The Nation February 5, 2012

JUSTICE ISA SALAMI

CJN’s panel recommends re-instatement

Fraud mars Adamawa guber poll

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Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

Vol.06, No. 2026

SUNDAY BAYELSA STATE

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

N200.00

Jonathan lied, says Sylva I performed better than the president – ex-governor “I was here some months ago… Bayelsans stoned the Governor. You must work hard to ensure that they don't stone you, because if you do not work hard and they stone you. I will join them to stone you.”

– Jonathan

–PAGE 2

“If stoning is a yardstick for non-performance, are we also right to say that the burning down of Mr. President's house in 2007, in the run-up to that year's general elections, was also an act of rejection by the people of the state?”

– Sylva

Voters being screened for voting at the polling unit in Lamido's Palace, Yola, during the Adamawa governorship election yesterday.

PRESIDENCY DEMANDS SPEEDY TRIAL OF NNAMANI, ODILI, TURAKI, OTHERS – PAGE 5

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NEWS THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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HE ousted governor of Bayelsa State,Chief Timipre Sylva,says President Goodluck Jonathan and not himself (Sylva), is the real disappointment to the electorate by failing to meet their yearnings and aspirations.

President Jonathan at the presentation of the PDP flag to the party’s candidate in Saturday’s governorship election,Hon.Seriake Dickson,had accused Sylva of non-performance as governor during his tenure.This, he said,was responsible for the party’s decision to pick a replacement in Dickson.

But reacting to the President’s position yesterday in a statement through his Special Adviser on Media,Mr Doifie Ola,Chief Sylva said he was dismayed by Jonathan’s utterance.

He said: “Two things stand out in the President’s speech. He talked about a stoning incident in Yenagoa that he watched with pleasure and the Tower Hotel project in Yenagoa that was conceptualised by the Government of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, which Jonathan took over as Governor of Bayelsa State and passed on to Sylva as Governor.

“The stoning in Yenagoa happened during the president’s visit and it was widely believed to have been arranged by a few misguided elements, which with the backing of Mr. President, had used the presidential security to subvert the security of the state on purpose to embarrass Governor Sylva. Sponsors of the incident had tried to deny their involvement and present the event as indicative of the governor’s nonperformance.

“The world now knows better, of course. Everyone is now perfectly well aware of the mastermind of that insult on the Ijaw nation.

“But let us state that it was not the governor who was disgraced by the stoning. Instead, it was the president himself.

“Now, if stoning is a yardstick for non-performance, are we also right to say that the burning down of Mr. President’s house in 2007, in the run-up to that year’s general elections, was also an act of rejection by the people of the state? A lot of people believed that the burning of his house and the action of militants in 2007 were an expression of rejection. Is Mr. President now confirming that wide belief?

“In addition, can we also say that the stoning of President Jonathan in May last year in Uganda was a global act of rejection?

“Besides, it was after the stoning incident in Yenagoa in late 2010 that Mr. President came back to Yenagoa, raised the hand of Sylva, and spoke glowingly about his achievements, saying he has performed excellently well

Jonathan lied, says Sylva • I performed better than you –ex-governor Sylva’s sins, by Jonathan and that the people of Bayelsa should vote him into office. It was after the stoning that he came back and voted in the January 2011 PDP governorship primaries and gave a glowing report of Sylva’s performance.

“So what suddenly changed from January 2011 to later that year when President Jonathan manipulated all the institutions of state, including the armed and security forces, the judiciary and critical organs of democracy like the political parties, in full cry, leaving the security and economic challenges which he faced, to embark on OPERATION REMOVE SYLVA as the sole mandate which the people of Nigeria gave to him?

“Didn’’t Jonathan know there was a stoning incident when he came to say Governor Sylva should be voted in January?

“President Jonathan also in his speech described the Tower Hotel, Yenagoa, as ‘a monument of disgrace,’ insinuating that the edifice is still at the stage he left it as governor. This is a barefaced

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan on Friday in Yenagoa spoke on why the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) denied the immediate past governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, another chance to fly its flag in this week’s election.

Chief of the reasons, according to him, was Sylva’s failure to stimulate development or even complete worthy projects initiated by his predecessors.

He cited the five Tower Hotel conceived by the Alamieyeseigha administration but allegedly abandoned

by Sylva.

Speaking at the presentation of the PDP flag to its candidate in Saturday’s election,Honourable Seriake Dickson,the president said: ”I was second in command to Alamieyeseigha.One thing I remember is the Tower Hotel. It was not my dream

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lie and a misrepresentation of open facts.

“Sylva wishes to clarify that the hotel was at the second floor when he took over from Dr. Jonathan as governor. It is now at its 18th floor, as the whole world can see.

Sylva agrees that the job has been delayed, but explains that the reason it has been

but it was conceptualised under the Alamieyeseigha administration. ”He discussed with the contractors. It was supposed to be a five star hotel and it would attract people from all over the world. ”But now , it is a monument of disgrace” He expressed optimisim that Seriake would win the election hands down, but charged him to perform otherwise he would go the way of |Sylva.

His words:”You have brought everyone here today. Everyone is here because of you.

“But the only thing I want to tell you is that I was here some months ago, Bayelsans stoned the governor. You must work hard to ensure that they don’t stone you because if you do not work hard and they sone you, I will join them to stone you.

delayed is because the contractor, whom Dr. Jonathan himself chose and awarded the contract to, asked for a variation of N5 billion.

“Let Jonathan tell the world how much he paid this contractor and how much Sylva has paid the contractor. And we are aware that this same con-

tractor is not building a house for Sylva in his village.

“Far more than Jonathan’s tenure, Sylva has performed given the challenges he faced.

It is unfortunate that President Jonathan could have such a disgraceful outing last Friday. At a time when it was being widely suspected that he might be involved in the questionable

acts around the Bayelsa State governorship contest, his outing on Friday, 03 February, has conclusively proven that all along, he has been behind all the shenanigans in Bayelsa State deliberately to destabilise the state for his own selfish interest.

“Nigerians expected President Jonathan to tackle security, unemployment, power, critical infrastructure, etc. They never expected him to manipulate democracy for his strange motives. What all these show clearly is that the exclusion of Sylva from the primaries of November last year was based on nothing other than President Jonathan’s inordinate whims. The event of last Friday confirms once again that Sylva has not committed any offence known to the PDP constitution or the Nigerian constitution to warrant his exclusion.

“The Bayelsa State governorship race was a critical democratic test case for President Jonathan; and we dare say that he has failed to prove himself as a believer in democracy and free choice. Chief Sylva is in court trying to put right the infractions because he believes our country may be doomed if this subversion of democracy in Bayelsa State is allowed to stand.”

Ekweremadu urges peaceful coexistence

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• Motorists plying the upgraded and rehabilitated Ogunlana Drive in Surulere Local Government Area of Lagos State, one of the three roads handed over to the community by Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) last week.

EPUTY President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu yesterday urged Muslims to pray for peaceful coexistence, security and prosperity of the nation as they celebrate Eidel-Maulud.

He made the call in a special Eid-el-Maulud message to Muslims. He expressed worries that whereas the country’s religions and cultures profess peace, love, good neighbourliness, hitherto unimaginable and horrendous acts of terrorism and violence are now being visited on the nation under the

Boko Haram kills former council chairman

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UST three days after burying his father, a former chairman of Damboa Local Government in Borno State, Alhaji Lawan Kabu, has been shot dead in Damboa. He was killed on Friday night by unknown gunmen suspected to be members of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram.

The gunmen struck in his family compound at about 9pm.Three other persons were critically injured in the attack.

They are now receiving

From Joseph Abiodun, Maiduguri

treatment at the Damboa General Hospital.

Kabu had gone to the town to attend the third day prayer session in memory of his father.

He was at different times chairman of Damboa Local Government, Commissioner and special adviser in the administration of the immediate past governor of the state, Alhaji Ali

Modu Sheriff.

He was laid to rest yesterday in accordance with Islamic rites.

Governor Kashim Shettima and members of his cabinet yesterday visited Damboa to commiserate with the family of the late Kabu.

The governor described Kabu’s death as very unfortunate and a great loss to the people of the local government area and the state as a whole.

He prayed for the repose

of the soul of the deceased.

Alhaji Kabu is the latest member of the political elite killed in the state by the sect.

On January 28 last year, Boko Haram members shot dead the governorship candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Part (ANPP) in the state, Alhaji Modu Fanami Gubio .

Gubio was on his way to his father’s house at Shehuri North when he was attacked.

From Onyedi Ojiabor, and Sanni Onogu, Abuja

pretext of religion.

“Our religions and cultures have no place for the violence and acts of terrorism that are putting the country on the global map for the wrong reasons and pushing her to the edge at the same time.

“Hence I enjoin all Nigerians and the Muslim faithful to continually shun messengers of extremism and denounce all those who hide under the cloak of religion to pursue unhealthy agenda and perpetrate crimes against their neighbours, the state, and humanity”, he emphasised.

The Deputy President of the Senate in a statement by his media aide, Uche Anichukwu in Abuja, said the birth of Prophet Mohammed is still being celebrated even thousands of years after his death not only because he founded a religion, but most importantly because he preached and practised a religious faith anchored on peaceful coexistence, unity, and love for one’s neighbour.

Ekweremadu wished Muslim faithful a merry Eidel-Maulud.

Column

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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T is beyond speculation that the Nigerian state faces a crisis of grave magnitude. But the absence of a critical interrogation of officialdom in relations to the fundamental principles of modern governance leads to an even more terrifying moral and political void. In the circumstance, some fundamental principles on which modern governance is anchored which always seem to elude us must now be brought back to the front burner.

One of these is the honourable and noble art of resignation.

Resignation, like preferment itself, is an integral part of the arcane rituals of domination which preserve the integrity of governance.

Without integrity, there is no hegemony. This is because domination cannot be based on force and coercion for long.

It is with sadness and weary resignation that we note that the noble and honourable art of resignation is a stranger to these climes. Africans simply don’t resign. They are forced out. Even when they are recalled from the Diaspora, resignation is not part of their social framing. The culture of resignation always seems so strange and un-African simply because it is a product of politics with principle and public service powered by visionary self-sacrifice and the suppression of ego.

Yet in moments like this even as the state appears a hopelessly lost case, a few resignations might help. In civilised climes, whenever a government suffers a major public policy reversal or retreat, a few resignations are inevitable. Resignations are the secret elixir for a failing government. Like a magic balm, they help to soothe frayed nerves and reassure the public that the sacred covenant between them and the rulers is intact. More importantly, resignations help to restart the stalled clock of governance. A national project is, after all, not a one-crisis wonder.

After so many deaths and destruction of property, after such a major disruption to the flow and rhythm of effective governance, government has become hostage to misfortune.

There can be little doubt that the Jonathan administration has fared badly in the wake of the fuel subsidy palaver. It is in power but no longer in governance.

The pompous platitudes about palliatives no longer make economic sense— that is if they ever did. The statistics have been shown up to be empty lies and the empty lies have in turn become statistics of official infamy.

Accompanying this festival of fear and trembling and in fact prompting its dark arithmetic, is a tectonic shift in public awareness and citizen participation in governance.

Since it was caught napping by this paradigm shift, it is obvious that this government needs help from concerned and patriotic Nigerians about how to get going again. Enlightened self-interest dictates so. This is

The honourable art of resignation

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nooping around With

Tatalo Alamu

•Simeon Adebo

not about any transformation agenda. That is gross self-delusion. But there are fates worse than imaginary transformation.

Having shot itself in the foot by a badly misjudged public policy and with its major economic plank consumed by public adversity, this government must be helped back to its feet in the national interest.

At no other point in our history have ethnicity and the ethnicisation of the presidency become more obvious and damaging to the national spirit. To be sure, this is a phenomenon that predates Jonathan. Every presidency that Nigeria has produced, from Shagari to Jonathan through Obasanjo and Yar’Adua, has resorted to playing the ethnic card when the going gets rough. But with Jonathan, this tribal caterwauling has reached its crescendo and ultimate nation-disabling possibility. This is not a sensible game for a minority group just coming into its own.

Jonathan must rein in the antics of his excitable rabble-rousers.

In looking out for help, the government must first help itself. Humility dictates that the Jonathan administration must now go back to the drawing board. But it must shed some ethical baggage. For some of his advisors to go about pokerfaced as if nothing has happened is infuriating and damaging to the logic of public order and responsibility. Even in Stone Age

societies, arrogant incompetence and lack of elementary wisdom could not be rewarded with cosy preferment.

The wages of public obloquy is swift resignation.

All those officials who staked their prestige, authority and dubious acclaim on a misbegotten public policy that has badly backfired at such a huge cost to the national fabric must now resign and give way for Jonathan to inject fresh blood into his team. However skewed and rigged against the poor and the wretched of the earth, even neo-liberal economics is predicated on a certain western rationality.

That rationality has its obligations. Margaret Thatcher, the hand-bagging matriarch of monetarist economics who once famously pronounced that there was no such thing as society, was forced to resign when it became obvious that she had become a disruptive and bitterly divisive figure in British society.

It is only in the heart of darkness that public officials want to eat their cake and have it.

Honour is a major platform for the national project, and a major plank for a truly nationalist ruling class. Without honour, there can be no national project or a nationalist class for that matter. The Nigerian nation is predicated on a series of overlapping and interlocking paradoxes. The paradox of the Nigerian post-colonial polity is

“All those officials who staked their prestige, authority and dubious acclaim on a misbegotten public policy that has badly backfired at such a huge cost to the national fabric must now resign and give way for Jonathan to inject fresh blood into his team”

that honour has become an essential commodity.

An essential commodity is a necessary commodity. But in the cruel semantic irony introduced by military rule, an essential commodity is a rare commodity that is not readily available. Yet without honour anchored on core values and a fanatical adherence to their dictates, there can be no coherent or cohesive national project or a nationalist elite worth its salt.

It is only in rare and extreme cases that you find people resigning from public office on their own volition or out of respect for personal and public integrity. Resignation is simply out of it even where the official has become a hazard to public health. The problem is that public offices are often viewed through the prism of ethnic quota or tribal census. You are not in office to represent or project certain ideals but to promote and project certain primordial loyalties. Nobody ever willingly spits out a juicy morsel.

In the ethical void, certified thieves are often given a hero’s welcome when they return to their ancestral homesteads. As the Americans famously said of Mobutu, he may be a bastard, but he is their bastard. As long as primordial loyalties override national interests and core values, there will be no nation or a national elite class that is worth its salt. In that case, the very idea of Nigeria as a nation will be a mere notion or notification of intent for a very long time. This is not some grim prophesy but a statement of fact. Without a pannational ruling class to drive its core values, the nation is a nullity ab initio.

Painfully, it must now be added that our major religions and some of their principalities have not been of any help to the nation in driving its core values and building a nationalist ethos. When religious notables romance with political notables who have swindled their way to power, and who have brought their nation to economic ruins, doubts prey on the minds of ordinary folks about the efficacy of honour and principles.

In the north, a feudal protection racket based on organised religion has allowed the scions of the oligarchy to get away with blue murder. But it is now obvious that this protectionist racket has overreached itself as political sharia has mutated into the real thing, threatening the base and very basis of the theocratic order imposed by Usman Dan Fodio. As it is at the moment, only the hard-pressed Nigerian military is standing between the north and a blood-soaked enactment of Afghanistan on African soil. The twelfth imam will not come from the Sultanate but from the old empire of Idris Alooma.

In the south, particularly in the roiling urban centres, the phenomenon of Pentecostal predation in the guise of prosperity preaching and other forms of spiritual racketeering have led to massive alienation and a dazed withdrawal from the state as a source of succour and solace. This has led to all kinds of anti-social activities ranging from violent robbery, kidnapping, extortion and the rise of mafia-like criminal cartels. Since this is based on the spiritual magic of wealth without hard work, the negative radicalism of it all keeps everybody very busy and both the rich and the poor permanently awake.

The question must now be asked as to whether our extant religions can drive a nationalist ethos without being adapted and subordinated to local conditions. But it is also obvious that because of its transcendental message, religion goes beyond nation space and time. In fact Islam is implacably contemptuous of the nation-state paradigm. Yet it was not until certain European nations overthrew the colonial suzerainty of the Catholic Church that they came into their own as the true embodiments of the will of new states.

If a political elite cannot overcome political and economic difficulties, it is hard to see how they can overcome spiritual contradictions and religious roguery. In fact as it is evident in contemporary Nigeria, religious roguery is an ideological apparatus of the state often deployed in hegemonic battles for the consciousness of the populace.

Once the state is absolved of the responsibility for the prosperity of the populace, penury becomes a marker of personal worthlessness and divine disgrace.

In the light of this multi-dimensional elite failure spread across spiritual, economic and political realms, there are those who believe that a national elite that cannot manage national integration will also mismanage national disintegration. The Nigerian political class is so corrupt and incompetent that it is simply incapable of the cultured and civilized procedure that led to the dissolution of the old Czechoslovakia.

It takes empire builders to build an empire even where it has lapsed into disgrace, just as it takes genuine nationalists to build a nation even in ruins.

Those who cannot build anything cannot maintain anything. This is why we must return to first principles. One of these is the culture of resignation. Let us return to the honourable art of resignation.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

News

Salami: CJN’s panel recommends re-instatement

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HE fate of the suspended President of the Court of Appeal,Justice Isa Ayo Salami,is now in the hands of President Goodluck Jonathan.

The report of the 29-member Stakeholders Judicial Reform Committee set up by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Dahiru Musdapher, was submitted to the president last Tuesday for his consideration and decision.

Justice Salami was suspended by the National Judicial Commission at its 7th emergency meeting in August last year for allegedly violating judges’ Code of Conduct.

The President is expected to study the report and decide on the recommendations of the panel, especially the committee’s plea for the reinstatement of the suspended President of the Court of Appeal.

The recommendations of the panel were sent to the President for final consideration on Tuesday.

A top government official,

• President weighs options to save judiciary From: Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

who pleaded not to be named because he is not in a position to speak with the media, said: “I am aware the CJN has sent the report and recommendations to the President, who is the final arbiter in this case.

“A thorny point in the recommendations is the recall of the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, who has been on suspension since 18th August, 2011.

“The decision to suspend Salami was reached at the 7th Emergency Meeting of the National Judicial Council.

“The issues before the President border on the specifics in the report on the recommendation for the reinstatement of Salami; whether the suspended judge actually violated the Code of Conduct that a judge must abide with

and if he ought to have been suspended since the matter was subjudice.

“A sub-committee of the panel, including Justice Mamman Nasir, Justice U. Kalgo and Justice Bola Ajibola, had asked the CJN and the National Judicial Council to reinstate Salami back to his position.

“I think the President is weighing the options because of the crisis of confidence which Salami’s suspension ignited in the Bench and in the Bar. Even political parties were left divided.

“There is also a task imposed on the President by the panel to reconcile the immediate past Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Katsina-Alu and Salami.”

Of importance to the President, said the source, is the fact that he wants to effect major reforms in the judiciary. Many far-reaching recommendations have been made by Justice Muhammadu Uwais Panel, including public screening of judges

before they are appointed.

“I think in the next few weeks, the President will make up his mind, reunify the judiciary and chart a reform course for our judiciary, “the source said.

Some of the other recommendations to be considered by the President are: public scrutiny of judges; appointment of CJN from outside the rank of Justice of Supreme Court to be considered by the Federal Judicial Service Commission; need to reform the system of appointment of judges by giving preference to court room experience and decision in legal practice; whether to increase the minimum years of experience required of a legal practitioner to qualify for appointment as a High Court from 10 years to 15 years post call experience, 20 years post call experience for Court of Appeal and 25 years post call experience for Supreme Court; NJC should sanction Judges who are found not to be performing. Such sanction should include removal, where applicable. Need for sanction to be imposed for contempt exsatiae curiae; to reduce the backlog of criminal cases, retired Judges and senior member of he Bar should be appointed for a limited period of time to act as recorders (adhoc Judges) to adjudicate on criminal cases; and the criminal procedure

laws in Nigeria are outdated and recommended to be modernised and amended.

The panel also recommended that Attorney General of the Federation and the Attorney General of states should cease to be members of the Federal Judicial Service Commission or committee as the case may be.

The 29-member stakeholders Judicial Reform Committee raised

by Chief Justice of Nigeria was (CJN) Dahiru Musdapher on October 14, 2011.

Members of the committee include former CJNs; S.M.A. Belgore, Idris L. Kutigi and A.I. Katsina-Alu, Mamman Nasir, A.G. KaribiWhyte, Mustapha Akanbi, Umaru Abdullahi , Kayode Eso, Umaru A. Kalgo, Rose N. Ukeje.

Others are Justice R.P.I. Bozimo, Justice Lawal Hassan Gummi, Joseph Daudu, SAN, Chief Richard O.Akinjide SAN, Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim, SAN, Dr. A.G.F. AbdulRazak, (SAN) and Anthony O. Mogboh, SAN. It also included former NBA Presidents; T.J.O. Okpoko, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), O.C.J. Okocha (SAN), Olisa Agbakoba (SAN), Oluwarotimi O. Akeredolu (SAN) and Prince Lanke Odogiyan, Esq. The rest are Hajiya Hairat Balogun, Prof. Epiphany Azinge, SAN, (Director-General, NIALS), Dr. Mamman Tahir (Director-General, Nigerian Law School) and Mr. A.B. Mahmud (SAN).

84m may die of cancer by 2020, says Health Minister • FG pays $9 million counterpart funding to IAEA

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• Members, House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Dr, Samuel Adejare(left) Dr Haruna Kigbu, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Prof. Viola Onwutiri and Hon Nkoyo Toyo during the committee meeting with Foreign Affairs Ministry at the National Assembly Abuja yesterday.

Photo: ABAYOMI FAYESE

Egypt’s military rulers face calls for earlier vote

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GYPT’S military faced pressure on Saturday to speed up its transfer of power to civilians, as top public figures demanded a faster transition and street protests against army rule disrupted the heart of Cairo for a third day.

A civilian council set up to advise the generals recommended they bring forward preparations for presidential elections after a week in which the deaths of 74 people in a soccer stadium disaster heaped more criticism on the generals.

The deaths in Port Said triggered anti-government protests in which a further 12 people have been killed, making it one of Egypt’s bloodiest weeks since an uprising swept Hosni Mubarak from power a year ago and left the military in charge.

“In view of the seriousness of the events, the carnage that hap-

pened, we cannot be silent, we cannot wait,” said Mona Makram Ebeid, a member of the advisory council that made its recommendation at a meeting on Saturday.

“It’s a revolutionary plea,” she told Reuters. “The advisory council will consider halting its meetings if the military council does not respond,” Sherif Zahran, another member of the body, told Reuters.

Formal nominations for the presidency should be accepted starting February 23, according to the recommendation, nearly two months sooner than the April 15 date previously announced.

That could lead to an election as soon as April or May. The existing timetable drawn up by the generals states they will hand power to a president by the end of June. Officials had indicated the election would happen just before

then.

While not binding, the recommendation raised pressure on the army council, headed by Mubarak’s long-time defence minister. It has presented itself as the guardian of the “January 25 revolution” but has been criticised by reformists as a disguised prolongation of Mubarak’s rule.

Facing protests in November, the military council accelerated a previous transition timetable by six months but has not said whether it could do so again.

A senior figure in the Muslim Brotherhood, which has mainly been supportive of the army’s transition plans, also proposed a vote before June. “The procedures can start in March and end in May instead of June,” Essam el-Erian, deputy leader of the group’s Freedom and Justice Party, told Reuters.

XCEPT preventive steps are taken now, the Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu yesterday warned that about 84 million persons would die of cancer globally by the year 2020.

He made this remark at a press conference marking the 2012 World Cancer Day with the theme ‘Together it is possible’. The United Nations set aside February 4 every year to mark World Cancer Day. According to him, the disease accounts for 13% of all global deaths, adding that for the year 2008 alone, 7.6 million persons died globally from it.

For Nigeria, he said data from cancer registries showed that there was 100% increase in breast cancer in the last decade while there was only 25% increase in the previous decade.

He said: “For emphasis, we need to remind ourselves of the grim statistics of the morbidity arising from the cancer scourge. One in every two men and one in every three women will have a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime; this is a reality. The World Health Organization estimates that 7.6m died globally as a result of cancer in 2008 and 84m will die by 2020, if preventive measures are not taken now.”

According to him: “This staggering number accounts for 13 percent of all global deaths. Unfortunately, most of the case fatality occurs in sub-Saharan Africa.

Breast cancer is the commonest cancer, constituting 40.3 % of all female cancers. This is followed by cervical (17.3 %), ovarian cancer (3.7 %), lymphomas and skin cancer 3.1 % and 2.1 % prevalence respectively.”

“In males, prostate cancer is still the commonest (29 %) fol-

From Augustine Ehikioya, Abuja

lowed by colorectal cancer (7 %) or lymphomas (6.8 %), depending on the geo-political zones. Liver cancer follows as the third commonest (4 %) and skin cancer (3.8 %).” He added Stressing that lack of exercise and unhealthy lifestyles are contributing immensely to increasing rate of cancer, he said that by 2015, many federal hospitals will have radiotherapy and nuclear medicine facilities to manage cancer effectively.

The hospitals, according to him, include Lagos University Teaching Hospital; University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu; Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria; University of Benin Teaching Hospital and Uthman Danfodio University Teaching Hospital, Sokoto.

Others are the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital; University College Hospital Ibadan; University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital; Federal Medical Centre, Gombe and National Hospital, Abuja.

He also disclosed that the Federal Government has already paid $9m counterpart funding in collaboration with the International Atomic Energy Agency for the treatment of the disease.

According to him, the invested funds are to focus on primary prevention of preventable cancers through immunization with Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) Vaccine and Hepatitis B vaccine for cervical and liver cancer prevention.

The plan, he said is also to incorporate the HPV vaccine into the National Programme on Immunization, a strategy that will prevent 40% of cancers.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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HE Federal Government is weighing options on judicial reforms that could fasttrack the ongoing trial of some former governors and other Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs).

Also, there were strong indications that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission is studying petitions against ex-governors Timipre Sylva and Ikedi Ohakim.

Investigation by our correspondent revealed that there are more than77 high-profile cases, including those of 14 ex-governors and two ministers, pending in various courts in the last four years.

Some of the ex-governors and ministers, who are on trial through the EFCC, are James Ibori, Senator Saminu Turaki, Peter Odili, Michael Botmang, Joshua Dariye, Boni Haruna, and Rasheed Ladoja.

Others are Jolly Nyame, Attahiru Bafarawa, Adamu Abdullahi, Lucky Igbinedion, Ayo Fayose, Chimaroke Nnamani, Orji Uzor Kalu, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode and Babalola Borishade.

Those on the latest trial list are ex-governors Adebayo Alao-Akala and

News

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Presidency demands speedy trial of Nnamani, Odili, Kalu, Turaki, others • EFCC studies Ohakim, Sylva files

•Nnamani From: Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation

Gbenga Daniel.

It was however learnt that the Federal Government, through the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, is proposing farreaching judicial reforms on how to fast-track the trial of these ex-governors and other politically ex-

•Odili

posed persons.

A reliable Presidency source, who spoke in confidence, said: “President Goodluck Jonathan is evolving a grand plan to fight corruption no matter whose ox is gored. Even if any member of his cabinet is guilty of corrupt practices, he will not spare him or her.

“The President has given directive to the rel-

Acting Governor of Adamawa State, Alhaji Ahmadu Fintiri (l), being welcome by traditional rulers in Gulak Madagali LGA during the governship election in Adamawa State, yesterday.

•Kalu

evant ministries and agencies in the Executive arm to relate with the judiciary on how to fast-track the trial of all the ex-governors and former Ministers already arraigned in court by the EFCC and ICPC. “Without interfering, the President is seeking judicial reforms that will ensure quick dispensation of justice.”

Responding to a ques-

•Turaki

tion, the source added: “The coming judicial reforms will not only address the backlog of cases, a committee to look into the conduct and integrity of judges is under way. There is need to cleanse the judiciary too like the case with other sectors.”

Meanwhile, former Bayelsa State governor may soon be invited for questioning in respect of alleged

mismanagement of N2.3billion.

The EFCC had filed charges against the former Bayelsa State Commissioner for Finance, Dr. Charles Sylva Osuala, and three others for allegedly diverting over N2.3billion.

Others are the state Accountant-General, Francis Okokuro, Director of Treasury Abbot T. Clinton, and Director of Finance, Ikobho Anthony Howells.

Regarding ex-Governor Ikedi Ohakim, some stakeholders in Imo State had petitioned the EFCC on how the administration of the former governor managed N120billion while in office.

The ex-governor might be interrogated alongside his former deputy, Ada Okwuanu The Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said: “Well, all I can tell you is that we are investigating some ex-governors.”

Lamido of Adamawa, Alhaji Muhammadu Barkindo-Aliyu, voting at the polling unit at the Lamido's Palace during the governorship election yesterday.

Fraud mars Adamawa governorship election E

A CHIEFTAIN of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Adamawa State, Mr.Martin Babale, was yesterday arrested by the police for allegedly being in illegal possession of ballot boxes during the state governorship election.

Election monitors had reported to the police that they saw the boxes being taken into the residence of Mr.Babale, a former member of the House of Representatives, at Ganye.

But the incident was one of the many malpractices that characterised the election in which the front runners are Admiral Murtala Nyako of the PDP,BrigGen.Buba Marwa of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) and Engineer Markus Gundiri of the Action Congress of Nigeria

(ACN).

There were also late distribution of election materials in opposition strongholds like Michika,Yola South and Fufore;intimidation of opposition party agents; distribution of money to sway voters; and snatching of ballot boxes at Madagali ward.

But the election was peaceful in such areas as Yola North,, Mayo Belwa, Girei, Demsa, Fufore and Numan even though voters’ turnout was low.

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar voted at his Ajiya ward and described the preparation made by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as encouraging and an improvement on past arrangements.

Alhaji Atiku said the PDP would emerge victori-

ous .

Admiral Nyako,who was one of the five governors sacked two weeks ago by the Supreme Court, voted at Hammanyero “A” ward in Mayo Belwa Local Government .He too was confident of winning the election.

CPC candidate Mohammed Marwa and Engineer Markus Gundiri of the ACN voted in Michika and Hong respectively.

Reports from some parts of the state said opposition party agents were chased out of polling centres in Kofar

Jauro Baggare Ward 2 ,Malkohi,Kofar Jauro Runde Kila,Fangeri,Lantari and Wuro Dadi by security agents apparently at the instigation of the PDP. Some of the agents were reportedly offered bribes by PDP members.

Election monitors cited Thukudou/Sukufu/Zar wards in Michika where INEC made only 200 ballot boxes available for the 14 polling units there as against the 1000 originally earmarked for the area.

Cuban ex-President Fidel Castro launches memoirs

F

ORMER Cuban President Fidel Castro has made a rare public appearance to launch his memoirs. The book, Guerrilla of Time, is almost 1,000 pages long and relates his childhood and rise to power in the Cuban Revolution.

Fidel Castro, 85, said it was every Cuban’s duty to fight until the last moment, for Cuba, the planet, and humanity. He had not been seen in public since April last year.

Communist Party newspaper Granma said the launch at the Havana Convention Centre lasted more than six hours. The two-volume memoir is based on conversations between Fidel Castro and journalist Katiuska Blanco.

It starts with former President Castro’s earliest childhood memories and takes the reader up to December 1958, the eve of the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Castro and his fol-

lowers. Culture Minister Abel Prieto and Director of the Cuban Writers’ Union Miguel Barnet were among those speaking at the launch.

Mr Barnet said the memoirs were “as vivid as a 3D film”. At the event, Fidel Castro spoke about current affairs, praising Latin American students for “standing up for their right to free education”.

He also paid tribute to

his friend, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who “had done more than anyone else for the Venezuelan people”. It was the first time Fidel Castro had appeared in public since the closing session of the Communist Party Congress in April 2011.

Fidel Castro handed over the presidency to his brother Raul in 2006, and has kept a low profile since, fuelling speculation over his health.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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Ekweremadu calls for peaceful co-existence From Onyedi Ojiabor, Assist. Editor and Sanni Onogu, Abuja

D

EPUTY Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, yesterday urged Muslims to pray for peaceful coexistence, security and prosperity of the nation as they celebrate Eid-el-Maulud.

Ekweremadu, who made the call in a special Eid-elMaulud message to Muslim faithful, expressed worries that acts of terrorism and violence were being visited on the nation under the pretext of religion.

He said, “Our religions and cultures have no place for the violence and acts of terrorism that is putting the country on the global map for the wrong reasons and pushing her to the edge at the same time.

“Hence I enjoin all Nigerians and the Muslim faithful to continually shun messengers of extremism and denounce all those who hide under the cloak of religion to pursue unhealthy agenda and perpetrate crimes against their neighbours, the state, and humanity.’’

The statement by his media aide, Uche Anichukwu in, Abuja wished Muslim faithful a merry Eid-el-Maulud.

Oritsejafor greets Muslims

N

ATIONAL President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, has congratulated Muslims in the country on the celebration of the birth of Prophet Muhammed.

He urged the Muslim Ummah to take advantage of the occasion to reflect on the ideals espoused by Prophet Muhammed which included love for neighbours and peaceful co-existence.

Oristejafor, in a statement, said”I urge all adherents of the Islamic faith to see this year’s Eid el Malaud as a unique period to reflect on the security challenges currently threatening the corporate existence of Nigeria and pray and work for the peace of the country.

“There cannot be any meaningful development in a chaotic environment occasioned by recent reign of terror in parts of the country, he said.’’

Imo inaugurates panel on vacant traditional stools

F

EDERAL civil servants have not received their January salaries despite a directive by President Goodluck Jonathan to Ministries, Departments and Government agencies to pay salaries latest by the 20th of every month.

As at last Friday, the workers were yet to be paid, 14 days after the presidential directive should have taken effect.

Investigation revealed they may not be paid until next Tuesday following the declaration of tomorrow as a public holiday by the federal government.

Jonathan had directed that workers in the federal civil service be paid latest 20th of every month as part of the palliatives for the increase in prices of fuel.

He also directed the Fed-

Federal workers yet to receive January salary From Tony Akowe, Kaduna

eral Ministry of Finance to fast track Federations Account Allocation Committee meeting to ensure early payment of workers’ salaries.

The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) met under the chairmanship of the Minister of State for Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama in mid- January and shared about N559.101billion to the three tiers of government for the month of December.

Some federal workers in

Kaduna who spoke with The Nation over the weekend lamented that the government has not made good its promise.

One of them said, “At a stage, we were told that our salaries have been taken to the bank. Later, we were told that there is no cash backing for it and that is why we have not been paid. ‘’We don’t know what the true position is. As it is now, we are suffering already and we appeal to the government to pay us.’’

Another said, “Some of

us have not even paid the school fees of our children.

You know we just came out of the Christmas and New Year celebrations as well as the fuel subsidy strike which had a major impact on many of us.”

Civil servants in the employment of the Kaduna state government were however paid their salaries last week.

One of them said, “I can confirm to you that we have been paid our salaries. In fact, as we speak, I have finished spending my money.”

Dead conductor: LASTMA hands over three officers to police

L

AGOS State Traffic M a n a g e m e n t Authority (LASTMA) has handed over three of its officers whose action allegedly caused the accident that led to the death of a 24- year- old commercial bus conductor, Rasheed Alabi last Thursday to the police for further investigations.

LASTMA’s General Manager, Engr. Babatunde Edu, in a statement

By Sunday Oguntola

yesterday, said the suspects were arrested last Friday.

He added that they have been directed to stay away from their duty posts to allow Police carry out proper investigations into the matter.

Edu reiterated the commitment of Lagos State Government to safety of life and property and charged

officers of the agency to be more proactive and civil in their dealings with motorists and members of the public.

He vowed that no act of indiscipline will be condoned among LASTMA officers.

The State Government, he explained, has expended a lot of money on training and retraining of LASTMA officials and would not settle for

anything less than quality service.

“The desired results,’’ according to him, ‘’could only be achieved through the application of the laws that established the agency”.

He debunked allegation that the agency is a revenue generator, maintaining that it is a traffic management organisation manned by dedicated and committed officers.

From Emma Mgbeahurike, Owerri

I

MO State Government has inaugurated five different panels to fill vacant traditional stools in autonomous communities in the state.

Inaugurating the panel on behalf of the governor at our Lady of Mount Camel Catholic diocese, Emekuku Owerri, the Chief of Staff, Prince Eze Madumere, stressed the need to have traditional rulers in each certified autonomous community in order to rescue them from backwardness and retrogression.

Madumere explained that government is bent on making Imo state a destination of choice, and as such, is anxious to ensure its safety and progress down to the grassroots.

He noted that it would be counter-productive to run community council government without an Eze in some communities, pointing out that such communities may be prone to criminal activities and security lapses.

In his remarks, the traditional ruler of Ama-ano Autonomous community in Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area, Eze Chidubem Okoro, expressed satisfaction and confidence in the rescue mission of Governor Okorocha-led administration which he described as timely and sacrificial.

He urged members of the panel to make ample use of the opportunity provided by the state government to restore peace in all the communities in the state that have ‘Ezeship’ tussle.

Committee scores Customs high on revenue generation

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HE Deputy Leader, House Committee on Customs and Excise, Hon. Kingsley Chinda, has commended the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Port Harcourt I and Onne Ports for being the second highest revenue generation institutions in the country last year.

He praised the NCS for doubling Federal Government’s revenue last year.

Chinda said a lot needed to be done to revive business

activities in Rivers State, pointing out that the ports are underutilised compared to their Lagos counterparts.

According to him, “We’ll take up legislative action and we hope this will revive the ports”.

He assured the Deputy Comptroller of Onne Port, Mohammed Magaji, that his committee will take legislative action as well as ensure the Onne Port is connected to the national grid.

•Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio with Mr Adekunle Oyesanya, during a condolence visit on the death of his father, Pastor Caleb Oluwayinka Oyesanya in Lagos, at the weekend

Aregbesola signs bill on HIV/AIDS agency

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SUN State Governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has signed a bill for the establishment of Osun State Agency for the Control of HIV/AIDS (O-SACA) into law.

Speaking with reporters in Osogbo, Commissioner for Regional Integration and Special Duties, Ajibola Bashiru, disclosed that O-SACA has been transformed into a full fledged agency and a legal entity with the development.

The functions of the agency, according to Bashiru, are to design and implement state action plan

for the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS, provide technical support to other stakeholders in a bid to prevent and control the virus.

He said: “The agency will collaborate and network among all stakeholders against HIV/ AIDS. It will also organise training and implement all government decisions that are geared towards con-

trolling the virus. The section 31 of the law called for the establishment of Local HIV/AIDS Control Agency in all the local governments in the state.”

The commissioner explained that the enabling law provides for board of the agency to have a chairman to be appointed by the governor, the executive secretary, representatives of

ten line ministries, representatives of Christian and Muslim communities and six other stakeholders, including the Nigeria Bar Association, Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and Nigeria Medical Council (NMC).

He also explained that thirty percent of the membership of the board will comprise women.

‘Anambra StateUniversity conceived to be first class’

A

NAMBRA State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, has declared that the State University was being built to become a first class institution.

He spoke yesterday while inspecting on-going work at the permanent site of the university’s in Igbariam campus.

Obi said he was

satisfied with the level of work, stating it was according to the master plan of his administration for the institution.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

10 injured in Anambra communal clash From: Okodili Ndidi, Onitsha

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O fewer than 10 persons were yesterday injured in a violent clash in Nkpor, Idemili North local government area of Anambra state over a leadership crisis that has engulfed the community in the last four years.

Eyewitnesses said the bloody incident occurred when a group of boys armed with guns, machetes and other dangerous weapons attacked revenue collectors at the Nkpor main market.

Chairman of the Caretaker Committee, Mr. Chuma Chukwurah disclosed that the major cause of the lingering crisis in the communitywas the refusal of the Raphael Nnabuife- led executive to vacate office after the expiration of its tenure.

He said the community decided to set up a caretaker committee to handle the affairs of the community after a botched election late last year.

He alleged that Nnabuife, who is also the Caretaker Chairman of Idemilli North local government area, has continued to frustrate all genuine efforts to amicably settle the leadership crisis due to the huge revenue generated in the community.

The revenue, he alleged, were never accounted for, maintaining that “they have carried on as if the community is their private estate”.

Chukwurah said, “I am the authentic caretaker chairman, who was duly commissioned to run the affairs of the community but the other faction bent on frustrating all genuine efforts by the community to achieve peace went to the market and drove our people who were collecting revenue from the market.

“Although they obeyed and left but they were ambushed by armed thugs who used all kinds of dangerous weapon on them, as we speak about six of them were severely wounded and still in the hospital. They are holding the entire community hostage because of their contacts in government”.

Nnabuife, a lawyer, said that the group claiming to be caretaker committee was not recognised by the community or government authorities.

He described them as a group of “bandits” who have been troubling the peace of the community for a very long time.

He confirmed his tenure expired late last year but noted that he was reappointed to continue for another three months when the union’s election was disrupted last year.

Anambra state Police Public Relations Officer, Emeka Chukwuemeka, said that he has not been briefed on the development.

News

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Military, Police mount A tight security in Kano

‘We can’t entrust Bayelsa’s fate to PDP again’

•As non-indigenes continue panic relocation

S

ECURITY agents are in red alert in Kano, as two helicopters conveying police and immigration continue to hover around all the borders.

Also Joint forces are deployed to all flash points, including Sabon Gari, dominated by nonnatives.

Meanwhile, nonnatives are still in panic movement away from Kano as all the parks and luxury terminals remain

From Kolade Adeyemi, Kano

excessively busy.

The Nation yesterday observed that troops of Soldiers, Mobile Policemen and Air Force personnel were combing all the streets within the metropolis in search of Boko Haram enclaves.

At junctions and roundabouts, commercial motorcyclists, their passengers and all vehicles are thoroughly searched.

A reliable police source said the increased security was part of the efforts of the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, to tackle the Boko Haram insurgence headlong.

“I must tell you that the police are currently undergoing severe reform.

Despite the death of his wife, Oga is resolute to face security challenges. He has been moving round. He works 24 hours to ensure

that the image of the Force is redeemed,” the officer said.

According to a Government House source, the state governor, Dr. Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, is in contact with all security operatives. “A series of security meetings have been going on. The governor is consulting with all stakeholders, including elders, traditional rulers and religious leaders.”

•L-R: Governor, Rotary Club International (District 9110), Kennedy Ejapkomewhe and Mrs. Abidoun Oduwole, presenting artificial limbs to Ogun State Commissioner for Health, Dr Oluokun Soyinka recently.

PHOTO: NAN

Anger in Oyo over abandoned teaching hospital annex R ESIDENTS of Oyo town have expressed disgust over the abandonment of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH) Teaching Hospital annex by the contractors.

Former Oyo State Governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, initiated the project some years ago.

His purported impeachment and installation of Otunba Adebayo Alao-Akala however stalled it.

Akala relocated the project to Ogbomosho, his country home.

He however pledged to establish an annex of the teaching hospital in Oyo town and held a foundation-laying ceremony.

When our correspondent visited the teaching hospital annex at the premises of the State Hospital, Oyo, over the weekend the two-storey

From Bode Durojaiye, Oyo

building was deserted.

Doors and windows were yet to be fitted and electrical appliances

remained uninstalled.

Works on the elevators and inside painting were yet to commence.

There was no worker on sight at the complex,

which was completely deserted.

Residents who spoke with out correspondent blamed Akala for the sorry state of the annex.

Lagos assembly to council bosses: Implement party manifesto

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HAIRMEN of the 20 local government councils and 37 Local Council Development Areas in Lagos state have been urged to implement the manifesto of the party under which they were elected.

This advice came from the Committee on Local G o v e r n m e n t Administration and Chieftaincy Affairs of the Lagos state House of Assembly yesterday after it visited five of the six councils in Alimosho area and two councils in Agege.

The councils visited by the committee members as

By Oziegbe Okoeki part of their oversight function include Alimosho, Egbe-Idimu, Ikotun-Igando, Mosan-Okunola, AyoboIpaja, Orile-Agege and Agege.

Chairman of the Committee, Olarenwaju Oshun, said that the Committee would not condone any practice considered anti-people.

He further challenged the Community Development Committees (CDCs) in the various council areas to put the chairmen and their

councillors on their toes.

He said, “We are going to be on their toes and we won’t give them a minute rest until they carry their people to the promise land so that by the next time we come to the electorate for their votes, they will not only be proud of us, but will willingly give us their votes with love.

“There is room for improvement no doubt, but it shows that the chairmen are working in tandem with the policy of the state governor, Babatunde Fashola, to move the state to the next level,” the lawmaker said.

group of politicians, sympathetic to the governorship ambition of Dr. Imoro Goodrich Kubor and his running mate Rev. Obegha Julius Oworibo, in Bayelsa State have criticised the utterances of President Goodluck Jonathan and other PDP leaders during the party’s recent rally where they gave reasons for the ongoing crisis in the state chapter of the party.

Arguing that PDP’s crisis will not benefit Bayelsans the politicians said there is therefore no guarantee to entrust the future of Bayelsa state into the leadership of the PDP people as presently constituted.

In a statement signed by Comrade Wilfred Frank Ogbotobo and released on the auspices of Bayelsa Go Better Project,” the group said: “The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) needs to be informed that it is on the course to a monumental electoral defeat in Bayelsa state and no amount of Sylva bashing by President Jonathan and, Tony Anenih’ proverbs will suffice to change the consciousness and awareness of Bayelsans on the fact that PDP is the problem plaguing the state and time has come for a change in politics and leadership in Bayelsa state.”

Describing President Goodluck Jonathan in his assessment of former Governor Temipreye Sylva as being “economical with the truth,” the group said, “Were the overall poor performances of the various PDP administrations in the state to be rated in the characteristic PDP performance index, Sylva’s would definitely excel as the best in terms of project execution, enthronement of values and due process, peace and security.”

Ojukwu’s burial: Group offers to play prominent role From: Emma Mgbeahurike Owerri

A

PEX socio-cultural organisation for Imo West Senatorial district, the Orlu Zurumee, has pledged to play a prominent role in the burial of the former Biafran warlord, late Dim Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu, coming up soon.

The President General of the Organisation, Ogbuagu Bons Nwabiani, at a press briefly said that as an accomplished selfless hero who consistently championed and defended the interest of his people, the late Ikemba Nnewi deserves to be honoured even unto death.

He commended Governor Rochas Okorocha for the mature way he handled the recent fuel subsidy crisis in the state as well as his radical infrastructural development in the entire state.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

News

kicks against Nigeria cannot break now-Umar Group relocation of IMSU F G ORMER Military Governor of Kaduna State, Col. Abubakar Dangiwa Umar, yesterday warned that religious and ethnic leaders were playing into the hands of the Boko Haram with their chains of reactions to issues raised by the sect.

Umar in a statement entitled “Nigeria is not easily

From Tony Akowe, Kaduna

reversible” described some issues raised by the sect as unattainable and meant to aggravate reactions across the nation.

According to him, “There are many, many issues that the Boko Haram insurgency has thrown up which cannot be easily

Abia secretariat for commissioning soon

T

HE new secretariat building which the p r e s e n t administration is building for the state civil servants will be ready for handing over and commissioning by the state governor, Theodore Orji in the next eight months.

Speaking with journalists at the project site in Umuahia, the contractor, Anthony Jamhour said that the constructions are in three phases, commencing with the first two while the third will take off after completion of the others.

Jamhour said that the first building is almost 60 percent completed, “and at the end of this month we will start the roofing, as we have commenced the iron work for the roofing, while the plastering and other fittings like toilet and windows will start.”

He explained that the second building by the end of the current month will be 80 percent completed, stressing that the buildings when completed will house all the state ministries in one place, “I believe that the state government will be saving a lot of money that is being wasted because of constant movement of personnel.”

While commending Governor Orji for his commitment to the project, the contractor assured that at the end of the project the over 300 workers being engaged for the project are

From Ugochukwu Eke, Umuahia

expected to have acquired adequate training and proficiency in different areas of skills.

addressed; some have no solutions at all. For example, Boko Haram says their prime goal is to impose Shari’a Law t h r o u g h o u t Northern Nigeria.

“In other words, they are seeking to dismantle this country as we know it and to create another in which they alone will rule. ‘’But we have also been told that they want to eradicate decadence, corruption and injustice in our body politic. Yet, whatever it is that Boko Haram want to achieve or create, one thing they seem to be doing rather well now is setting the various groups in Nigeria one against the other.’’

He went on, ‘’One day, Boko Haram says they are

A

OVERNOR Rochas Okorocha is now on a collision course with the people of Imo East (Owerri zone) over his proposed relocation of the state-owned Imo State University (IMSU) from Owerri to Ogboko, his home town, in the Ideato South Council Area of the state.

Briefing reporters yesterday in Owerri, a philosophical and spiritual organization, dubbed “group 5 -7 DV,” from the zone, dismissed arguments raised by the government to justify the controversial plan as undemocratic, and acceptable.

The state commissioner for Information and Strategy, Dr. Obinna Duruji, had in a recent press briefing insisted that the governor had exclusive preserve and right to determine where to locate the institution.

Arguing that most state universities in the South East were sited in the Local Government Areas of their governors, he said Ogboko, unlike Owerri, would

From Emma Mgbeahrike, Owerri

provide serene environment and create a conducive atmosphere for research and learning.

However, “Group 5 – 7 DV,” which countered these postulations through its spokesman, Professor George Amadi, told reporters that the intended action was totally ridiculous and undemocratic.

The former ASUU President of the University of Nigeria Nsuka (UNN) noted that the institution is based on a multi-campus system, hence it physically exists on the three locations of Imo East (Owerri Zone) Imo South (Okigwe Zone) and Imo West (Orlu Zone).

He regretted that the planned relocation entails removing the main campus of the University in Owerri to Ogboko, the governor’s hometown in the Ideato South L.G.A (Imo West) meaning that the Imo East Senatorial Zone would be deprived of its campus.

Middle aged woman found unconscious

A •L-R: Chairman Kosofe Local Government, Babatunde Afolabi Sofola with Vice-Chairman, Omotuyi Awosola at a stake holder’s forum on LEEDS (Local Government Economic Empowerment Development strategy) at the Secretariat, recently.

‘Let’s debate our plans for Sokoto’

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LL Nigerian Peoples’ Party (ANPP) governorship candidate in Sokoto State, Alhaji Yusha’u Muhammad Ahmed, has demanded for a debate with other contestants on issues relating to general development of the state.

From: Adamu Suleiman, Sokoto

He promised to transform Sokoto to a veritable height with full socio-economic and intellectual opportunities for all and sundry.

He said he would

Orji’s aide refutes ex-governor’s claim BIA State government has described as misleading claims by former governor the state, Orji Uzor Kalu that nothing is happening in the state since he left office five years ago.

In a recent statement signed by one of his aides, Kalu alleged in a daily newspaper that roads are terrible in Aba, while the atmosphere is not conducive for prospective investors.

Reacting to this in Umuahia, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Ugochukwu Emezue described the former governor as a man living in the past who is yet to come to terms with the present realities in Abia State.

According to Emezue, what the erstwhile governor could not achieve in eight years, the incumbent governor, Theodore Orji has done within a short period of time he assumed office.

killing Christians because Christians are killing Muslims.

“Another day, they say they will drive southerners out of the North because southerners are sending northerners out of the South ‘’Another day, Boko Haram would say they are fighting the government because government leaders and agents are corrupt and unjust, etc. ‘’We will say this openly and frankly and without fear of contradiction that given the spread and depth of our integration as a people, it is futile to expect Igbos, Hausa, Yoruba or any ethnic group to relocate easily or peacefully to their ancestral lands even if Nigeria were broken up.’’

From Ugochukwu Eke, Umuahia

Emezue said that Governor Orji has transformed Abia State in all sectors including building solid roads as can be seen by all Abians except the likes of the former Governor who can be best described as highly myopic.

He said that Aba the commercial nerve centre is working with massive road constructions going on there, especially at Ohanku, Port Harcourt Road, Faulks Road, Ukwu-mango just to mention a few unlike the third grade road network the former governor left behind.

Emezue said: “It is on record that during the last nationwide strike, the state was generally peaceful especially Aba, as residents in one voice refused to be forced into protest by enemies of progress, having seen the wonderful job the Governor is doing”.

On the issue of not

having a conducive atmosphere in the state Emezue said, “The former governor is just seeking for relevance as peace is the order of the day in Aba where many investors are falling head over heels to come to Aba to invest”.

He said that a typical example is MECURE, an Indian firm which partnered with the state to establish the diagnostic centres in Aba and Umuahia, while many sons and daughters of the state who are living outside the country are willing to come home to lend a helping hand unlike when the former governor was in power.

He ‘however’ warned the former governor to stop trying to distract Governor Orji saying, “Any time former Governor Orji Kalu wants to wash his dirty linen in the public, Abians are willing to help him do that by reminding him about his past which is not good enough to be made public.”

revolutionise the status of the state to a functional mega city with necessary resources that can provide opportunities for indigenes and visitors.

Yusha’u, who spoke with reporters over the weekend, said the people of Sokoto are tired of garbage in- garbage out activities of the current administration.

He cautioned the acting governor against allowing state resources to be ploughed into activities other than what is meant for the people. The aspirant said, ’’we will revive the lost glory and encourage and sustain improved quality education, girl-child enrolment and guarantee special consideration for teachers in rural areas’’.

middleaged woman was yesterday picked up near the Nigeria Flour Mills Limited, Apapa, Lagos.

The woman who could neither talk nor remember her name was found by the roadside in a state of distress.

Sympathisers who took her to the Area B Police station said the woman could not give the contacts of any relation or acquaintance.

She was rushed to

Apapa General Hospital from the police station where she is undergoing treatment.

Passer-by suspected she might have been raped and dumped by captors.

Editor loses father in-law his town, Amaiyi, Amano in

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HE Editor, Sunday Independent newspaper, Mr. Oguwike Nwachuku has lost his father in-law, Mr. Bartholomew Ofoegbu Nwoko.

Nwoko died at 75.

The deceased, a retired Agricultural Science teacher and community leader, passed on after a protracted illness last month.

