The Nation March 17, 2012

2015: Belgore panel rejects Jonathan’s seven -year single term Insists on four-year renewable tenure Page 4

Oyo PDP peace talks suffer setback as Ladoja Page 6 pulls out Aggrieved party members resign in Lagos

Gunmen kill pastor, nine others in Kaduna Wife in critical condition Page

Nigeria’s widest circulating newspaper

VOL.07 N0. 2067

TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

59

N150.00

Derivation controversy

North’s position insulting -Delta governor Uduaghan Page

5

A’Ibom governor: Let them look inward We’re weighing court option -Junaid

Junaid

‘

Uduaghan

Crude oil is not only the source of revenue for government... But all these revenues are being lumped together and 13 per cent derivation of these is given to only three statesRivers, Bayelsa, and Delta

’

‘

The rambling press statement... is insulting and provocative... The arrogance shown by Dr Junaid Mohammed is symptomatic of a pattern of thinking that has not helped the unity... of this country

BASA row: Arik Air suspends Abuja-London operations

’

Page

58

2 News

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

We’ll tackle insecurity, IBB Abdulsalami, Ciroma, Atiku, others vow T HE North appears unrelenting in the search for an enduring solution to the Boko Haram insurgency.

Eminent leaders across the region, at yet another meeting to check the spate of insecurity in that part of the country, said they are all out for the rediscovery of Nigeria’s unity and the cohesion of northern communities.

The northern elders, who gathered in Minna on Thursday under the auspices of the Abdulsalami Abubakar Institute for Peace and Sustainable Development Studies (AAIPSDS), resolved to enhance the cohesiveness of the region by promoting interfaith and inter-ethnic relationship and also assist in the search for better state-community relations.

They also intend to facilitate the emergence of a broad consensus on the basic interests of the North and try to imple-

Jide ORINTUNSIN, Minna ment strategies in achieving them.

At the forum were two former military rulers, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar; former Vice President Atiku Abubakar; one time Finance Minister, Mallam Adamu Ciroma; former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Alfa Belgore; former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed and former Deputy Governor of Plateau State, Mrs. Pauline Tallen.

Also in attendance were former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Archbishop John Onaiyekan; Sheik Ahmed Lemu; Mr. Nda Isaiah, the pub-

lisher of Leadership newspaper; Abubakar Gimba; Professor Bawa Salka; Brig.-Gen. Halilu Akilu (rtd); Senator Jubril Aminu and Alhaji Isa Funtua In a communiqué issued by Gen. Abubakar and Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed yesterday, the forum also resolved to engage leadership at all levels in the search for better governance, transparency and improved responsiveness of leaders to the basic needs of citizens in the region.

To this end, the forum intends to encourage northern state governors to improve on the management of the economy of the region, expand the regional investment base and encourage the search for more economic resources which abound in the region.

The forum said it would in-

volve communities in intelligence gathering and peace building.

Mr. Sam Nda-Isaiah, who read the communique, dismissed a media report that the forum discussed revenue allocation.

He said: “The meeting discussed extensively on the search for solutions to the escalating security challenges in the North and the country. We never discussed any issue on revenue allocation.

“Aside from discussing issues on escalating security challenges in the region, we also frankly discussed how we can rebuild the economy of the North and strategise on how the North can further contribute to the development and the stability of the nation.”

The meeting was their second in one week.

At the first meeting in Abuja, the forum set up two committees–security and socio-economic–to address the problems of the North and submit their reports by March 27.

At the opening of the last session on Thursday, the host, Gen.Abdulsalami described the Boko Haram insurgency as the biggest security challenge confronting the North.

He lamented that while other parts of he country were “articulating positions which should improve their interests in the manner the nation should be structured, the North is being torn by conflicts, violence and deep mistrust among its communities.”

He added: “In Bauchi, Kaduna, Kano and Plateau states, just to mention a few places, we have killed and are killing ourselves needlessly in thousands on grounds of ethnic and religious differences.

We have become our worst and bitterest enemies.”

Fake sugar in circulation, says NAFDAC THE National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has alerted consumers on a fake brand of sugar in circulation in the country.

This was sequel to the intensive surveillance and enforcement activities officials the agency carried out across Oyo State.

The Deputy Director, Southwest Zone of NAFDAC, Mrs Omosola Osibanjo, said the enforcement exercise was a successful initiative which led to the discovery of the fake product at Agbeni market, Ibadan, the state capital.

Osibanjo said the regulatory officers of NAFDAC from the Oyo State office had stormed the area following reports of production and sale of fake St. Louis brand of sugar which was being passed on to unsuspecting members of the public as fortified sugar.

Maintaining that the exercise was a routine one, Oyo State head of the agency and leader of the team that carried out the operation, Mr Benjamin Haruna, said: “We had a tip-off that some people were bringing in sugar that was not fortified and did not carry the logo for fortification.’’

This, according to him, prompted the surveillance at Agbeni market where it was discovered that many shops and outlets were selling the fake product.

C

• From left: Former Head of State, Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar; Niger State Governor, Dr. Mu'azu Babangida Aliyu and Hon. Justice Alfa Belgore, during the opening of the Peace Forum at Maizube Farms, Sabon Daga near Minna...yesterday.

Baba Suwe: NDLEA returns to Appeal Court over N25m damages

T

HE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) yesterday approached the Court of Appeal in Lagos for a stay of execution of the judgment of Justice Yetunde Idowu of the Lagos High Court in the case involving the agency and popular comedian, Babatunde Omidina popularly called Baba Suwe.

The Director of Prosecution and Legal Services of the antidrug Agency, Mr. Femi Oloruntoba, submitted that

Kelvin OSA-OKUBBOR the agency had shown exceptional or special circumstances upon which the Appeal Court would exercise its discretion in granting the application.

Justice Idowu on November 24, 2011 ordered the agency to pay Baba Suwe the sum of N25 million as compensation for detaining him for nine days and to publish a public apol-

ogy to him in two widely read newspapers. Dissatisfied with the judgment, the NDLEA on December 6, 2011 filed a motion for stay of execution of the entire judgment.

The lower court in a considered ruling on March 2, 2012 refused the application on the grounds that the applicant was granted a conditional stay of execution pending the determination of the appeal. It added that the judgment sum

of N25 million be paid to the Chief registrar of the Lagos State High Court, who would in turn pay the said amount into an account with any reputable bank agreed by both parties.

The NDLEA in the motion of notice prayed the Appeal Court to determine whether the applicant was entitled to the grant of stay of execution of the judgment for the payment of N25 million, pending the determination of the Appeal filed by the Appellant.

Physicians urge Jonathan to sign Public Health Bill Nicholas KALU, Calabar THE Chairman of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria (APHPN), Prof. Obahi Okojie, has called on President Goodluck Jonathan to sign into law the Public Health Bill passed by the National Assembly.

Okojie made the call at the opening of the 28th National Scientific Conference and Annual General Meeting of the association in Calabar.

His words: “It is my prayer that for all well-meaning Nigerians, the President signs this all-important law into effect without further ado. In the interest of health and well being of all, as soon as possible.”

He stated that the theme of the conference, “The National Health Bill: Issues Arising”, will address important issues in public health.

The issues, he said, include effective management of public health care under the National Health Bill; community insurance scheme; private/ public partnership in health and human resources in health.

Senate Leader, Senator Ndoma-Egba, in his keynote address, said that the National Assembly was committed to ensuring that the Public Health Bill was signed into law.

He said: “My assurance is that the National Assembly remains committed to ensuring that the National Health Bill becomes law.”

Ndoma-Egba, who was represented by Prof. Roland Ndoma-Egba, disclosed that some health sector workers, who believed that they would be disadvantaged in some ways if some aspects of the bill were implemented, were opposed to it.

He also said that the recommendation that the Federal Government will inject two per cent of its consolidated revenue to the healthcare sector was another major challenge to the signing of the bill.

His words: “The bill provides that the government shall inject not less than two per cent of its consolidated revenue to the national primary healthcare development fund.

“And finding money for that is a major issue perhaps that is contributing to the reluctance in signing the bill.”

He also said that some religious organisations were not comfortable with some aspects of the bill.

He emphasised the need for all stakeholders in the health sector to come together for the benefit of the bill.

New banking laws underway, says CBN governor

ENTRAL Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi yesterday said the CBN intends to push for the enactment of four bills by the National Assembly to tighten financial sector regulations.

They are the Electronic Transaction Bill, the Financial Ombudsman Bill, the Nigerian International Financial Centre (NIFC) Bill, and the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Regulatory Commission Bill.

He spoke in Lagos at The Knowledge Exchange forum organised by the law firm of Olaniwun Ajayi LP. It had the topic: Financial Systems Stability: Trends and Opportunities.

As part of its contribution to the global regulatory landscape, the book: Troubled Asset Resolution, written by Ajayi, was presented at the event by the Attor-

Joseph JIBUEZE ney-General of the Federation, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN).

He was represented by Prof. Deji Adekunle.

Sanusi said the Electronic Transaction Bill, if passed into law, would give effect to the admission in evidence of all electronically generated statements of account which the Evidence Act currently forbids.

The Financial Ombudsman Bill, he said, aims to facilitate faster resolution of financial disputes, while the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Regulatory Commission Bill is proposed to create an ADR Commission to promote and regulate the practice and use of ADR in Nigeria.

The Nigerian International Fi-

•‘Cashless policy is being resisted’ nancial Centre (NIFC) Bill, if enacted, will establish the NIFC for the purpose of creating a world class financial zone in Nigeria Sanusi disclosed that the CBN was looking to establish a Microfinance Development Fund (MDF) with a view to deepening the financial markets through the introduction of new products and appropriate support/control structures.

He regretted that implementation of the new cash-less policy is still being resisted by some Nigerians despite its good intentions.

The policy’s aim, he said, is to ensure that a larger proportion of currency in circulation is captured within the banking system,

thereby enhancing the efficacy of monetary policy operations and economic stabilisation measures.

“The Cashless policy has been resisted despite the prospects for economic growth and development,” Sanusi said.

The CBN boss said the government would continue to push for a cashless society, adding that with the “successful commencement of ‘Cash-Lite Lagos,’ the policy will be “rolled out to other towns later this year.”

According to Sanusi, the policy was introduced because the Nigerian economy is heavily cashoriented in the transaction of goods and services, which increases the operational costs of the banking sector.

Besides, costs are transferred to

customers in the form of higher service charges and high lending rates, with the direct cost of cash management to the banking industry estimated to be about N192 billion by 2012.

Sanusi said through what he called the Shared Services Initiatives, the number of Automatic Teller Machines (ATM’s) is expected to increase, which should reduce the cost of operations and promote a cashless society.

Speaking on opportunities for the future, Sanusi said: “The progress made with our banking reforms means that our banks are now better positioned for growth and contributing to the real economy. Significant progress has been made in the area of agriculture, a sector with significant room for growth and profitable financing.

“We have started to tackle our power issues, the resolution of which would be a game-changer for our already significant economic growth. The Nigerian market offers good banking, business and advisory opportunities for firms with an appetite for SubSaharan Africa.”

Sanusi also spoke on challenges, saying: “The introduction of the new banking model has come with some challenges. For example, non-interest banking has been received with some negativity in some quarters and given religious connotations.

“The high cost of doing business in Nigeria as a result of weak infrastructure. The high growth rates recorded in the last five years have not been inclusive, thus perpetuating already high unemployment and poverty levels.’’

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

3

4 News

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Ohanaeze to northern leaders: Declare your true intention

T

•From left: Minister of Petroleum Resources Mrs Diezani Allison-Madueke, President Goodluck Jonathan and Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN at the commissioning of NNPC/Mobil oilfield platform in Lagos ...yesterday.

HE Igbo apex sociocultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo, has challenged northern leaders to declare their true intentions in the wake of the series of meetings on the insecurity in the North.

Secretary General of the Group world-wide, Chief Nduka Eya, believes the northern leaders are playing hide and seek with the rest of the country.

Speaking in an interview in Awka, Chief Eya said while the Igbo treasure and will continue to work for continued peace in the country, they would strongly oppose evil machinations by anyone or group.

He said: ”Our dear Dim Chukwuemeka OdumegwuOjukwu received wide accolades throughout the world during his burial because he was courageous and bold enough to declare what he and his people wanted.

Belgore panel rejects Jonathan’s seven-year single term T

HERE will be no room for the proposed single seven-year tenure in the report of the Justice Alfa Belgore’s Committee on Constitution Amendments.

The committee,which is close to winding up its assignment, has rejected the proposal submitted by the Presidency.

The proposal raised fresh dust on Thursday after the nascent Coalition of Northern Leaders, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen, warned the Belgore Committee against any plot to elongate President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure.

It accused the panel of pursuing a ‘’sinister third term agenda’’ for Jonathan with a single seven-year proposal.

The Presidency dismissed the insinuation as curious and mischievous because the panel had not even concluded its work.

The Nation has established that the committee upheld the present four-year tenure in the 1999 Constitution for political office holders.

The report of the panel may be submitted to President Jonathan by the end of this month, according to indications yesterday.

An authoritative source said yesterday that the Presidency

•Insists on four-year renewable tenure •To submit report March ending

Yusuf ALLI, Managing Editor, Northern Operation actually proposed a single tenure of seven years, which the panel rejected outright.

The source said: ”We had the proposal before us and we extensively debated the merits and demerits of the sevenyear tenure. At the end of the day, we agreed that the nation should continue to run a fouryear tenure system.

“There is nothing like Third Term Agenda because the President has not finished his first term in office.

“Having rejected the proposal, we cannot understand where this noise from the Coalition of Northern Leaders is coming from just to malign the hard-earned integrity of members of the committee.

“We are still writing the report. It is not true that we are trying to elongate the tenure of the President. We have retained the four-year system.

“We believe it is one of us that must be feeding northern leaders wrongly on the activities of the Belgore Committee. This member of the Belgore Committee has a

close affinity with the coalition.

“The only thing I can tell you is that we debated the sevenyear tenure proposal thoroughly before we opted for the present tenure system.’’

Responding to a question, the source said: “I don’t know what the North wants. I think they are making all these allegations to intimidate the South.

“We are one country, and it is to our advantage to remain as one country. What the committee is after is that we should let the best person rule this country.

“These northern leaders are lying; they are trying to intimidate the South. I am surprised that the media in the South is buying into this intimidation.

“I wish southern elders can reach out to the committee to have the full details of its activities.’’

On the controversial revenue allocation formula, the source said: “We resolved that we will not touch it and that it should be considered by an enlarged committee.’’

Asked when the committee

would submit its report, the source said : “We hope to do so by the end of March. We are compiling it.”

The coalition in a statement by its convener, Dr. Junaid Muhammed, had said: ”The main effort by Belgore and other hirelings of the Villa has been to create a so-called new Constitution that paves the way for Jonathan to again contest the presidential election in 2015 for a single term of seven (7) years, that is, in addition to his current four (4) years to the nearly two (2) years he had served of the Yar’Adua Presidency.

“Belgore has nothing but contempt for issues in which the North feels cheated such as Abuja and revenue allocation, and his dangerous antics have divided the committee, leading to acrimonious debates and near fist-fights with Belgore feigning helplessness while surreptitiously helping his own side.

“The whole country, with the North as its head, will rise to oppose this mischief.”

Responding for the President, his Special Adviser on Media , Dr. Reuben Abati,

said: “It is not in any evidence in any way that the Belgore Committee, which the President set up to look at the previous outcomes of political conferences’ recommendations as to constitution amendment, has submitted any report anywhere.

“I am not aware of any report that has been submitted anywhere making any recommendations. We would expect that people who claim to be major stakeholders in the Nigerian project, when they make contributions, their contributions will show commonsense and decency.

“To comment on the report of the Belgore committee that has not been concluded and a report that has not yet been submitted will amount to witchcraft or, if you like, sorcery. It is therefore curious and entirely mischievous. As far as I know, the Belgore committee has not concluded its work.

“It also appears strange to me that a group of people, who would otherwise be described as distinguished Nigerians, would claim that the President is looking for a third term. “ Every intelligent man in this country knows that President Jonathan is in his first term in office. So, how have •Continued on Page 5

Jonathan commissions NNPC/MPN oil fields’ platforms

P

RESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan yesterday commissioned three wellhead platforms for the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation and Mobil Producing Nigeria (NNPC/ MPN) Joint venture built by Nigerdock Nigeria Plc at its Snake Island Integrated Free Zone in Lagos.

The three wellhead platforms constructed by Nigerdock and Dorman Long Engineering are meant for the Abang, Oyot, and Itut oil fields located in Oil Mining Leases (OML) 67 and 70, offshore Nigeria, which are part of Mobil joint venture’s satellite fields development project, Phase-1.

The Abang, Oyot and Itut fields are targeted to recover more than 100 million barrels of oil and 20 million barrels of oil equivalent of natural gas liquids. Peak pro-

•Fed Govt to invest $150b in projects Emeka UGWUANYI and Collins NWEZE duction from Phase-1 is anticipated to be 70,000 barrels per day.

The President said: “I’m delighted to commission this project today because it is not just mere commissioning but testament of the government’s commitment to developing local content in the oil and gas sector. ‘’This is imperative because the sector accounts for 80 per cent of Nigeria’s income. This project created and will continue to create employment and we will continue to expand employment opportunities.”

He commended NNPC, ExxonMobil, Nigerdock and other stakeholders for their contributions to promoting

Nigerian Content development.

The Minister of Petroleum, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, noted that the most outstanding importance of the commissioning was that ‘’in the past, Nigerians went to Asia, Europe and Malaysia, among other countries, to commission such projects, but it is happening in Nigeria.’’

She said the platforms were 100 per cent fabricated in Nigeria and a workforce of over 1000 was used and developed. This workforce will transfer technology to other generations to come, she added.

She said the Federal Government would spend $150 billion on oil and gas projects in the next five years.

The Governor of Lagos

State, Babatunde Fashola, SAN, said: “What we have seen here today has shown that legislations and policies have yielded result.” He assured that his government would continue to make investment environment in Lagos friendlier.

The President, ExxonMobil Production Company, Rich Kruger, said: “Today, we’re commemorating the sail away of two of three wellhead platforms developed under our Satellite Field Development Project.

“This occasion not only marks the completion of the first phase of the project but also represents the first time two platforms have been developed completely in Nigeria. This is a significant contribution to the national content initiatives supported

by both the Nigerian Government and our ExxonMobil affiliates here in Nigeria.

“The project involves the engineering, fabrication and installation of one wellhead platform in each of these fields. It also includes production gathering pipelines and tie-ins to existing production facilities, as well as the drilling of future wells.

“I want to stress that underlining this project is a firm commitment to safety by all parties involved. On this project, over 4.3 million man hours have been invested with no lost time injuries.

At ExxonMobil, the health and well-being of our employees, contractors and the communities in which we operate is more than merely a priority; it is a core value of our corporation. Our goal is an incident-free workplace with a clear and simple objective: nobody gets hurt.”

Nwanosike ONU, Awka “We believe in the equality of the six geo-political zones in this country, but what is killing Nigeria is the military constitution imposed on her.

“We need equity. We need justice. We need fairness and we should be our brothers’ keepers, not using one ethnic sentiment to disrupt the existing peace among those those who are supposed to be brothers and sisters.

“Ndigbo have every reason and right to live anywhere in the country, likewise other groups. Nobody can intimidate us. Therefore, we should co-habit.

“Ndigbo have been marginalised enough in this country. We recall the pogrom of the 60s; we recall the numerous attacks on our Christians.

Ndigbo are easy targets for miserable people in this country, and it is not supposed to be so.

“We want to live in peace with our Muslim brothers. We want to live in peace with pagans and Christians. We want to live in peace with the Hausa.’’

DG, 23 others battle for NTA top job •North insists on slot Yusuf ALLI, Managing Editor, Northern Operation THE battle for the seat of Director-General of the Nigeria Television Authority has pitted the incumbent, Alhaji Usman Magawata against 23 others.

Some stakeholders are said to be making moves to bring back a former DG of NTA, Mr. Tonnie Iredia.

The North is, however, insisting that it should retain the slot.

The incumbent DG is expected to complete his first term in office in three weeks’ time.

Although he is eligible for a second term, some forces are said to be out to stop his return to office.

Leading the forces is an influential Senator from the North Central, whose name is kept under wraps.

A source said: “There is so much tension because the number is too much and it has created the suspicion that most of the 24 candidates have ulterior motives.

“Those desiring to be DG are executive directors, directors, an assistant director and a few others.

“The candidacy of a former newscaster, who is of Assistant Director rank, has caused ripples ahead of 24 others.

“A powerful senator from the North Central is backing the ex-newscaster. Some of the staff are, however, saying she lacks the requisite experience in management.

“The aggrieved staff said she has not headed a department in the organisation, managed an NTA station in any state or worked anywhere outside the headquarters.”

But another member of the National Assembly from the North Central said: “I am of the opinion that Magawata deserves a second term in office.

“But whatever way they want to play their politics in the Presidency, the North must retain the slot.

“We will not allow another geopolitical zone to take the slot away from the North.”

News 5

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Senator Olugbenga Ashafa of Lagos Central (middle) flanked by the graduands of free ICT training at Senator Gbenga Ashafa Training Centre. From left: the beneficiaries Ijede Local Government Diistrict Area, Bonojo Jamiu; Agboyi-Ketu LCDA, Saka Tairat; Ikorodu West LCDA, Amusa Morenike; Ikosi Ketu LCDA, Oyinloye Adegoke; and Ikosi Ejirin LCDA, Aberegidi Samson at the sixth convocation ... yesterday

.President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (left) exchanging greetings with the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Fidelity Bank Plc, Dr. Reginald Ihejiahi (center) at the commissioning of the NNPC/MPN satellite Field Development Project Platforms, Abang and Itut, and the foundation Ceremony for skillbase in Lagos yesterday.

Derivation controversy: North’s position insulting —Uduaghan •Akpabio: Come and learn from us •We’re weighing court option–Junaid

T

HE South South is seething with anger against the Coalition of Northern Leaders, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen.

Leaders of the geo-political zone are outraged by Thursday’s statement by the Junaid Muhammed-led group that the financial resources available to the South South states are far beyond their executive capacity to manage.

Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta State, who spoke through the Communication Manager, Government House, Asaba, Mr. Paul Odili, called the pronouncement of the Northern group insulting and provocative while Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State said anyone doubting the financial capability of the state should come and see things for himself.

The convener of the coalition, Dr.Muhammed, told The Nation last night that much of the oil credited to the oil producing states does not belong to them as it comes from offshore and therefore belongs to the entire country.

Governor Uduaghan said of the coalition’s statement: “The rambling press statement by Dr. Junaid Mohammed, convener of a northern pressure group, is insulting and provocative and without foundation in reality. The arrogance shown by Dr Junaid Mohammed is symptomatic of a pattern of thinking that has not helped the unity, stability and progress of this country.

“To claim, among other things, that the revenue from derivation is beyond the capacity of the South-South governors to manage is patronising as well as mischievous. It is obvious that what Dr Mohammed would prefer is a previous system which restricted the revenue allocation coming to the South-South to one per cent.

“The real issue in Nigeria, contrary to the arguments of Dr Mohammed, is a return to fiscal federalism. This country was built on the foundation of fiscal federalism; let each region enjoy the benefits of what it is able to produce. It is oil today, it can be anything else tomorrow.

“With Dr Mohammed’s

Okungbowa AIWERIE and Kazeem IBRAHYM statement lacking substance, it is unnecessary to join issues with him as there is clear evidence of ignorance. He has no understanding of the difficulties and challenges and sufferings the Niger Delta terrain has imposed on the people and the government of the region.

“In Delta State, His Excellency Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan has committed his administration to building a state that is less dependent on oil, a vision that demands enormous investment in infrastructure and human capital. It is a work in progress and Deltans are satisfied with efforts being made.

“It is very likely Dr Mohammed is not aware of this, being so far away, nor is it our intention to submit the programmes of the administration for his review. ‘’Governor Uduaghan, who is aware of the neglect and challenges of developing the near impossible terrain, has justifiably demanded an increase in derivation to meet the yearnings of the people, in particular the oil bearing communities, who continue to bear massive brunt of environmental damage arising from oil exploration.”

The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Aniekan Umana, speaking for Governor Akpabio in an interview in Uyo, faulted the argument of the northern coalition.

Umana said, if anything, Akwa Ibom has become a model of financial prudence as all the resources accruing to it have been put into productive use, and it has demonstrated to Nigerians that it is possible to use revenue accruing to the state for development.

His words: “We are lucky to have oil today that is keeping Nigeria. Supposing there is no oil, where do we go? That is why in Akwa Ibom State, the government is building enduring infrastructure and the state is fully ready for industrialisation.

“Also, we have strategically branched into tourism and other investment opportunities such as the Ibaka Deep Sea port, so that we can have some-

thing that would sustain the state supposing there was nothing to look up to.

“So there is no cause for worry. Anybody who is thinking or wondering how funds are been put to use should come and learn from Governor Godswill Akpabio.

“Akwa Ibom is a model of financial prudence. Akwa Ibom has demonstrated to Nigerians that it is possible to use revenue accruing to the state for the development of the state.

“The governor has shown prudence and capacity to manage resources. He has also used the resources coming to the state to develop the state. So,

there is no need for anybody getting bothered about how the resources coming to Akwa Ibom state are being put to use.

“In fact, we need more resources because we have a lot of things to do. We have a lot more to do. Let me also say this: there is no need to clamour or fight over anything; Nigeria is totally viable. Everywhere in the country is viable. So, I can only advise every part of the country to look inwards.”

But the Convener of the Coalition, Dr. Junaid Mohammed, hinted last night that the matter might end up in court.

He said the current sharing formula of oil revenue was un-

acceptable to the North because, in his view, the bulk of the oil credited to the South South states comes from offshore and therefore belongs to the whole country.

He said: ”We are insisting that the revenue allocation is illegal. It is not what we want.

“The fact on ground today is that 70 per cent out of 100 per cent of our oil comes from offshore.

“The 70 per cent of that revenue must not be subjected to derivation; only 30 per cent should be subjected to derivation. This is in line with the Convention on the Law of the Sea (LOSC).

“The nation must remem-

ber that crude oil is not only the source of revenue for government. There are Customs duties, Value Added Tax (VAT) and receipts from nonoil exports.

“But all these revenues are being lumped together and 13 per cent derivation of these is given to only three states–Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta. This trend is no longer acceptable.”

He also said northern leaders were consulting on their next line of action on the report of the Justice Alfa Belgore Committee once it is submitted.

He said a legal action might not be ruled out as it is obvious that something has to be tested in court.

Kainji power station shut down

T

HE Federal Government’s efforts at improving electricity supply suffered a huge set back yesterday as the nation’s oldest hydro-electric power generating station situated in Kanji, Niger State was shut down indefinately due to excessive water leakage from the dam.

This development may also pose a threat to the operations of the four units of the Jebba Hydro Station which currently produces 335 megawatts if not quickly rectified.

The Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji, ordered the shuting down of the 44-year-old 760 megawatts Kanji Hydro Power Station on Friday.

The decision to shutdown the power station was contained in a statement signed by the Media Special Assistant to the Minister, Ogbuagu Anikwe. The directive to shut down the dam followed excessive water leakage in the dam which could cause a flooding of the station.

The statement reads: ‘’To forestall the flooding, all five units in the power station generating 330MW were shut down early this morning (Friday).’’

The statement further said that the Minister had ordered all divers in the service of the station to be mobilised immediately to trace the point of the water leakage in the dam and

Jide ORINTUNSIN Minna rectify the problem as a matter of utmost urgency.

Anikwe warned that if the problem was not solved immediately, it could affect the operations of the four units of the Jebba Hydro Station which currently produce 335MW. Built in 1968 with an installed capacity for 760MW, the Kainji Hydro Power Plant has in recent years been generating not more than 450MW due to poor maintenance.

Sources within Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) told our correspondent that the station has not been overhauled since it was built in 1968.

Apologising to Nigerians for the power outage that might arise from the shutdown, the minister said it is regrettable that the problem occurred at a time there is considerable reduction in national power supply as a result of shortage in gas supply to thermal power stations.

Nnaji also disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan is personally leading a new effort to draw up a far reaching and composite plan to end all the impediments to the quick realisation of electricity development in Nigeria, including gas shortage.

Belgore panel rejects Jonathan’s seven-year single term •Continued from Page 4 they suddenly jumped from first term to third term? From the point of view of arithmetic, even their claim cannot stand. So, that claim is weak. It is unacceptable.

“If their concern is about the seven-year term tenure, President Jonathan has made it clear that his proposal is out of patriotic concern about the amount of wastefulness, greed, tension, conflict and the obsession that go into the search for second term.”

Dr. Junaid Mohammed

said, last night, that northern leaders were consulting on their next line of action on the expected report of the Justice Alfa Belgore Committee.

He said litigation could not be ruled out as something has to be tested in court.

He also described the committee's reversal to four-year tenure as a face-saving option after the seven-year single tenure proposal was defeated by members of the panel.

