coming to Abeokuta. Right now as I am talking, my husband is in Abeokuta with a group of other men of God from here with the church bus since morning. They have not been able to connect anybody there.”

Strange calls threaten marriage

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MIDDLE-aged woman, Mrs Grace Morgan, has prayed the Customary Court in Iyana-Ipaja, a Lagos suburb, to dissolve her five-year-old marriage to her husband, Tomiwa.

She said her man beats her up over trivial issues.

“He is not faithful. There was a day I picked his girlfriend’s call and read his text messages thinking he was sound asleep. On seeing his phone with me, he beat me mercilessly, packed my things and took them to my parent’s

By Basirat Braimah

house. Since then, I have been denied access to our son,” she said.

She said she picked the call because her husband saved the contact as Mrs Morgan.

Mrs Morgan said: “When I complained to my mother-in-law about the way my husband beats me, she asked me to be careful about my utterances because that was what his father did to her.”

The defendant, Mr Morgan, told the court that his wife was also fond of receiving strange calls.

“My wife locks and hides her phone from me. I once saw a video on her phone and when I asked how she got it, she said a guy sent it through whatsapp. This is the guy my wife once took a picture with,” he said.

Mr Morgan said it was true he threw her luggage out when they had an argument, adding: “When I reported her to her father, he said that was how her mother behaved before she died.”

The court’s President, Mrs Shalewa Banjoko, fixed a chamber discussion after the whole proceedings.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

11

BUSINESS THE NATION

E-mail:- bussiness@thenationonlineng.net

What does corporate governance do? It ensures that you have set up a structure and a culture within the institution that can drive the business in line with given rules. That’s what corporate governance does.

-Seplat Petroleum Managing Director Mr Austin Avuru

TCN fails to evacuate 70.55Mw From John Ofikhenua, Abuja

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F the 3,175.95mega watts (Mw) of elec tricity the Electricity Generation Companies (Gencos) produced, the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) could only wheel 3,104.50Mw to the Electricity Distribution Companies (DISCOS), leaving 70.55Mw stranded in transmission, it was learnt yesterday.

The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo said the TCN has capacity to wheel 5,500Mw of electricity.

The Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI), according to the Ministry of Power, which made this known on its website as record of the market as at April 19, hit a peak power generation of 3,496.2Mw last Sunday In its penultimate statistics of April 12, the Ministry said energy sent out to the Discos was 2,988.72Mw, which showed that power supply increased by 11.578Mw in the period under review.

Power generation that was 3,060.37Mw on April 12 rose by 115.58Mw in the current statistics while peak energy generation that was 3,263.6Mw increased by 232.6Mw to a peak of 3,496.2Mw. Nebo described stranded energy as technical losses, which according to him, are inevitable.

His words: “The problem is losses along the line. That is actually the reason we have transformers, we have substations and so on. It goes through electro circuitry that makes it easier for power that was coming in that was losing amperage and voltage to be ramped up again as it passes through the sub-station to the lines, gets to the transformers and the smaller transformers and the smaller lines and so on.

DATA STREAM COMMODITY PRICES Oil Cocoa

$58/barrel $2,686.35/metric ton

Coffee

¢132.70/pound

Cotton

¢95.17pound

Gold

$1,396.9/troy

Sugar

$163/lb RATES

Inflation

8%

Treasury Bills -10.58%(91d) Maximum lending 30% Prime lending

15.87%

Savings rate

3%

91-day NTB

15%

Time Deposit

5.49%

MPR

13%

Foreign Reserve

$34.5b

• From left: Marketing Manager Ikeja City Mall, Eniola Ositelu; Marketing Coordinator Cold Stone Creamery Nigeria, Timilehin Lajubutu; Operations Manager, Cold Stone Creamery Nigeria, Uzoelum Chukwunalu; Human Resource Manager Eat‘N’Go Nigeria, Olusola Adeeko and On Air Personality with Cool FM Nigeria, Temilola Akinmuda during the grand opening of Cold Stone Creamery Nigeria held in Lagos .

Okonjo-Iweala warns against multiple taxation T HE Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi OkonjoIweala, has cautioned against the retention and practice of a regime of multiple taxation, saying it will be injurious to businesses and would, ultimately, hamper increased revenue to the government.

Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala, who addressed a group of Nigerian journalists at the end of the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/World Bank Group meetings in Washington DC, while defending her position that increased taxes, especially the Value Added Tax (VAT), was required to boost government’s revenue, called for caution, lest the cry against incidences of multiple taxation is entrenched.

“In our economy, there are entities charging all manner of fees, from the Federal Government, ministries , agencies, to the states and local governments. They are too many and sometimes they don’t raise the kind of revenue that is needed,” she said, adding that there is on-

From Simeon Ebulu , Group Business Editor (Washington DC, U.S)

going process to harmonise these multiplicity of taxes, as well as rationalise them so that businesses and individuals do not feel that they are being constantly taxed.

She said: “The key thing is that the taxes that raise revenue for the economy (the VAT for an example) has not been used as a policy. We’ll probably raise far more revenue than all these small taxes that are being raised.” She stressed the need to harmonise, streamline and do away with most of the existing fees and charges.

“We need to focus on the main taxes that will really generate the kind of revenue necessary, and that is the VAT,” she stated.

She said her position on the review and overhaul of the nation’s tax system is supported by the governors, who in their last National Economic Council (NEC) meet-

ing, recommended the option. “This is what they said they wanted, so it’s not even an issue with the Federal Government alone,” she said.

She said falling commodities’ prices and oil can be beneficial to global growth, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group are estimating another one percentage growth for the world from this development.

She however said for the countries that export these commodities, “this poses a challenge. So a lot of time was spent discussing what policies and measures countries should take in order to be able to manage the situation.”

Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala said there were good pieces of advice relating to the drop in oil prices, as they affect Nigeria. “We are quite familiar with those suggestions, and have, on our own, been implementing them. It is something we are comfortable with- the recommended

fiscal reforms, and we have been implementing that,” she said.

Fiscal reforms, she explains, entails a look at expenditure side and see how leakages can be plugged and curtail expenditure that are not strictly necessary. According to her, revenue side has to be looked at and explore how to raise more revenue. “If you see the 2015 budget, these two things have already been addressed - efficiency of resources and use of the resources.

“With the support of the World Bank Group, we are introducing an instrument to help streamline the projects.

“We have to determine which ones are most effective so we can ascertain which to retain, and which ones to drop. We are already aligned with what was recommended,” she added.

She said the budget contained some of the measures designed to drive the economy, adding that the efficiency of these measures will be benchmarked against their implementation when the Appropriation Bill is eventually passed into law.

World Bank spends N75b on agric in Lagos, others T HE World Bank has spent about $380 mil lion (about N75, 240,000, 000) on agriculture in Lagos and some other states in the last eight years, the state Commissioner for Agriculture, Prince Gbolahan Lawal, has said.

Speaking to reporters yesterday in Alausa, Ikeja, he said the $200 million Fadama grant was accessed by six states while the $180 million was accessed by five states, including Lagos.

Lawal said $180 million was spent on Commercial

By Miriam Ekene-Okoro

Agriculture Development Project (CADP) while $200 million was spent on National Fadama Development Project (FADAMA).

He explained that Lagos was selected among six others to benefit from the $25 million grant from the World Bank through the Federal Government for this year because of the performance recorded.

The commissioner added that about 3,000 birds were killed during recent onset of bird flu in Lagos State, saying about 2,000 birds were killed in one farm, 500 birds each in two other farms.

He also said 10 birds were also killed in a zoo on the Lekki axis, affirming that there is currently no incident of bird flu in the state.

Lawal added that most of the food requirement of the state is currently being met

through food importation from other state.

“At the end of 2014, our internal production has been 10 per cent which is an increase of seven per cent from three per cent in Pre-2007,” he said adding that the target of Lagos is to hit 25 per cent by 2018.

According to him, the asset base of cooperative societies in Lagos state is now N60 billion and that there are about 6, 500 cooperative societies in Lagos out of which only 2, 700 have been revalidated and confirmed active

Etisalat’s quarterly profit up 7.6%

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BU Dhabi-listed car rier, Etisalat yester day reported a 7.6 per cent rise in first-quarter profit, with its acquisition of a majority stake in Maroc Telecom and rising income from its Nigeria’s operation helping to lift revenue by nearly a third and its subscriber base by a fifth.

Etisalat, which operates in 19 countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, made net profit of 2.18 billion dirhams ($593.6 million) in the three months to March 31, the company said in a statement, against 2.02 billion dirhams a year earlier.

Two analysts polled by Reuters had forecast that the Gulf’s No.2 telecoms operator by market value would post quarterly profit between 2.16 billion dirhams and 2.47 billion dirhams.

The United Arab Emirates’ former monopoly generated quarterly revenue of 12.91 billion dirhams, up from 9.9 billion dirhams a year earlier.

Domestic revenue rose 11 percent to 7.2 billion dirhams, while international revenue jumped by 69 percent to 5.6 billion dirhams.

The international increase was because of Etisalat’s consolidation of Maroc Telecom after it bought a 53 per cent stake in the African operator for 4.14 billion euros last May, plus rising income from Etisalat’s operations in Afghanistan.

Maroc Telecom, which has operations in Gabon, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Mali and this year also acquired Etisalat’s subsidiaries in six African countries, reported first-quarter net profit of 1.32 billion Moroccan dirhams ($133.10 million) on Thursday, down 10.2 percent year on year.

12

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

THE NATION

BUSINESS TRANSPORTATION

E-mail: ynotaderibigbe@gmail.com

How to keep Lagos moving, by Fashola G

OVERNOR Babatunde Fashola has reiterated his administration’s commitment to delivering world-class projects and infrastructure to support integrated multi-modal transport system in Lagos State.

He said integrated multi-modal public transport remains the safest and most affordable way to keep Lagos moving.

While some may have money to buy cars, the government, Fashola said, must increase the access of the masses to affordable, comfortable and convenient means of transportation.

He spoke last Thursday at the opening of WEMPCO Road at Ogba, in Ojodu Local Council Development Area (LCDA), of the state, which was rehabilitated and upgraded by his administration. The road is the first in the state, with a walkway and a cycle lane to encourage non-motorised transportation.

The project, funded by the World Bank, was executed by the Lagos Metropolitan Area Transport Authority (LAMATA).

Fashola warned against the erection of illegal structures on the road, adding that the space on the new road is the proposed light rail corridor, the sanctity of which must be protected.

Urging residents to prevent its abuse, he said the government would come down heavily on anyone who turned the sidewalk of the road into a market.

He described the project as another indicator of good governance, adding that it would serve all residents, irrespective of race, colour, tribe or ethnicity.

The Governor said: “The road would not ask you whether you are

•The new WEMPCO Road. Inset: Fashola (fourth left), Chairman/CEO, Mikano, Mr. Mofid Karameh (third right), Managing Director, Arab Contractors, Mr. Ousama Mustapha (left), Mobereola (second left), Commissioner for Transportation, Mr. Kayode Opeifa (second right) and his Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs counterpart, Mr. Kuye Ademorin (right) at the event Stories by Adeyinka Aderibigbe

Hausa or Ibo, or whether you are a Nigerian or foreigner. The road is one of the basic things that bind us together. It is our common heritage and that is why we must preserve it.

This is one of the things being done with your taxes. This is one of the testimonies for all tax payers and another reason to see anyone who tries to destroy it as being out to destroy your property.”

He charged users of the road, especially industries around the area, to use it more responsibly, adding that a good road has put additional re-

sponsibility on the users that they owe residents and others a duty to drive responsibly.

“A good road does not necessarily have to guarantee increased speed but it adds to the responsibility of motorists to drive with care not to constitute any hazard to other users,” Fashola said.

Earlier, LAMATA’s Managing Director Dr. Dayo Mobereola described the event as the opening of two significant projects: the first being the eradication of flooding on the road, which usually leads to the destruction of lives and property, shutting down of businesses and traffic con-

gestion. This has been tackled by the construction of an underground drainage channelisation and the total reconstruction of the road from a single lane to dual lanes with street light.

Describing the underground drainage as the first in the state because of the topography, Mobereola said: “The drainage, almost 2km long, is a precast reinforced concrete rectangular with a varying degree of 2 to 10 metres.

The precast box is 2 metres in length, 2 metres in breadth and 2 metres in height, constructed along the stretch of the road from

Ijaiye road by WEMPCO cutting across Lateef Jakande Road into Omole Gorge and designed to collect flood water from Agege Pen Cinema, Oba ogunji Road, WEMPCO Road, Akilo Road, Metal Box Street, and other adjoining roads.”

Mobereola said the era of flooding along the axis, which informed the government’s intervention, is “gone forever.”

On the reconstruction, he said the road’s width was increased from 10 to 12 metres to accommodate pedestrian walkways and a cycle lane to encourage non-motorised transportation and exercising for healthy living.

He said the road, with facilities that would prevent cutting by any utility provider, will help achieve reduction in travel time by 15 minutes.

“The road will also increase peak hour speed along the corridor from 15km/hour to 30km/hour with a cost benefit reduction put at N68million per year as a result of reduced road congestion, springing up of more businesses and improved accessibility to businesses. There will also be improved lifestyle of residents along the route, with a reduction in the cost of vehicle maintenance. There will also be reduction in pollution emission by 15 percent and reduction in incidences of air bone diseases among others,” he said.

Among leading community leaders on hand to thank the governor for the successful execution of the project were the Justice Ishola Olorunnimbe, OON, a retired Judge of the state High Court, Rear Admiral Abiodun Olukoya former military Administrator of the old ondo State, Executive Secretary of Ojodu LCDA Mallam Ahmed Jaji, and several captains of industries.

Install speed limiter, FRSC urges motorists

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HE Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) has urged commercial transport operators yet to install a speed limiter in their vehicles to do so before June 1, or face prosecution.

Its Mowe Unit Commander, Mr Oludare Ogunjobi, gave the charge at a sensitisation for stakeholders on the implementation of the speed limit device, at Obafemi/Owode Local Government Area in Ogun State.

Ogunjobi said commercial vehicles were expected to have installed the device on or before the deadline, adding that defaulters’ vehicles would be impounded.

He said the device was introduced to regulate over-speeding which causes accidents.

Vehicles with the device, he said, would not move beyond the regulated speed limit, no matter the pressure applied on the accelerator.

Ogunjobi said research has shown that 65 per cent of accidents are caused by over-speeding, with colossal loss of life and property, raising the need for the device for maximum speed control.

To prevent such fatal crashes, Ogunjobi said it was compulsory for every motorist to for the device.

The use of a speed limiter, according to Ogunjobi, will guarantee a longer life span for the vehicle and reduce the money spent on fuel and maintenance.

Ogunjobi urged motorists to support the FRSC campaign, and stop complaining about the N45,000 price for the device.

Ogunjobi also spoke on the need

By Olalekan Ayeni

for vehicle maintenance during the rainy season, urging motorists to take every necessary care while driving during the period.

He said motorists must ensure their vehicles are in good shape before embarking on any trip during the rain.

Ogunjobi who noted that lack of maintenance contributes to crashes on the roads, charged motorists to ensure their vehicle’s tyres, brake pads, brake lights, aerial lights, pointers, wind shield wipers and blades, including the headlights are in perfect working condition during and after the rainy season.

Ogunjobi said they should always turn on their headlights and wipers and reduce their speed whenever it rains.

•The Lagos and Ogun Zonal Commander, FRSC Mr Charles Akpabio (Centre), Coordinator, Special Marshal & Partnership (SMP) Mr Toyin Kadiku (third left), Zonal Head, SMP Department, Mrs Osas Anende (second left), SMP Lagos State Sector Commander, Mr George Bengon (second right) Second Head, SMP dept RS2.1 Mrs Bridget Asekano (right) and Zonal Secretary SMP RS2 Headquarters, Mr Zacheaus Majonagbe at a special patrol on Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, Lagos.

Boat operators get 200 free life jackets

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O fewer than 200 life jackets have been distributed to boat operators to boost their business and enhance waterways safety in Lagos State.

At the ceremony held last Wednesday, at Aiyetoro, Jetty, in Epe, a riverine community, the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), said 3,500 life jackets have been distributed by the government free to boost waterways safety.

LASWA Managing Director Mr. Yinka Marinho said 17 boat operators benefited from the exercise, adding that the gesture was in continua-

tion of the agency’s water safety awareness, which began in 2012.

Last year, boat operators in Badagry, Ikorodu and Ojo, Marinho said, received 300, 500 and 2,000 life jackets.

Marinho said: “This is in continuation of our waterways safety programme which we have been doing yearly. The governor helped us to start the distribution with 2,000 life jackets when the Ebute-Ojo Terminal was opened last year.”

Like what happens when we wear our seat belts when we drive, life jackets, LASWA chief said, also prevent hazards when we found our-

selves in the water.

“You can see by the practical demonstration that you don’t need to know how to swim, as long as you wear the life jacket, you will stay afloat.

Marinho said the gesture was to forestall a repeat of the mishap in the area during the presidential election in which some people drowned.

“It is unfortunate we had a boat mishap here (Epe) during the presidential and National Assembly elections in which four persons lost their lives.

“So, this is to forestall cases of deaths when mishaps occur,”

Marinho said.

He said the government was still working on the safety of the waterways and that of all users of water transportation.

He advised operators to disallow any passenger from boarding the boat, who refuses to use a life jacket.

An operator, Mr. Anthony Agadi, thanked LASWA for the gesture saying, if the victims of the last boat mishap had used life jackets, they could have been saved.

“We are grateful to LASWA because now our passengers would be more confident in our operations.’’

13

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

THE NATION

BUSINESS MARITIME

e-mail: maritime@thenationonlineng.net

Rice importers to pay N20b for T alleged quota abuse HE Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) is poised to recover the over N20 billion duty yet to be paid by seven rice importers for allegedly abusing their quota following the expiration of the ultimatum given them.

The Federal Government gave the importers up till last Friday to pay for the excess tonnes of rice they allegedly imported, but they did not.

The Customs, it was learnt, will move against the companies today unless they settle their debts.

No fewer than 300 Customs officers from the Federal Operation Unit (FOU), it was gathered, may be drafted to seal off their offices for allegedly violating their agreement with the Customs before taking

• Firms: penalties retroactive Stories by Oluwakemi Dauda MaritimeCorrespondent

their consignment out of the ports.

The first default notice was given by the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Akinwumi Adesina, in January. The NCS repeated the notice on April 12, warning that despite several notices, the importers did not pay up.

In its notice, the Customs claimed that Stallion/Popular Foods imported rice in excess of 475,017 metric tonnes (MT), with an accruing duty of N15.481 billion.

The second highest importer, Olam, allegedly drew an excess of 110,062 MT, amounting to N3.365 billion.

Millan Nig. Ltd is to pay N1.089

• From right: Newly promoted Customs Officers, Assistant Comptroler Ayodeji Bamisaiye; Assistant Comptroler Yemisi Adeoye and Assistant Comptroler Segun Ikengboju in Lagos.

Customs ‘now well equipped to face smugglers’

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USTOMS Comptroller-General Alhaji Dikko Abdulahi has urged his men to use their two newly acquired vessels to fight smugglers, block leakages and stem criminalities on the waterways.

He said the vessels, christened Customs Pride and Group of Nine, in honour of nine marine officers who died in battle with smugglers in 2012, were acquired to fight smugglers and boost revenue.

Speaking at their inauguration in Lagos last week, Dikko said with the vessels, marine officers would no longer have reason for not being able to arrest smugglers.

He said: “Of course, they (marine officers) have no excuse again, if they do not arrest smugglers with these vessels, then it means they are the smugglers.

“This is part of our six point agenda. We have to do whatever is needful to make sure that we excel and this is part of the equipment we need to perform our duties.

“Apart from coming to inspect these vessels, I have gone through my commands and informed them that we have to recover the shortfall we had in the past weeks and make sure that we meet the expectation of our target. I am sure we will meet up.

“We have just concluded the general election and Customs was part of the security agencies that performed in that election. The reason we were part of the election was based on trust. So we have to show that exemplary behaviour on revenue so that when the new government comes, government will know that men of the NCS are doing their best and they can key into the new

government as they were in the last government,” he said.

The newly acquired vessels are fitted with integrated computerbased equipment including inbuilt radar, wind vein, electronic chart and speed capacity.

Captain of Customs Pride Mr. Babatunde Lawal, pointed out the features of the patrol boat, saying it has navigational aids and bullet-proof windows, among others.

“We can read the condition of the wind, we can equally read information about the vessels around us; we have the electronic chat there, and with the information gadgets on board, we can speak with somebody in London; we have similar provision at all our formation so we can as well relate with all of them in terms of emergency and arrests.

“We may experience resistance from whoever we want to arrest, so there is a device to fix a high calibre gun in the front and at the back.

“The ship can accommodate 20 people on the average including VIP Cabin and Captain Cabin.

“We can also get any distress call from anywhere around the world online,” Lawal said.

Dikko also urged all senior officers to ensure that all revenue loopholes are blocked to make up for the shortfall recorded in the first quarter of the year, which he said was as a result of the just concluded general elections.

Meanwhile, the Area Comptroller, Federal Operations Unit (FOU) Zone ‘C’ Imo State, Mr Victor Dimka said the unit seized over N500 million worth of goods between January and last month. He

said 56 suspects were arrested in connection with 140 seizures made at different areas within his jurisdiction.

Dimka said the unit recorded 140 seizures with Duty Paid Value (DPV) of N501, 026, 822:00. The breakdown included 37 seizures made in January, with a DPV of N176,483,600,40 seizures with a DPV of N136,708,650 made in February and 63 seizures with a DPV of N187,834,572 recorded in March.

According to him, seizures included 108 vehicles, three trucks containing 384 bags of 50kg foreign rice, two trucks of 2,126 cartons of imported frozen poultry products, three trucks of 1,181 pieces of used tyres, three trucks containing 780 bales of textile materials, two truckloads of cartons of foreign vegetable oil with other items such as used hand bags, cartons of foreign beverages and 1,755 pieces of imported foot wear.

The NCS chief, who reiterated the commitment of his officers and men to rid the zone of smuggling activities, said a total of 56 suspects arrested in connection with the seizures are in detention pending investigation.

He said the suspects would be prosecuted to deter others.

Dimka also warned those involved in the illegal business to desist from the criminal act, stating that the NCS is now better trained and equipped with sophisticated tools to fight smuggling to its lowest ebb.

He also advised members of the public with useful information about smuggling to always make them available to his officers for necessary action, assuring that such information would be treated with the necessary confidentiality they deserve.

billion after allegedly importing an excess of 33,641 MT of rice; BUA is said to be owing N846.522 million for allegedly excessively importing 24,092 MT. Ebony Agro also allegedly imported an excess of 10,070MT of rice, amounting to N328.201 million.

Also, Atafi Rice Industries Ltd is to pay N1.297 million after allegedly excessively importing 39.80MT; Arewa Rice Mill will pay N664,876 for allegedly importing an excess of 20.40MT. The import quotas were allocated to the importers to bridge the gaps in rice supply last year in line with the government’s policy.

The policy specifies a preferential levy of 20 per cent and 10 per cent duty for the beneficiaries.

Other importers were to bring in rice under the 60 per cent levy and 10 per cent duty regime.

Of the seven companies, sources close to the Federal Ministry of Finance said, it was only BUA that contacted the Ministry last Friday on its readiness to pay.

Contacted, a senior Customs officer confirmed BUA’s preparedness to pay.

“As at close of business on Friday, I understand none of them had paid. But we have a development from the Ministry of Finance excusing BUA. As for the rest, concrete action would be taken against them to recover the money they are owing the Federal Government. We will definitely take action. And don’t forget that the goods were taken with bonds to recover the money,” he said.

Another senior NCS official said: “Excess import duties on rice owed by the importers amounted to several billions of naira. Some of these

companies owe the government debts amounting to billions of naira. The money was incurred for exceeding their preferential allocated quotas for imports.

“Some of the affected companies are, however, of the view that the Federal Government imposed quota in December, last year, and requested them to make payment of excess duties for importation made when quota has not been introduced.

“They accused the Federal Government of imposing penalties retroactively and that is why they are keeping sealed lips on the deadline set by the service.

“The NCS will ensure that all companies that have imported rice above their allocated quotas pay fully the amounts due to the government. Every company that owes the Federal Government must pay what they owe and the country will not lose a kobo to them.

“The country has an estimated rice demand of between 5.6 and six million tonnes per year out of which the domestic production is put at 3.2 million tonnes per year; creating a short fall of about 2.8 million tonnes, which Nigeria imports from India, Thailand and other southeastern countries of Vietnam, Bangladesh and others. Nigeria is the world’s second largest importer of milled Rice next to Philippines.

“The country spends about $1.56 to $2.2 billion to import the shortfall of two to three million tonnes of milled rice per year and that is why the collection of Customs duty on every bag of imported rice is essential to the government and officials of the service,” he said.

The loss of revenue from exceeded import quotas, the official said, is unacceptable. He vowed that the Customs will prosecute any importer that fails to pay the duty it is owing to serve as a deterrent to others.

Efforts to get the importers’ reactions failed. Olam’s Public Affairs Officer Ade Adefeko and Stallion’s image maker Manny Philipson did not pick their calls and also failed to reply a text message.

Agents, shippers urge Buhari to review 70% duty

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HE Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) has urged President-elect Muhammadu Buhari to review the automotive policy, which imposes 70 per cent levy on imported vehicles, pending the mass production of Made-in-Nigeria vehicles.

The 70 per cent levy was introduced by the Jonathan administration to support the local industry.

ANLCA President Prince Olayiwola Shittu said the 35 per cent duty imposed on used vehicles is obnoxious and urged the incoming administration to review the policy.

High port charges, Shittu said, have increased the costs of doing business and encouraged diversion of cargoes to neighbouring countries’ ports, thus, leading to loss in government’s revenue.

“The in-coming administration needs to review the auto policy and make the port attractive for business. The maritime sector is confronted with many problems that need to be addressed to boost trade and generate employment,” he said.

Also, the Shippers’ Association

Lagos State (SALS) has urged the incoming government to assist shippers in reducing the costs of doing business at the seaports.

Its President, Mr Jonathan Nicol, lamented that the high port charges had affected the costs of doing business in the country.

He said: “We have a very big problem in the maritime sector.

We believe that government will stick to the maritime sector as one of the most important aspects of the nation’s economy.

“This will enable other Nigerian shippers, who have gone to the neighbouring ports to come back.”

Nicol said Nigerians were still expecting basic infrastructure such as good roads, water supply, uninterrupted power supply, good health facilities and free education.

He also joined ANLCA to urge the government to reverse the automotive policy which imposed a 70 per cent levy and duty on imported vehicles, pending the large production of Made-in-Nigeria cars.

“If the automotive policy comes into existence without sufficient production of cars in the country, such a policy may destroy the transport sector,’’ Nicol said.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

14

THE NATION

BUSINESS AVIATION

Govt must restructure aviation, say experts Experts believe there is urgent need to restructure aviation to enable it contribute ‘significantly’ to national development, Correspondent KELVIN OSA OKUNBOR reports.

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XPERTS are not happy with aviation’s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The sector can do more, if it is restructured, they argued.

Under the current GDP of N80.3 trillion or $509.9 billion, aviation contributes $0.7 billion, which is about 0.4 per cent; other countries are leveraging the aviation sector to develop their economies.

Comparatively, aviation contributes about 27 per cent to the GDP of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and about 2.1 per cent to South African economy.

President, National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE), Isaac Balami, said the incoming government must take urgent steps to restructure the sector.

He listed the challenges of the sector to include lack of effective strategies for policy implementation and creation of requisite structures and environment for sustained growth .

On his part, former general secretary of National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE), Comrade Abdulrasaq Saidu called for scrapping of the Ministry of Aviation.

Aviation sector, he said, should be merged with the Ministry of Transport as it’s done in other parts of the world. Saidu said if the in-coming administration wants to retain the Ministry of Aviation, it should appoint a professional with aviation knowledge rather than bring in politicians who are not experienced in running air transportation.

Balami said the government must give attention to the state of domestic carriers, which he said ought to be the fulcrum of activities in the sector.

He said: ’The Nigerian aviation industry has endured numerous setbacks. The current situation is far from perfect. Challenges in the aviation sector are not limited to negligence, lack of financial availability or incompetent management.

“This is mainly due to the lack of effective strategies for policy implementation and the creation of requisite structures and environment for sustained growth.”

State of airlines He said government should put in place appropriate policies that would stimulate the growth of domestic carriers.

Such policies Balami said should promote the good health of domestic airlines.

He said: ”There’s no gainsaying that airlines are the basis of aviation and should, therefore, be its fulcrum. Ideally, all policies, programmes and actions of industry stakeholders,in particular should be such that will promote the good health of airlines. This has not been the case in Nigeria.

“As a result, the Nigerian aviation landscape is littered with

•Balami corpses of airlines bearing various epitaphs. The airlines have died due to many factors not limited to poor regulation, funding, management, uncertain policy environment, undue interference in management, unfair competition and excessive taxation.”

Balami said the situation has become worrisome such that it has become difficult to find a viable airline in Nigeria if international aviation benchmarks are strictly complied with.

Regrettably, he said it is becoming difficult to find a domestic airline that has declared dividends in Nigeria in the last five years. “(The aviation industry is ubdergoing) suffocating operational environment evident in the skyrocketing cost of aviation fuel, cost of maintenance, cost of aircraft and spares in the face of worsening exchange rate, excessive charges, multiple taxation, ageing fleet and uncompetitive fares.

“Inadequate managerial capacity and a dysfunctional management structures due to ownership behaviour; “Absence of long term strategic planning and the will power on the part of owners and managers; “Absence of specialised banking/ favourable financial environment; “Unfair competition and unnecessary monopoly with foreign mega carriers, worsened by Government’s uncaring attitude exemplified by multiple designations granted to foreign mega carriers which prevented local carriers from the market; “Absence of clear government policy on airline business rehabilitation, revamping or revitalisation; and shortfall in enforcement of technical and economic regulation on the part of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA),“ he said.

Merger and acqusition If the industry must grow, Balami said the Federal Ministry of Aviation should foster an arrangement through incentives that will bring about merger of airlines, culminating in the emergence of one or two mega-carriers.

He said: ”The government could

•Bankole achieve this through Bank of Industry (BoI), which should adopt a carrot and rod method.

The carrot could be by offering soft loans to merger carriers that achieve a certain level of capitalisation while the rod would be the withdrawal or suspension of the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) of airlines that fail to meet prescribed capitalisation after a given time.

The other option is to restrict them to certain routes.

Multiple taxation regimes The experts said the industry could be on the part of growth if steps are taken to eliminate multiple taxation, charges and levies.

Balami said: “The Federal Government should review the multiple taxation regimes presently in place. To start with, government should stop charging Value Added Tax (VAT) on air transportation, especially because air transport is the only transport service being charged VAT.” Road, rail and water transportation services are currently exempted from paying value added tax . Doing this is to ensure the principle of equity.

The Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Bi-Courtney Aviation, NCAA and other government agencies should immediately review downwards their landing, parking and other charges.

The charges are rather arbitrary and on the high side, especially considering that services are not commensurate with the charges when compared to other economic climates.

Operators’ position Some airline operators have expressed reservations over government’s proposals to restructure some aspects of the sector as it affects their operations.

Chairman, Air Peace, Mr Allen Onyema said those canvassing merger of airlines should have a rethink.

He argued that operators could cooperate on many areas without forcing them to merge.

• Onyema He said he is favourably disposed to code sharing among domestic carriers rather than merging airlines.

Onyema said: “We can go into code-sharing with any airline that wants to do business with us. We will prefer code sharing to merger. We have invested so much into our operation that it will be difficult to merge with another airline that is not ready to pursue our goal in setting up of Air Peace; we want to employ more Nigerians; we are out to provide jobs for Nigerians.

“There are many areas the government should consider other than merger of airlines .There is no doubt that the environment is extremely, overwhelmingly harsh. There are a lot of things you have to take into consideration; the airline operators are reeling under inconducive business environment.

“Take for instance, you cannot compare this country with America or Europe. In America, if anything goes bad on the plane, you can go to the next aircraft parts market and get it fixed. In Nigeria, if you don’t have it in your warehouse, that plane is grounded. You are losing time, you are losing money. So the cost of operating commercial airline in Nigeria is high. Government should be mindful of the fact that these airlines are already disadvantaged right from the day they got their AOC. Nigerian airlines are already disadvantaged right from the day they are licensed to fly.

So, government should also be thinking about how to alleviate their problems,” he said.

Managing Director of Medview Airlines, Alhaji Muneer Bankole said the in-coming government should consider how to set up a national carrier.

Such carrier, Bankole said, would redeem the sovereign image of Nigeria.

He said: ”First and foremost, from what I have heard from the presidentelect, he is so dissatisfied with the situation that a country as big as Nigeria has no national airline. And we all here witnessed the death of Nigeria Airways. We witnessed the death of National Shipping Line, so all those things he has said he needs to bring them back because he knows them and he asked why and where and what went wrong.

‘First and foremost, from what I have heard from the president-elect, he is so dissatisfied with the situation that a country as big as Nigeria has no national airline.

And we all here witnessed the death of Nigeria Airways. We witnessed the death of National Shipping Line, so all those things he has said he needs to bring them back because he knows them and he asked why and where and what went wrong’

“A country such as Nigeria with the population we have, we need to have an airline that will carry our image beyond the shores of this country. You have seen Ethiopian Airline, Egypt Air, South Africa Airways even Air Maroc, they have many aircraft in their fleet.

“So, we too could do something better to improve this industry and let Nigerians feel proud. This is why I am saying that the president elect has said it many times that he promised to do something for all of us.”

The Medview chief suggested that government may take aircraft in the fleet of existing airlines to establish a stronger carrier.

He said: “The government might say we are taking three, four, five aircraft to bring everybody together and let’s start from this team and see how you can grow. First and foremost we need commitment from individual carriers to show sincerity of purpose for whatever we want to deliver for this government.”

Local content initiative Experts say if the industry must address its many lapses , the Ministry of Aviation should immediately establish a Local Content Desk/Office.

Setting up the desk, they say will enable the mobilisation of relevant stakeholders to take advantage of the intention of the National Assembly to institute an Aviation Local Content Act. In a position paper, the stakeholder are unanimous that the present issue in relation to anti-labour practices and abuse of expatriate quota in the aviation industry, which is before the Minister of Labour should form the basis for immediate action.

According to them, the issue of abuse of expatriate quota is indeed, a serious menace in the sector and it is of extreme importance that the Ministry works with the unions to eliminate this for the growth and development of the industry.

Aviation master plan/road map The experts say part of the restructuring to be done in the sector should include the implementation of an industry master plan and roadmap.

This road map, according to their position paper, should create a template for assessment, review and determination of the present state of affairs.

They recommended that concerted effort must be directed towards the development of Lagos as a hub given its existing infrastructure and market development.

They futher said the government should review the issue of multiple destinations indiscriminately granted foreign carriers at the detriment of local carriers and the economic development of the Nigerian aviation sector.

“The government should urgently bring into fruition the plan to re-establish a national carrier.

“Government should hasten the completion of at least, one aircraft maintenance hangar in the country, such as the Uyo facility that is already at advanced stage, but now abandoned due to high costs. “ Government should hasten the certification process of at least the major airports. This will go along with the development of one or two hubs in the country, particularly the Lagos hub; develop the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria into an international institution and should implement the aerotropolis project,” they said in their position paper.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

15

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

16

NEWS Gemade mourns Chukwumerije, Senate suspends business today

Buhari, Atiku mourn Chukwumerije

P

RESIDENT-elect Muhammadu Buhari and former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar yesterday condoled with the family of the late Senator Uche Chukwumerije.

In a statement by the Director, Media and Publicity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Mallam Garba Shehu, Gen. Buhari said the late senator was a Pan-African par excellence.

“As a man of my own generation, I observed the progressive political activities of Uche Chukwumerije and admired the Pan-African interests and national patriotic zeal which dominated and dictated major part of his actions and pursuits,’’ Gen. Buhari said.

He recalled that in the Second Republic, Chukwumerije

“As a politician, he was very classy and as a statesman he was exceptional. His death came as a rude shock and I do sincerely pray that God grants his family, the people of Abia State, friends and colleagues at the National Assembly the fortitude to bear the loss.”

From Tony Akowe , Abuja

parted ways with the ethnic and regional politics of that era to identify with Mallam Aminu Kano, the leader of the masses (Talakawas) and this “marked him out as a worker for national unity and a man of noble values”.

He added: “As a media practitioner, Chukwumerije was a professional who did his job with passion and conviction in all positions he held. I was not surprised he was a leading voice in the Senate for twelve years, where he had been serving the Federal Republic till death came calling.”

Gen. Buhari said the late Chukwumerije lived an active life and never sat on the fence on any national issues, adding: “Senator Chukwumerije has played an exceptional role in the business of legislation in the country and we will all dearly miss him as an outstanding politician and an elder statesman.

“I sincerely condole with his family and friends, especially his constituents in Abia North senatorial district, the people of Abia State and members of the National Assembly,” Buhari said.

Atiku, in a statement from

his Media office in Abuja, said the news of Chukwumerije’s death came to him as a rude shock.

Atiku said: “Senator Chukwumerije was in the class of those gentlemen you cannot but notice his outstanding qualities even when he stood in the midst of other men.

“His mannerism came across as someone who was well cultured. He was very sartorial in style and in presentation; and he never confused you about the disciplined background of his origin. He was a very worthy ambassador of

From Onyedi Ojiabor, Assistant Editor

C •The late Chukwumerije

his people.

“As a politician, he was very classy and as a statesman he was exceptional. His death came as a rude shock and I do sincerely pray that God grants his family, the people of Abia State, friends and colleagues at the National Assembly the fortitude to bear the loss.”

HAIRMAN, Senate Committee on National Planning, Senator Barnabas Gemade, yesterday said the news of the death of Senator Uche Chukwumerije came to him as a rude shock.

Gemade spoke just as indication emerged that Senators would suspend legislative business today in honour of their departed colleague.

Gemade, in a statement by his legislative aide, Bob Jija, described the death of Chukwumerije as a monumental loss to the Senate and the country at large.

The lawmaker, who represents Benue North East Senatorial District, lamented that the Senate would miss the forthrightness, frankness, bluntness and intellectualism which the late Chukwumerije brought to bear in his legislative business.

“The Senate will miss his deep sense of reasoning and the seriousness he attached to his duty as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“The country will miss his patriotism because he fought for the unity and progress of this country.