A good Christian and a peace loving man, the late Nwoko played key roles in the establishment of schools, health centres, church, markets and other community-based projects in

•The Governor of Anambra State Mr. Peter Obi (right) explaining a point to the USA Consul General to Nigeria, Mr. Joseph Stafford (left), during his courtesy call to the State.

PHOTO: OBI CLETUS

Obohia, Ahiazu Mbaise Local Government Area of Imo State.

A statement from the deceased heir apparent, Rupert Nwoko, said his father’s burial ceremony starts on Thursday, February 9 with a Service of Songs at his compound.

Burial will be on February 10 after a requiem mass at St. Peter’s Catholic Church, Amaiyi Amano Obohia.

Left to mourn the deceased are his wife, Madam Imelda Nwaogazi Nwoko (also a retired teacher and former Supervisory Councillor in Ahiazu LGA); nine children, including the Energy Editor of THISDAY newspapers, Mrs. Chika AmanzeNwachuku; 16 grand children, a brother, Isidore Nwoko, among others.

•Nwoko

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

COMMENT and ANALYSIS

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Another disastrous ACF outing Festus Eriye

Human life is too precious to play regional politics with

efestus2003@yahoo.com 08052135878 (SMS only)

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T is a good thing that some prominent northern leaders are beginning to speak up on the menace of the extremist Islamist sect – Boko Haram. But I am not sure which one I prefer: the erstwhile stony and pregnant silence of much of the region’s elite, or the new-found volubility that riles.

A case in point is the loaded intervention of the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) following its mid-week meeting in Kaduna. Among other things the group demanded a guarantee of safety from the government for the sect’s leadership as a pre-condition for dialogue. It went a step further to categorise the Boko Haram insurgency as a case of “civil unrest.”

This is the exact quote: “While it is true that the actions of Boko Haram are condemnable, it is also necessary to call upon the Federal Government and all our political leaders as well as all those in positions of authority to recall the UN Resolution 1963 of 2010 which urges governments around the world to address underlying causes of civil unrest and social conflicts rather than resort to hard military power which rarely solve them.

“The Federal and State Governments should be seen to demonstrate fairness and justice in dealing with all issues of insecurity and infringement of the laws.”

Much as it labored in its communiqué not to be seen to be justifying the actions of the sect, anyone with a bit of discernment about Nigeria will smell the whiff of quota politics here. Without saying so in too many words, the ACF is trying to draw parallels between what happened in the Niger-Delta and what is playing out across a swathe of the Northern states.

Unfortunately for them, sentiment cannot stand in the face of facts. When the insurgency in the creeks was getting out of control, government unleashed the Joint Task Force (JTF) which stormed into the creeks - demolishing as many militant camps as it came across.

Many villages caught in the path of the bulldozing army were sacked; scores of hapless villagers lost their lives, thousands were put to flight and became internal refugees while the fighting lasted.

The palace of the traditional ruler of Gbaramatu Kingdom was burnt by the troops who claimed he was in cahoots with the likes of militant leader, Chief Government Ekpemupolo aka Tompolo.

I recall back then that the JTF commander was asked at a press briefing to give the number of those killed in the op-

•Aliko Mohammed

erations. He retorted that an army on the move did not have time for body count.

Sensing that their homeland was about to be eviscerated by federal military might, Ijaw leaders led by the likes of Chief E. K. Clark sued for peace with government. The dialogue process that culminated in the amnesty only happened after that armed intervention by the administration of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua. It became clear to the militants that they could not prevail by force of arms.

Hence it is rich for anyone to accuse the government of lack of fairness for deciding to meet Boko Haram violence with commensurate firepower. If there have been abuses by the JTF in the course of its prosecution of its mandate, similar infractions were also committed by the military in the Niger Delta. No one should delude themselves: terrorists, thugs and bullies are only amenable to talking when they realise the limitations of their power.

Perhaps the ACF is seeking guarantees for the likes of Abubakar Shekau and Abu Qaqa because of the fate that befell Mohammed Yusuf in 2009. The same point can also be made for every criminal presently in custody. It is the responsibility of the state to keep them safe until they face justice in court.

But that is as far as it goes. No one should try to put serial killers on a political pedestal or make special arrangements for them. Those who are suddenly so concerned about the “human rights” of Boko Haram leaders, should also understand that these fellows arrogated to themselves the right to terminate the lives of over 40

“What the followers of Mohammed Yusuf are doing across northern Nigeria is not “civil unrest” by any definition. When your hurl a bomb on Sunday morning into a church full of worshippers; when you sow hundreds of bombs all over Kano with the intention of flattening the city, you are committing crimes against humanity”

innocent souls at Madalla, and a further 200 citizens in Kano. What guarantees of safety did these poor, harmless Nigerians receive? What sort of existence have their widows, widowers and children been condemned to?

The ACF talks of some United Nations resolution which urges governments to tackle underlying causes of civil unrest and social conflicts rather than resort to military force to resolve them. The Arewa leaders should say what UN resolution encourages disaffected individuals like those in Boko Haram to slaughter over 1,000 unarmed civilians in less than two years.

How convenient it is to quote meaningless UN resolutions. Let the ACF go and recite Resolution 1963 to those who lost their lives when the sect blew up the UN building in Abuja.

What the followers of Mohammed Yusuf are doing across northern Nigeria is not “civil unrest” by any definition.

When your hurl a bomb on Sunday morning into a church full of worshippers; when you sow hundreds of bombs all over Kano with the intention of flattening the city, you are committing crimes against humanity.

You should be in The Hague or facing a proper court somewhere to account for your atrocities – not sipping tea and discussing terms with decent folk.

Civil unrest is what happened in Tunisia, Egypt and across Nigeria, after the government unceremoniously withdrew the subsidy of petrol. How anyone can compare that with the killing and maiming spree presently going on beats my imagination.

As if the positions it has taken were not outrageous enough, the ACF then outdoes itself in the communiqué by justifying the quit order issued to Southerners living in the north by saying the SouthSouth zone started it all. This is stunning coming from a bunch of experienced politicians and former senior civil servants and captains of business.

This is a clear example of why people should not say things that do not improve on silence. When did the South-South zone meet to call on northerners to return home?

Which organisation made this call and on what basis? Unfortunately, the ACF which casually made this incendiary statement did not provide backing evidence for its claim.

This whole business of Southerners fleeing the north started after Boko Haram gave a three-day ultimatum for them to do so.

Many didn’t take the threat seriously – lulled into a false sense of security by the vacuous assurances of a government that was really in no position to protect them.

Less than forty-eight hours after the expiration of the ultimatum about 20 Southerners were gunned down in Adamawa State – a heinous crime for which Boko Haram has long since proudly claimed credit.

It is really sad hearing people like Senator Joseph Waku, ACF Vice Chairman, say things like this: “When Nigerians are living anywhere in this country and on their own they decided that they are going to leave, they can do so.” Such unfeeling arrogance, such insensitivity!

Waku only needs to visit Jos to find out that the flight of persons is not just from North to South. Many Northern Christians who feel insecure have fled from their homes in neighbouring Boko Haram-infested states to seek refuge in Plateau State.

Human life is too precious to play tribal politics with. Until we are on the receiving end of Boko Haram atrocities, we will not appreciate that the time to take the gloves off is has come.

Lekan Otufodunrin lotufodunrin@yahoo.com 08050498530 (SMS only)

United we stand

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EARS ago when my younger brother headed for the North to take up a federal government employment, most members of our family were not excited about the decision. If my mother had her way, she would have prevented him from taking the job.

Unfortunately after an endless search, my brother had been unable to get the kind of job he wanted. The offer in the federal government institution was, however, too good for him to turn down and could not be dissuaded despite fears expressed by many family members.

With past cases of religious crisis in the north in which many southerners had been killed, my mother and those opposed to his relocation had good reasons to be afraid for his safety and that of his wife and children.

Thankfully, he had lived in the north for some years now and my mother had gone twice to his place to help babysit.

Her fears about the north must have dissolved somehow having stayed there for months during his visit and with no incidents in the state where my brother is based.

However, the recent attacks in the north by the Boko Haram sect must be giving her nightmares. She had not mentioned it to me, but I am sure that she must be having sleepless nights praying for the safety of my brother and his family.

Some other family members have, however, been urging my brother to start thinking of returning back home instead of waiting till the terrorists attack will engulf the whole north and endanger the lives of southerners.

I share the concern of those who are advocating the return of southerners from the north. The recent killings of particularly Igbos in particular in some parts of the north are very unfortunate. The corpses of many have been brought home for burial and it has taken a lot of restrain to prevent retaliation in the southern parts of the country.

However, returning home is not as easy as it seems. How do people who have lived all their lives in the north and invested a lot just wake up one day and pack a few of their belongings and start coming back without any guarantee of how to continue their lives?

Yes it is true like it has been said that only someone who is alive can think of how to survive, but the truth is that many southerners in the north will prefer to hope for the resolution the crisis that will guarantee their safety than having to return to the uncertainty back home.

If my brother has to return home today with his family, it will definitely take some time for him and his wife to get another job when many of those back home have not been able to secure any job after years of graduation.

I have no doubt that the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates in 1914 that formed Nigeria was wrong, but having come this far, I would rather we stick together than split like some are advocating for.

I am convinced that the terrorists and some religious fundamentalists who are behind the crisis in the north do not have the support of the majority of the citizens of that part of the country.

Northern leaders, however, have to rise up to the occasion and do everything possible to checkmate the troublemakers and guarantee the safety of all citizens, especially nonindigenes who are faced with the dilemma of staying back at the risk of their lives or return home to an uncertain future.

We cannot afford to allow the present situation in the country degenerate to the civil war like we once did. To keep Nigeria one, like that old slogan, is a task that must be done. United we stand, divided we fall as a notion.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Comment & Analysis

Boko Haram: no alternatives to hard security work Ogochukwu Ikeje ohgeeoh@gmail.com 08084235961 (SMS only)

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HERE are two defining components of terrorism. It is violent. It is intimidating. Boko Haram boasts both requirements. But the worst terror that can be unleashed on a people is for their government and security machinery to be overwhelmed and intimidated by terrorists. A government’s feeling of helplessness in the face of terror worsens the problem. That sort of feeling spawns poor coordination and incoherence. What helps is good, old hard security work. Nothing else will do.

Boko Haram has unleashed concentrated violence on the country and has continued to scare everyone out of their wits. Its members spilled blood on the streets of Northeastern states. But that was for starters, a mere warning shot, if you will. Soon the group turned to policemen and military personnel. This was to announce to the Nigerian authorities that it meant business, and was prepared for full-scale confrontation with the government, even its military might.

Remember that traditionally, everywhere in the world, security authorities do not take kindly to the killing of their personnel. This fact was not lost on the Obasanjo administration which ordered the invasion of Odi in Bayelsa State in 1999 following the killing of 12 policemen by some youths in the area. Seven cops were killed on November 4 of that year, the rest

Harder thinking; harder work is required on other days. For that, military combatants swooped on the ancient coastal Ijaw community, killing as they went and burning down the town.

When Boko Haram began to bomb police facilities and kill law enforcement agents, the Islamist sect was making it clear it was ready for the worst consequence possible. The group was out to terrorise, and to intimidate.

But failing to get the sort of resistance it anticipated, it scaled up the terror to a notch that made a stronger statement than it did in its previous outing. Thus, last year, nine years after it came to life, Boko Haram unleashed probably its most audacious attacks. Two of those assaults stood out. One was executed on June 16 at the police national headquarters, Abuja.

It claimed few lives but it left scores of burnt cars and smoke on the premises, and enough terror in the hearts of policemen to keep a few away from work for days.

Barely two months after, the second and worse attack, shook the building of the United Nations in the nation’s capital to

its foundations. Twenty-one souls perished in that attack; 73 were taken away injured.

Boko Haram has indeed earned its terrorist tag. It has terminated lives and maimed survivors for life.

Such was the terror that visiting British Prime Minister David Cameron was hosted in Lagos last year, not Abuja, because the former capital was considered safer. And such was the dread of the sect that our national day, October 1, was marked quietly inside the fortified Aso Rock rather than the spacious Eagle Square.

President Goodluck Jonathan and at least one security chief have admitted that the Islamist sect and its tactics were new on the country. But if that confession was calculated to calm Nigerians’ frayed nerves, it failed. Neither did it persuade the terrorists to temper their violence.

Rather, terrorism continued apace, shattering the celebrations of Christmas Day, and so brazenly assaulting the ancient city of Kano in January.

“Mohammed Abubakar has since succeeded Hafiz Ringim as Inspector-General of Police.

But that in itself has brought no relief to the force, or to the Jonathan administration or the Nigerian people. The relief will come when things begin to change for the better, not merely when one police chief is replaced by another”

Boko Haram has altered the nation’s security architecture (a favourite word of Mr President). Mohammed Abubakar has since succeeded Hafiz Ringim as Inspector-General of Police. But that in itself has brought no relief to the force, or to the Jonathan administration or the Nigerian people. The relief will come when things begin to change for the better, not merely when one police chief is replaced by another. Ringim’s parting shot was that he did his best, even succeeded, under the circumstances. But while he lasted as IGP, a controversial figure called Zakari Biu was said to have detailed police officers to take a Boko Haram leader and suspected mastermind of the Madalla bombing, Kabiru Sokoto, to the suspect’s hometown for a search. Sokoto then vanished, reportedly. Unlike Ringim, Jonathan cannot afford to say he did his best under the circumstances. No effort can amount to anything near good, not to speak of best, until Boko Haram is halted in its tracks. That the sect’s methods are strange cannot amount to an excuse. And a feeling of helplessness will not help, either. Jonathan’s concern that the sect may have infiltrated his government brings no healing to the bruised psyche of the people he leads. No one said the job of a president was easy.

Elsewhere, a president begins to age and grey soon after his inauguration.

I do not expect anything less from Jonathan. But greying is not enough. It should come with result, too. If his government is infiltrated it is his duty to fish out the strange elements. If his police and other security chiefs are under-achieving, he has the prerogatives to change them and succeed or retain them and fail. Nothing can terrorise a people more than that terrorists are always one step ahead of those whose duty it is to keep them out of business.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Comment & Analysis

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Ambiguous judgments The inability of the Supreme Court to give orders and the unwillingness of FG and INEC to seek them reflect an immature political climate

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HE recent Supreme Court judgment which sacked the Governors of Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Kogi and Sokoto states over tenure elongation left Kogi State reeling in political and judicial confusion. Though there was a single judgment affecting the entire states, there were varied interpretations, particularly in Kogi State. Even the chief law officer of the country, the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation (AGF) appears to have recanted his earlier interpretation of the judgment.

This confusion does not speak well of our judicial process, and we believe it arose because of the failure by the Supreme Court to make the necessary consequential orders.

The varied interpretations resulted in political and judicial disorder, as the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, and Captain Idris Wada elected while the unconstitutional elongation endured contested the right to take over from the sacked Governor Ibrahim Idris. The situation was further compounded by the fact that a primary election was conducted prior to May 29, 2011; now restored as the authentic end of tenure; and a winner had emerged before the concurrent judgment of the Federal High Court and the Court of Appeal that extended Governor Idris’s stay, following which a fresh primary was conducted. Thus, there are three persons laying claim to the office of the Governor of Kogi State, following the Supreme Court’s judgment.

The thinking of many Nigerians is that the Supreme Court should have made necessary consequential orders to help rest the matter once and for all. But there has been disagreement also whether the necessary consequential orders were not made, at least with respect to Adamawa State; where one of the Justices reportedly ordered that the Speaker

T is surprising and annoying that any government will agree to pay N100millon as compensation to the family of the late Boko Haram leader. I was shocked when I first heard the news. I asked no one in particular whether it was right to pay such amount to the family of a man whose group has been responsible for many killings when the Academic Staff Union of Universities

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ATELY, the nation has been witnessing the death of many of her distinguished citizens.

While death is certain for the living, the alarming rate calls for concern. Many of them are still in middle age, and despite their accomplishments, still have a lot to offer. But here we are, seeing them die day after day. In developed countries, people work well into old age. A look at their various sectors will reveal senior citizens working and producing results.

Take football for example; Sir Alex Ferguson, the Manchester United Manager, is still into active management. He’s almost

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of the state house of assembly should be sworn in, as acting Governor. There is also the opinion that the Supreme Court cannot go beyond the issues before the court to make necessary findings, even when such intervention will help to clear any ambiguity as the one that trailed Kogi State.

We are however of the opinion that regardless of the technicality of making consequential orders by courts; there are appropriate circumstances when the Supreme Court, being the final court of justice in the country, must, in order for its judgment to be clear and unequivocal, invoke its inherent jurisdiction to deal with the consequences of its judgment; particularly over constitutional matters. As seen in Kogi State, two persons were sworn in as Governor, both by high ranking judicial officers, and one at the further instance of the country’s chief law officer.

To further confound the matter, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) added its weight to the confusion, by interpreting the judgment for a consequence totally different from that of the AGF and many legal scholars. It is also on record that the Chief Judge of Kogi State stonewalled the invitation to swear in Captain Wada as

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

•Editor Festus Eriye •Deputy Editor Olayinka Oyegbile •Associate Editors Taiwo Ogundipe Sam Egburonu

•Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief Victor Ifijeh •Chairman, Editorial Board Sam Omatseye •General Editor Kunle Fagbemi

Governor of the state; and it was in panic that the President of the Customary Court of Appeal of the state was drafted by the outgoing Governor, to swear in Captain Wada. Shortly after, the state chief judge also went ahead, on the orders of the AGF, to swear in the Speaker of the house of assembly. So, the state had two persons that have taken the same oath of office, to exercise the same responsibility.

In the present circumstances, it is only right that the parties are willing to resort back to court for an appropriate interpretation of the judgment of the Supreme Court. While that is awaited, it must be borne in mind that this particular crisis could have been avoided if INEC or the AGF had moved quickly to the Supreme Court for a final determination of the issues, after the judgment of the Court of Appeal, on the tenure of the governors. Were it not for the intervention of Buba Marwa, the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) who felt shortchanged by the tenure elongation strategy; the matter would have rested on the erroneous judgments of the lower courts. We are also of the opinion that considering the importance of the matter, it was one that the lower courts should have referred to the Supreme Court for their opinion on the constitutional issues involved.

In all, it is gladdening that despite the several challenges, the fundamental pillars of our democratic enterprise - the legislature, the executive and the judiciary - are making their contributions for a better democracy. Interestingly, the ambiguity in the constitutional provision had earlier been cleared by the provision of section 180(2), an amendment to the constitution. The import of this is that if the political actors decide to do it right, democracy would with time mature for the benefit of our country.

LETTERS

A word for President Jonathan has strike been on strike since November last year and Labour too recently went on strike as a result of fuel subsidy removal.

I sampled people’s opinion on Facebook and many were as disgusted as

I was. Many wondered why President Goodluck Jonathan had not declared full state of emergency in the affected states.

Prof. Wole Soyinka recently cited the experience of the former University of

Ibadan Vice-Chancellor who was summoned by the Minister that some religious fanatics were not happy about the inclusion of the cross at the University’s worship centre. The VC rather preferred to be

removed than remove the cross, this happened many years back. We have since allowed government’s insensitivity to make Boko Haram develop into full grown Al-qeada by bombing the nation.

Spate of premature deaths 70. In the United States of America, a peep into the Capitol will reveal people of advanced years who have spent almost all their lives as politicians, still going strong, and actively participating in nation building. Not to mention scientists, journalists, etc.

In these developed countries, there is presence of basic amenities and infrastructures to aid citizens live their lives to the fullest. The system is fair, and there is equity. Opportunities abound and excellence is recognized. But over here, the reverse is the case.

Nigerians face a lot of difficulty living otherwise, ordinary simple lives. It is now survival of the fittest, a la dogs eating dogs.

It is now who you know.

Education has gone to the dogs, including health, agriculture and the rest.

Many citizens now live a dog’s life. Many of these deceased grew up during Nigeria’s finest years. Today, the story is different, leaving most of them frustrated. When I see the revolutions in North Africa and Middle East, I wonder what kind of people we are. By every standard, those coun-

tries are ahead of us. Yet her citizens feel life is unbearable, and boldly stood up for change. And here we are, living under intolerable conditions, yet unconcerned, only dreaming of change. The common slogan is ‘God dey’, ‘wetin man go do?’, ‘I never ready to die’. So much for a people desiring change. Aside the dead, our remaining jewels are going overseas.

Nigerians making waves there wouldn’t have succeeded if they were at home.

Sadly, there is no environment to groom promising ones who should take their

place. It has been said that the biggest resource of a country is her people. Someone rightly said that the richest spots in the world are not the oil fields of Kuwait, or diamond vaults of South Africa, but the cemetery; for therein lies unbelievable talents that were never discovered, and put to use.

I doubt if these sayings applies to Nigeria. Our best brains are dying, emigrating, and wasting for lack of opportunities while we fold our hands watching.

By Nnamdi Ozoegu, Okigwe, Imo State.

The Bible says “do not despise little beginning….” The little beginning of Boko Haram has been fully welcomed by the government and now, it is full grown.

Media report has it that President Jonathan had to cancel a foreign trip because of this Boko Haram menace. We hope that many of such trips will be cancelled because the masses are suffering. But Boko Haram cannot be wiped away until poverty is reduced to the barest minimum. We all know that this Boko Haram sect is being sponsored by the high ups to distract the government, which means the cockroach that is eating the fruit is glued to the fruit. Let President Jonathan first sanitise its cabinet and remove zoning that has brought our country to a state of hopelessness and collapse.

Let the right people be appointed and not on the basis of sentiments. To bring in positive change, one has to step on toes and that’s what I am telling Mr. President. Hope is not lost!

By Tosin Adesile, Lagos.

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Ropo Sekoni ropo.sekoni @thenationonlineng.net

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IGMUND Freud and Carl Jung both created centuries ago similar models for understanding human behaviour at the level of the individual and of the community. Freud theorized about the individual unconscious or psyche while Jung gave his attention to the collective unconscious. In both cases, the goal was to understand hidden problems that explain why individuals or communities behave the way they do; what in their past or experience motivates or influences the choices they make regarding their life-world situations.

The crisis over subsidy removal and the positions of various segments of the country that it has spawned bring out two major underlying causes of the underdevelopment of the country outside the issue of corruption. The two major aspects of the nation’s experience that can be described as its unconscious or the underlying cause for its failure are petroleum and the constitution. These two matters influence the responses of various sections of the nation to political, economic, and social stimuli that citizens confront on a daily basis.

The centrality of petroleum to Nigeria’s periodic crisis must have been de-emphasized over the years. But the fact that it is the exploitation of petroleum and distri-

Femi Orebe femi.orebe @thenationonlineng.net 08056504626 (sms only)

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Comment & Analysis

E used to run away before but henceforth, we would stand to defend ourselves, our families and the church of God against any attack. No religion has a monopoly of violence. They were asking us to quit the North, to where? Do they think all the Christians in the North are non-indigenes? We are going nowhere.

Every church has been asked to provide adequate security to its members during the hours of worship and the leaders were charged to protect their families wherever they are located’ –An Abujabased Christian Cleric.

I strongly believe that as in the days of the biblical Moses, God has a mission for President Jonathan in matters pertaining to Nigeria. Just as Moses irrevocably changed the history of the Jews, Nigerian history, post Jonathan, can never be the same again. As history has proved conclusively, this can be advantageous just as it can be disastrous. If care is not taken, Nigeria may not be able to cross its ‘Red Sea’, for at no time in recent history has our security been so fragile nor our continued corporate existence so uncertain; even while we have become used to being, literally, permanently under siege.

The Igbos, perspicacious as ever, and mindful, not only of the 6 million Jews incinerated by Hitler and his thugs but forever living with the human tragedies of their Biafran experience, have moved decisively to ensure that thunder does not strike twice, by pro-actively asking their kith and kin in the North to return home.

Should the Yoruba, the Bini or the Izon, be also pushed in self preservation to ask their people home from the North, given the ease with which Boko

National psyche and nation building Babangida is still stoking the psyche that privileges the desire of a group or section over the desire of the whole of country bution of its benefits that affect the ways Nigerians think or feel about the country became manifest during the recent protest. On the level of civil society, the protests of millions of citizens against removal of oil subsidy in such places as Lagos, Ibadan, Kano, Abuja, and other state capitals in the Southwest and the North indicate that citizens in these places believe that petroleum is a national resource that should bring benefit to all of the country’s residents through a price regime that respects the general cost of labour in the country. The protests represent a logical response by labour and ordinary citizens to resist any attempt by the government to worsen citizens’ wellbeing, particularly in a country that has become a poster child for government neglect of the interests and welfare of citizens.

But in the Southsouth and Southeast, protest was muted or in most cases prevented from taking place by the region’s political rulers.

Leaders and Elders of the Southsouth in particular unearthed the region’s hidden feeling about the distribution of petroleum revenue in the country. They claimed that over 75% of the 1.3 trillion first claimed by the federal government as the cost of subsidy for last year was paid to subsidize petrol in Lagos State alone. They went further to say that petrol is subsidized for children of Lagos State’s nouveaux riches who have access to cheap pet-

rol to enable them drive irresponsibly some of the many cars that their parents have no time to use.

Furthermore, the elders of the Southsouth also stated that it is a few individuals from the Southwest and the North that benefit from oil subsidy.

In other words, the Southsouth and the Southeast are complaining that they are marginalized in the distribution of the benefits of oil exploitation, even though most of the petroleum is located in their sections of the country. Southsouth and Southeast organizations took pages in newspapers to advertise their support of the man they consider to be their son, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. The position of the Southsouth on demonstrations against subsidy removal is now more crudely or frankly stated than the previous call for increase in the percentage of oil revenue given to petroleum-producing states. This time, the region’s leaders are complaining that the Oil Sheiks in the country do not include indigenes of oil-producing states.

Northern leaders in their own case focus more on political issues than on the economic ones that Southsouth elders are worried about. General Ibrahim Babangida joins the rank of those calling for restructuring of the country on the one hand and cancels that call on the other hand by restating No-go areas that his military government and those before him introduced

between 1966 and 1999. Almost as if Babangida intends to divert attention away from the issue of subsidy removal, he invokes the genie of settled or no-go areas.

He says that one of the settled areas is that Nigeria has accepted to be a capitalist country, as if Nigerians have at any time complained about the existence of the free market since 1966, except that the freedom of the free market has been compromised by corruption by politicians and civil servants. He adds that the unity of Nigeria is also a settled matter. One wonders where Babangida has been since the advent of Boko Haram, one organization that has openly challenged the indivisibility of the country. It should be obvious that the call for restructuring presupposes acceptance of Nigeria as one geographical unit. Otherwise, the call would have been for secession, such as is inherent in Boko Haram’s call for Sharia in all of the northern states at all cost. Babangida is still stoking the psyche that privileges the desire of a group or section over the desire of the whole of country.

Similarly, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the organization that is believed by most Nigerians to be the voice of the North, has come out openly to call for dialogue with Boko Haram and to acknowledge for the first time the strident calls from other sections of Nigeria: Southsouth, Southeast, and Southwest for sovereign na-

That Nigeria may survive Should Nigerians continue to live in denial even if a microscopic few are profiting prodigally from the inequitable status quo?

Haram still slaughters human beings in their hundreds, and literally at will, a cataclysm of no mean proportion would have descended on this country.

President Jonathan has now belatedly hearkened to those who counseled negotiation with the real leaders of Boko Haram who, without a doubt, must be well known to his government given its extensive security apparatti. That offer has since been rudely rebuffed by a group which recognizes and respects no government that is not being run along the dictates of the Sharia. It is therefore a dialogue with the deaf and destined to eventual futility. That has since become obvious with Northern leaders clinically staying away from proffering any solutions to the quagmire, at least, none that the Nigerian public knows of. Apart from individuals, state governments there have been too scared to be seen criticising Boko Haram, a group now so powerful Mr President had no qualms admitting that they have, indeed, infiltrated his government.

Can Nigeria, as a country, then continue to live in denial?

The North-West geo-political zone it was which stood, ramrod, against the convention of a sovereign National Conference. Can whatever their reasons were still hold true today in the face of a marauding Boko Haram whose activities have the distinct possibility of tearing the country into tatters? Can we honestly pretend that there are, today, no issues to thrash amongst the amalgamated parts? Can we hold, in all honesty that a 100 year-old forced marriage does not need some amount of panelbeating? Should Nigerians continue to live in denial even if a microscopic few are profiting prodigally from the inequitable status quo?

Former President Obasanjo played poker with the destiny of Nigeria when

he turned a blind eye to the institutionalization of Sharia in some parts of a country whose constitution expressly forbids such. . But even if that could be explained on the basis of political expediency by a President who was not particularly sure of himself, it was the fact that what Sharia Northern governors established then was nothing but political Sharia which the likes of Sanusi Lamido Sanusi never stopped to criticize. That deceit, to a great extent, is the precursor of what is today‘s Boko Haram. Whilst petty thieves were having their limbs dismembered with fanfare, governors of states presumably under Sharia were, like their counterparts in other parts of the country, stealing from the public till and , nonchalantly displaying their opulence. In the North in particular, and in this regard, I recently listened to the Central Bank governor, Lamido Sanusi, on Aljazeera describing the horrible human conditions in Yobe State, where every human development index is at its very nadir .

Rather than pro-actively meet these human challenges to which the likes of Boko Haram were calling attention before they got hijacked by politicians to fight their electoral battles only to be promptly marooned and neglected, these same mindless politicians would later mastermind Boko Haram’s ‘temporary immolation’ in the most dastardly manner which they went ahead to advertise on the international media , foolishly believing that killing individuals is the same thing as burying ideas which, most times are immutable. This was how some brainless politicians sowed the wind and today, the entire country is reaping the whirlwind, with hundreds being incinerated and thousands more being rendered fatherless, homeless and hopeless.

Can President Jonathan then feign

ignorance of the ugly possibilities staring us in the face? Can the Nigerian government play dumb, and refuse to seize the window of opportunity, now still available, for leaders of our various nationalities to meet and discuss the country’s multifarious differences which Sir Ahmadu Bello long ago warned that we should not sweep under the carpet? Or would President Jonathan rather we descend to a Somalia which is not such a far-fetched proposition as some may think?

As Chief Awolowo put it over five decades ago, Nigeria, even as at today, is at best a geographical expression and nothing demonstrates this truism more than the activities of a thoroughly heinous Boko Haram which shows daily that Nigerians cannot be called their brothers’ keepers.

It is not inconceivable that a majority of Northerners in some states in the North would prefer to be ruled on the basis of the Sharia, one of the core demands of Boko Haram. But it is equally true that there are states there in the North with a majority of Christians.

However, since one of the key issues to be discussed at a National Conference will be that of restructuring, such that geo-political zones become the federating units, it should be possible to meet Boko Haram’s known demand for Sharia without inconveniencing those in the other zones where their preferences differ. Everybody would thus be able to worship his God the way he/she knows best to do. Any attempt, subsequently, at religious expansionism by the likes of Boko Haram will then be a clear declaration of war, a matter which would then be treated according to the terms agreed at the National Conference for such eventualities. But without a doubt, such an event would lack the possibility of consuming the entire country, a feat which Boko Haram can easily accomplish now, once reprisal attacks be-

tional conference. But like Babangida’s call, the ACF call is halfhearted. It is premised on the belief that there is nothing wrong with the 1999 Constitution that is believed by many Nigerians to project only the North’s vision of Nigeria: “The Forum concluded that the terms of our National Union and those by which the Nigerian Federation are run have been well defined in our Constitution. But for the avoidance of doubt … the North remains open to, and will be keen to discuss any ideas that may place Nigeria in a better position to meet the challenges of nation building….”

The statement by ACF almost gives the 1999 Constitution that other sections of the country want to be recreated at a national conference the status of Babangida’s Nogo areas. While the ACF needs to be congratulated for finally listening to calls from other sections of the country on the imperative of a national conference, it needs to be reminded that the 1999 Constitution is a main cause for demands for a sovereign national conference.

What is needed is not just a constitution with well defined terms; it is one with properly conceived terms “that can place Nigeria in a better position to meet the challenges of nation building.” All the constitutions the nation has been given between 1966 and 1999 have not been able to put the country in a good position to meet the challenges of nation building and progress for the citizenry at large.

The sooner all sections of the country come to terms with this reality, the better the chances for future generations to have a fulfilling life. come the order of the day.

In the last two editions of this column, I dwelt on how President can still leave behind a lasting legacy. But all those, even if he can summon half the courage to do them, will be an exercise in futility if there is no Nigeria or if he ends up being the last President of Nigeria as we know it; again, a distinct possibility if nothing concrete is done about restructuring Nigeria.

Restructuring Nigeria to become more effective and smart can only redound to the advantage of all. There will be healthy competition as we saw in the First Republic; each state will live within its means and all efforts will be made at developing our God-given resources rather than waiting for the monthly hand-outs from Abuja. Obviously the going will be tough initially but even that can be assuaged by a gradual ceding of full ownership of oil to the South- South, given that those resources were developed at great cost by the federation. In the interim, SouthSouth may be persuaded to make do with 50 percent and allow a grace period of 10 years during which its share will increase by something like 5 per cent per each year.

With that, and the huge development efforts that will be unleashed in each geo-political zone, leveraging on its key natural or mental resources, and living within its means, no part of this country will atrophy. This will spur and deepen Regional Integration as a development paradigm which can, without a doubt, more than double our current GDP. Areas of current conflicts will be reduced to the barest minimum since each geo-political zone will be too busy developing its latent resources and making its zone one of choice so much this crippling dependence on oil will start to lose its allure.

Mr President must immediately set in motion the process of convening a conference of the leaders of all Nigerian nationalities with a view to working out the necessary modalities for restructuring the country, long before Boko Haram dismembers it.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Tunji

Adegboyega tunjade@yahoo.co.uk 08054503906 (sms only)

I

N what clearly depicts his irritating obsession for the removal of the so-called fuel subsidy, President Goodluck Jonathan has directed state governments and local governments in the country to design programmes on which they would use their portion of the fuel subsidy reinvestment funds. Speaking through his Special Adviser on Political Affairs, Mr Ahmed Ali Gulak, at a one-day town hall meeting of coalition of youth groups, on the deregulation of downstream oil sector in Owerri, Imo State, the president restated the wornout statement of his government’s desire to channel its share of the resources into a combination of programmes to stimulate the economy and alleviate poverty through critical infrastructure and safety net projects.

The question that readily comes to mind here is, under what authority was the president directing states and local governments as to how to spend their money? This must be a carryover of the military mentality under which someone would sit in Abuja and order or direct the other tiers of government on what to do and what not to do with their money.

Beyond that is the more worrisome impudence with which President Jonathan is pursuing the fuel subsidy removal. His government is completely deaf to arguments opposed to removal of the subsidy, obedient only to those in favour of it. Nigerians have never agreed with the government on whether fuel subsidy exists or not; not

Postscript, Unlimited!

By

Oyinkan Medubi 08187172799 (SMS only) puchuckles7@gmail.com

I

N Nigeria, it is now a standard joke anywhere you go that if you are wronged by your neighbor and you report the matter to the police, woe betide you indeed. You may not necessarily be the last one still standing by the time the smoking gun clears, because the last man standing is directly tangential to the one holding the heavier purse. How this comes about, I honestly don’t know, but I know that most people have learnt to do what even Houdini sometimes found difficult to do in his career: literally swallow their hurt. They have learnt that being right does not necessarily lead to righteousness in social misunderstandings. This, dear reader, is only an analogy to prepare you for what comes next.

The story that broke during the week raised a few hairs at the back of my neck. You can see them, can’t you? It was reported that a certain student somewhere in Nigeria felt peeved that he had received some caning from a teacher as punishment alongside many of his mates and being lucky enough to have a customs officer father, ran home to report this unsavory indignation visited on his behind. The indignant father was then said to have upped, taken the son in tow

Comment & Analysis

15

A taught nothing; learnt nothing govt In spite of earth-shaking revelations from subsidy probe, Jonathan forges ahead with pre-conceived agenda to talk of its extent. That was why the Federal Government unilaterally decided to dare them on January 1, by surreptitiously removing the socalled subsidy as a New Year’s present.

The result was the spontaneous protests nationwide in a manner that has never been seen in the country for years. Since the government crushed the protests with troops, the country has been in blissful peace, punctuated only by bomb blasts released by the Boko Haram.

What one would have expected a sensitive government that got the import of the House of Representatives committee’s probe into the subsidy saga, as well as the January antifuel subsidy removal protests, to do is to apply the brakes, albeit temporarily, at least to see the true picture of things before knowing whether to proceed with the subsidy removal agenda or not. But, as many commentators have argued, it is like the president is hell bent on removing the subsidy, irrespective of whether it exists or not. Who says it could not be the government that would have to refund money to Nigerians for subsidies paid for petrol that was never delivered in the country the way things are going? This is the price that the government must necessarily pay for the negligence and or corruption

of some of its officials connected with the subsidy payments.

Even at this stage of the subsidy probe, Nigerians have known enough; indeed, their worst fears are being confirmed. With the conflicting claims and submissions from relevant government agencies and the ministry in charge of the petroleum ministry, it is clear that some people have been feeding fat on Nigerians’ money through the subsidy racket.

For instance, the exact amount of litres we require for domestic consumption daily has been a subject of disagreement among the relevant government officials. While the petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke says it is 35m litres per day, the Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Reginald Stanley, said it was 59 million liters, a quantity that the House of Representatives committee noted we do not have the capacity to accommodate. Effectively therefore, we have a difference of 24m litres per day which we do not consume, but on which subsidy must have been paid in 2011 all the same. If we multiply the 24 million litres per day by 365 days in the year, we get about 8.76 billion litres of fuel that was smuggled out in 2011, and this translates to about N670 billion in mon-

“What one would have expected a sensitive government that got the import of the House of Representatives committee’s probe into the subsidy saga, as well as the January anti-fuel subsidy removal protests, to do is to apply the brakes, albeit temporarily, at least to see the true picture of things before knowing whether to proceed with the subsidy removal agenda or not”

etary terms, according to the committee.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Comptroller of Customs, Mr Ndubuisi Nwaogu, has alleged that all documentations on fuel importation were shielded from the Customs by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

With all these confusion and laxities, the president ought to tread softly rather than stick to subsidy removal because the government may end up thanking Nigerians for opening its eyes and understanding to the dark deeds in the subsidy regime, the way things are going. That is, I assume, if the government is not part of the racket; (i.e. if its officials never benefited from the subsidy money for electioneering campaign and other purposes). Some have already started to doubt that the Jonathan presidency has the courage to do justice to those who defrauded the country on subsidy. They say the best the thieves will get (if ever they are named) will be the usual slap on the wrist and stuff like that. We wait and see; but I know this is going to be one probe that will be different even if the president wants to give the impression that it does not matter. That, for me, is what his action says with his fixation on his subsidy reinvestment programmes.

My advice to the president is that, rather than be appealing to base sentiment as he did at the National Youth Service Corps national award ceremony during the subsidy protests, and as he repeated at the Owerri town hall meeting earlier mentioned, when he thanked youths in Imo State for their mature role during the fuel subsidy removal strike (divide and

Oh no, have we really gone as barbarically round the bend as this? and heroically went to confront the erring teacher, and then proceeded to do what can only be described as going round the bend in a most barbaric fashion.

I have said it again and again in this place that many parents are the ones giving their children a bad name. Psychologists would tell us that most children are willing to learn. This is why they unconsciously model their behavior patterns on what (such as trees or cars) or whom (such as relatives, teachers, mad men, etc.) they observe around them. It also explains why children ask so many questions.

Adult-children interactions are filled with top-level discourses associated with court sessions. You get ‘why is the earth round?’ You go, ‘I don’t know; that’s the way God made it.’ They go ‘And who is God?’ ‘He is the creator of the universe.’ ‘And where is the universe?’

Exasperated, you go ‘Out there where everything is’. Ah ha!, the child has now found a chink in your armour: there are some things you are not sure of. So, he aims for the kill. ‘Where does God live?’ In case you don’t know, children have an endless capacity to stretch whatever answer they receive ad infinitum; adults, on the other hand, have an endless capacity to be unsure of anything. That is the way children learn, by taking adults’ heads out of the clouds. So, you must answer their questions, for not to answer a question is to invite another question.

You are lucky, though, if all a child comes to you with is a ques-

tion. Sometimes, children’s demands may come in another form, such as a cry for direction. In the story narrated above, I believe the young man only wanted some direction from his father. ‘My teacher has caned me, what should I do?’ I don’t know how many times my children were caned in school (and at home) but I think they learnt to rub the spot, forget the caning and avoid the behaviour that invited the caning in the first place. They confessed that those canes represented real lessons in themselves.

One of them said that one of his teachers named his cane ‘Wisdom’.

How wise!

The response of the father in our story is now the point of intrigue for us. The story says the father asked his son to beat up that bold and arrant teacher in the full view of everyone around. Two things. First, I want to believe that this customs officer did not just drop down from the sky ready-made and ready-trained; presumably, he also had teachers who brought him up to the level where he felt sufficiently able to read and write to ask for a job in the customs. So, was beating up a teacher his own way of getting back at those who taught him (granted, with canes) how to read and write? Believe me, for many of us, particularly lazy ones like me, the cane was one strong motivation for learning and moderating our behaviour. In some other countries, the cane is substituted with writing of lines. One judge was said to have been so happy to have a teacher before him for violating

traffic rules. He gleefully asked her to sit down in the courtroom and write one thousand lines of ‘I shall not violate traffic rules again.’

The second thing is that our father here misinterpreted his son’s cry. That poor child only wanted to learn, needed to learn, not to be indulged. The father, rather than sit the boy down to teach him the facts of life and the many truths that go to represent life, such as the fact that he, the father, would not always be alive to send his goons after his son’s enemies, he self-indulged. One man told of how his father responded the first time he went home to report that he had been caned at school by his teacher. And how many canes did your teacher give you?, asked the father. Thinking there would be retribution for the teacher, he doubled the number. The father then went inside, changed his clothes, got himself some real canes and asked his son to double over, before proceeding to give him double the number of canes he said he got in school. That was the end of his teacher-tale-bearing days. Those were the days of rock-solid parenthood. Parents these days are made of plastic, like Japanese cars: fragile egos in fragile brain-boxes. This boy’s parent thought the child was asking him to prove how really powerful he was in the Nigerian society.

That brings us to the problem that constantly besets us – why Nigerian officers continually need to prove how powerful they are by displaying very strange, ungentlemanly ethics. Or, are our high-level

rule tactic, you would say), he should stop deluding himself that Nigerian youths earnestly ask for him again (apologies to the Abacha era propagandists) as they did during the election last year. The youths must have learnt never to give themselves in to infatuation again. Next time, they would not elect their president through the Internet.

The president’s kinsmen who feel that he is being criticised incessantly because of where he comes from should not wait until some of his current actions backfire again before threatening fire and brimstone. Rather, they should, for instance, start pulling his ears now by telling him that he cannot continue to pursue the subsidy removal agenda as if the probes by the House of Representatives and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) are of no consequence in the government’s next line of action on the matter.

President Jonathan may be their ‘son’, but he is also the country’s president. So, where their right to ‘protect’ their ‘son’ stops, ours to demand of him good and transparent governance begins. If a president who got a panNigeria mandate barely nine months ago is being castigated now by the same people who voted him into office, it shows how displeased they are with his style and policies. What the present situation on fuel subsidy calls for, at least to a government that had been taught something and had equally learnt something from the subsidy strike and protests is introspection and not the continued obsession with removal of subsidy. That should be the concern of as serious government properly so called.

officers not required to be gentlemen also? We are constrained to ask because if they are not busy harassing people on the highways for not ‘moving out of the road so that their own cars can pass’, then they are tearing through traffic, no matter how tight, with sirens or beating up civilians! I thought actually that the higher one goes in life, the more one understands how really empty everything is and thus the need to reverence the spirit of man!

Unfortunately, many stories such as the one above happen in our schools daily. A principal was said to have punished a student who demanded a new calculator from another student in place of the old one he had loaned out to him but which he no longer wanted. The parents were said to have been so peeved at the punishment given their precious son that they went to the school and engaged the principal in a physical scuffle. I tell you!

Parents’ ungainly behavior in the matter of their children, the school and the environment appears to be getting more and more ridiculous. I believe that there must be, indeed there are, avenues for seeking redress when the feeling of being aggrieved overpowers one. If the grievance is against a teacher, there is the teachers’ council and for the rest of us, the good ole courts, where I believe the teacher in our story should head for.

To engage in libertine acts of selfhelp is to flagrantly waste one’s moral capital. I think it can be better used denuding oneself shamelessly to shorts and singlet within one’s own walls on account of this hot weather than in beating other people up. Seriously though, I believe that someday, that father’s life will not be worth anything in his son’s hands, because that is what he taught him.

16

Special Report

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Boko Haram: Between rebellion and jihad A

T about 10.40 one morning last August, Mohammed Abul Barra rammed his ashcoloured station wagon into a security gate outside the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, knocking it off its hinges. Barra’s 1996 Honda Accord then crashed through the main building’s glass doors and slammed against the reception desk.

On security tapes of the incident seen by Reuters, a guard peers into the car, evidently unaware that it is packed with explosives. The grainy footage shows a dozen or so people in the reception edge towards the vehicle. Over 10 seconds pass in confusion before one man seemingly realises what is about to happen. He grabs the person next to him and darts towards the lift. But it’s too late. Barra steadies himself, leans forward and the security screens blur into white fuzz.

The suicide strike left 25 people dead and the U.N. headquarters in tatters. It also drew global attention to Boko Haram, the militant group from northern Nigeria which has claimed responsibility for the attack and a string of bombings since then that has killed hundreds.

As the bombings have grown in frequency in recent months, the Nigerian government and Western security officials have begun to grapple with the exact nature of the threat. Is Boko Haram just the latest in a long list of violent spasms in Nigeria, or is it the next battalion of global jihadists, capable of thrusting Africa’s most populous nation into civil war?

The answer to that is not simple. There is evidence - some of it detailed in this story for the first time - that elements of Boko Haram have received training from foreign militant groups, including North Africa-based al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb (AQIM). The August attack was far more sophisticated than anything linked to Boko Haram before.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan calls the group a terrorist organisation with global ambitions. In an interview in his presidential villa last week, Jonathan said there was “no doubt” Boko Haram has links with jihadist groups outside Nigeria. General Carter Ham, the head of the U.S. military’s Africa Command, said last year Boko Haram posed a threat to U.S. and Western interests.

At the same time, Boko Haram remains firmly focused on domestic Nigerian issues. When its secretive spokesman claims responsibility for attacks, he almost always lists local grievances that have little to do with the core ideologies of al Qaeda. The group’s name means “Western education is sinful” in Hausa, the language spoken in northern Nigeria, the country’s Muslim heartland.

But its anger is directed not at America or Europe but at Nigeria’s elites: at their perceived arrogance, their failure to deliver services, and the brutality of their security forces. Many Boko Haram members say their focus is on targeting officials who have locked up its members or misused state funds.

Even Nigeria’s national security adviser, General Owoye Azazi, who sees a link between Boko Haram and AQIM, urges caution in defining the group.

“We need to tackle Boko Haram from several perspectives,” Azazi said in an interview. “If you go back to history, there are religious concerns, there are concerns about governance, and of course, political implications. It’s a combination of so many things.”

Forensic Trail U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrived in Abuja within days of last August’s attack to help with forensic analysis of the bomb site. A report authored by those agents, Nigerian authorities and independent security teams, paints a portrait of a sophisticated operation.

Barra was chosen because he was “low profile (and) well trained” and his attack was “well planned”, says the confidential report, seen by Reuters. The car was packed with 125 kg (276 pounds) of manufactured explosives, including the plastic explosive pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and triacetone triperoxide (TATP) - both highly powerful and volatile, and more potent than easier-to-build fertiliser-based explosives.

The explosives were used in a “shaped charge”, which increases damage from a blast.

Investigators believe the bomb probably consisted of both stolen factory-made explosives and home-made materials.

“The only form of PETN that is commonly available is the core explosive in detonating cord,” said Sidney Alford, a British explosives expert.

“You can get detonating cord from the manufacturers, the army, or from blasting contractors in the demolition or quarrying industries.”

The failed ‘underpants’ bomber Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian accused of trying to

•Mohammed Yusuf

By Joe Brock

blow up a Detroit-bound flight on Christmas Day 2009 in an al Qaeda-style attack, used TATP. Another would-be plane bomber, Richard Reid, had PETN in his shoe in his unsuccessful effort to blow up a flight between France and the United States in 2001.

President Jonathan said Nigeria has evidence that Boko Haram members have held meetings in North Africa. Azazi, the national security adviser, said the advancement in Boko Haram’s weaponry and tactics points to help and training from outside groups.

“We have evidence of meetings between Boko Haram leadership and outside groups,” Azazi said, declining to give details. “We have evidence that some Boko Haram leaders are trained outside of Nigeria. Their methods, their bomb-making technologies - who taught them?”

Militant Beginnings Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, survived a brutal civil war in the late 1960s in which more than 1 million people died. Repeated rounds of violence since then, often between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, have killed thousands more.

The violent spasms are often fueled by politics, and so it is with Boko Haram.

The group’s official name is Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati Wal-Jihad, meaning “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” It earned its nickname from the teachings of its founder Mohammed Yusuf in the early 2000s, in the restive northeastern city of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state.

Yusuf argued that Western education, or “boko”, had brought nothing but poverty and suffering to the region and was therefore forbidden, or “haram”, in Islam. He began peacefully mostly preaching - and quickly gained a following among disaffected young men in the northeast. But his anti-establishment rhetoric and hints that Boko Haram was building an arsenal of weapons also caught the attention of the authorities.

In 2009, the police clamped down on sect members who were ignoring a law requiring motorcyclists to wear helmets. That sparked a furious backlash. Police stations and government offices in Borno were burned to the ground, and hundreds of criminals released in a prison break, as the violence spread across northern Nigeria.

The government and army reacted with force; Yusuf was captured and shot dead in police custody. Five days of fighting left some 800 people dead.

Boko Haram leaders still cite Yusuf’s death as one of the main factors driving the insurgency.

The group remains fiercely anti-government and anti-authority, and resentful of the decades of corrupt, poor governance that have impoverished its home region.

•Abubakar Shekau

“You would never have believed the Boko Haram phenomenon came from these beginnings,” said Shettima Dikwa, a doctor at the University of Maiduguri. Dikwa is one of a number of professionals in the city frustrated at the way Nigeria’s government and military have allowed the insurgency to escalate. Like others, he says local politicians sponsored armed thugs to help disrupt the 2007 election and then abandoned them, creating a fertile recruitment field. The governor of Borno State has denied these allegations.

Boko Haram’s attacks have intensified since President Jonathan took power last April, in the country’s cleanest election since the end of military rule in 1999. Jonathan pledged to fight graft and attract investment. But he is a Christian southerner, and in the eyes of many Muslim northerners it was a northerner’s turn to rule.

Catch-all Label, Local Struggles That backdrop doesn’t explain how the group went from drive-by shootings and crude petrol bombs to shaping explosives for suicide missions against the United Nations.

A video posted on YouTube on January 11 suggests the group’s leadership would like to be seen as part of a global jihad. Abubakar Shekau, who has run the group since Yusuf was killed, appears in the 15-minute tape wearing a camouflage bullet-proof jacket, sitting in front of two Kalashnikov rifles. His beard, headscarf and hand gestures recall the style of video pronouncements made by the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. But Shekau’s message hits local notes.

“The reason why I am giving this broadcast is the recent comments of Goodluck Jonathan about us and that of the leader of the Christians and other statements by others, describing us as a cancer to Nigeria. We are neither a cancer nor a disease. If people don’t know us, God knows us,” Shekau says. He then goes on to cite common complaints about Nigerian politics.

Most of the public evidence about what Boko Haram wants and how it operates comes from its avowed spokesman, Abu Qaqa, a mysterious figure who often pops up after an attack to claim responsibility and explain the motives.

Speaking by phone to a handful of reporters in Maiduguri in November, Abu Qaqa spoke of the links between al Qaeda and Boko Haram. “We are together with al Qaeda,” he said. “They are promoting the cause of Islam, just as we are doing.

Therefore they help us in our struggle and we help them, too.”

But Qaqa offered no concrete details of those ties; the rest of the conversation focused on local issues. He said the group isn’t affiliated with Nigerian political parties and described the sect’s anger at the governor of Borno state. In claiming the recent Kano attacks, which killed at least 186 people, he cited the killing and arbitrary arrest and detention of Boko Haram members.

“Experts say the group has become a convenient cover for opportunists. Criminals, political thugs and gangs hide beneath the umbrella of Boko Haram, making it hard to judge its size and scope.”

Global Or Local?

Nigerian and Western security experts believe a small, increasingly ambitious and sophisticated group of extremists controls the very top of the group. A handful of those members have received training outside Nigeria, including from AQIM. Nigeria-based security sources who track Boko Haram told Reuters that members of the group have been going to training camps with brigades of Algerian AQIM for the past six years. Small units of five or six members train at a time; no more than a few dozen have been trained in total, the sources said.

The foreign minister of neighbouring Niger told Reuters last week that members of Boko Haram received explosives training at AQIM camps in the Sahel region, which runs along the southern edge of the Sahara desert. The U.N. Security Council said this month that it had been told that Boko Haram members had received training in AQIM camps in Mali.

Experts say the group has become a convenient cover for opportunists. Criminals, political thugs and gangs hide beneath the umbrella of Boko Haram, making it hard to judge its size and scope.

Most of its foot-soldiers are disillusioned young men who have only loose ties to religious ideology, and are easily drawn in because there are little or no opportunities elsewhere. Jonathan has begun to acknowledge this, telling Reuters last week that the government would “revitalise” northern agriculture to provide jobs for youths who might otherwise be “recruited” by Boko Haram.

Aisha Alkali, a human rights campaigner in Maiduguri, says young men in northern Nigeria feel forced to adopt violence to defend themselves.

“If you push people to the wall, if you leave them with nothing and take everything, where will they go?” asks Alkali, shrouded in a traditional black abaya and burka with only her eyes and impeccably manicured hands showing. “You make people something they were not.”

Government Crackdown Soldiers patrol the streets of Maiduguri in large numbers these days. By day, they hunch in roadside bunkers; at night, they regularly fight with Boko Haram units. Bomb blasts and gunshots punctuate the dark.