Mohammed, who spoke exclusively with our correspondent, said the North has nothing personal against President Goodluck Jonathan.

He said the leaders raised the alarm over a desperate attempt to elongate the tenure of the President because they owe living and unborn Nigerians a duty to make democracy work.

Mohammed said: "Let them go to hell. We know the role everybody is playing in this sinister third term agenda/renewed tenure elongation for the President.

"They are claiming that they have retained the four-year tenure but they forgot to tell Nigerians that the proposal was defeated by vigilant members of the Belgore Com-

mittee. They have also not spoken on moves still being made to sustain the agenda.

"The presidential spokesman has just said that the President is spending his first term in office. I am not surprised at the statement of the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati. The statement was a total vindication of the shameless sham being perpetrated by Belgore Committee.

"So, we have been vindicated by that statement that a subtle political machination is going on somewhere."

6 NEWS

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Lagos PDP crisis deepens as transition panel members resign

T

HE crisis rocking the Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) took another twist on Thursday as three members of the Transition, Reconciliation and Congress Committee (TRCC) resigned their appointments, saying that the purported results of the ward and local government congresses in the state are false.

The TRCC, a five-member panel under the chairmanship of Ambassador Musiliu Obanikoro, was set up by the South West Expanded Zonal Executive Committee to reconcile the party’s two factions and conduct congresses in Lagos State.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Thursday and signed by the trio of Chief Mrs. Modupe Sasore, Chief Ayo Waddell and Lekan Sobowale, they noted that the decision to opt out of the committee is to safeguard their integrity.

“The TRCC has been completely marginalised and blocked out of their assignments by the outgoing state executive which is Chief Bode George’s contraption.

“The process of reconciliation and harmonisation has been frustrated to the extent that there is no more meeting point between the two ma-

...accuse Obanikoro of betrayal •Court halts today’s congress Kunle AKINRINADE and Eric IKHILAE jor factions in the party,” they said.

They noted that there was a direct contravention of Section 85(3) of the Electoral Act and Article 17.2(f) of the PDP constitution which stipulates that congresses for election of ward officers shall be by direct primaries.

The statement reads further: “The TRCC has been rendered completely irrelevant and unfortunately our chairman seems to be part of this nefarious plot making the committee completely impotent.

“We note that he had surreptitiously ensured that our collective decisions are jettisoned regularly.

This is indeed unfortunate and tantamount to betrayal.

“In the circumstances stated above, it has become increasingly embarrassing to be part of this charade. We, therefore, resign our appointments.”

Meanwhile, a Federal High Court in Lagos has halted the PDP state congress scheduled to hold in

the state today.

Justice Mohammed Liman, in a terse ruling yesterday, held that the decision to halt the conduct of the state congress was informed by the existence of a suit whose substratum revolves around the party’s planned congress.

The court refused to hear the plaintiffs’ application for interlocutory injunction halting the conduct of the said congress on the grounds that there was no evidence that the defendants were served with court processes.

Justice Liman, however, made the interim order, suspending the conduct of the congress scheduled for today on the grounds that the court’s refusal to take any action will defeat the kernel of the substantive suit.

By the order, the congress is put on hold until next Tuesday when parties are to return to court to argue the plaintiffs’ interlocutory injunction, a date before which the defendants are to be served with processes and the plaintiffs expected to have file proof of service in court.

The suit was filed by some mem-

bers of the party who are dissatisfied with the conduct of the ward congresses held by the party across the local government areas in the state on the 3rd of March, 2012.

In the suit, the plaintiffs, led by the PDP chairmanship candidate for Agege Local Government, Alhaji Imam Akorede, are asking for the annulment of the said local government congress for non-compliance with the guidelines as stipulated by Article 12(72)(j) and 16.3 of the constitution of the PDP (2009 as amended).

At yesterday’s proceedings, plaintiffs’ lawyer, Babatunde Sofowora, informed the court that some of the defendants had been served with the motion for interlocutory injunction. He lamented that efforts to serve others had not been successful, but urged the court to hear his application.

Mr. K. O. Oshinowo, lawyer to the third defendant, Chief Ayo Waddel, told the court that he was instructed not to oppose the motion by the plaintiffs.

Lawyer to the INEC and its Chairman, A. F. Lawal, however, informed the court that his clients

Ogun State governor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, in a group photograph with members of the newly inaugurated Christian Pilgrims’ Welfare Board at the June 12 Cultural Centre, Abeokuta... yesterday

Oyo PDP peace talks suffer setback as Ladoja pulls out

T

HE ongoing talks between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Oyo State Governor, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, yesterday broke down as the latter pulled out of the arrangement to return to the party.

This came as factions within the party threatened to hold parallel congresses, following inability to harmonize interests across party leaders in the state.

Bisi OLADELE, Ibadan A group, the Oyo State PDP Stakeholders, called for the postponement of the congress yesterday, alleging that a faction had hijacked the transparent process.

Reports had confirmed that Ladoja had returned to his former party after President Goodluck Jonathan and Chief Olusegun Obasanjo invited and persuaded him to return

•Factions threaten parallel congresses to the PDP. The state chapter of the party also stated that the former governor had returned to its fold.

But the Accord Party (AP) under the leadership of Ladoja yesterday announced that it had pulled out of the talks with the PDP due to what it described as insincerity and lack of genuine commitment to the ideals

Osun raises the alarm over alleged plot to discredit Aregbesola

T

HE Osun State government al leged yesterday a plot by po litical opponents to rubbish the state of health of Governor Rauf Aregbesola.

The Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon,accused an Abuja-based lawyer of leading the planned campaign.

Mr.Okanlawon,in a statement in Osogbo yesteday, said: ”The latest, according to our information is coming from an Abuja-based lawyer, who is a member of the Labour Party and claims to be leading an organisation that purportedly works for an egalitarian society in Africa.

“Under the eagis of the faceless organisation, the lawyer has written a letter addressed to the Government House Clinic, Osogbo purportedly asking for the medical records of the governor from the clinic.

“The purpose of this, needless to state, is to promote a shameful claim to the suspicion that Governor Aregbesola’s actions suggest a problem in his medical state.

“Those who have followed the controversies following the rude conduct of Governor Segun Mimiko’s representative on March 6 at the public presentation of the Development Agenda for Western Nigeria at the City Hall, Lagos, would have no difficulty figuring out where the Abuja-based lawyer who hails from Ondo State is going with his shameful letter to the clinic.

“To establish the hollowness of the lawyer’s letter, which he copied to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President of the Senate, Director-General of the SSS, our investigations showed that the lawyer is merely an attention seeker “While Nigerians and the whole

world are in no doubt on the state of health and mind of Governor Aregbesola, it is important to state that at the very time he was circulating his shameful letter to journalists in Abuja, Governor Aregbesola was being conferred with the Honourary Doctorate in Enterpreneurship by the Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji Arakeji on Friday, March 16.

“This honour was the second in less than two months as he was equally honoured by the Achievers’ University, Owo, in the idle lawyer’s home state.

“We state categorically that the lawyer and his sponsors are only disturbed by the determination of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola to champion regional integration and bring about massive transformation in the lives of not only the people of Osun, but the entire Yoruba race and Nigeria as a whole.”

of democracy by the Oyo State chapter of the party.

The state Chairman of the AP and the Director-General of the Ladoja Campaign Organization, Alhaji Bashir Lawal and Hon. Adeolu Adeleke respectively, told reporters yesterday that the party at a stakeholders’ meeting held at Ondo Street, Bodija home of Ladoja earlier yesterday resolved to terminate further negotiations with the PDP. Though they affirmed that future negotiations were not foreclosed and that the AP had nothing personal against the PDP, they argued that the Oyo State chapter of the PDP is so factionalized that it can not harmonize the various centrifugal interests that would ultimately help it win election and offer good governance.

The stakeholders’ group, led by former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Asimiyu Alarape, alleged that the process of the congress had been manipulated, arguing that the consequences of the manipulation portends danger for the future of the party and reconciliatory efforts taken so far. It insisted that the congress would witnesses parallel elections should the national leadership fail to heed its appeal.

instructed him to withhold the counter affidavit he planned to file against the plaintiffs’ motion for interlocutory injunctions.

The judge, while adjourning the case to March 20, held that in view of the fact that the “substratum” of the suit revolves around the conduct of the congress, it was ideal to put the congress on hold so as not to defeat the intent of the suit.

NDLEA returns to Appeal Court over N25m compensation for Baba Suwe Kelvin OSA- OKUNBOR

T

HE National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) yesterday again approached the Court of Appeal in Lagos for a stay of execution of the judgment of Justice Yetunde Idowu of the Lagos High Court.

Director of Prosecution and legal Services of the anti-drug Agency, Mr. Femi Oloruntoba, submitted that the agency had shown exceptional or special circumstances upon which the Appeal Court will exercise its discretion in granting the application.

Justice Idowu on November 24, 2011 ordered the agency to pay a popular comedian, Babatunde Omidina, aka Baba Suwe, the sum of 25 million naira as compensation for detaining him for nine days and to publish a public apology to him in two widely read newspapers. Dissatisfied with the judgement of the court, the NDLEA on December 6, 2011 filed a motion for stay of execution of the entire judgment.

The lower court in a considered ruling on March 2 refused the application on the ground that the applicant is granted a conditional stay of execution, pending the determination of the appeal. It added that the judgement sum of 25 million naira be paid to the Chief registrar of the Lagos State High Court who will in turn pay the said amount into an account with any reputable bank agreed by both parties.

The NDLEA, in the motion of notice, prays the Appeal Court to determine whether the applicant is entitled to the grant of stay of execution of the judgment for the payment of 25 million in this case, pending the determination of the appeal.

Emily Babalola passes on

Madam Babalola The death has been announced in Ondo of Madam Emily Oseyemi Babalola. She died January 30 at the age of 92.

She is survived by Mrs Folashade Otubu, Mrs Florence Yinka Izobo, Pastor Francis Babalola of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, Mrs Comfort Adebowale Ajibola, Mrs Grace Anike Adesoji, a renowned educationist, and Mr. Festus Olu Babalola, the General Manager of Selina Group of Companies, Lagos.

She will be buried in Ondo on Saturday, March 24 at 10.00a.m.

More stories on Pages 58 & 59

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

7

8

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

9

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

I

T is quite easy to read my mind and see what informed my topic of today if you have been monitoring recent world news as I do. The last edition of the Economist described Nigeria’s Ngozi Okonjo– Iweala our Minister of Finance as the Iron Lady for her economic and financial reforms along IMF lines.

The Economist warned that she was lining up reforms in the electricity sector and that tariffs must go up first before Nigerians have light and that she would be vilified as she was for the removal of the fuel subsidy that led to the national strike to reinstate it. To the Economist Ngozi is a heroine trying to reform our economy and the rest of us are wet blankets trying to spoil her fun and high rating before the glossy world of World Bank politics from where she stooped to come home to take up her present job.

Of course nothing can be further from the truth.

But this is a view from afar that those of us involved with what their Iron Lady is doing don’t seem to appreciate as well those who see her from afar.

It is of such views and perceptions that I want talk about today . I want to discuss how we Nigerian perceive foreign leaders based on their party programs in the past and what they stand for today and how realistic and correct we can be in such assumptions and vice versa .Let us take a break and take a look at the same David Cameron PM of Great Britain that this week suddenly stood in front of the same famous 10 Downing Street address to announce that he authorized a failed rescue attempt in Sokoto south west of Nigeria in which the two hostages taken since last May lost their lives.

Let us also look at our categorization of parties along ideological lines left or right- now and in the past and see if we have not been fooling ourselves with our assumptions and categorizations. This is because in Nigeria even up till now we have always seen parties like the PDP as conservative and ACN as leftist and this dates back to their pedigree as NPC, NPN and AG and UPN respectively. Similarly we have always extended such categorization to foreign parties especially to those of our former colonial masters Britain namely the Tories and Labor Party; and in the US, our global teacher of democracy the Democratic Party and the GOP or the Republican party.

On top of these perceptions we have always made our preference for these foreign parties based on how we feel their policies have in the past till now benefitted the our

Views and perceptions from afar

racial kin , the blacks in their midst. Hence the stereotype of thinking of Labor as propoor or blacks and the Tories as anti poor and blacks and the same goes for the Democratic Party in the US as pro black and vice versa for the GOP. These attitudes and perceptions are what I want to bring under scrutiny today to see if they can in reality stand the test of time.

Let us start with the Tories in Britain whose present spending cuts on welfare benefits and austerity measures have reinforced the earlier belief that they have no sympathy for the poor masses of Britain especially the blacks. But then the botched rescue attempt in Sokoto did little credit to the party of Margaret Thatcher Britain’s Iron Lady, and a government of her heritage that moved an armada of war ships across the globe to go and give the Argentines a bloody nose over the disputed but barren Falklands Islands some years back.

Worse still it is the Tories in government today that have threatened to cut foreign aid to African nations like Nigeria and Uganda that

have made homosexuality and lesbianism illegal by law. What sort of conservatism is that? Have the Tories not migrated away from their core values of entrepreneurship and laissez faire capitalism into a self-imposed beffudlement over the identification of human rights and human values and the relative importance of either for the promotion of world trade and economic development.

Similarly in the US the Democratic Party of former President Bill Clinton and now Barak Obama has been able to clinch more votes from the Republican Party her staunch rival because of its support for gay rights and same sex marriages. Yet any time the US presidential elections come up we Africans line up behind the Democrats as the party that defends African and black man interests.

And that is not really the case with its expressed and well known views and support for gay rights and same sex marriages. Surely review of our perceptions on this is sadly long overdue.

In international diplo-

macy too I want to cite examples of how the international community has rated some world leaders far and above what close observers and even their countrymen perceive them.

Two examples of former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will suffice as the two eminent personalities were called out for international mediation assignments recently. Former President Obasanjo was asked by the AU to mediate in the third term crisis of Senegal precipitated by the now successful attempt of incumbent President Abdulwaye Wade to take part in the presidential polls after the constitutional court in that nation had ruled that he could do so even as the constitution expressly forbade that he could.

Since Obasanjo himself attempted a third term bid but failed, perhaps the AU thought he could dissuade the Senegalese leader who had been in politics longer than him by narrating the pain he suffered on his failed Nigerian third term bid. Any-

way the Senegalese leader in his bid was more successful than the AU mediator. Or probably the mediator was able to relay what he left undone at home that made his domestic effort a failure and the Senegalese leader did not need to reinvent the wheel to be successful in Senegal in spite of the AU intervention. Either way it is apparent that the AU and the international community hold the former Nigerian president in far higher esteem than the citizens of the nation he ruled both as a soldier and as a civilian for two presidential terms before the bitter parting of ways over the abortive third term bid.

With regard to Kofi Annan the situation is quite different but not much. The former Ghanaian UN Secretary General is the newly appointed mediator of the Arab League in the crisis in Syria in which President Bashir Assad is shooting unarmed protesters who are asking for their democratic rights to vote and be voted for in their nation where the Assad dynasty had been in power for decades. Assad’s reaction has been brutal and bloody, similar to those of former Presidents Ben Ali in Tunisia and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya.

Generally it is expected that Assad will follow them into a disgraceful exit but for the veto of the Russians who have vetoed any UN intervention similar to that that dislodged Gaddafi in Libya through the use of the ‘no fly zone‘.

However the choice of Kofi Annan as a mediator to me is a cynical one by the Arab

League which has never had credibility on any issue in the Arab World.This is more true today as the uprising in the Arab world that started in Tunisia and Egypt is decimating and overhauling the Arab League membership at the very top which was made up of the despots the Arab Spring is removing slowly but surely. Definitely all the despots removed so far– Ben Ali, Housni Mubarak, Muammar Gaddafi are well known to Kofi Annan in both personal and official capacity. With regard to Syria, Kofi Annan probably knew the current president when he was a little boy watching while his father the late former President Haffez Assad discussed diplomacy with the former but well known UN official on his many visits to Damascus in the past. So the Syrian president will feel comfortable talking with Annan who he trusts can not harm his interests while the dubious Arab League will relish the façade of having intervened in the crisis to save protesters lives by sending Annan who can only stall for time and cannot achieve anything.

But really the losers are the Syrian protesters who have no outside military support like the Libyans and who must beat a tactical retreat in the face of the bloody and military repression of the Assad regime to whom the Arab League has mischievously sent Kofi Annan to buy time. Which boils down to the fact that not all that glitters is gold and this is especially so in the rarified world of global business, politics and diplomacy.

10 COMMENTARY

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Beyond the tit-for-tat action against South Africa

T

HE nation’s diplomatic venture had not been as exciting as it was last week since the face-off between Nigeria and Britain during the Buhari/Idiagbon regime in 1984.

After kicking out the regime of graft led

by Alhaji Shehu Shagari in December 1983, the Buhari/Idiagbon government felt a need to bring back some of the major actors who had fled to the UK in order to make them account for the roles they played in the squandering of the nation’s resources.

Alhaji Umaru Dikko, the Minister of Transport in the ill-fated Second Republic, was considered the most notorious in the conspiracy to loot the nation dry. Like the then Chairman of the ruling National Party of Nigeria (NPN), Chief Adisa Akinloye, the then Senate President, Dr. Joseph Wayas, and other top actors in the Shagari government, Dikko had fled to Britain. The Buhari/Idiagbon government was determined to bring him back to Nigeria to answer to charges of corruption against him, but the regime was frustrated by the asylum the British government had granted Dikko. The military government then hit on the idea of squeezing Dikko into a diplomatic crate and flying him back to Nigeria.

Although the Rambo-like operation nearly succeeded, it fell on its face before Buhari and Idiagbon could shout eureka. Dikko had been

packaged in a crate and and was at the verge of being flown back to Nigeria when eagleeyed security agents discovered the plot with the help of his personal secretary and aborted it. The incident provoked a diplomatic row between Nigeria and its former colonial masters. The British government demanded an apology, but the Nigerian government would do no such thing. Britain thought it could do the regime in by withdrawing its High Commissioner to Nigeria, but the Nigerian government promptly reacted by also withdrawing its High Commissioner to Britain.

The diplomatic row was resolved after some time and the cordial relationship between the two countries was restored. But it was not until the point was made that the Nigerian government would not knuckle under any threat from its former colonial overlords.

Apostles of cyclical history had their moment last week when a similar row occurred between Nigeria and South Africa. It began with the deportation of 125 Nigerians who were on business trips to South Africa on the grounds that the Nigerian travellers were not armed with medical certificates, declaring them free of yellow fever. Realising that the incident was just another in the long line of discriminatory measures the South African government had taken against Nigerians, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Olugbenga Ashiru, threatened to give South Africa a calculated response. While clarifications were still being sought by journalists for what the minister actually meant by a calculated response, the government deported no fewer than 84 South Africans within two days and even threatened to deport more of them.

Millions of Nigerians have hailed the government’s action as a bold statement instructing South Africa and other countries that are fond of subjecting Nigerians to vari-

‘

It is unimaginable that not only individual Nigerians have been migrating to Ghana in droves in recent years, but also corporate organisations. Yet this was Ghana whose citizens flooded Nigeria in the 1980s in search of livelihood. The popular Ghana-must-go bag derived its name from the expulsion order our government issued to illegal Ghanaian aliens in the 1980s

’

ous acts of humiliation to desist from doing so or be prepared to get paid in their own coin.

Surprisingly, only Nigerians seemed to make an issue of the diplomatic row. The average South African made nothing of it.

The matter was hardly reported by the media in South Africa, an indication that it made no news that a country of no consequence was threatening a diplomatic showdown with their country. What, they must have asked, would they lose from severed diplomatic ties with a country whose citizens in South Africa constitute nothing but nuisance. In spite of the tepid apology the South African government tendered, it was clear that the county

felt no sense of guilt humiliating a people whose lives are not valued even by their own government. Is it not the way you dress that you are addressed?

Those who celebrated the diplomatic faceoff as a sign that maltreatment of Nigerians in foreign lands would no longer be business as usual must have been shocked at the deportation of 120 Nigerians from the UK while the row with South Africa lasted.

While Nigerians were basking in the euphoria of the so-called diplomatic breakthrough, Britain was busy cramming 120 of their compatriots into a cargo plane preparatory to their deportation to Nigeria. Since the deportees were offloaded at the cargo section of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport penultimate Friday, I have waited endlessly for a retaliatory action from Nigeria, like it did to South Africa.

The truth is that the tit-for-tat action of the Federal Government against South Africa amounts to leaving leprosy to treat ringworm. The insults that are heaped on Nigerians all over the world are a product of the inept leadership that has plunged the nation into misery since independence. The solution to this cannot be found in the kind of grandstanding we have engaged South Africa. It lies in the ability of the government to empower its citizens such that they would have access to the basic social amenities that attract them to foreign lands.

It is unimaginable that not only individual Nigerians have been migrating to Ghana in droves in recent years, but also corporate organisations. Yet this was Ghana whose citizens flooded Nigeria in the 1980s in search of livelihood. The popular Ghanamust-go bag derived its name from the expulsion order our government issued to illegal Ghanaian aliens in the 1980s. Now Ghana could be next country to deport Nigerians from their country, probably in trailers.

Re: Nigeria, South Africa and xenophobia Knucklehead •Perhaps, you had completed your write up when South Africa sent its apology to the Nigerian government through a high-powered delegation. Despite that, the tit-for-tat approach Nigeria adopted showed that, some other time, no African country will toy with our might. However, we in Nigeria too, should shun corruption; lead objectively to achieve accelerated growth. That will earn us our deserved respect otherwise; a fool will continue to disrespect the wise.

We do not deserve that error from South Africa! Nigeria, put your house in order.

Lanre Oseni, 08033518726

•Yomi, it may be well for us to go on complaining about how others treat Nigerians, but you must remember that our leaders do not treat us any better. It’s therefore just a cheap gimmick when they pretend they are concerned about such issues.

08064091237

•Hello Yomi, our people say if you sell your family for one naira, it will be extremely hard to buy back for one hundred.

What is the value of an average Nigerian to her leaders?

Worthless, one might say! So how do you want South Africa to treat us? Was the Nigerian High Commission in Joburg also demanding yellow card as condition for visa before this brouhaha? Are you not aware that Nigeria killed hi-tv for dstv? I don’t know Subair from anywhere at all, but why was the company denied credit facilities by Nigerian banks and same banks could do consortium of loans for dstv to enable it buy the premiership rights? As I write this, a major bank in the country is about ‘’receiving’’ hi-tv for bankruptcy! A telecommunication firm from South Africa once told us that per second billing was not possible before Glo started it and they followed suit. So why did say it was not possible? The way the telecoms companies behave in Nigeria, can they ever do that anywhere in the world, even in Ghana? Haven’t you heard of government agencies going for capacity building seminars in South Africa? What’s the frequency given to Southern Air to fly in and out of Nigeria? It is a long log of questions! Did you not see where President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan stood at the African Union Heads of Government photo shoot? Third row! Does that command any respect for the country in the comity of African nations? I beg, make una leave matter. If and when I am due for a trip to South Africa, I will get all the cards that are required——yellow, brown black, just any. It is so sad, but that’s where our rulers have driven us to.

Fola Aiyegbusi

•Yomi, what happened in South Africa is another big lesson for us to know how to always keep our act together. Personally, I never blame South Africa for their actions. If our country cannot protect her citizenry and her territory, she should allow others to do so.

MJ, Abuja, 08059615499.

•I wish you and other brainless Nigerians should stop wallowing in self pity. If you have brains, you would no need visas to go anywhere in the world. No need blaming your leaders either. The same PDP party where those leaders belong continue to win or steal elections and you all could do nothing about it. The coward that you all are will rather swim the crocodiles infested waters to get to Europe than face your oppressor and fight to the finish. Then, when you get to other peoples’ country you do the worst possible crimes there. I think you all should be asking God to remove all those resources you think you have and give you brains and wisdom instead. Then, you will not face the humiliation you are facing anymore.

Didier, 08159697053.

•You are right. Nigeria is wrongly organized. While the oppressed South Africans fight for social justice, Nigerians wait for their oppressors to free them from serfdom. Blame Nigerians whose lot is suffering in the midst of plenty.

Amos Ejimonye, Kaduna, 08039727512.

•Yomi, I am a regular buyer of The Nation newspaper on Saturdays because of you. Not to prolong my story, you touch on ethnicity in Nigeria. And I tell you this: you are a seer. Go to Customs recruitment, go to Immigration, go to Prisons, if you don’t come from certain part of this country, you will be given levels 03, 04, 05, 06 even when you are a

With

Yomi Odunuga E-mail:yomi.odunuga @thenationonlineng.net SMS only: 07028006913 university graduate with 1st, 2nd or whatever class. You will be shocked that, in the same departments, carpenters are given level 08 straight. When you have 160, 200 or more from some parts, because it is their people that are in charge, level 2,3,4,5,6 are not easy to come by. You have to have strong persons like a senator, honourables, ministers, chairman, PDP, sect, emirs, Obis, Obas who can call the President, First Lady, some governors, you would be qualified. So can you tell me why youths who are rejected will not risk going out to riskier places where they can try their luck? Please tell our governments to create jobs where ethnicity, religion will not be a yardstick. All youth belong to Nigeria and its agencies, ministries and parastatals!

Re: Any wonder they are stealing the nation blind?

•Hello Yomi, I bet you, it is a big SHAME! I chuckled when I saw that ‘’poster’’ of Ibori and I felt for this country.

Like the Yorubas will say ‘’o sun mi pata pata’’! I am completely tired! Our leaders are so shameless, so they are being taught lessons from outside. I wonder how the Delta State House of Assembly that passed a resolution that the state’s money was not missing will feel now and the current Delta Government that aided the resolution. Here was a fellow that was freed here and now convicted in London.

I wish that recovered loot is never returned to Delta State.

If they ever do that, then Ibori is SURE to have his money back anytime he completes his term and returns home to the waiting ‘’reception’’ for him by his ‘’people’’. You know what, Yomi? I read this piece online and I am so touched by the first two reactions to your piece online.

Fola Aiyegbusi •The shocking judicial apocalypse by the judge in the Ibori case calls for national sober reflection, just as I hasten to urge INEC to commence test of integrity on those who wish to serve in our democracy.

Godfrey Ogbaisi, 08076823815.

•Our leaders should all cover their faces in shame with the predicament of Ibori. I am sure if we invite competent investigators to look into the past of our leaders from 1999 till date, at least 90% of them would be in jail.

Seye, Akure, 08033894418.

•I am, indeed, grateful to you for today’s Knucklehead.

God bless you. We may not get out of this mess until such a time when our leaders, including every public office holders, are dealt with for stealing money from the public till. With this, majority will not lobby for public appointments with a view to stealing us blind! God bless your family.

Kayode Osinubi, Abuja, 08029109708.

•Yomi, thank you for today’s piece. I hope you are aware of the litany of corruption charges against a governor from a South-South state who was recently sworn in. How was he cleared to run for that exalted office in the first place?

Niran Jinadu. 08033059921.

•The truth of the matter is that the bourgeois class has failed woefully. The ball is in the court of the oppressed to seize power in order to smash the present social order and create a humane society.

Amos Jimonye, Kaduna, 08039727512.

•Good write up on the thief, Ibori. But mind the goofs next time—High wire, not ‘high wired’, ‘winner-takes-all’.

Too often, a good piece is ruined by slips like this for those of us who take pains to edit. All the same, bravo for your effort.

Prof. N.P. Okolie, 07031677944

Michael O’

Bold moves by Lagos to prevent flood disasters

Turkey

Travelogue/ 54

-Fertility expert Tunde Okewale

Curbing nature’s fury

Thriller/ 19

Life & Style / 41

Why barrenness is on the increase

Let’s go to

Weekend

PEOPLE THE NATION, Saturday, MARCH 17, 2012

Relat io

nship

11

‘I was helping to evacuate blast victims' bodies not knowing my son was among them’

‘

I never knew my boy was killed in the explosion. I was helping to evacuate the dead bodies. I took my boy and kept aside other corpses without recognising him. It was later when it came to identifying the corpses that a member said, 'That is your son'. I stood still and confused.

I couldn't cry, I couldn't laugh, I couldn't talk...

The late Emmanuel’s father

12

S

O many families on the Plateau are burying and mourning their loved ones at the moment. The security agencies are not left out: They are mourning one of their own, the Late John Haruna, a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG), who died after a successful operation in Jos after a chopper which brought him to the Plateau State capital crashed . Within a spate of 16 days, about 20 people have been buried as victims of suicide bombing and the riots that often followed the attacks.

The Church of Christ in Nigeria, a church founded by natives of Plateau State, was attacked by suicide bombers on February 26, 2012. While the Christian community were trying to recover from the shock of the attack, another group of suicide bombers struck at the St. Finbarr’s Church at Rayfiled Jos, another church mostly attended by the natives located in Rayfield Jos. These last two attacks left several families on the Plateau in a gloomy mood. Those who even got their lost ones in the attack to burry were lucky. Some other families are still searching in vain for their loved ones; each day they go round all the known hospitals in Jos to check the wards and the mortuaries. Some found theirs in the search, others are still searching endlessly.