“The death of Chukwumerije was indeed a huge loss to the country. I pray that God would grant his family and other close friends that fortitude to bear the irreparable loss,” Gemade said.

Don greets Akwa Ibom governor-elect

T

HE immediate past Vice Chancellor of the Akwa Ibom State University, Prof. Sunny Petters, has congratulated the governor-elect of Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Udom Emmanuel.

He promised to give undivided support to his administration.

The don, in a letter tagged: “A Love Note to the Governor-elect”, described Emmanuel as the harbinger of the Akwa Ibom industrial revolution.

The statement reads: “On behalf of my family, I wish to join your faithful supporters, the Peoples Democratic Party and the entire people of Akwa Ibom State to congratulate you on your landslide victory at the April 11 governorship poll.

“It was indeed the collective decision of Akwa Ibom people to entrust the leadership of the state on you with strong confidence that only you can manage the state amidst the swindling global economy and turn the state to an industrial hub where job creation and employment will be critically tackled. Having acquired a wealth of experienced in the banking world coupled with your leadership quality, you will definately take us to the next level.”

17

TUESDAY APRIL 21, 2015

POLITICS THE NATION

E-mail:- politics@thenationonlineng.net

KANO POLITICS

Kano State Governor-elect Abdullahi Ganduje spoke with reporters in Kano, the state capital, shortly after his victory at the general elections. He unfolded his mission and plans to turn Kano into a mega city. KOLADE ADEYEMI was there.

Ganduje: I ‘ll build on Kwankwaso’s legacy W

HAT would you say are the factors that contributed to your victory at the polls?

I have to thank the Almighty Allah for sparing our lives and allowed us to conduct a peaceful election in Kano State; and I will like to appreciate the contributions of various communities in Kano State and the people of Kano State who stood by me—I thank you very much for assisting and facilitating the conduct of peaceful election in Kano State. We are very grateful to the various segments of the society. I will like to thank members of the security agencies for conducting themselves in a very civilised manner. I will also like to appreciate staff of the INEC for conducting themselves and their activities according to the law—and in particular, for insisting on the use of the CardReader machine and for reporting to the polling units early enough, carrying all necessary materials needed for the election; conducting the election in a very peaceful way and collating the results in a very transparent manner.

Also, I appreciate the role of the youths for being peaceful and for coming out en masse to vote for us; we know that even those who are not in our party voted for us. This is a very historic occasion here in Kano; and I think our contribution to democracy has to be acknowledged in Nigeria today, because we contributed the highest votes during the presidential election—1.93 million; we won all the three senatorial districts; we won all the 24 House of Representatives seats; we won the governorship election and we also won all the 40 state House of Assembly seats. Previously, we conducted Local Government elections and we won all the 44 chairmanship seats and also all the 484 councilors were won by our great party—the APC. So, our own victory here in Kano is from top to bottom—it is homogenous! I have to thank His Excellency, Engr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso, the executive governor of Kano State for providing a good leadership that led the foundation for the consolidation of the Kwankwassiyya Movement in Kano State that gave birth to a very highly committed team who worked together and were able to transform Kano into a very appreciable position that can be seen and commended by everybody today. So, I have to thank the executive governor of Kano State and congratulate him for winning election as a Senator-elect for Kano Central, under the APC. In what way was your nomination historic?

It is historic because we believe in continuity. If you follow the trend, you will understand that we believe that the issue of continuity is very important, therefore, with my huge success in this election, my primary objective is to ensure that there is continuity, because lack of continuity has remained a problem in most state governments in Nigeria—even at the federal level—we have a situation whereby if you have a new administration, the trend is that you have to discard whatever was done by the previous administration in the name that you want to start your own, forgetting that it is public fund that is being used to do whatever that is being done; and it is the responsibility of the government to continue with such programmes and policy that are favourable to the people.

Tell us your programmes and policy thrust?

You see, we are going to consolidate on what is already on ground. That means that all the projects that are not completed, we put our efforts to complete them, the ones that are completed and put into operation, we will maintain them so that the overall development of Kano State can be moved forward.

So, I assure you that all our major projects that we started and could not complete them within the time frame of this administration—for example the N14 billion hydro electricity in Challlawa, we shall continue to work on it until we complete it and connect it to the national grid. Also another major project that is yet to be completed is the two kilometer flyover in Sabon Gari, we shall make effort to complete it; and then another major project which cost over N10 billion is the Jakara road project.

Of course, another one is our advancement in education. We will maintain the tempo. In particular, my emphasis will be on quality education and also to ensure that education is made compulsory for all Kano state children so that the issue of roaming about of Almajiris is completely stamped out. Quality of education is very important because it is a vehicle upon which our children will be encouraged to further their education.

I will also look into the critical infrastructure for Kano metropolis and also the rural area. Kano is assuming a position of a mega-city and a mega city should a city where things are working. So, we shall take seriously the issue of transportation within metropolitan Kano. In terms of the road network, we are going to review the Kano master plan. It has been a long time

•Ganduje

that the master plan of Kano has not been reviewed. So, we shall look into that because there are new settlements and there is need for re-alignment; and there is a need to identify critical areas where we need flyovers, under-pass, where we need completely new roads to connect different communities and where we need to rehabilitate some of the roads. More so, we are going to come up with very articulated transport policy so that our traffic can flow very easily and to ensure that all the infrastructure that are necessary to control the traffic will be put in place like the traffic light, like the road furniture, and people who are controlling the traffic. Also another critical infrastructure that should be put in place in metropolitan Kano is water supply.

Another critical issue is that of security. Security is important for an emerging megacity like Kano. We shall continue to work closely and cooperate with security agencies. We shall also strengthen the Security Trust Fund. We shall make that policy functional. We shall make the Board of Trustee independent so that they can be able to collaborate with the private sector and source some funds to ensure that the entire necessary infrastructure for security within the metropolitan Kano will be provided, particularly, the CCTV cameras and other necessary infrastructure that is needed to keep the metropolitan Kano safe.

Also, we shall look into the areas of human development, such as areas of health to see that the less privileged ones are given adequate attention; to see that the health sector is generally improved to world standard so that we can discourage people

‘

Apart from laying more emphasis on quality education, also we are laying emphasis on technical education. We shall also look into the quality of the teachers themselves because it has been a vicious circle. Our teachers don’t pass mathematics because we don’t have mathematics teachers

’

from travelling abroad for medical treatment. Already the present administration has laid a good foundation for that. We are going to emphasize on the primary health care because we know that prevention is better than cure; and considering that we have a very high population, the probability of our people contracting infectious disease is very high—so we will be looking at the preventive aspect so that we can save our people.

For the rural areas, what we are going to adopt is integrated rural development. I will look into the road networks of the rural areas so that the new settlements there can be connected to other communities. You know, many of the roads there are dilapidated; some places require some bridges; and we shall see how we can improve the road networks within the rural areas.

Very importantly, agriculture is the strongest opening for economic empowerment, especially, here in Kano. We shall identify different agricultural groups to how we can improve the agricultural production, especially, to transform it into commercial agriculture. We shall take a statistics of who are the real farmers so that we know the elements of middle men who are making agriculture business to be very expensive. If we take the statistics; and using the modern technology, we shall find out the size of out the size of the farms so that each farmer will know the size of his farm, and we will know what are his requirements and we will see how that could be effective and efficient.

We shall look into the health facilities within the rural areas.

Already, we have achieved a lot on eradication of polio; we shall continue to do that until we are certified polio-free in Kano State—and not only polio but also other infectious diseases.

How do you intend to jack up internally generated revenue?

In terms of revenue generation, we have to look inwards.

We shall not always depend on stipends that come from Abuja.

When we look inwards, we have to be careful so that the less privileged will not be unduly taxed, we shall target those citizens who have enough assets and have not been able to give back to the state what they have gotten from it. We are not charging anything extra, but we will see how we can get the best. Most importantly, we will try to block leakages in delivery and also in government expenditure. We shall into our budget in order to maintain good relationship between the recurrent expenditure and the capital expenditure. We are going to be transparent and we shall continue the practice of publicizing our Council proceedings.

We shall also insist on people to be law abiding in Kano State, because whatever you do if people are not law abiding, you will find it very difficult to succeed. I will also find out specifically our women folk—what are the real issues concerning them and what can we do to assist our women in Kano state because of their contribution to democracy. Also, we shall look into the problems of the youth—how how we can empower the youths, how we can assist our youths in terms of education. Apart from laying more emphasis on quality education, also we are laying emphasis on technical education. We shall also look into the quality of the teachers themselves because it has been a vicious circle. Our teachers don’t pass mathematics because we don’t have mathematics teachers.

Our students don’t pass English as such because we have little qualified English teachers. So, we have to break such vicious circle by making sure that we have qualified mathematics and English teachers so that we can have a better percentage in these two important subjects during WAEC and NECO examinations.

In the commercial aspect of Kano State, we need to look into our markets in terms of security and modern facilities. We also have to look into our motor parks because our motor parks have been brazenly neglected. We shall see how we can build modern motor parks to ensure that they upgraded. We shall put in place modern security arrangements in our motor parks so that we can manage the motor parks in a very civilised way.

We should not allow touts to overtake the motor parks.

How do you intend to tackle the problems of Almajiri and the destitute?

When you talk about the issue of the Almajiris and the destitute, I understand you are actually talking about social security. You see, people tend to misunderstand the Almajiri system. The Almajiris are not beggars. These are children who are supposed to be in school—they are suppose to be in the class room studying; why should they be allowed to remain on the streets begging? So, what we intend to do is that all children Almajiri from Kano start would be taken to both western and Islamiyya schools; then those children who are not from Kano state would be identified and taken to their own states. So, all children of school age must be in school—that is my target. Then, if you talk about social security allowance, you are talking about the physically challenged; and they are very important. Then, for the physically challenged people, we are going to take a stock of all the physically challenged people in Kano State. They are going to register; they are going to be given identification cards. We shall categorize them into three groups: those who have elements of skills or training, we shall be able to provide them with employment inside the government or outside the government; those who have no schools, we will train them and provide them with capital for economic empowerment; then some who cannot be involved in any commercial or physical engagement, we will provide them with monthly stipends.

18

THE NATION TUESDAY APRIL 21, 2015

In last few days, there appears to be indications that ‘both the APC and the newly, elected President, General Muhammadu Buhari have found a common ground on the Transition Committee ’ On a normal day, Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi – a highbrow residential area in uptown Lagos - is a quiet neighbourhood. The area erupted in celebration when All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Akinwunmi Ambode was declared winner of the governorship election, writes WALE AJETUNMOBI.

O

SHODI has a reputation of being the melting pot in Lagos, but this was temporary lifted after the governorship and House of Assembly elections held across the country.

Certain neighbourhoods on Bourdillion Road, in Ikoyi momentarily became another Oshodi. By noon, different shades and sizes of vehicles – exotic and rickety – had dotted the stretch. Residents of Ikoyi may have been used to that kind of large motorcade, which extended to an estimate of three kilometres distance on both sides of the road.

At the entrance of House Number 26 on the lengthy road, a group of youths and elderly citizens gathered in clusters. They had ostensibly converged from different parts of Lagos.

Though they had had to wait for long, their host was not unaware of their presence.

The host was Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the national leader of All Progressives Congress (APC). The crowd was at his residence to celebrate the impending victory of the APC governorship candidate in Lagos, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode, who was in a clear lead at the time the crowd trooped to Tinubu’s house.

High-profile politicians and elder statesmen, who came to felicitate with Tinubu, had hectic time moving through the ecstatic crowd of youths who besieged Asiwaju’s gate.

Within hours of their arrival, the youths set up sound system to entertain themselves. All sorts of music blared from the four ultrasonic speakers stationed at the building gate. It was all noisy for hours before the governorship results were officially announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer, Prof.

Isaac Adewole.

At 6:30pm when report got Bourdillion that Ambode had been officially declared the winner of the governorship race, the crowd at Tinubu’s gate moved into a moment of spontaneous excitement, with some of the youths showing daredevil stunts.

Tinubu’s political associates and protégés flocked his Bourdillion home to salute the man they call “Jagaban of Nigeria”.

“It was a sweet victory,” former Senate Minority Leader, Senator Olorunimbe Mamora, expressed as he shook hand with Tinubu.

Early callers at Tinubu’s residence after APC’s victory included an elder statesman, Chief Pius Akinyelure, Mr. Ayo Opadokun, Hon. Olawale Oshun, Justice George Oguntade, Chief Rasak Okoya, Mr Femi Pedro, Mr. Dele Alake, Mr. Tunji Bello, Dr. Tola Kasali and Mrs Kemi Nelson, among others.

Visitors, who were mainly politicians, sat round a swimming pool beside the main building in the compound, wining and dining. Mrs Nelson led a group of women to sing victory songs; they also chanted anti-People Democratic Party (PDP) jingles.

PDP’s oppressive umbrella, they chanted, has been perforated and ruptured by a strand of APC’s broom.

The atmosphere became ecstatic at 7:30pm when Governor Rauf Aregbesola led some elected members of the Osun State House of Assembly and party leaders to felicitate with Asiwaju. Accompanied by his wife, Sherifat, the governor hailed Tinubu as the harbinger of the wind of change blowing across the country.

How Tinubu received Ambode’s victory

•Tinubu

•Ambode

“Through your effort,” Aregbesola told Tinubu in an informal meeting held beside the pool, “APC has won all Assembly seats in Osun except one. We are grateful to you and we appreciate your effort in changes we are witnessing around the country.”

Asiwaju responded: “I can only do the little I could do from here; the bulk of the glory should go to all party leaders and supporters in Osun State. They stood solidly and ensure our party came victorious. I respect Ogbeni Aregbesola and I make bold to say that he is a dependable leader.

If you have Aregbesola on your side, you can go to sleep and you would be sure everything will be in place.”

The governor described APC victory in Lagos as a product of good leadership exhibited by the outgoing Governor Babatunde Fashola but added that the victory came with a task to meet people expectation in continuous service delivery and good governance.

Shortly after Tinubu’s meeting

with Osun governor, the Vice President-elect, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, breezed in with his wife. After pleasantries and banters, Tinubu declared Lagos support for the waiting APCled Federal Government, urging the president-elect Gen. Muhammadu to reciprocate the Lagosians’ support for his election.

Osinbajo only stayed for about 15 minutes.

Speaking with our reporter, Tinubu described Ambode’s victory was predicated on the radical transformation and well-articulated programmes he started 16 years ago as Lagos governor. He said the newfound alignment between Lagos and the Federal Government would accelerate the ongoing transformation of Lagos to mega city and foreign investment destination.

He said: “Our victory in Lagos is a result of hard work I started 16 years ago. Consistent radical transformation of Lagos and well-articulated programmes, including education, infrastructure, urban renewal, innovative system of finance, knowledge-based economy and job creation in partnership with private sector. That resulted in leap development for Lagos.”

Rather than condemning Jimi Agbaje for what many called divisive campaign he ran, Tinubu, to the chagrin of his associates, described the PDP governorship candidate as a “good man with good spirit”.

Asiwaju praised Agbaje for conceding defeat by calling Ambode on telephone.

The wind of change blowing across the country may not have been possible without Tinubu’s effort and doggedness, Opadokun said. He observed that he never believed he would witness the fall of the PDP anytime soon, saying Tinubu led the vanguard that pulled down the “oppressive structure the PDP had built in the last 16 years.”

Opadokun said: “What we are witnessing today is a total new dimension to the polity. I never imagined that I will see this turnaround for good in Nigeria. If I was told there could be change a few months ago, my views would be different. But I can tell that the space called Nigeria is about to commence a new beginning; a transformative background upon which we can rest all structures of development and progress.

“Since 1953 election, our people (Yoruba) have always been in the opposition. This is the first time that our people would struggle hard under leadership of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to galvanise a coalition of political platforms together to become APC. And that organisation has become so resilient, strong and dependable, that could defeat the sitting party in government. That is not a mean achievement.

“What God has used Asiwaju Tinubu to accomplish in Nigeria and for the Yoruba nation cannot be erased by any character. It is a reality that the political leadership here has been taken over by Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

The convoy of the man of the moment, Akinwunmi Ambode, revved to a halt in Asiwaju’s compound at 11:15pm, amid shoving and pushing by the crowd. Ambode was received by APC leaders, whom he described as “wonderful people”.

After personally greeting party supporters, he was led into Tinubu’s building for a private meeting.

Up till 12:15am when our reporter left the house, Bourdillion Road still throbbed with celebration.

For APC, getting the transition right means all The Media and Communications Director of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, Garba Shehu, writes on the importance of the transition from the Jonathan Administration to the new dawn.

•Shehu

F

OR more than a week since the out-going Jonathan administration named its own Transition Committee, curiosity has acquired a new meaning all over Nigeria. There is not a day that passes without speculative reporting, 100 per cent of it based on falsehood on what the in-coming government’s team will look like, who is heading its committees, and so forth.

Some have even been reporting imaginary fights over this or that office.

For the country’s new governing party,the All Progressives Congress,APC, a transition committee is not only to serve the purpose of diagnosis. A good transition committee must also draw up a plan of action. This alone makes these first early steps to be be challenging. They must be handled with extreme care.

If not so handled, the transition may turn into a flashpoint and an unnecessary distraction.

In last few days, there appear to be indications that both the APC and the newly elected President, General Muhammadu Buhari have found a common ground on the Transition Committee. That should help to move the country from its current standstill.

Addressing correspondents at a news conference at his country home in Daura, Katsina State last week, the in-coming President announced that “I will make sure that it is not too big because if it is big, they will start thinking of how they will make the choice of ministers either for themselves or those they want to be ministers. But, my hope and my idea is to get knowledgeable and experienced technocrats that are really patriotic and to study the handing over notes by ministries and make recommendations.”

In an interview with The Nation in its edition of Friday April, 17th, the National Chairman of the Party, Chief Odigie-Oyegun spoke loud and long on the same issues, stating that “we will raise a transition committee to crosscheck whatever papers or

records they are handing over to us.

In our case, we need a lot of more consultations and be sure that the right caliber of people are there.

“We will study the handover note and make sure that all issues are put in proper perspective for the new government.

“If there are grey areas which experts will have to put us through, we will not hesitate to seek their help.”

From the foregoing, it is very clear that General Buhari’s priorities fit perfectly together with those of the party.

It is important that the incoming administration gets this one right because everything will depend on it. It may not be right at this point to question the goodness of the faith of the out-going administration. The President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has earned an incredibly high amount of goodwill following his acceptance of the outcome of the election, which itself had the effect of de-escalating tensions not just among Nigerians but all over the continent. But the President’s committee on transition and hand-over looks to be a trickish one.

It seems to be like one drawn to “massage” the numbers and ensure safety for “team Jonathan”. Some names on that list have certainly made the eyes pop out of their sockets. In the President’s list, you have men and women who reflect the worst of our prejudices; men and women who have made themselves the mouthpieces for everything regressive.

This is one reason why President Buhari and his party cannot be too careful on choosing who they will give their part of the assignment to.

There is no room for complacency in doing this either. Nothing that puts the new government at a risk should be allowed to happen. What is required of the job is a diagnostic and a forensic understanding of the handover notes. I have my respect for politicians. After all, they are the ones who led the party to this overwhelming mandate. But if they are given this job, they won’t be an incisive as is needful. Let us not underrate or under-estimate the amount of damage that has been done to national institutions, the economy and politics by the 16-year mismanagement of the country by the PDP. It is the combined effect of their unseriousness, shortcomings and their mistakes that have reduced the once dominant ruling party to a paltry minority stakeholder in the states and the National Assembly following these elections.

As General Buhari has himself mentioned, politicians will come with natural expectations when given this job. In a manner of speaking, they may compromise the ability of the incoming government to get a full understanding of the issues, in other words a good snapshot of the nation, its systems and institutions at the time of this handover.

A membership of the transition committee will naturally confer a sense of already-being- there on many a politician. They will see themselves as the natural successors of the outgoing administration. Some among them already have a sense of victory, a sense of indictment and a sense of entitlement.

Technocrats will on the other hand come in from a detached and hopefully, unbiased standpoint. Without preconceived ideas or mindset, a wellchosen set of technocrats may help unravel the rot that has eaten deep into the oil and maritime sectors, two money spinners, yet hemorrhaging government departments that are adequately represented in Dr. Jonathan’s transition team. Although these are only matters of perception, it is not at all surprising that they have raised serious questions about the sincerity of government in regard to this aspect.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

19

COMMENTARY EDITORIALS

LETTER

Bafarawa’s waterloo

RECs as election wrecks?

•That appears the grim tales from Akwa Ibom, as the results of the April 11 House of Assembly election remain unreleased

C

AN a resident electoral commissioner (REC), with a sacred mandate by law to conduct a credible election, turn a crass wrecker of the same election? The very thought of it is repugnant.

But that appears the grim tale emanating from Akwa Ibom State, a clear 10 days after the April 11 election, thrusting Austin Okojie, the Akwa Ibom REC, fairly in the eye of the storm.

Indeed, suspicious manoeuvres appear to be on. Whereas both the Akwa Ibom governorship and state legislative elections were held on the same day, nationwide on April 11, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state had released the governorship result; but not the House of Assembly ones.

That contrasts the law — not to mention the trend nationwide. Except where results were not conclusive, as the case of

‘After allegations and counterallegations, however, a damning issue stands: why should INEC release the governorship result without releasing the state legislative ones, when the law says both should be released as soon as results are collated — after the results had been compiled and duly signed by agents at the polling zones?’

Taraba, both results have been released.

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state has, therefore, raised an alarm, accusing REC Okojie of allegedly fiddling the vote for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); and calling for the cancellation of the entire exercise. Indeed, the APC claims no election took place on the day; and that INEC officials, with the alleged compromise of the REC, just wrote phantom figures for the PDP. In a press briefing on April 16, John Harry, the APC candidate for Nsit Atai State Constituency, on behalf of his cocandidates in the election, alleged that INEC could not release the state legislature results because the gubernatorial result, won by the PDP candidate, was mere “magical allocations”, without any recourse to voting. He further alleged that, since no election took place, alleged thumb-printing was on. Even then, he said INEC was in a quandary on how its new set of magical figures could possibly match the governorship figures — hence the long delay.

Aside from Mr. Harry’s allegations, election observers, foreign and local, had thumbed down the April 11 exercise — just as the March 28 one before it — saying the election was fatally flawed.

Also, even some National Assembly members from Akwa Ibom, Senators Helen Esuene, Aloysius Etok and Ita Enang, themselves PDP partisans, had also decried the elections, virtually dismissing them as voodoo. Though the trio are estranged PDP members, chafing from alleged injustices in the PDP primary elections, that should not automati-

cally negate their allegations.

After allegations and counter-allegations, however, a damning issue stands: why should INEC release the governorship result without releasing the state legislative ones, when the law says both should be released as soon as results are collated — after the results had been compiled and duly signed by agents at the polling zones?

On this sole question, the Akwa Ibom REC has a big question to answer. The Akwa Ibom APC has called for the cancellation of the exercise. They probably wear the shoe and know where it pinches most.

Before then, however, Prof. Attahiru Jega, the INEC chair and his top hierarchs owe it a sacred national duty to probe this seeming travesty. Even if the results are released now, the long delay would still be in breach of the law — except there are extenuating circumstances. Whoever are responsible for such cavalier breach of the law must face harsh sanctions.

INEC too had better brace itself: it just might be condemned to repeating the April 11 elections in that state, given the state of things.

But beyond immediate punishment, the Electoral Law, pertaining INEC conduct must be revisited. A robust check-andbalance system that assures restrains the autonomy for RECs is not a bad idea. But the whole essence is defeated, if RECs act in bad faith to subvert elections. That appears the building scenario in Akwa Ibom. The law therefore needs urgent tinkering to ensure such brazen rascality is never allowed again.

Orekoya outrage •A saga of carelessness and institutional failure ends happily

T

HE happy resolution of the three abducted children of the Orekoya family in Itire, Lagos, must not blind Nigeria to the ways in which personal negligence and institutional shortcomings combined to create a situation that might have been avoided.

The three children – Demola (6 years), Adedamola (4 years) and Aderomola (11 months) – were abducted from their parents’ home by a woman who had been employed as a housemaid on the previous day. The woman, using the false name of Mary Akinola, had responded to an advertisement placed on an online sales portal, and was employed without background checks or confirmation from the referees whose phone numbers she had provided.

“Akinola,” whose real name is Funmilayo Adeyemi, waited for the parents to go to work and simply walked out with the children. Other members of the gang then contacted the distraught parents, asking for a N15 million ransom, which was later reduced to N13 million.

They threatened to kill the children if their demands were not met. Akinola was later apprehended by the police, who allegedly tracked her down through her mobile phone.

What is most striking about this case is the ease with which the crime was perpetrated. A total stranger was able to gain the complete trust of a family she had never met before and ruthlessly exploited that trust to her own advantage.

She has confessed that this is not the first time she has utilised these tactics to kid-

nap children. In a nation facing all kinds of security threats which have resulted in the loss of many lives, such negligence is inexplicable.

The parents of the Orekoya children cannot be absolved of blame. Rather than use the time-honoured practice of going through friends and relatives, they chose the utterly impersonal anonymity of an online portal, naively believing that all its users were upright and honest individuals. To worsen matters, the person who contacted them was hired immediately, without any kind of background check whatsoever, and put in complete charge of three of their children. In other nations, they would have faced charges of child endangerment, and thereby risked losing custody of their offspring.

The online sales portal must also come in for condemnation as well. While it is admitted that it does make an effort to warn all users of its platform against the dangers inherent in online business, there is no doubting the fact that far too many scams have been perpetrated in its name. In essence, the online sales portal provides a viable platform for criminals as much as it does for law-abiding citizens, if not more. Rather than promising to completely overhaul its processes to make it less easy for evil-minded individuals to get away with their actions, the company has merely repeated its “buyer beware” mantra, as if that could bring the abducted children back.

Then there is the institutional failure.

The absence of procedures governing the registration and employment of house-

maids, stewards and other domestic staff has continued to expose families to great risk. There is the lack of regulatory oversight, which allows online sales portals to operate almost unsupervised, even when their operations empower criminals.

There is the paucity of surveillance cameras, which makes it easy for kidnappers to transport their victims across cities at very little risk to themselves.

This state of affairs can no longer continue. Online sales portals must be closely monitored by regulatory agencies; where complaints of criminal behaviour are found to be true, they should be blacklisted. Registration processes should be set up for domestic staff, involving photographic identification, permanent home addresses and guarantors. More surveillance cameras should be deployed, especially in bus stops, major traffic junctions, markets and similar locations.

‘Online sales portals must be closely monitored by regulatory agencies; where complaints of criminal behaviour are found to be true, they should be blacklisted. Registration processes should be set up for domestic staff, involving photographic identification, permanent home addresses and guarantors’

S

IR: The 2015 elections have come and gone.

Winners have emerged while losers are licking their wounds. The summation is that

truth has prevailed because Nigerian masses have spoken and loudly too. The outcome o the election is a rebirth of Nigeria which came about from the determination of the masses who defied all odds including refusing inducement from the PDP political jobbers to assert their rights.

In Sokoto, the election is a loud statement of dissent against ex-Governor Attahiru Bafarawa who has refused to accept that Sokoto people have completely forsaken him. Before now, three elections were held between 2007 and 2011 during which on each occasion he was vehemently rejected. His refusal to accept the verdict of the people as the fate he deserved for his maladministration and tyranny against the people, their cherished traditional institutions and revered symbol of the caliphate, Sultan Maccido further infuriated them. It is fool hardy for the PDP and President Jonathan to believe that Bafarawa has any electoral value or wields any political influence to turn the cart against the people of Sokoto.

PDP stalwarts failed to appreciate the fact that Wamakko injected life into the comatose PDP in Sokoto in 2006 leading to its electoral victory in 2007. The fortunes of the party in the state improved tremendously when former President Obasanjo through the promptings of other elders of Sokoto convinced Wamakko to join the party. Wamakko finally left when the impunity in the party continued unabated. This was despite several overtures to the party leaders and President Jonathan himself urging them to turn a new leaf by addressing the glaring problems within the party.

The PDP didn’t care a hoot when Wamakko and his likes left. Rather than see the exit of Wamakko as threat to its dominance in terms of positions at state and National assembly, it went shopping for Bafarawa to check mate Wamakko and deliver Sokoto to it. The bickering within the party in Sokoto after Bafarawa joined did not send any signal to them to the impending disaster that awaits the party.

Now the question is that since Bafarawa and his cohorts have succeeded in deceiving President Jonathan and his party leaders and so couldn’t deliver Sokoto, what else can those hired writers and columnists such as Amanze Obi write about Bafarawa and his seeming political clout?

Jonathan’s reliance on Bafarawa to deliver Sokoto to him is part of the overall problems that led to his dismal performance in the Presidential election because he placed his hopes on lightweights, including some garrulous characters in other parts of Nigeria who have received excellent press reviews and phantom analysis. In reality, these so called big fishes have since been consigned to the dustbin of history in their various places for betraying the confidence of the people.

It is obvious that Bafarawa had to lose because he faced fierce resistance from Sokoto people who have openly and in private expressed their dislike for him. With the resounding beating and overwhelming rejection of Bafarawa and his cohorts, his promise to retire is the best option otherwise he should be prepared to slug it out now with his very junior ones who are the symbol of new Sokoto that is the dream of all.

• Mohammed Kabir Hassan Sokoto Democratic Front, Sokoto.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

20

CARTOON & LETTERS

S

IR: The bane of Nigeria is inept, egregious, and rudderless political leadership rooted in corruption, visionlessness, religious bigotry, and ethnic hatred.

Nigeria has never been led by its best and first eleven. Until 1999, democratic governance was interspersed with military regimes as the brasshats and jackboots would overthrow civilian government.

Those military leaders believed themselves to be messiahs on redemptive mission. But they ruined Nigeria instead of putting it on the path of national development. PDP, which is touted as the largest political party in Africa, boasted that it

EDITOR’S MAIL BAG SEND TYPEWRITTEN, DOUBLE SPACED AND SIGNED CONTRIBUTIONS, LETTERS AND REJOINDERS OF NOT MORE THAN 800 WORDS TO THE EDITOR, THE NATION, 27B, FATAI ATERE ROAD, MATORI, LAGOS. E-mail: views@thenationonlineng.net

Healing the troubled polity would lead the country for 60 years; it maintained a suffocating stranglehold on Nigeria for 16 unbroken years. And the PDP leadership of Nigeria deepened corruption in the country. Political leaders who governed the country on

Real losers of the election

S

IR: At the end of every battle, a winner inexorably emerges.

Forget the famous placatory post civil war remark of General Yakubu Gowon, the Nigerian former Head of state declaring “ no winner, no vanquished” intended as a reconciliatory strategy for integration of victims of the civil war. The Nigerian presidential election has come and gone.

While the victor is already known, the losers need to be put in proper perspective, as there is, of course, a loser! The loser is however, most surprisingly, not President Jonathan! He was able to seize the last minute opportunity to retake what had been taken away from him the very first day he mounted the saddle of power: his will! At the dying minute, he got back his will and was able to exercise what he had long cherished to do but held back by the greedy hawks surrounding him. The will to return the country to its destiny. He looked away from the greed, avarice, selfishness and primordial sentiments of the people around him and made the famous telephone conversation to concede victory to General Buhari, his supposed political adversary, even before he was declared the winner, thereby scoring the bull’s eye that may place him on the rank of international statesmen.

That last minute decision! The thief on the cross did it and got salvation. Jonathan has done it and

gotten world-wide acclaim, not infamy to which he was initially headed.

The loser of the election is the man who saw the evil and the aberrations that characterised the outgoing government but chose to close his eyes and his mouth while they fester; the loser is the man who failed to speak truth to power and allowed the leader to stew in his own mistakes; the loser is the man who would rather remain with any government in power than threading the path of opposition; the loser is the man who threw morals to the wind to whip up inconceivable sentiments against Gen Buhari; the loser is the man who abandoned his calling to kowtow to the language of the lucres dished out by the government; the loser is the man who had the opportunity to serve the people under this government but chose to go against the will of the people and godly purpose of governance; the losers are the Orubebes, the Fayoses and the Femi Fani-Kayodes of our time and circumstance. While President Jonathan has seized the available last minute opportunity to right his past wrong, placing him on global fame, thereby, how will the true losers redeem their losses now that the principal has come to himself from them?

• Chris Edache Agbiti, Esq Obla & Co, Central Area, Abuja

the platform of PDP failed to tackle the vexed issues of youth unemployment, corruption, and lack of infrastructural development. Their bumbling and egregious leadership of Nigeria caused disaffection among us.

While APC leaders were busy mobilizing grassroots support, President Goodluck Jonathan was fiddling and engaging in the perpetration of inanities until the APC political tsunami swept him away from office. The internal crisis that bedeviled PDP and President Goodluck Jonathan’s inability to entrench internal democracy in the party are some of the reasons that contributed to his loss of the 2015 presidential election.

But, the 2015 presidential election has brought to the fore the ethnic hatred and religious intolerance that characterized Nigeria since its inception. We are suspicious of the

motives of one another, and fear that the ascension to the loft of power of a man whose ethnic and religious backgrounds are different from ours would lead to the political subjugation of our own ethnic group. Have we forgotten that the Boko Haram group stepped up its acts of terrorism when Dr Goodluck Jonathan became president in 2010?

And the cause of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war was partly due to the ethnic hatred and suspicion that existed in our country, then.

Rtd General Buhari is the President-elect, now. It behooves him to see the whole country as his constituency, and unite Nigerians who are antagonistic of another owing to their ethnic and religious diversities and prejudices. The existence of national unity as well as cohesion is a prerequisite for the economic and technological advancement of a country. A country at war

cannot make any progress as anarchical situation undermines political leaders’ developmental initiatives.

More so, the reduction in the global price of crude-oil has the potential of throwing our economy into a tailspin and recession since we have a mono-economy that is based on crude-oil. It is imperative for us to diversify our economy. In the past, when we had regional governments, huge revenues accrued into the coffers of the government from the export of our agricultural produce to other countries. But we neglected agriculture when crude oil started yielding more revenue to us than the exportation of our cash crops to other countries. And I urge the incoming president to govern the country based on democratic ethos and principles. Again, he should urgently tackle the issues of insecurity of lives and property, infrastructural deficit, and youth unemployment.

Nigeria’s greatness lies in its diversity. Now, it is high time we healed our troubled political polity.

• Chiedu Uche Okoye Uruowulu-Obosi, Anambra State

Re: Lagos is not Yoruba “town”

S

IR: The write up by Steve Osuji of Friday April 17,– Lagos is not a Yoruba “town” – further reinforced his earlier write up of last week. The statement of Oba of Lagos though emotional is not shared by the Yorubas. But he has his apprehension.

You unconsciously asked a question “while we are at it, why are the ndigbos always singled out and made a scapegoat?” And you never tried to provide answers. The Igbo voting for the PDP is irrelevant as they have that constitutional right but they should have respect for others feelings; being arrogant and provocative in their attitudes and claims; claiming that wherever they touched, they would claim the place.

It is in the best interest of the Igbos to suppress their destructive egoism.

Painfully – President Jonathan played the religious and ethnic variables so obviously in Lagos State during the campaign period resulting in the voting pattern of the nonindigenes in Lagos state; but you are not looking at that direction.

The sociology of IBO stand clear – “I before others” The civil war was triggered by this same attitude, we are having a near situation of same in South Africa at the moment and naturally as Nigerians let us live together as self respecting citizens.

Hear the Pan-Ndigbo group, Ohaneze “we do not regret voting against Buhari”. They have their reason and this should have been kept to themselves. This is too inflammatory and provocative a statement from the Ohaneze, the body representing the Igbos. I am a proud Yoruba man and do not have any

regret being so. Until the attitude of an average Ibo changes, this group would always be the loser in the Nigerian project.

In your write – ups, you should please try to down play this in-built Igbo emotion which was well expressed in your provocative assertion that Lagos is no longer a Yoruba town. But the Yorubas think otherwise.

Please read Sam Omatseye’s In Touch, The Nation Monday April 13,– Who owns Lagos? And make your opinion. Please let us build a united Nigeria, though where tongues and tribes might be different but in brotherhood let us live and lay a sound foundation for the on-coming generations •Biyi Adesanya, Ring Road, Ibadan.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

COMMENTS “Were dun n wo; sugbon ko se bi l’omo” heaven, the Ekiti unfolding [It’s great fun watching a lunatic distragedy, without that dispute, play. But who wants a lunatic for a would perhaps have taken a child?] — Yoruba saying different trajectory.

Then, there is the question of S long as the Constitution lives, self-destruct politics of party Ayo Fayose is doomed. But Ekiti machine. A case in point is must make up its mind, if it wants Ayodele Adu, a chartered acto sink with him. countant and Lagos-based Which makes it very infantile, the Ekiti Olakunle Omuo native, who tangled opposition’s hope that somewhat, the with sitting Senator Anthony lordbeek1@gmail.com, 08054504169 (Sms only, please) Abimbola Supreme Court would help do the job on Adeniyi, an Ikere native, for April 14, driving up media adrenalin to the APC senatorial ticket for that end.

Ekiti South. The party machine And no less childish, the Fayose postclaimed Senator Adeniyi won. verdict Ado-Ekiti road show, that sugMr. Adu alleged brazen magested a Supreme Court okay of his elecnipulation, even with the open tion had saved his doomed governorship. dential system of robust checks-and-balances, and presume secret that Mr. Adeniyi was allegedly unpopular in the senaOr even more childishly asinine, the Fayose electoral stackto rule happily ever after! Need anyone say the Fayose trav- torial district. Result: another wilful loss of political terriing of cards, which suggested that since the enfant terrible had esty is only a relic of the executive outlawry of the extant tory. “swept” the Ekiti legislative polls of April 11, making it 3-0 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) order soon to go extinct?

From Fayose’s power savagery to Ekiti progressives’ power against his alleged traducers, his constitutional crimes had Fayose as social leper: For starters, only a social leper would blunders, a historical retrogression, of monumental proporautomatically vanished! Fond hope! run puerile adverts, suggesting that since some previous tions, looms over Ekiti.