Amnesty International says the joint military task force (JTF) in the city has been behind dozens of unlawful killings there, further stirring the unrest. A report by the human rights watchdog says houses have been raided and burned by the JTF. One of the JTF commanders in Maiduguri told Reuters there had been “excesses”, but said mostly the military were doing a good job under difficult conditions.

Yirami Bwala, a 42-year-old shop owner, lost his 18-year-old son Markus in a Boko Haram bomb attack in Maiduguri in January. “Most Boko Haram members are just a bunch of illiterates who have been misled about their religion and what tolerance is all about,” he said a day after the attack. “The military only make things worse by robbing people and attacking innocent, peaceful people.”

More than a quarter of Nigeria’s 2012 budget has been allocated to security spending. But with the number of attacks up - at least 250 people have been killed in the first three weeks of 2012 alone, according to Human Rights Watch - criticism of the way Jonathan has handled the violence is growing.

Faceless Enemy President Jonathan told Reuters that Boko Haram militants have infiltrated the military, police and his own government. He sacked the chief of police and his six deputies last week, after the key suspect in the Christmas Day bombings escaped less than 24 hours after being arrested, in what Nigerian security sources said were “unusual and suspicious” circumstances.

The leader of the nation of 160 million people has also said that tackling Boko Haram could be worse than Nigeria’s civil war, if only because the enemy is faceless and unknown. Some analysts believe Boko Haram may be targeting Christians to trigger a religious conflict.

Nigeria has been here before. In 2009 it ended a militant insurgency in the southeastern Niger Delta by offering an amnesty. The government hints that a new broad political settlement may be on the cards. But dealing with a splintered and secretive group like Boko Haram will be difficult.

Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president and a southern Christian, visited the family of Boko Haram founder Yusuf last September for peace talks. Days later, gunmen killed Yusuf’s brotherin-law. Boko Haram denied involvement in the killing. But someone wanted the dialogue to end.

POLITICS

17

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Leaders of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) with Vice President Namadi Sambo, (third from left) during a visit to President Goodluck Jonathan at Aso Villa last year.

ACF and Boko Haram threat

Boko Haram killings and bombings have constituted major threats to the country’s unity and co-existence. In this report, Tony Akowe, in Kaduna, examines the role Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has played in resolving the threat

L

IKE Afenifere and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) is the umbrella body of the 19 states in the north. Across the country, leaders of the various regions, including the government, looked forward to them for direction on issues pertaining to the north and this explained why their opinion is always sought on things of national importance.

However, when the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram, issued an ultimatum to southerners and Christians living in the north to evacuate or be massacred, many people looked up to the forum for the next line of action. Their initial comment that the threat be ignored restored the confidence of several people, including northerners. However, the forum seems to have made a volte farce, trying to justify the ultimatum.

In their earlier statement to the media, the forum, through its National Publicity Secretary said that Nigerians should ignore the threat because those issuing it represent a minority interest group that cannot speak for majority of Muslims in the region, pointing out that the threat was capable of creating crisis in the country that will lead to the breakdown of the social contract among the Nigerian people.

Part of the statement read, “Following the bomb blasts and security challenges facing the nation across the country, there have been ultimatum and counter ultimatum that some people should leave their regions, zones and or states. It has become necessary for Arewa Consultative Forum to ask Nige-

rians and northerners in particular to disregard such ultimatum for what they are. This is because those issuing the ultimatum are minority groups who do not speak for the majority. For example, members of Boko Haram are still in the minority who cannot speak for the majority of Muslims across the country, let alone for the entire people of the North. Boko Haram cannot also speak for majority of Muslims in the North”.

The forum also acknowledged the fact that “some few militants in Niger Delta cannot represent the majority of the people in Niger Delta region. This is because majority

of Nigerians who belong to different faiths do not support such moves, precisely because they are capable of inspiring crisis of confidence leading to collapse of social contract among groups and among individuals with dire consequence on peaceful coexistence and national unity. Of course, there is allowance for minority rights in our democracy. But, like in all democracy, it is majority which has both its say and way, while minority only has its say. In the circumstance, therefore, any ultimatum from minority cannot prevail and so should be discounted in the interest of peaceful coex-

L-R: Deputy National Chairman ACF Alhaji Saidu Barda, National Chairman, Alhaji Aliko Mohammed and National Vice Chairman Senator John Kennedy Waku, at the press conference

by Arewa Consultative Forum in Kaduna on Wednesday, February 1, 2012.

istence, national security and unity of the country”.

But in what looks like a U-turn at the end of its meeting in Kaduna, the forum attempted to justify the threat, saying it was engineered by a similar threat from a SouthSouth who threatened to kill northerners in the area if they don’t leave within three days.

Its Chairman, Alhaji Aliko Mohammed, who holds the traditional title of Dan iyan Misau in Bauchi state said while answering questions from newsmen that “actually we have said that there is no religion that approves killing of people, neither Muslims nor Christians and I think really that on the question of Boko Haram giving notices to southerners to leave the north, I think the newspapers themselves; if they are fair to themselves, will remember that it was started eventually from the South-South who said northerners should leave and gave them three days notice. Looking at the number of the people in the South-South and in the north, then, some others can say why not the other way round as well?” Mohammed was also quoted as admitting that most Igbo men living in the north have sent their families home, saying “if the Igbo wants to go back home, they are free to leave”. He said further that “ACF notes with grave concerns some serious allegations peddled by certain people to the effect that some people from other sections of the country were conspiring to cause high level of insecurity across the country with the clear intention of making the country ungovernable. Some of these allegations go as far as saying that there are plots to assassinate the President. They also allege that southerners were not only being killed but that their attempts to flee the North were being blocked by Northerners. These allegations have been written and widely publicized in the media. Considering the gravity of the allegations bordering on treason, the forum calls on the government, as a matter of urgency, to investigate them for the purposes of prosecution.”

Vice Chairman of the forum, Senator Joseph Waku, however believes that they have not asked anybody to leave. According to him, “when Nigerians are living anywhere in this country and on their own they decided that they are going to leave without clear instructions, it is their right to do so. In the north, we have not given any instruction to anybody, any group or organisation to ask any Nigerian that is living within the confines of the north to leave. So, it is part of •Continued on Page 19

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Politics

F

EBRUARY 2012 may turn out to be the most trying month in the recent political history of Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Kogi and Sokoto states. Given current political developments in the country, it has become apparent that for these states, it will be a month of complex controversies, intense political reengineering, hotly contested elections, unusual intrigues and change.

Until this year, the month of February had very little political significance in these states. It was just like any other month in the calendar.

That was before the Friday, January 27, Supreme Court’s ruling, which sacked the governors of the five Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) - controlled states, leading the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to release a new timetable for fresh governorship elections in four, out of the five states, this month. The situation, in the fifth state, Kogi, where an election had been held before the Supreme Court’s ruling is even more dramatic and volatile. This is because, the aspect of the ruling, that demanded hand over of power to the speakers of the houses of assembly of the affected states has since generated serious political crisis, a development that degenerated to the swearing in of two governors at a time: the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, … in acting capacity and that of the Governor-elect, Captain Idris Wada, as governor.

Delivering the judgment of the apex court’s seven-man panel, Justice Walter Onnoghen held that the 1999 Constitution only granted four year tenure for the governors. He therefore nullified the Court of Appeal ruling of April 15, 2011, which upheld the February 23, 2011 ruling of the Federal High Court, Abuja that granted tenure elongation to the governors.

Part of the judgment read, “It is therefore clear and I hereby hold that the second oaths of allegiance and of office taken in 2008 were clearly superfluous in the determination of the four years tenure under Section 180 (2) of the 1999 Constitution. In conclusion, I resolve the issue against the respondents.

“I allow the appeals which have been demonstrated to be meritorious and set aside the judgment of the lower courts. In consequence, I hold that the tenure of the five governors began on May 28, 2007 and terminated on May 28, 2011, being four years allowed by the constitution.”

Since that pronouncement, political equations, especially that of PDP and the former governors, have been threatened in most of the states. Besides the primary issue of removal of the sitting governors and their replacement with the speakers of the various state Houses of Assembly in acting capacities, the development has opened up new opportunities for opposition political parties to effectively challenge the ruling PDP. It has also created another opportunity for aggrieved PDP members, whose governors allegedly denied the chances of flying their party’s flags. More than the other states, this is true of Kogi and Bayelsa states, where PDP has been sourly factionalised as a result of intrigues blamed on the sacked governors.

As a result of this emergency, PDP has openly acknowledged the predicament it has had to face by calling on all the aggrieved members of its party in the affected states to round-table meetings with national leaders with a view to resolving all the issues that may work against the party during these February governorship elections.

Prof. Rufai Alkali, the party’s National Secretary, in a statement, said, “The PDP wishes to express its dismay and bewilderment over the judgment of the Supreme Court in which five governors elected on the platform of the party were removed from office in one fell swoop.

“The judgment, no doubt, throws a major challenge to our determination to deepen democracy in our country. For us in the PDP, it is a huge setback, considering the time and resources spent in the last one year to ensure smooth transaction in the affected states.”

The Nation however gathered that the

Battles ov five state

Following the recent Supreme Court’s ruling which sacked g nors of five PDP-controlled states and INEC’s resolve to co fresh governorship elections in the affected states this Feb the party has returned to the drawing board to fashion ou strategies that would stop opposition parties from claimin states. Sam Egburonu, Associate Editor, reports that thes moves have thrown up new hurdles for PDP.

•Jega

•Idris •Imoke

challenges and strategies so far adopted to resolve these identified cracks, ahead the elections, differ from state to state.

Kogi State: In Kogi State, the Supreme Court’s ruling has exposed the deep rooted political complexities that have largely escaped outside observers. Given that the sacked governor, Alhaji Ibrahim Idris, had served out his constitutionally permitted two terms in office, many had thought his personal political interests would be of little consequence.

This permutation was based primarily on the grounds that in the last gubernatorial election conducted in the state, his candidate, Capt. Idris Wada, was declared the winner.

It has turned out to be that the political reality of the state is not as simple as that.

The resistance offered by the Hon. Abdullahi Bello to relinquish power to Captain Idris Wada, notwithstanding threats and negotiations made by Idris and the national leadership of PDP is a pointer to the fact that PDP has serious problems in its hands Besides, Jubrin Isa Echocho, who won the first PDP governorship primary, has come out again to pull strings aimed at ensuring that Wada is not enthroned.

Echocho and his supporters, including some powerful federal government officials from the state, are calling for fresh primaries or a fresh election with Echocho as PDP candidate.

Part of the dilemma of PDP is that if it settles for a fresh election, there is no guarantee that current disagreements, which have further segmented the party, will not work against its fortunes.

•Sylva

If, as Idris’ camp is insisting, PDP backs Wada, it will imply sustaining the widening cracks, a development the opposition has already moved in to exploit.

To solve the complexity, PDP national leadership has endorsed dialogue, “but where that fails, it was agreed that the party will be firm and do what will be in its interest,” said a top national officer.

This implies that the party may be willing to sacrifice some of its own to retain Kogi.

Bayelsa State: Before the Supreme Court’s judgment, the case of Bayelsa State was considered the most difficult for PDP. This was because the sacked governor, Timipre Sylva, was resolved to contend with the national leadership of PDP and his kinsman, President Goodluck Jonathan, who obviously wanted him out.

At first, the party leadership tried to persuade the former governor, but when all entreaties failed, they opted for action.

In what has been described as one of the most dramatic political occurrence, PDP ditched Sylva, handing over its ticked to Seriake Dickson.

But as the winner of the first primary election, Sylva had insisted that the last primary held by PDP, which produced Dickson as the standard bearer, was illegal, null and void.

He went further to sustain the stiff battle against President Goodluck Jonathan and the PDP national leadership by utilizing his power of incumbency.

By removing through ruling of the apex court, some political observers claimed it may be because of Sylva that PDP supported the Supreme Court’s ruling.

While this may be arguable, as the ruling party is not expected to oppose the ruling of the country’s apex court, it can be said that PDP and Mr. President’s men appear to be highly favoured by the development in Bayelsa.

This reasoning is however true only to the extent that Sylva and his supporters have been crushed to the extent that they can not team up with the opposition to ruffle the grounds.

Easily considered a PDP state before the current developments, The Nation gathered that surprises are bound to happen in the president’s state.

PDP is aware of this. President Jonathan is equally aware and is determined not to be humiliated in his state. So, the stakes are high and every group has moved to the field, plotting fair strategies and hard tackles that would guarantee victory.

Adamawa State: In Adamawa State, where the elections held yesterday, February 4, 2012, the Supreme Court’s ruling, which succeeded in forcing Murtala Nyako to contest as an ordinary citizen, also had some significant effects.

Insiders, who said Nyako anticipated the possibility of such ruling, said the former governor moved late last year to install a speaker of the Adamawa House of Assembly that is in his camp.

Now that the Speaker is acting governor, the results of the elections will show the extent to which that ‘foresight’ is able to stop major opposition candidates like retired Brig-General Buba Marwa, the candidate of CPC and Mr. Marcus Gundiri,

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Politics

ACF and Boko Haram

over ates

which sacked gover’s resolve to conduct states this February, d to fashion out new s from claiming the ports that these new .

•Continued from Page 17

•Nyako

•Sylva •Wamakko

the candidate of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

Cross River: Although Cross River State is considered a traditional PDP state before now, it will, perhaps to a lesser extent, face some political ripples occasioned by the ruling. For example Liyel Imoke, the governor before the Friday’s ruling, had supervised a state primary that declared him the winner.

If Imoke was not removed from the seat, that claim would have possibly stood without serious challenge. But ruling has altered some things. Old and suppressed disagreements amongst members have suddenly assumed new urgency. For example, the fear that the party would need to work hard to sooth aggrieved members if it hopes to contest as a united family during the February 11, 2012 governorship elections in the state is real.

Imoke, who clinched the ticket of PDP on Monday, January 23, 2012, was, until Friday, January 27, 2012, considered invincible by his associates.

This belief, according to our investigation, is based more on the claim that there would not be any general protest votes.

It was also based on the argument that with the power of incumbency, it would be difficult to floor Imoke.

With this development, complaints from many influential members of the party with the way Imoke ran the affairs of his government and that of the primary will count more. So, although the PDP government is still in place, there is no guarantee that everybody will still work for Imoke’s return.

Imoke’s opponent at the primary, Amb. Soni Abang, who said he would not rule

19

out the option of decamping to another party, said immediately after the elections: “I participated in the elections. I am a member of PDP. Whatever we saw today is far from being a contest. It was electoral manipulation of the highest order.” He added that he joined the race because he believes the governor (Imoke) has not done well.

Although little attention was paid to the complaint when Imoke was still in power, we learnt that Abang is currently under pressure not to defect to another party as that may threaten PDP’s position.

Sokoto State: The division within the Sokoto State PDP had attracted national attention even before Alhaji Aliyu Wamakko, the former governor of Sokoto State, lost his seat, following the Supreme Court’s ruling. Aso Rock was said to have favoured former Minister of Sports, Alhaji Yusuf Suleiman.

When Suleiman resigned as minister and picked up the PDP governorship form, Wamakko’s camp became so jittery that they approached northern governors and leaders to reach out to President Jonathan. That effort paid off for Jonathan openly said he was not against Wamakko.

As a result, Wamakko won the primary election, which he contested with Senator Abubakar Gada and Suleiman.

Given such rather delicate standing, insiders said, Wamakko, now outside office, may be more vulnerable. There are even suggestions that he may not be allowed to fly the party’s flag on February 18.

the problem that the federal government is also facing and we are calling on the federal government to come out with a clear statement inviting those people who are accusing northerners that they are driving out other Nigerians from a part of their country to another part for questioning. But if southerners decided to leave on their own; constitutionally there is freedom of movement and freedom of association and so, they are free.

But I want to assure you that the ACF is ready and willing to dialogue with anybody that is creating or causing trouble that we know of. But Boko Haram is not yet known to us. If we get to know as northerners we will make contact with them if we get to know them.”

Aside the alleged attempt to justify the call on southerners and Christians to leave the north, the ACF wants government to provide protection for members of the group if they must come out for dialogue with the government. While not comfortable with the current posture of the group, the forum said that government should try and rekindle trusts and confidence among the people that Nigerians are entitled to settle in any part of the country in pursuit of legitimate means of livelihood unmolested.

Sani had argued that “From the spate of bomb blasts still being reported in some parts of the country; it is still the position of ACF that such violence has never addressed grievances anywhere. Only constructive dialogues bring about reconciliations for peaceful coexistence. Nigeria would not be an exception. So, those who make the mistake that violence can address their concern should stop forthwith and embrace dialogue which is the civilized, universal approach to solving conflicts”.

The ACF Chairman argued at the Press Conference that “the Federal Government should commit itself openly and unambiguously in guaranteeing the security of leaders of Boko Haram when eventually they come out for dialogue promised by Mr. President. Government should continue to persevere, uncover the true identity of these people, to be able to determine their demands or grievances and address those that may be genuine and in accordance with our laws.

ACF calls upon all people of good conscience who may have access to members of Boko Haram to urge them to take advantage of secure channels of communication to be provided by the Federal Government towards achieving a resolution of the current bloody impasse.

Similarly, ACF enjoins leaders and members of Boko Haram to realise that no religious doctrine permits the killing of innocent lives. It is important to point out to them that they are inflicting terror, death and destruction upon people not in any way responsible for whatever injustice they believe have been done to them. While it is true that the actions of Boko Haram are condemnable, it is also necessary to call upon the Federal Government and all our political leaders as well as all those in positions of authority, to recall the UN resolution 1963 of 2010, which urges governments around the world to address underlying causes of civil unrest and social conflicts rather than resort to hard military power which rarely solve them. The Federal and State Governments should be seen to demonstrate fairness and justice in dealing with all issues of insecurity and infringement of the laws”.

In spite of what looked like a renewed position of the forum, one thing that remains clear is that the forum has on various occasions spoken out against the activities of the group. After one of its recent meetings, the ACF said “it is very disheartening for the nation to be revisited with multiple bomb explosions in Kano and Bauchi states, which have claimed many lives as well as properties in Kano and unknown losses in Bauchi state. More distressing is the reported claim

by Boko Haram that the sect did all these in revenge for the arrest and detention of their members by the security agencies in Kano.

This is depressing because it is an overkill that is clearly against tenets of any religion or faith to kill innocent people and call it revenge. There is no provision for a ‘head for an eye’ in the scriptures of all faiths or

•Sultan: Abubakar

•IGP: Abubakar

religions. It bears repeating that violence as means to address perceived grievance has never worked anywhere in the world. It is often counter-productive. Only constructive engagements and dialogue have proved useful in delivering peaceful co-existence. That may explain why the heavy losses of lives, properties and untold hardship, which Boko Haram has so far unleashed on the nation and on the northern parts of the country in particular, have failed to address their concern and perceived grievances. It is against this backdrop that ACF wishes to make it clear that violent loss of lives and destruction of properties of fellow Nigerians is not pleasing to God and against the law and therefore, unacceptable practice. Such dastardly acts must stop forthwith in favour of the universally recognised due process of law that are already in place for purpose of addressing perceived injustice. Enough is enough of the killings in the name of God or revenge. ACF also wishes to call on all Nigerians to seriously assist all tiers of government in these difficult tasks of containing the brazen insurrection against constituted authorities. Maintenance of peace and national security are not tasks for governments alone. It is a collective responsibility. Arewa Consultative Forum condoles and commiserates with the families who lost loved ones and properties to the explosions. The forum prays God will replace the losses many folds and may the souls of the departed rest in perfect peace”.

In the recent past, the ACF has battled to regain its relevance in the scheme of things in the nation’s body polity. However, at every interval, something has always happened along the line to put into question the relevance of the forum. During the struggle for the presidency, the forum vehemently opposed the emergence of Goodluck Jonathan as the presidential candidate of the PDP, insisting that all the political parties must choose their presidential candidate from the north.

Later, the group genuinely accepted the emergence of President Jonathan, shied away from condemning the recent removal of fuel subsidy. The Nation investigation shows that this has brought to question the continued relevance of the forum in the scheme of things in the north in particular and the country in general.

20

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Politics

Will sovereign national conference ever happen?

Agitations for convocation of a sovereign national conference have been regained prominence lately. Sunday Oguntola considers the arguments for and against the proposal as well as viable alternatives

•Soyinka

•Mark

T

HE call is getting more and more vociferous. It got louder in the last few days.

More Nigerians are joining the campaign for convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC).

SNC, they argued, will fix Nigeria.

If the nation must move forward and overcome its socio-political challenges then SNC must take place as a matter of urgency, they argue.

SNC became a ringing tone after the annulment of the June 12 Presidential election. The late flamboyant business mogul, Bashorun MKO Abiola won the election adjudged as the freest and fairest in the nation’s history. Activists and human rights groups started agitating for the convocation. They insisted it will save the nation from disintegration and re-chart a new

•Enahoro

course for Nigeria.

When the General AbdulSalam Abubakar (Rtd.) hurriedly handed over power to a democratically elected government in 1999, the agitation died down. Many Nigerians felt democracy will automatically address the nation’s ills. Events soon proved them wrong. First was the introduction of Sharia, the Islamic legal system, in most Northern States. Then there were religious and ethnic violence in various parts of the nation. Marginalised ethnic minorities regained their voices. They started agitating for equality and respect for their rights.

The Niger Delta became restive. Youths resorted to armed agitation. Nigeria lost billions of oil revenues to the crisis that attracted global attention. But the Boko Haram menace, which the nation

is contending, seems to have restored the agitation for SNC. Thousands of innocent lives have been host in the sect’s deadly attacks in many parts of the North. At a point, it even made serious inroads to Abuja, the capital city.

Boko Haram’s terrorist acts have reopened the talk for a SNC. Interestingly, many prominent Nigerians have been spearheading the campaign. Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, last week added his voice to the agitation.

He said convocation of SNC is a must to fix the nation’s challenges.

The literary giant said the nation’s federal structure was faulty and the constitution anti-people. Only a SNC, he said, will address these defects.

Soyinka, who spoke at the posthumous birthday of Martin Luther King Jr and the American Civil

Rights Movement (ACRM) organised by the Public Affairs Section of the United States (U.S.) Consulate-General in Lagos and the Freedom Park, said, ‘’There was a fundamental cheat behind the way the constitution was formulated. It should be established in freedom and not something forced down our throat’’.

The constitution, said Soyinka, was conceived through fiat.

Former Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, voted for SNC a few days later. He spoke as chairman at the 41st convocation lecture of the University of Nigeria delivered by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Anyaoku spoke against the backdrop of bombings in major cities of Northern Nigeria by Boko Haram and what he described as

the “growing fissiparous tendencies” in the country. He said recent developments have bought “added urgency to the need for a national conference of the representatives of the people of Nigeria to discuss the root challenges to the cohesion and unity of Nigeria.’’

The National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) has also returned to spearhead the call for SNC. It held a press conference last week where it said the convocation is irrevocable. The group, in a statement signed by Real Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu(Rtd) and Chief Ayo Adebanjo said, ‘’Between Aburi and Araba, NADECO believes that a Sovereign National Conference is the inevitable first step and irreducible minimum condition that can set us on the path to salvaging the country from the unfolding grave dangers. ‘’The crises Nigeria faces reaffirms that it is mandatory that the peoples of Nigeria must sit down and restore the very foundation of the country, and thus re-establish the constitutional architecture of Nigeria, allowing every group sufficient space for self and group actualisation, so that we can build a nation-state out of the diverse ethnic nationalities.”

It went on, ‘’NADECO warned that if Nigeria failed to quickly restore the true federal foundations upon which it was established, it may just skid into a disorderly and probably violent exit of entrapped ethnic nationalities from the Nigerian union. It now seems evident that the actions of Boko Haram and other regional ethnic/ self-determination groups may have now set us almost irreversibly on the highway to disintegration, most likely violently.’’

National President of the Arewa Youths Consultative Forum (AYCF), Alhaji Yerima Shettima, also admitted the nation needs a SNC. Everyone seems to agree Nigeria needs a conference to rework its future. But the challenge has been the concept of a sovereign conference. Sovereignty already resides with elected government officials, opponents of SNC point out. To ask for a SNC is to set aside existing government structures and functionaries. They refer to the 1999 Constitution in Section 1 under General Provisions in Part 1 that states: “Nigeria is one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign State to be known by the name of •Continued on Page 21

THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Former Chairman of the Nigeria Police Service Commission, Chief (Dr) Simon Nsobundu Okeke in this interview with Odogwu Emeka Odogwu, in Nnewi spoke on the challenges of insecurity, youth unemployment, liberalisation of refineries among other issues, submitting that police as presently constituted can not solve the current security riddle.

Excerpts:

Politics

Police can’t solve current security challenges —Okeke

W

HAT in your view is the solution to the lingering fuel subsidy palaver which is likely to come up again in future?

The only solution is liberalisation of setting up of refineries. That is the answer to the fuel subsidy commotion. Government policy against small refineries is wrong.

The government needs to review the guidelines and conditions to be fulfilled for the granting of license to operate a refinery in the country. For government to expect that refineries in the country have to be mega refinery without room for smaller refineries and distilleries appears to me a wrong policy.

This is because considering the high cost of standard refineries today, the government is expecting much when it said every refinery in the country must have the capacity to refine 100-500,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It is another way of saying goodbye to refining in the country. Is all fingers equal?

Why should a policy like that be allowed in a country of industrious young men and women who are looking for a place to burn the excessive energy inside them?

Biafran experience is there as a reference point for all us who wit-

•Okeke

nessed the civil war to learn from.

During the war when access to Port Harcourt was foreclosed, Biafra engineers under Research and Production (RAP) found alternative cheap refining process which made petroleum products readily available. Nearly all palm oil mills were converted into mini refineries at very little cost and petrol, kerosene, diesel, and even aviation fuel became readily available.

Why should President Goodluck Jonathan not look in that direction?

Why shouldn’t DPR or NNPC or Ministry of Petroleum come up with flexible standard kitchen refineries or call them distilleries, and liberalise local production of petroleum products. Allow our people produce petroleum products for our domestic consumption.

If this is done, the price of petrol

will crash to something affordable.

In doing so, owners of these mini refineries ought to have unhindered access to crude oil which they will buy at the going commercial rate. This, if done, will reduce importation of petroleum products to insignificance. If this is allowed, the issue of subsidy disappears. It is my sincere belief that such locally produced PMS will go a long way in satisfying substantial percent of local fuel requirement, reducing importation to a negligible percent.

The solution is mini refineries so that everybody would go into that legally. If all who have the knowhow for local refining or distilling are given the license to produce from their kitchen, importation syndrome will be a bygone.

The moment there is competi-

The national conference Nigeria needs •Continued from Page 20 the Federal Republic of Nigeria’’.

With the National Assembly in place, the task of amending the constitution cannot be undertaken by another group of representatives, they insist. A senator, who spoke under strict anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the issue, said ‘’we are the elected representatives of the people vested with the power to reflect their interests and aspirations. If you now begin to ask another set of representatives to prepare a constitution for the people then you are thinking of anarchy or chaos.’’

This contradiction has set many Nigerians thinking. Senator Etang Umoyo, a chieftain of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom State, commended the seventh National Assembly for thinking of constitutional amendment. He however said the needs for a SNC are still indomitable. He said the amend-

21

ments proposed by the National Assembly should be considered as complementary of whatever will originate from the SNC. His words, ‘’At the Sovereign National Conference, every ethnic group would send representatives.

At the end of the day, resolutions from the conference would be computed and sent to the National Assembly as inputs from Nigerians. ‘’This would further enrich the content of the constitution because at the conference, the various ethnic groups would have agreed on how they want to live with one another. I toe this line because all the political crises and disturbances we have witnessed in this country have direct links with the issue of where the other man comes from.’’

To Chris Obe, a public affair analyst, a SNC may be a mere rhetoric. ‘’There is no way SNC can fly when we have elected officials in place. Since what we need

really is talking the nation’s structure and future, I think a people’s conference is more like it. According to him, the conference will involve ethnic groups and organised bodies in the nation. Elected officials, he suggested, should be exempted since they are stakeholders who could sway debates in their interests. According to Obe, ‘’Left to me, I will suggest we include first class traditional rulers, former heads of states, religious leaders and distinguished patriots from each geo-political zone’’.

The conference, he said, should have ‘’No go areas’’ such as unity and supremacy of the federal government. He suggested that issues such as state police, party politics, allocation system, judicial independence and others should be considered for discussion.

Nigeria sure needs to talk. But will it be at a sovereign national conference or a people’s conference?

tion between the imported fuels and locally produced products, prize of the products will crash.

Also subsidy argument will disappear. These micro refineries or distilleries exist in countries like US and Canada, why not here in Nigeria?

What is the solution to the unemployment problem?

President Goodluck Jonathan should declare a total war against youth unemployment. It is bad enough for anyone who is fit and able to work to be unemployed. It is even worse still for this to happen to our youths –graduates and non graduates. With these mini refineries, importation of petroleum products would be a thing of the past and employment opportunities would be created.

The current insecurity in our country today is traceable to this unpleasant situation. As the saying goes, an idle mind is a workshop for the devil. The mind of an idle unemployed youth is the most dangerous workshop.

No wonder 90 percent of kidnappers and violent armed robbers today are mostly youths between 20 and 30 years of age. Unfortunately, this issue of youth unemployment is so far not being given the right type of attention that it deserves. State of Emergency and indeed war-total war ought to be declared nationwide against unemployment.

Nigeria is currently facing serious state of insecurity and there seems to be no solution. What is your take on this?

I blame the overbearing powers of the Inspector-General of Police (IG) on the lapses in the security challenges bedeviling the country. The police as presently constituted cannot solve the problem of security challenges in the country.

I suggest that we institute state or regional police force in the country with zonal Inspector-Generals

of police in each zone.

If we say the states cannot have its own police then why not regional police, make it each zone independent police and all these nonsense would go.

Through this, each zone would be operating independent of the other for easier access to information and order for action. Why should the entire country resort to one man sitting at Abuja to give instructions or orders for serious security breech in a zone or in times of emergencies?

The Nigeria Police Force is the largest security outfit in the country but people have refused to face the reality on the structure of the Nigerian police. The Nigerian police as presently constituted do not leave hope for solving the security problem in the country.

How can one Inspector-General be at Abuja and is overseeing the affairs of over 400,000 policemen in Nigeria. It is not feasible.

The police needs to be restructured, although some people blame funding as the problem of the Nigerian police but funding without adequate restructuring would not give effect.

One IG cannot oversee 400,000 officers and before you take any decision you refer to the man. It can’t work, we have copied America but in America every commune has its own independent police without reference to anywhere in carrying out its duties.

Manhattan has over 20 independent police units ensuring that there is security in the zone they are operating. But in Nigeria, every year we go down instead of going up.

A new system of police has to be developed through consensus because the present structure is working negatively, if Nigeria must move forward in the comity of nations.

What of Boko Haram? What would you advance as the solution to this threat?

This is a very tempting period for our dear President, Dr Goodluck Jonathan. I wish and pray that God will give him the wisdom to find solution to the menace of Boko Haram and other security challenges facing the country. There are some people bent on collapsing his administration and dividing this country but this would not happen in the name of God. He is trying but he has to try more because Nigeria is at the precipice. So, he should try harder and find a solution to threats and he should not look at faces. The structure of this country needs to be re-examined seriously. The lopsidedness is the result of the inglorious situation we found ourselves which we are shying away from realising because of politics.

Has President Goodluck Jonathan failed the nation?

How can? Why do you insinuate such? The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan could not be said to have failed but needed to sit up and face the challenge the nation is facing squarely.

He noted that he needed prayers and support now more than ever to steer the ship of the nation to the Promised Land.

I won’t say he has failed the nation because he is doing his best to navigate but he has not got there yet.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY JANUARY 5, 2012

Politics

Iwuanyanwu and task of re-branding PDP A

S the nation eagerly awaits a date for the

commencement of the national convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), slated for Abuja this month, one key and sensitive position that has attracted particular interest is that of National Publicity Secretary. As the chief spokesperson of the party, it has been said that the next occupant must understand current trends in the management of a political party’s image. Given recent developments, PDP needs such a publicist at this point of its history.

This concern informs the unusual interest shown by observers. It informs critical examination of the personality of aspirants, especially that of Sir. Chyna Iwuanyanwu, considered by many as one of the major contestants for that position.

Ever since the seasoned journalist, publicist, advertiser and media administrator, joined the race for the coveted post of National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, interests have been aroused and questions have been asked over his focus and the strategies he would adopt if he emerges the winner.

Reports said he has al-

Perspective

By Obinwa Nnaji

ready gained appreciable support mainly because of his media background and his pedigree both in the party and in the social arena. The understanding is that, with such background, he stood a better chance of providing the enabling atmosphere that would energize the publicity machinery of the party so as to re-draw publicity activities of the party and place it on the right pedestal.

Widely travelled and specifically tutored on the precepts and practices of the American presidential system of government, Iwuanyanwu, according to his campaign managers, “is being looked upon to perfect, reshape and sharpen the party’s publicity organs in line with what is prevalent in other climes where publicity is properly organised and coordinated from the national level to all the cells of the party, down to the local government for effective and optimum performance.”

Given his experience and connection, this is

possible. But some of the big questions that may be asked include, is PDP ready for a professional image manager? Will the hawks in the party, who seem to abhor globally accepted order, allow such a candidate to do his work unhindered? Even before his emergence, will the delegates tolerate the participation of such candidates, whose major qualification seems to be merit?

These are the puzzles that should concern Iwuanyanwu and other serious minded candidates in PDP and indeed in any political party that wants to progress. Reacting to such concerns, Iwuanyanwu said he is on top of the situation. According to him, ‘’We are working round the clock, we are guarding our loins, we have not relented in sending out our humble message across board that now is time to re-invigorate the party and give the PDP a head start amongst other parties.”

He added that ‘’Democracy can only thrive in an environment where people have unimpeded access to qualitative and quantitative information to take the right decisions and make the right choices.’’

An organiser and astute

mobiliser, even as senior prefect at the revered Federal Government College, Warri, and at the University of Lagos, where he majored in Mass Communication in 1980, Chief Chyna Iwuanyanwu has painstakingly coined out salient messages of hope, of a new direction and one that portrays him as a reformer.

Sounding rather academic and philosophical, he said of his dreams and aspirations: ‘’For a creative distillation and packaging of strategic communication strategies and paradigm shift to drive the necessary process of re-branding, repositioning and enhanced delectability for the PDP on the basis of core democratic values and national interest.’’

He also articulated his creed, his mission statement, as ‘’Conceptualisation development and launching of creative communication strategies and portfolios to re-brand the Peoples Democratic Party as a platform for democracy, good governance and national unity with clearly defined brand values, brand vision, brand identity and brand architecture.’’

His analytical mind, exhibited during his uncountable television appearances, where he usually come across as a great discussant on national and international issues, is expected to stand as a plus for him.

He is a member of several associations and corporate organisations, where he holds top positions. For example, he is the Director-General and Special Commissioner of Abuja Business Club and Centre for Communication Development and Legislative Institute respectively. He is also the Director-General of Centre for Igbo Civilization and Culture and National Secretary, Igbo Political Forum (IPF) and had once contested for the post of National Chairman of PDP. He would also draw from the experience he garnered as Chairman, University of Lagos Alumni Association, Abuja branch; Chairman FGC Warri Old Students Association; National Coordinator Praying Leaders Network, President Zara Foundation; member, Professional Chapter, Full Gospel Business Men Fellowship; member, Christ the Redeemer’s Friends Universal; member, Apapa Club; Charter Secretary, Lions Club International, Owem; Patron, Red Cross Society Surulere, Lagos and President-General, Dim-NaNume-Isu Town Union, amongst others.

This robust profile puts him in good stead for the great challenge of repositioning of PDP’s image. So, all that should be of primary concern to him now and to his supporters, is if his party is ready for change today? *Nnaji, a social commentator, wrote in from Abuja

Political Politics turf

with Bolade Omonijo boladeomonijo@yahoo.com

One state, two governors

I

T is no longer news that, since the apex court’s axe came down hard on Governor Ibrahim Idris and four of his colleagues on Friday, January 27, two governors have laid claim to the governorship of the Confluence State. Both were sworn in by judicial officers. They both claim to draw legitimacy from the Supreme Court verdict and they both moved to different wings of the Lugard House.

There is a third. He was not sworn in, but he has argued that the judgment was in his favour. He has thus vowed to pursue his case through the courts until he gets the necessary consequential order from the apex court. He is Jibrin Isah.

Like former Governor Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa State. He had contested a very competitive PDP primary January last year. He came tops and was awaiting the election. However an errant Appeal Court judgment came along the line that extended the tenure of the five governors beyond the four year intended by drafters of the 1999 Constitution. As a result, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that had hitherto announced that elections to the office of Chief Executives of the five states would be held last April shifted position and Their Excellencies held on to power. Now, the cookies have crumbled and the result is the confusion in Kogi and tension in the other four states.

Section 176 of the Constitution is unambiguous; there shall be for each state of the federation a governor, it states.

The rascality that got Idris Wada and the Kogi Speaker elected was not envisaged. All three “governors” have argued that they are protected by the law. Wada says, since he had been elected governor by the people last December, the vacancy should automatically lead to inauguration of his administration. Earlier, the INEC timetable that produced him had fixed March 29 for his assumption of power.

But, the Speaker says he was invited to take over by the Attorney General of the Federation, interpreting the law and the verdict. He claims to be on sure ground. He cites section 181 (2) of the constitution that stipulates that, when the person duly elected governor and deputy are unavailable to continue with their duties and the two seats are thus vacant, the Speaker steps in. By the unprecedented judgment of the highest court, it is held, the office of governor and deputy had become vacant, and the Speaker had to step in for not more than 90 days.

Another angle to the argument is, who is empowered by law to administer the oath of office? Section 185 is ambiguous.

It names the Chief Judge of the state, Grand Khadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal and President of the Customary Court of Appeal as those who could perform the function. The constitution does not state that the other two shall have the power in the absence of the first. There lies the ambiguity.

However, common sense, logic and convention show that the role is traditionally reserved for the Chief Judge and the other two could only perform the function in the absence of a holder of the office either in substantive or acting capacity.

The resort by Ibrahim Idris and Wada to the President of the Customary Court of Appeal stemmed from desperation. If the politicians could be excused, the judicial officer who succumbed to such a perfidious act cannot.

Really, which of the PDP primaries was valid? That should be the first question. Echocho won clearly in January last year. By the apex court verdict, the process set in motion to lead to election last April was valid. However, could development since then be glossed over? Shouldn’t judicial notice be taken of the Appeal Court judgment that led INEC to suspend the process and initiate another? At the time that INEC came up with the revised timetable, it was acting on the basis of the existing law as interpreted by a Court of Competent Jurisdiction. Could everything done since then be deemed voided by the Supreme Court verdict?

Wada, supported by INEC and its team of lawyers, insists that he was validly elected in accordance with the laws of the land. He won a primary fixed according to an INEC timetable, contested an election duly fixed and was declared winner by the institution of state saddled with the task. If March 29 was fixed as the date for him to take office on the assumption that the term of Idris would expire that day, and before then, a vacancy is caused, Wada’s men ask, why should he not be sworn in immediately? By extension, the question is asked, if the term of office of Cross River’s Liyel Imoke was to expire on August and election was scheduled for April, now that the poll has been brought forward to February 25, would he have to be sworn in in August?

One more poser, on what authority did the five Chief Judges administer oath of office on the Acting Governors?

The Supreme Court? It is obvious that at the time that they took the weighty constitutional action they had not received certified true copy of the judgment? Did they know if there were consequential orders? Did they merely rely on the interpretation given the by the AGF? Did they realise that the AGF is an interested party and could have misled them?

Has the AGF power to order the CJs? One more lesson, justice delayed is justice denied. Why did it take so long to adjudicate the matter? It took the apex court more than eight months to deliver its verdict in such an urgent and serious matter.

As the late Adegoke Adelabu would put it, the issues could only be summed up thus: What a peculiar mess?

COVER

23

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

KOGI’S LEADERSHIP CRISIS

•Abdullahi Bello • Idris Wada

Dousing the Kogi fire I

N spite of latest agreements currently reached to resolve the leadership crisis in Kogi State, it seems more concerted efforts would be required to fully douse the political fire that was ignited in the state since Friday, January 27, 2012.

The tone of the political debacle was set by the Supreme Court’s ruling on the contentious issue of tenure of former five state governors. The governors; Ibrahim Idris of Kogi, Murtala Nyako of Adamawa, Aliyu Wamakko of Sokoto, Liyel Imoke of Cross River and Timipre Sylva of Bayelsa, succeeded in postponing governorship elections in their states last April when they got tenure elongation through Federal High Court and Court of Appeal rulings.

Not satisfied with the position of the courts, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) approached the Supreme Court, contending the legality of tenure elongation for the governors.

So, on Friday, January 27, 2012, after the then governors had remained in office for extra eight months, the Supreme Court ruled that their tenure had expired since May 28, 2011 and ordered their immediate removal from office.

Delivering the lead judgment of the Supreme Court, Justice Walter Onnoghen nullified the Court of Appeal ruling of April 15, 2011, which upheld the February 23, 2011 ruling of the Federal High

As efforts are being made to resolve the political crisis in Kogi State, Sam Egburonu, Associate Editor, takes a look at the leadership fiasco that trailed the Supreme Court’s ruling which sacked five state governors, including Kogi State’s Ibrahim Idris.

Court, Abuja that granted tenure elongation to the governors.

As he puts it: “It is therefore clear and I hereby hold that the second oaths of allegiance and of office taken in 2008 were clearly superfluous in the determination of the four years tenure under Section 180 (2) of the 1999 Constitution. In conclusion, I resolve the issue against the respondents.

“I allow the appeals which have been demonstrated to be meritorious and set aside the judgment of the lower courts. In consequence, I hold that the tenure of the five governors began on May 28, 2007 and terminated on May 28, 2011, being four years allowed by the constitution.”

To implement the order, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Bello Adoke, directed that speakers of the Houses of Assembly of the affected states should be sworn-in as governors in acting capacity, pending fresh governorship elections in the states.

In a statement, Adoke said, “The Federal Government acknowledges the judgment of the

Supreme Court and in line with the provisions of Section 191 (2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, calls on the Honourable Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly of the affected states to take over the governance of their respective states pending the conduct of fresh governorship elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

“The Inspector-General of Police and other law enforcement agencies have been directed to put in place, appropriate security measures to ensure orderly transition and to avoid any breach of the peace.”

As would be expected, this directive was carried out in all the affected states, including Kogi, where the Speaker, Abdullahi Bello, was sworn-in by the State Chief Judge, Justice Nasiru Ajana.

Ironically, this seemingly lawful action marked the genesis of the current political crisis in Kogi State.

Tale of two governors: Unlike the other four states affected by the Supreme Court ruling, the removal of Governor Ibrahim created a political dilemma

in Kogi. This was because a governorship election was held in the state last December and Captain Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had emerged the governor-elect, waiting for the exit of Ibrahim Idris, to assume office.

So, when the State Chief Judge, Justice Nasiru Ajana, complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling and the AGF’s explanations, refused to swear-in the governorelect, a leadership crisis commenced. He reasoned that the apex court’s ruling directed him to swear in the Speaker, not a governor-elect and so, he refused to do anything that could be interpreted to mean disobedience to the directives of the court.

Dissatisfied by the refusal of the chief judge, the out-going governor reportedly invited the President of Kogi State Customary Court, Justice Shuaibu Ibrahim, who accepted the invitation and promptly sworein Wada as governor at about 3.30pm.

The drama however peaked at about 6.20pm the same day, when Justice Ajana eventually swore-in the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, Hon. Abdullahi Bello,

•Isah stating that he administered the oath of office on the Speaker in accordance with the judgment of the apex court.

So, when the former governor, Idris, left office that fateful day, Kogi had two governors, one deriving his mandate from the declared results of an election held in December and another, deriving his authority from the pronouncement of the highest court in the land.

To further deepen the crisis is the fact that Wada, the former governor-elect, now governor, has the full backing of the sacked governor and has inherited his •Continued on Page 26

24

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Cover KOGI’S LEADERSHIP CRISIS

S

INCE last Friday’s judgment of the Supreme Court on the tenure of five governors, the centre has not held in Kogi State as should be the norm. Although Governor Idris Wada has been inaugurated, the power intrigues in the state continue unabated confirming that Kogites and Nigerians in general have not heard the final word on the matter. What looked like a harmless judgment has left the Confluence State divided. The question bothering many is: How did Kogi State get into this mess?

The Beginning Of The Macabre Dance The seed of the discord in the state allegedly began in November 2011 in anticipation of the Supreme Court judgment. It was learnt that some stakeholders, who were opposed to the candidature of Governor Idris Wada, had laid ambush for him with the judgment. The aggrieved stakeholders detested the manner in which ex-Governor Ibrahim Idris allegedly imposed Wada on the party. They had preference for a former Executive Director of the defunct AFRIBANK, Mr. Jibril Echocho, who won the party's governorship primaries in January 2011. Investigation revealed that stakeholders had prevailed on Echocho to campaign hard for Wada with the assumption that he will be automatically working for his own victory since the issue of who was the right candidate of the party is still being addressed in the court in Abuja.

The confidence of Echocho's loyalists was buoyed by the outcome of an Expanded Caucus Meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2011 where it was discovered that Governor Wada was not much forthcoming on his past health records. Some party leaders had banked on a likely declaration of Echocho as the party's candidate for the governorship poll to unseat Wada from office. They often cited Governor Rotimi Amaechi's victory as a reference point.

Sensing that the aggrieved stakeholders were waiting in the wing for his removal by the Supreme Court, ex-Governor Ibrahim Idris, also came up with game plans to sustain the mandate of Wada.

Despite the fact that he had no locus, he went ahead to preside over the inauguration of Wada.

While the hyena game lasted, those opposed to Wada found an ally in the Speaker of the Kogi State House of Assembly, Abdullahi Bello, who was having a strained relationship with the former governor. It was gathered that the former governor was suspicious of the loyalty of the Speaker and plotted to remove him while on pilgrimage to Mecca. But the failure of the plot created a wedge between the ex-governor and members of the House of Assembly led by the Speaker. The eventual sack of the former governor on January 27 later provided an opportunity for the Speaker and the House to take their pound of flesh from him at the twilight of his tenure.

The ethnic rivalry between the Igala(Kogi East), the largest ethnic group in the state and the Ebira (Kogi Central) allegedly compounded the political situation in Kogi after the Supreme Court judgment. Since the creation of the state, the Kogi East has always produced the civilian governor and power shift to Kogi Central and Kogi West has been a major political problem in the state. The Igala have always used their population or voting strength as a good weapon to retain power. The only time when power shifted temporarily was when the Court of Appeal annulled ex-governor Idris mandate and the

Behind the scenes in K

•Sambo

•Baraje

Last Friday’s Supreme Court judgment on tenure of five governors raised much dust in Kogi State. In this piece, Yusuf Alli, Managing Editor, Northern Operation revisits the intrigues behind the rumpus in the state over the verdict. then Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Clarence Olafemi(Kogi West) became an acting governor.

But rather than allowing the current Speaker (an Ebira) to succeed him as the acting governor in line with the Supreme Court judgment, the ex-governor pulled a fast legal stunt by taking the advantage of Section185 (2)of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), to conduct the swearing in of Governor Wada by the President of the Customary Court of Appeal, , Ibrahim Atadoga. He felt the Speaker will be too hot to handle unlike the meek Olafemi from Kogi West who was 'faithful' to the end.

The dilemma of the ex-governor peaked with the stark reality that the Chief Judge of the state, Justice Nasir Ajanah is also an Ebira like the Speaker.

The Drama Shortly after the Supreme Court's verdict, a sweating ex-Governor Ibrahim Idris had met with the Chief Judge of the state on why the then Governor-elect, Capt. Idris Wada should assume power. It was gathered that after consultations with the Supreme Court and following the statement of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke(SAN), Justice Ajanah told the ex-governor why Wada could not assume power. Faced with a difficult decision in his career, Ajanah was alleged to have consulted a former reputable former Chief Judge

of the state for guidance on what to do. The ex-CJ merely told him to get in touch with the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Dahiru Musdapher. The ex-governor was however blinded by ethnic politics as he saw no difference between Justice Ajanah and his Ebira brother, who is the Speaker of the State House of Assembly.

In spite of being a trained carpenter, the ex-governor however appeared to be politically clever and ahead of his traducers, who stuck to the strict and untainted application of the rule of law. During his administration, the ex-governor had appointed his cousin, Atadoga, the President of the Customary Court of Appeal from the Ministry of Justice where he was reputed to have performed well. A source said: "It was not surprising that Atadoga came handy to inaugurate Wada.

"Atadoga, it was learnt, was called to Bar in 1986.He hails from Omala Local Government Area of Kogi State.He was recommended for the Bench, from his private practice, by Idris when he became the governor.

"But when the initial move was rejected, Idris was said to have prevailed on the Ministry of Justice to take him in as a Director. He later became the Permanent Secretary and Solicitor-General of Kogi State.

"It was from here that Atadoga became the President of the Cus-

tomary Court of Appeal, which was created by the Idris administration.

"On its creation, one Justice Otta was said to have been appointed as the first president of the court. It was on the exit of Otta that Atadoga was appointed to replace him.

"I think Atadoga was a product of politics. The pressure on him by the ex-governor was like a pay-back time. But that has created a judicial crisis in the state.

"When the Chief Judge came under pressure from the former governor to swear in Capt. Wada, he diplomatically eased himself out of the place and refused to come back for the ceremony. Atadoga, who had already come there with his ceremonial dress to play out an already rehearsed drama, quickly got dressed in the Judicial Red Robe to perform the inauguration of Wada.

As a matter of fact, the way a commissioner guarded him into the hall simply demonstrated the desperation of Alhaji Ibrahim Idris."

Notwithstanding, the Chief Judge administered the oath of office on the Speaker of the House of Assembly as the acting governor after due clearance from the AGF and Minister of Justice.

The enraged ex-governor saw the statement of the AGF and the Minister of Justice , Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke(SAN) from the prism of Igala-Ebira cold war. Within hours, the Igala became agitated

that the AGF(an Ebira) allegedly interpreted the judgment to favour his kinsman. Investigation revealed that Adoke was shocked by the smear having not been to Okene more than two times since he became the AGF and Minister of Justice. In line with his calling, the AGF and Minister of Justice, who also contributed to Wada's campaign, had avoided playing politics either in his state or at the Federal Level.

The Abuja Connection In The Drama Following conflicting interpretation of the Supreme Court judgment, there were enquiries to the presidency but unfortunately, President Goodluck Jonathan was at the AU Summit in Addis Ababa. The lot fell on the AGF and Minister of Justice to guide the Vice-President, Arc. Namadi Sambo on the issues in the judgment. After initial consultations, the AGF issued a statement on what the situation should be in the five affected states to prevent anarchy.

He said: "Today, the Supreme Court of Nigeria delivered judgment in the appeal emanating from the judgment of the Court of Appeal in respect of the tenure of the five governors namely Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Sokoto and Kogi states.

"The Court decided that the five governors had since completed their tenure and accordingly relieved them of their office.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Cover

25

KOGI’S LEADERSHIP CRISIS

Kogi macabre dance

•Adoke

"The Federal Government acknowledges the judgment of the Supreme Court and in line with the provisions of Section 191(2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, calls on the Honourable Speakers of the State Houses of Assembly of the affected states to take over the governance of their respective states pending the conduct of fresh governorship elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

"The Inspector-General of Police and other law enforcement agencies have been directed to put in place, appropriate security measures to ensure orderly transition and to avoid any breach of the peace.

"The Federal Government of Nigeria remains committed to the observance of the rule of law in all parts of the federation and therefore calls on the political leadership in the affected states to give full effect to the judgment of the Supreme Court of Nigeria."

A top government official, who spoke in confidence said: "The Federal Government directed the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly to take over from Governor Ibrahim Idris because there were a lot of jurisprudential issues involved.

"The government was guided by Section 191(2) of the 1999 Constitution. The Federal Government may not change its mind that Kogi State Speaker should be in charge of the state until there is a contrary pronouncement by a court."

The source highlighted five ju-

•Musdapher

risprudential issues involved in Kogi stalemate. The source added: "Firstly, the tenure of Wada ought to start in March 2012 going by the mandate he secured at the poll. If Idris had remained the governor, would he say he should be inaugurated in January?

"It is true that Wada has been elected a governor but there is a constitutional question on when he is to take the oath of office.

"Secondly, Wada was not a party to the appeal before the Supreme Court and he cannot benefit from Friday judgment. Even INEC that was the appellant did not ask for a consequential order either in respect of Wada or anybody.

"Thirdly, there are issues bordering on the validity of the primary which produced Wada as a candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party. Since Idris tenure ended in May 2011, the validity of any primary conducted after that day is questionable. Look at the case of Governor Rotimi Amaechi to guide you.

"Fourthly, having been removed by the Supreme Court, Idris had no right to invite the President of the State Customary Court of Appeal, Ibrahim Atadoga, to inaugurate Capt. Idris Wada. As at the time exGovernor Idris mounted pressure on Atadoga, he was no longer in charge of Kogi State. The President of the Customary Court responded to a directive from an ordinary citizen. This amounts to judicial misconduct.

"The ideal thing was for Atadoga to get directive from the Chief Judge of the State, Justice

Nasir Ajanah. Instead, he bypassed the Chief Judge.

"Fifthly going by Section185 (2)of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), those who can administer oath of office is in this order: Chief Judge of a state, Grand Kadi of the Sharia Court of Appeal, or the President of the State Customary Court of Appeal. This section says 'for the time being respectively appointed to exercise the functions of any of those offices in any state.

"If you ask the President of the Customary Court of Appeal in Kogi State, he will tell you that he was appointed by ex-governor Idris to administer the oath. He allegedly took an order from an ordinary citizen of the state which Idris was after the judgment of the Supreme Court.

"What we have seen going on in Kogi State is a case of desperation and recourse to self-help by Wada."