The St. Finbarr’s incident is a particularly sour point. Since that Sunday when the explosion took place, a couple who were in the church, were not seen for several days after the incident. A curious search around the hospitals, however, produced result as the woman was found at the intensive care unit of the Plateau Specialist Hospital five days after the attack. The husband has not been found as at the time of sending this report. Relations fear that the missing man might have been torn into shreds in the explosion as many pieces of flesh were evacuated by NEMA and Red Cross and deposited in the mortuary.

Da Rapheal Davou, a Knight of St. Morumba (KSM), 60, lost his 17-year-old son, a boys scout, in the attack. Rapeal has been a Roman Catholic since birth and is currently a parishioner with St. Finbarr’s Catholic Church. He said: “On that fateful Sunday, we were all in the church; my boy, Emmanuel David Rapheal, was among those who died as a result of the explosion.

I attended the 8: 30am Mass. I saw him at the gate doing his job as at 10 am when I finished my service and I was going home.

I had barely reached home when I heard the heavy explosion, I had to run back.

“What happened was that when the suicide bombers arrived the gate, the boys scout then wanted to know their identity because they looked strange. The man that drove the bomber’s car disguised himself as a lady; he was a man in lady’s dress. In the course of interrogating the strangers in the car, the timed bomb exploded and all the four boys scouts around the car, including my boy, were the first casualties.

The bomber’s car never got through the gate of the church before the bomb went off, it was the impact of the explosion that threw the car inside.

“These boys died a courageous death, if they had allowed the bomber’s car to go near the church, the human loss would have been in hundreds because there were over 200 parishioners worshiping inside the church when the explosion occurred.

It’s like God used these boys to safe hundreds of others.

“I ran back from my house to the church to see what happened. It was difficult to behold the blood has the three bodies of the suicide bombers and the affected members of the church lay on the ground. I never knew my boy was killed in the explosion. I was helping to evacuate the dead bodies. I took my boy and kept aside other corpses without recognising him. It was later when it came to identifying the corpses that a member said: ‘That is your son’. I stood still and confused. I couldn’t cry, I couldn’t laugh, I couldn’t talk. I just had to manage myself because at least, the body of my son is not better than the other victims; so I held myself.

“Later, NEMA came to evacuate the bodies and I told them I would take my own home; that was exactly what I did. We had to bury him that same day. He died at the age of 17.

“My major consolation is that this boy

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

‘But for the boys’ scouts who challenged the bombers at the church entrance, more people would have been killed’ Residents of Jos, Plateau State government and security agencies are all agonising over the rising waves of attacks in the state. It has been a moment of frustration for all stakeholders on the Plateau. The mood has been gloomy since two deadly explosions rocked the tin city in two weeks. It was the explosions which dragged the police henchmen from the Force Headquaters Abuja to Jos only for their chopper to crash, killing a Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) and three others. YUSUFU AMINU IDEGU reports.

•Sympathisers at the Rapheals’ home. Standing the late Emmanuel’s father

died in defence of hundreds of other Christians. He died serving the Lord, he died in the church. He was a very dedicated young boy and I was always proud of him.

In fact, he did me proud again by preventing the suicide bombers from getting to their target. He was just in JSS 2 in Government Secondary School Anglo Jos, and he was a great boy with great potentials but God knows why he has to die now.

“He was a boys scout who used to be at the entrance gate to ascertain came in to worship in the church. We have many of them; four of them died in the attack; my boy was one of them”.

In spite of the obvious pains Da Rapheal

is passing through over the death of his son, he insisted his faith in Jesus Christ is unshakeable. “I will continue to serve the Lord till my last day on earth.

Da Rapheal is not alone in this mood. Peter Pam, a Berom native, lost the wife of his younger brother in the same church. Her name is Mary Pam and she died that Sunday at the age of 38 and was buried the same day since her corpse could be identified.

Many have been treated and discharged, while many are still bedridden at the hospitals.

At the Plateau State Specialist Hospital, the Acting Medical Director, Dr. Bitrus

Matawali, said seven people were brought to the hospital for various degrees of injuries and were treated and discharged.

According to him, one other person has a severe burnt on his face and is still at the intensive care of the hospital, adding that the conditions of a few that are still on admission in the hospital are very stable now. He also said the 10 corpses brought to the hospital had been claimed by their relations for burial.

Muktar Mohammed, 20, a commercial motorcycle rider was attacked by protesting youths who went on rampage after the St. Finbar’s church attack. He was stabbed on the eye with a knife. He was rescued by some

13

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

•Muktar Mohammed, an Okada rider

•Peter lost his brother's wife

‘ •The late Emmanuel’s mother

police officers and brought to the hospital, but the passenger he was carrying was not harmed.

Among victims on hospital bed at Plateau Specialist Hospital is a police officer, Daniel Dana, attached to ‘Operation Rainbow, a state-owned security outfit. He was brought out from the theater where his eyes were operated up on and was still unconscious as at the time The Nation visited the hospital.

According to his wife, Mrs Gladys Dana, said her husband was on duty when he was called that there was an explosion at Saint Finbarr’s Parish Church, Rayfield Jos. “He moved with his men to the place. On reaching there, angry youths were on the

rampage throwing stones on security men that were drafted to the place; some were even trying to snatch his rifle from him”, she recalled.

Meanwhile, the owner of one of the residential houses crushed by the Helicopter at the scene, Mali Waziri, 35, was standing in the ruins of his building saying God was so merciful to him that none of the 10 members of his family occupying the house was around when the incident happened.

“I went out early to work. I am a carpenter, my wife went to market and the children were in school. Only one of my six children was around when it happened and nothing

My major consolation is that this boy died in defence of hundreds of other Christians. He died serving the Lord, he died in the church. He was a very dedicated young boy and I was always proud of him. In fact, he did me proud again by preventing the suicide bombers from getting to their target. He was just in JSS 2 in Government Secondary School Anglo Jos, and he was a great boy with great potentials but God knows why he has to die now

’

happened to her. So it’s something to thank God for. But my major problem now is where I will accommodate my family

•Mrs. Gladys Dana

considering the weather of Jos. Please, tell government should come to my aid”.

It is not only relations of victims that are worried about the new style of attacks on Sundays in Jos, security chiefs in the city are already getting frustrated and they are not hiding their frustration with the renewed waves of violence in the city. They said they are tired of evacuating corpses every Sunday.

Speaking at a stakeholders’ meeting held on Wednesday at Police Officers Mess, Tudun Wada Jos, the security chiefs, led by the state Commissioner of Police, Dipo Emmanuel Ayeni, said: “The stakeholders’ •Continued on Page 49

14

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

•Some of the displaced children outside the home

Our miserable lives on Kuramo Beach T

•Displaced children recall survival methods at Lagos' notorious fun spot

HEY are painfully young adolescents aged between 11 and 14years, but they have endured life's challenges under whose weight some adults would crash. They wear torn and dirty clothes and get their daily bread from dump sites. They have no particular ambition beyond what the accidents of life offer.

Most children of their age spot radiant skin, but theirs has been ravaged by the scorching sun under which they dwell at the Kuramo Beach, a Lagos spot notorious for breeding wayward children.

Until they were picked up by a group, Care Continuity Challenge Initiative, (CCCI) penultimate Monday, none of them could boast of any fixed address. Although they looked unperturbed at their unseemly lifestyle, the consequences of neglect were all too visible on their faces. They looked as if they are deaf and dumb when you ask them where they live. But they are neither deaf nor dumb.

The truth is that they have no place they can call home other than the Kuramo Beach.

Besides hustling in the traffic jam, these displaced children, who ordinarily should be in school, also eke out a living by picking used metals from dump sites in the area, which they sell to waiting buyers at a part of the Island called ‘Colombia’. Some of them carry the scars of injuries they inflict on one another in the fierce race for survival.

One of them, who identified himself simply as Lekan, said he was stayingwith his parents in Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos, before he found his way to the beach. Since then, he has stuck to the beach like the leech does to a dog.

"My parents live in Ikotun, but I live here," he said without a sign of remorse. "I feed by going into the go-slow (traffic jam) every morning. We stay by the traffic

Gbenga ADERANTI light to beg for money."

If Lekan was fortunate to have lived with his parents, Lamina was not. He had never enjoyed any parental care since he was left to cater for himself very early in life, hence he sought refuge at the beach..

"I have never lived with my parents," he said. "I was staying with a relation of my mum. My mum is married to another man. She gave birth to three of us, all males. I am the second born. My elder brother ran away from home when he could no longer bear the pains of being maltreated by the relations of my mother. Two days later, my younger brother returned to our native town. I was left with no option but to run away from home the day I was severely beaten and there were serious injuries on my back."

Wandering around Ikotun after he left home, he met a boy who invited him to Kuramo Beach and he started living on the beach until he was spoted by Care Continuity Challenge Initiative (CCCI), a non-governmental organisation whose business is to rehabilitate such children..

Lamina said he had been surviving on the money he made from scavenging for used metal and aluminium materials and also from alms. He said the people who bought the used metals also assisted him and his counterparts with food.

Like the other children who dwell at Kuramo Beach, there were scars on Lamina's body.

"The big wound on my back came from the constant beatings I received over time at Kuramo. But

the other marks I got from home through constant beating. The big wound was inflicted on me by a Hausa boy while we were at a dump site picking used metal materials. An argument ensued be-

tween us and he slapped me. I retaliated and he hit me in the back with a big metal.

"I know that I will live with the scar for the rest of my life. It probably would not have festered to

this point if I had access to immediate medical care."

He confessed that neither his parents nor any of his family members knew his whereabouts.

"Neither my dad nor my mum has bothered to look for us since they parted ways and left us in the care of my mother's relations.

Right now, I don't know where my

‘Why W

•Emerhor

HY are you spending so much money on rehabilitating displaced

chilren?

I want whatever I do to matter.

And this is something that matters to me and something that should matter to everyone of us.

There is so much inequality and injustice in our society. You can't be happy when you live in a crime-infested society. I think it is worth my time.

What do you hope to gain from this?

I hate to believe that every Nigerian is out for something for themselves. I think there are more people like me out there. But because of that impression that we are all like that, we are all afraid to be good. We're all afraid that someone will take advantage of us. We are afraid to do the right thing. I just want someone to follow in my footsteps. I believe in change and I'm very happy to be different . That is why I can boldly do this.

At what point did you decide to help vulnerable children?

There was a definite time I had a vision for what I wanted to do.

Money was no concern at all. I was thinking about what I wanted to do with my life, which I would be happy with. Money was not

•Continued on Page 22

15

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

,

•Kuramo Beach at night

•Wale

•Convenience in the boys’ room

mum is. I understand that she was in Kano before her new husband took her abroad.

"My younger brother is currently staying with the family of my father. Nobody knows where

Iam,"he said.

There is every reason to believe that Godspower Gold had some education before he opted for life at Kuramo Beach. While the other kids spoke in their native lan-

guages, Gold chose to speak in English. But he is a victim of polygamy.

"I wanted to go to school but my dad would not send me. He has two wives but has been sending

we're helping them’ Ufoma Emerhor is the daughter of Olorogun O'tega Emerhor, Executive Vice Chairman of the Standard Alliance Group. She is a First Class graduate of Social Works from the Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom. GBENGA ADERANTI met her at the home her NGO, Care Continuity Challenge Initiative (CCCI) has just acquired in Ikoyi part of Lagos to rehabilitate displaced children and she explains why she is helping them. what I was after. I said okay, let's say money was no concern and imagine I won a lottery worth £10 million, what was I going to do with it? The first thing that came to my mind was to get children off the streets in Nigeria. I kept dreaming about it. I wanted to have a place like Okoya mansion, having hospital there for the kids, having accommodation and a hall where they would have activities together. I had a complete plan and kept going on. And I said waoh, this is really becoming big and I was afraid about it. Before the year ran out, I had already started Care Continuity Challenge Initiative (CCCI). I started with the support of my dad. It was just like a rubber stamp.

Do you think this would have been possible if you were married?

Sometimes people are denied some things until a certain time because they have a purpose in place. It is likely that if I was mar-

ried with kids, this would be the last thing on my mind. I think it is a God-given purpose. I think everything happens for a reason.

Yes, it might have been something I would love to do if I had kids, but I won't have the time to do it.

But the thing is in my life.

I've since noticed that God gives me power to do the things He wants me to do. He always makes the way. And if He puts the seed in your heart, He tends to give you the power to do it. I just feel that I'm blessed so that I can be a blessing to others. I'm free right now so that I can do what I want to do. He basically left me with no excuse for me not to do this. Many people are out there who want to do this but they don't have the support that I have.

The project is expensive. How are you going to sustain it?

How I'm going to sustain it? I don't know how I have come this far. It is the same way I've come this far that I'm going to sustain

it: by the blessings of God; by the favour He will bestow on everyone who comes into this place for donation, who wants to join us in our vision. We're going to sustain it by making sure that we're accountable; that we do things the right way, that we uphold integrity that people outside will want to emulate. And I think on account of our virtues, God willing, I will be able to get some other employments to sustain this. This is why we need more people to come on board.

Why are you supporting the kids?

They are at a disadvantage. It does not make them criminals or bad people. We just need to understand why they end up in the street.The reason I went into this is because I just can't stand injustice. I can't stand inequality and I'm a natural advocate. It comes to me very naturally to advocate in issues like this, and so it gives me so much fulfilment. I always

only the children of the younger wife to school. I took my destiny in my hands and ran to this place.

Here, I started picking metals from dump sites to make a living.

"My parents got wind of my whereabouts, came to Kuramo Beach and took me back home.But after staying at home for a while, my father did not fulfil his promise of sending me to school. I was left with no option but to return to the beach.

"I insisted on going to school, but my father kept giving the same old excuse that he had no money. I had no option but to return to Kuramo Beach.

"Before now, I was staying at Ajegunle Ijora Badiya. But Uncle Wale of the Care Continuity Challenge Initiative (CCCI) brought us to this place (CCCI home) from Kuramo."

Gold recalled that officials of want to please God. I really wanted to be a nun. I really want to live a life that would make an impact. I want to make a difference. People think money will buy them happiness and fulfilment and some things. No. If we take care of our brothers and sisters, we're going to get fulfilment.

What challenges are you facing at present?

Time, money and the Nigerian mentality: the mentality that things can't change; the mentality that this is the way things are, the challenge with the police, the challenge with the ministry.

We've been trying to register our home since July last year, but they've been telling us that they don't have money to come and visit. We should go and carry them from their office to see our site. And even when we go, they say come back again. They make it so impossible for you to do your job. Something that we're helping them to do. Something that government has failed to do. And they make it so difficult. Everywhere you go, someone wants a tip.

My background has been a challenge. People think I'm a bank accountant; that I have money to throw away. I have a heart for people who are less fortunate, but they want to play with my heart strings, not knowing that those things get on my nerves and I don't put up with them.

I was staying with a relation of my mum. My mum is married to another man.

She gave birth to three of us, all males. I am the second born. My elder brother ran away from home when he could no longer bear the pains of being maltreated by the relations of my mother. Two days later, my younger brother returned to our native town...

,

CCCI had tried to get across to his parents but only his mother was forthcoming.

Like Gold, Lekan Ajisefemola probably was attending school before he found himself in Kuramo . But he is also a victim of broken home.

He said: "I was living with my father's elder brother, but he later took me to his younger brother in Ibadan, Oyo State. I stayed with my uncle in Ibadan for a while before I found my way to Kuramo Beach. There was a quarrel between my uncle and his wife. The wife eventually moved out and I was alone with the man. I returned to Lagos and slept on the streets for two years.

"The Redeemed (The Redeemed Christian Church of God) people took me back to my father's brother in Ibadan. But I stole N22,000 from him (his uncle) and returned to Lagos. Right now, they don't know where Iam." But the plight of the kids may soon become a thing of the past with the CCCI, an arm of Fair Life Africa Foundation, poised to take them off the streets. Already, the NGO has procured a five-bedroom bungalow with a sizeable compound in Lekki, Lagos, for that purpose. The building, according to the Chief Executive Officer of Fair Life Africa Foundation, Ms Ufuoma Emerhor, is intended to house neglected or abandoned children who are under 18 years.

Such children will be trained and mentored.

Emerhor, the brains behind the initiative, says she finds fulfilment in rehabilitating displaced kids.

The daughter of Olorogun O'tega Emerhor, Executive Vice Chairman of Standard Alliance Group, said she had enjoyed tremendous support from her father.

The multi-million naira home, when completed, will be furnished with modern training tools. This, she said, would go a long way in rehabilitating street kids. The children will be taught various trades and skills, after which they will be handed back to their families. The home, she said, will also serve children who find it difficult to locate their families after they have been rehabilitated.

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

16

•Olumide •Kunle

A

ROBBERY suspect detained by the Special AntiRobbery Squad (SARS) of the Lagos State Police Command has denied being an armed robber, saying he was unjustifiably implicated by a friend who happened to be his ally in the consumption of Indian hemp.

Kunle Afolabi, who claimed to have obtained a National Diploma (ND) in Public Administration from The Polytechnic, Ibadan, said he is a printer by profession. He also claims to be an interior decorator.

He said: "I know Sanni very well. He does not work. I knew him on the street. I met him late last year, to be precise. He used to beg me to give him money for food, but he ended up smoking Indian hemp with it.

"I smoke Indian hemp myself.

Anytime I met him in a bunk, I paid for his drinks, cigarettes and Indian hemp. I am a very hardworking person. I do not know why he should mention my name.

"We only quarrelled once over a girl. Maybe that was why he mentioned my name. He thinks I might take over his girlfriend, if he goes to jail. I was surprised when policemen came to arrest me. I have not taken a kobo from anybody. How can I follow them to go and break houses at night?

"The policemen came to arrest me in my house on February 17.

They said I robbed with the Sanni gang, and I would explain my involvement or innocence at their base. I am happy that the SARS has a standard. I know I am innocent and nothing will happen to me.

"Sanni stays at Mama Tina's restaurant at Gafari Street, Ogudu.

He does not work. He follows women like the he-goat and he smokes and drinks a lot. He is a big liar. He wants to rope me in, but he will not succeed. The SARS is not a police station where they don't investigate well. I have seen the OC SARS, Mr. Abba Kyari, releasing innocent suspects. My own will be the same.

"I will deal with this liar (Sanni) when I regain my freedom. The only bad thing I know I am doing is smoking Indian hemp. I will stop it when I regain my freedom because going to bunk makes me to meet with miscreants and hardened criminals.

We're not robbers; we only smoked Indian hemp with gang members —Suspects Ebele BONIFACE "I know Olumide Akande (another suspect). He is always at the beer parlours and Indian hemp joints. But he is not also a thief.

He is a qualified and hardworking plumber.”

Defending himself, Akande said: "You see, Sanni is a dangerous criminal. God will not allow him to succeed in roping me into something I don't know anything about.

"We live in the same area. He is a jobless man. We used to pity him by giving him money to buy beans with garri or bread. Sometimes I gave him as much as N500.

"I am a plumber. Anytime I get work to do, I used to help him by asking him to follow me to my place of work. The assistance he used to give is to hold pipe for me to fix. At the end of the work, if I am paid N3,000, N2,000, N5,000 depending on the size of the job, I will give him N500 cash and pay his transport fares. All this was just to help him not to stay idle at home.

"Right from time, he did not want to help himself. Each time I gave him money, he ran straight to an Indian hemp joint. He would not do anything until he finished the money.

"He smokes from morning till night. It was at an Indian hemp joint that I met him and he asked me whether I could get him something to do in order to get some money to feed, smoke and drink native gin. That was why I asked him to be following me to my place of work any time I got a

•Sanni

plumbing job.

"He had even stolen my money and denied touching it. It was that day that I knew he is a hardened criminal. But I could not desert

‘

Right from time, he did not want to help himself. Each time I gave him money, he ran straight to an Indian hemp joint. He would not do anything until he finished the money

,

him because we had become close friends."

On why he did not report the activities of the gang to the police, he said: "I am not an informant.

Besides, it is dangerous to pokenose into the affairs of armed robbery suspects. They can kill you because they don't value life. They would think that with you their lives are in danger. They can sneak into your house one day and hack or strangle you to death.

"I don't know whether they operate with guns. Sanni is a great lair. I will deal with him when I come out because I am not afraid of where I am. Innocent suspects are not allowed to suffer here because of the presence of the O/C SARS, SP Abba Kyari. He does not want to see an innocent suspect detained for long . Therefore, I know that I will get justice here.

"It is a refined SARS. If you are a confirmed robbery suspect, it gives SARS operatives special excitement. If you see how they celebrate when they catch a robbery suspect, you will never rob in your life.

"I am sure to get my freedom and I will deal ruthlessly with Sanni for trying to rope me into a matter I did not know anything about. SARS men were even warning him that if it is discovered that he was lying against innocent souls they would deal with him ruthlessly.

"I was arrested inside my house at Alhaja Abass Street, Ogudu Lagos. I heard a knock on my door and when I opened, it was Sanni that I saw with fully armed SARS operatives. They handcuffed me.

When I asked them why I was being arrested, they told me that Sanni mentioned my name as a member of the gang who burgled a house recently.

"I am not an armed robber. I cannot deny that he is my friend, but I am not a member of his gang. I am a plumber. I sweat to eat. If I had wanted to join them I would

not have taken my plumber work very seriously.

Sanni on his part said: "I am a factory worker. I was a casual worker with United African Company (UAC), earning N8,000 monthly until I resigned in 2011 because of the meagre salary.

"I started studying at home to think of what next to do to get a better salary. Then I met these people. We became friends and went to bunk together, pursue women together, eat together and, at times, went to work together to enable me get some money to feed because I could not be crying for food like a baby.

"I had not robbed before. It was my first time. We did not operate with a gun. Our gang leader, Jegede, had no need for guns. He learnt marshal art and obtained red belt, according to him. He said he could use his bare hands to strangle somebody to death. He said if he turned somebody neck, the person would die instantly.

"We were five in the gang, namely Jegede, aka Karato, who was the gang leader who initiated the burglary idea. The second member is Murphy. I don't know their surnames. The third person is Akande, this liar sitting beside me. The fourth member is Kunle, another bad liar. SARS people know how to find out that they are big liars. I am the fifth member. Jegede and Murphy are still at large.

"I was the first person to be arrested on the street as I was going home that same day. Policemen saw me and suspected me. They stopped me and later transferred me to SARS. There I confessed and promised to lead them to arrest the remaining members who were at large.

"The effort yielded dividend as Akande and Kunle were arrested in their houses. But Jegede and Murphy ran away. But SARS operatives are still tracking them and there is hope that they will be tracked down. Where will they run to?"

Asked how the gang operated, he said: "It was on February 13, at about 11.30 in the night. We were five in number. We planned it together. It was Jegede who brought the idea, including the cutter we used to cut the keys to the doors. We jumped in through the fence.

"When we got near the building, we used the cutter to remove the burglary proof. Four of them entered while I stood outside. They met a woman and her children inside and threatened to strangle them if they raised the alarm. It was Jegede who showed them how he would have used his hands to strangle them if they raised the alarm.

"They ordered all of them to lie face down and called them one after the other to go and bring money and other valuable property they had in the house. They collected money, I-phones, laptop computers and jewellery. They did not beat any of the family members. Nobody was raped.

"When we got to the street around 1:00am, some policemen on patrol saw us and pursued us.

Unfortunately for me, I was the only one they arrested, while the rest who were faster escaped. I was taken to the police station and they did not waste time in transferring me to the SARS. It was here that I confessed because I noticed that people who tell the truth are better treated than people who lie or give SARS men more tough time to get the truth.

"I led SARS men to their houses, but only two of them, Akande and Kunle, were met. Others were not seen. They are still looking for Jegede, our gang leader, and his deputy, Murphy. "

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

17

18

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

My friend used beautiful girls to lure me into piracy, says suspected sea pirate arrested by SARS O

NE of three suspected sea pirates in the cell of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), Lagos State Police Command has lamented his arrest, blaming it on his inability to swim.

He said the intensity with which operatives of the SARS were firing on the high sea was enough to drown an expert in swimming, not to talk of a novice like him. He said the fear the shootings drove into his mind was so much that he gave the sign of the cross when he was arrested alive.

Confessing his involvement in sea piracy, Udenyi Madukwe, a 34-year-old native of Abriba in Abia State and resident of No. 7, Old Idowu Street, Olodi Apapa, Lagos said they were six in number, but three of them escaped because they were good swimmers.

He said: "It was Abayomi, the guy sitting beside me, who called us and said we should hustle together in order to better our lives and free ourselves from the chains of poverty. The deal was a surprise to me because I had not done such a thing before. I was contented with fishing and roasting fish for sale before I met these guys. I used to make between N4,000 and N5,000 daily.

"I had different fishing nets and I used to be lucky because my trap used to net big fish. In fact, I used to help some of these boys with my proceeds, especially when they asked me to give them small money like N1,000 or N2,000.

"I am also a professional tailor. I used to sew clothes for people who hired me to sew clothes in large quantities for them. I could sew as many as 20 trousers a day and they paid betweeen N100 and N150 per one. If I finished 20 and collected the money, I would still go fishing.

So I was comfortable before these criminals came with their dirty idea of making easy money by attacking crews on the high sea "They lured me into this crime when they came to my house to console me when a fraudster duped me of my life savings. It was even the incident that made me become a fisherman just to keep body and soul together. I was not a fisher man before and I had never witnessed a hot chase by law enforcement agents on the high sea.

"Therefore, when SARS men started firing at us, I saved my life by surrendering. The firing was too much.

"It was Abayomi who lured me into sea piracy. He used to bring home many beautiful girls for us to choose from until we started following him. He could spend N20,000 at once.

"If he bought anything for you, he would always tell you that he got the money from stone, like squeezing water out of stone. It was when we followed him to one operation that we understood what he meant by squeezing money out of stone.

"I even found out that some of the girls who were enjoying our loot were the ones encouraging the members to go and rob. Some of them even helped to inform the gang about police locations and how prepared they were. Even when I suggested to some to visit

•Madukwe

Ebele BONIFACE their parents so that they would not think that they were missing, they refused, telling me that they were making real money by associating with the gang and that some of their parents were aware of it."

Narrating his involvement, the second suspect, Odudu, said: "My

name is Odudu Uta, an •Uta indigene of Eket in Akwa Ibom State. I am a boatman. My role is to steer the boat, locate victims on water and pursue them. Once I

It was Abayomi who lured me into sea piracy. He used to bring home many beautiful girls for us to choose from until we started following him. He could spend N20,000 at once

‘

,

g o t them, t h e other members would into action their own

swing and perform roles.

"My second role is to sell the stolen goods or locate receivers or standby buyers. The operation for which we were arrested was our ninth. We got 18 kegs of fuel. Each keg contains 50 litresand one keg is sold at N3,500. We shared the money or loot, according to senior-

ity or rank.

"Our main target is fuel. These people who steal fuel or vandalise fuel pipes or do bunkering and carry the fuel with ship or boat are our targets.

"It is only when we do not see people who are carrying petroleum products in jerry cans that we go after other goods and money in a boat or ship. The important thing is that once we come out to work, we must work whether there is fuel or not. But we do not torture or shoot our victims even if they become stubborn and defensive or offensive."

The third suspect, Abayomi Ikukeminone, a native of Gbola Ilaje, Ondo State is a boatman, a driver and a fisherman.

Narrating his role in the gang, he said, "I met Uta at No. 62, Akpino Street, Ajegunle one Saturday. He took me to an Indian hemp joint where I met our leader, Segun, who is still at large.

There, Segun showed me five locally made guns •Abayomi of different sizes.

"I later called Madukwe and told him about our plan to form a gang of sea-pirates since we had acquired guns for the operation. He accepted. I also told him that our targets were those carrying petroleum products, and he was happy, saying fuel smugglers are criminals, so nobody would blame us if we robbed them of their petroleum products. I also told him that we could rob passengers in a boat or ship if we did not see people who were carrying petroleum products on the high sea."

On how they were arrested, he said they were on Ilado Tama Road and saw a ship they wanted to rob, not knowing that they were policemen. The moment they struck, the police overpowered them and arrested three of them, while the three others escaped. He said the way the policemen were pursuing them and firing showed that they were SARS men.

Asked why they kidnapped ladies, he said: "No, we didn't kidnap them. It was the ladies who ran after us because of the money they were getting from us. They were the ones who refused to go home.

They enjoyed the life they were living with us. Even when we begged them to go so that their parents would not be looking for them, they refused.

"Even the local policemen make friends with some of them, and that helped us a lot to get information on the position of the police at any given time."

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Saturday

THRILLER

Curbing nature’s fury Bold moves by Lagos to prevent flood disasters

19

20

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Bold moves by Lagos to

Pictures 1-3: Sites of anti-flood constructions in Lagos PHOTOS: Gbenga KUTELU

I

F men could alter the cause of nature, residents of communities in flood-prone areas of Lagos and Ogun would wish the rains never come again the way they did in 2011.