All three were just perception games that changed nothing. heads of government from the North had died in office, Gen. In one generation, Obafemi Awolowo, with his free priFayose, as a constitutional bandit, leper in decent society and Muhammadu Buhari would meet with that fate. And cer- mary education policy and creative secondary and tertiary gubernatorial scum, has damned himself — almost beyond tainly, only a person of suspect progeny would mock his own scholarships, vaulted Ekiti as the Yoruba future; as Ekiti Kete, redemption. But again, it is left to Ekiti to play the stubborn mother’s health at old age, just to score vulgar political points with acute thirst for knowledge, catapulted themselves into fly that will, against all common sense, follow the corpse to — and lest we all forget: he is Mr. No Apology! the very front of Nigerian scholarship. That would earn the the grave — or steer a wiser direction.

But while the Fayose decadence is beyond pardon, it issued Fountain of Knowledge pet name. That was the 1950s, in the Many a Fayose sympathiser, or even the unwary public, from the notorious penchant of the so-called Ekiti progressives 20th century. could whimper and wail, claiming calling a governor constito mismanage success.

But another generation in 2015, second decade of the 21st tutional bandit, social leper and scum is vulgar abuse. It is Fayose’s first coming, with the war cry of “Fayose ooo!”, and century, a regression is afoot. Fayose and his barbarians are not. It is rather truth brutally told! And Fayose and his deeds the plebeian counter-whoop of “Yes oooooooooooooo!” issued in town, and Ekiti is about cementing its pact with the past, as are living and damning evidence. from the crisis of expectation that near-wholesale, with Lagos socio-democratic laggard; and sick boy of Yorubaland.

Fayose, as constitutional bandit: It is only a bandit that Governor Bola Tinubu’s exception, swept out the South West So, what Awo made, Fayose wilfully destroys; and the Ekiti would forge a quorum of seven rogue legislators — with Alliance for Democracy (AD) gubernatorial class of 1999-2003. elite, traditional and modern, many of them busy two ghosts to boot! — to sack a legislative majority of 19. It That bid ended in controversial disgrace. rationalising Fayose’s executive outlawry, appear comfy with is only a bandit that would claim the Rogue 7 had sacked the His second coming issued from Governor Kayode Fayemi’s this historical reversal! legitimate Speaker; and proceeded to instal one of them, a alleged failure to share legitimate pork among his own party That is why Ekiti must be wary of the Adagun Odo (stagnant perverse caricature, whose starkness violently negates Ekiti’s members, despite his government’s massive developmental water) complex, the same syndrome that spectacularly undid Fountain of Knowledge moniker! strides. The face of that internal convulsion, emanating ei- Somalia. Ethnic homogeneity is as much a strength as it And it is certainly a constitutional bandit, of no mean notother from the governor’s own party members growling over could be a weakness. riety, that would present his budget to a phantom house; and pork or bristling against alleged suppression of legitimate Like Ekiti, Somalia is ethnically homogeneous. As Ekiti claimed authority to spend the people’s money, knowing political ambitions, was the Fayemi vs Opeyemi Bamidele indulges Fayose, Somalia’s elite looked askance while the full well what the Constitution says about the Appropriation tango. As the progressives fought to the death, Fayose stole likes of Siad Barre started bombing their people with brazen Bill. Still, this bandit does have a perverse sense of humour: in and grabbed the prize! injustices. That was the wide and merry way to Africa’s first presenting and having this illusory house approve his “AtIndeed, when the history of Fayose’s political savagery is failed state! Ekiti appears following this self-destructive path, torney-General”, who at least ought to know the fine points written, Fayemi’s name would merit a special mention. For even as its elite play the ostrich in homo-ethnic cocoon. of law! starters, his mass demonization, much of it coming from disIn Achebe-speak in A Man of the People, Fayose has stolen Fayose, as gubernatorial scum: If the office of governor is gruntlement inside his own camp, coupled with his politi- too much for the Constitution not to notice. So, let the law created by law, it is a gubernatorial scum that would wilfully cally fatal war with Bamidele, would directly trigger Fayose’s come heavily down on him. overthrow the legislature, a constitutional check in the presisecond coming. How could Fayemi’s stellar developmental Fayose is dead meat, whether or not the APC Legislative 19 wear such a hateful face of gargoyle? succeed in impeaching him. Even if he survives the present “Fayose and his barbarians are in achievements Then much earlier, disputes over his 2007 Action Congress gale, it is clear that by May 29, the rogue federal security town; and Ekiti is about cementing (AC) gubernatorial nomination drove the likes of Ayo Arise, cover, under which Fayose perpetuates his outlawry, would Adeyeye, Caleb Olubolade, Dare Babarinsa and others have vanished, leaving him stark naked. its pact as socio-democratic laggard; Dayo to PDP. Though Mr. Adeyeye now strikes the John Milton But again, it is Ekiti’s choice — to sink with this prodigal or Paradise Lost pose of rabid zest to rule in hell than serve in throw him to the sharks. and sick boy of Yorubaland”

A

R

epublican ipples

Ekiti, sick boy of Yorubaland?

D

ESPITE the warnings by Chief John Oyegun, the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Chairman that there will be “no place for gold diggers in APC Federal Government”, and President-elect Muhammadu Buhari’s earlier declaration that recent joiners of the party “should not expect to become ministers in his incoming government”, some desperate characters are still unrelenting in their manoeuvring to gate-crash into the new administration.

I am particularly worried about the on-going invasion of APC by our Igbo brothers who now suddenly pretend to love Buhari more than those who braced all odds to make him President. No one in his right senses will advocate that Igbos should be excluded from Buhari’s administration as they are equal citizens, protected by the constitution to participate fully at all levels of the Nigerian government.

Whether they voted for that government or not is immaterial. For the purpose of clarification too, I wish to point out that I am a Lagos-based Northerner, and GMB ardent supporter, who is gainfully engaged in foreign exchange business, which takes me regularly to Port Harcourt, Aba and Onitsha. I have more Igbo friends and clients than any other tribe in Nigeria. I hear and speak a little bit of the language. So, I can never hate the Igbo.

Rather, I admire and respect them for their hard work and business sense. But, decency should guide our conduct.

During the campaign period, I regularly witnessed the most negative and unbelievable hate discussions among educated Igbo against GMB in particular and APC in general.

It was as if they were prepared to lynch anybody who dared to market GMB to them. This is why it is very important for the APC hierarchy in general and GMB in particular to appreciate the courage of the few visionary Igbo who braced unspeakable odds to be on the side of GMB during his season of hate. Where were the Ike Nwachukwus, the Vincent Ogbulafors, the Charles Soludos, the Ken Nnamanis, the Jim Nwobodos, the Idika Kalus and others when the conventional wisdom was to hate Buhari first and think after?

Buhari must be careful to accord any serious accommodation to these “solidarity” tourists and others who are spending stolen money to advertise themselves. Take the case of an obviously sponsored article in a national newspaper of last Saturday brazenly advertising “Men Buhari Cannot Ignore”.

In the said write-up, Soludo was conspicuously placed first.

Apart from his stint at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which financial institution has Soludo ever worked to be advertised as “a financial expert”? Everyone knows him to

Buhari: Beware of desperadoes

By Mahmud Abubakar be an Economist, but because he has always had his eyes on Okonjo-Iweala’s job, he is now promoting himself as a financial expert. From Nasir El Rufai’s account, Soludo almost treacherously upstaged Okonjo-Iweala during her first coming as Finance Minister. Could there be a link to his quest for that office and the tirade he published a few weeks ago about her management of the economy? Before anyone would dine with Soludo with a long spoon, his tenure as CBN Governor should be critically examined. It is instructive to note that it was under Soludo’s “Banking Consolidation Agenda” that the Northern economic base was destroyed from which it is yet to recover. To drive home his point, Soludo fired two Northern Deputy Governors “to teach them that Nigeria does not belong to them”.

Another “expert” on their list is Pat Utomi. He is addressed as a Professor and also an Economist. But if you google his name, it reveals he has a B.A in Mass Communication from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. I have no evidence to believe he has any further academic training to justify his new titles.

Apart from old-man Idika Kalu who should be praying for his grand children, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili is the third among those listed as indispensable. Among the Nigerian newspapers and other media, she is addressed as Dr, yet, to the best of my knowledge, she has no Ph.D. She has not told Nigerians why she left her World Bank job. Or was her tenure not renewed?

Has the Finance Ministry been permanently ceded to the Igbo? With an Igbo man as CBN Governor, will it be right to also have another Igbo as Finance Minister?

It is stranger than fiction that some of these people are being pushed forward as if APC has nobody in the Southeast.

Dr Chris Ngige has been a consistent and charismatic face of opposition in the Southeast for a long time and worked tirelessly to fly the APC banner in the Southeast, even in the face of jeers. Governor Rochas Okorocha is another uncommon patriot who did what few Igbo could ever do by

shunning the overtures of the ruling party. He embraced the APC when it was most dangerous to do so. At a point he was even ostracised by his fellow Southeast governors and like a vibrant lion, he remained undeterred and stayed focused to the huge task of bringing change to Nigerians.

When the history of Nigeria’s democratic development is written, Governor Okorocha’s name would be written in gold. But even before the two joined the GMB train, there was the brilliant and hard-working Chief Ikechi Emenike who was the principal voice for GMB in the Southeast. If APC is to avoid one of the major mistakes that ruined the PDP, it must give preference to the views and interests of these gallant men, and a few others, who faced huge odds to be in opposition. It could be recalled that for the first four years in office, President Goodluck Jonathan refused to appoint any gallant politician from the Southwest and Kano into his cabinet. Dr Aganga was brought in somewhere from Europe to represent Lagos just like Dr Shamsuddeen Usman came from the Central Bank of Nigeria to represent Kano State. The result was that as elections approached, the political harm was already too deep for any meaningful salvage mission in these vital electoral areas.

I am not a Christian, but as a Muslim, I know that ingratitude is not a small sin. GMB should never be lured into abandoning those who stuck their necks out for him. It is not a crime to work with those who worked for you.

• Abubakar, a foreign exchange dealer, sent this piece from Lagos.

‘Before the two (Ngige and Okorocha) joined the GMB train, there was the brilliant and hardworking Chief Ikechi Emenike who was the principal voice for GMB in the Southeast. If APC is to avoid one of the major mistakes that ruined the PDP, it must give preference to the interests of these gallant men, and a few others, who faced huge odds to be in opposition’

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

22

COMMENTS

P

RESIDENT-elect Muhammadu Buhari has two mutually exclusive ends before him. He can be a great President. He can be the leader who vindicates our optimism. Or he can be a colossal heartbreak, a lost investment in trust: the villain who kissed a generation’s promise and betrayed it.

The good news is that Buhari’s fate is not predetermined. It’s neither fixed in the stars nor the lines of his palms. Buhari will leave a legacy of Buhari’s own choice and making.

The wretched of the earth cast their hope on Buhari. They cast their vote for him.

And they did so because they considered him the ambassador of their cause. They believed that his modesty, simplicity and integrity would make Abuja work for them. They sowed in that expectation.

Buhari owes them the debt of proving that they had sown in good soil.

There are also many who loathe him.

They judge him as the same apparition of the past; a tyrant yesterday and today.

Some doubt his capacity to bear the weight of the nation. A good number grade him as no better alternative to the incumbent.

Others are souls won by the hate campaign. Buhari needs to earn credibility with them.

Buhari has already made a remarkable achievement. As the mascot of a surreal voters’ uprising, he has helped break Nigeria’s most awful jinx. He has shattered the curse that says the toughest job in the land will be offered on the cheapest platter to an apathetic conscript. Not claimed by a striving aspirant.

It took resilience and the compound interest of four successive Presidential contests, but Buhari ultimately wrecked that default setting.

We nearly missed this.

Did we not reject a man whose personal discipline exudes the power of a shepherd’s rod and staff? A man whose gravitas will foster the interrogation of our moral infrastructure? Did we not throw away the prospect of introducing hygiene to the highest level of government?

Buhari’s victory in this election means that reflections on the state of the nation will not automatically switch to those rueful conjectures. We will now experience his interpretation of the role of President and Commander-in-Chief.

Dim Chukwemeka Ojukwu penned a terse and loaded tribute to late Chief Obafemi Awolowo; ‘’the best President Nigeria never had’’. Similar ‘’might have been’’ trope, an appeal to the possible

T

HIS piece could have been titled the failure of money or the collapse of falsehood, or better still the battle of facts and fiction; any of the titles would best have described the running battle between public relations and raw propaganda in the run-up to the recently concluded elections in Nigeria. And I can bet many aspiring politicians not only in Nigeria or Africa but the world over have a lot of lessons to learn from the way and manner media was deployed to guarantee success or to guarantee failure.Most of the so-called media managers had no clue whatsoever about what media management was all about. In fact the simple rudiments of communication were lost on most of them. Quite a number of those who were paid huge sums of money to launder the image of their employers hardly understood what constituted image talk less of what constituted laundering.

Many people assumed, erroneously though, that once you can speak fluent English, or Hausa or Igbo or Yoruba you are home and dry with communication. There is a gulf of

‘Everybody thinks he or she is a communication expert or public relations guru, and many patrons do not know the difference. It is now hoped that with the recent experience as an eye opener, Nigerians and all those seeking g public office in the future will be more guided in their choice of who can best help them put their message across’

Buhari and victory scavengers

By Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu supplement to a biography, a speculative but immeasurable loss of potentiality, would have fitted Buhari.

Buhari has grasped the brass ring. He now has to show his bona fides. He will show whether his victory is an arrival or a point of departure. He would savor the euphoria briefly and start working. Or he will stretch his celebration and make his entire tenure some long-drawn-out jubilation. The span of his victory hangover will decide if/when he will be ready to begin duty.

General Buhari has earned the right to scoop honey out of the carcass of the lion.

He pressed on even when the odds were against him. He set his face like a flint. He endured a vicious profiling that called him the devil on the ballot. His faith triumphed over experience. His elation is valid. But he cannot afford to be conquered by his own victory.

Buhari has apprehended the capstone of his life walk. Yet this crowning glory is only valuable to the extent it can serve as the foundation for his legacy.

He needs to start booting for his task. Like a pregnant woman, he needs to start bearing the burden that will ready him for his impending responsibility. This is the best time to start defining the parameters of his agenda. He needs to make the most of the transition period.

General Muhammadu Buhari has never walked this road before. Last time he managed a country was 30 years ago. And that stint in a junta context is very different from the democratic milieu he will have to operate in. He can’t lean back to the past.

Because only very little of his experience in totalitarianism will be relevant at this moment. Nigeria and her people have changed since 1983: The country, in sensitivity of soul; the citizenry in permissible culture.

All Buhari needed to function as opposition leader were a pair of critical eyes and an accusing voice. His new part as head of government makes him responsible for championing the search for solutions for problems of the day. The transition days would be more profitably used in studying modern statecraft.

He must be in wonderment at his sudden change of fortune. He now spends the better part of his day hosting regimes of Magi from all the four cardinal points. In the twinkling of an eye, he has transfigured from an anathema into the celebrity everyone wants to court. He has officially become the most sought after personality in Nigeria today. He is the President in waiting. He is the man everyone wants to curry favor with because in a matter of weeks he will be the supreme patron and dispenser, the man with the yam and the knife.

The familiar Any Government In Power jobbers, extinction-proof dinosaurs, all the characters who are the common denominators in all cycles of the nation’s woes, are swarming to his residence. These are folks who can’t breathe outside the orbit of power. Their victory scavenger visits ‘to pledge our unalloyed loyalty and support’ is nothing more than the expression of intent to infuse themselves into the plot of the inchoate administration. Their visits constitute a larceny of time and attention.

The failure of many otherwise well meaning elected officials often begins earlier than their resumption of duty. The cause is loose permeability of their gate.

There is a place for audience with well wishers and associates. There is a time for friendly backslapping. However, Buhari needs to have a gate that is less broad than the road to hell. He needs to institute a mechanism that qualifies people for access.

The best use of a President-elect’s time is not tending to a surging stream of congratulators. A man who will soon assume the task of presiding over Nigeria should spend the days leading to his swearing in in more vital endeavors than feting way-

‘The familiar Any Government In Power jobbers, extinction-proof dinosaurs, all the characters who are the common denominators in all cycles of the nation’s woes, are swarming to his residence. These are folks who can’t breathe outside the orbit of power. Their victory scavenger visits ‘to pledge our unalloyed loyalty and support’ is nothing more than the expression of intent to infuse themselves into the plot of the inchoate administration’

Failure Of propaganda

By Tola Adeniyi difference between a mastery of language and the art of communication. That one speaks good English does not mean that one knows the art and science of persuasion or that one knows what to say at appropriate times.

It should also be realised that pure mastery of language does not imply that whoever has that mastery is also adept at public and human relations. Yet human and media relations are very critical in the art and science of public relations practice.

What happened in several quarters in the build up to the elections was the false notion that a sharp cutlass is all that is needed to weed the grass without considering the state of the mind of the handler of the cutlass or his expertise in cutting grass.So many characters that have had the opportunity of being published once or twice in some newspapers started parading the corridors of politicians brandishing their so-called portfolio and because of the limited knowledge of their clients they cornered fat contracts. This was more so with clients that had more cash than sense, and were hell-bent to win elections by hook and crook.

It may not be necessary to mention which political party did what or which politician wasted dollars on propaganda, but attempt will be made to speak on the different approaches employed by different parties.

What was clear and what informed the title of this piece was that while a political parry employed public relations strategy and astute media management, another party relied heavily on propaganda, trouble shooting and outright falsehood. In electioneering, what matters most to the electorate is visibility. Your facts and claims must be vis-

farers.

Buhari is not being advised to quarantine himself. The last thing he needs to do now is develop a carapace of insularity.

He needs to be very hospitable to many people and many ideas.

However, the company Buhari needs to keep most now is those who can help him shape his agenda. Those who he sits with must be smart men and women who bring something to the table. They must come equipped with pragmatic proposals on how the tenure can deliver the deliverables that matter most.

Nigeria has a vast, inexhaustible talent pool. We have the best brains in different spheres of human endeavor. At home and in Diaspora, many of our gifted countrymen yearn for an opportunity to offer their know-how in the service of their homeland. Buhari needs to fill his quiver with them.

The tenet of federal character demands that he accommodates many identities to massage the sense of inclusion. Of course, like any product of our kind of politics, Buhari will also be under pressure to pencil down some names against certain ‘juicy positions’ as a token of gratitude or reward to donors and sponsors and others who laid hefty bets on his chance.

He needs the courage to give priority to merit. Only those with demonstrable capacity to function at the level of excellence should make his vetting list. His success or failure will depend on the quality of his hires and how prudently he deploys their competencies. If he makes his picks solely to appease election investors, he would have failed even before he begins.

A nation perennially shortchanged by delinquent leadership is in a hurry to see the sandal-wearing ascetic acquit himself.

Nigerian people have fulfilled Buhari’s dream. He must return the favor by alleviating their nightmare.

• Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu @emmaugwutheman

ible and verifiable. Outright lies will achieve opposite result from what is intended.

There should also be consistency. A party hinged its claim to purposefulness on simple cardinal points. And as we do in Public Relations; the party remained consistent and focused harping on the cardinal points which in no time became a sing song. And where it attacked its major opponent, it chose only three or four of the opponent’s failings and harped on such failings to no end. As a result, its opponent was identified with only the failings it was branded with.

Party A also chose symbol, an arrow head.

The symbol was well packaged, refined and corporately branded such that the symbol became a towering figure to be trusted and believed.

Party B spent the whole world oozing out raw propaganda, creating falsehoods and spent a hell of time not on what it could or would do if voted into power, but throwing punches like a blindfolded boxer. In the end, Party B became odious and nauseating simply on the strength of the stench coming out from the belly of its chief propagandists.

Insults do not win an argument. And throwing tantrums at one’s opponent is not the best way to win sympathy from observers. In a society where respect for elders is mandatory, any propagandist that disrespects the norm in the name of electioneering will only succeed in losing the love and affection of the generality of the society that upholds the norm of respect for elders.

It is also important to mention that media communicators for a political party must speak with same voice and in the same language. But where you have a cacophony of voices with unrhymed tunes, there is always the danger of confusing the listeners and the

electorate.

All in all, it was a colossal waste of resources, especially money and materials because propaganda does not come cheap. Of all the forms of relevant communication genres; marketing, advertising, public relations, propaganda is the most expensive. And apart from in battle, propaganda does not actually achieve much. Those who therefore expended all their resources on cheap propaganda have now learnt to their chagrin that outright lies and mischief do not win elections.

For the purpose of those who may be seeking to learn a lesson or two from this piece, anyone wishing to handle media campaigns either for politicians or political parties must first and foremost recognise the symbol of his campaign and package the symbol properly before setting out to market the symbol or object/subject.

If the arrow head of the campaign especially in political matters is rotten, no amount of propaganda can wash it clean. The first thing to do in the circumstance is to use what is called silent persuasion to make the symbol a bit acceptable before you can market it with extensive public relations and defence.

Unfortunately, everybody thinks he or she is a communication expert or public relations guru, and many patrons do not know the difference. It is now hoped that with the recent experience as an eye opener, Nigerians and all those seeking g public office in the future will be more guided in their choice of who can best help them put their message across and who can win them friends as opposed to those whose tantrums will garner enemies in droves.

It can be said without fear of contradiction that the recent electoral battle was fought, won and lost as media management dictated.

It was not all about money. As a two-term chairman of Nigerian Institute of Public Relations, I should know.

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

25

’

The insane status-quo, where many states endowed with natural resources operate as poor church-rats, because a law incongruous with federalism, has placed all the mineral resources in the country, in the hands of the Fderal Government, must change

’

See page 39

E-mail:- law@thenationonlineng.net

Like every profession, law has also been infiltrated by quacks. This is giving the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) sleepless nights. It has come out with a stamp, which it believes will stop the quacks. How far can this measure go?

ADEBISI ONANUGA reports.

•Alegeh

•Justice Mohammed

Stamping out fake lawyers L

INSIDE:

AW is universally acclaimed to be a noble and honourable profession. It is guided by a code of conduct which every practitioner is expected to abide with.

But today, the code is being abused by quacks who have infiltrated the profession.

Fake lawyers now handle cases in courts and, in some instances, offer legal advice to unsuspecting clients. Some have lost millions to these quacks.

For instance, a Ghanaian, Keinde Dodo, was once arrested for practising as a lawyer when he had no such training. The 74-yearold Ghanaian ran a law firm and had been in practice for 15 years before he was arrested, tried and jailed.

On February 5, last year, a suspected fake lawyer, Daniel Ikhidenor Ikhuoria, 30, was arrested at the Lagos High Court, Igbosere, where he went to attend court proceedings.

The suspect was caught by a police orderly attached to the Appeal Court Deputy Chief Registrar (DCR).

During interrogation by the police, the suspect, who lives at 34, Nathaniel Osagie

What’s NJC’s role in judges’ appointment?

-Page 27

Avenue on Ikorodu Road, Owode, Onirin, Lagos, allegedly confessed that he was a fake lawyer. In his confessional statement, the suspect claimed he had been practicing as a lawyer since 2011 and represented clients at the magistrate and high courts.

He admitted not to have attended the Law School or studied law. He merely bought a gown and wig and started practising as a lawyer.

The police arraigned him before a Tinubu Magistrate’s court. Chief Magistrate A.O. Awogboro granted him N500,000 bail, among other conditions. He was remanded in Ikoyi Prison when he failed to meet the bail conditions.

Another fake lawyer, Jonathan Kingsley, 25, was caught at the Ebute-Metta Magistrate’s Court while claiming to be a lawyer in a criminal case.

Kingsley had appeared before the court to defend a suspect, Akin Afolabi, in a charge of defilement before he was caught by the Chief Magistrate, A. A. Demi-Ajayi.

It was learnt that after announcing his ap-

Igbo lawyers seek Ambode’s reassurance -Page 37

pearance as a counsel for Afolabi, the Chief Magistrate had queried Kingsley due to his clumsy introduction which betrayed him. The court subsequently issued a bench warrant for his arrest after which he was arraigned on onecount charge offence.

The charge reads: “That you, Jonathan Kingsley, on May 13, 2014 at about 11am at Chief Magistrate Court 6, Ebute-Metta, Lagos; in the Lagos Magisterial District did present yourself as a lawyer in a case of Commissioner of Police versus Akin Afolabi with charge number F/22/2014 in order to be acted upon as genuine, knowing to have been false.”

The offence was said to be contrary to Section 378 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, Nigeria 2011. Kingsley pleaded not guilty. The Chief Magistrate admitted him to bail in for N300, 000 with two sureties.

Meanwhile, Afolabi, whom Kingsley said he wanted to defend in court, was acquitted of wrong doing by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP). The DPP in its advice said the defendant had no case to answer.

The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice

Mahmud Mohammed, had last week expressed great concern about the rising number of ‘fake’ lawyers in the country.

Speaking during the launch of Stamp for Lawyers, produced by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), the CJN lamented the prevalence of fake lawyers, saying it negatively affects the integrity of the legal profession and casts a shadow of disrepute on the judiciary as an arm of government. He regretted that one of the major challenges facing judges “is how to differentiate between a “real” and “fake” legal practitioner”.

He added: “Indeed, Judges find it difficult to identify which counsel, appearing before them, is genuine or otherwise.

“Of even greater concern is the fact that members of the public are often left in a quandary over who they can place their trust, property and even lives in.

“We must not forget that the credibility of the Bar has a direct impact on respect for the Rule of Law and the independence of the •Continued page 26

Lawyers disagree on gay rights at Commonwealth conference -Page 40

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

26

LAW COVER CONT’D ‘’The legal practice is an integral part of our society and governance and to input sanity in the system is best acceptable practise all over the world. Anyone found to misrepresent himself/herself as a lawyer should also be made to face the consequence,’’ he said.

Ubani on his part noted that the havoc caused by fake lawyers in the country cannot be quantified and so every effort must be put in place to erase them from the legal profession. He argued that the stamp and seal policy of the leadership of the NBA is very commendable and one of the far reaching measures that the leadership of the bar is enthroning as measure to fight fake lawyers in the legal profession.

He, however, said that more needs to be done by the various branches to combat effectively this menace.

“Every lawyer practicing under a branch must be made to register with the branch. Registration will entail presentation of qualifying papers to the branch to ensure that the lawyer is qualified to practice law. With that encompassing arrangement everyone that is unable to follow this simple process becomes a suspect whose identity should be properly verified before he can be recognized as a lawyer,” Ubani said.

Lagos lawyer Emeka Nwadioke said quacks are prevalent in virtually all professions in Nigeria.

“The reason is not far-fetched. In fact, the incidence of quackery in the legal industry is a global menace. Fake lawyers and bogus law firms exist in the United States and the United Kingdom, too.

“However, the quest by the Bar association to contain the malaise has at best been in fits and starts, even unsatisfactory. Indeed, a sense of monetization had pervaded programmes aimed at authenticating genuine lawyers in Nigeria. It is safe to say that many lawyers viewed the Stamp projects as merely moneymaking ventures instead of projects decisively targeted at tackling the malaise head-on.

“This led to a sense of disinterest and disenchantment among lawyers, and made a buyin from the critical mass an uphill task. Not surprisingly, the problem remains with us even after lawyers have been subjected to multiple “verification” exercises over the years. The current exercise has not evaded the charge of commercialization either.

“I commend the decisiveness of the NBA leadership in pursuing the stamp project. However, I am not confident that the current exercise will contain the malaise for the simple reason that the quacks are not likely to give in easily merely because the Bar Association has now devised a “stamp” to be affixed on legal documents. Even more worrisome is that the two “key security features” on the stamp are merely on colour differentiation and Bar enrolment details. If we are dealing with fakes, we really need to up our game,” Nwadioke said

•Continued from page 25

Courts,” the CJN said.

The NBA, Ikeja branch in February held a brainstorming session on the need to sanitise the legal profession which has come under public ridicule owing to the activities of quacks.

A lawyer, Taiwo Adedeji, had at the session, expressed concern on the practice of the profession. He lamented that many fake lawyers now operate in the industry and expressed concern on how to salvage the profession from quacks. He urged the leadership of the Bar to be proactive more than before on issues of enforcement of the law by arresting and prosecuting fake lawyers.

Worried by this ugly trend and the need to cub the activities of these quacks, the NBA inaugurated a 13-man Committee in July, last year to enforce the Stamp and Seal Policy of the association to differentiate authentic lawyers from the fake ones.

During the committee’s inauguration, the then President, Mr. Okey Wali (SAN), said one of the roles of the association was to explore means of regulating its members’ activities through various ways of identification.

Wali said the committee had the mandate of identifying fake lawyers through identification by seal and maintaining an accurate members’ directory through the information contained in the application form for the seal.

The committee was also mandated to ensure that lawyers in practice paid their practising fees annually, adding that the seal would be renewed annually upon proof of payment of practising fees. The significance of using the seal was underscored by the provision of Rules 10(1), (2), & (3) of the Rules of Professional Conduct for legal practitioners.

The Provision of the rules of professional conduct further states that the NBA shall interface with the judiciary to include the compulsory usage of seals by legal practitioners in their practice. The former NBA President said this policy could only have effect when the judiciary ensured that only documents bearing the stamp and seal were allowed for filing in the court or admitted in evidence at trials.

However, Wali was unable to implement the Stamp and Seal policy before his tenure ended in August, last year. His successor, Mr. Augustine Alegeh (SAN) in his inaugural address on August 29, renewed the bid of the judiciary to collaborate with the new NBA Executive Committee to in its efforts to rid the legal profession of quacks.

Observers are worried whether the use of practice stamp alone can stave off fake lawyers or whether the NBA needs to evolve other method and strategies to identify genuie lawyers. The concern arose out of the knowledge of growing number of fake law firm websites that are scamming “clients”, using real attorneys’ profiles. Others however see the acquisition of seals by the NBA as not only a move which can properly regulate its members but also regulate the practice of law in the country.

The CJN, at the launch of the stamp, said a key role of the NBA is the regulation of its members’ identities through various means of identification.

He urged every lawyer to ensure that the stamp is used as a veritable means of authenticating a qualified legal practitioner and the documents emanating from him.

“I believe that the stamp can, if properly deployed, become a hallmark of a firm’s work and a way for prospective clients to better identify their counsel- a veritable means to “Know Your Counsel, Thus, having an innovation, which may bestow a “stamp” of integrity and respect, is indeed welcome. “Indeed the significance of this event is underpinned by the provision of Rule 10 (1) of the Rules of Professional Conduct for Legal Practitioners 2007. This rule mandates that a lawyer acting in his or her capacity as a legal practitioner, legal officer or adviser of any government department or corporation, shall not sign or file a legal document unless his stamp and seal are affixed on any such document.

“The Stamp we are here to launch today has breathed life into this provision and further elevated legal practice in Nigeria to meet the challenges of an evolving society,” the CJN added.

Lawyers who spoke on how the stamp and seal could be used to check the activities of quacks in the profession include a former Presidential aspirant of the NBA, Funke Adekoya (SAN), Chairman, NBA, Ikeja Branch, Yinka Farounbi, a member of the Ogun State Judicial Service Commission, Abayomi Omoyinmi, Emeka Nwadioke and former chairman, NBA Ikeja Branch, Monday Ubani.

Reactions Adekoya (SAN) said the practice stamps, if properly implemented will ensure that fake lawyers cannot practice. “I wholeheartedly sup-

•Adekoya

•Wali

•Ubani

•Nwadioke

•Omoyinmi

•Farounbi

Stamping out fake lawyers port the concept, which was the centre point of my campaign for the position of 1st Vice President of the NBA in 2002. So better late than never. She remarked that issuing of stamps and seals to lawyers is however only the first step. “Mode of implementing the concept, enforcement and continuity by following administrations of the NBA are key to the eradication of fake lawyers. I have discussed mode of implementation and enforcement with various branches all over Nigeria. My thoughts are well documented and easily available to those who want such information,” she said.

Farounbi lamented that desperate characters took advantage of the harsh economic situations in the country and started cutting corners and infiltrated the Legal profession as fake Lawyers. He noted that the ugly trend has been with us for a reasonable length of time. He recalled that a couple of steps had been taken to stem the situation though, with little success.

According to him, the establishment do not envisage the infiltration by these fakes, so, no predetermined solution was ever put in place and that in situations of this nature, different

‘

approaches would be the order of the day.

He argued that the stamp and seal of the NBA is the first progressive and bold step ever taken to contain the activities of fake lawyers that has become rampant within the system. He said that this new approach must be developed to sanitize the system. Like I did observe earlier, a journey has been commenced and it could be improved upon. Thus and contrary to what may seem the general believe of the people, I am of a very strong opinion that the NBA has taken a bold step in eliminating the trend of fake Lawyers in our society.

Omoyinmi described the issue of prevalence of fake lawyers as a very sad story in the profession. “That the CJN can speak out on the issue of fake lawyers is an indictment on everyone that belong to the legal profession. How did we get to this stage?”

“I think the bar association under the leadership of the NBA president should, ultimately, do the right thing to right the wrongs on this issue, I think the time has now come to introduce the practise stamp without any further delay so that the public can have confidence in our legal system with reference to legal representation in matter of law.

I believe that the stamp can, if properly deployed, become a hallmark of a firm’s work and a way for prospective clients to better identify their counsel- a veritable means to “Know Your Counsel, thus, having an innovation, which may bestow a “stamp” of integrity and respect, is indeed welcome

‘

Way out For further improvement and solution to the menace, Farounbi enjoined the Bar to make sure that every lawyer is captured in the NBA database. This will enable easier identification of any Lawyer whomsoever on a mere prompt of the button.

Equally, like we have the Directory of SANs reviewed periodically, the entire lawyers in the country should have a directory reviewable at least once in five years.

Ubani emphasised the need for every practicing lawyer to put up an antenna to decipher in any relationship involving a lawyer to find out whether that person is a qualified lawyer. The members of the public must also report any untoward acts of these so called lawyers as many of these fake lawyers find it difficult to exhibit honesty and integrity in transactions. My advice is that every hand must be on deck to check this menace and eradicate the scourge of fake lawyers.

Nwadioke called for a full implementation of the new initiative. “I find more exciting and sustainable the prospects of legal email and court automation vis-à-vis authentication through internet and intranet platforms as advanced by the CJN. It seems that with a secure ICT architecture, these platforms will offer a more full-proof alternative.

“Ultimately, we may never eradicate quacks, but we can devise a system that reliably and consistently punishes,such as miscreants.

There is no alternative to a vigorous and consistent prosecution of suspected quacks.

“The naming and shaming exercise must be deliberate, concerted and unrelenting.

Bar branches must own the project while the Bar/Bench Forum and sundry agencies should be fully utilised to fish out the quacks. This is however notwithstanding the legal hurdles the stamp project must scale to gain validity,” Nwadioke said.

27

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

LEGAL OPINION A lawyer, Chief Kunle Uthman, examines the new guidelines for the appointment of judges and points out where he thinks the National Judicial Council (NJC) got it wrong.

What’s NJC’s role in judges’ appointment?

I

N the recent past, the Guidelines and Pro cedure of Appointment of Judges of the state High Courts have been widely criticised, lampooned by stakeholders and critics as fraught with irregularities, not merit driven and allegedly subject to influence of the political class, traditional rulers, members of the National Judicial Council (NJC), and opportunities for former and serving Judges, and indeed some very senior lawyers to ingratiate their children in the system. This trend has become extremely worrisome because in truth there are several instances, where children of former judges and prominent lawyers have been appointed.

The high point of these criticisms was the seminar organised by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), Access to Justice and the Nigerian Bar Association for Stakeholders to review the process and make recommendations, with a view to improve the process of appointment of Judges to the State High Courts and evolve a more holistic approach, devoid of the influences hereinabove stated.

Mr. Joseph Otteh, Executive Director of Access To Justice in an article on the 2014 Revised Guidelines stated: ‘’Where the procedures of appointment are weak, flawed or vulnerable, the outcomes of the process will likely mirror those frailties and faults; indeed, some persons who get into judicial office through this means may just be accidents waiting to happen.’’.

In these circumstances, the 2014 Revised National Judicial Council Guidelines & Procedural Rules for the Appointment of Judicial Officers of All Superior Courts of Record in Nigeria was a reactionary response to the deluge and barrage of criticisms and an effort to evolve a foolproof procedure in the appointment process. However, a perusal of the document compared with the January, 2004 Guidelines shows that the draftsmen ran foul of constitutional provisions and some of the rules are unconstitutional and in excess of the powers of the National Judicial Council, which is itself a creation of the 1999 Constitution.

Paragraph 21(c) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria states: ”The National Judicial Council shall recommend to the Governor from among the list of persons submitted to it by the State Judicial Service Commission persons for appointments to the offices of the Chief Judges of High Courts of the States.”

The Powers of the State Judicial Service Commission are contained in Paragraph 6 of Part II of the Third Schedule. The Commission shall have power to advice the National Judicial Council on suitable persons for nomination to the office of the Chief Judge of the State and Judges of the High Courts of the State.

The power of the National Judicial Council on the appointment of judges of the state High Courts is to recommend to the Governors from among the list of persons submitted to it by the State Judicial Service Commission. Emphasis is on ‘to recommend’ and not to ‘appoint’.

The 2014 National Judicial Council Revised Guidelines are more comprehensive and in some parts a radical variation of the 2004 Revised Guidelines and Procedural Rules. In

some cases it whittled down the Constitutional powers of the Judicial Service Commission, gives undue powers to the Chief Judges and gives to the NJC powers to conduct interview of persons proposed for appointment of state High Court Judges, impose sanctions on such applicants and assumed a function never envisaged by the 1999 Constitution. In retrospect, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria ought to have presented this document to the stakeholders for perusal, appraisal and discussion, to enable them make their input prior to its operations, because of its far reaching effect on a process that has been extensively criticized and lampooned as porous and not merit driven.

The provisions of Rule Three are novel, because it enjoins the Judicial Service Commission to call for expression of interest by suitable candidates by way of public notice placed on its website, notice boards of Courts and Notice Boards of the Nigerian Bar Association Branches and as relates to appointment of state High Court Judges write to the Chairman of every Branch of the Nigeria Bar Association in the state concerned, asking for nomination of suitable candidates for the proposed Judicial appointment and requesting that he/she brings to the notice of suitable candidates the call for expression of interest by each of them.

This provision is a radical departure from Rule 2 (2) of the 2004 National Judicial Council Guidelines which limits the call for nomination to Judicial Officers of Superior Courts in the State concerned and Heads of Superior Courts only. The 2014 Guidelines recognises the interest of all the other stakeholders in the appointment process and is therefore commendable.