The Final Straw That Earned Wada The Governorship Ticket Instead of sticking to its position on the Supreme Court judgment, political consideration came into play with the AGF's statement subjected to sentiments. At a session last Sunday, which was convened by Vice-President Namadi Sambo, vested interests had infested Kogi politics. Some of those at the closed door meeting were Governor Wada, the Speaker Alhaji Abdullahi Bello, the Acting National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), the DeputyGovernor -elect, Mr. Yomi Awoniyi,

a former Deputy Chief of Staff in the presidency, Mr. Olusola Akanmode, who was the DG of Idris Wada Campaign Organization. The meeting finally designed a "family solution", not legal solution, to the stalemate in Kogi State.

The party leaders and stakeholders prevailed on the Acting Governor(the Speaker) to step down for the Governor-elect but Bello insisted that he will abide by the order of the Supreme Court which directed the Speakers of five State Houses of Assembly to take over in Adamawa, Bayelsa Cross River, Kogi and Sokoto.

He said only a court can ask him to vacate office. Not minding his posturing, the state apparatchik were used to coerce the Speaker into submission.

The rest is now history with Wada now in charge as the governor.

The Final Battle Shifts To Court For Kogi however, it is not yet Uhuru because Wada has three more hurdles to cross. These are the validity of the primaries that brought him to power, which is still a legal matter in court; Jibril Echocho's suit on the real candidate of the PDP for the governorship slot has also not been decided; and whether the Speaker should be acting Governor at the time Wada did or not. The final decision of the Supreme Court on these three matters will either vindicate the legal advice of the AGF and the Minister of Justice or otherwise. If Wada is asked to vacate office eventually by the Supreme Court in the light of its judgment on tenure elongation, the Presi-

dent of the Customary Court of Appeal in Kogi State may be sanctioned by the National Judicial Council(NJC).

The National Coordinator of the Independent Election Monitoring Group (IEMG), Festus Okoye, said his group is of the opinion that there ought to be fresh election in the five states including Kogi.

He said: "We believe that the Supreme Court Judgment and the swearing in of the Speakers of the various State Assemblies as Acting Governors has cleared the way and the cobwebs that enveloped some of the states where elections have been conducted and in States that conducted controversial party primary elections. The swearing in of the Acting Governors will invariably create a semblance of a level playing ground for all the parties in the various States.

"We urge the Independent National Electoral Commission to commence fresh plans and preparations for the conduct of fresh elections in all the States under consideration within a period of 90 days from the date of the Supreme Court judgment. To this end, the Electoral Management Body should roll out a new date for the conduct of fresh party primary elections as it will generate fresh and additional crisis if any of the previous party primary elections is upheld. Most of the primary elections already conducted were conducted on the basis of a regime termination date which the Supreme Court has obliterated.

"We draw the attention of the Independent National Electoral Commission to the provisions of section 178(2) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and section 25(8) of the Electoral Act, 2010 as amended which provides that an election to the office of Governor of a state shall be held on a date not earlier than 150 days and not later than thirty days before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of the office.

"This mandatory election envisaged by section 25(8) of the Electoral Act, 2010 is the election held in April 2011 or ought to have been held on the said date and which said election did not hold before the expiration of the term of office of the last holder of that office.

"Whatever election that was held and primaries conducted in the various States were not primaries and election envisaged and conducted on the basis of a termination period of May 28th 2011.

No advantage can accrue from such primaries and election on dates not envisaged by the constitution.

"We note that so much funds have been committed to the conduct of elections in the remaining states and that so much funds were also expended by the political parties and the Independent National Electoral Commission in the conduct of elections in Kogi State.

"We urge the stakeholders in the various States to conduct themselves in a manner that does not lead to a breach of the peace. The Supreme Court is the apex constitutional court and they have laid down the law and it is final.

The Buck Stops At The Supreme Court Until there is a final interpretation of the January 27 judgment by the Supreme Court, Kogi State will still be on the edge politically with all the actors still suspicious of each other. Either way, there is a lot of reconciliation to be done in the state to heal wounds of the past one week. Or else, the judgment might deepen the distrust between ethnic groups and leaders of the state.

26

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Cover KOGI’S LEADERSHIP CRISIS

Kogi cauldron continues to boil Oil subsidy and challenge of good governance T

HE north central state of Kogi is not as complex as it looks, or as its election results, especially at the governorship level, often portrays it. The December 2, 2011 governorship election, for instance, turned up many curious spectacles that should have swung the outcome differently from what the electoral umpire announced some two days later. First was the controversy over the psychological and legal qualifications of the eventual winner, Captain Idris Wada, to contest. Then there was the trouble over an election that appeared to have been keenly contested and was a close race ending in virtual landslide.

Previous elections, such as in 2003 and 2007, apart from the violence that accompanied them and the allegations of vote rigging, also tended to reinforce the superficial impression that the most populous senatorial district in the state, Kogi East, was always more likely than not to produce the state’s governor.

In fact, since 1999, all the four governorship elections conducted in the state have returned Kogi East candidates as winners. Parties desirous of electoral victory, therefore, opt to embrace the unchallenged conventional wisdom of producing Kogi East candidates.

The simplicity of that conventional wisdom, however, masks the undercurrent of intense rivalry between the three senatorial districts, which are divided roughly between the Igala in Kogi East, the Ebira in Kogi Central and the Yoruba in Kogi West. By the last census, Kogi East, with nine local government areas, has a population of about 1,471,144; while Kogi West, with seven local government areas, has a population of 906,244; and Kogi Central, with five local government areas, has a population of 1,152,229. It is not certain what the updated figures are, or even whether the official figures are accurate.

With nine LGAs, it is not surprising that the Igala in Kogi State have the easiest job of winning governorship elections.

But that victory is by no means always a foregone conclusion.

For them, meeting constitutional requirements has not been too difficult. All they need do is win all the Igala LGAs, including the Bassa LGA, which is a nonIgala LGA in Kogi East, and penetrating the other senatorial zones to pick the requisite votes in five other LGAs. By elementary arithmetic, the Ebira, in spite of their over one million population, nearly the size of the Igala, nonetheless have the most difficult task of winning any governorship election for obvious reasons. Twice since 1999 they have partnered as running mate with the Igala in order to get a look-in.

The Okun Yoruba in Kogi West will not only have to clear their own zone completely, to produce the governor, they will also have to take all of Kogi Central and snatch at least two LGAs from Kogi East, probably Bassa and one other, maybe Ibaji, which is an economically vulnerable part of the Igala area.

•Abubakar Audu

By Kunle Fagbemi

Theoretically, no part of Kogi is so disadvantaged that it cannot get its candidate elected, but they stand better chances than one another in realising that ambition. In 1999, Prince Abubakar Audu, an Igala, won the governorship race by taking eight LGAs from Kogi East and three LGAs from Kogi West. In 2003, Ibrahim Idris won with three LGAs from his East zone, two from Central and surprisingly all seven from the West, perhaps on account of the influence of the ruling party at the national level.

But this is as far as political arithmetic goes. There are scores

•Ibrahim Idris

of other factors that account for the acceptability of a candidate, and some of these factors transcend local and ethnic politics. These include the influence of the ruling party in Abuja, which either manipulates, rigs outrightly or influences the outcome of the polls; charisma of the candidate vis a vis other candidates; candidate’s economic power; and the acceptability of the candidate’s political party.

There is also the peculiar and rampant ethnic parochialism of Nigerians, which, coupled with poor enlightenment and poverty, can undermine any candidate.

Indeed, governorship elections in Kogi have tended to be a two-

horse race between Igala candidates representing the two leading parties in the state at any point in time.

The contending ethnic groups in the state may not see it now, and may even refuse to accept it, but the one-sided struggle between the Igala and the rest will sooner than later boil over into something nasty if they do not find a way of anticipating future explosions and moderating the conflicts sensibly. Kogi East has been indifferent to the potentially divisive fact that it has produced the governors since the return of civil rule in 1999, and seems set to produce it far longer than is healthy for the state and its

people. The district appears to view the development as fairly natural, notwithstanding the equally unseemly fact that such monopoly has led to the election of mediocre candidates who have brought neither inspiration nor even intelligent pragmatism to governance in the state.

If the state is not to remain a laggard, and if it must prevent future political convulsions, its elders must sit together to agree on a power sharing formula and rotation principles that transcend political parties. This is a difficult thing to do, for it is far easier to agree to power sharing and rotation within a political party than across political parties. However, the danger of not attempting a futuristic arrangement that will take care of contingencies is much worse than exulting in the current skewed arithmetical arrangement, as if it doesn’t matter where and how the chips may fall.

Kogi State is not a very enlightened state. This may explain why the ethnic groups in the state have not appreciated the paradoxes of their past and current positions. In creating the state, the Igala were carved out of the former Benue State after bitterly complaining against and resenting marginalisation and domination. The Okun Yoruba of Kogi West campaigned to be excised from Kwara State hoping that they would stand a better chance of political advancement in the new state. The Okun Yoruba have had their hopes dashed, even believing in retrospect that they would have stood a better chance where they came from. On the other hand, the Igala appear to indicate that what they were opposed to was not domination or oppression; what they loathed was being the victims.

The state is a very unusual one. It has no charismatic leader, at least none that shines brightly. Worse, the ethnic groups have no individual leaders worth anyone in the country taking the trouble of remembering his name. If they had fairly respectable leaders, it would have been easy to get them to come together to develop a roadmap for the state into the future. Because they lack such leaders who can anticipate trouble and provide ideas to move the state forward, the challenges of social and political engineering and economic development may in effect be compounded. As the history of Nigeria shows, states that lack charismatic and intelligent leaders tend to stumble from one crisis to another, crises that should have been anticipated decades ago and dealt with.

Except Kogi takes proactive steps to create a unique and inclusive political arrangement that would give every ethnic group a stake in the system, its component groups may find that even the little advantages they all derive from being in one state could be lost over time. A hard look at the incongruousness of the state, a look at its untapped potentials, and a glance at its leadership failures show, like many other states in Nigeria at the moment, how difficult it is to suggest it is an arrangement that can stand the test of time.

vs

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

I can’t marry an actor Pages 36-37

—Lola Margaret

30

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

Kehinde Falode Tel: 08023689894 (sms)

E-mail: kehinde.falode@thenationonlineng.net

Wedding band trends

W

HAT would fingers or wedding be without rings? The wedding band is a symbol of devotion. It is the perfect symbol of the love between two people. The number of styles of wedding rings for women has increased over the last few decades.

Mr. Akanbi Inaolaji of Inner Gold international jewelers explains the kinds of bands that are available and their purposes. According to him gold is more expensive than petroleum; get the government is not making enough effort to develop the gold smiting industry.

“Jewelers offer a huge selection of unique designs of wedding and engagement rings. These rings come in different shapes, designs and styles, in platinum and gold, studded with precious stones.

What inspires your designs, do your customers give specific designs or pick from your readymade products?

“We have the ready –made products that we show to our •Ibune Okeleke

•Cynthia Njoku

•Joko Adebajo

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

customers and at times they pick from our catalogues. The revolution going on in the world of bridal wears in term of designs, shapes and pattern, is affecting wedding rings as well?

Wedding band is not an ordinary ring. There are particular designs, especially in white 18k gold which is real gold, gold or any other colour.

On the different between white gold and real gold, he said, the white gold is the same thing as the real gold.

“It is just that it’s the same 14k, 18k, etc, that is turned to whit gold.

So what are people asking for now?

Some people ask for real gold and white gold rings and at most time they want it costume (studded with stones) and customized. Unlike way back when the wedding bands for years were the same in colour and design. Also people are ordering for wedding band that is mixed. For example, some people want their bands in three colours, white, silver, yellow or brown. Some want theirs in two colours and the trend now is Combination of white gold and yellow gold.

Can one detect an inferior gold from the real gold by mere looking at it and also is it true that we can know a real gold by rubbing on the back of one’s feet?

It is not possible, it has to go through series of things and this is where you know a q u a l i f i e d goldsmith. A specialist must test it

•Mary Ali-Baba

Glamour

31

Tips for healthy hair

for you. Jewelers have a kind of chemical to test and know every category of karat.

The two wedding bands that ladies use, the round one without stone is the wedding band, it is used to be all round, but now p e o p l e engagement band usually h a v e a stone embed ded on top of it.

Invest ment in gold is a way of saving your money. You can buy gold and keep it for the next 10 years and later sell it. Certainly the money would have doubled.

•Ini Edo

*When washing always use warm water followed by a cool rinse *Excessive blow-drying can damage your hair. Hold the drier at least eight inches from your hair and keep it moving *Even when trying to grow hair, the ends should be trimmed every eight weeks. Splits can travel right up the hair shaft if neglected. *Brushing stimulates circulation in the scalp and distributes the hair’s natural oils to create shine *Gentle scalp massage using the finger pads promotes circulation and reduces scalp tension. *Try to eat five portions of fresh fruit and vegetable everyday. *Take time to relax and get enough sleep-it helps cells regeneration. *Live stress free-According to nutritionist Lisa Drayer, author of “The Beauty Diet” (McGraw Hill), stress can cause hairs to stop growing and shift into what is called the r e s t i n g phase. Two or three months later those resting hairs hit the floor. *A run on the treadmill does more than tone the thighs. It improves the blood flow to the scalp and speeds the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the hair follicles. *Lastly a balanced diet is essential.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

•Yul Edochie

•Victor Anusim •Dimeji Alara

•Jim Ovia

•Yaw

•Efe Tommy

Refresh your shoe rack in 2012

G

UYS nothing guarantees you that special look than stylishly and perfectly cut shoes. With the help of the right footwear, you can move from looking ordinary to looking fabulous. A beautiful shoe is useless unless it feels as wonderful as it looks. So, make sure that they fit properly in the store before paying for them. Designers are presently invading the fashion scene with colourful shoes that add that extra charming touch.

Below are some of the shoes that will capture the imagination of fashion buffs in 2012.

•Adebayo Akinbisehin

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

33

KEHINDE FALODE reviews more red carpet hits and misses NKIRU ANUMUDU stunned with her plunging neckline embellished jacket that flaunted a little cleavage while still staying classy and sexy. Kudos!

GRACE EGBAGBE showed that you don't have to be a hot young 20something to stand out on the red carpet.

Kudos!

INI EDO was both glamorous and sexy in a sleek, deep lilac and purple gown.

Kudos!

Whenever she's on the carpet, YVONNE 'VIXEN' EKWERE is a must-see.

Kudos!

Although she is big, CHIOMA OKOYE pulled off this piece like a true fashionista!

Kudos!

This simple Ankara dress screams sophistication.

Kudos to TAYO SHONEKAN

FUNMI FAGBEMI was among the worst dressed, not because of her combination power, but the casual patterned number looked more appropriate for the beach.

Oops!

34

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

The Public Relations Officer of Da Viva company-the manufacturer of the popular Daviva Ankara, Carol Arhere reveals her top ten things to Kehinde Falode

Favourite shoes designer Zara

Favourite music Gospel by Donnie McClurkin

Favourite bag designer

Favourite artiste

Next

Favourite book read lately No Greater love by Danielle Steel Tuface Idibia

Favourite perfume

Favourite sunglasses Chanel

Favourite wrist watch designer Swatch

Favourite writer Samuel Adeyemi

Favourite designer Zizi cardoh, Nikky Khiran and House of Regalia

Carol’s

top

10

Beyonce Heat and Arden Beauty

by Elizabeth Arden

THEATRE

t

BIGSCREEN

With VICTOR AKANDE

SOUND TRACK

Tel: 08077408676

plus

GISTS

Mary Uranta gleams in new look F you knew this actress a couple of years back, you may have to take an impulsive second look, should you stumble on her this time. It is complimentary to say that the plus size actress now looks slim, more beautiful and elegant.

Mary, who will be heading to Ghana in a couple of days to join the likes of Majid Michel and John Dumelo on the set of a movie, opens up on her new look.

“Contrary to what a lot of people may be thinking, that

•Mary

dare t i u s r e v o s d Recor e only •Says, they ar selves m e h t g in t h g i f

B

ARELY a year after singer, Oluwadamilare Okulaja, popularly called Durella parted ways with TC Records, the two have been at loggerheads over an allegation of copyright infringement levelled at the artiste.

Reports say TC Records is faulting the pop singer for shooting the video of the hit single Enemies with his current record label (Ikonic Records) without its authorization as the company that produced the song.

TC Records, which has filed a N50 million against the artiste, also alleged that he borrowed the sum of N3million which was not redeemed before the expiration of his three-year contract in January 2011.

Hearing in the suit came up in January 26, this year, but Durella and his current label did not show up.

In a telephone conversation, Durella told The Nation, “I'm not aware of any case like that. They are only fighting themselves. My contract with them ended in January, 2011. Why didn't they shoot the video before my contract expired with them? To imagine that I even gave them my car to sell, yet the video

Mercy MICHAEL wasn't shot”.

With the next hearing fixed for February 14, there is no doubt that the last is yet to be heard of the feud between Durella and his former recording company.

35

e-mail: victor_akande@yahoo.com

I

a l l e r u D s TC

PAGE

probably I am using drugs to lose weight, I wish to let you know that what I did was to seriously cut down on food, while also taking time out to exercise. To my surprise also, I have dropped from size 18 to size 12. I'm so happy with my new look, and I can't wait to show the world,” she said excitedly.

Rocking this new look recently, the actress was among Nollywood thespians who graced the unveiling and press screening of a new flick, Catwalq, produced by Emem Isong and Monalisa Chinda.

Kefee's ex-hubby remarries

C

EO of Alec Music, Godwin Alec seems to have gotten his groove back after about three years of severing ties with his ex-wife and musician, Kefee.

Reports say Alec who has been residing in London for a while now flew in to Nigeria recently to tie the nuptial knots with an unidentified lady on Saturday, January 29, 2012.

The newly wedded is also said to have changed his Facebook status from 'In a relationship' to 'married' and a day later, posted wedding photos of himself and his new bride.

Alec and Kefee's childless marriage, it would be recalled, had ended on grounds of irreconcilable differences.

Boko F Haram scares Halima Abubakar

OLLOWING the spate of bombings in Kano, Nollywood actress, Halima Abubakar has decided to relocate her parents from the troubled city.

During one of the recent attacks, a bomb reportedly exploded close to her parents’ home, forcing the thespian to move her folks who have lived almost all their lives and have businesses in the northern city.

In April 2011, the building housing Halima and her mother's bakery and restaurant, Godiya Confectioneries, was burned down during the riot that engulfed some parts of the north after the last presidential election.

•Alec with wife

Rising Star: Wilz

F

AST-RISING artiste, Wilz, a.k.a 'Wafgidi Boy' is perhaps one of the artistes to watch out for in 2012, if the prospect of his new single; 'Wafgidi' is anything to go by.

The talented rapper, who hails from Warri in Delta State, believes in his ability, even as he hopes to further prove himself on the music scene with edifying lyrics and soul searching songs.

“I hope to make an indelible mark soon on the music scene with my kind of music, and I hope music fans would continue to accept my kind of songs.

Music is a passion for me and doing music means a whole lot to me,' he said.

Wilz is being managed by 23 Entertainment led by Emmanuel Unuigbe.

Plans are underway to shoot a befitting video on his new single while the artiste (Wilz) continues work on other songs for his forthcoming album.

36

Entertainment

Popularly called Bisola Alanu, Nollywood actress, Lola Margaret Oladipupo ranks among the top notch in the Yoruba sector of the Nigerian movie industry.

The Industrial Relations and Personnel Management graduate of Lagos State University. In this interview with MERCY MICHAEL, speaks on marriage plans, foray into Nollywood, latest movies, among other things

Entertainment

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

I can’t marry an actor —Lola Margaret W

HAT is taking you to London?

I'm off to London to promote and premiere my one and only film Omo Oloro (Wealthy Child).

Is it your first movie?

No it's my third.

What is Omo Oloro about?

It's about a spoilt child. Basically, the movie is trying to send a message to mostly kids from wealthy homes that they should strive on their own to be successful, instead of relying solely on their parents' wealth.

The message of this movie is not new; what is different about yours?

You're right; the message might not be new but like they say, nothing is new under the sun, right? So Omo Oloro no doubt is different from the others we've seen because of the professionalism put into it. I can't say much about the movie but if you see it, I'm sure you will applaud the effort.

What is the reason, particularly in the Yoruba sector of Nollywood, that you premiere your movies overseas before bringing it to Nigeria; is it that you have more fans outside Nigeria?

Of course yes, they watch our movies more over there than here in Nigeria.

Virtually every Yoruba actress is a producer; is it because it is cheaper to produce a Yoruba movie?

Personally, why did you veer into movie production?

It is because it adds some value to our names. That is the main reason we produce. And of course, it is more rewarding financially to produce your own movie than just acting in other people's movies.

How long have you been in this industry?

Eight years You are hardly spotted in public; is it that you don't like to mix with your colleagues?

Not that I don't like mixing with my colleagues, it's just that I'm very homely.

I don't really go out. I don't club. I only do it once in a while. Let just say I'm a very private person. I like to keep to myself. Unfortunately, in this industry, if you don't blow your trumpet nobody will blow it for you. But in that aspect, God has just been good to me because I myself know that in terms of publicity, I don't make any effort to put myself out there. All I know is do my work and if it's good enough, it will speak for me. But I know that sometimes it takes more than a good movie to be relevant in my industry.

I saw you yelling at someone a while ago, accusing the person of staring at you; is it because you're shy or you get angry easily?

I'm a very shy person. I even wonder why I'm in the movie industry because I'm very shy.

Knowing that you studied Industrial Relations in school, how did you come about acting?

As I said, I got into the industry eight years ago; I was in a friend's house in Ebute Metta and then suddenly, Mr. Latin (Bolaji Amusan) came to shoot in that house. I looked at Mr. Latin and I walked up to him and told him I'd like to become an actress and he said, “oh! I reside in Abeokuta, can you come down to Abeokuta?” I said no problem. The next day, I went to Abeokuta and that was how it all started.

What is your relationship like with Mr. Latin?

He's my boss. He is my chairman Which movie gave you your first break?

That would be Bisola Alanu, produced by the late Alasari, whose real name is Isola Durojaiye.

What was your reaction when you first heard of his death?

At first I didn't believe it. But later I called two of my colleagues in Abeokuta and they confirmed it was true. I felt very sad.

Who are your close friends in the industry?

Everybody is my friend. Actually I don't have close friends in the industry.

So everybody is my friend.

If you were not an actress what would you have been doing?

Maybe working in the bank, I love calculation. I would have been a banker.

Do you see yourself quitting this job someday?

If my husband says I should quit.

A lot of actresses will say they can't quit acting for marriage; why are you different?

Life is about choices. For me, family is important and if I must quit acting to have bliss in my marriage, why not? To

be a working mum is not easy much more being an actress and a mother.

When the children start coming, they we'll need attention and as an actress if you place too much priority on your job, you can't be the best mum to your children. I'm not saying that those who cannot quit their career for marriage are selfish. No but I personally will do anything for my family.

Are you married at the moment?

No When are you altar bound?

Soon Is your man in the industry?

No, he's not. I mustn't tell you his name. I am not dating an actor. My fiancé understands me and he understands my job. I love him and we intend to get married. He is a loving and caring guy.

He is God-fearing. I love him so much and that was why I chose him.

Are you saying you can't marry an actor?

No I can't marry an actor.

What's your reason?

I'm sorry to say this; celebrity marriages don't last.

How many kids are you looking at having?

Two, a boy and a girl Do you believe in true love?

Yes, I do. If there is no true love, how come every Saturday everywhere you go, you see people tying the knot. I believe there is something about matrimony that is special too. I look forward to getting married ooo.

You're one actress that's relatively without scandal...

I would say its God… and maybe because as I said earlier, I really don't go out so it's difficult to get to know anything about me.

How do you relax?

I watch movies. That's all.

What was the last movie you saw?

A Chinese movie; Jumoon Do you watch your own movies?

I do that once in a while.

And how do you feel when you do watch yourself?

When I watch my own movies, I'm able to correct my mistakes.

You're not wearing any makeup; is it because you have a flight to catch and you had to rush out of the house?

I don't really like heavy makeup; that's me. Most of the time I go without makeup but if I have to go on set, I wear makeup.

Tell us a bit about growing up?

I was born in Ilesha, Osun State. My parents died 13 years ago, long before I thought of joining the movie industry.

Growing up wasn't that difficult anyway.

My aunt tried her best for me. I was able to cope with the challenges that came my way. I had so much faith in God and I knew I was going to be successful. I knew life was going to be rosy in future no matter how bad it was. I am not a lazy person and I would say with God and a

37

Nigerian Idol: Three favoured by judges’ wild card

A

no If there is w ho true love, y r come eve Saturday re everywhe ou you go, y see people t kno tying the

dint of hard work, I've been able to get this far.

How was it like coping without your parents?

Coping without my parents wasn't too tough. God was on my side and He has helped all the while. I lived with an aunt of mine for awhile and she took care of me. But I still miss my mother very much. I miss her love and care.

What is one role that you would say really challenged you as an actress?

Bisola Alanu What is it about the storyline that fascinates you?

The story was such that I had to go the extra mile to help my husband. I went as far as doing fetish things just to help him.

Would you go the extra mile for your husband in real life?

Yes, I will, but not to the point of doing something fetish. If my husband has a problem, I will seek God's face. I will go to church and pray.

GGRESSIVE performances, it was last weekend, by the nine contestants who desired the judges' Wild Card to get to the next stage in the Etisalat sponsored Nigerian Idol musical reality show.

The contestants - Tega, Ebi Paul, Byno, G. Circuit, Sly 1, Sophyn, Stephen Onochie, Phunky and Joe Blue-put up their very best in a bid to outdo one another, but Joe Blue, Phunky, and Sophyn got an over dose of commendation from Charly Boy and the other judges.

Interestingly, the hotter the competition gets, the keener the interest of viewers who stay practically glued, every weekend, to their television sets. The show is broadcast on major television stations across the country.

The show which promises the overall winner a cash prize of $100,000, a recording contract, a brand new SUV, a Galaxy Tab, Blackberry and iPod is scheduled to end on April 1. The first runner up is expected to go home with N1.5 million, a Galaxy Tab, Blackberry and iPod, while the second runner up gets N1 million, a Galaxy Tab, Blackberry and iPod. Finalists from 4th to 10th place have also been told to expect N100, 000, a Galaxy Tab, Blackberry and iPod each.

Last week's show was particularly exceptional as the contestants were applauded by the studio audience, and got good words from the judges - Jeffery Daniel, Yinka Davis, Charly Boy, and Nigeria's Queen of Rap, Sasha,

who appeared as the guest judge for the week.

“Good diction, good voice control, good stage control and great dress,” Charly Boy told Phunky after her performance while Yinka thanked her for being such a good singer, and Jeffery Daniel said “she is good at what she does.”

Stephen Onochie did well with the popular “Tonight, I celebrate my love with you” so much so that Yinka Davies sang along with excitement.

Sophyn also received commendation from Charly Boy, Shasa and Yinka after doing the evergreen song, “My Love.” On this, Daniel added; “every time you sing, you steal my heart. I will love to see you throughout this competition.”

Sly 1 did Jimmy Cliff's evergreen song, 'I can see clearly now', charming Yinka so much that the only thing she could say was “you are beautiful”. On this, Charly Boy begged the audience and viewers to vote for him. Sasha, who also loved the performance, gave him kudos.

Daniel concluded that there is a great talent buried in Sly 1 when he said “I will love to see you become professional.”

Idiare Alimomo, Manager, Youth segment, Etisalat Nigeria, noted that the competition is getting hot, as contestants who were called back are looking forward to being selected as one of those who will be picked through wild card selection by the judges and the audience.

Entertainment

38

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Abolore Adegbola Akande attained nation-wide acclaim in 2009 with the release of his hit single, Gongo Aso. Hitting the top came with its storm.

9ice, as his alias goes, talks to OVWE MEDEME on his career as a singer and of other issues.

Y

OUR current album is a double; what inspired this idea of yours?

The first half album entitled Versus, is my own way of trying to bridge the gap between having a mix tape where they put my vocals alongside that of other artistes.

It doesn't sound right, but people still buy them. I am doing that for all my fans who want to hear me sing alongside other artistes like P Square, Timaya, Wizkid, Tiwa Savage and the likes. The other half, Bashorun Gaa is another album entirely that talks about me and the stake that I hold in the industry.

Do you think releasing multiple albums within a year tallies with what the hip hop culture represents?

I don't even think we have anything like the hip-hop culture in Nigeria. What we have is Afro hip-hop. Hip-hop as it is varies from country to country. When we say hip hop culture in Nigeria, it is either you are rapping or you are singing which is quite different from the native music that we have in Nigeria. What we are doing here is afro hip hop which carries our own culture.

What does Bashorun Gaa connote?

Bashorun Gaa was a historical warlord in the Oyo Empire in the 13th century. And I am saying that I am a warlord in the music industry and I have a stake in the industry which lies in my use of the Yoruba language and people will forever like me for that.

What informed the choice of artistes for the Versus album?

I worked with Timaya because though he has a stake in Lagos, he is bigger in Port Harcourt and the eastern part of Nigeria. I used 80% of Yoruba in my music and if I want to get across to those from the East, the best thing for me to do is a song with one of their own. Through that, I can get into their hearts. It is a strategy. I just want to make sure that the album is accepted nationwide.

How true is it that you have a feud with your friends from Akoka, especially given their absence at your birthday celebration recently?

There was never a point in time where I had any quarrel with Cabassa. Cabasa stays in Akoka; Ajasa stays in Ikorodu, some other members of Coded Tunes (his record label) stay elsewhere. Some are even out of the country. So, you can't expect the same connectivity or association that existed then to exist now. I wasn't a family man then, now I am a family man. Cabasa wasn't married then, now he is married. He didn't have any project he was doing then, but now he has a project he is doing. He is signing on artistes and he is working well. Now we have different challenges and we have different dreams and aspirations. We established Coded Tunes because we were all together then and we lived in the same vicinity. Then we didn't have money.

Day fellow man kissed me for five minutes —9ice What we had was the talent, and so collectively, we promoted ourselves as one. Today, individually, everybody is doing well. That is why people think we are quarreling now. There is nothing like that.

But in your first and second albums, you had all the input of Cabasa. Why is the case different with this one?

That was never the case. If you get my first album, you will see that I used Puffy T and about four other producers. In my second album, I used about four producers also. The only thing is that Cabasa produces most of them. Out of about 15 songs, he produced up to 10 of them.

How much of his influence is on these albums?

He produced about two songs in the album How would you react to the insinuations that your popularity began to wane when you stopped working with Cabasa?

I am someone that is not affected by what other people say. What affects me is what I do. If it is going to affect this album, then maybe someone should grab a copy and listen to it to know whether the songs cannot fly because Cabasa's influence is not on it. Then if you tell me now that the songs are not pure, I will go back and redo all the songs with Cabasa so that they will become hits. We need to give upcoming producers a chance too. In the past, we had about four major

producers. Today, we have about 5000 producers.

How much of a family man are you?

When I say I am a family man, you should know what I am talking about. I pay school fees, I take my kids out. I know what they are feeling. If their legs ache, I will be there for them. That makes me a family man. They give me another reason to stay on earth.

Don't you think it goes beyond catering for your kids?

Tell me the other things it involves.

Living as a family for instance That is not what it all entails. The essence of having a family is to raise children; so with or without a woman being there, you have a family. Whether you are divorced or separated, you are still a family. I am from a broken home, but here I am standing with you today.

We have people that grew up with their parents together but they are nobody. It is not about a woman being in the house, you have to be responsible. Being there for your family is being responsible.

Sometime last year, you had a brush with Ruggedman; did you have to take it as far as releasing the song Talk I Am Listening?

If you had asked me that question two months ago, I would have answered but now, I am beyond that. You all know what happened. If someone abuses you or slaps you, maybe if you are Jesus you will not reply. We are all different?

In that case are you saying we should

expect a reply from Chinaydu who came out to sing some nasty things about you?

No comments.

What is your relationship with Ruggedman as it is?

I am sure he is doing well where he is.

As an established artiste, what challenges do you face?

I can't do all I used to do. I can't go to places I normally went before. Besides, people now expect more from me. Now, the industry is becoming more challenging. Before, we made money from shows, now the trend is changing. Money comes more from record sales these days.

So a whole lot of things are changing. My kind of music might not be played on radio but it sells on the streets.

How would you describe your style of music?

I call it one fusion because it has elements of different kinds of music in Nigeria but people tend to mistake my music for Fuji. If they call me a Fuji artiste, I am happy. There is no Fuji artiste that has not made it, so I'm happy because it is my language. At least people of all tribes are buying my records. I was once a Fuji artiste, I was once a hip-hop artiste, I was once a Juju artiste. I have Fuji and Juju background. I am someone that loves music generally and music to me goes beyond the language you sing with. It is spiritual. If you sing in Hausa and the rhythm touches me, I will so love it.

It is said that you were raised by your step mother. When she listens to your music, how does she feel?

She feels very happy. One important lesson I learnt from her is that no matter where we are, we should teach our children our language. English is not our language; we should be ashamed to use it as a major form of expression. We are supposed to be conducting this interview in our indigenous language.

With that belief and in a multicultural state like Nigeria, how do you hope to communicate with other tribes?

My fans are spread across all tribes and culture. That means I am communicating.

Some of them, through me, started learning the Yoruba language. Nigeria is a diverse country but we cannot run away from each other. Through music we can learn other languages. That is the beauty of it.

Have you ever been embarrassed by fame?

Fame has embarrassed me so many times. A guy held on to my head one day and kissed me for five minutes. He is not gay but he said he loves me. That is insane. There was nothing I could do about it. Fame brings about so many things. There is the joy part of it.

What are your plans for the year?

This year, we intend shooting about 30 videos from the 35 songs that we released into the market just to promote the album.

From this point, we will be doing double albums every two years, instead of one album every year. My next album release will be in 2013 and it will be another double album.

on to my ld e h y u g A y and head one da five r kissed me fo ot gay is n minutes. He e loves h but he said sane. in me. That is othing I There was n ut it. o could do ab ut so s abo Fame bring s. There is g in h t y n a m of it the joy part

Entertainment

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012, 2012

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There seems to be a growing list of younger actresses on the movie scene today who have had unpalatable brushes and encounters with their senior colleagues over superiority claim, be it age or class.

The trend is even more worrying as movie producers may find it really tough in future to accommodate some of these actresses who are not on talking terms on set. AHMED BOULOR reports.

Nollywood actresses on war path T

HE fact that there seems to be no love lost among some Nollywood actresses is no news. What is disturbing about this trend is the long term effect it might have on young, up and coming actresses and the watching public.

For one reason or the other, these actresses do not see eye-to-eye, and they even go as far as ignoring each other when they meet at social events and movie locations. This trend is common in the Yoruba movie sector of Nollywood, with actresses who have been on the job for a while often demand outright obeisance from younger or new entrants.

Y

“You don't get respect from people; you would have to earn it first. What you deserve would be given to you and you don't judge people by their stature or their appearance. There is also a saying that respect is reciprocal.”

Mercy Johnson VS Tonto Dikeh: “We are not friends”

T

HOUGH the reason for their grudge is still sketchy, sources say they both fell out due to superiority-based issues and the usual fight over who owns what. Efforts have been made in the past to settle the rift between them, but to no avail.

It is still a Herculean task for producers bringing the two to work on a movie ever since.

After Mercy Johnson's wedding which attracted a horde of Nollywood actors and actresses, Tonto was cornered and asked why she did not attend to which she responded thus: “It is surprising why people think you just have to be everybody's friend. In the industry, I don't know half of the producers and I work for them. I don't even know half of my colleagues, but I work with them.

“I kiss and hug them on set. We flow, we enjoy the friendship on set based on the energy and connection that exists between me and the next person on set, but that does not mean we are friends in the real sense of it. You can't just be a friend to everybody, it's a normal thing.”

Seniority Syndrome

OUNGER actresses especially, are victims of abuse and sometimes bullying from their older colleagues who seem to be obsessed by the 'seniority syndrome' which is now threatening friendship among thespians.

According to a younger actress who pleaded anonymity, the issue of seniority is real and older actresses should know that respect is not earned until it is deserved.

“It's true; the issue of seniority is a big one in the Yoruba movie industry. I, for one, have been a victim of this seniority madness. I will not mention names, but I came on location this particular day and greeted a senior colleague. She didn't respond to my greetings but another senior colleague who was sitting close to her answered me and said to her “she's greeting you.” Then the older colleague said, “is that how to greet someone? Am I too young that she cannot kneel down for me”? It is that bad. But some of them fail to understand that the fact that someone is an upcoming actress doesn't necessarily mean you're older than that person.

“You don't expect everyone to kneel down for you; I'm not a baby. Some of these ladies are my age mates, there is no way I can kneel down for them. I believe in respect as a Yoruba girl. I respect my seniors in the industry because they got to that position through hard work but they too need to respect others to earn respect,” she fumed.

Omotola VS Genevieve: Who blinks first?

•Omotola with Genevieve

T

HE cold war between Omotola and Genevieve which is being described in some quarters as 'long term' assumed another dimension on the set of Chineze Anyaene's movie entitled Ije: The Journey.

“Yes I have experienced such as a young one or two stories like that in the past but it Sources said the rivalry almost ruined the up and coming actress but I would not like has never happened to me. I have never production of the movie which was shot in to mention the person's name because right had issue with any of my older colleagues Los Angeles. The crew had a running battle now, I am on talking terms with the person. in the past. I relate peacefully with my trying to get the two heavyweight actresses colleagues in the industry whether young “It was horrible and I felt the world was to work as a team, as none of them was or old,” she said. coming to an end. The experience got me ready to play a second fiddle. thinking: “when am I going to get there; Lizzy Anjorin VS Iyabo Ojo: In the movie however, Genevieve played when am I going to be known as an Biodun Okeowo: “It was a the role of Chioma, while Omotola played “Respect is reciprocal” actress? At a point, I just wanted all the that of Anya, her sister (both lead horrible experience” intimidation by those who considered HE face-off between Lizzy Anjorin characters).

UDDING actress and producer, themselves as seniors to stop, but as time and Iyabo Ojo is perhaps the most Other rumoured squabbles among Biodun Okeowo also had her own went on, I started to get over such thoughts reported feud in lately. Both star Nollywood actresses include those between fair share of harassment from a and I really thank God for the position that actresses have been quarreling over the Ini Edo and Oge Okoye, Bimbo Akintola senior colleague whose name she refused I am today. It was a really sad experience issue of seniority, and all attempts to and Kate Henshaw, Oby Edozieh and to mention. She said it was a horrible and it brought me closer to God and it also broker peace between them by their Lilian Bach, and Susan Peters and Uche experience and she felt at that time that the made me work harder. She really colleagues have proved abortive. The Jombo. world should end after going through the embarrassed me and I thought to myself actresses don't see eye to eye and have humiliation. that I wanted to be where she is as an always threatened to deal with each other actress in the future. The whole experience whenever their paths cross. made me a stronger person and I am glad Both actresses even took their fight to the altogether,” she said. media, calling themselves unprintable while also issuing threats. Lizzy in Bimbo Thomas: “I have heard names one of the interviews she granted in the stories like that” past said: IMBO Thomas who played the “Iyabo has been going around telling role of 'Nicky Rugged' in the people that I opened a paraga shop in movie Omo Ghetto does not Abule Egba. She should tell the public deny the trend. But she also says where she opened her own shop. I am she tries her best not to step on better than Iyabo ten thousand times over. toes because many senior She is telling people that I am the one colleagues can be quick to react. begging for her friendship, who is “I have always given respect she? She claims she's older than me, to whoever it is due; I have that I should accord her due never been faced with such a respect. I respect everybody and I situation before because most think respect should beget respect. senior colleagues can snap She has been portraying herself as easily. I try not to disrespect my superior in the industry. She those ahead of me. I have heard was the one who first insulted me.

•Tonto •Mercy •Lizzy Anjorin • Iyabo Ojo

...Why they don’t see eye-to-eye

T

B

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Entertainment Dstv guide

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

BIG

CINEMA GUIDE

PICTURE Supported by: SILVERBIRD CINEMAS

B

*Kingdom Against Kingdom Part 1&2: Ukadike is a leader who rules with an iron fist and enslaves his people. Not even Aku, with all his will and physical power could stop him. DStv audiences can tune to Africa Magic to find out whether Ukadike can be stopped or is he out of control? Cast: Pete Edochie, Amechi Monago and Francis Duru.

AFRICA MAGIC HAUSA (DStv Channel 117) Watch out for the Wednesday night premieres on Africa Magic Hausa. *Fatima Da Siyama: Siyama returns home after schooling in the United Kingdom to a marriage she doesn't want and which her father has arranged. She reneges on the arrangement and proffers him her childhood friend. A few months later she begins to feel jealous of the new couple and suddenly wants her would-be husband back.

AFRICA MAGIC PLUS (DStv Channel 115) *Princess Tyra (Part 1, 2 & 3): Princess Tyra is a classic tale about the abuse of power. The proud and arrogant Princess Tyra, who is betrothed to the Prince Kay, finds herself competing for the love and affection of the Prince with her own house help, Mefie. The discovery of Meffie's pregnancy triggers a chain reaction from the Princess's mother, which results in a series of untold consequences for Kay, Mefie and Ashley, the unexpected twin sister of Mefie. Starring Jackie Apphiah, Kofi Adjorlolo and Van Vicker. Don't miss this intriguing tale. *King is Mine (Part 1 & 2): This movie tells the story of a young King who desperately desires an heir to his throne. He inherit a wife from his late brother and predecessor but after several attempts, she fails to bear him a male child. Now the king seeks a new mistress. The cast includes Nadia Buari, Jackie Appiah and John Dumelo. *Zan Boko: Is an emotional story of a village family swept up in the current tide of urbanisation. In doing so, Zan Boko expertly reveals the transformation of an agrarian, subsistence society into an industrialised commodity. This docudrama is directed by Gaston Kaboré and stars Colette Kabore and Joseph Nikiema. *Totor aka The Turtle: It is about Mèntse, an orphan boy who meets his alcoholic father several times without ever speaking to him, and who is finally taken in by pygmies. In the pygmy village he makes friends with Ngâ'nsi, a young orphan like him who has extraordinary divining powers.

OXING as a sport transcends generations but with Real Steel, a new dimension is thrown in. An action drama, the flick tells the story of a former boxer, Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) who, against all odds, gets one last shot at a comeback when he teams up with his estranged son (Dakota Goyo) to build and train the perfect contender for the new high-tech sport of robot boxing.

Set in the near-future, the sport of boxing has gone hi-tech, Charlie is a washed-up fighter who lost his chance at a title when 2000 pound, 8 ft tall steel robots took over the ring. Now just a small-time promoter, Charlie earns just enough money piecing together low-end robots from scrap metal to get from one underground boxing venue to the next.

When he hits rock bottom, he reluctantly teams up with his estranged son Max (Dakota Goyo) to build and train a championship contender. As the stakes in the brutal, no-holdsbarred arena are raised, Charlie and Max, against all odds, get one last shot at a comeback.

His kid's aunt (Hope Davis) wants custody; her rich beau (James Rebhorn) wants a kid-free trip to Europe, and Charlie wants to make a fast buck. So a backroom deal puts money in Charlie's hands and Max in his care for the summer.

No pushover, Max wants a

Real Steel: Machines take over prizefighting

piece of Charlie's take after he discovers Atom in a garbage dump. Max plays the cheeky Canadian youngster with soulful eyes that move from mischief to sadness with a remarkable ease.

Directed by Shawn Levy (Date Night and Night at the Museum), the time frame in the flick has been slightly fast-forwarded to 2020 and from the looks of it the economy has only gotten worse.

Straw Dogs: A fight for acceptance turns bloody

I

N ancient Chinese mythology straw dogs were used as offerings to the gods. In the time of rituals, they were treated with utmost reverence. When it was over and they are no longer needed, they were trampled on and tossed aside.

However, Rod Lurie's remake of Sam Peckinpah's 1971 homeinvasion classic, Straw Dogs personifies the term. In the wake of her father's death, Amy (Kate Bosworth) returns to her rural Southern hometown with her husband, David (James Marsden). Her goal is to put her

childhood home on the market while David works on his latest screenplay.

Meanwhile, David hires Amy's high school boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard) and his

crew to rebuild the roof on the secluded country home. Once celebrated football stars, they now languish in a community that has no respect for them. The more time Charlie's work crew spends working on the roof, the greater tensions begin to grow between Amy and David.

Every time Amy walks outside, the work stops and the ogling begins.

When David attempts to avert confrontation by firing the crew before the job is finished, former high school football star Charlie snaps, deciding that if he can't have Amy on his own terms, he'll take her by force.

They are led by Charlie, a big, blond, handsome ex-jock who dated Amy in high school. He artfully exposes David's snobbery and also plays on the newcomer's liberal habits of deference and self-reproach.

On their way home from a football game, the sub-plot in the movie unfolds and Charlie's gang, together with the football coach besieges the house, forcing David and Amy into a desperate fight for their lives.

Colombiana Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos, Port-Harcourt ******************************* Abduction Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Abuja ******************************* Tower Heist Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos ******************************* In Time Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos, Port-Harcourt ******************************* RA. One Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos ******************************* Johnny English Reborn Genre: Action/Adventure Lagos, Port-Harcourt ******************************* Friends with Benefits Genre: Suspense/Horror Lagos, Abuja ******************************* Suing the Devil Genre: Suspense/Horror Lagos ******************************* Dolphin Tale Genre: Drama Lagos, Port-Harcourt ******************************* The Change Up Genre: Comedy Port-Harcourt ******************************* What's your Number Genre: Comedy Port-Harcourt, Abuja ******************************* Gossip Nation Genre: Drama Abuja ******************************* Contagion Genre: Action/Adventure Abuja ******************************* The Smurfs Genre: Science Fiction Abuja

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

Madonna on Lady Gaga, marriage and her new album Who else but Madonna can identify with scorned royalty?

Trying her hand as director of a lush period piece, she is candid about everything from Lady Gaga to her wayward marriage.

Jacob Bernstein talks about meeting Madonna and reveals what she really thinks of Lady Gaga.

M

ADONNA would rather not waste time with the pleasantries and nonsense of another junket interview. She is sitting on a sofa in a posh midtown Manhattan hotel, wearing a blue silk dress and fingerless black leather gloves, and she has just been asked, perhaps for the 50th time today, how she began making her upcoming movie.

“Not that question,” she says, putting her head in her hands. “Anything but that question. Ask me what you really want to know.”

It's not exactly what you expect someone will say to you two minutes into a conversation, but there's also something refreshing about her bluntness, her impatience, what Liz Smith calls her “lack of concern with being loved by people.” One of the interesting things about Madonna is that although she has been offending people throughout her entire career, she seems incapable of being offended by anythingexcept stuff that bores her.

In February she is releasing W.E., the second movie she has written and directed.

The film centers on a modern-day woman named Wally Winthrop, who's stuck in a preternaturally unhappy marriage and finds escape in the story of Wallis Simpson, the diva-licious divorcée from Baltimore who stole the heart of King Edward VIII, leading him to abdicate the throne so he could marry her. “How could any man love a woman so much he'd do that?” Winthrop wonders, only to realize over the course of the film that the great love story may not have been so great after all.

Wallis and her ex-king were forced out of England. They regret everything. Simpson finds, much to her surprise,

that being an appendage isn't exactly a privilege.

It is the first major piece of work 'Her Madgesty' was released since her 2008 divorce from filmmaker Guy Ritchie. She doesn't wince or get oversensitive when asked whether this was on her mind when she made the film.

“I'd been married 10 years when I started writing it,” Madonna, 53, says. “And I was certainly asking a kind of existential question that I think people ask when they've been married that long: what is the perfect love?

Because when you start off, everything's great and lovely, and the person you've married is flawless, and you're flawless. Then time goes by, and you share a life, you have children, and there are cracks in the veneer. It's not as romantic as it used to be. You think, 'This isn't what I thought it was going to be,' and 'How much am I willing to sacrifice?'”

At the same time, she says, “when you get to the end of the movie, I think it's very clear they really loved each other, and that I am a romantic and that I do believe in true love.”

So here we are on the cusp of Madonna's latest reinvention, but the truth is that it's not reall y a reinvention at all. W.E. is just another opportunity to explore the kinds of questions that have consumed her for the last decade and a half, an era in which she's transformed into a Kabbalahdevotee mom of four who is more likely to spend her day off at a Maurizio Cattelan retrospective than at an afterhours club.

Madonna is still obsessed with sex, power, and fame, only now she's approaching those topics from a slightly different vantage point.

For one thing, she makes it very clear that she relates to Simpson, a woman she believes was “misunderstood on a global

scale.” (Insert irony here.)

Also, the film is about a question near and dear to her celebrity heart: is love ever worth more than p o w e r ?

Moreover, the d u c h e s s appeals to Madonna's inner drag queenher fascinatio n with a particular subset of i c o n i c women, f r o m Marilyn Monroe t o Marlene Dietrich to Eva Perón, whose eternal celebrity personas i n h a b i t a l l man ner of sexual territory.

“When I was making my Sex book,” she says, “ I w a s n ' t thinking about my kids or the reaction they would have.

Now I have

41

children, so I have to think about how things like that would impact them.”

Madonna being Madonna, of course, she sometimes forgets this. In December, while she was getting ready for a screening of her movie, her 15-year-old daughter, Lourdes, walked into the room and vetoed her mom's proposed outfit: a corset with fishnets and no pants. Madonna has since said that her daughter was right, but adds that she isn't about to enter a nunnery at this late date either: “I'm not going to let [being a parent] completely censor me. I say to my kids all the time, I'm an artist, this is what I do, this is what I've always done. And they need to learn to separate it.”

Over the next few months, they may not have a choice. Two days after the movie comes out, Madonna will headline the Super Bowl halftime show, reportedly flanked by Nicki Minaj and M.I.A. Soon after, her new album, M.D.N.A., hits. (Since the title seems to be a pun on the abbreviation of ecstasy, her definition of self-censorship is perhaps a loose one.) Shortly afterward, she'll hit the road with a troupe of hundreds. Touring has become the bulk of Madonna's business (the last tour grossed $408 million, the most ever for a solo artist) since the music industry went belly up and consumers stopped buying records.

She's not ready to talk about specific plans for this go-round, but it's safe to assume that her ticket prices will continue to be astronomically expensive, Great Recession be damned. “So start saving your pennies now,” she says, sounding annoyed that any-one would suggest these prices are prohibitive.

“People spend $300 on crazy things all the time, things like handbags. So work all year, scrape the money together, and come to my show. I'm worth it.”

Of course, Madonna is aware that people are having a rough time. A few years ago she got filleted for saying the Big Apple had been more fun back in the day, before it was all taken over by hedge-fund types. “It kinda was,” she says, unapologetic as ever.

Consequently, she was “excited” by the Occupy Wall Street movement, for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that Sean Lennon and Rufus Wainwright did a rendition of “Material Girl” at one of the early rallies. “I thought that was cool,” she says, bringing the discussion back to her favourite subject: herself.

Gossip columnist Liz Smith, who's not afraid to be a rare unabashed supporter of Madonna in the press, says the entertainer's supreme self-absorption is part of her charm.

She remembers once, around the time of Desperately Seeking Susan, Rosanna Arquette relaying something Madonna had allegedly said to her: “Wouldn't you give anything to be me for just 10 minutes?”

“It was the greatest self-realized ego-centric quote I've ever gotten,” Smith says. “Her talent is running herself, it's not a God-given, singing-dancing talent. At that, she's not at the top of my list, but she's the greatest star. She goes her way the way Elizabeth Taylor did.”

No wonder Madonna seems so unruffled w h e n a s k e d a b o u t L a d y Gaga and “Born This Way,” the No. 1 song that came out last year and that many critics thought resembled Madonna's 1989 smash “Express Yourself.”

“Of course I heard it,” she says toward the end of our interview.

“How could I not? I think it was on the radio a few times. I thought, 'This is a wonderful way to redo my song.' I recognized the chord changes, I thought it was ... interesting.”

And at this, she gives a little smile.

Source: The Daily Beast

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

e n i N e r a C n i k S s e k a t s i M

These common skin-care blunders may be sabotaging your clear skin. Ginger Otis writes.

P

ERFECT skin is at the top of just about every woman's wish list, but despite all the information we get from friends, media, salespeople and even dermatologists, many of us still lack the flawless complexion we crave.

Despite best efforts, even the most wellinformed among us make simple mistakes that keep us from clear, dewy skin. Many skin-care errors are a result of misinformation, not lack of commitment to perfection, says Jennifer Fifer, owner of Tru Skin Clinical Spa in Manhattan, New York, United States.

Luckily for us, she pinpoints nine skincare blunders that can be easily avoided.

What's in your cleanser? Fifer says women often buy high-end exfoliating products and moisturizers, but don't pay attention to what's actually in them. Choose products with few chemicals, she advises. Avoid those containing SD-40, isopropyl alcohol, a common ingredient that can be an irritant for acne-prone and senstive skin types, leading to redness, dryness, and in some cases, brown spots and premature aging.

Speaking of exfoliating, don't overdo it, says Fifer. Many products today have alpha hydroxy acids to combat wrinkles and fine lines, but if you mix-and-match too often for example, an acid-based moisturizer in the morning and an exfoliating cream at night you run the risk of inflaming your skin.

Don't pick at your blemishes. Hands off, says Fifer. "You'll end up with a bigger problem because you break down the follicle wall, allowing bacteria to spread." Use a sulfur mask to bring down the swelling, she says.

Surprisingly, women with dry skin should avoid overmoisturising, so don't spackle on cream or heavy moisturizers. "It causes more congestion in the long run," says Fifer. "Women would do better to invest in a good humidifier instead, especially if they live in a dry climate."

"Women believe that when they drink water it moisturizes the skin. It does help carry oxygen to the skin, but don't rely on it for moisture," says Fifer. Instead, consider what you're eating or not eating and add some good fat to your diet. "Essential fatty acids, like what you'd get from eating an avocado, help skin glow."

While overexposure to the sun ages skin, many protective products can cause another issue acne. Fifer suggests looking for sunblock that contains zinc and titanium, which protect without clogging pores.

You fall asleep with your makeup on, what's the big deal? "Never, never, never!" says Fifer. Even if it's only a rare occurrence, the problems can cascade into your complexion for a week. To avoid a skin-care nightmare, be sure to wash your face before you head to bed.