But wishes are not horses; and nature has a way of always outsmarting men and making them so miserable whenever it chooses to deal with them. Nevertheless, Lagos State in a bold timely steps, is determined to check and prevent possible tragedies the rains this year might want to cause in the state. And so, it is race against time and not necessarily against nature, for the rains will come when they will come.

Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, declared matter of factly, that the rains will come and perhaps heavier than they were last year, according to experts.

“We are expecting heavy rains this year, with wind and storm. Our experts told us that the rains will be heavier than those of last year. We will let you know if we are going to have storm. Nowhere is safe, but we can minimise the impact if we all work together and clean our environment,” he said.

Twice last year, the rains wrecked untold havoc in the state that likes to be described as a place of “aquatic splendour”. The first, a downpour that started at about 5am on Sunday July 10, 2011 and which lasted throughout the day left most of the major roads and streets flooded. It brought all economic, social and religious activities to a standstill as motorists had to ‘sail or swim’ through flooded roads while pedestrians waded through shoulder-high rain water.

That nightmarish experience was to repeat itself in early October.

Indeed, authorities had to implore residents of Ajegunle area, on the way to Ikorodu, not to venture leaving their homes to go to work in other parts of Lagos until the flood subsided.

As it was in Ajegunle, so it was too in some parts of neighbouring Ogun State; particularly, Akute, Olambe, Matogun and Isheri, all in Ifo Local Government Area of the state.

l Augustine AVWODE Ogechukwu EMEDIKE

For about three weeks in October 2011, residents of communities along the Ogun River Basin in both states of Ogun and Lagos were virtually living on waters following the heavy downpour. This was aggravated by the release of water from the Oyan Dam. Now that the dry season is gradually coming to an end, and the rains are almost here again, there is a growing apprehension both on the side of government and, in particular, residents of these low lying regions of the state on the side.

Perhaps conscious of this, the state government has swung into action. A common sight these past weeks has been men working hard, desilting gutters and drainages all in an effort to clear water arteries and be fully ready before the rains come.

A good example of this is what the government of the state has been able to do in such places as the all covered canal across Clegg Street, through the Federal Fire Service and All Saints Anglican Church Close, Ojuelegba in Surulere area of the state.

At the entrance of the Anglican Church Close by a high gate, one of the taxi operators who simply identified himself as Wasiu Ajumonbi, expressed satisfaction while advising that following the action of the government, people should exhibit good sanitary habits and so ensure that the canal covered by heavy slabs of concrete serves the good purpose of keeping the area well drained in the coming rainy season.

His explanation, delivered in Yoruba, was that the government knows what to do and that the people must cultivate the habit of cleaniness and avoid throwing all manners of waste into the canal.

Pointing to the huge amount of debris evacuated from the canal consisting mainly of disposable water plastic, old fabric, and all manners of objects, Ajetunmobi posited that the day residents in the area and others that the canal runs through learn not to throw things into it, that day would mark the beginning of dealing with flood and flood-re-

‘

The government is committed to tackling the challenges posed by flooding in the state. We are not only concerned about the drainage channels and canals, but also important to us is the drainage channels around the school areas. We are reconstructing and rehabilitating them to free the schools from flooding challenges...

lated menace in the state.

On Thursday, at the popular Charly Boy Bus-stop along Oshodi –Oworonsoki Expressway by City People Media office, work was in progress at the huge canal there.

In Ejigbo Local Council Development Areas (LCDA), it was learnt that the pursuit of getting all gutters and drainages desilted before the onset of the rains was in top gear just like it is in all the other local government areas and LCDAs. As at the time of writing this report on Thursday, 69 Community Development Associations (CDAs), according to the council’s chairman, Mr Kehinde Bamgbetan, had been given grants of N40,000 each to assist them in the desilting of the drainages.

According to an SMS he sent to The Nation upon inquiry, “Ejigbo LCDA has released N40,000 to desilt drains in each of the 69 CDAs. Over 100 drains are being desilted now. A monitoring exercise comes up on Wednesday”.

Ajegunle, waiting for government But in the main spot ravaged by the flood of last year, apprehension remains the major emotion ruling the lives of residents here in Ajegunle. The residents, many petty traders, food vendors, artisans and drivers all expressed fear at what would be their fate even as the season of rain draws near.

Essentially, they remain largely ignorant of what to expect from government and what they should do to help themselves. At best, they express reliance on God to keep and help them.

The Baale of Ajegunle community, Chief

’

Moyosola A O Oladunjoye, told The Nation that it was not as if the community had always been at the mercy of floods. He blamed it on the way authorities of the Ogun / Osun Rivers Basin Development Authorities are handling the volume of water at the Oyan Dam. He criticised the authorities for being insensitive to the plight of people who have been living in the area for years.

“The problem of flood as it is now is not the way it used to be. In September this year, I will be 70 years, so I know what I am talking about. I was here when my grandfather was Baale; now I am Baale. In fact in those days if the flood was not enough, our fathers would do sacrifice to bring the water to a good level because they were fishermen.

“The problem here is the people at the Oyan Dam, they do not know how it is affecting us here. The problem is from them. And again, if you go round now, you will see that the canal dug by the government has been blocked and no person is attending to it.

“If the rains come today, and heavy as that of last year, though we do not pray for it to be like that, there will be lots of wahala (problems).

The canal said to have been dug by the government as an artificial artery for the Ogun River is lying blocked, almost completely by water hyacinth, other weeds and debris”, he lamented.

He appealed to the government to clear the canal which is as big and open as the size of a rivulet. Besides, he called on the government to construct an embankment along the path of the canal.

21

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

o prevent flood disasters

2 “My appeal is this; let the canal be cleared by the government now that the rains are not here. Then the embankment they promised, let them do it. If you were here last year, you will weep for the people here. All their belongings were swept away or destroyed by the flood. We don’t want a repeat of that sad experience.

“And let the government also talk to those at the Oyan Dam to exercise caution in the way they handle the release of water from there. And with prayer all shall be well”, he concluded.

A resident of Ajegunle, who simply identified herself as Majimite, who runs a little kiosk opposite the Anglican Primary School, Ajegunle, told The Nation on Tuesday that they live perpetually in fear of what would happen when the rains start again.

“We are constantly afraid. Our homes are always flooded, last year, we lost almost everything to the flood. We no longer have any property,” she said in smattering English.

At the entrance of Zion Street, a businessman who identified himself as IK, ostensibly of South East extraction, lamented that in the last eight years, the volume of water whenever rainy season sets in has increased gradually. His concern was more about what becomes of his business of selling foodstuffs when the rains are here.

“You can see that I sell foodstuffs. All these things are perishable products and they are not friendly with water. If it is possible I would suggest that the weather should be like this for life. That is throughout the year. But I cannot stop the work of God. So it will rain but God will help us to cope.”

Recently, the management of Ogun- Osun River Basin Development Authority (OORBDA) said water from the Oyan Dam would not be released until May, this year, just as it rebutted claims that water from it was mainly responsible for the pains of flood victims.

The agency’s Assistant Director, Public Relations, Mr. Femi Dokunmu, stated this recently in Abeokuta when agitated residents of Riverview Estate, Isheri, along Lagos/Ibadan Expressway called on the agency to present their case owing to water

3

Lagos govt to residents: stop throwing waste into canals, drainage channels

T

Miriam NDIKANWU

HE Lagos State government has ex plained the measures put in place to address the problem of flooding this year. The Commissioner for the Environment, Mr. Tunji Bello, told The Nation the state government was mindful of the need to ensure that the devastation caused by last year’s rains does not occur this year.

He said to this end, the state government has commenced the rehabilitation and reconstruction of drainages across the state.

“The government is committed to tackling the challenges posed by flooding in the state.

We are not only concerned about the drainage channels and canals, but also important to us is the drainage channels around the school areas. We are reconstructing and rehabilitating them to free the schools from flooding challenges so as to enable our children learn in a conducive atmosphere,” he said.

He said among the channels that have been rehabilitated are the System 5-phase two canal rehabilitation at Babs Animashaun and landscaping at Abebe village and its environ.

He said System 5 was one of the longest channels among the six channels under the Lagos Mainland master plan developed in 1974.

He warned: “We are expecting heavy rains this year, with wind and storm. Our experts told us that the rains will be heavier than those of last year. We will let you know if we are going to have storm. Nowhere is safe,

but we can minimise the impact if we all work together and clean our environment.”

Bello warned traders and marketers in the state to desist from the habit of throwing wastes into canals and drains. He said markets which violated the environmental laws of the state would be closed for three months.

The commissioner said the state had been clearing drainages and building new ones. He added, however, that the state government would not promise a flood-free year.

“Don’t forget that rivers form Ogun, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti empty their water into Lagos lagoon. Now, the Atlantic Ocean has risen alarmingly, so much so that it is difficult for the lagoon to empty its water into the ocean.

This is what we face in Lagos. This state is the most vulnerable because it is below the sea level,” he said.

He said ahead of the rains, the government has appointed resident engineers to tackle flood-related matters in all the local government areas/LCDAs in the state.

It also made public their phone numbers in order to receive complaints on blocked drains, people dumping refuse inside canals and other related drainage challenges across the state.

Bello said it was to further demonstrate the seriousness the state government attaches to the issues of flooding and its good intent to reduce it to the barest minimum.

The commissioner concluded that Lagos, like

every other coastal state, is prone to flooding, adding that the plan of the state government is to put in place measures and programmes to reduce to the barest minimum the incidence of flooding.

He, however, appealed to the residents to join hands with the state government by ensuring proper disposal of refuse through the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) and accredited PSP operators, and should desist from patronising cart pushers who only collect refuse from one point and end up dumping them into canals.

Through this action, Lagosians are expected to call the phone numbers of these engineers and report to them if they notice blockages, people dumping refuse inside drainage channels or any conscription along drainage alignment.

The resident engineers are expected to interact with respective community leaders, resident associations, community development associations (CDAs), familiarise with the drainage and canals challenges with a view to proffering solutions to them.

from the dam.

According to him, “It is not only the water from that dam that causes flood. There are so many other rivers that flow into the dam. Even if we keep all our water, we may still have

flood,” he noted.

Dokunmu explained further that Isheri and some of the flood-prone areas were originally designated as green belt zone on which people should not have constructed buildings.

As the days inch towards the rainy season, the prayer and hope is that all the efforts by the government of Lagos State and even the Federal Government will meet the expectations.

•Mr. Bello

22

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

•The lateAdedayo

•The burnt building

Rage in Lagos community: Irate mob raze building as errant youth stabs electrician to death over N100 levy Kunle AKINRINADE to a nearby private hospital from where he was referred to the Ikorodu General Hospital. He, however, died on his way to the hospital.

Findings also revealed that when the news got to town that Lateef had run away, irate youths stormed his parents’ residence and razed the building to avenge the killing of the electrician who was described by many of the residents as humble and hardworking.

One of the deceased’s friends, who asked not to be named, recalled the incident. He said: “The incident happened on Sunday. I was in my shop in the morning

A

PALL of grief fell on the headquarters of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), Ibadan Distribution Zone, Oyo State, on March 3, following the death of Assistant General Manager, Human Resources, Admin and Services, Mr. Michael Bamidele Obadimeji, during a robbery attack at Papo village on the outskirts of the ancient city.

It was gathered that the deceased, who hailed from AdoEkiti, Ekiti State, had left his home to participate in a special midnight service in his church.

He was said to be riding in his ash colour Toyota Avensis salon car with registration number FGN 994 P41 when he was attacked by robbers who shot him dead and took his car away.

Sources at the deceased’s office, who asked for anonymity, described the deceased General Manager as a peace-loving man and a intelligent professional.

A source said: “Oga (Obadimeji) was such a nice person and a trained manager of men. He was God-fearing and would always try to help people irrespective of their ethnic background. It was just unfortunate that some heartless fellows chose to kill him despite

,

A

MINOR disagreement over an electricity levy in Ikorodu, Lagos State has sent 24-year-old electrician, Sikiru Adedayo, to early grave.

The deceased was allegedly stabbed to death by one Lateef Majaro when the late electrician went to his residence to ask for the N100 levy.

Trouble was said to have begun when the deceased, in an attempt to collect the levy for the repairs of electricity on Oduyebo Street, got into a shouting match with his alleged assailant named Lateef. The matter was later resolved, but its resolution did not go down well with Lateef, who allegedly reached for abroken bottle and stabbed Sikiru to death.

Findings revealed that the residents of the streets had been thrown into darkness for sometime because of damaged electric cables.

Rather than wait endlessly for the PHCN to fix the problem, the community’s leaders resolved to contract the job to the deceased with a mandate that he should collect the sum of N100 from each house.

It was gathered that all other residents had complied with the payment of the levy, except one Madam Monsurat Majaro. The deceased decided to ask her for the money after he had restored the light.

Our correspondent learnt that when the deceased got to No 21, Oduyebo Streetwhere the woman lives, he was confronted by the woman’s son and an altercation ensued. Following the intervention of some residents in the matter, the deceased allegedly left the scene, but 19-year-old Lateef gave him a hot chase with a broken bottle in his hand. It was gathered that some bystanders who saw Lateef pursuing the deceased allegedly alerted him and told him to run for dear life. But his assailant caught up with him before he could take to his heels.

Lateef allegedly stabbed Sikiru in the chest several times, following which he fell down in a pool of blood. He was immediately rushed

Irate youths stormed his parents’ residence and razed the building to avenge the killing of the electrician who was described by many of the residents as humble and hardworking

,

when I heard Sikiru complaining loudly. I approached him to find out what was wrong and he told me that he had gone to ask for the N100 electricity levy from the woman after fixing their light, but she and her son confronted him.

“He was still complaining to some

people as he walked down the street, not knowing that Lateef was chasing him with jagged-edge of a broken bottle. Lateef caught him unawares and stabbed him several times around his armpit. Although he was quickly taken to a private hospital from where was later referred to Ikorodu General

Hospital, he died as soon as he got to the hospital.”

Our correspondent gathered that the matter had been transferred to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID) for further investigation.

Another resident, who pleaded anonymity, described the incident as unfortunate, calling for the arrest of Sikiru’s alleged killer.

“Sikiru is a well known electrician in this area. He had been doing his job diligently without any problem.

In my opinion, the suspect who is now at large over-reached himself by stabbing him to death. Every house on the street contributed N100 each and no one raised an eyebrow, except Lateef and his mother,” the resident said.

Robbers shoot Ibadan PHCN chief dead on way to church Kunle AKINRINADE the fact that he was a harmless person.

“It would have been better if the robbers had snatched the vehicle and spared his life because of his many dependants. I know that the robbers who masterminded his gruesome death would be apprehended by the Police before long.”

In a statement signed by the Acting Managing Director of the Distribution Zone, Mr.Tokunbo Peter, he described the deceased as one of the best administrators who knew how to manage people well, adding that the Oyo State Police Command had begun investigation into the matter.

The deceased, a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM), according to the statement, is survived by an aged mother, wife and children. He has since been buried.

•Obadimeji

LOCATION

BACKSTAGE

SNAPSHOT

REEL NEWS

MUSIC

SCREEN

Edited by: VICTOR AKANDE

Tel: 08077408676

E-mail: victor_akande@yahoo.com

ntertainment

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012, 2012

ss e r t c a d o Nollywo

h e m A Ada

23

What growing up in Ajegunle taught me

24

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

STANDh BY! Wit

VICTOR AKANDE E-mail: victor_akande@yahoo.com Tel: 08077408676 (SMS only)

THINK

nt part of An importa s of any the succes is its civilisation late the mu ability to e t led to the a th factors ther success of o Eric .— s civilisation rt Reine

For the 2012th time, pass the MOPPICON bill!

T

HE motion picture industry is the only sector in Art, culture and entertainment sector that is under the Federal Ministry of Information, while all the others are under the Federal Ministry of Culture and Tourism. This has caused a major disconnect between the industry and other sectors in the Arts.

This is a dilemma, as only the Ministry Of Culture is empowered by law, to sign and implement International treaties, bi-lateral agreements, and access global film funds, on behalf of the Federal Government, which are very much needed for the sustainable growth of the film industry.

Film production seems to be the least developed among the Nigerian mass communications industries.

The local production of films is not encouraged; neither financially nor through some cultural policies. The poor distribution networks is yet to find solution and so is the overbearing issue of structure and enabling environment for Nollywood.

Let us consider one of the presentations of Bond Emeruwa, president, Directors'Guild of Nigeria (DGN) andChairman, Coalition of Nollywood Guilds and Associations (CONGA), through the following points raised and see if this will at last have a place in 2012.

The Nigeria motion picture industry popularly called Nollywood is 19 years old.

In this few years, it has positioned itself as the most viable information dissemination and image making tool in Africa as well as a veritable source of income for Nigeria; providing employment for hundreds of thousands of people.

The industry has not utilized up to 10% of its potentials, while its continued growth has been hampered by a number of issues. Some of which are:1) Structure:- Nollywood

Nollywood can be called a successful at experiment in th its meteoric rise . was not planned to Now to move it d n the next level a to successfully harness all its potentials can be called a successful experiment in that its meteoric rise was not planned. Now to move it to the next level and to successfully harness all its potentials, there is a need to establish policies and laws that will guide motion picture practice in the country while strengthening existing ones.

A) The Revised Nigerian Film Policy:- The existing Nigerian film policy came into existence in 1992 hence did not take into consideration the emergence of the phenomenon called Nollywood.

Recognising the inability of the policy to address the affairs in the new film industry, Government in 2006 under the then Minister, Mr

This is a dilemma, as only the Ministry Of Culture is empowered by law, to sign and implement International treaties, bi-lateral agreements, and access global film funds, on behalf of the Federal Government

Chukwuemeka Chikelu had the policy reviewed. This reviewed film policy meant to bring the motion picture industry in line with international best practices and prepare it for sustainable growth stating among other things that*The National Film and Video Censors Board should become the National Film and Video Classification Board while restricting itself to the business of film classification *That the Nigerian Film Corporation should become the Nigerian Film Commission and concern itself primarily with developmental initiatives. * That a practitioners council to be called Motion Picture practitioners Council of Nigeria (MOPPICON) must be set up to administer, regulate and control motion picture practice in the country. *That all Local Governments must be mandated to build community Cinemas. The Revised film policy bill, MOPPICON bill and the Revived NFC bill have been ready since 2006. And for all sorts of reasons, has not gone beyond the Ministry of Information since then.

B) Piracy: - Overwhelming piracy has almost killed the industry. This is no more done in the hiding but in the glare of all including the Nigerian Copyright Commission who have persistently looked the other way.

Pirated movies are now hawked in the open released only a few days after the original copies. It now accounts for over 70% of all sales and now makes it impossible for filmmakers to recoup their investment.

Of course international piracy is another issue. More than 95% of all Nigerian movies sold outside the shores of Nigeria are done by pirates. We can only hope, again, for the 2012th time that some one is listening.

WRITE TO US! Do you watch Nollywood movies? What do you think of the Nigerian motion picture industry? Send your review of any movie or short essay on any topic of your choice about the film industry in not more than 200 words. Send entries by e-mail to: victor_akande@yahoo.com or SMS your short comments to 08077408676

SNAPSHOTS No apologies for my wild dressing —Anita Joseph

B

ETTER known for her outrageous dress sense, Nollywood actress, Anita Joseph has this to say: “yes I'm flashy and nothing can change that. I don't owe anybody any apology for being flashy. My God is flashy and I'm created in His image. He is most handsome and most flashy. He is most 'swarggarlicious' (laughs)” The actress turned musician, has also squealed that contrary to belief that she delved into music because she couldn't make headway as an actress, she indeed comes from a family of musicians.

“My parents used to do music and I actually started doing music before movies. I started music professionally in 2008 and it wasn't because movie scripts weren't coming,” she said.

She added; “I'm an eclectic singer. All kinds of genre appeal to me, but my style of music is called Ikwokirikwo, a fusion of Highlife, Hip hop and Dancehall. Music is a passion for me and I thought I should pursue it, and it is not because I cannot hack it as an actress. For a fact my, my acting career has not been drooling. I did a lot of movies last year and I've done a lot of movies since the beginning of this year.”

Kefee keeps mum over age disparity

D

AYS after her second marriage to radio producer and presenter, Teddy ….a segment of the media was awash with the news that Branama star, Kefee is claiming to be 21-year-old. The story got fans literally screaming, while entertainment writers took to their archives for old interviews of the singer, hoping to find a line that talked about her age as at the time she hit stardom.

When contacted on telephone, the singer cut the call on impulse, when issue concerning her age was mentioned. She called back a few minutes after, asking the reporter to contact her publicist and lawyer. For what? She said whatever age her publicist ascribes was final.

However, when contacted, Sunny Neme, her publicist said: 'She is indeed very young because he knew her way back while growing up in Sappele, Delta State.' But how old is the singer?

Even he could not tell, except to refer us back to the singer. Few minutes, her publicist called back to say she is older than 21.

Pg 32

Pg 32

SATURDAY

PAGE 29

• Osaze

By

Harry Iwuala

Inside The

Glass House WITH AMINU MAIGARI

AKINLOYE

AT LARGE

08050246155 atlarge84@yahoo.com

39

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Am I wasting my time on nothing?

P

LEASE, am I wasting my time on nothing? I am 28yrs old graduate searching for a job. I met this guy 3 months ago and we exchanged numbers (he was the one who collected my phone and used it to flash his number because I was only teasing him and not straight forward but friendly with him that day).

We talked for a while and after that day and I started developing interest in him. Since then we’ve not seen each other despite my efforts for us to see one-on-one to see maybe he is even my type or not. When I called the day we agreed I would visit him, he avoided the visit by saying he went somewhere. He wants me to say yes to his proposal despite the fact that I only know little things about him.

He always makes excuses of being busy at work despite the fact that he said he’s a civil servant. Whenever I ask him which of the government parastatals he works with, he tells me that we can’t discuss it on the phone that when I come around he shall; this is somebody that is always saying he’s very busy. At times I send text messages to him and he won’t reply. It may be the time I decide to forget him that he sends a text or calls that I should bear with him that he’s been busy at work bla-bla-bla.

Something happened to me recently and I sent him text message at least to commiserate with me as a friend, two to three days, I didn’t hear from him. On the fourth day, he sent me a message on Facebook not mentioning anything as regards the text I sent to him. I was annoyed and I had to call him but he swore that he didn’t see the message and promised to check his inbox. I asked him if this is

the kind of man he will advise any of his sisters to date – a man who doesn’t care or show any seriousness or sign of affection and he apologized for his shortcoming. I later discovered through somebody when I couldn’t bear it again that works with the SSS. Though, I won’t say I don’t like him because he seems to be polite but I perceive he isn’t a woman type.

He listens when we talk on phone and for the fact that he is older than me. But please Aunty, am I not pushing myself on him, is SSS work so tedious like that or he’s just using that to drive me away pretending to be busy? Why is he avoiding me coming to his house because the day we met he told me about a friend’s house where I could come visiting.

Hello! Take it or leave it, this man you’re agonizing about is a stranger and he probably wants to remain so, at least, until further notice. SSS or not, he simply doesn’t have your time.

Let me lay it straight to you – at 28, every man that comes along is a potential husband because a lot of your friends are now getting married and you can’t wait to become a Mrs. too. So, when you met this guy and he sounded nice enough, that bell started ringing in your head that he might be the One. One his own part, he met you, struck a conversation with you and because he might not be searching, he quickly put you in a part of his head where you put files that are pending. For all we know, Mr. SSS may be happily married or engaged to a girl he loves with a passion.

You said it yourself that you were the one who developed interest in him. You may even be amusing him for all your efforts to get his attention when he seems not to need it. When a man loves a woman,

The days we had, the songs we sang together I woke up this morning feeling lonely. A part of me reached out to my friends and though I know we can only meet in my dreams, I can’t help but cry for them. To Ann Okojie, Bankole Tukuru, Barr.

Muyideen Funsho Jimba, Dr. Shehu Ladoja and Yetunde Kareem I shed these tears as I remember our days together.

You’ve gone to higher places and I’m here singing Backstreet Boys song, ‘My Love’ for you all: An empty street, An empty house A hole inside my heart I’m all alone and the rooms are getting smaller

I wonder how, I wonder why I wonder where they are The days we had, the songs we sang together And oh my love I’m holding on forever Reaching for a love that seem so far Chorus: So I say a little prayer And hope my dreams will take me there Where the skies are blue To see you once again, my love Overseas from coast to coast To find the place I love the most Where the fields are green To see you once again, my love.

she doesn’t need no soothsayer or Aunty Adeola to tell her that he does. He will be on the phone many times in a day and he will do anything to be where she is. Erase all your romantic thoughts for now. If he notices that you’re no longer calling and he misses you, he will contact you.

Hearts With Adeola Agoro

E-mail: libranadeola@yahoo.co.uk

Bear with me as I give you a lengthy detail of my woes D

ISTINGUISHED and marvelous Adeola Agoro(JP), frankly speaking, I have at all times cherished and identified myself with good Nigerians all over the globe - people with uncommon passion for excellence, diligence, benevolence, consistent pursuit of public good and patriotism. There are men and women of impeccable integrity, without equivocation, I aver that you are one of the best things that ever happened to Nigeria. Kudos.

Your rare affability, show of affection, compassion, candor, friendliness, enviable erudition, consistent and passionate pursuit of public good have really proved to cynics and pessimists that in a country of fast dying pristine family and business values, vanishing virtues and expiring hopes, something good can still come out of Nigeria. Bravo!

Esteemed and Precious Hajia Adeola, it is truly not in my character to perturb anybody with my personal problems but due to circumstances beyond my control, I reluctantly decided to narrate to you my present predicament because a problem shared, they say, is a problem half solved. Kindly bear with me as I give you a detail of my woes. It is just to enable you understand my plight fully. Don’t be offended.

I am a 51 year-old Nigerian man from the South-East but going through a turbulent time at present. At school, I was a brilliant student. I left secondary school in 1981 and could not go further as my parents were very poor. It was by God’s grace that I attended and finished secondary school because things then were very tough. Thereafter, I made serious efforts to get a job but all to avail. So, I had to do some odd jobs to fend for myself before becoming a Newspaper vendor in 1986 and quit in November 2008 after over two decades when things became unbearable for me. Since then I have been hawking yogurt on the streets of Lagos with all its accompanying problems. I believe I can do better for myself and my family if I get the much needed help from somebody.

Surely, it is very sad that at my age and with my modest education, I have nothing to boast of as my achievement even though I toil all day to make ends meet. All my legitimate efforts to be like others have crumbled, making me very sorrowful. No spouse, no shelter in my village, no nothing. I believe you won’t mock or see me as a laggard. Please, show sympathy and understanding.

As a widely admired, respected, illustrious, diligent and irrepressible professional with an impressive wealth of experience, I assume that you know intimately at least one person who is very caring, generous and sympathetic to whom you may intercede on my behalf for succor. In fact, I trust that as a God fearing lady with a heart of gold, you may likely do all that is humanly possible to assist me to overcome my present challenges. This you can do by employing your extensive contacts, connection and tremendous goodwill acquired over the years. I am not a greedy man by nature, so any favour no matter how little will be highly appreciated and Almighty Allah will surely reward you boundlessly beyond your imagination and human comprehension.

Kindly use your discretion and wisdom to assist me.

In fact, whatever claim I make in this mail is no fable but

verifiable anytime. Due to many years of suffering, I am now gaunt and also look much older than my age at 51.

Even as a secondary school leaver, you can judge from my previous mails to you that I am not a dullard. No doubt, I am sufficiently enlightened.

So I need something that is more rewarding and less strenuous than hawking because am not getting younger.

This is a cry for help. I really need help fast. I am really dejected as I have received several taunts and derision from those who erroneously think I am slothful. I have been forced to shed tears day and night as mockers continually say to me “where is your God?” Dearly beloved, please have mercy on me for I have had more than enough contempt of the proud and scorn from those who are at ease. I am down on my knees. Please do not ignore my distress call and the creator of all things will surely repay you superabundantly for your kindness.

May the limitless favour of Allah be your portion and your years ahead be full of refreshing times.

In the name of Allah it shall be well with you and your household. Amen.

Yours sincerely, Dear Mr. J, I have been thinking about the best way to reach out to you in a quick manner, but it seems things are a bit slow from my end. Please pardon me.

I must say I’m really impressed with your grammatical structure. That in itself is an accomplishment in our Nigeria of today when our so-called graduates send you bending over with the pains they inflict when they attempt to speak English.

You may feel you have achieved nothing, but I tell you, you have. Success is not how much money you have.

Success it the ability to point as the things you have done over a period of time.

If this won’t sound offensive, please permit me to point it out to you that you have been a bit slack spiritually. If you had given spirituality (not religion) a chance, flashes of light from above would have shown you the way out.

Your type shouldn’t be out there selling yogurt. In fact, instead of being a newspaper vendor over the years, you might have risen to become a newspaper editor. If only you had walked up to one of those newspaper houses whose papers you have sold, it would have benefited you more to have been a contributor and maybe a filed reporter and the money you would have made from there would have paid you fees in school.