Rule Three (4) stipulates that soon after the close of nominations the Chairman of the State Judicial Service Commission (not the Judicial Service Commission) shall make provisional shortlist on the merits consisting of not more than twice the number of Judicial Officers intended to be appointed and circulate the list with a request for comments on the suitability or otherwise of the shortlisted candidates.

This provision is a radical departure from the former process that requires the State Judicial Service Commission to prepare two lists of A and B to be the “Priority” & “Reserved” lists. This provision erodes the power of the State Judicial Service Commission and constitutes the Chief Judge, for all intents and purposes as the sole appointing authority. This provision is contrary to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution which explicitly vests this responsibility on the Commission and not solely its Chairman.

In the hands of a sole appointing authority, the process is susceptible to abuse, misuse and a veritable means of patronage. Rule Three (5) states that “The Chairman of State Judicial Service Commission shall place the provisional shortlist before the State Judicial Service Commission for approval, with or without modification and the provisional shortlist shall become the Final list”. It was NEVER the intention of the Constitution to constitute a rubber stamp State Judicial Service Commission of the Chief Judge, but that the State Judicial Service Commission would

actively be involved in the appointment process and thereby take responsibility for the quality of Judges in their States.

Rule 6 (i) provides that all shortlisted candidates shall undergo interview to be conducted by National Judicial Council to ascertain suitability. This provision is in bad taste and gives the NJC powers to determine the persons to choose, at its discretion, based on parameters not stated, who would be appointed judicial officers, such as High Court Judges in state courts. This provision empowers the NJC “to appoint”.

It is in total contravention of Judicial federalism and undermines the constitutional primary role of the State Judicial Service Commission. It is neither the duty nor responsibility of the National Judicial Council to “appoint” Judges in State High Courts. I believe that realising the foolhardiness of Rule 1, Rule 2 of the 2014 Guidelines makes a superfluous provision, that the mode of interview shall be determined by Council. Is it written examination, oral interview or both?

The failure to resolve this question makes the document non-transparent and subject to the discretion of the composition of the National Judicial Council, which is not of itself devoid of the political dynamics of the appointment process and cannot be said to be insulated from political manipulations.

Rule 6 (3) and (4) of the 2014 Guidelines are contradictory. While (3) states that the interview shall form a major part of the candidates suitability, (4) stipulates that ‘a candidate who is unsuccessful at the interview shall not be recommended for appointment by the Council.’

Rule 6 (5) stipulates that a candidate once rejected on the several grounds stated in Rule 4 (4) (ii) shall not be represented for at least 2 years or any such period as the Council may direct. What happens to the candidate who is unsuccessful at the interview contemplated in Rule 6 (4)? There is a serious lacunae here.

Did the Guidelines envisage that such a candidate may also not be representable within two years or can be presented immediately afterwards? It is important to know the penalty that would be imposed on a candidate who is unsuccessful at the interview.

In trying to find solutions to the heavily criticised procedure for the appointment of Judges, as contained in the 2004 Guidelines, the NJC in the 2014 Guidelines have created numerous problems and further complicated the process. The Chief Judges have been given enormous powers and depending on the calibre of the person in the office of Chief Judge and his/her perception of his/her role, there would be the likelihood of recommending their surrogates, friends and relations, as the case may be.

Also, it is not unlikely that the Chief Judges may not ordinarily be versed in the suitability of legal practitioners and Attorneys in the Ministries of Justice or the academia, to enable them prepare a transparently fair list that would encapsulate the interests of all aspirants.

The 2014 Guidelines has eroded the primary functions of the State Judicial Service Commission, the body constitutionally empowered to appoint High Court Judges of their respective States; they interact with and most likely know the applicants personally; they are more competent to

•Uthman

choose based on parameters set. If anybody or persons should conduct an interview as envisaged in Rule 6, it is the State Judicial Service Commission and not the NJC, as is prevalent in other Commonwealth jurisdictions.

What the Amended Guidelines sought to achieve is to whittle down the possible political intermeddling that may take place in the States or unbearable pressure by the traditional rulers, politicians or influential persons on the State Judicial Service Commission. This assumption seemingly wellfounded is unjustifiable, because of the calibre of persons that constitute the State Judicial Service Commissions, who on their own, are presented to the State Houses of Assembly for approval prior to assumption of office.

Afterall, in the past, nominations by the State Judicial Service Commission had been distorted and tampered with at the National Judicial Council in preference to candidates favoured by National Judicial Council influential members. According to Joseph Otteh: “there was a time, as legal historians say, that Nigeria’s Judiciary was the Continent’s showpiece. How did Nigeria squander that legacy so voraciously”.

The 2014 Revised National Judicial Council Guidelines & Procedural Rules for the Appointment of Judicial Officers of All Superior Courts of Record in Nigeria is in my candid opinion unconstitutional and ultra vires the powers of the NJC, whose effort to expand its jurisdiction and area of influence in a matter ordinarily the purview of the State Judicial Service Commission is ultra vires its power and constitutes nothing but intermeddlesomeness in the affairs of the State High Courts.

The NJC’s constitutional responsibility in appointment of state High Court Judges is to ratify nominees of the Judicial Service Commission and not to interview, fail, pass or determine the judges for the state. Afterall, the judges are judges of the State High Courts and not Federal Judges. Their spheres of influence and jurisdictions are limited within the geographical delineated boundaries of their states.

•From left: Meembers of Leaders of Lawyers for Change Emmanuel Otobo, Adesina Ogunlana, Adedayo Adesola and Yomi Omoyele at a briefing in Lagos

28

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

LAW & SOCIETY Teenager arraigned for alleged theft

By Adebisi Onanuga

A

•From left (Standing): Odogwu, Agetue, Nkwuka, Okolie, Ofuokwu, Ijeh, Ezeife, Francis, Ashimedua, Omeligwe, Nmarkwe and Nwalupue. at an event.

Lawyer to Buhari: keep defectors at arm’s length

A

CONSTITUTIONAL lawyer, Mr Ike Ofuokwu, has urged General Muhammadu Buhari to keep Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) members who defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) at arm’s length if the fight against corruption must be won.

He said corruption remains one of Nigeria’s major ills; therefore corrupt persons who seek protection from prosecution in APC must not be tolerated.

“I strongly believe that the Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (GMB) administration will restore Nigeria’s lost glory. As we have canvassed severally in the past, all the ills that have eaten into the fabric of this project called Nigeria are founded on corruption.

“The moment we are able to get rid of this monster called corruption, every other thing will fall in place. GMB has done it before and he will do it again.

“The GMB administration must be very weary of political jobbers who have no other job other than to feed fat on any government in power.

“All this political decampees should be welcomed but put at arms length so as not to

By Joseph Jibueze

infect the incoming administration,” Ofuokwu said.

The lawyer, an APC leader in Oshimili North Local Government Area of Delta State, mobilised the party members in the state to vote for Gen. Buhari and Prof Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) as well as the APC governorship candidate during the general elections.

Addressing APC leaders during one of the meetings, Ofuokwu urged them support the party and demonstrate to members in the other states that they are true agents of change.

“We must avoid the need for our state to be in the opposition. We need to align completely with what is happening at the centre.

“I am tired with the report of some of us still drawing the distinction between Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Needless to reiterate again that for almost two years now we are one big family called APC without any distinction. We are all fighting the cabal and impunity called PDP.”Furthermore, there is need for us to

maintain peace despite all conspiracies from the PDP to provoke you to anger. It is quite unfortunate that the PDP in this state particularly in our LGA have been using their power of incumbency to emasculate other parties.

“They boasted before everyone that irrespective of our numerical strength that our vote will not count. I want to assure you all that it’s only a question of time and the reality would be done on them as it has happened at the centre. Be rest assured that this wind of change blowing is inevitable in Delta state,” said Ofuokwu.

At the meeting were APC Ward 5 ViceChairman Sunday Odogwu; LGA Leader Morgan Agetue; LGA Assistant Organising Secretary Henry Nkwuka; Ward 5 Chairman Patrick Okolie; LGA Leader Chief Kizito Ijeh (who was LGA Coordinator, Buhari/Osinbajo Campaign Group); LGA Leader Miss Judith Ezeife; LGA Women Leader Isioma Francis; Assistant Ward 5 Women Leader Mrs Awele Ashimedua; Ward 5 Publicity Secretary James Omeligwe; Ward 4 chairman Prince Azuh Nmarkwe and LGA Exco member Miss Lima Nwalupue.

Igbo lawyers seek Ambode’s reassurance

I

GBO lawyers under the aegis of Otu Oka Iwu have congratulated Mr. Akinwumi Ambode on his victory as Lagos State governor-elect.

Describing Ambode’s victory as “historic,” the umbrella association of Igbo lawyers noted that “as a veteran civil servant, the governorelect has the experience to take Lagos State to the next level, given the stellar performance of accomplished lawyer, Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN).”

In a statement by its president Mr. Zik Obi II and Publicity Secretary Mr. Emeka Nwadioke, the association prasied Mr. Jimi Agbaje for bowing to the wishes of the electorate and congratulating Ambode on his victory in the hotly contested election.

It added that such “sportsmanship is increasingly taking root in our political sphere”.

By Joseph Jibueze

On the controversy generated by Oba Rilwan Akiolu’s statement urging Igbos to vote Ambode or perish in the “water”, the law society urged Ambode to “take specific steps to reassure all Lagos residents that his administration will not engage in a deliberate policy that adversely targets any individual or groups.”

It added: “It has become even more pressing to take definite measures aimed at rebuilding confidence in the entire populace and assuring all that Lagos remains the ideal place to pursue the ‘Nigerian dream’ with honesty and diligence.

“We urge the governor-elect to emulate the President-elect Muhammadu Buhari by committing to the promotion of rule of law, just and principled governance where no-one is op-

pressed due to favouritism based on ethnicity, religion, region, gender or social status.

“The governor-elect must also sustain the exemplary law reforms of the Fashola Administration and indeed take the reforms to the next level. The justice sector has been given a breath of fresh air due to these laudable reforms.

“However, it naturally remains a work in progress. While assuring the Governor-elect of our support and cooperation, we urge him to ensure a level playing field in the area of law enforcement, such that all Nigerians are equal before the law.

“More importantly, deliberate steps should be taken to curb the excesses of law enforcement agencies promoted by the state by speedily isolating and bringing to justice the bad eggs in their midst.”

TEENAGER, Tope Oluwashola, has been arraigned before an Ikeja Chief Magistrate Court, Lagos for allegedly stealing a computer laptop belonging to one Abiona Olusola.

Oluwashola, 19, is facing a three-count charge.

Police prosecutor, Inspector E. I. Nnamonu told Chief Magistrate A. O. Komolafe of Ikeja Chief Magistrate Court that Oluwashola with others, allegedly burgled Olusola’s at No. 1 Muyideen Adeoye Street, Ogudu Orioke, Ojota last month and stole one Ipad phone valued N115,000, a Niopa laptop worth N95,000 and N250,000 cash.

He said the offence is contrary to Section 309(a) and punishable under Section 409 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State of Nigeria 2011.

But the defendant pleaded not guilty.

Chief Magistrate Komolafe granted the defendant bail for N100,000 and one surety.

She orderd that the surety must be a blood relation and must show evidence of tax payment and verifiable address.

She later adjourned the matter to May 21, 2011.

LEGAL DIARY Ikeja NBA holds seminar

T

HE Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Ikeja Branch will hold a seminar on May 5 and 6.

Organised by the Continuous Legal Education Committee, the event, which has as theme: Sustaining the tempo of cutting edge professionalism, will hold at the Adetiloye Hall of Archbishop Vining Memorial Cathederal Church, Ikeja.

Chairman of the committee, Mr. Victor Okpara, said no fewer than 30 justices of the Federal Court of Appeal, Federal and Lagos High Courts and senior members of the bar are expected to attend.

Firm holds lecture

T

HIS year’s edition of PUNUKA Attorneys & Solicitors yearly lecture will hold on April 30 at the Metropolitan Club,Victoria Island, Lagos at 10am.

It has the theme: Anti-corruption and bribery laws: Extra territorial applications and lessons for businesses and government agencies.

The lecture is aimed at bringing key industry players and stakeholders on topical issues on law, the economy, financial matters, good governance, nation-building, among others.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Emmanuel Olayinka Ayoola will chair the event, while Associate Professor and Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto Prof Mariana Mota Prado, will be the Guest Lecturer.

The lecture will also have a Panel of Discussants that willl deliberate on the subject.

Senior Partner of the firm Chief Anthony Idigbe (SAN) said the discourse presented from both international and local perspectives would address, among other issues, the efficacy of anti-corruption laws, the extra territorial application of foreign anti-bribery laws, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act & UK Bribery Act, the advent of the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria with focus on the effectiveness of their anti-corruption policies and campaign and the implication for the economy, businesses and government institutions.

Funeral for Justice Olugbani’s wife

T

HE wife of Justice Moshood Olugbani (rtd), the late deaconess Winifred Olufunmilayo Olugbani (nee Onebote), will be buried on Friday.

A wake-keep will hold on Thursday at Central Car Park Phase II, Adeniji Adele Road at 5pm while the funeral service will hold at Wesley Methodist Church, Obalende by 11am on Friday, to be followed by interment at Ikoyi cemetery.

The reception will hold at the Yoruba Tennis Club after the interment.

•Representatives of Lagos State Local Government Areas at the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) conference in Glasgow.

Newspaper of the Year

AN 8-PAGE PULLOUT ON NORTHERN STATES

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

PAGE 29

INSIDE A modern mosque for Lokoja

PAGE 30

Hope for textile revival

•A part of Katsina

Inset: Gen. Buhari

The sweet savour of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the polls has not subsided in Daura, his hometown in the north of Katsina State. But when he visited the emirate after the elections, the enthusiastic crowd made it clear they wanted a president for all Nigerians, not a provincial or regional leader.

TONY AKOWE reports

T

THE crowd that welcomed him at the Katsina airport was comparable to the multitude that queued up to vote for him. They chanted his name as he rode triumphantly to Daura, his ancestral home. But they also knew what kind of president they wanted: one who will make a huge difference as a true national leader.

It was the first time Daura residents and the people of the emirate were seeing the retired General after he became Presidentelect. It was all jubilation right

What Katsina expects from Buhari ‘He is a very friendly person and if you don’t come close to him, you will think that he is not friendly. But people think that you can be friends with people by giving them money or asking them to do something that is wrong. When he declines, somebody will think that he is not friendly. General Buhari is a very friendly person. One thing I like about him is that each time we talk there is always a lot of jokes that will make you laugh and relax and make you understand that he is listening and takes your advice’ from the Katsina airport as the people lined the road in joyous celebration.

A first-time visitor to Daura may be taken aback by the show of solidarity for the incoming president, but the General himself said it was nothing new. He told reporters that the reception he received from his people had always been overwhelming.

“The reception I receive in my constituency has always been like that since April 2002,” he said. “So,

for you, it may be something spectacular but it has always been a regular thing”.

Mallam Ahmed Abubakar, a resident of Kofar Baru in the heart of Daura town, told The Nation that though they were still celebrating the victory of their kinsman, he had never seen such a large turnout of people in the town.

“For all these years that Buhari had been contesting the election, right from the defunct ANPP [All Nigeria Peoples Party] to CPC

[Congress for Progressive Change] days, we have never witnessed such a large turnout of people,” he said.

“I think this is as a result of the victory for General Buhari and the APC [All Progressives Congress].

“At first we were scared, we thought the election may not hold, but we were only surprised to see that they are only here to observe the election. General Buhari has more supporters now than all other previous elections; you know in this country more than any other time before, Nigerians need change, we need someone who has the interest of the country at heart, we need someone that will embrace all Nigerians in respective of religion or tribe.”

Contrary to popular thinking, the people of the town do not believe that Buhari is a hard and rigid man who does not listen to people. Instead, they believe that he is always willing to share what he has. They believe that he is a good listener, with a good sense of humor.

Senator-elect for Katsina North senatorial district, Mustapha Bukar, who also hails from Daura, told The Nation that Buhari has always been a friendly person.

He said, “I believe that you have associated with him. Two weeks •Continued on page 30

PAGE 31

‘Darkness hurts’

PAGE 34

Winding down

PAGE 36

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

THE NORTH REPORT

T

HE mosque has enough to charm anyone. It is stately and imposing, even though it is only a one-storey building. Its facilities seem carefully chosen and meticulously built. Split-unit air-conditioners cool worshippers. A 100KV generator and another smaller one are on standby to keep the lights and air-conditioners on. Two Koranic Centres, one for male, the other for female worshippers, ensure there is order and strict adherence to standards.

There is also a two-bedroom quarters for the Imam.

But there is something else that makes the Isa Kutepa Mosque, Lokoja, capital City of Kogi State, one of a kind: it was the dream of a father, realised by a son.

The ultra-modern worship centre built by Lagos-based Kogi businessman and politician, Alhaji Abdulrazak Isa-Kutepa was commissioned at the weekend, witnessed by eminent Ni-

A modern mosque for Lokoja From James Azania, Lokoja

gerians, including the state governor, Capt. Idris Wada.

The philanthropist also donated a 100KV generator to the Catholic Cathedral located directly opposite the mosque.

When their patriarch, Isa Kutepa was alive, he had a vision to build a mosque on the site of his house in the heart of Lokoja, but could not fulfil the dream before his demise about 20 years ago. The children, not deterred, gave Abdulrazak IsaKutepa the nod to actualise their late father’s dream.

The Isa Kutepa siblings are three: Abdulrazak, Bello and Jumai, the eldest and only female.

The siblings were born and raised at the very site where the Isa Kutepa now stands magnificently. Though

‘When the patriarch, Isa Kutepa was alive, he had a vision to build a mosque on the site of his house in the heart of Lokoja, but could not fulfil the dream before his demise about 20 years ago. The children, not deterred, gave Abdulrazak Isa-Kutepa the nod to actualise their late father’s dream’ their father later moved to Zaria, Kaduna State, where he picked up employment with the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), their mother remained in Lokoja.

Speaking at the occasion of the commissioning of the multi-million naira mosque project, Abdulrazak Isa-Kutepa, an acknowledged philanthropist and

politician and business mogul, said the idea was in memory of their late father who had a strong faith in Islam.

The Etsu Nupe and Chairman, Niger State Council of Chiefs, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar while performing the official commissioning, commended Abdulrazak Kutepa for “initiating and investing hugely in building Allah’s worship place”.

The monarch said by doing so, Abdulrazak Kutepa has joined the league of Muslim Umah in propagating Islam. He called on other well-to-do Muslims to emulate Abdulrazak Kutepa by building similar Islamic worship and learning cen•Continued on page 32

What Katsina expects from Buhari •Continued from page 29 ago, you were in his house. He is a very friendly person and if you don’t come close to him, you will think that he is not friendly. But people think that you can be friends with people by giving them money or asking them to do something that is wrong. When he declines, somebody will think that he is not friendly. General Buhari is a very friendly person.

One thing I like about him is that each time we talk there is always a lot of jokes that will make you laugh and relax and make you understand that he is listening and takes your advice. You may say that he does not give you the answer quickly, but that is because he digests whatever you give him.

He does not just take things the way you think because anybody coming to a senior person like him would have thought through what he wanted and if the outcome is not what he is looking for, then he may think the man is not friendly. I think he is a very friendly person”.

Bukar who resigned his position as a District Head to contest the Senatorial seat, said the secret behind the people’s love for the General cannot easily be explained.

Bukar believes that he is liked because of his honesty.

“It is not money that makes him popular, but making people see him as an example. He is liked because he is honest and so, people come to him. They believe in his ideal, they believe he leads by example. He does not have to give them money, but he tells them what to do and when he was in a position to do what they wanted, he did not hesitate. When he was in PTF [Petroleum Trust Fund], he did a lot of projects and nobody has been able to do what he did.

No ministry has been able to do the amount of work that he did when he was in PTF and he made sure there is social justice. They believe he is a person that will ensure there is equity and what is need in any nation is to have that social justice and equity. Give people what they need. He is somebody who has always tried to show the people that there is social justice and that people should be given their dues. They people know that as a leader, he will take care of their responsibilities. The followers believe that

•The Daura gate anybody who is in a position of authority is there to take care of all their problems and there is no way he will allow anything to happen to them. Unfortunately, these days, the leaders who are supposed to take care of the subjects ends up compromising them. That is the difference. He is a very simple person to work with”.

For former Speaker of the House of Representatives and Governor elect of Katsina state, Right Honourable Aminu Bello Masari, the emergence of Gen. Buhari as President elect will be a plus for the state. Masari is not unaware of the fact that Buhari coming from Katsina will put a lot of pressure on his government. He told The Nation that “We are not meeting with Buhari on the platform of political party alone. We have a long standing relationship and now, we have a political relationship. That

‘We want Buhari to be a Nigerian leader. We don’t want him to be a regional, zonal or provincial leader. We want him to be a Nigerian leader that will leave a legacy of positive contribution to this country and that was the basis on which people elected him. So, we will help him to maintain and improve on those qualities which the people of Nigeria see in him. We will never do anything that will tarnish his image, his reputation or his standing internationally and nationally’ Buhari is from Katsina state, for us, is a plus, and that plus depends on how we manage it. We want Buhari to be a Nigerian leader. We don’t want Buhari to be a regional, zonal or provincial leader. We want him

to be a Nigerian leader that will leave a legacy of positive contribution to this country and that is the basis on which people elected him.

So, we will help him to maintain and improve on those qualities

which the people of Nigeria see in him. We will never do anything that will tarnish his image, his reputation or his standing internationally and nationally. When we go somewhere and say I am from Katsina, we want the doors to be open. So for us, it is a plus”.

Residents of the Daura are no doubt enjoying the new status of town. The attraction of different people to the town for the election, they said has increased business activities in the town and believe that with Buhari as Nigerian President, attention will now shift to the place just like it did other parts of the country that has produced Nigerian President.

However, they want the President elect to bring development to the place. They believe that business Centres such hotels and other recreation Centres should be attracted to the town.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

31

THE NORTH REPORT

Kwara women farmers seek help W

OMEN farmers in Kwara State have made clear their needs to the government. They said they needed such modern agricultural tools as tractors and soil-enriching inputs, even chemicals to fight crop-eating and other destructive pests, among other things.

It was not a lonely outing for the women growers. A raft of Civil Society groups and non-governmental organisations backed them as they made their case. The farmers were drawn from 18 communities in the state.

The civil society forum on women in agriculture is supported by other non-governmental organisations (NGO) such as Centre for Community Empowerment and Poverty Eradication (CCEPE) and Actionaid Nigeria).

The event was organised by the NGOs. The women farmers otherwise known as women in agriculture used the occasion to appeal to the state government to ensure adequate supply of fertilisers, herbicides and tractors to aid them.

A representative of the farmer from Kaiama Local Government Area, Silifat Mohammed, who said she has been farming for 22 years, lamented dearth of original herbicides and other farm inputs.

“We urge government to assist us with the provision of fertilizer, tractors and original herbicides. The last planting season I operated at a loss.

I expended about N85,000 for in planting beans but at the end I only harvested two bags. Insects invaded my farmland and ate them up,” she added.

Another who gave her name as Taiye Ibrahim, from Budo-Ara, Asa Local Government Area corrobo-

From Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

rated her colleagues.

She said: “We urge the state government to make fertiliser, herbicides and tractors available to aid our farming activities. We also want to feel the impact of agriculture extension services experts. We need funding too.”

Mrs. Ibrahim said she grew groundnuts, maize and yam.

Director, Agriculture Services, in the state Ministry of Agriculture, Abifarin Olawuyi, said the state government is not unaware of the women farmers’ contribution for the food sufficiency in the state.

Olawuyi said that the state government has always factored in the women farmers in its annual budget.

He added that the paltry amount allocated to the sector in the 2015 budget recently passed by the state House of Assembly was due to dwindling allocations from the federation account.

The director informed the gathering that the state government would make up for that in the supplementary budget.

State Director, Ministry of Planning and Economic Development, Alhaji Abdulazeez Oyelowo aligned with his colleague.

Chief Executive Officer, CCPE in the state, Kareem Suleiman said that the annual allocation to agriculture by successive governments in Nigeria is not enough to galvanise expected growth and development in the country.

Mr. Suleiman urged the state government “to endeavour to subsequently allocate an amount not less than 5 per cent of the total state budget to agricultural sector and progressively increase it to meet up with the

•Some of the women farmers at the event

‘A forum should be created by the state Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources for the participation of smallholder farmers, especially women and civil society organisations in the budgetary processes for ownership and the state government hould proactively engage the federal government to open up the Central Bank of Nigeria initiated ‘Nigerian incentive-based risk sharing system for agricultural lending’ for access by smallholder farmers, especially women’ 10 percent Maputo declaration commitment.”

He continued “since women participation in agricultural development cannot be overemphasized, considering their significant contribution in the agriculture value chain and food production, we recom-

mend that women farmers be accorded a pride of place in subsequent budgeting which could reflect in at least 30 percent budget allocation to direct line items aimed at supporting smallholder women farmers.

“While noting that allocation to extension services in the previous

Hope for textile revival

‘General Muhammadu Buhari’s victory must usher in new innovative policy changes that must ensure prosperity in place of existing mass poverty’

Textile workers hope that the incoming administration of General Muhammadu Buhari will revive the collapsed industry, reports TONY AKOWE

E

VEN before his administration takes off, President-elect Gen. Muhammadu Buhari is acutely aware that the country needs a new lease of life. Workers in the comatose textile industry are hopeful that the General’s government will inject new blood into their factories and get them working again.

Gen. Buhari himself was not oblivious of what lay before him.

“We know some big companies that employed a lot of Nigerians and gave them training facilities that have closed down... The important thing in a country with a huge population of youths with

years and 2015 agriculture budget has been non-existent, which has consistently being discouraging effective agriculture transfer technology by extension officer, we hereby recommend adequate funding for extension services which could reflect in at least 10 percent of the overall agriculture budget to bring about a more vibrant agriculture sector in our fledging agrarian state.

“That a forum should be created by the state ministry of agriculture and natural resources for the participation of smallholder farmers, especially women and civil society organizations in the budgetary processes for ownership.

“Finally, on agriculture financing and credit, we recommend that the state government should proactively engage the federal government to open up the Central Bank of Nigeria initiated ‘Nigerian incentive-based risk sharing system for agricultural lending’ (NIRSAL) for access by smallholder farmers, especially women.”

•Arewa Textiles Plc barely surviving more than 60 per cent of them under the age of 30 who are unemployed is to create job opportunities. You need these institutions to give jobs and training to Nigerians. Things just have to change.”

The textile industry used to perform that task. Not anymore.

In Kaduna, only the United Textiles Plc is operating skeletal services. After several years of closure, the company came back to life, operating minimally after receiving grants from the textile revival fund. Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo

From TONY AKOWE

launched the rebirth of the industry at an electorate ceremony in Kaduna in 2010.

Issa Aremu, General Secretary of the National Union of Textile, Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria said he believed that Buhari would revive the sector. Aremu challenged the incoming government to put in place policies that will see the industrial sector in the country bounce back to life again, while retaining and building on those policies of the Jonathan government that encourage good labour market.

He said, “General Muhammadu Buhari’s victory must usher in new innovative policy changes that must ensure prosperity in place of existing mass poverty. We however suggest that there must be continuity of some good labour market and industrial policies of Jonathan’s administration, such as freedom of association, right to unionisation, unfettered collective bargaining and the new National Industrial Revolution Plan (NIRP) and the national cotton, textile and garment policy, among others”.

Aremu lamented that in 2014, the

performance of the textile sector was very low.

“The performance of the Nigerian textile industry remained at a low ebb in 2014 due to lack of an enabling environment and inconsistency in government policy,” he said. “Key problems affecting the industry include persistent electricity supply crisis, inadequate raw materials, government’s inability to regulate imports, high cost of production inputs, unrestrained importation of fake counterfeit and substandard textiles from China, low patronage of made in Nigeria textiles, security challenges, high interest rate and recent devaluation •Continued on page 32

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

32

THE NORTH REPORT

Hope for textile revival

‘In 2015, we demand for patriotic industrial policies through direct mass actions to protect domestic industry. It is time we grow the non-oil sector’

•Continued from page 31 of the naira. The capacity utilisation in the industry remains below 50% and growth has been stagnant since 2012. The government had talked about a new textile policy in February 2013 [but] there has been no progress. Unless effective steps are taken by the government to revive the industry, gains achieved in 2010 will be lost, resulting in job losses, thus aggravating the unemployment situation. In 2015, we demand for patriotic industrial policies through direct mass actions to protect domestic industry. It is time we grow the non-oil sector”.

He assured that the union will partner with the incoming administration to take necessary steps to revive the ailing industries in Kaduna State especially the textile industry with a view of creating jobs for the mass of unemployed youths in the state.

However, many families who rely on the proceeds from the textile industries in Kaduna to earn a living are also hoping that life will come back to the industries again. Workers of the closed factories and their families as well as others who trade on one item or the other around the close factories are looking forward to the Buhari government collabo-

•Threads on the spools rating with the Nasir El-Rufai government in the state to breadth life into the industries. Many of those who lost their job due to closure of the industries and had to resort to commercial motorcycle business for their survival were dealt a big blow in 2014 when the Kaduna State government banned Okada operation.

Musa Yakubu who lost his job in one of the textiles companies in Kaduna when it closed down said he was finding life difficult.

He told The Nation: “We are find-

ing it extremely difficult to cope in the harsh economic condition of the county. As a man, I have to struggle to find what I can do. We involve ourselves in all kinds of menial jobs at construction sites. My wife roasts corn on a daily basis. Sometimes, I assist people on the farm and get paid. I was operating Okada when there is nothing I can do, but that had to stop when the state government banned okada.

Some of us could not afford to buy tricycles and the ones the government bought did not get to many of us.

Now, I do anything that can bring some legitimate money. I have four children; two are out of school because I cannot fund their education. The remaining two are in primary and secondary school, and I am struggling to pay their school fees. Accommodation has been the worst.

“The landlord has threatened to eject me. I want the company to be reopened so that we can be paid our entitlements.”

The Obasanjo administration launched the Textile Revival Fund as

•The mosque

•Continued from page 30 tres in their areas.

Governor Idris Wada who was the Guest of Honour at the occasion commended Abdulrazak Kutepa for building the mosque, stressing that it will promote the teaching and learning of Islam.

He called on other financially buoyant sons and daughters of the state to imbibe the philanthropic gesture of Alhaji

A modern mosque for Lokoja Abdulrazak Kutepa, so as to promote the Islamic religion in the state.

Abdulrazak Kutepa, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2011 contested for the party’s governorship ticket in Kogi, emerging second after Governor Wada. While he has since then remained in the background, he is

reputed to be a major party financier at both state and national level.

The two-storey mosque structure comes equipped with modern facilities and other state-of-the art equipment, including split-unit airconditioners. It has separate Koranic learning centres for male and female on the second floor, conveniences and a two-bedroom liv-

ing quarters to accommodate the Imam.

The mosque also has a standby 100KV generator and another one of a smaller size, to ensure steady power supply. Interestingly, the philanthropist also donated a 100KV generator to the Catholic Cathedral located directly opposite the Isa Kutepa Mosque, Lokoja.

well as the cotton rebirth programme as part of government’s measures to ensure the revival of the sector. The Jonathan government gave life to the programme when Vice-President Namadi Sambo formally launched the fund at the UNT Plc premises in Kaduna. Sambo said at the occasion that the Nigerian government regarded the revival of the textile industries as a topmost priority, identifying obstacles leading to the collapse of the sector as the collapse of critical infrastructure, such as power, roads, water, etc resulting in the high cost of doing business for the manufacturing sector and the lack of price competitiveness of Nigeria’s manufactured products; gross under-capitalisation in the face of costly new technologies; lack of long fibre and use of contaminated cotton which combined to generate very low yarn count and quality; lack of other necessary local inputs largely derived from petrochemicals due to the hitherto epileptic performance of the country’s refineries; competition from smuggled fabrics which displaced Nigeria’s exports to the West African market.

He also said at the occasion that: “These as identified were responsible for the collapse of the textile industry in Kaduna, which in its glorious days was reputed as one of the major textile production hubs and perhaps the only existing cluster of textile manufacturers in Africa.

This was a cluster that accounted for well over 70 percent of the working population of Kaduna in the 1980s and 90s… Our Founding Father of this industrial success had the vision of a similar textile industrial complex to that of the Manchester of the United Kingdom. The foregoing problems of the textile industry informed the approval by the Federal for the Federal Ministry of Finance to raise and disburse through Bank of Industry (BOI) the N100 billion Cotton, Textile and Garment Development Fund through a bond issued by the Debt Management Office (DMO). The Fund is meant for onlending by BOI for the expansion, refurbishing, resuscitation and modernisation/re-tooling of existing textiles, ginning and all other assorted cotton industries as well as the cultivation of cotton.

We have pursued and have had to set up committees at both state and Federal levels to come up with practical recommendations that can address these identified challenges.

These committees made far-reaching recommendations and followed them with concrete steps aimed at addressing them. We then identified with the challenges of Power and approved the siting of the 215mw thermal power plant to address the challenge of constant power supply.”

Website: http://www.thenationonlineng.com

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

Page 33

•Night in Abuja

There is a lot to grieve over in Dutse, Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Residents raise millions of naira and hand it over to the local power distribution firm, yet, they often have no power.

GBENGA OMOKHUNU reports

D

ARKNESS falls everywhere but in Dutse Baupuma, a community in the FCT, it brings with it dreadful realities. In hot weather, no one sleeps comfortably, and this has a toll on their health.

‘Darkness hurts’

That is not all.

There is also a sense of exploitation, if not outright fraud.

How? The residents of Dutse Baupuma in Bwari Area Council said they were told to raise millions of naira with which the distribution firm would procure just what was needed to supply them power.

They did, managing to contribute N5m, which they allegedly gave to the firm. Their challenges remain, though. No power. No hope.

They have had enough and are on the verge of marching on the local power distribution company in charge of the area.

The residents urged the firm to fulfil the promise they made to the people on provision of constant electricity for the community.

The residents, on the verge of a protest to the power distribution company, said that towards the end of

‘Many of us are aggrieved because it seems that the people that promised us constant power supplies were not sincere. Imagine, when they came to us to urge us to contribute the money, they promised that they will ensure that we have light every day, because, they will get another transformer for us and replace the electric wires on the polls.

Although, they brought the transformer, they did not do anything about the wires that had been on the polls for ages’ last year, circulars were distributed in the community directing residents to contribute N5,000 per house for the purchase of a new power transformer and cables to boost supply.

According to Mr. Simon Chukwuma, a resident of the community, residents of over 1,000 houses contributed the said amount totalling over N5 million.

Chukwuma said since the contribution was made, power to the community remained epileptic and nothing much has been done to justify the money collected from members of the community.

“Many of us are aggrieved because it seems that the people that promised us constant power supplies were not sincere. Imagine, when they came to us to urge us to contribute the money, they promised that they would ensure that we have light every day, because, they will get another transformer for us and replace the electric wires on the poles.

“Although, they brought the transformer, they did not do anything about the wires that had been on the poles for ages. As a result of this, fuses on the transformer get spoilt on a daily basis and when they spoil, they want us to beg them before they rectify it, after we have paid for the services.

“Since this year, the way we have been suffering of power failure is •Continued on page 34

Indigenes seek FCT administration’s probe

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ATIVES of Dagbalo community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have appealed to the Presidentelect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to probe the present FCT Administration led by Senator Bala Mohammed, over what they described as corruption in land racketeering.

The leader of Dagbalo community, Rev. Danjuma Tanko, who expressed joy that the needed change has come to Nigeria, also appealed to the incoming admin-

From Gbenga Omokhunu

istration to restore the sanity of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), which he said has compromised and working against the wishes of the residents.

While speaking during a community enlightenment programme at Apo area, Rev. Tanko said the atrocities and undemocratic activities committed by the Mohammed-led administration to the natives, demand urgent attention by the incoming admin-

istration.

According to him, the present FCT administration has succeeded in truncating the original Master Plan and of the FCT by diverting allocation meant for indigenous people of the FCT to their family members, friends and cronies.

“We were faced with forceful demolition, which was carried out by this administration without alternatives and it is causing massive trauma and hardship to our people till today.

“We appeal to our President-elect

to institute a panel of inquiry to probe the Mohammed-led administration, for imposing on us some policies that are detrimental to us and also denying us means of livelihood, thereby subjecting us to hardship.

“We want him to use his good offices to restructure the Department of Resettlement and Compensation, because of the role it played in denying the people of Akpajenya community and other FCT communities their resettlement areas at Apo Resettlement,

after they were unlawfully evicted from their ancestral home,” he said.

He further complained that most employment opportunities meant for the natives in the FCDA have been diverted to other Nigerians from Bauchi State, claiming that the original inhabitants have been totally cut off from development, while they are surrounded by beautiful edifices of influential Nigerians who wrongfully took over their ancestral land.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

34

ABUJA REVIEW

Igbo demand ministerial slot I

GBO investors in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have called on the incoming administration of Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to consider their investors in the FCT when appointing ministers for the territory.

This, according to them, is because they control over 70 per cent of investment in the capital city.

The investors, who spoke through the chairman of Zaudan Pazeri Property Owners Association, Elder Friday Ugoala, at a press conference in Abuja, said the previous FCT Administrations where someone that resides outside the FCT was appointed to govern the affairs of the territory, has had negative effects on the investors who are majorly Igbo residents.

According to Ugoala, when considering the appointment of the minister of the FCT, the incoming government should consider making a native of the FCT minister, while an Igbo man should be made the minister of state, or an Igbo man should be minister, while a native should be minister of state.

“Abuja has major stakeholders, not just those residing in the city.

It is on record that Igbo have not less than 70 per cent investment in Abuja in terms of property, merchandise and hospitality industries. So, we have invested heavily in Abuja, and we are demanding that the ministerial slots should be shared with the Igbo who are major stakeholders in the FCT. “We have reasons to demand for the slot of minister of the FCT, because, he will be sure that our investments are protected. If you consider the outgoing administration of Senator Bala Mohammed, you will notice that there are so many litigations that have to do with our investments and property, which we do not expect to continue that way. We even look forward to a situation whereby those issues in courts would be withdrawn and settled amicably.