Don't skimp on sleep. "Skin repairs itself at night," says Fifer. "If you're routinely sleepdeprived, your complexion will show it." Get the beauty sleep you deserve and you'll wake up to better skin.

When was the last time you threw out your make up? Don't hang on to beauty products if you don't use them frequently. Since your fingers are usually your applicator, bacteria build up fast in bottles and in makeup sponges, then end up on your face. As a rule of thumb, Fifer suggestions tossing foundation out after six months.

•Agbani Darego

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

43

Social KAYODE ALFRED

(E-mail: kayflex2@yahoo.com, Tel: 08035733605, 08099400057)

Data Okorodudu's new lease of life

L

OSING her husband Jeye Okorodudu over a year ago to cancer, Data Okorodudu has been through the topsy-turvy road of life. Definitely a beauty any day, Data is frontline designer who has gradually become a fixture in the Nigerian fashion scene.

Creative beyond measure, the wellshaped mother and grandmother is back on the scene after her forced hibernation due to the untimely death of her loving husband.

Her fashion outfit, JD7 is one that possesses the unique ability to change with time.

While she has been on for five years, Data has managed to stake her claim as one of the best around. Her name, gradually becoming a household name is firmly taking root in a sure and steady way.

Jd7 is broadening its horizon and expanding as they now stock ready-towear collections.

Fair-skinned with enviable pedigree, the Rivers State-born Data is doing all it takes to take the outfit to the next level.

At the time of Jeye's death in December 2010, he was the CEO of Adata Group, and he had business interests raging from oil and gas, telecommunications to banking. He was one of the directors of NNB International Bank. Jeye was also actively committed to the Lagos Energy project before his demise.

Dayo Benjamin-Laniyi gives back to society

D

AYO Benjamin-Laniyi the lady behind events management company Doxa Digital is fast becoming a motivating force in the capital city. Better known for her sublime skills as a compere/master of ceremony, this time last year the celebrity compere fondly called DBL by admirers organized the Purple Valentine show in conjunction with a youth organization No Compromise Club to raise awareness on the need to remember the forgotten in society during valentine.

The Purple Valentine show paraded stars like Ali Baba, Yinka Davies and Darey Art -Alade on stage with Nollywood power couple Joke Sylva and Olu Jacobs, along with Chika Okpala of the News Masquerade fame, dishing out advice on relationships. The show raised funds to ensure a medical outreach for the elderly which was spear-headed by DBL and the No Compromise Club becomes an annual affair. Asides the laudable venture, DBL worked on Abuja Collabo Project CD. Among sponsors and participants were Samsung, Styl-Plus and Naydo who lent their talent to the much talked about project.

Presently, the newest thing from DBL is yet another collaborative effort tagged the Ahenna Nigeria song for peace for which she paired up with the famous choir of the Abuja Metropolitan Music Society (AMEMUSO) and children from topnotch school for silver spoon kids the Premier Academy. Guests from all walks of life graced the command performance of the Ahenna Nigeria song held at the Congress Hall of Transcorp Hilton, the venue for meetings of the Throne Room Parish of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, stewarded by DBL's hubby Pastor Tunde.

It was a mega event as the entire hall was draped with the country's national colours, green and white. Singer-photographer, TY Bello was among the large crowd who graced the event.

Mofe Oyatogun not in a hurry

M

ANY in Lagos social circles may not have forgotten so soon the unsavoury break-up of the popular radio presenter Mofe Oyatogun, the loveable daughter of ex-NTA Sport broadcaster, Walter Oyatogun and Mohammed Grima. The couple broke up after years of a marriage that produced a child. After the marriage that lasted for just a fleeting moment of happiness, the couple found out so many unpalatable things about each other and instead of settling everything amicably, they decided to take the matter to the court for adjudication.

Instead of empathy, they drew opprobrium for dragging their family names in the mud and for tainting the hallowed marital sanctum.

Since none of them was ready to shift ground, the vacated office, the Economic and Financial Crimes court agreed to Commission (EFCC) arrested Bankole and his erstwhile their prayer for a deputy, Bayero Nafada, and charged them with sundry divorce. offences bordering on corruption. Last week, an Abuja The marriage High Court held that the former Speaker of the House of had run its full Representatives, Dimeji Bankole, and his erstwhile course. Well, after deputy, Bayero Nafada, have no case to answer in the storm raised by respect of a charge of their separation which illegally obtaining a they celebrated in the loan of N38 billion from media, Mofe is getting United Bank for Africa her groove back.

(UBA) for the payment According to one of her of an enhanced package friends who spoke with and running cost for Society Circuit anonymembers of the House mously; she is no lonof Representatives. ger sulking or whining Before the duo of and pining over her Gbemi and Dimeji failed marriage. She has vacated their posts of now bounced back on t h e power, they stuck social radar. Another source also together and Dimeji informed SC that Mofe is no longer was a regular face at in a hurry to settle down. Not that she is not Gbemi's home. The two getting any suitor: but she has had her heart presently seem not to broken many times. She is very busy at the be as close. m o m e n t with her career.

Between Gbemi Saraki and Dimeji Bankole

I

T seems the friendship between Dimeji Bankole and Gbemi Saraki is on hold right now at least, that's what it seems like since the two are always so far apart now.

A time was when the two top politicians were virtually inseparable. While Senator Gbemi was a member of the Senate, Dimeji Bankole was the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and many believed this further cemented the cordial relationship between the two.

Since she lost in the last gubernatorial elections and failed to become the first female governor of Kwara, it seems she has slowed her roll. The fact that Dimeji Bankole, is currently not the speaker might have put on hold their budding friendship.

Just after Dimeji

44

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Glamour

& At Kemi Nelson’s OLUSEGUN RAPHEAL (08033572821) raphseg2003@yahoo.com

daughter’s wedding

F

ORMER Lagos State Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation Chief (Mrs) Kemi Nelson and her husband Adeyemi Nelson last week Thursday hosted dignitaries from all walks of life as their daughter Adetoun and Oluwole Popoola unite in a traditional marriage among the personalities that witnessed the event were Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Aremo Olusegun Osoba, Ogun State First Lady Mrs Funsho Amosun, Hajia Bola Shagaya, Alhaji Lai Mohamed, Senator Olorunnibe Mamora, Amb. Musiliu Obanikoro among others, the event was held at Haven event Centre Oba Akinjobi way G.R.A Ikeja. Lagos.

•Bride's parents Chief and Mrs Nelson

•Couple, Adetoun and Oluwole Popoola

•Sweet Sensation bosses, Mr and Mrs Kamson

•R-L: Mrs Funsho Amosun, Olori Labisi Tejuosho, and Olori Yetunde Tejuosho

•L-R: Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Aremo Olusegun Osoba

•L-R: Alhaji Lai Mohammed and Sen. Olorunnibe Mamora

•L-R: Hajia Abah Folawiyo and Mrs Yewande Onilere

•Alhaji Rasak Akanni-Okoya and wife Shade •General and Mrs Alani Akinrinade (rtd)

•L-R: Alhaji Musiliu Smith and Jagun Lekan Alabi

•Admiral and Mrs Jubril Ayinla

FROM THE CAMPUS PAGE 46

THE NATION SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Thank You Djokovic! Thank You Nadal!! WHAT A FINAL!!!

• Novak Djokovic

I

With Prof. Emmanuel Ojeme

F you were not glued to the television from 9.30 am to 3.30 pm last Sunday then you missed what has arguably become the best grand slam final in the 44 years of the Open era.

It was exciting for the sponsors and fans when the top 2 players in the world made it to the final and it was going to be very difficult to call this one. Nadal came in as a wounded lion after losing in his last 6 meetings against Djokovic. When better than a grand slam final to prove to the world the reason he has 10 grand slam trophies in his cabinet? And the show began with Rafa drawing first blood. He took the first set 7-5. By the 3rd set it was advantage Novak but Nadal showed us the fighter we have always known him to be.

At the beginning of the 4th set it seemed like it was going to be the same old story between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal but boy do things take a turn! Nadal fought his way back into the match. It ended up being the longest match in grand slam history in the Open era for a final. Just a few minutes under 6 hours, yes 6 hours of play as Novak Djokovic successfully defend his OZ

open title with a win over Rafael Nadal 7-5 in the 5th set. Absolutely unbelievable tennis, will and guts from both players, it was too bad that somebody had to lose. I stood on my feet and gave both players a standing ovation even though I was nowhere near Melbourne Park.

It is now eight consecutive titles won by both Rafa and Novak, the last player aside from these 2 guys to win a slam is Roger Federer at the 2010 Aussie open. Nadal has now lost 7 consecutive finals against Djokovic. How will this affect him mentally, can he erase this loss in a few weeks and move on?

However, it’s just fascinating to have 3 great players, all still better than the rest, and one succeeding the other.

Usually when a champion gets beaten consistently, like Nadal and Roger have been, it's a sign their skills are fading and they start losing to everyone.

Not Roger or Nadal. They are still at the top of their game, and it's just Novak is on top of THEIR game. No doubt Djokovic is the best player in the world right now but I still think Federer is a rare specie like Agassi; the only guys to slug it out with guys 5-6 years younger,

point, he grinned. Too long," he said. "Only the highlights."

Nadal fans believe though that it was a very close one and that Nadal has closed the gap on Novak and that it is only a matter of time before he starts to win matches against the Joker again. If this is only based on that final then I wonder cause we need to take in account a few things... like the fact that Djokovic appeared to be having problems breathing throughout the week, that he had just been on court 5 hours against Murray just 2 days earlier, that Rafa had an easier road to the final and an extra day off.

I realise it was an amazing final, extremely entertaining. But Djokovic played a bad first set; I wouldn't say that Rafa has found the solution. The fact is that Djokovic should have won that 4th set on multiple occasions. Had he been fresh and been able to finish last season healthy we all know he would have made quick work of Nadal.

I'd like to think that the Novak vs. Rafa rivalry will heat up this year and be more competitive, but I only see the gap getting bigger. The fact that Novak didn't go away in the 5th set when he had so many chances to close it out in 4 and that he had been on court for 10 hours in 54 hours tells you more about Novak than it does about Rafa.

How could the Nadalites not applaud Djokovic's magnificence even as they were torn by Nadal's misery?

All I know is that I am happy I watched the entire match and it certainly is the best final I ever saw, even better than Rafa vs. Roger (2008 Wimbledon), Rafter vs.

Ivanisevic (2002 Wimbledon) and this is not only based on the match duration, but the will, the determination, the physical, the mental, the array of shots, the skills…..Thank you Novak, thank you Rafa….both winners on the day.

only time will tell if Nadal and Djokovic will play this level of tennis at age 28-30.

When Novak won his first grand slam title at the Australian Open in 2008, some people thought it was a fluke.

I hoped that it wasn’t another case of Marat Safin, Andy Roddick or more recently, Juan Martin Del Portro (all one slam wonders).

At this rate, within the next few decades, we will have multiple career slammers as Novak is on course but then when too many people win all slams, it is not "compelling" anymore. Probably not good for the sake of the sport in long run either.

How many all-time greats can we possibly have? Back in 90s, winning all slams on different surfaces was a holy grail of tennis. Today it is still a monumental task but not as hard or rare as before.

Is it a coincidence that we are about to have 3 different individuals winning all slams within the last decade?

The men’s final was so breath-taking that it has over shadowed the women’s. The ladies final only lasted 1 hour and 20 minutes with Victoria Azarenka winning her maiden grand slam title and becoming world number 1 also.

This also brings me to ask the question, is equal pay in grand slams fair, considering that the men play best of five sets and the women, best of three? I honestly don’t agree, I believe in equal work, equal pay. ... If men play 3-5 sets women should do as well. I HATED that the SharapovaAzarenka final lasted so little, and the men's final lasted like 4 women's.

Looking back at the men’s final, when someone asked Nadal whether he would sit down and watch • Novak Djokovic of Serbia hugs Raphael the match at some Nadal of Spain after his men's final match

All hands on the deck

T

HE 2012 Olympic Games is around the corner and Nigerian athletes are in desperate need for training support. As is always the case, this training support is never proactively available not due to the fault of NSC. Consequently, no solid preparation for the games seems to be visibly on ground. Meanwhile, some other participating countries are in advance stages of their preparations.

This has prompted the Delta State Government to release the sum of N25 million to support the training programmes of Blessing Okagbare and some other indigenes of Delta State who are preparing for the games.

This is commendable but can Delta State alone carry the burden of Nigeria’s preparation for the Olympic Games and indeed of Nigerian sports? What are the issues?

It is well known that the Olympic Games has a fouryear cycle. The conclusion of one Olympic Games marks the beginning of the preparation for the next Olympics.

In fact, following the end of one Olympic Games, all other national and international sporting programmes are aimed at peaking in the next Olympics. The tragedy of Nigerian Sports is that every Olympic Games catches up with us in our bed rooms snoring and unprepared.

Delta State which is a chip of the old Mild-West, the home state of foremost Nigerian Sports pioneer, Harding Ekperigin, Dr. S.O. Ogbemudia, Dr. Awoture Eleyae, Dr. Omo-Osagie and many remarkable athletes, is never caught in its bedroom snoring when the Olympic bell is ringing.

Through the instrumentality of its sports organisational structure, the appropriate man power it has, and the right political ideology of sports of the state government, it continues to bail out the national athletes as they prepare for international sports engagement.

Blessing Okagbare, the successor of Mary Onyali and others, is indeed more important to me than the entire Nigerian male and female football teams put together because of her medal potential at the Olympics. Does the Nigerian Olympic committee recognise this fact?

Does the National Assembly know this fact? Indeed does the presidency even recognise this fact?

So, we must appreciate the Delta State government for doing the right thing and hope that others will follow this example.

Why will the Federal Government change Sports Ministers as a beauty queen changes her dresses.

Secondly, why does the Federal Government continue to appoint sports Ministers who do not seem to have any indepth knowledge of sports epistemology, particularly in between, Olympic Games?

Having to change Ministers in between Olympic Games is antithetical to effective prepa- • Blessing Okagbare ration for the Olympic Games.

This is another reason why the Olympic Games Catches us in our bedrooms snoring and unprepared. We need to change our strategy in this regard.

We do not need more than one Sports Minister per Olympic cycle. Such disposition would enable more effective preparation for the Olympics.

Secondly the appointment of green horns as sports minister and more so from regions that are backward in Sports is an indication of the low rating of sports as a development component of our nation. There is a limit to political balancing in professional issues.

All hands must be on deck to ensure that we salvage our preparation for the Olympics. Delta State Government has set the ball rolling and I extend my congratulations to its leaders, hoping that others would emulate this example. May Blessing Okagbare and her team make Nigeria proud in the 2012 Olympics.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

47

VOL 1 NO. 037

Professionalism in Advertising A

T the last Annual General Meeting of Agency Heads (in representation of practitioners in advertising and marketing communication 2010) at Ijebu-Ode, I was one of those pushing for a collective effort at sanitizing the profession of non-professionals in advertising, but the major concern at that meeting is the growing consequence and incidence of non- professionals involved in the provision of “advertising”, services and unregistered practitioners. It wasn't the first time this issue has been considered but at the 14th AGM of Association of Advertising Agencies in Nigeria AAAN, 2011, at Ijebu-Ode, concern grew much more; the interference of non-professionals in advertising is growing in extent and consequence, and regulatory authorities and registered professionals need to take a more pragmatic measures to check them.

We appreciate the immediate past AAAN leadership led by Mr. Funmi Onabolu, for the much they did to lay the legal framework that will enable measures that should properly curtail these non-professionals. We also want to believe the present leadership of Rufai Ladipo and his team members will drive through the process as started by the last administration. By and large the business community, the public and advertising practitioners will gain from a properly run advertising and brand management industry.

The critical distinction is between (a) non-professional service providers within the industry and (b) the trained and registered professional service providers. As a service industry, it lends itself to professional and ethical compromises from wannabes, and that has continually been a major obstacle in the business and practice of advertising in the market. Interestingly, the non-professionals have grown to become market leaders in volume and value terms. By reason of ignorance and corruption this class of service providers tends to do more business than the trained professionals.

The advantage they enjoy is only as a result of insincerity, and as mentioned above, corruption. Basically, advertising is an intellectual property-based market. From brief taking and appreciation through research/ planning and concept generation, creative production to campaign execution, the profession draws a lot from intellectual capacity and good quality of professional experience to enable expected results. Advertising is as peculiar in nature and character as accounting, engineering, for instance. The difference in comparison between advertising and the others as mentioned above is that the consequence of failure due to unprofessional involvement is more immediate in those others than would be made manifest in advertising. Yet, the consequence of failure in unprofessional engagement of advertising is quite huge.

Characteristic of advertising as a profession, so much of ancillary inputs not quite demanding of high level intellectualism are permitted, mostly at production and process management, that tends to make the core offer possible for anybody to deliver on. I have read people refer advertising as talent-based. That immediately explains why so many non-professionals consider it an easy area to prey in. It is common place to now find photographers take on brand management briefs because they have worked with advertising agencies at photography sessions in the process of generating press ad materials, calendars, outdoor advertising materials, and the likes. In some other instances, voice-over artistes run around as one-man advertising agency, only because they have had to voice scripts for radio or TV commercials. It is even worse with some other categories of intruders who have

not even worked in an agency environment, but have had to provide ancillary services, such as providing models.

Yes, some model managers do big time advertising.

But we must appreciate advertising as highly demanding of intellectualism and professionalism. We are here avoiding mentioning Brands Management, to simplify this topic, but advertising is a major aspect of Brands Management. If we appreciate advertising as mind-conditioning, it would be better perceived as highly demanding on professionalism and intellectual inputs. It is erroneous to leave advertising to mere talent show. And we think that is the reason why some brands fall in the hands of artistes and home video actors. We have dwelt on the consequence of wrongly applying the concept of brand ambassadorship on this page; quite erroneous, we must say.

Professionalism is about practice, method, character; it is about demonstration of a profession. Every profes-

80% on the extent and quality of creative and strategic input. A senior colleague once lamented a very ugly situation where a brief from one of these government departments landed on his table. The challenge was enormous, knowing that these public affairs/ press relations people in government departments and agencies are not trained to write advertising briefs. After toiling on concept generation, creative planning and execution through to production of campaign materials, one joker appeared on the day of presentation after client's approval, as the media buyer. What an assault on sensitivity.

Leg-men and jobbers are most guilty of this act; they thrive in the connection they have with heads of public relations department, corporate affairs department and such offices in charge advertising, in government departments and some private companies. Their patrons appreciate their constraints, but make up for them by either awarding these jokers the contract to get “who can do it

sion is based on a safe level of training, internalized values and a commitment to certain degree of practice. Therefore, to be professional exerts some expectation on training and practice over time. It follows, therefore that every profession requires training, commitment and practice.

The need to check the activities of non-professional service providers in advertising is not so much as the financial gains and consequences, but the danger it poses on quality and effectiveness of creative and advertising products.

Advertising is evidently most profitable at the media buying end but certainly more intellectually demanding at the level of concept generation and production. The trend therefore is that these non-professional service providers get involved at that stage of execution (media buying they can not even manage media planning and effective deployment because even those value points are beyond their intellectual capacity). Brand owners must realize that the media is only as good as the message content, in advertising. A successful advert campaign rests

for you” team. All they do is to wait for media money.

The most worrisome aspect of this whole compromise enterprise is its promotion of ignorance, deceit and disrespect for intellectual input in brands message communication. In a bid to make money, these traders/hostlers either pay rookies for creative designs (these designs are not based on campaign-able concepts) or just go ahead to try their untrained hands; whatever they come up with is approved because their “client's” focus is on the money in view. Consequently, most of the advert messages published/broadcasted today are flat on creativity, strategy and concept. The process of developing an effective campaign can only be truly managed by trained professionals.

Apart from communicating effective advert messages, adverts are also educative and informative in function. Like a well-written news item, every advert message put on broadcast should educate the passive audience, inform the primary target audience and persuade the secondary target audience. It takes a very good quality advert message to achieve all of the above, not to mention the attempt of non-professionals. At the end of the day, brands that patronize non-professionals are the biggest losers; they fail to communicate, miss out on consumer connect and offend good senses. As professional body, AAAN is challenged but advertisers must begin to take seriously the need to patronize professional brand managers/advertising agencies for such services. Let us go back to the days of systematic appointment of agencies through pitch, where a number of professional advertising agencies are made to make presentation towards wining businesses/accounts. That was a filtration process that went a long way to promote very good professional standard among practitioners. It also involved and challenged managers from the clients' side because writing a brief to agencies demands a certain level of professional competencies. Because of prevalent compromises, mostly on the brand's side, most corporate or brands management departments today are manned by those who at best simply acquainted with advertising language, end of story.

We must go back to professionalism if brands are to optimize return on advertising spend, if brands messages development, production and communication are to be effective and if the consumer public is to be properly informed. We are all losers if we keep permitting mediocrity for immediate and personal monetary gains.

48

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

H

OW did you get into the research consultancy business?

Parenting is on the job training

When I graduated from the University of Ife, now called Obafemi Awolowo University, where I read Urban and Regional Planning, I got my first chance to work with an agency. As time went on, I found that I really wanted to help women and the golden opportunity came when an American-based international agency, under the United States International Agency for Development (USAID) was looking for a Programme Officer. I actually did not see the advert but my husband did and since he knew that I had been waiting for that kind of opportunity, he put in an application for me before he even came back home from work. It was when he came home that he told me about it and I thought it was lovely. Sometime later, I was called for an interview and I got the job.

However, the offer came at a time that I did not want to work because I had been married for three years and I was pregnant and it was a bit difficult but they gave me room to work at my pace which was really good. I became a As the Chief Executive officer of Programme Officer in 1996 and I was to Auricles Services (LLC) one of develop proposals, programmes, merge Nigeria's pioneer research, agendas and look for more opportunities to invest in and then I discovered that after we evaluation and monitoring had done all of the above we were not able to consultancy firms, Toyin Akpan has demonstrate results and so I mentioned it to a blazed a trail of success worthy of couple of people and USAID was interested in it and that was how I got into monitoring emulation. In this interview with and evaluation. Some organisations sent me Rita Ohai, she speaks on family, some assistance to help me set up a structure and that was how I started with the Center for growing her business and the Development and Population Activities values that have sustained her (CEDPA). From CEDPA my interest in through the years Research, Monitoring and Evaluation grew.

Who can you say has influenced you in your career?

At that point, some people observed that I probably had some skills in turning very come to the house to work and that was how complex situations into simple ones that my company was born. I started out with people could relate with but I had one Multiserve Consults which is a name I challenge...I was not very articulate because I adopted from my husband's company could go in one direction today and go in because everybody kept asking me to get a another the next. So the organisation I was company name but by the time we had so working with felt, if they trained me, I would many jobs, the small room was no longer get that settled and that was how I met, convienient and we had to bid for a job which Mothomoke Ehomba. One of the best trainers stated that we must have a well established ever. She was based in The Gambia but she is office before we were qualified to bid. an indigene of Rwanda. She spoke French all It became an issue. I wanted a quiet place so the time but she was a wonderful trainer. So I went to her and told her that I wanted to be I got one which I paid for. I lost the bid and like her and she said 'If you are interested and then after one year, I had to go and collect my you are ready to be pushed, yes, I will try.' money forcefully, with the help of a lawyer From her, I learnt that you could pass on your (she laughed). I eventually secured my knowledge and skills in a very structured current office and then got to bid for another manner. My target at that time was to get my job and I discovered that my discription of Country Director, Dr. Enyantuk Ifiene, to services under Multiserve Consults would present with the fluidity of former President not really fit what they wanted. I told my Clinton and we were able to achieve that lawyer about it and he suggested that we because he got to speak at an event on Family inauguarate another one and so we created Auricle Services which is now a Limited Health with Clinton.

Liability Company (LLC).

How did you start this agency?

What are some of the successes you have As my children grew older and the project I recorded? was running at Vision was rolling to an end, One is that, I can confidently say that I don't my children started complaining. They would say things like 'Mummy, why must know many agencies that are set up to render you travel for work all the time? Can't you be Monitoring and Evaluation services to the at home like every mummy? Why can't you development sector and from there several come for my school meetings, must it be others have started. Prior to that, I remember daddy all the time?' I was taken aback and I when a senior colleague told me that after a would not trivialise my husbands suppport while, all of these feelings will die down and but I think at that time, he also wanted his you would have to go begging to get jobs. I wife at home so I decided to take a break from began to pray and I have never tried to do work in October of 2004 for five months, I anything without knowing that God wants me to do it. It was clear that this was the right was a full time housewife. way to go and so many years down the line,

By February, I was bored so after a trip I the feeling is still fresh and what that Aunty made to Calabar, I struck a deal with my said has not been the case because my family which allowed me to travel for one clientele has week and then changed over the stay home for the ...For a young woman, you can't y e a r s a n d n e w next three liens are still be anything of substance unless ccoming weeks. That was in. I have how I started you know who you are and you learnt new skills consulting for and I have been clients. My son can not know yourself unless you able to aplly those gave up his room discover who you were meant to skills. for me to use as Another thing be and that discovery is not an office to show that I have found me how serious found in the noisy places, it is very successful, he was about apart from the found when you are quiet with having me stay at money that I have home. I got my yourself and your Maker made, is that I have first set of staff to

Working life

been able to inspire many young people to take on different components of my profession and many more people are now going for degree courses in this area. I have trained thousands of people and out of that I can point at several people who havegoneahead to do more fantastic jobs and are now working on different countries. That makes me happy and I feel good that I have contributed to the sector.

Could you highlight some of the challenges you have faced in running this company?

The major challenge that I have had is that there is only one Toyin but there are so many expectations. Sometimes, I can be so overwhelmed. Sometimes, I do not sleep very well and sometimes it tell on my life but it humbles me also. I try to do the much I can do and I have learnt from well-meaning friends who have told me to prioritize and know when to say 'No' very nicely especially when I can not bear it.

The other challenge is financial, and this is for the benefit of those that want to go into this kind of business, the cash flow in consulting is not as fluid as the cash flow in sales. So half of the time when you are contracted there is no money that is involved in mobilisation so you need to finish up the job before you can get paid. You need to find a way of sequencing and scheduling all your activities so that as one job finishes, you are moving into the next. That way when the delays come, which always comes for consultants, you will have some cash somewhere that you can use to run your business and that keeps your mind at peace.

How do you manage your running a business and keeping your family happy?

Parenting is on the job training and the only thing I think has been constant is communication and the willingness to give in so we always negotiate. I think the whole bit of managing the home front boils down to communication. My children are now in boarding school but when they were much younger and I had to move the office outside my home, I let them know the situation on ground. My driver would pick them from school and bring them over to the office. My kitchen at the office was fully set up so I was able to provide for them and they were able to do their lessons and when everybody was ready, we would go home together. They had a lot of uniforms so we did not have to wash

everyday. We tried to look at what would make things easy for all of us and then we worked at it. For the times that I needed to travel, I made sure that things were well sorted out so that they could do things by themselves. I taught them how to do things that they needed to do and their Daddy was always there to handle the children.

If you were not in the consulting and humanitarian sector, what would you be doing?

I would be lecturing! Definitely! I wish I can lecture now, if I have so many interns who work for me. People come in and go and I try to teach. I feel like if I have the opportunity to just be in a lecture room and give some of the things I know, seen, tried and worked on, it would be wonderful.

If you were to speak to a group of young women, what advice would you give them?

I am a God-fearing woman. I will say that for a young woman, you can't be anything of substance unless you know who you are and you can not know yourself unless you discover who you were meant to be and that discovery is not found in the noisy places, it is found when you are quiet with yourself and your Maker. You will find strenght and a sense of purpose. Once you have found that, everything else makes meaning otherwise when chalenges or difficulties come, you will run in different directions.

Know why you are who you are, recognise what you can do for yourself and do not try to be anybody else. Have your own plan and do not follow somebody elses plan and then appreciate yourself for who you are. Love yourself and find something about yurself that you really like. People have told me that I make things really simple and I have experienced it and I delight in taking challenges that help me use that skill.

To your partner, its a learning game because you are both changing. I have been with the same man for thirty-one years and we have been married for nineteen years and that is a long time. We knew each other when we were just babies. We went to the same school. But as time goes on, its different because there are changing circumstances and environment and so what I have always done is to take it one day at a time. If I hurt you, I do not let it see another day and it does not go down with the sun and the next day we can have new experiences and from there we will move on.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

New WOMAN

49

Going through your spouse's phone…how wise is it?

E

VER tried to catch a cheating partner or sate a gnawing sense of mis-trust between you and your spouse by checking through their phones? If the answer is 'Yes', not to worry you are not alone as the act of flipping through the text messages, phone contacts or e-mails of a spouse has become common place among dating and married couples.

This habit, in many cases, has become either the grounds for trust building or the source of confusion, hurt and betrayal. The moral stand behind this trend has been widely debated among individuals.

Sharing his opinion, Chirs Wogwu, a Civil Engineer states, “I know that most people say that it is wrong to look through your babe's phone but everyone does it. I can almost definitely tell you that our girls do it to us anytime they get the slightest chance. They will check the phone the minute you enter the toilet to ease yourself but the second they hear that your are coming back, they will arrange themselves and pretend like nothing has happened but all na lie”.

He stated further, “As a sharp guy, if you know you want to do 'side runs', you will know how to code the babe's name so that you can cover your tracks because whether you like it or not, that girl that you think is an angel is collecting money for recharge card and lace wig from at least three different sponsors (men).”

Titi Idowu who serves as a |Customer Care representative in one of Nigeria's leading banks, tries to analyze this from both sides of the coin: “This is a hard one.

Some people will say it's an invasion of privacy, but I also believe if one has nothing to hide then they have no big deal with having an "open" phone. I have one friend who felt the same way about her boyfriend and she found out she was wrong with her suspicions. Her boyfriend wasn't mad that she was insecure about it though since it was early in the relationship.

“But I've had two friends whose boyfriends always protected their phone or they were protective with their email and something fell off with the situation.

In both cases, they took the opportunity to snoop--and sure enough in both cases, they found out their boyfriends had other girlfriends. Both of them said they had this nagging suspicion something was

By Rita Ohai

up. So I guess it plays both ways,” she finished.

Although the trend of playing the peeping Tom with our partner’s phone seems to be a growing especially with the introduction of smart phones which grant users access to e-mails as well as social media account, this habit has been tagged by some as an invasion of personal space.

Information Technology specialist, Dimeji Yusuf, who is married with three children posits, “My thing with women who sneak and look at their husband's phones, emails or whatever is that after they have gotten confirmation of what they were suspecting, they are scared to say anything or even leave the relationship. So what's the point? Don't go looking for something that you are not

ready to find the answer to.”

In the same vein, Grace Enakhomion, a hair stylist and student of the University of Benin, expresses, “I think it's extremely rude to go through someone's phone. I had an 'ex' do it to me and I didn't find it funny because I had never done it to him. It was not like I was seeing anyone else but I just said a lot about how little trust we had in that relationship and since the day he went through my phone without finding anything there, he began monitoring my movement till I could not take it anymore and I left. I just think doing that shows a person's level of insecurity.”

Speaking from a point of experience, Blessing Okorie says that giving your spouse access to your phone shows a high level of maturity and grows the trust between both parties: “I look through my husband's phone once in a while because as a human being I can be curious sometimes but it does not mean I don't trust him. I don't look through every text message or all of his contacts

but I feel like since we're married, we should have nothing to hide from each other. Of course he knows when I look through his phone and isn't bothered by it and I don't mind him looking through mine, if he really wants to. I guess it's just the comfort level a couple has in their relationship to be open enough to do that. I also strongly believe that for my husband to be unmoved by the fact that I go through his phone shows his level of maturity and that kind of honesty is not something that is common.”

Validating Blessings point, Yvonne Akpan, a cosmetic and jewelry sales woman who is set to walk down the isle with her fiancé says, “I go through my fiancé's phone and it is not an issue between us. He goes through mine too, because neither of us have anything to hide. I know he texts other girls and he knows I text other guys. Sometimes, I'll read their conversations and laugh at what he has to say and he does the same with me so it's not an invasion of privacy.

Really!”

Building trust this Valentine

T

HE basis of most good relationships is trust. If you cannot trust the other person, then the relationship may never run very deep. Building trust takes time, especially when one or both parties have been hurt in the past and these are some tips to help set you on the right path in this season of love; 1. Be trustworthy in the little things.

The other person needs to be able to trust you in the little things before he/she is going to trust you with the big things. If a person cannot trust you to show up on time or remember to do something that you promised to do, why should they trust you with something more important?

building trust.

3. Share personal information about yourself. Relationships need to be two-way streets. Why should another person confide in you if you will not share personal information about yourself? If you want to build trust in a relationship, then you need to become vulnerable yourself.

with the people you love. If you want to build trust in a relationship, you need to spend time together. There is no replacement for spending face-toface time on a regular basis.

6. Apologize when you make a mistake. Nothing shatters trust faster than hurting the other person and then refusing to take responsibility for a 4. Do things that are in the best bad choice. Be willing to say "I'm interest of the other person. If you sorry" when you make a bad choice want to build trust, you need to make that hurts the other person choices that are beneficial to the other person and the relationship. Although the other person's needs should not always come before your own, you should recognize and meet them as frequently as possible, while balancing them out with your own needs.

2. Keep the other person's confidence. What a person tells you in 5. Spend time with the other person. a relationship needs to stay in that relationship. If you are a gossip, then In this era of text messaging and email, you are going to have a hard time it can be easy to spend very little time

50

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Arts & Life

SUNNY SIDE

Cartoons

By Olubanwo Fagbemi deewalebf@yahoo.com 08060343214 (SMS only)

POLITICKLE

Sunny Side interactive Once more, text messages from faithful readers and the writer’s response constitute the offering. The aim, as always, is to encourage and sustain the traditional serving of creative, light and sometimes satirical pieces in this space.

Re: The language debate

THE GReggs

I’VE just gone through your Sunny Side of last Sunday’s The Nation and I’ve been laughing all afternoon. Are you serious! By the time they are through with their madness, all will be chattering in German or Dutch! Have mercy! +2348055663554 Indeed, sir!

Hi sir/ma Olubanwo Fagbemi, I love your column (Sunny Side) in The Nation on Sunday but you have reduced your Humour end to just one joke instead of the four to six jokes it used to be. That’s not fair on your avid readers like us. Please o please, we want more. God bless. Shalom. +2348063744555 The initial format has since returned as you would have noticed. Until space is created to accommodate writing tips and other interesting bits without sacrificing regular material, humour will remain an essential aspect of the page.

Re: A study in contradiction

CHEEK BY JOWL

OH, LIFE!

Good day, Fagbemi. I trust you are doing great. I just read ‘A study in contradiction’. Quite hilarious. Could you please send me a soft copy?

Jude +2348034444406 The reader’s wish is the writer’s command.

Hello Mr Fagbemi, I just finished reading your article ‘A study in contradiction’ and am grinning from ear to ear! Great write up! +2348060384105 From time to time I grin too, in recollection of the material and others before then. Here’s hoping similarly pointed pieces continue to feature here.

Beautiful write up in ‘A study in contradiction’. I love it. Keep it up. +2348094736569 Thanks. Mission Possible.

Your position about the lunacy of the English Language is clearly incontrovertible going by the desultory and asinine manner in which words are coined.

Notwithstanding, your piece brought me the needed amusement in the face of the hullabaloo greeting the fuel subsidy removal. Well done.

Kola Olaniyi +2348068495313 Yes, down with fuel subsidy removal and its apologists; thumbs up, knowledge, culture, development and prosperity!

Though I read newspapers a lot this is the first time I’ve sent sms to a columnist.

Dear, your write up, ‘A study in contradiction’, was wonderful. In fact, you’re crazy.

Abass, Uyo +2347062175291 Crazy wonderful! But the honour is shared. Hats off to the writer, the source and the reader, yes, the reader without whose interest the column’s usual commitment to subtle humour would be futile.

Hello Mr Fagbemi, I was just reading your article on Sunny Side of The Nation of January 1, 2012 and I said to myself: wow. I want to let you know it’s certainly worth DIGESTING and certainly very USEFUL. Please keep it up.

M. Rabi from Edo State. +2348074959859 Your joy doubles the joy of being the medium for such inspirational delight. You shall be ever entertained, and so be it!

Re: Critical condition (Notice! Notice! Notice!)

Olubanwo, I admire your creativity. Your work has actually lit up my mood.

Keep it up. I had to notice the notices and respond to the notices.

Your fan in Calabar. +2347034399187 Great. I hope you also notice the pleasure attending this response.

Jokes Why They Work TWO rather tired construction workers were in the field on an extremely hot day working.

Pointing to the supervisor the first worker says to the other, “Hey, how come we do all the work and he gets all the money?”

The other says, “I don’t know, go ask him.”

So the first worker goes up to the supervisor and says, “Hey, how come we do all the work and you get all the money?”

The supervisor says, “Intelligence.”

The worker says, “What is this intelligence?”

The supervisor puts his hand on a tree and says, “Hit my hand as hard as you can!”

The worker winds up and with all his might tries to hit the supervisor’s hand. Just as he almost does the supervisor pulls his hand away and the worker hits the tree. The supervisor says, “That’s intelligence”.

Still smarting, the worker goes back to his co-worker and his co-worker says, “Hey, what did you learn?”

With a sheepish look on his face, the first

Caddy comments

worker puts his hand on his face and says, “Hit my hand as hard as you can.”

Captain’s Orders A MERCHANT captain and several of his officers were returning to the ship after a big night ashore. As they climbed the gangway the captain threw up all over himself. Pointing to an apprentice seaman above him he shouted, “Give that man five days in the brig for vomiting on me!”

The following morning the captain was checking the log and saw that the young seaman had been sentenced to 10 days and asked the chief mate why.

“Well sir, when we got you undressed we found that he’d also defecated in your pants.”

QUOTE

Before you criticise someone, walk a mile in his shoes. Then when you do criticise that person, you’ll be a mile away – with his shoes.

—Anonymous •Culled from the Internet

A game well-loved by the elite, golf can try the temper of the most gentle of folks. The following is a selection of actual conversation between golfers and caddies, the ever-present assistants who help to convey golf equipment while generally providing companionship – technical and otherwise – for the players. Here are different shades of insight into their relationship, which as the reader will note, can be quite revealing.

•Golfer: “Think I’m going to drown myself in the lake.”

Caddy: “Think you can keep your head down that long?”

•Golfer: “I’d move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course.”

Caddy: “Try heaven, you’ve already moved most of the earth.”

•Golfer: “Do you think my game is improving?”

Caddy: “Yes sir, you miss the ball much closer now.”

•Golfer: “Do you think I can get there with

a 5 iron?”

Caddy: “Eventually.”

•Golfer: “You’ve got to be the worst caddy in the world.”

Caddy: “I don’t think so sir. That would be too much of a coincidence.”

•Golfer: “Please stop checking your watch all the time. It’s too much of a distraction.”

Caddy: “It’s not a watch – it’s a compass.”

•Golfer: “How do you like my game?”

Caddy: “Very good sir, but personally, I prefer golf.”

•Golfer: “Do you think it’s a sin to play on Sunday?”

Caddy: “The way you play, sir, it’s a sin on any day.”

•Golfer: “This is the worst course I’ve ever played on.”

Caddy: “This isn’t the golf course. We left that an hour ago.”

•Golfer: “That can’t be my ball, it’s too old.”

Caddy: “It’s been a long time since we teed off, sir.”

THE ARTS

51

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

‘Why competition is good for literature’ H

OW and when did you start writing?

I have written three books published by Macmillan publishers. The first one that I wrote was for teenagers. It is entitled Honour and Friends, while the second book is Sissie. The third book is called Dupe. I used to write under the name Yemi Sikuade (my maiden name).

The first two books were written under the name Yemi Sikuade. Right now I am working on the fourth book which is entitled Adunni and I hope by next year 2013, I would have finished it.

I started writing when my first son was having difficulty in reading and I discovered then in 1978 that there were very few creative books for children.

I know that if you want to improve your English, the best thing is to read. And I wanted him to read to improve his English. So, I started writing for him. Later on, Macmillan advertised for authors. There was a competition and I entered for that competition with the book I wrote for my son. That was how I was published. It was Honour and Friends at that time. I dedicated it to my son. But I have been asked by many people how can they write; that they want to write. And I say that the best thing is to keep a diary.

If you keep a diary for six months by the time you go through it, you’ll discover that you have lots of stories to tell. And that is how you can start. So I have always wanted to encourage people to do that and apart from that to read a lot. A good writer should be able to read, read and read.

And also, reading will keep you out of mischief. It will transport you into another world, another person’s world, to be able to see what he is putting down for you to read. It is a fantastic thing if you can get yourself to read often.

You have come this far writing. What do

Yemi Kobiti – Babade was in 1979 awarded the best creative writer for teenagers by Macmillan Publishers.

Today, she has three novels to her credit. In this interview with Edozie Udeze, she talks about her writing career and why her upcoming book is entitled Adunni

• Babade

you think is the problem with the younger generation of writers?

The young generation of writers? Well, I will disagree with you there. They have improved, improved a lot. This is because they have access to this internet thing, the computer and thing s like that. And because of that, their scope is so wide. I was talking to Anote about

a person who wrote a book that is so funny and it shows how versatile young writers these days have become. They make proper use of what is available to them and write so well. I really appreciate the writers who are coming up now to take over from Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, Chukwuemeka Ike, Cyprain Ekwensi and others. These are our greatest

authors but there are some young ones coming up today who show the potentials to also be great.

Your generation seemed to be lucky because a writer like you would be picked and published by a big publishing house like Macmillan.

It doesn’t happen these days, why?

It is the culture, the Nigerian culture. You see a compound somewhere and inside it you see people sitting down telling stories. Nigerians are used to that; stories are told in different forms every time. So they don’t see why you should pay money to come and listen or tell your own story. So, people will wonder why they need to buy what you’ve written down when they have their own story and so on.

We are so creative in many ways. We also discussed why people should be going to cinema when you can see plenty of people at the bus stops. There you see a bus conductor slap somebody, pull his tie, and then a fight will start. You’ll see cinema uncensored. But as I said, we have to start with government. The government has to give award to students who could read four novels in two weeks.

Students in government schools can be encouraged to read more literature books. And the more one reads just like it was in our own time, the more one gets used to books.

And also literary competitions have to be in place. This will make people more eager to read because at the end of the competition, winners will be compensated. But government has to do it because like I said, our culture does not allow you to see the other person’s story as better than yours. But if we have somebody in government who appreciates all these, he will make all the difference. The person needs to encourage creative writing, competition and all that so that we will imbibe the culture of reading and writing. This is the way out.

Lagos life at Debonair “L ONDONLLIFE, Lagos living, is my story, it is my own way of telling the story of Lagos,” was how Bobo Omotayo opened the reading of his book last weekend.

The programme which took place at the Debonair Bookstores, Yaba, Lagos, was the 8th edition of the book and gauge book-reading organised by the management of Debonair. And the attendance truly proved that the younger generation of Nigerians are beginning to show interest in literature and literary issues.

The author of the book London Life, Lagos living Bobo Omotayo who spent most of his teenage years in the United Kingdom where his exposure to the outside world helped to pep up his creative skills, told the audience that writing tickles his fancy. To him,writing is one of the best ways of letting the world have a clearer view of events around the globe. “I am a DSTV generation,” he enthused, smiling profusely as he opened to chapter two of the collection of short stories.

“I am exposed to too much information. This generation has the good fortune to explore and play with so much information. This is what has helped me to write about this moment; this Lagos of my time. A lot has changed, so we were told but this is the Lagos of my time. What we see today is what we know of Lagos. In fact, the difference between it and London is not that much”, Omotayo explained.

He went on: “I wanted to give to the world

By Edozie Udeze

the true picture of Lagos that I know, portraying a city in its own glory, where everything can happen and changes can happen on a daily basis.

What are we really like in this momentous city called Lagos? Oh, yes, it is for me to demystify the fact that Nigeria is a crazy society where people hack on the internet. Internet hacking, or such, happens elsewhere; indeed it is a worldwide phenomenon. That is why I decided to write short stories embedded with graphic designs, pictures, images, et al, to show our environment, our own issues in story form,” the author said.

In the story entitled Love Nwantiti, he explores the possibility of a free Nigerian society in the throes of true love affairs involving the youths.

“In my teens, I thought women were all nags,’ he teased, sipping a glass of water. “But today, well, let me not discourage you, for the love that blossoms in the minds of the youths can never be quenched.” Omotayo makes use of conversation to bring out the beauty of his ideas. “I have been criticized severally for this, but I am being conversational in my works. It is my style; it is the way I have come to be,” he stated, slightly bemused as the audience reacted.

Chapter three opened with a question that has kept the author on edge over the years.

“What do you do for a living?” he asked, nodding his head. “This question has been asked me at several places and venues by friends and acquaintances. But at every point, I become un-

•Cross section of participants at the event (inset Omotayo)

settled. Why ask me the question? Must all of us be oil barons and merchants? No one ever asks you about your health or the like. For me, this is not fair. Next time when they ask you the same question, simply say: oh yes, I am into shit business. Shit business is good, it brings in big dough.” And the crowd laughed and clapped.

Other acts took place to spice the event.

Ndukwe Onuoha read a few lines from his poetry collection while Ese Peters played a few tunes to entertain the audience. Ese, indeed put in an interesting spin on his guitar-driven pop music.

Interestingly, in the past, Debonair had featured such great writers like Sam Omatseye, Akachi Ezeigbo, Seye Oke, Odili Ujubuonu and others.

52

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Arts/Reviews

Artistes as street voices

Musical musing on life issues

O

•L-R: Kan, Silva, Akinosho and Victor at the event.

Nigerian artistes gathered in Lagos last week to appraise their roles in street protests. Edozie Udeze was there

A

LL over the world, artistes are known for playing prominent roles in making the desired changes in the society.

They usually employ the tirades of creativity, fancy or lyrics to penetrate the conscience of the masses. Those of them who occupy enviable positions equally catch in on their popularity to win the masses over with their words and presence and artistic designs. This was what happened during the recent six-day protests in Nigeria over the removal of oil subsidy.

The organizers of the protests had nicknamed it Occupy Nigeria and many Nigerians arrived the different venues of the rallies in different forms and groups adorning themselves in all sorts of attires, posters and designs. These and more were the scenes captured by photographers, writers and visual artists who have used them to make historical statements on the state of the nation At the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) Yaba, Lagos, last week, artists from all genres gathered to review the role of artists in that epochmaking event that shook the nation to its foundation.

Already, some of the pictures are in place, while visual artists have almost got their own impressions on canvass. The idea of the evaluation exercise was to

give artists more insight into the place of visual and other forms of the art in the conscience of the nation.

Toni Kan, a journalist, said: “what happened was almost like a revolution.

Indeed revolutions start like this.

It was the most organized and executed of all the strikes so far in Nigeria. But it was the problems in other places in the world which Nigerians have been watching on TV that encouraged the people to come out en-masse. So, artists have used music and posters to make statements.

There, at the rally grounds, you could see images of different colours, bearing different messages, denouncing the actions of the government. For me that was the high-point of the potency of creativity.”

In her own contribution, Joke Silva, an actress, said: “oh, the strike was different from what we used to have.

For me the presence of artistes in their large numbers was no surprise.

You remember that during the Abacha and IBB regimes when the likes of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe led the protests, Nigerians came out to join them. Artists don’t usually sit idly by while the government takes people for granted. That was exactly what we did during the justconcluded occupy Nigeria protests.

“Artists did not want to sit down at home while Labour did it alone. They knew the role they play in the society. They realized too that they had to put into practice those things they write, or paint or sing about.

Even when Labour told people to go back to work, they were reluctant to do so”, Joke said, smiling for effect.

“If we had tightened the

PHOTO: EDOZIE UDEZE

noose on the government one more day, it would have crumbled. This was so because we were determined; we were prepared to do it. There is an endemic corruption in the system, and we needed to use the opportunity of the removal of oil subsidy to sort all that out. So give it to the artists for adding a lot of pep, colour and creativity to the event.”

Toyin Akinosho, a culture activist described the protest as a sign of more volatile issues to come. “No doubt, the Arab Spring gingered us on. People were angry, for here was a man all of us came out en-masse to vote in last year. We had expected so much from this clueless leader who did not want us to see the next day.”

The illustrations on Tshirts, on people’s bodies and so on, showed how creative Nigerians could be. The people were so organized that there were no cases of rape or molestations or fights. People came from various parts of Lagos on foot and in different groups to vent their anger on the leadership. A particular picture that touched the gathering was a Keke NAPEP tricycle that carried about ten passengers all the way from Ajegunle to Ojota.

It was reported that those people came to Ojota from Ajegunle just to be part of the fun. Also there were caricatures of bowler hats and those who wear it.

Most of the people involved in the oil subsidy palaver were cartooned to add colour to the protests.

Artists agreed to document all these illustrations and gimmicks for posterity. The pictures will form part of further discussions in the future.

Art-mos-sphere NLNG THE Nigeria Prize for Literature 2011 will be formally presented to the winner Adeleke Adeyemi tomorrow by the Nigeria LNG Ltd, organizers of the competition. The cer-

emony will hold at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) Victoria Island, Lagos at 10.00am prompt.

CBAAC CENTRE for Black and

African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC) will hold its annual Black History Month Lecture on February 28 at the University of Ibadan, Oyo State. The guest lecturer is Prof.

Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome of Brooklyn College, USA.

NE of the hallmarks of poetry is its mellifluous musicality. Any evocation of the mind shorn of a meaningful conflation of sound and an instructive symphony of message and medium cannot be categorised as poetry. No engaging, consequential poetry is without a skillfully organised violence on language. The noise of such poetry, to humour some critics, is even one of meaning.

It is against the backdrop of the foregoing observation that the worth of Idiong Divine’s Never Ending Poem can be established. Made up of about 34 uneven poems singing differing tunes about the unending and cyclical realities of life, the disciplined commitment of the poet in the knitting of the medial and end rhyme schemes of the work contributes no less in enhancing its musical quality. Some of the poems like “Verdure”, “The Crux of the Gospel” “Home Rhyme”, etc., are so carefully achieved through an adroit combination of strong and weak sounds that a reader may conclude that they are all attempt to play or amuse with sound

By Ademola Adesola

without any interest in passing any message.

But none of the poems here ultimately achieves that attractive feat of amusing entirely with honeyed sound without any message for the reader. Maybe this poet will write such poems some other day. It suffices to note that the poems here are as entertaining as they are didactic. The poem, “Never Ending Poem”, being the title of the entire collection, neatly sums up the effect that the other poems may likely have on the reader. The ringing paradox underlining it is fascinating.

No reader can fail to see that the poet is out to avail readers of “soul-searching and very revealing messages”. The didactic substances of the collection are much more available in “For Youths”, “If Only” (reminds one of the more challenging Rudyard Kipling’s “If”), “The FewWorded Storyteller”, etc.

Divine’s Never Ending Poem is not a book of poetry dealing with a central, organic issue. It is at best a hotchpotch or a compilation of varied issues that very often characterise human existence. In the words of the author, “they are artistically

rich, cutting across local and universal issues for the enlightenment and enjoyment of every reader”.

What is also remarkable about this collection is the m o m e n t o u s defamiliarisation of the familiar issues, albeit not true of all the poems. There is no doubt that school children will enjoy reading some of the poems which are rendered as narratives. But the chink in the armour of this collection is the lack of basic poetic elements in some of the poems. The Wordsworthian style noticed in some of the poems is not aptly appropriated.

Nonetheless, Divine’s musical musing on different realities of life has something in it for every consummate arty-farty mind.

Playing on societal mores

A

PERCEIVED useless man – drunken, slothful, derided in society, scorned by friends, and castigated as a nogooder. He seemingly carries on, despite knowing how strongly he is spited.

He also works a schedule.

And his son expect him to come home late, drunk as usual. However, that night, he was sober as he walked purposefully, methodically arranging the rope. But, just before the noose went around his neck, father and son stared at each other.

And with a resignation, knowing the son could have stopped him if he wanted, the father commits his last act. The story titled, ‘Father I’ is one of the ten stories in ‘Half This, Half That,’ a collection of short stories written by Tunde Salau.

The stories, which draw on societal mores, are racy, suspense-filled and keep the reader tuning pages. In the opening story, a new mother regaining consciousness asks for a bag, instead of her baby. This surprises the cleaner who is busy fumbling with the television in the room when she regains consciousness after childbirth. In her 15 years as a cleaner, this is the first time a mother would ask for a bag before. If only she knew what was inside, she would have understood her worry over the bag.

The second story, ‘The Landlord,’ tells of a landlord, who after a court experience with one of his tenant uses other crude means to eject debtor tenants. He insists, “My

By Joe Agbro Jr.

house is pay up or pack up.’

The drama brings a laugh.

In ‘Fool time’, the prospect of a better life stares at John, a struggling overaged footballer, from the booth of his friend’s car.

After a tiring football game which he lost, the sight of guns and ammunition clears the mystery which surrounded his friend’s sudden wealth.

In ‘Loved’, Marissa’s lust would not allow her to comfort Clara, her friend, whose marriage was interrupted at the altar by Cassandra, a Caucasian woman who claimed she and Lanre Adigun, the groom, were married and had a child together. As the chief bridesmaid, she should have been consoling her friend, but Marissa couldn’t resist the lustful pull of Richard, the grooms-man.

After all, wasn’t that what brought her from the United

States.

And in ‘Oily Mess’, the landlord dies of a heartattack while trying to question Andrew’s wealth.

And while the trio of Andrew, John, and Phillip attempt to dump the landlord’s body, they escape confrontation with the police only to have the BMW of Michael Adewale Thompson ram into them.

‘Nineteen’ gives a background on how Thompson made his money through cybercrimes popularly known as ‘419.’

One unique thread about the collection is the intertwining connections of some of the stories. In ‘2030’, a continuation of ‘Loved’, Lanre Adigun, whose marriage was crashed by the Caucasian woman in the church, is older. His philandering ways have however not changed. Hence, when his mulatto daughter arrives unexpectedly from abroad to seek out her father, Lanre believes she is just another ‘meat’ to satisfy his loins.