It is not too late for you. I’m publishing your mail in the hope that good-hearted Nigerians would come to your rescue and make your life really meaningful. I can’t do it alone because I have so many children from my neighborhood whose school fees I’m paying. I have family commitments here and there too.

I’m praying along with you and I know God will open a sure way for you.

Secrets men keep

Barrister Victoria Olamide Kuforiji and her father, Elder Kuforiji at the call to the Bar of the Nigeria Law School held at International Conference Center, Abuja.

Men like to cuddle.

Cuddling is all about mood and ambience. It’s peaceful to lie in someone’s arms in the dark with great music or even the low buzz of the TV (although that tends to distract me) in the background. It’s nice to hear nothing but your lover’s breath against the backdrop of the evening or early morning. Holding someone close in bed also makes you feel very secure with one another and the relationship.

Heavy makeup is a turnoff. A lot of men appreciate a natural look as it is, and when a girl does her makeup well, the results can be magical. But the one thing that should never happen is excessive application: too much, too many colors, or if it’s just a botched attempt at a good makeup technique. There is nothing more ghastly than makeup run amuck in the morning after spending the night together.

You’ll never understand their sports obsession. Some women love sports but are they as obsessed with sports like guys are?

Most men read about sports everyday. There is no reason women wouldn’t understand or

know sports like guys do if they were as obsessed.

Leave your baggage at the door. Guys are happy to help out their girlfriends with emotional issues. But if the baggage becomes apparent too early in the relationship, then a guy will probably bail. Also, baggage causes people to put pressure on or damage a relationship, so it may be doomed from the outset.

Guys get jealous because they’re insecure. If a guy feels like he does not deserve a woman or is not good enough for her, he will become jealous easily and worried that he’s going to lose her to another guy.

On the other hand, they also make girls they’re interested in jealous on purpose.

They notice what you’re wearing. Make sure you cater what you wear to what you’re doing. Guys will try not to make a girl walk too much if she’s in heels. Also, they hate it when they see girls wear pearls and a nice blouse to trashy outdoor drinking events, or heels to sporting events.

40

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

True Life story A

T my age (32), I should have a lot to look forward to in life. But that’s not the case. l feel as if my life is over. That there is no use remaining in this world anymore with all its troubles and tribulations. How did I get to this stage of my life, you might wonder. It’s a long story and for you to understand my present predicament, I need to go back to the beginning, to when it all started...

My problems began after my marriage about five years ago. Don’t get me wrong. I was, like the average lady happy to walk down the aisle with BJ, my fiancé of over two years. BJ and I met in the church. He was a very dedicated worker who was in charge of the Youth Fellowship.

That was one of the things that attracted me to him-his love of God and his caring nature. Other girls in the church had their eyes on him too because he was quite good-looking and also had a good job. But I was the one he went for.

We courted for about two years before we got married in 2006. Everything was fine for the first three years of our married life. BJ was a loving husband who did everything to make me happy. I had no regret choosing him as my life partner.

Baby blues But it wasn’t long after before the bubble of our happiness burst. And it was all due to my inability to conceive after four years of marriage. Some might say that’s not a long time.

But to a young bride and in a society like ours where the cry of a baby is expected to be heard a year after the wedding, it was a long time. Even though my husband was not really concerned (at least on the surface), I was worried. My anxiety was compounded by my childhood friend, Eve, who got married the same year that I did and who was already the proud mother of two. As the years went by with no pregnancy, having a baby became an obsession for me. I would spend hours on my knees praying and crying to God to open my womb and bless me with a child. I would also fast for long periods of time. BJ saw the stress I was going through and began to fear for my health.

“My dear, you need to take it easy. I understand how you feel. But you need to stop being so anxious about this matter and wait for God’s time. He will surely give us children in His own time,” he advised.

But I was not ready to listen. I wanted my own babies like other women I

How a fake prophet ruined my marriage saw around me every day.

How long was I going to wait, I kept wondering.

Was it when I’m an old woman that I will have my own children? I had run out of patience and I was ready to do anything to be a mother.

Visit to a spiritualist I had a very good friend, Belinda who worked in the same office with me. One day, I told her about my problems with having babies. She was really sympathetic, promising to help me find a solution. Then, if I had known what the solution would be and its im-

40 tips to boost your love life (2) Continued from last week 31. Dance It doesn’t matter what sort of music you like listening to, just put it on and encourage your fella to get moving! It’s not as if he’s got anyone to be self-conscious in front of, when he’s in his own living room. Not only does dancing make you feel happier and give you more energy, it’s a good way to do something together and touch each other.

32. Write a book No, we’re not talking about a novel. We mean buy a blank notebook and write a note to your fella saying something loving or caring. Then put it in his bedside cabinet and, once he’s read what you’ve written, ask him to do the same in the notebook at some point and put it in your bedside table. Eventually, you will have a book full of loving messages that you can both look at.

33. Surprise each other It doesn’t matter how much people try to convince you otherwise, everyone loves a little surprise. So do something for your partner - it can be as simple as doing a household chore that isn’t normally your responsibility, or something bigger like booking a weekend away. But whatever it is, just do it.

34. Dress up We all know how easy it is to slope round the house wearing an old T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms and looking at him in his football top and ripped jeans doesn’t exactly inspire passion, does it? So make an effort and put some nice clothes on, even if it is just to eat dinner in. You may suddenly see each other in a different light.

35. Wash up Dishwashers have become an indispensable part of our lives now, haven’t they. Now we want you to forget the dishwasher for one

night a week and wash up by hand... together. It will mean you have to interact with each other and should end up talking about things that you normally don’t bother passing on. Go on, try it!

36. Touch each other Hold hands, touch each other’s arms, have a hug, do anything that means that you stay in physical contact with each other. Nonverbal communication is just as important as talking in a relationship.

37. Ban work We know that work can be a huge chunk of everyday life, but it can also take over home life if you’re not careful. Outlaw any conversations about ‘the memo Bob sent’, or ‘that irritating woman Gladys in Accounts’.

38. Use your smell Give each other a hankie or other small piece of material that has been sprayed with your favourite perfume or cologne. That way, you’ll both be reminded of each other throughout the day, just by smelling the hankie.

39. Buy a present It doesn’t have to be something expensive, but a token that means something to the pair of you. Whether it’s music that reminds you of the first gig you ever went to or the first song you listened to over and over again, the DVD of your first ever date movie, a postcard of the first holiday you ever went on together... whatever, it just shows you how much the relationship means.

40. Take a walk Pull on your wellies or walking shoes and go for a ramble through some woods or countryside. Not only will the surroundings give you something to talk about, it will take you away from your daily grind.

Source: goodtoknow.co.uk

We went to visit the man one Saturday morning. He was a spiritualist who Belinda told me was very powerful and had helped many people in solving their problems. She assured me my childlessness was as good as over once I had seen him pact on my life, I would have run a mile.

One day, about two weeks after I confided in my friend, she told me she would be taking me somewhere to see someone about my problem. I thought it was a doctor at first but she shook her head when I asked.

“It’s someone very experienced in these things.

Don’t worry, Fina. You will surely have a baby after seeing him,” she stated confidently.

We went to visit the man one Saturday morning. He was a spiritualist who Belinda told me was very powerful and had helped many people in solving

their problems. She assured me my childlessness was as good as over once I had seen him.

There were many people waiting to see the man when we arrived. We found seats and awaited our turn. Finally, we were ushered into his office. He was not what I expected.

Instead of an elderly man with long beard and flowing white gown, I saw a middle-aged man dressed casually in a brown linen shirt with matching trousers. He had a smooth, round face with piercing eyes that seemed to see through one. There was a strong smell of incense in the room.

He listened calmly

while Belinda told him my story. At the end, he looked at me with those piercing eyes and said: “My daughter, rejoice for your troubles are over. You are in the home where God performs his wonders for his children. Your miracle is at hand.” I don’t know how to describe the feeling but it was like a great burden was lifted from my shoulders and I felt a kind of peace I had not known for some time.

Later, he gave me a list of items I would need for a spiritual cleansing that he said would make my womb attractive to babies. I was to return in a week’s time for the cleansing to begin.

I was ready to do whatever he told me if that would give me a child so I quickly got the items and the following week, I returned to the man. What took place there that day and subsequent weeks, is responsible for the big mess my life has become today...

What happened to Fina at the spiritualist’s place?

Keep a date with us next week!

•From right: Chief (Mrs) Susan Oduyemi, Proprietress, Providence Heights Secondary School, Agege, Lagos, Mrs Omolade Bello, Mrs Ajala and Mrs Omirin at the school’s sports meet held recently

&

LIFE

Society Profile

THE NATION, Saturday, MARCH 17, 2012

STYLE Gossip Interviews

41

Why barrenness is on the increase

See Page 44-45

le a w e k O e d n u T t r e -Fertility exp

44

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Dr. Tunde Okewale, a popular fertility expert, was born in Abeokuta, Ogun State.

He studied medicine at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan and later went to the United Kingdom for further studies, specialising in obstetrics and gynaecology in 1992.

The CEO of St. Ives Hospital speaks about his passion for in vitro fertilisation (IVF), his dress sense and family life, in this interview with KEHINDE FALODE

Y

OU are known to always smile.

What is the secret?

So many people have asked me why I appear calm and always smiling at work. It is because I concentrate on my strength. Everybody knows that Okewale is a gynaecologist and a fertility expert. They know me as a women and children doctor, and that is what I do 24/7.

Let me tell you something: if anyone calls me up now and says there is a case of brain tumour and I should come and do something because I’m a doctor, I may be acutely handicapped because that is not my area of concentration. I don’t dabble into things that I don’t specialise in. Such tendencies could easily make you a disorganised person and the result can be fatal. That is why we are unique, because we are known for providing care for women, children and the family. Even if I’m called during an emergency from my house, I could give directions on what to do without venturing out. That is because without sounding immodest, I know the A-Z of my area of concentration. I enjoy doing it and I’m glad that the result is there for everybody to see.

Your life seems to revolve around Ibadan.

Did you grow up there?

Yes, I grew up in Bodija area of Ibadan. My father was a broadcaster with the defunct Western Nigerian Television. He later moved to Ogun Statewhen the state was created. He helped to set up the OGTV and Ogun Radio then.

One would think you would be influenced

‘What causes low sperm counts in men’

by your father to go into the arts…

You are very right. But I just found myself in Medicine. My sister, Toun Okewale, now Mrs. Sonaya, took after my father as a broadcaster. She was with AIT, Raypower and so on.

After practising in the UK for about 10 years, up to the consultant level, did you have to come back home to establish St. Ives Hospital?

Coming home was a big decision in 1996, which was the peak of the Gen. Abacha regime. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions. Some of my colleagues went to Europe and America for greener pastures because they were afraid. I was already a consultant in the midst of several consultants in the UK. There was nothing special about what I was doing. I wanted to make an impact on my society and felt I was needed here. Staying back in the UK, I would not be an employer of labour.

Recently, St. Ives celebrated its 15th year in Nigeria. How do you feel

• Okewale

about it?

I started St. Ives Hospital in 1996 and set up the fertility unit in 2007. By 2008, we had our first baby. Since then, it has been success all the way. If we are to look at all the infertility patients that we have treated and got pregnant over the last 15 years, they are over 1,000. And from the IVF clinic, which was set up in 2007, we have over 200 babies. Celebrating 15 years, I feel fulfilled that we have touched so many lives. Frankly speaking, the major thing that brings me joy is seeing women getting pregnant and seeing them deliver healthy babies.

We calculate the success rate in two ways: the pregnancy and the takehome babies. It is possible to have babies that cannot be taken home, as in the case of still birth. Our success rate so far is 50 per cent.

And how has it been in the last 15 years?

(Laughs) Well, I refused to go back to England. We are not doing badly. We have had good times and bad times. But overall, Nigeria has been good to us. Our second clinic is doing fine and we hope to establish another one on Lagos Island before we reach out to other parts of the country.

You have a reputation as an IVF expert. Can you throw more light on why infertility is now common among

‘President Jonathan said he had no shoes growing up; well, we H hardly had clothes’ The Chairman of Pamodzi Sports International, Mike Itemuagbor, is reputed as no-nonsense man. He talks tough when it comes to sports. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, the Edo-born father of four talks about his life and involvement in sports.

•Itemuagbor

U

NTIL his wife Suzan and the pastor of his church opened up that Monday morning, nobody knew that the tough-talking sports marketing czar and the chairman of Pamodzi Sports International

Limited, Mike Itemuagbor, had a secret that he had been keeping.

Itemuagbor is not tough as many would want to believe. He has his hands in different pies, but when you mention his name, sports

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

‘

Fertility starts diminishing by age 30 in a woman and by age 35, it diminishes at a faster rate. If you find somebody getting married at over 35, the chances are that she would face some challenges in achieving pregnancy. And for men, the sperm counts are getting increasingly lower due to urban stress, the traffic, chemical exposure, pollution, heat and so on...

’

• Okewale

couples in Nigeria?

In most cases settling down late or infection can cause infertility. In those days, people married early. Today, people are getting married late, which is a worldwide phenomenon. As women are getting more educated, they are pursuing careers. The older you grow, the more it is difficult to get preg-

nant. Fertility starts diminishing by age 30 in a woman and by age 35, it diminishes at a faster rate. If you find somebody getting married at over 35, the chances are that she would face some challenges in achieving pregnancy.

And for men, the sperm counts are getting increasingly lower due to urban stress, the traffic, chemical exposure, pollution, heat and

marketing readily comes to mind. In the Marketing Committee of Confederation of African Football (CAF), certain decisions cannot be taken unless Itemuagbor makes his input.

“I’m emotional about sports. So the good thing is that sports is not the only business I have, I would have been running it like a charity organisation because I’m emotional about it. I just want things to work well. I try to convince people all the time.”

He is not just into sports business, he has participated in sports at the highest level.

“Sports is beyond business ambition. I’ve played football to the highest height, according to my own assessment. The only way I can participate when not playing is to do what I’m doing, that is sports business,” he said, explaining why he invested in sports marketing.

No matter the tirade he receives because of his love for sports, he has remained resolute. He would not criticise anybody when it comes to sports because, “For me, sports is like an entertainment. It is a very big ball, that is why it is a round ball, if you’re not playing the mid field you play in the other roles. There is a role for everybody, sports is so challenging, so entertaining.

“Sometimes people call me mafia, sometimes people call me proestablishment, it depends on what they want to call me, but I accept every name they call me. I’m driven by passion and I will remain with the passion,” he said with no apology.

If he has to throw his weight when it affects sports, especially football, he doesn’t blink to do this, not minding what others feel about it. He prefers to offend people rather than allow them kill Nigerian sports. “Like I told the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) the last time, they wanted to employ a coach and I told them if you don’t employ Stephen

Keshi, I think I’m going to have problem and they said ‘what’? I said we’re the face of sponsors, we confront them every day. We don’t have personal interest other than results .”

He added: “I believe that if there are no criticisms in football it is not going to be an interesting piece. For me I welcome criticism a lot because each time there is criticism, I get about 30 calls but if there are positive things you have no call. That is the essence of game. You see players disagree on the pitch but after 90 minutes that is over,”.

Both the bold and the timid find his pace too fast, especially when he feels strongly about any issue. You could be offended if you are not careful and a few people knew him to be a pastor until he turned 50 and was publicly referred to as pastor. All that he had been doing was pointing to one direction, his love to serve humanity. He is passionate when it comes to touching lives and giving to the work of God. While he would not mind serving God, his attitude to the pastoral calling could be unorthodox. “Being a pastor goes beyond standing on a pulpit to preach the word of God; it has to do with your heart, and it is what you give back to humanity. Pastoring is not about hypocrisy, it is an art, it is giving and you practise it knowingly or unknowingly. I believe that whatever I have, I will continue to give.”

As tough as Mike is, he has a soft heart.

Aside sports and his faith, he is also committed to assisting the less-privileged.

During his 50th birthday recently, 2000 orphans were give new clothes. “When I said I wanted to clothe orphans, I meant what I said about the orphanage. We used to give food. I discovered along the line that it didn’t

•Continued on Page 49

so on. Again, if you get married young with somebody that has low sperm counts, there would still be a problem.

Infertility is a major social issue, especially in Africa where people take the issue of children seriously. That is why government should come to the aid of infertile couples.

What actually motivated you to study Medicine?

The year I finished my school certificate examination in 1978 coincided with the birth of the first test tube baby in the world. It was a worldwide phenomenon where people didn’t believe it could happen. This was what inspired me to study Medicine, specialising in gynaecology and ultimately ending up in IVF. For how long have you been practising Medicine?

I qualified as a medical doctor at the age of 23 and I have been practising Medicine for almost 30 years now. I was into general practice and in 1992, I became a gynaecologist. I practised in the United Kingdom for many years, came to Nigeria and established St. IVES Specialist Hospital in 1996. But we have expanded since then.

Why the passion for IVF? Like I said, the test tube baby of 1978 made a tremendous impact on my life and millions of babies have been born through IVF. And in the last four years, over 200 babies have been born in our clinic. We hope to reach the 1000 mark soon.

You obviously have a strong passion for your work. Is it a reflection of your personality?

I should think so. Frankly speaking, the major thing that brings me joy is seeing women getting pregnant and delivered of healthy babies.

When was the first baby delivered in your hospital?

We started the IVF in St. IVES in 2007 and our first baby was delivered in 2008, less that a year after.

How did you feel about it?

I was elated. The joy of any IVF clinic is to have success.

It involves a lot of resources. What if the process fails?

We have a counselling unit for our patients.

The greatest risk in IVF is failure. When it happens, everybody is devastated: the family, the patient, husband and even we doctors. It is usually an emotional thing.

What were the challenges you faced considering where you were coming from?

The challenges were infrastructural. This actually put a lot of my colleagues off. When we went to the UK in those days, the intention we had was we would come back to contribute our quota to the development of the country. The prolonged military rule and the political instability of the early 90s actually worked against our plans. But I still decided to give Nigeria a trial. Also, I felt I would be

‘

One of the tragedies in my life was the death of my elder brother on my birthday. For that reason, I never celebrated birthdays until when I was 40 and my wife hosted friends; that has been my private burden....

’

•His wife and children

45

more useful in Nigeria.

With the proliferation of IVF clinics in Nigeria is there any regulatory body in place?

There should be a regulatory body. Unfortunately, there is none at present. What we do at present is self-regulation. To set up an IVF unit is capital intensive. And that is why there are not many IVF clinics in Nigeria.

They are not enough. As at the last count, we had 15 in the whole country. India alone it has over 300. Having said that, there should be a regulatory body.

Doctors are conservative, but you look stylish. What dictates your fashion sense?

(Laughs) I am conservative and the profession is conservative but then it doesn’t excuse that one should dress shabbily. The types of clients I come in contact with are trendy people. It is just like lawyers that dress well; dressing is part of doing well for yourself.

Since this kind of job is challenging, how do you balance your busy life with your responsibilities as a husband and father?

My wife is a lawyer and a company secretary and I’m blessed with two grown up children. So, I am coping very well. My first child is in LUTH studying Medicine.

Why two children?

It is deliberate because I can’t afford more than two (laughs).

One would expect you to send your children abroad for further studies, why did you restrict them to Nigerian education?

I personally feel that it is better for Nigerian kids to have their first degree in Nigeria.

What I noticed while abroad was that quite a lot of them that travelled abroad at a young age, if care is not taken, they derail. If a child gets a first degree here at a young age, the whole future is just ahead. They can go abroad and acquire many degrees they want as they are already mature and the racial discrimination does not affect them. Again, how many children who travel abroad from Nigeria study specific occupations? You rarely see them studying Medicine, because somewhere along the line, the system would have manipulated them out of that direction. It is better to acquire your medicine here and go out there to specialice.

All work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Do you find time to unwind?

I find time to relax, although I am doing something I enjoy. Also, I have a competent team of doctors, which makes the work easy.

Do you go to clubs?

I used to, but not anymore. I go to the gym.

I hang out with my friends. There are times for relaxation because I am not doing anything that is out of the ordinary.

46

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Tie blouse

for a stylish look

W

OMEN in every era have strived to look the best by dressing uniquely. Today, only wearing different style dresses is not just enough. The modern range of tieneck blouses come in rich colours and unique prints, and they make women look elegant without extravagance. The choice to be made is about the cuts and colours.

Pair them with trousers, skirts or jeans for a classic day-to-night look.

Black preppy hayley leather bag by Marc Jacobs

Ivory wide leg pants with pin tuck front by Jason Wu

Try with an A-line skirt and knee-high shoes for a classicmeets-retro look

Ann Taylor

Sheer blouses are also great for dressier, more conservative nights out.

Kelly Rowland was photographed wearing a Chloe top, Matthew Williamson skirt and Fendi heels

For a break with traditional style, wear this Marc Jacobs top with roll-up pants or for a professional look, with a pencil skirt.

47

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

g n e t a o B d l a Ozw y r o t S s ’ n a M A s share

•Ozwald Boateng

film HE highly anticipatedBritish of Ozwald Boateng, a his n for fashion designer, know classic trademark twist on the A Man’s British tailoring style - ed in Story -is set to be releas st Africa cinemas throughout WeJuly 27 by (Nigeria/Ghana) from Okhma Global.

A Man’s Story is an ique unprecedented and un s on the use foc t tha ary ent cum do , passion dynamic force of energydesigner ist A-l an of and colour who continues to break boundaries.

Tailor to Hollywood’s the s standard, the movie tellwith a intense story of a manerstar in his own right, dream and zeal. A sup gular dream to succeed with sin Ozwald shares his ambition rarely, if ever, humanity, depth and hion world. documented in the fas takes us on a journey to a In this biopic, Ozwald heart of what he has spent an a man? rarefied place and to the distil - what is it to be entire career trying to awed and generous, Ozwald has Instinctual, brilliant, will live beyond his years. t made a huge brand tha ades, he has reinterpreted the Over the past two dec oring. Traditional tail British art of bespoke ovation are cornerstone of the craftsmanship and inn

T

Another person is suing Alexander Wang Olivia Palermo's silk tie blouse and camel accessories are sophisticated and chic

Looks like Alexander Wang’s legal troubles won’t be swept under his fur hammock any time soon.

After 30 workers filed a $50 million lawsuit last week, accusing the designer of running an alleged sweatshop in Chinatown, another plaintiff has come forward, putting a second name to the case.

Flor Duante, a 48-year-old single mother of three, says she had to work more than 90 hours a week in the windowless, 200-square-foot room and that she was terminated after filing for workers’ compensation.

nic contemporary fashion brand. His icoand refined rs ou col t twist, vibran luxury experience fabrics offer a unique ns. With the birth tio to men of all genera in 2007 of the Savile Row House s architect ou fam rld wo by designed extended his has ld wa Oz David Adjaye, oke, ready-toesp i-b sem bespoke expertise to gage: an lug and wear, shoes, accessoriesticated journey his sop and unexpected through men’s lifestyle. rit, he consistently True to his pioneer spi bining fashion, breaks new ground, com ure. design, art and architect Okhma Global 12, rch Ma ay, On Mond e where he shared enc fer con arranged a press ich is his desire to wh of e his intimate ideas, on open a store in Lagos. Africa. I have the “Lagos is the centre of brand here. They the utmost desire to bring is a Nigerian. So if you ns, one ica Afr e fiv ry eve are in in say the Nigerian market, you are not providing for ale trouble,”he said. ention of starting a fem He also revealed his int keeps o wh ter gh dau ld r-o line. “I have a 13-yea thes for her. So it’s something I insisting that I make clo said. am working on,”Ozwald the dark moments of A Man’s Story captures ms into the future and the bea o als er to Ozwald’s life, and as the first black design success he has recorded take over England.

Michael Kors to sell more shares Michael Kors is set to sell another 25 million shares of his company, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Kors stock price has nearly doubled since the company went public in December, and at the current price of $49.59, this second sale would raise $1.24 billion. Proceeds would go to the selling shareholders which include Michael Kors, CEO John Idol, senior vice president of business affairs Lee Sporn and Sportswear Holdings — a company controlled by Kors directors Silas Chou and Lawrence Stroll.

SOCIETY When Osifo was laid to rest in Lagos

48

T

HE late Managing Director of First Bank Capital Limited, a subsidiary of First Bank, Osaze Osifo, was buried on Thursday, March 8 at Ikoyi Vaults Gardens,Lagos after a service at the Guiding Light Assembly, Parkview Estate, Ikoyi.

The news of Osifo’s death hit town on February 29 shortly after he passed on in his sleep at Nicon Hilton, Abuja.

Osifo’s death devastated his colleagues, friends and relations, many of whom are yet to come to terms that the mechanical

Gbenga KUTELU engineer-turned-financial expert is no more.

At the service, Central Bank Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, who struggled to hold back tears, said he had in the last one year lost his two friends in the banking industry, Osifo and the late Chief Executive Officer of Guaranty Trust Bank, TayoAderinokun, who died last year.

He recalled his tenure as Managing Director of First Bank and how Osifo became a dependable pillar of support.

He said: “Every one in

THE NATION SATURDAY, MARCH 17 , 2012

public service will need people like Osaze. There were times (as CBN Governor) when I faced situations. Osaze was always there and he would call to give me support and ask me to stay the course.”

Among those present at the event included the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi OkonjoIweala; MD/CEO, First Bank, Mr Olabisi Onasanya; Director-General of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Arunma Oteh; CEO, African Finance Corporation, Andrew Alli; former Lagos State Commissioner for Finance, Mr Wale Edun, among others.

Wife of the deceased, Ibukun, and her children, Ehioze and Adesuwa

•L-R :Pastor Wale Adefarasin, his wife, Olaolu, and Pastor Sam Okoro •Family members and friends

•Finance Minister Okonjo-Iweala, First Bank Group Chief Executive Officer Onasanya •CBN Governor Sanusi, SEC Director- General Oteh and former Lagos State Commissioner and ICAN Vice President Doyin Owolabi for Finance, Mr Edun

What

& Where

T

HE Lisa of Ondo Kingdom, High Chief Bayo Akinnola, has said the establishment of Monarch Gardens in Lekki, Lagos State will further increase the potential of domestic tourism in the state and create employment opportunities for the youths in the area.

He made these comments while speaking with journalists at the grand opening ceremony of the five-star event centre.

According to him, kudos should be given to Engr. Olufemi Olatunji, the Chairman of Monarch gardens, because he has shown tremendous faith in the economy of the country to have invested so much in the building and equipping of the edifice. People like

Monarch Gardens to boost tourism, create employment

•High Chief Bayo Akinola, the Lisa of Ondo Kingdom (middle), being assisted by Mrs Doris Olatunji to cut the tape, while Prof Ralph Akinfeleye, Head Dept of Mass Communication of the University of Lagos and Engr. Olufemi Olatunji looks on during the opening ceremony of Monarch Garden, Lekki, Lagos.

Engr. Olatunji, he said, should be encouraged so that more investors will be willing to come and invest their money in the economy.

Monarch Gardens event centre is a fully equipped edifice and the serenity of Lekki Peninsula and its royal ambience make it an ideal place

for special occasions. The centre can seat 500 to 1000 people.

It is ideal for weddings, conferences, annual general meetings, AGMs, exhibitions, religious events and banqueting with an adequate car parking facility.

P

ENULTIMATE Fri day, Facts and Potential magazine staged her maiden Potential Award 2012 to celebrate Nigerians who have contributed immensely to the socio-economic growth of Nigeria.

The event was held at Eko FM Multipurpose Hall, Ikeja, Lagos.

Winners were: Best Governor of the YearRaji Fashola of Lagos State; Man of the Year OgbeniRauf Aregbesola of Osun State; Best Performing Governor of the Year-Comrade Adams Oshiomhole ofEdo State; Excellence on Community Development Service- Erelu Adebisi Fayemi and Outstanding Senator of the Year- Senator Oluremi Tinubu, among others.

The publisher of the magazine, Taiye Akindehin, said the

Award for excellence

•Mr. Akindehin and Deputy Governor Titilayo Laoye-Tomori receiving Man of the Year Award on behalf of Governor Aregbesola awards were given to deserving Nigerians who were successful in turning Nigeria from being a nation of self-serving individuals to a nation that places high premium on selfless service, transparency, integrity, patriotism, love and commitment to the supreme well-being of the citizenry.

49

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

‘Why I didn’t celebrate my birthday until I was 40’ •Continued from Page 45 get to these people. We now decided that okay, let us do something that is more remarkable. When we can give clothes to people, let us give them directly. When a child from a disadvantaged background gets new attires, then you begin to build their hope. That is why my wife and other people are going round orphanage homes giving directly to kids. That’s what I’m going to do now.

“I will have to cut down on some luxury; I spend money less now so that I can touch lives,” he said.

President Goodluck Jonathan was fortunate to have had shoes when he was growing up. Itemuagbor’s growing up was not idyllic. “My growing up wasn’t easy, it was most challenging. Well, President Jonathan said he had no shoes, we hardly had clothes,” he explained about his growing up.