‘Abuja has major stakeholders, not just those residing in the city. It is on record that Igbo have not less than 70 per cent investment in Abuja in terms of property, merchandise and hospitality industries. So, we have invested heavily in Abuja, and we are demanding that the ministerial slots should be shared with the Igbo who are major stakeholders in the FCT. We have reasons to demand for the slot of minister of the FCT, because, he will be sure that our investments are protected’ Stories from Gbenga Omokhunu

“It is obvious that there are two major stakeholders in the FCT, which are the political stakeholders and economic stakeholders. The natives are part of the political stakeholders because they control over 65 per cent of FCT population. So, it could be justice done to these two stakeholders, if the FCT ministerial slots are given to both of them, with due respect to other residents.

“History has shown and events have played out that in the FCT politics, those ministers that come from areas that do not have so many stakes in the FCT, have done so much havoc to investments in Abuja. This is because they do not have people who cry to them about the pains they feel.

We have entertained that fear, that if such era continues, our investments will continue to suffer and we do not want that to happen,” he said.

•A power transformer

•Continued from page 33 something we never experienced even before we contributed money for the power distribution company to rectify the electricity situation in the community. After each household in the community had struggled to pay N5, 000, we are still suffering.

This is what we call corruption and it has to be corrected,” he said.

Mrs. Gloria Alhassan, another resident who spoke with our reporter explained that the way things are going in the community, members of staff of the power distribution company do not care about the well-

N

ATIVES of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have called for the scraping of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) to ensure smooth operations of the incoming administration.

The indigenous people who spoke through the Magajin Garki, Joel Yazegbe, at a press briefing tagged “Way forward for FCT natives in the incoming administration”, congratulated the President-elect, Gen.

•From right: President Goodluck Jonathan shakes hands with the United Nations Resident Coordinator, Dauda Toure. With them are Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Central Africa, Abdoulye Bathily and the leader of the delegation of United Nations Office of West Africa, Mohammed Ibn Chambers during their visit to the State House, Abuja PHOTO: AKIN OLADOKUN

‘Darkness hurts’ being of the residents.

Since the beginning of this year, light will go off for up to three days and when restored, it will not last for up to five hours.

“It is just about three days ago that the power supply has been stable.

But, before now, it was as if the power distribution company had forgotten about our community. The meat and soup we put in the freezer get spoilt on a daily basis, because of prolonged power failure. Despite the money we contributed, we are experiencing power failure more than

any community in Abuja,” she said.

Commenting on the issue, a staff of the power distribution company, who preferred anonymity because he was not competent to speak on the matter, explained that there may be some electricity problems which have been thwarting the efforts of the distribution company to ensure stable power supply in the community, adding that it is not the decision of the company to make residents of the community be in darkness. He promised that the problem will soon be rectified.

‘Scrap FCDA’ Muhammadu Buhari, even as they advised him to institute an investigation panel to probe the roles officials of the FCDA played on matters of land allocation.

They further appealed to the incoming administration to carry the natives along by appointing one of them as a minister and to give them the opportunity to contribute to decisions and policies that affect them directly.

According to Yazegbe, the natives are also appealing to the incoming administration to investigate the allocation of plots of land for numerous housing estates in the FCT, most of which are not occupied.

“We want the incoming administration to ignore any document that is not properly presented by natives of the FCT. If there is any issue concerning the natives, we want it to represent the collective

agreement of the natives.

“We know that the era when some individuals in the FCT use names of fake association of original inhabitants to deceive any government in power for their selfish interests is over. This is because it has been to the detriment of the original inhabitants of the FCT. This time, we will not tolerate that from any so-called natives who want to sell their birthrights for peanuts.

“That was how most of them encouraged the Minister of the FCT, Senator Bala Mohammed to come up with the land-swap policy, which has become punishment of some sorts to innocent natives of the territory. We are calling on the incoming President to beware of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agents who will always hide under the original inhabitants to deceive any appointed minister of the FCT,” he said.

‘We want the incoming administration to ignore any document that is not properly presented by natives of the FCT. If there is any issue concerning the natives, we want it to represent the collective agreement of the natives…We know that the era when some individuals in the FCT use names of fake association of original inhabitants to deceive any government in power for their selfish interests is over’

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

35

ABUJA REVIEW

•From left: Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Aminu Wali, President Goodluck Jonathan and French Ambassador-designate to Nigeria, Ambassador Danis Gauer during the presentation of his letter of credence to the President at the State House, Abuja.

•From left: Vice-President Namadi Sambo; Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State; Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State and the Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo during the meeting of the Niger Delta Power Holding at the State House, Abuja.

•From left: Director-General Bureau of Public Enterprises, Benjamin Dikki; Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Musa Sada, Permanent Secretary Ministry of Power, Godknows Ighali and Vice-Chairman, Technical Committee, National Council on Privatisation, Haruna Sambo during a meeting on National Council on Privatisation at the Presidential Villa, Abuja

T

HE Association of Local Government of Nigeria (ALGON) has congratulated residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and the entire Nigerians on the peaceful conduct of the just-concluded general elections.

President of ALGON, Hon.

•A section of the congregation during a mass to mark the 2015 Mother’s Day celebrations at the Our Lady’s Queen of Nigeria, Pro-Cathedral, Garki, Abuja PHOTOS: AKIN OLADOKUN

ALGON hails peaceful elections From Gbenga Omokhunu

Micah Jiba, who spoke with reporters, said with the outcome of

•One of the electricity sub-stations intended to supply light to Nigerians

the elections, Nigerians have demonstrated that the unity of Nigeria is more than any politician’s ambition.

According to Jiba, although there were reports about pockets of violence in some states, the most important thing is that the country still remains one despite fears of national violence that may lead to separation.

“I am one of the happiest Nigerians today, because, eventually the general elections have come and gone, despite predictions of probable crises and serious postelection violence. Nigerians have proven that the interest of one prosperous nation is in our hearts. God really loves Nigeria, which is why He did not allow the prediction of Nigeria breaking up in 2015 to be a reality.

“This country has been marked for greatness and I believe that the incoming administration will work towards actualising that desired greatness for Nigeria. I must commend Nigerians who conducted themselves peacefully during the general elections.

They have shown that they did not need to sacrifice their blood

for anybody to be in power, because power comes from God alone.

“I also advise aggrieved politicians to work towards peace by channeling their grievances through the appropriate authorities, instead of taking the laws into their own hands. This is because all we need now in Nigeria is a peaceful co-existence that would take this country to the desired greatness that all of us have been praying for,” he said.

He further promised that ALGON will negotiate with the President-elect, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari to work together with the outgoing President Goodluck Jonathan to ensure that the Federal Government’s commitment to implementing the reports and recommendations of the National Conference, which include issues that affect other local government areas and the FCT is guaranteed.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

36

ABUJA REVIEW

W

ITH few weeks to the May 29 handover date, activities at the seat of power seem to be gradually slowing down.

Activities last picked up in the period immediately following President Goodluck Jonathan’s concession of defeat to Presidentelect Gen. Muhammadu Buhari.

Some high and mighty in the society then thronged the State House, Abuja to commend Jonathan for conceding defeat and averting bloodbath in the country that might have resulted from protests about the results of the presidential elections.

But since then, the usual hustle and bustle in the State House appear to be fast disappearing.

It is so intense that the emptiness is threatening to transform the Villa to a kind of a ghost yard.

Apart from the members of staff who report to work and could be seen going about their normal duties, most of the political appointees were believed to have started clearing their desks in preparation for May 29 handover.

The first shocker happened on Monday last week when it was discovered that some of the car parks close to the entrance to the President’s and Vice-President’s offices, were not filled to capacity as at few minutes past 10:00 in the morning.

The trend was also noticed in the following days of the week.

These car parks, which are utilised by staff and visitors alike, get filled up on a normal day as early as 9:30 a.m.

Members of staff and visitors, who do not arrive before 9:30 a.m., most times make do with any available space in the other car parks like ‘Nyanya’ and ‘Mararaba’ which are farther away from the entrance to the President’s and Vice- President’s offices, Official vehicles of presidential aides and other top officials normally parked by the entrance to the offices were also not left out of the new trend.

It is also quite some time now that an official function was held in the old Banquet Hall of the State House. The hall that normally hosts at least one official function either attended by President Jonathan or Vice-President Sambo, did not host any official function last week.

Many governors and politicians who normally visit the President over one issue or the other, seem to have stayed away from the Presidential Villa.

It is not really clear whether the Presidency was still finding it difficult to recover from the outcome of the 2015 general elections or whether the activities of the government have actually started to wind down.

President Jonathan and VicePresident Sambo, however, carried out some functions in their offices last week.

On the fear that the government was grinding to a halt, the Minister of Information, Senator Patricia Akwashiki said: “That is not to say that governance has stopped; of course we are in gov-

I

NDIGENES of Gbagyi under the auspices of Gbagyi Enlightenment Initiative (GEI) have appealed to government for assistance to enable them continue providing entrepreneurial training for Gbagyi youths in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and other parts of the North Central geo-political zone.

Founder of GEI, Sarah Tukurah said: “Members of Gbagyi community should unite irrespective of their religious and political differences in order to fight for the welfare of the people wherever they may reside.”

Tukurah, who made the call in Abuja at this year’s National Gbagyi Summit held recently in Abuja, de-

Winding down ernment until the day the presidentelect takes oath of office.

“There is no space for vacuum.

There are things happening. So, governance is not stopping, we are still working,” she added.

Jonathan versus Diezani There have been increasing rumours from the grapevine that all has not been well with the relationship between President Goodluck Jonathan and Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

Besides Jonathan appointing her the first female minister to oversee the oil sector which in turn gave her the opportunity to emerge as the first female President of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the two of them hail from Bayelsa State.

The genesis of the rift between them has been traced to the pronouncement by the president-elect, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari to probe the activities of some key ministries and government agencies and parastatals when he assumes office as the President.

Not long after this pronouncement, Diezani, who did not attend the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting on Wednesday last week was rumoured to be seeking asylum abroad in order to escape the possible consequences of the probe. Diezani, however, has denied the rumour.

Another rumour following the photograph of Diezani at the residence of the former Head of State, Abdulsalami Abubakar in Minna, Niger State also has it that Diezani was there to plead with Abdulsalami to intervene in order

From the Villa

By Augustine Ehikioya to prevail on Gen. Buhari to shelve the probe.

Still from the grapevine, another rumour claimed that Diezani wanted Abdulsalami to intervene in order to keep her job in the oil sector so that Nigeria will retain the Presidency of OPEC. This last rumour, according to the grapevine, was the main cause of the rift between Jonathan and Diezani.

Somehow, Abdulsalami and Diezani arrived few minutes apart to meet with President Jonathan at the Villa on Thursday last week, leaving rumour mongers the believe that Abdulsalami came to beg Jonathan on behalf of Diezani.

But Abdulsalami denied the rumour when he came out of President Jonathan’s office.

He said: “I think people are just trying to be mischievous. I have been meeting with a lot of people and a lot of ministers in the course of this transition. So, there is nothing strange in me meeting with anybody.

“This is not the first time I have

been meeting her and a number of ministers. So, I don’t see what the whole hullabaloo is all about.

People are just being mischievous.”

Journalists who kept vigil waiting for Diezani to come out from the President’s office to respond to the rumours, were disappointed as she did not come out as they dispersed when it was getting late.

While a popular saying says that there is an element of truth in every rumour, Nigerians are keenly waiting and watching to see how these rumours and episodes will end.

2015 elections heat at FEC The issues surrounding the March 28 Presidential and National Assembly elections and April 11 governorship and state House of Assembly elections momentarily engaged the attention of many members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) last Wednesday.

Even though most of the cabinet members could not deliver their constituencies for their principal, President Goodluck Jonathan and

their states for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), they spent some time chatting about the elections as they moved round the chamber exchanging pleasantries.

But the exchange of pleasantries among the ministers on Wednesday last week was quite different from the way they have done it over the years. The joy, happiness, hugging, laughter and joke-cracking that normally accompanied their greetings were very scarce.

Some of them, after handshakes, managed to put up smiles that didn’t go beyond their faces as they quietly headed for their seats.

The coldness in the chamber did not, however, stop some of them who were seeing each other for the first time after the elections from discussing and sharing their experiences concerning the elections in their states.

They were seen in groups discussing the matter before the FEC meeting started.

One of the groups involved Minister of State II for Foreign Affairs, Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Oloye Olajumuke-Akinjide, Minister of Police Affairs, Jelil Adesinyan, Minister of State for Works, Adedayo Adeyeye and later joined by the Minister of State for Education, Viola Onwuleri.

Another group included the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Steve Oru, Minister of State for Defence, Augustine Akubundu and Minister of State for Health, Fidelis Nwankwo.

The discussions came to abrupt end when the President arrived around 10:16 a.m. to start the meeting.

Community pleads for help From Gbenga Omokhunu

scribed Gbagyi aborigines as peaceloving people, even as she called on well-meaning Nigerians to support the initiative to achieve its laudable projects.

She reiterated that her leadership would continue to partner with anyone or group in order to move the initiative to the next level.

One of the guest speakers at the oc-

casion, George Koce, a lawyer, stressed the need for government to give special consideration to the Gbagyi people in the FCT, pleading with the government to place the FCT natives in the quarter system in terms of admissions into universities, especially those within the North Central geo-political zone.

He also appealed to government to provide job opportunities for FCT natives that are in the majority of un-

employed people in the territory. She advised Gbagyi youths to live up to the society’s expectations as leaders of tomorrow by engaging themselves in meaningful ventures.

An entrepreneurial expert, Mr. Sunday Azaki Katiwoyi, said Gbagyi Enlightenment Initiative is a platform where the Gbagyi as well as Gbari people come together to further their collective interests, without discriminating against one another.

He said the objective of the initiative is to empower the Gbagyi youths to enable them to become self-reliant through entrepreneurial ventures.

Katiwoyi, however, urged the Gbagyi people to be up and doing wherever they live, stating that he would not relent in his effort to contribute towards training Gbagyi youths in skill acquisition programmes.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

LAW & SOCIETY Lawyers disagree on gay rights at Commonwealth conference

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O what extent should gay rights be protected? Speakers were divided on the issue at the Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA) Conference.

A Kaduna-based lawyer, Oladipo Tolani, disagreed with the guest speaker Michael Kirby at the closing ceremonies.

While Kirby believes gay rights should be respected everywhere, Tolani thinks it is wrong for anyone to impose their culture on others.

The 19th edition of the conference was held at the Scottish Events and Conference Centre, Glasgow, United Kingdom.

In attendance were lawyers from over 53 countries of the Commonwealth countries.

CLA is a pan-Commonwealth organisation, which upholds the rule of law in the Commonwealth by encouraging exchange of ideas between legal professionals, academics and students, through projects and by driving improvements in legal education.

The conference started with a welcome address by the former Chairman of the Scottish Civil Courts Review, Lord Gill, who spoke on the Independence of the judiciary and the legal profession.

Speaking on gay rights, Kirby, who was a member of the Commonwealth Eminent Group that reviewed the operations, efficiency and the essence of the Commonwealth, gave an account of the work of Emminent Persons Group and its recommendations to the Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGOM).

Among them is the need to set up the office of a Commissioner for Human Rights. He said the group’s recommendations did not receive the blessings of the Commonwealth SecretaryGeneral, who felt that his office could handle such human rights matters.

Kirby cited the plight of former human rights crusader, Mohammed Nasheed, as one of such critical violations of human rights, which a commissioner for human rights could handle.

He said he hoped that the next Secretary-General of the Commonwealth would defend the rights of all, including the vulnerable group, the minorities, and the gay rights.

Kirby who told the audience that he and his partner had been together for the past 48 years, adding that it was a wonderful relationship.

He canvassed the protection of gay rights as he propounded the advantages of the gay relationship.

During the question and answer session, Tolani expressed displeasure at the speakers’ views on gay and rights.

He frowned at the efforts of developed countries to foist their

By John Austin Unachukwu

beliefs on developing countries.

He said: “The idea and theory of gay relationship is alien to the Nigerian culture and belief system and that is why Nigerian lawmakers refused to pass the bill seeking to legitimise gay relationship into law in Nigeria, so no body should force us to accept it.’’

He called on the Commonwealth lawyers to live together and respect each others’ views and rights as efforts to coerce people to accept what they do not believe in could create divisions.

Lord Gill, in his address, said judicial independence is one of the fundamental values that the institution of the Commonwealth represents.

“Society’s standards and its expectations of our justice system are changing all around us. But we must adhere to our own constant values.

“As Judge William Cranch put it, ‘in dangerous times, it becomes the duty of the judiciary calmly to poise the scales of justice, unmoved by the armed power, undisturbed by the clamour of the multitude.’ Only in this way can we truly defend the right of the citizen to call the executive to account.

“That the independence of the judiciary cannot survive without the independence of the profession; and I ask the question: What kind of judges do we wish to have?

“In 48 years in the business of the law, I have known judges of outstanding academic brilliance who found it difficult to make a decision for fear of being wrong; or who pursued relentless logic without due regard to common sense.

“I have known lawyers who were not forceful pleaders at the Bar yet flourished in the judicial life when they had time for reflection.

“So, when a judicial appointment is made and the profession – as always - passes its confident verdict, remember this: you never can tell.”

He added: “I suggest that to answer the question: What kind of judges do we wish to have?, our starting point should be that we wish to have judges who have come to judicial office by a process of appointment that is open, transparent and fair. “ Only in that way can the judiciary deserve and enjoy public confidence. I think that it is fair to say that until 20 years ago, in the United Kingdom jurisdictions the appointment process – if such it could be called - remained hidden from public view and had aspects of mystery.”

Other keynote speakers includeed Ms. Hina Jilani and Dame Silvia Cartwright.

•From left: NBA Welfare officer Masu’d Alebelewe; Isreal Aye; former CLA President Mrs Boma Ozobia; Yusuf Ali (SAN) and a Commissioner, Nigerian Law Reform Commission (NLRC) Mr. Kefas Mogaji.

•From left: Afam Okeke, Bimbo Kayode, Justice Ibrahim Auta and NBA First Vice-President Francis Ekwere.

•From left: S. Akubor (SAN), former Chairman, NBA Jos Branch Caleb Dajan; Steve Adah and Edward Ekpokol.

•From left: Ime Obot, P. Okorie, Kauna Penzin, former Chairman NBA Ikom Branch Emmanuel Okang and Gloria Nweze.

You’re frustrating suit, plaintiff accuses defendants

T

HE plaintiff in the suit before a Federal High Court in in Lagos, challenging the contract awarded to Samsung Heavy Industry Nigeria by Total Upstream Nigeria for the engineering, procurement, construction and commissioning of the Egina floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) has accused the defendants of frustrating the suit.

Defendants in the suit are Attorney General of the Federation, National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NPIMS), Nigerian Content Development Monitor-

By John Austin Unachukwu

ing Board (CDMB), Samsung Heavy Industry and Total Upstream.

The plaintiff, Mr. John Owubokiri, through his counsel, Mr Mr Olukayode Enitan, at the resumed hearing in the matter before Justice Okon Abang, noted that the defendants were doing all to stall hearing of the motion for interlocutory injunction.

Counsel to Total Upstream had told the court that he had filed with the court registry, a reply on point of law to the plaintiff’s counter affi-

davit and written submission to the preliminary objection of the defendants.

But Justice Abang noted that he had not seen it, as it was not in the court’s file.

Enitan said it was another attempt by the defendants to stall the matter, noting that the court had adjourned for hearing in all pending application, including the application for interlocutory objection, committal proceedings against the defendants and stay of proceedings.

He said that he was shocked that Total Upstream waited till a day to

the hearing of the matter to file whatever it wanted, only to announce at the hearing that it has just filed a reply on point of law to the plaintiff’s counter affidavit.

Enitan reminded the court that on March 27, the case was adjourned for all pending applications to be heard, while on that same day, Total Upstream brought an application for stay of proceedings, which was served on the same March 27 on the plaintiff and based on that the matter was adjourned.

He added that the matter was ad-

journed till April 15, only again for Total Upstream to serve on the plaintiff in court, its reply on point of law to the plaintiff’s counter affidavit, which he explained was a plot to ensure that the was never heard.

Enitan told the court that he was ready to go on with the matter, even though the latest defendants reply on point of law was served on him.

But Justice Abang said he would want to see all the processes in the matter to decide on which one to take.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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LAW & SOCIETY The change of leadership at the centre, achieved at the last elections, resulted mostly from a combination of factors, including a vigilant citizenry driven by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs). ERIC IKHILAE examines the role played by one of such groups – Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room.

How civil society, citizens contributed to ‘change’ N

IGERIA has been hailed globally for achieving a rancour-free change of leadership at the centre, with the displacement of the ruling party - the Peoples Democratic Party - through a nearperfect electoral process, which many have described as a work-in-progress.

The success achieved in the general elections has been attributed to a combination of factors, which included the existence of an electoral umpire with a focused leadership, a well-coordinated opposition forces and a vigilant citizenry, driven by observant civil society organisations (CSOs).

One of such CSOs is the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room (Situation Room), a coalition of about 60 CSOs, which kept an eye on processes leading to the elections.

Led by the Executive Director of the Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre (PLAC), Clement Nwankwo, the group’s members monitored the electoral process, keeping Nigerians informed about developments through briefings at its situation room in Abuja.

In the build-up to the elections, it held discussions with major key players in the electoral process, including the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega; international figures, such as the exSecretary-General, United Nations, Kofi Annan, and notable religious leaders, such as Cardinal John Onaiyekan.

Some of the sessions examined issues, including INEC’s preparations for the elections, how to ensure a rancour-free process and what should be done to ensure that the nation gets the electoral process right and avert chaos.

When the elections were suddenly postponed from the earlier dates of February 14 and 28, the group alerted the populace, through a statement on February 12, titled: “Situation Room: Nigeria’s democracy imperiled,” to an imminent danger.

It urged major stakeholders, particularly the courts, the security agencies and

religious organisations to be wary and desist from yielding themselves as tools to truncate the democratic process.

It noted: “the postponement of the elections following the stark refusal of the military authorities to guarantee security for the elections, while evoking dark memories of past military dictatorships, has thrown up various constitutional and political challenges that undermine and subvert our fledgling democracy.

“It has also shaken public credibility and confidence in the forthcoming elections, setting off a round of speculations and conspiracy theories about the real motivation for the shift of the election dates,” it said, warning against any further tinkering with the election timetable.

“We believe the postponement of this election, for whatever reason, will undermine whatever modicum of legitimacy the electoral process still has and may ultimately be the trigger for massive unrest, violence and armed conflict, effectively setting the stage for civil unrest,” it added.

At the conclusion of the first round of voting on March 28 the group, after a thorough assessment of the exercise, observed some lapses, including late arrival of electoral officers to polling centres, reported cases of the malfunctioning of the card reader machines, partisan conduct by some security personnel, among others.

In a statement it issued on March 29, the group stated that the failure of the card reader in some cases, which forced INEC to revert to manual accreditation, undermined the full benefit anticipated by the use of biometric technology and imposed unnecessary hardship on Nigerians.

It also warned about the threat posed to the process’s credibility, where security agencies failed to prevent interference in the electoral process in some states. It urged the security agencies and officials to conduct themselves according to established standards of professional conduct, and asked

INEC to correct its own deficiencies and inform the Nigerian public as to what to expect,” during the next round of elections.

On April 13, the group made public its assessment of the April 11 governorship and House of Assembly elections, querying the credibility of the outcome of the elections in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia states.

The group, whose member organisations had election monitors throughout the country, said from reports submitted by members, it was concerned “about the overall conduct of the elections” in the three states because there are grounds to question the credibility of the elections results.

It urged INEC to take steps to authenticate the final collated results from the three states against the polling unit results and make a reasoned judgment about them.

The group noted that in Rivers, “historically deep-rooted political animosities played out in a brazen, violent and naked manner to subvert the electoral process in many local governments in the state.

“In Akwa Ibom, there were also serious questions about the veracity of the results because of reports of active and direct partisan interference with elections.

“There are also concerns about Abia State, which recorded multiple cases of electoral misconduct,” it said.

The group expressed concern about what it termed the weak oversight powers of INEC’s national headquarters over the Resident Electoral Commissioners and state INEC offices in the management and conduct of elections, which it partly blamed for the situation in the three states.

“This makes it easy for compromised RECs and other state-level INEC officers to undermine the credibility of the election, sometimes with reckless impunity,” it said.

Nwankwo dwelt on this perceived inadequacy in the administrative arrangement of INEC when he spoke with The Nation in Abuja. He stressed the urgent need for amendments to electoral law, to improve on the level of control INEC headquarters

should have over the conduct of its officials at the state level.

“That is the problem. There is a vacuum in the law that provides a hiding place for INEC headquarters to hide and refuse to cancel elections.

“The electoral law requires that INEC makes available all the needed evidences, if it gets to litigation. Should that be the case, as INEC has said it will not cancel announced elections, I think it becomes important that INEC provides all the necessary evidences needed to prosecute litigation should the aggrieved elect to explore the litigation option.”

On his assessment of this year’s elections, Nwankwo said “the 2015 general elections have seen a huge improvement on the part of INEC. We are not there yet. We think it is a long way to go and that there are improvements to be made. I am sure there will be recommendations on how to further improve the electoral system that need to be embarked upon.”

He said the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has been in existence since 2010 and that it also observed the elections in 2011.

“We think it (the Situation Room) has provided a good platform and mechanism for civil society organisations to closely follow the electoral process, observe it and make recommendations for improvement.

“So, by and large, yes, we are doing well in fulfilling the purpose for which this platform was created.”

On the group’s future engagements, Nwankwo said “We will do a review of this year’s elections. We will come up with suggestions on improvement, and advocate these suggestions. We will also function in the manner of watching over the governance process.

“So, it is not just about elections, it is about the performance of government, the delivery of government and the monitoring of all the indicators of governance to ensure that the government fulfils the promises it has made to Nigerians.”

•From left: Nwankwo, Tunji Lardner of WANGONET and Ezenwa Nwagwu of Partners for Electoral Reform ... during one of Situation Room’s sessions in Abuja

Lawyers urge Buhari on release of Chibok girls

A

GROUP, Lawyers for Change, has urged the presidentelect General Muhamadu Buhari to make the rescue of the kidnapped Chibok school girls a priority.

Its National Coordinator, Mr. Adesina Ogunlana, at a briefing in Ikeja, said the girls’ freedom was paramount.

He said they disagreed with statement allegedly made by the President-elect that he could no longer guarantee the freedom of the girls.

Ogunlana urged Buhari to live up to his ear-

By Adebisi Onanuga

lier campaign promise of finding the girls.

He stressed that Buhari’s comments after the general elections contradicted the promise he made prior to the elections adding that this was not acceptable to them.

The girls were seized on April 14, last year from their school’s dormitory while they were preparing for their school certificate exams.

He said: “What he said now is at variance with his promise. Chibok girls must be rescued, they must be found.”

The group also admonished the newly

elected, at both the national and state (Lagos) level, not to bask in the euphoria of past glory, but to endeavour to create the much awaited change Nigerians have been craving for.

According to him, to adequately address and curb the issue of corruption, there must be a project tagged ‘real retooling of the national economy’.

“Misappropriation of government funds must end. To serve as a deterrent yo others, wealth corruptly acquired should be relinquished. Our country must change and be changed.

“Life in Nigeria must not remain the same.

What the people elected in is change, and change they will get, change not just transition,” he added.

Ogunlana also commended Nigerians for electing Buhari/Osinbajo who he described as real agents OD change and promised to ensure that his group will continue to be a watchdog on the incoming administration.

He said, “we will be the conscientious critics of the people voted into power. Our leaders must become lean so that our people can become fat. The only thing our leaders must deliver is nothing but change.”

39

LEGAL OPINION

Magistrate alleges threat to life

T

HE Chief Magistrate handling the trial of two of the children of the late business mogul, Chief Abdul-Rasak Olajide Sanusi of the famous Sanusi Brothers in Lagos, has alleged threat to her life.

Mrs Adeola Adedayo of an Igbosere Magistrate Court alleged that her trial of Suleimon and Kehinde Sanusi, who are facing charges for illegal possession of firearms and contempt of court, has exposed her.

She claimed that the defendants had been threatening her life and that of her family.

The two brothers are fighting with their siblings over the estate of their late father who died 17 years ago.

The criminal charges were sequel to a petition filed by one of the children of the late businessman against them.

But the defendants pleaded not guilty.

Their trial could not proceed last year as the Lagos State Directorate for Public Prosecution (DPP) sought adjournment, pending a legal advice on the charge.

The re-arraignment of the two, however, could not go on at the resumed sitting of the court as the prosecuting counsel Mrs. S. Dawudu requested for further adjournment, saying that there was a correction for the Office of the DPP. Before granting the request for adjournment, Mrs Adedayo raised the alarm that the defendants were

By Adebisi Onanuga

thretening her life.

She claimed that the duo had written several petitions against her and forwarded same to her residential address.

The magistrate said the petitions contained details of people who the defendants claimed had been visiting her home over the matter and wondered how the defendants knew her address.

“I feel threatened by this development. I feel I should let the world know about it so that if anything happens to me or any member of my family, the whole world will know who to hold.

“I don’t know why a defendant should know my house, my life is at risk; somebody is alleged to be in possession of firearms and he wrote petitions to threaten my life analysing my marital status, my family background and where I live, who I live with and how I move in and move out everyday.

“I want the world to know about the threat so that I will not be killed like others have been killed in the past, so that if anything happens to me, they would know who to hold responsible,” she said.

During the proceedings, Chief Magistrate Adedayo also threatened to get the counsels to the defendants, Gbolu Agbaje-Akadiri charged for court contempt due to his disposition to the

court.

The trial Chief Magistrate has, however, adjourned the matter till May 11, pending DPP’s advice.

The late Alhaji Sanusi bequeathed his properties and companies, including, Sanusi Brothers Nigeria Limited, Sanusi Steels Industries Limited, Sanusi Robber Works Limited, Nigeria Industries Products Agencies and Global Stars Nigeria Limited, (formerly Sambros International Limited) to his 22 children.

The will, which was prepared by late Chief F. R. A. Williams, also listed Alhaji Sanusi’s five wives, Alhaja Suwebath, Alhaja Simbiat, Alhaja Adikatu, Alhaja Rasheedat and Alhaja Musilat as beneficiaries Since the execution of the will, the Sanusi siblings have been engaged in war over the management of their father’s estate.

Some of the children have alleged gross mismanagement of the estate by the executors.

In a petition dated October 2, last year, and addressed to the Police AIG, Zone 2 Headquarters, one of the children of the late Chief Sanusi, Mrs. Bimbo Sanusi Lawal accused her brother, Suleimon Sanusi of unlawfully taking over of the administration of the father’s estate.

Besides the petition, many cases filed by the siblings are also pending in the State High Court.

• President, Commonwealth Lawyers Association (CLA), Mark Stephens (middle) with some participants at the CLA conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

Cooperative sues church for ‘disobeying’ court order

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HE United Bank of Africa (UBA) Co-operative Multipurpose Society Limited has filed a suit dragged theTrustees of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) before an High Court in Sagamu, Ogun caiptal for alleged disobedience to order of court over an expanse of land measuring 30.763 acres.

The society is seeking an order of the court to compel the defendant/respondent to pay N150 million as damages as a consequence of the alleged disobedience to the order of the court by the church.

The claimant/applicant, through its lawyer, Yemi Omodele, had filed a “form 48” titled: “Notice of consequence of disobedience to order of court”, dated April 13, this year in the suit numbered HCS/01/2015 before the High Court of Ogun State sitting in Sagamu.

It was served on Pastor Akanni Babawande of the Lands and Survey Department and Pastor Peter Adeyemi, the Head of Department Project, at the Secretariat, RCCG, Kilometer 46, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Mowe, Ogun State.

Justice E. O. Osinuga of an Ogun State High Court sitting in Sagamu, had ordered parties to maintained status quo and restrained the church, her

By Adebisi Onanuga

agents, servants and representatives from carrying out or continuing to carry out any form of construction on the said disputed landed property situated at Ewu Odofin village, off Shimawa road, in Sagamu Local Government Area of Ogun State.

The UBA Co-operative Society had filed a motion on notice and writ in summon and statement of claims, all dated March 18, 2015 and hearing notice dated March 25, this year against the church pursuant to Order 38 Rule 4, 39 Rules 1 and 2 of the rules of the Court 2014.

The claimant/applicant, in its application, sought a sole prayer and filed five documents marked exhibit A-E, including survey plan, layout, photograph of the work done on the land by the claimant, the demolition of what is contained in exhibit C and a letter written by solicitor to the family of the vendor of the claimants which were supported with a 38 point affidavit.

The court noted there were five grounds upon which the application was premised, that is, “the land in dispute belongs to the claimant legitimately sold to it by the land owing family; that the defendant is merely using its influence to oiverride the claimant; that the application is to

preserve the res of the suit; the defendant took laws into its hand and that nobody is above the law”. ”It is trite that in an application of this nature, the court would not look into the merit of the substantive suit; but whether from the content of the affidavit, the claimant is deserving of an interlocutory order order of the court to preserve the res.”

While granting an order of interlocutory injunction restraining RCCG from going ahead with any construction work on the land, Justice Osinuga, noted that though the defendant/respondent was served with all the court papers, it however “failed, refused or neglected to file a counter-affidavit to same”, respond nor enter any appearance in court.

“The implication of failure ... to file a counter affidavit to controvert the averments in the affidavit in support ... It means that the appellant (in this case, the defendant/respondent) have admitted the facts deposed to in the affidavit in support of the originating summon... they have the opportunity of putting their defence across, if any, but chose not to avail themselves of that opportunity,” judge further held.

LAW AND PUBLIC POWER

with gabriel AMALU email:gabrielamalu1@yahoo.com For comments: 08033054939 (sms only)

Buhari on votes, security and economy

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AST week, this column pushed the argument for a national upgrade to electronic voting, as an important legacy,for the incoming administration.

So, I was excited when I subsequently read an interview bythe Presidentelect, Gen. MuhammaduBuhari,where he promoted the fundamental connection between votes, security and the economy.

In the president-elect’s interview,published by The Nation on Friday, April 17, the General said: “If Nigerians have the confidence that their votes counts, then they will mind their business and I assure you that there will be much security in the country. But when people feel that they are abandoned, then they will resist.”

The import of the assertion by the incoming President on accountability of votes, is that electoral brigandage is substantially at the root of the insecurity in the country, and I guess the majority of Nigerians will agree with him.

Indeed, when votes fail to count as a routine, we have the entrenchment of the undesirable. Many who have the competence and capacity to serve, take the back seats, out of fear, arising from the recurrent insecurity that pervade electoral malfeasance. So, electoral violence ensures that those with requisite competence are relegated to the background, while those with the capacity for violence are promoted, as they are found useful during every election cycle.

Pushing the argument further, where electoral brigands hold sway, bestclass Nigerians do not have the opportunity to serve, as they will not get elected. As footballer pundits willsay, the second or third elevenis allowed to play, at the expense of the first 11. So,those who get foisted on the people, are officials with limited capacity; who will concentrate all their time and energyon protecting and expanding political privileges, rather than growing and expanding the human and economic capital, that aggregates to improvement, in the quality of life of the people,and the society.

Furthermore, with a limited world-view, the charlatans thrown-up through electoral sleaze, find it difficult to appreciate the far reaching consequences of their actions. So, whether as law makers or members of the executive branch, electoral malfeasance throw-up those who would rather make laws to increase their welfare packages, even when there is not enough money in the state or national coffer. That perhaps explains the incredible appropriation of nearly all the resources of the nation for recurrent expenditure. As rightly observed by the President-elect, “There must be more money available for infrastructure, for investment in getting the factories back, employment and getting goods and services for the population”.

Accordingly the General in that interview, said: “I think the worst thing is the lack of accountability and the terrible budgetary system. Imagine that over 90 per cent of Nigerian budget is on recurrent. How can you sustain development in a developing country like Nigeria with only 10 per cent of your income?” Of course, it is important to remember that the present federal government, led by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), had offered similar lamentations, about the sheer absurdity of having nearly all the national resources eaten-up by human termites, masquerading as leaders; but failed to effect the necessary changes.

So, the president-elect must watch out, for an unwilling or aided regression to that to era of good ideas, without the will to effect thenecessary changes.

While it is urgently important to plug all the loopholes, through which our national economy haemorrhages, it also abundantly important that the national economy is expanded and grown, to accommodate the high expectations of Nigerians. Of course, the greatest hindrance to an expanded national economy is poor supply of energy, which include electricity and other forms of fuel.

Resolving the Nigerian energy quagmire, will perhaps be the greatest challenge for the in-coming administration, and it is of utmost importance, that,it does all in its power, to get it right.

General Buhari in that interview, also lamented the dearth of national economic engines, like the Nigeria Railway, Nigeria Airways, and Nigeria Shipping Line among others. He argued that “some big companies that employ a lot of Nigerians and give them training facilities” have suffered similar faith as the crude oil which “rose to about $140 and has crashed to about $50 now”.

He noted that “the important thing in a country with a huge population of youths, with more than 60 per cent of them under the age of 30 who are unemployed, is job creation”. For the General, “you need these institutions to give jobs and training to Nigerians”.

While there will be arguments whether or not, we need to recreate mega state-monopolies, as in the past; there is no doubt that we need such economic expansion, as the president-elect envisages, to gain employment opportunities, for our teeming unemployed youths.

Part of the obvious strategy which the All Progressive Congress (APC) government, must as of urgent necessity adopt, is to grant legal empowerment to states, to exploit the minerals and other natural resources within their geographical areas. The insane status-quo, where many states endowed with natural resources operate as poor church-rats, because a law incongruous with federalism, has placed all the mineral resources in the country, in the hands of the Federal Government, must change.

As this column has persistently argued, Nigeria can only make the expected progress, when we have the courage to federalise, income and wages. Therefore, creating economic opportunities in all geo-political zones of the country, and indeed in all states, is not a mere political favour. It is rather a safety valve, to forestall the invasion of the political and economic space of the locals.Comparatively, the regrettable xenophobic war taking place in South Africa, will not solve the economic challenges of the South Africans. Truthfully, what will save local jobs and political space, is economic regeneration across zones.

40

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

BOOK REVIEW

How to fight corruption in Africa, by don

K

OLAWOLE Olaniyan’s Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa is a unique departure in many senses from typical books on corruption.

Some recent writings want us to believe that corruption is only a recently developed deviation in public morality. It is not.

Corruption has been with us from the creation of humankind. The Roman Empire, for example, was already plagued by the buying of votes. Corruption is mentioned in the Bible, the Koran, Hindi writings, the teachings of Buddha and in Hebrew scriptures. In ancient Greece, Plato wrote in his ‘laws’: “The servants of the nations are to render their services without any taking of presents...The disobedient shall, if convicted, die without ceremony”.

