‘How my five-day-old baby was stolen two days before christening’ Page
’s Sam Lotceorview n i parting
Maybe ie, d I n e h w they will sing my praises
11
Page
As the EPL I've never kicks off today seen it as a Different disadvantage strokes for Nigerian that I don't have a male stars child —Agbakoba Page
37
29
Page
39
Nigeria’s truly national newspaper
VOL.05 N0. 1843
TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM
SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 2011
N150.00
Privatisation
El-Rufai’s testimony jolts Obasanjo Ex-President may fire back Associates split
T
he revelations made on Thursday by a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Nasir elRufai, at the Senate Adhoc Committee investigating the activities of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has divided the loyalists of ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo. This development is coming on the heels of indications that the government may revoke some of the privatised firms if the Senate makes any recommendation to that effect. The former DG of BPE has also released a fact-sheet indicating that he only supervised the sale of 23
Yusuf ALLI, Managing Editor, Northern Operation
firms, representing 18 per cent of the 122 enterprises sold. He added that most of the companies sold under him are still doing well. At a session of the committee's sitting in Abuja on Thursday, El-Rufai had claimed that he was always quarreling with Obasanjo over the privatization of some firms. He had said, among other things, that things started falling apart in BPE because Obasanjo jettisoned his recommendation on a successor and brought in an individual who had been fired from the organisation. “I wrote a memo to the Vice
President and I made suggestions that my successor should come from within BPE because we had spent a lot of money training people to prepare them for this, because any time I travelled for more than a week, one of my six directors acted as DG. On the basis of that I recommended three directors and three deputy directors. “The government of the day said it would not appoint anyone from inside. They went and brought someone who literally was fired from BPE and brought him back. That is the beginning. They discarded rules, doing things capriciously, promoting people three levels ahead and the institution has suffered from this since then.” Continued on Page 4
Page
23
My life is more precious to me than marriage —Iyabo Ojo
IN THE NEWS
Banks in Ogun shut down over robbery scare Page
5
Edoho, estranged wife in new relationships
T
he last has definitely not been heard of society couple, Frank and Katherine Edoho. Frank, the winsome presenter and all-time anchor of MTN-sponsored TV quiz programme, Who Wants to dBe Continue on aPage 43
I’m not probing my predecessor, says Salami Page3