Also, in ‘At the Gate,’ Michael Adewale Thompson finds himself on a queue, about to be judged in what he understood as afterlife. This is sequel to ‘Nineteen’, ‘The Landlord,’ and ‘Oily Mess.’

Actually, Half This Half That comes across as a novella broken down into short stories. Considering that the author also works as creative director in an advertising firm, the spark behind the stories does not come as a surprise.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

53

Mothers who kill for honour —PAGE 55

A walking miracle After a ghastly motor accident, Tebekaemi Perekeme was unconscious for two months. He went under the knife eight times at various hospitals and was confined to a wheel chair for more than two years. Today, he is back on his feet inspiring others with his remarkable story of victory over death.

Vincent Nzemeke met him.

•The compressed vehicle

•Perekeme on a wheel chair.

I

F you call him a cat with nine lives, you will still be far from the point and underplaying the severity of his battle to stay alive. Tebekaemi Perekeme practically walked through the shadows of death five years ago when he was involved in ghastly motor accident along the Benin/Ore expressway. The accident which left him unconscious for two months and later confined him to a wheel chair for two years and nine months made walking an almost impossible dream for him. But like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Tebekaemi’s story took a dramatic twist when he rose to his feet after

his doctors had told him to perish the thoughts of ever using his legs again.

The near death expedition started on December 17, 2006 when he got his appointment letter as a lecturer at the Delta State University, (DELSU) Abraka. “I was working with an advertising firm in Lagos. I got my letter of appointment as a lecturer in DELSU and I was very happy. I told my boss about it and he said I could go. I worked till December 31 that year and he paid me off.

He even gave me some other bonuses for the end of year. I was born on January 1, so I took time out to celebrate my birthday and the new job with my family and friends and finally decided to travel to Abraka on January 7,

•Receiving treatment at Igbobi, Lagos.

2007”.

No tell tale signs Without any premonition of what fate had in store for him that Sunday, Tebe, as he is fondly called by friends, headed for a bus terminus in Mile 2 area of Lagos, ready to travel to Abraka. “I got to the park early and hoping to get a straight bus to Abraka. When I finally got a bus, the driver and a particular passenger quarrelled over an issue I can’t remember now. The driver was very annoyed that he swore never to drive the bus. I still remember him saying Ogun (Yoruba god of iron) should strike him dead if he drives the bus.”

Incensed by the driver’s statement, Tebe

alighted from the vehicle to look for another one. But his search was futile as there was no other bus going his route that day. He returned to the previous bus and joined other passengers as they tried to pacify the driver.

“After some people intervened in the matter, the driver calmed down and agreed to drive the bus.”

Like most travellers on the Benin/Ore expressway at that time, Tebe did not anticipate a smooth journey. The deplorable condition of the road at that time meant he and many other travellers on that route spend a better part of the day in transit.

•Continued on page 54

54

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Life •Continued from page 53

“We spent about 11 hours on the road that day. To avoid the gridlock the driver passed through some bush paths until we got to Okada in Edo State.”

Had he followed his inner voice, Tebe would have escaped the accident that almost took his life.

While waiting for the traffic to ease at Okada, he sighted one of his female friends in another vehicle that had space for one more passenger. “I wanted to join her because she would have taken me directly to the school. But I changed my mind when I saw that the traffic gridlock was clearing and vehicles were moving.”

From a short nap to two- month long sleep When the journey resumed, he and other passengers in the bus chatted for a few minutes before he fell asleep. What was supposed to be a nap became a deep sleep that lasted for two months. “After spending such a long time in traffic, I was very tired. I was sitting in front and had my seat belt fastened. I slept off and I didn’t open my eyes until two months later at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH) in Benin.”

After two months in coma, Tebe suffered amnesia. He was unable to recall anything until he was shown pictures of the accident which claimed the lives of 15 out of the 19 people in the vehicle. “I couldn’t remember anything until they showed me pictures of how I was dragged out of the compressed vehicle. The driver, the guy who quarrelled with him and some other people died on the spot. It was just four of us who survived. Officials of SAVAN, a medical emergency volunteer group that rescues accident victims said it was a headon collision along the Ovia River in Benin. The driver’s head was cut off and they didn’t recover his body until after two days. The other bus had 10 people and six of them died on the spot. So in all 21 people perished in the accident”.

But for providence and his determination to hang on, Tebe would have died while receiving treatment in UBTH. On many occasions, the doctors revived him only for him to go into coma again.

“I didn’t know what was happening. I was told that anytime the doctors revived me, I would be shouting, leave me alone, I’m travelling, I’m going to Abraka, I will not die and so many other jargons.”

When he finally became active, the doctors wasted no time to disclose the bad news. After some correctional surgeries and several attempts to get him back on his feet proved negative, the doctors confirmed that he may never walk again. They also told him to forget about using his right hand which was also broken in the accident.

“I spent seven months in UBTH. After the first five months, the doctors began ambulation, (the process of trying to make him stand).

I was taken to the gym many times and I kept on fainting anytime they tried to make me stand. Blood and pus would be gushing out of the

A walking miracle

•Perekeme receving treatment at UBTH, Benin

injuries and I will be feeling pains all over my body.”

Giving up at that point would have been the convenient thing for some people, but not Tebe. His ironclad determination kept him going in the face of his predicament.

“The first thing I did was to change my psychology. I saw the challenge as temporary and I was very optimistic that it could take time, but I will walk again. I knew I needed help from people to do everything at that point. I had people bathing me, feeding me and doing every other thing for me. I was wearing diapers and my sisters had to change them every now and then.”

The road to recovery was not that easy. At some point when his left hand, the only part of his body that was not affected in the accident, ceased, he was dejected and he cried for three days until a nurse at the clinic told him to change his mind set and think positive.

After seven months at UBTH, Tebe was discharged and had to put up with a relation in Benin.

His family members supported him and employed a nurse to dress his wounds. But when he was not responding to treatment after two months, he was taken to a specialist orthopaedic hospital in Benin where he stayed for another seven months. After seven months there, he returned to UBTH to begin the ambulation process again. When doctors at the hospital could no longer handle his case, he was referred to the orthopaedic hospital in Igbobi, Lagos where he spent another five months.

Miraculous return “At Igbobi, they hung my legs for four months hoping that it will join but it did not. When the doctor

“The first thing I did was to change my psychology. I saw the challenge as temporary and I was very optimistic that it could take time, but I will walk again. I knew I needed help from people to do everything at that point. I had people bathing me, feeding me and doing every other thing for me. I was wearing diapers and my sisters had to change them every now and then.”

assessed me, he told me my right hand was gone and nothing should be expected from there. He advised my family to get me a wheel chair because my legs were damaged beyond repairs.”

Few weeks later, Tebe returned home on a wheel chair with broken legs and a paralysed arm to continue his treatment.

Undaunted by his circumstances and the doctor’s report, he held on to his belief of walking again.

Even when the physiotherapist who was employed to massage his legs at home told him it would be impossible for him to walk again, he remained positive.

Exactly one year after his discharge from the Orthopaedic hospital, Tebe’s story took a miraculous twist. The right hand which had been paralysed for months suddenly began to move.

“I was sitting on the wheel chair in the sitting room one day when I heard a bang. No one touched me, but I felt an excruciating pain around my right arm and I shouted. I looked at my right hand and there was no blood. Something then told me to stretch it and I did only to discover that I could move around with ease. I’ve been a Christian from birth, but that was the first time I saw a miracle.”

That miracle marked the beginning of his full recovery. When he returned to the orthopaedic hospital for assessment, he told the doctors he wanted to stand. “They gave me a walking frame and I tried to stand. Although it was really painful that day, I ensured that I did and since then I vowed to stand every day till I can walk. The doctors were really amazed and everyone at the hospital agreed that it was a miracle”.

Impressed by his progress, the doctors recommended that he went in for another surgery to correct his limbs. With financial support from the Delta State Ministry of Health and the Delta State University Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), the eighth and final surgery was performed in India on December 22, 2010.

Now a lecturer in the Mass Communication Department of Delta State University, Tebe walks without any walking aides, drives himself and does things every normal being can do. His story reads like a fairy tale but it is true.

•Perekeme after his full recovery

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Life

55

•Mohammad Shafia (right), his wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya (center), and their son, Hamed (left), arrive at the Frontenac County Courthouse in Kingston, Ont., Jan. 26, 2012, Lars Hagberg, Reuters/Landov

•Tooba Mohammed Yahya, accused of participating the honour killing of her daughter

Mothers who kill for honour N unthinkable story made headlines in Canada this week: an Afghan-born father was found guilty of murdering his three teenage daughters, a fatal punishment for being too Westernized. If that’s not alarming enough, two other killers were involved: the girls’ brother—and also their mother.

The crime has been characterized as an “honour killing”—the murder of a female for “shaming” her family by talking to boys, wearing Western clothing, or refusing an arranged marriage. The practice, which is rooted in the tribal traditions of South Asia and the Middle East, is horrific enough, but when girls die at a woman’s hand, it’s somehow even more tragic.

And it is not a completely isolated incident.

Across the world, in traditional Muslim culture, older women routinely harass, punish, and beat Muslim girls into submission. They are the aunts, mothers, and older women in the community who insist—right along with the men—that girls behave modestly. Girls often call these older women in their community their “aunties.” Now they’re earning a new name: “vigil-aunties.”

It’s not clear how the three teen girls in Canada were murdered, but the crime was made to look like an accidental drowning. The bodies were found in the family car, submerged in a canal. The perpetrators of the crime were their father, Mohammad Shafia; their mother, Tooba Mohammad Yahya; and the couple’s 21-year-old son, Hamed. The three girls— Zainab, 19; Sahar, 17; and Geeti, 13—had been dating teenage boys, according to evidence presented in court. Zainab, the eldest, had a young Pakistani-Canadian boyfriend. Sahar, the second daughter, had condoms in her bedroom, which her parents had reportedly found.

The father claimed that his first wife, Rona Amir Mohammad, supported the girls in their Western ways. She was murdered too, bringing the death toll to four.

A

A mother—along with her husband and son—killed three girls in an “honour killing” in Canada. Asra Nomani looks at the women who target women.

Shaifa showed no remorse for his actions.

“Even if they hoist me up onto the gallows ... nothing is more dear to me than my honour,” he said in one recorded conversation.

Across the world in Pakistan, a “vigilauntie” made news this week for going to public parks and chasing young women who were out on dates with boys. Acting as a moral policewoman, she busted the couples on camera— on a Pakistani TV channel called Samaa. Thankfully, she was fired as a result, as her actions put the young people at risk. You can see one of the chase scenes if you go two minutes, 30 seconds into this tape.

They are the aunts, mothers, and older women in the community who insist that girls behave modestly. Girls often call these older women their “aunties.” Now, they’re earning a new name: “vigil-aunties.”

The global headlines underscore a dynamic that hits close to home for me as an activist for women’s rights: women turning on women.

To be sure, there are open-minded aunties, including my mother and, yes, me, who wouldn’t dare think of raising a hand for a supposed moral crime. But the reality is that, from our mosques to our extended families and communities, there are “vigil-aunties” making sure girls don’t sin by wearing sleeveless tops, jeans, or nail polish or by talking to boys—even in the West. These women have a weapon sometimes more lethal than physical torture. They inflict emotional torture that humiliates, shames, and chastises. They call girls “whores” and “sinners.” This can be more insidious and painful than the physical abuse.

These aunties see themselves as the “good girls,” and they assert their authority to keep

the “bad girls” in check. Once, in my hometown of Morgantown, W.V., a “vigil-aunty” scolded me at the mosque for showing the small of my back when I bent over in prayer, my hoodie scooting up on my body. “You’re checking out my butt at the mosque?” I asked her. Another time, a vigil-aunty invited me over for tea, only to lecture me on how I should repent for having had a baby without being married (the father never took responsibility). “You should spend the rest of your life, in a corner of the mosque, asking for forgiveness,” she told me. Meanwhile, her husband was secretly getting married to a second wife in Egypt.

At my mosque in Morgantown, my mother and I began to boldly sit among the men on the main floor a few years ago; the rest of the women stayed on the balcony above, as second-class citizens. The women shunned me for my actions. Another time, at the Islamic Center of Southern California in Los Angeles, I dared to take a space in the main prayer hall instead of a separate room designated for women. As I expected, a man ordered me to leave. I affirmed my right to the main hall. Then an older woman, Azmeralda Alfi, arrived, shrouded in a black covering. She was one of the senior members of the congregation, a mainstay who had emerged as a leader in the women’s circle. She stood over me—an authority in black, versus me in my flowing pink head scarf—demanding that I leave. “Think of me as your mother,” she told me. I couldn’t. My mother supported me. Although I had never met this woman before, I knew her well, because I had met so many who had played roles similar to the one she was playing that day. “She was one of the enforcers,” I told a friend.

Women being mean to women is clearly not something exclusive to Muslim society.

Lewd images of American guards abusing Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib stunned the world. In one photo, a 26-year-old woman named Sabrina Harman, a military police officer from Lorton, Va., smiled as she stood beside an Iraqi female prisoner accused of being a prostitute. Behind the camera, a corporal, Charles Graner, took a picture of the two women. Military officials say Graner then forced the accused woman to expose her breasts and genitalia for another photo.

Perhaps we will never know why Harman, a former worker at Papa John’s Pizza, stood by and watched.

In traditional Muslim society, women who perpetuate abuse upon women and girls have often grown up suffocating under the same rigidity and dogmatism they are now trying to enforce upon the next generation. In the global phenomenon in which the abused can often become the abuser, they repeat what they know.

In the case of Noor Almaleki, the young IraqiAmerican woman was killed by her father in Phoenix for being too Westernized; her mother supported the father in jailhouse conversations about the murder. At one point she told him, “You’re not a criminal.” She and her husband hailed from a tribal community in Iraq. She repeated what she knew.

These traditions are deeply rooted, and deeply disturbing. In Canada, after the verdict was announced on the honour killing of the three girls, their mother, Tooba, said, “I am not a murderer, and I am a mother, a mother.”

It’s time for us to challenge what is honorable and what is shameful in Muslim society.

•Sources: The Daily Beast

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Life

80 cheers for KaribiWhyte, icon of justice Port-Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State was agog last week as Justice Adolphus Karibi-Whyte, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, clocked 80. Adeola Ogunlade was there.

•L-R: Justice Karibi Whyte and wife, Faith Asrame with daughters-in law

•R-L: Deputy Governor Ikuru and Justice Coomasie

•Rivers traditional rulers at the church service

I

emulates from his father is honesty, stressing that the celebrant is a straight forward person who does not like cutting corners.

Also, the first child, Dr Asikiya Karibi-Whyte-Ige, a lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos (UNILAG), described her father as a typical role model who imported a lot into the children.

The celebrant was a Law lecturer at UNILAG, between 1965 and 1970, a Research Officer, Law School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, taught Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, International and Family Law. A former Judge of the Federal High Court, he also served as Chairman, Counterfeit Currency Tribunal, Chairman, Election Tribunal in Kwara State, and Chairman, Civil Disturbances Tribunal.

The Pro- Chancellor of Rivers State University of Science and Technology returned to the Supreme Court in late 1998 following his service as a Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia since its inception

T was a gathering from all walks of life, most especially from the world of wig and gown. Judges, lawyers and other professionals, old and young, retired and still serving, all trooped to Port-Harcourt to celebrate one of their own, Dr Justice Karibi-Whyte, who is regarded as the “father of Justice.”

The thanksgiving service was held at St Cyprian’s Church, Diocese of Niger Delta (Anglican Communion). In his sermon, Rev Peter Akinola congratulated the celebrant for attaining the age of 80 in a society where life expectancy is below 50.

Quoting from Psalm 90: 4 and 10, the preacher said it takes the special grace of God for anyone to attain such age in a country where people die young as a result of economic and political crises, among others.

He described the celebrant as “an icon of truth who lives a decent life that is worthy of emulation by the younger generations.

“For someone to be described as an icon of truth where lying is the order of the day; it is not an easy thing, because

of his life style most of us are proud of him, this man has continued to make people know that justice is the only thing that can bring peace to the nation, despite his old age he still looks healthy and agile, because he is a righteous man”, he said.

Rev Akinola ashed, “after attaining the age of 80 years what next?, He stressed to the celebrant the need for wisdom to recognise that no matter how long one lives in this world, he will still die someday and the need to prepare for eternity.

“How do you prepare for eternity?, you must shake off every item of excess luggage, burden of material things because you came empty to this world and you will go down to the grave empty, so, follow Christ every time, everywhere; both when it is convenient and not.”

The celebrant’s son, Sodigi KaribiWhyte, who lectures at William Patterson University, New Jersey, USA, described his father as a disciplined man and very strict on education.

He said the greatest virtue he

in 1994.

Some of his publications are Federal High Court: Law and Practice 1984, The Relevance of The Judiciary in Polity: In Historical Perspective, 1987, Criminal Policy: Traditional and Modern Trends, 1988 and Sources of Nigerian Criminal Law,1988 among others.

Highlight of the event was the reception which took place at the Civic Centre, Port-Harcourt.

Among the several dignitaries who witnessed the celebration were the Deputy Governor of Rivers State, Tele Ikuru, who represented Governor Rotimi Amaechi, Justice Saifullahi Coomassie, who stood in for the Chief Judge, Justice Francis Tabai, of the Supreme Court, President, Rivers State Customary Court of Appeal, Justice P.N Agumagu, Minister of Housing, Ms Amma Pepple and former Minister of Aviation, Chief Tonye Graham-Douglas.

Others included Rear Admiral Fingesi, Chief Rufus Ada George, former Governor of old Rivers State and Prof Barineme, Vice Chancellor of University of Science and Technology, PortHarcourt.

57

BUSINESS

‘Six years after, CBN hasn’t paid our entitlements’

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

-- Page 59

For bank jobs, it’s going, going…

O

NE industry that has been badly affected by a high turnover of workers, most of who have lost regular streams of income are bankers. The Nation can authoritatively report that no fewer than 4, 000 bankers have lost their plum jobs in the last two months despite assurances of job security by the regulatory authorities.

What began like a rumour from the grapevine last October that most employees of the nationalized banks including Mainstreet Bank Limited (former Afribank), Keystone Bank Ltd (former Bank PHB) and Enterprise Bank Ltd (former Spring Bank) were at the verge being relieved of their jobs soon came to pass before the end of last quarter as most of the affected banks were said to have quietly eased out some of the staff considered as “excess luggage.”

Investigation by The Nation revealed that many employees of the affected banks were oblivious to what lay in store for them as they went about their businesses.

But their circumstance soon changed in the days ahead. Recounting how some of his colleagues lost their jobs in one of the banks, the former staff who spoke under the condition of anonymity said: “Most of us resumed work in November only to be given our dismissal letters. Some of us are to be paid three months basic salaries, irrespective of the number of years we had put in the service in the banks. In fact, it was devastating for most of us.”

According to the source, the sack, which came just two days after their salaries were paid, had been hanging in the air for quite some time following the nationalization of the bank.

Sources within the banking circles attributed the storm of the retrenchment exercise to a belt-tightening measure aimed at cutting wage bill among other cost.

Apart from the nationalised banks, some of the acquiring banks like Ecobank Nigeria Plc announced the sack of “about 400” workers, without offering any explanations recently.

“The sack came at a time when many thought the worst times are over for the bank,” says a member of the Ecobank Group headquartered in Lome, capital of neighhouring Togo.

A breakdown of the category of those affected in the latest exercise was not given, but a statement

by Ola Akinnola, Head, Brand and Communications, Ecobank Nigeria, explained that the disengagement “is part of the Ecobank Group strategy designed to consolidate and optimize its operations.”

The statement quoted Jubril Aku, Ecobank Nigeria’s Managing Director as predicating the shakeup, “on the bank’s strategy to drive performance and deliver optimum value to all of its stakeholders with a highly efficient structure.”

Aku however assured customers that the sack will not hinder service delivery, while pledging that Ecobank will live up to its vision to build a world-class pan-Af-

Despite assurances of job security by regulatory agencies, no fewer than 4, 000 individuals have lost their jobs in the gale of sack that has swept across the nation’s banking landscape in recent times, reports Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

• Sanusi Lamido, CBN governor

• Jubril Aku, Ecobank MD rican bank that will contribute to the economic development and financial integration in Africa.

Since the outcome of the stress test conducted on the nation’s banks by examiners of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation last year, following which several banks were forced to make provisions estimated at about N1.76 trillion at the last count, several bank workers have lost their jobs.

Those who survive the purge have also had to contend with a slash in salaries and other allowance that were not cancelled outright.

The gale of sack was initially linked to a directive purportedly from the CBN urging banks to embark on staff reduction and reduce branch network, as part of measures to cut operating cost.

Although, Ecobank Nigeria has since announced a return to profit, the audited financials to December 2009 indicated a thinning income from fees and commissions.

This resulted in only 8.56 per cent growth in earnings, even as operating expenses continued to rise, along with the N16 billion provisions for bad loans, leading to 561.92 per cent rise in loss before tax to N5.944 billion from just N894 million at the end of 2008.

The latest of which is at Access Bank, where it was alleged that over 1, 500 staff of Intercontinental Bank received letters terminating their appointment beginning from January 30th.

In a statement made available

• Chukwuma Soludo

• Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Access Bank MD to The Nation by one of the affected staff, who would not be named, he said the basis of the massive sack sequel to the new appraisal system which Access Bank introduced in Intercontinental Bank on 8th November 2011.

According to the statement, the appraisal system made it compulsory for an officer of ABO level to bring in over N150million in two months in current accounts or risk being sacked.

However, the management however confirmed that only 1,000 staff of the enlarged bank, which includes Intercontinental Bank that it acquired, last October was sacked Managing director of the bank, Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, in a chat with business editors also said the branch rationalisation exercise affected 130 out of the combined figure of 450 branches of the bank.

He said the Association of Senior Staff of Banks, Insurance and Financial Institutions (ASSBIFI) endorsed the retrenchment exercise.

The Access Bank boss explained that the decision to prune down the number of the bank’s branches became inevitable given the fact that some of them were not profitable.

Intercontinental Bank he explained, was losing N5 billion monthly as at the time of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention, a negative development, which he said continued up till the time the bank was taken over by Access. He however, said the figure came down to N3.9 billion in October.

Giving an insight into staff ra-

tionalisation, the bank’s chief executive said the exercise wasn’t arbitrarily done, explaining that “we set minimum threshold in terms of performance and that you will be sacked if you don’t meet the minimum target set.”

He disclosed that staff of former Intercontinental Bank was given a simple challenge of ensuring the retention of old customers so that the new institution will not suffer customer erosion.

He said the result was however woeful, explaining that out of former Intercontinental bank staff, only 100 of them could achieve a 100 per cent of the target.

The Access Bank boss said the branch rationalisation, which started six weeks ago was to ensured that all non-profitable branches of the combined institutions are yanked off.

According to him, rationalisation is not new to Access Bank because, according to him, the bank carries out the exercise from time to time.

Assuring the stakeholders that branch rationalisation would not affect the fortunes of the bank, Aig-Imoukhuede said research has shown that banks with smaller branches perform better than those with larger number of branches in Nigeria.

He said the trend is that customers will be served not only by branches but by other transaction channels, stressing that some of the branches of bank are not reflective of the services they offer these days.

Shortly after the acquisition of Intercontinental, AigImoukhuede, had explained that the combination of both financial institutions would bring about the accretion in value to all stakeholders.

It would be recalled that since the introduction of the banking reforms by the erstwhile CBN governor, Prof.

Chukwuma Soludo, which led to the pruning down of the then existing 85 banks to 24, life has not been the same in the nation’s banking landscape.

At the last count, no fewer than 25, 000 jobs have been lost in the banking sub-sector in the last six years.

Echoing similar sentiments, Mr. Chuks Vincent Elelegwu, whose last appointment was with the AllStates Trust Bank, one of the non-consolidated banks which fell under CBN sledge hammer recalled that a total of 14, 000 individuals drawn from various banks lost their jobs at the first round of consolidation exercise in 2006, following the inability of their banks to meet the N25 billion minimum capital base at the time.

Briefs FG attracts funding from European Investment Bank

T

HE National Planning Commission is working closely with the European Investment Bank (EIB) in order to secure funding for Nigeria through the Africa- European Union Trust Fund towards funding of various projects that support Economic Growth for Nigeria.This was disclosed yesterday by the Hon Minister/Deputy Chairman, National Planning Commission (NPC), Dr. Shamsuddeen Usman, during a joint meeting to put together draft proposals on two projects for possible funding from the Africa- EU Trust Fund which his Commission is coordinating.

The meeting which was held at the National Planning Office Complex, had two projects proposed for possible funding by the Africa – EU Trust Fund are; the Calabar- Kano Gas pipeline and the Mambilla power projects under the Ministries of Petroleum Resources (NNPC) and Power respectively.

The Calabar- Kano Gas pipe line project or the Trans- Nigeria Gas pipeline is the domestic segment of the proposed Trans- stream Gas pipeline for Gas supply from Nigeria to Europe was meant to diversify export route for marketing Nigerian natural gas and to also strengthen Regional Cooperation.

Representatives of the European Union led by Mr. Pere Philippe, those of the implementing Agencies, Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) officials led by Engineer Farouk Sa’id and Mr. Gowalk Celestine; an Engineer working with the Mambilla power project attended the meeting and made presentations on the proposals.

STOCK MARKET REVIEW The banking sector was on the upbeat last week, as re-entries by participants resulted in gains for many stocks in the sector. Diamond Bank was a sector favourite with a cumulative gain of 15.6% at the close of business, while Access Bank, First Bank and GTBank finished with cumulative gains of 7.2%, 6.6% and 6.6% respectively. Unity Bank, Sterling Bank, FCMB and UBA were however divergent to the trend, shedding 3.9%, 7.7%, 0.2% and 8.3% respectively.

Sentiments in the building materials sector were skewed to the sell side as Dangote Cement recorded a 3.4% loss, while Ashaka Cement and CCNN lost 4.5% and 6.5% respectively. Lafarge Wapco however rallied marginally.

The food and beverages sector also recorded more losses than gains, though growing demand for Nestle, coupled with a relative illiquidity, led to a 2.3% gain for the stock. Flour Mills also recorded a 1.5% gain, while the likes of Dangote Sugar, Dangote Flour and Cadbury caved into supply pressure, subsequently losing 3.2%, 3.5% and 13.1% respectively.

In the breweries sector, NB lost marginal points as demand continued to hover around the lower N94.01 band. Guinness however recorded no price change; it held steady at N220.00, with current demand likely to support it at this price in coming sessions.

With the conglomerates, UACN and PZ Cussons recorded marginal gains of less than 1.0%, while bearish sentiments shaved off 0.5% from Unilever, 1.8% from Transcorp and 4.9% from John Holt.

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Business

Expert scores Lagos high for improved fire service I F the fire service is to play its key role in preventing and managing fire incidences across the country, there must be a regulatory framework, such that all state governments have the same structure in the composition, equipment profile and training of personnel for the service,” says the former controller general of Nigeria Fire Service, Dr Fidelis Ogbogoh.

Ogbogoh, who spoke to reporters in Lagos after his assessment of fire service formation in Lagos State as part of his nationwide tour to ascertain the status of fire stations explained that with what members of the ministerial committee in Lagos State, he could boldly say that the state government has put in place a road map for the implementation of fire services in the centre of excellence, which he said could be model for other states of the federation.

The former fire service controller explained that the Lagos State government fire service emergency response agency,

By Rita Ohai

has the right training for its personnel, state - of - the art operational equipment and all that it takes to run a modern fire service.

He lamented the dilapidated state of some fire service establishments in some states across the federation, affirming that state governments should give equal attention to their fire service, saying, “If other states could take a cue from Lagos State, which has established a template for how fire services should look like in terms of structure, personnel, and the operational procedure.

He also called for the nationalisation of the fire service, such that there could be a regulatory regime that state governments could take a cue from, on how to run a decent fire service in fullfiling the mandate of emergency management.

Concerning efforts made by the Lagos State government at revamping the fire service, he explained: “ When we came to Lagos State, what we saw on ground is a radi-

cal departure from what was many years ago, when there were dilapidated buildings and equipment at the fire service headquarters. This time around, the building has been renovated, there are rapid intervention vehicles, there all sorts of modern equipment, and the personnel are well trained and motivated.”

•L-R: Business Development Manager, Skysat Technologies Nig. Ltd., Mr. Robert Mifsud, Managing Director, Mr. Izzat Debs and Konica Minolta Business Support Manager Africa, Mr. Michael Hans Mier at a press conference on the arrival of their new modern Digital Printers Technology in Nigeria held at the company's headquarters, Ikeja, Lagos recently.

PHOTO: ISAAC AYODELE JIMOH.

‘Refineries ought to be built before subsidy removal’

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HAT is the position of PENGASSAN in the raging fuel subsidy debate?

Let’s get one fact right, labour as a whole, not only PENGASSAN, has seen the wisdom in deregulation. We are not against deregulation, from time, we told government that we were going to partner with them in deregulating the oil industry but we said that deregulation should not be based on import driven product. Today we have a country where we have about one hundred and sixty-something million people and we have four refineries that are moribund and are not really working.

Let me give you an example, Venezuela is a coun-

PHOTO SHOP

•L-R: Permanent Secretary Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Mr. Olajide Basorun ; Commissioner for Agriculture and Cooperatives, Prince Gbolahan Lawal and Managing Director Harmony Abattoir Management Service Limited, Mr. Moshood Adesegun Bello at the inauguration of task force on Lagos Abattoir and Lairage, Oko-Oba, Lagos.

PHOTO: OLUSEGUN RAPHEAL

•The out-going Vice President of World Bank, Dr. Oby Ezekwesili with the General Secretary/ CEO, Bible Society of Nigeria and Chairman, United Bible Societies [UBS] Africa Area Board, Rev. Dr. Fred Odutola after the just concluded prayer breakfast before the opening of the 18th African Union meeting in Ethiopia recently

Comrade Folorunsho Ogini, who is the Lagos zonal chairman of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association (PENGASSAN) also served as the president of the association in 2008. In this interview with Rita Ohai, he speaks on the raging debate over the proprietary or otherwise of fuel subsidy removal, among other issues try that is the sixth oil producing nation in the world and Nigeria is eight. Venezuela has thirty-eight million people in population and as I speak today they have eight refineries catering for only thirty-eight million people. They even have refineries outside their country in US and whatever they get over there as profit is being remitted back to their country. So in Venezuela, we are talking about N4 today, the equivalent of our money, after the conversion, that’s the price they sell petrol to their citizens as we speak today. A country with thirty-eight million people having eight refineries, four will be commissioned very soon, I think next year, and here is a country that has about 160 million people, we have the crude oil endowed by God to us, we have the manpower such as graduates that are roaming the streets but unfortunately there are no jobs. We have all that it takes but unfortunately, the willingness is not there from the government, so over the years our Government has not been really serous with this and I have been asking, ‘What does it take to build one refinery on all the six geo-political zones?’ if you are claiming that they way they run government parastatals is not something that is not encouraging, why can’t they build the refinery and give it to those who will run it? We have people building hotels and because they know that they do not have the expertise to manage the hotels, they give out the jobs to those that will run the hotels and you will discover that they are making profit.

So our fear is that if we deregulate and we are still going to continue the importation of fuel, then there is going to be problem because if tomorrow the Naira slides against the Dollar, things will keep changing.

How do you now plan and run your economy? And it is on the masses that everything still goes to. The government is saying that it is difficult to pay N18, 000 as minimum wage and we looking at a scenario where

•Ogini

a worker who lives in the suburbs in Oshodi but works in Victoria Island and needs about N800 to go to work and come back. If you multiply by 5 days of the week and then four weeks in a month, you know what it means! How much is he going to have left out of that N18,000 because he has to take care of his family.

We are asking that governments should empathise with the masses, they should look at what people are going through because it not everybody that has access to this easy money.

So are you saying that you are saying that the partial removal of subsidy and increase in fuel price was wrong?

Yes! We did not support it because we are saying that before you do the removal, make sure that you build refineries and since that has not been done, this is just the tip of the iceberg. The real problem is still being covered.

If PENGASSAN was against the removal of the subsidy, why did you back out of the strike action and street protests?

Let me admit that it is a labour decision because it is a democratic setting. I won’t tell you the position of PENGASSAN before the strike was called off. I want to tell you that there are those that insisted, even to the end, that the price of fuel must come back to N65 before we begin negotiations with the government but there are those that said the problem

was getting out of hand.

People were dying, the country was heading for an abyss and there was going to be problem if the strike was not called off. They said it was not worth it and we should not allow this thing to the extent of allowing those who are enemies of this country to come in. By then, the house was divided and if those who are for the calling off of the strike are more than those who are against it, whether we like it or not, minority will have their say but majority will have their way. So immediately majority has their way, you will have to key-in, whether you were in support or not.

What is your opinion on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) that is yet to be passed into law by the National Assembly?

Of recent, the Senate President came out and said that he was confused because they had three different versions of the PIB and they do not know which one to work with. That was why we in labour has said that all these things we are going through is just a waste of time. All the issues that we are addressing has been spelt out in that bill but it is unfortunate that some people somewhere do not want this Bill to see the light of the day because everything you can talk of has already been addressed.

From how NNPC is going to run to how the so-called downstream and the cabals will be handled.

Where we had our fear was when the Senate President came and said there were three versions and so labour now said before Senate passes the bill, they had to see the version they were toying with. There are a lot of rumours from the grapevine that there are people that are influencing our lawmakers that the original PIB had been doctored and people had brought in their selfish interest. So we said that before the Bill is passed into law, there is a need for us that are players in the oil industry, PENGASSAN and NUPENG, to see the bill and x-ray it and to agree with them on the areas where Nigeria will not be short-changed.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Business

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‘Six years after, CBN hasn’t paid our entitlements’ INTERVIEW

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S the first set of those affected by the banking reforms embarked upon by the former CBN governor, what is your view on the reforms?

Whatever the government wants to do with banks they can go ahead to do it. But let it not be that human beings are casualties of their policies. That is where we’re crying deeply. In the Guidelines and Incentives on Consolidation in the Banking Industry by Professor Charles Soludo, dated August 5th, 2004, we have the particular section that concerns staff because there are so many things they said about consolidation of banks. I don’t know whether they implemented them. But the one that concerns us is in section 9.0 of that scheme under the sub-heading: “Social Safety Net. According to the guidelines, they said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) will ensure that the bank protects the interest of depositors; that they have done because depositors are external people who bring money.

And they said to ameliorate the impact on job losses or redundancies, any staff exiting as a result of consolidation should be compensated by the consolidated entities in line with industry standards but not below the terms of their sustaining employment. In other words, if your bank had a programme of benefit payment to anybody who is exiting, they must pay up to that standard, it should not be less than whatever is sustaining you at the moment. Then it said, in addition, the CBN will work with the Bankers’ Committee to assist the staff that will be disengaged to access the SMIES fund to set up their own SMEs and subsequently create jobs and wealth... We are yet t o see any of it.

Six years later, we are still begging men and women in authorities. We are not even looking for the soft loans they are talking about, but our entitlements as they have spelt it out, those things that our employers had in place for us. These things have all been computed but up till now, nothing has been done.

We are still begging, we are still running around. We are still going to meet men in authority. We have spent almost all that we are expecting to earn in going to make consultations, running to Abuja and coming all the time, risking our lives, the small money we have in our hands…

With the benefit of hindsight, do you think the banking reforms have been successful?

Anything built on falsehood will not come out well. The consolidation embarked upon by Soludo, am sorry to say was based on falsehood because in a decent society we expect that before the government embarked on that consolidation exercise they would have gone into a lot of research to know the pros and the cons , those it would affect, those that would not be affected, if it would affect them, what would be done? Those things would be put in place. If they are not put in place, you cannot succeed, there is bound to be failure along the line. I’m a Christian, the bible says that no man builds a house without first of all counting the cost otherwise he will abandon it and people will come and make jest of him.

I don’t know whether Soludo played politics but if his intention was right, the implementation was very wrong. That’s what we are saying. And they will continue to have it this way until they come out with something solid that will benefit the society. If your intention as a government official is to make some people suffer, you will definitely fail in your project because if you government is doing well, it is because the people are doing well. Right now we have cases of hired assassins, ritual killers, kidnappers rampart everywhere. This is because people are desperate to make a living. You can imagine what somebody in Pension is making. I learnt that two people appropriated over N140billion from the fund, monies meant for retirees, including old men and women who have served the country all these years.

You said you have a platform...

We have an association known as Association of Ex-Staff of Non- Consolidated Banks. It has been in existence since December 9th, 2009.

So how many ex-bankers make up this association?

We are up 14, 000, comprising all the

Mr. Chuks Vincent Elelegwu until 2006 was a Senior Marketing Officer at the defunct AllStates Trust Bank. He is one of over 14, 000 former bankers who were the first set of casualties affected by the banking reforms introduced by erstwhile CBN governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo. Six years after, those affected by the policy are yet to receive their entitlements of N9.8billion, in accordance with the CBN guidelines. Elelegwu, who is currently the Coordinator of Association of Ex-Staff of Non-Consolidated Banks, AllStates Trust Bank chapter, visited the corporate headquarters of the Vintage Press Limited, publishers of The Nation newspaper titles.

He spoke with Ibrahim Apekhade Yusuf

•Elelegwu

PHOTO: DAYO ADEWUNMI

banks affected at the first round of banking consolidation exercise.

Before the first consolidation, we had about 85 banks. Some were able to merge with one another. Some were bought outrightly. The ones that were not able to consolidate thought that they could go it alone but they were not able to do as the deadline caught up with them. But it was not strictly based on insolvency. It was not as a result of the banks not been able to do business at the time. But that they could not meet the minimum deposit base of N25billion was why they were forced out of operation and therefore the staff of such banks have also been forced out of jobs since 2006, you can imagine what it means.

Like in my bank, AllStates Trust Bank, we have recorded over 23 people dead, as a result of joblessness and inability to take care of family. I know that other banks also recorded deaths in their own chapters…

At some point in time the newspapers were awash with report that the government was at the verge of addressing your concerns...

Yes at some point, the Presidency, based on our write-ups asked the Labour Minister, Chief Wogu to hold a meeting with us; this was precisely on the 23rd of December 2010. And then in that meeting, which held

at the Labour Minister’s office in Abuja, representatives of CBN, NDIC and then senior members of the ministry were there along with some executive members of our association. Now we talked and at long last, the CBN was insisting that it was gazetted before consolidation that they would not pay anything. And that ran contrary to what they put down in the guidelines on consolidation of banks. But the NDIC on their part were telling us that they didn’t have money, saying it is not as if they didn’t want to pay but that there was no money. The NDIC said that the CBN w h i c h started the consolidation business should be able to provide money for them to pay us. And that if they want them to pay that very day, they would be able to pay because they had calculated all the entitlements that every staff needed to earn.

That was from NDIC. But at long last, the representative of the minister now told them (CBN, NDIC) that if they left us without compensating us, that it was going to be very bad because first and foremost, we are Nigerians; we go to the market, our children go to

school, we pay rent, we need to feed, in spite of the hard economic conditions, we should still have some cushioning effects. That may be they were looking at the laws in CBN tying their hands but that somehow they (CBN) can waive the laws and do what is appropriate to citizens.

At the end of it all, we were asked to write a special appeal letter to the president, which we did immediately. Even the lawyer that represented also wrote his letter as well.

We were optimistic that having written to the presidency our troubles were over.

But in April last year, when elections were drawing near, we were worried and the executives of the association held a meeting and we wrote a letter again reminding the presidency that we were still waiting. But maybe as a result of political expediency, we read in two national newspapers that the presidency had approved the payment of our money. And we were expecting the payment.

But when we now went round asking questions from those who were supposed to know, they all denied any knowledge of such payments.

We had sent people to meet with officials of CBN, NDIC, to see how far they had gone.

And they told us may be the thing was not in

“The NDIC paid the staff of CityExpress and when we raised alarm over that kind of payment, they said it was a mistake that the staff credited their own accounts so whatever they met in the accounts was paid. And we were asking the NDIC if you were really diligent, shouldn’t you know that it is not possible for a staff to save close to N5million, N10million, N15million and so forth in their accounts? It’s not possible”

last year’s budget that they may have to put it in the budget this year. But we are saying that the case of rescuing banks, I don’t think such huge amount of money was in the budget, but they were able to get out the money. Why should our own be specifically put in the budget after five years, now its six years?

It is unheard of, it is very absurd, it’s like we are not citizens of this nation. In the process of taking over the bank, the NDIC paid the staff of CityExpress and when we raised alarm over that kind of payment, they said it was a mistake that the staff credited their own accounts so whatever they met in the accounts was paid. And we were asking the NDIC if you were really diligent, shouldn’t you know that it is not possible for a staff to save close to N5million, N10million, N15million and so forth in their accounts?

It’s not possible. And they (NDIC) said that well they discovered it late. And we said if you have been able to get money to pay these sets of people, you should also pay us. It is injustice for you to pay a set of people because you said you made a mistake and then you let those who were following you rule and letter without paying them. It is very sad.

In November 11th last year, somebody told me that the Managing Director of NDIC was speaking in one of the daily newspapers that the CBN governor should look into our case because we have suffered enough. With the calibre of the NDIC boss saying that kind of thing, I believe that we have a case and they should pay us.

What exactly is the amount being owed to the affected staff?

The total amount for us is N9.8billion for everybody because it has been calculated and computed by the NDIC. Having met this brick wall, are you planning to make further presentations to the presidency on the plight of your members?

We are not relenting at all. Somebody even told me last week that Madam First Lady was going somewhere and they asked me if we can do anything and I said well, let’s us send a letter as usual, if we are able to send something across to the wife on January 24th.

We have never relented because many people have their lives dependent on these final entitlements. Take for instance, those of us who were close to 50 years and above at that time (2006), could not get new jobs. And to start a business, you need some money no matter how small that business is. Some of our members have become destitute persons roaming the streets.

Have you also considered the option of staging street protests to press home your demands from the government just likeAirways, NITEL? What you’re saying is right but it is not entirely right. You know the saying that “money maketh a man.” To gather people to come and protest you must believe that such a person is able to transport his or herself to the point of protest. The NITEL people protest because some of them still earn their wages and they had a union before anything happened to them, so usually the union use their fund to run the organisation. We didn’t have a union, it was after we were affected that we formed the Association of Ex-Staff of Non-Consolidated Banks and many of us are living a very piteous life, we can’t even feed.

Just last week one of our members called to ask if I had news of any payment. And I asked why, and he said, ‘Oga, that have amputated me oh!” I mean I felt very bad I had to start consoling him. If I call some of them now, you will start hearing tales of woes everywhere. God is just giving me the grace as one of those coordinating it. It is not as if I have enough to spend, but just enough to take me wherever I want to go to, like coming to your office here on Fatai Atere Way, Matori... And to answer to your question, we feel that we can do this thing diplomatically without shouting. Now if we start carrying placards and the government disagrees and send police or soldiers after us and they shoot at us, it would a disaster.

You recall the other time, there was strike protests, I saw a lot of people in Ojota and I warned my children, please don’t go because police knows somebody like Femi Falana and Fela’s children, they cannot shoot them but they may just shoot one unknown soldier or one unknown person who is very important in his family. I think that is what we fear... (laughs) It’s the truth...

Business

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THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2011

COMPANY NEWS

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HE annual edition of the Central Bank of Nigeria Microfinance Conference/Entrepreneurship Awards is set to hold on Wednesday at the Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Hotels & Towers, Abuja.

Special guests of honour at the occasion include President Goodluck Jonathan and CBN governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi.

Also expected at the event is the Managing Director/Chief Executive, Citibank, Mr. Emeka Emuwa.

The Executive Director,

Jonathan, Sanusi, others for entrepreneurship award

By Adeola Ogunlade

Growing Businesses Foundation, Funso Olaniyan, who are the organisers, gave this hint at the weekend in a release made available to The Nation.

Justifying the need for the award, Olaniyan said that it was in recognition of excellence by Nigerian mi-

cro-entrepreneurs, many of who have made their mark in their chosen fields.

He noted that the Foundation will also be introducing the Growing Businesses Web Clinic aimed at providing expert support for micro, small and medium entrepreneurs and business owners such that they are enabled to create

their own corporate web presence on-site.

“Businesses will be able to create customized websites and migrate key employees to email addresses that bear the corporate address as they are expected to come along with their business profiles and content for the website”, he said.

Kaduna fair holds February 23

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HE Kaduna Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (KADCCIMA) is set to host the 33rd edition of the Kaduna International Trade Fair from February 23 rd the management has said.

President of the chamber Alhaji Umar Yahaya dropped this hint on Thursday when he led a delegation on a courtesy visit to the corporate headquarters of the Vintage Press Limited, publishers of The Nation newspaper titles.

Upbeat, Yahaya said this year’s edition of the fair, which predates the popular Lagos International Trade fair promises to be bigger and better.

“Last year, about 411,000 people visited the fair on a daily basis. We expect that it will be higher this year and that is the reason why we have improved on security,” Yahaya said.

He said the chamber has spent more than N30 million on the resuscitation of the moribund infrastructures at the complex.

Among those on Yahaya’s entourage include the Director-General/Chief Executive of the chamber, Mr. Usman

•L-R: Second Deputy President, Kaduna Chambers of Commerce and Industries (KCCI), Dr. Bello Alimi; Deputy President, Alhaji Abdullahi Sani; President, Alhaji Umar Yahaya; DirectorGeneral/Chief Executive KCCI, Mr. Usman Saulawa and member, Alhaji Kabir Dangogo, during the chambers courtesy visit to corporate headquarters of Vintage Press Limited.

PHOTO: DAYO ADEWUNMI

Stories by Rita Ohai

Saulawa and member, Alhaji Kabir Dangogo.

The Second Vice President, Hon Abdullahi Muhammadu Sani said about 10 countries have signified their intention to be part of the trade fair.

Echoing similar views, the Second Deputy Presi-

dent, Dr. Bello Alimi said the country remains an investment haven for investors out there, stressing that there was need to build a synergy of cooperation among businesses.

Earlier, the General Manager, Training and Development, The Nation newspaper, Mr. Soji Omotunde, who received

the august guests in the company of other top editors of The Nation, including Mr. Lekan Otufodunrin, Mr. Wale Adeosun, Mr. Kunle Abimbola, Mr. Tunji Adegboyega thanked the chamber for the visit as well as assured the chamber of maximum support during and after the fair.

Firm set for US builders show February 8

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LL is set for this year’s edition of the world acclaimed international builders show as professionals in the construction and building industry in the country will join their counterparts across the globe from February 8th to 11th in the city of Orlando, Florida, United States of America.

Participating companies in Nigeria will be led to the fair by Benom Gold, a marketing communications company.

The show organised by the Washington DC based, National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), will feature among others foremost Nigerian professionals comprising of those in the housing sector, homes and apartment builders, estate and land surveyor and valuers, town planners as well as architects in the industry.

Others expected at the show include: products manufacturers, mechanical and electrical engi-

neers, mortgage bankers and others involved in every aspect of residential and light commercial construction industry.

The IBS is the world’s biggest convergence of building professionals around the globe that would afford and give abundant opportunities to participants from Nigeria to enjoy a first class travel tour and guide, attend well packaged educational seminars, facilitate high level product franchise, networking with manufacturers, participants

and professionals from other parts of the globe.

Products that will be on display at the show are bathroom equipment, water heaters and accessories, commercial, industrial products, and construction products, plumbing, decorative material, plastic, concrete, and security systems, to mention just a few.

While shedding more light on the proposed event, the Managing Director, Benom Gold Communications Limited, Mr. Babatunde Malik-Yamah

assured participants of added values to the trip based on the outstanding relationship with the organisers of IBS and other international shows around the globe where the company had maintained excellent performance.

Malik-Yamah added that the company would as an incentive further enhance direct links with products manufacturers in the United States of America to facilitate direct importation of quality materials for enhanced operations at the home front.

Coy rewards customers at anniversary

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O reward customer loyalty, Lifemate Nigeria Limited, a leading furniture company in Nigeria marked its fifth anniversary with a special sales promo or its teeming customers.

At a its Lekki showroom branch in Victoria Island, Lagos, the company announced 50% fantastic price slash in all their

unique products to mark this special occasion.

Justifying this promo, the Deputy Managing Director, Mr. Weir Wu said the unbeatable price slashes to customers was to reward their loyalty and patronage.

According to Lifemate boss, the sales promo offers customers the opportunity of “comfortable living room

furniture such as leather sofas, fabric sofas, coffee tables, glass tables, modern dining sets and accessories.

Bedroom furniture such as exquisite bed, wardrobes, night stand, dresser and mirrors, lighting fittings include hanging light, modern chromed chandelier, acrylic pendant light, table lamps and reading lamps among others.”

Beyond Talent

By Adetayo Okusanya Email: adetayookusanya@hotmail.com

Use it or lose it

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OW! It’s February already. Where did January go?

It seems like it was yesterday that I wished family and friends a happy new year. Thirty one days gone in the twinkling of an eye; the equivalent of seven hundred and forty four (744) hours, or forty four thousand six hundred and forty (44,640) minutes, or two million six hundred and seventy eight thousand and four hundred (2,678,400) seconds. We have already exhausted approximately eight percent of the year. It simply begs the question, how did you spend all this time and what will your return on time invested be?

This month, I want to explore the subject of time management and it will not be a flying visit. I intend for you to marinate in the subject matter until you walk away with a keen sense of urgency that the clock is indeed ticking, and you don’t have all the time in the world to satisfy all the competing demands for your attention. February is a great month to talk about time management because time management is a crucial driver of how effective you will be in accomplishing the goals you have set for the year. Unlike “airtime” you do not have the luxury of being able to infinitely “top up” your hours. You, and the rest of the people that share this planet with you, have the same twenty four hour days to accomplish your personal and career goals.

What is time and why is it so important for you to manage how you spend it? I have combined two dictionary definitions to describe TIME as the continuous passage of existence in which events pass from a state of potentiality in the future, through the present, to a state of finality in the past, and which is measured in units such as seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, or years. Time is what lies between the day we are born and the day we die. Therefore it is finite and limited in quantity. Harvey Mackay said, “Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it.

You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back”. Alan Lakein also said, “Time equals Life. Therefore, waste your time and waste your life, or master your time and master your life”.

So, how can you be the master of your time this year?

It’s simple. You must have the discipline to control what you do with your time. It is a resource that you must optimally allocate, the same way you optimally allocate your financial resources. Since you would probably not squander away your financial resources, why would you allow everything to take up your time, whether they are ultimately important or not to your long term goals? Put differently, would you invest your money in buying shares in a company with a stock price that will never appreciate or pay dividend? Or would you invest in a venture that is certain to yield zero or negative return on investment? But that is what some of us do most of the time. We literally fritter away our precious time on tasks and activities that have no long term value.

Time management is the process by which you apply principles, techniques, strategies, tools and behaviors to help you be more productive and effective in accomplishing the things that are important and urgent every day. If time is money, then the goal of time management is to improve your quality of life by getting you the “biggest bang for your buck”. Don’t confuse time management for getting every single thing done.

No, effective time management is about you getting the right things done at the right time, delegating unimportant tasks and dropping tasks that are of no importance or urgency. It is about being smarter about the use of your time and not trying to squeeze every conceivable activity into your day.

I recognize that this is easier said than done, in a world that pulls you in different directions and overwhelms you with a million things to do for yourself, your family, your work, your friends, your government, your country, etc.

Over the course of the next three weeks, I will share with you the steps you can take to be successful at managing your time schedule, the skills and tools that will enhance your effectiveness at managing your time, the return on investment you will enjoy, the downsides of poor time management that you will avoid, as well as time wasting activities or habits that you must lose.

Sir Francis Bacon said, “Knowledge is power”. Join me next week to learn more about how you can be the master of your time.

• Okusanya is CEO of ReadinessEdge

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WORLD NEWS THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

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USSIA and China yesterday vetoed a Security Council resolution backing an Arab League peace plan that calls for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step down amid escalating violence.

The other 13 members of the council, including the United States, Britain and France, voted in an unusual weekend session favour of the resolution aimed at stopping the ongoing violence in Syria.

The rare double-veto was issued following days of negotiations aimed at overcoming Russian opposition to the draft resolution. Several European envoys said before the session that they felt compelled to call for the vote despite Russia’s attempts to seek a delay because of the escalating violent crackdown by Assad’s regime.

The urgency was heightened by an assault by Syrian forces firing mortars and artillery on the city of Homs.

Activists said more than 200 people were killed in what they called one of the bloodiest episodes of the uprising against Assad. The U.N. says more than 5,400 people have been killed over almost 11 months in a government crackdown on civilian protests.

“It is a sad day for this council, a sad day for Syrians and a sad day for all friends of democracy,” French Ambassador Gerard Araud said after the resolution was vetoed.

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said her country was “disgusted” by the vote.

Araud said Russia and China had “made themselves complicit in a policy of repression carried out by the Assad regime.”

Syria has been a key Russian ally since Soviet times and Moscow has opposed any U.N. call that could be interpreted as advocating military intervention or regime change. Russia and China also used their veto powers as permanent council members in October to block a previous Western attempt to condemn

attack Yemen Russia, China veto UN Militants army base in south resolution on Syria M

ILITANTS attacked a Yemeni army base in the country’s south, a local official said yesterday, highlighting a security breakdown just weeks ahead of a presidential election aimed at ending a year of political upheaval.

One militant was killed in the attack on Friday night on the base on the outskirts of Lawdar in Abyan province, the official said. Explosions and heavy exchanges of gunfire were heard throughout the city, residents said.

Lawdar was the site of a U.S. drone strike that killed at least 12 militants earlier this week amid a swell of violence in the south, where Islamist fighters suspected of links to al Qaeda have seized several towns.

Weakened by a year of protests against outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, Yemen’s government is facing challenges from al Qaeda-linked militants who have seized territory in the south and frequently attack state troops and offices.

The United States and Saudi Arabia fear al Qaeda’s regional wing is strengthening its foothold there, near oil shipping routes through the Red Sea. An election to choose Saleh’s successor is scheduled to take place later this month. Both southern separatists and rebels in the north have said they will boycott the vote, and militants last week attacked an office of the electoral committee.