This is evidence to the fact that corruption and indeed the struggle to combat it, has been there since the history of humankind.

In the first sentence of his book, Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa, Dr. Kolawole Olaniyan, restates this irrefutable truth, that “Corruption is as old as humanity”.

Olaniyan in this book brings us face-toface with the dangers of corruption not only to socio-economic and political development across the globe, but in Africa in particular, and that in spite of the concerted efforts to combat this scourge at national, regional and global levels, it continues to flourish with catastrophic consequences on the enjoyment of human and peoples’ rights in Africa.

While recognising the efforts made through the criminal law frameworks, at national, regional and global levels, to combat corruption, Olaniyan challenges us to think outside the box, and adopt the more attractive and all-embracing human rights law approach, to complement, but not replace, the criminal law approach. He wonders why despite the increasing global recognition of the connection between corruption and human rights, the two concepts are still to a large extent, treated separately.

Focusing on Africa, Olaniyan examines the source of corruption (large scale) in the continent, the criminal law instruments and mechanisms put in place to combat corruption nationally, sub-regionally and continentally, the clear lack of understanding of the very concept and absence of definition, and above all, the effects of corruption on the human and peoples’ rights guaranteed in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The approaches adopted to combat corruption by the national legal frameworks, as well as the approaches provided in the four regional and global instruments examined in this book, demonstrate a clear disconnect between corruption and human rights.

Due to the very nature of corruption, the secrecy under which it is practiced, lack of understanding of the very concept, absence of a clear and universal definition, coupled with the manner it is conceived by different peoples in different places, it is almost impossible to determine with certainty or exactitude the level of corruption in a state, and its effects on ordinary individuals. For the most part, because of this lack of understanding and confusion, corruption was and still is considered a victimless crime.

Olaniyan deflates this narrow understanding and has demonstrated in Corruption and Human Rights Law in Africa, that corruption has as its principal victim, the ordinary citizens, who are usually the most vulnerable in society, and who because of the lack of understanding of the real effects of corruption, usually end up without any effective remedy. That is why he propounds in this book that “as a matter of justice and fairness, they (victims) should ideally be entitled to an effective remedy through the anticorruption legal framework or human rights law.

In Chapter One, Olaniyan discusses the historical and conceptual frameworks of corruption and human rights law, noting that whereas the effects of corruption on human rights may seem self-evident, this link is rarely seriously explored, because ‘corruption is still narrowly considered as an ordinary crime and victimless”. He exposes the reason for this narrow mindedness, arguing that “at the heart of the matter is the reliance on a restrictive notion of corruption to address the grave problem that it has become (and its effects on human rights).

The lack of understanding of the very concept of corruption and its impact on human rights is exacerbated by the lack of a

Pages: Chapters: Publisher Author: Reviewer:

403 Seven Hart Publishing in UK Kolawole Olaniyan Dr Robert Wundeh Eno

universal definition of the term corruption, and the few definitions that do exist, are usually vague, imprecise, sometimes confusing and limited to criminal and law enforcement fields, and almost never include the victim element of corruption, or reflect elements of the accountability of states for the human rights violations faced by victims of large scale corruption.

Chapter Two looks at the international dimension of corruption and establishes a link between corruption, money laundering and poverty. Using three African countries (Angola, Equatorial Guinea and Nigeria) to illustrate this relationship, Olaniyan demonstrates the challenges faced prosecuting large scale corruption perpetrated by high-ranking government officials, including Heads of State and Government and close members of their families. The difficulty of proving a case of corruption is enormous, but even when proven, Olaniyan notes that “the fundamental weakness of assets recovery” becomes glaring. It is usually not clear whether the entire asset is fully recovered and how the recovered asset is used to provide effective remedy to citizens who are the real victims of corruption. In this Chapter, Olaniyan recognises the important role Courts can and do play in holding African leaders accountable for the sake of victims of human rights violations caused by corruption.

In Chapter Three, the book examines the national legal frameworks for fighting corruption in Africa. Today, it is rare to find any country in Africa without legal frameworks or institutions to fight and combat corruption, the only difference being on the legal system of the country (common law or civil law) or whether the country has ratified and domesticated a treaty in their legal system.

Using the same three countries mentioned in Chapter two as case studies, it is clear that the legal frameworks are in two main categories: constitutional and legislative. The constitutional provisions to fight corruption are particularly important, in terms of their potential to serve as a code of behavior, however, Olaniyan cast a shadow on them as effective tools to fight corruption, because they ‘are deemed programmatic and aspirational goals and therefore are mostly not justiciable, in the sense that citizens have no legal standing to challenge the government for non-compliance”.

In the use of constitutional or legal framework, there are major obstacles in the fight against corruption, including the use of immunity clauses, prosecutorial discretion and political appointees, and the independence and effectiveness of anticorruption mechanisms, executive interference and political pressure. Olaniyan proposes solutions to some of the obstacles, suggesting with respect to immunity clauses that “a public official, regardless of their title or office, will receive immunity that corresponds only to lawful official actions, and not serious crimes like corruption”.

Olaniyan examines the international legal frameworks for fighting corruption across Africa in Chapter Four, and identifies three phases in the internationalization of the fight against corruption, namely: the tolerance of corruption in international business transactions, the twofold denial of the negative effects of corrup-tion, and political resistance to adopting strong instruments to

address the problem, and the engagement and discussions around develop-ment and governance concerns in developing countries.

The latter phase coinciding with the end of the Cold War, globalization, increased technology, and the establishment of Transparency International.

Comparing anti-corruption treaties adopted at sub-regional, continental and global levels, Olaniyan concludes that the objects and purposes of all the four anticorruption treaties examined in this book are essentially the same. Some of the instruments make passive references to human rights while others omit any explicit reference to human rights, and there is no reflection of a strong tendency to recognize the connection between corruption, development, good governance and human rights in the normative content of the instruments.

Chapter Five on the effects of corruption on human and peoples’ rights describes in detail the devastating effects of corruption on the full and effective enjoyment of the human and peoples’ rights guaranteed in the African Charter and other human rights instruments.

By revealing the immense human consequences of corruption, Olaniyan makes a case for human rights law to serve as a veritable complementary framework to combat corruption. Using a catalogue of rights guaranteed under the Charter and other human rights instruments on the continent, he demonstrates the strong causal relationship between corruption and human and peoples’ rights, as well as clearly identifies the direct victims of human rights violations in each case. While recognising the rich jurisprudence developed by the African Commission, Olaniyan believes supranational human rights bodies such as the Commission and the Court can and should use the broad mandates conferred on them, to advance a human rights based approach to combating corruption.

The potential of human rights law in combatting corruption in Africa, as the title suggests, in Chapter 6, demonstrates that human rights law and mechanisms have the capacity to provide more effective remedies to victims of corruption than the traditional criminal law mechanisms. The longstanding legal principle of ubi jus, ibi remedium gives credence to Olaniyan’s thesis and provides a perfect platform for human rights law as a satisfactory complementary framework to combat corruption.

The effectiveness of the traditional criminal law instruments as the only approach to fighting corruption is put on the spotlight in this book. Olaniyan does not call for the abandonment of one approach over the other. While identifying the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, he believes they can and should complement each other.

A clear warning is sent out to the international community when Olaniyan reminds us that “corruption breeds terrorism (and other organised crimes), encourages money laundering (and vice versa), precipitates poverty, undermines the operations of the rule of law, the working of the institutions of governance and, ultimately, leads or contributes to violations of human rights, and as such sufficient political will must be mustered to heed this warning.

Olaniyan also argues: “If Africa is to truly exercise its sovereignty – both political and economic – it must make as its utmost priority the betterment of its peoples without distinction of any kind.”

According to him, “Sovereignty implies conducting an independent foreign and internal policy, building of schools, construction of roads, in brief, all types of activity directed towards the welfare of people. Sovereignty cannot be conceived as the right to kill millions of innocent people.

‘The effectiveness of the traditional criminal law instruments as the only approach to fighting corruption is put on the spotlight in this book. Olaniyan does not call for the abandonment of one approach over the other.

While identifying the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches, he believes they can and should complement each other’

Sovereignty is not a licence for states and senior public officials to commit acts of corruption that imperil human dignity, and with it citizens’ lives and hopes for a better future. Sovereignty should not (and cannot) be invoked to shield perpetrators of corruption from justice or victims from accessing effective remedies. The legal protection of human and peoples’ rights should therefore be the primary aim of the African Union and its member-states.

Deploying human rights law as a complementary frame-work to prevent and combat corruption can contribute to continental (and global) efforts to improve both the effectiveness of the regional human rights mechanisms and the instruments against corruption.”

Even so, “the key to success is ensuring global implementation of [anti-corruption] instruments [and human rights law] at the national levels, and establishing effective mechanisms for the international com-munity to enforce collectively the spirit and the letter of national commit-ments.” He proposes the establishment of a number of well thought out supra-national institutions to help in the fight against corruption in Africa. The apprehension that can be expressed here is that, with an already cashstrapped African Union, with a proliferation of institutions that are usually poorly funded, the institutions being proposed by Olaniyan will suffer the same fate and rendered them weak, ineffective, manipulated and perhaps, themselves corrupt, bringing us back to Olaniyan to proffer another solution.

This excellent book by Olaniyan lends itself to be read and reread in order to understand the relationship between corruption, development, the rule of law, governance and human rights. It is only when this relationship is understood and fully established that we can begin to deconstruct, in a constructive way, policies, guidelines, laws and appropriate mechanisms to effectively combat corruption.

The book’s excellent quality is buttressed by the fact that it was thoroughly reviewed by a host of law professors, including 6 anonymous reviewers commissioned by the Oxford University Press.

I agree with the renowned Professor of International Law and one of America’s best legal brains, Dinah Shelton of the George Washington University Law School when she said of Olaniyan’s book: “His focus is Africa but the valuable lessons he teaches in this comprehensive study can resonate throughout the world. The result is a comprehensive and holistic legal framework for addressing some of the root causes of human rights violations and poverty, not only in Africa, but wherever corruption exists.”

I can’t recommend this book enough.

Corruption and human rights law in Africa is a perfect companion for all, but more importantly, for students interested in policy development, university lecturers, government policy makers, human rights and anti corruption advocates, and intergovernmental organisations seeking effective ways of combating corruption (such as the African Union and the United Nations).

•Dr Eno is Chief Registrar, African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights in Arusha, Tanzania

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HEALTH THE NATION

E-mail:- health@thenationonlineng.net

Stakeholders in the health sector have a shopping list for the incoming Muhammadu Buhari administration. They are demanding an overhaul of the health sector, equity in appointments, improved remuneration, implementation of the National Health Act and re-building of collapsed facilities. OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA and WALE ADEPOJU report.

Our agenda for Buhari, by doctors, others President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Olumide Akintayo said: N apocalyptic terms, the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) considers it necessary that the in-coming All Progressives Congress (APC) administration comes up with specific action plans in the reflected areas even when it is not limited to these items: •Universal Health Coverage - incorporating fully Community Based Social Health Insurance Programme (CBSHIP). A need for universal coverage is acceptable, but the condition precedent is to harness and consolidate the philosophy of a managed care concept that is statute entrenched. To achieve quality assurance in our version of social health insurance, it is important to encapsulate the below: •Canvass a consolidated healthcare funding, which requires first line deduction of at least five per cent for healthcare delivery.

This helps in funding the subsidy gap.

•Promote the culture of corporate social responsibility by enlisting support of the banking, oil and gas and telecoms sectors, which are the frontliners in the Nigerian economy.

•The NHIS must partner the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) and its appendages to champion a credible drug supply scheme by facilitating the involvement of major manufacturers and importers in the NHIS. •We recommend that the NHIS Governing Council must re-establish linkages with the highest level of government to nurture the required political will to ensure success for the scheme.

•We also call for massive advocacy to sell the new scheme to the health consuming public and ensure a proper understanding of the workings of Health Insurance by the Nigerian public.

•We note that one of the major functions of HMOs is the establishment of quality assurance system as earlier mentioned and regret the near absence of the important function. This explains why providers not qualified for particular functions were allowed to offer such services at the detriment of the enrollee.

•Aware of the important role cost containment plays in ensuring survival of the scheme, we are recommending a set of incentives and sanctions to encourage providers to comply strictly with the operational guidelines.

•Well defined welfare package for health workers, which redresses attendant stress junctions that have resulted in recurrent and perennial strike actions.

•An acceptable Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) initiative for some services in the health system to promote efficacy, boost competences and build capacity in the private sector. The PPP models must be worked out with the relevant professional associations and professional regulatory councils as they arise.

•For the pharmaceutical sector, government at the centre must come up with reforms that will usher a petrochemical industry, which is the precursor to genuine industrial revolution across board. The moment Nigeria comes up with benzene plants, then the inertia for primary manufacturing is established in contrast to the stuttering fortunes, which we have continually witnessed in our country.

•At a time when we place emphasis on diverse sources of IGR because a mono-based economy comes with too much limitations and complications, government must exploit the vast expertise available in the pharmaceutical sector by making Nigeria a destination of choice for drug manufacturing in the foreseeable future.

•Investment in research and develop-

I

•Buhari

•Akintayo

‘To maintain relative harmony, GMB should appoint a seasoned Administrator or any other health professional as Minister of Health. He should not appoint, for any reason, a medical doctor as Minister of Health. The then Minister of Health, Prof Olikoye Ransome-Kuti was the precursor of disharmony in the system because he gave undue advantage to medical doctors. ment through substantial financial rates for the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD). It is the shame of a nation that at time of national health emergences we depended entirely on other nations to provide vaccines and medicines for clinical disease from states that are exclusive to the tropics. This must change in the envisaged new dispensation.

In the light of these suggestions, the PSN calls on the in-coming APC administration to organise consultative meetings, which inculcates stakeholders in health, especially the professional associations and trade unions.

Such templates will foster unity and harmony as consensus positions can be effectively implemented by government.”

President, Association of Medical Laboratory Science (AMLSN), Toyosi Raheem said: In the health sector, AMLSN looks forward to positive changes that will: •Liberalise the headship and restructuring of Federal Ministry of Health with a view of appointing credible, professionally unbiased, experienced health administrators or professionals that will give enabling environments and resources for optimal discharge of quality health care at all levels in Nigeria; •Create a directorate/department of medical laboratory services at the Federal Ministry of Health just as we have for nursing services, pharmaceutical services etc.

This will promote quality medical laboratory services in Nigeria; •Give equal opportunities to and treat all health professionals in the sector with jus-

tice, fairness and career progressions and professional autonomy that will make every profession contribute its best to the health sector; •Ensure Universal Health Coverage to Nigerians as envisaged by WHO i.e accessible, affordable, timely and of right quality; •Prohibit commercialisation of the health sector and discourage the present Public-Private Partnership (PPP), which is a device designed by few CEOs of health institutions in Nigeria to increase out-of-pocket health expenses of the masses of this country; •Ensure adequate funding of the health sector and give significant budgetary allocation to the medical laboratory services with a view of making medical laboratory services and testing cheaper, affordable and accessible to the masses; •Ensure that National Health Act 2014 is implemented in a way that all the positive gains expected from the Act are delivered to the masses; •Encourage professional autonomy for all health professions as provided for in their enabling laws and schemes of service. A situation where a different professional group would be put under the control of another distinct and separate profession should be avoided for harmony in the health sector; •Employment opportunities, training and retraining opportunities for graduates of Medical Laboratory Science through internship and full employments should be generated to improve health care in the country.

•Mr President-elect sir, we are particu-

larly impressed with your passion for a better Nigeria and especially the health sector, which from records, experienced great feat at your first coming between 1983 and 1985.

We are optimistic that you will appoint credible, competent, unbiased and experienced administrators to lead the Federal Ministry of Health. This no doubt, will put an end to incessant crisis in the health sector in Nigeria. History has it that when an experienced, professionally unbiased health economist/ administrator was in charge, our health sector in Nigeria ranked fourth in the whole of Commonwealth nations. Regrettably, decline set in drastically from 1985 soon after your exit as the then Head of Government.

•As Medical Laboratory Scientists, we shall be willing and ready to work with the incoming administration to achieve the best for our dear country. We shall direct our members in all states of the Federation, FCT and all the 774 LGAs of the country to give their best for optimal results.

President, Health Information Managers Association of Nigeria (HIMAN), Wole Ajayi said: Healthcare sector is one of the forefront sectors responsible for the GDP as it involves both preventive and curative aspects of medicine. Health Information Managers are responsible for management of health data / information, arising from cases of both preventive and curative medicine. But as professionals, we know that there are not always accurate, reliable and timely data due to lack of appropriate structures/systems and required resources to capture such data. To assist us as professionals for sterling output, the President-elect should implement the following: •The government should support the implementation of Electronic Health Records (EHR) System at all levels of Health care for a fundamental transformation of basic aspects of health care services for an improved health care, procurement and development of health information technology to drive health sector businesses; •Access to Health Grant for health data research: The challenges confronting healthcare institutions have different aspects, but they relate essentially to not getting accurate or poorly managing health data. There are limited and fragmented information on morbidity, health inequalities, and health determinants of the population even in healthcare facilities. Many of the data used are extracts from the World Health Organisation (WHO) figures, which are not the true reflections of the realities in the country. Without such data/information, it is virtually impossible to determine health priorities; to support evidence based approach for targeting resource through service planning and implementation processes; conduct health impact assessment; or demonstrate improvements in healthcare in line with national targets; •Implementation of uniform coding, scaling up and institutionalising international classification of diseases and causes of deaths.

Most of the coding systems and standard presently in use failed to take into account public health data needs and public interest are not uniformly regarded as consistent with business need of organisations. It is also suggested the drafting of policies on medical confidentiality and disposition and health data security. This will ensure unhindered exchange of vital information and maintenance of data integrity to support total system of health care; •Capacity building in health information management, monitoring and evaluation.

The training opportunities should not be monopolised but be opened to all health professionals; •On appointments, we strongly appeal •Continued on page 44

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HEALTH

‘Our agenda for Buhari’ •Continued from page 43

that appointments opportunities either as the Minister of Health or Chief Medical Director (CMD) should be open to qualified and competent stakeholders in the health sector and equal opportunities should be accorded to Health Records/Information officers in the composition of membership of Hospital Boards for effective services delivery; •It will also be good if the Health Bill recently passed into Law is implemented; •Remunerations and welfare packages should also be given to health professionals to boost their efficiency in service delivery and opportunities to attain the peak of their career in the health sector.

President, NANNM, Abdulrafiu Alani-Adeniji said: The National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwifery (NANNM) will like to urge President-elect to address the problems in the sector to pave way for meaningful development in the sector. Without a virile health sector there cannot be development as health is wealth. General Buhari should look into and adopt the Yayale Ahmed Committee report on industrial harmony. The intrinsic nature of the sector should be looked at, more especially, the area of health financing, which is the bedrock of a lasting healthcare delivery system.

So also the health human per capita to ensure quality healthcare. GMB should not pay lip service to staffing in nursing care, because there is dearth of nurses in the county.

Infrastructural development should be prioritised, this is because most states in the federation cannot boast of quality health facilities.”

President, the National Union of Allied Health Professionals (NUAHP), Dr Felix Faniran said: To maintain relative harmony, GMB should appoint a seasoned Administrator or any other health professional as Minister of Health. He should not appoint, for any reason, a medical doctor as Minister of Health.

The then Minister of Health, Prof Olikoye Ransome-Kuti was the precursor of disharmony in the system because he gave undue advantage to medical doctors. The Presidentelect should ensure that the composition of Board of Hospitals is not dominated by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), other stakeholders should be co-opted into the board. In appointing Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) or Chief Medical Directors (CMDs) of tertiary hospitals, other healthcare professionals should be considered because that position has been skewed in favour of medical doctors to the detriment of other experts in the system. We call for the reconstruction and re-organisation of the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), other professionals in the sector should be active members of the ministry. GMB should look into the Abdullahi Bello Committee’s report on disharmony in the health sector.

Similarly, the Yayale Ahmed Committee report should be looked into as well. The National Health Act (NHA) should recognise all experts and unions, and as such it should be all encompassing, so as to remove tyranny in order to ensure unity and teamwork in the sector.

President, Association of Radiographers of Nigeria, Dr. Mark Okeji, said:

•Faniran

•Raheem

•Okeji

Challenges of the Profession •Few practising Radiographers in Nigeria (less than 2, 000): With the increase in cancer cases in Nigeria, there is urgent need to increase the number of Radiographers because they are central in the diagnosis and management of the scourge. Therapy Radiographers are in acute short supply (less than 30 trained therapy Radiographers in Nigeria now). These specialists use radiation for the treatment of cancer (Radiotherapy).

We are calling on the in-coming Administration of His Excellency Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) to partner with us in order to increase the training centres for diagnostic and therapy Radiographers.

•Autonomy in Government Hospitals: We are calling on the in-coming Administration of His Excellency Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) to direct the Federal Ministry of Health to create a separate department for Radiographers in Teaching, Specialist and General Hospitals to enhance professionalism, ensure adequate use of government resources by people who are trained in it and reduce inter-professional acrimony.

•Combating quackery in Radiography practice: Quacks constitute great threats to the lives of Nigerian. It leads to misdiagnosis and also may predispose hapless Nigerians to various forms of cancers. We are calling on the in-coming Administration to support the efforts of the Association of Radiographers of Nigeria (ARN) and the Radiographers Registration Board of Nigeria (RRBN) in combating this monster.

•Establishment of Petrochemical industry: We appeal to the in-coming Administration to establish a modern petrochemical industry in Nigeria. This will lay the foundation for industrial revolution in Nigeria and provide the needed raw materials for the production of X-ray films and other radiological consumables.

•Expansion of the National Health Insurance Scheme: We appeal to the in-coming Administration of the NHIS to ensure universal health coverage for all Nigerians.”

Vice President (WAR), Commonwealth Medical Association, Dr. Osahon Enabulele, said: The West African Region of the Commonwealth Medical Association congratulates General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) on his victory at the presidential elections.

We call on the President-elect to sustain the tidal wave of expectations and legitimate aspirations of the long toiling people of Nigeria.

Based on the President-elect's antecedents, we expect that he will eradicate corruption and institute discipline and integrity in governance. We look forward to the Presidentelect and his team to work hard to restore

•Ajayi

•Oyewumi

public confidence in governance through institution of an all-inclusive and participatory government.

Also, the government should eliminate corruption and insecurity. Besides, there should be strict adherence to the rule of law and restriction of government's funding of travels for foreign medical treatment by political and public office holders.

The government must ensure improved political commitment to Nigeria's health sector and the fundamental health rights of Nigerians, particularly through strict and committed implementation of the National Health Act, 2014, and institution of globally competitive wages for medical doctors/health professionals backed with a robust and dynamic health human resource development plan, among other progressive steps.

We call on all Nigerians to support the incoming Federal Government under the leadership of General Buhari, so as to enable him keep faith with his promises to Nigerians.

President Nigeria Society of Physiotherapy (NSP), Taiwo Oyewumi said: Physiotherapy is providing services to people and populations to develop; maintain and restore maximum movement and functional ability throughout lifespan. Physiotherapy includes the provision of services in circumstances where movement and function are threatened by injury, disease or the process of aging. Physiotherapy has Promotion, Preventive, Curative and Rehabilitative components. It is therefore an essential component of the health Care Delivery System. As valuable as Physiotherapy is to the Health Care Delivery System, the services of the Physiotherapists are under utilized in our environment because Physiotherapy is not fully appreciated.

Physiotherapy and Health care delivery system, expected actions •We demand equity especially in remuneration among the health care professionals relative to their worth and what they do.

•We demand immediate actions to revamp the moribund health sector in Nigeria.

•We are requesting more involvement of Physiotherapists in Ad Hoc and standing Committees on National Health issues and institutions.

Appointment of Minister of Health/Composition of Boards of Teaching hospitals and other health establishments: •We appeal for appointment as Minister of Health any competent and qualified stake holder in the health sector.

•The NSP is appealing that the President elect in constituting the boards, give appropriate and equal opportunity to Physiotherapists. Till date no Physiotherapist has been appointed in the Boards of National Orthopaedic Hospitals.

Job related allowance and human resource issues •Physiotherapists to be paid scarce skill allowance •Enhancement of training of Physiotherapists to promote optimal health care delivery and key driver to mitigating medical tourism. There is therefore an urgent need to upgrade the current training curriculum to meet with the expanding roles of Physiotherapists in managing today’s health challenges in the country’s population.

National policy on rehabilitation, expected action: •The NSP is requesting that the President elect initiates and institutes a National Policy on Rehabilitation.

•Building of Rehabilitation centres in Nigeria.

Doctors trained in new eye treatment technology

T

O prevent avoidable blindness, oph thalmologists and optometrists have been trained on a new technology known as femto-laser surgery.

The training, according to Health Partners, a Health Maintenance Organisation (HMO), will provide succour for patients suffering from cataracts and refractive errors.

At a workshop in Lagos entitled: The New femto laser technology in cataract and refractive surgery, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Eye Foundation Hospital, Dr Kunle Hassan, said the advanced technology will simplify surgery and ensure treatment outcome.

He said: “We are here because of the advance of technology in the eye care indus-

By Faruk Hamzat

try. Our organisation is usually on top of available high-tech modalities for treating eye diseases.”

His organisation, he said, places importance on internationally-acceptable standards.

The new technology, Hassan said, will be useful to cataract and refractive error patients, who do not want to wear eye glasses.

The technology, he said, was the first in sub-Saharan Africa, adding: “It’s a special laser that is different from any kind of laser

we have used before.”

The procedure, he said, is done with laser, stressing that it is safe with predictable result.

Besides, it is done for patients suffering from short and long sightedness, presbyopia, keratoconus, astigmatism or refractive error, who detest wearing glasses.

“Femto laser surgery is usually done with topical anaesthesia eye drops to numb the eye. No injection required. The procedure takes between five and 10 minutes. No eye pad and hospitalisation. The effect is immediate,” he said.

Hassan said the technology would tremen-

dously improve the visual outcome of cataract surgery, adding: “One of the patients who had a minus 18 refractive error benefited from the technology.”

The CEO of Health Partners, Dele Salami, urged medical practitioners to provide quality service to the public.

His words: “Today we are able to train some ophthalmologists and optometrist and tell them that they can do better if they collaborate with themselves. This is called good practice, especially where two or four professionals collaborate instead of everybody standing alone. They could form a synergy to deliver services to the people.”

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TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

THE NATION

BUSINESS ENERGY

E-mail:- energy@thenationonlineng.net

‘Why oil operators cannot access funds’

M

ARGINAL oil field operators are finding it difficult to access funds for operation because they have weak financial structures, complex field development plans, and unresolved legal and environmental issues, the Division Head, Oil and Gas (Upstream), Fidelity Bank Plc, Abolore Solebo, has said.

Other problems plaguing them are faulty Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and low exploration and production activities.

Speaking on the sideline of a stakeholders forum in Lagos on why some marginal oil fields are idle, despite the directive from the Federal Government that owners of such fields should activite them, Solebo said poor financing is affecting operation of many oil firms in Nigeria.

He said Fidleity Bank could not provide funding to some marginal field operators that came for loans because of their inability to meet the requirements.

He said financial institutions are ready to provide funds for operators, provided they are willing to abide with the terms and agreements for accessing loans.

By Akinola Ajibade

He said: “Most of the marginal oil field operators are complaining about financing. But they have forgotten that they are not playing the roles expected of them by the banks. They are not ready to meet the banking requirements. They are not ready to do the needful, by meeting the legal and financial requirements provided for them. Often times, the field development plans of some oil companes are too complex for banks to work with.

“There are legal hurdles that can stop a firm from operating. Once the legal hurdles are not sorted, banks would not be willing to advance credits to existing and prospective loan seekers. If there is a court injunction stopping an oil firm from operating, that shows that banks would not be able to recoup its money.”

Solebo said the falling price of crude oil in the international market is a lesson in disguise for operators, urging them to improve their production for growth.

“At this time of sliding crude oil prices, marginal oil field operators should try and work up numbers, by taking advantage of spontaneous financing at

their disposal to increase production. By this, they should involve in activities that would encourage production since this is the only way they can compete well in the industry,” he said.

He said banks have keyed into the local content initiatives by supporting indigenous oil companies.

According to him, the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has recorded success in the oil and gas sector by ensuring that local content initiatives are adopted and implemented by operators. This is evident by the support local banks are given to oil operators in the sector by supporting them with the needed funds.

He said: “Fidelity Bank and others have keyed into the local content initiatives in the petroleum industry.

“On the exploration and production space, banks have participated in the divestment of assets of Shell by supporting indigenous oil companies that acquired the assets. Nigerian banks provided $2.5 billion out of $3 billion needed to acquire the assets of Shell. We would continue to invest in the industry as opportunities arise.”

• Gas flaring

Cooking gas price rises on scarcity

M

ARKETERS have increased the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) known as cooking because of its scarcity, The Nation has learnt.

LPG marketers, including NIPCO, Total, Forte Oil, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), among others, have not only increased the price of the product but are rationalising its supply.

The problem, it was gathered, was caused by hitches in the distribution among stakeholders in the value chain. A source in one of the oil marketing firms said the scarcity was caused by the usage of LPG distribution channels for other purposes than what they were built for.

The sources said the government directed that two out of the three distribution channels be used to supply Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) to make fuel available in the country.

The President, Liquifield Petroleum Gas Association of Nigeria (LPGAN), Dapo Adesina corroborated the source saying the scarcity was caused by the usage of LPG terminals for other purposes.

He said NIPCO terminal, Products and Pipeline Marketing Company (PPMC) terminal and NAFGAS terminal are the three

By Akinola Ajibade

approved by the Federal Government for the supply of LPG in Lagos.

He said NAFGAS terminal is the only one supplying LPG to the bulk and retail sellers, while NIPCO and PPMC terminals are being used to supply petrol since the election was held.

He said the development has resulted in uneven distribution and scarcity of cooking gas in the country.

He said: “The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) is not the cause of the scarcity of the product as people were made to understand. NLNG supplies LPG seamlessly through vessels that are coming from its base in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, to Lagos. The failure to use the three terminals to distribute LPG is the cause of the scarcity. Imagine a situation where one out three terminals was used to get cooking gas to the consumers. Definitely few people would access LPG which would ultimately lead to its scarcity.

“At Creek Road, Apapa, Lagos, there is a gridlock. The traffic was caused by tankers waiting to load LPG. Many trucks have

waited for days to get the product but to no avail. The scarcity of cooking gas dates back to the electioneering period and we are still experiencing it,” he said.

He said the solution to the problem lies in the hand of the Federal Government because it regulates the oil and gas sector.

The price of 12.5 kg cylinder of cooking gas has increased from N2,800 to N3,200 depending on the area. Besides, many refilling outlets do not have the product while those that have sell at high prices.

A gas seller, Joshua Oliha, told The Nation that the market was dull because there was no gas to sell to customers. According to him, he struggles with his colleagues to get the product at a high price, a development that has forced them to increase the price.

He said: “The gas sellers come together to deliberate on developments in the sub-sector. We have resolved to wait till post-election period to see whether the problems would be solved. We hope that the government would ensure that LPG is widely distributed to end the scarcity. Customers would be buying cooking gas at high price until the government does the right thing about the issue,” he said.

UN, World Bank chiefs launch gas flare-out initiative • Target 40% flaring From Simeon Ebulu, Washington, DC

A

GAS flare-out initiative expected to cut global flaring by 40 per cent was launched at the weekend in Washington DC, the United States capital.

Tagged Zero Routine Flaring by 2030, the initiative has already been endorsed by nine countries, including four African nations, 10 oil companies and six development institutions. The initiative was launched by the United Nations (UN) Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon and World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim. They were joined by Royal Dutch Shell Chairman Jorma Ollila; Statoil Chief Executive Officer, Eldar Sætre; Norwegian Foreign Minister, Borge Brende; Gabonese Minister of Petroleum, Etienne Dieudonne Ngoubou; and several other senior government and corporate officials, as well as representatives of the World Bank Group, African Development Bank (AfDB), Islamic Development Bank and other international development banks.

The endorsers collectively represent more than 40 per cent of global gas flaring.

The UN scribe said: “Gas flaring is a visual reminder that we are wastefully sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We can do something about this. Together we can take concrete action to end flaring and to use this valuable natural resource to light the darkness for those without electricity.”

Kim said by endorsing the initiative, governments, oil companies and development institutions recognise that routine gas flaring is unsustainable from a resource management and environmental perspective and agree to cooperate to eliminate ongoing routine flaring as soon as possible and no later than 2030. They will publicly report their flaring and progress towards the target on an annual basis. Furthermore, routine flaring will not take place in new oil fields developments. Governments will provide an operating environment conducive to investments and to the development of functioning energy markets.

“As we head towards the adoption of a meaningful new international climate agreement in Paris in December, these countries and companies are demonstrating real climate action.

Reducing gas flaring can make a significant contribution towards mitigating climate change,” said Moon.

Oil companies and governments that have yet to endorse the initiative are currently undertaking comprehensive reviews of their gas flaring. Many are expected to join the Initiative in the coming months.

Every year, around 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas produced together with oil is wastefully burned or flared at thousands of oil fields around the world.

This results in more than 300 million tons of carbon dioxide being emitted to the atmosphere—equivalent to emissions from approximately 77 million cars.

If this amount of associated gas (AG) were used for power generation, it could provide more electricity (750bn kWh) than the entire African continent is consuming today.

But currently, the gas is flared for a variety of technical, regulatory, and economic reasons, or because its use is not given high priority, Kim said.

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THE NATION

* The Environment * Mortgage * Apartments * Security * Homes * Real Estate

BUSINESS PROPERTY/ENVIRONMENT

Website:- http://www.thenationonlineng.com 08062722507

property@thenationonlineng.net muyiwalucas2002@yahoo.com

The launch of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company on January 16 last year raised hopes that the 17 million housing gap may soon be bridged. How far has the body fared one year after? MUYIWA LUCAS asks.

•Housing delivery...waiting for NMRC’s ‘touch’

NMRC: One year after, what hope for housing?

‘It is designed to be an integral A part of the country’s financial S Far as the housing sector is con cerned, the outgoing administration of President Goodluck Jonathan can be said to have put in place policies and institutions to drive the sector, with the aim of solving the estimated 17 million housing deficit in the country. One of these policies led to the establishment of the Nigerian Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC).

While setting up the NMRC on January 16 last year, Jonathan was convinced that his administration is creating the enabling environment for primary mortgage banks and other financial institutions to offer real mortgage facilities to Nigerians at affordable rates. The NMRC scheme, set up to bridge the funding gap of residential mortgages and promote availability and affordability of good housing to working Nigerians, is to provide mortgage lending banks with increased access to liquidity and longer term funds in the mortgage market.

It is designed to be an integral part of the country’s financial system, with special focus on housing finance and, or the mortgage system. Also, it has the mandate to resolve access to affordable housing finance and, more importantly, as a focal point for creating an enabling environment for housing finance by playing a strong developmental role in supporting the improvement of land, legal framework, housing development and construction.

Thus, it is the latest hope for low-income earners, who cannot afford the cost of a mortgage loan. Simply put, though the NMRC is government inspired, it is a private sector-led effort to provide affordable housing for Nigerians through loans accessed from mortgage and commercial banks. It is being implemented as a component of the Nigeria Housing Finance Programme, an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Finance in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Federal Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (FMLHUD) and the World Bank/International Finance Corporation (IFC).

As a take-off for the scheme, the World Bank approved a concessional $300 million, 40-year interest free International Development Association (IDA) loan to

facilitate the execution of the Housing Finance Programme. About $250 million of the IDA loan will be disbursed in instalments to NMRC as Tier 2 Capital based on key performance indicators–it will be retained on NMRC’s balance sheet to provide credit support for NMRC’s bond issuances. The balance of $50 million will be allocated to other components of the Housing Finance Programme in the following order: $25 million for the establishment of a Mortgage Guarantee Facility for lower income borrowers and $25 million to support the development and piloting of Housing Microfinance Products.

The Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) is to also benefit from a $25 million facility to improve its mass housing programme and empower some of its microfinance partners. This measure is also believed to be a major step that will equally reposition the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). The introduction of NMRC is expected to reduce the cost of mortgage loan by improving market efficiency, lowering cost of funds and allowing for longer repayment tenor period by financial institutions.

Already, as a boost for the NMRC, it has also attracted foreign or international suitors. For instance, Cantor Fitzgerald, a global investment firm with expertise in assetbacked mortgage securities, recently signed a $1 billion pact with the Federal Government for investment in the mortgage sector. The company also indicated its desire to build 10,000 houses in Kaduna, Lagos, Enugu and Abuja within the next one year. The Managing Director, Debt Capital Markets Division, Cantor Fitzgerald, Mr. Jack Heffernan, also described the NMRC as “exactly the right business model to bring liquidity to Nigeria’s housing sector.”

This feat has since been lauded by stakeholders in the housing sector and other sectors of the economy.

For instance, the Coordinating Min-

system, with special focus on housing finance and, or the mortgage system’

ister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the entry of such a player into the mortgage sector will boost the prospect of achieving the core vision of the NMRC, which is to get young Nigerians convenient access to means of owning their own homes.

“Cantor Fitzgerald’s presence in Nigeria shows that our mortgage strategy is attracting the right kind of attention from the right kind of people around the world and this will deepen and diversify and ultimately reduce the cost of mortgage and housing in Nigeria,” she said.

But, laudable as this seems, 15 months after the set up of the NMRC, it is yet to have the desired effect. The agency launched its first application for 10, 000 housing units middle of last year, but about 66, 402 applications were received.

Of this figure, 25,000 applications are said to have been pre-qualified; 9,000 has been given offer letter, while monies have been disbursed to 33 Nigerians to acquire their homes.

A number of other initiatives are also being worked out with the National Pension Commission (PenCom) to enable workers borrow from their Retirement Savings Account (RSA) to own houses.

The expectations of Nigerians from the NMRC may be understandable given the difficulty in obtaining mortgage- a nightmare the NMRC has come to reduce, if not eradicate. The company also realises this. For instance, its former Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Sonnie Ayere, said the process of refinancing is not what is done suddenly. He said: “It takes several processes and we are on those processes and by early this year, the company will officially issue its first mortgage refinancing and the whole world will see it.” He said several months after the establishment of the company, the management had to work on creating an enabling environment for its take-off, so as to have something sustainable, because it is not all just about finance,

as there are other issues such as foreclosure, which is also important, that has to be considered.