According to him, shoes were for the privileged people. “We had clothes that were normally designed to be bigger than your size so that you can wear them for two, three, four years. That is why I said I dedicate this period to orphans. I paid my school fees with football to a large extent. My parents were peasant farmers. Sometimes, I would not go to school for one month, we would go to the farm. Later God helped us; my father went into business. Up till now, I would say it has not been easy. We thank God for His support.

Life is a continuous challenge.”

Apart from poverty, the Pamodzi boss had also experienced the tragedy of life. Until he was 40 years, he never celebrated his birthday.” One of the tragedies in my life was the death of my elder brother on my birthday. For that reason, I never celebrated birthdays until when I was 40 and my wife hosted friends; that has been my private

burden,” he said with emotion.

As tough as he ‘pretends’ to be, Mikel is equally romantic. When he talks about his wife, Mike is always excited. His face radiates with happiness. He prefers to call her Edede (my grandmother), rather than her real name, Susan; that is the pet name.

He said with excitement: “We started first as friends. We knew each other very well. We stayed together over four years as a boy and girl friends. By the time we got married, we were already enjoying the rosy period. Today, we’re like brother and sister.

“If there is somebody that can criticise me, she is the one. She criticises me even in the open because I tell him all that I do. I first of all see how she will perceive my action. I get the first knock from my house. We’ve never agreed on any decision, except when the decisions are positive to people, that is why she said if I sack people verbally, she would dissuade me from effecting the sack. I believe marriage is a relationship that transcends marital vows. We must really bond together and do things in common.

She doesn’t talk out, in fact I talk for her.”

The father of four, three boys, one girl, says he is closer to his daughter than other children. “ When I’m at home, the boys don’t have time for me. I used to think that I was not a responsible father. When I’m talking the girl listens to me and I asked myself what is that thing that other parents are doing that I’m not doing? It used to hurt me. If they say they want something, I will give them. If they want N2, I would give them N10, just to win them. But if I say let’s go out or let me go out with you like other parents do, they

•Itemuagbor with his children never go out with me. I didn’t know that that is the difference between a male child and a female child, “he said with a smile.

He has found a friend in his daughter, a relationship she so much cherishes. “When I had my daughter, after one year, when I’m at home, one person that would come to my room is my daughter. As long as I’m at home, she would not leave my room and she would make sure that I don’t go anywhere because she has so many stories to tell me.

He said about the relationship with his daughter Mikela (an Irish name from Michael): “She gives me so much joy and so much feeling of a married man, a father, fulfilled man and that is why I feel the closeness is growing by the day. She would come to my room and say, ‘Daddy what you are wearing is not right; why don’t you go and wear that dress?’ But my sons will not do that. My sons, after giving them what they want, you will not see them again.”

‘Thank God my family members were not home when the helicopter crashed’ •Continued from Page 13

•A residential building desroyed by the helicopter. Inset: the owner

meeting was convened in view of the prevailing situation in the state in the last few weeks”.

The meeting, which lasted three hours, was attended by State Police boss, Dipo Ayeni; Commander of the Special Task Force (STF) ‘Operation Safe Haven,’ Major General Ibrahim Muhammed; Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps; Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC); Nigeria Immigration; Nigeria Customs Service; Plateau Directorate of State Security Service, among others.

Other stakeholders in attendance in Wednesday’s meeting included religious leaders, community leaders, youth leaders and women leaders as well as the media.

Addressing the stakeholders on behalf of the security chiefs, the state Police boss said: “This meeting has become necessary in view of the situation we found ourselves in the state. We had been enjoying a period of peace in the state; we had already restored peace all over the state.

“But some wicked elements from no where attacked the headquarters of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) and while we are battling to recover, another set of suicide bombers struck at St

Finbarr’s Church, which also created tension, rumour and as well triggered off violence in the entire city.

“The state is witnessing a strange dimension of violence not known to the people of this state and we saw the need to bring the stakeholders together and brainstorm on the best solution with which to tackle this new wave of violence. The security agencies alone cannot do it; this kind of situation requires the coming together of all stakeholders and network”.

He added: “We held a security meeting with the Chief of Defence Staff when he visited the state last Monday to see things himself and we have called this stakeholders’ meeting today to inform all the stakeholders of some of the security strategies we have decided to adopt so as to put a permanent stop to this new style of attacks.

“The strategies we have adopted may be very expensive for the stakeholders but they have become necessary if we must stop suicide bombing in the state.

Two churches have been attacked; no one knows which worship centre is the next target of the terrorists, but we have a duty to prevent any further attack if we all agree as stakeholders to work together”.

50

INTERVIEW

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Ojukwu’s successor: Nobody can impose himself on the Igbo — Sen. Ben Obi

•Sen. Obi

Senator Ben Obi, Chairman Outreach and Contact SubCommittee as well as member, Steering Committee on Ojukwu’s burial, spoke to newsmen over the weekend in Awka on how they pulled the feat of the grand burial given to the late Igbo leader, Dim Chukwuemeka OdumegwuOjukwu.

NWANOSIKE ONU and ODOGWU EMEKA ODOGWU were there.

Excerpts:

O

N the planning of the burial

I will like again to put on record the appreciation of the committee.

The committee is a 40-man one established by the governors of the South East. I will like to express our appreciation to them. And we also express at close quarters the appreciation of the committee to the South East Governors Forum and in particular the Chairman of the forum, the executive governor of Anambra State, Mr. Peter Obi (CON), who took time to participate in the activities of the steer•Continued on Page 51

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

INTERVIEW

51

‘Governor Obi acquitted himself well over Ojukwu’s burial’ •Continued from Page 50

ing committee and whenever they ran into a hitch, he would fly into Abuja, fly into Lagos, fly into anywhere to help resolve those problems. I want to say that a few times it was as if we had reached a dead end; we didn’t know what to do, we were financially handicapped, but whenever we called him and told him our problems, he responded.

So the success that you people are referring to worldwide, the success can be easily credited to Ndigbo in general because every Igbo man participated in this success. I, as Chairman of the Outreach and Contact Sub-Committee, when I had to visit Cote d’voire, Zmbia, Ghana just to inform the presidents of these countries because of their personal relationships with Dim Chukwuemeka OdumegwuOjukwu of his demise, I had the full support and backing of Governor Peter Obi. When I spoke with Prof.

Wole Soyinka saying: ‘You will speak in Enugu on your friend’, he said to me: ‘Look, Ben, consider it done.’ It wasn’t more than two minutes of discussion.

In fact, you will like to know that Wole Soyinka flew in from Los Angeles, arrived Lagos on the 27th, and was in Enugu on the 29th. In fact, on the 27th when he arrived Lagos, Wole Soyinka took ill and I called my governor and I said: ‘Look, the Nobel laureate has taken ill and he was hospitalised’. So he said I should go and see him in Lagos. I tried because that was the day we arrived from London, but I couldn’t, but I reached his good friend, Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi, who was sitting by him and he said he was recovering. That night, he (Soyinka) called me and said he would arrive Enugu on the 29th and he arrived. The chairman of the occasion in Enugu, Ebitu Ukiwe, told him to just go and rest. This is the kind of interest people from outside Igboland also showed.

When we went to see Governor Babatunde Fashola that we were coming to Lagos, he set up a committee directly in his office to arrange for what you saw that happened in Lagos. The same thing with Dr. Babangida Aliyu of Niger State; the same thing with Rotimi Amaechi, Liyel Imoke, all the governors. Everywhere we went, it was total participation.

So you see, I do not know really where to rest the success but I have told you the commitment up to the last minute, the commitment of the governors. You saw what happened in Owerri, you saw what happened in Enugu. Members of the local organising committee were directly in touch with me because they were dealing with the contact committee. So they were very prepared, they were very committed. Those who even made their own personal contributions did so without complaint. So gentlemen, the man who passed on was certainly our best and brightest star.

No question about that.

How much the burial cost and source of funding

I’m not the financial Sscretary or the treasurer of the committee. All I can say to you is that contributions came basically from the governors of the South East. They agreed among themselves that they were going to contribute some amount of money and the governor of Anambra State, who was the one coordinating, took the responsibil-

Ikemba as his father. So you can see there’s no level at which the Federal Government did not give us maximum support. It’s not a question of Ben Obi saying; it’s what we all saw. I don’t know where the Vice President attended a burial twice within 96 hours. You heard the President say he had never seen any burial like this in the world. I don’t think anybody will be buried this way again in the country. Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ezeigbo Gburugburu, has confirmed even in death that truly he was a leader.

On Ojukwu’s successor

•Sen. Obi

•Sen. Obi

‘

•Late Ojukwu ity to make sure that all the governors paid their dues.

The governor of Delta State (Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan) felt slighted that they did not include him. So when they went to Asaba he said to them: ‘I’m part of this.

After all I have more than one third of Igbos in the population of my state’. So he immediately made his own contribution. So I want to say that we had an estimate of what we wanted to do beyond the burial but then, there was this advice across board that we drop it and do the burial, after which we go out and do what we planned for the great man. So I don’t have the mandate to speak on anybody’s roles in this assignment because if I tell you now that A brought so much or B brought so much, some people may feel I have ignored them.

On the immortalisation of Ojukwu We’re thinking about how the

At the appropriate time, the man who will lead them will emerge and then we will follow him the way we followed and adored Ikemba. So all these fly- at- night leaders will be shocked because it’s not a business of just getting up and saying you want to be a leader. It’s not done.

You have to go back and look at the antecedents of Ikemba...

,

people’s General can be immortalised. We don’t want a situation whereby we start a programme or a project in immortalising him then falls short of not completing the project. Any project that we decide to do to immortalise him, you can rest assured it will be completed.

On the support from the Federal Government I will like to place on record the total commitment of the Federal Government to these burial activities. We did not go as a committee to see the President (Goodluck Jonathan) but the chairman of the South East Governors’ Forum, (Obi) was meeting directly with Mr. President. Whatever support that was required, we got. When we wanted to involve the Army, I was the one who went to see the Chief of Army Staff under the directive of the Chairman of the Central Burial Committee and the Chief of

Army Staff set up a committee in his office to advise them and all other requests we made, were passed from the Chairman of the Central Committee to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (Anyim Pius Anyim). There was no request that we made that we did not get. We wanted to use the Nnamdi Azikiwe Stadium, we got the approval; you can all testify to the full participation of the military. So these are all the support that we got from the President.

It is also to be placed on record that on our arrival from London, the Vice President, Arch Namadi Sambo (GCON), stood in for the President from beginning to the end. In Enugu, the Vice President was there. On Friday (burial day), the President decided to come and perform the burial rites and you all heard when he spoke; how Ikemba came for his (President’s) father’s burial in Otuoke and how from that moment, he virtually adopted

Ikemba did not just get up one morning to say he was the leader of the Igbo, no. For me, the committee never lost sleep for one day about those who are scampering to be leader or leaders of Igbo.

They are completely republican in nature as a people. You don’t impose yourself on them. At the appropriate time, the man who will lead them will emerge and then we will follow him the way we followed and adored Ikemba. So all these fly- at- night leaders will be shocked because it’s not a business of just getting up and saying you want to be a leader. It’s not done. You have to go back and look at the antecedents of Ikemba; how he started, you know, and then see where he took the Igbo nation to.

It’s difficult for a people not to have a leader. God in His infinite mercy never created people and then abandoned them and made them leaderless. Circumstances will always throw up true, genuine leadership. It was the circumstances of the crisis in 1966 that threw up Emeka Ojukwu. He was not a member of the Ifeajuna-led coup but after that , he became the governor of the Eastern Region and after that happened, circumstances again made him leader of Biafra and the rest today is history.

When you look at the Igbo nation, there are quite a number of people who are around and who we don’t even know until they come out to take responsibility of leadership and then, you start to see certain qualities and begin to imagine that they too truly can play a role in the lives of the people. You may not have the kind of visionary, courageous leader like Emeka Ojukwu to come up again. But then somebody may come up to play one role or the other in due course, but it’s not by imposing yourself on the people. Igbo never recognise imposition. It has to evolve.

How was Ojukwu’s hospital bill settled?

Again, that is thanks to the Anambra State governor and chairman of South East Governors’ Forum. When we met (with) the governors’ forum, they told us that they mandated the governor of Anambra State to take full responsibility and that along the line they were also going to make their own contribution. So it is basically contributions from the governors but of course, more of it was from Anambra State because as it stands, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown and that crown is squarely on the head of my friend, Governor Obi. The young man is carrying it with great admiration, I must say. The committee has expressed profound gratitude to him for everything.

52

FAMIL Y HEAL TH AMILY HEALTH

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

No longer two but one (2)

D

EAR Reader, I count it a great privilege to share God’s Word with you again today. Last week, I brought you the introductory part of this month’s teaching. I said an understanding of the concept of oneness will chase away selfishness from homes, and will put an end to fighting and misunderstanding.

This week, I will disclose a major requirement for oneness in marriage to be practicable – Maturity!

In God’s concept, marriage is for men and women, not for boys and girls. God’s Word says: ...the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man (Genesis 2:22). Again in verse 24, the Bible says: Therefore shall a man…cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. Take particular note of these words ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in the above passages.

Maturity comes in different

ways though. It is possible for a physical giant to be an emotional dwarf. It is possible for a grown man to be as immature as a 13-year-old boy. It is possible for a beautiful woman to be an emotional child. The connection this has with marriage is that marriage requires physical, spiritual and emotional maturity.

Some “adults” never outgrow childhood immaturity, and they demonstrate it in their marriage. This is one of the reasons many marriages fail!

Briefly, let’s consider three characteristics of maturity that make oneness a reality in marriage: Selfless Attitudes & Behaviour An Indian expression reads: You do not marry whom you love; you love whom you marry. Ironically, most married couples today, married whom they love, but the key

to success in marriage is to love whom you marry because the choice has been made, and there’s no going back.

Unfortunately, many marriage relationships are challenged because some individuals put their selfish desires and needs before their spouses.

Infidelity and divorce usually as a result of this.

Maturity speaks selflessness.

This is considered to be the most salient characteristic of marital success. Nothing is more central to success in marriage than selflessness, being more concerned with your husband or wife’s success, happiness or comfort than you are of your own.

Gratitude Gratitude is a feeling, emotion or attitude in acknowledgment of a benefit that one has received or will receive.

Gratitude is a very vital attitude in marriage, a positive

indicator that a husband and wife find their relationship satisfying. But it’s quite disheartening to know that many husbands and wives hardly know what it is to say, “Thank you.” Often, the words are absent because the feeling is absent. The understanding of oneness helps you to habitually appreciate and acknowledge your spouse’s input in every circumstance. Gratitude is a very beautiful act to demonstrate, and it’s usually with rich reward.

Flexibility Apparently, nothing in your marriage is going to stay the same forever, not you, your spouse, living conditions, income, job status, children, etc.

Flexibility makes it easy for you to be in peaceful harmony with your spouse. Husband, do not feel that your wife is incapable of taking any valuable decisions, thereby ignoring her completely.

Personal relaxation can reduce stress levels leading to serious physical and emotional issues, including depression, insomnia, ulcers and heart disease.

Here are five simple measures to help avoid these complications and increase your overall quality of life:

In modern society, stress has become as unavoidable as death and taxes.

While the term tends to carry negative connotations in today’s world, stress can be normal and even useful. It prompts your brain to take precautionary measures designed to help your body respond to chal-

lenging or threatening situations, usually described as a “fight or flight” reaction.

However, it is when stress remains at high levels for extended periods of time that the situation can become more problematic. Increased stress levels can strain your body and harm your health,

Abusing drugs can lead to death Pscychiatric breakdown, financial difficulty and death has been linked to the continuous abuse of drugs.

This claim was made recently by a clinical psychologist at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, (Dr) Leonard Okonkwo during a health seminar organized by Ifako Ijaiye youth council.

In his analysis, Okonkwo said drugs abused are not limited to hard drugs such as cocaine or heroine. He said that the regular painkillers, analgesics and tranquilizers such as panadaol, paracetamol, menstrual pain drugs, sleeping pills, and other drugs people take on a regular basis could also lead to drastic effects afore-mentioned .

During his lecture on drug abuse at the Ifako Ijaiye local government Area office in Lagos, he urged people to desist from overthe-counter self prescription

Risikat RAMONI which he referred to as the basis of drug abuse.

He advise people suffering from drug abuse to detoxify their body system by visiting rehabilitation centres in hospitals.

To buttress his point, he cited the case of a young lady who became addicted to the menstrual pain drugs prescribed by her physician.

“With time, it had a drastic effect on her health and she got help when she visited the hospital before it became too late.

“People should not wait till they have broken down mentally or become a societal nuisance before they complain,” said the psychologist.

He warned people to desist from using drugs that are nor prescribed, adding that, even if prescribed, it should be according to prescription.

1. Exercise Whether it’s walking or weightlifting, virtually any form of exercise can act as a stress reliever.

Exercising regularly can help improve sleep and relax your muscles.

It also causes your body to generate extra endorphins – neurotransmitters which work to relax you and improve your overall mood. A brisk walk or swim can be a great way to gather your thoughts and temporarily remove yourself from the usual stresses of everyday life.

2. Eat healthier By eating a balanced diet, you

can ensure that your body is wellequipped to tackle life’s daily challenges. Make sure to begin each day with a sensible breakfast and eat small, balanced meals regularly. You could also try reducing your caffeine intake, as it tends to disrupt sleep and cause irritability, which can exacerbate stress responses.

3. Time management Using your time efficiently will help relieve stress. If your workload is particularly heavy, set a daily schedule to remove some of the uncertainty from the coming day.

Similarly, identifying specific stressors will allow you to anticipate and prepare for them. If possible, try leaving a few minutes earlier for your morning commute to avoid starting the day in a rush.

4. Personal time For many people, the demands

of a job extend well beyond the hours of 9 to 5. That’s why it’s important to designate a short period of time each day for personal relaxation. Turn off your phone, power down your computer and spend some time doing something you enjoy. Put your stress on hold and take respite while reading, exercising, meditating, getting a massage or taking a bath. If your daily stresses become overwhelming, you may even consider taking a short vacation.

5. Holistic remedies Certain herbal remedies have been known to relieve tension and reduce stress and anxiety.

Substituting green tea for your regular cup of coffee is a healthy way to improve sleep by reducing your caffeine intake. Chamomile and black tea are renowned for their calming properties, while ginseng and licorice root help normalize the body during times of stress.

How eating less and exercising more in your 20s will lead to a healthier 40s Researchers have discovered the secrets to a longer and healthier life - and there are no surprises on the list.

Scientists revealed the steps that twenty-somethings should take in order to maintain a wellbalanced body late into their 40s.

The study showed eating less and exercising more could help lower the risk of disease whilst avoiding alcohol and cigarettes could also reduce the risk of troubles later in life.

Kiang Liu, a professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine said: ‘The problem is few adults can maintain ideal cardiovascular health factors as they age.

‘Many middle-aged adults develop unhealthy diets, gain weight and are not as physically active.

‘Such lifestyles, of course, lead to high blood pressure and cholesterol, diabetes and elevated cardiovascular risk.’

‘In this study, even people with a family history of heart problems were able to have a low cardiovascular disease risk

profile if they started living a healthy lifestyle when they were young.

‘This supports the notion that lifestyle may play a more prominent role than genetics.’

Researchers analysed data including blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, BMI, alcohol intake, tobacco use, diet and exercise.

With more than 3,000 participants having been monitored the results confirmed Liu’s belief that the young generation will

have many long-term benefits by keeping fit and active earlier in life.

He added: ‘Many studies suggest that people who have low cardiovascular risk in middle age will have a better quality of life, will live longer and will have lower Medicare costs in their older age.

‘There are a lot of benefits to maintaining a low-risk profile.’

The survey is promoting healthier lifestyle choices amongst those in their twenties.

FAMIL Y HEAL TH AMILY HEALTH

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Lice, ticks and mites

T

HE traffic police woman is vigor ously scratching her head and for a moment you lack instruction on whether to stop or move on. Yes, lice can cause accidents. They can create embarrassing moments for those who have to be on stage in real time: teacher, preacher, politician, talk show host or those who are momentarily or always in the eyes of the public: air hostess, receptionist, shop keeper, etc. That public scratch can turn the posh customer away from your restaurant. It can be used by a politician’s opponents to poke fun at him or her.

It can bring a VIP to the front page of a tabloid free of charge. It is an effective teaser.

Lice, ticks, and mites are small and mighty creatures and perfect invaders of the terrain of the human physique. Bed bugs and fleas are also sneaky, annoying creatures that are

I

N my same trip to Lon don late last year, I also noticed that infertility is too rampant with the Nigerians living over there. What I noticed to be the reason was nothing but the fact that these particular people have spent their productive years in looking for either visa or work instead of settling down to marry on time or if married, attend to the home front to produce children,and before they realize the mistake, t hey are over forty. So saddening.

The story of Salimat who has penducated and sub serious fibroid is alarming because like the biblical woman of the issue of blood,she menstruated everyday

hard to find and punish.

Like the secret enemy that keeps stabbing and keeps getting away with it, they pierce, they suck, or they eat tiny bits of (dead) skin.

These minute creatures are barely visible to the naked human eye. Seen under the microscope, lice, ticks, and mites all look like a cross between the crab, the spider, and an armored tank - strange and threatening. To call them enemy is not too much.

Lice mouth parts can both pierce and suck. The bite is sharp and painful.

The Yoruba call head lice “ina,” the same word for “fire”. That’s what it feels like when there are many of them on one’s head.

A long time ago, a beautiful lady in Church was unfortunate to have a poet sit behind her. Now, worship is the worthy preoccupation of the church goer within church. How-

ever, this poet, Robert Burns, with the keen eyes of a poet spied a louse moving over the beautiful lady’s hat obviously coming from her hair. His poem about the louse and the lady written in the old English of their time, persists till this day. The louse changed the way the poet saw the beautiful lady.

This minutest crawler can change the way people see you if you let them stay on your head.

The head louse is called Pediculus humanus capitis. It lives on the head with hair, which it views as a warm and pleasant forest. The body louse is called Pediculus humanus humanus or Pediculus humanus corporis.

It lives on clothing and contacts the body to pierce the skin and suck blood. The pubic louse is also called the crab louse and its biological name is Pthirus pubis. It lives in the region of the pubic hair. (Beware of the crab louse and always remember that nowhere in the world is the public crotch scratch acceptable).

When lice bite they inject saliva into the human host’s blood vessel. The saliva contains anti-clotting chemicals that keep the blood fluid so that the louse can suck it. From

Sound Health with Banji Filani 07089729930, 07034809006

Infertility and fibroid for six months but after the first one month of taking our remedies, the blood stopped and by the second and third month she has the cause to appreciate God.now she is pregnant.

Bening growth in or on uterus, uterine fibroid also known as Myomas and Leomyomas are most common type of abnormal growth in a woman pelvics. They occur in about 25% of women are most common brtween the

age of 30 and 40 years.

Among black women,fibroid commonly occur at younger age and grow more rapidly. Most fibroid even large ones produce no symptoms although some women experience pains in the abdomen,lower back abdominal pressure and more frequent urination.

Changes in amount,frequency and duration of menstruation may also occur. Just because fibroid sometimes block the entrance to a fallopian tube or distort the inner surface of the uterus, they can cause miscarriage and infertility.

Infertility can come in so many ways apart fibroid.Tubal litigation, a sterilization procedure for a woman in which the passage of eggs through the fallopian tube is interrupted using various methods and the goal is to block the eggs from travelling down the tubes to meet the sperm for fertilization to occur.

Infection is another major cause of infertility either STD or toilet infection.Candida can also lead to infertility.

PID is a genital infection and it goes with these symptoms: mild aching in the lower abdomen,pain during intercourse,painful urination,discomfort or irregular menstruation periods,bleeding and an abnormal discharge with foul odour. There may be general

sucking habits, lice can transmit microbes including microscopic parasitic worms to the human victim.

The body louse is a known vector of louse-borne typhus, louse-borne relapsing fever, or trench fever.

Lice affect all kinds of people, no matter the social or economic status. They are easy to spread and this is phenomenal in schools and community centers.

They are generally contracted by the sharing of head wears (beware of okada helmets), combs, brushes, beddings, towels, and seats with upholstery.

They are also transmitted by the practice of loveydovey activities (but lovers don’t need to know this so don’t tell them). When one member of the family has lice, the rest of the family are bound to get infected.

In expensive cities, many people live in crowded conditions to save money on rent. We will therefore discuss how to keep these creatures under control.

Dr. ’Bola John is a biomedical scientist based in Nigeria and in the USA. For any comments or questions on this column, please Email bolajohnwritings@yahoo.com or call 07028338910

malaise with fever or nausea,vomiting and weight loss.

The specific site affected

by PID may be defected during a pelvic examination performed by gynaecologist or family doctor. The examination usually revealed tender or swollen reproductive organ. And because the site of infection is not always easily examined, a diagnosis may be problematic because the symptom mimic that of appendicitis. A sexual history,incuding the type of birth control method use may help in making primary diagnosis.

Hormonal factor is another important factor to be considered. Ovaries produces estrogen which interact with pituitary hormones . there is another hormone that works with fertility of a woman like prolactin or LH,LSH and all these must not be high or low in order not to delay conception.

In my years of practice, I have practically taken up every case of the listed symptoms and problems and solution has always abound because the problems that cause the delay in conception has to be identified first before treatment which has always given desired result ,people troop to our clinic for tests, consultation or treatment on infertility. Don’t sit down nursing your problem,act now by visiting our office so you also can smile at last.

Dr. Banji Filani is the Chief Consultant Phylarny Global Healthcare,Lagos.

For further information or discussion,call him on 07034809006, 08023422010.

53 Coping with diseases with Prof. Dayo Oyekole

Holistic remedy for HIV/AIDS

H

OLISTIC Healthcare is the application of the best combi nation of natural therapies, in the provision of comple mentary and wholesome health care services. Natural therapy in this context implies a non-conventional system of preventing or eliminating physical, mental, social or spiritual ailments; which may rely exclusively on past experience and observation handed down from generation to generation, verbally or in writing. It involves the use of natural plants (herbs), animal matter and mineral compounds.

Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is a complex of diseases and symptoms resulting from unexplained immune deficiency; caused by a retrovirus, culminating in a “mixed-bag” of life-threatening opportunistic infections, which invariably result in death. The retrovirus that causes AIDS is known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus(HIV) with types I, II, and III already isolated.

During the past few years, a lot of technical and financial supports have been provided for scientists searching for a cure for AIDS. Many of their efforts have been to try and discover a single pharmacological or immunological solution to what is, in fact, a “mixed-bag” of different disease conditions.

Paradoxically, while orthodox researchers have been struggling unsuccessfully to produce a single drug remedy for AIDS, there has been a tremendous advance made by the unorthodox, self-financed but highly ridiculed holistic approach; and it has become clear that the natural defence mechanisms of the individual sufferer can be augmented towards evolving a panacea to the disease problem.

It is against this background of unproductive waste of human, material and financial resources, in the face of the physical, psychological and social hazards imposed on mankind by Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) and several other devastating, insidious and otherwise intractable diseases; that I have embarked on this exposition of the “wisdom of ages”, as a private sector contribution to the strategies towards attainment of the much-desired “Health For All” in this millennium.

Over the past 28 years, I have conducted research at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria; as well as at Interdisciplinary Research Centres in Europe and Southern Africa; on holistic and complementary healthcaresystems.

In the course of my research activities, it has become glaring that the body’s ability to protect itself from the onslaught of offending virus, bacteria, fungi, cancer cells, etc can be enhanced by holistic herbal ‘immuno-modulators’ , because, apart from supporting the body’s own immune defence mechanisms, they also prevent opportunistic infections.

In Holistic Lifecare, we are committed to total cure of HIV/ AIDS sufferers when they have just been tested and diagnosed positive, when they are still able to eat, drink and move around on their own, but not when they are expecting their funeral the next day!

The Holistic Natural Remedy being suggested for restoring good health, vitality, and total cure in HIV/AIDS sufferers; is a combination of herbal, nutritional and psycho-social therapies at the appropriate time and in the right proportion. Notable among the useful herbs for HIV/AIDS are Aloe vera, Allium sativum, Harpagophytum zeyheri, Echinacea augustifolia and Zingiber officinale.

For further information and consultation on Holistic Lifecare research and services, especially on Blood Infections, Infertility, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Chronic Debilitating Conditions as well as mental and social problems, please call on: 0803-330-3897 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 0803-330-3897 end_of_the_skype_highlighting or visit: Mosebolatan Holistic Lifecare Centre, Adeyalo Layout, Ogbere-Tioya, Off Olorunsogo Express Bridge, Ibadan. Website: www.holisticlifecare.com. Distance is no barrier, we can send remedies by courier if need be. We also have facilities for accommodation, admission and hospitalization in a serene and homely environment.

54

TRAVELOGUE

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Let’s go to

Turkey

I

never really appreciated in-flight meals until I flew Turkish Airlines to Istanbul, the beautiful city that is the business - and pleasure - heart of Turkey.