Merkel wraps up China trip with euro reassurance • Demonstrators carry a carry a model of a prison cell with the cut-out figure of Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin inside as they march to take part in a anti-Putin rally in central SaintPetersburg, yesterday urging the Russian strongman to quit power ahead of March 4 polls.The sign on the cell reads: “[Convicted] for the usurpation of power.”

AFP PHOTO / OLGA MALTSEVA

the violence in Syria.

“Today the Security Council has failed to live up to its responsiblty,” German Ambassador Peter Wittig said.

“The people in Syria have been let down again.”

Earlier yesterday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a security conference in Munich, Germany, that Moscow still has two problems of “crucial importance” with the draft council resolution on the violence in Syria.

Lavrov said the resolution makes too few demands of anti-government armed groups, and that Moscow remains concerned that it could prejudge the outcome of a national dialogue among political forces in Syria.

Lavrov was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that he and Russia’s foreign intelligence chief, Mikhail Fradkov, will meet with Assad in Damascus on Tuesday.

Before the vote, President Barack Obama urged the council to take a stand against Assad’s regime and back the resolution.

“The international community must work to protect the Syrian people from this abhorrent brutality,” Obama said in a statement issued by the White House.

In a blistering statement, Obama said Assad had displayed “disdain for human life and dignity” following the weekend attacks in Homs.

“The Syrian regime’s

policy of maintaining power by terrorizing its people only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse,” Obama said. “Assad has no right to lead Syria, and has lost all legitimacy with his people and the international community.”

To the Syrian people, Obama pledged U.S. support and vowed to work with them to build a better future in their country.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met yesterday with Lavrov on the sidelines of the security conference to stress that the United States strongly believes the council should vote on the resolution yesterday, a senior State Department official said.

S. Africa’s ANC rejects youth leader’s appeal

S

OUTH Africa’s ruling ANC yesterday threw out an appeal by its fiery youth league leader, Julius Malema, to overturn his suspension, but said he could argue for a lighter sentence.

“The NDCA (appeals committee) is satisfied with the finding of the NDC (national disciplinary committee) and finds no reason to bury the finding of the NDC,” said the party’s appeals committee chair, influential businessman Cyril Ramaphosa.

“The appellant’s appeal is therefore dismissed,” he added.

Malema, 30, was suspended from the ANC for five years in November on charges that included provoking divisions in the party and damaging its image. Five other suspended top youth league officials also had their appeals thrown out.

Responding to a protest by Malema and two co-accused that they were never allowed to plead for a lighter sentence, the appeals committee referred the matter back to the disciplinary

•Malema

committee for arguments from both sides, in favour of both decreasing and increasing the sentence.

“As the appellants themselves prayed... that the matter be referred back to the NDC to

determine an appropriate sanction after hearing evidence in mitigation and aggravation of sanction that the parties may wish to present, such hearing shall be conducted by the NDC within 14 days from date hereof,

Ramaphosa said.

He told a packed press conference at the ANC’s headquarters in Johannesburg that the appeals committee had set aside one of the youth leaguers’ convictions, on a charge of barging into a meeting of senior ANC leaders.

But the other convictions were upheld — including, for Malema, that he had sowed division in the party with his praise for former president Thabo Mbeki and brought it into disrepute with a call to oust the democratic government of neighbouring Botswana.

Indonesian pilot arrested for alleged drug use

I

NDONESIAN police say they have arrested an airline pilot on suspicion of using illegal drugs three hours before flying.

Narcotics agency director Brig. Gen. Benny Mamoto says Lion Air pilot Syaiful Salam was arrested early yesterday in his hotel room in

Surabaya city with a small amount of crystal methamphetamine in his possession.

He says a urine test showed Salam had also consumed the drug. The pilot was scheduled to fly three hours later.

Salam is the fifth Lion Air pilot to be arrested for al-

leged drug use in two months.

Airline officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

In November, Lion Air announced the biggest order ever from Boeing — 230 planes with a list price of $21.7 billion.

G

ERMAN Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday wrapped up a visit to China where she tried to reassure her hosts on the strength of the euro and Europe’s ability to overcome its debt crisis.

During her three-day trip to the world’s second largest economy, Merkel praised the advantages of the single currency and urged China to put pressure on Iran and to condemn Syria at the United Nations.

Merkel, who was prevented from meeting journalists and a human rights lawyer, ended her official visit in the southern city of Guangzhou, Xinhua news agency reported.

Merkel, who held talks with Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao during her visit, had said that she would raise human rights issues during the trip.

She attended a business forum with Wen, who Friday said China had neither the intention nor ability “to buy Europe”.

Experts believe China holds more than $550 billion of European sovereign debt, although the figure has not been officially confirmed.

Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy will preside Monday over the 14th Franco-German council of ministers, which will be largely devoted to the eurozone financial crisis.

Wade blames opposition for Senegal’s pre-poll unrest

S

ENEGAL’S President Abdoulaye Wade accused the opposition Friday of fanning deadly unrest as his opponents vowed to pursue their campaign to block him from standing for a third term in office.

Under the watchful eye of riot police, opposition leaders gathered to pray for those killed in violence triggered by a top court ruling last Friday allowing the 85-year-old to run in the February 26 presidential election.

Groups of police armed with riot gear stood on corners near the Blanchot Mosque in Dakar as the streets overflowed with hundreds of men in colourful boubous (robes), clutching prayer mats and prayer beads, kneeling to pray.

Several leaders of the opposition June 23 Movement (M23) attended the prayers before dispersing peacefully as they vowed to continue pressuring Wade not to contest the vote.

“We are not just praying, the protests will continue, the mobilisation will continue,” said Fadel Barro, one of the founders of the youth movement known as “Fed Up”.

But ahead of today’s launch of a three-week election campaign in what has long been one of Africa’s most stable nations, Wade warned “troublemakers” he would not tolerate the disruption of public order.

“Those who are chiefly responsible are the opposition who use protests which could have been completely peaceful, to sow disorder,” he said at a ceremony in Senegal’s seaside capital Dakar.

25 people die in Kenya after truck hits minibus

A

RED Cross official said 25 people have died in western Kenya after a truck crashed into a minibus.

Kenya Red Cross spokesman Fredrick Gori said yesterday that the Friday night accident in Kisumu city happened after a truck hit a 14-seater minibus carrying excess passengers.

He says the cause of the accident is still not clear but that all the passengers in the minibus and truck were killed.

Minibuses are the most common mode of public transportation used in Kenya.

62

World News

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Anti-terror lessons from Uganda

Back from a two-week media fellowship in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, Sunday Oguntola reports on how the country is winning the war against terror

•Vehicles being checked at Garden City

G

ARDEN City, a sprawling shopping mall in the heart of Kampala, Uganda, sat in its magnificent beauty that Thursday afternoon. The imposing complex welcomed shoppers in its splendour. While some drove, others walked in and out leisurely. But none gained access without some measure of discomfort. Stone-faced security operatives mounted surveillance at the main entrance to the exquisite mall.

They frisked shoppers and placed bomb detectors under incoming and outgoing vehicles.

Strangely, shoppers happily subjected themselves to security checks. They waited patiently for the surveillance that took several minutes without as little as a grumble. A Ugandan journalist sitting beside me in a coaster vehicle that took us to the mall smiled and even hailed the operatives for a job well-done.

“They are working for us, and protecting the nation day and night,’’ he explained, when I asked why he was so excited.

In Uganda, security is a big deal. It is the nation’s topmost priority. This is a well-known fact to everybody. Every Ugandan is quick to happily support any step taken to ensure security. To them, it is a collective responsibility; a goal that demands all hands on deck. “We don’t joke with security around us here,’’ Eddie, the Ugandan journalist stressed.

Security consciousness This security-consciousness, he said, emanated from the many devastating terror attacks the country suffered sometime ago.

On July 11, 2010, 76 persons died in a bombing incident at Kampala Rugby Club and Ethiopian village in Kabalagala. Political violence increased in Kampala with the 1998 and 1999 bombings of several popular restaurants, nightclubs and other public places. Eight foreign tourists, including two Americans, were murdered by an Interehamwe guerrilla group in Bwindi National Forest in March 1999. The attacks shook the nation. They angered every Ugandan. People with such inclination must be fought and eliminated, Ugandans agreed. “Why on earth would anyone conceive such an evil?’’ Justus John, a shop attendant, wondered during a friendly discussion. “If I have one of them as friends, I will gladly give them in,’’ he vowed, with much anguish.

Since early 1908s, Northern Uganda had suffered civil unrest. Hundreds of people were killed in the rebellion against the Ugandan government, and an estimated 400,000 people were left homeless. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a blasphemous cult militia established by Joseph Kony, a former Catholic altar boy, has been waging war for the rights of the longmarginalised and abused Acholi people of Northern Uganda. He has been elusive for over 25 years.

Grace Angee, an undergraduate of African Bible University Kampala, is a returnee from LRA’s dens. She was three times lucky to have

escaped abduction by the rebels.

She recounted LRA’s cruelty to reporters last week in Kampala. According to her, the rebels forced children to kill their parents and raped many ladies. When possessed by spirit, she said the rebels can slaughter hundreds for sacrifice.

This, she said, is because they feel they are in a spiritual battle of a sort.

Amida, her ancestral home, was vandalised by the rebels. They killed many, including her father, a driver in the Ugandan Army. Angee broke down as she recounted her ordeals. “It was something I do not wish to remember. What I saw is too much for a lifetime,’’ she stated. “I saw women and ladies raped; people killed and several others asked to kill their parents for training. I don’t pray to ever come across such incidents in my life again,’’ she said battling to stop her tears.

LRA’s atrocities and other terror attacks have worked positively for Uganda. It has created a collective resolve to eliminate terror at all costs.

Ugandans co-operate easily with security operatives to protect the nation.

This civilian-military partnership is working wonders in Uganda’s fight against terrorism.

Civilians are as alert as security operatives. They freely report suspicious movements and sometimes confront strange faces in their neighbourhoods. I had a brief taste of this one evening.

Around 11pm, I walked out of a viewing centre after watching a pulsating football match.

It was in Lubowa Estate, much like Victoria Garden City in Lekki, Lagos. I was pumping my fists in excitement when two young men accosted me.

“Hello, you look new around here,’’ one of them said.

“Yes and what is wrong with that?’’ I threw back in anger.

“Nothing really except that we are concerned about people here,’’ he quickly applied the diplomatic courtesy Ugandans are noted for.

I walked away, feeling ruffled and agitated.

Just few miles ahead, I ran into a police van, hidden behind a huge tree. I almost froze with fear. But the policemen allayed my fears. One of them, in a friendly note, said, “They just wanted to be sure you are harmless,’’ referring to the two chaps I encountered earlier. The officer said the chaps were part of a local vigilante group, charged with providing intelligence reports to police authorities. I got to know they knew my identity and where I was staying.

Such synergy is the hallmark of security operations in Uganda. From Entebbe to Kampala and the suburbs, police vans are ubiquitous. They keep close watch on movements, without harassing people. “Seeing them makes us feel safe,’’ a lady who simply identified herself as Winnie, stated.

She confirmed the affection with which security operatives are perceived. They are seen as saviours and protectors, not oppressors.

Public places in Uganda are not accessible

•Police spokesperson Ms Judith Nabaakoba

•Security operatives at work in Kampala

without security checks. Hospitals, taxi parks, shopping malls, restaurants and even religious houses are well-protected. Makerere University, the oldest in East Africa, had a feel of this penultimate week. It was during the 62nd convocation ceremony of the institution. Former South African President, Thambo Mbeki, was invited to deliver a lecture.

The security at the venue of the event which was exclusive to only about 50 people was watertight. Even foreign journalists were denied access.

There were more security operatives than participants. No one moved close without vigorous security checks. Yet, no one was uneasy or bothered. Even students revelled in the heavy security presence. They even found time to say hello to security officers. A graduating student said, “We love them around here. It feels safe to have them all over us.’’

A Police source I cultivated in a viewing centre said Uganda boasts of seven different police units.

These include anti-riot and crowd control, antiterrorist, traffic police, a criminal investigation unit, plain clothes detectives, regular police and the military police.

The anti-riot unit wears green and white camouflage. Its main function is to quell riots and unrest in the different parts of the country. It blocked an opposition pressure group, Action for Change (A4C), from holding a rally in a Kampala city suburb the day the convocation held.

This is far from over. There is also the military police and the presidential guard.

This massive police manpower certainly does not come cheap. It takes a big chunk of the Ugandan

budget. Deputy Inspector General of Police, Julius Odwe, said the police will spend 46.5 billion shillings on capital development in 2012. He added that another 40 billion shillings will be spent in keeping law and order and 6.25 billion to improve police presence in 2012.

Yet, Ugandans are happier for it. “As long as there is security and peace, no price is too high,’’ a commercial cyclist, locally known as Boda Boda, told me. He witnessed the terrorist acts in 2010.

The memory, he said, still hurts. He vowed to do anything to prevent recurrence. ‘’Here, we care about security,’’ he said, as if reading my mind. As I passed through Immigration and Customs checks on my return trip, this no-nonsense approach was evident.

Even kids were frisked. The slightest alert from detectors at Entebbe International Airport was taken with the highest degree of seriousness. You don’t go through without feeling haunted.

Ugandans lap all these measures in good sense.

No wonder the LRA has been run out of town. The deadly group first moved to Southern Sudan where it got the support of Islamic fundamentalists.

It also spread to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This prompted a reaction by the Ugandan and DRC forces to perform a joint military operation in December 2008 called Operation Lightning Thunder. This military strike effectively destroyed Kony’s main base in the DRC and pushed the LRA into the Central African Republic (CAR) from where it continues to operate.

Maybe Boko Haram would have become history if Nigeria could adopt such proactive measures.

World News

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012 CHANGE OF NAME

CHANGE OF NAME

CHANGE OF NAME

CHANGE OF NAME

OMOLERE

OLAOSEBIKAN

OJO

ADELEYE

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Omolere Esther Kehinde, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Kadiri-Olaniyi, Esther Kehinde. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Olaosebikan Tawakalitu Ajoke, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Kalejaiye Tawakalitu Ajoke. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

SHITTA

APEH

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Risikat Omotola Shitta, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Risikat Omotola Shitta Rasaq. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Apeh Lucy Nkechi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Onyishi Lucy Nkechi. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OPEIBI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Joy Olufunmilayo Ahamefula, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Joy Olufunmilayo Odigboewu. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Omolara Eunice Opeibi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Omolara Eunice Abolade. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

IBRAHIM

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Ibrahim Adebisi Adenike, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Saka Adebisi Adebisi Adenike. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

OGUNBUSOLA I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Falilat Ajoke Ogunbusola, now wish to be known and addressed as Falilat Ajoke Oyekanmi Abey. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

OFUME

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Mary Ndidi Ofume, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Mary Ndidi Ekebafe. All former documents remain valid.

General public take note.

IGE I, formerly known and addressed as Mrs Ige Ruth Olufunmilayo Ayoola, now wish to be known and addressed as Ms Ayoola Funmilayo Ruth Joke. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

AHAMEFULA

EGBO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Egbo Eucharia Kenechukwu, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Lzarus Eucharia Kenechukwu.

All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Amadi Collins Chinedu and Godson Collins Chinedu refers to one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Godson Collins Chinedu. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

AKOMA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akoma Edith Oluakachukwu, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Godson Edith Oluakachukwu. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, James O. Faith and James O. Inifie refers to same and one person.

Now wish to be known and be addressed as Faith O. James. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OVAT

I, formerly known and addressed as Miss Lovelyn Kuse Ovat, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Lovelyn Kuse Iruayenama.

All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

MADU I, formerly known and addressed as Madu Joy Ogechi, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Egereonu Joy Ogechi. All former documents remain valid. General public take note.

ADEEKO

I, formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Busirat Abiola Adeeko, now wish to be known and addressed as Mrs. Busirat Abiola Williams. All former documents remain valid. LUTH, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria and general public take note.

GODSPOWER

I,formerly known and addressed as Godspower Agnes Okwuchi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Adiele Godspower Agnes Okwuchi. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

ANICHEBE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Anichebe Ifeyinwa Doris, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Malu Ifeyinwa Doris. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

EZEDIKE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Perpetual Kelechi Ezedike, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Perpetual Kelechi Effah. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

SOFELA I,formerly known and addressed as Sofela Samuel Oluwasegun, now wish to be known and be addressed as Sofela Ayodeji Oluwasgeun. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

OTTUN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ottun Modupe Ololade, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Sanni Rianat Modupe Ololade. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OJEI

I,formerly known and addressed as Ojei Onwemmadukaego, now wish to be known and be addressed as Eseigbe Muchael Ojei Onwemmadukaego. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

ANORUE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Gertrude G. Anorue, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Gertrude G. Okoroigwe.

All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

AJAYI I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ajayi, Olatilewa Morounfola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ilori Olatilewa Morounfola. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

JOSEPH

I,formerly known and addressed as Joseph Bukola Blessing, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Saminu Bukola Blessing. All former documents remain valid.

Lagos State University, Lagos State Polytechnic and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Akintomowo Olanrewaju Isaiah Gbenga Prince is one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Akintomowo Olanrewaju Isaiah Gbenga Prince All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OJO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojo Omolayo Rebecca, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Olarewaju Omolayo Rebecca. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

ADEYEMO I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adeyemo Odunayo Oladoyin, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Olowookere Odunayo Oladoyin. All former documents remain valid. Osun State College of Education, Ilesa, University of Ibadan and general public should take note.

ALONGE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Alonge Olamide Abosede, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ileasanmi Olamide Abosede. All former documents remain valid.

Atakumosa East Local govt.Iperindo, SUBEB, Osun State and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojo Oluwafunmilola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ajayi Oluwafunmilola Felicia. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

KPARAM

I,formerly known and addressed as Joel Kparam, now wish to be known and be addressed as Igbanibo Joel.

All former documents remains valid. Rivers State Polytechnic, Federal Polytechnic, Nekede and general public should take note.

ADEBAYO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adebayo Selimot Adeola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Abimbola Adeola Selimot. All former documents remains valid. Animal Care Services Konsult Nigeria Limited, Iperu Ogere Remo, Ogun State and general public should take note.

GBADAMOSI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Gbadamosi Idowu Rebecca, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adeleke Idowu Olatundun Rebecca. All former documents remains valid. Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, OAUTHC, Ile-Ife and general public should take note.

OMANU I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Omanu Edith Ifeyinwa, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Okwuanyi Edith Ifeyinwa.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OLAITAN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olaitan Olaide, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Fasugbe Olaide. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti, Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria and general public should take note.

VITUS

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Vitus Chizobam Maryrose, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluwalegan Maryrose. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti South West Local govt., Ilawe Ekiti, Ekiti State Local Govt. Service Commission, Ado-Ekiti and general public should take note.

AFOLAYAN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Afolayan Aina Veronica, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Iseyemi Aina Veronica. All former documents remains valid.

Ekiti South West Local govt., Ilawe Ekiti and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, Amigun Samuel Olabode is the same and one person as Amigun Samuel Olumide. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

SIKIRU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Sikiru Adijat Kubura, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Osunsanya Adijat Kubura.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

EZE I,formerly known and addressed as Eze Cyril Onyemaechi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Ukwueze Cyril Onyemaechi. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

OMALI I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Omali Ebele Mediatrix, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nzekwe Ebele Meditrix All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

ILOANYA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Iloanya Ijeoma Vivian, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ijeoma Ogochukwu Nwobu All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OKOLO

OLAREWAJU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Okolo Serah Njedika, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Serah Archibong Daniel.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olarewaju Rachael Kemi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oyetola Rachael Kemi.

All former documents remain valid. Local govt. Service Commission, Osogbo, Atakumosa East Iperindo and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ibitoye Bolaji, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oladunjoye Florence Bolaji All former documents remains valid.

Ekiti East Local govt., Omuo Ekiti and general public should take note.

IBITOYE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adeleye Adedayo Rebecca, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adenola Adedayo Rebecca. All former documents remains valid. Gbonyin Local govt., Ode-Ekiti and general public should take note.

ADELEYE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adeleye Adedayo Rebecca, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adenola Adedayo Rebecca. All former documents remains valid. Gbonyin Local govt., Ode-Ekiti and general public should take note.

AKPAKPAN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akpakpan Nseabasi Akpan, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Samuel Nseabasi Victory. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

FOLORUNSO I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Folorunso Bola Yinka, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Gorge Bola Yinka. All former documents remains valid.

Teaching Service Commission, Ado-Ekiti and general public should take note.

ADEDOYIN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adedoyin Oluwatoyin, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Kayode Oluwatoyin. All former documents remains valid.

Gboyin Local govt. Authority of Ekiti State and general public should take note.

OYEBODE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oyebode Grace Bukola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ojotope Grace Bukola. All former documents remains valid.

OSCOTECH, Esa-Oke, NYSC, Gbonyin Local govt. authority Ekiti State and general public should take note.

OJOWURO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojowuro Modupe Deborah, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ariyo Modupe Deborah. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State Teaching Service Commission and general public should take note.

ADEJUYIGBE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adejuyigbe Foluso Toluwani, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Osadare Foluso Toluwani. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State government Ministry of Works, Ado-Ekiti and general public should take note.

CHILAKA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Chilaka Angelina Ijeoma, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Emezue Angelina Ijeoma. All former documents remains valid.

Umuahia South LGA and general public should take note.

AGOKE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ndidi Ogoke, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nkiruka Francis Ogbodo. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

OYELEYE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Bosede Mojiroye Oyeleye, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Bosede Mojiroye Haastrup. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

IKPA I,formerly known and addressed as Ikpa Maria Molly Egana, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Maria Acka. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OYASOR

I,formerly known and addressed as Ellis Oyasor, now wish to be known and be addressed as Ellis Isaiah Alfa. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

JAMES

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Kehinde James, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Kehinde Priscilla Pius. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OSATO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oliha Mercy Osato, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Collins Mercy Osato. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

LAWAL I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Hajaratu Lawal, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Hajaratu Mohammed Lawal. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

CHANGE OF NAME SUNDAY

I,formerly known and addressed as Mr. Salifu Sunday, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Salifu Shaibu.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

ODEWUMI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Odewumi Oyenike Bola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Ebhohimen Oyenike Bola.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OJO I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojo Olufunmilola Olayemi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Amoo Olufunmilola Olayemi. All former documents remains valid. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, NYSC and general public should take note.

AHAM I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Aham Ifeyinwa Goodness, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Uchealo Elvis Ifeyinwa Goodness. All former documents remains valid. Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, NYSC and general public should take note.

IKENNA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ikenna Onovo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Emmanuel Ikenna Onovo. All former documents remains valid.

Zenith Bank Plc. and general public should take note.

OLALEYE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olaleye Olabisi Abosede, now wish to be known and be addressed as Okesola Olabisi Abosede. All former documents remains valid. Trustfund Pension Plc. and general public should take note.

EGUNJIMI I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Egunjimi Funmilayo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Omisakin Funmilayo. All former documents remains valid.

Hospital Mangement Board, Osogbo, Osun State and general public should take note.

OLORUNTOBA I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oloruntoba Adepeju Aderinola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Aribisala Adepeju Aderinola. All former documents remains valid.

UNAD and general public should take note.

AKANMU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akanmu Alifat Ajoke, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Toriola Alifat Ajoke. All former documents remains valid.

Ayedaade Local government and general public should take note.

ARIYO I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ariyo Funmilayo Jennifer, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ajayi Olufunmilayo Busola. All former documents remains valid.

University of Maiduguri and general public should take note.

GIDIGBI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Gidigbi Adefiola ‘Funmike, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Bamikole Adefiola Oluwafunmike. All former documents remains valid.

NYSC, Obafemi Awolowo University, GTBank Plc. and general public should take note.

OJO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ojo Olufolake Abosede, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oni, Olufolake Abosede.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OMOTOSHO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Rosemary Olufunke Omotosho, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs.Rosemary Olufunke Ajayi. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) Oye Local govt. and general public should take note.

ALAYANDE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Omolola Waliyah Alayande, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs.Omolola Waliyah Ashiru. All former documents remains valid. All foreign Embassies in Nigeria and general public should take note.

ADVERT: Simply produce your marriage certificate or sworn affidavit for a change of name publication, with just (N3,500.)

The payment can be made through FIRST BANK of Nigeria Plc. Account number 1892030011219 Account Name - VINTAGE PRESS LIMITED Scan the details of your advert and teller to -gbengaodejide@yahoo.com or thenation_advert@yahoo.com For enquiry please contact: Gbenga on 08052720421, 08161675390, Emailgbengaodejide @yahoo.com or our offices nationwide.

Note this! Change of name is now published every Sundays, all materials should reach us two days before publication.

63

Thousands rally against Putin

T

ENS of thousands of Russians flooded downtown Moscow yesterday to demand an end to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s rule, braving sub-zero temperatures to keep the protest movement alive one month before a presidential election that Putin is still expected to win.

The protest — which drew 120,000 people, according to organizers — was the third mass demonstration since Putin’s party won a parliamentary election Dec. 4 with the help of what appeared to be widespread fraud.

The election and Putin’s presumptuous decision to reclaim the presidency proved the last straw for Russians increasingly unhappy with the creeping authoritarianism during his 12-year rule. The protest rallies — which have brought together liberals, leftists and nationalists — are the biggest in Russia since the the demonstrations 20 years ago that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Yesterday, people wearing the white ribbons that have become the symbol of the protest movement and chanting “Russia Without Putin” braved temperatures as low as minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius) as they marched about one kilometer (less than a mile) to a square across the river from the Kremlin where their rally was held.

Thousands of police monitored the peaceful protest without intervening.

“There are now so many of us that they cannot arrest us all,” said 56-year-old protester Alexander Zelensky.

He and his wife, Alyona Karimova, said they had begun preparations to emigrate to Canada in the fall, but then changed their minds and decided to stay in the hope that Russia will eventually move toward democracy.

“This is going to be a gradual process, but we believe it will eventually lead to democracy and free elections,” said Karimova, who was wearing a long mink coat and a sign around her neck telling Putin to return to his native St. Petersburg.

An anti-Putin protest also took place in St. Petersburg yesterday, drawing 5,000 people, and smaller rallies were held in several dozen other cities across Russia.

A separate rally in Moscow in support of Putin drew no more than 20,000 people.

Most of them were teachers, municipal workers, employees of state-owned companies or trade union activists, who had come with co-workers on buses provided by their employers.

Most of the pro-Putin protesters were reluctant to speak to journalists.

Yekaterina, a 25-year-old postal worker who gave only her first name out of fear she would be fired, said she had been ordered to attend the rally and was told she would be paid as if it were a work day.

The anti-Putin protests have been driven by members of the educated and urban middle class.

Putin has ignored many of their demands, including for a repeat election, but he has sought to assuage their anger by making vague promises to introduce liberal reforms and to guarantee a fair presidential vote on March 4.

64

•Iran President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

T

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

News Analysis

HE scent of a new war permeates the Middle East as Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran engage in a dangerous game of bluff, bully and bile. If tensions between these nations continue to rise, an additional Middle Eastern war is a distinct possibility before the year ends. That new war is imminent, even though old wars have yet to disappear, reveals much about the nature of our times and the martial inclination of national governments.

Governments are more prone to flex muscle than exercise wisdom. They would rather appear strong by resorting to war than appear wise by figuring out the more complex road to peace. Those who captain this trend are not unintelligent or slow of mind. They are the opposite. They are as cunning as foxes. The defect is not in the mind of men but of the heart. The mind thinks what the heart tells it. The heart dictates the objective then commands the mind to figure how to reach it. Sadly, hatred, fear and greed made the loudest clang and thus are first served. Only after the feral instincts have laid waste, are the muted voices of peace and equanimity given audience. War is often the product of cold calculation founded on irrational biases and assumptions. Those who are quick to war rarely understand the enterprise in which they so eagerly engage.

Even when victorious, they suffer the consequences of war because they have little idea how to establish peace. They expend themselves in the cost of war only to be defeated by the responsibilities wrought by their own martial success. In the end, only the wise should go to war but it is the wise who counsel most against the angry undertaking.

American Defense Secretary Panetta recently made two extraordinary statements. First, he admitted Iran has no obvious designs for a nuclear weapon.

Despite the high alarms raised by corporate media, there is no evidence of an ongoing Iranian thrust to produce nuclear weapons.

Panetta asserted America’s current objection was not that Iran hotly pursuing a nuclear arsenal but that America opposed Iran developing any significant nuclear capacity. With this, America and much of the West has successfully painted Iran as modern day Persian juggernaut, a terrible villain bent on annihilating Israel, colonizing the Arab world as in days of old, and plunging the rest of the world into a state of extreme agitation if not outright hostilities. Yet, something is terribly wrong with this characterization.

There is an important distinction between a nuclear program and creating a nuclear weapon. This distinction is so clear and unassailable that it is enshrined in international conventions. As long as Iran adheres to its present course of weaponless

•Barack Obama

•Israel Prime Minister is Benjamin Netanyahu

Iran, Israel and America in the dance of war War itself is its only winner for it is a malady that extinguishes the vanquished while enfeebling the victor.

By Brian Browne nuclear development, it is substantially complying with international legal obligations. That one may not like the Iranian regime does not alter this fact. Its periodic obstruction of technical observers does not rise to the level of a casus belli.

Ironically, those nations set on punishing Iran with crippling sanctions are more at fault for the heated atmosphere than is Iran.

While portraying Iran as a nuclear outlaw, the actions of these nations are more legally questionable than Iran’s. In actuality, there is no great legal infraction that Iran has committed. This matter is purely a geopolitical one. Because Iran is an enemy, they do not want her to assume any of the characteristics of power associated with a major modern state.

As such, America is attempting a radically new doctrine of self-defense and preemptive war. Panetta’s statement strongly implies that an enemy state may not be allowed to develop the modern technology if that technology can possibly be used to create weapons. This is a remarkably broad and aggressive doctrine that could lead to numerous future confrontations. Panetta would use America’s military and economic superiority to deprive enemy states of evolving technological advances simply because the states are not American allies.

The state would not have to engage in any overt bellicosity. Its political differences with America would suffice. While this overbearing approach might seem like a fine way to deal with wayward states in the short term, there is no surer way to force America’s enemies into common league against what they would perceive as imperial attempts to reduce them to second-class states simply because they do not bend and bow to Washington. These nations have vast histories of cultural, technological, and political development much longer and more varied than the United States. It is the mistake of an arrogant newcomer to believe it can

suppress the creative drive and strengths of other nations with legacies of achievement that stretch back two millennia. A nation may be able to outdo another; but, in the long-term, no nation can technologically suppress all nations that might dislike it. Not only is this a mission impossible, it is one framed in disaster.

Panetta’s second verbal blast was that Israel would likely attack Iran within a few months. Remarkably, Panetta did not state America counseled against the preemptive venture. He mentioned the possible attack as matter-of-factly as one would a stroll to the neighborhood haberdashery. Coming from such a senior figure, this should be taken as sure warning more than a speculative prediction. At minimum, it will catalyze other states to apply more political and economic pressure on Iran. Cast already as the innocent victim of an assault (that only exists in the realm of imagination), Israel will not be pressured to change course. The West will succor Israel as if it were the unfortunate respondent instead of the initiator of war.

Should Israel attack Iran, it will not be bombing a single facility. Iranian facilities are numerous and geographically diverse.

Bombing will have to be sustained and in many places. Bombing will not be an isolated act of war, it will be war. The Iranian government will have to respond or risk collapse. If it counterattacks, Israel will ask America to honor its security commitments. Yet, Israel need not ask.

America must leap into the fray to finish the job Israel started but is too limited militarily to complete. This would not be a matter simply to crash Iran’s nuclear program. It will be a war to change the face of Iran’s government. In effect, America has ended war in Iraq to prepare itself for the bigger game of tackling Iran.

In this steamroll toward calamity, President Obama is a minor figure swept along by forces more powerful than the power he holds over his own office.

A

Uninitiated in the wiles of his own military establishment, he is less the commander and more the commanded.

The conservative military structure has sought war and regime change in Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Pakistan for more than a decade. Having gotten their wish in Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, having turned Pakistan into the most dangerously unstable nation on the planet, and with Syria in the throes of civil war, American conservatives have fixed their hearts on ending the thirty year cold war with theocratic Iran through decisive military victory. For President Obama to stand against this vast complex of government and corporate power and opinion during an election year would require a statesman of a stature to which he has yet to ascend.

He must go along with the march to war; opposing it would result in being marched from the White House by this powerful yet shadowy government within government. Thus, America steers the West to impose severe economic sanctions against the Iranian oil and central bank to cripple the regime by sending the national economy into depression. American intelligence agencies have warned of possible Iranian strikes within the United States although there is no credible evidence of such desperate gambits. The propaganda is not intended to be factual but to cultivate fear and condition the public mind for the war likely to come.

The thin chance to avert war rests in the hands of Tehran. While legality and time may be on its side, the Iranian government must swallow hard and realize that the power equation lies against it at the moment. The Iranian government would be unwise to allow the current dynamic to continue to unfold. Its best path would be to open its books and facilities to a team of international observers. Iran should insist on input into the selection of the observers to insure objectivity. Then Iran should take its case to the UN and demand from the world body a decision that Iran has been acting within its rights to develop a peaceful nuclear program.

Unless these steps are taken, the presence of American troops in Iraq will likely be replaced by the presence of American and Israel planes in the skies over Iran.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

EBERE WABARA

65

WORDSWORTH 08055001948

ewabara@yahoo.com

Zenith Bank’s ad T HE Nation Foreign News Page of January 31 committed the worst blunder so far this year. First, the headline: “Assad’s wife, children caught trying to escape” Now the story: “Scroll down to see video of yesterday’s troop offensive.” Newsreel extracts for publication should be edited and not slothfully and slovenly slammed without any modicum of professionalism and regard for the reader. “…although there may be some few flaws” (DAILY INDEPENDENT Politics, January 30) ‘Some’ and ‘few’ cannot co-function.

Either: a few or some flaws. “…journalists working in troubled spots around the world” (Editorial from the above edition) This way: trouble spots “…for instance the Nigerian Union of Journalists, is largely, a trade union.” (Source: as above) Get it right: Nigeria Union of Journalists Still on DAILY INDEPENDENT Editorial of January 30: “But death is too high a price for anybody to pay for simply doing their (his) job.”

THE GUARDIAN EDITORIAL of January 30 vitiated its profile: “…it signifies the complete failure of the Police in its (their) duty of safeguarding lives and property (life and property or lives and properties—if classically applied).

More from Rutam House: “How to bouy Nigeria’s capital vote profile, by NACCIMA” Spell-check: buoy.

“His very presence in (on) a government premises in the company….”

“We’ve restored peace in (to) Rivers— Amaechi” (Vanguard Headline, January 30) “…hired assassins have done great havoc with guns acquired illegally.” (THE NATION, January 30) All mercantilist killers (assassins) are hired! So, there is no need padding/qualifying the obnoxious word.

“He said the trend is (was) that customers will be served….” (THE NATION ON SUNDAY, January 29) “Clerics calls (why?) for national confab (sic)” (Source: as above) The cleric called for a national conference “Former Chief Secu-

rity Officer (CSO) to late General Sani Abacha….”

(DAILY INDEPENDENT Front Page Caption, January 31) A voice of your own: Former CSO to the (take note of the article) late….

“The magnitude of their losses also vary (varies).”

(Saturday Mirror, January 28) DAILY INDEPENDENT of January 27 did not disappoint its readers as it goofed on three occasions: “Nnaji, electricity workers in closedoor meeting” No power holding here: closeddoor meeting.

“It would interest some people to know that in spite of series of attacks….” Politics: a (also take note of the article) series of attacks….

“We gave our all— Senegal captain” A voice of your own: Senegalese captain DAILY SUN of January 26 lit two errors: “Okorocha urges Nigerians to be their brothers’ keepers” No news (fixed expression): brother’s keeper (plural context notwithstanding).

“Tevez looses (loses)…in Man City dispute” “Ready for cashless?”

(Full Page Colour Advert

by Zenith Bank PLC, THISDAY, January 27) In your best interest: Ready for cashlessness? Alternatively: Ready for cashless banking/services/ transactions…?

“160 Chadians arrested over (for) Kano attacks” (THISDAY Front Page Rider, January 27) When will this goof stop?

National Mirror of January 27 circulated three blunders: “Saraki commends Jonathan over (for) negotiations with Boko Haram” “ E m b a t t l e d Adamawa Speaker sworn-in (sworn in) as Ag. Governor” Phrasal verbs do not admit hyphenation. Yet another recurrent misunderstanding that has been corrected repeatedly. “…it was seen as a child of necessity aimed at restoring the primary education sub- sector which was in crisis (sic) then back to a sound foundation.”

Scrap ‘back’ to avoid being charged with word abuse.

‘Restoration’ has taken care of the verbiage.

“All that we have in the present Nigerian society is an hostile (a hostile) environment for the youths and children.”

Either: youths or the youth.

“Having succeeded in intimidating their oppo-

nents at primaries, the electorate became a workover....” A time to learn: walk-over.

“Thereafter he shifted to Malta Guinness where he warmed (wormed) his way into (to) the hearts of journalists and advertising agencies alike.”

“In Samaria of old, when Ben-Hadad, King of Aram, laid a siege on (to) the capital of Israel….”

“Anyone who monitored the mobilization of women in the last fifteen years in Nigeria could imagine positive results that could have been achieved if the country’s First Ladies have (had) been sincere.”

“Because of an improved revenue base, the governor said that the government is (was) in a good position….”

“What stops us from returning to the heydays (heyday) of the school.…?”

“This does not mean that a lady should not be congratulated for (on) a safe delivery.”

“Many of the specie (species) had run amuck simply on the suspicion that another woman is nipping at the apple.”

“Industry players blamed the high cost of borrowing from the money market to (on) a number of factors.”

“It is high time we make (made) such people pay....” “…especially with regards to human development.” This way: as regards or with regard to.

“While congratulating the Federal Government for (on) this bold move....” “…as the North would be placed on an even keel or competing favourably with their kiths and kin in the South.” Fixed expression: kith and kin.

“Tears of instability of power has (have) caused many a Nigerian to turn their attention to alternative sources of power supply.”

“The most interesting news item in recent times is the marching order given to the Nigerian Police” Stock phrase: marching orders.

“The police strenght is inadequate to cope with the security of a large population of 120 million Nigerians.”

Spell-check: strength.

And this: straight.

“News from reliable sources tend (tends) to portray a government tendency itching (do you mean inching?) towards sustenance.…”

66 CHANGE OF NAME

CHANGE OF NAME

CHANGE OF NAME

ADENUGA

AYINLA

ELESHA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adefunke Adesolademi Adenuga, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adefunke Adesolademi Eboda.

All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayinla Idayat, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Kayode Idayat. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

ALLEN

KAYODE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Allen Oluwatosin Abimbola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Aroyehun Oluwatosin Abimbola. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

TAIWO

I,formerly known and addressed as Aina Olapeju Zainab, now wish to be known and be addressed as Boge-Aina Olapeju Zainab. All former documents remain valid. Lagos State University, ICAN, NYSC and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Kayode Omowunmi Opeyemi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Samuel Omowunmi Opeyemi. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Taiwo Adenike Victoria, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adeniran Adenike Victoria. All former documents remain valid. Ifedayo Local govt., Oke-Ila and general public should take note.

OLISAH

I,formerly known and addressed as Romanus Nnanna Olisah, now wish to be known and be addressed as Romanus Offorka Olisakwe. All former documents remain valid. Union Bank Plc., Guinness Nigeria Plc and general public should take note.

AWE

I,formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Mercy Oluwatoyin Awe, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Mercy Oluwatoyin Ogbonaya. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OLISAH

I,formerly known and addressed as Romanus Nnanna Olisah, now wish to be known and be addressed as Romanus Offorka Olisakwe. All former documents remain valid. Union Bank Plc., Guinness Nigeria Plc and general public should take note.

OGEDENGBE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Funmilayo Abimbola Ogedengbe, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Funmilayo Abimbola Adenegan.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OGUNRINDE I,formerly known and addressed as Oluwatosin Oluwagbenga Ogunrinde, now wish to be known and be addressed as Oluwatosin Oluwagbenga Oluwarinde.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

ONIFADE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Temitola Adesewa Onifade, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Temitola Adesewa Oluwole. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

KELEKO I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Keleko Aderonke Gbemisola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adegoke Aderonke Gbemisola.

All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OGUNGBAMIGBE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogungbamigbe Idowu Dupe, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluwole Idowu Dupe. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

AKINYELURE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akinyelure Olubunmi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oyeleke Olubunmi Gloria Abimbola. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

OGUNFUYE

I,formerly known and addressed as Adegoke Abiola Ogunfuye, now wish to be known and be addressed as Adegoke Abiola Olufuye. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

SHORUNKE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Obire Oghenetega Esther Efe, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Shorunke Tega-Ola Kamirat. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

LAWAL I,formerly known and addressed as Lawal Babatunde Rahmon, now wish to be known and be addressed as Rahmon Ahmad Olanrewaju.

All former documents remains valid. Lagos State government and general

AINA

AKE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olubunmi John Ake, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluwabunmi Taiwo Adegunwa. All former documents remains valid. Lagos State government and general public should take note.

DADA I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Dada Abimbola Ayodele, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. AdebiyiAdeniran Abimbola. All former documents remains valid.Airtel and general public should take note.

AYODELE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayodele Mariam Oluwakemi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Adegbenro Mariam Oluwakemi.

All former documents remains valid.General public should take note.

AHMED I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ahmed Rukiyat , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Idris Rukiyat.

All former documents remains valid.General public should take note.

ONU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Onu Agnes Assurance Ojobo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Onah Assurance Ojobo Onu. All former documents remains valid.FIRS and general public should take note.

ABRAHAM I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Comfort Etim Abraham, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Comfort Joseph Oromene. All former documents remains valid. Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Service Commission and general public should take note.

UDOM I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Aniema Solomon Udom, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Aniema Nyeneima Eshiet. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

BOLARINWA I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Bolarinwa Abosede Odunayo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Abegunde Abosede Odunayo. All former documents remains valid.

General public should take note.

ORENUSI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Orenusi Oluseun Roseline, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Braimoh Oluwaseun Roseline. All former documents remains valid. General public should take note.

OMOYAJOWO I,formerly known and addressed as Mr. Omoyajowo Isaac Sunday, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Opeyemi Isaac Sunday and Ayomide Desire to Opeyemi Desire. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State Ministry of Education and general public should take note.

JOHNSON I,formerly known and addressed as Mrs. Johnson Victoria Oluwafunke, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluwagbemi Victoria Oluwafunke. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board, (SUBEB) LGEA Oye Ekiti and general public should take note.

IJADARE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ijadare Olajumoke Modupe, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Esan Olajumoke Modupe. All former documents remains valid. Ekiti State Universal Basic Education Board, (SUBEB) LGEA Oye Ekiti and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Temitope Ololade Elesha, now wish to be known and be addressed as Temitope Ololade Agbebiyi. All former documents remain valid. Nigeria Bar Association and general public should take note.

GILLOWEI

CHANGE OF NAME ALABI I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Alabi, Olusola Adeyinka, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Awodu Olusola Adeyinka. All former documents remain valid.

University of Jos(Nursing dept.) and general public should take note.

OLADE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Gillowei Timipamenere, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ibifuro Timipamenere. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olade Bukola Grace, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Hassan Bukola Grace. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OPARA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Emofo Ajoyo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Akinde Ajoyo Sarah. All former documents remain valid.

Ondo State University of Science and Technology, Okitipupa and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Opara Vivian Chizobam, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. McChukwu, Vibian Chizobam.

All former documents remain valid. Abia State University, Uturu (ABSU) and general public should take note.

NLEBEDUM

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Nlebedum Nwakaego Veronica, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nwakaego Veronica Moukwe. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OPARA I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Opara Ada Ogechi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nmekaraonye Ogechi Ada. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

UDOH

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oto-Obong Sunday Udoh, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oto-Obong Jessica James-Okere. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OKIKE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Chinedu Okike, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Chinedu Chinatu Okoro. All former documents remain valid. NYSC and general public should take note.

OBOLLO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Tejiri Obollo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Tejiri Divine Sobotie. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OMOBEREMI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Omoberemi Mayowa Lydia, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Sule, Mayowa Lydia. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

UDOETTE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Mercy Joe Udoette, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Mercy Joseph Ekwere. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

EHUMADU I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oluchi Chibuihe Ehmadu, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluchi Chibuihe Njoku. All former documents remain valid. NYSC, Federal Polytechnic, Nekede and general public should take note.

OKONKWO

EMOFO

OGUNNIYI

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogunniyi Funmilayo, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Awogun Funmilayo. All former documents remain valid.

Hospital Mnagement Board, Akure and general public should take note.

OGUNMOLA

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogunmola Roseline Seyi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Igbasan Roseline Seyi. All former documents remain valid. Hospital Mnagement Board, Akure and general public should take note.

OGBOLO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ihuegbu Nkechi Charity, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nkechi Kaycee Uchenna Amuzie. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

ETHOTHI

OGBODO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogbodo Nnenna Lillian , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ezeugwu Nnenna. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

NNABUIFE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Nnabuife Nwanyiamaka Geraldine , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Usinoma Nwanyiamaka Geraldine. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

AMOO

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Halima Olabisi Babande , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Halima Olabisi Toma. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OKPARA

I,formerly known and addressed as Mr. Uduak Emmanuel Eshiet, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Eric Richard Inyang. All former documents remain valid. NYSC, UNIPORT and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I, Hereby confirm that I, Anozie Moulin Ashake is the same person known, called and addressed as Salami Atilola and Agbaje Atilola and Agbaje Atilola. All former documents remain valid.

UAC Registrars and general public should take note.

SALAMI

IHEMESON

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Chika Ihemeson, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Chika Izuchukwu Chiaghanam. All former documents remain valid.

Diplomats Assembly Church and general public should take note.

OKOSUN

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Juliet Osatohanmwen Okosun, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Juliet Osatohanmwen Aghimien. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

IGWE

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Okoye Kingsley Chinedu and Humphery Nnabuike Okafor are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Okoye Kingsley Chinedu. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Fred V.Fred Horsfall and Horsfall Aririya V. are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Fred V. Fred Horsfall. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

IHUEGBU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ethothi, Uttu-Aja Uno , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Uttu-Aja Uno Ethothi. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Adekanye Atinuke Oluwayemisi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Omoniyi Atinuke Oluwayemisi.

All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OKONKWO

AKPAN

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Mr. Godwin Wisdom Gabriel and Mr. Godwin Ekwere Gabriel are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Godwin Wisdom Gabriel. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

BABANDE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Salami Olusola Nurat, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Asuni Olusola Nurat. All former documents remain valid. Osun State Local govt. Service Commission, Boripe Local govt., Iragbiji and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Mrs. Chinyere Emeka Precious, Miss Chinyere Ukonu and Mrs. Cjinyere Daniels, are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Chinyere Emeka Precious. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OKON I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ethel Edem Okon, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Peace David Akpaessien.

All former documents remain valid.

University of Uyo, St. Brian’s Model College, Uyo and general public should take note.

OMONIYI

I,formerly known and addressed as Okpara Nnenna Joy, now wish to be known and be addressed as Uche-Eboh Nnenna Joy. All former documents remain valid. Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of Lagos and general public should take note.

BAMKOLE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Bamkole Maria Oyebisi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ogunrinde Maria Oyebisi. All former documents remain valid. Ogun State SUBEB, Ewekoro and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Nwogueze Ekene, Nwogueze Ekenechukwu and Nwogueze Ekenedilichukwu are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Nwogueze Ekene. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Kudirat Oluwaremi Amoo , now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Kudirat Oluwaremi Ajao. All former documents remain valid. NYSC and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Igwe Ngozi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ngozi Stephanie Nnamdi Okogbue. All former documents remain valid. TECON Oil Nig. Limited and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akpan Emmanuel Emem, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Brown Sonnie Emem. All former documents remain valid. Union Bank of Nigeria Plc. and general public should take note.

CONFIRMATION OF NAME I,Wille Stephen Samuel and Samuel Babatunde M. are one and the same person. Now wish to be known and be addressed as Wille Stephen Samuel. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogbolo Adefolu Abimbola, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ogunbayo Adefolu Abimbola.

All former documents remain valid. OSOPADEC and general public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Okonkwo Mary-Ann Chizoba, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. IkeUgwuodo, Mary-Ann Chizoba.

All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Okonkwo Helen Chioma, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Micheal Helen Chioma. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012 CHANGE OF NAME CHANGE OF NAME

ESHIET

ELEGBEDE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Elegbede Saidat Arike, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Fayomi Saidat Arike. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OBIEFULE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Obiefule Agatha Nneji, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Ndupu Loveth Agbatha Nneji. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

FATOLU

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Fatolu Adeola Ayobami, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Egunjobi Adeola Ayobami. All former documents remain valid. Ogun State SUBEB, Yewa South LGEA, Special School, Ilaro, EKSU and general public should take note.

ADERIBIGBE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Aderibigbe Toyin Cecilia, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Omiyale Cecilia Olutoyin. All former documents remain valid.

Oyo State Hospital Management Board and general public should take note.

OYENAIYA I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Olushola Aina Oyenaiya, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Olushola Aina Yusuf. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OSSAI I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ossai Ndidiamaka, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. UgwokeNnadi Ndidiamaka. All former documents remain valid. Federal Polytechnic, Oko, NYSC and general public should take note.

AYETUTU I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ayetutu Mariam Oluwaseyi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Onasanya Mariam Oluwaseyi. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

OGUNDIPE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Ogundipe Oluwakemi Adeyemi, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Rasheed Oluwakemi Adeyemi.

All former documents remain valid. Ogun SUBEB, INELGEA, Atan and general public should take note.

AMOS

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Oluwakemi Bolanle Amos, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oluwakemi Bolanle Akinwonmi. All former documents remain valid. SOS Children’s Village, Owu-Ijebu, Ogun State and general public should take note.

JEGEDE

I,formerly known and addressed as Jegede Kayode Abiodun Elkanah, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Oladapo Olukayode Elkanah Abiodun. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

NWALIE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Nkeiruka Mary Nwalie, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Nkeiruka Mary Nana. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

MADUEKE I,formerly known and addressed as Chioma Sandra Madueke, now wish to be known and be addressed as Chioma Sandra Henry-Onwere. All former documents remain valid. Fidelity Bank Plc. and general public should take note.

AKINLEYE I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Akinleye Humoani Iyabode, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Akinbola Humoani Iyabode. All former documents remain valid.

General public should take note.

ORHEWERE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Gloria Titilope Orhewere, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Gloria Titilope Ekejiuba. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

OCHURU I,formerly known and addressed as Ochuru Afuekwe Mabel, now wish to be known and be addressed as Chukwudubem Afuekwe Mabel. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

ODEWALE

I,formerly known and addressed as Miss Omolola Mujidat Odewale, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mrs. Omolola Mujidat Akingbade. All former documents remain valid.

UNILAG, NYSC and general public should take note.

IDOWU I,formerly known and addressed as Mr. Olufemi Reuben Idowu, now wish to be known and be addressed as Mr. Egbeyemi Reuben Idowu. All former documents remain valid. General public should take note.

ADVERT: Simply produce your marriage certificate or sworn affidavit for a change of name publication, with just (N3,500.)

The payment can be made through FIRST BANK of Nigeria Plc. Account number 1892030011219 Account Name VINTAGE PRESS LIMITED Scan the details of your advert and teller to gbengaodejide@yahoo.com or thenation_advert@yahoo.com For enquiry please contact: Gbenga on 08052720421, 08161675390, Emailgbengaodejide @yahoo.com or our offices nationwide.

Note this! Change of name is now published every Sundays, all materials should reach us two days before publication.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

News

67

NGO partners foundation on youth empowerment

By Rita Ohai

United Kingdom-based training organisation, Youth At Risk, in partnership with Freedom Foundation, is set to empower youths in the country with the right skills by establishing a coaching school.

Top management staff of the two organisations dropped this hint over the weekend at a stakeholders meeting in Lagos.

Justifying the need for the scheme, tagged: ‘Ignition Nigeria Transformational Coaching School’ the Chief Executive Officer of Youth At Risk, Neil Wragg, said he was persuaded to promote this timely project in Nigeria due to the pressures from his ex-students who benefitted from the training in the UK. “Quite frankly, I met some Nigerians that I had been coaching in the UK and they suggested that I bring the project over here.

I have been coming over for about a year to conduct some feasibility studies and right now we are set to deliver a pilot youth coaching scheme in three States of the country”, he stressed.

A

KOGI’S LEADERSHIP CRISIS •Continued from Page 23 supporters and political machinery. Also, the Speaker, sworn-in as Acting Governor, has the backing of the AttorneyGeneral of the Federation, who hails from the state and is reported to have been having running political battles with the sacked governor.

Though on the left side of history, observers said the development, which concritised the power play in the state, would for long remain the watershed of Kogi politics. After that historic drama, the political chess game or the power play between the political elites of the dominant Igala and that of the others in the state, especially Igbiras, has finally come to the fore and will require tact, negotiations and perhaps concessions to resolve.

Before the Supreme Court ruling, the political atmosphere in Kogi State was relatively peaceful, though Ibrahim, who had served out his maximum two terms, was accused, by opponents, of manipulating the political process to enthrone a loyal successor in the person of Wada.

This explains the apprehension in Ibrahim Idris’ camp when Justice Ajana first refused to swear-in Wada after the Supreme Court’s ruling. To forestall suspected moves to annul Wada’s election and thus uproot Ibrahim’s political empire in the state, Ibrahim quickly called on the President of Customary Court in the state to swear-in Wada.

The Nation gathered from insiders that the fear in Idris’ camp was that their opponents were angling to facilitate return of Jubrin Isa Echocho, who won the January 2011 PDP governorship primary that was set aside in Kogi, when Idris and the other four governors won the tenure elongation case.

This shows that the political fire in the state is not likely to be completely extinguished by merely settling for any of the two governors. Already, there are suggestions that the election that brought in Wada is, going by the position of the Supreme Court, null

Dousing the Kogi fire and void. This explains why the role so far played by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the Kogi matter has attracted so many commentaries.

INEC and the legal web While PDP has officially lauded the Supreme Court’s ruling that sacked governors of five states under its control, it has been observed that the case of Kogi posed a special problem to the party.