For now, the Prof Charles Inyangetteled NMRC, may not have had any strong physical showing on the mortgage scene, but experts are convinced that the future is bright for the company if its mandate are properly pursued, especially now that the NMRC has received its licence from the CBN. The NMRC has the mandate of encouraging financial institutions to increase their mortgage lending by providing them with long-term funds; increase the maturity structure of mortgage loans and assist to reduce mortgage rates. It is also expected to increase the efficiency of mortgage lending by facilitating and standardising mortgage lending practices of financial institutions.

Yet, the NMRC has not failed to attract criticism from the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC), which expressed reservations over its setting up. The workers fear that it would make the only secondary mortgage institution in the country, the FMBN, redundant. The NLC described the project as “pure business for high networth individuals.”

Labour also feared that the NMRC will not cater for the interest of average Nigerian workers, and instead, urged government to assist the FMBN secure loans that would enable it deliver affordable houses for Nigerians in the low income cadre.

Lagos hosts interiors exhibition

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N opportunity to explore the potential of electronic-trading and interaction beckons at the 2015 Unique Interiors Exhibition. The exhibition will hold in Lagos between May 20 and 22. The platform, said to be the first of its kind in the 12 year-history of the exhibition, is believed, would revolutionise exhibition in the country.

The exhibition, with ‘Unique Beyond Borders’ as its theme, is a draw card for professionals to gain valuable insight into the latest solutions for ensuring comfortable and sustainable

innovations for facility management, interior designs, architecture as well as safety, and healthy living.

Managing Director, Flair Finishes, Mrs. Debola Majekodunmi, said: “It is a development that is set to revolutionalise exhibitions across the industry in Nigeria and beyond.”

Flair Finishes is the organiser of the exhibition.

According to Majekodunmi, a service based on Skype Business View technology that takes us-

ers from all over the world into the exhibition booth will be deployed.

She said the concept, which is exciting and increasingly getting popular, creates a rich interactive and immersive experience for users and combines it with enhanced visibility and accessibility for client companies.

A member of the organising committee, Mr. Abdelnasser Quadri, said the exhibition had been on for years, but the organisers were introducing the e-platform to reach a wider audience.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

EQUITIES NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE

DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 20-04-14

DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 20-04-14

Share reconstruction: Unity Bank retains N58.45b capitalization

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NITY Bank Plc yester day formally con cluded its share reconstruction exercise with the reduction in the bank’s outstanding shares and re-pricing of the post-reconstruction shares.

The share reconstruction was entirely as outlined in a previous exclusive report by The Nation. Unity Bank reduced its outstanding shares by 105.2 billion ordinary shares from its pre-reconstruction issued share capital of 116.89 billion ordinary shares to 11.689 billion ordinary shares.

However, the market capitalization of the bank remained unchanged at N58.447 billion. Unity Bank’s post-reconstruction shares were priced yesterday at N5 per share as against 50 kobo share price before the reconstruction.

The share reduction and repricing were effected simultaneously at the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) yester-

•Reduces shares to 11.69b shares

By Taofik Salako Capital Market Editor

day, paving the way for the lifting of the full suspension placed on the stock throughout last week.

Under the share reconstruction, Unity Bank had issued one new share in replacement for 10 shares already held by the shareholder.

Market analysts had said the share reconstruction would enable the bank to consolidate its recovery and hasten the accretion of returns to shareholders.

Unity Bank had made a remarkable turnaround in 2014 as the commercial bank returned to the green with a pre-tax profit of about N14 billion. Against the background of loss before tax of N33.64 billion in 2013, Unity Bank rode on the back of improved capital base, growing top-line and better cost effi-

ciency to record a full-year profit before tax of N13.64 billion.

Key extracts of the audited report and accounts of the bank for the year ended December 31, 2014 showed that gross earnings rose from N62.83 billion in 2013 to N77.07 billion in 2014. Interest income had grown from N52.2 billion in 2013 to N62.64 billion in 2014 while net interest income rose from N30.14 billion to N45.45 billion. Fee and commission income stood at N10.71 billion in 2014 as against N7.33 billion in 2013.

Other incomes totaled N3.72 billion in 2014 compared with N3.30 billion in 2013.

After taxes, net profit stood at N10.69 billion in 2014 compared with net loss after tax of N22.58 billion in 2013.

Earnings per share thus turned positive with a modest 17.45 kobo in 2014 in contrast with loss per share of 58.74 kobo recorded in previous year.

DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 20-04-15

THE NATION TUESSDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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MONEYLINK

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Emerging Markets Payments partners FCMB

MERGING Markets Payments (EMP) has announced the expansion of its agreement with First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited.

A statement explained that since 2010, EMP has been providing FCMB cuttingedge processing services, adding that from this year, the agreement extends to issuing services as well.

Stories by Collins Nweze

Under this agreement, EMP commenced the issuance of Nairadebit cards for FCMB as well as continues to provide processing services.

Speaking on the development, CEO, EMP Africa, Murat Ozulku, said: “Over the years, EMP has been able to support partner banks to

achieve their business strategy by providing solutions that render cardholders a seamless, convenient and secure payment experience.

“We believe that expanding FCMB’s card offerings with EMP will provide cardholders with more tools that best cater to their needs, encouraging them to take advantage of the various benefits of electronic

payments.”

The debit cards can be applied for at any FCMB’s branches across Nigeria.

FCMB naira debit cards can be used to complete transactions through all point of sale (PoS) terminals and automated teller machines (ATMs) that accept debitcards in over 210 countries and with over 30 million merchants across the

Wema Bank’s stakeholders urge inclusive economic devt

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ARTICIPANTS at the Wema Bank 70th Com memorative Lecture in Lagos yesterday in Lagos, urged incoming government to implement an inclusive political and economic development blueprint that will give everyone equal opportunity to succeed.

Prof James A. Robinson of Harvard University and coauthor of a book, ‘Why Nations Fail,’ insisted that Nigeria needs political and economic inclusion for it to have full benefits of the peaceful transition.

Speaking on Why Nations Succeed, he advised the incoming leadership of the country to move from ‘extractive’ to ‘inclusive’ institutions adding that legacy has been shrouded by extractive political institutions, dictatorship and military regimes since it gained independence 1960.

“At this critical point of

Nigeria’s history, it has become imperative to interrogate the factors that facilitate growth the growth of nations, and apply this within the Nigerian context in order to stimulate discourse and generate forward –looking actions that will drive lasting economic development,” he said.

Senior Advisor, Africa Economic Development Policy for Opens Society Foundations, Mrs. Oby Ezekwesili said Nigerians should not use colonialism as an excuse because other countries including Singapore were also colonised but have gone far ahead of the country.

She said Nigeria’s diversity should not be seen as an excuse for her underdevelopment, but supposed to be an advantage. She called on government to build strong institutions that also carry the citizens along. “Does our

analysis of how far we have gone based on participation of our citizen?” She queried.

According to her, institutions that produce growth must be founded on the rule of law, sound micro-economic policies, and efficient investment.

Ezekwesili said Nigeria has serious issues of poor governance, adding that it is important that quality individuals should be involved in governance.

Serving Overseer of The Latter Rain Assembly, Pastor ‘Tunde Bakare advised the incoming government to ensure they put round pegs in round holes in assigning positions to the people. “Right people should be allowed to run government. They should be attracted regardless of their religion, party or ethnic group they come from,” he advised.

He said it is time for Nigeria to make right choices, adding

that: “The choices we make will determine where we end up be it for individuals or for a nation”.

Dean of Lagos Business School, Mrs. Enase Okenedo said Nigeria will be better off by having large majority of enlightened leaders running its polity. “We need to give the youth education and also see management as service to the society,” she said.

Managing Director, Wema Bank Plc, Segun Oloketuyi said the lender, reputed as Nigeria’s longest surviving and most resilient indigenous bank offering banking and financial advisory services to the Nigerian public over the years.

“As we celebrate our 70th anniversary, we continue to be driven by a desire to develop an intimate relationship with our customers, putting us in a position to recognise their needs at all times,” he said.

Ecobank is Best Corporate Bank Nigeria

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COBANK Nigeria has been named Best Cor porate Bank Nigeria 2015 by a London based Global Banking and Finance Review Online/Magazine, a reputable banking and finance performance review platform.

Presenting the award to Ecobank in London, Production Coordinator, Global Banking and Finance Review, Mr. Noel O’Leary, said the choice of Ecobank from the various nominations was in recognition of its various initiatives targeted at economic transformation of Ni-

geria and the Africa continent.

He noted that Ecobank has been in the forefront of international trade financing, adding that the bank clearly stands out in various area of expertise within banking and finance globally.

Explaining the rationale of the awards, O’Leary pointed out that the awards were created to recognize companies of all sizes which are prominent in particular areas of expertise and excellence within the financial world. In his words “the awards reflect the innovation, achieve-

ment, strategy, progressive and inspirational changes taking place within the global financial community.”

Executive Director, Corporate Banking, Ecobank Nigeria, Folake Aboderin, said the series of international awards won by the bank in recent times underscores the contributions of Ecobank to the economic development of Africa continent.

She said: “Ecobank has become a major player in the economy. We play in all the segments of the economy – oil and gas, telecommunications; we facilitate and pro-

mote international trade across the various regions, financing importers and exporters. As a bank, we are glad that our efforts in this direction are being recognised globally.”

She also used the opportunity to explains, the various ways the bank is promoting commerce and integration with various products such as Rapid Transfer, preferential cards, among others.

Global Banking and Finance Review is an online news portal providing informative and independent current news for the banking and finance industry.

•From left: Executive Director, Net Library Nigeria, Mrs. Oyeyinka Ayo-Yusuf; Executive Director, Sterling Bank Plc, Mr. Abubakar Suleiman and Corporate Sales Manager, SIMS Nigeria Limited, Mr. Chuks Enwelem, at the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the bank and partners in Lagos

world.

With EMP handling the issuing and processing on behalf of FCMB, the bank’s clients enjoy being a part ofan efficient, reliable network that processes more than six transactions a second and acquires billions of dollars’ worth of transactions a year. To ensure optimum security of transactions, EMP conducts its processing services through Verified by Visa and Secure Code, and provides 24/7 technical support. EMP also adheres to a very high standard when it comes to client services, as the company is a leader in EMV Chip cards, with many of their strengths and successes coming in that area of business. Moreover, EMP provides processing services for all the major card

schemes including Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Union Pay. Executive Director of FCMB, Mr. Nath Ude, said: “EMP’s position as an industry leader is undeniable . As a premier financial services group, FCMB partners with the best of the best for the benefit of our customers. I’m pleased to say that EMP is most certainly among the best in the business. We’re looking forward to our next phase of growth together.”

Today, EMP is not only the leading payment processing company in Nigeria, with a market share of almost 100 per cent in the credit card sector as well as prepaid and debit cards, but is also a regional leader with a significant presence across Africa and the Middle East.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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NEWS

Protest by Abia youths demanding the immediate release of April 11 governorship election result

‘Jega should supervise rerun personally’

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HE Abia State government has requested the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, to personally conduct the rerun election.

Commissioner for Information Dr. Anthony Agbazuere said only Jega’s presence could ensure a credible rerun.

From Ugochukwu UgojiEke, Umuahia

He said the political atmosphere had been filled with intrigues since the Returning Officer Prof Benjamin Ozumba declared the March 28 election inconclusive.

The commissioner said they requested Jega’s presence because the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)

passed a vote of no confidence in the state INEC He said INEC did not cancel results of Obingwa, Osisioma, and Isiala Ngwa North, as claimed in some quarters.

“We are here to remind the people that the results of Obingwa, Osisioma and Isiala Ngwa North were not cancelled.

“As a government and

party, we are ready to stand for the supplementary election, but we demand that Prof. Jega supervises the election personally.

“But if this is not convenient for him, let him send a senior commissioner because we have lost confidence in the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) and the Returning Officer”, Agbazuere said.

‘Zone House of Reps speaker to Southeast’

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GROUP of young professionals, under the aegis of the League of Young African Leaders (LOYAL), has urged the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to zone the Speaker of the House of Representatives to the Southeast to ensure balance in the polity.

In a statement signed by its President, Francis Udoka Ndimkoha and Secretary, Gift Okedinma, the group argued that since 1999, the Southeast had not produced the President or Vice President and so should be allowed to produce the next Speaker.

The statement reads: “Since this democratic dispensation, the Southwest has

From Okodili Ndidi, Owerri

produced a President and a Vice President in the person of Olusegun Obasanjo and Yemi Osinbajo; the North two Presidents, Musa Yar’Adua and Muhammadu Buhari; the Southsouth a President and a Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.

“During the period, the Southeast produced the Senate President between 1999 and 2007, and has since been left with Deputy Senate President; it only produced a Deputy Speaker in 2011.

“It is understandable that the Southeast would have produced the Senate President from 2015-2019 but for the fact that no senator emerged under the APC, and this has denied the zone that position.

“So, the next best thing would be to swap the slot of the Senate President for that of the Speaker, bearing in mind that the APC has two members from the Southeast.”

The group argued that these two members should be considered based on qualification and experience, not minding that they are firsttimers.

It added that “a look at the history of the Speakership reveals it has not always been a question of being a ranking member or even a lawyer, rather it has been about experience in public administration and governance. The ranking member rule is rather a ploy by the PDP leadership to keep new members at bay.

“From Independence till

today, the Southeast has only produced one Speaker in the person of the late Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, in 1979. If the Southeast fails to clinch that position this time, it means that by 2019, it would have been 40 years since the Southeast last produced the Speaker.

“Above all, it is imperative to accommodate the Southeast in the first five positions in the new political arrangement in appreciation of the contribution of its revered leaders like Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, former Governor of Abia State Chief Ogbonnaya Onu and former Governor of Anambra State Senator Chris Ngige to the cause of the APC, from the formative stage till date”.

Gunmen kidnap APGA chieftain, lawyer in Abia

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N All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) chieftain, Chinedu Ikenga and an Aba based lawyer, identified as O.O Anya, have been kidnapped by gunmen in Abia.

Ikenga was said to have been abducted on Ovom road, opposite Grail Message Centre, off Ogbor Hill

From Sunny Nwankwo, Aba

at 9 pm while returning home.

Anya was kidnapped at Abayi, on the outskirts of the commercial city.

Sources said the gunmen trailed Ikenga, dragged him out of his vehicle, and riddled the car with bullets be-

fore taking him to an unknown place.

Party supporters allege that the kidnapping was politically-motivated.

They said the matter had been reported at the police station.

Information about Anya’s abduction was still sketchy.

Chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Aba branch, Chidozie Ogunji could not be reached.

Commissioner of Police, Joshiak Habila said he was not aware of Ikenga’s kidnap but Anya’s case was reported and the police would rescue him.

Ebonyi Assembly freezes councils’ accounts

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HE Ebonyi State House of Assembly has passed a resolution freezing the accounts of local government councils.

Chief Obasi Odefa (Onicha East) moved the motion, noting that the freezing should wait until the House concludes its investigation into their expenditures.

He said their banks should comply appropriately or be blacklisted by the incoming administration.

Odefa said salaries should be paid and principal officers submit detailed accounts within 48 hours, starting yesterday, or be sacked.

He said: “There is corruption in the system and this House is freezing their accounts pending the outcome of investigations into their finances.”

From Ogochukwu Anioke, Abakaliki

Mr. Frank Onwe (Ohaukwu North) supported the motion.

Chief Valentine Okike (Onicha West) also moved a motion to stop the government from allotting shops at the New International Market.

Mr. Ogbonnia Nwifuru (Izzi West) supporting, noted that such allotment should be done on completion.

“Government should not be in a hurry to allot stalls without completing the project.

“It is unimaginable that the stalls are allotted for N50,000, N100,000 and N500,000, and this will be difficult for people.

“The House Clerk should convey this resolution and individuals, who have paid for stalls, be refunded,” he said.

NULGE protests non payment of salary From Ogochukwu Anioke, Abakaliki

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OCAL government workers in Ebonyi State, under the aegis of National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE), yesterday stormed the Office of the Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC) and Office of the Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Matters and Rural Development, demanding payment of their enhanced salaries and arrears.

The protesters, led by the state President, Comrade Leonard Nkah, carried placards with inscriptions, such as: ‘JAAC save our dependants from dying’; ‘It’s now or never, JAAC pay us our minimum wage’; ‘Stop these wanton destructions from LG fund’; ‘JAAC, it is a deliberate action holding our salaries till now’; ‘We need our September 2011, March and February salaries and arrears’.

Nkah said the workers had suffered untold hardship as a result of unpaid salaries.

He explained that the union heard that the government wanted to pay with the old salary structure.

“We know that workers in the ministries and parastatals have collected their salaries and they don’t want to pay us.

“We have been treated with levity, we have been deprived, we have been marginalised and treated as second-class citizens and we are saying no to this.”

He gave the government a 48-hour ultimatum to pay with the enhanced salary structure.

Commissioner for Local Government, Chieftaincy Matters and Rural Development, Chief Celestine Nwali, blamed the delay on lack of funds.

Enugu APC seeks chairman’s sack From Chris Oji, Enugu

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GGRIEVED members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State have called for the removal of their Chairman, Dr. Ben Nwoye.

In a petition to the party’s National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, the aggrieved members accused Nwoye of mismanagement and incompetence.

They also identified improper financial management and high-handedness as reasons why APC in the state performed poorly in the elections.

They said the party’s leadership mismanaged campaign funds, running into about N400 million.

The aggrieved members - Ude Adolphus C. (Deputy Chairman), Chris Ezeh (Secretary), Ikechukwu Oloto (Youth Leader) and Queen Nwankwo (Women Leader), blamed the Dr. Nwoye, for the state’s abysmal performance.

They said Nwoye disregarded Oyegun’s directive to reinstate the woman leader and the deputy chairman.

The members noted that since Nwoye came, money sent from the Abuja National Office, and funds donated by party members had not been properly accounted for.

They allege that Nwoye’s dictatorial tendencies excluded stakeholders from the party’s activities.

“Sir, for the interest and progress of the party, we call for a proper investigation of the management of the party in the state. During this period, Nwoye should step aside for free and fair investigation”, the members said.

Kingdom Invasion Confab 2015 holds

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HE Kingdom Invasion Conference, a yearly event organised by The Incorruptible Seed Church, will hold on April 20 – 26 at 5, Jubilee CMD road, Magodo Phase II, beside Treasured Beginnings School, from 6 pm.

This year’s conference is tagged: “Occupy Till I Come”.

A special programme, ‘Worship the King Concert’, will take place on Saturday, April 25, between 4 pm and 8 pm, at the same venue.

Guest ministers include: Chintuk Isaku, Nathaniel Bassey, Word of life Choir, RCCG Choir (Kings Court V/I) Iheanyi Ejiogun (Liberty House, Lekki), Vikky Oreaze (Neville Assembly, Kaduna).

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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CITYBEATS LINE: 09091178827

Deputy clerk killed as ‘cultists’ clash in Bayelsa

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AYELSA State House of Assembly’s Deputy Clerk Joephrey Nemina was killed as suspected members of rival cultists clashed in Yenagoa, the state capital.

It was learnt the rival cult gangs used various weapons in the clash, which occurred on Saturday night, between 7:30 and 8 pm.

Nemina was said to have been hit by a stray bullet in front of his wife’s shop on Agudama Road.

He was reportedly rushed to an undisclosed hospital, where he was confirmed dead.

A source, who spoke in confidence, described Nemina as a victim of circumstance, adding that he was full of life when he got to his wife’s supermarket on the fateful day.

The source added: “The cult members suddenly started shooting. The shooting lasted for some minutes and caused panic in the area. The man who

From Mike Odiegwu, Yenagoa

died knew nothing about the clash. He was standing in front of his wife’s shop when a stray bullet hit him.”

But another source claimed that a group of gunmen ambushed Nemina when he was leaving his wife’s shop with a bag containing money.

Speaking in confidence, he said the gunmen shot him and fled without taking the bag, implying that Nemina could have been a victim of assassination.

Police spokesman Butswat Asinim, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), confirmed the report.

But he said the deceased was a victim of a stray bullet.

Asinim said: “He was hit by a stray bullet. He was standing near his house when the bullet hit him. We have arrested one person and begun investigation into the incident.”

Bring our family back, residents tell NPDC

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DIDI community in Warri Southwest Local Government Area of Delta State has issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) to “resurrect” the four residents, who died in a fire caused by the company’s damaged facility.

In a statement yesterday in Warri by its Chairman, Boro Danpolo; an elder, Gowon Akibra and spokesperson, Stanley Goodboy, the community threatened to shut down NPDC’s facilities at the expiration of the ultimatum, if it failed to bring back the dead.

A woman, identified as Ebisinde Foto, 36, and her three children - Esegha Foto, 16; Gift Foto, six and Prince Foto, a toddler, were burnt to death on

•Community protests oil spill deaths From Bolaji Ogundele, Warri

April 4 when the family was fishing on River Odidi.

It was learnt that the four were burnt to death when they attempted to light their fishing lamp, unaware that the water contained crude oil.

The crude was said to have spilled from the Riapele-Forcados Trunkline, belonging to the NPDC. A senior member of NPDC’s management, who spoke in confidence, told our reporter that the company had reached out to the community and the family of the victims.

The source said NPDC donated materials to the five communities affected

‘...The four were burnt to death when they attempted to light their fishing lamp, unaware that the water contained crude oil’ by the spill and discussed the roles it would play in the burial of the deceased with their family. “...We’ve visited them.

We gave materials to the five affected communities. We have visited the family. They have buried one person; remaining three. We are having meetings with them on our role in the burial and beyond,” the source

said.

The community, in the statement it copied to prominent Ijaw leaders, vowed to “deal” with the oil company.

The statement said: “We can’t fold our arms and see our family killed and abandoned. This is the first time in history we have witnessed a family killed under NPDC. We will shut down all oil installations and exploration until our deceased wife and daughters are returned to life,” the statement said.

The residents said NPDC officials had not visited the family of the deceased since the incident occurred a fortnight ago.

It was learnt the bodies of the dead had been deposited at the morgue of Warri Central Hospital.

Panic in Delta community as militants evict family

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HE leadership crisis rocking oil-rich Odimodi in Burutu Local Government Area of Delta State worsened at the weekend, following the eviction order to two prominent families by suspected militants.

A former youths’ chairman, Prince Wilfred Ikiere and Vice President of the youths’ group, Mr James Benarode, were forced to flee the community in March because they opposed the hijack of the leadership by a faction.

It was learnt that their sibblings in the town were warned on Sunday to leave Odimodi by Monday (yesterday) morning.

Confirming the eviction order, Ikiere said: “At 5 pm yesterday, the self-acclaimed chairman of the community, Mr Benjamin Gbesine, instructed the cartel in Odimodi that our relations, including my two brothers, five sisters and others, should leave the town this (Monday) morning.

“They were given until 7 am today (Monday) to leave the town or face unpleasant consequences. I have a large family and they are using militants to intimidate and harass my family since I was forced

From Shola O’Neil, S’South Regional Editor, Port Harcourt

to leave over threats to my life and intimidation.

“I know that they want to chase our family away so that they can have access to our houses to plant arms. They will then call in the police and other security agencies to implicate us for gun-running.”

Attempts to reach Gbesine were futile. He rebuffed our attempts to get his commenets on the crisis on the telephone, insisting on a meeting.

But Ikiere said one of the opponents of the forceful takeover of the community

by Gbesine, Chief Futek Zikoregha, an anti-bunkering activist, had been languishing in the cell of the Federal Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Abuja, since his arrest on April 1.

“If Zikoregha, who the world recognises as a fighter against illegal bunkering and militancy in the Niger Delta, can be arrested on trumped up charges, then they can do much worse to us. That is why we are crying out about the latest antic of this gang.”

Itsekiri seek completion of market

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BOUT five weeks to the end of his tenure, Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has got a request from the Itsekiri in Ogheye Dimigun community.

They urged him to complete the abandoned Ogheye UltraModern Concrete Floating Market before he leaves office on May 29.

In a letter to the governor through Mode Augustine and Johnson Boyo, chairman and secretary of the market’s monitoring committee, it urged Uduaghan to complete the project.

It regretted that the project, initiated by ex-Governor James Ibori, had been abandoned for a long time.

The letter explained that the contractor said it abandoned the project because of funds.

“We appeal to Your Excellency to complete the Ogheye Ultra-Modern Concrete Float-

From Bolaji Ogundele, Warri

ing Market before the end of your administration or possibly before year-end.

“This project started in April 2007 is yet to be completed as the major contractor has moved out of site since October 2012 on the grounds that the state government had refused to pay them.”

The community stressed that if measures were not taken, parts of the area that had been built would rot away,’’ the letter said.

It noted that this would amount to a waste of state’s resources.

“We are sure, if the project is completed in this dispensation, you would have created another history, not only for Ogheye people and the Benin River communities but the Itsekiri nation, as you will finish not only strong but stronger,” the letter added.

•Edo State House of Assembly Speaker Uyi Igbe (middle) with other lawmakers during the inspection of the Assembly complex in Benin...yesterday

Youths picket MTN in Edo over xenophobic attacks

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USINESS activities at the Edo State headquarters of telecommunications giant, MTN, were paralysed yesterday in Benin, the state capital, when youths, under the aegis of The Flagship, protested the xenophobic killings in South Africa.

The protesters barricaded the entrance to MTN office on the Murtala Muhammed Way by 7 am.

Their placards bore inscriptions, such as “Xenophobia is inhuman”; “Zuma, call your boys to order”; “South Africans can’t be making money from us and still be killing us”; “Nigerians, boycott South Af-

From Osagie Otabor, Benin

rica companies”.

Their spokesman Austin Enabulele said the action was a warning to the South Africa government to stop the attacks on Nigerians.

The spokesman said the attacks on foreigners by South Africans were inhuman and condemnable.

He said: “We are all Africans. We wonder why they should attack Nigerians doing their legitimate businesses in South Africa, when we have shown them love to operate in Nigeria.

“We have come here to tell (President Jacob) Zuma to call his people to order, because

if he fails to call them to order, we will do the needful.

We are aware of all their businesses in Nigeria. We know of MTN, we know of Shoprite; we know of Multichoice and we know of every other company that belongs to South Africa. We will shut down all their services, if they continue the killing of our brothers and sisters.

“So, we have come here to tell them to end the killing of our brothers and sisters who are doing their legitimate jobs in South Africa.”

The group’s Vice President Gloria Noren said South Africans were not showing gratitude for the financial support

they got from Nigeria during the Apartheid era.

She said: ‘’How could someone come out to say that we are taking their jobs from them? What about the money they are making from us?

“Nigeria spent over N60 billion fighting Apartheid for them. Why should we exchange love to them and they extend hatred to us? It is totally inhuman and distasteful; it is disgusting.

“We are sending this message to the Nigerian government to retrieve Nigerians from South Africa because we cannot keep losing our brethren.”

Bayelsa communities await Shell’s clean-up

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OMMUNITIES near Kolo Creek Manifold, operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), are waiting for the oil company to begin the clean-up of an oil spill in their environment.

It was gathered that the oil firm had not determined the volume of the crude that spilled into the environment.

The leak, it was gathered, was first reported on April 15.

But the company said it had

From Mike Odiegwu, Yenagoa

clamped the compromised section of the manifold to stop the leakage.

A Joint Investigative Visit (JIV) conducted by officials of SPDC, the Ministry of Environment, community representatives and oil industry regulators on April 16, concluded that the spill was caused by sabotage.

A statement by SPDC’s spokesman Joseph Obari said

the leak was detected on April 15.

A community representative, who participated in the JIV and spoke in confidence, said the community felt the sabotage was due to negligence by SPDC’s surveillance workers.

“We are not accepting the theory of a sabotage. That facility is a restricted area and is well fortified. We believe it is the responsibility of Shell to protect its facility. But if it

is negligent on this, it should be held liable.

“Sabotage has to be defined; it cannot be used loosely to cover up the negligence of the oil firm. We do believe it is negligence and not sabotage.

“The spill had wreaked havoc and destroyed farmlands and plantain plantations. We must resolve who bears the responsibility for all these before the clean-up can start,” the source said.

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

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NEWS SENATOR UCHE CHUKWUMERIJE (1939 - 2015)

Ndigbo ‘ve lost another Ojukwu, says MASSOB •Ngige, Ohanaeze, Ekwunife express grief

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HE Movement for the Actualisation of Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said yesterday that the people of Southeast have lost another Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu with the death of Senator Uche Chukwumerije.

In a statement yesterday by its National Director of Information, Uchenna Madu, MASSOB said Chukwumerije would be given a hero’s burial.

The group urged Ndigbo to wear black bands on their wrists for three days as “a mark of mourning for the fallen Iroko tree in Igbo land”.

MASSOB said it would continue to mourn the fallen hero and would also participate actively in his burial as a Biafran hero.

Also yesterday, the senator representing Anambra Central, Chris Ngige, former President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide Dr. Dozie Ikedife and the senator-elect for Anambra Central, Uche Ekwunife, said Chukwumerije’s death was a colossal and monumental lost to the Igbo and the nation.

Ngige said the Senate would miss Chukwumerije’s incisive and erudite contribution to debate on motions and bills in the chambers.

According to him, “Nigeria has lost one of her best. He believed that the spirit of industry, hard work, resilience and adroitness of the Igbo can

From Nwanosike Onu, Awka

be put into very good use for their survival in the Federation of Nigeria.

“We worked together in Ohaneze Strategy Committee and I found out that he never changed. He was a very industrious and energetic patriot, whose ultimate goal had always remained how to ameliorate the living condition of Nigerian masses,” he said.

Ikedife described him as “a true Nigerian and a true Igbo man.”

He said the death of Chukwumerije was the death of an honest, upright, courageous and dogged fighter.

Ekwunife described the demise of Chukwumerije as a colossal loss to both the Igbo and Nigeria.

She said Chukwumerije was one of the strong audible voices at the National Assembly.

“We shall miss his courageous representation.”

She enjoined his children to emulate their father and keep his legacies.

The former Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Culture, Chief Joemartin Uzodike, described the senator’s death as unfortunate.

He said: “He was a bridge-builder between the government and the people.

It is a sad moment for the Igbo, who have lost one of their great illustrious sons.

He was a straight-forward politician, who had always fought for the benefit of the masses.”

Southeast APC spokespersons: death shocking

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HE Conference of All Progressives Congress (APC) State Publicity Secretaries (CAPS), Southeast has described the demise of Senator Uche Chukwumerije as shocking.

Mrs. Kate Ofo (Enugu State); Ben Godson (Abia State); Nwabueze Oguchienti (Imo State) and Okelo Madukaife (Anambra State/Southeast Coordinator) said this in a joint statement yesterday.

The statement reads: “We are however consoled in the fact that in his 75 years on earth, Dr. Chukwwumerije lived a fulfilled life dominated by service to the Igbo nation, understood and lived the Igbo question and demonstrated knowledge, skill and integrity in the service of Ndigbo and Nigeria.

“Long before he enlisted in the line of long-serving senators, who delivered for the nation and their constituencies, Dr. Chukwumerije served diligently in the quest for true Igbo identity. He was a Director in the Biafra Broadcasting Service in the dark hours of Nigerian history marked by the civil war.

“He was later in the military administration of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida as minister of Information, a task he discharged with dexterity and patriotism.

“Dr. Chukwumerije was one of the strongest voices in the Senate from the Southeast and gave a very good account of himself, not just for Abia North Senatorial District but for the entire Southeast and Nigeria.

“He enriched debates in the Red Chambers with his vast knowledge, library of information and unassailable courage, which enabled him to find comfort in being on the minority side of many debates that proved its correctness with time.”

It added: “Chukwumerije has given up the ghost at a period of great challenge to the Southeast, in which his experience would have once again come to the rescue.

“He will be sorely missed by CAPS, who drew copiously from his fountain of knowledge and benefitted from his experience willfully thrown into public space, which stood shoulder higher than the rest of his caucus.

“May his soul rest in perfect peace.”

Jonathan, Okorocha, Orji, Shekarau, others mourn Chukwumerije

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RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, Imo State Governor and Chairman, All Progressives Congress (APC) Governors’ Forum Rochas Okorocha, Abia State Governor Theodore Orji and Education Minister Malam Ibrahim Shekarau have mourned the death of Senator Uche Chukwumerije.

Chukwumerije, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, died at the Turkish Hospital, Abuja on Sunday at the age of 75 after a battle with lung cancer.

Jonathan, in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, commiserated with the Chukwumerije family, Abia State and the Senate over the passage of the senator.

The president noted that the late senator representing Abia North was an ardent believer in national unity, peace, political stability and progress.

He said he joined the family and others in mourning the “late patriot and nationalist, who has left behind an impressive legacy of discipline, honesty, integrity and hard work in public service”.

He believed that the late Chukwumerije, who had a distinguished career as a journalist, social critic, minister of Information and senator, would be long remembered for his dedication and passion for a just and equitable society.

“As the nation mourns him, the president urged Senator Chukwumerije’s family, friends and associates to honour his memory by continually upholding the values and principles, which he lived for and never stopped fighting for till his death,” the statement said.

The president prayed that God should comfort all who mourn the senator and grant his soul perfect peace.

The First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, also sympathised with Abia State government over the death of Chukwumerije.

A statement by the Media Aide to the First Lady, Ayo Adewuyi, described the late Chukwumerije as an astute politician, who made his mark in the political equation of Ni-

From Augustine Ehikioya, Vincent Ikuomola, Abuja, Okodili Ndidi, Owerri, and Ugochukwu Ugoji-Eke, Umuahia

geria and Abia State.

Dame Patience praised the late Chukwumerije’s legislative acumen and experience, which, she said, were brought to bear on the Senate Committee on Education, which he chaired until his demise.

Okorocha described the late senator as an “outstanding and patriotic” Nigerian, who contributed his quota to national development.

The governor, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Sam Onwuemeodo, said Chukwumerije would be remembered as an illustrious Igbo son, who has sacrificed a lot for Ndigbo and the country.

He said: “For years, Senator Chukwumerije had served the nation with a very high sense of commitment and responsibility, and had also dutifully served Ndi-Igbo, and his death at this time, would no doubt, create a vacuum that would not be easy to fill both in the politics of the nation and in the life of the National Assembly because Nigerians would now miss his experiences and all that he represented”.

Okorocha prayed to God to grant the soul of Chukwumerije eternal peace and the family members the fortitude to bear the great loss.

Orji, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Charles Ajunwa, described the late Chukwumerije as a father and a distinguished senator.

The governor said the late senator would be remembered for his invaluable contributions on the floor of the Senate as well as his efforts in building a strong and united Nigeria.

Orji added that the late Chukwumerije would be remembered for his outspokenness and fearlessness in national discuss, adding that apart from distinguishing himself in many fields, he carved a niche for himself both as a politician and statesman.

The governor said though the late elder statesman was sick for some time, he never expect-

ed that he would die so soon, describing the senator’s death as monumental loss to Abia and Nigeria.

He prayed to God to grant the bereaved family the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.

The Abia governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr. Alex Otti, condoled with the family of the late senator.

Otti, in a statement in Umuahia, described Chukwumerije’s death as a huge loss to Abia, Ndigbo and Nigeria, saying it would be hard to replace.

He said with the death of Chukwumerije, Ndigbo have lost a vibrant, fearless, outspoken, dogged and veteran politician, whose views on national issues were highly respected.

He described the late senator as an eminent Nigerian, who believed in a united and indivisible Nigeria founded on the principle of equity, justice and fairness.

Shekarau described the death of Chukwumerije as a “big blow” to the education sector.

The minister, in a condolence message through his Special Adviser on Media, Dr. Nnamdi Olebara, said the senator’s death was a big loss to Nigeria’s democracy.

He described the late Chukwumerije as a pragmatic and forthright politician, who was highly cerebral and unrepentantly patriotic with a clear and straight stance on every issue.

“His contributions to the reforms in the education sector are tremendous and priceless; he was an esteemed team player, who has left the education sector better than he met it.

“We in the education sector commiserate with his family and pray God Almighty to grant his gentle soul eternal rest; solace to his family and loved ones and bless Nigeria with more Uche Chukwumerijes,’’ he said.

Minister of Information Senator Patricia Akwashiki described the death of the senator as a great loss to the nation.

Akwashiki, who noted that she received the news of his death with shock, stressed that Nigeria has lost a great mind.

The minister, in a statement in Abuja yesterday, said: “His death indeed has robbed the nation of one of its most fecund minds and devoted advocate for social change and political development.

“The political class has lost a giant, a gem and a committed promoter of a better society that works in the interest of all its members.

“The late Senator Chukwumerije bestrode the political landscape like a colossus, leaving behind his visible footprints across the broad spectrum of Nigeria’s public life.

“The deceased was a patriot, a hard worker and a stickler for perfection. He exuded uncommon passion, devotion and commitment to the Nigeria Project. He was an accomplished Nigerian, who believed in peace and unity of the country.”

She added: “His election on three consecutive occasions into the Senate between 2003 and 2011 has lent credence to his social standing as a man of the people, who was so recognised and honoured by his people for meritorious service to the community and humanity.

“As a former colleague in the Senate from 2007 to 2011, I was always thrilled by his eloquence and zest while presenting a case or arguing a cause.

He was a man of principle, who displayed intelligence, decency, focus and exemplary behaviour in the Senate. I feel a personal loss over the demise of the avuncular senator.

“He died at a time when the nation needs his wise counsel and vast experience as we transit into another democratic dispensation.

“The deceased exerted and acquainted himself satisfactorily as a democrat, an administrator, a minister and a senator of the Federal Republic.

“The Federal Ministry of Information commiserates with the family of the late Senator Chukwumerije, the Senate and the government and people of Abia State, over the sad and painful loss and urges them to be consoled by the knowledge that he was a patriot, who lived a fruitful, dutiful and impactful life of service to the nation.”

•From left: American Ambassador to Nigeria Mr. James Entwistle; U.S Senior Regional Security Officer Mr. John Bray; Officer in-Charge of Force Criminal Investigation Department DIG Solomon Arase and Inspector General Suleiman Abba, when the PHOTO: NAN American Ambassador visited the IG in Abuja...yesterday.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

FOREIGN NEWS S/Africa violence: Zulu king appeals for calm

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ULU King Goodwill Zwelithini has asked for an end to violence after attacks against migrants in South Africa.