The sometimes stringy bread, the little marshy stuff sprinkled with vegetables and some spices. Olive oil, butter and cheese. Wines, teas and orange drinks. But, it wasn't the dinning and winning on the flight that thrilled me. I was bowled over by the intricacies of the preparations of the meals passengers take in-flight, courtesy of a visit to Do & Co, the catering arm of Turkish Airlines in Istanbul.

The massive equipment and army of stewards and supervisors lend credence to the fact that a remarkable culinary exertion has occurred every time those tiny plates are tossed on your flight table. Do & Co supplies scores of airlines food (100,00 packs daily) and its work has, no doubt, contributed immensely to making Turkish Airlines the world's eighth largest carrier - in terms of network size.

Any doubt about this ranking is shattered by a visit to the airline's training school. The size of the building - massive and impressive - is nothing when compared with the sophistication of the training equipment it houses.

The steps range from little tasks, such as how to tell passengers to fasten seat belts and opening of tables in various aircraft to closing doors. Emergency situations are handled as if they are real, with crew members actually wearing life jackets and opening the door to jump out onto an artificial ocean. It is all amazing!

But the story of Turkey's resilience is not reflected only in the growth of its national carrier - from a modest 65 aircraft in 2003 to 177

•A busy street in Istanbul

Gbenga OMOTOSO

in 2011. Its robust economy, which somehow escaped the global meltdown; its rich history as reflected in the numerous tourist attractions which keep visitors flooding in and its unique location the only country that is on two continents ( Europe and Asia) - all combine to make Turkey an interesting destination.

The weather may not be friendly in the winter - there is sunshine occasionally, even as you wake up to find that it is snowing - the language problem may be there, the city may go to bed a bit early, compared with others of its size, and the street souvenir hawker may be after your cash; Istanbul remains a sure destination for pleasure and business.

Riding on Istanbul's city centre roads is a pleasure.

The sight seeing is a remarkable exercise, with the remains of the old city wall on the left and the sea roaring on the right as tourists boat through the European side to the Asian side of the ancient city.

But Istanbul is not all about boat cruises. There is a well co-ordinated attempt to make tourism a money spinner and an employment generator. There are numerous tourism companies employing guides who speak English and who are versatile in their knowledge of the city and its history.

The tourist attractions are breathtaking in their structures and history. In them are found the very essence of the Turkish spirit of enterprise and vision, the vision of exceptional leaders, such as Kemal Ataturk (18811938), who saw what the country is today many years ago and worked to realise that destiny.

Consider the Hagia Sophia "Holy Wisdom" Museum, a former Orthodox patriarchal bascilica that was

•Hagia Sophia Museum later turned into a mosque and is now a museum. An average Turkish may be enamoured of its architectural symbolism, but, to a visitor, it is exciting to learn that the building was first used as a church, then a mosque and now a museum. It mirrors the lack of religious tension in the secular country. Inside the building, which is famous for its big dome, there are paintings that recall the days when it was being used as a church - paintings of the Holy Mary lapping baby Jesus .

The story of the Hagia Sophia is quite enthralling.

It is considered perhaps, the boldest exhibition of the highest qualities of Byzantine architecture. It was the world's largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years.

When Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453, Sultan Mehmed ordered the building to be converted into a mosque. It remained a mosque until 1935 when they found another use for it; it was turned into a museum. Before then, many Islamic features - the mihrab, the minbar and the four minarets outside - had been

•Inside the Blue Mosque added.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (also known as the Blue Mosque because of the

blue tiles adorning its interior walls) is considered as the most historical sight in Istanbul. Worshippers still flood

the place and it is not unusual to find tourists and ordinary folks rushing to meet the prayer time bumping into

•Turkish Air training school in Istanbul

TRAVELOGUE

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARC 17, 2012 one another. The mosque was to sit on the site of the palace of the Byzantine emperors, opposite the Hagia Sophia and the hippodrome.

If anyone needs to see what Ottoman classical architecture was in all its glory, the mosque stands there as a big monument.

It is a "masterwork of Sedefkar Mehmet Aga, an apprentice under Mimar Sinan". In the mosque are a hospice, a madrasah and the tomb of the founder. It is described as one of the most impressive monuments of the world.

There is also the Grand Bazaar, which is described as "one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world and one of Istanbul's most attractive sites, with more than 58 covered streets and over 1200 shops".

Istanbul is a modern city, glowing with street lamps at night, its streets well paved and decorated with flowers, its highways wide and smooth. Big shopping malls and exclusive restaurants as well as art galleries define the city's identity. The popular view is that to have a feel of what the city was in the old days, one should spend a day at the Bazaar. The monument was enlarged and restored in 1894, following a earthquake, during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificient.

The market is famous for jewelry, pottery, carpets, leather, spice and prayer beads, among many other items.

I wasn't comfortable shopping at the Bazaar because I had a feeling that I could be cheated, with the trader exploiting the language barrier.

It is unlike in the malls where all items are marked and one could easily do some conversion and know right away whether a deal is good or bad.

It is doubtful weather a visit to Istanbul could have full meaning without a trip to the Panorama 1453 History Museum. It is all about the conquest of the city some 558 years ago. The scenes seem real, a vivid creativity of the battle won by Fatih (the Conqueror) Sultan Mehmet II. The sounds of war - booming cannons, clattering swords and screaming men are so real you could feel them. The Panorama itself is not just a picture of the war, it attests to the creative power of Turkish artists, eight of whom were involved in the

55

‘

The weather may not be friendly in the winter - there is sunshine occasionally, even as you wake up to find that it is snowing - the language problem may be there, the city may go to bed a bit early, compared with others of its size, and the street souvenir hawker may be after your cash; Istanbul remains a sure destination for pleasure and business

’

project. They were led by Hasim Vetandas, a frontline artist and cartoonist, who also coordinated the project. There are only 30 of its type in the world, but the Panorama 1453 is unique in that it uses both horizontal and vertical settings. The pictures have no end and one gets the feeling of being in the open and not in an enclosure.

The Istanbul Aquarium is like a soothing balm after the sober experience of the Panorama. It is a tour of the world of sea animals and a huge view of underwater activity.

There are all manner of fish, snake-like creatures and many exotic species.

It is hard for anyone to see the wide collection of species and not wonder about life under the sea.

But it is not all about sightseeing. There is, also, medical tourism. The Sema Hospital is all that a hospital should be - not just a place to treat the sick, but a place to fully recover in style. A five-star hospital, it directly overlooks the sea, allowing a clear view of some islands. The neighborhood is serene and sparkling. It is the home of stars and the rich, but they don't mind having the hospital around after seeing its class. The equipment are first class and there is a certification that some of the world's best practise in the hospital.

Little wonder foreigners are rushing to Sema. Among them was former Yobe Governor Mamman Ali for whom the doctors were looking for an organ before he passed on.

The efforts of the Turkish School in Nigeria are easy to understand after visiting FETIH College in Istanbul.

The architectural design is outstanding, yet not pur-

posely built to be conducive to a relaxed atmosphere for learning. Two big auditoriums, clean classrooms and restrooms, sports facilities as well as excited teachers. The kids were well behaved, eager to ask the visitors questions and take photographs.

There was some eagerness to know how Turkey has been coping with the security challenges posed by the tourist organisation, PKK. Some tips came at the Writers Foundation where an expert, who apparently had been following the deadly activities of the Boko Haram, spoke. He advised that the media should downplay the evil exploits of the sect's members because, in his view, they get emboldened whenever they succeed in grabbing the headlines. This, my colleagues and I concluded, could be very difficult, considering the reading public's interest in the sect's activities.

We were all in Turkey, courtesy of the Turkish Airlines and the UFUK Dialogue Foundation - an organisation that is devoted to peace in our world. Turkey has been reaching out to the world, selling its business and economic potential. In Nigeria, the Association of Investors and Businessmen of Turkey and Nigeria has been leading the way, "connecting people and businesses".

The fond memories of Istanbul - the snow, the glittering malls, peaceful streets, nice hotels and friendly locals hailing: marabaa (hello in Arabic) - remain with me, weeks after the one- week trip.

When my friends talk about taking a break, with confidence I tell them: let's go to Turkey.

•Entrance to Sema Hospital

•L-R: The Sun Editor, Mr. Steve Nwosu; Weekend Trust Editor Abdulkareem Aminu and GM, Turkish Airlines in Nigeria, Mr. Ali Bulut

•A bridge in downtown Istanbul

•Students of FETIH College

•Visiting Nigerian journalists in front of the biggest Turkish newspaper, Amana

56

TOURISM

Mark opens Grand Inn and Suites in Ijebu Ode

P

RESIDENT of the Sen ate, David Mark, has opened a 60-room luxury hotel in Ijebu Ode. The opening ceremony of the hotel, Grand Inn and Suites, was done early this week.

Speaking on the hotel, Mark commended its proprietor, Senator Lekan Mustapha, for investing such a huge sum of money to build the hotel in his community instead of taking such a project to a place like Lagos or Abuja where he stands to make more money.

He urged other public office holders to emulate the noble gesture. He described the hotel as first class and said it would improve the general profile of the town.

On the project, the Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Sikiru Adetona, said the hotel by Senator Mustapha is a reflection of the Ijebu spirit that whatever an Ijebu indigene is determined to accomplish, he usually achieves it. The traditional ruler said he was proud to recommend the hotel facility, not just to the indigenes, but visitors to Ijebuland. He used the opportunity to lobby the Senate President for the creation of Ijebu State.

Senator Mustapha said it was his desire to create opportunities for the indigenes of Ijebu that informed the siting of the hotel in town, rather than any overriding profit motive. He said he also

realized that the tourism industry is one of the areas with huge potential that has not been utilized maximally by the country, hence his desire to venture into it.

He said: “When you get involved in tourism, it means you want to bring people to your environment. Tourism is an underdeveloped area of our economy. It is an area that I believe can really grow our economy, if it is properly harnessed. It is an area that has not been fully tapped,That is why I decided to go into it.

Maybe because the returns on

investment are very slow, it might be one of the reasons, but it is an everlasting thing, if it is properly kept and managed.

Basically, what we have done is to make it a first-class standard, so that when you come, you will tell those who have not been here.

Speaking on the hotel, the head of the hospitality management group handling the hotel, Mr. Doran Umansky, said: “It is a new standard in Ijebu that we don’t have before and this will attract a lot of customers that ordinarily wouldn’t come to Ijebu.

Most of the rooms are standard with king-size beds. It is really luxury.

“The owner has invested a lot of money, taking into consideration the Ijebu market price. Yes, it is affordable and there is a lot of events in the town. People are coming here and looking for quality rooms.

“Target market is conferences and business tourists.

We have a meeting room for 50, a hall that sits 500 cinema style and 300 people round table. It is a big capacity for this area.”

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARC 17, 2012

Aero introduces new payment option

A

ERO Contractors Airline has introduced an en tirely new, fast and convenient mobile money payment on the platform of U-MO. With the new developemnt Aero ticket can now be paid for from an electronic wallet on the mobile phone.

This is a product that enables customers to pay for their flight tickets using their mobile phones. The introduction of the mobile money platform is in addition to other booking and payment options provided by Aero for the customers’ convenience.

The new service, Aero said, is the first of its kind in the industry in the West African region. U-Mo is a mobile money service which enables users make and receive payments as well as conduct other financial transactions with their mobile phone.

U-Mo enables you create an e-wallet on your mobile phone for handling your transactions. With the value on U-Mo account, customers can pay for goods and services, Aero flight ticket, top-up your phone air time, transfer and send money to friends, family, and colleagues.

The application which has been integrated to the aero ticket-sale booking engine offers customers the opportunity to make payment for flight tickets from any part of the world using the mobile phone.

According to the Managing Director for Aero, Capt.

Akin George, “This new service is going to revolutionize how people purchase their airline tickets, and also what they expect from their airline. For our customers who don’t have access to computers to purchase tickets, they can now do so from their phones through Aero’s U-MO electronic wallet option.”

Arik now Nigeria’s official carrier to London’s WTM and ITB Berlin

Senate President Mark cutting the tape to declare the hotel open. He is flanked by Awujale of Ijebuland, Oba Adetona (left), and Senator Mustapha

Iwode Okosi starts Eebi Epe festival Monday

T

HIS year’s edition of the annual Eebi Epe festival will kick off on Monday with the Iwode Okosi, an age group cultural procession that would signal the commencement of the festival activities. There will also be the Okosi traditional boat regatta. The regatta will take place at Oju Alaro Ebute in Epe. Between Monday and April 29, the day for the grand finale, there will be a

series of cultural and sociocultural events which include the Iyonfonran traditional rites where the traditional ruler of Epe will lead a cultural firewood burning procession of Epe people, Ita Ebi rites performed by the traditional ruler and his chiefs, Eyo day when the Eyo families of Epe will parade the streets of the town and many other rites.

The chairman of the festival’s organizing commit-

tee, Otunba Teni Zaccheus, said the committee had made efforts to bring in professionalism in the organization of the festival so that it would become a cultural showpiece that would attract in-bound tourists from all over the world.

He said” the festival’s history dates back to the 13th century, but was given prominence in 1760 by Oba Shagbara, one of the ancestors of the current king of Epe,

Oba Kamarodeen Ishola Animashaun.”

The festival, he said, evolved from the 17th century when the Ijaw people used to raid the Epe for slaves.

He said the Epe people came together to resist the invaders. They defeated the slave raiders and killed their leader, a certain Akalajolu.

The Epe people gather annually to celebrate the important victory. The festival evolved from the events.

Lagos Water Regatta holds Easter Sunday

T

HIS year’s edition of the Lagos Water Regatta is billed for April 8. In a recent press conference, the regatta organizing committee said unlike the previous editions, this year would see a lot of innovations that would not only lift the profile of the festival further, but also create excitement for the thousands of Lagosians that would troop out to witness the regatta.

The head of the festival’s organizing committee, Mr. Olusegun Jawando, said the theme for this year’s event would focus on some these innovations that fun-seekers would witness on Easter Sunday.

“Unlike the last two editions, we are going to bring several innovations to the show. One of such is the creation of a regatta village. We are currently considering the Water View, Oyinkan Abayomi Drive, Ikoyi.”

He said the chosen venue will be announced before the day of the regatta.

Jawando explained further that the regatta would be ‘a convergence leisure point for Lagosians from all walks of life , Nigerians at home and abroad and tourists from all over the world.”

Engr. Jawando (in white) flagging off the water regatta

N

IGERIA’s largest international carrier, Arik Air line has signed up an agreement with the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), as the official carrier of Nigerian delegation to the World Travel Market (WTM) in London in November 2012 and the International Trade Busisness (ITB) Berlin in 2013.

Speaking on the agreement seen as one of the gains of the Nigeria’s participation in the on-going ITB Berlin, Germany, the Corporate Communications Manager of the airline, Mr. Keelan Morris, said the deal is one of the efforts of the airline to showcase Nigeria and the airline to the world.

He said the synergy would help promote domestic and international traffic into Nigeria, adding to drive the initiative the airline would also enhance the tourism desk in their Lagos office to facilitate contact with revelant tourism board and hospitality stakeholders.

Henceforth, Mr. Morris who was in company of the airline’s Associate Vice President Sales-Europe, Mr. Simon Cook, said the airline would be involved as a participant in all the tourism fairs at which NTDC is involved in Europe and elsewhere.

The airline alsom announced its endorsement of the current campaign for the online signature mobilisation and support for Team Nigeria for the Summer London Olympics.

Mr. Morris described the Nigerian stand at the ITB Berlin as very impressive and attractively tourist friendly.

Meanwhile, in the bid to expand the international tourist traffic to Nigeria from the United States, the NTDC entered partnership with an American company, Partnerconcepts, which will embark on a roadshow of America.

Briefing newsmen in Berlin, NTDC’s Director General, Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, said the roadshow would hold in June in Washington and New York.

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

57

58 News

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

South-East PDP crisis may deepen over sharing of positions

T

HE crisis tearing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) apart in the South East zone is likely to deepen following the choice of who becomes the national woman leader of the party.

The position is believed to have been zoned to Imo State, but chieftains of the party have vehemently rejected the ambition of former minister, Kema Chikwe.

Most of the party’s stake holders in Imo and indeed South East are rooting for the former Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development, Genevieve Ekwochi, from Anambra State.

Sources who spoke with The Nation yesterday alleged that Chikwe was booed in Owerri by the party faithful when a National Chairmanship aspirant of the party, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, visited Imo two days ago.

The Nation gathered that apart from the alleged booing, some people equally resorted to throwing sachet water on the crowd, perhaps, because of the former minister’s presence.

Apart from the woman leader, another position

E

Nwanosike ONU, Awka that is brewing fresh crisis in the party is that of the national publicity secretary.

The position was zoned to Anambra State. Already,

four chieftains of the party are falling over heels for the position.

They are the current National Vice Chairman, South East, Chief Olisa Metuh; former Secretary of the party in Anambra, Chief Chike Udenze; former

Rangers International Football Club Public Relations Officer, Chief Okey Muo-Aroh and Chief Ezeobi Okpala.

However, some of the people in Anambra State, and indeed South East, are rooting for the position of

woman leader of the party.

Furthermore, the people in the zone are of the opinion that Chikwe is not a mobiliser of women, the reason they said made her to lose a senatorial seat to Senator Chris Anyanwu in Imo.

•Governor Peter Obi (right) being conducted round some of Refuse Disposal Vehicles by Mr. Innocent Chukwuma (left), the CEO of Innoson Motor Manufacturing Company, Nnewi, which produced them for Anambra State Government... yesterday

BASA row: Arik Air suspends Abuja-London route

FFECTIVE March 25, 2012, Arik Air is to suspend its daily service between the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja and London, Heathrow Terminal 4.

Arik Air was compelled to suspend its services on the route following the inability of the UK and Nigerian governments to come to agreeable terms on the 2008 Bilateral Air Services Agreement (BASA).

Under the terms of the BASA, Arik Air was allocated seven frequencies per week in respect of the Lagos/ London, Heathrow service and seven per week for the Abuja/ London, Heathrow service. The total of 14 frequencies is out of 21 available for Nigerian carriers under the BASA. However, an anomaly exists between access to slots in the respective countries with the Nigerian government matching the allocation of slots with frequencies therefore giving UK carriers unfettered access to its full complement of 21 slots at Abuja and Lagos airports.

However, this is not reciprocated in the UK with the authorities drawing a distinction between allocation of frequencies and access to slots, claiming that an application for landing slots at UK airports is a process separate from the BASA entitlement.

From the inception of the route in November 2009, Arik Air has been in a slotlease agreement with a UK carrier, leasing arrival/ departure slots on the Abuja/ London route at Heathrow.

At the end of the summer schedule (October 2011), the UK carrier that Arik Air was in the slot-lease agreement with for this route advised the airline of its intention to sell the company and began

to wind down its contractual arrangements with Arik Air. Without these commercially arranged slots Arik Air was forced to suspend operations at the start of the winter schedule (2011).

Immediate discussions were held by the respective governments to resolve the long-existing and underlying anomaly in the BASA. As an abridgement, the UK authorities facilitated the temporary continuation of the commercial lease of these slots in support of Arik Air's Abuja/ London, Heathrow operation.

This interim solution was

only available up until 25th March (2012).

Unfortunately,despite the best efforts of both governments, there has been no solution found. The situation remains as it was at the end of October 2011 with Arik Air having no landing/arrival slots after March 2012, thus forcing it to suspend the route.

Dr Michael ArumemiIkhide, Group CEO/President of Arik Air, commented on the suspension of the Abuja/ London route: "Whilst it is regrettable to have to suspend our services between Abuja and London,

we simply could not continue with the route due to the restrictions placed upon us in accessing arrival/departure slots in to UK airports.

“It is an unfortunate situation and one that we felt was being resolved at government level and we hoped that an agreement would have been reached before the start of the summer schedule. Due to the stalemate we are therefore forced to suspend this route.

"We support any dialogue that will take place in the future between the governments on this issue and we

stand ready and waiting to commence when asked to and when we feel that the imbalance had been satisfactorily redressed.

“Our main priority is our passengers and it is disappointing to discontinue such a critical route and reduce capacity between the countries which gives less availability to the Nigerian traveller.

“However, we would like to assure our customers that we are fully committed to the UK market and will continue as normal on the Lagos-London, Heathrow route with our flagship A340."

Abia partners US based organisation on production She noted that the tree when HE government of Abia Ugochukwu EKE, planted would take about nine State is to go into months to one year for it to of bio-diesel Umuahia partnership with an

T

America-based company, Global Green Development Corporation, to build lasting business ventures in the state.

They include the building of biofuel refinery in the state that will create about 50,000 jobs.

Speaking in Umuahia while receiving the delegates from America, led by its chief executive, Mary Flowers, Governor Theodore Orji said the state government is willing to go into partnership with genuine investors that are ready to help his administration move the state forward.

Orji, who was represented by his Senior Special Assistant, Emma Ezeala, said his administration would partner with them in the areas they have shown interest, like the building of a bio-diesel refinery in the state.

He assured them that the raw materials they need to make the bio-fuel project viable are in abundance in the state. He stressed that the Jatropha tree and its seeds needed as their raw materials are easily available in the state as they are grown wildly, while the others will be

made up through community or cooperative society farming.

The governor said the state government would go into partnership with the 17 local government areas in the state to start the farming of the Jatropha tree.

Responding, the leader of the delegation, Mary Flowers, said that the Jatropha tree is grown in abundance in the state, adding that once the refinery starts, it is going to employ about 50,000 youths, while the farmers will have no need to look for fuel to power their light.

Flowers said they had already gone into such partnership with the government of Kogi state and that they intend to do same in other states across the country, stressing that the project when implemented will help to create jobs for the teeming youths.

She said when the Jatropha tree produces its seed, “After we might have taken what we want to produce fuel of all kinds, the rest will be used to produce other things like fertiliser and other petroleum bye products.”

mature and start producing, “while the trees are being planted and awaiting harvesting, we will be building the refinery and other things we will need to operate”.

The leader of the team pleaded with the state government to help them by organising the farmers into a cooperative society, adding that while they are planting the trees, they can

plant other crops beside the Jatropha tree for their own economic benefit.

Flowers said they are expecting about 15,000 trees in the first phase, while they will be targeting about 38 million trees before the end of the second phase of the tree planting, adding that raw materials will not be a problem to them in the state.

Group condemns non-promotion of female police officers

T

HE International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law (INTERSOCIETY), has condemned the exclusion of female police officers in the recent promotion of senior officers in the Nigeria Police Force.

In a letter signed by its Chairman Board of Trustees (BOT), Mr Emeka Umuagbalasi, the group described the action as discriminatory, unconstitutional and a breach of the United Nation Convention on the Elimi-

Okodili NDIDI, Onitsha nation of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Giving graphic details of the recent promotion exercise, INTERSOCIETY stated that no female officer was among the seven promoted Deputy Inspector Generals; no female officer was among the 13 promoted Assistant Inspector Generals and out of the 61 Commissioners of Police, only three were women.

Edo ACN holds guber primaries today Osagie OTABOR, Benin

M

EMBERS of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Edo State will today elect the party’s governorship candidate for the July 14th gubernatorial election at a special congress that will be conducted across the 192 wards in the state.

Incumbent Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, is the only aspirant that bought and submitted nomination forms of the ACN. The State Chairman of the party, Thomas Okosun, explained that despite having a sole aspirant, the primaries must be conducted according to the Electoral Act and the ACN constitution.

According to him, “In our party, every member has a right to determine the party’s candidate. It is a total endorsement of Oshiomhole’s achievement.

“The state headquarters will serve as the collation centre where the results of the nomination will be announced.”

Anambra to take delivery of school buses and refuse disposal vehicles

T

HE Anambra State Government will soon take delivery of school buses and refuse disposal trucks valued at over N400million from Innoson Vehicle Manufacturing Company, based in Nnewi.

Governor Obi disclosed this yesterday while inspecting the vehicles at the factory site, Nnewi.

Obi, while being conducted round the factory by the Chief Executive Office, Mr. Innocent Chukwuma, disclosed that the vehicles had been fully paid for.

He called on other Nigerians to encourage the growth of the factory by patronising it.

The governor, who expressed satisfaction that the company has become a success story, said that the government would order more vehicles as well as give it other necessary support and encouragement.

Thanking the governor, Mr. Innocent Chukwuma recalled his various encouragement and support to the company. He said it was the governor who made it possible for the president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

Mr. Chukwuma explained that the company is working round the clock to widen the frontiers of operations that would include the manufacturing of vehicle engines in the country.

News 59

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012 NKNOWN gunmen on Thursday night attacked Kafuru village in Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State, killing about 10 residents.

Among the dead were a pastor whose wife was also shot and left for dead.

The Assemblies of God Church where the pastor was ministering was razed by the

U

Gunmen kill pastor, nine others in Kaduna Tony AKOWE, Kaduna

gunmen along with about nine other buildings.

The pastor was reportedly shot in the presence of his family before the invaders turned their guns on his wife.

•Wife in critical condition •Church razed

He was named as Innocent Chukwuemeka Mari.

Kufara is about three hours by road from Kujama, the headquarters of the local government .

A source said the gunmen were about 20 and armed with AK47.

A source said: "They came to the first village around 10pm and started shooting

and killing people. They burnt houses and moved to the next village. Again, they started shooting and vandalising properties. Then they moved to the next. There

Appeal Court jails Kwara monarch for three months

T

HE Appeal Court sitting in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, has sentenced the deposed monarch of Etan town in Ekiti Local Government Area of the state, Joshua Aina, to three months imprisonment.

Aina was said to be parading himself as the traditional ruler of the town even after his deposition.

The Court of Appeal had in June 2010 declared the Eletan stool vacant when one of the contestants to the throne, Ezekiel Ogunleye,

T

HE beauty of democracy lies in its inherent respect for the fundamental rights of the human person. Freedom of expression of one’s opinion is one of those inalienable rights and should be employed for noble purposes in the service of truth.

It is disheartening, therefore, to see the secretary of an unknown organisation, the Nasarawa State Surveillance Group, led by a faceless Faith Daniel, abuse this right by casting aspersions on the executive governor of Nasarawa State, Umaru Tanko Almakura, as published in a newspaper on March 10, 2012, titled “Our fears for Nasarawa State”.

The truth must be told for the sake of posterity.

In Daniel’s opening paragraph, he remarked that the governor and his acolytes “have been struggling to prove to the people of the state that his predecessor, Aliyu Akwe Doma, did not record any tangible achievements while in office. The question is: who were those that massively voted Akwe Doma out of office for ineptitude and non-performance?

The people of Nasarawa State are living witnesses to the hardship they endured during the four years Akwe Doma presided over the affairs of the state and need no one to remind them.

Governor Almakura took over the mantle of leadership in the state with zeal, commitment and determination to give a new lease to the art of governance, and in less than one year in office, he has set the state moving on the path of posterity.

It is evidently clear that this government is righting the wrongs of the past administration. It is also self-evident to even a disinterested observer. You can recall that even on the day Nasarawa State citizens turned out in their millions to cast their votes, the Dalhatu Araf Specialist Hospital Lafia and all the tertiary institutions in the state were under lock and key. Even during the dark days of the military, such heartlessness was not meted out to the citizens of Nasarawa State.

On the flipside, Governor Almakura has proven him-

filed a suit challenging the veracity of his obaship.

Sequel to this judgment, Ogunleleye was appointed the Eletan but was unable to have the staff and other paraphernalia of office as Aina reportedly intended to appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal.

As Aina persisted in parading himself as the Eletan, Ogunleye, through his lawyers, Messers Dayo Akinlaja &Co., instituted a committal proceeding in the High Court in September, 2010.

But the court refused to

Adekunle JIMOH, Ilorin commit Aina to prison making Ogunleye to head for the Appeal Court again.

The Appeal Court then set aside the ruling of the trial court and committed the respondent to prison having held that he was guilty of contempt of court.

In his lead judgment, Justice George Mbata, condemned in strong terms the unrepentant posture of the respondent in disobeying the order of the court.

He said the respondent

ought to have “lied low and soberly pursued his appeal, praying for the decision to be overturned before he bounces back.”

The judge, who noted that the respondent had not filed a valid appeal, said that the lower court ought to have enforced the judgment of the Court of Appeal by committing him to prison rather than “tear the judgment into pieces.”

In the court’s enrolment order signed by the Presiding Justice of the court, T. Abdulhai and Deputy Chief

Registrar, Ilyasu Wali, reads: “That the respondent, Prince Johua O. Aina, is hereby held for flagrant disobedience of the subsisting order of this court in Exhibit EA01 and EA04.

“That Joshua O. Aina is accordingly committed for contempt and hereby sent to prison, where he shall remain for a period of three months or until he purges himself of the contempt.

“That the Inspector-General of Police is hereby directed to give effect to this order, each party to bear his costs.”

‘What are Daniel’s fears for Nasarawa?’