Though insiders confirmed that top leadership of the party at the centre was behind Adoke’s group as against Idris’, the party is aware that Wada’s election may be difficult to play with. Therefore, the leadership of the party is careful not to do anything that may lead to possible loss of the state to another party.

A source explained that it was as a result of this understanding that opposition believes INEC was influenced by the PDP-controlled Federal Government to act the way it acted in the Kogi political drama.

They claimed that the leadership, after examining the situation decided that Adoke, though the AGF, may not be allowed to win in this complex local politics. So, the leadership secretly backed INEC to do what it deemed correct under the peculiar circumstance.

Therefore, at the peak of the crisis, INEC came out in full support of Wada. Chairman of the commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, said the governor-elect should be sworn-in instead of the Speaker because the December 3, 2011 governorship election in Kogi State was a concluded one.

Interestingly, lawyers, statesmen and politicians are sharply divided over this position.

While some said it was subversive others, like PDP top officials hailed it as victory of democracy.

Mr. Femi Falana, a radical lawyer has this to say: “Having usurped the judicial powers of the state, INEC has declared that the inauguration of Captain Idris

Wada as governor of Kogi State was in order.

“In the same vein, INEC has put the electoral act in abeyance in its desperate bid to hold governorship elections in afore-mentioned states within two weeks.”

Citing the case of Osun State Independent Electoral Commission v Action Congress and two others (2010), Falana said although the election in question was successfully conducted, it was set aside by the Court of Appeal due to the failure of the electoral body to give the mandatory notice of 150 days in line with Section 34 of the Electoral Act 2006. This decision was upheld by the Supreme Court, prompting the National Assembly to reduce the notice of election to 90 days (Section 30 (1) of the amended 2010 Electoral Act 2010, which states: ‘The commission shall, not later than 90 days before the day appointed for holding of an election under this Act, publish a notice in each state of the federation and the federal capital territory…”

Also faulting INEC’s decision to hold elections in the four remaining states this February, Falana reportedly said “It is sad that INEC which started on an impressive note under the chairmanship of Professor Attahiru Jega, has allowed itself, once again, to be hijacked by political forces that have legendary contempt for the rule of law.”

The Anambra precedence: As the debate over the legality of the action of INEC and that of the federal government in Kogi State rages on, mention is being made of the precedence set in Anambra State in 2007.

At that time, a governorship election was held in the state and the candidate of PDP, Mr. Ady Uba, was declared the winner. Though the conduct of the election itself was widely criticised and dismissed by some international observers as ‘a charade,’ INEC said the PDP candidate won with a staggering 70 percent of the total votes cast.

So, he was duly sworn in as the governor of Amanbra State on May 29, 2007.

However, he was sacked when Governor Peter Obi of All Progressives Grand Alliance won his case at the court, as the Supreme Court ruled that the election that brought Uba to power was illegal.

Key players in the power show The major players in the current power show in Kogi PDP include the former governor, Ibrahim Idris, Captain Idris Wada, Hon. Abdullahi Bello, the AGF, Mohammed Adoke and Jubril Isa Echocho, who won the original PDP primary for the governorship election.

Ibrahim Idris: The former governor, who was sacked by the Supreme Court’s ruling, is fighting hard to protect his political empire.

His camp, which is behind Captain Idris Wada, sees the Attorney-General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke, as the major threat to their continuous dominance and control of political power in the state.

Dismissing allegations of ethnic dominance leveled against the caucus, a source from the camp insists that Idris built a fair political structure that must not be allowed to be destroyed by ‘Abuja politicians.’

Mohammed Adoke: The Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, is a major stakeholder and active player in the unfolding drama in Kogi State. Although he reportedly acted objectively in his capacity as AGF, insiders said he has deep interest in who becomes the state governor today because of future political implications both for himself and for his Igbira tribe.

It is alleged that he is at the forefront of the move for power shift from the dominant Igala to Igbira. What he would do next to achieve this, remains to be seen.

Captain Idris Wada: He was declared the winner of the December 3, 2011 governorship

election. With the backing of the former governor, Idris, the support of the national leadership of PDP and INEC, added to the people’s mandate, Wada’s fate seems very fair.

His major challenge appears to be the Adoke’s factor and the popular call for power shift from his Igala tribe to other stakeholders.

Abdullahi Bello: Hon. Abdullahi Bello, the Speaker of Kogi State House of Assembly, who was sworn in as Acting Governor, is alleged to have direct backing of the AGF. So, even when he leaves the office of the governor and returns to his exulted seat at the House, his political relevance is bound to be affected by the current political drama. It is believed that such effect may be positive or negative, depending on his political sagacity.

Jubril Isa Echocho: He won the January 2011 primary of PDP for the April 2011 governorship election.

However, in a twist of fate, he lost out in a bid to secure and Abuja High Court to hold back PDP from substituting his candidacy with that of Wada.

Since then, he has not given up the fight. He has continued to describe himself as the authentic PDP candidate.

When this current leadership crisis commenced, he became more relevant in the political equation as he and his supporters re-echo the view of some legal experts that only the original primaries held in the five affected states could be considered legal, considering the Supreme Court’s ruling on tenure.

The question some people are asking today is, even if the option of fresh election in Kogi is considered, can Echocho win?

That is a question that may no longer be as simple as it looks, for the current drama has not only jolted the political consciousness of the people of Kogi State more than any other incident, but have also redrawn the lines of follower ship and allegiance.

It has lighted a fire that may take time to douse.

THE NATION ON SUNDAY FEBRUARY 5, 2012

68

PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM GREENWHITE COALITION EXPOSED!

AMERICA’S DESTABILIZATION PLOTS AGAINST NIGERIA

I

n the aftermath of the unfortunate bombings and sporadic attacks that took place in Damaturu the Yobe State capital and environs on the last Sallah Day, the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria hastily put out a public statement declaring that such like bombings should be expected in three well known hospitality establishments in Abuja the nation’s capital. To discerning observers not only did that score high marks for bad manners as that was hardly what a nation still grieving and coming to terms with its losses expected from a supposedly friendly nation, but that the US embassy was being economical with information on what it actually knew about the incident, and more significantly, the role the US government itself has been playing in the whole gamut of acts of destabilization against Nigeria.

We have already been regaled with reports provided by the Wikileaks which identified the US embassy in Nigeria as a forward operating base for wide and far reaching acts of subversion against Nigeria which include but not limited to eavesdropping on Nigerian government communication, financial espionage on leading Nigerians, support and funding of subversive groups and insurgents, sponsoring of divisive propaganda among the disparate groups of Nigeria and the use of visa blackmail to induce and coerce high ranking Nigerians into acting in favour of US interests.

But beyond what we know from the Wikileaks report, what many Nigerians do not know is that US embassy’s subversive activities in Nigeria fits into the long term US government’s well camouflaged policy of containment against Nigeria the ultimate goal of which is to eliminate Nigeria as a potential strategic rival to the US in the African continent. Today as Nigerians are reeling from the negative effects of the insurgency that has befallen our dear country and earnestly seeking answers to what all this portends for the future, the GREENWHITE COALITION a citizen’s watchdog can reveal the true nature of this silent, undeclared war of attrition waged against Nigeria by the Government of United States of America.

BACKGROUND TO US SUBVERSIVE ACTS AGAINST NIGERIA AND TIMELINES From ACRI to AFRICOM ACRI stands for Africa Crises Response Initiative and it was set up during the Bush Jnr Administration as a counterweight to the Nigeria led ECOWAS Monitoring Group on the Liberian Civil War or ECOMOG as it is more popularly known. ACRI came to being from the secret reports and recommendations separately by the Africa-America Institute and the Brookings Institute commissioned by the Central Intelligence Agency, the American Government’s Directorate responsible for organizing foreign subversive activities, on the Liberian civil war and the intervention of ECOMOG. Both reports zeroed in on the pivotal role Nigeria playing in the ECOMOG initiative and noted pointedly the phenomenal success recorded by ECOMOG in containing the Liberian crisis without any significant role or intervention from any of the major western powers including the United States. The report concluded that should ECOMOG be allowed to go the whole hog, the major beneficiary will be Nigeria and that might form the basis for a pax Nigeriana in the West African sub-region eclipsing the influence of former colonial powers France and Britain. The reports also called on the United States Government to note that Liberia being its creation should not be allowed to fall into Nigerian hands with consequences to US strategic interests in the country and the region. Specifically both reports noted that should Nigeria be allowed to have a foothold in Liberia, it will further embolden Nigeria to challenge the US and the West in carving its own sphere of interest at their expense. In this regard, the report further recalled Nigeria’s role in helping to liberate the southern African countries in the 70’s and 80’s in clear opposition and defiance to the interests of the United States and its western allies which resulted in setback for Western initiatives in Africa at the time. Both concluded with a recommendation that the US Government in conjunction with its allies should seek to contain the growing influence of Nigeria in the sub-region by forming a parallel organization to ECOMOG. But in order not to unduly alarm and antagonize Nigeria which the report admitted still had considerable influence in the region, the US government was advised to go about this using quiet diplomacy.

During the secret congressional hearing organized to consider the reports by both institutes on Nigeria’s role in the ECOMOG, the interagency team comprising representatives from the CIA, Pentagon and State Department formed to push the case, endorsed the recommendation that Nigeria be kept out of the alternate arrangements on Liberia that was being proposed. The strategy was to win away some key African countries from participation enthusiastically in the ECOMOG initiative.

The sweeteners for this were the promise and delivery of military and humanitarian aid. This was the line the then US Secretary of State Warren Christopher pursued when he visited a number of African countries excluding Nigeria to sell the ACRI idea.

Thus ensued, the stalemate in ECOMOG operations with some of the participating countries foot dragging in their commitment to the force and operations. On the diplomatic front, the US along with its allies namely Britain and France using the engineered stalemate as cover, proceeded to sell the idea that the ECOMOG initiative needed to be reviewed and given a new direction. The US and its allies then argued that the intervention of outside powers such as the US and its western allies was the tonic needed to move the ECOMOG operation forward. But in order to prevent any worldwide backlash against this blatant interference in what should be a regional African initiative, the US and its allies sought to present it under the auspices of the United Nations with a select Asian and Latin American countries participating. By the time the tallies were counted, the US had achieved the one objective of all the diplomatic and strategic maneuvers; the containment of Nigeria led ECOMOG initiative to resolve the Liberian Crises.

It was on the platform of this surreptitious American intervention in the Liberian crisis that the US Africa Command or AFRICOM was formed.

Unlike its precursor, the ACRI which sought to disguise US intentions in Africa particularly as it pertains to Nigeria under the cloak of multilateral humanitarian intervention, AFRICOM which came to being on October 1, 2008 is clearly programmed to serve US military-strategic interests especially with regards to the ever expanding global reach and influence of China in direct competition with the United States. In response to the growing influence of a rapidly expanding industrial China in Africa, the goal of AFRICOM is to seize key strategic areas in Africa and bring them under US control in order to block China’s access to vital energy and mineral resources for its expanding economy. But to effectively carry this out, such African countries of strategic importance must first of all be weakened internally and made to feel so vulnerable that they would have to inevitably seek US protection or intervention. A spur to this interventionist programme provides that any targeted African country that does not see the wisdom or resists the need to seek US “protection” will then have to suffer dismemberment with the pliant area carved out of the supposedly hostile area and given US “protection”. We have seen this happen in the great lakes area where US Special Forces have been deployed ostensibly to protect the countries there from so-called insurgents who in the first place were sponsored by the same US. In Sudan we have seen how a blanket cover of international humanitarian cries orchestrated by the United States on the so-called Darfur crisis served as a prelude to the dismemberment of Sudan to punish the government of El-Bashir for daring to conclude oil deals with the Chinese to the detriment of American companies. We have also seen how Libya and Gaddafi was put to the sword for daring to sidetrack American oil interests.

But the greatest prize for AFRICOM and its goal to plant a PAX AMERICANA in Africa would be when it succeeds in the most strategic African country, NIGERIA. This is where the raging issue of BOKO HARAM and the widely reported prediction by the United States Intelligence Council on the disintegration of Nigeria by 2015 comes into perspective.

BOKO HARAM: A CIA COVERT OPERATION From the 1st October 2010 bombing that rocked Abuja till date Nigeria seems to be locked in a vice like grip of a growing and intractable insurgency manifested in bombings of public places and sporadic attacks on public institutions resulting in the loss of scores of lives and destruction of properties. Predictably there has been a discernible

growth in panic and tension in the country and not a few people are beginning to think that perhaps the country seems headed inevitably for a long drawn insurgency leading to a split. With the exception of the 1st October 2010 bombing incident, a shadowy group which goes by the name Boko Haram has laid claim to most of the subsequent bombings that have occurred in the country.

The seemingly intractable nature of the Boko Haram outrage has prompted a lot of questions from Nigerians. What really is this Boko Haram thing and what are their grievances if any? Why have they chosen to remain faceless inspite of the devastating effects of their activities on the psyche of the nation, and entreaties from Nigerian authorities to come forward for negotiations? Why are they able to perpetrate their attacks with relative ease and why has there not been a single clue at the scene of their acts to lead to them?

For sure, Nigerians are not unused to sectarian violence. But the ones we have witnessed in this country have been predictable and the modus and fault lines have been well known to the authorities who have always done well to keep them within tolerable limits.

The Boko Haram of Mohammed Yussuf which predated this new one can be so categorized and was well known through its operations, leadership and locations.

But how did a ragtag collection of largely half literate unsophisticated persons operating mostly on Okada transform literarily overnight to being able to design, manufacture and deploy bombs in buildings and in vehicles costing in excess of a million naira and carry out attacks in several locations around the country? How have their reach grown from just a corner of Nigeria to virtually everywhere in the country? For them to be able to mount such a sophisticated operation, they must necessarily have a well structured command and control system which inspite of their best efforts at concealment cannot remain undetected for long. So how have they seemingly defied the best efforts of combined security agencies in the country in detecting and foiling their activities?

The GREENWHITE Coalition can reveal that the current Boko Haram campaign is a covert operation organized by the American Central Intelligence Agency, CIA and coordinated by the American Embassy in Nigeria. For some time now, the CIA has been running secret training and indoctrination camps along the porous and vulnerable borderlands of Niger, Chad and Cameroon. At these camps youths from poor, deprived and disoriented backgrounds are recruited and trained to serve as insurgents. The agents who supply these youth lure them with the promise of better life and work of Allah and further indoctrinated to believe they are working to install a just Islamic order from the ungodly one that currently holds sway in Nigeria. The American CIA programme officers of this project prudently remain in the background, living the day to day running of the camps to supervisors of Middle Eastern origin specially recruited for this purpose. After several months of indoctrination and training on weapons handling, survival tactics, surveillance and evasion techniques, the insurgents are now put on stand by for the next phase of the operation.

The next phase of the operations involves the identification and selection of the targets which had already been mapped out by the American Embassy. If buildings are the targets for attack, the weapons and technical equipment to be used are kept in safe houses. The countdown to the attack involves ferrying of the insurgents and quarantine at safe houses for the H hour. After the attack, in the ensuing panic, the insurgents make their escape into safe houses to dispose the weapons and disappear and dissolve later into the local population. The technical angle of sending out e-mails and messages of responsibility for the attack to the media in the name of Boko Haram is done through secure telecoms equipment by the American programmers of the operation which can hardly be traced.

If the selected target is to be bombed by an IED, the building is cased for days and the devise inserted when security is lax. The devise is then detonated by an in-built timing mechanism or by a hand held detonator some distance away from where the bomb is placed. If on the hand, the attack is to be carried out by a suicide bomber, the person to carry it out would have been severely drugged with CIA manufactured LSD to disorientation. In his state of mind he would have no clue as to what he is programmed to do having been turned into a veritable human robot.

WORKING TO THE 2015 ANSWER-HOW THE US PLANS TO DISMEMBER NIGERIA BY 2015 It is neither a coincidence nor guesswork that the National Intelligence Council of the United States Government estimated that Nigeria will disintegrate by the year 2015. The whole report actually is a coded statement of intentions on how using destabilization plots the US plans to eventually dismember Nigeria. The whole goal of the destabilization campaign is to ensure that Nigeria is weakened internally by intractable crises leading up to 2015 when the next general elections are expected to come up. By that year there will be so much mutual suspicion among Nigerians that the elections itself might not hold or if they did at all will set the stage for a full rapture of the Nigerian state. By its calculation and design, the Nigerian state will be so fractious by then; it will be fully ripe for intervention and break up. It is in actualization of this plan that the US strategic planners on Nigeria have devised a three stage plan of implementation.

Stage 1: Pakistanizing Nigeria With the scourge of Boko Haram as an existential reality, in the coming months the spate of bombings and attacks on public buildings are likely to escalate. High value symbolic targets like churches, mosques and large congregations of people of both faiths will be targeted. There will also be escalation in provocative statements and incitements by groups to violence. For good measure and effect, the bombings and attacks will be staged on days of observance of religious activities. The goal is to exacerbate tension and mutual suspicion among adherents of the two faiths in Nigeria and leading to sectarian violence.

This pattern of destabilization operation is taken out of the Pakistani manual of destabilization where a sustained spate of CIA sponsored bombings and sectarian violence stretched the ability and resources of the law and order agencies to cope rendering the country weak and vulnerable to foreign intervention.

Stage 2: Internationalizing the Crisis Having the set the stage for an intractable sectarian violence pitting Christians against Muslims and between the various disparate groups in the country, there will be calls from the United States, European Union and United Nations for a halt to the violence. A plethora of advocacy groups around the world will struggle for the photo opportunity to mouth concerns about the carnage and humanitarian catastrophe. They will try to make a great show of providing humanitarian aid. For effect, there will be carpet bombing coverage by the International media on the Nigerian crisis with so-called experts discussing all the ramifications who will strive to create the impression that only benevolent foreign intervention could resolve the crisis. There will be a deluge of international conferences at various capitals around the world all ostensibly aimed to save Nigerians from themselves. Meanwhile away from all the public flurry of activities, the US which initiated the crisis in the first place will be secretly drawing up plans to carve out Nigeria for its strategic and economic benefits.

Stage 3: the Great Carve out under UN Mandate Following worldwide outrage at the scale of carnage resulting from all out war among various sections of Nigeria secretly induced by the United States and its allies, the stage will now shift to the United Nations where debates will take place on how the world body will work to resolve the crisis. There will be proposals first for an international peace keeping force to intervene and separate the warring groups and or for a UN mandate for various parts of Nigeria to come under mandated occupying powers. Of course behind the scenes the US and its allies would have secretly worked out which areas of Nigeria to occupy guided as it were by naked economic interests.

It is trite really which power or powers eventually occupies Nigeria for whatever reasons.

By the time the UN comes to take a decision to hand over Nigeria for occupation under its mandate, no part of Nigeria will emerge or profit truly from the exercise. The rump areas of Nigeria will all come under occupation and puppet governments will then be set up at the behest of the occupying powers. Nigeria’s fall will be like that of humptydumpty, into pieces beyond recognition.

The main beneficiary will of course be the United States which started all this in the first place and which will be there to profit at the end. By engineering the break up of Nigeria, the United States would have eliminated a potential continental rival paving the way to the institution of a Pax Americana in Africa and secondly it would have limited its main global strategic rival China from direct access to badly needed energy and other mineral resources on the resource rich African continent.

QUESTIONS WE NEED TO ASK OURSELVES AS NIGERIANS Against this background Nigerians need to stop and ask critical questions; what real purpose does it serve to deliberately leak a supposedly classified report from a US Intelligence organ normally restricted to only a handful of US policy makers only, to the media and for good measure ensure its wide circulation in the country against whom the action is targeted? Does that not indicate a statement of intent by the country that originated the report to serve as psychological intimidation for the purpose of softening up the targeted country making it ripe for intervention? In any routine investigation of an act, investigators usually call in the statements of material witnesses before or after the act whether deliberately uttered or inadvertently; does the statement by the United States National Intelligence Council on the break up of Nigeria in 2015 not amount to culpability in this regard especially in view of the escalation in the seemingly intractable acts of subversive violence taking place in Nigeria after that statement was released and also in view of US antecedents in matters such as this around the world? Why is it that a country which has always been known for its resilience and ability to resolve its problems without outside interference? Is this not indicative of the very Nigerian saying that the witch cried in the night and the child died in the morning? Why is someone somewhere hell bent on engineering Nigerians to form the unNigerian habit of harbouring and perpetrating desperate, extreme and unforgiving actions against themselves? Should we all 160million of us stand idly by and allow the United States achieve its selfish and diabolical aim of sowing discord in our country leaving us with widows, orphans and humanitarian problems as it has done in other places? Are we going to allow the labour of our heroes past which bequeathed us a nation second to none and reputed to be the backbone of Africa to die in vain?

From Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan and Latin America, America’s track record around the world has been nothing but ugly. In the words of its own statesmen, America has no permanent friends but permanents interests which translate into a healthy and utter disregard to the sensitivities and interests of other countries. That has pretty much formed the basis of US interaction around the world. The same situation will play itself out if we allow them in to our country.

Nigerians let us stop and think before we allow the big bad wolf in, for we will have nobody but ourselves to blame when our chickens start to get missing.

WATCH OUT FOR THE NEXT REPORT FROM GREENWHITE COALITION: FOCUS ON TERENCE P. McCULLEY, AMBASSADOR OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA IN NIGERIA. A few Posers; 1.

He is one of America’s top Foreign Service officers and in the parlance of the State Department, an “old Africa hand”. Do you know that Terence P. McCulley, the current United States Ambassador to Nigeria was one of the architects of the Africa Crisis Response Initiative, ACRI which sought to undermine Nigeria’s involvement in ECOMOG? 2.

Do you also know that he was also among the prominent resource persons that worked on establishing AFRICOM? 3.

Do you also know that Ambassador McCulley’s alternate designation is State Department Coordinator of the AFRICOM from which position he is to diplomatically sell and smoothen the way for the entry of AFRICOM into Nigeria?

4.

Do you know too that his main brief as Ambassador to Nigeria is to coordinate activities leading to the break up of Nigeria as designed by the United States Government using the convenient cover of the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria?

5.

Do you also know that the full classified report by the United States National Intelligence Council on the possible break up of Nigeria which parts were only selectively released contains details of how the US plans to carry out this desired end?

Plus · ·

·

The full details of the bombing of the UN Building in Abuja; who did it and how it was done.

You might also need to know real mission of the so-called foreign security experts who came to “investigate” the bombing. Did they really come to investigate the incident and provide the details of their actual findings to Nigerian authorities or their real brief was mop up any stray evidence from the bombing site in order to obscure the involvement of those who sponsored the act?

The US Embassy in Nigeria operates a network of so-called safe houses all over Nigeria from where it runs various subversive operations including electronic intelligence, surveillance, planning and carrying out of covert operations in Nigeria.

We will provide details of the locations and addresses of such safe houses in Nigeria in the next GREENWHITE COALITION Report.

About the GREENWHITE COALITION. The GREENWHITE COALITION as the name implies, is inspired from the colours of the Nigerian flag and has set out to rally Nigerians to the flag in defence of the greater interest of the Nigerian nation in the face of plans by the United States to destroy our country and our future. It is a citizen’s volunteer watchdog made up of Nigerians of all ethnic groups and religious persuasions who are alarmed at the dark plans of the United States of America to break up our dear country. We have taken it upon ourselves to spare no effort to expose and thwart the United States Government from carrying out its diabolical plans in Nigeria. For this we are dedicated to ferreting out information and plan counter actions against any untoward moves by the United States Government in Nigeria. In this endeavour we are fortunate to count on the support of well placed functionaries of the United States Government and other highly informed sympathizers who supply us with valuable inside information on the intentions of the United States Government as it affects Nigeria. These persons are themselves alarmed and appalled by the fact that the Government machinery of the United States has been hijacked by rogue elements denying the vast majority of American citizens their fundamental constitutional rights as envisaged by the founding fathers of America. Needless to say that these persons among who are those who served America diligently are aghast at the foreign policy of the American government which purports to act in protection of the American people but in reality protects the corrupt corporate elements that have taken America and Americans hostage.

In the coming days and months the GRENWHITE COALITION will manifest in many ways in the Nigerian public domain in its efforts to prevent our country from coming under the American boot. This write up is the first in the series. Many more will come with pinpoint expose of the American Government plans against Nigeria.

The United States Government is hereby put on notice; we will not allow our women to be turned to widows and our children orphans as in Iraq, and elsewhere. We will not be turned to refugees at the mercy of so-called humanitarian charities. Nigeria must take its place under the sun.

ILIYASU GADU Ilgad2009@gmail.com On behalf of the GREENWHITE COALITION

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WORSHIP THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

NEWS

Living Nigeria will not disintegrate, says cleric Faith P

By David Oyedepo

Actualizing your glorious destiny!

H

AVE you been engaged in a business, which is not giving you the desired result? Perhaps, because of this situation, you think that God does not love or care for your wellbeing.

God loves and cares for you!

I want you to know that you are created by God to be a child of destiny. Every child of God has a glorious destiny. The Word of God says: According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue (2 Peter 1:3). You can see that you are called unto a glorious life.

Everyone justified is to be glorious (Romans 8:28-29). Note that when you become a child of God by redemption, this new status offers you a glorious destiny (1 Peter 2:9). So, you are not saved to be pitied, you are saved to be envied.

When you are God’s child, you become His spiritual building (1 Corinthians 3:9). Besides, you become the temple of God (verse 16).

Remember that the glory of every building is determined by its foundation. Every building requires a strong foundation. So, we need a sure foundation to actualize our glorious destiny (Matthew 7:25-26).

This week, I will be showing you a foundation for actualizing your glorious destiny.

The question now is: What is this sure foundation for a glorious destiny? God’s Word says: Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his. And, Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity. But in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some to honour, and some to dishonour. If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work (2 Timothy 2:19-21).

Everyone saved has capacity for righteousness, if he or she chooses to. Therefore, sanctification is key to your glorification. If you want to live a life of glorification this 2012, you must live a sanctified life. Towards the end of this teaching, I will be showing you what you can do to be saved or born again.

Let me show you some blessedness of sanctification.

The blessedness of sanctification: 1. Sanctification offers us a two-way blessing — earthly and godliness (1Timothy 1:8). You have the earthly and eternal glory (1 Corinthians 15:19).

2. Sanctification is the platform for accessing our inheritance (Acts 20:32). Obadiah 1:17 says: But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions. You can see that there is deliverance and holiness, and you possess your possession. In other words, sanctification defines the limit of your possession.

3. Sanctification is for empowerment. Luke 5:37-38 says: And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. It takes new life to qualify for new anointing. Note that anointing is in degrees. It takes sanctification to determine the level of empowerment (Psalms 92:10-12).

4. Sanctification guarantees access to unlimited revelation. Psalm 45:3-5 says: Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. It takes sanctification to access deep things.

Friend, keeping the Word and living in the fear of the Lord opens you up to unlimited revelation. Note that carnality limits our access to revelation (Hosea 4:6). You need a re-positioning spiritually. This re-positioning entails confessing your sins and accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour and your Lord. That is what being born again is all about.

You can be born again now if you are set, by saying this prayer: Lord Jesus, I come to You today. I am a sinner. I cannot help myself.

Forgive me my sins. Cleanse me with Your precious Blood. Deliver me from sin and Satan, to serve the Living God. Today, Lord Jesus, I accept You as my Lord and Saviour. Thank You for saving me! Now I know I am born again!

Next week, I will continue this teaching.

I invite you to come and fellowship with us at the Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, the covenant home of Winners. Our midweek services hold on Wednesdays between 6 and 8 p.m. We have four services on Sundays. The first one holds between 6.30 and 8.15 a.m., the second between 8.25 a.m. and 10.10 a.m., the third between 10.20 a.m. and 12.05 p.m. and the fourth between 12.15 and 2.00 p.m.

Every exploit in life is a product of knowledge. For further reading, you can get my books — Walking In The Newness Of Life, Conquering Controlling Powers and The Blood Triumph.

I know this teaching has blessed you. Write and share your testimony with me through: BISHOP DAVID OYEDEPO, Faith Tabernacle, Canaan Land, Ota, P.M.B. 21688, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria; or call 7747546-8; or E-mail: bishop@davidoyedepoministries.org

RIMATE of African Church, His Grace The Most Rev. Emmanuel Udofia, has dismissed fears in certain quarters that the nation might disintegrate.

Nigeria, Udofia said, will be split.

He spoke with our correspondent last week.

The cleric said Nigeria is a creation of God that cannot

Stories by Sunday Oguntola

be undone by human manipulations.

He warned disgruntled elements bent on disintegrating the nation to have a rethink or face the wrath of God. According to him, ‘’I can say categorically that Nigeria will not break.

Those who are waiting for

this country to split will be disappointed. ‘’Even in families, we do have misunderstanding and when some sections of the country disagree, it does not mean they want to secede.’’

He assured that the nation will overcome its challenges, saying these are passing phase that nations must go through.

Udofia called on the federal government to tackle the Boko Haram menace decisively, saying nobody should be allowed to hold the nation to ransom.

Nigerians, he said, should not give up on the country. ‘’We should hold on to God and never lose hope.

This country shall rise again and fulfil its potentials.’’

‘Church leader should build people, not empires’

C

HURCH Growth expert, Dr Francis BolaAkin, has challenged church leaders to concentrate on building people and not empires.

People, he said, are more valuable than property, which he noted had become

the obsession of many churches.

Akin-John spoke last week ahead of an international conference slated for February 13th-17th in Lagos.

Tagged Great people, great churches conference, the meeting will be attended by

thousands of church leaders and workers across the nation.

He lamented that churches have been dissipating energies in building projects than people.

People, according to him, are the biggest assets of the

church and not lands or property.

He said, ‘’the people you refuse to build today will turn around to destroy the empires you are building tomorrow. ‘’If church leaders build people, property are bound to follow but if they do it the other way round, it will be destructive.’’

Akin-John said churches must build structures that will outlast leaders and individuals to become truly great.

New Estate Baptist Church holds summit

T

•L-R: Reverend, Ijaola Adelokoji, New Jerusalem City Church, Ejigbo, Lagos, Rev, Deji Bashorun, New Insight Baptist Church, Ogudu, Lagos, and Rev. Samson Adedokun, New Down Baptist Church, Victoria Island, Lagos at New Estate Baptist Family Church during the 8th Annual Kingdom Life Sommit 2012 press conference, titled: The missing link, held in Lagos on Thursday.

PHOTO: NIYI ADENIRAN

HE annual kingdom life summit of the New Estate Baptist Church, Lagos begins next Tuesday.

The summit with the theme ‘’the missing link’’ will feature Pastor Poju Oyemade, Rev. Uzodinma Obed, Rev Dr Jerry Akinsola and others.

Issues such as sexuality, child molestation, professionalism and entrepreneurship and discipleship will be discussed at the summit.

It ends next Saturday by 10am.

How to save Nigeria, by Oladiyun

S

ENIOR Pastor of Christ Livingspring Apostolic Ministry (CLAM), Lagos, Apostle Wole Oladiyun, has outlined a

7-point action to save Nigeria from disintegration and underdevelopment.

Oladiyun, in a statement last week, said Ni-

geria was standing at a precipice, a development he said required urgent measures.

He said the federal gov-

BSN honours Onosode, Olutola, others

P

RO-CHANCELLOR of Bowen University, Osun State, Deacon Gamaliel Onosode, and President of The Apostolic

Church Nigeria, Pastor Gabriel Olutola, will receive an award of selfless service to God and humanity courtesy of The Bible Society of

Master’s life leadership conference holds

T

HE 3rd annual International Minister and Leadership conference organised by Master’s Life Ministries International holds from February 9 to 11.

The convener, Rev. Simeon Folorunsho, said the conference with the theme, “rising above limits” is to help ministers to move

where God wants them to be.

Speakers expected include Dr. Segun Oshinaga of the Winning Wisdom Network; Dr Samuel Olumoko of African Charismatic Network and Rev Tony Akinyemi of the Shepherd’s Flock.

Venue is Ajiroba Hall, Ijegun road, Ikotun Lagos.

Nigeria (BSN) next Wednesday.

The award is part of activities marking the organisation’s fourth founder’s day annual lecture with the theme: “True Democracy: A Catalyst for Accountability in Governance.”

President and Chairman in Council, National Institute of Marketing of Nigeria, Chief Lugard Aimiuwu, is the guest speaker.

The event holds at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Victoria Island, Lagos.

ernment must convene a sovereign national conference to debate how the nation should be run.

He also advocated for state/regional policing to strengthen security across the nation.

Other measures, according to the cleric, include total war on terrorism, strengthening of security forces, inclusion of youths in governance and religious leaders speaking out against ills in the nation.

Oladiyun challenged religious leaders to ‘’exhibit high degree of tolerance and tell our followers to move the country forward.’’

He also called for agricultural revolution, saying God ‘’has re-directed our national wealth into agriculture and mining’’.

FEBRUARY 5, 2012

70

With Joe Agbro Jr. 08056745268

Hello children,

WORD WHEEL

Hope you are settling down to studies at school by now. While you are at it, do not forget to be good children at home too

Tips to academic excellence •Put God first in all things by praying daily.

•Set a goal with determination to achieve it.

•Love your teachers to have interest in what they teach you.

•Read always , not only when examination comes.

•Do not cheat during examination.

Your success is guaranteed if you keep to these pieces of advice.

Riddles with Bisoye Ajayi 1. I am something if you step on me mistakenly you get annoyed?

2. I am something if I visit you, you must clap for me?

Miss Ajayi is a JSS 1 student of Queens College, Yaba, Lagos.

Adebayo C. Daniel, JSS2G, Federal Government College Port Harcourt, Rivers State

AQUARIUS, ARIES, CANCER, CAPRICORN, GEMINI, LEO, LIBRA, PISCES, SAGITTARIUS, SCORPIO, TAURUS, VIRGO.

Word wheel NINE LETTER WORDS: graphical alga, cigar, crag, gala, gap, garlic, girl, grail, graph, grip, hag, lag, pig, prig, rag, rig

Astrological signs represent twelve equal segments or divisions of the zodiac. According to astrology, celestial phenomena reflect or govern human activity on the principle of “as above, so below”, so that the twelve signs are held to represent twelve basic personality types or characteristic modes of expression. There are “sun” signs and “moon” signs, which both depend on your date of birth.

In Western and Asian astrology, the emphasis is on space, and the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets in the sky through each of the zodiac signs. In Chinese astrology, by contrast, the emphasis is on time, with the zodiac operating on cycles of years, months, and hours of the day. A common feature of all three traditions however, is the significance of the ascendant or rising sign, namely the zodiac sign that is rising (due to

Puzzle Answers

Astrological signs

At the recent BrainBashers downhill mountain bike race, four entrants entered the challenging slalom event. Alan came first.

The entrant wearing number 2 wore red, whereas John didn’t wear yellow. The loser wore blue and Steve wore number 1. Kev beat Steve and the person who came second wore number 3. The entrant in yellow beat the entrant in green. Only one of the entrants wore the same number as their final position. Can you determine who finished where, the number and colour they wore? green,

WORD SEARCH

PUZZLE

yellow, 3 Steve 1

•Cinderella—comes home late at night from parties •Snow White—lives with seven guys •Aladdin—steals without getting caught •Sleeping Beauty—sleeps and is lazy •Tom and Jerry—are crafty and mischievous •Ben 10—is possessed and turns into different aliens •Shrek—bullies and intimidates people

This is an open ended puzzle. How many words of three or more letters, each including the letter at centre of the wheel, can you make from this diagram? We’ve found 16, including one nine-letter word. Can you do better?

3

Why kids misbehave after watching cartoons and reading fairy tales

Name Wore Colour red, 2 Kev 1 Alan 2 4 John 4 blue

• Students of Oke-Odo High School, Alimosho, Lagos, at the end of a school day.

PHOTO: RAHMAN SANUSI

By Adeyemi Tomisin, primary 5 Golden Treasure Model School, Ibadan, Oyo State

Send in your stories, poems, articles, games, puzzles, riddles and jokes to sundaynation@yahoo.com

Answer to Riddles:

1. Defecate

2. Mosquito

THE NATION ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012

Sport Extra

van Persie’s hat-trick sinks Blackburn

ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE

Anichebe saves point for Everton •As Taiwo, Osaze suffer defeats R N

IGERIA's Victor Anichebe was Everton’s match hero yesterday at The DW Stadium, as his 82nd minute strike cancelled out Wigan’s lead and ensured that David Moyes’ men went home with a point.

Desperate for an equaliser, David Moyes sent in Victor Anichebe on 80 minutes to replace Tony Hibbert and just a few minutes later the big Nigerian striker buried a cross from Leighton Baines into the back of the Wigan net.

Everton had gone into the game high, having stunned league-leaders Manchester City with a 1-0 victory in their last fixture, but they struggled to break down the Latics.

In the same vein, defender Taye Taiwo tasted his first defeat in his English Premier League sojourn as Queens Park Rangers fell 21 to Wolverhampton Wanderers at the Loftus Road Stadium yesterday.

Taiwo made his debut on February 2 in QPR 2-2 draw

Ogbuke’s first goal fires Schalke to second •Kalu Uche makes debut •As Apam settles for draw

N

I G E R I A N international Chinedu Ogbuke scored his first goal for Schalke 04 in a 1-1 draw against Mainz to move the club to second place in the German Bundeslisga table.

Ogbuke goal for the Royal Blues takes them up to second ahead of Bayern Munich, but leaving them two points behind Dortmund at the top of the table.

Mohamed Zidan put Mainz in front in the 15th minute, making a dream debut for Thomas Tuchel's side.

It took Schalke over half an hour to get into the match, but then they started to attack more insistently with Mainz showing their defensive

strength to match their attacking incision.

Their resistance was broken after only 14 minutes when Ogbuke showed just why Schalke had signed him from Hoffenheim as he dribbled his way towards goal and then curled the ball inside Christian Wetklo's near post with the outside of his left boot.

In France, Onyekachi Apam got a 0-0 draw with Stade Rennes in an away match with Nancy at Stade Marcel Picot.

Similarly, Kalu Uche debut for his new club Espanyaol as they played 3-3 draw with Athletic Club at Estadio San Mamés.

Kalu came from the bench in the 82nd minute for Juan Daniel Forlín.

•Anichebe

SUPER BOWL XLVI FINAL

Two Nigerians battle for title

T

WO Nigerian-born players, Osi Umenyiora of New York Giants and James Ugochu Ihedigbo of New England Patriotswill be star attraction today as they lock horns in the 46th edition of the Super Bowl final at the 70,000 seatersLucas Oil Stadium in Indianapoli, USA. Umenyiora was drafted in the 2nd round (56th pick overall) of the 2003 by the Giants was part of the team that defeated New England Patriots to lift the Super Bowl XLII in 2007.

He will be aiming to repeat same today against compatriot Ihedigbo signed with the New England Patriots on August 19, 2011.Ihedigbo became a starter with the Patriots after a number of other defensive backs were either cut or injured.

However, this year's Super

Drogba fires Ivory Coast to semis

I

•Drogba

•Zambia too qualifies host Equatorial Guinea on Saturday.

After missing a penalty, captain Didier Drogba took advantage of a defensive slip to score in the 36th minute and headed into the top corner in the 69th. Yaya Toure added a late third with an 81st-minute free kick.

Equatorial Guinea goalkeeper Emanuel-Danilo Clementino saved Drogba’s penalty in the 29th after a foul on Didier Zokora.

Arsenal manager included the Premier League's top goalscorer. It was justified as the Holland striker took just 79 seconds to open the scoring with the 100th league goal in his career.

•van Persie

Man City back to League top

AFRICAN NATIONS CUP

VORY Coast sealed a semifinal place in the African Cup of Nations with a 3-0 victory against co-

OBIN van Persie scored a hat-trick as Arsenal thrashed Blackburn 7-1 at the Emirates Stadium on Saturday.

It was an Arsenal squad that romped to their biggest win in all competitions since October 2007, which should silence some of Arsene Wenger's doubters for a little bit.

Morten Gamst Pedersen superb freekick may have cancelled out van Persie's opener but the floodgates opened after Blackburn were reduced to ten men for Gael Givet's red car with the Arsenal captain ending the match with a treble, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain adding two more, while Mikel Arteta and Thierry Henry also scored.

Wenger had considered resting Van Persie but after failing to win a league match in 2012 before this game, the

By Bimbo Adesina

with Aston Villa at Villa Park.

New signing Bobby Zamora had given QPR a deserved halftime lead, but fellow newcomer Djibril Cisse’s straight red card for an altercation with Roger Johnson in the 34th allowed Wolves a way back into the game.

Substitute Kevin Doyle helped Wolves rally for a 21 victory at 10-man QPR, whose two new key signings gave contrasting performances on their debuts Saturday.

It was the same situation at The Hawthorns where Osaze Odemwingie could not lift West Brom as the visitors Swansea City came from behind to pick the vital three points with a 2-1 defeat.

The result extended West Brom's poor run at home, having collected eight points at home but 18 away from home.

71

Earlier, Zambia cruised to a 3-0 win against Sudan to become the first team through to the last four.

Stoppila Sunzu, Christopher Katongo and James Chamanga scored to reach the Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals after a 16-year absence.

Favourites Zambia were rarely under pressure and Sunzu took advantage of slack marking to nod them ahead on 15 minutes, Katongo scored the second midway through the second

Bowl certainly has all the makings of another thriller, the perfect finish to a season that began in turmoil and wound up the most successful in league history.

A season that almost did not happen because of the bitter labour dispute between team owners and the players’ union has not only survived but produced a classic encounter between two of the NFL’s most popular franchises.

The United States has been whipped into a frenzy of excitement, while an estimated record worldwide audience of more than 160 million are expected to watch the extravaganza unfold on television.

The rivalry between New York and Boston is already one of the oldest and fiercest in American sports and the stakes could not be higher this weekend after a wildly fluctuating season where nothing really went according to the script.

The Patriots, who have won the Super Bowl three times in the last decade, are the slight favorites after winning their divisional title, then beating the Baltimore Ravens to claim the AFC championship.

•Osi Umenyiora

M

ANCHESTER City moved clear at the top of the English Premier League as they secured a 3-0 victory over Fulham.

Defeat to Everton in midweek allowed Manchester United to move level on points at the top of the table but, until their archrivals travel to Chelsea on Sunday at least, City are once more three points clear.

On a snowy evening at Eastlands, City took the lead after only ten minutes when Chris Baird was adjudged to have brought down Adam Johnson and Sergio Aguero

hammered home from the penalty spot. Things got worse for Baird after half an hour when the defender diverted a Johnson cross into his own net.

With City dominant, they extended their advantage on 72 minutes when Aguero went on a mazy run before teeing up Edin Dzeko to slot home.

Arsenal turned up the heat on Chelsea ahead of the Blues' forthcoming encounter with Manchester United, moving within two points of their London rivals with a thumping 7-1 victory over Blackburn on Saturday.

Gerrard set to wear England’s captain armband

S

TEVEN Gerrard is set to be parachuted into the England captaincy for the second -tournament running.

Within an hour of the FA confirming John Terry had lost the armband for the second time in two years, Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand made it clear he was not interested in reclaiming the job he lost to the Chelsea player 11 months ago.

And that means Liverpool skipper Gerrard – who has not played for England in 14 months because of injury – is almost certain to step in when England head to their Krakow base in June, just as he did in South Africa in 2010.

Then, Ferdinand’s knee injury on the first day of training at England’s World Cup base-camp saw Gerrard inherit the role.

Other potential candidates include Chelsea’s Frank Lampard, Scott Parker of Tottenham and Manchester City’s Gareth Barry.

Ferdinand's United teammate Wayne Rooney is ruled out as he is suspended for England's opening two group games.

RESULTS AFRICAN NATIONS CUP Zambia 3 - 0 Sudan Côte d'Ivoire 3 - 0 E/ Guinea PREMIER LEAGUE Arsenal 7 - 1 Blackburn Norwich 2 - 0 Bolton QPR 1 - 2 Wolves Stoke C. 0 - 1 Sunderland West Brom 1 - 2 Swansea Wigan 1 - 1 Everton Man City 3 - 0 Fulham SPAINISH LA LIGA Mallorca 1 - 0 Real Betis Athletic 3 - 3 Espanyol Levante 1 - 1 Racing BUNDESLIGA Leverkusen 2 - 2 Stuttgart Schalke 04 1 - 1 Mainz 05 Hoffenheim 2 - 2 Augsburg Wolfsburg 0 - 0 Borussia M'gla Hertha 0 - 1 Hannover Hamburger 1 - 1 Bayern LIGUE 1 Dijon 1 - 2 Valenciennes Nancy 0 - 0 Rennes Ajaccio 1 - 0 Nice Montpellier 1 - 0 Brest PSG 3 - 1 Evian

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QUOTABLE "It is very bad that we face a human disaster in Nigeria where people go about killing Christians senselessly and nothing is being done about it.

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2012 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL. 6, NO. 2026

— Catholic Bishop of Awka Diocese, Most Reverend Paulinus Ezeokafor at the burial of the 12 persons massacred in Mubi, Adamawa State, by people suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect in Anmabra on Thursday

E

ARLY last week, Justice Mojisola Dada of a Lagos High Court sentenced Major Hamza al-Mustapha to death by hanging for the 1996 murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, wife of MKO Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993 presidential election. Al-Mustapha was Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the lecherous and reputedly sadistic former head of state, Gen Sani Abacha. Also sentenced to death was Alhaji Lateef Sofolahan, described as an aide to Kudirat in those heady days when she fought for her husband’s freedom and the validation of the election for which he was inhumanly detained. About two years later, Abiola himself died in mysterious circumstances in custody, very likely murdered after Abacha had died controversially in office. The two condemned men’s detention and trial had lasted for some 13 years, a record among their peers anywhere.

Until his appeal is disposed of in both the Appeal and Supreme Courts, alMustapha will have the death sentence hanging on his neck with sickening impact on his mind and body. No one on death row, I am told, no matter how bold and brave sustains a quiet and equanimous spirit. Since he cannot tell whether his appeal will be sustained or dismissed, his disposition is unlikely to remain as unperturbed and defiant as it was before the Monday judgment, or as it was in his preening days as the invincible CSO to Abacha, or as probably the most powerful and public CSO this country has ever seen.

Whether he agrees he was responsible for giving the final order to kill Kudirat or not, al-Mustapha, after the death sentence was pronounced on him, must now recognise what a weighty responsibility it is for those in public office to determine whether an individual lives or dies. Sadly, for many decades, there have been few African leaders and their ingratiating minions who take this responsibility with the gravity, honesty and circumspection it deserves.

A few years ago, some groups began a campaign to free al-Mustapha from prolonged incarceration, ostensibly because

Al-Mustapha verdict: let the chips fall where they may

•Justice Dahiru Musdapher

•Hamza al-Mustapha

they felt justice delayed amounted to justice denied. The campaign lured many respectable people in the society, from past leaders to activists, and from ordinary citizens to militia leaders, into the free alMustapha column. It was difficult to tell what drove them to that insalubrious task, or why the illogic of their campaign did not strike them. If it was not obvious that what they did subverted the law and constitution, it would be shocking if they claimed to be ignorant of the unhelpful influence it had on the losing battle to sanitise governance in a country where presidents and leaders often acted with Middle Age imperiousness.

Two campaigners struck me as peculiarly audacious and even reckless. Ibrahim

Babangida, a former head of state, ingeniously suggested that if nothing could be established against al-Mustapha, he should be released on account of his long stay in prison custody. Like serving heads of state who assemble advisers not to offer wisdom but for showmanship, it was clear Babangida had forgotten that by suggesting the suspect’s release, he was damning the rule of law and equally indicating that if he were in office he would follow his own maudlin counsel. The second campaigner was, and still incomprehensibly is, the militia leader, Dr Frederick Fasehun. He has his reasons for campaigning so offensively and openly for al-Mustapha, but he has done little to disclose why; nor, as far as we can see, is the purpose at all clear from

The capture of Boko Haram’s Abu Qaqa

E

VEN though President Goodluck Jonathan, like his predecessors who tell themselves a lie about Nigeria’s imperfect union, has refused to acknowledge the distress facing the federation, it is a relief that he has found his voice, if not yet his spine, over the Boko Haram crisis. According to an entry on his Facebook quoted in a few newspapers, he reiterated a provision of the constitution on the security and wellbeing of the people being the primary responsibility of government to promise that he would end the Boko Haram menace whatever it takes.

For someone who has been chronically unsure how to respond to the menace, we must hope that the capture of Abu Qaqa, the spokesman of the violent Islamist sect, must mark the turning of a new leaf in the fight against terrorism.

Qaqa’s capture is not the end of the fight, and may not even be the beginning of the end. But it is doubtless a milestone in the fight against a group that kills without discrimination and compulsion, a group that has committed itself recklessly to the dismemberment of the federation.

While the president has pussyfooted, it is gladdening that the security agencies have not shown such hesitations, except for the ghastly but deliberate murder of the sect’s former leader, Mohammed Yusuf, by the police in 2009.

Qaqa, an Ebira from Kogi State, should offer the security agencies a treasure-trove of information on the masterminds of the terrorist group, their modus operandi, and financiers. Such information should be acted upon very quickly and with meas-

ured response shorn of brutality which encourages more terror. That opportunity was missed when Yusuf was extrajudicially murdered nearly three years ago.

Another opportunity was lost when Kabiru Sokoto, the Boko Haram member that masterminded the Madalla bombings, was allowed to escape either through negligence or conspiracy. Qaqa should atone for all the missed opportunities.

The war against terror should proceed apace with all the vigour the state can muster. I have always opposed dialogue with terrorists in principle. When they are defeated, the factors that encouraged their violent activities and facilitated recruitment of poor and alienated members of the northern society into their fold should then be addressed with all the seriousness the problem deserves.

I will not be surprised if many well-todo northerners are discovered to harbour secret admiration and sympathy for the sect, supposedly on socio-economic and religious grounds, at least going by the objectives of the sect and the wide-ranging poverty in the North. But as I have said in this place times without number, if poverty should serve as excuse for violence, once the Boko Haram states are bought and pacified, other parts of the federation suffering from poverty could also take up arms against the state, and we would be obliged to offer them the same abject dialogue which was so ungraciously tendered before the Islamist sect.

I think it is disgraceful that any elite should indemnify themselves for violence in the hands of the sect in any form. Boko

Haram’s stated objectives are unrealisable, and their methods disgusting and reprehensible. It is good the army, the secret service and the police have decided to take the fight to the sect in its den.

I believe Boko Haram can and should be defeated. If there should be any discussion – not dialogue or negotiation – this should come after the war. However, if at any time Nigeria’s political leaders get tired of the union, they should have the courage and the gumption to sit down together to discuss afresh the terms of the union or separation. I do not subscribe to the lie told by Jonathan in his Facebook that after the civil war, Nigerians made up their minds to stay together. We have done little to encourage the union; instead by our actions and utterances, by our disdain for secularity, by the atrocious and imperious behaviour of our incompetent modern-day viziers, pashas and sultans, we have encouraged the dissolution of the union.

I repeat again that the current structure of our so-called federation is untenable, unworkable and fraudulent; it will end in a cul-de-sac. If we do not sit together urgently to remould the country, another group more principled and more violent than Boko Haram, more intelligent and more treacherous, and more deliberate and more focused will seize the initiative for change from the tremulous hands of leaders who have propounded and projected the freedoms of democracy as blithely as they have embraced, advanced and nurtured the servitude that springs from tyranny.

the rambling case he has made and still makes for the convict’s innocence and freedom.

While Babangida has not made any remark on the death sentence, Fasehun has gone on unusually to denounce the judgment as a disgrace to the judiciary. The judge did not prove that al-Mustapha held the gun that killed Kudirat, the militia leader said incredulously. But is there anywhere in the judgment where the judge said the accused wielded the murder weapon, even if he owned it? It is of course no use arguing on point of law, for the convicts have appealed. But to hear Fasehun and all others who campaigned for alMustapha, you would think the man that pulled the trigger, who turned prosecution witness, decided on his own, in spite of his low estate, to murder the victim. Everything pointed to the government. If it was Abacha himself who gave the order, though he is dead, it would be left to whoever passed the order on to the killers to prove the late head of state was responsible.

In running their campaigns for alMustapha’s freedom or innocence, it is both distressing and contemptible that they did not think of justice for the dead, or think of the tragic and withering effect her murder and her husband’s death had on the cohesion and stability of the Abiola family. If they must campaign for al-Mustapha to be spared the torment of long stay in prison, should common sense and the temperament and values that differentiate humanity from lower mammals not also impel us to remonstrate even more vigorously against the heartrending termination of two lives in their prime, lives that all of us now know were sacrificed for democracy?

In more ways than Fasehun and Babangida cared to understand, the mawkish campaigns for al-Mustapha’s release doubtless indicate how far degenerate our society has become. Whereas other societies have matured to the point of storing DNA evidence for future use to entrap fleeing criminals when technology shall have grown sophisticated for that purpose, and when many other societies have moved closer to the humanistic ideal of sending their errant presidents to jail for relatively minor malfeasances, some leading Nigerians are counselling for a regression towards the atavism of our blighted past.

I have been a long-standing opponent of the death penalty, for no criminal is worth the society stooping to the same barbarism of his fouling. If al-Mustapha’s appeal is dismissed, I would not be opposed to the commuting of the death sentence to life in jail. However, my wish would have nothing to do with the sentimental balderdash canvassed by Babangida and Fasehun, but by the much nobler reason of having one standard for humanity – that life is sacrosanct and must never be taken by any human being, whether through due process or otherwise.

It is unlikely that any traditional chief or political elder from the North would intercede for al-Mustapha on account of his place of origin. A criminal, whether he is black or white, will menace the society in equal measure with the venomousness of his rage, pride, temper and malevolence.

There is nothing like ‘our son’ when it comes to crime. It would be a shame if someone should come from any part of the North to ask for forgiveness for the principal convict, as if his victim were any less a Nigerian or any less important to us as our daughter. We must let the judicial mill grind to its final destination, untrammelled by the sort of romantic pleas and façade that fascinate the likes of Fasehun.

Once justice is not miscarried, and it is hard to see three levels of courts dispense justice so incompetently, we should be satisfied that we have discharged our obligation to both the living and the dead with the responsibility and sobriety that should strengthen our union and recommend us well to future generations.

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