The king told crowds of thousands at a stadium in Durban that previous reports that he said foreigners should “go back to their countries” were distorted.

He has been accused of fuelling attacks in which at least seven people died.

Hostile sections of the crowd sang songs calling for immigrants to leave and booed a speaker who said foreigners had the right to live in South Africa.

In King Zwelithini’s speech he called recent violence shameful and vile. “We need to make sure no more foreigners are attacked,” he urged.

Media caption Karen Allen reports from the rally in Durban The Zulu king spoke to thousands at a traditional gathering called an imbizo While King Zwelithini stuck to a suit and tie, some turned up in Zulu regalia He said accusations against him of inciting violence were incorrect because the country has only been shown a portion of his speech.

“If it were true that I said foreigners must go, this country would be up in flames,” he added.

More than 300 people have been arrested. Among the latest arrests were three men detained in connection with the murder of a Mozambican national in Alexandra, a township in Johannesburg.

South African photojournalist James Oatway witnessed Emmanuel Sithole being

1,000 migrants die in European high seas shipwrecks

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HE pair were passengers on board a wooden migrant boat from when it ran aground in Rhodes, Greece Three died in the tragedy which is the third in 24 hours across European waters with up to 1,000 feared dead Yesterday, a ship carrying a reported 950 people capsized off Libya when its passengers rushed to one side.

Some 300 people who were locked in its hull by callous human smugglers ‘died like rats in a cage’ when it sank.

Italian prosecutors are in-

vestigating claims the vessel may have overturned after colliding with a merchant ship Two more boats in distress yesterday afternoon as European leaders call an emergency summit to handle crisis Anguish etched on her face and held safe by the barechested man who has dragged her from the sea, she seems unable to comprehend what has happened to her.

Around her are scenes of chaos as dozens of men battle to drag other survivors from

the treacherous waves. But not all are so lucky. A short distance away, a tiny corpse is carried to land, his woolly hat dripping salt water.

These are the harrowing scenes on the shores of Europe today as up to 1,000 migrants are feared dead after three separate disasters.

On the Greek island of Rhodes, the unknown child is one of three to have died when the boat carrying him ran aground. The woman is one of hundreds of survivors now seeking refuge after narrowly avoiding drowning.

Elsewhere more than 900 mainly African migrants are believed to have perished when a 75 foot fishing boat capsized off Libya in one of the worst maritime tragedies since the Second World War. Survivors claimed up to 300 people including women and children ‘drowned like rats in cages’ after being locked in the hold by callous traffickers. In a frantic fight for life, they clung to their dead bodies to stay afloat.

Another two boats are thought to be in danger off the

UNIC Lagos gets new director

By Evelyn Osagie

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•Beach-goers were among the first to come to survivors' rescue as emergency services off the coast of Libya continued to survey the horror of an earlier disaster. (INSET) A man carries the body of a dead child onto the Greek island of Rhodes after a wooden sailing boat carrying dozens of people ran aground, killing at least three people in one of a number of tragedies involving migrant vessels over the last two days

Latin America’s oldest woman dies at 127

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HE oldest woman in Latin America, Leandra Becerra, passed away last Thursday night at the age of 127. She died in Zapopan, a town in Mexico’s western state of Jalisco.

The family members said Becerra, who liked eating chocolates and cookies, had said jokingly that the secret of her longevity was not having a husband, eating well and getting plenty of sleep.

Known as the last of the revolutionary-era “adelitas,” women who followed their men into battle, Becerra was born in 1887 in northeastern Tamaulipas state.

They said though never married, but Becerra had five children and some 200 descendants scattered across the states of Jalisco, Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon and in the U.S. The family said Becerra couldn’t be registered in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest-living woman for she lost all her official documentation.

•Becerra

coast of Libya with Maltese and Italian coastguards tending to them. Twenty are already feared dead aboard one of the vessels, both of which are carrying more than 100 people.

In the wake of the disasters, Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat called for the European Union to resume rescue operations and address the chaos in Libya which allows smugglers - who charge migrants thousands of pounds for the passage to Europe - to operate with impunity.

HE United Nations Information Centre (UNIC) in Lagos has got a new director. He is Mr Ronald Kayanja of Uganda.

According to a statement by the agency, Mr Kayanja has since assumed his new duties.

Since November 2011, Mr. Kayanja has held the position of UNESCO Adviser for Communication and Information in West Africa, covering Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Togo working on media, communication and the use of ICTs for development in those countries. In this role Mr. Kayanja has supported capacity building of journalists, promotion of press freedom and safety of journalists, in addition to policy dialogue with member states on the use of community media. Most recently he led UNESCO’s response to the Ebola crisis in Liberia and Sierra Leone through the use of community media.

He also has United Nations mission experience, serving as Programme Officer with the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste from June 2007 until October 2011. He worked with the UN Mission, the UN agencies, national authorities and civil society on mechanisms of strengthening the participation of media and civil society in the nascent democracy of Timor-Leste.

He has worked as a public information officer for more than 15 years, with field experience in the Philippines, the Syrian Arab Republic, Uganda, Zambia and Timor-Leste.

Russian forces ‘kill top jihadist’ in Caucasus •On dry land: A woman appears to collapse with exhaustion in her rescuers arms after being plucked from the Mediterranean Sea in Rhodes.

SERAP urges Nigeria to take action against South the right to life and non-disOCIO-Economic Rights Africa over attacks crimination provisions of the and Accountability

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Project (SERAP) has urged the government of President Goodluck Jonathan to “urgently take legal action against the South African government before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to seek effective remedies, including adequate compensation, for Nigerian victims of xenophobic attacks in South Africa.”

In a statement today by SERAP executive director Adetokunbo Mumuni, the organization said that, “Several Nigerians have been attacked and have lost more than 21 million Rand (N1.2 million)

in the on-going xenophobic attacks in South Africa. This is unacceptable as it clearly violates the obligations of South Africa under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. These serious human rights abuses call for strong and decisive action from our government.”

“Both South Africa and Nigeria have ratified the African Charter. If President Goodluck Jonathan is to side with the victims and ensure that they receive adequate compensation he has to immediately instruct the Attor-

ney General of the Federation Mohammed Adoke, SAN to urgently file an inter-state communication before the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights,” the organization stated.

According to the organization, “there is no better time for President Jonathan to do this as the African Commission is meeting this week in Banjul, The Gambia for its 56th Ordinary Session. Articles 48 and 49 read together with Article 47 provide the legal basis for Nigeria to submit communication against South Africa for violations of

Charter. Countries like Uganda have taken full advantage of this procedure in the past and there is absolutely no reason why Nigeria can’t do the same.”

The organization also said that, “By taking the proposed legal action against South Africa, the Jonathan government will be giving Nigerians in South Africa the best parting-gift ever while also sending a powerful message to the authorities there that Nigeria will no longer accept the inadequate response by South Africa to blatant attacks against our citizens.”

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USSIAN anti-terrorist officials say their forces have killed a North Caucasus jihadist leader in a shoot-out in the troubled republic of Dagestan.

Aliaskhab Kebekov, head of the Caucasus Emirate, died with two other militants after special forces surrounded a house in Buynaksk, the Russian sources said.

Kebekov took charge of the militant group in March last year after the death of its founder, Doku Umarov.

The group was linked to alQaeda, but Kebekov did not support Islamic State.

The official Twitter feed of the emirate’s Dagestan section - (@VDagestan_Arab) also reported that Kebekov had been killed in a battle with Russian forces. However, there has been no official confirmation yet from the rebel command.

Kebekov was also known as Ali Abu Mukhammad alDagestani.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

NEWS Outrage in Abuja, Benin, Kaduna over South Africa attacks Continued from page 4

carried placards denouncing the attacks.

In Benin, the Edo State capital, the office of MTN Nigeria, South Africa’s largest company operating in Nigeria, was picketed.

In Kaduna, youths staged a protest on the streets. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) urged the South African Government to end xenophobia by addressing its cause.

Human rights groups also issued statements condemning the attacks.

The anti-immigrant attacks, which began last month in the coastal city of Durban, has spread to other parts of the country, forcing thousands of migrants to leave their homes. The arrow heads of the attacks are targeting African migrants who they accuse of stealing their jobs and businesses. It is the deadliest spread of xenophobic violence South Africa has seen since 2008, when 67 people were killed.

Business was stalled at the MTN office in Benin during the protest.

The protesters barricaded the entrance to the office on Murtala Mohammed Way as early as 7a.m.

They carried inscriptions, such as “Xenophobia is Inhuman” “Zuma call your boys to order”; “S/Africans can’t be making money from us and killing us”; “Nigerians boycott South Africa companies”.

Speaking for the protesters, Austin Enabulele, said the action was a warning to the South African government to stop the attacks on Nigerians or risk losing its investments in Nigeria.

Enabulele said the attack on

foreigners was inhuman and condemnable.

He said: “We are all Africans.

We wonder why they should attack our fellow Nigerians who are doing their legitimate businesses in South Africa, when we have shown them love to operate in Nigeria.

“We have come here to say to (President Jacob) Zuma to call his people to order because if he fails to call them to order we will do the needful. We are aware of all their businesses in Nigeria.

The vice president of the group, Gloria Noren, said South Africans were not showing gratitude for the financial support from Nigeria during the apartheid era.

She said: “We have videos of Nigerians that have been killed; I personally watched the video.

How can someone come out to say that we are taking their jobs from them? What about the money they are making from us?

“Nigeria spent over N60 billion fighting apartheid for them.

Why should we exchange love to them and they extend hatred to us. It is totally inhuman, distasteful; it is disgusting.

“We are sending this message to our Nigerian government to go ahead and retrieve all Nigerians from South Africa because we cannot keep losing our brethren.”

The youths who stormed the major streets of Kaduna said South Africans were being ungrateful to nations that stood by them during their struggle against apartheid.

The coordinator of the movement, Comrade Yusuf Yusuf said the death of General Murtala Mohammed, a former Head of State, was to some ex-

tent associated with the struggle to liberate southern African countries, including South Africa, and it is disheartening that South Africa has now turn its weapon or war against African countries that stood by them.

He added: “For weeks now, we have been receiving distress calls from our loved ones residing in south Africa and some of them have left behind their property which are being looted by the miscreants.

“They are out there on the street, hunting and killing those they tag foreigners and taking over their businesses while their government turn a blind eye towards the violence.

“We want to remind South Africans-that their call for all foreign Nationals to leave their country simply means that they in turn should expect the recall of their countrymen back home.”

The NLC said in Abuja yesterday that the South African government must take steps to end the attacks.

The Congress said in a statement that it was unfortunate that the attack is targeted immigrant workers from countries that contributed immensely to the fight against apartheid.

In the statement signed by the President of the Congress, Comrade Ayuba Wabba, entitled “Hold the South African Government responsible for the safety of all immigrants”, the NLC said the South African government must evolve policies that will create jobs for its citizens.

It also said that the South African government must bear in mind that there are South African businesses in countries whose citizens are being attacked, pointing out that these businesses are vulnerable to severe danger if positive steps are

not immediately taken.

The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) also urged the South African Government to urgently address the causes of the xenophobic attacks.

In a statement issued in Abuja yesterday by its Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, the TMG said: “It is ironic that a section of the South African citizenry has chosen to vent its anger on peoples from fellow African countries, which stood in solidarity with South Africans at a time the evil system of Apartheid held sway in their country.

Buhari: my plan Continued from page 4

eral Buhari being a former Military Governor of the old Northeast with headquarters in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and looked up to him with so much hope. He pleaded with the incoming President to pay special attention to the affairs of the state.

The Shehu of Borno urged the president-elect to consider a Federal Government takeover of the welfare of youth volunteers fighting insurgency in the state, noting that the state government had been spending so much managing the Boko Haram insurgency.

He pleaded for Gen. Buhari’s intervention on resumption of commercial airlines flights to Maiduguri international Airport, which has been suspended for almost two years.

Buhari yesterday met with former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Kaduna.

There were no details of the discussion by the two leaders but the president-elect left for Abuja after the meeting to receive Ivorian President Alhassan Quattara.

U.S. to ‘deny’ politicians visas Continued from page 4

live tweeting of results, the use of biometric permanent voter cards and electronic card readers- improved efficiency and limited fraud.”

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said, “Now more than ever, it is up to all Nigerians to stay united so that Nigeria can move forward with a clear set of priorities for the future. ”This next phase is critical as the world continues its hopeful watch for what hap-

pens in Nigeria.” ”Nigerian democracy will be a beacon across the continent and beyond,” the assistant secretary, who was in Nigeria during the elections, said.

Ms. Thomas-Greenfield said the US looked forward to the inauguration of the presidentelect, Muhammadu Buhari, on May 29 and the beginning of a new chapter of the relationship between the two countries.

APC demands new INEC team Continued from page 4

25 and restrict itself to areas where elections did not take place which has a total registered voters population of 98,447.

He said it had become necessary for the party to bring to INEC’s notice the manifest desperation of the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Imo State to pervert the electoral will of the people by continuously attempting to add new areas where supplementary elections are to hold to justify his decision not to declare the APC candidate as winner of April 11,2015 gubernatorial elections, hence the decision to declare it inconclusive.

While alleging that the Imo State INEC officials are complicit in the electoral conundrum, which took place in Mbaise, the APC Chairman said: “If not, how can one justify the acceptance of results of Ezihite Mbaise that was above the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) collections for the local government?”

He alleged that when the APC agent pointed it out, the Resident Electoral Commissioner and the State Returning Officer directed

the Local government Returning Officer, Mrs. Helen Ohanyerem, to go and revise the figures downwards to accommodate the number of the PVCs distributed in the area and thereafter admitted the revised results.

He also alleged that INEC officials aided and connived with the military in Mbaise Local Government Area and Izombe Ward in Oguta Local Government and Egbema Ward A, Egbema Ward B, Ekwuato and Umuagwo Ward in Ohaji/Egbeme Local government Area carted away election materials and write results which were admitted by the State Returning officer.

“In the light of the foregoing, we of All Progressives Congress (APC) have lost faith in the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) officials in Imo State in their management of elections and hereby call on the chairman, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to send a new Election Management Team to supervise and conduct the re-scheduled supplementary Imo gubernatorial elections,” the party stated.

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THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

SHOWBIZ

•Fashola (second left), Kelani (second left), and Information Commissioner Lateef Ibirogba at PHOTOS: DAYO ADEWUNMI the event.

•Actress Kehinde Bankole, during the march.

Movie stars march against piracy in Lagos

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AGOS hosted yesterday a unique and exciting march — — of movie stars and produc-

ers.

It was not to promote a new work but to fight a common enemy – piracy.

They carried placards denouncing the evil that steals the gains of their sweat and creativity as they marched on the seat of government at Alausa.

Nollywood practitioners, such as Tunde Kelani, Tunji Bamishigbin, and Gabriel Okoye, aka Gabosky, led the entertainment collective to, once again, demand from the government, a more decisive measure to curb piracy.

The march, which started around 10:00am from Ikeja under bridge, saw the protesters move to the Secretariat, spotting black attires and holding anti-piracy placards with inscriptions such as ‘Piracy kills’, ‘Save Our Business From Piracy’, ‘Help Us to Grow… Piracy Must Stop’, ‘Piracy As An Open Robbery’ and ‘Do Not Patronize Pirates.’

Some of the entertainers at the event are, Jide Kosoko, Yemi Solade, Iyabo Ojo, Abbe Lanre, Niyi Johnson, Sunkami Omobolanle, Yomi Fash Lanso, Goriola Hassan and Jesse King. There was also a lot of singing and chanting all the way, which was led at various times by actor Yemi Shodimu and comedian Funky Mallam.

Along the way, Kehinde Bankole, winner of Best Actress (Drama) at this year’s Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Award, AMVCA, became a cynosure as she stood through the sun roof of a Land Cruiser SUV, holding a placard discouraging piracy as

•Fashola promises action

By Joe Agbro Jr, Ovwe Medeme and Miriam Ekene-Okoro

well as swiftly engaging passers-by not to buy pirated movies.

“Don’t buy pirated movies,” Bankole, who made an impression with her role in October 1, said. “Buy original. It is only N500.”

It was in that camaraderie that the procession moved down Awolowo Way, towards the Lagos State Secretariat at Alausa, and took their first stop at the Lagos State House of Assembly, before proceeding to Governor Babatunde Fashola’s office.

Presenting copies of pirated Nollywood films which were seized at Ikeja to Governor Fashola, awardwinning filmmaker, Tunde Kelani said that piracy, if allowed to continue, will hamper the growth of the industry.

Kelani who lamented over the new trend of piracy in the country, further argued: “Previously, those involved in piracy wait for the release of films before they pirate. But the new trend now is that the films still in the cinema and not officially released by the producer, are pirated and sell openly on the streets of Lagos unhindered.

Your Excellency, we know that the centre of the activities is Alaba International Market. Something must be done right now, otherwise we will be sending a wrong signal to the pirates that they are above the law and piracy should be elevated to the status of a serious crime like drug pushing, financial crimes and be dealt with accordingly. It is disheartening for investors to see their works be-

ing sold on the streets of Lagos unchallenged. Alaba International Market should be pulled down and there should be a law that prevents anybody from selling films openly on the streets of Lagos and by extension, Nigeria.”

Also speaking, Gabosky said, “We have located the den of these pirates.

We have identified those involved but we don’t have the legal backing. ”And those that we spent six years prosecuting were given three months of imprisonment or option of N10, 000. That is the law of our country. ”For instance in India, it is death penalty. Also in United Kingdom, they have gotten anti-piracy squad that clamp down on anywhere they find pirates. In America, anyone found guilty of piracy is sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.”

Thanking the filmmakers for their choice of action, Fashola urged them not to give up in the fight against piracy. Describing the industry as selfdriven, the governor said that efforts are ongoing to stop the menace, especially in the area of legislation.

“You will win this battle,” Fashola said. “For as long as it takes to get it right, I will be on your side. Let me also be clear that stealing of intellectual property called piracy is not a local crime. No nation has successfully overcome it, but they have managed to put them under significant control by some of the measures.”

Tackling piracy, Governor Fashola added, will require a lot, especially given that it is a technologically

enhanced crime. “We have been working as a government, behind, trying to see how we can help you create applications or softwares that make duplication difficult, if not impossible. There are some things that have come up but we are still working on that. We will probably have a homegrown solution to this scourge.”

According to the governor, “One of the measures we also think can help is investing in community cinemas because through this, you can beat the pirates to the game. And in one weekend for instance one can make all his money and that is what happens in India.

“We have to attack from many fronts. And this campaign has to be bigger than the All Progressives Congress, APC campaign at the last elections,” he said.

Tunji Ojetola, the general secretary of Yoruba Film Producers and Marketers Association of Nigeria, said that the Yoruba filmmakers have been battling piracy for a long time.

“Yoruba films have been worst hit,” he said. “Most of the films that are pirated today are Yoruba films.”

One of the biggest losers, Kunle Afolayan, who lost millions of naira to the activities of pirates, however, remained calm throughout the procession which culminated in seeing the Lagos State governor. He however expressed optimism on reversing the trend.

“Hopefully, with this kind of movement, I want to believe we’ll bring an end to it (piracy),” Afolayan said. “It is not only my film that has been pirated. There are several films that have been pirated. And

with the oneness of the industry, I want to believe we will combat all of these.”

Some of the titles seized yesterday include October 1, Figurine, Ije, Imole tan, Yellow Card, Phone Swap and 30 Days in Atlanta have been all over the town and are even being sold in the traffic.

Highlighting the gravity of the situation, Afolayan said the pirates have the effrontery to show it to legitimate producers. “Before we know it, the industry is going to shut down. There won’t be an industry.

Some of the practitioners would have to go to Ghana or neighbouring countries to practice. If we can’t make ends meet in our country even with all the efforts and struggles an average filmmaker puts into this. And, I’m not talking for just film. I’m talking for copyrights for people in the arts.”

Speaking on the reason for the walk, Afolayan said, “We can’t take laws into our hands. We can’t fight because we’re good citizens of this country which is why we’re pleading with the authority to do something.”

Afolayan also urged Nigerians to stop patronising sellers of pirated movies. “If you boycott them,” he said, “they’ll know what they are doing is not right. If all these people convert the structures that they have into selling original copies, they will even be making more money because we release original copies to wholesalers at N300 and the pirates are selling pirated copies at N500.”

Dismissing the law enforcement as virtually non-existent, Afolayan said, “If there is law, I think these should have been put to end long ago.”

Jesuwale set for album launch

Bobby Brown still hopeful about daughter

Bobbi Kristina

N

EARLY three months since late Whitney Houston’s daughter, Bobbi Kristina, was placed in a coma, her father, Bobby Brown is keeping faith alive,

announcing during a concert at the weekend, that his daughter is ‘awake’.

“I can say today: Bobbi is awake. She’s watching me,” Brown told the crowd at

Grand Prairie, Texas.

However, there is no statement yet from the Atlanta rehab center, where Kristina was moved to last month, concerning her present state of health, and Bobby too, didn’t elaborate.

The Dallas crowd took it that Bobby meant that his daughter is in state of recovery.

The event was one of the few public appearances Bobby has made since his daughter’s ailment. Early this month, he was highly emotional at a public show, saying, “”I must tell y’all … this feels really, really, really good. I want to thank y’all for coming out tonight and supporting me and my family.”

He told a crowd at the Soul Food Festival in downtown Los Angeles.

Kristina was found unconscious in a bathtub in her Georgia home late January; her mother was found under similar circumstances. She was reportedly found by Nick Gordon, the man her family took in when he was 12 and whom Kristina calls her ‘husband’.

Bobby had been glued to his daughter’s bedside since she was hospitalized at Emory University, from where she was moved to a rehabilitation center, where she remains in an unconscious state.

Gordon is reportedly being investigated by police for his suspected involvement in the case, and Bobbi Kristina is believed to have been abusing drugs, including cocaine, in the months leading up to her being found unconscious.

EQUEL to the previous songs that have paved way for him into the gospel music world, dynamic praise-song leader, Jesuwale Styven, is set to release his debut album.

Speaking with The Nation, the singer said the album, titled Gratitude, will be launched on May 9, at The Soul Winning Family of God

S

Church National Headquarters, Ibadan, Oyo State.

Some of the top gospel artistes expected at the event are, Seyi Makinde, Goke Bajowa, Psalm Ebube, Dabo Williams, and Mc Babah Oror.

The album according to him, is an enchanting musical fusion meant to convey the message of God’s love to people.

When asked how he started music and what attracted him to the gospel genre, he said, “If I have to say anything on this, I won’t say less, but it was based on God’s calling and passion in using meaningful songs to draw people closer to God’s kingdom.”

THE NATION TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015

63

SPORT EXTRA

Ugbade: we’re not ready for Super Eagles yet W

ITH a section of fans calling for the deployment of the duo of Manu Garba and Nduka Ugbade to be drafed to the Super Eagles, Flying Eagles’ assistant coach and former Super Eagle’ player, Nduka Ugbade, has declared that they are not thinking of joining the Super Eagles…at least not yet.

The former Nigeria international said the focus on the U20 World Cup is the most important thing for them at the moment, and not a deployment to coach the Super Eagles.

“I wouldn’t say yes at the moment because what we have in ahead of us is the U20,” he told SL10.ng.

“We have to focus on the task at hand now, which is the U20,

•Ugbade

and that is what we have,” he said.

But despite saying the stepup doesn’t interest them at the moment; he, however, added that if they win the U20 World Cup, then they can talk about the Super Eagles.

“Until we win the U20 World Cup, then we can talk about the Super Eagles. But for now, we have the U20.”

There has been a lot of talk from the fans about promoting Ugbade and Manu to coach the Super Eagles, with the bulk of the current U20 boys also promoted to the Super Eagles.

Meanwhile, Stephen Keshi is set to continue as the Super Eagles’ coach with Salisu Mohammed as his assistant in place of Daniel Amokachi

Efe Ambrose wished me ‘best of luck’ before s/final game - Ofere

I

NVERNESS Caledonian Thistle striker Edward Ofere has spoken of his joy after scoring against Scottish powerhouse Glasgow Celtic in the semi-final of the FA Cup. And The Caley Thistle front man has revealed that Nigeria international Efe Ambrose wished him the best of luck before his club's 3-2 win at Hampden Park.

"We went into the game be-

lieving anything is possible.

Ambrose and I didn't chat about anything but best wishes for the game," said Eddie Ofere to SL10.ng.

"The goal goes out to the fans for believing in the team, two goals against Celtic in a week that's fantastic.

"They're a very good team in European football but we stood up strong and utilized our chances."

Edward Ofere's arrival at the Caledonian Stadium in February is beginning to pay dividends, having scored three times across all competitions including his 96th minute strike against Celtic on Sunday.

The May 30 final would be the first time the 29-year-old would feature in a Cup final since moving to Europe if he gets playing time against Falkirk

•Ofere

Ogun wins 19th National Junior Cricket Championship

O

GUN State representatives, Comprehensive High School, Aiyetoro has won the 19th National Junior Cricket Championship in Ughelli, Delta state.

Competing with 12 other schools representing different states of the federation, the Ogun State representatives beat Onitolo Community High school, Surulere, Lagos by scoring 35 runs for loss of 3 wickets in 7 overs in the finals to emerge champion. Ambrose Alli University Staff Secondary School, Ekpoma, Edo state came third.

Aside from emerging winners, Comprehensive High School`s Adeleke Olumide won the man of the Match Award for the final match while the same cricketer won the Batsman and Man of the Series Awards.

Receiving the team after their victory, the Permanent Secre-

tary, Ogun State Ministry of Youth and Sports , Moyosore Olowonmi praised the cricketers and their handlers for doing the state proud at the competition.

She said their victory is a testimony to Senator Ibikunle Amosun's huge investment in sports development in the state.

In the meantime, the Badminton Federation of Nigeria BFN has invited Dorcas Ajoke Adesokan from the state as part of Team Nigeria to the forth coming 2015 Badminton World Cup Team Event- the Surdiman Cup scheduled to hold in Dongguan, China from the May 10 t0 17.

Aside from the Surdiman Cup, Adesokan will also be in the Team Nigeria that will take part in various competition such as the Kenya International, Botswana International and the All-African Games

Shittu wins PFA Player in the Community Award

M

ILLWALL defender Danny Shittu beat two other Anglo-Nigerian players, Reading's Hope Akpan and Elliot Omozusi of Leyton Orient, to the Football League PFA Player in the Community Award on Sunday.

The out of favour Super

•Shittu

Eagles stopper was recognized for his involvement in Millwall Community Trust and ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ campaign.

Millwall chief executive Andy Ambler was delighted that Shittu was chosen ahead of other candidates that were shortlisted for the award, and highlighted that he is a role model to several youngsters. ''He understands and appreciates how much of a role model he is, especially to youngsters, and always enjoys getting involved, whether that is at one of the Community Trust's soccer schools or, for example, a hospital visit,'' Andy Ambler told the club's official website, millwallfc.co.uk.

"He has also stressed the importance of such work to his team-mates, encouraging others to join him at various events.

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE... CHAMPIONS LEAGUE...

Barcelona vs PSG

•Iniesta

Andres Iniesta returns

A

NDRES Iniesta has handed Barcelona a fitness boost ahead of Tuesday's Champions League quarter-final second leg against Paris Saint-Germain.

The Spaniard picked up a back injury in the first leg last week and consequently sat out Barca's 2-0 win over Valencia in the league at the weekend.

However, the midfielder re-

turned to first-team training on Monday morning and is expected to be available for the European match at the Camp Nou. Iniesta's performances have been called into question this season, but the 30-year-old is expected to go straight back into the midfield alongside Sergio Busquets and Ivan Rakitic.

Atletico vs Real Madrid

Mandzukic doubtful for ‘grudge’ battle

•Simon

Moses Simon’s injury slows goal run

A

N ankle injury has stopped Moses Simon's whirlwind start to the Belgium playoffs as he was absent from the team 3-1 victory over Standard Liege.

In the playoffs the Super Eagles and Gent forward started by scoring a goal in the opening game against Kotrijk and shone in the 2-1 victory over Charleroi when he was introduced in the second half.

The 19-year-old confirmed to SL10.ng that his absence from the victory over Standard Liege was as a result of an ankle injury he sustained in their first game of the playoffs.

"I missed the game as my coach wants me to rest properly, I'm glad we won and that

is more important than me playing," he told SL10.ng On how long he is expected to be out, the petit forward, who has scored 7 times from the 11 games he has so far played for Gent since joining from Slovakia AS Trencin, stressed he is back in training, "I trained fully a day before the game against Standard Liege but like I said the decision for me to rest was taken by the manager and it was for my good".

Moses will be hoping he shakes off the injury completely ahead of preparations for the Under-20 world cup in New Zealand as he has been named in Nigeria 35 man provisional world cup list.

•Mandzukic

M

ARIO Mandzukic is reportedly facing a late fitness test in a bid to make Atletico Madrid's Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid on Wednesday.

The Croatian sat out his side's 2-1 win over Deportivo La Coruna in the league at the weekend, but had been expected to return for the clash at the Bernabeu this week.

It was initially thought that a facial injury was troubling the forward, but an ankle problem is threatening his involvement.

According to Inside Spanish Football, Atletico boss Diego Simeone will give Mandzukic every chance to prove his fitness in the next couple of days.

The first leg at the Vicente Calderon last Tuesday finished goalless.

TODAY IN THE NATION

TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

‘Fayose and his barbarians are in town; and Ekiti is about cementing its pact as socio-democratic laggard; and sick boy of Yorubaland’ VOL.10

OLAKUNLE ABIMBOLA

NO. 3192

COMMENT & DEB ATE EBA

I

F you went strictly by what the late William Safire of The New York Times once said about writing a newspaper column, you might think that it is a perilous undertaking only in a physical sense.

It is like standing under windmill with your head dangerously close to its rotating blades, he wrote. Relieved that you had ducked a blade, you looked up only to find another one coming down.

Safire exaggerates, of course, but the analogy is on target. You bask in the excitement of seeing your journalistic labour in print one day and while you are still digesting the reactions pro and contra, another deadline looms large. So it is from one column to the next, and the next.

As Frank Rich, another master of the form has pointed out, the relentless production of a newspaper column can push you to express stronger opinions than you actually have, or contrived opinions you may not care deeply about, or run roughshod over nuance to reach an unambiguous conclusion. And if you stay long enough, Rich adds, you run the risk of turning bland or shrill.

And of course, there are in this age of the instant, unexamined response, those who are forever standing by not merely to tell you that you are wrong, but that what you had written could only had issued from a mind that is at once diseased, demented and disoriented.

It has been said of President Goodluck Jonathan that he maintained at the public expense an army of such cavillers to harass and excoriate commentators who were not particularly enamoured of his so-called transformative agenda.

This past weekend was the grim anniversary of one of the darkest chapters in Nigeria’s history: Boko Haram’s abduction of some 250 female students from their school hostel in Chibok, in Borno State, and their forcible march to the bowels of Sambisa Forest and thereafter to places unknown.

Perhaps still chafing from his electoral loss, Dr Jonathan allowed the occasion to pass without comment. Not so President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, and the community of the grieving.

What would Dr Jonathan have said anyway, given that his dilatoriness and his wife’s witch hunt of innocent officials had preempted hot pursuit and rescue?

Still, his rented army of cavillers would have savaged those who had the presence of mind and the humane concern to draw attention to this festering sore on the nation’s conscience.

But I digress.

When you deliver yourself obliquely as this columnist frequently does, there is, on the one hand, the danger that some will see through the subterfuge and desire to get

RIPPLES

NIGERIAN WOMEN ARE NOT CORRUPT–Cleric

Ha! don’t say it again...come to our OIL INDUSTRY

OLATUNJI DARE

AT HOME ABROAD olatunji.dare@thenationonlineng.net

The perils of columnism

•Gen. Buhari

•Asiwaju Tinubu

even, and on the other hand, the twin danger that some will not get it and will wonder aloud why a person so lacking in knowledge and insight should have been allowed to inflict his imbecilities on the public.

Of those two groups, the first is the one to be feared. For there is no knowing how far they might go to settle scores.

In my Rutam House years, whenever someone accosts me at a gathering and asks, “So you are the Olatunji Dare?” I mentally reconnoitre the setting for the nearest exit, measure the distance separating us and figure out in nanoseconds how I would block, sidestep, deflect or otherwise obstruct a punch to the nose or a kick to the groin.

It never came to that. But even today, I still wonder what some people might do if they felt sorely aggrieved over my writing. Fortunately, for the time being at least, I am safely beyond their reach.

Pardon the conceit, but journalists are also writers. Wittingly or unwittingly, they teach; they teach ways of expressing self, of viewing and experiencing the world. They teach attitudes and habits.

What they write has consequences.

This thought struck me with particular force

•Prof. Osinbajo

•Chief Odigie-Oyegun

the day I received a text message from a young man complimenting me on my column that he had just read, and informing me without fuss that he always took his opinions from the column. I had always sensed that writing a column carries some responsibility, but not on that scale What if the columnist was wrong?

A columnist can indeed be wrong for any number of reasons – prejudice, arrogance, ambition, insufficient knowledge, carelessness, disingenuousness, venality, muddymindedness, and sheer charlatanism. If I was wrong – and it is guaranteed that I will be wrong from time to time and from issue to issue — I would have misled the young man and doubtless others who looked up to me for leadership and guidance on public issues even if the error resulted from the purest of motives.

That is no easy burden.

These reflections flow from the media commentary on the recent general elections, in which the leading columnists lined up subtly or militantly in support of the status quo or change. Here, as on the really important issues, there was no neutral ground. To be “neutral” is to harbor no objection to the status

HARDBALL

T

HE Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) old order loved to bawl pee-dee-pee, to which the faithful would roar pawa!

Were such whoops to be re-enacted now, the thunderous roar, with absolutely no sense of irony, would probably be porting!

That is how far the once-upon-a-time largest party in Africa has unravelled!

And fittingly, Vincent Ogbulafor, Himself the hubris-smitten PDP national chairman who predicted his party would rule for 60 years in the first instance, is coolly a part of the tragic collapse. Talk of Nebuchadnezzar eating grass!

The other day, ex-Chairman Ogbulafor staged a “secret” walk into the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abuja headquarters, declared himself in some summitry with John Odigie-Oyegun, APC national chairman, and breezed out to casually tell the media: “It’s not yet time to join APC.” Call it due process porting, and you won’t be wrong!

But that was too slow for some Edo PDP denizens, and frankly, only a few could beat Charles Airhiavbere, former Edo PDP gubernatorial candidate, in hasty and indecent defection. Though part of the unfazed denizens that gave APC Governor Adams

Pee-dee-pee ... porting!

Oshiomhole some black eye in the March 28 presidential election, particularly in Edo central and south senatorial districts, he jumped boat as soon as he realised President Goodluck Jonathan had lost out in the power sweepstakes.

“We delivered for PDP on March 28,” he declared, flush with triumph. “We will deliver for APC on April 11”! Can you beat that? And “true, true”, as they would say on Nigerian streets, Gen. Arhivare and his zesty neophytes, that won the presidential election for Jonathan in Edo also rallied to win for APC, the new national ruling party, most of the seats for the Edo legislature!

Comrade Governor Oshiomhole must have been quite amused with this rather dizzy about-turn. But he gulped it all up, perhaps having a big snigger in private! After all, whoever spews out nuts ground to a sweet pulp by benevolent spirits?

Such was the nationwide scramble to bale out, from the fast sinking PDP ship, that the

quo, and hence to endorse it implicitly, if not explicitly.

Of all the columns on the elections, easily the least nuanced was that of Dr Femi Aribisala, the Oxford-educated international affairs expert -turned pastor and public affairs commentator.

From the one pulpit, he subjected the Bible to the kind of criticism that peer reviewers for the most selective journals reserve for sloppy submissions. From the other, he belted out the most slanderous invective week after week on Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and General Muhammadu Buhari, while heaping the most exorbitant praise on Goodluck Jonathan —the best president Nigeria ever had, far and away the most accomplished, the most cerebral.

The general election would witness Tinubu’s demystification in Lagos State, and would lead ultimately to his disgrace and political death.

By naming General Muhammadu Buhari its presidential candidate, the APC had already lost the election.

Buhari was not in the least qualified for the position, and would never be president.

Aribisala’s strictures on Tinubu and Buhari and everything they stand for were so hatefilled that they raise serious questions about his urbane antecedents and his claims to being a priest.

In this, he bears out George Orwell’s remark that the worst advertisement for Christianity is to be found in some of its adherents All scriptures teach that hatred even of the objectively hateful is subversive of that charity on which the just society must ultimately be founded. When the hatred is deep, ingrained, reflexive and unremitting, when it impairs reason and distorts judgment, you have to wonder what has happened to Aribisala, not too long ago a person of much charm and exceptional promise.

The elections have come and gone. Virtually every prediction he made with the certainty of an oracle failed. Tinubu has emerged as the most influential and most accomplished figure on the Nigerian political scene; General Buhari is set to take office as President of the Republic In Lagos, the APC won the gubernatorial election and an absolute majority in the State Assembly. It won comfortable majorities in the two houses of the National Assembly, and no fewer than 19 state governors won election on its platform.

But Aribisala has not summoned the courage or humility to fess up to his monumental errors and apologise to the reading public.

It is not simply that he was wrong: He was irresponsibly wrong. He betrayed the thousands who looked up to him for guidance and orientation.

For a columnist, there is no greater sin.

•For comments, send SMS to 08111813080

•Hardball is not the opinion of the columnist featured above ever swinging Jonathan Zwingina, in Adamawa, caught the bug. Zwingina, barely two months earlier, campaigning with Nuhu Ribadu, the Adamawa PDP gubernatorial candidate, had literarily howled at his constituents: “Don’t vote Buhari; if you do, he will gaol all of us!”

So, in two short months, what has changed? But don’t ask Zwingina, a former senator, such swinging questions — he has ported, and that’s that! Needless to say?

Zwingina’s gain was the excitable Ribadu’s loss. Ribadu, who had earlier boasted a landslide, ate electoral crow yet again, by coming a distant third in the gubernatorial race.

However, Hardball is not really concerned about the PDP humpty-dumpty which, at least for now, not even the best of the king’s horsemen could put together again. It is rather for APC, the new national ruling party, to take a cue from PDP’s hubris. If PDP can dismantle after 16 years of fly-away power, APC too can suffer such collapse, if it gets afflicted by the PDP contagion.

That is why it must stress more service, less power; and demonstrate a sense of historic mission and responsibility in its new challenge.

Otherwise ...

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