Danjuma JOSEPH self a democrat who carries everybody along without any bias on religious or ethnic grounds. This he made evident in his selection of commissioners, permanent secretaries and special advisers.

It is baffling to call the massive construction of township roads embarked upon by this administration as “patching a few Lafia township roads”.

One therefore wonders whether the writer had been to Lafia, or, the state before doing his write up or he simply wishes to distort the truth and tell lies. Whatever the case, it is unfortunate.

Regarding the sack of 17 permanent secretaries which the writer adduced to rewarding CPC loyalists and replacing them with inexperienced civil servants, he maliciously got it wrong.

Almakura did that to reposition the state civil service. In the previous administration, it was common to see cronies and relations of the former governor being appointed permanent secretaries without recourse to the rules of the civil service.

Rather than peddle rumours, why not name the permanent secretaries that are card-carrying members of the CPC or do not possess the pedigree to serve in their current positions.

Secondly, unlike Aliyu Doma’s administration, where he appointed seven permanent secretaries from his home town, Doma, Governor Almakura was fair in the distribution of appointment of permanent secretaries, with each of the 13 local governments and 16 development areas, translating to almost each tribe in the state, smiling home with a slot of a permanent secretary. At least, this will give every citizen of the state a sense of belonging.

I am happy he made references to the institutions of higher learning going on strike for non-payment of their allowances. Does he recall that during the Doma administration, violent demonstrations were recorded for reasons ranging from school fees hike to poor infrastructure? Does he know that right up to the election period, all the institutions he mentioned were on strike?

On the new minimum wage issue, does he know that Nasarawa State is on the marble of history as the first state in Northern Nigeria to pay? Does he know that some states are still negotiating the payment of the N18,000 minimum wage? I would love to comment on the rent increment by over 100 per cent, but I cannot claim to know what he is talking about. The writer

Reader’s view should please check his facts again.

In his bid to reposition the civil service in the state, Governor Almakura has introduced measures aimed at bringing out the best from the civil service. Interviews during promotions is as old as the civil service, aimed at making sure the right people with the right pedigree are appointed to man public offices.

If the writer opines that the Almakura-led government is slow in terms of decisionmaking, what did the prompt decision-making of the past administration yield? I believe the prompt decisions were not taken on how to loot public funds as it was in the case of the past administration in the state.

On assumption of office, Governor Almakura embarked on massive screening

of civil servants across the state to fish out ghost workers. At the end of the exercise, the state government saved N295 million. In order to create a stumbling block on the path of Almakura, the Doma administration embarked on massive employment into the state’s civil service, which he could not do until four weeks to the expiration of his tenure.

To set the records straight, 5,000 workers were not sacked, because ab initio, they were not employees of the state government. They were beneficiaries of an empowerment programme for which they were paid stipends. The programme has only be suspended for a review before they are re-engaged.

In addition to that, the sacked local government directors of personnel management the writer mentioned were using

they went to the home of Pastor Innocent Chukwuemeka Mari of Assemblies of God Church in Kufara. They killed him right in the presence of his wife and children. They shot the wife and left her for dead. They also set the church on fire.

"They carried out the attacks until the early hours of this morning. Nobody challenged them. Ten people were confirmed death, five were injured. Several homes were burnt.

"The injured are in critical conditions. They have all been moved to Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital Shika, near Zaria", the source said.

Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Aminu Lawal, confirmed the incident, saying policemen have been drafted the village.

He had no further details at press time. the youth empowerment programme of the ousted PDP government as a conduit pipe to siphon the lean resources accruing to local governments and development areas in the state.

The writer should be informed that after the screening exercise by the Almakuraled government, over 6,761 ghost workers were discovered, corresponding to N295 million savings on monthly wage bill of the state government.

The CPC-led government of Umaru Tanko Almakura has given Nasarawa State people a new lease of life and hope, turning the fortunes of the state from the pit of underdevelopment and the good people of Nasarawa State are beginning to see positive changes in the way things are done and are even ready to give the governor all the time and support he needs to move the state to the promised land.

•Danjuma Joseph is the Director of Press to the Deputy Governor of Nasarawa State.

60

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

61

THE NATION, SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

Okpevbho Youth Liberation Movement What have we (Okpevbho people) done to Chief Tony Anenih?

W

e, the Okpevbho Youth Liberation Movement have watched with grave concern, the ill-treatments that have been meted to us over time by an Agbazilo man, political Leader of Nigerian politics and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) godfather, Chief Tony Anenih.

Originally, Esan was a division of the Mid-Western region with Agbazilo to the East and Okpevbho to the West. However, the present Esan Land which is politically known as Edo Central Senatorial District is now five local government areas; they are Esan Central, Esan West, Esan North East, Esan South East and Igueben. All these were created from Agbazilo and Okpevbho; Tony Anenih is from the Agbazilo extraction.

He has so much held us (Okpevbho) down over the years.

First and foremost, when Chief Anthony Enahoro emerged from Agbazilo to become a federal Minister, he had a successful tenure. He was, as at then, the political Leader of the Esan people.

Secondly, we had Prof. Ambrose Alli from Okpevbho who through his relationship with Chief Obafemi Awolowo became the Governor of MidWestern State. It is a fact of history that from the time he assumed office till his tenure ended, Chief Tony Anenih railroaded him through crisis, persecution and harassment as he did everything humanly possible to frustrate him out of office.

Besides, this same Agbazilo man did not stop his witch-hunt until he succeeded in rigging Ambrose Alli out in the 1983 governorship election.

As if that was not enough, he boasted to get our son jailed (Alli) and he was jailed by the military regime which he assisted to usher into the country.

He was the Chairman of the National Party of Nigeria in 1983 when Dr Samuel Ogbemudia defeated the incumbent Unity Party of Nigeria government of Prof. Ambrose Alli. He subsequently became the national chairman of the Social Democratic Party in 1993 under which he negotiated away the victory of Chief Moshood Abiola to the military.

He used his closeness to the late General Sani Abacha’s government to shore up his political influence both in Edo State and Nigeria. So, when the whistle was blown for the fourth Republic to kick off, the Iyasele of Esanland who is variously known as Mr. Fix It and the Leader was in a vantage position to dictate the tune in Edo politics in 1999, with his anchor on the PDP. He did everything with his powers to reduce us politically to the rubbles.

That’s not all, Chief Anenih ensured that Alli died in prison and since then, he has continued to publicly exhibit his pathological hatred to the Okpevbho people. Chief Tony Anenih hated Late Augustus Aikhomu for just no reason and played minimal role in his burial ceremony. Anenih hates Chief Tom Ikimi and other prominent people of Okpevbho land for no just cause.

For instance, the first Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly since this democratic experience, Hon. Thomas Okosun was harassed and forced out of office by Chief Anenih to pave way for his kinsman, Mr. Matthew Egbadon.

He continued this unabated such that when David Iyoha was elected unanimously as Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Anenih forced him out of office for his Agbazilo and Uromi kinsman, Friday Itulah.

Recently, everybody is aware of how Anenih ensured that another Okpevbho son, and former Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon. Bright Omokhodion was rigged out in the 2011 elections. That was how he (Omokhodion) and Okpevbho people lost the Speakership position.

Just imagine a situation where in Esan North East with 53,000 registered voters have two members in the Edo State House of Assembly while Esan West with 70,000 registered voters have one member in Edo Sate House of Assembly. The three local government councils that constitutes old Okpevbho local government produced only one member in the House of Representatives while two local government councils that constitutes old Agbazilo produced one member in the House of Representatives.

This is Anenih’s making against us in Okpevbho.

The final onslaught of Chief Anenih against the Okpevbho people is the humiliation of our son and a progressive, Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor who had a first class in Law and became a Professor at a very young age. He is an honest, hardworking and dedicated son of Okpevbho.

In addition, because Prof. Osunbor is not from the Agbazilo extraction, Anenih made sure that when in his first election in 2007, he supported his kinsman, Odion Ugbesia until the intervention of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Osunbor could have lost. Ugbesia had served the state as commissioner for information and culture, Minister of state in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Federal Minister of Solid Minerals Development. He is now a Senator.

For Anenih, Okpevbho people are only good enough for Grade C Boards.

Thus, the Governing Council of Federal College of Education, Polytechnics, Federal Health Centre and Research Institutes are reserved for Okpevbho people. On the other hand, Anenih kinsmen in Esan North East and Esan South East are the ones eminently qualified and competent to serve on Grade A Board such as the Maritime, the NUC, INEC, Immigration, Prisons Board etc. Since the advent of democratic dispensation in 1999, not less than five sons of Esan North East and Esan South East that was formerly called Agbazilo Local Government of the defunct Bendel State have been appointed as ministers including Tony Anenih within the same period, there was none from Okpevbho people.

Now, in the recent primary, Anenih directed the voters against our son (Osunbor) and he was roundly defeated. Again, that is an Agbazilo man’s inhumanity to an Okpevbho man.

At this stage, it is pertinent to ask the question: what has Okpevbho people done against Chief Tony Anenih to deserve this deep-seated hatred?

In addition, since we have been producing Ministers, Okpevbho people have not been considered. Time has come for us; the youths of Okpevbho to rise up to the challenge of Anenih.

We have therefore resolved to take our destiny into our hands and to make sure that Okpevbho people are liberated from the political shackles of Chief Anenih since he believes that the sun should only shine in Uromi and Ubiaja.

We must free ourselves from Anenih and this is the time. The time has come and we will demonstrate this by returning Adams Oshiomhole to Osadebey Avenue since he has developed Esan land more than our so called ‘godfather’.

Anenih cannot boast of any Federal project in Esan land in spite of being the godfather of the entire PDP in the country. It is obvious that he is in politics to fix himself and his kinsmen in Agbazilo who see him as a tin god.

Signed: Okpevbho Youth Liberation Movement

THE NATION SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

62

EQUITIES NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 9-3-12

GTB, Access to pay N30.4b dividend

G

UARANTY Trust Bank (GTB) Plc and Access Bank Plc yesterday announced their audited reports and accounts for 2011 business year, showing significant growths in key profit and loss items.

The stock market responded positively to the reports as the two institutions rallied with other stocks to return the overall market position to positive. Benchmark value-based indices closed higher as most stocks trended upward.

Aggregate market capitalisation of all quoted companies rose to N6.572 trillion as against its opening value of N6.520 trillion. The All Share Index (ASI) improved from 20,658.28 points to 20,824.25 points, representing an increase of 0.80 per cent.

Audited report of GTB showed that gross earnings rose from N153.91 billion in 2010 to N188.82 billion in 2011. Profit after tax closed 2011 at N52.65 billion as against N38.35 billion in 2010.

The board of GTB has rec-

•Market recovers with 0.80% gain

By Taofik Salako and Tonia Osundolire

ommended a final dividend of 85 Kobo, in addition to an interim dividend of 25 Kobo.

Also, Access Bank’s gross earnings rose from N91.14 billion in 2010 to N138.95 billion in 2011. Profit after tax increased to N16.71 billion compared with N11.07 billion in 2010.

Directors of the bank have recommended a final dividend of 30 Kobo, in addition to an interim dividend of 20 Kobo.

Managing director, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc, Mr. Segun Agbaje said the bank’s performance was due to a well-defined business plan, the passion of its employees and a determination to achieve results without compromising on the bank’s standards of service quality, professionalism and integrity.

“Despite the complexities of today’s financial landscape, we continue to remain true to our founding values:

Service excellence, Professionalism, Integrity and Innovation, whilst ensuring we understand and meet the peculiar needs of our various stakeholders, every single time. Our employees imbibe this vision and that is why we are a successful financial institution today,” Agbaje said.

He said the bank intends to further consolidate its position in 2012 by pioneering service innovations, developing value adding products within all markets, promoting excellence and creating role models for society through a myriad of social and other initiatives.

Meanwhile, Guinness Nigeria topped the gainers’ list with a gain of N10.98 to close at N239. Julius Berger Nigeria followed with a gain of N1.51 to close at N31.73. Flour Mills of Nigeria added N1.39 to close at N56.49. Access Bank gained 31 kobo to close at N6.53 while GTB chalked up 17 kobo to close at N14.22.

On the downside, Union Bank of Nigeria dropped by 23 kobo to close at N4.48.

Cadbury Nigeria slipped by 20 kobo to N10.60 while First City Monument Bank lost 19 kobo to close at N3.61.

Investors staked N2.86 billion on 414.05 million shares through 3,209 deals.

NIGERIAN STOCK EXCHANGE DAILY SUMMARY AS AT 9-3-12

NATION SPORT SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012

2012 FIFA U-17 WOMEN'S WORLD CUP QUALIFIER

Flamingoes off to Abeokuta Monday

T

HE Nigeria U-17 national team, Flamingoes will arrive Abeokuta, Ogun State on Monday next week to finalise preparation for the second leg of the final round of qualifier for the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup slated for Azerbaijan later in the year.

Flamingoes are favourites to advance to another World Cup finals after edging their Zambian counterpart, Shepolopolo 2-1 when the first leg was played last week in Lusaka.

The coach Peter Dedevbo tutored girls resumed training immediately for the second leg tie barely 24 hours after their triumphant return from Lusaka in Abuja and are billed to storm the M.K.O Stadium, Abeokuta to have a feel of the turf and get acquainted with the environment ahead of the March 24 encounter.

The media officer of the U-17 team, Gracious Akujobi made the disclosure to NationSport in a brief telephone chat

From Tunde Liadi,Owerri Friday afternoon and she confirmed that all arrangements have been concluded to ensure that the ladies have an unforgettable experience in Abeokuta before and after the return leg.

Meanwhile, the chief media officer of the Nigeria Football Federation,(NFF), Demola Olajire has told NationSport that the Zambians are yet to communicate their itinerary to the football House but was convinced that will be done before the epic clash.

63

Draw kind on Chelsea

R

OBERTO DI MATTEO'S Chelsea were drawn against Benfica in the quarter-finals of the UEFA Champions League, with the first leg to be played in Portugal. The Stamford Bridge club are the last remaining English team in the competition after progressing to the last eight following Wednesday's epic win over Napoli.

And Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich, who earlier in March sacked Andre VillasBoas seemingly over a fear of failure in the Champions League, is unlikely to have any complaints about his club's next opponents.

Benfica knocked out Zenit St Petersburg in the last 16, but were a preferable draw to the two Spanish heavyweights of Barcelona and Real Madrid, with the tie pitting Ramires and David Luiz against their former club.

Jorge Jesus' team did finish above Manchester United in Group C of the qualifying phase for the knockout stages, however, they are on paper among the weaker teams.

The draw for the semifinals was not so kind on Chelsea and should they eliminate Benfica, they will face either AC Milan or Pep Guardiola's defending champions, Barcelona.

Arsenal's conquerors, Milan, and Barcelona were again drawn together after twice meeting in this season's group stages.

Jose Mourinho's Real

Madrid's reward for the twolegged win over CSKA Moscow was a tie against major underdogs APOEL and the first leg will be played in Cyprus.

Bayern Munich, whose Allianz Arena will stage this season's final on 19th May, will face Didier Deschamps' Marseille, with the opening encounter in France.

Owing to the fact Real, who

would take on Bayern or Marseille in the semis, and Barcelona were kept on opposite sides of the draw, the two Spanish rivals could meet in what would be a dream final.

Quarter-final ties will be played on March 27th/28th and April 3rd/4th, while the semi-finals will take place on April 17th/18th and 24th/25th.

Di Matteo expects tough test

R

OBERTO DI MATTEO expects Benfica to provide a stiff examination of Chelsea's credentials in the UEFA Champions League quarterfinals. The Blues were paired alongside Portuguese opposition in Friday's draw, with their route to the final having been mapped out in front of them.

A two-legged tie with Benfica will see them travel to Estadio da Luz for the first leg, before returning to Stamford Bridge for what they hope will be another memorable night in Europe.

Caretaker coach Di Matteo, who has helped to steady the Chelsea ship since inheriting the reins from Andre VillasBoas, is taking nothing for granted, though, and appreciates that Benfica will demand the utmost respect.

On a side who have already helped to send Manchester United tumbling out of the Champions League this season, the Italian said: "When you get down to the last eight teams, any draw is difficult. I've seen Benfica many times. They were in

Man United's group. It's a tough game for us. I think the fact that we play the first game away for us is good."

Should Chelsea see off Benfica, a semi-final with either reigning champions Barcelona or Serie A leaders AC Milan awaits.

It has already been suggested that the Blues will meet Barca in the last four,

but Di Matteo has been around long enough to know that it is foolish to expect anything in football.

"Are you writing off AC Milan straight away, as easy as that - the leaders of Serie A?" he said. "(We will take it) game by game. That's what I've learnt in my playing career and my coaching career."

1ST LAGOS STATE DEAF SCHOOLS SPORTS GAMES

Athletes display ability in disability

T

HE laudable initiative to develop a world-wide culture of sportsmanship among the hearing impaired students In Lagos State, eventfully kickstarted yesterday, with the ping-pong games among 30 schools at the Mobolaji Johnson Sports Centre, Yaba.

The athletes, who participated for the schools registered for the first phase of the games, astonishing, skills and talents that kept fans and dignitaries applauding the athletes while the game lasted.

Though some of the students who were spectators at Rowe park

By Paul Oluwakoya said they were set to make the best of their talents as they get set for the field and track games billed for Agege. All communications with the athletes was in use of sign language.

According to the Dr. Lanre Aiyejuyo, Chairman Lagos State Deaf Sports Association, under the supervision of Ministry of sports and special development, the motive of the games was to hunt for talents and right involvement of the deaf in sport, stating that they have for long neglected been in sporting activities.

Fragile peace I would have said the probe should continue, if the Senators can ensure that those culpable are taken to the EFCC for prosecution. The root of all the quarrels between NSC and NFF has been the control of the large cash earmarked for the football house.

Our failure in sports should propel us to do things differently, ensuring that knowledgeable people man the key structures that will make the industry operate as a business.

Olympic Games medals What else can one say? The reality has dawned on the Athletics Federation of Nigeria (AFN) that the country may not win any medal at the London 2012 Olympic Games. We didn’t come near a medal’s range at the World Indoor Games. This is a pointer to the expected poor outing at the multi-sports competition.

When our administrators pontificate on our medals’ chances, they show how abreast they are with the current trends in such sports. We have wasted time in bickering over one sport- football. Rather than build on the gains of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games by engaging good coaches to train our medals winners through the next four years, we allowed them to stray.

Today, we can only look towards Chukwumerijie for a medal. But we can also use our preparation for the London Olympics Games to correct past mistakes. Most countries are on the last lap of their preparations. I pray that we manage to win a medal in London, given the resources that we would have invested. But, we need to begin our plans for the 2016 edition immediately we return. It is possible. What we need is the template that would ensure that our athletes are effectively engaged with competitions. Those discovered should be invited to camps where qualified coaches groom them and expose to them to international competitions.

It is sad that we don’t have a sports calendar. Countries that excel in sports know the sports associated with every season. And the blue-chip companies key into the sport of their choice. Funding of sports is not a government endeavor.

Tomorrow in THE NATION PUNCHLINE

SATURDAY, MARCH 17, 2012 TRUTH IN DEFENCE OF FREEDOM VOL.7, NO. 2067

As a matter of fact, some of our big men would not want a Nigerian doctor to treat them even for very minor ailment because they do not have the confidence that the minor would not be mishandled in a way that it would degenerate into a major complication —Tunji Adegboyega

I

F you visit me in my modest apartment tomorrow morning, I will not be in church.

I will be enjoying myself with a bottle of red wine – baron de La Laguna – courtesy of my workaholic egbon, friend and colleague, Mr. Tunji Adegboyega, who has just been meritoriously elevated as Vice Chairman of this newspaper’s Editorial Board. It is most unlikely that I will be reading the Bible either, that invaluable treasury of spiritual and intellectual illumination. No, I will most likely be engrossed in Wole Soyinka’s new masterpiece “Thus spake Orunmila” based on the second book of Samuel in the Bible. Jesus!

If the Nobel can be won twice, this man deserves it. This work fascinates. It titillates. It scintillates. It mesmerizes. It entices. It seduces you to transverse uncharted territories of the mind and human imagination.

But unlike Woke Soyinka, I am not a devotee of Ogun., the fabled Yoruba god of iron. I do not share the great intellectuals’ disdain for the authority of divinity. I believe that I am only because God is. I believe not just in the historicity of Jesus Christ but in the enduring reality of his eternal presence. But then, why will I not be in church tomorrow?

The answer is simple. I cannot understand the intense religiosity of a nation and the vulgar prosperity of its church amidst the abject material and spiritual poverty of its people. It is a study in contracts. Many people deposit their brains at home before proceeding to church on Sundays. Mine is a rather problematic organ. It insists on following me about.

For instance, I used to worship in a church at Oregun. I love the handsome pastor. His jerry curls never cease to dazzle me. Much more importantly, his insightful adumbrations of the word of God always excite me.

But I suddenly discovered that he is hardly ever around. Half of the time during service is devoted to watching videos of his ‘miraculous feats’ abroad. I am told that he resides more in South Africa these days. The Holy Spirit may have informed him that the South African currency is more prosperous than the Nigerian Naira. Shout Halleluyah somebody.

But if I wanted to watch video, couldn’t I as well have done it at home?

There is another church where I loved to worship at Maryland. I admire the pastor’s

I will not be in church tomorrow ‘

•A Church building

humble disposition despite his sartorial elegance. His speech is eloquent. His dissection of the word is impeccable. Last year, during the Christmas Carol, he assembled a group of comedians led by the one and only Lepacious Bose to entertain our minds even if our spirits remained famished. But then, I am reluctant to return to that wonderful church. One Sunday his wife preached. She

I believe strongly that the church has a mission to save a human civilization that is clearly adrift. It is, however, unfortunate that the church itself, especially its Pentecostal variant, that claims moral and spiritual superiority is lost in the wilderness.

Most of our Pentecostal leaders today lust after such titles as Bishop, Archbishop, Prophet, Apostle or Doctor.

Amazingly, Jesus was simply Jesus!

’

said she was led by the spirit to ask those who were willing to contribute at least one million Naira to the new church building, to come forward. Later, the spirit led her to re-

duce the amount to: five hundred thousand Naira only. This stupid brain of mine refused to stay at home. Why could such donations not be made anonymously my brain questioned? Was the goal to honour God or man?

On my last Sunday in the church, the man of God preached brilliantly. At the end of his unimpeachable sermon, he announced that the Senior Pastor would soon be clocking 60.

“This is a man who has done so much for us” he said “and how can we say thank you”? My adorable pastor announced that it had been decided to buy a car worth N16.5 million Naira for the senior pastor complete with an Eagle at 60 symbol. Donors with no less than one million Naira each were asked to see the pastor after service. In fact, somebody had already pledged three million Naira the pastor said. Now, I happen to know that this particular senior pastor has a convoy of Hummer Jeeps. Why then waste 16.5 million Naira on buying him a vehicle in a country where hundreds of millions live on less than $1 dollar a day? Is this the spirit of Christ? I wonder.

I used to travel out of town to a neighbouring state to worship in a church presided over by a man I love and admire so much. When I heard the rumour that he actually slapped a girl in the course of deliverance, I dismissed it out of hand. I immediately called a friend of mine who is a lecturer at the church’s university to clarify the details. He was evasive and hedgy. Last Thursday a colleague played the entire video to me. It was shameful. It was despicable. It was barbaric. As far as I know, an individual has the right under our laws, to be a witch. Although the cleric claims that the object of his physical assault has since come to apologise to him, no visual evidence has been provided to authenticate this assertion.

I believe strongly that the church has a mission to save a human civilization that is clearly adrift. It is, however, unfortunate that the church itself, especially its Pentecostal variant, that claims moral and spiritual superiority is lost in the wilderness. Most of our Pentecostal leaders today lust after such titles as Bishop, Archbishop, Prophet, Apostle or Doctor. Amazingly, Jesus was simply Jesus! Dear Reader, I will not be in church tomorrow. But if you need some exquisite red wine, please consult Mr Adegboyega.

Ade Ojeikere on Saturday talk2adeojeikere@yahoo.com

Fragile peace

B

RAVO, Honourable Sports Minister Bolaji Abdullahi for having the cour age to wrest conditions from the warring parties. Now that there is peace- if we must believe them- there is the urgent need, sir, to fast-track the process of repealing Decree 101 at the National Assembly. It shouldn’t be mere rhetoric like you did talking with Joseph Sepp Blatter in Zurich on Thursday.

Over 207 countries are guided by the tenets of the FIFA statutes that ensure that everyone goes through elections that start from the local government areas in the contestants’ states. A rift begins when the NSC’s preferred candidate fails to get on board. It’s only then that NSC’s oversight functions over NFF is invoked for selfish reasons. The battle is still on. Mark my words.

The absence of an instrument to run soccer makes it possible for power-drunk NSC men/women to persuade the minister to execute his oversight functions on the NFF as enshrined in Decree 101.

The minister should now find out where the new bill is. If there are additions to be made, they should be done urgently. If there is another document, such should be brought to the notice of the National Assembly for the work will make it a reliable document.

Well done Abdullahi.

Who says that journalists are not adept in administration? I had this sneaky feeling that

the lie in the NFF/NSC impasse would be found by the Minister. I knew it wouldn’t take a while before Abdullahi resolves it.

I had this strong conviction watching him at Protea Hotel Lagos’s conference room listen to self-seeking stakeholders offer views which they thought to be the solutions.

As they spoke, I saw Abdullahi take notes.

But when he delivered the salvo that all he had heard amounted to politics amongst warring factions, I knew that the way forward was here. Abdullahi preferred political resolution to the impasse. I still doubt this therapy.

But the roadmap from the resolutions arising from the tripartite meeting involving the Secretary to the Federal Government, the Sports Minister and NFF chiefs makes for interesting reading.

I want the minister to ensure that withdrawn court cases die. We have seen a volte face happen with the NANF matter. I don’t know where this political solution leaves us since NANF was excluded in this noble initiative. This could cause problems, except another round of negotiations begins with the players’ body.

Harrison Jalla, the man who introduced the courts into our football sneered at the peace talks and said: “What happened to the agreement reached among NANF, the illegal NFF, National Sports Commission and other stakeholders?

Jalla went on: “What happened to the agreement with the Jarret Tenebe-led NFA that necessitated the Gen. Oneya

Committee’s report? Has the National Judiciary Council’s report on Justice Auta and Justice Kolawole’s alleged fraudulent judgment been made public? What is the situation with NANF’s appeal on Justice Okoruwa’s judgment?”

Jalla wanted to be educated further when he asked: what has happened to the recent NANF case between the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice versus five others at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, Lagos in suit No FHC/L/CS/49/ 2012? What makes this compromise different from others? Who says NANF will not enforce Justice Okoruwa’s judgment?”

Again, what happens to the Dominic Oneya report? Was the trip to Zurich to see Joseph Sepp Blatter relevant after the truce on Tuesday? Yes, it was and I trust Abdullahi to tell us all he heard in Zurich Going to Zurich has given Abdullahi the opportunity to come with an independent decision that would effectively restore peace in our football. One is excited that Blatter found the minister as an enlightened person:”We have had this issue on our desk for a long time. Therefore, I cannot thank you enough, Honourable Minister for resolving this problem. Football cannot grow in an atmosphere of instability. We are happy that this is resolved and now we can focus on the business of football development in Nigeria,” Blatter was quoted as telling Abdullahi.

The minister is now armed with the true picture of what FIFA expects. He can now

answer these posers that the peace initiative has thrown into the public domain, especially with NANF crying blue murder. Are these concessions recognised by the FIFA statutes? What happens if one of them chooses to be ambitious and over steps his bounds? Where in the statutes is the provision for honourary members? Does that mean that he can attend board meetings?

Can he vote or be voted for? Or will he just be drafted to the Referees committee to sanitise the place? We must specify what this honourable member’s roles are.

I’m afraid this arrangement won’t work, knowing the egos of those involved. Lifting of the ban and other compensations could work, but have we not set a dangerous precedent?

My worry, dear minister, is that we need to tell the gladiators that the NFF is a regulatory body. Boards members meet at specific times, churn out policies, resolve feuds and allow the secretariat staff to implement their decisions.

The reason why there is such feud in NFF is because people see the place as a moneyspinner where smart guys can make easy cash.

Until these stakeholders are told that the NFF is not a business centre or a job for board members, the selfishness of a few who lost out in elections will continue to heat up the football polity.

What then happens to the Senate Committee’s probe of the NFF and NSC? The intervention arose from the skirmishes between both bodies. Now that the impasse is over, do the senators need to continue with their probe?

•Continued on Page 63

Published and printed by Vintage Press Limited. Corporate Office: 27B Fatai Atere Way, Matori, Lagos. P.M.B. 1025, Oshodi, Lagos.

Telephone: Switch Board: 01-8168361. Editor-08094000052, Marketing: 01-8155547, Abuja Office: Plot 5, Nanka Close AMAC Commercial Complex, Wuse Zone 3, Abuja, Tel/ 07028105302 `E-mail: saturday@thenationonlineng.com Editor: DELE ADEOSUN

Lagos